I am beginning a major overhaul to the Fallout RPG. This is due to my current dissatisfaction with the game system as a whole right now. This dissatisfaction has led to me stopping any forward progress on the Bestiaries until finished.
We first talked about this on the patreon newsletter, but I want to bring this to the wider attention of the community, so you understand the hold up with Fallout and what is coming down the pipeline.
The following are some of the major list of changes I am planning on making to Fallout. Please let me know on the forums channel whether you like or do not like some of these purposed changes.
-Changed to d20: When Fallout was originally designed, StarCraft was also in the process of switching to a d6 system. Your overwhelming feedback prevented this from happening, and I thank you for that. Now, it just seems silly for Fallout to not be a d20 system. The primary change to Fallout will be changing the system to the same dice mechanic as StarCraft.
-Resistance Changes: Similar to the change to 2nd edition for StarCraft, Fallout damage resistances are going to be condensed to two damage types: damage resistance and radiation resistance.
-Traits: I tried to carry the trait system over from classic Fallout games. In truth, it just didn’t work well. It was even worsened in that traits were mandatory for human characters and felt therefore forced. For that reason, traits are being removed from the game. The human racial benefit will be instead be a free Tag skill.
-Backgrounds: I originally stated that I was going to remove backgrounds from the back. This is no longer the case. Backgrounds are staying in! Their characteristic point costs have been substantially reworked, however.
-Races and Mutual Survivors: Races are going to see a major overhaul of balance and characteristic point costs. Moreover, I am removing the Mutual Survivors option. It hasn’t proved very popular; people don’t like the extra record keeping. Instead, every player will have 1 character, as per classic RPG style. Rules for Dog and Mr. Handy characters have gone away.
-Ability Scores (excuse me, SPECIALs): I am reducing the base values for SPECIAL traits down to 2, like ability scores is in StarCraft. This has worked out to be a much better number, especially since they share a system of AS/ Skill increases. This means it will be more difficulty to max out multiple stats than it current is in Fallout.
-Characteristic Points: In general, these values will move to be much more similar to StarCraft. With the removal of the Lone Wanderer option, this should fairly easy. This will apply to creatures as well as characters.
-Weapons: Same with weapons. Their values are going to change to be much more similar to the StarCraft weapons formula.
-Creature Types: This is more of interest for me, since I make the creatures, but creature types are probably going to get slightly rebalanced and changed in CP cost. This is likely going to be very minor, because the way creatures are looking is actually quite good right now.
-Massive Editing: Fallout is in serious need of QA right now. Lots of incorrect references, errors, and fixes need to be made. There are still some references to StarCraft content, for goodness sakes!
Currently, I am about halfway done with the Core Rulebook. That is, unfortunately, the easy part. More time consuming will be the redoing of all 3 released bestiaries.
When I release the updated game, I might be releasing Fallout Bestiary 4: Lost Age of Technology, at the same time. We will have to see.
Please give your feedback on the forums if you want to pitch your thoughts!