Tuesday, February 8, 2011

NERO 9th Edition: Race Changes

Today, we'll talk about the changes to the various races.

Barbarians - Can now purchase Barbarian Slay for 10 Build. Detect Celestial magic changed to a 1 minute focus instead of packet delivery.
Hoblings - Dodge is now 12 build.
Mystic Wood Elves - Prepare Hearth and Manifold added to the list of skills that count as "Craftsman" Skills.
Sarr - Can now purchase Waylay. Scenting Ability reduced to 3 seconds (was 1 minute).
Scavenger - Scenting Ability reduced to 3 seconds (was 1 minute). Now specified that you must like a mundane animal, not a magical animal (no Drake, Griffin, or Unicorn scavengers). Scavengers are no longer required to not understand currency or be savage beasts.

2/18/11 - Mystic Wood Elves modified to include table 3.2


Anything we missed? Drop it in the comments!

11 comments:

  1. The MWE change is just a formatting typo when Adam made the PDF I believe.

    The weapon restrictions were clarified in some cases, if I recall correctly.

    And, I'm gonna pre-empt something: Someone reading this right now is frothing at the mouth about Hobling Dodge. That person and I are fundamentally in disagreement as to the impact of a single dodge on the game and I don't believe we will ever convince each other. I suggest, to this hypothetical person and to myself that we not get into the great Hobling Dodge debate as nothing good ever comes of it. ;)

    I don't mind answering questions about it, but invariably when someone asks me about Hobling Dodge and I reply, I get a return reply that tells me my reasoning is wrong or that I'm an idiot. Which, given that nothing we say about Hobling Dodge here will stop it from happening, would just be kind of sad.

    :)
    Mickey

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  2. I was looking through the weapon restrictions, and the old book always had them listed in the actual race sections. The exception was hobling, where it just said they couldn't use Two-handed weapons, and now it clarifies the specific weapons that includes. But the actual restrictions didn't change, so I didn't include them.

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  3. Honestly, I don't like the change to detect celestial magic, but I really don't like detect celestial magic so it's a moot point.

    Also, like I suggested when it was being worked on, I think that reoccurring body effects would help even out the races (and yes even hobling dodge).
    Example:
    Racial Body effects happen every 5 levels. Example: Barbarians get +2 body at level 5, an additional +2 body at level 10, 15, etc… Hoblings get -1 body at level 5, and then lose an additional 1 body at level 10, 15, etc…

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  4. Ah, Detect Celestial Magic. We changed it to be an in your hands thing, but then made it at will. So it wasn't super awesome, but you only needed to buy it once and then move on with your life. After the book left our hands, they took out the at will part and that left Detect Celestial Magic as actually being worse in 9th Edition than in 8th in terms of usefulness which is somewhat an impressive feat right there.

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  5. I thought it sounded more like an At-Will skill when I was reading the description. That makes a lot more sense now.

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  6. With as much "Craftsman: Other" and "Hobling" hate as been floating around for the last couple years, I'm surprised either are even still in the game.

    Though if the MWE nerf is just a typo, I shalt reserve my rage.

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  7. Question: What is the difference between half-ogre and half-orc beside the color make-up I use?

    Could we get something to make them seperate more then just different colors. I heard a good suggestion from someone (Eric B.) but I'll leave it to them.

    They have their own sections, can I just get something...

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  8. Actually I decide to post Eric's suggestion.

    " We came up with these for the two races:
    • Add: Half-Orc
    o Resist Fear for 2 BP
    • Add: Half-Ogre
    o Escape Binding for 4 BP.
    ...o This skill allows the Ogre to escape from pin, bind, or web on a 3 count for no damage. Each time this skill is purchased it can be used once per day."

    I'll be more then happy to charge to my death as my shaman over and over again. It'll help me keep my half-orc life expectency. ;)

    I'm just really for making them different somehow mechanically

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  9. At this point I doubt they'll change half-orc or half-ogres.

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  10. Eric, I saw that (scaling racial body) done in another LARP - in almost exactly the way that you described. As far as I could tell, it balanced those races pretty well.

    They also allowed races that would have otherwise had once-ever racial abilities to instead buy them every ten levels.

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  11. Races need the most help - there should be a low, medium, and high ability for each race. I was hoping for that in this version, but alas, it apparently is not to be. I actually do not dislike the Barbarian Slay, but would have given Barbarian something more unique and used the Slay for Half Orc, leaving Strongarm for the Half Ogre alone - I agree with whole-heartedly with Andrew that the two are simply way too similar. Sorry Andrew, guess we'll have to wait until 10th.

    Also, the hindrances and bennies could use a clean-up as they are way too D&D-ish.

    These are not knocks on 9th, but every rule version I have seen and had the pleasure of playing since 6th.

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