Under the new rules, there are I believe 10 new calls, cleave, repair x, wither, bleed, mangle, stim, reduce, forget, jam, and surgery. I strongly believe this is adding far more complexity to the rulebook than necessary. For example, repair x could just be heal x to automaton or device, and not add a new call to the game.

Agreed!

We are open to suggestions for specific calls we can cut to streamline the rules.

That being said, here are a few notes on our thinking:

“Reduce” is, we feel, necessary for making combats that are fun to fight without instantly being short circuited or just immune to attacks. It is in fact currently in use, effectively, with our Power Armor Rules for soaking Gun and Blade attacks. Better to have this called in a way that is clear to the person interacting with it.

“Cleave”, or “Cleave to Living”, is already inflicted by our Microwave Barriers under a longer effect call, and we are abbreviating it. We also have changed Death to a Level 6 Effect, so there is space for a lesser but still serious call.

“Repair” is not simply “Heal to Automaton”, allowing a skilled repair-person to reduce the cost of fixing a Broken Device. We would like to see people actually Repair Devices after they are Broken, rather than treating them as effectively Destroyed due to current cost structures.

“Wither” and “Bleed” are new and novel and we acknowledge that, but we believe they are necessary to the sorts of stories we will be telling in the next arc.

“Mangle” is meant to be a meaner Pierce, delivering the new Wither and Bleed calls based on location hit, but is a call we could drop if we need to.

“Stim” is meant to make it easier for new and returning players to access the most commonly used contingency that can otherwise be hard to grasp or to call correctly in the heat of battle.

“Surgery” is already used in our game with a level of sophistication and complication that is spread over a number of Perks I have lost track of, with varying durations, requirements, and outcomes. We are attempting to simplify the current assortment of rules to be easier to navigate and build upon if so desired by starting with a foundation that contemplates modular additions.

“Forget” and “Jam” are not necessary, per se. but Jam would be effectively replacing Disarm not adding another call. “Forget” was being added to be able to be more forgiving to errors in Stealth Mods, but we do not see as necessary in the same way.

We removed “Armor,” “Dodge”, and “Parry” as separate stand alone calls to address this, as we did not feel they communicated useful feedback information during combat. We consolidated Bind and Snare into a single call to reduce complexity.

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-Josh Marcus
Head of Plot, FI 3

Why not instead of adding repair make 'heal to device' do the caveats you've mentioned?

I'm unclear on why there is a need for Stim, when you could just have Bestow Recovery as a core procedure. Maybe my morning coffee hasn't kicked in yet. Is there some nuance I'm missing?

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Brian Paul!
-Prop Boss, Plot Team, Rules Comm, Other Stuff

Stim always goes off, recovery pauses if someone starts to heal you first.

David R Wrote:
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> Stim always goes off, recovery pauses if someone
> starts to heal you first.

That seems like a really trivial edge case that doesn't warrant a new call. If that is really a hang-up, I'd suggest just revising Recovery!

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Brian Paul!
-Prop Boss, Plot Team, Rules Comm, Other Stuff

The other part is stim could be used with other calls such as barrier search. (Note, I'm also in support of not adding stim, just trying to list potential reasonings.)

David R Wrote:
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> The other part is stim could be used with other
> calls such as barrier search. (Note, I'm also in
> support of not adding stim, just trying to list
> potential reasonings.)

At which point, you should pull out the usual Contingency/Trigger keywords.

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Brian Paul!
-Prop Boss, Plot Team, Rules Comm, Other Stuff

I feel like forget could easily just be replaced with a longer procedure call.