Let's Read Best Left Buried, part 2

Chapter 3: Advancements

More so than Archetypes, most of the character customisation lies in Advancement choice. There are 30 "Journeyman Advancements" to choose from, meaning none have any talent-tree-style prerequisites. Nor are they restricted to any Archetype. They do have tags after their name like [Arcane] or [Martial]. Currently this is just fluff, which the game explicitly encourages you to reskin if desired.

Fortunately for those who baulk at reading 30 options, the game provides a shortlist of suggested Advancements in the previous chapter, under each Archetype. I've also mentioned to @jellymuppet that the Advancement list, and other parts of chargen, could use numbering. Even if the game assumes nonrandom chargen, it's nice to *facilitate* randomness. He agrees and has added it to the to-do list.

The promised "full version" of the game will have extra lists of Advancements exclusive to each tag. To take these exclusive Advancements, a character must be mid-level and already have three talents with that tag. @jellymuppet has told me these are more powerful abilities, not just rare/hyperspecialised ones. Think Fireball, not Nystul's Magic Aura. He's kindly sent me the "full version" draft, but I haven't read them yet. I want to judge the current game on its own merits, not on what I know is in the pipeline.

Also, since none of the Archetypes balance their abilities by adjusting core stats or weapon proficiencies, it'd be trivial to add the Archetype abilities you like to the Advancement list and make this game completely classless.

Most of the Advancements fall into one or more of the following buckets:

• grants The Upper Hand on certain Stat checks (e.g. Wit checks to escape in combat, or Observation checks to smell something)
• Spells and other abilities that cost Grip to use
• a small passive stat boost (e.g. +1 Wit, or +3 Grip)
  

I like this mix of effects. Much like 5e D&D's Fighter class design, or like the choice between taking a feat or ability score increase, there's room for players to keep their character mechanically simple, or introduce resource management mechanics. And since Grip is a universal resource that everyone has and which interfaces with other game systems, it feels more grounded than, say, Superiority Dice.

It also means every flashy ability you have detracts from your pool of rerolls, much like Stunts in Fate, and using them inches your character ever further to their demise.

As for the "spell" Advancements, let's look at the basic attack and healing spells:

• Fire & Lightning Strange is the main magic attack, even monster abilities like Firebreathing refer to it. Despite the name, when you select it you choose an element to fluff the attack as. Using it costs an action, and 1-3 Grip. You get to make a Will-based attack from up to one Zone away, and the damage die is multiplied by the spent Grip.
• Lay on Hands, barring any potions etc found in the dungeon, is the main source of magical healing. For 1 Grip and an action, you heal Vigour in the target equal to d3 + your Will. This doesn't specify a range, I assume it's melee.

So now I'll go through the rest in order, calling out ones I particularly like or tht have some issues.

Arcane Wards lets you spend Grip as a reaction to decrease incoming damage. I like this, but I wish you could shield adjacent allies with it. Also, consult your GM whether this downgrades a critical hit to a normal one.

Battle Frenzy is the equivalent of barbarian rage. Costs 3 Grip to enter, its benefits are expressed solely with The Upper Hand & Against the Odds rather than 5e's flat damage boost. Forces you to attack foes in melee every turn until the end of the combat or you end the frenzy early with another Grip point.

Child of Prophecy works similarly to the 5e Diviner Wizard's class feature. At the start of each day you roll two d6 and record the results. You can swap in one or both results whenever a roll is made that day. I like this mechanic and wish 5e hadn't locked it to diviners. It'd make a better feat than Lucky.

Concoctionist lets you make two kinds of potion, chosen from a list referencing the monster abilities. The default flavour is that you make the potions from monster corpses. Making potions costs 1 Grip each, but drinking them inflicts 3 Grip damage. The monster abilities are well-named, so a player will have a good idea of what the potion will do without you having to show them GM-facing rules.
You can take this advancement repeatedly, learning two new potions each time. I would houserule that a character can go into "Advancement debt", i.e. they don't have to wait until next level-up to distill the essence of the shadow-wreathed monster they just fought.

I *love* Eldritch Pact. You immediately pick two extra Advancements for the price of one, but gain a random Insanity (or Corruption, if you have access to the "full rules"). Also, obviously, your patron will also demand services from you, with dire consequences if you refuse. It feels like a great way of bringing in some 5e warlock flavour, in a way that makes sense in this ruleset, and actually feels more like "power at a price" than the 5e Warlock class. It also makes a good template for paladin oaths, extraterrestrial symbionts, etc.

Horde Killer is really neat in its effect. Basically this game handles a mob of creatures attacking together as a single attack roll with multiple instances of The Upper Hand. e.g. 4 tuber-people attacking the same character will attack just once, with 3 instances of TUH, which as I'll explain in Chapter 4 is an auto-hit. Having Horde Killer cancels out two of those instances.

I See Truth in the Stars is where the Grip system really starts shining. You nominate an amount of Grip to spend, and the GM gives you an correspondingly detailed omen for the next adventuring day. If Grip were just mana that regenerated with a long rest, there's little reason not to dump all remaining Grip each day into this, and spamming this ability might soon spoil the fun for the GM & other players. But with Grip that's difficult to regenerate and representing fragile sanity, the choice to trade it off for information has much higher stakes.

Knife From The Shadows is this game's Backstab/Sneak Attack, and it currently has issues which I've raised with @jellymuppet. When attacking an unaware enemy, you attack with The Upper Hand and deal double damage on a hit. Except I would have thought an unaware enemy would *already* grant The Upper Hand.

My Shining Armor Gleams imposes Against the Odds on *all* nonmagical weapon attacks made against you, no action or Grip cost required. This might be unbalanced if it was a game that catered to wilderness travel and urban adventures, but in a dungeoncrawl it's not hard for a good GM to provide a mix of magic and nonmagic monsters so the character feels powerful but not invincible. Also, if you're going to make me spend time writing abilities on my character sheet, they'd better be powerful enough to be worth remembering. So well done on that front.

Shadow Glamours lets you spend Grip to get The Upper Hand on stealth-related rolls, or to visually disguise yourself for a minute. I like how this is a sort of "complete package" i.e. in 5e D&D, why can't I cast disguise self in a way that camouflages me? Well with this, I can.

Spirits of the Beyond lets you spend 1 Grip to zombify a corpse "until the end of the combat", which is a little disappointing as that would be a cool power to use for noncombat problem solving.

Toxic Blade is similar to Concoctionist, in that the poisons you can craft reference monster abilities and are debuffs rather than save-or-die. For readily-craftable poisons, I like this approach. Maybe poison traps were originally built with these poisons, but over centuries the Crypt has infused them with more malicious energy. So instadeath poisons can still be a thing in his game (if desired), but only as nonreproducible treasure.

I'm torn about Trap Breaker and the other Observation check-related Advancements. Decoupling Observation from any Stat means that *anyone* can scout/search for traps, which is a very nice old-school feature. You can even go fully old-school and remove Observation rolls entirely without debuffing any Archetype. But then these Advancements enable one PC to specialise in such rolls, which undermines that flexibility. I'm not saying they should be removed, but they might require discussion within a group for whether these Advancements should be allowed, and how scouting should be handled.

Weapons Master is like a cheaper, weaker Battle Frenzy, except it works with ranged weapons and doesn't dictate your actions.


There's a bit of duplication of effects. Weapon Master and Battle Frenzy is one example. Tough As Nails gives +1 Vigour per Advancement the character has (i.e. +1 hp per level). Extra Vigour does the same thing. Each Advancement has other benefits, I feel they could use revision to be more distinct.


Finally, there's a note on destructive magic, reminding GMs that attack spells should scar/change the battlefield, especially if they miss, and that intelligent foes will retreat if they see they're outmatched or that foes have unexpected abilities. There's no explicit "Morale check" mechanic, so this is a welcome piece of advice. I'd also apply it to gunpowder weapons (much like LotFP).



Overall this is a nice set of Advancements. Apart from the wide pool of utility/ritual spells, the combination of Archetype and Advancements lets you approximate a pretty good variety of new-school D&D classes/subclasses. It reminds me of Gavin Norman's BX Warrior and BX Rogue, and his posts under his old City of Iron blog that ported mechanics back and forth between BX and 5e. And as I've mentioned at, I think some of those ideas, e.g. eldritch pacts, auguries, are more interestingly executed here than in 5e.

A shortlist of staple low-level 5e effects that I would consider homebrewing Advancements for:

• shapeshifting into animals
• wild magic surges
• animal companions
• unarmed strike/grapple specialist
• protecting allies with shields (real or magical) 
• silent image and other non-self illusions
• two-weapon fighting?

Oof, the post is already pretty long! I guess Chapter 4 will wait for next time.