Heavy Metal Thunder -- The Warlord and The Spellbinder (Beta 4)

Today's post features two classes based off the the d12 class die:

• The Warlord
• The Spellbinder

Warlord was one of the first few "expansion" classes that I wanted to add, after the first slate was finished (as has been mentioned here previously.)

I personally never quite got the allure of the "lazylord" style of gameplay, but I included it nonetheless, with a few twists of my own; making the Warlord a d12 class was mainly done for two reasons:

• a distinct lack of d12 classes to take inspiration from, in pre-existing d20 systems
• the desire to make attacking a powerful option for the class, rather than always opting to make someone else attack instead

This also meant that Warlord would be a melee-focused class, as per the role of the d12 within the system. It's a class that is more effects-based than damaged-based, in some ways similar to the Ranger.

The Commander archetype can direct allies as either a Standard Action, or when they make an unsuccessful attack. This is intended to allow players to be conservative and just trade their action to their teammates, but to also not punish them for being aggressive and choosing to attack.

The Protector archetype is meant to be a strong battlefield controller, wading into the thick of things to defend allies and punish enemies. 

With the Warlord polished up for Beta 4, their slate is now complete!

Heroes of Martial Might & Divine Power

• The Acrobat (d4)
• The Fighter (d6)
• The Cleric (d8)
• The Paladin (d10)
• The Warlord (d12) 

...

Spellbinder began its life as the Swordmage archetype for the Mage (d4) class. Originally, Mage was the only class that had any sort of teleportation abilities, so it was logical that Swordmage would fit under that umbrella. When I settled on writing 3 slates (and on what shape those would take) the Mage became the Sage, with Wizard and Monk as its archetypes; it made sense to shift an archetype like Swordmage up to a "heavier" slot, like the d12.

As for another archetype to go with the Swordmage, probably one of the first names to come to mind was the Hexblade. In a slate of classes built around arcane magic and shadowy power, it made for a class with an interesting dichotomy to reflect that.

Though not as fiddly as the Essentials version of the class, the Hexblade as presented here takes inspiration from the Fey pact, with its focus on teleporting; this also serves to make this archetype a good fit for the umbrella class. The Hexblade also works well with the d12; it's basically a melee-focused version of the warlock, a class that naturally lends itself to the mechanic of burning reserves (of which d12 classes get the highest number) for powerful effects.

The name "Spellbinder" doesn't seem a great fit at first glance, but I think the archetype names themselves compliment one another. However, the definition of the word "spellbound" references distracting, fascinating, or holding someone's attention (either with the spoken word, or outright magic.) This seemed perfect for a class with one archetype that focuses on distracting enemies to protect their allies (Swordmage) and another that gains their attention in order to punish them even harder (Hexblade.)

I also had intentions of incorporating ideas from the "Binder" (warlock subclass in 4e) just to wrap the name up neatly, but a quick glance at that class showed it to be mostly a ranged version of the Hexblade, and so it was not really suited to a d12 class.


The Spellbinder caps off another slate!

Heroes of Magic & Shadow

• The Sage (d4)
• The Rogue (d6)
• The Bard (d8)
• The Mystic (d10)
• The Spellbinder (d12)

---

All of the classes are now set! That means it's time to move on to other aspects of the game's design. Going forward, posts will likely focus on the "GM side" of the system, although player options may see some further tweaks and refinement.

TNP Design will be taking a short break for the holidays, but expect a new post on January 5th.

See you in 2017!

Blood from a Stone -- The Guardian and The Warrior (Beta 4)

Quickly posting the links for the new classes, then I will add content shortly:

• The Guardian (d6)
• The Warrior (d10)

Stay tuned!


The Warrior
As was mentioned in my post about The Rogue, I wanted to make a Scout class that was sort of like a "wilderness rogue." Simple enough, right? Well, the thing about that is, it means the class needs to be the skill specialist of its slate -- which is sort of hard, since a slate like "Heroes of the Wilderness" is bound to have a fair bit of redundancy in the skill department.

Originally, I was planning to have the class use the d6, and focus on two-weapon fighting (harkening to the Essentials version of the Scout -- a Ranger subclass.) A couple problems with this:

1. Already having a d6 Fighter class, with two-weapon fighting as one of its options.
2. Already having a d6 Rogue class, with skillfulness as a major focus. 

I could have easily just reused these mechanics, but it felt sort of wrong. I had "Guardian" penciled in for the d10 spot on this slate, but I decided to swap the two around. It was similar to how I moved Warlock to a d10 slot, when I split it off from the Sorcerer.

What results, is a melee-focused, damage-stacking class, built off exactly the die that is meant to be used that way. Making the "Skirmish" mechanic using a d10 necessitates it working and feeling differently than the Rogue's "Sneak Attack" and I think that's a good outcome.

Skills still presented a problem; I felt the class needed an "urban" archetype or possibly a "spy," to cover the more social-focused skills -- something a specialist should be able to do, but which didn't really fit with a Scout. After much mulling and conversation, the idea of making this archetype into a Skald just clicked.

As a class that exists in Pathfinder as having Bard and Barbarian as its "parent classes," it wasn't too much of a stretch to fit it onto this slate. Similar to a Bard, it made sense for the Skald to be good at social skills, as well as deception. It also gave me the opportunity to make a sort of "two-weapon fighting Barbarian," which I didn't feel worked well as a d12 class. It also sort of lends itself to the Skald being a class from "Heroes of the Feywild" in 4e D&D, as well as the dual-wielding, hidden Bard class from Diablo: Hellfire.

So what we end up with is a more narrowly-focused Fighter in terms of combat, and a more narrowly-focused Rogue in terms of skills. The Scout leans more towards a striker/lurker role, with Skald being more of a support class; each archetype then has a few Role options to choose from, to flesh them out and help them specialize a bit more.


The Guardian
As was mentioned in a previous post, the Guardian kind of grew from the necessity of a landing spot for the Shaman archetype, as well as wanting to do a take on the Warden from 4th Edition.

The name (I think) mainly came from the Warden's daily powers referencing them assuming a "guardian form." Essentially, what these powers do is give you a few passive bonuses (effectively, a stance) and then an attack power you can fire off on that turn, or later in the encounter. The idea from Essentials of using stance powers coupled with "Power Strike" (for both the Fighter and Ranger classes) sort of mimics this kind of mechanic.

However, the specific fluff for the Warden daily powers was not very consistent, so it was hard to come up with something that worked thematically, in as elegant a way as I would have hoped; I looked at the research I had done into the Warden, and mostly scrapped it all, instead going with something closer to the Essentials Ranger.

I tried to emulate something similar to the Stance/Power Strike mechanism, using the combination of totems and spirit manifestations, with burning reserves for more powerful effects. Combine all of that with the concept of using d6 as a damage-stacking class die, plus having a support archetype and a tank archetype (with totems allowing a further degree of role customization) and... there's a lot going on. I expect this class to change a fair bit in future drafts.

---


I was kind of on a tight schedule with this post, and these two classes were probably the most work-intensive of the classes that needed to be completed. I might try and rewrite both of them when I have more time, or let that part shake out in playtesting.


In any case, "Heroes of the Wilderness" for Beta 4 is now a complete slate!

• Druid (d4)
• Guardian (d6)
• Ranger (d8)
• Warrior (d10)
• Barbarian (d12)

---

Coming up on the next blogpost:

• The Warlord
• The Spellbinder

Check back on Dec. 20th!

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.)

---

Coming up on the next blogpost:

• The Guardian
• The Warrior

Check back on Dec. 10th!

For Man or Beast -- The Druid and The Ranger (Beta 4)

Today's post focuses on two classes that appeared in 4e D&D's "Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms" (a book in the 'Essentials' line.) The four classes featured in that book could probably be glossed as the "2nd-team All-Stars" of D&D (particularly the 4e/Essentials paradigm) coming after the "big 4" of Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard.

Without further ado, I present:

• The Druid
• The Ranger

The Ranger was one of the original 5 classes, from the very earliest beginnings of The Next Project, holding down the d8 slot on that first slate.  It seemed a fit for the weapons a Ranger would typically use in D&D, and for giving them a decent amount of HP; it also works really well for the prescribed function of the class die within this game's framework.

When the idea of expanding the game to a 2nd slate started to gain steam, Druid was one of the first two classes I was interested in doing (Monk being the other, with Warlord being a popular "fan favourite.") At the time, I felt it made sense to have the Druid as a d8 class -- middle-of-the road, sharing flavour and mechanics with the Ranger.

Through the process of paring down the list of classes I wanted to write, and settling on doing 3 slates, it became clear that Ranger and Druid belonged to the same "power source." And so, because of that, one of them would have to be moved to a different class die.

I decided to shift the Druid down to the d4 slot. It made sense as a die that could be used to add HP to the class when they shapechanged, without pushing those numbers outside of the existing bounds. And it seemed like a logical step to just convert the class from "1d8 math to 2d4 math."

I also wanted to use the d4 as the Summoner archetype's limit on how many 'minions' they could control, in contrast with the Mystic's utilization of the d10. However, this ended up being implemented differently than I had originally planned -- largely due to the move away from using abilities from other classes (as was also done with the new Bard.) The Summoner no longer uses pre-existing summoning abilities; instead, it has its own unique mechanic for summoning, which works similar to the new Ki mechanic for the Monk (itself a d4 class.)

Wanting to keep classes to only 2 archetypes, I knew that having Shapeshifter and Summoner under 'Druid' would mean moving the Shaman archetype off to somewhere else; stay tuned for the Guardian class in an upcoming post, if you're wondering where it ended up.

The Ranger hasn't changed a whole lot since its inception, aside from having the archetype framework added onto it; this was when the class inherited the Beastmaster archetype from a previous Summoner class. Likewise, the Druid was completed very late in Beta 3, and so hasn't seen nearly as many iterations as some other classes. Overall I think this update removes some of the clunkiness that the d8 version had, with trying to juggle its 3 archetypes.

In terms of skills, I decided to play with the math on these two classes a little bit; no guarantees I'll keep things this way, but we'll see how it shakes out in playtesting. I didn't want the Druid to be able to use its forms to always be the best at whatever the party needed for skills, so I like the interaction of the d4 class die with Expertise for them. Likewise, the Ranger using its class die for skills interacts in a neat way with its Expertise bonuses, and makes them truly the master of the outdoors.

Along with the Barbarian class (which was completed prior to kicking off "50 Days of Design") the Druid and the Ranger fit onto the slate I'm referring to as:

"Heroes of the Wilderness"

 As of right now, the previously-mentioned 'Scout' class will instead be made an archetype, under the umbrella of a 'Warrior' class; along with the Guardian, these 5 classes complete this "3rd slate."

---


Coming up on the next blogpost:

• The Cleric
• The Mystic

Check back on Nov. 30th!

Scoundrels, Swashbucklers, and Scholars -- The Rogue and The Bard (Beta 4)

Busy day, so here's a short post with the latest drafts for these classes.
Check this post tomorrow for an updated version with more info!

• The Rogue (d6)
• The Bard (d8)

*UPDATED* (11/11/2016)

In the previous Beta, there were two d6 classes: the Rogue and the Trickster.

The Rogue had 3 archetypes: the Assassin, the Scoundrel, and the Scout. Skill-wise, the Assassin favoured INT, the Scoundrel favoured STR, and the Scout favoured WIS. The Assassin was meant to be the type who lurked in the shadows, then struck with deadly precision. The Scoundrel focused more on melee combat, excelling as a brawler. The Scout was the outdoorsy rogue, with a two-weapon fighting style.

The problem I found, was that the Scoundrel grew out of a suggestion to give the Rogue incentive to be in melee. But limiting that to one archetype didn't make sense, and also I ended up with 3 archetypes that were too bare-bones. With the completion of the revised Martial Artist archetype (for the Acrobat class) the brawler-rogue seemed kind of redundant, and I had always kind of felt like Sneak Attack didn't fit with it anyway.

When I settled on the 3 slates as they are constituted now, I knew I wanted to make Scout into its own class; it's essentially the "wilderness Rogue" so it falls into a different "power source" than an Assassin. 

The thing then, was, that the Rogue was left with only one archetype...

So, the Trickster was a class I was never particularly happy with. It basically had a "lucky number" mechanic, but otherwise its main gimmick was using abilities from other classes. It also had 3 archetypes (Bard, Skald, and Sorcerer) but I was never particularly happy with any of them; the Skald was just bland, the Bard wasn't unique enough, and the Sorcerer didn't have enough meat on it.

When I was writing up my post about "Casting the Dice" I realized that the Bard needed to be a d8 class; it made sense as a jack-of-all-trades support specialist, that was comfortable at range or in melee (if not necessarily a "skirmisher" per se.) The Sorcerer made sense as a d6 class, since it was intended to be a damage-stacking class, but not particularly durable. 

And so, a connection was made: the Sorcerer would become a Rogue archetype.

What we end up with is two classes for the slate which I refer to as: 

"Heroes of Magic & Shadow"

Though mechanically the Sorcerer and the Assassin don't share much in common, the idea of them thematically as both being outsiders or renegades seems to fit. In that sense, they're sort of "two sides of the same coin," with one using arcane spellcasting, and the other as a shadowy weapon-user. They both utilize the d6 class die quite well, for its intended purposes. The Sorcerer also retains some of the "lucky number" mechanics of its prior incarnation with the Trickster class, showcasing it as a chaotic and unstable style of magician; its use of other class' abilities has been stripped down and simplified, but the flavour is still there, giving the Sorcerer two distinct "sub classes."

The Bard similarly retains the "lucky number" mechanic, with different applications depending upon the combat role they choose. Their archetypes (Scholar and Performer) serve to add a bit of flavour to the class, informing their skills selection. I am a lot happier with their new iconic abilities being closer to what has made Bards popular, however, I still consider the class to (overall) be in its infancy, so there may be more heft added to it in later revisions; the mechanics may change shape a bit, down the road.

...

The two classes I will be showcasing in my next post will be:

• The Druid
• The Ranger

Stay tuned!

Fifty Days of Design (Beta 4)

Another quick post to announce my latest plans:

10 classes in 50 days!

 As of right now, these classes are what I would call "done":

• Acrobat (d4)
• Sage (d4)
• Fighter (d6)
• Paladin (d10)
• Barbarian (d12)

So, over the next 50 days, I'm looking to finish up the final 10 classes, each with 2 archetypes:

• Druid (d4)
• Rogue (d6)
• Scout (d6)
• Cleric (d8)
• Bard (d8)
• Ranger (d8)
• Mystic (d10)
• Guardian (d10)
• Warlord (d12)
• Spellbinder (d12)

Since I am trying to post every 10 days, that works out to 2 classes for each blog post!

Some of the classes are in a more complete state than others (specifically, those from previous iterations mostly just need some tweaking) so it's not as huge a feat in some cases.

...

As a minor note, Knowledge skills have finally been moved away from the structure of other skills, in what I consider to be a satisfactory manner in terms of the language used for them. Knowledge skills will fall into 4 categories: Battlefield, Social, Exploration, and Lore.

Also, if you haven't had a look at the core rules yet, check them out here!

The Road Ahead (Beta 4)

A quick-ish post to take stock of where The Next Project is at:

About half the classes need some major form of writing; either new classes that need to be written from the ground up, archetypes that need to be added, or classes/archetypes that need to be converted from one slot to another. The other half could still use some touch-ups, but a couple of them are what I would consider "done."

The core rules are probably done; it'll just be a matter of whether playtesting turns up any bugs that need to be fixed. Movement and status effects might cause hangups.

The monster math/encounter design stuff is more or less there, in my head. So I need to put pen to paper with that, and get an updated draft ready. I also want to at least have some sample monsters rolled out, if not an entire full-length monster manual.

I also want to do up a DM guidance doc, explaining how to utilize the system from both a technical as well as an aesthetic perspective. Specifically, I want the game to support both DM-driven as well as player-driven campaigns/narratives, so there should be advice for that bundled with the system.