Greetings Arcaniacs,

You have spoken and we have listened. The majority of you seem to desire a simplified way of doing things in the campaign, in order to increase your overall enjoyment of the game. To that end, we are making the following changes, applicable to everyone playing in Legends of Arcanis.

1) We will not be instituting any Lifestyle costs into the modules.

2) We are removing the Earning a Living option from the LoA campaign play. Going forward, the money you get from a module is either payment from people who hired you, coin acquired from selling items looted from your fallen foes, and the occasional in-module opportunity to gamble and carouse.

3) We are removing the Fate Cap previously established and changing how Fate is handled. Fate is no longer being tracked in the Campaign. Instead, each Hero begins every module with his/her Fate Score (+/- any additional ones, which will be noted below). These points reset to their base every module. Chronicler's may, at their discretion, give out additional points up to double a player's Fate Score for them to use during that module, but any unused excess points are reset along with the base ones at the beginning of the next module.
Additional Notes:
The Cursed/Damned Flaw decreases the amount of Fate you receive by 1 every module.
The Talent Fortune Favors the Bold allows the val'Sheem/Larissan to gain one additional Fate point per day of the module (not per module).
T-shirts/BI certs that give a virtual Fate point grant an additional Fate point to spend once per module, effectively increasing your available Fate by one per module.

4) The ability of Fate to break the rules/do the impossible is being limited to once per module, and still remains at the discretion of the Chronicler whether the specific instance can be done. If the Chronicler rules that it is not possible, the Fate Point is simply not spent and the Hero can select another action instead. Similarly, the ability of Fate to avoid certain death is being limited to once per module as well (when not otherwise prohibited by Your Fate is Sealed).

I applaud these changes

Does this apply to modules already released? I assume it does but that raises some issues. If it doesn't you can ignore my specific comments/questions.

2) I'm not big on this being applied to existing modules as that gives characters that got into the campaign earlier a significant advantage in coinage.

3) What about for BIs where it was pretty much expected that the fate limit would be removed and that players would spent more fate than their normal limit?

4) Why limit avoid certain death? Especially if the answer to #3 is that BIs are treated the same then this will potentially significantly increase character death.

My thoughts to those questions:

1) Modules released don't have lifestyle, so there is no issue.

2) It does give them an advantage, but it is ultimately a fleeting one. It is not a perfect solution, but I think an "As of now, all play. . . " rule is all that PCI can realistically hope for without retroactively changing EVERYONE's CP's.

3) Chronicler's are still allowed to give out Fate when the players need it, so the actual balance should stay the same (or close to it). Some stat-blocks may need to be adjusted, though, but that will require feedback most likely.

4) How often are people dying more than once per adventure?! This makes perfect sense to me, where one fate point saves you by doing the impossible, but if you die again I think Larissa is trying to tell you something. . .

I agree with Josh that that these are all good changes! When people say "Save from certain death" is that the use of a Fate Point to automatically succeed on the Vigor check from being vanquished by wounds or is this a "Hey you just actually died from a big block landing on you, but you spent a fate chip to be somewhere else at the time?"

I am curious how this will impact BI's as well.

John

Really? 29 modules in the Crusade arc means roughly 3 extra Gc (avg at 1.1 is slightly less than ~9 Sc) over the course of the modules. That doesn't seem insignificant.

I'd rather see a "making a living is still allowed in Crusade arc but is no longer allowed in Blessed Lands arc".



That's fine in theory. Similar to the whole discussion on huge differences in giving out fate points, I'd rather see something concrete like "BIs allow twice the normal fate amount".



I haven't actually seen anyone have to do this yet (even once) but I also haven't played a BI yet (which seems to be where the majority of character near-deaths occur).

I am fine with the new rule and obviously lent my support for it when the LOA staff discussed. In regards to the Crusade arc, it makes much more sense now that the 'making a living' aspect is gone. How can one maintain a business or an outside job while fighting in the Crusades? There would simply not be the time or resources to do so.

1&2) We will not go back and change everything that has already been done (there's way too many players and it would require way too much effort which is exactly what these changes are designed to minimize). However, going forward, all modules including the existing ones will not allow Earning a Living rolls, because making exceptions also requires more effort (I refer you to the Tier 1.5 certs which specify exactly four exceptions and we still get questions of "but can't we play this module? It's not *REALLY* connected to the Crusade"). So, no exceptions. No more earning a living rolls.

3&4) BIs. It should never have been 'expected' that Fate points were thrown around like they were. Originally, the limit on spending Fate only occurred during one combat in a BI. Then it got removed for half a BI. Last year it culminated with a "drain all the Fate points because some people have 100+" (and still ended with 50/100+, which resulted in the Fate Cap initially). This is *not* the direction we want to go. We don't want this to be an arms race, just like we don't want this to be an optimization race. We want to tell stories, and have people participate in said stories, and have the combats be meaningful. More specifically for Fate, we want Fate points to be something valuable, without being impossible to use.

A module is defined as a four hour time slot generally speaking. BIs tend to run double that. Consequently, a BI will usually have a refresh point (usually when we break for supper) where Heroes get their Fate points back for the second half. The same applies to the death limit. It will by Fate Score and one escape death per half, not Fate Score x2 and two escape deaths total. If you don't use your "Do the Impossible" or "Escape Death" in the first half, you don't have two to use in the second. If we happen to do a longer event (like the one planned for ArcaniCon) there may be more refreshes permitted.

To Harliquinn's point: "Save from Certain Death" is something that was instituted at the GenCon BI last year. There are two options related to this. First, if you are Vanquished by Wounds, you can spend a Fate point to not have to roll to avoid dying; you automatically make your check, and are just Vanquished and unconscious. If a hungry animal comes along and eats your head while you're unconscious, that is another problem.
Which brings us to the second part. Some people got up in arms about actually dying, especially due to certain spells (i.e. Strength of Fallen Foes, which automatically murders someone who was just Vanquished and heals the caster). Thus, a second use was established: You can spend a Fate point (Chronicler's discretion) to twist the skein of your Fate and live through an otherwise absolutely fatal encounter. You gain a flaw related to the manner you would have died (in the previous example, a hungry animal goes to eat your head and decides they're hungry for leg meat instead, or if you're slain by a Tultipetan Dwarf you could take Phobia: Dwarves or Cursed/Damned or something instead), and you are out for the rest of the module (extremely gravely wounded).

Thanks for clarifying! I support all the rules changes

Can we trade in any extra Fate we have for Gold in a 1 for 1 manner? (I KEED!)

John

Thank you for making the changes. They make sense and should streamline things. Good work.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul