Sorry for such a long wait before updating ChromeStrike. I have been very busy with real life full-time work and my ChromeStrike Unity project. Despite this, the homebrew remains my baby. As always, I will have it on at least the back of my mind, and I'll always be lurking and reading accounts/feedback of those who have played it. In the future it is theoretically possible that I could enlist some help to reformat the book entirely and see about getting it published on some small-print website service somewhere. Remains to be seen. Until then, enjoy the new changes and content.
My goal for this update has been addressing feedback from anonymous posters and youtube reviews. I'm still very proud of how comparatively rules-light the system is, and the critically acclaimed mech building, so I don't think there's much to be improved there. Instead I've shuffled chapters of the book around and added a 'quick start' guide earlier in the book, quickly walking people through character creation, mech creation, and the basic fundamentals of the game. Hopefully this will be enough to satisfy those complaining about the layout. Also, the table of contents now has hyperlinks. Should be nice to have.
Other than the formatting improvements I've also added the Islamic megacorp (al-Najm al-Khafi), a whole heap of melee weapons and part upgrades, and the long missing CT-02, CO-02, and NRB-02 mech models have finally been added to the appendix. I've also snuck a few other new things into the game. Feel free to read the massively bloated changelog.
Also I've officially changed ChromeStrike to Beta instead of Alpha just to stick it to the man.
Here's the new version.
0.9.90
Reformatted the book; moved various chapters around
The table of contents now has hyperlinks for the various chapters and sections
Added a Quick Start Guide early in the book with a brief synopsis of character creation, mech creation, and basic game rules
Added optional skill progression to Characters
Characters are now encouraged to have a call-sign, or pilot alias, for when they are murdering things to death in their mech
Fixed some inaccurate CR costs on the Very-Quick Reference page
The Bionics section in characters has been renamed to Cybernetics and extended with consumables, more fluff, more cybernetic upgrades, and the addition of side-effect rules.
A new prime has been added- the al-Najm al-Khafi! Cheapish spidertank mecha parts, high-end melee boosting parts, and additional stealth parts!
The BEI-01 chassis now only has 3+ armor from the front and sides; Chinesium chassis now gets hit at 4+ from behind- the PLA never retreats
The CO-02 chassis now also has +1 STR and 4+ armor on the chassis (others are still 5+); buffed from 5+ everything
Reworded the bonus of the BEI-02 Arms; now grants +4 Missile Capacity instead of +100% (was still referring to the old missile rules). Did the same for the BEI-02 chassis.
Added Cooling Tank to Shoulder Parts; partial stealth for campaigns and minor Missile DR boost
Reworked (Shoulder) Missile Hardpoints. Now grant +2 Missile Capacity and allow an extra missile to be fired each turn. Missile meta?
Missile Hardpoints are also no longer allowed to be purchased as built-in parts- was an oversight.
Added Heavy Missile Hardpoints to the shoulder parts list, just in case you can't get enough missiles. Grant +4 Missile Capacity, -1 SPD, and can be jettisoned once empty.
Added Gyro Stabilizer to the shoulder parts list. Allows the use of a 2H weapon in that arm but can no longer Swap it out in combat.
Added Hot Fibers (chassis) upgrade to part upgrades. Boosts mech Strength at the risk of damaging the arms when using melee attacks.
Added Active Camouflage Cloak (chassis) upgrade to part upgrades. Does about what you would expect.
Added Holster (chassis) upgrade to part upgrades. Does about what you would expect.
Added Forearm Shield (arms) upgrade to part upgrades. Built-in melee weapon that doesn't occupy a hand. Cheaper version of the EG Multitool.
Moved Secondary Arm from Shoulder Parts to Upgrades and renamed it to Secondary Arms (Plural); is now a Chassis Upgrade
Added Melee Override (head) upgrade to parts upgrade. More expensive, non-compatible head Software upgrade that also boosts Crit Chance in close-up combat.
Increased Shredder shots to 12 (up from 7) and Assault Shotgun shots to 20 (up from 12)
Added Explosive Sticks, Halberds, Explosive Halberds, and Plasma Cutters to the mech armory :DDDDD
Clarified with Shotfists and Pile Drivers that their shots are not consumed on a missed attack
Reworked Pile Drivers slightly; down to AP2, have a hit penalty, and shots increased to 4 (from 2)
Light Rocket Pod decreased to AP0, Rocket Pod decreased to AP1
Added info on how the Swap action works when holding two 1H weapons and swapping to a 2H one
The melee manuever now explicitly allows a player to attack with all equip melee weapons at once instead of punching or kicking
Reworded the Ready Attack action very slightly
Re-added in rules in the game about part hit locations, since I seemingly accidentally removed that entirely from the book somehow
Added in a much more expanded section about how GMs can balance enemy encounters and devise missions for their players
In the World of ChromeStrike, MechList now runs an ongoing list of top fifty mech jockeys. I swear I'd just change the base setting to that one from your homebrew campaign (yes, you, you know if you are you) if I could get away with it.
Reworked character sheets in the book, also included Omar's sheet near his companions for completion sake and minor OCD
Finally added the long missing CT-02 "Shadowhawk", CO-O2 "Onryō" and NRB-02 "Koschei" mechs to the appendix. Welcome aboard you three.
Added an alternate Gunner loadout to the NRB-03 "Destroyer"- hideously minmaxed build for when you want a total party kill
Added al-Najm 01, 02, and 03 mechs to the appendix
Reordered the mechs in the appendix such that they are no longer randomly scattered around mixing the various corps models together
Added MULEs to the appendix- autonomous robot assistants which carry weapons for mechs
Rewrote the stat block for Tactical Nukes under Power Armor slightly
Fixed the 'spotting Stealth Power Armor' Perception check in their entry; is now a 2d6 test instead of a 1d6 test
Added another entry in Power Armor and Stealth Power Armor for using them in character-scale combat, in case that was missed earlier in the book in the character armory
Transport Helicopter weight and carry capacity increased
Land Transport modified- weight greatly increased, credits increased, given additional wounds
My personal website page on ChromeStrike is no longer just placeholder lorem ipsum text, eat shit (affectionate)
Removed the 'ChromeStrike as a wargame' bits as it's an extreme tertirary interest and should be its own short, supplimental rulebook instead of book bloat
Added some placeholder AI-generated artwork here and there in the book- will be removed later if/when published
Me and a group have been playing ChromeStrike together for a year and a half and we somehow only found this update a few days ago. (We'd largely assumed the game was abandoned and didn't think to check.)
ReplyDeleteWe're looking forward to adapting the new parts to our mercenary campaign set in late 21st century India, where, through our parent company and our team's horrifying independent research, we might end up becoming our setting's equivalent of AL!
Spite Moth's GM here - thanks to you, first of all, for the first game I've ever managed to stick with running for more than ten minutes! I actually got in touch a while back by email, and have always feared that I was the one that planted the idea in your brain of making missiles cost money to reload. Apologies in advance for the multi-part wall of text comment, my players can confirm from the essays I occasionally write them that I have zero restraint when it comes to how much I'm writing.
DeleteFirst up, a confession - I am a moron. I have been running combat slightly wrong this whole time, due to having misinterpreted the rules. Instead of having each unit take its move AND utility action before moving onto the next, I have instead been running it as "everyone moves in initiative order, then everyone shoots in initiative order" - almost like the phases in a game of 40k. I think that one word is where this misinterpretation came from, on my part: phases. You use that term in the section of the rules on the Turn Cycle (page 45) and I think I made an assumption based on it a very long time ago that I have not questioned until being presented with a new, reorganised version of the rules. I'd suggest maybe changing that phrasing, just for clarity, to avoid confusion from brain donors like me. It's perfectly clear in the Combat Cheatsheet further on in the book, I just never really checked that for the older edition.
I will say, though, that this way of playing has created some unique tactical situations, and I'm probably going to stick with it for the rest of this campaign. There's a lot of risk/reward on exposing your mech to take a shot, high initiative mechs can bully lower initiative targets into running away and hiding rather than fighting...though it has required some house rules to allow melee to actually land hits.
As you can tell we are quite passionate about our ChromeStrike game, and have a very dedicated GM!
DeleteThe only thing I can really think of that I'd like is some more nuanced guidance for encounter design and map generation. Our GM generally makes maps by taking a Google Maps scan of a location that she likes the look of, colours over it to demarcate high and low buildings and various heights, then applies a hex grid over it to create our battlefields. But this process is quite labour intensive and requires a virtual tabletop like Roll20 to make work. Some insight into how you make your battlefields, especially for in-person gameplay, would really help. Some guidance on how to construct an encounter as well as highlighting potential synergies between unit types would be nice too - the scout-MI plus missile mech combo you had in that early playtest is a really good player teaching tool and I'd like it to be explicitly shown off.
On a very selfish note I want an arm-mounted targeting laser so I can use my full AR to light things up for my team :3
@Imikari
DeleteWalls of text are great. Going to respond point-by-point.
I don't think you are too blame for placing the idea of expendable missiles in my head, but who knows for sure. The more I thought about it the more odd it seemed that you pay 4CR once for Light Missiles, and from then on have a lifetime supply of smart missiles to lovingly use on foes.
No worries about the moron thing- that is hardly the issue. It's more just a case of me not explaining things adequately within the rulebook. I'm not sure if it was tightened up in the rulebook already (I know the new quick-start section is clear enough) but I'll review the old sections when I get a chance. Might be a little while. Just got my microwave set up in my cabin and I'm still not over it.
Assault Shotgun can shoot at bad guys 20 times, for a total of 40 shots. I'll consider just renaming that to ammo or putting (40) in parenthesis or something to make it more clear.
Upgrades do in fact increase the repair price. Lunch aint free.
One of my early expansion rulebooks was ChromeStrike: Robots, and it dealt with robots at infantry scale, battlesuit scale, and mecha scale- allowing players to customize them and configure their intelligence and reliability. Presently I don't think that I should be working on expansion rulebooks when the main book isn't complete yet. Gutter Power Armor and AL were both entities from the WIP ChromeStrike: Opposing Forces, although AL has since been rewritten an redesigned. I think the most reasonable, existing option would be to hire some infantry to just control infantry-gear drones at infantry scale on the battlefield. We will see.
And you are absolutely welcome. I enjoy the hell out of making homebrew RPG's- when there isn't something that satisfies a certain itch I'll just make it myself. The fact that a number of groups have enjoyed ChromeStrike is awesome to me. You are always more than welcome to email me to discuss the system or tell me about your campaign, also- hearing about groups, their shenanigans, and house rules is incredibly enjoyable for me. My email should be floating around the Internet already.
@SpiteMoth
DeleteHearing that brings me joy.
I'll see about expanding the balancing-encounters section and designing maps section in the future. In all honesty all the times I've ran ChromeStrike (years and years ago, mind you) it was pretty bare-bones maps on Maptools, or I would just narrate and not bother. You guys have more experience whipping up maps than I do.
Arm-mounted Targeting Laser maybe. I could imagine an expensive Mono upgrade that can be stuck on weapons and used in alt firing mode. Maybe it would require a two-handed weapon or just be moderately more expensive than the shoulder version. Logically, they are normally mounted on the shoulder to take use of the large flat surfaces there or existing servos/muscles. No idea. Will give it some thought.
I feel some slight relief at that, then! I noticed you'd redone the missile stats this time, we'd actually gone with our own modifications to make them a little more value-for-money, but ended up at the same price points you did on some of them. 1cr for an AP2 attack, 2cr for a pair of them. Light missiles do feel a little anaemic now, but honestly, my group has never once spent cash on missiles - they've always been battlefield salvage.
DeleteI still blame myself for misreading it, it does seem obvious in hindsight now I look back, but idiot-proofing rules is always hard.
Glad to hear I've been doing upgrade costs right, but wow that's a lot of shots in the assault shotgun. Is there any particular reason the newer things like Shredder and Assault Shotgun get vastly more shots than, say, the rocket launcher or grenade launcher? I had house ruled the RL and GL to have 6 shots instead of 4 in my own game, and it meant that they started seeing a bit more use, 4 shots in practice felt a little tight on ammo - but I do tend to run pretty big marathon fights.
Oh God no, definitely no expansion rulebooks yet, I know how much work it can be just working on one book. I'm honestly just ecstatic that you're still updating it after so many years. I'm loving the addition of a new megacorp, and some expansions to stealth mechanics - though I think the game would benefit from some stronger guidelines on how to run mech stealth/spotting in general. It's something I've already been playing by ear a bit in my game, and I think most of my players are hankering for Jamming Devices to exploit the CnC node invisibility after they got a taste of that feature on their last mission (via a very nicely executed ambush that took out the enemy CnC capabilities, or suppressed them through EWAR comm jamming).
As far as maps go, my method is...probably not the smartest way to do it. It's a good thing I enjoy doing it, because it is incredibly time-intensive for an urban map. I should still have your email address, I'll shoot you something on there when I get chance (and something resembling a sufficient amount of sleep).
Light missiles are a little anemic compared to conventional weapons, but you get unlimited range and higher accuracy out of them. Might still be a little step for 0.75cr, but I like the wounds-per-attack vs cost increase rate among the three common missile types. It's wonderfully and unintentionally linear against 4+ armor.
DeleteIn a similar vein, I bumped up the number of shots for Shredders and Assault Shotguns because they just felt not worth it compared to your typical rifles and machine-guns. Having the little bit extra AP and accuracy isn't very meaningful when they become useless after only a handful of rounds of combat. The increase may have been a little much, but I can sort of handwave that as them just coming stock with big boxy magazines or similar. Grenade Launchers are the only basic-ish weapon that can full on strip four wounds off of anything, provided that all four shots land, so I think keeping them limited as they are is semi-reasonable. This is less so the case now that there are common ablative shields, but Anti-Armor in general is very rare and valuable. A case could probably be made to have them be high AP with two attacks instead, to wreck light and medium armor enemies more, but that's something I would need to think on. Maybe as an alternate Grenade Launcher type with slight AoE. Rocket Launchers, if anything, I might decrease the price down to 4CR or also give them slight AoE or something. Maybe on slight misses they still hit and deal reduced damage. As it stands their stats could use a little beefing up. Agreed on that.
Adding some rules on typical spotting ranges and lens/radar detecting abilities among different vehicles might be a reasonable thing to add, in addition to more expanded stealth, though I fear that might be too much bloat and finicky numbers for GM's to keep in mind. Maybe optional rules. I like the simplicity as is, where you just end up in a battlefield and once a shot is fired everything goes crazy.
Also sounds good, I understand you on the sleep bit. Very important.
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