So I recently pulled together a new playgroup and we are going to be starting a HotE campaign in about a month. I am considering testing out some very small changes to certain heroes and Imperial class decks from the first 4 expansions that I feel were poorly designed such that they are less powerful or interesting to play than the Core box heroes and those from Jabba's Realm and HotE. As a result I either see these heroes/classes played much less often than others or I see playgroups punished when they choose too many of these heroes on the same team and don't realize how much they've handicapped themselves by not including a Core set hero or 2. I have kept the changes isolated to the main hero sheet and starting Imperial class cards so that it's easy for people to immediately see the changes and for me to just print 41x63 mm cards to put over the originals. Here are the changes I was considering:

Biv Bohdrik
Close and Personal, [Special Action], 2 [strain]: Perform a [melee] attack using a [ranged] weapon. Then, perform an additional [ranged] attack.
Deadly Precision: Use while performing an attack or attribute test to reroll 1 of your dice.

C&P now allows Biv to use the dice pool and surge abilities of whatever ranged weapon he has equipped, and also doesn’t lock him into attacking the same target with both attacks. Deadly Precision removes the strain cost and applies to Attribute tests as well to help out with Shake it Off.

Saska Teft
Practical Solutions: When a figure declares an attack, it may discard 1 device token to apply +1 Acc, +1 [damage], and +1 [surge] to the attack results. II While performing an attribute test, a figure with a device token may reroll 1 die.

Practical Solutions now actually provides a bonus that is worth a strain and worth having to discard the token before rolling dice by adding an extra accuracy and damage to the attack. Figures also don’t have to discard device tokens to use them on attribute tests.

Loku Kanoloa
Clear-Minded: While attacking, apply +2 Accuracy and +1 [surge] to the attack results.

Gives Loku a small but much needed offensive boost other than just his Recon tokens and also gives him a way to reliably recover enough strain to use SYS at the end of the turn without having to take a Rest action.

MHD-19
Medical Loadout [Special Action] 3 [strain]: Seach the supply deck…

Medical Loadout no longer requires an action. Allows MHD to more effectively use the healing items that require a Rest action instead of only being limited to small heals with Bacta Infusion and Adrenal Stim and also to be more mobile so the Heroes don’t all have to hover next to him if they need a big heal. Increased strain cost from 1 to 3 to increase the rate that MHD needs to rest and prevent abuse.

Davith
Cloak and Dagger - Ignore additional movement costs when moving through hostile figures while you are Hidden. At the end of your activation, you become Hidden.

The biggest problem with Davith is that most of his abilities rely on him being Hidden and/or using Force Speed, but he doesn't have a reliable way to become Hidden if he loses the condition, and he doesn't get to enjoy the primary benefit of Hidden if he wants to keep the condition. This way Davith can actually use the bonus surge from his Hidden condition on dealing damage and doesn't have to worry about wasting an attack to become Hidden again, and he still retains some of Force Speed's mobility advantages after he gets wounded.

Murne
False Orders [Special Action], 2 [strain]: Choose a non-unique, non-massive hostile figure within 2 spaces. Perform an attack with that figure.

I'm not really sure what people see in Murne. Her 3xp and 4xp abilities are strong, but until that point in the campaign, the restriction on False Orders is so harsh that her only redeeming trait is her Diplomat's Blaster Push ability. The play pattern for Murne always felt all wrong to me, she wants to use her ability on a dangerous enemy but she doesn't actually contribute to defeating that enemy, and she can never target anything that has a better attack than one of her fellow heroes could have at that point in the campaign. Allows False Orders to actually be interesting from the start rather than only being usable on figures that have a weaker attack than the rest of the heroes. Rebalanced by increasing strain cost and not being allowed on villains and massives. She still has to get up close to a dangerous enemy to be able to use it effectively, which usually means spending a 2nd action on a Move.

Inspiring Leadership
Field Officer - Attachment - Guardian, Leader, or Trooper only: You gain the Leader trait. // [Special Action] Improvised Orders: Exhaust this card to choose a friendly figure. That figure may interrupt to perform a move. You gain 3 movement points.

Ties into the flavor of upgrading an average mook into a mid-level villain. Granting the Leader trait helps the card synergize more with other cards in the deck, and bonus movement points help retain action economy.

Precision Training
Strike Force - Attachment: Exhaust this card while an Imperial figure is attacking to reroll 1 attack die. Ready this card at the beginning of each Imperial group's activation.

Remove the attachment clause and make it universal but limited to once per group.

Id like to hear what people think of these changes, if they go too far or not far enough to bringing these heroes up to the level of those in the Core box. Also want these to be simple enough not to intimidate or confuse the couple of new players in the group. I know there are players who think a lot higher of Murne and MHD than I do, but I have always found these heroes to be lackluster because of how restrictive their abilities are. But I erred on the side of caution by increasing the strain cost of their abilities just in case I'm wrong. C&C welcome, I'm curious to see what other people with different campaign experiences think.

I like the idea of buffing some underused hero's and imp class decks. Personal oppinion, Loku and MHD do not need to be buffed. Loku isn't a strictly dps character like Mak, and shouldn't be treated as such. He is a good balance between dps and support. One of my favorite things to do with MHD is to heal allies during a campaign. It makes it really fun when you can heal your allies and use them as meat shields. Also, I'm supprised you chose precision training as a class deck that needed a boost. I think it's an awesome class deck, although the consistency and guaranteed damage makes the game a little less exciting because it really doesn't matter what the rebels role for defense. Everything else looked fun. I really liked the inspiring leadership card edit. That might be one for me to adopt into my own game.

I agree with you on the role that Loku is meant to play and he is actually one of my favorite heroes. If you can make sure that you are using Set Your Sights at the beginning of every activation, I think Loku is solidly in the high B-Tier or low A-tier of heroes. I think the problem that most players have with him is that his 2nd ability is often just blank because enemies that are in Line of Sight are so rarely more than 4 spaces away. Not having a relevant 2nd ability is very punishing when the Loku player is unable to activate Set Your Sights at the beginning of their activation and can make Loku feel very underpowered sometimes. Clear-Minded needs to do something more impactful than just +2 Accuracy. If having a free Tac Display on every attack is too powerful, than maybe it could be changed to a use while attacking ability that can only be used once per activation? I just really like how surges thematically tie into concentration and how it helps Loku remove strain to be able to use SyS just one more time without having to Rest and also how nicely it synergizes with one Loku's abilities, Study of Enemies to allow him to get that crucial Recon token on the target before taking his 2nd action. Or what if Set Your Sights could place Recon tokens on heroes, including Loku, and a buffed Clear-Minded could only be used by Heroes with Recon tokens on themselves?

Precision Training seems to be widely agreed to be one of the worst class decks in the game except for being redeemed by its 4 xp card Find the Weakness. This means that the deck is very boring to play until you hit 4xp, at which point the deck becomes powerful but is still very boring since the ability is passive and requires no thought on the part of the Imperial player. Giving the base reroll ability more chances to be relevant and adding an active ability on top of that means the Imperial player has to think carefully about each roll and when to reroll and when not to as well the best timing to use the pierce ability, which results in a much more engaged Imperial player and should make the deck more fun.

Ya Loku is one of my favorites too. Having 5 speed and 5 endurance is also very underrated I think. I agree the accuracy is not a crazy good ability, although I personally wouldn't change it cause that's just the way I like to play. But if you play through a campaign with him and his modified ability, let me know if it's op or if it works well. I'm interested in the balance there.

1 hour ago, Tvboy said:

I agree with you on the role that Loku is meant to play and he is actually one of my favorite heroes. If you can make sure that you are using Set Your Sights at the beginning of every activation, I think Loku is solidly in the high B-Tier or low A-tier of heroes. I think the problem that most players have with him is that his 2nd ability is often just blank because enemies that are in Line of Sight are so rarely more than 4 spaces away. Not having a relevant 2nd ability is very punishing when the Loku player is unable to activate Set Your Sights at the beginning of their activation and can make Loku feel very underpowered sometimes. Clear-Minded needs to do something more impactful than just +2 Accuracy. If having a free Tac Display on every attack is too powerful, than maybe it could be changed to a use while attacking ability that can only be used once per activation? I just really like how surges thematically tie into concentration and how it helps Loku remove strain to be able to use SyS just one more time without having to Rest and also how nicely it synergizes with one Loku's abilities, Study of Enemies to allow him to get that crucial Recon token on the target before taking his 2nd action. Or what if Set Your Sights could place Recon tokens on heroes, including Loku, and a buffed Clear-Minded could only be used by Heroes with Recon tokens on themselves?

With the +1 damage on Recon tokens Clear Minded always felt like a third ability to me.

Does an extra Recon token seem like too much?

In order for Loku to be both offense and support, he needs to use his Set your Sights ability both at the beginning of his activation so he can actually kill a figure, and at the end of his activation so that his comrades are getting a boost on their turns. When he can do that, he feels like an all-star. But that accounts for 4 out of his 5 strain, 5 out of 5 if using Scouting Report. So on the next turn, Loku is stuck resting and either moving forward or making a completely unboosted attack. Those are the turns where it feels like Loku basically has no abilities. Then he can use SyS on the end of the round, but on the following turn he doesn't get to use the amazing SyS x2 +2 attacks trick again unless he has something like Bacta Pump or gets a lucky attack with an extra surge. When Loku only gets to use SyS at the end of the round, he's only doing half of his job, which makes his player feel like he's just enabling everyone else's fun.

Also note that Loku is squishy and Clear-Minded goes away when he gets wounded, so there's a self-balancing factor there. I think I will go with the idea of buffing Clear-Minded but requiring it to lock down the 2nd Recon token to be used as well as allowing it to be used by an ally with a Recon token.

I think the Precision Training buff would make the deck very powerful, because being able to reroll 1 die on every attack is really strong. That would make it the strongest base ability in the game, even without the exhaust for Pierce 1. So I don't think that's a good fix.

I think the main problem with Precision Training is the threat cost of many of the cards. I think removing the threat cost from every card (and changing the abilities that then don't make sense) would probably make it fair.

I've been working on adjusting certain heroes to bring them up to stuff. Also lowering the potential of some of the S-tier heroes

I think everyone would agree Biv/Saska are the weakest. I also think several characters have very 1 dimensional build paths because the other abilities aren't worth it. Finally there are some S-tier heroes that are oppressive to the IP player and stand above other heroes

As for your changes, any buffs to Biv/Saska are welcomed. for the other heroes, I think the Hoth ones are fine but tend to have 1 build path. Bespin ones have good options, I'm not of the opinion they need tinkering

Working changes here if anyone wants to discuss futher https://boardgamegeek.com/article/25505055#25505055

I have some ideas for Agenda/IP class buffing but I think that isn't as needed since IP can choose their class after seeing rebel makeup and there are a lot of choices.

Thank you for sharing your work. I like some of the changes you've come up with, especially the ones for MHD, although some of the abilities no longer really match their name, like Superior Positioning and Final Stand. I also don't think Biv can ever be successful if you keep his base ability the same. I am personally trying to limit all changes to the base hero sheet for the sake of practicality. A playgroup of new to middling players is going to struggle with grokking a myriad of changes to all the class cards, but 1-2 changes on the base card is easy to digest and minimizes strain on the player to internalize the changes. changing multiple class cards in the I think would be too difficult for the players I'm expecting to work with, but would probably be fine for the PBF crowd on BGG.

I will disagree that Murne and Daviths core abilities are not fine. Davith is crippled when he becomes wounded in ways that other characters aren't even later in the campaign because Cloak and Dagger is a laughably bad ability and one of his key class cards rely on Force Speed (which actually gives me an idea for how to better fix Cloak and Dagger) . Murnes ability when not being used in a mini campaign is also mostly useless until about halfway through the game when she unlocks certain cards cards and can finally control enemies that have a stronger attack than her base weapon.

On 12/6/2017 at 10:27 AM, Stompburger said:

I think the Precision Training buff would make the deck very powerful, because being able to reroll 1 die on every attack is really strong. That would make it the strongest base ability in the game, even without the exhaust for Pierce 1. So I don't think that's a good fix.

I think the main problem with Precision Training is the threat cost of many of the cards. I think removing the threat cost from every card (and changing the abilities that then don't make sense) would probably make it fair.

You're right I was underestimating the power of a reroll. What if it was an exhaust ability that refreshed after each Rebel activation and dropped the pierce ability? Another possibility would be to have the base card produce 1 threat each turn that can only be spent on abilities and agendas, but that gets clunky with bookkeeping.

After playing Davith again on the app, I got a firmer grasp on what the problems were with his base ability and how to solve them, namely that Davith only gets to enjoy the lesser half of the Hidden condition unless he's willing to lose it, and when he does lose it it's extremely tedious and unreliable to get it turned back on. Changing Cloak and Dagger to granting Hidden at the end of his activation means he gets to enjoy 1 bonus surge during each activation, and knows that all of his abilities will be turned on during his next activation as long as he uses them before his first attack. This also makes all of his XP cards more reliable, and Covert Operative is no longer a must-take card, though it's still useful for having that extra surge during the first round and for giving a slight defense buff.

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

After playing Davith again on the app, I got a firmer grasp on what the problems were with his base ability and how to solve them, namely that Davith only gets to enjoy the lesser half of the Hidden condition unless he's willing to lose it, and when he does lose it it's extremely tedious and unreliable to get it turned back on. Changing Cloak and Dagger to granting Hidden at the end of his activation means he gets to enjoy 1 bonus surge during each activation, and knows that all of his abilities will be turned on during his next activation as long as he uses them before his first attack. This also makes all of his XP cards more reliable, and Covert Operative is no longer a must-take card, though it's still useful for having that extra surge during the first round and for giving a slight defense buff.

I like that change; having to sacrifice damage for Hidden is a pretty lousy tradeoff (the defensive buff is okay but the offensive part is pretty bad when you spend a surge on it - it's basically saving a surge for later). You might get a similar effect if you made it "~: +1 damage, Hide" instead.

But that doesn't fix his lack of mobility when wounded. As others have pointed out, Davith has the most dramatic mobility change of any character when he becomes wounded. He loses 1 speed and Force Speed, which basically kills his mobility. He needs some other way of getting movement points besides Force Speed or he's just a liability if he gets wounded.

What if Cloak and Dagger also allowed him to ignore additional movement costs for moving through enemy figures while he's Hidden?

It's hard to give him extra movement points on top of Force Speed which would make him too good when he's healthy, but I think allowing him to ignore enemy figures when moving would be a huge help when wounded to trigger Blindside but wouldn't make him too ridiculously mobile when he's also got Force Speed.

14 hours ago, Tvboy said:

What if Cloak and Dagger also allowed him to ignore additional movement costs for moving through enemy figures while he's Hidden?

It's hard to give him extra movement points on top of Force Speed which would make him too good when he's healthy, but I think allowing him to ignore enemy figures when moving would be a huge help when wounded to trigger Blindside but wouldn't make him too ridiculously mobile when he's also got Force Speed.

What if you made Force Speed a class card, so he doesn't lose it when he's wounded? Maybe you could swap it with Elusive Agent.

In the app, hidden is worthless, stun practically worthless (exception is E-web, Royal Guards, and IG-88).

Many of the problems I have with both Davith and Murne stem from the fact that their class cards are exhaust cards. If you just removed those restrictions they would bring Davith/Murne up to base game hero tiers. Imagine blindsiding two or three units. Using Force Illusion to hide the entire team (at the cost of a rest action). Falling Leaf+Shrouded would give you a tier III weapon at the cost of 5 XP. Murne healing all of an adjacent heroes strain (and remove the f'ing skill checks for her, they are just annoying).

I'd also change force speed to say whenever you use strain to move move up to two spaces. It would give you 4 spaces at the cost of two strain and bring it about up to par with someone like Fenn's 1XP ability.

20 hours ago, Stompburger said:

What if you made Force Speed a class card, so he doesn't lose it when he's wounded? Maybe you could swap it with Elusive Agent.

You cannot without modifying Elusive Agent, because that card exhausts. It's the same reasons why it doesn't work as well as you would hope. If Davith has two attacks he should be able to use EA twice as far as I am concerned.

2 hours ago, mtagge said:

You cannot without modifying Elusive Agent, because that card exhausts. It's the same reasons why it doesn't work as well as you would hope. If Davith has two attacks he should be able to use EA twice as far as I am concerned.

You could just add "Limit once per activation" to Elusive Agent.

9 hours ago, Stompburger said:

You could just add "Limit once per activation" to Elusive Agent.

One could, but my other point is that it is too weak as is. The only reason you would take it in the first place is because the other skill is bad as well.

I'd also change Davith's hide from surge: Hide to surge: After this attack resolves become hidden. This would prevent a dodge from shutting him down.

4 hours ago, mtagge said:

One could, but my other point is that it is too weak as is. The only reason you would take it in the first place is because the other skill is bad as well.

I'd also change Davith's hide from surge: Hide to surge: After this attack resolves become hidden. This would prevent a dodge from shutting him down.

Yeah, Elusive Agent is a little on the weak side. But Davith probably ends up taking it because (as you said) the other skill is not that great and he needs all the strain relief he can get. Maybe (to make it more on par with other 1XP abilities) he can exhaust it (or use it, if you made it his secondary ability) when he becomes hidden to recover 1 strain or move 1 space?

18 hours ago, mtagge said:

In the app, hidden is worthless, stun practically worthless (exception is E-web, Royal Guards, and IG-88).

Many of the problems I have with both Davith and Murne stem from the fact that their class cards are exhaust cards. If you just removed those restrictions they would bring Davith/Murne up to base game hero tiers. Imagine blindsiding two or three units. Using Force Illusion to hide the entire team (at the cost of a rest action). Falling Leaf+Shrouded would give you a tier III weapon at the cost of 5 XP. Murne healing all of an adjacent heroes strain (and remove the f'ing skill checks for her, they are just annoying).

I'd also change force speed to say whenever you use strain to move move up to two spaces. It would give you 4 spaces at the cost of two strain and bring it about up to par with someone like Fenn's 1XP ability.

Why is hidden worthless?

I mean, it's not that great as a defensive condition anyway, but I 've had imperial units miss due to low accuracy in the app as well...

4 hours ago, Mister Egglemon said:

Why is hidden worthless?

I mean, it's not that great as a defensive condition anyway, but I 've had imperial units miss due to low accuracy in the app as well...

Quick question, how many rebels were you running? In a two rebel runthrough it might actually make a difference.

I finished my first app campaign and had literally one shot miss due to accuracy, but that had the shadowsilk cloak add and additional +2 range. The 2nd and 3rd stormtrooper still hit Davith.

The reason I think Hidden is so poor in the app is that unless the unit calls out Davith, they are going to target the closest rebel. With four rebels plus 1-3 allies it is rare that the closest target will be more than 3 spaces away after a move 3 (with a few exceptions immediately after mission triggers are tripped). Add to that the choice to either remain hidden or to kill your target, or a dodge shuts down the hidden condition. Lastly the app gives many units bonuses to compensate for the lack of a human imperial (+1 surge, +2 Accuracy/add an additional green dice to the first attack). Put all those together and the only thing hidden did for me was give me one strain a turn (at a cost of 1XP), perhaps acted as a surge cancel (to offset the Stormtroopers +2 accuracy surge ability).

Frankly Davith just falls short of Gaarkhan on every metric; survivability, mobility, damage output, he's even worse at two out of three skill tests: mechanical (the most common) and strength. Same result when you compare him to Mak, except Mak just can't be targeted plus he has more choice of targets.

Wait, how does Gharkaan have better mobility than Davith? I mean, as an objective runner, Gharkaan is not as versatile as Davith.

As for damage output, I guess Gharkaan has better multi-target damage but as for single target damage, I'd take endgame Mak and Davith over anyone (though I have not tested the Hoth expansion heroes).

For example I don't think endgame Gharkaan can kill an Elite Royal Guard just as easily as endgame Davith unless he uses ferocity or unstoppable (while wounded)

Came back with fresh eyes and saw ways to improve Biv, Saska and Loku.

Biv Bohdrik -
Close and Personal, [Special Action], 2 [strain]: Move up to 1 space, then perform a [melee] attack using a [ranged] weapon. Then, perform an additional [ranged] attack.
Deadly Precision: Use while performing an attack or attribute test to reroll 1 of your dice.

Saska Teft
Battle Technician: [no strain]Use during your activation for you or an adjacent friendly figure to claim 1 device token. Limit once per activation.
Practical Solutions: While a friendly figure with a device token is attacking, apply +1[damage], +1[surge], or +1 acc to the attack results.// While performing an attribute test, a figure with a device token may reroll 1 die.

Loku Kanoloa
Set Your Sights: 2[strain]: Use during your activation to place 1 Recon token on a figure in your line of sight. // While you or a friendly figure is attacking a figure with a recon token, apply +1[damage] and -1[evade] to the attack results.
Clear Minded: While attacking, apply +2 Accuracy to the attack results. If you have not exited your space during this activation, apply +1[surge] and -1[Dodge] to the attack results.

I like the change to Close and Personal (though it may be stepping on Verena's toes a bit )

I think removing the Strain cost for Deadly Precision is good, but it should be limited to once per activation if you do that.

I think Saska's is great. It distinguishes her more from Ko-Tun. But I think you should have to discard the device token to gain the attack buffs, otherwise eventually your whole team gets superpowered for 0 strain. And maybe she should be able to suffer an additional strain to give away another device token?

Loku's is nice too. I like that you've moved the need to have LOS to a figure at the start of his activation from Set Your Sights to Clear Minded.

And here's an update for Murne to make her Figurehead ability much more interesting and thematic:

False Orders [Special Action], 2 [strain]: Choose a non-unique, non-massive hostile figure within 3 spaces. Perform an attack with that figure.
Figurehead: Use when an attack targeting an adjacent friendly figure is declared. If you could be the target of the attack, the attack targets you instead. Limit once per round.

5 hours ago, Stompburger said:

I like the change to Close and Personal (though it may be stepping on Verena's toes a bit )

I think removing the Strain cost for Deadly Precision is good, but it should be limited to once per activation if you do that.

I think Saska's is great. It distinguishes her more from Ko-Tun. But I think you should have to discard the device token to gain the attack buffs, otherwise eventually your whole team gets superpowered for 0 strain. And maybe she should be able to suffer an additional strain to give away another device token?

Loku's is nice too. I like that you've moved the need to have LOS to a figure at the start of his activation from Set Your Sights to Clear Minded.

Good points. I wanted to boost up Saska's other device-discard abilities like Energy Shields and Adrenaline Injection by making it easier to stock-pile tokens, but you may be right that characters may just horde their device token instead for the passive boost. I wanted to make it more like Ko-tun's ability but I didn't want to make Gadgeteer or Remote Distribution redundant. How about this then.

Battle Technician: [1strain]Use during your activation for you or an adjacent friendly figure to claim 2 device tokens. Limit once per activation.
Practical Solutions: When a friendly figure declares an attack or while a friendly figure is attacking, it may discard a device token to apply +1[damage], +1[surge], or +1 acc to the attack results.// While performing an attribute test, a figure with a device token may reroll 1 die.

That should make it easier to stockpile up on device tokens to fuel Saska's other abilities. Also allows Gadgeteer to generate 4 device tokens in a single turn. After giving it some thought, I decided the strain cost needed to come back, especially once she starts giving out 4 devices with Gadgeteer. The weird when/while hybrid timing is so that it can still be used with Power Converter but otherwise be used after dice are rolled.

Converted the ones I was pretty sure about into printable cards for my group to use (if they wish). They fit right over the ability window of the hero sheet and should also fit into small size card sleeves that are used for skirmish command cards.

https://imgur.com/a/zw2eI