Playtested Mecha Combat Rules in my Campaign Frame and it went well!
Hi everyone! My name is Tricky (they/them) and I run games on my server of 50+ folks and we switched to Daggerheart last year and utilize a campaign frame heavily inspired by Starfinder and Final Fantasy. The frame is also very much inspired by Xenosaga, Pacific Rim, Persona, Gundam, and the Trails of Cold Steel series.
While we had a great time using the campaign frame we created for our games, we've only just recently had the chance to playtest our mecha combat rules.
Attached is the page on mech combat in my frame but how it all boils down to the following:
- All Magitek Soldats are copiloted, meaning two players in one mech frame. While piloting both players share the Evasion, HP, Armor, and Thresholds of the Mech and share the space of the mech. Mechs also have a "Mech Bonus" that is used for all attack, spellcast, and reaction rolls.
- Speaking of Reaction Rolls, something that was proposed by one of my players, as they don't generate Hope or Fear, Reaction Rolls for Soldats include a 1d12 roll from each pilot and are added together with the Mech Bonus for the result of the reaction.
- While piloting, players have access to all of their domains and class abilities, all range bands/increments are scaled up one to fit the scale of mecha combat maps.
- Spotlights work as normal with individual players being able to request the spotlight.
- Players still track Hope and Stress independently and are able to pool their Hope to utilize any of their Hope abilities across both pilots. Copilots may also opt to mark any Stress in place of their partner's while piloting (great for rizzing and aura farming /hj).
- Borrowing rules from Colossus of the Drylands, in mech combat, players may initiate a Tag Team Roll any number of times so long as they have the Hope for it. And additionally, players may initiate a Tag Team Roll with their copilots as well and may pool any number of Hope to do so (one pilot has 2 but the other has 1 Hope, they can do a Tag Team still).
- Mechs scale with proficiency and damage bonus increases via the "Bonded" trait as characters level up.
In our playtest encounter, there were 4 PCs who were piloting 2 soldats and they were defending a city against a Gnosis (kaiju) and it was pretty exhilarating for the players. Even though the goal was to playtest combat and game feel primarily, the rules of Daggerheart and the themes of copiloting a mech created many moments of fun RP and character interaction mid combat that made the fight very cinematic. It was also suitably challenging as well.
A look under the hood for the enemy, I utilized a Tier 2 Solo stat block from the Core book and combined aspects of the Tier 2 Colossus from the Drylands Frame to create the boss for this encounter.
The fight was so much fun that practically all four players who playtested this were not shy in sharing that they would love an entire campaign that was primarily revolving around mecha combat. I'll also be running another playtest encounter for 6 other players on my server in about a week and a half but for a space outpost defense encounter so we'll see how that goes.
I mainly wanted to gush how fun this experience was both as a GM and for the players but would also love thoughts from the community on any additions, adjustments, or considerations for mecha combat in Daggerheart. There are a few supplements out there that include Starship combat and Mech gameplay but I didn't find any that seemed to fit the vibe for the table. The primary goal was to create mechs for encounters that still used Combat mechanics that allowed players to use their builds and abilities but not overcomplicated either.
I may consider more in-depth rules on mech building down the line such as points for switching out features, frames, weapons, and such but for now just starting with these four prebuilt soldats to begin with. Any thoughts are appreciated!
For the sake of Rule 5: No images were posted but terminology was used and referenced for franchises such as Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, Pacific Rim, and the Trails of (series).
