Both me (the GM) and my players (group of 3) have been enjoying playing HELLPIERCERS! Lots of interesting stuff to do and I lvoe how much interaction the players have with the map and such. Overall there have only been a couple points of confusion about how something should be ruled or how something is intended to function that we could not simply rule ourselves through flavour or preferred way somethign should work (the benefits of being a TTRPG!) so I only have a couple questions/thoughts so far
Swarms move much much slower than their individuals alone, is this intended? I have been keeping units separate as they move across a map and then combining them when close enough players but with how ubiquitous Breaker is I have also just started keeping them separate even when close enough to attack. Am I missing something?
Blazing seems bad if it only applies to the swarm as a whole once instead of once per tile of the swarm. Is it intended to discourage a swarm breaking up during the turn it has blazing?
Simultaneous Pull from Attractors etc. we have been doing whatever order is favoured but in situations where a unit is wedged between two void attractors should they fall into one or should the simultaneous pull cancel each other out?
Does the Sharur limit break remove the other Sharur user’s attractor tiles? We have to people using the Sharur armor and have not been removing the tiles on the non-limit breaking HELLPIERCER but rules-as-written it seems like we should be?
The 7 movement base on Malakbel has been very strong. I get that the other base classes can move fast under certain conditions but the Kushiel player has been struggling to keep up with 7+4 diagonal movement from a Malakbel user using their Aux action to sprint. The Asmodel user is having fun building speed though. With using the Aux action to move as well it seems any base speed above someone/something is quite significant.
Should a player moving away from a swarm they are adjacent to multiple tiles of take a Provoke hit per tile of the swarm they were next to? If they were surrounded on 3 sides by a swarm and moved away should they take 3d6 damage or 1d6?
Theletus’ Ice-In-The-Veins has no AGNOSIA effect? Is this intended even though they have an AGNOSIA health trigger?
When someone uses the She Speaks The Language of Kings Active are they dealing half the maximum damage or do they roll and apply half the roll?
When an AUTOPHYES Harvester uses its Agnosia effect do the two new entities get a turn that round or do they have to wait for a new round? Same question for newly spawned units from spawners
There are no map hazards listed in the book? The GM STRATCOM Actions mentions ‘building an unlocked map hazard’ but I cannot see where any are listed except for the Devolution that the SYNCRASIS faction can use. Am I missing where they are?
Knowing what units I have access to for each faction has required a bit of work to reverse engineer by looking through what gets unlocked by their unlocks. This has also led to me accidentally using units they should not have access to yet!
I don't want this to be me moaning the whole time so I am also going to say:
Can't think of any other game doing what you are making! I can see the vision so clearly and I love how it is all coming together to feel like I am running an XCOM game. The STRATCOM stuff is fantastically designed and I love that the players have a tech tree that they are thinking about. I understand that some of the times I have found something a bit tricky to track or parse is, in a large part, because what the game is asking of me is so different to other games in the space. I have so muh respect for that.
Even though we are just in the beginner stuff, players have unlocked equipment and limit breaks but not much else, the stuff the players can do has already had them thinking hard and working out fun and interesting ways to use them. Attractor zones have been a big hit, my Asmodel user is always looking for a way to get a full straight line movement, Kushiel user loves finding ways to ping pong and recoil to get out and around places, Harpe traps etc. etc. it all just got the brain juices flowing and I put that down to some really excellent design work on your end.
The baseline rules and the quality of the setting writing are already enough for me to feel like I am able to make some really interesting encounters. I could only make stuff I felt good about because of what you put out so thank you for that!