Nexus Edition

It's no secret that Heroes Against Darkness is firmly rooted in the traditions and mechanics of all editions of D&D. When describing the game, I specifically refer to it as a 'd20' system because most of the mechanics in the game (attacks and ability tests) are much the same as those that were codified in D&D 3rd Edition.

But, I have a problem. And that problem is how to define how Heroes Against Darkness relates to D&D and how to describe the game. You see, Heroes Against Darkness has similarities with each of the different editions of D&D, but it also has differences with each edition (some fundamental), and it also extends outside of the traditional D&D feature-set.

Basic D&D

As a whole, Heroes Against Darkness is probably closest to Basic D&D. However, even though the game has the same simplicity of presentation as Basic, it really doesn't share much in the way of mechanics, with just a few common elements:
• Simple character creation (no customizable feats or proficiencies).

Advanced D&D

The biggest similarity between Heroes Against Darkness and AD&D is:
• Separation of class and race.

D&D 3rd Edition

The 3rd edition of D&D was the first to unify the mechanics of the system so that the d20 was used for attacks and ability tests:
• Unified d20 mechanics for all sub-systems (combat, ability tests).
• Ascending Armor Class.
• Unified Experience Point progression for all classes.

D&D 4th Edition

D&D 4th Edition introduced a number of innovations that I also employ in Heroes Against Darkness:
• +1 per level progression of attacks is based on inherent underlying mechanics, rather than arbitrary tables.
• Defenses instead of saving throws.
• Codification of attack powers (instead of disparate feats and class features).

Conclusion

As you can see, Heroes Against Darkness borrows from both old and new editions of D&D. And alongside all of this commonality with D&D, the game's entire magic system is more closely related to Magic: The Gathering, rather than D&D!

When I talk about the game, I am tempted to categorize the game as a retro-clone, because of its similarity to various earlier versions of D&D. But retro-clones are more closely based on the corresponding edition that they're cloned from, and Heroes Against Darkness (happily) cannot point to a single earlier edition that it clones.

I also find it tempting to describe the game as rules-lite, because it does have comparatively few rules for such a fully-featured system. But rules-lite games, such as Dungeon World Hack, are often more abstract and have rulesets that fit in pamphlets, not in tomes.

Personally, I consider Heroes Against Darkness almost as a 'reference' system, much like Google make Nexus phones to display their OS in its purest form. Heroes Against Darkness is a nexus edition that takes elements from all of the other editions (and elsewhere) and combines these into one unified game system.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Heroes Against Darkness Version 1.0 Released!

Well, editing has taken several weeks longer than I anticipated but it's done now, so v1.0 of Heroes Against Darkness is released:

The major changes and updates for this revision are:

• Changed Stabilize to be a major action, not a full action
• Changed opposed movement to be a major action, not a move action
• Rewrote Introduction and Character Creation intro
• Updated character sheet
• Updated character creation instructions
• New art for races
• Added Smack It Off power for some monsters
• Added Shake It Off by default for all monsters
• Edit pass over entire document (kill me)
• New cover art, take that!
• Clarified that magic doesn’t stack on Attacks/Defenses
• Fixed Divine Strike anima cost
• Changed immobilized condition to be –2 to Defenses
• Clarified rogues’ Backstab Attack power
• Added ghouls, kobolds and lich to Beasts & Bastards
• Adjusted several necromancer spells to have X costs
• Clarified that allies are other creatures, not the character
• Added swooshy thing at the top of all pages
• Updated monster art
• Added cover art page
• Split Acknowledgements from Art Credits
• Moved Combat and Role-Playing Encounter sections

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Alpha Rules Updated to v0.244

I've updated the downloadable Heroes Against Darkness Alpha rules to v0.244.

This is a huge revision of the rules, and incorporates many of the significant changes I've been discussing here on the blog and over on the Game Design & Development forums at rpg.net.

Healing, Anima and Resting

The biggest single change to the game system has been a full overhaul of the Healing Powers and resting in the game.

First, the old Healing Powers (Rally, Recuperate, Rejuvenate, Regenerate) have been removed and replaced with a single Rallypower that is available to all classes at Level 1.

Previously, the Healing Powers healed fixed amounts of Health Points, didn't regain any Anima Points. They also had some fairly fiddly rules for when they could be used. The new Rally power rolls up the regeneration of Health Points and Anima Points during encounters and in short rests into one single power.

Instead of healing fixed amounts of HP, Rally now allows the character to regain half of the amount that their Health Points and Anima Points are depleted.

This change also meant that I made a slight (but significant) change to the formula for Anima Points:

• Anima Points: 5 + Magic Bonus

The final part of this package of changes was to allow the Rally power to be used at short rests, and to allow multiple short rests to be taken between encounters (but each with a longer duration than the last, starting at 15 minutes, then 1 hour, then 4 hours).

Rally

Action Time	Full action
Power Effect	Character regains ½ of the amount by which their Health and Anima Points are depleted. +4 to all Defenses until end of character‟s next turn.
Special	This power can only be used once per encounter

With this change, I've also changed to rules for Resting:

Rule: Characters can take short rests after encounters. Rule: At a short rest, characters can use their Rally power to recover Health Points and Anima Points. Rule: At a long rest, characters recover all of their Health Points and Anima Points.

And I've updated the examples of resting:

Example: Rothgar the berserker, Brythil the warrior, Charlange the warlock and have just fought and defeated a vengeful spirit, leaving Rothgar with just 9 HP (out of 31) and Brythil with 16 HP (out of 28). Charlange has emerged unscathed, but his remaining AP is just 3 (out of 10). When they all used their Rally power at a short rest, Rothgar regains 11 HP, taking him up to 20 HP. Brythil regains 6 HP, so he goes to 22 HP. Charlange regains 3 Anima, taking him to 6 AP.

Other Major Changes

Here are the other big changes:
• Changed some fonts! :-)
• Split example character sheet section into two pages for clarity
• Major edit pass over the whole book.
• Added a 7th Role-Playing Tip to the Role-Playing Encounters section.
• Updated the Combat Encounters section with more examples of powers.
• Conditions section revised, including sections on how to remove ongoing, enforced and area conditions and effects.
• Clarified the healing rules for dying or stabilized characters (returns them to 1 HP, but dazed until the end of their next turn).
• Changed magic Armor enhancements (e.g. +1) to apply to all Defenses, not just AD.
• Updated Powers: Attacks & Spells section with more examples of each of the components of powers.
• Major revision of all class powers.
• Recuperate, Rejuvenate and Regenerate have been removed and replaced with three all-new attack powers for all of the martial classes.
• Unified all ability test powers to use the same difficulty (15 + level of caster or creature that applied the spell effect or condition).
• All martial classes now have five Level 1 powers, two powers each level between Level 2 and Level 5, and one power each subsequent level up to Level 10.
• Improved the presentation of Attack and Spell powers to reduce the amount of wasted space and split lines.
• Reworked many spell powers to scale with X Anima.
• Expanded and differentiated spell lists for all magi classes.
• Added huge section for GMs on Ability Tests and difficulties for lots of tests (Perception, Break Doors, Lifting, Diplomacy, Lock Picking, Climbing, Tracking, Swimming).
• Added section on Magic Weapons & Armor with level breakdowns for appropriate pieces.
• Added section on Magic Items with level breakdowns for appropriate stuff.
• Expanded the On Magic section with lots more detail on the Anima cost of specific spell components.
• Updated the appendix tables and stuff at the back for printing for a GM screen.

Beta Soon?

With all of these changes, there are only a few things to clean up before we're Beta!

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Head over to the game rules download page to grab yourself a copy of this bad-boy: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Heroes Against Darkness: Beta Update

Almost two months ago I posted about what I was working on for Beta:

• 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

So here's an update on what I've achieved (so far):

Monsters

So far I haven't done much on the monsters, other than add in some Dragons as boss monsters. Boss monsters are designed to appear on their own and to challenge an entire party. So they have two initiatives each round, and lots of abilities to really mush the player's characters!

On Magic

The On Magic section has had an overhaul, with a lot of work to really establish what the factors are that contribute to the Anima costs of each spell. Of course, this has meant that I've had to go back and actually review all of the spells in light of their component costs, which has been a long process.

Magi Spell Lists

Following on from the review of the On Magic section, I've reviewed all of the spells of all Magi classes to re-cost them based on their components (range, damage, targets, duration, etc) and also make more of the spells use scaling Anima costs. Furthermore, I've also reworked the durations and ranges to be based scaling factors (1 round + 1 round per caster level for durations and 10' + 10' per caster level for ranges).

So where the old version of a spell looked like this:

Bane (1 Anima)

Spell Effect	Decreases target's attacks by -2
Target	Single target
Attack	d20 + Magic Bonus
Against	Magic Defense
Duration	Magic Bonus rounds
Range	10'+10' per caster level

The new version looks like this:

Bane (X Anima)

Cost	1 Anima for each –1
Spell Effect	Decreases target's attacks
Target	Single target
Attack	d20 + Magic Bonus
Against	Magic Defense
Duration	1 round + 1 round per level
Range	10'+10' per caster level

The goal of this sort of change to all of the spells is the ensure that the spells never become irrelevant, and put the power of the spell back into the players' hands.

Martial Combat Powers

All of the martial classes have had their power lists expanded up to Level 10. I've also added the Reflex Strike attacks that operate a bit like Attacks of Opportunity, by these are different for each class and they leave the character Hampered on their next turn (so they only have a Major Action and a Minor Action).

Combat Rules Updates

I've added a diagram to the combat rules that clarifies the valid movement directions, and also added guidelines for allowing creatures to 'push past' others as an opposed Ability Test.

Market Costs for Scolls, Potions, Wands

I haven't really expanded the list of market costs for the scrolls, potions and wands, and I'm not sure that I will end up doing this for Beta.

Magical Weapons, Armor and Items

I've added a bunch of level-appropriate weapons, armor, and items that you should be able to drop straight into your games.

Beta Rules release

I hope to have the Beta rules out before the end of the month, with a version 1.0 of the system available towards the end for April so that they qualify for entry into the ENnie awards.

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Check out the full rules for Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

20 Quick Questions for Heroes Against Darkness

20 Questions about my Heroes Against Darkness campaign from Brandon at Untimately:

1. Ability scores generation method?
The system supports 3d6, 4d6 drop lowest, point array and point buy:

Method 1: Normal Player Characters
Roll 3d6 six times, then choose which ability to assign each score.
This method gives an unadjusted cumulative total of 64.

Method 2: Epic Player Characters
Roll 4d6 (drop the lowest dice) six times, and then choose which ability to assign each score.
This method gives an unadjusted cumulative total of 73.

Method 3: Point Array
Assign the following scores to one each of the Ability Scores: 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10.
This method gives an unadjusted cumulative total of 76.

Method 4: Point Spread
Spread a total of 75 points (or another agreed amount) amongst the six abilities.
No ability score can be less than 8 and no score can be more than twice as high as the lowest.

In our current campaign, the players used the 4d6 method. This led to some disparity, with both of the Warlocks having cumulative ability score totals of over 80 points.

2. How are death and dying handled?
Heroes Against Darkness has these pretty straightforward death and dying rules:
• Unconscious at 0 HP
• Dying from -1 HP
• No single attack can take a character to less than -5 HP
• Dying character loses 1 HP/round
• Stabilize a dying character with an ability test
• Death occurs immediately at -10 HP

The -5 HP clamp for a single attack is because character and enemy damage in Heroes Against Darkness scales at higher levels, so characters can end up taking enough damage to take them from quite alive to dead-dead without this rule.

3. What about raising the dead?
All of the magi classes have a spell variant that allows them to raise the dead:

• Warlock: L10 Reincarnate (Transfers character's soul into new body)
• Healer/Hospiter: L8 Restore Life (Returns dead character to 1 HP)
• Canonate: L9 Resurrect (Returns dead character to 1 HP, but with Ability Scores temporarily lowered)
• Necromancer: L10 Reanimate (Returns dead character to 1 HP, but with Ability Scores permanently reduced by 1)
• Mystic: L10 Recall Soul (Returns dead character to 1 HP, Wisdom permanently reduced by 2)

These powerful spell powers also temporarily reduce the caster's Wisdom score by the level of the spells target. The caster's wisdom score then improves by 1 for each full rest.

In my campaign, characters who have died have been dead-dead. The other characters haven't had access to the resurrection spells, so we've used character deaths (which occured in an almost TPK) to introduce new characters.

4. How are replacement PCs handled?
The recent character deaths wiped out most of the party, so we used that opportunity to introduce a whole new adventuring party that picked up close to where the old characters died and then went on to rescue the only survivor of the previous party from a band of orc raiders that he'd been sold to.

5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
Individual initiative for all characters and for groups of monsters.

6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
Critical hits are worth maximum damage, critical fumbles aren't in the game system (but the GM is always welcome to house-rule it).

7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
Nope, helmets are an integral part of any set of armor. If you're specifically not wearing a helmet I imagine your armor defense would be lower.

This is slightly reminiscent of 'called shots', where characters gain bonuses from trying to hit specific locations on an enemy's body. I like to think that the character is always trying to damage the enemy as much as possible, so there's no point to introducing specific 'called shot' mechanic (unless they're trying to achieve something specific, like disrupting a bowman's shot or something).

Having said that, Heroes Against Darkness has a few melee powers that replicate some of the mechanical effects of called shot. These powers are Careful Strike and Powerful Blow:

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

Powerful Strike (Level 2)

Condition	Target in melee range
Attack	d20 + Melee Bonus -2
Against	Armor Defense
Damage Level 5: Level 9: Level 13:	Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus + 2 2d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus + 4 3d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus + 6 4d Weapon Damage + Melee Bonus + 8

Mechanically, these offer the sort of trade-offs of a called shot (extra damage for reduced hit chance or less damage for increased hit chance), but without the rigmarole of hitting a particular part of an opponent.

8. Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
Nope, not in the rules. But as ever, GM discretion applies.

9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
Depends on the encounter and the state of the player's characters. Last night they ran away from a couple of spear-fang spiders when they were exploring an ancient beacon tower, having just survived a large fight with the spider queen and her minions.

10. Level-draining monsters: yes or no?
Nope, but temporary ability draining could be interesting.

11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
Nope, there's no Save-Or-Die. Death is only through loss of HP, not through absolute binary spell powers.

12. How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?
Barely.

13. What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?
Well, the system offers the GM the discretion to require training or any other requirement before the characters gain levels. New spells and martial powers are automatically gained.

I personally allow the characters to gain levels at a short rest.

14. What do I get experience for?
Experience is gained for overcoming challenges, which might include:
• Beating or otherwise overcoming monsters
• Solving puzzles
• Disarming or avoiding traps
• Overcoming adversarial NPCs
• Completing quests

15. How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?
This is up to the GM. Ability tests for the character's perception are the usual way that I run these, which involves a d20 dice roll plus their intelligence bonus (intelligence modifier + ½ level bonus).

16. Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?
Not encouraged or discouraged, daily costs are listed for various hire rates. Morale is at the GM's discretion.

17. How do I identify magic items?
Using the Identify Magic spell:

Identify Magic (2 Anima) (Level 2)

Spell Effect	Discern magical enchantments of an object or area. 1 enchantment per caster level (lowest level enchantment first).
Casting Time	10 minutes
Range	1 object or area

18. Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?
Yes, but in my campaign they're rare. Potions can be bought, if you can find someone to sell them to you.

19. Can I create magic items? When and how?
Scrolls, Potions, and Wands can be created from spells. The spell powers for creating these are introduced at levels 3, 7, and 7, respectively. As with the resurrection spells, creating these sorts of magic items actually temporarily reduce the caster's wisdom score.

20. What about splitting the party?
Up to the players. They've done a little bit when some players have been missing for a week, but generally they're well-drilled to keep the party together.

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Check out the full rules for Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Inconsistent Mechanics: D&D Essentials Magic Missile

If 4th Edition D&D went to all of the trouble of replacing saving throws with defenses on a consistent basis, then why the hell did they undermine this good work by making the Essentials Magic Missile auto-hit?

Furthermore, this is a double-bad move, because it totally undermines the point of minions. Minions only have 1 HP because there's a chance that they'll be missed (about) half of the time. When you introduce a power that hits all the time, then you break the underlying assumptions on which minions are built, and you break your own rules.

If I ever break my own rules, please let me know.

Heroes Against Darkness: Alpha rules updated to v0.200

I've updated the downloadable Heroes Against Darkness Alpha rules to v0.200.



The major changes are:
• Switched page format to US Letter (reluctantly)
• Removed the damage section from monsters (was redundant and didn't reflect their different attacks)
• Fixed some minor issues in the example character creation maths
• Clarified that the relevant Attack Bonus is added to damage rolls, subject to the details of the power (Melee Bonus for melee attacks, Ranged Bonus for ranged attacks and Magic Bonus for Magic attacks)
• Added Dragons to the Beasts and Bastards section as examples of Boss monsters
• Added grid image to clarify movement rules in combat (when using a grid)
• Added guidelines for creating viable boss monsters
• Reduced HP gain from healing powers from 10, 20, 30, 40 to 10, 15, 20, 25, but also changed these to add Constitution Bonus instead of Modifier
• Split cover and invisibility in the combat rules
• Clarified difficulty of dying Stabilization ability tests
• Clarified use of Healing Powers between encounters
• Allowed Bastard Swords to be used one or two-handed, dealing either d10 or d12 damage (dedicated two-handed weapons deal 2d6 damage)
• Adjusted encumberance to only affect characters at their weight limit or one item from their weight limit (used to be two items from the limit)
• Expanded power glossary
• Consolidated higher level martial powers into their base power, with details of changes to the power at higher levels
• Moved some spells so that none are higher than Level 10
• Adjusted some spell costs to reflect rule that the caster can spend no more than the Level + 1 Anima on a single spell
• Added Reflex Strike, Takedown, Reflex Trip and Quick Strike powers which are similar to Attacks of Opportunity
• Expanded martial power list for Warriors and Barbarians (these are now complete up to Level 10)
• Clarified how to adjust Party Level for combat encounters when there is a discrepancy between the player character levels and the monster levels at high levels
• Started section on Pre-Built Encounters
• Expanded Tuning and Modding section with more tweaks to give the game an 'old-school' feel
• Added an appendix of useful tables that can be printed to be used as a DM screen

Head over to the game rules download page to grab yourself a copy of this bad-boy: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Solo Adventure Character Pregen Preview

I've just finished putting together one of the pregen characters for the Heroes Against Darkness Solo Adventure, so I thought I'd post it here for you guys to check out ahead of time.

The pregen contains a simplified version of the full character sheet (without all of the Ability Mod + ½ Level sections), a quick description of each of the sections of the sheet, and then a list of the character's relevant Level 1 Powers and Spells.

I think I'll base all of the pregens on the example character builds that are included in the Player's Guide.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.