Infinite Incarnations

A note about rules presented in this publication: No rules presented herein are considered 'official' until they get published as part of an official suppliement or added to an existing one. The new information and rules are purely optional for Incarna users.

Letters and Questions

No specific letters asking for issues to be addressed. An open question in the Infinite Incarnations Facebook Page was put out for next issue.

Main Content

Why did Conviction change to improve as a skill?

This puts conviction as the primary measure of power for the follower's Mystic Principal. All other powers from other aspects are measured on a similar power scale and so they can now be compared when power comparison is made. This is things such as dispelling or removing the effects of psychic powers when done my a mage or vice-versa. Previously it was Conviction x 2 for mystic principle... while this was no great difficulty, no math at all is always nicer for players and unmodified numbers are just easier to work with and process faster.

Why did you remove attribute requirements from skills?

After a review f the current skill system, the double penalties for low attributes AND not meeting them seems a redundant and unfair penalty. Many skills did not double dip in penalties like that, but there was enough to make it quite a painful situation. Also, it was felt that with the review and adjustment to the capability rules, it was not necessary to have this present because it would represent too much of a penalty situation. After capability, the specific item requirements would have been a triple penalty for some characters and that neither represented reality and provided too big of a barrier to entry for some players to interact with. All total, the potential for a character to wrack up several penalties from attributes for using an item they are not proficient with were just mind boggling. It should be difficult, not impossible.

Whats with "challenges"?

For a long time massive amounts of extra Incarna material has languished in unpublished guides. Not only did the concept of a “challenge” provide a means of getting some of the material to the light of day, but it also provided a solution that's plagued a lot of scenarios off and on of all GM’s (not just specifically for Incarna). Challenge rules are basically made so you can turn them on and off like a switch. They add complexity that would be normally slow a game speed down if you had to incorporate it as official rules all the time. Having this information as part of the core mechanics clutters up those materials, makes it more difficult to remember them, harder to find amidst other materials in the look up and creates materials that would likely be ignored and unused by a large portion of the audience on favor of story - in turn creating differing expectations in the game for everyone. On the other hand, these could have gone into a larger body of work and just called it done - that would have worked as well. But that also has some of the same disadvantages, and adds one large one in that you have to take the rest of the rules when you want only a portion - rules which everyone now has to remember and sift through in making a choice for every action. Challenges are a “middle of the road” solution. The mechanics themselves are structured in such a way that you can easily drop them in or take them out - they are not too much to become burdensome or overbearing . The intent is to provide an extra set of lightweight mechanics to add a lot of flavor in resolving specific types of scenarios where the characters are provided more chance of interaction, and can achieve more interesting results. In this case “interesting” usually means something with more story flavor - not something more extreme (although that is certainly part of the options).

A couple of great examples of this are the "care" rules introduced in 3.0 and the "marked strikes" introduced in 2.0. The rules for care helped determine how fast you healed based on cleanliness, rest, diet, etc. Now, most of the time we just need to know 1/day is the base... and the GM tells us if its any different based on some common sense and if the party gets help or extra rest. The "care" rules were moved to survival challenges - they really only come into play over long time periods and distances under bad conditions when you have to keep careful track. So... only use them then! Same with marked strikes. You have to stop, look up penalties and exact effects, figure out who you can hit, and on and on. Really slows things down. However, the GM just announces that the challenge rules are in play for the current combat and when its over you go back to normal set of options, picking up the pace of the game as well.

What happened to "progression" character frameworks?

Progressions are the defined approaches for creating and progressing a character. What is the maximum level they can start, etc. They were introduced formally in the 2.0 rule set as "best practice" guidelines, then in 2.5 the formal idea of progressions was introduced as a character framework was defined. There were three as part of what Incarna supported. The normal progression was what was presented in the core mechanics. This was integrated into the rules and scatter across multiple sections, using specifically formatted text in each section to call attention to the parameter of character creation - this was how its been done since the alpha 1 release. Then there was a Best Practice page with all of its parameters displayed in one place - the optimal character creation and most challenging way to do it. The 3.0 rule set saw the inclusion of the "open" style character creation and everything was formally presented and cross-referenced, For the 4.o rules, it was determined that the documentation and ideas around "progressions" were over-engineered. Normal character parameters should just go into the "getting started" guide - which has also existed since the beta days. The "Best Practice" progression became a "character challenge", and the "Open Progression" was so open, that there was no point in formally trying to organize it since its mostly up to the GM and so specific to the milieu and genre anyway. Actually got rid of a bunch of design documentation as well.

What happened to archetypes?

In the 2.0 rules the concept of an archetype was introduced. This was a warrior, or magus, or follower, etc who was an iconic embodiment of what it meant to be what their label indicated. The warrior embraced kinetic solutions entirely, followers those of faith and so on. Their aptitudes, traits, skills, and entire development path was narrowly defined for their future, for a few small benefits at the time of character creation. Though in terms of advantages it gave very little, the limits were really nearly meaningless for those seeking to pursue that path anyway because it was really more like formalizing them... and hey, why not get something for it in the process - no matter how minor?

Then the 2.5 mechanics created a confusing scaled version of archetypes, kits and paths. This relied on the levels of 2, 3, and 4 aptitude. It added a little more in the way of advantages, and really formalized the penalties. It made some interesting possibilities for those with split aptitudes. It also granted some unique powers and abilities to those with a 4 aptitude as they rose in skill level. The 3.0 mechanics added even more on top of this. They were never completed and really managed to make a huge confusing mess of everything more than anything else. Half the time they were being moved around in new places on the web site to find better ways in integrate and they failed to do that at almost every place. Ultimately, at the start of the 4,0 revisions they were taken offline for about a half year.

In evaluating the place for these, one fails to see where they leave off and the formal character guides begin. A lot of time was spent in re-evaluating them, especially how they would fit in across the multiverse and what changes might have to be made. Really, the Warrior Archetype is just a sub-set of rules found in the Way of the Warrior supplemental material, plus a few more restrictions. Having a scaled approach for them makes little sense - if you want to be a warrior, be a full fledged warrior. Otherwise, be whatever you want using the open character creation available in Incarna. Its original design was to break the mold and get away from templated character design anyway... archetypes represent a step backwards (though one that has been consistently asked for). Other archetypes can be created for multi-aptitude characters instead of each archetype having to be scaled to have "versions" on a 2, 3, and 4 aptitude sliding power scale. It just makes the most sense to roll the concept of the archetypes into the existing character oriented guides: Way of the Warrior, Path of the Pious, Road of the Rogue, Method of the Mind, and the Art of the Magus.

The archetypes that don’t fit into those will have their own supplemental companion guides. Companion Guide to Academics, Companion Guide to Craftsmen, etc. These will focus mainly on the role of the lesser archetypes. Really the idea of the archetype falls back into the Incarna designer arena - where it clearly belongs. The parameters used to define them can be linked from each of the materials. The greater archetypes tend to be less setting dependant and more easily translated across multiple settings and genres. Only play testing will see how well they all work out. It may be that there needs to be chart with the various technology levels and suggested archetypes available... though its really more about culture than about specific technology levels in a lot of cases. Also, the entire idea of character frameworks was reviewed. While the concept of "progressions" is not totally gone from Incarna, it was removed in its current state and presented as a “character challenge”. This turns out to work slightly better both conceptually and from a materials integration standpoint.

Properties of The Pattern

The rewriting of the multiverse section was the catalyst for a lot of different ideas and the genesis for a coming together of concepts which had lacked a cohesive or unifying expression. The concept of The Pattern was an especially useful one. What were once things that were "traits" of a world became properties of a pattern. From just a conceptual perspective, the terms made much more sense. The ability do increase or decrease the power or prevelance of aptitudes, and the streams of energy (mana, chi, etc.) running through a particular area all became much easier to conceptualize, talk about and explain using a generic rule set. It brought together several ideas under a single banner, from aptitude and their relative strengths, to technology and even the laws of physics. It unified magic, psychic, faith and kinetic powers through attunement. It created a single ‘bucket’ into which all the properties that change worlds can go into and sort of explained how it all worked. Call it "The Force", call it whatever, but it works. Change a few of these properties and you can easily plan a crazed Chaos ripple running through space preceding the ork army, or any numbers of Rifts-type worlds. With even just the basics there, its possible to create most of the ideas that come into your head. How we interact with the Pattern is still a bit of a mystery - there’s obviously multiple energy types, but the clarity of two approaches of conscious and unconscious still leave some opportunities for a lot of explanatory text. Which is fine, because its the core aptitudes which need to be totally 100% complete and nailed into place.

Rules Clarifications

Version 4 rules updates, phase 2 hase begun. Initial changes to make a lot of content free are still under way, but the majority of content changes are done - about 2/3. Only a few more changes need to be made to the non-powers based text, then faith and magic will be updated. Finally, psychic version 1 will be released.

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Incarna / Infinite Incarnations; Kelly Berger 2011