Random discussion

[indigo lodge]

I wouldn't count that as a mobility feature

personally

[ancient pewter]

yeah

so

[quick quarry]

Jumping far isn't a mobility feature??

[ancient pewter]

u already get t2 jumps base

[indigo lodge]

you could walk the same distance is the thing, so unless there are things stopping you, it's a worse version of "ignore difficult terrain" imo

not the whole of Bounder, just the extra jump part

[ancient pewter]

yeah

....what if unstoppable gave you +2 speed while charging?

[quick quarry]

I mean, Jump is also valuable for clearing that verticle space; so that maeans the Berserker can charge UP; very useful for verticle encounters

[indigo lodge]

that's a point for it sure, but teleport and flight is just as abundant, and it seems finaljas is more concerned about total distance traveled rather than versatility

[indigo lodge]

wouldn't break anything imo

[ancient pewter]

trust me, jump has its uses

and i prop use more varied terrain maps than other directors!

[quick quarry]

well, I suspect simply that Berserker is just weak against range; I think that's its niche

[ancient pewter]

but when the issue is "i cannot get from A to B" not "i need to get to X position" i suspect there might be a bit more in play

[quick quarry]

you 'could' add more speed to it - but then what makes reaver better. I think the whole point is that berserker has the hard counter of 'kite it' with the trade off that you have a hard time force moving it when it gets close

[indigo lodge]

i don't think that's what niche means 😭

[quick quarry]

At the risk of sounding rude, I would disagree. But not sure its worth debating. My point is that you could add speed to bounder (let it exceed speed); you also have a couple abilities in Fury that allow movement before attack (i.e. Tide of Death), so those are some distance closers

And - then if needed - add in abilities that allow for range

Also! you could take the hurling imbuement, or other treasures that allow throwing your weapon, which makes them into ranged attacks

[ancient pewter]

bounder is level 5 and theres no guarentee we will get there

[ancient pewter]

hmmmmmm

"when you charge, your speed increases by +[A] until the action is resolved"?

or something like that

[worn bane]

Censor doesn't have many ranged options. But does at least have some.

[ancient pewter]

so censor has:

• 1x signature
• 1x 3-cost
• 2x class 5-costs
• 3x subclass 5-costs
• 1x class 9-cost
• 3x subclass 9-costs
• 2x class 11-costs
• 3x subclass 11-costs

and all of its 7-cost auras are "ranged" since their auras

[worn bane]

More than I thought honestly.

[ancient pewter]

yeah theyre in the same bout as troubadours where they have a good mix of melee and ranged options

perfect for a mixed caster

[worn bane]

So yes, Fury are particularly screwed over by things like 'Slowed'.

[ancient pewter]

thats fine, null suffers from the same issue

[white moat]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zSkVoNZGf0gmbROz9aTI4RpUynRg73vhSoCyXBetb3s/edit?usp=sharing i dont really need or want feedback but for a campaign i made the breath of the wild ancestries

phoran = hylian

[unreal pawn]

I agree that Unstoppable Force is meant to be the Berserker's mobility feature (even though anyone can charge, charge+heroic is a much more meaningful option than charge+freestrike)
but I guess the Berserker could also burn their maneuver and trigger on their turn to push an ally, but trigger Lines of Force to redirect their own push to themselves and get launched another 2*might squares in whatever direction

(this gets around both Slowed and difficult terrain as well as being thematic/cinematic as fuck)

[unreal pawn]

as a Berserker my ranged options in practice have mostly been throwing enemies at each other - since getting 10+ push distance twice a turn is perfectly possible without much setup - plus Thunder Roar which is a great skill with generous range
Special Delivery could also be considered a ranged heroic strike with good damage, especially if boosted with Lines of Force, as well as the other options mentioned (Tide of Death etc.)

the Stormwight bonuses you mentioned are comparable with the kit bonuses that the other subclasses can get, so I think it's not that big a difference

+1 reach is easy to get obviously from one of the polearm kits, but e.g. with the Panther kit you can have an engagement range of 15 squares to make a signature strike with (+1 speed and Devastating Rush at the end of an Unstoppable Force charge), comparable to any other character with 5 speed and a ranged 10 signature strike!

[cunning harbor]

“Come fight me you coward!” Enemy must end turn on the ground within 5 of the fury, or become frightened (SE).

[ancient pewter]

im assuming u have 5 speed, since that seems to be most common

[ancient pewter]

this is....interesting, ive never considered this

how does that....look in the fiction?

[cunning harbor]

Like a waltz maneuver where you spin away from your partner, catch your them by the hand, then pull yourself past them

[ancient pewter]

that rules

[frail finch]

Or like Thor throwing Mjolnir then the hammer pulling him with it
But he yanks so hard that the hammer comes back and he goes flying

[unreal pawn]

I would've just described it as kicking off from an ally and launching yourself off them or whatever - but depending on circumstances, you could go harder and say you pick them up, swing them round, then transfer the momentum to plant them back in the ground and send yourself flying like a gravity slingshot

[hoary anvil]

@native anvil Pinging here because it's homebrew, but for my ancient Greek/Mesopotamian/Bronze Age setting, I've made a couple ancestries including a demigod one. I don't have a finished design to show but basically the idea is it's similar to Revenant where you can select another ancestry, but the signature trait has you choose a Domain instead and gives you a feature based on that. Feel free to borrow the idea and if I finish it soon I'll send you a draft

Other than that, yeah it's just all up to the player's class choices and flavor

[ancient pewter]

i was talking with a friend about the usage of iconography (their opinion was that its more useful for player aids and reference cards than in a rule book itself) which got me thinking to use iconography on monster cards. so i took a format made by f1zz3r and tried to do my own icon-flooded spin on it as a weird exercise

ideally i would want to make my own icons instead of using emojis so this was just a mock up. i also removed some keywords from the list because personally i find ranged/melee/area and psionic vs magic redundant

[cunning harbor]

Emojis for the win! 😤

[ancient pewter]

i made a list a while back

i might wanna revisit this project

a few things i would change:

• no talent keywords
• elementalist keywords are fine, but remove non-core elements until those subclasses are released
• magic/psionic keyword is changed to supernatural
• no area, ranged, or melee keyword
• icons for the different types of action (main, manuever, triggered, and free variants)
• damage type icons
• status condition icons

i think that would be it?

[deep meteor]

Curious for your take on removing melee vs ranged keyword, doesn't this make split melee/ranged kits like cloak&dagger weaker?

Or do you just mean they're redundant with the distance of an ability's effect?

In which case where does that put melee distance kits like whirlwind?

[ancient pewter]

u can already tell if an ability is melee since its on the distance part of the ability

this doesnt really counteract the benefit of the whirlwind kit

since it basically just means "melee X" becomes "melee X+1"

[deep meteor]

I wasn't sure if I was forgetting but it is actually the case that some abilities have Melee 2

Like Null's Magnetic Strike

[ancient pewter]

they still have the melee keyword

so i dont see how that changes much

[deep meteor]

Ohh you just implicitly omit unless there's ambiguity

Yeah that makes sense to me

[ancient pewter]

yeah basically

im a bit of a freak

this is just a proof of concept, i think the real test if i can utilize this concept for abilities

[deep meteor]

Yeah I'm personally a sucker for text but I'm sure this is really useful for quickly digesting information once you're used to the symbols

Like you could probably fit what 1.5x the number of monsters on one sheet?

[ancient pewter]

yeah exactly

that was f1zz3r's intent

to make bite-sized stat blocks for monster for an encounter sheet

a medium complexity ability

again, icons are WIP

[deep meteor]

My one suggestion for icons is unifying the damage types with some visual element, e.g. they all have a red circle around them, or something

Otherwise godspeed

[ancient pewter]

thanks for that suggestion

i was actually thinking squares

[deep meteor]

Also works! I thought something different from squares because the characteristics already use in the RC (and presumably you'd want to keep that visual language)

But maybe it works fine too

[ancient pewter]

characteristics and damage are linked, which was my reasoning

but im not a UX person

just something i found online for instance, if every damage type was contained in a box like this

i like the boxes for damage lines because it keeps shapes uniform

[deep meteor]

True! On second thought I agree with you

That is quite a nice icon

[ancient pewter]

i have played too many mid heavy euro games and been exposed to esoteric iconography

i have some Thoughts

😅

the only issue is excel doesnt play well with non-emoji symbols

actually i wanna test this format

whats the longest ability in the game

(with a power roll)

[deep meteor]

probably something talent?

Conduit Divine Dragon
Elementalist Magma Titan
Tactician To Me Squad!
Talent Soulbound, Stasis Field
Troubadour Renegotiated Contract

These are all pretty chonky

[ancient pewter]

lemme give em a shot

[cunning harbor]

I think if you are trying to condense information, collapsing the power roll table is an easy one

Like that ability could be written as:
Deal 8/12/15+M damage, Potency Frightened (SE). If already frightened, potency inflicts 2*P psychic damage instead.

[ancient pewter]

i made divine dragon

i added a keyword to include the characteristic of the ability too, which i think compresses info a bit more

[ancient pewter]

another example

[cunning harbor]

very compact, I like

[deep meteor]

Wait I don't see how current to me squad ends up in this version

[cunning harbor]

I might us "-" instead of "X" to denote a null bonus at some tier

[deep meteor]

What does 💪 mean

[cunning harbor]

signature

[ancient pewter]

this is both a boon and curse of having iconography

[deep meteor]

Ohh and then I guess you're missing the effect. But wow yeah the power roll simplification is crazy good

[ancient pewter]

i meant for it to mean "melee"

[indigo lodge]

I wouldn't have guessed

[ancient pewter]

like i said, i need better iconography

im open for suggestions on both signature and melee

[deep meteor]

Idk how you're going about these icons, but could you have something like etc?

Like a cute lil square with "sig" or "sgn"

[ancient pewter]

yeah eventually my plan is to have custom icons

and make cards in like

in design or something

unfortunately excel doesnt play well with custom icons

[cunning harbor]

So it doesn't excel?

[ancient pewter]

funny idea for free strike actually: 🆓

ah it doesnt show up well on excel

but thats a cool idea

does this look any better? worse?

[deep meteor]

"Free" is kind of overloaded with free strike / maneuver / etc

[ancient pewter]

yeah

[deep meteor]

Maybe it shouldn't be a keyword? Or it's like a "keyword modifier"

So you could say 🆓 🗡️ ?

[ancient pewter]

strike is its own icon

alternate idea

in my mind it goes free strike->signature->heroic so i was thinking there could be an evolution there

[deep meteor]

That also makes sense! The only issue is "signature ability" and "signature ability with the strike keyword" are two different symbols (green box vs green box dagger), whereas free strike is just one symbol (orange box)

So there's a bit of subtlety in the icon choice there

[ancient pewter]

unfortunately thats just something native to the game

free strike is one thing because a free strike is a singular ability

whereas a signature ability can be a variety of possible abilities

[deep meteor]

Right, I guess essentially what I'm getting at are, what are you thinking of doing for all of:
strike / free strike / signature / heroic / maneuver / free maneuver / triggered action / free triggered action

Each doesn't have a clear icon, so abstract symbol boxes is tough

[ancient pewter]

strike is a Keyword so it gets an icon
free strike/signature/heroic dont HAVE to be icons, but they can be
action/manuever/triggered action/free manuever/triggered action should all be icons imo

Action: 🔷
Maneuver: 🟠
Free Maneuver: ⭕
Triggered Action: ❎
Free Triggered Action: ❌

[deep meteor]

Ohh actually the shape language makes a lot of sense

Oh oh

What if strike is

Oh i thought there was a double dagger symbol

nvm

oh ther eis

[ancient pewter]

⚔️ ?

[deep meteor]

⚔️ strike
🗡️ free strike

?

[ancient pewter]

i was using ⚔️ for the weapon keyword, but im double guessing the utility of icon-based keyword lists

what do you think?

[deep meteor]

Most things won't have more than a line of keywords so no keywords is probably fine

[ancient pewter]

im also cutting down on keywords

most abilities will only have 2 keywords

[deep meteor]

If you re-use the common ones (strike etc) you should always save a line

[ancient pewter]

maybe 3-4 if its an elementalist abiltiy

Supernatural: 🔮
Weapon: ⚔️
Strike: 🗡️
Charge: 👟
Earth: 💎
Green: 🌲
Void: ☄️
Fire: ❤️‍🔥

but im seeing what u mean

[deep meteor]

Yeah it just becomes a lot of icons idk

For no lines saved on ability text (most likely, to be seen tho)

[ancient pewter]

i think most non-strike abilities will have just one

i think having strike and free strike be two iconography-connected abilities is very appealing

just gotta figure out a new weapon keyword

is ✊ or 👊 workable, u think?

or is that too disconnected?

[deep meteor]

Maybe an axe?

🪓

[ancient pewter]

i thought an axe as well

was worried it might blend in too much

Weapon: 🪓
Strike: ⚔️
Free Strike: 🗡️

[deep meteor]

Up to personal taste but I quite like this

[ancient pewter]

fair enough!

[proper shell]

whats yalls thoughts on a trait like this for the kobold and goblin ancestries im working on? i also cant really thinkof a very creative name for it

[deep meteor]

It's a better version of Polder's reactive tumble, is that done intentionally?

[proper shell]

is that a trait in the RC/May packet? i dont see it in the December packet

ah i see it in the May packet. didnt know they added that. so i will probably just port that polder trait over to the kobold/goblin

also i take it 4 ancestry points is the new norm for 1S ancestries? is that effective -1 stability really that potent?

[deep meteor]

I actually don't have a strong feel for how bad -1 stability is, but the designers certainly think it's pretty bad

Memonek also gets 4 (1M but "lightweight" so effectively 1S), and 1S revenant gets 3 instead of 2

[indigo lodge]

It’s also a bane on escape grab

Fwiw

[proper shell]

my only experience with a "1S" ancerstry was on Peanut Head, but she was also a lvl 10 Berserker Fury, so like my effective size was 8 or 9 and i had around 6 stability

[deep meteor]

Oh I had no idea, that's actually a huge deal

[indigo lodge]

Is it? I feel that maneuver doesn’t get used super often, grabs are easy to break with force moves or teleports

[proper shell]

good point. though memonek's Lightweight only applies to the forced movement aspect (as of the May packet)

-# (psst! hey kid! the mods wont know if we discuss minor details about the RC here)

[indigo lodge]

1S poser smh

[white moat]

would anything break if i made both parts of this "you or an ally"

i have a melee tactician who i think would really appreciate it

theres two tacticians in the party so the other one could take it for them but that feels kinda 🤮

[ancient pewter]

i think that should be fine

while we're on the topic of ability adjustments, i wanna revisit the comment about berserker fury mobility that i was talking about a while ago

maybe instead of charging increasing your speed by a certain amount (+2? +[A]?) you can instead exceed ur speed if ur jumping?

[ancient pewter]

we can get smaller

we have the technology

[white moat]

hieroglyphics

[ancient pewter]

i did another one and its a lot of fun having abilities sometimes interrupted by icons

[cunning harbor]

No limits on jumping, so you could jump four times for a lot of speed. Or is it only at the end of your speed?

[unreal pawn]

jumps exceeding speed feels like you would get weird incentives to do counter strike style bunny hopping or whatever, yeah

the rules justify not giving the Fury a class maneuver, but you could consider filling that gap with a dedicated Leap maneuver or something for big stompy vertical jumps

e.g. a version of Avalance Impact (6th-level berserker ability) without the damage, or even with no power roll and just a 1-push, might be what you're looking for

[ancient pewter]

what are your thoughts on giving charges +2 or +[A] speed?

@cunning harbor as well

[white moat]

🔥

[cunning harbor]

I think it’s worth a step back to first principles: what is the purpose of adding this ability?

Both those effects are mechanically fine.

[ancient pewter]

🤔

[ancient pewter]

berserker fury has no mobility features and fury has no ranged abilities, which is pretty feelsbad during play

[white moat]

finaljas doesnt know about the "push an ally and use your triggered action to push yourself extra squares" tech

[cunning harbor]

Berserker already gets the charge ability though? That’s a massive mobility feature.

Literally doubles your speed, effectively.

[ancient pewter]

hmmmm thats fair

maybe its a mindset thing

[cunning harbor]

Of course it doesn’t help at all against flying creatures… but neither does this.

[ancient pewter]

does feel like u kinda need hellcharger helm

[white moat]

jump snile

[ancient pewter]

doesnt help against slowed either

[cunning harbor]

Which again, neither would this since slowed us a hard set.

[ancient pewter]

it is?

i thought it just set a base

[worn bane]

That's only the Berserker though. I could see a movement option for all Furies

[ancient pewter]

reaver gets a speed bonus

[cunning harbor]

Well, that’s how I’ve always played it. Might be wrong.

[ancient pewter]

and stormwight gets....variable bonuses depending on the kit

[unreal pawn]

again, true for berserker/reaver too who also get a kit

[ancient pewter]

hmmm i suppose

[indigo lodge]

Stormwights get kit bonuses plus the ones from their storm+ animal forms

So a bit more than just the kit bonuses the other subclass gets

[grim flume]

If you mean that Stormwights get to pick a kit (such as Mountain, Dual Wielder, or Sniper) in addition to their Stormwight Kit, I believe you are mistaken.

[indigo lodge]

I didn’t say that, but you’re right that they don’t get an additional kit

[grim flume]

Ok, I must have misunderstood you then.

[proper shell]

thoughts about this for a werewolf ancestry trait?

or maybe split them into two separate 1 Point traits?

[deep meteor]

I'm assuming you get 3pts? I think it's pretty strong since you can shift out of opportunity attack range, still move the full charge distance, and then still have a move action. Or avoid an opportunity attack during the charge, and so on. Not OP imo, but definitely solid.

[proper shell]

yeah they get 3 points like the other 1M ancestries

[deep meteor]

The speed boost could be stated plainly as "you can shift 2 at any point during the charge, and still move the full charge distance". If it's something you're keen on. I don't think it makes or breaks, 2pts with or without the speed bost, the main benefit is the shift

Could also write it as a disengage move action during the charge, if you want it to interact with other disengage effects

[proper shell]

if its fine without the speed boost, then i think i'll keep it the way it is. i wanted the shift/direction change to be able to be done at any point during the charge. but also so that you couldnt shift one square, then change directions with another

[proper shell]

nah, i think keeping it separate from other Move actions is fine

[deep meteor]

Cool makes sense! Then I'd also add some line about "The charge must continue in the same direction after the shift"

But otherwise sounds fire

[cunning harbor]

The trouble with this trait is that it’s really good for a berserker fury, and pretty meh for most other classes

[deep meteor]

That was my initial impression as well, but consider that immobile squishy characters now have an action that allows them to reposition, without taking an opportunity attack, for double their speed

And deal a (most likely) ranged free strike wherever they end up. I agree mileage varies depending on the class, but I think it works for several

(i say double their speed including the charge + separate advance move action)

[cunning harbor]

Need to melee free strike on a charge iirc?

The damage a hero will take from an enemy free strike will often be less than the difference between a free strike and a signature

[deep meteor]

Oops you're right

[glass light]

Just catching up on the channels, love the compactness work you're doing here!

[ancient pewter]

lol thanks, i shouldve tagged you

my eventual plan is like

making a double sided card and fitting all ur abilities and traits on it

with iconography

[glass light]

I would use different iconography, but same

[ancient pewter]

im curious what iconography you would use

the emoji stuff is kinda placeholder

since excel doesnt do custom icons

[glass light]

When I'm not at a conference I might drop a mock up in here

[vale panther]

Might find this useful; https://github.com/nhmkdev/cardmaker/releases/tag/v.1.4.0.0 (It's a card maker tool that uses regular files and folders to assemble components in a format you design)
I've used it for monster cards in the past. It takes a little getting used to, but you can set the dimensions as you like and it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. And it doesn't require any coding/language at all.

[ancient pewter]

thanks!

[white moat]

statting out a superboss (multistage!) with abilities taken from various sources. one of the forms has ajax inspired triggered actions that fuck with specific pcs. im especially proud of this one for conduits

it would be fun at some point to expand ajax's triggered actions suite so theres one for every class

(and then you just track the ones your pcs have)

unfortunately i have no shadows so i dont get to use who's hesitating :ouagh:

[knotty swan]

I'm wanting to put together a more regular cooking activity, I was thinking of reskinning a health pot but I was wanting a more reliable outcome than the 45 project points and resulting in something less powerful intended for out of combat, and also makes more servings than the Perfect a Recipe Hearty Meal. Mainly I'm wanting first-impressions on if what I have is overpowered. Here's what I'm thinking so far:

Fortifying Meal
A hearty, well-balanced dish infused with subtle restorative herbs and spices.
Crafting: Once per respite, you may prepare a Fortifying Meal as a respite activity. You create 5 to 7 servings—enough for one serving for each hero in your party.

Effect:
When you consume a serving, you gain temporary Stamina equal to 2 × your highest characteristic. This temporary Stamina lasts until it is lost or until the hero completes a respite, whichever comes first. You must complete a respite before you can benefit from another Fortifying Meal.

In addition, the next time you begin combat on the same day after consuming the meal, you gain 1 surge at the start of the first round.```

[dreamy cypress]

I haven't had a Hakkan at my table yet, but does anyone else feels like Forceful is almost obligatory? At least for any characters planning to use forced movement regularly.

I am considering modifying it somehow, like making it melee only or just bumping it up to 2 points, but again I haven't seen it in play yet. Is it really that good or am I overestimating it?

[ancient pewter]

i feel like it depends how minmax-y your table is

[dreamy cypress]

True, but it seems like a lot of value to come from an ancestry trait. It doesn't take an optimizer mindset to read the trait and connect the dots that it would be really good to take if you were planning to play something like a Fury, Talent, or Null (or even an Elementalist).

Off the top of my head I can't think of any other ancestry traits that can boost the performance of your class so much, but again I'm wondering if I'm overvaluing it in that way

[ancient pewter]

hakaan fury/null is one of those combos that based on what i can tell, is intended by the designers

similar to wode elf shadow

[hoary anvil]

@languid parrot Wdym Magic Resistance in this context?

[languid parrot]

I couldn't find this channel, my bad.

Uh, the thing where are your stats are stronger vs potencies. I think it's an armor mod.

[hoary anvil]

Gotcha. Might and Agility potencies are vastly more common than R/I/P (there are more Might potencies among monsters than all three mental stats combined). In one of my homebrew ancestries I have a potency bump to all 3 mental stats for 2 points. Feels about right to me (and others)

Oh I see what you mean, I have not memorized all the imbuement names lol

[languid parrot]

Yeah, I was just wanting something that is thematically resisting magic, and saw that, so figured it was a good baseline to go. Seems I might need a slightly less powerful version to fit in the ancestry though. Or maybe put in signature and less points overall.

[hoary anvil]

I don't think I'd give that imbuement as an ancestry trait, it's essentially worth 4 AP across all stats

You could make it tightly conditional somehow but it's just very strong to have as an ancestry trait which are generally weaker than any other buffs

[grim flume]

You could do it similarly to the Human trait Resist the Unnatural. It should probably cost 2 points, but a triggered action to reduce a potency affecting you seems fine as an ancestry trait in my opinion.

[cunning harbor]

Agreed that forceful is overpowered. My personal solution is to limit it to magic/psionic abilities that aren’t also melee+weapon.

[cunning harbor]

Triggered actions are priced at 1 ancestry point, for what it’s worth. And I don’t think just 1 lowering of a potency is worth a triggered action, it’d need a little more juice.

[grim flume]

It could do with some playtesting, but I think that, given most defensive triggered actions half damage for free and require a heroic resource to reduce potency, it might need to be priced higher.

[dreamy cypress]

Ah right because melee+weapon already gets +1 distance against many targets because they're size 1L. I keep forgetting about that. So in a lot of low level fights, a hakkan Fury or Null is actually getting +2 distance on a lot of their forced movement when they're fighting humans and goblins and the like

[cunning harbor]

A triggered action is worth ~3 HR on its own. The reason (as I deduce) most are HR spends is that halving damage is always useful, while potency reduction only situationally is.

[white moat]

cooking or cooked? DTO thats a weird fusion of a monster and a DTO

(i gave it stats bc i deliberately want players to be able to hit it with conditions, but i dont want it to be able to move or take oppies etc)

[deep meteor]

You're cooking your players are cooked

[white moat]

only put this on a map built like a paintball arena with cover (i'm intending to use https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmaps/comments/1lnc5cf/six_generic_random_encounter_maps_along_with_some/ )

@potent pier for zelda campaign statting

(for guardians im cribbing a lot of valok stuff, especially their defensive trait that gets disabled by conditions)

[potent pier]

Thanks for the ping! 😃

[cunning harbor]

I'm not sure you need the double edge, getting hit twice by this thing would already be a pain

[white moat]

i took that from the valok

im not attached to it

[twilit thunder]

Any interest in a Google Docs "template" for homebrew? It is very loosely based on the layouts in the latest documents. Something I'll use to have a little consistency using free tools and fonts. I've included a port of a Sasquatch ancestry from my 5e setting as a sample.
Edit: I've started a new thread here that I'll update as needed: #1389036975104856166 message

[hoary anvil]

Wow, looks great! I was skeptical of the need for anything like that but the abilities alone make me want to use this. How did you accomplish the stat glyphs? I couldn't find good characters for that

And do you mind if I post this in the dedicated DS homebrew server/invite you to do so yourself? Folks would love it

[twilit thunder]

The Squared-A is CHAR(127344) in Google Sheets, the others are a little higher than that. They were a pain to find, which is why I included one for each stat to help.
Isn't this the ds_homebrew server? Or do you mean put a new thread?

[meager arrow]

If you'd like to post in here, I'd recommend starting a thread for this with the "tools" tag so ppl can find it 😊

I believe tintenseher is referring to a wholly separate server.

[hoary anvil]

Both of Orph's statements are accurate 🙌

[hoary anvil]

@ancient pewter I've also thought about homebrewing psionic subclasses for nonpsionic classes and vice versa. Perhaps this shadow graduated from the College of the Unfettered Mind or something, just as a fun additional flavor option

[ancient pewter]

thats an option i havent considered!

soul knife college

i feel like that would be a hit at my table

what would be a good name for a soul knife ripoff

[hoary anvil]

College of the Spoon That Isn't There

Time Knife 😂

College of the Refracted Blade

[proper shell]

seen it already...

[hoary anvil]

College of the Psychic Night

College of Jagged Intellect

College of Occam's Razor lol

I do like Razor of some kind actually, that has a fun double meaning

[hoary anvil]

@proper shell Coming here because it's technically a house rule but basically I'd just let the rider apply anything like that to their mount. If it's happening off-turn then it's probably something targeting a creature in which case they could just target the mount anyway. So it doesn't make sense to limit it when it comes from the actual rider

[ancient pewter]

i like this or this: #1321169055041716274 message

[hoary anvil]

Refracted Blade is my favorite of those

[proper shell]

yeah so like Fade's shift, the new version of Parry which has the tactician shift now, etc. Fade's shift technically has no "Target™", but Parry can have the tactician shift regardless of if theyre the target or not

the tactician in my group has a mech so as soon as i saw the change to Parry in the RC, i had a feeling i was in uncharted territory

[hoary anvil]

Yep would just always let it redirect, unless there's like no space for the mount to move or something

The real funny part is "You can climb onto your mount freely" but the only given way to dismount is to get knocked off (or if your mount dies) lol

[quick quarry]

On that note, I did start prototype for a psionic shadow, in the vein of the soul knife; its somewhere in the #1185001794921836664 channel

[quick quarry]

Soul Knife was still a really good option though 😉

[ancient pewter]

@lilac igloo

[cunning harbor]

@lilac igloo Hey! I saw you were interesting in making a homebrew class. I don't have my guide for that typed up yet, but I can give advice and answer any quesiton you might have

[cunning harbor]

Worth noting that exactly when class vs subclass gets stuff does change a bit class to class

[ancient pewter]

yeah it isnt completely uniform

[lilac igloo]

Thanks! This is exactly what I was hoping for! You didn't disappoint.

[lilac igloo]

I think the table Jas provided should be enough for now, thanks.

[ancient pewter]

honestly as long as u follow the ability and trait acquisition general flow u should be fine

mix it up as needed

class design in draw steel is pretty asymmetric

[lilac igloo]

That’s what I love about DS 😃
Pretty excited to make a class of my own (something that never happened to me in D&D)

[worn bane]

There's also a server dedicated to homebrew if you're interested - filled with people making homebrew classes. Might be helpful if you wanna see the process and ask for further help there.

[lilac igloo]

I just got an invite from KingGurke

[proper shell]

would it break anything to add the Weapon keyword to Sticky Bomb? it just feels kinda puny imo, so a range buff might help it a bit

[worn bane]

The real issue with it is it so hard to actually make it work.

You have to hide before using it so it isn't disabled then have to wait till your next turn for it to explode.

[cunning harbor]

Some stuff not covered by the table:

• Each class has two HR triggers. These are either 1 once per round, or 2 once per combat. The HR triggers should encourage the playstyle of the class you want.
• There should be a maneuver and a triggered action, but they can be given by either the class or subclass, and can be a choice between multiple.
• Each class has a unique way to spend HR. Buff tables, mark spends, or something like the shadows “hesitation is weakness” counts.

[lilac igloo]

Thanks. Any guidelines on the amount of triggered actions? The Shadow has 2 no-cost triggered actions (even though one is free, but it’s still once per round). And then there are free triggers that cost HR.

[cunning harbor]

I would separate free triggered actions from standard triggered actions

A hero gets one triggered action. That can be one from your class (Null), a choice from your class (Conduit), or from your subclass (basically everyone else)

[ancient pewter]

james talked about tag team moves today!

[worn bane]

Oh hey, awesome.

What did he say?

[ancient pewter]

i think it was like

moves that cost X [heroic resource] and X [another heroic resource]

[grim haven]

Ooooo

[ancient pewter]

which either hero can do the action cost for it

he doesnt know if it'll work tho

[grim haven]

Those moves would have to be strong

[worn bane]

Really just depends on cost.

I wonder if they're gonna be included in class kits, or available to everyone, or title-bound, or what.

[ancient pewter]

in my version it was title bound

[glass light]

To be clear, James talked about it in the speculative sense, not in any concrete plans. A "what if" question.

[lilac igloo]

Oh cool, Twitch didn't notify me this time. I figured this was another no-stream week.

[true orbit]

Tag team actions feel very cool to me and I'd love to see them in some capacity

On the director side they can be malice features too, spend two turns of two creatures and they collaborate to do something scary

[vale panther]

I've been thinking about tag team options since he commented on it this morning and I've come to a conclusion;

There are multiple valid, functional, interesting ways to make the idea work, and most players will like one method more than another.

Ergo I think it's a good place for brewing, because one way of doing it doesn't invalidate other methods. And if one person makes a system for it and writes up a dozen or so such abilities, a director who prefers another method of teamwork abilities may still find inspiration in the abilities presented.

I have not yet decided which method I want to develop, but I'm kicking around ideas

[hoary anvil]

Doing 45 moves for every tag team possibility (or 36 if you don't want doubles but that seems unfair) seems like too big in scope both to design and use to me. Maybe you'd want to group em somehow

"you" being the general you, just thinking out loud

Ord forbid if you want multiple tiers of like 5/7/9/11 cost

[vale panther]

My instinct is to start out with the structure, answering questions like how action economy mostly works, and getting a blank example. Then, work out probably two combos for each class. If it works and you can get them balanced to the author's satisfaction, then other people who like the system can expand it with later examples.

[ancient pewter]

i think its fine if u dont wanna design every combo

[vale panther]

The method I'm playing with now is to skip bespoke combos (a method I know James preferred because of earlier comments) and imagine 'setup' and 'execution' as keywords on abilities by class. So I use my Setup ability to enable/enhance your Execution ability. It's a bit noodlier, but much more flexible than a list of 2-person abilities.

[ancient pewter]

another thing u can do is group classes together

its something i considered in the past

[hoary anvil]

I like that a lot!

[hoary anvil]

Yeah that's what I was thinking. Sort of the way some of Ajax's triggers do

[worn bane]

I think you can do something like add 5 cost to literally any ability, lets teammate take any action as a triggered action.

Then put some kind of limit on it. Maybe it's once per combat, maybe it costs a few hero tokens to execute.

Might put it into writing.

[vale panther]

If you limit the teammate's action to Signature Actions only, that's very close to Hammer and Anvil. But, what if you limited the teammate's action to only using Heroic Abilities?
Then the teammate's ability costs them both their TA for the round and the regular cost of their ability. That would provide a natural limit on overuse because you aren't gaining any extra HR. And it would preserve some of the niche usefulness of existing abilities which don't have those same limits.

[worn bane]

You are still gaining an extra action that round, which usually costs about 5 HR (e.g. Shadowstrike).

[white moat]

i think any tag team system that doesnt use bespoke actions is missing the point to me

[vale panther]

Also, this rule is "spend 2 hero tokens to use a Tactician ability you don't have, but make it better"

[white moat]

i think the idea of spending hero tokens on the tag team abilities is sick though

maybe somewhere around X HR (at least 1 per person, then rest can be either participant), and 1 hero token to use a tag team

[ancient pewter]

the bespoke is the point for me!

like

this is my fantasy

[white moat]

part of me is also like. are tag team abilities not already kinda built into the system somewhat

[ancient pewter]

theyre adhoc

[white moat]

but maybe thats too designerbrained

[ancient pewter]

imo

[white moat]

and i should be thinking 'this is cool how can we make it cool'

[worn bane]

I mean Hammer & Anvil exists in the bespoke category already.

[hoary anvil]

Only for like 3 classes lol

[ancient pewter]

its not a Tag Team Ability, imo

its the bit where captain america and thor do the hammer slam thing

thats a different vibe

[white moat]

yeah true

[ancient pewter]

https://youtu.be/zcSwrQlbcd4?si=6LzukoSTn4R1oyMN

[hoary anvil]

Was just gonna mention Midnight Suns

That's the setup/execute style Delport described

[ancient pewter]

or the double techs from chrono trigger

[vale panther]

I do think some things in the game like H&A, This is What We Planned For, Hesitation is Weakness and others are good for narrating as this kind of thing, but it doesn't hurt to homebrew some more specific ideas. Like, if you have an ability that applies penalties to an opponent until the end of their turn and then you do initiative tricks, that works. But it's not the Shield & Beam Weapon to wipe out a ton of minions trick. That's a bespoke ability. And a good example of S/E - the beam weapon is an ability you can use on its own, but teaming up with Cap lets it hit more targets.

[worn bane]

Well, not exactly, because it also costs a triggered action.

And Hammer & Anvil on tier 3 applies to 2 allies, not 1. And gives an edge.

But generally it's fair that using 2 HT on top would make it stronger imo.

2 HT is 4 surges, or a recovery-value heal.

[true orbit]

I think being noodly about how many hero tokens or HR tag team actions cost to initiate is over designing

Simply allow two players that want to collaborate spend their turns back to back to pull off one big bespoke maneuver, and have malice features that allow grouped monsters to have some of their own

[quick quarry]

Late to this convo, but loved the discussion about tag team moves. Personally, very much thought of them as bespoke moves, less just 2 people doing their own thing simultaneously (hence the higher overhead).

[glass light]

Spending turns back-to-back kinda eats the Shadow's lunch

[quick quarry]

OG combo move game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CNj7NhbWkQ

[true orbit]

Honestly I think the ability to take turns back to back should be accessible to all heroes and monsters

Not confined to one class

[quick quarry]

Even with the understanding that a feature available to all dilutes the uniqueness of that ability?

[true orbit]

Yes

I don't think that ability should exist

So

[ancient pewter]

i do think the bespoke-ness is part of the appeal of the concept

for me

[true orbit]

I have been doing this in my 5e games for months

And it works out really well

[ancient pewter]

if i wanted to do ad hoc combos thats something that already exists in the game

[true orbit]

Because

When the PCs do it I track it as "turn debt"

[ancient pewter]

with all due respect, 5e is not draw steel

[glass light]

It's much cooler to see the combo of a Fury and Shadow be different from a Fury and Elementalist

[true orbit]

And then the baddies do it too right back

Makes for great back and forth, push pull

[true orbit]

I don't think that matters lol

In this case

It's very general design piece

[ancient pewter]

why would it not? they are mechanically dissimilar games

[true orbit]

Both games have turns

So anyway

Hesitation is weakness falls flat for me in a sense that in a game where any PC can go when they want to, only stopped by the back and forth nature of the combat turns

It seems kind of silly to hamstring an idea (tag team) because one class has this one ability

Also for the record i like bespoke tag team abilities too, and I think they can and should exist in tandem with PCs and monsters having a baseline ability to take turns one after the other

Also I'm more confident in saying all this cause it's homebrew

Every table is inevitably going to change how something works in the game

if you don't have a shadow in your party try turn debt! You might find it more fun who knows

[glass light]

I think people need to try Daggerheart and Draw Steel for their different approaches to initiative

[true orbit]

I like the idea that Daggerheart has no initiative basically

My un person group might have it work better for them

[worn bane]

If we're talking bespoke for each class combination, that is going to be a lot of effort.

[worn bane]

It messes with balance too much imo.

[true orbit]

It would yes

[true orbit]

Maybe! Imma give it a try at somepoint

The game daggerheart that is

[worn bane]

It's more a narrative game than DS.

[true orbit]

It is

This is off topic tho

[ancient pewter]

i think its fine some class combos get representation and some dont

ajax doesnt have a mechanic for every class

[hoary anvil]

Ajax doesn't have a bespoke mechanic but every class can still be targeted by one of his triggers. If you can build a party of characters that have no class combos between them, or only like one, that's a failure IMO

[true orbit]

I think that it would be a fun exercise to make a tool kit for directors to build their own bespoke tag team actions collaborating with their players

[hoary anvil]

But it might be reasonable to do only like 4 or 5 per class instead of 9

[worn bane]

Imo that would feel very bad for players.

"Oh man, you picked X? We don't have a tag team..."

[true orbit]

Abilities are already modular

[ancient pewter]

i agree here

my sicko take is for these tag team abilities to be customized to ur specific party

[true orbit]

And that makes each bespoke action idiosyncratic and special to each table

[ancient pewter]

and specifically flavored to the PCs

yeah

[true orbit]

Yeah exactly

[ancient pewter]

[hoary anvil]

Right but that's not like a generically designable homebrew system

[true orbit]

Players need to take initiative sometimes you want the shiny cool toys you need to sit down and make them

[worn bane]

A toolkit sounds interesting so long as it's properly balanced. Generally the "create your own ability" thing can be tricky to balance right.

But I like the idea.

[true orbit]

I don't think it would be that hard tbh

[ancient pewter]

ngl my favorite kind of homebrew content has been stuff thats like

"heres a deisgn doc, and some content using it that i made for my group as an example"

[true orbit]

Like if we have the idea that two PCs working in tandem are greater than the sum of their parts you can focus the math that way

[quick quarry]

I've been of the mind that tag team abilities could be build through a combination of your class, and maybe your organization (if/when they make those 😉 )

[ancient pewter]

oh like k&w!

yeah i loved those

ngl the math for damage/potency is pretty simple in draw steel

u just gotta tune in the effects

which is the hard part in 4e-likes

[white moat]

a player has pitched the wording for stuff like the censor instakill to be worded as "a creature that doesn't have villain actions"
with the intent that it also applies to a creature that has villain actions but has used them all already (i.e. we're heading into round 4)
honestly i kinda fuck with it

worst case i could just give bosses more villain actions if they need to last longer

[cunning harbor]

Not a fan personally. The execute abilities are already way too strong, and this just makes them stronger. And it means any boss/solo will die on round 3, unless you either A) add more villain actions or B) tactically don't use your last one.

[hoary anvil]

They did get nerfed FWIW

[worn bane]

Huh?

How so?

[hoary anvil]

Like Censored now only works if it's what winds the creature rather than if it's already below half

[white moat]

that just feels like its annoying more than a balance fix
like that just impacts its QoL

[white moat]

round 4 for me but yeah

but also like. part of me is okay with that

eh nah. it turns all bosses into 'survive until turn 4' which isnt what i want

that can be a sometimes thing

[ancient pewter]

test it out and see how it runs!

[white moat]

nah i wasnt huge on it anyway
instead im going to test out making them work like heartstopper from vessel and having them just deal a bunch more damage if conditions are met on bosses

[cunning harbor]

IMO executes need to either just be damage, or be higher cost. Otherwise they are far too strong at high echelon play

[deep meteor]

It seems to me they should be limited 1-2x per encounter, after which point they just do flat damage. Esp the lower cost ones

[ancient pewter]

i get the feeling mcdm wanted to avoid combat abilities with 1/combat triggers

[deep meteor]

Absolutely, though there still are a couple

[quick quarry]

While it is easier to balance that way, I would hope they would try to keep it, but maybe find some way to add some other precondition perhaps? Sort of like an alternate win condition to beating a monster rather than going through stamina?

[cunning harbor]

Hmm, that could work. The main issue is that damage per HR remains mostly flat, while enemy health scales massively. So any kill effect that is fair at E1, ends up massively OP for E3 and E4.

[glass light]

I wonder if this is the avenue from which we explore Solo and Leader monsters getting "staggered" a la Elden Ring.

[quick quarry]

Ok, ok - I like where this could go. What if 'executes' (is that the term were using for these abilities?) inflict a condition on a creature, and creatures of higher echelon have to take 2 or 3 of those conditions before they die - but they are seperate from stamina?

So, example: You use Censored on a E1 Bugbear at winded, maybe it has a execute threshold of 1; so it dies.

BUT a creature with a threshold of 2 or 3 (maybe equal to echelon) instead have to get hit with 2 of those abillities

[glass light]

You can withstand as many Executions as your Echelon

Or something like that

[quick quarry]

Yeah, something like that

[glass light]

It's... kinda reintroducing Legendary Saves, huh

[ancient pewter]

oh no

lmfao

[glass light]

Hahaha

[ancient pewter]

so

not to get all boss baby

but in icon there are execute abilities that deal % damage

against legends (basically solos) they deal a flat % (25%) instead of a straight up execute

perhaps it could be something like that?

i think one of the fury abilities already functions like this

[glass light]

I like 1/2 of the Winded threshold

[vale panther]

Ooooh! What if we applied the Combo idea to the Instakill problem, using abilities that bestow a condition on the target and another ability that has an additional effect on targets with that condition, but you don't give a character the ability to bestow and capitalize on the same condition? (And to be clear, I think I mean bespoke conditions)

You could even make the 'setup' a rider that comes from something else, like a title or treasure. "When you use spend at least 5 Heroic Resource to use a Strike ability, that ability puts the "Ionized" condition on targets. Ionized targets take 1 additional damage from lightning attacks." And then give the elementalist a power that deals double damage to ionized targets and removes the ionized condition?

[deep meteor]

The main issue here is typically one solo execution player won't ever execute anything in higher echelons

It'll take several players with execute moves otherwise they're useless

[glass light]

Yeah, damage conversion is a better option, I think

[quick quarry]

Not by itself, but if you had some sort of shield token that protects a monster against execute; you could maybe then allow other players abilities to remove those shields; opening up the execute option

[deep meteor]

Some shield condition like... Winded? 👀

[quick quarry]

Not what I'm thinking. I think the simple option is, as has been mentioned - make executes do a flat percentage of damage

[deep meteor]

Is the idea that the percentage goes down with echelon?

[quick quarry]

BUT - I'm just considering alternative win conditions that could be a a bit more to design, but could give players interesting tactical decisions

[glass light]

Hmm, is there a good incentive to amplify or gate the effect behind the Solo being Winded?

[quick quarry]

Oh! Actually - what about a simlier system - what if executes have just a random change to defeat a foe? So its not guarunteed - but its a die roll; on a failure, nothing?

And then - you could reduce the pertentage against higher echelon foes?

[deep meteor]

Or it's an opposed characteristic roll? So higher echelon get a higher chance of success implicitly

[quick quarry]

That' could work - it would make insta kills enemy dependant (censored can be good against low presence, Fury against low might?)

It could be a rare circumstance of that sort of mechanic?

[deep meteor]

Yeah it's strange they define opposed rolls but only use them in... Searching for hidden creatures?

[quick quarry]

Well, and that was a last minute change - so they became open to it

[proper shell]

not sure what channel to put this in, but its for a homebrew ancestry im making so i guess it goes here?

so theyre cyborg angels and one of their traits grants you holy, poison, or corruption immunity equal to your level. im trying to nail down the flavor text. what i have right now is

"Your cyber-divinity grants you resistances to..."

but like i wanna swap "divinity" for a word derivative of "angel"

so if divine (adjective) -> divinity (noun, turned into a qualifying title), what is the qualifying titular version of "angel"? like an "angel-hood" or "angel-ness" of sorts? or how could i cram "cyber" into "angelic" to turn it into a title?

[ancient pewter]

cyber-angelhood?

[proper shell]

idk, doesnt roll off the tongue as well as cyber-divinity

cant explain why

[ancient pewter]

sounds like u should stick with cyber-divinity then

[proper shell]

maybe. but i like sounding verbose lol

especially with this aspect of my setting

[hoary anvil]

"angelicness" is a word but it sucks

Cybersanctity
Cybercelestiality
Cyberprovidence
Cyberradiance
Cybersainthood
Cyberseraphicity

Cyberpurity

Cyberspiritualism

[ancient pewter]

if it was me

and i like being verbose

i would say cybernetic-angelicis

[proper shell]

aha! found exactly what i was looking for! "angelism". so imma have it be "cyber-angelism"

[hoary anvil]

I think that term has some negative connotations but for your own homebrew that works lol

[charred gale]

What about “Administrator Privileges”

[proper shell]

hmm nah, but that would be a good name for a Troubadour ability/feature

[quick quarry]

Something I need on the monster end, is a whole band of psionic monsters. Anyone have good ideas of monsters that are good Inspiration to make a whole group of?

[hoary anvil]

When you say band... you mean... music, or...?

[ancient pewter]

band aka the old name for horde, im assuming?

[quick quarry]

More like whole monster group, like undead or demons

[hoary anvil]

Ah okay. So not voiceless talkers because you want to fill out all the echelons

[quick quarry]

Correct

[hoary anvil]

Okay this is a pull but are you perchance familiar with the video game Wildermyth

[quick quarry]

Afraid not

[hoary anvil]

The enemy factions are pretty unique and one of them is the Thrixl, psionic dreamwalking eldritch bugs
https://wildermyth.com/wiki/Thrixl_Faction

I bet you could make 4 echelons of "psionic insects"

Add other animals if you want, one echelon is bugs, one is reptiles, one is mammals, one is birds

They have like hive intelligence

[quick quarry]

Excellent. Close to what I'm looking for

[hoary anvil]

You could expand time raiders into 4 echelons. Or just generally take some Cthulhu Mythos inspiration for a faction of eldritch aberrations

[quick quarry]

Ooh, right. For got good Ole cthulu bois

[ancient pewter]

yeah psionic bugs is awesome

voidborn from league of legends, etc...

[proper shell]

not technically "bugs" by most taxonomical definitions, but the slug people from FTL are a cool psionic "bug"like species too

[ancient pewter]

🙂‍↕️

[hoary anvil]

5e's best monster the elder oblex

[proper shell]

thats a weird way to spell "troglodyte"

[hoary anvil]

If you're not kidding, what's cool about troglodytes?

Like mechanically

Idk the lore except they're small lizards

[proper shell]

mechanically, the only interesting thing they got going is their peristent AoE stench

but LORE. oh boy!

[hoary anvil]

Lol

I'll read the wiki page

Literally never thought about them in years of running 5e

[proper shell]

theyre my favorite of the reptilian species. their language is about 50% stenches and smells!

and in my setting, theyre from a defective batch of dragon knights (called wyrmsplice in my world)

[hoary anvil]

The stench thing is cool

Linguistically I mean lol

I like that that's also how they navigate

[quick quarry]

Oh, you know what I just realized we need: We need Draw Steel Slaads! They were psychic toads!

[grim flume]

They'll probably do something similar with the proteans.

[vale panther]

Matt has replied to "Will MCDM do Slaad" on streams with "We could have our own interdimensional toad beasts, sure! Not sure when though" - I personally think it would be neat to see them as Homebrew though, just because I'd want to see what parts of the Slaad inspire different developers. Are they "Toad Beasts from SPAAACE" or "Living chaos storms which possessed and warped mortal forms and look like toad-people" or do you lean into the disease/parasite aspects of change and pattern?

[proper shell]

what might a vial/bottle of holy water do? i was thinking maybe go oldschool Castlevania and have it be a 1 cube AoE with damage over time, or make it just a single target one instance of damage with maybe a condition thrown on it

my players are lvl 4

[hoary anvil]

Give holy weakness?

That was my first thought

[proper shell]

maybe, but literally no one in my group has a single ability that deals holy damage

[hoary anvil]

Very funny to make it do that then 😂

[proper shell]

only way they could get holy damage at this point would be if they all swapped to the Warrior Priest kit lol

[vale panther]

Holy to whom? The idea we have culturally of holy water comes from the Roman Catholic church. I'd argue that the faith, saint, or deity involved in blessing the water might be relevant to its applications.

[proper shell]

well lucky me, the primary religious institution on this continent is based on the Roman Catholic church (~1800s to be specific)

they worship the Sun God who created the whole solar system as well as the minor deities (who have since been branded as heretical)

[vale panther]

In that case, temporarily conveying blessings. Like anointing a weapon to do holy damage, or marking an area as difficult terrain for undead & demons

[hoary anvil]

Assuming this is for targeting the undead hordes in your setting cos I don't think holy water tends to do much against regular people, I think like a R/I < X frightened would be thematically appropriate

[proper shell]

ooh difficult terrains a neat idea

[proper shell]

yeah party just entered Vampire Land™ and managed to get a vial before they crossed the border

i was thinking about a frightened too

[hoary anvil]

If you use it on a hero they get holy damage and undead take a bane to attack them

[vale panther]

ooh, weirdly specific idea but, what if looking through the vial allowed you to see things like detect the undead nature of someone? or even shine a directional light (like a bullseye lantern) through the vial to reveal undead/demons/etc for their nature?

[proper shell]

thatd be cool, though a little redundant since humans can just detect undead anyway, but neat for places without humans

[vale panther]

We detect their presence but we can't pinpoint it. And if there's an undead who appears to be human (like a vampire) they have probably planned around that detection in some way (If vampires hide among the populace in your setting)

[hoary anvil]

Wdym we can't pinpoint

You know the location

Which I did not think about spoiling secret vampires until now

[proper shell]

here in wampire land, the vamps dont usually hide their vampiric nature. theyre the ruling class and they want people never forget that. though they are capable of changing their forms slightly depending on if theyre a pure blooded vampire or a human/devil that was born as a vampire or turned into one later in life

[vale panther]

Specifically I mean "I haven't looked at the mechanics of that ability and was wrong."

[hoary anvil]

Been there

[vale panther]

I thought it was a non-directional sense, like 'i know there's something nearby.' largely because Matt says it's when the hairs on your neck/arms stand up. Which, creepy vibes not directional IMO. But that's apparently not what DS went with

That said, the ability only covers within 5 squares

[hoary anvil]

I do think it's weird

Especially ignoring line of effect AND precise location

Saved my players some investigation last session tho lol

[proper shell]

hows this?

Vial of Holy Water

2nd-Echelon Consumable

Keywords: Magic, Potion
Item Prerequisites: Water from the River Salve
Project Roll Characteristic: Intuition or Presence
Project Goal: 90 (yields 1d3 vials)

Effect: As a maneuver, you can throw the vial at a creature within 10 squares of you. That creature is A < Average Coated in holy water (save ends). An Abyssal, Demon, Infernal, or Undead creature Coated in holy water takes 1d6 holy damage at the start of each of their turns until the condition ends. A coated creature or a creature adjacent to them can use a Main Action to pat out the divine flames and end the condition.

Alternatively, you can throw the vial at a square, covering the area in holy water until the end of the encounter. The area is considered difficult terrain for Abyssal, Demon, Infernal, or Undead creatures and such creatures who enter the area for the first time in a round or start their turn there take 1d6 holy damage.

[glass light]

Hmm, how do you feel about the holy water damage triggering like Bleeding?

[proper shell]

i thought about it functioning like how i had the sunlight sensitivity for my vampyre ancestry work (considered bleeding while in sunlight), but i wanted it to function separately from bleeding

[ancient pewter]

so i tried out my version of the warfare/cinematic assistance rules

it was a 1/round free manuever to do a malice ability from the associated faction

def think my group wouldve forgotten it if not for the reminders from our resident optimizer

i do wonder if theres a way to make it more automatic

without eating into action econ as fall of blackbottom does

[cunning harbor]

Was reminded of a random thought when the discussion of 0/0/4 kits popped up in general. I really think that the dagger style kits should have been 0/0/4

IMO it both fits the fantasy of a dagger better, while also having mechanical synergy with the Shadow class and it's focus on edges.

[quick quarry]

Is there another dagger kit besides cloak and dagger?

[twilit thunder]

Dual Wielder, Raider, and Warrior Priest use light weapons. Either of the first two are easy to view with daggers, warrior priest takes me a bit more imagination.

[charred gale]

They clearly went with daggers are "slash, slash, slash," fast and shallow.

But it could be fun to have a 0/0/4 Misericorde kit all about landing pinpoint stabs. Dunno what the signature would be though.

[worn bane]

Could be extra damage per edge or something to double down.

[cunning harbor]

I understand why they did it that way, I just think the other option would be better for the reasons listed

[unreal pawn]

I also agree it feels more apt, although it also feels a little odd for the heaviest weapons and the lightest weapons to have the same kit profile

[cunning harbor]

Maybe make heavy weapons 2/2/4 for 3 points if you want to differentiate them more

Or just drop weapon associations entirely and just make the cloak and dagger kit 0/0/4

[unreal pawn]

either extra damage per edge, or some strong potency/condition inflict (bleeding, dazed, whatever) but only on a tier 3

[cunning harbor]

I definitely agree that the cloak and dagger kit should have a different signature that leans into edges

[unreal pawn]

I was thinking it maybe makes more sense for heavy weapons to be something like 3/2/1, and reinterpret them to be more reliably impactful rather than more swingy and critical (analogous to 5e's great weapon fighting, for example)

but that's probably not a good design for other reasons because you don't want to flatten the damage outcome of different roll result tiers

[charred gale]

Sniper kit gives you additional M or A damage if you don't move, which seems like a really similar fantasy.

So maybe Misericorde gives you M or A damage if you have an edge.

Oooh, or maybe if the target is affected by a condition

[worn bane]

That would need to probably add twice M or A but could also be nice.

[charred gale]

Do you mean on top of the normally adding a characteristic to rolled damage?

Like this:

EQUIPMENT 
You wear light armor and wield one or two light weapons. 
KIT BONUSES 
Stamina Bonus: +3 per echelon 
Speed Bonus: +3 
Melee Damage Bonus: +0/+0/+4 
Disengage Bonus: +1 
SIGNATURE ABILITY 
Mercy Kill 
Slip the blade into the perfect spot, then plunge!
Strike, Weapon. Action. Distance: Melee 1. Target: One creatur
Power Roll + Might or Agility: 
• 11 or lower: 3 + M or A damage 
• 12–16: 6 + M or A damage 
• 17+: 13 + M or A damage 
Effect: If the target is affected by a condition, this strike 
deals extra damage equal to twice your Might or Agility score 
(your choice).  ```

Not sure off the top of my head if the kit bonuses are budgeted properly, so don't take that part seriously

[unreal pawn]

something like that, though I think the condition rider would be hard to trigger in practice, probably you can't set it up yourself with a maneuver so it's very dependent on your party comp
... and I have a vague feeling that it's an anti-synergy (your ally inflicts a condition on an enemy, you use that condition to kill them so the condition's actual effect never matters), but maybe that's nonsnse

[charred gale]

Point to consider for sure. I wouldn't worry too much about the battlefield lacking in conditions. You just have to be judicious about when you take your turn.

"Wasting" crowd control is a fine concern. I dunno if I mind that downside though. You probably need to finish off the target at some point, so it just seems like an additional tactical consideration.

[cunning harbor]

Missing one point, could be 3 speed

IMO the cloak and dagger kit could have had a niche as the only melee+ranged kit with 2/2/2 damage.

[charred gale]

Good idea. Definitely a kit that wants to be speedy

[deep meteor]

I've been working on a shadow subclass that actually centers around this concept! Hoping to get the first draft out this week or next

Might address some of the issues @unreal pawn brought up regarding synergies, it's cool to have in just a kit too though

[worn bane]

Oh cool, looking forward to see it. Maybe you could test it on this Saturday's playtest session if it's ready on time

[deep meteor]

I've been visiting family the past 2 weeks and get back this weekend so super unlikely 🥲 I'll try to get it in for next week's playtest though!

[worn bane]

Great! 🙂

[deep meteor]

I already have the first five levels more or less done, just a matter of polishing it up and writing up first pass of my ideas for higher levels, so any playtest level should work too

[true orbit]

Out of curiosity has anyone put together Elementalist subclasses for the "Elements" MCDM didn't include in the original class

[ancient pewter]

not yet, i think folks are waiting for the license to be expanded

[true orbit]

Valid!

[cunning harbor]

Personally, since I know MCDM will cover those I’m less interested in trying to tackle that niche myself

[ancient pewter]

one of my players is setting out to learn ALL THE LANGUAGES

which is awesome and dope

but idk if theres a title for that

[true orbit]

Hyperpolyglot

[ancient pewter]

if there isnt, i would like to make one

any ideas?

[true orbit]

Hyperpolyglot?

[ancient pewter]

oh is that a title?

or one u made up

[true orbit]

Well its a word to describe what they wanna be

There's like what

Over 10 languages in orden?

[ancient pewter]

i was thinking mechanically, what sorta benefit that title could confer

[charred gale]

What echelon are you thinking?

[true orbit]

Definitely something regarding culture and negotiations

They could be a damn good mediator

[ancient pewter]

prob like 2 or something?

we're lvl 3 and hes learned like 8?

[true orbit]

With learning a language comes learning about the culture of that language

[charred gale]

They'll already have an edge on every single negotiation test thanks to sharing a non-Caelian language.

Could still buff negotations, just something to keep in mind

[true orbit]

So maybe an edge on culture lore tests

[charred gale]

Sounds about right, I had a player lern Zaliak on their very first respite

[true orbit]

Or hell a double edge

[true orbit]

Neat! ||Doesn't really pay close attention to Orden related stuff||

[ancient pewter]

i want it to be something chonky

since the prereq is something like

"learn every language"

[charred gale]

oh my fault, you actually start with increased Patience if you share a language. So one of the benefits could totatally be an edge to Appeal to a Motivation.

I'm thinking maybe like

• +1 Renown
• An edge on tests to appeal to motivations
• Learn a new interpersonal skill

Feels a little weak, but those are generally the types of benefits I'm seeing in E2 titles

Alterntively the Master Librarian title gives some nice project point related benefits, but I'm not sure how to translate that to the language idea

[ancient pewter]

halve the learn language goal for all your party members?

[unreal pawn]

please... Omniglot

[true orbit]

There it is

:choicepacha:

[unreal pawn]

for literally every language I would also want it to be more than just a bonus to renown and interpersonal tests, yeah - something about knowing the true names of all things and being able to physically affect the world by speaking the language of reality, something more like that

[true orbit]

Access to a project where you could literally shape history, diverting it's course in a week

If we can learn a whole language in 24hrs well then

[ancient pewter]

okay, so whats the mechanical effect of that

[true orbit]

+2 to renown
Perma double edge to interpersonal tests (maybe just read person)

You said chonky tho so it sounds like you might want a niche conditional

When [X circumstance] you can [Y]

[unreal pawn]

you could base it off the Thingspeaker perk or even the Elementalist's Wyrding feature, some kind of freeform out-of-combat narrative effect between those two

[ancient pewter]

what other titles have similar effects?

[proper shell]

dont wanna derail the current conversation, but has anyone tried converting each of the kits into generic NPC/monster stat blocks? i imagine they wont all translate perfectly to NPC use, and a couple of them are already covered (human raider for instance), but i think this would be a neat project to have factionless NPCs ready to plop into a fight at a moment's notice

[charred gale]

Note that titles usually only give you one of the listed benefits. If you got all 2 or three of these, it would definitely be chonky by E2 standards.

[vale panther]

E1's Ancient Loremaster has an option "Rare Books: You add rare, ancient books to your collection. Whenever you undertake a research project, roll 1d6 for each dead language you know and add the total to the project roll."

I like the implication that each language you know allows you to leverage more tools (books) on research projects. The Omniglot could have a similar function. Maybe you get a +3 (instead of +2) on certain skills because of the insight your command of geolinguistics (ordolinguistics?) gives you into culture and psychology?

[charred gale]

Although honestly, I'm thinking this might be better suited for E3 if you want it to feel like they've cracked into serious power. That's where the title benefits start going wild.

[ancient pewter]

sure this can be an e3 title

or a chain of titles maybe?

u learn every living language vs u learn every dead language

[charred gale]

Yeah a title chain might work better/ more satisfying

[ancient pewter]

so e2 is:

• renown
• edge in negotiations
• +3 on certain skills

[vale panther]

What would you be looking for in such a conversion? I would think it pretty simple, just grabbing an existing stat block of the right monster band, make sure its stats (like stability) are at minimum equal to the kit's bonuses, and swap the signature ability for its existing one. Is there something more detailed that should be done in advance?

This is a great idea btw, it not only expands quickly the number of enemies in people-groups, but also gives a descriptive tool. It's suddenly easy to make supporting monsters with an iconic fantasy trope because that's what kits were designed for.

[proper shell]

if no one else has done this yet, i was gonna experiment with it in my free time. like a 1:1 conversion of all bonuses wouldnt work primarily because of stamina. so we might need to create a generic, role-less stat block and then assign the kit bonuses when you apply it

[vale panther]

I wonder if the players would notice the incremental gains of most stat buffs, and some stats (like 'does this enemy get 1 sq or 2 with disengage') might make running large numbers more confusing. If it suits you then, of course, you do your project your way . I guess I'm just not sure what the benefit of the extra steps would be.

Wait... yes i do. If you're working with a vtt you want your monsters complete in advance rather than just kitbashing them together in real-time. I'm not used to that yet. Okay, fair.

[proper shell]

yeah my players are gonna be meeting some anti-vampire rebels either tonight or next session (definitely meeting at least one of them tonight), and i was thinking the kits would be a good fit for them since i dont wanna use full on Retainers. but i also dont have enough time to convert these NPCs into different stat blocks with such short notice before game time (we play in an hour lol)

[vale panther]

Oh, gotcha! So when I was thinking "I don't see why not just do that in realtime" - you are! My b.
Yeah, my short form would be to pick the human with the monster role closest to the idea and swap out the signature powers, give them stability equal to the kit's bonus, and not worry about the rest. Their other stats are balanced to role & level as you need them, where those numbers came from isn't going to affect your game. Good luck and, again, great idea!

[proper shell]

and since i have 53 minutes left, i dont have time to prototype this project either, so for now im just modifying existing monster stat blocks

[cunning harbor]

Canonically the original language of dragons is how magic works, so there is justification for giving boosts there

I think a bonus to discover lore projects could work too for an option

[vale panther]

That's an interesting point. Maybe learning the First Language is an E1 or E2 title that you 'level up' by adding more languages?
E1 - The First Language
E2 - The Living Languages
E3 - The Dead Languages
E4 - The Timescape Languages

[ancient pewter]

well hes already learned the first language, so living languages seems to be the next step

[quick quarry]

I got 2 ideas I started. Gloom and Steel elements. They're on my back burner though.

[true orbit]

Haha that's cute

I like how that suggests that an "Element" is a "theme to base a mage's abilities on"

(as opposed to the platonic 4 Elements)

[ancient pewter]

first try

[formal wraith]

Oo really like the flavor of Truename

[grim haven]

Is Mine is the Language of All meant to give you two new skills or improve skills you already have? It's unclear

[ancient pewter]

its supposed to be an improvement to skills u already have

ill clarify

[vale panther]

I think Learned Linguist needs something extra. Many titles can potentially be obtained multiple times to pick up multiple benefits. This one conceptually cannot, so I think a little extra punch would help. I Speak Their Tongue has the potential to run out of usefulness when no one in the party wants to learn any more languages. The +1 Renown can be very beneficial, but doesn't add much uniqueness.

[ancient pewter]

thats fine, there a good number of titles that give +1 renown or wealth

[vale panther]

Does Truename only affect native speakers, or does it affect scholars as well?

[ancient pewter]

native speakers

idk, in my game ive never seen a player gain the same title multiple times

so its not a huge issue if u cant vs u can

[vale panther]

Fair, and the confusion of RAW vs RAI isn't important if you're the only Director using it, too.

[ancient pewter]

yeah exactly

i do see ur point about i speak their tongue

something similar but still repeatedly useful would be my goal

any suggestions?

[vale panther]

I really like all the benefits of Omniglot. The only thing I would change is that I'd call "Understanding of All" 'Master Researcher' at my table. Otherwise, looks great

[ancient pewter]

thats valid!

ill play around with the names

i sorta just slapped some stuff on the page

the only one im really attached to is speaker of the dead cuz its an enders game reference (yes i know OSC is a bigoted fuck but those books were my childhood)

[vale panther]

Hmm. Actually, that gives me an idea. "Universal Comprehension: Your studies into the many ways and kinds of language have given you insight into the way peoples and creatures think. You can communicate simple ideas like emotions, needs, and basic intentions even to creatures which don't normally have a language as long as they are thinking creatures."

[ancient pewter]

this is for omniglot?

i would have to look at the e3 titles but i think most of them give purely mechanical benefits

[vale panther]

fair. It's just in theme and occured to me based on context. use it as you like if you do

[ancient pewter]

thats a cool idea tho

[proper shell]

hows this for an effect of a barrel full of toxic/radioactive sludge exploding?

i specify "Wave" because we're kicking off next session with a tower defense encounter! (at least) 2 back to back encounters, but the players will be able to keep their HR progress from one to another

the barrel also does 6/9/12 poison damage when it explodes (flat power roll. no bonuses or edges/banes applicable)

i added the consecutive squares bit because the players will be fighting undead and itd be super shitty to have the movment damage never come up because the undead all have at least 4 poison immunity

[cunning harbor]

Speaker of the Dead feels weak to me as a 3rd echelon title

[ancient pewter]

would it feel on par for e2?

[cunning harbor]

Maybe? Could also add something like the ability to talk to the actual dead, or they can pick up on psionic imprints of locations or something

[worn bane]

https://bendking.github.io/DrawSteelScion/
I made this page for my class.

Trying to gauge interest to see if this kind of format for a homebrew class (or any homebrew content) would be preferable to people, instead of using a Google doc or re-downloading a PDF each time a version comes out.
The idea is to replace the PDF/doc, and just have an online page for a piece of homebrew content.

(This is a barebones proof of concept)

[deep meteor]

In terms of navigating an existing class, this looks so neat! (tho I would love to see a single-scroll solution for mobile. Unsure how you're rendering this).

In terms of using this for my own homebrew, I'd probably only use it if it's real easy to get setup. Like if e.g. rendering an ability is calling one function/macro with a few parameters (again, idk what you're using to render this though)

[worn bane]

Plain React with Tailwind.

[worn bane]

That is indeed how it's rendered, there's an Ability component.

[worn bane]

Single-scroll for mobile is next on the agenda.

[deep meteor]

Sweet!

Are you thinking of hosting folks' homebrew, or moreso providing a library for self-hosting?

[worn bane]

If I'll decide to make a serious project out of it - the latter.

Kinda depends on interest. If I have a lot folks experssing interest in hosting their classes on such a solution I'd be more motivated to do it.

Then I would probably also do stuff like automatic Forge Seel file generation, and other cool features.

[deep meteor]

Yeah the minimal viable product for that would probably be something like, you create a markdown editor+renderer with the custom DS macros, people can DM you their markdown file, and you can add it to the website

Definitely a ton of work though, regardless how you choose to release this, nice work!

[worn bane]

Thank you!

One way I'm thinking of doing it is doing some kind of UI for laying out the class, then letting users input the layout of their class through that UI, and saving that data which should on something like Firebase on the free tier.

Making it actually WYSIWYG like a document editor would be hard. So just some kind of barebones UI for inputting data.

[languid parrot]

Doing a bit of homebrew to port some 5e characters to draw steel. One of the characters rolled very low HP and that low survivability was somewhat a part of their character's identity.
I figured making a complication for this, "Frail", would be a cool way to bring that flavour over.
What I'm not clear on, is the best way to implement this in DS. There seems to be some precedent for reducing recoveries, but I didn't see anything about reducing max stamina. Is it a bad idea, should I stick to messing with recoveries?

[ancient pewter]

i think one of the damage weakness complications simulates this well

[white moat]

reducing max stamina seems like a fine idea

just dont like. go overboard with it

[ancient pewter]

doing a thing in my campaign where the hakaan player will achieve their doomsight but i thought it would be cool to bring them back, giving them the reborn title

however, this title is e4 and comes with some hefty benefits

should i keep it RAW? change the benefits somehow?

[frail finch]

Low max stamina leads to a fairly high chance of being killed without much time for response, which doesn't feel very tactical
Fewer recoveries still forces careful play but without the immediate game-ending risk, I'd say

[quick quarry]

Give them only some of the benefits?

[frail finch]

I would probably limit it, I think particularly increasing the INT/PRE (unless they're not focused on either of those stats, in which case it's probably OK and mostly flavour)
Do you know which option they'd pick? A leveled treasure seems fairly safe since it levels with the heroes
To be fair, 2 skills also feels fairly minor

[ancient pewter]

i dont know which they'll pick

and they'll be a conduit, so taking out the INU or PRE is a good idea

what if it was PRE only, instead of INU or PRE

[frail finch]

That's exactly what I was going to suggest

It feels impactful but won't change the fundamental power roll balance

[ancient pewter]

would a levelled treasure feel too strong?

fwiw they dont craft any levelled treasures

so it would basically be like "youre caught up now"

dunno about kill me once, shame on you tho

how strong is that

[frail finch]

That I find hard to judge the strength
I guess it comes down to how much of that creature type you're going to have them face
But that's actually more powerful at e2/3 than at e4 (because more time left)
To me, having not run much DS, a levelled treasure feels fine

[ancient pewter]

it would be dwarves, which have the dwarf and humanoid keywords

so if he chooses dwarf thats not too bad, but if its humanoid it could cause some trouble

[ancient pewter]

so my changes i think would be

• +1 PRE
• dwarves have bane against you

that seems about right?

getting a levelled treasure is typically fine since u only have 3 "safe" slots and u cant stack bonuses

[frail finch]

Yeah that sounds pretty reasonable to me

Super minor question: I've had a few ideas for a mech suit kind of class, but don't want to call it the Operator (because I know MCDM have spoken about that and I don't want it to feel like I'm trying to pre-empt their version, just inspired by similar fantasy)
Anyone got a different name for that kind of class?

[ancient pewter]

lancer

okay on a more serious note

what kinda mech are we talkin

whats the fantasy for this class

[hoary anvil]

Pilot

Engineer

[ancient pewter]

engineer makes me think of an artificer class

i like pilot tho

[frail finch]

Like Iron Man scale
So still fighting like a normal hero, but enhanced by power armour

Pilot feels in the right direction
I'd probably leave the fantasy open: it could be purely mechanical; it could be enchanted armour; it could be tattoos

Hmm, maybe the Draw Steel ethos is to be more specific, and I should narrow the narrative focus on one of those

[ancient pewter]

pilot sounds good, i would also go with adept or something like that

but yeah, draw steel's class design ethos is specific

in my head its always like

3 different, connected things

[hoary anvil]

Ehhh I wouldn't expect Iron Man-style with Pilot

Tbh I would rather swap that with Operator lol

Hmmm

You could call it a Harness and have them be the Harnessor

[frail finch]

My idea so far is all about managing your heroic resource
With the basic mechanic being every time you gain a resource, it goes in a specific place (Star-Trek themed spots being Weapons, Shields, uh.. Thrusters? corresponding to damage, damage resistance, speed), each of which gives you passive buffs, but if you overload one area it's prone to explosion
But maybe if the mechanical chassis is sound I could just make it a class around magical tattoos and leave the Operator theme for MCDM

[ancient pewter]

i think a tattoo-based class rules

[hoary anvil]

I think you will find more success with the tattoo option both for flavor and for not overlapping on the mech thing

[ancient pewter]

https://tenor.com/view/yakuza-shirt-rip-off-gif-18797112

[frail finch]

I've also just started reading Mistborn and the idea of specifically burning/flaring specific powers throughout a fight is in my head

[ancient pewter]

be when combat starts:

[hoary anvil]

Someone in the homebrew server has a very Mistborn-inspired class only they burn wood instead of metal

called the Kiln

[frail finch]

Oh cool!

[worn bane]

Love Mistborn.

[frail finch]

Another way to think of this is the counterpart to the Null
Rather than being anti-magic, I suffice
It's magical, I'll make myself better

[worn bane]

Regarding the idea, I think it's better to try to go for a class that you know MCDM aren't going to be doing.

[frail finch]

OK now I need a name for this!

[frail finch]

I agree! It was just a dilemma because I liked my mechanical framework
But if I can move that to a new theming, it's a win-win

[worn bane]

Maybe you could do something Cyberpunk-y

Or something Cyborg-y

[frail finch]

But I'm also thinking strong theming of China from Skulduggery Pleasant (might be a niche reference)

[dreamy cypress]

Anyone have any favorite reflavors of things in Draw Steel?

Early on in the adventure I'm running, the party were fighting some shadow cultists and one of the survivors became an ally. I threw together a retainer statblock for him and since the party didn't have a ton of support abilities, I gave him basically the Word of Guidance conduit triggered action, but since he was from a shadow cult, I renamed it "Close Your Eyes" and the mentor player got a kick out of that. I love the idea of this character helping the party by telling them to let go of sight, and trust the dark. It's a little sinister and a little weird and I really enjoy it

[quick quarry]

So, working on updating some ancestries for my personal setting, and got to my "Dwarves", in Rynn known as the Draum. Just wanted to share this to see if anything looks wildly off balance:

[grim flume]

Does psionic gift give all three abilities? If so, it seems both unbalanced and bulky. If not, it could do with some text clarifying. Other than that, I don't see anything unbalanced.

[ancient pewter]

whats the general outline for a solo stat block?

two actions, a manuever, triggered action?

then a 1/round free manuever and/or free triggered, both of which cost malice?

ive been thinking about making a raid boss

[quick quarry]

forgot to add, but should be: you pick one; much like the time raider abilities.

[cunning harbor]

Crystallized carapace probably too strong

1 ancestery point gives you 1 element resistance. I do think that 5 weakness is probably about equal to resistance equal to level for balancing, but you are getting two pretty premium resistances (fire and poison), and a very niche one for the weakness.

So, leader shadow

What’s the thematic touchstone?

And what’s the mechanical niche to make it distinct from the insurgent tactician?

[copper ocean]

@cunning harbor I'd say a leader shadow is likely very close to the batman fantasy.

Probably good at trapping

Rather than directing mid battle is focused on preparing appropriately and cutting Achilles tendons to set up bigger hits for others.

[cunning harbor]

Isn’t that more of a controller?

I guess it’s a thin line between the two

[ancient pewter]

ngl i would love to see a spec thats all that one bit from censor

where they inflict weakness then allies can change their dmg type to the damage type weakness

[cunning harbor]

That sounds interesting. Would probably be leaning in a magical/psionic direction

[copper ocean]

I suppose. I guess I was thinking more in terms of face than combat leader.

[ancient pewter]

i could imagine like

different oils/poisons?

[cunning harbor]

Caustic alchemy already exists

Which isn’t just poisons, but is very poison coded

[ancient pewter]

fair

[ancient pewter]

@flat obsidian would u possibly consider changing strain at all? its something thats passed through my mind a few times

[ancient pewter]

ngl this would rule as a psionic flavor. "soul burn" or something

[flat obsidian]

I don't think I would change it, but there are certain abilities where the penalty feels a bit too bad

I have offered to my player to make them more mild but he says they feel good, and he's just choosing not to use them

as far as he is concerned the tradeoff feels good, so I'm happy to leave it as is

[ancient pewter]

some of the strain effects feel like

very dnd coded?

like the one that ages you

or makes you forget memorizes

[flat obsidian]

absolutely love the age one, that is one that he's mentioned that he was going to use on his next turn like... 3 times? but then the fight ends up changing in a way it would no longer be effective

I really like it though

[ancient pewter]

talent is very funky

cuz some of its signatures remind me of stuff i would see in 5e

like the optical ray one?

[flat obsidian]

yea I'm kinda a fan of it broadly, it feels like... 5e-esque in the good way I feel

[ancient pewter]

i think it def appeals to certain players, i think its interesting how its one of the classes where thats more prevelent

in many cases it feels like the talent is the "wizard" of draw steel in this regard

(which i said way back in patron packet 1)

anyways!

ive buffed the distance augmentation in my game

it def appeals to that fantasy a bit more?

[flat obsidian]

yea I can see the wizard analogy, I'm not sure if I totally agree, but I do see it. distance augmentation being buffed feels good I think

[ancient pewter]

hmmmm

i wonder if the issue is not having a clarity sink for their manuever?

[cunning harbor]

Ooh, maybe nightmare based? That feels very shadow coded

[ancient pewter]

oh that rules

"college of malignant nightmares"?

[hidden void]

That would be dope!

[cunning harbor]

I’d rate that a B+ name. Solid, but possibly a better one exists

“College of sundered dreams” is what’s popping into my head, but I don’t think it’s as good.

[ancient pewter]

anyways that would be my idea

making specs is pretty easy

[hidden void]

College of Dream Dancing?

My mind goes to brain dancing from Cyberpunk lol

I like the concept!

[ancient pewter]

thats such a cool idea

https://tenor.com/view/kaizzyx-scarlet-witch-wanda-wanda-maximoff-gif-26371129

[hidden void]

Love it mostly because I'm bias. My rogue in 5e was an arcane trickster who was a part of a Dream thief/spy faction.

[cunning harbor]

Hmm, I guess it doesn’t have to be solely nightmare, could also be some dream

Opens up more flavor space

[ancient pewter]

2nd/5th/8th level feature, 2x 5/9/11-cost abilities

thats all u need really

[hidden void]

I think playing around with it being both could be sweet. Maybe the more dream focused ones help allies, but nightmares do bad stuff to enemies.

[cunning harbor]

Triggered and maneuver

[ancient pewter]

true

[cunning harbor]

Part of me wants to do a “choose one” between dream and nightmare for the features

Or give two half power features, one for each

[ancient pewter]

oh like troubadour?

iirc virtuoso gets the choice of 1 of 2 routines at certain levels

[cunning harbor]

Yeah exactly

[ancient pewter]

that kinda rules

u can even add dream or nightmare keywords

[cunning harbor]

Not sure there is quite room for that on a subclass

Since you only have a few abilities

Hard to make the distinction matter

[hidden void]

Maybe something akin to what an illrigger is to a censor. Could be a variant with some tweaks to the base shadow.

Probably getting way out of scope for what it is though haha

[cunning harbor]

Ahh, scope creep my beloved

[frail finch]

Speaking of power roll homebrew
Anyone tempted by a system with non-static DCs?
When it was originally announced that's what I expected the system to be
And I think it adds a huge amount of variety: maybe this ability has massive tier 3 damage but only hits that on a 19 or 20
I get the big negative is everyone doesn't immediately know the result, so there's more thinking on every roll, but I'm wondering if there are scenarios when it would be worth it

[glass light]

Changing the thresholds for the power roll tiers would nuke the usability of Edges and Banes pretty definitively. Iirc, there are some power rolls that have special effects on a crit, right? That kind of adds a 4th tier

[unreal pawn]

I think just adding a 4th tier to some choice abilities would be sufficient to get the right feel from this - imo that's preferable to tying things to crits, since crits occur uniformly regardless of edges/banes/characteristics, while a theoretical tier 4 result at 22+ or whatever rewards setting up a lot of bonuses (while also making higher-echelon power rolls more relevant since they saturate at the higher tiers)

[copper ocean]

It would also take away the feel bad moment of rolling a 17 or 18 when you have a double edge feeling like the double edge was wasted.

Honestly a t4 ability would be perfect for some items I've been thinking about.

[frail finch]

How so?
A +2 seems good whether you're aiming for a 15 or a 19
Do you mean in terms of power or in terms of ease of use?

I also agree with the interest in a tier 4, though for different reasons
As by echelon 4 you're getting such a big bonus to power rolls that you're often more likely than not to get a tier 3, and an extra tier would reinject some spice into rolls
But what I was talking about would be more for designing a new game or an alternate way DS could've been designed, that's a more general change in feel

[glass light]

If every power roll has different DCs, the relative value of edges and double edges gets borked.

If you're just adding a 4th tier, MCDM mentioned thinking about that for treasure items, and I think that makes sense

For a wholly new game I think it could work, you'd just need to test the shit out of the bonuses and banes to get the feel right

[white moat]

its how ive instantiated a vorpal weapon for a pc

[frail finch]

I kind of agree, but I'm not sure it's worse than the variance already in the game
Like, an edge on a 10/15/30 heroic ability is already way higher than a 2/5/7 free strike and that's OK
And you can design any ability with any tier boundaries to be "with a +2 modifier, expected damage X, X+2 with an edge, X+5 with a double edge" or whatever maths you want to make fit

[charred gale]

I think that'd be pretty unwieldly at the table.

I totally agree that if you prebake custom tier intervals you can set whatever expected values you want. It doesn't super matter to the user.

But if those intervals are sliding around during a session for a single ability, it's going to be quite challenging to balance and for users to intuit their odds.

It'd be one thing if we were just talking about a single target number to meet. 3 variable tiers seems like a lot.

[glass light]

One could look to the Modiphius 2d20 systems for variable threshold mechanics. It's a d20 roll-under core system, where you set (at least for Star Trek Adventures) your thresholds of success based on your own added stats, and your crit range expands based on the niche skill you use

[frail finch]

Oh I'm assuming it doesn't change for a single ability, if that's not clear
So each power roll is printed with its tiers on
I mean it's basically like d20 fantasy with a variable target number every turn, right? Except the player has it in front of them rather than having to ask the director for it

[glass light]

How is that different than adjusting the tier results based on your static modifiers then?

[frail finch]

I just think there's cool design space for "this ability is hard to land right but does loads of damage if you do" vs. "top tier here is easy to get but only moderately strong"
Particularly if you get buffs (eg. Kits) that vary based on tier
Then you can pick reliable tier 3s with a heavy weapon
Or a reliable medium weapon if you know your abilities are volatile
I'm not sure how much of this design space isn't already covered by kits and +2/+2/+2 Vs +0/+4/+4
Just something I'd been thinking about since release

[charred gale]

Then I have no objections to the rough concept! Although I don't know exactly how that would express what you want it to express EOD. But that's beyond my paygrade

[frail finch]

Yeah the juice very well may not be worth the squeeze

[glass light]

The concept of variably tiered results is highly transferable, and I could see it put to good use in a scifi shooter style game to depict different guns with misfire chances/grouping

[charred gale]

I actually just participated in a playtest of a game like that. It was cool. It was d12 pools not tiers, but a similar concept.

[frail finch]

Yeah I think it transfers well also to something where the difficulty of what you're trying to do varies more
Like, a high level DS character gets the best outcome on their attack X% of the time regardless of what it is
This lets a specific ability be "more difficult" in a tangible way
Probably this shines most when it's not just damage
So an ability might have a low chance of dazing someone, while another ability has a decent chance of slowing them

Maybe for something slightly less heroic, like you said sci-fi shooter kind of vibes

[charred gale]

FWIW, high level DS characters basically just need to be challenged with Hard tests more and more frequently as their average bonus climbs.

[ancient pewter]

abandoned project but i was in the process of designing a magical girl tactics game with 2d6 effect rolls that all differed between abilities

maleghast/icon 2.0 does a trunkated version of this with its effect roll

which is just a single d6

[frail finch]

Yeah well this kind of dovetails into what I don't love about skill tests, which is the lack of granularity
Again, at high level a hero has a 30 something % chance of succeeding on a hard test
So there is nothing between "30%" and "impossible", which feels odd
D20 fantasy (as Matt noted in at least one video/stream about the just noticeable difference), gives granularity down to 5%, which is pretty much the limit of what people will notice
So for any task, I can basically come up with a DC that is appropriate

[glass light]

The power roll absolutely can be hacked back into a survival horror style game, where tier 1 results "miss" and do something negative for a non-heroic vibe

[charred gale]

You mean in Draw Steel? Once your total bonus gets to +6 you're at a 55% of a tier 3. Which you can achieve in echelon 1, and it's not too hard to come by in E2-3.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding

[hoary anvil]

... would you be willing to send me any notes you have for this

[frail finch]

Yeah that's what I mean, I guess I massively underestimated the probability
So yeah that makes it even worse
At echelon 4 you can easily have +8, and so something is either easy or impossible, with no in-between!

[ancient pewter]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1segRtwWL2bkoItl7Rz7WpiB6pEMS2c8ZQZMwaBvLAyQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

[frail finch]

I'll probably run a homebrew rule of basically the DC can be anything
Which is kinda sad because I like the thought that went into rewards and drawbacks on top of success failure
But I also suck with coming up with them on the fly, so...

My DMing style is basically

1. Call for a check
2. They announce their result
3. Decide whether that feels like it should succeed or not
   Anyway

[hoary anvil]

Thanks — I've been wanting to make a magical girl RPG for some time and have played with light tactical elements. This'll be a fun read

[ancient pewter]

i put....more genre research into that one than i would like to admit

[hoary anvil]

That's a good thing!

[copper ocean]

I think Magical Girl Tactics: Unique Work Unit has a better ring.

[ancient pewter]

i wanted to stick to milspec lingo as much as possible

ya know

operators operating operatingly kinda vibes

[copper ocean]

I was just trying to give a uwu acronym as magical girls are often cat girls. I don't actually think it's better. I like the operator vibe.

[ancient pewter]

oh i cannot read tone, my bad 🤦‍♂️

[copper ocean]

You're fine. I just didn't want you thinking it was real criticism.

I didn't dive deeply, but the surface seems really cool.

[ancient pewter]

i dont wanna derail too much but i think adjusted probabilities per ability has a place

ngl a solo that does that would be hella sick

[glass light]

Fighting a "Champion of Chance" that can invert your power roll tiers and force you to take the one you rolled could be fun

[copper ocean]

Bad guys should break the rules. I don't know that beings like Xxaxx should have statblocks, but something sufficiently chaosy altering tier levels would be really cool.

[hoary anvil]

It also took me 3 reads to understand the joke but I snorted

[ancient pewter]

or like

a high level chronopath

[hoary anvil]

Vecna

[ancient pewter]

even just a thing to apply a -2 (doesnt count as a bane) could be fun!

[glass light]

Once you're fighting gods of the Timescape, you're solidly into a Level 10 game, and I think you could feasibly staple Balatro-level side mechanics onto boss fights

[ancient pewter]

i need to get off my ass and write a raid boss stat block

[copper ocean]

Matt's Vecna video altered my brain chemistry.

[frail finch]

"Randomly reroll all your abilities"

TBF that's way less punishing in DS when there are few bad abilities
Than in 5e where there are a lot of terrible spells

[glass light]

Please, actually

[hoary anvil]

I love doing this stuff. Even at lower levels. In a D&D horror campaign I ran, for the final fight, the players had to use bonus actions to "donate" failed death saves to contribute life force to the ritual, or the 4 minibosses would eventually outpace and kill them (the final miniboss was literally immune to everything). They almost made it out all alive, but in the final round, the warlock was knocked unconscious and off a cliff with two death saves already donated — so she hit the rocks and died. It was cinematic as HELL and probably the coolest fight I've ever run, game system notwithstanding

[ancient pewter]

i think the thing im struggling with is like

finding a good rhythm for mechanics

in 3 rounds

[glass light]

When I was running Numenera weekly, I had one boss fight grafted onto another because one player tempted fate like, 3 times in a row with their rolls, and hit a chain of nat 1s. It was the coolest evolving kaiju fight I've ever witnessed, saw 2 heroic sacrifices, and 1 PC retirement

[hoary anvil]

That sounds siiiiick

[glass light]

I'd say extend it to a full level design, 3 sets of 3 rounds

Hell, being able to build up Victories in combat would be a game changer

[ancient pewter]

i had an idea like this back in lancer

combat/phase 1 is teach raid mechs

phase 2 is adds

phase 3 is a combination of the last 2

[glass light]

"We've cut the carapace off of the Scarab-Hydra, but now it's all over the place!" +1 Victory, everyone gets a free triggered action to use a Recovery, new combat phase begins

[ancient pewter]

i think the big thing is keeping engagement up over 3x 2-hr long fights

when i made my own raid fights i like them as these spectacle encounters

2.5 hr fights u only do once

[glass light]

I think the smoothest Fall of Blackbottom encounter I ran (which is its own spectacle fight) each floor got 1.5 rounds? That was while teaching people at a con to play, and it took about 4 hours. With a practiced group, I think a similar pace could work for 2 round phases.

My attitude is, if the fight is important and engaging enough, you can break it up into multiple sessions with a strong hook into each coming phase

[ancient pewter]

fair nuff!

would be interested to see how such a stat block would look