Damage Per Round vs. Monster HP (2023)

As was established in a previous post, the baseline of 1d8 + any one of the 5 class dice bonuses produces about 7.3 damage per round (DPR). Now, the d12 bonus is the outlier in that it does not produce any additional hit or crit chance; this became a concern of mine when I started to look into the interaction of hit and crit chance, with the stacking of extra damage dice. We'll set that aside for now, but I'll come back to that at the end of this post.

Now, coming back to our monster math expressions, we know that standard monsters should have about as much HP as a PC, and that our encounter budget allows for 2 standard monsters per 1 PC. So what does all of this actually mean?

Let's start with the HP: how much HP do PCs have? Since we now calculate HP as "the maximum possible result of your initiative roll [including initiative bonus]" this gives us a range between 24 and 32. This is the same range as in previous iterations, the difference being that we're using initiative roll instead of "basic roll" (i.e. 1d20 + class die, which became muddled once the change to two class dice was made.) Initiative rolls use a d20 + a bonus based on one of your class dice: 1d4, 2d4, 1d6, 2d6, 1d8, 1d10, or 1d12.

What this means is that a team of 4 PCs should deal something like 192-256 damage per encounter, in order to kill off the 8 standard monsters (having between 24 and 32 HP each.) Following the ethos of 4th Edition D&D, ideally combat should be somewhere around 3 or 4 rounds of combat. If we average out this total over 4 rounds, this results in 48-64 damage per round, as a team of 4 PCs.

Now, let's assume that each 'striker' in the party is expected to produce 1 kill per round (KPR). This translates to 24-32 damage per round. Assuming our baseline of 7.3 damage (as mentioned at the start) this means that the striker needs to produce an additional 16.7-24.7 DPR to hit this benchmark. Since the party needs to achieve 48-64 DPR, and if 1 KPR = 24-32 DPR, this means that the remaining 3 party members only need to account for half of the remaining DPR requirement. If we take 24 HP and split it 3 ways, we come up with 8 -- not far off of our benchmark of 7.3; once we add in things like combat mastery from status effects or tactical considerations, this should be easily doable.

So how do we get strikers up by that additional 16.7-24.7 DPR?
Let's look at the proposed baselines we're dealing with, in terms of "extra damage dice." First, it's important to remember that a change was recently made whereby these dice always have mastery applied to them; this increases the average of each d6 to 4.33 and each d10 to 6.4

Now, if we calculate out 5d6 and 3d10, we get averages of 21.65 and 19.2 respectively.
At this point, we have to stop and remind ourselves that this is damage, and NOT DPR -- and we MUST calculate the DPR in this instance. The baseline hit chance in TNP is 50% (a 10-19 on the d20) with a 5% crit chance (natural 20.) So, we'll do 55% of this damage, per round -- plus the maximum damage of these dice (30, in either case) an additional 5% of the time, since crits deal the rolled damage plus the maximum value of the damage dice.

(21.65 * 0.55) + (30 * 0.05) = 13.4075

(19.2 * 0.55) + (30 *0.05) =  12.06

As you can see, when added to the baseline DPR, this still leaves us far short of the damage necessary for 1 KPR. For the sake of argument, let's increase the hit chance and crit chance, by applying the d4 class dice bonus to it; this bonus increases the crit chance to 17.5%, which changes the calculation as follows:

(21.65 * 0.675) + (30 * 0.175) = 19.86375

(19.2 * 0.675) + (30 * 0.175) =  18.21

Now when we add in the baseline DPR of about 7.3, these numbers only just barely break the minimum threshold of doing the 24 damage needed to achieve 1 KPR. Now, imagine if this example were using the d12 bonus (where there is no increase in hit chance or crit chance) rather than the d4 bonus, and you can see where the problem arises. This is why I recently gave some consideration to boosting all of the dice bonuses; I've been prototyping some changes to the d4, d8, and d12 which would increase the baseline DPR to about 8.8 and crucially would add an increase in hit chance for the d12 bonus. The problem is that it's still significantly smaller than the d4 or d8 bonus, meaning it still doesn't scale well w/r/t extra damage dice -- unless the baseline DPR with the d12 bonus is increased to something closer to 9.3

The other question then becomes, do we simply dispense with d6 and d10 bonuses, and only use those dice for extra damage? I've contemplated it, but it really does leave the Paladin (d6, d10), Rogue (d6), and Occultist (d10) classes in a lurch -- unless you compensate them with some unique +hit mechanics, or just boost their extra damage dice beyond the cap, high enough to outpace their lack of a hit booster.

Now, one thing I've discovered in going over all this, is that most classes (in fact) aren't attacking only once per round. At a bare minimum (depending on things like subclass) everyone will at least be doing some kind of two-weapon fighting routine, if not a flatout AoE against an entire maelstrom, or some other form of multi-attack. As such, I think I'm just going to power through, with the bonuses from the most recent draft of the rules intact; it's far too late in the game (no pun intended) to really consider a major overhaul to the base mechanics.

...

As with things like the decision to axe advantage on base damage, the new class dice mechanics I was tinkering with will basically be filed (at least mentally) in my "list of things for the NEXT next project."

Hopefully this deep dive into the math was illuminating for those of you reading out there.

Check back for the next post on September 10th!

Class Updates: August 21st (2023)

Quick overview:

• Cleric: I would consider to be updated
• Druid: stable, but not complete
• Occultist: work in progress
• Warlord: preliminary work started
• Spellbinder: not started

As mentioned before, figuring out the Disciple class category (Druid, Warlord, Occultist) is going to be a big piece to completing this puzzle. My general intention with the category is to possibly have their "unique thing" be that they can switch their subclass -- possibly requiring a long rest, or spending a reserve, or similar. We'll see if the finalized designs (for the Occultist in particular) make this workable.

Looking back on previous drafts, both the Druid and the Occultist had the option to gain training with either "Influence" (now "Communication") or Subtlety, as a "category upgrade"; this is going to at least be kept as a placeholder form of category upgrade, particularly since the Warlord previously had the option to gain training with one Attribute or one Skillset (abeit as a "class upgrade"). This may ultimately be revised down to a skill rank, rather than skill training.

The other placeholder category upgrade will be the ability to gain an additional power source; currently this can be any power source, but may ultimately be scaled back to "any power source from your class list."

The final (obvious) category upgrade option is to gain additional roles; this is pretty straightforward for the Warlord, and will probably be kept as access to the different animal forms for the Druid, but for the Occultist it will likely require a major class rework. As it stands right now, the structure of the Occultist is effectively a "roles, but no subclasses" setup, which needs to be expanded to include both roles and subclasses. Essentially, the Necromancer and Warlock "roles" will become subclasses, and new role mechanics will need to be layered on in addition.

In case I've forgotten to mention it previously, there was a late substitution on the 3rd slate, whereby the Druid was changed to a d4/d12 class and the Guardian was changed to d4/d6. This worked out a lot better since the Druid was originally built off a d4, and Guardian was built off a d6; essentially, Guardian utilized stacking d6s of extra damage, so converting it to a d12 was actually a bad fit. Conversely, the Druid wasn't built to utilize such a mechanic, so the change to a d12 is a better fit -- if anything, it's somewhat under utilized for the class.

There were some similarities I found while working on the Cleric (d4/d10) and Druid (d4/d12) since their dice are so similar. Mechanics such as the "Druidic Focus" (which previously called for a double roll of "your class die") have mostly been changed to instead roll both class dice; I consider this to be only a "placeholder change," since testing is obviously going to be needed. Another thing is that the Cleric in particular had a lot of utilization of "advantage on base damage" -- a mechanic which was only very recently axed from the designs, precipitating several reworks. So, porting the class from a d8 to d4/d10 (in addition to those reworks) has likewise created a lot of "placeholder changes."

I think I'm going to have a fairly easy time with the Spellbinder, because the basic structure is already in place. Blademasters' unique thing is that they can gain certain features from other classes, and the Sage Domains are already essentially built to be used by multiple classes in the slate; the subclasses for Spellbinder are already formalized, so most of the work will be in format updating, and potentially adding Occultist roles to the list of features that can be borrowed. Being a 2nd slate class, Spellbinder remains using the same, single class die -- so almost nothing should need to change mechanically.

Keeping it Simple (2023)

So the topics on the to-do list that I've had the opportunity to think about are those related to dice rolls.

As mentioned previously, the supposition that mastery could apply separately to base damage and to extra damage created a system where you were making 3 separate rolls, to ensure all of the dice were being adjudicated properly. However, it wasn't particularly desirable to just say "mastery on base damage extends to extra damage" because this runs counter to the general rule that mastery on a die roll does not extend mastery on any bonuses to that die roll.

What I came up with instead, was essentially reversing the equation: what if mastery on extra damage would also apply mastery to base damage? And to simplify it all, why not have extra damage always be rolled with mastery applied to it?

This creates two scenarios where mastery can be applied to base damage:
1. When combat mastery would apply to the roll
2. When extra damage would be applied to the base damage

Now, you might be thinking, "But if combat mastery is applying mastery to the base damage, doesn't that mean you'd still have to roll the extra damage without mastery, thus defeating the point?" Right, unless extra damage always has mastery -- then we're back to all of the damage dice being able to be rolled together. Class dice bonuses which end up being used for damage would still have to be rolled separately, but they can always be rolled at the same time as the attack roll; this is how we keep the order of operations down to 2 dice rolls.

Further to this, we can apply the same line of thinking to the decisions about advantage. In short, if base damage with advantage has to be rolled separately (because advantage cannot apply to extra damage) then the solution crystalizes itself: we have to axe advantage. Otherwise, we end up in a situation where we're making 3 rolls again... unless the base damage uses different dice than the extra damage, but I really don't want to have rules that amount to exceptions upon exceptions -- that's just clunky, and it's bad design.

The other consideration is that, with the basic idea of "2d4/2d6 base damage with advantage is comparable to 1d8/1d12 base damage with mastery [respectively]" ...how do you actually balance these things, in a paradigm where combat mastery can be applying to both expressions? The result is that the two pairs of expressions will never actually be balanced with each other, meaning that the supposed value-add of the advantage mechanic is non-functional.

So, could we keep advantage on initiative bonus? Possibly, because it doesn't come with the same kinds of assumptions and interactions as base damage rolls do. But then it becomes this weird outlier where the mechanic only applies to one type of roll, within the overall system. It quickly becomes a case of "less is more" and so the decision to axe it becomes quite obvious in this instance as well, I would argue.

Another wrinkle to "always-on" mastery for extra damage, is that it evens out the numbers a bit -- especially if we're going with the lower cap of 3d6/2d10
With mastery applied, the min/avg/max for these dice expressions are as follows:
 3d6: 3/13/18
 2d10: 2/12.8/20

I still haven't settled on whether this is the cap that will ultimately be used (and in fact, there's an argument to be made for maintaining a higher cap, but that's a whole other post on its own) but I do like the way that this looks, on the surface.

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A relatively short post, but hopefully with vacation around the corner, the next few can be a bit longer and more in-depth. Check back on August 21st and 31st for those.

Fall Semester (2023)

Scheduling:
First and foremost, I'd like to talk about the timing of the blog, for the rest of 2023. I want to get back on track with my usual schedule of posting roughly every 10 days. As such, the plan is to do 4(!) posts in August, followed by 3 each in September, October, and November. I'll be posting on the 1st, 11th, 21st, and 31st in August, followed by the 10th, 20th, and 30th in the remaining months.

My thought with this has always been that a once per week posting schedule would never really leave enough time for actual development, but posting every other week (or semi-monthly) would be too slow, and cause people to lose interest. So the basic idea is to split the difference, and post "3x per month"-ish. With my scheduled breaks, this translates to 30 posts per year -- which averages out to 2.5 posts per month, and still more often than 1 post every two weeks.

Drafting:
The previous draft of the rules, I had basically broken into two parts, once I had finished what I considered to be the first part; this included the dice mechanics, different types of rolls, and other basics like HP calculations. The 2nd part mainly focused on the rules of combat, and on action economy. This part of the draft was never fully realized, since things like the disengaging mechanics and status effects weren't ever completely finished. The simplified idea for disengaging/"Tumble" which I mentioned in a recent blog post will probably be used as (at least) a "playtest-ready" placeholder. The status effects and conditions have mostly been ironed out, as explained in this post; I mostly just want to go over them with a magnifying glass, to see if I made any mistakes -- or else just playtest until something breaks. Essentially, finishing a new draft of "part 2" will go a long way to being able to run combats and test out the game.

Roster Updates:
Since I will be taking some time off (IRL time off, not just time off from blogging) in August, that's when I'm hoping to get done with the biggest chunk that still needs my attention: finalizing the remaining 5 classes. In case I haven't said it recently enough in the blog, the 15 classes in TNP have been set for a while now -- as far back as the 'Beta 4' version, circa 2016-2017. As such, versions of each class already exist, so it's simply a matter of updating to the current mechanics (such as using two class dice, the related changes in HP calculation, class categories, and so forth) and any polishing up that may be warranted, along the way. I would plan/expect to have something to announce in this regard, in time for the final post of this month.

One of the more minor things I touched on recently was deciding whether to keep advantage mechanics on base damage and initiative bonus, as well as whether to extend mastery on base damage to any extra damage applied to the same attack. Whether or not these bits of design spaces are still needed/wanted should become more clear once the roster of characters has had its rework completed. An outgrowth of the discussion around mastery on extra damage is whether the cap of 5d6/3d10 will remain, or if it should be revised down to 3d6/2d10; with percentile dice, if nothing else, there is an ergonmic argument to be made in favour of using 2d10 instead of 3d10.

Timelines:
As I said on the blog earlier this year, I'd like to have TNP wrapped up "sometime in 2024" for a couple of reasons. First of all, the game began as sort of a "love-letter to Essentials" or "an alternate-universe 5e," if you prefer. Design work began in earnest around August of 2014 -- when the "D&D NEXT" playtest gave way to the official launch of 5e, with the player's handbook. Today, we likewise find ourselves in the position of 5e (seemingly) preparing to give way to "One D&D" and (presumably) leading us into a 6th edition -- one coinciding with the 50th anniversary year of the D&D franchise.

In short, TNP is something of an anachronism at this stage. It has been fun to work on, and (possibly even more) fun to write about. But with all the starts and stops that life has thrown at me throughout these years, I feel it's time to really focus on wrapping things up. I owe a lot to the people who've come along with me and stuck around for the journey all this time, and so I really owe it to them to finish the job. If it ultimately needs fixing after it's "done," then so be it -- but I now feel ready for this project to come to its conclusion, in the near future.

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That said, thanks to all who've kept reading along with the blog so far. Hopefully there will be some exciting things to talk about very soon.
Check back for the next post on August 11th!

Dog Days of Summer (2023)

School's out for summer, as the saying goes!

Progress has been slow, since I've had my attention elsewhere as of late. As such, I'm going to use today's post to take stock of where we're at, and things I should focus on during the break.

One of the more minor priorities is ironing out the final form of the campaign generation / encounter building / skill challenge mechanics. The generalities are there, it's more a matter of streamlining and hammering out the details. I don't believe this'll be the top priority.

Second, is updating the final handful of classes: Cleric, Druid, Occultist, Spellbinder, and Warlord. For these classes, it's mostly a matter of updating the mechanics to the latest designs/layouts (and simplifying wherever possible.) However, the classes specifically in the Disciple category need to have their structure finalized. This means nailing down the subclasses, roles, category progression, and any category-specific features they're going to have; the skeletons of each class are already in place, its more a matter of formalizing them into the broader structures that have been established.

A couple of other minor tasks:

• ironing out the interception and tumbling mechanics / action econony / etc.
• writing additional feats (particularly combat-related feats)
• making a decision on advantage/disadvantage on base damage and initiative bonus, and mastery on the various types of damage rolls
• tweaking the reserves per day / adventuring day mechanics
• formalizing surprise and initiative mechanics

Anyways, whether the blog returns in late July or around the 2nd week of August, hopefully I will have some of this stuff cleared off of the to-do list. I really do want to focus on completing the classes, so that we can start playtesting with them and see what works and what doesn't.

Until then, enjoy your summer!

What comes after The Next Project?

I'd like to take a bit of a detour today, and discuss something I've been asked a few times in the past: 

"So what's your next game going to be?"

While I did work on a few homebrew TTRPG designs in the past, I've always sort of thought as 'The Next Project' as being my magnum opus within the genre; I've often answered the question with, "I'm not a game designer, I'm just a guy who designed a game."

Early on, what inspired me was the question, "what are the classes for the next Diablo game [after Diablo 2] going to be?" My penchant for playing niche builds in the game (such as archer Paladins, and staff-wielding Amazons) combined with the idea of remixing the different skill trees, ultimately to end up with 6 different classes.

Somewhere along the way, that morphed into the more generic, 1d10/1d6-based system that I generally referred to as "Unnamed RPG" -- the 6 classes I came up with were instead broken down into a combination of whether you were a spellcaster or a warrior, and whether you had light, medium, or heavy armor.

Anyways, getting back to the question: what would I like to do next?
Well, there's a couple ideas.

One of the games that I had the pleasure of playtesting a bit was sort of... a wargame miniatures-esque system with a fantasy theme to it, called 'Feint Wars.' The basic mechanic was that you had a deck of cards consisting of 3 suits, each numbered 1 through 6 (2 through 5? something like that...) Now, this deck was split between you and your opponent, so there was an element of card-counting involved. You could use a certain number of cards on your turn, either to move or attack; you could move a number of spaces equal to the card's value, or attack with that value vs. an opposed card from the defender. The twist was twofold: you would both select your cards and then reveal them at the same time, but also there was a "rock-paper-scissors" element, where each suit trumped one other suit, effectively granting the card a +3.

Now, the idea that this gave me was, "could you base a similar sort of game off of a deck of Italian cards?" Generally, these are pretty similar to a standard deck, with a few notable exceptions, the most pertinent in this instance being that the numbered cards only run 2 through 7. There are still 3 face cards in each suit (although the naming conventions are slightly different) as well as aces; the suits are also different, and there are no "black" or "red" suits. Translated, the four suits are swords, sticks (batons), cups, and coins. Anyways, it isn't really an idea I followed up beyond my brain making that initial connection (and perhaps the suits lending themselves more to an RPG setup.)

The other idea I had for a game is likewise somewhat nebulous; I always just think of it in one phrase:

Ability Scores, done right.

Now, what does that mean, exactly? Basically, in the vein of something like 13th Age, it'd use the conventional 6 ability scores (or something close) but do it in a more modern way. For example, one hack that I always thought would be handy in 4e (or a 3.x paradigm, without multiclassing) would be to have Knowledge skills from your class skill list use either your highest mental stat, or else get a flat bonus in place of an ability modifier if you weren't "trained" with the skill. 

I also like the ways that both 4e and 13th Age do defenses, namely by using the higher of two mods, or using the middle of three mods (respectively.) My basic thought was that each defense would have one or two default stats, but that the special perk of each class would be that they could substitute in their main stat for some (or all) of those defenses. (For example: using Charisma as effectively a sort of 'luck stat' when making Reflex saves, which would otherwise use Agility.)

Another idea in that vein came out of my experience with 4e; couldn't you just use your ability score for your defenses (rather than 10 + ability mod + class bonus + magic item bonus + half-level bonus + feat bonus, etc. etc.)? I think that'd be an interesting quality-of-life simplification... if you could make the math work, which is always the rub.

As you might guess from the attributes used in TNP, I'd like to do something where Agility and Dexterity are split up, and maybe the functions of Constitution are governed by something separate from ability scores. I'd like it to include a Wisdom stat as well, if at all possible. Another thing I'd like is the possibility of having a handful of basic classes, and mixing them together somehow to expand the roster (For example, Fighter crossed with Priest creates a Paladin character.)

In the broadest terms, I think if there were a new project on the horizon, I would want to revisit the 1d10/1d6 paradigm. The thing that I've realized in working on TNP is that there's a value proposition (and an ergonomic quality) in using percentile dice to model advantage/disadvantage (as TNP does with skills, as well as monster mechanics.) The d20 gaming zeitgeist seems to be shifting more and more towards the idea of bending the flat math into a bell curve, by modifying the roll with other dice rather than with flat modifiers -- something which has always been a cornerstone of TNP, but also pioneered by systems like 'Shadow of the Demon Lord' with its boons/banes mechanic.

In lieu of the "d20 + class die" mechanic of TNP, a more generic/universal system with something like this as its backbone would appeal to me greatly. In particular, I think it would work great for a system that is meant to be small in scope (say, 6 different playable classes, maximum) rather than the sort of "greatest hits" mentality that can be attributed to the size of the TNP roster.

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Anyway, those are my thoughts for the time being. There's barely a week left in June, so expect the next post to be up on (or just before) Friday the 30th.

New Mechanics: Level Progression (2023)

As mentioned around the start of the year, the most recent complete(ish) version of the rules is the 2021 draft. This included a revamp of the leveling system that had been bolted on previously; basically, it had gotten too unwieldy and needed to be pared down.

Let's start with the leveling: why 6 levels (0-5)? The short answer is, I felt something a bit more compressed made sense for the general ethos of TNP, as it pertains to streamlining and simplicity. Ultimately, I kind of wanted there to be 5 levels, because that's a number that gets used a lot in the system:

• the 5 class dice
• the 5 class categories
• the 5 Skillsets
• the 5 Attributes
• the 5 Power Sources

I also wanted the progression to be an even number of levels, just for the purposes of symmetry and aesthetics; I ended up cheating a little bit by adding a "level 0" so that I could have it both ways. While there are 6 levels, you can only gain 5 levels, if you want to look at it that way. (It's also probably worth noting that in Warcraft 3, heroes got their ultimate abilities at level 6, so that may have subconsciously influenced my thinking at some point.)

With that being established, there are effectively 3 types of progression:

1. Core progression 
2. Knowledge progression
3. Class Category progression

Core progression is the "meat and potatoes" of progression, starting off with your trained skills at level 0, class specialization (such as a domain, or archetype) at level 1, with Attribute rank bonuses coming at 2nd & 4th levels, and feats being granted at 3rd & 5th levels. TNP doesn't really "do" attributes in the traditional sense, but I wanted to include something resembling that type of progression, nonetheless. Right now, most of the feats that I've written are various types of skill bonuses, but I also want to include some combat perks -- such as improvements to grappling, or ignoring disadvantage on ranged attack rolls when prone.

Knowledge progression is considered more "fluff" than "crunch" so it's siloed off from core progression, to keep the two from competing over the same level-up resources. You gain a power source at level 0, and can upgrade it or add another power source at level 3. At all other levels (1, 2, 4, and 5) you gain a knowledge rank in a skill of your choice; this can be chosen independent of your power sources and their affiliated knowledge skills, allowing players to upgrade their characters in ways that are thematically or narratively appropriate.

Since there are 5 class categories, there are also 5 different progressions for them. Each individual class within a category might not upgrade in exactly the same way (roles tend to be class-specific, as just one example) but the mechanism within a category will be essentially the same. Class category progression bestows benefits at odd-numbered levels (1, 3, and 5) regardless of category.

• Blade Master: 1 bonus knowledge rank, 1 bonus Attribute rank, 1 bonus Skillset rank (chosen in any order)
• Jack of All Trades: combat role, feat (for which you meet the requirements), or other feature from your class (such as Fighting Styles for the Fighter class)
• Skill Expert: bonus Skillset rank at each of the three levels; also gain a bonus power source at level 0
• Ideologue: bonus Knowledge rank at each of the three levels
• Disciple: [still TBD, although the intent is for these classes to have combat roles, so that will certainly be a part of it]

The progression for Blade Master was originally going to be used for Disciple, when that category included the Druid and the Paladin -- so those two categories are still a little bit in flux, but everything else is mostly nailed down. In the past, classes like Paladin, Barbarian, and Warlord have typically gotten a bonus to one of their attributes, so this is something that ended up being built into the ideas for class category progressions.

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Two more posts to go in June, before taking a break in July.
The initial plan for this year was to do one post in late July (meaning 2 posts in November and 1 in December.) If that changes, I'll be back with a post around the 2nd week of August.