Rock Your Socks Off

There's quite a few changes going on with OVA, but there's quite a few things that are just new, too. OVA is stocked with even more Abilities and Weaknesses, all ready to flesh out your character – or just give you ideas while reading the book. There are Abilities that cover broad ranges of knowledge or vocation, like Performer and Con-Artist, and new background Abilities like Connected. Weaknesses have been fleshed out too, with new options, like Greedy, and opposites for current Abilities, like Dull, the missing companion for Charismatic. There's also more ways to limit other Abilities with the new Endurance Use and Limited Use Weaknesses. And that's just to name a few!

With his charm and undeniable musical talent, Daisuke is an unsurprising showcase of the Performer Ability. But that skill may be less useful now that his self-centered personality has saddled him with a rather annoying curse, turning him into a black rabbit any time a female gets near! For a rocker the girls go crazy over, this is quite the predicament.

A Little Something for Nothing

Even though it's a change you may not notice right off, many of the Abilities have been reworked in one significant way: They're Endurance free!

That's right, no Ability has a built-in Endurance cost anymore – Well, except for Magic, but we'll get to that. While it worked okay in the original book, the way some Abilities cost Endurance and others did not begged an obvious question. "Why this one and not that one?" While there were a few cases that an argument could be made, for the most part there simply wasn't a good reason. Worse, in cases like Barrier and Heal, the exchange of Health for Endurance made them questionably useful. So problems like these have been eliminated.

This segways into another change observant readers may have already noticed, and that's the adjusted role of Perks and Flaws. Originally, these could only be applied to a select few Abilities, and mainly the Power Move Ability. The rename from "Power Perks and Flaws" to "Ability Perks and Flaws" carries with it the capacity to apply many of these to any Ability in the game. Of course, logic and common sense rule, but it's a change that allows much more versatility and a little less shoe-horning. That's not to say it's a free ticket, as some of the previous Abilities have been weakened a little to compensate. How do you get them back up to par? With Perks and Flaws, of course.

Magic still has a built-in Endurance cost due to its powerful nature. But it's an exception that seems to make sense. Magic is always tiring, after all. And the power to mimick every other Ability – or in the case of witchcraft, Weakness – is a power that needs some drawback.

Endurance also has some other new roles, but that's a topic for another day. For now, I leave you under the watchful eyes of Captain Jiro and Dr. Tomori. Between Jiro's compuslive work ethic and Tomori's network omnipresence, can you ever really be sure you're alone?

A Rose by Any Other Name...

It was a conscious decision to not refer to the new book as a Second Edition. While there are a handful of significant changes, you're not looking at the sort of wide-swept revision seen between 2nd and 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons (or 1st and 2nd or 3rd and 4th for that matter). By and large, a person with a copy of the 1st Edition of OVA and the new Revised Edition can carry on a conversation and even play a game together without confusing each other too much. While new rules and rule changes will be discussed in later posts, I am going to address the substantial number of name changes. Certain Abilities and terms in the original game were a bit unclear, ambiguous, or simply a little inconsistent, and I'm using the Revised Edition to repair some of that. Hopefully the following list will prepare you all at least a bit, though it fails to mention new, removed, or otherwise drastically altered Abilities and Weaknesses. The Original Edition version appears first, followed by the Revised Edition term in bold. Any notes on changes will appear in italics.

Damage Total · Damage Multiplier Damage Total was always misleading, as it was not really a total of anything. Damage Multiplier conveys its actual purpose much better.

Acrobatics · Acrobatic This will be one of many changes for more "description" oriented names for Abilities. I wanted, whenever possible, for character sheets to read like a description of the character. Oddball nouns like Acrobatics or Invention fail to do that well.
Armor · Armored
Charisma · Charismatic
Intimidation · Intimidating
Invention · Inventor
Occult Knowledge · Spirit Medium
Servant · Companion
Unnatural Resistance · Resistance

Airhead · Clueless
Strange Personal Habit · Strange Habit
Unnatural Weakness · Vulnerability

Power Perks and Flaws · Ability Perks and Flaws

Extra Knockback · Mighty Blow
No Attack Gesture · No Gesture
No Knockback · Feather Blow
Slow · Delayed Changed to prevent confusion between the Slow Weakness and the Slow Flaw

On the art front, everyone's favorite robo-girl Miho and her hapless savior Braun make their revised debut. The designs should be familiar to old readers, but there are quite a few new details.