Shattered World Progress Update

Shattered World continues to lurch, crawl, mutate, and occasionally make alarming progress. The system’s core math is shifting. Universal Action Modifier is being replaced with Competence Modifier, which more closely mimics the 5e "Proficiency Bonus," (although different). Competence Modifier is more specific than the deprecated UAM. It applies when a character is acting through a Proficient Ability, a trained Skill, a Field Role Feature or Buy-In, or in certain Field Role cases such as Aegeides and Warriors making attacks, or Wizards casting spells, etc.

The big focus recently has been the Wizard Magic chapter, which remains one of the more intimidating pieces of the Alpha draft. That is not because the idea is weak. It is because the idea is strong enough to demand better rules than the ones currently holding it together with duct tape, spite, and inherited RPG ghosts.

Most Wizard magic is pulling double, triple, and quadruple duty. That's design as intended. I have deliberately removed spell levels from the game. Wizard recipes, mage spells, and Psionic powers will all be designed to grow with the character regardless of what spell or power you're using. That's design as intended.

The current direction is that Wizard spells are Recipes: prepared procedures using Bloodstones, physical materials, timing, handling, and risk. A good Wizard recipe should feel a little like occult chemistry, a little like lab work, and a little like something that should have required several permits and a liability waiver. It's mostly a flavor thing, but Wizard magic feels definitively different now—in a good way.

That approach is starting to show up more clearly in individual spells. Age, for example, currently feels much closer to what I originally meant by “Recipe.” It involves prepared materials, careful handling, Bloodstone logic, and a deeply unsafe result. Not every spell has been rewritten to that level yet, and I am not going to force that before Alpha, but that is the intended post-Alpha flavor for Wizard Magic.

A major cleanup pass also happened around Concentration, Duration, Elasticity, and lingering magical effects. The important realization is that these need to be separate rules concepts.

Concentration is about maintaining focus. For Wizards, that usually means the vulnerable period while casting. For Mages, it may also apply to maintaining some effects. For Psions, powers manifest instantly, but active manifestations require Concentration for their duration. Techno effects may vary depending on the device, Feature, or power source.

Duration is how long the active effect lasts.

Elasticity is the mechanic that allows Wizards to stretch, reform, lengthen, sculpt, or otherwise alter a spell at the moment of casting. It has a numeric limit based on the Wizard and the spell, and Nous is spent to push the spell within that limit.

Maintenance Nous, meanwhile, has been escorted out of the building. It was trying to solve a problem already handled better by Elasticity.

The bestiary conversion problem also raised its ugly little head. Shattered World allows Ability Scores to function as attack vectors, which means a creature with a low Mental Acuity score can potentially be attacked through that weakness instead of through HP and armor. That is intended to some extent. The game is supposed to reward attacking the weak point instead of always grinding through the largest number.

However, converted 5e monsters were not designed with the assumption that a low Intelligence score is also a tiny mental health bar. That means some monsters may need protection against [STAT] attacks. Oozes, undead, and constructs are likely candidates for broad immunity. Other creatures may need Stat Damage Reduction, Stat Damage Resistance, or more specific traits like resistance to Mental Acuity depletion. Vulnerability may exist eventually, but carefully. [STAT] attacks are already a dangerous vector.

There was also an important space weather breakthrough, because an RPGC user correctly observed that plasma storms instantly improve a fictional universe. So yes, plasma storms have been implemented. They may become part of the Void travel hazard system: charged particle fronts, Bloodstone interference, engine disruption, radiation, auroral whiteouts, psychic static, and the sort of environmental nonsense that makes space travel feel properly irresponsible. I'll be implementing space/shard weather in the future.

I'm still a little salty about not hitting my self imposed January 2026 deadline, but I'm also happy with the direction it's taking. In short, the Alpha is still a mess, but it is becoming a more specific mess.

Recent progress includes:

• Replacing UAM with Competence Modifier.
• Clarifying attack roll and proficiency logic.
• Moving Concentration timing into Rapidly Evolving Situations.
• Separating Concentration, Duration, Elasticity, and lingering results.
• Removing Maintenance Nous as a likely dead mechanic.
• Reworking Wizard spells toward Recipe logic.
• Beginning the [STICKY] / Residual cleanup.
• Identifying [STAT] attacks as a bestiary conversion issue.
• Considering Stat Damage Reduction and Resistance.
• Accepting plasma storms as obviously necessary.

The next major push is still Wizard Magic. It is intimidating, but the chapter finally has a clearer shape. The hard part now is not figuring out what it wants to be. The hard part is doing the work.

I swear I really am starting playtests soon, hopefully this summer. I just need to finish with the Wizard Magic chapter, and then do the Psionic and Mage magic chapters so they're alpha-ready.

As usual, preserved jokes where rules allowed.