Class Showcase: Cleric & Occultist (2023)

Given that it's nearly Halloween, it seemed like Occultist was an obvious choice for today's post. And since D&D's cleric class famously was based off of the vampire-hunter Van Helsing, that seemed like another solid candidate.

• The Cleric (d4/d10)
• The Occultist (d10)

Like many classes, the Cleric breaks down into essentially a melee subclass (Battle Priest) and a ranged subclass (Invoker). In the 4e paradigm where [role + power source = class], it makes sense to split Invoker off from Cleric; in a paradigm closer to 5e, Invoker just seems like a specialized cleric, with particular spells picked. I chose to give the Cleric class a d10, so that the Invoker could have a few extra reserves to burn for powering their abilities (rather than putting debuffs on themself to power them, as in 4e) -- this is also why the Invoker is one of the first real instances where the newly-defined debilities make an appearance, within a class' features.

Beyond that, I felt like a "healing word"-esque spell and a buff like Bless sort of neatly encapsulates the basic Cleric's toolkit in 5e -- barring specific flavours from domains beyond the obvious divine-ish types.

The Occultist was a class I actually took a long time to settle on a name for. I eventually picked this one after it came up as a class in Darkest Dungeon. In earlier iterations, I had the Animate Dead ability as exclusive to the Necromancer, and the Eldritch Blast ability as exclusive to the Warlock. In the previous iteration, I decided to make both of these abilities available to all Occultists (mainly because they both required a standard action to use) and treated Necromancer and Warlock more as 'roles' rather than distinct subclasses. This lastest version kind of splits the difference; the two aforementioned abilities remain universal, but the curses remain specific to each subclass. The Banishment ability was changed to a controller ability from a Necromancer ability, the Hellish Rebuke ability was changed from a Warlock ability to a striker ability, and Vampiric Touch was added as a support ability.

Generally the ethos in TNP has been to try (as much as possible) to fit the abilities of each class into 3 features, which are sometimes bundles of smaller features -- almost akin to how feats work in 5th Edition D&D. There is some bending of this rule; a class might have one feature and each subclass might have 3 of their own features, in addition to that (such as the Cleric... sort of.) The Occultist essentially has 4 features (one of which has 2 different subsets, depending on subclass) and 3 possible role features, on top of that. In the earliest versions of TNP, the idea was that ALL classes should be able to fit onto one sheet of paper; now, it's usually 3, but some of the simpler classes make in at 2 (with the 1st page essentially being the key, basic statistics for each class loadout.) Hopefully this allows the game to overall strike the right balance between complexity as well as range of character options.

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Check back for the next post on November 10th!

Change Log [2017/05/25] (Beta 4)

Some more changes/updates, mostly coming out of the playtest:

• [Core Rules] Each character can make only one skill check per turn
• [Core Rules] Intimidate now only requires the Immobilized condition; Elite monsters will still require the Bloodied condition
• [Core Rules] Clarified the rules around Teleport; you cannot move to or from High Ground using teleportation, unless specifically allowed by the ability
• [Core Rules] Abilities with the [Form] keyword all can now be activated as part of an initiative check, or activated/changed as a Move Action
• [Core Rules] HP rules clarified; maximum can be exceeded during combat but extra is lost at the end of the encounter
• [Core Rules] Clarified the "Weakened" condition when applied to skill checks with Advantage
• Assassin's skill expertise changed to "all untrained skills from your core skills lists"
• Assassin can no longer Stealth after using Sneak Attack ability to deal d20 bonus damage
• Skald's Inspiring Shout granted attack changed; instead of "double roll and stack in place of attack or damage" it is now "double roll; stack in place of attack, OR use higher in place of damage"
• Skald's intimidate checks changed so that they can target any bloodied enemies
• Spellbinder's intimidate checks changed so that they can target enemies with sigil or hex without needing them to be Immobilized
• Swordmage can now make a melee basic attack OR a skill check as part of a teleport (not both)
• Spellbinder's skill training options altered slightly
• [Cleric] Bless changed to a minor action, but now only benefits 1 ally. Also gains the [Sustaining] keyword.
• [Cleric] Divine Smite basic attacks still get advantage on the damage roll, but can now stack the damage if an ally is engaged with the target; Life Domain smite basic attack now heals a Nearby ally OR one engaged with the target; War Domain can now make divine smite basic attacks as a minor action
• [Cleric] Crusader gets advantage on Opportunity Attacks; changed the Crusader's iconic attack from "make a basic roll and use either result for damage" to "you can power attack with this ability; you gain Advantage on the attack rolls if you do."
• [Cleric] Invoker gains a Minor Action self-teleport and a Move Action to shift enemies; Invoker's reserve-burning damage on iconic attack now does damage, hit or miss.

Playtesting (Beta 4)

We put together a party of 5 for the playtest game, with each Class Die represented.
Here's what the composition looked like:

• Druid (d4)
• Rogue [Assassin] (d6)
• Cleric [Invoker] (d8)
• Paladin [Blackguard] (d10)
• Spellbinder [Swordmage] (d12)

Some of my thoughts so far:

Druid

The boosts to maximum HP from Wildshape don't functionally do anything, since there is no cap on "overhealing" when you're in combat. Overall, the class needs damage boosts, and the Summoner in particular needs some improvements to get rolling faster, since combat is so short. The form of the Great Eagle is meant to be for utility, but might not be useful enough to see much play. I'm strongly considering giving the Druid a healer ability, because the class might not have enough to do, and it feels weird not having one.

Assassin

Overall, the class seems to function well; it definitely does a lot of damage (as intended) but there still doesn't seem to be enough incentive to get into melee. I might end up limiting the use of combat skills to 1/turn. I'm also considering limiting the d20 bonus damage ability of the Assassin, so that you cannot become hidden on the same turn that it is utilized.

Invoker

Since this class relies on area attacks to hit its damage benchmarks (and its area attacks are so reliant on positioning) I'm going to look at giving the Invoker some "battlefield control" abilities, such as being able to either shift or teleport enemies into a maelstrom. Bless also didn't get much love; as a standard action, it is very powerful, but perhaps this is mitigated (again) by the short combat. I'm considering changing it to a minor action, but curbing its potency in some fashion.

Blackguard

As with the Assassin, this is one of the oldest classes, and so has had a fair bit of design energy put into it. The class works well as an attacker, but getting the most out of its defensive perks relies on your allies' positioning. It's definitely a class that relies on using the "basic moves" in order to get some variety in combat; these may need to be highlighted in the class itself, rather than just being spelled out in the core rules.

Swordmage

This class can function very well as a damage-dealer, particularly if you're able to win initiative and/or get favourable positioning, albeit burning reserves at a good clip. We saw this class get a lot of the spotlight in combat. I definitely think I will need to cut back on some of the action economy perks the class gets, and I may limit their reserve ability to 1/encounter. The class perk to Intimidate will need some revision (as will the similar Skald ability) which touches on enemy design a bit, too. Mechanically, I think the class functions well, all around.

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As part of the testing, I've been trying out some of the ideas I've had for how to use and customize the party's opponents, so the next blog update will probably touch on that.

Of Holy Light and Vile Darkness -- The Cleric and The Mystic (Beta 4)

Today's post introduces two classes  from two different slates:

• The Cleric

In earlier betas, I had made a couple of unsatisfactory attempts at writing a cleric class. What started off as a d12 Warlord class morphed into a Cleric, but was ultimately scrapped. The big question I kept asking myself throughout this process was, "what is the Cleric's iconic attack?" In a system that doesn't utilize the wide spectrum of damage types or monster types that other RPGs tend to use, slapping "radiant" damage onto attacks or having a "Turn Undead" ability just doesn't work.

When I finished the first two slates back in Beta 3, and then quickly thereafter completed the Archer (d4) and Fighter (d6), I had tentatively settled on rounding out the third slate with a Cleric (d8), Warden (d10), and Deathknight (d12). When I started looking at the possibility of expanding the roster to 5 slates, the idea of an Invoker class for the "divine" slate was something that popped up.

The 4th Edition take on Invoker was a controller class, that generally slapped debilities onto itself, in exchange for slapping bigger ones onto its enemies. This doesn't particularly translate to The Next Project, since I want to avoid "hard control" mechanics. So my idea for an Invoker more closely resembled this game's Sorcerer; a d6 class that focused on stacking damage and attacking crowds of enemies. Giving the class double its normal share of Reserves would put them on par with a d12 class in that regard, but those resources would be used to fuel damage -- an idea that mirrored the 4e namesake class a bit -- wounding yourself to smite your enemies even harder.

Eventually I settled on doing only 3 slates, and the Invoker idea was scrapped.

When I set out to work on this latest Cleric class, I had decided early on that d8 would be a good fit for more than one "support" class, and so I was leaning that way for their slot. When the slate itself came together, it was kind of the last piece of the puzzle.

After I had completed the "starter set" version of the Cleric, I let it sit for a while. When I picked it back up again to start work on the full class, I felt that I wanted to give it a ranged archetype, and a melee archetype (similar to how the Acrobat turned out.) It also seemed to make sense for a d8 class.

Invoker seemed like a natural fit for a more spellcasting-focused Cleric; as for melee, names like Knight, Warpriest, and Cavalier had been on my radar during the "5 slate" experimentation phase (particularly with this game being sort of a love letter to Essentials.) Ultimately, I settled on Crusader. I think the archetype itself feels more like the Warpriest of the Essentials line, but with Paladin already having a Priest archetype, I wanted a name that would avoid any confusion.

On top of this, I decided to keep the Domains as a layer of customization; I had originally intended to have about 6 or 8 Domains spread across 3 classes (had I kept with 5 slates) but they didn't all lend themselves well to the mechanics of this game. War and Life domains seemed the easiest to wrangle, and I think they both work with either of the archetypes presented.

• The Mystic

In earlier iterations, what now constitutes the Mystic were archetypes for two other classes. The original Mystic had Warlock and Sorcerer as its archetypes, and was a d6 class, sharing a focus on charisma. The original Necromancer was an archetype of a Summoner class (from which the Beastmaster archetype was ripped, and subsequently hung onto the Ranger.)

The name "mystic" was sort of the first thing that popped into my head when I initially came up with the idea for the class, but looking it up, the word means someone who seeks lost or forbidden knowledge. I think thematically, this works really well for both a Warlock (someone who makes a pact with otherworldly powers) as well as a Necromancer (someone whose magic blurs the lines between the living and the dead.)

In the "5 slate" experimentation phase, the idea of having a slate based on a "shadow" power source was one I really wanted to work. But I found there just wasn't enough to flesh it out. The Deathknight never materialized (although what few ideas I could come up with for it may yet appear, elsewhere) and other than that, it never really got beyond the Rogue (namely, Assassin) and Mystic; having Blackguard already in place as a Paladin archetype also threw a wrench in the works.

At any rate, when I decided to separate the Warlock and the Sorcerer, it made sense to keep Warlock as a damage-stacking class, but didn't seem to make sense to have them as the exact same die; in that case, why bother separating them at all?

So Sorcerer merged with Bard to become the Trickster (d6), and Warlock merged with Necromancer to become the new Mystic (d10). The idea to give the Warlock a Reserve-burning mechanic came late in the lead-up to this post, but I think it fits both the themes of the class, and the mechanics of it using a d10. I like that the Warlock kind of straddles the same line between striker and controller that it did in 4th Edition; I also think the Necromancer does a good job of capturing the iconic abilities of its main inspiration (for me, it's the Diablo 2 version.)

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Coming up on the next blogpost:

• The Guardian
• The Warrior

Check back on Dec. 10th!