KR Rules Straight Talk Thread!

Part I (Core systems live for this event. None of these changes require you to re-write your character for the event)

Simplification of the Archetype Proficiency - (Lower Body/Easier Burst Math)
When purchasing a class you receive the proficiency for that archetype and no longer need to choose offensive vs. defensive. We feel that with the addition of Paragon skills for all classes you now have plenty of options and this option is no longer needed. Removing it allowed us to remove some complexity that existed. It allowed us to lower the max body points to more properly match the reduction in base damage. It allowed us to drop the complexity of the “burst” variable number, making simpler and less complicated math and number tracking. You have one (archetype) burst for every archetype purchase, so if you have two warrior classes, than you have (melee) burst two. Skills that do damage work off of a simple calculation that is X damage times the appropriate burst. For example: Slaughter deals fifteen points of damage for every (melee) burst the character has. Therefore if you have two warrior lists than you have two (melee) burst and your slaughter deals thirty damage
This is infinitely simpler than the previous calculation, however if you have any difficulty understanding this whatsoever then simply think of it like this; your slaughter does fifteen damage for every warrior class you have.
For those who previously chose extra body points and wanted to build a “Tank” style warrior there are now more defensive skills built into the defensive warrior classes that allow for this option to be an even greater character concept.

Life and Death System! - (More dramatic and fun, less oog punishment)
Our life and Death System has been updated. It is a very dramatic change, and may require the most explanation. So prepare to read a mini-novel if you are interested in this.

Killing blow is being changed to be longer and more dramatic, but also to become something where it is acceptable for many of the NPCs to be killing blow active.

The basics of our new life and death rules:
When you lose all of your body points you become incapacitated which is a semi-lucid state. You are perpetually in this state until healed or you receive a killing blow. If you are killed than you have one minute to receive critical healing. If you do not receive critical healing than you must resurrect. At some point after you resurrect you role on a chart of side effects. You never lose a painful percentage of build for dying and you decide when your characters story is over.

Here is some backstory to the old death system. In the beginning of time, the old death system was at its core a mechanism to periodically reduce the power gap, whereas people will reach higher levels and then suffer all of their deaths over the course of several years and then recycle back into the system at a lower level. For twenty years this system has not ever reduced the power gap in the game, not even once. The idea that it ever would do so is in actuality an illusion. In fact the only thing that this system has done is punish the player (not the character) for a character death and in most cases threaten to take the character away from the players who play the game with the utmost honor and integrity to the rules and their card. At best we had fostered an environment where we create a situation of real life punishment that gives real-life fear and often very real anxiety to the players; at worst we had created an environment to encourage sub-conscious cheating to avoid that punishment.

Many players equate the build their character has very directly to the amount of money that they have spent to buy that build and the amount of investment they have put into the game and organization to earn it. While it is true that you are also paying for the experience itself and not just numbers on a card, it is also true that the removal of those numbers under any circumstance can feel very wrong; you either paid for or earned those numbers and taking a portion of those numbers away feels more and more like an unfair game practice or even theft to me as the years go on. If the original true purpose was to reduce the power gap, and that purpose in practice doesn’t truly work, then why are we continuing this practice; especially when our new diminishing returns system closes the power gap far greater than any other game device has in twenty years?

The diminishing returns system solves the power gap problem far greater than any system of losing build would ever achieve. On the other side of the spectrum, the thirty-minute rest system has increased a new character’s usefulness by about two-thousand four hundred percent. Between these two elements we will never need build lose to work as another mechanism for closing the power gap. The only function it could ever serve is an out of character punishment, and I am not eager to punish my players in an out of character way.

Some may argue that the forced removal of your character is a function that provides realism and danger to the environment. In the far past I might have agreed, but I have evolved to a point where I no longer agree. One may argue that final character death is not forced, that it is just what happens when you effectively lose. Well if the consequences for losing are so great that it never seems to happen to anyone other than the most honest of players than the only other option which includes keeping it is to make a far more deadly game and watch players like a hawk to ensure character loss and character turnover. That is not the type of gaming environment that I feel is going to be fun for either the players or the game runners.

Let me take this explanation deeper and state that over the last twenty years I have come across several good players whose play style does not support the concept of alts or new characters. In all of these cases these players lost their original characters and happened to also never be able to find a new character they can enjoy, and not for lack of trying. Some people are just single character players. I especially empathize with those players because I am that kind of player in other types of games. Some people love alts and can play a new character every year with great ease. At the end of the day the game system needs to be welcoming to both styles of gameplay. This is why it should be your decision when your characters story is over.

Moving from that point back to the build reduction element; I no longer feel comfortable taking build away from someone who paid for and earned it over the years. I don’t feel comfortable about it under any circumstances. This is why we are developing a new policy of “Its your build, your earned it and no one will take it away from you.” Your total earned build will always be tied to your character card number, so if you do decide that your characters story is over and you are eager to play a new one, you retain your build for that card number. You may or may not be able to spend all that build right away on the new character, but you will still have it. One interesting concept is that If you want to play a character on “Hard Mode” and predetermine you have one life and stick with that decision, then you can do so and not be penalized build from your new character.

So how does this play out? The new life and death system is designed to actually make it easier for you to die, but at no lasting oog detriment. We want players to feel like they can experience the death portion of the game more often and more freely without an oog fear of investment loss. From an in-game standpoint number of resurrections is random and so anytime a character dies could be their last. Death should feel more dangerous on an in-game level because you never know when a characters death will be there last, and less dangerous on an out of game level, since the player is the one deciding whether the death was their characters last or not.

There are still consequences of dying, but the negative effects are not painful on an out of character degree and sometimes those effects are fun and interesting and in extremely rare cases even beneficial. Some punishments for breaking the laws will need to be adjusted slightly, but we have already begun thinking of solutions for that.

Removing the loss of build from character death will remove one of the major problems of PvP and should make finalizing the PvP rules much simpler. We will however wait until the rules are finalized and hard coded before reinstating the PvP rules.

I believe that we have the following things to look forward to with this new system:
- Cooler more dramatic killing blows and rescue attempts
- Cooler more dramatic stages of death
- Death is always deliberate and not accidental because it always requires a killing blow.
- The mystery and drama of never knowing when an ally character’s death will actually be their last.
- Allowing yourself to drop on the battlefield does not immediately equate to death and even if you are killed you are no longer being put one step closer to losing your character or losing a very large percentage of your build.
- Death should be a bit more frequent and allot more fun. The side effects from death are interesting and there is also a chance of initiating a cool role-play scenario for your character as a result of death.

Part II (Errata #3 Not live for WiTL / Playtest optional)

Spell Casting Changes
The spell casting changes that we showed you at the same time of the last errata are part of this errata. The reduced number of spells greatly brings back the individuality of each caster class and also allows for more flavor specific spell names. Healer in particular should be once again separately viable. The spells for each class where very carefully and specifically chosen through a precise formula which spreads usefulness out evenly among the classes.

Skill Defenses
We have chosen to move forward with each archetype only defending against their type of attack. We tested this out in several areas at the last event and it worked well. We understand that some people have skepticism about this change but we would like to try it out on a larger scale to get feedback from an events worth of play with it. Support classes currently all make trinkets that can assist you in temporarily covering this gap. As an example if you are a warrior/caster and worry about the occasional rogue attack, you can purchase a trinket from a support character to use in such a case. What you will not be able to do is permanently cover this area unless you also purchase a rogue list.

Profession Alterations
The skill lists themselves needed to be altered to consider several changes such as the removal of the movement abilities and re-working of the wheel and the paragon abilities. As such all lists have seen some updates that should result in more carefully fine tuned lists. Also most of the initial skill costs have been increased by a single point of build.

Paragon Skills
This is perhaps the biggest and possibly most anticipated change. Every class now has a set of four continuous paragon abilities. You may purchase one of these abilities for each time that you have purchased that specific class. They allow us to give some more uniqueness and individuality to each list while providing a solid benefit to multi-purchasing the same list. The Paragon skills are similar in design to how some of the heroic skills used to be written. Currently some lists are missing their fourth paragon option and those will be added into the next errata.

Specializations have been removed
All of the changes made thus far have really removed the need for archetype specializations and so we have removed them. You are no longer under pressure to have three of one archetype in order to get access to a special skill. We feel that all the skill did was purposefully break the balancing formula we had set out and artificially pressure players into having to purchase three of one archetype in order to max efficiency. The system to allow focusing as a viable option is built in and does not need assistance in the form of a specialization skill.

Miscellaneous Points
- Druid Animal form is back in as a Paragon Skill.
- Some Bard Paragon skills were specifically designed to address some bard player desires.
- We’ve added several new continuous skills
- We have removed the continuous effects that were just given to you for having a master list.
- We have removed Tracking as a continuous skill, but more specific paragon skill versions of them exist on ranger and bounty hunter. Also tracking in general is a role-play concept that a marshal can oversee and adjudicate in a PvE situation.

Support/Crafter Classes
We needed to get everything else done before being able to properly fine tune the role of support and crafter classes. Now we are finally at that point and will begin work on these classes very soon.

Once you have finished reading this post, click here to view the errata.

Support Changes Explanation
The first thing we did was restore their individuality by reducing their overall number of talents, but making every one of their talents unique to their class.

The single largest problem that support classes expressed to us was the component cost to use every one of their abilities. Other problems included crafting time, differences in play style and proficiencies being gimped by the addition of a support list. The solutions that we came up with solve all of those issues.

Talents are broken up between “Items” and “Procedures”. The ratio of items versus support vary greatly between the support classes. Procedures no longer have a material cost, and their role-play time has been reduced to allow procedures to be viably used during a combat encounter. You could role-play a procedure longer if you have the luxury of the extended role-play out of combat, or you could use the reduced role-play time during combat with the explanation that your prep work was done prior to the situation. Support classes now may purchase Talent Slots. A Talent slot allows you to perform a procedure of its appropriate rank. Alternatively a talent slot may be expended to use the skills “Innovate” or Improvised Creation” on an Item that they can create.

Procedures are limited by the number of talent slots you have but no longer have a cost. Items have no limit to the number that can be produced as long as the materials are spent. Talent slots can be used to “innovate” items (Instant create and use) or make an “improvised creation” (no cost item that expires at the end of the encounter). The above dynamics create a wide variety of support play styles to be viable.

All support classes now have paragon skills. Like the other classes, most are missing one of their options, and those will be filled in over the coming month and a half.


Master List Changes Explanation
We made the first rank of each master list all continuous abilities. We changed the skills on each list to properly reflect all the changes we made since the initial release.

Click here to go to the Errata!

Final Errata

Hi everyone! The final errata is ready to go live and I want to take a minute to go over some details surround it. Any further minor tweaks that happen between now and the printing of the rulebook will come in the form of monthly edits announced as they are decided upon. Heroics will be worked on next and because of the way that the standard rules allow you to specialize, the new heroic system will likely look very different from the old one.

No one needs to rewrite
First of all, as we stated during the previous errata, this final errata does not require anyone to do a rewrite. If any of the changes make you want to rewrite, then you may, but we feel it is unlikely that this will be a common request.

More RP Options for Hybrid Classes
We are allowing people to have more role-play choices with the hybrid classes, which will be explained in the errata.

Race Update
The race skills have been updated one final time to now have a cleaner formula. Previously, races that did not have heavy make-up requirements also received a detriment. Instead, detriments have been removed, and races that have a heavy make-up requirement receive a bonus skill.

Paragon Skills Finished
We added Paragon skills where there were blanks. A few previously existing paragon skills have been altered or replaced.

Priest Paragon Skills
I simply was unable to come up with over a dozen paragon skills for priest, and it was also breaking the mold too much for me to be comfortable with doing it. We did however write the four paragon priest skills in such a way that I believe they really allow for the priest player to use customization to connect to their skills to their specific gods role-play. We are also including the rules for altars to be put in to allow mass role-play to once again have mechanical effect. Note that these rules, while announced in the errata, will not be in the rulebook as they are coming from specific items and are not listed on a characters card.

Click here to go to the Errata!