www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

Thank you, Sol!

In just under 28 hours, Martial Artistry launches on Backerkit! Four new classes, four new heritages, mass combat, injuries, new weapons, new archetypes, a fealty structure for player-driven rewards, combat synergies...

It's a -lot- of material!

www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

Martial Artistry launches in 3 days!

New classes, New heritages, Mass Combat, New Weapons, Fealty Tracks... 149 pages already ready for PDF when the campaign ends!

Champion, Gunslinger, Sentinel, and Warcaster!

And two full classes as Stretch Goals!

The reason that jelly is refrigerated is because it ferments since it's a sugary grape juice reduction.

It won't make you sick if you don't, it won't kill you if you don't, but it will turn into -really- shitty booze and taste awful if you don't refrigerate it.

Unless you eat it all pretty fast.

Suddenly the tactical considerations for how to spend your turn are way more involved than "Am I standing next to an enemy? No? I move to an enemy. Then I swing."

Now you've got to use your -space- to block enemy movement, or dive for cover, or whatever. And with fewer OA there's less sticking.

And you could make it even more impactful by changing the rules of Opportunity Attacks to require a character to have a readied weapon.

Not a readied Melee weapon, so you can have dirty backshooters with hand crossbows or pistols...

But now Dragons don't get opportunity attacks!

You'd obviously need to make some NPC actions into Reactions, of course, to give the DM the same choice on any given turn of whether to keep the NPC "Sticky" for movement purposes or make things more fluid by gambling an extra bit of damage or some kind of debuff.

But what a difference!

Combine Bonus Actions and Reactions.

Anything that would normally take a Bonus Action instead takes your Reaction. HUGE difference in gameplay structure with that one change.

Now you have to choose between Raging or Opportunity Attacks.

Movement options and positioning increase dramatically!

For their archetypes I wanted to play with some traditional conceits and some new ones.

Crimson Edge: Burn yourself for more power.
Swordsage: Warrior-Casters with steel and spells.
Tactician: Battlefield Control through cantrips and ploys.
Wrathbearer: Give up precision to drop area strikes.

As they level up, Warcasters build on their cantrip casting by learning to split their cantrips into multiple attacks. If you have 2d10 for your firebolt you can splitcast it into two 1d10 firebolts, for example.

And they can apply combat maneuvers to one, or both, firebolts!

Casting Styles function like Fighting Styles for fighters. You pick one of the styles and gain its benefit.

These can be simple, like Defensive adding a +1 to AC or Long Range adding a +1 to spell attacks beyond 30ft. Or they can be more complex, like Overwhelming allowing you to reroll damage.

Warcasters instead use Cantrips as weapons. After all, the difference between a Firebolt and a Heavy Crossbow at level 1 mostly lies in the range, with the heavy crossbow winning out.

So Warcasters start out with 4 offensive cantrips, 2 cantrips from their "Initiation" and a Casting Style.