Balancing Lancer Combat for One-Shots

In my earlier post about expectations for Lancer one-shots, I concluded that combat was pretty much a mandatory inclusion for any Lancer one-shot, despite necessarily taking up a vast majority of a one-shot's allotted time. However, I didn't go into detail about how one might balance such a combat. Lancer falls squarely in the combat-as-sport camp, so having some amount of awareness of combat balance is useful when designing a one-shot, as opposed to combat-as-war OSR modules where the idea of combat balance is eschewed entirely (or nearly).

Here are a few ideas and considerations crossing my mind as I ponder how I want to implement a Lancer combat fit for a one-shot.

The Core Question

In my experience, the question of one-shot balance is not really a question of how many NPCs to field or what templates to use, but rather how to account for PC resource expenditure (or, really, the lack thereof). Page 264 of the Lancer Core Rulebook sets the expectation that players ought to experience 3-4 combats between each Full Repair (with a Short Rest every 1-2 combats). In a typical full-length mission, players could "go nova" on their first combat, expending all their best resources (Core Powers, Overcharges, etc.), but then they would be out of gas for the rest of the mission. Thus, players are incentivized to conserve resources, only using them at important key moments.

In a one-shot, however, players know that there will (generally) only be one combat, so if they roll into that combat fully loaded, the incentive to conserve resources is gone. Every player can burn their Core Power, every player can Overcharge at least twice (maybe thrice?) with minimal risk, losing Structure becomes less meaningful, and and Limited systems no longer have much downside. Overall, this has the effect of greatly boosting PC power level above the general norms.

Potential Solutions

There are a few approaches we can take when considering how to factor in player resource expenditure into the combat balance equation.

Approach #1: Change Nothing, Balance is Overrated

The unspoken assumption of all the above discussion is that unbalanced combat (in favor of the players) is bad. Is that really the case?

I honestly don't hate the idea of just completely ignoring the issue altogether and allowing players to be powerful. It's fun being able to go nova on some enemies, everyone popping off their Core Powers and dunking on some nerds. It's especially fun for new players to have access to Core Powers and play with all the levers that the game provides them with the cushion of not having to worry too much about high-level execution while still learning the game.

I think this is a completely valid approach to balancing one-shot combats, as evidenced by the fact that both existing Lancer one-shots (HA Corvette Job and Tombs of Delios) take this approach and nobody seems to bat an eye. If you're considering ignoring the balance ramifications of letting players roll into your one-shot combat fully loaded, consider yourself in good company – it's fine.

I suspect that concerns about lack of resource management come from GMs who are accustomed to resource management being a regular part of the game, and who assume that an "easy" combat might not be a "fun" combat. While that could be true, I expect that's more likely to only be true for experienced players. A new player is just there having a good time with their big robot shooting the bad guys with missiles and lasers, and that's good enough.

Pros:

• Combat is easier on new players since they don't have to worry as much about resource management
• Using Core Powers and Overcharge is very fun and empowering
• Takes very little narrative energy to implement, since it's sort of the "default"

Cons:

• Experienced players might find easy combat to be less engaging
• Not terribly representative of the "real" game, since it doesn't have the resource management aspect
• Using more Core Powers could slow down combat

If I were to go this direction, I would feel pretty comfortable bumping up my NPC Striker/Artillery count to something slightly above the generally-recommended maximum ratio of 50%. Not only are Strikers some of the coolest NPCs in the book, but you can rely on the PCs to be able to withstand more of a beating due to having more Structure at their disposal, as well as more weapons and systems to choose from if those get damaged.

Approach #2: Beef Up the NPCs

The general instinct of most GMs to make combat harder for fully-loaded PCs is likely to be to crank up the opposing forces with more structure, more actiovations, higher damage, higher tiers, etc.

I think this is a mistake for a few reasons:

• Adding more NPCs will certainly increase combat difficulty, but it will also increase combat duration, which is the opposite of what we want in a one-shot. NPCs will take longer to kill and will take more turns. We're already crunched for time as-is.
• Increasing NPC tiers outside the bounds suggested on p. 281 of the Lancer Core Rulebook is almost always a mistake, as the power jump between NPC tiers is pretty stark. Uptiering is a great way to accidentally nuke your PCs.
• Finding the "right" balance is a very fine line. By increasing NPC power level, you could easily turn combat into rocket tag, where combat ends up being less tactical and more about burst damage against either side. I don't find that sort of Lancer gameplay as engaging as the standard difficulty level.

Pros:

• Actually increases combat difficulty

Cons:

• Makes combat take longer
• Very difficult to rebalance for new difficulty (very fine line between fun and unfun)

As you might expect, I don't think this is the right way to go. If you want to try to maintain some amount of resource management pressure on players in your one-shot, then I suggest actually attacking the resources themselves.

Approach #3: Your Mechs Suck Shit

This is a catch-all approach that requires the narrative contrivance that the PCs mechs are kinda busted going into the scenario. Maybe the PC mechs are junkers built from scraps, or they are salvaged from the battlefield, or the PCs are on the tail end of a rough mission behind enemy lines, or their mechs got damaged when they dropped into the battlefield. Regardless of the situation, the PCs' mechs have already been through hell, so what you've got is what you've got.

The easiest way to implement this is to simply give players a choice: They can keep their Core Power but start at 1d6 Heat Overcharge, or they start at 1 Heat Overcharge but lose their Core Power. This is a popular solution on the Pilot NET Discord, though I think it would do well to include an actual narrative justification for that choice: what happened to your mechs that made you choose the option you chose? Coming up with an answer to this question could be non-trivial, but it's worthwhile to do as an adventure designer to ground the mechanical change in the narrative.

For some GMs, though, this doesn't go far enough. To really drive home how beat up the PC mechs are, they need to have lost Structure and Weapons/Systems. Perhaps a more detailed approach might be something like this:

• PC mechs are down to 3 Structure/Stress each
• PCs have two Core Batteries (or three with 5 PCs) to share amongst themselves
  • Installing a Core Battery in a mech taxes the mech's power core, increasing their Overcharge level to 1d6.
• One weapon or system on each mech is destroyed (PC's choice, or roll randomly)
• The PCs have 2 Repairs each (which they can save, or spend immediately to gain structure, stress, or repair weapons/systems)

I like framing the choice of Core Power vs. Overcharge in narrative terms (installing a Core Battery), and also inverts the choice away from loss aversion (you're losing your Core Power or Overcharge) into something your gaining (I'm gaining a Core Power in exchange for Overcharge; or I'm not getting a Core Power, but I'm keeping my Overcharge level).

Obviously, the amounts and types of resources that are pre-expended reside on a sliding scale. Maybe you let your PCs keep their full Structure, and don't bother with damaging weapons and systems. Or maybe they all start with 1 Structure/1 Stress and a pile of limited shared Repairs they can use to rebuild their mechs from the ground up, but not back to full capacity. Lots of options to play with, here, which you can tune to your difficulty of choice.

I'd say the main downside of this approach is that, to an extent, it requires an understanding of the game system that new players may not have. New players might barely understand what a Core Power or Overcharge is, so the choice between them won't really be understood until after they actually have a combat (or two) under their belt.

Pros:

• Provides narrative justification for resource expenditure ahead of the mission
• Puts the PCs on the back foot narratively, feeling like underdogs scraping by
• Possibility of scaling how many resources are pre-expended for higher difficulty

Cons:

• Requires some amount of system mastery to understand the implications of the choices provided, which is bad for new players
• Core Powers aren't available to everyone (not as fun for new players)
• Requires specific narrative framing (doesn't work universally)

I think there's a lot to like about this approach, and I think there are a lot of fun framings that can justify having a garbage mech. However, I don't love how newbie-hostile it is. This feels like something I'd much rather employ against experienced players, or provide it as an optional variant for GMs to use when publishing a written module.

Approach #4: Spend Resources In Narrative

Spoiler alert: this is my favorite approach. I'm a terminal Lancer narrative enjoyer so I'm a big fan of finding ways to flesh out Lancer narrative mechanics.

The basic idea, here, is that PC mech resources can be expended and lost over the course of a narrative section that precedes the combat. Players can expend Overcharge, Core Powers, and other mech resources in order to gain benefits on their actions, or those resources might be lost as consequences of failed actions.

Consider the following options for how players could use mech resources to help on narrative rolls:

• Overcharge your mech: Gain +2 Accuracy on your action (describe how pushing your mech to its limits helps you)
• Expend Core Power: Automatic critical success (describe how your Core Power helps you accomplish this task)
• Expend a use of a limited system: Gain +1 Accuracy on your action (describe how this resource helps you)

Furthermore, rather than applying damage to mechs on the level of HP, I would suggest damaging mechs using Structure, Stress, or Weapons/Systems as the cost. For example, maybe a PC fails to dodge out of the way of a landslide and takes 1 Structure and/or damage 1 Weapon.

You can also steal the idea of Devil's Bargains from Blades in the Dark: offer a player bonus Accuracy (or automatic success) if they choose to sacrifice something on their mech in the process.

If you're using a turn-based crawl/exploration system, players could choose to spend one turn expending Repairs, as long as you keep ticking the scenario clock forward.

Pros:

• Allows players to start at full power
• Allows players to expend resources for cool moments of power outside of combat
• Significantly bolsters Lancer narrative sections
• Rewards players for skillful play in narrative by giving them more combat resources

Cons:

• Requires longer narrative, which means less time for combat
• Only works for narrative sections where players are in their mechs, e.g. exploration (social out-of-mech narrative can't easily use this)

I want to explore this option in more depth in my one-shot. I love the idea of expanding Lancer non-combat narrative, and expending mech resources in the process seems like a great way to kill two birds with one stone. I plan to do some more testing with this system, and it will take a very well-calibrated narrative section from a time perspective, but this approach shows the most promise to me.

Final Thoughts

Lancer combat balance has always been a tough nut to crack. There's a strong temptation to just toss balance to the wind, and I don't even think it's a bad idea. I don't know how much time I will spend pondering this problem in advance of the one-shot jam, but I like the potential offered by expending mech resources in narrative, so I'll continue down that road for now.

What ideas did I miss? Feel free to leave a comment below!