Skill Difficulties (2018)

In the previous post on this topic (for Beta 4) I covered most of the fundamentals about how skill usage should be handled, in The Next Project; it's probably worth re-reading before diving into this post. Today I want to expand on that, get into the skill math a little bit deeper, and also touch on "free-form" skill use vs. more structured "skill challenges."

We've already set up the parameters of "when not to roll" -- if a course of action is either trivially easy, or impossible -- but perhaps that needs to be expanded on a bit, with some more crunch applied. Specifically, this means that if/when the DM is going to ask for a roll, there is going to be a chance of failure. So what does that mean in numerical terms?


Math behind the Madness

The 'Beta 4' post established the different degrees of competency that characters can have with each skill; with our universal difficulty (or "DC") of 10, this gives us the following success rates (including critical successes):

1. untrained: 55%
2. expertise: 60%
3. trained: 72.5%
4. trained+expertise: 81.666...%

What this means is that at the highest competency level, the failure rate caps out just below 20%, with the DM having the discretion to further reduce that to zero -- if they declare that a course of action simply succeeds without needing to roll.

Meaningful Results

If we look at the numbers when allowing multiple rolls at the highest competency level, the chance of failure almost immediately starts to approach zero (which, if that is the desired result, then the established rule for "trivially easy" actions should have been invoked.) So while it has always been enforced in my playtests, I'm not sure this has ever been explicitly written into the rules: the party should not be allowed to attempt the same skill check more than once, to overcome the same obstacle. If they are required to roll, it is because the DM wants there to be a chance of failure, and if failure is the result, then the party must attempt a different course of action, in order to proceed.

The example of this from the previous post would be "picking a lock" vs. "breaking a door down" -- if one doesn't work, the party can try the other (or they must simply choose an alternate path.) But the effect of the failure is that the approach must be changed, instead of just rolling the same approach until it succeeds.

Another tool we can put at the disposal of the DM borrows from 4th Edition D&D's skill challenges; a failure can mean a change in approach, or a loss of resources. In some cases, it might be appropriate to allow a failed course of action to succeed, if the player is willing to sacrifice one of their reserves to do so.

Structure vs. Restriction

If only one attempt can be made at each skill check, it also incentivizes party members to diversify their skill selections, across the group; each character should have their own area of specialization, and should only really overlap in case the party gets split up. With all of this in place, we can see how the system helps to facilitate teamwork and "sharing the spotlight" a little bit. The question then becomes whether this needs to be formalized mechanically, even further.

The way skill challenges worked in 4th Edition, it was essentially turn-based; you went "around the table" and everyone took a turn making a skill check of some sort. This, however, is counter to the best practices that came out of actual play experience, with the system. My own anecdotes line up with the advice that "the best skill challenges are the ones the players don't know they're in." 

The best way to achieve this is to put the party in a non-combat scenario with multiple different leads or threads that can be followed, and then ask them which ones they choose to pursue, and how. Giving everyone a chance to act and to have their share of the spotlight is important (as it always should be in gaming) but "gamifying" it into turns can sometimes get in the way of the scene evolving organically, or "the action flowing from the fiction."

Turn-based skill challenges should be a tool in the DM's kit, but one that is used sparingly. All characters in TNP are designed to be able to meaningfully contribute in any encounter; there should be no "risk aversion" on the part of the players, in non-combat encounters. If this is a problem that a DM consistently runs into with their group, then instituting a round/turn structure can be used to help cajole people into putting themselves out there a bit more.

Keeping Score

The next question when examining skill challenges is how you measure success -- and I'll just come right out and say, that I think this comes down to taste.

If a non-combat scene requires the party to amass a certain number of clues, the DM can weigh the numbers of successes and failures it took to get them all, and decide (based on that) whether to award XP or not -- perhaps even going so far as to penalize reserves for particularly unsuccessful outings.

Alternatively (if appropriate to the scene) failure at a skill challenge can end in combat (resulting in a similar expenditure of reserves) albeit with the express understanding that whatever knowledge there was to be gleaned from the skill challenge will be given to the players, at the end of the fight. In any case, the over-arching plot still needs to be advanced, regardless of the outcome.

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Next post

Work has been going on behind the scenes on compiling the new draft of the rules, but there haven't been any real revelations from that process -- it's just the usual, expected grind.

As always, check back in 10 days for the next update. If you have any questions or requests for blog content going forward, leave a comment below, or get ahold of me wherever you get your TNP links from.

Knowledge is Power! (2018)

One of the things I've been fiddling with recently is how knowledge skills will be given out, and I've come to some conclusions that will be implemented for the new draft. Despite being more "flavour" than mechanics, this has always been something I've wanted to get just right, probably agonizing over it more than was really warranted. But I feel like I've got it whittled down to a sharp point, now.


Origins

I mentioned in my last post that at one point, "Knowledge" was treated as a Skillset -- essentially, a grouping of skills -- meaning that you could either be good at all of them, or at individual skills, based on whether or not you were good at the attribute related to that specific skill. This presented problems, and eventually knowledge skills were migrated away from being a skillset, to being tied to Power Sources. The intent here was to give additional design weight to Power Sources, beyond just their function for re-specs.


Next Steps

Initially, each Power Source was assigned 3 knowledge skills; if you had that Power Source, you had training with all 3 skills. Since there are only 10 knowledge skills in the designs, this meant that some of the Power Sources overlapped. This lead to some classes (assuming two power sources for each class) would end up with 6 trained knowledge skills, and others would end up with 5.

The main thing I didn't like about this setup (probably) was that it didn't mirror other skills in terms of math, i.e. those skills could have both training and expertise. With the plan to implement leveling also coming into focus, it seemed like a good idea to have knowledge skills be a part of that progression.


Present Day

So the idea going into the 2018 Edition (at the start) was to narrow the skills of each power source from 3 down to 2, and then, grant training to one of those skills, and expertise with the other (at the player's choosing.) Over and above this idea, was the plan to allow a separate progression track for all characters: each time you gained a level, you would also gain training with a new knowledge skill, or expertise with a trained knowledge skill.

The problem with this is twofold. First, "Knowledge" as its own separate progression becomes messy, if it is intended that the upgrades it provides can also be applied to skills gained from power sources -- specifically, it causes problems if a power source is changed, as part of changing your class. The two methods of gaining/improving knowledge skills needed to be untangled from each other. Secondly, it still ended up giving out too many trained skills, meaning that party members would be stepping on each others' toes; gaining one trained skill per power source, plus up to 5 more as you gained levels (from a list of only 10, to start with) just didn't make sense. Even at two power sources per class, this would be too much, and I already knew that I was going to have a handful of classes be able to get three.


Moving Forward

After much deliberation, the solution I have come to is this:

Each power source is associated with two knowledge skills.
When you gain a power source, you gain one of the following benefits with those skills:

• Training with both skills

• Training with one of the skills, and expertise with both

The decision to remove "knowledge progression" as a tool for precise customization was kind of a tough one, but I feel it is in line with the game's premise -- that The Next Project should be more of a "pick-up-and-play" gaming experience, than be about character creation and crunch. This setup allows for knowledge skills to function like other skills (mathematically) while also helping to reign in the number of skills each character will have. It will also allow two characters with the same power source to still have differences in their skill loadouts.


Backup Power

All that being said, I kind of what to utilize the system that was suggested previously, as sort of a backup/catch-all/fail-safe kind of measure. Specifically, if a situation reasonably calls for a knowledge check, but doesn't map to a specific skill, the players can fall back on their Power Sources. If the DM feels a PC's power source is applicable, the knowledge check can be made as a trained check; if more than one power source would apply, the check could also be made with expertise. As mentioned before, this is fairly similar to  the 13th Age system for Backgrounds, but a little more narrowly-focused.


Next Post

Hopefully I'll be able to get some more writing/designing done, before the next post is due to go up. I am always taking requests for blog topics, so send me your ideas!
Check back March 13th.

Constitution -- Part 2: Hit Points and Attributes (2018)

Today I'm going to quickly talk about HP, as well as the concept of Constitution as an "ability score" or "attribute" as it relates to TNP.


Attributes & Skills
In earlier designs, knowledge skills and performance skills were tied to attributes, the same way all core skills are; much like 4th Edition D&D, knowledge skills such as Arcana, History, and Religion were tied to Intelligence, whereas Nature and Dungeoneering were tied to Wisdom. Now, as I've mentioned before, I wanted classes that typically got Heal (or its equivalent) as a class skill, to actually be good at it -- namely, by tying it to an attribute they would likewise be good at. The idea I had was to move it from being a Wisdom skill, to a Constitution skill; since Heal sort of deals with the health and durability of characters, it wasn't that big a leap in logic to use an attribute that deals in the same things.

I quite liked this solution, at least for this one specific attribute. For the other attributes, it sort of devolved into the same problem that 4e had, where classes that were "supposed" to have high Intelligence end up being better with the Religion skill than classes that were supposed to be religious. Eventually, I decided to pull Knowledge skills away from being a Skillset (with individual skills being the intersection of that Skillset, and one attribute.) With the 2018 Edition of the game, I am going to be likewise removing performance skills from the structure of core skills.

Originally, I had Fortitude as sort of a combined Strength/Constitution attribute, but it began to make less and less sense in my head. Having "Constitution" as the key attribute for performance skills such as singing or playing a wind instrument at first seemed fine, but it ended up pigeonholing classes a little too much -- particularly for something that is meant as more flavour than mechanics. The end result is we can use the term "Strength" instead (and have it be straightforwardly combat-focused) without having to worry about it tying to background skills.


Hit Point Calculations
In terms of HP, in the earlier versions, it was simply a function of your class die. It started out with having your maximum HP be something like, "roll your class die with Advantage and Expertise," and that would be the amount of HP you had. You could also re-roll it at the start of every adventuring day -- sort of to reflect the benefits of a long rest, but also potentially the negative results of a poor rest. 5th Edition D&D similarly leans towards the low end for HP (at first level) so I kind of wanted to take a similar approach -- but to implement and execute it better, within the structures I was writing for my system.

As such, monster damage was made to be very low (typically only 1 or 2 points per "hit") which sort of handcuffed the design. It also meant that a player who rolled poorly could be taken out of a fight easily, particularly if they were focus-fired; even if they weren't "dropped," being at your last Hit Point meant you had to play very defensively. This was particularly true, given that there were not many healing options available to the "original slate" of classes. (Indeed, for quite a while there, I had not intended to have "combat healing" in the game at all.)

My first thought in trying to alleviate this problem was to simply use "maximum value of your class die" for your HP. However, it was quickly pointed out that having d12 classes get triple the HP of d4 classes would be problematic. It proved to be difficult to balance around, and made encounter- and monster-design more unreliable. So eventually, in the Beta 4 version of the rules, the HP calculation became "maximum value of your Basic Roll," i.e. 20 (the maximum value of a d20 roll) + 4/6/8/10/12 (the maximum value of your Class Die.)

Why I like this, is because it keeps with the game's ethos of having everything derive from the dice. What gives it some mechanical validity, is when we compare it to how 4th Edition D&D handles HP, at first level. I went and delved into this math, to see how it stacked up to the new formula for TNP.

In 4e, your HP was composed of your Constitution score, as well as a static value provided by the role of your class. Now, since I didn't want to have ability scores (nor did I want modifiers seemingly drawn from the ether) I couldn't just copy+paste over this solution, hence the need to come up with my own formula.

Your starting ability scores in 4e range from 8 to 20; typically, Constitution would not be lower than 10, but also rarely higher than 15 or 16 (again, at 1st level.) As for roles, Defenders would start with 15 HP, Leaders and Strikers with 12, and Controllers with 10 -- in addition to HP equal to their Constitution score. (Some classes would get bigger bonuses to HP; off the top of my head, Barbarian gets more than the baseline for a Striker. But this is the exception, rather than the rule.)

This gives us a practical range of about 20-30 HP, with the extremes of 18 and 35 still being in the realm of possibility. So with the "max Basic Roll" equation for TNP producing a range of 24-32 HP, it seems like a perfect fit. Narrower HP ranges allow for our monsters to pack a similar punch, no matter which party member they target -- making it so that their design can be simpler, and also less reliant on DMs "pulling punches" to make sure combat feels fair.


Appendix
As I touched on in the previous post, I don't intend to tinker with HP values, for the new draft of the rules. I also mentioned that "doubling" the HP you get from your class die would be a feature for certain classes/subclasses. Generally speaking, I think this will be the tack to take for the melee subclass within certain d4 and d6 classes (for example, the "Monk" subclass for Sage, and the "Martial Artist" subclass for Acrobat.)


Next post will probably touch on some recent changes to Power Sources -- unless I get any amount of strong requests for more deep-dives into the subject of Constitution. Check back on March 3rd for more!

Constitution -- Part 1: Reserves (2018)

I've been meaning to give this little subsystem a good old-fashioned number crunching for a while now, so that will be the topic of today's post.

When I first set about implementing Reserves into the designs, one of the basic intents was to provide a structure for the length of an "adventuring day." Essentially, when you run out of Reserves, you need to take a rest and replenish them, in order to continue adventuring. As with most things in TNP, I wanted to use Class Dice in some sort of permutation, to dole out Reserves. Using 4th Edition as a comparison -- 6 to 10 Healing Surges as a base (depending on your class) plus your Constitution modifier -- the easiest way to approximate that range of numbers was simply "maximum value of your Class Die."

I also wanted to have Reserves be closer to a full heal-up. I liked how 4th Edition's handling of bloodied value and surge value worked, but just as a matter of personal taste, I wanted to avoid any division or rounding in my designs (even though HP values in TNP are a lot easier to work with, in that regard.) Subsequently, I came up with the idea of having "maximum Class Die value" as effectively being your "surge value" in the sense that it was the guaranteed amount of HP you would regain from spending a Reserve. Using a d20 roll meant that this mechanic now had a ceiling, to go with its floor.

So with the onset of the 2018 Edition of the game, I figured the rules surrounding Reserves needed a closer look. Since most of the playtests only lasted a few encounters (rather than a whole adventuring day) it made sense to check the math, and ensure Reserves were of roughly equal utility between the various Class Dice. I had already figured out early on that d12 classes would need other things to spend reserves on (since they got so many) but I also had a feeling that d4 classes would not have enough "healing."

Many gamers' experience with the shortcomings of Hit Dice in 5th Edition D&D has pointed some in the direction that out-of-combat HP restoration should essentially come in the form of a pool of HP you can draw from -- and that this amount should be roughly equal for all classes. I started to look at Reserves from that angle, and crunched out how much HP you're actually able to get from spending one:

• d4 -- 4 reserves, 4-20 HP restored per = 16-80 HP
• d6 -- 6 reserves, 6-20 HP restored per = 36-120 HP
• d8 -- 8 reserves, 8-20 HP restored per = 64-160 HP
• d10 -- 10 reserves, 10-20 HP restored per = 100-200 HP
• d12 -- 12 reserves, 12-20 HP restored per = 144-240 HP

As you can see from the numbers above, there is a wide gap in the utility of Reserves, depending on your class die. So, taking that into account, I set about trying to narrow the ranges a bit. The precedent of d4 or d6 classes doubling their maximum Class Die value for both their number of daily reserves and for minimum HP recovery already exists as features for some classes/subclasses, so I decided to work from there. After looking at the numbers a few times, doubling the number of reserves for d4 classes and doubling the minimum recovery for d6 classes appears to be the way to go.

Also, if we assume an adventuring day consists of 5 encounters, and that our d12 classes will take advantage of their reserve-burning abilities in each of those, they will effectively have 7 reserves to spend on healing, per adventuring day. Similarly, we probably need to ensure d10 classes have something they can spend reserves on in combat, a few times per adventuring day; for the sake of this exercise, we'll assume it's used 3 times.

With all of these ideas implemented, we get this:

• d4 -- 8 reserves, 4-20 HP restored per = 32-160 HP
• d6 -- 6 reserves, 12-20 HP restored per = 72-120 HP
• d8 -- 8 reserves, 8-20 HP restored per = 64-160 HP
• d10 -- 7 reserves, 10-20 HP restored per = 70-140 HP
• d12 -- 7 reserves, 12-20 HP restored per = 84-140 HP

The ranges are much narrower now. We also still have the design space of "double reserves" for d6 classes and "double minimum HP recovery" for d4 classes, both available for use as class features. Also, since the amount healed skews towards the minimum, the average "daily" HP recovery for each die being used ends up being very close.

Now, I should point out that this is essentially intended (more or less) as a balanced control from which to do playtesting. It may turn out that d4 classes have enough defensive tools that they don't need to also have an equal amount of HP recovery available to them; likewise, classes with higher maximum HP values may need bigger reserves to keep themselves topped up. If these changes are found not to be needed, then we have the previous iterations to fall back on.


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So for the next post in the "Constitution" series, I'm going to talk a bit about HP -- where the numbers come from, how this compares to other games, etc. I also will touch on "Constitution as an Attribute" a bit, and why it hasn't figured into the designs (and some times when it did.) Overall, it will be sort of a hybrid "retrospective" post; there's not much that I expect to change regarding HP in the upcoming rules draft.

Once February is over, I'm hoping to get some more design work done, and the blog content should reflect that; I don't expect to talk about "Constitution" for more than these two posts.

Check back February 20th!

Design Origins -- Part 1: The Original Slate

Since the design process of TNP pre-dates the creation of this blog, I want to go back and touch on some of the origins of the game's design choices, from its earliest iterations. The first topic I want to talk about in this series is the "original slate" and where it started from.

Most people who have come in contact with D&D 3.5 will (at some point) have come across the "tier system" for classes, someplace on the internet, or another. The main thing you'll notice when making your way down the list, is that the classes get less and less magical as you go along (i.e. the lower-numbered tiers -- being the most powerful -- are the most magical.)

Now, my personal experience with playing 3.5 was generally limited to only allowing classes from the first PHB, with maybe a few extra classes thrown in for variety. One of the main (or perhaps, better) reasons for limiting your game this way, is if you intend to play 3.5 using only its freely-available SRD content.
If we look at the tier system, and filter it such that we only include classes of Tier 3 or "lower" that appear in the PHB, we get this list:

• Bard
• Rogue
• Barbarian
• Ranger
• Fighter
• Monk
• Paladin

This was sort of the main point of influence; another piece of the puzzle was some goon offering advice along these lines:

If you want to play a balanced game of 3.5 using only the PHB classes, do this:
Don't use Wizards, use Bards.
Don't use Clerics, use Paladins.
Don't use Druids, use Rangers.
Don't use Fighters, use Barbarians.

(Side note: if this sounds like something you wrote, please let me know, because I have forgotten over the years who said it, and would like to start giving out the appropriate credit.)

There were some other pieces of advice (I think Rogues were allowed to stay, and not Monks) but the main thrust of this entire line of thinking was basically, don't use Tier 1 or Tier 2 classes that just step on the toes (in terms of niche, or design space) of other classes. (In the case of Barbarian vs. Fighter, it was more about "Barbarians actually get class features, rather than just more and more feats.")

With all of this in mind, about 3 years ago, one of the first things I ever uploaded to Google Drive was a set of house rules for 3.5; this was limited to a handful of PHB classes, with some tweaks and buffs as desired.

...

Around the time the 5e PHB dropped (August of 2014, as I recall) was when I started working on TNP in earnest. I called it 'The Next Project' because as the previous game I had worked on was winding down, I kept telling people, "well, for my next project, I want to do this..."

One of the earliest mentions of TNP design that I can dig up is from the "Retrocloning 4e" thread, on August 20th, 2014. Back then, the original slate looked like this:

• Mage (d4)
• Rogue (d6)
• Ranger (d8)
• Fighter (d10)
• Barbarian (d12)

As the classes got more and more fleshed out, I noticed that the Fighter and Barbarian (as you might guess) tended to overlap too much in their skills; I eventually decided to change the Fighter to a Paladin. This gave the class a whole new bent in terms of skills, but also allowed me to add things like 'Lay on Hands' to their abilities. This would give us the original slate, as it appeared in the first playtest-ready version of the game.

Shortly thereafter, subtype options for the classes would start to appear (with the Barbarian warping into the "Warrior" as it absorbed more of the Fighter design space) and a 2nd slate of classes would inevitably start to shape up. Much like 13th Age, Monk and Druid were always sort of "first in line" for the 2nd slate, with Warlord also being popular among 4e fans. But perhaps I'll touch more on that another time (assuming I didn't cover the 2nd slate enough, when I started to finalize the classes in Beta 4.)

...

One of the key design components of TNP is the use of Class Dice; I would like to touch on that in a future post in this series, which will include talking about how the original slate was... well, slated, into that paradigm.

I've been very busy this past week with other things, which is why I am writing about this topic, rather than doing an update on the writing of the new draft -- I basically haven't had time to do that, since the last post. So hopefully, the next post will have more on that, rather than being another retrospective.

Check back February 10th!

Writing the Rules (2018)

Rewriting of the "core rules" has begun in earnest, and I'm coming at it from a little bit of a different angle than I have previously.

When I was writing Beta 4, what I essentially did was start with the most central design concept, and then introduce more concepts as they became pertinent -- usually one idea dovetailing with another. For example, the idea of both a "Basic Roll" and "maximum value" needed to be introduced prior to introducing the starting HP mechanic (which uses the maximum value of your Basic Roll.)

What I'm doing this time around, is essentially writing up each idea or mechanic as its own thing; any time I think of a new one to write, it's going into a separate document. One of the reasons for doing this, is it helps me to worry less about spacing and length -- trying to cram things together so there aren't long stretches of blank space, keeping the overall doc to the fewest number of pages, etc.

As you might expect, this means that the "core rules" this time around will be a fair bit longer. Granted, the Beta 4 version topped out at a mere 14 pages in google docs; the addition of the leveling mechanics alone will push 2018 Edition past that number, but I do hope to expand on and clarify rules wherever it's needed, which will also add to the length.

Here's a quick look at the topics the rules are covering, so far:

• Changing Your Character: rules about changing your Class/Subclass/Roles/Archetype, and what to do if you find yourself unhappy with a character, late in a campaign
• Character Customization: the basic mechanical explanations of Subclass/Role/Archetype
• Combat Skills: expanding on the previous version's text about which skills are used in combat, and their specific implementations
• Double Rolls: updates to the mechanics of Advantage/Disadvantage and double-rolling class dice (with the Trade-off mechanic written out)
• Positioning: touch-up of the positional rules, including streamlining the jargon
• Power Attack/Counter-attack: rewritten mechanics, incorporating changes to Advantage/Disadvantage and removal of Trade-offs
• Skills: cleaned up and expanded text pertaining to the skill mechanics and descriptions, going a bit deeper into Background/Knowledge/Performance skills

...

One thing I'm considering changing the jargon for is the "subtype" descriptors. Essentially, an idea I had was to use Path, War Path, and Paragon Path in place of Subclass, Role, and Archetype (respectively.) After having spilled some ink on the designs, I think I want to keep Subclass, just because it relates closely to Class -- essentially, most Subclasses would be their own classes in other systems, and as such, changing your Subclass is going to work similarly to changing your class, in the mechanics.

With that sorted, the whole "path" nomenclature idea falls apart pretty quickly. Another snag that has come up, is that people unfamiliar with 5e D&D have often pointed out Archetype as a misnomer; it's a broad identifier, whereas in TNP, they serve to more-narrowly identify a character. Some have also pointed to Role as being too vague (on its face) at least until you get into reading their specific mechanics.

As such, I am considering changing Archetypes to Paragon Paths, and renaming Role to something like "Combat Role." I think at the table, if players choose to shorten those terms down to just "Path" and "Role" then that's fine. However, the rules jargon should be adequately informative in addition to being concise; Subclass does this very well, but Role and Archetype need a bit of a tune-up. I haven't settled on these changes, but both are under consideration.

...

Next post should be on January 30th; as always, if you have input on any of the topics discussed here, feel free to comment below, or get ahold of me wherever you read about the blog.

What to expect from 2018

Happy new year, everyone!
For those keeping score, the blog had just over 1000 views a year ago, and now it's at just under 3000.

Today I'm going to try and touch on as many thing as I can, pertaining to what I plan to write about on the blog this year, as well as the sorts of innovations and changes that will appear in the game design itself. But before getting into any of that, I'm happy to announce that the first draft of the "starter slate" classes is all ready to go:

• The Sage (d4)
• The Fighter (d6)
• The Ranger (d8)
• The Adventurer (d10)
• The Warlord (d12)

I should point out that these classes have been written with much of the new framework in mind; it shouldn't be difficult to have the rest of the classes match up to that. Notably, since there are no "archetype-only" classes in this slate, it'll be important to make sure that those classes have enough customization options, once they are re-written.

In terms of the blog itself, of course I will be including information on changes to the designs, as they come up. In addition to that, I would also like to go back and discuss how some of the existing ideas came to be, and why those decisions were made; for example, I'd like to write about the original slate of 5 classes, the use of Class Dice, and the skill setup. In terms of scheduling, I'm hoping to stick to the plan laid out here, adhering to my "every 10th day"-ish routine, with breaks in July and December.

As I touched on in my previous post, in terms of development, I want to essentially update the classes to the 2018 Edition aesthetic, one slate at a time -- rather than doing all classes in concert with one another. What this means is that (once the core rules are likewise updated) I intend to do some playtesting with the starter set, then adjust those classes (and the core rules) as needed, then work to release another slate of classes, playtest them, and so forth in that fashion.

...

For some mechanical changes (in addition to those already announced) I'm going to work at streamlining and fixing a few things:

Opportunity Attacks: Though I like the conceit of just doing auto-damage with these actions, it's not a good fit for TNP. With some classes getting "double roll and stack" on this damage, it clashes with the positional mechanics that can impose disadvantage on OAs, requiring a specific rules-exception that I don't like. Also, not having an attack roll makes it sort of a misnomer, and I haven't found an alternate piece of jargon that's to my liking. As such, OAs will now use a traditional attack roll. One potential benefit of this is that it will allow for classes to have both a basic attack and an Opportunity Attack "loadout" which may open up new design space.

Trade-offs/Double Rolls: The mechanic of Trade-offs is one that has often been classed as a misnomer, by some of the readers. As the designs have evolved, the specific use of Trade-offs has not been applied uniformly enough, in my estimation. Since things like Counter-attack and Power Attack already have design changes planned (to make them operate without using Trade-offs) I'm going to remove this piece of jargon from the rules, completely. This means that some class abilities will have to be (or have already been) completely changed or replaced. For other instances, the "double roll" terminology will be used instead. Since double rolls that are not just advantage or disadvantage are generally limited to using Class Dice (rather than d20s) you can expect to see that spelled out more explicitly, in the next draft of the rules.

Advantage/Disadvantage: I am considering a few changes to these mechanics:
1) a return to "if you have both advantage and disadvantage, roll 3 dice and use the middle result" (which appeared in earlier drafts.) I might want to have this in place, so that the design space of using both the highest roll and the lowest roll remains viable, in instances where both advantage and disadvantage would apply.
2) re-rolling the dice, in the case of disadvantage resulting in a tie; overall, I don't like to have re-rolls (particularly for play-by-post purposes.) However, the general rule of "treat one result as its maximum value on a tied double roll" functionally does nothing, with disadvantage -- I may want to change that.
Neither of these are set in stone yet, but they are both on my radar.

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That's about all for today; check back next weekend for another post!