I think it doesn't feel as well designed as the others. For everything else, it feels part of the core mechanics of the game. This one feels added on, especially when it's the only when having -x charisma does exactly the same as 0 charisma. It would make a least a bit more sense if grit points didn't start at 0 (just like HP and everything else).
Love these changes, I also like that if you are only gonna invest in either STR or DEX you've got to choose between more health and muscels or more physical defence and backflips. (Unless you're going for heavy armour if your class lets you)
I am still not the biggest fan of Charisma and grit. It will be the first thing I homebrew. First, everything but Charisma and grit gives a hindrance for negative scores. Second, I don't care for another resource to track. My fix will be adding (or subtracting) Charisma from help actions. Which makes it an overall useful in and out of combat. I see this because an individual presence does effect a creatures willingness to accept help and trust them.
@chen-gongfu On one of the more recent LiveStreams, someone had mentioned if everyone started with 3 grit, than negative Charima would matter. I like that idea as well.
I generally like these changes. I would change the name of charisma maybe since they now also are basically wisdom saving throws to maybe a name that would reflect that more, something like Presence, Aura or smth like that. A name that not only means that someone is charismatic but also that has more force of will. I think it would also help in differentiate it more of d&d.
Normally when I see updates for video games or even the DND 5e playtest for the new 2024 rules, there's always something that upsets me. I have yet to see anything underwhelming, only positive changes! I'm so excited for this!
I really feel like Charisma should be tied to the Help dice. But I really like the current Help dice so I am not sure how to affect it. Giving bonuses to Saves does sound good for Charisma but "grit" sounds a bit extra as being another thing.
Oh that HP formula is so much nicer now. That’s fabulous. I wonder if double your Might could maybe be used after a certain level or character tier since as you gain levels it will be gradually washed out, but that looks good I still kinda feel like stamina, grit, and mana could be a more unified system (with martials being able to generate temporary mana through those conditions or something), but goodness this is such a cleanup. A way they can be unified is that casters naturally focus on mental attributes, so they have a higher pool of resolve they can expend. Martials generate temporary grit through their battle conditions being met. Leaders (bard and warlord) can expend grit to give advantage for yourself or allies. I feel like it’s starting to approach a resource bloat (plus I imagine certain items having charges and the potential house rule for a meta-resource pushing this maybe a bit over the top). Like a Grit / Resolve formula of Prime + Charisma (or double Charisma if that IS your prime).
@@Oreonis I think along those lines but a little tweaked could be using what Temtem did, allowing you to spend a significant amount of scaled HP once your MP is exhausted. So martials still use MP and can have a finite amount of reduction or temporary resource regen, but can use that ample HP in a pinch.
My concern is that Grit is another resource to track. So if you're playing a martial-caster hybrid, you have to track HP, Stamina, Mana, and Grit. That's way too much. A common sentiment that I share right here in the comments is to use it with Help action. With high Charisma, you're a people's person, you like interacting with people, and you're good at it, so you're a good helper. And I don't see why Help action shouldn't be used with saving throws in combat. You should be able to help your friends withstand challenges. It already has a price in action economy. With reasonable limitations, like being in adjacent space and/or having a higher save, it might work, you could pull your buddy up to your level of saving throw, and beyond that with charisma modifier. So, mechanically, how about this: you can use Help action to assist in saving throw - you roll a help die, but no higher than your own save attribute OR charisma (because charisma is good at helping everything) and add it to your ally's save roll. This shouldn't stack. Gotta be careful with not making it OP and tandem saves mandatory.
All the developments I see coming through feel so impactful and exactly the game I have been looking for! I really don't think the people who are saying this is a lot to track have actually given the system a go... action points are a turn, so that doesn't count, stamina/magica are a lot easier to track than spell splots or a certain amount per day abilities... skill points and trade points are in built character creation stuff... you barely have to track two things... (I could see how it MIGHT be a bit crunchy if there becomes more to track, but I'm unsure.) Also to people saying you can use charisma to get your way through entire encounters already and its too strong, I mean, yeah, you can... but rolling well on charisma shouldn't automatically mean the NPC's become dumb or change completely who they are... it sounds a bit idiosyncratic to group... and like some pretty lenient GM'ing? These ideas really fit into the attribute fantasy and make it actually feel tangible, just like a lot of DC20 you feel the OOMPH of selecting a certain option. It's such a kinetic system. You feel like your character's build really matters. DON'T LOSE THAT!!!!
I agree. I’ve seen a fair few comments complaining about the Charisma changes being too powerful, and then their examples to justify this opinion are examples of poor GMing (in my opinion). I think all changes DC has made up till now are all incredible
Grit as a powerful presence and almost a "power of friendship" mechanic to get through tough saves is something I like thematically, but charisma is already an overwhelming stat with its social implications and the fact that you can use it for a prime modifier for combat checks already. I have played games where we deceptioned our way into the bad guy's fortress convinced him we were his loyal guards or allies (I have seen it happen multiple times with multiple scenarios), convinced his actual guards to leave/bad guy to go with us, got the bad guy alone and then "solved" the bad guy problem or persuaded him to do what needed to be done. There was one time we needed to acquire an artifact from this guys collection, convinced the guards to let us through, convinced the guy to give us the artifact because people were trying to steal it and we could make a replica, so that only the replica would be stolen, but we needed the original for reference, then convinced him to pay us A LOT of money for the job. (of course we only took half up front as "professionals"). (I remember this last scenario fondly as it was my first time making a pure "social" character, and he was terrifying) The fair thing to do would be to let other stats play a part in social mechanics (the same way prime modifiers spread combat to all of the stats), but then charisma loses almost all uniqueness as a stat, which is something that DC20 in general is struggling with (keeping stats unique, but balanced which is why you are doing this update to begin with). Intelligence only giving bonus skills seems lacking in "umph," though a recall knowledge feature would make a BIG difference for the feel of knowing your enemy and how to take advantage of their weaknesses. I do appreciate letting any attribute being a casting stat as that plays for more character ideas, but my concern is ability uniqueness. I can already see a combo of being a might based caster, grabbing heavy armor with charisma being the 2ndary stat and tanking, smashing, talking, or magicking out of just about every scenario. So essentially how you balance social mechanics will be key to determining if charisma is too strong or not.
A quick first impression thought. Charisma doesn't seem lacking much at all, especially since in DC 20 you can pick any attribute as your prime modifier for attack rolls which would then make it a huge benefit to combat. Grit does sound like a fun mechanic of being able to help your allies and the more charismatic characters can help more effectively, but having yet another resource pool of points to track is going to be difficult for players to remember. Especially if you are tracking mana, possibly stamina from a multi-class, and arcane points from a wizard class.... It gets to be a bit too much to track effectively. Perhaps there's a way to include a similar benefit to grit without players doing more bookkeeping? For example adding your charisma to your help actions bonus and adjusting the bonus to whatever balance is needed? That way Charisma contributes similar to Might contributing to health without having to do more bookkeeping. Keep up the good work!! Edit: Charisma can really affect all pillars of play as is. You could possibly save hours of exploration and research time by sweet talking the right person. Combat: with a good enough intimidation check, you could get almost the equivalent effect of a no cost 5E Mass Suggestion spell to scare away a group of bandits (as an example) because your fierce presence was enough to scare them off, thereby avoiding combat completely. This is coming from playing in a 5e game with a couple hex blade warlocks where you really see how nearly OP Charisma can be if it is your attack modifier as well as your go-to in all sorts of social scenarios. 😅
I don't know about that Grit mechanic, it feels like I just got another resource to manage in my character sheet and since Grit only comes up during combat we already have a similar mechanic which is the Gaining Advantage Action, it ends up feeling a bit redundant to me having two resources that do essentially the same thing. BUT, instead... what if characters could add their CHA to the Help Action Die, that way characters with high CHA would fill a supportive role in combat more efficiently (and MAYBE, just like the other Attributes, if you dump Charisma it would subtract from your Help Die). I think that fits the fantasy of a charismatic PC being a great "helper" in combat. Btw love DC 20, pls come to Brasil
okay, that Charisma update in a way to help roleplay during combat is really cool. A Charisma-based Fighter issuing orders. A Charisma-based Barbarian with maybe little bit of a "contagious" rage.
I find that often people are either thoughtful or captivating. Not you, though :) I am very impressed with how you capture the audience without saying anything dumb!
I was a bit apprehensive at first based on the initial goal of "make each stat good at each thing" because i was worried about it removing opportunity cost. however I saw the approach and now I'm seeing the vision. each stat having its own unique way to interact with each pillar is incredible. I know that this might even impact group decisions at character creation which is awesome (my table is optimizers)
dude, you're so excited about all the new developments! I can only imagine what brainstorming sessions are like at WotC. Really looking forward to full release.
Hey Coach! I just became aware of you today and have rapidly gotten super psyched about DC20! Anyway, regarding Charisma, or Will, or Spirit, or Presence. Since this is your soul, your force of will, what if it is somehow connected to death or death saves, or perhaps spell duels. When I hear you talk about Charisma, it is clear that you envision it as the thing that defines a character like Captain America... It is will. When you talk about grit, I can see Cap looking over to his companions and inspiring them to push on. Additionally, the whole "I can do this all day" spirit is part of that force of will. Even if his body is broken, his spirit will push on. I just wonder if it would make sense to have that reflected in death mechanics in some way. Anyway, love the work you are doing, and excited to keep learning more about this system. It is like a dream list of all the homebrews I've tried to make in the past to pathfinder 1e and d&d 5e wrapped in a whole shiny new system.
I see you're point, but keep in mind, with low AGI your agility saving throws will suck AND your acrobatics, stealth, and trickery will suck even more on top having disadvantage due to your heavy armor. (Stealth, in particular, is VERY useful skill that you would suck horribly at.) I don't think additional drawbacks to low AGI need to be added, even with heavy armor. As for cantrips "solving" the loss of ranged weapons, I don't think it does. ONE: you'll have to spend a talent to gain cantrips as a martial, so it won't come for free. TWO: In general, DC20 ranged weapons aren't overshadowed by blasting cantrips (unlike 5e). Fire bolt is only 50 ft range, contested by a longbow's 150 ft range. In DC20, you can't really be a "spell sniper" like you can in 5e. But yeah, at first, I agreed with you on this point, but the more I think about it, the more I like AGI as is.
I think you could make grit a base stat so that -ve charisma takes away a stat, this is basically a hero coin or luck token mechanic that lots of other trad games have.
I just had a thought. Maybe Wisdom would be better suited to this system than charisma. Since charisma causes the social parts of the game to warp around it being THE social ability score, causing other players to be left out during social encounters for the one with high charisma. I could see the skills for charisma being spread out among the other ability scores as well. Intimidation could be might, persuasion could be wisdom, and deception could be intelligence. Edit; just looked through the skills for DC20 properly and it seems they've been distributed well so far. Great work on this sytem!
Really like the introduction of Grit... From playing in games like Warhammer Fantasy (where you have Fate Points granting limited rerolls [I think... been awhile]) and World of Darkness (where you have Willpower to get bonus dice), I've always wanted something in D&D that could reflect "I'm Trying Extra Hard here!" The thing I question though, is having it tied strictly to combat... If you're trying to convince the King that you shouldn't be bound in irons, or are desperately trying to pick the lock on someone's manacles right before the guards storm around the corner.... You're not in combat, but wouldn't it be nice if you could put that little bit of extra Focus and Grit into those actions..??
I like the adjustments, especially in highlighting how all attributes can help in combat. However, there's a good argument that all the attributes can help in social situations. In the real world, any attribute that the surrounding society values makes people celebrities and deferred to. People will be drawn to athletes and actors and Uber geeks depending on how extraordinary they are known to be. Charisma helps, but we all know people who can't talk their way out of a paper bag but are practically worshiped because of an unrelated talent.
I've been building my own RPG as well, just to see if I could. Feel free to use any of this as inspiration if it helps: I found that besides constitution which I got rid of, the other attributes were all useful in social or exploration encounters to some extent, so the issue was making everything useful in combat. I stirred the classic 6 attributes around and ended up with 6 slightly different ones: -physicality, which encompasses strength, endurance, and athleticism, and gives HP -finesse, which encompasses physical coordination, and gives AC. -intelligence stayed the same and gives focus, which is a near-universal resource for abilities. -perception which encompasses reaction speed, awareness, and insight and gives you an initiative bonus. -conviction which encompasses your ability to communicate and persuade emotionally, as well as endure hardship and fear, and gives you better recovery of HP and focus during short rests or when "rallying" in combat. (I really like the term "Conviction" over charisma.) -subtlety, which encompasses your ability to physically hide, to lie, and to suppress or fake emotions, and gives you a higher stealth score. There are weapons that use different attributes for their attack modifier, and sometimes you can choose between several; you can wield a small crossbow equally well with high finesse, perception, or subtlety for example. A simple enough weapon can be used with any attribute.
I don't know about balance wise but thematically it would be cool if grit points could cause disadvantage on saves to opposed enemies. Like how a fighter is getting into the head of the enemy by taunting leaving an opening. Maybe better as feat?
I love all of this so much! Instantly in my top 3 favorite things about this system. I love grit so much. However one concern I have is it doesn't seem to have any penalty for having negative charisma. Negative might means you have less health, negative Agility means less Armor, negative INT means less skills. But negative CHA is not really any different than 0 CHA. But im not sure it's such a big deal that it needs to be all reworked to fix it
You want to fix Charisma? Simple. Remove it from the game. Charisma has a stranglehold on the social pillar. Remove it and keep intelligence, awareness and willpower, and have all social skills be usable with either of the three, depending on your approach
My system has the same four attributes and Health has two pools (HP and XP). XP is 10x your character level so even characters with low mighty have a good amount of health Mighty -> Modifies your HP and AC Dex -> Modifies your movement and number of actions (2 + dex -> max 4 actions) Inteligence -> Modifies your Power points (mana, stamina, ki...whatever you name it) and you focus (+1d6 on a ability roll) Will -> Modifies your Heroes points (ability to come back to life when knocked down in combat) and the number of short rests you can make It's pretty close to your ideas, so i know its a good path to follow!
Well shit. Before christmas I didnt even knew you. Now everytime I see one of your videos pop out I'm scared haha. Been building my system for a year but with each video I feel like I should just have waited for DC20 rather than having a headache thinking it out lol. Guess its normal since I wanted it to be logical to a ttrpg newbie and easy to grasp for my dyslexic friends (which is as much a good news than a bad I suppose) I also divided my attributes into Cons, agility, wisdom and Confidence with an energy pool which was common to every archetype so that a caster could use his endurance/coordination to cast or a fighter could use his perception or presence skill as a bonus to his attacks. Evasion for agility and additional armor reduction for Constitution rather than direct HP. A hope-stress mechanic for Confidence for which the save stat was named "Will" to be used as bardlike inspiration (while my bards give advantage (so it feels like the reverse of yours now)) and a relationship-inspiration system to give bonus to saves against the dying/exhausted conditions if the player engaged into developped relationships with other characters and npcs.. Intelligence was either put into wisdom where mind was used to resist to madness points (for Lovecraftian horror themed monsters/campaigns) or into a knowledge stat which is determined like other attributes but is not in competition with them when determining their value because I dont think Knowledge should be contrary to physical stats, we all know things, they are just parts of diverse fields of knowledges. It worked separately and gave you, along with your Background, a additional number of practices as well (which I suppose are the trades you're talking about, I didnt check your system that much, but your channel has been all over my youtube recently) At least my system is still mostly class-free (making it so that you can build a traditional class by mixing several techtrees but are not limited to traditional classes, a bit more like GURP I suppose but in user friendly mode.
Yeah its a great feedback to have confirmation that the ideas I came up with are not that weird haha@@TheDungeonCoach I'm very excited to see how you will continue developping DC20 (Still hope mine wont look too much alike though haha, would feel a bit disappointing for me to spend so much free time on it while something similar has been worked on by a pro, but mine will be in french however 😅)
There is another point where the attributes may matter. Recruiting NPC allies in larger expeditions and mass combat. Each attribute might boost the number and quality or type of NPC acquired. Most over look mass combat and end up adding it as a 1 page deal with little detail. Race, charisma, religious or military orders and rank al could play a part in rallying the town to stand with you against the zombies. I could also see additional spells that are only available when working with NPC helpers that don't count to the spell or skill limit. I recommend you think of that early.
Epic updates! My only small concern is that casters will try to minmax by gaining mastery in Heavy Armor as quickly as possible (thus eliminating the need for agility instead of pure strength).
"We will escape this place on Wings of Will" - Githyanki Captain, engaging in psionic battle to escape an Illithid colony in the Underdark near the Drow city of Ust Natha.
I must say: Until now I am really impressed with DC20. The only thing I am currently not fine with, and that might be because I didnt have the chance to playtest it yet, is the Armor class formula. It seems to me that adding half your level to AC pushes it too far. Everything else, especially the Charisma changes in this video I really love. I am looking forward to 0.6 Alpha.
I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of having a new resource to track. Also, while grit not being exactly the same mechanic as bards/warlords, it's still close enought, and in some cases, even better, given how a double d20 roll tends to give better results than just adding the avg value of a d6 or d8. I think it would be better if charisma just interact with an already existing mechanic, instead of creating an entire new one to give more use to it, thus bloating the system. I'm loving how DC20 is taking the best of D&D 5e and PF 2e, but in a much more streamlined and, why not, elegant fashion, and that's why I'd make me pretty sad if the game become the same mass bloat of these bigger systems. @zionich 's suggestion of just adding/subtracting charisma to the help action rolls would make more sense. To make up for it, bards/warlords could have a feature where they change it to add their prime attribute instead, showing their mastering in boosting the resolve of their allies.
After reading through some of the comments, I gotta say, I like the idea of adding charisma to help die more, since its allows for less tracking, and wont allow a Charisma party of four to have advantage on 12 saves per day, making it less of a min/maxing option. So a Charisma character would benefit more from using the help action on party members more than anyone else, giving them a reasonable boost in combat. However, please dont make it so you have to add your negative bonus to help die, that completely destories their purpose for low cha characters, making them unable to fully cooperate with others (and would also mean you *have to have at least 0 in Charisma). I also agree with the fact that Chraisma is pretty powerful already, since it has the power to rally troupes, deceive the party's way through the BBEG's lair, and fixing so many problems just by persuading the right person. As for saving throws, you can make it so the help action can be used on saving throws as well, however, a character can only have one help die to their saving throws at all times. Maybe bards and warlords also the ability to buff saving throws in a limited manner with their class features (like bard used to be able to do in dnd)
Some of the problems that come from attributes is where some are essentially "super stats" eg. Dex in DnD 5e, and then each class typically only focuses on how one attribute is important. Each attribute should have a relevant influence to how it works for each class. Maybe Int for fighters allows for more maneuvers or charisma can inspire others with their successful actions that gives a bonus to hit enemy targets next to him. However this does make everything more complicated for character creation but more interesting for each attribute.
So what are the RP aspects for Might / Agility? I see things tied into combat and exploration with HP/skills/saves, but nothing on the RP side. Unless I missed something. Also, a Might Bard just flexes to inspire you.
I like this because there's really no dump stats. Every stat means something and it's a choice to either pump it up or to ignore it. With that said, rename Charisma. I vote for Presence.
My big concerns: 1. Grit should go negative. One issue i have with Grit is that there is very little incentive to ever take Charisma if you have a negative number. If i have -2 Charisma i would have to spend 3 points before get a single improvement for my Grit, so i would never do it. One solution would be to have other ways to generate Grit, meaning that someone with negative value wouldn't profit from these ways at all unless they generate a lot of them (which shouldn't be possible). But now if you go from -1 to a 0, you only need to generate 1 Grit to use it. 2. Agility doesn't translate into a stat like the rest. Agility being the only Attribute not translating directly into a numerical value (Health, Skill Points, Grit) feels odd. Maybe it is time to reevaluate Agility influencing speed, 1 additional (or fewer) Space per Agility.
The idea of a martial class taking a dip into casting and, being a martial class, not learning the refined\proper way to do it (At first, or at all) and instead focusing on the quick, dirty, more physically demanding\draining methods of casting because "F- It, I can..." really appeals to me. Just the Wizard looking on in horror as the fighter does the exact thing he was always taught not to because the physical strain could kill you and the fighter is just eating that strain and saying shit like "I strangled an Ogre, I think I got this..." The opportunities for flavour are AWESOME.
I like the basic idea of grit, but I'm not sure about advantage because it runs the risk of frequently not changing the outcome. We've all had advantage only to have the second die be lower than the first. It doesn't feel great, especially if it's tied to such a limited resource My suggestion is to allow them to add a grit/help die to the save after the initial roll but before knowing the result. That way it would never feel wasted and be more likely to create a cool moment
I personally feel like either low charisma should also get a negative or just remove the negatives of all negative attributes. Because right now charisma is the only stat not being punished for being low, which I don't enjoy personally I feel like a negative score should actually hinder you in a meaningfull way which the other attributes do. While I do enjoy the concept you are going for with charisma, the elegance of DC20 is that is doesn't have that many things to track, unlike dnd which has tons of limited uses spellslots PF times per day and so on. Thus adding grit as a point system doesn't really fit well imo. How about having charisma be used by allowing you to use a reaction to add it to an allies saving throw, this way it supports teamwork is less powerfull and is no longer a resource needed to be tracked, maybe if it's to powerfull make it so that a creature can only be affected like this once per day. This way stacking a bunch of charisma based players doesn't massivly boost saving throw prowess.
Grit is pretty good, I really love the concept, and I think its perfect for charisma based characters, I can really see a Charisma Sorcerer pushing themselves to the limit with grit so they can stay in the battlefield and help their friends win the fight ...but I can only think of an all Charisma party with the ability to give advantage to 12 saves >_>' unless that is intentional or not considered broken in the system, I will be worried about that bit
I beg to differ, it can literally be the difference between life and death, especially in the early game and what about attributes that you *do* have a save in? those get a big boost as well
I think might should give 2 health per point instead of one, so it's more valuable to non-heavy armour wearers and so health differences between players can be more varied. I also like the concept of grit, but I feel it's a bit undermined by the ability to give advantage so easily by spending AP. Perhaps if grit had other uses, it would be more valuable.
About carisma do you know the guardian of ga'hoole? There is a character called Twilight. He goes into war singing and thereby distracts his enemys. So I would love to see the carisma grid feature to give disadvantage to an enemy for an Anttack. This might be op though. If so i would suggest to give disadvantage to a save of an enemy.
Love it all! Question.... Can you use STR or DEX to escape a grapple? If so, you might update your attribute list for STR to ""Grapple and escape grapple"
This is why my homebrew game is skill based, I found ability scores/attributes dont really add much to play. Did you consider not having them at all during development? Why did you keep them? I dont know if you've answered this in a previous video
Hi Dungeon Coach, I’m curious what are the four characters that you’ve kept making to test rules? Are they based on the four attributes? I’m thinking the INT fighter, the CHR barbarian, the MGT Mage, and the AGL Cleric?
Hey Coach. I thougt a lot about this change and i think Agility is to weak in the moment and some Stats gif you more penalty if you dump them So waht i would propose as a nice meant criticism is: Migth give Extra HP Agility give extra PD even Havy Armor but halved bonus/malus ) Int give more Skills Carisma give Gritpoints And there are two options All Stats give Minus if there negative or non of them give mali If you haven’t a idea for negative Grit points just give 2 Grit points at 0 Carisma as base. I really hope this comment inspired you then irealy think this would put Agility back up with the rest of the Stats
Its clear if you would change that only Agility give Bonus to PD (half for Havy Armor) you also woud need to change the armor. But its simpel. You would need master and Grandmaster Armor. And The scailing from Havy Armor need to increase faster Lv Ligth Havy Novice 1. 2 Advance 2. 4 Expert. 3. 5 Master. 4. 7 Grandmaster 5. 8 So on each lv if you Prime Mod is Agility and you have the best Armor you can use you have would have same PD So the price for max PD with maxArmor PDR you would need Agility as prime and the Migth requiredment.
Hey maybe one of the people who's played tested can help get me sorted. I'll ne running a game for the first time in a week and I'm really trying to finlgure out when you'd vall for a physical vsartial check as they both can use agility or might?
Hey there! Physical checks are more so a category of check and not something you’d call for “make a physical check” Martial Check is for when either Athletics or Acrovatics would be appropriate 👍🏼
@TheDungeonCoach interesting 🤔. Thanks for clearing that up. I am so excited to try out dc20 it fits right where I wish most other ttrpgs were. Avoids crunch and so much rallying and tables but fairly straightforward. Can't wait to see how it plays
If a character has strength as a dump stat (-2), will they ever get more health? Let's say they're a caster with no buff from ancestry/race. Every level they get +2 HP which is then negated by the -2. Can you have a level 10 character with 5 health?
I'm not into abstract resources and gamey mechanics, so in my classless, skill-based homebrew system, intelligence allows you to get extra experience in knowledge-based skills, and charisma is the same but with social skills. I'm OK with attributes not having an impact on every single aspect of the game.
Shouldn't Charisma be called Willpower at this point? It would make more sense flavour-wise and allow you to do more stuff with it (you can tie it to mana/stamina, etc.).
Honestly? I think my only complaint about DC20 is the stat merging (as in Intelligence and Wisdom were merged and so were strength and constitution). I’m sure many people will disagree with me but I think I would still prefer if at least Intelligence and Wisdom were separate.
It seems a little backwards to go from making might and agility more unique from each other and used for different features rather than both or either contribute to health (yeah agility does contributes to protection but thats a different resource than health), while simultaneously making intelligence and charisma more like each other and the best one is used for mana. This makes the decision to prioritize one stat over the others less meaningful. This is also why I don't enjoy why so many features rely on the prime modifier, don't get me wrong, I still love that it's there, but I think it's overused a tad, meaning no matter what decision you make, you're just good at a lot of stuff, rather than relying on teammates dynamically because everyone has specialized into different attributes which contribute to different features. At the moment, I still see intelligence as way more beneficial than Charisma. I'd rather see this reverted to Charisma only contributing to mana. Though, I am just now delving into DC20. Really like nearly everything in this system and love your passion for this project.
Why not just have stats not affect your health and mana? Just give a base for both and then a bonus based on class. Then there’s no issues with how it’s calculated or one stat or the other being too strong
I want some to shine in some areas and some to shine in others, while being somewhat relevant in ALL. I think me moving Intimidation over to might, gives Might a little bit of love there :) So I feel that its right where I want it currently. I hope that makes sense
Here is a lot of constructive criticism. 1. Combining agility and light or any form of armor makes no sense. Agility is needed to dodge attacks, while the job of every armor is to absorb attacks that hit you. Agility should be part of a dodge stat while armor should reduce damage from hits. 2. Skills: Drop them. I think it's more intuitive if PCs had all the abilities their backstory suggests. A rogue who grew up on a farm and has learned to be a blacksmith should have all the skills such a live would give. Stealth, climbing, handling of domestic animals, reading the weather, wood and metal work, and so on. Then let them add some "Interrests" to broaden their characters background and we are good. It would allow more creativity and freedom of which attributes too use. 3. Charisma: Basically everyone sees charisma as social grace and skills, your will/grit think just doesn't fit into that. I would say you rename it into something more vague, like you have combined strength and constitution into might. I would suggest something like spirit, soul, presence, or anima.
It seems as though you want charisma to be a thing... But in trying to make it useful, it's become something else, something different to what charisma generally means... Maybe you should stop worrying about having something called charisma, and just rename it
I haven't heard of DC20 before. I have some experience with DND. DND has unbalanced ability. Dexterity is used for a lot of stuff. The three mental ability scores are useless in battle most of the time. A caster class gets one of these scores to power their spells. These three are intelligence and wisdom. This video was criticizing charisma for being useless in battle. DND has a solution of bards, warlocks sorcerers and paladins using charisma to boost their spells. Intelligence is the most useless ability score in battle. Wizards are the only main class that uses it for spellcasting. These ability scores are unbalanced. There ought to be a way to make all ability scores balance and all to be useful for everybody. This video has good ideas. There are methods. I did look into the 4th edition of DND. I didn't get around to playing it yet. This game has individual attacks that are powered by specific ability scores and resisted by specific ability scores. Each class has three they should focus on. There are several kinds of resistances. There is the regular one based on armor. Then there is one for dodging, one for resisting health sapping effects like poison, and one for resisting mental assaults. So each ability score is useful for everyone up to a point. Having all those resistances is nice. It helps one defend against a variety of opponents. One cool thing about 4E is the warlord class. That is a nifty spin on martial classes. I am glad this video acknowledges it. Pokemon is good at making all its stats useful for all fighters. Speed helps a fighter go first in the turn based combat. Hit points increases the fighters health. Attack stats increase damage of moves of the user. Defense stats decrease damage of moves that the user receives. There is a distinction between physical and special. Each gets separate attack and defense. In the earlier generations of Pokemon, each type was considered physical or special. Physical types were the more martial ones, like normal, fighting and poison. Special types were the more magical ones, like ice, electric and fire. In later generations, there was more nuance. Individual attacks counted as physical and special. So one type can have both, although it would focus more on one. I think the flying type is the best example of this nuanced distinction. Physical flying attacks are bird hits, like peck and wing attack. Special flying attacks is air magic like gust and hurricane. This distinction doesn't affect type interactions. Whether it is bird attacks or air magic, a flying attack will still do things like do supereffective damage against grass opponents and do not very effective damage against electric opponents. So each stat does have potential to be helpful. Sometimes competitive players choose to have all damaging moves be either physical or special. In that case an attack stat is useless if it doesn't apply to any of the moves in the moveset. This is a weird quirk in the system. It is probably helpful in creating a dump stat. Then the player can focus more on the Pokemon's strengths.This would benefit walls and supports, which don't rely on offense anyway.
I have thought of ways to make all attributes useful to everybody. I have considered revamping my system. Things are not set in stone yet. There can be an offense attribute like strength or power. There can be a defense attribute like armor or toughness. This essentially replaces the defense of armor pieces. This does happen in Pokemon. It makes sense in context. Pokemon are animals. So they fight naked. So the only defense they get is by their own hide instead of clothing. Interestingly the species with the highest physical defense are those with tough shells and spikes. This seems like a natural built in armor. Examples include Shuckle, Steelix, Aggron and Cloyster. I like to have my fighters be either animals or human magicians. These magicians wear squishy robes, so they don't get defense from clothing. So both of them get a defense attribute built in the fighter. I have thought of some stamina or constitution attribute to increase health. I like to use mana as a resource for magic. I don't like the spell slots of DND. I think it is clunky. So Instead I have a pool of points, called mana. Then casting spells depletes that. There can be an attribute of increasing mana. It can be an endurance attribute. If one wanted an intelligence attribute, this is the best place for it. A smarter fighter can use their mind to gain more magic access. It makes sense. There can be an attribute for speed, dexterity or agility. There are different possibilities, so that is tricky. I have my own spin where a faster fighter can deplete resources more quickly. So this attribute can either deplete the opponent's health or mana. There ought to be two separate attributes for that. I think lowering the opponent's mana is a good use of charisma. I think of charisma and intelligence as being opposites. It is like how the Myer-Briggs has thinking and feeling as opposite traits. The nerd is the prime example of someone with high intelligence and low charisma. The opposite is the social butterfly that isn't good at school and studies. Maybe dexerty is good for lowering opponent health while charisma is good for lowering mana. Maybe the charm of a charisma fighter catches the opponent off guard. So the distraction lowers focus leading to less mana. I was thinking of having a pair of attributes affecting cost of fighters. Yet I think that having separate offense defense attributes can work better. There is one pair for auto attack, which is like a basic melee attack. There is one pair for spells. That can help distinguish melee and ranged fighters. This would be fair if both kinds of attacks for everyone. Everyone can do both an auto attack and a spell attack on their turn. Ranged fighters can do auto attack. They are just bad at it. They are better off staying at a distance. Melee fighters can still do spells. This is spells that enhance melee ability. I like having spell like attacks for melee fighters. I think the melee classes were very lacking in DND. The inclusion of spell-like attacks helps them go on an even playing field. It also helps that several basic spells effects are affected by attributes. This is damage spells, healing spells and melee enhancing effects. This makes the attributes more useful across classes.
Action points, mana points, stamina points, skill points, trade points, grit points....and more. That's a lot of different resource pools to keep track of. Maybe you should change the name of the game to Point Salad the RPG.
Here is my counter points: 1. You only have 3 resources to track Action Points = your turn of what you do Stamina OR Mana = resource to empower what you do Grit Points: situational instances to use on saves 2. Unless you are playing a paladin then you only have me true “resource” to track 3. Overall I don’t think you can say that the other points (skill points, trade points etc) are actual “resources”. By definition they are not. You spend them at character creation and when leveling up. 4. I’d say that Action Point tracking is just managing your turn, and is far easier than DnDs (action, bonus action , reaction, 30ft movement). I don’t see it as a resource but I can definitely see how someone would. 💜
damn! now there's counter points too? But seriously, I like alot of what you're trying to do with DC20. However, IMO too much customization can be as bad or worse than not enough especially for newer players. Hopefully you'll be able to find a good balance before the game actually launches.@@TheDungeonCoach
The more I hear about this game, the more I know its not for me. I think it comes down to a. trying to think that all attributes should be equally good in all situations, that seems silly while at the same time artificially constraining everything. I dont know...I am sure this will be someone's cup of tea, and there might have been some interesting ideas here but ya, I dont know if I needed an even EASIER version of Dnd 5e...I mean 5e is pretty basic as is...sure its not perfect but people like IC make it seem that its SOOOO complicated when really its just not. I just wish that there was a more advanced version of 5e coming, something that raised the floor and ceiling a bunch, and made it more customizable. Eh....that's what House Rules and Homebrew are for I suppose. LOL.
Little suggestion since you’re remaking the character sheet. I prefer a (max points) and (points expended) ressource tracker as opposed to a (max points) and (current points) one. The first is just much faster and easier to use and it’s how I like to track everything in dnd. It would be cool if all the resources were changed to a (points expended) system.
I posted something similar on Treant's last TH-cam on DC20 but I'll repeat here. I bought the DC20 alpha access because Treantmonk recommended. I generally liked what I saw with the exception of one thing. I do not like how Wisdom was dropped. Outside of roleplaying how do I build a smart character but one who does not know when NOT to do something. Just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you should. The mechanics as written, unless I grossly misunderstood them, doesn't work that way. The intelligence prime merges them and I think looses something as you strive for simplicity. Personally I would get rid of intelligence, split it for the concept of Mental attributes, and have wisdom and something like Reason/Logic. Charisma should really be broken up too, but I don't mind one. If you were to split it up leave one as Charisma (or Presence if you want to use a difference word) just as is but add something like Manipulation, which is how well you can lie/deceive. There is a natural split between someone who just draws attention, natural magnetic personality as it were, and how well they can lie. This removes raw intelligence and appearance allowing the player to determine that not race, etc. I find it interesting that you kept physical attributes as two but for simplicity sake merged the mental into one. Just seems to me that either go full bore and have just one prime for Physical , Mental, Social. Then do a specialty of some kind (Might or Agility for Physical) opens up for certain classes. And an option to take a negative to get a bonus into another prime. To address your 3 parts (combat, exploration, etc. that you used as an example with Charisma) can still be addressed here. Wisdom is waiting for the right moment to strike (combat), Wisdom in exploration is really experience -no you should not pull the lever just because it is there-, Wisdom in interactions is knowing not to ask certain questions. Just my two cents.
I love hearing peoples perspectives on this, and I'd have to answer this in a longer form livestream type answer than typing it all here. But I do see where you are coming from
@@TheDungeonCoach I know you are on a bit of tight timeline given the details you shared in Treant's interview, but I'd really be interested in seeing your thoughts on the matter in longer form. You may be too far down the path to do anything about it, but it just seems off to me. Maybe you do have the time to try a few others options. Either way love the passion and a lot of what you've presented so far.
Conversely, I do like that attributes were cut. Wisdom was overloaded, and splitting into Intelligence and Charisma was a great way to balance it. Wisdom completely outshone everything, and leaving it as a dump stat was consistently a massive mistake. There was no real choice if you cared about being effective. Same with Constitution. You had to have both, or you held your team back. Since they had no real choice behind them, I’m glad they’re gone and baked into the other stats in varying degrees. Now EVERY stat is relevant. Not relevant in EVERY moment. And that’s fine. I think a Grit resource pushes us into the realm of resource bloat. To YOU, DC20, you already solved the problem of Charisma being useless in combat. My paladin can make Cha his offensive stat, and now he can beat people better by being the handsomest knight around. Grit is a solution without a problem. If I want to use Charisma more creatively in combat, I can always give a big frightening roar to scar the goblins or bandits away. Or continue a conversation with the big bad’s sidekick as we fight, gradually convincing him that there’s another way to reach his goals. If I’m picking Charisma as my main stat, and a core part of my character’s premise, I’m not looking for more mechanics. I WANT role playing to be my main tool, convincing my DM with words as much as dice. A Grit mechanic is one more thing I have to track, and that’s not the reason for a charisma character. Intelligence and Agility players are more likely to want all that.
@@curts7801 I've had characters with CON or WIS as dump stats. You make do just and rely on your party a bit more. My low WIS character just stuck real close to the party Paladin with their great aura. I've had STR and DEX dumps stats too. Sure STR is an odd one that you can get away with easily unless you have a DM likes to have characters do a lot of Ath checks cause the dungeons are not easy walking. I'm not against trimming down, but if you are going to do so do the same of the physical stats -creates an odd breakdown (why there and NOT mental or social breakdowns) Though if DC20 did that I think they should have a prime specialization. Each prime that has a bonus you pick a specialization. Oh I take Physical as my prime +2, I pick Might as my specialization. I get bonuses to health and STR (like) rolls/abilities. I pick Agility I get those bonuses and a bonus to defense. If I go all out and push to get a +3 I get both. On the one where I pick a -1 I pick one of the specializations and I get negative bonuses on top of the already existing -1. Penalties for being really bad at something. That doesn't go away till I increase it.
More bookkeeping AND more combat cruft? No thanks. There's way too much emphasis on combat in modern D&D. Personally, I collapse charisma and wisdom into "sense", so it's a more useful stat.
You can't fix intelligence and charisma with rules. I'm not saying you can't make it better but you can't fix it. You either you're clever and have riz, or you aren't and don't. My simple fix is easy. High mental score characters, are played by the entire table. That includes me the DM. Unlike on other players turns, that player can get input from the entire table, while making the ultimate decisions. I let everybody know how this works before the game starts so they know what they're getting into.
@@jtjames79 the channel for that system is Mystic Portal Emporium, the image is a shield with the eternal Gm on it, and the business image is a magical looking Stargate portal
This is such a bad take. Matt Colville did a video on this a while back that addresses this, basically discussing the difference between game mechanics and roleplay. If you aren’t a charismatic person and want to play a charismatic character, there needs to be a mechanical way to help you achieve that. So that person can roll a persuasion check to achieve success rather than having to come up with the actual words their character says on the fly in order to pass it. From what you typed, it sounds like at your table if someone has high charisma, the player loses a lot of agency since the entire table gets to dictate what they say or do. To each their own, but I wouldn’t want that at my table.
I'm not going to lie, I hate that a negative intelligence takes from your skills. Skills are great! They help you shine in non-combat encounters. They make you feel cool and awesome. "Hey, idiot, you're only good in combat and to do exactly one trick. Outside of that? Sit there and watch everyone else do cool things while you pray to the GM for a combat encounter." Those are the vibes that I get from this decision.
The grit mechanic is a really slick way of making Charisma useful for combat but not mandatory. Well done Coach.
I think it doesn't feel as well designed as the others. For everything else, it feels part of the core mechanics of the game. This one feels added on, especially when it's the only when having -x charisma does exactly the same as 0 charisma. It would make a least a bit more sense if grit points didn't start at 0 (just like HP and everything else).
Nice to see a return of intelligence modifying skill points from 3rd edition. Gives intelligence some of its utility back.
Love these changes, I also like that if you are only gonna invest in either STR or DEX you've got to choose between more health and muscels or more physical defence and backflips.
(Unless you're going for heavy armour if your class lets you)
I am still not the biggest fan of Charisma and grit. It will be the first thing I homebrew.
First, everything but Charisma and grit gives a hindrance for negative scores.
Second, I don't care for another resource to track.
My fix will be adding (or subtracting) Charisma from help actions. Which makes it an overall useful in and out of combat.
I see this because an individual presence does effect a creatures willingness to accept help and trust them.
That's actually good. Another resource to track was my first concern.
....so is there a scenario where help literally hinders an ally with this?
I feel like this adds more crunch and things people will just forget.
@@MagiofAsura How is it any different than any other negative modifier?
Your "fix" sounds reasonable and more intuitive, I like it
@chen-gongfu On one of the more recent LiveStreams, someone had mentioned if everyone started with 3 grit, than negative Charima would matter. I like that idea as well.
I generally like these changes. I would change the name of charisma maybe since they now also are basically wisdom saving throws to maybe a name that would reflect that more, something like Presence, Aura or smth like that. A name that not only means that someone is charismatic but also that has more force of will. I think it would also help in differentiate it more of d&d.
Yeah def this. Like insight, resolve, will, heart, there’s a lot that might work better by this point
I really dig the idea of naming it presence, it somehow feels fitting
Was about to say the same thing. It is your soul. When a person with presence walks in the room it feels different.@@chen-gongfu
Yes please. This. Rename charisma. Why does charisma matter to concentration? It makes no sense. You need a synonym for willpower
I like this idea a lot actually
I love it! Having each stat do their own thing in this way feels so intuitive and buttery smooth!
I'm curious about how he's going to make might and agility more relevant in the social pillar.
@@carsonrush3352 you can impress people with juggling
Trickery is an Agility skill and Intimidation is a Might skill. Both of those have social uses in certain situations.
Normally when I see updates for video games or even the DND 5e playtest for the new 2024 rules, there's always something that upsets me. I have yet to see anything underwhelming, only positive changes! I'm so excited for this!
My god dude… just made my freakin day with that comment!! Thank you!
I really feel like Charisma should be tied to the Help dice. But I really like the current Help dice so I am not sure how to affect it. Giving bonuses to Saves does sound good for Charisma but "grit" sounds a bit extra as being another thing.
Oh that HP formula is so much nicer now. That’s fabulous. I wonder if double your Might could maybe be used after a certain level or character tier since as you gain levels it will be gradually washed out, but that looks good
I still kinda feel like stamina, grit, and mana could be a more unified system (with martials being able to generate temporary mana through those conditions or something), but goodness this is such a cleanup.
A way they can be unified is that casters naturally focus on mental attributes, so they have a higher pool of resolve they can expend.
Martials generate temporary grit through their battle conditions being met.
Leaders (bard and warlord) can expend grit to give advantage for yourself or allies.
I feel like it’s starting to approach a resource bloat (plus I imagine certain items having charges and the potential house rule for a meta-resource pushing this maybe a bit over the top).
Like a Grit / Resolve formula of Prime + Charisma (or double Charisma if that IS your prime).
give martials a buff to health, make them use health as stamina.
@@Oreonis I think along those lines but a little tweaked could be using what Temtem did, allowing you to spend a significant amount of scaled HP once your MP is exhausted. So martials still use MP and can have a finite amount of reduction or temporary resource regen, but can use that ample HP in a pinch.
My concern is that Grit is another resource to track. So if you're playing a martial-caster hybrid, you have to track HP, Stamina, Mana, and Grit. That's way too much. A common sentiment that I share right here in the comments is to use it with Help action. With high Charisma, you're a people's person, you like interacting with people, and you're good at it, so you're a good helper.
And I don't see why Help action shouldn't be used with saving throws in combat. You should be able to help your friends withstand challenges. It already has a price in action economy. With reasonable limitations, like being in adjacent space and/or having a higher save, it might work, you could pull your buddy up to your level of saving throw, and beyond that with charisma modifier.
So, mechanically, how about this: you can use Help action to assist in saving throw - you roll a help die, but no higher than your own save attribute OR charisma (because charisma is good at helping everything) and add it to your ally's save roll. This shouldn't stack. Gotta be careful with not making it OP and tandem saves mandatory.
All the developments I see coming through feel so impactful and exactly the game I have been looking for! I really don't think the people who are saying this is a lot to track have actually given the system a go... action points are a turn, so that doesn't count, stamina/magica are a lot easier to track than spell splots or a certain amount per day abilities... skill points and trade points are in built character creation stuff... you barely have to track two things... (I could see how it MIGHT be a bit crunchy if there becomes more to track, but I'm unsure.)
Also to people saying you can use charisma to get your way through entire encounters already and its too strong, I mean, yeah, you can... but rolling well on charisma shouldn't automatically mean the NPC's become dumb or change completely who they are... it sounds a bit idiosyncratic to group... and like some pretty lenient GM'ing?
These ideas really fit into the attribute fantasy and make it actually feel tangible, just like a lot of DC20 you feel the OOMPH of selecting a certain option. It's such a kinetic system. You feel like your character's build really matters. DON'T LOSE THAT!!!!
I agree. I’ve seen a fair few comments complaining about the Charisma changes being too powerful, and then their examples to justify this opinion are examples of poor GMing (in my opinion). I think all changes DC has made up till now are all incredible
Great ideas. 👍🏻 Love it. DC20 is best.
Grit as a powerful presence and almost a "power of friendship" mechanic to get through tough saves is something I like thematically, but charisma is already an overwhelming stat with its social implications and the fact that you can use it for a prime modifier for combat checks already. I have played games where we deceptioned our way into the bad guy's fortress convinced him we were his loyal guards or allies (I have seen it happen multiple times with multiple scenarios), convinced his actual guards to leave/bad guy to go with us, got the bad guy alone and then "solved" the bad guy problem or persuaded him to do what needed to be done. There was one time we needed to acquire an artifact from this guys collection, convinced the guards to let us through, convinced the guy to give us the artifact because people were trying to steal it and we could make a replica, so that only the replica would be stolen, but we needed the original for reference, then convinced him to pay us A LOT of money for the job. (of course we only took half up front as "professionals"). (I remember this last scenario fondly as it was my first time making a pure "social" character, and he was terrifying)
The fair thing to do would be to let other stats play a part in social mechanics (the same way prime modifiers spread combat to all of the stats), but then charisma loses almost all uniqueness as a stat, which is something that DC20 in general is struggling with (keeping stats unique, but balanced which is why you are doing this update to begin with). Intelligence only giving bonus skills seems lacking in "umph," though a recall knowledge feature would make a BIG difference for the feel of knowing your enemy and how to take advantage of their weaknesses. I do appreciate letting any attribute being a casting stat as that plays for more character ideas, but my concern is ability uniqueness. I can already see a combo of being a might based caster, grabbing heavy armor with charisma being the 2ndary stat and tanking, smashing, talking, or magicking out of just about every scenario.
So essentially how you balance social mechanics will be key to determining if charisma is too strong or not.
Character building with DC20 is going to be a blast. Can't wait to get ancestor stats with these new stats and get crunchy with the builds!
A quick first impression thought. Charisma doesn't seem lacking much at all, especially since in DC 20 you can pick any attribute as your prime modifier for attack rolls which would then make it a huge benefit to combat. Grit does sound like a fun mechanic of being able to help your allies and the more charismatic characters can help more effectively, but having yet another resource pool of points to track is going to be difficult for players to remember. Especially if you are tracking mana, possibly stamina from a multi-class, and arcane points from a wizard class.... It gets to be a bit too much to track effectively.
Perhaps there's a way to include a similar benefit to grit without players doing more bookkeeping? For example adding your charisma to your help actions bonus and adjusting the bonus to whatever balance is needed? That way Charisma contributes similar to Might contributing to health without having to do more bookkeeping.
Keep up the good work!!
Edit: Charisma can really affect all pillars of play as is. You could possibly save hours of exploration and research time by sweet talking the right person.
Combat: with a good enough intimidation check, you could get almost the equivalent effect of a no cost 5E Mass Suggestion spell to scare away a group of bandits (as an example) because your fierce presence was enough to scare them off, thereby avoiding combat completely.
This is coming from playing in a 5e game with a couple hex blade warlocks where you really see how nearly OP Charisma can be if it is your attack modifier as well as your go-to in all sorts of social scenarios. 😅
I don't know about that Grit mechanic, it feels like I just got another resource to manage in my character sheet and since Grit only comes up during combat we already have a similar mechanic which is the Gaining Advantage Action, it ends up feeling a bit redundant to me having two resources that do essentially the same thing. BUT, instead... what if characters could add their CHA to the Help Action Die, that way characters with high CHA would fill a supportive role in combat more efficiently (and MAYBE, just like the other Attributes, if you dump Charisma it would subtract from your Help Die). I think that fits the fantasy of a charismatic PC being a great "helper" in combat.
Btw love DC 20, pls come to Brasil
I’m super excited for DC20!
okay, that Charisma update in a way to help roleplay during combat is really cool. A Charisma-based Fighter issuing orders. A Charisma-based Barbarian with maybe little bit of a "contagious" rage.
I find that often people are either thoughtful or captivating. Not you, though :) I am very impressed with how you capture the audience without saying anything dumb!
I was a bit apprehensive at first based on the initial goal of "make each stat good at each thing" because i was worried about it removing opportunity cost. however I saw the approach and now I'm seeing the vision. each stat having its own unique way to interact with each pillar is incredible. I know that this might even impact group decisions at character creation which is awesome (my table is optimizers)
dude, you're so excited about all the new developments! I can only imagine what brainstorming sessions are like at WotC. Really looking forward to full release.
I'm pretty happy with how this has turned out.
Hey Coach! I just became aware of you today and have rapidly gotten super psyched about DC20!
Anyway, regarding Charisma, or Will, or Spirit, or Presence. Since this is your soul, your force of will, what if it is somehow connected to death or death saves, or perhaps spell duels.
When I hear you talk about Charisma, it is clear that you envision it as the thing that defines a character like Captain America... It is will.
When you talk about grit, I can see Cap looking over to his companions and inspiring them to push on. Additionally, the whole "I can do this all day" spirit is part of that force of will. Even if his body is broken, his spirit will push on. I just wonder if it would make sense to have that reflected in death mechanics in some way.
Anyway, love the work you are doing, and excited to keep learning more about this system. It is like a dream list of all the homebrews I've tried to make in the past to pathfinder 1e and d&d 5e wrapped in a whole shiny new system.
I like the new changes
Could you have more drawbacks for low AGI for heavy armor users.
Low AGI (
I see you're point, but keep in mind, with low AGI your agility saving throws will suck AND your acrobatics, stealth, and trickery will suck even more on top having disadvantage due to your heavy armor. (Stealth, in particular, is VERY useful skill that you would suck horribly at.) I don't think additional drawbacks to low AGI need to be added, even with heavy armor.
As for cantrips "solving" the loss of ranged weapons, I don't think it does. ONE: you'll have to spend a talent to gain cantrips as a martial, so it won't come for free. TWO: In general, DC20 ranged weapons aren't overshadowed by blasting cantrips (unlike 5e). Fire bolt is only 50 ft range, contested by a longbow's 150 ft range. In DC20, you can't really be a "spell sniper" like you can in 5e.
But yeah, at first, I agreed with you on this point, but the more I think about it, the more I like AGI as is.
@@subterranean327 thanks for the well put together counter point.
@@marcusuchytil287 No problem. I had the same thoughts at first!
I think you could make grit a base stat so that -ve charisma takes away a stat, this is basically a hero coin or luck token mechanic that lots of other trad games have.
Can you make a series of videos for making your own ttrpg game because you inspired me and it would be awesome learning from you
I just had a thought. Maybe Wisdom would be better suited to this system than charisma. Since charisma causes the social parts of the game to warp around it being THE social ability score, causing other players to be left out during social encounters for the one with high charisma. I could see the skills for charisma being spread out among the other ability scores as well. Intimidation could be might, persuasion could be wisdom, and deception could be intelligence.
Edit; just looked through the skills for DC20 properly and it seems they've been distributed well so far. Great work on this sytem!
Really like the introduction of Grit... From playing in games like Warhammer Fantasy (where you have Fate Points granting limited rerolls [I think... been awhile]) and World of Darkness (where you have Willpower to get bonus dice), I've always wanted something in D&D that could reflect "I'm Trying Extra Hard here!"
The thing I question though, is having it tied strictly to combat... If you're trying to convince the King that you shouldn't be bound in irons, or are desperately trying to pick the lock on someone's manacles right before the guards storm around the corner.... You're not in combat, but wouldn't it be nice if you could put that little bit of extra Focus and Grit into those actions..??
I was puzzled thinking that I've already seen this video... Then I realized I've got this info on the live =D
I like the adjustments, especially in highlighting how all attributes can help in combat. However, there's a good argument that all the attributes can help in social situations. In the real world, any attribute that the surrounding society values makes people celebrities and deferred to. People will be drawn to athletes and actors and Uber geeks depending on how extraordinary they are known to be. Charisma helps, but we all know people who can't talk their way out of a paper bag but are practically worshiped because of an unrelated talent.
I've been building my own RPG as well, just to see if I could. Feel free to use any of this as inspiration if it helps: I found that besides constitution which I got rid of, the other attributes were all useful in social or exploration encounters to some extent, so the issue was making everything useful in combat. I stirred the classic 6 attributes around and ended up with 6 slightly different ones:
-physicality, which encompasses strength, endurance, and athleticism, and gives HP
-finesse, which encompasses physical coordination, and gives AC.
-intelligence stayed the same and gives focus, which is a near-universal resource for abilities.
-perception which encompasses reaction speed, awareness, and insight and gives you an initiative bonus.
-conviction which encompasses your ability to communicate and persuade emotionally, as well as endure hardship and fear, and gives you better recovery of HP and focus during short rests or when "rallying" in combat. (I really like the term "Conviction" over charisma.)
-subtlety, which encompasses your ability to physically hide, to lie, and to suppress or fake emotions, and gives you a higher stealth score.
There are weapons that use different attributes for their attack modifier, and sometimes you can choose between several; you can wield a small crossbow equally well with high finesse, perception, or subtlety for example. A simple enough weapon can be used with any attribute.
I don't know about balance wise but thematically it would be cool if grit points could cause disadvantage on saves to opposed enemies. Like how a fighter is getting into the head of the enemy by taunting leaving an opening. Maybe better as feat?
I love all of this so much! Instantly in my top 3 favorite things about this system.
I love grit so much. However one concern I have is it doesn't seem to have any penalty for having negative charisma.
Negative might means you have less health,
negative Agility means less Armor,
negative INT means less skills.
But negative CHA is not really any different than 0 CHA.
But im not sure it's such a big deal that it needs to be all reworked to fix it
You want to fix Charisma? Simple. Remove it from the game.
Charisma has a stranglehold on the social pillar. Remove it and keep intelligence, awareness and willpower, and have all social skills be usable with either of the three, depending on your approach
My system has the same four attributes and Health has two pools (HP and XP). XP is 10x your character level so even characters with low mighty have a good amount of health
Mighty -> Modifies your HP and AC
Dex -> Modifies your movement and number of actions (2 + dex -> max 4 actions)
Inteligence -> Modifies your Power points (mana, stamina, ki...whatever you name it) and you focus (+1d6 on a ability roll)
Will -> Modifies your Heroes points (ability to come back to life when knocked down in combat) and the number of short rests you can make
It's pretty close to your ideas, so i know its a good path to follow!
Keep making it KISS (Keep it simple stupid), I like the changes. Giving not combat stats a way to shine is important.
Well shit. Before christmas I didnt even knew you. Now everytime I see one of your videos pop out I'm scared haha. Been building my system for a year but with each video I feel like I should just have waited for DC20 rather than having a headache thinking it out lol. Guess its normal since I wanted it to be logical to a ttrpg newbie and easy to grasp for my dyslexic friends (which is as much a good news than a bad I suppose)
I also divided my attributes into Cons, agility, wisdom and Confidence with an energy pool which was common to every archetype so that a caster could use his endurance/coordination to cast or a fighter could use his perception or presence skill as a bonus to his attacks. Evasion for agility and additional armor reduction for Constitution rather than direct HP.
A hope-stress mechanic for Confidence for which the save stat was named "Will" to be used as bardlike inspiration (while my bards give advantage (so it feels like the reverse of yours now)) and a relationship-inspiration system to give bonus to saves against the dying/exhausted conditions if the player engaged into developped relationships with other characters and npcs.. Intelligence was either put into wisdom where mind was used to resist to madness points (for Lovecraftian horror themed monsters/campaigns) or into a knowledge stat which is determined like other attributes but is not in competition with them when determining their value because I dont think Knowledge should be contrary to physical stats, we all know things, they are just parts of diverse fields of knowledges. It worked separately and gave you, along with your Background, a additional number of practices as well (which I suppose are the trades you're talking about, I didnt check your system that much, but your channel has been all over my youtube recently)
At least my system is still mostly class-free (making it so that you can build a traditional class by mixing several techtrees but are not limited to traditional classes, a bit more like GURP I suppose but in user friendly mode.
Wow! I love this! Apparently, we’re really synced up! 💜
Yeah its a great feedback to have confirmation that the ideas I came up with are not that weird haha@@TheDungeonCoach I'm very excited to see how you will continue developping DC20 (Still hope mine wont look too much alike though haha, would feel a bit disappointing for me to spend so much free time on it while something similar has been worked on by a pro, but mine will be in french however 😅)
You could make Charisma more like a Wit: Knowing how to get things to go your way, or figuring out something you don’t actually know.
There is another point where the attributes may matter. Recruiting NPC allies in larger expeditions and mass combat. Each attribute might boost the number and quality or type of NPC acquired. Most over look mass combat and end up adding it as a 1 page deal with little detail. Race, charisma, religious or military orders and rank al could play a part in rallying the town to stand with you against the zombies. I could also see additional spells that are only available when working with NPC helpers that don't count to the spell or skill limit. I recommend you think of that early.
Epic updates! My only small concern is that casters will try to minmax by gaining mastery in Heavy Armor as quickly as possible (thus eliminating the need for agility instead of pure strength).
Looking forward to all these changes. I think the grit mechanic will be a nice addition to the game.
"We will escape this place on Wings of Will" - Githyanki Captain, engaging in psionic battle to escape an Illithid colony in the Underdark near the Drow city of Ust Natha.
I must say: Until now I am really impressed with DC20. The only thing I am currently not fine with, and that might be because I didnt have the chance to playtest it yet, is the Armor class formula. It seems to me that adding half your level to AC pushes it too far. Everything else, especially the Charisma changes in this video I really love. I am looking forward to 0.6 Alpha.
I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of having a new resource to track. Also, while grit not being exactly the same mechanic as bards/warlords, it's still close enought, and in some cases, even better, given how a double d20 roll tends to give better results than just adding the avg value of a d6 or d8.
I think it would be better if charisma just interact with an already existing mechanic, instead of creating an entire new one to give more use to it, thus bloating the system. I'm loving how DC20 is taking the best of D&D 5e and PF 2e, but in a much more streamlined and, why not, elegant fashion, and that's why I'd make me pretty sad if the game become the same mass bloat of these bigger systems.
@zionich 's suggestion of just adding/subtracting charisma to the help action rolls would make more sense. To make up for it, bards/warlords could have a feature where they change it to add their prime attribute instead, showing their mastering in boosting the resolve of their allies.
After reading through some of the comments, I gotta say, I like the idea of adding charisma to help die more, since its allows for less tracking, and wont allow a Charisma party of four to have advantage on 12 saves per day, making it less of a min/maxing option. So a Charisma character would benefit more from using the help action on party members more than anyone else, giving them a reasonable boost in combat. However, please dont make it so you have to add your negative bonus to help die, that completely destories their purpose for low cha characters, making them unable to fully cooperate with others (and would also mean you *have to have at least 0 in Charisma).
I also agree with the fact that Chraisma is pretty powerful already, since it has the power to rally troupes, deceive the party's way through the BBEG's lair, and fixing so many problems just by persuading the right person.
As for saving throws, you can make it so the help action can be used on saving throws as well, however, a character can only have one help die to their saving throws at all times. Maybe bards and warlords also the ability to buff saving throws in a limited manner with their class features (like bard used to be able to do in dnd)
Some of the problems that come from attributes is where some are essentially "super stats" eg. Dex in DnD 5e, and then each class typically only focuses on how one attribute is important. Each attribute should have a relevant influence to how it works for each class. Maybe Int for fighters allows for more maneuvers or charisma can inspire others with their successful actions that gives a bonus to hit enemy targets next to him. However this does make everything more complicated for character creation but more interesting for each attribute.
So what are the RP aspects for Might / Agility? I see things tied into combat and exploration with HP/skills/saves, but nothing on the RP side. Unless I missed something.
Also, a Might Bard just flexes to inspire you.
Intimidation is a Might skill, and Trickery is an Agility skill. Both have potential RP uses.
I love it❤. I dont think its overpowered, though if people find it too overpowered you could nerf it to advantage to mental saves only.
I like this because there's really no dump stats. Every stat means something and it's a choice to either pump it up or to ignore it. With that said, rename Charisma. I vote for Presence.
My big concerns:
1. Grit should go negative.
One issue i have with Grit is that there is very little incentive to ever take Charisma if you have a negative number. If i have -2 Charisma i would have to spend 3 points before get a single improvement for my Grit, so i would never do it. One solution would be to have other ways to generate Grit, meaning that someone with negative value wouldn't profit from these ways at all unless they generate a lot of them (which shouldn't be possible). But now if you go from -1 to a 0, you only need to generate 1 Grit to use it.
2. Agility doesn't translate into a stat like the rest.
Agility being the only Attribute not translating directly into a numerical value (Health, Skill Points, Grit) feels odd. Maybe it is time to reevaluate Agility influencing speed, 1 additional (or fewer) Space per Agility.
The idea of a martial class taking a dip into casting and, being a martial class, not learning the refined\proper way to do it (At first, or at all) and instead focusing on the quick, dirty, more physically demanding\draining methods of casting because "F- It, I can..." really appeals to me. Just the Wizard looking on in horror as the fighter does the exact thing he was always taught not to because the physical strain could kill you and the fighter is just eating that strain and saying shit like "I strangled an Ogre, I think I got this..."
The opportunities for flavour are AWESOME.
I like the basic idea of grit, but I'm not sure about advantage because it runs the risk of frequently not changing the outcome. We've all had advantage only to have the second die be lower than the first. It doesn't feel great, especially if it's tied to such a limited resource
My suggestion is to allow them to add a grit/help die to the save after the initial roll but before knowing the result. That way it would never feel wasted and be more likely to create a cool moment
I suggest changing Charisma to Passion and Intelligence to Mind, making it nicer to type and everything feel unique
I personally feel like either low charisma should also get a negative or just remove the negatives of all negative attributes. Because right now charisma is the only stat not being punished for being low, which I don't enjoy personally I feel like a negative score should actually hinder you in a meaningfull way which the other attributes do.
While I do enjoy the concept you are going for with charisma, the elegance of DC20 is that is doesn't have that many things to track, unlike dnd which has tons of limited uses spellslots PF times per day and so on. Thus adding grit as a point system doesn't really fit well imo. How about having charisma be used by allowing you to use a reaction to add it to an allies saving throw, this way it supports teamwork is less powerfull and is no longer a resource needed to be tracked, maybe if it's to powerfull make it so that a creature can only be affected like this once per day. This way stacking a bunch of charisma based players doesn't massivly boost saving throw prowess.
Grit is pretty good, I really love the concept, and I think its perfect for charisma based characters, I can really see a Charisma Sorcerer pushing themselves to the limit with grit so they can stay in the battlefield and help their friends win the fight
...but I can only think of an all Charisma party with the ability to give advantage to 12 saves >_>'
unless that is intentional or not considered broken in the system, I will be worried about that bit
Advantage isn’t that big of a deal when you have no points in the save attribute the game is attacking XD
I beg to differ, it can literally be the difference between life and death, especially in the early game
and what about attributes that you *do* have a save in? those get a big boost as well
sure you are getting like a + 3 to +5 or something to your rolls but youat still means its basically 50-50 in hard to do stuff@@ryen0262
Will Grit points be tracked right underneath rest points? I don't know what else to track underneath that section.
Charisma grit points is good ol' Steve Rogers, "I can do this all day" as he gets up, brushes away the dust and wipes the drop of blood.
I think might should give 2 health per point instead of one, so it's more valuable to non-heavy armour wearers and so health differences between players can be more varied. I also like the concept of grit, but I feel it's a bit undermined by the ability to give advantage so easily by spending AP. Perhaps if grit had other uses, it would be more valuable.
About carisma do you know the guardian of ga'hoole? There is a character called Twilight. He goes into war singing and thereby distracts his enemys.
So I would love to see the carisma grid feature to give disadvantage to an enemy for an Anttack. This might be op though. If so i would suggest to give disadvantage to a save of an enemy.
Dude, you've unlocked so many of my childhood memories!
Twilight is my boy, and I love him so much!
Hell yea, charge into a battle with a burning morningstar,... singing @@calebfasnacht8698 🔥
Love it all! Question....
Can you use STR or DEX to escape a grapple?
If so, you might update your attribute list for STR to ""Grapple and escape grapple"
Athletics (MIG) or Acrobatics (AGI) can be used to escape a grapple
I have the earlier version. How do I get the up dates. Should I be checking for an missed email?
These changes will be in 0.6 which hasn't been released yet.
This is why my homebrew game is skill based, I found ability scores/attributes dont really add much to play. Did you consider not having them at all during development? Why did you keep them? I dont know if you've answered this in a previous video
Love Grit, simple thing that just bumps up the flavor of Charisma.
Hi Dungeon Coach,
I’m curious what are the four characters that you’ve kept making to test rules? Are they based on the four attributes? I’m thinking the INT fighter, the CHR barbarian, the MGT Mage, and the AGL Cleric?
What happens when you increase your intelligence in DC20. Do you get another skill point?
Correct!
Is there might based scald bard, or I just can multiclass?
What if your charisma is negative? Are there negative grit points?
Do we have a release date for .6 yet?
Get back up with grit sounds like a reroll. You might soften your stance there.
Hey Coach. I thougt a lot about this change and i think Agility is to weak in the moment and some Stats gif you more penalty if you dump them
So waht i would propose as a nice meant criticism is:
Migth give Extra HP
Agility give extra PD even Havy Armor but halved bonus/malus )
Int give more Skills
Carisma give Gritpoints
And there are two options
All Stats give Minus if there negative or non of them give mali
If you haven’t a idea for negative Grit points just give 2 Grit points at 0 Carisma as base.
I really hope this comment inspired you then irealy think this would put Agility back up with the rest of the Stats
Its clear if you would change that only Agility give Bonus to PD (half for Havy Armor) you also woud need to change the armor. But its simpel.
You would need master and Grandmaster Armor. And
The scailing from Havy Armor need to increase faster
Lv Ligth Havy
Novice 1. 2
Advance 2. 4
Expert. 3. 5
Master. 4. 7
Grandmaster 5. 8
So on each lv if you Prime Mod is Agility and you have the best Armor you can use you have would have same PD
So the price for max PD with maxArmor PDR you would need Agility as prime and the Migth requiredment.
Hey maybe one of the people who's played tested can help get me sorted. I'll ne running a game for the first time in a week and I'm really trying to finlgure out when you'd vall for a physical vsartial check as they both can use agility or might?
Hey there!
Physical checks are more so a category of check and not something you’d call for “make a physical check”
Martial Check is for when either Athletics or Acrovatics would be appropriate 👍🏼
@TheDungeonCoach interesting 🤔. Thanks for clearing that up. I am so excited to try out dc20 it fits right where I wish most other ttrpgs were. Avoids crunch and so much rallying and tables but fairly straightforward. Can't wait to see how it plays
If a character has strength as a dump stat (-2), will they ever get more health?
Let's say they're a caster with no buff from ancestry/race.
Every level they get +2 HP which is then negated by the -2.
Can you have a level 10 character with 5 health?
I feel like Intelligence still might be lacking a little in combat? Maybe that's just me, not sure how much skills are used directly in combat.
I'm not into abstract resources and gamey mechanics, so in my classless, skill-based homebrew system, intelligence allows you to get extra experience in knowledge-based skills, and charisma is the same but with social skills. I'm OK with attributes not having an impact on every single aspect of the game.
Shouldn't Charisma be called Willpower at this point? It would make more sense flavour-wise and allow you to do more stuff with it (you can tie it to mana/stamina, etc.).
Honestly? I think my only complaint about DC20 is the stat merging (as in Intelligence and Wisdom were merged and so were strength and constitution). I’m sure many people will disagree with me but I think I would still prefer if at least Intelligence and Wisdom were separate.
When launch?
Has anyone mentioned that grit is yet another resource to track?
The only big question I have. Does barbarian rage prevent spell casting? Lol
Have you think about renaming "charisma" to "will"?
Did I miss the email? Is this out now or coming out?
Every negative attribute detracts from the thing it influences... Maybe negative grit should be the game master imposing disadvantage on a save.
It seems a little backwards to go from making might and agility more unique from each other and used for different features rather than both or either contribute to health (yeah agility does contributes to protection but thats a different resource than health), while simultaneously making intelligence and charisma more like each other and the best one is used for mana. This makes the decision to prioritize one stat over the others less meaningful. This is also why I don't enjoy why so many features rely on the prime modifier, don't get me wrong, I still love that it's there, but I think it's overused a tad, meaning no matter what decision you make, you're just good at a lot of stuff, rather than relying on teammates dynamically because everyone has specialized into different attributes which contribute to different features. At the moment, I still see intelligence as way more beneficial than Charisma. I'd rather see this reverted to Charisma only contributing to mana. Though, I am just now delving into DC20. Really like nearly everything in this system and love your passion for this project.
Charisma I'm combat = very good as most classes keyed off charisma key accuracy or damage or both of CHA.. in 5e
Why not just have stats not affect your health and mana? Just give a base for both and then a bonus based on class. Then there’s no issues with how it’s calculated or one stat or the other being too strong
Are you going to do anything to make might and agility better in social encounters?
I don't think they should. Leveling the playfield is good, but if every attribute is equally as good everywhere then there's no flavour in anything.
I want some to shine in some areas and some to shine in others, while being somewhat relevant in ALL. I think me moving Intimidation over to might, gives Might a little bit of love there :) So I feel that its right where I want it currently. I hope that makes sense
Trickery is an Agility skill which can be good in some social encounters
Here is a lot of constructive criticism.
1. Combining agility and light or any form of armor makes no sense. Agility is needed to dodge attacks, while the job of every armor is to absorb attacks that hit you. Agility should be part of a dodge stat while armor should reduce damage from hits.
2. Skills: Drop them. I think it's more intuitive if PCs had all the abilities their backstory suggests. A rogue who grew up on a farm and has learned to be a blacksmith should have all the skills such a live would give. Stealth, climbing, handling of domestic animals, reading the weather, wood and metal work, and so on. Then let them add some "Interrests" to broaden their characters background and we are good. It would allow more creativity and freedom of which attributes too use.
3. Charisma: Basically everyone sees charisma as social grace and skills, your will/grit think just doesn't fit into that. I would say you rename it into something more vague, like you have combined strength and constitution into might. I would suggest something like spirit, soul, presence, or anima.
It seems as though you want charisma to be a thing... But in trying to make it useful, it's become something else, something different to what charisma generally means...
Maybe you should stop worrying about having something called charisma, and just rename it
I haven't heard of DC20 before. I have some experience with DND. DND has unbalanced ability. Dexterity is used for a lot of stuff. The three mental ability scores are useless in battle most of the time. A caster class gets one of these scores to power their spells. These three are intelligence and wisdom. This video was criticizing charisma for being useless in battle. DND has a solution of bards, warlocks sorcerers and paladins using charisma to boost their spells. Intelligence is the most useless ability score in battle. Wizards are the only main class that uses it for spellcasting. These ability scores are unbalanced.
There ought to be a way to make all ability scores balance and all to be useful for everybody. This video has good ideas. There are methods. I did look into the 4th edition of DND. I didn't get around to playing it yet. This game has individual attacks that are powered by specific ability scores and resisted by specific ability scores. Each class has three they should focus on. There are several kinds of resistances. There is the regular one based on armor. Then there is one for dodging, one for resisting health sapping effects like poison, and one for resisting mental assaults. So each ability score is useful for everyone up to a point. Having all those resistances is nice. It helps one defend against a variety of opponents. One cool thing about 4E is the warlord class. That is a nifty spin on martial classes. I am glad this video acknowledges it. Pokemon is good at making all its stats useful for all fighters. Speed helps a fighter go first in the turn based combat. Hit points increases the fighters health. Attack stats increase damage of moves of the user. Defense stats decrease damage of moves that the user receives. There is a distinction between physical and special. Each gets separate attack and defense. In the earlier generations of Pokemon, each type was considered physical or special. Physical types were the more martial ones, like normal, fighting and poison. Special types were the more magical ones, like ice, electric and fire. In later generations, there was more nuance. Individual attacks counted as physical and special. So one type can have both, although it would focus more on one. I think the flying type is the best example of this nuanced distinction. Physical flying attacks are bird hits, like peck and wing attack. Special flying attacks is air magic like gust and hurricane. This distinction doesn't affect type interactions. Whether it is bird attacks or air magic, a flying attack will still do things like do supereffective damage against grass opponents and do not very effective damage against electric opponents. So each stat does have potential to be helpful. Sometimes competitive players choose to have all damaging moves be either physical or special. In that case an attack stat is useless if it doesn't apply to any of the moves in the moveset. This is a weird quirk in the system. It is probably helpful in creating a dump stat. Then the player can focus more on the Pokemon's strengths.This would benefit walls and supports, which don't rely on offense anyway.
I have thought of ways to make all attributes useful to everybody. I have considered revamping my system. Things are not set in stone yet. There can be an offense attribute like strength or power. There can be a defense attribute like armor or toughness. This essentially replaces the defense of armor pieces. This does happen in Pokemon. It makes sense in context. Pokemon are animals. So they fight naked. So the only defense they get is by their own hide instead of clothing. Interestingly the species with the highest physical defense are those with tough shells and spikes. This seems like a natural built in armor. Examples include Shuckle, Steelix, Aggron and Cloyster. I like to have my fighters be either animals or human magicians. These magicians wear squishy robes, so they don't get defense from clothing. So both of them get a defense attribute built in the fighter. I have thought of some stamina or constitution attribute to increase health. I like to use mana as a resource for magic. I don't like the spell slots of DND. I think it is clunky. So Instead I have a pool of points, called mana. Then casting spells depletes that. There can be an attribute of increasing mana. It can be an endurance attribute. If one wanted an intelligence attribute, this is the best place for it. A smarter fighter can use their mind to gain more magic access. It makes sense. There can be an attribute for speed, dexterity or agility. There are different possibilities, so that is tricky. I have my own spin where a faster fighter can deplete resources more quickly. So this attribute can either deplete the opponent's health or mana. There ought to be two separate attributes for that. I think lowering the opponent's mana is a good use of charisma. I think of charisma and intelligence as being opposites. It is like how the Myer-Briggs has thinking and feeling as opposite traits. The nerd is the prime example of someone with high intelligence and low charisma. The opposite is the social butterfly that isn't good at school and studies. Maybe dexerty is good for lowering opponent health while charisma is good for lowering mana. Maybe the charm of a charisma fighter catches the opponent off guard. So the distraction lowers focus leading to less mana. I was thinking of having a pair of attributes affecting cost of fighters. Yet I think that having separate offense defense attributes can work better. There is one pair for auto attack, which is like a basic melee attack. There is one pair for spells. That can help distinguish melee and ranged fighters. This would be fair if both kinds of attacks for everyone. Everyone can do both an auto attack and a spell attack on their turn. Ranged fighters can do auto attack. They are just bad at it. They are better off staying at a distance. Melee fighters can still do spells. This is spells that enhance melee ability. I like having spell like attacks for melee fighters. I think the melee classes were very lacking in DND. The inclusion of spell-like attacks helps them go on an even playing field. It also helps that several basic spells effects are affected by attributes. This is damage spells, healing spells and melee enhancing effects. This makes the attributes more useful across classes.
Action points, mana points, stamina points, skill points, trade points, grit points....and more. That's a lot of different resource pools to keep track of. Maybe you should change the name of the game to Point Salad the RPG.
Here is my counter points:
1. You only have 3 resources to track
Action Points = your turn of what you do
Stamina OR Mana = resource to empower what you do
Grit Points: situational instances to use on saves
2. Unless you are playing a paladin then you only have me true “resource” to track
3. Overall I don’t think you can say that the other points (skill points, trade points etc) are actual “resources”. By definition they are not. You spend them at character creation and when leveling up.
4. I’d say that Action Point tracking is just managing your turn, and is far easier than DnDs (action, bonus action , reaction, 30ft movement).
I don’t see it as a resource but I can definitely see how someone would.
💜
damn! now there's counter points too? But seriously, I like alot of what you're trying to do with DC20. However, IMO too much customization can be as bad or worse than not enough especially for newer players. Hopefully you'll be able to find a good balance before the game actually launches.@@TheDungeonCoach
The more I hear about this game, the more I know its not for me. I think it comes down to a. trying to think that all attributes should be equally good in all situations, that seems silly while at the same time artificially constraining everything. I dont know...I am sure this will be someone's cup of tea, and there might have been some interesting ideas here but ya, I dont know if I needed an even EASIER version of Dnd 5e...I mean 5e is pretty basic as is...sure its not perfect but people like IC make it seem that its SOOOO complicated when really its just not.
I just wish that there was a more advanced version of 5e coming, something that raised the floor and ceiling a bunch, and made it more customizable. Eh....that's what House Rules and Homebrew are for I suppose. LOL.
Little suggestion since you’re remaking the character sheet. I prefer a (max points) and (points expended) ressource tracker as opposed to a (max points) and (current points) one. The first is just much faster and easier to use and it’s how I like to track everything in dnd. It would be cool if all the resources were changed to a (points expended) system.
I have never heard this request or that someone tracks points in this way! So interesting!!
If the attribute increase is so boring why keep it for humans?
I posted something similar on Treant's last TH-cam on DC20 but I'll repeat here.
I bought the DC20 alpha access because Treantmonk recommended. I generally liked what I saw with the exception of one thing. I do not like how Wisdom was dropped. Outside of roleplaying how do I build a smart character but one who does not know when NOT to do something. Just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you should.
The mechanics as written, unless I grossly misunderstood them, doesn't work that way. The intelligence prime merges them and I think looses something as you strive for simplicity. Personally I would get rid of intelligence, split it for the concept of Mental attributes, and have wisdom and something like Reason/Logic. Charisma should really be broken up too, but I don't mind one. If you were to split it up leave one as Charisma (or Presence if you want to use a difference word) just as is but add something like Manipulation, which is how well you can lie/deceive. There is a natural split between someone who just draws attention, natural magnetic personality as it were, and how well they can lie. This removes raw intelligence and appearance allowing the player to determine that not race, etc.
I find it interesting that you kept physical attributes as two but for simplicity sake merged the mental into one. Just seems to me that either go full bore and have just one prime for Physical , Mental, Social. Then do a specialty of some kind (Might or Agility for Physical) opens up for certain classes. And an option to take a negative to get a bonus into another prime.
To address your 3 parts (combat, exploration, etc. that you used as an example with Charisma) can still be addressed here. Wisdom is waiting for the right moment to strike (combat), Wisdom in exploration is really experience -no you should not pull the lever just because it is there-, Wisdom in interactions is knowing not to ask certain questions.
Just my two cents.
I love hearing peoples perspectives on this, and I'd have to answer this in a longer form livestream type answer than typing it all here. But I do see where you are coming from
@@TheDungeonCoach I know you are on a bit of tight timeline given the details you shared in Treant's interview, but I'd really be interested in seeing your thoughts on the matter in longer form. You may be too far down the path to do anything about it, but it just seems off to me. Maybe you do have the time to try a few others options. Either way love the passion and a lot of what you've presented so far.
Conversely, I do like that attributes were cut. Wisdom was overloaded, and splitting into Intelligence and Charisma was a great way to balance it.
Wisdom completely outshone everything, and leaving it as a dump stat was consistently a massive mistake. There was no real choice if you cared about being effective. Same with Constitution. You had to have both, or you held your team back. Since they had no real choice behind them, I’m glad they’re gone and baked into the other stats in varying degrees. Now EVERY stat is relevant.
Not relevant in EVERY moment. And that’s fine. I think a Grit resource pushes us into the realm of resource bloat.
To YOU, DC20, you already solved the problem of Charisma being useless in combat. My paladin can make Cha his offensive stat, and now he can beat people better by being the handsomest knight around.
Grit is a solution without a problem. If I want to use Charisma more creatively in combat, I can always give a big frightening roar to scar the goblins or bandits away. Or continue a conversation with the big bad’s sidekick as we fight, gradually convincing him that there’s another way to reach his goals.
If I’m picking Charisma as my main stat, and a core part of my character’s premise, I’m not looking for more mechanics. I WANT role playing to be my main tool, convincing my DM with words as much as dice. A Grit mechanic is one more thing I have to track, and that’s not the reason for a charisma character. Intelligence and Agility players are more likely to want all that.
@@curts7801 I've had characters with CON or WIS as dump stats. You make do just and rely on your party a bit more. My low WIS character just stuck real close to the party Paladin with their great aura. I've had STR and DEX dumps stats too. Sure STR is an odd one that you can get away with easily unless you have a DM likes to have characters do a lot of Ath checks cause the dungeons are not easy walking.
I'm not against trimming down, but if you are going to do so do the same of the physical stats -creates an odd breakdown (why there and NOT mental or social breakdowns) Though if DC20 did that I think they should have a prime specialization. Each prime that has a bonus you pick a specialization. Oh I take Physical as my prime +2, I pick Might as my specialization. I get bonuses to health and STR (like) rolls/abilities. I pick Agility I get those bonuses and a bonus to defense. If I go all out and push to get a +3 I get both. On the one where I pick a -1 I pick one of the specializations and I get negative bonuses on top of the already existing -1. Penalties for being really bad at something. That doesn't go away till I increase it.
You should make Grit a core stat solely for the following reason. We'd have Might, Agility, Grit, Intelligence, Charisma, or MAGIC for short.
More bookkeeping AND more combat cruft? No thanks. There's way too much emphasis on combat in modern D&D. Personally, I collapse charisma and wisdom into "sense", so it's a more useful stat.
You can't fix intelligence and charisma with rules.
I'm not saying you can't make it better but you can't fix it.
You either you're clever and have riz, or you aren't and don't.
My simple fix is easy. High mental score characters, are played by the entire table.
That includes me the DM.
Unlike on other players turns, that player can get input from the entire table, while making the ultimate decisions.
I let everybody know how this works before the game starts so they know what they're getting into.
D20 Core System did 💯
@@shamanspointofview8083 Fantastic! I'm between games right now so haven't been following closely. Thanks for the info. 😁
@@jtjames79 the channel for that system is Mystic Portal Emporium, the image is a shield with the eternal Gm on it, and the business image is a magical looking Stargate portal
This is such a bad take. Matt Colville did a video on this a while back that addresses this, basically discussing the difference between game mechanics and roleplay. If you aren’t a charismatic person and want to play a charismatic character, there needs to be a mechanical way to help you achieve that. So that person can roll a persuasion check to achieve success rather than having to come up with the actual words their character says on the fly in order to pass it.
From what you typed, it sounds like at your table if someone has high charisma, the player loses a lot of agency since the entire table gets to dictate what they say or do. To each their own, but I wouldn’t want that at my table.
I'm not going to lie, I hate that a negative intelligence takes from your skills.
Skills are great! They help you shine in non-combat encounters. They make you feel cool and awesome.
"Hey, idiot, you're only good in combat and to do exactly one trick. Outside of that? Sit there and watch everyone else do cool things while you pray to the GM for a combat encounter."
Those are the vibes that I get from this decision.
Even with a -2 in intelligence, you still start with more skill proficiencies than most classes in 5e. It's all perspective.
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