Update - 07/08/2023

Hello, everyone, and happy birthday to me! I'm turning 43 today. I don't have anything special planned; I'll have dinner with my partner and her mother (who, coincidentally, also has her birthday today) and little else. I'm hoping next weekend I'll get to have a couple of friends over and celebrate it somehow. We'll see!

Last week was spent on Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne. I've finalized the complete list of enemies, but now I need to add their stat blocks and action tables. Then I need to add the bosses as well, 20 of them. All in all, that's over 60 different types of enemies! I finally opted to have them scale to your level: they all have a stat block adjusted to your character's level 1, and with each level you gain, you need to make some minor adjustments to their stat blocks when you encounter them. I'm hoping to be able to test it this week! I skipped finishing the enemies because I really wanted to finish the gear and loot chapter first, to be able to test it and make adjustments. I'm really excited to give it a go ASAP. I've changed quite a few things when it comes to how gear works, compared to my other games. Since Ker Nethalas doesn't have attributes (it's purely a skill-based game), I removed the STR-based inventory. Instead, you have 10 item slots by default, and then you can find backpacks and pouches to increase your available space. It's similar to what I did for Under Ashen Skies. 

I've also reworked how weapons and armor work: all weapons deal D6 damage, but have different damage types and traits to differentiate them. Armor is piecemeal, so you'll have to keep track of which body part is covered in armor, and how much damage it absorbs, like in WFRP. 

I haven't done anything else this week, I'm afraid. Coming up with all the monsters and their descriptions (I tried to make original, unique monsters once again) really took me most of the week, I think I'm all out of monster ideas, haha. Hopefully you guys will like these!

So this new week I'll continue working on Ker Nethalas, and hopefully do some playtesting as well. I'm sure I'll have to go back and tweak some things, but I think I have a good feeling for the game's balance now. I don't want enemies to be damage sponges so they shouldn't be too difficult to kill; it's more about them slowly eroding your resources, and the negative events accumulating in the section of the necropolis you find yourself in, forcing you to move along. It's a delicate balance (you lose sanity and health, and gain exhaustion, and those things can be solved via resources and time), so I need to get it right!

So that's it for this week, I hope you all have a great one!