UTTER THE KILLING OATH!

In violence the islands rose, and in violence it will fall. I am quicker than lightning, stronger than the hurricane. With the sin of my steel, I shall sunder the world, I shall part the seas, I shall break the sky. With the blood I spill, I shall sacrifice SELF upon the altar of ALL. I shall rejoice in the glory of combat until violence is gone.

We're in Beta

Greetings everyone. Welcome to what is essentially the 1.0 of Gubat Banwa. Now in Beta, this means that I've decided upon the base foundations of the system (I've ran through 5-6 different versions of this game, holy shit) and that this will be the text of the game itself. Everything else going forward here is going to be balance changes, rules clarifications, and art. No more major content additions.

The No Layout version will be released for free eventually when the Layoutted version, being worked on by Togidemi, is released. For now, this raw text is easier to edit.

Now that it is in Beta, I'm accepting a lot more feedback and playtest thoughts. Here is a Google Form I've set up to take feedback. Thank you so much! https://forms.gle/aiyFXggfcyZG54kP6

Additions and Improvements

After burning through 5 or 6 different iterations of this system, from phase based to turn based to flat damage to rolling damage, I think I've decided on where I want Gubat Banwa to be. The primary Game Design Goal of Gubat Banwa's combat system is to facilitate dramatic tactical combat. And things get dramatic where there is uncertainty, variance, and tension. I've synthesized all my learnings from past Gubat Banwa editions with my favorite parts of other Tactics games (namely, 4e, Strike! RPG, Lancer, Tactics Ogre, and Mario + Rabbids) to finally arrive at this particular system of doing things. 

Combat Changes

We no longer operate on attacks "hitting except for when parried or avoided". Instead all attacks will be avoided or parried, how they are avoided or parried is up to the description. Instead, all things in combat that need a roll follow The Violence Roll. Additionally, all actions now follow an Action Block, similar to the Power Block of D&D4e and derivatives. This lets effects be clearer and somewhat easier to visualize.

Cover is simply one thing, and it inflicts a -1 to ranged attacks against you (note that this is not Inaccurate, which means it can potentially stack with Inaccurate). Full Cover is represented by Blocking Terrain.

Conditions have been condensed now even more. While Conditions are really fun, having to go over and find out what they do is something that breaks up Combat Momentum, and in many D&D 4e players' minds, they don't think of Conditions as being the fun part of the game. So the many Conditions have been condensed into 6 Major Statuses. Each Status Stacks. When they do, you suffer the worse (or better) version of the Status.

Action Block

Formatting has been changed as well, for better reading. An Action Block is now defined in the Combat Chapter.

Most actions and Techniques now have an Attack and Effect line. 

Violence Roll

Attacks no longer hit automatically unless parried or avoided. I found that this was mostly useless and halted the flow of action and momentum. So instead, I introduce the Violence Roll, which was inspired by Strike! RPG's attack roll. This introduces a glancing hit system and makes it so that you have a 62.50% chance of always doing something. If you roll a 2-3, you still gain Favor.

In line with this change, the basic attack is now called "Inflict Violence". Featuers and Techniques that call for a basic attack now tell you to inflict violence.

Turn Order

Combat now has alternating turns instead of phase based. Reactions are 1/turn now.

Chess Initiative kinda emulates PbtA style (Player Action, World Reaction) paradigm. I think something I realized from the playtests is that it leads to even more emergent strategy because you have to keep adapting on the fly. When a battle begins, you might have a battle strategy, but it can be messed up at any time. This was my favorite aspect of Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics. Consequently, terrain was super important in those games as well and contributed 75% to the emergent strategy.

While it does make "team combos" feel harder to do, it's really just a matter of how to position the fiction. In the fiction, a round is 12 seconds of lightning action that all happens at the same time. You just have to play up with that idea. Additionally, due to the Player, Foe, Player aspect, it can ultimately be up to the MA whether they want to see combos play out. In that case, the MA should adhere to their Principle of "Let Their Kadungganan Status Be Known": Kadungganan have a reason for their prestige. They are warriors that can do mindblowing feats of prowess in the battlefield. Let them do so.

Reactions

Reactions now are 1/turn, similar to other games in the genre. I decided that those games are going for similar game design goals as I am, and realized why they are so beloved. I iterated upon their processes.

Damage Dice

Each Discipline now has Damage Dice instead of flat damage. Once you get used to it, the speed of combats is not too different from flat damage. 

The Damage Dice is to introduce a few more layers of variance and uncertainty into the mix, to facilitate even more emergent layers. In addition, you only roll two kinds of dice: d4s and d6s, and you only roll your Discipline's Damage Dice. Extra damage and such are almost always flat. This means rolling doesn't take that long, and still has variance. Armor now no longer gives Barrier, but rather reduces damage by either 1 or 2.

Finally, there is a Base Damage stat, which is equal to your Prominence (meaning it always starts at 1). This means you always have a minimum damage, which is at the least 2 (not counting Armor). This kind of emulates well the damage bands in JRPGs and the like, where a damage might be between 34-36, or whatever. In this game, attacking as a Talim Swordpriest, which is 1d6, means you roll 1d6 + 1. A damage band of 2~8.

Foes have had their Mettle increased to make up for it. 

Height

Attacking from a height gives +1 range, attacking a target in a Height higher than yours inflict -1 range.

Favor 

Raising the level of your Cast is 2 Favor now, and getting another Action during your turn is 3 Favor.

New Weapons

Whips and Combat Sleeves have been added!

Almighty Arms: Gamhanan Hinagiban

Rules for magical weapon and armor, filled with legend!

Introductory Adventure

A new adventure that you can run through, called Reap the Whirlwind! It has guidelines and helps you run through your very own first Gubat Banwa adventure.

Other Changes

Violence Sonat has been relored into the Talim Swordpriest: a priest dedicated to St. Gattalim the Saint Intercessor of Swords. They have internalized the Sword Principle, but not the Principle of Cutting. Thus, they can cut down mortals, but they cannot cut anything else. Their souls have been sharpened into blades, and thus they cannot truly love, lest they bisect them.

• Changed Elevation to Height
• Lowered ranges. 4 is the upper echelons of range.
• Changed all instances of 'kata' into 'anyo'.
• Gave all weapon types innate ranges.
• Fixed p. 264 formatting error.
• Fixed Sundang Balaknon's Source and Role (should be Spiritual Sentinel).
• Healing doesn't automatically bring you out of Crashed anymore. Instead healing forces a Crashed Roll.
• Clarified Paper Master and the Lontar Foldwitch's paper weapons.

For the MA

• Added a Jump stat for Foes. 
• Fixed formatting. 
• Renamed Special Abilities to Techniques.
• Added new Traits and Techniques to a few foe blocks whenever you need higher Tier versions of them.