So, one of the bigger changes in this version is dropping the amount of Energy available to all characters...1 EP at Heroic, increasing by 1 per power level up to 5 at Limitless. This is largely to make it easier to track and handle EP supply and to make things like Overdrive and Tension EP more valuable, since previously it was largely possible to simply pour EP onto a problem until it goes away and large teams had nearly overwhelming quantities of EP.
This is kind of a step back because this is the EP rules I originally had a few versions ago, but this time the value of EP has been increased, so there's less points to keep track of but they're more useful individually. This also helped rebalance some problem Powers like Overkill and Flawless. Flawless in particular needed some extra work since it basically amounted to doubling the number of dice you could roll..an issue solved mainly by limiting only to allowing the rerolling of failed roll. This made the very basic dice-adding Supercharge Power weaker in comparison but that just meant it needed to grant 2 dice per EP rather than one. Not necessarily as elegant as 1 EP for 1-die, but it works.
Several of the core Basic Powers were also trimmed pretty heavily, from 9 down to 4, limiting it to purely Powers that interact with the raw mechanics of the system in the most basic and generic ways possible: Supercharge, which adds dice to a roll. Overkill which adds Strikes if a roll is successful. Flawless which lets you reroll a failed roll. Perfection the only 2 EP power which just lets you max out your roll.
I've come to the conclusion that easy defensive Powers like Ward and the more extreme Ubeatable were just too effective and extended combat in a way that wasn't very interesting...just dragging things out by no-selling damage and making "turtling up" far too effective a strategy, especially when one side or the other has more EP to throw around, just have the person getting attacked use Ward to cancel the damage while everyone else pounds on the opponent.
Some powers got redefined as something more suitable as Signature Powers, such as Detonation or more limited defensive powers in place of the universally applicable Warding Power. One power that has just been ditched entirely is the Blast power. That's because I realized that it was both not very impressive at even the cost of 1 EP, but also just part of a completely unnecessary division between ranged weapons and close-combat weapons. Since every character now has a nearly universal applicable Fighting Style there's no reason the guy using the gunkata should be able to freely make ranged attacks but not the swordfighter or the punch-master.
So, in that regard my new ideas about ranged combat can be summed up with this picture.
So yeah, ranged combat can be performed by anyone, whether it's a thrown knife, a gunshot, a streak of energy from the tip of a sword or any similar ridiculousness.
Next time I think I'll talk a bit about the new Signature Powers and the loose guidelines on creating them.
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