TOPIC: Feedback Needed on Rules Changes for 2025 Combat/Classes

Thanks for the preview and opportunity to give feedback! There's some great stuff here, especially having INT finally do something.

IMHO we have to consider the huuuuge ecosystem of existing tokens that were designed to make sense under the old rules. Fortunately there are only a handful of current tokens which interact directly with INT, WIS, and CHA, so my concern is mostly Regarding #1...

Jeff Martin wrote:
1) Dexterity will now be treated like Strength is for both to hit and damage with MISSILE attacks (not Ranged).

We have exactly one brand new weapon that currently behaves this way: tokendb.com/token/acherins-biting-bow/

During token dev, we were so worried about that special bonus getting out of hand that we capped it at +10 AND made the weapon non-magical, and it's still fantastically good.

DEX is already the "most special" stat in coaching because it modifies 3 numbers on the party card: AC, Reflex, and ranged to-hit. The only reason this works out from a design balance standpoint is that it does *not* boost damage, and so an effective missile build needs to devote some slots to +hit tokens and other slots to +dmg tokens with very little overlap between the two. With this proposed rule change, there will suddenly be a TON of overlap between the two.

tokendb.com/stat-bonus/dexterity/ lists almost 100 existing tokens that boost DEX, sometimes in very large increments. Once your build has enough HP and Fortitude for basic survival, missile builds will be looking to slot DEX almost everywhere else, except where there are already +dmg tokens that give an even better return (e.g. Muk's).

As a small concrete example, why would anyone consider equipping Goggles of the Deadshot & Charm of Biting (+3 hit, +2 damage) anymore when you could instead fill the same slots with Lenses of the Fae & Greater Quicksilver Charm (+2/3 hit, +2/3 damage, +2/3 AC, +2/3 Reflex, and 100% vs incorporeal)? With DEX granting +dmg, the comparison is not even close.

STR builds already get both +hit and +dmg from the same tokens, but that's all; if they want saves or AC, those have to come from different slots. I suspect the proposed quadruple-dipping rule would tempt a fair number of melee builds to switch to missile, considering the fact that missile attack mode also avoids the melee downsides of monster retribution, flying monsters, etc. But above and beyond that, we have years of token design history during which we have generally been very careful about granting large STR bonuses for precisely this reason, and have not needed to be similarly careful about granting large DEX bonuses.

"Check it out; I get +1 hit *and* +1 damage in my torso slot now!" -- melee builds wearing Death Knight Mail
"Hold my beer." -- missile builds wearing Moonhide Robe
"DEX is all you need." -- John Lennon playing TD next year

I don't think anybody wants to see a massive wave of token errata rewriting history for the sake of this rule change, so if we do it we're just going to have to deal with the pain. My question: what's the upside? What problem is Change #1 intended to solve?

Unless there's a fairly compelling motivation I am not seeing, I would be inclined to suggest leaving missile attack as is and just moving forward with the other changes (which I think are within tweaking distance of reasonable).

Mike Steele wrote: #8: I'm not in favor of this change. It will probably move the Druid down near the bottom in damage dealing

Some classes will need to be near the bottom in damage dealing (unless TD adopts a design philosophy that all classes should have equal damage).

The only classes to me that seem like they should be lower in damage output than Druids, from a pure thematic and D&D expectations point of view, would be perhaps Bards and Clerics. (Bards and Clerics of course can contribute substantial damage indirectly via Bardsong, Prayer, etc.)

PLEASE DON'T RUIN THIS GAME WITH 5TH EDITION. 5TH EDITION D&D SUCKS.

Clarification/tweaking notes regarding #2, #3, and #5:

I hope that this change is only for spells; i.e. a physical melee attack by any of these classes will still use STR modifiers. (I think this is probably what you intend, but the current wording is ambiguous)

I hope that the bonus spell damage from WIS/INT/CHA applies to non-slide spells as well as slide spells.

I hope that the Bard's own bonus spell damage for e.g. casting Sonic Dart will use the normal CHA modifier table like every other stat, and it's only the Bardsong effect whose math will be goofy and unique. (I think this is probably what you intend, but the current wording is ambiguous)

I think it's smart not to change healing. (*pours one out for the original Lenses of Divine Sight*)

Regarding #7:

7) Paladins gain additional healing pts, on their first use of Lay on Hand, equal to their Wisdom bonus

This feels weird to me, both because we're (for good reason) not boosting Cleric/Druid healing, and because it makes the already somewhat fiddly LOH mechanism even more fiddly. Plus, with the caveat that I only play Paladin occasionally, I feel like a Paladin would rather have something different than this -- perhaps bonus AC, or bonus DR, or more HP remaining after a Sacrifice? (just a few ideas)

Regarding 'jack-of-all-trades' as a class identity:

Jeff Martin wrote: 8) The Druid class will get tweaked so that it best represents a "jack of all trades" class. This includes changing polymorphing do it is naturally built into the class to give the druid fun/cool useful powers. If Druid want to be a big fighter in a room, they can do that with a Trinket token.

I worry that without some outside the box thinking, this gives TD an impossible task to make Druids a jack-of-all-trades across the variety of token gearing levels that exist.

As slots expand and people get better builds, the differences between builds diminish:

If you were to build out the highest end two-handed melee Barbarian build vs. a two handed melee Wizard build (assuming the existence of Bibwick's and the 2025 beads), you'd find the differences are not very large, certainly within 20%. See truedungeon.com/forum?view=topic&catid=737&id=257351#454598 for example builds and a comparison of the two.

If Druids are truly going to be jack-of-all-trades - it's going to need to be achieved at a pretty basic level in the class that can't be shunted to the side by just going ham on tokens and building towards one particular capability.

The risk is in giving Druids the ability to achieve top tier capabilities at each thing they are supposed to be "jacks" of once tokens come into the picture. For example, for many years Druids could out-heal clerics because they had all the same healing bonus tokens, and Druids could cast more healing spells than Clerics because of Charm of Spell Swapping.

I also worry that "jack of all trades" isn't really a good goal for a True Dungeon class in general.

Bards are interesting in that in D&D they are the definition of "jack-of-all-trades" classes, but in TD they have a clear identify as "unambiguously the best combat support class."

I think it might be better to pick an identity for Druids to excel at, and minimizing the ancillary things to that identity.

David Zych wrote: Thanks for the preview and opportunity to give feedback! There's some great stuff here, especially having INT finally do something.

IMHO we have to consider the huuuuge ecosystem of existing tokens that were designed to make sense under the old rules. Fortunately there are only a handful of current tokens which interact directly with INT, WIS, and CHA, so my concern is mostly Regarding #1...

Jeff Martin wrote:
1) Dexterity will now be treated like Strength is for both to hit and damage with MISSILE attacks (not Ranged).

We have exactly one brand new weapon that currently behaves this way: tokendb.com/token/acherins-biting-bow/

During token dev, we were so worried about that special bonus getting out of hand that we capped it at +10 AND made the weapon non-magical, and it's still fantastically good.

DEX is already the "most special" stat in coaching because it modifies 3 numbers on the party card: AC, Reflex, and ranged to-hit. The only reason this works out from a design balance standpoint is that it does *not* boost damage, and so an effective missile build needs to devote some slots to +hit tokens and other slots to +dmg tokens with very little overlap between the two. With this proposed rule change, there will suddenly be a TON of overlap between the two.

tokendb.com/stat-bonus/dexterity/ lists almost 100 existing tokens that boost DEX, sometimes in very large increments. Once your build has enough HP and Fortitude for basic survival, missile builds will be looking to slot DEX almost everywhere else, except where there are already +dmg tokens that give an even better return (e.g. Muk's).

As a small concrete example, why would anyone consider equipping Goggles of the Deadshot & Charm of Biting (+3 hit, +2 damage) anymore when you could instead fill the same slots with Lenses of the Fae & Greater Quicksilver Charm (+2/3 hit, +2/3 damage, +2/3 AC, +2/3 Reflex, and 100% vs incorporeal)? With DEX granting +dmg, the comparison is not even close.

STR builds already get both +hit and +dmg from the same tokens, but that's all; if they want saves or AC, those have to come from different slots. I suspect the proposed quadruple-dipping rule would tempt a fair number of melee builds to switch to missile, considering the fact that missile attack mode also avoids the melee downsides of monster retribution, flying monsters, etc. But above and beyond that, we have years of token design history during which we have generally been very careful about granting large STR bonuses for precisely this reason, and have not needed to be similarly careful about granting large DEX bonuses.

"Check it out; I get +1 hit *and* +1 damage in my torso slot now!" -- melee builds wearing Death Knight Mail
"Hold my beer." -- missile builds wearing Moonhide Robe
"DEX is all you need." -- John Lennon playing TD next year

I don't think anybody wants to see a massive wave of token errata rewriting history for the sake of this rule change, so if we do it we're just going to have to deal with the pain. My question: what's the upside? What problem is Change #1 intended to solve?

Unless there's a fairly compelling motivation I am not seeing, I would be inclined to suggest leaving missile attack as is and just moving forward with the other changes (which I think are within tweaking distance of reasonable).

I think I agree with this mostly.

See for instance my recent "Ranged Monk Best Monk?" post in The Monastery ( truedungeon.com/forum?view=topic&catid=566&id=257278 )

If DEX added to damage as well, the builds I posted there would be:

Melee monk: 28 to hit, 61 damage on each of two pucks
Ranged monk: 28 to hit, 77 to damage on each of two pucks, while having better AC, HP, and saves

And that's without attempting to optimize the build by adding more DEX now that it's doing more.

Multiple items - what classes will use strength and dexterity for physical attacks? Monks and Paladins are clerical in nature.

Multiple items - which one if any, spells caster will use dexterity for slide spells? Seems like no spells that require a slide will use dexterity.

1) Thematically this makes a lot of sense, but balance-wise this worries me. The entire existing token pool is balanced around the assumption that DEX only grants bonuses to hit, not to damage. With this change, tokens like Aron's Sunhide Robe, Kilt of Dungeonbane, etc which are already BiS become even better, not to mention the large amount of tokens available which provide smaller DEX bonuses. This also means that DEX will be the best stat in the game by far, granting bonuses to hit, damage, AC, and reflex saves. Honestly I'd recommend just leaving DEX the way it is, ranged builds have received a lot of support in the last few years and don't really need the large boost this would give them. Also, it makes sense to me that STR grants bonuses to thrown weapons, it'd be nice to keep that in the game as an interesting consideration for builds.

4) I like this a lot, having each type of Wizard focus on a different build will help define the class identities and let players focus on whichever they prefer.

6) This is a nice idea, it fits well into the monk theme and will be a nice option to have at higher levels of play since monks can't wear armor.

7) I like this a lot as well, Lay on Hands is in need of an improvement like this.

Other) Rogues are currently fine for players who own a lot of tokens, but playing Rogue is a real struggle for new players. There are two main reasons; firstly, your ability only works in melee but you have the joint lowest STR stat and worse weapon choices compared to the other melee classes, and secondly, it's just not fun to skip a turn of combat without doing anything. While a hit bonus with one-handed weapons would do a lot to help, that would cross over with the fighter a bit too much, so I'd suggest adding an ability which triggers when you skip a turn for Sneak Attack - either +2 to hit with the Sneak Attack, or that you get to Flank during the skipped turn. These would only trigger if you skip the turn, they would not trigger if you use a token to avoid skipping the turn.

First, I've only had a chance to skim through the growing amount of feedback, so apologies if I'm repeating things already stated.

Second, my comments will mostly be limited to the wizard/elf wizard class, since that's really where I spend most of my time (338 times in VTD).

#3 - Thematically, this appeals to me and makes some sense. I don't see any major issues at normal and probably hardcore levels of play. It's above that where I start to have questions and/or concerns.

We've a 20+ year history of building up a large number of tokens that support strength, dexterity, melee to hit and ranged to hit. Lots of slot choices and build options. Not so much with intelligence. That might change over the next five to ten years, but how much frustration might happen in that time.

Looking at my most recent elf wizard build, my dexterity is 33 and my intelligence is 22. There are a couple of changes I can make to close that gap a little, but it's still a drop off. Dexterity helps not just my ranged to hit, but my AC and reflex saves. Going forward it will help other classes with their ranged damage. Seems like I've just taken a step back in the usefulness of my class.

Question 1 - Will ranged to hit and ranged damage tokens still impact spells? Currently, about 40% of my spell damage comes from "ranged damage". If I lose that, the class is no longer playable at epic. It would also have an impact to bardsong.

Question 2 - I assume this change applies not just to sliding spells, but to my melee and ranged attacks. Is this correct? If so, it's a little boost to my melee attacks, but a big drop-off to things like throwing Thor's Hammer (which I probably shouldn't be so good at anyway, but am). I will now have little to nothing to do in rooms that nerf magic. At least today I have a chance of hitting a ranged attack. And don't mention Boost, because with the new bead expander in the neck slot, wizards may migrate away from their class legendary. I'm certainly thinking about it. Will likely create two builds, one with and one without.

I do like that this change gives some importance to intelligence, but it's still inferior to strength (melee to hit and damage), constitution (hp and fort saves), dexterity (ranged to hit, AC and reflex saves), wisdom (will saves) and charisma (+1 figurine). One suggestion would be break tomes out into a separate slot and allow extra tomes at certain levels of intelligence. Another suggestion would allow will saves at the higher of wisdom or intelligence.

Anyway, I support heading in this direction conceptually, but in practice I see potential issues that could nerf this class at higher levels of difficulty.

#4 I like this way of differentiating the elf and human wizards. I assume if elf wizards have mostly slide spells, that human wizards will have many more skill check spells. Make sure to balance out spell damage. You have to assume that at higher levels of difficulty the wizards will make their skill check 98% of the time, but consider lower levels of difficulty that may have more new players who won't .

However, this creates two wizard paths, and one of them requires little to no memorization, which may entice more beginners to try that class. I consider that a good thing. It will also create situations where people who play one or the other will be much less willing to switch. Today, my elf wizard build can just as easily be used for the wizard. In the future, the builds will diverge and switching could be problematic.

Will a successful slide spell still be a static 15? I would encourage yes. If that becomes higher at higher levels of difficulty, it makes the class less playable. I would also consider making Sharpen an elf wizard power or ability on their class card, which will help compensate for missed slides.

Also, please balance out the spells a little more between the two. Today, the wizard has better spell choices and things only balance out because the elf wizard can do Alertness.

Again, I like the thought process here conceptually. I see it being a little tricky to pull off practically, especially at nightmare, epic and soon to be mythic levels of play. It's no one's fault, but again, unraveling 20+ years of existing tokens won't be easy.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Regarding 'jack-of-all-trades' as a class identity:

Jeff Martin wrote: 8) The Druid class will get tweaked so that it best represents a "jack of all trades" class. This includes changing polymorphing do it is naturally built into the class to give the druid fun/cool useful powers. If Druid want to be a big fighter in a room, they can do that with a Trinket token.

I worry that without some outside the box thinking, this gives TD an impossible task to make Druids a jack-of-all-trades across the variety of token gearing levels that exist.

As slots expand and people get better builds, the differences between builds diminish:

If you were to build out the highest end two-handed melee Barbarian build vs. a two handed melee Wizard build (assuming the existence of Bibwick's and the 2025 beads), you'd find the differences are not very large, certainly within 20%.

If Druids are truly going to be jack-of-all-trades - it's going to need to be achieved at a pretty basic level in the class that can't be shunted to the side by just going ham on tokens and building towards one particular capability.

The risk is in giving Druids the ability to achieve top tier capabilities at each thing they are supposed to be "jacks" of once tokens come into the picture. For example, for many years Druids could out-heal clerics because they had all the same healing bonus tokens, and Druids could cast more healing spells than Clerics because of Charm of Spell Swapping.

I also worry that "jack of all trades" isn't really a good goal for a True Dungeon class in general.

Bards are interesting in that in D&D they are the definition of "jack-of-all-trades" classes, but in TD they have a clear identify as "unambiguously the best combat support class."

I think it might be better to pick an identity for Druids to excel at, and minimizing the ancillary things to that identity.

I agree with at least part of that. I thought as of last year because polymorph was going to be limited to Druids that polymorph was going to be the main Druid identity going forward, but the direction of limiting polymorph damage to one room per Dungeon really undercuts that identity. If the reason Trinkets can only be used in one room per Dungeon is because their damage wheel is too high, why not just scale the damage wheel back to polymorph potion level and allow them in each room.

Also, the only reason anyone can argue that the Druid can be as good at healing as the Cleric or as good at damage spells as the Wizard is the Charm of Spell Swapping. Maybe now is the time to obsolete that token, say it can no longer be used, and allow people to turn them in for a PYP. That would help "lock" the Druid into the jack of all trades roll, it would permanently be inferior at healing to the Cleric and inferior to damage spells to the Wizard.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: #8: I'm not in favor of this change. It will probably move the Druid down near the bottom in damage dealing

Some classes will need to be near the bottom in damage dealing (unless TD adopts a design philosophy that all classes should have equal damage).

The only classes to me that seem like they should be lower in damage output than Druids, from a pure thematic and D&D expectations point of view, would be perhaps Bards and Clerics. (Bards and Clerics of course can contribute substantial damage indirectly via Bardsong, Prayer, etc.)

Rogues bring consistent access to the rogue clue which is critical for many puzzles. Clearly we aren’t stack ranking damage based on usefulness so why kneecap druids?

Second wisdom+focus+mystic staves is going to launch clerics up in damage, so do we really need to be pulling Druids down at the same time? And for the record mystic staff damage types are kind of broken considering typical monster DR and resistances:

tokendb.com/token/mystic-staff-of-the-sun/

tokendb.com/token/2-mystic-staff-of-the-ancients/

Third if you really want chain druid and cleric damage near to each other you can do that by moving polymorph to wisdom and not needing to limit the number of types you use can use it. The problem is that if you go this route clerics will heal more, do more damage, and have more utility (be a better jack of all trades than druids).

This all feels a bit rushed.

Regarding #1
Strength is going to be undervalued after this change (not helping with AC or saves). I would recommend all future tokens provide 1.5 strength for the equivalent in dex.

Also we probably need potions that allow leaping attack to make a return soon.