Some Long Awaited Optional Rules

Someone wrote to me, and said that if they had Caching and Grudges, they'd be content. I thought, "Sure! Why not!"

In a crazed fit of coding last night, I assembled a fairly nice Caching interface (if I do say so myself), along with all the bells and whistles. Any character/leader/monster can cache items, and access caches later. Caches can be found/shared/looted by other characters. When you create a cache, you can specify the order of the items, and even store gold. I played around with it, and its pretty nice to have, especially when you find a huge treasure that you can't carry! Now you can stash it, and come back later when you have big boots, or a hired native. Neat!

The other piece was strangely easy, but that was by design. I had always intended to get the Commerce rules in place, because I prefer to use them over the standard rules. Now the treasures have differing values based on the group you are selling them to, which makes relationships all that more important. Got the Sacred Grail? Better hope the Order is your friend so you can score some big money!

Along with this, is Grudges and Gratitudes. I felt uncomfortable grouping this with the Commerce stuff, even though they are that way in the 2nd edition manual, so you'll find this as a standalone option. Essentially, buying/selling treasure with special FAME attributes to the appropriate denizen can score not only big money, but relationship improvements as well. Imagine the joy the Order will have when you deliver the Sacred Grail! This could make the Sorceror a bit less at ends with these Knights, and give him a strange edge in the game.

Of course, the down side of this rule, is that you gotta be careful who you kill. Elf decides to murder a Woodfolk, he's going to find that they are an enemy very quickly!

Okay, okay. I promised to get on Absorb Essence and Transform, and I still intend to, but I gotta have fun too, you know!

Later!

Version 0.35 Released

Lots of cool new stuff in this release that really improve the quality of play, IMHO. I played several full games without so much as a hitch, and I was doing all kinds of stuff. My best game involved the Captain working with the Witch-King, because I got to see what having the Belt of Strength and the Truesteel sword was like. Very nice killing machine!! At least it was fun for awhile: the Witch-King flew into a cave with a bunch of goblins and got killed, and the Captain got cursed with Ill-Health and Wither at a VERY inopportune time. Oh well!

The biggest new feature, I believe, is the addition of the Broomstick spell. This gives the Witch and Witch-King (Magician?) a nice new strategy possibility, and pretty much rounds out all the really useful spells. The remaining spells (see previous post), with the exception of Enchant Artifact, are pretty much worthless in a solo game, or non-competitive play. I'll get to them someday I suppose.

The big bug fix in this one, is that curses no longer crash the game. I introduced this problem in the last release, and its caused a few headaches. Oh, and wait until you see the new chit panel! A lot of people (myself included) hated the way chits were being displayed in the fatigue/wound/rest dialogs. I've cleaned this up a lot, and made it a lot easier to work with.

Okay, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

• New Spells working:
  
  • Talk to Wise Bird
    
  • World Fades
    
  • Broomstick - works for flying self only (cannot affect other characters yet, though you can still cast it on them)
  
  
• Added target information to spell cards
  
• Added Character name to combat sheets
  
• Revamped the character chit display to group like chits together - makes it a bit easier to see what you want. This affects:
  
  • Initial chit enchantment when choosing a new magic user (MUCH easier on the eyes)
    
  • Fatigue/Rest/Wound displays
    
  • Combat builder display allows easy clicking to change the state (no more buttons to do this)
    
  • Character chit display now has a "detail" button to bring up the new grouped display

BUGS/ISSUES:

• Curse will not crash the game anymore.
  
• Witch's Brew (and similar spells) can target all chits, not just active ones.
  
• Fixed character combat order - now identical to day combat order as it should be.
  
• Combat frame shows character order: First character is in first row, second character in second row, and so on.
  
• Targeting a single opponent with Stones Fly (which does 4 attacks) will no longer cause you to become unhidden automatically when Ambush is in play.
  
• Fixed another "Watchful Natives" bug, that was not moving an ambusher's target to a new combat sheet.
  
• MAGIC chits dedicated to spells are no longer ignored when determining if you can learn a new spell.
  
• Casting logic now correctly matches spells with casting options (i.e., using spell from book when you use the book)
  
• When a guide does an ALERT phase, the followers are no longer REQUIRED to complete it (though they can use it if desired)
  
• Fixed an infinite loop that occurs when the Witch's familiar is following her when she discovers or loots a treasure Site.
  
• Game no longer hangs when a hired leader hires another native
  
• Fixed a problem where simultaneous attacks hitting a treasure card were spilling through to other armor.
  
• Must now land after running with a fly action. You can fly again, if you have the magic.
  
• Fixed the logic of Site Cards: They are added to the bottom of the treasure pile so they can be found by other characters. They remain visible on the board, however.
  
• Fixed the run-away logic for flyers: only flying opponents can stop you from running if you are flying away
  
• Timeless Jewel now properly handles newly activated items and horses