Kinetic Vanguard - Homebrew Fighter Subclass

Character Sheets in 12.1.1: Known Issues and the Road to 12.1.4

Short version: the character sheets shipped in 12.1.1 are a work in progress. There are known bugs, and some of them are bad. If you are running Kinetic Vanguard at the table right now, do not lean on the sheets.

12.1.2 is being built specifically to address that, as thoroughly as human and AI collaboration can manage. It is still in development and I am not going to put a date on it.

Until it lands, the HTML cheat sheets and the rest of the static documentation are authoritative as far as the rules are concerned. If a sheet and the cheat sheet disagree, the cheat sheet is correct. The sheets are a delivery format; the documentation is the spec.

Reporting: if you find anything that is out of alignment with SRD 5.2.1, please report it in this thread. Those findings are being collected and will be integrated in 12.2.0, once 12.1.4 has landed. I would rather work through a pile of corrections than have a quiet thread and a wrong ruleset.

Where this is going, in house-building terms:

12.1.0 and 12.1.1 laid and validated the build chain. That is the foundation. Nobody tours a house and compliments the footings, and none of it makes anyone's Fighter more fun on a Tuesday night, but it was absolutely worth the compute. Everything above it depends on that being square.

12.1.2 is load-bearing walls and electrical. Structure and wiring.

12.1.3 is quality-of-life work. Redoing the drywall, basically. The stuff that makes the place livable rather than merely standing.

12.1.4 integrates full Fighter chassis functionality with the character sheets. That is the sunroom off the salon, and it is the part you actually want to sit in.

Thanks for the patience. Keep the reports coming.

Kinetic Vanguard v13.0.0 Released — A Clean Rebuild and Public Repository

Kinetic Vanguard v13.0.0 is now released.

Download the self-contained HTML rules reference:

https://github.com/kmart01123/kinetic-vanguard/releases/download/v13.0.0/KineticVanguard.html

View the v13.0.0 release page:

https://github.com/kmart01123/kinetic-vanguard/releases/tag/v13.0.0

View the public source repository:

https://github.com/kmart01123/kinetic-vanguard

The HTML publication is a single, offline-capable file. Download it, open it in a modern browser, and it requires no installation or internet connection afterward.

Version 13 is a clean rebuild based around a schema-first rules source, automated validation, deterministic builds, browser layout testing, and a permanently tagged release snapshot. The goal is to make the project easier to read, verify, maintain, and contribute to without carrying forward the experimental architecture of earlier versions.

I also owe everyone a mea culpa regarding the 11.x and 12.x proof-of-concept releases.

I tried to recreate far too much of D&D Beyond’s turn and character-management engine. That was a mistake. It expanded the project well beyond what a homebrew rules reference needed to be, created unnecessary complexity, and distracted from the actual job: presenting the class rules clearly and reliably.

That decision was mine, and I own it.

Version 13 deliberately steps back from that approach. It is a rules publication, not a replacement character sheet, encounter engine, or automated turn manager.

That does not mean all table assistance is off the table. Version 14 is planned to include a deliberately limited calculator for repetitive table math.

You will provide values such as your fighter level and psionic ability modifier, and the calculator will perform the lookups and arithmetic already required by the rules.

For example, Manifested Strike may require you to determine the correct die from your level, identify the applicable modifiers, and combine several values before rolling. The calculator would reduce those lookups to a result such as:

d8 + 10

It will not track turns, manage character state, spend resources, make decisions, or attempt to play the character for you. Its purpose will simply be to reduce bookkeeping between reading the rule and rolling the die.

Before work begins on v14, two smaller releases are planned:

v13.0.1 — Editorial normalization

This patch will normalize the use of “+” and “plus” throughout the rules text. It will not change any mechanics.

v13.1.0 — Forked Lightning clarification

This release will close the current rules hole by explicitly defining the failed-save result for Forked Lightning’s non-primary targets.

After those releases, development will pivot to v14 and the table-math assistant.

Thank you to everyone who tested the earlier versions, identified where the design had gone off course, and stuck with the project through the rebuild. Version 13 is a much stronger foundation, and I am looking forward to improving it without repeating the scope mistakes of 11.x and 12.x.

Kinetic Vanguard v13.0.1 is live — now with dark mode

Kinetic Vanguard v13.0.1 is tagged and available to download.

The headline change is the new default dark theme, because everyone likes dark mode—and staring into a bright white rules document at 1 a.m. is a hostile user experience.

This patch also includes several interface and consistency fixes:

• Selecting a rule from the Name menu now opens it immediately. The redundant Open button is gone.

• Features in the Name menu are now ordered by level, then alphabetically.

• Deflection Screen and Phase Step have cleaner display names while retaining their existing rules and links.

• Mathematical addition notation in tables has been standardized.

• Additional regression tests protect navigation, ordering, rendering, and release output.

There are no intentional mechanical balance changes in this release. It is focused on making the rules reference cleaner, easier to navigate, and much more pleasant to read.

The release remains a single self-contained HTML file that can be downloaded and used offline.

View the Kinetic Vanguard v13.0.1 release

Download KineticVanguard.html directly

Rules-adjacent wording work, including the planned Overload cleanup and Forked Lightning clarification, is being held for v13.1.0 rather than squeezed into this patch.