Nova Aetas: Renaissance

Designer Diary #2 - Skill System -
over 5 years ago – Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 01:47:24 PM

Hello, Heroes!
Here we are in the second episode of the Designer Diary where we show you the differences between the old Nova Aetas and Nova Aetas Renaissance. Today, we will talk about one of the key elements of the game, the Hero’s Skill system!
In old NA the growth of the Heroes and the acquisition of new Skills were closely linked to the outcome of the Missions. If a Mission was won, the Heroes who had played it automatically learned a new Skill with a very wide choice, while a defeat limited the range of possibilities. Once you learned the third Skill of the base Class, you had to pass to one of the two Advanced Classes.
The abilities were represented by cards that described the rules for their use and there was no limit to the number of abilities that could be brought to the Mission.

 In NA: R the system has changed dramatically. Now each Mission will award a certain number of Experience Points (XP) based on your result. During the City Phase, Heroes will be able to spend their XP to acquire new Skills in their Class. At any time during the campaign, the Heroes can choose to switch to one of the two Advanced Classes available to their background (for example, Valerio can choose either to become a Knight or a Mercenary) if they meet the requirements of the chosen Class.
But this choice must be made wisely because once passed into the Advanced Class it will no longer be possible to learn the Skills of the Base Class.
Each Hero will be able to equip up to 5 learned Skills before a Mission. This system, inherited from Sine Tempore, requires careful planning before tackling a Mission, and having many Skills will increase the chances of equipping the ones you find most useful for what you are about to expect.
But this system from ST was explored even further in NA: R.
Now, each Skill belongs to a specific type as identified by color (for example, look at the sample Hero Sheet for Valerio on page 6 of the draft rule book). There are 4 types of Skills: Offensive (red), Defensive (blue), Support (purple), and Movement (green).

The 5 Skill slots available to each Hero will be thematically divided among these 4 types and will change according to the chosen Class (A). For example Valerio, as long as he is a Squire, can equip 1 Offensive Skill, 2 Defensive Skills, 1 Support, and 1 Movement. If he decides to become a Knight he can equip 1 Offensive, 2 Defensive, and 2 Support (B). This makes it especially important to choose your Advanced Class very carefully to suit your Hero’s play style.

This Advancement system will provide you with many choices for the growth of your Hero, for example, if you plan to evolve Valerio into a Knight, learning a Movement Skill may not prove wise. On the contrary, if you choose the Mercenary career for him, Movement Skills will be very useful (C)!

Furthermore, unlike old NA and ST where the Skills were respectively represented by cards and tokens, now the Skills are directly written on the Hero Sheet and to equip them you just need to use the new Skill Pin (E), in a very simple and clean way, thus eliminating a lot of material that otherwise would have cluttered the game table. This is just one quality of life change that will make your NA: R experience so much more enjoyable.

All the Skills rules of a Class are explained in the corresponding Skill Sheet, which can be placed under or next to your Hero Sheet, ready to be consulted (D)!

And that's it for this Designer Diary! Let us know what you think of these changes!

Designer Diary #1 - Crafting & Looting -
over 5 years ago – Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 01:47:14 PM

Hello Heroes!

Many of you have asked us to highlight the differences between NA:R and the first Nova Aetas and therefore we have decided to write a series of updates dedicated to the changes we have made since the first version of the game.

Today we're going to take a more detailed look at the Loot & Craft System!

While the Crafting in NA:R has remained more or less the same, with Heroes being able to spend their precious Reagents recovered during Missions to build new and powerful equipment, it is the Loot system that has undergone many changes.

In the original NA when a Hero eliminated an Enemy, the defeated foe left a Loot token on the battlefield that the Heroes, after spending 1 additional AP, could recover. Once the Loot token was taken, the player would draw a certain number of cards from the Resource Deck. Each card gave a certain amount of Resources in the form of Money or items useful for crafting.

This original system, however fluid it was, involved an AP expenditure that within the NA Missions – where time is a determining factor for  victory – could create problems for players who were sometimes forced to choose whether to take the Loot or complete the Mission successfully.

In NA:R, an eliminated Enemy will drop a certain amount of Reagents directly into the hands of the Heroes that go directly to the party. This streamlines the system quite a lot, and lets you concentrate on strategy. As you can see from the image, on the bottom of the enemy cards, there are 3 symbols to indicate the quantity and type of Reagent you will get. Unlike the original NA, there are now 3 decks of cards for the Reagents that identify their type: Pecunia (Money and riches of various kinds), Alchemia (alchemical elements), and Elementum (minerals or vegetable and animal elements). Each of these types play important roles in your crafting abilities.

So after eliminating an Enemy you will need to draw the indicated number of cards from one or more of the three Reagent decks.

These cards, however, must be kept face down until the end of the mission, when you have probably accumulated a nice pool.

These cards, however, must be kept face down until the end of the Mission, after you have likely accumulated a nice pool of Reagents.

The result of the Mission (how successful you were) will tell you how many of the recovered Reagents cards you can take home. A win will allow you to keep a large number or even all of them! While in the event of a defeat you will be able to keep a limited amount since the Heroes will probably have fled the battlefield hastily and thereby dropped a large part of their Loot! In both cases, the cards will be randomly selected, although some Heroes will have skills that will allow you to select your favorite Reagents (Sofia, I'm looking at you!)

The new system will allow you to accumulate a large pool of resources without wasting time wandering around the battlefield to collect them, but on the other hand, you will have to work hard to win Missions if you wish to get the most out of your Loot! So, not only is it important to win a Mission for what it does for the campaign, but winning also affects how much Loot you gain to eventually grow even stronger.

What do you think? Are you ready to loot your Enemies and build cool new Equipment?

In the meantime another Social stretch Goal has been unlocked: Boogeyman will come to your house.

Your response has been great, 300 Shares reached in less than 15 hours!!

Like we said yesterday, the more you share, the more people know about Nova Aetas and pledge it, the more we release new stretch goals for all.

An easy action that can really help us all, so keep sharing the post:

And remember... "He watches you when you’re sleeping"  💀

Rome Under Siege!
over 5 years ago – Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 05:39:55 PM

"In Rome, the capital of Christendom, not one bell is ringing, the churches are not open, Mass is not being said and there are no Sundays nor feast days... The most splendid palaces are devastated, many houses burnt, in others the doors and windows broken up and taken away, the streets transformed into dung-heaps. The stench of cadavers is horrible: men and beasts have the same burials; in churches I saw bodies gnawed at by dogs. I don’t know how else to compare this, other than to the destruction of Jerusalem."

                                                                                                                  Ludwig von Pastor, "History of Popes."

May 5, 1527, a day that will be remembered forever, for one of the bloodiest and most famous sieges in history, the Sack of Rome.

The Imperial army led by General Frundsberg and composed of the Landsknecht, ruthless mercenaries from Germany and Spain, are about to enter Rome to sack it and capture the Pope... Only you can prevent it!

Set years after the main campaign of NAR, in Under Siege you will find your favorite heroes to be more mature and engaged in an impossible mission! This new Campaign made up of 10 new frenetic Missions will see you engaged in the desperate task of resisting the Imperial assault and saving the Pope, before it's too late ... but you will have to be shrewd and brave, the enemy army is not composed only of humans!

Each Mission will be a race against time, always with different mechanics to manage the massive clashes between the defenders of Rome (including the miniatures of the core box faction of Rome ) and the ruthless assailants!

In Under Siege, you will find 4 new Tiles and new scenic elements to represent Renaissance Rome, such as the spectacular Aqueduct/the door to the City/Passetto (an elevated secret passage)!

In Under Siege, you'll also find a new Hero, Brynhildr the Lancer, a warrior of German origin who came to Rome to help the Pope against his former compatriots. 

Finally, Under Siege introduces the Allies to NAR! Allies can be added to your company and will help you with Missions. Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, the brave captain in defense of the Eternal City, will be able to join your group as a model in its own right and you can control him as if he were an additional hero, but with more limited rules.

Plus, you'll have fantastic new miniatures, new special items, and new rules to represent the German tide sweeping through the city's neighborhoods!

Get ready, the siege is about to begin!

In addition to Under Siege, today we present a new Halloween-themed Social Stretch goal!

Check our official Ludus Magnus Studio Facebook page, we will post there within an hour your new challenge: if the post will reach 300 "share", you will unlock the terrible Boogeyman!

This fearsome opponent that Sine Tempore players already know, has survived for millennia in the basement of Venice refining his art that combines Necromancy with an ancient and forbidden technology! In addition to having everything you need to be played as an enemy in the ranks of Venice, the Boogeyman can also be used as a new Mage in Black Rose Wars, thanks to the included Mage Card and the 3 Personal Spells that will be provided!

The more you share, the more people know about Nova Aetas, the more we release new stretch goals for all!!

🎃 Halloween rush! 🎃
over 5 years ago – Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 12:42:03 AM

🎃🎃🎃 We are thrilled to announce a new challenge dedicated to Halloween. 🎃🎃🎃

Help us to reach the terrifying goal of $700K by October 31st, and we will reward you all with a new model from this creepy concept art. It will be a Venetian enemy in Nova Aetas, and a legendary summon in Black Rose Wars! This is a bonus stretch goal that will be added to the "classic" stretch goal progression.

How can you help us achieve this?

Involve and engage your gaming community, share opinions and images on social networks, spread the word.

To help achieve this result, tomorrow we will also release a new add-on, an expansion requested by many of you over the last years. Like each aspect of the main game, this expansion has been revisited to make it even more engaging.

Last night, staring at the lake in front of me,  a constellation mirrored in the dark water, attracting my attention. Libra... the zodiac sign devoted to balance, symmetry... so powerful, so insecure.

                                                                                                                                                            Jafar the Divinator

Today we present you Libra.

This zodiac sign is particularly helpful for those heroes who are not very resistant, for those who will easily fall in battle if not well supported. Just see it in action in the next image.

And even more... another special Social Stretch Goal will be announced tomorrow, guess what?

"He watches you when you’re sleeping
Around the corner he is creeping
You see a shadow on the wall
And think that you imagined it all..."

Another couple of spoilers here 😱

See you tomorrow!

The Gaea's Keeper
over 5 years ago – Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 03:25:10 AM

The priestess was in front of us, proud and not at all intimidated by our presence. Valerio, as usual, assaulted her with contemptuous words. But with a gesture of her hands, the priestess pushed him aside, unleashing a powerful flow of purple energy. Valerio was thrown against a giant tree but immediately stood up, wiping his bloody mouth with his arm. Rebecca turned to the priestess, with a gaze mixed with admiration and fear. She realized that we had arrived at the moment of truth. The hardest fight of our adventure was about to begin."

                                                                                                                                               Vincenzo the Novice

Hello, Heroes!

Today we will introduce you to one of the deadliest enemies you will encounter during your campaign: Vera the Priestess of the Fauns.

Vera is one of the priestesses of Gaea and is a respected and feared leader within the faun tribe.

Her role is even more important than any normal priestess as she is the guardian of the Blood of Gaea, the mysterious artifact you have been asked to recover. It is a cherished artifact that could change the fate of the War of the League of Cambrai and therefore is craved by both Rome and Venice.

Vera will prove to be a formidable opponent for our Heroes and you will have to show great courage and strategy to be able to steal her precious artifact; and even if you do, you can be sure that you have made Vera an implacable enemy of your adventuring troupe who will stop at nothing to recover what you have stolen from her!

Do you feel ready to face this formidable priestess? (By the way, did you know that you may also face Vera’s future successor, Lilith, in the future episodes of the Nova Aetas universe continued with D.E.I.?)

That’s all for today and stay tuned for more surprises tomorrow!