🎮 They hit the $750,000 stretch goal for the Shadowdark RPG Kickstarter and are designing two new classes for the game.
🏹 They are starting with the ranger, which will not be a spellcaster.
🎭 Designing classes for Shadowdark RPG is not about balance but about each class excelling at its chosen skill set.
🔥 Fireball spell is not balanced, but it is a standout spell.
🎨 The ranger art is made by the streamer’s wife Jessie.
📝 The streamer didn’t do any pre-planning apart from a little bit of research before designing the class.
🧐 Before designing the ranger, the streamer did some research on the core classes going back to the first edition of the game.
🏹 The ranger class in Shadowdark RPG should be good at both overland navigation and dungeon crawling.
🌲 Rangers are survival specialists who patrol the wilds to keep civilization safe.
🐺 Animal companions do not fit the design of the ranger class.
💪 Rangers were better than fighters at fighting in first edition D&D and should be proficient in the Longbow in Shadowdark RPG.
🎯 Navigation and survivalism skills would likely include foraging, but not necessarily tracking.
🏹 Rangers should have access to a dagger, long swords, long bow, and short bow.
🗡️ Short sword could be used by Rangers, but they might not have a use for spear or javelin type weapons since they already have a bow.
🦷 Hand ax might be useful for chopping wood, but everyone can use it, so there is no need to include it as a Ranger weapon.
🐗 The boar spear seems like the ultimate boar hunting weapon, so it makes sense to give it to Rangers.
🎯 Rangers should not have access to weapons that they are not trained to use.
❤️ Rangers should have a hit die of d8 per level since they are primarily focused on combat.
🗣️ The Ranger class is a combat-oriented class, so they should have a higher hit die than non-combat classes like wizards or thieves.
🗣️ D6 is usually the hit die for a cleric or priest.
💬 When creating a class, it is important not to duplicate any talents from the ancestry, to avoid creating underpowered characters.
🤔 There are concerns with giving certain class talents to specific ancestries, such as making goblins bad rangers, so care must be taken in creating talents that don’t penalize player choices.
🏹 Rangers have a proactive ability, and their talents should be skillful and based on their wisdom score.
🌿 Rangers can increase their natural abilities beyond the ordinary and this can be attached to herbalism, creating a table with cool effects.
🎯 Rangers need damage progression so that they can compete with fighters in terms of damage output, but their progression should not be guaranteed.
🔪 Rangers should be allowed to choose whether they want +1 to melee or ranged attacks and damage, which is not as strong as the fighter’s weapon mastery.
💡 The designers are discussing a new ability for the Ranger class in Shadowdark RPG that involves finding herbs with varying levels of difficulty.
🌱 The herbs will have a generic effect associated with them, and the difficulty of finding the herb will be associated with the potency of its effect.
🧪 They plan to create a table with herbs that have varying levels of difficulty to find.
🗺️ The effects of the herbs will be left open to creative interpretation by the game master but keyed to the difficulty level of the herb.
🎓 They are considering making one of the Ranger’s talents reduce the difficulty of finding herbs by one step.
🔍 They discuss whether the Ranger’s Wayfinder ability should give advantage on the check to find herbs or not.
🤔 The designers consider making the herbs more like spells, but they want to keep the options contained and simple.
💬 They hit a Kickstarter stretch goal for the Shadowdark RPG and are designing two new classes, one of which is the ranger.
💬 They are discussing how to make the ranger class more interesting, and are considering adding a foraging ability that would allow the ranger to find food and other items in the wilderness.
💬 They are discussing the mechanics of finding and eating mushrooms in the game, and considering making it a 50/50 chance of finding a beneficial or harmful mushroom.
💬 They are discussing the possibility of making the mushrooms location-specific, but decide against it because it would limit player choice.
💬 They discuss the potential punishment for critical failures when foraging, but ultimately decide that it’s not necessary since it’s very unlikely to happen.
💬 They mention using InDesign for their work.
💬 They discuss the impact of the ranger’s abilities on gameplay and how to balance them.
💡 Increasing the range of the Talent roll could prevent it from being spammable.
🍄 The mushroom can stabilize dying players, so rangers could also make a stabilized dying check, especially since they have inherent intelligence bonuses.
🌱 The Herbalism Talent could be more about finding food, but the naturalism ability already covers this.
🌿 Negative herbs and plants could be included, and the game master could roll the check in secret.
💪 The damage Talents were initially included to prevent spamming, but since the herbs only last for one day, it is no longer necessary to make them punitive.
🌟 The phobane is a cool Talent idea that could be made to work contextually, like finding it in the environment relevant to the creature being targeted.
💬 They hit their Kickstarter stretch goal and are designing two new classes for the game
💬 They are discussing designing the ranger class and coming up with a name later
💬 They want to create a big healing effect for the ranger
💬 💡 They are discussing what the “two spot” effect could be for the ranger
💬 They are considering an effect that grants an animal hireling to the ranger
💬 They are debating whether to incorporate dual wielding into the ranger class
💬 They believe dual wielding may not be appropriate for the ranger, as it would be shoehorned in and defeat the purpose of the iconic build
💬 They suggest creating an alternate to the fighter class that specializes in dual wielding instead
💬 They brainstorm various abilities for the ranger, such as an increased movement speed or the ability to create poisonous blow darts
💬 They want to create a ranger class that specializes in dexterity and striking.
🏹 Longbow is empirically the best choice for the ranger class in terms of damage output and proficiency.
🗡️ Choosing a dagger would be a cool option, but it would not be as useful as a longbow since the latter has more range.
🌳 Rangers are primarily outdoorsmen rather than fighters, so weapon choice is not as critical as other abilities and talents.
🎮 The weapon mastery talent table has a low chance of being rolled and does not have an outsized impact on the game.
📖 This is an optional secondary class and not part of the core book.
🐗 Choosing the mastery for a spear would be equally cool as choosing a dagger because it would be useful for hunting.
