Haroo the Vast and Bladebreaker, An Epic Aether Knight and Legendary 'Ratus

Yesterday we looked at Harro the Vast and his 'Ratus Bladebreaker fresh out of character generation.  Today I'd like to show one possible version of him from later in an ongoing campaign.  Aether Nexus is (at time of writing) too new a game for anyone outside of the playtesters (and probably not them either) to know what a lengthy campaign plays out like for sure, so this will be entirely theoretical but hopefully of some interest as an example of how a knight will grow and change during play.  The focus here will necessarily be mechanical rather than narrative since I'm not trying to write a novel here.

So, the ground rules:

This writeup assumes roughly a year of steady weekly play, for a total of about 50 sessions.  Going by the book (and my own limited play experience) players should earn an average of 4-5 AP per session, which amounts to 225 AP over a year.  Some of that would get spent on the group's skyship, so let's assume we've got a flat 200 AP left to spend on Haroo personally.

We'll leave the skyship for later, but for simplicity I'm going to assume A) the Nexus doesn't have a Hauler (which modifies costs all over the place) and B) whatever ship they do have gets a Ringbounder Court bought early on (because it makes spending AP on Bonding twice as efficient, as well as making Boons a bit cheaper).  That particular component really should be a priority for everyone, and it's going to affordable for a 4-5 player group on your first respite.  It's that good, you really do want cheap Energy improvement ASAP.  

You'll probably get a respite less than once per session overall, but they're still fairly common so lets call it 30 individual chances to spend AP.  This mostly only matters for Bonding (because it's cheap and can be done with a single other respite action) so the max Energy increase would be 60 if you spent on it every time (and would only be 30 for the same AP cost without Ringbounder Court - see what I mean?).   

We're also going to assume that Haroo survives and isn't horribly mauled by battle scars from becoming fallen too many times.  That's potentially overoptimistic, but if anyone's going to make it through 50 sessions essentially intact it'll probably be the war-frog driving a giant ball of armor.  :)

Haroo the Vast and Bladebreaker (Epic Form - 200 AP)

Knight: Haroo     Kin: Buforog     Frame: Bastion     Moniker: Bladebreaker

Stone	Flux	Aether	Hearth
15	14	10	12
Energy	Armor Die	Damage Die	Nexus Die
42	D12 + 6	D6	D8

Aspect Improvements:

• Stone +1
• Flux +2
• Hearth +2

Augments: 

• Adjunct Limbs (Extra Armament) - You have four weapon slots instead of two, and gain either two weapons or a weapon and a shield to fill the extras.  In addition, you can benefit from two shields instead of one.
• Adjunct Limbs (Grappler) - As a Strike, test Stone.  If successful, you and an engaged foe become rooted until the end of your next turn, and you gain favor on all tests made against them.
• Bristle Plate (Ironclad) - When you roll 1 on an Armor Die, you may choose to reroll it.
• Bristle Plate (Razorshell) - When you take damage from an engaged foe, you can choose to deal damage to that foe with your Armor Die rather than reduce damage.
• Koradium Heart (Machine Soul) - When you roll despair on a test, you may choose to reroll that test but must take the second result.
• Koradium Heart (Upgraded Pod) - Permanently increase you maximum Nexus Die to a d8.
• Mycodrium Coating (Fungal Regeneration) - At the end of your turn, if you took damage since your last turn, you can roll your Nexus Die to upgrade your Armor Die (maximum d12).
• Mycodrium Coating (Funnel Life) - As an Activation, roll your Armor Die and regain that much Energy. 

Bonding:

• +26 Energy

Boons:

• Companion: Ember-Hound - You are accompanied by a lupine creature engulfed in flames.  Your ember-hound increases your maximum Energy by 4.  In addition, you gain a +2 to damage rolls while on-foot.
• Dash Strike - If you end your movement engaged with a foe, you can test Flux.  If you succeed, deal 1d6 damage to an engaged foe and stagger them.
• Firesinger - As an Interaction, you can end ongoing damage on an engaged knight.  In addition, as an Interaction, you can test Hearth; on a success, end the burning peril in a span.
• Vinecaller - As an Interaction, test Stone.  On a success, an engaged or adjacent foe becomes rooted.
• Windwhisperer - As an Interaction, you can test Flux.  On success, choose an engaged or adjacent foe or knight and move them to a span adjacent to them.

Frame Abilities:

• Bulwark - As an Activation, become fortified.  This effect lasts until you take a Maneuver or roll your Nexus Die.  In addition, while fortified, you can use an Interaction to make an engaged knight fortified. 
• Guardian - When an engaged knight would take damage, you can choose to roll your Armor Die to absorb damage for them.

Kin Ability: 

• Unkillable - If you would take damage, you can roll your Nexus die and reduce the damage by the result.

Nexus Surge: 

• Combined Assault - Choose an engaged knight.  You each immediately make a free attack with favor on the roll; on a success you each automatically deal max damage.

Weapons:  

• Axe - After rolling one damage, reroll the Damage Die and add it.
• Dismantle - As an Activation, become d6 Legion Die; return to weapon and equip as an Activation.
• Blade - Deal critical damage on rolls of 1 or 2.
• Sweep - As a Strike, test Stone.  On success, deal 2 damage to each engaged foe.
• Whip - After dealing damage, test Flux to impose shaken on foe.
• Cannon - On hit, you may deal max damage, but downgrade Nexus Die after.
• Sniper - No hindrance to attack distant foes
• Two Tower Shields - Each adds +3 to Armor Die rolls, tests made to retreat are hindered.

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Design Notes:

Lot more on that character sheet now than before, but still pretty manageable if you'd been growing into it naturally over the course of a year's weekly play.  Out of the arbitrary 200 AP the spending was split up like this:

Aspect Improvements - 50

Augments - 68

Bonding - 26 (spent over 13 respites, and would be only +13 without Ringbounder Court)

Boons - 20 (thanks to Ringbounder Court discount)

Weapons - 36 (forged a new blade, added four qualities)

That used at least 21 respites worth of time, plus 13 bonus actions while bonding.  Whether it would actually work in practice I'm not 100% sure, depends on how the respites are spaced out relative to AP influx.  In practice you might be forced into more lower cost boons or forging spare weapons over time (which can be helpful if you have bad luck with critical hits breaking them) but without more table time I'm not positive.  Maybe I'll get back to this next year about that.

It's possible you'd want better aspects by this point, but they are a very heavy investment whose impact is pretty limited unless you're using them a frequently (which mostly means Stone and Flux for combat rolls, but Haroo does have a Hearth-based boon so I bumped that one a couple of points since it was his weakest aspect in the starting array, and also because it's the defense stat for some nasty exotic attacks and the burning peril.  Ongoing damage is a strain on your Armor Die that you don't need, and your Firesinger boon clears it off allies, not yourself - as well as potentially putting out that peril entirely.

His augments are essentially done at this point, and feed into one another to let him selectively choose to take damage from engaged foes to deal large amounts of damage back with Razorshell while defending with Unkillable if necessary.  Most of his damage output comes from that kind of counterpunching trick, and his offense is geared more toward messing with enemy efficiency than dealing raw damage.

Haroo's boons were chosen so they don't stress his Nexus die (which you'll want for Unkillable when counterpunching), and mostly provide utility tricks.  Don't underestimate the value of Dash Strike though - it's practically free damage and stagger on a foe, and your defenses and Energy let you practically ignore Opportune attacks even if you can't actually Retreat worth a darn.  You might even want to provoke those free swings to get even more damage out of Razorshell in response, since trading 1d6 or 1d8 damage from a foe (possibly blocked by Unkillable) to automatically deal 1d12+6 or more back is a win for the Nexus.  Intelligent foes might just skip attacking and get out of your way...

Weapons are the area where Haroo probably has the most growth potential, since maxing out your quality options is very expensive when you've got four weapons and a backup to work with.  Going forward he'd likely add Hovering to his shields and use the freed slots to add Heavy to his cannon, and to his blade-whip with the skyship's quartermaster's Signature Steel trick that lets one weapon have three qualities.  It's worth noting that the trick with adding Dismantle to a spare weapon that you'll never use normally is a dandy way to spend 12 AP for almost any 'Ratus, although an Ettercap (which generates d4 Legion Dice like mad already) might not bother.  You could even theoretically splurge and get a spare or two if you have the AP to spare, but swapping in fresh ones as the old d6 Legion Dice burn out would be fiddly and action intensive.          

So, after a theoretical year of steady play Haroo and Bladebreaker are much more imposing, but they've still got plenty of room to grow.  Aside from addomg weapon qualities, Haroo is pretty sad at operating on-foot, which calls for a greater investment in boons (certainly Titanslayer) and possibly finding another 20 AP for the Aetherweave Tether augments.  He could also use more Nexus-helper boons like Memento Mori, and RP boons like Cipher or Spirit Tome, and raising his aspects further wouldn't hurt any, particularly that shabby Aether score to make some boons more useful.  He's also much more effective against melee foes than dedicated shooters, although Bastion frames have such easy access to fortified that weathering even the most ridiculous firestorm isn't hard. He just won't be hitting back as hard as he'd like, even with Legion Dice and maybe some help from a teammate with a Flame Culverin.    

It's nice to know that even after 50 sessions the game still has plenty of room for growth, although I suspect the GM is going to need to do some nastier custom foes to challenge epic knights - or use a whole lot of Legion Dice.  Or both.  By comparison, Mecha Hack (much as I like it) hits level 10 pretty fast unless you get a TPK, and once you're there it's kind of time to move on, either with a new group or a new game.  Aether Nexus has far more customization options and is free from level based caps, but pays for it with some added complexity.