Power Tools (2018)

Something that I will want to look at (as classes continue to be revised) is how damage and effects are worked into various types of attacks.

One of the important considerations with any d20 system, is that requiring more rolls essentially equates to creating more possible failure points. Particularly when dealing with trying to set up "combos" during an encounter, having to succeed at multiple rolls makes the task even trickier.

4th Edition D&D would generally have encounter powers do "damage + effect" on a hit, with daily powers typically doing both on a hit, and either the effect or half-damage on a miss. In any case, you'd only roll once to determine success or failure. In 5th Edition, generally what you see happening (particularly with Monks, "Battle Master" Fighters, and Paladins) is the requirement for both the player-character to score a hit (for damage) as well as the enemy to fail a saving throw (for effect.)

I've borrowed a little bit from 5e, by allowing any melee attacks to either be used for straightforward damage, or to attempt a "brawl" maneuver. However, I do want to try and hew a little closer to 4e when it comes to building distinct powers for each class; if setting up a cool combo is part of their shtick, then that class should be able to do it with one roll.

This is where it's sort of important to have effects and debilities be well-defined within the mechanical framework. To wit, the "push" mechanic (as defined in the rules) can easily be created using a skill check (as it is currently, with the Brawl skill) but can easily also be tacked onto a simple attack feature; in other words, by not defining every "push" as being the result of a specific type of check, we can use the mechanic elsewhere, without always requiring its own check every time.

Another important consideration is action economy. If the baseline assumption (in combat) is that making a skill check uses a Standard Action, then we have a few methods by which we can make this easier, as a way to build class powers. For example, if a particular class is meant to be good at hiding, we can say, "When you make a successful basic attack, and are not in a maelstrom at the end of your turn, you can become Hidden." This effectively gives the benefit (Hidden) of a successful Stealth check, without requiring the extra roll -- again, because this is an effect that is defined outside of just being the benefit of a successful check. Alternatively, we can allow such classes to make a Stealth check as a Minor Action, or perhaps as part of a Move Action.

The final consideration within the existing framework, is the fixed "DC10 rule" coming into play. When comparing a "trained" skill check to an unmodified attack roll, the skill check is far more likely to succeed. Now some classes (or at least, specific powers) will include modifiers to attack rolls, beyond just Advantage and Expertise; this has generally been done in order to bring expected damage output up to par, without needed to inflate the number of attacks being made. So if we're building skill checks into powers (or onto other actions) then we need to be able to assume that that class will have a good chance of succeeding at that check -- meaning we need to further ensure that those classes are always trained with those skills -- and leaving no possibility of creating a "trap option" where the players unintentionally make their character ineffective.


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A bit of a rushed post today, so apologies if it's a little short and messy.
Check back October 10th for the next one!

Design Origins -- Part 5: Skills

Today I'm going to talk about the origins of the skill system in TNP, which I think is particularly important, due to the bigger role it's taking within the overall designs.


Filling in the Grid
Probably the most wide-reaching question to ask, is where did the "Core Skills grid" come from? There are a few points of influence, and (as with many things in this system) the short answer is that it's a blend of various editions of D&D, plus my own previous designs.

The actual list of skills I went with, was mostly just a blend of 3.5 and 4e -- unifying some skills where 4e did, but adding in some of the old skills it had left behind. The idea was mostly to have a slightly bigger toolbox on hand, in order to deal with non-combat situations. Professions and crafting were still left by the wayside, since there isn't any itemization or money used in TNP -- without which, those skills are largely just fluff.

After a few iterations, I would also separate what I would call "ribbon skills" (Knowledge and Performance) from the Core skills; ultimately, I never thought they were as valuable, and they never really fit into the grid (i.e. having them linked to attributes.) What made more sense, was to borrow from 4e -- by having Knowledge skills more closely linked to Power Source; Arcane classes typically got Arcana as a trained skill, Divine classes got training with Religion, etc. This also helped to give Power Sources more mechanical weight than just interacting with re-specs; generally they didn't do much in 4e, until you got deep into feats and optimization (which is a design space that I wanted this game to avoid.)


The Advent of Skillsets
As I've touched on in one or two other posts before, 4th Edition D&D had a group of class skills that were sort of ubiquitous to all "Fightman"-type classes (namely Athletics, Endurance, Heal, and Intimidate.) Similarly, the Thievery skill was limited to a very small niche of classes, and that was something I sort of wanted to preserve; there might be many classes which could be good at stealth, but deeper forms of skulduggery should still be more limited in their availability. So I was starting to lean more and more into the thought of a "skillset" really being a reflection of "what skills are iconic to this class?"

The idea of allowing classes to be built as "good at a skillset" was intended to avoid M.A.D. -- the design conceit of requiring a character to have several high ability modifiers -- in this case, to be good at their class skills (i.e. Athletics using Strength, Endurance using Constitution, Heal using Wisdom, and Intimidate using Charisma.) Essentially, the system should let you make a character that's good at all the skills in the set, without needing to be "good at" each attribute that the skills are tied to.

Another part of the thought process behind grouping skills into sets, was to allow each group to include skills for each type of encounter (combat, social, and exploration.) This would allow a character to always be able to contribute meaningfully, even if they were only good at one skillset. Ultimately, I would end up keeping skillsets aligned a bit more thematically, but I still think this goal ends up being achieved; generally, each class gets training with at least two groups of skills, which helps to cover the different encounter types.

Now, in the previous game I had worked on, there were 6 skillsets (which at various points in development were coupled and then de-coupled from attributes.)

• Athletics
• Acrobatics
• Influence
• Information
• Deception
• Detection

We can see how this setup clearly influenced TNP. Eventually, Information would become Knowledge (which was then moved to the background skills.) A friend who I had showed the designs to, asked me why I had separated Athletics and Acrobatics, and eventually I decided to just put the two together; conversely, the Deception skillset covered too much space, and would later be split into Subtlety and Infiltration.

The Fifth Element
I can remember when 5th Edition D&D was still in the playtesting phases, one of the notions put forth was that of combining any skill with any ability modifier. Ultimately, I would say that's not what 5e actually implemented, but then neither did TNP; instead, I kind of pivoted slightly, to the idea of distinct skills being the intersection of an attribute, and a skillset.

For example, instead of "Deception" just being a Charisma skill, it would be a skillset; where Deception and Charisma intersected, would be skills like Bluff or Disguise. Other "Deception" skills could be found by intersecting with other attributes, such as Sleight of Hand using Dexterity, or Forgery using Intelligence.

4th Edition D&D flirts with this sort of "mixing and matching" as well, largely due to the necessity of prioritizing your combat stats above all others. This manifested itself in the idea of replacing one ability mod with another, for certain skills. The example that always came up was the feat that allowed half-orcs to use Strength (an attribute which they got a bonus to) for Intimidation, in place of Charisma.

5e allows DMs to use this as sort of a general... piece of advice (I'm not sure you could call it a rule) when appropriate. What all these workarounds solidified for me, was the simple need to get rid of "traditional" ability scores -- the kind that govern both combat, and non-combat. Instead, by using "ability scores" (Attributes) as part of the skill grid, they serve as a second method for grouping skills -- creating another vector by which classes can be distinguished from one another.


Modifiers & Math
In 4th Edition D&D, the design around skill difficulty was something I felt was a problem, and it entirely comes down to the stacking of modifiers. When the game was released, I think the intention was that having either a high ability modifier or skill training would be sufficient to be successful with a given skill (in most cases.)

The problem was that the rest of the system strongly incentivized maxing out one or two stats, and also that there was nothing preventing a high stat from being combined with skill training. When the DCs were revised later on, it was (seemingly) done so, to take into account this sort of rampant overspecialization -- with the obvious side-effect of making it so that combining a low stat with training became suboptimal (and almost pointless, if the stat was low enough.)

So the seeds for the idea of "skill training or ability modifier, but not both" had already been planted in my head. How this manifested in my designs, was by allowing bonuses to a skill to come from either its Skillset, or its Attribute, but having each bonus apply only once -- even if the character had the same bonus to both groupings.

In the earliest incarnations of TNP (with the original slate) there had been skill mechanics based off of each class die; I quickly came to the decision that I wanted a more unified system for skill resolution (particularly as I began to add more classes.) My first thought was to use d6 and/or d10 -- again, leaning on ideas from the previous game I had written; the existing skill mechanics for all 5 class dice could simply be "rounded" up or down, to fit.

I was never sure of the exact implementation I wanted, but when I went in and crunched out the probabilities, it became obvious. The d10 on its own (when added to a d20 roll) pushed the crit chance way too high, and when combined with Expertise, it nearly pushed failure completely off the table. Since the d6 roll combined with Expertise produced comparable results to an unmodified d10 (without the drastic increase in crit rate) axing the d10, and just sticking with d6, presented itself clearly as the simplest solution. I also like that this uses one of the most common dice, sort of keeping in line with the game's more tactile-based design choices.

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That's all for today! I may dig into some comparisons of the execution of skill systems a bit more, in another post.
In any case, check back on September 29th for the next update.

Character Layouts (2018)

Some of the feedback that came out of the playtesting -- really just from new people putting their eyes onto the materials -- was that I should look into making a standardized character sheet form, and that the various bits of character generation should be listed by level.

Currently, the design of the class documents is essentially:

• Skills/Starting Feature page
• Upgrade page
• Combat page

Now, there are exceptions to every rule -- "Starting Features" aren't always combat features, but (even if they are) they're always on the first page. So that could definitely be cleaned up a little bit; probably the best solution is to have those starting features which are combat features be mentioned in both places, perhaps with just a reference on the first page, and the actual mechanics on the combat page.

Ultimately what the intention is with using this formatting, is to have the classes broken down into distinct modes of play, on a page-by-page basis: when you're in non-combat scenarios, the Skills/Starting Feature page will be used; the Upgrade page will be used during leveling-up (which may or may not take place "at the table"), and; the Combat page will be used for combat encounters.

During recruitment for the playtest, I made the suggestion (which I was taken up on, by most of the players) to add a copy of the Core Skills grid to their "character sheet." Particularly in electronic format, it's easy enough to take the class documents, and make your specific character by simply deleting any "toggle options" that were not selected. Even then, having a separate reference (outlining a character's Training and/or Expertise with skills) was found to be really helpful, and will probably constitute the backbone of any standardized character sheet, going forward.

I think if the "Combat page" aesthetic remains mostly intact, it will be worthwhile to add a listing of the Combat Skills to it as well, allowing a space for the players to mark off any Training or Expertise they may have with those skills, on that page. Really, it's kind of a no-brainer.

It will probably make sense to have extra space on both the "Skills page" and the "Combat page" to allow upgrades to be written in. Most upgrades tend to provide additional features for one of these sections or the other; the "Upgrade page" itself could be used as more of a bingo-card, for keeping track of which upgrades have been taken -- and it could also serve as a natural place to keep track of XP, as well.

I could go so far as to even split "Subclass" classes up a bit, as far as this formatting is concerned. It might make sense for the Sage, for example, to have its two subclasses use the same "Upgrade page" while having separate skill pages and combat pages, for both the Wizard and the Monk. This would kind of lay bare that some of these subtypes (within the same class) have more differences than similarities, but I think it might be a worthwhile change, for ease of use and for simplicity's sake. Breaking things up this way might also help some of the more lengthy class descriptions -- ones that spill onto a 2nd combat page -- to get back down to the one-page benchmark.

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Next post is planned to be an "origins" post, talking about the basis of the skill system.

Check back for that on September 19th.