10.4.0: Vital wound rebalance

Vital wound changes

In general, a character who enters combat after a short rest with no current vital wounds should have an extremely low probability of dying in that combat without repeated and obvious tactical errors (or a noble sacrifice). This was not reflected in some of the rules for vital wounds, which were not updated since more emphasis was placed on damage resistance as a core defensive mechanic and classes lost their intrinsic bonuses to vital rolls. If characters suffered life-threatening injuries, their allies could rarely do anything to help, leaving very little distinction between "in danger of dying" and "already dead".

To address these problems, some of the core systems for gaining and dying from vital wounds have been made less punishing, and martial classes have easier access to vital roll bonuses.

Specific changes

• Core systems
  • Vital rolls from 0 to -5 now cause you to die after one minute, instead of after one round
    • This should give allies more time to tend to dying characters
  • Characters now gain an additional vital wound for each increment of their full maximum hit points that they reach in negative hit points, rather than only half their maximum hit points
• Classes
  • Barbarian: Battleforged Resilience and Totemist now both grant +1 vital rolls
  • Fighter: Sentinel now also grants +1 vital rolls
  • Monk: Transcendent Sage now also grants +1 vital rolls
  • Ranger: Beastmaster now also grants +1 vital rolls, and improves the vital roll survivability of the companion
  • The Treant archetype now grants +1 vital rolls
• Skills
  • The Medicine skill is now more effective at treating vital wounds
    • The DV now scales by +5 for each more deadly tier of vital roll, instead of by +10
• Equipment
  • Potion of Wound Closure has been redesigned as Potion of Healing, which both recovers HP and mitigates vital wounds
  • Potion of Regeneration is now lower rank

General changes

• Core systems
  • Effects that increase the odds of exploding on attack rolls now stack
    • This required adding a new "explosion target" concept, which is defined as the minimum number you need to roll to explode
  • "Magic bonuses" have been renamed to "enhancement bonuses"
    • This should avoid the previous confusion between "a bonus from a magical ability" and "a bonus with the specific type 'magic bonus'"
  • The "enhanced maneuvers" class abilities have been renamed to "augmented maneuvers"
• Species
  • Base class bonuses from optional species have been buffed to encourage members of those species to follow their standard narrative traits
    • Dragons now have 2 insight points instead of 1
    • Dryaidi now have 2 insight points instead of 1
    • Harpies now have fighter-level hit points instead of cleric-level hit points
    • Oozeborn are now proficient with medium armor
    • Treants now have barbarian-level hit points intead of fighter-level hit points
    • Vampires now have fighter-level hit points instead of cleric-level hit points
  • Vampires are now less vulnerable to true sunlight
• Classes
  • Barbarian: Outland Savage's bonus to exploding attacks is now capped at +2, rather than stacking for each explosion
  • Cleric
    • Chaos domain mastery now further increases explosion range rather than giving a bonus to exploding attacks
    • Strength domain has a slightly simplified aspect and a redesigned essence
  • Druid: Shift Body now provides an enhancement bonus instead of an untyped bonus
  • Fighter: The Protect ability from Sentinel can now also target yourself for a lesser bonus
  • Monk: The Ki archetype now provides an alternate standard action strike at rank 3 instead of a bonus to magical power
  • Paladin
    • Chaos paladins now increase explosion range with their aura rather than giving a bonus to exploding attacks
    • Detect Anathema can now be used as a minor action, and has slightly more useful scaling
    • Smite now has slightly different effects on same-alignment targets
• Equipment
  • Added a new "titanbow" exotic weapon
  • Magic items that grant +1 to a single attribute have been reduced from rank 6 to rank 5 and no longer have "Epic" in their name
  • Antitoxin Elixir is now lower rank
  • Bloodfrenzy weapons are now slightly stronger and have different scaling
  • Cloak of Death's Door is now lower rank and has a ++ variant
  • Distant Protector's Amulet also affects the cleric Divine Protection ability
  • Fortified Armor now grants an untyped bonus instead of an enhancement bonus
  • Quilled Cloak now deals more damage
  • Seeking weapons are now lower rank
  • Tireless+ weapons are now lower rank
• Mystic spheres
  • Umbramancy
    • Suppress Light can no longer dim brilliant illumination
    • Deep Darklantern is now higher rank
• Feats
  • Entropist's Friend of Chaos ability does not affect vital rolls