[Stargrave] FAQ/Errata

[Darkson71]

In the official Stargrave group on Facebook, Joe has started to compile an FAQ/Errata, with the aim of making it a pdf (and putting on the Osprey site) when it's got to a stable state.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1456902071364617/permalink/1633190147069141/

For those that don't use Facebook, here's what it looks like now:

FAQ, Errata & Designer Notes

FAQ
Captain Levels (p.22 & p.75) – Captains start at level 15, but do not need ‘levelling up’. These 15 levels and all improvements are already taken into account in the initial captain creation rules.
Equipment (p.29) – Decks, Filter Masks, Medic Kits, and Picks each take up one gear slot.
Unarmed (p.30) – A figure is Unarmed if they have no melee weapon (knife or hand weapon – ranged weapons do not count). This status only applies when actively engaged in melee combat – an unarmed figure does not suffer the -2F when defending against shooting (even if they are in combat when being shot at).
Knives (p.30) – The first knife carried by a captain or first mate does not take up any gear slots. Additional knives do. If a soldier is not equipped with a knife as part of their standard gear, then they do not have one and may not take one.
Grenades (p.31) – If a captain or first mate takes grenades, they carry both types. This takes up a single gear slot.
Combat Armour (p.33) – The items built into combat armour can be upgraded and replaced following the usual rules for gear (e.g. an Armoured Trooper’s built-in pistol could be replaced by an advanced pistol, but that would use up their one item slot).
Remote Firing (p.113) – This Shooting attack uses the robot as the origin point but otherwise ignores its Shoot stat and the type of weapon it carries.
Toxic Secretion (p.116) – This power does not apply to attacks that use a template, including grenades, flamethrowers, and any power attacks that use a template.

ERRATA
Drones (p.144) should have the ‘Robot’ attribute.
Warbots (p.152) should be armed with an indestructible carbine.

DESIGNER NOTES
Loot Placement (p.38) – The loot placement rules for a standard game have been designed to promote maximum carnage, by placing all tokens near the centre of the table. For a slightly gentler version of the game, I would suggest allowing players to place one loot token on their own side of the table, at least 12” from their starting table edge. This should increase the likelihood of crews making it out with at least one loot token.
Toxic Secretion (p.116) – Personally, I think having a toxic grenade or flamethrower-style attack is a pretty cool idea. This has not, however, been tested and would, I suspect, be too powerful.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Shucks, no more Toxic Secretion officers peeing in the flamethrower fuel tanks before battle.  Or licking grenades. 

That Remote Firing "ignores the weapon carried" thing is really counterintuitive as well as being a flat-out change rather than just a clarification.  I could maybe see banning it from use on template weapons the same way Toxic Secretion has been, but now you're making the power much less useful for Rapid Fire, Shotguns, any advanced tech with a damage bonus - and you're extending range for pistols, since the part about "legitimate target" used to limit them to 10" as always but now that's ignoerd so they get a full 12".  Honestly, are you trying to actively encourage people to use this on Drones?  The power worked fine as written and didn't reward using it on the worst weaponry instead of the best.  This is an unwanted change.

Good catch on the Warbot needing a weapon to define range, and an Indestructible one to avoid being nerfed instantly by Destroy Weapon.  They'll still be shut down pretty hard by engaging them in melee with expendable crew, but at least now they're not complete patsies.  If you wanted to make them more dangerous, adding text to Multiple Shooting Attacks (3) that lets them use their second action in Step 2 to back away from the nearest crew within (say) 12" would be an enormous help.

Sentrabots don't need a similar change due to the way Surprise Shot works, but probably do need text added to that rule that modifies their AI programing so they don't mindlessly lunge into combat instead of staying at a distance.  With no actual ranged attacks during their activation, Step 2 forces them to move at best speed toward the nearest crew at all times, which is really dumb.  Suggested text add to Surprise Shot:

"This model is treated as having no ranged attack during Step 2 of determining its actions, but will never move closer than 6" to the nearest visible enemy, and if within 6" it will move to 6" if possible."

Exact distance could be something else (say 8" or 10") but it definitely wants to try to park close enough to react with Surprise Shot attacks while staying somewhat safe from melee.  Not going to live long anyway with the +0 Fight, which makes it an sitting duck to return fire on top of having a glass jaw in melee.

Oh, and I'm not on Facebook and probably never will be again, so feel free to pass this all along to Mike and the group.  Or better yet, tell them to go to my own blog's Stargrave errata page and discuss it in the comments.  There are several other mistakes already there, including an important Creature Actions glitch and a typo in Robot Antenna. 

[Darkson71]

Mike?

You can contact Joe at his blog: http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com/
(I couldn't send them to your blog even if I wanted to, as I've no idea what it is!)


I do agree on the monsters actions, but will be using the suggested rule from Frostgrave (and Rangers) so that ranged-equpped creatures don't charge into combat willy-nilly.

I don't see Remote Firing as a change, as it's clear it's the power that makes a +3 shooting attack, but many people were reading/assuming it wrong and adding weapon bonuses.  And while yes, it does seem strange it can make a robot fire a pistol and extra 2", I don't think it's that much of an issue, as you're using a power to get that extra 2".

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Mike?

You can contact Joe at his blog: http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com/
(I couldn't send them to your blog even if I wanted to, as I've no idea what it is!)

Oh right, Joe, confusing my designers again.  Relevant blog post is:

https://sanctumreconditesage.blogspot.com/2021/05/stargrave-rules-errata-repairs.html

I don't see Remote Firing as a change, as it's clear it's the power that makes a 3+ shooting attack, but many people were reading/assuming it wrong and adding weapon bonuses.  And while yes, it does seem strange it can make a robot fire a pistol and extra 2", I don't think it's that much of an issue, as you're using a power to get that extra 2".

It's a change, because as written the shooting attack used the weapon the robot was equipped with, albeit with a 12" range limit.  That left pistols at 10" range, shotguns with their +1 damage bonus, rapid-fire with their usual "two shots or one at +2 damage" option (and the 12" range limit from the power text), flamethrowers a-flaming (and with a better Shoot bonus than a Burner normally gets), etc.  I didn't find the power text at all unclear myself, and it certainly didn't ignore weapon types.  Hence, it's errata.  And not errata I care for, although I can at least see the argument for banning the template weapons the way they did on Toxic Secretion (and the designer doesn't even sound sure that was a good idea).

As to why I don't care for it, Remote Firing gave a crew the ability to squeeze an extra shot out of a powerful weapon on a robot soldier.  You could get a similar firepower boost for your crew by just giving the officer the same gun and shooting rather than using the power, but in the original version of the power you'd benefit from shooting from the robot's position and with a +3 Shoot, which is actually better than a Burner gets and no worse than any other soldier except the Sniper (who's probably just got a carbine anyway).  This new version makes it irrelevant what gun the robot has, which I guess makes it more useful on non-specialist robots with poor shoot scores and/or average-to-poor weaponry - but it makes it unattractive to bother with on heavy weapon robots.  If you want that extra shot from something nasty each turn, it's now best to give your Remote Firing guy a big gun of their own and just skip using the power altogether.

[Darkson71]

We're have to agree to disagree on Remote Firing.

It doesn't say that the Robot fires 'it's' weapon, it just says make a +3 Shooting attack, so I never thought it did use the weapon profile (maybe because there are similar spells in FG, and I am used to them?). So as far as I'm concerned (and how I'd have played it), it's not a nerf, because that was the way I read it in the first place.

And it doesn't stop the robot using their gun (big or not!) in their own activation, so there's no downside to them having a gun of their own. Fire with Remote Firing in the Captain and/or First MAte phase, then fire with the robot in it's own phase (or during a group activation).

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Disagree if you like, but realize that the rewrite of Remote Firing allows you to do a +3 Shooting attack with 12" range with a robotic Guard Dog or a Repairbot you've grabbed with Control Robot.  Neither of whom have any kind of ranged weapon.  Guess the power should be renamed "Arcing Short Circuit" or something now, because it's sure not the power user remotely firing the guns on the target robot any more.

[Darkson71]

Official FAQ/Errata posted to the Osprey Resources page:
https://ospreypublishing.com/gaming-resources-frostgrave

[Grumpy Gnome]

As another person who is not on Facebook I really appreciate the information being made available elsewhere. Thank you.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Official FAQ/Errata posted to the Osprey Resources page:
https://ospreypublishing.com/gaming-resources-frostgrave

I see a few changes, notably making it explicit that Wall powers can't be bent or have corners in them and fixing the "target out of range" issue of Step 2 of the creature AI.

Allowing Re-wire Robot to affect Drones seems like a needlessly complex can of worms to open, but it's unlikely to matter much in practice since a drone would be about the last thing you'd want to use the power on.  Still, it raises the question of how many standard drones are hanging around back on the ship waiting to be summoned, do you need to re-wire multiple drones if you want your second, third, etc drone summoned in a game to have the improvement, and do you now need to roll for injuries or death on a re-wired drone and keep track of that?

I'm amused to note that most of my original errata spots have been addressed, although Power Selector still sucks horribly:

https://sanctumreconditesage.blogspot.com/2021/05/stargrave-rules-errata-repairs.html

And I still stand by my altered AI for the sentrabot as making for a more interesting play experience than the book's generic rules for the things:

https://sanctumreconditesage.blogspot.com/2021/08/stargrave-sentrabots-kitbash-rules.html

Also nice to know that the designer agrees that toxic area effect weapons sound cool, but are probably a bit too strong.

[Darkson71]

Not in the FAQ yet, but Joe has answered one of the unanswered questions.

Power Moves are halved if carrying Physical loot.

And one that he answered in the original FAQ thread, but got missed off the FAQ:

Pain-Masker should be (1).

(Edit - Masker, not Maker)

[almic85]

Not sure if I should start a thread of my own or just ask this in here but do pre game and/or post game powers award experience in a campaign?

The rules say “in game” powers add experience so I am inclined to think not, but I was the only person in my gaming group of 4 people that read it that way.

[Darkson71]

No they don't, for exactly the reason you said.