Rules Day 2019: Specific Rules

Rules Day #2 was our more usual rules day – we spent time discussing individual class abilities, game mechanics, and other items needing clarification that came up during the year. While we made it through most of our game mechanic topics, so far as classes are concerned we only made it through bard – so there are many topics still needing discussion at this date. Below is a summary of the topics we discussed and changes we made.

(Note: For updates on Death, Timejumps, Actions, and Backstories, see Broad Topics.)

All of the following rules were discussed in the context of the game philosophy conclusions we came to on Rules Day #1, as well as several other discussion parameters. In brief, these were:

• One Man’s Trash – Just because a person doesn’t like a rule or ability does not make it a bad rule/ability. Whether or not a rule or ability is worthwhile is a group decision, not an individual one.
• Context Matters – Some abilities see more or less use during the course of a season because of the context of plot and setting; when deciding how useful a rule or ability is, it needs to be considered in a broader context than just the previous season.
• Imperfect Play – Rules and abilities need to be considered not in a perfect theoretical but in terms of how they will play on the field – how difficult they will be to use in real time, what kinds of mistakes a player is likely to make using them, etc.

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General Mechanics

Leaving the Encounter
Leaving the encounter will continue to be instant, and does not require a count.

Magic Items
Regarding when a magical item can be used. Magical items now have an “Active” and “Inactive” state; magical items can only be used by people they are Active for. Active/Inactive states on an item is an in-world effect – you can tell if an item is one that is Active for you – for example, if the item was stolen by a bandit and subsequently recovered.

There are three ways to Activate an item: through an Identify, through a sufficiently-leveled Historian or Innkeeper (which is item-dependent), or through party guesses. Parties get three guesses (as a riddle) to list what an item’s name, a summary of its item notes, and its abilities, flaw, and tier; these guesses can only be made in between encounters, and can only be made by the party as a whole. If the party correctly guesses an item, it becomes Active.

Regardless of method, the item becomes active for everyone present when the item is activated. Items remain active indefinitely until deactivated. Items can become deactivated through a variety of methods; a magical item that is shattered is automatically deactivated, and some spells or other game world effects may deactivate magic items as well. Items that have been deactivated in these ways may require extra steps to reactivate them (such as repairing them in the case of a shattered item).

Mana Refreshing
Clarification that mana refreshes at the end of the inter-encounter period, not at the beginning. However, if it takes more than 10 minutes for the baddies to suit up, mana refreshes at the 10-minute mark and again at the end of the rest.

Shattering Helms
In order to shatter a helm (or other piece of headgear), target the knockout zone.

Shattered Items
Shattered Items deal a maximum of 1 Vials Damage; this damage cannot be boosted or increased in any way. Furthermore, you cannot use skills through shattered items. Additionally, shatter brings the defensive capabilities of an item one step down: shattered weapons and shields will not block AV=0 damage, and armor does not block damage at all.

Skill Points
We discussed alternate leveling systems and the possibility of putting XP and levels into things other than class and tradecraft levels; we ultimately chose to table the discussion, but may reopen it again next season.

Torture
Hacking up, impaling, and otherwise crippling baddies on the ground when not a combat necessity is now considered torture and will be treated in game as such. As a rough guideline, any time a death ray would be improper, so is crippling an opponent. The consequences for this will vary region to region as normal with other in-game laws.

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Classes

General – Guildmaster Skills
We previewed a set of common Guildmaster Skills that will be added to the rulebook for use by players and baddies; more guildmaster skills still need filling in, and as of 09/17/19 there is a doc for players to contribute ideas.

General – Prestige Classes
Prestige classes will be edited so that they are more narrow in scope – powerful in their particular focus, but largely useless outside of the situations they are geared towards.

Cleric – Smite
We checked in on Smite since it’s a newer mechanic, and found nothing that needs changing.

Viking – Trample
Note: Trample is still inconclusive/incomplete, as we moved on early due to time constraints. The following is the rough direction we left off at when we moved on.
UB Damage from Trample is capped at 1UB. You must invoke while trampling, and can continue your trample streak as long as you remain running.

Viking – Giant Strength
Giant Strength operates on a 1+1=2 system: you can do AV=0 damage or 5 damage in one hand, but must be using the item in both hands in order to do both on a single strike. You must invoke before throwing a boulder, and boulders must be thrown in two hands.

Bard – Skill Share
Skill Share is now a BC skill; it can be used at any time during the encounter so long as both players are out of striking range of combat. Tradecrafts cannot be skill shared, excepting with a guildmaster skill or similar effect that allows it. You also cannot share common guildmaster skills or sorceries, only truly standard class abilities.

Bard – Bardic Rogue
Bardic Rogue is being moved up to 2nd Rank Bard (Lvl 6 and above), and other Bard skills will be reshuffled to make room for it. You can only rogue class skills that are of a level up to half your level in Bard; you cannot rogue common guildmaster skills or sorceries, only truly standard class abilities.

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GM Additions

Ability Tags
I may add a new ability tag – “Before Encounter”, or BE, which denotes abilities that can only be used at the start of an encounter.

Common vs. Standard
I noticed a lot of confusion at rules day resulting from the use of “standard” for certain abilities; as such, I am changing the nomenclature to “common” for things like sorceries and guildmaster skills that have a series of set options but are variable in themselves.

Magic Items
A notification that I will be experimenting with new magic item card formats this year, so there may be some unusual and varying item cards out there. Please give me feedback as to what works well and what doesn’t.