I have been playtesting a few times with new people, and although the system is unique it has yet to wow someone they way I want it to. My main areas of focus for this wow factor is in the combat of the system. The original goals of this system were to have fun combat where the players had meaningful options at all phases throughout the game. Right now, I do not feel that is the case.
On a turn, a player can cast a spell, draw two cards and craft their spell, or they can use their weapon and craft their attack (Weapon + maneuver) this covers the Enable creative solutions portion of the system but outside of attacking/ dealing damage the options for the player just aren’t there.
Another issue I am/was struggling with is the case of skills, the first issue arose with the other cumulative system of skills, each box you took in the general skill granted an additional bonus to all the skills. This lead to the general skill carrying the specific skills. 4 points in a general skill and you could never fail in any of the specific skills either.
The design pillars, “The deck represents the character while the skills represent the character’s experience” is a major part of this game. The skills, being as strong as they were, made it so experience could override the character and make the deck’s contents almost trivial. The new style, the top most revealed box shows the bonuses, balances the system removing emphasis in favor of deck building, which was a desired change.
The next change that I am looking at is drawing two cards at the start of each round of combat and then allowing the players to choose what they want to do. This has a few benefits: first, it allows the game to be more tactical, a player can see all their options at the start of a round, they are no longer left guessing whether they would actually be able to pull off the clutch stun or not. secondly this allows players to pivot between casting and non casting combat more fluidly due to streamlined draw process. Next, this method should speed up the overall combat time as everyone can simultaneously plan their turns. Finally, this allows for maneuvers to be expanded to include more things not related to damage, like moving less to attack more, or attacking less to move more, or even holding actions to increase the number of reactions. This finally change is critical because at this point I was finding many melee characters did not have a good gap closer.
Another change I am looking at involves a streamline of the skill process and making specific skills feel less required but more special. When a player invests in a general skill, they can choose a specific skill to learn from that general skill. Specific skills are not known unless learned first. This would increase diversity between characters, allow for specific skills to more readily unlock maneuvers and thus combat options, and make the general system easier to understand overall due to forcing the knowledge to be of the General skills rather than all of the specific skills. The skill progression would then become +1 benefit for each point taken in a specific skill grants a flat +1 when using that skill for each additional point spent on the skill. This would also allow passive benefits to be granted from specific skills in a more understandable and holistic manner.
These are just my quick thoughts, I will be looking at implementing them these coming weeks/months as I prep a long form campaign to test major portions of this system.