Daily Mechanics (2023)

Continuing on from where the previous post left off, if we assume average card-dealing results, the most number of reserves a character will need to spend recovering from combat will be 7 (during the 5th level "adventuring day") -- leaving quite a wide amount of flexibility in how to use the remaining reserves.

Getting back to some of the basic mechanics, as mentioned before, the dice have to do everything. Naturally, this means that the number of reserves a character class gets is based off of their class dice; in order to raise the floor on this number, d4 classes will always be treated as having (at least) "2d4" reserves -- a total of 8. Some d6 classes/subclasses will still only have 6 reserves, but most will have 2d6, i.e. 12.

So what does this mean, in its totality? Well, if we are to balance around the assumption of needing 7 reserves to heal up from combat, the remaining number of reserves (which can be used for other purposes) are as follows:

• 1d6 reserves: (-1)
• 2d4 or 1d8 reserves: 1
• 1d10 reserves: 3
• 2d6 or 1d12 reserves: 5

These numbers sort of point me towards the idea that 2d4/1d8 classes could have a "1/day" reserve-burning mechanic, whereas 2d6/1d12 classes could have a "1/encounter" mechanic. Now, this wouldn't expressly imply any sort of "short rest" refresh mechanic; in this context, the 1/encounter is meant only as a limit to its uses, with the number of daily reserves being an additional hard limit. The 1d10 classes would land somewhere in the middle of these two distinct paradigms, and so might need to be taken on a case-by-case basis.

This ties back into the idea of "class categories" sharing some sort of similar progression or mechanics. The "Disciple" category in particular is one which I am considering giving a mechanic which would allow them to switch their subclass once per day, at the price of a reserve.

With the Occultist being a 1d10 class in the Disciple category, it might make sense for them to have one additional per-day ability, while the Druid and Warlord (both being 1d12 classes in the same category) could potentially have per-encounter abilities, in addition to their per-day category ability.

Now, for particularly tanky 2d6/1d12 classes (who are expected to absorb a lot more punishment and therefore need more healing) perhaps only a 1/day reserve-burning mechanic would be more reasonable for them to have. On the other hand, a 2d6 subclass like the Sorcerer would very likely have a per-encounter mechanic.

An example of one of the ideas I'm toying with is for the Barbarian (d10, d12) class, with regards to their Rage mechanic. Probably they could enter a rage to gain 1d10 extra damage to their melee attacks; burning a reserve would increase the damage by 1d10, perhaps limited by their level -- burning 5 reserves at level 5 to add 5d10, for example. Should they be able to enter a rage once per day? Or once per encounter?

Now, I should clarify that all of the above talk is only referring to classes by the number of reserves they get, based on their dice. This does not imply that the same number would apply to their other game statistics -- and especially so for classes which use two class dice. Each of the following game statistics will be based off of your class dice, but not all in the same way:

• Initiative bonus & HP
• Surge Value (i.e. minimum amount of healing from spending a reserve, under duress)
• Reserves per day
• Engagement (i.e the number of 'open' enemies which you can corral into a maelstrom, using the Engage action)

In the 2021 draft, I had tied Reserves and Surge Value together; that doesn't really make a lot of sense if "1d4" is meant to translate to a SV of 4 but a total of 8 reserves. So those statistics are being de-coupled.

Since I wanted to keep HP as a function of the dice, using "maximum initiative roll" as the calculation allowed for a simple-enough rule -- since "d20 + class die" no longer really worked, once classes started being given a 2nd class die.

Engagement limits may still be linked to the initiative bonus die but... it isn't entirely necessary to do so.

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That's all for today's post; for February (being a short month) my plan is to post on the 12th and 22nd, so check back on those dates.