BESM D20 and D&D Hybrid [Archive] - Wizards Community

BESM D20 and D&D Hybrid [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Selethrial
06-09-07, 01:47 AM I'm hoping that since this is the Design section, this is the correct place to ask for the help I need.

I've looked everywhere, read through the books, consulted the forums and have yet to find any answers to my questions. I was working on designing a Pure Forgotten Realms campaign but then rediscovered I have the BESM D20 book. Between the offers of a classless system and adding an Anime flair, this really fit into the story I had already concocted.

What I'm attempting to do is use the Point-Based system of BESM to let the players build characters without being restricted to a class while still using the rest of the D&D rules. (Like Combat and Skill Checks.) I'm not sure if I'm making much sense, but if someone could point out how this could be done, I'd be very grateful.
andinel
06-09-07, 03:08 AM It's rather simple, at least from my point of view.
I have BESM d20 myself and have read it, so I know the rules fairly well.

Allow each character to design their own "class" using ~200-205 CP over 20 levels, with about 10 CP per level.

1/2 BAB costs 30 CP
3/4 BAB costs 45 CP
1/1 BAB costs 60 CP

Good saves are 12 CP each
Poor saves are 6 CP each

2+Int skill points are 10 CP
4+Int skill points are 20 CP
6+Int skill points are 30 CP
8+Int skill points are 40 CP

Have them use the rest of their character points for attributes, picking and choosing which ones that your players aren't allowed to use. For spells, follow the guidelines used for the wizard's spells in CP cost (i.e. the rules on p33 of the revised BESMd20 rules).

Hope this helps.
spyone
06-09-07, 03:23 AM You can go simpler than that: Each time you "go up a level", the character gains 10 Character Points to spend however the player wants.

Want to reach 15th level without ever improving your BAB? I'm not sure that's a good idea, but it is easilly done. :)

A player might well, using this system, take good saves all around and a really good hit die for his first few levels (when he's really paranoid about dying), then decide that he was being overcautious and trade some of that away for spellcasting or something at higher levels. Essentially, he has multiclassed: went from one with a strong "chassis" and little "fluff" to one with a weaker "chassis" but that's very "fluffy".

A lot of things, especially the basic stuff like hit dice, got a point cost in BESMd20. The stuff that didn't was addressed on these boards by a guy named Lotus Crane, and now that Search is working you might just be able to find it. (If not, post here and I'll repost his costs.)

One word of advice: what they did with spells is pretty broken. First, introducing new spells (as nearly every book from anybody does) can/will upset the balance between the classes, requiring that you re-compute the class multiplier based on how many spells are on each spell list now. Also, they seem to have totally disregarded the fact that a Wizard can only "memorize" spells from his spellbook, while a Cleric can "memorize" any spell on his list. Thus, while the Wizard has access to more spells in theory, the Cleric has access to more spells in practise.
Their product d20 Advanced Magic solves many of those problems, but does so by fundamentally changing the spellcasting system to be more compatable with BESM and the anime genre. I don't happen to consider that a bad thing, but I can see how some people might. :)
Selethrial
06-09-07, 05:30 PM Okay, this has helped and I'm starting to get an idea of how things work and will work and will hopefully work. One of the biggest things that confused me was BESM's Optional Rule on Pg 152 about how to make it Classless by giving 40 Character points. Is a player able to make a character equal to the classes using the same number of points that's given in either creation method?

Are four BESM D20 Level 1~ characters still CR 1 or are they slightly more powerful? How does the BESM Advanced Magic handle the different aspects of Clerics, Wizards, Sorcerers, Rangers, Paladins, and Druids?

I'll look for Lotus Crane's list, but it might be handy to post a link here just in case other people follow my path and want to hybrid the systems together.

Last question for now. I'm thinking of still handing out XP using the various formula based on Encounter levels and all then handing out 10 CP with each level advancement. In practice, are 10 CP enough to 'mirror' the level advancements in the D&D classes? I know you have to buy BAB, Hit Die, Skills, and Save Modifiers, so I'm worried about BESM Classless Characters falling behind. (I know I could do the math myself.. but I dislike math and am certain someone else probably already has done the research.)
Lotus Crane
06-11-07, 01:23 AM First of, if you plan to use BESM D20 rules, you need to make one important change to have anything resembling a balanced game: change the CP cost of raw ability score points from 0.5 CP per ability point to 1 CP per ability point. 2 CP is supposed to be the cost of a normal feat, but no feat is worth +4 to an ability score; even epic feats only provide +2 to an ability score. That was the first and most important modification I had to make to the Guardians of Order's system.

In practice, are 10 CP enough to 'mirror' the level advancements in the D&D classes? I know you have to buy BAB, Hit Die, Skills, and Save Modifiers, so I'm worried about BESM Classless Characters falling behind.
Well, D&D (and most D20 system games, for that matter) don't really adhere that well to having every level be equally valuable. Going by CP, most non-spellcaster classes tend to get 12-20 points per level for the first level or two (especially considering that having any good saves costs you 2 CP for the +2 at 1st level), while at higher levels they definately have less than 10 points per level (and less than 200 CP by 20th level).

On the other hand, because the power of spells increases exponentially rather than linearly, D&D spellcasters tend to have 6-9 CP per level for the first level or two, while at 13th/15th/17th (or 14th/16th/18th for delayed casters like sorcerer) levels, they're definately gaining far more than 10 points per level.

If you try to go by a classless CP-based system, you'll find that the natural progression of D&D is almost inverted, with non-spellcasters having to settle for worse saves and fewer proficiencies at lower levels than in a standard game, and spellcasters probably being able to afford slightly better hit die and skill points in the beginning than they normally would have. At higher levels, non-spellcasters will probably be able to afford multiple special abilities per level, while spellcasters might actually have to start taking flaws and/or save up their CP for a level or two to continue advance their exponentially powerful (and therefore exponentially expensive) spellcasting.
Selethrial
06-11-07, 01:56 AM If I increase the cost of raw Abilities, won't this slightly limit how much flexibility characters have with the initial 40 Character Points? It was attempting to go with a Point-Based system that would allow characters to start with a good set of Abilities that also interested me in trying this method. Been a fan of Hero for a while now and the randomness in D&D's character creation got to me recently.

From what I'm hearing, which seems to be in agreement, Magic Types eventually are more powerful then their Non-Magical counterparts and in BESM D20, they start out more powerful. It sounds like I'd want a good balanced group then to counter this imbalance. Right?

I'm starting to absorb a lot and need to take a step back and try a new approach to see if what I'm understanding is valid.

For my game, I give everyone 40 CP and a list of allowed and not allowed BESM D20 special abilities and whatnot. Ask them to form a concept but tell them that with good reason and RPing, they can branch out into other areas as they progress.

At what point, does the mesh of D&D Skills, Feats, Monsters (CR), and Combat fail when working with BESM D20 created characters?
soulexistence
06-11-07, 01:15 PM Isn't the Adventurer, one of the main BESMd20 characters, already set up for freestyle play? the adventurer gets her 40 pts, plus bonus points for picture and background, disadvantages/bonus points, etc.. usually end up around 44-48CP for a first level character, then she gets a +5cp/lvl that she uses to buy feats and such, instead of any being assigned to her by the class. with 40 starting points, and stats at a 2:1 cost, i dont have any overpowered characters in my game at start, and by 10th level, my adventuress was a little bad ass, but not crazily so.
Lotus Crane
06-12-07, 03:03 AM If I increase the cost of raw Abilities, won't this slightly limit how much flexibility characters have with the initial 40 Character Points? It was attempting to go with a Point-Based system that would allow characters to start with a good set of Abilities that also interested me in trying this method. Been a fan of Hero for a while now and the randomness in D&D's character creation got to me recently.
You can either double the starting CP to 80, or keep the discretionary CP at 40, and simply give all PC's a free starting baseline of 8 in every ability score, a la D&D standard point buy. Raw ability points at 0.5 CP each just doesn't work out well; heck, even at 1 CP each, you'll have situations like +2 Strength being obviously superior to Weapon Focus, or +2 Constitution being obviously superior to Improved Toughness.

From what I'm hearing, which seems to be in agreement, Magic Types eventually are more powerful then their Non-Magical counterparts and in BESM D20, they start out more powerful. It sounds like I'd want a good balanced group then to counter this imbalance. Right?
Well, keep in mind that non-spellcasters in BESM scale in power at roughly the same rate as spellcasters, even at higher levels. High-level BESM spellcasters usually aren't any more powerful than high-level D&D spellcasters, but high-level BESM non-spellcasters can potentially be much more powerful than high-level D&D non-spellcasters. By the time a 20th level D&D fighter has 11 bonus feats, a 20th level BESM samurai can have a comparable number of feats and special abilities, and +28 Strength (by spending those 14 discretionary CP).
Alathon
06-28-07, 09:28 PM You can either double the starting CP to 80, or keep the discretionary CP at 40, and simply give all PC's a free starting baseline of 8 in every ability score, a la D&D standard point buy. Raw ability points at 0.5 CP each just doesn't work out well; heck, even at 1 CP each, you'll have situations like +2 Strength being obviously superior to Weapon Focus, or +2 Constitution being obviously superior to Improved Toughness.
Why not just price down feats to 1 cp? Most of them aren't really that powerful when taken in context with the Attributes available under BESM d20. Looking at what you can get cp for cp, reselling feats with Incomplete Training makes a lot of sense min/max wise with them costed at 2 cp, and attributes such as super Speed, Armor, Flight, Regeneration, Reincarnation, and the like, available for 2-4 cp per rank.

Also.. I'm curious if people have opinions about the defense skills being split for ranged and melee range defenses.. which seems to heavily penalize characters attempting to build defensive, since an attacker can generally keep their single relevant attack skill at level+3.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Selethrial 06-09-07, 01:47 AM	I'm hoping that since this is the Design section, this is the correct place to ask for the help I need. I've looked everywhere, read through the books, consulted the forums and have yet to find any answers to my questions. I was working on designing a Pure Forgotten Realms campaign but then rediscovered I have the BESM D20 book. Between the offers of a classless system and adding an Anime flair, this really fit into the story I had already concocted. What I'm attempting to do is use the Point-Based system of BESM to let the players build characters without being restricted to a class while still using the rest of the D&D rules. (Like Combat and Skill Checks.) I'm not sure if I'm making much sense, but if someone could point out how this could be done, I'd be very grateful.
andinel 06-09-07, 03:08 AM	It's rather simple, at least from my point of view. I have BESM d20 myself and have read it, so I know the rules fairly well. Allow each character to design their own "class" using ~200-205 CP over 20 levels, with about 10 CP per level. 1/2 BAB costs 30 CP 3/4 BAB costs 45 CP 1/1 BAB costs 60 CP Good saves are 12 CP each Poor saves are 6 CP each 2+Int skill points are 10 CP 4+Int skill points are 20 CP 6+Int skill points are 30 CP 8+Int skill points are 40 CP Have them use the rest of their character points for attributes, picking and choosing which ones that your players aren't allowed to use. For spells, follow the guidelines used for the wizard's spells in CP cost (i.e. the rules on p33 of the revised BESMd20 rules). Hope this helps.
spyone 06-09-07, 03:23 AM	You can go simpler than that: Each time you "go up a level", the character gains 10 Character Points to spend however the player wants. Want to reach 15th level without ever improving your BAB? I'm not sure that's a good idea, but it is easilly done. :) A player might well, using this system, take good saves all around and a really good hit die for his first few levels (when he's really paranoid about dying), then decide that he was being overcautious and trade some of that away for spellcasting or something at higher levels. Essentially, he has multiclassed: went from one with a strong "chassis" and little "fluff" to one with a weaker "chassis" but that's very "fluffy". A lot of things, especially the basic stuff like hit dice, got a point cost in BESMd20. The stuff that didn't was addressed on these boards by a guy named Lotus Crane, and now that Search is working you might just be able to find it. (If not, post here and I'll repost his costs.) One word of advice: what they did with spells is pretty broken. First, introducing new spells (as nearly every book from anybody does) can/will upset the balance between the classes, requiring that you re-compute the class multiplier based on how many spells are on each spell list now. Also, they seem to have totally disregarded the fact that a Wizard can only "memorize" spells from his spellbook, while a Cleric can "memorize" any spell on his list. Thus, while the Wizard has access to more spells in theory, the Cleric has access to more spells in practise. Their product d20 Advanced Magic solves many of those problems, but does so by fundamentally changing the spellcasting system to be more compatable with BESM and the anime genre. I don't happen to consider that a bad thing, but I can see how some people might. :)
Selethrial 06-09-07, 05:30 PM	Okay, this has helped and I'm starting to get an idea of how things work and will work and will hopefully work. One of the biggest things that confused me was BESM's Optional Rule on Pg 152 about how to make it Classless by giving 40 Character points. Is a player able to make a character equal to the classes using the same number of points that's given in either creation method? Are four BESM D20 Level 1~ characters still CR 1 or are they slightly more powerful? How does the BESM Advanced Magic handle the different aspects of Clerics, Wizards, Sorcerers, Rangers, Paladins, and Druids? I'll look for Lotus Crane's list, but it might be handy to post a link here just in case other people follow my path and want to hybrid the systems together. Last question for now. I'm thinking of still handing out XP using the various formula based on Encounter levels and all then handing out 10 CP with each level advancement. In practice, are 10 CP enough to 'mirror' the level advancements in the D&D classes? I know you have to buy BAB, Hit Die, Skills, and Save Modifiers, so I'm worried about BESM Classless Characters falling behind. (I know I could do the math myself.. but I dislike math and am certain someone else probably already has done the research.)
Lotus Crane 06-11-07, 01:23 AM	First of, if you plan to use BESM D20 rules, you need to make one important change to have anything resembling a balanced game: change the CP cost of raw ability score points from 0.5 CP per ability point to 1 CP per ability point. 2 CP is supposed to be the cost of a normal feat, but no feat is worth +4 to an ability score; even epic feats only provide +2 to an ability score. That was the first and most important modification I had to make to the Guardians of Order's system. In practice, are 10 CP enough to 'mirror' the level advancements in the D&D classes? I know you have to buy BAB, Hit Die, Skills, and Save Modifiers, so I'm worried about BESM Classless Characters falling behind. Well, D&D (and most D20 system games, for that matter) don't really adhere that well to having every level be equally valuable. Going by CP, most non-spellcaster classes tend to get 12-20 points per level for the first level or two (especially considering that having any good saves costs you 2 CP for the +2 at 1st level), while at higher levels they definately have less than 10 points per level (and less than 200 CP by 20th level). On the other hand, because the power of spells increases exponentially rather than linearly, D&D spellcasters tend to have 6-9 CP per level for the first level or two, while at 13th/15th/17th (or 14th/16th/18th for delayed casters like sorcerer) levels, they're definately gaining far more than 10 points per level. If you try to go by a classless CP-based system, you'll find that the natural progression of D&D is almost inverted, with non-spellcasters having to settle for worse saves and fewer proficiencies at lower levels than in a standard game, and spellcasters probably being able to afford slightly better hit die and skill points in the beginning than they normally would have. At higher levels, non-spellcasters will probably be able to afford multiple special abilities per level, while spellcasters might actually have to start taking flaws and/or save up their CP for a level or two to continue advance their exponentially powerful (and therefore exponentially expensive) spellcasting.
Selethrial 06-11-07, 01:56 AM	If I increase the cost of raw Abilities, won't this slightly limit how much flexibility characters have with the initial 40 Character Points? It was attempting to go with a Point-Based system that would allow characters to start with a good set of Abilities that also interested me in trying this method. Been a fan of Hero for a while now and the randomness in D&D's character creation got to me recently. From what I'm hearing, which seems to be in agreement, Magic Types eventually are more powerful then their Non-Magical counterparts and in BESM D20, they start out more powerful. It sounds like I'd want a good balanced group then to counter this imbalance. Right? I'm starting to absorb a lot and need to take a step back and try a new approach to see if what I'm understanding is valid. For my game, I give everyone 40 CP and a list of allowed and not allowed BESM D20 special abilities and whatnot. Ask them to form a concept but tell them that with good reason and RPing, they can branch out into other areas as they progress. At what point, does the mesh of D&D Skills, Feats, Monsters (CR), and Combat fail when working with BESM D20 created characters?
soulexistence 06-11-07, 01:15 PM	Isn't the Adventurer, one of the main BESMd20 characters, already set up for freestyle play? the adventurer gets her 40 pts, plus bonus points for picture and background, disadvantages/bonus points, etc.. usually end up around 44-48CP for a first level character, then she gets a +5cp/lvl that she uses to buy feats and such, instead of any being assigned to her by the class. with 40 starting points, and stats at a 2:1 cost, i dont have any overpowered characters in my game at start, and by 10th level, my adventuress was a little bad ass, but not crazily so.
Lotus Crane 06-12-07, 03:03 AM	If I increase the cost of raw Abilities, won't this slightly limit how much flexibility characters have with the initial 40 Character Points? It was attempting to go with a Point-Based system that would allow characters to start with a good set of Abilities that also interested me in trying this method. Been a fan of Hero for a while now and the randomness in D&D's character creation got to me recently. You can either double the starting CP to 80, or keep the discretionary CP at 40, and simply give all PC's a free starting baseline of 8 in every ability score, a la D&D standard point buy. Raw ability points at 0.5 CP each just doesn't work out well; heck, even at 1 CP each, you'll have situations like +2 Strength being obviously superior to Weapon Focus, or +2 Constitution being obviously superior to Improved Toughness. From what I'm hearing, which seems to be in agreement, Magic Types eventually are more powerful then their Non-Magical counterparts and in BESM D20, they start out more powerful. It sounds like I'd want a good balanced group then to counter this imbalance. Right? Well, keep in mind that non-spellcasters in BESM scale in power at roughly the same rate as spellcasters, even at higher levels. High-level BESM spellcasters usually aren't any more powerful than high-level D&D spellcasters, but high-level BESM non-spellcasters can potentially be much more powerful than high-level D&D non-spellcasters. By the time a 20th level D&D fighter has 11 bonus feats, a 20th level BESM samurai can have a comparable number of feats and special abilities, and +28 Strength (by spending those 14 discretionary CP).
Alathon 06-28-07, 09:28 PM	You can either double the starting CP to 80, or keep the discretionary CP at 40, and simply give all PC's a free starting baseline of 8 in every ability score, a la D&D standard point buy. Raw ability points at 0.5 CP each just doesn't work out well; heck, even at 1 CP each, you'll have situations like +2 Strength being obviously superior to Weapon Focus, or +2 Constitution being obviously superior to Improved Toughness. Why not just price down feats to 1 cp? Most of them aren't really that powerful when taken in context with the Attributes available under BESM d20. Looking at what you can get cp for cp, reselling feats with Incomplete Training makes a lot of sense min/max wise with them costed at 2 cp, and attributes such as super Speed, Armor, Flight, Regeneration, Reincarnation, and the like, available for 2-4 cp per rank. Also.. I'm curious if people have opinions about the defense skills being split for ranged and melee range defenses.. which seems to heavily penalize characters attempting to build defensive, since an attacker can generally keep their single relevant attack skill at level+3.