Hi Sabre fans, we're got some news on an upcoming release, and of course some fixes and balances to the system for you!

High Level Campaign

In spite of some covid-lockdown challenges now and then, I'm currently running one of the longest campaigns I've ever attempted, in order to see how the system works at the top end. The last update addressed some of the issues with spellcasters being a bit too squishy, and this time we've uncovered some other mechanics that need addressing. Overall it's working pretty well though, with the players in my group assuming they were going to be destroyed instantly at the start of a fight, only to find their abilities kept them alive and allowed them to prevail in a pretty well-balanced combat.

I think part of this comes from damage increasing a lot as skill levels rise, but Hit Points don't follow suit, but that'swhere armour, skill and magic come into it to keep them alive. 

Legends

Another reason for doing a high level campaign is because I'm putting together a new manual called Legends, which covers new talents, unique magic items and new crazy powerful monsters to take on!

I know what you're thinking: "Hey what about that Atlas which still isn't done yet!" Well, with the power of my group's characters increasing every session, I needed to start developing this before they started to outgrow the challenges I was throwing at them, so it became a priority. The atlas will follow afterwards, as I want to get these two manuals done before working on another novel. I'm not far from completing this thing actually, with just the monsters and a few tweaks here and there to finish off, so maybe in a few weeks it'll be ready. A few monsters have been moved from the Bestiary to appear in the Legends manual, such as the Titan and Sa'quaarin, where they can be better used. I never had a party try to take on a Titan before, but I suspect they would have had little chance of defeating it without the new legendary abilities! Now, onto this update!

Hunters

The biggest fix for this update is the Hunter profession. It was supposed to be the premier ranged weapon profession, the one you'd take to focus on archery, guns etc. But the talents for it predate the current profession system, and were just kind of crammed in there. Well I've finally gotten around to fixing this one, with a revised profession and new talents to fit the current progression theme. They're the best ranged fighters, the best with traps, and their talents allow them to train bigger, meaner beasts to use in battle. This accompanies an improvement to bows, which can get up to 2d8 (or 1d16 if you prefer) for their base damage, allowing them to punch through armour better. Beasts and Dire Beasts in the Bestary have been revised to work better with Hunters, so you've got a good selection of creatures to work with. Oh and the Animal Training professional skill is simplified and revised, allowing anyone to have their own armoured cat to hurl into battle :D

Armour Fix

After witnessing a high TL paladin with masterwork vythir plate and kite shield tank like a beast, we determined that it's not armour that's the problem as such, but the Partial Block talent. The math is like this: 23 AP for that shiny armour, +14 on a successful block, but still gains +7 on a failed block, so that's AP 30 guarenteed, and 37 on a real block. We have no issue with a shield absorbing all that damage on a success, but if you fail to block, at least a little damage should be possible. So the Partial Block talent is being adjusted (nerfed!) to provide a flat +2 AP bonus when you first get it, rising to +4 AP at 99% skill. So that kite shield above would provide +4 instead of +7 on a fail, and that 3 points does make a difference, especially against two handed weapons. Two knights clanging away at each other with sword and board could still be at it all day though! 

You see, the high AP in the system was fine while destroying AP with acid or Impact weapons was far more common. By substantially reducing those effects, it's just so hard to get around that AP, forcing fights to rely on collision, electrical or shadow damage to take down armoured characters. This change opens up regular damage to be more useful, and prevents ubertanking all day long. The damage from Body Slam and Piledriver manoeuvres has been reduced too, as they were a bit overpowered on creatures with high Damage Modifiers. 

Finally, Cavalry plate has been removed. It was too heavy to really use properly, requiring a warhorse to carry the warrior around (intentionally so), but mounts are of limited use in games that go underground or indoors, so cavalry plate just isn't useful enough to invest in. Also, the extra AP really breaks the system! 

Blades and Cooking

The other notable changes in this update are for blades, which simply couldn't defeat armour at high level, and cooking. Blades can now ignore half AP on a crit when the Duellist talent is taken at 99%, and their critical range buff has been improved slightly too. The Fencer talent was only useful for single-handed weapons, pointless for duel wielding or any other style, so it was quite niche. It's now been improved to provide a modest bonus for all blades, which is doubled if you do a single-blade fencing style. 

Finally, cooking is more interesting and useful now, with two talents, and the ability to boost not just Hit Points, but Spirit Points as well. Raw Ingredients are properly listed, along with cooking herbs, so it's easier keep track of an aspiring chef's larder. 

So that's about all for this month, keep an eye out for the Legends manual in the near future. Oh! Almost forgot, I'm going to take a crack at a print version of it (finally) as a test run to see if I can get the other manuals done too. Obviously, the continuing updates and fixes precludes it for the near future, but if I feel the system is finally settling down, I'll make those print editions and then do no updates for like, a year :D Take care, and stay safe everyone.

 

SabreRPG 2e Fantasy Premium v1.12

* Hunter profession revision.

 - Hunter talents are no longer shared with Druid (Beastmaster).

 - Hunter gains Endurance Resistance skill, but can only wear light armour.

 - Special options are now Marksman, Trapper and Trainer.

 - Removed old talents, replaced with 4 new condensed abilities based on a chosen ranged weapon skill, suitable for solo or hunter+pet combo.

* Revised the Animal Training skill, removing any TL limits from it and simplifying its use. Anyone can now teach talents and pet manoeuvres to their pet with Accolades, and there is no INT limit on what can be learned.

Armour Fix

* 'Partial Block' talent now helps absorb a fixed amount of +2 AP, increasing with skill.

* 'Bastion' shield manoeuvre now requires 90% skill. 

* Removed Cavalry plate from the system.

* 'Body Slam' manoeuvre now deals half DM as collision damage.

* 'Piledriver' manoeuvre now deals just DM as collision damage.

* Added Brigandine Gauntlets.

* Added Leather Banadana as an armour head item. All other head armour receives +1 AP.

* Added 'Armour of Resistance' and 'Armour of Regeneration' artificer spells.

Cooking skill Revision

* Added 'Home Cooking' talent.

* 'Chef' talent is now 90% requirement.

* Revised the Craft: Cooking skill.

* Added Raw Ingredients and Cooking Herbs to the food and drink table, along with ENC scores for each item. Raw Ingredients are also used by Animal Training to tame and feed pets.

* Failing a herbalism check to gather herbs now yields 1d20 cooking herbs.

Other Fixes

* Second Profession talent now specifies that Background Events are taken from the primary profession.

* Removed the 'Unlucky' and 'Weak' negative background events, replaced with 'Results' and 'Shielded'.

* 'Strong Draw' bow talent now increases dice size a third time at 99%.

* 'Archery Master' talent now gives +5 damage vs a target that has already been damaged this round.

* Exotic Mounts talent now requires 99% skill.

* Added 'Flared Muzzle' and 'Rifled Barrel' firearm mods.

* Forward Stance manoeuvre now only provides +2 damage.

* Balanced Stance manoeuvre now only proides +4% result bonus.

* Added Back Stance manoeuvre that grants +3 Critical Range.

* Zen Master manoeuvre only makes the 1st manouevre in a round free.

* The 'Exotic Mount' talent now lets you teach the Mount talent to your mount (if it doesn't have it).

* Added 'Caltrops' trap.

* Corrected the cost of buying new artificer blueprints.

* The Lance is no longer listed as a polearm-type weapon under the skills section.

* Revised 'Imbue Divinity' spell.

* 'Enduring Weaponry' spell now also applies to armour spells.

* 'Armoured Beast' druid talent now only provides your worn AP if it's higher than the form they are taking (no longer stacks).

* 'Shifted Caster' druid talent lets you cast your own spells, but at x2 the normal Spirit Point cost.

* Improved the damage of the Force Bolt and Wand of Force Bolt spells, and it can now combine the bolts into a single high-damage shot.

* 'Critical Mastery' blade talent has been improved.

* The Prone condition now allows for 2 squares of movement.

* Sorcery 'Enlarge' spell now specifies a creature as its target.

* Sorcery 'Time Stop' spell now specifies that it doesn't allow things to be taken from creature's hands.

* 'Duellist' blade talent has been revised. It now ignores half armour points on a target when you get a critical hit.

* 'Fencer' blade talent now provides a bonus for all blades, which is doubled for using a single bladed weapon.

* At 99% skill, the 'Spellbreaker' talent's damage is no longer halved.

* Ammunition made of Cold Iron ignores 1/2 Energy AP.

* Ironwood and Auldheart now correctly list their HP is not halved instead of AP. 

* Bloodwood, Ironwood and Auldheart now grant AP bonuses for shields.

* Ammunition for black powder weapons is now listed as 'Black powder & Bullet (1 shot)'.

 

Scifi Core Rulebook 2e v1.12

* Hunter profession revision.

 - Hunter talents are no longer shared with Druid (Beastmaster).

 - Hunter gains Endurance Resistance skill, but can only wear light armour.

 - Special options are now Marksman, Trapper and Trainer.

 - Removed old talents, replaced with 4 new condensed abilities based on a chosen ranged weapon skill, suitable for solo or hunter+pet combo.

* Revised the Animal Training skill, removing any TL limits from it and simplifying its use. Anyone can now teach talents and pet manoeuvres to their pet with Accolades, and there is no INT limit on what can be learned.

Armour Fix

* 'Partial Block' talent now helps absorb a fixed amount of +2 AP, increasing with skill.

* 'Bastion' shield manoeuvre now requires 90% skill. 

* Removed Cavalry plate from the system.

* 'Body Slam' manoeuvre now deals half DM as collision damage.

* 'Piledriver' manoeuvre now deals just DM as collision damage.

* Added Brigandine Gauntlets.

* Added Leather Banadana as an armour head item. All other head armour receives +1 AP.

Cooking skill Revision

* Added 'Home Cooking' talent.

* 'Chef' talent is now 90% requirement.

* Revised the Craft: Cooking skill.

* Added Raw Ingredients and Cooking Herbs to the food and drink table, along with ENC scores for each item. Raw Ingredients are also used by Animal Training to tame and feed pets.

* Failing a herbalism check to gather herbs now yields 1d20 cooking herbs.

Other Fixes

* Second Profession talent now specifies that Background Events are taken from the primary profession.

* Removed the 'Unlucky' and 'Weak' negative background events, replaced with 'Results' and 'Shielded'.

* 'Strong Draw' bow talent now increases dice size a third time at 99%.

* 'Archery Master' talent now gives +5 damage vs a target that has already been damaged this round.

* Exotic Mounts talent now requires 99% skill.

* Added 'Flared Muzzle' and 'Rifled Barrel' firearm mods.

* Forward Stance manoeuvre now only provides +2 damage.

* Balanced Stance manoeuvre now only proides +4% result bonus.

* Added Back Stance manoeuvre that grants +3 Critical Range.

* Zen Master manoeuvre only makes the 1st manouevre in a round free.

* The 'Exotic Mount' talent now lets you teach the Mount talent to your mount (if it doesn't have it).

* Added 'Caltrops' trap.

* The Lance is no longer listed as a polearm-type weapon under the skills section.

* 'Critical Mastery' blade talent has been improved.

* The Prone condition now allows for 2 squares of movement.

* 'Duellist' blade talent has been revised. It now ignores half armour points on a target when you get a critical hit.

* 'Fencer' blade talent now provides a bonus for all blades, which is doubled for using a single bladed weapon.

* At 99% skill, the 'Spellbreaker' talent's damage is no longer halved.

* Ammunition for black powder weapons is now listed as 'Black powder & Bullet (1 shot)'.

 

SabreRPG 2e Fantasy Basic Edition 1.12

* Hunter profession revision.

 - Hunter talents are no longer shared with Druid (Beastmaster).

 - Hunter gains Endurance Resistance skill, but can only wear light armour.

 - Special options are now Marksman, Trapper and Trainer.

 - Removed old talents, replaced with 4 new condensed abilities based on a chosen ranged weapon skill, suitable for solo or hunter+pet combo.

Armour Fix

* 'Partial Block' talent now helps absorb a fixed amount of +2 AP, increasing with skill.

* 'Bastion' shield manoeuvre now requires 90% skill. 

* Removed Cavalry plate from the system.

* 'Body Slam' manoeuvre now deals half DM as collision damage.

* 'Piledriver' manoeuvre now deals just DM as collision damage.

* Added Brigandine Gauntlets.

* Added Leather Banadana as an armour head item. All other head armour receives +1 AP.

Cooking skill Revision

* Revised the Craft: Cooking skill usage.

* Added Raw Ingredients and Cooking Herbs to the food and drink table, along with ENC scores for each item. Raw Ingredients are also used by Animal Training to tame and feed pets.

* Failing a herbalism check to gather herbs now yields 1d20 cooking herbs.

Other Fixes

* Second Profession talent now specifies that Background Events are taken from the primary profession.

* Removed the 'Unlucky' and 'Weak' negative background events, replaced with 'Results' and 'Shielded'.

* 'Strong Draw' bow talent now increases dice size a third time at 99%.

* 'Archery Master' talent now gives +5 damage vs a target that has already been damaged this round.

* Forward Stance manoeuvre now only provides +2 damage.

* Balanced Stance manoeuvre now only proides +4% result bonus.

* Zen Master manoeuvre only makes the 1st manouevre in a round free.

* The Lance is no longer listed as a polearm-type weapon under the skills section.

* Revised 'Imbue Divinity' spell.

* Improved the damage of the Force Bolt and Wand of Force Bolt spells, and it can now combine the bolts into a single high-damage shot.

* 'Critical Mastery' blade talent has been improved.

* The Prone condition now allows for 2 squares of movement.

* 'Duellist' blade talent has been revised. It now ignores half armour points on a target when you get a critical hit.

* 'Fencer' blade talent now provides a bonus for all blades, which is doubled for using a single bladed weapon.

* At 99% skill, the 'Spellbreaker' talent's damage is no longer halved.

Hi everyone, we've got a bit of an early release this month, as all of the updates I had ready to go are... ready to go. Plus, I'm shifting my work focus to another project as I'm starting to feel a little burned out from this 6 month Sabre sprint. So for now, let's take a look at the shiny things for this month!

 

Encounters templates finished

After a herculean effort from myself and an associate (thanks Aidan!), we got the Encounters templates completed. When it came to doing the psychic, inventor and vehicle templates, I had to do some customisation work on the layout, and revised the system as I went. There were a lot of errors and old informaton in there, but now it all looks great, and is current with the system. The fantasy bestiary was updated a couple of weeks ago, though there's an update now for a few errors with the melee npc templates.

 

Aleerata

Space rats! I've been wanting to do a tiny species for quite some time, but after some discussion (and recalling how vicious a tiny melee robot had been in the last campaign I ran) we resolved to keep it as a small species. Usually the smaller species are best used with magic or psi powers to make up for their lack of physical ability, but this one is different. They can carry a lot more than their small size would suggest, including the ability to use large weapons normally excluded for smaller species. This frees them up a lot more for other roles. They're also able to make mechanical and electronic inventions without the need for those exact skills, and although the resulting gadgets tend to be unreliable, it frees them from taking backgrounds with the right technical skill too. So they're very flexible, and downright adorable :)

Miniatures

I've added a section to the scifi manual in an appendix to show how to use miniatures with Sabre, primarily about the vehicle and starships. Lots of cool pictures to look at from my own collection :)

Pilot manoeuvres

With the revision of the aircraft templates, I felt the pilot manoevures had been neglected long enough. So, now they match up with the manoevures in the starships manual, and can be used for vehicles or starships as required. There's more of them, and work better with how the vehicle system now functions. Some of the driver manoeuvres have been tweaked too, as with the system settled into a nice boardgame style environment, some adjustments needed to be made. 

 

Space vehicles vs starships

There's been a bit of a crossover between vehicles and starships, as with a plasma engine, some grav plates and a life support system, you could get a flying car into space. How it worked out there was never made clear. After some discussion, we've decided to remove this ability and keep vehicles primarily planet-bound. Now, shuttles and space fighter craft will be handled as class 0 hulls - half the size of a class 1 and with a few other limitations, but ideal for high speed dogfighting action (or carrying people and cargo). This is accompanied by a modification of the drone swarm rules, which allow a squadron of up to 6 identical fighters to operate as a single unit, perfect for larger hulls with multiple docking bays for launching fighters - carriers. We had a preliminary test this last week, and it seems to work well, but the system may evolve a little more in coming months. 

 

Other bits

The siege warfare system has been always just over the horizon, with other things constantly getting in the way. Since I'm easing back on development for a while, I've handed the current pre-alpha build back to my crack beta team to revise and improve, and then we can have a test play at some point. So it's still bubbling away :)

My current campaign is an x-com style "modern era vs aliens" thing, with a heavy emphasis on vehicle combat, and it's going very well! But the next campaign I run (which was going to be a mad max style vehicle campaign) is being changed to a waterworld sort of scenario, but with more guns and ships. As such, something I had wanted to do from the start of the starship system is adapt it for larger sea-going vessels. So when the time comes, I'll add a section to the starships manual on how to do that (it'll probably be next year sometime). 

There is actually another species in the pipeline for the scifi system, but the artwork is proving to be very challenging, so I'm giving myself more time to get a handle on it. Expect it probably next month. I plan on continuing the work on the bestiary too, as time allows. I do enjoy the artwork, though it can be demanding when I have too much going on at once. Otherwise, all the usual little updates, fixes and tweaks will continue as we delve further into the system in our local games, and find things that need work.

That's all for now. Peace :)

 

Scifi Core Rulebook v1.14

New Stuff!

* Added 'Aleerata' species. 

* Added a Miniatures appendix showing the kinds of miniatures players can use with the system.

* Added Reinforced modular plate inserts. Non-Conductive plate inserts now grant +10 AP vs electrical. Move its plasma bonus over to Refractive plates. 

* Added 'Grav Plate' high-tech upgrade for robots.

* Added 'Airborne' weapon trait for anti-aircraft specific weaponry.

* Added 'Stinger' and 'Skyshield' portable anti-aircraft missiles.

* Added 'Weapon Mount, External' vehicle upgrade.

* Added 'Cut Off' drive manoeuvre.

* Added 'Change Course' drive manoeuvre.

* Revised all Pilot skill manoeuvres and added a few. They are now matched with Pilot manoevures in the Starships manual.

 

General

* Student background now only has 1 Background event.

* Noted in the Contacts that when you lose one for any reason, you lose the benefit as well.

* The Psi Rank table now shows rank 1 (i.e. baseline) effects and requirements.

* Reduced the damage on AA Missiles and Interceptor Missiles.

* Noted under Suffocation rules that these fatigue levels cannot be ignored or reduced like other fatigue levels.

* Life Support vehicle upgrade can no longer allow a vehicle to go into space.

* 'Repulsor' now gains +5% per extra charge used, and has 10 charges. Updated details for how it operates when mounted on a starship.

* Removed 'Extra Turret' vehicle upgrade. Extra standard turrets can be added at 3.0t weight, and 10m/11y length. Only 1 HD turret can be mounted per vehicle.

* 'Reckless Flying' Pilot manouvre is now called 'Danger Zone'.

* Offensive Flying is now called 'Aggresive Flying'.

* Corrected the body text for 'Psychic Leech'.

* Vehicle docking bays now correctly list using 5 slots.

* Corrected the Long Range Fuel Tanks and Lightweight Vanes turbine option data.

* Revised how materials are used with the vehicle system. Ground, Air and Sea vehicles now have their own table with available materials suitable to that vehicle type, with correct bonuses and penalties.

* Clarified that a Major Wound now happens at or below negative maximum Hit Points, and if damage is equal to or more than twice this number, death cannot be avoided with an Endurance check or Luck Point use.

* Arborean ranged and longreach unarmed attacks now let you take Chain Weapon or Heavy Weapon talents and manoevures. 

* 'Furious Ram' drive manoeuvre now deals +5 damage instead of 1d10.

* Tactical Analyser invention now uses small batteries.

* Corrected missed instances of Healing (the skill) to Surgery.

* Suppression now applies a -5% skill penalty per level instead of -10%.

* 'Defy Gravity' psi discipline now grants +2% to starship agility instead of +5%.

* Added the mention of Expanded Fumbles to the criticals section, and mentioned that a 99 is still a fumble even if your skill is 99%.

* Second Skin now heals 1d4+2 HP, but works instantly.

* The Arborean Vine Limbs ranged penalty now states that this only affects hand-held ranged weapons.

* Canine Venator's Pack Hunter trait now grants +1 Damage instead of +1 Damage Modifier, so it affects all damage done, but is limited to +3.

* Genetics no longer requires a medical scanner to use.

* Vehicle 'Extra Turret' upgrade now allows a third turret on vehicles over 10m/11y in length.

* 'Fortify' vehicle upgrade gains +5 AP instead of +10, notes that it affects all sides.

 

Starship Manual v1.04 beta 4

* Expanded Cargo upgrade can now also convert cargo hold into precious, precious slots.

* Reduced the amount of default cargo space on all hulls.

* Sensor Upgrades only give +2% per level, but are no longer limited to 4 per ship.

* 'Empower PDS' manoeuvre now also gives the Impact trait.

* Added 'Fleet Command' talent.

* Added 'Manual Firing' talent.

* Added Class 0 starship hulls.

* Barrage Cannon PDS systems firing in Suppression mode can leave a small gap in their defences to allow drones, fighters and missiles to leave or enter from either the front or back of the ship. This compromises the system's ability to destroy incoming targets along that vector for the round.

* Added details in the combat section on using class 0 hulls in a squadron.

* Modified 'Docking Bay' upgrade details to suit class 0 hulls, and added 'Launching Tube' upgrade to complement large scale carrier vessels.

* Added 'Dominator' starship template and modified Falcon and Runabout templates.

* Primary starship weapons now incur the -40% skill penalty attempting to shoot targets of 10 metres of less instead of 20 metres or less.

* Added 'Rapid Launch System' and the 'Salvo' weapon trait.

* Suppression now applies a -5% skill penalty per level instead of -10%.

* Added a weapon traits table to the starship manual.

* HD weapon turret now provides +10 AP.

* Mentioned that at 0 Capacitor, no system, weapon or ability that requires capacitor to function works.

* Reduced the damage bonus from the Zacharial's 'Breathe Flame' manoeuvre from +2 to +1 per spirit point.

 

Encounters v1.14

* Completed all NPC templates.

 

Fantasy Premium & Basic Core Rulebooks v2.96 & v1.80

* Noted in the Contacts that when you lose one for any reason, you lose the benefit as well.

* The Spell Power table now shows rank 1 (i.e. baseline) effects and requirements.

* Noted under Suffocation rules that these fatigue levels cannot be ignored or reduced like other fatigue levels.

* Clarified that a Major Wound now happens at or below negative maximum Hit Points, and if damage is equal to or more than twice this number, death cannot be avoided with an Endurance check or Luck Point use.

* Corrected missed instances of Healing (the skill) to Surgery.

* Added the mention of Expanded Fumbles to the criticals section, and mentioned that a 99 is still a fumble even if your skill is 99%.

 

Hi, welcome to another monthly update for Sabre! This might end up being the longest blog I've written, as there's big things afoot for the system. Firstly, my publisher was shuttered by its parent company, so I'm back to being an indie author again. I'm disappointed how it turned out, but in the long run, it did wonders for the quality of my books so I can't complain. But I've decided to put aside writing for the rest of the year and focus on Sabre instead. So let's take a look at what's happening with this update, and coming over the next 9 months.

 

Bestiary Epic recalibration

Some of the high-end monsters such as ancient dragons didn't end up being as powerful as I'd hoped. I'll confess I never ran the numbers on just how much damage and AP a character can get, but when I farmed that task out to my beta team, the results were a little startling. I'm fine with those numbers, but I needed to crank up the power of the epic monsters a lot, and so, I have :) The biggest can have over 40 AP, and can deal around 60 damage in one hit, so you can expect a truly epic fight requiring the finest of equipment in order to tackle them. This is Sabre in hardcore mode ;) This of course means the Threat Level for these creatures has gone up quite a bit, which leads to:

 

Threat Level Table Tweak

I had originally set up the table to max out at TL 20, since in teh fantasy system it's almost impossible to get a player character that high. But there's no reason things can't go higher, so an ancient dragon hits TL 28 (epic) now, requiring a party of very well equipped end-game characters to win. The calculations have been modified for damage output, to make it easier - that first 10 damage was only worth 2 points, but now it's simply a matter of half your max damage = the addition to the calculation. Smoother! We've also added a section for the evade result bonus, as a slippery character can be extremely difficult to hit, and it's certainly worth counting it if they avoid damage altogether like that. Extra attacks and Luck Points are worth a bit more as well.

 

Streamlined Spirit Talents

Another idea from my beta testers was to streamline the way extra Spirit Points are gained through talents. So all those talents that gave +2, +3, +4 spirit etc, are now compressed into self-updating talents that you don't need to repeatedly take. This is an ongoing theme with sabre updates, as talents can get pretty expensive after a while and I really like the ones that automatically give a new bonus as the skill they're tied to increases. I've also allowed the spirit talents tied to the resistance skills to yield more at higher levels, and the primary greater magic/psychic talent is now "Transcendent", which results in more Spirit than before. A common comment from players using spellcasters/psychics is that they burn through spirit very rapidly, and while I'm reluctant to give out too much, it doesn't hurt to let those numbers go a little higher. This carries over to the bestiary and encounters manuals too, where caster templates will have more spirit as a result.

 

99% weapon talents improvement

Yet another tweak from my crack team of beta testers is to make the 99%, top tier talents more appealing and powerful. Some were already fine, but some others needed improvement, so you'll find them much more interesting to get once you hit that coveted 99% skill level. You can see more about the details of this in teh changelog notes below, and it affects both scifi and fantasy systems.

 

Drone System revamp (take two!)

On to more scifi-specific stuff. The drone system has evolved over the past few months, as the initial build was too complex and slowed down gameplay, and the recent change, while better, was still too complex. Basically the ability to make your own drones from scratch gave a little too much freedom, and we found that specific types of drones were very common, and thus, the system has been updated with new, pre-made templates, just like the vehicle and starship system. A drone being used on a combat grid must be directly controlled with an action, but they can be pre-programmed to operate outside of sensor range to perform tasks, too. Basically, one drone is used in combat, and drone swarms can be up to 4 cmbat drones slaved together at once (effectively acting as one drone). Burst weapons have been removed from their available weapon list, and instead, drone swarms use a burst dice to determine how many weapon hits they get during an attack. This streamlines gameplay and makes it easier for the Telemetry operator to keep track.

 

Veiran Tweak (take two!)

Ah, the Veiran, the most challenging species to balance and play! I've recently made a character that I'll be playing in one of our local games, and it became obvious that even after the recent overhaul, it was still a bit lacking. It only had one species talent, and its capabilities were a bit limited. So, you'll find their abilities greatly expanded now, and as I play-test it further, we'll see if I overcooked its combat abilities ;) *readies the nerf bat*.

 

Starship cost increase and unlimited hull size

Ships were too cheap in general, so their costs have gone up, especially for stardrives. But the upside of this is that there is no upper limit on hull class now, with a section on how to calculate a ship's capabilities of any size, even a moon! Wait, that's no moon...

Speaking of starships, let's talk more about what's coming up in the near future.

 

Starship section separation

When the scifi edition came out, it was around 370 pages, so I had no compunctions about putting the starship stuff in there too. But with the addition of inventions, base building and such, it's ballooned out to 436 pages, and that's a LOT of stuff. My mid-range tablet is having a little trouble navigating around now, and I think it's just become too big. So, I'll be taking out the starship section and putting it into its own manual, which comes in at around 60 pages. The Zacharial species will be moved over too, as this species relies on rules for ship boarding for some of its powers, and it's a starfaring species too :)

This will make both manuals easier to navigate, and give it more room for expansion for things such as pictures, and detailing specifics about equipment etc. The ship manual will be $2.50 US once released. Speaking of extra manuals...

 

Siege Warfare

This is something I shelved a few years ago to concentrate on getting scifi happening, but I was able to hand this off to my beta team (thanks Aidan!) to figure out how it'll work. The basics are done, but it needs layout and cover art complete of course. We'll also test it! I'll probably run a special siege session where the players will try to take my castle, and we'll see how it goes! 

 

Bestiary Art

I want to get back into finishing the artwork for the bestiary. My style has improved since the last batch I did, so I'm hoping to continue filling out this section, especially for the custom creatures unique to Sabre. 

 

Metric to Imperial Conversion

I had hoped that a metric system would be okay with most players in the US, but it seems it's still a stumbling block for many players. So I plan on adding imperial units to the system, alongside metric where possible. Object encumbrance (ENC) is basically pounds anyway, so that's easy, and there's plenty of places where both units can be placed alongside each other, such as temperature and speed. Yards and metres are pretty close, so the basic ground combat grid will be 1 yard squares, and vehicles will be in 10 yard squares. I know feet are more conmmonly used, but this is easier and I'm super lazy :P The starship grid is a little trickier, as kilometres and miles are out by more than half, but I'll figure something out. I hope this will help our American friends get a handle on the system and give it a try :)

 

Intro Modules

I've had a half-completed intro module sitting here for about a year, and now I'm actually going to finish it and get it out there, to help players understand the unique mechanics the scifi system has to offer. It'll be a two-part affair, with part 1 offering ground and vehicle combat, plus all the basics such as skill checks etc. Part 2 is when the party gets on board a starship, and covers all aspects of that part of the game. It should be fairly self-contained, so you won't even need the separate starship manual to see how it all works :)

 

Further Story Modules

Finally, after the two free modules are done, I'd love to do a bunch of premium modules for the scifi system. I'm thinking 3 high-tech stories with starships etc, 1 industrial era to show off the steampunk aspects of the system, and 1 modern era mod that will probably be vehicle-heavy. This will take the bulk of the rest of the year to complete. 

So, that's a lot of stuff! Some of these items are ongoing, others will be released when they're ready. I'm all typed out for now, so take care and I'll bring you another update next month :)

 

v1.10 scifi manual update

Threat Levels

* Damage on the Threat Level table is now calculated as +1 for every 2 points (easier calculation).

* Extra attacks on the Threat Level table now has a value of +5.

* Luck Points on the Threat Level now have a value of +1 each.

* Threat Level tables now include the calculation for every +2% evade or agility result bonus.

* Ramming Prow shares an entry with the Redundant systems value. 

* Added a new Threat Level table for calculating ship TL.

 

Industrial Era

* Expanded the capabilities of the Optical Pump steampunk (Industrial Era) invention.

* 'Improvised Ammunition' invention is now just 'Ammunition', also has some Industrial Era applications.

* Added 'Follow & Defend Ally' command for clockwork and steam golems.

* 'Steam Power Fist' invention has had its damage slightly reduced.

* Steam engines have their start-up time noted.

 

Veiran Species

* Added 'Animate Dead' veiran talent.

* Added 'Bioweapon' Veiran talent. Energy Field talent no longer grants Invulnerability to electrical damage.

* 'Coalesce' and 'Possess' Veiran manoeuvres now correctly use the Psychic skill.

* 'Energy Field' talent now also grants immunity to electrical damage.

* 'Conduit' talent can now also be taken by Veiran, also allows power to be transferred to a ship's capacitor. Improved basic function to make it more useful.

* 'Lightning Bolt' manoevure grants additonal damage with extra spirit spent.

 

General

* Added 'Nudge' drive manoeuvre.

* Added MIRV warhead ammunition option for missiles.

* Gaining a Luck Point from getting drunk only grants 1 per session.

* Splinter Arrows no longer have a +5 damage bonus.

* Weapons mounted on vehicles and starships in a fixed position are gimble weapons, able to hit anything in a cone 5 squares wide.

* 'Transcendent' talent now grants +4 spirit per tier. Total extra spirit available from talents is now 32 (16 psychic, 12 from resistances, 4 from martial arts), up from 22 (14 psychic, 6 from resistances, 2 from martial arts).

* Graceful, Resolute, Stalwart and Zen Master talents now begin with +1 spirit at 50% of their respective skills and auto update to +4 at 99%.

* Removed the 'Spirited' talent.

* Noted that the 'Partial Block' talent doesn’t work when blocking for others.

* 'Hold the Line' polearm talent now lets you automatically push targets back to maximum longreach range.

* Corrected the text for group rolls.

* Wheel Covers vehicle upgrade now has -3% Agility penalty.

* Removed the Move bonus from plasma jet vehicle upgrades, reduced the Fusion engine Move bonus to +1.

* Ground vehicle Turbine engine upgrade only provides +1 Move now.

* Transit plates now have only +1 Move, Angled plates have no Move bonus at all. Induction and Transit plates have had their Cruise and Max speed figures increased.

* Noted that Nitrous Injectors, Overcharge and Fusion Pulse upgrades use 1 fuel per round.

* Long Range fuel tanks and batteries also apply -1 Move.

* Added 'Extra Luck' leadership talent.

* Added 'Ironclad' armour talent.

* 'Savage Axes' talent now lets you roll on the lasting injury table.

* 'Bruiser' club talent is now 99%, stuns damaged targets.

* 'Armour Breaker' club talent is now at 70%.

* Added 'No Time to Bleed' general talent.

* 'Sword Specialist' talent's dice increase automatically goes up again at 90%.

* 'Deadly Swords' talent now grants Expanded critical to swords.

* 'Slayer of Legends' talent has been replaced with 'Counterstrike' at 99%.

* Increased the damage output from high-tech dual weapons.

* Added descriptions of high-tech ranged weapons.

* Added Plasma and Impact (bludgeoning) warheads for missiles, under 'Special Ammunition'. Upgraded that table with an 'Era' column.

* Added additional starbases for the base building system.

* 'Improvised Rocket' invention deals an extra +5 damage.

* 'Improvised Ammo' invention for Heavy Missile/At Missile requires 50 less parts.

* Fusion Generators are now worth 2mil each (4x previous cost).

* Android and Automatons have had their language clarified regarding their resistance to 'telepathy', now correctly states 'immune to mental attacks'.

* All dark matter theory inventions now also require graphene parts.

* Explained that a sentry turret can be vocally controlled, or via a Remote Control device or transmitter.

* The effective range of a Remote Control device is 1 kilometre.

* Clarified more details about the use of 'Dimensional Shunt' on a starship.

* 'Locate' psi power has had its object size increased.

* Added details for how 'Bend Light' psi power works on a starship. 

* Added 'One in a Million' pilot talent.

* Filled in the empty description of 'On the Move' acrobatics manoeuvre.

* Noted in the relevant armour sections that all modern armour is non-conductive, and graphene armour IS conductive (but silksteel isn't).

* Sentry Turrets now have a listed number of charges (20).

* Improvised Gun weapons with the Oneshot trait can switch firing modes if they also have a trait allowing multiple attacks, losing the +4 damage bonus.

* Improvised Laser weapons with plasma damage (and therefore the Oneshot trait) can switch firing modes if they also have a trait allowing multiple attacks, losing the +4 damage bonus. Plasma damage type now requires 90% skill. Added 'Disrupt' trait option. Added Capacitor use adjustments for when mounted on a ship.

* Improvised Laser energy cannon type now deals 1d10+12 damage as baseline.

* Added details of concentration abilities to the Manoeuvres section.

* Added a 'Bonus' column to the weapons list on character sheets. Some have extra space for weapon mod notes too (thanks Aidan!)

* Added a separate Research section in Game Mechanics to cover the use of libraries, encyclopaedia and databases. 

* Clarified the text under 'Learning new skills' concerning the use of Skill Manuals.

* Added 'Data Server' base upgrade.

* Any unit with a Positronic Brain upgrade is not limited in how many Talents they can remove, provided those talents were bought with accolades.

* Added 'Organic Editor' cybernetics mod that eliminates the 3 talent limit for removing talents you don't want.

* Folding Stock weapon mod now makes it clear the weapon can still only accept pistol mods.

* 12mm Sniper Rifle and modern era flamethrower are now Enormous in SIZ.

* 'Neural Programming' talent is now available with Electronics for turrets and mini-drones.

* 'Catalyser' heavy version now deals +4 damage.

* 'Dark Matter Gun' and 'Sonic Blaster' longarm upgrades now also provide +2 damage.

* Fixed the link to encyclopaedia from the base building & starship Library upgrade.

* Added 'Quick Grab' Melee and Martial Arts manoeuvre.

* Corrected the ENC of the 'Mechanised Armour' invention.

 

Starship Stuff

* Added 'Tunnel Rat' starship mechanic talent.

* Transfer Weapons engineering action now halves damage output from ship's main weapons.

* Corrected skill references on Telemetry actions to use the Robotics skill.

* 'Disrupt Shields' manoeuvre now lowers the AP of the target ship's shield AP.

* Added the capability to create starship hulls above class 7 in size(!)

* Adjusted the hit point advancement of starships to be +25 per class, which has lowered class 5 hulls and above. Class 7 hulls also have 3 less AP.

* Added a mechanic to increase the time it takes to get to ship systems when they are damaged, based on hull class. Class 1 and 2, zero travel time. Class 3 and 4, 1 travel time etc. Added space on Telemetry sheet to note repair travel time.

* Emergency Repairs no longer require a Part or Circuit, as these are temporary fixes.

* Ships above class 7 in hull size can't enter an atmosphere unless they have the streamlined hull configuration.

* The Heavy Weapons skill is now used for all tactical console operations.

* Mentari hull designs now have -3 to ship’s primary weapon damage per hull class.

* Stardrives are now 5 million credits per hull class.

* References to Psi Bridge have been corrected to Psi Console.

* Starship template costs now factor in the increased expense of fusion generators and wormhole generators.

* Removed 'Drone Control System', has been merged into sensor system on all hulls.

* All hulls start with a bay for 1 tiny drone.

* 'Drone Bay' upgrade is now 'Expanded Drone Bay', uses 500 ENC.

* Added drone and robot purchase prices.

* Drones no longer use Hull Parts, adjusted part requirement numbers. 

* Revised the starship drone section.

* Added extra drone character sheets for specific drone types.

* Cloaking devices now use 2 Capacitor per hull size.

* Escape Pods can now support life for 72 hours.

* Explained that a ship's sensor upgrade grants its result bonus to all sensor related opposed checks.

* Added a sensor bonus entry on the Defence station sheet.

 

 

v2.91 Premium Fantasy Manual

* Corrected the text for group rolls.

* Added 'Extra Luck' leadership talent.

* Added 'Ironclad' armour talent.

* 'Savage Axes' talent now lets you roll on the lasting injury table.

* 'Bruiser' club talent is now 99%, stuns damaged targets.

* 'Armour Breaker' club talent is now at 70%.

* Added 'No Time to Bleed' general talent.

* Streamlined 'Empowered Caster', 'Energetic Mind' and 'Transcendent Caster' psychic talents into one self updating talent called 'Transcendent', +4 at 50% skill and tops out at 99%.

* Graceful, Resolute, Stalwart and Zen Master talents now begin with +1 spirit at 50% of their respective skills and auto update to +4 at 99%.

* Removed 'Spirited' talent. 

* 'Sword Specialist' talent dice increase automatically goes up again at 90%.

* 'Deadly Swords' talent now grants Expanded critical to swords.

* 'Slayer of Legends' talent has been replaced with 'Counterstrike' at 99%.

* Threat Level tables now include the calculation for every +2% evade or agility result bonus.

* Damage on the Threat Level table is now calculated as +1 for every 2 points (easier calculation).

* Extra attacks on the Threat Level table now has a value of +5.

* Luck Points on the Threat Level now have a value of +1 each.

* Added 'Quick Grab' Melee and Martial Arts manoeuvres.

* Noted that the 'Partial Block' talent doesn’t work when blocking for others.

* 'Hold the Line' polearm talent now lets you automatically push targets back to maximum longreach range.

 

v1.75 Basic Fantasy Manual

* Corrected the text for group rolls.

* 'Armour Breaker' club talent is now at 70%, replacing 'Bruiser' talent in the basic edition.

* Streamlined 'Empowered Caster', 'Energetic Mind' and 'Transcendent Caster' psychic talents into one self updating talent called 'Transcendent', +4 at 50% skill and tops out at 99%.

* Graceful, Resolute, and Stalwart talents now begin with +1 spirit at 50% of their respective skills and auto update to +4 at 99%.

* Removed 'Spirited' talent. 

* 'Sword Specialist' talent dice increase automatically goes up again at 90%.

* 'Deadly Swords' talent now grants Expanded critical to swords.

* Threat Level tables now include the calculation for every +2% evade or agility result bonus.

* Damage on the Threat Level table is now calculated as +1 for every 2 points (easier calculation).

* Extra attacks on the Threat Level table now has a value of +5.

* Luck Points on the Threat Level now have a value of +1 each.

 

v2.54 Fantasy Bestiary

* Increased damage of Annihilator, Arboreal Behemoth, Astaroth, Basilisk, Grizzly Bear, Fel Chimera, Malefic Chimera, Dire Bear, Dire Wolf, Adult Dragon, Ancient Dragon, Old Dragon, Entropaal, Giant Shaman, Giant Warlord, Auldsteel Golem, Bone Golem, Dreadnaught Golem (also lost 4 AP and EC), Fey Cat, Flesh Golem, Iron Golem, Stone Golem, Horse, Kraken, Landshark, Leviathan, Linnorm, Malphas, Megalodon, Mummy, Paragon, Primordion, Revenant, Sa'quaarin, Sea Serpent, Seraph, Shoggoth (also lost 2 attacks), Skeletal Dragon, Titan, Umbral, Unicorn, Werewolf, Titanic Worm (also lost 4 AP), Fast Zombie, Giant Zombie, 

* Increase AP and TL rating of big monsters, with their own section in the 'Creatures by TL' section. Annihilator 16, Arboreal Behemoth 18, Auldsteel Golem 18, Dragon Ancient 28, Dragon Old 22, Dreadnought Golem 22, Entropaal  21, Kraken 20, Leviathan 27, Linnorm 14, Malphas 27, Paragon 27, Sa’quaarin 21, Shoggoth 26, Titan 24.

* Some creatures with an evade skill result bonus have increased in TL due to this addition to the calculation.

* Added manoeuvres to the Arboreal Behemoth.

* Added seduction manoeuvres to the Vampire and Nymph.

* Silver weapons now deal regular damage against undead instead of Vulnerability (+10).

Hi everyone, we've got a bunch of fixes and improvements for the scifi system, and of course some of them carry over to the fantasy system too! Let's get started:

Background Events have undergone an overhaul. I didn't find gaining additional contacts compelling (and tended to re-roll those ones) so I've replaced them with more skill buffs and other interesting effects. There are more negative background events too, though I've reduced the chance of them showing up from 11% to 7%.

I've brought the Healing skill into line with the scifi system, where it's a background-only skill. It takes years to learn how to do surgery! I've also adjusted it so it requires the pain-relief tonic (or anaesthetic in modern and high-tech settings) or it incurs a -20% skill penalty. It's hard to mend wounds when someone is screaming so much!

The tables listing cost and time for learning skills, spells, manoevures and inventions have all been revised to include higher levels of intelligence, and I felt that spells should be learned a bit faster so the cost for those has come down quite a bit. 

For the scifi system, I'm expanding information for pre-modern settings, under the new Industrial Era, which covers 19th century weapons, and other related things. I'll be running a steampunk campaign in the near future and this will give me a chance to see what I can do to improve this area of the system. I gave the clockwork and steam inventions an overhaul too, so I think it'll work pretty well :) I'll expand upon this further as the game gets underway.

Fear not, the starship system has had a lot of fixes too, with better information clarifying a number of mechanics. We've been having a blast with our current Bridge Crew campaign and it's been a great opportunity to tweak a number of issues. That's all for this month, check out the changelog notes below for more detail!

 

v1.02 scifi core rulebook

New Stuff!

* Added an Industrial Era, with its own backgrounds, weapons and inventions. 

* Added 'Mechanical Man/Woman', 'Revived Human', 'Living Engine', 'Steam Contraption', 'Game Hunter' and 'Explorer'  Industrial era backgrounds.

* Added 'Telemetry Lock' starship manoeuvre.

* Added 'Activate Cloak' starship defensive systems action.

* Added 'Focused Laser' upgrade for the Tactical Analyser.

* Added 'Stealthy' background event.

* Added 'Slow' negative background event.

* Added 'Unlucky' negative background event.

* Added 'Mini-Drone' and 'Signal Disruptor' electronics inventions.

* Added 'Steam Parts' and 'Clockwork Parts', specifically for use with low-tech (steampunk) inventions and adjusted these inventions appropriately.

* Added 'Ramming Speed' pilot starship manoeuvre.

* Added details about what masers are and how they work.

* Added 'Shell' weapon trait, similar to missile trait but doesn't count as a missile for modification purposes.

* Added '20mm Elephant Gun' and 'Punt Gun' Industrial era firearms.

* Added 'Cone' trait details to ranged weapon traits list.

* Added new 'Blast Shield' high-tech mechanical invention.

* Added 'Miner' prospecting talent.

 

Fixes and Improvements

* Ship hull sizes are now expressed in 'Class', so as not to confuse their size with vehicles. i.e. Compact hull is now Class 1, Colossal hull is now Class 7.

* Corrected a reference in the starship Drones section: drones do not need to be made of Auldsteel parts.

* Titanium is only usable to make ranged weapons (it can't hold an edge and is too light to deliver melee damage).

* The 'Disrupt' ranged weapon trait now has a number attached to it, designating how many spirit points or capacitor are drained on a successful hit.

* Added rifle-sized disruptors as an option for vehicles. 

* Disruptor clip size has been set to 5 for each type.

* Clarified how long it takes to arrive at a damaged system depending on your character's speed (under Emergency Repairs). 

* Anaesthetic now adds +4 Hit Points to the result when used with the Healing skill. 

* Some medicines and narcotics are now available in the Industrial era.

* Failure to use pain relief or anaesthetic with the Healing skill applies a -20% penalty.

* EMP grenades have increased in price.

* 'Z-axis Shift' starship  manoeuvre is now called 'Emergency Evade' for clarity.

* 'Flank Speed' starship manoeuvre and 'Ramming Speed' action have been replaced with the 'Afterburner' pilot action.

* 'Barrel Roll', 'Boost Defence' and 'Overcharge Shield' manoeuvres now provide a bonus limited by pilot skill. All only provide this bonus to one defensive action.

* 'Precognition' psi power now stipulates that its bonuses are for use in combat.

* If there is no system installed at a particular location during a critical hit, hull damage is done instead.

* Expanded starship Critical Hit table to explain what happens if a system goes down.

* Explained a little more about how dealing with emergency repairs, breaches and fires works.

* Explained that if the IRF is inactive, moving more than 1sq per round causes collision damage to the crew.

* Debris fields cause a Cloaking Device to reveal your position.

* Added a note that paying someone else to upgrade inventions costs double the listed cost of circuits/parts.

* The 'Hazard Suit' invention now correctly uses Computers as its control skill.

* Most invention upgrades now have skill level requirements.

* All ships can attempt to detect cloaked ships, but with a -40% result penalty to the scan. This is obviously mitigated with sensor system upgrades (There used to be a seperate system to add to detect cloaked ships, this was removed at some point though it is visible on some pre-made ship templates.)

* The 'Soldier' background event has been replaced by 'Brawler', giving you more Unarmed skill points.

* The 'Merchant' background event has been adjusted to give the Commerce skill instead of a contact, now called 'Trader'.

* The 'Priest' background event has been replaced with 'Energetic', reducing the duration of fatigue levels.

* The 'Politician' background event has been replaced with 'Driver', giving you the Drive skill.

* The 'Scholar' background event has been replaced with 'Learned', granting you an extra skill.

* The 'Cop' background event has been replaced with 'Runner', granting extra movement.

* The 'Criminal' background event has been replaced with 'Hauler', granting the Strong Back talent.

* The 'Gem' background event is now fixed at a stone worth 100cr.

* The 'Resistant' background event now offers Bludgeoning and Collision instead of Laser or Plasma damage resistance.

* The 'Talented' background event can now be any talent you qualify for, not just general talents.

* The 'Device' background event has been expanded to 6 possible items.

* Negative background events now have a 7% chance of occuring instead of 11%.

* The 'Stolen' background event has been tweaked so you lose half your starting money, and is now called 'Theft'.

* The 'Framed' negative background event stipulates that you lose the bonus gained from the contact you lost.

* The 'Guidance' weapon mod now only grants its bonus on targets 250cm or larger.

* Starship Thruster upgrades now use slots based on their hull class.

* The slot penalty for Streamline hull types is now -2 per hull class instead of -5.

* A ship's Fuel Reserve upgrade now grants +5 fuel instead of +3.

* Added baseline sensor stats to the sensor system section.

* The 'Networking' talent now also applies to mini-drones.

* 'Repair Bots' nanomed now use 2 Spirit or 2 Fuel to do their thing.

* The Maxim Gun now lists 7mm is its ammo type.

* The cost of plasma grenades and Demolex has been increased.

* The Disable weapon trait now does not require damage to be dealt.

* Gems of 200cr value can also be used to heal AP on a carapan.

* Revised 'Steam Exoskeleton' and 'Clockwork Golem' abilities.

* 'Machine Press' invention primarily produces Steam Parts, but can be used to produce regular Parts too if that's available in the campaign.

* The 'Steam Car' invention can now receive modern-era vehicle body upgrades.

* Adjusted Skill, Manoeuvre, Invention & Psychic tables to cover higher levels of INT. Normalised the Attribute score levels for each table to match.

* The Clockwork talent has been moved from Mechanisms back to Science.

* Added more detail to the Clockwork Robot invention.

* Increased the value of the property for the Landowner background.

* Vehicle 'Subsystem Armour' upgrade now just adds a flat 10 AP to a subsystem, reduced weight.

* Removed 'God of War' manoeuvre from the Threat Level calculation (just include extra damage from this as part of your damage calculation).

* Cleared up the language on 'God of War' manoeuvre.

* Altered the text on 'Enhanced Speed' nanomed so that xarani don't get 2 extra actions.

* Increased the encumbrance and damage of the high-yield explosive invention.

* Splinter arrows no longer deal fire damage.

* Maser stats have been tweaked - Maser cannon uses more cap, range for both reduced, fire damage instead of laser, damage output reduced.

* Adjusted how fires work on board ships.

* Updated the 'Powered Armour' invention construction details.

* Attacking drones with standard starship weapons incurs a -40% result penalty.

* Tweaked the language on the 'Wrist Radar'.

* The Compact Assault Weapon is now more expensive.

* A ship's Capacitor recharge rate is now based on the current maximum Capacitor, not the number of reactor upgrades.

* 'Twin Shooters' trait is now called 'Gunslinger', expanded with additional single-pistol Burst effects.

* Fabricators now use 1 Part per ENC instead of 2.

* Clarified that devices and high-tech weapons use circuits in addition to Parts when making them in the fabricator.

* Blast Shield is now called Battle Shield, to not clash with the blast shield invention.

* Corrected the text on Energy Armour description to note that this AP isn't reduced by weapons fire.

* Expanded the description of the 750cr gemstone effect for Crystal Alchemy.

* Linked the two nuclear inventions listed on the Devices page.

* Added a stealth result modifer to the robot size table.

* Silicone Sealant can now be used as much as needed if carapan is below half maximum HP, 1 use per tube.

* 'Rock Solid' carapan manoeuvre becomes Quick to use at 99% skill.

* 'Expert Forager' and 'Master Forager' talents now can also apply to Prospecting.

* 'Forager' herbalism talent now yields double the normal result for a success or critical.

* 'Diamondback' talent now grants its laser bonus against plasma weapons as well, and notes that a diamond worth 10000cr now counts as eating two 5000cr diamonds.

* 'Diamondback' talent now also grants its +1 AP bonus per diamond to Hit Points as well.

 

v2.84 fantasy premium edition core rulebook

* Corrected the currency type for herbal tonics (from cr to sp).

* Added 'Stealthy' background event.

* Added 'Slow' negative background event.

* Added 'Unlucky' negative background event.

* Added 'Miner' prospecting talent.

* Failure to use pain relief tonic with the Healing skill applies a -20% penalty. Pain relief tonic also grants +1 to Healing skill result.

* The Healing skill is now a background-only skill (surgery takes years to learn!)

* 'Precognition' psionic spell now stipulates that its bonuses are for use in combat.

* The 'Soldier' background event has been replaced by 'Brawler', giving you more Unarmed skill points.

* The 'Merchant' background event has been adjusted to give the Commerce skill instead of a contact, now called 'Trader'.

* The 'Priest' background event has been replaced with 'Energetic', reducing the duration of fatigue levels.

* The 'Politician' background event has been replaced with 'Driver', giving you the Drive skill.

* The 'Scholar' background event has been replaced with 'Learned', granting you an extra skill.

* The 'Cop' background event has been replaced with 'Runner', granting extra movement.

* The 'Criminal' background event has been replaced with 'Hauler', granting the Strong Back talent.

* The 'Gem' background event is now fixed at a stone worth 100sp.

* The 'Resistant' background event now offers Bludgeoning, Necrotic & Collision damage in place of the old selection.

* The 'Talented' background event can now be any talent you qualify for, not just general talents.

* Negative background events now have a 7% chance of occuring instead of 11%.

* The 'Stolen' background event has been tweaked so you lose half your starting money, and is now called 'Theft'.

* The 'Framed' negative background event stipulates that you lose the bonus gained from the contact you lost.

* Adjusted Skill, Manoeuvre,& Magic tables to cover higher levels of INT. Normalised the Attribute score levels for each table to match, and overall lowered the time for learning spells.

* 'Twin Shooters' trait is now called 'Gunslinger', expanded with additional single-pistol Burst effects.

* 'Expert Forager' and 'Master Forager' talents now can also apply to Prospecting.

 

* 'Forager' herbalism talent now yields double the normal result for a success or critical.

 

v1.69 fantasy basic edition core rulebook

* Corrected the currency type for many entries (from cr to sp).

* Added 'Strong Back' talent.

* Added 'Stealthy' background event.

* Added 'Slow' negative background event.

* Added 'Unlucky' negative background event.

* Failure to use pain relief tonic with the Healing skill applies a -20% penalty. Pain relief tonic also grants +1 to Healing skill result.

* The Healing skill is now a background-only skill (surgery takes years to learn!)

* The 'Soldier' background event has been replaced by 'Brawler', giving you more Unarmed skill points.

* The 'Merchant' background event has been adjusted to give the Commerce skill instead of a contact, now called 'Trader'.

* The 'Priest' background event has been replaced with 'Energetic', reducing the duration of fatigue levels.

* The 'Politician' background event has been replaced with 'Driver', giving you the Drive skill.

* The 'Scholar' background event has been replaced with 'Learned', granting you an extra skill.

* The 'Cop' background event has been replaced with 'Runner', granting extra movement.

* The 'Criminal' background event has been replaced with 'Hauler', granting the Strong Back talent.

* The 'Gem' background event is now fixed at a stone worth 100sp.

* The 'Resistant' background event now offers Bludgeoning, Necrotic & Collision damage in place of the old selection.

* The 'Talented' background event can now be any talent you qualify for, not just general talents.

* Negative background events now have a 7% chance of occuring instead of 11%.

* The 'Stolen' background event has been tweaked so you lose half your starting money, and is now called 'Theft'.

* The 'Framed' negative background event stipulates that you lose the bonus gained from the contact you lost.

* Adjusted Skill, Manoeuvre,& Magic tables to cover higher levels of INT. Normalised the Attribute score levels for each table to match, and overall lowered the time for learning spells.

* 'Twin Shooters' trait is now called 'Gunslinger', expanded with additional single-pistol Burst effects.

Hi everyone! Today (technically yesterday) I finally released the scifi edition of sabre, after a heavy development burn for the past 10 months. It turns out I needed all of that time to give it a thorough testing, and I want to send out my thanks for the development test groups who gave it a proper going-over during this time. 

Development could have gone on for another month, as we came up with another species to add (an energy creature), plus I still want to add genetics to the science area too, but they would both require extensive testing and it was time to get it out there. These items will come along in the future, once we've sorted things out and given them a good test! 

So today, we've just got an update for the fantasy system to bring it into line with the usual core rules development. I've expanded the abilities for athletics and acrobatics manoeuvres, and added a new backpack system to let you carry more than before. Spirit Surge received a tweak, and I improved the artwork for the saerids too. 

My artwork evolved steadily over the development of the scifi system, so I'm now looking at the older style in the fantasy manuals with mild disgust! Okay they're not that bad, but I'll eventually have to come back and do something better. The first priority now is to continue work on the bestiary art, which is still roughly half-way completed. I think I'm going to change styles at this point, eschewing the backgrounds and focusing on the creatures themselves, in accordance with my current skill level. The results will be cleaner and more realistic, and yes this means some of the earlier works will be redone too. At least I don't have any other major projects on the horizon, so I can just focus on the art for now! 

I might start my next novel in the near future too, but I would like to get a free introductory adventure done for scifi as well. I have something lined up, one of the adventures I ran for the test group in the not too distant past. In the long term, once the manuals are complete, I'd like to just make adventures for both systems, translating some of the modules I still have written up from the last ten years of running stuff (using a computer, prior to that was all on paper or improvised on the spot, and therefore I don't have records of). 

So if scifi rpg's are your thing, check out sabre scifi - I actually prefer running this over the fantasy setting these days, which is surprising since prior to two years ago I didn't have much interest in sci rpgs! Peace out.

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v2.82 Premium Fantasy

* Updated the Example Character with current rules.

* Added a spot on the inventory sheet for backpack type and bonus.

* Removed the pet background event (if you want a pet, take animal training!)

* Removed 'Quick Dodge' acrobatics manoeuvre as it's already under Evade.

* Added 'Free Running' and 'Wall Run' acrobatics manoeuvres.

* 'Spirit Surge' action can only be used in combat.

* Added a new backpack system under Tools which combines with the 'Strong Back' talent to allow you to carry even more. 

* Reduced the bonus from the 'Strong Back' talent from +3 to +2 ENC.

* 'Spirit Abilities' section is now simply 'Manoeuvres', since Magic has its own heading.

* Added 'Fast Jump', 'Standing Start' and 'Agile Avoidance' Athletics manoevures.

* Updated the saerid artwork.

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v1.67 Basic Fantasy 

* Updated the Example Character with current rules.

* 'Spirit Abilities' section is now simply 'Manoeuvres', since Magic has its own heading.

* 'Spirit Surge' action can only be used in combat.

Hello, I hope you're well! I've been heavily focused on developing Sabre Scifi, but as usual there's a few updates to the core rules that affect the fantasy system. Also of note is that as the scifi system approaches completion, I've been looking at how the two systems work together, with particular attention to how they're named. So there's a change to the core fantasy system, which is now referred to as the Sabre RPG Fantasy Core Rulebook, which will go alonside the Sabre RPG Scifi Core Rulebook. The term 'Codex' won't be used anymore, as I didn't feel the word was appropriate for the scifi rulebook, and I wanted them to have similar terminology. This comes along with another iteration on the logo and cover art. As my digital art capabilities continue to improve, I'm looking at doing something more elaborate for the fantasy system cover, but this will do for now. The bestiary is looking much sharper, with the simple yet evocative 'beast on a cold stormy night' thing happening :)

I've also got a little scifi art here to show off. I'm slowly moving forward with the species images, and almost finished a 2nd one before I decided I needed to get this monthly update out of the way first. I hope to have more of these for you next month, as I'm about halfway through. Behold, androids! This was actually surprisingly difficult, in order to make them look human, but not. Hence, the android detective on the left has obviously been battling some kind of space-bear, and lost.

Scifi

As for the system itself, I'm glad I didn't try to push it out sooner as I identified some core issues and had to do a bit of an overhaul. I won't bore you with the details, except to say that it's working better than ever, and I'm just finishing off the section on how to make your own starship in-game, with science. Its accompanying manual, the Encounters book, is also nearly complete, as I've added more helpful information, tables and such that as a GM, I find indispensable for a smooth game. I still have to do cover art for this one, so my to-do list still has quite a bit on it! And then of course continuing with the bestiary artwork - I'm confident that my improving skills will make the 2nd half of this project look even better than the first (and I'll probably have to redo a few of them to keep the quality consistent).

Bestiary

So, I have a few adjustments to the bestiary I want to address. In order to keep the game streamlined (a core design rule for the system), I want to keep the number of attacks creatures and players get capped at a reasonable level. A saerid making off-hand attacks, using a manoevure and some sort of speed spell can get to 6, which is definitely at the upper range I want to allow, but since this is an edge case, I'm not making any changes to the way player attacks work. Some monsters, however, get this many and more, so I'm adjusting the Vicious and Multi-limbed and Multi-headed talents. Vicious now simply adds extra damage to one attack, which can be much more effective than multiple attacks as it helps to punch through armour. It's a real time-saver too, which is the whole point! The other two talents are capped at 4 attacks each, even for the hydra and giant octopus. Making 8 separate attacks is a bit ridiculous ;)

Anyway that's all for this month, I'll keep working away at the scifi system to get it released as soon as I can. It's pretty awesome actually :D

 

v2.8 Premium Edition

* Summoner's 'Aspect of Speed' spell power improvements are now increasingly more expensive.

* Summoner's 'Giant's Strength' spell now applies a basic damage improvement, not a Damage Modifier improvement.

* Summoner's 'Bestial Ferocity' spell now requires Concentration to maintain.

* If 'Leap' Manoeuvre is used to get inside an enemy's Reach, Leap is treated like a Charge attack, allowing the use of the Counterattack Reaction.

* Clarified that the 'Fire & Steel' pistol talent gives its free attack immediately after the first.

* Updated the cover art & logo.

* Clarified more detail about result bonuses and difficulty bonuses in the Skills section, and tweaked the language on resolving equal roll results. 

* 'Tactical Combo' and 'Tactical Master' talents are now 'Skill Combo' and 'Skill Master', can be applied to manoeuvres from any skill.

* Adjusted the Encounter tables to be more efficient.

* Page numbers now begin at the start of the document, which should make it easier to navitage the pdf.

 

v2.4 Bestiary 

* Updated instances of 'Body Slam' ability.

* The 'Vicious' talent now allows Reactions spent to grant +3 damage to one hit. 

* The 'Multi-Attack' and 'Multi-Headed' talents are now capped at 4 total attacks and reactions.

* Added the now standard 2x Damage Modifier result bonus to the Brawn skill where appropriate.

* Updated the cover art & logo.

 

v1.65 Sabre RPG Basic Edition

* Page numbers now begin at the start of the document, which should make it easier to navitage the pdf.

* Added missing 'Animate Cadaver' spell to the Raise Dead talent.

* If 'Leap' Manoeuvre is used to get inside an enemy's Reach, Leap is treated like a Charge attack, allowing the use of the Counterattack Reaction.

* Updated the cover art & logo.

 

* Clarified more detail about result bonuses and difficulty bonuses in the Skills section, and tweaked the language on resolving equal roll results. 

Hello all, this month we have a few tweaks and additions to the core system, and an update on that pesky scifi system that refuses to be ready for release. 

Leadership is something I've wanted to expand upon for some time now, so I've added a bunch of new talents pegged to using Luck Points, which are themselves linked to high Charisma. They let you play a party support role and make high CHA characters very useful (it's not always a dump stat!)

In addition to this, I've modified the penalties for playing a character of the Young age category. Now they're just lower on Strength, which makes more sense, but to compensate for this and their lower starting skill points, they can learn new skills at half the usual time and cost. This should make younger characters more interesting to play, instead of having to deal with a lot of negatives to stats and skills with no upside.

Finally, I tweaked the bonus you get from your Damage Modifier to your Brawn skill. It was a bit bonkers having a +10% result bonus per point, so I've pegged that back to 2%. Soon, I'll be going through the Bestiary to update the monsters with this and a few other tweaks, but for now this will do.

Scifi

So, I nearly gave up on releasing the scifi game, as the art issue was really bothering me. My style isn't yet professional quality, and pushing myself to lift my style is wearing me out. With all the projects I've been juggling I decided to delay further development indefinitely, until I could scrounge together enough money to pay a proper artist to get the art done. Creating a Kickstarter campaign to generate the money needed to pay an artist to do the job was very appealing too, but after I had some time to think about it, I realise I'm not too far off in terms of art quality and I just need to keep practicing and get these done. There are ten species, so that's ten pieces, and I have three completed as of today. 

 

This third piece I just finished is an alien race and it's been very challenging, as I have been designing the look as well as creating the image itself. So much for getting all this done by the end of the month! Some species will be easier than others, such as androids (basically human in appearance) while others will be very challenging indeed. At least my style is evolving, no longer needing the heavy outlines I've been using in earlier works. So when I get all of these done, and a cover for the Encounters manual, then it's ready for release. I'm hoping that'll be before April but I'm not going to give hard dates anymore! I now understand why developers of games often miss release dates or just give a generic Soon(TM) for when it's going to get done. Rest assured it's being worked on and it's going to happen in the near future!

 

v2.7 Premium Codex Changes

* Brawn skill bonus when grappling or other contests of strength is now +2% per DM point.

* Herbs and Poisons moved to their own section in the manual.

* Replaced mentions of 'Tincture' with 'Tonic' (basically the same thing, more commonly used word).

* 'Strong Back' talent now requires 50% Endurance skill, and can be taken additional times.

* The 'Engineering' skill is now part of the 'Lore' skill.

* 'Assault Formation' and 'Defensive Formation' Leadership manoevures now have a 5 metre range.

* Removed 'Leaders Luck' leadership manoevure.

* Added 'Leaders Luck', 'Battle Hardened', 'Comrade in Arms', 'Legendary Leader' and 'Not on my watch' leadership talents. 

* 'Blind Sense' talent now also reduces unopposed perception check difficulty penalities by 10%.

* 'Blunt Trauma' club talent causes Hit Point loss, not damage.

* Clarified in the Career stage of character creation that you can't put points into background OR species skills, only new skills that you buy (the idea being to spread skill points around).

* Characters of the Young age category now only have -2 to their STR attribute, and can learn new skills at half their normal cost.

 

v1.64 Basic Codex Changes

* Brawn skill bonus when grappling or other contests of strength is now +2% per DM point instead of 10%.

* Herbs and Poisons moved to their own section in the manual.

* Replaced mentions of 'Tincture' with 'Tonic' (basically the same thing, more commonly used word).

* The 'Engineering' skill is now part of the 'Lore' skill.

* 'Blunt Trauma' club talent causes Hit Point loss, not damage.

* Clarified in the Career stage of character creation that you can't put points into background OR species skills, only new skills that you buy (the idea being to spread skill points around).

* Characters of the Young age category now only have -2 to their STR attribute, and can learn new skills at half their normal cost.

Hi, I hope your 2018 is going well so far! As you may recall, I skipped the December update due to only having 3 items to change in the Codex, and I hadn't finished any new artwork. Well, I've been running myself ragged trying to get this scifi system done, and hey, who knew a system with heavy science and math would be so difficult? :D

So yeah, still no new art at this point but the good news is that the scifi system is just about ready. Thanks to the games I've been running (and the feedback from those games), I've tweaked the advanced weapons rules and damage output and finished the vehicle system. This is pretty cool, as you can design your own ground vehicles, air vehicles, boats, grav cars, flying cars etc. In the campaign I ran, the party had a cabin cruiser they'd armoured up and installed a minigun turret on the bow. We had a few combats which played out beautifully (though the last one did result in their boat blowing up!) so that part of the system is done. 

Alongside developing those rules, I've been adding NPC templates to a separate manual I'm calling 'Scifi Encounters', which is over 250 pages long and features templates for modern and high-tech NPCs, as well as vehicles and yes, even a few starships. So yeah I've been busy!

After finishing the vehicle system, I was pretty burned out. The calculations involved were very demanding and I'm an artist, not a mathematician! Still, I got it done but it cost me a lot of creative energy. I'm just finishing up the starship system now, but I'm plodding along as I'm pretty much spent. Before I release it, I need to see more of how it all works in play, so the party just got their hands on an old starship and over the next couple of sessions, we'll see how it goes. I'm sure there will be tweaks required, and during the next month, I can get going on the Scifi species artwork. I'd really like to have them all done before I release it this time, so I'll make that a priority as of this week. 

In the meantime, some core mechanics needed adjusting and of course, they translate across to the fantasy codex too, so here's the update for this month. See you at the end of February when I hope to have scifi ready to go (finally)!

 

v2.6 Premium Fantasy Codex Changelog

* Avoiding death with an Endurance roll is now correctly an opposed check where appropriate, and can only be made if the total damage is less than your maximum Hit Points.

* Added 'Renowned Surgeon' healing talent.

* Tweaked the language on 'Mental Projection' spell, so that a projection has to fit well into the scene in order to prevent the subject being able to try and disbelieve the illusion.

* Slightly revised the text on the Blind condition.

* Tweaked the language on 'Blind Sense' talent.

* Tweaked the language on 'Mind Control' psionic spell.

* Clarified that 'Sensory Cascade' psionic spell requires a resolve skill check at the start of the victim's turn to break the effect or the effect ends.

* Fire & Steel no longer requires the use of a Reaction.

* The Teach skill now requires 100cr per day regardless of the skill level.

* Purchasing talents with money is now 10x more expensive.

* Updated the advanced character packages for more even and balanced distribution of skills and abilities.

 

v1.63 Basic Fantasy Codex Changelog

* Avoiding death with an Endurance roll is now correctly an opposed check where appropriate, and can only be made if the total damage is less than your maximum Hit Points.

* Slightly revised the text on the Blind condition.

* The Teach skill now requires 100cr per day regardless of the skill level.

* Purchasing talents with money is now 10x more expensive.

* Updated the advanced character packages for more even and balanced distribution of skills and abilities.

Hi all, hope your sabre games are running well! I'm mostly focused on getting this novel done (just a couple of weeks to go now) and continuning development of the scifi system, so there's no new art this month. Once that novel is done I'll be dedicating months to finishing off all the art before I start my next story :)

The scifi system is going well, although I've had to make some fairly substantial adjustments today. It's certainly fun though! More on this in the coming months.

For today, we've got a number of fixes to the core system to improve some issues:

* I felt it was too easy to use teleportation spells to get around, so I've added a 100sp gem cost each time it's cast. On the plus side, you can take as many people as you want, but get a penalty for each additional passenger (mitigated by spending more spirit of course).

* There wasn't much incentive to boost Charisma, Constitution or Willpower Attributes, since the rewards don't match the cost of raising them. So I've created a weighted table for Spirit Points and Luck Points which punishes lowered scores and rewards higher numbers, making it more worthwhile to put points into both.

* Ranged attacks of opportunity made when someone breaks cover was a novel experiment, but a little too punishing. This has been removed, so ranged AoO only occur when someone stands from being prone. You can still hold an action for when someone breaks cover, just that you can't do that AND have your regular action as well. 

* The Vanish manoeuvre was a bit over the top, so I've brought it down a little in power. You'll need cover to make it work now, instead of being able to do it right out in the open, but at least it's a quick action. On the upside, there's no opposed check so it's easier to pull off, if the terrain is favourable (smoke bombs and spells work too!)

* I've added optional rules for more severe maiming, if that's your flavour. I personally love consequences for taking Major Wounds, though my players usually don't! 

That's about all for this month, I'll be back on art duties soon and we'll get that bestiary finished! Peace.

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v2.29 Premium Edition

* Added 'Teleporter' artifice spell.

* Teleportation spells now let you take along as many people as you wish, but with a -10% penalty for every extra person taken. This is negated by 10% for each extra Spirit Point you spend. Most also require sacrifice of a gem of 100sp value to cast.

* 'Vanish' manoeuvure now requires cover to work, but is no longer an opposed check.

* The Deafened condition now also reduces the character's Initiative Rank by 5.

* Added optional Permanent Maiming rules for more graphic lasting injuries.

* Removed the 'Weapon Expertise' talent and changed 'Martial Weapons' to allow the use of all exotic weapons.

* 'Fire & Steel' pistol talent now requires you to spend a Reaction to make a melee attack.

* Added names to the background events.

* Changed the colour of resistance skills in backgrounds to black and put them in bold text, just to emphasise them.

* Split some Martial Arts manoeuvres into a separate Unarmed manoeuvres category. These can still be used with Martial Arts.

* Replaced 'Martial Focus' manoeuvre with 'Martial Fury'.

* Revised the Spirit Point progression which rewards higher CON and WIL.

* Revised the Luck Point progression which rewards higher CHA and punishes treating CHA as a dump stat.

* Ranged attacks of opportunity can only occur when someone is standing from prone (removed the condition of breaking from cover). 

* Added 'Heavy Mace' melee weapon.

* Removed Vanish from the TL calculation.

* Body Slam manoeuvre now simply deals your Damage Modifier to the victim.

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v1.59 Basic Edition

* 'Vanish' manoeuvure now requires cover to work, but is no longer an opposed check.

* The Deafened condition now also reduces the character's Initiative Rank by 5.

* Removed the 'Weapon Expertise' talent and changed 'Martial Weapons' to allow the use of all exotic weapons.

* Added names to the background events.

* Changed the colour of resistance skills in backgrounds to black and put them in bold text, just to emphasise them.

* Replaced 'Martial Focus' manoeuvre with 'Martial Fury'.

* Revised the Spirit Point progression which rewards higher CON and WIL.

* Revised the Luck Point progression which rewards higher CHA and punishes treating CHA as a dump stat.

* Ranged attacks of opportunity can only occur when someone is standing from prone (removed the condition of breaking from cover). 

* Added 'Heavy Mace' melee weapon.

* Removed Vanish from the TL calculation.

* Body Slam manoeuvre now simply deals your Damage Modifier to the victim.

Greetings, sabre-liking people! I'd planned to put this update out at the end of the month with a couple of extra pieces of art, but I've come down with something and it doesn't look like I'll get much more done in the next week, so this will suffice. Let's take a quick look at this month's update:

Art!

As usual, there's some new character race art, though I only had time to get two done this month. I've settled into a style now and I feel really confident as I work on each one, so I expect things to keep on improving! Check out the Celestrel and Daemon races for the shiny new pictures, and I've tweaked both races to make them more useful and to fit the lore I had in mind when making them.

Templates

So instead of working on the siege warfare section, I did this because as a GM, it's good to have well-made character templates read to go, and the ones in the bestiary are old and not very well designed. I also wanted to see the NPC's arranged by combat style, since it's much more distinct in the modern version of sabre (but used to be much blurrier in the past). I ended up making 80 single-page templates, which was far too many to include in the codex, so I simply replaced the current ones with 20 for the premium edition (and 18 for the basic edition), ranging from Threat Level 2 to TL 5. The bestiary has up to threat level 9, with a more diverse selection of builds and they make running a game (especially an improv game) so much easier. 

Additionally, while making templates of the different styles, I found glaring gaps in capability for the lesser-used things, like thrown weapons or longarms. So as I went, I created (or modifier) a bunch of manoevures and talents to make every combat style count, as they should. There's nothing like building a whole bunch of characters to get a real feel of what they can do! This includes mounted combat and the used of shields as off-hand weapons, which makes more sense and works better than the previous iteration.

Magic

Both Alchemy and Psionic talents have been divided up into three catagories, fields of study for their respective areas, just like the other fields of greater magic. Artifice won't need this as the construct provides more than enough creative options for players, so this ends the update to greater magic! 

In closing

I've managed to figure out how to turn on visible bookmarks in the document, so I could see the missing ones and fix a huge number of broken or missing links, which should make navigation much less frustrating. Next month, I should have the character art finished (2 to go!) and I'd like to do pictures of all the weapons and armour, too. I'll finally get to doing siege combat, and make a start on the new field of magic, Summoning. This will bring to a close the frenetic development of sabre this year, and I'll drop back updates on the codex to once every six months (yay!) Then I'll focus on the Bestiary and Atlas to finish them off too. I'd like to make a few story modules too, as I have lots of notes from my sessions and some of them would make great stand-alone adventures. But enough of that for now, check out the notes below and enjoy your gaming!

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v2.26 Premium Edition

 

General

* Added art for the celestral & daemon races.

* Revised the celestral race abilities a little, allowing them to be not just half-human celestials, but half of one of many other races too.

* Revised the daemon race abilities. They lose their +3 CHA and deceit bonus, and gain Intimidate as a bonus skill and a +10% to intimidate checks, but they can also pick a special trait from their parent race.

* Revised the NPC templates and provided 20 of them here for the premium edition. 80 available in the Sabre Bestiary.

* Revised the gem value table to include higher quality varieties at 99 and 100 percent.

* Fixed many, many broken links throughout the manual.

* Added 'Reach', 'Longreach' and 'Mount' to the Threat Level calculator (+3).

* Added 'Climber' general talent.

* Clarified that Spirit regen rate is calculated from your current maximum Spirit Points, not the original amount if modified from a special ability.

 

Manoevures

* Added 9 Thrown Weapon manoeuvres.

* Added 'Sweep Kick' martial arts manoeuvre.

* Added 'Bullseye' bow manoeuvre.

* Added 'Hold & Shoot' pistol manoeuvre.

* Added 'Clear Barrel' pistol manoeuvre.

* Added 'Fusilade' pistol manoeuvre.

* Added 'Opening Salvo' longarm manoeuvre.

* Added 'Wrecking Shot' longarm manoeuvre.

* Added 'Assassinate' stealth manoeuvre.

* Improved 'Vanish' stealth manoeuvre.

* Moved 'Backstab' manoeuvre to the stealth category and improved how it works.

* Revised the 'Silent Kill' stealth manoeuvre.

* 'Forceful Strike' melee manoevure now grants +1 damage for every spirit point spent, limited by usual skill level progression.

* Lacerate and Pierce melee manoevures now only require 50% skill to take.

* 'Flying Kick' martial arts manoeuvre automatically renders the target prone if they take damage.

* 'Body Throw' martial arts manoeuvre now deals collision damage.

* 'Sucker Punch' martial arts manoeuvre has no skill level prerequisite.

* Improved 'Roundhouse kick' martial arts manoeuvre.

* 'Sweep' melee manoeuvre causes damaged targets to fall prone.

* 'Blistering Assault' martial arts manoeuvre can now apply to any martial arts weapon, requires 90% skill to gain.

* 'Crushing Impact' martial arts manoeuvre requires 99% skill to learn, improved effectiveness, renamed to 'Damaging Impact'.

* 'Point Blank Shot' pistol manoeuvre now ignores half target's AP on adjacent target, ignores adjacent penalty, 90% requirement.

* 'Diving Fire' pistol manoeuvre now requires only 70% skill, allows you to fire a pistol in each hand, and you travel out to your normal movement.

* Removed 'Sneak Shot' pistol manoeuvre (already duplicated with Deadshot talent).

* Removed 'Lucky Shot' pistol talent and replaced with 'Twin Shooters' talent.

 

Weapons, Armour & Combat Abilities

* Adjusted price and stats on the falchion and sabre.

* Added a new melee weapon trait: Agile. Agile weapons have -2 AP for their SIZ but deal +2 damage on a critical hit.

* 'Control Movement' talent can now be taken by the Martial Arts skill and clarified that a failed attempt means you can't try again against the target this turn.

* 'Medium Armour Training' talent now also requires 50% Endurance skill to take.

* 'Heavy Armour Training' talent now also requires 90% Endurance skill to take.

* The reload time of the Staff Sling has been reduced to 0 and its range has been improved.

* Culverin Explosive Balls have been renamed to Culverin Grenades, can also be used by Staff Slings.

* Shortspear can now be used 1 or 2 handed.

* Improved the stats on the Trident, which can now be used 1 or 2 handed (even when thrown).

* Improved the range on the Sling.

* Added 'Interrupt Loading' Reaction.

* Replaced 'Set weapon' Reaction with 'Counterattack' Reaction, allows the victim of a charge to attack someone charging them instead of defending.

* Added Nunchaku martial arts weapon.

* Added Light Lance weapon, old lance is now the Heavy Lance.

* Added Knuckledusters weapon.

* Added a dice progression diagram for size increases, under the Damage Rolls section.

* 'Shorten Chain' talent now lets the user have Reach or not until the start of their next turn.

* Mentioned under the Armour section that if an armour piece's AP is reduced to 0, it is destroyed.

* Mentioned that damaged Natural Armour regrows at a rate equal to your Heal Rate when you rest.

* 'Close Range' movements can now also use Parry, provided the weapon is no less than 1 SIZ smaller than the opponent's. 

* 'Cavalry Bane' polearm talent now increases dice size by 2 steps.

* Revised 'Guardian' polearm talent.

* Replaced 'Concussive Throw' talent with 'Disrupting Throw'.

* 'Spellbreaker' talent has been adjusted to function just like the 'Snap Shot' bow talent (a superior mechanic).

* 'Steel Wall' polearm talent now only grants 1 free 'Keep at Range' Reaction per round.

 

Archery

* Corrected the text of 'Snap shot' archery talent to read that the attack cannot be defended against.

* Baseline crossbow damage has been increased by 2 points.

* Bodkin arrows have tripled in price, from 1sp to 3sp and now simply give +2 damage (effectively the same as ignoring 2 AP in most cases).

* Broadhead arrows are now 2sp each.

 

Firearms

* 'Muzzleloader' pistol talent is now at 50%.

* The reloading time for a three-barrel pistol is now correctly listed as 2.

* Blunderbuss damage is now 1d8+8.

* Arquebus damage is now 1d8+10.

* Blunderbuss reload time has been reduced to 2 rounds, can now be reloaded on horseback.

* 'Age of Fire' firearms talent now increases damage dice by 2 steps (yes, culverin goes to 1d20+12).

 

Mounted Combat

* Added 'Trample' mounted combat talent.

* The damage bonus for flying or mounted combat now correctly says that this only applies to targets on foot.

* 'Cavalry Archer' now only requires 70% skill.

* 'Mounted Archery' now only requires 50% ride skill and completely eliminates the penalty.

* Removed 'Horse Archer' talent (no longer required).

* 'Warhorse Command' now requires Ride skill at 50%, and allows you to use the mount's manouvres or make an attack by spending one of your character's Reactions.

* Mounts cannot make attacks on their own during combat unless commanded via the Warhorse Command talent.

 

Shields

* Clarified that Shields use the Weapon table when crafting.

* 'Shield Bash' talent has been revised.

* Added 'Heavy Bash' shields talent.

* Shields with the 'Fast' trait now don't use a Reaction as part of a Shield Bash.

* Tower shields now have the proper Partial Cover bonus.

* Added 'Partial Block' shields talent.

 

Magic

* Added psionic 'Discipline' talents, with three categories to choose from.

* Separated Alchemy talents into three new categories called 'Sciences'. Added new talents to fill out each category.

* Changed the bomb creation system into a single batch mechanic. Alchemy materials are no longer listed as 'charges' - you use one batch of these materials when you attempt to make 10 bombs at once. 

* Failure to successfully throw a bomb raises your alchemy skill just like other skill failures.

* Corrected the text for alchemy 'Spirit Potion' effectiveness.

* 'Blight' druidry spell now deals 0 damage on a successful resist.

* Magic Resistance sorcery talent now requires 99% skill.

* 'Velocity' & 'Celerity' spells now have the option to gain addition Quick actions instead of Normal actions.

* Increasing an artificer construct's Attributes also increases related skills. 

* Corrected the text on the 'Augmentor' spell to show that doubling the power can only be used once, Attribute buff is +3 base now.

* Corrected the language on the Scroll Use table for a critical success.

* Tweaked the text on 'Dragon Warrior' sorcery talent, which is now has a 70% skill requirement.

* 'Dragon Companion' talent now requires 90% skill and requires 2 spirit to take instead of 3.

* 'Draconic Transformation' now also gives you +5 STR and the Breathe Fire effect is limited only by your Spell Power (Max output becomes 5d6).

* 'Storm Totem' now correctly lists as having a resistance check.

* 'Sleep' spell now correctly listed as 1 minute duration.

* Improved the damage for 'Gravity Well' psionic spell.

*'Control Weather' is increased to +200 metres per extra spell power, and gains the benefit of the 'Force of Nature' druidry talent.

 

Backgrounds

* 'Monastery Orphan' background now gets +2 Natural Armour.

* 'Ranger' background now correctly lists medium armour as part of its bonus.

* Added 'Field Scientist' alchemy background.

* 'Arcane Warrior' is now correctly listed as 'Arcane Blade'

* Escardi can correctly take the 'Shaman's Initiate' background.

* 'Dragonborn' background now gives +2 to damage from spells you cast.

* 'Gifted Artificer' now gets +2 to each of your constructs AP, HP and DM.

* Replaced the 73-75 background event with a new one that gives you a military contact.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

v1.56 Basic Edition

 

General

* Revised the NPC templates and provided 18 of them here for the basic edition. 90 available in the Sabre Bestiary.

* Revised the gem value table to include higher quality varieties at 99 and 100 percent.

* Added 'Reach', 'Longreach' and 'Mount' to the Threat Level calculator (+3).

* Clarified that Spirit regen rate is calculated from your current maximum Spirit Points, not the original amount if modified from a special ability.

* Moved 'Backstab' manoeuvre to the stealth category and improved how it works.

* Improved 'Vanish' stealth manoeuvre.

* 'Forceful Strike' melee manoevure now grants +1 damage for every spirit point spent, limited by usual skill level progression.

* 'Lacerate' and 'Pierce' melee manoevures now only require 50% skill to take.

* 'Sucker Punch' martial arts manoeuvre has no skill level prerequisite.

* 'Celerity' wizardry spell has the option to gain addition Quick actions instead of Normal actions.

* Corrected the language on the Scroll Use table for a critical success.

* 'Sleep' spell now correctly listed as 1 minute duration.

 

Firearms

* 'Muzzleloader' pistol talent is now at 50%.

* The reloading time for a three-barrel pistol is now correctly listed as 2.

* Blunderbuss damage is now 1d8+8.

* Arquebus damage is now 1d8+10.

* Blunderbuss reload time has been reduced to 2 rounds, can now be reloaded on horseback.

* 'Point Blank Shot' pistol manoeuvre now ignores half target's AP on adjacent target, ignores adjacent penalty, 90% requirement.

* Removed 'Lucky Shot' pistol talent and replaced with 'Twin Shooters' talent.

 

Weapons, Armour & Combat Abilities

* Adjusted price and stats on the falchion and sabre.

* Added a new melee weapon trait: Agile. Agile weapons have -2 AP for their SIZ but deal +2 damage on a critical hit.

* Added 'Control Movement' combat talent.

* 'Medium Armour Training' talent now also requires 50% Endurance skill to take.

* 'Heavy Armour Training' talent now also requires 90% Endurance skill to take.

* The reload time of the Staff Sling has been reduced to 0 and its range has been improved.

* Culverin Explosive Balls have been renamed to Culverin Grenades, can also be used by Staff Slings.

* Shortspear can now be used 1 or 2 handed.

* Improved the stats on the Trident, which can now be used 1 or 2 handed (even when thrown).

* Improved the range on the Sling.

* Added 'Interrupt Loading' Reaction.

* Replaced 'Set weapon' Reaction with 'Counterattack' Reaction, allows the victim of a charge to attack someone charging them instead of defending.

* Added a dice progression diagram for size increases, under the Damage Rolls section.

* Mentioned under the Armour section that if an armour piece's AP is reduced to 0, it is destroyed.

* Mentioned that damaged Natural Armour regrows at a rate equal to your Heal Rate when you rest.

* 'Close Range' movements can now also use Parry, provided the weapon is no less than 1 SIZ smaller than the opponent's. 

* 'Cavalry Bane' polearm talent now increases dice size by 2 steps.

* 'Steel Wall' polearm talent now only grants 1 free 'Keep at Range' Reaction per round.

* Updated the 'Grit' talent.

* 'Shield Bash' talent has been revised.

* Shields with the 'Fast' trait now don't use a Reaction as part of a Shield Bash.

* Tower shields now have the proper Partial Cover bonus.

 

Mounted Combat

* The damage bonus for flying or mounted combat now correctly says that this only applies to targets on foot.

* 'Cavalry Archer' now only requires 70% skill.

* 'Mounted Archery' now only requires 50% ride skill and completely eliminates the penalty.

* Removed 'Horse Archer' talent (no longer required).

* 'Warhorse Command' now requires Ride skill at 50%, and allows you to use the mount's manouvres or make an attack by spending one of your character's Reactions.

* Mounts cannot make attacks on their own during combat unless commanded via the Warhorse Command talent.

 

Archery

* Corrected the text of 'Snap shot' archery talent to read that the attack cannot be defended against.

* Baseline crossbow damage has been increased by 2 points.

* Bodkin arrows have tripled in price, from 1sp to 3sp and now simply give +2 damage (effectively the same as ignoring 2 AP in most cases).

* Broadhead arrows are now 2sp each.