Steven Duncan
Novice
I have played a few games now under the new rules and would like to highlight the things I think are a great step in the right direction, and the few things that feel lacking. Overall, the new system is a welcome change and I have enjoyed my experience. I look forward to continue playing and seeing how the rules may have an impact beyond what I have seen so far. So without further ado, my thoughts:
The change to scaling weapon proficiencies and backstabs is a really strong change in the right direction. This sort of puts a soft cap on damage achieved by melee combatants, while still letting spells be the big burst you would expect. This with the addition of new abilities separated by martial and stealth lets a character really round out with fun abilities without always just getting to the next damage number.
The added abilities feel fun, with mettle and resolute adding to the stoutness of what a fighter should represent. Fighters also keep the line of hard hitting abilities that they were previously known for with slays and eviscerate. Fighters now have new combat abilities like disarm to help them feel more capable on the battlefield.
Scholars adding “signature spells” with new skills that allow them to do interesting things like flex cast them when not memorized opens up some fun ideas for how to play your character. The addition of channelling also allows a different build path for scholars, giving them a less expensive means for ‘all day’ damage/healing.
Giving Rogue more flexibility by allowing backstabs to work with thrown weapons and ranged weapons at reduced effectiveness but not requiring positional requirements in a neat idea. Rogues get a lot of powerful per day abilities that have positional requirements really incentivising risk/reward.
The two caster hybrids get, imo, the best new skills thematically. Combined Strike and United Blow really show what a hybrid should play like. Expending spells to get melee damage is definitely what I imagine as a hybrid.
Items have also undergone some changes for the better. The new armor rules let people create and craft more interesting costume pieces without being as heavily penalized. I look forward to seeing all the fancy armor now that people will actually get value for. And in game, the change to magic items has done a great deal to close the gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. As far as I have seen, all magic items no longer give free skills or spells, but instead can modify existing ones to give a greater strength. The removal of auras also makes hunting that magic weapon for extra damage a thing of the past. Also, just to throw it in here, I am happy with the removal of literacy. For me it was always a mandatory purchase, and I am glad to see it removed.
Now for a few areas I feel still need some revision. Rogue still feels very situation and in most cases just makes a poor fighter. The time and effort it takes to get to the rear of a target to get your backstabs off does not equal to the amount of damage it actually does. Backstab could use a slight bump in usefulness. I have read people building rogues backstabless, and using other skills to get all the per day abilities, and that is great. It truly shows the complexity of options the system can achieve, but I would like to see backstabs be a balanced build option (in relation to weapon proficiency) .
The idea of a rogue getting to flank to dish out burst damage is a trope many people enjoy and I wouldn’t mind seeing it supported. While the use of the stealth per day skills to achieve this is an option, the reliance on those skills to be able to do anything feels lacking. Channelling was added to give scholars less reliance on their per day skills and it seems like the mentality for rogue is to do the opposite. Additionally, while some support was given to allow the Ranger style bow rogue to be plausible, many of the per day skills cannot be used with this style. The lack of support there makes the build feel incomplete.
I understand that the current directive is to attempt to lower the amount of static damage increases in the game and this seems at odds with the balancing that backstabs could use. To give a practical example with numbers, it seems that the idea is that a rogue will be twice as effective as a fighter from behind, at a cost of severe penalties if they cannot reach that position. With the balancing in its current form, This is not achieved. A fighter with 5 weapon proficiencies would swing for 7 damage with a one handed weapon (10 with a 2 hander), while a similarly built rogue would swing for 2 from the front and 12 from behind (or roughly 3 from the front and 10 from behind if a proficiency was purchased). The damage done from behind as a rogue is not meeting the expectations of the x.5/x2 that is envisioned.
If the bonus from backstab was increased to 3 per purchase, the same rogue would swing for 2 from the front and 17 from behind (or more likely 3 from the front and 15 from behind with a proficiency). This allows the rogue to have a very clear advantage from behind and really gives them the thematic feel people would expect them to have, even when compared to a fighter wielding a 2 handed weapon.
The cost for a second school of magic is also taxed unfairly high. I agree there should be some penalty for the flexibility that being dual school provides, but currently it feels a bit steep. Even changing it from double cost to 1.5 cost would make a big difference to that character option being better supported.
On the topic of spells, I believe Necromancy should become its own school. I have never really liked the idea that balancing the school due to in-game legality was really a positive way to design it. It has already been balanced from previous systems, moving the strongest 5th level spell to a 7th. Now the only thing making it stronger is Empowered Strike. If made to its own school, I could see if having the Necromancy Spells, Curses (but not remove curse), and the general spell list, While Earth would have the curatives. People like playing the dark casters, the warlocks, so forth and so on. I know this one is probably too far out of the system to change, but I thought I would mention it anyways. This would also work to balance Earth in relation to Celestial, which always seems a step behind.
I like the addition of extra body for racial skills, but I would like to see Humans get a racial, some sort of generalist skill (as every other race has). I know the argument is that Humans have no make-up requirement, but there are other races who get great racials for very limited effort. The requirements to meet for elves, dwarves, oathsworn, in particular are fairly easy to meet and still provide substantial bonuses for doing so. There is nothing wrong with this, and the majority of people really go that extra mile for costuming, but giving humans some sort of racial seems fair to me and could also help give them a story (rather than their story being the absence of the other stories).
Blacksmithing 1 required for refitting just becomes a mandatory skill, like literacy was before. If you have any physical armor at all, you just buy that single point of blacksmithing. It feels like a superfluous skill that is just tacked on so you can wear armor.
As a whole, the new rules changes are a lot of fun, and I look forward to continue playing. By no means are any of these things gamebreaking, but some of the changes could potentially open up more options for not only myself, but other players. On that note, a lot of the top end skills are basically kill effects when landed, either through a form of control or just straight death. This in turns means monsters need to stat defenses or immunities against it. This leads to a lot of player skills feel like wasted purchases, and for that I have made a few monster abilities that could help both the fights end more dramatically, but also make the player feel like their skills mattered:
These abilities are not a final draft, but a quick design to show a direction I can see them going to make player skills feel more rewarding. I am interested to hear what people think and welcome any constructive criticism people have.
I look forward to any conversations people wish to have, I just ask to keep it friendly and respectful as we all may have different opinions, and that is ok. Recently I have moved across the country, so I am starting with a new chapter and a new character. So my view points are from that standpoint. Thank you to anyone and everyone who took the time to read this and thank you to all the staff, not only all the plots teams, but to the dedicated people who helped write the new system.
The change to scaling weapon proficiencies and backstabs is a really strong change in the right direction. This sort of puts a soft cap on damage achieved by melee combatants, while still letting spells be the big burst you would expect. This with the addition of new abilities separated by martial and stealth lets a character really round out with fun abilities without always just getting to the next damage number.
The added abilities feel fun, with mettle and resolute adding to the stoutness of what a fighter should represent. Fighters also keep the line of hard hitting abilities that they were previously known for with slays and eviscerate. Fighters now have new combat abilities like disarm to help them feel more capable on the battlefield.
Scholars adding “signature spells” with new skills that allow them to do interesting things like flex cast them when not memorized opens up some fun ideas for how to play your character. The addition of channelling also allows a different build path for scholars, giving them a less expensive means for ‘all day’ damage/healing.
Giving Rogue more flexibility by allowing backstabs to work with thrown weapons and ranged weapons at reduced effectiveness but not requiring positional requirements in a neat idea. Rogues get a lot of powerful per day abilities that have positional requirements really incentivising risk/reward.
The two caster hybrids get, imo, the best new skills thematically. Combined Strike and United Blow really show what a hybrid should play like. Expending spells to get melee damage is definitely what I imagine as a hybrid.
Items have also undergone some changes for the better. The new armor rules let people create and craft more interesting costume pieces without being as heavily penalized. I look forward to seeing all the fancy armor now that people will actually get value for. And in game, the change to magic items has done a great deal to close the gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. As far as I have seen, all magic items no longer give free skills or spells, but instead can modify existing ones to give a greater strength. The removal of auras also makes hunting that magic weapon for extra damage a thing of the past. Also, just to throw it in here, I am happy with the removal of literacy. For me it was always a mandatory purchase, and I am glad to see it removed.
Now for a few areas I feel still need some revision. Rogue still feels very situation and in most cases just makes a poor fighter. The time and effort it takes to get to the rear of a target to get your backstabs off does not equal to the amount of damage it actually does. Backstab could use a slight bump in usefulness. I have read people building rogues backstabless, and using other skills to get all the per day abilities, and that is great. It truly shows the complexity of options the system can achieve, but I would like to see backstabs be a balanced build option (in relation to weapon proficiency) .
The idea of a rogue getting to flank to dish out burst damage is a trope many people enjoy and I wouldn’t mind seeing it supported. While the use of the stealth per day skills to achieve this is an option, the reliance on those skills to be able to do anything feels lacking. Channelling was added to give scholars less reliance on their per day skills and it seems like the mentality for rogue is to do the opposite. Additionally, while some support was given to allow the Ranger style bow rogue to be plausible, many of the per day skills cannot be used with this style. The lack of support there makes the build feel incomplete.
I understand that the current directive is to attempt to lower the amount of static damage increases in the game and this seems at odds with the balancing that backstabs could use. To give a practical example with numbers, it seems that the idea is that a rogue will be twice as effective as a fighter from behind, at a cost of severe penalties if they cannot reach that position. With the balancing in its current form, This is not achieved. A fighter with 5 weapon proficiencies would swing for 7 damage with a one handed weapon (10 with a 2 hander), while a similarly built rogue would swing for 2 from the front and 12 from behind (or roughly 3 from the front and 10 from behind if a proficiency was purchased). The damage done from behind as a rogue is not meeting the expectations of the x.5/x2 that is envisioned.
If the bonus from backstab was increased to 3 per purchase, the same rogue would swing for 2 from the front and 17 from behind (or more likely 3 from the front and 15 from behind with a proficiency). This allows the rogue to have a very clear advantage from behind and really gives them the thematic feel people would expect them to have, even when compared to a fighter wielding a 2 handed weapon.
The cost for a second school of magic is also taxed unfairly high. I agree there should be some penalty for the flexibility that being dual school provides, but currently it feels a bit steep. Even changing it from double cost to 1.5 cost would make a big difference to that character option being better supported.
On the topic of spells, I believe Necromancy should become its own school. I have never really liked the idea that balancing the school due to in-game legality was really a positive way to design it. It has already been balanced from previous systems, moving the strongest 5th level spell to a 7th. Now the only thing making it stronger is Empowered Strike. If made to its own school, I could see if having the Necromancy Spells, Curses (but not remove curse), and the general spell list, While Earth would have the curatives. People like playing the dark casters, the warlocks, so forth and so on. I know this one is probably too far out of the system to change, but I thought I would mention it anyways. This would also work to balance Earth in relation to Celestial, which always seems a step behind.
I like the addition of extra body for racial skills, but I would like to see Humans get a racial, some sort of generalist skill (as every other race has). I know the argument is that Humans have no make-up requirement, but there are other races who get great racials for very limited effort. The requirements to meet for elves, dwarves, oathsworn, in particular are fairly easy to meet and still provide substantial bonuses for doing so. There is nothing wrong with this, and the majority of people really go that extra mile for costuming, but giving humans some sort of racial seems fair to me and could also help give them a story (rather than their story being the absence of the other stories).
Blacksmithing 1 required for refitting just becomes a mandatory skill, like literacy was before. If you have any physical armor at all, you just buy that single point of blacksmithing. It feels like a superfluous skill that is just tacked on so you can wear armor.
As a whole, the new rules changes are a lot of fun, and I look forward to continue playing. By no means are any of these things gamebreaking, but some of the changes could potentially open up more options for not only myself, but other players. On that note, a lot of the top end skills are basically kill effects when landed, either through a form of control or just straight death. This in turns means monsters need to stat defenses or immunities against it. This leads to a lot of player skills feel like wasted purchases, and for that I have made a few monster abilities that could help both the fights end more dramatically, but also make the player feel like their skills mattered:
- Cheat Death - When hit by a takeout effect (like Doom), the monster can spend 40 body to call “cheat death” to not take the effect.
- Unstoppable - When hit by an effect that could cause loss of movement (bindo, paralyze, etc), the monster can spend 35 body to call “unstoppable” to not take that effect
- Strong Will - When hit by a charm effect the monster can spend 30 body to call “strong will” to not take the effect
- Reduce - When hit by a damaging effect the monster may spend 40 body to call “reduce” and take no damage from the hit.
These abilities are not a final draft, but a quick design to show a direction I can see them going to make player skills feel more rewarding. I am interested to hear what people think and welcome any constructive criticism people have.
I look forward to any conversations people wish to have, I just ask to keep it friendly and respectful as we all may have different opinions, and that is ok. Recently I have moved across the country, so I am starting with a new chapter and a new character. So my view points are from that standpoint. Thank you to anyone and everyone who took the time to read this and thank you to all the staff, not only all the plots teams, but to the dedicated people who helped write the new system.
