Posted October 18, 2019 by Law C. Esper
#alpha
I should be sleeping, let's make this quick.
Mostly a few text cleanups here and there to avoid confusing phrasing and whatnot, or things that I thought could be improved.
Playtesting results.
More guidelines for Clans & Companies, going a bit more in-depth with the things you can do and obtain.
Goblins have a special place in my heart, but the betterment of the game came first. Duergar have a more fitting aesthetic, and are less prone to fall for the "comic relief" type stuff that I had to subject myself to during various playtests. Here's hoping these weird dwarves broaden the horizon.
As for Interests, they were arbitrarily limited for no good reason. They are better explained now, and give you a full Trait Bonus now, even in Complex Tests.
Technology is largely in a good spot but I felt like there were some odd bits and pieces here and there. Proxies in particular were kind of weird, as were Replacements. The Link Augments are gone, and reintroduced as a part of Technomancy.
Technomancy is basically Artifact Hacking, and it's divided into two approaches. I'll built onto this in the future, but I wanted to give it a good rearrangement for the time being.
Had fun thinking up new Traits and fixing some old ones. Throwing weapons are now a Maneuver that you can do with any weapon, and the Thrown tag improves this into an Attack. It also defines what Thrown means for melee and ranged weapons.
Versatile now comes with two Types (Sync and Switch) that allow you to choose how you deal the new damage trait. This was the intention from the beginning, but I was never able to explain it properly.
Blitz now costs 3 Ammo instead of 2, but gives you clear definitions of how to use it.
Catalyst was reintroduced as a free trait.
Parrying is a new melee-only tag: it gives you Advantage when Parrying, and allows you to Parry ranged attacks.
Tracking is a new concept I'm trying out, that makes attacks "reveal" the target and makes them easier to be hit and track. I am aware that this Trait is currently broken, but I wanted to try it out officially.
Expendable is a ranged-only tag that makes the weapon a resource and halves the ccost of the weapon and any upgrades, but has a limited amount of uses and cannot be upgraded after purchase.
This was supposed to be a part of Journey rules since the beginning, but I didn't really know how to approach it. Hazards are a completely new concept that I'm trying out and that will need further polishing, while Disease and Poison use rules based on the way Needs and Exposure work.