I'm not confident on that number, but it should be in the right ballpark - race/class/background/scores, 5 ASI's, archetype?

Multiclassing can probably increase that number, but it's still pretty small

@Delioth Spell selection, for caster classes. And warlock invocations.

@MikeQ ANd fighting styles, and feats if you use them. All feats open to most classes; a few are restricted to spell casters only, I think.

@BESW IIRC seeing something about this as being "new to the game" friendly, structurally. I recall, though, when trodgor was first getting used to his 5e paladin he found the organization of the material less satisfactory than how it was organized in 4e. Had to look in more places to find things. I found the same as I began to play bac in 2014, and I'd never played 4e. It took a while to learn how to find what I wanted to find out. (and the indexes are not good)

@BESW If you go single class, you get to pick a sub class at level 1, 2, or 3. Why it isn't all done at level 2 I am not sure. Then, in theory, something happens at every level. Either a class feature or a new spell or an ASI ... and sometimes multiple things new.

On the one hand, I suppose the idea is to reduce the reliance on choosing mechanics as character-defining features in favor of narrative. On the other hand, you're never going to accomplish that very well with such a mechanics-driven game like D&D.

@Yuuki This is why Pathfinder 2e has 4 different kinds of feat, and you get at least one every level

@Yuuki I have found in play that it's only "mechanics driven" in this edition if you want it to be.

Sub-class at level 1 for all but fighter/monk, class feat (where most of your "fight-y" options come from) at level 1 for non-casters and every even level for everyone, Ancestry feat at level 1 and every 4 thereafter, General feat at level 3 and every 4 thereafter, Skill Feat at every even level (except rogues get one every level)

Plus 4 ability boosts at levels 5/10/15/20 (apply to 4 different scores, increase the score by 2, or by 1 if the score is 18 or higher)

@Yuuki I see it like this: With less charop opportunity, non-expert players are less likely to build their characters wrong, and end up with an unfun or ineffective character. Especially for classes (read: martial classes) who get many build decisions, but usually rely on a specific chain or combination of choices.

@MikeQ Which is valid, and supported by my experience in 3.5... but 4e somehow managed to have a ridiculous amount of options with very few outright traps.

Something Something you can build a system that both makes it hard to make an ineffective character while not limiting options

@Delioth I still haven't played PF2e yet, so I can't comment on it. Especially since I'm referring to patterns that emerge over time, and may not be obvious up front.

@BESW I remember trying to make a 2h weapon, offensive based, warrior when 4e came out. By level 3 I asked my dm to let me change it to defensive and go with 1 handed and a shield, and repicked my powers to be defensive. I suddenly was not useless :P

@MikeQ I've played less of it than I'd like, but what I've played, it does a good job of keeping things in-line via proficiency and limiting bonuses - like feats don't just give numeric bonuses, they're action economy boosts or flexibility boosts (i.e. letting the Rogue sneak attack more consistently), bonuses are generally +1 or +2 (and there's only 2 types of "transient" bonus types so stacking a ton of little bonuses doesn't work), and so on

@Helwar That... was because you chose a clearly-labeled defensive class for an offensive role. That's not a trap, that's ignoring the warning labels on the packaging.

But also, by the end of 4e you could have done it anyway.

@BESW Yeah I know THAT but, then why is that option even there? If it's not gonna work...

@BESW why? I sadly didn't play much 4e since my friends didnt like it and swapped to pathfinder

@Yuuki Also, from the DM perspective, having more pre-built character packages means the DM can better anticipate PC capabilities and more easily prepare content

You can totally do a 2H fighter out of the box. It's gonna do more damage than a normal fighter and be a bit less tanky but it works fine... so long as you're still treating it as a defender.

But if you're trying to go striker with a PHB fighter, you're gonna have a bad day and the class is clearly labeled as such: the 2H option is not a damage option.

@BESW yeah no that wasn't the idea I had, I figured I could be a defender with 2h, and maybe it was bad luck or the group combination or something but it didn't really work, at all

[shrug] I had reasonable success with them.

well as said, I didn't play enough to make an educated opinion

but it felt like a trap to me

gonna blame it on the little time I played

Pammu is giving design software to marginalized TTRPG creators.

@Delioth PF2e question: Considering how character level is added to nearly everything, what happens to PCs with levels below the rest of the party?

@MikeQ Don't do that, it's bad form even in not-pf2e

Oh for sure. I've rambled about it here in chat. But how does the system handle it? Does it require all PCs to be at the same level?

It doesn't strictly require it, but the math's pretty tight - a couple levels off gives a given character 2 fewer die faces of success and enemies 2 more die faces of success (and crits, depending)

The system also recommends that the whole party gets XP for any obstacles they overcome (don't give extra XP to a single character or what have you - extra rewards shouldn't be XP)

Prompt: All My Fantasy Children Jam hosted by Riverhouse Games. This jam seeks to capture the joy of character creation! Please make random tables, character creation exercises, magic item generation tables, dungeon generators, or any other set of activities that build emergent story.

(It's actually explicit in the rewards section: "Any XP awarded goes to all members of the group." - this includes combat XP; if the encounter is an 80-XP budget encounter, it's 80XP for everyone)

Full of Memory & Anger by Riverhouse Games. You are dryads in an old-growth forest who defend your woods from those who would burn, chop, or forget it. It is a game of answering questions, but more importantly it is a game of silence and of waiting.

@MikeQ addendum: the GMG early next year may very well address this as well

Gestalt is also becoming an official alternate rule, which is interesting

So awesome.

I may be running another con table next month!

Still waiting for some responses to hash out the details.

Not sure. Gonna try to get a better sense of what would work for the con, but these cons are really unfamiliar with the sorts of things I can offer and how that relates to their vision.

Yeah, these are more general "geek" cons, the whole TTRPG thing is a sideshow to the anime and cartoons and video games and TCGs and so forth.

I would like to find something that's as structured as Lady Blackbird but takes less time to play to a satisfying conclusion.

@KorvinStarmast "Had to look in more places to find things." This is the one complaint I and my DM have had about Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle-Earth. AIME has things called "undertakings" that are basically activities you can do during downtime (Fellowship Phases). There are undertakings scattered among every AIME book seemingly at random, with little more to mark their place than a sidebar (usually they're not even listed in the TOC). People have to rely on fanmade resources to list them all.

@V2Blast Urrrgh can we get a shout-out for clients who swing for the extra expense of comprehensive contents/indexing?

@Ash I saw the reply but didn't realize that was the Affinity PR guy :)

@BESW Yes please

It's not like it's hard to do either. If you label your sidebars appropriately you can generate a list of pages with sidebars automagically in almost any modern word processing program, much less design/layout program.

Even MS Word has a dedicated subsystem for tracking that kind of thing. It's an absolute pain in the butt, because Word, but it's there.

Greg Tito is live on D&D News now: twitch.tv/dnd

Indexes, and 'finding the rule you need right now', are as old as RPGs, methinks. One would suspect that super-powered computation-machines would improve things, but there are still 'people' in the equation

@BlackSpike Yeah, I still have to hand-hold clients on figuring out what needs to be indexed.

@BESW I suspect it is easy to go over-board, and have an index almost as long as the main Text ... and different people want different references ... "What to index" isn't obvious

In my experience it's usually the opposite.

@BESW true

Finding the "middle ground" is an Expert Skill

@jgn Yeah, in this case I think comment was the right move because the discrepancy wasn't really central to the question but could cause some confusion. Though if someone flagged it was likely to get removed because, again, it's not really central to the issue

#CompleteTangent #BlatantPlug We had our 2nd Rolemaster session

@BlackSpike Nice! How'd it go?

lol

@BlackSpike just profile your queries and add indexes to speed up your most common lookup! Have you never done database optimisation?

It was good :) Lots of "sneaking through the Spooky Fairy-Forest"

@Carcer What is this "optimisation" you speak of, Earthling?

Yeah, we only do pessimisation here.

We nearly met 3"-tall not_David_Bowie. Ran away from that one. Our paladin randomly disappeared (He couldn't make the session, so 'fearie-tricks!')

@BESW ah, in the business we call database pessimisation "using mongodb"

The Big Bad Wolf-Man, that was supposed to be a Major Challenge was tough, but we dealt with it (even without our main Battle Tank). I didn't even get to Heal anyone :(

Hippie-time-traveller-stares-at-goats (PC) turned out to be a decent warrior.

I just stood at the back, saying "does -nobody- need healing?!?! I could have stayed at home!"

Although my Dog did bite the wolf's ear off ... gonna get that tied to his Collar as a Trophy :)

My Hawk was useless ... "hmmm, that's a little bigger than a vole, I think I'll stay over here ..."

@Carcer you had chance to try Dungeon Creator? Any comments?

@V2Blast Not sure what that's all about, but my gf has been running some ToD stuff for her game.

@BlackSpike Ah, well she might be interested. There's no new errata PDF for HOTDQ or ROT yet, though.

@V2Blast ok. I'll pass on the links :) I just know it is a "girls only" game, and she's been slowly leaking "ooh! Dragons" clues to them :)

#SideTangentOffTheOriginalTangent I noticed our GM rolling lots and lots and lots of d100 (for NPCs, mainly). "You want an app for that?" .. "yes" ... "done".

If anyone wants a Rolemaster Dice Roller, it's on Google Play #blatantPlug

@nitsua60 - Sent you the full list of modules/softcovers and a couple hardcovers I discovered in the next box. Let me know what you are interested in. If you want a break on $$ because you're buying the whole lot, we can discuss. :)