Fria Ligans forum

I´m very interested in the importance of combat in VAESEN and how it works in detail.

Looking at Update #14:

However, Vaesen takes a more traditional approach to conflict and combat compared to Tales from the Loop. In this game, the GM rolls dice for enemies, and you use initiative cards, choose between different actions in combat, and measure distances in zones. If you are unlucky enough to become Broken, things get desperate, you need to roll on the Critical injuries table and can only hope for the best!

On one hand we seems to have conditions instead of hitpoints, so weapons and monster attack are likely to inflict physical or mental condition. Given this every character has the same amount of hitpoint, regardless of being unexperienced servant, hardend hunter or fragile occultist.
Don´t see a big problem in it, human are not that much different in resisting damage as many roleplaying games suggest.
And due to the -1 per condition every hit has a consequence, more than just "oh, 50% hitpoints lost, but who cares...".
BTW: Pushing yourself to hit a vaesen would have the same effect like being hit from it....

But are weapons different in damage or usability? They won´t have different damage rating, but maybe different bonusses.

Regarding actions I could imagine something like movement, ranged attack, melee, dodge, parry, helping, ... like in most YZ games.

But how are the vaesen handled? With regular rules like in Coriolis or with seperate tables like in Forbidden Lands and Aliens. Hoping for the first, vaesen should react less extrem and random.

To be honest, I don't want "Alien 333 years" earlier, but investigation with combat as worst case scenario.

I agree that combat should be the worst case scenario. You should be able to deal with most Vaesen without fighting them, at least not physically. In the tales, most of them can talk and think, and can be reasoned with, even if some tricksters will try to have their ways with people.  
Plus, in the time of the game's setting, Vaesen should be disturbed by the expanding civilization and very fast changes. Maybe helping them instead of fighting them could benefit the players. 
Of course, that doesn't apply to the most agressive ones. 

I suspect for the actual Vaesen they'll have separate rules entirely (and not be solved by violence). But that doesn't mean that sometimes you won't have to fight other people or animals or things in between with more traditional combat rules.

Had to take Things from the Flood up again. Read it about the scars yesterday. Ask myself if they will use them here, too.
Like it, but it's a secure way of losing your character sooner or later.
Will scars and criticals go together?

In my own opinion; I don’t care for the condition tracker at all. Especially with the -1 modification being cumulative. Having played a lot of MYZ, Coriolis, TFTL, TFTF, Forbidden Lands and now Aliens... I have seen the disappointment of rolling fistfuls of dice to have no successes (even when pushing). They post the chance of success table in every resource they print but I and my groups have felt the wrath of true randomness and that chart is useless.

I feel like the addition of the modification brought on by the condition mechanic will make the game much less rewarding/hindering to actually moving the mystery along at a decent pace.

Anyone else have an issue with this or comments with regard to how this mechanic might help or hinder the game outcome?

As long as you remember the prinicple 'Only role if something depends on it' I (and my groups) haven't any problems with the mechanic.
Yes, it sometimes feels 'inkompetent' but everything that is a every day problems will be successful anyway.

I would presume that this quite high chance of failing and the need to decide if you want to push and take the consequences is the most system defining mechanic.

If you and your group loath this core mechanic that much, why don't you just take another system like D20 or Gumshoe and only use the setting?

On the contrary my group an I don’t loathe it at all. It hands down our favorite system. However, each game FL produces has its own twist on the “push” and “damage” mechanic. The YZ system is still in my opinion the best system to play in. But from reading the rules it seems like the mechanic in this game Vaesen seems a little more punishing.  My question was just a curiosity as to if anyone else has experienced or thinks the “conditions” mechanic that sets this game apart from the others has revealed the same opinion. 

For the very first time in the YZE there is a -1 modification being applied to the damage which does not occur with the other games and I was curious as to why it was included.   Could it be that because it is more mystery based like MoTW and you must find the “weakness” before defeating a mystery that the -1 modification rule was used to deter an all out combat?

My hopes was to get some feedback. Not a “if you don’t like there’s the door” response. 

As for the chart: it's not useless, it's an accurate statistical model of your chances. Seems unfair to call it useless just because sometimes it "feels" like someone should have succeeded where they didn't. This is an interesting quirk of YZE games in general because pass/fail on the dice is so binary, you don't get the same experience of having rolled "almost" a success as you might in a d100 system - or at least this is how it's been described to me.

As for damage, while I haven't played Vaesen yet sadly, in theory it's my favorite damage system in YZE. Being hurt as a result of a fight should absolutely be a hindrance. Forbidden Lands had this to a degree with the attribute damage but the Vaesen system is I feel a bit more authentic feeling and in its way simpler. It definitely feels appropriate to the setting.

My hopes was to get some feedback. Not a “if you don’t like there’s the door” response. 

It wasn't meant as door gating. In contrary the YZ-System isn't a holy cow. So it would be legal to just enjoy the really cool settings.

Haven't played Vaesen yet, too, but would go with Embrim, that's it's simular too TflL, where we really liked the conditions. Less as punishment, more a kind of advise how to play your character. Till now it's my favorite, less book keeping than Forbidden Lands and less 'no impact till the sudden critical' like Coriolis.

That makes sense.  I have not played it yet as well. My reaction was just a first impression after my first read through and the wrapping up of a six session Alien RPG game. I may have been hyperbolic about the chart being “useless”. What I should have said maybe was just that true randomness of dice rolls doesn’t well reflect a statistical analysis.  When the Alien RPG game started I had suspected that the addition of the stress die mechanic was going to increase chances of success, as it should. However, pools of 10-12 dice were being cast at regular and coming up with no successes at all. (This is why the -1 cumulative modification/conditions seemed like it could be unbalancing). 

It makes sense that as a play style though that the characters should not be trying to fight the Vaesen but figuring out the Mystery and Weakness.