While the revised edition balances out several things, I feel like we've still gone one "dud" of an equipment pack (maybe more, but there's only one that really springs out at me.

You trade a constant 1 attack die going from automatic to pistol and lose an extra attack once per game for a +1 initiative boost. Now, as written, an initiative boost is about as likely to help as hurt you. Even assuming you play that the initiative winner gets to pick who goes first, I think that still leaves this as a bad choice.

The other questionable ones I see would be Barry's Command Pack; the initiative boost doesn't quite seem worth losing the battery, though the pistol is better than the knife, and Sergio Ramirez' command pack; again the init boost and 1 CP just isn't as good as the rolling bomb of nastiness.

If Initiative is played as written, however, any initiative bonus is not very useful.

Opinions? Ways to fix Tala's pack?

Seems like her command pack is good for only to replace equipment with bonus tokens.

Smoke screen can be good.

Pistol is meh

and a +1 sucks.

Replace the +1 with something else.

But there are balance issues with the other 2 packs.

Then it would make more sense to take her combat pack and swap out the extra ammo for something else

I find Extra Ammo too useful to remove. especially with a common reich strategy of keeping von Heinzinger clost by at all times with 1 or more characters.

Or to blast those spider bots. (Voivodes)

I find Extra Ammo too useful to remove...

Just to be clear, you take the command pack and swap out the rank, you get a pistol and a smoke grenade.

You take the combat pack and swap out the extra ammo, you get an automatic and a smoke grenade. Pure improvement.

I was thinking a good houserule upgrade to Tala's command pack would be to change the Sergeant to:

Sergeant - Rank

Add +1 to your initiative rolls.

Discard as an action to take a used Grenade or Smoke Grenade and add it to Tala's inventory.

Tala's big thing is supposed to be her genius for improvising explosives, so why not play on that and let her jury-rig an extra grenade out of the materials on hand? Of course, it tends to get her in trouble an undermine her leadership authority, so she loses the normal rank bonus.

Not sure about making a Rank, I think improvising explosives would be more of an Ability, maybe letting you create "on the fly" grenades in exchange of 1 CP...

It already is a rank; I just want to tweak things, not change them too much

At the moment, there's no mechanical effect to 'rank' or 'ability', and I wouldn't bother trying to second guess what there might be later.

The ability you describe might be good, but its a lot harder to figure out how to balance it, and a lot more game changing. I think I'll stick with the simple one for now. Several of Tala's fiction blocks mention getting in trouble/demoted over her non-regulation explosives, so I still think its a good fit.

StormKnight said:

While I do understand your point, I don't agree To me each equipement with the same name must have the same effect. Thus you can't rewrite the "Sergeant" Rank to make it fit Tala backstory as it would confuse it's use with the rank from Barry Command Pack. This is why I prefer making a new ability (or rank, or medal if you prefer)

StormKnight said:

Why then not make it an ability that MUST be taken in place of Tala's Rank. The ability could work like Domina and allow Tala to take an Extra Grenade or Smoke Grenade from the Crate stack before the game start and put it on top of the token on the Character Sheet. It's not that powerfull (simple extra grenade ) and ties in Tala backstory.

Whoops! I messed up typing things from memory - Tala is a Corporal, not a Sergeant, so not the same rank as Barry.

The other Corporal, Ramirez, is a corporal 5th class or something, and has a +2 initiative bonus and a special ability from the rank - so a rank with a special isn't even without precedence.

You can use the houserule you want. I'm sticking with this one

StormKnight said:

I know you'd say that

Still the ability of Corporal 5th Grade is to me part of the quality of being a CPL 5th Grade rather than just part of Ramirez backstory.

StormKnight said:

As far as I'm concerned I don't want to use any house rule with Tala's Pack. It's just that I like to discuss new Token concepts