Change to Power Points, Added Bestiary, and Minor Fixes

[LockerM]

Wanted to add this PR with fewer Issues resolved so we can close, merge, and then work to address the MISSING Issues.

In this PR:

• Should we revert to Power Points? #60
• Mystic Recovery - additional costs #76
• Bestiary with 3-4 Companion options #9 + Create a v1 Bestiary + Publish updated Sample #64
• Revise the Changelog #113
• Additional minor text edits/grammar fixes

I will hold off on adding any additional commits not related to the above issues so we can close/merge more quickly.

[CBroz1]

Please push a commit that hard wraps new additions.

Let's find 10min to discuss beastiary yaml structure before merging that in. Currently, they include powers that are structured differently than the full powers list. Which should we use? The segmented approach currently the the beastiary will help it be more machine readable, but to what end, what goals to we have in mind? The current approach in the powers yaml is more human readable. I would need to write code to revise how we rendered powers for player sheets if we took the segmented approach.

I think we should take the same approach for both so that the beastiary draws from the powers list when rendering (even if some powers are limited to certain creature types, players, companions, etc).

[LockerM]

@CBroz1 - Agreed on the YAML for the bestiary we can use the Powers list to do the heavy lifting and then just tag each Creature in the Bestiary with the Powers name to streamline edits and maintaining the list.

I can revise the Bestiary YAML file to remove all Power effects and just keep the name under Actions.

Would we add House and Adversary Actions in the Powers list or the Actions tab in the Bestiary for Dealers and Bosses?

[CBroz1]

Would we add House and Adversary Actions in the Powers list or the Actions tab in the Bestiary for Dealers and Bosses?

Sure, that makes sense to me. Do you think they can fit in the existing Powers format? Does the Powers format need to change to have the Save structure, or should we put that off and just have sentence mechanics for now?

[CBroz1]

Treating all creatures, including PCs as the same will result in some issues differentiating Eagle level 1 from level 2. If I want to look up Eagle level 2, where would that be? Maybe Eagle 1 needs to be creature name or

Eagle:
    Level1:
        HP: 1 (and other stats)
    Level2: 
        HP: 2

[LockerM]

I think the solution here is for unique names that indicate power/strength as opposed to level.
Wolf --> Dire Wolf
Falcon --> Bladed Falcon

Or we give a stat boost on level up in certain cases without changing the name, like adding a formula to Companion HP and +to hit:

• Companion HP = 1+ (Primary Skill Mod/2)
• Companion to hit = 0 + Primary Skill Mod

[LockerM]

@CBroz1 - I updated the Bestiary in this PR to only have stat blocks for now until we can resolve the YAML file structure for the Powers list and how that will merge with Character Creation and the Bestiary.

Take a look at the updated files after the hard wrap and this streamlined Bestiary for now and let's see if we can merge this so we can tackle additional MISSING items in the PGF.

[LockerM]

Also I removed Phases from the Bestiary as I think this is best handled in an Adventure Guide or on a case-by-case basis since a Necromancer fighting in their Lair during one Adventure might be very different than a Necromancer who is invading an allied Fortress and must be defended against while they throw their armies of undead at the Fortress walls.

[CBroz1]

Necromancer fighting in their Lair during one Adventure might be very different than a Necromance

This to me is an argument in favor of different 'versions' of a creature under the main heading ('level1', 'level2') or ('in lair', 'elsewhere') as opposed to renaming the creature for each different piece.

[CBroz1]

• recent push implies a resolution for Need a "Non-Dealer" unifying term #104 in favor of NPC. Is this a user-facing term or a backend term? if so, should it change in guide docs?
• please resolve all review comments that have been addressed

[LockerM]

@CBroz1 - * recent push implies a resolution for Need a "Non-Dealer" unifying term #104 in favor of NPC. Is this a user-facing term or a backend term? if so, should it change in guide docs?

• I pushed the change but am not sure on the full Issue resolution as a result, see below

--

I'm not sure still as the term "NPC" feels fairly comprehensive to include all creatures (including Dealers) so I don't know that we would need to identify them in the Bestiary as NPC vs. Dealer or if we simply would indicate in the Bestiary if they're a Dealer (or if only Player PCs are called Dealers and we revert to all GM controlled characters are now NPCS).

[LockerM]

Necromancer fighting in their Lair during one Adventure might be very different than a Necromancer..

This to me is an argument in favor of different 'versions' of a creature under the main heading ('level1', 'level2') or ('in lair', 'elsewhere') as opposed to renaming the creature for each different piece.

With regards to including "Phases" - I think a creature can have one main stat block in the bestiary and then in a specific Adventure Guide it can describe any changes made to the NPC/Dealer then rather than us trying to maintain multiple variants of an NPC every time we write a new adventure that includes modifications. But most especially for phases, because the Bestiary will get bloated/confusing if we have multiple 3 phase boss fights completely listed out in the doc when a boss might be very specific to a single adventure where they have phases but otherwise are just treated as a normal enemy in other adventures where they aren’t a boss and don’t have any phases. My thought is that a GM can turn any Dealer into a Boss encounter by adding:

• Adversary Actions
• House Actions*
• Phases*

*would be specific to the GM and each adventure it’s included in

This streamlines our development of the Bestiary and then allows for a GM to say "Reference the Necromancer stat block in the Bestiary, but with the following changes..." and then they can modify damage, potential Powers, Phases, and House Actions to be specific to the setting, the environment of the campaign, etc. without us needing to account for all of these variables in a single doc that will certainly grow over time as more creatures are added by us and by the community.