Dev Log — September 2025

Hi everyone!

Since the last dev log, I've been formulating a holistic design document for the elements that make up the new PvE system, and after numerous low-fi prototypes, I believe I've finally managed to come up with a dice roll system that checks off all the requirements I had for the system, which I am excited to share!

You can access the design document from this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L3TI8Q80fE_d4bwFi5f8KwpNMdI3Zx_JLqKVjsW-AmA/edit?gid=415801273#gid=415801273

Rewards

There are many types of rewards from exploring in the game, from skills, recipes, and other discoveries, to items of various kinds. The new system features a reward chest that players will be able to open after their run has concluded. The reward chest will contain the items they have accumulated throughout their run, with a few exceptions. Sometimes, a room might contain an item, often another indisposed or inanimate player, which the player will be able to pick up immediately, similar to how you find items when searching a location.

Players will also continue to be able to find workbenches while exploring, which will now be guarded by minibosses, and players can more easily track down a particular workbench by chaining reward chambers of a particular kind.

Instead of finding books and magazines around school that have to be used immediately, I am playing around with the idea of having tutors, which are essentially a student-teacher that can teach players new recipes and skills, and books, which can be found in the library. Books will become a new base item similar to scrolls that disappear after granting their knowledge to the player, and will become an alternative means of discovering certain knowledge in the game.

Run Structure

The general run structure is largely the same as when it was conceptualized. Every run will start with the player encountering a student NPC of a particular nature that will affect the encounter. After being successful, the player will be able to select where they want to go next. The player will always have a choice of 3 reward chambers, and possibly a bonus chamber. After the first encounter, the player will always receive the choice to attend a class, if any class is available at the location they started exploring. Seasonal events, and some location-specific events, like finding mushrooms in the arboretum or books in the library, will appear as bonus chambers. Whenever the player returns to the room selection screen after selecting one of the bonus choices, they will always receive the same choice of reward chambers, so a player will never have to pick between a bonus chamber and a reward chamber.

Other chambers include vendors, which will exclusively be Moira and Hilda in the beginning, and when exploring the ward, Hilda will appear instead of finding a class.

Encounter Structure

Reward chambers and some bonus chambers will contain a challenge. Similar to D&D, encounters are narrated challenges where the player character's stats and dice rolls determine the outcome of the encounter.

Each encounter begins with an introduction that sets the scene, followed by an ability check that resembles their approach to the challenge and how the player will attempt to overcome it.

After an ability check has concluded, the scene will continue depending on whether the player was successful, and sometimes what spells the player used during the ability check. Every time the player is successful, they are allowed to continue the run, and as they progress, they will accumulate bad effects that will affect their dice rolls and make their progress more challenging.

Encounters are designed to have 3 ability checks. Reward chamber encounters have 3 ability checks in separate scenes spread across 3 chambers, and the encounter will continue each time the player chains a reward chamber with the same reward time.

Boss encounters are designed to have 3 ability checks inside the same scene and chamber in quick succession. In either case, the player gets to choose the outcome or "path" of the encounter when they conclude their first ability check in a set, which will decide how they are being transformed, and they will continue down the chosen path during the two subsequent ability checks. Whenever the player is successful in a subsequent ability check, they get to decide how their condition worsens, and if they are defeated, they suffer the full transformation of their chosen path.

Ability Checks

Ability checks are the central mechanic for the new PvE system, and in the coming month, I will be crit pathing towards having ability checks and the general run structure on the test server with minimal graphics and little to no narration. Once the foundation is in place, we can start building upon it with exciting stories and content!

Counting Successes

Ability checks work by counting successes, similar to Vampire: The Masquerade, and players roll 8d8, where 1 side is a double success (+2) and 1 side is a normal success (+1). All sides have different symbols, similar to "BANG! The dice game", meaning the chance of rolling any one symbol on a dice is 1/8. Also similar to BANG, the player can reroll their dice up to two times, and one of the symbols is a critical fail that is similar to dynamite in BANG. Crit fails cannot be rerolled, and if the player has three or more crit fails, they will take additional damage and become unable to reroll their dice during that ability check.

The 5 remaining sides have a symbol that represents one of the ability groups (Talent, Athletics, Skill, Knowledge, and Sexual), and each of these groups has an activatable ability that can be used during ability checks to gain an advantage, but first, the ability must be charged by rolling its respective symbol. Ability symbols are approx. worth half a success, but are much more complex to score than success symbols, since they give you nothing unless you can leverage the activatable ability, and when an ability is already charged, the symbol gives you nothing. Charges are remembered between ability checks, allowing players to save up an arsenal or activatable abilities for a boss fight, or use an activatable ability in a desperate situation. All activatable abilities are different, and some have conditions that mean they cannot be used reliably.

Abilities & Stats

Abilities are the fundamental delimiter for how well your character performs during an ability check, and your character's nature will give them a +1 to an ability group. All challenges are expected to have 2 ability checks from Talent, Athletics, Skill, or Knowledge, for an average 50% chance of Pure, Tough, Cunning, and Curious characters being able to use their nature bonus. Sexual ability checks are expected to be more common; however, players cannot always resort to sexual approaches, or they will suffer defeat early. The ideal ratio should be around 50% for a near-balance between each nature.

Mind and body increase your health, which can be sacrificed during Talent, Athletics, Skill, and Knowledge ability checks to turn a failed check into a success. When you are unable to sacrifice mind and body to bridge the gap, you are defeated, and the gap becomes exponentially bigger the more successes you are missing, and no amount of mind and body will save you if you fail to score a single success during an ability check! Many of the most severe effects a player can gather throughout their run are gated behind the player character being mindless, meaning they become more vulnerable and their run more difficult once they run out of mind, which is sacrificed before body.

Actions are spent whenever you select a chamber, an approach, and conclude an ability check. This is to allow players ample time to consider their options and read the introduction and outcomes to challenges, without feeling like they are wasting time that could be spent hunting for more items. More actions simply mean the player will be able to perform these actions more frequently, speeding up their run.

Spell actions can sometimes be used to give the player an advantage during an ability check, assuming they know a spell that will help them in their current situation. Spells are powerful actions that can help a player in a desperate situation, but more importantly, spells often alter the outcome in interesting ways, and can allow them to turn the table on their assailant or put themselves in an even worse position if they fail despite using a spell.

Hit and penetration each increase your chance of rolling a success, with hit increasing the probability of rolling a crit success, and penetration increasing the probability of rolling a normal success.

Evasion and resistance each affect crit fails. Evasion reduces the chance you roll a crit fail, while resistance reduces the additional damage you suffer when you roll crit fails. Evasion is designed to reduce the impact of effects that trigger when you roll a crit fail, while resistance is designed to reduce the damage penalty from rolling a crit fail without reducing the chance of additional (fun) effects triggering.

Sigils

Status effects will appear as sigils on your dice, which replace the crit fail symbol with one that also causes the effect to trigger. The more bad effects your character suffers from when they started exploring, or gather while exploring, the more dice will have sigils on them. If a player has more than 8 sigils, they will start to replace random ability symbols during ability checks, which also increases the chance of rolling a crit fail, as all sigils count as a crit fail in addition to triggering the effect.

Sigils are what cause partial changes to players throughout a run, and the further they get, the more frequent and difficult to avoid the changes will become.

Lust & Sex

Sex is essential to Battle Mages, and also a special ability group with checks that work differently from the rest of them. During sexual ability checks, the player cannot sacrifice mind and body to succeed, and instead, a player's lust will increase exponentially depending on the number of missing successes. Lust cannot be increased beyond 100% to succeed, and if a player is unable to raise their lust to succeed, or has an orgasm during a sexual ability check, they are defeated.

Many effects and mechanics encourage or force players to gradually shift towards performing sexual acts instead of attempting to overcome a challenge in some other way:

• The activatable sexual ability can only be used during sexual ability checks, and will even return some of its charges when used at max lust

• When a player is already mindless from having zero mind, they no longer suffer additional consequences from raising their lust

• When a player has too little mind and body left to sacrifice or risk damage, sexual ability checks might be their only way forward

• Many effects make the player worse at non-sexual ability checks, while making them better at certain sexual ability checks. Sexual ability checks are more difficult and balanced around the player having numerous bonuses from accumulated effects

• Some effects will prevent the player from choosing any other approach to a challenge, if a certain sexual act is available to them, forcing them to take the sexual ability check

---

That's it for this month's dev log!

During the past few weeks, I was able to finish up the new scene controller, and I have implemented the foundation for the new reward chests, grovelling during PvE encounters, and I'm currently working on room selection, and then I will move on to ability checks! It feels really nice to not be working on systems surrounding the new PvE system, but on the new PvE system itself!

Thank you so much for all your support, and I hope you are looking forward to trying out the new dice roll minigame inside Battle Mages! ❤️

Cheers,

Tinon