V9: Change Log - 240209

This page is part of the Official Amtgard V9 Alpha-Playtest Rulebook.

• The Amtwiki is the official home and primary source for Amtgard V9 Rules as of February 25, 2023.
• These rules are currently in Open Alpha Playtest. See the Playtest Disclaimer for more details.
• To learn more about Amtgard V9 Development, please visit Amtgard.com.
• To view the current Amtgard V8 ruleset, please see the Amtgard V8 Rulebook.

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February 2024 (9A.6.2402) - Caster Sustain & General Balance Update

Read Me First

Hello Amtgard and welcome to the February Update Preview! (V9A.6)

As many of you already know, this month’s update is mostly focused on the casting classes. While this update contains changes to many things, our primary goal is to improve the casting classes. Each one has had significant adjustments made to their spell lists, updates to their archetypes, and/or changes to specific abilities. However, these classes do not exist in a vacuum, and we’ve made changes to all parts of the rules to help facilitate this goal - as well as some extra balance changes to address priority issues.

NEW: EXPLAINER TEXT
We’ve heard the desire for more information about the why of each update. Now that things have settled down into a more regular update cycle, we have a bit more time to devote to this.

The first bit of text in each extry will outline the reasoning behind some of the changes in this update.

Text in the purple box will show the specific changes made.

EXPERIMENTAL CHANGES
Anything listed with a 🌶️ is a potentially spicy change that we are looking to explore and get first-hand playtest data about. Many of these experimental changes are inspired by player feedback and we feel there is genuine merit to exploring these options sooner than later so we have time to iterate and/or roll them back within the alpha period.

OTHER ICONS
🔴 = Important and Significant changes.
🟡 = Functional-but-minor changes.
🟢 = Changes that alter text with no functional impact on the rules.

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Over-Arching Game Mechanic Changes

🔴🌶️ Remove Enchantment Strips

By far the most common feedback we’ve received about Enchantment Strips (aka Indicator Strips) is that people do not look at them to identify enchantments. For simplicity’s sake, and to save people the effort of making many different colored strips to use for their enchantments, we’re going to try removing them. (Strips will remain as an option for people wishing to identify their Specialty Arrows that way!)

This is a very spicy change so please let us know how it affects your games!

• Remove indicator strips from the game.
  • This includes all “enchantment strips” and the red strips for SC/AB weapon variants, relics, and natural armor.
  • Optional Strips for Specialty Arrows will still exist and be specifically defined in the section about arrow covers.

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🔴🌶️ Allow Enchantment Pre-Casting

Many classes have per-life self-enchantments that somewhat resemble traits, however they remain enchantments rather than traits because we want it to count against their enchantment limit and to be declared during combat. Unfortunately, many players feel the process of casting these per-life self-enchantments each life is a bit of a process, especially for the classes that can enchant themselves twice. With this update, we’re letting players simply spawn with their self-enchantments already active, so a Barbarian could come alive and say, “Berserk! Blood and Thunder!” and immediately get back to fighting. This is something many folks have been asking for so get out there and let us know how it feels!

• Players can now start the game / respawn with any of their self-targeting enchantments pre-cast on them.

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🔴🌶️ Remove 10ft Restrictions

We originally kept the 10ft distance requirement for V8 “Kill Trigger-style”. The logic was that suddenly regaining abilities or wounds mid-combat could be surprising or confusing. However, most of these effects in V9 simply give back abilities, which shouldn’t matter much to opponents in the area. For consistency’s sake, we want to try removing this requirement from all relevant abilities (including Adrenaline and Scavenge) and see where it goes from there.

Fun Fact: V8 had never tested Adrenaline and Scavenge without the 10ft rule so we don’t actually know if this would be problematic in practice! Get out there and let us know!

• Remove 10ft restrictions from all ‘Motivation’-style abilities.
  • Prerequisite: Cannot be used while there are living enemies within 10ft.
  • Affected abilities: Adrenaline, Conviction, Cunning, Inner Fire, Insight, Mulch, Scavenge, and all new abilities created in this style.

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🔴🌶️ Remove Natural Armor

For this update, we’ve decided to remove natural armor from all classes. While the Natural Armor option has been popular for many players, we’ve found that its widespread use has colored a lot of the feedback we’ve received about V9 as a whole. Natural Armor was intended to be an accessible option for players who couldn’t utilize the physical armor of their class, but it has proven strong enough to draw people to it even if they would otherwise wear physical armor. Those playing classes without natural armor access - including all four spellcasting classes - have reported quite a bit of difficulty. One of our goals is to make physical armor more accessible and commonplace, so we’ve decided to change tacks for now. Depending on what we learn, we may return to Natural Armor with some modification, continue without it, or find a middle ground. (The rules for Natural Armor will remain on the Amtwiki, though unused for now.)

• Removed natural armor options from all classes and monsters.

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🔴 New Universal Ability: Dragging

This is an old-but-new rule by which dead or wounded players can be moved by their living allies, which may help enable more commonplace resurrection of players.

• Added Dragging rules to the Core Combat Rules section.

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🟡 Proliferate Low Armor Compensation

After the feedback we’ve received in January, we’ve decided to implement the ‘low armor compensation’ system that we piloted with the Monster class. We feel that this system does a better job of encouraging people to use what armor they have than our previous method. Previously, players felt incentivized to wear only their gambesons or other light armor for the ‘lower maximum’ system, where this system gives players who own a few high-point pieces some incentive to utilize them. The presentation for this system isn’t as straightforward as we’d like it to be, yet, and improving that is something we’ll be aiming for! As always, we’re looking forward to any feedback or suggestions to streamline this system.

• Implement Low Armor Compensation mechanics (previously seen on Monsters) to all classes.
  • See the class-specific entries for what this looks like on each class.

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🟡 Allow Meta-Magic vs Enchantment Abilities & Magic Items

Meta-Magics are now universal! It was sort of odd to delineate when it was allowable to use Meta-Magics on abilities you acquired through items, enchantments, or spells you’ve cast. We’re going to try allowing meta-magics to be used on any valid ability, regardless of its source (unless an item or enchantment specifically states otherwise, like the Staff of Doomsday!)

• Allow meta-magics to be used on abilities granted by enchantments or magic items unless specifically listed otherwise.
  • Related update to Staff of Doomsday
  • Firestorm, Discordia, and Pestilence will continue to disallow meta-magics from being used on their respective abilities. (No change to existing text).

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🟡 Create 'Shoved' State

A few different abilities utilize the ‘you move back X feet’ effect, and the ability to resist Shove and Shove Strike is something that people have been missing from the most recent iteration of Adaptive Blessing. With Shove as a state, you can now opt to resist it with Adaptive Blessing and game designers also have a new codified keyword for “move back X feet”.

• Created the “Shoved” a state.
  • Includes all the text from the Shove ability, except the distance and direction traveled will be left up to the ability text. This allows a quest effect to say something like “You are Shoved 50ft sideways!” and make sense.

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🟡 Traits Turn Off While Dead

Since custom traits are often created by slapping (T) on an existing enchantment or effect, we wanted to make sure that this didn’t cause any problems down the line by making traits also become disabled when the player is dead. The only effect this has on the current ruleset is that Monks are no longer immune to Sever Spirit.

• Traits now become disabled while dead unless otherwise noted, similar to enchantments.

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🟡 Engulfing Clarification

It was unclear whether arrows, throwies, and other non-blocking equipment counted for engulfing. Now it should be clear!

• Add the highlighted text:
  • Strike-based effects with the Engulfing keyword will impart their effects even if attack strikes carried equipment such as a weapon or shield. This includes arrows stored in quivers, and other similarly carried projectiles.

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🟢 Pink Sash Tweak

We’re clarifying the Non-Melee Participant sash color to “Light Pink” (Color Swatch unchanged) to better express in text what we are expecting for Non-Melee Participant sashes, especially when compared to Magenta, which could be considered a “dark pink”. If you’re a non-melee participant or have such players on your field, we would love to hear more feedback about the mechanic as a whole!

• Clarify Non-Melee sash color from Pink to “Light Pink”.
  • No change to actual color swatch.

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Equipment Changes

🔴 Allow 1-Handed Rocks

Not many people were trying to use Rocks as a 2-handed option, and we would like to find out if they are an attractive option if they can be more easily thrown while holding other equipment.

• May be thrown with one hand. Remove the following:
  • Rocks must always be thrown with two hands. A rock thrown single-handed is rendered harmless.

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🟡 Measure Tower Shields by SQFT

The maximum dimensions (length and width) proved odd to explain to those who are used to the traditional square foot method, so we have decided to roll Tower Shields into this method and see how it plays out. Break out your towers and let us know how it feels!

• Define tower shield size by sq.ft.
  • “Shield Size must not exceed the bounds of 54" x 40"” → Shield Size is no larger than fifteen square feet (52.44 inch diameter).

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Magic Item Changes

🔴 New Yellow Curio Effect

This Curio, which granted Break Concentration, proved to be obnoxious and very common. It now offers Innate instead, which should be more of a personal benefit for the player instead of a nuisance for the enemy.

• Change ability on Yellow Curio:
  • Curio of Disruption (Grant Break Concentration 2/Refresh) → Curio of Power (Grants Innate 2/Refresh)

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🟡 Doomsday Cannot Be Swifted.

This change is in light of our decision to let meta-magic affect items… Swift-Doomsday bad.

• Add: Doomsday cannot be affected by meta-magic.

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Change Log Index
Click here to view the master list of all change log entries for the Amtgard V9 Ruleset.