Winds of the North v0.9 Release!

It’s finally here! And while the expanded combat rules are probably the biggest change, there are some other important quality-of-life and balance changes.

• Expanded Combat. A more detailed combat system for more immersive combat, more variability in weapons and enemies, and less abstraction.Combat summary changes. The Combat summary in the character sheets is now separated from the rest and now 2 pages. But these pages are now optional since several playtesters hadn’t really done any combat and were focused on non-combat strategies.
• Equipment slot changes. You have 4 Weapon slots, 2 Shield slots, and a slot for each other equipment (including Banner). This allows you to still have backup weapons and shields and keep them separate since their stats are so different.
• Improved HP for Archers, Scouts, and Berserkers. Archers changed to +1 Ranged ATK, and Berserkers are +1 Melee DMG.
• Changes to Storage. Storage spaces are now unlimited, however, each space is limited to 30 but is increased by 20 for each Shed. This was a requested change so players can horde more items, and it allows me to add more items to the game. The previous storage system had more or less reached its limit of how many different items the game could handle. The limit on each space will mostly only affect things like Wood and Food, but shouldn’t be too stressful to work with. This also solves the issue of players stockpiling an infinite amount of something, such as food which would realistically spoil before you could possibly eat all of it. I want to avoid adding a system to track food so it spoils, but there has to be some kind of limiting factor.
• Changes to Animals. You can now have up to 20 Animals without upgrading space, but Animals not in a building during Late Winter become sick. This is both a quality-of-life change so you can keep more animals while working toward building space for them and a more realistic approach since many animals were free to roam in the fields during most of the year, then brought in for winter. However, you no longer get a free slaughter when gaining an animal; you’ll have to choose the activity. Some Animals have also increased in value.
• Animals no longer use Medicine. To improve the Tend Livestock activity and expand the use of Farming, you now use Tend Livestock to heal animals and can use Feed to improve your roll. It also felt weird for the Recuperate activity (lots of bed rest and relaxing) to heal animals (extra work for you).
• Medicine is now Healing Herbs. Speaking of something that felt weird. Over time, I felt like Medicine wasn’t the term I was looking for. In Medieval Scandinavia, they didn’t really have formalized medicine. Most healing was done with herbal cures, charms, and classic folk remedies. They could also set bones and had simplified forms of surgery. Healing Herbs just feels more accurate, as “medicine” (to me) conjures images of organized hospitals and a healthcare industry (which did exist in other areas of Europe!). It’s still technically medicine, but the connotation is different.
• New Item: Bones (3s). Bones can be gained from slaughtering animals and hunting. Bones have been added to a few existing recipes and you can now make ice-skates (they were made from bone since metals like iron were very expensive). Speaking of…
• Leisure bonuses moved to the Skill Bonuses list and now has space for both At Home and Ice-skating.
• Additional adjustments to Hunting. While Bones add a little extra reward for your hunts, a few hunting results have been slightly improved with extra meat and hide.
• Fishing adjustments. Fishing was still a bit too lucrative, so the values have been adjusted.
• Trade adjustments. Trade was also too lucrative, allowing a successful trader to amass large stores of food and silver by the end of year 2 which became astronomical by game end. The ultimate reward for trading is Fame, and trade allows you to earn money and supplies at more efficient rates than selling locally, it now just won’t be as efficient as it had been. There are also lower Fame caps on two of the merchants, requiring you to eventually complete level 4 requests for additional Fame.
• Storms can’t destroy Flourishing Crops but they will now reduce its quality to normal (if the Flourishing Crops are hit).
• Long travel (Coasts and Sea travel) have increased costs in resources for the journey.
• Corrections to Supporter requirements and bonuses. There were places where the old values were still lingering. Recruiting Supporters at the Thing is also now a little more expensive.
• Added missing items to the items reference.
• Various adjustments to some of the final Fame Events.
• 2 Cloth added to starting items. This allows you to make Padded Armor or a Faering earlier without needing to buy Cloth (since the main way to earn it is by growing flax which is slow).
• A new hidden ending.
• Page references and hyperlinks added to various places in the book.