Dungeons & Delvers Deep Dive Review, Part 4

After some thoughtful and entertaining preamble about the hobby and gaming industry, Bruce continues with the classes.

Some answers and commentary (you'll need to watch the review for full context):

The purpose behind using a Talent system was to give players more control over not only what their character can do, but also to a point control character complexity and allow for organic growth. For example, you don't pick the fighter class and then choose the "special move" archetype/subclass/kit/build/etc (assuming you get to make any sort of thematic choice at all). 

Instead at certain levels you get a Talent, that Talent and be from a myriad of options, most of which have few if any requirements (none are level-locked). You can pick as many Exploits as you want (so long as you have the Talents and meet any requirements), but you can also just pick one or two Exploits, and otherwise stick to the passive modifier stuff (like Defender or Slayer).

You also don't have to, say, pick the "archer" option and be stuck with it forever. You can instead pick up an archer-themed Talent or two (such as Deadeye and Tight Grouping), but then snag some one-handed weapon stuff later, should you find a really badass magical arming sword that you intend to keep and use.

This system also avoids 2nd Edition's kits, 3rd Edition's prestige classes, 4th Edition's overall power structure (where most every option was fairly complicated), and 5th Edition's subclasses. You can just create a set of new Talents that fit a new theme or concept, or build on an existing one. Hell, there's a bunch of Talents we didn't include because the book was already 500+ pages!

At one point Bruce says something like, "You need whatever your table needs". He's right. Sure, you can play any edition of Dungeons & Dragons and it works (though you might take issue with how it works, or how well it works). I played the "easy to master" black box for awhile, and 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th Edition for years. If I didn't like them, I wouldn't have played them.

Dungeons & Delvers wasn't created because D&D doesn't "work", but because I identified a myriad of issues and shortcomings. Pseudo-Vancian magic doesn't make any sense. Having every magical class rely on pseudo-Vancian magic makes even less sense. The average peasant can punch a guy in plate armor, and there's something like a 15% chance that he will inflict full damage.

The list goes on and on, so I created a system that solves or at least mostly solves at least most of them (the peasant can still punch a guy in plate armor, but even if he is accurate enough to inflict damage, it will be greatly reduced, likely nullified completely).

How we designed Dungeons & Delvers was...well, we started with 4th Edition and played it by the book, crazy amounts of hit points and all. After every session, we identified something we didn't like and removed or changed it. This went on for a while until we pared the system down to its core, and then built it back up from there.

So Bruce was pretty close, except we started with a far more complex system, first. In hindsight this was not the way to go about it, because in the end we ended up stripping away most of the rules, anyway. This I chalk up to everyone being far more familiar with 4th Edition at the time.

I don't think that Bruce thinks that Melissa and I are attempting to compete with the 800-pound gorilla, but to clarify: we aren't. This is a game we made because, even though D&D technically works and it's the game we would enjoy the most were we forced to play another RPG, there were too many issues to easily change without having to change other parts of the rules.

Instead of just playing an existing edition and referencing what would in all likelihood be a massive, ever-changing "houserule" document (or sucking it up and just dealing with it, warts and all), we felt it was simpler to just create our own game. So, we did.

While the bard regains Rhythm every time he takes a Short Rest, it is important to note that Short Rests are limited to three per day, period, not all "spell" points are equal, and a class's other features and abilities are taken into account.

For example, a bard's Rhythm isn't generally as powerful on a one-for-one basis as a cleric's Favor, since the cleric can only freely gain Favor once a day.