By any chance has anyone played Emberwind (https://www.emberwindgame.com/)? I’ve heard people on other forums describe it as a post-4e tactical rpg with flatter math. Have been wanting a game in that vein and am curious if this is a good take on that...
I have not, but I'm checking out the free preview of the manual now, and I like a lot of what it's doing.
My specific favorite thing is that while it has an alternate ruleset for traditional stats available, the way it's set up as default is to pick adjectives that describe your character, and those will give you different bonuses based on what tier/level you are. Being able to say that you are Precise, Evasive, and Deadly is way better than something like having 16 Dexterity.
Anyways, overall it does look like a more ironed out and simplified 4E, and I'm definitely interested in it in that respect. I'm not personally in love with it flavorwise, but in the same way that I've fallen out of love with D&D flavorwise. I will say that the classes feel nice and focused in their actions and roles from what I can see, and it looks like there are two different versions of the warlord available, so it's doing something right at least.
tbh i've never been sold on psionics as particularly interesting or meaningfully different from arcane magic
They aren't, it's all flavor.
The reason they keep running into problems with psionics is because other than just reskinning/augmenting current magic/classes you get stuck trying to reinvent the wheel on everything. Basically you no matter what end up having to redesign the fireball spell to both be as effective as the current fireball spell but different enough that folks don't recognize that it's just fireball dressed differently and with the math obfuscated. It's a process that can only result in breakage.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
tbh i've never been sold on psionics as particularly interesting or meaningfully different from arcane magic
The problem is that the areas where you could get meaningful mechanical distinctions between psionics users and magic users (requirements of material/somatic/verbal components, power source) require you to be so fiddly that it's just not fun and isn't handled well by the system because it's way more detail than 99.9% of players want. So it ends up just being flavor.
That said, I think you can make the same argument for Divine characters as well.
Divine Magic and Arcane Magic have some well-defined niches that distinguish them well enough. To carve out a similar niche for traditional Psionic powers, you'd probably have to do something like gut the Enchantment and Illusion schools for Wizards, so Psi could have the best Mind Control schtick, then leave things like pyrokinesis and telekinesis as overlap areas.
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yeah I think the reason that psionics isn't meaningfully different is because it's tacked on
If you had a psion as a core class for a new edition, things would feel different
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Psionics should be Sorcerers
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Divine Magic and Arcane Magic have some well-defined niches that distinguish them well enough. To carve out a similar niche for traditional Psionic powers, you'd probably have to do something like gut the Enchantment and Illusion schools for Wizards, so Psi could have the best Mind Control schtick, then leave things like pyrokinesis and telekinesis as overlap areas.
I dig this idea, since wizards getting mind-reading and other mentalish spells always felt a bit off-brand to me anyway.
In other systems I’m all for narrow focused playbooks/classes, but honestly in D&D 5e sub-classes for the existing core classes are all you need to express a particular idea.
You could easily make a psion sub-class for every class, but particularly monk, warlock and sorcerer.
Endless_Serpents on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I feel like shrugging and just giving wizards everything is the source of like 30% of D&D's problems and it doesn't reflect D&D's actual source material that well
like psychic magic is absolutely a thing in pulp sword and sorcery (like James Earl Jones trying to hypnotize Arnold in Conan) but the guys who do that aren't Gandalfs with pointy hats and staffs and big books, they're more like sorcerors or dark priests or whatever
I actually like the idea that Wizards are better at actual illusion magic, that is making things look like their there but not. The illusion looks like it is there even if there are no observers.
A psion might make you think something is there but they need a mind to fool and they're more individualized. So even something like Minor Image-ing a street sign would be harder for them if they wanted a large group to see it.
Charm effects are tougher but I'd probably push wizarding towards more legalistic bindings and give psions an easier time with intent based things. That sorta screws Enchanters a bit though.
I feel like shrugging and just giving wizards everything is the source of like 30% of D&D's problems and it doesn't reflect D&D's actual source material that well
like psychic magic is absolutely a thing in pulp sword and sorcery (like James Earl Jones trying to hypnotize Arnold in Conan) but the guys who do that aren't Gandalfs with pointy hats and staffs and big books, they're more like sorcerors or dark priests or whatever
right so obviously there should be separate gandalf and conan-antagonist wizard classes, just 30 different iterations of the wizard class
BahamutZERO on
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I feel like shrugging and just giving wizards everything is the source of like 30% of D&D's problems and it doesn't reflect D&D's actual source material that well
like psychic magic is absolutely a thing in pulp sword and sorcery (like James Earl Jones trying to hypnotize Arnold in Conan) but the guys who do that aren't Gandalfs with pointy hats and staffs and big books, they're more like sorcerors or dark priests or whatever
right so obviously there should be separate gandalf and conan-antagonist wizard classes, just 30 different iterations of the wizard class
I feel like shrugging and just giving wizards everything is the source of like 30% of D&D's problems and it doesn't reflect D&D's actual source material that well
like psychic magic is absolutely a thing in pulp sword and sorcery (like James Earl Jones trying to hypnotize Arnold in Conan) but the guys who do that aren't Gandalfs with pointy hats and staffs and big books, they're more like sorcerors or dark priests or whatever
right so obviously there should be separate gandalf and conan-antagonist wizard classes, just 30 different iterations of the wizard class
Oh you mean 5E?
sure, along with the 5 versions of "person who fights good"
By any chance has anyone played Emberwind (https://www.emberwindgame.com/)? I’ve heard people on other forums describe it as a post-4e tactical rpg with flatter math. Have been wanting a game in that vein and am curious if this is a good take on that...
I have not, but I'm checking out the free preview of the manual now, and I like a lot of what it's doing.
My specific favorite thing is that while it has an alternate ruleset for traditional stats available, the way it's set up as default is to pick adjectives that describe your character, and those will give you different bonuses based on what tier/level you are. Being able to say that you are Precise, Evasive, and Deadly is way better than something like having 16 Dexterity.
Anyways, overall it does look like a more ironed out and simplified 4E, and I'm definitely interested in it in that respect. I'm not personally in love with it flavorwise, but in the same way that I've fallen out of love with D&D flavorwise. I will say that the classes feel nice and focused in their actions and roles from what I can see, and it looks like there are two different versions of the warlord available, so it's doing something right at least.
Reading some more of this, I've moved on to the sample combat rules.
Combat is crunchy, but it does appear to be fairly regimented in its crunchiness. You have four action points a round, and different actions require different amounts of action points (fast 1, slow 2, free 0 appears to be the split). It seems like a lot of action points at first, but then you get stuff like slow abilities (so already using 2 action points) that you can add an additional effect to with a fast action.
There's a neat penetration threshold rule for your attacks that I'm pretty fond of, kind of turns it into a more variable effect thing. As far as I can tell you have an accuracy score (fairly high, roll under to hit), a crit score (very low, roll under to crit), and a penetration score, which is somewhere in the middle and if you roll under it you get to ignore the enemy's armor. Different abilities modify different scores, so I'm guessing that's where you get some of the split between like, the warrior class and the rogue class.
It looks like it's also doing one of my favorite things, in that foes do not roll in combat - it's an attack roll to hit them, but a defense roll to avoid being hit. There's only two defenses though, dodge and willpower, which makes things pretty easy there.
There's also some stuff that looks Agon reminiscent about how the storyteller has a cache of narrative points that they can spend to make foes stronger or change the way that combat works, but that was a bit hard to suss out from the preview documents. I think this is partially because there's a way to run this game sans-storyteller? Like, fully automated enemy encounters?
Straightzi on
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
By any chance has anyone played Emberwind (https://www.emberwindgame.com/)? I’ve heard people on other forums describe it as a post-4e tactical rpg with flatter math. Have been wanting a game in that vein and am curious if this is a good take on that...
I have not, but I'm checking out the free preview of the manual now, and I like a lot of what it's doing.
My specific favorite thing is that while it has an alternate ruleset for traditional stats available, the way it's set up as default is to pick adjectives that describe your character, and those will give you different bonuses based on what tier/level you are. Being able to say that you are Precise, Evasive, and Deadly is way better than something like having 16 Dexterity.
Anyways, overall it does look like a more ironed out and simplified 4E, and I'm definitely interested in it in that respect. I'm not personally in love with it flavorwise, but in the same way that I've fallen out of love with D&D flavorwise. I will say that the classes feel nice and focused in their actions and roles from what I can see, and it looks like there are two different versions of the warlord available, so it's doing something right at least.
Reading some more of this, I've moved on to the sample combat rules.
Combat is crunchy, but it does appear to be fairly regimented in its crunchiness. You have four action points a round, and different actions require different amounts of action points (fast 1, slow 2, free 0 appears to be the split). It seems like a lot of action points at first, but then you get stuff like slow abilities (so already using 2 action points) that you can add an additional effect to with a fast action.
There's a neat penetration threshold rule for your attacks that I'm pretty fond of, kind of turns it into a more variable effect thing. As far as I can tell you have an accuracy score (fairly high, roll under to hit), a crit score (very low, roll under to crit), and a penetration score, which is somewhere in the middle and if you roll under it you get to ignore the enemy's armor. Different abilities modify different scores, so I'm guessing that's where you get some of the split between like, the warrior class and the rogue class.
It looks like it's also doing one of my favorite things, in that foes do not roll in combat - it's an attack roll to hit them, but a defense roll to avoid being hit. There's only two defenses though, dodge and willpower, which makes things pretty easy there.
There's also some stuff that looks Agon reminiscent about how the storyteller has a cache of narrative points that they can spend to make foes stronger or change the way that combat works, but that was a bit hard to suss out from the preview documents. I think this is partially because there's a way to run this game sans-storyteller? Like, fully automated enemy encounters?
Thanks for taking a Look at it! Sounds like it will scratch the crunchy tactical fantasy game itch well, especially given that they have DM-less CYOA campaigns to help everyone pick up the rules before starting a ‘real’ campaign.
Bard College of Dreams
Wizard School of Illusion
Monk Path of Mental Perfection
Druid Circle of Foresight Brainbarians
4e slotting monks into psionic was actually a strong thematic choice.
It's a great idea if you use psionics as a sort of magic that acts as an extension of the user's will but can't just straight up create something from nothing.
I know a lot of people are attached to the different schools of magic for wizards but I'd rather it was scaled back a bit.
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
wizard- classic beard and pointy hat wizard
psion- bald with forehead tattoo wizard
sorceror- sexy wizard
Bard College of Dreams
Wizard School of Illusion
Monk Path of Mental Perfection
Druid Circle of Foresight Brainbarians
4e slotting monks into psionic was actually a strong thematic choice.
It's a great idea if you use psionics as a sort of magic that acts as an extension of the user's will but can't just straight up create something from nothing.
I know a lot of people are attached to the different schools of magic for wizards but I'd rather it was scaled back a bit.
Hmm it would be interesting to break wizards up a bit, make the magic classes a bit more focused. Might have to mess with that. A lot of work though, thats for sure.
When you say "more like 3.5," do you mean in terms of class complexity and systems design, or fiddly bullshit?
A little from column A, a little from column B.
It definitely feels to me like "4E retroclone written by PF designers". So it has classes that are very similar to 4E, a lot of general design themes and intent of 4E, but it also has a lot of both feelings inherited from PF as well.
(I feel like 4E had plenty of fiddly bullshit on its own. PF2 definitely is high in that category, but I don't feel like 4E was significantly lower than 3.5 in that regard, so it's unsurprising to me that the game which draws from both editions has a lot of it going on.)
tbh i've never been sold on psionics as particularly interesting or meaningfully different from arcane magic
I think the problem that I have with the 5E attempts at psionics is that the 5E designers agree with you, and I don't.
For me personally, there's two things going on. First is that I believe firmly as a game design rule that if you're going to make something significantly different and unique in the narrative, then it should be different in the mechanics, and vice versa; if it uses the same mechanics, it should be the same narratively. Reflavoring is fine and great but that's something that should be being done on a table-by-table basis. (Abstraction is different from what I'm talking about here. If you say that all melee weapons of a certain size do the same damage, that's fine, because "melee weapons of a certain size" is just an abstracted the-same-thing. You're always using a weapon.)
Second is that I do have a strong conception of what psionics is and how it differs from magic. The easiest way to explain it is to use power source terminology.
Arcane characters draw on power from outside the world.
Divine characters draw on the power of gods; the exact details of what this means varies by campaign setting.
Primal characters draw on the power of the natural world.
Psionic characters draw on the power inside them.
(Incidentally, this does mean I am happy to view monks as psionic characters. Sorcerers are still arcane because most of their power is still external, if they have an inherited power source it's just the catalyst for their ability to draw on power. It also means I'm unhappy with the druid and ranger spellcasting being identical to other spellcasters, because that means they can't actually add a real primal spellcaster without obviating the existing classes. I don't really like spellcasting rangers anyway, but that's a topic for another cloud yelling session.)
Fuck yeah, our DM just messaged our group and said we received enough XP to reach level 4. My necromancer is getting closer to finally acquiring mindless minions! 🧙♂️
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DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
Fuck yeah, our DM just messaged our group and said we received enough XP to reach level 4. My necromancer is getting closer to finally acquiring mindless minions! 🧙♂️
I think the big issue with Psionics in DnD is that 5th edition has made it hugely, abundantly clear that nothing cool can happen without a spell list or a feature limited like it's a spell list.
At the point where your core mechanic and complexity for most classes is their spell list why would psionics be any different?
I decided to have my necromancer learn mage hand and Maximilian's Earthen Grasp. Now all I need is Bigsby's Hand and along with chill touch (which he already knows), he's committing to a "wizard that likes magical hands" theme :rotate:
Posts
I have not, but I'm checking out the free preview of the manual now, and I like a lot of what it's doing.
My specific favorite thing is that while it has an alternate ruleset for traditional stats available, the way it's set up as default is to pick adjectives that describe your character, and those will give you different bonuses based on what tier/level you are. Being able to say that you are Precise, Evasive, and Deadly is way better than something like having 16 Dexterity.
Anyways, overall it does look like a more ironed out and simplified 4E, and I'm definitely interested in it in that respect. I'm not personally in love with it flavorwise, but in the same way that I've fallen out of love with D&D flavorwise. I will say that the classes feel nice and focused in their actions and roles from what I can see, and it looks like there are two different versions of the warlord available, so it's doing something right at least.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
They aren't, it's all flavor.
The reason they keep running into problems with psionics is because other than just reskinning/augmenting current magic/classes you get stuck trying to reinvent the wheel on everything. Basically you no matter what end up having to redesign the fireball spell to both be as effective as the current fireball spell but different enough that folks don't recognize that it's just fireball dressed differently and with the math obfuscated. It's a process that can only result in breakage.
The problem is that the areas where you could get meaningful mechanical distinctions between psionics users and magic users (requirements of material/somatic/verbal components, power source) require you to be so fiddly that it's just not fun and isn't handled well by the system because it's way more detail than 99.9% of players want. So it ends up just being flavor.
That said, I think you can make the same argument for Divine characters as well.
If you had a psion as a core class for a new edition, things would feel different
I dig this idea, since wizards getting mind-reading and other mentalish spells always felt a bit off-brand to me anyway.
Sorcerers handle elemental magi
Priests handle body magic
Abolish wizards
You could easily make a psion sub-class for every class, but particularly monk, warlock and sorcerer.
like psychic magic is absolutely a thing in pulp sword and sorcery (like James Earl Jones trying to hypnotize Arnold in Conan) but the guys who do that aren't Gandalfs with pointy hats and staffs and big books, they're more like sorcerors or dark priests or whatever
A psion might make you think something is there but they need a mind to fool and they're more individualized. So even something like Minor Image-ing a street sign would be harder for them if they wanted a large group to see it.
Charm effects are tougher but I'd probably push wizarding towards more legalistic bindings and give psions an easier time with intent based things. That sorta screws Enchanters a bit though.
right so obviously there should be separate gandalf and conan-antagonist wizard classes, just 30 different iterations of the wizard class
Oh you mean 5E?
Wizard School of Illusion
Monk Path of Mental Perfection
Druid Circle of Foresight
Brainbarians
4e slotting monks into psionic was actually a strong thematic choice.
sure, along with the 5 versions of "person who fights good"
Or a party that are the Midwich Cuckoos...
Okay but I’m actually adding that to my one-shot idea list.
Reading some more of this, I've moved on to the sample combat rules.
Combat is crunchy, but it does appear to be fairly regimented in its crunchiness. You have four action points a round, and different actions require different amounts of action points (fast 1, slow 2, free 0 appears to be the split). It seems like a lot of action points at first, but then you get stuff like slow abilities (so already using 2 action points) that you can add an additional effect to with a fast action.
There's a neat penetration threshold rule for your attacks that I'm pretty fond of, kind of turns it into a more variable effect thing. As far as I can tell you have an accuracy score (fairly high, roll under to hit), a crit score (very low, roll under to crit), and a penetration score, which is somewhere in the middle and if you roll under it you get to ignore the enemy's armor. Different abilities modify different scores, so I'm guessing that's where you get some of the split between like, the warrior class and the rogue class.
It looks like it's also doing one of my favorite things, in that foes do not roll in combat - it's an attack roll to hit them, but a defense roll to avoid being hit. There's only two defenses though, dodge and willpower, which makes things pretty easy there.
There's also some stuff that looks Agon reminiscent about how the storyteller has a cache of narrative points that they can spend to make foes stronger or change the way that combat works, but that was a bit hard to suss out from the preview documents. I think this is partially because there's a way to run this game sans-storyteller? Like, fully automated enemy encounters?
Thanks for taking a Look at it! Sounds like it will scratch the crunchy tactical fantasy game itch well, especially given that they have DM-less CYOA campaigns to help everyone pick up the rules before starting a ‘real’ campaign.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
I'm still considering picking up the main book, just because it's an interesting piece of work and that's essentially why I buy all RPGs.
It's a great idea if you use psionics as a sort of magic that acts as an extension of the user's will but can't just straight up create something from nothing.
I know a lot of people are attached to the different schools of magic for wizards but I'd rather it was scaled back a bit.
psion- bald with forehead tattoo wizard
sorceror- sexy wizard
Hmm it would be interesting to break wizards up a bit, make the magic classes a bit more focused. Might have to mess with that. A lot of work though, thats for sure.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Wizard: Reads every book to pass the test.
Sorceror: Doesn't need to study and aces it anyway.
Warlock: Sleeps with the teacher.
A little from column A, a little from column B.
It definitely feels to me like "4E retroclone written by PF designers". So it has classes that are very similar to 4E, a lot of general design themes and intent of 4E, but it also has a lot of both feelings inherited from PF as well.
(I feel like 4E had plenty of fiddly bullshit on its own. PF2 definitely is high in that category, but I don't feel like 4E was significantly lower than 3.5 in that regard, so it's unsurprising to me that the game which draws from both editions has a lot of it going on.)
I think the problem that I have with the 5E attempts at psionics is that the 5E designers agree with you, and I don't.
For me personally, there's two things going on. First is that I believe firmly as a game design rule that if you're going to make something significantly different and unique in the narrative, then it should be different in the mechanics, and vice versa; if it uses the same mechanics, it should be the same narratively. Reflavoring is fine and great but that's something that should be being done on a table-by-table basis. (Abstraction is different from what I'm talking about here. If you say that all melee weapons of a certain size do the same damage, that's fine, because "melee weapons of a certain size" is just an abstracted the-same-thing. You're always using a weapon.)
Second is that I do have a strong conception of what psionics is and how it differs from magic. The easiest way to explain it is to use power source terminology.
Arcane characters draw on power from outside the world.
Divine characters draw on the power of gods; the exact details of what this means varies by campaign setting.
Primal characters draw on the power of the natural world.
Psionic characters draw on the power inside them.
(Incidentally, this does mean I am happy to view monks as psionic characters. Sorcerers are still arcane because most of their power is still external, if they have an inherited power source it's just the catalyst for their ability to draw on power. It also means I'm unhappy with the druid and ranger spellcasting being identical to other spellcasters, because that means they can't actually add a real primal spellcaster without obviating the existing classes. I don't really like spellcasting rangers anyway, but that's a topic for another cloud yelling session.)
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
Makes some really interesting RPG books
hell yeah
At the point where your core mechanic and complexity for most classes is their spell list why would psionics be any different?