New Update: Some Path and Tale Tweaks, Combat Rebalancing

We've just pushed a major update to the Gloaming Diaries that's benefited from months of play and feedback with the game. It includes a number of minor textual tweaks for grammar and readability, but it's largest focuses are on tweaking Paths and Tales to help guide some outlying abilities to feel like better fits, and on making combat faster and leaner.

Regarding Paths and Tales, not counting tweaks related to combat, we did three things worth noting:

• The Seeker's Crazy Wall didn't really do anything. So now Seekers can interrogate the talespinner with their absurd theories to get closer to the truth.
• The Witch's Weatherwise wasn't seeing use as there was too much of an obstacle to planning ahead, so it now creates weather changes in minutes, not an hour.
• Glories have shown to have some difficulties in their use. Part of this is related to their combat-facing abilities not being as useful as hoped. But more importantly, we're trying to adjust the tone of their social powers to avoid some unpalatable possibilities that can arise. We're not quite done with them yet, but we're getting closer.

Combat saw the biggest change. Especially in LARP play, our playtests found groups of five or more experienced a lot of slowdown. Part of this was due to some lack of clarity on which maneuvers were best for certain situations leading to choice delay, and part of this was due to hits and injuries taking longer to hit a critical scale than intended. Armor wasn't helping, as it never created enough of a negative to justify never not having it, so simply added to everyone having extra hits to take across the board.

A number of system changes happened to help. Multiple opponents now can imperil each other mutually much more often, making 3 vs 1 pileups no longer the best choice. Pentacles, Wands, and Swords now all have additional effects that make the choices on when to use them more clear tactically. Armor has been removed from the game. Technique effects have been cleaned up to result in less confusion on what they do. Finishers are cleaner in their use, and injuries had their scale squished. All this keeps the same overall feel and flow of the original combat model, just with far quicker resolution scales that still reward tactical thinking. 

The full patch notes are below:

Added 

* Notability added in combat section. Replaces Armor as a way of handling scaling of survivability for notable foes.
* Added Disable technique effect.

Changed

* Nestreed shroud material now tears completely when using Fae Magic (aka elemental magic).
* Various text edits to Creating Faerie.
* The Outlaw's Rough changed to improve stabilization and recovery, removed armor.
* The Outlaw's Ambusher now prevents you taking damage the first round instead of dealing more damage.
* The Seeker's Crazy Wall lets you vet facts against the talespinner instead of a Wits bonus.
* The Witch's Weatherwise now changes weather in minutes, not hours.
* Tale of Fury's Fueled By Anger now cause finishers to deal 1 hit instead of boosting Swords.
* Tale of Fury's Shieldbreaker no longer strips non-existant armor.
* Tale of Fury's Wolf Among Sheep now auto-kills minions they hit.
* Tale of Glory's King Over All The Children of Pride now gives allies +1 Hit on their maneuver instead of recovery.
* Tale of Glory's Too Pretty For The Rules had text cleaned up to better indicate intent.
* Tale of Innocence's Out of the Woods now heals only rating 3 or less Injuries.
* Tale of Innocence's Rose and Snow now gives blessings to survive wilderness instead of armor.
* Tale of Love's Lovesworn Champion now only gives +1 Hits with Swords if beloved is suffering from 3+ Hit Injury.
* Tale of Malediction's Meat for the Dogs no longer has armor on its dog.
* Tale of Sorrow's Instant Regret clarifies it doesn't cause fatal injuries.
* Tale of Terror's Chitinous Flesh now reduces incoming Wands damage instead of providing Armor.
* House Calidore now ignores Notability instead of Armor.
* Earth's Arms of Vulcan now lets you carve easily through rock instead of getting bonus damage.
* Earth's Crystal Carapace now gives Pentacles a Recover 2 instead of giving armor.
* Water's Baptism of Saltwater and Blood's healing potency reduced from 10 to 4.
* Water's Hoarfrost Armor now gives Pentacles immunity to Feint instead of armor.
* Shrouds now tear when using Fae Magic (aka Elemental Magic) when shrouded.
* First technique in a new Fighting Style cost reduced to 3.
* Wands maneuver now applies 2 Hits.
* Swords maneuver now gains Pressure effect.
* Pentacles maneuver now gains Recover effect.
* Multiple opponents rules altered as altered: There is no limit to number of attackers on a single target, but reflecting the risks of a grand melee, a target applies Hits to any attacker they trump as well as their own target.
* Finishers now use normal trump behavior and apply no hit by default, merely convert existing hits to injuries.
* Minions now take 3 hits to eliminate instead of 5.
* Recovery technique effect renamed Recover, no longer applies potentially more than 1 hit of recovery.
* Andalusian Legacy: CaD now gives Pentacles Permit instead of Cups, Wands now does Disable (Wands) instead of Lock. Estocada now applies 1 Hit instead of 2.
* Archery: AaE now does Disable (Cups) instead of Lock, TS now gives only Swords 2 hits instead of both Swords and Wands Piercing.
* Boxing: Jab loses Permit, BP now does 1 hit instead of 2.
* Breath of the Gods: DB does Feint instead of Piercing. CoF now gives Pressure instead Permit/Knockback. WoD now gives Feint and applies 1 Hit instead of out-dated up to three targets.
* Fencing: Riposte loses Piercing, CR apples 1 hit instead of 2 hits and drops old "others who miss take a hit" text.
* Heavy Metal: HB now gets Permit, loses +2 hits and no longer loses to other Wands. BC gives Disable (Cups) to target and attackers and loses multi-target. MB does 2 hits instead of 4.
* Kenjutsu: Iajistsu loses bonus damage. KW loses Piercing. RW now applies 1 Hit not 2.
* Mark of the Beast: Gore loses Feint. BT loses Permit. SB does 2 hits instead of 3.
* Modern Technique: DT now gives Wands permit instead of +1 Hit and lock. WS now Disable (Cup) instead of Feint and Piercing. MD applies 1 hit instead of 2, replaces Knockdown with Disable (Cups, Wands).
* Muay Thai: SN loses Piercing. KT loses Piercing. KC applies 1 hit, disables Wands instead of 3 hits, Knockback.
* Staff and Spear: JT now Permits instead of Piercing, +1 Hit if Knockdown instead of +2. HP now does 1 Hit instead of 2.
* Street Fighting: HS now gains Permit, +1 Hit instead of 3 on first round. CS applies 1 hit, 2 if Knockdown instead of 2/4.
* Injuries and Healing chapter now folded into Violence in the Woods.
* Injuries now scale 1 to 7 instead of 1 to 10, with most occuring much lower.
* Injuries now have non-combat effects.

Fixed

* In Sorcerer caste description in Knights and Squires, corrected chapter name for more details to "Fae Magic".
* Disarm technique effect better states how to recover lost weapon.
* Feint technique effect now better states that it trumps Pentacles instead of "not be trumped by Pentacles".
* Rules now explicitly state in Combat chapter that remaining Hits on survivors are converted to Injury.
* The Seeker's Conspiracy Theorists fixed a typo.
* Tale of Glory's The Chain of Command fixed a typo.

Removed

* Armor removed from game.
* Removed Knockback, Lock, and Piercing technique effects.
* Removed reference to Eternal Cities.