Mike Ventrella
Duke
Use this thread to comment on the new Book for things other than rules issues. Give your reviews, tell us what you like and don't like, make fun of people in the pictures, and so on!
New Rule Book Comment Thread
- Thread starter Mike Ventrella
- Start date
markusdark
Knight
paythin said:
I'd hardly call it a 'new era' but definitely some improvements in the rules. 10 cool things I like about the new rule book (in no particular order):
1 - Celestial casters are worth playing again between High Magic and wands.
2 - Like the one poison affects all of the food for 10 mins instead of just until the first person bites into it.
3 - No real 'classes' as you can change them depending upon the best point buy for what you already know
4 - Ranged Back Attacks - Even if they are for only 1 point (making them on par with Critical attacks for ranged)
5 - Putting the RP section before the character building section. A simple change that I think is brilliant.
6 - 'formalizing' the Mind Abilities of MWE's and Biata
7 - Some more RP items for races right off the bat (ex. Iron Ring and hematite)
8 - Seeing a few familiar faces from the West Coast.
9 - Changing the Apprasial' skill into the Merchant skill and being able to sell off misc item tags at logistics
10 - 2x Armor for the torso area
And the one complaint I have - and it is my own personal opinion - You changed Scavenger's name but not MWE's?
Still though, a good improvement - especially with more focus on RPing over ruleplaying. There are still some inherent things I don't like about the Alliance system but nothing that will stop me from having a great time with friends and strangers alike!
Mark M.
Mike Ventrella
Duke
markusdark said:
Actually that was from the last edition!
markusdark said:
Oops! I'm sure you meant "stone elves" and biata.
markusdark said:
There was a vote before the Owners to change it to just "Wood elves" but it didn't pass.
markusdark said:Still though, a good improvement - especially with more focus on RPing over ruleplaying. There are still some inherent things I don't like about the Alliance system but nothing that will stop me from having a great time with friends and strangers alike!
Thanks! No system will ever please everyone 100%. Even I am not 100% pleased with our system! (I hate golems)
Lurin
Duke
As best as I know hardcopies won't start arriving until about the 16th (little bit later for owners as our copies go to Mike first to reduce shipping and then to us) best estimate right now seems (key word there) to be the 20th of March for Chapters, so maybe a couple days before for other orders.
, besides celestial casters got some love which is nice to see and I agree with your list of 10 you've posted.Wilde_Night
Scholar
You mean... my Celestial Templar won't be laughed at anymore?! Wooooo hoooo! I can't wait to see the new rulebook. <wonders if she made any of the pictures this time>
<wonders if she made any of the pictures this time>
dreadpiratebill
Fighter
I have to say, I am so-so about standardizing the Mental Abilities. Here's why:
You know have a build requierment for people who may have RP-ed their character a cirtain way before this. Even if they spend the build (in the form of racial skills) people can just up and say "oh its all fixed, or eh, I don't feel like it with you". It is now the only thing in the game which you have to spend build to be able to use that anyone in the game can simply ignore. I will be sacking about half of my collom as a templar to buy up the racial skills to max, becasue I have RP-ed those abilities for years, and wish to continue.
That being said I think the listed abilities are cool, and cover most of what people could do before the change. Amaranthus is going to have fun with "Cause Pain". I just think anyhting with a build cost should have strickter rules on refusing.
--bill
You know have a build requierment for people who may have RP-ed their character a cirtain way before this. Even if they spend the build (in the form of racial skills) people can just up and say "oh its all fixed, or eh, I don't feel like it with you". It is now the only thing in the game which you have to spend build to be able to use that anyone in the game can simply ignore. I will be sacking about half of my collom as a templar to buy up the racial skills to max, becasue I have RP-ed those abilities for years, and wish to continue.
That being said I think the listed abilities are cool, and cover most of what people could do before the change. Amaranthus is going to have fun with "Cause Pain". I just think anyhting with a build cost should have strickter rules on refusing.
--bill
Duke Frost
Baron
dreadpiratebill said:
Unless you look at it from the perspective that you are actually getting more for your build expenditure than any other race. My elf pays exactly the same as your biata for resist command, but I don't get any extra roleplay from that, declinable or not. I think eventually all the races should get "roleplaying bonuses" for buying their racials that don't really affect the game mechanics. Thinking up what they should be is another matter.
Scott
Mike Ventrella
Duke
What he said.
The Owners discussed trying to come up with similar things for all the races, but decided it was such a major project it should wait until the next edition. If someone wants to start a thread on that, there will be no objection from me!
The major reason for putting all this in the book was consistency; in some chapters, you had biata doing things at 3rd level that biata in other chapters weren't doing at 15th level. Also it was to prevent there from being "secret rules" that only exist in race packets and are thus hard to marshal.
The Owners discussed trying to come up with similar things for all the races, but decided it was such a major project it should wait until the next edition. If someone wants to start a thread on that, there will be no objection from me!
The major reason for putting all this in the book was consistency; in some chapters, you had biata doing things at 3rd level that biata in other chapters weren't doing at 15th level. Also it was to prevent there from being "secret rules" that only exist in race packets and are thus hard to marshal.
youthculture
Fighter
Sunnfire said:
I did.
A lot of good stuff here. Mostly just nifty though. Won't be completely game changing but NPC camps all around have their work cut out for them.
Some questions:
--Does Monster Strength count as a Prof for purposes of calculating 2-handed damage? ie. 1.5 x MS + 3 = 2 handed damage
--Was blocking one-handed with a staff not implemented?
--How does a 2 buld racial become capable of resisting/ removing a Greater Command while a 4 build skill does not? I play an orc and I still don't know how much I like that, regardless of what I think of the effect itself (which is nothing good). Maybe resist fear should have been kicked up to 3-4 build or resist Command kicked down to 3 (not a perfect solution but at least I am trying here).
--Celestial casters still have the same problem. Although some things a going to help raise them up the core problem of not being able to do the math quickly still remains. Don't believe me? Try it yourself, add the damage to the end of the vebal and watch as the NPC's drop when they realize that 'Lightning Storm 30, Lightning Storm 30 , Dragon's Breath 40' is 100 points of damage. Not to mention that doing it that way virtually guarantees never casting too quickly.
--Although I find the defining of mental abilites pretty cool I question the "racials required" part. It should be more along "build spent in racials." ie. a character with 2 resists and 4 breaks should be as capable of the same mental powers as 8 break guy. As it is written the first guy who spent identical build would only get 6 in mental powers.
--Could we PLEASE get a High Ogre for the High Ogre picture? As cool as Air Raksa may be I've seen him Drained too many times to believe he is an Ogre.
Other than the above I am highly impressed. Layout was well done. Pictures, mostly, well chosen. The rearrangement works better IMHO for new players to read the stuff thats really important.
Looking forward to the new season,
--Chazz
Some questions:
--Does Monster Strength count as a Prof for purposes of calculating 2-handed damage? ie. 1.5 x MS + 3 = 2 handed damage
--Was blocking one-handed with a staff not implemented?
--How does a 2 buld racial become capable of resisting/ removing a Greater Command while a 4 build skill does not? I play an orc and I still don't know how much I like that, regardless of what I think of the effect itself (which is nothing good). Maybe resist fear should have been kicked up to 3-4 build or resist Command kicked down to 3 (not a perfect solution but at least I am trying here).
--Celestial casters still have the same problem. Although some things a going to help raise them up the core problem of not being able to do the math quickly still remains. Don't believe me? Try it yourself, add the damage to the end of the vebal and watch as the NPC's drop when they realize that 'Lightning Storm 30, Lightning Storm 30 , Dragon's Breath 40' is 100 points of damage. Not to mention that doing it that way virtually guarantees never casting too quickly.
--Although I find the defining of mental abilites pretty cool I question the "racials required" part. It should be more along "build spent in racials." ie. a character with 2 resists and 4 breaks should be as capable of the same mental powers as 8 break guy. As it is written the first guy who spent identical build would only get 6 in mental powers.
--Could we PLEASE get a High Ogre for the High Ogre picture? As cool as Air Raksa may be I've seen him Drained too many times to believe he is an Ogre.
Other than the above I am highly impressed. Layout was well done. Pictures, mostly, well chosen. The rearrangement works better IMHO for new players to read the stuff thats really important.
Looking forward to the new season,
--Chazz
dreadpiratebill
Fighter
"Unless you look at it from the perspective that you are actually getting more for your build expenditure than any other race. My elf pays exactly the same as your biata for resist command, but I don't get any extra roleplay from that, declinable or not. I think eventually all the races should get "roleplaying bonuses" for buying their racials that don't really affect the game mechanics. Thinking up what they should be is another matter.
Scott"
Except previuly a player could do these things without the build spent. Its not getting more for the build, its making the build a requierment for something thats was always just a rp aspect. Your elf spends the build to resist commands, and thats what he gets. Same for biata or stone elf. The rp benifit of mental powers was there independ of this. Now those same rp only abilities have a build cost, and a fairly high one. Elves don't need to spend build to love tree's and hate necromancers. Barbarians dont spend build to be superstiotous. My point is that stone elves and biata now have to spend build to RP some parts of their race. This is worse for players who now have to either change an aspect of how they RP that, or must spend the build.
--bill
Overall I like the new rule set and I can't wait for the season. /agree with adding the damage of evoke spells at teh end.
Scott"
Except previuly a player could do these things without the build spent. Its not getting more for the build, its making the build a requierment for something thats was always just a rp aspect. Your elf spends the build to resist commands, and thats what he gets. Same for biata or stone elf. The rp benifit of mental powers was there independ of this. Now those same rp only abilities have a build cost, and a fairly high one. Elves don't need to spend build to love tree's and hate necromancers. Barbarians dont spend build to be superstiotous. My point is that stone elves and biata now have to spend build to RP some parts of their race. This is worse for players who now have to either change an aspect of how they RP that, or must spend the build.
--bill
Overall I like the new rule set and I can't wait for the season. /agree with adding the damage of evoke spells at teh end.
dreadpiratebill
Fighter
Something I ment to add on what Mike V said. You can have standardization based on lvl and standard ability sets to help streamline marshaling and who can do what, and not have a build requieremnt. I think lvl based requierments would have been perfectly fine.
--bill
--bill
I personally am glad it is now defined who can do what with the mental abilities.. previously i would have probably just refused to role play any of this unless instructed by a marshal / encounter head because it all seemed like you guys were making it up as you go.. i'm lvl 3 and i can wipe your mind... uh huh.. good luck with that.