January Update (New Crafting Version, Kickstarter, and Class Update Schedule and more!)

It's 2021, folks!

Crafting

I have new stuff for you; crafting has updated again, bringing:

• Two new pages of enchanting (armor! more weapons! new stuff!)
• Array of blacksmithing tweaks.
• Cooking! It's not fully done, but is a solid branch now.
• Lot of little fixes (wand prices, column labels, copy paste errors, etc).

You can check out the update here! Next up will be Tinkering; probably next week it should be out. We'll do a few more branches and updates, and than push toward the project called the "grand orginzational challenge" :D right now I think it's a little hard to find stuff; there is a few things that will help, including a overhaul to the theme (I want to do an indexed theme for it) as well as an actual index and appendix for it.

Don't expect a full hyperlinked version yet, but it's possible in the future. 

It's also possible I will at some point build a full app/site for it - that might be a Kickstarter stretch goal. While that's normally outside of the scope of what I work on for Homebrew, I think it might be neat to have real search based lookups and things for something like this, but that's too big a project to just work on as part of the every day process (I tried, and while I came up with a proof of concept that was working... it'd take a lot of work to finish it :) ). Speaking of the Kickstarter...

Kickstarter!

Oh boy... we are at the precipice now. The current plan calls for the Kickstarter to go live Jan 5th... that's Tuesday! Which is terrifying!

This Kickstarter will have the following things:

• A PDF version the compendium (Psion, Artificer, Crafting, subclasses for every PHB class, items, feats, spells, etc).
• Standalone softcover booklets for Artificer, Psion, or Crafting individually (both as a cheaper option or as a convenient option to hand out to a player as they'll have everything compact and easy to use in one place).
• A hardcover full compendium option with everything the PDF has.

These are full color premium products (with the professional editing and artists that entails!)

What is actually in the Compendium:

• The Psion, the Artificer (Inventor), the Crafting System (all branches), new items, spells, feats, etc) for my classes and crafting system
• A subclass for each PHB class that ties into the theme of Psionics or Invention - some of these you've seen (like Way of the Soul Knife monk) some will be brand new (like a Gadgeteer Rogue)... though you may see them in testing around here before the book is live :)
• Character templates and outlines - a brief guide to each subclass of what can be done with it and recommended options.
• Optional add ons like spell cards and upgrade/talent cards for easier tracking in person games, tokens and portraits of art for digital games, and more.
• Fluff and lore - how to integrate Artificers and Psions into difference types of worlds, and what sort of effects they might have; items, systems, and hooks to support different tech levels in your world; character building options, hooks and inspiration for your Psionic or invention based characters! Roll tables and more for inspiration.
• Stretch goals like additionally monsters (Psionic Horrors and the war machines of Artificers!) - this is a stretch goal because stuff like this needs art!

To be clear and address a few points of concern though:

• The most up to date Artificer/Psion (as they are made for the Kickstarter) will remain available for free. The Kickstarter version might have some bonus content.
• The full and most up to date Crafting system (as it's made for the Kickstarter) will remain available at the $1 tier on patreon - that's not going to change.
• The full compendium PDF version will be made available to patrons (this might bite me here, but I don't want people to have to buy into both unless they want a unique reward of the Kickstarter), it'll probably be at the $5 tier, but... months from now when it's getting into a finished state.

Of course, all those are predicated on it actual funding, and to be frank... I don't really know how it'll go; the funding target will not be super low, because I want to be absolutely confident that I can get a book done and shipped to people if it funds. 

There's a lot of interest, but I'm not a Seer and the future is murky. That said, it'll definitely set the tone for how much I'm working on D&D Homebrew this year - if this succeeds (and does well) this will really become my full time thing, and we'll see more content than ever both for it and in general.

If you haven't signed up to be notified for it, you can do so on Kickstarter, or get an email directly from me when it's live by signing up here. 

The Class Update Schedule

I am committing to an update to both Psion and Artificer this month; these are the two classes that'll be in the Kickstarter, and to both give people an idea of what they'll be in the book and to help promote the Kickstarter (let's be honest here :D ) I'm going to make sure both of these get out the door this month.

• Psion will update this week. It will bring a new feat that brings out various Psionic Synergy Talents, new general Talents, and a new Discipline to the Expanded Options, as well as handful of new stuff all around; this will be Psion v1.4
• Artificer will finally update; I've been promising this for a long time, but like many things it has become something of a moving target, but let's get this done; I'm going to aim to get this updated late next week or early the week of the 18th. This will bring the Runesmith back to the Expanded Toolbox, as well as include a handful of new upgrades to explore (new ways to use sentient armor, some tweaks and updates to the dark cursesmith, and a smattering of a few new options for everyone). This will be Artificer 2.1

To clarify between the various posts and announcements; Artificer and Inventor are the same class; I'm just calling the Kickstarter OGL version Inventor.

Other Stuff.

• We've seen the other stuff slow down a little bit as I've been getting ready for the Kickstarter, but once I hit the go button on Tuesday, we should see it pick up again - spells, variants, feats; these are all things I'm still working on, they are just a bit of a backseat.
• The Battle System - this will probably be part of another book if we ever get there, but either way will be a system that I intend to work on a lot more. I planned for the next update to be shortly after the first one and have gotten a ton of good feedback on it, I've just been busy.
• Occultist being the newest class sort of had its development cycle interrupted, but I'd expect a poll for what the next subclass should be this month; feel free to toss out suggestions for things you'd like to see before then. Oracle is also not quite finished, really, so will get a fairly big update with the next iteration, though I've been fairly happy with Shaman and Witch, though we'll see some updates to both of them.
• Warlord will probably get an update at some point, but probably next month, and probably a smaller update. Probably some slight buffs to the early game, and some further tweaks to Overwhelming mark (the marks in general might be tweaked/buffed a little).