Black Flag/Tales of the Valiant

[SouthpawSoldier]

So, since this is 5e-derived, seems the most suitable place for discussion of new system, as it's a 5.5-ish system that aims for backwards compatibility.

I backed the system on Kickstarter and received my PDFs last week. Ran a module for some folks, got some interesting feedback.

It's definitely a little more crunchy than vanilla 5e, but I feel it's good crunch, supporting player options rather than being overwhelming. Players said it lacked ease of access due to changes. YMMV on that.

Every class got a rework, some more than others. One element is Subclasses are now all on the same progression. Fighters are now similar to 3.5, getting more frequent "Improvements" (ASIs) and therefore more Talents (Feats). Talents feel INTERESTING this time around, actually adding "here's another thing you can do" instead of "more damage" or similar bumps.

Some new mechanics; Luck is a new currency mechanic that I talked about in another post.

Another interesting change is Rituals; they're now a separate category entirely, with each class having Ritual progression as a separate column in the table. Some Ritual-centric features and a Talent as well; Lore Bards at 7th level get the ability to cast a Ritual as an Action instead of normal casting time (once per Long Rest). Wizards can copy Ritual spells into their book just as they would normal spells.

Races and Backgrounds got reworked as well. Race is now split into Lineage and Heritage, with lineage being genetics, and heritage being your parent culture, each granting a few features. Gone are racial ability score modifiers*. Backgrounds replace Flaw, Bond, etc. with Adventuring Motivation, and Backgrounds now grant a Talent choice from a list, instead of a Feature. Makes it a little easier to mix and match what you want, I feel.

*Ability score generation has changed some. 4d6b3 is still a thing, but now you get +2 to one score 16 and under, and +1 to 17 and under; Array is also different, and Point Buy bank is 32 points.

All told, the feel is that this is a supplement for 5e, with a lot of elements for DMs to pick and choose to add to their games.

[Oramac]

I joined the kickstarter too, though I'm still making my way through the PDFs and I have not played a game using it yet.

Overall, though, I like it. There's some really good changes, and a few less-than-stellar changes. Most of the changes are good though, I think.

[paladinn]

I got ahold of a playtest copy a couple months back. Not sure how much has been changed, but I'm sure I'll find out. ToV seems like a middle ground between "vanilla" 5e and "D&D 2024", at least what we've seen of it. Definitely things to be gleaned; but I'm not sure how many will be eager to go all-in on it.

[Kane0]

Fighting styles still a bonus action to activate?

[SouthpawSoldier]

Fighting styles still a bonus action to activate?

Fighting styles are gone.

In this system, all weapons get Weapon Options; think Battlemaster maneuvers. These are typically Actions that replace a standard Attack.

Fighters at first level get to do them as a Bonus Action, and also get a set of Martial Actions (Aim, Guard, a few others) that can be used as a Bonus Action.

So, for example;

1st level Fighter wants to attack with a Longbow. They can use Bonus Action to Aim first, improving their to-hit. OR they can roll a regular Attack, and Bonus Action use the Pinning Shot Weapon Option that Longbows get.

[Kane0]

Hmm, still sounds like clutter to me

[SouthpawSoldier]

Hmm, still sounds like clutter to me

Can you expand on that? It isn't as simple as vanilla 5e, but it's not 3.5 levels of kludge, IME.

[Kane0]

Assuming the goal is to give martials more (combat) options, you have a couple ways to do it. The most basic approaches i'm aware of are:
- Replace [attack] with [alternative]
- Add [rider] to [attack]
Often with usage restrictions like the usual X/day setup, but in this case eating your bonus action.

Does [alternative] replace one attack like 5e's shove? If so, that's fine. There is precedent, and syncs well with things like extra attack and whatnot.
If not and it instead is a different action, then that's less great since you now can't link anything via the standard 'when you take the attack action', 'when you make an attack', etc.

Tying these to your bonus action does two things: Limits you to one per turn and restricts you from being able to use your bonus action to do anything else. I don't think either of those are desirable for variety nor balancing.

[SouthpawSoldier]

So, it might be how I'm explaining things that's the issue.

Weapon Options general rules have them replacing Attack action. Everyone gets these; clubs can Bash, arrows can Pin, axes can Hamstring, etc. regardless of wielder's class. These Options replace the damage the weapon would normally do.

Fighter specific rules let them use a Bonus Action instead, so can potentially do 2 Weapon Options per turn, or do one in addition to regular Attack. That's at 1st level. Like a damageless Multiattack, at 1st level, with no limit other than standard action economy.

They also get Martial Actions: each of these options matches a weapon category, (Ranged, Heavy, Light/TWF, Shield), and is an alternative use for Bonus Action.

At higher levels:

Limited Legendary Resistance OR ending conditions at the start of turn, no Save required

All of the Talents (Feats); like in 3.5, Fighters get a ton of Improvements, each of which can be used to add a Talent and therefore power or versatility to the character. A pure Fighter gets 8 of the 19 Martial Talents, in addition to the 1 from Background selection at character generation, and possibly an additional Talent if choosing Human Lineage. The Human Lineage Talent can be from any category; the Background talent is from a list of 3 thematically appropriate options for each Background.

Talents are balanced as half-Feats are currently; a player gets the choice between +2 to one ability, +1 to two abilities, or +1 to one ability and a Talent They are of enough benefit and interest that maxing out an Ability score first isn't the obvious choice like it is in vanilla 5e.

A sample Martial Talent from the SRD:

Weapon Discipline
Prerequisite: Proficiency with at Least One Martial Weapon
You seek perfection with a single weapon. Choose a simple or martial weapon (such as spear, heavy crossbow, or greataxe) you are proficient with. While wielding that weapon, you gain these benefits:

• You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with your chosen weapon.

• When you score a critical hit with your chosen weapon, you can roll one additional weapon damage die for damage.

• When you reduce a creature to 0 HP with your chosen weapon, you gain temporary hit points equal to your PB. These temporary hit points last for 1 minute or until expended.

The Weapon Master subclass gets features at 3rd, 7th, 11th, and 15th levels; these range from rerolling damage dice on attacks, adding damage to Weapon Options, new Stunts (like BM Maneuvers, these cost nothing to add onto attacks), and more. It's a combination of the BM Fighter and the Champion, also gaining expanded crits, and now adding riders to crits in addition to extra damage.

Sample Stunt from SRD:

Arcing Strike
Requires a Heavy Melee Weapon
When you deal damage with a heavy weapon wielded in both hands, you can also deal half the damage you dealt to a different target within reach that you can see. If the second target is an object, it takes the full damage instead. You can decide to use this after you know your damage roll.

The casting subclass gets to enchant their weapon; abilities allow summoning, granting it bonuses to attack and damage rolls. They also get to incorporate weapon attacks as riders to their spells or use cantrips as part of Multiattacks, among other features.

This is still 5e adjacent, designed to be backwards compatible with existing 5e material. That said, looking at the Fighter and Ranger especially, I can't see why someone would choose 5e over TOV. Even more so with the conversion guide they released enabling easy porting in of subclasses from other 5e sources.

[Oramac]

So, it might be how I'm explaining things that's the issue.

Weapon Options...

It's basically BG3 weapons. Each weapon has a "Cool Thing" it can do in place of one of your attacks. Fighters get the special feature that lets them do it as a bonus action.

[Psyren]

I fell out with it when they paywalled the playtest packets, but I'm glad it's still progressing. I have no plans to switch, but if they have an interesting subclass idea or spell I'll lift it.

They're doing a few things I consider to be "5.0 thinking" like subraces and fixed ASIs, but I can easily ignore those.

[SouthpawSoldier]

I fell out with it when they paywalled the playtest packets, but I'm glad it's still progressing. I have no plans to switch, but if they have an interesting subclass idea or spell I'll lift it.

They're doing a few things I consider to be "5.0 thinking" like subraces and fixed ASIs, but I can easily ignore those.

The Ranger and Fighter especially got a lot of love. And the Luck mechanic I think is a good addition to any game.

[paladinn]

A sample Martial Talent from the SRD:

Weapon Discipline
Prerequisite: Proficiency with at Least One Martial Weapon
You seek perfection with a single weapon. Choose a simple or martial weapon (such as spear, heavy crossbow, or greataxe) you are proficient with. While wielding that weapon, you gain these benefits:

• You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with your chosen weapon.

I didn't notice this in the playtest, but that was likely on me.

So it sounds like they're backing off slightly from bounded accuracy? In 5e, getting a + anything to hit was like finding hens' teeth, if it wasn't completely forbidden altogether.

[SouthpawSoldier]

I didn't notice this in the playtest, but that was likely on me.

So it sounds like they're backing off slightly from bounded accuracy? In 5e, getting a + anything to hit was like finding hens' teeth, if it wasn't completely forbidden altogether.

With the changes to Ability scores, and the fact that Talents are effectively half-Feats (choosing the Talent option for Improvement still gets you +1 to a score)....

I wouldn't say they've abandoned it entirely, but the power creep makes it less apparent(?). I'm not mathy enough to really do probability analysis.

[Psyren]

The Ranger and Fighter especially got a lot of love. And the Luck mechanic I think is a good addition to any game.

1) I vastly prefer the 5.5e Fighter. Regarding the Ranger, we haven't seen the final version of that yet on either side, so I don't have enough information to make a determination. (The Valiant one I saw stopped at level 5 or 10 or something, I forget.) I also vastly prefer the 5.5e Monk, Valiant seems to be doubling down on them only deflecting ranged attacks for example, which is something WotC buffed months ago.

2) Regarding Luck, to each their own; I saw your other post on it and it isn't for me. Far more fiddly to track than Inspiration, with a lot of potential to be overpowered (trading them in for a +5 rather than simple advantage, on top of the other miscellaneous +1s you mentioned, feels more in keeping with 3.5 and PF1 design than 5e Bounded Accuracy to me), not to mention the "use it or lose it paradigm where if you max out and get more you roll a d4 and that becomes the new total, so you can end up rolling a 1 and losing 4 banked points of luck, that's going to feel absolutely cringe if it happens in play.) I didn't reply there because I didn't really see a point in debating it, it just wasn't for me.

[Kane0]

Oh right, so i read the public SRD a bit on it. Thats a sizable document!

In 5e, a fighter 2 would get second wind, a fighting style and action surge. For my character lets use protection (yeah i know it isnt great, this was a long time ago)

In ToV, a fighter 2 would get last stand, martial action and action surge. We dont have to select just one here but Guard is pretty much the protection analogue.

So instead of a bonus action heal once per rest, its a reaction to spend hit dice when im reduced to half health or less. That is a vastly inferior ability, especially in Tier 1. And instead of reaction to impose disadvantage on an incoming attack against an ally its a bonus action targeting a hostile and being able to benefit yourself. I'd call that a net loss also, since you need to already be 5 feet from them to start with and prepare for it on your turn on top of that specific enemy just... potentially choosing not to attack you or dropping between your turn and theirs.
Action surge is identical.

As for those weapon options, they do indeed appear to replace attacks ala shove rather than being their own actions, thats good. A lot of them requiring you hit and then a save severely curbs their usefulness.

The primary benefit i'm seeing here is that you arent locked into a single option (in this case protection), and that the default subclass doesnt suck horribly (weapon master is a notable improvement over champion). So points to ToV there, but thats not enough to sell me on it.

[SouthpawSoldier]

Here's the SRD webpage for folks to peruse, as well:

https://bfrd.net/