The Rulebook: What's New

What's New in the 2009 Player Handbook

You can download a supplemental with this information, for use with your 2008 handbook.

Character Points and Character Debt

Continuing Game characters now start with 14 points instead of 10. Character Debt has been eliminated altogether.

Character Debt was a complex rule that disproportionately affected new players. Since everyone took it, the Rules Committee felt it would be simpler to start everyone at 14 points.

Grandfathering:
All current characters with Character Debt lose that Debt, and also lose all points they got from the Debt. However, characters with fewer than 20 total points are then given 4 free points; this cannot bring their total above 20 points.

Miracles

When a character runs out of Miracles (p.100), s/he can now purchase additional ones for 3 character points. These points can be shifted out of existing skills, or paid for by taking new disadvantages or natural limitations. Points spent towards Miracles count as spent XP, and as such apply towards a character's point cap.

Many players greatly value having a dramatically-satisfying ending for their PC, and are turned off by the idea of a long-established hero leaving the gameworld due to a random death. However, the Rules Committee also didn't want to give people infinite Miracles for free. The RC felt this was an acceptable compromise; you can still bring back a beloved PC, albeit in a weakened state.

Weapon Skill

These rules haven't changed, but they were widely misunderstood, so we've clarified them.

Specifically, when you allocate points into a weapons category (like "General Weapons", or "Shields"), you can use anything in that category that costs that number of points or fewer. So if you put 6 points into General Weapons, you can use any General Weapon that costs 6 points or less. This means you can switch between a Plain Sword and a Bow at the same event; you just can't use them at the same time.