You can download the Doronai Nui version 0.9.1 here.
"The bells toll once more, and the monsters creep from the darkest parts of the beyond... Only you stand between us and them, Toa. Shadows draw long across the land, pendulous plans crawl towards us on their bellies and descend from the skies. Prepare well, tap into your elements, and explore the land with eyes open and ready for battle.
Kuruya, oza keoluya. Vahi'o ikhuyaka su imaita'oka? Ono i'avota kukuri-pa... Vahi-va vokota ikhua-senu..."
The Doronai Nui version 0.9.1 has officially been released. After fifteen months of tuning, discussions, hard-fought battles, and struggling against the tide itself, we have produced another, more streamlined update of several of our core systems, namely crafting and skills.
In the past both of these systems have been considered hard to get to grips with for folks more used to the streamlined playstyle of the most popular forms of Dungeons and Dragons, and we took that on board over the last year to work it out to maintain much of the original functionality of both, as even improve on it in some places. Skill Points have gone away, and no longer will there be several different crafting systems all vying for your understanding. They've been replaced with the far simpler Expertise system and a slot-based crafting system not unlike the Modular Item System you already know and love.
In addition to all that are a bevvy of bugfixes and clarifications, not the smallest resource for which is the first version of our Quick Start Guide, which is a small 21-page supplement to bring you from 0 to Toa in as short a time as possible (along with other species, of course!), complete with a guide to character creation, a condensed GM reference, and a glossary of game and lore terms that you need to play. This one is a work in progress, so please give us feedback as you can so we can improve it!
I could go on, we also added our first stab (and a good one at that) at our Environmental System, which is mostly a GM tool to throw terrain and weather at your players, we rebuilt the character sheet and the Powers Index, added a few bells and whistles where we could, all that. More than I can cover without you just reading the books.
But I'd like to thank the team that pulled this off, however tired and bedraggled we all are. It's a big year for us in RSG, and I continue to be proud of the team that has continued to grow and conquer the challenges before them. I can never be more grateful to them, and they're the heart and soul of this endeavor.
I'd also like to thank the fanbase that's stuck with us as we've put this labor of love together, and made every drop of blood, sweat, and tears worth the effort.
Thank you, and play well.
Changelog:
This update is the culmination of our team’s efforts over the course of more than a year. By its very nature, it is nearly impossible to fully collate and note every single change that has been made over that time; frankly, we’ve forgotten a good chunk of the smaller details. So, great news! Some of what’s coming will be “brand-new”, even to us. Here are the major improvements, revisions, introductions, and returns (that we can remember, at least):
CRAFTING/EQUIPMENT:
Massive changes across the board to nearly all kinds of Items. For example, the Sweet Spots on Ranged Weapons no longer exist, Vehicles have been incorporated into a larger system (Machines), which allow players to create powered equipment. This will pave the way towards the introduction of things like Bohrok and Vahki in a future update. There have also been significant changes to various Item Components.
Additionally, the Crafting System now allows you to actually Craft Items outside of character creation, using all kinds of different Materials and chemical properties to allow players and GM’s to make incredible and fantastical creations. For the first time ever, it is possible to make Kanoka and Kanohi within the game. These changes have had knock-on effects in other systems such as the Elemental System.
Off-The-Rack Items have been preserved and, in some cases, expanded. Equipment Packs have been simplified and provide real, tangible benefits to the players that use them, even outside of the Equipment they contain.
SUPERTYPES/ARCHETYPES:
Engineer - This one is quintessential. The entire Engineering Supertype makes its triumphant return, allowing players to fine-tune exactly how they work within the Crafting Guide and Equipment Index. Focus on weaponsmithing or armorsmithing, improve the unique functionalities of the Materials you use, construct the heaviest power armor you’ve ever seen, and more.
Elementalist - Changes have been made to nearly all Archetypes within Elementalist, reflecting on changes from other areas of the game. Notably, Elemental Smith, an extremely powerful and game-changing option, has been pulled from the annals of our long game development history, and a new Half-Archetype, Stormbringer, has been introduced to pair with the Elemental Storm Attack Form.
Scout - Run fast, dodge quickly, and never lose your way with another returning Supertype, the Scout. This Supertype allows players to become a ranger of the wilderness, and many other Supertypes have Archetypes within them that are Cross-Listed into Scout. The Survivalist, in particular, is heavily associated with the new Environmental Guide.
Piraka - Become a weird little murdering thief! This Supertype features 6 Half-Archetypes, each styled after one of the Piraka we know and love, and puts an emphasis on niche and often hostile behavior. Want to run-and-gun? Perhaps you’d prefer to throw your own teammates under the bus for something you broke? If so, the Piraka Supertype could be perfect for you. Also of note: every single Piraka Archetype is Cross-Listed in at least one other Supertype, allowing them to pack a punch and contribute to a wide variety of playstyles.
Misc. - Several one-off Archetypes that we’ve had on the backburner for a long time have returned, as well, such as the Marauder (Melee/Defense), Breacher (Ranged/Melee), Grand Fusilier (Ranged/Expert Pilot) and Trapper (Stealth/Scout/Combat Arts). Tweaks have been made to most Supertypes and Archetypes to ensure balance, clarity, and accuracy to the new rules. Cross-Listed Archetypes are now only listed in the Supertype they’re most commonly associated with; this is due to how many of them there are now, which would add clutter and make it harder for us to make sure changes are made across all iterations of those Archetypes consistently. Altogether, we’re now sitting at 85 Archetypes across 16 Supertypes.
POWERS:
Powers are one of the first things this update focused on, and the changes are numerous and, in many cases, under the hood. There are more elegant solutions for details like a Power’s Range and Duration, and we’ve taken a closer look at most Components. Channel Components are clearer to understand and are more powerful in some cases. We recommend taking a look, particularly if you play as Skakdi or other Powers-based Species frequently.
ELEMENTS:
Notably, the calculations for various Elemental Attack Forms have been changed or streamlined (for example, Elemental Item has been changed radically to reflect overhauls in Crafting and Equipment), and a new Attack Form, Elemental Storm, has been introduced. Elemental Attack Forms and Talents are now purchased with Elemental Expertise Tokens, which are earned similarly to normal ETs, by playing as an applicable Species or by spending time on an Elementalist Path. Elemental Fatigue’s Exhaustion DC has been lowered. General tweaks have occurred throughout the Elemental Index.
ENVIRONMENTS:
The basic rules for Environments existed in the Rules Guide prior to 0.9.1, but thanks to Crypto’s efforts, they’ve flourished into a full-blown guide of their own. GMs can dive in and find everything they need to deliver an Environmental storytelling experience, complete with information related to temperature, light, and altitude, regional Storms, natural disasters, and the specific nuances of biomes such as rainforests, deserts, and grasslands. This document also tells GMs which Rahi and Materials can be generally found in a given Environment, and specifies what Elemental Tribes will benefit from passing through an area. This is a sub-system we’re especially proud of, and intend to expand on in the future.
SPECIES
We added a handful of new Species in between 0.9 and 0.9.1: Akiamu, Vhisotai, Vokaru, and Barramoi.
Some changes have also been introduced to pre-existing Species due to ongoing system-wide changes. For example, the Crafting Workbench that Vortixx are given at character creation has been recontextualized to better gel with the Crafting Guide, and the armor of a Paxorak is now naturally made of Chitin. Additionally, with proper rules for Protosteel, Ursare are even more dangerous than before. Changes to Inventory, Skill progression, etc. are also present.
KANOHI
While there have been some minor changes to Kanohi here and there, the main thing to note is that the standard and Nuva versions of the Kanohi Index have been merged into a single document. Some of you may be excited to learn that we are going to break away from an internal rule of waiting for the 3D modeling team to catch up to the game rules before adding more Kanohi. Expect new masks to enter play in the near(ish) future.
NPCs/RAHI
No new NPC’s or Rahi have been introduced at this time, but there have been a number of subtle changes and fixes that deserve a mention. A lot of the information on how to read NPC statblocks and how to make your own has been moved to the front of the documents for easier access. Rahi specifically have been given a lot of quality-of-life changes. Each Rahi Statblock now states what Environments, Climates, and Terrain Types they’re most likely to be found in, and the properties of unique loot found on specific Rahi has been improved, in accordance with Crafting changes.
RULES GUIDE
Relocated all Environment information to the Environments Guide. Introduced a handful of new Paths, including Disk-Maker and Chronicler. Riposte has been merged with Attacks of Opportunity.
MISC/GENERAL
Skills - Skills have been overhauled to a significant degree in terms of how Skills are earned and improved. Skill Points in their entirety no longer exist (including Attribute-specific Skill Points), and have been replaced with Expertise Tokens, which are earned at each Level and can be spent on everything Skill Points used to be able to, including Talents and the Elemental System. Each Expertise Token (or ET) can buy a Proficiency or 1 Rank of Expertise, making each roughly equal to 2 Skill Points. This change slows down how quickly you can become skillful, but also reduces the headache of character creation at high levels, and streamlines the process of gaining a Level. These changes are (hopefully) fully reflected in all documents where they are mentioned.
The Use Elements Skill has been introduced to match the Use Powers Skill. This allows you to have more direct control over your Elemental Save DC, Elemental Attack Rolls, and simplifies the language surrounding both of them. Profession Skills have been removed; if we somehow missed a mention of a Profession Skill, treat it as a Crafting Skill, unless it’s something really out-there.
Inventory - In addition to Carrying Weight, which is usually not a relevant or accurate metric of how much stuff someone can carry, we’ve introduced a slot-based Inventory System. All Items have a definable Size, and take up a given number of Inventory Spaces (IS) in your Inventory, which is determined based on your Species. A Component in the Equipment Index allows you to increase the number of Inventory Spaces you have (Backpacks), or store Items off your person. Crates of loot or dead-drop caches are fully possible.
Rarity - Over the years, we’ve introduced a whole slew of arbitrary Rarity scales for various things, including Kanohi, Rahi, NPCs, and Materials. In preparation for the in-game economy actually mattering in a future update, these are being largely homogenized.
Nomenclature - We have tried to make the terminology we use in our documents easier to understand. Rather than referring directly to a region when talking about Item Quality, we now use the Item Quality’s numeric value. We’ve tried to identify all uses of the word “turn” and replaced them with the correct verbiage, “Round”. Similar tweaks are being made as we go, so if you notice anything that looks out of place, please let us know.