Sequential Score, party participation and XP

[Dr_NANO]

Hi guys

Just ran a mini mission last night for two of my players in order to get a feel for the rules. They used two of the pregenerated characters Ronin (Ex Corp Samurai) and Briggs (Heavy weapons dude). They had to storm a terrorist safe house with many combatants so it was mostly combat.

Briggs has 21+1d10 and Ronin has 48+2d10 in sequential score. This led to Ronin dominating combat because he had so many turns. For example Ronin managed to deliver six hits and kill 3 surprised enemies while Briggs managed to fire at one enemy. The Briggs player felt that was really unsatisfactory. It seems like you can do a lot in CONTACT to get a high Sequential Score, and I do not know what is better in a turnbased RPG than getting more turns. Ronin also has the C.R.E. biomod which gives like 5 Re,1 Pe and +1d10 Seq Score. I think that is maybe a little too good?

My question is: Is this the way it is supposed to be? And have you guys had fun with playing it like that?

Also XP becomes an issue. When you test your skils more during a combat, you level them up faster. After our game night Ronin had leveled his armed melee up (and then some) and Brigs had used Heavy weapons three times. So there is also an inequality in experience gain which I think is dangerous.

Has any of you guys said that Seq Score can not be higher than X in character generation? I think maybe 30+1d10 could be a good maximum starting Seq Score.

I would love to hear your experiences with Seq Score, if you have any.

[SirDamnALot]

Hi Dr_NANO,

yes, the sequence value is dominating the battlefield, which is good to quickly neutralize threats (Aliens hit hard! ) but may be grating for the slower players at the table.
You could adjust your team composition to match sequence values (and adjust mission difficulty) or change the mission design to give more things to do than just shoot. (infiltrating, investigating, etc)

In our game we switched to a mashup of Contact sequence and Shadowrun initiative rules. You loose some fine control, but everyone gets to do (and shoot ) something earlier.

About XP:
- The XP gain for "leveling" combat skills is reduced, compared to non-combat skills.
- you can train skills at your base in the "off-time".
- high intelligence is also good for quick leveling, your field scientist will overtake your gun bunnies sooner or later