Combat V4

We’ve rewritten our combat system once again, and this time, it truly starts to feel like real D&D 5e combat. In our first few versions of combat, we were building on top of an older architecture with less intelligent language models. In order to make it work, we used more traditional code, and less LLMs. For example, Franz really only handled reading your attack and then doing the final narration. Everything in between, all the small decisions to make, were handled by traditional code. This made combat feel rigid and frustrating.

In Combat V4, we’ve implemented an agentic system. Instead of a rigid system, Franz now has the tools to execute any type of roll, update characters or monster data, manipulate the encounter state, and more. This makes him much more flexible and allows him to run the encounter like a normal GM would. The result is that combat is now way more fun, flexible, and feels like real 5e. Let’s take a spin through some of the cool things in Combat V4!

Summoning / Conjuring

You (or your NPCs) can now summon or conjure familiars, elementals, and more. Franz has a tool to update the entities in the encounter, so he can add creatures when a summoning spell is cast. In this screen shot below, you see Opus (friendly NPC) casting Conjure Minor Elementals. He correctly summons 4 ½ CR Dust Mephits using a level 4 spell slot.

Thrown Weapons

Inventory now updates when you throw a weapon. To throw it again, you’ll have to pick it up!

Picking up Items / Improvised Weapons

Franz can now handle improvised weapons, and will update your inventory accordingly as well.

Armor / AC

AC was previously a number field you could edit yourself, but we have updated it to follow the 5e rules. Armors should now alter your AC as expected.

Healing Spells

Healing spells now work properly! If you have an NPC in your party who has healing spells, they may come to your aid and heal you.

Spell Slot Tracking

Spell slots are now accurately tracked in combat, and Franz will reject attempts to cast spells if you don’t have the spell slots to do so.

Encounter Notes

Encounter notes are a form of encounter specific memory for Franz to use. These notes are tagged with durations and conditions for when they are over. Franz will manage these notes himself, but you are welcome to edit them as well. Franz primarily uses these notes to track information of long lasting effects, environmental conditions, etc.

Spells with lasting effects

Franz now uses his notes to keep track of spells cast with lasting effects. You can see here that Captain Ironbeard cast Hunter’s Mark on the Wyrmling. When he gets around to rolling his attack, Franz correctly remembers the Hunter’s mark damage and doubles both for the crit. Other spells that affect rolls, like True Strike, should work as well.

Class Features

Class features are NOT officially implemented, but you can get some of them to work just by describing them to Franz. He’ll take note of things, such as Favored Foe, in the same way he would for spells.

Grappling

You can grapple now!

Opportunity Attacks

Franz will now automatically make opportunity attacks when one entity moves out of the reach of another. Reactions are also tracked per round via the lightning icon next to a character in the encounter panel.

Updating / Fixing Encounter State

Franz now has the following tools:

• Updating the turn order

• Adding/removing characters or monsters from the encounter

• Updating entity details such as HP, position, team, or size.

You can see in the image below I ask him to add an adult dragon to the encounter, and he does!

Encounter Balancing

Encounters should now feel much more balanced. We included a deeper planning step and adjusted the way Franz thinks about encounter balance when generating net new encounters. If you walk into a dungeon with monsters a world builder placed, Franz will not adjust the difficulty of that encounter.

New Roll Options (Manual rolling is here!)

You can now change the way you input rolls, including rolling your own physical dice and inputting the roll through our UI. Just click the toggle in the top right corner of the roll modal.

Upgraded Intelligence

We’ve upgraded combat to use a better reasoning model, so you will see much improved reasoning behind his actions. You’ll find that NPCs and monsters feel much smarter and have some strategy behind their actions.

Franz is also much smarter when it comes to getting things right when it comes to advantage/disadvantage, conditions, effects, immunities, vulnerabilities, etc.

There’s still more to this update, but this changelog is already getting quite long so we’ll just leave it up to you to try out the new combat update and see what is possible now! The fastest way to test out combat is to play our new One shot: Sticks and Stones. We hope you like it! If you are currently in an encounter, we recommend ending it and starting a new one for best results.

Over the next week, we’ll continue to fix combat bugs and continue work on the upcoming Lore update. We’re going to close all of the old combat related reports as they should be addressed in this update. If you still have the same issue or if you have any combat related feature requests, please submit them after trying out the update. As requests come in, we’ll also start to update the combat roadmap.

Hope you all enjoy!