A massive book of martial might and magical mayhem for D&D 5e - 4 epic new classes, 30+ new subclasses, 30+ feats, and over 240 spells!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
June Update (2024)
7 months ago
– Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 02:39:04 PM
Hey Folks-
Update & Status
Unfortunately the June draft isn't quite ready yet, but as we are getting right along through June at this point I wanted to put out the update just to keep folks posted, though this will be a short update.
I said previously that the June update would be the 'complete' draft, which, as probably expected (by at least everyone but me), is the cause of it running late, as there is always more devils lurking in details when trying to finish things (and while they are low CR, there's been a lot of them!). We've been on the last yard for at least a mile now, but I assure you no one is more eager than I to get this done and printed.
The KCLL Fantasy Grounds VTT module beta has been sent out through Backerkit since the last update (which I mentioned it would be), but the Shard one has not yet. To be honest, I sort of forgot, and there's some procedure hoops I need to figure out there in how to distribute it since I hadn't done of those before.
I still indeed for there to be a "June Update" but I'm equally aware that June is somehow more than half over (even if I didn't give it permission to do go by that fast... weird, it's almost like time marches on regardless of my wishes). I won't make a separate update for it when it goes out (since we are close to the July Update at this point), but will ping the role on Discord.
Shoutouts
As long term readers of these updates will remember, I often shout out other 5e Kickstarters at the end of these updates. It's been awhile but I have a special one to share with you folks this time around.
Both of the following Kickstarters launched about a week ago, and are fully funded and chewing their way through stretch goals.
The first item on our docket comes from Somanyrobots. Somanyrobots is was an editor on KCCC, a moderator on the Discord, and for the last few years has been producing their own 5e content, which is not being collected into a shiny new book! They've got:
Three new classes: the Troubadour, Swashbuckler, and Bloodrager!
Dozens of new subclasses!
A complete set of seafaring rules, for naval combat, ocean travel, and building your own floating stronghold at sea!
Hundreds of spells, including (but not limited to) the entire Spells That Don't Suck project!
New Species!
New Monsters!
Mini-settings, enchanting islands you can drop into an existing game for instant adventure!
If any of that sounds cool, they have a hefty sample over on their Kickstarter and much of their content is available for free on their website, so go check out their stuff!
In a strange twist of fate, Critical Crafting (Dillon Olney)'s KickstarterMages' War launched the same day as Songs of the Spellbound Sea, and over the week they've been running has raised almost the exact same amount, making them quite the interesting pair of tales!
Mages' War is a book pitting high magic against high technology with a whole host of fancy new things including new player races, subclasses, monster templates and blocks, and new system of player options in grafts, sigils, and more.
On top of that, I hear they have a giant pile of STL files and recently have shown off a model of the biggest and shiniest in their updates, so once you've checked out Songs of the Spellbound Sea, make sure to swing by this one and see if it catches your eye!
That's all I got for you folks, so once you've checked out those awesome Kickstarters, sit down and keep an eye on your inbox as June winds up for the June Draft of KCLL.
As always, you can pop over the Discord and give me a poke if you having you urgently need to know or just want to chat. I'm almost always available over there (though will be out of town for a day or two coming up... part of why I decided to send this update now rather than trying to wait any longer for the draft to be ready).
All the best, and I appreciate that you've all be patient as this has taken much longer than expected to get wrapped up. If anything, folks have been too patient, but I'm doing my best to get this book hammered out (...er... printing pressed out? I don't think they use printing presses either anymore... you know what I mean!)
-Kibbles
May Update (2024) - KCLL Draft 0.7 Sent Out
9 months ago
– Wed, May 01, 2024 at 05:08:46 PM
Hey Folks-
I've sent out the 0.7 draft for KCLL, this one is about 311 pages, so about 22 pages more than last time. The rough draft on my side is over 320 pages now, but there's a few things that are still be hacked out.
I was hoping that this draft would be the 'complete' draft (i.e. all the content, but not all the editing) but its not quite there yet. Things are still taking awhile.
That said, all revisions to the classes, subclasses, feats, and spells I think are complete. The only things still being worked (in the sense of active testing/revision, not just editing and polish) are the monsters, monster feats, and Battle System.
Changelog
There was a popular request for changelogs, so I've gone ahead and done my best to compile one this time; I've posted it over on the Discord in the Kickstarter channel; it's a bit messy and might be incomplete, but was just me recording as many things as I remembered as I was going through, so there's at least most of the changes captured there.
There's some minor issues where the statblock of two monsters at the end are just blank... InDesign decided to delete those when I exported, and I didn't notice until I'd already got ready to send it out, so... we are just going to mark those as incomplete and circle back for the 0.8 draft. Getting InDesign to export a PDF is always a struggle... getting it to export it intact... well, that's asking a bit much I guess.
Art
One thing I wanted to mention was that this draft does add some stock art assets (ones I've used before); these are all licensed (and not AI, I bought them a long time ago, before AI art was a thing). I had originally not intended to use them (using only new custom art for the book), but some people wanted more art in the subclass section because they find it makes navigating (when flipping through) much easier, and there simply wasn't more time to get more custom art there - the book already has roughly twice my last book had in art assets, but there's just a lot of stuff. I know that most people won't notice that, but figured I should explain in case anyone recognized a piece and wondered why I used it.
As always, I will go through an individually credit the art in the final draft, once things stop moving around and the format is settled in.
VTTs
I do have beta versions ready for FoundryVTT, Fantasy Grounds, and Shard, I just need to get things organized. If I don't send these out in a week or so, feel free to bug me about them and I'll try to get the requisite ducks in a row.
Delay Summary & ETA.
We are really close to done, but we've been there for awhile, and it's already about 8 months behind where I was hoping it would be schedule-wise. That's a lot. Ultimately there's a handful of reasons (health issues last year, etc), but the biggest one probably just comes down to the fact that there was (counting the new classes and default class content) 80+ subclass options in the book. That's 80 unique characters, before even getting spells, feats, etc.
That's a lot to test and review. There's only been (I think) about 120 official subclasses printed for 5e over its life cycle, so that's 2/3 of all official content in one book here by my count. That's probably too much, though there's was a reason at the time the book was planned to have so much in it, it's just taken a long time to chew through. A lot of it was already made at the time of the Kickstarter, but some of this stuff I made 5 years ago, and has taken a fair bit of revision and review to be ready for print.
I am currently hoping that it will be off to printers in June or July; that's means we are ways off from getting the book, but not too far. We are getting there though.
As always, if you have any questions or thoughts, or want to look through the changelog, feel free to drop by the Discord. If you have any errors you want to submit, feel free to add them to the copy edit sheet (I've caught up to all previously submitted issues and errors with this draft).
All the best,
-Kibbles
April Update (2024)
10 months ago
– Mon, Apr 01, 2024 at 05:57:13 PM
Hey Folks-
Just a quick monthly update with the most vital (vitalest if you will) of new content...
Distracting people from the book being delayed with more doggo pictures? Me? I would never!
...this is where I'd say obliquely that it was an April Fools update, but I imagine half of you are more excited for new doggo content than the actual updates anyway.
Now to get the less important actual update... progress is going well. I was trying to get things wrapped up last month, and still trying to get things wrapped up, but the next draft should be (a) in a few days, and (b) the 'complete' draft (reaching the final page count).
It has all the art, the battle system testing is complete, and its mostly just a matter of hammering out the layout now. I was hoping to have the update today (as is tradition), but this update is taking a bit longer to layout as it is longer (roughly 30 new pages and quite a bit of reformatting from the last one, as always). I'd say expect it in a few days, but probably less than a week. It'll go out through Backerkit when its once its ready.
I should clarify that version will be 'complete' but not 'final' - that's the draft the last of editing will hammer, and that will take at least a month, so we are currently looking at printing around early-June probably, but I'll keep you posted. Things may go quicker, but since nothing else has I'll do my best to give you a reasonable guess.
As always, feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
All the best,
-Kibbles
March Update (2024) - KCLL Draft 0.6 Sent Out
11 months ago
– Fri, Mar 01, 2024 at 03:36:19 PM
Hey Folks-
I've just gone ahead and sent out the latest draft; this adds about 16 more pages of content and brings ever so closer to the complete draft, but we aren't there yet. There's obviously a lot more besides the page count that changes (hundreds of editing updates, new art, etc), but the page count is the easiest one to track.
Speaking of new art... the most important art in the book.
This adds a few more subclasses, a good chunk of the Epic Boons someone foolished promised to write for each 1k raised over 400k, and two of the sidekick classes (Doggo and Steed). There's of course a few more of everything else as things get wrapped up (feats, monster feats, monsters, etc). I think we are roughly going to land at around 300-320 pages, so we are getting right up there up now.
I asked folks on Discord if they wanted me to do the same thing as last month and do a Twitch stream going over the updates, and requested that I do that again, so I'll be doing that on Tuesday (3/5/2024 at 1 PM PST). You can follow the Stream Notification role on the Discord to get notified when that is coming up. You can watch it here while its live, and it should be archived there for about a week. It's nothing too entertaining, just answering questions and going over what's new in the draft.
Most of the updates from last month are still true; there's still some things like unblended art and things. There's no real point to finalizing those things until the layout stops shifting since that effects how the art is blended into the page.
The Foundry Beta Module went out; I forgot to get the Shard one out, but I'll sync up with the person working on it - they were ready to send out a beta quite some time ago I think, but there's some hoops that need to be jumped through to get it into your hands.
As always, feel free to let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.
All the best,
-KibblesTasty
Feburary Update (2024) - KCLL Draft 0.5 Sent Out
12 months ago
– Thu, Feb 01, 2024 at 01:07:34 AM
Hey Folks,
I've just started distribution on the latest draft for the KCLL PDF, so by the time you have have this update, you should have that draft.
Unfortunately there's still a good way to go and a lot of bits I still need to finish; the biggest outstanding items are around the monster section (art related delays) and Battle System, which is mostly waiting for the monster section.
One of the issues I realized trying to finish of the Battle System section is that it needs more monsters than the SRD has to build out example armies and templates; it's a problem that's not too hard to solve in this case, but since the monster section is among the last things getting done, it's been dragging along.
A lot more had been edited (including fixes to all the previously submitted issues to the copy edit sheet), but not everything is edited or edited cohesively yet.
This draft is about 25 pages longer than the last, but we have at least that to go again before the 'final' draft, but I think we won't have another big delay like the one between these drafts. I should probably add that obviously a lot of the difference between them isn't new content, but editing and what not. Most of the work currently is in finishing up testing, cleaning stuff up, and edited it together.
KCLL Draft Live Stream Chat (Friday 2/2/2024)
I'm going to be doing a livestream on Friday at 2 PM PST (2/2/2024 at @ 2pm PST), where I go through the latest draft, answer questions, that sort of thing, for anyone that has any questions they want answered in that format, or just want to drop by. I believe I will be doing that on Twitch here:
...but I will link it on the Discord when it goes up as well. I'm not an expert at this sort of thing so bear with me on any challenges or technical difficulties there. I should be alive for about 1-2 hours, depending on how many questions and what there are to go through.
Of course, please feel free to reach out to me on Discord or KS, and I will try to get back to wherever you reach out. I know I'm somewhat behind on KS messages at the moment, so Discord is probably the most reliable, but I'll try to get caught on those soon.
More Info:
Table of Contents and Bookmarks. Both of these exist in the draft, but since they have to be rebuilt each time it's published, they are a bit messier than the final draft. I'm aware of this and it'll be more polished and detailed in the final draft.
Art and Art Credits. A few art pieces might currently appear multiple times, and some of the art is 'unblended' (just plopped into the page). Both of these are temporary things, these are art pieces that exist to fill out awkward gaps and half pages, and it's currently to be determined where they'll be needed before they are settled into their slots. I do plan to go through and add individual art credits (instead of just the blurb at the start, adding the artist to each art piece) but that'll be something baked in with the final draft. As a few people have asked, to reiterate, I do not use AI art for anything.
ETA. I currently expect the final draft to be in March. I know that's... late, compared to what I'd hoped for, but I want to give you the best estimate I have, and many things have taken longer than expected. Fortunately, a lot of things that took a long time last time will hopefully not take as long this time, and I'll continue to do what I can to get the book ready as soon as is reasonably possible.
VTTs. I'll have an update on these next month. There is a Shard and Foundry Beta version, I just need to actually get those out to people. I hope to do this during this month. I've just talked to the person working on the FG version, and it's also started, so I'll share more details there as we go. Ultimately, all of those delays are on me waiting for the PDF. Foundry just had a pretty big update, so I need to see if that impacts anything - no details yet as I haven't been focused there in the last few days.
Custom Content. Most of this is done, but a few are still outstanding. I will try to reach out to any remaining folks here and finalize the details.
All in all, I apologize that this draft took a long time to get out (and is still not the final one), but am working to get this finished - I assure you no one is more eager than me to get this done... I have plenty more that needs to be worked on!
Pardon me if anything looks weird... Kickstarter updated their text editor thing, so hopefully this all looks correct.
