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| You have no idea how hard it was to make blogger display this thing at a reasonable size. |
It's been not one nor two or even three months since the first version of Monsterpunk, but a full half year. That means a loooot of things changed, so this post is going to be a very, very long one. First order of business, here's the download links for Monsterpunk v.099 (Dropbox and Mediafire). A long while ago I said the next version would be v0.91, but this is v0.99! That's how much has changed.
Moreover, it could use a few more editing passes, but I'd like to keep it more or less as is until the proper v1 release.
Speaking of v1, here's the plan for the near-to-medium-term future: Later this March or during early April there'll be a kickstarter for Monsterpunk. The game needs art, layout touchups and I'd like to add some premade content for new players. Assuming the game gets funded, it'll come out around October so you can hang out with and fight monsters during the spookiest of months. And after that, I'll put out a SRD just like I did for BCG.
This game is a lot less finnicky than BCG was so with any luck things should go much smoother. Additionally, because it's so much easier to balance, I can make a lot more content for it and it's a lot less difficult to do so, so I'm quite eager to start writing weird classes, monsters and all that other good stuff.
Let's get started with the castle of words that is the changelog - but first, I want to point out is that there's a crapton of new sidebars all over the place. You've got sidebars for playing without your equipment, sidebars for spicing up the narration of limit techs, sidebars for the weight of orgonium coins and the list goes on and on. I would list them all but I forgot to make a note of them while I was writing them... So I don't actually remember which ones are old and which ones are new! Basically, keep an eye out for new sidebars as you read, there might be new stuff in pages that are not mentioned below.
Okay, now let's get to the castle of words!
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| Oh and by the way I really like how the art is coming along. |
Introduction
•Added a Foreword at the beginning. Not super important but I'm including it here for completion's sake. It's sort of an expanded "what is roleplaying" section but more conversational than explanatory.
•Expanded the Inspiration section. More and better links to mythology resources plus a list of games and fiction you can use to base your MP games off of.
•Updated the Glossary to new terminology. Just a housekeeping thing.
World of Monsterpunk
•The Demihuman Empire from the game's backstory is now called the Pandemonium Empire. This will make more sense if you read some of the new lore/have read last week's post.
•Added an Abridged History of the Age of Monsters. It is not quite a timeline but sheds considerable light on some things about the setting that weren't explained before.
•Added a section for playing as independent groups. Some of it was moved from faction management, but other parts are rewritten or brand new.
•Orgonetech is now called Magitech. You can now say 'orgone technician' and have it be not confusing as to whether you mean orgone techniques or orgone technology.
•Orgonium coins are now called Biomarks. For clarity's sake, we now have two distinctive terms to separate from pure Orgonium crystals and the coins made out of those.
•Fairy Circles are now Fairy Rings, Living Architecture is now the Hermetic Megalith and Weather Control Towers are Midsummer Maypoles. The rest of the book refers to those three things as Teleportation Circles. Living Architecture Forts, and Weather Control Towers. It was inconsistent of the fairies to give one of their big magitech advantages a fantasy-esque name and the other two very functional and agnostic ones.
•The Fairy Council members now have the title of Prince (gender neutral). The Principality is an aristocracy, but since I never defined the various titles the nobility could have, there were no mentions of princes anywhere, so it was a Prince-less Principality and that's kind of weird.
Game Rules
•Formal rules for Group Tests. These were a sidebar suggestion. They were tweaked and made into proper rules now.
•Sanity is now Humanity. Old Humanity deleted. No sanity mechanics. No morality mechanics. Humanity is now lost only as a consequence of twists, through the use of limit breaks or some self-healing tricks.
•Humanity loss transforms you into a monster called a Fiend rather than making you insane. Fiends are either temporary antagonists that can be brought back to PC status with help of the other PCs or left to become long-term antagonists.
•Buffed Wealth Tests. Only lose Wealth on a Twist. May now also purchase a single-use Skill Advantage item. The buff helps make Wealth Tests more relevant and also makes Wealth less of an obvious twist dump stat, especially useful now that Humanity is now only lost strictly as a player choice.
•Rage and Fear are no longer lost when the source becomes Hidden and the afflicted must attempt to locate the source. This a stealth Mentalist buff. Their Invisibility had negative synergy with those effects and I would rather buff the conditions than give them different powers.
•Charm is no longer lost when the source becomes Hidden. See above for the reason.
•Poison and Burn effects are switched. Burn is now 3 Delayed Damage, Poison is 6. Most of the venoms in this game are the kind that should be more lethal than being on fire. It also helps some of the classes using those status conditions needed a bit of rebalancing. I didn't list down all the affected techs so assume that any class that could inflict Burn or Poison has had those Techs tweaked.
•New Combat Action: Limit Break. Trade 1 Humanity for the ability to fight while at 0 HP, making yourself immune to damage and most status conditions until the end of your next turn. Can be done once per Day. PCs can win any fight as long as it is remotely fair (and there aren't multiples per day) but relying on this crutch will eventually transform the whole party into Fiends - a fate much darker than the death of one or two of them. It is possible to 'exploit' this mechanic, but the way to do so involves character development and roleplaying between the party so I'm closer to calling that a feature than a bug.
Character Creation - General Changes
•Character Feats deleted. Other Feats renamed to Features. Character Feats slowed down character creation and forcing everyone to remember them slowed down the flow of combat. The most interesting ones have been absorbed into Class Features or got made into Alternative Features for Chapter 5.
•Role Techs deleted. Role Techs slowed down character creation and were very boring. The Alternative Features in Chapter 5 preserve part of their teamwork function for PCs that want to focus on their role more.
•Levelup bonuses changed. Here is the new table.
•Gestalts are now called Hybrids. A more agnostic name. Note that Gestalts in-universe are still called that, the name change is just for the rules sections that reference the specific Class type.
•Ubermensch are now Solos. A more agnostic name. Also I got some mentions of people being uncomfortable with the term.
•Hybrids get +5 HP and 1 Monster Trick. Hybrids were already struggling to keep up with the other Classes so they get the best compensation bonus of everyone.
•Riders get +2 Speed (only when riding) and 1 Monster Trick. Pretty obvious compensation for the loss of Character Feats. The riding condition is to further make it clear they should be always riding.
•Summoners get 1 Monster Feature and 1 Monster Trick. Not as much as the other Classes get but Summoners are already very powerful.
•Solos lose -5 HP -2 Speed and gain 1 Feature, 1 Basic Tech, 1 Support Tech and 1 Trick. They can also poach from any Monster Class. This is a complete rework of Solos more or less, because they had many issues: They were repetitive from lack of basic techs, very same-y from lack of monster partners and lastly they couldn't spam support techs from level 1 so they were always 2nd best at their specialization. Now they're the same as everyone else but with slightly worse stats and slightly better versatility.
•Everyone gets +1 Free Language. Monsters no longer give bonus Languages and instead some of them have prerequisite Languages. This is a stealth buff to Solos, giving them an extra Language, while everyone else is basically unaffected.
•The Linguist Trick has been buffed to let you understand all written and spoken languages. Buff to what was a very weak Trick that didn't really need to make you roll for the benefit.
•Most Techs have had their Ranges halved (rounding up). The old ranges assumed there would be lots of cover (of the half and full cover types both) or that battlefields would be small, either scenario would prevent long range builds from getting a bunch of free attacks in. Without either of those things, sniping and kiting melee fighters is way too easy. This change balances both melee and ranged specialists without forcing the GM to do that through battlefield design. Assume most attack Techs have had some of their values messed with in order to adjust, maybe keeping range but trading damage for it. I won't mention changes to specific Techs unless they're significant.
•All the Status Mastery Features have been changed to to Status Prowess Features. They work on all attacks (not just Limits) and also when an enemy nulls their status too, in exchange they no longer let you add the status to techs that don't have it. The Status Mastery line alternated between doing too much (against enemies who didn't resist or couldn't heal the status) and too little (against enemies who did resist or heal the status). Now they're more generally useful.
•Survival now works with feral monsters too. If you can convince a bear not to eat you, you should be able to convince an owlbear of the same.
•Listening is now called Contact and is explicitly about telepathic connections so strong that you lose your sense of self while experiencing somebody's memories, feelings and thoughts. I'll miss how Listening made enemies pour out their tragic backstories that caused sanity loss but this makes much more sense with Humanity as collateral.
•Understanding has been renamed to Faith and is more or less the same as before. Name has been changed to better differentiate it from Contact.
•Rewrote many obsessions. Mostly at the 0 Humanity level. Some are the same as before but about half of them had large overhauls to make Fiends centered around them into proper antagonists.
•Added several pages for adapting PC concepts to each Faction or to play them as an independent group. I figure this will come in handy.
•Touched up the Example Builds not just to adjust them to rules changes but also to make them play easier wherever possible. Half housekeeping half improvement.
Character Creation - Class-Specific Changes
Alchemist
•Truth Serum and Amrita buffed. Panacea's effect is now spelled out in the entry. All three Tricks were bad and/or unclear.
•Emergency Care and Surgical Precision reduced from 2 HP to 1. With the addition of an extra Feature at Level 1 (plus another down the line) and the versatility of being able to pick Techs from Monster Classes, it was too easy to negate single-target attacks.
Blood Knight
•Exploit Opening replaced with Offensive Marking: You and all Allies within 3 meters gain an Advantage against targets you’ve Marked. The Blood Knight is primarily a melee class and that doesn't work too well with attacks of opportunity that could originate from 5+ meters away. Offensive Marking benefits them, suits their aggressive personality more, and helps allies focus enemies down.
Changeling
•Fey Analyst can now Track for one question and upgrade it to fully scan an enemy for two questions. Compensation for the loss of the Assess feat line. Also the old Fey Analyst was neat but not powerful enough for its slot.
Chosen
•Slayer's Instinct lets you Track whoever you Mark. Used to be a free Assess, which is now a much worse thing without the Assess Feat line. This also helps compensate the loss of free Tracking on whoever happened to be the party Assess user.
•Martyr's Destiny renamed to Regeneration and loses 1 Humanity when activated. This is so I can give to the Giants as well. Oh and because in this post-sanity future most self-healing tricks include Humanity loss in some way. The name is a lot less cooler but we'll live with it, I guess.
Dragoon
•Rumormonger, Instant Friend & Know Their Price replaced with Fast Recovery, Gang Boss & Base of Operations. The old Tricks were flavorful but they were basically conditional autosuccesses on some social rolls. This was too redundant with Voice of Reason, not to mention kind of underpowered and uninspiring. The new Tricks are much cooler and more generally useful.
Daybreaker
•Retainer replaced with Light of Truth. Retainer is now exclusive to the Dragoon, but the Daybreaker gets a unique Trick with social, exploration and combat applications which is more than fair compensation.
•My Fateful Hour grants +1 HP to Focus Orgone while Wounded. My Fateful Hour was made with the old Healing Factor Character Feat in mind, which, well, was kind of better than most other Feats TBH. With the loss of Character Feats, this seems like a good way to fix this Feature.
Elementalist
•Find Weak Spot can now inflict Vulnerable for one question. Compensation for the loss of the Assess feat line.
•Now Slows instead of Dizzying. The Elementalist was in a unique position where it had easy access to arguably the two strongest status conditions in the game, now that all Hybrids get a big buff in the form of +5 HP, they need to share both status conditions with the rest of the class(es). This change keeps their cold-based techs symmetrical in terms of effects with the fire-based techs. See Graviton Ranger for more info.
Graviton Ranger
•Call Your Weapon replaced with Fast Recovery. The Graviton Ranger was the only tank class without any self-healing Tricks, which is a real bad thing to be especially with the loss of 5 HP. Fast Recovery is not exactly a self-healing Trick, as it needs the help of an ally to be a proper healer, but if you do meet that condition it is arguably even better as it incurs no Humanity loss and doesn't need corpses to feed on or anything like that.
•Now Dizzies instead of Slowing as a specialty. One of the class's worst aspects was the redundancy of slowing and restraining specializations in the same class. By taking Dizzy from the Elementalist the class should have a much easier time keeping up with the other tanks after the -5 HP reduction.
•Pull of Gravity can now affect any number of targets within the area of effect. This was pretty weak. Between everyone having lower attack ranges and the multitarget capability it is now in a much better place.
•Deleted Slowing Shot and Boosted Charge. They were both very meh, so they've been replaced.•Dazing Punch is now an Advanced Tech that causes Dizzy. New Basic in its place called Drag and Drop that damages and slides. The new Techs are SO much better!
•New Advanced Tech: Dazing Shot. Dizzies from a long distance but does no damage. Dizzy is very hard to balance. I think this Tech mostly gets it right.
Mentalist
•Read Your Next Attack can now inflict Suppress for one question. Compensation for the loss of the Assess feat line.
•Decoy Technique now endures lethal damage at 1 HP once with a free Invisibility thrown in. Another conditional Disadvantage to attacks that got the axe along with Character Feats. It now happens to be much cooler than it used to be.
•Stab and Flee now moves before the attack but loses Accurate. This is pretty much necessary for the Tech to work as intended if you want to use it while making yourself Invisible in the same Turn.
Predator
•No Escape replaced with Quick Regenerator, +1 HP to Focus Orgone while not Wounded. No Escape didn't do very much for a class that already can Track at least one target per Turn. Fast Regenerator is the >50% HP counterpart to My Fateful Hour, making the Predator a very solid offtank combined with the +5 HP buff.
•Misshappen Camouflage replaced with Chameleonic to autoroll 10. You could argue that many of the Predator's Tricks are just conditional Stealth autosuccesses, might as well give them the real deal in place of the worst of them.
•Great Endurance replaced with Find Your Target. As the game's Tracking specialist, it's kind of weird that they didn't have the closest thing to long-range Tracking. I don't think anyone will miss Great Endurance.
•Spear Arm replaced with Hunter's Pounce, with increased mobility and auto-tracking. The change is to further differentiate it from Grasping Tentacle, as they were kind of redundant (and also Spear Arm's math was wrong).
Raptor
•Scan the Area replaced with Find Your Target. It was more or less the same thing but with more words and a chance of failure. I think of this as a buff at the cost of a tiny bit of uniqueness.
•Slow Falling replaced with Integrated Tools. Integrated Tools is one of the few ways to stack Advantages to Skill Tests, so it's very useful, if not spectacular, which is much better than the completely useless (for a flying specialist) Slow Falling.
•Raptor loses Efficient Aerodynamics and gains Winds of Zephyr, +1 HP while using Focus Orgone while Airborne. Efficient Aerodynamics is pointless when you can perpetually stay Airborne through Support Techs, all of which grant flight. Winds of Zephyr gives the Raptor enough sustain to become one of the game's most flexible and self-reliant classes.
Reanimator
•Lich now costs 1 Humanity to store your soul in or to recharge the philactery. Most self-healing Tricks now make you lose Humanity.
•Reap Soul replaced with Two Heads are Faster than One. Reanimator was the only character class with two self-healing Tricks. Now they get something else instead of that.
Reaper
•To Whom go the Spoils replaced with One With the Shadows, +1 HP to Focus Orgone while Invisible. The inconsistent healing of TWGTS has been replaced with a much more reliable heal bonus, albeit one only for specific builds. With its high speed, invisibility, and regeneration, the Reaper is a terrifying assassin.
Siren
•Halo of Protection Healing reduced from 2 HP to 1. The Siren already had some of the best healing and crowd control techs. With the +5 HP buff, they're the hardest to kill healer in the game outside of maybe Daybreakers perpetually running away from enemies. This nerf, much like the nerf to Alchemist healing Features, is necessary.
Swarm Master
•Spider Net buffed to prevent enemy movement rather than halving speed. It was very weak. Now it's noticeably more useful.
Undead
•Intimidating Gaze replaced with Vanishing Act. This is mostly for lore reasons, as ghostly undead should have the ability to turn invisible. Intimidating Gaze, while useful, was the weakest link in the chain.
Giant
•Two Heads are Faster than One replaced with Regeneration. Giants couldn't keep Two Heads are Faster than One, even if it was flavorful, because that would allow Solos to poach it, causing the universe to divide by 0. More seriously, most Giant Tricks were on the underpowered side and this is both powerful and a flavorful fit, so there you go.
Elementalist and Elemental
•Rise from the Ashes loses 1 Humanity when activated. Same reasoning as Lich and Regeneration.
•Elemental lore rewritten. Now a lot less vague and make more explicit about their role in the world.
Mentalist, Siren and Horror
•Suggestion clarified that it does not work against enemies in combat. Rectifying a preeeetty important oversight in the old version.
Predator and Undead
•Ghoul's Hunger loses 1 Humanity when used. Another self-healing Tricks that loses Humanity.
The Genre Master
•A whole bunch of housekeeping. Nothing too mechanically important beyond the changes to the Poison and Burn Techs in the NPC Creation section.
•A section with several pages of ideas for running games using all the factions as allies or enemies as well as fully independent games. There's like 50 of those in there. You're bound to find something you'll like.
•Instinctive Action can now be used for a Basic Tech OR to remove a single Arcane, Mind, Bind or Delayed Damage Status Condition. It wasn't intended for the Dizzy status to block Instinctive Actions and this change is more interesting than just making the attack go through Dizzy just "because". If Dizzy and Silence get the Boss to stop making extra attacks to heal the condition, they're still doing their job.
Alternative Systems
•Added 16 Alternative Features themed around the 4 roles. These can be taken in place of the regular Character/Monster Features. This is how you can hybridize into two roles now that character feats and role techs are gone.
•Faction Trick purchases are kept as volatile items instead of having a duration of one Week. This is a very big buff, allowing you to trade Wealth for Tricks that don't have a set expiration date. I actually kinda want to expand on this idea and make more Tricks purchaseable in a marketplace outside the faction rules but that's probably OPAF so for now they'll just stay here.
•Translator Implant languages are kept as long as you keep the volatile item in question. It's a slight nerf necessary to keep PCs from learning every language forever with the temporary purchase of a single Translator Implant.
•Secret Projects renamed to Magitech Projects. It's a better name. Not an amazing one, but it works.
•War Atrocity does 2 Vitality and 5 Humanity damage to PCs in the area. Housekeeping mostly. Please don't nuke your friends thanks.
•Adjusted Dual Classes, Custom Classes and Level 0 Classes to the new class kits. Housekeeping mostly. This might need tweaking in the future, as some combinations are even more exploitable than before and giving all Solos the ability to poach from Monsters makes the Custom Solos lose a lot of their luster. For now I guess it's ok since the rules are already for groups experimenting with extreme optimization, but I'll keep an eye on it.
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| I blame blogger for any transparency issues. |
And that, I believe, is all. I find myself without words after having typed all that, so uh... Closing Statement Goes Here! Exclamation Points for Excitement!
I'll be back in a couple weeks with a crowdfunding campaign. Until then,
Gimmick Out.
