Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Neoatomic 01-22-05, 03:22 AM	In the last couple weeks I have been wanting a grittier and more terrifing combat system, This is what I have so far, I would like some feedback on what you like and dont like. thnx. Low Magic, Gates of Emperium Most Classes will branch off into separate paths to choose from at about level 5. Warrior–Branches into: Martial Artist, Knight, Defender, Holy Warrior Rogue– Branches into: Thief, Assassin, Con Artist, Spy Bard– Branches into: Entertainer, Inspirer Ranger– Branches into: Archer, Dual Wielder, Rider, Scout Priest– Branches into: Holy man, Scion, Seer Barbarian– Branches into: Berserker, Pagan, Die Hard Druid– Branches into: Wilder, Summoner, Animist Players May also Choose a “Catch all” class which is the classes in the Players Handbook. Hit Points Each character starts the game with all racial hit dice, each level the character will gain 1 HP plus Toughness Modifier. Death Characters die when they reach negative their Toughness score which is called the Death Mark of the character, as a character takes damage certain stats will be penalized to simulate injury. Healing Magical healing is rare, but a full 8 hours of rest will restore half of the lost HP. And if the wounds are bound and bandaged you gain an additional 1 HP per hour sleeping or otherwise. Armor We will be using the armor with damage reduction rules in Unearthed Arcana. Damage reduction will also be modified by the material it is made from. Weapons We will be using my custom weapon class system. This will also replace the BAB system. When a character starts he will be given points to divide into weapon classes, 4 points are required to “even out” the weapon proficiency at 0. The characters gains 2d6 points and any racial bonus if applicable that they may place into a weapon class to increase above 0 and gain a bonus per point placed into the weapon class, the maximum points in any weapon class is 20 which is equal to a +16 with use of that weapon class. Whenever a character gains a level they gain 1 point to place into any weapon class. Weapon Classes Short Blades: Daggers, Kukri, shortsword, Rapier, etc. Long Blades: Longsword, Scimitar, Falchion, etc. Great Blades: Greatsword, Fullblade, etc. Clubs and Maces: Mace, Morningstar, Greatclub, etc. Axes: Battleaxe, Greataxe, Dwarven Urgrosh, etc. Unarmed: Unarmed Strike, Gauntlet, etc. Flails and Chains: Light Flail, Dire Flail, etc. Polearms and Staffs: Halberd, Glaive, Trident, etc. Picks and Hammers: Warhammer, Heavy Pick, etc. Slings: Sling, Thrown weapons, etc. Spears and Lances: Short Spear, Heavy Lance, etc. Bows: Shortbow, Longbow, Crossbow, etc Double Weapons: Double Sword, Orc Double Axe, etc. Combat Standard Attacks per round is 2, this is modified by your Speed modifier. You may choose not to take any number of attacks that allow you to make parry rolls which are just opposed rolls until I find another method. Coup de Grace, is also a basic part of combat and runs the same as in 3rd Edition D&D rules but you may perform this action if the target is prone or staggered or most any other condition that opens an attack. Sneak Attacks may be performed by anyone as long as the character has a concealed weapon which in most cases will be a short blade. Stats Strength (STR): How Strong you are, adds to weapon damage and to strength checks. Speed (SPD): How fast you are, adds to Speed per round and to #of attacks per round. Dexterity (DEX): How good you are with your hands, adds to Attack, AC, and Reflex Saves. Toughness (TO): How strong your body is, adds to Death mark and to Fortitude Saves and HP. Intelligence (INT): How Smart you are, Adds to skill points. Social Skills (SS): How you interact with people, Modifies the cost of weapons etc. Divine Magic The basic setup for divine magic is by Domain, certain churches allow certain domains, a character is allowed to gain spells of that domain at the same rate as a cleric gains spell levels, when a cleric is able to cast a higher level spell the character may roll an Intelligence check (DC 10 + Spell Level) to learn that spell, he may then use that spell 1/day. The number of domains that a divine caster gains is dependant on the brach they take from preist
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 01-23-05, 01:00 PM	In the last couple weeks I have been wanting a grittier and more terrifing combat system Yeah, me too. I've been working on something here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=360218) for a while. Anyway, my two cents. Hit points: I certainly don't have a problem with your system, but are you going to scale damage dealing spells or, say, dragon's breath? I like your rule about death being reached when characters hit their negative toughness score. What type of ability penalties were you thinking of assigning to damage? What are you basing it on? Percent of HP lost, or just a flat scale? Healing Magical healing is rare, but a full 8 hours of rest will restore half of the lost HP. And if the wounds are bound and bandaged you gain an additional 1 HP per hour sleeping or otherwise. The problem I have with this is that it makes receiving grievous wounds a bit trivial. "Oh gee, Barney, you almost had your arm severed!" "Eh. It'll heal in a day." On the other hand, if healing magic is rare, then it allows the game to continue without everyone having to wait around for a few days healing up after every encounter. Maybe I just need a better understanding of how your classes work, but right now it seems like a spell caster can use a weapon group as easily and as proficiently as a warrior type. What helps balance out the warrior's side of that equation? I like your combat and parry rules, but I think being able to perform a Coup de Grace on prone or condition-afflicted characters is going to make things like stunning attack and improved trip far more powerful. Also, um, you always hit with a Coup de Grace with a melee weapon. So, even if someone is only prone and thus still able to roll about on the ground, they'll get hit no matter what if someone tries to Coup de Grace them? They couldn't even attempt a parry. There's no attack roll. I think you need to play around with this a bit more. Otherwise, you'll have rogues with picks partnered up with fighters going around tripping and coup de grace-ing, well, everyone. I think speed might be too important, at least to a combat character. Speed 18 would give a first level character 6 attacks, right? I think that will outweigh the benefits of the other stats, even at higher levels. Oh, yeah. Does speed give any benefits to a spellcaster? I'm a little unclear as to what exactly is going on in your Divine Magic write-up. Could you slap down an example? Your system seems pretty cool, and, while I don't know what your class branches do exactly, the notion of it is very interesting. My take on it is that it would be like generalized prestige classes for each base class. All right, maybe that was three cents worth. -mike the amazing muskrat
Ra-Tiel 01-23-05, 02:41 PM	Hi. A variant that I've come up with (but that hasn't seen any real action since I currently don't dm so I can't give any comments on its performance) is to change the casting ability prerequisite from "score" to "modifier" for calculating which spells a caster can cast. Spell level = Minimum Ability Modifier neccesary to cast spell. So if your wizard has a nice Int 18, he can cast level 4 spells. This would greatly tone down the power output of casters, which might be something for your very low magic setting. Just my :twocents:
Neoatomic 01-23-05, 06:18 PM	As for you question about the branching, all of the branches represent a different aspect of the class that it braches from, Rogues for example branch into Thief, Con Artist,m Assassin and Spy, Each of these are pretty much for those who wish to capitalize on that aspect, it also allows for mulkticlassing the same class (Start at branch level instead of level 1). Basically all branches are specialists, and the allowed "Catch All" class is a general class. Prestige Classes are more based on Organizations, but thats just my Setting. As for Coup de Grace, When prone or even stunned the target gets a Reflex Save with the appropriate modifiers for thier condition. Prone = -4, Stunned = -3. When an opponent is hit with a Coup de Grace, he then must make a Fortitude Save on fall Unconcious. The weapon system is ithe way it is because I dont see why your class has anything to do with what weapons you use. The way I see it, in the real world you can have an investment banker that knows how to shoot a bow. Generally though, Most classes are based in combat to an extent, Warriors get more feats, which as you said, some are more powerful. But all classes will have thier strong points and be balanced to each other. Assassins get Backstabs and thier strikes bleed over a number of rounds (-1 HP per round, 1d4 Rounds). As for the penalties for damage, It will be based on % of HP lost and the Penalties will be in increments of -5 per 20% of HP lost and the stat Penalized depends on the type of wound and what weapon dealt it, A hit from an Axe would be most likely be STR penalty and so on. I was also thinking abouit adding Modifiers to certain Stats depending on Body Type, If you are obese, then you get a penalty to Speed but gain Toughness. Another thing I did with the system is I made bows more powerful, generally in D&D people choose big power weapons over bows, Crossbows for example can cut through Damage Reduction, While manual bows allow for STR bonuses like mighty Composites. I also made all weapons have thier strong points, and coupled with other equipment begin to be pretty cool. Id love to hear more!!!
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 01-25-05, 03:49 PM	As for Coup de Grace, When prone or even stunned the target gets a Reflex Save with the appropriate modifiers for thier condition. Prone = -4, Stunned = -3. When an opponent is hit with a Coup de Grace, he then must make a Fortitude Save on fall Unconcious. Let me see if I can abuse this: Fighter takes expertise and improved trip. She uses a reach weapon, preferably one that gives a bonus to the trip. Her opponent moves in to strike, but OH! Fighter takes her attack of opportunity to trip her opponent. On her turn, the opponent is on the ground. Coup de Grace. Now, there are a whole lot of dice rolls that need to go on there, but I think that the opportunity to end your opponent one round into the combat just because you tripped them is a little off. Maybe not. It's the type of thing I'd love to playtest or see playtested, but my gut reaction is that it won't result in the type of combat that you are after. You'll have people trying to trip each other left and right. A few levels in Thief Acrobat will be solid gold. What type of reflex save did you have in mind to avert the coup de grace? The more I think about it, the less I mind conditions in general allowing for coups des graces. I think it's really just the prone condition that I dislike functioning in this fashion. The others are harder to come by, but tripping just seems very commonplace, and I have a hard time explaining to myself why it allows for a coup de grace. -4 to ac seems to cover it effectively enough in my mind. If you can toss out a good explanation, then I'm sold. Right now it just doesn't make sense in my head. Regarding the weapon system: I have no problem at all with which weapons a character uses. What I don't quite understand is why someone who trains specifically in the art of martial combat could be on par with the weapon skills of someone who supposedly trains extensively in the mystic sciences of the universe. Like, where does this spellcaster get the time to do everything??? He can weild a blade just as well as a warrior AND cast spells? To me, it seems that the warriors are getting shafted. Feats, in my mind, don't perfectly equate to spell casting (though in truth, my knowledge of your spellcasting classes is very limited). Anyway, I would be far more comfortable with it if the warriors received more weapon points per level, or if the other classes received less. As for the penalties for damage, It will be based on % of HP lost and the Penalties will be in increments of -5 per 20% of HP lost and the stat Penalized depends on the type of wound and what weapon dealt it, A hit from an Axe would be most likely be STR penalty and so on. So there is a decent chance that a lower strength (str 10) character will drop after losing only 40% of his hit points from weapon damage? See, I think that would work fine if the hit point rules were standard, but these sorts of penalties used in conjuction with your customized hit point rules might throw things out of whack. Again, I definitely think it would need to be playtested. Good things on paper can be horrible in game, and vice versa, so who knows. I like the idea of modifiers for body type. Do crossbows cut through all DR, or do they neutralize only a certain amount? Would it, for instance, neutralize 2 points of dr, rendering breastplate ineffective, but still allowing fullplate to afford some sort of protection? Regardless, it's interesting and makes sense. I'm still not clear on your Divine Magic rules. Would you clarify them a bit? Do priests ONLY get domains? Can they cast ANY spell they know once per day, or can they cast each spell slot once per day, and choose what they are casting?? I am just unsure. An example would be excellent. -mike the amazing muskrat
BrianD 01-25-05, 05:29 PM	Your branching classes idea sounds very much in line with the advanced classes in d20 Modern. Essentially they're prestige classes for generic character archetypes with very easy to meet requirements. Here are links to the SRD documents that detail the classes, in case you're not familiar with 'em. http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/msrdadvancedclassesI.rtf http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/msrdadvancedclassesII.rtf
Neoatomic 01-27-05, 09:59 PM	That is a Good point on the prone condition for Coup de Grace I probably will change that, I was going to make the save vs. Coup de Grace an opposed roll vs. the attacker, Certain Modifiers apply from feats and such. I was going to give warrior classes more weapon points at first level than the others so they can account for that. I think the penalties are something I want to stick with since I want players to fear combat at least a little bit. Crossbows cut throught all DR, but have a slower firing rate, You can only can one shot around and have -2 to AC while Reloading. I was going to change the rules to what Ra-tiel said, basically Priests Only get Domains but can cast a total # of spells equal to thier Modifiers for INT. Id love to hear more If you guys have anything...
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 01-28-05, 01:05 AM	I think the penalties are something I want to stick with since I want players to fear combat at least a little bit. I like the idea of the penalties. I just think -5 is too steep. Crossbows cut throught all DR, but have a slower firing rate, You can only can one shot around and have -2 to AC while Reloading. Do they also provoke attacks of opportunity? How many domains will a priest have access to? The standard two? -mike the amazing muskrat
yeloson 01-28-05, 02:06 AM	Hi Neo, I don't know about throwing Coup de Grace's around, but I know in real life, folks who get punched, kicked, or hit when on the ground or against a wall often get hurt worse than when standing up in the open- because their body has no way of "giving" with the blow, sort of like the difference between a sideswipe accident and running into a brick wall at full speed. If you're looking to simulate this, why not just let the attacker roll twice for damage and take the higher roll? It will typically increase damage between 1-3 points on the weapons, but probably won't be as hardcore as Coup de Grace's. Of course, if someone does get a critical and gets to roll twice, that'd be pretty nasty. Chris
Neoatomic 01-28-05, 09:04 AM	Mike: Preists will have one domain by the normal class and the rest depend on what branch they choose. Yeloson: That is a good idea, but what I was trying to simulate is the act of "Running Through" someone. I think Im making the prone condition into two separate conditions, Active Prone: Such as a trip where the opponent is still able to move(A good way to use your set up Yeloson)Parries by the prone person suffer a -2 penalty. The other is Inactive (Unconcious and Sleep etc.) which will be the condition for the Coup de Grace which active will not be. How does that sound?
yeloson 01-28-05, 11:50 AM	Hi Neo, Sounds fine by me. Chris
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 01-28-05, 12:12 PM	Yeloson: That is a good idea, but what I was trying to simulate is the act of "Running Through" someone. I think Im making the prone condition into two separate conditions, Active Prone: Such as a trip where the opponent is still able to move(A good way to use your set up Yeloson)Parries by the prone person suffer a -2 penalty. The other is Inactive (Unconcious and Sleep etc.) which will be the condition for the Coup de Grace which active will not be. How does that sound? I don't think you need to differentiate between the two, because being unconscious or asleep are conditions in and of themselves: helpless. By standard rules, when you are prone you take a -4 to your attack rolls. Parries are opposed attack rolls, or somethign else? Is the -2 penalty going to be in addition to the -4, or will it replace it? -mike the amazing muskrat
Neoatomic 01-30-05, 06:50 PM	I really dont think Ill make the penalties stack for parries. I think adding Helpless to the list of conditions for a coup de grace would be a good idea, Being prone will have to have some big chance to escape a coup de grace since it is so easy to come by. I have devised a new branch for Preists, Exorcist. As soon as I get all the classes into Table form Ill post 'em up. A little Setting info.... The campaign Im running is a planar adventure, but not the same planes as the planar handbook or manual of the planes. This campaign is based in the future of earth, earth is destroyed by a planar war that starts when a race called the Kurgazon enter the earth plane and attempted to rule it but were stopped by another army of Githiyanki. That was 100 years ago and the war still rages Earth is now always dark and only a few small areas have light, in the light cities were built. There are 8 known Planes of existence: Earth: Dark and Desolate waste, Warzone, Also called the Primeworld by humans. Tangrus: A city that is shaped in a double helix and is the focal point for all religions, Currently there is a inquistion occuring and those labeled Heretics are set to Hell. The main reason for this is that it is believed that a man posses by a demon will oopen the DemonGate(gate to hell) and allow travel in and out, Currently only in is allowed. Daeron: A plane where Goblins and Orcs fight against machines for dominance and so far the war hasnt been going thier way. Daggoth: Home land of the Kurgazon, mainly a large floating city above a neverending ocean. The Kenku are the only things that slow down the Kurgazon. Kirash: The Elvish plane, the plane is mostly Jungle and forest, Lizardmen occasionally fight elves in attempt to rule the plane. Gavotta: The Desert Realm, The only other Human race that wasnt from earth, Gavotta is a desert. Outworld: The Githiyanki homeland. An ugly dark plane to which the entire race of githiyanki were forced to live because the Kurgazon Stole thier world (Daggoth). Hell: The Locked plane, only a few preists know how to access the plane, mostly a place for banishment for thousands of years, but being in hell for too long changes a normal person to a creature (Demons and Devils are one and the same).
Neoatomic 02-02-05, 09:00 AM	bump.....................
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 02-02-05, 01:50 PM	dUde. It sounds like a very entertaining setting. I particularly like the plane of Daeron. I'd definitely be interested in taking a look at your classes when you post them. -mike the amazing muskrat