“Action Economy" is a term I recently picked up from The Animated Spellbook, and basically refers to how in Dungeons & Dragons, in a fight, the side with the most actions tends to win. The Mecha Hack shares DNA with that game, so similar phenomena can be observed. The difference is that enemies and players are not subject to the same rules. Enemies have to move then attack, which is represented by the player rolling to avoid damage. Players however get a choice of two actions, in any order, but with a "stamina" mechanic. This, and abstractions like initiative and range bands, often mean that players can simply overwhelm the enemy before they can act. That may indeed be how you like the combat, but that doesn't work if you want them to have a boss fight. I've found that merely taking a higher level foe doesn't necessarily address this issue. You can get a bullet sponge that tanks the damage the party can dish out, and hit very hard, but its a purely statistical threat, not an intellectual one. This article is about how to present more of a challenge. I find that fights in The Mecha Hack should be quick, or mechanically interesting, so here's some things to consider.
1: Damage Die are Static
Now, probably the most important thing to keep in mind when designing an encounter is that the maximum damage is set at character creation, they only get more accurate by themselves. If a D6 damage die character wants to hit harder, they need to get better weapons, or modules that do a lot of damage. For example, two popular modules in my campaign were Missile Barrage and Energy Modulator. The latter is a straightforward upgrade to a damage die, but Missile Barrage is a more nuanced solution in that it can handle multiple targets, and also reliably put 10 damage on something. As a result, merely giving a foe more HP is not the same as making it more threatening, it makes them more time-consuming. If the foe you are presenting is meant to be a juggernaut, this is fine but perhaps not for the hyper-agile dude in the high mobility custom? This does however present a good way to mess with your players, instead of merely having a big number, have some damage reduction, ideally a randomised one. This will encourage players to try less conventional attacks, which usually require a reactor roll or similar cost.
2: Do the Math
Perhaps falling into the “kinda obvious” category of advice, its a good idea to keep track of what your players can do, either through back-ups of their character sheet, or just keeping track of what their HP is. If you are an obsessive nerdling like myself, its possible to mine this data for use in a boss encounter. A metric I've used is to calculate what the average damage is from a single basic attack, I.e. what a player can do without incurring an additional cost. If you're concerned that a party just might wipe-out their foes on the first turn, simply figure out that number for each player, total it up, then pick a foe that can take that number. Also be aware that a foe of a higher level applies a penalty to both a players attack and defence.
3: Find the Weakness
Part of what makes the Brawler and Hybrid chassis so effective as fighters is because they favour Power and Mobility, AKA “punchy stat” and “dodgy stat”. If you want to challenge such players, and maybe make the support characters feel a bit better, throw in attacks that test other stats. Many enemies have a Recharge attack that does this, but pushing Presence or System for a main attack can take a hitty player off-guard.
4: Changing the Action Economy
OK, so, the players act more often than enemies, but this need not be the case. There are enemies whose attacks can effect more than one player, although Aces tend to be more flexible. I've often found myself using whole teams of Aces, as a catch-all representation for elite units. In any case, having an enemy that affects multiple players at once is a good way to keep them engaged.
5: A Word on Swarms
Its very tempting to view swarms as a time saver, especially if you want hordes of disposable mooks in play. And, they are. There is however a degree of subtle implications that arise from how HP is now treated. For example, if a foe has significantly more HP than a player attack, a swarm die actually makes it more fragile. I made this mistake when attempting to save on headspace in a complicated battle. Say you've got an enemy mecha with 16HP, and under normal circumstances, you might expect them to withstand 3-4 attacks before they get taken down. A 1d4 swarm die however would mean that every non-critical attack has a 50% chance of wiping out such an enemy, while a 1d8 would be 25%. While it is possibly for a lucky player to do 16 damage in one attack for the same effect, its a less than 1% chance. The net effect of all this is that Swarms are less predictable in a fight than regular foes, because its always a dice roll, and you need to account for that.
Wrapping Things Up
Most of the above probably comes under the heading of “duh” for experienced games-masters, but I hope you found something useful in my ramblings. TL:DR – Don't just use bigger numbers unless you are in a hurry.
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