Author’s Diary for July 31, 2020

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Featured Image Credit: NASA

Things are popping here! We’ve finished editing 110 pages out of 294 for Covenant’s playtest rules, and today we finished the first full chapter rewrite, the Healing chapter! Read it below the fold now.

10.0.0.0: HEALING

• This chapter has information on how to heal your character and other characters, as well as how to repair items, buildings, and vehicles, including:
  • How to restore a character or item’s discipline
  • How to identify ailments and malfunctions
  • How to improve the performance of a character or item
  • How to remove conditions from characters and flaws from items

10.1.0.0: HEALING AND REPAIRING

• Description: Your character can restore a character or item’s discipline by making a fixed bid, depending on what your character wants to do.
  • Heal a Character: Make a medicine bid.
  • Repair an Item: Make a repair bid.
• Effect: 
  • Your character recharges scene damage equal to xir bid. EXAMPLE: If your character’s medicine bid is 10, then your patient recharges 10 scene damage.
  • Medicine and repair bids recharge any kind of damage, including psychological and social damage.
• Restrictions: 
  • Your character can only heal or repair 1 target per bid.
  • Your character can only heal or repair targets in xir area.
• Suggested Traits:
  • Medicine: Knowledge, Medicine
  • Repair: Knowledge, Repair
• Suggested Advantages: 
  • Your character and the target character are in a facility specializing in the type of healing being done (EXAMPLE: a hospital for physical injuries, a mental ward for mental injuries, etc.).
  • Your character and the target item are in a facility specializing in the type of repair being done (EXAMPLE: an auto shop for vehicles, a spacedock for spaceships, etc.).
  • Your character designed or built the item or has used and maintained it for a long time.
• Suggested Disadvantages: 
  • Your character is not using appropriate equipment.
  • Your character is not using appropriate tools.
  • Your character’s tech level does not match the target item’s tech level.
  • The target has 1 or more conditions.
  • The target is from a different species or designed by someone from a different species.
• Suggested Stunts:
  • Surgery/Rebuild:
    • Your character recharge chapter damage instead of scene damage with this bid.
    • Your character cannot recharge long-term damage with a medicine or repair bid.
  • Triage: Each time you add this stunt to your character’s bid, xi can heal or repair 1 more target with this bid.
  • Mobile Medicine/Mobile Repair:
    • Your character can heal or repair a target in an adjacent area.
    • Your character must be able to move only 1 area to get to the target’s area in order to use this stunt. However, the FM may allow your character to use it through an open window, on top of a ladder, or by similar means.
  • Jury Rig:
    • Your character temporarily repairs all of the target item’s scene damage with xir repair bid.
    • Your character’s repair bid can be as little as 1 to use this stunt.
    • At the end of the scene, the target item takes enough chapter damage to reduce its remaining free Discipline to 0.

10.2.0.0: IDENTIFYING AILMENTS

• Description: 
  • Your character may need to figure what is wrong with a character or item before xi can attempt to treat xir. This is a fixed bid, depending on what your character wants to do.
    • Diagnose a Character: Make a diagnosis bid.
    • Debug an Item: Make a debug bid.
  • Diagnosing and debugging identify conditions affecting the target.
  • At the FM’s discretion, your character may not need to diagnose a character or debug an item if the condition is obvious or your character saw what caused the condition (EXAMPLE: a character on fire, a character bit by a poisonous snake, an electronic item hit by an EMP grenade).
• Difficulty:
  • Each condition has an identification difficulty, which is based on the condition’s source.
    • Condition from Environment: Difficulty is set by source or FM
    • Condition from Character: Difficulty equals character’s bid to create the condition
  • If the target has more than one condition, then your character only needs to make one bid against the condition with the highest difficulty. 
• Restrictions:
  • Your character can only diagnose or debug 1 target per bid.
  • Your character can only diagnose or debug targets in xir area.
• Suggested Traits:
  • Diagnosis: Diagnosis, Knowledge, Medicine
  • Repair: Debug, Knowledge, Repair
• Suggested Advantages:
  • Your character and target character are in a facility specializing in the type of curing being done (EXAMPLE: a hospital for physical drains, a mental ward for mental drains, etc.).
  • Your character and the target item are in a facility specializing in the type of repair being done (EXAMPLE: an auto shop for vehicles, a spacedock for spaceships, etc.).
  • Your character designed or built the target item or has used and maintained it for a long time.
• Suggested Disadvantages:
  • Your character is not using appropriate equipment.
  • Your character is not using appropriate tools.
  • Your character’s tech level does not match the target item’s tech level.
  • The target has 1 or more physical or mental conditions.
  • The target is from a different species.
  • The target has 1 or more physical or mental conditions.
  • The target item was designed by someone from a different species.
• Suggested Stunts:
  • Triage: Each time you add this stunt to your character’s bid, xi can diagnose or debug 1 more target with this bid.
  • Mobile Diagnosis/Mobile Debugging:
    • Your character can diagnose or debug a target in an adjacent area.
    • Your character must be able to move only 1 area to get to the target’s area in order to use this stunt. However, the FM may allow your character to use it through an open window, on top of a ladder, or by similar means.

10.3.0.0: REMOVING CONDITIONS AND FLAWS

• Description: After identifying the conditions inflicting a character, your character can remove those conditions. This is a fixed bid, depending on what your character wants to do.
  • Remove a Condition from a Character: Make a treatment bid.
  • Remove a Condition from an Item: Make an overhaul bid.
• Difficulty: Each condition has a removal difficulty, which is based on the condition’s source.
  • Condition from Environment: Difficulty is set by source or FM
  • Condition from Character: Difficulty equals character’s bid to create the condition
• Restrictions:
  • Your character can diagnose or debug only 1 condition in 1 target per bid.
  • Your character can diagnose or debug targets in xir area.
• Suggested Traits:
  • Diagnosis: Knowledge, Medicine, Treatment
  • Repair: Debug, Knowledge, Overhaul
• Suggested Advantages:
  • Your character and the target  patient are in a facility specializing in the type of curing being done (EXAMPLE: a hospital for physical drains, a mental ward for mental drains, etc.).
  • Your character and the target item are in a facility specializing in the type of repair being done (EXAMPLE: an auto shop for vehicles, a spacedock for spaceships, etc.).
  • Your character designed or built the target item or has used and maintained it for a long time.
• Suggested Disadvantages:
  • Your character is not using appropriate equipment.
  • Your character is not using appropriate tools.
  • Your character’s tech level does not match the target item’s tech level.
  • The target has 1 or more physical or mental conditions.
  • The target is from a different species.
  • The target has 1 or more physical or mental conditions.
  • The target item was designed by someone from a different species.
• Suggested Stunts:
  • Triage: Each time you add this stunt to your character’s bid, xi can treat or overhaul 1 more target with this bid.
  • Rapid Treatment/Overhauling:
    • Each time you add this stunt to your character’s bid, you can treat or overhaul 1 more condition with this bid.
    • The difficulty of the bid equals that of the condition with the highest difficulty being treated.
  • Mobile Treatment/Overhauling:
    • Your character can treat or overhaul a target in an adjacent area.
    • Your character must be able to move only 1 area to get to the character or item’s area in order to use this stunt. However, the FM may allow your character to use it through an open window, on top of a ladder, or by similar means.

10.4.0.0: IMPROVING PERFORMANCE

• This section has information on how to improve the performance of both characters and items, including:
  • How to rally characters
  • How to overclock items

10.4.1.0: RALLYING CHARACTERS

• Your character can try to rally other characters with stirring or encouraging words with a rallying bid.
• Difficulty: The difficulty to rally a character is 20.
• Effect: If successful, choose 1 one of the following effects for the target character. This effect lasts until the end of the scene.
  • Ignore the effects of 1 condition
  • Gain the Inspired condition (gives xir 1 advantage to all bids)
  • Recharge all scene damage
• Restrictions:
  • Your character can only rally characters with whom xi can communicate.
  • Your character can only rally sapient characters.
  • Your character can only rally 1 character per bid.
• Suggested Traits: Influence, Knowledge, Rallying
• Suggested Advantages:
  • The target character’s side is winning.
  • The target character’s side is in a superior tactical position.
  • The target character is well-supplied and has everything xi needs to do xir job.
• Suggested Disadvantages:
  • The target character’s side is losing.
  • The target character’s side is in an inferior tactical position.
  • The target character is ill-equipped, hungry, or tired.
  • The target character is from a different species than xir character.
• Suggested Stunts:
  • Inspiring: The target character gains both rallying effects.
  • Area:
    • Your character inspires every friendly character in an area.
    • Your character must be able to communicate with everyone in this area in order to use this stunt.

10.4.2.0: OVERCLOCKING ITEMS

• Description: Your character can try to overclock items to improve their performance.
• Difficulty: The difficulty to overclock an item is 20.
• Effect: If successful, choose 1 one of the following effects for the target item. This effect lasts until the end of the scene.
  • Ignore the effects of 1 condition 
  • Gain the Overclocked condition (gives the item 1 advantage to all bids and characters 1 advantage when using the item)
  • Add 1 feature (see Section 14.3.0.0, Item Creation for more)
  • Recharge all scene damage
• Restrictions:
  • Your character can only overclock 1 item per bid.
  • Your character can only overclock items in xir area.
• Suggested Traits: Knowledge, Overclocking, Repair
• Suggested Advantages:
  • Your character and the target item are in a facility specializing in the type of repair being done (EXAMPLE: an auto shop for vehicles, a spacedock for spaceships, etc.).
  • Your character designed or built the target item or has used and maintained it for a long time.
• Suggested Disadvantages: 
  • Your character is not using appropriate equipment.
  • Your character is not using appropriate tools.
  • Your character’s tech level does not match the target item’s tech level.
  • The target item has 1 or more conditions.
  • The target item was designed by someone from a different species.
• Suggested Stunts:
  • Triage: Each time you add this stunt to your character’s bid, xi can overclock 1 more item with this bid.
  • Mobile Overclocking:
    • Your character can overclock a target item in an adjacent area.
    • Your character must be able to move only 1 area to get to the target item’s area in order to use this stunt. However, the FM may allow your character to use it through an open window, on top of a ladder, or by similar means.
  • Supercharge: Each time you add this stunt to your character’s bid, you can add 1 more effect to the target item to this bid.

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That’s it for now. Talk to you next week!