A laundry list of goodies 6-18-2025

So there's an upcoming fifth session of the RoNIN test play this week and there's been quite a few changes I've made in the handbook.  A few balancing issues and a couple new mechanics.  Here's what to expect:

Vehicle Repair

You can now fix a vehicle yourself and you don't have to take it to a shop.  Only catch is that you need either skill in Engineering or Driving (Motorcycling if you're fixing a bike) and you need to have access to a repair ready garage.

Non-Specialty Reflex Skills

At beginning of the game, you'll probably have no specialties on you but you'll have a metric ton of reflex points.  So there will be three reflex skills you'll start off with: Retry, which allows you re-roll your check, provided you didn't botch, Steady Aim, which gives you +5 Accuracy boost on your current turn, and Achilles' Aim, which is the same as Steady Aim except it bolsters Strike.

Foot Pursuit

Now you get to do what's considered a staple of Cops and Live PD episodes: chase down a scumbag and try to tackle him!  I hope your Agility rating is up to snuff!

Another Equipment Rebalance

Shields are a bit too OP as it would be too easy to turtle behind them, so we've added a shieldbreaker mechanic.  Each shield (except for the Titan Disc) now has vitality.  If the shield hits zero, the shield breaks and you'll have to get it repaired (unless it's a Bright Shield where in that case you'll spend AP to regenerate it).  We also rebalanced the sniper and anti-materiel rifles by nerfing the accuracy but buffing the damage.

Mutate benefit caps

You don't have to worry about putting TP into mutate skills anymore.  Every 100xp you'll automatically gain a mutate skill level and that benefit will cap at 2500xp when you get its elite skill.  As for Humans, once they reach 2500xp, that +2TP bonus they get every 100xp will no longer apply.

Legions

Riots happen in Chicago and every once in a while you'll have a huge crowd of bullet fodder acting a fool.  Bring a weapon that has crowd control (i.e. a machine gun or a flamethrower) and be sure you take cover!

So there will be more updates coming as we wrap up the first major test session post overhaul.  I'll be inviting some new people to the discord (it'll be mostly peers and influence contact but we'll open up the discord once the campaign is off and running) once that's done and i'm sure there will be more handbook updates soon.  We're already talking about re-balancing the rest of the weapons so stay tuned!

-AA