Ohoy Manggugubat!

0.7 brings with it a huge swathe of changes, reflecting the keener adherence to design principles and streamlining. As always, do keep in mind that .7.x might be required as clarifications are made and missed holes are fixed.

Let's show you what's new...

NEW INTRODUCTORY FICTION: WANDERING SWORD SOULS!

A new intro fiction showcasing the Wandering Sword Souls is in there, and it helps contextualize much of the setting's fiction!

New Professions

Panday-sa-Digma

A Natural Control. Translated as Warsmith, a warrior-blacksmith who has taken to the battlefield to show their ingenuity and prowess, crafting walls and weapons.

Strife Awitan

A Spiritual Support. Sonorous martial artists that sing and use myriad instruments to bolster their allies and grant respite in a war-torn land.

CHANGELOG 0.7

Added "History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands/Historia de las islas e indios de Bisayas" of Franscisco Ignacio Alcina into the Inspiresong list.

Wrote the Timesong after the Judgesong: an entire section to help you bring the feel of Precolonial Philippines into your own table, as well as give you more ideas about what to run.

Changed Mangaawit into "Mang-aawit".

Character Creation

You no longer choose stuff at Character Creation. Your Base Stats are determined by your starting Profession. Character Customization and Complexity comes in as you play more of the game, letting you learn about the game before choosing how to build your character.

Manggugubat Stats

Stamina is removed. Gahum is in place. Think of it as kind of MP. It has the following text: Power in Visayan languages, usually spiritual power, but can also be societal or hegemonic power. Datu in Gubat Banwa tend to have large amounts of Gahum because of this. Gahum is the spiritual power of your Manggugubat, but it is also spiritual power in general: of politicians, of lords, of witches, of demons, of spirits. Gahum is used to use powerful abilities as well as to strengthen yourself with a Second Wind. All Manggugubat begin with 4 Gahum. 

Devlog: Stamina is a holdover of Healing Surges. After running the game multiple times, I've realized that Stamina more or less doesn't matter in the grand scheme of themes, and in truth only acts as like "HP Stocks" or Life Bar Stocks. It has been removed, replaced with a more Supernatural Martial Arts-y Gahum.

This also removes Usage Types with Abilities, replaced instead with Gahum expenditure. Two reasonings for this is: one, this has led to people being scared of using their Exert due to the probability that they might miss, which is does not exactly make for interesting play. The other is that I've been grappling a lot with the diegesis of Encounter abilities (which work better on a mecha game like Lancer, since that has more mechanical fiction). I've decided to just fuse it with Filipino Folklore about Gahum/Power, which is similar more or less to concepts like Ki or Mana. Personal spiritual power.

Volley is removed. Marksmen Professions now have features that make them much better at Ranged combat instead. 
Reasoning: Helps write less words, and helps sell that the Profession you use has a large impact on your character's role in combat. Also it feels like bloat at this point.

Knacks

Some Knacks have been changed around. 2 new Knacks have been introduced: Weapon Proficiency and Armor Proficiency.

Weapons

Weapons have been revamped and edited, with each Weapon Category (ie. Light Melee) getting various Weapon Types (ie. 1H Blade). There's a bit more granularity to them now, and each weapon type has special quirks about them, but Weapon Categories are still broad, so Professions still have a wide swathe of weapons to choose from. Check them out in the PDF. 

Foes

Foe Stat Blocks have been edited, and an encounter building guideline has been added. Stat blocks have been written much clearer in mind. A new section on Battlesong tries to help in building interesting recurring characters.

New Foes

A much more expanded section on both Baik Hu and a new Issohappa section are available at the end of Foesong!

Combat

Attacking Paradigm has Changed. From a roll under attack/roll over defense system, I've adopted a more roll over system in general, but with much tighter math. This removes the need for referencing, and enforces unga-bunga roll high to hit, which is much easier and much more visceral in feeling.

Damage paradigm has changed. Damage is now rolled (for players, not for Foes). Rolling is fun to do in general, and rolling damage introduces an extra layer of emergent strategy, as well as feeling good. Rolling in general feels like it's the player doing it, and not the system, which is what we want in a game that's already so system-centric.

New Movement Action: Jump: You may leap a number of spaces horizontally or vertically equal to half your Move, rounded up.

Flat Bonuses have been removed, replaced with Precision and Penalty. Precision and Penalty stack. You can only have 3 Precision or 3 Penalty at a time. They cancel out each other, 1-for-1. Each Precision and Penalty is a 1d4 - Penalty subtracts from total result while Precision adds to it. With this, most of the +2s and -2s and "gain Precision" or "gain Penalty" words have been reworked. I recommend reading through the combat section again to find out.

Critical Hits revamped. Taking a bit of inspo from Lancer: Critical Hits are no achieved if your total roll gets to 20, doesn't have to be a natural roll. This means higher Ranks will have more Critical Hits in general, which should help the higher Mettle of late game enemies.

Profession Changes

All Profession Abilities have been modified to reflect the new changes. Professions no longer give Equipment, they only give Techniques now.

Every Profession has changed, check the PDF to find out.

Warrior-Poet has been renamed to Sundang Balaknon. Poetic Sword.

Techniques

Abilities have been renamed into Techniques. This fits in with the martial arts-y style of Gubat Banwa better, and helps better sell the fiction.

Technique Slots are expanded. There are three Technique Categories: Basic, which are reflexive disciplines of your Profession, Gahum, which are powerful techniques from your profession, and Passive, techniques that change you thoroughly from within. You have have a spread of 2/3/1 slots for each, going up as you rise in Kadungganan Rank.

New Art

There's a slew of new art in the Core! Thank you to all early access buyers that absolutely help in funding this. Thank you so much.

That's all for today, thank you all!