Weapons & Armor and Kits! Designing The Game
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- Опубліковано 3 гру 2023
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An annoyance I had with the 2014 players handbook was that badass art piece of the Fighter with the shield and spear, and then having nothing really to support that character fantasy.
Beyond being able to use a shield and spear?
@@jasonreeves1826you can’t use a spear and shield without taking a suboptimal choice or taking a feat.
Pole-arm master?
@@edwardwelsh3202 It can be wielded one-handed along with a shield. You just can't use the versatile feature. Is that what you mean by "sub-optimal?"
@@jasonreeves1826 The spear doesn't function like a spear by the rules of D&D 5e. It's a shortsword with the versatile trait. It's a bad longsword. It doesn't do what you expect a spear to do in a game. Like reach. If the Spear had 10 foot reach it would make sense why it has a lower damage die. Because that's what you use a spear for.
I love how Matt turns system design into incredibly dramatic, gripping stories. How very CINEMATIC.
Matt could probably make the phone book sound dramatic and gripping
4:54 "You've got these two wolves inside of you."
One of them snores like "honk shoo honk shoo" and the other snores like "mi mi mi mi."
Every DtG installment reminds me of how many D&D sacred cows are just that: decades-old legacy cruft never seriously interrogated from edition to edition. I can't wait to see kits in play!
The hobby both stands tall on the shoulders of giants but those giants definitely have to visit the chiropractor to get the kinks out.
@@Xplora213 "giant chiropractor" sounds like a hilarious NPC. somebody should steal that
Strongly agree.
As messy as it is, that's part of what I'm interested in with the Pathfinder Remaster.
2e already killed a few sacred cows... and frankly I think they could still stand to kill a few more. But with the new books they seem to be dropping a lot of stuff that was just there because "it's DnD!"
I'm curious to see everything that replaces it! And I'm happy to see a lot of other creators are doing the same with their systems and supplements.
If you want a D&D like game that seriously cuts down on the number of sacred cows check out Cypher System from Monte Cook Games. Monte Cook was the mastermind behind both Planescape and the 3e core books. When he and some others struck out on their own they created a d20 game that cut out just about all of the sacred cows while streamlining all the key mechanics they loved in ways 5e doesn't even get right.
Kits sound so thematic and fun. Imagining a cloak and dagger Tactician or a shining armor Fury, these off-trope combinations practically build characters themselves! Super cool
It kind of sounds like what Matt wanted to do to make a party of clerics fun to run but in reverse.
Like want to play an enclave of Knights, suit up with the Shining Armor but everyone picks a difference class. Then you can have your Lancelots, Galahads, Gawains, and more.
I'm just happy to hear Martial Artist and Fisticuffs are two separate kits. Sometimes you wanna play a wuxia character, and sometimes you want to play a Mike Tyson-style brawler.
Running into that issue when making a 5e character that's using unarmed but isn't a monk. As much as monk is the "unarmed" class in that system, it's a fundamentally different style of play compared to a barbarian/fighter multiclass. The former focuses on not getting hit and embracing the mysticism of Qi, and the other ... just decks you in the face. Entirely different styles of play, which I am glad to see iterated on.
Plus 5e doesn’t support STR based brawlers. If you loved cave woman Aayla from Chrono Trigger, good luck building her RAW.
@@rionbird6070I made a pro wrestler once, but it took until like fourth or fifth level, with a variant human fighter, to get it off the ground. And he wasn't really competitive with the rest of the party, just finally base-level competent. And he still did more damage with improvised weapons than his hands unless he could manage to grapple an enemy, which despite being much easier than 3e, basically never worked.
Sword and Shield (YES BOTH)!. JoCrap will be happy with this.
Making DR into health is functionality identical in the general case - but not the specific, tactical case of "who do we want to face the five goblins, and who do we want to face the ogre?" DR is much better at many small attacks than at few big attacks. "What can you do" isn't just about what active things you can do but also what situations you can confidently walk into.
Very good point, the fun thing about DR in my head was being a buff paladin in shining armour and having goblins literally be unable to get through it
Much love from the Gear Goblin Gang 💚
You have our swords, and our bows, and our axes
And an extraneous amount of other stuff
I second this -Havoc 💚
And my 10' pole, bag of caltrops, 10 iron spikes, small silver mirror...
ah yes, the "golf bag" kit XD
And my tactical pet rat
You previously mentioned that classes can have more badass things over skill buy system because you don't have to balance hundreds of combinations by making everything boring. If choosing armor+hand+hand was a skill buy point, you just invented "classes" for equipment and that sounds pretty neat
I've always wanted to play a bo-staff archetype that wasn't monk-y, and I can already imagine tweaking a ranger kit to make "Wanderer".
This is viable in 5e with druidic warrior and shillelagh, just saying!
I'm so glad you already mentioned not one, but two unarmed kits! Unarmed combat is such a popular archetype, but it's commonly represented poorly, if at all, in RPGs because of the question of how it interacts with elaborate gear systems. Also, making it an option for all classes instead of a class itself also fixes the Monk problem.
Agreed! I love martial arts action films, so unarmed combat is a core fantasy for me. I feel seen knowing MCDM is cooking so many options for that without locking you into a class.
Unarmed kits could represent styles or just the divide between striking and grappling arts. And could make weapon focused monks a much better option than they have been to date in other games.
i dont think completely unarmed styles are realistic. I like the way monks work in D&D where they primarily use monk weapons and then sneak in extra unarmed attacks like punches and kicks on top of their weapon attacks. Thats more realistic to me.
the main drawback of armor = health design is that it means that all armor is equally effective against all types of weapons. Damage types and type based resistances could maybe add it back in, but otherwise it means that 20 one-damage attacks from a minigun and one 20-damage deathray do the same thing regardless of what kind of armor they hit. If you're not bothered by that, then armor = hp is fantastic.
Yeah this is the only thing that rubs me the wrong way about health instead of damage reduction. I do wonder if damage reduction in lower values can still be a feature of certain kits in the long run. I don't see the harm in it as long as it's not a thing that can ever eclipse overall incoming damage sorta how high AC can feel insurmountable sometimes in D&D.
If the highest damage reduction you ever see from a kit is like 3, I think there's still a sweet spot of feeling great when you're hit by many small attacks but still having it do *something* against that big hit.
That, paired with increased health for kits I think could create a nice combination of vectors of customization.
armor = more hp is passable if not a bit lazy. unfortunately it does very little to make different types of armor feel different. And without kits that would probably be really boring. but I think its fine when incorporated into kits. Since theres other differences between the kits than just what type of armor you can use.
@@Khobai just think of it as "some armor eats the damage by blocking it, other armor makes you dextrous enough to avoid taking most of the hit even without a special maneuver". Problem solved.
How much of the game do you want the dice to roleplay FOR you, in lieu of just filling in the blanks with your imagination? Wanting everything spelled out explicitly to promote some sense of realistic materials difference is rewarding to a certain type of analytical mind, perhaps, but undeniably not immersive to the group experience... Not to mention severely limited in who wants to sit at the table WITH you to play such a game. A lot of what D&D relies on to be so widely adored in the first place, is the ability to bring a more diverse group to the table, and scratch most of their collective itches better than the alternatives. Seems like MCDM wants to duplicate that effect, with a different, even MORE streamlined set of causes.
@@deano1699, great, now we just imagine things have different qualities while they don't and claim it somehow solves anything. What a great argument /s.
The truth is that this by itself is objectively likely to be boring. But, hopefully, there are enough actually interesting and differentiating things to occupy the players' thought without the armor mattering much.
@@a_wild_Kirillian the alternative is "write more rules to cover specificities, then keep them in balance against all the other rules, forever."
If this game's not your style, there are all sorts of other games (D&D included) that have you covered already.
As for me, I've long been in the Hit Points != Meat Points camp, because it just makes way more sense to scale the RP rather than the rules around a physiology that would enable two identical twins of similar height and weight to have a multiply or even exponentially different number of HP based solely on their class and level.
Back to the example/complaint, though: it *sounds* like the "difference in resistances" for armor are going to be expressed - as ACTION opportunities, rather than more math time. We'll have to see where they land on it.
as soon as you said "Shining Armor" the kit concept instantly fell into place in my head. It really is such a great solution. I'm tempted to try and rip it off and stuff it into the games I'm already running, until the MCDM RPG is out.
hi Matt Colville of MCDM
The weapon damage reminds me of Powers & Perils. In that game, the different weapons had a different base damage, but it only ranged from -1 to +2. The main damage came from your level of expertise with that weapon. So an expert with a dagger did a lot more damage than a novice with a longsword.
I always liked that.
I think people are drawn more to minmaxing if experience is otherwise the same. Hit with sword for d8 dmg, or hit with a smaller sword for d6? Easy choice.
But if the smaller sword let's you do an unique cool ability? I think way more people would be into that!
Great job, can't wait to pledge ❤
Crazy that veteran game designers wouldn't think about it. Either that or they cared so little about the product and wanted nothing more than get the playerbase to come back from PF after 4e's failure... Na, it could never be that... Right?... Sigh.
@@pablodisciascio8229 no, it’s straight up “be nice”…. They care about the product but you have to pay homage to your roots at the same time. The trident and net SHOULD be a celebrated combo but the D&D rules lean in favour of other archetypes. Once we accept that reality it’s easier to not get salty.
Honestly a kit in place of weapon specialisation is far more pleasant to roll with…
This was solved in AD&D
Maybe that longer sword can't be used when you're "grappled" or "squeezing" down a narrow passage, but the shorter sword can?
@@FrostSpike yep, exactly - we shouldn't have dudes cruising around with spears in tiny dungeons.
One thing I will say on the subject of multiclassing is that for me, as someone who likes buildcrafting, a lot of the fun of multiclassing isn't about making my character to fit a thematic vision that isn't supported by the class aesthetics of any one class, it's about having more ways to let your character combine abilities to do weird things nobody else can, and asking whether it's worth the cost to get some crazy combo instead of keeping on with the bundled abilities that are designed to work together. That's one thing I loved about how PF2 did multiclassing with the weird feat bundles they called archetypes.
Very excited for MCDM RPG. Can't wait hear the name of it. Love the name 'Flee, Mortals!' and I'm sure the RPG will have a dope name too.
Is the name not MCDM RPG?
@@KristoVaher that’s just the placeholder
@@KristoVaher nah, just like Flee, Mortals! was originally referred to as The MCDM Monster Book.
New Title: Charge, Mortals!
When you were describing kits, my thought process was "4e builds, but you get all the feats involved at 1st level", which is both awesome, and something 4e DMs should look into making in case new people want to try out that edition and have a preset expectation of their character.
Big fan of the 'kits' idea. It's one of my favourite design choices in a recent game I've picked up called 'Dark and Darker'. Feels very class defining and helps give a sense of identity to your builds within the framework presented. Definitely a cool way of reframing proficiency that's still palatable to the average player
Oh this is cool. If I'm understanding it correctly, it could also solve a problem that I've had with basically every rpg/crpg/etc - and that is that none have ever fulfilled the fantasy of 'right tool for the job' - perhaps certain character classes could change or adopt a new kit in a given scenario (a new day or something in preparation for a particular challenge)?
Picture a fantasy classic in Aragorn (both in the movies and described in the books) - we see him start off in the full 'ranger' aesthetic: practical, light clothing, in dark and natural tones while skulking about in the wilds. He then continues to change throughout the series, being armed in different ways depending on the situation; ultimatley, garbed in resplendent plate-mail for the battle at the Black Gates. Aragorn didn't need to take a 'feat' for that, or level-up; he just needed different 'kits' for different situations because they were appropriate and he was well trained.
Or you have the modern day commando: they are fully trained (I assume) in multiple types of situations; they can operate multiple types of weaponry, they're not limited by a choice they made at 'boot-camp' - but they know, sometimes a high powered, automatic rifle is not going to be useful in all situations, etc.
These archetypes/fantasies are the highly trained combatants, so I wouldn't expect to see this for all or even many types of characters.
That sounds like a cool specialty for a specific class, so they can be balanced around that fantasy specifically, without worrying about a character out-shining the other swordsman at swords stuff, then the archer at archery, then the swashbuckler at fencing, then the knife wielder at cutthroat assassination. Don't know what it would be called but it is definitely a fun archetype that exists in fiction.
Or maybe they can just allow you to change your kit as you level up, which would also help any character achieve the fantasy of growth and change without being unbalanced, since they can't change up their build willy nilly between each dramatic scene to keep the spotlight on them. Aragon didn't exactly go back to do much ranger stuff after he went back to Gondor at the Battle of Minas Tirith, for example, so it also fits.
Or they can do both! Make a class that can do it between level ups, but also allow any character to do it on a level up.
Yeah! One thing to note there is that Aragorn only switches kits, as it were, at major points in the story, at minimum the equivalent of a "long rest," but more like when a new whole stage of the adventure began.
I think at any one time having only one kit, but being able to switch them relatively easily (but not too easily) at an appropriate break in the narrative would work nicely.
@@julianbushelli1331 That's why I think on level up would be appropriate, since we already know they're using a class and level based system. It especially fits if they've got like a milestone system to level up.
Having armor give HPS means armor "reduces" magic damage. Even if that magic might be flavored as a poison, disease, or psychic damage.
The obvious answer to "How do we support this fantasy?" is just "Here's a bundle of gear that supports your playstyle."
Simple, and effective; I'm looking forward to it. There are a lot of really fun visuals I get when thinking of making a character in D&D, or Skyrim, or any number of other fantasy games, but actually fulfilling that specific fantasy always means trying to scrape it together from all the disparate elements that the game has.
I really want a game that'll let me feel like an indomitable, claymore-weilding knight,
or a smug, fleet-footed duelist with a rapier,
or just a brutal enforcer with the cheap armour of a two-bit mercenary, but with hefty gauntlets which make up for the lack of a weapon.
Each one of these videos makes me more excited for the game, and crucially, gets my creative juices flowing for the systems *I'm* working on. I've always had a passion for game design, and this is exactly the kind of discourse I've been missing since I wrapped up school.
As much as I also liked the big weapon list, the reality is that you simply can't make 30+ options that all are different and balanced. Some things are gonna be better than others. You can make the system more complex, and it would take longer to solve but with the collective brainpower of the internet it will dventually be solved.
There are very few weapons in each era. No serious soldier brings a club to war in 1350. But 40000BC…. Who knows?
The list was too long because they didn’t restrict the logical options.
@@Xplora213 They absolutely did bring a club to war in 1350. They brought clubs to war in all warfare, they were using them as discrete weapons in WW1, and the use of a gunstock as a potential club was a feature of many weapons. Clubs are still used today in policing. It was really common for archers to have hatchets, mauls (not a giant two handed hammer, just a big one), or a club as a side arm when needing to finish off downed enemies or defend themselves hand to hand.
A club is just a stick that's been refined in some way to make it effective at hitting people. It's basically never gone out of fashion, because it's so accessible/affordable, laughably easy to maintain, and good at its job. It's not as effective as a halberd, but it's not for the same thing either. It's amazing how much longevity some of these weapons had throughout history. Though the club from 40,000 BC and the club from 1350 are gonna be fairly different from each other.
Its inevitable that the same will happen to kits and armor. Some combos will just be stronger than others. A meta always emerges.
@@adamuadamu5081 A meta always emerges, but you can control how much the meta matters. The work is already half done by virtue of this not being a competitive player vs. player experience. The "value," of picking a given kit/class is not just its mechanical strength but also its thematic strength: how well it supports the fantasy of playing your character. Mechanical strength is an apples to apples comparison, and a meta will inevitably form around this. But thematic strength is an apples to oranges comparison. No matter how good the Panther kit is at letting you be Conan: it cannot let you be King Arthur. This is the strength of kits: they create a sense of non-comparison. As long as there is that sense of non-comparison, than good enough is good enough.
Perfectly balanced mechanical strength is not possible but "good enough" balanced mechanical strength is absolutely possible. At least for a non-competitive game where the sole goal is not winning at combats. You don't need to be the best possible monster killing machine, you just need to feel like an effective monster killing machine. As long as each kit successfully empowers a distinct character fantasy that people want to play: players will tolerate the sub-optimal mechanical strength. Effectively rendering the emergence of a meta strategy a non-issue.
This of course doesn't hold if the kit isn't just "sub-optimal" but is instead actively "bad." But that would be a failure of execution, not of principal. I'm excited to see the system in practice.
@@Lurklen The club is not a primary weapon in your examples. That’s my point. If you want to be obtuse, various lengths of points or sharp edges or blunt things as well as ranged options of various power and size covers every weapon in history.
No, the meta heavily observes the strength of materials available and usefulness of armour vs mobility. And original D&D mashes different eras without much concern… leading to absurdity in 2e.
Can confirm "armor grants more health" just works. Been using that in my own systems for about 6 years now and it's never been an issue. Health is already an abstraction.
The first game I remember player where armor acts mainly as a health increase, instead of damage reduction was the Shin Megami Tensei series (Shin Megami Tensei IV), they also made every choice of armor come with a set of damage type resistances, and weaknesses.
It was an interesting system looking back on it, more so than a lot of other systems you would generally know exactly how much damage a given attack would do against every enemy (unless you inadvertently attacked a damage type with a resistance/immunity), and weaker enemies still "posed a threat" because they would still drain your health when they occasionally got a hit in, potentially causing a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario if you were not careful.
This seems like a great way to fix some of the legacy names for some weapons and armor that seem to be used for grognards. We can use Arming swords and Brigandine armor now, as long as it can be described within the kit system.
Sick! A new designing the game video is out!
I'm really glad that friend solidified your ideas by mentioning Midnight Suns, but... that isn't how Midnight Suns works at all, the suit you wear is only cosmetic. I really wonder what they were talking about
I think it's the different collars. I believe those only give you small boosts, whereas kits sound more varied/impactful. But yeah, I am similarly glad we got here 👍
Game design is endlessly fascinating. All this discussion about having to stop and rethink what fantasties are and whether the conventional way to achieve in fact achieves them
Love the Midnight Suns shoutout, such a great game by great devs!
12:10 is somewhat worrisome. I was very excited about kits being a way to martial my casters - as someone who absolutely never plays monoclassed casters because melee combat is core to the fantasy of being a hero to me; Kits being a way to properly create a monoclassed "gish" with the Talent or similar class would be vital. It would be very disappointing for kits to not permit that gameplay. When I first saw the Talent for 5e I was super hyped to build something like the Battlemind from 4e - and I can, but only if I take a level of fighter first. For players like me, it would be ideal if Kits allow for this kind of "gishing" with every class from the jump.
I'm in the exact same boat. Banning mages from taking martial kits feels like a clunky answer for the problem they were trying to solve. Maybe instead of outright banning mages from taking kits that make them tankier, it would be better to offer them sufficient incentives for squishier kits. That way the "every mage can be a gish" option is still there, but isn't the optimal choice by such a wide margin that traditional squishy mages aren't also a fully valid playstyle.
Well, just work with your director to make a 'kit' to fit your fantasy. Doesnt seem hard to me.
And if you dont want to do that, or your Director doesnt, the they can just allow you to take a kit you normally couldent for the sake of the fantasy. Lets the Director gatekeep from the 'min-maxers' who just want the big HP pools on their squishy caster and dont want to be the 'gish'.
Now this does seem interesting - and really "like the we did this, but found it didnt work for us" arts of the dialoge -- look forward to seeing more :)
I'm sure you guys will have had this consideration, but, when talking about armor you said:
1) if you take the armor off you lose those hitpoints
2) you aren't concerned with how long it takes to put armor on and take it off
I think you need to clarify in the rules somewhere how/ when armor "hp" recovers. Similarly, i think you need some rule to do with donning armor in combat, otherwise you could go buy 3 suits of armor and hot swap them mid combat when your armor hp gets low. You could also just make it to where the armor hp is equal to whatever your best armor is and is static across all armor until armor recovers thus preventing any mid combat armor swapping.
tl;dr Without caring how long it takes to don/doff armor you need a rule to mitigate armor swapping during combat for cheesing hp.
Kits initially reminded me of the Jobs system in Final Fantasy Tactics, but i think kits are so much more! Jobs tend to be necessarily restrictive, to make balancing easier, but it sounds like Kits will allow for a lot of customisation. And modularity maybe, how easy will it be to change kits?
Just spitballing but it should be doable but not trivial IMO. Different weapons require different skills, different armor requires different behavior to maximize it's use (learning to turn a blow with your plate vs getting out of the way with lighter armor) so I don't like the idea of just putting on different kits willy nilly. But if every X levels you gained a new kit you gained proficiency with, or just allowing you once per level to change kits, or something similar, that would work for me. As your character got better they'd become more situationally flexible.
Another option although it's starting to get complicated would be to have kit families, aka related kits that you could move between easily. So Cloak & Dagger could combine well with Second Story Man and Infiltrator and Assassin. You gain access to the Stealth kit family, and can move between those kits. You're a character that relies on subterfuge, so moving between those related kits is easier for you. But going and getting armored up in the Bulwark family is a significantly different
speaking of Final Fantasy Tactics it's one of (maybe THE) only video game RPGs I know of that has armor simply increase your HP and even all the way back when I played it for the first time as a kid I could see that it was a pretty elegant solution
Sounds great, looking forward to the kickstarter! ❤
Such clean, straightforward and evocative design. Even just hearing the names and the concept without any of the specifics is enough to get the wheels turning with ideas!
i worry that a flat hp bonus from armor might become less important as you naturally gain hp from leveling and the actual percentage of extra health you gain from armor compared to base diminishes.
if health increases with level then so will damage, long combats seem to run counter to the vision here. so damage reduction would also lose value at higher levels. but, a health bonus mechanic has the edge if you *do* want to add level scaling, at least with the kind of numbers they're working with
Sounds pretty exciting! Looking forward to seeing its final implementation :)
Oh nice excited to watch and for the backerkit campaign
I like weapon damage varying depending on enemy armor class and character class. A rogue can be more deadly with a dagger than Paladin with a greatsword. But against a heavily armored enemy a dagger may not be as effective as said greatsword. The issue is how easy do we want our combat vs how realistic...
Love it! Sometimes you just want to go for the vibe and it seems like this game is all about that while making sure you don’t feel useless compared to others. Can’t wait for the kickstarter!
Seeing the iteration on systems is very inspiring and a great window into the game we may soon play. Time to kit up.
Kits sound like such an elegant solution to the problem, I commend thee.
The winged mini over Colville's shoulder on the left looks dope!
It was a kitbash for Ajax the Invincible Overlord, the bbeg for the Chain stream (and his current world, Orden)
@@hive_indicator318 Ajax the Invincible Overlord, the Iron Saint!
So cool. I think this system might be a bit too Tactical for me, but I'm loving the philosophy and the process!
Armor as bonus HP makes so much sense too!
Interesting stuff. Thanks for all the work you all do.
this idea seems so genius that this video is like a comfort watch for me. Weirdly, it's this that has made me the most stoked for this game
Nailing it as always. I truly cannot wait to get into this game! Keep on making magic MCDM!
Can't wait to find out more about this RPG! Loving the Designing the Game series and the decisions MCDM is making. Game sounds super fun!
Functional difference and perception difference is such a profound thing. I'm so glad ya'll are in that space. That's incredibly good to hear. So many games I've tested don't understand the idea of how something plays versus how it FEELS. I love what I'm hearing.
God, it is ridiculous how confident I am in you guys, and how excited I am for this game. Every video that comes out here I just find myself saying "that's such a good way to deal with that" or "yeah I had that same issue with [other d20 games] myself!". What fantastic designers you are. Something I have found in my own (very limited) designing experiance is that in a game, I would rather choose 1 out of 10 cool, powerful options, than 10 things out of 100 tiny options. The move from weapons to kits reflects exactly that idea. Keep up the amazing work!
I really enjoy the "Designing The Game" videos. I enjoy the thought process behind the design choices. Thank you for doing these videos.
have often thought about this exact idea myself, so I'm jazzed to see it in print
I and another GM I've been playing with for over a decade are designing our own system, and I'm also currently grappling with everything being as viable as everything else. This has been super helpful.
Way simpler and more intuitive than proficiency! And you are free to choose any weapon within a kit without having to say "my guy has a falchion but im using the rapier stats".
Great solution! Reminds me of the old AD&D kits, but with greater impact. Loved those, so much flavor, but glad you're taking it to a place where it matters. Hope it works out.
I keep getting more and more excited for this game. Can't wait to play it.
I absolutely love the idea of mixing and matching classes and kits. Playing a Shining Armor Shroud could be a really interesting fantasy.
I’m sure you are looking at Patreon supporters for feedback more than UA-cam comments, but I had a bit of a disagreement with the “armor gives you HP and that’s the same thing” sentiment.
For the example “instead of 3DR, take 10 hits and then rest, we’ll just give you 30HP” - if I have 3 DR that applies to every hit, I’m going to try to take as many hits as possible (tactician taunt you mentioned in a previous video comes to mind). If it’s a flat DR like that, I’m going to try taunting or zoning enemies with low damage hits and avoid the greatclub ogre as well, which fleshes out my decision making even further. If I tank just 11 hits with that 3DR, I’ve outpaced that 30HP “equivalent” by expressing skill. If I get one-shotted by a dragon tail sweep, I effectively only got 3HP “equivalent” which could be chalked up to some failure on my part, be it planning or decision making at a turn-by-turn level. Or at the very least, “dragons be like that”.
I think armor giving an HP equivalent flattens the space where skill expression can happen and makes decisions less impactful. The skill ceiling and skill floor have been hand-waved to an average where we assume you did ok, not failing or exceeding. When things are arbitrated like that, the mechanics feel like an afterthought.
In fact, the weapon system “here’s your action, you can flavor this to apply for a greatsword or a dagger at your own discretion” also struck me as an over-simplification. If my armor and weapon can be “whatever I want”, then they mean nothing. Impact and consequence can only be measured specifically, so the trade-off for opening up the creative space where my weapon/armor is “anything” is that no impact or meaning can be imparted to any choice within that space.
I understand stripping things down to their root to really examine them in this way, it’s the only way to innovate. But I think specificity, once you’ve figured out what the core idea of weapons/armor is to you, needs to be built back into the system if you want it to be any more fun than RPing in a paper notebook with no stats or game system. Each of these changes feel like they’re going toward “just say what you do, we don’t need dice or numbers at all”.
I (a random UA-cam commenter who can’t prove any game design credentials, whether or not I even have them) think now that you’ve done the “stripping down to the core” and the simplification, that simplification should now be reversed and complexity built back up, in a way that has a basis in what you learned from that simplification process.
I didn’t mean for any of this to sound condescending but trying to word constructive criticism for something you feel pretty skeptical about can be hard. But trust, this is still sounding like an amazing undertaking and I’m excited to hear the next update!
Home brewing at it's most primal is when a player asks for a rule variance because they're not doing what they thought they were gonna be doing. So you ask "what exactly are you trying to do?" This kit plan sounds like a really really easy way to homebrew in a tweak for 'fantasy ' without affecting balance
The designing the game videos always get me mega juiced. I love it.
Hearing this, it sounds amazing. Great idea on kits. It would be amazing to have a ton of them.
Really looking forward to the campaign.
Also, you are visibly excited for all this, which is great to see. A lot of drama and quite a bit of panache in the presentation, I love it!
I love this so much. In a cinematic style game (and in so much of the fiction that inspired us all to play thtese game), arms and armor and magic items used are often as much an archetype as the characters are. So kits fit that perfect
I love how final fantasy 12 did armor. Heavy armor increased attack, light armor increased HP and mystic armor increased Magic.
In my head, heavy and light should be flipped, but you get the idea.
This made it so your caster had a reason to wear robes that wasnt simply, you cant wear heavy or light armor.
Ya its weird
If I was to guess why Heavy and Light armour gave what they did:
Heavy Armour would greatly increase the weight on your person which could translate to more weight behind your movements.
As for Light Armour, the lack of weight could mean it's less strenuous to your body which means you take longer to tire which could translate to higher HP.
Does that mean that realistically wearing no armour should be like Light Armour or even boost the HP gain? Maybe, BUT...
Armour kinda needs to be objectively better overall because they are designed to be used.
That's my two cents on it.
This is sounding more and more like something that I have always felt about hit points: that, instead of representing a level of bodily health, or severity of injuries, it is a numerical way to show how close to defeat a character or monster is. This lets the system match up with the cinematic of a fight, where the heroes can’t hurt the enemy, but eventually work together to create an opening for a killing blow. Instead of chewing through 200 hit points a few at a time, looking like having to draw blood 40 or 50 times before they are done.
Kits! I love the idea! The old grognard in my head does love it too... Reminds me of AD&D class kits a little. 😊
That approach to armor is elegant and brilliant.
Having to keep track of deducting 3 points every round sucks. Buying a suit of armor that gives you 30 additional health feels awesome.
Armor as extra HP. The synchronicity of when a more popular game designer comes up with an idea that you came up with close to a year ago is both amazing and frustrating, as this was a very similar armor mechanic that I used for my D&D-esque system, DtwenD (the development vlog is on my channel). And that's pretty much the end of the narcissistic part of this comment.
With regard to kits, I like it. It sort of reminds me of how Legends of the Wulin handled martial arts styles: each style gave you bonuses to specific combat skills, such as Speed, Footwork, Strike, Block, Damage, and Toughness. Having multiple styles provides greater versatility on how to handle different combat scenarios. It was also possible to improve one's proficiency in a style, though only to a limited extent (so there is no maxing out every combat skill in a style to make it the omni-style).
As far as the concept of combining class and kits are concerned, this is very reminiscent of character creation in Cypher System, where a PC is composed of three parts: their descriptor, their role, and their focus, which is formalized as "I am a [descriptor] [role] that [focus]" (i.e. I am a that ). The descriptor provides one-time benefits and traits, while the role and focus give you more benefits as you go up in rank.
Matt, just wanted to say you are wildly successful in generating excitement about this game. I can't wait to see it, learn it, and play it. Great job to all involved!
Honestly, You have never disappointed in the past. Dont see you doing it in the future. Your love and drive for this is inspiring.
This is so exciting. I have loved the “weapon master” subclass/prestige class and have loved the idea of a fighter that can swap between weapons in combat for different effects. I have a homebrew subclass for 5e that somewhat accomplishes this, but the kit idea will simplify it so much. I can’t wait to see the product and play!
Nice, I like it. Flexible and thematic.
This kit design is also vaguely in Xcom 2, so its kind of cool how this game can trace its genealogy back to one of my favs. The kits are more like classes, and you also equip armor and special items separately. But the weapons are always a bundle of two
Xcom 2 "kits" (more like classes)
Ranger: shotgun + sword
Grenadier: cannon + grenade launcher
Sharpshooter: sniper + pistol
Specialist: assault rifle + combat drone
psi operative: assault rifle + psi amp (spellcasting focus)
SPARK: (robot) big gun + interchangeable heavy weapon (rocket launcher, flamethrower, etc)
Skirmisher: SMG + hand blade thing
Reaper: rifle + remote bomb
Templar: psychic gauntlets+ pistol
Kits are very cool - and lovely to test. Just a few numbers and a special ability to comment on. They are super fun!
Here’s the thing: these videos are rad as hell. I love learning about game design like this - I feel like I’m graduating from Running the Game to Creating the Game! Achievement Unlocked, MCDM.
That does sound good.
A kit that allows someone to have a sword and dagger. Allows them to parry an attack, but get a quick stab in.
The two dagger wielder, will get those two swift strikes, a stab and a slice. The single dagger wielder a single precise puncture to a vital organ.
I can imagine kids with these types of abilities working
I like this solution, for this kind of game. It really fits within the milieu it's going for, and it doesn't leave the simulationist tissue behind that is going to confuse people. It's not that kind of game, and that's fine. Great in fact, if those are the stories you want to tell.
I think the one issue with this whole concept, and the way it's been applied to games, is the difference in the stated goal of simulating the use of these weapons and the desire to make them each a fun tool for adventure. The truth is, a dagger and a spear are two totally different classes of weapon. They have different uses, and though they inflict similar injuries through similar means, but they are not equivalent to each other. In most scenarios, someone using a dagger against just about any other melee weapon, is at a significant disadvantage. It's not an unwinnable scenario (I have seen people do it in practice) but it is an unenviable position to be in.
What daggers are really good for is being up close, inside someone's defenses, and inflicting the maximum harm by slipping in through or around armour. Sneaky, or desperate, or grappling range combat. A spear is basically the opposite of that, it's really good at keeping the wielder out of harms way, and getting through or around armour, while being fast and allowing you to face multiple opponents at once. It's a main weapon over a side arm. It's really bad in close range though, and kind of a pain to keep around when you aren't actually fighting.
They are better or worse tools depending on their application. D&D (and other games) struggle with this.
But then there's the fantasy. The idea of the dagger wielding hero who moves fast as lightning and can strike 20 times before their enemy is able to defend themselves, and can knock arrows from the air before they are struck, their knives a blur of steel. That's really cool, and has no bearing on reality at all. A game needs to decide which philosophy they want to embody, because trying to combine the two is just going to make people unhappy, and either overcomplicate, or simplify the weapon system, and leave some part of their audience unsatisfied.
Kits allow you to hone in on the fantasy, and embrace it, without qualifying the aspects of it through "But how does that work?" It's not that kind of game. I like the noodly "Ah, so daggers are only really good for up close." games. But this sounds like a lot of fun, and like it will work better for some of the crowds I run for.
These are some fantastic designs.
Yessssss I’ve been waiting for this update video!!!
Wow dude you just combined it all gear into one kit with a neato special! thematic design ! 😊
Can't wait to see what you do with negotiation. wanna see how it's comparing ! ❤
Very very cool. It's reminding me about more martial arts focused games and writing, where the weapon choice itself is inseparable to the martial art. Keep those things connected!
I really dig the design of armor. IT'S SO SIMPLE!
Ugh, I'm SO ready for this! LET'S GO!!!
I get more excited for this RPG with every video y'all release
I'm excited to play this when it comes out!
Ok yeah, i remember seeing the early weapon design attempts and wanting to believe but not quite seeing it. This I BELIEVE in! I’m super excited for kits
This is sounding like a good direction. It combines the awesome Action Oriented Design philosophy with supporting fantasy archetypes.
For instance, “sword and board “ sounds like that most classic of all fantasy archetypes, the sword and shield-wielding fighter. In real life, shields were very useful, such that whole armies and tactics were based on shield use. A shield was so central to a warrior’s existence that a Spartan mother laconically told her son before he left for battle “With it or on it,” meaning either come back with your shield (meaning you didn’t cut and run, casting your shield aside to do so) or on it as a dead body, because shields were used as stretchers to move corpses. So, valor and victory, or valor and death. But the shield, not the weapon, being the ultimate symbol of the warrior here.
But D&D has always been poor at manifesting the real-life usefulness of a shield as a game mechanic. For example, I’m currently playing BG3, whose rules are based on 5e. In that game, there are some cool shields, but none so good as dual wielding the longsword and getting more damage with every attack. But even better, use a two-handed greatsword instead, coupled with Savage Attack, and now you are getting not just a better damage roll, but advantage each damage die roll for a two die-roll when two handed. This is versus a shield which might give you a +1 to AC and a special ability to knock someone prone, gaining advantage on one attack roll before they stand up. No comparison. Same thing with past editions: you could take shield feats or similar, but they were at the expense of much cooler possibilities.
By tying advantages of a shield to a gear kit, you could make this viable, and tweak it to be desirable, to enable you to be able to do cool stuff with the gear. A “yes, and” situation: yes (feats or class abilities) and (gear kit bonuses or abilities). Might even make helmets relevant.
Idea Suggeation: So, Talent with shining armor. What if in a way simmilar to proficiencies in d20 fantasies, your class tells you what sort of benefits you can gain from kits? So say that a Talent can't gain health, meaning kits focused on that are generally worse, but if you have a cool idea it's still possible to make it work? Possably make it capped, so the Talent can benefit from health up to 5hp and then stops benefiting, or benefits by half the remaining? I know that if I was playing a psionic mage-esque character and wanted to pick a heavy kit, I would be doing it for the action, not for the bonuses.
Alternatively, make kit bonuses scale with values given by a class to a simmilar effect, if your classes have the room for that kind of design without getting ugly.
Anyways good luck, and thanks for making something awesome!
Love your videos. Been designing my own system for several years now and once I get it to a certain point my company will likely help more but I completely understand the need to bounce things off a fellow designer. I have these "amazing" theories but often times they have a hole in them the size of a 747 that my friend is able to help me identify long before we get to the table because he can simply see it from a different perspective. Most useful tool in design is another human mind!
I admit, I'm not a fan of the d20 class system itself so your choice to use it has kept me at arms reach but I am certainly looking forward to seeing this when it's done and adding another system to the hobby!
I'm working on my own dice-based combat ttrpg, and it's nice to see so many similarities in your approach to iteration! I agree that dead-ends are very instructive. Being confident in scrapping content is hard, but swallowing one's ego and having no sacred cows is essential. My playtesters hate having to un-learn stuff but it's for the greater good :)
the kit idea here really does sound cool! the idea helped me solve a similar issue i've been having with my own ideas! c:
This is very cool, but as a fan of the old immortal mystic from the 5e playtest I definitely think the Talent should be able to wear Shining Armour!
These are very exciting ideas. Hope it develops well. I'm looking forward to it
I love the idea of kits… gives plenty of room for my imagination, solar also letting me ‘solve’ the stats…
My concern is the armor adding health….
If I put on full plate and it gives DR3, that DR refreshes every time I’m hit. could be once today, could be 20 times
If instead it adds say, 30 health, that effectively only gives me 10 attacks worth of protection per rest.
I assume this is something you’re going to continue to monitor/consider during your testing, but I felt I should point it out in case you didn’t think of it
I made a bunch of archetypes for my Pathfinder WW1 game a long time ago, basically made class-independent party roles with a stack of abilities to help do that role. could even have a healer without being a divine caster. the dual pistol guy would fire a bunch, then his guns would jam, and he'd have to toss them to the actual Gunslinger to quick clear them. the first time that happened, he was like 'oh, you left the safety on' and tossed it back.
This video sold me on the game. About to back it right now.
Loving how the game sounds more and more every video
Definitely want to game this!