The Road Ahead (2025)

As we close in on the end of 2025, I figure it's worth it to look back on what the blog has been about.

Broadly, I think it would be fair to say that the biggest focus has been on the sequel mechanics -- figuring out what the game is (and isn't) going to be. Along the way, there was also some discussion of other systems, and how they handled mechanical options; the intention with these posts was usually to make some judgment on how such things could/should work in the TNP sequel. There were a few posts here and there about "d20 TNP" but those were few and far between.

With entering into a new stage of my life, I'm finding I have less and less time for actual TTRPG playing, design work, other social activities, as well as just generally balancing out necessary life tasks. The TNP blog has become less about TNP, and more about the sequel, and I'm often using the blog to ask "what should I do?" rather than answer that question with, "here's a new update!" So, overall I'm feeling like I need to rebalance my schedule a little bit.

Barring some unexpected improvement on one of these other fronts, I think it's safe to say that I will be pausing the blog, after this post. As with other periods where the blog has been on hiatus, my hope is that I can still be doing work on the system(s) in the background. But I don't think the current posting frequency is sustainable; even if I were to stick to just sequel content, I feel like I'd want to scale back from 3 posts per month (10 months of the year) down to about 1 post per month. If I do go ahead with that idea, I'd likely start a separate blog -- since this blog is supposed to be about "The Next Project (d20)" as the title says.

5e
On the topic of mainline D&D, we're just starting to see the first splatbook for 5e 2024 with Heroes of Faerun. I would be remiss if I didn't point out how similar this naming convention is to the Essentials line of 4e D&D books. As much as I might like to talk more about D&D and its ongoing development, the reality is that both groups I currently play in are sticking with the 2014 rules, at least until the completion of their current campaigns. Having started in January of this year, we're sort of ballparking that these will take another 2 years to complete.

So, realistically, I think throwing out my opinions on other peoples' summations of new 2024 content would be a bit gauche. If I am to continue with D&D as a hobby in the future, I am sure I will pick up the new materials, but for now I don't see it as something I can/should reasonably be mining for blog content. (For what it's worth, I think D&D still continues to make baffling design choices, some of the time.) Also, nothing against the idea of playing other games -- I just don't really have time, as I mentioned off the start.

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I guess I'll close off by saying that I see a lot of potential in the sequel designs, but it's a potential that is still so very raw, and unrefined. I feel like I've hit at something, and the more I can put into it, the more I will get out of it. As I've said before, the contrast is that TNP has some loose ends, but the refinement is basically done -- it's more a matter of codifying and formalizing. The more I put into it, the less I feel like I get out of it.

That being said, I think that getting TNP done should be something to refocus on. The question of what the sequel really is still hasn't been fully answered, and that leaves the door open for TNP, in my eyes. I look back on the recent post about 'plug & play' mechanics, and it makes me think about how I didn't even really talk about the "class dice bonuses." The fact that these bonuses were able to be worked out and balanced to such a high degree (albeit within a limited d20 scope) makes me think that perhaps there might be room to port this idea into... whatever comes after TNP, and its sequel. Perhaps these mechanics not making it into the sequel could end up being a blessing in disguise, after all...?

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Anyways, I'll leave it at that for now. Check in on the Discord or other social media channels, to find out what comes next for TNP.

Plug & Play vs. Unified Mechanics (2025)

When it comes to TNP, there are two (at least) fairly distinct subsystems at play in the mechanics. The 'attributes' in the game are expressly only used for skill math; if you compare this with basically any version of D&D, the ability scores (and/or derived modifiers) are used for both skills and for combat applications. TNP combat mechanics are their own separate thing, although dice mechanics (such as mastery and advantage/disadvantage) are shared with the skill mechanics.

In a recent discussion, I had suggested that the TNP skill system could be taken out and wholesale bolted onto pre-existing combat systems (assuming that those lack an 'attribute' system of their own, otherwise it might get slightly clunky.) Sure, you'd need an understanding of how the aforementioned dice mechanics work (as well as skill rank mechanics) but there's nothing about the TNP combat system tying itself back into the skill mechanics.

What this reminded me of was 13th Age; some of the criticisms/observations about the system were how it built onto the standard "d20 system"-type of chassis, in sort of a "plug & play" manner. (I'll be explaining the mechanics from memory of what I read years ago, so please forgive me if I get any details wrong.) The background system was meant to replace much of the skills system, whereby you could have something like a +8 to split among two backgrounds; if you could reason that your background would apply to a skill check, you would add that background's bonus. I remember most people went with the +5/+3 split, and the assumption was that this would be added to an applicable ability score modifier. That's when people sort of realized, "we can just unbolt this mechanic from 13th Age, and bolt it onto any system we like [particularly if it had the same standard 6 ability scores.]"

Likewise, your "one unique thing" was meant to be mechanically agnostic -- so, take that idea and add it onto your cyberpunk dystopian RPG if that suits your tastes. Even the icon relationship system (albeit the icons were specific to the setting) was a mechanic that had its own resource pool (such as it was) and had no real connection into any other numbers on your character sheet. You could (and people did) homebrew their own icons, so bolting this mechanic onto pre-existing pantheons was the next logical conclusion that people came to. By contrast, I've seen examples, such as in Blades in the Dark, where party members' mechanics are meant to have small tie-ins to "crew" mechanics or "home-turf" mechanics -- all of which seem designed to tighten the seams, and make the whole system one unit.

To bring the conversation back around, it ultimately points to the question of whether unified mechanics or purpose-built mechanics are the best fit, for any given system. As is often said on Forgotten Weapons, the answer to "what kind of gun should I get?" tends to be "it depends what you want to use it for."

If you look at a system like 5th Edition D&D, the mechanics always fall back onto ability scores, by and large; roll a d20, determine whether none/half/all/double your proficiency bonus applies, prescribe one of the 6 ability modifiers... That's basically every action in the game, in or out of combat. Likewise, Apocalypse World (or any derivative thereof) basically runs off the engine of 2d6+stat. Oddly enough, I'd say D&D is a good system for combat but bad for non-combat, just as much as I would say that Apoc World is a good system outside of combat but bad when it's used in combat. In either case, the selling point is the universality of the mechanic -- regardless of whether the mechanic is really suited to the task.

When we look at "d20" TNP, there's a very clear divide between the (d20-based) combat system and the (d10-based) skill system. Although they share certain things in common mechanically, there's nothing connecting them together. Indeed, early on in the design process, I made the decision to exclude "class dice" mechanics from anything having to do with skills, in order to keep the math more simple. By contrast, the entirety of the combat system is purposefully built around all of the mechanics being derived from class dice. If you can bolt the TNP skills "grid" onto another game (or create a grid of your own) there's nothing stopping you from using this mechanic, without the TNP combat system. Likewise, I think you could also take a combat system (at least with a comparable variety of monster types) and use it with TNP's card mechanic for random campaign generation. How the monsters actually function has no relation to which cards you deal out. This is also why it might be possible to bolt this system wholesale onto the "d6 TNP sequel."

That is kind of the point of the sequel mechanics (among a handful of other things I could point to.) The general idea of "ability scores, done right" as a guiding principle of the designs was to integrate the math into both combat and non-combat applications, and have it all make sense. If executed properly, this has the potential to more successfully fuse those two halves of the game engine together; part of the motivation is to make it so that the system can't be broken down and stripped for parts -- as in the examples with 13th Age. The other reason is the goal of creating an elegant system, that executes on the simplicity implied in the 5e or Apoc World mechanics -- but which hopefully works well for both combat and non-combat. Ultimately, that should always be the goal when building a system off of the "unified mechanic" paradigm.

This sort of highlights the conundrum of 13th Age; if the TNP skill system and combat system don't really interact with each other, what's stopping anyone from taking either of those halves and bolting it onto a system they already use/are familiar with/enjoy? As a designer, the challenge when not making a unified mechanical system is to design things in such a way that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Essentially, having a purpose-built combat system and a purpose-built non-combat system should synergize in a way that makes the overall experience better -- but it does make it difficult to argue that "this thing can only exist with this other thing," if/when there's nothing substantive tying them together.

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Nearing the end of blogging season! Apologies for the delay in getting this 2nd post out.
I'll look to get one more post out to wrap up the year, either on November 29th or 30th.

Building out Class Features (2025)

At the risk of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I think the solution to the "cantrip problem" is to pivot the design space off of attribute mechanics. I started to think about it more as, "I use a spell, therefore I add 1d6 to the pool, for this attack." Now, as has been stated clearly before, not all classes/subclasses will get access to cantrips -- so what if we make having that specific class feature be the source of the 1d6 that we add to the pool? This lets us more easily differentiate Clerics from Paladins, and Druids from Rangers. (Another big distinction between spellcasters in 5e is ritual casting; this class feature is what I would argue is the main thing separating Sorcerers and Warlocks from being as high on my list as Druids or Wizards, in particular.)

Now that we've established what attributes won't do, we need to figure out what they will do, with regards to cantrips. If two-handed weapons are assumed to be getting a +8 damage mod, and two-weapon fighting will get +3 damage to each attack (assuming our standard array of +4/+3/+2/+1/+0) then we probably need to figure out something comparable to that, for cantrip attacks.

Would a single-target attack simply add both mental stats, as damage? Is there an easy way to balance out a "number of attacks" stat with the assumption that a "cantrip damage" stat will now likely be your highest stat? The problem is that if the only thing that "cantrip casters" care about is their mental stats, then suddenly everyone's got a +4 in one and a +3 in the other, and there's no variety. Maybe we still need to encourage spellcasters to have a +2 finger-waggling stat, after all. Do we simply treat (ranged) cantrip attacks the same way as (melee) two-handed weapon attacks, and add double the damage mod? How many attacks does an archer need to make, in order to be able to compete with that? This will take a bit more thought in order to flesh out, it seems. 

The other aspect of class features that I wanted to bring to the fore was the idea of "exceptions-based design." I touched on it a little bit (albeit ham-fistedly) in a recent post, where there are general rules, but then there are exceptions made to those rules. One example with the sequel mechanics is that the general rule (so far) is that we assume TWF will use the lower damage mod between STR and DEX. This would encourage a class like a Fighter to put high stats into both, in order to be good at TWF; it would also make it more expensive for spellcasting classes (who rely more on investment in mental stats) to also be good at TWF.

However, as an exception, we might allow the Ranger subclass to simply always use the higher of these two stats, meaning they don't have to invest in both -- or to simply override this rule and use a different stat, such as AGIL. If the assumption within the "lore" of the Ranger is that they are always scouting ahead and need to be able to react quickly, then incentivizing them to have a higher AGIL would reflect that in the mechanics, via having a higher initiative score. AGIL also being tied to stealth would likewise tie in to the presumption of Rangers as hunters and ambushers, stalking their prey from the shadows.

This also makes me ask, how should the Monk/Rogue class be designed? If the starting point is that Monks will probably get an INT bonus to their AC, my immediate thought actually isn't to slant Rogues towards CHA. Monk generally lends itself to being the multi-attack class, whereas Rogue is more of an "alpha strike" class, using sneak attack. If the general rule is that DEX (or AGIL?) is the "number of ranged weapon attacks" stat, the obvious exception to build in for Monks would be to allow them to also use this number for melee attacks (perhaps using their lowest physical stat as the damage modifier?) Or maybe it makes more sense to go with "highest physical stat" as number of attacks and "lowest physical stat" as their melee damage mod.

Likewise, if the Rogue's preferred damage mod stat is DEX, would it make more sense for their dice pool stat to also be DEX, or should it be AGIL? We definitely want Rogues to be the best at things like lockpicking, so leaning more towards DEX seems like the obvious move... but it really is a question of how to balance the two. Much like in 5e, this gives the Rogue the versatility to put any remaining stat points into whichever mental stat they choose, making it more of a decision around which skills to focus on, than purely a combat consideration.

Dovetailing into the Rogue idea, the mechanic of "finesse" weapons from 5e is something that I think could make an appearance, allowing either STR or DEX to be used for damage, when attacking with a one-handed weapon (and not doing TWF). To tie this back into the conceit of class features, perhaps the "one-handed weapon stat" could be a function of classes, rather than having a general rule. Or, say, the general rule is that STR is the default, but characters with "finesse weapon proficiency" can instead use DEX. So we would expect classes like Rogues or maybe Rangers to have this proficiency, but Barbarians likely would not. Maybe a benefit of being a Barbarian is that you could always use STR, when doing two-weapon fighting.

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Slightly off topic, but bringing things back to Eldritch Horror... One of my complaints with the game is how some characters are more about their items than their intrinsic abilities. While this is also a complaint I've had about D&D, it's significantly worse in a game where world-events regularly cause you to lose possessions at random. I do appreciate the conceit of reusing existing in-game items as a way to equip the starting class features for characters, but this style of game in particularly causes the weakness of item-dependent characters to be laid bare. The classic D&D comparable is when the party is captured and stripped of their belongings, imprisoned, etc. This is why TNP and the sequel generally focus on treating everything as a class feature -- even things that could reasonably be represented as items. In this way, they are part of the character at all times, and not something that can be taken away from them; they are just always assumed to be part of what the characters can do.

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This post is a little bit ahead of schedule (or "on time," as far as our most optimistic forecasting is concerned...) Next post will likely be up by November 19th, at the latest -- but possibly even by the end of next week, depending on how things go.

Powers vs. Power Strike: Fishing for Crits (2025)

I'm sure I've mentioned it before but let's examine the difference in ethos between 4e and Essentials a little bit.

With an attack power in 4e, generally you declare that you're using it, then the button gets pushed, and you roll dice to determine if you hit. This means that (hit or miss) the power is expended, assuming it is a Daily or Encounter power. In Essentials, the Fighter class instead functioned off of confirming a hit with a melee basic attack; after the hit was confirmed, they would then push the Power Strike button (an encounter power) to deal additional damage. (The Paladin in Essentials got a similar mechanic, and the Scout subclass for Ranger also got access to Power Strike.)

What this meant was that you never had to "waste" your encounter powers, on a miss. It also meant that you could choose to use it only when you scored a critical hit, thus maximizing the damage effectiveness even further. It's also worth mentioning that since attacks like Charge or opportunity attacks also functioned off of melee basic attacks in 4e, buffing such attacks with Power Strike was also possible. In the 2014 version of 5e, this is also true of the Paladin's Divine Smite ability, because it is cued off of scoring a hit with a melee weapon -- so this could be done with each attack made on your turn, in addition to opportunity attacks (as long as you have the spell slots to burn.) Similarly, the Battle Master in 5e keys its maneuvers off of scoring a hit first, and then expending superiority dice after.

So, how will this work for the TNP sequel mechanics?

Well, the ethos of "2d6 + pool" implies that all of the dice will be in the pool, before the roll is made. This means that we're going to be declaring which power we're using, first -- much like in 4e. However, since adding dice to the pool increases our chances of hitting (while also increasing damage) we end up getting a benefit similar to the "Power Strike"-style of mechanic, but without the two-stage confirmation system being applied to the roll.

This begs the question of whether there should be a mechanic for critical hits, in the sequel. If we take 1/20 as our baseline (5%), then saying "11 or 12 on 2d6" would give us a 2/36 (or 1/18) crit rate, which is pretty comparable. However, we need to keep in mind that the assumption is that the attacker will always be rolling at least 3 dice; scoring at least an 11 on "highest 2 of 3d6" already boosts that to almost 1/5 -- whereas a 12 is only 7.41%

An interesting quirk of the pool system is that damage potential also increases hit potential. This also means that as your crit chance goes up, your crit damage is going up; rolling 5d6 gives almost a 1/5 chance of scoring a 12 on the attack roll, but having 3 dice of crit damage is also going to do a lot more than only having 1 die (particularly if crits are handled by say, using the rolled damage but also adding the dice's maximum value, as in TNP.)

A third thing I've been thinking about is whether there should be a flat number of "daily" power uses, or whether this should be tied to attributes in some way. In previous RPG designs that I've done, I had encounter and daily resources keyed off of stats, so the idea of doing it that way is not completely foreign to me. I was thinking of it in terms of utilization, with my classic example being the Paladin. You're going to want STR for damage, and CHA as your pool stat... but then what? We've got at least 3 other attributes to account for, and we don't want to end up with the default "dump everything into AGIL because it's initiative."

So do we make something like INT the "per day" stat (for Paladin, at least?) that governs the number of uses of your "dice pool" stat? This would necessitate your INT and CHA stats both always being at least a +1, which ties into the idea I had presented previously that your class might prescribe which of your attributes has to be a +0. This also (aside from the obvious) highlights that a "flat 10" number of points to be spread across 5 attributes would probably be a little high, if the assumption was that the Paladin only really needs meaningful numbers in 2 of those stats... particularly if the max in any stat is expected to be +3 and not +4. I do like the idea of a +4/+3/+2/+1/+0 as the "standard array" for a loadout with 5 attributes, so maybe that just solidifies it.

Now, what this does is create some interesting choices. Do you want to "pool" harder, but less often? Do you want to do it weaker, but more often? Do you want to just swing your sword harder (knowing that you're getting double your stat as damage, on a two-handed weapon) and let the pool just be a nice cherry on top, once or twice a day? Naturally, there will be ways to optimize it, but then we also have to think of how our attribute choices impact skills, and not just combat -- which I think would tend towards a heavier focus on CHA, for our Paladin. From a design perspective, we also should give some consideration to, "if our pool button can only get pushed X times per day, then how should that number line up with our crit math?" while keeping in mind the fact that pushing the button is also what increases those odds.

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Bit of a broad discussion in today's post, but hopefully the ideas flow together well enough for the readers out there.

November's scheduling is a little bit in flux, but I would expect the next post to be up by November 13th, so check back then!

General vs. Specific (2025)

At the risk of harping on attributes a few too many times, I think it's worth discussing whether the sequel designs should use "general" rules, and whether there can be exceptions to those.

The best examples of "specific beats general" that I can think of are both from 4e D&D. The general rule was that you could shift one square, as a Move action; the mechanic specific to kobolds was that they could instead do this as a Minor action. Likewise, using your 2nd Wind was generally a Standard action, but dwarves could use theirs as a Minor action.

Also worth mentioning in this discussion is how 4e handled class-specific combat mechanics (i.e. powers.) Most classes fell into one of two paradigms: you had one attribute which determined your attack (hit chance) and damage modifier, and had 2 you could pick from for your "effect" riders, or; you had 2 attributes used for attack and damage (depending on the power), with one obvious attribute for riders. Generally, these were referred to as "A-shaped" and "V-shaped" builds, respectively (some people would instead refer to V-shaped as "Y-shaped.")

So far in the sequel mechanics, we have a few general assumptions:

• TWF will use the lower of STR or DEX for damage mod
• cantrips will use the lower of INT or CHA for dice pool bonus
• AGIL mod will be the number of ranged weapon attacks, per round

The question I found myself asking initially is whether the AGIL stat should serve the same function for spells as it does for weapons, thus negating the temptation to add a 3rd mental stat. And then I started thinking, "well if DEX is the finger-waggling stat, that seems like it could be used for doing somatic components for spellcasting..." This ties back into what I was saying about 4e, where Sorcerers sort of had STR crowbar'd in as their 3rd (2nd?) stat; this kind of setup was particularly important, given that 4e had your defenses use the higher of two paired stats, so every class needed to emphasize one of STR/CON, INT/DEX, and WIS/CHA.

I think part of the problem is that having the dice pool stat be the higher of the spellcasting/mental stats is unintuitive to most people; the obvious thing to do is to put your big numbers in the thing you're using all of the time (i.e. your cantrip stat), but the restriction requiring the numbers to balance off of each other throws a wrench into all of that. However, if we allow for a 3rd stat to give additional attacks, that might make it easier to balance, while giving a bit more variety.

Specifically, you might be balancing a +2 cantrip stat against the ability to only attack once with it vs. a +1 cantrip stat but the ability to attack twice with it. The question then is, do we apply a "general" rule for the "cantrip attacks per round" stat, or do we make that a "specific" rule, based on class or subclass? The latter seems to be preferable, because then we can also use that to reinforce which skills (if any) we would prefer those subclasses to be good at. For example, if Intimidation is a STR skill, we might actually want that to be "attacks per round" stat for Sorcerers; if the expectation is that Wizards are better at opening doors, that might point to DEX (i.e. lockpicking) as their stat.

I had previously mentioned in the Discord that a standard array might consist of something like +4/+3/+2/+1/+0 (and for the record, a +4 two-hander stat still balances fairly well vs. a +3 TWF stat, in case anyone was wondering.) This gives us a total of +10, which is nice; I had intended that perhaps a floating +1 from class/subclass might be in addition to that. However, it seems like a pool of +10 (with a subclass-specific "locked in" bonus being deducted from that that total, rather than added to it) is more likely to produce the sort of balanced array that we're angling for. In this way, I think a simple rule such as, "you cannot have more than a single +0 attribute," or "all attributes must be at least +1" will be sufficient to keep people from min-maxing their stats, without having to put an actual ceiling value on stats. It might even be the case that your +0 stat is a sort of "specific" rule, for each class/subclass.

The other exception that has been hinted at before is that the Warlock subclass might not have a dice pool stat per se, but that they can use CHA as their cantrip stat -- even if it were to be their highest mental stat, thus giving them more potent cantrips than what other classes could achieve. I think this is fairly in line with the general 3.5/5e mechanics of Warlocks. Likewise, we could have the Necromancer subclass use INT as "number of summons" that they can have under their control at any time, rather than give them a "cantrip stat" at all.

The other thing to remember is that classes like Paladin and Ranger will no doubt use "spellcasting" stats for dice pools and/or other functions, but they won't have a cantrip stat to balance off against. It stands to reason that if STR is the Paladin's "weapon stat" of choice, and CHA is their "dice pool stat" the obvious 3rd choice would be to bump AGIL (the initiative stat) -- but what if a wrinkle of the system would be that Paladins are required to use a +0 AGIL stat? That might be punishing, but it also makes things interesting by eliminating the "obvious" answer from the equation. You could even incentivize this, for example by granting a bonus to AC for doing so; this is reminiscent of how Monks are given certain unique abilities when not wearing armor in 5e, or similar restrictions that Barbarians have while raging.

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I'm running a bit behind on posting this month, but hopefully we can get back on track now.
One more post before October is out, so check back on (or just after) the 31st; the plan for November would be to post on the 10th/20th/30th to round out the year.

Standard Array (2025)

So, what should the attribute numbers look like, in the sequel?

I've been working from the assumption that the ceiling would be +3, but the paradigm has shifted so many times, it's probably worth reexamining. In a previous post, we've established that the baseline hit chance for weapon attacks is expected to be 72.42% -- so with a two-handed attack adding double STR (+3 * 2 = +6) mod, the [lowest 1 of 3d6] roll (2.04) computed through the hit chance produces a 5.822568 DPR result. Now, if we take the same roll and hit chance values but use only a +2 mod, we get 2.925768 -- which when doubled results in 5.851536, representing a two-weapon fighting routine. This is a great starting point, as these values are very close to one another.

So if the desire is to get the "TWF stat" to always be a +2, it probably stands to reason that it should be something like "lower of STR or DEX" allowing those stats to be either +3/+2 or +2/+2. The other way to do it might be "middle of STR/DEX/AGIL" which also has implications for spellcasting.

If the idea is to balance 3 stats against one another, that likely indicates that the idea is to make the lowest stat a +1, rather than a +2/+2/+3 array. This would be necessary for spellcasting, if the idea is that the "cantrip stat" should always be a +1, for example. This means that the overall array would consist of a single +3, a single +2, and then +1s for the remaining four attributes -- because this assumes 3 spellcasting attributes, and thus 6 attributes in total. We've mentioned before that maybe having +2 be the "minimum" spellcasting stat could be an acceptable quirk of the system, if the alternative is to crowbar in an entire 6th attribute.

Should we complicate the matter by having separate pools of attribute points for physical stats and for spellcasting stats? This actually seems like it would work better for producing the desired results, while allowing for more than just a single +3 and/or +2 stat. Something like a floating +1 based on class/subclass would be a mechanic that works well, for this conceit. If we go with these ideas, it seems like you'd have 3 points to split between 2 spellcasting stats, and 5 points to split between 3 physical stats -- in addition to that floating +1.

If spellcasting is to function off of the lower/higher of two mental stats, the class bonus would help to differentiate builds a little bit, i.e. if a Sorcerer is assumed to get a +1 CHA while a Wizard gets a +1 INT. Similarly, if a Paladin's "dice pool stat" is CHA, they might get a bonus to that stat, requiring them to focus their physical stats more on one mode of combat; by contrast, a Fighter might get a boost to STR or DEX, allowing them to be equally at home with two-handed weapons or TWF.

Is there room for a +0 stat, in the array? Well, if there is, it seems like it would only fit into the physical stat side of things (regardless of how many mental stats there ends up being.) Much like how attributes contribute to skills in TNP, it might be easiest to assume that everything starts at "rank 1" and then increases from there. So far, I haven't come across anything to suggest that the cap needs to be higher than +3... 

Really, the question then becomes whether the dice pools will consist of 1 stat or 2; some of the earliest theorycrafting for "d6 pool" suggested a normal melee attack would add +STR number of dice to the pool, and a Paladin's Smite ability would also add +CHA number of dice to the pool. With the designs migrating to "2d6 + pool" I feel like the necessity for double-stat pools has gone away. Worth mentioning here, I've also floated the idea that "daily" powers might allow all dice in the pool to contribute towards damage; this means you could put your highest 2 dice towards the attack roll (ensuring the best chance of hitting) without missing out on those dice, for their damage potential. This is something that harkens back to the "class dice bonuses" in TNP, most of which can be used for attack or damage, but some of which can also be used for both.

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I should have a bit more free time coming up later in the month, so expect the next post to be out by October 21st at the latest. A third post will also be out before the end of this month.

Weapons & Armor (2025)

Carrying on with the sequel mechanics discussion, there are a few things that the previous post made me think about, that I'll talk about today.

When trying to balance out spells vs. weapon attacks, if there are to be only two spellcasting stats, it might be harder to make the "cantrip dice pool" stat be any lower than +2; to balance this out vs. weapon attacks, I had talked about spells not adding a modifier to damage. In this specific paradigm, it means cantrip spells would have a better chance to hit (with a pool of 4 dice rather than 3) but the damage would be more random (2d6 as compared to 1d6+mod, usually a +3).

That might be workable enough, especially considering that the alternative is bolting an entire 6th attribute onto the system...

In the previous post, I hinted at the idea of "proficient" weapons applying a 1d6 bonus to your pool. There might also be other benefits we could apply. For example, as an alternative to using 2d6 for two-handed weapons, I had suggested that instead the system could use 1d6, but you might be able to add double your STR modifier to the damage roll; this could be a benefit you only gain from using a two-handed weapon with which you have proficiency. Likewise, the attempts at balancing out two-weapon fighting vis-a-vis two-handed weapons has so far been assumed to revolve around using a lower stat for the damage modifier; this could similarly be made contingent upon whether or not you are proficient with suitable weapons for two-weapon fighting.

This is sort of a milieu that I had used in one of my previous attempts at RPG design, whereby the math was derived from 3 unnamed stats, but certain qualifiers would specify whether a particular mechanic would use the highest, middle, or lowest of your 3 stats. Most of the feats that were purely math boosts were typically, "use your highest stat for this mechanic [instead of your lowest or middle stat.]" Assuming there is a cap on the possible values that your stats can be, this likewise places a ceiling on how high your modifiers for any mechanic can go; it helps create a framework for contextualizing all of the other math and mechanics in the system.

Bringing this back to our example, an "untrained" character doing TWF probably would add no modifier to their damage rolls, whereas a "proficient" character might add the 'middle' modifier, between STR, DEX, or AGIL. Similarly, we need to think about what the upshot to doing a single, one-handed weapon attack would be (if the ethos is basically, "well, anyone can attempt to do TWF," such as is the case in 5th Edition D&D.) The obvious thing that comes to mind is that such an attack would almost certainly have to use your highest stat, but also that your loadout could then include a shield. With the defensive bonuses meant to be fairly few and far between, my first assumption would be that shields are a flat +1 to "AC" (per se) for a proficient character, and provide no benefit if not proficient.

At some point I'll have to really drill into the math, and determine what the "correct" numbers are for AC bonuses -- particularly if we're assuming that "Monks add WIS to AC" will be a mechanic in the game (putting aside for the moment, whether or not WIS will be in the designs). It also begs the question of whether "flat modifiers only, for defense rolls" really makes sense for player-characters. This gets back into what I said about Eldritch Horror, and keeping the mechanics simple and unified... But, perhaps things like a Shield spell or a Rogue's evasion ability make more sense as "dice pool bonuses" to defense, or as rerolls. If such mechanics are meant to be in the game, it makes little sense to have them function as a +1 bonus; if we know the attack and defense results, then we'll know whether a +1 will make a difference, often leading to such abilities not being useful. Off the top of my head, I think this is why Bless in 5e is +1d4 instead of +1 (as in 3.5 D&D.)

Somewhat related to this topic (if I've mentioned it before, I'll say it again, but...) my intention is that there will be no "AC stat" the way that (by and large) DEX is the AC stat in 3.x and 5e D&D. My feeling is that this only serves to arbitrarily raise the floor on all of the math, and I don't think it needs to be there in order to make the stats useful. AGIL probably tracks closer to something resembling an AC stat in the TNP ethos, and the intent so far is that this would instead be used for initiative -- something I feel is impactful enough, on its own. I've also hinted that AGIL might be the "number of attacks"-stat for ranged weapon attacks in particular, if indeed this is needed as a balancing mechanic (i.e. sacrificing "+mod to damage" in exchange for hitting more targets.)

Part of figuring out how the pieces come together is a question that was brought up in Discord, as to whether the assumption of "1 weapon = 1 attack" for melee really makes sense, or if a better assumption would be that, say, a large weapon can attack in a sweep, or that a lighter weapon can attack fast enough to hit multiple targets in a comparable time frame. I don't generally work from a paradigm of "TTRPGs should have weapon-speed mechanics," but it's not as if this is an unknown concept in the RPG space -- indeed, the entire conceit of "DPS" tracks back to the need to make an apples-to-apples comparison between weapons of varying attack speeds, a concept that I think most people of my vintage would attribute to being pioneered by World of Warcraft. It might be the case that in a design ethos like the TNP sequel (where the expectation is that there will be push-button, dice pool bonus, massive "finishing move"-type powers) it makes sense to have the "at-will" combat abilities be a little more flashy and showy than just "1 weapon = 1 attack."

...

Alright, that wraps up posting for this month. Expect the next post to be up on October 10th.