8.3.1: Vital roll redesign

Problem: Low level characters are way too durable. A level 1 wizard with no Constitution or armor has 10 HP and 1 DR, but can reliably survive taking 30 damage in a single phase. This makes it hard for characters to feel seriously threatened by combat.
Problem: When even low level characters can plausibly survive gaining a very large number of vital wounds, they can be stuck recuperating for days before fighting at full strength. Vital wounds are intended to be harder to remove than fatigue points, but requiring a large number of sequential long rests can be narratively challenging. If characters are unable to rest, a wounded character can be crippled in combat for multiple real-life game sessions, which is a frustrating experience.
Problem: Specific vital rolls can drastically increase the odds of death. Halving maximum hit points from a vital wound makes future excess damage almost instantly lethal in a way that is not necessarily obvious. Rolling a 5 for a vital roll can make even small vital wound counts quickly lethal, but with very low probability.
Problem: Martial characters are not significantly more durable than narratively squishy spellcasters.
Problem: Martial characters were affected more by the removal of minor rank 0 abilities, since spellcasters typically had highly important rank 0 abilities that can't simply be removed. This means the rank 1 abilities of spellcasters are now generally more impactful than the rank 1 abilities of non-spellcasters. This can't easily be solved by increasing the number of martial rank 1 abilities, because then we'd be back where we started with characters being overloaded on abilities at low levels.
Solution: Vital wounds should be more immediately and consistently dangerous. This will reduce the number of vital wounds that characters can plausibly acquire without dying, which makes it less likely that characters will be stuck spending days recovering from their wounds. Martial characters should gain a small vital roll bonus to compensate for the increased intrinsic lethality of vital wounds. That will help make them feel noticeably more durable than non-martial characters, even at low levels. As part of the vital roll change, the basic class features of multiple classes will be slightly rebalanced based on a more nuanced understanding of their relative power level.
Specific changes:

• Vital rolls now take a penalty equal to twice the number of vital wounds you already have
• Vital wounds now have a new chart for their effects
  • The most crippling vital wound effects have been nerfed
  • No vital wound effect immediately increases the lethality of future vital wounds
• Basic class abilities have been rebalanced, and can now include vital roll bonuses
  • Barbarian: +1 vital rolls
  • Dragon: -1 attunement, -1 trained skill, +1 insight point, +1 vital rolls
  • Druid: +1 insight point,
  • Fighter: -1 trained skill, +1 vital rolls
  • Monk: +1 fatigue tolerance, +1 insight point
  • Oozeborn: -1 attunement, -1 trained skill, +2 vital rolls
  • Paladin: +1 vital rolls
  • Ranger: +1 insight point, -1 trained skill, +1 vital rolls
  • Rogue: +1 attunement, -1 trained skill
  • Sorcerer: +1 insight point, -1 trained skill
  • Warlock: +1 trained skill
  • Wizard: +1 trained skill
• Multiclass characters must now keep at least one archetype from their base class
  • Since base class abilities now have more variance, this is necessary to discourage dipping classes just for their superior base class statistics

General changes

• The rogue Skill Exemplar ability now also reduces the fatigue cost of using desperate exertion to affect skill checks
• The Flourishing Vines spell has been renamed to Flourishing Grass to make its narrative make more sense

8.3.0: Healing redesign and rank 0 replacement

Problem: Healing abilities are kind of boring and repetitive. There is no meaningful differentiation between different healing abilities, even when the healing abilities are a major class feature, such as Lay on Hands.
Problem: Healing abilities are a fundamentally dangerous mechanic. A party with extensive healing capabilities can dramatically prolong fights, which can negatively affect the pacing of a session. If the party can outheal incoming damage without dealing significant damage themselves, the drama is removed from the fight long before the fight is over, making it frustrating and pointless.
Problem: There is a massive difference between a party with any healing ability and a party without any healing ability. As long as the party has at least one character who can heal HP, the whole party can reach max HP fairly quickly before completing a short rest. If they are willing to continue without damage resistance, this allows them to keep fighting without ever resting, which can cause some narrative problems.
Solution: Healing abilities have been buffed and generally made more unique. Some abilities can now heal damage resistance during a fight, which was previously nearly impossible. However, all healing effects now either expend fatigue or are capped at half max HP. This prevents a party from reaching a safe state in a fight through healing effects. In a long fight, a party will either run out of fatigue to spend on healing, or suffer vital wounds from lucky attacks since their maximum healable HP is so low.
Specific changes:

• All classes now provide two additional points of fatigue tolerance to sustain spending more fatigue on healing effects
  • This also makes the fatigue contribution from Constitution less critical
  • It's very unclear that this is the optimal fatigue level, so playtesting will have to show whether this is too high/low
• Healing abilities no longer have cooldowns
  • Potions of healing, now have a potion-specific cooldown to minimize the power of using a large number of low-level healing potions out of combat
• The Healing ability tag has been removed, since it no longer serves a purpose
• Class changes:
  • Cleric: Healer (rank 1, Restoration is now Divine Aid)
  • Paladin: Stalwart Guardian (ranks 1 and 4, Lay on Hands)
  • Rogue: Bardic Music (rank 1, Palliative Poem)
  • Warlock: Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge (rank 1, Secret of Bloodsharing)
• Maneuver changes:
  • Ebb and Flow: Back Into the Fray (buffed)
  • Herald of War: Encouraging Battlecry (new), Revitalizing Battlecry (removed)
  • Unbreakable Defense: Revitalizing Strike (capped)
• Mystic sphere changes:
  • Bless: Blessing of Regeneration (buffed, capped)
  • Channel Divinity: Faith Rewarded (buffed, capped)
  • Polymorph: Mending (redesigned), Brief Regeneration (redesigned), Regeneration (buffed, capped)
  • Summoning: Summon Unicorn (buffed, capped)
  • Toxicology: Healing Salve (redesigned)
  • Vivimancy: Minor Life Infusion (capped), Lifesteal (ignorable cap), Lifesteal Grasp (ignorable cap), Lifesteal Blade (capped), Restoration (previously Cure Wound, fatigues), Stabilize Life (new), Cone of Stabilization (new), Circle of Life (removed)
• Feat changes: Medicine Specialization (levels 1/6/12), Regenerator (level 3)
• Magic item changes: Spellfeeding Amulet (capped healing), Vampiric weapon/implements (capped healing), Staff of Pleasant Healing (new), Staff of the Martyr (removed), Staff of Healing Rhythm (removed), Potion of Healing (nerfed healing die, added cooldown),

Problem: Characters have an extremely large number of abilities. The sheer volume of unique abilities increases character complexity and makes it hard to track what is going on. The biggest offenders are extremely minor or situational abilities that provide little value, either mechanically or narratively, which makes them not worth the effort to track.
Problem: Creating a level 1 character involves a very large number of decisions. One of the pain points here involves choosing all three archetypes immediately, which requires extensive reading from your class to identify which three archetypes you want before you ever play your character.
Solution: Remove all rank 0 abililities, and make rank 1 abilities more narratively compelling. Level 1 characters are now rank 1 in one archetype, and have no other archetypes. You choose new archetypes at level 2 and level 3. This gives players time to adapt to their character and minimizes the book-diving necessary to build a level 1 character from scratch.
Specific changes:

• Class archetypes no longer have rank 0 abilities
• Characters now choose new archetypes at level 2 and level 3 instead of choosing all three archetypes at level 1
• Class changes:
  • Since every class archetype changed to some extent, the only thing that will be mentioned here is the specific ranks abilities that changed, and only if that change was something other than "the rank 0 abilities no longer exist at all"
  • Barbarian: Battleforged Resilience (1, 2, 6, 7), Battlerager (3, 6), Outland Savage (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7), Primal Warrior (3, 6), Totemist (3, 6)
  • Cleric: Divine Magic (1), Divine Spell Mastery (1), Domain Influence (1), Preacher (2, 3, 4)
  • Druid: Elementalist (3, 7), Nature Magic (1), Nature Spell Mastery (1), Shifter (1, 3, 4, 6, 7), Wildspeaker (2, 3)
  • Fighter: Discipline (3, 6), Martial Mastery (3, 6), Sentinel (1), Tactician (1, 2, 3, 5, 6)
  • Monk: Esoteric Warrior (3, 6), Ki (1, 2, 4, 5, 7), Perfected Form (1), Transcendent Sage (1, 2, 4, 5, 7)
  • Paladin: Devoted Paragon (1), Divine Magic (1), Divine Spell Expertise (1), Stalwart Guardian (3, 6), Zealous Warrior (1, 3, 4)
  • Ranger: Boundary Warden (2), Huntmaster (3, 6), Scout (2), Wilderness Warrior (3, 6)
  • Rogue: Assassin (3, 4, 6, 7), Bardic Music (all), Combat Trickster (3, 6), Jack of All Trades (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
  • Sorcerer: Arcane Magic (1), Arcane Spell Mastery (1), Draconic Magic (1), Innate Arcanist (1, 2, 4, 5), Wild Magic (3, 6)
  • Warlock: Blessings of the Abyss (1, 5), Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge (1), Pact Magic (1), Pact Spell Mastery (1), Soulkeeper's Chosen (2, 3, 6)
  • Wizard: Alchemist (1, 3), Arcane Magic (1), Arcane Spell Mastery (1), School Specialist (1)
• Magic item changes: Amulet of Shared Clarity (removed), Dabbler's Amulet (renamed to Exemplar's Amulet, now rank 2/4/6)

Problem: Many abilities allow you to remove "a brief effect or condition", but the timing restrictions make it functionally impossible to remove brief effects before they would go away on their own anyway. This was confusing, especially for newer players.
Solution: All abilities that previously removed "a brief effect or condition" now simply remove a condition. The small number of edge cases where this is annoying, which generally only involves brief duration damage over time effects, are not worth the overall confusion and complexity cost.
Specific changes:

• All abilities that previously removed "a brief effect or condition" now simply remove a condition.

General changes

• A number of broken links and page references have been fixed
• Jump mechanics have been slightly simplified
  • Getting a running start now only affects your horizontal distance when making a long jump instead of providing a generic skill check bonus
  • This means that high jump distances for commoners are no longer unrealistically high
• Magic items now calculate power in the same way as class bonuses to power instead of as 2x rank
  • This gives items much better power scaling into high levels
  • In practice, this doesn't change much, since items were already using this power scaling - it just wasn't explained in the rules
• Feat changes:
  • Awareness Specialization can no longer let you see around corners
  • Celestial Heritage now gives Rebuke Evil instead of Holy Smite to avoid direct overlap with the paladin Smite ability
  • Celestial Heritage now grants more healing with its Healing Light ability
  • Leadership has been significantly redesigned
    • Battle Command now only affects strikes to minimize the power of crit-fishing for magical conditions
    • All Presence abilities have unlimited range, limited only by sight/hearing
    • Bolster now also grants a bonus to vital rolls, and has different scaling
    • Allies do not gain stun immunity until level 21, and never gain immunity to paralysis
    • A new 15th level ability allows combining Bolster and Battle Command
• Mystic sphere changes:
  • Barrier: Energy Shell (previously Energy Shield, nerfed), Personal Ward (previously Burst Ward), Burst Ward (new)
  • Chronomancy: Accelerated Search (nerfed, no longer lets you see around corners)
  • Revelation: Mystic Eye (now has a range limit of 240 feet), True Strike (nerfed), True Cast (nerfed)
• Other build-specific changes:
  • All abilities that previously had penalties against enemies "in combat", such as charming abilities, now a -10 penalty against foes who recently attacked or were attacked
    • This is much less ambiguous, especially when considering that "combat" can sometimes start with pure movement
  • Hybrid sharks can now breathe underwater
  • Having blindsight now explicitly makes you immune to Visual effects if and only if your eyes are closed
  • Shapeshifting abilities that completely change shape now have rules to support them

8.2.2: Double skill feats and simplified size-based abilities

Problem: Universal abilities have confusingly inconsistent effects, especially in terms of how they take into account relative size. This makes them more complicated to resolve, since each ability has to be individually memorized. Since universal abilities are available to everyone, it's important to make them as simple as possible to minimize the analysis paralysis they can cause.
Problem: It is difficult to consistently define circumstances that could reduce a creature's effective size for the purpose of various abilities. For example, a prone creature should be easier to shove and get melee critical hits on than a creature standing at its full height, but it shouldn't be any easier to affect with a Shrink or Enlarge spell.
Solution: Abilities that care about relative size now have the new Size-Based tag instead of custom size mechanics. Instead of a sliding scale, which wouldn't work for critical hits and other non-attack abilities, Size-Based abilities simply have no effect on creatures that are too large. Circumstances that should modify effective size, such as being prone or climbing on a creature, now consistently reference the Size-Based tag.
Specific changes:

• The Size-Based tag has been added
  • Abilities with the Size-Based tag have no effect on creatures that are more than one size category larger than you
• The Dirty Trick, Disarm, Grapple, Overrun, and Trip universal abilities now have the Size-Based tag, replacing any custom size comparison calculations they previously had
• Dirty Trick now becomes a condition if you get a critical hit instead of based on the target's hit points, matching other universal abilities that have critical hit effects
• The limitation on melee critical hits now uses the Size-Based tag, allowing you to get critical hits on large prone creatures more easily
• The Overrun and Shove universal abilities now explicitly replace Perception with Strength rather than defining a new custom accuracy calculation
  • This makes it more obvious that those abilities still benefit from all non-Perception accuracy modifiers

Problem: Skill feats are too narrow to justify an entire feat slot for most characters. This problem cannot be easily solved by simply increasing the power of skill feats, since any individual skill still occupies a fairly narrow narrative space and will be irrelevant in many situations.
Solution: All skill feats are now worth half a feat. The most powerful skill feats have been rebalanced to account for this chance, ensuring that each skill feat is roughly half the power of a non-skill feat.
Specific changes:

• Whenever a character chooses a skill feat, they gain an additional skill feat
• Feat changes:
  • Awareness Specialization no longer allows you to choose the same sense with multiple tiers of its ability
  • Endurance Specialization has been redesigned to remove its sprinting abilities and nerf its ability to ignore vital wounds
  • Jump Specialization has a stronger 18th level ability
  • Medicine Specialization has slightly weaker scaling with its Purging Touch ability
  • Swim Specialization has a slightly faster 21st level ability

General changes

• Encumbrance-based limitations on sleeping are now an optional rule instead of a core mechanic
  • Although this is realistic, it's also more hassle than it is worth for many groups
• The Offhand Strike ability now allows attacking with heavy weapons if you hold them in one hand
• The Counterspell ability from the Sphere Focus: Thaumaturgy feat has been nerfed so it is no longer guaranteed on same-level foes
• Tremorsense and tremorsight now have a limit on the thickness of obstacles that they can sense through
• High-level monsters can now remove multiple conditions more easily if they get lucky
• Crumpling body armor now only affects physical damage
• Class changes:
  • All class abilities that previously reduced the fatigue cost of desperate exertion with a specific skill now grant a higher bonus to that skill
    • This should make them less unnecesarily fiddly
  • Barbarians with the Outland Savage archetype can now gain proficiency with exotic weapons by spending insight points
  • The Greater Miracle cleric ability now has a 24 hour cooldown instead of a long rest cooldown

8.2.1: Redistributing content between books

General changes

• The Tome of Guidance now has a new chapter called The Universe which contains some of the narrative content about Rise's universe, as well as some infrequently used rules
• The Rise core book once again contains the rules for feats and other optional rules, reducing the relevance of the Tome of Guidance for non-GM players
• Mystic spheres were correctly regenerated, since there was a bug in the generation for 8.2.0
• Some rules were moved from the Combat chapter to the Core Mechanics chapter to be more understandable

8.2.0: The Universal mystic sphere and the Tome of Guidance

Problem: Since even light undergrowth halved movement speed, it was difficult to use undergrowth in natural environments without slowing the pace of combat down significantly. This made it hard for characters that have special abilities related to undergrowth to get good use out of their abilities.
Solution: Light undergrowth no longer reduces movement speed, and heavy undergrowth only halves movement speed. This should make undergrowth more common in practical usage.
Specific changes:

• Light undergrowth no longer reduces movement speed, though it still provides concealment
• Heavy undergrowth is now singly difficult terrain instead of doubly difficult terrain
• Various class abilities that mitigated movement penalties in light undergrowth now correctly refer to heavy undergrowth
• The Flourishing Vines verdamancy spell that creates light undergrowth is now rank 1, with a greater version at rank 4 that creates heavy undergrowth

Problem: Many different mystic spheres have spells that are essentially the same simple damage effects, with only trivial changes. For example, there are only minor differences between Firebolt, Windblast, and Twist Flesh. These repetitive effects take up a lot of space within each mystic sphere, bloating the length of the book, and obscure the meaningful differences between the mystic spheres.
Solution: Create a new Universal mystic sphere which contains trivial damage effects that all mystic spheres can access. The damage type and defense of these universal spells can change based on the mystic spheres you have access to, which ensures a reasonable narrative connection. Remove or adjust existing spells so they avoid being redundant with the new generally available spells, with a focus on keeping the number of rank 1 spells high.
Specific changes:

• The Universal mystic sphere has been added, with three base spells: Mystic Bolt (single-target), Mystic Blast (cone), and Mystic Discharge (radius from self)
• Mystic sphere changes
  • Aeromancy: Windblast (removed), Misty Step (now rank 3 instead of 4, renamed from Mistform), Feather Fall (renamed from Soften Landing)
  • Aquamancy: Fountain (now rank 2), Greater Fountain (now rank 5), Supreme Fountain (removed)
  • Astromancy: Dimensional Jaunt (removed), Dimensional Shuffle (removed), Hostile Transposition (renamed from Transposition), Transposition (new), Phasestep (nerfed to allow access at rank 1), Astral Refuge (now rank 1)
  • Barrier: Personal Sphere (now has reasonable hit point rules), Entrapping Sphere (same)
  • Channel Divinity: Endurance of the Faithful (now rank 1), Divine Judgment (removed), Faithful Endurance (now rank 2)
  • Electromancy: Lightning Bolt (now rank 1), Greater Lightning Bolt (new), Electric Jolt (removed), Call Lightning (now rank 2), Shocking Burst (new)
  • Polymorph: Twist Flesh (removed)
  • Pyromancy: Firebolt (removed), Burning Hands (renamed from Greater Burning Hands), Combustion (now rank 1), Inferno (removed), Uncontrolled Inferno (new)
  • Summoning: Summon Annoying Insects (new)
  • Telekinesis: Force Slam (removed)
  • Terramancy: Rock Throw (now rank 2), Shrapnel Blast (now rank 3), Earthspike (now rank 1), Earthquake (renamed from Fissure), Greater Earthquake (now rank 6, renamed from Earthquake), Earthbind (now rank 1), Distant Earthbind (new), Earthen Anchor (now rank 1), Greater Volcano (now rank 4), Supreme Volcano (new), Stonefist (new), Wall of Stone (new)
  • Toxicology: Acid Splash (removed), Acid Spray (removed)
  • Verdamancy: Vine Whip (now rank 2), Greater Vine Whip (now rank 5), Vinestorm (now hits adjacent enemies), Greater Vinestorm (now rank 5), Supreme Vinestorm (removed)

Problem: The effects that halve incoming damage are incredibly powerful, and are wildly better defensive options than any other competing effects.
Solution: Change those effects to reduce incoming damage by a fixed amount, which ensures reasonable scaling into high levels.
Specific changes:

• Crumpling armor and the Rocky Shell and Icy Shell spells now have two layers at every rank instead of a scaling number of layers
• Those effects now provide 5/10/20/40 damage reduction depending on their rank instead of a "half damage" effect
• Crumpling armor has been reduced to rank 2/4/6 instead of rank 3/5/7 to reflect its reduced power

General changes

• Rise has been split into two books: the core Rise book, and the "Tome of Guidance", which includes optional rules and monster mechanics
  • In the future, the Tome of Guidance will include much more GM-focused advice for how to run a game of Rise
  • The Tome of Guidance will also be a better holding area for infrequently referenced rules, narrative context about the universe, and weird edge cases that currently take up space in the main Core Mechanics and Combat chapters, though that migration is incomplete
  • This should make the main Rise book less intimidating eventually, though it is still over 400 pages right now...
• Some inconsistent references to difficult terrain calculations and doubling rules were fixed
• A number of useless glossary terms have been removed, especially glossary terms that are redundant with the Reference chapter
• Spell, ritual, and ability links are no longer italicized, which should make them easier to read in bulk

8.1.0: Simplified cover, insight points, and unarmed combat

Problem: Insight points are very complicated to resolve for newer players. Although the basic concept is simple, the sheer variety of effects that insight points can be used for can be daunting.
Solution: Insight points can now only be used for class abilities like spells and maneuvers, and the number of insight points provided by each base class has been reduced by 1. For experienced groups that enjoy making more complicated characters, there is now an optional rule that exactly maintains the old system.
Specific changes:

• The number of insight points provided by each base class has been reduced by 1
• Insight points can only be spent for two purposes: as indicated by specific class abilities, and as a requirement to become a multiclass character
• Both of the above changes can be reverted by an optional "Expanded Insight Points" rule
• The Dabbler rogue ability now allows spending insight points for trained skills

Problem: The rules for unarmed combat were awkward and unnecessarily confusing. Being proficient with the Unarmed Weapons weapon group had a variety of unintuitive effects outside the normal scope of weapon proficiency. This was especially odd given that creatures are normally proficient with all of their natural weapons without requiring any special effort, and unarmed strikes were sort of considered a natural weapon. If read literally, the rules for unarmed combat allowed a variety of strange effects, such as attacking with a gauntlet without actually using a free hand.
Solution: The rules for unarmed combat have been simplified.
Specific changes:

• The "unarmed strike" natural weapon has been replaced with a "punch/kick" natural weapon, which deals more damage but is less accurate
  • As normal for natural weapons, all creatures are considered to be proficient with their punch/kick weapon
  • You can attack with a punch using a free hand, or with a kick if you are trained with Balance or have at least 2 Dexterity
  • You can't offhand strike with a kick to avoid free offhand strikes for shield-wielding characters
• The Unarmed Weapons weapon group has been removed
  • This means gauntlets can no longer be used to attack, but no one ever did that anyway
• The Unarmed weapon tag has been removed
• The monk and Brawler abilities which granted unarmed proficiency now grant +2 accuracy and +1d with the punch/kick natural weapon
  • With those abilities, a kick becomes a +2 accuracy 1d4 damage weapon that might not require a free hand, which is comparable to or better than manufactured weapons
• The Brawler feat now scales punch/kick damage just like the monk class

General changes

• The Resources section of each class now explains how attributes contribute to the basic resources
• The archetype names in each class's archetype table are now clickable links
• The character sheet now has Short Rest and Long Rest buttons that appropriately change HP/DR/fatigue
• The Tools section of the Equipment chapter is now split into Consumable Tools and Permanent Tools to increase readability
• All species with nonstandard movement speeds now have explicit abilities that apply a movement speed penalty instead of having a different base speed
  • This fixes an issue where it wasn't obvious how their speed changed when their size was changed by magical effects
• The rules for cover, line of sight, and line of effect have been relocated and revised to make them simpler to use
  • Cover is now measured as a cone from the point of origin to the two closest corners of the defender's space. If there are significant obstacles in that cone, the defender has cover.
  • Cover now provides a bonus to both Armor defense and Reflex defense
  • Cover now explicitly protects defenders from glancing blows in addition to its defense bonuses, since glancing blows strike the covering obstacle instead of the defender
  • "Total cover" has been removed as a concept, since it was redundant with the line of sight / line of effect rules
• A number of additional monsters have been added, especially planeforged and undead

Build-specific changes

• Natural weapon balance has been tweaked
  • Claw now has the Versatile Grip tag instead of the Grappling tag
    • This should make it more meaningfully distinct from the bite natural weapon, since many monsters have both
  • Slam now deals 1d10 damage instead of 1d8
    • 1d8 damage with no tags was too far behind manufactured weapons in power
    • All abilities that granted a slam natural weapon to player characters have been rebalanced to reflect this higher damage
  • Claw sheaths have been removed, since they allowed creatures to use magical weapons with Potency and similar effects without actually wielding a weapon
  • Bracers of Mighty Fists have been redesigned to grant Impact instead of a power bonus
• The Myriad Form druid wild aspect has been adjusted to reflect the new size changing mechanics
• Dryaidi now move more slowly, but are not slowed down by medium or heavy armor
• The Second Wind maneuver now only recovers half your maximum hit points to match the Recover nerf
• Mystic sphere changes
  • Aeromancy: Windblast (renamed from Windstrike), Piercing Windblast (renamed from Piercing Windstrike), Greater Windblast (new), Greater Windsnipe (new), Greater Piercing Windblast (new)
  • Aquamancy: Aqueous Tentacle (no longer grants the Long weapon tag)
  • Chronomancy: Time Lock -- Mind (new), Time Lock -- Health (nerfed, previously Time Lock), Time Lock -- Vitality (new)
  • Polymorph: Natural Might (nerfed to +2 instead of +3)
  • Pyromancy: Greater Personal Ignition (new)
  • Verdamancy: Vine Tentacle (no longer grants the Sweeping weapon tag)

8.0.4: Thrown weapon buffs, general clarifications

Problem: The Parrying weapon tag is unusually complicated, and places a relatively high burden on players to manage its trigger.
Solution: The Parrying weapon tag is now exclusive to exotic weapons.
Specific changes:

• Parrying Dagger is now exotic and has the Stealthy and Thrown (30/60) tags
• Sai is now exotic and has +2 accuracy instead of +1
• Partisan is now exotic and deals 1d10 base damage instead of 1d8

General changes

• The Impervious and Vulnerable traits now apply +4 and -4 modifiers instead of +5 and -5
  • This is just intended to promote greater consistency, since most similar effects (stunned, frightened) use +4 and -4 modifiers
• Characters who make collective checks now gain a +1 bonus for each other person who helped
• The DV to identify items is now 5 + twice rank instead of 10 + twice rank
• Mundane abilities can no longer be dismissed, since that was narratively weird
• There are now four Aligned Planes instead of nine, and they have more narrative text
• Some wording about weight limits and carrying capacity has been clarified
• Some wording about "melee weapons" has been clarified
  • A "melee weapon" is no longer a defined concept, since thrown weapons share many properties with melee-only weapons
  • When talking about weapons, a "non-projectile" weapon is more useful, since thrown weapons are arguably not melee weapons
  • When talking about strikes, "melee strike" instead of "a strike with a melee weapon" is more accurate, since you can throw weapons that are designed to be melee-only

Build-specific changes

• The "close range" limit for thrown weapons has been doubled
  • This should make thrown weapons more usable outside of near-melee range without obsoleting the unique long range power of projectile weapons
• Gnomes no longer have low-light vision, since the change to Magic Affinity made them significantly stronger
• The Splitting Staff no longer affects strikes, but has had its rank reduced from 4 to 2
• The Mystic Eye spell now requires a move action to move
• Feat changes
  • The Escape Magic ability of Flexibility Specialization now has a DV of 10 + twice rank instead of 10 + power
  • The Wall Runner ability of Swiftrunner now grants an extra bonus while sprinting instead of allowing you to use Dexterity in place of Climb, since Dexterity no longer scales with level

8.0.3: Size categories and monster power

Problem: Size categories claimed to change Strength and Dexterity, but in practice, no player-facing size changing abilities actually modified Strength or Dexterity, so it was a little confusing. Also, monsters often ignored those attribute changes, since they would theoretically allow large monsters to have completely ludicrous Strength values that could let them do far more damage than would be reasonable.
Solution: Size categories now modify weight limits and Reflex defense instead of Strength and Dexterity. This is much simpler to resolve, and you can now enlarge yourself to pick up heavy objects, as you would expect.
Specific changes:

• Size categories no longer modify Strength or Dexterity
• Creatures now have a bonus or penalty to their Strength for the purpose of weight limits based on their size category
  • This modifier is applied even with temporary effects, like the Enlarge spell
• Creatures now have a bonus or penalty to their Reflex defense based on their size category
  • This supports the narrative of making large creatures clumsier than small creatures, but in a fairly constrained way that doesn't radically alter their combat abilities
• Most effects that caused temporary size increases now reduce speed by a larger amount to reflect the slightly increased power of changing size category

Changes

• Gnomes now gain a bonus insight point for magical abilities only instead of a bonus to magical power, since magical power no longer exists
• Orcs now gain a generic power bonus instead of a power bonus with mundane abilities
• The character sheet is now even more clever about autocalculating damage dice and flat modifiers
• CR 4 and CR 6 monsters now have a lower base power multiplier to avoid scaling their flat bonuses to absurd amounts
  • In general, a glancing blow from a monster is intended to deal about half the damage of a full hit
• High level monsters now have an explicit built-in "maneuver" that scales accuracy slightly
  • This ensures that simple monsters who only have default attacks stay on par with more complicated monsters who use maneuvers like player characters
• Magic item changes
  • Throwing gloves now have explicit range limits
  • New item: Greater Throwing Gloves

8.0.2: Typos and minor fixes

Changes

• The Awareness skill can now be used to identify Subtle effects on yourself
  • This replaces the old use of the Spellsense skill, which disappeared
• The Roll20 character sheet now automatically calculates damage dice modifications
• All species now have at least some narrative text
• The Slam natural weapon no longer intrinsically has the Sweeping tag
  • The Sweeping tag doesn't make sense for many creatures that should have a slam attack, like zombies
  • All abilities that granted a slam natural weapon as part of their effect have been buffed
    • The Octopus Tentacle and Vine Tentacle spells now grant Sweeping (1)
    • The dragon rank 6 ability now grants Sweeping (1)
    • Oozeborn now have Long instead of Sweeping, which makes more sense for their long flexible arms
• Monster hit points and damage resistance have been slightly tweaked to optimize for fun fights
• Constitution can never be used in place of Strength for damage dice
  • It just wasn't worth the effort to support it for the tiny number of breath weapon edge cases, and the narrative was ambiguous anyway
• The Sensation ability tag has been removed
• A number of typos have been fixed
• The hit points, damage resistance, and defenses of summoned creatures and animal companions have been fixed
• The Guarding Strike fighter ability now correctly modifies power instead of damage dice
• Optional rules changes
  • A blighter optional class has been added
  • The dragon and oozeborn optional base classes now have a defined power progression
  • The Naiad Heritage feat has been redesigned as a Naiadi optional class archetype
  • People now hate orcs and drow
• Feat changes
  • Sphere Focus: Bless now has a usable 6th level ability
• Magic item changes
  • Ring of Breath now requires a free action instead of a minor action
  • Frenzied Gloves have been nerfed
• Mystic sphere changes
  • All Greater and Supreme Grasp spells have been buffed to reflect the cost of keeping a free hand at high levels
  • Bless: Blessing of Proficiency (nerfed; no longer grants armor proficiency)
  • Chronomancy: Accelerated Twinstrike (new), Accelerated Triplestrike (new)
  • Polymorph: Greater Spikeform (new)
  • Revelation: Weapon Proficiency (previously Proficiency), Armor Proficiency (new)
  • Toxicology: Sudden Rot (new), Fungal Armor (new), Fungal Growth (previously Acid Soak), Retributive Spores (new)
  • Verdamancy: Vine Tentacle (previously Vine Tentacles, strikes are now considered magical)

8.0.1: Total/base attribute followup fixes

Changes

• The character sheet now allows multiple people to view separate tabs of the same character sheet simultaneously
• Several references to "base" and "total" attributes have been removed
• The Shove, Escape Grapple, and Maintain Grapple abilities have been updated to work correctly with non-scaling Strength values
  • The character sheet universal abilities for Escape Grapple and Maintain Grapple now automatically determine your optimal accuracy
• One-handing two-handed weapons now requires Str 3 instead of Str 5
• The Tactician fighter archetype now correctly uses Reactive Tactics in all places instead of Predictive Tactics
• The Secret of Bloodforging warlock ability now completely removes healing from the Recover ability instead of only halving it
• The Precognition feat now uses Intelligence to replace Str/Wil for damage dice instead of replacing Per for mundane accuracy, and simply adds Intelligence to initiative instead of replacing Perception
  • Narratively, precognitive characters are often highly perceptive, so the feat should either fully replace Perception or not replace it at all. Since it's too dangerous to fully replace Perception for all purposes, like Awareness checks, the system should encourage perceptive Precognition characters.
  • Replacing Str/Wil for damage is less dangerous than replacing Perception for accuracy, since both Strength and Willpower have other major benefits that Perception does not have. This allows removing the awkward "mundane attacks" limitation that was necessary to minimize the power of Precognition for int-heavy casters like wizards.
  • Replacing Str/Wil for damage is also much easier to represent on a character sheet than replacing Per for some, but not all, accuracy