STILL Not Dead (Terrors & Tactics Updade)

They do. There’s a reason I’ve often called it The Fallen Earth. No mortal effort can repair the damage the Demon Emperor wrought.

The World was created to perfectly reflect the spiritual light of The Source until the Demon Empire shattered it so it now reflects it like a mirror ball. He corrupted the hearts of Men which led to their First Empire perfecting the demons’ methods of created the dwarves and cross-breeding to create the Malfeans and used it to create dozens of slave species to serve them.

The first led to the birth of the Astral Gods where the reflected light formed Astral Realms. The second led to a people more than willing to follow those Astral beings to gain their freedom and, as a result, convert most of mankind to worship of the winners.

It is because of the Demon Emperor that hatred of the Malfeans abides to this day (and for their steadfast refusal to give up on the Old Faith). He may have even set them up to suffer the most, by setting them apart in ways that would forever remind everyone of the demons and by making their ancestors the taskmasters of the human populations.

And the great irony of it all is, if the Malfean story of The Promise is to be believed, that The Source will one day set right all that the Demon Emperor made wrong by sending a savior to be born from the persecuted lowest of the low who yet hold to the Old Faith... and this Savior will destroy The Shadow forever.

So, just in time for the weekend I've got a new version of the Ruleset up. Your old link should work. If not, let me know.

The change to damage types led to an interesting cascade through various things. One minor one was that with all the discussion of molecular breakdown as the basis of acid damage and changing fire damage to heat damage (which can move at the speed of light from whatever is emitting it by definition) led to me swapping the Acid and Fire/Heat properties for Sorcerers. Acid damage now grants the Lethal property (its best at disintegrating things) while Heat damage now grants the Accurate property (its "laser focused" you might say... bad pun intended).

The most interesting change though was my realization as I was reworking things that the distinction between Untyped and Kinetic damage was rather silly and arbitrary, especially since I realized I was using both as my benchmarks for what a critter was resistant or vulnerable to (i.e. would it take more or less damage than the same strength from a sword or force blast if hit with X).

As a result, Untyped has been killed and buried in an untyped grave. The entries for damage now state that if no damage type is listed then the damage is kinetic. The weapon properties section now notes that weapons deal kinetic damage as a basic property unless another property overrides that. The Kinetic damage entry also lists that Kinetic damage is only resisted or vulnerable or immune if an effect applies to all damage.

Kinetic is essentially the universal tool... not always the best, but never the worst.

This resulted in a change to many abilities where force (now kinetic) was mentioned as a type of damage that an attack could be changed to or resisted... since its now generally the default already of most attacks and can't be resisted without Resist All.

For opponents, I left kinetic off most weapon attacks simply for layout reasons, but left Kinetic on attacks once did Force damage to emphasize that they're magical force and not a weapon strike.

The updated elites and demons are present, but the Horrors aren't yet because while the Gallu is mechanically done, the Horror entries still need a bit of work, Etropos is still a little rough and the Dybbuk and Hate Mob Horrors are going to need me to knuckle down this next week and finally get the disease rules (the last major rule chunk) done as those two function almost more like diseases than actual creatures. So Horrors will be in the next update along with more of the demons and hopefully moving into the Astral Servitors.

What IS done-ish (it could probably stand more examples though) is the Rewards section which notes the benchmarks for gaining levels, wealth and major magic items.

The updates are awesome - the loyal beast looks good and the backgrounds it's assigned to are perfect.

The combat style updates are more thematic as well: the standard strong style gets the bows, while the raging berserker just throws things harder. It fits.

Kinetic killing and eating Untyped makes perfect sense - the damage types aren't about whether they're magical or not. They're modeling the harm that the magic and physical attacks are doing, so untyped is redundant. It's also a lot more elegant than the bludgeoning/slashing/piercing damage that 5e went with. Also, burying untyped in an untyped grave is perfect, as is your description of kinetic being the universal tool.

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I noticed a couple of things that may have been overlooked:

The Ifrit's lore said that it could shrink down and assume other shapes, but the Ifrits lack any kind of shapechanging ability the way the Jinn do. Other than that, they work.

I was looking over the gadgeteer path again and I noticed that the Big Lug and Monkeywrencher don't have anything that gives them Int (or Int-1 in the Big Lug's case) to defense to account for players that want to go Int primary for those guys the way they can for the War Wizard, Potent Spirit, and Militant or Zealous Astral.

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The new Rune Weapon entry is neat - having the Runic Weapon be melee-capable implements by borrowing the base weapon's ranges is a neat idea that also allows the casting-stat primary runic weapon users to avoid having to pay a tax for either Basic Training or Divination Specialization, while still preserving the Str or Dex primary casters.

The problem is that the weapon dice and having the separate one-handed and two-handed runic implements. The dice problem comes up when somebody selects the good old garden variety whip as their one-handed runic weapon: it gets melee 3 and a d8 die, completely invalidating everything below that damage die, minus weapons like the longsword. The lack of clarification that 2-handed runic implements must be 2-handed weapons means that somebody could choose a versatile weapon as their two-handed runic weapon and apply the versatile property. Also, guys who base their 2H runic implement on something like the war falchion, great hammer, or siege crossbow gets left in the cold. The versatile issue is a major stretch case, but it might be better to avoid the whole problem by having the damage die and other properties (like off-hand, 2H, versatile, etc.) be based on the weapon. Your idea of the runic implement basing its properties and ranges on the weapon is a brilliant idea, it just needs to be seen through to its logical conclusion.

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For the disease rules, they might work by basing them on your condition tracks and staging rules and just have the disease move up and down on the condition track independent of additional sources. Or maybe further complications from other sources can worsen the condition. I think 4e did something similar, but I haven't interacted with 4e's disease rules in years. The only time I did, my swordmage character contracted lycanthropy and walked it off after an endurance check.

The Ifrit fluff is an outdated bit from when they didn’t need tethers once they made it through the Great Barrier. Their ability to possess a host largely replaced that need in terms of moving in disguise. It might make some sense to keep it for the summoned versions though.

The main thinking on the Big Lug and Monkeywrencher was that their Focus score is either going to be a 3-4 even if secondary and their benefits relative to The Mad Genius and Troubleshooter are such that the main reason to take them is actually because you want the Gadgeteering angle with STR or REF as your highest score (with INT at 3-4). The Big Lug also gets both medium armor and small shields so even a STR 3 one can hit the target Armor 16 (13 + 1 shield + 2 from STR-1).

I’ll look into it, but I almost feel like I want a different solution for all the “weapon attack” spellcasting builds (like the war wizard, militant and zealous Astral and strong and swift primal), because at a certain point you may as well just drop the pretense of ability scores mattering for combat entirely if every possible option always gets you to Armor 16 (17 w. shield) and an average of 14 for your other defenses.

One of the things I actually like about the change to the base defenses method is that it’s actually possible to make something a little outside that 13-15 range if you wanted. So maybe something where there’s instead an incentive to maybe take the 1 point hit to Armor in exchange for more accuracy or damage.

Say something like, “You gain +1 to attacks and damage rolls that use INT.” If you build for STR 4, INT 3 then your melee attacks and armor defense are on target. If you build INT 4, STR 3 then your Armor is a point lower, but you also get the equivalent of an INT 5 for your Implement attacks.

Options instead of restrictions. That might actually be worth retrofitting into some of the other “war” spellcasting paths. I could particularly see that fitting with the Zealous Astral who would trade their own safety for smiting their enemies all the harder.

You could even have different variations. Maybe Zealous doesn’t get the bonus to hit the Big Lug gets, but deals more damage (or visa versa). Maybe due to Primal being balanced it only gets the “use WITS for Armor” option since that leads to more balanced builds.

So I’ll look at it, but just bumping the armor up just like all the rest might not be the most interesting way to fix it.

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As to the runic weapons. One of the issues is that the weapon implements are basically the “lethal” version of the implements (the original version was the arcane caster’s runic dagger as it’s 1d8 implement and the tome as their two-handed 1d10 implement).

This actually is derived from the idea that as a symbolic element an item whose innate purpose is to damage things would thematically be the one that inflicts the most damage compared to the other implements.

I completely undercut that if I base it on the actual weapon too much. A wizard using a runic dagger for their attack spells SHOULD do more damage than one wielding a wand or orb, not less.

There’s also just the “rule of cool” of it. Just like the wizard with a Cestus implement, using a whip crackling with arcane energy is actually kinda badass (I’m remembering some of the fight scenes from Dr. Strange again).

Also since it seems mostly in regards to some specific weapons; revisiting their stats instead might be a solution too.

On the other hand I do agree that I need to clarify handedness.

One important bit is that there’s no class that can actually take advantage of offhand implements. Even when used at weapon range and the typical weapon attack stat, runic weapons using the 1d8/1d10 damage die are always making implement attacks... so you couldn’t use a runic whip with a Skirmisher’s rapid attack (unless you use it’s ordinary 1d4 damage die) for example.

So even if the whip is an offhand weapon, we can’t compare it’s performance as an implement to an offhand weapon. It should be compared to something like a longsword or expert training with a spear (since implements are a caster’s equivalent to expert weapon training).

Both of those are accurate and versatile (can trade defense for damage... technically you don’t even have to drop a small shield to get it, though I should probably add that switching from one to two-handed is a free action so you’re giving up the shield bonus until your next turn because free actions are 1/turn each) so a runic whip doing 1d8 with two properties (+1 reach x2) is roughly in line with that.

By that measure though the 2H runic weapon comes up a bit short. The only basic two-handed weapons are the quarterstaff, warclub and scythe. The 2H runic weapon deals the same damage as a war club with no extra properties. By contrast, Expert two-handed weapons either do more damage (great axe), are accurate (greatsword) or have melee reach 2 (pole axe).

So clarifying versatile and 2H runic weapons being a bit underwhelming are the main elements there.

One related question to ask too is, is it a bad thing if wizards and other dedicated spellcasters have different weapon priorities than a warrior? I’m not sure it is. The wizard’s weapon of choice being a cestus (keeps hands free) or whip (for melee reach) with a dagger as a backup (and general purpose tool) immediately presents a visible sign that a melee-focused wizard approaches battles with very different tactics than a knight.

Similarly, if a rune-inscribed spear or greatclub (and wearing just animal hides or no armor at all) in the hands of a strong or swift primal works as well for them as the weapons and armor of a knight... how are the more feudal realms going to regard primal magic that practically anyone can learn and makes a peasant armed with an ass’ jawbone into the equivalent of a dozen of their best warriors?

So there’s sort of a balancing act. Magic needs to be able to be distinct from Martial. Simple runic weapons need to perform like expert weapons, but Expert runic weapons can’t be much better than expert weapons either or the balance gets thrown off.

I’ll figure it out, but I might have to rip it down to the studs again.

* * * *

As to diseases, the Fitness skill already has the Resist Disease action and gist of the mechanics. The main thing needed is essentially “how to build a disease and account for its effects on Challenges... basically the disease version of the traps & hazard rules. In some ways they are just traps with a variant of the Lasting duration (that can get worse).

One change from the 4E one check per day system though that I might look at is that I think there should be some sort of “stress” related check that can cause symptoms to spike. Something like you make a Fitness check after X+END turns of physical effort (combat, climbing, etc.) or your condition worsens a stage until you rest for Y minutes.

It’s also going to be more than diseases. As mentioned two of the Horrors actually work better as “Afflictions” (my term for them since it can be curses, diseases and other lasting effects).

* * * *

I’ve also given some thought to how I’m going to present Blackspire in the book. Instead of being mostly it’s own chapter, instead I’ll use it as the example for my “how to build a realm/campaign area” guidelines and rules. That section needs to include things like “include points of interest” and “interesting history provides seeds for adventure.” It also needs sections on creating nearby ruins (ex. The Black Spire, the Stormhold Necropolis), allies (the Toria Tribes) and antagonists (El-Phara, the Bloodspear Empire)... and why the allies need issues and antagonists generally need points of common ground to keep them from being just straight up enemies.

Essentially, how to start from a single point of light and slowly build up your world out by considering how each added piece fits with the rings inside it (ex. El-Phara gets its first elements from its antagonist role to the Free Cities. As it’s built up you can see that it’s best ally is probably a neighboring feudal kingdom (Ironhold) because it’s got issues with the Bloodspears too. Meanwhile the Bloodspears get a starting point from their common ground with the Free Cities being their dynastic succession issues and this then sets up how they might actually have a different ally/antagonist for each of its factions (perhaps even treating the Bloodspears as four separate realms).

Basically, I think Blackspire can do some double duty because at 564 pages between the two books not counting space for GMs Guide artwork and some of the overlapping chunks (table of contents, cover and legal stuff, intro section, etc.) and the GM’s Guide is filling up rapidly. That’s good in terms of this thing finally being ready for prime time, but the closer to full it is, more I’m going to have to pick what to keep and what to cut (with core mechanics an absolute priority).

Attaching Blackspire to some of those mechanics (because “random city/realm/dungeon/encounter tables” are apparently big selling points) makes it something that is less likely to end up on the cutting block if it comes to it.

The host ifrit not having the shapeshifting powers makes sense, since it would prefer to hang onto said host.

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I like your idea for the Str/Dex vs casting stat weapon caster builds. Rather than just plugging a hole, you're improving it.

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With regard to weapons and one-handed runic implements, I was really comparing apples to oranges.

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Runic implements being the lethal implements makes sense - they're weapons, not random trinkets like a crystal or wand.

If the properties from one-handed runic weapons (accurate, versatile) carry over, then shouldn't it work the same way for two-handed weapons? In that scenario, the only expert runic weapons to suffer in comparison to their mundane counterparts would be those with a standard 1d12 damage die like the great axe or war falchion.

Something else that I was thinking is that runic weapons are where the magical and the martial overlap. Maybe it's best that the paths that get expert weapon proficiency resemble weapons a little more - the casters without expert weapon proficiency already have different weapon priorities, since they only get proficiency with three basic weapons. A standard lore wizard or faithful astral caster can't swing a runic longsword without getting longsword proficiency for example.

Perhaps the runic weapon can use the greater of their weapon die and the runic implement die, like you did with the ranged property. That would get basic weapons up to where you want them without making the higher damage weapons suffer.

Another way to look at it is that runic implements aren't really a separate implement, but a property applied to an implement. In the implements section, they don't have their own weight entry and their cost is a markup on the basic weapon cost.

Just out of curiosity, what made you rework them the first time around? I figured you wanted a way to let casting-stat primary characters use melee attacks without paying for a utility or specialization (and let physical-stat primary characters use their primary for physical attacks), but I wasn't sure.

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The idea of afflictions getting worse with strenuous activity is something that definitely needs to be included. I've worked through a fever and I've rested through one, and invariably working through it just makes it worse.

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Blackspire being the example realm is the smoothest way to present it - you kill two birds with one stone, basically.

So, here’s an unexpected update... I’m still adjusting the “weaplement” spellcasting paths (and runic weapon implements with it), but I also managed to succeed on something else on that pairing it down list from a while back.

Basically, I had a brainstorm on how to successfully combine the Courtier and Noble into an Aristocrat background (since some places don’t technically have either, but aristocrats are just “the upper class” and so can also include heirs of powerful business leaders (Riverhold) and elected officials (Blackspire) as well as nobles and court officials.

The trick was to, like the Religious background, include a switch (Primal or Astral in that case).

First, I stripped out all of the Military utilities from the Noble and all scheming utilities from the Courtier (not gone, just moved) then merged the lists, further cutting out ones that were close, but not identical, mechanically to each other (ex. The Noble’s Stipend utility is flat out superior to the Courtier’s Secure Lodging... so the Stipend stayed and Secure Lodging dropped).

The end result was a list of about two-dozen (about six short of normal for a background), mostly social interaction focused, utilities. I also dropped the background skill list to just four skills instead of the usual six (Culture, Insight, Intimidate, Persuade).

Then I added the switch. When you pick Aristocrat you also pick one of three options;

- Court Schemer: Add Deceit and Stealth to your list of available background skills. You can pick up to three of your utilities from the Outlaw background (which is where all the Courtier’s underhanded utilities were moved).

- Lord of War: Add Fitness and Medicine to your list of available background skills. You can pick up to three of your utilities from the Military background (which is where Men-At-Arms ended up... the Court Schemer can pick up Band of Thugs to mostly the same purpose).

- Dilettante: Add any one skill to your list of background skills. You can pick up to three of your utilities from the Traveler background (lots of language and lore items, plus Esoteric Experience to grab other utilities entirely).

So while you can’t do all of them at once, Aristocrat can actually cover the scheming courtier (they could even pick up Lackeys in addition to Loyal Attendents for an extensive network of non-combat retainers), the warrior noble (with steed, squire, men-at-arms and other military utilities) and the pampered and sheltered scion (perfect to layer on top of a Sidekick for the stereotypically “useless” traveling companion).

And it doesn’t have the baggage of an official position/rank as it’s like courtier or noble does (arcanist, artisan, barbarian, commoner, entertainer, military, outlaw, religious and traveler could cover a lot more territory... a barbarian could be a lone guy living off the land to a member of a clan to leader of a multi-clan tribe... an artisan could be a rank apprentice, a respected master or a crank inventor... a commoner could be a serf/peasant, a villager/city-dweller or a yeoman/free farmer).

It also chopped four pages out of the Player’s Guide I can now use for something else, like a better discussion on the religions (I can fold “Favors of the Astral Gods” and “Primal Bans” into that too for up to six pages) and an appendix with the relevant Optional Rules that relate to character building a GM may want to employ (that I hadn’t yet moved in due to lack of space).

Now back to figuring out the best approach to Runic Whip wielding Big Lugs.

That's awesome! I especially like the "switch" part: it lets you get aristocrats other than the standard medieval. You can model Batman on the Court Schemer with Deceit and Stealth, and the Lara Croft adventurer types (like Kalla) work very well with the Dilettante option. As for the name, like a bunch of other things that came about because of this project, it's something that's so obvious in hindsight.

What approaches are you considering for the Runic Whip Big Lug?

Yeah, Courtier/Noble always had a problem of being an exceptionally broad category compared to the others and even split into two it didn’t quite cover everything because it was more a general class than a professional category (commoner would have had that problem too if not for the pre-industrial tech level putting 90% of the population into the field of low-skill resource production/extraction; farming, mining, fishing, etc.).

If not for Travaler’s Esoteric Experience utility, I’d probably have needed a couple more categories to really cover all the types of Aristocrats that could come up. As it stands, between the three you can take from the associated background, one you could get from Exotic Tutor and three you could get from Cross-Training... seven of your 9-10 utilities could come from elsewhere.

As to runic weapons, the tweak there is a bit multi-layered because it actually required a few adjustments to other implements (staff and battlefist) in the process. First, I replaced the “one-handed” and “two-handed” types with “light” and “heavy” and decoupled that distinction from the base weapon.

Heavy runic weapons use the 1d10 and require two hands to make implement attacks, even if it’s a dagger. Light runic weapons use the 1d8 and only need one hand even if its a greatsword for weapon attacks. The implement attacks use the weapon’s melee # and range # or range 10.

Weapon properties don’t apply to implement attacks, but attack spells can be used through weapon attacks (targeting the weapon’s normal defense) if a combat stance isn’t applied to them too. This is essentially a backtrack, but necessary for any alternatives to “use casting stat for Armor defense” to be possible (+1 to hit/damage with implement attacks just makes it even better to go all STR/REF because runic weapons allowed using STR/REF for implement attacks inside weapon range... so REF 4 and a bow gives you +5 to hit/damage at range with normal defenses and 4 Focus).

The related change is that the Battlefist and Staff implements had their ranges changed to Melee 3 and Range 15... both equal to the best simple weapon options for a runic weapon, but are on a single item (which is why they do slightly less damage).

A runic whip or staff sling can match one of those ranges and do slightly more damage, but to carry magic versions of both eats two magic item slots and the separate costs of any quality or magic properties must be paid for each... where a fine staff gets the accurate or lethal property at both ranges for the price of one.

What this means in terms of weapon selection is that Implement-only casters are going to favor more esoteric weapons like the dagger/long knife (very concealable/unobtrusive), cestus (keeps hands free), whip (best melee range) and staff sling (tied for best range with crossbow, but a bit less conspicuous) while those with good enough scores for weapon attacks will favor more traditional weapons for their properties (ex. accurate and the versatile damage boost for a longsword or the reach and better accuracy or damage of a pole weapon).

As to the spellcasting paths... as mentioned, if runic weapons only make implement attacks then the only option is “use casting stat” or it gets unbalanced. With that split out though, I’m going with the following for the “weapliment” paths.

War Wizard and Potent/Swift Primal are staying as they are. Primal uses WIT for armor across the board already so it’s the definition of the balanced class option. War wizard can be STR or REF so trying to balance defenses around that would be really finicky.

The Monkeywrencher gains the +1 to implement attacks and damage rolls, making REF primary/INT secondary their balanced build with Implement focus skewing offense over defense.

The Big Lug goes the other way with a flat +1 to Armor defense. Build for STR and your defenses are higher than normal. Build for INT and you’re balanced.

Zealous Astral puts all its focus on killing you. Unlike all the other REF builds, it CAN still use it with the heaviest two-handed weapons. On top of that its Implement attacks gain Lethal and Improved Crit (which matches the de facto Accurate and Lethal of the Monkeywrencher). Going REF primary makes it a choice between weapon attacks (probably with a two-handed or pole weapon) and the less accurate, but more deadly implement attacks (a heavy runic weapon implement attack would start at a 1d12 and crit on an 18+).

The Miltant Astral on the other hand becomes a Tank. It replaces “PRE-1 for Armor” with “Unbreakable Faith”... essentially an Astral version of the Berserker ability (flat-footed but resists all damage and conditions while active). Throw that on the armor variant of the Abjurer and you’ve got the classic “hold the line at all costs” Paladin.

ETA: Militant Astral Abjurer with STR 4, heavy armor and large shield puts it at effectively Armor 14 (because flat-footed is effectively a -5 to Armor in that range) but takes half damage from hits.

That should also help these builds feel even more distinct from each other. Primal doesn’t get any heavier armor or weapons, but get small shields and are generally balanced (slightly defensive). Wizards get better weapons, so are balanced but slightly offensive. Gadgeteers are mid-extreme... slightly more accurate or slightly tankier than the Wizards/Primals respectively. Astrals are the most extreme towards lethality or defense.

It looks like you've managed to combine the best parts of both versions of the runic implements. Letting the implement-focused guys keep their melee-ranged implement attacks while letting the Str/Dex guys continue using their weapon properties and attacks vs AC.

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The weaplement paths look like they work well - the Militant Astral using a version of the Berserker's ability is an ingenious twist, making them stand apart from the Avenger/inquisitor-like Zealous Astral. I think that the weaplement problem's been sewn up nicely.

Yeah, originally I was thinking of giving the Berserker “Resist All” to the Big Lug and call it Iron Skin, but at the end of the day, the heavy armor holy warrior just standing in the gap and sacrificing himself to hold the line as the rest of the party runs is such a D&D-ism (whereas in general fiction it’s much more likely to be someone in need of redemption who makes that sort of sacrifice) that it had to go to Militant Astral.

And I agree, that’s in good shape, so it’s on to afflictions rules. At first I was thinking the trap CP building rules would provide a good starting point, but it turns out not really to be so. They’re far too focused on instant onset effects whereas Afflictions might have that, but are so much more about the buildup.

One area that I’m actually going to build an optional rule off of is “Afflictions From Dying.” The gist is that if you want a more cinematic campaign where death just really isn’t on the table for the PCs, but still want consequences then instead of losing a Surge when you fail a recovery check while dying you pick up and injury-based Affliction instead (with each failure adding to the severity).

I actually got the germ of the idea from “Dragon Age: Origins” where the story required you and your companions to live until key points in the story so when one of them got dropped in a given battle (so long as it wasn’t a TPK) then afterwards the fallen would get back up, but be suffering from one or more injuries that could only be removed with certain magic polstices or spending time resting in camp.

So they might have a concussion that affected their accuracy/skill performance or a twisted arm that would give a penalty to damage or broken ribs that caused them to regain Stamina more slowly or a leg injury that made them slower... etc.

In my case I could see creating a couple of Affliction tracks... like a leg injury that at its lowest level just gave a penalty to speed, then slowed you, then made you immobilized unless prone (i.e. you have to pull yourself with your arms). Maybe a Head, Torso, Arms and Legs track.

Then how you applied it could be set to different levels based on which optional rule you choose.

Like with the “Fantasy Fracking Vietnam” setting you pick up a basic injury each time you’re bloodied and each time you fail a death save in addition to losing the Surge. Combat is deadly and creates a death spiral if you’re not doing everything you can to make every fight unfair in your favor. Throw in low/no magic (so no Cure Affliction ritual) to really go with Crapsack Fantasy World where just getting a injury can kill you from the secondary infection.

At the alternate extreme, you can’t die at all unless it’s narratively appropriate and Afflictions completely replace Surges for failed dying recovery checks. Worst case you’re out of action until someone can use one or more Cure Affliction rituals to restore you to health. This would be idea for playing with younger kids (or emulating the kids fantasy genre) where you still want consequences, but also don’t want your ten-year-old goddaughter crying because her character died.

The only thing past that is “No dying period” where all dropping to zero Edge means is you’re harmlessly knocked out and get up once the fight is over.

* * * *

Anyway, the biggest issue I’m having is how to balance the respective stages.

One type of Affliction I definitely want to model (particularly for the Dybbuk) is the “Deadly Superpower” where you gain a benefit, but the side-effects of having it slowly kill you.

A prime example of this would be the Buffy episode where she picked up telepathy which was great until she couldn’t shut it off and started getting painful feedback from it.

That’s kinda how I see the Dybbuk working. At first it actually boosts your Insight... you become hyper aware of your surroundings and how people around you are acting. The next stage though is when the Dybbuk goes from “Hey, did you see that?” to whispering “Isn’t it suspicious that they’re doing that?” to “They’re definitely plotting against you” to “They’re ALL plotting against you” to finally “You need to take them all out before they take you out.” Mechanically they go from big bonuses to all Insight checks (no penalties to anything so you come to trust the judgments you’re having) to then taking penalties to the Read Emotions and Analyze Clues aspects of Insight (now that you trust it, it begins to twist subtly to lead you down false paths) and then to taking penalties to other skills when not working towards killing your “enemies” (distracted by paranoia) to finally becoming the Dybbuk’s slave (become an NPC with the Dybbuk template until cured).

So it needs to be able to balance a first stage that may be anything from helpful, to no obvious effects (incubation) to instantly harmful.

My thinking at the moment is that instead of a set CP value for inclusion, Afflictions would have a CP value that changes with each stage. So the first stage of the Dybbuk Affliction would actually have a negative CP value... since it would be helpful to many challenges.

This would make it easier to build a more customized Affliction where different stages can be better or worse than others (ex. there are real world diseases where the pain goes away completely in the end stages... because all the pain receptors are dead). You could even build an Affliction in reverse... say one that keeps pumping up your adrenaline so you actually get stronger, faster and more alert at each stage, until your heart gives out and you die.

Then you just need a modifer for how easy or hard (and what conditions... is it just time, just exertion, both?) it is to recover from the current stage or drop down to the next (with the highest modifier being for hard to recover, but easy to get worse).

So you’d have a base value for each stage, then a CP modifer based on the recovery TN (how hard to recover) and a second on the margin of failure to get worse (failure by 10 or more being very mild, any failure being extremely aggressive).

At least that’s how I’m thinking it should work at the moment.

You raise a very good point about the instantaneous version of traps vs the lingering, accumulating nature of afflictions. I could see some crossover with poisoned traps and the like, but the goals behind the two mechanics are completely different.

Having the afflictions from dying concept be variable based on what the campaign's tone calls for is a good idea as well.

Finally, having certain afflictions provide beneficial aspects at various stages is downright diabolical - your example with the Dybbuk is a great one, as is the adrenaline one.

You definitely have your work cut out for you, though.

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On an unrelated topic, how are the opponent entries shaping up? I haven't heard anything since you posted the latest demon revision.

They’re coming along, though mostly in the “list of traits” and “what’s the gimmick” stages... sorta like the Sample PC stat-blocks in the Species chapter really.

Once I have the Size/Type/Level, Ability Scores and a list of traits/actions then the rest is just plugging those into the Standard Build rules to get the rest. If I were a little more proficient with it, I could probably write an Excel spreadsheet that would do most of that for me because going from the design to the stat up the derived stats part is easily the most draining part of the design process because it’s just doing some math problems essentially (Add better of STR or END to base Fort defense, add REF + 1/2 level for Initiative modifer. Cross reference level and attack accuracy to determine damage value).

If not for the need to provide easy to use stat blocks (versus having to cross check things like the old stat blocks where all the changes to say, cavalry, based on level were in small text at the bottom) and how much even people who otherwise love 5e miss that about 4E, I’d be tempted to just provide a good chunk of the monster stats like I did the sample PCs and let GMs worry about working out the derived traits.

But is important so I gotta do it... it’s just easy to put on the backburner when something requiring genuine creativity are also on the table (the changing up of the elites, the Aristocrat background, new features for the weapliment-based casters, designing the raw abilities of the Horrors... or presently, Afflictions).

Because Afflictions let me build whole new types of opponents. The mummy is basically a wight wrapped in cursed or disease-ladened bandage to protect from the harsh sun of the Blood Wastes. “Mummy Rot” lets you take a basic wight and create something new using it. The same goes for diseased beasts, traps or hazards that inflict diseases or curses placed on objects or places (one element of Afflictions too is that they don’t always have to be “until you beat a check”... they could also be ended with “until you leave area” (like a haunted crypt that slowly eats away at your sanity until you leave it) or “until the item is returned to where it belongs.”

There’s no reason the curse on the pirates of The Black Pearl (until every piece of gold is returned) couldn’t be a thing you could use Afflictions to represent.

The point is... it’s a lot easier for me to make quick progress on those because they require my creative side. Statting up stuff after that is always going to be a slog for me.

Yeah, at that point, it's drudgery, not creativity.

I just had an idea: do you know anybody who's proficient in Excel that might be able to help you set up your building program? The website guy you went to a while back might be able to point you in that direction.

I do know someone, but as it turns out, a little futzing with the help feature taught me the main thing I needed to know; a feature called Calcatenate that lets you combine multiple text chunks and cells into a single field; and reminded me of how to do another; drop down menus for fields.

So right now I have a raw data section where you enter the opponent’s name and level, select it’s size, defense style, threat level, role, origin, form and whether you’re using natural or manufactured armor/shields from pull down menus... put in values for the base ability scores (with a “points remaining” display that adjusts for grunts and champions) and the three points for defenses...

... and it will completely layout, with proper formatting, the Name, CP value, defenses, Edge and bloodied values, Initiative, Treasure, Ability Scores (adjusted for level) and Base Load.

The big trick is going to be how to set conditional fields for the skills section, because it should only list proficient skills and their values. It’ll also allow me to do a proper keyword line since brittle/brute and grunt/elite/champion only show up if they’re of that type... normal defenses and standard threat don’t list on the line.

After that it’s how to enter traits and actions, but I may settle for it just giving me the attack and damage values for their type and level and just listing all the skill proficiencies at this point just because if I can just look at the single lines of data instead of the table I’ve been using when filling in the stat block it’ll still be less of a drag than calculating it in my head/referencing a table with 18 levels worth of edge (all twelve combos) and damage ranges (six columns).

Update.

I just figured out how to make it properly format the skills and keyword lines.

I'll probably have to put the Resist, Immune and Vulnerable on a separate line just because its not going to readjust the actual positioning of the lines, but I'm well on my way to a legit stat-block builder for Ruins & Realms.

Awesome! That's going to be a massive time saver.

Time-saver and something else I can offer to GMs on my website. You’d still need to know how to build actions and role actions and what changes to those being an elite or champion or grunt causes from the books, but something that will do all the calculations for you will help out GMs immensely as a game aid.

Once I have the thing in something resembling a reasonable form, I’ll upload and link it here.

I could probably do similar with Non-combat NPCs, Traps/Hazards and, once the design work is done, Afflictions; maybe put them all on the same spreadsheet (different pages) as an all-in-one GM labor saving tool (since you can cut and paste the resulting stat block right into a Word document).

I’m not sure if Excel is the right way to do a PC-side sheet. They’re a LOT more sub-menu driven (i.e. picking your species presents you with various new choices that only exist for that species. The same for Archetypes/Classes and Backgrounds), but it’s something I’m thinking about too.

Okay, its been a bit since I posted last, but that's again because of my old truism; The degree to which I can talk about the project and work on the project are inversely proportional.

I just uploaded a new version of the rules, so if you have a link it should be viewable (the revision is dated 6/22/19). If anyone with the link has any problems. Lemme know.

One of the reasons for the absence was that I got a rather harsh, but fair, critique of my game by someone whose opinion I value related to the degree of complexity and sheer number of conditions the game was using. After all, 4E only really had about a dozen actual conditions (though they spelled out certain more elaborate effects in power descriptions without making them actual conditions) while mine had over 32 negative conditions alone.

The result of all that was that I ended up doing a deep dive on my conditions and what was fundamental and what wasn't. After all, many of my more severe conditions were actually just combinations of lesser conditions. Fatigued, for example, was the flat-footed and shaken conditions; giving it a specific name just meant that I didn't have to write out "flat-footed and shaken" for effects.

But in retrospect, there's a huge difference between what I can remember because I built the system and what a general player is going to remember. So in the course of my deep dive I ultimately concluded that it would be easier for the general audience to remember that they were subject to two really common conditions; flat-footed and shaken; than to remember that fatigued is flat-footed plus shaken when they're subject to a fatigued condition.

So, after running through all the conditions I was able to peel it back to about fifteen fundamental negative conditions I'd built everything else from and a few compound conditions common enough to really need their own keyword. First, one that doesn't actually ever apply on its own, but is the basis of many other conditions;

• Hindered: Roll twice for the action and use the worse result. If you could normally roll twice and use either result you instead roll normally.

Then the individual conditions;

• Checked: You cannot move closer to what you are checked by.
• Confused: Your allies trigger your reactions as if they were enemies. You must use a reaction when triggered, but can choose other aspects of its use.
• Compelled: Your actions on your turn are chosen by the creature compelling you, but they can’t make you spend focus or surges.
• Dazed: You lose your reactions. You also lose your minor action while dazed twice and your normal movement while dazed thrice (but aren’t halted). You also either lose your main action (normal) or become compelled (if the action has the Compel keyword) if dazed four or more times.
• Flat-footed: Roll twice for attacks on the target and use the better result.
• Halted: You cannot move using your own movement. If the action has the Petrify keyword, creatures halted twice are petrified for the duration.
• Shadowed: You treat everything as obscured (unless it is already worse). If shadowed twice you treat everything as heavily obscured (unless it is worse), and if shadowed four or more times you treat everything as totally obscured.
• Shaken: All your action checks are hindered.
• Slowed: Your speeds are halved (min. 1). If slowed twice you are halted.
• Taunted: Your attacks are hindered unless the effect’s origin is also a target and all previous taunts on you end. Continuous effects cancel each other.
• Tethered: You cannot further than two paces from what you are tethered to.
• Unsteady: You fail any action check if the die result is an odd number.
• Vulnerable: Damage of a type you are vulnerable to is always a critical hit (or extra damage equal half that dealt if not from a hit effect).
• Weakened: Your effects deal half damage.

Then the really common compound conditions;

• Grabbed: You are halted and attacks against anyone but your grabber are hindered. The grabber can pull you 1 pace for each pace they move. The grabber is slowed if they are the same size as you or halted if smaller than you. You can try to end this condition early by using the Escape Grab action.
• Prone: You are slowed, your attacks are hindered and you are flat-footed to melee attacks, but ranged attacks on you are hindered. You can end this condition by using the Stand Up action on your turn.
• Unconscious: You cannot take actions (even by spending heroic surges), fall prone, take a –5 penalty to defenses and to Passive Insight.
• Petrified: You gain hardness 20, soak points equal to your full Edge score, fall unconscious (but do not fall prone), fail all active and passive Insight checks, do not age, hunger, thirst or breathe and cannot regain Edge.

Other than Dazed, Shadowed and Slowed the conditions do not stack with themselves. For those that do stack I mostly removed the name changes (i.e. dazzled, dazed, stunned, held -or- shadowed, darkened blinded) and just refer to them as "dazed once, dazed twice, dazed thrice, etc."

Because there's not much staging of effects anymore this required a change to how Resistance to conditions works.

• Resistance: You reduce resisted damage or movement effects by half and are immune to environmental effects (ex. heat or cold) that deal less damage per round than your level. Being affected by a condition or keyword you resist triggers a free recovery check to end that condition before it has any effect.

So, if you're resistant to a condition you've generally got a 55% chance of it just not affecting you at all; which balances nicely for the Berserker ability that makes you flat-footed, but also resistant to everything.

Another element that got added were a few additional keywords; from the descriptions above you already see the Compel and Petrify keywords so its straightforward which actions can inflict those if they're stacked enough, but another that had to be added was Fear to cover the blanket of conditions that it can produce (anything from just shaken to checked to varying levels of dazed).

The result of this change though was that it rippled through the entire rules document. I had to double check every species, every class ability, attack and specialization, every background ability, the opponents, magic items, how opponents and traps were built. That's pretty much where I've been for the last month.

One common element of the change was that attacks in general got a bit more flexible when it came to their Focus use. Because the more severe compound conditions were broken up many of them changes from things like a flat-footed base effect with "target is fatigued for 1 focus or exhausted for 2 focus" to "target is also shaken, slowed or weakened for 1 focus each" because those were the three effects (in addition to flat-footed) that being exhausted inflicted, but now you get to choose the order they're applied to the target.

I also rebuilt part of the Fitness skill from having separate entries for long distance swimming, going without sleep and resisting the elements to a general "Resist Fatigue" with specific examples and TNs for them in order to essentially define what were the Fatigued and Exhausted conditions in a different way.

Another element that had to be changed in light of the lack of staged conditions, was Champion's Resolve for Champion opponents. Now instead of all staged conditions dropping by one level and all others ending, it ends 2/3/4 (by tier) conditions at the start of the Champion's turn.

* * * *

One really unexpected side-effect of the process was that it ended up cutting EIGHT pages from the Player's Guide (from 368 to 360) by the time it was all done. That is room I can use to include some additional player-side fluff like a more in-depth description of the religions as I've discussed on this thread and maybe a little more detail about fitting characters into the world.

* * * *

I had also made some other changes before I started into this, but uploading a new version with them got side-tracked by the above changes.

First, I added an option to the Bodyguard, Enforcer and Medic to allow them to be a spellcaster instead of a martial type character as follows;

Proficiencies: (Companion specific skill; Insight, Intimidate or Medicine), one skill of choice and choose one of the following;
• Skilled: basic proficiency in all weapons, expert proficiency in three categories of weapons, proficiency in medium armor and small shields.
• Spellcaster: basic proficiency in two weapons, proficiency with one implement, the Defensive Style archetype class benefits and choose one defense and energy type for their implement attacks; Dodge (acid, heat, storm), Fort (cold, kinetic, toxic) or Will (psychic).

Second, I removed the Summon Minion attack power and merged it's effect into the Summon Ally spell as one of the options you can select for it. This is because the power essentially competed with Summon Ally for main action use so you'd never have both out at the same time anyway, and it allowed the creation of more interesting minions by opening all the Ally Traits to the minions and allowing the Summoner class to use its extra abilities in association with them.

Third, stats for some of the Horrors and Astral Servitors are now in the opponents section. While I haven't got Afflictions into the rules quite yet, you can see a prototype of an Affliction in the form Dybbuk Possession in the Horrors section.

Now that the rule overhaul is done, adding in some more critters and finishing out Afflictions is next on my to do list to finally get this thing done.

The new conditions are my favorite part - they're much easier to remember, and the new versions of the attacks are much more flexible, as you said. I was thinking that Fearsome Fury could use some more of that flexibility, reformatting it so that the enhanced effect imposes the checked and unsteady conditions for one focus each, but I'm probably underestimating the combination of shaken plus unsteady (which is freaking mean).

By the way, Mobile Harrier and Mettle still refer to dazzle, and Mettle also refers to stun. Shadow Specialization refers to darken. Also, Baleful Transposition still references the unfocused condition. Bad Reputation and Sly Threat in the Outlaw background do the same thing. Finally, the standard shedim host's scouring vortex is still a main action. Just little things I noticed.

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Merging summoned ally with the minions makes sense and gets rid of the main action overlap you were talking about. My only question is what happened to the increased number of minions? Or am I remembering something from an older version?

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The skilled vs spellcaster proficiencies section in the bodyguard/enforcer/medic statblock does a lot to open up concepts for those characters.

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I couldn't help but notice that you gave the war wizard cantrips. It was something I was wanting for a while, but I figured that it would have been too much with the weapon summoning and physical adept utilities. I love it and find that it makes perfect sense, contrasting the social wizard's aristocrat utilities and cantrips selection.

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The horrors do the job well - the gallu especially is horrifying. Just one question - how does the horrid eye have caustic spittle? I was thinking of caustic tears, but that sort of takes the horror out of it. Maybe mucus could work better.

All corrections are greatly appreciated. Honestly, I’m stunned (er, dazed thrice) that there weren’t at least half a dozen more errors with all those changes.

For fearsome fury, it was a judgement call, but yes, shaken plus unsteady is a beast so I made it a standard progression instead of pick from multiple options. There’s still the option of additional targets or checked in the first tier (one of the few skilled attacks that can hit multiple targets on its own) so it’s got some flexibility to it.

For summoned minions the increased numbers went down mainly because it quickly got to be a pain to keep track of them on a physical map (basically the same reason warrior companions got capped at three) when you basically had ten of them level 6 and nearly 20 by level 15. It was something I’d never noticed mainly because no one ever took Summon Minions, only Summon Ally.

Glad you approve on the change-up for War Wizards. It essentially came down to all the others getting basically a whole background worth of options and physical adept utilities and a benefit that’s basically worth one utility at most didn’t actually add up to that.

I also changed up the Clever Spirit benefit for Primal where instead of getting Arcanist or Religious utilities they get the ability to replace any one skill with using an Insight check instead. The idea being that between their awareness (high WIT score plus almost certainly proficiency in Insight) and the spirit patron’s suggestions you’re able to pull off something you’d normally not be able to do. I believe the one sample PC with Clever Spirit has Acrobatics as their choice. They’re not especially agile, but their awareness of their body and their surroundings allows them to keep their balance, “tumble” past enemies, evade many types of traps, etc.

I figure the Horrid Eye is rather Lovecraftian in that, in addition to the eyeball it’s probably got some tentacles for the basic manipulation a typical beast form can perform. I envision them as emerging from the back where the optic nerve would be on an eyeball. Anyway, as befits a horror, I figure they’ve got lamprey-like mouths on the end of the tentacles that aren’t strong enough to really do damage on their own, but which can spit stomach acid out at people.

So the horrid eye is basically a beholder with lamprey mouths instead of extra eyes? Works for me.

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With regard to fearsome fury and summoned minions, your points are good ones. Shaken plus unsteady means you ain't hitting anything unless you get really, really lucky, and the old summoned minions flies in the face of your solution to the problem of too many pieces on the board.

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A couple of things I was thinking about:

1. 4e had a druid build called the swarm druid, wherein you shift into the form of a horde of locusts, snakes, rats, or other small creatures. I was having a hard time implementing it in R&R with the standard shapeshifting rules - it's possible, but requires a little refluffing. What I was thinking was that the demonic path's amorphous form might be better off in the general shift form traits, rather than something exclusive to demonic shapeshifting.

2. I was thinking that golems might be able to benefit from having different forms the way that avatars and servitors do - not every golem has to be humanoid. I could see golem guardian dogs having the same level of sentience as a regular golem, and leaner, agile scout golems are something that the current stat block has a hard time covering. You could even have them work like the elf, avatar, and servitor and have them use a single common attribute (Endurance) and have other different attributes based on their purpose and/or form.

My system doesn’t have an easy option to build a 4E concept? That cannot stand!

Fixed! Amorphous Form is now a basic ability option for Shift Form.

As to some more agile golems... that’s something I’ll look at, but as to beast forms my thinking is, if you’re adding human-level intelligence to something deliberately, not giving it the means to manipulate objects like a human being (which necessarily includes bipedal locomotion in order to carry objects it picks up) seems like a design flaw to me.

An attack sentry (i.e. a robot guard dog) doesn’t need full human intellect, it just needs a good IFF Identify Friend-or-Foe) system and instructions/instincts on what to do when it’s triggered.

For that matter, I haven’t added them to the opponents section yet, but there are a lot of types of humanoid golems that won’t be sapient either. I’d mentioned this back with the dreadnought golems, but your basic war golems have “null” INT and PRE scores. They have IFF systems and are “trained” to follow orders, but they’re never going to become sapient (the Warrior golems represent the equivalent of special forces; designed to operate without direct oversight and improvise in order to achieve their mission objectives).

Now, this doesn’t preclude a golem that could employ non-human locomotion when it needs to (say one with the Leg Hydraulics option that uses its improved speed by running on all fours)... or a golem that looks like R2-D2 with his manipulator arms and rocket boosters for jumping and moving through water (meaning, in terms of the rules, that Artoo is a “humanoid” despite looking like a trash can on legs... if it’s got fine manipulation it counts as a “humanoid” regardless of its actual appearance).

It also doesn’t preclude a Small or even Tiny option since there are definite advantages to certain tasks like engineering in small places or stealth where being smaller, but still sapient and able to use fine manipulation would be quite advantageous.

I'd forgotten about the non-sentience of most golems. Also, your point about refluffing what humanoid means is one I hadn't considered. It may be something worth clarifying in text.

I was looking at Leg Hydraulics, and it doesn't say anything about swim speeds. Also, an augmentation that improves climb speeds might be something worth considering for golems (and dwarves).

The Small/Tiny option is one that would be useful - part of me wants to suggest an Oversized variant as well, but it may not fit with your warrior golems as special forces types.

Further elaborating on “humanoid” (perhaps even finding a better word for it) wouldn’t hurt.

I go back and forth on oversized sapient golems. It flat out doesn’t make sense for the diplomat and sage and crafter models (the few places where large size might be an advantage for crafting have had basic engineering fixes for millennia in the form of pulleys, winches, etc. and there are arcane steam engines that provide the force behind those) and the warriors get more advantage from being able to fit into human-size (or smaller) areas than they gain from a greater load. That pretty much leaves Labor golems and they’ve already got the doubled load of an oversized creature without any of the downsides.

My general thinking on additional in-built options is that at a certain point you move from the realm of species (features regularly built into golems) and into backgrounds (you were custom-built with non-standard options). The dwarf Matara Jadeaxe is actually an example of this; her artifice is so extensive and non-standard that it required the use the Arcanist’s Shapeshifter option to refect it.

There are multiple paths to Shift Form that can be acquired and every archetype option has at least one utility option that can grant it; Skilled, Astrals (via Church Militant utility) and war wizards can get the Physical Adept version, Primals can get the Skinchanger primal utility, Lore wizards get the Arcanist version and Gadgeteers and Social Wizards can use Esoteric Experience/Exotic Tutor to select any of them.

I definitely think a small and tiny option for golems has a place though. A tiny crafter who specializes in clockworks makes sense and would be really interesting as a take on the classic D&D thief (naturally good at stealth and dealing with traps and locks).

Another interesting option using Shift Form and the new option there would be a golem that can turn itself into a swarm of mini-bots.