D&D 5th Edition: Cool Report from DDXP

Just a quick post to point you guys to a cool write-up of early playtesting of D&D 5th Edition over here: Geek's Dream Girl: First Glimpses at the New Edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Sounds like fun.

Heroes Against Darkness: Development Update

Now that the alpha rules of Heroes Against Darkness have been publically released for a few weeks, it's a good time to let you guys know what I'm working on at the moment and what I'm thinking about working on.

Stuff I'm Working On:

Filling Out the Martial Powers

As I mentioned in this blog post, I've collapsed all of higher level variants of the martial powers into the single base power and added details of the changes at higher levels, like this:

Careful Strike (Warrior Level 1)

Condition	Target in melee range
Attack	d20 + Melee Bonus + 2
Against	Armor Defense
Damage Level 4: Level 8: Level 12:	Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 2 2d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 4 3d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 6 4d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 8

This has had the desirable effect of reducing the length of the power list for the martial characters (yay for the trees!), but it's also thinned out the powers at higher levels. Previously, martial characters had a couple of powers listed each level for every level up to 10 and higher. Now, the new powers gradulally fall off between level 6 and 7. I'd really like the martial characters to have unique powers all the way to level 10, so I've been working on filling out those higher levels with appropriate powers.

For example, at level 10 Barbarians have a unique interrupt power:

Hard to Kill (Barbarian Level 10)

Action Time	Interrupt
Interrupt Condition	When the character is hit with an attack that would reduce his or her HP to 0 or less.
Power Effect	Character immediately reduces the damage by Constitution Bonus. The power cannot be used again until the start of the character's next turn.

One of the things I think I'll try to do for each of the classes is give them an appropriate interrupt power at higher level, like the Barbarian's Hard to Kill example. I think that these are interesting powers to play, and players of high level characters should have had enough experience with the game to be able to handle the intricacies of Interupt martial powers.

The goal is ultimately to have all of the martial classes have five powers at level 1 (including Melee Attack and Ranged Attack), 2 powers each at levels 2-5, and 1 new power each level from 6-10. This will give each martial class a total of 17 powers once they reach level 10.

HAD SOLO 01: A Solo Adventure

So another thing I've been working on is a short solo adventure, along the lines of the Ghost Tower of Witchling Fens adventure by Robert J. Schwalb from Dungeon Magazine issue 182.

The idea of this solo adventure is to allow people who are thinking about running Heroes Against Darkness with their play groups to try out a short adventure on their own to familiarize themselves with the underlying principles of the rules. The adventure will come with a few pre-generated level 1 characters, presented like those in the Pathfinder Beginner Box. The Pathfinder characters are printed on a landscape sheet, with the character sheet itself in the middle, and then the left and right margins include relevant rules information and powers for the character.

I've just finished the flow-chart of the adventure (using Twine, which is an awesome gamebook authoring tool), and I need to add in the encounters, create the pre-gen characters, playtest it and then package it all up.

Drop me an email if you'd like to playtest the solo adventure.

Stuff I'm Thinking About:

High Level Spells

With the move to have unique martial powers effectively top out at level 10, I'm thinking about bringing the higher level spell powers back to a maximum of level 10.

One of my goals with the spell powers in Heroes Against Darkness is to make sure that they never become useless at higher levels (via scaling power spells with X anima costs, etc), so clamping the most powerful spells to level 10 shouldn't have a huge mechanical effect. Right now, the most powerful spells are the variantions on ressurection that each magi class has:

• Warlock: L13 Reincarnate (Transfers character's soul into new body)
• Healer: L10 Restore Life (Returns dead character to 1HP)
• Canonate: L11 Ressurect (Returns dead character to 1HP, but with Ability Scores temporarily lowered)
• Necromancer: L12 Reanimate (Returns dead character to 1HP, but with Ability Scores permanently reduced by 1)
• Mystic: L13 Recall Soul (Returns dead character to 1HP, Wisdom permanently reduced by 2)

So all of these spells will have to come back to level 10 at the highest, which means that Restore Life might need to drop down to level 8 and the Reincarnate and Recall Soul will top our at level 10.

Opportunity Attacks

Everyone hates opportunity attacks, right?

Maybe not necessarily everyone, but lots of people hate them and lots of other people love them. So, right now I'm thinking about introducing opportunity attacks (or something like them) to each class.

The problem with opportunity attacks in 3rd Edition and 4th Edition is that they are very powerful, and those games added lots of associated powers that made them even more powerful (such as feats and attacks that trigger off opportunity attacks). So what I want to do is to introduce something like opportunity attacks (such as a Reflex Strike, for example) with a few differences:
• They're only available to martial classes
• They're not available until the character is capable of dealing 2d melee damage (level 3, 4, 5 or 6)
• Each class's variation of the attack might be different, for example a Rogue might trip an opponent instead of hitting him
• The attack will deal less damage than usual
• The attack will have a trade-off cost, which is the condition Hindered (character only has Major, Minor and Free Action - no Move Action)

Here's an example of the power for a Reflex Strike:

Reflex Strike (Level 4 Warrior)

Action Time	Interrupt
Interrupt Condition	Target moves out of melee range and moves more than 10' in a single move.
Attack	d20 + Melee Bonus
Against	Armor Defense
Damage Level 8: Level 12: Level 16:	Melee Bonus Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus 2d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus
Power Effect	Character is Hampered until end of character's next turn

Spell Anima Costs

Another area that's been taking a lot of hind-brain bandwidth is the underlying principles that are used to determine the Anima costs of spells. Originally I just eyeballed the spells and their levels to determine their costs, but a couple of spells crept in that were way too powerful (for their cost), such as one of the early versions of the Plasma Bolts spell. When that happened I set about creating a set of guidelines for the cost of spells, which now appear in the On Magic section of the Game Master's Guide.

Basically, I'm trying to nail down the relationship between the each of the aspects of a spell:
• Magnitude of the effect (such as number of dice of healing or damage, or the amount of a bonus or penalty that it applies)
• Number of targets
• Ongoing duration
• Defense it targets
• Range
• Effect range (such as a radius)
• Persistence of effects in the environment

Ultimately, I'd like to create a set of guidelines so that any GM can work out the Anima cost of (almost) any spell.

This process is proving tricky, especially when factoring in spells with multiple targets or that deal multiple dice of damage (or healing). The first step I've taken along this path was to (reluctantly) create an additional rule:
• Rule: Magi cannot spend more Anima than 1 + Level on a single spell.

This rule prevents casters from simply discharging all of their Anima at once into a single target or in some other fashion.

I hate papering over cracks with rules, but I think that this one is core to the power of a spellcaster.

HAD ADVENTURE 01: An Adventure Module

I've been running my play group using Heroes Against Darkness now since last May (when the rules were about 30 pages long). I plan to turn some of these materials into a module that will be ready for the 1.0 release of Heroes Against Darkness.

---

The current stable version of the rules can always be found here: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

RPG Round-Up: How Many Pages of Spells!?

Just for laughs, here's a list of the number of pages of each edition of various RPGs that are dedicated to spells compared to the total number of pages in each system's Player's Guide.

 

D&D Systems

System	Pages of Spells	Player's Guide Pages	Notes
Basic D&D	4	64	Combined Player's and DM's Guide
Expert D&D	8	64	Combined Player's and DM's Guide
AD&D	60	128
AD&D 2nd Edition	118	256
D&D 3rd Edition	115	286
D&D 4th Edition	39	316	Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard

Non-D&D Systems

System	Pages of Spells	Player's Guide Pages	Notes
Castles & Crusades	53	128
Dragon Warriors	35	106
Dragon Age	4	64	Level 1-5 only
Dungeon Crawl Classic	44	147
Heroes Against Darkness	23	102
Pathfinder	150	396
Savage Worlds (Explorer's Edition)	10	159
Savage Worlds: Fantasy Companion	21	158	Includes spells in the Explorer's Edition
Savage Worlds (Deluxe Edition)	11	159
Swords & Wizardry	24	70
Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing (2nd Edition)	23	189

Anyone got any more examples to add?

Mechanics of Attack Bonus progression in D&D and Heroes Against Darkness

One of the areas of D&D that has changed in most editions is the way that the game deals with the gradual improvements to a character's abilities over time. Each of the editions has some mechanism to reflect each character's skill improvement as they gain levels. In the earliest editions, this is achieved through predefined tables, whereas 4th edition (and Heroes Against Darkness), the improvement is calculated by summing inherent character properties (½ Level Bonus, Ability Score modifiers, weapon or magic modifiers).

+1 Per Level Through the Ages

Let's take a tour through the editions to see how each of them achieved the +1 per level progression:

Basic/AD&D:
• Character Hit Roll tables that progressively adjust the predefined number that must be rolled to hit a specific Armor Class

2nd Edition:
• Calculated THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0) tables, only defining the roll needed to hit a 0 Armor Class, with the player left to work out the actual target number for the dice roll for the monster's AC

3rd Edition:
• Base Attack Bonus (BAB), which increases (for fighters) at +1 per level, progressively slower for other classes
• Ability score increases (to a single score) at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th Level (etc.)

4th Edition:
• Calculated Attack Bonus, which is the sum of Ability Score Modifier + ½ Level + Modifiers.
• Ability score increases (to a single score) at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th Level (etc.)

Heroes Against Darkness:
• Calculated Melee Bonus and Ranged bonus, which is the sum of ½ Level + Ability Score Modifier + Modifiers.
• Ability score increases to two different scores at 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th Level (etc.)

Components of +1 Per Level

In my previous post about the mechanics of 5th Edition, I fully broke down the attack bonus progression for 4th Edition and Heroes Against Darkness:

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition has the following underlying ingredients to achieve the +1 per level progression:
• ½ Level Bonus
• Weapon or magic enhancement every 5th level (assumed +1 weapon at level 5, +2 at level 10, etc)
• Ability score modifier increase every 7th or 8th level (via +1 to two ability scores every 4th level and then semi-randomly after that)
• Various feats and proficiencies that are available to the player, but are sometimes not chosen

If you add up the first three of these, you end up with a progression of about +0.85 per level, with the remainder (+0.15) coming from various feats. The 4th Edition feats that are used to plug these gaps include:
• Weapon Focus
• Weapon Talent
• Weapon/Implement Expertise

Heroes Against Darkness has the following components in its progression:
• ½ Level Bonus
• Improved weapon or magic enhancement every 4th level (assumed +1 weapon at level 4, +2 at level 8, etc)
• Ability score modifier increase every 4th level (via +1 to two ability scores every 2nd level starting at level 3)

Analysis of +1 Per Level Progression

The major difference between the earliest editions of D&D and 'modern' editions like 4th and Heroes Against Darkness is that the modern editions take into account more factors when calculating the +1 per level progression, such as magic weapons or other sundry equipment.

From Basic to the 3rd Edition of D&D, the progression does not factor in any magic weapons that the characters have. 4th edition and Heroes Against Darkness offer DMs guidance for when players are expected to earn better weapons and enhancements (with the obvious ability for GMs to accelerate or slow the distribution of these items).

From a mechanical point of view, the major difference between the two options is that in the early editions, there's no expected progression, so characters of the same level in different games may have vastly different attack bonuses, depending on the generosity or stinginess of their respective GMs.

For the modern game (4th Edition and Heroes Against Darkness) there are similarities and differences. Both systems employ the ½ Level bonus, but Heroes Against Darkness offers more frequent ability score modifier increases (every 4th level) and improved weapon or magic enhancement bonuses (also every 4th level, but staggered) to compensate for not having feats with mechanical bonuses.

In combination, Heroes Against Darkness' three elements add up to +1 per level, like this:

Level 2: ½ Level Bonus increases (+1)
Level 3: Characters find improved weapon or magic enhancement (+1)
Level 4: ½ Level Bonus increases (+1)
Level 5: Player increases primary Ability Score to an even number (+1)
...and so on...

The difference here underscores the characteristics and emphasis of each of the games. 4th Edition, like 3rd before it, is a game which offers players lots of character build choices of feats and powers. Heroes Against Darkness doesn't offer character build choices for feats and powers, instead predefining the powers for each class to keep the game simple and streamlined.

Advantages of Calculated +1 Per Level Progression

As I see it, the advantage of a modern calculated +1 per level progression is that it can apply to more than just melee attacks.

For example, in Heroes Against Darkness, I use calculated bonuses for each of the types of attacks in the game:
Melee Bonus: Strength Bonus + ½ Level Bonus + Modifiers
Ranged Bonus: Dexterity Bonus + ½ Level Bonus + Modifiers
Magic Bonus: Wisdom Bonus + ½ Level Bonus + Modifiers

The progression of these is inherent in the rules and reward systems.

For Hunters, their Ranged Bonus will increase at +1 per level because the player will likely increase his character's Dexterity Score by +1 every second level and the GM will likely grant that player an improved ranged weapon as treasure at appropriate points in the campaign (approximately every 4th level). This same progression applies to each of the classes, where the player will increase their character's most important Ability Score every 2nd level, and the GM will reward the players with improved weapons or magic enhancements approximately every 4th level.

Furthermore, because there are no feats or power choices, there are no bad decisions that the players can make, such as not choosing the right feats (such as the essential feat taxes) or the ideal powers for their class (or race).

Grab the Alpha version from the downloads page to see for yourself whether it's succeeded: Heroes Against Darkness.

Omit Needless Powers*

* With apologies to Strunk & White...

The current Alpha version (v0.189) of Heroes Against Darkness represents each of the improved attack powers as their own separate power. Generally, these improved versions of the powers then slot into the class's power list every 4th level (or so).

For example, the Warrior's Melee Attack is superceded by Superior Melee Attack at Level 4:

Melee Attack (Level 1)

Condition	Target in melee range
Attack	d20 + Melee Bonus
Against	Armor Defense
Damage	Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus

Superior Melee Attack (Level 4)

Condition	Target in melee range
Attack	d20 + Melee Bonus
Against	Armor Defense
Damage	2d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus

In order to reduce redundancy, I'm going to change the format of the individual combat powers so that each base power incorporates the higher level scaling:

Melee Attack (Level 1)

Condition	Target in melee range
Attack	d20 + Melee Bonus
Against	Armor Defense
Damage Level 4 Level 8 Level 12	Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus 2d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus 3d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus 4d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus

Another example:

Careful Strike (Level 1)

Condition	Target in melee range
Attack	d20 + Melee Bonus + 2
Against	Armor Defense
Damage Level 4 Level 8 Level 12	Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 2 2d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 4 3d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 6 4d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus - 8

This should reduce the long list of class powers and allow me to introduce more unique powers at higher levels. It also means that players can be sure that each of the powers on their list has a unique effect.

The downside is that players will have a bit more reading to do when looking for a power to use as they review even their earliest powers to check when they scale.

Who's Heroes Against Darkness Designed For?

Before we get started, I'd like to note that these are my personal opinions and D&D and its various editions. I don't want to start an edition war. Edition warriors are invited to do battle at one of the many forums dedicated to their passions.

Who indeed...

Our playing group has been largely stable for a long time, with only a few arrivals or departures over almost 15 years. After playing years of various incarnations of D&D (with a few years of Magic: The Gathering), we worked our way to the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

The arrival of 4th Edition bought us back from Magic to D&D. We bought the three main manuals, chipped in for an Insider account, built characters, and started a campaign which largely followed some published modules; Keep on the Shadowfell, Seekers of the Ashen Crown and Pyramid of Shadows.

As with many games that offer a rich variety of feats, backgrounds, individual powers and skills, 4th Edition has so many options that it drives obsessives like me to endlessly min/max and search for optimal character builds.

To me, the advantages and improvements of 4th Ed were clear:
• Unified core mechanic (the d20), instead of the multiple dice and mechanics for different occasions.
• ½ Level mechanic to gradually increase power of characters at higher levels (replacing hit and saving throw tables).
• Defenses to replace saving throws.
• Interesting actions in combat for all character classes.

Over time though, and as many have commented, some of the failings of the system manifested:
• Progressively slower and more complicated combat at higher levels.
• Unrealistic martial powers for fighting classes.
• Endless options for feats, backgrounds, themes, powers and skills.
• Requirement of DDI subscription for managing characters.
• Too many powers that make minis essential and further slow combat.
• Conditions and dependencies between characters that make combat too complicated.

These issues with the system were problems to a greater or lesser extent to each of our group's individual players. One player yearned for the simplicity of Basic (based on the Rules Compendium), others for some other variation of D&D from further along its long history. So, we decided to got back and play a few of the older editions of D&D, starting with Basic.

After years as a player, I tried my hand at DMing Basic (using Keep on the Borderlands as the start of the campaign).

From the outset it was obvious that our collective memories of Basic were very different from the realities and I was reminded of my old dislikes:
• Different XP requirements for classes.
• Races as classes (and vice-versa).
• Lots of little rules.
• XP mainly for treasure, not monsters or achievements (meaning that the type of monsters you meet largely determines how quickly you advance).
• Lack of combat options for fighting characters.
• Lack of spells and abilities for low-level characters.
• Low survivability and slow healing for new characters.
• Lack of a unified systems, some abilities or stats get higher whereas others get lower with improvement (Ability Scores get higher as they improve, Armor Class gets lower).
• Inconsistent mechanics for determining the result of actions (initiative on a d6, attacks on a d20, thief skills on percentile, etc).
• Reliance on attack tables and saving throw tables to reflect development and improved capabilities of different classes and higher level characters.
• Spell levels are different from character levels.

The experience of transitioning from the most modern iteration of D&D to one of the earliest was illuminating, to say the least. Some of these issues we house-ruled away, with changes to rolling characters, healing, character death and HP gained each level. But many of the idiosyncrasies are intrinsically linked to the system, and simple house-rules cannot address them all.

Of course, I'm sure that each of the characteristics of the game that annoyed us or detracted from the game are for someone else a key attraction of the system. Some people love the idea of the simple fall of the dice possibly killing a character outright (or leaving them bed-ridden for some weeks to recover). Some love the idea of rolling ability scores (3d6) in order and taking the results and playing them.

With each edition, D&D became progressively more complicated and 'crunchy', probably peaking in mechanical complexity at 3.5, before changing direction dramatically in half an edition. Many players love the crunch and options of 3.5 and Pathfinder. Many players love the relative simplicity of OD&D and Basic. Many players love the combat tactics and powers of 4th Edition.

Without a single edition of D&D suitable for our play-style, I started work on a set of house-rules that would eventually become Heroes Against Darkness. Over days and months, the key goals of the system emerged:
• Take the core mechanic of d20-style rule-sets.
• Reduce the paperwork and character management through minimal character build options.
• Use defenses instead of saving throws.
• Align all stats and bonuses so bigger is better.
• Introduce balanced combat powers for all classes that offer meaningful choices and situational advantages in combat.
• Increase combat damage at higher levels.
• Introduce Anima and spell powers (instead of Vancian magic), so that players of magi characters have options in and out of combat.
• Use simple armor and weapon proficiencies based on class.
• Replace predefined skills with class and background appropriate skills that give bonuses to Ability Tests.
• Introduce Magi classes based on five schools of magic; Warlocks for physical, Healers for physiological, Canonates for divine, Necromancers for death, and Mystics for control and influence.
• Introduce separate fighting classes; Warriors, Barbarians and Berserkers.
• Introduce specialist classes; Hunters and Rogues.
• Introduce the magical cross-class; Hospiters (similar to the old-school Cleric or Priest classes, but without the divine aspects of those classes).

The few pages of house rules evolved into a fully-fledged and (eventually) self-contained system.

Which raises the question of where does HAD fit along this continuum?

How do you categorize a system that, like Basic, doesn't offer build options, feats or proficiencies but at the same time does feature the 'modern' unified underlying mechanics of 3rd Edition(s) and a multitude of combat powers like 4th Edition?

Is it old-school? Is it new-school? Is it rules-lite? Is it modern?

Today, I like to think that Heroes Against Darkness is off the D&D continuum; it's jumped off the straight line that is the history and development of D&D and it's formed a triangle somewhere else in the universe of possible role-playing games.

So, Heroes Against Darkness is for the sort of playing group that wants:
• Combat with meaningful tactics and useful powers
• Simple system to learn and play
• Mechanically sound system based on modern underlying principles
• It's free! :-)

Of course there's always more to do, so back to the grindstone...

Making D&D 5th Edition Modular:Part III Combat and HP

The first post in this series gave an overview of the core elements of D&D, while part II looked at
progression and balancing modular elements.

When designing features for role-playing games or videogames, one of the major considerations is the magnitude (Pop! Pop!) of the additional work that the proposed feature places on the entire project, compared to the overall value of the feature.

Using a videogame example, heavily scripted AI behaviors might be fine in a constrained test-bed, but when you subsequently roll these out across an entire game the amount of work becomes unmanageable (especially when compared to an alternative solution, such as a more sophisticated AI algorithm).

I mention this first because it relates to the assumed goal of D&D 5th edition that it will support different styles of combat and will work with content from earlier editions, and because this post is about combat.

Combat

Although the basics of combat in D&D have remained (largely) unchanged, the details have changed greatly from edition to edition:

Attacks:
• Basic/Expert: d20 + Ability Mod + Modifiers ≥ Character To Hit vs AC number
• AD&D: d20 + Ability Mod + Modifiers ≥ Attack Matrix number
• 2nd Ed: d20 + Ability Mod + Modifiers ≥ THAC0 calculated target number
• 3rd Ed: d20 + Ability Mod + BAB + Modifiers ≥ AC
• 4th Ed: d20 + Ability Mod + ½ Level + Modifiers ≥ AC

Multiple attacks or scaling damage mechanic:
• Basic/Expert: Multiple attacks per round at 20th level (additional attacks every 5th level after that)
• AD&D: Multiple attacks per round for Fighter classes only, starting from Level 7 for fighters, later for Rangers and Paladins
• 2nd Ed: Multiple attacks per round for Fighter classes only, starting from Level 7 normally or partially at level 1 with Weapon Specialization optional rule
• 3rd Ed: Multiple attacks per round for all classes, starting from Level 6 for fighters, later for other classes
• 4th Ed: Various Encounter or Daily powers at higher levels offering multiples of weapon damage (2[W] encounter, 3[W] daily, etc)

Now, it's easy enough for a game to replicate these different styles and magnitudes of combat for each character, the difficulty when pursuing this course is in the creation of content (modules/adventures) where you need to cater for characters who have the equivalent power of a Basic character compared to others that have the front-loaded power of a 4th Edition character.

Thinking about a character of level 1-4 in a 5 round combat, the average damage per round is likely to be something like this for each edition:
• Basic/Expert: 1[W]
• AD&D: 1[W]
• 2nd Ed: 1[W]
• 3rd Ed: 1[W]
• 4th Ed: 1.2[W]

At higher level (such as 6-8) this changes:
• Basic/Expert: 1[W]
• AD&D: 2[W]
• 2nd Ed: 2[W]
• 3rd Ed: 2[W]
• 4th Ed: 2[W] (3 Encounter and 1 Daily power used)

If you separate Basic and Expert rules from this progression, then there's a pretty good correlation across the editions. This means that it should be possible for Basic 5th Edition characters (that only simple melee or ranged attacks) to fight similarly to Advanced 5th Edition characters that have powers-style attacks (like those of 4th Edition).

However, this becomes slightly more complicated when you factor in the HP for Level 1 characters or 1 HD monsters.

Character starting HP ranges:
• Basic/Expert: Range 1-11 (Random d4, d6, or d8 + Con Mod)
• AD&D: Range 1-11 (Random d4, d6, or d8 + Con Mod)
• 2nd Ed: Range 1-11 (Random d4, d6, or d8 + Con Mod)
• 3rd Ed: Range 4-14 (4, 6, 8 or 10 + Con Mod)
• 4th Ed: Range 20-30+ (Constitution Score + 10, 12 or 15)

Monsters have a similar HP range:
• Basic/Expert: 4-8HP
• AD&D: 4-8HP
• 2nd Ed: 4-8HP
• 3rd Ed: ~8HP
• 4th Ed: Constitution + 10, 12 or 15 (giving range of 20-30+)

Once the character and monster starting HP are compared to the average weapon damage at 1st level, it's clear that mixing and matching all of the characters and monsters from various editions isn't going to just work. A 4th Edition monster is going to cream an AD&D style character, and and all AD&D monsters are going to go down like minions to an equivalent level 4th Ed character.

As I mentioned at the start, any decision taken about how to deal with the disparate HP amounts of each of the editions needs to be made with consideration for the amount of work it's going to add to every module and supplement that the game comes out with.

Here are three possibilities for how 5th Edition deals with the HP of monsters and characters:
• All characters/monsters have low starting HP (probably like 3rd Edition)
• Basic characters/monsters have a low starting HP (like 3rd Ed) and Advanced characters have higher starting HP (like 4th Ed)
• All characters/monsters have high starting HP (like 4th Ed)

Considering the scenario where Basic and Advanced characters have different starting HP, you would then need all encounters to be presented with two sets of stats, one set with monsters with low HP for a party of Basic characters and then an alternate set of monsters with high HP for when the party is made up of Advanced characters. This is not desirable, because it adds to the amount of work that needs to go into each piece of content that is created.

In an alternative scenario, all characters have high starting HP, and conversion sheets are created for monsters in earlier editions so that any monster could be converted to 5th Edition's unified rules. The conversion of a monster from earlier editions to '5th Edition' might be as easy as simply adding 15-20HP to any monster of 1HD or more (½ HD monsters could remain as the equivalent of minions).

Making D&D 5th Edition Modular: Part II

The previous post in this series looked at a few of the underlying concepts of a unified modular D&D system, and also some of the disparate mechanics that would need to be reconciled in the new system:
• Core Mechanic (d20)
• Ability Score Bonuses (Ability Score - 10 / 2)
• Gradual improvement (+1 per level mechanics)

Before I look at Combat, Themes, Feats, and Skills in more detail, there are a couple of general areas that require further investigation:
• Gradual improvement mechanics
• Balancing modular mechanics

Gradual Improvement Mechanics

In the previous post, I looked briefly at the options for how to implement the +1 per level mechanic that is present in each of the editions (but implemented differently in each). At this stage, it's worth having a closer look at how this mechanic has been implemented in various editions, and how it could be implemented in a unified system.

D&D 4th Edition uses a variant of this system which is both interesting and broken at the same time. The ½ Level bonus in 4th Edition is great because it can be combined with gradually increasing ability scores and magic enhancements to met the assumed +1 per level. However, in practise 4th Edition's rules mean that the rate of increases in ability scores and magic items is not fast enough, meaning that the edition has increasingly relied on feats to patch the holes in this progression.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition has the following underlying mechanics for the +1 per level progression:
• ½ Level Bonus
• Magic enhancement every 5th level (assumed +1 weapon at level 5, +2 at level 10, etc)
• Ability score modifier increase every 7th or 8th level (via +1 to two ability scores every 4th level and then semi-randomly after that)
• Various feats and proficiencies that are available to the player, but are sometimes not chosen

If you add up the first three of these, you end up with a progression of about +0.85 per level, with the remander (+0.15) coming from various feats. The 4th Edition feats that are used to plug these gaps include:
• Weapon Proficiency (+2 to hit)
• Weapon Focus
• Weapon Talent
• Weapon/Implement Expertise

The problem with these feats is that they are optional for players. So in many cases, casual players will choose non-optimal feats, and their characters will fall behind the expected progression, leading to large mechanical imbalances between optimal and non-optimal characters.

Now a system that doesn't support feats (or makes them optional), can't rely on feats to be a key component of the game's progression and mechanics, so 5th Edition is going to need to satisfy the +1 per level without feats.

As I mentioned, I 'solved' this issue in Heroes Against Darkness with the following:
• ½ Level Bonus
• Magic enhancement every 4th level (assumed +1 weapon at level 4, +2 at level 8, etc)
• Ability score modifier increase every 4th level (via +1 to two ability scores every 2nd level starting at level 3)

The combination of these three mechanics gives Heroes Against Darkness the assumed +1 per level progression, without feats. Obviously there's some variability here, with the GM able to give magic items sooner or later than the assumed level and with the unlikely situation of players choosing to put both of their ability score increases into non-optimal choices.

In my opinion, D&D 5th Edition is going to need to achieve the planned progression rates in a manner close to what I've got in Heroes Against Darkness so that the system doesn't rely on feats (or any other optional element) to shore up its core progression mechanics.

It's worth asking here whether this +1 per level mechanic is even required in the game at all.

Early editions of D&D had this mechanic through the Character Hit Table, the THAC0 table and the Base Attack Bonuses. While each of these editions generally adhered to +1 per level, there were certain anomalies:
• In all earlier editions, weapon enhancements fell outside of the +1 per level progression, meaning that the character's actual progression could be significantly higher, depending on the generousity of the DM.
• Early editions (especially Basic and AD&D) had no mechanic for balancing monster difficulty against player character aand overall party power.
• Early editions had no mechanism for gradually increasing the power/difficulty of magic attacks.
• 4th Edition matches the +1 per level progression with approximately +1 per level progression for defenses, and +1 per level to monster attacks and defenses, keeping the whole system consistent.

The only alternative that I can think of is if they somehow removed all of the assumed gradual improvement mechanics, and replaced them with a Relative Level mechanic, where you get +1 for each level lower the enemy is than the character, or -1 for each level higher they are than the character. This would also zero out all of the +1 per level escalation of attacks and defenses, leaving simply ability score modifiers and weapon enhancements or armor as the only progressive elements.

Ultimately, 5th Edition will need the following:
• +1 per level mechanic for attacks (that does not need feats)
• +1 per level mechanic for primary defense (AC), something smaller for alternate defenses
• +1 per level mechanic for monster attacks
• +1 per level mechanic for monster defenses

Balancing Modular Mechanics

Once you've established the core mechanics of the modular and unified system, the next task is to layer in various optional subsystems. For example, D&D 5th Edition could offer the following modules:
• Basic and Tactical combat options
• Feats and Skills
• Combat Powers

Combat is likely, to come in two forms, Basic (i.e. descriptive) combat for 'old-school' players alongside Tactical combat that features the grid-based combat seen in 3rd and 4th editions.

When thinking about how Skills and Feats fit into a modular game, there are a few options:
• Feats and Skills become optional modules that either totally absent from the game or can be included if desired
• Feats and Skills are always in the game, but are pre-selected in Basic character creation and customizable in an Advanced character creation module

Finally, the inclusion of Combat Powers in the game could take a number of forms:
• Combat Powers are optional, with Basic Combat only offering 'basic' melee and ranged attacks
• Combat Powers are pre-selected for characters by default, and can be customized in an advanced character creation module

Additionally, the Combat Powers themselves could take a number of forms:
• Combat Powers that are always available (gained at specific levels) and take the form of trade-offs (e.g. more hit chance for less damage) or give characters situational (e.g. flanking, etc) or class specific advantages, but do not otherwise escalate from the baseline combat power (Heroes Against Darkness uses this type of combat power system to avoid escalation of power)
• Combat Powers that behave like Vancian magic, where some are only usable on an encounter or daily basis (like 4th Edition)

Some of these possible combat and feat module choices imply lesser or greater degrees of power creep. For example, if the game doesn't have feats by default but they can be optionally included, then those feats are likely to offer some mechanical advantages when compared to the game run without feats. Furthermore, the inclusion of Vancian combat powers (like the Encounter and Daily powers in 4th Edition) is also more powerful than a combat system that is run with only basic attacks, or one that is run with trade-off and situational attacks.

The important considerations here for a creating a modular game system are:
• Can characters with different levels of complexity exist in the same game (i.e. one character without feats in the same party as someone with feats)?
• Do the optional modules increase the overall power of the characters?
• How does the escalation of power inherent in optional modules impact the overall game balance (e.g. if the party has feats and is using tactical combat, how do you balance this against enemies)?

Ultimately, a modular system needs a mechanism for avoiding or dealing with the inherent power creep of each individual module. Some systems, like GURPS, use a point buy system to balance the power of characters but I can't see D&D moving to point-buy.

Without a way of balancing the various optional modules, there's no way for 5th Edition to properly balance the entire game (for example, how would encounters be balanced for Basic or Advanced characters). So here are a few possibilities for a modular system where the power creep is kept under control:
• Tactical combat that only uses trade-offs
• Basic characters have higher ability scores to compensate for their lack of higher-power options
• Basic characters come pre-generated with appropriate feats, while Advanced characters can choose their own feats
• Feats are stripped back to minor enhancements which don't fundamentally break the balance of the game.

This series continues with part 3:

Making D&D 5th Edition Modular: Part III Combat and HP

Making D&D 5th Edition Modular: Part I

All of the role-playing blogs are weighing in with their thoughts, suggestions, demands and (sometimes) their denunciation of WotC's plans for the new edition of D&D.

So today I'm going to look at what would be involved in making a unified and modular version of Dungeons & Dragons, with elements that can be bought in (or out), and what the core rules of this system would be.

As a long time role-player, I think that all role-players should hope that the team at Wizards succeed in reuniting the various factions of D&D players, from the Grognards to the 4th Edition players. If Wizards fails, then there's a great chance that the hobby's gateway drug (D&D) will die entirely, and that with no new players coming in the hobby itself will wither and die, leaving us all the poorer.

This quote from The Angry DM seems spot-on:

"So, you can bitch and piss and moan and start edition wars and talk about why you hate WotC or D&D or 4E or 3E or whatever. And all that does is piss away the chance you have to constructively help make a new edition you want to play. If you do the bitchy pissy moany thing instead of the honest constructive thing, you’re saying you care more about hating D&D than D&D."

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition coming

Wizards have just announced that they're working on a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, and they're putting it into an extensive playtest.

NY Times: Players Roll the Dice for Dungeons & Dragons Remake

Wizards: Charting the Course for D&D

My goal for Heroes Against Darkness is to strip D&D 4th Edition down to its playable core, while maintaining modern balance and playability.

Grab the Alpha version from the downloads page to see for yourself whether it's succeeded: Heroes Against Darkness.

Roadmap to Beta

The next major release of Heroes Against Darkness is Beta.

There's plenty of work to do between now and then, including some of these areas:
• More monsters from the extended list on page 35 of Beasts and Bastards
• Further development of the On Magic section on page 18 of the Game Master's Guide to determine the Anima cost of each component of a spell
• Refinement of the magi class spell lists, including Anima costs and scaling costs of multiple target and longer duration spells
• Additional combat powers for martial and specialist classes
• Update to combat rules to clarify allowable movement directions
• More market costs for scrolls, potions and wands
• More magic artifacts

The current version of the rules can always be found here: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Alpha Heroes Against Darkness

The current release of Heroes Against Darkness is Alpha, which means that it has reached a point in its development where the game is feature complete and playable.

The Alpha version of Heroes Against Darkness has the following features in the Player's Guide:
• Three martial classes (Warrior, Barbarian, Berserker) with powers up to level 10
• Two specialist classes (Hunter, Rogue) with powers up to level 10
• One cross-class (Hospiter) with powers up to level 10
• Five magi classes (Warlock, Healer, Canonate, Necromancer, Mystic) with powers up to level 6-10
• Character creation rules
• Combat rules
• Movement and encumbrance rules
• Weapons, armor and equipment lists
• Character sheet

And these features in the Game Master's Guide:
• Combat encounter setup
• Ability test instructions
• Experience and character progress
• Tuning and modding the system
• Comprehensive world-building toolkit

Finally, the Beasts and Bastards section has:
• Instructions for building a monster
• Breakdown of the monster stat block
• List of common monster powers
• 75 monsters
• Templates for each of the monster roles up to Level 10
• Monster stat summaries for the busy GM

Head to the downloads page for a gander at the Alpha version of Heroes Against Darkness.

Introducing Heroes Against Darkness

Welcome to the home of the indie RPG Heroes Against Darkness.

As it says up there in the header, Heroes Against Darkness (HAD) is a modern RPG that aims to provide a simple and deep game experience without becoming slow, cumbersome or complicated.

This section provides a brief overview of these core elements of the game:

• Races
• Classes
• Magic and Anima
• Combat Powers

The complexity in Heroes Against Darkness is back-loaded in the character's Magic and Combat Powers, rather than front-loaded in the racial and class features. This means that the definition of a race and a class is relatively simple, but the list of Combat Powers and Magic Spells is more extensive. The goal of this focus is to streamline the character creation process, to reduce complexity power creep (and homogenization of classes), but to still give characters meaningful tactical choices in combat situations.