10.eta - Updated optional rules

General changes

• Size-based Stealth modifiers now have the correct sign
• Undead are now vulnerable to attacks that would heal them, and critical hits double the damage they take
  • This makes touch-based healing effects like lay on hands better in some situations than healing effects which do not require an attack roll, since they can get critical hits
• Classes
  • Cleric
    • Miracle now requires 3 fatigue
    • Miracle+ removes the fatigue cost, but only grants two miracles per week instead of one miracle per day
  • Paladin
    • Chaos and Law auras have been rebalanced so Chaos is slightly stronger and Law is slightly weaker
• Combat styles
  • Mobile Assault: Spring Attack and Retreating Strike have lower accuracy penalties
  • Penetrating Precision: Arrowguide now uses modern wording
• Mystic Spheres
  • 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
  • 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
• Magic items
  • Apparel
    • Indomitable rings now provide a lower bonus to vital rolls
    • Lifekeeping belts are now 2 ranks lower
  • Implements
    • Reaching, Distant, Widening, and Splitting staffs now have a one-round cooldown before they can be activated again
      • Greater versions of those staffs are now 4 ranks higher than the base version, rather than 3 ranks higher
    • Distant staff is now rank 2 instead of rank 3 and only costs 1 fatigue, but has a maximum of 180 foot range
    • Widening staff is now rank 3 instead of rank 4 and only costs 1 fatigue
    • Splitting staff is now rank 3 instead of rank 2
  • Weapons
    • Arcing is now rank 3 instead of rank 2
    • Frigid+ and Frigid++ now deal more damage
    • Unbalanced is now now rank 2 instead of rank 3
    • Vorpal now makes critical hits deal 3x damage instead of 4x damage, which is more in line with its Rise 9 power level
• Feats
  • Mystic Archer has been slightly redesigned
  • Regenerator now gives a +3 bonus to vital rolls instead of +4
• Epic fates
  • 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
• Optional species
  • Drakkenfel has been removed, since that was just an awkward hack before Dragon was a balanced species
  • All other optional species have been updated to match the new design philosophy

Rise 10.delta - Updated mystic spheres

General changes

• The Roll20 character sheet can now record Rise10 characters
  • It's slightly less magic for damage values than the Rise9 sheet, but that's not necessarily bad
• The Endurance skill no longer has an automatic ability to ignore vital wounds
  • It made vital wounds too non-threatening at high levels for little investment
• All mystic spheres are now up to date with the Rise 10 damage scaling
• Feats, non-tool magic items, and optional rules are still not consistently updated, so use caution

9.0.4: Now with more ✨sparkles✨

General changes

• Magical abilities are now identified with a ✨ emoji
• A new Common Magical Effects section contains more standardized and explicit rules for resurrection, shapeshifting, and teleportation
• Destroyed objects can now be repaired using the Craft skill, but it's expensive
• Potions are now defined as alchemical, so they explicitly work for Alchemist wizards
• A variety of typos have been fixed
• Classes
  • Paladin: Lay on Hands+ now heals HP in addition to removing a condition or vital wound, and Zealous Fixation is now simpler
• Feats
  • Knowledge Specialization no longer incorrectly grants a bonus to Armor defense at 21st level
  • Social Insight Specialization's Read Emotions ability can only attack the same target once between short rests
• Mystic spheres
  • The standard target limit for various rituals is now 6 people
  • Aeromancy: Airborne Leap (redesigned), Airborne Leaper (removed), Gentle Descent (now a ritual), Overland Flight (new ritual), Dust in the Eyes (new)
  • Aquamancy: Purify Water (now a ritual), Slippery Escape (removed), Aquatic Freedom (redesigned as a cantrip), Swimmers (new ritual), Rainstorm (now a ritual)
  • Astromancy: Astral Ease (new cantrip), Mass Phasestep (removed), Plane Shift (now only Medium size), Astral Projection (now only Medium size), Homeward Shift (shorter ritual time), Overland Teleportation (redesigned), Forge Astral Beacon (new), Guided Teleportation (new), Intraplanar Teleportation (new), Twinned Portals (longer range but no range scaling)
  • Channel Divinity: Divine Radiance (now attuneable), Consecrated Ground (buffed, previously Consecration), Divine Transit (redesigned), Commune (lower rank), Efficient Commune (new)
  • Chronomancy: Accelerated Reading (slower scaling, now minor action to sustain), Rewind (new cantrip)
    • New rituals: Ripen, Stasis Chamber, Overland Haste, Reverse Breakage/Destruction/Death
  • Enchantment: Mind Blank (new), Selfstrike (they have to use a strong strike)
  • Polymorph: Disintegrate (better against objects), Lungs (redesigned from Air Breathing), Gills (redesigned)
  • Verdamancy: Lifeweb Transit (redesigned)
  • Vivimancy: Corpse Communion (new ritual), Greater Resurrection (renamed from Complete Resurrection), True Resurrection (removed), Soul Bind (requires a more expensive gem)

9.0.3: More pictures!

General changes

• Many more pictures!
  • Introduction: Four new scattered pictures
  • The Universe: Replaced planes picture
  • Characters: Replaced halfling picture
  • Mystic spheres: Aeromancy, aquamancy, astromancy, channel divinity, chronomancy, cryomancy, electromancy, and enchantment
  • Equipment: armor special materials
  • Optional rules: oozeborn and tiefling
  • The pictures are now more compressed, which significantly reduced the size of the PDF
• Rules for sundering objects are now simpler
• Rules for determining attributes are now located next to rules for how attributes work
• Two new optional play styles: Easy Magic Item Reforging and Longer Rests
• The Boomerang magic weapon has been redesigned to be more useful to dedicated thrown weapon users
• Some defense bonuses from class archetypes were increased at high levels
  • Barbarian: Animal Instincts+ is now +4 instead of +3
  • Fighter: Mental Discipline+ is now +4 instead of +3
  • Ranger: Steadfast Warden+ is now +4 instead of +3
• Mystic spheres
  • Polymorph: Mystic Lock has been slightly redesigned as Meld Shut
  • Telekinesis: Force Lock has been added
  • Umbramancy: Shadowstrike no longer incorrectly has the Attune (deep) tag

9.0.2: Speed tweaks, more shapeshifting, and revised epic fates

General changes

• Rules for complete shapeshifting have been revised, and are now used by more player abilities
• The Sprint universal ability now only affects land speed
  • Swim Specialization has been updated so Swimming Blitz still works
• Creatures with at least four legs now automatically gain a +10 foot land speed bonus
  • This makes comparative monster move speeds more realistic without requiring a large number of one-off speed modifiers
  • This means that shapechanging into a quadrupedal form now explicitly increases land speed
  • Multi-legged creatures are less likely to have free hands or long-range attacks, so this makes kiting slightly less viable in general
• All fly speeds automatically grant a glide speed above their height limit
  • Most fly speeds already provided this benefit, so this saves text and increases consistency
  • This means that ordinary birds can more plausibly have a "height limit" to their fly speed without requiring repetitive custom text
    • Narratively, they can use updrafts to exceed their natural height limit, which is kind of true
• Rules for using multiple movement modes in the same phase have been added
• Fine and Tiny creatures are now slightly faster, which reduces the number of creatures who have speeds measured in 5' increments
• Several abilities now provide max-level scaling that increases their power instead of their damage dice
  • This helps avoid excessively large dice pools, especially for characters with high Strength or Willpower
  • Feats: Medicine Specialization, Regenerator
  • Classes: Cleric (Divine Aid), Paladin (Lay on Hands), Warlock (Abyssal Rebuke)
• All epic fates have been redesigned
  • Three new epic fates have been added: Ascendant, Mutant, and Paradox
• Magic items
  • Bracers of Armor are now better at low levels and worse at high levels
  • Ricocheting weapons are stronger, but higher rank
  • New items: Amulet of Mighty Stealth, Jaunting weapons
• Mystic Spheres
  • Aeromancy: A new Mistform spell has been added
  • Cryomancy: Skate now increases your speed on icy terrain
  • Polymorph: Baleful Polymorph is now a shapechange effect, and three new rituals have been added: Mountform, Snakeform, and Ravenform
  • Pyromancy: Soul of the Phoenix now also restores HP and conditions

9.0.1: Various small balance tweaks

General changes

• You can gain skill points or insight points by penalizing your attributes even if it does not reduce your total below 0
  • This should help address awkward point buy edge cases where people are only able to spend points on attributes they don't care about
• Classes
  • Maneuver-based archetypes now also scale their rank 3 maneuvers when they reach rank 4, and the power bonus from Powerful Maneuver has different scaling
• Combat styles
  • Challenging Strike and Covering Strike have flipped their mechanics
  • Unbreakable Defense: Steadfast Strike has been buffed
• Mystic spheres
  • Astromancy: Intense Hostile Translocation has been replaced with Efficient Hostile Translocation, and Overland Teleportation is now a 1-hour ritual
  • Chronomancy: Minor Acceleration has been replaced with Greater Haste
  • Fabrication: Blade Barrier is now larger, and Blade Perimeter is lower rank
  • Polymorph: Efficient Regeneration has been added, and the Fortify rituals are stronger and have simpler scaling
  • Prayer: The Blessing of Fortification rituals are stronger and have simpler scaling
  • Pyromancy: Wall of Fire is now larger
  • Thaumaturgy: Distant Magic Missile is lower rank, Mighty Magic Missile now deals more damage, and Wall of Magic Impedance is now higher rank but larger
  • Verdamancy: Wall of Thorns is now larger
  • Vivimancy: Wall of Death is now larger
• Mundane equipment
  • The various weapons that are unable to have magic weapon properties now share a "Supplemental" weapon tag to make that behavior more obvious
  • Standard shields are now slightly more effective when used as weapons
  • Tower shields are now exotic armor weapons
  • Shield spikes now provide +1 accuracy instead of +1d damage
  • Claw sheathes now exist again, allowing magic weapon properties to be applied to handed natural weapons
  • Diamondsteel weapons now provide +2/+4 accuracy with crits instead of +1/+2
• Magic items
  • The various item tables now display upgrades at their correct rank, instead of next to the base item
  • Greater Boots of Freedom now work differently to avoid ambiguity
  • Shield of Bashing now grants a standard action attack rather than a weapon-specific power bonus
  • Armor of Fortification has a simpler and weaker upgrade
  • Stonebody Armor now grants a magic bonus to Armor defense instead of high bonuses to HP and DR
  • Lithe Armor has been nerfed and no longer has an upgrade
  • Agile Burst Armor and Shield of Medusa have been redesigned
  • New item: Defender's Shield, which grants a magic bonus to Armor defense
• Feats
  • Spellwarped now requires 2 Willpower instead of 3
  • Telepath now requires that Intelligence and Willpower sum to 3 instead of specifically requiring 1 Int and 2 Wil
  • Leadership: the Bolster ability is now Swift and functions during the current round
  • Martial Training: the Equipment Training ability now allows choosing +1 accuracy as a bonus, and grants three upgrades instead of two at level 21
  • Regenerator: the Diehard ability now grants a +4 bonus at 15th level instead of +3
  • Two-Weapon Fighting: you are now considered dual-wielding if you wield two shields, and the AD bonus from Deflecting Offhand does not stack with using shields
• Uncommon Species
  • Oozeborn now have -10 foot speed in their blob form, but have no speed penalty during Mold Body
  • Oozeborn can now absorb objects equal to their size with Ingest Object, rather than always absorbing Medium objects
  • The rank 7 Oozeborn upgrade now also grants a double slam attack, and converts slam attacks to light weapons

9.0: Hybrid initiative

Problem: The fully simultaneous initiative system is unintuitive for new players. It requires fairly frequent backtracking, or forcing players to make decisions while ignoring important information that they technically shouldn't have access to. As one common example, if three party members attack the same monster, the third party member is forced to roll their attack against the same monster even if they already know the monster is dead based on seeing the first two rolls. Their actions are guaranteed to be irrelevant, but since they don't know that in-character, they are forced to waste their action instead of changing targets.
Problem: The system also makes coordinating party actions surprisingly complicated. If you want to wait to attack until after your ally has knocked an enemy prone or dazed them, you have to delay until after all monster actions are resolved, which can dramatically change the battle landscape. This also frequently leads to backtracking, where you roll your attack during the action phase and then realize that you should have delayed to sync up with your party member. Delaying to sync up with party members also creates many opportunities for feel-bad moments, such as if enemies resolve a debuff on you during their action.
Problem: The system also makes coordination actions with yourself surprisingly complicated. You can't just draw a weapon and attack with it, even though drawing a weapon is a free action and attacking is a standard action. All of your own actions resolve simultaneously with each other, and you can't do simple logical sequences on your turn - since you don't actually have a turn at all.
Solution: Actions in the action phase are now sequential within your allied group. Each party member takes their turn before the next party members starts their turn. When you start your turn, you know the results of your ally's actions, and enemies have any relevant defense debuffs applied, so can change your action accordingly. However, actions are simultaneous with enemy groups. Your actions still cannot interrupt or alter your enemy's actions, which allows each group to resolve their actions individually. This preserves the speed and efficiency of the simultaneous action system while making it more intuitive and simplifying party interactions.

Specific changes

• Actions resolve sequentially within allied groups and simultaneously with enemies, as described above
• The delayed action phase no longer exists, since it is no longer necessary for party coordination
• Move actions are now just called "movements"
  • This allows a simpler "during your next action" wording for delayed effects that unambiguously refers to the action phase
• In the rare case that damage and healing are simultaneous, damage now explicitly resolves before healing
  • This means the unintuitive "healing shield" effect to offset incoming damage now explicitly no longer works
• The timing of negative hit points and vital wounds has been altered to make more sense in this system
• Sustained abilities now end at the start of your action during the action phase unless you sustain them
• Many abilities that could be used "at the start of each phase" can now be used "as a free action", since the distinction is now much less significant
• Many personal-only abilities that had the Swift tag no longer have that tag simply because they no longer need it if actions resolve sequentially
• Free actions can now be used once per round instead of once per phase
• Abilities that remove conditions no longer have text preventing them from removing a condition you gained during the current round
• Classes
  • Sorcerer: Rolling a 10 on Wildspell+ has been tweaked since the delayed action phase no longer exists
  • Wizard: Intricate Spell has been redesigned since the delayed action phase no longer exists
• Equipment
  • Staff of Focus has been removed

Problem: In a partially simultaneous system, you should be able to fully resolve your actions without your enemy making any relevant decisions. This means that triggered effects can't allow any decision-making.
Solution: Add "reactive attacks" and "reactive checks", which can't be modified by the user in any way. For example, you can't use Desperate Exertion on a reactive attack. All triggered attacks are now reactive attacks. All abilities which allowed reactive decision-making have been redesigned to be static.

Specific changes

• Many triggered attacks and some triggered checks are now reactive
• Equipment:
  • Ring of Blessed Protection has been redesigned
• Feats
  • Deception Specialization: Deceive Magic has been replaced with Deceive Reality
  • Entropist: Entropic Defense is now a static failure chance instead of a fatigue-spending reactive ability

Problem: Although movement increasing effects were nerfed in previous patches, movement decreasing effects were left unchanged. In particular, the slow debuff is extremely powerful when used for kiting, but underwhelming when used in a normal combat.
Solution: The slowed and immobilized debuffs now grant larger defensive penalties, and are more difficult to inflict. Some other effects that decrease movement speed have been nerfed to varying degrees.

Specific changes

• "slowed" now grants a -2 penalty to Armor and Reflex defenses
  • It is now considered a "tier 2" debuff, like stunned or goaded
• "immobilized" now grants a -4 penalty to Armor and Reflex defenses
  • It is now considered a "tier 3.5" debuff, halfway between blinded and paralyzed
• Classes
  • Fighter
    • Threatening Influence now says "half speed" instead of "difficult terrain", which makes more sense with abilities that ignore difficult terrain
    • Threatening Influence no longer affects enemies that can move through your space freely
    • Threatening Influence scales to a Medium radius rather than one-third speed
    • Hold the Line has weaker scaling
  • Ranger: Wolfpack has been redesigned
  • Rogue: Stutterstep Staccato is now single-target
• Equipment
  • Nets now have range limits of 5/15 instead of 15/30
  • Giant wasp poison no longer dazes, and immobilizes instead of stuns
    • This also affects the hybrid bee uncommon species
  • Tanglefoot bags are now higher rank
  • Staff of Hindrance has been merged with its greater version

Problem: Although movement increasing effects were nerfed in previous patches, some extremely long-range abilities were not nerfed. This made them even more devastating given the generally lower movement speed of mid to high level characters.
Solution: Bows now have lower range limits. Range scaling for long-range abilities is weaker.

Specific changes

• "Long" range is now 90 feet instead of 120 feet, "Distant" range is now 120 feet instead of 180 feet, and "Extreme" range is now 180 feet instead of 240 feet
• Classes
  • Cleric: Air domain mastery grants a 60 foot height limit instead of 120 foot
  • Ranger: Quarry now works at Extreme range instead of Distant range
  • Wizard: Conjuration school specialization has weaker rank 7 range scaling
• Equipment
  • Longbows and flatbows now have range limits of 90/270
  • Shortbows now have range limits of 60/180
  • Greater Throwing Gloves now also improve the range limits of regular thrown weapons

Problem: Since synchronizing actions with allies is much easier, knocking enemies prone is now much stronger. Allies will much more reliably be able to take advantage of the significant defense penalties from attacking prone enemies.
Solution: Nerf abilities that knock enemies prone. Also, Garguantuan and Colossal enemies are now intrinsically immune to being prone. They're too big to fall.

Specific changes

• Standing up from prone now costs half your movement instead of your entire movement
• Garguantuan and Colossal enemies are now immune to being prone
• The Trip universal ability now requires beating both Fortitude and Reflex defense
• Knocking an enemy prone is now considered a "tier 1.5" debuff, like frightened
  • For specific spell and maneuver changes, see the long lists below as part of the broader redesigns

Problem: Universal abilities generally have a little too much text.
Problem: The Disarm universal ability is very powerful in very specific situations, but generally useless. That's a weird position for a universal ability to be in, and it creates a memory issue / trap where people think it will be more useful or common than it is. Also, it will always feel bad to get disarmed as a melee martial, and that is an archetype that generally has greater difficulty already.
Solution: Remove the Disarm universal ability. Change some abilities that referenced it, but mostly just remove them. Simplify some other universal abilities.

Specific changes

• Combat rules
  • The Disarm universal ability no longer exists
  • Overrun no longer knocks creatures prone on a critical hit
  • Shove no longer moves at full speed on a critical hit.
• Equipment
  • The Disarming tag has been removed
  • Jitte is now Parrying
  • Nunchaku now has +2 accuracy instead of +1
  • Ranseur now has +1 accuracy instead of +0
  • Rapier is now Keen
  • Sai is now Grappling
  • Three-section staff is now Parrying
  • Two-section staff is now Long
  • Locked gauntlets no longer exist
  • Thieving weapons have been replaced with Thieving gauntlets, which have no disarm mechanic

Problem: Sonic damage is basically never used. It's not clearly narratively different from bludgeoning damage, since the...

8.9.2: Simplified feat scaling

Problem: Feats are too complicated. A single feat has more individual abilities than an entire class archetype, but the power level of feats is intended to be lower than class archetypes. This means that feats often have irrelevant abilities, overly complicated scaling, and overall simply have too much text.
Solution: Feats now scale more slowly. Instead of granting new abilities every 3 levels after level 3, feats now grant abilities every 6 levels after level 3. This means that a typical feat has 5 abilities instead of 8, which is more manageable. The power level of lower level feat abilities has generally been increased to keep the overall power of feats the same.
Specific changes:

• All feats now have the scaling described above
  • Some active abilities from feats still have specific "every 3 levels" scaling
  • Since this caused significant changes to every feat, it's not useful to list every change
• Specific feats with unusually signicant changes:
  • Chameleon: the benefits from Martial and Primal specialties have been changed
  • Creature Handling Specialization: Battleforged Training has been redesigned
  • Juggernaut: Redesigned to be more focused on movement and specifically Overrun
  • Metacaster: Redesigned to be more focused on the metamagic class ability
  • Precognition: Combat Prediction no longer requires an attack and gives you more information about the target's actions, but grants lower numeric bonuses
  • Twinhand Spellcaster: Double Spell is now Twinspell, and costs fatigue instead of limiting your actions during the next round
  • Two-Weapon Fighting: Redesigned to grant stances that change how you use your offhand weapon

Problem: Feat attribute requirements are slightly too low. Those requirements were originally designed around a 10-point attribute system, rather than a 15-point attribute system, so getting a 1 in an attribute is no longer a meaningful cost.
Solution: Increase the attribute requirements for some feats. In general, feats that are more complicated or otherwise drastically change a character's capabilities have higher attribute requirements than simpler feats.
Specific changes:

• General feats:
  • Chameleon: Int 2 instead of Int 1
  • Entropist: Wil 2 instead of Wil 1
  • Iron Will: Wil 2 instead of Wil 1
  • Precognition: Int 3 instead of Int 2
  • Regenerator: Con 3 instead of Con 2
  • Rapid Reaction: Dex 2 instead of Con 1
  • Spellwarped: Wil 3 instead of Wil 1
  • Swiftrunner: Dex 3 instead of Dex 1
  • Telepath: Int 1, Wil 2 instead of Int 1, Wil 1
  • Toughness: Con 2 instead of Con 1
• Casting feats:
  • Mental Magic: Wil 2 instead of Wil 1
  • Metacaster: Int 2 instead of Int 1
  • Prepared Spellcasting: Int 3 instead of Int 2
  • Twinhand Spellcaster: Dex 2 instead of Dex 1
• Combat feats:
  • Battle Armory: Str 1, Dex 2 instead of Str 1, Dex 1
  • Duelist: Dex 2, Int 1 instead of Dex 1, Int 1
  • Executioner: Per 2 instead of Per 1
  • Greatweapon Warrior: Str 3 instead of Str 2
  • Ghostblade: Dex 1, Wil 2 instead of Dex 1, Wil 1
  • Juggernaut: Str 2, Con 1 instead of Str 2
  • Maneuverist: Int 2 instead of Int 1
  • Whirlwind Warrior: Dex 2 instead of Dex 1

General changes

• Concealment now provides a 20% miss chance instead of a 25% miss chance
• Using Projectile weapons while mounted is now more difficult
• The rogue and warlock images have been edited to be a little less ugly
• Ring of Mastery is now stronger, but rank 3 instead of rank 2
  • This should make it compete less directly with the standard rank 2 magic items, and only become relevant when characters become more limited on attunement points at higher levels
• Mystic spheres:
  • Aquamancy: A new Waterward spell has been added
  • Photomancy: Blur and Mirror Image now provide a 20% miss chance, but Blur applies against all targeted attacks. A new Enduring Invisibility spell has been added.
  • Polymorph: A new Alter Self spell has been added
  • Telekinesis: Distant Hand has slightly stronger scaling

8.9.1: Now a picture book

General changes

• Added many images generated with Dall-E to make the book more fun to read
  • Each class and species now has an associated image, and there are various other images scattered around - mostly in the early chapters
• Rename "mystic insight" to "metamagic" to avoid confusion with insight points
• Simplified some wording about how attacks work
• Rules for breaking objects are now in the Tome of Guidance to make gameplay smoother
• Magic items
  • Implements: Staff of Transit (removed), Distant Staff (new), Widening Staff (nerfed)

8.9.0: Rebalanced movement, range, and ability scaling

Problem: Backing away from enemies while using long-ranged attacks was a reliable and powerful strategy in many situations. It reduces any open area combat to a series of awkwardly precise distance calculations between each enemy and each party member. Even when monsters are faster than a party, it would still take them many rounds to catch up to a retreating party.
Solution: Increase distance covered during a full-round movement, and reduce the maximum range of long-range abilities.
Specific changes:

• The Sprint ability now only increases fatigue when used during the movement phase. Sprinting during the action phase does not increase fatigue.
  • Monsters can now sprint during the action phase, since that does not increase their fatigue
• Distant range has been reduced to 180 feet instead of 240 feet, and Extreme range has been reduced to 240 feet instead of 480 feet
• Huge areas have been reduced to 90 feet instead of 120 feet, and Gargantuan areas have been reduced to 120 feet instead of 240 feet
• Projectile weapons now have a long range limit of triple their short range limit, rather than quadruple their short range limit
  • For example, longbows now have range limits of 120/360 instead of 120/480
• Classes
  • Wizard: Conjuration school specialization now grants a flat range modifier instead of multiplying spell range
• Feats
  • Sphere Focus: Astromancy now grants a flat range modifier instead of multiplying spell range
• Mystic spheres
  • Aeromancy: Propulsion has reduced scaling
  • Astromancy: Dimension Door has reduced scaling
  • Chronomancy: Expeditious Retreat now grants a temporary speed bonus instead of allowing sprinting without spending fatigue

Problem: Even once long distance gaps have been covered, superior speed makes close quarters combat surprisingly difficult. If a ranged character backs away during the movement phase, even a 5-foot speed differential can prevent melee attackers from using maneuvers that require using a standard action. The melee attacker would be forced to charge or sprint to avoid being stranded, and both options are punishing. This is especially ripe for abuse for creatures with a large natural reach. In theory, the optimal strategy for many large boss monsters would involve "kiting" melee characters to take advantage of their superior reach, which is narratively inappropriate and difficult to counter.
Solution: Remove all 5-foot speed modifiers. Speed bonuses are generally more rare, and are always granted in 10-foot increments. The whole concept of "reach" as a character statistic has been removed, and most abilities now simply refer to adjacent targets.
Specific changes:

• All abilities that said "within your reach" or "within your reach with your weapon" now simply say "adjacent to you"
  • This is a small nerf to Long weapons
• All abilities which granted a magic bonus to reach now grant the Long weapon tag with melee strikes
• Species
  • Dwarves now have a -10 foot natural speed penalty instead of -5, but gain +1 fatigue tolerance, reduce knockback and push effects by 20 feet, and cannot have their speed reduced below 10 feet
  • Gnomes and halflings no longer have a -5 foot speed penalty
  • Dryaidi no longer have an innate -5 foot speed penalty and a +5 foot speed bonus while in sunlight
• Classes
  • Barbarian: Outland Savage and Totemist have different scaling, and no longer grant a speed bonus
  • Cleric: Travel domain now ignores difficult terrain instead of granting a speed bonus
  • Druid: Elementalist grants slower climb, glide, fly, and swim speeds. Shifter has different scaling for the forms of the bull, fish, hound, monkey, and viper, as well as for photosynthesis, to reduce or replace speed bonuses.
  • Fighter: Armor Expertise does not reduce speed penalties until Armor Expertise+
  • Ranger: Boundary Warden has different scaling, and no longer grants a speed bonus. Scout has different scaling, with a lower cap on speed granted.
• Equipment
  • The Long weapon tag has been simplified so "short hafting" and "long hafting" is no longer required
  • The encumbrance from light body armor has been reduced by 1
  • Medium body armor no longer imposes a -5 foot speed penalty, and breastplate now provides 6 DR instead of 5 DR
  • All heavy body armor now grants +2 more DR
• Feats
  • Climb Specialization grants a slower climb speed, but allows climbing one-handed
  • Sphere Focus: Aquamancy now grants a magic bonus to swim speed instead of an untyped bonus
  • Sphere Focus: Chronomancy has different scaling, with a lower cap on speed granted
  • Sphere Focus: Electromancy has different scaling, and no longer grants a speed bonus
  • Swiftrunner has different scaling, with a lower cap on its sprint speed multiplier
  • Swim Specialization grants a slower swim speed
  • Whirlwind Warrior has different scaling, and no longer grants a speed bonus
• Magic items
  • Boots of Speed no longer come in Lesser or Greater versions
  • Boots of the Fearful and Onslaught items now only have two scaling levels, rather than three
  • Greater Enlarging Belt has been removed
  • Stonebody Armor now grants larger bonuses, but a -10 foot speed penalty instead of -5
  • Swiftstep no longer has a Greater version
• Mystic spheres
  • Aquamancy: Aquatic Freedom and Aqueous Form grant slower swim speeds
  • Chronomancy: Haste is higher rank and no longer scales
  • Electromancy: Energize is higher rank and no longer scales
  • Polymorph: Climber and Swimmer grant slower speeds. Runner is higher rank and no longer scales.
  • Umbramancy: Shadowform grants a slower climb speed

Problem: Maneuver scaling with higher ranks is conceptually simple, but requires a large volume of repetitive text. Many different maneuvers replicate the basic format of "+1 accuracy per 2 ranks", and exceptions to that rule have to be memorized. This takes up a lot of unnecessary space in the book and makes maneuvers more complicated than they should be.
Problem: There really aren't enough maneuvers to fill a full 1-7 rank system. Since maneuvers scale more strongly with rank than spells, they don't have repetitive "deal more damage" maneuvers to fill up space. In addition, the narrative space claimed by maneuvers is smaller than spells, so they can't have as many creative utility maneuvers. This makes each individual maneuver rank feel awkwardly small.
Problem: Non-damaging maneuvers are intentionally behind the power of spells. This is necessary from a power level perspective, since maneuvers do not require verbal or somatic components and gain the benefit of weapon accuracy and damage modifiers. However, it also leaves little room for maneuvers to feel interesting and distinct from each other.
Solution: Maneuvers now are now defined as being rank 1, 3, 5, or 7. They generally do not have any internal scaling, with the exception of flat damage bonuses, which still scale to keep pace with overall HP scaling.
At ranks 4 and 6, maneuver-granting archetypes provide universal scaling benefits that increase the power of all of that character's maneuvers in customizable ways. This allows maneuvers to scale in power at high levels without requiring repetitive text for each maneuver. Each class has unique customization options. This replaces the unique minor statistical benefits that the maneuver archetypes previously granted.
As part of this change, hybrid damage + debuff maneuvers that add full or half power have been rebalanced to be at a lower rank. Non-power maneuvers are still weaker than spells. This keeps martial characters more focused on dealing damage, while preserving casters as the most premier way to inflict devastating debuffs (among many other differences, like giving casters larger AOE effects).
Specific changes:

• All martial archetypes now follow the following pattern:
  • Rank 1: Rank 1 maneuver access
  • Rank 2: +1d damage
  • Rank 3: Rank 3 maneuver access, +1 maneuver known
  • Rank 4: Custom maneuver scaling (up to rank 1)
  • Rank 5: +1d damage, rank 5 maneuver access
  • Rank 6: Custom maneuver scaling (up to rank 5)
  • Rank 7: Rank 7 maneuver access, +1 maneuver known
• All classes have access to generic +accuracy and +power maneuver customization options. In addition, each class has unique customization options:
  • Barbarian: +2 accuracy vs below max HP, +2 accuracy and -2 defenses, double area
  • Fighter: +2 accuracy vs attackers, +2 accuracy but no power, +1 Armor defense
  • Monk: +2 accuracy but no power, +1 Armor defense, move up to 5 feet
  • Ranger: Double range, move up to 5 feet, double area
  • Rogue: +2 accuracy but no power, +2 accuracy vs below max HP, move up to 5 feet
• Almost every maneuver had its rank, scaling, or effect changed, so it's not meaningful to list all of the changes here

Problem: Spells have historically have a hard requirement that they must have some form of listed scaling with rank. However, not every spell has a well-defined or obvious path for scaling. This forced some spells to have convoluted and unguessable scaling. Other spells were unnecessarily weakened on their base effect simply so they would have opportunities for scaling.
Solution: Spells are not required to have specific scaling effects. As a result, many spells no longer scale, and the base power of some spells was raised. Some Greater versions of spells were added where complex scaling was appropriate.
Specific changes:

• Mystic spheres
  • Aeromancy: Wind Screen, Gentle Descent, Windblade, Control Weather, and Misty Step no longer scale
  • Aquamancy: Aquatic Freedom, Rainstorm, Octopus Tentacles, Aqueous Tentacle, Aqueous Form, and Fluid Motion no longer scale
  • Astromancy: Dimensional Jitter, Dimension Walk, Astral Instability, and Phasestep no longer scale. Greater Phasestep has been added.
  • Bless: Blessing of Freedom, ...