How do the editions of AToW differ

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

Curious on the different editions of AToW and how they differ from the latest release

[Daryk]

Do you mean AToW, or Destiny?  I can only help with the former.

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

AToW, I'm thinking of buying the latest edition but I just wanted to see what each edition had to offer.
 

[Daryk]

The later editions of AToW incorporate the accumulated errata.  I personally love the retro cover of the Third Corrected Printing.

[Maelwys]

They don't differ a whole lot, mostly just errata. The latest version does adjust character generation in a minor way, mostly making it clearer and emphasizing the point based system rather than the straight lifepath system.

https://bg.battletech.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/A-Time-of-War-2022-06-06-v3.0.pdf

That's the errata if you want to see the changes over the years (though doesn't look like it has the trait changes from the most recent version.

[Daryk]

Tiered skills were also changed to be like all other skills.

[Sartris]

the change from lifepath to points-based character creation also saw the reworking of a few of the example characters.

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

I've seen reading the forums and heard that the second edition was probably the best. Why is that? just curious
 

[Maelwys]

ATOW doesn't have editions, it has new printings, which is the same game, just with errata added (the latest reprint does stretch that a little, but nothing to a new version).

Of course, now that I think about it a bit more, when you say A time of War I wonder if you mean the various Battletech roleplaying games over all, rather than just ATOW.

"How do the various editions the Battletech Roleplaying game differ?" might be the actual question you want.

There have been quite a few of those..MechWarrior, MechWarrior 2nd Edition, MW Third Edition (reprinted as the Classic BattleTech Roleplaying game, A Time of War and most recently Destiny.

Not sure if that's your question or not.

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

yep, that's the question. I thought that Mechwarrior and edtions older then Destiny were just old AToW's. yeah, so what I meant to ask is why is Mechwarrior 2nd edition more commonly preferred.
 
And while I'm at, it how many people can play AToW? Like I said earlier in the post I'm looking into buying AToW so I don't know all the details of the game
 
   

[Daryk]

MW2e was very easily converted to TW scale, but suffered from power creep the longer you played it (you could start as a 3/3 with a decent 'mech right of character creation).  I prefer AToW because if you use the Life Path system, it organically builds characters that fit seamlessly into the universe of BattleTech.  I made a spreadsheet to make character generation easier (linked in my sig block and updated to the latest printing).

[victor_shaw]

As some one who has played in and/or run every edition except one (Mechwarrior: Destiny) here is my rundown on the editions.
First, you have to know that, all the pervious games suffered under the issues of "throwing out the baby with the bathwater", so there is little that stayed the same between editions.

Mechwarrior 1st edition
Pros: Easy integration with the TTG, Fast Character creation.
Cons: Little to no character variation, no Clan info. (pre invasion)

Mechwarrior 2nd Edition
Pros: Best integration with the TTG, Fast Character creation, intuitive combat system, very flexible design.
Cons: Has an all powerful attribute (Intuition) that powers just about every skill in the game, can be powergamed easy.
My favorite edition, and I am currently working on Mechwarrior 2nd edition advanced rules to bring some of the best parts from 3rd and 4th in to the game and it fixes the issues with Intuition,

Mechwarrior 3rd Edition (Classic Battletech RPG)
Pros: Introduced the Lifepath system allowing players to really get a feel for their characters and what they had gone through to get to the starting point of the campaign.
Cons: the random tables in the Lifepath system can brake a character before you even start the game, changed dice systems (2d6 to 2d10) making integration with the TTG a chore and a half, split the gunnery skill into 3 different skills really hurting Mechwarrior characters.

A Time of War (Mechwarrior 4th Edition)
Note: as with 3rd above, the name was changed due to a marketing issues where the computer games have the same name.
Pros: cleaner rules then 3rd almost to 2nd levels, returned to 2d6 system, expanded on the types of characters you can be by a lot.
Cons: removed the lifepath random tables instead of fixing them, made the life paths unbelievably generic, requires a spreadsheet to make characters using the lifepath system, point totals for character creation way to high to be practical (100 points just to get a Dex of 1 where 10 points would have worked).
Not a fan, but if you decided to go this route Daryk is your man.

Mechwarrior: Destiny (Mechwarrior 5th Edition?)
Pros: Has an interesting take on fast mech combat. (may steal some of it for MW2 Advanced)
Cons: To many to count.
Not going to say much more on this as it is frowned upon on the boards.
Needless to say if you are interested their is a board here on the game.

[Daryk]

Thanks for the shout out, Victor_Shaw!

And back at you: If MW2e is your pick, Victor_Shaw is your go to! :)

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

Thanks for that description

As some one who has played in and/or run every edition except one (Mechwarrior: Destiny) here is my rundown on the editions.
First, you have to know that, all the pervious games suffered under the issues of "throwing out the baby with the bathwater", so there is little that stayed the same between editions.

Mechwarrior 1st edition
Pros: Easy integration with the TTG, Fast Character creation.
Cons: Little to no character variation, no Clan info. (pre invasion)

Mechwarrior 2nd Edition
Pros: Best integration with the TTG, Fast Character creation, intuitive combat system, very flexible design.
Cons: Has an all powerful attribute (Intuition) that powers just about every skill in the game, can be powergamed easy.
My favorite edition, and I am currently working on Mechwarrior 2nd edition advanced rules to bring some of the best parts from 3rd and 4th in to the game and it fixes the issues with Intuition,

Mechwarrior 3rd Edition (Classic Battletech RPG)
Pros: Introduced the Lifepath system allowing players to really get a feel for their characters and what they had gone through to get to the starting point of the campaign.
Cons: the random tables in the Lifepath system can brake a character before you even start the game, changed dice systems (2d6 to 2d10) making integration with the TTG a chore and a half, split the gunnery skill into 3 different skills really hurting Mechwarrior characters.

A Time of War (Mechwarrior 4th Edition)
Note: as with 3rd above, the name was changed due to a marketing issues where the computer games have the same name.
Pros: cleaner rules then 3rd almost to 2nd levels, returned to 2d6 system, expanded on the types of characters you can be by a lot.
Cons: removed the lifepath random tables instead of fixing them, made the life paths unbelievably generic, requires a spreadsheet to make characters using the lifepath system, point totals for character creation way to high to be practical (100 points just to get a Dex of 1 where 10 points would have worked).
Not a fan, but if you decided to go this route Daryk is your man.

Mechwarrior: Destiny (Mechwarrior 5th Edition?)
Pros: Has an interesting take on fast mech combat. (may steal some of it for MW2 Advanced)
Cons: To many to count.
Not going to say much more on this as it is frowned upon on the boards.
Needless to say if you are interested their is a board here on the game.

exactly what I needed

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

Does anybody know what version/reprint this is? And how much it differs from the latest release.

[Daryk]

I'll have to check... that may have been a proposed cover from a while ago...  Might be until the weekend until I can do proper research.  I remember seeing it, but not if it made it to print.

[William J. Pennington]

One of the things I liked about MechWarrior 3rd Edition was the change to 2d10. I felt it was better for pace of a game when it came to leveling up skills, the Jump in effectiveness in a 2d6 system of a one skill level increase is pretty massive. You could have skills increase a few more times without crossing that regulars to elite level line in 3 skill advancements. If only we had a time machine to go back and switch everything to a percentile system starting from the eighties....

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

I'll have to check... that may have been a proposed cover from a while ago...  Might be until the weekend until I can do proper research.  I remember seeing it, but not if it made it to print.

Hey, I found a better picture just in case it would help.

[victor_shaw]

well its one of the printings of 4th edition.
That's about the best I can offer.

[Daryk]

That last image seems to have fixed the "midget" problem the initial version had.  I still need to go looking for where it originated.  It's probably just the latest printing.

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

That last image seems to have fixed the "midget" problem the initial version had.  I still need to go looking for where it originated.  It's probably just the latest printing.

Yeah, probably is

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

Is there building layouts in the book?

[Daryk]

Sadly no... but there are supplements that have some.

[Red wolf]

Never seen that printing before, not sure where it came from, but the 1st and 2nd printings are close to it. The 3rd and current printing is the one from the succession wars.

[Red wolf]

This is the 1st and 2nd printing cover.

[Gray_Noton_4lfe]

Can you play AToW by itself?

[paladin2019]

Another note on MW3e. This version of the game upended the balance of personal weapons. Where before the basic (ballistic auto-)rifle fired in 4 round bursts, the damage value accounted for this, and the damage was inferior to the laser rifle's, MW3e reset the base damage of both weapons to be equal and then added the burst damage on top of the auto-rifle. Where the 1250 C-Bill laser rifle was better in all ways except comparable range than the 80 C-Bill rifle, with MW3e the latter is better within its less than half the greatly extended range of the MW3e laser rifle. This drives the TW change to conventional infantry that splits earlier rifle platoons into ballistic and energy rifle platoons. The rest of the personal weapons experienced a similar rejiggerings with MW3e, retaining the order of magnitude difference in pricing but eliminating the mechanical benefits such a price bought. Additionally, MW3e strips all of the basic weapons of their chance to damage a battlefield unit they had in earlier game versions.

Personal armor becomes statistically more complex with this implementation, as well, likely due to describing battle armor in personal armor rather than mech terms. If such a change wasn't made, the change to personal weapons against battlefield units would mean PCs would have no chance to damage them outside their own battlefield units.

[paladin2019]

As far as Intuition in 2e goes, there's nothing wrong with it that excising it, dropping the Attribute allowance on the priority table by 20%, and using MW1e's rules governing what attribute(s) applies to what skill wouldn't fix.

[TheOldDragoon]

I'm currently running a modified 2e campaign.

  AToW is heartbreakingly close to being a great game design. There are two major things that frustrate me to no end- the first is that they don't just go with 8+ being the standard target number for all skills the way Mongoose Traveller does. It's just smoother and more intuitive to players and GMs not to have to double-check the TN for different skills. The other is character creation. Most things are in 100-point chunks, save skills, which are all over the place depending on skill level, fast learner, slow learner, etc. And to top that off, the lifepaths in many cases give you points toward something- but only partial points you need to remember to account for while finalizing your character. It seems like a design that's *almost* there. Just shy of being great.

  I did purchase the new cover (love the Succession Wars art!) and am trying to get a feel for the errata. Maybe enough has been tweaked to give it another shot.

[Daryk]

My spreadsheet (linked in my sig block) simplifies optimization.  I view the "partial" points as suggestions for skills/traits that would organically fit a character.