We want something that allows free use of parts of the code, no use of complete code, no use of assets.

Core functionality will be spun out to small libraries whenever possible, which will be MIT.

What questions need to be answered?

1. Does this accurately model the feel of various arenas?
2. Do both ranged and melee characters care about holding the high ground?
3. Are flyers too oppressive in arenas with lots of abrupt edges?
4. Is falling damage tuned appropriately?

What is the minimal viable test for this?

Design standard height-tier arenas to capture common scenarios:

• suspension bridge
• hills and valleys
• canyon
• two-story house with balcony
• warehouse with walkways
• spiralling mountain path
• castle siege with ladders
• tight spiral staircase

Why do we need to know this now?

Powers which create height tiers need to be fun, interesting and balanced.

This is needed to decide the visual style and geometry of the video game.

Essential for thematic + gameplay hooks for players.

• [x] bladesworn
• [x] conduit
• [x] devout
• [x] incarnation
• [ ] inventor
• [x] paragon
• [ ] runescribe
• [ ] runeseeker
• [x] soulbinder
• [x] touched
• [x] trickster
• [x] weaver
• [x] wildshaper

What problem does the current design create?

Is a balance-wise problem, mostly because there are affixes that let you choose any ailments and, as currently, you will always select the most powerful ones and never the others.

What solution would you like?

Buffing or nerfing the ailments to make them more or less on the same level or classifying them into major or minor ailments and use the distiction to balance affixes/features that works for ailments.

What alternative(s) have you considered?

Another solutions could be to avoid affixes/features that let you freely choose the ailment and instead making them fixed (with maybe some exception if you want versatility to be a thing of that particular affix/feature, but still avoid a completely free choice of all the ailments).

User Stories

Select an Action

1. Actor previews actions. This shows, based on the information the actor currently has, what an action might do. This includes reactions that will trigger.
2. Actor picks one of these actions. They select sub-options within it, commonly targets or where to move.
3. Initial effects (e.g. movement, rolling for attack and damage) are added to the stack.
4. Reactions trigger.
5. Other actors decide whether or not to react. Reactions are added to the stack.
6. Reactions resolve from new-to-old. Some effects are modified / rolled back (e.g. Grapple AoOs).
7. Repeat 4-7 until all actions are complete.

Action Planning

1. An AI examines options, from step 1 above, and selects one.
2. They repeatedly simulate how the world might respond, from the user story above.
3. These may be nested to get further look-aheads.
4. They use a learned or built-in heuristic to decide on a course of action based on these results.

Tolerances

• turn-based architecture: many frames between
• AI decision making doesn't need to be particularly clever
• we can share a ton of the code and behavior between players and AI

Constraints

• must use some form of caching: AI use case is very expensive
• must be able to simulate game state
• must be able to advance within a single frame
• must be extremely easy to hook into various parts of this architecture to modify effects with affixes and abilities
• predictions should differ based on available information. Only the internal architecture should have access to the True Predictions

What problem does the current design create?

I'm afraid Expertise could become the dump stat for min-maxers.

What solution would you like?

A solution could be that the number of skills you have is 4+Expertise instead of a fixed 5, so that Expertise feels a little more rewarding.

What problem does the current design create?

Rounding down or reducing by one causes strange edge cases with forced movement.

What solution would you like?

Forced movement reduced by half, rounded up.

What alternative(s) have you considered?

No effect on forced movement.

We want to keep these because they are very cool and thematic, and let you take meaningful drawbacks on your build.

Problems:

• Fast swapping
• Martial/caster division for free points
• Compile-time hard countering

Proposal 1: Restrict by class/species only

• Add class and species restrictions to affixes
• Open question: frontline/backline divide is very fuzzy for many classes. how to handle?
  • Can add stronger restrictions (an affix is only listed for your class if there's no way you can abuse it), but that's lame

Proposal 2: Class talents

• Remove combat talents
• Add class talents: they're like combat talents, but for your class
• Add negative class talents, aka "class drawbacks". Players can opt into these and they cancel out class talents 1:1 (letting you pick more talents)
• Remove any negative affix that isn't a detriment to every build (might be all negative affixes)

Regardless we want:

• Class and species restrictions on affixes as a nice to have. They open up a lot of interesting design space.

What problem does the current design create?

I think that the part "The only time this does not occur is when you gain absorption at a time when it was not your turn, such as when it was received as a boon from an ally" is not worthy the possible confusion that could arise at the table because of it.

What solution would you like?

I would personally remove that phrase but at the same I would make abilities that grant absorption granting more of it and make it disappear at the end of your next turn, not the start.

Species:

• [x] automaton
• [x] awakened
• [x] crystalline
• [x] fae
• [x] fontborn
• [x] human
• [x] reclaimer
• [x] slime
• [x] sylvan
• [x] undead

Classes:

• [x] bladesworn
• [x] conduit
• [x] devout
• [x] incarnation
• [x] paragon
• [x] soulbinder
• [x] touched
• [x] trickster
• [x] weaver
• [x] wildshaper

What problem does the current design create?

Flavorwise, the Fontborn Mutants and Touched share a very similar niche. Why do some creatures who have this happen to them become Touched, and others just Fontborn?

What solution would you like?

1. Replace arms / armor affix species feature + trinket species feature on Fontborn with picking Touched feats.
2. Explain that some Touched are particularly affected Fontborn.

What alternative(s) have you considered?

Cut Fontborn. Force all Touched to be Fontborn species.

Which type of content is this?

• Game system

What's the idea?

• I think the game will benefit a lot from stop being binary on results and introduce instead a four result variability, being it failure, half success, full success and critical success, with a codified list of possibilities for each possibility (instead of being enirely up to the DM). It will make the game much more interesting and each roll exciting without slowing too much the game and being an excessive burden to the DMs.

What problem does the current design create?

Since the rows are so small, it is hard to write the full names and descriptions of the feats in legible handwriting and a lot of unused rows remain, which take up about a fourth of the sheet at higher levels and almost half at lower levels.

What solution would you like?

Having less slots, but allocating more space to each of them.

What alternative(s) have you considered?

Alternatively, Features could be written on separate cards like Actions.

I am procrastinating so hard.

But this is important! Consistency is needed for the sake of going from markdown-to-[csv/xml]! That consistency will be enforced in part by markdown lints.

Yes, that's what I tell myself.

I would like to have more affixes/feats/class feature that interact more with this Actions, otherwise it feels like the "lesser" version of both Block and Dodge

What problem does the current design create?

Since certain categories of monsters (if not all) will not use Essence Points, Focus should influence something else to make the stat be useful for them instead of being only defensive.

What solution would you like?

Honestly I don't know yet, but I read that there is a rule in which Presence will enhance monster attacks when they are nearly dead so maybe something similar?

How exactly do we want this to work? What happened to trinkets? How are consumables going to work?

We need to do another refresh as a team to figure out next steps.