3e Players Primer Changelog

3e Player’s Primer Changelog

09/30/2025

• Hazard updated as to avoid a situation where an area of effect with hazard can be moved back and forth to abuse it, even for RPGStuck.

08/19/2025

• The Empowered condition may now stack twice if at least one of the two stacks (or both) came from a major action.

06/30/2025

• Specializations updated.
  • Accordance added, to allow wielding one strife specibi and psionic power simultaneously.
  • Lunge renamed to Charger, also increases any bonus movement by 5 feet.
  • Focus changed to spending all movement when not having moved, but also grants +2 crit range.
  • Slayer’s Style added, counterpart of Opportunist but for Fighting Styles milestone from Slayers.
  • Inviolable changed to directly ignore all conditions from one attack.
  • Upbeat added, gives +1 die size to in-strife healing, regen, temp HP, Battlemind, etc sources of extra hit points.
  • Meditation changed to be doable as part of any non-damaging major action, instead of just one that grants temp HP.
  • Nimble changed to give Aegis permanently.
  • Cutting Edge changed to give +25% damage on critical hits, raising them to be +125% damage on crits.
  • Impervious lost the clause requiring Block dice.
  • Martial Training renamed Masterful, also grants +1 to skill checks.

05/19/2025

• Stance removed as a condition and its information moved to the Others section under Anatomy of a Turn.
• Unconscious removed as a condition and its information moved to the Hit Points and Stats section under Combat Miscellany.

05/04/2025

• Hazard condition added to extend the DoT condition to work when its application and duration are uncertain (e.g. an area is electrified. Standing in the electrical hazard grants Hazard instead of DoT to better represent being zapped when first entering this area, and continuing to be zapped until they leave the area).

04/08/2024

• Short rests specified to require a minimum of P hit dice to bring it in line with its 2.5e counterpart rules.

03/12/2024

• Racials:
  • Apex Predator changed from +2 for Crippled/Dazed to +1 for any negative condition at all, still +4 for Exposed, Prone, or Stuck as before.
  • Cut to Size changed to specify the damage bonus is applied after all other bonuses and multipliers.
• Headshots have an additional 50% damage done on crits.
• Called shots, if they still have crit range to spare after reducing for the called shot crit penalty, can reduce it further in place of the hit penalty too, turning a potential miss into a hit.
• Limited use abilities are now only considered spent when the ability is successfully used; any such abilities that required a successful attack roll, skill check, or other condition that failed to be met and fail to activate because of it are no longer considered spent and may be reused until successfully used.
• Doomed condition changed to stack with itself by default, as most cases of Doom specified they stacked anyway.
• Distract can no longer be stacked similarly to Aim, Avert, or Assail.

02/29/2024

• Sylladex ejection specified as an abilitech.

01/14/2024

• Gambit section updated with mentions of overclock and catastrophe gambits.

11/04/2023

• Setback condition now no longer automatically stacks with itself, and the clause about it not counting as a malus that can be ignored has been removed.

6/18/2023

• Hybrids now gain 1 skill point per Decor.
• Martials now gain 2 skill points per Step, and increase the magnitude of their Stage benefits by 1 (Expertise now grants +4 bonus, Polymath grants 4 skill points).
• Multiple instances of halving damage now stacks additively instead of multiplicatively to make it consistent with handling multiple instances of bonus damage.

6/15/2023

• Scrutinize can alternately grant advantage on healing.

2/19/2023

• Shove major action is marginally more effective when doing so while grappling them.
• Damage from forced movement revamped to deal P (or T for monsters) damage per 5 feet, compared to the old 1d6 per 10 feet. Also includes clauses for pushing creatures into other creatures.
• Weakened modified to be -4 die sizes on players, from -2.
• Regen condition added, opposite of DoT. Whereas DoT damages, Regen heals.

12/12/2022

• Level 11 specializations gained slight buffs:
  • Inviolable now allows choice of Endurance or Sanity.
  • Prism adds PCM to CON for its effects than replacing it.
  • Meditation can be used as part of another major action that grants temp HP.

11/21/2022

• Discern can be used at a higher DC in a strife to gain damage advantage for 1 round, if there’s no other hidden anatomy to learn about them.
• Stances now universally may be entered as a minor action or as part of rolling for initiative, and can be exited as a free action.

11/3/2022

• Switching specibi as a minor action now allows any configuration of specibi to be switched out for any other configuration, instead of switching one specibus per minor action.
• Conditions section now specifies that if a given condition stacks, that condition will specify that it does.

10/22/2022

• Grappling section added to Combat Miscellany chapter because let’s be honest, grappling has a lot of stipulations and rules and kinda needed a section by itself.
• Stealth section added to Combat Miscellany chapter, to consolidate, er, whatever stealth rules remain in light of the stealth rework. Speaking of which.
• Hidden condition removed.
  • Turned out to even more difficult to run than in DnD and such.
• Distract minor action added as a replacement for the Hidden condition, a minor action that tests Stealth versus Perception as the old condition but is easier to activate, in return for a reduced benefit in the form of crit range.
  • The issue with Hide and Seek in DnD 5e is that while it puts control of being hidden back into the player’s hands, RPGStuck no longer assumes a strife map is being used, which means determining whether the player is in a position to hide at any given time is even more difficult.
  • Distract benefits from the old circumstances that would allow for the Hidden condition, but can be used without it, representing more momentary bouts of stealth that nevertheless yield a combat advantage.
• Stealth section under Skillplay chapter renamed to Sneaky Beaky, (uh, why? Cause I said so, I guess?), now includes the usage of gambits in the context of discreetly dispatching multiple foes with the benefit of stealth where doing so through strifes would prove cumbersome.
• Apex Predator retooled with Hidden going away. Now also can take +2 crit on Dazed or Crippled targets.
• Discern states an additional usage against illusions and other obscuring phenomena, though mainly intended for use by enemies against players to give them a means to deal with them.
• Scrutinize now has an additional use where melee attacks with finesse specibi while remaining undetected grant automatic hits with advantage on damage.
  • This is not expected to be used frequently, but acts as a bridge where neither a full strife nor a stealth gambit work for whatever eventuality.
• Light and Darkness section under Combat Miscellany now gives a rule of thumb for what counts as light or heavy obscuration.

8/15/2022

• Highblood: Refresher changed to specify a free action and also remove all negative conditions of duration 2 minutes or less.
• Setback no longer stacks with itself from the same source if self-inflicted.

8/7/2022

• Broken, Clipped, and Disrupted conditions removed.
  • They’re just variations on Expose and Impair. That said at this point in time we might add them back later if we think it prudent.
• Aegis condition rewritten with a far shorter (aka not inherent) duration in mind.
• Cripple condition also counts as Stuck if it’s bad enough the creature is down to 0 base speed.
• Daze condition changed from Setback (2) on stacking to also removing reactions while stacked.
• Doomed condition added as a counterpart of Rupture. It only works once per round, but is added again on any bonus percentage damage, such as crits.
• Rupture condition rewritten with a far shorter (aka not strife-long) duration in mind.
• Stuck condition also precludes movement by means other than move actions.
• Weakened condition no longer stacks twice.
  • This is because the Bestiary/Adversaries had their internal values changed. Now Weakened reduces damage by 40% of their base damage where it previously did 25% or 50% for two stacks.
• Empowered condition added as a counterpart to Weakened, grants +2 die sizes to damage.
• Warded condition added as a counterpart of Aegis. It only works once per round, but grants a +2 to Fortitude and Will as a counterpart of cover’s AC/Reflex bonuses.

6/12/2022

• Rainbow drinkers altered to start with a bonus to hit dice healing and a reaction to gain Fortitude/Will. The former is to abstract the blood leech ability as a general healing factor given the unwieldy nature of the full-round action to drink. Reviving as a drinker is now automatic when dying (or ascending to GT) and comes with an increase to the hit dice healing bonus.

4/1/2022

• Max HP per level is now done by hit die average. Uses hit die maximum at chargen for first level.

3/3/2022

• Damage dice size increases changed so if you have Q or P damage on an abilitech or subpower and you’d increase its die size, you instead add Q or P instead of graduating it to a die roll.
  • Also added to the Primer from the Strife Specibus Registry and Psionics Catalogue.
• Player tier and session speed explained.

11/28/2021

• Alternate racial choices added to fill out the unused niches of +2 CON, +2 WIS, and +1 STR and +1 SoC.
• Lethal condition added to generalize any effect that takes out the target if they reach a certain HP threshold instead of 0.

8/5/2021

• Violetbloods went from +1 Dex and +1 Con to +1 Dex and +1 to a stat of choice.

1/28/2021

• Wording changes to make ‘+X die size’ the standard when referencing damage dice size increases, or dice size raised a step, and really this change should be self-explanatory.
• Psi Gradient deprecated, replaced with a simple binary: either you are baseline and have nothing, or you have a psi vulnerability for -4 to Will. Psions and hybrids both get this, martials do not. Blood caste and specializations no longer affect this.
  • -2 to Fort/Ref removed for psions.
• Everyone uses the midblood lesser slot progression now.
• Hybrids do get a hit die increase like martials now, though.
• Racials:
  • In general, the racials that grant psi power usage just grant the related affinity and an ability to use it as if they had a lesser slot some X times per some time interval.
  • Psi Pulse is a free action, and also prevents bonus dice.
  • Brave replaced in the continued scrutiny against ways to break the action economy, now allows movement and the Aim/Avert/Assail triad.
  • Expanded Mind replaced with Latent Talents, which allows for a combo platter of affinities.
  • Cut to Size now Weakens for a full minute.
  • Killing Flair only needs one target to die for the heal, if using a multi/AoE.
  • Ruffiannihilate now raises Aim dice too.
  • Berserk changed again, with Aegis, bonus crit and speed, and free Assails.
  • Second replaced with Harbinger, allows for Broken, Clipped, or Disrupt when attacking, then retroactively treats the attack that landed it to benefit from it, typically to get advantage for a functional reroll.
  • Iron Will also gives a defense bonus.
  • Refresher buffed in line with the short rest changes.
  • Autoparry also raises Block dice.

1/26/2021

• Exposed and Stuck conditions added.
  • Exposed confers advantage on all attack rolls and skill checks against the exposed creature.
  • Stuck reduces a creature’s speed to 0 and fixes it to 0; cannot be increased.
• DoT, Poison, and Petrified conditions modified.
  • DoT specified to say DoTs can have specific names, like Pyrokinesis’ Flame in the rework.
  • Poisoned renamed to Impaired.
    • The idea of having disadvantage on all attacks and checks is nice and clean and not beholden to any fluff. Poison, however, is specific. A holdover from our DnD roots to be cleared out.
  • Petrified modified to be Stasis. Full damage immunity instead of half damage.
    • Similar rationale as Poisoned to Impaired.
• Stunned, Restrained, Paralyzed, Frightened, and Charmed conditions removed.
  • Stunned and Paralyzed too strong to use as they were such that they didn’t really exist in the system in any places.
  • Restrained was literally Impaired, Exposed, and Stuck in one, its full effect is still there.
  • Frightened not used enough. Impair, and cannot move towards source while Impaired, does Frightened’s condition for it.
  • Charmed follows as Frightened.
• Wording changes for other conditions, too minute to list.
  • e.g. Blind also tags the Exposed and Impaired conditions onto itself.
• Phantom lost its penalty to psi resistance, and has a bonus to hit dice rolls (which includes rolling for max HP).
• Synthetic lost its bonus to psi resistance.

1/21/2021

• Companion’s direct targeting immunity revoked in anticipation of the coming specibus rework.

1/19/2021

• Minions section added to Combat Miscellany, to explain whether they can be treated as allies or not, and in anticipation of the psionics rework.
• Companion specialization had its damage modified from P+1 to Pd1+1.

1/17/2021

• GAMBIT FOR EASILY CONFUSED PEOPLE document transplanted into the Primer.
• d10 is the highest an Aim or Block die can go.
• Prone edited to work along melee/non-melee lines, rather than 5 feet.
• Legendary actions removed, rapid actions added. Similar to legendary actions, but it replicates an already-existing major or move action at half damage/speed than having separate legendary actions.

1/5/2021

• Sylladex had its captchalogue deck types explained.
• Sylladex ejection clarified to count as a thrown weapon.
• Companion specialization had its wording rewritten to be simpler; did not have any rules actually changed.

12/20/2020

• Broken, Clipped, and Weakened conditions added.
  • Broken imposes disadvantage to all physical attacks and Athletics checks, and attacks against their Fortitude have advantage.
  • Clipped forces an additional foot of speed to be spent per foot moved, Acrobatics checks have disadvantage, and attacks against their Reflex have advantage.
  • Weakened reduces all damage done by a monster by their damage mod per stack. If applied on a player, all damage dice sizes are reduced a step and all flat damage done is reduced by P, per stack.

11/8/2020

• Daze condition allowed to stack twice for Setback (2), per the Vitals anatomy’s workaround.
• Critical hits clarified to be 100% bonus damage for the purposes of linking it to other 50% or 100% damage effect to clarify how multiple such bonuses interact.
• Anatomy modified:
  • Headshots reduced to 50% bonus damage, but only requires +4 to hit.
  • Anatomy in general went from mainly +3/+6 to +2/+4, to bring it in line with cover bonuses for uniformity’s sake.
    • Unfortunately, they now also come with a crit range penalty for those amounts.
• New horde rules, greatly simplified from the old such that SMs can run it without a STEM degree.
• New Combat Rating rules, also greatly simplified such that people can figure it out with only their fingers, if necessary.
• Damage ranges simplified to a base damage with damage mods added or subtracted, similar to how players add damage mods to their rolls.
• Added Terms and Things to Know to explain the multiattack and cooldown rules monsters may have.
  • If more special monster-only rules or effects are added, they will be explained here.
• Block, which was previously mainly explained by a blurb in the Reactions section, has been codified as a thing of its own, alongside Aim dice.
  • Aim and Block dice work for strife as Stakes and Flaws dice work for checks.
• Dice Rolls section expanded to explain bonus and malus dice. These are Aim and Block for strifes, and Stakes and Flaws for non-strife checks. This does little that was not already in the system, but seeks to codify what already exists.
  • This addition also explains advantage and disadvantage, which the community knew from 2nd Edition and overlap with Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, but it was never actually defined anywhere.
    • Advantage/disadvantage can stack in specific situations: namely, if the actor benefits from advantage or disadvantage from multiple sources, and there is none of the opposite type to cancel it out, they can claim a further +4 or take a further -4 to the roll.
      • Which is similar to how grappling and a few Steps already did this. Said items have been rewritten to not specify this anymore now that the rule is general.
• Classpect blurb added in conjunction with the SMA’s ruleset on classpect powers.
• General spelling changes, mainly to capitalize Aim, Block, Stakes, and Flaws where relevant.
  • Probably not complete, but it’s ongoing.
• Lots of miscellaneous changes made where necessary to make things fit new terminology.
  • For example, Cut to Size and Overdrive from racials changed.
  • Aim and Avert altered to fit the new Aim/Block dice terminology.

11/1/2020

• Intangible condition added to facilitate the Phantom specialization not taking up lines.

7/14/2020

• Skills and Gambits chapter redone.
  • Stakes and flaws apply to all non-strife skill checks.
  • Gambits have a set duration of three rounds, can be pushed for a fourth round.
  • Gambits no longer need to declare a skill set to be used.
  • Challenges introduced, as a grouping of several independent skill checks (whereas each of a gambit’s checks can affect the others)
  • Consequences introduced, to expand on how to adjudicate a failed check.
  • Details given on social, stealth, and supernatural encounters.

6/13/2020

• Core Rules section added.
• Gambit duration changed to rely on total skill bonus, instead of skill points.

4/3/2020

• Created.
• Grappling also includes how to treat mounted targets.
• Mounted combat section redone.