I aim to get Echelon to the table and played this year as the focus of National Game Development Month (NaGaDeMon) 2012.
I expect to follow a subset of my full roadmap. I will track progress and high-level notes on this page.
Project Roadmap
Component | Status | Status Date | Notes |
very core | starting | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
B/X quick starts | not started | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
B/X | not started | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
H/M quick starts | not in scope | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
H/M | not in scope | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
C/L quick starts | not in scope | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
C/L | not in scope | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
Rules Cyclopedia | not in scope | 2012/11/02 | N/A |
Development Notes
This game was prompted by some dissatisfaction I felt with Dungeons & Dragons 3.x. My initial efforts will lean heavily on D&D 3.x for a few simple reasons.
- There is a lot of material out there already. The Revised System Reference Document provides large amount of material, and third-party publishers have expanded on that library considerably.
- The Open Gaming License (OGL) lets me make use of that huge library of material.
- I am most familiar with D&D 3.x. This makes it much easier for me to work with than other base systems might.
RSRD Game Elements
Given that I am starting from the Revised System Reference Document, the following game elements will be considered. I might apply them roughly as-is, change them, drop them altogether, or do something else entirely.
Game Element | Status | Date | Notes |
Ability Scores | not started | 2012/11/02 | Dropped; to be replaced by talents. |
Races | not started | 2012/11/02 | Cornerstone Talents. Lose Level Adjustment, instead just have the LA-causing benefits happen at higher tiers. None documented yet. |
Classes | not started | 2012/11/02 | Archetypes (talent sets often taken by that archetype), probably keystones (cap and corner). Class abilities will likely become talents. None documented yet. |
Prestige Classes | in progress | 2012/11/19 | Many can definitely be capstones, I have some examples already (Arcane Archer, Dwarven Defender, Shadowdancer). Examination shows that many RSRD prestige classes, at least, are not particularly good candidates for capstone talents. I’ve had a look through other sources of prestige classes and found them significantly richer. |
Skills | not started | 2012/11/02 | Talents, with 4e-style behavior (bonus plus extra effect); extra effect increases with tier. Consider mining Epic rules for increased skill abilities, right now the core skill effects are pretty mild. |
Feats | N/A | 2012/11/19 | Talent building blocks, early drafts will likely refer to feats directly for effects. Iron Heroes, Agents of Faith, and FantasyCraft have all been mined for talent material, and I would like to go back and mine the Iron Heroes classes for more. |
Spells | not started | 2012/11/02 | Talent building blocks, early drafts will likely refer to spells directly for effects. Spell-related talents (such as magical traditions) may simply list the associated spells. |
Domains | done | 2012/11/19 | Many created from Agents of Faith. Divine powers are expected to be fueled by divine channelling rather than by spell casting. Many divine characters will be casters, many won’t. |
Monsters | not started | 2012/11/02 | As characters, constructed from talents. |
Echelon Game Elements
From the table above, it looks like I haven’t addressed much. That is misleading, I think, because much of what I have been doing is groundwork for what comes next. I expect things to soon start moving pretty fast.
Echelon doesn’t have many moving parts, really.
Game Element | Status | Date | Notes |
Character Scores | done | 2012/11/19 | In character creation document. |
Character Creation and Evolution | in progress | 2012/11/19 | In character creation document. |
Task Resolution | in progress | 2012/11/19 | In core rules document. |
Cornerstone Talents | in progress | 2012/11/19 | In cornerstone talents document, will cover races. |
Common Talents | in progress | 2012/11/19 | In documents according to origin: Iron Heroes mastery feats, FantasyCraft feats, Agents of Faith domain feats, new talents. Still want to do “Skill talents” and Iron Heroes class abilities talents. |
Capstone Talents | in progress | 2012/11/19 | On web site: Creating from Prestige Classes, Arcane Archer, Dwarven Defender, Shadowdancer. |
Archetypes | not started | 2012/11/19 | Will do, not sure about formatting. |
Spells | not started | 2012/11/19 | Using RSRD spells more or less as written (may override things like duration and range to simplify, but that can be done on an ad hoc basis for now). Will want talents for spell knowledge, might go with something like Eldritch Weaver Threads for this pass. |
Monsters | not started | 2012/11/19 | To be done much as characters. Once I finish bootstrapping some talents these should go quickly. |
That looks a little more like progress is being made, yes?
I had an idea for a short adventure you could maybe use to test with. Should I post out in the open, on the forum, or just email it to you? Some prospective players might see it here 😉
Go ahead and post here. The playtesters I have in mind can work better if they know what’s being modeled, and I’m not worried about spoilers at this point.