About the 0.94 Update

Because the 0.94 update was extremely important and long, a few explanatory texts were written to support it and clarify what it changes.

Origins and Heritages

Since Runarcana RPG was created, origins have gone through several updates, most of them chasing a general balance between them, even without the goal of full balance. Some things are stronger than others, and that’s how the system is meant to work.

Even so, without chasing full balance, a few things really had gotten far out of line. When you compare 1 with 2, the difference is just 1, right? But when you keep adding on top of the last thing produced, things quickly slip out of scope. 1 compared with 5, for example, is vastly smaller and weaker.

If in Runarcana the 1 was the Human or even the Minotaur, the 5 could be the Vastaya, with a buildup of base traits that made other origins uninteresting, or bad choices for those who care only about the numbers. I know what I preach is detachment from numbers, but I also understand what it’s like to build a character purely for roleplay and end up feeling left behind at the table.

Past balance passes tried to remove racial determinism, tying attributes to concepts of an origin’s capability instead. Even so, the excess that kept piling up needs to be equalized for another step toward 1.0 to be taken. With that, the Origins below were modified, with many origin traits removed, keeping a more solid core in each origin and turning those removed traits into new Heritages.

The way Heritages work was also reworked. Before, they granted 1 attribute point plus some benefit, decoupling the attribute point from the origin but tying it to one specific Heritage, which took away some of the versatility that should be possible. Because of that, Heritages no longer carry an attribute point, whether when first obtained or at level 4, when they used to grant a second one, which was giving the Heritage choice an outsized importance.

With this, Heritages are now split into General Heritages, Origin Heritages, and Region Heritages, letting some of the choices made during character creation reflect the direction the player wants for the character. There’s no need to tie a craft to a given Origin, or to force a specific Heritage just to gain access to it. The same goes for skills; the freedom to build a character should reflect what the player wants, and this rework is necessary to make that happen.

On top of the Heritage changes, Origin Heritage points were added throughout a character’s progression, giving more room for customization while removing the excess right at the start of every adventurer’s path.

At first glance, characters will be slightly weaker, with fewer resources at their disposal, but they gain access to even more resources as they progress, which can let them broaden their horizons or narrow their focus onto something the character is meant to do.

Farewell, Pilgrim

I know some people might be shocked by this, but the “pilgrim” class is being removed from Runarcana. Before you panic and complain, read the following lines explaining the reason behind this decision.

The Pilgrim was created at a fairly recent point in Runarcana’s history, when the goal was to bring an equivalent of every class from the game the system was based on at the time, Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, with the Pilgrim standing in as an equivalent to that other system’s Bard.

Across its iterations, the Pilgrim always lacked the consistency to exist thematically within Runeterra. Initially it was a class tied entirely to this world’s “Bard,” and later iterations dropped that direct connection and added a tie to the Celestials as a whole. The main reason for that decision was to keep a “balance” between Runarcana and Runeterra’s three forms of magic.

The Acolyte is tied to spiritual magic, the Arcane to magic as a whole, but mainly to elemental magic, and finally, the Pilgrim was the great “bearer” of Celestial magic. That showed up both in its subclasses and in its patrons. That framing, while functional to a point, created interaction problems with other classes and traits involving those celestial beings.

After a lot of (quite reasonable) criticism, the Pilgrim was getting an update that once again dropped that exclusive tie to the Celestials, turning it into an artist not limited to music but also dance and even painting. Those arts were how the Pilgrim channeled its magic, and that ended up running into an issue that matters a great deal to Runarcana: Redundancy.

The Pilgrim was becoming a different Arcane, with a different spellcasting focus, adding even more complications and complexity that were judged unnecessary. Instead of reworking the Pilgrim on that basis, a new overhaul began, similar to what happened with the Arcane.

That overhaul could be called a “re-creation,” because instead of modifying each trait individually, new work starts from scratch, so the whole creation rests on a foundation and follows a central principle faithful to its theme. When that step is taken, the first questions that come up are about what theme the class should serve, what makes it unique, and how it differs from other classes.

The answers to those questions weren’t good enough, even after months of reflection and attempts to create this new class. The Pilgrim lacked something unique, since using art to cast spells could already be done through the Spellcasting Focus (including the improved version) or entirely through narration, with no need for new rules to do it.

The second trait that made the Pilgrim unique was its versatility, being able to do many different things without being fully focused on any one of them. Since Runarcana RPG already has enough rules and layers to allow that versatility, that point fell apart too.

Lastly, the third unique trait left for the Pilgrim was its relationship with the Celestials, which was exactly at the core of what needed to be removed as something unique and turned into something viable for every class. One last thing that still gave the Pilgrim some identity was the inspiration it could offer to allies.

During conversations with team members, the last card that could keep it alive was put on the table: it’s the only caster that uses Charisma as its base spellcasting attribute. Once again, under scrutiny, not a single reason was found for that to be enough to justify a whole new class.

Once the decision to remove the Pilgrim was finally made, it was time to pick out what needed to live on in the system. Inspiration became a Human Origin trait, with that same trait made available to other origins through Enhancements or through the new Craft system.

Its relationship with the Celestials turned into new Runessences, within the reworked Rune system, which is both simpler and more focused, further widening their range. When that relationship is purely narrative, there’s no need to create a new trait for it, but when it’s meant as a devotional aspect, that’s easily added through Heritages in the updated system.

Finally, the characters that were considered “Pilgrims,” such as Rakan, Sylas, and Sona among others, were carefully checked against the criterion of whether they could be built within other classes. Since Runarcana already offers enormous versatility within each class (and its subclasses), the time came to say goodbye to this confusing, clumsy class, one that stuck around more out of nostalgia than out of any real objective purpose.

The main point behind removing the Pilgrim is that even a Bard in Runeterra doesn’t necessarily need a class of their own, since most of that theme (tied to characters who exist in Runeterra) is achievable through other traits. Even though it was a hard decision, it opens up new opportunities for characters, because if all you want is a character who plays a few songs, the new Crafts are there for that.

Faithful Shamans

Around April 23, 2021, a few leaks pointed to concept art for an update to the League of Legends champion Udyr, with some interesting information about which directions were being considered for that champion update.

On June 29, 2021, Riot published their first piece about this Visual and Gameplay Update (VGU) for Udyr, giving some more precise information about the possibilities on the table. Looking at that, I went back over Runarcana’s classes and realized that creating the Spirit Walker inside the Bodhisattva class had, in large part, been a big adaptation just to make the champion work, even though the theme didn’t fully mesh with the Bodhisattva’s own.

During that time, going through the information about Udyr and how it applied to Runarcana, I realized there was a gap, something already present in the system but scattered around, leaving room that needed filling. That gap I really wanted to fill was made up partly of the old Feral Acolyte, the Brute’s Feral traits, and the Bodhisattva’s Spirit Walker.

Around July 10, 2021, I started the design document for a new Runarcana class, the Shaman class. That work began by pulling those subclasses and traits out of the classes they belonged to, organizing them thematically, and relocating them into a new class with new functionality. At that point, the only character who represented this class was Udyr, the Shaman of Freljord, able to channel several animal spirits, though we had a card or two from Legends of Runeterra suggesting there were more. On August 28, 2021, I published the initial idea for the Shaman through the Magitek Repository.

The foundation of the Shaman already existed in the Spirit Walker, where, using the champion’s base concepts at the time, the various animal forms, along with channeling the Great Spirits, already existed, partly due to revelations made in the story Silence for the Damned, where Udyr shifts between forms of even those Great Spirits.

With that, the Shaman was built as if Udyr were the rule, as if every Shaman in Runeterra shifted between stances and animal-spirit forms. That design drew mechanically on some concepts from the D&D 5th edition Warlock and Paladin, two classes with no direct equivalent in Runarcana given each class’s thematic choices.

On September 26, 2022, we got new information about Udyr’s update; in it, the forms were more clearly defined, and it became clear he’d channel the strength of Freljord’s demigods, which opened up new directions for the class already being built.

As you might imagine, building a class, especially alone and in your spare time, isn’t a quick task. Because of that, every one of these updates meant work that had already been created and tested had to be revisited and reworked.

On January 7, 2022, we got a new update in a /dev post showing the path Udyr’s release would take and confirming most of the points already present in the Shaman class, so we moved into the final stretch and the finishing touches.

The class was published on February 19, 2022, alongside Runarcana RPG’s 0.93 update, which brought back the project’s original vision. As you’d expect, this creation had been ready for a few months, with only a few touch-ups made for publication.

The week before 0.93 and the Shaman launched, Riot began the spoiler season for the Curious Journey expansion, where we got new Freljord cards with new Shamans and some very important information that could change essential aspects of the Shaman so it stayed as faithful as possible to Runeterra’s lore.

Three days earlier, we’d gotten the release not just of Udyr’s card, but of other cards presenting Freljord’s shamans, which showed me the Shaman would need an update. But Udyr’s rework hadn’t launched yet, and it could completely change the class’s structure, so that update was postponed and the Shaman was published as it stood.

Udyr’s update only launched on August 24, 2022, more than 6 months later. In that update, as expected, the fundamentals of how Shamans work in Runeterra were presented again, and it became clear that Udyr wasn’t the rule, but the exception, which finally allowed this update to the Shaman to begin.

The core premise of this update is to restructure the animal forms, the relationship with Great Spirits, and bring something truer to what was shown throughout Udyr’s development, not just as a Shaman, but as the most powerful and singular Shaman Runeterra has ever seen.

It might seem like a lot of history just to create one class for a tabletop RPG system, but since Runarcana’s founding premise has always been staying as faithful as possible to Runeterra’s canonical story, these changes are necessary. They create the conditions for Udyr to be unique while still being possible to recreate when building a character. The difference is that before, everyone looked like Udyr; now only those who want exactly that path of customization will follow this premise, with Shamans directly tied to a Great Spirit and gaining powers tied to that spirit.

Crafts, for Real

Runarcana RPG is a system that, since its inception, has tried to let players build unique characters in every sense of the word. While greater complexity can be a barrier for new players, that same complexity lets those looking for more than a passing adventure dig deeper into the system through meaningful choices.

The Craft system presented up through version 0.93 of Runarcana RPG was a small modification of the tool system from Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, which, by design choice, aims for simplicity in every respect, whether through action economy or through a smaller set of choices that simplify and speed up character creation.

Given those premises, the Craft system also ran on that same simplicity and speed, which, while it has its value and its fans, isn’t the path chosen for Runarcana.

Every change to Runarcana, in pursuit of the dreamed-of 1.0 and its completeness as a system, is made with care and planning, with room for analysis, testing, and rebuilding when needed. That means some ideas that show up in a given version have often been worked on internally many editions earlier, with part of the changes presented as a step on the road to the final goal.

Crafts are no different. The gradual changes made to the basic Tool system, which have existed since the system had a different name, paved the way for these changes to happen in pursuit of that more elaborate goal, with more room for meaningful choices.

Two classes in particular are affected by this rebuild, with the most affected being the Techmaturge, a class that’s gone through several revisions and at times ended up looking a lot more like an item-maker for other people than a class for adventurers. Part of that issue was already solved in the class’s last update, but a few small changes tied to Crafts are still needed.

The second class affected by the Craft rebuild is the Marksman. The class is built around the use of firearms, which end up having better synergy with this class because of its closer tie to them, whether in crafting the weapons, maintaining them, or through more focused training.

With these two classes having a stronger connection to Crafts (each to its own degree), they also need a few traits modified to keep that stronger synergy while still letting other classes dedicate themselves to Crafts as well.

The concept presented here is that, while anyone can dedicate themselves to one or more crafts, the higher tiers of that expertise are reserved for the classes with greater synergy to it. The Gunsmith Craft, while open to any class, is a field where the Marksman gets the best results, because their entire development is built around weapons.

The Techmaturge, in turn, being a class built around greater interaction with items, techmaturgy (technology + magic), stands out across every Craft, with the clear exception of Gunsmith, where the Marksman shines as explained above.

The Mercurial is another class with a stronger interaction with Crafts, but while the Techmaturge is built around that concept and the Marksman stands out in one area, the Mercurial has a wider spread of strength, able, much like the Techmaturge, to reach more advanced results.

Lastly, the final class (or subclass) with a strong tie to item construction is the Forge Acolyte, who also has better synergy with items and building them, and for that reason should also receive a small modification.

These small changes to the classes exist so each one’s fantasy is respected within its own limits and areas of strength. If any class can produce the best swords or items, what sets the Techmaturge apart when it comes to building them? If anyone can easily build and improve firearms, what makes the Marksman stand out there?

The answer to those questions lies exactly in this Craft rebuild:

The proposal

Rebuilding how Crafts work lets every factor listed above be properly addressed, expanding the rules for building items, maintaining them, and broadening their importance along the Exploration and Roleplaying pillars.

Expanding what Crafts are useful for is part of the system’s roadmap, especially since they have stronger synergy with the Exploration and Roleplaying pillars, even though many of their results still line up with the Combat pillar.

Turning Crafts into fuller mechanics that call for better planning or a development path makes every choice tied to them meaningful again, and that enriches what the system can offer.

Obviously, this adds another layer of complexity, which, at the DM’s discretion, can be pushed into the background. This rebuild aims to give more options both for building items and using Crafts, and a real improvement for those who dedicate themselves to exploring this side of the system further.

Sets and Supplies

By default, every craft has a group of items that make up that craft’s standard “tools.” Since the terminology for these groups varies widely — kits, sets, cases, supplies, gear, among other options — for the sake of consistent rules, these groups will now be called “Sets.”

So “Potter’s Tools” becomes “Potter’s Set,” just as “Painter’s Supplies” becomes “Painter’s Set,” “Forgery Kit” becomes “Forgery Set,” and even “Cook’s Utensils” becomes “Cook’s Set.”

This terminology was chosen to make both writing the rules and cataloging these items easier, placing them in equipment lists alongside everything else.

When a group of items is called a Set, it always means it’s the basic Set needed to practice a craft; the items that make up each of these Sets are written in general terms, giving the DM, and even players, freedom to decide the finer details.

The term “Supplies” will now refer to the items that are consumable and need to be restocked within “Sets.” So a “Painter’s Set” now refers to brushes, paint, easel, palette knife, palette, and canvas, while “Painter’s Supplies” refers to something like “brushes, paint, and canvas.”

Other groupings that exist but aren’t tied to a Craft will be called “Gear,” as in the example “Fishing Gear” or even “Firearm Gear,” which are, respectively, a set of equipment that enables fishing and another set that enables maintaining Firearms.

By default, in Runarcana, we aim for greater clarity, and one of those points of clarity is in how “key terms” are created and used, marked by starting with a capital letter, the same way it works with humans and Humans, with the first referring to people in general and the second referring to the Origin of the same name.

Case and Sets

The term Case was used for quite a while in Runarcana, and although many Sets can be packed into a Case, that’s not true for every Craft, with a single craft often having several cases making up its Set, or even serving as additional supplies.

Runes, Rebuilt

Ever since Runarcana RPG was created (back when it was still Runeterra RPG), Runes have been one of its most prominent resources. They were originally created so some of the abilities and powers of League of Legends champions could be built without depending on classes.

They became an extra layer of customization, giving players more control over building their characters.

Originally, they were based on League of Legends, mainly because that was the only game that existed as a source, and that unfortunately made them extremely numerous, poorly made, and dreadful to adjust and balance.

The goal was to create noticeable touches that let players recognize what was happening in League of Legends, but the price for that was a set of mechanical complications that came from trying to bring a MOBA’s reality into a tabletop RPG.

In recent years, though, that’s changed. Legends of Runeterra, Wild Rift, and even Ruined King came out, showing range and versatility in how champions and their powers get presented. Each of these games pursued its own individuality and particularity. Staying true to its own medium, each one worked to express certain iconic traits of these champions without being limited to how they were first presented in League of Legends, and that was liberating.

The new runes were completely reworked, taking into account the freedom Riot has shown in how this universe gets used, with mechanics that clearly exist in one of the games but not the others, since they’d be unnecessary elsewhere. With that in mind, the runes were reworked with the following goals:

• Individuality: so each one has its own unique traits, is different from the others, and represents a meaningful decision when building a character.
• Clarity: so not just choosing them is easier, but also understanding and applying them, cutting through rules complications and edge cases.
• Simplicity: so their numbers can shrink, instead of offering dozens of options that fundamentally undercut their individuality.

Many of the runes that existed before, especially the runic pulses, added excessive complexity to character creation and created complications when applying them at the table. Not to mention that many of the pulses were so similar to each other that they ended up redundant or useless.

Simplifying the rune system aims to give Runarcana even more identity, moving away from the need to mirror League of Legends mechanics just to represent every possibility of each champion and character.

The first step was cutting down the number of Runes. They no longer need to follow the “Passive, Q, W, E, and R” logic of each champion; many of those abilities are already covered by class traits or by roleplaying an action, and the ones that don’t fit that approach can be cut from a tabletop RPG. So instead of Runic Pulses, Sparks, Flows, Vortices, and Explosions, each with upgrade and mastery points, we now have just 3 runes with fewer upgrades.

The second step was removing all the Runic Pulses, reworking what they should bring to the character and how they progress, giving a clearer direction to each choice while removing useless excess that had only been created to fill out content tied to specific champions.

The next step in this rework was removing Runic Powers, so every Rune now works on a progressive basis (tied to proficiency) as it develops, without its “power” being minimized next to higher-level runes. So there are no more powers, just Runes that can be chosen once their prerequisites are met. Through this criterion, it becomes possible to build new Rune trees down the line.

Next, it became clear that Runessences are often an important part of building a character, but being accessible only at 2nd level got in the way of that. So every Runessence was also reworked to match the new standard.

“Wasteland use” was removed from Runes, mainly for being a weaker form of these Runes, barely used, and adding nothing but extra complication.

Rest, Reworked

One quality-of-life change proposed for this version is a rework of the Rest mechanic, changing how Short and Long Rests work and adding the Full Rest.

The reason for these changes comes down to a core concept from Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, the so-called “adventuring day.” In the words of that system’s Dungeon Master’s Guide:

“Given typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.

Short Rests

Generally speaking, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party probably needs to take two short rests, spaced out roughly a third and two-thirds of the way through the day.”

Dungeon Master’s Guide, Chapter 3 — Creating Adventures

Structurally, the Dungeon Master’s Guide treats the Adventuring Day as the basis for balancing every resource players can get, from their Race’s resources (Origin, in Runarcana) to their Class, Enhancements, and many others. That balancing assumes there are 6 to 8 encounters in an adventuring day, so those 6 to 8 encounters are meant to be what drains players’ resources on the way to the “Final Battle,” so it can be genuinely thrilling instead of leaving players with every resource still in hand to throw at the final threat.

Any DM or player with RPG experience, especially with D&D 5th edition, knows that actually running six to eight encounters per adventuring day would force a session to be pure combat from start to finish, draining players’ resources and leaving no room for roleplaying or exploration.

Less experienced DMs often end up frustrated when they build an adventure and its encounters, because with two short rests plus a long rest, their players usually have plenty of resources left over for the threats ahead, since in my own experience, few tables actually follow that six-to-eight-encounter premise.

To take that burden off DMs, the Rest system was reworked to match Runarcana’s own principles, not focused only on combat, but on the three pillars of Combat, Roleplaying, and Exploration. With Rests made less effective, the adventuring day proposed for Runarcana involves 0 to 3 combats per day.

Yes, 0, because not every adventuring day needs to revolve around a fight. Often an adventure can run across several sessions without a single combat being fought. And within the story, it’s extremely common for days, even weeks, to pass between fights.

With these proposed changes, the DM is freed from having to plan around unrealistic numbers, while Players are encouraged to spend their resources more wisely, knowing they won’t fully refresh at the end of the day.

One D&D

If you follow what’s happening in the RPG world, you’re probably aware that Wizards of the Coast announced the new version of D&D for 2024, called One D&D. This new version promises to be compatible with the current, 5th edition, bringing improvements and new features, especially after years of the product being on the market and plenty of meaningful community feedback.

Some of these changes are extremely interesting and healthy for the system, and for that reason a few of them were used as a basis for some of the changes shown in this new Runarcana version. Even though the system has disconnected itself from D&D 5th edition, these changes affect traits that still exist here, so they were considered carefully to further improve how Runarcana should work.

The new Exhaustion rule is far more useful and versatile, giving players a new kind of threat, since Exhaustion can come up more often without being as punishing. For that reason, this condition’s rule was rewritten for Runarcana, using these One D&D ideas as a foundation.

The changes to the Exhaustion rule haven’t been applied to the rest of the traits yet, such as spells, for example, that deal with it directly, so expect changes to those as well by the time version 0.94 launches.