PhoenixPhyre
2023-10-29, 10:31 PM
NIH is my under-development system, a fork and substantial rewrite of 5e D&D. The web version can be found at my website. (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/index.html)
I've gotten to the point where I'm finally creating characters and running them through "adventuring days" (doing combat only right now due to the difficulties in doing solo non-combat), keeping track both of how things feel and more numerical data. So far, I've run 2 different 4-PC parties through a level 3 set of fights, using unmodified 5e monsters (because those actually map pretty well). I'm not going to present all the data, just some key points.
1. A single knight (5e CR 3, NIH offense:defense ratings of 3:4). Starts at 30' (randomly rolled as 1d6 x10 ft), otherwise white room.
2. 6 bandits (5e CR 1/8, NIH o:d 1/4:1/8). Start with the party bunched up at the entrance to a large church, with the enemies scattered in plenty of cover (pillars, sarcophagi, etc).
Short Rest
3. 1 ghoul (5e CR 1, 2:1/2), 4 zombies (CR 1/4, 1/4:1/4), 2 skeletons (1/4, 1/4:1/8). Party bunched up around a fountain, skeletons come from outlying huts (~30 ft away), ghoul not immediately visible behind door (30 ft away), zombies come up within 10 ft out of graves.
4. 1 red dragon wyrmling (5e CR 4, 4:5), 2 cultists (CR 1/8, 1/8:1/8). Party starts in doorway ~40 ft from RDW, with cultists on either side. Some cover, inside church (same map as fight 3, just inside where the ghoul came from).
Characters with links have sample characters showing their entire build. These are a tiny bit outdated for some, since I discovered some errors (mostly in character building, like counting HP/spells/etc) before playtesting and haven't updated the online version.
Party 1
* Alakabeth (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/alakabeth.html), dwarven life priest (similar to a cleric, but light armor and no shields, plus "miracles" and replacing "channel divinity" with "channel healing/destructive energy" (non-targeted, Point blank heal or damage).
* Barkor (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/barkor.html), silver dragonborn defender armsman (fighter, sort of). Axe and shield.
* Charleze (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/charleze.html), halfling trickster rogue. Mostly ranged in these fights.
* Delenor (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/delenor.html), gwerin (high elf, roughly) book-mage arcanist (wizard, sort of).
Party 2
* Furach, orc oathbound of devotion (paladin, basically). Greatsword.
* Iaan, ihmisi (wood elf, basically) monster-slayer ranger (replaces the hunter ranger, basically).
* Simon (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/simon.html), human spellblade of inspiration. Pseudo bard.
* Ssa Tor (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/ssa-tor.html), ophidian (yuan-ti pureblood, sort of) warlock of destruction. NB: this class has radically changed.
Takeaways:
1. The deflect action (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/core-system.html#action-deflect) saved a lot of bacon. Expensive for the non-full-martials, but worth it.
1a. The parrying weapon property (allows you to counter attack when you deflect on hit or miss instead of just miss) and the parrying weapon specialization (counter attack at advantage) isn't very worth it, however. Since you can deflect after you see the rolls, you're unlikely to use it on a miss. Planning to change this to not using reaction (but limited to once per round) for the property and then only being limited to once per turn for the specialization. Still gonna suck down stamina until you have masterwork armor, but...
2. Biggest: The way I had Channel Healing Energy (1 AET for 1d6 healing in a 30' radius, +1d6/additional AET) was busted-strong. It single-handedly carried party 1 through a lot of stuff in conjunction with the life priest healing bonus. For now, I've doubled the cost and halved the scaling (now 2 to cast for 1d6 + 1d6/2 additional). Will probably need retest.
3. Fight 4 was quite swingy, as expected. Party 1 basically all went before the dragon, so Barkor was able to get in its face and the rest spread out and ranged-nuked it. Party 2...most of them went after and were still bunched up and it got to them and breathed, taking them all down even if they'd have been at full HP, because all of them failed the save. Thankfully Simon had some healing and managed to get people up and they pulled it off...but it was a very near-run thing. Ssa tor only survived because he got a lucky nat 20 on a death save and could scoot away.
4. Requiring a save for the spell-blade Aether Manipulation...kinda sucks. He only landed one of them, right at the end and it never actually got used. Gonna have to rethink that.
5. (meta) Actually going through the exercise of building characters at a bunch of levels showed lots of things that were screwy. For example, the inspiration spellblade had this feature at level 7 that let them forgo their "extra attack replacement" in order to cast a beneficial spell targeting an ally (not themselves) as a bonus action. But their spell lists didn't actually include any valid spells for that feature...That got changed to instead provide THP for an ally.
6. This kind of solo playtesting is really slow, since I have to actually write down all the details of what happened to track the numbers.
7. Rogues and Rangers, at this level, were the real killer damage dealers. In large part because
7a. Both had a constant source of extra damage (sneak attack and Favored Foe + colossus slayer).
7b. Both had ways of getting advantage fairly frequently (BA stealth and true strike[1] respectively), so they hit much more frequently.
7c. Both stayed at range.
8. I'd botched spell allocations. Spellblades had way too many (equal to a full caster, roughly), oathbound and rangers too few. Standardized on 1/2 level spells prepped (everyone prepares from full list), plus 10 total "fixed" spells from oath/focus/etc. This leaves priests with the fewest spells (tied with non-book arcanists), but they have other things they do.
[1] this has been massively buffed, but now costs aether.
I've gotten to the point where I'm finally creating characters and running them through "adventuring days" (doing combat only right now due to the difficulties in doing solo non-combat), keeping track both of how things feel and more numerical data. So far, I've run 2 different 4-PC parties through a level 3 set of fights, using unmodified 5e monsters (because those actually map pretty well). I'm not going to present all the data, just some key points.
1. A single knight (5e CR 3, NIH offense:defense ratings of 3:4). Starts at 30' (randomly rolled as 1d6 x10 ft), otherwise white room.
2. 6 bandits (5e CR 1/8, NIH o:d 1/4:1/8). Start with the party bunched up at the entrance to a large church, with the enemies scattered in plenty of cover (pillars, sarcophagi, etc).
Short Rest
3. 1 ghoul (5e CR 1, 2:1/2), 4 zombies (CR 1/4, 1/4:1/4), 2 skeletons (1/4, 1/4:1/8). Party bunched up around a fountain, skeletons come from outlying huts (~30 ft away), ghoul not immediately visible behind door (30 ft away), zombies come up within 10 ft out of graves.
4. 1 red dragon wyrmling (5e CR 4, 4:5), 2 cultists (CR 1/8, 1/8:1/8). Party starts in doorway ~40 ft from RDW, with cultists on either side. Some cover, inside church (same map as fight 3, just inside where the ghoul came from).
Characters with links have sample characters showing their entire build. These are a tiny bit outdated for some, since I discovered some errors (mostly in character building, like counting HP/spells/etc) before playtesting and haven't updated the online version.
Party 1
* Alakabeth (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/alakabeth.html), dwarven life priest (similar to a cleric, but light armor and no shields, plus "miracles" and replacing "channel divinity" with "channel healing/destructive energy" (non-targeted, Point blank heal or damage).
* Barkor (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/barkor.html), silver dragonborn defender armsman (fighter, sort of). Axe and shield.
* Charleze (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/charleze.html), halfling trickster rogue. Mostly ranged in these fights.
* Delenor (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/delenor.html), gwerin (high elf, roughly) book-mage arcanist (wizard, sort of).
Party 2
* Furach, orc oathbound of devotion (paladin, basically). Greatsword.
* Iaan, ihmisi (wood elf, basically) monster-slayer ranger (replaces the hunter ranger, basically).
* Simon (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/simon.html), human spellblade of inspiration. Pseudo bard.
* Ssa Tor (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/classes/sample-characters/ssa-tor.html), ophidian (yuan-ti pureblood, sort of) warlock of destruction. NB: this class has radically changed.
Takeaways:
1. The deflect action (https://admiralbenbo.org/homebrew/nih/core-system.html#action-deflect) saved a lot of bacon. Expensive for the non-full-martials, but worth it.
1a. The parrying weapon property (allows you to counter attack when you deflect on hit or miss instead of just miss) and the parrying weapon specialization (counter attack at advantage) isn't very worth it, however. Since you can deflect after you see the rolls, you're unlikely to use it on a miss. Planning to change this to not using reaction (but limited to once per round) for the property and then only being limited to once per turn for the specialization. Still gonna suck down stamina until you have masterwork armor, but...
2. Biggest: The way I had Channel Healing Energy (1 AET for 1d6 healing in a 30' radius, +1d6/additional AET) was busted-strong. It single-handedly carried party 1 through a lot of stuff in conjunction with the life priest healing bonus. For now, I've doubled the cost and halved the scaling (now 2 to cast for 1d6 + 1d6/2 additional). Will probably need retest.
3. Fight 4 was quite swingy, as expected. Party 1 basically all went before the dragon, so Barkor was able to get in its face and the rest spread out and ranged-nuked it. Party 2...most of them went after and were still bunched up and it got to them and breathed, taking them all down even if they'd have been at full HP, because all of them failed the save. Thankfully Simon had some healing and managed to get people up and they pulled it off...but it was a very near-run thing. Ssa tor only survived because he got a lucky nat 20 on a death save and could scoot away.
4. Requiring a save for the spell-blade Aether Manipulation...kinda sucks. He only landed one of them, right at the end and it never actually got used. Gonna have to rethink that.
5. (meta) Actually going through the exercise of building characters at a bunch of levels showed lots of things that were screwy. For example, the inspiration spellblade had this feature at level 7 that let them forgo their "extra attack replacement" in order to cast a beneficial spell targeting an ally (not themselves) as a bonus action. But their spell lists didn't actually include any valid spells for that feature...That got changed to instead provide THP for an ally.
6. This kind of solo playtesting is really slow, since I have to actually write down all the details of what happened to track the numbers.
7. Rogues and Rangers, at this level, were the real killer damage dealers. In large part because
7a. Both had a constant source of extra damage (sneak attack and Favored Foe + colossus slayer).
7b. Both had ways of getting advantage fairly frequently (BA stealth and true strike[1] respectively), so they hit much more frequently.
7c. Both stayed at range.
8. I'd botched spell allocations. Spellblades had way too many (equal to a full caster, roughly), oathbound and rangers too few. Standardized on 1/2 level spells prepped (everyone prepares from full list), plus 10 total "fixed" spells from oath/focus/etc. This leaves priests with the fewest spells (tied with non-book arcanists), but they have other things they do.
[1] this has been massively buffed, but now costs aether.