What's First?

When I am making a supplement.

That’s a good question. My answer ultimately became: the equipment. Of course, I have all sorts of ideas on what I would like to see different when it comes to classes, backgrounds, races (species, ancestries, whatever), and feats and magic, and on and on, but the equipment interacts with all of these things in the same way.

Equipment is a static element. Yes, once you put the words down on paper it is all static, I get that, but equipment is static in that all of it is binary. If you have it, it does the thing, if you do not, you can’t. Almost everything else is not static; racial features can only be used when illuminated by candle light, class features can’t be used again until you stand on your head for 10 mississippis, and feats apply while you are standing exactly 8 feet from an old ice dragon while your cleric is engaged in preaching to the kobolds, otherwise you can’t do it.

What I have found is that equipment undergirds so many of the elements that build the characters. Every character has an attack bonus and can use weapons, or they have some proficiency in armour, everyone needs a backpack and a coin purse, and water skins just feel like something that is required even though no one ever takes a drink.

Combat is the primary mode of play for 5e, and the character best suited for that is the fighter, who interacts the most with equipment, or at least they should. One of the issues I am trying to address with HeartBreaker is the lack of equipment progression, something that is fundamental to video games and is expected by modern audiences. I have been puzzling this out for a while, but I think Daggerheart really shows what gamers of today are expecting; a variety of different weapons and armour that can be gained, and should be, to maintain a character’s power as they advance.

So, I began with equipment. I like the idea of a medieval-influenced economy being silver-based rather than gold, so I changed that. I also like the idea of the different coins being more prominent in the pricing, so I made sure to use the variety when noting prices. The equipment ladder is present for armour in my first supplement, and there is a “janky” 5e ladder for weapons in my second supplement, because it is meant to be stapled onto the existing 5e chassis for anyone to use. My full HeartBreaker edition will alter the weapons even more, accounting for crafting rules based in my alchemy system which is also coming to HeartBreaker.

Nostalgia

Recently I have been looking back at 3e-3.5e; I found the SRD equivalent for those editions and have just been perusing them for nostalgic things I could bring back with my designs. The biggest dusty memory hit was looking over the feats lists, because they were massive, and I spent much time poring over them and wandering what my current or next character would make from them. What kind of character could I make with this combination, or that one, or where would that particular feat fit to really shine in this other build. It never felt like “build-crafting” to me, because there is always an element of motivation and history for my characters, where they fit into the world.

Another element that was nostalgic was the equipment, the time before kits. Before 5e, there were no kits, you had to look through all of the stuff and go shopping, which I always loved. With the rogue being my primary class, I was always going through my standard checklist of equipment I will need, and then I would consider the rest of my character and wonder what else they might think they need, or would be fitting for them to carry. Now you just grab a kit and if the GM asks if you have a piece of equipment, people just ask “why wouldn’t I?” (Another one of those insulting, “I don’t take any time to prep because I’m not the GM” kind of responses.)

If you have to pick out your equipment, you have to prepare. You have to engage in playing out scenarios you might get into that would be benefited by choosing this particular item. There is a lot of discussion on the 10-foot pole, and how it used to be standard with the focus on dungeon crawling that the early games are famous for. Even though the focus of the game has changed, that conversation exemplifies why players should take more time in preparing their characters and understanding the equipment they have, because if they need something they didn’t buy, then yes, whatever task they are attempting should be more difficult or dangerous, or both.

HeartBreaker Going Forward

I am now done with the equipment, for the most part. I have my foundation, I have some of the smaller rules changes finished, and I even have a modified Complete Character Sheet to go along with them. Next I will be focusing on a few things: Alchemy, Classes, Races, Backgrounds, and somewhere in there Magic.

Alchemy

Alchemy has been in dire need of a revision for a few years, given my dedication to making a system so complicated even I don’t want to touch it. As of now, I have redesigned the gathering rules and given them a touch-up, with a finished section including art and full layout. If you are familiar with my current Alchemy system, the Properties will be disappearing, folded into the recipes and the properties will fall back to the influences from literature and lore. If you want to make a healing potion, you can use a variety of different ingredients so long as the influences are healing related, which can be a discussion with your GM.

The next big section will be doing layout and the revision of the ingredient descriptions, including art, which is the biggest part. What kind of inspired my whole alchemy project was finding these illustrations that I have raved about before, and now I will finally be bringing them into the product. I am excited and anxious, given the scale of this decade-long ordeal.

Races

I know that there has been some controversy around this term, I am still unsure as to what it is, but I have my own ideas for how to change them around. For one, darkvision will be paired with sunlight sensitivity, always. If you have the advantage of never needing a light source, then you should have an appropriate drawback. There are a few races I created for my homebrew that I want to put fully into action, such as the giants, satyrs, and some human subraces, and I want to simplify their features as well. I also miss having negative ability modifiers, showcasing the drawbacks of certain creatures as well as their benefits.

Backgrounds

Oh boy do I have ideas for these. For the longest time I have viewed backgrounds as where a character receives their primary capabilities. A farmer turned fighter would use different weapons than a noble turned fighter, given that farmers know how to use Tools and nobles will likely be trained in Swords. I want to spread this out among a large variety of medieval-inspired backgrounds that act as the first piece of a character class, essentially. Having a background will grant the initial proficiencies a character class will build upon.

For example, one of my custom backgrounds is the Majei. A majei is essentially the origin of a sorcerer, someone that is naturally gifted with magic and has had a life centering around this ability, whether a gift or curse. This background would grant the spellcasting feature to a character that allows them to go into a class that will define how they use it. Essentially, I want to break the classes into two pieces, giving a large responsibility to the background.

Classes

To build off the backgrounds, classes will be taking the role of how a character uses the capabilities they have. These initial capabilities will come from their background, mostly, and the class is how they are applied. One of the longest running ideas I have had is that fighters, or battle-focused characters, in a magical world, would encompass the “weapon” of magic, if that is their focus. A fighter is someone specializing in fighting, whether their weapon is a sword, pike, fists and knees, or spells.

One of the redesigns I want is to roll all the fighting focus into the fighting classes. If you want to be a battlemage, then you would be a fighter. To break this from the wizard, the spellcasting feature would be located in the background, which defines the origin of that capability and how it has defined the character up to the point where they decided to become a warrior of some kind.

A recent inspiration for how the classes should be redesigned came from news about Nimble, another 5e-based game that is soon to release. From the interview I listened to, all of the cool and defining class abilities were moved into the early levels, allowing players to access them much faster. This results in players not having to wait for the cool stuff, and as the character gains levels those abilities simply grow in power.

What a brilliant idea! Give the players what they want rather than making them wait! Now, they won’t get everything at first level, which still makes sense for learning the character, growing accustomed to their capabilities, and leaving some things to be looked forward to, but ultimately it fixes the issue of campaign burnout that has been widely reported. If you never make it past 10th level, then any of the character abilities beyond that just don’t exist, and you never get to play with them, which sucks.

Magic

I have discussed magic at length already. I know where I want to go, it’s just such a massive undertaking for a solo developer. I know how massive it is because that is also the scope of my Alchemy project. Given how I want to integrate alchemy as a fundamental power avenue, akin to social, exploration, battle, and magic, I am considering moving a lot of the spell functions over to alchemy and making magic a more freeform and less scientific endeavor. If you want to know more of my thoughts on magic, go check out my Deconstructing Magic article.

Thanks for reading.