Another week, and another playtest session for my game Hammercalled. This one was a little more interesting because we got into things that we haven't done much of yet (namely combat), and it went really well with a few exceptions.

I'm really happy with watching some of the principles play out in practice, especially since they're actually working. However, there are always more things left to do.

The Good

We had a three hour session and got through a half-dozen combats in that time. Most of these were one-versus-one duels (people were preparing for an upcoming tournament), but even so it went pleasantly fast. In fact, we still spent the minority of time in combat, despite having so many little fights.

Also good: people generally liked combat. Admittedly, I've been selling them on it for a while now and they're really fond of how fast it goes.

Generally the good stuff remains as it has been, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time going into details here.

The Bad

It's really time to make more examples and cheat-sheet stuff for Hammercalled. People kept forgetting to apply armor (I kept forgetting to apply armor).

I mentioned in the past that I don't like Talents as they currently stand, but I've come to the conclusion that most of them actively suck. Like, really bad. I need to revise them, add new interesting ones, and so forth.

Note: I've got some ideas for talents for The Legacy of Eight that don't necessarily belong in the core Hammercalled ruleset, though I might add them in some way: Psionics, for instance, gives the ability to spend extra Energy on actions. Coming up with a genre-neutral option here could be rough.

Another small issue is combat order. I had to fix this up, since there's no static Initiative. Some of the Talents that used to apply to Initiative now apply to this, though some of the other Initiative stuff has gone away. I don't think this is a problem because Specializations provide an outlet for people who specialize in going first in combat.

The Ugly

Combat is perhaps more lethal than I intended for it to be. Some of this may come down to needing to increase the Health pool, but I don't think it's just that.

I still haven't sorted out cooperative rolls. It's kind of a complex subject and I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I like having it be super-useful, on the other I'm really kind of anxious about its effect on play. On the other hand, I think it fits a narrative and lets some good roleplaying happen (for instance, three characters attempt to do something and each takes a try until one finally succeeds).

My character's at 60 XP now and I'm seeing some real issues with power growth. I'm not sure if revising guidance to reduce XP or increasing XP costs is the right path here, or maybe a little of both.

Changes

I updated the Knocked Out status to apply to vehicles and characters and basically be a "until you recover, you can't act" thing, making nonlethal attacks once again viable. I reintroduced the Winded status effect.

I also went through and fixed the Stamina and Wounds references that were still in the book. The GM section needs work as of writing, but I hope to have it updated before the next playtest.