O.L.D. & N.E.W. Errata Thread

[Morrus]

This thread lists minor changes or corrections which you can apply immediately without waiting for a major playtest document update. It doesn't deal with typos and the like, but with actual changes or rules mistakes. I'll keep this updated up until the next playtest document release.

[h=3]Errata[/h]

• Starting tier does NOT get a +1 LUC/REP bonus as mentioned in the tier table in the Advancement section. The LUC/REP bonus starts at Heroic.
• MENTAL DEFENSE is calculated the same way (using the same table) as DEFENSE. Ignore any legacy references to 10+(WILx3) or the like.
• Vulnerability does not bypass SOAK. It simply adds the bonus 1 or 2 dice of damage.
• Vertical jump can never be greater than horizontal jump. Treat the horizontal jump value as a cap on what vertical can be, unless a monster or special ability says otherwise.
• This is in O.L.D. but somehow got left out of N.E.W. You can only take a skill once per tier. A starting character can only take any given skill once. You can't start with 5x marksman, for example. 5 ranks in a skill is pretty much "best in the world". Ignore any skillx2 prerequisites for careers or traditions.
• As a core combat option, attack dice are traded for damage dice. This is an important part of combat, and without it a character may find it difficult to do much damage. Before making an attack roll, the attacker must choose how many of those attack dice in his pool he wishes to sacrifice for additional damage. He can do this at a 2:1 ratio (for every two attack dice he removes, he gets an additional damage dice; the Deadly Strike combat trick improves this to a 1:1 ratio). This means that a highly competent or very strong attacker will be able to deliver more lethal, damaging blows or shots. A giant robot, for example, may have a 10d6 attack pool due to its great strength, but its metal fists only do 3d6 damage; it would tend to use much of that attack pool to boost that damage up to 4d6 or 6d6 damage.
• Deadly Strike (AGI or STR 5+): An additional 1 die damage can be exchanged for one attack die. For a ranged attack, this is likely a headshot. This stacks at a 1:1 basis, but can only gain you a bonus 1 die.
• Characters begin play with one free combat trick of their choice plus either Aim or Feint.
• Ambidexterity: only allows one extra attack per turn (total).
• Smallfolk are 3' high with an average weight of 90lb, not 4' and 140 lb as indicated in the table.
• When designing races/species, start at a base of 3 for each attribute, not 2 as the text notes. Consequently, lizardmen have the following starting attributes: STR 4, AGI 2, END 3, INT 3, WIL 4, CHA 3. The poison breatch should do 2d6 poison damage, not 3d6.
• There's a simpler XP formula for monsters. Add its highest three attributes and apply a tier multiplier. More info here.
• O.L.D. mage tradition - replace AGI increases with INT increases.
• XP expenditure on skills and the like should be changed as follows:
  • Improving an existing skill at a cost of 100 x the new skill rank (note that the maximum number of skill ranks are limited by tier).
  • Learn a new skill at a cost of 500 XP.
    Increase an attribute at a cost of 500 x the new attribute score.
  • Change your character trait at a cost of 500 XP.
  • Advance a grade in an existing tradition at a cost of 1000 x the new level.

[h=3]Additional Material[/h]
​

• 
  [*=left]Dwarf race (O.L.D.)
  [*=left]O.L.D. monsters
  [*=left]N.E.W. monsters
  [*=left]N.E.W. starships

[h=3]Proposed Changes for Next Playtest Update[/h]
​

• 
  [*=left]You can choose STR or AGI for any melee attack. You can choose to accomplish the same task through brute force or finesse.
  [*=left]You can choose STR or AGI to calculate your SPEED bonus.
  [*=left]DEFENSE will be increasing slightly by a couple of points.
  [*=left]Carrying capacity will be reduced.
  [*=left]Herbalism and alchemy will be altered, with the max MP of a concoction being defined by grades in each tradition
  [*=left]Some fairly large-scale tweaking to the Elements of Magic chapter of O.L.D.
  [*=left]New XP system

 

[Hadaraii]

Question about taking skills more than once

Nice going on the RPG. I kicked in to your kickstarter, and I'm going through the manuals (especially NEW). I've built a few characters, and 2 ships, and I've tried a couple of combat scenarios. Creating characters seems to take a little less than an hour. The ship took me about the same, maybe less.

Combat was lively and quick. Everything seems to work pretty well. The exploding dice is a really exciting mechanism - I always look for my red dice first now! I'll post more about it later.

There was one thing that had me confused in character creation. In the errata, you state that a skill can only be taken once per TIER. I think you meant, career track - right? If I want piloting, I can pick it up once as a navy brat, once as a space jockey, and once as Pilot I, but I can't take it again as Pilot II or Pilot III. Right?

I built a character generator in Excel using lookup tables, and it makes it much faster to build a few characters (once you ignore the 15 hours or so I've put into the character generator). I realize that a lot of the values and text will change, but I did it for fun. Would you like a copy of it? I only have about half the careers in there so far, and some fields still have to be entered manually. I also created my own character sheets - it's all yours if you wish.

 

[Morrus]

I mean per tier - starting, heroic, etc. Beginning characters taking the same skill 5 times, making them the best in the universe at it, are a bad bad thing! You have to earn your "best in the universe" status!

Absolutely, please do share your spreadsheet here! How awesome! Seeing stuff people make is the most exciting part of this whole thing for me!

 

[Hadaraii]

Well, alright then.

Well, alright then. That will make for more rounded characters (a wider range of skills if they can't add up).

It may feel a little off for some characters though... I have a brute soldier with low agility that had a few ranks of marksman to get his attack dice up, who probably can't hit worth a damn now (even though his most recent career was sniper). My pilot that has much higher agility will probably outshoot him any day. I'll try to upload the revised character sheets tomorrow.

 

[Morrus]

Clumsy is probably not a desired characteristic of a gunman! Is he good at punching things?

 

[Khaalis]

Found a cut-&-paste error on p167, Scry Spell List. Under Cantrip, it has the Move spell text.

 

[Sniperfox47]

Apologies if this has been mentioned already, or if this is the wrong place to post them, but I noticed a pair of cosmetic issues with the playtest document that may be worth slipping into the errata. These issues were both in the OLD playtest document; I haven't looked through the NEW document too much yet.

1) Heal spell lists (p. 149) list valid targets as being virtues and elements, however Cleric I (p. 41) grants "Heal Animal" which is a creature target. [edit: Ranger also grants "Heal Animal". Is it safe to assume that Heal targets creature types?]

2) page 108 says that a spellcaster can learn spell lists by spending experience, but the experience table on page 59 only lists the cost of learning psionic powers, not spell lists.

Also, while not specifically an errata issue, it may be worth explicitly stating creature type for player characters, in terms of their interaction with spells. I noticed for example that the Elven Assassin monster was listed as fey. Does that mean one or both of the elven character races are fey? Or are they animals like human PCs? The only Player race I saw with a type listing was android and they were listed as mechanoid which isn't one of the types listed in the magic section of Old anyways.

 

[docdoom77]

[h=3]Proposed Changes for Next Playtest Update[/h]
​

• 
  [*=left]You can choose STR or AGI for any melee attack. You can choose to accomplish the same task through brute force or finesse.
  [*=left]You can choose STR or AGI to calculate your SPEED bonus.
  [*=left]DEFENSE may be increasing slightly by a couple of points.
  [*=left]Carrying capacity will be reduced.

I like all of this. Looks good!

 

[barasawa]

Trait talk

Clumsy is probably not a desired characteristic of a gunman! Is he good at punching things?

Taking a cue from numerous movies, the clumsy hero is rarely hit by sneak attacks and traps, he/she usually trips out of the way at just the exact right moment, etc. Also, good at taking a fall without getting hurt, or at least not seriously. Of course, they'll be tripping and falling and dropping things a other inappropriate times, but I can totally see a player declaring that they try to dodge the fireball by accidentally trip and falling behind the rock, or couch, or whatever. If someone is having an issue with a trait for a low attribute possibly giving a bonus to actions, remember, each character has one trait, and it gives a 1 die bonus. That doesn't exclude negatives from getting that bonus. (-Int Forgetful could use that bonus to resist interrogation for example. "Oh gawd don't kill me! I can't remember anything when I'm staring down a gun barrel.")

Of course, I'd think a gunman would have a good agility for ranged combat, and so wouldn't qualify for the low agility requirement. (Obviously that doesn't explain Vash the Stampede. He's on the other side of the coin and is just pretending to be clumsy.)

How to employ this in game terms. I'm not comfortable at writing this one up at the moment, other than it being a -AGI trait, so I'll leave it to someone more experienced for now. I just started reading the playtest info. I want to go for the kickstarter, but I need enough available on the card to cover it and the exchange variable which is an unknown. (Darn fluctuating exchange rates.)

Just a side note on Traits, they seem to be heavily clustered on a few attributes, and an insufficient low attribute ones. Here's a breakdown with the number of Positives (+) and Negatives (-) for each.

Strength +3/-0
Agility +1/-0
Endurance +1/-0
Intelligence +4/-0
Will +2/-4
Charisma +9/-3
Luck +1/-0
Reputation +0/-0
Magic-Psionics +0/-0

As you can see, Charisma is the god of traits with a total of 12 possible, while of the primaries, Agility and Endurance have only 1, and only two of the primaries have negative traits.

Now I added Reputation and Magic-Psi there since Luck has a trait. Also, Psionics and Magic are primary attributes in some campaigns, so it seems they should get some love as well.

A couple of Rep examples could be:
-Rep Guttertrash. You are obviously nobody important and get ignored a lot.
+Rep Infamous. Everybody has heard of your exploits, at least the more questionable ones.
+Rep Ingratiating. You know how to work the social scene.

Ok, I've babbled too long for one post.

 

[osutuba]

I built a character generator in Excel using lookup tables, and it makes it much faster to build a few characters (once you ignore the 15 hours or so I've put into the character generator). I realize that a lot of the values and text will change, but I did it for fun. Would you like a copy of it? I only have about half the careers in there so far, and some fields still have to be entered manually. I also created my own character sheets - it's all yours if you wish.

I went to the page and didn't see this. Care to share?