v1.3.1
Newest Contributors
Those of you on Discord have more than likely seen Spagheddy and Tech Knight as moderators but also as significant contributors,
especially in my hiatus last year. Spagheddy has continued to make fresh and interesting subclasses and Tech Knight
has worked incredibly hard on the Roll20 mod, on top of that, they've been Discord mods from the early days of the Discord
channel. For all their hard work, we've officially immortalized them on the about page.
Updated Character Builder!
Thanks to the hard work of Bryan, we've got a brand new character builder. We have a whole backlog of ideas and improvements
for it, so if things still feel a bit "beta", don't worry we'll be making improvements in the near future. Either way, it's
a huge milestone and gets us one step closer to other fun ideas like Roll20 exports.
Imperial vs Metric
Wanted to give a brief history about this conundrum. When I first created the system, I decided to use metric and was
converting distances with a true feet to meters modifier (3.281), then rounding. But that quickly became problematic
when using battle maps and especially when needing to halve distances due to conditions or debuffs. Therefore, we decided
to use an imprecise but game-friendlier conversion rate of 2 meters to 5 feet.
Unfortunately, when I made the updates throughout the data, I completely forgot to update the species speeds and bestiary.
Before, it wasn't as apparent. Some players assumed 25ft (10 meters) was the standard walking speed in this system. Others
thought the precise metric (30 ft ~= 10 meters) was correct. Then I went and wrote in the metric conversion which caused all
types of problems, effectively illuminating these long-overlooked issues.
So, we took a Discord poll to ask what people preferred, and it went overwhelmingly in the favor of keeping the 2m = 5ft rule,
which meant going through and fixing distancing issues where they existed.
TL;DR:
- We're keeping the 2m = 5ft rule, but have updated a plethora of stats throughout the game.
- Species & Bestiary have speeds more inline with D&D 5e (12 meters or 30 ft)
- Powers have a "truer" metric conversion
- Weapons were not updated as they will be adjusted in a more comprehensive weapons update.
If you want to see the entire list of changes, you can scroll to the bottom of this post.
Bug Fixes
Thanks to everyone for 1) pointing out the numerous bugs throughout and 2) being patient while they weren't being fixed
in a timely manner. Everything that was reported on Discord and through the form should be fixed now.
Other Odds and Ends
- Ruzad weapon was given the recoil, hip fire, and special properties
- Clarified that Engineers and Infiltrators that prepare advanced powers only cast the advanced versions, bringing
advance mechanic in line with the other classes. But GMs should feel free to adjust this rule and it may change in the future.
What's next...
Well the easiest answer is continuing to improve and evolve the character builder / character sheet. Plus, the downloadable
PDF is slowly getting out of date, so that's something I need to spend some time on at some point in the near future.
As for content improvements, we'll be spending the next few weeks having internal discussions and potentially polling the Discord
community about what changes/improvements they want to see.
Comprehensive list of distance updates
Bestiary
General
- anything with 8m => 10m
- anything with 10m => 12m
- anything with 12m => 14m
- anything with 14m => 16m
- any sense was less than 12m became 12m
Specific
- elcor: walking 4m => 8m
- harvester: walking 20m => 24m; fly: 30m => 36m
- trample attack, if you move 10m => 12m...
- horned kath hound: 18m => 16m (!note: keeping this in line with other base speeds)
- occulus: fly 20m => 24m
- reaper harvester: darkvision 14m => 12m
- varren alpha: walking 20m => 16m
- yahg: blindsight 6m => 4m
Classes
Engineer
- mastermind: enfilade; range 10m => 12m
Infiltrator
- shadow: shadow strike; teleport to location 10m => 12m
Sentinel
- fighting style; cqc, "ignore half cover" 10m => 12m
- fighting style; sniper, "no hostile creature within" 10m => 12m
- bastion: tactical focus range; increase to 10m => 12m per side
- bastion: master tactician; the target...can be within 20m => 24m of your...
- guardian: tech aura; increase aura 10m => 12m
- guardian: tech aura (18th level); increases to 20m => 24m
- juggernaut: assault armor; each hostile creature within 20m => 24m
Soldier
- fighting style; cqc, "ignore half cover" 10m => 12m
- fighting style; sniper, "no hostile creature within" 10m => 12m
Vanguard
- fighting style; cqc, "ignore half cover" 10m => 12m
- fighting style; sniper, "no hostile creature within" 10m => 12m
- nemesis: metabiotics; distant power, increase range from 10m => 12m
- shock trooper: biotic bull rush; distance of charge is 20m => 24m (!note, this is 1 space more than the normal charge boost, and is equivalent to 60 ft)
- shock trooper: blitz; whenever a creature within 20m => 24m
Gear
- All grenades (most detonations and range): 10m => 12m
- cain trip mine (range): 20m => 24m
- flash_hypno.exe: 10m => 12m
- m920 cain: "all creatures within" 10m => 12m
- sync laser: rectangle becomes 10x20m => 12x24m
- experimental_garrier_generator.exe, target a location within 30m => 36m
- m-100 grenade launcher, target a location within 30m => 36m
Mods
- combat sensor: senses enemies within 10m => 12m
- electrical conduits: if range is farther than 10/20m => 12/24m
- focus monulator: choose a creature within 30m => 36m
- night sight: darkvision 30m => 36m
- personal diruptor torpedoes: target location within 30m => 36m
Powers
General
Note, these changes were to bring the power distances in line with standard D&D spell distances using the 5ft to 2m rule.
e.g., 24m = 60ft, 36m = 90ft, etc.
- anything with a range of 20m => 24m
- anything with a range of 30m => 36m
- anything with a range of 40m => 48m
- anything with a range of 50m => 60m
- anything with a range of 60m => 72m
Specific
- cryo blast: size of body of water 10m => 12m
- havoc strike: range 8m => 10m
- havoc strike: advancement__improved distance: 12m => 14m
- flamethrowser: advancement__contentrated burn: aoe is now a 2m line (this was a typo and said 20m wide line!!! whoops!)
- charge: range 14m => 16m
Rules
- Choose a species: change "Building kaleim" section to indicate speed of 10m => 12m
- Strength: heavily encumbered speed by reduced by 10m => 12m
- Weapons: Improvised thrown weapon, range: 6/18m => 8/24m
- Weapons: Light improvised thrown weapons, range: 10/30m => 12/36m
Species
- drell: 12m => 14m
- elcor: 6m => 8m
- vorcha: 14m => 16m
- everything else: 10m => 12m
- note: hanar currently have 12m walking speed with contra-gravitic levitation, this will remain at 12m. Additionally, hanar were meant to have a walking speed of 0 meters, but the rules were ambiguous about this. We've specifically stated that their walking speed is 0 meters, they gain a walking speed via the Contra-gravitic levitation device.
- note: volus have a speed of 10m. this will remain (it makes sense since they are small)
Vehicles
- mantis gunship: fire damage to 10m => 12m radius sphere
- m-44 hammerhead: hovers over the battlefield at 30 => 36 an hour