Boy what a discussion, lots to go over.
The basic thrust of the Random system is to subtract from the number of dice rolled, period.
The following example............
"Every Synapse Group has a Base Spawning of 2D3, except the Dominatrix which uses 3D3. This value is unaffected by the strength of the Synapse Group, or by what units make up the Synapse Group"
Simple, clear, and easy to understand. Note
No Synapse Values are mentioned because none are used"The player rolls subtracts dice from the number available to the swarm for the following reasons
(1) Enemy within 30cms of any unit in the Swarm deduct 1D3
(2) The Swarm is Broken deduct 1D3"
Note that in the final version spawning occurs
after all Rally Rolls are taken. Thus a Nid player will be able to use the Withdrawal Move, if the swarm fails to rally, to move it out of range of enemy formations before it spawns.
"The player then rolls the number of 1D3 available, after modifiers are applied to the number of dice available, with the total of those dice being the number of spawning points available to that swarm to spawn units. The player then spawns back units for that swarm. A player must finish all spawning with a Synapse Group before moving on to another Synapse Group."
Once again this is a very simple and clean system for spawning with no math, halving, Synapse Values to add to roll, etc........
2D3/3D3/4D3 is the system that will be used because it returns more stable results. When one throws in the modifiers then a Swarm can achieve results of from 1 to 12 depending on its situation. In the end Swarms further away from the front line will have much better spawning ability compared to those in the fighting line.
If 2D3 is used as an example a Swarm in the front line will only get to roll 1D3 as it is going to be in close proximity to the enemy returning a flat result of from 1 to 3. Swarms not in the fighting line will get 2D3 in a range of from 2 to 6 with mid results occurring more often then far end results.
One cannot look at the present random proposal as if it is in a vacuum, one must also look at the modifiers to see what direct effect they will have on the rolls. Therefore it isn't the base number of dice rolled but more how will they actually be used on the battlefield.
1D3 will occur most often in the fighting line and return little to the swarm but a handful of weak commons.
2D3 will produce more stable results with no real bad low end roll (A '1'), and return some of the better commons, maybe some uncommons, and maybe more weak commons.
Broken and getting no dice will encourage Nid players to use the Withdrawal Move in the Rally Phase to pull these Swarms back to get some Spawning, but it doesn't force them to.
This leaves the decision of whether to withdraw a swarm to get better spawning or leave it in the fighting line in the hands of the Nid player.
Also it rewards opponents that effectively force the issue with the Nids by allowing them to interfere with the Nid Spawning, especially Broken Swarms.
Having messed a bit with it now I do like the effect it has......and the ease in which it can be carried out.
Please note that spawning is only one of the changes that will be appearing either tonight or tomorrow. The Spawning itself is going to force some changes, along with the Nidzilla problem and a few minor weapon changes.
I know that these changes will not make everyone happy, that would be an impossible dream, however I feel they need to be done and encourage everyone to please playtest them.
Thanks All...................
Jaldon
Include that little line in the design notes of the list and you can make a lot of people's lives simpler.
