Hi everyone, we've got a few small changes to the codex and a whole lot of art for the bestiary this month. As usual, we'll start with art!
Bestiary
The term 'practice makes perfect' is certainly true in this case, as while my animal pictures are mostly working from photos of animals, the techniques I'm using to capture the essence of the beasty has certainly evolved. LIke most artists, I shudder when I look at my earlier work and so have redone a few of the earlier attempts. I'm getting more confident with the style and easing back on the hard outlines too. So I've done all the small animals, beasts and dire beasts, taking a big chunk out of my to-do list.
Drawing animals is the easy part - some greater challenges are coming up but I think I'm up for it!
Codex
There's a few balance tweaks here to keep individual effects from breaking the system, discovered after certain players in my local groups kinda broke the system a little. I've also revised the bonuses for character age categories, and brought the age section forward in the creation process so you can find out the number of skill points you can spend in the background and career stages.
The 'Grit' talent has also been tweaked, making it harder to get and it doesn't keep a character conscious past th end of the fight. It's a cool talent but quite powerful, effectively doubling Hit Points, and as such it's now listed on the Threat Level calculator, raising your total TL by 1 step.
Contact poisons are now more effective in combat, kicking in almost straight away instead of two rounds later, and the human 'Highly Skilled' trait has been changed. It wasn't a great bonus before (+5 to three common skill results), but I found something better - Expanded critical on a skill of your choice, because everyone's great at something!
Scifi
By strange co-incidence (and an unexpected party wipe), both of my local groups are starting new campaigns in the Sabre Scifi system, the cousin of the fantasy version you're familiar with. The backbone is the same, but with less magic (only 1 type, and it's "Psi Powers") and lots of cool equipment to use. It's really an equipment based system, with lots of things you can do such as salvaging wrecked vehicles, upgrade weapons, verhicles, armour etc, build robots, BE a robot or android, or a silicon-based alien etc. It's very cool :D
So when is it going to be released? I just need to finish a few sections regarding starship rules (yes it has those too), and it's technically ready to go, but I have this dream of finishing the artwork before I release it this time. There's 10 races, so that'd be 10 pictures. Sure, I could use the current human, corvid and saerid artwork (they're basically the same in this system too) but I think the system deserves new art. The only problem with this approach is that the bestiary is the top art priority and there's a LOT more art to be done before i can get to the scifi system. I suppose I could release it without the art? I'm reluctant to do that again. I'll think about it. There's no rush, probably another month until I've finished documenting things.
Anyway, that's all for this month, more bestiary art next month!
v2.28 premium codex
* Reduced the Accolades given for advanced age groups but added another column for skill points given at the career stage.
* The Age category section now comes before background so you can pick your age and apply the right amount of skill points later.
* Added 'Chirurgeon' background.
* The 'Grit' talent now requires 90% Endurance skill and only keeps you conscious until the end of combat.
* Stipulated in the Criticals and Fumbles section that a fumbled melee attacker can't attack next round.
* Better clarified how movement in combat works in the combat section.
* The 'Unyielding' talent stipulates that concentration effects are still broken, but can be used round-by-round.
* Contact poisons now affect victims at the start of their next turn (within 6 seconds basically), and require a piercing or slashing weapon to deal damage in order to apply.
* Stipulated in Martial Arts and Unarmed skill descriptions that weapons and abilities requiring the Unarmed skill can also be used with Martial Arts.
* Spells that grant extra blast radius when increasing Spell Power now only grant 1 metre of extra radii instead of 2.
* 'Blood Mirror' sorcery spell now only inflicts 1 damage for every point taken.
* 'Angelic Transformation' sorcery talent healing ability has been tweaked, and it now notes that the sorcerer can carry 100kg while flying.
* 'Blighted Soul' undead sorcery talent now no longer provides healing.
* 'Ancestral Legion' shamanic spell now has a 1 minute casting time and 1 hour duration.
* Tweaked the text on 'Mirror Image' wizardry spell.
* Added 'Pocket Dimension' spell to Summoning.
* Changed human 'Highly Skilled' trait to grant expanded critical to one skill.
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v1.58 basic codex
* Changed human 'Highly Skilled' trait to grant expanded critical to one skill.
* Reduced the Accolades given for advanced age groups but added another column for skill points given at the career stage.
* The Age category section now comes before background so you can pick your age and apply the right amount of skill points later.
* Added 'Chirurgeon' background.
* The 'Grit' talent now requires 90% Endurance skill and only keeps you conscious until the end of combat.
* Better clarified how movement in combat works in the combat section.
* Stipulated in the Criticals and Fumbles section that a fumbled melee attacker can't attack next round.
* Contact poisons now affect victims at the start of their next turn (within 6 seconds basically), and require a piercing or slashing weapon to deal damage in order to apply.
* Stipulated in Martial Arts skill description that weapons and abilities requiring the Unarmed skill can also be used with Martial Arts.
* Spells that grant extra blast radius when increasing Spell Power now only grant 1 metre of extra radii instead of 2.