MEST 2.0 Draft Update

EDIT: 2015-02-11 ~ somehow I deleted the original post and so this

is a paste from feedly.com

Quick post.

I've updated the MEST 2.0 document; I added more friendly verbiage at the front pages detailing a strategy to learn the basic rules.  By doing so, this low-fidelity version of the rules is becoming more like the planned hi-fi version with its preface, intro, and other materials.

I cleaned up the phrasing for the Perform Range Combat section.  Essentially I have made Perform Direct Range Combat and Perform Indirect Range Combat two separate first-class sections. I tried my best to clarify the phrasing for Indirect attacks in regards to the scatter element. I introduced the concept of ROF markers to be the reverse-side of Suppression markers because it makes more sense mechanically and the phrasing becomes much more clear.

I brought in the Rate-of-Fire [ ROF ] and Fire-lane rules into a new section for Advanced Rules because the rules for them as traits was too complicated.

ROF is now a column on the Weapons List representing what had previously been the Rate-of-Fire [ ROF ] trait.  [Jitter] is removed an implicit Disability trait from the ROF rules and is now directly assigned to some weapons that have ROF +2 or higher; notably the Beam Carbine no longer has [Jitter] and neither does a Medium Revolver.

Another addition is that the Armors List now shows a D column to reflect what had been the Deflect trait associated with certain armors and shields.  The same goes with an AR column to represent what had been the Armor Rating trait.  Furthermore, I clarified the sections on resolving Damage tests by calling out how to use the various properties of weapons and armors; for the Accuracy, Deflect, Impact, and Armor Rating properties.

Custom Archetypes and the Magic System also fall under the Advanced Rules now. I added some more guidelines for recording Custom Archetypes.

There's numerous other but smaller fixes to the phrasings of various rules.  For example, any reference to an "interrupt" is now renamed to "Reacts".  And Sorcerers are kind of Spellcaster because I have plans to introduce other sorts of spellcasters in the future.

Anyhow, this latest build contains what I hope is much better readability and clarity.  I'm still puzzling over some smaller details on phrasing, but I think this new version is pretty close to final.

I'll need to run it against Aggro to get feedback on the edits; I think he'll agree it is improved.