A New D&D Revolution: Nations & Cannons Core Rules Review

[Sparky McDibben]

Alright, friends. Most of y'all don't know me on ENWorld, so let me introduce myself. My name's Sparky McDibben, and I do entirely too-long and too-in-depth reviews of RPG products I bought. My previous work was over on Giant in the Playground, if anyone's familiar with that site:

Everyday Heroes
Uncharted Journeys
Into the Cess & Citadel
Planegea

So, Nations & Cannons is a 5E ruleset that takes standard vanilla 5E and updates it to an 18th century tech base (though you could easily flex between 17th to 19th century weaponry with it). The way it's intended to be used is for pure historical roleplaying, which means that they pare the classes down to only four (barbarian, fighter, ranger and rogue). The also add in a whole new class, the firebrand, that helps round out some of the missing functions of the removed classes. The intended approach here is more like Assassin's Creed - you're not playing George Washington, you're playing a small, plucky band of heroes that helps out around the edges of major events. So at no point should your DM ever have you standing in a line trading potshots with redcoats. Instead, you're taking the very first combat submersible out to help break the British blockade. Or you're charging Fort Ticonderoga in the small hours, with Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold.

However, the good folks over at the publisher (Flagbearer Games, a friend of these distinguished forums) also know that sometimes, you just need a wizard. So they've also got plans to begin publishing a "flintlock fantasy" line of adventures, starting with Benjamin Franklin, Banshee Slayer as part of their current Kickstarter.

So I picked up the Core Rules on DriveThruRPG, and starting taking a look. And what I found was so interesting that I decided to back the Kickstarter and the Patreon that same day! And now I'd like to share some of that material with all y'all, 'cuz it's goddamned amazing!

So my plan is to proceed with a review of Nations & Cannons chapter-by-chapter, accounting for some slight weirdness with a recent update to their firearms rules. But first, a quick disambiguation! I picked up the Core Rules, available on DriveThruRPG for $4.99. Those are 118 pages long, and account for the base N&C rules. What's currently on Kickstarter is their first adventure path, The American Crisis: War In The North. That project has 5 days left to back (at time of writing), and includes a variety of fun adventure material you can check out on their Kickstarter site: www.YourDadWillLoveThis.com. I will only be covering the Core Rules for obvious reasons.

Alright, let's dive into this! Nations & Cannons proceeds in seven chapters:

1) Origins
2) Class / Subclass Options
3) Backgrounds & Feats
4) Equipment
5) Gambits
6) Bad Guys
7) Starting Adventure: The Invasion of Canada

Let's take them in order, for as long as my fingers ain't got the arthritis.

Chapter 1: Origins
This chapter is all about where you come from, and how you might see your world. It kicks off with a discussion of the broad regions of the American colonies, along with the number of language groups spoken in those areas. This includes European, native, African, and syncretic languages, so there's a lot to choose from. After that, we get into the origins themselves. Origins are a replacement for race. In the base game, everyone's a human, and that removes a pretty important choice from gameplay. The designers countered that by letting you choose your starting socioeconomic bracket. Also interestingly, each origin has two iconic historical characters. These are, as far as I can tell, all real folks that I haven't heard of before, like this dude: Peter Francisco. It's a nice touch, grounding these archetypes in folks you can go and read up on.

The origins themselves are Officer, Pioneer, Renegade, Scholar, Scout, and Veteran. These backgrounds are all wildly different - for example, officers get double cash throughout the game, but have to conduct themselves like gentlemen. Failing to do so is a mark of shame, and can get you stripped of your commission. But you also get +2 to one ability score, the ability to grant an ally inspiration 1x/rest, and two skill proficiencies (of your choice). As you can see, these aren't just straight reskins out of the PHB; a fair bit of thought has gone into what archetypes they are trying to model, and how.

Alright, friends - I'm going to leave it there for today. Next time, we'll discuss the four new subclasses, and the whole new class that's available for N&C: the firebrand!

 

[Tonguez]

. The intended approach here is more like Assassin's Creed - you're not playing George Washington, you're playing a small, plucky band of heroes that helps out around the edges of major events. So at no point should your DM ever have you standing in a line trading potshots with redcoats. Instead, you're taking the very first combat submersible out to help break the British blockade. Or you're charging Fort Ticonderoga in the small hours, with Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold.
.

Chapter 1: Origins
This chapter is all about where you come from, and how you might see your world. It kicks off with a discussion of the broad regions of the American colonies, along with the number of language groups spoken in those areas. This includes European, native, African, and syncretic languages, so there's a lot to choose from. After that, we get into the origins themselves. Origins are a replacement for race. In the base game, everyone's a human, and that removes a pretty important choice from gameplay.

So there are not mass combat rules? Though an Assasins Creed style does sound fun

Can you expand a little on how the different groups are handled, are there any ‘cultural packages‘ to distinguish Irish from Dutch (for instance) or Cherokee from Mohawk etc

 

[Flagbearer Games]

Can you expand a little on how the different groups are handled, are there any ‘cultural packages‘ to distinguish Irish from Dutch (for instance) or Cherokee from Mohawk etc

Dev here! The cultural package is a system called "Heritage," which you choose alongside your Role (Officer, Pioneer, Renegade, Scholar, Scout, and Veteran). It intentionally has no mechanical benefits, as we wanted to strictly avoid real-world ethnicities having any statistical bonuses or penalties. You do gain language(s) from your Heritage, which interact with a few other subsystems.

This was one of the areas where we are subtly encouraging inclusivity, because any Role can be matched with any Heritage. Each Role has a list of suggested Heritages from conventional history (i.e. Pennsylvania Deutsch for Pioneer, Haudenosaunee for Scout), but history is also full of characters that cut against the grain, so we leave it up to the player.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

So there are not mass combat rules? Though an Assasins Creed style does sound fun

Nope! I'll let the developers answer if that's something they're thinking of including, but for me, I'd run a mass combat using the old 3.5 Tome of Battle with a loose Victory Point system.

So, as an example, Bunker Hill:
1) Can the PCs convince Putnam & Prescott to fortify the correct hill (they actually fortified Breed's Hill, but this is a chance for the PCs to sway their commanders) +10 VP
2) Can the PCs get exposed troops to cover when the HMS Lively opens fire on their fortifications? An optional objective might be to salvage the water supply (Advantage on all rolls if they fortified Bunker Hill) +5 VP, +10 if they salvage the water supply
3) Can the PCs forage successfully among the British dead for powder and shot? +2 VP
4) Can the PCs convince deserting men to stand their ground? +5 VP
5) Can the PCs cover the retreat from Breed's Hill effectively, buying time for the wounded and the artillery to be evacuated? +13 VP

At 0 VP, the battle plays out as in the history; at +20 VP the colonists fall back in good order, salvaging artillery and supplies for the siege of Boston. At +40 VP, the PCs might actually be counterattacking Howe's exhausted regulars, driving the British off the peninsula and handing the Continental Army a stunning success.

Dev here! The cultural package is a system called "Heritage," which you choose alongside your Role (Officer, Pioneer, Renegade, Scholar, Scout, and Veteran). It intentionally has no mechanical benefits, as we wanted to strictly avoid real-world ethnicities having any statistical bonuses or penalties. You do gain language(s) from your Heritage, which interact with a few other subsystems.

See? Told you they were friends of the forum!

Alright, y'all, let me know if you want me to go back and cover any of the Origins in more detail! For today let's get into the class options!

Nations and Cannons presents four subclasses and one new class. I'm going to start with the new class, the Firebrand!

So first off, as has been previously commented by Weiley31, the class symbol is fire:

Points to that logo designer, y'all! The firebrand is all about the class fantasy of mobilizing other folks to accomplish change. It's core concept is that with just a quill and the right ideas, you can change the world. It's also a huge part of why I jumped into this system - I love a design that's willing to swing for the fences.

The mechanical package falls somewhere between rogue and bard, occupying a back-rank slot for combat while being a fantastic face and getting a few options to help integrate with the exploration pillar. We get a d8 Hit Die, light armor proficiency, simple weapons, longswords, and all martial pistols. You get Charisma and Wisdom save proficiency, and three skill selections.

Your first option is called Bear Witness - it gives you advantage when confronted with deception. The more you know about the deception, the more you can find out about the truth, with specific prompts the player can ask the DM. It's an interesting and well-done feature that plugs the player into the world, but is probably worth a session zero conversation with that player to avoid hyper-focusing on Insight checks.

Next up is your second level 1 feature: Speech Casting! So, this is worth a quick digression. Nations & Cannons focuses on historical play, so obviously there are no spells*. But what the design team did was package cool, thematic, heroic elements of flintlock-era RP into something that is mechanically like a spell, but really just represents something cool your character can do a limited number of times per day. As an example, the blowback gambit:

So you don't get fireball, but you do get to blow up a fool with his own grenade!

I just thought that was awesome. Anyway, only the firebrand and the ranger get gambits in the base rules, but the various subclasses presented here interact with it off and on.

The Firebrand occupies a little bit of a unique space, being a prepared half-caster that gets two slots at level 1. You also (at level 1) choose your subclass, or Vocation. There's the Chaplain, which takes the class in more cleric-ish direction, and the Demagogue, which gives you grenade proficiency and leans heavier into bard territory. Another interesting decision the designers made was to let the Firebrand upcast gambits using a meta-currency called Resolve. Resolve lets you force rerolls on Charisma saves and checks made by anyone in 60', letting you act as either debate bro or hype man, depending on whether it's an enemy or ally, respectively. Since this presumably includes yourself, you are a bard-tier social monster at level 2, which really lets the Firebrand shine without making them frustrating to GM for (looking at you, College of Eloquence).

Resolve can also be used to upcast gambits that you can't cast yet. The Resolve cost is ((level of gambit x 2) - 1)), so you can cast a fifth level gambit at 9th level (Resolve scales upward with your character level, like ki or Sorcery Points). So you can expend a big surge of Resolve and accomplish something really impactful, but there's a meaningful cost associated. 5th level gambits on the firebrand's list include things like summon company, which lets you bring partisans to help you out in magnificent style. You can't use Resolve to cast first-level gambits, though, so no spamming.

Resolve refreshes on a long rest until 6th level, when you get a 1x/day short rest recharge. I personally would houserule that you can refresh on a short rest from the jump, but that's a matter of preference.

There's one more awesome thing about this class that I want to address real quick, and that's the 5th level feature, Pamphleteer. This lets you inscribe a gambit into a letter and mail it to someone. The gambit must only target one person, and must inflict either a curse or the charmed condition. I love this so much, y'all; it reminds me of something like Rights of the British Colonies. It also feels like something that should be possible with this class, and also I just love anything that lets me weaponize civil servants.

Alright, y'all, it's the Saturday after Cinco de Mayo, and where I live, that's a Big Deal. So I need to go walk my yard and make sure no hooliganery got into ol' Sparky's bailiwick. Y'all have fun, and I'll catch you on the flipside!

*If you have to ask why, you might be spending too much time here. Go outside, hug a squirrel, punch a llama, and if you see Dan, tell him he still owes me that $200.

 

[bedir than]

I'd be interested in hearing if someone thinks a Firebrand could work in standard 5e

 

[Libertad]

While I can't say that anyone in my gaming circle would be interested in this, I certainly am in reading about it!

Unless they're planned to be handled in a later post, how are firearms handled in terms of weapon proficiencies? And also how do they compare to pre-gunpowder ranged weapons such as the longbow?

 

[Sparky McDibben]

I'd be interested in hearing if someone thinks a Firebrand could work in standard 5e

I definitely think so, although their power level compared to something like bard is going to be somewhat lower. Gambits are a slightly lower power level than spells, and bards are a full caster vs a half caster. However, in a setting with flintlocks, really only a valor bard is going to keep up with a firebrand's damage output.

While I can't say that anyone in my gaming circle would be interested in this, I certainly am in reading about it!

Unless they're planned to be handled in a later post, how are firearms handled in terms of weapon proficiencies? And also how do they compare to pre-gunpowder ranged weapons such as the longbow?

We'll definitely cover that, friend! But I want to set aside the N&C firearms rules for their own thing, because there's some slight wonkiness there.

Alright, now I want to cover the other four subclasses! We have subclasses for barbarian, fighter, ranger, and rogue. Notably, there's a section at the start of the class / subclass chapter that notes other appropriate subclasses for a no-magic setting, so you can still play a Thief rogue, or a Totem Warrior barbarian (just flavor the spells they get as gambits).

The other thing I want to call out is the suggestion of a Protégé. It is suggested (but not required) that you retire your PCs at 10th level to prevent them from screwing up the future by being such overpowered badasses that they can just charge the lines at Yorktown or something. Again, this is only a suggestion, and I'm on my way to testing how resilient even 20th level characters could be against some of the damage options discussed later. However, the protégé is the replacement character (essentially a henchman) who takes over their stuff and keeps going from first level. This is a delightful call out to original and 1st edition D&D, and I like seeing that.

Now, on to the subclasses! The subclass for barbarian is the Path of the Grenadier. Grenadiers during the Revolution were the biggest, toughest, fittest assault troops, who would get close to the enemy position and disrupt it with hurled bombs and bayonets. Grenades are essentially just a cast iron shell filled with gunpowder and a cut fuse (bear in mind that Shrapnel's a teenager, so shrapnel hasn't been invented).

And this...this is how we get the barbarian subclass I have had the most fun with this entire edition. I call it BOOM!barian, and BOOM!barian is best-barian. Starting at level 3, you get proficiency with a munitions kit, so you can make cartridges and grenades on your own. You'll need to clarify a couple things with your GM, but we'll get to those during the equipment section. You also get to add your rage bonus to grenade damage (while raging) and your grenades' short range is extended 10 feet. Finally, as long as your target is within normal range, you can use Reckless Attack to gain advantage on ranged weapons (but note that only grenades get the Rage damage bonus).

Here I'll give y'all a quick digression into grenades. A thrown grenade has to hit an AC of 10 (since you're presumably trying to hit the ground, which is moving only slightly less fast than you are), and can only be affected by cover (so AC 12 if half cover, AC 15 if 3/4 cover) or range (so disadvantage if you're more than 30 feet away). It's targeted with a ranged weapon attack using Strength. So with Reckless Attack and a target in normal range, you're almost guaranteed to hit. The downside is that on a natural 1, 2, or 3, the grenade misfires and blows up on you. It also does 3d6 fire damage, and has a DC 12 Dex save to halve a normal grenade's damage.

Now, I can already hear some folks yelling about misfires, and trust me, we'll get to it in the equipment section, but the total of the design here encourages you to move fast, chuck a bomb or two, and then close to melee because you're already pretty much there. I've literally had one of these things blow up in the face of my third level barbarian*, and they went on to absolutely pulp a Hard encounter (by the book; I ran the numbers). Also, it accomplishes that rarest of things: its an absolute blast to play. Yes, that pun was intentional. Yes, I hear you groaning and IT NOURISHES MY SOUL!

BOOM!barian gets a few more things, like the ability to use Brutal Critical on their grenades and thrown weapons at 10th level, and the ability use a few gambits that create battlefield hazards (giving the barbarian some fun control elements to use, although they require some thinking ahead). But the core of their kit comes online at 3rd level, and look out.

For the fighter, the subclass is called Turncoat, and it's the most roguish fighter I think I've ever seen. The Turncoat specializes in dirty tricks and creating tactical ambiguity, and you can really see the developers adding in player choice to the design, since the only fighter subclass that gets more options than Turncoat is Battlemaster. At 3rd level, you gain an extra skill proficiency from a list including Deception, Insight, and Sleight of Hand (among others) and a tool proficiency from the disguise, forgery, or poisoner's kits.

Also at third level is Professional Chicanery, which sounds like a law school class, but actually gives you a choice on if your turncoat is going to specialize in creating poisons (and healing potions), deceptions, or surviving the battlefield. These are fun, flavorful, and upgrade at 7th level, giving you more tools to play with. This is a fighter who can be built to do several different things without stepping on the rogue's toes.

You also also at 3rd level get Stranglehold, an upgraded grapple that prevents the target from speaking, restrains and grapples them, and gives you half cover against ranged weapon attacks. You can also use your reaction to give them disadvantage on their attempt to break the stranglehold.

At 7th level, you get to upgrade your grapple in one of several very unpleasant ways, whether you get to force the grappled target to take a poison, or use Dodge as a bonus action (and any attack that misses due to disadvantage hits the person you have grappled). Hilariously, one of the options is to take an ally as a hostage to confuse the bad guys that you're on their side (no Deception check required). This sounds silly, but I can see a clever player creating a massive positioning advantage with this.

There are a few other options they get (including the ability at 18th level to gull a squad of hostile troops into firing on their own guys, which is a risky ploy if those troops realize you tricked them), but the core of the class is high-risk shenanigans and a LOT of options.

The ranger subclass is called the Trailblazer, and the only problem I have with this is that, in the absence of a sound exploration structure in 5E, this class doesn't actually get many trails to blaze. What they do get, though, is the most Home Alone toolkit I've seen. The Trailblazer is all about exploiting your favored terrains. You get what are essentially domain spells for rangers based on your favored terrain, including a cantrip. These gambits can do stuff up to and including: destroying artillery, creating mines, knock, suggestion, pass without trace, and the ability to create a makeshift cannon of your own. You also get Understrap, an ability that lets you cast ritual gambits as a ritual, and/or to cast any gambit that has a casting time of 1 minute with 1 action instead. Understrap can only be used PB times per long rest, so it's not broken, but there are some serious options here.

At 7th level, you get Choke Point, which lets you make a Survival check (DC 20 - 40) to set up and cast a gambit without using a gambit slot. The higher the check result, the better the gambit (DC 20, for example, gets you grease; DC 40 gets you insect plague). Basically, you're preparing a trap. Remember that in their favored terrain, rangers get doubled proficiency bonus per the PHB. The ability also explicitly calls out that an ally can give them advantage on the check, too. For those of you doing the math right now and realizing that DC 40 isn't within reach even with a natural 20, doubled max proficiency bonus, and a maxed out Wisdom score, hold your britches. At 11th level, the Trailblazer can triple their proficiency bonus, rather than double it, in their favored terrain. Assuming a natural 20 and a maximum Wisdom score, that puts DC 40 within reach as early as level 13 (barely).

Finally, we get to the rogue subclass, the Marksman. This subclass asks the question: have you ever wished other classes got stuff like eldritch invocations? Have you ever wanted to Sneak Attack at 500 feet? This thing has got you covered.

The Marksman is a sniper rogue who specializes with rifles, with which you get proficiency at 3rd level. At 9th level, you can leverage your reputation as a marksman to scare the crap out of onlookers as long as you spend a minute regaling them with war stories. At 13th level, as long as you've spent a minute setting up a blind, your shots do not reveal your location, even if they hit. And at 17th level, you can use your reaction to turn a miss into a hit, although doing so has a cost to your weapon.

But the meat of this subclass are the techniques, which are mechanically eldritch invocations, allowing you to customize your snipey boi to your liking. There are 18 options, and you only get a number roughly equal to your proficiency bonus (you get an extra technique the level after your PB goes up).

These are quite varied, and there are a couple that are not great except for very specific builds. But there are some that enable very interesting rogue builds, like one that lets you ignore disadvantage out to long range if you use your Cunning Action to brace the weapon. This lets you gain advantage from being hidden, and deal Sneak Attack damage out to nearly 500 feet. Thus, you can have some fun with literally having the rogue not even on the battlemap, and the rest of the party triggering an ambush. If you're worried about this breaking your game, remember that cavalry and artillery are things in this world, and even if they can't see you (from the 13th level feature above), they still know your general area. A dashing horse is going to be able to cover 120 feet per round, and so you're going to have maybe three rounds to fire before cavalry starts closing in on you.

Other techniques include the one that gives you proficiency with artillery, potentially allowing you to Sneak Attack with a cannon (look up Henry Knox's contribution to the siege of Boston, if you're curious about a historical example). Another lets you shoot a firearm out of someone's hand, or ricochet a shot from one person to another. These three specifically don't come online until 6th - 9th level, so your sniper rogue has to build toward their goal, and they only have three techniques by 6th level anyway, so their choices are pretty limited.

Still, I thought it was an interesting development option that added back in some neat choices for rogue players, who usually only get this kind of customization if they play Arcane Tricksters. I've playtested one of these guys up to 5th level, and with the high damage options from rifles, they are blisteringly effective. Plus, they're still a rogue, so even if they get caught on open ground and out of cover, you've got plenty of options! At one point, a church got raided by redcoats, which resulted in surprised characters, which also resulted in the rogue's first action being to try to light one of the redcoats on fire with communion wine (this did not work, but did blind the redcoat, which was fun).

Finally today, I want to real quick run through the Backgrounds and Feats chapter. The backgrounds here are well-written, and update the ribbon features to being more applicable to a revolutionary setting. For example, the Career Soldier background's feature lets you eat tainted or contaminated rations without ill effects. While I can say from my time in the service that dysentery doesn't work that way, it's also a great way to still have the party affected by disease (lesser restoration does not exist in Nations & Cannons) while having one character who now has three or four people to take care of (see the weird cannibal leader episode in Last of Us for the kinds of tension this can create).

All of these have fun and dynamic personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws that draw the PCs into conflict, and are pretty well done. The feat options mostly focus around weapon specialization (Pistol Expert, Rifle Expert, Carbine Expert, etc), which mostly help offset the various disadvantages of those specific weapons (like faster reloading, lower misfire risk, and more movement options), so you're not helpless when you don't have your specialized weapon to hand. However, there are a couple of really interesting social / exploration options, too. Printer's Apprentice, for example, lets you counterfeit money, create pamphlets, and sow rumors in a settlement during downtime at half cost. Skirmisher lets you drop prone when targeted by ranged weapons, imposing disadvantage on the attack. While a couple of these have fiddly mechanics (Skirmisher gives you a +1 to AC if you've used more than half your movement in a turn) that are hard to track, that's sort of baked in to 5E feats anyway (see Mobile, Mage Slayer, etc).

All in all, the subclasses here are interesting, flavorful, and effective in communicating flintlock aesthetics into D&D mechanics. That's something that I find pretty difficult, so I give the designers a lot of credit for that. As I said, I've playtested several of these subclasses, and I've found them to be very interesting exercises in setting up problems and then letting the players overcome those problems as they grow in level.

Alright, friends - next time we're going over the Equipment section, so we can review the flintlock mechanics!

*Fun fact: This is why the patron saint of artillery is also the patron saint of lightning strikes! (Saint Barbara)

 

[Flagbearer Games]

At 7th level, you get to upgrade your grapple in one of several very unpleasant ways, whether you get to force the grappled target to take a poison, or use Dodge as a bonus action (and any attack that misses due to disadvantage hits the person you have grappled). Hilariously, one of the options is to take an ally as a hostage to confuse the bad guys that you're on their side (no Deception check required). This sounds silly, but I can see a clever player creating a massive positioning advantage with this.

This one has a fun story from playtesting. It turns out, it's pretty important to for these types of features to have a rider discouraging use on "a creature with an intelligence of 3 or less." Otherwise, your player might suggest putting their buddy in a headlock to bluff a moose...

 

[Weiley31]

So first off, as has been previously commented by Weiley31, the class symbol is fire

Seriously, it's my fave class symbol outta ALL the class symbols in 5E as a whole.

 

[Weiley31]

Otherwise, your player might suggest putting their buddy in a headlock to bluff a moose...

You say that as if that's a bad thing

My brain also read that as "To Block a Moose"