Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Cyphrus 09-04-07, 09:46 PM	Hello all! I'm here today for a silly little reason, I'm looking to start up what would be my first game actually Dungeon mastering. I've been playing the game for a good long time. But honestly, most the DM's I've played with are all about the combat. I'm hoping to start a semi-steampunk world based game. With these changes honestly, I'm hoping to start up a rather streamlined,combat wise, role playing heavy game. A few changes I want to include are possibly a minimization on the focus of combat for my friends/players. So, I'm hoping these rules would help to them get into their roles a bit better. I'd love to put in more of a focus on like interactions with NPC's,traps, puzzles, riddles, and the like. This might be a bit over-exhaustive in the lines of changes, but as a whole the world might be mostly port and city based. I'm honestly not really looking to make a dungeon crawl. Anyhow, I'm just going to link to it; namely, because it's bit long winded: http://www.geocities.com/lynk151/Campaign_houserules.html If you have any suggestions or comments, please fire away; and if there's any chance you happen to have a link to something that might make combat rolling for attacks a bit more minimal, like Star Wars: Saga edition, Fire away!
Talisman 09-05-07, 12:15 AM	Basically, you went through UA and snagged what you liked, eh? Looks decent to me...the only thing I for sure don't like is the armor = DR rule. I know it makes better logical sense, but mechanically, you trade a decent armor bonus for a trivial armor bonus and minimal DR. DR 3/-- isn't much when you fight a hill giant that averages 19 damage a hit, or even a moderate-level warrior-type, who can easily whack out an average of 20 points a hit with a greatsword. The "armor converts normal damage to nonlethal damage" rule is intriguing to me...is that from UA? If so, I missed it (don't own UA; I borrowed it from a friend).
Cyphrus 09-05-07, 07:15 AM	Well honestly, I found most my things from the hypertext SRD, the only real things that I made are the smooth hit points curve, and the obvious stuff above "new mechanics" area. I believe I found a few oddball things elsewhere from actually here. But anyhow, I am kind of choosing to make use of three defensive forms, mainly because, I have a few players that would absolutely love to Be able to play various forms of unarmored combatants, their Errol Finn's, their Conan's, and what not. So, by making use of defense bonus system, they don't have to completely jump through hoops to actually survive. But in that change, it kind of made armor feel useless. I felt a bit sad for "Bob the Fighter". So that's why I'm hoping using the armor as DR and Damage conversion together, in addition to the defense bonus, it doesn't completely leave the full plate guy in the dust. I mean, at least combining the systems, the roughly all have the same amount of armor, but "Bob" gets to take a lot more punishment before going down. Using this system, just assuming "Bob" had 13 dexterity, wearing full plate and carrying a heavy shield at level one, I believe his AC would be: 10 (base) + 1 (dex) + 6 (Class defense bonus) + 2 (heavy shield)= 19 In addition to ignoring 4 points of damage completely (DR/-) , and only getting shaken up 4 points as well (subdual). On the downside, he moves like a slug. And many of his skills are rather tied up in armor check panalties Comparatively, Errol has, assuming he has like a buckler at best and 15 dexterity: 10 (base) + 2 (dex) + 6 (Class defense bonus) + 1 (buckler)= 18 While he won't be able to take as much damage, he's free to move about and do whatever he will without taking minutes at a time t take off and suit up in armor. This is just assuming both of them are just warriors. I think it's a rather fair trade. I thought it'd keep at least some incentive to actually make use of your money elsewhere outside of weapons and magic trinkets. Just out of curiosity, do you think having Action points from Eberron,and the Heroic surge Feat from D20 modern, as core mechanics, would work alright together from a mechanics point of view? I mean, they are rather limited in usage, I was just thinking since this is a rather "generic" adventure world to begin with. it'd give s little something to keep them interested, I know heroic surge is pretty much the 3.0 haste, but It's really rather limited in the end. Action points on the other hand, do get to be used in a little bit of anything... Anyhow, thanks for any input! Here's a link to the damage conversion rules. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/damageConversion.htm
nonsi 09-05-07, 07:43 AM	Generic Classes only - killing any hope of building a unique character. DM's approval - if you bother writing down house rules, don't keep things in the grey area. Race Changes - I second your approach. Hit points - I personally prefer an approach that lets you start much better (so you don't get yourself killed when a butterfly adjacent to you sneezes by mistake) and a steady but slow progression later on (so you don't rival average dragons with your HP). Out of all D&D rules EVER, the one I hated the most was rolling for HP. Experience is given at the and of adventure or at period of rest - Bad. Really bad. IRL the best insights are the ones gained through experiencing. Theoretical information is the one you have to "sleep over" to propperly "cook" in your mind. Table: Defense Bonus - I didn't get the motivation behind it (looks kind'a arbitrary) and what kind it is (armor/dodge/deflection/morale...) and what's the source of this bonus. (+3 chain shirt, btw, adds +7...) Reserve Points - not too warried about the realistic feel, are we ? Action Points - ditto Heroic Surge - ditto... + more relevant to combatants than casters Death Hurts - and what if a character dies 20XP away from his next level ?
Cyphrus 09-05-07, 08:14 AM	Howdy again. Here's a link to most the information I was making use of, for the most part it's from the Unearthed arcana book. http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/variantAdventuring.htm Honestly, I was going with the generic class system for the most part, namely, because, well, I was thinking you actually could could make an even MORE unique character, rather than being limited to "I am a fighter/barbarian/rogue/ranger". The generic classes are in sorts a good way to use a base class to help one design what they like. I mean if you wanted a raging berzerker of a warrior, you could say take rage as a feat, but say also you wanted to be a skilled rough assassin on top of that, you could take sneak attack as a class ability at the cost of a few feats, see what I mean, I mean, is that very easy to do without multi-classing the heck out of things? Honestly the whole "DM's approval thing was just to keep the typing to the minimum when I was writing it up; if you ask me what you would like to do, I'll more likely than not approve it as long as you have a bit of a story for it as to why your character would do it. And to tell you the truth, the whole experience when you rest bit is just to make bookkeeping on my part a touch easier, you'd give an event a set amount of experience. So say if they met a bad of orcs, and say snuck their way past ever so carefully, or maybe even tricked the orcs. I could give them experience either way for that area. Rather then having them need to necessarily get blood on their hands just to make experience. I want to move them away from the "I have to kill to get XP" vibe most the groups I've been in have. You know the whole negative level bit, I'm just playing with that one at the moment. I like it, but I want to do my mechanics test first. Iffn' ya read a bit from that link above it should explain the rest. :D
deathbane 09-05-07, 10:28 PM	I won't comment on everything, not that I found a lot wrong. Overall you did a good job, but I have questions Why are orcs recieve Toughness as a bonus feat? 3 hp may help at level one but that is about it. If you are trying to help them get rid of light sensitivity. If you are just doing it for flavor then game on. Why is the monk below the bard on the defense bonus table. I am sure a monk can defend their self better than a bard. I saw your armor proficiency table, but I would still move the monk up considering the fact that he will be on the front lines. Feat Changes: Some feats may have their requirements changed at the DM's discretion. Currently the only major change is to reduce the requirements of dexterity for two weapon fighting by two across the board (13 dexterity for Two weapon fighting, 15 for Imp. TW, 17 for Greater TW; Same for two weapon defense.) Because we are using only the generic classes I'm allowing certain class skills to become feats, we'll play that by ear. It is better to have all rules listed before a campaign starts so that if your players plan their characters out to 20 they don't get shafted when you say they no longer qualify for a certain feat they were hoping for.
nonsi 09-06-07, 03:51 AM	The generic classes are in sorts a good way to use a base class to help one design what they like. Ok, maybe it does wonders to the warrior class, which can take Tumble and Spot at zero cost, but let's see what it does to the other classes: Rogue: - most special abilities are gone. - SkPts actually took a hit. - even the things the Rogue did best - now the Warrior does it better. And NO. 2 good saves DON'T compensate. Healers: - 4 HP - No armor BAAAAAAAAD !!! Spellcasters in general: If you wish to go for the utilitarian role at the expense of being dependant of spellbooks........ well, you can't do that now can you ? Monk: GONE ! Gish variants: GONE ! Bard: GONE ! Warlock: Don't even mention this one. PrC's: Obliterated. To sum it up: The generic Warrior somewhat improves the Fighter (would be more appropriate for it to have 4 SkPts / level) and sorcerers win bigtime. All the rest take a major blow. I do tend to agree, btw, that Favored Enemy and Uncanny Dodge should be open to Warriors and that Trap Sense and Wild Empathy should be open to everyone. I mean if you wanted a raging berzerker of a warrior, you could say take rage as a feat Never encountered Rage as a feat. but say also you wanted to be a skilled rough assassin on top of that, you could take sneak attack as a class ability at the cost of a few feats Now that's overpowering - especially at levels 1 - 6, when the Warrior has nothing to lose for such abilities combination. And to tell you the truth, the whole experience when you rest bit is just to make bookkeeping on my part a touch easier As a thumb rule, calculate XP at the end of each meeting. This way you could aproximate the chances somone has gained the required XP to gain a new level ingame and acknowledge only if you're absolutely certain (but otherwise the players should't bother you ingame). you'd give an event a set amount of experience. So say if they met a bad of orcs, and say snuck their way past ever so carefully, or maybe even tricked the orcs. I could give them experience either way for that area. Rather then having them need to necessarily get blood on their hands just to make experience. I want to move them away from the "I have to kill to get XP" vibe most the groups I've been in have. I don't see any relation between ingame XP (yes/no) and gaining XP from bypassing obstacles (yes/no). You know the whole negative level bit, I'm just playing with that one at the moment. I like it, but I want to do my mechanics test first. Waiting to see if you come up with something interesting.
deathbane 09-06-07, 04:16 AM	Hello all! I'm here today for a silly little reason, I'm looking to start up what would be my first game actually Dungeon mastering. I've been playing the game for a good long time. But honestly, most the DM's I've played with are all about the combat. I'm hoping to start a semi-steampunk world based game. With these changes honestly, I'm hoping to start up a rather streamlined,combat wise, role playing heavy game. A few changes I want to include are possibly a minimization on the focus of combat for my friends/players. So, I'm hoping these rules would help to them get into their roles a bit better. I'd love to put in more of a focus on like interactions with NPC's,traps, puzzles, riddles, and the like. This might be a bit over-exhaustive in the lines of changes, but as a whole the world might be mostly port and city based. I'm honestly not really looking to make a dungeon crawl. Anyhow, I'm just going to link to it; namely, because it's bit long winded: http://www.geocities.com/lynk151/Campaign_houserules.html If you have any suggestions or comments, please fire away; and if there's any chance you happen to have a link to something that might make combat rolling for attacks a bit more minimal, like Star Wars: Saga edition, Fire away! I just realized you said generic classes only, but you have the regular classes listed. :confused:
Cyphrus 09-06-07, 07:18 AM	Well my, my. I wouldn't of expected much more attention on this since I looked last. Well shoot, I'll admit it, I'll have a whole lot to go through before this is whipped into shape to how I like it. I'll admit it, I'm still using much just directly off this site, as of current, the charts are just directly from there. That's why at the moment, there's still mention to the normal core classes. At the moment, I'd LOVE any suggestions as to ideas for changes you'd suggest. http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/variantAdventuring.htm I'm still rather adamant about the idea of the "generic classes", but you all are quite right. At the moment it does seem to favor the warrior... Honestly, as it stands, I haven't began to write everything down as far as going through the base classes and adding pre-reqs to class skills. Honestly, I'm kind of dreading that, because at the moment, I'm not certain on where to go with it, should I go through the 20+ book I have, and attempt to pull things out of the ether? I mean, I'm not certain what kind of requirements one would place on say, I dunno defensive roll, the rogue special ability. I mean if I even venture out of core for classes, that's just a whole new handbag, I mean how in heck could I design classes like the duskblade, short of making them VERY low entry PrC's? It is true, things like warlocks and Psions would be hard to shoehorn into this, short of doing the PrC thing again... Hrm, for ideas for feats that could help alleviate a bit from the limitations that I can see would be for example. I could totally use any help coming up with ideas. A few examples I could come up with just off the top of my head would be something like: Improved Hit Dice Reqs: Con 13 Through the tough knocks in your life, you stand above the rest in your ability to roll with the punches. Benefit: You may increase your hit dice size by one dice size, to the maximum of a d12. Armored Casting Reqs:Proficiency with light armor, caster level 1 You've grown so comfortable with light armor, you learned now to negate the spell failure chance. Benefit: You may ignore any spell failure chance in light armor. Monastic Training: Reqs: Wis or Int 13, Improved Unarmed Strike <insert fluff here> Benefit: While unarmored and unencumbered you receive your prime mental stat of choice (wisdom or intelligence) to your AC; In addition you get a scaling to armor as well. IN addition you deal damage as a monk appropriate of your size of half your level plus one. Add etcetera. I'd probably add in a improved version of that monk feat that'd allow the choice of one monk ability per 4-5 hit dice. These are just ideas that I'm coming up with here, it's not really set in stone as of yet. I mean, anything could happen honestly. As to the orc changes, I'm not quite certain what I'm going with for them as of yet, I'm almost feeling it would be rather fun to have them be less the Tolkien-esque, "THE SUN! IT BURNS!". And have almost a more Warcraft-like race, having them be a splintered, almost demonic race on one side and then a more civilized shamanistic tribal race, on the other. Do you all think it'd be fine to remove light sensitivity with the changes added in and have them still be fair? As to the whole toughness thing, I just always found it in my mind that orcs would be a lot tougher to take down rather than something like a human, but I really didn't want to go full bore and give them a constitution bonus, it's be a little powerful. So in a way, yes, it's a flavor thing. Well shoot, sorry for my rambling as a whole. I'd love any and all advice to help whip this world into shape! Heckn if anyone else wants to help tidy it up a bit, I'd love to have a "partner in crime" help make some crunch, and even more so, fluff! Thanks for reading again!
Ra-Tiel 09-06-07, 07:49 AM	If you like the generic classes, have you already taken a look at Crave's UberGenerics (http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-282481)? He seriously expanded the available options and made a general system that allows players to basically create their own "balanced" classes. Of course it needs DM approval (like almost anything else in the game :rolleyes: ), but perhaps it would work for your campaign. Alas, the thread's quite old and only available in the archives, so it's not the most appealing thing visually speaking. :( Anyways, happy gaming. :ayyyy!:
Werral 09-06-07, 09:04 AM	Removing light sensitivity does little to affect orcs mechanically. If you meet orcs in a dungeon it doesn't affect them at all. Okay you could light spell them, but you could also sleep or colour spell them anyway at low levels.
Cyphrus 09-06-07, 09:09 AM	Well you know, I just did a quick skim of that over, and it seems like it could be something to look into! Thanks!
Cyphrus 09-06-07, 09:11 AM	Well yeesh, talk about quick replies! I think I'll take that into account; thanks Werral!
deathbane 09-06-07, 10:06 AM	Removing light sensitivity does little to affect orcs mechanically. If you meet orcs in a dungeon it doesn't affect them at all. Okay you could light spell them, but you could also sleep or colour spell them anyway at low levels. I was assuming his PC's would have Orc's and they should be able to make the DC for for color spray at higher levels, and they wont get dazzled(?) by a low level light spell.
Cyphrus 09-06-07, 09:13 PM	You know, thinking about it, considering the ideas you all gave me; I think i might just not use the generic classes, at least untill I get everything pounded down. Well, at the very least till I break down all the core classes and turn class abilities into feats. =/ But all things decided, I'm still flipping a coin on if I should remove the light sensitivity. Anyhoo, any ideas or suggestions are still much appriciated; maybe even a link to the combat related things from SW:Saga...
deathbane 09-06-07, 09:55 PM	I only suggest the light sensitivity because I figured if you are going to help them, then you should help them. Orcs recieve Toughness as a bonus feat, In addition to recieving Weapon Familiarity with: Battle Axes, Great axes, and Orcish double axes, treating them as simple and martial weapons respectively, rather than martial and exotic. The only thing orcs get from that is the Orc Double Axe, well not really, but most orcs are going to be warriors or fighters anyway and those weapon proficiencies will come with the class. Every other race got something that is always useful. Even the half-orc can benefit because he does not have the charisma penalty anymore making him a better, paladin,cleric, and battle sorcerer(UA) if you allow that class I do like what you did with half-elves I might use that idea myself. I always liked them flavor-wise, but not mechanically. P.S. I realized that if the orcs dont have light sensitivity then it won't make sense for the half-orc to have it. I will try to think of something else if you don't want to take away the half-orcs light sensitivity and the bonus feats.
Cyphrus 09-07-07, 12:29 AM	You know half-orcs do not have light sensitivity, right? To say the truth, I just felt an orc is just trained to use axes from a young age, it just feels...right. I was just wondering, do you think it'd be better to remove the charisma penalty or the light sensitivity?
deathbane 09-07-07, 12:46 AM	You know half-orcs do not have light sensitivity, right? To say the truth, I just felt an orc is just trained to use axes from a young age, it just feels...right. I was just wondering, do you think it'd be better to remove the charisma penalty or the light sensitivity? I assumed they did, thanks for the correction. After much deliberation, and taking into account the DM and PC motives: I think the charisma penalty removal makes them more flexible as far as class selection, and the darkvision means one less spell they have to worry about(if they choose to be a caster).
Cyphrus 09-07-07, 04:43 PM	So in the end we have: Half-Orcs: +2 str, -2 int, Orc-blooded (human-blooded), Darkvision 60', Bonus Feat, Fave. Class: Barbarian. Orcs: +4str, -2int, -2 wis, Darkvision 60', Light Sensitivity, Weapon Familiarity, Fave. Class: Barbarian I'd almost say compared to dwarves or elves, they're relatively balanced.
deathbane 09-07-07, 08:44 PM	So in the end we have: Half-Orcs: +2 str, -2 int, Orc-blooded (human-blooded), Darkvision 60', Bonus Feat, Fave. Class: Barbarian. Orcs: +4str, -2int, -2 wis, Darkvision 60', Light Sensitivity, Weapon Familiarity, Fave. Class: Barbarian I'd almost say compared to dwarves or elves, they're relatively balanced. agreed Try the link in my sig for better diplomacy rules