STILL Not Dead (Terrors & Tactics Updade)

If I don't hear from you over the next couple of days, I hope you and your family have a merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you as well.

The run up to Christmas is always the busiest time of year for my business so I’ve been pulling some long hours and haven’t had a lot of time on the game design front. Thankfully, with Christmas on Monday I am basically through the rush and will have more free time. I’ll get into some more details next week once the crunch and family stuff is over.

Same here. Hazards of working retail. At least you're through the worst of it and can breathe easy.

Again, you and your family have a merry Christmas

Happy New Year! I hope all is well with you and yours. We're having a quiet night in and I'm spending a little time working on Ruins & Realms and decided to give a year end update on all the happenings.

I've mentioned some of the changes to classes, but there are some additional ones in store that are going to further differentiate them from each other, and that relate to some of the resource changes I've mentioned.

So, before I kick off on specifics, let me give you the broad overview because its pretty holistic;

Reserves were proving to be far too spammable, resulting in what one person called "solved combat" (i.e. there is a single best course to always take to result in pre-determined victory).

To solve this I've opted for a bit of shuffling in which resources do what.

Previously Reserves were a combo of 4E's Healing Surges, Action Points, Death Saves and Daily Powers... while Focus (now power) was essentially for Encounter Powers.

With the rework Reserves are now going to be Health and exclusively deal with actual injury and fatigue. Things that before cost Reserves have been shifted to either use Focus or inflict fatigue.

When your Edge drops to 0 you fall unconscious and take either a Wound or a Fatigue (Fatigue is a non-lethal wound in terms of effects). Critical Effects also deal a wound or fatigue as does taken a hit when you're at 0 Edge. Each time you take a wound at 0 Edge you make a Recovery check to see if you start dying (making a new recovery check every minute to see if you lose an additional wound... yes, this is actually less deadly than before, but there's some other factors involved).

At wounds + fatigue equal to your health you're incapacitated...

Incapacitated: You are prone and take a level of Fatigue each round you use an attack, class action, or any action using STR, REF or END as a modifier.

There is however the "Push Through" general action for when you desperately need to act;

Push Through (free): Take 1 Fatigue to ignore effects of Fatigue for 10 minutes.

At wounds + fatigue equal to twice your Health you're also unconscious (you can only push through so much).

At wounds equal to twice your Health you're dead.

You get rid of all Fatigue with a full rest (basically back to a 4E style rest) and a number of wounds depending on the genre/setting the GM is aiming for; half or all of them in a lighter game, 1-2/full rest in a more serious one; 1-2/week of resting in a deadly one).

A related change that makes the Medicine skill much more useful is "Treat Wounds" which allows you to, during a short rest, convert 1 or more Wounds into 1 or more points of Fatigue (max of the target's END score per full rest; min. 1).

Okay, so that's the Health + Wounds + Fatigue part.

Now onto the Power part.

The first part of revamp is this, the base level of power available is lower; it resets to 1/2/3 (tiered) after a short rest (10 minutes). Focus limits are now gone because of this and several boons got reworked to take this into account.

However, each class now has a trait they can use to build up power;

(Berserker) Building Rage (free): Use an action from your path or attack an opponent during your turn / gain 1 power (1 min or until the point is spent). Power gained from this action may only be spent on path actions, talents, and the Action Focus (non-skill uses only), Action Surge, and Potent Strike actions.

(Ironclad) Iron Resolve (free, 1/round): Use an action from your path or make a defense check / gain 1 power (1 min or until spent). You can stack Focus power points. Power gained from this action may only be spent on path actions, talents, and the Action Focus (non-skill uses only), Action Surge, and Potent Strike actions.

(Mastermind) Cascading Gambit (free): Use an action from your path or grant an action to one or more an allies / gain 1 power (1 min or until spent). You can stack Focus power points. Power gained from this action may only be spent on class and path actions, talents, and the Action Focus (non-skill uses only), Action Surge, and Potent Strike actions.

(Skirmisher) Momentum (free): Use an action from your path, shift, jump, or use the Acrobatic Stunt action / gain 1 power (1 min or until spent). You can stack up to Focus power points. Power gained from this action may only be spent on path actions, talents, and the Action Focus (non-skill uses only), Action Surge, and Potent Strike actions.

(Mage) Draw Power (free): You start your turn / make an Arcana check. If you roll 15+ you gain 1 power or, if your roll is 25+, gain 2 power (1 min or until spent). You can hold up to Focus power. Power gained may only be spent on path actions, talents, and for Action Focus (non-skill uses only), Action Surge, and Potent Strike.

(Mechanist) Charge Tech: After a rest of at least 10 minutes, you gain Focus+1/2/3 (tiered) power that you can assign to one or more spell attacks, path actions, action surges, potent strikes, or as a pool for non -skill uses of action focus. Decide any talents applied to each action when assigning the power (ex. thermal thrust, 1 power for its push effect, and energy adaptation (cold)). You may then use each pre-set action once on any later turn by spending the required action. Any power not spent before you finish another rest is lost.

(Mystic) Spiritual Strength (free): You use a path or primal gift action / gain 1 power (1 min or until spent). You can hold up to Focus power. They may be spent on path actions, talents, Action Focus (non-skill uses only), Action Surge, and Potent Strike.

Action Surge now costs 2 power, Potent Strike costs 3 power (and does Focus+level extra threat instead of a critical effect), everything else is as before... so you can usually either fire off a 1 power effect every turn (or use it for Action Focus on a defense check or to boost your attack, etc.) or save it up to unleash more powerful effects.

* * * *

And now onto Edge. It's pretty much where it was at before, except it now regained with a short rest instead of needing an hour and most of the "if bloodied then" conditions have been removed from the smaller heals.

On the downside, rallying is now something you can only do once per short rest, however, each class (and companions) gets their own special rally.

(Berserker) Unstoppable: When you Rally, you gain a pool of 20+5/level soak points separate from your other soak points (1 minute). You can spend them after your other soak points to further reduce the amount of Edge you lose from an attack.

(Ironclad) Sustained Rally: When you Rally, gain 2 charges you can spend at any time (1 min). Each restores half your maximum Edge score.

(Mastermind) “New Plan!”: When you Rally, you regain Edge equal to half your maximum Edge score and gain 3 power points that can exceed your normal Focus limit.

(Skirmisher) Regain Momentum: When you Rally, choose three of the following; Regain 8+2/level Edge, end one condition affecting you, or shift ½ Focus paces with immunity to free strikes. You may select the same option up to three times.

(Mage) Emergency Draw: When you Rally, you regain Edge equal to half your full value (round up) and gain 3 power points that can exceed your Focus limit.

(Mechanist) Volatile Brew: When you Rally, you create 4+level doses of a volatile vitality potion tailored to you (1 min). Consuming one or more doses is a free action when created or during your turn. Each restores 1d10 lost Edge.

(Mystic) Rallying Spirit: When you Rally, gain 3 charges you can spend at any time (1 min). Each either restores 8+2/level Edge, ends one condition, or grants 1 power point.

* * * *

Now, throw in the class specific path benefits on top of that and each class will have their own feel to them when it comes to a fight.

Berserkers build power by attacking, they get path benefits from doing things while under Berserker's Rage, and they're best off rallying early for the huge pile of extra soak points that stack with the rest (but at the same time, once the soak points are gone they're not any better off than they were before).

Ironclads build power when under attack, get path benefits to improve their defenses, and can essentially pull off two of the old rallies once the rally action is triggered.

Masterminds build power by directing allies, get improved ally buffing actions, and get back both Edge, but also a bunch of points they use to further add to their coordinating for their allies.

Skirmishers build power with mobility, get path benefits to enhance their mobility, and when they rally have the option to not just regain Edge, but shake off a nasty condition and/or get the heck out of dodge in a way even a defender can't take advantage of.

Mages build variable amounts of power so its a bit of a gamble on how power you'll have in a given moment, but their Rally gives them a large pool of it when the chips are down and they get path benefits related to their inflictions (along with mage talents also playing into infliction use).

Mechanists pre-set their power into things, but as a result can frontload it quite a bit and have class talents to make that more efficient, and get path buffs related to their use of various devices. They get the most variable Rally option with a volatile concoction that should, on average, restore your full Edge if you use it all (4+level dice x 5.5 = 27.5 Edge on average at level one), but may not give you all you wanted back when you wanted it or is super efficient sometimes.

Sidebar: I fixed the Mechanist Summoner's use of the Loyal Beast with the following "It has no limit on the number of Rallies it can take between short rests, but each after the first costs you 1 Fatigue (or 4+level Edge if you have the Resilient Summoning talent)." This puts in on par with the standard Summoner taking 1 fatigue when their summon is destroyed and its own Health score (and immunity to its own fatigue as a construct) will let it soak up far more punishment than a standard summoner can (and without fatiguing the Summoner in the process).

The Construct trait takes care of the rest as it now clarifies that "it can be repaired using any action that restores Structure at a rate of 1 Wound per 2 Structure." So the Engineering skill (which all Mechanists are trained in) or the Mending cantrip will both keep the Loyal Beast version in full fighting trim.

Mystics build power by playing their role or using primal gifts, get extra path options compared to the other classes, have a flexible rally that blesses them thrice once activated, and their class specific talents are tailored to their paths and the unique spell attack.

* * * *

I spent a long time getting the math exceptionally tight to the point there was almost no meaningful differences between the classes, but now that I have, I've realized its time to take advantage of that tight underlying core to introduce controlled differences to the classes to help them feel more unique and distinct.

I'm excited to see where this goes; as I think it'll be a bit more dynamic in terms of game play and a mystic not feeling nearly so much like a Mage (nor someone questioning why Mechanist and Mage were even separate classes as actually happened at one point before these elements started getting phased in).

So, here's hoping everything falls into place for a Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you, too!

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I like the new approach with Wounds and Fatigue resulting in the Incapacitated condition.

With Reserves/Health narrowed in focus to health/fatigue-related mechanics, I'd imagine that characters don't get nearly as many health points (which honestly makes them sound like hit points. What role does Endurance play in determining your total Health? Straight "Your Health score is your Endurance?"

And the new class-based Rally and Focus-gathering mechanics are interesting as well. I do notice some kinks that need to be worked out with the latter, though. The Berserker's Building Rage feature doesn't mention being able to stack Focus at all, the Mastermind and Ironclad ought to say "You can stack up to Focus power points" like the Skirmisher does instead of "You can stack Focus power points" for clarity's sake. I'd also have the Mage and Mystic use the same terminology instead of "hold up to Focus power points" to make it clear that they work the same way.

I'm looking forward to seeing the full text.

As a side note, I can't help but feel that this would be the third major edition of Ruins and Realms - first would be the early Terrors and Tactics stuff, and second would be when you broke up the classes and paths to allow them to mix and match.

Third time's the charm? I'll take it.

* * * *

Health does sound a bit like hit points because that's what a whole lot of video games sub in for hit points. In this case though I don't mind as much simply because in this case it IS meant to represent "meat" and by doing so also makes it clearer that Edge is not meat.

In terms of numbers, yeah, a bit less, but not horribly so because if you're running with slower removal of wounds you could legit be down a few points at later stages of an adventure. The current number is 4+END score... for a range of 3-6 for most starting PCs (and those with an END focus probably at 8-9). Defenders, Sentinels and Abjurers get 1+ extra Health depending on their level.

Weak creatures have 1 Health (but can take END fatigue, min 1, before being incapacitated). Standard opponents have END Health (min 1), Elites have 3+END Health, Champions 5+END Health, PC-Lights have 4+END Health.

A lot of times the actual Health of the target isn't important; they've been vanquished at 0 Edge and the party might decide to dispatch them, bandage their wounds or leave them to fate. By default, half those dropped would fail a recovery check from the wound and start dying and, with just 1-2 wounds, bleed out in a couple of minutes. The rest regain consciousness eventually, but are probably incapacitated (i.e. in no shape to fight or oppose the victors) since they only had one wound to begin with (and if brought down by a high crit weapon that deals 2 wounds, any weak and many standard foes would die outright).

But the thing of interest for my goals is that while it generally won't matter, the presumptions of the base mechanics provide a moral choice for the PCs; Do they show mercy by binding the wounds of the dying in the minutes before they expire? Do they they execute downed attackers to ensure they can't return? Do they leave their survival to the whims of fate? How you treat your enemies is something that can carry weight in a campaign, particularly with my focus on rewarding virtue in the GM material.

* * * *

In terms of "default" rate of recovery I'm leaning towards removing 1 wound per full rest, but also, as mentioned previously, using Medicine to treat wounds converts up to the target's END in wounds into fatigue (which is always wiped away with a full rest), so a high Endurance character can bounce back very quickly provided they receive (or give themselves) even token medical care (while sickly ones don't have near as many wounds to get back in the first place).

This provides a baseline where, even if they are knocked down, proper medical care should see the party on their feet in a day or two at most and fully recovered in just a few more. That's well ahead of what it takes for real people who are grievously injured, but its well within the realm of action-adventure stories... and its easy enough to tweak the actual recovery rate relative to the sort of game you want to run.

* * * *

All corrections welcome in fixing the wording.

If we get to a fourth major iteration, I'm going to be creeped out as hell by the irony of a game inspired by 4e going through four major iterations before release.

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You're right: having something to represent "meat" so that edge doesn't have to is going to better establish that distinction from "hit points as meat points."

4 + Endurance doesn't look bad just from eyeballing it - it's not the full seven or eight pre-Endurance points, but Health points aren't being spent to boost attacks or anything like that.

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How is this system working with the guardian revamp, and how's the guardian revamp itself going?

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Any time, man.

Yeah, 4+END Health was plenty since actual death doesn’t hit until 8+(2xEND). The “death saves” part of Reserves is effectively a 3-6 extra layer on top of the 3-6 most players have before they’d be incapacitated.

The Guardian revamp is working pretty well I think. The main change-up is going from the relatively small bump of about 4+level extra Edge to reliable resistance to all threat if they spend their minor action to be tanky.

The one issue is that Resistance doesn’t stack so it really limits the ways an Enabler can synergize to further to mitigate threat a Guardian is under. I don’t think it’s so bad it needs a fix, but it’s worth noting that Enablers who pick a Resistance option will mostly be applying it to non-Guardians.

So the guardians keep the improved armor defenses and extra health as well as gain resistance to threat, but they lose the additional edge. If I'm understanding that correctly, that's a very nice buff they've got going for them - so long as they're actually acting like guardians. And on top of that, it simplifies a small part of character creation, since you can have all characters use the same edge progression, regardless of their role.

After thinking about it for a bit, I don't think that your worry about the Enabler's Resistance being redundant with the Guardian's Resistance is that much of a problem. Since the Guardian has its own Resistance, that means that the Enabler that picks a Resistance option doesn't have to spend time protecting the Guardian, thus freeing up the Enabler to protect someone else in the party and fulfilling the Guardian's main function.

Yeah, it probably isn't that big of a deal.

Some of the stuff I'm about to bring up will be though (in a good way).

First, I got the Guardians reworked to my satisfaction and moved on to applying the Class-specific path modifiers, Health, Power and Rally approach to the Shadow and Abyssal classes so they're all up to snuff and finished applying the tweaks to the Standard Build opponent creation rules.

Another element that was brainstormed with a friend over lunch to work with the way Rallying and Dying is changing is a new universal action that's a little bit 'metamechanic' but also in keeping with heroes being inspired to fight harder when their allies are in danger...

Fight for the Fallen (PC only): You start your turn in a conflict and are unable to take any actions, even using companions / Give one ally also in the conflict a power point as if gained from their class feature (free action to use Charge Tech).

The idea is you may not be able to do anything yourself, but you, as the player should still be able to have something to do during a combat and it may as well be making one of your allies fight a little better. This also means that during something like a last stand where only one or two PCs are still standing, they could easily have 3+ power each turn to work with in overcoming a challenge as they protect their allies.

* * * *

And now for the big one.

I went and I took the Inflictions and built a set of rules for making your own. Originally, I was going to add it to the GM's Guide as a tool for customizing your world with unique spells, but after setting up fairly tight and loophole free rules, I realized there was no reason not to put it in the Player's Guide.

Its not replacing the existing Inflictions, the existing ones are now all the examples of various spells you can build using the Infliction creation rules (and because some people just want to pick something pre-made).

All this and the Player's Guide still clocks in at 364 pages; just under the page count of the Essentials "Heroes of the Fallen Lands."

I still have a tiny bit of cleanup and a new bookmark file to cleanup, but expect an updated PDF (with the GM stuff after the PG) sometime this weekend.

You're right, the infliction creation rules are going to be big. I can easily see a few modifications to certain inflictions I'd like to do, just for the sake of flavor rather than because I find them too weak.

Speaking of inflictions (and more specifically the conditions they inflict), you could probably take the special rules that Impairing Strike uses to stack certain conditions (flat-footed twice equals vulnerable, shaken twice equals unsteady, prone twice means you can't stand up until after your next turn) and apply them to the general conditions - I could see flat-footed twice becoming a problem, but the prone twice variant is an elegant way to increase the severity of a condition that would otherwise have no other way to do so.

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Fight for the Fallen is a neat cure to player dissatisfaction if their character is totally locked down - at least this way, they can still contribute.

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Now I'm curious to see the revised shadow and abyssal class/path modifiers. I can only assume that you poached the abyssal versions from the mystic (which would be appropriate, given that demons are corrupted primal spirits).

Alrighty, the new version is up... Ruins & Realms 3e if you will.

One other purely nomenclature change that's also in there along with all the big changes, which is big from a fluff point of view is that the term magic is almost completely gone outside of references to things being seen as magic.

Instead, I've replaced most of it in relation to utilities outside of the primal gifts (i.e. items, utility spells, etc.) with "arcane" (i.e. arcane items, arcane consumables, arcane rituals).

The reason that's important is to make it more clear that what is or isn't magic is entirely subjective. A five year old who sees a magician do a trick believes its magic, while the magician and the adults in the room know its practiced sleight of hand, misdirection and sometimes custom props. The non-magician adults may not know the specifics of how it was done, but they know the basic principles.

The same should be true of "magic items" and "magic spells"... to a cave man a steel sword would be magic. To a medieval man electricity and airplanes would be. To a modern man a teleporter or nano-cloud would seem like magic. To God every hidden aspect of creation is as natural as "things fall down" is to us.

Arcanists and Mages and Mechanists may not completely understand why the Arcane Web works the way it does, but they understand the general theories and how to work within its rules to produce effects reliably. Thus, calling the items they build and the effects they produce "arcane" (i.e. poorly understood/known only to a few) helps establish that, in-universe, only the uneducated (which due to the Cataclysm means a lot of people) call what arcanists, mages and mechanists do "magic."

And then there's the purely supernatural; the primal, the abyssal, and the shadow; which don't generally work through items when they act directly; they work through people (The Source might guide you to an arcane sword you need, but if He intervenes directly its going to be through the form of a relationship with you. Similarly, the demons and horrors aren't interested in stuff, they're after souls).

Arcane mostly replacing "magic" helps put the natural and supernatural in right order with each other.

How did Arthur C. Clarke put it? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

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The new class changes look good - I like that you accounted for the driven mage needing arcana checks by diving it the Driven Student boon.

I also noticed that you changed up armor proficiency, i.e. got rid of it and based everything on the armor check penalty - the way certain classes can treat their strength as being two higher for the purposes of armor checks is rather elegant. I did notice that the non-war mages are lacking Defensive Wards.

Also, the Abjurer's Training section might need a revision: the Armored Caster portion is fine, but the Warded Caster portion could also cover the Mechanist's Augmented Psi-Helm, to cover mechanists that might want to build as warded casters.

There are also still bits referencing armor training, such as the equipment packages.

It's still well-executed, and I love that you don't need to worry about spending talents on armor training if you have the Strength for it, it just needs some fine-tuning is all.

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The infliction section opens up a lot of freedom for players, even with the way you've siloed effects by damage type. The only concern I have is players stacking the Extra Threat effects in the heat and acid sections to insane degrees, but if there was an old stance or infliction that did that and I'm forgetting it, please let me know.

While it sucks for guided assault to lose its untyped status that allowed it to use the spell attack's default damage type, they had to go somewhere, and kinetic is as good as any. Part of me wonders if you could copy the Guiding effect under Kinetic into the other damage types' base effects.

Please don't mistake these critiques for dislike - I love the new infliction rules and the flexibility they offer. It's as revolutionary as the way you split the classes and paths up way back in the second major iteration of Ruins and Realms.

Thank you for posting this.

The thinking on the change to armor just came down to some study and that everyone who actually has knowledge of the matter agrees that it really doesn't take any special training to wear armor, just the same sort of general strength conditioning that would increase your strength as a whole.

I think it also fits the whole 'post-apocalyptic' and 'science fantasy' aesthetic better to allow anyone to potentially strap on a suit of armor if they need to.

* * * *

Yeah, because of how armor got changed giving the mages straight up Defensive Wards wasn't going to work. Instead they get...

Mage’s School: Choose one of the following options. The attribute it grants a bonus to is your Focus score and can be used in place of REF for Armor defense;

Throw in that as long as your STR is 0 or better you can wear light armor and not have it ding your speed or dodge and that makes Defensive Wards a nice upgrade, but not strictly necessary.

* * * *

Good point on Abjurer's Training. It increases the likelihood you could make a less effective character, but I've opted to just remove the requirements for the two choices entirely so anyone can pick either.

* * * *

All corrections are welcomed and appreciated; so I updated the Equipment packages (I think it was just the "Wall of Steel" package that referenced armor training).

* * * *

You are right to be concerned about stacking Extra Edge because that was never the intent. I've hopefully clarified things a bit with the following note under base effects;

"Only those listed with ‘stack’ or ‘stackable’ may be selected more than once."

That was a good catch. Thank you.

* * * *

I also think you're right about Guided Assault so I dropped it from Inflictions and moved it to Casting Talents with the following text change;

Guided Assault (buff, targeted): Your spell attack gains +1 to its check and you gain +3 to attack rolls (1 round) if you hit if you do not use an infliction for it. Special (hit w. attack): You deal Focus extra threat with attacks (1 round) for 1 power. (miss w. attack): Reroll the attack for 1 power (you may do this once per power spent).

Basically, its the original rather than tweaked version just in a different category.

* * * *

Since these didn't require a rebuild of the Table of Contents/Bookmarks I've already uploaded the changes as a new version.

RE:Armor and physical fitness: that sounds about right. As an aside, it's actually easier for a knight to wear a full suit of plate armor than it is for a modern soldier to carry an equivalent weight in his ruck, simply because it's more evenly distributed.

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I saw the "Focus score can be used instead of REF for Armor" bit and knew the War mage was going to be fine, but I was thinking about the non-war mages that wanted to go full cloth caster. Though now that I think about it, having even the mages go about in a chain shirt by default sells the setting as more realistic than D&D and differentiates it more from standard fantasy at the same time. On top of that, it sells the idea that defensive wards aren't a default the way they'd be in Old Praetoria, and that you actually have to learn how to make them in order to not have to wear armor. Defensive wards aren't going to be in every mage's repertoire the way they'd be in other settings - or the way that their supernatural equivalents would be for the mystic.

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The abjurer looks good. I don't see any issues with Abjurer's Training. I didn't mention this earlier, but I like what you did with Abjurer's Rebuke

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There were a couple of bits that referenced Armor Training when you clearly meant Armor Familiarity, but Wall of Steel was the only big glitch that I recall.

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I kind of figured you didn't want to stack extra threat like that, but it would have been hilarious to see it happen once, just to see how hard it can splatter something.

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Good call on Guided Assault as well - putting it under casting talents instead of repeating the entry under each infliction not only allows you to preserve its original threat type-agnostic nature, it allows the mystic to pick it freely without worrying about the total number of inflictions they've picked. Now everybody can have different-typed spell attack guided assaults - the mystic through their spell attack elements, the mechanist through their devices, and the mage through the energy adaptation talent.

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So what else is there to look at for the Player's Guide? And how's the GM's Guide proceeding?

Regarding mages in armor, it doesn’t actually need to be chain either. Check the images in the armor section and only the heaviest is using chain as part of its protection. The one on the left is just a slightly more armored version of what Kalla and the Black Watch Mage in the Arcanist section are wearing, and could easily be worn under something more traditionally robe-like if desired.

In part, I sorta feel like anyone who’s going out into the ruins should have some type of protection; armor or defensive wards or the like. Just going out in ordinary clothes only makes sense if you have something extra (ex. natural armor, supernatural intuition).

Worth noting too is that even Kalla (supernatural intuition) and the Black Watch Mages (all trained in defensive wards) are still wearing reinforced clothing (advanced quality clothes with the +1 shield bonus… making it equivalent to light armor if worn by someone else, just with a bonus that stacks with their intuition/wards).

The switch from basically something mostly only appropriate for civilized areas (ankle-length side skirts, bare shoulders) to something easy to move in (not going to snag on anything) with obvious arm and shin plating and a thick reinforced hood/jacket better reflects the dangerous world (and standardizing it as a uniform of the Mages Errant to world-build a bit).

* * * *

The more I think on it, the less I think stacking the extra threat for inflictions would be a problem.

First, you can already do a fair amount of extra threat with Action Focus (default +3 per power spent that way, but the Focused Action talent can add 1 or 2 depending on level, and the Striker’s Focused trait can add +1-3 depending on level… so that’s actually a +8 threat per power spent. A Focus score of 8-9 is about where most characters will end up.

Second, with the generally small starting pool (except for the Mechanist) that has to be built up over rounds, saving up for a single massive hit isn’t that unbalanced compared to spending power as you earn it on multiple smaller effects and there’s still the Focus cap on how much power you can store.

Basically, the second point is an argument that it probably wouldn’t be terribly unbalanced, but the first is an argument that stacking it isn’t terribly needed as Action Focus already does at least part of it.

Running the numbers, an infliction that deals full threat can only have, at more, 4 traits (1 base + 3 from power) so that would be a build and spend of 3 power for a total of 4 x Focus extra threat.

Even a min-maxed build isn’t getting more than Focus 5 at level 1 (most will be 3-4) so that’s a hit for 20 extra threat after a minimum 2 turn build up (the 1 starting power + 1/turn gain), repeatable every three turns thereafter. Average attack at that level is 1dX+5 or so (average about 10)… so even a min-maxer is going to less than double their threat and that’s presuming they don’t need to burn a point or two somewhere on a defense check.

The same Min-Maxed out guy at level 14 has a Focus score of 10… so 40 extra threat if they just did all damage. Average hit is probably about probably an average of 36-38 threat, so again, basically an extra hit worth of threat every three turns after their initial opening salvo.

Now for the funny part; if you just bank two power you can take an extra action… so fighting that way you get an extra attack every other turn. Throw the basic extra threat for not cost effect on top… you’ll probably achieve about the same threat output or more as the guy banking it for their 4xFocus hits; just over multiple hits.

So, yeah, now that I look at it, probably not nearly as broken as I was thinking, possibly even a bit suboptimal (if the targets are dropped before you get to use it, or have so little left a regular hit would finish them, you just wasted all that power buildup).

The fact that it probably IS suboptimal might actually be a better reason to keep it from being an option.

* * * *

As to the Player’s Guide, if I’ve done my job, it’s now “done” save for the artwork and additional editing. I mean some crazy playtest result could drop and upend everything like it has before, but I’ll admit that this version feels “right” to me.

I’d hammered on the mechanics until they were so tight and uniform I had people asking me why I was even bothering with classes, but once that was done I realized my foundation was solid enough that I could now selectively release some of that tightness to make the characters start to feel more distinct from each other… to make the actual choice of class matter.

I think a big part of the long road this has taken is just that I, as a person, wasn’t done baking yet. I look back at what Terrors & Tactics would have been if I’d just dropped it out there in 2016 or so and I think it’s something I’d probably be a little embarrassed by today… particularly the dubious theology and bits of trying too hard to be edgy cringe (remember when there were Halflings that were the shadows of murdered children?).

But, in that time I’ve been baking I’ve gone through a lot, with my dad, becoming a godfather five more times, guiding people into my church, etc. and I’ve figured out a number of important things and even had someone offer to help me get my game published by the largest Catholic publishing house in the country.

All that shaped how I looked at this game I was writing and what it was for… if it had just been my angry reaction to 5e it would have been hollow in the long run. Now, it’s about what I think will make the best fantasy rpg I can make, taking inspiration from 4E, but also putting huge parts of myself into it.

About the only thing I’m starting to question is whether the change to Bulk in place of just real weights has actually been worth the added complexity of needing separate Lift (in real numbers for ease of use) and Carry (abstract) scores given the number of people who ignore those just as much as they do the weights.

* * * *

As for the GM Guide, most of the finished revisions are in back of the Player’s Guide presently. The advice is fine, it just hasn’t been moved to the PG since it doesn’t need editing.

The big thing now is to revise all the opponents. A bunch of categories and lore had major revisions (astrals are gone, golems and elves are now in the same broad category) so it’s not just tweaking the numbers. As such I’m making notes on how to clean up and make the opponents more useful.

I also need a bunch more opponents as several of the changes yanked significant sections out of the GMG (ex. the default setting material is all in the back of the PG now and the Astral Servitors merged into the Avatars).

Another lesson learned that needs to be accounted for is that PCs have proven to be exceptionally synergistic. Six PCs don’t let the party tackle 50% more than a four man party; they let them tackle 100% more because it’s easier to stack critical buffs and debuffs on targets, hold a line in more open areas and specialize without leaving a party competence gap.

What this means is that I need to include more higher threat opponents (though using the general trend of more lower threat attacks instead of one big one) and shift up the levels of some of the monsters intended to be fairly fearsome. Because 6 fifth-level PCs was routinely blasting through 600+ CP challenges (solidly very hard to the edge of lethal difficulty by the numbers) like they were easy and there is a relative dearth of 100+ CP opponents you can throw out to keep from having to throw out 3-5 times the number of the PCs worth of opponents and have players asking why they aren’t all trying to run away given how clearly outmatched they are.

So, for Men for example, I am going to need to create some tiers above the elites that are presently there… and possibly even use the PC-Light rules to build some of them instead of the standard builds.

One thing percolating in the back of my mind actually comes from City of Heroes. Back in the day it was my jam and bits of its concepts have leaked into everything I’ve done since. Now that it’s back with a legit license for the Homecoming servers I’ve been reacquainting myself with that old friend and being reminded of a few things.

Because of its scale from street gangs at low levels to planetary threats at high levels, one of the interesting choices it made was in presenting the police. At low levels (1-12) they were just beat cops, by 13-25 they were now exclusively SWAT types when they showed up, at 26-40 when the cops were called in to a scenario they’re all wearing power-armor (not Tony Stark tier, but mass produced exo-frames), and at level 40-50 they’re all police who’ve bonded with intergalactic peacekeeping energy aliens (basically making them all mid-tier superheroes).

The idea isn’t that ALL the cops are powersuited or superhuman, but the parts of the force you’re dealing with at those levels are (because anything less would be useless against what you’re facing).

So taking that as a cue, I’m trying to think about higher tier opponents not just as bigger numbers (there’s a joke out there about crpgs thar have you fighting crabs at level 1, shadow crabs at level 20, infernal crabs at level 40 and astral crabs at 80… where it’s the same guy and crabs in each picture in the exact same pose; they just have different outfits/colors/skins), but as completely different entities reflecting their status.

For some of the Men entries that might mean Mechsuit troopers, arcane weapons/armor, etc. For Avatars and Eldritch it might mean certain entities too powerful to qualify as PCs (think slightly weaker versions of Kar-Thaxu or the champion-tier dragons).

Anyway, that’s the next hurdle of design… rebuilding the monsters into something useable.

That's sort of what I was thinking as well when I said that even mages might wear a chain shirt - if you're going into danger, you need protection, and a piece of armor, even if it's a set of chain about the size of a tank top, is better than nothing. But I see what you're talking about, with the small plates built into the shins and forearms, as well as harder-looking sections in the biceps and shoulders.

And after thinking about it for two seconds, going into a dungeon or other fight in a classic wizard's robe is a great way to destroy that robe. If I were doing it, wizard's robes would be their equivalent of formalwear.

***
The way that the math works out for stacking Focus extra damage versus taking extra attacks sounds like how the math worked for big [W] powers versus multi-attack powers that stacked static bonuses in 4e - it's better to focus on more attacks than bigger swings. Which ironically is how it works in real fights - big, wild punches are more likely to miss, while solid, repeated hits will get the job done.

***
Good to hear!

This project has been ongoing for a long time, and it has seen some serious changes. I remember the halflings you mentioned. Then there were the original avatars, who didn't have their backstory of being exiles, and you had dwarves and giants and dragons and sprites as separate race entries. And that doesn't even compare to the theurge (which you'd always struggled with). At one point in the second major iteration, you had a runic class (covering all the warrior-mage concepts) alongside arcane, theurgic, and primal classes. And there were things like sanctions as alternate control and damage mechanics alongside aspects and minor spells. Ironically, the abjurer made a better sanctioner with its minor spells - which didn't used to be minor spells, but were wards unique to the abjurer.

I hardly recognize it compared to the old Terrors and Tactics previews you put up way back in the day.

WRT bulk vs real weights, I'd run it both ways and see which gets ignored more - though it probably works out the same.

***

The last tier of police that you mentioned in City of Heroes sounds like the Green Lantern Corps in a way.

The mechsuit troopers sound like they'd be the elite forces of a hold that managed to hold on to most of its technological prowess - for some reason, I'm thinking of Riverhold.

If I could suggest other opponents, this sounds like a great opportunity to flesh out the Zebul and the rust and husk demons.

Oh, there will be room for more demons; the current shortfall on page count with various things moved about is currently nearly 50 pages (its sitting at 318 presently... I'd like it to be the same size as the PG which is 365 pages.

Men are currently 42 pages; I'm thinking that might get about 40% bigger (basically go from 'grunt, veteran, elite' to 'grunt, veteran, elite, master, legend') which is about 16 of the pages.

Demon entries have been roughly 4 pages so three more demon types would be about 12 pages.

That still leaves me 20 more pages of critters and more art.

I've got some additional golems I want to throw in, which might be four pages, and giant spiders came up in the test campaign which had some fun mechanics for their webbing) so they're likely to go in as well (2 pages). The 'master/legend' tiers will take care of things like battle-suited infantry.

14 more pages... I'm thinking maybe 12 of those for art per my usual rule of roughly 1/4 of the page count being artwork.

two more pages that I'll figure out and we're good.


* * * *

The reason I even mentioned the Bulk was that, yes, it seems like it was being just as ignored as the prior one... it just has an intermediate step of figuring out what something's Bulk is.

Honestly, the only real use I've ever seen either really get used for was just the GM using the Lift score to justify PCs not being able to carry off something ridiculously heavy. In that sense, just the Lift/Carry mass is probably more useful simply because there's fewer steps in the GM deciding how much something weighs and whether the PCs can carry it (greater than Lift? then no) vs. having to take the weight and convert it to Bulk and then (greater than Bulk? then no).

I think its just human nature that unless you're involved in something where you have to use numbers in your day to day, that most people approach the carrying/bulk rules (and counting ammo/consumables) in the vein of the "One... Two... A Lot" way of counting.

Fortunately, I still have all my old versions of the books if I do decide to reverse that. But I kinda wanna do it before I start in on the monsters since I'd rather have to only go through them once.

* * * *

That last group does sound a bit like the GL's in score (they've even got an equivalent "Yellow Lantern Corps" that split off from them and they're in an ongoing intergalactic conflict), though in this case they're energy beings that need a body to ride around in to survive outside their native environment (not ride as in 'possess'; just live inside and observe... which gives the person they're in powers and a voice in their head who's potentially got thousands of years of knowledge it can share).

The villainous ones are villains because they decided they wanted to do more than just ride around and observe and advise; they wanted control of the life form they were inside and so conducted experiments on themselves to allow them to actually possess other life forms at the cost of being even less able to survive without a host.

One group of the villainous ones had a heel-face revelation and stopped using their possession ability on their hosts and instead worked with willing people to give them powers and advice to help them fight the villainous ones (in an uneasy alliance with the always good ones) to try and redeem themselves and keep the villains from taking over the Earth.

Honestly, City of Heroes has some truly amazing lore. If I ever get a hankering to run a superhero game at some point, I'd almost certainly use City of Heroes as the setting for it.

Sweet! I've been wanting to see the remaining demon types hammered out for a while now. And I remember that you'd mentioned that different golem types came up during a campaign.

Giant spiders would be more mechanically interesting than most giant insects, which fall under the paradigms of "bite, bite, and bite some more," "poison you," and in the case of scorpions and mantises, grapple you then attack.

***
I'd revert back to the old lift rules (no bulk) just to see who screams and whether it's worth even keeping. If a rule is ignored, then it may as well not exist.

***
The City of Heroes energy beings kind of mirror your primal spirits - the good ones that work alongside humans and the evil ones that outright possess their victims. The third group is where the analogy breaks down, but they're interesting in their own right.

So, just a small progress update today. My fluff material (specifically going from “pseudo-medieval with super science if you squint” to “objectively post-collapse sci-fantasy”) has changed so many baseline elements that I need to seriously reevaluate all “Men” entries.

Also, in practice I am NOT liking my revision to the “Weak” creatures to have them use the standard level ranges as I’m having to write in all sorts of exceptions involving tiered and level-based elements.

Ex. a weak creature needs to be level 6 just to get 10 Edge, which means they should be be getting +1 to all attributes (and defenses and attack TNs; which means they don’t get 8 points for attributes, they get 14) and +3 to initiative and +6 to trained skills.

It gets even worse with the PC-Light rules as racial bonuses to skills need to be added in and since they need to be a minimum of level 6 to qualify as a soldier type means my “they don’t get a talent until level 6” ends up essentially guaranteeing them one.

On one hand this creates some extremely competent weak creatures, on the other hand they’re well above the level of complicated you’d want for a minion or even many standard critters.

So, I think I need to first go back to the drawing board on the weak mechanics; probably starting with the idea that high level ones they can’t overlap with the standard opponents.

Leaving aside brittle and brute for a moment, right now the 0-15 scales are…

Weak: 4-19 Edge
Warrior companions: 8-38 Edge
Standard: 20-95 Edge
Elite: 40-190 Edge
Champion: 80-380 Edge

Related note: Anything over about 15 Threat in a single hit is too much to throw at starting PCs and more than 20 is too much for level 2-3. With threat going up at about 8+2/level that meant that, just to make it useful to more tiers, I was fairly routinely splitting those attacks so instead of 26 threat, it was two attacks for 13 threat).

Which also made elites way too common (i.e. dropping in level 1 elites in place of level 6 standards) as that was the best way to keep those “drop you in one-hit” attacks from happening while still presenting a reasonable number of opponents (a party of six level 4s needs 240 (and more reasonably 350-ish) CP for a normal challenge and so half a dozen level 2 elites doing 12-18 threat an attack made more sense than needing to sending six level 8 standards with single attacks hitting for 24-36 Edge.

What I’m starting to wonder is if, for creatures anyway, I shouldn’t revise the monster building to make multiple (or area) attacks of X threat or less the default rather than an exception. If the norm is a level 6 standard, instead of it default being a main action single attack for 20 threat, was instead a default of a main action allowing 2 attacks for 10 threat (or a single burst 1 or spray 3 for 10 threat) there would be a lot less need to automatically switch to elite opponents as soon as you got to what would be the level 6+ standard opponents.*

My current thought is start with the Weak scale by once again separating out the non-combatants from it. This means it’s no longer chained to the 4+level values they use (and they need higher levels mechanically since non-combatants can certainly have higher skill modifers than low level PCs).

Then it’s deciding what is the minimum qualification for a grunt-tier opponent (basically a conscript or some type of animal that could seriously injure or kill a person) and what is the maximum qualification that still qualifies as a grunt and go from there.

* By the same token I’ve at times considered making something like the Quick Strikes talent a default for attacks; replacing single attack/damage rolls with multiple attack rolls each for a set amount of threat so you still get some variation in threat dealt, but also making it easier to divide attacks vs. mooks without needing the “running larger battles/group edge” rules.

It’s way less critical on the player side (they’re normally fighting things that take more than a standard action devoted entirely to it to bring down), but for opponents it feels like something that could make building monsters a little less likely to break something…

i.e. just because a first level party of four has a normal difficulty value of 100 CP, doesn’t mean that a 100 CP dread knight (who gets two attacks for 20 threat each and can open with an autohit minor to everyone it can see for 10 lethal psychic threat) is going to be a normal challenge for them.

And lord help that same starting party where the GM decides to do the upper limit of a hard encounter as a single 150 CP creature like a Dread Lord (two attacks for 30 Edge each or two autohits for 15 Edge each).

However, if it instead got two (or three for the dread lord) 10 threat attacks per minor action (or an autohit to a single target for 10 threat) that reduces the swinginess against a low level party considerably while still being a threat at higher levels to one or two PCs as part of a larger group.

All I know for certain is I think I need to start a new calculation spreadsheet.

Looking forward to the end results. I'm sorry I don't have much to contribute - that end of things is way above my head.

Quite alright on that. I was mainly sharing because the act of writing it out helps me focus my thoughts so I more quickly find what’s going to work and what won’t.

For example, I’ve already ruled out making multiple attacks into something mechanized (i.e. all level 6s have two attacks) simply because the +2 threat per level can’t spread evenly across more than two. Instead it’s going to need to be a guideline-tier element (which it sorta is now, I just need to highlight it more).

The other related alternative that I’m not fond of would be a straight “roll once for every 10 threat or fraction thereof” mechanic where if your attack’s threat was 12, you’d roll an attack check once for a 10 point hit and once for a 2 point hit. If it was 24 you’d roll for two attack checks for 10 each, and one check for 4.

The math works okay, I just really don’t like the fractional hit at the end.

I DO however sorta like the idea of turning something like Quick Strikes into a default action**. The trick to normalizing it though is to probably take the die roll out of the equation (use the half+1 value, which works easily now that crits don’t do extra threat*) and then set them at specific tiers;

i.e. something like “starting at level 6, you can make two attacks instead of your normal one, but each deals half their normal threat, and at level 11 you can make three attacks that deal one-third your threat each.”

The reasoning behind averaging the threat die is that you don’t want to bog a turn down too much and so you’re removing the threat roll to make time for the extra attack checks and the damage will still be slightly variable by the number of hits. It also means you’re not having to divide by three for each threat roll which is a significant slowdown when you’re doing it three times a turn. So instead of calculating (1d10+22)/3 for every hit… it’s just 9 threat per hit.

You’re still better off doing a single attack if it’s not overkill since the “round down” rule dings anything that isn’t even or a divisible of three respectively (and the threat die could roll better than average); though crit-fishing could be a thing since three rolls is three shots at a nat-20… so it probably needs to keep the Quick Strikes rule about only landing certain effects with the first hit and not every hit.

The big question is whether this is something that should be universal (which would let it apply to critters and be it’s own sort of guideline for letting higher level critters hit lower level parties in less likely to KO a party member with one hit ways) or be class specific (say only the fighting classes; with a variant split threat AoE option for the casters (separate from the Enlarge Spell action which lets you deal full threat to multiple targets).

One argument for making it universal is that I think “managing larger battles” might be less needed since “group edge” was largely a tool to simulate that heroes could strike multiple mooks per turn and just throwing down multiple d20s with the normal “compare” function for each (and multiplying the hits by threat each) is probably faster than having to add a modifier based on number of attackers and then calculate margin of success, divide that margin by two and multiply that by the threat per hit.

And writing that out really does point out how inelegant that part actually is. Honestly, “subtract your attack modifier from the TN to get the natural die result needed, then roll a d20 for each attacker and count the number that equal or beat the natural number needed” is almost certainly many times faster than how it’s written now.***

The main argument for specialized would be to further distinguish fighting classes from spellcasters… which has potential but I’m not certain it is strictly needed as the classes are already significantly more distinct. The other reason for specializing would be simplifying the opponents by requiring any such option be built into each critter on a case by case basis (which also allows things like creatures that can make absolutely devastating hits, but only against a single creature every turn so they would be vulnerable to swarms, versus every strong critter being able to split its attacks against weaker foes (and also locking the number of such attacks to only three per action instead of potentially more for a champion critter).

I’m leaning universal, but I’m not married to it yet, so any thoughts on that specific element would be appreciated (though not required… I’ll figure out something eventually; feedback just helps me get there faster.

* * * *

Unrelated to the above, one thing my attempt at the PC-light weak opponent I attempted is it got me thinking that it was kinda nice to see a little bit of “non-combat” (or at least combat adjacent) on the opponent stat block which suggested ways to use them.

In this case it was the human bowmen I started with and after going Skirmisher (ranger) (so bonuses to Insight and Stealth and to climb, jump, swim) and Sentinel and Ready Ambush as their human-granted boon (plus an extra trained skill and +2 bonus to another) I ended up calling the result a Guerilla as they were very good with Insight, Intimidate and Stealth (and slightly good with Nature), could set up improved ambush conditions and threaten opponents with ranged free strikes using their minor action (and were not hindered or flat-footed while prone by taking “Extra Trait” as their human bonus talent).

The net result was that, while I did think that was too much for a weak-tier opponent to be carting around, the notion of giving a bit more that’s not a direct attack (like the ready ambush boon and extra trained skill) is something that would make opponents more interesting overall and maybe suggest things to GMs on how to use them in an encounter.

Basically, I’m thinking of adding a “give weak and standard opponents a boon (or equivalent), and elite and champions 2/3/4 (tiered) boons” into the opponent creation rules as a standard element of making one and also adding bits to all the pre-built critters.

* * * *

For Weak critters I’m thinking of semi-going back to “weak” tiers, but instead of a full 0-5 range, I’d just make them level -1, -2, and -3 (though -3 is pretty much non-combatants only) with the usual level math rules applying. So level -1 is 15 Edge for normal defenses and 6 threat for an average attack; level -2 is 10 Edge and 4 threat (and -3 is 5 Edge and 2 threat).

Ironically, this would actually remove the need for “weak” as a designator entity; the negative number denotes it on its own.

The other option, which might be more useful overall is to adjust “weak” to be equivalent to the Warrior companion numbers, so a level 0 standard has 8 Edge and a level 5 would have 18. Then just mostly build weak opponents in the level 0-5 range with just a few exceptions of level 6+ Weaks just to prove the rule.

A similar bit, which involves a slight bit of tweaking for the Warrior companions would be that “weak” means “divide by 2” instead of “by 5.” This puts the low end at 10, but also doesn’t require oddball math for brittle and brute opponents (because 8+2/level is 40% of 20+5/level which makes everything else messy) whereas half normal results in fairly clean math (8+2/level for brittle, 10+2.5/level standard, and 12+3/level for brutes).

Either way, keeping it usually to level 0-5 puts them at just under level 0 standard critter performance without busting the level and tier-based math and still leaving room for some interesting exceptions.

* * * *

* Indeed, one of the biggest effect outliers in determining CP values was the critical hits. A wound is almost easier to take (if you haven’t had many) than losing 4+the monster’s level additional Edge.

** Another factor in making Quick Strike a default is, now that Action Surge is 2 power instead of a Reserve, Quick Strike’s value is lower. Being able to potentially hit two targets and spend 1 power for an extra half-threat attack doesn’t feel like it’s actually worth a whole talent.

*** I’ve recently gotten into a beer & pretzels Battletech group and one thing that became quickly apparent is that if you know the natural target number needed on the die before making your attacks, you can resolve half-dozen or more in about the same time it takes a typical D&D player to make their attack and damage checks. From the perspective of war gaming with multiple attackers “ThAC0” makes a LOT of sense.

The "standardized multi-attack" mechanic definitely needs to be tested for crit-fishing (which even with critical effects dealing just max threat and a wound, no additional damage, is going to hurt).

If you do it, I'd lean universal as well, for two reasons: 1) fighting classes are already differentiated from the caster classes, and 2) it allows runic weapon-using gish characters to take advantage of it (though I'd probably restrict hit effects from inflictions to the first strike just as with impairing strike, while allowing the different damage types to carry through).

Another thing to test with this is how it interacts with your new Weak opponents, especially as damage levels rise.

I do like using negative levels for the Weak creatures instead of a full 0-5 range, though.

As to opponents having boons, I agree with your rule of thumb of standard opponents having one and elites/champions having 2/3/4, though I'd definitely test the elite/champion versions to see if it's too fiddly for a GM to remember, since elites and especially champions have a lot of stuff going on as is. I feel like 2 is a good number regardless, but 4 might be too much to keep track of.

Regarding the group combat mechanics, I like your new rule better than the old one - it is more elegant.

***
I've got very limited experience with Battletech, mainly the Mechwarrior 3 game from the 90s, lore-crawling on sarna.net, a couple of Raz0rfist videos, and a few Black Pants Legion videos. I've never actually played the tabletop version. My mech fixation was Transformers and Gundam, and I walked away from the former, and as to the latter, I'm just there for the mech designs.

The main thing getting to play Battletech again did was remind me that, if you know the number actually needed on the die, there are few faster methods of resolving multiple checks; including using formulas to turn it into a single check roll.

Carrying that over to R&R's larger battles should make that run a lot smoother.

* * * *

In terms of wording, here's what I'm looking at presently...

In the "Standard Build" Opponent rules I added this section;

Add Boons: Few creatures exist solely for combat. Background boons are the tool Ruins & Realms to provide additional non-combat options to PCs (beyond skills). Pick one simple boon for weak creatures, any one boon for a standard, 2-3 for an elite, or as many as make sense for a champion (2-4 typically).

Boons for creatures with Ø INT can break the general rule of not being able to use Arcane, Culture, Engineering, Medicine or Persuade checks if a boon calls for it (use WIT in place of INT if a check is required).

The idea with adding the boons isn't to have more things to track during a fight, its to add things they can do outside of fights that might establish circumstances for fights. For example, adding Ready Ambush to a 'marksman' (bowman, but with the option of a rifle) when I was doing the PC-Light build is what made me think of it as a Guerilla fighter; which I'd not really thought about in terms of use before (using them as part of an ambush, sure, but not specifically as an insurgent type... which adds the fluff context that they are engaged in asymmetric warfare against someone for some reason... and THAT is the sort of thing I want the pre-built opponents to provide... basically some built-in RP hooks.

* * * *

Next up, Quick Strike will persist as a fighting class talent... just with different wording;

Quick Strikes: You can use the Multi-Attack action for weapon attacks as if you were 5 levels higher. In addition, you can spend 1 power when you use the Multi-Attack action to make another weapon attack that deals half threat.

And the general use action is called Multi-Attack;

Multi-Attack (free; 1/action; Level 5): You use an action that deals threat to a single target / Use the action twice during your turn (make a check for each if it has one), but each use deals only half threat. Starting at level 10 you may also use it three times during your turn, but each use does only one-third of its threat. Critical Effects, Impairing Strikes, and Inflictions apply only to the first use that deals threat. For speed of play, do not roll threat for multi-attacks. Use 1+ half the threat die’s highest result + all other modifiers, then divide that by 2 or 3 instead.

The reason it is level 5 and 10 is because, with the changes to weak creatures, level 5 is about when a PC could deal enough threat with a normal attack to take out the weakest of the weak creatures twice or thrice over.

It is also worded as it is, referencing only the ability to deal threat, to allow it to work with class features that skip attack checks and deal fixed threat (ex. a Maledictor can reasonably choose to use Energy Missile as both their main and minor actions... letting a higher level one split those between multiple targets keeps one of its main class features from becoming less useful once it can take out multiple weak foes with a single action (there is generally not a need until level 10, but just the ability will probably give someone other ways to use it (ex. cutting multiple ropes at once).