Major Update: Playtest Version 1.2

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long delay. It's been a long summer for me- I took a few trips, changed jobs, and injured myself last week, all of which set my progress on the game back a bit. Nevertheless, I'm ready to put out the first major update to Trespasser,  Playtest Version 1.2! I'm very excited, because the game finally at least touches on everything I had planned for it, bringing it slightly closer to a completed state, if only in my head. By my count, version 1.2 is 84 pages and 33,886 words longer than 1.1. That's accounting for the new stuff and all of the now-consolidated content drip over the last few months, but still, pretty cool! There's still a long way to go, and your support is really pushing me and the project along, so thanks for that.

There are a couple of really fundamental changes to the system, so I want to get ahead of the eight ball and remind everyone, this is just a playtest, and there's plenty of time to change things back or come up with solutions if any of the new content doesn't work so good. There are actually very few things in the ruleset that I'm really married to, and any number of them are liable to change a couple times as the game heads toward the finish line. In this update there are a few changes I'm unsure about. I just want to see how they go over! So any feedback is, as always, very appreciated!

Because of the changes, the peasant generator bot will out of date for a few days until I get a chance to revise it. If you really need to generate some peasants, go ahead; the changes to that system are pretty minor. I'm still looking into options about how to get Trespasser full Roll20 support; now that this major update has happened, that's very high on my to-do list, so there will hopefully be progress on that front. I've also got a fourth-level dungeon almost ready to release, and some more revision to existing classes/themes that I wanted to make happen, so those will be coming next down the pipeline.

My last update is, your donations are being put to work- I've commissioned a great acrylic painter Aaron Lawrance to do the class portraits and the cover art, and he's been producing really wonderful art all summer. He is very elusive on the internet, but some of his art is available on the discord art channel if you haven't seen it yet. I just got the preliminary sketch for the occultist, and it's gonna be siiiiiick. Anyway, without further ado, here's the changelog.

Changelog - Playtest Version 1.2

• General
  • Many sections have been cleaned up or rewritten for greater clarity.
  • Many typos have been fixed.
• Organization
  • Table of Contents fleshed out
  • Exploration chapter moved in front of Combat chapter
  • Chapters given full-art title pages (with public domain art, just for presentation).
  • Laughing Hound consolidated into main playbook.
  • All bonus content from March-June ‘22 now consolidated in the main playbook (the six remaining themes, midweek monsters, etc.)
• Basic Rules
  • Checks
    • Qualified Success changed to narrow success and reworded slightly. 
  • Skills
    • Creeds has been renamed Folklore.
• Exploration
  • Rests
    • Short rests removed; long rest is now just called a rest. Rules on armor and spending recovery dice have been changed to account for this.
• Combat
  • Movement
    • Base movement changed from 25 ft. to 30 ft.
  • Actions
    • Solid Hits
      • Solid Hits have been fundamentally changed. They no longer automatically hit, but now they occur whenever you hit with an even die roll.
      • Mathematically, surprisingly little changes. Roughly half of all your hits will be solid hits (slightly less than half because a result of 20 is still a critical hit). 
      • Because of this change, bonuses and penalties to attack and AC will change the likelihood of both hits and solid hits in roughly equal measure, and AC-boosting reactions can potentially cause solid hits to miss (clutch).
      • In cases of AoEs vs. multiple targets with high AC variance, an attack can solid hit some targets and miss others, which is fine. The only thing that breaks the system is if the same attack hits one creature and solid hits another, which still can’t happen.
      • Making solid hits key off even numbers makes the design symmetrical to magic armor dice, which also have effects that key off even numbers.
    • Melee Standard Attack renamed Strike. Ranged Standard Attack renamed Shoot. Economy of words.
  • Disarm
    • Disarm has been removed from the game. It was vestigial and didn’t make sense with the current combat system.
    • Actions that used to disarm enemies have been altered.
  • Recovery Dice
    • Number of recovery dice now differs based on class, a slight buff to martial types and a slight nerf to caster types.
      • 6-HP classes have 9 + res.
      • 5-HP classes have 8 + res.
      • 4-HP classes have 7 + res.
    • Players can now spend recovery dice at will outside of combat, as long as they are not in a dangerous or demanding situation.
  • Engagement
    • Flanking rules have been changed. A creature is now flanked only if engaged by two creatures on opposite sides. A super basic diagram has been added.
  • Conditions
    • Unique class conditions (fury and hidden) have been removed from the conditions list. They now only appear in the class features that use them. Outflanked has been removed as a condition.
    • Strengthened has been added. A strengthened creature deals [duration] extra damage with attacks. Cancels out weakened. Some themes have gained actions that confer Strengthened.
    • Burning
      • This condition now reads, “You suffer 2 x [duration] fire damage at the start of your turn. This condition counts up instead of down. You or an adjacent ally can spend a minor action to check Agi vs. 15. On a success, this condition ends.”
    • Staggered
      • This condition now reads, “You can only make basic actions, and you cannot make minor actions or reactions.”
      • Actions that confer staggered have been adjusted to account for this change.
• Equipment
  • Strength & Vigor Requirements
    • The Str and Vig requirements have been reworked to be more alike each other. Weapons now have light, medium, and heavy categories like armor. All medium equipment requires a stat of 12, and all heavy equipment requires a stat of 14.
    • You no longer add together two weapons or a weapon and shield to use them together, you just need to meet the requirements for each item.
    • If you lack the Str req. for a weapon, you can still use it, but you do not add your skill bonus to the action roll.
    • If you lack the Vig req. for an armor piece or the Str req. for a shield, you still gain the AC bonus, but you cannot spend its armor die.
  • Weapons
    • Crude weapons now add +2 damage as a weapon effect instead of knocking prone.
    • Daggers now cause bleeding 2 as a weapon effect instead of dealing extra damage.
  • Shields
    • Shields now grant increased AC, bringing max. possible AC to 18 (20 with guarded). 
  • Armor
    • Clothing (armor that granted no benefits whatsoever) has been removed.
    • Armor Dice
      • Regaining spent armor dice is now automatic (instead of happening during a short rest, since short rests no longer exist). Just like effort, spent armor dice now refresh at the start of an encounter, as long as there have been a few minutes of downtime since the previous encounter.
      • Dice broken by monster attacks are now just lost from your pool for that encounter, but they are regained as normal at the start of a new encounter.
      • Dice no longer break when they roll their maximum result.
      • Repairing armor on rest has been removed. 
• Peasants
  • Lineages
    • Lineages they no longer necessarily provide attribute bonuses. In the future, you will roll on a small table specific to your species to obtain one minor talent or an attribute-up. These will be introduced in a later update.
  • Professions
    • Gendered professions have been replaced with non-gendered equivalents.
    • Certain professions have been tweaked to achieve more balanced randomization.
    • Attribute gains from professions have been increased to account for change to lineages.
  • Peasant Combat
    • Peasant Combat rules have been changed. Peasants no longer form into a single group. They can be controlled individually, but they tend to ‘freeze up’ in dangerous situations: on your turn, you can select any two of your peasants to move and take an action.
    • Rules for grouping peasants kept in as an optional system for playgroups that want to save time or keep a more orderly battle map.
• Advancement
  • Experience curve and xp rewards and ventures adjusted to account for stronghold investment.
• Classes
  • Class Skills
    • Lists have been increased to six options. All classes that were not previously able to learn Letters can now do so; classes that already had Letters gained a sixth option. If you imagine your character being able to read, who am I to stand in the way?
  • Knight
    • Knightly Stance
      • Effort Cost reduced from 2/+1 to 1/+1.
      • Bonus armor die changed to [Potency Die] instead of just a d6.
      • Heavy Armor upgrade removed (it used to turn the d6 into a d10 but now that happens on by scaling).
      • Intercede upgrade changed:
        • Intercede: When you spend your bonus armor die, it reduces the damage dealt to each target of the attack. Other targets can still spend their own armor dice on top of this.
  • Magician
    • Crafted Conjury
      • The Spell Study class feature has been replaced with Crafted Conjury. The new class feature grants them an additional special action that they design themselves by combining forms with various effects.
  • Warrior
    • Extra Attack (Flurry Upgrade)
      • Now makes strike actions target a melee burst and shoot actions target a 15 ft. blast.
• Themes
  • Brawling, Sorcery, Storms, Swiftness, Wilderness, and Wrath themes consolidated into the main game text.
  • About a dozen new actions added
  • Various actions tweaked
  • Critical Hit effects tweaked
• Strongholds
  • Strongholds chapter added
  • Stronghold sheets added to download page
    • Stronghold arrival tables added
    • Stronghold events added
• Judgment
  • Judgment chapter no longer exists. It has been split into three chapters: Campaigns, Dungeons, and Treasure.
• Campaigns
  • Campaigns chapter added
    • Some sections from the Judgment chapter been reworked. The section on the “Degeneracy of Power” has been removed- it might make a return in some optional campaign materials I provide in a separate document
  • Optional random Overlord creation tables added
• Dungeons
  • Dungeons chapter added
  • Laughing Hound added as sample First Day adventure
• Treasure
  
  • Treasure chapter added
    • Rules for random treasure added
    • Rules for magic weapons added
    • Rules for magic armor added
    • Rules for magic accessories added
    • Rules for magic objects added
• Monsters
  • Panic modifiers tweaked, reducing chance for monsters to flee
  • Tips for monster creation added
  • Alligator description added : )
  • Several monsters added
  • Some descriptions changed