NaGaDeMon 2012

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.

1. 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.
2. The Open Gaming License (OGL) lets me make use of that huge library of material.
3. 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?