So I am (slowly) assembling a group again, after my last couple imploded. Unfortunately one of those groups was the group with which I spent a significant amount of time gaming, during which I refined my take on the d20 system to the point of my games bearing little resemblance to core 3.5, and at this point, I don't think I can get new player buy-in to my modifications.

As such, I have decided to move to 5e. However, due to my take on mechanics - namely, that they must reflect flavor - this means that I need to write a literal ton of homebrew material, in order to properly convey my setting. Now that I am finally done with grad school, I feel that I have sufficient spare time to be able to take this project on, but without an actual experienced group, I have no way to get reasonable feedback on my work.

I have tried reddit, and found the responses... lackluster, at best, and insulting, at worst. So it seems that at least a reasonable number of folk here have worked with 5e, so I thought perhaps I'd bring what I'm working on here, and see what folk think so far.

Here's a link to what I'm currently working on. I'm interested in feedback on mechanics, flavor, wording: if you think something could use work, feel free to point it out.

If this goes well, I'll post other things I'm working on as work on them progresses.

Thanks.

Edit: Since I got some reasonable feedback, I think we'll keep at it. Also, because I am working on several of these at once, I think I'll just keep a list here on the first post, and update versions and provide update dates as I go.

NothingWorks (v0.0.4) [Last Updated: 10/31/2019]

I am confuse.

I was thinking this post would be a placeholder comment, as I prepared to plow through dozens, if not hundreds of pages of some sort of absurdist mad-scientist rewrite of an entire game, and instead I got one, very nice and professional looking class (missing, I should say, half the pages due to bad links?).

You want to knock out some homebrew class that reads like a warlock and plays like a fighter (I think? Again, I'm missing a bunch of pages here...), swell. I'm all fer classes, yo.   But it sounds more like you were about to rewrite the damn book, and if thats really what you need to do to be comfortable with the system... Well, I say: Spread your gaming wings and learn to fly, brother.  Pick up some runequest, dabble in a bit of GURPS Black Magic (I... I don't think that GURPS has a supplement by that name, but I woulnd't bet my soul on it...), ask Champions to the Prom. Or maybe not, wouldn't want GURPS to think you were two-timing her. Better stick with Savage Worlds for that dance. Just to be safe (I know, I know... never stick your dick in Crazy... but GURPS!... you're young, make a few mistakes, right? So what if GURPS will slash your tires and fuck your dog. The Hot/Crazy Matrix doesn't lie!)

Where was I?

Oh, yeah...  There is a world of gaming out there, old and new, and honestly, learning other systems is not only easier and more fun than rewriting a whole game (and convincing players to actually play that franken-game), but it actually gives you a better perspective on what games can and cannot, should and should not, do.   Better yet, after that tempestuous not-sure-if-I-get-out-alive affair with GURPS you just might find some sweet, not quite pretty but still cute, doe-eyed Kult RPG that you'll want to take home to Mom and the Gaming Group and make and honest Game out of...

OK, time to review.

Impressions:
* The flavor on this kicks ass.
* Hmm, a d12 hit die? That puts it up there with the barbarian, so you must want this to be a very martial class.
* Saves being CON and CHA is interesting. So it's a CHA class somewhat?
* Nihilism as a skill? What's this?
* Starting with a breastplate is way too much compared to what everyone else starts with. Look at the costs. 400 gp.
* There's lots of new terms here for void debt and wu wei checks. Void debt is interesting and reminds me of shadow corruption from Midgard.
* So release ability is CHA but wu wei is WIS... I feel like that's going to run the risk of making this too MAD.
* Heartless seems too punishing.

Those are my thoughts for now.

I read through this.

I think this class & pacts should be for an entire monster splat campaign, where everyone plays the same class and explores its pathos.

I almost said it was too strong, but upon reading the whole thing, knowing little of the Katas, and seeing the magnitude of the penalties for the pacts, I would say this is OK. It is a melange of the big benefits of many classes, but the pacts are brutal (soulless being the most fatal).

First, you don't need to make Wu Wei checks attached to WIS at all. Just leave it attached to PB alone and lower the entire DC chart by 5, possibly 7. That way Casual (DC 3 or DC 5) starts off risky with only a +2 PB but taken for granted by +6 PB. I assume Katas is a big selling point that is gonna be the Logarithmic Monk Ki (vs. Linear Fighter & Quadratic Wizard ).

I don't know why you need to base Release on CHA, but whatever. In some ways I am ok with it being any "secondary save" stat (STR, INT, CHA) while the other save being any "primary save" stat (DEX, CON, WIS). Reason being is that this sounds more like a Class as curse, like vampirism or lycanthropy, and thus agnostic to Race benefits. This model shift kills "best race for class" discussions dead -- and the fiction logic of Class as Curse gives coherency to this beneficial flexibility.

i.e. Any race stat benefit will always fit the paradigm of Primary 3 Saves and Secondary 3 Saves. The curse picking the best of each grouping simplifies the "balancing" of Kata Release, and Proficient Saves. Further the lack of Ability Mod for Wu Wei Saves prevents any Ability gaming. It's a Curse for power.

I would stop work on Vampires as class and other stuff for now and focus on building this Splat. Might I recommend having ASIs as a form of "Flexible Kata," like a Spell Slot, that can be swapped out in Preparation on Long Rest. Next, build a society of these cursed, and a philospohy; some factionalism and distant goal (ideal) will be methods to temper these villains from beelining into crapulence.

Quote from: Spike;1111679I was thinking this post would be a placeholder comment, as I prepared to plow through dozens, if not hundreds of pages of some sort of absurdist mad-scientist rewrite of an entire game, and instead I got one, very nice and professional looking class (missing, I should say, half the pages due to bad links?).

I'm not sure why you would expect an "absurdist mad-scientist rewrite."

And no, it isn't missing half the pages, I just forgot to mention (of course) that the class is only written up to level 5, and I haven't written out any of the katas yet. Probably would've been useful information for folk. I've double-checked the pdf, and what's posted is the document in its entirety, as it currently stands.

QuoteBut it sounds more like you were about to rewrite the damn book, and if thats really what you need to do to be comfortable with the system... Well, I say: Spread your gaming wings and learn to fly, brother.

This isn't helpful.

Part of the reason to stick to D&D, regardless of its edition, is because it is the most played game. Yes, I'm sure I could take Pendragon and mod the hell out of it - but then we're talking about narrowing my potential player-base to (1) people who know or are willing to try a more obscure game, and (2) are willing to accept heavy modifications to it.

Do not assume that just because I am using 5e as a base, means that I am ignorant of other game systems.

=====

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1111684* The flavor on this kicks ass.

Good start, then!

Quote* Hmm, a d12 hit die? That puts it up there with the barbarian, so you must want this to be a very martial class.

The notion here is that it is effectively a "Void paladin," but I felt that d12 fit it better than a d10 due to the flavor. One of the underlying themes here is that a hollow is supernaturally hard to kill by virtue of their nature.

From a mechanics perspective, I wanted each of the Works to have a class with a d12 hit die, so that the seven classes in each run the gamut from d6 to d12. The goal is that you could have an entire party take their classes solely from a given Works, with no overlap and all the essential party functions covered.

And yep, it is supposed to be mostly martial. A little bit of "casting," but it's mostly meant to be a front-liner of some variety.

Quote* Saves being CON and CHA is interesting. So it's a CHA class somewhat?

Void casting requires both Wisdom and Charisma, as an intentional design choice. In this context, I'm relying on Charisma as a sense of self: part of the Void's thing is that it wants to rip apart anything that reaches out to it so it can use them as a conduit. In order to keep it together and prevent that from happening - which is more metaphysical, than physical - you need to have a strong sense of self.

Wisdom is used as the other casting stat as a way to reflect the whole "no mind" thing that you have to do to use a kata. Basically any time you use the Void's power, you are attempting to make yourself look like part of it so that it doesn't lash out at you. I felt Wisdom was a reasonable representation of that ability.

For this class in particular, I felt that Con and Cha saves fit best: Con because they're hardy as hell, and Cha because they're scary as hell.

Quote* Nihilism as a skill? What's this?

Derp... nihilism is to the void as arcana is to magic.

Quote* Starting with a breastplate is way too much compared to what everyone else starts with. Look at the costs. 400 gp.

I'm trying to remember my justification for this, and not coming up with much... which means yeah, it should probably change.

Is the Bodiless subclass a problem, then? Since I give them plate? My thinking was that the drawbacks would balance that out (and let's be honest, after a couple levels, I'd expect any front-liner who is proficient with plate, to have plate), but if it's front-loaded it can be adjusted.

Quote* There's lots of new terms here for void debt and wu wei checks. Void debt is interesting and reminds me of shadow corruption from Midgard.

There is some amount of new terminology involved in each of the casting systems I'm working on, yeah. Unavoidable since they need to be distinct from one another, and distinct from magic. I've attempted to distill the mechanics down into their essence, to try to translate them more easily into 5e, though, which has cut down on the complexity some.

Quote* So release ability is CHA but wu wei is WIS... I feel like that's going to run the risk of making this too MAD.

MAD is an intentional design decision that I used in the 3.5 version of these casting systems, specifically as a way to try to combat stat inflation in that edition. I retained it because I like the flavor, ... but I could probably also be convinced to ditch it, if it seems overly punishing.

Quote* Heartless seems too punishing.

I'm not really surprised: Heartless was a last-minute replacement of the original fourth subclass I'd conceived, "Thoughtless." I spent a bit of time thinking that Thoughtless would work out, but when I went to write it, I realized there was no good way to make that work, either mechanically or flavor-wise, so had to replace it with something.

If anybody has thoughts on a decent first-level benefit that works with its theme and balances out its drawbacks, I'd be down for hearing them.

=====

Quote from: Opaopajr;1111689I think this class & pacts should be for an entire monster splat campaign, where everyone plays the same class and explores its pathos.

The intention of each of the Works is that they present seven classes in keeping with a particular theme, so that a full group could reasonably play a character within that theme and have no mechanical overlap, while also hitting all the major group components. Those will be accompanied by 2 or 3 races, as well as basically a bunch of essays (for lack of a better word) on how to use the concept and fit it into a setting, and some stuff that kind of goes over the themes, stuff like that. Basically the front half is a player book, with all those bits; and the back half is a DM book, with whatever the equivalents of magic items are for that Works, monsters, and that sort of stuff.

This is basically the 4e concept of "power sources," but ramped up to 11 and implemented properly (in regards to how I thought they should or could have been done, anyway).

QuoteI almost said it was too strong, but upon reading the whole thing, knowing little of the Katas, and seeing the magnitude of the penalties for the pacts, I would say this is OK. It is a melange of the big benefits of many classes, but the pacts are brutal (soulless being the most fatal).

That is in keeping with the concept behind the class, yep. It's supposed to be a big and scary melee fighter with a bit more casting than a core paladin, but with some serious drawbacks that slowly get mitigated by class features over time.

QuoteFirst, you don't need to make Wu Wei checks attached to WIS at all. Just leave it attached to PB alone and lower the entire DC chart by 5, possibly 7. That way Casual (DC 3 or DC 5) starts off risky with only a +2 PB but taken for granted by +6 PB. I assume Katas is a big selling point that is gonna be the Logarithmic Monk Ki (vs. Linear Fighter & Quadratic Wizard ).

I've math-hammered the wu wei DCs pretty hard, and they are presently where I want them, even taking Wisdom into account.

Katas are to the void what spells are to magic. Because I have a bunch of these casting systems, it does mean that each is constrained considerably harder than core magic, so the possibilities are less absurd at the high end.

QuoteIn some ways I am ok with it being any "secondary save" stat (STR, INT, CHA) while the other save being any "primary save" stat (DEX, CON, WIS). Reason being is that this sounds more like a Class as curse, like vampirism or lycanthropy, and thus agnostic to Race benefits. This model shift kills "best race for class" discussions dead -- and the fiction logic of Class as Curse gives coherency to this beneficial flexibility.

Every class in core, to my knowledge, has one "good save" and one "bad save," in the sense that they are proficient with one of the main three, and one of the secondary three.

QuoteMight I recommend having ASIs as a form of "Flexible Kata," like a Spell Slot, that can be swapped out in Preparation on Long Rest.

You could recommend that. I don't know why you would, though, as that would break the class away from the normal 5e class paradigm, and I'd need a very good reason to break away from that.

QuoteNext, build a society of these cursed, and a philospohy; some factionalism and distant goal (ideal) will be methods to temper these villains from beelining into crapulence.

I think the intro text has enough flavor. I don't need to inject whatever it is you're talking about. The goal of the Works is to be setting-agnostic, while I can put any potential setting-specific information on my setting-specific wiki, where it belongs. That said, there will be a section that discusses different ways of implementing the whole thing into a setting (as mentioned on the back "cover").

Also... I'm not sure why you would insist that hollow are villains. Some certainly can be, absolutely, and while it obviously lends itself to the antihero concept, I also felt that it was open enough that it could also work as a "tragic hero" sort of deal.

=====

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

Time for another pass, focusing on Bodiless this time:
* Why do they lose their STR/DEX damage bonus? It seems unrelated to any of the flavor.
* Losing on healing makes sense as a nerf, but I'm not sure if it fits the concept. I'd imagine someone would pick this because they want to be a big huge tough guy, so wouldn't a metal body recover easier than a regular one? It already doesn't need to eat or sleep. Maybe if it needed smithing tools to repair and something extra instead?
* Raise Dead working on this feels weird since you're basically a construct at this point.
* OK, the level 3 adds the damage bonus back on...

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1111734* Why do they lose their STR/DEX damage bonus? It seems unrelated to any of the flavor.

My thinking is that Str and Dex are related to having a body. Saying "you no longer have these scores" is... not really tenable, I guess, but I wanted to still evoke that flavor, so went for a "they just don't give you any combat bonuses" instead.

Quote* Losing on healing makes sense as a nerf, but I'm not sure if it fits the concept. I'd imagine someone would pick this because they want to be a big huge tough guy, so wouldn't a metal body recover easier than a regular one? It already doesn't need to eat or sleep. Maybe if it needed smithing tools to repair and something extra instead?

So... the thinking there is that because you are basically a spirit haunting a suit of armor, it isn't really your body. Saying "you don't benefit from magical or natural healing at all" seemed ridiculously punishing, so I opted to not go that route. Reducing healing received though carries enough of the flavor while being enough of a drawback that I thought it was workable without being overly complicated.

I concur that requiring tools and such would be the way to go, but 5e has no crafting rules, so there's nothing to interact with there. "Proficiency with smithing tools" would, I suppose, be the route to go, but it already seemed rather long, and I wanted to avoid too much reliance on tools, because Bodiless specifically is already stepping on the toes of another class I'm working on (the Ironman, in the tech book - three guesses what they're about, and the first two don't count). It's supposed to be a supernatural kind of thing.

Quote* Raise Dead working on this feels weird since you're basically a construct at this point.

My thinking there is that you're treating the armor as your body as much as possible. My take on raise dead is that the soul sort of hangs out for a bit after death, rather than going immediately to the afterlife or what-have-you: in that context, the hollow's soul clings to the armor like it's a body.

Quote* OK, the level 3 adds the damage bonus back on...

Yep. Part of the idea here is that the sacrifice takes stuff away, and then as you level, you specifically get powers related to what you lost that "make up" for it.

Nice job with this. Reddit is probably not the place to go for feedback, your post will be buried before anything can be really considered. I'll give it a shot.

Its hard to evaluate these without the katas included. Clearly they will need to be on the powerful side for the class to match what is already in the PHB.

The Bodiless option with better armor but gimpy damage might not scale well once the rest of the party can match the "free" armor. Getting a damage bonus wile having temporary HP probably means these characters will try to avoid getting stuck in so they don't lose their damage bonus, which seems at cross purposes with the character role.

The Fateless option seems primed for Stealth, but does not start with it, can't get Advantage and wears armor. What is the intended role of this character?

The other two look to have quite narrow abilities without knowing the focus of the campaign. Offensive Divine spells would have to be ubiquitous for the Soulless option to be worth picking over something else.

Aside from the mechanical aspect, there is the question of party dynamics with these emotionless, some might say edgy types of characters. I see you have started on a Vampire, are all the characters intended to be of this flavor? No Bards, Druids and the like?

Quote from: Conanist;1111765Its hard to evaluate these without the katas included. Clearly they will need to be on the powerful side for the class to match what is already in the PHB.

That's fair. And no, the effects will be mostly on par with what you can find in core.

QuoteThe Bodiless option with better armor but gimpy damage might not scale well once the rest of the party can match the "free" armor. Getting a damage bonus wile having temporary HP probably means these characters will try to avoid getting stuck in so they don't lose their damage bonus, which seems at cross purposes with the character role.

Hmm. Fair enough... I can perhaps rectify that with higher-level abilities.

QuoteThe Fateless option seems primed for Stealth, but does not start with it, can't get Advantage and wears armor. What is the intended role of this character?

Um... I don't see how it is primed for stealth. So far it has a lot of counters - hard and soft - to various forms of mind control and social skills, and a minor bonus to Initiative. I'm not sure what about that says "sneaky."

The intended role of a hollow is a front-liner: the sort of default assumption is more tanky, but they could also go for heavier damage. All of this is augmented with some minor spellcasting.

QuoteThe other two look to have quite narrow abilities without knowing the focus of the campaign. Offensive Divine spells would have to be ubiquitous for the Soulless option to be worth picking over something else.

I'm not sure how Heartless looks like it has narrow abilities, but fine.

Soulless I will grant, it is a bit weak at the moment and I should probably try to beef it up a notch.

QuoteAside from the mechanical aspect, there is the question of party dynamics with these emotionless, some might say edgy types of characters. I see you have started on a Vampire, are all the characters intended to be of this flavor? No Bards, Druids and the like?

NothingWorks is basically "Edgelords: the Book." Though I am trying to angle it so that if you wanted to do something in the vein of Hollow Knight, that this thing would be your go-to (minus the bugs bit: refluff races as you see fit, but I'm not going that far).

I'm curious as to why you would think a thing called "NothingWorks" would contain things similar to bards or druids. My take on bards will be in the magic book. I don't use druids (well... technically in my setting, the name "druid" is reserved for elven wizard/shamans), so druids won't be appearing, but classes similar in theme will show up in the nature book.

The intent with each of these independently is that, if you like the overall flavor, you could rip the (mostly) mundane classes out of the core - in my mind that's barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue - and stick them alongside the seven in a given Works to make a game have an entirely different feel. Or you can grab whichever combination suits your fancy.

At this point seems like you are trying to rebuild from the bottom up a whole new setting and game with SRD. That is a lot of work and will require a fleshed out "Basic Core" to give you meaningful feedback. You respond with design assurances, but I don't have enough given to knowledgebly respond beyond smiling and nodding. (It's also my reasoning why this would be a neat mini-core WoD-esque splat. Then you would be closer to testing the material meaningfully with new eyes.)

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1111727I'm not sure why you would expect an "absurdist mad-scientist rewrite."

Quote from:  GnomeWorks OPAs such, I have decided to move to 5e. However, due to my take on mechanics - namely, that they must reflect flavor - this means that I need to write a literal ton of homebrew material, in order to properly convey my setting. Now that I am finally done with grad school, I feel that I have sufficient spare time to be able to take this project on, but without an actual experienced group, I have no way to get reasonable feedback on my work.

Literal ton of homebrew. Mechanics must reflect flavor ( in contrast to D&D which has only somewhat drifted from 'generic' fantasy rules. You know: Fighter. Thats not a Flavor, that's a blank canvas upon which to project your flavor later... or somethin'.), which sort of implies you're going to go through 5e and make sure every god damn rule reflects Flavor or ELSE.

You know: Mad Scientist Rewrite stuff.  Keep up, mang. This is your thread.

QuoteAnd no, it isn't missing half the pages, I just forgot to mention (of course) that the class is only written up to level 5, and I haven't written out any of the katas yet. Probably would've been useful information for folk. I've double-checked the pdf, and what's posted is the document in its entirety, as it currently stands.

You misunderstand me, then. When I looked at the PDF I literally got a blank page/error page for just about every other page (Covers apparently didn't count).  Glitched on my end, in all probability, but it did make serious evaluation... difficult.  

QuoteThis isn't helpful.

Isn't it, though? The advice to expand your horizons may not always be necessary, but that doesn't mean its ever not helpful.

QuotePart of the reason to stick to D&D, regardless of its edition, is because it is the most played game. Yes, I'm sure I could take Pendragon and mod the hell out of it - but then we're talking about narrowing my potential player-base to (1) people who know or are willing to try a more obscure game, and (2) are willing to accept heavy modifications to it.

Nonsense.  You are forgetting that people who are willing to try a new game (a subset of point 1) will have no opinion on the level of modification, and in all probability will only know how modified it is if you make a point of telling them.   As you point out in your OP you're already hopping systems.

QuoteDo not assume that just because I am using 5e as a base, means that I am ignorant of other game systems.

Its my mind, I'll assume whatever I damn well please, thank you very much.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1111862At this point seems like you are trying to rebuild from the bottom up a whole new setting and game with SRD.

The setting already exists.

Quote from: Spike;1111873Literal ton of homebrew. Mechanics must reflect flavor ( in contrast to D&D which has only somewhat drifted from 'generic' fantasy rules. You know: Fighter. Thats not a Flavor, that's a blank canvas upon which to project your flavor later... or somethin'.), which sort of implies you're going to go through 5e and make sure every god damn rule reflects Flavor or ELSE.

Hmm. No, mostly by "ton of homebrew" I mean I need to write a bunch of classes and races.

The core mechanics of D&D - any edition, really - serve well enough for simulation purposes (4e is probably an odd combo of both too light and too specific, but - eh). It started out as a D&D setting, so the physics implied by the game mostly mesh with how I envision things working anyway.

QuoteWhen I looked at the PDF I literally got a blank page/error page for just about every other page (Covers apparently didn't count).

Oh damn, sorry. Yeah when you said stuff was missing my thought was, "oh right, I forgot to mention that a bunch of things aren't written yet." That it could be a literal technological glitch didn't even pass my mind.

I'm not sure how to fix that, sorry.

QuoteIsn't it, though? The advice to expand your horizons may not always be necessary, but that doesn't mean its ever not helpful.

I find it unhelpful because it implies to me that you think that I'm unfamiliar with anything beyond the game system being discussed. I'm not, I'm quite familiar with a wide variety of games, and have even tried to write one myself.

QuoteYou are forgetting that people who are willing to try a new game (a subset of point 1) will have no opinion on the level of modification, and in all probability will only know how modified it is if you make a point of telling them.   As you point out in your OP you're already hopping systems.

I am hopping systems because I'd like to be able to find players.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1111911Hmm. No, mostly by "ton of homebrew" I mean I need to write a bunch of classes and races.

Eh. Races I can see. Classes... I'm a bit less impressed by custom classes. I find the class structure works best when its generic as fuck and doesn't get in the way of Character, not the other way 'round, but I'm probably in the minority here, as most reskins of D&D in my experience like to make highly specific classes to replace generic core classes, and that's been true since... I want to say at least the 80's, but honestly I don't think I can prove that, so... lets say at least twenty years.

QuoteOh damn, sorry. Yeah when you said stuff was missing my thought was, "oh right, I forgot to mention that a bunch of things aren't written yet." That it could be a literal technological glitch didn't even pass my mind.

No big. That's why I explained.

QuoteI'm not sure how to fix that, sorry.

Eh. I could always try a different browser, or download it and open it in a proper reader instead of a browser tab. I got the gist of what you were doing.  I'm impressed by the effort you put into presentation, and were I still on my quixotic quest to publish Haven I'd probably be trying to hire you for layout and shit, but given my utter inability to hire people on commission (like... something I do makes them avoid accepting paying work from me like the plague...)... I've long let that ship sail.

QuoteI find it unhelpful because it implies to me that you think that I'm unfamiliar with anything beyond the game system being discussed. I'm not, I'm quite familiar with a wide variety of games, and have even tried to write one myself.

No, you find it insulting, which has nothing to do with utility.  You may also find it not personally relevant, which may be a fair cop, I don't know.  As for designing your own game, welcome to the club. I believe I was 13 or so when I did my first game design. It was awful, by the way, since all I knew was AD&D, and so I made a Sci-Fi AD&D. Thankfully all records have been destroyed/lost/consigned to the Outer Dark, and so we can simply pretend it was a servicable clone of AD&D with lasers and shit.  

QuoteI am hopping systems because I'd like to be able to find players.

Whereas I am an antisocial asshole loner, and I have never struggled to convince players to try new systems. *

Huh.




*Caveat: Introducing players to new systems in not the same as convincing them to try a specific new game/system....

As an update to NothingWorks, I've made some progress on class features (up to level 10), as well as the next tier of features for the subclasses.

Some of the subclasses got tweaked a bit, to try to make them more worthwhile and/or less campaign-specific.

I've got a preliminary kata list, and all of one written up so far, so let me know if those sound sensible and/or if it sounds like there is enough for sufficient variety.

Anyway... more feedback would be cool and appreciated.

Link to it is in the OP, and also here.