We've gotten a lot of Doom playtesting in over the last few months. It is a very enjoyable game and we've had a lot of fun with it. We've got a huge number of balance tweaks and minor content additions to further expand the game, make it even more enjoyable. As part of this, we are playtesting a lot of new ideas for use in next-gen LD20 games, such as active defenses and sidearm abilities.
We are still looking at doing a major content update later this year.
These are changes to specializations, backgrounds, and talents.
Specialization Changes
The Basher Specialization, part of the Brawler tree, now gives its benefits to Light Tools and Heavy Tools and gives full strength rather than half strength.
The Guardian Specialization’s Living Shield ability now lasts rounds equal to willpower, but causes you to be slowed. It also specifies that it does not function if you have cover or concealment from the enemy.
The Protector Advanced Specialization no longer increases maximum hit points, but instead allows you to reduce damage from an attack by spending a reaction.
The Hero Master Specialization now lets your nearby allies spend a morale to reduce damage they suffer from attacks, or lets you spend a morale to allow an ally to take less damage.
The Armor Specialist Advanced Specialization now reduces the defense penalty to half, instead of by half, and allows you to activate an armor shard once per encounter without using it.
The Battle Born Advanced Specialization now gives a -5 penalty on disfigurement rolls and gives +2 damage threshold.
The Lunatic Theme now gives Jaded instead of Cynic, and gives extra max morale on top of what jaded gives. This means that lunatics can now loose morale as normal for Jaded characters.
The Master of the Fist Master Specialization gives one counter attack per turn against someone that misses you with an attack.
The Master of Arms Advanced Specialization now gives accuracy equal to power ratings gained.
Dual-Wielding Advanced Specialization has been changed completely to Rapid Strike, where, if you hit with both weapons, you can attack with one weapon again.
The Melee Advanced Specialization now gives +1 strike with dedicated melee instead of Bleed.
The Diplomate Advanced Specialization does not apply 2 negative morale, but instead applies two combat influence actions for each check.
The Patient Hunter Advanced Specialization no longer gives 2 rending when you aim and fire.
The Demon Slayer Advanced Specialization now gives +1 power rating and +2 penetration against demons, down from +5 damage and pen.
Talent Changes
The Deadly Strike talent has been renamed to Deadly Strikes and has been redesigned. Now you choose to reduce the accuracy bonus of strikes to gain bonus damage per strike and per overage.
The Heat Resistant talent has been reduced to 2/4/6/8 less penetration for energy attacks
Quick Shot has been reworked to have no additional ranks. The secondary attacks deal half damage after DR and HF. These attacks cannot generate additional attacks. As long as you are using two pistols, you can dual-wield your quick shots.
The Resolute talent gives ½ intelligence +2 resolve at fist rank, or intelligence +3 resolve at second rank.
The Counter Attack talent deals half damage after damage resistance and hailfire is applied.
Glory Kill gains a +5 bonus against prone targets, and no longer uses a healing threshold
Added the Shotgun Fighter talent, to allow you to use the super shotgun in one hand
Added the Passionate Crusader talent, giving bonuses to characters who gain or lose morale
Added the Auto Barrage talent, allowing you to get extra strikes with auto bursts
Added the Glory Surge talent, allowing you to move further when killing an enemy on an action move
Added Ballistic Weapon Expertise talent, allowing bullet weapons to get more pen based on ammo used
Added the Sidearm: Desperate shot talent, allowing rifle characters at low morale to make free pistol attacks
Added the Sidearm: Defensive reload talent, allowing rifle characters to reload slower without provoking opportunity attacks and also make a free pistol attack
Night Sentinel Changes
Gave the Night Sentinel race the Sustainable Energies trait, to allow them to absorb fatigue and regain fatigue resistance by killing creatures.
Great Sword upgrade for the sentinel blade gains +1 power rating to damage instead of +2
The Throwing upgrade for sentinel daggers no longer works with Throwing Expertise
The Knife Master talent no longer works with the Finesse Sentinel Blade upgrade.
Background Changes
The Old Religion Background now gives +4 resolve instead of +2.
The Optimistic Survivor background no longer produces resources on a rest action. The Benevolent Survivor level now gives +1 healing threshold to everyone during a short rest, instead of giving the Survivor +2 and everyone else +1. The Thrifty Wanderer level now gives everyone else +1 healing threshold, but not yourself.
Doom Equipment Updates
Riot Shields now have a shield pool of 100, with 15 shield armor
For armor shard upgrade, you now must always spend an armor shard when you take a crippling wound of suffer a disfigurement. You do not get a choice whether to use an armor shard or not. This is to avoid endless stacking of armor shards and help force them to be a more disposable resource.
Science Device Changes
Explosive Charge is now 30 + 2x int
Argent Ray base damage now 2x int
Cluster demolition charge now has a burst area of 2/4/6 instead of scaling on intelligence.
Traits
Added the Reinforcement item trait to all heavy and powered character armor (except hazard suit). This causes heavy armor to give +3 damage threshold and super heavy armor give +6 damage threshold.
Renamed powered armor to super heavy armor
Added the Powered Armor trait for Doom super heavy armor
The versatile trait has been changed from +2 power ratings, to +2 accuracy, +4 pen, and -1 attack speed.
Weapons with the focusing beam trait no longer gain attack overage bonus to damage.
Weapon Changes
Shotgun reduced from 19 damage to 15
The Lightning Gun has received an increase to damage, power rating, and penetration. Its range has been decreased to short. It also specifies that it uses plasma cells, not power cells. It gained the inefficient ammo (5) trait.
The chainsaw lost its rending value
The heavy cannon lost its rending value
The Vortex Rifle has been reduced to +4 power rating (down from +5)
The Sentinel Axe gained +4 damage
The Sentinel Dagger gained +2 damage and +2 penetration
The Sentinel Flamethrower now has the Scrap Armor trait, which allows it to produce armor shards when killing certain enemies.
Weapon Mods
Micro-Missiles: gained +5 accuracy and changed to a standard action
Gatling Rotator: increased to +5 accuracy
Siege Mode: increases damage by +30, loses burst 2, phrased that it changes to the listed traits instead of gaining the traits.
Microwave beam: gives foes tormented instead of stunned for 1 round after hit defense and toughness
Explosive Shot: Gained +5 accuracy, reduced hailfire to 1, gained the delay trait
Sticky Grenade Launcher: Does not gain bonuses from talents and abilities that affect shotguns
Doom Monster Updates
Doom is supposed to be a difficult roleplaying game with deadly enemies. I have made numerous tweaks to the creatures in the game to make them even more threatening. Previously, they were rather weak and did not scale well. Every enemy also ended up being not worth their threat level. These changes fix this problem, and more changes will probably come over time.
All creatures, of any type (demon, zombie, makyr, robot, etc), gained the ferocity trait. They gain bonus damage equal to 2+ ½ their level with all weapon attacks.
Imps gained two new traits: Charged Fireball and Pack Tactics. Pack tactics gives them +10 when flanking with an Imp, and no penalty to attacking in melee when enemies are fighting imps. Charged fireball allows the imp to attack with a fireball as a full-round action, gaining +8 penetration.
Hell Razer’s beam attack gained +3 accuracy, +4 penetration, and increased to a power rating of +3.
Gargoyle’s acidic saliva attack increased to 10 base penetration. The gargoyle now gains 5 rending with all attacks from the infectious trait.
The Maggot gained +2 fortitude. They gain +2 accuracy with their grotesque tongue. When using staggering step, they can make their full number of strikes, including follow up tongue attacks. The poison attack now requires a DC 16 endurance check or 16 poison damage.
Both variants of the Mancubus increased to huge-sized and gained +3/4 fortitude. They also gained the repelling blast trait, which lets them spend a reaction when an enemy gets close to make a Vent Blast attack. The demonic spew trait now deals half damage, but gained Twin-linked and Flames. The toxic barrage attack can be dual-wielded.
The Baron of Hell (both variants) gained +5 agility and +4 fortitude. They also gained the following talents: Defensive Fighting II, Natural Health III, Devastating Cripple (ranged). The non-fireborne baron of hell of generates 2 hellfire stacks every turn.
The Bruiser demon gained +2 agility, +4 strength, and +2 intelligence. They gained 6 ranks in the computers and science skills. They gained the Cybernetic Grafts trait, increasing their hit points and damage resistance. They received the following talents: bulwark, defensive fighting II, resistant V. Its binary shriek ability increased to a Cone 9 and can be used as a move action. It gained the Endure Punishment ability, which gives it temporary hit points every time it suffers damage.
There is a new creature trait, Demonic Nobility, which gives the following traits: +30 damage threshold, +10 damage resistance, +100 max hit points, +1 reaction per turn, and full number of strikes on an opportunity attack. The Archvile, Baron of Hell, and Tyrant received this trait.
Hell Knight’s fiery shockwave now deals a fireball hit to everyone adjacent to them when they finish a leap, in addition to the old effect.
The Arch-Vile recovers 20 energy every turn, instead of 10.
Gave every demon that qualifies for it the Close Combat Shot talent.
The Demonic Claw natural weapon lost 5 rending, but gained 5 base damage
The Energy Lash natural weapon gained 4 base damage
The Hellforged Scepter demon weapon gained 7 base damage
Gave expanded rules on the talents gained or lost for the Elder Demon and Lesser Demon templates.
Comments