Hej, thanks for some nice ideas.
You're welcome!
With the changes to the Escher Juves (WS 5+ instead of 4+), they are more useless, since they don't need their strength.
As I play Escher myself, that was a hard change to make ...
I don't like that there's not much of a choice right now -- it's just very obvious that you should take at least one stiletto knife. With Strength 3, other close combat weapons might become an option (fighting knives are a little expensive, though -- you'd probably have to wait until after the first game). But even with this change, they'll still hit on a 4+ with a stiletto knife -- I don't think that makes them useless at all.
We think juves are already quite useful. Most of us use them quite successfully.
I didn't mean to imply they couldn't be useful already. Regarding the rules as written, I don't like that a) Juves take the space of Champions (if you can get one, a new Champion would be the better choice almost all the time -- and what of your poor Juves then?), b) to effectively use Juves, you're strongly incentivised to increase their main characteristics again and again (before they are promoted and further Advancements become more expensive), leaving the mental characteristics worse than those of a Ganger. Personally, I don't want these specialised glass cannons -- I want Juves to become regular Gangers/Specialists with well-rounded stats before they -- maybe -- become Champions.
Last but not least, look at the credits value that a useful Juve with several Advancements would have per the old rules. That's just weird.
I think the additional LD check for 'Lead by example' is not necessary. It makes Escher even more vulnerable after having bottled. >From a narrative perspective, it might make sense that the leader/champion does not only need their own courage but also their leadership skills to encourage their fellows.
Yes, that's what I thought of.
Even though the lasting injury table adds some character and narrative elements to the game, personally I think it might make things unnecessarily complicated. We (our gaming group) all agreed that the actual table works quite well.
If you leave off the arena result, it shouldn't be more complicated. It can be pretty fun, though.
(When we played last time, I didn't have the bit about random close combat weapons in there yet. Fighters could even use ranged weapons -- so the Orlock Champion who got sold to the pits just obliterated a pit slave with his heavy bolter in the first round of combat. That was funny, but a little anticlimactic.
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I think with D3+1 EXP per game Juves might be too fast learners. With a bit of luck and one or two EXP for injuring/killing enemies they can buy their second wound after three games. Or even two with your advancement table.
But would that really be a problem? You could always restrict their Advancements to those that Gangers can get, I guess (WS, BS, S, T, M, I, Wil, Int, Ld, Cl).
The idea of the costs for hired guns is good. We considered 30% of their cost and making them Rare (x).
So you'd have to send one of your heroes to look for them instead of looking for rare items? That's an interesting idea.
I am also not so sure whether the gaseous eruption for the Escher Khymerix should be a free alternative. Without doing the math now, I think in the early stages of a campaign the chemical cloud (i.e. the one with toxin) is the better one. It does pin and has toxin but allows armour saves. However, we have juste started the sixth cycle of our turf war and virtually all leaders and champions have an armour save of at least 4+. Several have 3+ (light carapce + undersuit) or 2+ when attacked from the front arc (heavy carapace + undersuit). In these cases the gas might be the more reliable weapon. But I am not sure. Maybe I should do the math...
I've run simulations with R (if anyone's interested in the code, just tell me!). Against high armour, Gas might indeed have an edge -- but then, you can buy a Rebreather for 15 credits, but you cannot take similar precautions against Toxin. I've uploaded some bar plots comparing the two attacks to my Dropbox -- have a look.
