Justice and Rule
Hero
Hey, PDFs have been sent out to preorders and subscribers who have their physical books on the way. Currently going through the book with the original CRB and APG open to check different changes. It's slow, but it's interesting to see. From my (very initial; I'm only still in the Dwarven Ancestry feats right now) read, it looks like they've tried to consolidate and/or improve the feats where they could.
One notable one is the reference to the new Additional Lore General Feat referenced by the generic Lore ancestry feats, which gives you a Lore skill and allows you to upgrade it for free at certain levels. I suspect that is a load-bearing feat that was made so that they don't have to write that out for a bunch of ancestries, but also I'm interested in if you get the upgrades from levels you are already past. I suspect not, which makes the feat less valuable at higher levels, but I'm guessing they'll need a bit of errata or guidance on that one. Similarly, Weapon Familiarity feats absorbed the 5th level feat that gives you the Weapon Specialization effect of your ancestral weapons, and now if a weapon has the appropriate ancestry trait it is also included (I'm guessing this was due to stuff like Clan Daggers, which are obviously Dwarven weapons but aren't included in the original set in the feats. Also opens up a design door for later, if they want to use it).
Other stuff seems to just expand and put less rules on things. Stonecutting is now Stonemason's Eye, which gives you Specialty Crafting if you already have the Crafting Skill and no longer applies the penalty to the GM's secret roll on whether you notice weird stonemasonry. So instead of "+2 to actively look, GM rolls with a -2 for passive check", it's just "+2 to look + GM rolls for when you aren't", which is an obvious and easy simplification. Vengeful Hatred becomes Mountain Tactics and applies to all creatures with the giant/goblin/orc/hryngar (that's the new Duergar) trait instead of picking from a list. Again, taking away limitations and broadening the use. Eye for Treasure has been cut, at least at this level.
There are other little changes, too, like Rock Dwarves getting a +2 not only to Trip/Shove attempts against them, but also attempts to Reposition. I'll have to look up what that entails, but that probably includes stuff like spells and such which makes that +2 much bigger. Death Warden Dwarves now get a crit success against stuff with the Void trait or was created by an undead creature, which feels like it is larger than just Necromancy unless we are interpreting that very broadly. Ancient-Blooded also got rewording to be a bit easier to read.
So if you have it, feel free to talk about what you see here. If you don't, ask questions and I (or someone else) can try and look it up for you when we can.
One notable one is the reference to the new Additional Lore General Feat referenced by the generic Lore ancestry feats, which gives you a Lore skill and allows you to upgrade it for free at certain levels. I suspect that is a load-bearing feat that was made so that they don't have to write that out for a bunch of ancestries, but also I'm interested in if you get the upgrades from levels you are already past. I suspect not, which makes the feat less valuable at higher levels, but I'm guessing they'll need a bit of errata or guidance on that one. Similarly, Weapon Familiarity feats absorbed the 5th level feat that gives you the Weapon Specialization effect of your ancestral weapons, and now if a weapon has the appropriate ancestry trait it is also included (I'm guessing this was due to stuff like Clan Daggers, which are obviously Dwarven weapons but aren't included in the original set in the feats. Also opens up a design door for later, if they want to use it).
Other stuff seems to just expand and put less rules on things. Stonecutting is now Stonemason's Eye, which gives you Specialty Crafting if you already have the Crafting Skill and no longer applies the penalty to the GM's secret roll on whether you notice weird stonemasonry. So instead of "+2 to actively look, GM rolls with a -2 for passive check", it's just "+2 to look + GM rolls for when you aren't", which is an obvious and easy simplification. Vengeful Hatred becomes Mountain Tactics and applies to all creatures with the giant/goblin/orc/hryngar (that's the new Duergar) trait instead of picking from a list. Again, taking away limitations and broadening the use. Eye for Treasure has been cut, at least at this level.
There are other little changes, too, like Rock Dwarves getting a +2 not only to Trip/Shove attempts against them, but also attempts to Reposition. I'll have to look up what that entails, but that probably includes stuff like spells and such which makes that +2 much bigger. Death Warden Dwarves now get a crit success against stuff with the Void trait or was created by an undead creature, which feels like it is larger than just Necromancy unless we are interpreting that very broadly. Ancient-Blooded also got rewording to be a bit easier to read.
So if you have it, feel free to talk about what you see here. If you don't, ask questions and I (or someone else) can try and look it up for you when we can.
