TOPIC: Feedback Needed on Rules Changes for 2025 Combat/Classes

Regarding 2-5, I feel like just improving dex or strength would be a lot simpler than having certain stats only apply to certain classes. If you want the wizards to have a higher starting bonus to their slides, give them higher dexterity on their cards. If you want intelligence, wisdom, and charisma to improve spell damage, just increase the base spell damage by 3 or 4 rather than having a stat with minimal token support apply in inconsistent ways to different classes.

If a stat only applies to certain classes, it might be less confusing to just print tokens specific to those classes with the desired effect. For example, for the bardsong bonuses in 5, you could use stat requirements on a token. Something like a Greater necklace of the songbird could say “+1 to bardsong hit/damage if your charisma is above 18, or +2 if it’s above 22”

#4

Jeff Martin wrote: The Elf Wizard will be turned into a spellcaster that 80-90% of the time needs to slide to hit to do damage -- but when it does it the target it will delivery more average damage than the Wizard. The normal Wizard will have none or very little slide spells. This will give the classes a more distinct and interesting flavor. Focus will continue to work normally for everyone.

Speaking from the position of Nightmare+. Ashennes right now is very biased towards slide spells. Current Meta is opening with (quicken + sharpen + conserve + ?mek?) 2nd level slide + another spell. The ability to crit with spells is limited to slide spells so building one caster around it and not giving slides to the other will heavily lean things towards the sliding caster. (Slide spell misses don't happen at this difficulty and can be ignored)

First a small amount of feedback specially as requested:

Regarding 1:
I’ll echo all the other comments here on Dex being too good with a damage modifier. If you would like the charts and graphs to go with this, I can generate them and some sample builds to show what the real effect is.

Regarding 2 and 3: this is fine, and will have minimal effect as long as items that add +ranged hit like the deadshot set and charm of farsight continue I help spells. For Wis specifically, to be honest, Cleric doesn’t really care about spell damage at this time, meaning either a token needs to allow more spiritual hammer (like a holy symbol) or the new class card is going to have to change dramatically for this to actually matter.

Additionally, this will allow double dipping between spell damage and mystic staves. This may or may not be desired, but it will require planning and a close eye.

Finally, charm of enlightenment is going to need to change, and all existing int and will tokens will need to be evaluated.

Regarding 4:
One thing that has stuck with me for years is a wizard commenting during dev that he specially picked Wizard so he had 2 chances to pick his preferred class. If the wizards diverge too much he loses that benefit, and I don’t think its good to drive any players away

Since human wizard already has more slide spells and slide spell tokens, I would give human wizard lightning bolt as a slide spell instead of lightning storm, and leave it at that. That gives the human wizard 4 slide spells and one of those is a big, themy level 3 spell.

Elf could trade acid ray for burning hands and be mostly skill checks but still have a slide spell.

Second:

These changes, combined with class card changes could have you very much on the path toward TD 2.0. I urge you to take your time, decide what is in scope and out of scope for the changes, define success criteria, and then iterate and play test. A large scope of changes could easily take a year to get right. Once you know exactly what you want you can always try stuff in VTD before going all in.

Already discussed in this thread are very large scale changes you may not have any intent of changing, but since the request for feedback is broad, the comments are broad.

For example:

Are combat changes in scope for this project ?

Are you defining what order the classes should compare to each other in regards to damage?

Are core rules changes like “slide vs AC 15 under consideration”?

Tyraël The Just wrote: will other rooms be geared for other classes? Like Paladin ? Idk how that would look for my class ? It would have to be combat and unfortunately we are at the very bottom for melee and like mid ish for missile.

When I think of a Paladin in TD, I think: Guard. High AC. Lay on Hands. Able to Detect Evil but never does so the Cleric doesn't know if he can Searing Light the skeletal, miasma-spewing beast at the end for effect because the last such creature was Neutral and simply looking for a meal no I'm not salty about losing my Standard Action back then.

Guard is fairly visible when it works, but because it causes nothing to happen (which is good! Healers are thankful), it feels a bit boring. When you pick wrong, it feels bad; but if the DM were to keep attacking a Guarded target, it feels forced: cunning enemies should realise none of their attacks are getting through and change tactics; and mindless enemies should lash out at random. Only the most brainless of enemies would keep trying to and failing to hit the same target over and over... so maybe have an immobile mechanical Construct always attack the person who is physically the closest to it? Or have some other excuse for why an intelligent enemy keeps targeting one person: a blind creature that hunts by sound, and so always divebombs the last person to speak up before the DM rolls to attack. So long as this single-targeting behaviour can be controlled by the party, you can showcase the power of Guard.

High AC helps with survival, but combats are not built around it. But what if one were? What if the primary win condition of the combat wasn't to defeat the enemy, but to weather attacks and survive? Maybe you walked right into predator looking for easy prey, who leaves after trying to take a bite out of everyone. Maybe you're facing an angry mob of innocent villagers riled up by your enemy. You -- but maybe not your party -- certainly wouldn't want to kill them now, would you? Lay on Hands might actually be useful to heal up your squishier party members, or more creatively, demonstrate your non-hostility to the crowd.

Detect Evil: maybe you're fighting an Evil Illusionist with Mirror Images. If you Detect Evil, you can tell your party which is the real one; otherwise, the top few attacks pop a decoy instead.

Ho-Yi Fung wrote: but never does so the Cleric doesn't know if he can Searing Light the skeletal, miasma-spewing beast at the end for effect because the last such creature was Neutral and simply looking for a meal no I'm not salty about losing my Standard Action back then.

Lol - I rarely play Cleric, but I did on that dungeon, and I was like:

Ho-Yi Fung wrote:

Tyraël The Just wrote: will other rooms be geared for other classes? Like Paladin ? Idk how that would look for my class ? It would have to be combat and unfortunately we are at the very bottom for melee and like mid ish for missile.

When I think of a Paladin in TD, I think: Guard. High AC. Lay on Hands. Able to Detect Evil but never does so the Cleric doesn't know if he can Searing Light the skeletal, miasma-spewing beast at the end for effect because the last such creature was Neutral and simply looking for a meal no I'm not salty about losing my Standard Action back then.

Guard is fairly visible when it works, but because it causes nothing to happen (which is good! Healers are thankful), it feels a bit boring. When you pick wrong, it feels bad; but if the DM were to keep attacking a Guarded target, it feels forced: cunning enemies should realise none of their attacks are getting through and change tactics; and mindless enemies should lash out at random. Only the most brainless of enemies would keep trying to and failing to hit the same target over and over... so maybe have an immobile mechanical Construct always attack the person who is physically the closest to it? Or have some other excuse for why an intelligent enemy keeps targeting one person: a blind creature that hunts by sound, and so always divebombs the last person to speak up before the DM rolls to attack. So long as this single-targeting behaviour can be controlled by the party, you can showcase the power of Guard.

High AC helps with survival, but combats are not built around it. But what if one were? What if the primary win condition of the combat wasn't to defeat the enemy, but to weather attacks and survive? Maybe you walked right into predator looking for easy prey, who leaves after trying to take a bite out of everyone. Maybe you're facing an angry mob of innocent villagers riled up by your enemy. You -- but maybe not your party -- certainly wouldn't want to kill them now, would you? Lay on Hands might actually be useful to heal up your squishier party members, or more creatively, demonstrate your non-hostility to the crowd.

Detect Evil: maybe you're fighting an Evil Illusionist with Mirror Images. If you Detect Evil, you can tell your party which is the real one; otherwise, the top few attacks pop a decoy instead.

Thank you. This gives me more to think about especially in regards to my favorite class.

Endgame wrote:
These changes, combined with class card changes could have you very much on the path toward TD 2.0. I urge you to take your time, decide what is in scope and out of scope for the changes, define success criteria, and then iterate and play test. A large scope of changes could easily take a year to get right. Once you know exactly what you want you can always try stuff in VTD before going all in.

+1 to all of this, and an extra +1 to the suggestion of trying out major changes in a VTD before setting them in stone

Point 4: I wonder if making either of the wizard classes more dependent on slides takes them from feeling unique (albeit similar to each other) and makes them feel more like the classes that slide the vast majority of the time. Is a sliding wizard mechanically that much different from a missile Ranger, or even a melee fighter at that point?

Thank you all for the great feedback and ideas. These were very helpful. We will table this now -- as today will soon have some other more pressing things to handle. See you on the other side!