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May Q&A (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-28 15:45:38
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

It's time for another Live Q&A with Robert "Djordi" Djordjevich, our newest designer, and me (James), hosted by Dael Kingsmill! The stream will start at 4pm Pacific US Time on Thursday, May 30th! We'll post the link here on Patreon when we go live.

This Q&A is going to be focused on the first five classes we've created for levels 1 to 3. The conduit, the elementalist, the fury, the shadow, and the tactician! 

Post your burning questions about classes below. Dael is going to go through them and summarize for us. We'll also take questions live!

See you Thursday (or on the VOD after)!

-James

Comments

Fletcher Smith

Have you found opportunity attacks to be mechanically beneficial? I could never justify them in the “story” of combat in my head. How would someone moving out of reach of your weapon open them up for an attack? Regardless, I’m super excited for this system, and love following your progress updates!

JBR

With the development of the classes is it easier to see how many classes will end up as core? Or is more development required for that info?

Patrick J Buczek

here lately, as a designer, i’ve taken a keen interest in asymmetrical player options in games like root. is there any element of that - presenting wildly different *ways* to play the *same* game - in the character classes as they exist now? super excited for the game, you guys, and thanks for doing these Q&A’s!

DaveSqiud

Are y'all having fun 😁

Jonathan Wilder

Question: Which class’ design changed the most after developing it for 3 levels, and why?

Cole Wallace

How do subclasses factor into the core design of the base class? Where do you draw the line between every Shadow should have X ability vs this type of Shadow should have this ability?

Tom W

James mentioned on stream that at the time, the Tactician has two kits. Assuming that's still true, how is that implemented—which bonuses get used for health and damage, and do you always have access to both signature abilities?

Tom Flynn

What Core Rulebook class gaps do you see next to these 5 classes?

Antonio Padilha

I remember Matt suggesting in a stream the idea of, after designing level 1, going straight to designing level 10, then doing everything in the middle. I thought that sounded super interesting. Is something like that still on the table?

Tom Flynn

Will the game have Tiers of play? Like, do you envision any power bumps at level 4 or 5 for instance, or are you currently thinking of an even gradient across all levels?

Daniel Friedman

How did the d10 couple pictures start? Is there an outline for their story or is Djordi winging it?

ZooSKP

Hi Djordi, Dael, Matt, and James- here's a question about classes and different conceptions of magic use. With the understanding that the game currently does not use a giant spell list that different classes can access dif6parts of, what is the team's current thinking on how the different core and possible future non-core classes support different fantasies? It looks like kits and the elementalist will cover the Harry Potter style wand blaster fantasy pretty well, and Matt and James have mentioned wards on stream a few times. What about "living spells" as seen in the Jack Vance stories that i spired old school D20 magic and then echoed in Discworld's Octavo? True names? The subtle soft-magic powers of Gandalf and Galadriel? Are any of these definitely in or out of the core game at this point? Are there any cool ideas that had to be discarded?

Wilzard

How much illusion magic might the Shadow have access to? Will it be possible to be an illusionist-esque shadow?

Nathaniel Johnson

How complex do characters get as they level? Do they start fairly simple and get more complex? Or do they begin complex and add little things each time they level? In other words: How much of a learning curve for playing a new character class is there at level one?

Wilzard

How will switching between ranged & melee interact with kits? Can a tactician switch between bow & sword in the same battle, for example.

Chappy Hall

I remember awhile ago Matt saying he was not sure if every element would have a subclass for the Elementalist in the core rules. However, on a recent stream James was talking in a way that makes me think that has changed. What are the Elementalist subclasses looking like right now?

Micah Peltier

How much are you all budgeting in "extracurricular" rewards (I'm particularly thinking of Titles) into the power balance of the game? Will there be an expected number of Titles to Level ratio the Director is advised to hit? 5e, as far as my understanding stretches, specifically *doesn't* account for, say, magic items, in the math of the system, which means that something as simple as a +1 sword can really screw with balance. As a GM, I find myself wanting to give my players rewards beyond just leveling up (which, to me at least, doesn't really feel like a *reward*, it feels more like marking the passage of time--a foregone conclusion of playing a long running campaign), but I also don't want to make my life harder when designing encounters

That black guy

How has the classes and abilities evolved to say allow different types of the same characters? Like say two players are both shadows, while one is okay with being the one that gets into the fray and hunts down enemies in melee, has there been anything to compliment shadows who wish to keep at distance ? I bring this up while this is a fantasy game , I am thinking of the pulp hero of the same name as the Shadow and how I'd like to try and play something like him or his contemporaries. But they usually use ranged weapons and stay at medium distance more often than melee/close distance.

Bestest Fin

Are you planning on running with these 5 classes to 10th level, then making more classes? Or are you going to design more classes from 1st to 3rd level, then design them together up to 10th?

Zach Fero

So 5 Classes is there a wand wielding kit so a shadow of fury could wield magic?

Ben Fisher

Even if you can't give dates or even approximations, how soon are thinking you might want to land the next playtest packet, and what are you aiming for it to contain? We would love to playtest stuff with our weekly local group, especially including power roll stuff, but was very late to submitting as volunteer tester.

GubDM

What will the vertical slice of this game look like for yall?

Arthur_OL

Is 2d10 pretty likely to stay in the game? I’m wondering if it’s time to indulge my inner Dice Goblin and start stocking up on some cool new d10s. Safe to say Djordi’s discord posts of his 20-sided d10s have been an inspiration to many of us :)

wyatt wustrau

Can we get some history on the fancy new designer?

Jackite Laz

In my own game design work, I've found that players enjoy having a bunch of different dice to use (assuming their purpose is clear) Did you guys notice that as well, and do you ever consider using different dice to create more diversity?

Matthew McCasland

I've got some players that vary in desired complication for what their characters can do on their turn. One really likes the DND fighter because it's boring and basically just moves and attacks. Another is playing some three classes stitched together to make a mechanics maelstrom. Do you plan on having obviously simple and obviously complex classes to fit different players?

GubDM

We know Matt played a ton of board games and James played a ton of TTRPGs, has Djordi played a ton of both? wargames? What's his favorite stuff to play at a table?

GubDM

Was the "tacticians can use two kits" the feature that was originally a subclass feature but then yall were like "this is foundational to being a tactician and should be something every tactician can do at level 1", or was that something else? Or were there multiple things like that?

Caleb Fasnacht

I want to know how the new guy's new perspectives contributed to the design of these classes

Michael Kling

A ton has changed since the last patreon packet! How far to completion do you think the core mechanics are at this point? Do you think certain classes are easier to play than others? Will subclasses be a way to fine tune class complexity? (I'm thinking the 5e difference between champion vs battle master, for example.)

KingGurke

How many classes do you feel right now should be in the core rules?

aiden davenport

If two players pick the same class, how many class options will overlap. Or will there be enough options for there to be no overlaps between characters.

SaintGwyn

Do you foresee concordance with deities being relevant to the conduit?

Valentino Konjik

The first draft of the elemental looked much more complex with more options (elements) than other classes. Will there be a strict separation between elements during hero progression? Or can you mix abilities from different elements?

ViCi0u5

What were inspirations or fantasies for the new subclasses? In the development phase, did you ever realize a new idea does not fit the class but would be a really cool idea for another class? (e.g. the idea of a swashbuckling fighter for the shadow. But then thinking, this does not work but might be a super cool idea for a troubadour )

aiden davenport

Will class options that interact with negotians and tests (non combat) come at a later stage of design, when focusing on those gameplay pillars?

Miranda Hawthorne

How does kit choice impact play right now? Is the panther kit going to feel different as a tactician vs a fury? And how much overlap is there in kit options between classes?

Zachary Boozer

When is it projected that we will see more classes like the censor?

Cormac Connolly

What is one lesson learned from designing the MCDM game?

Eran Arbel

You said you're inspecting every assumption and working from scratch to arrive at your design decisions. Why did you decide to go with classes and subclasses? What other methods did you think about and why were they dismissed?

Arthur_OL

Do different classes pick a subclass at different levels? When that selection happens, is there anything related to the character’s narrative that would go along with it, similar to how Culture creates a story around the skills and languages your character starts with?

Sigilbeckons

My players really see the Kits as a way drill down on individual player fantasy and their potential when it comes Class Fantasy. Has any major changes happened to Kits in regards to Versatility and their ability to be adapted across as many classes as seems logical?

Zawad Chowdhury

I rewatched Matt's videos on Downtime and One-on-one play recently, and was wondering what the MCDM RPG's design will be to support that style of play. Does Cinematic encapsulate Iron Man or Captain America's individual, personal stories as well as the big Avengers team-ups? I know there's research and crafting, but are there more active things to do during downtime? Will the game be balanced if there's only one PC?

Gustavo

Other than negotiation, what out of combat mechanics are there for role playing? Could a Disco Elysium Gameplay be possible?

Alan W

Can you talk about this "for levels 1 through 3" thing? I haven't seen any leveling posts (did I miss it?), and am now curious what the level limit thing is referring to. Thank you!

GubDM

no limit, it's just the levels they're designing for first

Zachary Tant

Between the choices of domains, deities and the Wrath/Virtue table, it sounds like the conduit is shaping up to be an extremely customizable class. Will there be support for ranged / caster options or do you envision the class will have a primarily melee focused playstyle? Also, looking into the future, what distinguishes a melee conduit from the censor? In my mind, the paladin and warpriest archetypes have historically hit a lot of the same notes. With MCDMs focus on each class having a unique mechanical identity, I was curious if any thought had been given to how to distinguish these two popular types of characters.

TM5

How flexible do you think party composition will be in terms of covering specific roles. I.e. does every party need a healer?

Tim

How much customization will there be with magic items and how they skew the work you are currently doing on classes. I know that Matt likes magic items to feel impactful so how will you balance that with classes & magic items both having dope shit to do?

Doctor Deagle

Will the the Elementalist have spell slots/mana points or will it just function off the heroic resource system?

A.J. Smith

What are some of the rewards players get for leveling up that you find the most interesting? I'm assuming more health, but what does leveling up look like in the eyes on MCDM and do you feel you've leveled out how leveling up should feel (no dud levels like some of the 5e stat improvements feel to me)?

Jan Plewa

How do the art and the game design pipelines coordinate for the classes? Or are they basically separate?

Seth Herron

Some of my favorite DnD moments involve the creative use of non-combat spells - like using Dominate Person to "Being John Malkovich" the Duke. Will there be spells/abilities in the MCDM RPG that let characters do cool/crazy things outside of combat?

Caspar Rahm

No question, just excited to hear from Djordi for the first time!

Alexander Corsbie

At what level do classes get their subclass? Have you decided if it is the same for all classes or tailored based on the fantasy?

Oko

What are the biggest differences between The Conduit and classes like Clerics/Warlocks?

Daniel Dias

One of the most common things people search in classes are gish classes. If you tell players you can have A and C they'll commonly request for having B as well. I fell that the class fantasies are very solid which I personally love do you think they'll remain that way moving forward?

Anthony Fontana

When's the next playtest for Patreons come out?

D.R.

Does your focus on strong niche protection for every (sub-)class challenge your design in regards to encounter difficulty & monsters - and if so, how do you deal with it? You mentioned that you want to strongly protect the niche every (sub-)class fills, meaning that, e.g., the Conduit should be the best at healing people (which I love, btw.). But I wondered if this also creates a unique challenge in regards to the issue already very present in typical d20 fantasy, where the party class composition (e.g., one without a (real) healer, tank etc.) can have a huge impact on what 'CR' actually poses a *true* challenge to the particular party in question. Maybe this isn't even that big of an issue in the first place and our dear Sorcerers of the Shoreline are just very terrible at balancing that game of theirs? :P

Louis L

How was designing the elementalist? How did it differ with the shadow as the baseline

aiden davenport

Have you used keywords in your design at all yet? Like the fire elementalist gaining a bonus whenever an other hero uses a fire keyworded ability?

JACK

Since the last Q&A, the Power Roll went from being just recently introduced to patrons to now having gone through a notable iteration from d6s to d10s (and probably plenty more in testing.) It was a pretty big change to the core mechanics to begin with! How does it feel to have made that progress? Is there any feeling that developing for levels higher than 3 (or any other parts of design) might hide something that would need you all to reevaluate any of the core mechanics in the future?

Xavier Dupe

Love how the conduit is powered by both virtue and wrath, a bit like light and dark side in KOTOR. Do you envisage player actions affecting how much they get of one or another? (E.g. killing in combat of lying in tests push towards wrath, healing and honesty towards virtue) I'm super excited for the elementalist and keen to see how it's developed. If the Water Mage is all about change, how is this different from Green? Will Green have healing powers? If not, what kind of abilities will it have?

nugetthechicen

How do ranged kits affect class abilities? Do they just grant you that range for everything you do, or are abilities within a class marked as melee or ranged? If the range is applied to everything you can do how does that change balancing abilities, if at all?

Grimm Letters

Given that the fantasies of these classes are very different, do you envision them having different cognitive loads? I.e. Will there be some classes better suited to people just starting with RPGs, and some for players wanting a more complex character? Or will the complexity be largely normalised?

Jack Charlton

QUESTION: With the introduction of followers that will help with research/ crafting while youre off adventuring. How does the rpg plan to track the passage of time?

Caernunnos

Any idea of when the next play test incorporating all recent changes will come out ?

FoxTrick

How do you balance abilities between the player classes. Do some have levels that are more utilitarian than combat based as they scale up?

FoxTrick

Will magic items be required at certain levels similar to Pathfinder? Example level 5 has a plus 1 magic weapon.

FoxTrick

What is your philosophy on making class levels? Start from max and work down to level 1 or work from ground up and abilities fall where they may.

FoxTrick

Any thoughts on groups running players at different levels and how that affects combat, play or XP awards?

Jason

Will there be villain versions of each class?

Levvinal

These first five classes really deliver on the "Tactical/Heroic/Fantasy" keywords of the design philosophy, but how do these deliver on the "Cinematic" elements? How, if at all, does "Cinematic" come into play while designing classes from the ground up? Were there any surprises when checking the designs against the keywords set out at the beginning of all this?

Jacob Montague

What kind of information will I need to know about my setting's gods to make them useful for Conduit players?

Eric Venegoni

Game looks amazing so far guys. There’s been a lot of developments that potentially changes page count. I’m thinking encounter sheets for monsters, and of course tiered results. Is there any thought one way or the other that page count looks different now?

Joshua Baker

there's already been some mention on streams of keywords being used to describe powers, for example elements are the focus of the elementalist but some of weird subclass powers might have the fire or void typings. Are there any other examples of this you're testing? A black ash typing mainly featuring the shadow, but working its way into another class or subclass?

Ben Milne

How has the change from d6s to d10s affected class abilities? Additionally, what is the current progression for class specialisations? Does each class progress differently, or do they all follow the same pathing?

Tom Flynn

Any hopes for UK/EU distribution? I'd love to see it on a shelf at my FLGS (so that I can buy it there).

Tom Flynn

I want to see how different Panther feels as a Shadow too. Does the "Never Stop Never Stopping* amount of movement abilities feel fun or defunct?

Tabletop Nonsenseverse

For someone who has never played a ttrpg, how long is the homework of character creation with the help of the director expected to be?

Tabletop Nonsenseverse

Will a first level character be simple enough for a new player to handle?

Jon de Nor

I'm both intrigued and interested in the work on encounter and monster design. Have the experiments been testing well (with contract testers specifically)? And if not, does it still seem "fixable"?

Jon de Nor

As a GM that has never really liked the money management aspect of D&D, I like the idea of a more abstract wealth mechanic. Is that going to be Renown, or is there going to be a separate wealthy stat?

Inge

How do you outsource art? And when will that process begin?

Inge

Will there be any more patreon updates with new ancestries? I am looking forward to seeing orcs, after Matt read their description on stream. Very excited to see them, and maybe do some more orc fanart!

Josh Rodell

Is there a methodology you've been using to set the size of the step up in power between levels, other than just what feels right? Do you vibe with linear steps, or might some level ups be extra special?

Christian Lange

There have been talk about a ranged/archer subclass for the Tactician. In a lot of well known fantasy-monster-slaying games the agility of a character is associated with their ability to be effective with ranged weapons. Last I heard the Tacticians main attributes are Might and Reason. Would that still be the case for a ranged focused tactician? Asked in a broader way, do you imagine that subclass choice could effect associated attribiutes for classes? (Note for Dael; just pronounce Lange as Lang, the e at the end is a soft Danish sound that doesn't really exist in English :o) )

Christian Lange

When designing the classes at this stage in development, where it is no longer just temp stuff for testing, do you also consider layout for the character sheet or does that come later. And if it does come later, can that sometimes impact the design of classes after they are developed?

Friend & Fairy: Games by T. Ashley Jenkins

For character customization - what's your process for finding the balance between delivering well on specific fantasies versus allowing lots of unique possibilities for player expression?

Graham Schofield

Based on what MCDM has already established-What does Djordi think makes something ‘MCDM’?

AnyDingo

Are there plans to expand the capabilities of critical hits and their effects via something like the Kits system.

Jacob Schmieg

QUESTION: I have heard Matt and James discuss not having multi classing in the game to prevent abuse of mechanics. James shared in a recent stream that a designer can create more powerful abilities for a specific tier of play. What is the concern for the first “tier of play” class features that would become abusable compared to “higher tier of play” options when mixed? Thanks!!

Ben Mortensen

In leveling up, do the characters gain any new non-combat abilities?

hadnerfaln

In yesterday's stream, James mentioned that the Conduit has a way to revive the dead at 3rd level. If PC (and NPC?) death is off the table potentially as soon as third level, what are the 'stakes' of the game for players and heroes? What does heroic failure look like in the MCDMRPG?

ZealousNemesis

The “Wizard Dual” is a powerful fantasy. Are there plans to create mechanics for Elementalists (and other magical classes) to battle 1:1, in a Gandalf vs Saruman or Dumbledore vs Voldemort style of dramatic and cinematic back-and-forth, that is better than slogging each other’s stamina to zero?

DNRSS

Do you have any higher-level abilities in mind for these classes, like up to 10th level?

Nick Reyes

Y'all have been doing a lot of cool work on encounter design, thinking about how to make the process easier and more fun while also getting better encounters out of it. One thing you keep hinting at is the idea of "goals" or "objectives" in combat. Do you have any idea what those will look like? Do you expect to have some tiered results there as well (full success, partial success, failure)?

Merlin's Fan

With Flee Mortals! Making it's way to DNDbeyond, are there plans to release this RPG to other vtts? Or will this be exclusive? (I'm excited either way)

Roman Penna

With the design for subclasses starting to come in and be designed, have you found that other ideas for classes are better served by subclasses for other classes, or are you keeping the identity of other classes you want to design out of subclasses currently?

Roman Penna

Also for Djordi - how have you found the bugsheet and working with a large group of testers in this way? I hope we're friendly

Jake Connorton

Will there be Skroderiders in the MCDM RPG and if not what must I do to get there to be Skroderiders in the MCDM RPG?

Sam Trapp

Have any of those classes been especially difficult to build a 3 level progression for? Unrelated but I'm also curious how the workflow has changed with another coming onboard.

DirectorZarroph

How and why do you decide what level subclass selection should take place at? Why might you vary this between classes?

tubaman

What are types of abilities (movement, damage reduction, AOE) do you try to give to every class in the game. And what sorts of abilities to you try to keep only for certain classes

tubaman

How are highly circumstancial benefits like (breathing underwater, poison immunity) implemented into leveling/character sheet.

tubaman

Is the character sheet going be an 8.5x11 piece of paper or are you considering other formats?

atomicsorcery

What rewards can players expect for completing an adventure?