Kinetic Vanguard v9.8.1 — patch notes

A maintenance release. No balance changes, no new mechanics, nothing that moves a number in either harness. Nine documentation corrections and two rules clarifications that were always intended but never actually written down.

Worth saying up front why this exists as its own release: after v9.8 shipped I ran a sweep expecting to find nothing, found three small things, and then a second pass found ten more. Two of them had survived every audit since v9.4. The pattern is consistent enough to be worth naming — feature entries get updated when a rule changes, and the prose commentary and worked examples around them quietly don't.

Corrections

The Advanced Training pool is eight picks, not nine. Surge was cut in v9.8. Three references in the main rules and one on each of the four player sheets still said nine.

Overloading a Manifested Strike gives a die step and nothing else. The Attack Declaration Costs table still read "die step + bonus damage only." v9.4 removed that flat bonus. This is the oldest item in the patch and the one I'm least happy about — the rule was correct everywhere else, including the die table directly above it.

Passive Advanced Training picks can't be Overloaded. Advanced Training III, IV and V all said "the chosen feature can be Overloaded normally," which isn't true of Inner Reserve or Overload Mastery II. Now conditional: if the chosen feature has Overload tiers. Their Psi cost in the feature tables also changes from 3 to Varies, since six of the eight cost 3 Psi and two are passive.

Electrokinesis, two fixes. A pattern note still described Voltaic Bolt's Tier 2 as imposing Restrained — v9.7 changed that to Speed 0 and no reactions, and the feature entry was already correct; only the commentary below it was stale. Separately, a Mini Nova row credited Static Discharge Tier 1 with a no-reactions save that belongs only to Tier 2, in a sequence that had already spent its single Tier 2 declaration on the strike. That row was describing an illegal turn.

Static Discharge's Tier 1 now says what scales. It read "the lightning damage increases to 2× your Proficiency Bonus," which could be read as changing the struck target's fixed 2. It's the arc that scales; the target's 2 is unchanged.

Psychokinesis, two fixes. Two level-15 patterns still described Explosion/Implosion's push and pull as automatic with the Strength save applying only to Restrained. v9.6 changed that — one save gates both, and a successful save means neither. Separately, the level-20 example said that transferring concentration away from Vectored Thrust means "you land this turn." Vectored Thrust grants no hover and no safe descent. If it ends while you're airborne, you fall. Position before you activate Mass Levitation.

Magic Resistance applies to everything. Some passages said it gave advantage on your rider saving throws specifically, while the broader magical-effects rule correctly stated that all Kinetic Vanguard features are magical effects. Standardized: creatures with Magic Resistance have advantage on saves against any of your features — riders, standalone Actions, discipline features and Beguile alike. Attack rolls and damage are unaffected.

Unused assumed picks removed. Each sheet's level-15 pattern header named an Advanced Training pick that none of its patterns actually used, implying you needed that pick for the demonstrated sequences. You don't.

And one in my own changelog. The v9.8 entry described Mind Blast's Charisma save governing the escalation, two sentences before correctly noting the save had moved to Intelligence.

Clarifications

Telekinetic Shove replaces Push mastery on declaration, not on success.

If you declare Shove and the target succeeds on its Strength save, it isn't moved — and you cannot fall back on Push mastery's automatic 10 feet for that hit. The previous wording said Shove "replaces your Push mastery for that hit," which most readers took the right way but could reasonably be read as replacement only on a landed effect.

This is deliberate, not an oversight. Declaring Shove trades a guaranteed 10 feet for a shot at something stronger — directional control at Tier 0, and 20 feet plus Speed 0 at Tier 2. Sometimes the gamble doesn't pay. Against a creature with a strong Strength save the mastery's guaranteed movement is frequently the better play, and I'm happy the rule produces that instinct on its own.

Note that Telekinetic Slam's explicit 10-foot push on a successful save is a separate thing and doesn't generalize to Shove.

Blood Tax is taken immediately on declaration.

Not when the attack resolves, not after the package finishes, not conditionally. You declare the Overload, you take the psychic damage, then you roll. A miss doesn't refund it.

This was always the intent — every rule statement in the documents said "paid on declaration" — but nothing explicitly ruled out holding the damage until the attack resolved. It does now. There was a version of this patch that deferred the damage to after resolution, and it was rejected: waiting adds a bookkeeping step and an edge case about being reduced to 0 mid-declaration, and buys nothing.

Files (v9.8.1)

1. Main rules — https://docs.google.com/document/d/12kXqjWnHgCbBurvtQqo4jQ9bjkAG6rBci2PHVCl2jo4/edit
2. Pyrokinesis — https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JZIJOBa8Z_R49yEMya6L1M-0-lo9sGVDgUnRI3aqG30/edit
3. Cryokinesis — https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kYGoL_UlVBBJL4U0AIE-8O2euDg5262cM_m3htRTz1g/edit
4. Psychokinesis — https://docs.google.com/document/d/1978ACnw1U_ok8jGQc7axodXhxtY7dL4UUwbY6ciitOE/edit
5. Electrokinesis — https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cjVgWE3NExrkEWAJpSQugZ7ZmH-EwwO1paD4VBdX2dk/edit
6. DM Quick Reference — https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RbFLpe7X14ZwSgYyjRX9qUESiDJy5ZzpsHVTVii5E9s/edit

The harnesses, the real-monster target CSV and the README are unchanged from v9.8 — nothing in this patch alters a damage figure, a saving throw or a condition, so every published number stands.

The process note

If you maintain homebrew with a similar amount of version history, the failure mode here is worth stealing.

Every time a mechanic changed, I checked the feature that changed. What I didn't reliably do was sweep for the removed thing across every document — the condition that no longer applies, the bonus that no longer exists, the feature that no longer exists. Those references don't live in the feature entry you just edited. They live in a pattern table three sections away, in a design note, in a worked example, in a summary line on a different sheet.

The fix is a keyword sweep for the old mechanic immediately after every change, across all documents, not just the one you were editing. Two of the items in this patch were four versions old and had been read past repeatedly by three separate reviewers.

Erratum — Barrier: Elemental Shroud's damage type can be swapped
A question came up that the text doesn't answer cleanly, so here's the ruling.
The question. Barrier's Tier 2 Overload lets you spend a bonus action and 1 Psi to "replace one of your chosen effects with a different one from the list." If you have Elemental Shroud active with lightning resistance, can you use that to change it to fire resistance?
Read strictly, no. The list is five named effects — Blade Shield, Elemental Shroud, Spellward, Steadfast Guard, Mental Bulwark. Changing lightning to fire isn't replacing an effect with a different effect; it's the same effect with a different damage type. And the clause that says you can't swap into an effect you already have active would independently block it.
The ruling: yes, you can swap the damage type. Treat it as a normal Barrier swap — bonus action, 1 Psi.
Here's why I'm not going the other way. If you hold two effects at Tier 1 or 2, the strict reading is already routable: swap Shroud out for Spellward this turn, then swap Spellward back to Shroud with a different element next turn. Two bonus actions, two Psi, identical end state, plus a turn holding an effect you don't want.
So the restriction doesn't prevent the play. It just means experienced players do the two-step and everyone else reads "you can't change the element," believes it, and eats a limitation the rules never actually imposed. That's the worst way to distribute a rule.
I'd also argued that blocking it prevents reactive swapping — flipping to fire resistance right before you kill the balor, say. But the workaround gives you the same result with one turn of foresight. The difference between the readings is a round of planning, not whether the play exists. That isn't worth a special case, and it certainly isn't worth the fiddliness.
The cost is already there without it. At the levels Barrier exists, your bonus action is competing with Phase Step, Leaping Strike, Vectored Thrust and Second Wind, and every swap costs Psi. That's the brake.
Intended wording, to be folded into the next patch:
Tier 2 Overload: The duration increases to 10 minutes. While Barrier is active, you can use a bonus action to replace one of your chosen effects with a different one from the list, or to change Elemental Shroud's damage type if you have it active. Each change costs 1 Psi point. You cannot swap an effect to match one you already have active.
Two related points while I'm here.
You still can't hold Elemental Shroud twice with two different damage types. Tier 1's "choose two of the five effects" means two distinct effects. With the damage type now swappable there's no reason to want two anyway.
And if you swap Elemental Shroud out entirely and later swap it back in, you choose its damage type fresh at that point.
Nothing here changes a damage number, a saving throw or a condition — the published harness figures stand.

Kinetic Vanguard v10.0.0 — The Chassis Release

After the maintenance-only v9.8.1 patch, Kinetic Vanguard v10.0.0 is the first full chassis revision of the subclass.

The headline change is simple:

Manifested Strike is no longer Overloaded.

Your basic attack now scales naturally with Fighter level, while Overload and Blood Tax belong entirely to the techniques that actually escalate: riders and standalone psionic features. The result is less bookkeeping, cleaner declarations, and a base attack that no longer asks you to bleed just to keep pace with the expected magic-weapon curve.

Kinetic Vanguard remains a 2024 Fighter subclass built around a mental ability score, a short-rest Psi pool, discipline identity, and voluntary self-damage for high-impact turns.

Documents

Core rules

• Kinetic Vanguard v10.0.0 — Main Rules
• DM Quick Reference

Discipline player sheets

• Pyrokinesis
• Cryokinesis
• Psychokinesis
• Electrokinesis

Test harnesses and data

• Real-monster multi-target damage harness
• Damage harness README
• Real-monster control reliability harness
• Control harness README
• SRD 5.2.1 monster benchmark roster

What changed from v9.8.1?

v9.8.1 was a documentation and rules-clarification patch. v10.0.0 changes the chassis itself.

The v10 turn loop

1. Make Manifested Strikes using the die set by your Fighter level.
2. Attach no more than one rider to each hit.
3. The first activation of your 3rd-level discipline rider in each Attack action costs 0 Psi, even if Overloaded.
4. Every higher-level attack rider is limited to once per Attack action.
5. Declare the rider and its Overload tier before rolling.
6. Tier 1 Blood Tax is PB. Tier 2 Blood Tax is 2×PB.
7. Psi and Blood Tax are paid on declaration, hit or miss.
8. One Tier 2 rider is allowed per Attack action; Action Surge opens a fresh window.
9. If Blood Tax drops you to 0 HP, you fall immediately and the declared attack or feature does not resolve.

The risk remains real. The paperwork does not.

Harness results

The benchmark roster contains 28 SRD 5.2.1 creatures across levels 7, 11, 15, and 20. Real AC, saving throws, Magic Resistance, size, creature type, and condition immunities are used. Legendary Resistance is retained as metadata but is not spent.

Single-target damage against the Eldritch Knight benchmark

The main document's published headline uses a 25% voluntary Blood Tax budget. Results are shown as Kinetic Vanguard damage divided by the damage-optimized Eldritch Knight result; 100% means parity.

The intended pattern survived the chassis rewrite:

• Pyrokinesis remains the damage-forward discipline.
• Electrokinesis is strongest early and when targets cluster.
• Cryokinesis and Psychokinesis give up some direct single-target damage for lockdown and positioning.
• All four remain in the intended EK-relative band rather than drifting into either trap-pick or strictly-better territory.

Six-target aggregate damage stress run

The linked multi-target harness also models a deliberately aggressive 50% HP Blood Tax stress budget. Every creature is assumed to be legally positioned inside the selected area or chain effect. These are three-round aggregate DPR means across the full six-creature cluster.

This table is not claiming that every encounter supplies a perfect six-target formation. It shows what each kit does when its area tools have legal targets:

• Electrokinesis kills the room.
• Pyrokinesis becomes a major area-damage threat once Firestorm and its high-tier toolkit arrive.
• Cryokinesis gains meaningful multi-target damage while retaining the strongest lockdown package.
• Psychokinesis remains the least damage-oriented of the four because much of its value is movement, formation collapse, and denial rather than raw dice.

High-level control reliability

The control harness ran 100,000 trials per scenario and target row. “Full” means the complete named effect landed. “Any” includes a feature's no-save floor or lesser surviving effect. “Whole package” also counts the discipline's Kinetic Mastery.

The important result is not that every condition lands equally often or has equal value. It is that the reliability floors are doing their jobs:

• Snow Chains may fail to Stun a boss, but Speed 0 still lands on the hit.
• Mind Blast may fail to Stun, but the target is still Blinded on the hit.
• Flare T1 is pure hit-gated reliability.
• Voltaic Bolt T2 has a lower chance of landing its full root-and-reaction denial, while Sap keeps the complete attack package relevant.
• Telekinetic Shove remains intentionally save-dependent because it buys directional forced movement rather than guaranteed displacement.
• Magic Resistance hurts save-gated escalations sharply, but it does not erase the subclass's no-save floors.

Scope of the numbers

The damage harness measures three-round direct damage. It does not assign damage value to Blinded, Restrained, Stunned, forced movement, reaction denial, ally setup, target death, Spreading Flames, or Mass Levitation's later follow-up damage.

The control harness measures how reliably an effect lands. It does not claim that a 10-foot push, Blinded, Restrained, and Stunned are equal outcomes. It also does not model Legendary Resistance expenditure, positioning, concentration loss, or the extra party damage created by control.

The harnesses are evidence, not an oracle.

What I need from playtesting

The main question for v10 is no longer “can the arithmetic survive another rewrite?” It can.

The useful table feedback is now:

• Does removing Manifested Strike Overload make actual turns noticeably faster?
• Does the level-set strike die feel competent without making Blood Tax optional flavor?
• Does a 25% voluntary Blood Tax cadence feel like a tempting risk rather than a mandatory upkeep cost?
• Do the four disciplines remain distinct in real encounters?
• Do the no-save control floors stay useful against bosses without making the escalation tiers trivial?
• Are players making real choices between damage, control, mobility, defense, and Psi economy in Advanced Training?

This is the playtest baseline. Further changes should come from actual play, not wording churn.

Kinetic Vanguard v10.0.0 is ready for the table.

Kinetic Vanguard v10.1.0

Overload curve cleanup, dead-tier repairs, and refreshed benchmark harnesses

2024 Fighter subclass • release announcement

Kinetic Vanguard v10.1.0 is not another chassis rewrite. The v10 economy remains intact: Manifested Strike is a level-scaled baseline attack, Overload belongs to techniques, and Blood Tax buys escalation rather than baseline competence. This release fixes dead or awkward Overload tiers, regularizes every damage-die ladder, tightens Firestorm, replaces the underused Phase Step ally teleport, and brings the rules package and both public harnesses into one release state.

The practical goal: fewer “why would I ever pay for this tier?” moments and fewer odd 8/10/13-style progressions to remember at the table.

Public release files

• Main rules — Kinetic Vanguard v10.1.0
• DM Quick Reference
• Pyrokinesis player sheet
• Cryokinesis player sheet
• Psychokinesis player sheet
• Electrokinesis player sheet
• Damage benchmark harness (Python)
• Control reliability harness (Python)
• SRD 5.2.1 monster benchmark roster (CSV used by both harnesses)

The CSV link above is the actual target roster consumed by the public damage and control scripts.

Why v10.1.0 exists

• Several Overload ladders increased damage at Tier 1 and then stopped increasing at Tier 2, even though Tier 2 doubles the Blood Tax.
• Absolute Zero and Telekinetic Slam used irregular +2-die, then +3-die progressions that were harder to remember than they were useful.
• Psychic Lance and Deflection Screen were avowed damage/prevention choices whose original Overloads did not consistently justify their self-damage.
• Phase Step Tier 2 spent major Blood Tax on bringing an ally along, a benefit that looked useful on paper but rarely drove an actual Overload decision.
• Firestorm stacked a very large zone, difficult terrain, no-Dash denial, and repeated damage escalation. The package needed tighter geometry, not just smaller numbers.

New table rule: when an Overload ladder increases damage dice, each tier increases them by the same number of dice.

Headline mechanical changes

Constant-step damage ladders

Existing riders, save effects, modifiers, and geometry remain unless noted above. This table is the memory aid: each listed feature now advances by a constant number of dice from T0 to T1 to T2.

“MS die” means the Manifested Strike die for the Vanguard’s Fighter level. Where a feature already added the Psionic Ability modifier at an Overload tier, that modifier remains; the table isolates the die progression.

Phase Step and Improved Phase Step

Phase Step — universal 10th-level mobility

• T0: teleport up to 15 feet to an unoccupied space you can see.
• Tier 1: teleport up to 30 feet instead.
• Tier 2: after teleporting, choose the space you left or the space where you appear. Each creature of your choice within 5 feet makes your Discipline signature save against your Psionic save DC. On a failure, it cannot take reactions until the start of your next turn.

Improved Phase Step — high-tier offensive evolution

• Keeps the discipline-specific damage type and signature saving throw.
• Uses the clean 3d10 / 4d10 / 5d10 damage ladder.
• Retains the larger teleport range and Tier 2 reaction denial, distinguishing it from the universal utility feature without making either one dead.

Refreshed damage benchmark

Official baseline: three-round direct damage, 25% voluntary Blood Tax budget, real SRD 5.2.1 AC and saves, and a two-trigger Firestorm baseline. Results are Kinetic Vanguard damage divided by the damage-optimized Eldritch Knight benchmark; 100% means parity.

About the level-11 dip: KV damage still rises at level 11. The ratio falls because the Eldritch Knight benchmark hits a stacked breakpoint—third attack, stronger True Strike, weapon/ability progression—before Psychic Lance arrives at level 15. Cryo and Psycho’s direct-damage gap at that level is intentionally parked for later playtest review rather than patched blindly into this release.

Firestorm sensitivity

The three-trigger ceiling assumes favorable initiative, perfect retention, no concentration loss, and legal positioning. The damage harness does not assign a penalty for Firestorm’s reduced 10-foot base radius, so the ceiling is intentionally optimistic.

Control harness update

The control harness now includes the new Phase Step and Improved Phase Step reaction-denial pulse using each Discipline’s signature save. At level 15, the equal-weight roster produced the following end-to-end failure rates:

That spread is expected. The feature remains discipline-neutral in rules structure while preserving each discipline’s established save identity.

What did not change

• Manifested Strike cannot be Overloaded and never generates Blood Tax.
• Tier 1 Blood Tax remains PB; Tier 2 remains 2×PB, paid immediately on declaration.
• One rider per hit, one Tier 2 rider per Attack action, and Action Surge opens a fresh Attack-action window.
• The first use of the 3rd-level Discipline rider in each Attack action remains Psi-free through Psionic Instinct; Blood Tax still applies when Overloaded.
• The class remains written exclusively for the 2024 rules with errata.

What the harnesses do—and do not—claim

• The damage harness measures three-round direct damage. It does not price Blinded, Restrained, Stunned, forced movement, reaction denial, ally setup, target death, Spreading Flames, or Mass Levitation’s stateful follow-up damage.
• Area tests assume the configured creatures are legally positioned in the chosen effect. They are ceilings on legal target access, not encounter-frequency predictions.
• The control harness measures reliability, not equal value. A 10-foot push and Stunned are not treated as equivalent outcomes.
• Magic Resistance is applied. Legendary Resistance is retained as metadata but is not spent.
• Both public scripts consume the linked SRD 5.2.1 CSV roster, making the benchmark inputs inspectable and replaceable.

What I want from playtesting

• Do the constant-step ladders make Overload choices faster to parse and easier to remember?
• Does Psychic Lance now feel like the avowed damage choice without crowding out control or defense picks?
• Does Deflection Screen’s prevention justify its Blood Tax even when the Tier 2 Strength save succeeds?
• Does the smaller Firestorm zone reward positioning without recreating the old punishment prison?
• Does Phase Step Tier 2 get used now that it solves a common reaction problem rather than a rare ally-port problem?
• At level 11, do Cryokinesis and Psychokinesis feel underpowered in actual encounters, or does their control compensate for the direct-damage ratio?

Release position

v10.1.0 is the current playtest baseline. The chassis is stable, the damage ladders now read consistently, the universal tools have live Overload tiers, and the public code and CSV match the release documents. Future changes should be driven by table behavior—especially the level-11 control-versus-damage question—not by another round of speculative churn. Kinetic Vanguard v10.1.0 is ready for the table.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.0.0

Discipline identity locked: Pyro and Electro rebuilds, Cryo control validation, and finalized public benchmarks

2024 Fighter subclass • release announcement

Kinetic Vanguard v11.0.0 is the discipline-identity release. It is not another universal chassis rewrite. Manifested Strike remains a level-scaled ranged psionic attack, Overload still belongs to riders and standalone techniques, and Blood Tax still buys escalation rather than baseline competence.

This release closes the remaining design docket by rebuilding Pyrokinesis around immediate single-target damage, sharpening Electrokinesis as the spreading-damage discipline, validating Cryokinesis as the sole native owner of Stunned, refining the subclass’s teammate-facing psionics, and aligning the public documents and both benchmark harnesses to one release state.

The practical goal: every Discipline should be easy to describe in one sentence, and its table behavior should support that sentence.

Public release files

• Main rules — Kinetic Vanguard v11.0.0
• DM Quick Reference
• Pyrokinesis player sheet
• Cryokinesis player sheet
• Psychokinesis player sheet
• Electrokinesis player sheet
• Damage benchmark harness (Python)
• Control reliability harness (Python)
• SRD 5.2.1 monster benchmark roster (CSV used by both harnesses)

All nine links are publicly readable. The CSV above is the actual 28-row SRD 5.2.1 target roster consumed by both public Python harnesses.

Why v11.0.0 exists

• Pyrokinesis had accumulated single-target damage, save priming, area burst, a concentration zone, and a kill trigger. It worked, but its identity and turn procedure were doing too many different jobs.
• Electrokinesis’s 7th-level feature was another concentrated damage rider, while its 15th-level feature exactly shared a standard spell name. Both choices blurred the discipline’s spreading-damage identity.
• Cryokinesis needed validation rather than another speculative buff. Its native Slow → Speed 0 → Restrained → Stunned ladder had to be tested separately from shared Advanced Training control.
• Empathic Sense’s blanket Undead and Construct exclusion was too broad, Psionic Link needed party-scale communication without becoming a broadcast or full group mesh, and Overload Mastery could be blanked by ordinary psychic Resistance.
• The retired ranged Eldritch Knight benchmark was more optimized than the practical character being compared. The release benchmark now uses a conventional sword-and-board Eldritch Knight with longsword, shield, and Dueling.

Headline mechanical changes

Pyrokinesis rebuilt: immediate single-target damage

Fiery Blast, Firestorm, and Spreading Flames are removed. The replacement package has no burn counters, marks, repeated ticks, delayed detonations, zones, attack-history tracking, or kill triggers.

Thermal Fracture costs 1 Psi, deals no added damage, applies after the triggering hit, and lasts until the start of the Vanguard’s next turn. It benefits the Vanguard and allies. Its AC reduction does not stack; use the stronger value or refresh an equal value.

Electrokinesis sharpened: spreading damage and room clearing

• Static Discharge remains the repeatable 5-foot arc rider.
• Forked Current costs 2 Psi and selects one, two, or three secondary creatures by tier. Each takes 2 Manifested Strike dice of lightning damage with no save. The struck target is excluded and arcs do not chain onward.
• Arc Nova remains the close burst.
• Arc Cascade retains the 8d8/10d8/12d8 primary and 4d8/5d8/6d8 secondary damage ladders, but now reaches 3/4/5 secondary targets.
• Ball Lightning remains 4d8. Tier 2 retains Tier 1’s 30-foot radius, and moving the orb onto a creature does not trigger damage immediately.

Universal psionic cleanup

Psionic Link now supports point-to-point or selective multicast communication with visible creatures within 60 feet. Every recipient hears the same message, each can reply to the Vanguard, and recipients cannot communicate directly with one another through the feature.

Empathic Sense now asks whether a creature has a discernible mind and emotions the Vanguard can read, not whether its creature type appears on a blanket exclusion list. The scan detects hostile intent toward the Vanguard or a creature the Vanguard regards as an ally, but still does not reveal identity, exact location, thoughts, motive, or intended action.

Overload Mastery now activates before the first Blood Tax of the turn, applies after psychic Resistance or any other reduction, and can reduce Blood Tax below the ordinary half-payment floor. Each individual Overload still deals at least 1 damage.

Refreshed damage benchmark

The authoritative damage view uses Advanced Training disabled, a 25% voluntary Blood Tax budget, 25,000 trials per row, 28 SRD 5.2.1 target profiles, levels 7/11/15/20, clusters of 1/3/6, and a three-round horizon. The comparator is a conventional sword-and-board Eldritch Knight with a longsword, shield, Dueling, normal War Magic, Action Surge, Studied Attacks, Combat Prowess, and standard magic-weapon progression.

The table below is single-target Kinetic Vanguard damage divided by the conventional EK’s single-target damage. 100% means direct-damage parity.

Pyrokinesis’s premium is intentional. The Eldritch Knight buys shield AC, Sap, defensive magic, and broader control that the direct-damage objective does not price. Electrokinesis scales with cluster size rather than single-target pressure. Cryokinesis and Psychokinesis are not credited for Stunned, Restrained, Speed 0, forced movement, ally setup, or battlefield positioning.

Cryokinesis identity validation

Cryokinesis passed without mechanical changes. It is the only Discipline with native access to Stunned: Snow Chains Tier 2 comes online at level 10, Arctic Tempest Tier 2 can Stun up to three targets at level 15, and Absolute Zero Tier 2 adds a capstone Stun with a Speed 0 floor even on a successful save.

Mind Lock gives every high-level Vanguard a shared Advanced Training route to Stunned, but that is inherited control rather than native Discipline control. Native and inherited Stun access are reported separately so the shared pool does not erase Cryokinesis’s identity on paper.

Ball Lightning validation

Ball Lightning remains at 4d8. It is not intended to beat Arc Cascade as an immediate room-clear button. In the three-round damage optimizer it was never selected when enemies received only one or two triggers. Under full three-round containment it became live in 14 plan-turn rows: six three-target cases and all eight six-target cases.

That is the intended distinction. Arc Cascade clears the room now; Ball Lightning controls a chokepoint, objective, or forced-evacuation problem over time. Raising it to 5d8 or 6d8 made it easier to select after only two triggers but scaled too aggressively under successful containment.

What did not change

• Manifested Strike cannot be Overloaded and never generates Blood Tax.
• Tier 1 Blood Tax remains PB; Tier 2 remains 2×PB, paid immediately on declaration.
• One rider per hit, one Tier 2 rider per Attack action, and Action Surge opens a fresh Attack-action window.
• The first use of the 3rd-level Discipline rider in each Attack action remains Psi-free through Psionic Instinct; Blood Tax still applies when Overloaded.
• Psionic Focus remains +1 at levels 3–8, +2 at 9–16, and +3 at 17–20.
• The class remains written exclusively for the 2024 rules with errata.

What the harnesses do—and do not—claim

• The damage harness measures three-round direct damage. It does not price conditions, forced movement, reaction denial, ally setup, target death, or persistent tactical value.
• Area tests assume the configured creatures are legally positioned in the chosen effect. They are ceilings on legal target access, not encounter-frequency predictions.
• The control harness measures reliability, not equal value. A movement reduction, Restrained, and Stunned are not treated as equivalent outcomes.
• Magic Resistance is applied. Legendary Resistance is retained as metadata but is not spent.
• Both public scripts consume the linked SRD 5.2.1 CSV roster, making the benchmark inputs inspectable and replaceable.

What I want from playtesting

• Does Pyrokinesis now feel like a clean boss-melter without losing meaningful turn decisions?
• Does 1-Psi Thermal Fracture see coordinated party use, particularly with four or more allied follow-up attacks?
• Does Forked Current make Electrokinesis’s spreading identity visible at 7th level rather than waiting for Arc Nova and Arc Cascade?
• Does Mind Lock feel like a deliberate Advanced Training purchase without making Cryokinesis’s native Stun ladder feel redundant?
• Does Ball Lightning force meaningful movement and objective pressure when the battlefield gives it room to matter?
• Does Overload Mastery still feel dangerous while remaining capstone-worthy for characters who already have psychic Resistance?

Release position

v11.0.0 is the current playtest baseline. The design and balance docket is closed: the damage architecture passed, Cryokinesis’s control identity passed, Ball Lightning passed at 4d8, and the rules documents, public scripts, and shared CSV now describe the same release.

Future changes should come from table behavior and reproducible playtest evidence, not another round of speculative churn. Kinetic Vanguard v11.0.0 is ready for the table.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.1.0
Free Signature Riders, a Frozen Ground control fix, and finalized Electrokinesis terminology

2024 Fighter subclass • focused maintenance release

Kinetic Vanguard v11.1.0 is a focused follow-up to the v11.0 discipline rebuild, not another chassis rewrite. The core subclass remains intact: Manifested Strike is the always-available psionic attack, Overload trades health for escalation, and higher-level techniques spend the short-rest Psi pool.

This release removes the remaining resource-state friction from each Discipline’s basic rider, fixes Frozen Ground’s ranged anti-synergy, and cleans up three Electrokinesis names. The six rules documents, both public benchmark harnesses, and the shared SRD 5.2.1 target roster have all been updated to the same release state.

Public release files
Open the complete Kinetic Vanguard v11.1.0 Google Drive folder

Complete v11.1.0 release ZIP
Main rules — Kinetic Vanguard v11.1.0
DM Quick Reference
Pyrokinesis player sheet
Cryokinesis player sheet
Psychokinesis player sheet
Electrokinesis player sheet
Damage benchmark harness (Python)
Control reliability harness (Python)
SRD 5.2.1 monster benchmark roster (CSV used by both harnesses)
Additional release packaging and audit files
The linked CSV is the actual 28-row SRD 5.2.1 roster consumed by both public harnesses.

Why v11.1.0 exists
The 3rd-level Discipline riders have functioned as each Vanguard’s psionic cantrip for several versions, but the old rule only made the first activation in each Attack action free. Additional uses cost Psi, which meant leaning into the Discipline’s most basic move could consume most of the entire short-rest pool.

Frozen Ground also imposed Prone, which is awkward for a primarily ranged subclass: attacks made from more than 5 feet away have disadvantage against a Prone target, and a creature that starts its turn Prone can usually stand and continue moving.

Finally, several Electrokinesis names described their mechanics poorly or carried avoidable spell-list baggage.

Headline changes
Signature Riders are now fully free
Signature Rider. Your Discipline’s 3rd-level rider costs no Psi. You can apply it to any number of your Manifested Strike hits, subject to the normal limit of one rider per hit. You can Overload it normally without spending Psi, but you still pay its Blood Tax. Only one rider in each Attack action can be Overloaded to Tier 2.

Ember Bolt, Static Discharge, Glacial Spike, and Telekinetic Shove now cost 0 Psi at every tier.
They may be used on any number of eligible Manifested Strike hits.
Blood Tax remains PB at Tier 1 and 2×PB at Tier 2.
The one-rider-per-hit and one-Tier-2-rider-per-Attack-action limits remain.
Action Surge still opens a fresh Attack action and Tier 2 window.
Higher-level riders retain their listed Psi costs and usage limits.
Psionic Instinct has been removed.
The resulting economy is cleaner: Manifested Strike is the free attack, the Signature Rider is the free Discipline expression, Overload is paid with hit points, and higher-level techniques are paid with Psi.

Frozen Ground no longer causes Prone
Frozen Ground · 10th Level · 2 Psi · Action · Concentration, up to 1 minute

T0: Create a 15-foot-radius, 20-foot-high Cylinder of icy difficult terrain at a point you can see within 60 feet. When a creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it makes a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, its Speed becomes 0 until the end of the current turn.

T1 Overload: The radius increases to 25 feet.

T2 Overload: On a failed save, the creature is Restrained until the end of your next turn instead.

Ribbon: You ignore difficult terrain created by this feature.

The new T0 effect actually stops movement without penalizing the Vanguard and other ranged attackers. T2 remains the stronger offensive and defensive control tier.

Electrokinesis terminology cleanup
v11.0.0    v11.1.0
Forked Current    Branching Bolt
Arc Nova    Electron Burst
Arc Cascade    Forked Lightning
These are name changes only. Their damage, targeting, geometry, saves, Psi costs, and Overload effects are unchanged.

The final Electrokinesis ladder is:

Static Discharge
Branching Bolt
Electron Burst
Forked Lightning
Ball Lightning
Validation
The full bill was tested with the authoritative damage and control harnesses using 25,000 trials per damage row, the shared 28-target SRD 5.2.1 roster, levels 7/11/15/20, one-, three-, and six-target clusters, a three-round horizon, a 25% voluntary Blood Tax budget, and the conventional sword-and-board Eldritch Knight comparator.

Official Advanced Training-disabled damage view:

Largest single-target increase: Pyrokinesis level 20, +5.45%.
Largest six-target increase: Electrokinesis, approximately +6.7%.
Cryokinesis and Psychokinesis remain largely unchanged in direct damage.
The primary watch item is optimized Electrokinesis against perfectly packed six-target formations: +17.58% at level 15 and +14.44% at level 20. That result assumes favorable geometry, no early target deaths, and a fully optimized Advanced Training package. It reinforces Electro’s intended room-clear identity rather than raising its single-target output, so Static Discharge received no compensating nerf.

Frozen Ground T0 stop rate against the benchmark roster:

Level    Failed Constitution save / Speed 0
11    42.78%
15    41.26%
20    30.00%
What did not change
Manifested Strike remains free and cannot be Overloaded.
Tier 1 Blood Tax remains PB; Tier 2 remains 2×PB.
One rider per hit and one Tier 2 rider per Attack action remain.
Action Surge opens a fresh Attack-action rider window.
The v11.0 Discipline identities and feature mechanics remain intact except for Frozen Ground.
The class remains written exclusively for the 2024 rules with errata.
What I want from playtesting
Do free Signature Riders feel like a true baseline Discipline expression rather than a drain on the Psi pool?
Does repeated Signature Rider use create fun specialization without crowding out higher-level techniques?
Does Frozen Ground now function as useful ranged area control?
Does dense-cluster Static Discharge become excessive in real encounters, or does positioning keep the ceiling appropriately situational?
Do Branching Bolt, Electron Burst, and Forked Lightning communicate their mechanics more clearly at the table?
Release position
Kinetic Vanguard v11.1.0 is the current playtest baseline. The update removes a persistent bookkeeping and resource friction point, repairs Frozen Ground’s ranged anti-synergy, and brings the public rules documents and executable benchmark files into one release state.

Future changes should be driven by actual table behavior and reproducible playtest evidence rather than speculative churn. v11.1.0 is ready for the table.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.2 — Markdown Release

Kinetic Vanguard v11.2 is live.

This release is primarily a state, timing, and table-bookkeeping sweep. It also moves the entire project to Markdown for easier reading, version control, and rules auditing.

Highlights

• Empathic Sense is now an instantaneous pulse rather than continuous radar.

• Deflection Screen uses normal Reaction economy.

• Glacial Spike has a cleaner −10 Speed → Speed 0 → Restrained ladder.

• Gravitic Press no longer tracks separate failed-save attack penalties.

• Mass Levitation loses its per-turn bonus-hit damage.

• Reaction denial and attack disadvantage use standardized timing where possible.

• Attack packages are declared and resolved one attack at a time.

• The main rules, DM reference, and all four player sheets received a full drift audit.

Benchmark Snapshot

Damage was tested against a sword-and-board Eldritch Knight using a 28-monster SRD 5.2.1 roster. Hot and Cold results fall more than one EK roster standard deviation outside the EK mean; everything else is Acceptable.

These are review flags, not automatic balance verdicts. Control was evaluated separately by landing reliability, not by treating every condition as equally valuable.

The full methodology, control results, multi-target figures, harnesses, and CSV data are available in the benchmark material.

Files

• Complete v11.2 folder

• Main class rules

• DM Quick Reference

• Cryokinesis

• Electrokinesis

• Psychokinesis

• Pyrokinesis

• Changelog

• Benchmark summary

• Harnesses and monster CSV

Feedback from actual play remains the most useful data, especially around high-level control and the level-15 Fighter progression spike.

An additional note - as this is now Markdown formatted the raw files might not render directly, open them in Google Docs instead for formatting to actually display properly.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.3.0 — Universal Rider Resolution

v11.3.0 is a rules-consistency release with a deliberately transparent balance caveat.

Release cadence: v11.4 is expected to follow closely on the heels of this release. v11.3 locks the universal rider adjudication and publishes the resulting data; v11.4 will be the dedicated balance pass for the known hot bands. Expect that follow-up rather than treating v11.3 as the final balance destination.

File-viewing note: Opening the supplied Markdown links directly displays the raw source files. To see the headings, tables, emphasis, and full document formatting, choose Open with Google Docs.

Downloads

• Complete v11.3.0 release — rules, harnesses, benchmark outputs, diagnostics, and release documentation.
• Rules-only release — the compact package for players and DMs.
• Full v11.3.0 Drive folder — individual files and both archives.

Live Rules and Player References

• Main Kinetic Vanguard rules
• Pyrokinesis player sheet
• Cryokinesis player sheet
• Psychokinesis player sheet
• Electrokinesis player sheet
• DM Quick Reference

Release Data and Development Notes

• Benchmark summary
• Release audit
• v11.4 next-iteration docket
• Changelog

What Changed

The core adjudication is now simple: the attack crits; the rider does not. A critical hit doubles only Manifested Strike dice. Rider dice never double, no matter which creature receives them.

The second universal rule is target parity. A creature does not become a safe node because the rider originated on it. Chains, arcs, and hit-centered bursts include the struck creature, and every affected creature receives the same rider package.

Electrokinesis is updated accordingly:

• Static Discharge deals 2 lightning to the struck target and one nearby creature at T0; Overload expands the target count, and Tier 2 adds reaction denial.
• Branching Bolt damages the struck target plus 1/2/3 additional creatures.
• Electron Burst includes the struck target in its Sphere.

The full Monte Carlo suite is included. It shows that the rules cleanup solved part of Electrokinesis's spread problem but created a one-target spike; Mind Shred and Improved Phase Step also remain clear optimized-ceiling drivers. Those reductions are not smuggled into this release. They move to the published v11.4 balance docket, where they can be tested as balance changes rather than bundled into an adjudication fix.

In plain terms: v11.3.0 is internally consistent, reproducible, and hotter than the eventual target. The release says so directly—and v11.4 is already the next stop.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.4.0 — The Balance Follow-Up

v11.4.0 is the balance pass announced alongside v11.3. It keeps the universal rider adjudication intact while correcting the damage packages that produced the v11.3 hot bands.

File-viewing note: Opening these links directly displays the raw Markdown source. Choose Open with Google Docs to see the rendered headings, tables, emphasis, and full document formatting.

Live Rules and References

• Main Kinetic Vanguard rules

• Pyrokinesis player sheet

• Cryokinesis player sheet

• Psychokinesis player sheet

• Electrokinesis player sheet

• DM Quick Reference

• Full changelog

What Changed

Electrokinesis is a multi-target discipline again.

• Branching Bolt now requires an additional creature and deals 1 Manifested Strike die to the struck target and each selected additional creature.

• Electron Burst now requires an additional creature and deals 2d8 / 3d8 / 4d8 lightning to every creature in its Sphere, including the struck target.

• Static Discharge remains unchanged at 2 lightning damage per affected creature.

The struck creature still receives the same package as every other affected creature. The balance lever is eligibility and magnitude, not a return to the old safe-node exception.

Advanced Training damage has been reduced.

• Mind Shred moves from 4d8 / 6d8 / 8d8 to 2d8 / 3d8 / 4d8, retaining its 3 Psi cost and Tier 2 Resistance bypass.

• Improved Phase Step moves from 3d10 / 4d10 / 5d10 to 2d10 / 3d10 / 4d10 and affects up to three creatures.

Benchmark Result

The complete release simulation used 25,000 damage trials per build, target, and cluster row across 28 equal-weight SRD 5.2.1 monster profiles, plus a 100,000-trial control pass.

The results put Electrokinesis back inside the single-target band at levels 7 and 11 while preserving it as the strongest dense-cluster discipline. Fixed Mind Shred is acceptable at level 20 for Cryokinesis, Electrokinesis, and Psychokinesis. Improved Phase Step no longer scales through an entire six-creature cluster.

The fully optimized Advanced Training ceiling remains hot, but no single changed pick recreates the old v11.3 excess by itself.

v11.4 is the promised cleanup: same adjudication, healthier numbers, no rollback of target parity.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.4 — Interactive Character Sheets

I’ve released interactive character sheets for all four Kinetic Vanguard disciplines:

• Cryokinesis

• Pyrokinesis

• Psychokinesis

• Electrokinesis

These are supplemental play tools for Kinetic Vanguard v11.4.0, not a rules update. The goal is simple: reduce turn friction, automate the subclass’s conditional math, and make declaration costs airtight at the table.

Important: download the HTML file first

Unlike the Markdown release documents, which Google Drive can render as readable documents, these interactive sheets do not work properly inside the Google Drive preview.

To use a sheet:

1. Open the Drive link.

2. Download the .html file.

3. Open the downloaded file directly in a modern web browser.

You do not need to import it into Google Docs or upload it anywhere else. Once downloaded, simply double-click the HTML file or use Open With and select your browser.

The sheets run locally, require no installation, and continue working without an internet connection.

What the sheets handle

Each sheet includes:

• Automatic Manifested Strike attack, damage, save DC, Psi, and Blood Tax calculations

• Level scaling from 1–20

• Discipline-specific riders and standalone features

• Tier 0, Tier 1, and Tier 2 Overload handling

• Per-Attack-action rider and Tier 2 limits

• Action Surge support

• Target-count and feature-requirement validation

• Advanced Training selection and level gating

• Overload Mastery and psychic Resistance calculations

• Holdout force-damage handling

• Average-damage estimates

• Short-rest and long-rest resource recovery

• Local autosave

• JSON export and import

• Printable character and rules-reference pages

• A combat log for applied turns

The four sheets use a shared rules engine, but each discipline has its own specialized interface and calculations.

Cryokinesis tracks escalating lockdown effects.

Pyrokinesis handles Graze, armor reduction, and focused damage riders.

Psychokinesis includes directional movement, Explosion and Implosion modes, and levitation effects.

Electrokinesis handles chains, bursts, secondary targets, and area disruption.

Saving your character

Character data is saved locally in the browser used to open the sheet.

Use Export JSON to create a portable backup. That backup can later be restored through Import JSON, including on another computer or browser.

Packages

• Complete four-sheet release ZIP

• Common-core source ZIP

• Full v11.4 release folder

The source package is included for anyone who wants to inspect the shared engine, modify the presentation, or adapt the tools for their own table.

Bug reports are welcome, especially for unusual combinations of Action Surge, multiple Overloads, Advanced Training features, concentration effects, and multi-target riders.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.0 — Combat Cockpit Update

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.0 is now live.

This release is primarily a major usability update for the interactive character sheets. The goal was to move the things players touch constantly during combat into one button-driven cockpit, reducing manual arithmetic and resource bookkeeping.

Download the Release

Complete v11.5.0 package:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eLVUPniDlbb3S-Y_U2de1rYIzCpfRwhy/view?usp=drivesdk

Rules-only package:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lze1DG1V9IotQO2tIUho9o6g5Unq8eGq/view?usp=drivesdk

Interactive sheets package:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UCbM9XBXDaOZg4jMRNvq36VOuiePppRz/view?usp=drivesdk

Full release folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/156fVwjNDZAoMkYrbbrcwoatRFe8w5url

Interactive Character Sheets

Cryokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bfqAW9Jv_1vSCdZ6HwhadVveMQslE8d-/view?usp=drivesdk

Pyrokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpQy-TS9Cu5te56jWSq3uq1Zsk26B3nD/view?usp=drivesdk

Psychokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dCPZU0wcjHV3nno4Qe19-LwwzO7ih5Uu/view?usp=drivesdk

Electrokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1apsL_jH3VX7g7vaw5WcaDi0FViNWfPX3/view?usp=drivesdk

Important: Download the HTML File

Google Drive will not run the interactive sheet correctly inside its preview window.

1. Open the sheet’s Drive link.

2. Download the .html file.

3. Open the downloaded file directly in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or another modern browser.

The sheets run locally and offline. Character data is saved in the browser, with JSON export and import available for backups or moving between devices.

Player Cheat Sheets and Printing

The Markdown player cheat sheets are intended as compact rules references and print handouts.

For the best-looking print rendering:

1. Open the .md player sheet in Google Drive.

2. Select Open with Google Docs.

3. Print from Google Docs or download it as a PDF.

Google Docs provides much cleaner typography, table layout, pagination, and print rendering than the raw Markdown preview.

Cryokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ECLHosfEjlMhj43LBGlz8tiRu6fWhoj/view?usp=drivesdk

Pyrokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bkuAlGtcS1UkVfw64bqFlMHbGTqxi-0V/view?usp=drivesdk

Psychokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GObmhNv5_v97SoeftzJD48ZkUUyQTeVQ/view?usp=drivesdk

Electrokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hau9TQw7oYUdNx0KkweKBXoCngtuL4kM/view?usp=drivesdk

In other words:

• Interactive HTML sheets: download and open in a browser.

• Player cheat sheets: open with Google Docs for attractive printing.

Combat Cockpit

The Turn Builder is now the primary combat dashboard.

It displays and tracks:

• Current HP, maximum HP, and Temporary HP

• Current and maximum Psi

• Current and maximum Action Surge uses

• Turn Psi cost

• Blood Tax

• Concentration reminders

• Death saves

• Combat-log entries

Action Surge is fully connected to the turn sequence. Selecting and applying an Action Surge turn automatically spends a use, opens the second Attack action, updates the cockpit, and records the expenditure.

External damage and healing can now be applied directly from the cockpit using:

−10 · −5 · −1 · amount · +1 · +5 · +10

External damage removes Temporary HP before current HP. Blood Tax remains separate and bypasses Temporary HP.

Additional Sheet Improvements

• Fighter level is now a 1–20 dropdown.

• Level-dependent values recalculate automatically.

• Maximum Hit Dice are calculated as Fighter level d10.

• Remaining Hit Dice use button controls.

• Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable use current/maximum button trackers.

• Death-save successes and failures use clickable buttons.

• Heroic Inspiration is an on/off toggle.

• Resource values clamp correctly when level changes.

• Short-rest and long-rest controls restore the correct resources.

• All changes remain compatible with local autosave and JSON backup.

Rules Clarifications

This release contains two narrow rules clarifications rather than a balance pass.

Blood Tax and Temporary Hit Points:
Blood Tax bypasses Temporary Hit Points and is deducted directly from current hit points. Temporary Hit Points cannot be used as an alternate fuel supply for Overload.

Blood Tax remains psychic damage for resistance, concentration checks, and effects triggered by taking damage.

Manifested Strike and Sneak Attack:
Manifested Strike qualifies for the Rogue’s Sneak Attack feature as an attack made with a ranged weapon. All normal Sneak Attack requirements and once-per-turn limits still apply.

Sneak Attack dice double normally on a critical hit. They are not Kinetic Vanguard rider dice.

Release Scope

There are no discipline damage or control balance changes in v11.5.0.

The four disciplines remain mechanically aligned with v11.4.0. This release focuses on making the class substantially faster and cleaner to run during actual play.

Bug reports, strange edge cases, and interface feedback are welcome.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.1 — Rules Compliance & Combat Sheet Hotfix

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.1 is now live.

This is a focused hotfix for the interactive character sheets. No discipline balance changes were made. The update corrects several rules-handling issues against the 2024 Fighter chassis and standard 2024 rules, while tightening the Combat Cockpit’s HP and death-state workflow.

Download the Release

Complete v11.5.1 package:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eLVUPniDlbb3S-Y_U2de1rYIzCpfRwhy/view?usp=drivesdk

Rules-only package:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lze1DG1V9IotQO2tIUho9o6g5Unq8eGq/view?usp=drivesdk

Interactive sheets package:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UCbM9XBXDaOZg4jMRNvq36VOuiePppRz/view?usp=drivesdk

Full release folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/156fVwjNDZAoMkYrbbrcwoatRFe8w5url

Existing public links were preserved.

Interactive Character Sheets

Cryokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bfqAW9Jv_1vSCdZ6HwhadVveMQslE8d-/view?usp=drivesdk

Pyrokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpQy-TS9Cu5te56jWSq3uq1Zsk26B3nD/view?usp=drivesdk

Psychokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dCPZU0wcjHV3nno4Qe19-LwwzO7ih5Uu/view?usp=drivesdk

Electrokinesis:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1apsL_jH3VX7g7vaw5WcaDi0FViNWfPX3/view?usp=drivesdk

Important: Download the HTML Files

Google Drive will not run the interactive sheets correctly inside its preview window.

1. Open the sheet’s Drive link.

2. Download the .html file.

3. Open the downloaded file directly in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or another modern browser.

The sheets run locally and offline. Character data is stored in the browser, with JSON export/import available for backup and transfer.

v11.5.1 Fixes

Overload Mastery

Overload Mastery now correctly remains unavailable below Fighter level 18.

The tracker and turn-use controls are greyed out and disabled until the feature is actually unlocked.

Death Saves

Death-save handling has been rebuilt around the actual 2024 rules rather than presenting six equal-looking counters.

The sheet now supports:

• Success / Failure recording

• Natural 1 = two failures

• Natural 20 = regain 1 HP

• Three successes = Stable

• Three failures = Dead

• Damage while at 0 HP automatically recording death-save failures

• Critical-hit damage at 0 HP recording two failures

• Massive-damage death

• Damage breaking Stable

• Healing above 0 clearing the death-save state

• Manual death-state corrections with combat-log entries

Death-save controls are inactive while the character is above 0 HP.

HP Tracking & Undo

HP adjustments now produce explicit combat-log entries.

This includes:

• Damage

• Healing

• Blood Tax

• Manual Current HP corrections

• Manual Temporary HP corrections

The Combat Cockpit also now includes a one-step:

Undo Last HP Event

Undo restores the entire previous HP state, including Current HP, Temporary HP, and any death-state changes caused by that event.

For example:

Healing: HP 18 → 31
UNDO: HP 31 → 18

or:

External damage: HP 42 → 0
UNDO: HP 0 → 42, previous death state restored

Only the most recent HP event can be undone, and the undo itself is logged.

Temporary HP

External damage continues to consume Temporary HP before Current HP.

Blood Tax remains separate and bypasses Temporary HP entirely.

Damage taken while already at 0 HP still counts for death-save failure purposes even when Temporary HP absorbs the damage.

Concentration

Concentration reminders now correctly use the 2024 damage DC range, including the DC 30 maximum.

If damage reduces the character to 0 HP, the sheet reports that Concentration ends automatically rather than asking for a Concentration save.

Rest Restrictions

Short Rest and Long Rest controls are now disabled at 0 HP, matching the 2024 requirement that a creature have at least 1 HP to begin either rest.

Fighter Saving Throws

Fighter saving-throw handling has been corrected.

Strength and Constitution are permanently marked proficient for the base Fighter chassis.

Other saving throws may be toggled proficient for outside features such as Resilient.

The previous saving-throw “Expertise” option has been removed.

Combat Cockpit

The v11.5 Combat Cockpit remains the primary play surface.

It tracks:

• Current / Maximum HP

• Temporary HP

• Psi

• Action Surge

• Blood Tax

• External damage and healing

• Concentration reminders

• Death state

• Combat-log history

• One-step HP-event undo

Action Surge remains integrated directly into the Turn Builder and is automatically spent when an Action Surge sequence is applied.

Player Cheat Sheets & Printing

The Markdown player cheat sheets are intended as compact rules references and print handouts.

For the cleanest print rendering:

1. Open the .md file in Google Drive.

2. Select Open with Google Docs.

3. Print from Google Docs or export it as a PDF.

Google Docs produces substantially cleaner typography, tables, pagination, and print layout than the raw Markdown preview.

Cryokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ECLHosfEjlMhj43LBGlz8tiRu6fWhoj/view?usp=drivesdk

Pyrokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bkuAlGtcS1UkVfw64bqFlMHbGTqxi-0V/view?usp=drivesdk

Psychokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GObmhNv5_v97SoeftzJD48ZkUUyQTeVQ/view?usp=drivesdk

Electrokinesis cheat sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hau9TQw7oYUdNx0KkweKBXoCngtuL4kM/view?usp=drivesdk

So:

Interactive HTML sheets: download and open locally in a browser.
Player cheat sheets: open with Google Docs for clean printing.

Release Scope

v11.5.1 contains no discipline balance changes.

It is a correctness and usability hotfix for the v11.5 interactive sheets, principally covering Fighter feature gating, death saves, HP-state handling, concentration, rests, saving throws, correction logging, and one-step HP undo.

Bug reports, strange edge cases, and actual-play feedback are still very welcome.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.2 — Whole-Character Sheet & Combat State Update

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.2 is live.

Release folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sRHF0QVISuullalBFzcIUBFvnz24RQdV

This release pushes the interactive sheets much closer to being your actual character sheet, rather than just a Kinetic Vanguard combat assistant.

There are no Kinetic Vanguard balance changes in v11.5.2.

The basic design is now:

The character sheet tracks your character. The Turn Builder runs combat.

Initiative & Turn Builder

The sheet now has an explicit OUT / IN Initiative state.

Outside Initiative, the Turn Builder is disabled while normal character bookkeeping remains available.

Entering Initiative activates attack declaration and combat execution.

Leaving Initiative clears only the unfinished turn being built. HP, Psi, Action Surge, Blood Tax, and other resources already spent are never refunded or rewritten.

Conditions Now Interact With Combat

Conditions are tracked globally and feed into the Turn Builder while Initiative is active.

Where the sheet has enough information to know the result with certainty, it applies the consequence automatically.

That includes things such as:

• Attack-roll penalties

• Speed restrictions

• Exhaustion penalties

• Incapacitating conditions preventing turn execution

• Concentration ending where appropriate

For conditions that depend on battlefield context—such as who frightened, charmed, or grappled you—the sheet gives a warning rather than guessing.

The rule is:

Automate what the sheet knows. Warn about what the table must decide.

Whole-Character Sheet Additions

v11.5.2 adds quite a bit outside the Combat Cockpit.

Initiative

Your displayed Initiative modifier now derives from Dexterity, miscellaneous bonuses, and applicable Exhaustion penalties.

Passive Scores

The sheet now calculates:

• Passive Perception

• Passive Insight

• Passive Investigation

Conditions & Exhaustion

There is now a dedicated condition tracker and Exhaustion tracker.

Deterministic Exhaustion penalties feed into the appropriate character values.

Defenses & Senses

The sheet now has dedicated fields for:

• Resistances

• Immunities

• Vulnerabilities

• Darkvision and other senses

Other Attacks

There is now an Other Attacks section for weapons, unarmed attacks, magic weapons, and anything else that is not Manifested Strike.

The player supplies the attack and damage information; the sheet does not attempt to infer an entire equipment rules engine.

Limited-Use Resources

Generic resource trackers can now handle abilities from feats, backgrounds, species, magic items, or other sources.

Each can track current/max uses and Manual, Short Rest, or Long Rest recovery.

Spells & Magic

Kinetic Vanguard itself is not a spellcasting subclass, but a KV character can still gain spells from backgrounds, feats, species, items, or other sources.

The sheet now has a dedicated Spells & Magic section for exactly that.

You can record casting information, range, duration or Concentration, notes, source, limited uses, and recovery.

So a Sage-background Fighter or Magic Initiate character no longer has to bury those spells in a notes field.

Existing Combat Cockpit Features Remain

The v11.5.1 correctness work remains intact:

• HP and Temporary HP

• External damage and healing

• One-step HP-event Undo

• Logged corrections

• RAW death-state handling

• Concentration reminders

• Rest restrictions

• Action Surge

• Blood Tax

• Psi tracking

• Overload Mastery gating

• Fighter saving-throw proficiency handling

Blood Tax still bypasses Temporary HP.

Undo still works for damage, healing, Blood Tax, manual HP corrections, and associated death-state changes.

Comparator Harnesses

The complete release also includes the latest Fighter comparator work.

Kinetic Vanguard is now benchmarked against two conventional 2024 Fighter builds:

Longsword-and-shield Eldritch Knight
A durable magical Fighter reference and the closest broad comparison for a Fighter mixing attacks with additional effects and control.

Great Weapon Master Battle Master
A more aggressively martial damage/control reference.

The damage harness includes both comparators alongside all four Kinetic Vanguard disciplines.

The control harness also includes Battle Master cases for:

• Menacing Attack

• Goading Attack

• Pushing Attack

• Trip Attack

alongside the Eldritch Knight control package.

That gives KV two useful reference points rather than pretending one Fighter build represents the entire class.

The comparator results were generated against the v11.5.1 rules state. Since v11.5.2 changes the interactive-sheet layer rather than KV balance, those results remain applicable.

Using the Files

Everything is organized in the release folder linked at the top, including:

• Complete release

• Rules-only package

• Four interactive character sheets

• Player reference sheets

• Interactive source

• Comparator harnesses and results

• Release notes and changelog

For the interactive sheets, download the .html file and open it directly in a modern browser. Google Drive preview will not run the sheet correctly.

For printing the Markdown player sheets, open them through Google Docs and print or export PDF from there for cleaner typography and pagination.

Release Scope

v11.5.2 is a character-sheet, combat-state, usability, and validation-tooling release.

No discipline balance changes.

The goal was to make the interactive sheet credible as the character’s primary sheet without trying to recreate the entirety of D&D Beyond.

Release Immutability

Published releases are now immutable.

Once a version goes live, its Drive files will not be silently replaced.

If v11.5.2 needs an errata correction, it will release as v11.5.2a with new files.

Bug reports, strange edge cases, actual-play feedback, and sheet usability feedback are very welcome.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.2a — Maintenance & Release Integrity Update

v11.5.2a is live.

This is a maintenance release for the v11.5.2 whole-character-sheet update. There are no balance changes in this release. The goal here was to clean up documentation and packaging issues found during a post-release audit, make the release easier to verify, and prevent this kind of version drift going forward.

Download / Release Folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10GsrdLHSgfE8AFvjP8fCAfDHNuDDxS7y

A quick mea culpa

v11.5.2 shipped with a handful of avoidable release-quality problems: stale version stamps, a broken checksum manifest entry, incomplete quick-reference coverage, and some formatting drift.

None of those changed how the subclass actually played, but they still should have been caught before release.

That is on me.

The upside is that the audit exposed a weakness in the release process itself, not just a couple of bad lines in individual files. v11.5.2a fixes the immediate issues and also tightens the release gate so version stamps, manifests, archive contents, and cross-file rules references are checked together before a release is treated as final.

Existing characters carry forward

You do not need to rebuild your Vanguard.

Existing character-sheet JSON exports from previous interactive sheets can be imported into the current v11.5.2a sheets, allowing old characters to be brought forward into the current whole-character-sheet format.

The sheets also preserve migration support for existing v11.5.2 browser data.

As before, download the .html sheet and open it directly in a modern browser. Google Drive's preview does not run the interactive sheet correctly.

What changed in v11.5.2a

Release versions are now locked to the release.
The main rules, DM Quick Reference, all four player sheets, and interactive sheets now carry the actual release version: v11.5.2a. Going forward, files shipped as part of a release will identify themselves as that release rather than retaining the version of the last mechanical rules change.

Psionic Focus is now normative rules text.
Manifested Strike already used Psionic Focus in its attack formula, but the actual +1 / +2 / +3 progression was buried in a Design Note. That progression now appears directly in the Manifested Strike rules where it belongs.

Slow + Glacial Spike is explicitly clarified.
No mechanics changed. Slow and Glacial Spike are separate effects and stack with each other. A creature affected by both is at −20 ft Speed until the start of your next turn, after which Slow expires and Glacial Spike's remaining −10 ft continues until the end of that turn. Neither effect stacks with additional applications of itself.

Empathic Sense received better quick-reference coverage.
The DM reference now shows its 15 / 30 / 60 ft T0/T1/T2 scan ranges, 0 Psi cost, limited uses, and normal Blood Tax interaction when Overloaded.

Markdown formatting was normalized.
Several inconsistent bold runs and feature-header styles left over from document conversion have been cleaned up across the rules and player references.

Validation and release integrity

The checksum manifest has been rebuilt from the actual finished release directory rather than from a manually maintained filename list.

SHA256SUMS_v11_5_2a.txt now hashes every independently distributed artifact in the release folder except itself, including the rules files, player sheets, interactive sheets, archives, harnesses, summaries, release notes, and changelog.

All 24 listed artifacts pass checksum verification.

The existing v11.5.1 damage and control harnesses remain versioned v11.5.1 intentionally. They describe the rules state they actually validated; v11.5.2 and v11.5.2a do not change class balance, so those results remain applicable.

A loose KV_v11_5_1_KV_control_summary.csv has also been added so the Vanguard-side control results can be inspected alongside the Battle Master and Eldritch Knight comparator data without digging through the full result archive.

Balance audit: no changes

Two balance questions were rechecked during this pass.

The level-20 comparator jump is not a harness bug. Fighter 20 combines the fourth attack with the second Action Surge use gained at 17th level, producing a large increase in attack volume across the benchmark window. The same action schedule is applied consistently.

Pyrokinesis remains intentionally damage-forward. Its lead over the other Vanguard disciplines is substantial against the Eldritch Knight benchmark, but it remains below the GWM Battle Master damage comparator. That's the intended niche: Pyro gives up the stronger control packages of the other disciplines in exchange for immediate single-target damage.

Both remain playtest-visible, but neither warranted a balance change here.

v11.5.2a is mechanically the same Kinetic Vanguard as v11.5.2 — just cleaner, easier to audit, correctly versioned, and harder for future releases to drift.

And importantly: bring your character forward. Exported JSON files from older interactive sheets can be loaded into the current sheets rather than starting over.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.3 — Rules-Aware Character Sheets and Fighter Compatibility

Kinetic Vanguard is a ranged martial/controller Fighter subclass built for the 2024 rules. It combines reliable Manifested Strikes with four kinetic disciplines, each offering its own riders, control tools, and Overload options.

Overload lets you push those riders further—but you pay for that extra power through Blood Tax.

The class is designed to sit between a conventional Eldritch Knight and a Great Weapon Master Battle Master when its full package of damage, control, reliability, and self-cost is considered.

v11.5.3 is now the authoritative release.

This is primarily a rules-aware character-sheet and Fighter-compatibility update, not a discipline rebalance. Damage values, Psi costs, Blood Tax rates, and rider ladders are unchanged from v11.5.2a.

Downloads

Complete v11.5.3 release folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vc4gnxoj3BUISqEjGqGD5hekyeaGgTkS

Complete release ZIP:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10--hWfaXadYYIBoVK0Ejtu40CuCSNmeX/view?usp=drivesdk

What Changed?

Manifested Strike now uses a psionic hand gesture

Manifested Strike requires the free use of one hand.

A Vanguard holding a Two-Handed weapon may release one hand to perform the gesture, since the weapon only requires two hands while attacking with it. If both hands are otherwise occupied, the Vanguard must free one before making Manifested Strike.

War Caster satisfies this requirement while weapons or a Shield occupy the character’s hands.

Manifested Strike remains a special psionic attack rather than a spell, and no general Verbal requirement has been added.

Tactical Master now works with Manifested Strike

Beginning at Fighter 9, Tactical Master can replace a discipline’s normal Kinetic Mastery property with Push, Sap, or Slow for an individual Manifested Strike.

This is a replacement, not stacking: you use either the discipline’s normal Kinetic Mastery or the Tactical Master option for that strike.

Rules-aware equipment and loadouts

All four interactive character sheets now include a mundane weapon and armor system based on the 2024 equipment rules.

The sheets account for:

• Available hands and Shield occupancy

• Two-Handed attack readiness

• Versatile weapons

• Ammunition and Loading

• Heavy weapon requirements

• Mounted Lance use

• Armor AC and Dexterity limits

• Armor Strength and Speed penalties

• Stealth penalties

• Applicable Fighting Style bonuses

The sheet distinguishes between merely holding an item and being able to legally attack with it. For example, you can hold a Two-Handed weapon in one hand, but it is not attack-ready until both hands are available.

It also prevents impossible active loadouts such as dual Shields or attacking with a greatsword while a dagger occupies the other hand.

Fighter chassis support

The sheets now track Fighter Weapon Mastery selections and surface the relevant Fighter features as the character levels, including Second Wind, Action Surge, Tactical Mind, Extra Attack, Tactical Shift, Indomitable, Tactical Master, and Studied Attacks.

Archery, Defense, and Great Weapon Fighting are automated where their effects can be calculated deterministically.

Generic ±1, ±2, and ±3 modifiers are also available for weapons, armor, and Shields without attempting to build a complete magic-item engine.

Blood Tax event integrity

Separate Overloads remain separate Blood Tax damage events.

The sheet may display a combined total for planning purposes, but it does not turn something like BT 4 + BT 8 into one artificial BT 12 event. Declaration order and the identity of each damage event remain intact.

The Sheet Still Does Not Roll Dice

The interactive sheets are calculators and state trackers—not virtual tabletops or dice rollers.

They can calculate legal equipment states, modifiers, AC, DCs, resource costs, Blood Tax, ranges, and average values.

They do not roll or resolve:

• Attacks

• Damage

• Saving throws

• Healing

• Second Wind or Tactical Mind

• Indomitable rerolls

• Death saves

• Random tables

• Hit or miss results

• Target selection

Anything dependent on a die roll remains in the hands of the player and DM.

Existing Characters Can Be Brought Forward

The v11.5.3 sheets support migration from earlier v11.x browser data, including v11.5.2a.

Existing supported JSON exports can also be imported into the new sheets, so you should not need to rebuild your Vanguard from scratch.

Download the appropriate HTML sheet and open it directly in your browser. Character data remains in that browser unless you export it.

What Are All the Extra Files?

You do not need every file in the folder just to play.

For normal use:

• Kinetic_Vanguard.md contains the complete subclass rules.

• The four discipline Markdown files are focused player references.

• DM_Quick_Reference.md is the condensed DM-facing reference.

• The four HTML files are the interactive character sheets.

• The complete ZIP contains the entire release in one download.

The remaining files are included for transparency, validation, and reproducibility:

• README.md explains the release structure.

• RELEASE_NOTES.md provides the reader-facing release summary.

• CHANGE_BILL_v11_5_3.md records the exact scope and acceptance requirements for this release.

• CHANGELOG.md contains the cumulative project history.

• RELEASE_AUDIT.md records the final release QA results.

• SHA256SUMS_v11_5_3.txt can be used to verify that the published files have not changed.

• kv_v11_5_3_equipment.sqlite is the build-time source for the mundane equipment catalog. The finished HTML sheets remain standalone and do not need a database server.

• The Python files are the build, propagation, and validation tools used to produce and test the release. Players do not need to run them.

They are published alongside the playable files so anyone interested can inspect how the sheets were built and verify that the final package is internally consistent.

One practical note: Drive may display Markdown files as raw text. For cleaner formatting, open those references through Google Docs. The interactive HTML sheets should be downloaded and opened locally in a browser.

Going Forward

Use v11.5.3 for current play. v11.5.2a remains relevant only as the previous source and validation provenance; it is no longer the authoritative release.

With the current rules, Fighter integration, comparator corridor, and interactive-sheet foundation in place, Kinetic Vanguard is likely to remain mechanically stable for a while unless substantive player or DM feedback identifies something that needs attention.

Feedback from actual play remains especially valuable.

Kinetic Vanguard v11.5.4 — Downloads

For the public release, I’m keeping the file surface intentionally small:

Rules & Reference Documentation
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Z6hUnPfOw0yi9FOZHMDDYRWcMSypQy8x

Interactive Character Sheets
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kDQnjCJpYQEA2Q5o2Qyeni4hq0WTp5br

Balance / Control Harness
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pWwuKroF4gEFZNmM8O2EynKm9iRTDJd0

Complete Release ZIP
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Svj0oix3EylpNaiiybK6J4StvupmL0hZ

Harness note

The v11.5.4 damage and control harnesses contain no changes to the simulation methodology, formulas, comparator builds, action economy, random seeds, or Monte Carlo logic from the established v11.5.1 harness.

The only updates are release/version/provenance naming and file-path plumbing so both scripts use the included shared SRD target roster.

Accordingly, rerunning the Monte Carlo suite merely to “revalidate” v11.5.4 is a waste of compute and review tokens: it is the same model with the same seeds. The existing summary CSVs are included under Harness/Results/ for review. A new Monte Carlo run is only meaningful if someone is deliberately testing a changed model, methodology, comparator, or rules implementation.