Looking for eyes/comments on a 5e D&D fork

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've been working on a project I call NIH System for a while now, and I think it's finally ready to be posted for comments.

Files, now for V1.1!

The changelog/FAQ is at https://github.com/bentomhall/nih-system/releases/download/v1.0.0/changelog1.0.0.pdf

The full PDF is at https://github.com/bentomhall/nih-system/releases/download/v1.1.0/NIH.1.1.pdf.

And yes, I realized after creating the release that the changelog (at 4 pages) is a larger file than the entire PDF, at ~380 pages. And text selection is messed up. I need to find a better way of extracting some pages. There are also hyperlinks in the main pdf, both internal and external.

V1.1 changes
Many small changes. Primary large ones:

* Added html version: https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/index.html
* Lotsa cleanup on formatting and stupid mistakes.
* Nets are now equipment, not weapons, and require saves, not attacks.
* Added "exotic ranged weapons", which subsumes all the thrown, attack-based consumables. Reworked their effects.
* Rogue now has 2 subclasses--the very magical Shadowdancer and the less magical Trickster.

Will you upload the text here?

Only the changelog. The "raw" text is all in LaTeX format, and dealing with BBCode formatting on ~380 pages is...yeah, not going to be a thing. Nor would the forums like it very much.

Why NIH System?
From the changelog:

I’d like to say that it means something cool or clever. But it doesn’t. NIH is short for both of "Naming Is Hard"...which it is...and "Not Invented Here". It started when I looked at the first OneD&D UA material and went "I could do better than that." And figured I’d put my time and effort where my mouth was. I hope that by the time I publish this for real (if that day ever comes), I’ll have a better name.

Isn't this mostly just the 5e SRD?
Yeah. It's proudly a 5e D&D fork. That’s because I find that 5e does most of what I want in a system, at least at the core level. So why clone it and change stuff? Because I don’t believe in WotC's abilities/guidance any more, and feel I could do better for my own purposes.

Can I steal stuff?
Absolutely 100%. It uses the CC-BY 4.0 SRD as a base and everything else is licensed the same way. If you publish stuff using ideas or material, please do credit me somewhere. But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.


Core System Changes

I've rearranged a bunch of things. And tried to be more explicit about what I was thinking.
There is a default setting,\href{https://wiki.admiralbenbo.org}{Dreams of Hope}. It's got quite a few differences from most published settings.
XP is radically different--now it's a small counter that increments after each "meaningful" session, basically a formalized fiat leveling system.
No ability scores, just modifiers.
I've decided to lean in to ability scores as archetype-compliance, not physical measurements. You can be strong but not particularly high Strength, but being high Strength means that you are good at approaching things in a direct, forceful, physical way, often using brute physical force.
Wisdom is specifically called out as perceptiveness and Charisma as force of personality.
All PCs now have 2 new "universal" resources: Stamina and Aether. Aether replaces spell slots and fuels magical stuff--it comes back on a long rest. Stamina fuels non-magical stuff and comes back on a short rest. Casters have more aether and less stamina; martials the reverse. Half-casters are more balanced. Your aether limit is how much aether you can spend in a single action, mostly used for limiting what spells you can learn/cast.
Everyone has three new options, Deflect, Exert, and Focus.

Deflect is basically like the monster Parry ability (reaction to add +proficiency to AC) and must be declared before seeing the attack but allows a counter attack if the attack misses. Only affects one attack, and requires you to be wearing armor or mage armor. Costs Stamina.
Exert spends Stamina to add your proficiency bonus to a STR/DEX/CON ability check or save. Allows you to stack proficiency--you can use it even if you have proficiency or expertise.
Focus is basically Exert, but for INT/WIS/CHA stuff. Costs aether.

Helping someone with an attack requires you to be able to attack.
Explicit rules for jumping further than your STR (Athletics) allows.
Added suggested vision distance limits and hearing limits.
A blind archer shooting at a blind target has disadvantage--unseen attackers only get advantage if they can see the target.
Small rework of the wording around (natural) darkness, concealment, etc.
(Coming soon) More detailed downtime rules, including "personal projects"
More explicit wording around bonus action timing. Actions are atomic, although explicit permission is given for bonus actions to break up the Attack action (but not during an individual attack).
Dodge is renamed Guard. Because that annoyed me.
Ranged attacks and non-self or touch-ranged spells provoke Opportunity attacks.
Cleaned up wording around movement--basically everything is either explicitly difficult terrain (such as spirit guardians) or explicitly costs extra movement. No combining "speed halved" and "extra movement cost" weirdnesses.
Shoving now gives +5ft on the shove for every 5 you beat the opponent by.
Shoving someone successfully forces a DC 10 Concentration save.
Hit points are meat. Reintroduced the Bloodied condition--it has no effect directly, but serves as a trigger for other things.
Anything that repeatedly does damage is rolled once at the start of the initiator's turn and all targets take that same damage (unless they save or are resistant, of course).
No force damage type. It's all transformed into various physical types.
Only melee \textit{weapon} attacks can knock someone out without consequences. Others can, but the NPC/PC will suffer lingering injuries.
More clarity around controlled vs independent mounts. Basically, if the player controls it/dictates its actions, it's controlled. Otherwise it's independent.


Equipment Changes

Ditched electrum. Instituted "astral credits" (at 10x platinum).
To cast spells in armor, you need to have proficiency in the armor \textit{from the class in question}.
Reworked the armor types. Renamed some, moved some around, adjusted AC and especially weight (both generally downward)
Added some "exotic materials" for armor, with defined (non-magical) effects.
Also added masterwork armor, which reduces the cost of Deflect and (for heavy/medium armor) increases the amount of DEX you can apply by 1. Costs 2x and requires special craftsmen.
Added several new weapon properties that do special things (like cleaving).
TWF is now a property of light weapons, and no longer takes your bonus action.
Added special weapon materials. More of a role for silvered and adamantine weapons (see monsters for details), as well as masterwork weapons that cost 10x as much, require special craftsmen, but allow you to add your proficiency to damage.
Tridents now have the Special property that crits restrain the enemy until end of your next turn. Not much, but$\dots$
Hand crossbows only deal 1d4.

Character Creation
Substantial changes. Many the classes got rewritten from the ground up, as did most of the "races" (now called lineages).

Race is now Lineage. No sub-races. Each lineage gives a +1 ability modifier and a big feature or two small ones. Only physiological stuff.
Added Cultures. Anyone can take any culture. They give a +1 ability score and a non-biological feature.
Backgrounds now have a list of questions rather than tables to roll on. Mostly because I'm lazy. They also all give a skill trick (see that section for details).
Point buy removed. You've got standard array and rolling. Because I have an irrational dislike for point buy.
No multiclassing. If it comes back, it will be very different. Probably in the form of skill tricks that emulate class features with a delay.


Class Changes

Barbarian is now called Warden, and is explicitly magical/primal in nature. Complete rework of how rage works, splitting the offense and defensive parts. The defensive part can be sustained as a bonus action. Complete rework of subclasses. Super crit focused, and gets stuff that buffs crit chance.
Bard is removed, replaced by the Spellblade, a half-caster/half-rogue focusing on debilitating enemies and mixing spells and weapons. Has basically an inverted Bardic Inspiration. One subclass gets more party-buffing uses. No music focus.
Cleric renamed priest, and generalized. Only one domain gets medium armor, rest are light only. Gets Divine Intervention much earlier and more frequently, but weaker and roll-based. Very support focused.
Druid renamed Shaman, more elemental focused. Removed shapeshifting in favor of "manifest zones", basically placeable persistent buff/debuff/damage zones. More control focused.
Fighter renamed Armsman. Now the heavy armor/weapon/martial versatility guy. Anything's a weapon. Can use STR or DEX for all weapons starting at 6. At high levels, gets the ability to instantly kill low-health enemies, with a scaling threshold. Those too high to instantly kill must save or stun.
Monk renamed brawler, removed "eastern" influence. Gets extra stamina from Wisdom. No separate ki pool. More explicit magic.
Paladin becomes the oathbound. Not tons of changes here, but made find steed a class feature and integrated the smite spell effects into divine smite directly--you can give up damage dice to do special effects. Slightly more support oriented than stock.
Ranger keeps its name, but gets more focus on dealing damage. Subclasses refocused on "hunting" different types of prey (including "civilized" folks).
Rogue keeps its name, gets more explicit magic from subclasses. Lots and lots of skill tricks. Gets in-class ways to do sneak attack multiple times per turn (at a cost). No longer resource free.
Sorcerer and wizard merged into the arcanist. Now "wizard" is the book mage subclass. Metamagic is their big thing, and it's expanded.
Warlock goes much more like 3e's warlock--eldritch blast is a class feature and has blast shapes and effects. Only gets spells via invocations, but gets more invocations.


Skill Tricks
Basically, I replaced feats with skill tricks. Everyone gets one when they gain an ASI. They're tiered into four groups (Basic, Advanced, Expert, and Master), with access half-way through each tier of play (except Master, which is 17). Rogues get more and get them early. They're mostly a single bullet point, but let you do all sorts of things, including (at high levels) find planar portals automatically and walk on air. Some are explicitly magical, others aren't.

Spell Changes
Probably the most controversial part.

No spell levels or slots. Only aether and aether limits. Each spell costs a certain amount of aether to cast (1-15, roughly), and you can only spend so much on a single effect (including upcasting and metamagic or other effects).
Everyone is a "prepare from the full list every day" caster. But the lists are way smaller.
Spells as such stop at what would be 5th level (roughly). Higher level effects are Legendary Effects, and you gain access much more limitedly and they're limited to 1x/day each (unless you have specific features). And you can't change them out every day. But LE don't cost aether. So they're kinda like Mystic Arcana.
Many "utility" spells are moved to Incantations, which are kinda like 4e rituals. Anyone can find a Ritual Scroll (which allows you to do an Incantation if you're high enough level) and use it. They are balanced in other ways than spell slots. This includes everything from divinations to resurrection, flight, teleportation, planar travel, etc.
Minionmancy nerfed. Summon spells now explicitly prescribe what your choices are, and you can summon a lot fewer creatures (usually 1 bigger or 2 smaller). Animating dead is right out (in part for setting reasons, as necromancy is Kill on Sight just about everywhere for raisins).
Many spells rebalanced. For example, \textit{shield} now only lets you use aether to Deflect instead of Stamina and lasts an hour.
Upcasting (now called Overcasting) is better.
Counterspell doesn't exist as a spell. Instead, it's a feature some classes have in different ways and affects more than just spells. Yes, a high-level warden can smack a dragon and stop its breath.
Still need to balance out the spell lists and make new spells to cover niches that the SRD didn't but should exist.


Monster changes
Not nearly as many here.

Split CR into offensive and defensive rating, listing both.
Removed resistance/immunity to nonmagical attacks and (where appropriate) increased health to compensate.
Added specific vulnerabilities to silver and adamantine. For example, were creatures now have stupid high regeneration and don't die at 0 unless you can use your action and a weapon to chop their head off. Or, if you hit them with silver weapons (note, \textit{not} magical ones), their maximum health goes down (basically they can't regenerate that damage). So reducing their max HP to 0 with silver kills them. Fiends (now unified) suffer disadvantage on their next attack if they're hit by silver. Constructs ignore a certain (often large) amount of damage from any source that isn't an adamantine weapon or a crit.
Reformatted how spells are done. No more slots means they're all X/day. Cantrips are moved to spell attacks specific to the monster, but they're marked as cantrips.
More work is needed here.


Magic Items

Remove most, if not all, +AC, +ATK, +save DC, +saves from items. I take bounded accuracy much more seriously. +Damage is ok--generally a +X weapon now gives +2X damage.
Started adding the formulas directly to the magic items in some cases. Especially because some skill tricks give you access to magic item crafting recipies.
Still need to flesh out the list.



Can you suggest changes?
Absolutely. Reply here, or (even better), make PRs/issues against the github repo.

I may not accept your suggestions, but I promise to consider them.

Although, if your comment is just "I hate it" or "You should do <something entirely different>"...please refrain. Those are less than helpful. I've got an idea of what I want; if it's not for you, that's fine.

[stoutstien]

I have a group that has show interest when I brought it up and are willing to give it a shot. Next session is the Sunday.

* Reserved for initial feedback*

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have a group that has show interest when I brought it up and are willing to give it a shot. Next session is the Sunday.

* Reserved for initial feedback*

Thanks! I expect it to be somewhat rough, especially numerically. Please let me know what feels off.

[stoutstien]

Thanks! I expect it to be somewhat rough, especially numerically. Please let me know what feels off.

A lot of these changes are similar enough to my WiP that they will pick it up quickly.

Quick question though with the extra shoving distance for exceeding the Target's total results. What happens if you shove one creature into another but doesn't have dungeon crasher?

[KorvinStarmast]

Trying to figure out if any of this will arise in our current campaign in Quartus.
I am not sure how I feel about the Magic User (Eskel) as regards that template, will try to dig into your HB on that this weekend.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Trying to figure out if any of this will arise in our current campaign in Quartus.
I am not sure how I feel about the Magic User (Eskel) as regards that template, will try to dig into your HB on that this weekend.

I'm not making changes in a current campaign.

As to shoving without dungeoncrasher, it does nothing special.

[stoutstien]

I'm typing up a more in-depth response but as a broad brush from my first few read throughs:

Without checking any math or going anything deeper it looks like a well put together mid to high fantasy generic system. The core principles are very well laid out which makes it approachable and playable.

Most of my suggestions would be reordering things such as making the character creation outline steps line up with a a more natural progression.

Few questions I would have would be is there any reason why the net is a weapon and if it's going to stay a weapon it we need clear wording on the actual number of attacks one can make when using a net. (is it one attack total or only one attack with the net). I'd also clean up the wording for throwing adventuring gear items so you don't have that weird side question of how sneak attack interact with alchemist fire. (Personally I would just put them under a special weapons table if they use attack rolls.)

Having well thought out crafting rules is always a plus. I like to see it expanded a little bit but that might be just me. Could expand on the master work, property and material system a little bit where they can potentially have a little bit more expression without messing with the math.

The incantation system is well thought out.


I'd likely buy a copy if it was a print on demand.

Table be rolling up characters tonight.

*I already see potential for making an none spell related artificer type class here that would snuggle nicely in the middle of the SDCT paradigm.*

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm typing up a more in-depth response but as a broad brush from my first few read throughs:

Without checking any math or going anything deeper it looks like a well put together mid to high fantasy generic system. The core principles are very well laid out which makes it approachable and playable.

Most of my suggestions would be reordering things such as [1] making the character creation outline steps line up with a a more natural progression.

Few questions I would have would be is there [2] any reason why the net is a weapon and if it's going to stay a weapon it we need clear wording on the actual number of attacks one can make when using a net. (is it one attack total or only one attack with the net). [3]I'd also clean up the wording for throwing adventuring gear items so you don't have that weird side question of how sneak attack interact with alchemist fire. (Personally I would just put them under a special weapons table if they use attack rolls.)

Having well thought out crafting rules is always a plus. [4]I like to see it expanded a little bit but that might be just me. Could expand on the master work, property and material system a little bit where they can potentially have a little bit more expression without messing with the math.

[5]The incantation system is well thought out.


I'd likely buy a copy if it was a print on demand.

Table be rolling up characters tonight.

[6]*I already see potential for making an none spell related artificer type class here that would snuggle nicely in the middle of the SDCT paradigm.*

Thanks!

1. I'm curious as to what order you think would be best for that. I tried to put it in what felt like most people were going to do anyway (class -> rest of stuff, math last once everything's settled), but may have mistepped.
2. Good question. I'll think about that one.
3. Also a good idea.
4. As with most "content" stuff, yeah. Can use more. Masterwork is a separate modifier, then materials. Properties (for weapons) are tied to the (archetypal) use of the weapon, so...
5. Thanks! That one has the most testing, actually, since it can be slipstreamed into an existing 5e game.
6. I actually have a Savant class I made a long time ago. Way too fiddly as written, but fits the "mad engineer" mold pretty well. Their stuff explicitly works for them because they believe it does, so they infuse their personal magic into it. Despite violating ALL the physical laws. I may add it to this once I rewrite it to not be so janky.

I look forward to more comments. I'm in the process of making an HTML version if that's easier to work with. And finding lots of little things.

I need more subclasses (especially for rogues) and a bunch of content needs fleshed out.

[stoutstien]

I'm partial to the lineage >culture> background> class >score pattern.

I just feel it helps people make more coherent characters bottom the top and if a table is creating characters together they start looking at how to intertwine, if they're so inclined, in the past rather than just ths present.

Course I've also of the belief that the entire section about using ability scores should be before the player options but I have no idea how that'll go over with most players. I just found it odd that they're supposed to know what ability scores do without knowing what they actually do.

*I would note that you still have Force damage listed in magical items and NPC stat blocks.*

[PhoenixPhyre]

1. I'm partial to the lineage >culture> background> class >score pattern.

I just feel it helps people make more coherent characters bottom the top and if a table is creating characters together they start looking at how to intertwine, if they're so inclined, in the past rather than just ths present.

2. Course I've also of the belief that the entire section about using ability scores should be before the player options but I have no idea how that'll go over with most players. I just found it odd that they're supposed to know what ability scores do without knowing what they actually do.

1. Hmm, that's an interesting idea. I'll consider it.

2. I thought I put some material on that in the introduction...sigh...I'm getting old and my memory is full of holes. I'll put it on my issues list.

[stoutstien]

1. Hmm, that's an interesting idea. I'll consider it.

2. I thought I put some material on that in the introduction...sigh...I'm getting old and my memory is full of holes. I'll put it on my issues list.

No worries. Since it's not a whole new system you're running off a lot known information I just happen to have a lot of brand new players that come across my tables so I try to keep their gaze in mind.

[PhoenixPhyre]

No worries. Since it's not a whole new system you're running off a lot known information I just happen to have a lot of brand new players that come across my tables so I try to keep their gaze in mind.

Totally. I'm in the same boat. So thoughts on that are always welcome.

[stoutstien]

Editing log:
*Will update as I come across them*

The combat section allows you to drink a potion as a bonus action but the listed item in the enriching gear still lists that it requires a full action.

Magical items and NPC still have Force damage listed

[JNAProductions]

Heck. This looks comprehensive.

I will be examining this! Though I've work quite soon-still, I've seen your comments across various threads, Mr. Phoenix, and I look forward to what you've devised.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Heck. This looks comprehensive.

I will be examining this! Though I've work quite soon-still, I've seen your comments across various threads, Mr. Phoenix, and I look forward to what you've devised.

Thanks! If it makes it easier, I'm going to post an HTML version sometime real soon now. The styling isn't the best yet, but it should be readable and probably easier to deal with than a 380 pg PDF.

Feedback is very welcome. Anything numerical should be taken with a grain of salt, as it's "placeholder, but mostly on the right direction".

Edit: HTML version posted at https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/

[GeneralVryth]

We obviously disagree on some founding tenets. I won't bring those up here, and instead try and make notes accepting them as gospel.

1. Just on an editing note for the HTML page, the green with blue hyperlinks at the top can make them hard to read. On the class page you have Arcanist when you link and clearly mean Armsmen. And there are some other broken things in the spells area it looks like.

2. If you are banning multi-classing, what is the purpose of this? "To cast spells in armor, you need to have proficiency in the armor from the class in question." I don't see any armor profs in lineages/cultures (which I think is good especially for med/heavy armor), is there any other way of getting them? I know you're leery of casters and armor, but I wonder with all of the other changes (I like the Str requirements for some medium armors, I would be tempted to add a couple more or increase some of the heavies), is this still needed?

3. Arcanist is obviously one of the first classes I looked at. For Awakened Mages, is there any reason not to give them extra attack on top of their level 6 ability? Without that the martial weapon training from level 2 is mostly pointless as cantrips are now going to be better in most cases.

[PhoenixPhyre]

We obviously disagree on some founding tenets. I won't bring those up here, and instead try and make notes accepting them as gospel.

1. Just on an editing note for the HTML page, the green with blue hyperlinks at the top can make them hard to read. On the class page you have Arcanist when you link and clearly mean Armsmen. And there are some other broken things in the spells area it looks like.

2. If you are banning multi-classing, what is the purpose of this? "To cast spells in armor, you need to have proficiency in the armor from the class in question." I don't see any armor profs in lineages/cultures (which I think is good especially for med/heavy armor), is there any other way of getting them? I know you're leery of casters and armor, but I wonder with all of the other changes (I like the Str requirements for some medium armors, I would be tempted to add a couple more or increase some of the heavies), is this still needed?

3. Arcanist is obviously one of the first classes I looked at. For Awakened Mages, is there any reason not to give them extra attack on top of their level 6 ability? Without that the martial weapon training from level 2 is mostly pointless as cantrips are now going to be better in most cases.

1. Yeah, the colors need work on the HTML. And yeah, that's a copy-paste error on the class page. I'll take a look at the links on the spells areas...I had to convert from latex to html mostly by hand. So yeah, I expect there are broken bits. Oh, yeah. On the spell-lists page, I forgot to change all the latex-style references to the proper html anchor tags for the classes the spells belong to. Which in and of itself is only about half done. I'll add that as an issue to be resolved. Edit: Derp--I hadn't even uploaded the spell list page at all. Oops. That's fixed, along with the color scheme. May take a hard refresh to get the new version due to server caching.

2. It's future proofing. Is it strictly necessary? Probably not, at least right now. But it's one thing I want to take a hard stance on. If you're casting spells, especially as a full caster, you need specific permission to use armor.

3. The martial weapon training is mostly supposed to be a (tiny) ribbon--the meat of that is getting to use light armor, which means not having to use mage armor. And being able to avoid using shield unless you really need to (to conserve your precious aether). I'd like to stay away from giving Extra Attack (in any form) to full casters. And weapons do have a small place--the weapon properties allow some things you'd need to spend aether on.

[GeneralVryth]

1. Yeah, the colors need work on the HTML. And yeah, that's a copy-paste error on the class page. I'll take a look at the links on the spells areas...I had to convert from latex to html mostly by hand. So yeah, I expect there are broken bits. Oh, yeah. On the spell-lists page, I forgot to change all the latex-style references to the proper html anchor tags for the classes the spells belong to. Which in and of itself is only about half done. I'll add that as an issue to be resolved. Edit: Derp--I hadn't even uploaded the spell list page at all. Oops. That's fixed, along with the color scheme. May take a hard refresh to get the new version due to server caching.

2. It's future proofing. Is it strictly necessary? Probably not, at least right now. But it's one thing I want to take a hard stance on. If you're casting spells, especially as a full caster, you need specific permission to use armor.

3. The martial weapon training is mostly supposed to be a (tiny) ribbon--the meat of that is getting to use light armor, which means not having to use mage armor. And being able to avoid using shield unless you really need to (to conserve your precious aether). I'd like to stay away from giving Extra Attack (in any form) to full casters. And weapons do have a small place--the weapon properties allow some things you'd need to spend aether on.

1. I don't think the color scheme changed at all after a hard refresh. In fact I am not sure anything did, may a caching issue I am missing or in the backend somewhere. Another thing is your changelog link is 404 atm.

2. While I am not sure I agree with your solution (I like the softer solution of harder Str requirements around med and heavy armor), I would drop the wording around "Unless you gained proficiency from the class whose spells you are casting, you are too distracted and physically hampered by your armor for spellcasting." And make it simply you can't cast in armor unless an ability specifically states otherwise. It makes it less confusing, especially if for example you ever added some kind of skill trick that granted armor prof or similar class agnostic but class sourced ability.

3. I get the light armor is the primary benefit. But adding in Extra Attack at 6 enables what I think of as a 3/4 caster archetype. A character whose most basic combat option is a weapon, but if they ever need anything extra they reach towards magic. Kind of like a consular class character from many Star Wars properties. I don't think it makes the Arcanist that much more powerful, while enabling an archetype that seems to have been kind of removed by the re-configuring of the Bard.

Is there anything in particular you were looking for feedback on? I don't have the right group for playtesting, but I would be happy to think through some theory and crunch numbers.

[PhoenixPhyre]

1. I don't think the color scheme changed at all after a hard refresh. In fact I am not sure anything did, may a caching issue I am missing or in the backend somewhere. Another thing is your changelog link is 404 atm.

2. While I am not sure I agree with your solution (I like the softer solution of harder Str requirements around med and heavy armor), I would drop the wording around "Unless you gained proficiency from the class whose spells you are casting, you are too distracted and physically hampered by your armor for spellcasting." And make it simply you can't cast in armor unless an ability specifically states otherwise. It makes it less confusing, especially if for example you ever added some kind of skill trick that granted armor prof or similar class agnostic but class sourced ability.

3. I get the light armor is the primary benefit. But adding in Extra Attack at 6 enables what I think of as a 3/4 caster archetype. A character whose most basic combat option is a weapon, but if they ever need anything extra they reach towards magic. Kind of like a consular class character from many Star Wars properties. I don't think it makes the Arcanist that much more powerful, while enabling an archetype that seems to have been kind of removed by the re-configuring of the Bard.

Is there anything in particular you were looking for feedback on? I don't have the right group for playtesting, but I would be happy to think through some theory and crunch numbers.

1. Ok, that's a total head-desk on my part. I'd renamed it...and then didn't actually fix the links. A hard refresh on any page you've visited should clear your local cache now--this web host has a (annoyingly) sticky cache for static files. And I have to remember to clear it every time I make a change.

2. That's a decent idea. I'll think on it. Maybe an "Armored Caster" feature for those that should be casting in armor...

3. The theme of the arcanist is the opposite--magic is their primary tool. They're the casteriest of casters, actually. A design...goal? No, that's the wrong word. Point I'm trying to keep to is segregating things--full casters never get Extra Attack. Half casters get Extra Attack (2/round) and some way of "smiting" that costs aether. Non-casters get Extra Attack (2/round or better) and some non-aetheric way of spiking damage--Sneak Attack, Furious Blow + Brutal Critical/crit enhancements, Extra Attack 3+ (and some other features in the Armsman). I don't like the 3/4 caster archetype, because it's really tricky to balance (even conceptually) in a way that doesn't fall onto one side or the other. The Bard (in its more weapon-focused subclasses), I think, does a poor job of meeting that balance. Maybe I just haven't seen a good design. For that Arcanist subclass, I'm going more for the "casts from vitality" vibe. You're the one who gets to just vomit out torrents of energy, without the variety or finesse of a book mage or the (still upcoming) alternate uses of the (unnamed, working title "war") mage.

As for feedback--a few things.

a) Resource numbers/costs, especially Stamina. It's supposed to be more limited than aether, but quicker regen (SR vs LR). But I'm sure I haven't struck the right balance--I have a sneaking suspicion that martials have too much (or their stuff costs too little) at higher levels. I want STA costs (at higher levels) to be something you have to consider, but shouldn't be like "I don't dare use my big stuff".

b) There aren't enough spells. I know, I'm the last person to say that. But 99% of the spells I have were from the SRD, and there's a lot of gaps left uncovered. Someone to look through and try to put together "thematic" lists for the various casters (especially full casters) would be nice. See what's missing and what just doesn't work well/is redundant. I've tried to rebalance damage somewhat so that damage per aether is a smooth function (where damage per spell slot was all over the place before).

c) the Shaman class is currently somewhat of a mess. I know. Thoughts about the zones, especially, and making them work better would be nice.

d) I know I need more subclasses for the warlock, rogue, and oathbound. Ideas there would be wonderful, things that fit the rest of the system. For warlocks, I'm going more type of pact, not type of patron. What does the patron want, not who the patron is.

e) An eye on the skill tricks, especially looking to see if some of them are obviously either way out of bounds for the others at their level or just don't make any sense at all.

In general, any feedback would be wonderful. I've been staring at it so long now that I find it hard to see the things that are obviously stupid to someone else.

[GeneralVryth]

1. Ok, that's a total head-desk on my part. I'd renamed it...and then didn't actually fix the links. A hard refresh on any page you've visited should clear your local cache now--this web host has a (annoyingly) sticky cache for static files. And I have to remember to clear it every time I make a change.

2. That's a decent idea. I'll think on it. Maybe an "Armored Caster" feature for those that should be casting in armor...

3. The theme of the arcanist is the opposite--magic is their primary tool. They're the casteriest of casters, actually. A design...goal? No, that's the wrong word. Point I'm trying to keep to is segregating things--full casters never get Extra Attack. Half casters get Extra Attack (2/round) and some way of "smiting" that costs aether. Non-casters get Extra Attack (2/round or better) and some non-aetheric way of spiking damage--Sneak Attack, Furious Blow + Brutal Critical/crit enhancements, Extra Attack 3+ (and some other features in the Armsman). I don't like the 3/4 caster archetype, because it's really tricky to balance (even conceptually) in a way that doesn't fall onto one side or the other. The Bard (in its more weapon-focused subclasses), I think, does a poor job of meeting that balance. Maybe I just haven't seen a good design. For that Arcanist subclass, I'm going more for the "casts from vitality" vibe. You're the one who gets to just vomit out torrents of energy, without the variety or finesse of a book mage or the (still upcoming) alternate uses of the (unnamed, working title "war") mage.

As for feedback--a few things.

a) Resource numbers/costs, especially Stamina. It's supposed to be more limited than aether, but quicker regen (SR vs LR). But I'm sure I haven't struck the right balance--I have a sneaking suspicion that martials have too much (or their stuff costs too little) at higher levels. I want STA costs (at higher levels) to be something you have to consider, but shouldn't be like "I don't dare use my big stuff".

b) There aren't enough spells. I know, I'm the last person to say that. But 99% of the spells I have were from the SRD, and there's a lot of gaps left uncovered. Someone to look through and try to put together "thematic" lists for the various casters (especially full casters) would be nice. See what's missing and what just doesn't work well/is redundant. I've tried to rebalance damage somewhat so that damage per aether is a smooth function (where damage per spell slot was all over the place before).

c) the Shaman class is currently somewhat of a mess. I know. Thoughts about the zones, especially, and making them work better would be nice.

d) I know I need more subclasses for the warlock, rogue, and oathbound. Ideas there would be wonderful, things that fit the rest of the system. For warlocks, I'm going more type of pact, not type of patron. What does the patron want, not who the patron is.

e) An eye on the skill tricks, especially looking to see if some of them are obviously either way out of bounds for the others at their level or just don't make any sense at all.

In general, any feedback would be wonderful. I've been staring at it so long now that I find it hard to see the things that are obviously stupid to someone else.

1. I see the changes now, so cool.

2. The biggest thing I can emphasize when making almost anything is KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid. The vast majority of the time a simpler solution is better if all else is equal. In this case you don't want casters in armor, except for specific exceptions. That gives you a simple standard rule "You can't cast in armor", and you can add exceptions where appropriate.

3. The 3/4s caster is something I think can get easily over thought especially in D&D. In essence it should be a character that uses weapon attacks as their default attack action, and magic for everything else (including adding oomph to their default attack if they want it). And given that cantrips are the default action for full casters, all that really means is having weapon attacks be more useful than using a cantrip (which is a really low bar), and maybe having some spells that either boost martial prowess or play to that theme. Steel Wind Strike and Tenser's Transformation being good example spells (setting aside tuning their damage up or down as needed). Ultimately, this is just one of my favorite archetypes as a personal preference which is why I advocate for it (and look for it various game systems). For what's worth as much I kind of like the extra power in Tasha's, the original Bladesinger in SCAG without the Bladetrips does this pretty good and is a good example in my mind (especially with the newer spells that play to the theme).

As for the rest, I think one thing you need to nail down really early is what is the value of 1 point of Stamina? What about Aether? Should those values change as a character levels up? Once you have a rough answer (and a rough answer is all it will ever be because of the myriad of possible effects) it becomes a lot easier to figure out what's too much and what's not enough.

Here are some examples I pulled from the Armsmen class:
2 Stamina ~= 5 + level self heal
2 Stamina ~= Attack Action
1 Stamina ~= 1 Attack
5 Stamina ~= 25 damage
8 Stamina ~= Avoid death and heal 60 to 70 hp and scaling up

Second Wind and Action Surge basically scale with level, while the other effects are more static (though usually still scaling). Overall the costs are closer than I expected, though Action Surge stands how as being a pretty cheap for it's effects at higher levels.

Some other things I noticed while trying to do a basic Arcanist to Armsmen comparison:
Thicket of Blades (Armsmen - Defender) needs explanation for "But if the goblin attacks an ally and then moves within reach, the Defender can make two opportunity attacks by spending 1 STA and his reaction or 2 STA (keeping his reaction)" why 2 reactions?

Does Flash Step (Armsmen) consume movement? Any action cost?

Seems to be a lack of ways for Armsmen to spend STA before level 10+.

Lots of overcast inconsistency on spells, just looked at damage so usually seems to be 2 AET for +1 dice, but some spells seem suggest only 1 AET (Thunderwave), and others say 1 AET per dice but have a weird cap (Blight)

Can STA be spent more than once per turn?

If AET can only be spent on spells once per turn how is Quicken Spell supposed to work? No spell + cantrip? Why is this rule necessary with the action and other limitations?

[PhoenixPhyre]

1. The 3/4s caster is something I think can get easily over thought especially in D&D. In essence it should be a character that uses weapon attacks as their default attack action, and magic for everything else (including adding oomph to their default attack if they want it). And given that cantrips are the default action for full casters, all that really means is having weapon attacks be more useful than using a cantrip (which is a really low bar), and maybe having some spells that either boost martial prowess or play to that theme. Steel Wind Strike and Tenser's Transformation being good example spells (setting aside tuning their damage up or down as needed). Ultimately, this is just one of my favorite archetypes as a personal preference which is why I advocate for it (and look for it various game systems). For what's worth as much I kind of like the extra power in Tasha's, the original Bladesinger in SCAG without the Bladetrips does this pretty good and is a good example in my mind (especially with the newer spells that play to the theme).

As for the rest, I think one thing you need to nail down really early is what is the value of 1 point of Stamina? What about Aether? Should those values change as a character levels up? Once you have a rough answer (and a rough answer is all it will ever be because of the myriad of possible effects) it becomes a lot easier to figure out what's too much and what's not enough.

2. Here are some examples I pulled from the Armsmen class:
2 Stamina ~= 5 + level self heal
2 Stamina ~= Attack Action
1 Stamina ~= 1 Attack
5 Stamina ~= 25 damage
8 Stamina ~= Avoid death and heal 60 to 70 hp and scaling up

Second Wind and Action Surge basically scale with level, while the other effects are more static (though usually still scaling). Overall the costs are closer than I expected, though Action Surge stands how as being a pretty cheap for it's effects at higher levels.

Some other things I noticed while trying to do a basic Arcanist to Armsmen comparison:
3. Thicket of Blades (Armsmen - Defender) needs explanation for "But if the goblin attacks an ally and then moves within reach, the Defender can make two opportunity attacks by spending 1 STA and his reaction or 2 STA (keeping his reaction)" why 2 reactions?

4. Does Flash Step (Armsmen) consume movement? Any action cost?

5. Seems to be a lack of ways for Armsmen to spend STA before level 10+.

6. Lots of overcast inconsistency on spells, just looked at damage so usually seems to be 2 AET for +1 dice, but some spells seem suggest only 1 AET (Thunderwave), and others say 1 AET per dice but have a weird cap (Blight)

7. Can STA be spent more than once per turn?

8. If AET can only be spent on spells once per turn how is Quicken Spell supposed to work? No spell + cantrip? Why is this rule necessary with the action and other limitations?

(renumbered)

1. I'm just going to say that this archetype is not something I think I like. So I'm not going to include it, especially not on the Arcanist base.

2. The basic intent is that your higher-power (relative to your level) abilities should cost ~1/3 - 1/4 of your STA pool but any given ability should get cheaper (relative to your overall pool) as you level up. This means that, per "tier" (which I've renamed to "stages"), the rough costs for Armsmen should go like

T1: 1-2 STA (since you have at most 9 STA at that point)
T2: 3-5 STA (since you have at most 15 STA at that point)
T3: 6-7 STA (max 21)
T4: 8-10 STA (max 25)

Which...means some things need to be recosted. Action Surge is a bit of an outlier, and I need to figure out how to scale it so it isn't just spammed later on. The Armsman is supposed to be tanky by HP restoration and higher armor (compared to the Warden, who has damage reduction and a bigger HP pool), so I'm fine with Second Wind being fairly cheap.

3. The idea is that Thicket of Blades allows you to either spend a Reaction to do an OA or spend STA to do the same thing. You can't take two regular reactions (such as Deflect 2x) between any two of your turns, but if you want to burn your STA, you can make OAs until you run out of STA. Basically, a way to be sticky against hordes. Does that explanation make sense? Does it still need to be reworded?

4. Flash Step costs movement--it's basically replacing your "walking" with "pseudo-teleportation". I can probably be more clear there.

5. Hmm...that might be right. There's always Deflect and Exert (at 1-2 STA each depending on other factors), plus skill tricks that can cost STA to use, but...yeah.

6. The "standard" is 2 AET for +1 die, but some spells need more help, so they get 1 AET/die. And some would upcast really too well, so they get 3 AET/die. Generally adding targets is supposed to be more costly than upping damage die. Not sure why I put a cap on blight...and I'll look at Thunderwave.

7. Yes. Only AET has that limit. And it should be only on spells.

8. Quicken spell works fine--you spend AET on the overall quickened spell (regular) to turn it into a bonus action, and then cantrips don't cost AET. The 1 AET-costing spell/turn thing is the equivalent of "if you cast a bonus action spell, you can't cast anything but a cantrip with your action" rule from standard 5e. More phrased as a "one spell slot per turn" limit, since that's simpler and (in the absence of multiclassing) works out almost the same (the difference being reaction spells). And to reiterate, the limit is only on spells. If you have another way of spending AET, you can do that and cast a spell just fine. You just can't cast two "leveled" (ie AET-costing) spells in the same turn.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Any idea when the next set of rules are being released?

The HTML version is (mostly) up to date with changes as they come in. The PDF linked in my signature is up to date with those changes as well. The changes since 1.0.0 have been minor, mostly formatting and a few fixes for total derp stuff. Only substantive changes really have been

1. shuffling around nets and the "thrown alchemicals" (alchemist fire/acid...and just realized that holy water should be on that list) and nets.
2. Adding a few paragraphs of explanation to the character creation section about ability scores.

As to a new "formal" version...I'd like one solid round of feedback. Or enough "significant" changes to warrant it. Such as adding a new subclass or completely reworking an existing one (or something of similar magnitude).

[stoutstien]

Oils and odd one. I'm still not sure if I want to put it on my system's weapon table or make it a save to avoid being coated.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oils and odd one. I'm still not sure if I want to put it on my system's weapon table or make it a save to avoid being coated.

Yeah. Good point. Especially since it's dual use (unlike acid/holy water/alchemists fire) and can be used as fuel or put on the ground. I'm leaning toward "equipment" and "save to avoid being coated".

Edit: Errata for anyone following along:

- I just discovered a horrible copy-paste error in the ASI statements for about half the classes where I pulled the wording directly from the SRD without updating it. No, those classes don't get +2 modifier ASIs, and don't have a cap of +20. They have the same +1 to one stat (max +5) and a skill trick like anyone else. This is fixed in my next publish to the web version/signature PDF, probably this evening.

[GeneralVryth]

(renumbered)

1. I'm just going to say that this archetype is not something I think I like. So I'm not going to include it, especially not on the Arcanist base.

2. The basic intent is that your higher-power (relative to your level) abilities should cost ~1/3 - 1/4 of your STA pool but any given ability should get cheaper (relative to your overall pool) as you level up. This means that, per "tier" (which I've renamed to "stages"), the rough costs for Armsmen should go like

T1: 1-2 STA (since you have at most 9 STA at that point)
T2: 3-5 STA (since you have at most 15 STA at that point)
T3: 6-7 STA (max 21)
T4: 8-10 STA (max 25)

Which...means some things need to be recosted. Action Surge is a bit of an outlier, and I need to figure out how to scale it so it isn't just spammed later on. The Armsman is supposed to be tanky by HP restoration and higher armor (compared to the Warden, who has damage reduction and a bigger HP pool), so I'm fine with Second Wind being fairly cheap.

3. The idea is that Thicket of Blades allows you to either spend a Reaction to do an OA or spend STA to do the same thing. You can't take two regular reactions (such as Deflect 2x) between any two of your turns, but if you want to burn your STA, you can make OAs until you run out of STA. Basically, a way to be sticky against hordes. Does that explanation make sense? Does it still need to be reworded?

4. Flash Step costs movement--it's basically replacing your "walking" with "pseudo-teleportation". I can probably be more clear there.

5. Hmm...that might be right. There's always Deflect and Exert (at 1-2 STA each depending on other factors), plus skill tricks that can cost STA to use, but...yeah.

6. The "standard" is 2 AET for +1 die, but some spells need more help, so they get 1 AET/die. And some would upcast really too well, so they get 3 AET/die. Generally adding targets is supposed to be more costly than upping damage die. Not sure why I put a cap on blight...and I'll look at Thunderwave.

7. Yes. Only AET has that limit. And it should be only on spells.

8. Quicken spell works fine--you spend AET on the overall quickened spell (regular) to turn it into a bonus action, and then cantrips don't cost AET. The 1 AET-costing spell/turn thing is the equivalent of "if you cast a bonus action spell, you can't cast anything but a cantrip with your action" rule from standard 5e. More phrased as a "one spell slot per turn" limit, since that's simpler and (in the absence of multiclassing) works out almost the same (the difference being reaction spells). And to reiterate, the limit is only on spells. If you have another way of spending AET, you can do that and cast a spell just fine. You just can't cast two "leveled" (ie AET-costing) spells in the same turn.

1. Okay, I'll drop it then. Though it pains me to do so lol.

2. That feels like a very fuzzy definition. Right now in several places it looks like:
1 Stamina ~= 1 Attack
The most basic attack before various rides, abilities, and higher level stats come online is going to do 6 to 10 damage.
So I would try and stick to something close to that as a balance point since it's a little easier to define and several Armsmen costs are already close to it.

3. I went back and re-read the ability again. My mind didn't seem to take in the first sentence properly, which lead to the example confusing me. Thicket of Blades is really 2 abilities:
-- 1. Opponents provoke opportunity attacks from you by moving within your reach, making attacks against anyone but you, or casting a spell.
-- 2. You can spend 1 STA to make an opportunity attack without consuming your reaction.

Honestly, I am not sure I would keep the 1 opportunity attack per movement limit. If an opponent is dumb enough to run straight by and ignore the Armsmen he deserves to be whacked and you already have a limit in STA. Another solution would be just to modify ability 1 to get rid of the move within reach bit, which doesn't discourage enemies from approach the Armsmen which is a good thing from a Tanking/Defender perspective. And now on re-reading the example I am confused again, since it seems to suggest you can make 2 opportunity attacks once an opponent is in range even if the trigger for one of them didn't occur while they were in range. That feels wrong. In general I think the ability needs to be re-worded for additional clarity and I am not sure if an example helps, unless you also make sure it's very clear.

4. Yep clarity improvements here would be ideal, though I am now wondering why the Teleport effect? Why not just say spend 2 STA and you can't be affected by opportunity attacks? Is there something else you are going for?

5. Now that I have a better feel for Thicket of Blades (and learned about Exert), I am less concerned about this. Though I do think you need as a standard practice to give all Armsmen subclasses a 3rd level feature that uses STA heavily. Which means Sword Saint needs another ability (which now that I understand Thicket of Blades, was true anyways).

6. Because of the pure spell point nature of your system, you really need to have a feel for what 1 AET is worth. Otherwise once someone has a high enough AET limit, they are just going to cast whatever spell is most efficient. Here is my suggestion:
1 AET ~= 1 Attack ~= 2 dice (2d6 or 2d8) against a single target, no save for half
1 AET ~= 1 dice AOE that effects 2 to 3 targets on average, save for half
The other thing to consider is casting a spell is usually going to come at the opportunity cost of casting a free cantrip (or making an attack), so the base damage is going to need to be 1 to 3 dice higher than what the above would suggest based on AET cost. Thankfully, all the above already looks like it will match the base effect of most spells. It just means a lot of the overcast effects should be 1 AET for 1 dice (or 2 dice for single target spells). Finally, there is a nice silver lining in this you don't need as many damage spells of the same type, especially if you let overcasting do more than increase damage. What you need is variety is non-daamge riders for damage spells which can help with theme as well. Control and Buff spells are their own problem.

7 & 8. I think I get it. I kind of wish/wonder if there is a better way to phrase the limit. Whether or not the limit needs to exist is not something I want to get in to now.

[PhoenixPhyre]

2. That feels like a very fuzzy definition. Right now in several places it looks like:
1 Stamina ~= 1 Attack
The most basic attack before various rides, abilities, and higher level stats come online is going to do 6 to 10 damage.
So I would try and stick to something close to that as a balance point since it's a little easier to define and several Armsmen costs are already close to it.

3. I went back and re-read the ability again. My mind didn't seem to take in the first sentence properly, which lead to the example confusing me. Thicket of Blades is really 2 abilities:
-- 1. Opponents provoke opportunity attacks from you by moving within your reach, making attacks against anyone but you, or casting a spell.
-- 2. You can spend 1 STA to make an opportunity attack without consuming your reaction.

Honestly, I am not sure I would keep the 1 opportunity attack per movement limit. If an opponent is dumb enough to run straight by and ignore the Armsmen he deserves to be whacked and you already have a limit in STA. Another solution would be just to modify ability 1 to get rid of the move within reach bit, which doesn't discourage enemies from approach the Armsmen which is a good thing from a Tanking/Defender perspective. And now on re-reading the example I am confused again, since it seems to suggest you can make 2 opportunity attacks once an opponent is in range even if the trigger for one of them didn't occur while they were in range. That feels wrong. In general I think the ability needs to be re-worded for additional clarity and I am not sure if an example helps, unless you also make sure it's very clear.

4. Yep clarity improvements here would be ideal, though I am now wondering why the Teleport effect? Why not just say spend 2 STA and you can't be affected by opportunity attacks? Is there something else you are going for?

5. Now that I have a better feel for Thicket of Blades (and learned about Exert), I am less concerned about this. Though I do think you need as a standard practice to give all Armsmen subclasses a 3rd level feature that uses STA heavily. Which means Sword Saint needs another ability (which now that I understand Thicket of Blades, was true anyways).

6. Because of the pure spell point nature of your system, you really need to have a feel for what 1 AET is worth. Otherwise once someone has a high enough AET limit, they are just going to cast whatever spell is most efficient. Here is my suggestion:
1 AET ~= 1 Attack ~= 2 dice (2d6 or 2d8) against a single target, no save for half
1 AET ~= 1 dice AOE that effects 2 to 3 targets on average, save for half
The other thing to consider is casting a spell is usually going to come at the opportunity cost of casting a free cantrip (or making an attack), so the base damage is going to need to be 1 to 3 dice higher than what the above would suggest based on AET cost. Thankfully, all the above already looks like it will match the base effect of most spells. It just means a lot of the overcast effects should be 1 AET for 1 dice (or 2 dice for single target spells). Finally, there is a nice silver lining in this you don't need as many damage spells of the same type, especially if you let overcasting do more than increase damage. What you need is variety is non-daamge riders for damage spells which can help with theme as well. Control and Buff spells are their own problem.


2. Yeah. It's fuzzy. But I'm not going for a hard definition, because there's just way too many variations. I'm not going for hard balance, just no obvious 'x is dominated by y due to cost' or "X costs so much it never gets used" exploits. I definitely need to do more tuning here though. A prototype is bumping up the cost of Action Surge by one and adding 1 STA costs to a couple of the weapon properties extra attacks. And cutting down the cost of Deathblow by 1.

3. Yeah. It's probably confusingly worded. The point of the "provoke when you move within reach" thing is to make them really sticky. Basically if you've got a Defender in range, you need to disengage and move away or attack the Defender. Otherwise you're going to get whacked. I'll see about rewording it. Probably at minimum breaking it into two paragraphs.

4. Because it's not limited to horizontal movement. As long as there's a place you can get to within your movement that doesn't require going through keyholes, you can just get there. Need to cross a 20-ft gap? Flash Step. Need to cross a 50 ft gap or climb to a ledge 50 ft up? Dash and Flash Step. Etc.

5. Yeah. Sword saint needs something else at that level.

6. Ideally, the "damage efficiency" of spells is going to be mostly constant. The benefit of bigger base-cost spells is you get extra effects that aren't available at lower powers, not that you get extra raw damage above and beyond the extra aether cost. But the "benefit" of 1 AET isn't linear--the equivalent of 5th level spells costs 12 AET base, where "4ths" are only 8 AET, compared to 1sts (usually 2 AET) vs 2nds (usually 3 AET). I'm 100% ok with spells being worse at single target damage than weapons. They're exponentially better at AoEs and condition application. And hard to heal with a weapon (not impossible, I'm contemplating a "medic" rogue subclass).

But yeah, AET costs need more tuning.

[GeneralVryth]

1. Yeah. It's fuzzy. But I'm not going for a hard definition, because there's just way too many variations. I'm not going for hard balance, just no obvious 'x is dominated by y due to cost' or "X costs so much it never gets used" exploits. I definitely need to do more tuning here though. A prototype is bumping up the cost of Action Surge by one and adding 1 STA costs to a couple of the weapon properties extra attacks. And cutting down the cost of Deathblow by 1.

2. Because it's not limited to horizontal movement. As long as there's a place you can get to within your movement that doesn't require going through keyholes, you can just get there. Need to cross a 20-ft gap? Flash Step. Need to cross a 50 ft gap or climb to a ledge 50 ft up? Dash and Flash Step. Etc.

3. Ideally, the "damage efficiency" of spells is going to be mostly constant. The benefit of bigger base-cost spells is you get extra effects that aren't available at lower powers, not that you get extra raw damage above and beyond the extra aether cost. But the "benefit" of 1 AET isn't linear--the equivalent of 5th level spells costs 12 AET base, where "4ths" are only 8 AET, compared to 1sts (usually 2 AET) vs 2nds (usually 3 AET). I'm 100% ok with spells being worse at single target damage than weapons. They're exponentially better at AoEs and condition application. And hard to heal with a weapon (not impossible, I'm contemplating a "medic" rogue subclass).

But yeah, AET costs need more tuning.

Re-numbering as needed.

1. I am not really advocating for a hard metric, just a rough approximation you can compare things to as you try to tune costs amongst each. Trying to build out a rough approximation is the first thing I go to when trying to assess resource costs/numbers. I think the following matches pretty closely with a lot of what you have already so it's a good reference (not intended to be a hard rule):
1 STA ~= 1 AET ~= 1 Attack ~= 6 to 10 damage (2 dice) against a single target, miss or no save for half
1 AET ~= 1 dice AOE that effects 2 to 3 targets on average, save for half
All values above opportunity cost.

2. Okay, I see what you are going for. It definitely needs a wording improvement. Is there anything to the idea of re-wording and re-flavoring it as kind of a "Force Jump"? That's the visual I get from your description now, and I think it's a clearer visual of what you are going for and should have the same mechanical result (though there is something to the idea of making it bonus movement as a bonus action, similar to the BG3 jump).

3. To get damage efficiency to be relatively constant per AET, then the damage per AET spent needs to be lienar relative to AET. Other effects growing with base AET cost makes the total effect nonlinear, which is fine, to a point. An interesting comparison would be Chain Lightning to an overcast Fireball. Assuming you follow my above note and Fireball is 1 AET per +1 dice for overcast, then a 13 AET Fireball does 14d6 ~49 damage, whereas Chain Lightning does 45 damage, both hit a similar number of targets but Chain Lightning has no chance of friendly fire. Chain Lightning might need to drop 1 AET in cost but overall that ends up being a decent vote for the above approximations. On the single target damage front, one thing I think it important to keep in mind is you have weakened (likely significantly) casters while buffing martials in your proposed system. So you may need to adjust martial supremacy in certain areas. The way I see it (admittedly having just looked over Arcanist and Armsmen closely) is:

Martials Get:
1. Higher health
2. Better armor
3. Better default attacks
4. Better single target damage

Casters Get:
1. Better AOE damage
2. Control spells
3. Buff spells

I am not sure if 4 for martials should remain true, and almost certainly not to the level seen in 5e, especially if casters would be trading their other advantages for it. Something to play with for sure.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Re-numbering as needed.

1. I am not really advocating for a hard metric, just a rough approximation you can compare things to as you try to tune costs amongst each. Trying to build out a rough approximation is the first thing I go to when trying to assess resource costs/numbers. I think the following matches pretty closely with a lot of what you have already so it's a good reference (not intended to be a hard rule):
1 STA ~= 1 AET ~= 1 Attack ~= 6 to 10 damage (2 dice) against a single target, miss or no save for half
1 AET ~= 1 dice AOE that effects 2 to 3 targets on average, save for half
All values above opportunity cost.

2. Okay, I see what you are going for. It definitely needs a wording improvement. Is there anything to the idea of re-wording and re-flavoring it as kind of a "Force Jump"? That's the visual I get from your description now, and I think it's a clearer visual of what you are going for and should have the same mechanical result (though there is something to the idea of making it bonus movement as a bonus action, similar to the BG3 jump).

3. To get damage efficiency to be relatively constant per AET, then the damage per AET spent needs to be lienar relative to AET. Other effects growing with base AET cost makes the total effect nonlinear, which is fine, to a point. An interesting comparison would be Chain Lightning to an overcast Fireball. Assuming you follow my above note and Fireball is 1 AET per +1 dice for overcast, then a 13 AET Fireball does 14d6 ~49 damage, whereas Chain Lightning does 45 damage, both hit a similar number of targets but Chain Lightning has no chance of friendly fire. Chain Lightning might need to drop 1 AET in cost but overall that ends up being a decent vote for the above approximations. On the single target damage front, one thing I think it important to keep in mind is you have weakened (likely significantly) casters while buffing martials in your proposed system. So you may need to adjust martial supremacy in certain areas. The way I see it (admittedly having just looked over Arcanist and Armsmen closely) is:

Martials Get:
1. Higher health
2. Better armor
3. Better default attacks
4. Better single target damage

Casters Get:
1. Better AOE damage
2. Control spells
3. Buff spells

I am not sure if 4 for martials should remain true, and almost certainly not to the level seen in 5e, especially if casters would be trading their other advantages for it. Something to play with for sure.

1. I'm fine with that as a rough metric.

2. Maybe...the visual I was going for was the 'I'm moving so fast it looks like I teleport and can "walk on air"' (minus the actual walking on air for extended periods of time) visual from a lot of anime. You blur, and then you're over there. So it's both a Force Jump and a "really really fast, so fast no one can react" move.

3. Casters also get their pick of Legendary Effects at higher levels, where martials don't. And those do a lot of wacky things and don't cost AET. As well as substantially better versatility on how they do things. I'd expect martials to have better ST damage, but not overwhelmingly better ST damage. Just like I'd expect casters to have better options for control/buff/aoe, not overwhemingly better ones.

And since the gap between casters and martials in stock 5e is already large, nerfing one and buffing the other is exactly what you should expect if you want balance. At least IMO.

[GeneralVryth]

1. Maybe...the visual I was going for was the 'I'm moving so fast it looks like I teleport and can "walk on air"' (minus the actual walking on air for extended periods of time) visual from a lot of anime. You blur, and then you're over there. So it's both a Force Jump and a "really really fast, so fast no one can react" move.

2. Casters also get their pick of Legendary Effects at higher levels, where martials don't. And those do a lot of wacky things and don't cost AET. As well as substantially better versatility on how they do things. I'd expect martials to have better ST damage, but not overwhelmingly better ST damage. Just like I'd expect casters to have better options for control/buff/aoe, not overwhemingly better ones.

And since the gap between casters and martials in stock 5e is already large, nerfing one and buffing the other is exactly what you should expect if you want balance. At least IMO.

Updating numbers.

1. I get what you are going for, but that kind blur or maybe "Flash" movement has a verisimilitude problem. If someone can move like that, why can't they attack faster? Or why do they have the same speed? At least that is what I start to wonder.

2. Fair points. Legendary Effects are something I will need to remember if looking at the higher level stuff closely as I keep forgetting them.

A collection of random thoughts as I was looking at stuff:

Deflect do you get to know die role?

Shield spell seems really bad as a spell. It has to be pre-cast for no effect and is only useful if you are out of STA.

Oathbound subclass ideas: Protector? Guardian? Avenger?
Oathbound has latex in LoH
Oathbound has latex in Improved Lay on Hands

Versatile Weapon Specialization is really weak compared to others.

Divine smite scales badly relative to AET cost (should probably be 1 dice per AET), all smite bonus effects probably cost too much

Armsmen should Action Surge cost STA? Maybe 2 STA for additional non-attack action, and 1 STA per added attack (max double current attacks)?

Why +Con to STA? Produces what can feel like a lot of STA at lower levels. Why no Stat to AET? Brawlers in particular probably have enough STA by level 3 to use Flurry of Blows (or another BA power) every round of combat (assuming average 6) between short rests.

I like your new True Strike.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Updating numbers.

1. I get what you are going for, but that kind blur or maybe "Flash" movement has a verisimilitude problem. If someone can move like that, why can't they attack faster? Or why do they have the same speed? At least that is what I start to wonder.

2. Fair points. Legendary Effects are something I will need to remember if looking at the higher level stuff closely as I keep forgetting them.

A collection of random thoughts as I was looking at stuff:

Deflect do you get to know die role?

Shield spell seems really bad as a spell. It has to be pre-cast for no effect and is only useful if you are out of STA.

Oathbound subclass ideas: Protector? Guardian? Avenger?
Oathbound has latex in LoH
Oathbound has latex in Improved Lay on Hands

Versatile Weapon Specialization is really weak compared to others.

Divine smite scales badly relative to AET cost (should probably be 1 dice per AET), all smite bonus effects probably cost too much

Armsmen should Action Surge cost STA? Maybe 2 STA for additional non-attack action, and 1 STA per added attack (max double current attacks)?

Why +Con to STA? Produces what can feel like a lot of STA at lower levels. Why no Stat to AET? Brawlers in particular probably have enough STA by level 3 to use Flurry of Blows (or another BA power) every round of combat (assuming average 6) between short rests.

I like your new True Strike.

1. I'd assume they can...that's why they get 4 attacks while everyone else is stuck at 2. But maybe?

2. Yeah. They're mostly just the high level spells, or some of them. But reworked. Meteor swarm got a huge boost. And they're available in two chunks, instead of 4.

Deflect: Roll when you're attacked. I think? I forget. But if the attack misses, you get to smack back for free.

Shield...yeah. Probably.

Oathbound & latex...oops. I need to do careful search for all that stuff. I know I want an "avenger" subclass, not sure about the others. Maybe a quite support-focused one?

Versatile--eyah. I can see that.

Action Surge...I though it did? Currently it's at 3 STA for an extra action. Which is overcosted for a low-level Attack, but...maybe?

Hmm. Yeah, About STA + CON...I wanted the pure martials to have lots of extra STA compared to half-casters/full-casters. But numbers aren't right. As for AET...I think I'd rather do recharge mechanics? Like...get X (2*casting mod?) back on a short rest?

Thanks! (about true strike). I figured I was going to make it best for the half-casters (ie gish types), so having it be a cantrip was kinda odd. But the old effect just sucked.

[GeneralVryth]

1. I'd assume they can...that's why they get 4 attacks while everyone else is stuck at 2. But maybe?

2. Deflect: Roll when you're attacked. I think? I forget. But if the attack misses, you get to smack back for free.

3. Shield...yeah. Probably.

4. Oathbound & latex...oops. I need to do careful search for all that stuff. I know I want an "avenger" subclass, not sure about the others. Maybe a quite support-focused one?

5. Versatile--eyah. I can see that.

6. Action Surge...I though it did? Currently it's at 3 STA for an extra action. Which is overcosted for a low-level Attack, but...maybe?

7. Hmm. Yeah, About STA + CON...I wanted the pure martials to have lots of extra STA compared to half-casters/full-casters. But numbers aren't right. As for AET...I think I'd rather do recharge mechanics? Like...get X (2*casting mod?) back on a short rest?

8. Thanks! (about true strike). I figured I was going to make it best for the half-casters (ie gish types), so having it be a cantrip was kinda odd. But the old effect just sucked.

1. I get the 4 attack point, also Action Surge. I am not sure anymore. My instinct is Force Jump is a better aesthetic, but that could easily be my own bias. Ultimately as long as the effect and cost are clear, that's what matters.

2. The rules say you have to use deflect before knowing the result, but it doesn't mention anything about it being declared before or after the dice role, or whether you know the role (not the result). This is a pretty important distinction because Deflect only effects 1 attack, and you only get the bonus attack when you create a miss, you need to be confident about its usage as burning 2 STA and your reaction is a lot for no no effect. There is also the thought of how often does it just get used for a free attack and not even helping prevent an attack?

3. Would a simple solution be have it give +1 AC and it can't be used with a physical Shield? It makes it less AC than Shield of Faith, but you can block MM and you get the spending AET option.

4. Isn't something like a Protector Oathbound already a kind of support? Also just based off the Oathbound concept that seems to slot in naturally for characters like loyal bodyguards. What mechanical support effects are you thinking of? as that would quickly help narrow down the theme of a support Oathbound.

5. I stated in a different thread that the real world advantage of something like a versatile weapon is being able to quickly trade off between power and defense. Maybe Versatile specialization should be something like, "When you are wielding a versatile by itself (without a shield, weapon, or other item in your off hand), you get +1 on attack rolls with the weapon, and +1 AC. When attacking with the weapon you can take a -2 penalty to your AC until the start of your next turn to add your proficiency bonus to damage dealt until the start of your next turn." The net effect is you can choose between +1 Atk and +1 AC or +1 Atk, -1 AC, and +Prof Dmg. Playing in to the versatile nature.

6. More importantly I think 3 STA is overcosted for an action that isn't Attack or casting a spell. Just spitballing, what if it was 2 STA, and it gave you a non-Attack action and increased the attacks of your Attack action by 1? That way it becomes less about a brutal alpha strike and becomes more a utility burst, while providing attack benefit?

7. I am not actually sure if it's too much or not, because it's what powers Deflect and that is clearly designed to be more of a core defensive ability. But that only works if it is well balanced so it's good but not so good you only want to use it. Hence my question above. On the AET front, since they are more or less spell points you might find this interesting:

1 4
2 6
3 14
4 17
5 27
6 32
7 38
8 44
9 57
10 64
11 64
12 64
13 64
14 64
15 64
16 64
17 64
18 71
19 80
20 90


That's the spell point progression for full casters in 5e if you remove the 6+ level spell slots. I wonder if there is something to making the AET progression less linear, as it would make the Legendary Effects less of a spike when the casters start getting them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

1. I get the 4 attack point, also Action Surge. I am not sure anymore. My instinct is Force Jump is a better aesthetic, but that could easily be my own bias. Ultimately as long as the effect and cost are clear, that's what matters.

2. The rules say you have to use deflect before knowing the result, but it doesn't mention anything about it being declared before or after the dice role, or whether you know the role (not the result). This is a pretty important distinction because Deflect only effects 1 attack, and you only get the bonus attack when you create a miss, you need to be confident about its usage as burning 2 STA and your reaction is a lot for no no effect. There is also the thought of how often does it just get used for a free attack and not even helping prevent an attack?

3. Would a simple solution be have it give +1 AC and it can't be used with a physical Shield? It makes it less AC than Shield of Faith, but you can block MM and you get the spending AET option.

4. Isn't something like a Protector Oathbound already a kind of support? Also just based off the Oathbound concept that seems to slot in naturally for characters like loyal bodyguards. What mechanical support effects are you thinking of? as that would quickly help narrow down the theme of a support Oathbound.

5. I stated in a different thread that the real world advantage of something like a versatile weapon is being able to quickly trade off between power and defense. Maybe Versatile specialization should be something like, "When you are wielding a versatile by itself (without a shield, weapon, or other item in your off hand), you get +1 on attack rolls with the weapon, and +1 AC. When attacking with the weapon you can take a -2 penalty to your AC until the start of your next turn to add your proficiency bonus to damage dealt until the start of your next turn." The net effect is you can choose between +1 Atk and +1 AC or +1 Atk, -1 AC, and +Prof Dmg. Playing in to the versatile nature.

6. More importantly I think 3 STA is overcosted for an action that isn't Attack or casting a spell. Just spitballing, what if it was 2 STA, and it gave you a non-Attack action and increased the attacks of your Attack action by 1? That way it becomes less about a brutal alpha strike and becomes more a utility burst, while providing attack benefit?

7. I am not actually sure if it's too much or not, because it's what powers Deflect and that is clearly designed to be more of a core defensive ability. But that only works if it is well balanced so it's good but not so good you only want to use it. Hence my question above. On the AET front, since they are more or less spell points you might find this interesting:

That's the spell point progression for full casters in 5e if you remove the 6+ level spell slots. I wonder if there is something to making the AET progression less linear, as it would make the Legendary Effects less of a spike when the casters start getting them.

2. Ah. If it's before knowing the result, then my standard (and I should be more clear) is that you generally see the rolls. I roll in the open for my games. One note is that masterwork armor (which is expensive but not out of reach or magical, although some magical armor is masterwork) drops the cost in half for medium/heavy armor.

3. I was thinking actually of going towards more of a "creates a ward, like the abjurer's one, that protects you from concentration checks as long as it lasts". And then a higher-level one that creates a bubble around you that eats damage for a group. I really want to stay away from boosts to AC, especially stacking ones.

4. As I see it, the current one (Devotion) is a balanced, "good guy" oathbound. Oathbound are more toward the support end anyway naturally. Avenger would be more offensive, and then maybe a Protector (tanky/sticky) and a ???? (more focused on buffing/healing).

5. I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it. I might just remove the whole versatile thing entirely, including the base property. It's just not something that has good resonance for me. Dunno.

6. Yeah. That one's hard to balance. What you're proposing, to be clear, is "you can take an additional action as long as it's not the Attack action; if you take the Attack action on this turn, you can make an additional attack with it?" (Ie they have to choose N+1 attacks OR two non-attack actions?) That's an idea. I'll think about it.

7. I'm actually trying to tone down the resource progression of casters. Quite a lot. Especially their rate of growth. That nonlinearity, combined with the non-linear growth of power of individual spells, is exactly why casters are so "quadratic" (it's actually more like L^4 once you sit down and look at it). And that irks me, because it inherently breaks stuff. I'm going for roughly logarithmic overall power growth. Fast at first, then slowing down and becoming more horizontal at higher levels. Legendary Effects are 1x/day each, and most full casters will know 5 of them total. They don't cost AET and are really really hard to stop (their AET-cost equivalent for things like dispelling and countering is fixed at 5+level).

[stoutstien]

For versatile weapon mastery you could get a bonus to your first attack if you are wielding only that weapon vs a target due to the unpredictability of being one or two handed attacks?

For second wind it wouldn't be the worst Idea to have a line for when somebody wants to dump their sta prior to a rest into this healing to enhance the normal healing from said rest rather than it just spamming it.

[Notafish]

My 2cp/select first impressions. I have not done a systematic read-through; I'm mostly just poking around the html documents right now.


This is very impressive and well-thought-out. I especially like the clarity in the rule descriptions and the meta-commentary on the design intent behind many changes and rules, as well as the way your "magic all the way down" approach to worldbuilding is explained in the introductions


I love the Arcanist class compared to vanilla 5e's sorcerers and wizards.



I also like the change to spellcasting that seems to make all casters essentially work off of spells prepared.
Since I think this change applies to all casters, it is confusing that some class tables mention "spells known" as opposed to simply "spells", which is confusing.


Also, the "Book Mage" heading on the html document is one level lower than I think it should be (h4 instead of h3).




I like the idea of having more mechanical variation between weapons, but I don't really like the Battering property, given that AC is still an amalgamation of dexterity and armor thickness. Making the damage-on-miss scale with proficiency rather than Strength also feels a little wacky in that it might make wielding a battering weapon an appealing option for characters dumping physical ability scores.


I might struggle to teach/use the STA and AET systems with my usual groups and would likely need to provide some custom reference materials to remind folks of their options.


When you spend AET to Focus, does this only apply to checks where you have Proficiency already?


Like I said above, I like a lot of this, but even if I don't wind up running a game with this system, I absolutely plan to reference the XP/Advancement chart in the future. At the very least.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My 2cp/select first impressions. I have not done a systematic read-through; I'm mostly just poking around the html documents right now.


1. This is very impressive and well-thought-out. I especially like the clarity in the rule descriptions and the meta-commentary on the design intent behind many changes and rules, as well as the way your "magic all the way down" approach to worldbuilding is explained in the introductions


2. I love the Arcanist class compared to vanilla 5e's sorcerers and wizards.



3. I also like the change to spellcasting that seems to make all casters essentially work off of spells prepared.
Since I think this change applies to all casters, it is confusing that some class tables mention "spells known" as opposed to simply "spells", which is confusing.


4. Also, the "Book Mage" heading on the html document is one level lower than I think it should be (h4 instead of h3).




5. I like the idea of having more mechanical variation between weapons, but I don't really like the Battering property, given that AC is still an amalgamation of dexterity and armor thickness. Making the damage-on-miss scale with proficiency rather than Strength also feels a little wacky in that it might make wielding a battering weapon an appealing option for characters dumping physical ability scores.


6. I might struggle to teach/use the STA and AET systems with my usual groups and would likely need to provide some custom reference materials to remind folks of their options.


7. When you spend AET to Focus, does this only apply to checks where you have Proficiency already?


8. Like I said above, I like a lot of this, but even if I don't wind up running a game with this system, I absolutely plan to reference the XP/Advancement chart in the future. At the very least.


1: thanks! One of my big intents was to be more explicit about my underlying assumptions. Because I think 5e doesn't do a good job in doing so, which makes a bit of a mess.
2. Yay! That one I've been worried about. Anything in particular you like?
3. Yeah, they're all "spells prepared", kinda cleric style. Because teaching people the whole known/prepared/sorta-prepared distinction got really old, really fast.
3a. I do need to clean that up.
4. Oops. The heading styles are kinda all over the place in a lot of places, I think.
5. That's a decent idea (STR not proficiency). I'll consider it. Thanks! Battering is a rip-off of one of 4e's features. The idea is that you hit so hard that even on a notional miss (like a deflection/parry), you still hurt people. I could make it more fiddly (ie miss but only because of armor, rather than dex), but I'd rather not.
6. Generally, AET and STA are spent on
a) class features
b) skill tricks
c) the four "generic" actions.

What particularly is confusing? Can I word it/explain it better? Given time, I may make a basic chart...

7. Both Focus and Exert apply to any check that uses the appropriate ability score. The idea is that you can choose to succeed (or at least drastically increase your chances of success)...at a resource cost. So if you don't have proficiency, you have proficiency for that check. If you do have proficiency, you have expertise. If you have expertise, you have 3x proficiency.

8. That's actually something I've been running in my regular 5e games for a while now. I've found that stabilizing at 1 level/4 sessions is just about right for me. I tried stabilizing at 3 sessions, but that was too fast. Hard to learn your character and do meaningful things in that window.

[Notafish]

2. Yay! That one I've been worried about. Anything in particular you like?
6. Generally, AET and STA are spent on
a) class features
b) skill tricks
c) the four "generic" actions.
What particularly is confusing? Can I word it/explain it better? Given time, I may make a basic chart...


2. (Arcanists) - I like the shared access to metamagic regardless of origin, and I think that using fungible points (AET, MP, Ki, what have you) (or memorized repeatable things like your incantations) is easier to map to imaginary spellcasting, outside of casting using countable Things like scrolls or cards. The ability to choose between a few big effects (that cap out at "impressive" rather than "worldbreaking") or lots of smaller options also seems more fun to me than expending spell slots.
I do admit that it seems a bit odd for the Book Mage to be able to swap the spells in their spellbook, but it is not immersion-breaking for me - I just figure the access to the extra reference material lets them have more spells prepared. Also, on second read-through, I noticed that the Book Mage does not have any specific Ritual/Incantation-related features, but they do have a note about getting access to "Ritual Caster". I do think that it would be nice to have that option - If I were playing a Book Mage, could I have the option to trade an extra prepared spell for an Incantation of appropriate level scribed into the spellbook?

6. (AET and STA) - for myself, I found a need to check several times what the refresh rate (short vs. long rest) was for the different resources. STA on Short rest, AET on Long rest is easy enough to memorize, but I can imagine needing an end-of-rest sequence to make sure the appropriate resources were spent or refreshed, as well as a basic reference for the action options and costs (and some "spell cards" for referencing the costs/effects of features, spells, and skill tricks, but that's no different from what I want for other WotC DnD). In the teach, I'd probably want to present some recommendations for easing the strain of book-keeping, just to emphasize the shift from counting slots and feature uses to tallying points. All characters needing to track HP, STA, and AET is just complex enough that I might try rigging up a player reference sheet rather than trusting everyone to read the rules and coming up with a tracking system on their own.

[PhoenixPhyre]

2. (Arcanists) - I like the shared access to metamagic regardless of origin, and I think that using fungible points (AET, MP, Ki, what have you) (or memorized repeatable things like your incantations) is easier to map to imaginary spellcasting, outside of casting using countable Things like scrolls or cards. The ability to choose between a few big effects (that cap out at "impressive" rather than "worldbreaking") or lots of smaller options also seems more fun to me than expending spell slots.
I do admit that it seems a bit odd for the Book Mage to be able to swap the spells in their spellbook, but it is not immersion-breaking for me - I just figure the access to the extra reference material lets them have more spells prepared. Also, on second read-through, I noticed that the Book Mage does not have any specific Ritual/Incantation-related features, but they do have a note about getting access to "Ritual Caster". I do think that it would be nice to have that option - If I were playing a Book Mage, could I have the option to trade an extra prepared spell for an Incantation of appropriate level scribed into the spellbook?

6. (AET and STA) - for myself, I found a need to check several times what the refresh rate (short vs. long rest) was for the different resources. STA on Short rest, AET on Long rest is easy enough to memorize, but I can imagine needing an end-of-rest sequence to make sure the appropriate resources were spent or refreshed, as well as a basic reference for the action options and costs (and some "spell cards" for referencing the costs/effects of features, spells, and skill tricks, but that's no different from what I want for other WotC DnD). In the teach, I'd probably want to present some recommendations for easing the strain of book-keeping, just to emphasize the shift from counting slots and feature uses to tallying points. All characters needing to track HP, STA, and AET is just complex enough that I might try rigging up a player reference sheet rather than trusting everyone to read the rules and coming up with a tracking system on their own.

2. Hmm...I thought I'd given the Book Mage some incantation features...probably an oversight. I'd personally be fine with trading one prepared spell for a similar-strength incantation.

6. Yeah, that makes sense. I think having a good character sheet with the recharges in the boxes would go a long way. I'm horrible at graphic design for such things, so I've been putting off making such a sheet.

[PhoenixPhyre]

How does this sound for shield:

Shield
2 AET, 1 action, self, VS, 10 minutes.

An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. This barrier has 10 hit points. Whenever you would take damage and the barrier is active, the barrier takes the damage instead, reducing its hit points. If the barrier absorbs all the damage, you do not need to make Concentration saves if you are concentrating on a spell or ability. You take any damage in excess of the barrier's hit points, which provokes Concentration saves as normal. When the barrier is reduced to zero hit points, the spell ends.

In addition, you are immune to the magic missile spell as long as the barrier is active.

Overcast When you cast this spell using more than 2 AET, the barrier's hit points increase by 5 for every additional AET spent.

Effectively, it's THP but better (stacks with THP, but prevents losing concentration). Limited amounts though. Not sure how much of a barrier is
a) enough that it's worth casting but
b) not so much that it's a "yup, always going to have that up" or "must pick" spell.

[stoutstien]

How does this sound for shield:

Shield
2 AET, 1 action, self, VS, 10 minutes.

An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. This barrier has 10 hit points. Whenever you would take damage and the barrier is active, the barrier takes the damage instead, reducing its hit points. If the barrier absorbs all the damage, you do not need to make Concentration saves if you are concentrating on a spell or ability. You take any damage in excess of the barrier's hit points, which provokes Concentration saves as normal. When the barrier is reduced to zero hit points, the spell ends.

In addition, you are immune to the magic missile spell as long as the barrier is active.

Overcast When you cast this spell using more than 2 AET, the barrier's hit points increase by 5 for every additional AET spent.

Effectively, it's THP but better (stacks with THP, but prevents losing concentration). Limited amounts though. Not sure how much of a barrier is
a) enough that it's worth casting but
b) not so much that it's a "yup, always going to have that up" or "must pick" spell.

Numbers would need adjusting but I think it would work. Scaling anything that deals directly with HP is difficult. Although within your changes anything that protects concentration is much more difficult to obtain so who knows.

I would also add a line about how any type of damage mitigation that you might have doesn't affect this barrier. For example if you have fire resistance and get hit by a fireball the barrier doesn't have fire resistance.

[PhoenixPhyre]

v1.1 is now released!

new PDF @ https://github.com/bentomhall/nih-system/releases/download/v1.1.0/NIH.1.1.pdf

Many small changes. Primary large ones:

Added html version: https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/index.html, including lots of prettification.
Lotsa cleanup on formatting and stupid mistakes.
Nets are now equipment, not weapons, and require saves, not attacks.
Added "exotic ranged weapons", which subsumes all the thrown, attack-based consumables. Reworked their effects.
Rogue now has 2 subclasses--the very magical Shadowdancer and the less magical Trickster.

[stoutstien]

Looking good. Compiling feedback. Got distracted with CWN release and table wanted to do a few one shots of that before going back to yours.

[Yakk]

The "tiers" via spell levels can be used as an organizing principle.

When spells cost 1 to 15 units, that means you have 15 tiers. If you replaced it with 5 tiers costing 1, 3, 5, 9 and 15, both players *and designers* have less categories to worry about.

A secondary advantage, from my perspective, is you can co-measure another game feature you have, namely skill tricks. You have 4 categories of skill tricks.

Imagine 5 tiers of both, gated:
Tier 1: L 1-3 (or 4 to maintain pattern of 4 levels of each, but I sort of like 3).
Tier 2: L 4-8
Tier 3: L 9-12
Tier 4: L 13-16
Tier 5: L 17-20

All that this asks of you is that when you design spell power levels, you *round them*, or you fit them into a wider bucket. And because 14 vs 15 unit of power is a kind of false precision, this should improve your ability to design, and improve the ability for people to learn your design.

You can use adjectives for the 5 tiers, but I'm uncertain why. With 2 systems with 5 levels in each, designed to unlock at similar levels, and with your player base accustomed to D&D (which they will be) spells, it should be clear.

Under this, you'd have 5 levels of Skill Tricks, and 5 levels of Spells. And it is mostly a relabelling.

Keeping the Aether at the core, upcasting would still be just providing more Aether to your spell.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The "tiers" via spell levels can be used as an organizing principle.

When spells cost 1 to 15 units, that means you have 15 tiers. If you replaced it with 5 tiers costing 1, 3, 5, 9 and 15, both players *and designers* have less categories to worry about.

A secondary advantage, from my perspective, is you can co-measure another game feature you have, namely skill tricks. You have 4 categories of skill tricks.

Imagine 5 tiers of both, gated:
Tier 1: L 1-3 (or 4 to maintain pattern of 4 levels of each, but I sort of like 3).
Tier 2: L 4-8
Tier 3: L 9-12
Tier 4: L 13-16
Tier 5: L 17-20

All that this asks of you is that when you design spell power levels, you *round them*, or you fit them into a wider bucket. And because 14 vs 15 unit of power is a kind of false precision, this should improve your ability to design, and improve the ability for people to learn your design.

You can use adjectives for the 5 tiers, but I'm uncertain why. With 2 systems with 5 levels in each, designed to unlock at similar levels, and with your player base accustomed to D&D (which they will be) spells, it should be clear.

Under this, you'd have 5 levels of Skill Tricks, and 5 levels of Spells. And it is mostly a relabelling.

Keeping the Aether at the core, upcasting would still be just providing more Aether to your spell.

Strong disagree. It's exactly the rounding process that screws everything up. Having more flexibility in spells means that you can tune those much more freely to actually have a system that works, unlike D&D spellcasting, which is broken on all levels. Spell "levels" is a horribly horribly confusing, horrible design from the get go because it means you have to shove things into ill-fitting bins.

Similar things should be similar. Different things should be different, because forcing them into the same bins causes everything to break. Or at least makes things muddy. In principle, I'd expect a "fully featured" system to have spells and abilities at every aether cost between 0 and 15+

Sorry, but saying I should go back to spell levels and have them come on at specific points is exactly the kind of thing that counts as "you should scrap this and do something else entirely." (AKA not a piece of useful feedback IMO). It's a fundamental refactor of the entire thing, and involves diving back into the mud that is at the core of my dissatisfaction with D&D spellcasting.

And I question the idea that it's harder to write down "this spell costs 5 and that one costs 7" compared to having fewer buckets. Each spell is its own thing. You already have many other packets of abilities that cost varying amounts, so tying everything to 5 fixed numbers means that the whole aether concept is unnecessary.

[Yakk]

Monsters:

I find making monsters recharge at the end of their turns is better than at the start of their turn.

So Breath Weapon (Recharge 56) means that at the end of its turn, the players get a chance to learn "oh, it is inhaling to breathe fire again".

You could attach a perception DC to it, but I dislike the extra rolling.

A second rule is that Legendary Actions if they are attack rolls have Advantage against the enemy who just went, and if they impose saving throws those saving throws are at Disadvantage. You can instead change it to disadvantage IF NOT the enemy who just went.

The goal is to provide a strong mechanical incentive for Legendary actions to be reactive and spread out, instead of focused (which D&D-esque combat engine strongly encourages). It also means that team PC has a maximum amount of time to help with the consequences of Legendary actions. (Really, the optimal use of legendary actions is to knock a PC out of combat for that turn BEFORE that PC goes; targetting the PC that just went is the worst option. By rewarding it mechanically, we take the otherwise worst option and make it fun, and improve the dynamics of combat as "the PC attacks the dragon", "the dragon swats the PC" is great dynamics.)

...

CR calcuation. If you are redoing CR, you might as well make it Level instead of CR based.

With level based, you add up the PCs levels (possibly fudged, like "# of PCs plus total PC levels") and you compare it to the sum of monsters levels (plus 1/2 the number of monsters), instead of comparing CR to (PC levels/4) or whatever.

Offensive Level = DPR/3 - 1
A 3 DPR creature has an offensive level of 0. (CR 0 to 1/8)
A 6 DPR creature has an offensive level of 1. (CR 1/2 ish)
A 9 DPR creature has an offensive level of 2. (low CR 1)
A 12 DPR creature has an offfensive level of 3. This is roughly CR 1
So a 123 DPR creature has an offensive level of 40 (CR 20).

Now, accuracy also contributes. Because I want proficiency bonus to be injected *at the end* of the system, we should subtract it out and only care about your *offensive stat modifier*(s). The expected offensive stat modifier goes from +0 to +3 in your system (over 40-ish levels), and 2 points of it are worth a full offensive CR.

So over 40-ish levels, we get +1.5 to difficulty rating from offensive stat, or like 4% impact. We'll have to handle it to properly zero the scale, but on a per-level basis it is noise.

Note that the general map for offensive CR to level is roughly CR*2+1, with tiny differences; your chart is similar enough to the DMG.

For defensive CR, you'll note that it is for the most part (HP/15-1.5); percentage wise there is error, but it isn't that large.

Using Level = CR*2+1, if CR=(HP/15-1.5) then Level = (HP/15-1.5)*2+1 = HP/7.5 -2 as a first approximation.

AC is bigger here, and we don't use proficiency on AC. It goes up by 6 to 7 (depending on what we use as our starting point) over 40-ish levels (20-ish CR), and is worth an impact of 3ish CR - 15%, quite substantial. We can use this to decrease the price of HP by 1/.85, or

Level = HP/9 + AC - 15

Plugging in level 10 we get 175 HP and 17 AC:

175/9 + 17-15 = 21.444, which is pretty close to the (CR*2+1) we are aiming for

The real trick at this point is to calibrate the "Level 1" point, especially if you want monsters to be additive (ie, throw X L1 monsters instead of 1 L20 monster). By the time you hit level 20, the DM will know "ok, the party is performing 50% over expectation".

There are linearity constraints here that are tricky.

Regardless, what this would do is that for a party of 4 L 8 PCs, throwing 4 L 8 monsters should have a known difficulty scale - and upping (or lowering) the monster levels a known effect. Ie, make the baseline assumption multiple monsters (roughly equal to number of PCs), and scale things from there. (This is 4e encounter building).

We then can look at elite (superior, "wider" monsters) and minion (weaker monsters, more numbers).

For elite, if you take a monster and give it 2x HP and +50% damage, the damage it does compared to two normal monsters (where the PCs focus fire one down) over a fight is similar. In fact, (Nx HP) and (2+N)/2 x damage does this for an elite replacing N normal monsters.

Status effect shutdown is more effective against the elite. AOE against the swarm is more effective, but if you properly budget it that isn't a huge issue (a fireball that hits K creatures is worth (K+2)/2 times as much damage).

For status effect shutdown, something like legendary resists can be used. But I like the effect of legendary actions. So I would propose combining them.

When you take a legendary action, you can choose to shrug off an effect instead of taking the action. You make a saving throw with advantage against the effect, and on success end it.

Now, status effect shutdowns are still useful, as they consume monster legendary actions. Higher DCs are useful, because they give you a chance to require more than 1 save.

The power budget of legendary action also becomes clear -- 1/2 of the standard action power budget.

And we now get Elite monsters. An Elite(N) monster has Nx the HP of a normal monster, gets N legendary actions, with each Legendary action having a damage budget of 3/2 * (offensive level+1). Legendary Actions are used after a hostile creature's turn, and attacks on that hostile creature are at advantage for a Legendary Action, and saves against the Legendary Action are at disadvantage.

If a creature starts its turn with Legendary Actions, it can proceed to use any remaining ones to save against remaining effects. This is mainly useful if the creature is facing fewer foes than it has Legendary Actions.

An Level K Elite(N) monster is about as dangerous as N level K monsters.

...

We could use similar mechanics for minions. But I like using lower level monsters for that.

...

What remains is the non-linear problem. A level 20 monster (offensive and defensive) has almost 2x the HP and damage of a level 10 monster. Adding up monster levels doesn't quite work.

Ignoring AOEs and CC, the problem is a triangle sum. 5 monsters being focused fired down at a rate of 1/round deal 5*6/2=15 rounds of damage, while a 5x HP/DPR monster deals 25; if the first monster has a 50/50 chance to die before it goes, this becomes exactly half the damage that the bigger monster did. It is comparing the area of a triangle to a rectangle.

As you approach "everyone dies in one round", the damage of the 5 monsters approaches that of the bigger one: the triangle approximates being a rectangle. As you approach "it takes multiple rounds to kill each smaller monster", the total damage of the smaller monsters approaches 1/2 that of the larger one: the triangle becomes perfect.

Defensive level doesn't have this same issue. In fact, having too much defensive level is a slog - we want total defensive level (divided by average PC level) to measure how many PC rounds it takes for the monsters to drop, a real-life table time problem (and not a game balance one).

In essence, as the number of PCs increases, we want defensive level to go up *slower* (keeping total table time bounded) and offensive level go up *faster* (to compensate for focus fire and compensate for lower defensive level in terms of challenge) I think. At the same time, we want to keep the ceiling on per-monster offensive level from growing without bounds (if you look at the elite mechanics, that does it).

For minions, if we have a monster at 1/2 PC level its effective defensive level is 1/2, but its offensive level is somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 what it claims, as half of them won't last long enough to do its damage budget over a fight.

Should we compare monster defensive level to PC total offensive level to figure out how splattable they are, and use that? Or is there a shortcut?

Anyhow, I don't know if you care about this kind of thinking. Some people consider it a waste, because 5e encounter building and fudging it is usually enough. So I'll stop.