Crucible Version 0.11.0 - Version 14 Alpha

Hello friends! I am so excited to release Crucible 0.11.0, a major update that I've been working on for several weeks now along with the help of a few excellent community contributors. This release is a major update to the Crucible system with significant new mechanics, a major expansion and re-balance of talents, and other exciting features for automation and gameplay.

Contributors

Many thanks to the following contributors who added features or improvements as part of this release!

• @roth-michael
• @XinSysVTT
• @Plushtoast

Highlights

• Proficiency System: An entirely redesigned Proficiency System which significantly expands upon and replaces the "Training" system that previously existed. Crucible now has 32 proficiencies! 4 Exploration Skills, 4 Knowledge Skills, 4 Social Skills, 8 Weapon types, Armor, 3 Spellcraft families, and 8 Trade Skills. Each proficiency is progressed via Training obtained from purchasing Talents in the talent tree and through the allocation of 2 additional Proficiency Points that you are allowed to spend every level. Each proficiency advances non-linearly through 5 ranks: Untrained, Trained, Proficient, Expert, and Master. This change serves many purposes, but the absolute most important reason for it is that it removes the un-fun mechanical tax of purchasing training talents on the tree which are necessary for your characters' effectiveness but not otherwise exciting progression of your active capabilities.
• Trade Skills: Reintroduced to the system as first-class skills which now can be progressed, have their own numerical bonuses, and can be rolled to perform crafting checks. This is not yet the "crafting system", but it's an important foundational cornerstone for it.
• 48 Brand New Talents: With special areas of focus placed on Talisman usage, talents which utilize a specific Skill, and introductory talents for Trade Skills.
• Rebalanced Backgrounds: The Backgrounds that come with the Crucible system have been redesigned to each offer new starting talents (3 each) and training (6 proficiencies each).
• AoE Region Automation: Add rich and in-depth automation support for Auras, designed as Region documents with a special "Crucible Action" Region Behavior which can trigger an action to be used automatically when specific gameplay conditions are met (like an enemy token entering the region). This robust framework means that the Aura spellcraft gesture is now fully implemented and automated.
• Storm Rune VFX: Add spell visual effects animation for Rune: Storm!
• Blood Sense: Mechanical support for "Blood Sense", by tracking which ancestries and taxonomies have blood and therefore can be detected when they are wounded.
• Cursed Affixes: Add support for cursed Affixes which penalize a character's stats and cannot be removed (except by a Gamemaster).
• Tooltips: Add a large number of informative tooltips for various rules that now provide rich information when hovered.

New Features

Proficiency and Training

• Reestablished training progression as a parallel advancement system outside of the Talent tree, with Proficiency Points allocated per level. #1429
• Redesigned the Skills tab of the character sheet into a Proficiencies tab which encompasses every proficiency type, removing the legacy Skills tab for both heroes and adversaries. #1432
• Enabled the majority of talents to each provide +1 training to a specific Proficiency area, and assigned initial training progression to all existing talents. #1506
• Removed training-only talents from the talent tree and rebalanced talent placement around their absence. #1438
• Split basic weapon and spellcraft starter actions back out of the weapon training talents which had absorbed them, so they stand on their own once again. #1437
• Added Armored Combat as a proficiency which lowers the Dexterity scaling threshold of your equipped armor with each trained rank. #1494
• Reduced the untrained skill penalty from -4 to -2 with a single proficiency point allocated, interpolated the untrained bonus, and reworked the Intuitive weapon property to scale with training. #1493
• Redesigned and rebalanced character Backgrounds to provide initial training in six areas of specialization and three starting talents, rather than two skills and one talent. #1507
• Redesigned adversary Archetypes to carry weights expressing a preference for training in certain areas of specialization, auto-progressed as the adversary levels up or down. #1508
• Made adversary ability score allocation more robust using the D'Hondt/Jefferson apportionment method.
• Reported all ability score bonuses on the Proficiencies tab and improved the presentation of the proficiency level cap. #1432
• Reorganized the Talents compendium into a folder hierarchy with a subfolder per skill. #1505

Crafting and Trade Skills

• Reunified tradecrafts as Skills which can be rolled, presented as Trade Skills throughout the UI and rules text. #1489
• Added a cantrip-style versatility action for each of the eight Trade Skills, each offering a choice of one Read, Destroy, or Create effect and requiring that trade's Toolkit be equipped. #1491
• Added provisional rules for repairing Broken equipment through the crafting system. #1490
• Rewrote the Crafting rules pages and added a Trade Skills section to the Skills rules page. #1492
• Configured spellcraft Gestures to train Glyphweaving and Inflections to train Enchanting.

Talents

• Added 48 new talents spanning Stealth, Awareness, Talisman spellcasting, Morale, Focus alternatives, the Trade Skills, and remaining skill coverage gaps. These are enumerated in the New Talents section below. #1496
• Implemented Talent options which improve Wound and Madness recovery outside of combat. #286
• Implemented a suite of Morale-targeting actions which either deal Morale damage or provide Morale restoration, supported by a new targeting helper that identifies all targets within range for ricochet, arcing bolt, and morale cascade effects.
• Allowed tier 0 talent nodes to connect directly to tier 1 hybrid nodes.

Spellcraft

• Enabled gameplay automation for the Aura gesture. An Aura is cast on yourself for no immediate damage and places a persistent Region which resolves a spell attack against each eligible creature that enters it or begins its turn inside it, scaled by the spell's own rune, gesture, and inflection. #1529 #611 #610
• Added VFX animation and sound support for Storm rune spells across the arrow, blast, fan, influence, ray, and touch gestures. #1528
• Colored the Region created for a spell using a rune-specific color rather than defaulting to the color of the User who placed it. #1530
• Switched actions using the Pulse target type to produce an Emanation region rather than a Circle. #1256
• Adjusted rune talents to grant broad spell family training, and removed the individual spellcraft component grants from talents in favor of a single mutually-exclusive field.

Combat and Exploration

• Added a non-combat Search action usable by every character, reinforced by several new Awareness talents. #1495
• Converted Blood Sense into a proper detection mode, allowing it to detect invisible creatures, work while blinded, and participate in flanking. #1444
• Added a blooded characteristic to taxonomies and ancestries which, when false, prevents detection via Blood Sense even when the creature is wounded. #1452
• Added support for Cursed Affixes, which players are prevented from removing, alongside a new properties field on the Affix data model. #993
• Automatically equip and invest accessories and tools purchased during character creation. #1504

Interface

• Displayed unmet action requirements as tags on the action, evaluated lazily so the tooltip reflects the current state. #1502
• Allowed rule tooltip text to be extracted dynamically from an authoritative rules journal source, unified ability tooltips under that RULES framework, and standardized their CSS with the talent tree tooltips. #1462
• Added RULES.actions so that the descriptions of default actions are available as tooltips.
• Added a tooltip for the defense section on the actor sheet. #1469
• Added tooltips for Rest and Recover on the group actor sheet. #1465
• Enhanced requestRoll to toggle between online party members (the default) and all party members. #1467
• Added a tag which identifies Origin talents.
• Clicking the level-up prompt now takes you to the character sheet tab where action is required.

New Talents

This release adds 48 new talents. #1496

Stealth and Concealment

• Sneak (dex0a): 1 Action, 1 Focus Stealth check against one enemy at 20+ feet; on a success that creature loses track of you until the start of your next turn, or two rounds on a Critical Success.
• Hide (intdex1): 2 Action, 1 Focus Stealth check against the most perceptive enemy within 30 feet, taking +1 Bane per additional observer; on a success you are concealed until you take a non-Subtle action.
• Infiltrator (dex4c): Sneak may target up to three creatures at once, resolving a separate Stealth check against each.
• Chameleon (intdex4): While concealed by Hide, your Move action is Subtle and does not reveal you.

Awareness and Investigation

• Forensic Reconstruction (wis1a): Free non-combat Awareness check against DC 14 to deduce one true fact bearing on a stated theory about a location, or two on a Critical Success; each theory may only be investigated once.

Talisman Spellcasting

• Arcing Bolt (pre1a): 1 Action Talisman attack which then arcs to the nearest other enemy within 10 feet of the target for reduced damage.
• Charged Bolt (pre1a): 1 Action, 1 Focus Empowered Talisman attack against a single target.
• Withering Bolt (pre1a): Free Harmless Talisman attack which inflicts Hexed until the end of the target's next turn.
• Piercing Bolts (pre1a): Your Talisman attacks ignore 2 points of the target's Resistance.
• Certain Focus (pre2b): Your Refocus action can no longer fail, though it may still critically succeed.
• Channeler's Grip (pre2b): While wielding a one-handed Talisman you may cast spells requiring two hands regardless of what occupies your other hand.
• Orbiting Aegis (pre3a): 1 Action stance granting Block defense equal to your current Focus to a maximum of +3, spending 1 Focus each time it turns a blow aside.
• Channeled Resonance (pre4b): Your Talisman attacks deal +2 damage while wielding a two-handed Talisman and maintaining an effect which costs Focus.
• Focal Reach (pre4b): The maximum range of your Talisman attacks increases by your current Focus.
• Sentinel Bolts (pre4b): 3 Action, 1 Focus maintained aura which makes a Talisman attack against any enemy entering it or ending its turn inside it.
• Spellcatch (pre4b): Reaction which negates a Spell targeting you and recovers Focus equal to the Focus spent casting it.

Morale Damage

• Flourish (dex1b): 1 Action, 1 Focus Performance skill attack against Reflex which deals Piercing damage to Morale.
• Chastening Blow (strwis1): Free non-lethal weapon Strike which deals its damage to the target's Morale rather than Health.
• Exploit Despair (pre2a): Your attacks against a Broken creature are made with +1 Boon.
• Brutal Display (str3b): When you slay a foe, every enemy within 20 feet who can see the body suffers Morale damage equal to your Strength.
• Rout (pre4a): When you cause a foe to become Broken or Insane, every enemy within 10 feet who can see that creature suffers Morale damage equal to your Presence.

Morale Restoration and Resilience

• Camaraderie (wis0a): Free Rest action making a Society check against each party member's Madness threshold, shedding half your Wisdom in Madness on a success or your full Wisdom on a Critical Success.
• Gallows Humor (pre2c): 1 Action reaction to an ally's Critical Failure which restores some of their Morale.
• Comforting Lie (int2c): 2 Action Deception attack against an ally's Rallying threshold which restores Morale, costing you Morale equal to the shortfall on a failure.
• Dig In (wis3a): The first time each combat that an attack would reduce you to zero Morale and leave you Broken, you are reduced to 1 Morale instead.

Focus Alternatives

• Eldritch Bargain (int2b): Spend Morale in place of Focus you do not have at a rate of 10 Morale per point, permitted even while Focus spending is otherwise blocked.
• Undaunted (wis2b): You may continue to spend Focus while Broken.

Trade Skill Cantrips

Each is a 3 Action, one-handed action requiring that trade's Toolkit be equipped, offering a choice of one Read, Destroy, or Create effect. #1491

• Coldwork (int2a): Smithing. Read Quality and Broken on smithed work at 30 feet, sunder or sabotage non-magical iron and steel, or forge any small work of iron or steel without a roll.
• Whipstitch (dex2a): Tailoring. Read Quality and fit on tailored work at 30 feet including what a creature wears, sever or sabotage cloth and leather, or make any garment and conceal a small object within it.
• Grainwork (str2a): Fletching. Read Quality, Broken, seasoning, and a lodged projectile's origin at 30 feet, split or sabotage wooden objects, or fashion any work of wood without a roll.
• Hearthwork (wis2c): Cooking. Read Quality, spoilage, and additives on cooked work at 30 feet and learn recipes by eating, spoil or sabotage food and drink, or prepare any dish without a roll.
• Wortcunning (int2a): Alchemy. Read Quality, effect, and degradation on alchemical work you can handle and identify preparations from residue, spoil or sabotage such work, or prepare any minor alchemical work without a roll.
• Filigree (str2c): Jewelcraft. Read Quality, authenticity, replacement, and honest value on stones and ornaments you can handle, shatter one or loosen a setting, or make any small work of fine metal or stone.
• Tracery (dex2b): Glyphweaving. Read Quality and imparted components on a glyph or scroll and detect alteration in written work, mar a glyph or subtly alter a document, or produce any written or painted work carrying no affix.
• Quickening (pre2a): Enchanting. Detect enchantment by touch and read affixes and remaining capacity, unmake a minor enchantment awaiting its condition or conceal one for 10 minutes, or imbue a known Rune into a small object for one task.

Trade Skill Passives

• Smith's Mending (str4a): Expert Repair for Smithing: repair without a workbench at Difficult, and a successful repair never costs the item a Quality tier.
• Tailor's Mending (pre4c): Expert Repair for Tailoring, on the same terms.
• Fletcher's Mending (wis4b): Expert Repair for Fletching, on the same terms.
• Jeweler's Mending (wis4c): Expert Repair for Jewelcraft, on the same terms.
• Slow Simmer (tou4d): Meals you prepare last 16 hours rather than 8, restore an additional half your Wisdom in Wounds and Madness, and may be prepared anywhere the party can Rest.
• Field Concoction (tou4d): Perform alchemical crafting without a facility at Difficult, and include one ingredient a single quality tier below what the recipe requires without penalty.
• Unravel Glyph (pre4c): Spend an hour to destroy a glyph in your possession and permanently learn its schematic, as though you had already crafted it successfully.
• Open Vessel (int4b): +2 Boons when binding an affix to an item which bears no enchantment.

Skill Coverage Gaps

• Feral Brawler (tou1a): Your bare hands count as Natural weapons in addition to Unarmed, using whichever of the two proficiencies is higher.
• Rapid Countermeasure (int1b): 2 Action touch which removes one elemental condition from an ally.
• Volatile Accelerant (int2c): 2 Action, 1 Focus Science attack against Fortitude which deals damage matching an elemental condition the target already suffers and extends it by 1 round, and on a Critical Success increases its per-round damage by 1.
• Breakfall (dextou1): +4 Reflex defense when defending against damage from a fall of 30 feet or less.
• Second Skin (toustr2): Your equipped Armor counts only half its weight towards your carried load.

API Changes

• Moved system migrations into a separate submodule, implemented the migrations for 0.11.0, and extended migration coverage to World-level compendium packs.
• Exposed a crucible.migrating Promise which downstream modules can await to know when the world is safely current.
• Removed the non-functional resetAllActorTalents migration.
• Added CrucibleActor#syncDetailItems to reset ancestry, background, taxonomy, and archetype to factory defaults, with a hook allowing a detail item to customize what state is preserved. #1503
• Added AttackRollData#restoration, which is authoritative for whether healing is intended for a specific roll.
• Renamed the undetectable action tag to subtle and applied it to further actions, and simplified spellcraft inflections to use the vocal tag. #1500
• Emitted a crucible.groupRest hook upon successful completion of a party rest. #1443
• Delegated combat turn and round events to system subclasses and tracked startedTurns, so that turn start workflows are not triggered more than once. #1028
• Embedded pre-configured region behavior data on actions and tied it to the creation of persisted regions, with a custom configuration application for the Crucible Action region behavior. #1472 #1474 #1475 #1526
• Refactored the system constants related to proficiency progression into a centralized proficiencies.mjs, and implemented formal and shorthand labels for each training type.
• Collapsed talent spellcraft grants to a single mutually-exclusive field, and migrated authored talents onto it.
• Unified the multiple talent card representations to a single template rendering path.
• Added preliminary linkage of an active effect to the action which originated it.
• Replaced the bespoke properties widget with a simple multi-checkbox input.

Content Updates

• Completed a comprehensive copy-editing pass across the rules and item descriptions, covering adversary talents, affixes, critical hits, defense, equipment, initiative, melee, movement, ranged, resources, signatures, skills, spells, and spellcraft components.
• Updated the rules documentation for the new proficiency system and the crafting skills.
• Rebuilt and updated the pregenerated actors for both level 1 and level 6, and updated the playtest adventure to match.
• Revised spellcraft knowledge affixes to provide +2 training.
• Redesigned the implementation of Dependable Refocus.
• Updated Intuit Weakness and Assess Resolve.
• Modified the Perspicacity and Provocateur talent nodes, and added the Flourish talent alongside changes to Intimidator and Provocateur.
• Genericized applyMoraleWave and used it to implement Swashbuckler.
• Cleaned up the phrasing of several crafting talents.
• Removed the redundant Smith's and Tailor's repair kits.

Balance Changes

• Balanced and calibrated archetype per-level proficiency progression across all system-provided archetypes. #1508
• Preliminary rebalancing of the included Backgrounds. #1507
• Rebalanced the Strength, Toughness, and Dexterity sections of the talent tree.
• Adjusted Ooze Subdivide so that the new ooze does not arrive at full Focus and continues downgrading its threat tier at each step. #1445
• Improved the balance of the Slime taxonomy.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed damage-over-time condition generators which applied no status effect or token icon. #1501
• Fixed defender workflows not resolving for generic actions, so that reactions to falls and hazards now fire correctly. #1499
• Corrected how iconic spells are classified as attacks, based on their prepared tags and target data, and more rigorously identified which spells may target their caster. #1498
• Excluded self-targeted actions from attack boons, banes, and attack-conditional talents. #1497
• Removed duplicated spell and iconicSpell tags on action re-preparation.
• Fixed the dialog prompt to purchase an empty Talent tree node appearing for nodes not unlocked by their neighbors, and allowed refunds for isolated empty nodes. #1455
• Migrated UI SVG files to lossless WEBP, fixing the jagged aliasing introduced by Chrome's Skia Graphite backend. #1447
• Fixed the natural armor Dexterity scaling formula to never be worse than unarmored, and allowed natural armor of less than 4. #1446
• Fixed several weapon affixes which did nothing. #1441
• Loosened Affix restrictions so that weapons may carry skill affixes. #1430
• Fixed incorrect rounding in the computation of Healing and Rallying threshold values. #1428
• Required a resolved natural weapon strike for Natural-tagged actions, so Wild Strike is no longer permitted without a natural weapon. #1403
• Fixed Crucible enrichers being invisible in RollTable draw cards. #1313
• Fixed the Blood Sense blindness offset not obeying the bloodedness of the target. #1452
• Fixed ancestry characteristics not all being carried through when generating a taxonomy.
• Re-synced talents on summon actors.
• Ensured Talisman actions are treated as ranged attacks.
• Only display Granted Talents at character creation for ancestries which have them.
• Tolerantly skip non-hero characters in the party milestone award.
• Gated private descriptions behind the user being a GM.
• Assorted bug fixes to the Proficiencies tab presentation.