6 hours ago, Stompburger said:

with one of the designers, he talks about how Biv and Saska ended up being undertuned because they were worried about power creep and didn't have time to learn from the core set feedback yet.

Makes me wonder if we will ever see an errata for Biv and Saska at one point.

Mind you, the only hero that has been altered so far is Jyn (and that was simply to clarify her Opportunist ability).

Not the biggest fan of house rules, but it would be fun to get these two on the table more.

A user suggested giving them their reward cards off the start. Not a bad idea!

Biv: Hunt Them Down

Saska: Tech Goggles

3 hours ago, Armandhammer said:

Makes me wonder if we will ever see an errata for Biv and Saska at one point.

Mind you, the only hero that has been altered so far is Jyn (and that was simply to clarify her Opportunist ability).

Not the biggest fan of house rules, but it would be fun to get these two on the table more.

A user suggested giving them their reward cards off the start. Not a bad idea!

Biv: Hunt Them Down

Saska: Tech Goggles

I think for Saska that works pretty well, but maybe not for Biv. Their power level would be pretty easy to bump up - for each of them, just decrease the cost of their primary ability by 1 strain, or improve their base stats, or give them some free credits/XP to start (or give them their rewards as you suggested) and they're probably doing quite well.

But I think that, in addition to their lower power level, they just don't feel as good to play as other characters. Their core abilities don't always have a meaningful impact (Biv's CQ attack can do 0 damage before he upgrades it, or Saska's token can end up granting a wasted surge), and they have limited mobility. And their abilities don't feel like they combine effectively - you can buy a bunch of new things to do with Saska's device tokens, but since you can only give out 1 (or later 2) per round, and you have to discard them to use the abilities, using a device token ends up having a high opportunity cost. Biv can get several upgrades for his C&P melee attack, to the point where you kill enemies with the melee attack and end up wasting the ranged attack.

Fixing their power level to make them competitive is probably just a matter of giving them free stats, credits, or XP, but fixing their power level in a way that makes them fun, interesting and cohesive characters is a lot harder.

Edit: Maybe one simple way to make them feel better and be more powerful is just to change the timing of their core abilities - for Biv, let him do the Melee attack of C&P for 2 strain after resolving a ranged attack on an adjacent figure, so he doesn't waste 2 strain if they're defeated by the first attack. And for Saska, let people discard device tokens while attacking to add a surge, so they'll only do it if it's useful. With those changes, all their other abilities might fall into place a little better. I'm not sure though.

12 hours ago, Stompburger said:

Edit: Maybe one simple way to make them feel better and be more powerful is just to change the timing of their core abilities - for Biv, let him do the Melee attack of C&P for 2 strain after resolving a ranged attack on an adjacent figure, so he doesn't waste 2 strain if they're defeated by the first attack. And for Saska, let people discard device tokens while attacking to add a surge, so they'll only do it if it's useful. With those changes, all their other abilities might fall into place a little better. I'm not sure though.

For Biv I think I would prefer your previous idea mentioned earlier in the thread with the following modification. Spend 1 strain to attack with the YR pool dice. If the hostile figure is defeated then so be it. But if the hostile figure survived the YR attack, then spend a second strain to use the ranged attack on it.

One other thing that Saska gets no credit for is that she is actually one of the best characters in the game for non-combat mission objectives. Her 5 speed coupled with her excellence in attribute tests (Token, Tool Kit, Adrenaline Injector gives focus+movement) makes her very strong in this area. I am normally down on situational skills but Tool Kit is completely worth it, I am surprised at how good the skill is. Structural weakness also helps with mission objectives, although I do not typically get that skill as destructible objects show up much less than attribute tests.

One example of where she shines is Moment of Fate in JR campaign.

On 10/28/2017 at 1:40 AM, Deadwolf said:

One other thing that Saska gets no credit for is that she is actually one of the best characters in the game for non-combat mission objectives. Her 5 speed coupled with her excellence in attribute tests (Token, Tool Kit, Adrenaline Injector gives focus+movement) makes her very strong in this area. I am normally down on situational skills but Tool Kit is completely worth it, I am surprised at how good the skill is. Structural weakness also helps with mission objectives, although I do not typically get that skill as destructible objects show up much less than attribute tests.

One example of where she shines is Moment of Fate in JR campaign.

Her 5 speed gets her to a door in 2 moves and she has a pretty strong chance at one shotting the 3 success terminal.

This is a good point. And it leaves room to give her the popular Gageteer+DXR build, so even as a strong objective runner she can still hit pretty hard late in the campaign.