For commentary on MEGALOS as a system / ruleset …
Overall, I ended up liking the system more than my first impression glancing at the rules; the rules seem heavy with setting color text, which sometimes makes the underlying systems more opaque.
GOOD THINGS
I tend to be tactically crunchy, but I found the zone-based combat setup the best of any system that’s used it.
The Slow vs Fast combat options made for some very nice tactical decision-making.
THINGS THAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME
Combat seemed to involve a lot of numbers to keep track of. Even our players who are serious whizzes as the rules ended up doing a lot of adds / subtracts / adjustments / ohiforgot / waitdidit calculations and recalculations. Each element made sense, but there seemed to be so many. It made me miss the (perhaps overly simple) Advantage vs Disadvantage mechanics of D&D 5e.
I had regrets over time with the choices I made in character advancement … while,at the same time, as I got toward the end (8th level), I felt like I was being forced to take all/most of the powers, where I’d rather had been able to take more advances in the powers I already had (i.e., I’d rather be able to further specialize than end up being able to do everything). Maybe a more generic advance Mechanic (add +1 zone range, +1 on AoE, +1 damage, +1 condition imposed) might, with some work, make things better.
As a Psythe Witch, I found it very frustrating that the “Teleport all your Phantasms” and “Blow up all your Phantasms” were both Sorcery, meaning it took two full turns to pull off … and, inevitably, having teleported the Phantasms to a zone, the enemy would move. A cantrip that could move an existing Phantasm with some extra benefit would be a nice add.
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Some quick thoughts from me on Megalos.
Things That Worked
I really liked the flow of combat with getting to see folks making decisions that affect combat past “I hit them with my sword.”
I think most of the players were able to easily understand how to use their powers and abilities within a game or two and never really ran into “oh god, what do I do?” moments of decision paralysis (or if they did, it was because of the state of combat, not because of their own abilities).
The free-flow use of Item Points (IP) for consumables really helped keep things from bogging down.
Artifacts and Mods for weapons and armor were a cool bit of character customization via gear. Whenever the players would get a new Artifact slot, I always made sure they were somewhere that we could easily justify them having picked up the artifacts and it made good goalposts for the game.
Things That Didn’t Work
I think that the enemies that came in the book really fell a bit flat, so much so that I made my own rubric. It really felt like all the foes in the book were super interchangeable: anything that isn’t a minion has 12s for its defenses, deals 12 damage with its normal attacks, rolls 2 weapon dice, and does 4 damage with its auto-attack. While this does help simply things, I think it goes too far. Given the level of tactics present in the combat, I really think you need to give enemies roles like the heroes have: support enemies support their allies, tanky enemies tank the PCs, and striker enemies deal out big damage (and are usually target number one for the players). Also, while the players are getting stronger throughout the game, the enemies are the same at level 1 as they are at level 10.
I never feel like I learned the right way to use Cutscene Approaches. This might just be because our group doesn’t usually montage things and sticks to moment-to-moment action, but any time they came up, it just felt like I was arbitrarily saying “okay, we’re using these different skills now.”
I will also never shut up that I think Sick is a very strong compared to the other statuses.
As much as I liked IP, I don’t think the items even got used after levels 1 or 2. Once the PCs had a certain level of power (and Auoy the Draloi could handle most of the support), items didn’t seem worth the effort of making use of them. This in turn means I feel like the libra I handed out got added to character sheets and then completely forgotten.
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I’ve got a lot of thoughts, having both played and run the system. Most of it’s good (hooray) but there’s always room for improvement in any product.
General system stuff
- Grit is great, everyone loves Grit
- Tracking the numerous modifiers can be a burden - +2 or +3 to a single rolled weapon die, Set Up vs. Empowered vs. Exposed damage bonuses for Tanks vs. Strikers vs. Support, and so on. A unified framework for dice & damage modifiers might make things feel generic but might also make tracking simpler
- Alternatively, more all-the-time benefits e.g. things that boost Core Damage or RB instead of one-off or situational modifiers.
- We’ve talked before about making skill checks additive to the action, e.g. Craft checks don’t mean pass/fail, it may mean reduced material requirements (for example).
Combat
- Fast vs. Slow MC turns is gold, it’s a tactical choice but it’s not a hard one that introduces choice paralysis.
- Mike’s changes to enemies are very helpful - stock enemies can feel a little flat
- Right now, the low margins on soak rolls make damage types (e.g. Astral vs. Umbral vs. Toxic) kind of meaningless
- The rules for accumulating Barrier are a bit complicated but I see why they’re there. Maybe there’s another way to keep people from having infinite Barrier?
Thrones
- Charged Strikes feel kind of worthless. I can get (CD) damage and a push or a debuff or whatever, or I can get 2-3x (CD) with some combo strikes which also gives me Set Up bonus damage
- As a Shadowblade, teleporting around the battlefield and delivering beatdowns is immensely rewarding
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