Go to Part 1

Before we proceed, I want to talk a little about my assumptions here: By default, the process of advancing a tier means that you gain +4 stat points, +1 to an Edge of your choice, +1 Effort, and a skill. (You’ll also pick up extra abilities from your character’s Type, but we’re not going to worry about that for the moment.) For the purpose of these discussions, however, I’m not going to be looking at characters who have dumped all their advancements into becoming hyper-specialized at doing one thing.

For example, I’m going to assume that characters are spreading their Edge boosts around instead of concentrating them all in a single stat. (In practice, I’ll be assuming that your highest Edge will be 1 + ½ your Tier.)

For the purposes of analyzing what characters are really capable of, I’m also going to be bumping up the descriptions of tasks with difficulties of 8+ (for the reasons that I described in Part 1). In practice, we’ll be looking at something like this:

(Difficulty 12 is the significant breakpoint here because a person with specialization, the best circumstances in the world, and willing to expend a single level of Effort still couldn’t possibly succeed.)

TIER 1 vs. TIER 3

Our general discussion has gone a long way towards establishing our baseline expectations for a Tier 1 character: They’ve got Edge 1 in one or two ability scores and they’ve got one level of Effort. If we imagined a “Tier 0” character who lacked any Edge or Effort, the Tier 1 guy can last a little longer and can also accomplish things that are a little bit tougher. We might think of him as being just a little bit better than a normal Joe, but the types of things he would consider “normal” or “routine” haven’t really shifted.

Now, let’s compare that starting character with a character who has achieved Tier 3: They’ve got Effort 3 and their high Edge is 3. They’ve probably also picked up at least one specialization.

The upper limit for this character in general has now become Difficulty 9: “A task worthy of tales told for years to come.” They don’t have to be skilled at it; they don’t need a great set of tools or perfect circumstances. They just focus their Effort on it and they’ll do stuff that people in the local aldeia will still be talking about a decade from now.

In their area of specialization, however, things are obviously even better: Without expending any effort at all, they can achieve things normal people would consider impossible (difficulty 8). Even under the worst conditions (+2 difficulty), they’re still capable of accomplishing stuff that average people would find intimidating under normal conditions.

And their absolute upper limit is even better: Specialization (-2), effort (-3), and a couple of assets (-2) means that they’re already capable of accomplishing difficulty 13 tasks… they’ve already blown the cap off our difficulty scale.

What type of stuff can they succeed at 50% of the time? Well, in general they can succeed at Intimidating tasks (stuff normal people almost never succeed at) 50% of the time by expending effort. If they’re specialized and have favorable conditions, they can achieve the impossible 50% of the time.

Notably, however, the stuff they consider routine doesn’t accelerate as quickly: Instead of just the stuff average people consider routine (difficulty 0 tasks), they also consider stuff people consider simple (difficulty 1 tasks) routine. Perhaps more telling, the “standard” difficulty of the game is now routine for them.

Okay, let’s use our touchstones: Even if these characters aren’t specifically trained at a task, they are capable of crafting any numenera item in the game; they can climb across smooth ceilings; and they are likely to possess knowledge very few people possess. If it’s their specialty, then they possess “completely lost knowledge” and they can do whatever the equivalent of climbing a wall of glass without any equipment is.

TIER 3 vs. TIER 6

So what we’ve rapidly established is that the small numbers of the Numenera system rapidly accumulate huge shifts in power and ability.

A Tier 3 character can generally perform the seemingly impossible and will, in their specialty, be capable of feats that will literally make them legends.

Because that top end already strains our ability to really comprehend what they’re capable of, the big conceptual shift between Tier 3 and Tier 6 is in the routine: With Edge 4 in their specialty, tasks of standard difficulty have become routine. More notably, that which normal people consider difficult they automatically consider simple.

(Pause and think about that for a moment: Think about the stuff that you find really difficult to do. The stuff that gives you a sense of satisfaction when you complete them successfully. Tier 6 characters consider that stuff trivial.)

The other end of the scale becomes simply staggering: Effort 6 expands their general range of ability (without skill or favorable circumstance) to difficulty 12 tasks; i.e., stuff that normal humans couldn’t even consider doing. Combine that with specialization (-2) and favorable circumstances (-2) and you’re up at difficulty 16… which is just completely off the human scale.

How far off the human scale? Well, the difference between “task worthy of legends that last for lifetimes” and what these characters are able to achieve in their specialization is the difference between a task the “most people can do most of the time” and “normal people almost never succeed”. (If there was a world where every high school basketball player had the skills of Michael Jordan, these guys would be the Michael Jordans of that world.)

Our touchstones have already been rendered largely useless, but consider this: Tier 6 characters who are not specifically skilled in climbing are nevertheless capable of expending a little effort and climbing featureless glass walls 45% of the time.

In an area of specialization (-2) they’ll have a 15% chance of knowing a piece of completely forgotten knowledge without spending any pool points. If they expend maximum effort, their chance of knowing something which (I must repeat) is completely forgotten rises to a mind-boggling 70%.

CONCLUSIONS

My big take-away from this is that by the point you reach Tier 6, Numenera is no longer a game about characters wandering through inexplicable technological ruins that they are incapable of understanding. The characters are capable of easily creating original pieces of numenera to rival even the most powerful technology of the Ancients and they almost certainly understand many of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos they inhabit.

(And if you’re still looking for a way to calibrate your understanding of the highest tiers, consider this: If a Tier 6 character was actually hyper-focused with Edge 6 (+3), a specialized skill (+2), proper tools (+1), and favorable circumstances (+1) they would consider even tasks that normal people consider “impossible without skill or great effort” to be routine.)

It looks to me like the turning point probably comes somewhere around Tier 4: Tier 1 you’re slightly better than the average person. Tier 2 you’re a highly talented expert (or Big Damn Hero depending on your perspective). Tier 3 is where you hit Legendary status. Tier 4 is where I think you have to start looking at a phase change in the types of stories your characters are getting involved with unless you want to suffer a dissonance with what the mechanics are telling you.

One notable thing to keep in mind, though: Although Numenera rapidly expands the high-end of potential, the low-end of surety doesn’t expand as quickly. The PCs may become incredibly potent demigods by the standards of their age; but they also remain distinctly mortal ones.

Many moons ago I wrote D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations: The point of the article was to re-orient your expectations regarding the level of power being modeled by mid- and high-level D&D characters. (If you think “Conan” when you think about a 15^th level character, you’re doing it wrong. Think Hercules in his most powerful persona as a full-blooded demigod.) The article had a few unexpected consequences, but by and large it seems to have helped a lot of people avoid or resolve the dissonance they once experienced between the mechanics of the game and the fantasy they were creating or emulating. We all stopped fighting the system and started embracing all the awesome stuff it was capable of.

Brandon Perry shot me an e-mail recently asking me to give Numenera the same treatment. It sounded like a really fascinating idea for a blog post, so I’m going to take a crack at it. Before I do, though, I want to offer a little bit of a proviso: When I wrote D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations I had nearly 20 years of experience with the game and had played or run hundreds (possibly thousands) of sessions. Although I’ve been playing Numenera since it was released last August, my experience with the game is obviously extremely truncated by comparison (consisting of a couple dozen sessions). So there’s going to be a little more armchair theorizing this time around, with all the risks that sort of thing entails. Take what I have to say with a grain of salt and keep testing it against your actual experience at the gaming table, but hopefully you’ll find some value in what I have to say here.

STATS vs. EFFORT vs. EDGE

Let’s begin with the core attributes of your character in Numenera. These seem to be frequently misunderstood, in no small part because they defy the expectations formed by the norm of other roleplaying games.

For those unfamiliar with it, the basic mechanic of Numenera works like this: The GM sets a difficulty between 0 (Routine) and 10 (Impossible). This number is multiplied by 3 in order to arrive at a target number (between 0 and 30). The player rolls 1d20; if they roll equal to or higher than the target number, they succeed.

For example, if you wanted to climb a Difficult (4) cliff, you’d have to roll 12 or higher on 1d20 (because 4 x 3 = 12).

In practice, however, the difficulty will be modified before the dice are rolled: Each relevant asset or skill the character has will reduce the difficulty by 1. So if a character who was skilled at climbing (-1) and also had their climbing kit with them (-1 for the asset) was facing a Difficult cliff, the effective difficulty would only be 2 and they’d have to roll a 6 or higher on 1d20 to reach the top.

Each PC has three stats: Might, Speed, and Intellect. Your score in each stat forms a pool and you can spend points from your pool to activate special abilities and also exert effort. When you exert Effort, you spend 3 points from the relevant pool to decrease the difficulty of the task by 1.

So, looking at that Difficult cliff again: You start with difficulty 4, subtract 1 for being skilled in climbing, subtract 1 for having the asset of a climbing kit, and then you could exert effort (spending 3 Might points) to subtract 1 again. (Now the cliff has an effective difficulty of 1 and you only have to roll 3 or higher on 1d20.) As your character advances, you’ll be able to exert multiple levels of effort simultaneously (further reducing the difficulty of a task).

Now, this is the point where most people get confused: Say you’ve got one character with Might 9 and another character with Might 14. Which character is stronger?

Neither.

Primed by other roleplaying games you probably have a natural instinct to think the Might 14 character is stronger. But he’s not. He simply has more endurance when it comes to performing difficult Might-related tasks. (Think about it: If both characters have the same skills and assets, then they’re facing the same probability of success. They are both equally capable of applying effort to any given Might roll. The only difference is that one of them will be able to apply effort to more Might rolls: He’ll win in a competition of endurance, but it’s a 50-50 split for any individual feat of strength.)

So stat pools are not the same thing as a typical RPG ability score. To find something like those in Numenera, you need to look at Edge.

In addition to having a pool in each stat, characters in Numenera also have an edge in the stat. For example, a beginning glaive has Might Edge 1, Speed Edge 1, and Intellect Edge 0. You use edge to reduce the cost of any associated pool expenditures. (So, for example, if you had a Might Edge of 1, you would spend 2 points to apply Effort to a Might roll instead of 3 points.) What this mechanic means is that a character with a Might Edge of 1 is stronger than a character with Might Edge of 0.

If this distinction is confusing you, think of it like this: When you get a Might Edge of 3, you can now apply Effort for free. That means you are just automatically 15% more likely to succeed at anything you do that’s related to Might. (Which means that you’re stronger.)

It should be noted that the range of potential Edges in Numenera is fairly small: The theoretical maximum is 0 to 6, and 0 to 4 is probably more likely in actual practice. (And you’ll only see those ranges with higher tier characters.) So, at most, characters are going to vary 20-30% based on their “ability scores”.

EFFORT AS CALIBRATOR

 The difficulty table in Numenera does a pretty good job of calibrating your expectations for a normal person:

All the guidelines there pretty clearly flow from the underlying math (which is straightforward because the system is just 1d20 vs. the target number): Routine tasks can be achieved every time (unless adverse circumstances push the difficulty up) because you’ll always roll higher than 0 on a d20. Difficult tasks have a 50/50 chance for trained characters because the skill drops the difficultly level by 1 (and math does the rest).

The key breakpoint on the chart is between Intimidating tasks and Formidable tasks, because that’s the point where you need to be either skilled or spend effort to have any chance of success (and the chart says exactly that).

Where I quibble with the chart a little bit is the Heroic level: It claims that these are “tasks worthy of tales told for years afterward”. But a character with skill specialization (-2 difficulty) expending a couple levels of effort (-2 difficulty) would actually have a 45% chance of success. That’s definitely impressive and probably the sort of thing you’d tell your friends about for a couple of days if you saw somebody do it, but it’s probably not going to be talked about for years.

Long story short: I’d bump the descriptions of Heroic, Immortal, and Impossible actions all up a slot or two.

The point, though, is that if you’re looking for the upper limit of what a character is capable of, then the maximum level of effort they can expend (which is generally equal to their tier) is a good indicator.

In general, the absolute best an unskilled character can do is difficulty 6 + their effort. Skills top out at specialized (-2 difficulty), so highly skilled characters will top out at difficulty 8 + their effort. In proper conditions and with proper equipment (i.e., with a couple of assets under their belt), it actually ends up being 10 + their effort.

(That, coincidentally, means that even beginning characters can line things up to make difficulty 10 tasks achievable. Which is another reason why the concept of “Impossible” should probably be bumped up a level or two on that table.)

EDGE AS CALIBRATOR

What you also want to calibrate, however, is the other end of your scale: What do your characters consider routine? (In fact, I generally find this a lot more useful in terms of really conceptualizing what life is like for a particular character.)

For that, we want to look at edge.

In a purely theoretical sense, Edge 3 and Edge 5 are the magic numbers where the first and second levels of effort become completely free and the difficulty for any related task is usually going to automatically drop.

In actual practice, however, I’ve found that once effort only costs 1 pool point the threshold for ubiquitous “impulse purchasing” seems to be reached: Players will start liberally using effort on pretty much every die roll (and they can generally get away with it). That means that the real thresholds to look at are Edge 2 and Edge 4.

In other words, an untrained character will consider tasks with a difficulty equal to one-half their Edge routine. (Of course, you should also adjust this difficulty for their skills and assets.)

These numbers don’t hold up if your Edge radically outpaces your maximum Effort (it doesn’t matter how cheap it is to spend the points if you’re not allowed to spend the points). This is theoretically possible due to the flexible advancement mechanics, but incredibly unlikely in practice.

SKILLS AND TOUCHSTONES

One thing to get a feel for in Numenera is that most of the ratings in the system cover a fairly broad range. (This is deliberate. Phrases like “precision isn’t that important” and “precision isn’t necessary” are sprinkled liberally throughout the rulebook.) This is also true when it comes to skills, with the system only distinguishing between three levels of training – untrained, trained, and specialized. Each of those skill levels must be covering a lot of territory and, upon closer inspection, it’s also notable that “untrained” is something of a misnomer because even untrained characters can succeed on challenging and even intimidating tasks with a fair amount of regularity if they apply a little effort and preparation.

PCs will only get a handful of skills in Numenera, but this isn’t because they’re ignorant louts: The game is actually assuming that characters have a very broad and pervasive competency across the board and only highlights the stuff they’re really, really good at. (This also fits the other elements of the system: As characters increase in tier their Effort improves across the board, which means their maximum possible performance improves in everything. Edge focuses the regularity of their performance and skills refine that focus even further.)

In trying to really peg what skill performance means in Numenera, however, the generalized flexibility of the system occludes things a bit. Unlike D&D, Numenera doesn’t give a lot of difficulty guidelines outside of the primary difficulty table described above. In practical terms, we’re basically limited to crafting items, climbing, and remembering/understanding particular pieces of knowledge.

Limited although they may be, I will use these guidelines as touchstones in the calibration discussions. If you want to see the tabular breakdowns for these difficulties, you can find them on my Numenera system cheat sheet.

Go to Part 2: Comparing the Tiers

(click for PDF)

A couple months ago I posted a draft version of my system cheat sheet for Numenera. At the time, I predicted that I would be running the game sooner rather than later. That turned out to be really, really true. I’m now running the game regularly for three groups:

• The original playtest group I organized.
• A second group which had gathered at my house for random gaming and asked me if I had a roleplaying game ready to roll.
• A group composed entirely of players new to roleplaying games.

It’s been a rousing success with all three and I’ve now run a total of 12 sessions. At least one of these groups will be winding down once the original adventure is completed (Vortex), but one of the groups has already transitioned to a full campaign using The Devil’s Spine as a foundation and the group of newcomers also appear to be interested in the long haul (although I think they’ll end up going a different direction).

In any case, I’ve used my play experience to both expand and refine the cheat sheet, which I now consider to be in its final version. As before, this cheat sheet is designed to summarize all the rules for the game — from basic action resolution to advanced combat options. I’ve found that it’s a great way to get a grip on a new system and, of course, it’s also a valuable resource at the game table for both the GM and the players. (For more information on the methods I use for prepping these sheets, click here.)

IT’S STILL A GM SCREEN!

The cheat sheet still uses landscape formatting suitable for insertion into a modular, four-panel, landscape-oriented GM screen. (Just like the one backers of the Numenera kickstarter were able to buy as an add-on. And which you can buy here.) I’m not including graphics for the front of the screen, but if you buy the Numenera GM Screen PDF you’ll be totally golden.

You may notice, however, that the final version of the sheet has more than four pages. What I’ve been doing is printing the “Miscellaneous Rules” and “Numenera” pages using inverted duplex printing and then taping that sheet to the “Hazards & Combat Modifiers” page. Insert the “Hazards & Combat Modifiers” page into the screen and you’ll be able to fold the other sheet over so that it displays the “Miscellaneous Rules” page, but can be flipped up to show the other two pages.

(Alternatively, of course, you can just choose two pages not to include.)

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

These cheat sheets are not designed to be a quick start packet: They’re designed to be a comprehensive reference for someone who has read the rulebook and will probably prove woefully inadequate if you try to learn the game from them. (On the other hand, they can definitely assist experienced players who are teaching the game to new players.)

The cheat sheets also don’t include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). So you won’t find types, descriptors, or focuses here.

You also won’t find most of the optional rules for the game. I may add those later, but not yet. (The exception are the rules for modifying abilities; I suspect they’re going to be too useful not to have handy.)

HOW I USE THEM

I generally keep a copy of my system cheat sheets behind my GM screen for quick reference and I also place a half dozen copies in the center of the table for the players to grab as needed. The information included is meant to be as comprehensive as possible; although rulebooks are also available, my goal is to minimize the amount of time people spend referencing the rulebook: Finding something in 6 pages of cheat sheet is a much faster process than paging through a 400 page rulebook. And, once you’ve found it, processing the streamlined information on the cheat sheet will (hopefully) also be quicker.

The organization of information onto each page of the cheat sheet should, hopefully, be fairly intuitive. The actual sequencing of pages is mostly arbitrary.

Page 1: For Numenera, the difficulty terrible is the heart of everything. Once you understand that, the special rolls, GM intrusion, and the concept of advantage/disadvantage 90% of the rest of the system actually becomes irrelevant. This page is likely to become superfluous quickly. You’ll note that I included examples of GM intrusion: This is unusual for my cheat sheets, but so much of Numenera is designed to empower strong, flexible rulings by the GM that providing this kind of idea fodder feels right to me and has proven useful during play.

Page 2: The core of the combat mechanics. If you’re teaching new players the game, you really only need to walk them through these first two pages. (I’ve been adding another column or so of additional material at the beginning of each subsequent section, slowly adding more tools to the players’ toolboxes.)

Page 3: The extended combat actions and options. The rules for “Trading Damage for Effect” are technically an optional rule, but I’ve found them too invaluable not to include here. (Compared to the draft version of the sheet, you may also notice that I’ve pulled out the guidelines for simplifying multiple enemies and the boss package you can use to buff NPCs. Very useful stuff for the GM that’s buried deep in the rulebook.)

Page 4: A collection of miscellanea. Optional rules are off on the right, but I haven’t used them yet in my own game. (You’ll also note a couple of house rules tucked down in the corner. These are still being playtested, but I think they’re useful.)

Page 5: Everything that you need to know about the numenera. This stuff is highly situational, but one concept I’ve found needs to be stressed to new players is the idea of scavenging for numenera. This process appears to be non-intuitive so you need to let them know it’s an expected part of the game world.

Page 6: Hazards & Combat modifiers. I expressed bafflement when I posted my draft version of the sheet for why all of these modifiers exist. In actual practice, I’ve found them more useful than I anticipated.

PLAY NUMENERA

As I mentioned before: Y’all should grab a copy of Numenera and start playing ASAP. It had my official “I Had a Ton of Fun Playing That” seal of approval and twelve more sessions has only served to add a “I Had a Ton of Fun Running That” merit badge.

FURTHER READING

The Art of GM Intrusions
Numenera: Calibrating Your Expectations
Numenera: Last Precept of the Seventh Mask
Tales from the Table: Last Precept of the Seventh Mask
The Numenera Tavern
Numenera: The Wandering Walk
The Moon of Numenera
Numenera: NPC Allies
Numenera: Grappling
Numenera: Attacking Objects
Numenera: Identifying Numenera
Numenera: Into the Violet Vale – Prep Notes
Review: Weird Discoveries
The Aldeia Approach
Numenera: Welcome to the Ninth World

(Please note that the title page has been altered to remove the copyright logo graphic I originally used in the draft version. All Numenera content on this website is issued under the fair use doctrine and it should be explicitly understood that no content on this website is issued under the MCG fan use policy.)

GRAPPLE: You can attempt to physically wrestle and restrain an opponent by attempting a Might task. Once a grapple has been successfully initiated, all physical actions are treated as opportunity actions requiring a Might task to attempt. A character can attempt to break out of a grapple by succeeding on a Might task as an action (without needing to make the opportunity check). Characters in a grapple defend at +1 difficulty.

(So if you’ve been grappled and wanted to throw a dagger at someone, you would need to first succeed at a Might task in order to gain the opportunity to throw the dagger. If you’re grappling someone who wants to punch you in the face, you would get an opportunity action to attempt a Might task to prevent them even trying to punch you.)

If multiple characters are grappling a single opponent, you can use the standard rules for helping. (The bonuses from helping would also affect the Might task for the opportunity action.)

FOCUSED GUARDING: If you’re attempting to stop a specific character from attempting a specific action (“I tackle him before he can run out the door!”), you can attempt a Speed task at -2 difficulty. On a success, the character you’re targeting will be prevented from taking the indicated action.

DESIGN NOTES

There are no rules for grappling presented in the Numenera rulebook. The closest you’ll get is a special ability possessed by a monster called a chirog, which looks like this:

Chirogs do not use weapons or tools, usually attacking with a savage bite. However, they can also grapple a foe, which is just like a normal attack except that rather than inflicting damage, it holds the foe immobile. The foe can take only purely mental actions or struggle to get free (a Might task at difficulty 4). Both the grappling chirog and the grappled foe are easier targets for other combatants, with attackers gaining a two-step modification in their favor.

At first glance, this looks like a decent place to start if you’re looking to make a ruling for grappling in Numenera. Unfortunately, upon reflection it turns to be fairly unbalanced as a generic mechanic. For example, the chirog’s ability is even better than stunning an opponent: Stunning means that you can’t take an action next turn and you defend at +1 difficulty. Chirog-style grappling means that you can’t take an action next turn, you defend at +2 difficulty, and are at risk of having the effect continue unless you succeed on a Might task. There is a trade-off insofar as the person initiating the grapple also suffers a +2 difficulty to defense, but since stunning also requires a much greater expenditure of resources than the single action required by chirog-style grappling it’s pretty clear that chirog-style grappling would be broken as a generic mechanic.

So I instead took chirog-style grappling as a loose guideline and improvised on a similar theme. When I was done I discovered that I had inadvertently created something pretty reminiscent of my Super Simple Grappling rules for D&D.

The rules for focused guarding are a bit more experimental. My basic thought process there is that, by the rules as written, a character can perform a Guard action which allows them to specify an action and prevent anyone from attempting it by making a Speed roll at -1 difficulty. Ergo, I’m concluding that stopping only a specific character from preventing that action should be easier. (So you can stop that one specific guy from running through the door, but all of his friends will still be free to do so.)

It may be too powerful, though. I’m specifically eyeballing the scenario where the PCs are fighting a solo monster. I’ve suddenly made it flat-out easier to counter that monster’s actions. So something to keep an eye on.

Monte Cook’s Numenera has recently been dominating my gaming table: I’ve run twelve sessions of it for three different groups in the last two months and it seems to be a hit with just about everybody. I’ve posted some cool stuff about it recently, so you may already be aware of this.

What you may not be aware of is that Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell have joined forces to create another game using the same engine: The Strange is a multi-dimensional romp in which your characters will change depending on which world they’re currently inhabiting. It’s generally conjuring up images of Torg, Planescape, The Matrix, and the best parts of Amazing Engine. But it also feels like it’s got its own unique little vibe.

They’re currently running a kickstarter for it and I’m mavening for it pretty hard: They’re currently at $351,130 as I write this, but they’ve got a stretch goal at $360k to release an additional 96-page adventure supplement. Since I’m generally a pretty big fan of adventure designed by Cook and Cordell, that’s something I’d really, really like to see happen.

If you’re interested in just taking a peek, you can drop $25 to get PDF copies of the core rulebook and the Player’s Guide. But the real juice starts at $80 (when you get a copy of the rulebook plus PDFs of all seven books that have become part of the kickstarter at this point). There are a bunch of other pledge levels and add-ons, but the next significant plateau for me is the $200 level (where you get printed copies of all seven books). But I’m also going to take a moment to pimp the Superfan packages, which currently look like this (but will continue to improve as more stretch goals are met):

I just recently upgraded my pledge to the $450 MCG Superfan level: It’s getting me 16-18 titles at an average price significantly lower than retail. But, on top of that, I’m also getting the $120 limited edition, the short story collection, decks of cards, and a plethora of pretty awesome goodies.

I’m very, very close to upgrading my pledge by another $200 to get both Superfan packages. I’m not saying it’s something everybody needs to do, but I’m really looking forward to receiving a steady stream of awesome RPG products for the next few years.