Beastlands Book Update

I have been working on an update for a while now. A big part of this update was upgrading my engine to be able to make the books efficiently. But, this also came with a bunch of extra ideas.

biggest changes:

  • glass cannons and tanker characters now exist.
    • If the creature does less damage, it usually has a lot more hp and vice versa.
    • this is not exclusively one or the other, can be a wide range to balance creatures
  • damage is a lot more varied
    • even if the creature might have the same average damage, they can all use different damage dice.
    • damage is not static to cr as well, it still scales with it, but it can be randomly a lot more or a lot less.
  • armor classes have been raised across the board.
    • Scaling higher at higher levels.
    • (highest ac I have seen out of a 250k sample was 27 on a cr 25 dragon)
  • average damage is calculated a bit better.
  • basic actions have been spruced up a bit.
    • sometimes they can have bonus effects that can change how the ability works.
    • It also lets me add effects to actions that ended up having too many damage dice and trading them for effects that could be considered equivalent in damage.
    • small boost to damage and hitpoints.

ability changes:

  • added new abilities
    • morality: an area effect ability that requires concentration. Each round it does damage and heals
    • supreme being: as the creature dies a bit of its lifeforce drifts away. As the creatures like it witness the death a new life starts materializing. After a period of time, a new creature is born based on the amount killed.
    • ghostly visage: as the creature dies it comes back as a phantom version of the creature with fewer hit points and replacing all damage as necrotic damage
  • Buffs:
    • treestride: a lot more speed
  • Balance change:
    • all abilities do a little less damage.

Tweaks:

  • tweaked the encounter tables to use a d1000 (3d10 with different colors). ex: 1st 9, 2nd 3, 3rd, 4 would be 934 on an encounter table.
  • edited the template system so I can start adding templated monsters that have a little less variance.
    • this will allow me to make undead feel more undead or make dragons feel like dragons. to an extent, this is already done since the monsters do have a bit of weight on them already. But it would let me define anatomy a bit more.

There are a few other small changes sprinkled throughout the book. The biggest thing that this does change, is if you already bought a book, this will generate you a brand new book on generation. Since I do not have a versioning system in place yet. (don’t plan on it until is completely done.) this allows you to get a new book during major updates.

Art by - Eduardo García
Art by – Eduardo García

Cool people!

I also have plans on working with a couple of podcasters, they have decided to help playtest a bit and give out free copies of the books!

if you get a chance checkout:

Dungeons & Blaggards

PenanceRPG

Flintlocks & Fireballs

If you have not checked out any of these fine individuals I definitely encourage you to. All of them are talented podcasters with a deep passion for the game. Thank you for everyone and any support that has been able to provide!

Coming next

Next on my road map is to implement warbands giving the creatures responsibilities and interactions with each other. More tweaks that will allow for better typing. I did make a tool that also will let me pump out more abilities more effectively! So the next update will have a slew of new abilities to see.