10.3.0: Many small simplifications

Removing dice increments

Rise has historically used "+1d" to refer to the concept of incrementing a dice pool to the next "dice increment". In practice, this system has been confusing for players to understand, and over time Rise has changed its combat math to rely much less on dice increment upgrades. This update finally removes dice increment upgrades entirely, removing a barrier to entry for new players.

The fundamental change is simple: most instances of "+1d" are replaced with "+1 flat damage". A few more nuanced changes were also made to maintain high level balance, since this does not change spellcaster scaling and slightly reduces martial scaling.

Specific changes

• Core mechanics
  • Weapon damage power scaling is now defined as +1 damage per 2 power, rather than +1d per 2 power
    • Heavy weapons similarly grant +1 damage per 3 power
  • Weak strikes now skip all flat damage modifiers, but roll damage dice normally
• Equipment
  • Characters with a Strength of at least 6 can now use Heavy weapons in one hand with no accuracy penalty
    • This helps high Strength characters keep up in the late game, since +1 flat damage is about 15% less damage than +1d
  • Adamantine weapons are now more expensive but add more damage
  • Mithral weapons now subtract flat damage instead of die increments
  • Brutish weapons now grant extra dice, but subtract a flat damage value
• Feats
  • The Weapon Focus feat now grants +2 damage at 12th level instead of +1d

Simplified HP and DR calculations

Previously, hit points and damage resistance were calculated by referencing a table.
The calculation to find the right table row was annoyingly complex (level + Con + class modifier), and there was no good terminology to explain the concept.
New players could easily get confused about how to do something as seemingly simple as figuring out how many hit points they had, which was a poor introduction to the system.

Now, hit points use a simpler calculation determined by your base class.
This calculation changes infrequently as you gain levels to ensure proper scaling.
However, is always relatively easy to calculate and does not require any tables.

Damage resistance no longer scales inherently with level or class at all.
The intrinsic scaling was always relatively low, and just complicated the process of figuring out damage resistance.
Now, damage resistance comes exclusively from armor and special abilities.
This should help it feel more conceptually distinct from hit points.
Damage resistance should generally be lower for most characters, but the Recover action now restores all damage resistance, so effective damage resistance in tough fights should be higher.

As part of this recalculation, all of the base class abilities had to be rebalanced.
Classes no longer provide a bonus to Armor defense or damage resistance.

Specific changes

• Core mechanics
  • The Recover ability now restores half hit points and all damage resistance, rather than all hit points and no damage resistance
  • Hit points are now defined entirely by base class instead of a universal progression
    • Each class is grouped into one of four scaling "buckets"
      • Low scaling starts at 6 + 1 * (level above 1 + Con) and ends at 60 + 8 * (level above 19 + Con)
      • Medium scaling starts at 8 + 1 * (level above 1 + Con) and ends at 70 + 10 * (level above 19 + Con)
      • High scaling starts at 8 + 2 * (level above 1 + Con) and ends at 80 + 12 * (level above 19 + Con)
      • Very high scaling starts at 10 + 2 * (level above 1 + Con) and ends at 100 + 15 * (level above 19 + Con)
  • Damage resistance no longer scales with level or base class
  • Summoned creatures and similar extra creatures like animal companions now define their DR relative to their HP
• Classes
  • No base classes provide a +1 Armor defense bonus
  • Base class ability changes
    • Barbarian: -1 fatigue tolerance
    • Monk: +1 attunement point, but -1 fatigue tolerance
    • Rogue: -1 fatigue tolerance, -1 trained skill
    • Sorcerer: +1 insight point
    • Warlock: +1 insight point
  • Monk
    • Ki Barrier provides more damage resistance, but its Armor defense bonus is weaker
    • The Transcendent Sage archetype provides damage resistance, but no Willpower
  • Paladin: Stalwart Resilience provides slightly less damage resistance at high levels
  • Sorcerer: Mage armor provides more damage resistance
  • Wizard: Mage armor provides more damage resistance
• Optional classes
  • Automaton: +1 attunement point
  • Dragon: +1 attunement point
  • Harpie: +1 fatigue tolerance, simple weapon proficiency, and +1 insight point, but -1 trained skill
  • Oozeborn: -1 fatigue tolerance, but +1 insight point
  • Vampire: -1 fatigue tolerance
• Equipment
  • All light armors now provide one more damage resistance
  • Rawhide, scale, and layered hide now have less encumbrance
  • The damage resistance multiplier from magic armor now starts at rank 3 instead of rank 4 and scales higher
  • All armor special materials now have a unique property, rather than leaving some as generic DR modifiers
    • Adamantine is now the most expensive material, with a massive DR multiplier
    • Deepforged has been removed
    • Diamonsteel now provides more DR, but a lower bonus against critical hits
    • Elvenweave now reduces encumbrance
    • Mithral now provides more DR, but less encumbrance reduction and does not increase Dex multiplier
    • Starmetal is now heavier and cheaper
  • Bracers of armor are now lower rank, but no longer provide a shield
  • Bracers of resistance have been added to increase access to magic bonuses to damage resistance
• Monsters
  • Monsters now calculate damage resistance as a percentage of their HP

Simplified brawling abilities

Previously, many different abilities had slight variations on "use Strength instead of Perception" to determine their accuracy.
Overrun and Shove used full Strength, but Escape Grapple used half Strength, and Grapple - surprisingly - did not use Strength at all.
In addition, it could be surprising to see the accuracy used, since they did not have a clear indicator that they functioned in an unusual way.

Now, all of these abilities have been given a new "Brawling" tag.
Abilities with the Brawling tag use Strength in place of Perception to determine their accuracy.
This is now a standardized concept in the system, so the initial description of Strength mentions that it increases accuracy with Brawling abilities.

Specific Changes

• Combat
  • A new "Brawling" tag has been added to abilities
    • Abilities with this tag consistently use Strength instead of Perception to determine their accuracy
  • The following universal abilities now have the "Brawling" tag: Escape Grapple, Grapple, Maintain Grapple, Overrun, and Shove
  • Shove now allows you to move at full speed when you get a critical hit
  • You can now shove creatures you are grappling with as a movement
• Feats
  • The Brawler feat now gives a bonus to all Brawling abilites, rather than only grappling abilities

Simplified jumping

Previously, characters would have to make a Jump check to know how far they could jump. Because this was not a static value and the calculations could be a little complex, jumping was rarely used in combat. The perceived risk of failing a Jump check and wasting your movement was too high, and generally not worth the effort to go consult the book for a small movement benefit.

Now, characters can jump a fixed distance instead of making a check. This distance is based on the character's speed and Strength, and many abilities can increase it. Having a fixed jump distance listed on a character sheet should encourage players to jump in combat more freely when it is useful. This is also part of a broader package of changes to increase the narrative power of the Strength attribute.

Specific changes

• The Jump skill has been removed
  • Instead, characters can jump a fixed distance equal to a quarter of their land speed plus 5 feet per Strength
  • Characters now automatically ignore the first 10 feet of a fall when falling intentionally, rather than making a Jump check to mitigate fall damage
  • Abilities that previously granted a bonus with Jump checks now generally grant a bonus to jumping distance
• Classes
  • Cleric: Air domain provides a larger jump distance bonus
  • Monk: Leap of the Heavens provides a larger bonus to jump distance
• Combat styles
  • The Vault Over maneuver has been removed, since it didn't make sense without Jump checks
• Mystic spheres
  • Aeromancy: Airborne Leap now grants a larger jump distance bonus
  • Telekinesis: Telekinetic Lift now grants a larger jump distance bonus

Other changes

• The paper character sheet has been redesigned to be 4 pages instead of 5
• Species
  • Elves now also get +2 to Stealth
  • Gnomes now only get a +2 bonus to one Craft skill instead of two
  • Half-elves now also get +2 to Awareness
  • Gnomes and halflings now get +3 stealth instead of +2
• Combat
  • A new "Exertion" tag has been added to all abilities that cause you to increase your own fatigue level
    • This mostly serves to highlight the potentially significant cost associated with those abilities, so players are not surprised
  • Vital wound penalties have been redesigned to be slightly less punishing
    • This should make it more reasonable to continue adventuring with a vital wound instead of feeling forced to take a long rest
  • Throwing objects and creatures has been significantly simplified
    • You can now throw arbitrary objects a fixed distance equal to 15 feet plus 5 feet per 2 Strength
    • The base distance is halved for objects at your maximum weight limit
    • GM discretion can significantly affect throw distance (for weird objects like baseballs a...

10.2.0: Magic item redesign

Equipment and magic item redesign

The equipment and general magic item designs have not been reevaluated in a long time. Some magic items were too situational to be ever worth using, like Onslaught weapons and implements. The magic item description format was not particularly readable, so scanning through long lists to evaluate magic items was difficult.

To address these issues, all magic items have been individually reevaluated. The item description format is now more consistent with the format used for similar descriptions in the rest of the book. The long tables have more structure where possible, such as grouping apparel by body slot. Each apparel body slot now has a more consistent narrative identity, so it should be easier to scan through apparel to find something interesting for you.

Special materials were also annoying to interact with. The system of adding the special material's item rank to the base item's rank required annoying cross-referencing between tables to determine the actual rank and price of a resulting item. Determining the maximum damage resistance you could get access to at a given item rank was weirdly difficult, as you had to compare different base armors made from different base materials.

Special materials now use a flat rank and price instead of adding to the base item's rank. Heavy armor and weapons require a larger amount of the special material.

Specific changes

• There are too many changes to every magic item to list individually
• Special materials
  • Special materials now have a fixed rank and price instead of adding to the mundane item's rank
    • Heavy weapons require twice as much of the special material
    • Medium armor requires twice as much, and heavy armor requires three times as much
  • Weapons
    • Pure adamantine weapons now deal only double damage to objects instead of triple damage
    • Adamantine and pure adamantine weapons no longer deal double damage to adamantine objects
    • Mithral has been redesigned to grant the Light tag or remove the Heavy tag instead of granting an accuracy bonus
• Equipment
  • Improved formatting around the long tables
  • Medium armor now grants +1 more damage resistance than before
• Apparel
  • You can now wear up to two items in the same slot for amulets, belts, circlets and cloaks
  • Each apparel slot now has more consistent narrative identity
    • Amulets: class abilities
    • Belts: life, healing, and full body transformations
    • Boots: mobility
    • Bracers: physical shielding and arm transformations
    • Circlets: mental and visual effects
    • Cloaks: aerial, stealth, and sheltering effects
    • Crowns: light and aura effects
    • Gauntlets: strength and brute force effects
    • Gloves: dexterity and finesse effects
    • Rings: cleansing and magical shielding
• Implements
  • Rods now exist
    • Rods grant specific magical active abilities regardless of whether the wielder can cast spells
    • Damage dealt by rod abilities does not scale with character power, so high power spellcasters will still prefer wands

Other changes

• The little magical ✨ is now used more consistently throughout the book
• General mechanics
  • Extra damage now only applies once per ability, not each time it deals damage
    • Deep attunements still apply extra damage to each damage instance
  • Bright and brilliant illumination now automatically also creates shadowy illumination in twice its radius
  • Poisons only affect living creatures
  • Animates are no longer intrinsically objects and creatures
    • Instead, "constructs" and "indwelt" are new types of animates that are both objects and creatures in specific ways
• Classes
  • Barbarian: Rage now only improves accuracy with mundane abilities
  • Cleric: Some domain abilities grant lower or more restricted power bonuses
    • Cleric domains look a little out of date in general, and will likely be adjusted in the next patch
  • Monk: Ki barrier now provides slightly lower damage resistance
  • Paladin: Aligned aura++ now has a functioning bonus for Law paladins
  • Ranger: Animal companion combat statistics have been clarified
  • Sorcerer:
    • Spell Absorption has been replaced with Magic Absorption, which works on magical non-spell abilities
    • Epic Wildspell no longer grants an increased power bonus
  • Warlock: Possession has higher extra damage scaling at high levels
  • Wizard:
    • Alchemist has clearer wording for its abilities
    • Overcharged Construction was replaced with Explosive Construction
• Skills
  • Removed Craft (jewelry) and Craft (traps)
    • Added a note saying some other Craft skills might exist in universe, but are less useful to adventurers
  • Added example difficulty values for Balance and Climb
• Combat styles
  • Area of effect maneuvers now use a more consistent formula
  • Blunt Force: Ground Slam (redesigned), Ricochet (buffed)
  • Flurry of Blows: Whirlwind (buffed), Shrapnel Burst+ (redesigned), Volley Fire+ (new)
  • Mobile Assault: Vault Over (nerfed)
  • Penetrating Precision: Penetrating Shot+ (redesigned), Groundspike+ (redesigned)
  • Rip and Tear: Ricochet (buffed)
• Mystic spheres
  • Photomancy: Invisibility (now has a cooldown)
  • Polymorph: Empowered Regeneration (buffed), Ironwood (removed)
  • Pyromancy: Massive Burning Hands (redesigned, previously Mighty Burning Hands)
• Feats
  • "Bloodline" and "Heritage" feats have been renamed to "Ancestry" feats
  • New feat: Barbaric Ancestry
• Optional rules
  • Two new species: Automaton and Vampire

10.1.1 - Massive weapons

Massive weapons

Currently, very large monsters still make single-target attacks. In some cases,
their attacks have the Sweeping weapon tag, but the mechanics of that tag do not
cleanly match the narrative of how large creatures would smash things. It's
reasonable for a greatsword to "skip" intervening allies as it sweeps through
specific enemies, but a giant smashing its fist on the ground can't leave a hole
in the middle to protect its allies.

To solve this, a new "Massive" weapon tag has been added. Strikes with Massive
weapons affect a cube-shaped area, and are not considered targeted attacks. They
inflict a glancing blow when they miss, just like other area attacks. Creatures
that are Huge or larger automatically apply the Massive tag to all of their
weapons.

Overall, this helps large creatures feel appropriately epic in scale, and makes
them meaningfully different from fighting humanoid-sized creatures. Defenses
against targeted attacks like the mirror image spell do not work against
massive creatures, but the rogue and monk Evasion ability is more effective.

Specific changes

• The Massive weapon tag has been added, which makes strikes hit a cube-shaped
  area instead of a single target
• Very large creatures automatically gain the Massive weapon tag with all
  weapons
  • Massive (10) for Huge creatures, Massive (15) for Gargantuan, and Massive
    (20) for Colossal
• Nets are now Massive (10)

Natural weapons

Most of the standard natural weapons have been redesigned. Their previous names
were sometimes too limiting to be usefully applied to a wide variety of
monsters. On the other hand, "slam" was so generic that it could be applied to
many different monsters, even if their weapons should have different properties.

In addition, player abilities are no longer limited by the "standard" set of
natural weapons. Just as specific monsters can have unique natural weapons,
many player abilities now grant unique natural weapons that do not exactly
match the standard natural weapons like bite and claw.

Specific changes

• Standard natural weapon changes
  • Bite now deals 1d8 damage instead of 1d6
  • Gore has been renamed to Horn
  • Slam has been removed
  • Talons are now explicitly foot-based instead of hand-based
  • A new tentacle weapon has been added
  • Normal bipedal creatures now have two punch/kick weapons instead of one
    • This allows dual-wielding, though without the Light tag that may bek
      inadvisable
    • Kicking now requires Dex 3 instead of Dex 2, but can be done freely while
      flying or gliding
• Oozeborn now have an acidic pseudopod instead of a slam
• Aquamancy: The Aqueous Tentacle spell line has been redesigned
• Polymorph: The Natural Weapon cantrip can now only grant a bite or two claws
• Terramancy: Mighty Stonefist has been added
• Terramancy: The Vine Tentacle spell line has been redesigned

Other changes

• Narrative
  • Alignments and aligned characters now have more precise descriptions
  • Elves and half-elves are now tall and skinny instead of short and skinny
  • Massive monsters no longer have separate "tall" and "long" entries in the
    Size Categories table, since they weren't meaningfully different
• General mechanics
  • Having negative power now subtracts from your damage
  • All damaging abilities have been reworded as dealing damage instead of
    causing the target to take damage
    • This makes effects that trigger when the target "takes" damage more clear
  • Multipedal creatures no longer automatically gain the Heavy tag with natural weapons
    • This has been converted into a general monster mechanic
  • The general redesign of monsters continues, and several more monsters now have art
• Feats
  • Maneuverist now explicitly no longer stacks its bonuses with archetype-based
    maneuver bonuses
  • Sphere Focus: Fabrication has been redesigned
• Optional rules
  • Oozeborn no longer gain an extra 10' speed bonus from making four legs
  • Oozeborn can now attune to their amorphous form ability at rank 3 instead of rank 6
  • The Expanded Insight Points variant rule no longer grants an extra insight point

10.1.0 - Impact and debuff redesign

Impact weapons

The Impact weapon tag was single-handedly making melee weapons far better than any other damage source, and in a very constrained and slightly unintuitive way. Melee weapons already have a variety of benefits compared to other methods of dealing damage, and they are intended to be the strongest. However, Impact pushed that diffentiation to extreme levels when combined with various ways to optimize crit chance, and heavily restricted the build diversity of optimized damage-dealers.

There are two ways to fix this problem. One way would be to give spellcasters and various other damage dealers unique ways to scale their critical hit chance and critical multiplier, so everyone had the ability to play critical-based builds. This would require large system changes that would make it more complicated. Instead, Impact should simply be changed to not scale critical hit damage. It now allows exploding on an 8 or 9. In this way, it keeps its identity as a way to get unreliable powerful hits, but it does not warp damage optimization around its existence.

Specific changes

• The Impact weapon tag now causes attacks to explode on a 8 or 9 instead of maximizing critical hit damage
• Vorpal weapons have been redesigned

Debuffs

The "shaken" and "dazed" debuffs have been removed from the system. Minor effects like a -1 penalty to defenses didn't feel worth the action required to apply them to monsters. Even if it was mathematically correct in some fights, it didn't feel good as a player, and minor debuffs increase fiddliness in combat.

Low-level abilities that inflict debuffs now have a much wider variety of situational restrictions and limitations. For example, they are much more likely to check for remaining damage resistance, and slightly more likely to attack multiple defenses at once or to have a delay before they take full effect. When they work, they can have powerful effects, but they don't always work. At higher levels, characters can inflict debuffs more reliably and broadly, ensuring that players feel a real sense of progression at higher levels.

Most condition removal effects now require increasing fatigue, especially if they can be used on people other than yourself. If conditions can always be reliably removed as a standard action at high levels, it undercuts the uniqueness of each debuff - they can all be simplified to "someone has to spend a standard action". Since the cost of removing conditions is higher, players will spend more time thinking about which conditions are worth the effort to remove, and are more likely to fight with conditions active until they can rest or recover. Also, since the power level of successfully applied debuffs is now more similar between low levels and high levels, having access to condition removal mechanics is less mandatory until very high levels.

Attacks that inflict debuffs now almost always have "must be removed twice" as a critical hit effect, rather than having unique and more powerful critical hit effects. Inflicting extremely powerful debuffs on a critical hit increases the odds that fights are randomly trivialized or devastating because of a lucky early roll. This is especially dangerous when some of the other changes in this patch allow low level characters situational access to high level debuffs. In addition, using a standard critical hit effect reduces the complexity of abilities without changing their common usage. As part of this change, double critical hits will now require conditions to be removed three times instead of twice, so there is some upside to unreasonably lucky rolls with debuffs just like there is with damaging attacks.

Specific changes

• General mechanics
  • The shaken and dazed debuffs no longer exist
  • Attacks that inflict debuffs now almost always have "must be removed an additional time" as a critical hit effect
    • This effect stacks on double critical hits
  • Effects that inflict debuffs in an area have generally been buffed by approximately one rank
• Class abilities
  • Cleric: Denounce the Heathens (buffed), Condemn the Fearful (buffed)
  • Druid: Form of the Viper (buffed)
  • Paladin: Aligned Immunity - Law (buffed)
  • Rogue
    • Bardic music: Boastful Bravura (nerfed), Crashing Cacaphony (slightly different scaling), Cleansing Counterpoint (nerfed), Dazzling Discordance (changed), Dizzying Ditty (changed), Frightening Fugue (buffed), Intonation of Ingenuity (nerfed), Stutterstep Staccato (changed)
    • Confound (changed)
• Combat Styles
  • Maneuvers that inflict debuffs now have a more precise scaling for their power level
    • Melee-only debuffs are generally stronger
    • Rank 3 and rank 5 maneuvers are generally stronger, since "make a strike" is less powerful at rank 3 or 5 than at rank 1
  • Blunt Force: Tenderize (buffed), Headshot (changed), Headshot+ (changed), Knockdown (buffed), Knockdown+ (buffed), Forceful Strike (removed), Gutshot (changed), Gutshot+ (removed), Boneshatter (changed), Earsplitting Bonedrum (buffed)
  • Dirty Fighting: Dazing Fist (removed), Stunning Fist (buffed), Quivering Palm (buffed), Alchemical Strike (buffed), Anklesprainer+ (new), Eye-Averting Strike (buffed), Eye Gouge (buffed), Fake-Out Assault (buffed)
  • Ebb and Flow: Dazing/Stunning Feint (removed), Sacrificial Flurry (nerfed), Hunting Strike (buffed), Dizzying Assault (removed), Tag-Team Followup (new)
  • Flurry of Blows: Shrapnel Burst (buffed), Shrapnel Burst+ (changed), Volley Fire (buffed), Frenzied Multistrike (nerfed cap), Static Strike (changed), Disorienting Flurry (removed), Dazzling Flurry (changed)
  • Herald of War: Dazing Roar (removed), Stunning Roar (buffed), Fearsome Roar (changed), Thunderous Shout (changed), Directed Shout+ (changed), Challenging Strike (buffed), Fearsome Blow (changed), Awe-Inspiring Strike (changed)
  • Mobile Assault: Spring Attack (changed), Wanderer's Strike+ (removed), Passing Splitstrike (buffed), Fearsome Pounce (buffed)
  • Penetrating Precision: Penetrating Shot (buffed), Penetrating Shot+ (changed), Distant Shot (nerfed), Deathblow (removed), Groundspike (changed), Called Shot (buffed)
  • Rip and Tear: Hamstring (buffed), Two-Weapon Rend (buffed), Sweeping Strike (buffed), Sweping Throw (buffed), Desperate Bloodwhirl (new), Bloodletting Strike (changed), Slash and Return (nerfed), Tear Exposed Flesh (changed)
  • Unbreakable Defense: Dazing Shield Slam (removed), Stunning Shield Slam (changed), Covering Strike (buffed)
• Mystic Spheres
  • Every sphere has had significant changes to any spell that inflicts debuffs, and many new spells have been added to fill gaps
  • Many new non-debuff spells have been added that use more complex downside mechanics in exchange for extra power. For example, look at Meteor from Terramancy or Powderkeg from Fabrication.
  • Many attunement spells have less intrinsic scaling. Instead, they have higher level versions that offer more power in exchange for making the attunement a deep attunement
  • Aeromancy: Arrow Attraction (changed), Windseal Grasp (new), Windseal (new), Skyseal (new), Buffet (buffed), Wind Tunnel (changed), Dust Cloud (changed), Dust Storm (changed), Dust in the Eyes (changed), Dustblind (changed)
  • Aquamancy: Constraining Bubble (changed), Liquifying Grasp (new), Liquify (changed, previously Puddlify), Slippery Puddle (new), Drown (new)
  • Astromancy: Translocating Grasp (buffed), Distant Translocating Grasp (changed, previously Efficient Translocating Grasp), Banishment (changed), Banishing Rift (changed), Efficient Banishment (new), Dimensional Anchor (changed), Intense Hostile Translocation (buffed), Astral Rupture (new), Sudden Rift (removed), Persistent Planar Rift (new), Growing Planar Rift (new), Planar Jaunt - Plane of Fire (nerfed), Planar Jaunt - Plane of Air (buffed), Planar Jaunt - Plane of Water (changed), Distant Spells (scaling removed), Empowered Distant Spells (new)
  • Channel Divinity: Fearful Awe (new), Word of Fear (removed), Divine Presence (changed), Divine Seal (now a ritual), Fearful Judgment (changed)
  • Chronomancy: Accelerated Flurry (nerfed, previously Accelerated Twinstrike), Temporal Dislocation (removed), Timeseal (changed), Slowing Grasp (new), Disjointed Deceleration (removed), Slow (changed), Temporal Duplicate (nerfed), Time Lock - Mind (nerfed), Expeditious Retreat (buffed), Sudden Expiration (changed), Wave of Senescence (changed)
  • Cryomancy: Freezing Grasp (changed), Frozen Legs (changed), Icicle (changed), Frostbite (changed), Hailstorm (changed), Frigid Nova (new), Icicle Carapace (changed), Bonechill (changed), Icefield (changed), Blizzard (removed), Chilling Aura (new), Freezing Aura (new)
  • Electromancy: Stunning Discharge (buffed), Brain-Scrambling Discharge (buffed), Electroshock (changed), Overcharge (new), Short-Circuit (changed), Mighty Arcing Strike (nerfed)
  • Enchantment: Repeat (nerfed), Mass Repeat (buffed), Monologue (changed), Confusion (buffed), Sleep (changed), Mind Blank (changed), Selfstrike (changed), Discordant Song (changed), Discordant Symphony (changed, previously Massive Discordant Song), Cause Fear (changed), Cause Panic (changed, previously Cause Intense Fear), Fearsome Aura (changed), Charm (buffed), Calm Emotions (changed), Enrage (nerfed), Demotivate (changed), Crippling Agony (new), Friend to Foe (changed), Mighty
    Mind Crush (nerfed)
  • Fabrication: Mystic Arrow (removed), Mystic Artillery (changed), Executioner's Axe (buffed), Mighty Whirlwind of Blades (changed), Precision Missileburst (removed), Grease (changed), Oil Slick (changed), Instant Weapon (buffed), Shrapnel Grenade (new), Powderkeg (new)
  • Photomancy: Color Spray (changed), Prismatic Spray (changed), Bluffed Vision (buffed), Flash (changed), Blinding Flash (new), Borrow Vision (new), Searing Light (changed), Solar Ray (changed), Solar Flare (changed), Pillars of Light (changed), Kaleidoscopic...

Rise 10

Almost all aspects of the system have been redesigned to some degree for Rise 10. Damage is now calculated differently, which has deep ramifications throughout the rest of the system. In general, damage and survivability values should be smaller and less confusing to calculate. High level characters now have more extreme statistical differences from each other. They also have more tools available to have reasonably balanced fights despite those differences.

Core Statistics

• Power redesign
  • "Power" has been split into "mundane power" and "magical power"
    • Mundane power is calculated as (half level) + (full Str), and magical power is (half level) + (full Wil)
  • Magic bonuses to power no longer exist
  • Power bonuses from class features and other sources have been significantly reduced, since power now has strong intrinsic scaling with level
• Attributes have new effects
  • Strength is now added directly to your mundane power instead of increasing dice pools at even values
  • Constitution no longer increases your damage resistance
  • Perception's accuracy bonus is calculated differently. Accuracy is now half the sum of (level + Per) instead of (half level) + (half Per).
  • Willpower is now added directly to your magical power instead of increasing dice pools at even values
  • Willpower no longer increases your fatigue tolerance
• Attributes now scale with level
  • At levels 3/9/15/21, you gain a +1 bonus to any two attributes
  • Legacy items now progress at levels 6/12/18 instead of 3/9/15/21 to make room for attribute scaling
• Insight points and attunement points now scale with level
  • You gain +1 insight point at levels 4 and 7, and +1 attunement point at levels 5 and 8
  • This should make the first couple of levels less daunting for new players and less weird for spell-based attunement optimization
• HP values beyond level 21 now grant +10 HP per value instead of doubling previous values
  • This significantly reduces the hit points of max-level creatures with a high Constitution
• Damage resistance is now calculated using basic class modifiers instead of Willpower

Combat

• Damage mechanics has been redesigned
  • "+1d" now increases one die in a dice pool to its next size category, rather than all dice
    • Example progression: 1d8 -> 1d10 -> 2d6 -> 1d8+1d6 -> 1d10+1d6 -> 3d6
    • Basically, "+1d" approximately is equivalent to "+1 damage", but without using flat modifiers
  • Damage dice pools no longer add power as a flat modifier. Instead, they specify a dice scaling based on your power.
    • The default level 1 scaling is "+1d per 2 power", which is used for level 1 spells and all weapon damage
    • High level spells use scaling values like "1d6 per 3 power", which avoids spending time fiddling with large +d values
    • Maneuvers either multiply weapon damage, which scales with power, or explicitly add extra damage that may scale with power
  • Glancing blows now deal half damage
  • Critical hits still make you roll twice as many damage dice, but since there is no longer any flat modifier to damage, this effectively increases critical damage
• All damaging area attacks now inflict a glancing blow when they miss by any amount
• Many abilities that targeted "adjacent" creatures now require touching the target
  • Touching an unwilling target requires beating the target's Reflex defense
  • This makes it more clear that you can't use some touch-based abilities on incorporeal creatures
• Dual-wielding has been redesigned
  • The Offhand Strike universal ability has been removed
  • Whenever you make a strike, you can attack with two weapons at once, and they both deal full weapon damage but can't get glancing blows
  • Extra damage is only applied once
  • Dual-wielding now has a -1 accuracy penalty unless your Dexterity is at least 4
  • Heavy weapons now impose a -2 accuracy penalty instead of a -1 accuracy penalty
• Prone changes
  • Gargantuan and larger creatures are no longer automatically immune to being prone
    • All effects that knock creatures prone now have a maximum size
  • Being knocked prone while mounted now makes you fall off your mount
  • Prone creatures cannot fly or glide

Classes

All class archetypes have been redesigned.

• Classes no longer provide a bonus to power or vital wounds
  • Instead, they provide a bonus to your level for the purpose of determining your hit points and damage resistance
• All classes have had their basic class bonuses to defenses and resources redesigned
  • Martial classes tend to have high hit points, and spellcasting classes tend to have low hit points
  • Magical classes to tend to have high DR, and mundane classes tend to have low DR
• All "Wellspring of Power" have been replaced with "Experienced Spellcaster", which grants accuracy with spells
  • This should be more useful for debuff-based casters, and less useful for spellsword builds who have an incentive to take martial archetypes anyway
• All martial archetypes now provide unique standard action strike-based abilities
  • This provides high level scaling for characters who don't want to use maneuvers

Skills

• Clarified rules for using Endurance to maintain exertions
• The Jump skill has been reworded to make jumping mechanics more clear

Equipment

Almost all magic items have been redesigned to match the new Rise 10 scaling and design philosophy.

• Weapon tag changes
  • The Light weapon tag makes dual-wielding more accurate, and allows the weapon to be quickdrawn
  • The Heavy weapon tag grants an additional +1d damage per 3 power
  • The Versatile Grip weapon tag also grants an additional +1d damage per 3 power when holding the weapon in two hands
  • The "Stealthy" weapon tag has been removed, and its effects have been merged with the "Compact" weapon tag
  • The Keen weapon tag now grants +4 accuracy for critical hits instead of +2
  • The Impact weapon tag now maximizes critical hit damage instead of adding an extra multiplier
    • This is a more powerful effect, and also avoids excessive dice rolling for critical-based characters
  • Projectile weapons now have penalties "while riding a moving mount" instead of "while mounted"
    • Shortbows now reduce these penalties instead of completely removing them
  • The Supplemental weapon tag has been removed
    • All magic weapon abilities should now only affect strikes with those weapons, so there's no benefit from having a magic boot dagger you never use
• Other weapon changes
  • Weapon usage classes no longer exist, and have been replaced with "Light" and "Heavy" weapon tags
  • Almost all weapons have been rebalanced to support the new tags, and to ensure weapon groups feel unique
  • The rules for using inappropriately sized weapons have been simplified
  • Armor spikes have been removed
  • Weapons are now drawn and sheathed as a minor action instead of as a free action
  • The Mighty, Studied, Finesse, and Infused magic weapon effects provide attribute-influenced ways to scale weapon effectiveness
• Damage resistance from medium and heavy armor has been slightly decreased
• Poisons have been redesigned
  • Creatures now become "poisoned" without any attack against their Fortitude
  • Poisons still only have negative effects after they beat your Fortitude
• Magic implements now have a brief cooldown after being used

Combat styles

All combat styles and maneuvers have been redesigned. Strikes now have much weaker automatic scaling with level, and high level maneuvers are now much more powerful to compensate.

• Flurry of Blows: All of the multi-strike maneuvers have been redesigned to various degrees
• Ebb and Flow: Counter Flurry no longer has an accuracy bonus, Certain Strike gives +3 accuracy instead of +4, and Punish Inattention is rank 1 instead of rank 3

Mystic spheres

All damaging spells have been redesigned to match Rise 10's new power scaling.

• Damaging spells now provide +1 accuracy per extra rank rather than +1d per extra rank
• The Aquamancy, Cryomancy, Electromancy, Pyromancy, Terramancy, and Vivimancy spheres now have more "high power scaling" damage effects, and other spheres have fewer
• Aeromancy
  • All forced movement effects now have a maximum weight category instead of a maximum size category
  • Propulsion can now be used on objects
• Channel Divinity
  • Agent of the Divine now grants a lower bonus to vital rolls
  • Faithful Endurance now grants a higher bonus to vital rolls
• Fabrication
  • Forge is now a cantrip and ritual instead of a spell
• Prayer
  • Indomitable Blessing now grants a lower bonus to vital rolls
  • Holy Blades now only affects manufactured weapons
• Pyromancy
  • Flame Blade now only affects manufactured weapons
• Revelation
  • Find the Path is now a ritual
• Telekinesis
  • Barriers from this sphere now block incorporeal creatures

Feats

All feats have been redesigned. They now increase in power at levels 1/6/12/18 instead of 1/3/9/15/21.

Other Changes

• Fixed many broken links
• Temporarily removed sample characters since they all have to be redesigned
• Many effects now trigger on "finishing" a rest instead of "taking" a rest to clarify timing
• The Drakkenfel optional species has been removed, since that was just an awkward hack before Dragon was a balanced species
• Epic fate redesigns
  • Artificial Immortality has slightly redesigned rank 3 and rank 4 effects
  • Ascendant now grants 120' sight at rank 2 instead of 60' sight
  • Mutant now only grants Sweeping (3) instead of Sweeping (8), but does not require separate natural weapons for each target
  • Slayer has a redesigned rank 1 and rank 5 effect, and the rank 3 effect now requires a minor action instead of a standard action

Monsters

• Monsters now have one of six roles: Brute (Str), Skirmisher (Dex), Warrior (Con), Sniper (Per),...

10.iota - Redesigned monsters

General changes

• Redesigned monsters
  • Monsters now have one of six roles: Brute (Str), Skirmisher (Dex), Warrior (Con), Sniper (Per), Mystic (Wil), or Leader (-)
    • Monster roles influence statistics, and provide a rough guide for how a GM should use them in combat
  • Elite monsters now gain an extra "elite action" every round instead of an extra standard action
    • Elite actions can be weird and powerful abilities that are significantly above the normal power level for an active ability
    • Separating out elite actions from regular actions makes elite monster statistics easier to calculate, and solves confusing issues like "can an elite monster use both standard actions to sprint twice in the same phase"
    • Individual elite monster descriptions don't yet consistently separate elite abilities from normal abilities
• Fixed many broken links
• Clarified rules for using Endurance to maintain exertions
• Temporarily removed sample characters since they all have to be redesigned
• Classes
  • All "Wellspring of Power" abilities have been replaced with "Experienced Spellcaster", which grants accuracy with spells
    • This should be more useful for debuff-based casters, and less useful for spellsword builds who have an incentive to take martial archetypes anyway
  • Barbarian: The Battleforged Resilience archetype has been redesigned to focus on HP instead of DR
  • Monk
    • The Ki archetype now grants an additional ki manifestation at rank 4 instead of +1 Willpower, so it no longer grants an unreasonably high +3 total power bonus
    • The Transcendant Sage archetype has had its scaling adjusted, and now grants +1 Willpower at rank 4

10.theta - Revised DR calculations

General changes

• HP values beyond level 21 now grant +10 HP per value instead of doubling previous values
  • This significantly reduces the hit points of max-level creatures with a high Constitution
• Damage resistance is now calculated using basic class modifiers instead of Willpower
• Dual-wielding now has a -1 accuracy penalty unless your Dexterity is at least 4
  • Heavy weapons now impose a -2 accuracy penalty instead of a -1 accuracy penalty
• Gargantuan and larger creatures are no longer automatically immune to being prone
  • All effects that knock creatures prone now have a maximum size
• Armor spikes have been removed
• Limbless and multipedal creatures now gain specific combat benefits
• Classes
  • Cleric, dragon, druid, monk, paladin, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard now grant a bonus to your level for the purpose of determining your damage resistance
  • Harpy now has +1 fatigue tolerance and +1 insight point
  • Monk now has -1 trained skill
  • Oozeborn now has +1 insight point
  • Sorcerer now has -1 fatigue tolerance
• Combat styles
  • Ebb and Flow: Counter Flurry no longer has an accuracy bonus, Certain Strike gives +3 accuracy instead of +4, and Punish Inattention is rank 1 instead of rank 3
• Feats
  • Greatweapon Warrior has rebalanced scaling
  • Martial Training has more clear wording
  • Sphere Focus: Thaumaturgy has been rebalanced so Countermagic is more useful
  • Twin-Weapon Fighting now has a 12th level ability and an additional fighting style
  • Whirlwind Warrior has rebalanced scaling

10.zeta - Updated feats

General changes

• All feats have been redesigned
  • Feats now scale at 1/6/12/18 instead of 1/3/9/15/21
    • This decreases the power and complexity of feats, which were overpowering archetypes as a core pillar of character design
• Poisons have been redesigned
  • Creatures now become "poisoned" without any attack against their Fortitude
  • Poisons still only have negative effects after they beat your Fortitude
• Many effects now trigger on "finishing" a rest instead of "taking" a rest to clarify timing
• Projectile weapons now have penalties "while riding a moving mount" instead of "while mounted"
  • Shortbows now reduce these penalties instead of completely removing them
• Being knocked prone while mounted now makes you fall off your mount
• The Jump skill has been reworded to make jumping mechanics more clear
• Wizards now have one lower fatigue tolerance and two fewer skill points
• Combat styles
  • Flurry of Blows: All of the multi-strike maneuvers have been redesigned to various degrees
• Mystic spheres
  • Fabrication: Forge is now a cantrip and ritual instead of a spell
  • Revelation: Find the Path is now a ritual

Rise 10.epsilon - Updated magic items

General changes

• Insight points and attunement points now scale with level
  • You gain +1 insight point at levels 4 and 7, and +1 attunement point at levels 5 and 8
  • This should make the first couple of levels less daunting for new players and less weird for spell-based attunement optimization
• Abilities that target adjacent creatures now specify that they touch creatures when appropriate
  • This makes it more clear that you can't use some touch-based abilities on incorporeal creatures
• Spells that inflict a glancing blow on a full miss now correctly show up in the book
• Spells and maneuvers that inflict conditions and deal damage have been rebalanced
  • They have a hidden +2 accuracy over non-damaging debuffs because they inflict debuffs on glancing blows, and that wasn't consistently taken into account before
  • In general, they now deal more damage than before, but are less effective at pure condition application
• Equipment
  • Weapons are now drawn and sheathed as a minor action instead of a free action
    • This wasn't possible before because it conflicted with the Offhand Strike ability
  • The Supplemental weapon tag has been removed
    • All magic weapon abilities should now only affect strikes with those weapons, so there's no benefit from having a magic boot dagger you never use
  • All magic items have been updated for Rise 10 design
• Barriers from the Telekinesis mystic sphere now block incorporeal creatures
• The Assassinate rogue ability now works with ranged strikes as long as you are adjacent to the target
• Prone creatures cannot fly or glide
• The Fabrication and Photomancy mystic spheres now have art

Rise 10 - Gamma release

Damage Scaling

Problem: Damage at high levels is too high. It's not unreasonable to see a damage value like 7d10+43 at max level, and critical hits can deal several multiples of that value. Although it's not as much of an issue when using computers, these values are simply too large to be reasonable at a pen and paper table. Damage values have to be reduced.
The cause of this issue is a bit tricky to unravel. Currently, damage is measured as a dice pool plus a flat modifier. Those two components are intended to roughly stay in sync with each other, with some characters having a larger dice pool and others having a larger flat modifier.
The problem with this approach is that both of these separate calculations must receive incremental improvements that feel noticeable to a human reading the book. You can't easily add "half a point of damage" - it reads weirdly, and doesn't feel useful. This means the incremental improvements to both systems must be fairly large even at low levels.
One way to to solve this would be to reduce the power scaling, so high level characters are not as much more powerful than low level characters. However, this goes against the power fantasy and character progression goals of Rise. High level characters should feel vastly more capable than low level characters, and if the numbers don't support that, the narrative of the universe would be dangerously flawed.
Problem: Investing in high damage dice has increasing returns. If you start from 1d8, a +1d bonus simply provides +1 total damage. However, if you start from 4d8, a +1d bonus provides +4 total damage. This means that characters are incentivized to either invest heavily in +d improvements or ignore them entirely.
For context, one of the hallmarks of a healthy system is that investing in any single attribute has linear or decreasing returns with excessive investment. This discourages excessive min-maxing and rewards building a more well-balanced character. If any aspect of the system has increasing returns, characters that invest all of their resources into that one area can become dangerously powerful, or at least dangerously one-dimensional.
Problem: High-power characters often got very little benefit from critical hits. Similarly, high-dice characters sometimes got overwhelming benefits from critical hits. This upset the intended balance between accuracy and damage, and sometimes made critical hits feel disappointing.
Problem: High-level characters have a strange power curve. Once they hit the 4d10 -> 5d10 soft cap on damage scaling, they stop doubling their damage every 6 levels. This means that 21st level high-damage characters tend to deal less damage than they should against 21st level high-survivability characters, who continue to perfectly double their hit points and damage resistance.
Solution: All damage is rolled as damage dice, with no flat modifier. The existing "+1d" system with built-in nonlinear damage scaling (4d6 +1d = 4d8) is replaced with a simpler, linear damage scaling system (4d6 +1d = 3d6+1d8). At high levels, "+1d" modifiers are rarely used, and terms like "1d6 damage per 3 power" are used instead. Damage scales much more consistently at low levels. This prevents high level damage from scaling out of control while still maintaining a consistent "double values every 6 levels" scaling.
The actual damage dealt by max-level characters is now lower than before, but still high. A reasonable damage spell from a high Willpower 21st level character would deal about 8d10 damage, or about half the damage of the old system.
Specific changes:

• Character statistics
  • "Power" has been split into "mundane power" and "magical power"
    • Mundane power is calculated as (half level) + (full Str), and magical power is (half level) + (full Wil)
  • Classes no longer provide a bonus to power
    • Instead, they provide a bonus to your level for the purpose of determining your hit points
  • Magic bonuses to power no longer exist
  • Power bonuses from class features and other sources have been significantly reduced, since power now has strong intrinsic scaling with level
  • Strength and Willpower no longer provide a semi-hidden bonus to all damage dice pools. Instead, they increase your power.
  • Hit points and damage resistance at each level have been slightly reduced
    • A 21st level character with 0 Con/Wil would now have 70 HP and 35 DR instead of 88 HP and 40 DR
• Core mechanics
  • "+1d" now increases one die in a dice pool to its next size category, rather than all dice
    • Example progression: 1d8 -> 1d10 -> 2d6 -> 1d8+1d6 -> 1d10+1d6 -> 3d6
    • Basically, "+1d" approximately is equivalent to "+1 damage", but without using flat modifiers
  • Damage dice pools no longer add power as a flat modifier. Instead, they specify a dice scaling based on your power.
    • The default level 1 scaling is "+1d per 2 power", which is used for level 1 spells and all weapon damage
    • High level spells use scaling values like "1d6 per 3 power", which avoids spending time fiddling with large +d values
    • Maneuvers either multiply weapon damage, which scales with power, or explicitly add extra damage that may scale with power
  • Glancing blows now deal half damage
  • Critical hits still make you roll twice as many damage dice, but since there is no longer any flat modifier to damage, this effectively increases critical damage
• Equipment
  • Damage resistance from medium and heavy armor has also been slightly decreased
  • The damage and healing from magic items has been rebalanced to match the character changes

Attribute Scaling

Problem: Many attributes provide their most important benefits only on even values. Since attribute values are small, no one ever bothers having a 3 or 5 in an attribute.
This quirk also prevents the system from scaling attributes with level. It's unreasonable to increase attributes by 2 at a time, since attributes have such a large effect on character statistics. However, incrementally increasing attributes by 1 at a time would encourage weird respec shenanigans at each attribute increase level to avoid ever keeping odd attributes.
Solution: Attributes are redesigned to provide smooth scaling both even and odd values. Attributes now scale with level.
This attribute scaling will make high-level characters much more numerically distinct from each other. High and low defenses will be more extreme. The maneuver and spell scaling changes will help prevent high-defense characters from becoming invincible, since all high-level characters will have high-accuracy attack options unless they try really hard to avoid that.
Specific changes:

• Attribute effects
  • Strength is now added directly to your mundane power instead of increasing dice pools at even values
  • Constitution no longer increases your damage resistance
  • Perception's accuracy bonus is calculated differently. Accuracy is now half the sum of (level + Per) instead of (half level) + (half Per).
  • Willpower is now added directly to your magical power instead of increasing dice pools at even values
  • Willpower no longer increases your fatigue tolerance. Instead, you add it to your level to determine your damage resistance.
• Attribute level scaling
  • At levels 3/9/15/21, you gain a +1 bonus to any two attributes
  • Legacy items now progress at levels 6/12/18 instead of 3/9/15/21 to make room for attribute scaling
• Equipment
  • Magic items that grant attribute bonuses are now rank 6 instead of rank 7

Attunement points

Problem: Since attributes now scale with level, there is no more room to scale attunement points with level. Also, since magic bonuses to power no longer exist, characters haver slightly fewer "mandatory" attunements.
Solution: Attunement points no longer scale with level.
Specific changes:

• Attunement points no longer scale with level
• The number of base attunement points provided by each class has been increased by 1

Maneuvers and weapon damage

Problem: Maneuvers are kind of boring. Because weapon damage has very strong intrinsic scaling with level, maneuvers can only marginally improve the power of a strike. This makes it hard to clearly differentiate maneuvers from each other in interesting ways.
Problem: If maneuvers are primarily responsible for scaling strike damage into high levels, maneuvers become mandatory even for people who don't care about the flexibility and creativity that maneuvers are designed for. Also, if maneuvers are only critical at high levels to solve scaling issues, it would be easy for new players to build a character without any maneuvers. They wouldn't notice any problem at low levels, but would eventually become underpowered in ways that would be hard to fix.
Solution: As a result of the broad damage changes described above, weapon damage now has much worse scaling with level. Maneuvers can be made much interesting and varied to help fill in that power gap. In addition, almost all martial archetypes now grant a unique maneuver-like special attack. This ensures that players who don't like maneuvers can still have one or two "default attack" options at high levels that have appropriate power scaling. In addition, the design of these unique maneuvers helps make each martial archetype feel more distinct.
The changes to +1d scaling also mean that weapons need to have their scaling redesigned. Heavy weapons need more explicit scaling with level to stay ahead of low-damage weapons. Dual-wielding needs to be redesigned, since the "offhand strike" ability would have extremely poor level scaling in a system that uses special standard actions for most of its level scaling.
Specific changes:

• Core mechanics
  • Weapon damage now has much worse automatic scaling with level as a result of the damage changes above
  • Dual-wielding has been redesigned
    ...