Black Flag Black Flag Playtest 2: Magic, Luck, Fighter, Wizards!

Kobold Press has released the 2nd playtest package for its Project Black Flag, which showcases magic, the luck system, and the fighter and wizard classes.

Black Flag is the codename for Kobold Press' open source 5E 'replacement' game.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

2e had the priest vs wizard magic divide rather than each class having specific spell lists, but more importantly, 4e had the exact division that WotC is using. I feel like they aren't so much copying Paizo as much as looking back at earlier editions (also, maybe copying Paizo).

Paizo is doing fan patches that WotC is now making official.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Paizo is doing fan patches that WotC is now making official.

Paizo's work is just as"official" as WotC's. WotC is just another content producer.

 

[Andvari]

That's where I remember it from! Argh I've been trying to puzzle it out. Thank you!

Thou art welcome, Avatar!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Thou art welcome, Avatar!

I really miss the Ultima series. So much of my understanding and appreciation of the fantasy genre in RPGs came from it.

 

[James Gasik]

I really miss the Ultima series. So much of my understanding and appreciation of the fantasy genre in RPGs came from it.

I still remember playing Ultima V on my Commodore and wishing my D&D campaign looked anything like it, from the lore, the maps, and the magic system, which used expensive and hard to gather material components and spell incantations that you had to learn or figure out!

I don't remember how many times I would have to weigh the costs of actually killing monsters to get xp and loot vs. the price I would have to pay to win! It was tough, and even with the ability to save the game, I found myself stuck and having to start from scratch with a new party many times.

Eventually, however, I learned where the best free loot was, and which characters were the most useful, I assembled a super team that destroyed most enemies with magic returning axes, lol.

Never did beat that game, because it turns out old school floppy discs are stupidly fragile, but that was certainly a high point of my gaming life.

 

[Andvari]

You could probably make a pretty cool megadungeon based on Ultima Underworld.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I still remember playing Ultima V on my Commodore and wishing my D&D campaign looked anything like it, from the lore, the maps, and the magic system, which used expensive and hard to gather material components and spell incantations that you had to learn or figure out!

I don't remember how many times I would have to weigh the costs of actually killing monsters to get xp and loot vs. the price I would have to pay to win! It was tough, and even with the ability to save the game, I found myself stuck and having to start from scratch with a new party many times.

Eventually, however, I learned where the best free loot was, and which characters were the most useful, I assembled a super team that destroyed most enemies with magic returning axes, lol.

Never did beat that game, because it turns out old school floppy discs are stupidly fragile, but that was certainly a high point of my gaming life.

I started with Ultima IV, but yeah. One of the things I loved about that series was the virtue system. It would track everything you did and apply it positively or negatively against the eight virtues. Really made you feel like everything you did (or didn't do) mattered.

 

[James Gasik]

You could probably make a pretty cool megadungeon based on Ultima Underworld.

I remember a friend telling me about Eye of the Beholder, and how the party gets exiled to Waterdeep's sewers, and had to scavenge for gear. And I was like, "Ha, you think that's bad, in Ultima, you get exiled t to the Stygian Abyss!".

 

[James Gasik]

I started with Ultima IV, but yeah. One of the things I loved about that series was the virtue system. It would track everything you did and apply it positively or negatively against the eight virtues. Really made you feel like everything you did (or didn't do) mattered.

It really inverted a lot of classic RPG tropes, like ransacking the houses of random people to get the money and gear you needed to survive! Run away from enemies? Oops, there goes your Valor!

 

[tetrasodium]

Decided to do a teardown of the whole packet like I've been doing with the oned&d stuff so far . Also because it helps me organize my thoughts before filling out the survey & might be useful for others

• Luck points:They work pretty similar to how I'm remembering DCC's luck points working but differ greatly on how they are gained. I really enjoyed the depleting nature of them in DCC & the new ways of gaining luck points looks like it will allow for far more interesting fast dealing use of them at the table than 5e's overused inspiration mechanic or DCC's "great if your a thief who gets it back" version.
  • PC Wisdom & Behind the curtain: I love the insight & behind the curtain: I love where these are going both for conveying cluebyfour on the topic to players and what looks like will be giving a GM the needed insight into RAI and similar.
• HP: I noticed that it doesn't say that you get max HP at first level. This seems kind of interesting since it gives the GM more room to invite players into a discussion as participants who feel like they might need something rather than having them smile & nod while blowing off the whole attempt
• Last stand: Having a reaction to taking damage self heal that burns hit dice & requires the user be what was once called "bloodied" is pretty cool. We don't yet have things like cleric & healing spells, but I like this much better over wackamole healing & reaction half damage.
  • I notice this doesn't specify fighter or d10 hit dice. Not sure how attractive this one level dip will become as we get more classes & multi/dual class rules.
  • As written this is [SUM:N dice]+conmod not [SUM:N dice]+[N*Conmod]. Not sure if this is intended or not & no strong feelings beyond the strong suspicion that this will get players questioning & "(deliberately) forgetting" without a PC Wisdom/behind the curtain callout.
• Martial Actions: I freaking love these, especially the common theme of use a bonus action & select a target ->get x on the firstattack. These go a good ways to unwind 5e's almost certain success on every attack slog by giving room for monsters who can survive with high AC instead of a giant sack of HP without those monsters becoming unhittable.
  • With the combination of those bonus action ->get double prof bonus on first attack & guard's impose disadvantage on the first attack it solves most of protection style's problems & makes it a valuable tactical addition even when death is the best status condition for monsters. As a 5e GM it's frustrating how I really can't challenge the players with interesting combats in ways that require them to use tactics other than maximum DPR, this combo looks like reversing than no win scenario.
• Action Surge: The 5e action surge is something I really hate for so many well deserved reasons. I'm not sure how to feel about this yet.
• Spellblade: Pretty awesome "discipline" but I kinda wished it had a spellbook, wizards can often feel like they are a bit over dependent on the GM providing them with spells to broaden their spellbook even while other casters are pulling from the wizard's list. Even if the spellblade's spellbook required them to have a wizard scribe spells other than the level up ones they "know" it would bake in a bit of reciprocity & desire for teamwork when selecting spells at level up time when there are multiple casters. When there is no spellblade+wizard combo of players in the group it could still provide something in the form of very desirable NPC contacts.
• Enchant Weapon:Meh I've seen this sort of take a nonmagical weapon & make it a +1 weapon for you & you only thing with artificer & it works great in the very early game but once players start getting magic weapons & such it turns into a dead feature.
  • That problem could be avoided if instead of making the weapon +1 it let you treat attacks with that weapon to be treated as if your relevant attribute (strength or dex) were 2 points higher.
• Expanded Talent: I still love the talents being divided into pools & love that the 4th level one is moved from the base class to the (sub)"discipline" where it can provide options relevant to how the discipline alters the base class's themes.
• Spell Multiattack: Without knowing if & how cantrips are altered it's hard to judge how I feel about this. It also doesn't specify a lot of things like when the replacement of an attack for a cantrip is made (before/after declaring the attack, rolling the dice, etc).
  • As written a player could take a hypothetical 3 attack chain where they roll 15+mods 20+mods 2+mods then upon seeing the 2 declare that their second attack is acid splash calling for the target to make a save on the attack the player just missed on. Likewise fir cantrips that require an attack roll it doesn't specify if it uses the same or a new roll.
• Weapon Mastery: It doesn't seem to specify if & how the three weapons can be changed nor does it specify if the weapon is a broad selection like "longswords" or "bob's +1 flametongue that deals 1d6fire +1d10 slash"
• Stunts: I like the concept but feel like it will share creation of a problem behavior I've see caused by levelup's maneuvers & exertion. Specifically the players straight up nova consuming every point as fast as they can to amplify damage then simply dig in refusing to do anything until they finish a short rest. The stunts themselves look flavorful & interesting
• Wizard-tool/weapon/armor profs NONE NONE NONE: I kinda like that wizards aren't loaded with a bunch of pointless consolation prize weapon proficiencies & hope that they feel squishy again. It feels like that presentation should send a message to new players. Having none for tools too seemed odd at first but fighter has the same & I hate the way 5e hands out tool proficiencies like candy for the dm to sort out a clatter of dice & chorus of "Oh I'm proficient with [smith's tools or whatever], can I use that for..."
• Wizard Starting Gear: It always seems like the group wants to pool every coin found to buy Bob (the fighter or whatever) better armor early on then Forgets that spirit & everyone is saving for their own goals when Alice maintains a money sink cradle to grave in the form of spell scribing costs. We might not have pricing & such yet but even just comparing the fighter & wizard here it's easy to tell that wizard probably starts a good bit behind the other classes when it comes to Gp value of starting gear. This could be adjusted a bit & play up the wizard's core in ways that dramatically improve early levels without impacting power much. Adding XXgp worth of inks suitable for scribing spells into your spellbook would allow a wizard to actually scribe an early scroll early on & allow wizard to make clear early on that they have just as much need for gold if not more when it comes to covering expenses .
• PG8 Spellbook Player Advice: I freaking love this whole section! For whatever reason 5e players no longer seem to care about building up their spellbook or interacting with their GM on the topic of doing so. It's incredibly frustrating to face both "nope that is not the spell I wanted so screw your trash loot, I refuse to consider it" sandwiched alongside "I'll decide & [not] get back to you if I feel like I need to" leaving me as a GM both directionless and unable to engage a player in a topic that needs discussion. This little box does a great job of giving GMs in that situation a club they can use to justify their efforts
• Arcane recovery: 5e does a terrible job of forcing the GM to balance the needs of short rest classes & long rest classes, hints of that are starting to show here. stunt points all on any long or short rest of the day action surge.. any long or short rest of the day. Arcane recovery... Some but only on on one of the any short rest of the day. This is an area that I hope blackflag ultimately does better in than 5e did. If the players force my hand & make me scale encounters tuned to a 5mwd they refuse to avoid I'd like to avoid continuation of half the group nova>rest>nova>rest with one or two long rest PCs left holding the short end of an empty stick against a bar of NOVA that they don't measure up to. Heck even magic sense is limited to PB+1 per long rest.
• Magic Sense: Interesting that it adds creatures capable of casting spells & ongoing spells.
  • I love that it only gives the location rather than an immediate pixelbitching type detection of all the magic items & only the magic items. That pile of treasure is the location it reveals not these three specific items the group plans to halt the game getting a full & complete identification from the GM that were worthy of interaction in a pile they plan to ignore with disdain as fast as possible.
• Spell Ward: I like the way this encourages wizard to stay squishy by limiting it to light armor. +PB to AC probably won't do much outside some weird 20dex wizard dip gish who's going to have trouble casting spells often enough & the resist B/P/S damage is an interesting tradeoff feedback loop to the almost certain for the low HP PC to get hit for not much every time attacked.
• Tactical Caster: This exempts damage but not effects. Having both might be too good for one feature but it's disappointing that there isn't a god wizard empowering type choice somewhere.
• Cantrip Adept: This is a pretty cool niche that tends to be ignored by the 5e options. Casters who focus on being a force multiplier & such have much better things to spend their slots on than damage that anyone could do. A way to make cantrips have more variety & eventual punch is a great pairing with a playstyle like that. We don't have nonarcane cantrips (or any cantrips) to judge this by, but this is an interesting niche to see,
• The 4 circles: These had bulletpoints that were very different from what I expected. They neatly explain some things like the wizard being so damage focused & seem to hint at some extremely interesting spellcasters as we get casters with access to other circles. I can't wait.
• Armor Class: I noticed that made armor is +3 AC but couldn't fond what naked AC was but figure that makes sense when we don't have any of the armor yet.
• Removal of some ritual tags & limiting of rituals: As a GM this is great & seems like it would do a nice job of encouraging players to work together on their niche & what they can contribute to the group other than damage. Sometimes it feels like rituals in 5e are too easy to the point where players stop bothering to notice casting times in minutes or hours.