Character Creation Challenge, Day 8: Lancer

 

I've let myself fall a little behind here, but I hope to catch up today with a second post this evening. Our delayed Saturday game, Lancer, is about mech pilots in the far future, and we'll not only get to create the pilot character but also design their giant fightin' robot. 

Humanity has spread far out into space, and although the core worlds seem to have worked out something like a fair and prosperous society, out on the fringes things are a lot less pleasant, and interplanetary/intergalactic war is endemic. This is where our Lancers ply their trade.

Character experience in Lancer is framed in-game with License Levels; these reflect not only what you've been able to learn but also your certifications on mech equipment. Characters begin at License Level 0, with limited access to gear as well as fewer and lower skills. 

The first step in Lancer character creation is to determine your character's background, and the designers provide a handy table of 20 ideas in case you want to roll dice for this kind of thing. I roll a 14, which makes my character a scientist-turned-mech-pilot. Backgrounds don't give you any specific sorts of bonuses, but they do provide suggestions for triggers (which are a type of situational bonus based on your character's skill set) and can also be leveraged for other situational advantages if everyone at the table agrees that what you're asking for is the sort of thing your background would enable. Now, there's a lot of ways to do science - I could have been a field researcher or a lab person, working in an academic, corporate, or government framework (or independent, even), and of course there's the question of which discipline I studied before left it for the glamorous life of driving heavily armed giant robots. But I'm going to table all that until I see how my mechanical choices shape up.

Next I select four Triggers at the entry level; each of these will give me a +2 bonus in appropriate situations. The four suggested Triggers for a former Scientist are Blow Something Up, Create or Invent Something, Get Hold of Something, and Investigate. These all look very useful, but something in me militates against just taking the whole bundle. I select (and slightly rename) Blow Stuff Up, Create or Invent, and Investigate, then go shopping in the full list for a fourth option. There seem to be lots of good ones, but I settle on Stay Cool.

Before my next bout of decision-making, I have a few basic stats to note. All LL0 pilots start with the same values for these, so it's just a matter of copying them to the character sheet. My Size rating is 1/2 (the scale here is based on the mechs, so of course the pilots are smaller). My Hit Points start at 6. My Evasion and Electronic Defense ratings start at 10 each, and my Speed is 4. My Grit begins at 0. (Note that all these numbers apply to the pilot; the mech will get its own stats. It's like creating two characters for the price of one!)

All right. Now I select some personal Gear. There's no prices involved; each pilot gets to carry a certain number of items on mission, including a suit of armor, two personal weapons, and three miscellaneous pieces of equipment. (Apparently it's possible to get in a fight without your  robot; who knew?) Each choice involves some kind of tradeoff, so it's less about what you can afford than what you want to emphasize. For fighting, I go for a light hardsuit (which improves my HP and doesn't hamper my movement, but doesn't offer much other protection), one light signature firearm and a light alloy/composite melee weapon (a gun styled like a pearl-handled revolver and a machete, respectively). My three miscellaneous items are a flexsuit (which improves your capacity to survive in hostile environments), a smart scope (for long-distance reconaissance), and a patch (first aid kit).

Now we start to turn our attention towards our mech. Well, kind of. I have two points to apply to my Mech Skills, which as you might guess pertain to my ability to pilot the things. There are four Mech Skills: Hull (basically Strength), Agility, Systems (or ability to run electronic-warfare weapons and apps), and Engineering (power and systems support, roughly analogous to Constitution in a D&D context). I want to emphasize Systems, so I put both points there. (For each of these skills, there is a bonus that increases each time you add one to the value, and another bonus that increases with every second bump to the value, so splitting your points is basically putting two bonuses on layaway.) For my expenditure I get +2 to my Tech Attacks and one extra Systems point to install non-weapon features on my mech.

Next I can select three Talents at the entry level. These are a pilot's particular mech-related abilities (unlike the general abilities represented by Mech Skills). Looking for Talents that might enhance an emphasis on electronic warfare, I select Hacker, which lets me push around targets that I've hit with E-warfare attacks. Drone Commander seems like it could have some good general applicability (I'm hoping drones are a good delivery system for tech attacks, but that seems likely). Finally, I settle on Infiltrator, which will help me stay hidden on the battlefield (and I expect I'll need that since I didn't invest in more straightforward defenses such as Hull or Agility).

All right, now it's time to build us a robot. We start with a frame, a basic mech body that we'll be able to kit out with various weapons and systems. As an LL0 mech pilot, I'm only licensed to operate one model: the General Massive Systems SP-1 Everest. Like a starting pilot, the Everest has some standard stats that I can just copy over to the mech's character sheet, though some of these will be modified by my Mech Skills. The Everest is Size 1, bigger than the pilot but not that large for a mech. Its basic Armor is 0. Its Hull has 10 HP and a Repair Capacity of 5, which controls how easily you can repair it out in the field. Its base Evasion rating is 8 and its Speed is 4. Its E-Defense starts at 8 and its base Tech Attack bonus is 0 (and my Systems rating will boost both of those). It begins with six System Points for various add-ons. Its Heat Capacity begins at 6 (certain activities and attacks will generate Heat, and letting that build up is bad for the mech.) 

The Everest has two Traits: Initiative, which lets the pilot act more quickly once per scene; and Replaceable Parts, which speeds up repair time during rest. It also has a Core System power: Power Up, which boosts pretty much everything you do for the duration of a scene. In addition, all GMS mechs have some special capabilities available: an auto-stabilizing hardpoint, which gives one weapons mount an accuracy bonus, overpower-caliber ammunition that gives one weapon a once-per-round damage bonus, a minimum of three weapons mounts, an integrated auxiliary weapon that you can use for a once-per-round bonus attack, a retrofitting capacity that lets you swap a main-weapon mount for a combined main/auxiliary mount, and universal compatibility, which allows you to restore HP and reduce Heat when you activate a Core System power. (It's not clear whether these are built into the basic stat block of the Everest, so I may skip the weapons-mount capabilities for this example).

The next step is to select weapons. My beginner-level license limits my options, but there's still a decent selection to choose from. First of all, I note that none of these weapons seems to provide a tech attack, which is disappointing, but I'll just be ready for when that stuff comes online for my character. I like to have some variety in damage types because you don't know what your opponents might be able to resist. The Everest comes with three weapons mounts: a Main weapon, a Heavy weapon, and a Flexible mount that can accommodate one main or two auxiliary weapons. We've already invested a Talent in drone operations, so I take a Nexus drone launcher (hunter-killer model) for the Main mount. These do kinetic damage, so I'll be looking for other types when shopping for the rest of my weapons. The auxiliary mounts get a missile rack (which does explosive damage) and a segment knife (for energy damage, and because mechs get into melee too). Finally, I return to kinetic damage with an anti-materiel rifle for my Heavy slot. My Everest is now armed and dangerous.

But I still have seven points to invest in Systems (six base, plus one for my Systems rating). The available modules cost from one to three points, and a lot of the good ones cost two. I end up with four altogether: Turret Drones (whee! more drones!) for more attack capacity; Stable Structure to guard against getting knocked down or pushed around; a Pattern-A Jericho Deployable Cover unit to put up some blocking terrain for hiding behind; and finally some Personalizations (at a cost of 1SP) to add 2 HP and make the mech look cooler. 

There are still a few stats left to record for my Everest. Structure value is 4; this is the basic physical durability of your frame, and once you run out of HP damage gets applied to this. Hit Points are 12 thanks to my personalizations. Stress quantifies your reactor's capacity to handle overheating, and the Everest's default value is 4. Heat starts at 0 and will accumulate in the course of action. Overshield is a form of temporary HP that certain systems provide; I don't have any, so the value is 0. And I haven't improved the base Armor value of my rig, so it remains at 0.

All that remains is to give our pilot and mech their names. Pilots have both a personal name and a callsign; my character is Alisha Shah, callsign Queen Bee. In a further nod to her drone schtick, she calls her mech The Hive. Alisha was a field research scientist who specialized in using drones for sampling and data collection. When her think-tank lost all its funding, she drifted for a little while and eventually sold her skills to a mercenary company, where she worked her way up to a mech pilot's license.

And here is their statblock:

Name: Alisha Shah  Callsign: Queen Bee
Background: Scientist  License Level: 0  Grit: 0  
Triggers: Blow Stuff Up +2, Create/Invent +2, Investigate +2, Stay Cool +2
Mech Skills: Hull 0, Agiility 0, Systems 2, Engineering 0
Talents: Drone Commander 1, Hacker 1, Infiltrator 1
Gear: Light Hardsuit (armor) Light Signature Weapon (pearl-handled revolver emulator), Light Alloy/Composite Weapon (machete), Flexsuit, Smart Scope, Patch

Mech Frame: GMS SP-1 Everest
Name: The Hive
Structure: 4  HP: 12  Stress: 4  Heat: 0  Overshield: 0  Armor: 0
Attack Bonus: 0  Tech Attack: +2  Save Target: 10  Speed: 4  Electronic Defense: 10  Evasion: 8  Sensors: 10  Size: 1
Frame Traits: Initiative, Replaceable Parts  Core Bonus: Power Up
Weapons: (main) Nexus Hunter-Killer Drone Launcher, (heavy) Anti-Materiel Rifle, (auxiliary) Missile Rack, Segment Knife
Systems: Turret Drones, Pattern A Jericho Deployable Cover, Stable Structure, Personalizations