Alternate Core Documents

[Viewing_Glass]

Or they could take Egghead and gain 2 extra skill points a level or take Hit the Deck and negate half of all explosives damage starting at level 1 or take Jus’ buck it an’ it’ll be fine! and ignore jamming 75% of the time when it would normally occur.

The point isn't that those choices aren't effective, it's that they're not EP exclusive.

Actually, Jus’ buck it an’ it’ll be fine! is EP exclusive.

The unicorn could totally ignore their magic, but in return they give up that Niche Protection you were talking about. As for being able to spell cast freely...well, let's just say that the Strain Mechanic works quite well to keep a Unicorn from spellcasting freely. Some of the spells need to be tightened up, and I am working on that. And while being able to go twice as fast as anyone else, unless you are a melee/unarmed fighter, it generally isn't that big of a concern considering that range increments are in feet while movement is in yards.

Strain scales up as you level. A level 10 unicorn with 5 END and 3 potency can cast Restoration 20 times to heal 24HP per shot, giving him basically 400 extra HP in between combats without spending a single spellcasting perk. Even flight rank one gives a gunfighter the ability to lift out of melee range and therefore attain immunity to hand-to-hand combat. These are strategic edges that far outweigh the extra +2 DT.

Actually, they can cast it 30 times, healing 23 HP a shot for a total of 690 HP in between combats. This is nice, but how much of that healing will only be applied to the unicorn? Judging by the numbers I am getting from other groups about the amount of healing supplies/green herbs that they are finding, those 30 times will be split among the group. By removing any focus on their magic, the unicorn only has the horn jousting perks available to them. A pegasus with flight 1 certainly can get out of melee combat easy...unless the opponent has flight. And that movement won't get them out of range of a rifle, which can quite easily take out the pegasi's wing and drop them to the ground, possibly killing them. Meanwhile, the EP that spent that extra perk on gaining an extra 2 DT is weathering the battle better than either of his friends.

Alright. If you think its underdeveloped, how do we develop it further?

I made a thread?

It's not what you have to go with, but you could try rebutting assertions made in the thread.

Actually, the system you suggested does not help refine Mechanics or Invention. As Dimestream pointed out, it increased perk bloat and adds a new mechanic to the game. All it does is provide a system wherein an Earth Pony can go forth and make stuff out of random things around them...until, as Dimestream pointed out, they run out of Invention Points and can no longer be clever for the rest of the day.

Actually, its quite true. I've seen players get overshadowed and been the player overshadowed in both RP and Mechanics (try playing a social character in a game that's a dungeon crawl sometime, or a combat-focused character in a game that's about politics). The GM is the ultimate control over whether or not a player will be overshadowed. While mechanics can help prevent a character from being overshadowed sometimes. it will never prevent a given character from being overshadowed.

I am of the theory that every character should be designed to have something to do in physical, mental and social situations so that they're never left sitting uselessly.

I enjoy that theory as well. However, with the limited skill set of the current system, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, for this to occur. My Twilight Sparkle Style-Unicorn has base 100 in Survival, Medicine, and Science. However, with a one-trick pony (Eldritch Knives) Unicorn (and science is his special talent), that means he also has a 115 in science. Our Earth Pony Mechanic has 75 in Science as well. Our One-Trick Unicorn is approaching a 100 in Medicine, while our Earth Pony mechanic is also putting points into Medicine.

Now Kkat has done a wonderful job of making sure that each character has something to do. We have seen parallel hacking against a spirit of machines, my unicorn has spent his time performing surgery after an attack on a settlement we interrupted (had to do it strictly with the medicine skill. Teleporting a group of 6 ponies around takes up a TON of strain, as it should). However, there are still times where I hardly make a roll or input much at all. Kkat is an absolutely fantastic GM, but there are some situations we are in where my character just can not help, and that is no fault of hers.

Actually, some people do, others don't. I know several people who don't like the current implementation of the Cybersuite perks, as they are the only perks that also give the player a penalty. But that is a discussion for a different time.

Currently the EP niche is they make better cyborgs. If that's not even consistently applied then, well, then their niche is that they have one extra perk.

...Except the EP niche is they are the best specialists. The cyborg bit just enforces that.

Bolded for our benefit.

I am arguing against the point that the supposed EP ability to 'create schematics' is so easily stolen by other pony races that it may as well not even be an ability.

The ability for an EP to create schematics is with the skill related to their special talent. Everyone else has to use Science to create a schematic, or Medicine, or Survival (for the purposes of making an alchemical schematic). No one else is stealing that from Earth Ponies, as this was never solely given to Earth Ponies in the first place.

However, if what worries you about what to allow players to invent will break the game, then perhaps we need a guide to inventing in general.

[TyrannisUmbra]

2. It goes against both MLP and FOE canon and flavor.

What? No it doesn't. Applejack comes up with that complex unfolding cart thing, with multiple moving parts, offscreen in Best Night Ever. All the weird industrial machinery the CMC deals with. All of Pinkie Pie's random, temporary inventions. It's just as supported by evidence, and if it's not, a lot of the evidence concocted is after-the-fact justification for what people already think.

Flim and Flam are unicorns, and have their tech that's miles ahead of anything we've seen an EP use in the show.

Also, I think you're not understanding what people are saying when they're telling you that EPs have the most perks and perk choices of any race. They have the most wide variety of racial perks to suit all your needs out of any race, things that unicorns and pegasi /physically can't take/. You can't have a unicorn be better than an EP at what an EP specializes in because the unicorn can't take the EP-exclusive racial perks that give them their amazing specialization. This doesn't even count the cyberpony perks at all as being EP-specific. Even discounting them, EPs have the single largest selection and widest variety of perks in the game.

From my experience playing the game (5 groups totaling somewhere along the lines of 150+ sessions, with extensive experience as each of the pony races), EPs are not in any way, shape, or form "lacking" in terms of racial benefits. They could use that little extra flair, but if you want to be all gung-ho about "fixing" a race, you should spend your time making buffalo (Which is an official race listed as playable in the Revised Ruleset document, and has literally only two benefits to playing one: Free Large Frame and ability to use Shamanism. They have no perks and no unique mechanics at all.) unique and interesting.

Based on established MLP and FoE canon, EPs should, if anything, have some kind of "Inner Focus" mechanic, that allows them to spend energy performing superpony feats (most commonly, in game terms, boosting skill or SPECIAL checks, but also open to other methods of use). You could even work your proposed invention mechanics into it, since a superpony ability to make things /work/ when by all accounts it should fall apart into little pieces would fall right under the jurisdiction of said Inner Focus mechanic.

[Dimestream]

What? No it doesn't. Applejack comes up with that complex unfolding cart thing, with multiple moving parts, offscreen in Best Night Ever. All the weird industrial machinery the CMC deals with. All of Pinkie Pie's random, temporary inventions. It's just as supported by evidence, and if it's not, a lot of the evidence concocted is after-the-fact justification for what people already think.

Actually that's exactly what I'm talking about. Applejack is an exemplar of Earth Pony magic working great. She doesn't jury rig that cart out of nowhere. That right there was assembled, decorated, and intended for professional use. Invented for a purpose, and built sturdily enough to deal with the tomfoolery of that episode. Pinkie Pie is... well, Pinkie Pie. Her randomness is a power all its own, and shouldn't really need justification. But this is intended to be about the mechanics of innovation and invention. Back to it.

Uh, Rainbow Dash can run out of backflips according to this system and Twilight Sparkle can run out of magic. Welcome to the FOE system.

Yes. And you can run out of bullets or cans of beans. That point isn't 'you can run out,' it is that you shouldn't be able to 'run out' of what is effectively a character trait, not a spell or an item, or a clever bit of magical wind manipulation. And there's no need to snipe. We're all working together to try and improve the system.

Add a horn to an EP and nothing of value is lost. Everything that they can do can be done by another pony.

Except for optimize weapons and armor above and beyond normal perfection, use a skill OTHER than Science to create an invention, count as more than one pony at once for work purposes, gain deeper understanding and insight into prewar tech than anyone else, create items with drastically reduced chances of breaking down, create optimized robotic companions, and restructure their own bodies into the ultimate tool or weapon. Aside from those things? Don't know, mate. You've kind of got me there.

If your GM says you can?

Isn't that what all rules boil down to at the end of the day? If you're looking for a stick to beat your GM with and say "I CAN DO THIS NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY BECAUSE IT IS IN THE RULES" then you are preaching to the wrong choir. Nobody wants to deal with that, especially not GMs.

Urgh, stop using this fallacy. I, as a GM, have no idea what inventions I should allow and reject because I don't know what'll break the game. I want a frame of reference to lean on.

I have no idea what you are referring to as a fallacy. There's more than one school of thought on how an RPG is to be run. If you're using ye olde schoole idea that a GM is supposed to try to fight his players at everything, every step of the way, and do his best to kill them, then yes. I suppose your GM could just say "rocks fall, you take... all of your HP in damage. You are now dead." But that's not really fun, is it? The primary purpose of a PNP game is to have fun, not to win. You want to 'win,' go play Battleship or Halo or something.

However, if you're looking for an opportunity to have a good time with mutually creative cooperative storytelling, that's what a PNP game is for.

[Dimestream]

Oh, and on a side note, that's what experimenting is for! If you find out that a gun that shoots explosive bullets is a little bit overpowered, tell the player to nerf the stats you gave it earlier. If you think a flying car might be abuseable, let the PCs build it and try it out. If they do stupid unbalanced things with it, you can always blow it up. And if not, they have a nifty flying car that they're proud of, and feel good for being clever enough to have thought of it in the first place. Happy players, happy GM. Everyone wins.

[Thanqol]

Actually, they can cast it 30 times, healing 23 HP a shot for a total of 690 HP in between combats. This is nice, but how much of that healing will only be applied to the unicorn? Judging by the numbers I am getting from other groups about the amount of healing supplies/green herbs that they are finding, those 30 times will be split among the group. By removing any focus on their magic, the unicorn only has the horn jousting perks available to them. A pegasus with flight 1 certainly can get out of melee combat easy...unless the opponent has flight. And that movement won't get them out of range of a rifle, which can quite easily take out the pegasi's wing and drop them to the ground, possibly killing them. Meanwhile, the EP that spent that extra perk on gaining an extra 2 DT is weathering the battle better than either of his friends.

2DT is 2DT, man. You would have to get shot over 1000 times in a single day to get more mileage out of it than an extra 500 hitpoints.

Your arguments against the strategic advantages of flight are silly. With one perk you've made yourself immune to Radscorpions, Hellhounds, and most flavours of Ghoul. A wing is no easier target than a leg or a head.

Actually, the system you suggested does not help refine Mechanics or Invention. As Dimestream pointed out, it increased perk bloat and adds a new mechanic to the game. All it does is provide a system wherein an Earth Pony can go forth and make stuff out of random things around them...until, as Dimestream pointed out, they run out of Invention Points and can no longer be clever for the rest of the day.

So, the objections are:
- No new perks because Perk Bloat
- No new mechanics because (???)
- This mechanic is bad because you can run out of points

Seriously, what else you got? We can fix the Perk Bloat problem right now by culling a bunch of useless perks from the game, like the one that lets you stand up slightly faster. Implementing this would let us cull swathes of the EP list too.

...Except the EP niche is they are the best specialists. The cyborg bit just enforces that.

What they get that makes them good at specialization is +2 DT and +1d10 damage. C'mon, let's not wax romantic about how great those abilities are, especially given the range of other perks available at that level. An Earth Pony medic specialist won't do better at it than a unicorn medic specialist, and in terms of guns and violence they're exactly the same save that one perk disadvantage. That's not being the best specialist, that's just being a unicorn with an extra perk.

For example, one of the biggest limitations on grenades for an EP is their very short range, forcing lots of AP to be spent moving to the target. With even Flight Rank 1 the EP can reduce huge amounts of that cost. In addition to bypassing all kinds of strategic obstacles.

The ability for an EP to create schematics is with the skill related to their special talent. Everyone else has to use Science to create a schematic, or Medicine, or Survival (for the purposes of making an alchemical schematic). No one else is stealing that from Earth Ponies, as this was never solely given to Earth Ponies in the first place.

However, if what worries you about what to allow players to invent will break the game, then perhaps we need a guide to inventing in general.

The ability to create a schematic based off my Barter or Speech skill is of profoundly dubious use.

[Thanqol]

Also, I think you're not understanding what people are saying when they're telling you that EPs have the most perks and perk choices of any race. They have the most wide variety of racial perks to suit all your needs out of any race, things that unicorns and pegasi /physically can't take/. You can't have a unicorn be better than an EP at what an EP specializes in because the unicorn can't take the EP-exclusive racial perks that give them their amazing specialization. This doesn't even count the cyberpony perks at all as being EP-specific. Even discounting them, EPs have the single largest selection and widest variety of perks in the game.

I understand perfectly what people are saying. I'm just saying you're wrong.

"The most perks" means one extra perk, singular. "The most perk choices" means little when all the base perks are so excellent and competitive and the EP perks are barely distinguishable and not notably better than all the base perks available at the same level.

+10 to (unbalanced) battle saddles? +2 to avoid falling down? Slightly less chance to jam your gun? C'mon.

From my experience playing the game (5 groups totaling somewhere along the lines of 150+ sessions, with extensive experience as each of the pony races), EPs are not in any way, shape, or form "lacking" in terms of racial benefits. They could use that little extra flair, but if you want to be all gung-ho about "fixing" a race, you should spend your time making buffalo (Which is an official race listed as playable in the Revised Ruleset document, and has literally only two benefits to playing one: Free Large Frame and ability to use Shamanism. They have no perks and no unique mechanics at all.) unique and interesting.

Fixing EPs is relevant to me because I'm using EP mechanics for the Bears, so I'm kinda killing two birds with one stone.

And hey, if I am granted authority From On High to fix the buffalo I will come up with a full shamanism system for ya's. But I ain't gonna put that effort in on the off chance that you guys happen to like it; I want a written mandate that gives me leave to do what I want.

Based on established MLP and FoE canon, EPs should, if anything, have some kind of "Inner Focus" mechanic, that allows them to spend energy performing superpony feats (most commonly, in game terms, boosting skill or SPECIAL checks, but also open to other methods of use). You could even work your proposed invention mechanics into it, since a superpony ability to make things /work/ when by all accounts it should fall apart into little pieces would fall right under the jurisdiction of said Inner Focus mechanic.

Sure. Put your bits where your hooves are and throw up a design document, I'll help troubleshoot it.

[Viewing_Glass]

Actually, they can cast it 30 times, healing 23 HP a shot for a total of 690 HP in between combats. This is nice, but how much of that healing will only be applied to the unicorn? Judging by the numbers I am getting from other groups about the amount of healing supplies/green herbs that they are finding, those 30 times will be split among the group. By removing any focus on their magic, the unicorn only has the horn jousting perks available to them. A pegasus with flight 1 certainly can get out of melee combat easy...unless the opponent has flight. And that movement won't get them out of range of a rifle, which can quite easily take out the pegasi's wing and drop them to the ground, possibly killing them. Meanwhile, the EP that spent that extra perk on gaining an extra 2 DT is weathering the battle better than either of his friends.

2DT is 2DT, man. You would have to get shot over 1000 times in a single day to get more mileage out of it than an extra 500 hitpoints.

Your arguments against the strategic advantages of flight are silly. With one perk you've made yourself immune to Radscorpions, Hellhounds, and most flavours of Ghoul. A wing is no easier target than a leg or a head.

Radscorpions you are immune to, as well as Feral Ghouls with the flight perks. However, Hellhounds don't solely rely on their claws that ignore DT. They carry Magical Energy Weapons, and are nasty shots with them. And the wing is only a -20 to hit...something easily countered with the Precise Shot action and a Perception of 7. I'm not saying that the 1 perk, on its lonesome, makes up for flight or having basic spells (especially when you are limiting it to Tough Hide, which gives +2 DT and +1 Stun Resist. There are such better perks below level 4). I am saying that, if each character chooses to completely ignore their racial perks in favor of general perks, then the extra perk the EP gains actually gives them an edge of the other races. Since perks are an extremely limited resource, then that extra perk comes in handy. Of course, this is my opinion from playing an EP. Your mileage may vary.

Actually, the system you suggested does not help refine Mechanics or Invention. As Dimestream pointed out, it increased perk bloat and adds a new mechanic to the game. All it does is provide a system wherein an Earth Pony can go forth and make stuff out of random things around them...until, as Dimestream pointed out, they run out of Invention Points and can no longer be clever for the rest of the day.

So, the objections are:
- No new perks because Perk Bloat
- No new mechanics because (???)
- This mechanic is bad because you can run out of points

Seriously, what else you got? We can fix the Perk Bloat problem right now by culling a bunch of useless perks from the game, like the one that lets you stand up slightly faster.

Actually, my objections, as I have listed them before (along with several others):

• Limiting Player Options
• Limiting GM Options
• Potentially unbalancing creations (this last one can easily be worked on).
• Goes against the lore of the world (Earth Ponies, by themselves, did not create Power Armor or Pipbucks. It was a cooperative effort between the Ministry of Wartime Technologies and the Ministry of Arcane Sciences (Power Armor) and took them over a year to do it, and Stabletech created the Pipbucks with the assistance of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences, which took them an unknown amount of time. But, it took at least a year or more.

The last point is the largest one. It shows that the best of the Earth Pony Inventions were not created solely by Earth Ponies. It was created as a group effort between Earth Ponies and their friends.

...Except the EP niche is they are the best specialists. The cyborg bit just enforces that.

What they get that makes them good at specialization is +2 DT and +1d10 damage. C'mon, let's not wax romantic about how great those abilities are, especially given the range of other perks available at that level. An Earth Pony medic specialist won't do better at it than a unicorn medic specialist, and in terms of guns and violence they're exactly the same save that one perk disadvantage. That's not being the best specialist, that's just being a unicorn with an extra perk.

For example, one of the biggest limitations on grenades for an EP is their very short range, forcing lots of AP to be spent moving to the target. With even Flight Rank 1 the EP can reduce huge amounts of that cost. In addition to bypassing all kinds of strategic obstacles.

Actually, an Earth Pony Medical Specialist is the best In-combat healer in the game. Healer of Mother Earth provides that Earth Pony with an extra 4d10 of healing with ANY healing item they use. And, the healing from that Potion is instantaneous, unlike a unicorn. The only problem an Earth Pony has is Magical Energy Damage, but that is taken care of with a Super Restoration Potion, a cyberfetish OR (and this only works for damage that does not cripple a limb from magical energy damage) the Earth Pony Medic can cut away the warped and damaged area and then heal it up afterwords. Its a bit of risky surgery, but a specialized Earth Pony Medic can do it easily. In terms of guns and violence, I will redirect you to Jus’ buck it an’ it’ll be fine!, Rooted, and Ah’ fixed it!. Should we expand this list all the way up to level 10, we can include Adrenaline Rush, Blazing Saddle, Strong Buck, Bombermare/buck and Steady Grip.

Grenades are a problem for everyone, not just for EP. Sure, a Pegasus has a bit of an easier time using them than any other pony, but remember that the area you can throw a grenade is 10+STR in yards. An EP with a 5 STR who is skilled with Explosives (Like my Earth Pony, for instance), can easily toss a grenade at any target within 15 yards, or 45 feet. If she takes a dose of Buck, that range increases to 51 feet. She can now, reliably, throw that grenade at anyone within Short Range. And then don't forget the AOE distance! Combine it with Bombermare, and she gets to roll twice.

Of course, she could just use the APGR she has. It has medium range.

The ability for an EP to create schematics is with the skill related to their special talent. Everyone else has to use Science to create a schematic, or Medicine, or Survival (for the purposes of making an alchemical schematic). No one else is stealing that from Earth Ponies, as this was never solely given to Earth Ponies in the first place.

However, if what worries you about what to allow players to invent will break the game, then perhaps we need a guide to inventing in general.

The ability to create a schematic based off my Barter or Speech skill is of profoundly dubious use.

I could see a few schematics for Barter. Perhaps a new form of cash register, an ATM. Maybe a slot machine! Speech is definitely the weaker of the two, but still very possible. How about a schematic for a new speaker system? Or maybe a new microphone?

Heck, these are ones I came up with after a couple minutes of thought. I'm sure you can come up with some that are better than mine. Be creative!

[EDIT] Ok, hold on a sec. Maybe I read your last post wrong, the one where you responded to TyrannisUmbra, but the tone I'm getting from it is "I think you are wrong, and I am not willing to compromise". Um...I hate to be the guy to say this, but if you aren't willing to compromise on what you suggest for the game, maybe you shouldn't be suggesting new changes to the system? I mean, your stealth suggestions are excellent (and were very much needed) and I love your work on the Northern Empire. But, at the same time...this system is a cooperative effort. Heck, the Pegasus Magic stuff was a combined effort of Kkat, Ilushia, and I, but it would have never gotten done were we not willing to compromise.

Now, if you want to make this something that is just occurring in your game, go ahead. But, unless you are willing to compromise and talk things out, consider our points as valid concerns with the system...you really shouldn't be suggesting the changes.

[Dimestream]

I understand perfectly what people are saying. I'm just saying you're wrong.

Thanqol... do you perhaps think that maybe, with this many people disagreeing with you and pointing out their concerns with your proposed changes, that there might just be at least some validity to their concerns? To maybe consider what everyone has to say? It's awfully arrogant of you to simply discount everyone else's input like that.

[Hidden_Fortune]

I don't have near the same qualifications as Dimestream, Night Light, or Viewing Glass in this. And frankly, the changes you're suggesting hurt my brain quite a bit. But you have to think that if you are going up against this much of an effort to tell you that the ideas you're presenting aren't great... Maybe instead of arguing you should take the time to work out a compromise and find out what rule ideas you have are functional enough to implement.

And for the record, I think they're pretty bad too. They take away and restrict a lot of things, putting the idea of player-generated content into neat little boxes with walls to hold the ideas back. And I mean, I'm the first person to say that EPs are inferior, an opinion that I'm only slowly growing out of as time passes and I get a less biased view of things.

[TyrannisUmbra]

I understand perfectly what people are saying. I'm just saying you're wrong.

And I'm saying you're wrong. Funny how that works.

"The most perks" means one extra perk, singular. "The most perk choices" means little when all the base perks are so excellent and competitive and the EP perks are barely distinguishable and not notably better than all the base perks available at the same level.

+10 to (unbalanced) battle saddles? +2 to avoid falling down? Slightly less chance to jam your gun? C'mon.

Yes, and the EP perks stack with the base perks, giving you the heavy specialization. Not to mention: +10 to a skill is a lot, especially considering this +10 to unbalanced saddles is to counter the permanent penalty you get when using an unbalanced saddle. +2 to a SPECIAL check is like having a perk that gives +20 to a skill (And being harder to be knocked down is very useful, /especially/ when you're fighting an enemy with an equivalent of the Super Slam perk). Jamming your gun can be devastating, and I've seen it happen to someone in a game 3 times in a single round. Needless to say, they were /angry/. Jamming will happen, and you're glad you have that perk when it does happen.

Sure. Put your bits where your hooves are and throw up a design document, I'll help troubleshoot it.

I pretty much just completely outlined the entire system. It's not complex. I'd much rather use my time either working on various other projects I haven't touched in a while, working on my new pet idea of Improved Alchemy, or making sure I have everything ready for the first session of the new group I'm playing in tomorrow. You're the one who thinks EPs need drastic changes, so take my suggestion/outline and run with it.

Ok, hold on a sec. Maybe I read your last post wrong, the one where you responded to TyrannisUmbra, but the tone I'm getting from it is "I think you are wrong, and I am not willing to compromise". Um...I hate to be the guy to say this, but if you aren't willing to compromise on what you suggest for the game, maybe you shouldn't be suggesting new changes to the system? I mean, your stealth suggestions are excellent (and were very much needed) and I love your work on the Northern Empire. But, at the same time...this system is a cooperative effort. Heck, the Pegasus Magic stuff was a combined effort of Kkat, Ilushia, and I, but it would have never gotten done were we not willing to compromise.

Now, if you want to make this something that is just occurring in your game, go ahead. But, unless you are willing to compromise and talk things out, consider our points as valid concerns with the system...you really shouldn't be suggesting the changes.

I'd like to second this. The system wouldn't be as far advanced as it is today without the cooperative effort of many of the users here. I personally was one of the ones who pushed for expanded and rebalanced spellcasting (Kkat can attest to how... erm, persuasive I was trying to be), and quite a few perks and spells would not have come about if Kkat wasn't open to taking suggestions on her magic system. Not to mention, without listening to the feedback she got about the system, then unicorn magic would still be the biggest burden of an ineffective racial ability in the game. You're well within your right to post suggestions about how to fix any perceived problems with the system, but we're also well within our own rights to bring our issues with your suggestion to your attention.

EDIT: I just want to clarify: I'm not saying your ideas are bad. They're a decent step toward something we can all be happy with. I just think it needs to be done in a way that makes it so none of the other races feel like they're "losing" something to EPs