No, not this engineer, but it is cool. So, sometimes one article flows naturally from another. Following on from my review of the Mecha Hack Chassis/Pilot selection, I got to thinking about the Engineer. The Engineer is fine for one-shots, but declines in usefullness during campaigns, and I should really have noticed that. My campaign has two. What follows is a discussion of this problem, with rambling commentary on the history of such things.
Context: The Origins of Hit Points and Party Healers
Hit Points, aka HP, like the entire Mecha Hack ruleset, have their origins in the original Dungeons & Dragons game circa 1972, influencing any RPG you care to name. The term is a fairly abstract measure of how a character might withstand injury, not how difficult they are to harm, or which bone is broken, but how much they can take before they drop dead. In first edition this was literally the case, although it's been common since to have some kind of "they're bleeding to death, somebody help" mechanic. Hit Points can be somewhat binary as it means characters function either at full capacity, or at deaths door, which other systems try to address, but that's outside of the remit of this article. This dynamic combined with magic being a thing gave rise to what the Engineer technically is: a party healer. To go back even further, Dungeons & Dragons, was based on a fairly serious wargame called Chainmail, and this can still be felt in the rules even now. D&D is ultimately a physics engine for fantasy combat, rather than purely a roleplay thing. As such having a party member whom can do immediate and effective triage is vital. Having a Cleric around to heal is so common that it's a consistent balance challenge for games of this type. It's a safety net, both for the party and the games master, but a chore for the person playing it. See also: designated healers in Final Fantasy and Stimpacks in the Fallout franchise as an aversion of the concept.
Context: In the Mecha Genre, is there a comparable role?
Short Answer: no. Long Answer: almost certainly no. There's enough mecha shows out there for someone to make a counter-argument, but you don't see a robot get repaired as part of a 6 second combat round. Repair and maintenance is a fairly big deal, but usually happening off-screen. That's what the hangar crew and/or the super scientist are for. I suppose it would make the robots less impressive if they could be repaired in seconds. The only real example I can think of this are the occasional repair-bots you see in the Super Robot Wars games, but that tends to be a gameplay thing, not a source material thing. Then again, how often do you see people in more action-oriented media take a moment to apply a healing spell? Note: not games, non-interactive media. Generally, you don't, because its boring and makes the stakes smaller. Same with most mundane injuries. Either it gets glossed over, or it's an actual plot point. Giant robots exist in a binary between OK and exploded, although heroes may occassionally be battered and broken badasses.
The Engineer
Serving as one of the original 4 pilot types, an Engineer is one of the two ways to heal your mecha outside of a rest action. This takes the form of a 1 to 2 trade of Armour Points to HP, as a use action. This starts out as a useful but scarce resource, pairing well with the Titan chassis, but is devalued over time. The ability does not scale with character level, meaning that while other pilots stay useful, the Engineer is only useful when you have 10ish HP. For comparison, the only other source of repair, mid-fight, are Repair Nanites. This fixes 1d4+1 HP, but are a single use item you have to buy. The net effect is to make rest actions, aka hangar time, the main way to restore HP, like in animes.
How might we fix it? Should we?
I feel a case can be made that players shouldn't be on repair duty mid-battle. That's passive and dull for a game about shooty-robo-boom-boom. Mind you, we want the Engineers to feel useful and engaged. After some discussion with my players, I offered them the following options to make things more fun for them, replacing or modifying the original Quick Fix ability.
Nano-Smith Ability: When using Repair Nanites, add 1d6 to the result. During downtime, you may convert a single Scrap consumable directly into 1 Repair Nanites, rather than the normal rate of exchange.
Bodge-Job Ability: As a use action, reduce your AP by 1 to restore d6+ 1 HP to a close mecha. If you restore the maximum amount, that mecha then rolls its Reactor Die.
Quick Fix Ability - Modification: As a use action, reduce your AP by 1 to restore 2 HP to a close mecha. You may spend multiple AP at once in this way. (I.e. 5 AP becomes 10 HP restored on the target.)
The overall intention here was to make repairs a hard decision rather than an easy one. Nano-Smith bolts on to an existing consumable, making it more powerful, but ultimately is something players pay for. Bodge-Job is an improved version of Quick Fix, but has a side effect if they heal too much. Both options have a wide spread of potential results, as opposed to the flat bonus of Quick Fix, so using them are a gamble. Alternatively, if players want to stick with the rulebook, we can make Quick Fix scale up. Job done.
If you end up using these rules, do let me know how this turns out.
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