So What's In Kobold Press' BLACK FLAG First Playtest?

Black Flag, the codename for Kobold Press' new open TTRPG, announced during the height of the recent OGL controversy as an open alternative to 5E, has put out the first playtest packet. It's 12-page document of character creation rules. So what's inside?

The introduction summarises character creation, defining 5E concepts like level, hit dice, and so on. It introduces the game as being backward-compatible with 5E.

Black Flag -- like Level Up: Advanced 5E, and Ancestry & Culture--divides the 5E concept of 'race' and 'subrace' into inherited and cultural elements. Black Flag goes with the terms Lineage and Heritage.

It goes on to present the Dwarf, Elf, and Human, along with a choice of two heritage traits for each--the heritage traits for dwarf, for example, are Fireforge and Stone. Elves get Cloud and Grove, while humans get Nomadic and Cosmopolitan. You can choose any heritage for your lineage, though. These are analogous to 5E's 'subraces', although the inherited/learned elements are separated out -- Cloud Elves are a lot like High Elves, and Grove Elves are a lot like Wood Elves, for example.

Following that are two backgrounds -- Scholar, and Soldier. They each give the usual array of proficiencies plus a 'talent'.

Magic, martial, and technical talents are essentially feats. You get a talent from your background, and can substitute an ability score increase for one.

The playtest feels to me much like a 5E written in their own words, but with 5E's 'race/subrace' structure replaced with 'lineage/heritage', the biggest thing being that the heritage (what was subrace in 5E) is cultural.

As a disclaimer, I do of course publish Level Up: Advanced 5E, which shares the exact same goal as Kobold Press' project (BTW, check out the new A5ESRD site!) It will be interesting to see how the approaches diverge; while both are backward-compatible, they already have different ways to handle what 5E calls race -- Level Up has you choose a heritage (your inherited species, basically), and any of 30+ cultures (learned stuff from where you grew up). Black Flag goes with lineage (again, your inherited species), and a choice of heritages for each lineage. And the bestselling 5E book Ancestry & Culture on DTRPG, uses those terms -- so there's plenty of options to choose your heritage/culture, lineage/heritage, or ancestry/culture!

Whatever happens, the future certainly contains a choice of open 5E alternatives!

 

[Weiley31]

I REALLY like the Combat Conditioning talent. Monks can FINALLY have D10 as their Hit Die.

 

[Minigiant]

The taregt audience is '5E but not WotC'. I suspect you're not the target audience. However, you are the target audience of a thousand other TTRPG publishers who do indeed dive deep into the vanilla fantasy tropes and blossom some flavor out of it!

I thought that what 5e was trying to do late in its cycle but couldn't due to its legacy mechanics and the designers would be part of the pillars to choosing the bits for a collection and redesign.

So with "5e but not WOTC", I figured that we'd be using 2023 5e as the model to build the skeleton and not 2020 5e. I guess that makes me not the target audience.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I don't really get why we are still doing Ability Score and Modifier separation. Sure, it's easier to do the rolling for stats with the 3-18 ability scores, but basicaly, for the rest of the game we use modifiers, not Scores. Wouldn't it make more sense to get rid of the ability scores and give you a reference table for rolling ability modifiers?
I like what I'm seeing in a preliminary read though, keep up the good work!

Or we could stuff to make the whole score important - like carrying capacity

 

[Morrus]

I don't really get why we are still doing Ability Score and Modifier separation.

I said that when 3E came out! 22 years later, here we are having the same conversation.

 

[Parmandur]

I thought that what 5e was trying to do late in its cycle but couldn't due to its legacy mechanics and the designers would be part of the pillars to choosing the bits for a collection and redesign.

So with "5e but not WOTC", I figured that we'd be using 2023 5e as the model to build the skeleton and not 2020 5e. I guess that makes me not the target audience.

The target audience already has a lot of buy-in on the existing structures, so refinement and slight variation is the smart money.

 

[TerraDave]

I think of it as more of a teaser, and a way to get feedback on their initial ideas.

The core fantasy flavor is strong--no confused planer furries--and there is a little more choice without adding much complexity to the 5e core.

Options still have to be balanced...the elves are doing well, as always, and the barbaric, er, nomadic human may be very good depending on how exhaustion comes up in play. On the other hand the stone dwarf is really just a way to get proficiencies, so you will have more stone wizards then fighters, which does not seem quite right.

I am guessing that talents will be separate from ASIs...so characters could get both?

 

[Parmandur]

I think of it as more of a teaser, and a way to get feedback on their initial ideas.

The core fantasy flavor is strong--no confused planer furries--and there is a little more choice without adding much complexity to the 5e core.

Options still have to be balanced...the elves are doing well, as always, and the barbaric, er, nomadic human may be very good depending on how exhaustion comes up in play. On the other hand the stone dwarf is really just a way to get proficiencies, so you will have more stone wizards then fighters, which does not seem quite right.

I am guessing that talents will be separate from ASIs...so characters could get both?

Nope, the packet specifies that: Talents can be taken instead of an ASI. They are pretty much just Feats with a different name...because all the Feats are closed content, one presumes.

 

[Lucas Yew]

Or we could stuff to make the whole score important - like carrying capacity

Or ditch bonuses entirely and finally add up raw scores. Yeah, really, I mean it.

 

[bedir than]

One of the things I'm excited to see Kobold do is tie everything tighter to Midgard. They can have specific cultures rather than racial languages because they don't have to support 26 existing settings (number selected randomly)

 

[Greg K]

There will absolutely be new and innovative changes, promise!

Marc, there is an error on the experience chart. Both 4th and 5th level list 6500. Also, I think Humans should get a third heritage-Rural for farmers, villagers, and similar whom are not nomadic, but also not Cosmopolitan and streetwise.
edit: I just your post about supplying feedback to the playtest link, but I am not signed on to the playtest as I am not currently running or playing any games at the moment.

 

[Parmandur]

Marc, there is an error on the experience chart. Both 4th and 5th level list 6500. Also, I think Humans should get a third heritage-Rural for farmers, villagers, and similar whom are not nomadic, but also not Cosmopolitan and streetwise.

Dollars to donuts that's under Halflings: but that's why it shouldn't be listed qirh Heritage directly.

 

[Parmandur]

One of the things I'm excited to see Kobold do is tie everything tighter to Midgard. They can have specific cultures rather than racial languages because they don't have to support 26 existing settings (number selected randomly)

Well, the packet makes it clear that they are sticking to generic and not Setting specific with the Core rules, for two reasons I suppose:

1. Midgard Hwroes for Projwct Black Flag can be the first supplement

2. Provide room for publishing partners to use the same base.

 

[Greg K]

Dollars to donuts that's under Halflings: but that's why it shouldn't be listed qirh Heritage directly.

I agree. Ideally, Rural, Urban, Nomadic, etc, in my opinion should be separate. I would really like to see the Human cultures that Rich Howard, whom I believe still writes for Kobold Press, posted on his website as the basis and expanded upon. However, I do not know if Tribality owns it as the article was also posted on their website.

 

[rules.mechanic]

Wow... is that... my Mental Resilience feat re-worked? It's uncanny. If so, you've made a mighty proud homebrewer, thanks Black Flag!

PS It's got a twin: Physical Resilience. Just sayin...

 

[EthanSental]

I lost interest, what interest I had, when I thought they would be rolling out a new rpg game under ORC, instead we get another 5e game. WoTC and advanced level up have this covered well enough for my tastes so I’ll be checking it out once it’s out…but again, easier for them to make it 5e related then do their own new game.

 

[Shardstone]

I really wish these playtests started with at least one class too, or a class list. To be honest, the biggest thing that will impact perception of Black Flag is what they do with their character classes. If they are direct one-to-one 5E rips, the game as a whole becomes very uninteresting, even with new subclasses. I'm also hoping for a few Black Flag specials.

 

[Kobold Stew]

There's a lot here that's of interest.

1. Overall, it's hewing much closer to 5e than I was expecting. I knew they were going to be rebuilding the chassis, but much of this is preserving legacy elements that they'd potentially benefit from shedding. Alignment has been mentioned upthread, as has 8-18 for abilities (when they could easily implement the modifier as the stat, which would keep the mechanics all in place but make things conceptually, and visually distinct.

2. The XP table (p. 6) is just replicating 5e's table (levels 4 and 3 clearly have a typos/thinkos). This to me, shows a lack of enthusiasm to really challenge anything -- there should be nothing sacred about 355,000 xp=level 20. It would be nice if they were willing to rethink this.

3. Lineage/Heritage is fine. There are thngs they're keeping that I wish they would ditch (e.g. Elven perception proficiency). Some of the heritage traits are pretty niche: Fireforge dwarves learn Ignan? And many of them just don't seem to be things an entire culture should possess: Eye for Quality; World of Wonders; Street Smarts; Worldly Wisdom.

4. At the same time some of the heritage benefits are amazing: Touch of Magic gives me everything i would ever want magic-wise to create a range of flexible builds without needing to multiclass (which probably means it's too good; certainly Cloud elves are the winners in the cultural lottery, to my eyes). [[maybe at fifth-level one has the chance for a second-or-thried level speel?]] Reforge is going to be amazing if they have rules for breaking weapons in combat, but if they don't, then it won't come up for most players. Resilient is also potentially great, depending on what happens to Exhaustion: if it becomes more of a thing then sluffing off a level with a short rest becomes much more meaningful than if they stick with what it is in 5e.

5. I wonder if they would implement half-races/lineages by mix-and-match: human lineage with an elven heritage would be one way to do this (though that would also be a way to show a human raised by elves, for example). Cloud elves are going to be taking in a lot of orphans, I predict...

6. Talents (replacing feats) seem fine.
a. Combat Casting allows a reaction attack when an enemy enters 5'.
b. School Specialization is really great, and instantly supercedes many Wizard subclasses. This is powerful. It's fun to have this option for non-wizard classes too -- Clerics specializing in Enchantment or Necromancy become more viable.
c. Armor Training -- straightforward consolidation of disparate 5e feats, but leaves Armored Combatant as a special case.
d. Armored Combatant -- does it need the prereq? I like that it can apply while wearing light aromor, but only if you are proficient in heavy. It'd be nice if this were more available to Rogues, for instance.
e. Hand-to-Hand suggests that lineages are going to keep meaningful size distinctions, in contrast to the direction the are chasing with One.
f. Polyglot is wordy, but I like how goblins and giants will appreciate it if you try to speak to them in their own language.
g. Trade skills feels underwhelming, for the ability to eke a living out of a skill.

It will be interesting once we see classes, if they are going to continue to stick as close as they can to the 5e PHB. Looking forward to giving my feedback.

 

[Zaukrie]

One of the things I'm excited to see Kobold do is tie everything tighter to Midgard. They can have specific cultures rather than racial languages because they don't have to support 26 existing settings (number selected randomly)

please give that feedback!

 

[Greg K]

e. Hand-to-Hand suggests that lineages are going to keep meaningful size distinctions, in contrast to the direction the are chasing with One.

Keeping meaningful size distinctions is a plus in my book. D&DOne's approach was just one of several things turning me off to it.

 

[Parmandur]

I lost interest, what interest I had, when I thought they would be rolling out a new rpg game under ORC, instead we get another 5e game. WoTC and advanced level up have this covered well enough for my tastes so I’ll be checking it out once it’s out…but again, easier for them to make it 5e related then do their own new game.

At the bate minimum, I want to get the Monster book: Kobold Press does good work there, and I want to see their take on basic fantasy archetypes. But the whole Cire rules have my interest as modular bits and Bob's, and may be worth getting just for the eventual Midgard book.