Good evening, Vados!!
It’s Jonathan, your friendly OST, here with a quick update on some new and interesting rules you should be aware of for our upcoming event. I know not everyone delves into these things like I do, so this is my attempt at breaking down these concepts into something everyone can understand.
First up, let’s talk about KEY WORDS. One thing you’ll start seeing more as we get new blueprints, item cards, and monsters is the use of new Key Words. Key Words are a short descriptor that is a word or phrase (usually one or two words) appearing on a card, blueprint or monster, used to indicate that the thing possesses a certain attribute or ability.
What does this mean? You might see easy to understand words like HOOCH, or ONE-HAND, or UNDEAD on things, and these will let you know when certain rules apply. For instance, if a blueprint calls for HOOCH, any item with the HOOCH keyword will work. This will greatly simplify future rules updates, and Aesa even made sure we have a place to write this on the new item cards (coming soon!). Lots of thanks to Jeff Dahl for making this part happen!
Next up: New Rules!
HORDE BANE - A new type of BANE damage type! This damage type specifically interacts with monsters that have the HORDE keyword. We will be briefing our NPCs on when this applies, but this keyword is on Zed, Critters, and Raiders. Stuff like Bursters and Shamblers will be tagged as HORDE, while bigger threats like Tanks will not be vulnerable to this. If there’s a lot of them, it’s probably a HORDE!
THRESHOLD - This is a new NPC-only ability that makes monsters a bigger threat depending on the challenge the Guides need to present. Basically, each monster has two stat lines - one easier stat line for when they run into smaller groups of players, like on the lake path or out in the world randomly, and a tougher, meaner stat line that is used for when the monsters are attacking a much larger group of players, like during a siege on the Depot for instance. THRESHOLD means that even the basic Shambler can be pretty dangerous! Monsters in general have a lot more ways to do nifty tricks, so don’t count on what you remember about that zombie or raider to be the same anymore!
DEFEND - This is a new NPC-only ability that REPLACES the more common uses of Avoid on monsters. This ability works similarly to Avoid as it allows the user to not take a melee or ranged strike effect, but ONLY works in a 120 degree arc in front of the monster. That means, if you flank and circle around a monster, they won’t be able to call out DEFEND against that Mangle or Take Down! This is a very nice change that rewards players for tactics in combat, but you’ll still see a few powerful threats that still have access to Avoid (particularly Strain NPCs and villains). You’ll also see more abilities that specifically say “NO DEFEND”, which means they are designed to beat this NPC ability, but NOT the use of the Avoid skill.
OVERPOWER - This is a new KEY WORD that will be on a lot of big or two-handed weapons very soon. It works like this: If you use a big attack (like a spike damage or Mangle), and the enemy uses Defend or Avoid, you can REPEAT the same attack once for only 1 Mind Point, instead of spending the Mind again. In the field, this might sound like calling “Take Down” and then making a torso strike, but when they call “Avoid”, you can say “Overpower, Take Down!”. They would have to spend Mind for “Avoid” again to stop it the second time. This means that big, heavy weapons are harder to use Avoid or Defend against (as they would have to use the skill TWICE to stop the attack!) so this is a nice buff for all those folks that use two-handers out there!
AUGMENTS - We will have a couple of new cool AUGMENTS for items that will be in play for our September game that we’ll go into detail on a bit closer to game-on. These are crafted items that can upgrade or add something to an existing item. There’s a few Augments already in play, like the Ooph Bullet Plates or the Shredzilla Grind Gears, but the big thing to remember is that each item can only have ONE Augment on it. There will be a lot of new blueprint Augment items coming soon too, so everyone will have a way to kind of customize how their gear works to suit your own play style!
MURDER - Murder is back you say? Oh yeah! This is a new call for our game (and soon all of DR), but it’s pretty simple. If you hear the MURDER call, it means “10 Body, no bleedout”. This means that if the damage you took reduces you to zero Body, you do not pass go, you pass directly to D-E-A-D. Certain types of Critters in Bravado are known to do this thing (can you guess? It’s in the name!), but it’ll also see use on certain shady blueprints and items. But it’s not unstoppable! Things like Avoid still stop it when it’s delivered as a strike and items that prevent a Killing Blow (like a Striker’s Coat, Master Biogenesis, or Proficient Faithful Spirit) will also stop a MURDER, just not the damage it deals.
Here’s the specific wording of the rules on our Custom Content page
So that’s it for today’s Wednesday Ramble, so we’ll see you next week with some details on a new thing to watch out for in September - Faction Work Orders and Interviews!
