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Welcome to the Discussion Thread for The Next Project! Beta 3 is in development! System Resource Document (work-in-progress) DM Guide/Monster Math/Encounter-building info (work-in-progress) First drafts of classes for the new Beta: {Updated 10-APR-2016}
Ranger (d8) [Hunter/Beastmaster archetypes] Mystic (d10) [Necromancer/Warlock archetypes] Paladin (d10) [Priest/Blackguard archetypes] Warlord (d12) [Defender/Commander archetypes] Warrior (d12) [Barbarian/Fighter archetypes] Trickster (d6) [Bard/ Monk (d4) [Martial Artist/Ki Master archetypes]  Druid (d8) [Shaman/Shapeshifter/Summoner archetypes]I'm going to shamelessly steal the intro post from the PbP thread to get things rolling: P.d0t posted:What is The Next Project? What is this thread for? The idea behind this thread is to suggest any and all improvements that could be made to the game, as well as to be a place where people can discuss their impressions of the rules and their experiences with playing the game. At the moment, I am largely looking for feedback with regards to organization, formatting, and rules language; but, there is plenty of room for the game to grow! If you would like to see things added to the classes or the mechanics or anything, it's all fair game. The OP will be updated as needed. Thanks! P.d0t fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Mar 9, 2015 03:48
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I'm going to be looking this over shortly, but are there any particular changes to this version from the last that I should be looking for? Also, are there any systems that you're concerned about?
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Mar 9, 2015 12:41
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Honestly I thought it was a solid game from the playtest you ran. The classes are rather set in stone, but that's because each ability they have is so unique anyway. If I was going to look for anything else, it would be ideas on how to flesh out monsters a bit more. Presumably they're not just going to be plain auto-attackers, will they? I suppose your mechanics might have a problem with that. Have you given thought to how easy it is to engage/disengage?
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Mar 9, 2015 12:52
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You should tell us with examples how your game plays outside of combat. Not just purely mechanical examples, but give us an idea of the sort of situations you see your game working well for and how it works out in play.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:19
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Falstaff posted:I'm going to be looking this over shortly, but are there any particular changes to this version from the last that I should be looking for? Also, are there any systems that you're concerned about? Basically I put in Combat Expertise and liberally splashed it all over the place. This is essentially "when you roll a die and a 1 comes up, treat it as max value on that die instead." The Barbarian has been renamed to "Warrior." Most classes have 2 ways they can be played, and the Barbarian was inching towards Rage being one and something more "Weaponmaster"-ish being the other. We'll see if it sticks, though. Systems I am Concerned About: I would like to make Skill Expertises use some sort of more unified mechanic, if at all possible. Same thing for Defense; I'm not sure the bigger Class Die classes need to have better HP and defense. Maybe could change it from "PCs roll to attack and roll to defend when attacked" to just "if you're attacking, you roll." Skills in general are kinda stapled on and bland. I mean, I could write what amounts to "4e DMG2" and have a bunch of advice on how to handle complications and failing forward and whatnot, but I'm not sure that's entirely necessary for the SA forums audience, at least. gradenko_2000 posted:Honestly I thought it was a solid game from the playtest you ran. The classes are rather set in stone, but that's because each ability they have is so unique anyway. A patch that was chucked in after the initial playtest (and hasn't been tested yet) was changing Disengage from a thing you do, to almost being a status; when you Disengage from one or more enemies, you cannot be engaged by them again until (after) your next turn. RAW, they can currently still melee attack you, but they won't become engaged by doing so; that may need to change, it does 'feel' weird. As for monsters, I have some ideas to draw from, just with my experience with homebrewing stuff for 4e. The first thought that comes to mind is stuff like forced movement (i.e. a Dragon's Wingbuffet or whatever they call it) that can shake all engaged party members off as part of an attack. Obviously, monsters should have some ability to multi-attack, just as the Paladin or the Mage can (particularly solos), I just have been more focused on the player-side of the rulebook thus far. Jimbozig posted:You should tell us with examples how your game plays outside of combat. Not just purely mechanical examples, but give us an idea of the sort of situations you see your game working well for and how it works out in play. Well, in all sincerity, I don't think I'm doing anything special or extraordinary here. (and it may be more succinct to say that the "outside of combat" part has never been played/tested, but have some more words, anyway!) Again, I think it would sort of come down to DM advice. As it is in forum-poster Paolomania's "Some Heartbreaker" the rules should probably say something to the effect of "either the DM singly or the players as a group set the tone for the campaign, and the action flows from the fiction." This is probably at odds with the math presented for skill checks, but basically, depending on how high your "high fantasy" goes, an Athletics check to determine how far you can jump might not even be rolled because it is trivially easy or because it is impossible, dependent upon the expectations of a given campaign. I'll leave it at that, instead of getting into a dissertation on elfgames and how I play D&D wrong.
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Mar 10, 2015 05:16
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I do think a unified mechanic would be beneficial to this rules set. Is there any particular reason you chose to include the Barbarian/Warrior and Ranger classes, but not a Cleric? Is that role simply given over to the Paladin with his lay on hands ability? (I can see how that would be the case, given how little damage monsters seem to deal, just figured I'd ask.) Engaging seems extremely easy to accomplish, which could be a boon but you might want to give some rules or guidelines for utilizing terrain features. The rules seem like they'd work fine in a flat plain, but flat plain fights are kind of boring. I still think the way your reserve points work needs to be revised. Since the fighter-types are going to be engaging and attempting to protect the squishy mages (or ranged attackers), they're a lot less likely to earn any reserve points at the end of a battle. I mentioned this before in PM, but I'd recommend giving each class its own method for gaining reserve points, befitting that class's particular idiom. Lastly, will you eventually add leveling rules? Leveling up (or character growth, at least) is pretty fundamental to most dungeon-crawling experiences.
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Mar 11, 2015 16:41
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tl;dr portions are in bold; everyone feel free to chime in!Falstaff posted:Is there any particular reason you chose to include the Barbarian/Warrior and Ranger classes, but not a Cleric? Is that role simply given over to the Paladin with his lay on hands ability? (I can see how that would be the case, given how little damage monsters seem to deal, just figured I'd ask.) One of the building blocks I sort of started from was the "Tier System for Classes" in 3.5. I also read a goon's suggestion somewhere on this forum, along the lines of, "Druid->Ranger, Cleric->Paladin, Wizard->Bard; get rid of Fighters and use Barbarians, since they actually have class features," if you wanted to run a mid-tier game that was easier on the DM. That led me to write up a quick set of 3.5 houserules, which also influenced The Next Project. At one point, I had a Fighter instead of a Paladin (if you can imagine, this was a time when classes had even fewer abilities) but trying to make a set of Class Skills that didn't completely overlap the Barbarian was difficult. Changing the "d10 Class" to a Paladin gave it more of a niche in terms of skills and abilities. Similarly, the differentiation between a Ranger and a Barbarian largely comes down to fluff and combat style, although it ended up with their skills overlapping a fair bit, yeah. In terms of healing, I kind of want it to be a game where it's not much of a thing. You get some/most of your HP back at the end of every combat, and the better you preserve your HP the longer you can go adventuring. Basically, It's Up To The DM™ to further incentivize strategic play with time-sensitive objectives and the like. That being said, I probably need to give Paladins more to do, since I've also received a complaint that having one class be the only tank and the only healer in the game is pretty stupid.
Falstaff posted:Engaging seems extremely easy to accomplish, which could be a boon but you might want to give some rules or guidelines for utilizing terrain features. The rules seem like they'd work fine in a flat plain, but flat plain fights are kind of boring. Basically the rules are designed for boring terrain, because I'm a boring read: "lazy" DM, in that regard. I've said it other places, but I designed the type of game I'd enjoy playing and/or running, and it's influenced by what I liked/didn't like with the games I've played. That's why the "distances" are the way they are; I'm not the DM who loves drawing interesting maps and having terrain be a huge part of combat, I'm more of a writing/story DM.
Falstaff posted:Lastly, will you eventually add leveling rules? Leveling up (or character growth, at least) is pretty fundamental to most dungeon-crawling experiences.  but I will if i have to. My experience with 4th Edition (which was a game I thoroughly enjoyed) was that making numbers go up for the sake of numbers going up, inevitably leads to imbalance if you don't do it just right. The same can be said for constantly upgrading/replacing your abilities as you gain levels; as the DM, you're constantly having to move the goalposts in terms of Skill DCs, Monster HP, etc. I'd rather have hard and fast rules that just work. (Ignoring the fact that coming up with more and more abilities is just flat-out more work than I really am interested in doing.) The goal is for the game to be simple; there are enough complicated RPGs on the market, that I can content myself with only making a "gateway drug." The game I envision is more story-gamish than something where the objective is gaining levels/abilities/equipment/etc.
P.d0t fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Mar 11, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 19:26
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P.d0t posted:
Eh, I think it's fine how you have it, honestly. Damage is so minimal that even a tiny bit of healing provided by potions and the occasional lay-on-hands should be sufficient. quote:[*] You could try something like the following: -Introduce a universal mechanic. -Each battlefield has X features, listed as general descriptions (i.e., thick forest, bubbling brook, ancient ruined pillars, overlooking cliffside, etc.) -If you want to utilize a feature to your benefit, describe how you're doing it, spend an action and make a check. If you succeed, you get advantage on your attacks/defenses as long as that feature remains (though your enemies can attempt to remove this advantage with an action of their own.) That's pretty rough off the top of my head, but just because you're doing "Theatre of the Mind" doesn't mean you can't make battlefields interesting and tactical. quote:
If you want to keep things mathematically simple, then the best method is to have characters grow dynamically, rather than progressively. By that I mean, they gain more abilities that let them do more stuff, but they don't have ever-increasing numbers. More options, not directly increasing power, basically. Of course, that can be a lot of work. You could just have static characters, but personally I can't stand playing games with static PCs. Which is fine - you're writing this game for you, not for me. I just figured I'd share my opinion since that's what this thread is for. One thing I do need to ask, though... If you're approaching this as why are you asking for feedback? I mean, making a game is not for the lazy - if you want to do it well, you need to put in a lot of work. And if you don't care if you do it well, why are you even bothering in the first place? You might want to do some soul-searching and decide whether or not you're actually ready to give your creation the attention it deserves. Not trying to be mean, just trying to be honest.
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Mar 11, 2015 20:57
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This thing has some neat ideas, but the Skill Expertise boni seem needlessly inelegant and fiddly, with like 4-5 rolls to do some simple skill check.
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Mar 11, 2015 21:40
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Lichtenstein posted:This thing has some neat ideas, but the Skill Expertise boni seem needlessly inelegant and fiddly, with like 4-5 rolls to do some simple skill check. Yeah, as it is it's just sort of an attempt at balancing out the skills while using differing Class Dice. I'm thinkin' of a few ideas as to how to simplify this:
It'd be easy enough to just say "if you're good at a skill, at +# to it" but it goes against the existing designs a little bit. Falstaff posted:One thing I do need to ask, though... If you're approaching this as I suppose it's not so much that I don't have the time or the inclination to work on this stuff (and asking for feedback is about gathering ideas I can't/haven't come up with myself) but I don't want to make a complex, bloated game for the sake of "genre expectations." I don't know if that makes sense, but my experience with game design (tabletop in particular) is that games are usually either simple at their core with the bloat being fairly transparent and understandable (adding to the feeling of it being unnecessary), or else it's just unknowable spaghetti code with no thought or effort put to balance or design (3.pf) I'm hoping to find a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, not entirely out of laziness but because I think that's actually what some people want from a game. On the flipside, I spent a long time working on my previous game with the intention of it being some sort of big-tent magnum opus, and it ended up not appealing to anybody; that's something I want to avoid doing again.
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Mar 11, 2015 22:39
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Lichtenstein posted:This thing has some neat ideas, but the Skill Expertise boni seem needlessly inelegant and fiddly, with like 4-5 rolls to do some simple skill check. Working on simplifying this, here's what I'm going with, at the moment:
Other ideas kicking around:
To-do list:
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Mar 23, 2015 05:35
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Those are good changes - I hadn't really considered the physical implications of lots of dice-rolling because I tend to game online where die rolls are easy to do, but in retrospect it might have been a thing. EDIT: gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Mar 23, 2015 |
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Mar 23, 2015 15:10
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Falstaff posted:
Yes, the PbtA style of "here are your class options, at chargen pick a limited number of them" and then as you level up you get more of them sounds like it would work well.
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Mar 23, 2015 16:49
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I've been pretty busy lately, and probably will be for the next couple weeks. It might be a while before any more meaningful updates. Anywho, I took a quick skim of some of the Defense-based mechanics. Converting "monsters" to rolling their own attacks would be pretty involved; there are a lot of perks written into some of the classes that would be hard to invert without being clunky/annoying (or basically impossible, in the case of defensive applications of Expertise.) If anyone with a bit more free time has some tips or suggestions to fix it up, it'd be much appreciated. Otherwise, I'm thinking I might stick with the current status quo, but better define the monster-building side of the game; it's stuck in this weird limbo where some of the mechanics are the same as PCs and some are different.
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Mar 27, 2015 21:37
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P.d0t posted:Other ideas kicking around: Actual Content post: Pertaining to the Mage's multi-attack ability, I kind of want to narrow the scope of this ability. The hope being that it will allow me to make some better/more coherent encounter-building guidelines, and codifying "minions" or similar enemies. Mechanically, this would be similar to something that appears in 13th Age, where some spells target "1d3 enemies." The idea I had would be, at the start of the Mage's turn, they would roll their class die (d4) with either Advantage or Expertise (or both, or just use "max class die value") and the result would determine how many enemies they could target with their multi-attack. This die could also serve other functions, like the Shield ability I mentioned; as an interrupt, you could add the d4 value to your defense against 1 attack, or something similar. Possibly this resource could have other utilizations. I think this would work towards the objective of having a support-focused archetype, not limited to just the Enchantment ability. Likewise, it got me thinking about whether something similar could be done with the Warrior's Combat Superiority. The idea with this ability was that you could roll the trade-off and if you disliked the result, you could defend instead of attacking; with the Warrior's defense being so high, it makes comboing Defend and Counterattack very viable. It might be a boring way to do damage, but it works. I was thinking I could maybe modify this somehow to resemble the concept for the Mage ability.
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Mar 27, 2015 22:54
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Archetypes: Here's a quick draft, hopefully giving some idea of the direction I want to go, using archetypes for classes. Feel free to comment  I'd also like to work on a system of combat stances that could be used by different Warrior and Paladin archetypes, but that's still in it's most nascent steps of the idea process.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:19
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P.d0t posted:Working on simplifying this, here's what I'm going with, at the moment: Apologies for the long delay! (assuming anyone is still following) Here's a link to the draft I am working on. There haven't been any core, mechanical changes from the version in the OP, but this does show what has changed (using the "Suggesting" option in Google Docs) The changes quoted above were implemented a while back; recently, I got some thoughts going on how to rework stuff, so here's what I got: P.d0t posted:[*]Giving classes some more abilities, such as a Shield ability and more combat-focused powers for the Mage P.d0t posted:Pertaining to the Mage's multi-attack ability, I kind of want to narrow the scope of this ability. At the start of your turn, you roll you class die with Expertise; your Magic Missile can either target
P.d0t posted:To-do list: - Expertise added to all Damage rolls (because rolling 1s just sucks, and it wasn't really being used as a huge perk anywhere) - Still need to look at the Rogue - the "Power Attack" ability was made baseline, but to Basic Attacks only; Warrior's "Superiority" ability now lets you make a Trade-off at the start of your turn, and replace it with another Trade-off you make before your next turn (i.e. Power Attack or Counter-Attack) - Warrior reworked a bit, basically switched the advantages/expertises on Raging vs. Not - ideas relating to "high ground" are percolating, will probably involve Athletics/FORT/AGIL P.d0t posted:make some better/more coherent encounter-building guidelines, and codifying "minions" or similar enemies. I think I've whittled the player-side down to a fine point, mechanically. Spreading things out over levels and/or implementing backgrounds/archetypes is the main thing that needs to be done with that stuff. Overhauling and expanding the monsters and their abilities should be the next big priority, so I will work on focusing my efforts to that task, going forward. Edit: It's not in there yet, but I wanna add in an auto-damage Opportunity Action kinda thing, for leaving melee without Disengaging. On the PC side, this will probably be just a straight Class Die roll; for monsters, probably 1 damage.
P.d0t fucked around with this message at 01:08 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 00:05
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P.d0t posted:At the start of your turn, you roll you class die with Expertise; your Magic Missile can either target With the changes to Magic Missile, I was able to start working on monster- and encounter-building guidelines, including minion-types. It's basically just a skeleton at this point, and I will need to come up with some interesting abilities. I'm leaning towards having monsters gain certain actions based on a role (very similar to D&D4 monsters) One of the clunkier parts I noticed in the process of going through this, was how the "simple" rule of "PCs lose 1 HP when hit" kinda necessitates a lot of shoehorning; that rule might need to be re-examined, because having more monsters or having monsters attack more often to compensate will no doubt slow down combat.
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May 16, 2015 18:51
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Finally got around to reading these updates. I love your Simple Monsters design. I do agree with the an OA for disengaging. The archetypes were kind of what I was looking for as far as making the classes more "generic" for reskinning.
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May 19, 2015 13:55
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Through writing the monster guidelines, one thing that became apparent was that budgetting around the encounter rather than per-monster can be a lot of work and not really elegant. If there is a basic assumption of how many rounds combat should last (similar to 4e) then it becomes easier to say "1 standard monster should always have X hp; 1 simple monster should always have Y hd" and thus make it easier to combine the two in the same encounter, and give them a reliable "cost" within the encounter budget. Probably using 3 rounds as a guideline and then explaining how to slide up the life-expectancy of monsters for longer/more difficult combat is the way to go. other ideas...? gradenko_2000 posted:The archetypes were kind of what I was looking for as far as making the classes more "generic" for reskinning. Basically what I did was split most abilities into what the intended "fighting style" would be for particular sub-type of the class, and did the same for the Class Skill lists. Which part was more what you were looking for? or is it both? I ask because the combat stuff might be a little more obfuscated, but the skill thing is a fair bit easier; there's no reason you couldn't let players pick any 3 skillset/basic ability combo they wanted, as a quick-and-dirty houserule. Not sure if I mentioned it elsewhere/previously, but the pigeonholing of skill lists that's built into the game is for genre-emulation and pick-up-and-play reasons. On that note, I've actually been pondering going full-NEXT and having a Basic version (where a lot of the choices are made for you) and an Advanced version (which would integrate some of the Archetype stuff and have more fiddly character-building.) P.d0t fucked around with this message at 23:37 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 23:29
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In the latest round of changes, I made Power Attack be baseline, rather than specific to the Warrior class. Now I'm thinking I might go the other direction, and instead make both Power Attack and Counter-Attack unique to the Warrior. Basically, I think the Warrior needs a few more interesting things to do; I still need to draft some idea for combat stances, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Thoughts? Jimbozig posted:You should tell us with examples how your game plays outside of combat. Not just purely mechanical examples, but give us an idea of the sort of situations you see your game working well for and how it works out in play. Touching on this, I am thinking it might be worthwhile to break skills up into those with combat applications and those without. It might even be worthwhile to break it down further into the "3 Pillars" of Combat, Exploration, and Social. There is a very clear divide in which skills can be used in combat (and they seem to therefore be more valuable to pick up) and those which can't. Outside of combat, the idea sorta goes 180 from "Some Heartbreaker"; rather than discouraging "defer to the expert" I want to keep that in, as a manner of niche protection. There is some value in doubling up on skills though, since most classes can provide benefits to their allies. The resolution is meant to be quick and easy, with skillsets and basic abilities being broad enough to cover most things you'd reasonably expect to do in D&D-ish fantasy, even if you colour outside the lines a bit. I think the use of skillsets and the lack of D&D-style ability scores makes building a character concept a lot easier. You can be a stealthy investigator and not worry about juggling DEX, INT, and WIS in tandem with fiddly class/race/proficiency/training bonuses and such. Probably a rule/piece of DM advice that should be added in, would be limiting the number of times a particular skill can be used to attempt the same thing. Probably either once per party or once per character, depending on the skill and the situation. I'll have to think on that a bit; broadly, the game needs more codified DMing advice in many areas, but skills particularly. P.d0t posted:One of the clunkier parts I noticed in the process of going through this, was how the "simple" rule of "PCs lose 1 HP when hit" kinda necessitates a lot of shoehorning; that rule might need to be re-examined, because having more monsters or having monsters attack more often to compensate will no doubt slow down combat. An idea on this front: it might be worthwhile to have Simple Monsters deal damage equal to their HD, on a hit. This will make them swingier and possibly deadlier, but will also speed up play. Maybe have the damage scale down as they take hits? I'll have to do some crunching on this. Standard Monsters will be trickier to fix, in that regard. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 10:00 on Jun 3, 2015 |
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Jun 3, 2015 09:48
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P.d0t posted:An idea on this front: it might be worthwhile to have Simple Monsters deal damage equal to their HD, on a hit. This will make them swingier and possibly deadlier, but will also speed up play. Maybe have the damage scale down as they take hits? I'll have to do some crunching on this. I just did a quick calculation on this: Basically, the Simple Monster HD pool and their damage output over an encounter is close enough in number that making them deal 1 damage per HD should work. This is assuming that their damage decreases if they lose HD, which also makes it easier to keep track for the DM; you don't have to say "well this guy WAS a 2 HD monster, but he took a hit so he has 1 HD left but deals 2 damage whereas this monster that was 1 HD from the get-go only deals 1 damage." I'll have to see about applying this to solos; it'll probably take the form of "X per round, they deal Y damage to each party member," or something similar.
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Jun 10, 2015 16:57
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The Next Project Beta 2.3 is up! Any feedback would be much appreciated; expect a new playtest to begin recruiting in the near future Changes:
As is typical, I may make additional changes, piecemeal; I will try to either do them as "suggestions" on the doc, or else closely document them all in this thread. To-do List: - Mage abilities to set Bard and Wizard apart - Combat Stances (still) for heavies? - Working on formalizing simple monsters a bit more; their HD will probably be based upon expected party DPR, and their damage per round will probably equal their current HD - Figure out some mechanics for high ground, dropping prone, and similar; might mean changes to skill use - Continue work on Monster Manual - More codified rules for skill checks/skill challenges; how many attempts can be made - Possibly breaking skills up by their utility (in-combat vs. Initiative vs. Exploration vs. Social) and/or simplifying Basic Abilities and Skillsets
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Jun 12, 2015 20:44
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If you're here from the Recruit Megathread, feel free to ask a million questions about the game, and/or just post a character if you're ready to play!
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Jun 12, 2015 21:16
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Torvald Helm, Paladin. I have some questions about the optional class skills bit though, was I only supposed to choose one listed or do I take everything listed there? Am I missing anything? Still reviewing the whole document, but I like it!
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Jun 12, 2015 23:56
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Ghastly Gangsta posted:I have some questions about the optional class skills bit though, was I only supposed to choose one listed or do I take everything listed there? Some classes get 1 or 2 skill "lists" assigned to them and get to pick others and/or have others determined by their Archetype. In the case of the Paladin, you get 2 assigned (FORT, Influence) and 1 based on your Archetype. So yes, your sheet looks fine You might want to note your defense (1d20+Class Die, so 1d20+1d10 for Paladin) but other than that, I don't see anything missing. Actually, I should probably make a character sheet at some point... Slightly more advanced but still helpful stuff you/everyone might want to add: - Universal abilities like Defend, Counter-Attack, Power Attack etc. - Make note of which skills you're good at, and which can be used for Initiative [my list says: Athletics, Knowledge (INT or WIS), AGIL, Detection (WIS)] and which can be used for combat [FORT, AGIL, Influence, Perception again] and what they do. - If you mainly use Basic Attacks remember that you do damage on a miss with them!I'll add stuff as it comes up/I remember them. - If you want to pick your own skill lists, that shouldn't cause any problems; just take as many as your class would normally give you, and keep in mind any skills that your class is supposed to use often (you'll probably want to make sure you're good at those) P.d0t fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jun 13, 2015 |
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Jun 13, 2015 00:45
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Really like what I've read of this, will have an assassin up in a bit. Seems like a cool & good stealth class.
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Jun 13, 2015 17:32
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Hey, I'll probably make a character for this, but I had some questions. quote:Basic Attacks: These are attacks anyone can make. A basic attack can be melee or ranged, but uses your Class Die for the damage roll in either case. So, if a Mage, Rogue, or Ranger rolled a 9, their attack would be "unsuccessful", but they would still do 9 damage, which is higher than they could have rolled. Actually, for every class rolling a 9 would be better than actually hitting because it would be more than the average of their damage roll. Is this intended? The second question is a bigger picture one: What's the purpose of the Class Die? As far as I can tell having a bigger one is just Better, and the classes with lower numbers don't seem to have any kind of advantage over the higher ones to make up for it, since everyone has a set of special abilities. In game mechanics terms, there's no reason to ever be anything but a Warrior. It could help the party as a whole to have a variety of abilities, but the weaker characters are always going to be doing less damage and getting killed more often than the stronger ones, which isn't fun for them.
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Jun 13, 2015 17:34
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Ergonomix posted:The second question is a bigger picture one: What's the purpose of the Class Die? As far as I can tell having a bigger one is just Better, and the classes with lower numbers don't seem to have any kind of advantage over the higher ones to make up for it, since everyone has a set of special abilities. In game mechanics terms, there's no reason to ever be anything but a Warrior. It could help the party as a whole to have a variety of abilities, but the weaker characters are always going to be doing less damage and getting killed more often than the stronger ones, which isn't fun for them. P.dot would have more insight on it but from reading his doc, I don't think you're accounting for the fact that the other classes are probably applying their damage more times than a Warrior. Cleave is dependent on multiple enemies engaging the warrior, and the rage aspect of Martial Superiority means your defense rolls are at a disadvantage. A team of 4 Warriors looks like it has great damage output, hp, and defense, but I'd think that a party of Paladin/Rogue/Ranger/Mage would do just as well if not better because of their features. Hell, 4 Assassins constantly Hiding can't be attacked and deal 1d6+1d20 damage. 4 Hunters can lock up the enemy team with Restrained and plink away from range. 4 Paladins kick all kinds of rear end between Zeal and Holy Aura and also have good defense, plus Lay on Hands for in-combat damage mitigation.
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Jun 13, 2015 19:10
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Ergonomix posted:So, if a Mage, Rogue, or Ranger rolled a 9, their attack would be "unsuccessful", but they would still do 9 damage, which is higher than they could have rolled. Actually, for every class rolling a 9 would be better than actually hitting because it would be more than the average of their damage roll. Is this intended? Short version: either your Iconic Attacks are better than your Basic Attacks (even on a miss) or your class is built around doing more on a hit with a Basic Attack than a miss. The miss damage is just a simple way to have a "consolation prize" so that your turn is never wasted, and it also means the PC damage is reliable, thus making encounter-building also better. Specifically: A mage can attack multiple enemies per turn with their Iconic Attack, so they're not doing just 1d4 per round. If they use a Basic Attack, they can also use their Trade-off ability to add either 1d4 or 1d20 to the damage; it's a gamble but it can pay off. A rogue should be getting Sneak Attack damage all the time, which is +1d6 per ally engaged with the Rogue's target. A ranger can use Twin Strike, which is Advantage on attack and damage (which works out to roughly 1d8+2 per attack, sorta) Another thing to keep in mind is that with Expertise, you never get a 1 on a damage roll, so if you can stack even 2 damage dice on an attack, you stand a good chance of doing more damage than a miss would. Ergonomix posted:The second question is a bigger picture one: What's the purpose of the Class Die? As far as I can tell having a bigger one is just Better, and the classes with lower numbers don't seem to have any kind of advantage over the higher ones to make up for it, since everyone has a set of special abilities. In game mechanics terms, there's no reason to ever be anything but a Warrior. It could help the party as a whole to have a variety of abilities, but the weaker characters are always going to be doing less damage and getting killed more often than the stronger ones, which isn't fun for them. The idea is that the classes with smaller Class Dice are given tools to get them out of harm's way, whereas the Paladins and Warriors gotta just soak damage. The Class Die itself is sort of a design-box I put myself in; each class uses that die and d20s to do all their stuff, and I have to make the math jump through hoops to make it work. I don't think I hosed it up, but that's what playtests are for! On that topic though, I am considering increasing HP. We'll see how it goes
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Jun 14, 2015 08:49
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Alright so in the interest of truly acting upon feedback, I wanna pose a question to anyone reading this thread. Many people have been like, "This damage on a miss thing is retarded, wtf I want to miss all the time?" so as much as I can explain it out and have it make sense to me, it's obviously a problem if it becomes a sticking point every goddamn time someone new reads the rules. So what are some alternative ways to handle this? I want combat to keep flowing so a miss never does nothing. The first alternative that comes to mind is a disadvantaged damage roll with no Expertise. Other ideas..?
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Jul 19, 2015 16:33
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You're referring to the intersection of these three statements, correct?quote:To make an attack, roll a d20. If the result is 10 or higher, the attack succeeds. If the result is 20 or higher, the attack succeeds and deals the maximum amount of damage, plus the damage rolled. Using a Basic or Iconic Attack takes your Action. quote:Expertise quote:Iconic Attack: Choose whether to attack all enemies engaged with one of your allies, or one enemy engaged with each ally (i.e. a number of enemies up to the number of allies.) Make a ranged attack against each target. Roll your Class Die once, and deal the result as damage to every enemy you successfully attacked. You have Expertise on all rolls for this action. If I, as a Mage, Basic Attack a target, and roll a 6, which is a miss, I instead deal 6 damage to the target. If instead I roll a 12, which is a hit, I roll a d4 (the Mage's class die) and deal that much damage to the target. If I roll a 1 on the d4, I instead deal 4 damage. People keep saying that this is rear end-backwards because the miss deals more damage than the hit, but the counter-argument is that I shouldn't ever be Basic Attacking a single target anyway: I have Magic Missile, and if Magic Missile was rolling against even just 2 targets, that's already more potential damage output than the Basic Attack, right? My intuitive response would to dump the part where the low attack roll is used for the damage result, because what keeps tripping people up is the fact that a 9 is a miss, but the attack deals 9 damage, and 9 is higher than a d4's maximum value. Use half-damage on a miss or a damage roll with Disadvantage on a miss, and/or also don't make Expertise apply to the missed damage roll. That way, the progression is logical: a basic hit is a d4, a basic miss is half a d4, and Magic Missile is a basic against as many targets as are available.
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Jul 19, 2015 17:20
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Half damage on a miss strikes me as the simplest thing.
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Jul 19, 2015 19:25
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Hey, I've just been giving this a look-see and it seems very cool. Am I to understand you're running a game here? Is there a thread I should look at? I'd like to see how this runs in practice.
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Jul 19, 2015 22:48
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gradenko_2000 posted:People keep saying that this is rear end-backwards because the miss deals more damage than the hit, but the counter-argument is that I shouldn't ever be Basic Attacking a single target anyway: I have Magic Missile, and if Magic Missile was rolling against even just 2 targets, that's already more potential damage output than the Basic Attack, right? You've covered most of it, but also Basic Attacks do something extra, if you hit:
Rogue: Sneak Attack - kind of a big deal! Ranger: can Restrain on a hit; this is a huge debility Paladin: if you're engaged, you're attacking at Advantage, which makes Power Attack more viable, and you can always slap a Zeal trade-off on top for more damage Warrior: Cleave  Also, Power Attack all dayI'm not in love with half-damage but it'd be simple enough. Might be clunky for Simple Monsters though. Ratpick posted:Hey, I've just been giving this a look-see and it seems very cool. Am I to understand you're running a game here? Is there a thread I should look at? I'd like to see how this runs in practice. 
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Jul 20, 2015 00:31
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P.d0t posted:Yeah I posted in the recruit megathread, and was effectively using this thread for the recruit, since all the discussion is already here. Just the 1 app so far! I'd love to take part in the playtest! I'll probably make a Ranger at some point tonight, it looks pretty fun. e: Okay, I was trying to wrap my head around skills, and here's how I've understood them: Your class either gives you a skill in one of the basic abilities (like FORT, DEX, INT) or a skillset (like Influence, Athletics, Knowledge). Normally a skill test is a flat d20, but if you actually have training in either the basic ability or skillset used for that test, you get to roll d20 with advantage, right? On top of this, each class has their own little ability which interacts with skill tests, in case of the Ranger having expertise on their class skills (meaning that rolls of 1 count as 20) as well as the ability to add their class die to allies' skill tests with their class skills? Ratpick fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 14:09
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Ratpick posted:Your class either gives you a skill in one of the basic abilities (like FORT, DEX, INT) or a skillset (like Influence, Athletics, Knowledge). Normally a skill test is a flat d20, but if you actually have training in either the basic ability or skillset used for that test, you get to roll d20 with advantage, right? Ratpick posted:On top of this, each class has their own little ability which interacts with skill tests, in case of the Ranger having expertise on their class skills (meaning that rolls of 1 count as 20) as well as the ability to add their class die to allies' skill tests with their class skills?
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Jul 21, 2015 09:35
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Random Musings A thought I had recently was to make Athletics checks of any kind be usable as a Move (or possibly even part of another Move) as a stepping stone towards adding in terrain features/high ground/etc. So using an Athletics check to Climb or Jump could get you to a High Ground, which could be implemented similarly to Hidden; maybe having High Ground means you cannot be Engaged or melee'd, for example. This would probably require separating Grapple from Athletics; the obvious answer at first glance would be to change it to FORT instead. Stuff that this game hopefully does well Looking back at Jimbozig's question, really the only thing The Next Project aims to do well out-of-combat, is to be quick, and give each class its own niche.  Other aims/boasts: Ease of use in Play-by-Post: 1. Combat can be easily notated in text, w/r/t Engaged/Disengaged/Not Engaged 2. Maps are not required; Theatre of the Mind that actually works, no need for Maptools/Roll20/etc. 3. No re-rolling, you should have a pretty good idea of all the dice you need to roll for any action, before you take it. Dice rolls are quicker to resolve. Ex. the critical hit rules, lifted from one of the 5e playtests because it was more elegant in PbP 4. Static DCs: makes it so players can tell the results of their actions without DM adjudication, allowing the other players to take their turns, with a better sense of any changes to the combat Ease of use in Tabletop Play: 1. The game can be played by a whole group using only 2 standard sets of polyhedral dice 2. Maps and minis are not required, but can be fun/helpful; grid is not required at all (I've DM'd a game using monster tokens and little pawns from 'Trouble'  )3. Each class fits on a page, so once you have a grasp of the dice mechanic jargon, it's simple to run your character from that one sheet. 4. Nothing in the game is tagged with "until the end of next turn" or anything similar, so there is less to track in that regard. General Stuff 1. Death to Ability Scores! combat math and non-combat math are divorced, with the skill axis of Basic Abilities and Skillsets furthering this aim. Ex. FORT or Influence being usable for Intimidate, making for more believable characters 2. Class Abilities always use your Class Die. Maybe not a big deal for the more experienced gamers, but having different dice for your melee weapon vs. your ranged weapon vs. your Superiority/Inspiration/Guidance/whatever dice is something I think D&D could streamline 3. Less math! No numbers going up, no static modifiers. If you are modifying a roll, it's with other dice, which I find fun. 4. A handful of core mechanics that are broadly applied (Expertise, Advantage, Trade-off, etc.) P.d0t fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 11:15
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P.d0t posted:Correct. It used to be more complicated, but this post led me to rework it into its current iteration. Alright, thanks! I recall reading about your project in one of the design threads (probably the retrocloning 4e one?) because some of your ideas are very closely aligned with the ones I've got rolling around for my own 4e heartbreaker (namely the class die, but even then the similarity is superficial because in my completely unorganized notes for said game class dice act as more of a limited resource type of deal), but your game is not only more fleshed out than any of my ideas and much more interesting in design. I didn't get my Ranger sorted out last night after all, but I'll definitely whip one up today, so consider me as a second player for your playtest should it manifest.
Ratpick fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 11:17
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Ratpick posted:I recall reading about your project in one of the design threads (probably the retrocloning 4e one?) because some of your ideas are very closely aligned with the ones I've got rolling around for my own 4e heartbreaker (namely the class die, but even then the similarity is superficial because in my completely unorganized notes for said game class dice act as more of a limited resource type of deal), but your game is not only more fleshed out than any of my ideas and much more interesting in design. Yeah, I recall posting a really early draft in the Retroclone thread; looking back at it was like seeing a horrible yearbook photo  (Not even sure why it's in there, really this is almost a 5e retroclone at this point) One of the things I wanted to do (and this is why you don't see Class Dice as a limited resource) was to make everything at-will, instead of trying to balance Vancian casting (which never works). You still have hoops to jump through in order to use certain abilities, but hopefully it's engaging enough tactically, and each class has enough buttons to push.
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Jul 21, 2015 11:24
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