Spellsword RPG Development Update #1 — March 3rd, 2026

Hello Reader, here are the latest Spellsword updates!

Special Note:

Before we get started, I want to thank you, Reader, for your support thus far. This is the first proper update email we have ever provided (and of course it is late. . . This won't be a habit). If you have been out of the loop, as anybody that has not been involved in our alpha testing and development the last few years, this email may come as a surprise.

I am happily announcing that, as of February 20th, Spellsword has officially soft launched to public Early Access for the first time in years. At this time, if you are receiving this email you are either a VERY early adopter from years ago (in which case, thank you for your support) or an alpha tester working closely with me (in which case, thank you for helping us get this far).

Everyone that has received this email has lifetime access to Spellsword's evolving ruleset for free as a sign of my gratitude. You don't have to do anything to receive this. You already have it tied to your Spellsword account when you login, now tied to Alpha Access (so you will see even the newest stuff first!)

I hope that you stick around to help make Spellsword the best game it can be. My team and I won't be able to do it without you.

Thank you,

-Christian Mundt, Founder.

Snapshot / TL;DR

• Soft-(re)launched Early Access to the public
• Character Specializations have their own chapter
• All current Specializations updated for better functionality
• Giant Scorpion with experimental hit location table added to Bestiary
• Reworked bow and crossbows to lower damage but increase penetration

Major Work Completed

Homepage Update

The homepage has been reworked from its holding pattern construction zone to serve as an initial landing zone to introduce Spellsword. It will see many iterations in the coming months as we learn how to better reprsent what Spellsword has to offer to the world.

Specializations Chapter

Specializations have long had their sole home in the Character Creation chapter. This was not working well. Now, they have a chapter all to themselves, with an easy-to-use navigation table with hyperlinks and search function. Finding the spec you need is easier than ever!

New Monster: Giant Scorpion

The next monster, the Giant Scorpion, was released for testing. This bad boy can crunch through armor with its powerful pedipalps and numb and eventually paralyze its foes. It also features a cool new experimental hit location table that provides different values for melee and ranged attacks. This ambush predator will be lots of fun as an encounter. Be careful when in its terrain!

Bow and Crossbow Rework

We suspected bows and crossbows were dealing too much damage. WAY too much damage. A particularly silly situations made it clear that was indeed the case. In response, we have greatly limited the damage output of these ranged weapons. In exchange, they now scale their ammunitions penetration. We expect to tweak these weapon types further to get to the sweet spot.

Systems Under Active Refinement

This section benefits from H3s because it’s about thinking, not output:

What We’re Iterating On

We will continue iterating on weapon and combat balance. Expect some changes to specializations for level ups on the Spellsword and Paladin classes, at minimum.

Problems We’re Solving

A recent problem that arose is the return of Ward difficulties. This rune represents a significant balance lever we have consistently struggled with, but we expect the coming clarification to get us just that little bit closer to done with it.

What’s Still Uncertain

We have a few monster concepts with particularly challenging hit location tables to put together that we expect will slow us down a bit.

Design Insight

I want to take some time to go through our mentality around balance. The term "balance" is so often used in gaming that it can lose its meaning. Balance does not and should not mean that every option at one's disposal is equal. Such balance would be boring. When I talk about balance, I refer to something greatly overperforming or underperforming (though underperformance can be harder to catch and quantify). So long as something is doing what it is intended to do relative to other options, while still maintaining some personality, then we are good to go.

Spellsword has a plethora of different balance levers, places where a design decision impacts the playability and competitiveness of one option as compared to another. Dual-wielding versus two-handed weapons is one example of this. Each has its own advantage, and we want to ensure that each option delivers on its fantasy and role. A given player may have particular goals in mind, and those goals should shift which of the two options is a better fit, not that one is so much more effective and powerful. and Another example is the balance between Wards and the magics they must interfere with. This challenge comes up periodically as new interactions are discovered from gameplay and testing. If the Ward is too strong, duels become a matter of who breaks the other's ward first and all magics bow down to the Ward. If Ward is too weak, system lethality and swinginess skyrockets to the point of untenability.

The particular balance case that brings this to mind from this two week period is the bows and crossbows adjustments. The damage outputs being reported from these weapons were incredible, but we avoided making hasty decisions for a while because the actual results of the combat scenario made sense as they panned out. A few particularly egregious examples of these projectile weapon's over-tuning made it clear a change was necessary. We have responded by greatly reducing the relationship between poundage and damage output for both weapon types, while adding a new factor: penetration modifier from poundage. At the moment, pen mod is the same as damage mod for these weapons, but this could shift in the future as we get more test data. We will need to see over time if this has gone too far in the opposite direction, but the results seem promising so far.

The goal here is for projectile weapons to offer a good alternative to other ranged attack avenues. As it stood, they outperformed most early magic by a fairly significant margin while getting through defenses that would stop spells and only slightly lowering attack tempo (and even then, not by much due to most archers picking up Speedshooter). There is a reasonable possibility we overcorrected, and test data will prove that. If so, we will tweak these weapons a bit more until they sit where they should.

All this said, balance is not a massive priority beyond design functionality. We do not believe in "balanced encounters," because these are carefully constructed and artificial, undermining the immersion that leads to great emergent storytelling, which coincidentally I will touch on in my next Design Insight segment.

Yours,

-Christian

What Members Should Test

• Giant Scorpions and Giant Ants
  • These new monsters, in particular the Giant Scorpion with its experimental hit location table, need some stress testing
• Bows and Crossbows
  • Are these weapons now underwhelming, or do they still achieve reasonable combat outcomes?

Send feedback to us on Discord! (Forums hosted on the website should be coming soon for better organization)

What’s Next (2‑Week Objective)

Our current priorities are:

• Adding Specializations mentioned in the rulebook but not currently published
• Developing new monster types
• Progressing the Gamemasters "Running the Game" chapter
• Fixing some UI/UX bugs on the Companion App (currently still exclusively hosted on the website)
• Planning simple tutorial videos for various core game systems

Thank you for your time. See you in two weeks! (This first update was regrettably delayed, expect these emails every other Tuesday unless delayed by holidays or extenuating circumstances.)