Project Description

The Thanator is a new TTRPG class using Constitution as a primary characteristic and rewarding a high-risk high-reward playstyle through HP edging.

Design Focus

Make a class which will feel unique and offer a challenging playstyle thus far unexplored by the game’s classes and player options, but also balanced and compatible with the existing game’s content at any table.

Playtest Findings

The first iteration of the class focused on granting numerical bonuses as your HP went down. This had the unintended consequence of making the class feel weak and dull while healthy, and by extension, to make the player feel desingaged in combat until their HP were low enough to meet the power increase thresholds.

Solutions

To address the issue, we killed two birds with one stone. By giving taunts, self-inflicted vulnerabilities and crowd-control abilities, not only did we offer players ways to impact the course of battle while healthy, but we gave them agency over how quickly their hit points went down. This made the increase in power feel like a reward for optimal gameplay and offered the class a combat progression going from a tactical playstyle to an offensive one.