Conventional Wisdom -- Part 2: Class Breakdown (2025)

Just to give some context, I feel it's helpful to recap what the projected class list for the TNP sequel is shaping up to be:

1. Cleric/Paladin thing
2. Sorcerer/Wizard thing
3. Druid/Ranger thing
4. Monk/Rogue thing
5. Barbarian/Fighter thing
6. Necromancer/Warlock thing
7. Bard/Warlord thing

So, specifically, how does this relate to our question of "WIS stat: yes or no?"

The first thing I think of is, if we're structuring mental stats sort of like the physical stats, then it might be the case that there's one stat for offensive spells, one for healing spells, and one for determining the number of targets of your spells. If class #1 and class #7 are meant to be healing classes, then the obvious solution is for them to use CHA as their healing spell stat, since that stat would be somewhat ubiquitous to those archetypes. Ok, so what about class #3? You could possibly make an argument for INT being their healing stat, but WIS is clearly the more obvious choice.

This is where we get into the problem of, "the Wizard is the best at Religion, because the Wizard is the best at INT." How do we solve for this? Do we make the spell functions of the attributes be class-specific? Do we make the knowledge skills for each class function off of their key mental stat? Do we do both? Really, when trying to make attributes work properly, we need to use them in ways that work mechanically, but also reinforce the expectations that the lore and the archetypes impose on the game. And it must be said, that in a non-multiclassing paradigm, it is much easier to fiddle with these levers.

As a bit of a sidebar, this also brings up the lack of utilization of the INT stat, in modern D&D. Without going into detail, this stat has lost features from 3.5 to 4e, and from 4e to 5e. It's only used as the spellcasting stat for Wizards (and later, Artificers) as well as Eldritch Knight (the Wizard version of Fighter) and Arcane Trickster (the Wizard version of Rogue.) So is this something we should try and "balance out?" It seems that the Necromancer half of class #6 could possibly focus on INT; Druid and Ranger could utilize it more, and maybe Cleric, too? What about for class #7? It feels like you could almost do something with keying certain class features of theirs to the INT stat, but not outright spellcasting. How does class #4 fit in? Is Rogue the INT version and is Monk the WIS version?

The other question to consider is if certain spellcasting classes are meant to be completely shut out of healing, then does it really make sense to have 3 (potential) spellcasting stats? Does it make sense to split offensive and defensive spellcasting across 2 stats, to begin with? 5e D&D doesn't do this; each class uses one stat for all of their spellcasting (and often use the same stat for their class features, too.) So should the point of differentiating a Cleric as a WIS caster and a Paladin as a CHA caster lean more into differentiating their skills? In that case, it seems that the implication is that the spellcasting stat (if indeed there is to be only one) for each given class, should be the stat that most closely aligns with the expected skillset of that class.

Again though, this butts up against the problem of who's the odd man out, when it comes to skills like Religion: if you make it a WIS skill, Paladins become bad at it, and Rangers become good at it; if you make it a CHA skill, Bard/Warlord characters are suddenly good at it, but Druids are suddenly worse at it. I feel like the way to avoid this while keeping 3 mental stats, is to make each "class skill" from the knowledge skills just use your highest mental stat. The alternative is to see if we can pare the stats back down, and somehow rework the "power source" framework to be functional with the new implied math.

The other vector to approach it from (particularly if your "good skills" are supposed to use your highest mental stat) would be to ask, what are your "good saves" supposed to be? This harkens back to the previous post, where essentially we have to ask, "What does each save do?" If Paladins, Bards, and Warlords are meant to be good at CHA saves, does that mean their minds are hard to dominate -- or is that meant to be represented by characters with high INT? Or high WIS? The other question is, what else is a non-spellcaster (such as a Monk) getting out of picking one mental stat over the other? The classic answer would seem to be something like "add your WIS to your Armor Class," and particularly in a non-multiclassing system, that seems highly workable.

(I also find it slightly telling, that out of 7 classes, there are only 2 you could reasonably classify as purely martial; I feel like this is reflected in the class utilization of 2014 D&D as well as the reworks in 2024 -- which expands spellcasting for most classes that have it. Unlike 4e, where all classes have powers, 5e really is a return to all powers being spells, and so only spellcasters have real powers -- thus necessitating the overabundance of spellcasting classes.)

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We'll look to do one more post, by August 31st -- otherwise the intended 4th post for this month might have to be punted to later in the year.

Conventional Wisdom (2025)

I had mentioned in a previous post that I'd like the sequel to TNP to have a Wisdom attribute. So far, that hasn't managed to work itself into the designs, but maybe it should.

As far as the physical stats go, it's seeming like STR will be the two-hander damage stat; I'm moving off of the idea of adding dice for two-handed weapons, and instead leaning towards adding twice your STR mod to the damage roll. This would make it a little easier to balance against TWF, where maybe the damage mod would be the lower of DEX and STR (or you use STR for the mainhand, DEX for the off-hand?) The thing then is how to operate ranged weapons in this paradigm. The idea to this point is that they would have a low (or no) mod, but you could attack multiple times (likely a max of 3.) The idea being that this number of attacks would likely be based off of your stats -- either DEX or AGIL.

Where I've hit a snag is when trying to figure out how this translates to spells. Is there a "number of attacks" stat, or a "number of damage dice" stat? Should there be a stat that's only used for healing, rather than damage? Probably it would make sense for the stats to work differently for each of the spellcasting classes, so there would be no "hard and fast" rule for how the stats work, the way that there could be with plain old weapon attacks.

It almost seems like rather than just being a straight repurposing of TNP's 5 attributes, the sequel mechanics demand there be another mental stat. The case for this is also helped by the fact that "power sources" as a mechanic don't... quite function as intended; does each class have a 'score' with 2 different power sources, and that's how your knowledge bonuses are divvied up? The problem with that is it's effectively duplicating the mechanic of attributes, without the corresponding skillset mechanic to back it up.

So perhaps it makes more sense to reinvent the wheel, and slot the knowledge skills under attributes again, adding Wisdom back in as one of them. Then essentially what you end up doing is going, "well if X is the Cleric/Paladin spellcasting stat, then Religion should use X stat." The problem is that you end up with the Venn diagram where druids are probably supposed to be good at Religion, but also good at "nature" skills -- so do those skills all use the same stat?

I've always thought (particularly in a non-multiclassing system) that it'd make sense to just let each class use their highest mental stat for any knowledge skills on their "class skill list," so to speak. Is that a better way to handle knowledge skills, vis-a-vis attributes? Since there are only 10 knowledge skills, I think you could easily cover them between the 3 mental stats, without too much trouble; the outlier would be something like Animal Handling, which is meant to sub in for riding/using mounts -- something that maps more to Agility than to a mental stat.

The other thing that this gets into is whether the sequel will have traditional saving throws, or not. From the 3.x perspective, INT or CHA saves seem to make no sense -- so why does 5e have them? I agree that they're poorly defined. I also would take it a step further and say that I personally don't understand how WIS became the default mind-affecting/mind-controlling/Vicious Mockery-ing save. WIS being related to "will power" or a WILL save seems to have more to do with alliteration and inertia than anything else; CHA being an option for your WILL stat (in 4e) vibes with "force of will" or "force of personality" (if not outright "will power" -- the difference seeming academic) being tied to Charisma moreso than to Wisdom.

If INT is the go-to "big brain" stat, you could win me over with an argument that INT is the save used vs. mind control. Really, I find myself asking, "Why isn't everything an INT save or CHA save, instead of leaning so heavily on WIS?" If you start from the assumption that mind-affecting spells should either be INT or CHA, what does a WIS save even get used for? It's particularly hard to imagine any of the mental stats really being used for "saves as opposed checks" where you're not really saving out of a combat effect... but that begs the question of "isn't that just a skill check?"

Maybe if WIS is tied more to senses/perception, then WIS saves become more about saving against things like stunned/blinded/deafened; having WIS back in the lineup means skills like Perception and Insight don't necessarily have to be shoved under INT and CHA (respectively) either.

I'll have to sit down and really hammer out the details more. But overall, I feel like this would be one of those rare cases of "addition by addition." Hopefully working WIS into the mechanics solves more problems than it creates. In particular, I think it'll be interesting to iron out how having 3 mental stats will work, with regards to spell mechanics.

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It's always rough coming back from a break, especially in summer when the weather is nicer -- hence the delay.
Next post should be between the 21st and 25th, with a 4th post before the end of the month. Stay tuned!

Balancing Act: Combat Attributes (2025)

I mentioned previously that the relationship between the d6 pool and "weapon dice" could be one where 2-handed melee weapons add 2d6 whereas 1-handed melee weapons or ranged weapons only add 1d6. The question is how to balance out the utility of these different loadouts. Obviously, there are a few assumptions we need to start from, in order to lay the groundwork; probably there will only be one of your five attributes going as high as +3 (with likely a single +2, and either two +1s or two +0s to round things out.) The other thing is that the baseline assumption of the math is that you will always use your two highest dice for your attack roll; this means that your damage roll will consist of the remaining (i.e. lowest) dice in the pool.

Without accounting for hit chance, the lowest 2 of 4d6 (i.e. two-hander) averages to 4.66
Similarly, if we take two swings with a one-hander (i.e. two-weapon fighting, lowest 1 of 3d6) the average is 4.08

However, when we account for the dice pool attack vs. a 2d6 defense roll, the two-hander is actually going to hit about 10% more often -- meaning the damage modifier needs to bring the TWF routine up to a damage number that's about 10% higher, in order to be comparable in utility. When we factor in a +2 damage modifier for both attacks, the damage is still behind the two-hander (assuming it's at a +3 damage modifier) -- 8.08 vs. 7.66, without factoring in hit-chance. So, that might need some more fine-tuning.

The initial idea I had for balancing out ranged attacks was to use the lower modifier (between STR and DEX) for damage, but allow a number of shots based on Agility mod. The question really then becomes, how do spells even work? Is it just INT mod for number of attacks, and CHA for damage? Is it class/subclass dependent? Is one stat used for damage and one for healing?

This is actually a thing I had narrowed down (somewhat) in my previous RPG designs; basically, weapon-users could attack twice, and magic-users could target one square and all adjacent squares to it. Maybe that'd have to be sort of a class-level of feature, since not all casters are "blasters" per se. The other thing was that I had weapons be sort of an extension of spells, so if you used a dagger or wand, it'd be 1d6 and greater targeting capacity, but if you used a full length staff, it'd be 2d6 with more of a one-target aim. Maybe the baseline for spells in the TNP sequel need to start from something similar?

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Bit of a shorter post today, as things are a little busy lately.
Hopefully June will be a bit closer to the planned blogging dates; check back on the 5th or 6th.