Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Golem1972 08-27-07, 12:14 AM	How many times have you come up against a rule or set of rules in your favorite game and said, "I could have done a better job than that!" I'm sure that most, if not all, of us have spent at least a little time building our own rulesets. These are some of my groups ideas. Hopefully one day we'll cobble them together and make our own 1st edition. Questions, comments, constructive criticisms, and ideas are always welcome. It's fine if you think something sucks, just try to include how or why it sucks. 1. D100. Everything seems to break down after 20 levels in D20. Basing everything off of a D100 seems to stretch things out (still working on the math). 2. No Hit Dice. Hit points become a function of Constitution. This will help alleviate some of the odd things like level adjustments (It's always bugged me that a Half dragon Barb 1 can't survive in combat with a Barb 5 even though there supposed to be roughly equal). 3. Fatigue points. Spells, combat maneuvers, and various actions (climbing, swimming, running, etc..) will cause fatigue damage. We're still arguing about which stat to base it off of. 4. Penalties for taking damage. It bugs me that a character can run 5 miles in full plate, a tower shield, a golf bag full of weapons, and a full pack without even needing to stop for a breather. Slowing only long enough to wipe out a kobold village, a lizardman hunting party, and an orc raiding party he is still operating at 100% until the kobold sorcerer 1 that's been chasing him since the kobold village brings him down with a single magic missile. As you take damage (physical and fatigue) you should be less than 100% capable. 5. No Character Classes. Yes, I'm serious. Every level you gain will give you points to spend on advancing (I know a level-less system is more organic, but it's also harder to judge power level) skills, feats, etc. All character development features will be available to everyone, if they have the prerequisites. 6. Character Classes. :confused: Some games call them classes, some call them archetypes, others call them other things. A class or archetype is simply someone else going through the character build system and making your choices for you ahead of time. Want a fighter or a wizard or a gish? You could go through the system and build it, or you could let someone else do the work and use a pre-made one. Either way, there's plenty of room to personalize. This would also down-play the need for "patch" PRC's. 7. Armor as DR. Armor should make you harder to hurt, not harder to hit (if anything it should make you easier to hit). I get a little tired of keeping track of regular AC, touch AC, Flat footed AC, Ghost touch AC, and the non-official flat-footed touch AC (for when someone uses a touch attack during a surprise round). This way seems a little more straight forward to me. 8. Less Damage, not more Hit Points. Dodge, parry, block, or ignore damage. As you get better at fighting, you should get hit less, not more. 9. Spellcasting, Spell-like abilities, Supernatural abilities, some actions, and some combat maneuvers all cause fatigue damage. Whether you're casting a spell, turning people to stone with a glance, or doing acrobatics, it tires you out. So, the ability to heal or restore fatigue points becomes a very powerful (and limited) ability. 10. Limited Healing. Since hit points are pretty much static, healing spells as is become more and more powerful as the spell level goes up. I'm proposing that healing come in a few flavors, and that hit points gotta come from somewhere. A)Conversion: Hit point damage gets converted to fatigue point damage. Since it causes fatigue to cast a spell in the first place, this is a net loss to the party, but may be a necessary evil. B) Transfer: whether its vampiric or from a volunteer. C) Ignore: temporarily negate penalties taken from damage. D) Create: at higher levels it may be alright to actually create hit points in limited numbers. 11. All races should be built to be playable (this does not mean equally balanced) and have a reasonable LA (beholders and mind flayers can't really be played pre-epic, but could reasonably be encountered at mid levels). Mindless or extremely low intelligence races should noted for the possibility of becoming playable (a skeleton is not playable, but an awakened skeleton is). This may help with polymorphing (which is a staple of fantasy) by limiting forms by ECL. 12. Lower Numbers. Why do costs (and other numbers) have to be inflated so much? Does it somehow make players feel better to spend a 100,000 gold pieces on an item? You'd have to be a hulking hurler to carry that kinda cash around. How about a cost structure that doesn't make ALL (excluding large ships and large tracts of land (and pit traps)) non-magical costs negligable. 13. Character creation. It would be kinda nice to have more control over your character's background. I.E. I'm a Grey Elven Archivist. In 200 years, I've never been closer to combat than when they ran out of shepards pie in the monastary cafeteria, and yet I know how to use a sword and a bow. I am a super genius (int 20) with about a 150 years of learning but have exactly the same number of (and proficiency with) skills as the stupid 15 year old Half-Orc Rogue (int 8). 14. Better / More / or at least a Basic amount of Play Testing. By people that know there way around the systems. How many Cheater / Pun-Pun / Hulking Hurler / Nano-Hive / Blastificers would be running around if the COers got their hands on the material before it was approved? 15. Magic item / spell creation. How about a concrete set of rules that would allow anyone to build magic items or research new spells without breaking the game? And, published magic items and spells that followed those rules. 16. RPGA unlimited. Include everything published. Include everything published. Heck, you could even let some people earn the right to test new options for balance / playability before it gets published. Just in case someone ever wants to play a Half-Fiend Bladeling Blackguard/Assassin, or a Nymph Bard, or a whatever you've ever wanted to play. Ok, numbers 14 and 16 aren't really core rules area, but they do belong in there somewhere. As far as a home brewed world goes, we've been working on a hollow world (not exactly new, but meh). Basically we use magic to explain how a lot of stuff works. Mountains and volcanoes aren't caused by plate techtonics, they're rifts or manifest zones where the planes of earth and fire are invading the prime plane. Gravity is Spelljammer style: if you're on the outside, you get pulled toward the center; if you're on the inside, you get pulled toward the outside. Anyhow, there was a bunch more, but that's a good start. Constructive comments are especially welcome.
Robespierre 08-27-07, 12:23 AM	Sounds good, though I've never played a d% system before, and the variables are just too much to bother thinking about in terms of system creation. I think you have a nice set of guidelines there as it is, and now it would be nice to see some prototype action!
Dog_O_War 08-27-07, 02:40 PM	This sounds like, "I want to play a fantasy setting with the deadlands ruleset." kind of homebrew. With all of the rules changes you're proposing, you won't even be playing dnd anymore; you'll be playing a fantasy game with lots of monsters originally fleshed out for dnd, but it won't be dnd. Why is this you ask? dnd is a class game and system. To get rid of those is to play another game entirely (one that you'd have to buy a new rulebook for). Some may argue that this is not true, but it is one of the few things the game has kept around throughout the years. What you are proposing we do for you wizards paid dozens of talented writers to do; create them a brand new game. I don't mean to offend you, and I am responding to offer some constructive critism here, the above words were actually a thought as to why the rules currently in use are there in the first place (tradition, mechanics [build like a ford; too many pieces to accomplish the same job every other vehicle out there does], and uniqueness) What is suggest you do is get ahold of complete arcana; it has many similar variant rulesets to the ones you've already suggested (like a wound system instead of hitpoints - a really neat idea by the way; makes LAed characters a little tougher, but not overwhelming in all aspects). 1. Still working on the math? that is what you and your players will continue to do as percentile systems with smaller variances than 5% (or a single number on a d20) tend to be overtly math heavy. For simplicities' sake this is one I suggest you leave alone (you'll probably agree after the 12th hour of 'doing the math'). 2. as suggested above; complete arcana has a wound system that I think you should look at. 3. I think you should reinforce the the fatigue rules already presented more promently; giving out penalties may make wiping out a kobold village after 8 hours of walking a risky proposition if you're at a -6 to all actions and can't run or charge. 4. there already are penalties for taking damage, ie: the risk of death being higher, and the possiblity of being staggered - but I do like where you're going with this one. Maybe a percentile roll (or a d20 roll for simplicity) based on how wounded a character is. Maybe something like; between full hit points and 3/4 1-15:no effect. 16-17:muscle tear; -1 to all physical skill checks for 1 hour. 18-19:concussed; -1 to all non-physical skill checks for 1 hour. 20:deep wound; -1 to all attack and damage rolls for 1 hour. between 3/4 hit points and 1/2 1-12:no effect. 13-15:muscle tear. 16-18:concussed. 19-20:deep wound. between 1/2 hit points and 1/4 1-8:no effect. 9-12:muscle tear. 13-16:concussed. 17-19:deep wound. 20:seeping wound; bleed 1 hit point per round. between 1/4 hit points and 0 1-6:no effect. 7-10:muscle tear. 11-14:concussed. 15-17:deep wound. 18-19:seeping wound. 20:temporary ability damage; roll 1d6 and subtract 1 from the ability score rolled. All effects are cumulative. Roll once for each wound suffered. The above 'system' is not perfect, but that is just off the top of my head; maybe make it correspond more to how well you were hit (attack bonus above your AC) or how much damage was dealt. 5. DO NOT DELETE! But seriously, if you're looking for a more versitile option, then again I will refer you to complete arcana; the generic classes in there. 7. I have personally experienced this in a game for 2 years. This option SUCKS completely and whole heartedly. It totally negates the lethality some weapons should have (like bows versus heavy armour; "I have fullplate on and am thus immune to bowfire, with the exception of a heavy crossbow which I will take minimal damage from"), and puts feats like power attack into the overwhelming category. This is not a fun option to play with; I would say you should keep it as is (and maybe think of armour as AC in a different way, "I did get hit but the armour absorbed all of the impact, and thus I take no damage. Thus +[X] to AC.") 8. This is already in the game, you and your players most likely overlook its subtlety; fighting defensively and combat expertise. When you are higher level you begin to have 'disposible' attack bonus, what most every player uses it for though, is power attack. Using these options can increase your AC exponentially as at a base you can get a +7 to your AC with both of the above at level 5; a virtual near-fullplate AC bonus! This unfortunately is not a thing you can impose on your players to do them selves; they must be shown 'the light' so to speak. Maybe have them engage NPC's in combat whom they are litterally just barely missing because they have adopted "defensive" stances. Or if they whine about always being hit, just flat out tell them, "fight defensively then." 9. This is a topic to complex to be answered in this post, and one that requires much more thought on the subject than I am willing to give. I will say this though, I am not opposed to the idea that performing spellcasting (much like how it tires Raistlin in dragonlance [Paladine forgive me if I spelled his name wrong!]), in fact I quite like the idea; good luck with this. On the combat maneuver end of it though, what I do is instead begin to impose automatic fatigue on players if the combat goes on for more rounds than their constitution score; exhaustion sets in after double this. 10. In the Wheel of Time RPG setting book they had a very novel and interesting healing method; healed wounds were converted into subdual damage instead. Maybe try this option instead. 11. DO NOT DO. This requires more time than it is worth; you'll spend 100+ hours working out a useable model that may suck; this time could be better spent playing dnd. 12. I think you should keep the monetary system the way it is for this one simple factor; dnd is a medival fantasy, and the reasons you stated is why paper money and debit were invented; coins are heavy. This is why people bought villas and keeps, and hired guards and the like; to safeguard their loot while they were off in distant lands. Maybe instead of watching your players carry this *stuff* around, impose encumberance and make them think about what they should do with their treasures if they can't carry it around. If they are always on the go travelling the world, an investment in gems is a better option; on the flipside of that, maybe they are in a town and want to rest for the night, but all they have are 1000gp gems that no one in town can 'break', so are forced to either overpay, or buy something expensive (like a tavern). This at least creates a new situation to flavor a game with. 13. With elves you are talking about a racial overhaul. You forget that elves spend most of their youth playing and dancing (and basically being a pagan), with school thrown here and there in between. Also real life experience (the kind rogues get) is worth much more than study ever will be. Though I somewhat agree with you, this is in essence what part of the character class is about. Instead of running, climbing and swimming, your archivist has had his nose buried in books, not to mention the taxing dedication it takes to learn spells. The one thing I would change is how simple and easy it is to multiclass; "I spent my young adulthood learning to be a wizard!" "Really? I beat up four ghouls in 30 minutes, walked back to town and bought me this here 'Spellcasting for beginners' book. Wanna see my magic missile?" Something about that just doesn't seem right. 14. I charge $20.00(CAN) an hour. This can be suplimented with snacks and energy drinks. 15. Things only 'break' the game if you let them. As for concrete spell creation rules, what you're asking for is patterned creativity; it is up to you to make your own spells and for your DM to adjudicate what level they seem appropriate for. As for magic items; there are rules. What I am wondering is why you'd let your players go out and buy customed magic items in the first place. Allowing them to purchace items of magic should be an encounter in itself. Not every city has a armory of vorpal weapons, so maybe they have to travel far and wide on shaky tips to find a place that sells one. This is just an example of what could be done. The options are there, you just have to do some exploring. A hollow world eh? Stuff like that is cool and refreshing for many players. It may not be a new idea, but it is most certainly a new and unique setting for most people. One question though, how do you cross over to the outside from inside, and vice versa?