D&D alternative Nimble expands with 3 new classes, monsters, and companions

The game makes combats quicker without sacrificing tactical complexity

Evan Diaz introduced Nimble in 2023 as a way to streamline games of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, speeding up combat and character creation to let groups spend more time having fun and less time doing math. That proposition proved popular enough that the game’s first print run sold out. Now, Nimble heads back to Kickstarter on Feb. 10 to fund a new round of books with more content for players and game masters.

Diaz told Polygon in a recent video call that he designed Nimble for people who are tired of D&D but don’t want the heavy crunch of Pathfinder or the “loosey goosey, imagination with your friends” structure of Powered by the Apocalypse games. Diaz took a lot of influence from Old School Renaissance games, but toned down the lethality while adding more character build options.

“For me, it takes the best of the OSR and 5e/Pathfinder kind of stuff,” Diaz said. “It’s not crunchy, but it’s not rules-light. I describe it as rules-tight. You have the rules that need to be there, but we’re not stripping away all the fun options.”

The base game contains 11 classes with two subclasses each, plus four additional subclasses, like the Oathbreaker and Beastmaster, that GMs can unlock for players who have completed relevant story arcs. Character creation can be done very quickly, but the classes still have plenty of different actions they can take in combat. Attacks almost never miss — players roll their damage instead of making a separate attack roll in order to speed fights up, only missing if they roll minimum damage.

“That’s much preferable to rolling and then doing a bunch of math and checking the sheets and checking back and forth between you and the DM,” Diaz said. “I try to get the action that you take and finding out the result as close together as possible.”

Another way Nimble speeds combat up is with the number of dice you roll. Rather than have a high-level spell do 8d6 damage, like a D&D Fireball, you’re more likely to have players roll a d66 – 2d6 where one represents the tens and one the ones.

“Rolling a lot of dice sounds fun, but it shifts towards the average damage,” Diaz said. “It’s fun sometimes to have a very swingy spell, because that’s what makes memories. Rolling a 1 on a d100 – you’re going to remember that until you’re grandparents. Even those lows are hilarious.”

Nimble books are tiny at just 55 pages for the Core Rules and 112 for the Game Master’s Guide, which is packed with ideas for adventures. The new Kickstarter campaign will include at least 10 more adventures, with more possible as stretch goals.

“It’s made with GMs in mind where you can pick it up and play right away and it’s going to be fun, and it gives the heroes lots of options and open-ended things and ways to affect the story,” Diaz said. “It doesn’t feel like a second job that you have to do in order to prep a good session. All that prep is done for you.”

The second printing of Nimble will include a dedicated monster book with more than 200 monsters instead of just relegating adversaries to a section of the Game Master’s Guide. Nimble enemies have small individual stat blocks, but different creature types feel distinct due to shared abilities: all kobolds get a free attack when one of their group is killed, while goblins mock their enemies and deal psychic damage. The book will be organized by encounter type, complete with traps, environmental hazards, and custom loot.

“I want each encounter to sort of be a new puzzle to solve,” Diaz said. “You shouldn’t always use the same three abilities in the same order. You should have abilities or spells that are best in some situations or against some monster groups so that there’s room for creativity and everything feels fresh, not prescribed.”

Another addition to the rules is mechanics for companions, who can pad out a small party or provide an easy character for a new player to try. Options include clerics, wizards, and berserkers, plus a magical dog who buffs the party. If the dog gets hurt, the players get another buff to retaliate against whoever was cruel enough to attack their pet.

“It’s giving GMs the ability to temporarily or permanently add a new member to the party without having the overhead that comes with a hero,” Diaz said. “RPG players just want to adopt pets and bring as many people as possible along with them, and this is just a cool way to be able to facilitate that.”

Diaz is also adding three new classes. The Hexbinder is a witchy character focused on debuffing. Psions dominate people with their minds and use telekinesis to launch their allies at enemies. They generate a psi-field and the harder they push themselves, the more likely they are to take some form of backlash. Artificers absorb ambient mana and use it to power their devices like a plasma blade, lightning bolt cannon, or rocket boots, but if they overcharge their inventions, they’ll break and need to be fixed after the fight.

“Whatever happens, you still get to do the cool thing and then the bad effect happens,” Diaz said. “I am really big about eliminating the turns where [nothing happens]. My friends have to get a babysitter. They have to drive across town. It’s a lot of effort to get a game together regularly, so we want to do cool things and tell stories.”