Klutz

Alert

Destroy

Type

Power of Clumsiness

Makes a Big Mess

Whenever you draft pod(s), use this power to scrap one or two of those pods from your cache.

Whenever you land multiple ships on a planet, use this power to “knock over” one ship in that system. Target that ship and destroy it.

Legacy: Whenever an alien lands ships on a planet, that alien knocks over one ship in that system.

As creatures with a natural sense of imbalance, the Klutz have a penchant for causing chaos wherever they go, leaving a stream of wreckage and fervent apologies in their wake. By the time they blunder their way through the Cosmos, they may just end up ruling over the rubble.

Any: Any
Any: Any

Mandatory

Wild Flare

At any time, you may discharge this flare. For the rest of the invasion, each time another alien would draft multiple pods, you may probe two of those pods before they are claimed. You may reveal one of those pods and gift one of those pods to another alien, or both to the same pod.

Any: Any

Super Flare

As an actor, after losing an encounter, you may discharge this flare to run the “clumsy crash” program on the planet during crash. After running the program, all ships that make contact with a planet jump to that planets. All other ships are destroyed.

Actor: Crash

Modifications

Original Klutz “examines” one ship and “drops” it into the warp. The effect is the same, so the only difference is to add flavor.
Original Wild Klutz gets to see all of the pods that another alien drafts. I limited it to only target two of the pods, to avoid too much crossover with information aliens like Mind and Quartermaster. Klutz doesn’t quite fit as an info alien.
Original Super Klutz is designed with a more physical mechanic in mind. Klutz drops their committed ships onto the planet from a height of one foot, and any ships that end up touching a planet go to those planets. Since my Cosmic is digital, the equivalent of this check would be done via a program, possibly with user input.
Animals’ legacy encourages sponsors but also discourages powerful sponsors, as taking on at least 2 sponsors gives you a free pod but also gives it to the ally. With aliens like Cavalry or Philanthropist that can assist with pods as a sponsor, there can be a strategic advantage to inviting them. Aliens that greatly benefit from pods like Virus and Merchant can be risky prospects unless inviting them alone, but you miss out on getting the pod yourself if you don’t meet the minimum number. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

If Klutz wins as a backward, with four ships, it can return two ships to two separate planets to knock over two different ships. Since this strategy requires four ships, it can be risky to do in excess.
When winning as a backward with four ships, while Klutz has at least four ships in the warp, Klutz can revive four of its ships to knock off two more ships. Or it can draft at least two pods to use its other aspect to scrap one or two of those pods.
If you invite or sponsor Klutz, make sure you commit more than one ship. Any bases with only one ship can be sniped if Klutz lands there.
Similarly, establishing bases in Klutz’s system can be dangerous unless you commit three or more ships. Otherwise, Klutz can rebound its ships to its own system when winning as a backward and snipe your foreign bases.

Development Notes

Klutz is one of the rare pure destroy-type aliens like Assassin or Cudgel. It is also one of the rare ship sniper aliens, even though its power doesn’t refer to its effect as “sniping”.
Since Klutz needs at least two ships, warpfall cannot grant it the power to knock ships over. The choice to specify both multiple ships and multiple pods adds a bit of consistency to the power and helps keep it in check. It also makes sense thematically that multiple objects causes Klutz to become clumsy, since it has the basic dexterity to deal with one object just fine.
Due to the way Klutz’s pod aspect is defined, it is not as effective as a cache pruner as something like Mimic or Porcupine. Klutz can only scrap a maximum of two of the pods it drafts. When receiving backer boons or compensation, it can defend itself from receiving a bunch of junk, but it can’t cycle out weak cards in exchange for strong ones. It’s worth noting that Klutz’s power is mandatory due to its nature as a clumsy alien, so it can never keep all of the pods it drafts. It can be a double-edged sword if it gets exclusively good pods, but such a situation is unlikely. The choice to allow scrapping one or two pods keeps the aspect interesting and flexible.
Since Klutz’s resupplies contain 6 or 7 pods on average, it will naturally run out of pods faster than standard aliens. Perhaps not as quickly as an alien like Porcupine, but enough to be noticeable. I think this is somewhat counterbalanced by Klutz being incentivized to act as a backward, allowing it to gain more pods. Though the number of pods it can gain is somewhat hampered, it can still gain enough to avoid excessive resupplies with a few wins. If Klutz exclusively loses as a backward, it will have bigger problems than running out of resupplies.
From a roleplaying perspective, Klutz is the sort of alien that has plausible deniability with everything it does. Its clumsiness could completely accidental due to its power, or it could be so good at acting that it can fool everyone into thinking it is accidental.
One primary issue with Klutz’s power is that its mandatory ship sniping power makes it less attractive as an ally. However, it also has the potential to make it enticing as an ally, since it can weaken and damage a powerful alien if you get a base in their system. Klutz is also still attractive as a backward, unless you have ships in Klutz’s system that it can snipe.
As a ship sniper, Klutz can most directly be compared with an alien like Assassin or Brute. While Assassin is guaranteed to snipe each warpfall and Brute will snipe more ships after a victory, Klutz is somewhere in between. Its power is technically win-based like Brute, and it only snipes one ship, possibly two as a backward.
Klutz’s two aspects give it advantages with both pods and ships. Scrapping pods allows it to prune its cache of weak pods that it doesn’t want, especially poison pods. The ship destruction when landing on a planet makes Klutz an effective ship sniper in the same vein as Brute or Assassin, though the context for it is much more amicable. There’s no actual distinction between sniping and “knocking over”, but the keyword is important for the flavor of the power. Simply stating that Klutz snipes ships doesn’t capture the right vibe.
The most impactful change my version of Klutz would have is the necessary change to Super Klutz due to the different format of the game. Super Klutz is one of the only powers in the game that invokes a skill check on the player, tasking it to skillfully drop physical objects to cause physics-based chaos. Though the effect is only slightly more skillful than rolling dice, it provides that extra bit of agency that makes a player feel more in control of the results. If I were to program such a mechanic in my digital version, it would require a physics engine like the one used by Tabletop Simulator. It likely would not be worth the effort since no other aspect in the game uses it, so I would probably opt for a different type of skill check that still captures the feel of Super Klutz. What comes to mind is something like Angry Birds, where the player chooses the angle and power of the throw and launches their ships at the planet. The results can move the established ships to other planets or knock them into space.