What do you think of DC20? Thanks so much to the Dungeon Coach for sponsoring this video! Visit the Kickstarter at the link below: www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedungeoncoach/dc20?ref=8t12lj
hey! in looking into DC20 it seems like a lot of the currently rule set is combat heavy, but i’m rly excited abt the social and exploration mechanics. if i back on the lowest tier will i get access to those mechanics as they come? or will i need to reinvest in those other mechanics?
I appreciate his excitement but it’s definitely not for me. I backed MCDM’s RPG back in December and I am excited over the the Daggerheart play tests. But honestly, Dungeon coach is just throwing his money around for the kickstarter and insisting his project is the best instead of letting the community openly decide on its own.
From your review, like all games after 3e, has a lot of unnecessary rules and game mechanics, does not sound fun at all to run. I’ll stick with my 2E campaigns
A solution to AP and many foes could be that for every amount of enemy on the field, you remove one AP from them as a whole. Example: 6 skeletons? They each have 3 AP. 12 skeletons? They each have 2 AP. Just invoke Conservation of Ninjitsu.
I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about that rule. On one hand, it allows for infinitely more expression and interesting characters, more builds and allowing for cool ideas that wouldn't work in DND because of the stat requirements. On the other hand, I feel it makes classes less unique and like they have far less identity. Sorcerers are partially defined by the fact that they're charisma casters. Wizards are *the* intelligence caster. If monks used strength and ignored wisdom, aren't they just worse fighters? Requiring certain stats is part of the character fantasy, the idea of the strong inspiring knight in shining armour (paladin) or the nimble, sneaky thief (rogue) if you can just swap that without cost, it feels like it betrays the fantasy.
It's crazy that in six hours DC20 has out funded 13th age 2e which is on its last two days. 13th age is touted as "what 5e should have been" from the lead devs of 3e and 4e DND.
I'm barely through the intro, but damn this sounds like the kind of project I've been wanting to do to 5E since before I even knew such a thing was allowed (and now that the SRD is in Creative Commons, the only one stopping me is... me). The bones of 5E, I always felt, were really really solid, and with someone building a better* set of muscles and organs and skin on top of that skeleton, I think something really cool could emerge. One thing I'm hopeful for when it comes to solving monster reactions is a thing Matt Colville recently prototyped for the MCDM RPG and wrote a Patreon post about: The encounter as character sheet. Rather than thinking in terms of individual, complex monsters, you've got one sheet with all the monsters in the combat. They're almost like individual powers of some unseen eldritch being known as "the Encounter". Details were sparse/I don't remember them very well, but it's definitely something I'm going to try out next time I'm behind the screen. I think I could rig up something based on how I handled enemy ships when I ran the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG and tried to make vehicle combat in that game not suck. * i.e. "more to my personal tastes"
The idea of picking what attribute your character is going to 'main' in sounds fun - and a great way to diversify and make sure players have different characters, even if they're playing the same class! When you do get to try out DC20.... character creation video, mayhaps??? 👀👀 I really enjoy that process.
I've tried out some of the Dungeon Coach's products, and love how he takes community playstyle solutions seriously. DC20 has been having a ton of expert-level playtesting and I'll give it a shot. It does look like a lot of fun!
I love the death/dying mechanic you mentioned from DC20. Even if I don't pick that system up in future, I'm going to implement something like this in my games (among my other fun, campaign specific death mechanics)
I’m relatively new to the hobby, having joined an online game for the first time (as I suspect many others did) during the pandemic, when 5E was basically hitting its stride. I find the idea of learning a whole new system, be it the next DnD edition, or one of these other systems, quite daunting. I also know that my current table (who were all new to the game when I convinced them to start playing last year) are just now feeling confident with 5e’s mechanics. I know change-overs have obviously happened multiple times throughout DnD’s history. I think it would be super helpful if you made a video with advice on how to leave an old system behind and jump in to a new one for those of us who have never had to do that before.
As someone who's jumped between quite a few games, a couple tips to hopefully help, we've found it easiest to jump between games to start slow, have the two most confident players in the group start, and in a bit of freetime, just run through character creation, both people will likely pick up on different bits of nuance, and have different ideas going into it, so it helps to have a couple people going through it. Once their characters are done, have them do a simple fight against each other, going through the turn progression one step at a time. Don't get too much into the reeds with either of these, just do it quick and dirty, and skip bits you don't quite get, you'll have both more headspace for them on your second pass through the rules, and also after having run a combat, might have more of an idea on what those things you didn't understand the first time were, or why they were important. Do this once or twice before leading the rest of the group through the character creation steps, it'll be easier to get through it for them once they have someone they can ask questions to. two things of note, most D20 games are pretty close to 5e in terms of general mechanics, either because they've been built off of the thing 5e was built off of, or because they were built off of 5e, so you'll understand more than you think you will if you jump between D20 games. Also, you will definitely get things wrong no matter how much you try to read through things, and you will get things mixed up between the new game and 5e, but that's not that big of a deal, just as you notice them, note them down to look up later, and don't let them bog down the gameplay. Fun thing about learning another system: Even if you don't like it, you might find a new mechanic you really do like, and you might be able to adapt that mechanic into 5e if after you try a new game you decide you don't like it. if the new game does backgrounds better, steal what you can, if you come across a really cool way to manage player to NPC relationships, adapt it. the space is wide open if you're open to it, and taking the bits and bobs of what you like into other games once you understand them, can be very rewarding. Good luck in anything you try, and I hope you like it!
Ooooh, this sounds good! In terms of 4 actions per monster, I'd probably make some sort of resettable domino thing where I can drop a domino each time an action is used, then flip them all back up at the end of the turn.
We played out a combat encounter last night where the players were constantly moving back and forth and weaving through combat to prioritise targets. I played as a Rogue with the Fighter's Duelling ability, I was intentionally moving to try and bait opportunity attacks that I could parry, and then exploit advantage from the duelling.
My one group tends to swing between wanting a crunchy game, and then a rules light game. So we often switch it up from time to time and something like this may just hit the spot. This game sounds really interesting and honestly anything that uses an 'action point' system already has me interesting. One of my biggest annoyances with 5e is how bonus actions are handled (or not even bothered with most of the time). Action point systems just inherently suit my brain better when it comes to planning a turn. I'll be keeping an eye on this one for sure.
Honestly the more I hear about this game, the more I want to play it. I'm just waiting for the rules to be finished to try it out (I'm not good with updating rules)
ive been seeing bits and pieces about DC20 for a while now and, honestly, it looks frikkin awesome. i've been waiting for the kickstarter, gotta jump into it tonight. it looks super fun and i especially love the idea of floating action points for instance. i'm excited about this and really want to play
Possible solution for tracking monster action pionts. Total all on same initiative and track that, don't worry about being precisly 4 each. Players will likely target the well placed enemies making 5+ actions as the monsters function as a team. Prehaps max 2 reactions and each monster spends one action piont at a time till all gone... so don't have one hyperactive goblin trying to solo the party.
I promise the modifiers in PF2e aren’t that hard to track y’all. They’re very rarely bigger than a +2 and there are only 3 kinds that can’t stack with themselves, and one of those kinds is your weapon’s item bonus to hit, ie: already on your sheet. I know this is a tiny nitpick, but this gets misrepresented a LOT and I don’t want to let that misrepresentation scare people away from trying the game system. Great vid Mike. You might also be interested in Vagabond.
There is still up to a potential 8 modifiers to consider for a roll (status and circumstance bonus and penalties for offensive and defensive stats respectively.)
I am not hoping any of these games take the place of 5e as The Biggest TTRPG On The Planet. I am hoping enough of them grow enough of an audience that collectively they drop 5e 2024 down to comparable in size to Pathfinder. Because I do not believe it is good for the hobby to have a game as larger than the rest of the hobby as 5e is, and I would be saying that even if my favourite game of all time was the size of 5e. This is still unlikely, but... Though I fully agree that a game being opinionated on what it's trying to do and what sort of tones alongside settings it's good for, rather than trying to be Everything to Everyone, is a good thing, and I am looking forward to the inevitable Many Ways Of Making A Character video for it considering how much you like it.
An idea for monsters: have two kinds of monsters: one that have only one action (maybe plus move), no reactions. The other has action points and are the bosses. You can have monsters with 2 action points, three and four - so have bosses of different level. But only the bosses have multiple actions.
That actually happened before. The Dungeon Coach had multiple one shots with other DnD UA-camrs before. In one of them, with D4DeepDive and DnD Shorts, the enemies were many tribalistic frog humanoids, with only 2 or 3 AP each. It's a great way to balance a big bunch of minions against the more flexible PCs.
That's actually the direction for monster stat blocks in DC20. Basically monsters will have tiers (common, rare, elite, boss...) that modify their action points, hp, number of techniques/spells known, etc. so the same monster "type" can be easily tuned to whatever difficulty is needed/relevant for the party or the narrative.
Personally, I find that tracking action points is fine, since I no longer have to track a super clumpy initiative. The ease of tracking DC20's alternating initiative really makes up for it. Plus, my players know I'm "cheating" for them if I don't use reactions, but with action points, taking a reaction is a very opinionated tactical choice, meaning I can skew tactical challengeevel in the moment as I see fit WITHOUT breaking that immersion.
I feel like the 4 action economy has the potential to be really cumbersome on the DM side as the number of combatants increases, though I really like the concept on the player side. I imagine most DMs will probably default to 3 actions + 1 reaction per monster or something similar for anything more than a handful of monsters, maybe leaving the more tactical approaches to one or two elite enemies. Can you cast multiple spells per turn? I'm assuming there is something to prevent the wizard from just opening every combat with 4 castings of fireball...
You can in fact cast multiple spells per turn. However just like weapon attacks, since you roll for all of your spells, you get stacking disadvantage. However instead of 4 mini fireballs which get worse and worse you can instead spend actions and mana to instead create one big fireball, if that is what you want
About spells: A cantrip costs 1AP, while a Lvl 1 spell costs 2AP + 1 Mana Point. So someone could cast 4 firebolt cantrips per turn with stacking disadvantage. Or you could move (1AP), cast fire bolt with advantage (1AP + 1AP for adv) and apply the burning condition to the target (1AP for enhancement) 😃
While watching this video I had an idea for running monsters; give monsters a “rank” like some video games. Each rank determines how many action points a creature has and depending on what kind of encounter I’m going for I’ll give a different rank for a monster. Like a goblin could be a grunt or elite just depending on how powerful I want him to be. So it could be something like: - Weakling: 1 ap - Grunt (most common prob): 2 ap - Elite: 3 ap - Master: 4 ap - Epic: 5 ap
I know this isn't particular point of video but when you brought up idea of advantage and disadvantage stacking and canceling 1 for 1 it actually reminded me of a home brew I like to use. for me Advantage and disadvantage don't just stack and cancel one for one but rather stack only. Where each advantage and disadvantage add 1 more d20 to the roll, each advantage allows you to ignore the lowest result while each disadvantage makes you ignore the highest results until you are left with 1 dice. For example with 1 disadvantage and 2 advantage you would roll 4 dice this would mean you ignore the 2 lowest options for due to your advantage and the highest roll due to the disadvantage. Leaving you with 2nd highest roll. though this can get out of hand in actual play I still like it alot, but because of that I have also tooled an alternative that I like but have not used yet. In this variant both advantage and disadvantage stack but once done you make a comparison. If either is higher then the other that one takes priority and you roll 1 extra dice and take high or low depending on roll type. but when they are equal you roll 3 dice and take the middle. This keeps the feeling of getting more advantage or imposing more disadvantage as good (makes you want to try to out maneuver the enemy). It also gives a more natural feel for when situations are tangled up and they are equal, rather then going back to a straight roll again; both advantage and disadvantage pull on the results towards the middle. Disadvantage pulls the top end down and advantage pulls the bottom end up). In a manner this roll will still feel better then a flat roll but the extremes (like crit and fumble) will occur less often. either may still seem weird to others but i like them so far.
So what I plan on doing, is give a generic enemy pool of action points. 2 per player and see how it feels. The enemies will always get 1 on there turn but outside there turn they’d have a collective of 8 for 4 players.
This *sounds like* a really cool, interesting, & engaging system. I hope it keeps evolving & improving, & finds success in that. Hasbro/WoTC seriously needs a competitors fire under their ass
I have backed, think I will rase my backing to get all the PDFs extras also. I agree with a lot of what you said. Really like the action point system including that it is also for reaction BUT you don't need to save for possible reactions that's great!
Also your monster can have 1 to whatever amount of action points you want. You should try to balance it with party. If you have 2 pc's then have one 8 action point monster, or 4 2 action point monsters. Makes balancing action economy a dream
14:04 mathematically it's not, which is why it's so great. Each extra adv that one gets gives less and less benefit. This is great because abusing stacking modifiers from previous or other editions was a real problem and a real fear for designers. However, if all you have to do is throw out a stack of adv as a designer you don't have to worry about this, your desired bonus will automatically modulate itself as weaker when need be so that the game doesn't break. Bloody genius. 14:20 A lot, the main problem back in the day wasn't the number you had, but rather the specific numbers attached to the modifiers. Instead of instances with individual properties dropping or applying, it's just instances, no individual properties that need be tracked. Much simpler.
The math for adv/dis works out as an effective +/-3.3 for 1 stack, then +/- 5, then +/-6 , so the penalty doesn't get as bad at it seems initially, but it is countered by the lack of +5 and +10 success bonuses that the 'roll fewer with less disadvantage' actions will get.
Stand-Up Maths has a video on his channel going into the math behind rolling advantage of two or more dice. Spoiler for d20s: the average of 1d20 is 10.5, the average of advantage with two d20 is 13.825, the average of advantage with three d20 is 15.4875 That's personally why I disliked the oversimplification of 5e, where every situation had to collapse into +3, +0, or -3, even if there were half-a-dozen buffs and debuffs on the table. It's why I gravitated over to PF2e, though DC20 allowing stackable advantage/disadvantage is a step in the right direction.
The trick to action points for gms is they themselves have action points, not the monsters, refreshing between player turns. Makes balance for groups of monsters over one solo monster a lot easier too. As well as making actions for gms much easier to keep track of.
My first thought was to use a D4 to keep track of action points. Then the DM can have different coloured ones for their monsters to keep track, and the players have a visual indicator of how many they have left. I guess it doesn't work for having zero, but by that point it should be pretty easy to just do your one action and reset it to 4.
Monster action solution: Monsters always get (3) action points on their turn. In addition, each monster's description lists a number of SPECIFIC reactions that they can use and the conditions that trigger them. (More reactions for higher CR monsters.) These are the ONLY reactions that the monster can use, but those reactions DON'T cost action points. This makes monsters different than player characters, or even NPCs -- which is OK. It should make them easier to run, and should open up some interesting tactical possibilities.
another note for something in video, more advantages doesn't increase by +3 each time. the mean goes from 10.5 to 13.82 for first advantage so from that perspective its +3 then for 3d20 from 13.82 to 15.49 which is closer to a +2, then with 4d20 from 15.49 to 16.48 which is basically +1, then with 5d20 from 16.48 to 17.15 which is about +0.7. Though another perspective is to look at where the 50/50 pivot point moves to, for 1d20 it starts at 11 and moves to 15 (this of course is round 51% to 50%: which also means half rolls should be 15+ and half 14- and could be seen as a +4 bonus) for 2d20, then for 3d20 it moves to 17 (or close enough), and for 4d20 moves to 18 (rounding up), for 5d20 sitck at 18 (rounding down) though in some places dnd balances around expected roll of 8, so one could look at where the 65% success window shifts to as well. for 2d20 this moves it from 8 to 13 (this can be seen as a +5 bonus from this perspective but also means 65% ish of rolls will be 13+), for 3d20 it moves to 15, for 4d20 it moves to 16 and for 5d20 it moves to 17. The mean creates an interesting situation where you could sorta mimic results with stacking bonus that starts at 3 and reduces to 2 for and then to 1 (which gives you a max of +6 or you could have each point past 3rd still give +1) though this would of course not give you exact same benefit as advantage, for one advantage keeps top end at 20, but makes top end more likely (which keeps DCs above 20 as always requiring being skilled/talented to achieve; plus helps with original idea of attempting a bounded accuracy) . while a bonus would increase the top end and keep criticals at flat 5%. And in this it would still remain flat 5%. this type of bonus for advantage would work better if you also had a critical option akin to pathfinder where get 10 over ac also crits.
I'm glad to hear he's a dad. Having a baby was the best thing i ever did for my equality of life, and i wish I did it sooner. Everything i do feels meaningful now. There is someone depending on me.
I'm glad all the dungeontubers have been making their own physical ttrpg content, but I'd love to see adventures from them rather than another heartbreaker. Heartbreakers are everyone's rite of passage, but they're the least used out of anything released.
Thanks for your thorough and honest opinions. I think you'll love DC20, it encourages players to be dynamic, creative, collaboritive and focuses on giving everyone meaningful choices.
While intrigued I was pretty iffy about the mechanics you described for DC20 until you said mana pool. I really dislike Vancian magic, so that raises DC20 in my quite a few notches.
I definitely want to take a look at the magic system. I love magic systems in games in general and I've played in games with mana/PPE system before (IE Rifts), I had a huge TL;DR but I think most of it will be answered if I back the project and see if for myself how the system works and how it balances out with other non-casting classes. I do love new takes on magic after all.
Forgive me for zeroing in on the Pathfinder anecdote, but I find the story of players advancing, attacking, and retreating really interesting, because I'm close to the end of the beginner box and I have NEVER seen my players do that. Though I suppose that has to do with being a party of a Cleric, Fighter, Swashbuckler, Wizard, who 1. all have good uses for their third action (spell+strike, strike again with an agile weapon, feint, 3 action spells...) and 2. I have any monsters who have brains target the squishy wizard if possible, and my players don't want to open holes in the formation to enable that. I'm DEEPLY curious what classes you're gming for where that is their best option.
i had players with action points with the Nimble mod for 5e, I thought it would make for more dynamic fights too, but a few of the players played exactly the way in 5e but with 3 attacks every round. they didn't use the flexibility to be more interesting... I imagine it would be the same with 4 action points.
Big thing in DC20 though is every time you do the same thing on your turn, you get stacking disadvantage. If you make 3 attacks, that's straight roll, disadvantage, double disadvantage. On the other hand, you can spend additional actions to give yourself stacking advantage or add modifiers to your attack or spell.
DC20 gives tools so that the players are incentivised to do other things with their actions points such as helping an ally, giving modifiers to their attacks, or grappling an opponent and throwing them at another (and an ally could help you throw that enemy). There are rules to do all of these things and as a GM I would want to foster an environment where my players want to do all of these things.
Could you potentially bundle monster action points to keep combat dynamic and dramatic rather than tracking every individual monster's action points? Obviously keep it to similar monsters so the boss doesn't have 50 action points, but if "this pile of goblins over here" just has a pool of 9 action points, plus each goblin has 1 action point on their turn. It goes from counting 3 individual numbers to 1 number + the initiative you were tracking anyway, and can let you spend them on things like 'teamup actions'. "These two goblins throw the third goblin at you with a big jump slash" who spends which action points on that? Doesn't matter, subtract 4 from the pool, double the dice for the attack and call it good. It feels narrative and in character, and actually reduced how much damage they might've dealt, while also encouraging your players to try similar.
This would be 2 action points in DC20. Which can be used for 2 moves, attack and move, attack with advantage, or maybe an attack with grapple maneuver.
I’m going to admit something here and now: I like Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve played it since the early 80’s. I absolutely love the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. I don’t think people NEED try other game systems (emphasize on need). I don’t think DnD in any form is broken or bloated or too big for it’s britches. It’s not perfect, WOTC is not perfect, but the game is still amazing, all things have room for improvement (looking at you DM’s, it’s a tough job sometimes but we are here to use our imaginations to build on to others imagination). I say those things because it just seems like a trend to circle DnD and just kick it in the gonads for the sake of kick it it in the gonads. Seriously, I get from a business standpoint why people get pissed at Wotc and mainly Hasbro, but man, what did DnD itself ever do to you? I’m sure other games are neat and worth checking out, but just say that then. It doesn’t need to be an “other than 5E” argument EVERY TIME. Ok, done blustering on like a DnD fanboy. This isn’t a fist pumping rage fest. Just taking a dump and throwing my thoughts into a comment section for giggles. Seriously, just spitballing folks, please save pitch forks and torches at home 😂 P.s. you can add any mechanic you want to 5E, so seriously, just make the changes you think are cool anyway
really liked the idea of the "evolution" of DnD. at the moment i am more into non-class systems like "Aborea" or the Falloutsystem by #XPtoLevel3. In this video i missed some visualisation like maps or tables to follow the description better 🙂.
One thing I could see with the action point system you're describing is an actual "Tank" fighter. A fighter whose job is to be "in the way" and holding the line as his core build. In D&D, without very particular builds, it's not possible to do, but it sounds like this system my be better built for it. My counter to "Advantage stacking" is it turns into a competition to try to stack as many (dis)advantages as you can, which can bog things down. But, I was also one of the people who embodied the "Order of the Stick" Quote: "You know, he'd be a pretty good warrior if he had a better head for numbers." I would constantly misplace bonuses to me attacks, or double stack bonuses that didn't stack, and lose out in fights because of it. Advantage stacking can go much the same way, so I'm not a fan. I like the idea of the "dying" system described. It makes for the "Last Stand of Boromir" scene.
Knowing Mike's comment about not knowing the Advantage/Disadvantage math might be bait for a comment, I will take the bait, and say it ranges from +/-1 to +/-5 depending on how high, or low you need to roll to succeed/fail. Like if you need to roll a 20 to pass a check, having Advantage increases your chances from 5% to 9.75%, or about a +1. If you need to roll a 15, or higher to pass a check, having Advantage increases your chances from 30% to 51%, or about a +4. While if you need 11, or higher to pass a check, having Advantage increases your chances from 50% to 75%, or about a +5. That said, will now try to bait a response from you by saying "I have not done the math for DC20 Double Advantage, or Triple Advantage"
I think the most elegant solution to tracking monster / adversary AP is… don’t. PC already have huge advantages and that just levels the playing field a bit. Lastly, that would encourage monster design that has tightly scoped reactions as opposed to the general set of PCs. They can do it multiple times without penalty but only under certain scenarios.
"the genuine joys of being a parent" 😂😂😂 I think we'll share of joy and sleep deprivation. And I bet that just like me, you wouldn't change it for anything in the world either
Follow the making of this kickstarter pretty close. In my opinion, the game is so into working like a video game it forgot it has to tell a story. There are no narrative-focused mechanics, just hyper granular mechanics that would work well if we were machines. There's a lot of heart in the making of the game and Alan seems like a great guy who deserves all his success. I will still see where this goes, but at this juncture it seems to me this game is not for folk who play to tell a collective story.
DC20 has some cool ideas. But what about the back end? (GM side that is). I know you covered it. But monsters how is DC20 doing that. Cuz you’re going to have them, you have to. Is there a conversion chart?
I can honestly see a GM in this system intentionally gimping a specific player by making them burn all their action points to mitigate damage to the rest of the party but never being able to act on their turn.
I think having presets to monster behavior would offload some of the hard decision making the DM has to weigh. Like a "gutsy" monster always using two of its points for an attack with advantage
The fact that they still charge 50 usd for shipping despite the page saying that shipping is charged afterwards is giving me a very iffy feeling about the campaign. And they clearly didn’t think the 72 hour bonus thing through, people who pledge for the All Digital Only tier still pay for the “free” pdfs.
Excited as I am for DC20?! 🐲 Im running a session for Alpha 7.0 and looking for a few brave souls to test it out with me. Let’s make some epic stories! Comment below or shoot me message if you want to learn more!
13 classes, 6 martials (Rogue, ranger (yes it's a martial in this), fighter, barbarian, Monk, commander) 6 spellcasters (druid, cleric, sorcerer, wizard, warlock, bard), and a mix, spellblade. Races are ancestries and there's human, elf, dward, giantborn, beastborn, angelborn, fiendborn, dragonborn, halfing. You can also be a mix of any of these ancestries. Ancestry features use points so you choose a number of features and 2 of the same ancestry can feel completely different as you could have different feats
I appreciate your coverage on this. You have helped me to understand that this game is not for me. I like the idea of them adding some pathfinder to 5e, but I am not a fan of some of the changes they made.
I'll be honest, a lot of the game seems interesting. But the Prime Attribute, breaks the game to me. I know that it may allow to create various styles of characters, and that's cool. But, it also allows for some pretty "meh" things in my mind. A Mage based in Strenght is the first think that comes to mind. I don't know, it's just not my flavor of game. I like each class having an key attribute. May be my years playing 3/3.5e talking louder in my mind, but, i feel that this "Prime Attribute" reminds me of certain "indie" Brazilian rpgs that had things like that. And they were, wonky to say the least.
What stops a player from just taking all their actions during other people’s turns. If everyone does that I can see the game just grinding to a halt, every round of combat being a slog since you can interrupt any turn whenever you want
Reactions have triggers so it has to be you are able to take that reaction, just like d&d. You can't just interrupt whenever you want. And if you were comboing with another player for example, they'd need to agree to do that thing. But also reactions cost action points so when it gets to your turn, you'll have have less actions if you used reactions, so your turn is the same length just spread out.
Yes you have to have a trigger to act off turn so usually you’re using them off turn either to defend yourself or to defend/help a party member, and when doing that they’re glad to have you jumping in! Runs no slower than any other d20 system but all players are more engaged than waiting for that opportunity to make a difference!
I like the idea of a point system, but I think the "acting outside the turn" it's kind of a lot. It reminds me a bit of some effects/powers from D&D 4e. Wasn't that a big problem before? Also: Am I the only one who feels it's kinda dumb to design a mechanic NO ONE is gonna use? Who is gonna attack 4 times willingly knowing they'll have to roll 4 dice and pick the lowest? At that point just... don't let me attack 4 times?? like D&D? I don't know, DC20 seems to have interesting idea, but all of it's design falls into the "remember 5E?? WE'RE BETTER" and then doesn't move away enough to feel different, at least from the DM side of things.
Am I the only one who feels it's kinda dumb to design a mechanic NO ONE is gonna use? Who is gonna attack 4 times willingly knowing they'll have to roll 4 dice and pick the lowest? At that point just... don't let me attack 4 times?? like D&D? Maybe given the circumstances or what moves you have etc... it's your only option left for the round and you know that if you can just hit that enemy one more time they'll go down. Also, I've play tested the alpha some. Certain classes actually have abilities that allow them to say attack 2-3 times without getting disadvantage (monks I think for the most part) For me as a DM it feels different and is better suited at engaging players when it isn't their turn but to each his own!
Sometimes there’s ways to offset the multiple check penalty so it’s worth it, but more often you’re spending more AP on the first one or two rolls of the same type then doing something different - the nice thing is you have choices.
I’m still lost on why, since 4e, developers just want turps to be extensions of video game style of play, this stuff is just not for me which is really disappointing, I want to like it, but it doesn’t feel I ever will like these new games. Just can’t wrap my head around all of these unnecessary rules that have trickled into the game. I think I’m just gonna stick with OSR stuff and stop trying to keep up with the games of today. 3e was the last system that was playable to me
I'mma be honest. I hope not. From what I've seen, DC20 has some stuff thats evocative of things like GURPS and I don't care for GURPS for a reason. There's a few things that look nice, but I suspect I won't care for in play. And theres other things that look nice that I think would be good in play.
I personally find his choice to divorce the attributes from the classes to be the weakest by far, rather than the best. Why even have four different attributes? Just give them one and let the player flavor it however they like -- that's effectively what they're doing at this point. Differences should mean something. The six stats in D&D are iconic for a reason. I'm not particularly impressed. There are some interesting ideas here, sure, but I don't see it as the "next step" in D&D.
All the attributes still have other secondary effects so they're a key part of what you want your character to be. :) You're just not penalised in if you prefer to go for an unusual build. If your job is to be a Fighter, you just know the core of your class but _how_ to operate would be different. :)
What do you think of DC20?
Thanks so much to the Dungeon Coach for sponsoring this video! Visit the Kickstarter at the link below:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedungeoncoach/dc20?ref=8t12lj
I like it. I've already backed it, in fact.
hey! in looking into DC20 it seems like a lot of the currently rule set is combat heavy, but i’m rly excited abt the social and exploration mechanics. if i back on the lowest tier will i get access to those mechanics as they come? or will i need to reinvest in those other mechanics?
I appreciate his excitement but it’s definitely not for me. I backed MCDM’s RPG back in December and I am excited over the the Daggerheart play tests. But honestly, Dungeon coach is just throwing his money around for the kickstarter and insisting his project is the best instead of letting the community openly decide on its own.
From your review, like all games after 3e, has a lot of unnecessary rules and game mechanics, does not sound fun at all to run. I’ll stick with my 2E campaigns
A solution to AP and many foes could be that for every amount of enemy on the field, you remove one AP from them as a whole.
Example: 6 skeletons? They each have 3 AP. 12 skeletons? They each have 2 AP.
Just invoke Conservation of Ninjitsu.
Charisma fighter just screams wrestler.
You can't see me
OH MY GOD! THAT'S ELDARIAN DARKSTAR'S MUSIC!
I have one player who’s a charisma barbarian Pickle Rick Flair!😂
Also get "Dread Pirate Roberts" from Princess Bride. Everything based on the reputation and intimidation
I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about that rule. On one hand, it allows for infinitely more expression and interesting characters, more builds and allowing for cool ideas that wouldn't work in DND because of the stat requirements.
On the other hand, I feel it makes classes less unique and like they have far less identity. Sorcerers are partially defined by the fact that they're charisma casters. Wizards are *the* intelligence caster. If monks used strength and ignored wisdom, aren't they just worse fighters? Requiring certain stats is part of the character fantasy, the idea of the strong inspiring knight in shining armour (paladin) or the nimble, sneaky thief (rogue) if you can just swap that without cost, it feels like it betrays the fantasy.
So far, DC20 is the only game in the new wave of so-called "D&D killers" I would actually want to play.
It's certainly the closest to what I am looking for. I'm sad he went with PF2 style fake multi-classing.
There is no perfect pasta sauce, but there are perfect pasta sauces.
Exactly! I wonder how many people get that reference.
Holy COW you are all BLITZING the algorithm today for DC20. More than I remember for ToV or more than MCDM RPG.
It's crazy that in six hours DC20 has out funded 13th age 2e which is on its last two days. 13th age is touted as "what 5e should have been" from the lead devs of 3e and 4e DND.
It's reminiscent of Shadowdarks launch
Same!
I'm barely through the intro, but damn this sounds like the kind of project I've been wanting to do to 5E since before I even knew such a thing was allowed (and now that the SRD is in Creative Commons, the only one stopping me is... me). The bones of 5E, I always felt, were really really solid, and with someone building a better* set of muscles and organs and skin on top of that skeleton, I think something really cool could emerge.
One thing I'm hopeful for when it comes to solving monster reactions is a thing Matt Colville recently prototyped for the MCDM RPG and wrote a Patreon post about: The encounter as character sheet. Rather than thinking in terms of individual, complex monsters, you've got one sheet with all the monsters in the combat. They're almost like individual powers of some unseen eldritch being known as "the Encounter". Details were sparse/I don't remember them very well, but it's definitely something I'm going to try out next time I'm behind the screen. I think I could rig up something based on how I handled enemy ships when I ran the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG and tried to make vehicle combat in that game not suck.
* i.e. "more to my personal tastes"
The idea of picking what attribute your character is going to 'main' in sounds fun - and a great way to diversify and make sure players have different characters, even if they're playing the same class! When you do get to try out DC20.... character creation video, mayhaps??? 👀👀 I really enjoy that process.
Sounds like DC20 is definitely worth giving a look. Thanks!
Just wanted to say that I appreciate your commitment to providing CC on every video!
I've tried out some of the Dungeon Coach's products, and love how he takes community playstyle solutions seriously. DC20 has been having a ton of expert-level playtesting and I'll give it a shot. It does look like a lot of fun!
I started GMing DC20 for a play group using the alpha rules and I have been having a lot of fun with it.
Good video.
I love the death/dying mechanic you mentioned from DC20. Even if I don't pick that system up in future, I'm going to implement something like this in my games (among my other fun, campaign specific death mechanics)
I’m relatively new to the hobby, having joined an online game for the first time (as I suspect many others did) during the pandemic, when 5E was basically hitting its stride. I find the idea of learning a whole new system, be it the next DnD edition, or one of these other systems, quite daunting. I also know that my current table (who were all new to the game when I convinced them to start playing last year) are just now feeling confident with 5e’s mechanics.
I know change-overs have obviously happened multiple times throughout DnD’s history. I think it would be super helpful if you made a video with advice on how to leave an old system behind and jump in to a new one for those of us who have never had to do that before.
As someone who's jumped between quite a few games, a couple tips to hopefully help, we've found it easiest to jump between games to start slow, have the two most confident players in the group start, and in a bit of freetime, just run through character creation, both people will likely pick up on different bits of nuance, and have different ideas going into it, so it helps to have a couple people going through it. Once their characters are done, have them do a simple fight against each other, going through the turn progression one step at a time. Don't get too much into the reeds with either of these, just do it quick and dirty, and skip bits you don't quite get, you'll have both more headspace for them on your second pass through the rules, and also after having run a combat, might have more of an idea on what those things you didn't understand the first time were, or why they were important. Do this once or twice before leading the rest of the group through the character creation steps, it'll be easier to get through it for them once they have someone they can ask questions to.
two things of note, most D20 games are pretty close to 5e in terms of general mechanics, either because they've been built off of the thing 5e was built off of, or because they were built off of 5e, so you'll understand more than you think you will if you jump between D20 games. Also, you will definitely get things wrong no matter how much you try to read through things, and you will get things mixed up between the new game and 5e, but that's not that big of a deal, just as you notice them, note them down to look up later, and don't let them bog down the gameplay.
Fun thing about learning another system: Even if you don't like it, you might find a new mechanic you really do like, and you might be able to adapt that mechanic into 5e if after you try a new game you decide you don't like it. if the new game does backgrounds better, steal what you can, if you come across a really cool way to manage player to NPC relationships, adapt it. the space is wide open if you're open to it, and taking the bits and bobs of what you like into other games once you understand them, can be very rewarding.
Good luck in anything you try, and I hope you like it!
Ooooh, this sounds good! In terms of 4 actions per monster, I'd probably make some sort of resettable domino thing where I can drop a domino each time an action is used, then flip them all back up at the end of the turn.
This is similar to the official action tracker in the kickstarter actually
I’ve found it fairly easy to keep track of monster AP in my head, but you can also just keep a quick tally per round.
You could also use small playing cards or maybe just small coins. So the coin value stands for unspent APs and heads is for spent APs.
Or a bunch of d4's.
I figured I would keep a D4 per monster behind my screen that I could adjust.
We played out a combat encounter last night where the players were constantly moving back and forth and weaving through combat to prioritise targets. I played as a Rogue with the Fighter's Duelling ability, I was intentionally moving to try and bait opportunity attacks that I could parry, and then exploit advantage from the duelling.
My one group tends to swing between wanting a crunchy game, and then a rules light game. So we often switch it up from time to time and something like this may just hit the spot. This game sounds really interesting and honestly anything that uses an 'action point' system already has me interesting. One of my biggest annoyances with 5e is how bonus actions are handled (or not even bothered with most of the time). Action point systems just inherently suit my brain better when it comes to planning a turn. I'll be keeping an eye on this one for sure.
Honestly the more I hear about this game, the more I want to play it.
I'm just waiting for the rules to be finished to try it out (I'm not good with updating rules)
ive been seeing bits and pieces about DC20 for a while now and, honestly, it looks frikkin awesome. i've been waiting for the kickstarter, gotta jump into it tonight. it looks super fun and i especially love the idea of floating action points for instance. i'm excited about this and really want to play
Possible solution for tracking monster action pionts. Total all on same initiative and track that, don't worry about being precisly 4 each. Players will likely target the well placed enemies making 5+ actions as the monsters function as a team. Prehaps max 2 reactions and each monster spends one action piont at a time till all gone... so don't have one hyperactive goblin trying to solo the party.
I promise the modifiers in PF2e aren’t that hard to track y’all. They’re very rarely bigger than a +2 and there are only 3 kinds that can’t stack with themselves, and one of those kinds is your weapon’s item bonus to hit, ie: already on your sheet.
I know this is a tiny nitpick, but this gets misrepresented a LOT and I don’t want to let that misrepresentation scare people away from trying the game system.
Great vid Mike. You might also be interested in Vagabond.
There is still up to a potential 8 modifiers to consider for a roll (status and circumstance bonus and penalties for offensive and defensive stats respectively.)
I am not hoping any of these games take the place of 5e as The Biggest TTRPG On The Planet.
I am hoping enough of them grow enough of an audience that collectively they drop 5e 2024 down to comparable in size to Pathfinder. Because I do not believe it is good for the hobby to have a game as larger than the rest of the hobby as 5e is, and I would be saying that even if my favourite game of all time was the size of 5e. This is still unlikely, but...
Though I fully agree that a game being opinionated on what it's trying to do and what sort of tones alongside settings it's good for, rather than trying to be Everything to Everyone, is a good thing, and I am looking forward to the inevitable Many Ways Of Making A Character video for it considering how much you like it.
Fully agree. It is like big companies and Monopolies... it is harmful for society and Community.
An idea for monsters: have two kinds of monsters: one that have only one action (maybe plus move), no reactions. The other has action points and are the bosses. You can have monsters with 2 action points, three and four - so have bosses of different level. But only the bosses have multiple actions.
There’s room in the design space for that! It’s not even really homebrewing it!
That actually happened before. The Dungeon Coach had multiple one shots with other DnD UA-camrs before. In one of them, with D4DeepDive and DnD Shorts, the enemies were many tribalistic frog humanoids, with only 2 or 3 AP each. It's a great way to balance a big bunch of minions against the more flexible PCs.
That's actually the direction for monster stat blocks in DC20. Basically monsters will have tiers (common, rare, elite, boss...) that modify their action points, hp, number of techniques/spells known, etc. so the same monster "type" can be easily tuned to whatever difficulty is needed/relevant for the party or the narrative.
Ditto. Other systems were like "oh that's nice" and I keep 5e. DC20 comes out and I'm like "done. Backed. "
At least I'm going to check the crowfunding because I found some ideas really interesting (specially in the character creation part).
Personally, I find that tracking action points is fine, since I no longer have to track a super clumpy initiative. The ease of tracking DC20's alternating initiative really makes up for it.
Plus, my players know I'm "cheating" for them if I don't use reactions, but with action points, taking a reaction is a very opinionated tactical choice, meaning I can skew tactical challengeevel in the moment as I see fit WITHOUT breaking that immersion.
Really insightful comparisons. Hope you get to actually play DC20 soon!
I feel like the 4 action economy has the potential to be really cumbersome on the DM side as the number of combatants increases, though I really like the concept on the player side. I imagine most DMs will probably default to 3 actions + 1 reaction per monster or something similar for anything more than a handful of monsters, maybe leaving the more tactical approaches to one or two elite enemies.
Can you cast multiple spells per turn? I'm assuming there is something to prevent the wizard from just opening every combat with 4 castings of fireball...
You can in fact cast multiple spells per turn. However just like weapon attacks, since you roll for all of your spells, you get stacking disadvantage. However instead of 4 mini fireballs which get worse and worse you can instead spend actions and mana to instead create one big fireball, if that is what you want
About spells: A cantrip costs 1AP, while a Lvl 1 spell costs 2AP + 1 Mana Point. So someone could cast 4 firebolt cantrips per turn with stacking disadvantage. Or you could move (1AP), cast fire bolt with advantage (1AP + 1AP for adv) and apply the burning condition to the target (1AP for enhancement) 😃
While watching this video I had an idea for running monsters; give monsters a “rank” like some video games. Each rank determines how many action points a creature has and depending on what kind of encounter I’m going for I’ll give a different rank for a monster. Like a goblin could be a grunt or elite just depending on how powerful I want him to be.
So it could be something like:
- Weakling: 1 ap
- Grunt (most common prob): 2 ap
- Elite: 3 ap
- Master: 4 ap
- Epic: 5 ap
I know this isn't particular point of video but when you brought up idea of advantage and disadvantage stacking and canceling 1 for 1 it actually reminded me of a home brew I like to use.
for me Advantage and disadvantage don't just stack and cancel one for one but rather stack only. Where each advantage and disadvantage add 1 more d20 to the roll, each advantage allows you to ignore the lowest result while each disadvantage makes you ignore the highest results until you are left with 1 dice. For example with 1 disadvantage and 2 advantage you would roll 4 dice this would mean you ignore the 2 lowest options for due to your advantage and the highest roll due to the disadvantage. Leaving you with 2nd highest roll.
though this can get out of hand in actual play I still like it alot, but because of that I have also tooled an alternative that I like but have not used yet.
In this variant both advantage and disadvantage stack but once done you make a comparison. If either is higher then the other that one takes priority and you roll 1 extra dice and take high or low depending on roll type. but when they are equal you roll 3 dice and take the middle. This keeps the feeling of getting more advantage or imposing more disadvantage as good (makes you want to try to out maneuver the enemy). It also gives a more natural feel for when situations are tangled up and they are equal, rather then going back to a straight roll again; both advantage and disadvantage pull on the results towards the middle. Disadvantage pulls the top end down and advantage pulls the bottom end up). In a manner this roll will still feel better then a flat roll but the extremes (like crit and fumble) will occur less often.
either may still seem weird to others but i like them so far.
Hell yeah! Spread the love, bring the HYPE!
Sponsorship aside, don't sleep on Dragonbane. Especially for new GMs!
Dragonbane is good, and Free League is a great group! Having said that, I find DC20 more distinctive than Dragonbane believe it or not!
So what I plan on doing, is give a generic enemy pool of action points. 2 per player and see how it feels. The enemies will always get 1 on there turn but outside there turn they’d have a collective of 8 for 4 players.
This *sounds like* a really cool, interesting, & engaging system. I hope it keeps evolving & improving, & finds success in that.
Hasbro/WoTC seriously needs a competitors fire under their ass
I have backed, think I will rase my backing to get all the PDFs extras also.
I agree with a lot of what you said. Really like the action point system including that it is also for reaction BUT you don't need to save for possible reactions that's great!
Also your monster can have 1 to whatever amount of action points you want. You should try to balance it with party. If you have 2 pc's then have one 8 action point monster, or 4 2 action point monsters. Makes balancing action economy a dream
14:04 mathematically it's not, which is why it's so great. Each extra adv that one gets gives less and less benefit. This is great because abusing stacking modifiers from previous or other editions was a real problem and a real fear for designers. However, if all you have to do is throw out a stack of adv as a designer you don't have to worry about this, your desired bonus will automatically modulate itself as weaker when need be so that the game doesn't break. Bloody genius.
14:20 A lot, the main problem back in the day wasn't the number you had, but rather the specific numbers attached to the modifiers. Instead of instances with individual properties dropping or applying, it's just instances, no individual properties that need be tracked. Much simpler.
The math for adv/dis works out as an effective +/-3.3 for 1 stack, then +/- 5, then +/-6 , so the penalty doesn't get as bad at it seems initially, but it is countered by the lack of +5 and +10 success bonuses that the 'roll fewer with less disadvantage' actions will get.
I've been getting into DC20 as well. Bought a bunch of PDFs a while back.
The way I'd run that is standard Monsters get 3 AP and 1 Reaction, Boss Monsters get 4 AP to use freely as PCs.
Stand-Up Maths has a video on his channel going into the math behind rolling advantage of two or more dice. Spoiler for d20s: the average of 1d20 is 10.5, the average of advantage with two d20 is 13.825, the average of advantage with three d20 is 15.4875
That's personally why I disliked the oversimplification of 5e, where every situation had to collapse into +3, +0, or -3, even if there were half-a-dozen buffs and debuffs on the table. It's why I gravitated over to PF2e, though DC20 allowing stackable advantage/disadvantage is a step in the right direction.
The trick to action points for gms is they themselves have action points, not the monsters, refreshing between player turns. Makes balance for groups of monsters over one solo monster a lot easier too. As well as making actions for gms much easier to keep track of.
It is so great for all the creators to blitzkrieg the algorithm for DC20!
I mean, they're all getting paid to do it, so no real surprise...
My first thought was to use a D4 to keep track of action points. Then the DM can have different coloured ones for their monsters to keep track, and the players have a visual indicator of how many they have left. I guess it doesn't work for having zero, but by that point it should be pretty easy to just do your one action and reset it to 4.
Advantage is more like a +5, but each additional one is diminishing returns.
Might based Wizard: "I will grapple with the very fabric of reality using my own two hands to wrestle it into submission".
Great breakdown. Looking forward to more of your DC20 content.
Monster action solution: Monsters always get (3) action points on their turn. In addition, each monster's description lists a number of SPECIFIC reactions that they can use and the conditions that trigger them. (More reactions for higher CR monsters.) These are the ONLY reactions that the monster can use, but those reactions DON'T cost action points. This makes monsters different than player characters, or even NPCs -- which is OK. It should make them easier to run, and should open up some interesting tactical possibilities.
They're in daaaaanger with that logo on the book cover.
another note for something in video, more advantages doesn't increase by +3 each time.
the mean goes from 10.5 to 13.82 for first advantage so from that perspective its +3 then for 3d20 from 13.82 to 15.49 which is closer to a +2, then with 4d20 from 15.49 to 16.48 which is basically +1, then with 5d20 from 16.48 to 17.15 which is about +0.7.
Though another perspective is to look at where the 50/50 pivot point moves to, for 1d20 it starts at 11 and moves to 15 (this of course is round 51% to 50%: which also means half rolls should be 15+ and half 14- and could be seen as a +4 bonus) for 2d20, then for 3d20 it moves to 17 (or close enough), and for 4d20 moves to 18 (rounding up), for 5d20 sitck at 18 (rounding down)
though in some places dnd balances around expected roll of 8, so one could look at where the 65% success window shifts to as well. for 2d20 this moves it from 8 to 13 (this can be seen as a +5 bonus from this perspective but also means 65% ish of rolls will be 13+), for 3d20 it moves to 15, for 4d20 it moves to 16 and for 5d20 it moves to 17.
The mean creates an interesting situation where you could sorta mimic results with stacking bonus that starts at 3 and reduces to 2 for and then to 1 (which gives you a max of +6 or you could have each point past 3rd still give +1) though this would of course not give you exact same benefit as advantage, for one advantage keeps top end at 20, but makes top end more likely (which keeps DCs above 20 as always requiring being skilled/talented to achieve; plus helps with original idea of attempting a bounded accuracy) . while a bonus would increase the top end and keep criticals at flat 5%. And in this it would still remain flat 5%. this type of bonus for advantage would work better if you also had a critical option akin to pathfinder where get 10 over ac also crits.
I'm glad to hear he's a dad. Having a baby was the best thing i ever did for my equality of life, and i wish I did it sooner. Everything i do feels meaningful now. There is someone depending on me.
I’m super excited for DC 20!
Dc20 has been really fun, thanks for spreading the word!!!
I'm glad all the dungeontubers have been making their own physical ttrpg content, but I'd love to see adventures from them rather than another heartbreaker.
Heartbreakers are everyone's rite of passage, but they're the least used out of anything released.
Thanks for your thorough and honest opinions. I think you'll love DC20, it encourages players to be dynamic, creative, collaboritive and focuses on giving everyone meaningful choices.
While intrigued I was pretty iffy about the mechanics you described for DC20 until you said mana pool. I really dislike Vancian magic, so that raises DC20 in my quite a few notches.
Oh you’re going to love DC20 magic…
I definitely want to take a look at the magic system. I love magic systems in games in general and I've played in games with mana/PPE system before (IE Rifts), I had a huge TL;DR but I think most of it will be answered if I back the project and see if for myself how the system works and how it balances out with other non-casting classes. I do love new takes on magic after all.
Forgive me for zeroing in on the Pathfinder anecdote, but I find the story of players advancing, attacking, and retreating really interesting, because I'm close to the end of the beginner box and I have NEVER seen my players do that.
Though I suppose that has to do with being a party of a Cleric, Fighter, Swashbuckler, Wizard, who 1. all have good uses for their third action (spell+strike, strike again with an agile weapon, feint, 3 action spells...) and 2. I have any monsters who have brains target the squishy wizard if possible, and my players don't want to open holes in the formation to enable that.
I'm DEEPLY curious what classes you're gming for where that is their best option.
My favorite 4 attributes will always come from TOON ttrpg
-Muscle
-Zip
-Smarts
-Chutzpah
i had players with action points with the Nimble mod for 5e, I thought it would make for more dynamic fights too, but a few of the players played exactly the way in 5e but with 3 attacks every round. they didn't use the flexibility to be more interesting... I imagine it would be the same with 4 action points.
Big thing in DC20 though is every time you do the same thing on your turn, you get stacking disadvantage. If you make 3 attacks, that's straight roll, disadvantage, double disadvantage. On the other hand, you can spend additional actions to give yourself stacking advantage or add modifiers to your attack or spell.
DC20 actually comes wiht more interesting things to do on your turn tho, including maneuvers for all martials
DC20 gives tools so that the players are incentivised to do other things with their actions points such as helping an ally, giving modifiers to their attacks, or grappling an opponent and throwing them at another (and an ally could help you throw that enemy). There are rules to do all of these things and as a GM I would want to foster an environment where my players want to do all of these things.
Yea if you play the actual DC20 game rules you’ll find people definitely use AP off turn for defense especially!
Could you potentially bundle monster action points to keep combat dynamic and dramatic rather than tracking every individual monster's action points? Obviously keep it to similar monsters so the boss doesn't have 50 action points, but if "this pile of goblins over here" just has a pool of 9 action points, plus each goblin has 1 action point on their turn. It goes from counting 3 individual numbers to 1 number + the initiative you were tracking anyway, and can let you spend them on things like 'teamup actions'.
"These two goblins throw the third goblin at you with a big jump slash" who spends which action points on that? Doesn't matter, subtract 4 from the pool, double the dice for the attack and call it good. It feels narrative and in character, and actually reduced how much damage they might've dealt, while also encouraging your players to try similar.
Fantastic content!! Thank you for doing what you do
I'd imagine that weak monsters like goblins and wolves would only have a single action point plus move, with stronger monsters gaining more.
This would be 2 action points in DC20. Which can be used for 2 moves, attack and move, attack with advantage, or maybe an attack with grapple maneuver.
It might be all the rules you need in one book, but the monster manual and magic items are both separate books.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
I’m going to admit something here and now:
I like Dungeons and Dragons.
I’ve played it since the early 80’s.
I absolutely love the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
I don’t think people NEED try other game systems (emphasize on need).
I don’t think DnD in any form is broken or bloated or too big for it’s britches.
It’s not perfect, WOTC is not perfect, but the game is still amazing, all things have room for improvement (looking at you DM’s, it’s a tough job sometimes but we are here to use our imaginations to build on to others imagination).
I say those things because it just seems like a trend to circle DnD and just kick it in the gonads for the sake of kick it it in the gonads.
Seriously, I get from a business standpoint why people get pissed at Wotc and mainly Hasbro, but man, what did DnD itself ever do to you? I’m sure other games are neat and worth checking out, but just say that then. It doesn’t need to be an “other than 5E” argument EVERY TIME.
Ok, done blustering on like a DnD fanboy. This isn’t a fist pumping rage fest. Just taking a dump and throwing my thoughts into a comment section for giggles.
Seriously, just spitballing folks, please save pitch forks and torches at home 😂
P.s. you can add any mechanic you want to 5E, so seriously, just make the changes you think are cool anyway
really liked the idea of the "evolution" of DnD. at the moment i am more into non-class systems like "Aborea" or the Falloutsystem by #XPtoLevel3. In this video i missed some visualisation like maps or tables to follow the description better 🙂.
One thing I could see with the action point system you're describing is an actual "Tank" fighter. A fighter whose job is to be "in the way" and holding the line as his core build. In D&D, without very particular builds, it's not possible to do, but it sounds like this system my be better built for it.
My counter to "Advantage stacking" is it turns into a competition to try to stack as many (dis)advantages as you can, which can bog things down. But, I was also one of the people who embodied the "Order of the Stick" Quote: "You know, he'd be a pretty good warrior if he had a better head for numbers." I would constantly misplace bonuses to me attacks, or double stack bonuses that didn't stack, and lose out in fights because of it. Advantage stacking can go much the same way, so I'm not a fan.
I like the idea of the "dying" system described. It makes for the "Last Stand of Boromir" scene.
Fair enough!
Knowing Mike's comment about not knowing the Advantage/Disadvantage math might be bait for a comment, I will take the bait, and say it ranges from +/-1 to +/-5 depending on how high, or low you need to roll to succeed/fail.
Like if you need to roll a 20 to pass a check, having Advantage increases your chances from 5% to 9.75%, or about a +1. If you need to roll a 15, or higher to pass a check, having Advantage increases your chances from 30% to 51%, or about a +4. While if you need 11, or higher to pass a check, having Advantage increases your chances from 50% to 75%, or about a +5.
That said, will now try to bait a response from you by saying "I have not done the math for DC20 Double Advantage, or Triple Advantage"
I plan on using coins(2colored discs) as action trackers and theyre cheap on amazon
I think the most elegant solution to tracking monster / adversary AP is… don’t.
PC already have huge advantages and that just levels the playing field a bit.
Lastly, that would encourage monster design that has tightly scoped reactions as opposed to the general set of PCs. They can do it multiple times without penalty but only under certain scenarios.
"the genuine joys of being a parent" 😂😂😂 I think we'll share of joy and sleep deprivation. And I bet that just like me, you wouldn't change it for anything in the world either
Follow the making of this kickstarter pretty close. In my opinion, the game is so into working like a video game it forgot it has to tell a story. There are no narrative-focused mechanics, just hyper granular mechanics that would work well if we were machines. There's a lot of heart in the making of the game and Alan seems like a great guy who deserves all his success. I will still see where this goes, but at this juncture it seems to me this game is not for folk who play to tell a collective story.
DC20 has some cool ideas. But what about the back end? (GM side that is). I know you covered it. But monsters how is DC20 doing that. Cuz you’re going to have them, you have to. Is there a conversion chart?
I can honestly see a GM in this system intentionally gimping a specific player by making them burn all their action points to mitigate damage to the rest of the party but never being able to act on their turn.
If that’s the case, that’s not a good play environment…not an issue with the game. The GM should be impartial.
I think having presets to monster behavior would offload some of the hard decision making the DM has to weigh. Like a "gutsy" monster always using two of its points for an attack with advantage
You may have sold me on this, Mike.
Definitely looking forward to play this game as well.
its ok man XD i had to leave the game i played in when my kiddo was born, i think i finally got back to them when she was 4-6months old lol
Correction the book doesn't have everything specifically monsters, but a FEW are added as a free addon
The fact that they still charge 50 usd for shipping despite the page saying that shipping is charged afterwards is giving me a very iffy feeling about the campaign. And they clearly didn’t think the 72 hour bonus thing through, people who pledge for the All Digital Only tier still pay for the “free” pdfs.
Excited as I am for DC20?! 🐲 Im running a session for Alpha 7.0 and looking for a few brave souls to test it out with me. Let’s make some epic stories! Comment below or shoot me message if you want to learn more!
I´m so exited for this game!!
What are the Classes and Races in this
13 classes, 6 martials (Rogue, ranger (yes it's a martial in this), fighter, barbarian, Monk, commander) 6 spellcasters (druid, cleric, sorcerer, wizard, warlock, bard), and a mix, spellblade. Races are ancestries and there's human, elf, dward, giantborn, beastborn, angelborn, fiendborn, dragonborn, halfing. You can also be a mix of any of these ancestries. Ancestry features use points so you choose a number of features and 2 of the same ancestry can feel completely different as you could have different feats
@@maugdw What about Bards
@@SilverScribe85 it's in the list I gave haha. Or do you mean how do they work?
@@maugdw My mistake, it's in the list of Spellcasters. I probably missed it since it was squeezed up against all the other ones
@@SilverScribe85 no worries :)
"¿What system would replace 5e?"
- 6e, isn't it obvious?
For the enemy actions, I personally think Monsters shouldnt be build and run like Player Characters.
I appreciate your coverage on this. You have helped me to understand that this game is not for me. I like the idea of them adding some pathfinder to 5e, but I am not a fan of some of the changes they made.
Fair enough!
What are they trying to make with the new version of D&D? More. Money.
Did I just watch a 24 minute long ad?
Reminds me of the TCG flesh and blood
I'll be honest, a lot of the game seems interesting.
But the Prime Attribute, breaks the game to me.
I know that it may allow to create various styles of characters, and that's cool.
But, it also allows for some pretty "meh" things in my mind.
A Mage based in Strenght is the first think that comes to mind.
I don't know, it's just not my flavor of game.
I like each class having an key attribute.
May be my years playing 3/3.5e talking louder in my mind, but, i feel that this "Prime Attribute" reminds me of certain "indie" Brazilian rpgs that had things like that. And they were, wonky to say the least.
What stops a player from just taking all their actions during other people’s turns. If everyone does that I can see the game just grinding to a halt, every round of combat being a slog since you can interrupt any turn whenever you want
Reactions have triggers so it has to be you are able to take that reaction, just like d&d. You can't just interrupt whenever you want. And if you were comboing with another player for example, they'd need to agree to do that thing. But also reactions cost action points so when it gets to your turn, you'll have have less actions if you used reactions, so your turn is the same length just spread out.
Yes you have to have a trigger to act off turn so usually you’re using them off turn either to defend yourself or to defend/help a party member, and when doing that they’re glad to have you jumping in! Runs no slower than any other d20 system but all players are more engaged than waiting for that opportunity to make a difference!
DC20 will be the Fantasy TTRPG of 2025. ❤
Gogo DC20 💜💜💜
I give it look it has not so
Much power creeping pc customisation
I like the idea of a point system, but I think the "acting outside the turn" it's kind of a lot. It reminds me a bit of some effects/powers from D&D 4e. Wasn't that a big problem before?
Also: Am I the only one who feels it's kinda dumb to design a mechanic NO ONE is gonna use? Who is gonna attack 4 times willingly knowing they'll have to roll 4 dice and pick the lowest? At that point just... don't let me attack 4 times?? like D&D?
I don't know, DC20 seems to have interesting idea, but all of it's design falls into the "remember 5E?? WE'RE BETTER" and then doesn't move away enough to feel different, at least from the DM side of things.
Am I the only one who feels it's kinda dumb to design a mechanic NO ONE is gonna use? Who is gonna attack 4 times willingly knowing they'll have to roll 4 dice and pick the lowest? At that point just... don't let me attack 4 times?? like D&D?
Maybe given the circumstances or what moves you have etc... it's your only option left for the round and you know that if you can just hit that enemy one more time they'll go down.
Also, I've play tested the alpha some. Certain classes actually have abilities that allow them to say attack 2-3 times without getting disadvantage (monks I think for the most part)
For me as a DM it feels different and is better suited at engaging players when it isn't their turn but to each his own!
Sometimes there’s ways to offset the multiple check penalty so it’s worth it, but more often you’re spending more AP on the first one or two rolls of the same type then doing something different - the nice thing is you have choices.
22:22 they don't want D&D to be anything in particular besides profitable
700th like ^^
Also Hmm interesting might check this out
Per Betteridge's Law, no.
I’m still lost on why, since 4e, developers just want turps to be extensions of video game style of play, this stuff is just not for me which is really disappointing, I want to like it, but it doesn’t feel I ever will like these new games. Just can’t wrap my head around all of these unnecessary rules that have trickled into the game. I think I’m just gonna stick with OSR stuff and stop trying to keep up with the games of today. 3e was the last system that was playable to me
I'mma be honest. I hope not.
From what I've seen, DC20 has some stuff thats evocative of things like GURPS and I don't care for GURPS for a reason.
There's a few things that look nice, but I suspect I won't care for in play.
And theres other things that look nice that I think would be good in play.
I personally find his choice to divorce the attributes from the classes to be the weakest by far, rather than the best. Why even have four different attributes? Just give them one and let the player flavor it however they like -- that's effectively what they're doing at this point.
Differences should mean something. The six stats in D&D are iconic for a reason.
I'm not particularly impressed. There are some interesting ideas here, sure, but I don't see it as the "next step" in D&D.
All the attributes still have other secondary effects so they're a key part of what you want your character to be. :)
You're just not penalised in if you prefer to go for an unusual build.
If your job is to be a Fighter, you just know the core of your class but _how_ to operate would be different. :)