FASA Games, Inc.

http://www.fasagames.com/blog/?post_id= ... whats-this

A couple of things in this one. Have at it!

Whoa, big change in the Shield mechanics there. Can you speak more towards that? Any interesting points from playtesting the difference?

I can see now that Sword+Shield vs 2H Weapon vs 2 1H Weapons question has to be revised.

I have to say my first feeling is that I like this. It flows much more into the active defense that I narrate (I've been studying shield work, and it's very active). Smothering an attack vector (bashing an opponent's hand, not just weapon, with the shield in a way that they can't swing the weapon towards any part of you) basically neutralizes an attack.

After studying this I was going to implement the Cover rules for anyone with shields anyway.... Checking my 3E Shield Deflection ratings that ranges from +1 to +4 (Cover is a "+2 partial" or, "+4 full" Defense bonus) and this lines up the Body Shield with Full Cover very nicely.

Very cool simplification!! (...and now I don't have to bother) Shields now count as cover @ their Shield (old Deflection) rating.

This also allows PD to scale along another axis besides Dexterity, which WOW has just opened up a large range of character stats configurations (which then makes the Initiative penalties actually work). Yah, liking this change.
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Thank You for the spread sheet!

Google docs has some nice new Filtering commands. (I made a copy & moved it to one of my folders to mess with) If you click on a cell in the first row, and click the new filter button (on the right, looks like a funnel), each cell that is a column Header turns into a filterable dropdown. Very handy to see the changes.

Very interesting stuff in here,
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I also like the summoning changes, and I think limiting the # of powers usable by the spirit is an interesting take. I can see that increasing the strategy element (3 over here with this power, 2 over there with that power, even tho they are all Strength 1 Wind spirits).

All in all a post worth waiting for.

I note that Elementalists have only 3 Journeyman Talent options (the other casters seem to have a full roster of 9 each). Is that intentional?

I'll have to double check. The Elementalist should have the same number.

Edit: Looks like there was a goof filling in the talent options -- only got partway through the list before moving on to the next Discipline. That has been fixed.

Each Discipline should have 5 @ C1, 1 each @ C2-C8, 10 Novice options and 10 Journeyman Options (magicians should have 9 of each, as the tenth is one extra matrix of each type -- Standard @ Novice Tier, Enhaced @ Journeyman).

Hah! I love the changes

Shield adding to Physical Defense rather then Armor seems realistic to me. It's like with partial/full cover rules That's great! What about Shattering Shield? Test will be made vs increased PD or without shield's bonus?

Talent table will be handy when we will get to talent decriptions so I won't say much about it.

After reading first book of Bartimeus Trilogy (!) I like the way summoning is going. As far as I understand after summoning ritual, spirit will be available to magican to call him during combat? Can summoned spirit be hidden by magican to surprise opponents?
The last sentence is rule I incorporated in ma game and it scales pretty well

As Archer was always my favorite I spotted few things:
- love Call Missile is free talent for him
- Direction Arrow.. hmm... shouldn't the name be changed as you wrote before?
- no Great Leap, no Sprint, no even Gliding Stride for keeping distance or Melee Weapons for defence. Archers seems to be too easy to become overwhelmed in close combat. Do they really need Conversation if have Impressive Display to cover same things? I prefer Sprint or Great Leap or Gliding Stride here. And why Distract if they have no option for escape and they aren't tanks? Does it work in distance? Does it make that target will try to get to Adept to put him down? Does Resist Taunt work versus Distract and similiar abilities? If yes, I would like to suggest to changing name for something like Cold Blood.

I like new shield and summoning rules.

Edit; Maybe I was too rush. Archer is the only one who has Discipline Anticipate Blow and checked that all Disicpline are now more focused but still Archers option seems to me a bit too much social-oriented.

I love the name of Waterfall Slam talent. How does it work?

Can't wait to see new Discipline Abilities.

I'm in favor of the shield change, and honestly I feel it makes more sense anyway. A shield doesn't just absorb damage, you use it to actively block an incoming attack. IIRC out of all the games I have run or played in, only one player has ever used a shield, and that's because it's All-Protector. With this change, I've got a feeling a lot more people will be looking into shields as a viable defense boost.

One question: are shields still going to have initiative penalties (or at least penalties on the scale they formerly had)? This was an important balance factor to keep them on the same scale with armor since they were providing a similar bonus, but now that the bonus has changed I don't know that that's really necessary, or at least at the same scale.