Goals of Echelon
As with any piece of work, it’s best to identify the goals of the work – if for no other reason than being able to know when you’re done. My goals in developing Echelon are pretty straightforward.
Category: Thing a Day
In an effort to get back into the habit of writing regularly, I’m trying to post at least one article a day. There is not necessarily any relationship between successive articles, the topics may vary widely from day to day.
Exploring Armor Options
A few days ago I posted rules for armor in Echelon. Some have been retained, some discarded because they were impractical or didn’t achieve the goals I wanted. Two benefits of armor that I really liked were that armor provided Damage Reduction and energy resistance. I removed the Damage Reduction …
Spell-Like Abilities
Yesterday while describing outsider templates I described a little about how I picture spell-like abilities working. This was something that I expected to give me a lot of trouble, but it turns out that the Tome (collecting articles and other writing by Frank Trollman and K [another Keith, I understand, …
Outsider Templates
I’ve been working on an examination and analysis of outsiders (brought about by trying to describe Babau in Echelon), and frankly it’s going to take more time than I have tonight. Instead, I thought I’d present a few templates that basically fell out of that analysis.
Babau in Echelon, Take 1
A few weeks ago I described how to reconstruct a demon, specifically a Babau, to better fit its textual description as a sneak. This was in part to make a creature that could be more easily adapted to other roles as well. Now that Echelon’s a little more developed, I …
Defenses in Echelon, Take 2
Three things learned today: People are reading these articles, with a critical eye. I can blow it sometimes. … I evidently can’t count to three, because I forgot the last one. Comments Received I’ve seen comments about yesterday’s post that include the following: Damage Reduction is way too high, especially …
Defenses in Echelon
I’ve written before about saving throw talents, and there is a talent to improve a character’s Dexterity, but I haven’t yet discussed much how to help keep a character from getting hurt in a fight. I have not yet run numbers on this, so this is greatly subject to change. …
Sneak Attack in Echelon
I think I’ll do a quick and simple one today. Sneak attack allows a character to do additional damage to a distracted or otherwise unaware opponent. A person with the sneak attack ability may do additional damage with his weapons when he attacks someone who is flatfooted or otherwise denied …
Martial and Casting Tweaks
The rules I drafted for Eldritch Weaving and Martial Disciplines both looked workable when I wrote them. When I compared the results, though, I found they didn’t feel quite equivalent to me. Among the differences, I think that the buy-in cost for martial disciplines is higher than for eldritch weaving; …
Incorporating Iron Heroes, Part 1
In 2005 Malhavoc Press published Iron Heroes, written by Mike Mearls as a variant Player’s Handbook. This supplement and setting focused on martial characters, with only minor support for spellcasters and other arcanists. A great deal of work went into making for more cinematic combat in D&D, where low-level combatants …