I randomly decided to checkout the analytics for this site and came across a surprising and exciting find: people are visiting this site!!! It's not a ton of people, averaging ~30 a day. But this conversion seems to be generating interest, and that ain't nothing. Thus, I've got a renewed motivation (urgency?) to get some major work done in the next few months. And thanks to everyone who has taken a gander.

But first...

Playtesting

We had 3 players with the following loadouts:

1. Drell Marksman Soldier
2. Asari Justicar Adept
3. Human Saboteur Infiltrator

We ran a fast-paced session, testing the classes out on creatures, mobs I pulled straight from D&D, bosses (a Banshee), and 2 fully spec'ed NPCs (Sentinel & Engineer). We leveled quickly so we could check out the classes at different phases. Specifically, level 5, 9 and 12. Overall, the flow, battle mechanics, spells, etc. all had the necessary feel of both ME and D&D. I was excited to see that they melded together nicely. I even started on a bestiary, creating monsters for various Reaper mobs, including Marauders, Cannibals, Husks, and a Banshee. If you're so inclined, check out my prep notes for the very short campaign. Note: we didn't get to Operation Driftwood, and we chose Operation Metal Detector.

What's next

I've been quietly working on a key aspect of any game system: balance. For the past months, I broken ye 'ole spreadsheets, working on class analysis and overhauling the classes.

Issue 1: Some classes vastly outperformed others.

Issue 2: Classes peaked around level 9, with nominal damage increase beyond level 12.

I found a D&D class analysis in The Optimists' Guide to D&D 5E Damage by Class, Subclass, Weapon, and Level. It gave me a framework to review the ME classes. In doing the work, I also tried to align the classes more closely with D&D counterparts. Soldiers became more like Fighters, Adepts like Wizards, Sentinels like Paladins. Other minor updates include a better variety of weapons stats and improving/standardizing spell text.

All in all, the next iteration will look similar but be a huge overhaul. Rest assured, I'll be sure to make the current version available on the site, in case anyone is running a campaign.

Other things in the works

General site fixes, a bestiary, armor, adding new spells, printable spell cards, and adding some sort of "NPC maker".

This endeavor is far from over...

Shoutout

Major thanks to SleightxHope for jumping into Github and contributing a ton of ideas. Backgrounds, skills, armor, weapon mods, class rewrites! Can't say thanks enough for the collaboration and playtesting!

Where did the old one go?

For anyone that wants the old version, click on the version number in the upper-right of the main nav and select "v0.1.0-alpha".

Why so much change?

One major issue was that almost all classes peaked around lvl 9. I started using spreadsheets to track damage progression throughout levels. FYI - Those sheets are sorely out of date, as I threw in a plethora of changes last minute. But that's the documentation for how the new classes stack up damage wise. It's really just proof that I put in some amount of time trying to balance this system out.

The other major issue is that I wanted this conversion to reflect D&D 5th Edition as much as it could. I'd spent too much time coming up with random abilities and class features rather than leaning back on the amazing work WoC does. So, in this iteration, I focused on taking subclass features from 5e and sticking them in at appropriate levels. There is still plenty of homebrew content, but the classes should have a much more familiar feel than before.

Player's Handbook

To keep things more sustainable, I've completely rewritten the [player's handbook]({{ site.github.url }}/phb/) into a single page webapp. This part of the site will now exist to keep people updated on news, play testing, and other miscellaneous items, like printable character sheets and spell cards.

NOTE: If you see any spelling errors or come across any bugs, please add an issue in the repo

Changes

Rules

Mostly clarifications with a few minor updates.

Weapons

Weapon Handling

• Reloading takes an action
• Holstering and drawing a new weapon is a bonus action

Weapon Stats

• Made the Rof & Heat stat simpler. Instead of subtracting RoF from Heat, heat is now the number of times you can fire the weapon before you need to reload.
• Rare Weapons. Basically a way of saying lvl 1 PCs shouldn't have access to these weapons.

Weapon Attributes Weapons now have different types of attributes like "Arc" and "Hip Fire" which give the weapon additional combat perks.

Removed Hip Fire The previous version gave all weapons advantage in melee range. Now only Hip Fire weapons have advantage in melee range. The standard D&D rule applies that all other ranged weapons have disadvantage in melee range.

Armor

Expanded the Armor section. Currently working on pre-made armor sets and armor mods.

Consumables

It never felt "right" that grenades and ammo powers were "spells". So I've made them consumables. Consumables are kind of like magic items. They have an associated rarity (how often you'll get access to them) and are gone once you use them.

Medi-gel ...has been added. Lets you use a hit die in combat. See Rules > Consumables in the PHB.

Skills

New Skills: Engineering, Xenology

Races

Geth I took away a few of the Tech powers that came from geth classes in ME3 Multiplayer mode and made them geth only. Repair Matrix and Hunter Mode didn't really make sense for organic creatures. In addition, geth get some really nice class-specific features at level 11. This is to make up for the fact that geth cannot take any feats.

Quarians Removed Improvised Grenade and added Cybernetic Augmentation. Read about the latter in the codex and felt the Imp grenade was lame.

Salarains Made Photographic Memory much more powerful, cosidering this is one of the weakest races. Great for Skill Monkeys though!

Classes

To be honest, so much has changed with the classes, the best I can do is give you an overview of each one. I'm also providing a % done. By this, I mean how much the class feels complete, which should also be an indication of how much it's likely to change in the future.

General

Damage!

A major issue in the previous iteration was that every class's damage output stopped scaling around level 10. This has been fixed. It also meant implementing a new Max TP system for Engineers, Infiltrators, and Sentinels. Basically, as you level, you can spend more TP on your Tech Powers.

Combat Powers

I added in Combat Powers, which are mechanically like class features (generally only use them once per short/long rest), but give you the customizing feel of spells and tech powers, i.e., you can choose which ones you want. Soldiers choose Combat powers as they progress, but Infiltrators can take a few as well instead of learning a tech power. I hope to expand the crossover list further.

Adepts

90% Brought adepts much more in line with Wizards, borrowing a lot of class and subclass features from D&D.

Engineers

90% Primarily worked on the Support subclass, giving it more variety.

Infiltrators

75% Redistributed and added more of the Rogue features from D&D. Still feels like it could use a little bit more work.

Sentinels

60% I feel like tech armor changes every time I sit down to do edits. I need to do a lot more playtesting with Sentinels and all subclasses before I can put a button in it.

Soldiers

85% Probably the most drastic overhaul, getting rid of adrenaline dice, reworking the subclasses, adding combat powers, and making them progress more like fighters. I'm mostly happy with the outcome.

Vanguards

75% Updated subclasses and tried to make them more melee heavy. A mix of Paladins, Barbarians, and Fighters. Could still use some work.

Feats

Added a new Feat: Grenadier. Hoping to add a few more in the near future.

Backgrounds

SleightxHope provided all of these. Will try to add more soon.

Spells

Also major overhauls.

Well, I think that's everything. This has been a hell of sprint to get all the edits in, but I think it's at a much more stable place where we can slow add new feature and adjust classes. Thanks to anyone out there who is playing!