On Not Gaming

 Oh, we've all been there. Life gets complicated. The older you get, the harder it is to organise everything to ensure "fun" happens, and this includes those people who KNOW that fun is important.

My Sunday game was cancelled this week because people's schedules are rarely fixed and life changes all too frequently. Some of it is driven by sensible prioritization: do I prepare for an interview for a promotion or do I go gaming with my mates? Of course you prepare for the interview. Duh!

I'm reminded of the Terry Pratchett quote: "Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened!"

Sometimes, you just want a break. My Wednesday game was also cancelled because we all chose to spend St. Patrick's Day having fun with our families instead.

Sometimes, not doing something fun is self-care. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.

Once Upon a Time...

 ... there was a God. He slept.

The End

Or is it?

Of course not.

Since I was last here, I completed a degree, got a job and took a starring role in a Pandemic. (There are 7.odd billion others who may challenge my claim of a 'starring role', but as I'm the one living THIS life, I stick with my contention and will not back down.)

So, why am I back? Well, why not. The Pandemic rolls on and it could be months yet before life returns to any semblance of "normal". I have already wasted too much of that time on other foolish things, but of late I have sloughed my bad habits, taken up running, and chosen to re-engage with the things that give me joy.

This is one of those things.

No schedules as yet, but once I enter into a rhythm You'll know as well as I. I look forward to speaking to you again.

The Dread Chaos of Normal Life

I'm finally able to return to playtesting after a short hiatus due to Australian Flu (has there ever been a British Flu, or American Flu?), university work and family commitments. I'm trying to get the balance of individual powers right.

There are few enough combat powers beyond the "cantrips" mentioned in previous articles.
Many seem somewhat utility with a few buffs and temp hit points.
I'm allowing higher level characters to boost the powers by spending multiple influence on individual powers.

So far, the balance seems fair, but this might come down to player comfort with the power level.

For the next two sessions, I'll be doing "shopping episodes", to test out the utility aspects, with the occasional head-to-head with equal level opponents, to see how things stack.

It's a Kind of Magic - Templar Powers

When designing the Templar, I wanted an alternative to the standard system of magic used in D&D. I got the feeling that, in order to provide something worthy of attention, it has to be unique. Also, to maintain the flavor of its Dark Sun origins, it had to have something unique to the condition of the power source.
 Effectively a Templar is servant of her patron King. The Templar gains power by obtaining influence with her patron. As I mentioned in the first post on this series, the power of a Templar should be roughly equivalent to a Warlock. To this end, I chose to have the Templar's influence recharge on a short rest. The amount of influence a Templar can bring to bear is equal to their level but there may be addenda in the final outing.

Structure

Powers for the Templar are based on three levels of power. Lesser powers are roughly equivalent to first level spells. It costs one point of influence to manifest a minor power. When you gain higher influence, it is possible to bump up the power to a more effective level (like spending higher spell slots).
 Minor powers are roughly equivalent to second and third level spells. Each costs 3 influence to manifest and can also be buffed up using additional influence.
 Finally, Greater powers are roughly equivalent to fourth and fifth level spells. Each costs seven influence to manifest and can be buffed using additional influence.
 The maximum buff allowed is half your level minutes one. Thus, a fourth level character can only add one buff point to a spell. This prevents a character of lower levels from creating the effects of a higher level spell.

Chide the Mind

Lesser

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As a reaction, if any creature hits you with an attack, you can glare at them balefully or shout a curse. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw or suffer 3d6 psychic damage, or half as much on a successful save. For each additional point of influence spent, the damage increases by 2d6.

Raw Power... and Cantrips

Signature Spell

I'm working on a revised magic system for use with my Templar class. I want it to be roughly equal in power to the Warlock, but I don't want the schtick of Eldritch Blast being an effective class requirement. In developing my own 'Cantrips', I realised one thing: some of the cantrips are actually really powerful.
I play an Eldritch Knight in my Wednesday night game. While I have a crossbow, I hardly ever use it, because Fire Bolt is 2d10 (my character is 9th level) fire damage over 120 feet and I can use it as an AOO (War Caster), and I can do a bonus weapon attack right after using it as my action, so potentially 4d10 + weapon damage in a single round of combat. Right there and then is my go to ranged weapon.

For the Warlock, Eldritch Blast is the equivalent, mostly because it ties in with so many of the Eldritch Invocations available to the class. It is the signature at-will power for the class. I want my powers to be a little more flexible, but I get the impression that there is one, or maybe two, that will be go-to powers for the class, for example:

Fist of the Templar

Enchantment cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 120 feet
• Components: V, S
• Duration: 1 round

You call out to an enemy or wrongdoer to halt and bring your fist into your other palm. A loud sound rings out in an area of 120 feet (perhaps a thunderclap, a gavel pummelling, or a judgement bell tolling once).

You make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 psychic damage and its speed is reduced to 10 feet until the beginning of your next turn.

The cantrip’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6) and 17th level (4d6).

Being able to slow and harm a creature at the same time makes it useful. I'm considering actually upping the damage to a d8, but I'm not sure (suggestions welcome). Many of the powers available to my Templar cause psychic damage, as the focus is imposing the will of the Sorceror/Undying King. So, this features is one I think could become signature, but only if the focus of the campaign is combat centric.
Some of the other features simply come with the note "This feature functions identically to the <name> cantrip." That's easy enough. I know these features come with built in balance.
The only way to know how this will work out in the long term is to monitor. If players testing my Templar class default to these options every time, then perhaps the feature is too powerful. Either that, or I'm not putting together adventures/encounters that provide for use of the other features.
Next time, I'll go into some detail about the magic system. As the characters are at quite low levels, this hasn't been tested robustly yet, so this will be very much a basic introduction.

Rising Dark(sun)

So, I'm coming over all Dark Sun. Part of my campaign world ruled over by some seemingly immortal rulers in a desert kingdom. There are story reasons for this, but with magical prohibition in effect (story, again), I got to thinking about the old Dark Sun world. Queue Defilers and Templars.

When I read through the Dark Sun setting information for 4e, I found the demotion of Templars to a background gave me pause. I played a Templar when Dark Sun first came out and it really got me flexing my roleplay muscles. The combined magical and political power behnd the class ensured that not every situation was a straight up fight.

I liked the combination, so I went looking around for any 5e implementations. I didn't really find anything I liked so I'm implementing my own. My Alchemist didn't work out so well, I couldn't find a balance between power and durability on that one, but with the Templar I have a clear model to build from and early playtesting is looking good.

Tweak, tweak, tweak for the next few months.

But Why Does it Have to Be So HARD?!

Designing classes is not easy!

I can almost hear the chorus of "Oh really? No shit, Sherlock!" going on as people read that opening line, but the difficulty is in the small things. Some things I was able to 'hand wave' away, like, why can an Alchemist only create so many concoctions in a single day. (Because they're extremely volatile chemicals, and you don't have the skill to manage too many at once.)

The hard part is getting the balance between fire power and staying power. First, I decided to have a d6 for the hit die, just like a mage. This makes the Alchemist a bit flimsy in terms of taking a hit, but when I put it up to a d8, they became a bit too tough at lower levels. (Huff!)

Then there was the problem with just how powerful an Alchemist's damaging extracts should be. I tried following the spell damage table in the DMG, but as there are no spell levels to 'level up' the hit effect (without simply making a bottle mage), the fire power gets a bit low. No problem, just up the level a little, or give on-going damage, right? Oh, Hell no. That makes them just too powerful.

I'm toying with the idea of on-going damage again, limited by the level of the Alchemist, and I'll let you know how that goes, but for now, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO HARD?!