By the way, for people who might happen to read this, I want to tell a little story relevant to Sabre (and Savant). It may sound initially like its critical of the system, but its actually a compliment to Savant.
A while back I was considering using Sabre for something (it didn't end up happening for all kinds of reasons, a big part of it being we just ended up not going with fantasy) and ran a few test sessions, and rather than fuss around with character generation a the player end, I generated a few characters of some of the backgrounds that most resemble D&D classes (Sabre is not a class and level system, but it has a few structural things that kind of lean in that direction).
My wife ended up taking the ranger. This seemed like a reasonable choice given the other four either chose melee types or spellcasters. Unfortunately, there was one problem: in that version of the rules, being an archer was, on multiple grounds just terrible.
So when I put together some feedback to send to him, and we chatted about it on Discord, I could practically hear him droop. It turned out no one much had played archers, and no one had told him why. He'd sometimes used them as opponents, but as a lifelong GM, its easy to notice that something isn't perhaps quite up to snuff but not realize how bad it is, because you're using multiple opponents and it doesn't stand out the way it will when its your primary operating procedure.
Savant took the feedback and fixed everything. I don't mean he just noodled around the edges the way I'd expect a lot of people to do, he fixed some basic mechanics, he fixed several Talents (the sort-of feat like structures that do a lot of heavy-lifting for character definition in the game), and he did some work on most of the ranged weapons.
The reason I mention this is the problem he'd had here (that he'd missed the implications of how all these bits would play together) and no one had told him is an inherent hazard of being a one-man-band game creator with very limited playtesting. I've seen similar things happen with games with even a bit more of this, just because you're kind of stuck in cul-de-sac of your own player group(s) and the local styles. The difference here is that he actually took the criticism to heart (it probably didn't hurt than I'm a decades long GM and rules hack so I was able to articulate what went wrong better than some, but that wouldn't have had nearly as much impact if he wasn't willing to engage).
Sabre is an excellent system for someone who wants a medium (by my standards) crunchy game with a lot of character customization but not quite as much as you'd get from a point build system. Its a little more exception based than I'd prefer, but unlike many I can point to its designer has been serious about trying to make all those parts play well together.
Thanks for sticking with the system, feedback outside of my local group has been sparse, and it's all appreciated.
