Post/Author/DateTime	Post
unundindur 12-25-06, 11:16 AM	Realia; the fantasygame-system. Based on DnD 3.5 This is a system intended to change the focus of DnD gameplay to a somewhat more realistic and hopefully a more continually rewarding experience. Instead of gaining unexplainable hit-dice, I here try to focus on something much more tangible, and without the hit-dice to boot a lot less powerful; feats. I have tried to create a system where you learn special maneuvers (feats) at a greatly increased rate, but do not gain base attack, skills nor hitpoints as usual. Simply put, there are no longer levels. As you progress, you learn new feats and tecniques making you more versatile and powerful, but still within reach of the lowly goblin who with luck swings his greataxe. Apart from the realism aspect and meaningful progression mentioned above, this system was meant to simplify gameplay and ease the task of balancing for the game-master. With monsters none-the-less beeing vastly powerful it should no longer be that important to keep players from great treasures. Players will neither have the trouble of chosing feats, they can just take that other feat at a later stage. Inspired by the gameplay of Call of Chutulu, this type of play is not for the faint of heart. Death will be a constant threat, but so will the reward for beeing alive. With less focus on combat this system should also encourage roleplay in the form of interaction, intrigue and without limitless stamina none can storm a castle alone. "Watch your back, keep your allies close and embark on true adventure, where men are men and dragons are dragons." The text below incorporates some other systems not in itself nessesary nor related to Realia, but in my mind synergise with the idea behind Realia. Among these systems are the point-buy character creation (from PHB) and action points (from EbberonCS). In most ways official monsters can be used without changes. Character creation Abilities When starting each player uses the point-buy method with each stat starting at 10, and an extra 20 points to spend. This should allow for heroic characters, none falling below, nor any game-breaking ”18 on every stat” characters. Race, Class and Hit points After this, every player choses a race as usual. When finished they do not chose a class. Instead they gain 6 hitpoints (modified by constitution as usual). This is also the norm for any NPC of the basic races. NOTE: Notice the difference in NPC health from regular DnD 3.5, where a commoner uses a d4, a noble d6, a warrior d8 etc. Skills The players then get [6+intelligence modifier]*4 Skillpoints to assign. All skills are considered class skills NOTE: Effectively the class/crossclass system is gone, which is one less thing to think about. Optional: If the GM wants your players to be special from the start, give them the Toughness feat for free, and let them use action points as shown in the Ebberon campaign setting. Background and feats Every character then creates a background history and based on this choses 3 bonus traits (for now, a trait is a feat, which you all know). Given that a character has no class, weapon and armour proficiencies must be chosen if desired. Assigning equipment Now the character need only be assigned gold, which I think the GM should give out based on history. Remember, money don’t affect in-group balance much before we are talking about extremes. There is no problem if a noble gets 500 gold, while your poor ranger gets 50 gold, it will even out soon enough. Now you should have a party ready to go. The next time you will notice this system is when giving out experience. Experience, and progression Give out experience as normal, but always count the players as level 1 for this purpose. Every time a player gains 500 experience points he/she is rewarded with a trait. NOTE: This system will imply that it is easier to progress the more powerful you are since your powers grow but the treshold for gaining a trait is fixed. I personally don’t have a problem with this (its simple), but if you do there is nothing against scaling the xp slightly, much as levels work today. Remember though that the scale should be very slow (even though you gain traits you don’t grow in power anywhere near the old level system). Traits As said above, when a player have gained 500 experience points he/she gains a trait. I will now stop using italic on the traits since I am about to explain what it is. Feats are traits. In addition, the following list displays the extra traits. When a character gains a trait he/she could chose any one feat he/she meets the requirements for, or a trait from the list below. NOTE:Some feats have also been altered and are listed below. Extended traitlist The following list shows all abilities that can be chosen when you gain a trait. The number in paranthesis is the number of traits a player must spend to gain that spesific ability. Feats (1) Weaponfocus, toughness and skillfocus, great fortitude, lighting reflexes and iron will can be taken multiple times and stack. Base attack bonus and skill rank modifiers are no longer present. feats require a watching eye from the GM, as there are far to many for me to monitor. The feat Armoured caster can be taken more than once, and the first time it is taken it allows for spellcasting in light armour. NOTE: Allowing weaponfocus, toughness and skillfocus feats to stack endlessly with themselves is what allows progression in the usual manner (hp, chance to hit and skills). With this system players will not be forced to use their experience to improve these areas, if they for example want to gamble more and take other traits instead of improving their hitpoints. Trapfinding. You can detect traps with a DC over 20. Furthermore you can disable magical traps. Sneak attack (1+). As the 1st level rogue ability. Sneak attack can be taken more than once, but each time after the first the trait-cost increases by 2. Uncanny dodge (1) Skill mastery in any one skill (1) Familiar (1) Crippling strike (1) Slippery mind (1) Divine courage (2) Turn undead (2) Death attack(2). Death attack works somewhat different than the traditional ability of the same name. The preparation before utilising this ability is the same, but instead of an instant kill / paralyze attack the character deals maximum weapon and sneak attack damage (also on critical hits). Furthermore there is no savingthrow against this attack. Caster (1). By taking this ability, you learn a 1st level spell you can cast as often as you want. You can chose if the spell is to be cast as arcane, divine or psionic. All spells gained via this ability have a base caster level of 1. Wizardry (1). Whenever you take this ability your caster level improves by 1 for all purposes. Caster 2 (3 feats) Ty taking this ability you learn a 2nd level spell you can cast as often as you want. You can chose if the spell is to be cast as arcane, divine or psionic. All spells gained via this ability have a base caster level of 1. NOTE:Note the lower than usual caster level. Improved toughness = Each time you gain toughness you gain an extra hp. What are the negative consequenses of this system: GMs may in many cases have to tweak monsters. Not to the extent that they are as easy as before, but because players don’t have high level spells monster abilities can be more powerful than appreciated. While it can be said to be a good thing, this system slows down monster-progression, so unless the GM wants to do some serious tweaking of monsters you will play a long time before you defeat a mindflayer, ancient red dragon or other powerful adversary. It can potentially be hard to get enough players and GMs to accept playing with such a unusual set of rules. This of course is the problem with people being conservative, not with this system in particular. What are the positive consequenses of this system: The game is greatly simplified without losing the fantasy feeling. Classes, Prestige-classes, cross-class skills, dynamic experience, cross-classing are all gone. If the system looks more complicated, I am sure it is due to two reasons. First, in contrast to the core books, I have added notes explaining the various changes. This is something core DnD didn’t have to do, as it is the norm everything is compared to. Secondly, the system is incomplete, hence in a few places GMs have to make descisions, which in itself can be said to be complicated. To players, however, this system should really look simple and streamlined, almost to the degree of a computergame. The difficulty scale is near endless. When you could reach the cap for normal DnD (excluding the epic handbook) in relatively short time, this system shoud seem to last forever and still you can use material from the published books. Even with slow monster-progression, character advancement is rapid as never seen before. In my experience players love feats, spells and abilities, and typically cannot have enough of them. Hit dice and base attack is something they only want to be powerful enough to kill the next monster in line, which they want to kill to gain a new interesting feat/spell/ability. This system should take this into account by giving greater opportunity to customize your character, and create interesting concepts. Realistic and immersive. When the jump in power for gaining a trait is far less than the increase in power from gaining a traditional level many new dangers must be taken into consideration. A local riot of peasants can be dangerous, killing a guard holds a very real danger in numbers and thus a character can never be totally safe. Spellcasters will likewise be more potent, but more in that few can counter their tricks than in shere power. Easier for players to accept GM calls. This is a common trait for all un-official rules really. Once players have accepted that you don’t follow the DnD system to the point, it will also be easier to tune various aspects of play without anyone getting upset because it ruins ”the way it was meant to be played”. Less balancing issues. With a system not bent on balance it is easier to accept a monster beeing too good/bad for its level. Feat balancing can also be slightly rougher without any huge problems. All those who have fond memories from AdnD or other less refined systems hopefully get the intention of this statement. This of course is not to say the system cannot gain from perfection, which is what I hope for in the long haul. What is not (yet) possible with this system: High level spells don’t seem easy to implement due to extensive effects. Constitution is not as useful as it should be, since hd is gone. Fix needed. I have not found any good way of implementing multiple attacks, but it might be a good thing. Instead of going with X attacks per round rounds should now go fast. The only time this should get problematic is when a powerful character faces many weaker ones. Realistic? Yes. Intended? Well...not to this extent. HD-based abilities are problematic. Death effects, intimidate, level-draining etc. Determining worth of various class abilities is hard when not playtested. Abilities with variables more so. Is adding Wis to unarmoured AC worth 1, 2 perhaps 5 feats? Any feedback or help is greatly appreciated! If you have playtesting experience, want to have an ability implemented as a trait or just want to aid in the process of creating Realia, I am most eager to hear you out. And remember; "Watch your back, keep your allies close and embark on true adventure, where men are men and dragons are dragons." EDIT: Added problem with HD-based abilities. EDIT: Made Great fortitude, Lightning reflexes and Iron will stacking. Yours, Rasmus Haugen Sandvik
unundindur 12-25-06, 11:28 AM	Reserved
Jenrock 12-30-06, 12:11 AM	I really like this system, and I might have a proposal for assigning combat abilities. Give them "combat points1" at creation equal to (3 + Int2 mod) * 4 . These points can be assigned to any of the weapon groups from Unearthed Arcana (see here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/weaponGroupFeats.htm) if you don't know what they are) and to three new defensive skills: Parry (block things with your weapon), Dodge (get out of the way), and Block3 (shield). They have the same cap as skill points 4. This would be a good way (in my mind) of implementing combat ability seemlessly into character creation. Of course, none of this is set in stone, so look at the following four points. 1 Might want a name more clever than combat points 2 Doesn't have to Intelligence based, but I have no idea what other ability would work. 3 Give Block a better name or merge it into Parry, or we could merge them all into "defense", but everyone would max it out. 4 This could be changed to character level + 1 or +2. Changing combat to a skill system would require more die rolling on everyone's part, but the DM's can use a shortcut if they wish. The could simply "take 10" or "take 15" (yes, I know there is no "take 15") on all defensive skills to simulate AC (could do the same short cutting for attack skills for that matter) and let their characters do all the rolling. Again, this is a really good system and I hope my ideas aren't to off base. If they are, don't bother being polite, just tell me ;) . As for magic, the only thing I can guess is to borrow one of the skill systems that are floating around these boards. EDIT Multiple attacks: These may be attempted at any level as full-round action. The first extra attack is at a -2 penalty. These increase by one for every extra attacks, so if a character wants to attack five times (that's four extra attacks) the penalties would be -0 (main attack)/-2/-3/-4/-5. These penalties could be harsher, if you think it is necessary. I am using a similar system for an RPG I am writing, and I find it works quite well, but it may not transition to D&D so well. Here's a more in depth example: Cam, an apprentice swordsman, has 3 ranks in heavy swords and a Strength modifier of +1. This means his base attack is +4, but he wants to attack an opponent three times. The first attack is at no penalty, the second is at +2 and the third is only at +1.
unundindur 12-30-06, 02:47 PM	I really like this system, and I might have a proposal for assigning combat abilities. Give them "combat points1" at creation equal to (3 + Int2 mod) * 4 . These points can be assigned to any of the weapon groups from Unearthed Arcana (see here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/weaponGroupFeats.htm) if you don't know what they are) and to three new defensive skills: Parry (block things with your weapon), Dodge (get out of the way), and Block3 (shield). They have the same cap as skill points 4. This would be a good way (in my mind) of implementing combat ability seemlessly into character creation. Of course, none of this is set in stone, so look at the following four points. 1 Might want a name more clever than combat points 2 Doesn't have to Intelligence based, but I have no idea what other ability would work. 3 Give Block a better name or merge it into Parry, or we could merge them all into "defense", but everyone would max it out. 4 This could be changed to character level + 1 or +2. Changing combat to a skill system would require more die rolling on everyone's part, but the DM's can use a shortcut if they wish. The could simply "take 10" or "take 15" (yes, I know there is no "take 15") on all defensive skills to simulate AC (could do the same short cutting for attack skills for that matter) and let their characters do all the rolling. Again, this is a really good system and I hope my ideas aren't to off base. If they are, don't bother being polite, just tell me ;) . As for magic, the only thing I can guess is to borrow one of the skill systems that are floating around these boards. EDIT Multiple attacks: These may be attempted at any level as full-round action. The first extra attack is at a -2 penalty. These increase by one for every extra attacks, so if a character wants to attack five times (that's four extra attacks) the penalties would be -0 (main attack)/-2/-3/-4/-5. These penalties could be harsher, if you think it is necessary. I am using a similar system for an RPG I am writing, and I find it works quite well, but it may not transition to D&D so well. Here's a more in depth example: Cam, an apprentice swordsman, has 3 ranks in heavy swords and a Strength modifier of +1. This means his base attack is +4, but he wants to attack an opponent three times. The first attack is at no penalty, the second is at +2 and the third is only at +1. Thank you :) Regarding combat-skills or what I shall call it, I had such an idea a year or so back, but had completely forgot about it. Thank you for making me remember :D . Regarding your take on it though I am not sure how it is better than the standard system. I will though add that weapon proficiencies follow the weapon-groups in UA (as was the intention, my group just take it for granted). What did you mean with the block/parry/dodge skills? I recall such variations from MMOs, but I don't quite get your intention here :) And the way I designed this, there should be no cap to skills, and thus we would have to enforce a new cap to an eventual combat-skill system. I once thought about having a skill (like any other) called for example combat (sword), which worked like BaB for all swords, but I found it to have a problem with progression (skill focus ging +3 to his...). I will though look into that again, in hope of finding a logical and good solution. It makes sense from an interface and roleplaying perspective to have combat integrated in the skill system. Over to the two weapon fighting I cannot really understand what i was thinking about :rolleyes: . Your first sentence made so much sense there, and of course one should be able to multi-attacck at any level, jsut with a penalty. Regarding the penalty, I thought it could make sense to have it this way: You can make multiple attacks, but then all attacks that round are at a -5 penalty. If you have +10 to hit you could then instead have +5/+5, or +0/+0/+0. If you wield two weapons you gain one attack with each weapon (+8/+8 could translate to +3/+3/+3/+3). Its simple, endless (if you take a -40 penalty, why not have 8 extra attacks?) The only problem I cna see here is that the game could end with a crawl... This is a good reason to keep everything to 1 attack per round (but then magic must also be limited). Intriguing :) And thank you very much! I look forward to more feedback!
Jenrock 12-30-06, 03:36 PM	My thoughts behind the parry/dodge/block skills was that anyone could invest combat points into these skills, using the same points they use for weapons so that they could have something akin to Dodge +3, Parry +4 and the like. The main problem with it is that the differences are only cosmetic. After all, parrying a blow and dodging a blow both have the same end effect- you don't get hit. This problem only increases when you consider the fact that they would both probably have dexterity as the key ability. If I'm still not making any sense, look at the example below. Cam, our resident swordsman, has invested three of his 20 combat ranks into heavy swords. He then decides that he will put four ranks in dodge and two in parry. This means that if he tries to avoid an attack, he will have a modifier to his defense roll equal to 4 plus his dexterity modifier, or if he wants to block a blow with his sword, he will have a modifier to his defense role equal to 2 plus his dexterity modifier. This would, of course, mean that you would have to use the armor as DR (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) variant, which takes this system in the wrong direction (because it needs to be simple) sorry. I'll revise my suggestion thusly: Keep combat points, but for weapons only. They get (3 + Int mod) * 2 at creation (since 20 combat points is far too high). The reason I like the combat points is because character's only get three tratis to start with. So, if someone want to play a knight with heavy armor, they'll need light, medium, and heavy armor proficiency in order to wear heavy armor. That's three traits right there, so what about a weapon? What kind of knight goes around not knowing how to swing a sword (which would take two traits: simple weapon proficiency and martial weapon proficiency (longsword))? Yes, I realize that at creation, they won't be able to use heavy armor, but they will probably want a shield to look all knightly and stuff. With Combat Skills, they don't have to worry about allocating traits to weapon proficiency, just armor (since my former defensive skill sugestion was incredibly stupid- teach me to post late at night). Also, you could give combat skills a cap, even if skills don't have one. Just keep in mind, the lower the cap, the lower the multiplier should be. I just realized that without levels, a trait-based cap would be better. For instance: your ranks in one combat skill cannot exceed the number of traits your character possesses. This would mean that at creation, no combat skill could exceed three, which, in my mind, is brilliant. It could be lowered to one-half the number of traits a character has (round down), for a max of one at creation. If this option was chosen, it would be better just to eliminate the multiplier on Combat Skills. On multiple attacks: 1) Your system is better than mine, I highly suggest you use it. 2) It wouldn't really slow combat down that much, because most players will have written down on thier sheets how often thier character can safely attack, and full attacks can only be used as a full-round action. In addition, with a trait-based cap, they won't often try more than a few attacks. This is my last plug for a Combat Skill system, if it still doesn't fully agree with you, I'll stop blabbering on about it and see what else I can help you with (although it really looks like you have most everything taken care of). EDIT: Umm.. what's happening with saving throws?
unundindur 12-30-06, 05:07 PM	At last someone who seem to care for "deep-design" :) I will get back to your post as a whole later, but regardign saving throws the feats great fortitude, iron will and Lightning reflexes should be stacking. Simple, elegant and easy to understand :)
Weretiger 01-01-07, 04:03 PM	Hmmm.... interesting. Reminded of Story Engine RPG; that was all trait based. This is an interesting compromise between the point-based system (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/D20_twilight#1._D20_twilight:_basics) I'm running on currently and the class system. Less complicated than point-based, more freeform than classes. I think my players will like this, except for the low-magic and low HP. I think I might modify it (if I use it) so that you can take caster traits (for level times 2 minus 1) to increase maximum possible spell cast, and wizardry to increase caster level. Then use the mana system from D20 Twilight, and give perhaps 2 spells known per wizardry and 2 per caster trait. And switch toughness to 3+ConMod HP or something like that... Perhaps take weapon groups as in UA for weapon foci and proficiencies. That way, you aren't a complete master in one weapon and completely useless with everything else. A knight could start with medium armor... but the martial thing is sorta problematic... aha! Martial Weapon Proficiency has no prereqs! So you could take Light and Medium Armor, and Martial Weps in something. Although having light armor be a prereq for medium really doesn't make that much sense... one could learn to use medium or heavy but have never worn or practiced with light armor. But I digress. Pretty cool... might have to print this one.
unundindur 01-01-07, 04:57 PM	Thank you very much :) As for further development, I have now started working more seriously on this, and I expect to release a more comprehensive edition in the not-to-far future. What will be different: Combat is a skill, which you make a check to hit against opponents combat skill. armour becomes Damage reduction as in UA, but the numbers will be tweaked. Skills will be lumped together more to make rolling dice more logical, and make them more feasable. For example there is a "sneak" skill which incorporate both hide and move silently. Lots of small potential problems are beeing looked into, such as balancing atributes, incorporating spells and some sort of comprehensive system for all X/day abilities. (likely some sort of spirituality and madness points...). I will try to keep the number of these pools to a minimum though for ease of gameplay :) I am honoured you considder using this already, be sure to post your experience if any :) And if we ahve any really talented artists around who would like to add some flavour to the project, please give me a tell. Tudeliho!
Jenrock 01-01-07, 07:36 PM	I found this link (http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_IL_excerpt6) for you if you want to look at how Monte Cook did his skill groups, although you probably have something far better up your sleeve, if this thread is any indication :).
Weretiger 01-01-07, 10:24 PM	On grouping skills: Here's something I found on an old website (Silver Dragon's Home). I didn't create it, but I copy-pasted it to make sure I had it in case the site went down (which it did :weep:). Grapple (Dex/Str) This is a hard sell. Grapple checks already grow with the BAB, so making a skill out of this mechanic seems flawed at first. Imagine the monk, however. At 20th level, a monk's BAB is 5 behind his HD where his max ranks are 3 above it. That's an 8 point difference. Even considering Improved Grapple, the difference is only halved. Take this idea into account, however, and the monk becomes the top grappler-class (as I feel it should be and fails to do as written). At full ranks, a 20th level monk has a base Grapple of +23, coupled with a descent Strength or Dexterity (this skill uses the best, unlike the current grapple rules) and Improved Grapple, their check could easily break +30. Throw on some of those crunchy Complete Warrior feats like Clever Wrestler and the monk is back in business and tossing those half-orc barbarian grapplers on their faces. Class Skill: Fighters, monks. Branch-ideas: A feat called Chokehold that sticks the victim of your pin with the "suffocating" condition (DMG p. 304). A feat called Submission Move that gives your Grapple check a critical threat range of 19-20 for double damage on successful Grapple checks. Perception (Wis) This wraps Listen, Search, and Spot (as well as the Scent special ability) into one skill. The idea isn't to make it easier for rangers and rogues to diversify their skills, but to streamline the idea of people getting more cautious with experience. Fighters just don't have the skill points to sink into Spot and Listen as it stands--and they're the ones taking lead in the party most of the time, playing the all-too important role of meatshield. Racial modifiers to certain forms of perception still come into play here. Elves, for instance, gain a +2 to Perception rolls made to see or hear something. Gnomes get a +2 to smell something, same as orc-breeds. Creatures with the Scent ability gain a racial bonus to Perception rolls made to smell things equal to their hit dice. Smelling something under this mechanic would be little different than making a Spot check. If the smelling creature cannot otherwise detect their quarry then a successful Perception roll (DC 20) will give them a general idea and an opportunity to make attacks, albeit with a 50% miss chance. Class Skill: All. Branch-ideas: Skill Focus (Perception) becomes a considerable option for games where surprise is a big factor. Alertness becomes moot. Quick Reconnoiter (from Complete Adventurer) is still just as cool. Run (Con) You can basically put ranks to the Constitution check made to avoid having to stop running. As the rules state (PHB, p. 144), a character can run for a number of rounds equal to their Constitution score, but after that they must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution check to keep running. Each round spent running requires an additional Constitution check with a cumulative +1 to the DC. Class Skill: Barbarians, fighters, rangers, monks. Branch-ideas: A feat called Cross Country, allowing you to run over difficult terrain. A feat called Flight Reflex, allowing you to maintain your Dex bonus to AC while running. A feat called Marathon Run that reduces the amount of time you need to rest after finally failing a Con (or Run) check in half (5 rounds instead of 10) before running again. Scry because it's a good skill, I've expanded on it a bit (useful for sensing ethereal beings, estimating the magical power of something, and appraising magical items -- I've made it an all-purpose "magic sense" skill). Instead of Balance, Climb, Jump, Swim, and Tumble, I'm adding three skills: Acrobatics, for all Dex-based athletic maneuvers; Athletics, for all Str-based; and Stamina, for the Con-based. You want to tumble, you use Acrobatics. You want to sprint, you use Athletics. You want to run a marathon, you use Stamina. Too bad he never came back and finished scrying... Monty's stuff looked OK, I guess, but nothing really compelling. I think I've seen a feat that grants skill points, but I can't remember where... any help? I also found some skill based psionics by epicfetus recently; they were on his homepage (http://mysite.verizon.net/darinl/), along with some other interesting stuff. Those could be modified and used as a basis for spellcasting based on skills if you want to avoid having to build feats for it (although it would take a lot of work on the skills, too).
Marrethiel 01-02-07, 08:41 PM	I like the system and I think it has a lot of promise. To address some of the discusion: A melee attack does more damage the better it hits, this replaces the need to swing multiple times per round. Subtract the total to hit roll (weapon skill plus dice roll) from the target's defence. This is the damage done but it is capped at the maximum damage you could theoretically do. A 1d8 + 1 weapon with 1d6 of sneak attack will allow you to do 15 points max damage. The defender can chose to use his armour class by itself or he can parry and move some of his attack to defence. He then loses this amount of his next attack. eg: fighter 1 with 6 attack and 14 AC fighter 2 with 5 attack and 12 AC F1 swings and rolls 14 which he adds to his weapon skill of 6, totalling 20. Minus the 14 AC gives 6 damage. If he was using a d4 dagger, it would be capped at 4. F2 is hurt and decides to parry the next incoming attack and only attacks with 0 of his 5 weapon skill. He rolls a 5 and does no damage as he does not exceed his opponents 14AC. F1 Then attacks with his full attack and gets an 16 total. Now that his opponent is parrying he does no damage because he didn't exceed the new AC of 17. Con could do more by changing the toughness feat to read: Gains one hit point plus Con bon.
unundindur 01-02-07, 10:02 PM	Thank you for nice response :) And regarding a way to incorporate expertise is already taken care of. If I understood you correctly its just that way. You can subtract from defense and add to offense and vice versa as you please. That said, your setting will last for one full round. I will try to create the system with two ccomplexities. There will be "basic" and "tactical" game, of which this kind of option belongs with the latter. The way this will be written is that the advanced options will be listed in a frame under their mother-theme (in this case the weapon training skill).
Weretiger 01-06-07, 11:07 PM	Very cunning, Marrethiel. Very good for D&D weapons (maybe not so much for modern firearms; you'd never hit the damage cap, and never do that much damage). One thing though: You say Fighter I has +6 to attack, rolled a 10, and got a total of 20... What other factor did you add in? +4 str? Weapon focus? Enhancement boni? How would weapon specialization work? Or would it simply cease to be? What about the flaming weapon property; does it add to attack and damage? If so, it's worth much more than +1... In conclusion, while your system is interesting, it would require going through the books and making some adjustments on a case-by-case basis... not that that's bad, just time consuming.
Marrethiel 01-08-07, 09:42 PM	Very cunning, Marrethiel. Very good for D&D weapons (maybe not so much for modern firearms; you'd never hit the damage cap, and never do that much damage). One thing though: You say Fighter I has +6 to attack, rolled a 10, and got a total of 20... What other factor did you add in? +4 str? Weapon focus? Enhancement boni? How would weapon specialization work? Or would it simply cease to be? What about the flaming weapon property; does it add to attack and damage? If so, it's worth much more than +1... In conclusion, while your system is interesting, it would require going through the books and making some adjustments on a case-by-case basis... not that that's bad, just time consuming. Ooops, that should have been a roll of 14... I've changed it. I'd probably do elemental/holy damage on weapons as a seperate roll or I would change the description to be something like +3 Fire Enhancement as if it was a normal enhancement on the weapon. You get it cheap because it is elemental and not physical. Specialisation adds to the max damage of the weapon, so it is still useful. Or, if the numbers don't work well, change it to +1 hit and + 1 damage. As for modern, an automatic weapon could add a bonus to hit based on the amount of amunition fired in an attack. I've never seen modern so I am not sure about this. I intend one day to sit down and crunch the numbers to make this reasonably balanced...
Weretiger 01-08-07, 10:49 PM	The thing, though, upon further consideration, is that getting hit with a big, sharp piece of metal hurts more (on average) than getting hit with a small, blunt piece of wood... normal D&D takes this into account, whereas here two equally accurate people with different weapons, one more destructive than the other, deal the same damage, assuming that the lower weapon person doesn't hit his/her weapon's damage cap... just a little odd. Because an 8 lb sword has a lot more kinetic energy focused into a smaller area than does a 3 lb club.
Sunchilde 05-14-07, 03:02 PM	I think this system looks pretty amazing. I do have to say though that the last few posts about your to hit and damage being rolled into one strange sort of amalgamation didn't turn me on. However - the idea of removing the classes altogether and forming a more free-flow system without crazy power jumps appeals to me. This is reminiscent of the white-wolf system (the d10 dicepool system) but without some of that systems inherent combat flaws (you could be an amazing combat based werewolf and still fail to hit a human standing there in broad daylight without any dex or dodge staring at you . . . not cool) I like perception as a skill. I don't think swordplay as a skill would work because skill focus (swordplay) takes over weapon focus pretty hardcore. The concept of Parry and dodge skills are also somewhat redundant as they should be lumped into the feat - combat expertise - for the skill parry and dodge is incorporated into AC. I think this system looks like it could be pretty great, and with some testing and adding even more of the class features already made in DnD into the system this could be simply spectacular -- good job, I applaud thee!
unundindur 05-14-07, 04:46 PM	It should be noted that I now develop this system more in-depth, but have gone a little further away from normal DnD. It began with an idea of simlifying what we have, but now its more about creating what I beleive is a simpler game, and thus falls closer to what I and many others seek from roleplaying. Just to name a few of the changes; Stats are gone, initiative is rolled into a skill, hp is a skill, saves are skills, to-hit is a skill of sorts etc. I hope to roll as many mechanics into eitehr skills or traits, and thus make it "that" much easier to explain to new-comers and veterans alike :) The downside of this is that it make most current books unusable unless heavily tweaked. That said, with tweaks the new system should generate an experience that is more dynamic and grants continual reward and extreme customization. I am not sure what more to say at this time. I won't give out the exact text untill its in a ready for alfa-testing.
Arcade 05-15-07, 10:12 AM	The magic section seems a little sparse, but I like it. Unlimited casting but few spells known- and low level spells at that. I think you could keep adding higher level spells, for instance 3rd level spells for 5 traits. Unlimited fireballs here would still mean about 7 traits to make them worthwhile (to bring caster level up to 3). And I think you could limit it even more by saying that you need more spells of each lower level before gaining higher level spells. For instance, to get a 3rd level spell, you would need 3 first level, 2 second level, and one third level, for a total of 14 traits, not including any caster level increases. This would emphasize the scholarly wizards who focus on nothing but magic, but they will pay for it when they lack hit points, saving throw increases, etc. It also does make people fear powerful wizards without making it a high magic world.
starfire311 05-15-07, 10:40 AM	My thoughts behind the parry/dodge/block skills was that anyone could invest combat points into these skills, using the same points they use for weapons so that they could have something akin to Dodge +3, Parry +4 and the like. The main problem with it is that the differences are only cosmetic. After all, parrying a blow and dodging a blow both have the same end effect- you don't get hit. This problem only increases when you consider the fact that they would both probably have dexterity as the key ability. If I'm still not making any sense, look at the example below. Just want to comment on this, I use a system where characters get both a parry and dodge bonus to AC, they are not cosmetic, they are indeed different in my system. Dodge applies to touch attacks but not flat-footed, parry applies to flat-footed but not touch.