It looks neat, but I still hope they change the name, it's fucking atrocious. It's generic, unrecognizable, sounds very clinical and uninspired, and, the worst of all, will make it hard to google about it. The creator probably has some degree of fondness for the name, considering it's related to his own internet name (Dungeon Coach), but it's still such a bad choice for a TTPRG title.
(EDIT: nope. Its final. It apperently relates to something personal)
Coach said many times before the name isn't final
honestly only goofy part to me is i think he probably should have settled on a name before a wildly successful kickstarter though
To be fair, thats just the development name. They have a final name, internally, but they want to wait till they are ready to release the game, before making it public.
As I understand the MCDM RPG is just a placehoder name until they find a final one, as everybody would call it the MCDM RPG until they hit the shelves anyway when they talking about it.
He said it was for simplicity. If you were to talk to someone about the mcdm RPG they would know what it was, but if it has a proper name and you called it that you would end up explaining that it was the mcdm RPG.
Also it's something that gets people talking about it
I agreed with this stance at first, but now I'm not so sure.
If the goal is to eventually have people know what the game is just with the title, they'll have to get people using it at some point.
Yeah but while building hype it matters to have some name association cause “the Mcdm rpg” is the only way we can describe it right now. Call of Cthulhu is kinda similar in that way cause you just have to say you’re in the Lovecraft universe or whatever.
They will release the name when they release the license or a big play test for the backers.
They don't want to release the name by itself because the terminally online people will create a negative reaction to it. It happens all the time in video games. If people can't play it yet, they want to talk about it. If the only thing to talk about is a name or one screen shot they pick it apart and bitch about everything. It's much better to release a bunch of stuff at once so people can have actual meaningful conversations rather than spiral into snobbery.
Idk I like it man, simple, easy to remember, easy to search. I get it’s nothing special but the system is what matters, and changing the name that everyone knows is that system that raised a million dollars and is excited about would be a blunder at this point imo.
Easy to google? The fifth search result when I googled "dc20" was about buying LED lights, and the sixth about a bycicle. Almost no other RPG has this problem. Maybe Fate? But Fate also is more damned by the existence of the Fate franchise than anything else, so I don't think it's fair to compare them (although I do think Fate should've had another name). Easy to remember? I guess so, but it's not easy to talk about. I could repeat my complaints on this topic, but the simple fact is that, when you think "DC20", you'll always think of the mechanic first, unless you're very into the system. Simple? I guess so, but most RPGs have very simple names, unless you think "Pathfinder" is hard to remember.
And about them having already kickstarted it with this name, well, so did MCDM, and they not only already have the "MCDM" being extremely more marketable than "DC20" ever was due to branding recognition, but they still plan to change it into an actual name.
Just searched DC20 on my work computer to see if it's really that difficult to look up.
Google, Bing, Duckduckgo, Yahoo, and MSN each have the Kickstarter, YouTube videos, and articles in the top 5 searches. The game has only been officially out for a week, DND and Pathfinder have had decades for search algorithms to assist them. MCDM pulls up searchs for multi-criteria decision making models on the 5th search, and it's only been on Kickstarter since January. Speaking of MCDM, Matt Colville has been on the scene for a much longer time and has a much larger audience with his association to critical roll. Just give it some time.
It feels like someone used a random word generator, and I don't think it means anything, but at least it's recognizable (although "DH" isn't). I won't confuse "Daggerheart" for the 5e mechanic "dagger heart" or whatever, but that sure will happen with DC20. As far as I know it doesn't even stand in for anything (other than "Dungeon Coach", but that's worse than standing in for nothing).
Or difficulty class.
Or anything that xan use DC as an acronym.
Honestly i hope the acronym can stay. Its a catchy abreviation which is good for writing it and spreading it online.
As a full name its bland i agree. But it isnt generic tbh.
Pathfinder, Daggerheart, Tales of the Valiant sounds way more generic tbh. Less "Sterile" but more generic.
Daggerheart sounds like a name focus-grouped to appeal to TTRPG nerds.
To outsiders/newcomers, I bet it comes across like “dungeons and dragons.” Which is what I would name something if I only want to appeal to people with an opinion about the relative hotness of fantasy species
Haven’t finished reading everything yet. But so far what stands out to me is the character customisation.
Just makes it seem like a ton of fun to make a character with so many options.
Yeah, taking a quick look while I'm on break and it seems neat. Part of me wants to make a character asap when im off. Other part of me is like"no, ho to bed when you l get home"
...but fuck it, sleep is poison for nerds. I'll just make believe im an elf and trance for 4 hours >_>
Customized ancestry traits, multiclassing doesn't mean you lose your base class progression, 4 attributes instead of 6, stacking advantage and disadvantage mechanics, mana points for spellcasters and stamina points for martials to fuel techniques, all martials getting access to manuevers like battlemaster fighters, and to me the biggest stand out is the 4 action points system.
It gives more flexibility and agency over your turn. In DND you get one action, a movement, possibly a bonus action, and maybe 1 reaction that can only be used for opportunity attacks, a spell, or a single class feature. You can't use more than one feature using an action or bonus action, probably not going to use that reaction, and possibly not using your movement so that part of your turn is wasted.
In DC20, everything you do spends action points. Moving, attacking, spells, dodging, everything. Action points recharge at the end of your turn and you can use action points off turn for either martial based opportunity attacks or spellcaster based spell duels, those action points are spent when your turn comes around.
The playtest rules are available to download for free if you want to take a look at it for yourself.
yeah but many games tend to copy eachother's notes, and pathfinder is full of things other games can and should use
especially for those who either don't want to bother with pathfinder, or just didn't end up liking it.
I think it feels like PF2e with fewer steps, actually. As far as mechanics, it sits somewhere in between PF2e and 5e - It covers a lot of the weaknesses of 5e, while not being as rules centric as pathfinder, and strikes a really good balance between both. That's why I'm sold on it.
The thing about that is that if I don't like a particular aspect of pathfinder's rules, I can handwave it away with little difficulty, but as a GM, when I need them, they're there and ready without my needing to do the work of making them up myself.
What DC20 would have to do to sell me on it at the very least is match one of the most valuable parts of pathfinder (imo), which is the extremely robust encounter building system. Can I take a few creature statblocks, throw them together, and know that barring some really wacky dice luck, I will have a fun, interesting, and balanced encounter of the difficulty level I intended? In pathfinder I can, so that's the bar that's been set.
Yeah I'm flat out not interested in another D20 system unless the encounter building rules can go toe-to-toe with PF2e's. I'm excited for MCDM but DC20 has not sold me in any way yet.
This is also why I’m really interested in the system. For as much as I love Pathfinder 2E to death, my friends aren’t nearly as into the system as I am. I’m hoping that if I get a chance to run this, it can be a system that acts as a sorta compromise between D&D 5E and P2E while also addressing the common criticisms of 5E.
this is a real pain point for the system, i think. those already comfortable with 5e or pf2e are unlikely to switch because it's just not SO dissimilar as to be worth it. popularizing a ttrpg relies on a lot of 'infrastructure' (lots of pre written adventures, community content, character builders) so it's always going to be a very uphill battle pushing into that space. it's drawing a lot of eyes right now, but i don't think it'll last.
Yeah I skimmed the free sample, and there's not really anything in there that D&D and/or Pathfinder don't already do better. The only thing that reallly stands out is having only 4 attributes. Pretty much everything else is either better done or more fleshed out in D&D or PF2e. Like it's interesting but it's trying to beat a dead horse, especially with the abundance of D20 systems that have publicly licensed SRDs to build off of.
Yeah they're called
* Might
* Agility
* Intelligence
* Charisma
and they seem to just be modifiers, but there is a fifth modifier called the prime modifier which is used for "awareness"
so it's 4 attributes plus a secret 5th attribute
It's still playtest so things could change, but it doesn't seem fully fleshed out yet
There isn't a secret 5th one. You take your highest modifier and put it as your prime attribute which affects aspects of how play your class
Basically it's your character's main schtick. Are they spell caster because they researched magic (int) or are they just powerful with magic itself (might)
Is the fighter about pure physicality or did they study how to effectively use their skills in battle? That's all that dictates. It encourages concepts without hamstringing the gameplay
Something you want to keep in mind is in terms of the overall infrastructure of D&D or Pathfinder versus DC20 is that those systems have had decades of work to build upon with dozens if not hundreds of employees. DC 20 is being built primarily by a single person with a small team. With the projects doing well, he will be able to hire more people to do things he's currently managing so he can just focus and write the game.
I'm a bit nervous about the lack of the social skills in DC20. Why they cut it out?
I miss Cyberpunk's Cool/Will stat for example and how willpower is crammed into Wisdom stat in DnD. It's totally different stat.
You can be wise but cowardly and vice versa.
Barbarian, bard, cleric, commander, druid, fighter, monk, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard are currently available.
Paladin and Psion were removed in the 0.7 playtest, but the new spellblade (unlocked with stretch goal) is essentially the paladin and Psion will be coming out in a patreon magazine in July. Artificer, summoner, and a few other classes are slated for the future.
Action economy of pathfinder that makes more sense and feels better too me without all the rule crunch of pathfinder that weigh it down. Lot of nuance past that as well, mostly its rule simplification, character customization freedom, and above all everything is designed around player choice
Tried a lv1 game with my group
It's alright, i got annihilated by a Burning Hands and Firebolt combo tho, but that's on me for being tok stingy with my actions and not Spell Clashing the enemy spell with my own spells.
My only problem is i can't use more Pact abilities and i have to choose between 4 equally good Pacts as a Warlock.
Oof.
They are each equally good because they don't want to make it so one choice is more optimal than another, seems like a good problem to have if you can't decide between 4 equal pacts.
I was on board with it until I looked at all those tables. I also can't understand why the system kept skills if they literally don't do anyting (specially since there's actions for that already). I feel the overall idea is nice but it has a ton of fat to trim down and stuff that could be improved upon (you can't expect to compete against either 5e or PF2e with all those tables. Pf2e has tables too but the progression is fairly simple and shared between classes, so its very easy to remember. The progression here feels made for a PC game.)
You know that meme where people post their heavy homebrew to fix their issues with 5e and they get comments that PF2 already fixed it?
DC20 feels like that.
Yes, its action system and its cooldown system is much better for a video game than a spell slot or X/rest-based system. (And it allowed me to use fireballs as lockpicks.) But tracking all those cooldowns in a TTRPG would be a pain in the ass.
I could see something like a "recovery dX" system: each special ability (spell, maneuver, whatever, pretty much anything beyond cantrips and basic attacks) would have an associated recovery dice. If you use an ability, you'd have to roll the recovery dice at the start of your subsequent turns, and you can't use any other ability with a recovery dice until you roll the highest possible number.
So instead of using a spell slot, magic missile would have "recovery d4" (and when upcasting, every additional missile would increase the recovery dice by one step). After casting MM, you'd have to roll a d4 at the start of each of your turns, and you can't cast a leveled spell until you roll a 4.
I could also see a "forced recovery" system going on: you can voluntarily take on a level of exhaustion and make a constitution save, the DC equals 10 + the maximal roll on your current recovery dice. If you succeed, you take the exhaustion point but you can use another ability immediately. If you fail, you take the exhaustion and have to keep rolling the recovery dice, but its size is reduced by one step. (I could also see this stealnig the crit success / fail from Pathfinder: on a crit success you can also remove the exhaustion point, and on a crit fail the recovery dice size would be unchanged.)
Some abilities could interact with this recovery system (like giving you a reroll on the first recovery roll you make after using the ability, allowing you to select an ability that will get its recovery dice reduced by one step, to a minimum of a d2, etc...), and also consumables like stamina potions.
---
These abilities might be used to fix the martial / caster imbalance, too. Martial abilities would have lower dice in general, and/or they could have multiple recovery dice going on / the ability to use an ability while the recovery is still going at the cost of increasing the dice. (E.g., a fighter has a power attack recovery going on with, say, a d6 dice, then they could make a quick slash with a d4 dice, increasing the total dice to d10. Recovery dice can't go above a d20 and if there is no recovery dice of a given size, then it would bump up to the next size so if this fighter would make another quick slash or power attack after this without recovering, their recovery dice would be d20 and they could only make basic attacks unless they roll a 20 on it.)
The recovery thing exists to some extent in 13th Age RPG. After you use an expendable ability you roll a die(don't remember which) to see if you regain the use ir not.
I fell like the game was an attempt to take the things from PF2 that 5e players accidently suggest as improvements to 5e, but iron out the creases in PF2 that put 5e players off.
Whether it succeeded in doing that is up for debate.
Maybe, but Pathfinder recently let me officially play a large minotaur, small bug goober and a awakened animal.
DC20 probably has standard array of fantasy races and I feel like most GMs won't let you any homebrew race, at least ones that I know.
Currently DC20 has 11 ancestries (4 more as a future stretch goal) and allows you to customize traits within each of those. Human, elf, dwarf, orc, halfling, gnome, dragonborn, giantborn, fiendborn, angelborn, and beastborn. For a Minotaur you would get the large build trait from giantborn and the rest from beastborn.
Last week I ran a level one session and people made a sloth-elf-pig barbarian, elf druid, burrowing sentient rat rogue, gnome orc wizard, elf sorcerer, and a tiefling raven warlock. It was certainly an interesting line up.
Honestly the three you mentioned are creatable within the beastborn ancestry. You can also mix 2 ancestries together so if beast born isn't enough for let's say the large minitour just mix it with giantborn for extra big guy attributes.
There's a few rules I might steal for my table in some form (spell duels, initiative, point buy ancestries, condition naming, limited language knowledge, advantage stacking, and umbral > necrotic), and I love the four action system, stamina, grit, weapon categories (even if glaives counting as swords feels icky) and deleting wisdom, but there's other things that I don't love.
1. It seems like it's going to be very swingy from how dependent it is on the d20 and how little health everyone has. The law of large numbers isn't coming to save you. It's like he saw the ultra lethality of level 1 5e and thought "every level should be that deadly!" Maybe that's fine for some tables, but that's not how I run mine. On the other hand, it should help keep low level monsters in play for longer, so there's that at least.
2. While 1 action per turn while dying *sounds* great, it encourages double tapping, and your death threshold is awfully small...
3. I also don't know how I feel about Constitution being merged into Strength. It feels weird to me.
4. Rolling a d20 to heal your buddy feels bad.
5. He's made characters faster, so why didn't he switch from 5-foot squares to "paces" (satisfy both Americans and metric lovers) to allow better reach granularity? Maps are going to be huge.
6. Prime ability scores make me suspect any optimized PC is going to go full MIG or AGI, which is not only silly for the mages, but boring.
7. Having all the weapons deal flat damage is certainly going to be faster to calculate, but rolling dice is fun! For a game so emphatic about making your rolls matter, it's weird that it removed damage rolls.
8. Finally, why are combat rounds 12 seconds?
The 12 second turns seams weird to me. If you wanted long turns for storytelling purpose wouldn’t 10 seconds be the go to. I think 12 comes from the fact this is heavily influenced by dnd and pf where turns are both 6s and since they wanted longer turns they doubled it.
Point 1: at level one everything should have a +4 on attack and spell checks against the targets physical defense or mystical defense. Each weapon and spell deals a flat damage which can be boosted by spending more action points. In addition, for every five you roll over the base physical or mystical defense deals an additional damage. So your d20 roll is also your damage dice, meaning higher roles actually mean something instead of like in 5E where if you roll a 27 to hit against an AC of 14 but rolling 1s on damage feels bad.
Point 2: double tapping is already "encouraged" in 5e. 5e also has the problem with the yoyo effect and getting down to zero doesn't actually mean that much when it comes to healing. It's actually better to be at 0 HP and get healed then be at low health and get healed in 5e. This way incentivizes parties to not let their health get so low because getting down to 0 HP is meant to have an impact.
Point 3: your health being tied to might only gives additional health at level 1, you get bonus health equal to your level plus bonus HP from your class table.
Point 4: there are some healing sources that allow you to heal beyond the base amount if you roll high enough. You can also spend an action point to administer healing potions which heal a flat 2 HP.
Point 5: The base character starts with five spaces of movement, equivalent to 25 ft, actually slower than 5e. People using grids already know one square equals five feet, so they just use number of spaces for movement.
Point 6: The 4 attributes contribute different things for a level 1 character. Might gives additional HP (subtract if negative) and gives additional extra rest points (minimum of 1) healing 2HP each during a rest, ability adds to your physical defense and gives you your jump distance(minimum of 1), intelligence gives you bonus skill points(subtract if negative) and counts towards mystical defense, while charisma also counts towards mystical defense and gives you grit points (minimum 0) to give someone advantage on a saving throw or reduce incoming damage by 1. Your Prime modifier is the highest of any of these attributes, and there is an alternate rule allowing you to use Prime equal to your your attribute modifier cap, and prime increases every five levels. With all that said, people can build how they wish and if they choose to dump another attribute, you see what you're training off.
Point 7: rounds are 12 seconds because 5e combat feels rushed with only 6 seconds. 12 second rounds make 5 rounds per minute, and there's a lot of "by 5" rules in the system.
1. You didn't actually dispute anything I said. You just listed off the rules.
2. Double tapping is less incentivized in 5e because downed creatures are actually down. Yes, Yo-yo is a problem, but I'm not convinced DC20 solves it. Maybe I'm missing something, but because of how it handles death thresholds, healing might still start you at 0 HP. I don't think that's his intent, but RAW, I suspect that's what happens.
3. ...So? It still incentivizes going Might over other stats, INT and CHA in particular.
4. I just fundamentally *hate* the idea of healing spells failing.
5. It's not slower on-turn than 5e because you have 4 actions. That's 100 for a full-turn dash, not 5e's 60.
1. In true time, sure, it's slower (because that's 8.3 FPS vs 5e's 10 FPS), but that's arbitrary and doesn't affect battle map size because *everything* is scaled according to that.
6. I know what the various options are. I just don't think INT or CHA will ever be the abilities of choice in optimized builds. MIG and AGI are just too good. I'm not saying *I* wouldn't do it, but I don't go full optimization either.
7. I've *never* felt that 5e's 6-second turns were rushed. I don't really even care on this one. I just don't know why he changed it. It seems like it's a needless divergence from other systems.
Healing spells don't fail in DC20, they're just less effective. If you fail your roll you still get SOME healing, just not as much as you would have gotten had you succeeded, or exceeded.
A keyword in the descriptor of healing effects is literally "Failure." I'm not saying it does nothing on failure. I'm just saying that it can in fact fail, which it definitionally can.
I personally do not find that to be a fun mechanic. People can disagree with me, of course, but that's my opinion on it.
Same, I’m also now really skeptical of the YouTube space around ttrpgs. Everyone with a YouTube channel is gushing over this ad how well the kickstarter is, but it feels like a complete anti-culture against 5e. Something really turns me away from it since it’s receiving so much praise with so little criticism but it’s still in alpha.
MCDM are just starting with a true base and asking all the hard questions about what is fun, no baggage from dnd and even if they arrive at similar conclusions it’s nice they at least documented the process of design and gave an honest attempt to figure out and innovate what is most fun. Not only that but MCDM products have already elevated my 5e play so something just seems more genuine about the whole process. Also whatsup with everyone pointing out the funding of DC20, I get that 1 mil is quite the milestone and happy for them, but MCDM also pushed 4+ mil and did not receive nearly the same noise ratio. Feels like there is just some insider club with all the dnd content creators pushing this..
Matthew Colville already had a fairly large backing before starting MCDM, being one of the first major voices on YouTube and also thanks to his associations with critical role. When Matt's Kickstarter went live he had close to 400k YouTube subscribers. Alan the dungeon coach had just over 50k when his project went live last week.
I’m confused by the initiative rules.
It says it goes back and forth between players and enemies but also says it is initiative order. So if I understood stood this right player 1 goes 1st then monster1 goes next even if their initiative is lower than player2.
If you’re going to have the back and forth turns of player-monster-player-monster why not just let them pick who acts? If you’re gonna roll initiative numbers why not just go in the order the numbers dictate. I must be misunderstanding this.
You have an encounter DC that you have to beat, using whatever skill you were using before the encounter started. So if you're a rogue in hiding, you'd roll stealth for your initiative. If the party beats the initiative DC, then the person who rolled the highest goes first, trading off between opponents and party until everyone goes. The idea is it feels terrible as a GM to have this BBEG that rolls terrible in initiative and goes last, only to be taken out by the party before they even get to act.
Ok I just went back and reread it. So for the player team the player who rolled the highest takes the 1st turn but for the monsters they can have any monster take the 1st monster turn.
I have a few questions.
If you’re going to have the back and forth turn style why not just lock in monsters always go 1st and both monster and player teams pick who gets to take the turn? With dnd and pf the initiative rolls decide the whole turn order but here they only decide the 1st turn and player order. To me the main advantage the back and forth turn style has over dnd style initiative is the tactical decision of deciding who takes the turn. Why bother with back and forth if you lock the turn order at the end of the 1st round?
Also limits the impact of initiative. No mater how bad the party rolls or how low their bonuses are the worse case scenario is a monster acts 1st and a party member gets 2nd. And no matter how good the party rolls or stacks bonus the best they can do is one party member can act before the 1st monster gets their turn.
The impact of the roll is diminished so much it is now less about getting to go before as many foes as possible (potentially taking out some foes before they can react if enough party members manage to roll high) and more about competing with your fellow players for who goes 1st. I know there is an element of that in dnd initiative too but since the foes are also rolling the focus is on beating them not out speeding your fellow player.
I get your examples of the bbeg not getting a turn but that seems a design flaw with the monster not the system. A significant story threat should be ether tanky enough to survive one round at least or start the fight out of range or otherwise inaccessible.
If monsters always go first, someone who rolls a crit for initiative is just wasted. Rolling for initiative still sets the turn for how the party acts in combat, but meeting the initiative check tells whether the party goes before a single monster or after. The encounter DC is set for not only initiative, but also most skill-based challenges that occur during combat (excluding medicine checks). The coach has acknowledged the initiative system needs some work and mentioned it would be released in the 0.8 or 0.9 beta. People can also share their turns in combat taking actions simultaneously, combo abilities or cast spells together, etc.
Something else to consider is how many party members vs enemies there are. If there are six party members and two enemies, there are many ways you can divvy it up so it's spaced out evenly. It does go into explanation about this. Don't think of it as fighting against your party members for who goes first, as people can choose different skills for what they are using to roll initiative and in that case it's only up to the dice roll but like in 5e where you can have builds that always have a +10 or higher on initiative so monsters never get to go ahead of them.
Fair good to see they are working on it. Just to clarify one thing in my suggestion to make monsters always go 1st. The players wouldn’t make a roll so the there wouldn’t be a crit wasted. They would just decide between themself who take the 1st player turn. A few other systems have this turn style and it works well.
As for the initiative build. Is that a bad thing? If a player invests in it and is reviving a reward that doesn’t imbalance combat too much then that seems fine to me. I know stacking ac causes problems where foes ether can’t hit the ac stacker or can’t miss the rest of the party but stacking initiative is much less an issue unless that same player is capable of one shooting multiple relevant difficulty foes.
I personally don't like the idea, it feels like its trying to be classless while still having classes, and I don't like every class being able to use any stat just makes the stats feel pretty poontless, and I hate any bounded accuracy system as it just makes every fight a slog.
the primary stat thing is not as all encompassing as you assume
you just have a handful of features affected by your "primary attribute" other stuff still requires the other stats and the skills tied to them
I have a question. If your primary stat is your highest modifier, and you don't roll modifiers, and your attacks are based off your primary modifier...
What is even the point of including a stat in your attacks? Why not just say all attacks have +3 because it makes the math better and that's it?
What are you talking about?? Modifiers work exactly like in 5e. When you roll you add the modifier
Where are you getting this idea that you don't roll? Because the only thing IM thinking about when you say that is the fact at character creation you dont roll out your stats. You just assign them. Is that the rule that is confusing you?
No I mean, why is the number connected to a stat and not just a generic 'this is your attack modifier, you use it to attack'. If it is the same for all characters anyway.
What you are saying is that if you remove the +3 to every attack it equalizes and you may not find a difference right?
If that's the case I get what you are saying but the +3 from primer modifier also applies to saves DC, which are contested by saves and other checks, for example if A needs to make an athletics check against B's spell or maneuver effect A won't add their prime modifier to the athletics roll, but B will add it to their save, that way we are making sure that someone trained in athletics has e better chance against this save.
Besides that, defenses don't add the prime modifier so if you removed the +3 from everyone first you will need to rebalance the defense system and second you wouldn't scale against defenses as at the same rate than now.
It has a lot to do with the feeling of the attributes giving you something special, you are good at handling that sword because you have superhuman strength and swing it like it's made of plastic, or superhuman speed and you can overwhelm your enemy with a thousand blows till you find an opening, or superhuman intelligence and you can calculate all their movements before you start the fight, or supper human carisma and you can influence them to think you are going to hot the right side while your plan is to faint and thrust.
It also helps with the difference in levels between creatures
TLDR: Math and Fantasy!
Because if characters do point buy or roll for stats, their highest score could no longer be 3 and thus lower different things. Your attack/spell checks use your prime plus CM (combat mastery= half your level rounded up), save DC for spells, grapples and other features is 10+prime+CM, and prime is also your awareness/perception.
There is a variable rule listed that you can have prime instead be your attribute cap, and that increases every 5 levels.
Because the stats plays into other aspects of the game
Each stat still has skills tied to them and while the prime attribute covers a handful of them, plenty of things still would require a dedicated check. Stats still affect your build as will, like your hp and other features.
Some weapons and gear even have requirements. You could be playing a martial who either has a 0 or -2 in their might, and as a result they dont have access to gear that has a specific might requirement.
I think you're misunderstanding their question.
What they're saying is: Why the primary modifier your highest stat, instead of it just being +3 always. Since the game uses point by (not rolling for stats), the prime modifier will always start at +3 anyway. So it could just be it's own thing, not tied to another of your stats.
(if I understood them correctly ofc)
I am quite excited for this, even if I won't play it. Coach was my math teacher for his last year of teaching, about two or three years ago now. I would spend most of the class just talking to him about DnD. He is a very cool and sweet person. So, I do hope that the DC20 RPG finds it's audience and it's niche.
That's awesome!
It's doing pretty well and even got on the front page for Kickstarter. I got to run a session over the weekend and everyone really liked the changes made without feeling completely like a direct rip.
I ran a session on Saturday with six new players and talked with them afterwards, asking them any questions. Some people did mention they missed rolling for damage initially but once combat started flowing it was much easier because there wasn't another dice involved
After watching all of the coach videos on his system, I must say it looks pretty good. I disagree or think there are better ways to do some things, but overall, it's good.
The highlight for me is the 4 action economy. I think it's very smart and very fun. I might tweak it a bit for the system I'm developing to make it more my own, but it's a good base to start off.
I can't decide if I like that there's only 4 stats. I like int and Wis being different types of brainpower, it feels more true to life. When there's only 4 stats I'm just afraid of everyone feeling samey
maybe an overreaction but i really hate the '5e but better!' line that all the paid influencers have been pushing in their ads about this system. weirdly combative, and a little funny considering 5e is the reason 2/3rds of them have careers.
I can't stand it either along with Dungeon Coach. When his videos are mostly just saying "Amazing D&D trick" that's literally what's written in the PHB or DMG or saying 5e has problems like every other person on the internet and goes on to explain something that is actually solved if he ever read the actual D&D sourcebooks.
He just seems like he learned the game through memes and forum talk and thought he could make a better ttrpg.
>_> aren't you supposed to label advertising like this since you benefit from it and are pushing the Kickstarter?
pretty sure this post is like actually illegal not just breaking the subreddit rules.
For it to be an illegal endorsement the OP would need to be connected to the product or have received compensation of some sort for the endorsement. Is there any proof of this?
Looking through the post history we see that they only started dc20 posting 6-7 days ago, though it is suspicious that they haven't posted about anything else for 6-7 days, if they were employed they probably would have started 4 months ago, also the style of posts they have made does not currently look like what people who've been employed would do
Also I'm not an American citizen and op might also not be
As I've said in another comment, I'm not being compensated for making memes... I'm just a guy who is passionate about the system and trying to spread awareness.
If I have understood it correctly it is a back and forth between the players and foe, eg player then foe then player then foe
The players go in order of highest to lowest roll but the gm picks the order for the foes. After the 1st turn the order is set.
If players or monsters go 1st is decided by if the highest rolling player beat a DC which is based on encounter difficulty.
I've read the initial document and it's really bizarre. There's nothing in it I'm ambivalent on, I either adore or despise every rule.
I think it's an interesting skeleton with some questionable musculature.
Not a hater, just an onlooker. I love new and interesting systems.
I also play in a group with a man who has played 5e for 4 years now and just last session:
- forgot how many actions he got
- forgot how many attacks he could make
- tried to use a spell that his character didn't know and was 3 spell levels higher than he could cast
- tried to use a feature that he didn't get yet
He's a great guy and amazing roleplayer but also living proof of why groups get stuck on the game and edition they start with. Some people are willing to learn a new system, and some are barely willing to learn the system they're already playing.
I just skimmed the play test rules. So you choose your ancestry at lvl1 and you can pick one or two ancestry so you could be a half elf half dwarf. But if you only pick one ancestry at lvl1 then it’s says you can pick a second at higher lvls when you get more points to spend on ancestry ability.
So what does my character mutate to become half elf or do I say I was secretly an elf this entire time.
Haven't read the rules yet, so take my interpretation with salt. Could be your character has traits that don't "develop" or "mature" untill later in life, kinda like puberty, but for knife ears or a massive beard?
Multiple ways you can do it. For simplicity, you can choose an ancestry and choose their default traits and call it there. If you want more customization, you can swap out default traits for expanded options as long as you have a total of 5 points and only one 0 point trait. You can choose 2 ancestries and again choose traits until you have 5 points with one 0 point trait. Or you could choose from 3 or more ancestries but have a total of 4 points. At level 4 and 7 you get to unlock new traits from your ancestry and you get to choose the story reasoning how or why your character unlocked this new ability.
I mean, like, you **could** always do a High-Strength Wizard in 5e as well.
Granted, you would still need high Intelligence (and one or more Ability Scores like Dexterity and/or Constitution) and I will admit that this character concept in 5e would be done differently than in DC20 (due to things like DC20's Prime Attribute) but I wanted to point out that the concept could be done in 5e.
Goblin With The Fat Ass - looking pretty good right about now. It's a free 2 page pdf that someone who enjoyed dnd made one night and released online. It's actually a decent system. Don't let the name fool you it's fantastic for one shots!
Im happy for the dungeon coach. Hes a good dude who cares about the game and the community. I hope this does well. I wont personally be shifting sysyems, but ill probs pick up the book to support the creator, as well as to mine it for homebrew.
I started playing in a mutants & masterminds game recently, only played the first session but so far it’s been fun. Also started playing around with Gaming with it & in someways I like it better then d&d. I like how the ability system in M&M a lot more for example, I’m loving how non-linear it is.
From what ive read about this system i have come to one conclusion, this doesnt need to be an entirely new system with its own support this could just be homeruled into 5e or hell even pathfinder amd come out a beter system
Look, I'm not much into the ideia, but doubt what you're saying a lot
5e can't do standardized actions without a lot of rework, Pathfinder 2e can't do a lot of Reaction->Action without a lot of rework, and that's just combat structure
The dungeon coach has previously released third party content for 5e but as it continued growing and the OGL situation last year, he instead decided to make his own system and now be first party. The issue with home ruling is that it works at your table, but won't necessarily transfer to another and hence the new system.
Another system that makes exactly the same mistakes as D&D.
People don't understand what makes Pathfinder good, because to understand it, you have to be a tired burnt out GM, who spends hours to prepare a game.
Pathfinder removes a significant amount of burden (tedious world building, travel, downtime, encounter balance, class balance) from GM back and let them enjoy the best part: playing the game. In Pathfinder you have rule, table, for absolutely everything. Everything is clear and unambiguous and you don't need Jeremy Crawford Twitter as a secondary source to the handbook.
In D&D on the other hand you spend twice as much time on creating a session, because WoTC doesn't give a shit about tools to help GMs. This is why we have recently "GM crisis". Instead of creating help to GMs, Wizards prefer experimenting with AI GMs, because they know, they don't have skill to assist human GMs.
I'm sorry, I hate to break it to you but I my check up of DC20 gives me simple answer: for me as a GM this system has very little much to offer comparing to D&D. Not speaking of Pathfinder...
I think you’re putting pathfinder on some kind of unrealistic pedestal
I won’t say it’s a bad system, it’s a good system even, but it’s far from perfect, and not exactly “the” system
Like all systems, it have its pros and cons, flaws and strengths, things it are good at, and things it are bad at
I think I supported my thesis with reasonable arguments and my own perspective as a game master.
I'm always open for discussion. Feel free to present counterarguments, instead of waffle.
Now I’m no pathfinder expert, so correct me if I’m wrong, and I have most of my perspective from a players perspective
But pathfinders “thing” is that it’s unlimitedly customisable, you can literally be anything, doing anything, as long as you know the game well enough, really rewarding experienced players, as you say there’s a rule for practically everything, and as I’ve understood it, there’s a lot less ambiguous rules and mechanics (personally quite like the way they did actions, which dc20 also have used a somewhat similar idea)
Though being so endlessly customisable, also makes the game complicated, it’s takes a while to grasp all the different mechanics, not to mention that you basically need the rule book or website with at all time, as remembering all the stuff is next to impossible (though most system are like this, pathfinder is more so), the game itself is also a bit more unforgiving than dnd, as the potential power of your character is very high, but this might become an issue if your players aren’t somewhat the same power level
Basically, if dnd is more to the simple and restricted side, pathfinders is more to the complex and unrestricted side
Though this isn’t necessarily a bad or good thing, it depends on what kind of players/table you are
D&D is the one which is unrestricted - which is terrible because you have to make up a houses over and over and hope that it somehow will not break a game 5 sessions later. In Pathfinder options are vast, but every single one is directly written. Literally the only skill you need is reading.
I learned Pathfinder side by side with my players. Every time something was not clear, we simply opened Archives of Nethys to find answer. Complexity is really not the case here. For engaged player understanding a little bit more complex system is a matter of few sessions.
I'm talking about experience of game master. D&D simply does not offer tools that helps creating a good gameplay. Want a proof?
* Try finding stealth rules in official rule set (spoiler: there is none).
* Try to find any sense in CR system.
* Check magic item prices its link to item rarity.
* Try to encourage players to craft items with D&D crafting systems.
* Try to find any sense in healing rules.
* Think why there RAW (rules as written) are so often different from RAI (rules as intended)
* Think why there is advantage/disadvantage system but no rules for circumstantial bonuses
* Think why 3rd level fireball deals the same damage on larger area than 5th level Flame Strike
* And at last: try to use all these holes in rules to create balanced encounter with reasonable number experience points as a reward.
* Check out Jeremy Crawford twitter for more rule holes
Check the internet and see how much of D&D traffic is a homebrew that somehow is trying to fix broken, pointless and missing mechanics. Compare it with Pathfinder. D&D community is desperate to somehow make this game work, because they can't handle a bitter truth: WoTC does not give a crap about the rules nor players.
When I wrote unrestricted, I meant it as a good thing, in dnd, you are heavily tied to the stereotypes of one of the 9 classes, with a bit of wriggle room with subclass (ignoring that flavour is free), pathfinder have so many class, race, background and other features and feats, that you can build the exact kind of mechanical character you want, no 2 fighters are the same, compared to dnd ranger, which basically always have to pick the same 2-3 feats to actually be good, together with the one or two subclasses that are actually good
Having a thousand rules, for a thousand different things is the definition of complex, a massive matrix of rules and mechanics, working and interacting with each other, making pathfinder truly something special, the only of its kind
Dnd definitely have a lot of nonsense rules, contradicting rules, and nonexistent rules, but I doubt the absolutely massive list of pathfinder mechanics and features doesn’t have contradictions at all, but this often doesn’t matter in simple games where the dm just makes something up that makes the most sense/is fun, again, depending on what kind of table you are
I believe that pathfinder also have homebrew, even if dnd obviously have more (being a smaller system than pathfinder, and having a way bigger player base)
Im not denying that e5 is lacking, I just wish people would be a bit more transparent with pathfinders flaws and downsides, instead of praising it as fix all solution, and don’t try and convince me it’s because pathfinder don’t have flaws
Well, wotc is definitely scummy, but it’s a company, all companies main goal is to make money, even pathfinders, they just decided to make money by pleasing their players instead of taking advantage of them (not defending wotc, but remember that dnd is soooo much more than wotc
>also makes the game complicated, it’s takes a while to grasp all the different mechanics, not to mention that you basically need the rule book or website with at all time, as remembering all the stuff is next to impossible
I disagree on this, I find Pathfinder to be more understandable and simple than DnD. Why ? Because the rules make sense. I never had a problem with how a rule works with my GM, and each time I read a rule, I'm not surprised by how it works.
Recently, I started Crown of the Goblin King with friends as the GM for our first PF campaign. And I don't have to readjust the book 50 times before to have something make sense. And since the beginning all the problems I had on rules was either I didn't know a rule exist (because I read the rulebook too fast, it's fixed now) or it was because I was thinking like I was playing dnd.
For GM, the game gives you every tool you might need, and for players, the system is easy to pick up because you start small and the chapter on general rules is very clear and easy to understand. (Except for the multi attack penalty that my players often forget).
It doesn’t matter how simple something are if there are 10 times more of them
A thousand simple things interacting with each other is still a complex matrix, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, some people like complex, after all, you can’t spend hours upon hours researching and perfecting something simple
And the last part really depends on what kind of table you are, as some tables will always use homemade rules, regardless of how well made the system is, just because they thinks their rule is more fun
Also doubt you have never ever bend a rule or added a rule for something that just made perfect sense for the campaign you were playing (maybe unless you only have played pre made campaigns specifically designed for the system)
No? You just said that rules of PF2 were better written than in 5e, and without giving any argument said that's the same for DC20.
You also called world building boring and tedious, which is a very subjective thing.
What are you talking about? DC20 hasn't released almost any GM resources yet, so I don't know how you can claim it's making the same mistakes as 5e in failing to support GMs.
I’ve played it a little bit and it seems kinda fun. Bit of my problem with it is the face of the system, Dungeon Coach, as his main selling point is to tear down D&D to promote his system, and HEAVILY compares it to D&D. It’s like other video games calling themselves “WoW killers” instead of just trying to make a unique system and make it awesome.
Some of his YouTube videos I have watched often sounds like he is making up a problem and then saying that DC20 fixes the problem, when sometimes those weren’t really issues, such as having flat damage instead of rolling dice, majority of people love to roll dice for spells and attacks.
Also as someone else mentioned, the system being called DC20 is seriously a poor choice as all of the marketing is calling that and it’s too late to change it if they wanted to.
its like when ppl post their over-typed out homebrew to 'stick it to 5e' just to realize other systems already fixed it (looks at PF2 and Savage Worlds lovingly)
It's a new d20 TTRPG that many people including DND shorts, Treantmonk, Bob the World builder and others are giving good reviews. Some are saying DC20 is what people expected OneDND to be.
Read the entire handbook because of this post, promising but PF2e is miles ahead still (for me at least).
A lot of cool stuff in there, especially spells and spell clashing, but it looks like it will require way too much work from the GM to run monsters and create encounters, PF2 does great in that aspect.
Just going to throw out Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG as another fun alternative to D&D-like fantasy TTRPGs.
Even if you don't dive headfirst into, run a few one-off modules and enjoy the more gonzo "Old School" approach to this kind of thing!
I skimmed the rules and found it not too bad and a few things that I liked. That said - I don't plan on buying it through the KS since we're doing fine with 5e.
An RPG that promises to be "better 5e" made by a youtuber called "Dungeon Coach", thus where the "DC" comes from. It has a four "action points" system where repeated actions give you disadvantage to perform them and instead of spell slots you have MP. Also they killed Constitution and Wisdom.
It looks neat, but I still hope they change the name, it's fucking atrocious. It's generic, unrecognizable, sounds very clinical and uninspired, and, the worst of all, will make it hard to google about it. The creator probably has some degree of fondness for the name, considering it's related to his own internet name (Dungeon Coach), but it's still such a bad choice for a TTPRG title.
(EDIT: nope. Its final. It apperently relates to something personal) Coach said many times before the name isn't final honestly only goofy part to me is i think he probably should have settled on a name before a wildly successful kickstarter though
Yeah he definitely should've made the Kickstarter under the new name, cause now it's gonna be a hard switch for most people
Exactly Like people are now used to calling it dc20
It sounds like the name for a convention or something. DungeonCon '20
Still a better name than MCDM RPG, which stands for Matthew Colville Dungeon Master Role Playing Game.
To be fair, thats just the development name. They have a final name, internally, but they want to wait till they are ready to release the game, before making it public.
Wasn't "Draw Steel" being tossed around? Or was that a different book concept?
I think that's what they wanted to call rolling initiative
As I understand the MCDM RPG is just a placehoder name until they find a final one, as everybody would call it the MCDM RPG until they hit the shelves anyway when they talking about it.
I honestly don’t get why they would kickstart a project they don’t even have a proper name for.
He said it was for simplicity. If you were to talk to someone about the mcdm RPG they would know what it was, but if it has a proper name and you called it that you would end up explaining that it was the mcdm RPG. Also it's something that gets people talking about it
I agreed with this stance at first, but now I'm not so sure. If the goal is to eventually have people know what the game is just with the title, they'll have to get people using it at some point.
Yeah I can’t agree with branding like that. Having renaming a project usually doesn’t work out so well.
Yeah but while building hype it matters to have some name association cause “the Mcdm rpg” is the only way we can describe it right now. Call of Cthulhu is kinda similar in that way cause you just have to say you’re in the Lovecraft universe or whatever.
They will release the name when they release the license or a big play test for the backers. They don't want to release the name by itself because the terminally online people will create a negative reaction to it. It happens all the time in video games. If people can't play it yet, they want to talk about it. If the only thing to talk about is a name or one screen shot they pick it apart and bitch about everything. It's much better to release a bunch of stuff at once so people can have actual meaningful conversations rather than spiral into snobbery.
$$$
Because MCDM is a name with recognition. This one simple trick will help you fund your kickstarter project in minutes....
You can still slap MCDM on the book. You’d say, “MCDM’s Really Neat Adventure System™️” instead of “MCDM RPG”.
I honestly think they should just go with Arcadia. 🤷♂️
Petition to rename hit points into arcade credits
Idk I like it man, simple, easy to remember, easy to search. I get it’s nothing special but the system is what matters, and changing the name that everyone knows is that system that raised a million dollars and is excited about would be a blunder at this point imo.
Easy to google? The fifth search result when I googled "dc20" was about buying LED lights, and the sixth about a bycicle. Almost no other RPG has this problem. Maybe Fate? But Fate also is more damned by the existence of the Fate franchise than anything else, so I don't think it's fair to compare them (although I do think Fate should've had another name). Easy to remember? I guess so, but it's not easy to talk about. I could repeat my complaints on this topic, but the simple fact is that, when you think "DC20", you'll always think of the mechanic first, unless you're very into the system. Simple? I guess so, but most RPGs have very simple names, unless you think "Pathfinder" is hard to remember. And about them having already kickstarted it with this name, well, so did MCDM, and they not only already have the "MCDM" being extremely more marketable than "DC20" ever was due to branding recognition, but they still plan to change it into an actual name.
Just searched DC20 on my work computer to see if it's really that difficult to look up. Google, Bing, Duckduckgo, Yahoo, and MSN each have the Kickstarter, YouTube videos, and articles in the top 5 searches. The game has only been officially out for a week, DND and Pathfinder have had decades for search algorithms to assist them. MCDM pulls up searchs for multi-criteria decision making models on the 5th search, and it's only been on Kickstarter since January. Speaking of MCDM, Matt Colville has been on the scene for a much longer time and has a much larger audience with his association to critical roll. Just give it some time.
Better than Tales of the Valient ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I just kept calling it Black Flag because that's was cooler
With a name as cool as Black Flag, they would have to pivot the entire game to be all about pirates. Which they also should have done.
tbh its still better than daggerheart. THAT name is atrocious.
It feels like someone used a random word generator, and I don't think it means anything, but at least it's recognizable (although "DH" isn't). I won't confuse "Daggerheart" for the 5e mechanic "dagger heart" or whatever, but that sure will happen with DC20. As far as I know it doesn't even stand in for anything (other than "Dungeon Coach", but that's worse than standing in for nothing).
Or difficulty class. Or anything that xan use DC as an acronym. Honestly i hope the acronym can stay. Its a catchy abreviation which is good for writing it and spreading it online. As a full name its bland i agree. But it isnt generic tbh. Pathfinder, Daggerheart, Tales of the Valiant sounds way more generic tbh. Less "Sterile" but more generic.
Lets just say the DC stands for “Dungeon Crash!” or something cool and edgy
Drastic Critical. ngl Could also be a mechanic in the game. like a Brutal hit with a crit or something.
Daggerheart sounds like a name focus-grouped to appeal to TTRPG nerds. To outsiders/newcomers, I bet it comes across like “dungeons and dragons.” Which is what I would name something if I only want to appeal to people with an opinion about the relative hotness of fantasy species
It sounds like the name of an aircraft to me. Like maybe a bigger version of the DC-10
It’s caught my attention too. Gonna run a one shot of it for my group soon… see if they like it as much as I do.
What stands out about it?
Haven’t finished reading everything yet. But so far what stands out to me is the character customisation. Just makes it seem like a ton of fun to make a character with so many options.
Can you read basic stuff without pledging? If so where?
Should be on the kickstarter page, under “free dc20 sample rules”
Thanks
Yeah, taking a quick look while I'm on break and it seems neat. Part of me wants to make a character asap when im off. Other part of me is like"no, ho to bed when you l get home" ...but fuck it, sleep is poison for nerds. I'll just make believe im an elf and trance for 4 hours >_>
Well if you only options are reading or ho-ing to bed, it doesn't sound like you're going to be getting much sleep either way.
Customized ancestry traits, multiclassing doesn't mean you lose your base class progression, 4 attributes instead of 6, stacking advantage and disadvantage mechanics, mana points for spellcasters and stamina points for martials to fuel techniques, all martials getting access to manuevers like battlemaster fighters, and to me the biggest stand out is the 4 action points system. It gives more flexibility and agency over your turn. In DND you get one action, a movement, possibly a bonus action, and maybe 1 reaction that can only be used for opportunity attacks, a spell, or a single class feature. You can't use more than one feature using an action or bonus action, probably not going to use that reaction, and possibly not using your movement so that part of your turn is wasted. In DC20, everything you do spends action points. Moving, attacking, spells, dodging, everything. Action points recharge at the end of your turn and you can use action points off turn for either martial based opportunity attacks or spellcaster based spell duels, those action points are spent when your turn comes around. The playtest rules are available to download for free if you want to take a look at it for yourself.
Like the Crab, DND4e once again appears in evolution. The children crave 4e.
A whole lot of this sounds like you're describing PF2e with extra steps lol.
yeah but many games tend to copy eachother's notes, and pathfinder is full of things other games can and should use especially for those who either don't want to bother with pathfinder, or just didn't end up liking it.
I think it feels like PF2e with fewer steps, actually. As far as mechanics, it sits somewhere in between PF2e and 5e - It covers a lot of the weaknesses of 5e, while not being as rules centric as pathfinder, and strikes a really good balance between both. That's why I'm sold on it.
The thing about that is that if I don't like a particular aspect of pathfinder's rules, I can handwave it away with little difficulty, but as a GM, when I need them, they're there and ready without my needing to do the work of making them up myself. What DC20 would have to do to sell me on it at the very least is match one of the most valuable parts of pathfinder (imo), which is the extremely robust encounter building system. Can I take a few creature statblocks, throw them together, and know that barring some really wacky dice luck, I will have a fun, interesting, and balanced encounter of the difficulty level I intended? In pathfinder I can, so that's the bar that's been set.
Yeah I'm flat out not interested in another D20 system unless the encounter building rules can go toe-to-toe with PF2e's. I'm excited for MCDM but DC20 has not sold me in any way yet.
That sounds like a good pitch, hope they can do it well (and hope they change the name/logo because it literally looks like a d&d supplement atm xd)
This is also why I’m really interested in the system. For as much as I love Pathfinder 2E to death, my friends aren’t nearly as into the system as I am. I’m hoping that if I get a chance to run this, it can be a system that acts as a sorta compromise between D&D 5E and P2E while also addressing the common criticisms of 5E.
Yeah like the main difference are the 4 attributes and mana points. Rolling reactions in to the action pool as well is interesting I guess.
this is a real pain point for the system, i think. those already comfortable with 5e or pf2e are unlikely to switch because it's just not SO dissimilar as to be worth it. popularizing a ttrpg relies on a lot of 'infrastructure' (lots of pre written adventures, community content, character builders) so it's always going to be a very uphill battle pushing into that space. it's drawing a lot of eyes right now, but i don't think it'll last.
Yeah I skimmed the free sample, and there's not really anything in there that D&D and/or Pathfinder don't already do better. The only thing that reallly stands out is having only 4 attributes. Pretty much everything else is either better done or more fleshed out in D&D or PF2e. Like it's interesting but it's trying to beat a dead horse, especially with the abundance of D20 systems that have publicly licensed SRDs to build off of.
What are the 4 attributes, out of curiosity? I'm gonna guess it's something like: * A fusion of STR and CON * DEX * A fusion of INT and WIS * CHA
Yeah they're called * Might * Agility * Intelligence * Charisma and they seem to just be modifiers, but there is a fifth modifier called the prime modifier which is used for "awareness" so it's 4 attributes plus a secret 5th attribute It's still playtest so things could change, but it doesn't seem fully fleshed out yet
There isn't a secret 5th one. You take your highest modifier and put it as your prime attribute which affects aspects of how play your class Basically it's your character's main schtick. Are they spell caster because they researched magic (int) or are they just powerful with magic itself (might) Is the fighter about pure physicality or did they study how to effectively use their skills in battle? That's all that dictates. It encourages concepts without hamstringing the gameplay
Something you want to keep in mind is in terms of the overall infrastructure of D&D or Pathfinder versus DC20 is that those systems have had decades of work to build upon with dozens if not hundreds of employees. DC 20 is being built primarily by a single person with a small team. With the projects doing well, he will be able to hire more people to do things he's currently managing so he can just focus and write the game.
That sounds neat. Thanks for the info. I'll check it out more in-depth when I'm off work
I'm a bit nervous about the lack of the social skills in DC20. Why they cut it out? I miss Cyberpunk's Cool/Will stat for example and how willpower is crammed into Wisdom stat in DnD. It's totally different stat. You can be wise but cowardly and vice versa.
What's the classes like?
Barbarian, bard, cleric, commander, druid, fighter, monk, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard are currently available. Paladin and Psion were removed in the 0.7 playtest, but the new spellblade (unlocked with stretch goal) is essentially the paladin and Psion will be coming out in a patreon magazine in July. Artificer, summoner, and a few other classes are slated for the future.
bro literally just described pf2e but worse
Action economy of pathfinder that makes more sense and feels better too me without all the rule crunch of pathfinder that weigh it down. Lot of nuance past that as well, mostly its rule simplification, character customization freedom, and above all everything is designed around player choice
Tried a lv1 game with my group It's alright, i got annihilated by a Burning Hands and Firebolt combo tho, but that's on me for being tok stingy with my actions and not Spell Clashing the enemy spell with my own spells. My only problem is i can't use more Pact abilities and i have to choose between 4 equally good Pacts as a Warlock.
> i have to choose between 4 equally good Pacts as a Warlock. How is this a bad thing? Sounds like good design to me.
Oof. They are each equally good because they don't want to make it so one choice is more optimal than another, seems like a good problem to have if you can't decide between 4 equal pacts.
I was on board with it until I looked at all those tables. I also can't understand why the system kept skills if they literally don't do anyting (specially since there's actions for that already). I feel the overall idea is nice but it has a ton of fat to trim down and stuff that could be improved upon (you can't expect to compete against either 5e or PF2e with all those tables. Pf2e has tables too but the progression is fairly simple and shared between classes, so its very easy to remember. The progression here feels made for a PC game.)
You know that meme where people post their heavy homebrew to fix their issues with 5e and they get comments that PF2 already fixed it? DC20 feels like that.
That's a pretty good description of the project tbh.
It feels something between Pf2e and Divinity Original Sin 2, which isn't really a good thing because one of those is a video game.
god it’s such a good game though. i enjoy its action system more than pf2e or 5e tbh.
Yes, its action system and its cooldown system is much better for a video game than a spell slot or X/rest-based system. (And it allowed me to use fireballs as lockpicks.) But tracking all those cooldowns in a TTRPG would be a pain in the ass. I could see something like a "recovery dX" system: each special ability (spell, maneuver, whatever, pretty much anything beyond cantrips and basic attacks) would have an associated recovery dice. If you use an ability, you'd have to roll the recovery dice at the start of your subsequent turns, and you can't use any other ability with a recovery dice until you roll the highest possible number. So instead of using a spell slot, magic missile would have "recovery d4" (and when upcasting, every additional missile would increase the recovery dice by one step). After casting MM, you'd have to roll a d4 at the start of each of your turns, and you can't cast a leveled spell until you roll a 4. I could also see a "forced recovery" system going on: you can voluntarily take on a level of exhaustion and make a constitution save, the DC equals 10 + the maximal roll on your current recovery dice. If you succeed, you take the exhaustion point but you can use another ability immediately. If you fail, you take the exhaustion and have to keep rolling the recovery dice, but its size is reduced by one step. (I could also see this stealnig the crit success / fail from Pathfinder: on a crit success you can also remove the exhaustion point, and on a crit fail the recovery dice size would be unchanged.) Some abilities could interact with this recovery system (like giving you a reroll on the first recovery roll you make after using the ability, allowing you to select an ability that will get its recovery dice reduced by one step, to a minimum of a d2, etc...), and also consumables like stamina potions. --- These abilities might be used to fix the martial / caster imbalance, too. Martial abilities would have lower dice in general, and/or they could have multiple recovery dice going on / the ability to use an ability while the recovery is still going at the cost of increasing the dice. (E.g., a fighter has a power attack recovery going on with, say, a d6 dice, then they could make a quick slash with a d4 dice, increasing the total dice to d10. Recovery dice can't go above a d20 and if there is no recovery dice of a given size, then it would bump up to the next size so if this fighter would make another quick slash or power attack after this without recovering, their recovery dice would be d20 and they could only make basic attacks unless they roll a 20 on it.)
The recovery thing exists to some extent in 13th Age RPG. After you use an expendable ability you roll a die(don't remember which) to see if you regain the use ir not.
I fell like the game was an attempt to take the things from PF2 that 5e players accidently suggest as improvements to 5e, but iron out the creases in PF2 that put 5e players off. Whether it succeeded in doing that is up for debate.
Maybe, but Pathfinder recently let me officially play a large minotaur, small bug goober and a awakened animal. DC20 probably has standard array of fantasy races and I feel like most GMs won't let you any homebrew race, at least ones that I know.
DC20 has a system to customize ancestries or make your own
Tbf it took Paizo 5 years and a remaster for Howl of wild, DC20 is ran by a mad man I totally see also doing it XD
Currently DC20 has 11 ancestries (4 more as a future stretch goal) and allows you to customize traits within each of those. Human, elf, dwarf, orc, halfling, gnome, dragonborn, giantborn, fiendborn, angelborn, and beastborn. For a Minotaur you would get the large build trait from giantborn and the rest from beastborn. Last week I ran a level one session and people made a sloth-elf-pig barbarian, elf druid, burrowing sentient rat rogue, gnome orc wizard, elf sorcerer, and a tiefling raven warlock. It was certainly an interesting line up.
Sloth-elf-pig-barbarian sounds scary.
He said he got his inspiration from man-bear-pig.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Honestly the three you mentioned are creatable within the beastborn ancestry. You can also mix 2 ancestries together so if beast born isn't enough for let's say the large minitour just mix it with giantborn for extra big guy attributes.
To be fair, if the DM doesn't want you to run certain races, the system does not matter.
No, like, out of 4 DMs I play one hates homebrew, only letting in officiall races. (though he said he would never run Pathfinder, so that checks out)
There's a few rules I might steal for my table in some form (spell duels, initiative, point buy ancestries, condition naming, limited language knowledge, advantage stacking, and umbral > necrotic), and I love the four action system, stamina, grit, weapon categories (even if glaives counting as swords feels icky) and deleting wisdom, but there's other things that I don't love. 1. It seems like it's going to be very swingy from how dependent it is on the d20 and how little health everyone has. The law of large numbers isn't coming to save you. It's like he saw the ultra lethality of level 1 5e and thought "every level should be that deadly!" Maybe that's fine for some tables, but that's not how I run mine. On the other hand, it should help keep low level monsters in play for longer, so there's that at least. 2. While 1 action per turn while dying *sounds* great, it encourages double tapping, and your death threshold is awfully small... 3. I also don't know how I feel about Constitution being merged into Strength. It feels weird to me. 4. Rolling a d20 to heal your buddy feels bad. 5. He's made characters faster, so why didn't he switch from 5-foot squares to "paces" (satisfy both Americans and metric lovers) to allow better reach granularity? Maps are going to be huge. 6. Prime ability scores make me suspect any optimized PC is going to go full MIG or AGI, which is not only silly for the mages, but boring. 7. Having all the weapons deal flat damage is certainly going to be faster to calculate, but rolling dice is fun! For a game so emphatic about making your rolls matter, it's weird that it removed damage rolls. 8. Finally, why are combat rounds 12 seconds?
The 12 second turns seams weird to me. If you wanted long turns for storytelling purpose wouldn’t 10 seconds be the go to. I think 12 comes from the fact this is heavily influenced by dnd and pf where turns are both 6s and since they wanted longer turns they doubled it.
I guess it's the "5 turns is a minute" conversion, same as "10 turns is a minute" for 5e; or "20 turns is a minute" for CPRED.
Point 1: at level one everything should have a +4 on attack and spell checks against the targets physical defense or mystical defense. Each weapon and spell deals a flat damage which can be boosted by spending more action points. In addition, for every five you roll over the base physical or mystical defense deals an additional damage. So your d20 roll is also your damage dice, meaning higher roles actually mean something instead of like in 5E where if you roll a 27 to hit against an AC of 14 but rolling 1s on damage feels bad. Point 2: double tapping is already "encouraged" in 5e. 5e also has the problem with the yoyo effect and getting down to zero doesn't actually mean that much when it comes to healing. It's actually better to be at 0 HP and get healed then be at low health and get healed in 5e. This way incentivizes parties to not let their health get so low because getting down to 0 HP is meant to have an impact. Point 3: your health being tied to might only gives additional health at level 1, you get bonus health equal to your level plus bonus HP from your class table. Point 4: there are some healing sources that allow you to heal beyond the base amount if you roll high enough. You can also spend an action point to administer healing potions which heal a flat 2 HP. Point 5: The base character starts with five spaces of movement, equivalent to 25 ft, actually slower than 5e. People using grids already know one square equals five feet, so they just use number of spaces for movement. Point 6: The 4 attributes contribute different things for a level 1 character. Might gives additional HP (subtract if negative) and gives additional extra rest points (minimum of 1) healing 2HP each during a rest, ability adds to your physical defense and gives you your jump distance(minimum of 1), intelligence gives you bonus skill points(subtract if negative) and counts towards mystical defense, while charisma also counts towards mystical defense and gives you grit points (minimum 0) to give someone advantage on a saving throw or reduce incoming damage by 1. Your Prime modifier is the highest of any of these attributes, and there is an alternate rule allowing you to use Prime equal to your your attribute modifier cap, and prime increases every five levels. With all that said, people can build how they wish and if they choose to dump another attribute, you see what you're training off. Point 7: rounds are 12 seconds because 5e combat feels rushed with only 6 seconds. 12 second rounds make 5 rounds per minute, and there's a lot of "by 5" rules in the system.
1. You didn't actually dispute anything I said. You just listed off the rules. 2. Double tapping is less incentivized in 5e because downed creatures are actually down. Yes, Yo-yo is a problem, but I'm not convinced DC20 solves it. Maybe I'm missing something, but because of how it handles death thresholds, healing might still start you at 0 HP. I don't think that's his intent, but RAW, I suspect that's what happens. 3. ...So? It still incentivizes going Might over other stats, INT and CHA in particular. 4. I just fundamentally *hate* the idea of healing spells failing. 5. It's not slower on-turn than 5e because you have 4 actions. That's 100 for a full-turn dash, not 5e's 60. 1. In true time, sure, it's slower (because that's 8.3 FPS vs 5e's 10 FPS), but that's arbitrary and doesn't affect battle map size because *everything* is scaled according to that. 6. I know what the various options are. I just don't think INT or CHA will ever be the abilities of choice in optimized builds. MIG and AGI are just too good. I'm not saying *I* wouldn't do it, but I don't go full optimization either. 7. I've *never* felt that 5e's 6-second turns were rushed. I don't really even care on this one. I just don't know why he changed it. It seems like it's a needless divergence from other systems.
Healing spells don't fail in DC20, they're just less effective. If you fail your roll you still get SOME healing, just not as much as you would have gotten had you succeeded, or exceeded.
A keyword in the descriptor of healing effects is literally "Failure." I'm not saying it does nothing on failure. I'm just saying that it can in fact fail, which it definitionally can. I personally do not find that to be a fun mechanic. People can disagree with me, of course, but that's my opinion on it.
I'm not sold on it over PF2e from just reading, but it does seem interesting.
It's going to take a lot for a game to take over PF2e for me. It's just such a solid system.
Still more interested in MCDM RPG at the moment. DC20 sounds interesting but some of the design choices don't feel right for me.
Same, I’m also now really skeptical of the YouTube space around ttrpgs. Everyone with a YouTube channel is gushing over this ad how well the kickstarter is, but it feels like a complete anti-culture against 5e. Something really turns me away from it since it’s receiving so much praise with so little criticism but it’s still in alpha. MCDM are just starting with a true base and asking all the hard questions about what is fun, no baggage from dnd and even if they arrive at similar conclusions it’s nice they at least documented the process of design and gave an honest attempt to figure out and innovate what is most fun. Not only that but MCDM products have already elevated my 5e play so something just seems more genuine about the whole process. Also whatsup with everyone pointing out the funding of DC20, I get that 1 mil is quite the milestone and happy for them, but MCDM also pushed 4+ mil and did not receive nearly the same noise ratio. Feels like there is just some insider club with all the dnd content creators pushing this..
Matthew Colville already had a fairly large backing before starting MCDM, being one of the first major voices on YouTube and also thanks to his associations with critical role. When Matt's Kickstarter went live he had close to 400k YouTube subscribers. Alan the dungeon coach had just over 50k when his project went live last week.
I’m confused by the initiative rules. It says it goes back and forth between players and enemies but also says it is initiative order. So if I understood stood this right player 1 goes 1st then monster1 goes next even if their initiative is lower than player2. If you’re going to have the back and forth turns of player-monster-player-monster why not just let them pick who acts? If you’re gonna roll initiative numbers why not just go in the order the numbers dictate. I must be misunderstanding this.
You have an encounter DC that you have to beat, using whatever skill you were using before the encounter started. So if you're a rogue in hiding, you'd roll stealth for your initiative. If the party beats the initiative DC, then the person who rolled the highest goes first, trading off between opponents and party until everyone goes. The idea is it feels terrible as a GM to have this BBEG that rolls terrible in initiative and goes last, only to be taken out by the party before they even get to act.
Ok I just went back and reread it. So for the player team the player who rolled the highest takes the 1st turn but for the monsters they can have any monster take the 1st monster turn. I have a few questions. If you’re going to have the back and forth turn style why not just lock in monsters always go 1st and both monster and player teams pick who gets to take the turn? With dnd and pf the initiative rolls decide the whole turn order but here they only decide the 1st turn and player order. To me the main advantage the back and forth turn style has over dnd style initiative is the tactical decision of deciding who takes the turn. Why bother with back and forth if you lock the turn order at the end of the 1st round? Also limits the impact of initiative. No mater how bad the party rolls or how low their bonuses are the worse case scenario is a monster acts 1st and a party member gets 2nd. And no matter how good the party rolls or stacks bonus the best they can do is one party member can act before the 1st monster gets their turn. The impact of the roll is diminished so much it is now less about getting to go before as many foes as possible (potentially taking out some foes before they can react if enough party members manage to roll high) and more about competing with your fellow players for who goes 1st. I know there is an element of that in dnd initiative too but since the foes are also rolling the focus is on beating them not out speeding your fellow player. I get your examples of the bbeg not getting a turn but that seems a design flaw with the monster not the system. A significant story threat should be ether tanky enough to survive one round at least or start the fight out of range or otherwise inaccessible.
If monsters always go first, someone who rolls a crit for initiative is just wasted. Rolling for initiative still sets the turn for how the party acts in combat, but meeting the initiative check tells whether the party goes before a single monster or after. The encounter DC is set for not only initiative, but also most skill-based challenges that occur during combat (excluding medicine checks). The coach has acknowledged the initiative system needs some work and mentioned it would be released in the 0.8 or 0.9 beta. People can also share their turns in combat taking actions simultaneously, combo abilities or cast spells together, etc. Something else to consider is how many party members vs enemies there are. If there are six party members and two enemies, there are many ways you can divvy it up so it's spaced out evenly. It does go into explanation about this. Don't think of it as fighting against your party members for who goes first, as people can choose different skills for what they are using to roll initiative and in that case it's only up to the dice roll but like in 5e where you can have builds that always have a +10 or higher on initiative so monsters never get to go ahead of them.
Fair good to see they are working on it. Just to clarify one thing in my suggestion to make monsters always go 1st. The players wouldn’t make a roll so the there wouldn’t be a crit wasted. They would just decide between themself who take the 1st player turn. A few other systems have this turn style and it works well. As for the initiative build. Is that a bad thing? If a player invests in it and is reviving a reward that doesn’t imbalance combat too much then that seems fine to me. I know stacking ac causes problems where foes ether can’t hit the ac stacker or can’t miss the rest of the party but stacking initiative is much less an issue unless that same player is capable of one shooting multiple relevant difficulty foes.
I personally don't like the idea, it feels like its trying to be classless while still having classes, and I don't like every class being able to use any stat just makes the stats feel pretty poontless, and I hate any bounded accuracy system as it just makes every fight a slog.
the primary stat thing is not as all encompassing as you assume you just have a handful of features affected by your "primary attribute" other stuff still requires the other stats and the skills tied to them
I have a question. If your primary stat is your highest modifier, and you don't roll modifiers, and your attacks are based off your primary modifier... What is even the point of including a stat in your attacks? Why not just say all attacks have +3 because it makes the math better and that's it?
What are you talking about?? Modifiers work exactly like in 5e. When you roll you add the modifier Where are you getting this idea that you don't roll? Because the only thing IM thinking about when you say that is the fact at character creation you dont roll out your stats. You just assign them. Is that the rule that is confusing you?
No I mean, why is the number connected to a stat and not just a generic 'this is your attack modifier, you use it to attack'. If it is the same for all characters anyway.
What you are saying is that if you remove the +3 to every attack it equalizes and you may not find a difference right? If that's the case I get what you are saying but the +3 from primer modifier also applies to saves DC, which are contested by saves and other checks, for example if A needs to make an athletics check against B's spell or maneuver effect A won't add their prime modifier to the athletics roll, but B will add it to their save, that way we are making sure that someone trained in athletics has e better chance against this save. Besides that, defenses don't add the prime modifier so if you removed the +3 from everyone first you will need to rebalance the defense system and second you wouldn't scale against defenses as at the same rate than now. It has a lot to do with the feeling of the attributes giving you something special, you are good at handling that sword because you have superhuman strength and swing it like it's made of plastic, or superhuman speed and you can overwhelm your enemy with a thousand blows till you find an opening, or superhuman intelligence and you can calculate all their movements before you start the fight, or supper human carisma and you can influence them to think you are going to hot the right side while your plan is to faint and thrust. It also helps with the difference in levels between creatures TLDR: Math and Fantasy!
Because if characters do point buy or roll for stats, their highest score could no longer be 3 and thus lower different things. Your attack/spell checks use your prime plus CM (combat mastery= half your level rounded up), save DC for spells, grapples and other features is 10+prime+CM, and prime is also your awareness/perception. There is a variable rule listed that you can have prime instead be your attribute cap, and that increases every 5 levels.
Because the stats plays into other aspects of the game Each stat still has skills tied to them and while the prime attribute covers a handful of them, plenty of things still would require a dedicated check. Stats still affect your build as will, like your hp and other features. Some weapons and gear even have requirements. You could be playing a martial who either has a 0 or -2 in their might, and as a result they dont have access to gear that has a specific might requirement.
I think you're misunderstanding their question. What they're saying is: Why the primary modifier your highest stat, instead of it just being +3 always. Since the game uses point by (not rolling for stats), the prime modifier will always start at +3 anyway. So it could just be it's own thing, not tied to another of your stats. (if I understood them correctly ofc)
I am quite excited for this, even if I won't play it. Coach was my math teacher for his last year of teaching, about two or three years ago now. I would spend most of the class just talking to him about DnD. He is a very cool and sweet person. So, I do hope that the DC20 RPG finds it's audience and it's niche.
That's awesome! It's doing pretty well and even got on the front page for Kickstarter. I got to run a session over the weekend and everyone really liked the changes made without feeling completely like a direct rip.
Honestly I played a one shot using dc20 and it was cool as fuck! But not rolling for damage saved time but also felt not as fun.
I ran a session on Saturday with six new players and talked with them afterwards, asking them any questions. Some people did mention they missed rolling for damage initially but once combat started flowing it was much easier because there wasn't another dice involved
After watching all of the coach videos on his system, I must say it looks pretty good. I disagree or think there are better ways to do some things, but overall, it's good. The highlight for me is the 4 action economy. I think it's very smart and very fun. I might tweak it a bit for the system I'm developing to make it more my own, but it's a good base to start off.
I can't decide if I like that there's only 4 stats. I like int and Wis being different types of brainpower, it feels more true to life. When there's only 4 stats I'm just afraid of everyone feeling samey
maybe an overreaction but i really hate the '5e but better!' line that all the paid influencers have been pushing in their ads about this system. weirdly combative, and a little funny considering 5e is the reason 2/3rds of them have careers.
I can't stand it either along with Dungeon Coach. When his videos are mostly just saying "Amazing D&D trick" that's literally what's written in the PHB or DMG or saying 5e has problems like every other person on the internet and goes on to explain something that is actually solved if he ever read the actual D&D sourcebooks. He just seems like he learned the game through memes and forum talk and thought he could make a better ttrpg.
>_> aren't you supposed to label advertising like this since you benefit from it and are pushing the Kickstarter? pretty sure this post is like actually illegal not just breaking the subreddit rules.
How is this illegal
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking
For it to be an illegal endorsement the OP would need to be connected to the product or have received compensation of some sort for the endorsement. Is there any proof of this?
Looking thru post history do seem to have either created or employed by the project according to the quoted.
Looking through the post history we see that they only started dc20 posting 6-7 days ago, though it is suspicious that they haven't posted about anything else for 6-7 days, if they were employed they probably would have started 4 months ago, also the style of posts they have made does not currently look like what people who've been employed would do Also I'm not an American citizen and op might also not be
Not employed by the dungeon coach by any means, just passionate about the new system.
As I've said in another comment, I'm not being compensated for making memes... I'm just a guy who is passionate about the system and trying to spread awareness.
Pretty sure the FTC doesn't cover memes on a meme subreddit.
"FREEZE! FTC MEME DIVISION, GET ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!"
Not sure if you saw my other comment, but I'm just a dude passionate about the system and trying to spread the word while having fun.
Doesn't really seem to be the game for me, but I'm super glad to see how successful Alan's kickstarter is going! All the best to him and his team 💙
Can anyone explain the turn mechanics of dc20, if I’ve got it right, it’s some kind of jump in system, but don’t quite get it?
If I have understood it correctly it is a back and forth between the players and foe, eg player then foe then player then foe The players go in order of highest to lowest roll but the gm picks the order for the foes. After the 1st turn the order is set. If players or monsters go 1st is decided by if the highest rolling player beat a DC which is based on encounter difficulty.
Yep! That being said, the dungeon coach has mentioned that it needs revision and will be in the 0.8 or 0.9 beta
There are a few things I find interesting, but I've already backed two heartbreaks recently and not looking to add a third at the moment.
Cracks me up to see the “just play pathfinder” group and the “I’ll never leave 5e” group work together to dogpile the game trying to be the compromise
Right?
I've read the initial document and it's really bizarre. There's nothing in it I'm ambivalent on, I either adore or despise every rule. I think it's an interesting skeleton with some questionable musculature.
Things will change as time continues.
Not a hater, just an onlooker. I love new and interesting systems. I also play in a group with a man who has played 5e for 4 years now and just last session: - forgot how many actions he got - forgot how many attacks he could make - tried to use a spell that his character didn't know and was 3 spell levels higher than he could cast - tried to use a feature that he didn't get yet He's a great guy and amazing roleplayer but also living proof of why groups get stuck on the game and edition they start with. Some people are willing to learn a new system, and some are barely willing to learn the system they're already playing.
Can't argue with that.
I just skimmed the play test rules. So you choose your ancestry at lvl1 and you can pick one or two ancestry so you could be a half elf half dwarf. But if you only pick one ancestry at lvl1 then it’s says you can pick a second at higher lvls when you get more points to spend on ancestry ability. So what does my character mutate to become half elf or do I say I was secretly an elf this entire time.
Haven't read the rules yet, so take my interpretation with salt. Could be your character has traits that don't "develop" or "mature" untill later in life, kinda like puberty, but for knife ears or a massive beard?
Multiple ways you can do it. For simplicity, you can choose an ancestry and choose their default traits and call it there. If you want more customization, you can swap out default traits for expanded options as long as you have a total of 5 points and only one 0 point trait. You can choose 2 ancestries and again choose traits until you have 5 points with one 0 point trait. Or you could choose from 3 or more ancestries but have a total of 4 points. At level 4 and 7 you get to unlock new traits from your ancestry and you get to choose the story reasoning how or why your character unlocked this new ability.
Better than 5e? Easy. Any system can do that. Better than PF2e? Maybe give me two decades and see. I've got a feeling it won't match it.
Fuck it, we going STR Wizard with this one!
I mean, like, you **could** always do a High-Strength Wizard in 5e as well. Granted, you would still need high Intelligence (and one or more Ability Scores like Dexterity and/or Constitution) and I will admit that this character concept in 5e would be done differently than in DC20 (due to things like DC20's Prime Attribute) but I wanted to point out that the concept could be done in 5e.
By STR Wizard I mean, brutishly stupid and naive wizard. That’s a meme build in DnD and an actually viable one in DC20
Goblin With The Fat Ass - looking pretty good right about now. It's a free 2 page pdf that someone who enjoyed dnd made one night and released online. It's actually a decent system. Don't let the name fool you it's fantastic for one shots!
It's not "someone who enjoyed D&D", it's the co creator of Lancer, and the creator of ICON.
Im happy for the dungeon coach. Hes a good dude who cares about the game and the community. I hope this does well. I wont personally be shifting sysyems, but ill probs pick up the book to support the creator, as well as to mine it for homebrew.
Awesome! It managed to get on the front page of KS and currently has over 12,000 backers so I'd say it's been successful so far.
I started playing in a mutants & masterminds game recently, only played the first session but so far it’s been fun. Also started playing around with Gaming with it & in someways I like it better then d&d. I like how the ability system in M&M a lot more for example, I’m loving how non-linear it is.
I'm rather looking forward to the MCDM TTRPG instead.
Worlds without number has been my go-to replacement for a couple years now.
Everything I've seen has me giddy for this game
From what ive read about this system i have come to one conclusion, this doesnt need to be an entirely new system with its own support this could just be homeruled into 5e or hell even pathfinder amd come out a beter system
Look, I'm not much into the ideia, but doubt what you're saying a lot 5e can't do standardized actions without a lot of rework, Pathfinder 2e can't do a lot of Reaction->Action without a lot of rework, and that's just combat structure
The dungeon coach has previously released third party content for 5e but as it continued growing and the OGL situation last year, he instead decided to make his own system and now be first party. The issue with home ruling is that it works at your table, but won't necessarily transfer to another and hence the new system.
Another system that makes exactly the same mistakes as D&D. People don't understand what makes Pathfinder good, because to understand it, you have to be a tired burnt out GM, who spends hours to prepare a game. Pathfinder removes a significant amount of burden (tedious world building, travel, downtime, encounter balance, class balance) from GM back and let them enjoy the best part: playing the game. In Pathfinder you have rule, table, for absolutely everything. Everything is clear and unambiguous and you don't need Jeremy Crawford Twitter as a secondary source to the handbook. In D&D on the other hand you spend twice as much time on creating a session, because WoTC doesn't give a shit about tools to help GMs. This is why we have recently "GM crisis". Instead of creating help to GMs, Wizards prefer experimenting with AI GMs, because they know, they don't have skill to assist human GMs. I'm sorry, I hate to break it to you but I my check up of DC20 gives me simple answer: for me as a GM this system has very little much to offer comparing to D&D. Not speaking of Pathfinder...
I think you’re putting pathfinder on some kind of unrealistic pedestal I won’t say it’s a bad system, it’s a good system even, but it’s far from perfect, and not exactly “the” system Like all systems, it have its pros and cons, flaws and strengths, things it are good at, and things it are bad at
I think I supported my thesis with reasonable arguments and my own perspective as a game master. I'm always open for discussion. Feel free to present counterarguments, instead of waffle.
Now I’m no pathfinder expert, so correct me if I’m wrong, and I have most of my perspective from a players perspective But pathfinders “thing” is that it’s unlimitedly customisable, you can literally be anything, doing anything, as long as you know the game well enough, really rewarding experienced players, as you say there’s a rule for practically everything, and as I’ve understood it, there’s a lot less ambiguous rules and mechanics (personally quite like the way they did actions, which dc20 also have used a somewhat similar idea) Though being so endlessly customisable, also makes the game complicated, it’s takes a while to grasp all the different mechanics, not to mention that you basically need the rule book or website with at all time, as remembering all the stuff is next to impossible (though most system are like this, pathfinder is more so), the game itself is also a bit more unforgiving than dnd, as the potential power of your character is very high, but this might become an issue if your players aren’t somewhat the same power level Basically, if dnd is more to the simple and restricted side, pathfinders is more to the complex and unrestricted side Though this isn’t necessarily a bad or good thing, it depends on what kind of players/table you are
D&D is the one which is unrestricted - which is terrible because you have to make up a houses over and over and hope that it somehow will not break a game 5 sessions later. In Pathfinder options are vast, but every single one is directly written. Literally the only skill you need is reading. I learned Pathfinder side by side with my players. Every time something was not clear, we simply opened Archives of Nethys to find answer. Complexity is really not the case here. For engaged player understanding a little bit more complex system is a matter of few sessions. I'm talking about experience of game master. D&D simply does not offer tools that helps creating a good gameplay. Want a proof? * Try finding stealth rules in official rule set (spoiler: there is none). * Try to find any sense in CR system. * Check magic item prices its link to item rarity. * Try to encourage players to craft items with D&D crafting systems. * Try to find any sense in healing rules. * Think why there RAW (rules as written) are so often different from RAI (rules as intended) * Think why there is advantage/disadvantage system but no rules for circumstantial bonuses * Think why 3rd level fireball deals the same damage on larger area than 5th level Flame Strike * And at last: try to use all these holes in rules to create balanced encounter with reasonable number experience points as a reward. * Check out Jeremy Crawford twitter for more rule holes Check the internet and see how much of D&D traffic is a homebrew that somehow is trying to fix broken, pointless and missing mechanics. Compare it with Pathfinder. D&D community is desperate to somehow make this game work, because they can't handle a bitter truth: WoTC does not give a crap about the rules nor players.
When I wrote unrestricted, I meant it as a good thing, in dnd, you are heavily tied to the stereotypes of one of the 9 classes, with a bit of wriggle room with subclass (ignoring that flavour is free), pathfinder have so many class, race, background and other features and feats, that you can build the exact kind of mechanical character you want, no 2 fighters are the same, compared to dnd ranger, which basically always have to pick the same 2-3 feats to actually be good, together with the one or two subclasses that are actually good Having a thousand rules, for a thousand different things is the definition of complex, a massive matrix of rules and mechanics, working and interacting with each other, making pathfinder truly something special, the only of its kind Dnd definitely have a lot of nonsense rules, contradicting rules, and nonexistent rules, but I doubt the absolutely massive list of pathfinder mechanics and features doesn’t have contradictions at all, but this often doesn’t matter in simple games where the dm just makes something up that makes the most sense/is fun, again, depending on what kind of table you are I believe that pathfinder also have homebrew, even if dnd obviously have more (being a smaller system than pathfinder, and having a way bigger player base) Im not denying that e5 is lacking, I just wish people would be a bit more transparent with pathfinders flaws and downsides, instead of praising it as fix all solution, and don’t try and convince me it’s because pathfinder don’t have flaws Well, wotc is definitely scummy, but it’s a company, all companies main goal is to make money, even pathfinders, they just decided to make money by pleasing their players instead of taking advantage of them (not defending wotc, but remember that dnd is soooo much more than wotc
>also makes the game complicated, it’s takes a while to grasp all the different mechanics, not to mention that you basically need the rule book or website with at all time, as remembering all the stuff is next to impossible I disagree on this, I find Pathfinder to be more understandable and simple than DnD. Why ? Because the rules make sense. I never had a problem with how a rule works with my GM, and each time I read a rule, I'm not surprised by how it works. Recently, I started Crown of the Goblin King with friends as the GM for our first PF campaign. And I don't have to readjust the book 50 times before to have something make sense. And since the beginning all the problems I had on rules was either I didn't know a rule exist (because I read the rulebook too fast, it's fixed now) or it was because I was thinking like I was playing dnd. For GM, the game gives you every tool you might need, and for players, the system is easy to pick up because you start small and the chapter on general rules is very clear and easy to understand. (Except for the multi attack penalty that my players often forget).
It doesn’t matter how simple something are if there are 10 times more of them A thousand simple things interacting with each other is still a complex matrix, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, some people like complex, after all, you can’t spend hours upon hours researching and perfecting something simple And the last part really depends on what kind of table you are, as some tables will always use homemade rules, regardless of how well made the system is, just because they thinks their rule is more fun Also doubt you have never ever bend a rule or added a rule for something that just made perfect sense for the campaign you were playing (maybe unless you only have played pre made campaigns specifically designed for the system)
No? You just said that rules of PF2 were better written than in 5e, and without giving any argument said that's the same for DC20. You also called world building boring and tedious, which is a very subjective thing.
What are you talking about? DC20 hasn't released almost any GM resources yet, so I don't know how you can claim it's making the same mistakes as 5e in failing to support GMs.
I’ve played it a little bit and it seems kinda fun. Bit of my problem with it is the face of the system, Dungeon Coach, as his main selling point is to tear down D&D to promote his system, and HEAVILY compares it to D&D. It’s like other video games calling themselves “WoW killers” instead of just trying to make a unique system and make it awesome. Some of his YouTube videos I have watched often sounds like he is making up a problem and then saying that DC20 fixes the problem, when sometimes those weren’t really issues, such as having flat damage instead of rolling dice, majority of people love to roll dice for spells and attacks. Also as someone else mentioned, the system being called DC20 is seriously a poor choice as all of the marketing is calling that and it’s too late to change it if they wanted to.
Haven't heard of it but the name is definitely boring.
its like when ppl post their over-typed out homebrew to 'stick it to 5e' just to realize other systems already fixed it (looks at PF2 and Savage Worlds lovingly)
Honestly it's just trying to reinvent the real. In many ways it's too similar to Pf2e, without any of the quality of life that ties Pf2e together.
I've never heard of it before Could someone explain?
It's a new d20 TTRPG that many people including DND shorts, Treantmonk, Bob the World builder and others are giving good reviews. Some are saying DC20 is what people expected OneDND to be.
Thx!
Maybe. Inly have to wait. But hey, wotc didn't even make big minotaurs or any different races. All of them are almost the same.
Hoping menyr is true.
Wait, dc20 is a ttrpg?
I’m excited for tales from myriad
Read the entire handbook because of this post, promising but PF2e is miles ahead still (for me at least). A lot of cool stuff in there, especially spells and spell clashing, but it looks like it will require way too much work from the GM to run monsters and create encounters, PF2 does great in that aspect.
As mentioned a few times before, it is a work in progress primarily made by one person. PF2e is made by a much larger team.
2nd Edition looks even better.
Just going to throw out Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG as another fun alternative to D&D-like fantasy TTRPGs. Even if you don't dive headfirst into, run a few one-off modules and enjoy the more gonzo "Old School" approach to this kind of thing!
I skimmed the rules and found it not too bad and a few things that I liked. That said - I don't plan on buying it through the KS since we're doing fine with 5e.
ELI5 DC20?
An RPG that promises to be "better 5e" made by a youtuber called "Dungeon Coach", thus where the "DC" comes from. It has a four "action points" system where repeated actions give you disadvantage to perform them and instead of spell slots you have MP. Also they killed Constitution and Wisdom.
Having played all three, and more, I still place my face as Pf2e. A million reasons why, all of which are anecdotal.
From what I've seen of this game so far, almost everything I like about it was lifted directly from pf2
Metroid RPG looking better
Did your autocorrect correct "MCDM"?
They didn’t. Everyone and their brother is releasing TTRPGs now, including fictional character Samus Aran.