Cypher System Announcements

[Saagael]

The Cypher System ruleset refresh is here! For the foreseeable future I will be maintaining and updating the rulesets for Cypher, The Strange, and Numenera. I will be posting the details of these systems updates in this thread.

Fantasy Grounds Cypher System Wiki

If you want to keep tabs on my progress as I work through the (fairly large) backlog of features and enhancements, you can do so on my Trello board.

Current Status
The 8/1/2023 update is LIVE.

Known Issues

• There is a bit of lag when opening a PC sheet. Efforts to explore and reduce this are ongoing.

[Saagael]

6/6/2023 Update

The first update for all three rulesets has been pushed to the TEST channel. This update is focused primarily on merging the changes from my Cypher++ extension into the core ruleset and building a solid foundation for future updates. I plan on keeping this build in TEST until I (or anyone else) play a few sessions with it and see if issues pop up.

System Changes

• When a PC is targeted by an attack from an NPC, the player controlling that PC will receive a pop-up window requesting the player to make a defense roll. The player can enter in effort, assets, or ease/hindrance on this pop-up window and then make the roll.
• Added an "EASE" and a "HINDER" button next to the effort/assets/modifier section of the desktop (in the lower-left of the screen) to quickly increase or decrease the difficulty of a roll by 1.
• When making a stat, skill, attack, or defense roll, and are targeting an NPC, the difficulty calculation is processed more closely to how it is described in the book. That is, you start with the difficulty based on the target's level, which is then modified up or down by effects, effort, assets, etc. When the roll is displayed in chat, the difficulty icon will display the actual difficulty of the roll (including all modifications). This is then compared to the d20 roll, and success/failure is reported.
• When a player makes a stat, skill, attack or defense roll, and are targeting an NPC, any difficulty modifiers (effort, assets, etc) will result in a +/-3 modifier to the final roll that is displayed in chat.
• Added a house rule game option to replace standard Armor handling with a rudimentary damage types system. Damage types can be listed via a button in the options menu. Enabling this option replaces most references to Armor (notably on NPC sheets, and in Attack and Ability damage actions) with a new damage type string. Instead of using armor to reduce damage, you can specify a creature to have resistance (flat damage reduction), vulnerability (flat damage increase), or immunity (no damage) to a damage type. This operates similarly to how it does in other popular TTRPGs
• Added a whole host of effects that the system handles.

PC Changes

• The Action tab has been modified to display the stat pools and defense roll buttons. This was done to lessen the need to jump between tabs during encounters.
• PC attacks have been completely overhauled. The "details" button now opens a new window in which you can configure the attack. Most of the fields in this configuration window have tooltips explaining what the field does.
• PC attacks that have the attack type of "weapon" have an "equipped" checkbox next to them. This checkbox indicates which weapon is equipped, and can be referenced by abilities when making attack and damage rolls.
• PC abilities have been completely overhauled, and are more like their counterparts in other popular rulesets. Abilities themselves have properties denoting whether the ability has a cost, have a recharge period, uses an equipped weapon, as well as some others. The "Roll" feature on abilities has been moved.
• PC abilities with recharge periods will display a checkbox on the left of their name that can be marked off to indicate that it's been used. Abilities can be set to recharge manually, or when the PC takes their first recovery action of the day, last recovery action of the day, or any recovery actions.
• By right-clicking the PC abilities you can access the "add actions" menu. This menu allows you to add roll actions to an ability. The current actions are stat rolls, attack rolls, damage, healing, and effects. These have their own properties that define how the roll. They can have their own stat cost, or they can use the ability's stat cost. Attacks and damage can define their own attack and damage rolls, or they can use the equipped weapon's stats.
• The initiative button on the action tab now behaves like a proper dice roller, and can be drag/dropped, and assigned to a hotkey.

NPC Changes

• Added a section to the NPC where you can enter individual attacks and abilities. These have a text field for description, but can also have actions attached to them through the right-click menu (listed under "Add Action").
  
  • Because NPCs and PCs share the same action list, NPCs have a "stat" action that doesn't actually do anything. Ignore it.
  • For NPCs the "attack" action, when targeting a PC, will pop up a prompt for the player to make a defense roll. If the PC being attacked is not currently held by an active player (if the player is absent, but their PC is being GM-controlled, for example) the defense roll will run automatically.
• When an NPC is added to the combat tracker, that NPC's modifications are parsed and added as effects to the combat tracker entry for attack and defense modifications.
• The "level" field on the NPC sheet is now a rollable field, and will initiate a attack when dropped onto PCs.

Item Changes

• Items now have an "Actions" tab where you can enter actions that the item might allow a PC to perform. This list is currently not used by anything, but in the future I plan on making it so items with actions are automatically added to the list of PC abilities.
• Cyphers now have a "level roll" field where you can enter the die string to determine a cypher's level. When a cypher is added to the party sheet, a parcel, or a PC's inventory, if that cypher's currently level is 0 (i.e. not set) then the system will automatically roll for the cypher's level.
• Items of the "Weapon" type now have a host of properties relevant weapons (attack and defense stat, bonuses, damage, etc). When a weapon is drag/dropped onto a PC sheet, a matching entry is also added to the Attack list (on the action tab) with all of the same details as the weapon.
• Items of the "Armor" type can now be specified to be worn armor (with an Armor value) or a shield (with Speed defense asset value). The Armor property does not automatically update the PC's armor, but having a shield in a PC's inventory will automatically apply the shield's asset bonus to speed defense rolls.

[Poe the Homunculus]

I will try to use this tomorrow night in the Numenera game I'm running on Warhorn

[Saagael]

6/16/2023 Update

The following updates will show up on the TEST channel in a few days after the recent system release craze dies down. This update is focused on adding support for all of the ways and means that one might want to add data to a Cypher (or Numenera or The Strange) game. This update should allow anyone to build their own comprehensive modules of Cypher content. A lot of the work here is foundational; there's no character-building automation or tracking, but everything is designed to support that going forward.

System Changes

• Added a difficulty level icon to the lower-left of the desktop (below the chat box, to the left of the modifier fields)
  
  • Whenever a player makes a roll that should target a difficulty level, that roll will now target the level displayed, UNLESS that roll is targeting an NPC.
  • This was done to solve the issue where the roll level icon in chat could mean two different things: it used to either mean the level the roll would have beat had it targeted a level OR it could mean the level the roll needed to beat based on the target
  • Now all rolls will have a difficulty level, and thus the icon in chat will always have the same meaning.
  • The GM can modify this level using the scroll-wheel while the mouse is hovered over the icon
• Added Types as a library type
  
  • Types have an "Other" tab, on which the GM can define all of the stats and features that a type grants.
  • On the "Other" tab is a section called "Starting Edge". Each entry in this list is a single option that the player could take (and in the future will control which prompts the player sees when taking this Type)
  • On the "Other" tab is a section for abilities, which can be dropped onto the Type window.
  • Each ability has a place to specify what tier the ability is available at
  • Each ability has a checkbox to control whether the ability is guaranteed (when checked) or is an option the player can choose (when unchecked).
  • It is important to note that abilities here are linked to other abilities in the library. The ability's data does not live within the Type, it is a separate entity that is only linked to the Type
• Added Foci as a library type.
  
  • Foci have an "Other" tab, on which the GM can drop abilities that the Focus grants a PC.
  • See the section on Types above for more details on adding Abilities; it works the exact same here
• Added Descriptors as a library type
  
  • Descriptors now have an "Other" tab, on which the GM define how the descriptor modifies the character it is added to (this does not happen automatically, but will be added at a later date)
  • Each character modification in the Features list defines a single way in which a character can be modified. The intent is that these modifications will all be additive. So if you specify a "Stat Pool" change of "4" to the "Might" pool, this feature would add 4 to the character's Might pool (when automation is eventually implemented)
  • Types of character modifications include: stat pools, skills, defense rolls, armor, initiative rolls, recovery rolls, edge, effort, cypher limit, granting an ability, or giving an item
  • Currently these modifications will not do anything, but will eventually.
• Added Flavors as a library type
  
  • Flavors have an "Other" tab, on which the GM can define the abilities available for a particular flavor. Drop abilities onto this tab to add it.
  • Each ability has a place to specify what tier the ability is available at
• Added Ancestries as a library type (I know it's homebrew, but it made more sense to officially support it rather than hack it). Ancestries are effectively a copy of Descriptors, so see the entry on Descriptors above for more details
• Updated Abilities
  
  • Several fields are now hidden or shown depending on if the Use Type is set to Enabler or Action.
  • Added an "Other" tab that contains a list of character modifications that the ability should grant to the PC it is added to. See the above entry for Descriptors to see how character modifications work
• Refactored how damage types and Armor works
  
  • Removed the game option for using damage types and merged its features with the base system.
  • Removed the RESIST and VULN effects. Those effects are now handled by having a positive Armor value (resist) or negative Armor value (vulnerability)
  • Damage that has no type is considered "generic" damage and is blocked by Armor. Damage that has a damage type specified is ONLY blocked by Armor of that specific type. e.g. Fire damage is only blocked by fire Armor.
  • Armor piercing still functions as normal, but will only pierce armor that matches the damage type
  • The IMMUNE effect still functions the same, and makes a creature immune to the specified damage type (or all damage if "all" is specified in the effect)
• The EASE and HINDER effects have been modified to now accept a number for how many levels a roll should be eased or hindered

PC Changes

• Move skills from the Main tab to their own dedicated Skill tab. This was done to make room on the Main tab
• Added an Abilities tab that contains a list of all abilities a character has. But wait, didn't players already have an ability list on the Actions tab? Yes they did! But now...
• The ability list on the Actions tab has been filtered to only show the ability: has roll actions, is set to the "action" type, has a recharge period, or has a stat cost. i.e. this list now only contains actions that you might actively use in an encounter.
  
  • If you want to hide an ability from the Actions tab list you can right click the ability on the Actions tab and select the "Hide ability from the Actions tab" option
  • If you want to force an ability to show up on the Actions tab list you can right click the ability from the Abilities tab and select and select the "Show ability on the Actions tab" option
  • Abilities that are added to the list from the Actions tab will always show up (unless you forcibly hide it in the radial menu)
• Re-organized the Main tab, making more room for the character's details (type, descriptor, focus, flavor, and ancestry) as well as Armor.
  
  • Types, Descriptors, Flavors, Foci, and Ancestries can be drag/dropped from the library onto a PC sheet to set those values. There will be a day when this will also include automatically applying abilities and character modifications for those things, but that is not this day. This also works in the Strange ruleset, where dropping a Focus onto a character will set that character's Focus for the recursion they're on.
  • A character's Armor has been moved from the Actions tab to the Main tab. This includes adding a list where you can Armor against specific damage types. A positive armor value will reduce damage taken. A negative armor value will increase damage taken. An armor value of 0 is treated is immunity, and you will take no damage of that type.
• Added extra handling when dropping items into a PC's inventory
  
  • When a "Weapon" type item is added to a character's inventory, a matching entry is added to the character's attack list on the Actions tab. If you delete one, the other will also be deleted. If the item is unidentified then the attack will not appear.
  • When an item with actions is added to a character's inventory, a matching entry is added to the character's ability list on the Actions tab. If you delete one, the other will also be deleted. If the item is unidentified then the attack will not appear.
  • The above two features can stack together. A Weapon item with actions will add an entry both to the attack and ability lists, and if any of them are deleted, the others will also be deleted.
• Removed the "extra currencies" box from the Inventory tab

Item Changes

• You can specify "{cypherlevel}" (without the quotes) in the effect text of an Item's effect action (found on the item's Actions tab), and when that cypher has its level generated (by adding the item to a PC's inventory, the party sheet, or a parcel) it will replace that "{cypherlevel}" with the cypher's generated level. e.g. "ARMOR: {cypherlevel}" would become "ARMOR: 3"
• Items with Actions specified on their Actions tab have a new section in the action editor titled "Adjustments by Cypher Level". This section lets you specific exactly how a cypher's level should modify the action when the cypher level is generated
  
  • Each entry lets you set what property on the effect you want to change, what value you want to change that property to, what operation you want to perform on the value, and when you should apply the modification.
  • For example, you could set up an effect so that it's duration is set to the cypher's level, but if the cypher's level is greater than 5, the duration is instead set to 10 times the cypher's level.
  • Properties you can set:
    
    • Stat rolls: training, assets, modifier, stat cost
    • Attacks: training, assets, modifier, attack range, stat cost
    • Damage: damage, damage type, armor piercing value, stat cost
    • Healing: healing done, stat cost
    • Effects: duration, effect text, stat cost

[sirkerry]

Oh, awesome Saagael! Looking forward to checking this out.

If I'm reading your post right, that means everything is in place (or will be in the near future) to create an Cypher System SRD for use with FGU?

[Saagael]

If I'm reading your post right, that means everything is in place (or will be in the near future) to create an Cypher System SRD for use with FGU?

With this update I would say that 95+% of the Cypher System rulebook can be converted. I haven't read it cover-to-cover, but I would say that the flexibility for items, abilities, and character modifications will support the vast majority of the book. There are two things I've found that there isn't explicit support for, such as

• One cypher states that its damage "ignores Armor that is equal to or below the cypher level"
• The Lucky descriptor lets a character roll 2d20 and keep the highest (though of course the player can just roll twice)

There's probably a handful more instances of one-off rules quirks. As the SRD is developed and we discover more gaps in the ruleset I'll patch them in.

[wndrngdru]

Wow! Is it Christmas already? This is amazing stuff!

I was looking over the CSRD document and the item/ability/cypher blocks are actually pretty standardized. I wonder what it would take to create something that could easily parse the document sections into records.
I wish I could REGEX better. I'm way out of practice and I was never all that skilled at it to begin with. :-\

[Saagael]

Wow! Is it Christmas already? This is amazing stuff!

I was looking over the CSRD document and the item/ability/cypher blocks are actually pretty standardized. I wonder what it would take to create something that could easily parse the document sections into records.
I wish I could REGEX better. I'm way out of practice and I was never all that skilled at it to begin with. :-\

I considered coding in the parsing for that stuff (kind of like how 5e does for spells), but honestly it's extremely complex and a lot less user friendly than having a UI where that data is entered in, imo. Especially because lua doesn't use regex, it uses its own bastardized string matching.

[wndrngdru]

I considered coding in the parsing for that stuff (kind of like how 5e does for spells), but honestly it's extremely complex and a lot less user friendly than having a UI where that data is entered in, imo. Especially because lua doesn't use regex, it uses its own bastardized string matching.

Oh, for sure. I was thinking more of an external tool that would output to a module that could be loaded and added to something more monolithic within FG. Who knows? Maybe I'll get a wild hair and see what I can do with a python script or something. (I wouldn't count on it, but every once in a while I surprise myself.)

[Poe the Homunculus]

Wow! Is it Christmas already? This is amazing stuff!

I was looking over the CSRD document and the item/ability/cypher blocks are actually pretty standardized. I wonder what it would take to create something that could easily parse the document sections into records.
I wish I could REGEX better. I'm way out of practice and I was never all that skilled at it to begin with. :-\

@Saagel is the June Kris Kringle of us FG Cypher fans, lol