New playbooks and their moves [System]

The new playbooks - the Brain, the Harbinger, and the Soldier - are out. They still feel like works in progress, with some moderately complicated mechanics. While I'm not changing classes any time soon, we have the option of taking moves from other playbooks as an advance. The question is, are we feeling good enough about the new playbooks' moves to use them? I had "before we get started" in mind, from the Soldier. That text:  When you take the time to closely observe your opposition before a battle , roll + Savior. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 2. On a miss, hold 1 and mark a condition. During battle, you can spend your hold 1 for 1 to name a character you observed and...: ...redirect their attack to another character or nowhere—into a wall or the sky. ...cross a distance between them and you. ...disarm them. ...ignore all harm to yourself from one of their attacks. ...escape any bindings or restrictions they attempt to place on you. Reasonably powerful stuff, but also reasonably limited (you'll get at most three uses of it per battle). It supports Leo's "get in and stay in" mentality, and gives me some clutch defensive options. I'm not fully committed to taking this move for my advance, but the general question seemed useful to ask.

I like the idea and the move is totally fine for me.

I really didn't see any moves that made me want to drop everything and take them. But I'm okay with the concept, as long as it doesn't overly complicated things (the above move seems really powerful, but, more importantly, has an effect that spans at least thee further turns). 

*** Dave H. said: the above move seems really powerful, but, more importantly, has an effect that spans at least thee further turns I thought so at first, but I was a lot less bothered by it the more I looked. It can only be used once per battle and doesn't work in ambushes (for example). The fictional trigger ("carefully study") also conflicts with that of another of my moves ("charge in without hedging your bets"), so it's a choice. For all that, I'd get to deflect attacks against myself or someone else from one particular target 2-3 times in the fight. That's good against a solo villain, not good if we're up against an ensemble (e.g. Ghostheart and their cronies). There's already plenty of moves that have long-lasting effects or can be sat on - I've still got 2 hold with Harry thanks to a team move, for example.

Yeah, I'm not worried about it happening three times, really - it's more interesting to me that using it would show Leo changing a bit from his charging in methods.  I mean, that assumes a 10+, and assuming a high roll because your stats are good is how we ended up body-swapped. :) Also, as Bill pointed out, the fiction is fairly restrictive - I'm thinking about the fights you've had so far, and the opportunity wouldn't have even come up at this point.  Honestly, you guys have done more research on your allies than your enemies, with one Alycia-shaped exception, and that's just for going to meet/eat with the League.

Doyce T. said: Honestly, you guys have done more research on your allies than your enemies, with one Alycia-shaped exception, and that's just for going to meet/eat with the League. The text doesn't say how long before battle nor how much time to take, and the allusion of the move name makes it sounds like it's a few crucial moments of observation, optionally followed by a puppy-like look of hurt betrayal.

HA!

Love it. 

We’re putting The Harbinger into Masks: Unbound, along with the planned four playsets, and two brand new playbooks—the Nomad and the Scion! The Scion is the child of supervillains, who chooses to be a hero and stand against the very evil that their parents embody. They’re different from the Reformed, because they’ve never been a supervillain, and never will be—they are choosing another path in opposition to their legacy, no matter what everybody might expect of them. The Scion will have special mechanics incentivizing them to gain Influence over particularly important figures, to represent their quest for respect. They’re inspired by characters like Stephanie Brown (Spoiler), Damian Wayne (Robin), and Victor Mancha, among others. The Nomad hasn’t had a real home in a while—and they kind of like it that way. They’ve been traveling space, time, dimensions, and anything else you can think of, seeing what all of existence has to offer but never staying in one place long enough to really form any bonds. And they’re still just a teenager! But now they’ve come to Halcyon City and agreed to stick around...for a while anyway. The Nomad will have a limited amount of Influence to give out, and a particular vulnerability to having it used against them...but in exchange, they get cool benefits every time they give someone new Influence. They’re inspired by characters like Cammi, Noh-Varr, and America Chavez.

So now I want a team of the Delinquent, the Reformed, the Scion, and one Harbinger from the future where they actually did go bad and is here to keep them on the straight and narrow.

This sounds like the best pre-made team comp.  The story's already laid out and everything.

Those are all great (and good illustrative examples).

Also recently announced: they're reprinting the original MASKS rules, but THIS time, putting the playbooks inside the book (at the cost of some small cuts elsewhere.  PDFs of the "playbook edition" (which they emphasize is in no other way a new edition) will also be made available for free to KS backers. This actually has me as excited as anything.

I guess the other party is the Innocent, the Harbinger, and the Nomad, from the past, the future, and somewhere else, and there's a Janus who's getting really stressed out playing temporal tour guide for these weirdos while still trying to have a normal life. The playbook edition is cool, yeah. I'm past the point where it would have helped me (having separate PDFs of playbooks is actually easier on me these days, since I'll print them out far more often than I'll print the core book), but having it all in a single file is useful too.

I'm mostly thinking of the future, where you want someone to check out the game and only need to send one file to give them all the basics.