Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mshea 07-04-07, 12:27 PM	In a few weeks I am running a D&D game for some folks with mixed experience levels. Some have played D&D for a long time, some have never played at all. I don't want to force players to buy books or read everything online and I want to have a fast and fun game built around some of the things we read about in the Star Wars Saga rules, True20, D&D Miniatures, and Unearthed Arcana. Here is the result: http://mikeshea.net/simple_d20_rules.html and here is a character sheet for it: http://mikeshea.net/simple_d20_char_sheet.pdf Thoughts?
Rustmonster 07-04-07, 04:44 PM	Triple Attack: At level 15, if not moving, Fighters can attack a third time. All attacks are at -10 This seems about alright, except that this is the best a fighter will ever get. Heal: At level 15, a cleric may heal a touched ally for 10 hitpoints per level and cure all alements. 150 Hp of healing? Is that 150 hp over 1 day, or is it per encounter, or is it just EVER touch? If you stand next to a cleric, you'll never die. In fact... Resurrection: At level 14, a cleric may resurrect someone with remains The level before this, they have the ability to ressurect. Apparently at will. Mages may cast any of their spells at will. At level 16, a mage can learn power word kill. Power Word Kill: Kills one creature with 100 hp or less That mean that they kill anything that has no con bonus (fighter has 100hp at this level). A ranger or cleric needs at least +2 con bonus to survive at this level. Hell, a level 20 mage needs a +2 con to not die instantly. And of course, all you have to do is get a fighter to hit them once, and they likely have enough to be killed with this spell. This is MASSIVELY overpowered compared to other classes. There are likely other flaws, but I pointed out some of the more glaring ones. The biggest problem is that fighter caps out at 15 while all the other classes go to 20 (cleric gets more healing, rouge gets more sneak attack, mage gets spells, ranger gets favoured enemy). Yes, they get full attack bonus, but so do rangers. In this system at low levels, it's great to be a melee class, as they can knock low hp enemies away easily. But when mages reach level 2, they can take scorching ray. 16 damage. No save. A fighter at level 2 with the best masterwork weapon and +4 does 13 damage. The only difference is that the fighter has a better attack bonus, so hits more, but then again, the mage can hit from a range. This is negated at level 3 anyway, as a mage can use true strike. So at level 3, my money would be on the mage. While we are at level 3, let's look at cleric. Hold person. At will. 3 rounds of stun. Now, against said level 3 fighter, he has a 55% chance of hitting the fighter, assuming that the cleric has NO WISDOM BONUS. If he has, say, a 4, then he has a 75% chance of hitting. If he went crazy and put 6 in wisdom, he has an 85% chance of hitting. The fighter has about a 40% chance to hit. If the fighter is hit, he can be coup de grased. Even if the penetrete chance fails (I'm guessing it's fort), the fighter takes at least 10 damage, which ,if he has a +4 con, is 25% of his 40hp. Then again, if the cleric has +4 wis and the fighter has +4 con, the cleric has a 55% chance to kill him with the coup de gras. And even if he fails, he has 2 more turns to try again. At level 12, a mage can use finger of death. Bring out +4 con fighter. He has a fort of 26 at level 12. The mage has a penetrate of 16, assuming +4 int. That means Mr. fighter dies 55% of the time. What can the fighter do? 20 damage. Not too impressive seeing as the mage just killed a 120 hp enemy with a 55% chance. Also not impressive as a cleric flame strike can do a flame strike doing 48 damage to a 30' diamiter area. Even if the enemy saves, they take 24 damage, unless they have evasion. The list goes on. A part of 2 mage and 2 clerics would probably kill anything that they meet. Mage can even be a more effective fighter than a fighter, seeing as they infinite true strike. And as they level, they literally level. More and more things can die instantly from the mages killer spells. If one of them dies, a cleric can ressurect them with no trouble, and damage becomes a joke as they can heal you for all your hp. They are nigh unstopable. Here are my thoughts: 1) No, this is not for new players. It is nothing like D&D, and will not help them learn the game. That's like saying I can learn how to play magic the gathering by playing pokemon cards. Just because they are the same type of game doesn't mean that learning one makes you learn the other. 2) Flawed. Although I love the simplicity of this system, it is wildly unbalanced. Work on it. Give incentive to be a class other than mage or cleric. 3) You omitted some things, like a cleric or rouges BAB, and some abilities do not say what kind of save to be made. And here are some questions: 1) Are the clerics abilities once per day, once per encounter, or at will? You never said. 2)How often does a cleric or rouge get +1 to hit? It doesn't say. 3) How much does a bow or crossbow cost? According to your system, a single arrow or bolt costs as much as a longsword. 4)Which ability is used for which penetrations? No class seems to use Cha for penetration. And I would change "penetration" to something else. It's hard not to giggle.
Bobson 07-04-07, 05:13 PM	I think it's a vast oversimplification of D&D rules, which is both good and bad. It's certainly going to be easier to learn and play. And it's clearly related to D&D as it plays (although not at all how it's written, which is kindof the idea). On the other hand, there's some flaws in it (which rustmonster pointed out), and some omissions (You don't have any rules for what happens when you want to grab someone and smash his face with your knee, for instance. In D&D, that'd be either an unarmed strike or a grapple check then a damage-in-grapple grapple action. In most other systems, it'd be opposed strength, or a special attack roll, or something) I don't think it'll accomplish any teaching of D&D, but it might be able to simulate it. For a one-shot, with some tweaking, it'd work. The experienced players will probably smile, nod, and happily jump in, and the newbies will figure it out pretty quickly. I wouldn't want to try and run anything ongoing using it, though.
mshea 07-04-07, 05:47 PM	Thank you both for the feedback. It seems that most of the overbalance you describe doesn't come from the spells themselves but the ability of the casters to cast them at will. A level 1 sorcerer in D&D can get truestrike already and cast it four times per day. This would, for at least four hits, give him the same power that the mage in my simplification has. It looks like my mage spell progression is too fast as well. They should probably be on the sorcerer scale of level/2 round down. That will reduce the power you mention and put them more in line with the sorcerer in regular D&D. While we are at level 3, let's look at cleric. Hold person. At will. 3 rounds of stun. Now, against said level 3 fighter, he has a 55% chance of hitting the fighter, assuming that the cleric has NO WISDOM BONUS. If he has, say, a 4, then he has a 75% chance of hitting. If he went crazy and put 6 in wisdom, he has an 85% chance of hitting. The fighter has about a 40% chance to hit. If the fighter is hit, he can be coup de grased. Even if the penetrete chance fails (I'm guessing it's fort), the fighter takes at least 10 damage, which ,if he has a +4 con, is 25% of his 40hp. Then again, if the cleric has +4 wis and the fighter has +4 con, the cleric has a 55% chance to kill him with the coup de gras. And even if he fails, he has 2 more turns to try again. You're right but this isn't far off from what is already in D&D. A 3rd level cleric can memorize hold person twice. The DC for the cast is 10 + 2 + wisdom which could be up to DC16. A 3rd level fighter has a will save of +1. He'd get killed anyway. At level 12, a mage can use finger of death. Bring out +4 con fighter. He has a fort of 26 at level 12. The mage has a penetrate of 16, assuming +4 int. That means Mr. fighter dies 55% of the time. What can the fighter do? 20 damage. Not too impressive seeing as the mage just killed a 120 hp enemy with a 55% chance. Also not impressive as a cleric flame strike can do a flame strike doing 48 damage to a 30' diamiter area. Even if the enemy saves, they take 24 damage, unless they have evasion. That assumes a warrior has no equipment bonuses at all. At that level he's likely to have some sort of magical weapon and some sort of strength booster. If he has a mage and cleric in the group he also hits harder, faster, and more accurately. You point out a flaw with the save DCs. I wanted to make them 10 + level + ability but that puts the favor on the attacker. 11 + level + ability is better. It is unfortunate that this isn't the same as ACs. I wonder why that is. Would it be better to put a cap on castings per day? It would be easy enough to say that a mage can cast each known spell once for each primary ability bonus. An int +4 would let a mage cast a spell four times a day. That puts a limit on the unlimited truestriking death mage cleric team. I'm trying to make clerics and mages more warlock-like. I much prefer a simplified casting system than the existing system. Right now it takes forever for clerics to figure out which spells they want to memorize, what spells they have cast, how many casts they get, what the DC of the spell is. and so on. Thank you again for the feedback. I'll keep editing.
Rustmonster 07-04-07, 07:53 PM	It seems that most of the overbalance you describe doesn't come from the spells themselves but the ability of the casters to cast them at will. Mainly. I still have objection to Power Word Gygax... I mean, Power Word Kill, because of it's instant, no save killings. 101+ HP or die is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Of course, this isn't your fault, you're just using the real spell. More a beef with them than you:P . You're right but this isn't far off from what is already in D&D. A 3rd level cleric can memorize hold person twice. The DC for the cast is 10 + 2 + wisdom which could be up to DC16. A 3rd level fighter has a will save of +1. He'd get killed anyway. Up to, 16. I'm guessing on average at level 3 about 15. With DC 15, against a fighter with +1 Will, you still only have a 65% chance to hit. DC 16 makes it 70%. Close, but still lower. That assumes a warrior has no equipment bonuses at all. At that level he's likely to have some sort of magical weapon and some sort of strength booster. If he has a mage and cleric in the group he also hits harder, faster, and more accurately. I assume this as you have not given rules for magic items whatsoever. Even the prices of mundane weapons is extremly vague. How much is a bow or crossbow? Does a single arrow or bolt really cost 5 gp? Would it be better to put a cap on castings per day? It would be easy enough to say that a mage can cast each known spell once for each primary ability bonus. An int +4 would let a mage cast a spell four times a day. That puts a limit on the unlimited truestriking death mage cleric team. YES, it would be better to put caps on casting. That's why D&D has them. Because we arn't talking about a melee class that has a chance of hitting the average enemy for moderate damage, we are taling about someone who uses magic, that does at least twice, maybe three times as much damage as a melee class, and even if it doesn't hit fully you still take damage. Someone who can hold you still while they snap your neck. Someone who can turn invisible, fly, teleport, or kill you instantly. Their powers are supirior to a melee class, but they can't use them more than once or twice to compensate. You may want something other than just caster stat per day, because then they could use items to boost that stat, and get outrageous amounts of uses per day. Maybe they get "mana" equal to their level, and whenever they cast a spell, it uses (spell level) of "mana". Cantrips cost half a "mana", of course.
mshea 07-04-07, 10:36 PM	So here are some changes based on your feedback: 1. Saves went up to 11 from 10 to make it an even 50% at even levels with even attribute scores. 2. Spells can be cast once per day per attribute bonus point. That limits them but not by much. 3. I might remove some of the instant kill spells but I'll have to look at them. 4. I added in +.75 BAB per level for clerics and rogues. 5. I increased the level required to earn a spell level to 1/2 round down. This puts it more in line with sorcerers known spells. In response to items, the players guide won't include magical items. I'm also working on a Dungeon Masters Guide that will include all the basics for magic items, monsters, and experience points. Players will definitely get magic items. Weapons and armor base bonuses will be +1 every four levels. Attribute boosting items will be +1 every 5 levels. A 16th level fighter would have Plate armor +4, longsword +4, ring of protection +4, amulet of health +3, gloves of dexterity +3, belt of giant strength +3. I'll do some testing with these changes. Thanks again for the feedback.
mshea 07-06-07, 09:07 PM	Here is the latest version, converted to PDF: http://mikeshea.net/simple_d20_players_handbook.pdf I like this system for building a sort of Dungeon Delve scenario where you might want to quickly build a party of level 14 characters. That's a lot harder to do with the standard D&D. I don't think this works as well for a campaign.
Rustmonster 07-06-07, 11:50 PM	Here is the latest version, converted to PDF: http://mikeshea.net/simple_d20_players_handbook.pdf I like this system for building a sort of Dungeon Delve scenario where you might want to quickly build a party of level 14 characters. That's a lot harder to do with the standard D&D. I don't think this works as well for a campaign. You have managed to address the infinite uses per day of spells problem, but then again, only slightly. I'm guessing that only at low levels will a mage run out of spells. Once they have as many spells as in your example, they are not likely to ever run out in one encounter, so it becomes moot. Also, if their spells are based per encounter, how many spells do they cast out of battle? Infinite? As well, I'm assuming that a cleric also has per encounter abilities, so out of battle, can they heal allies to full hp all day, given time? Another question: If mages and clerics have abilities that increase the abilities of all allies, doesn't that just mean that it's still better to just have clerics and mages as your whole party? Also, what's up with the mages million cheap abilities? +4 AC at level 1? Who cares that they can't wear armour, they basicly get scale mail for free. Also, slight discrepancy with your mages AC. If I am correct it is more like 36, not 32. I may be wrong, as the magic items, bonuses from cleric and mage buffs, makes it confusing. On the topic of magic items, how much do they cost? The bonus increases as you level, so you don't have to buy more than one, correct? It seems like the PCs would have no trouble buying any of the items that they want, so why don' they just start with them all? They don't even really need gold. The items don't have a bonus until level 4 or 5, so it's not that big a deal. Yet again, cleric and mage are the only useful classes. Well, not that the others arn't good on their own, it's just that you'd be an idiot not to play a cleric or a mage. The way that their resources regenerate basicly destroys the counterbalance to their supirior abilities. You get spells per day in D&D because that limits the amout of power they can have. Yes, they can do more damage than a fighter, but only for so long. With your system, mages and clerics regain resources after every battle, while the other classes don't regain resources (like hp). Well, this is of course unless they have a cleric, who can heal them right up. The only real use of a fighter or any other class is to get in the way of melee attackers so the mages and clerics can cast spells. One other thing I noticed is that you didn't even bother to write the attack bonus or damage of a mage or cleric. Does that mean that any class under full BAB can't hit in later levels? That's tragic for the rouge, as he has only cleric level BAB, and no spells to cause any damage. They probably can't even get the sneak attack damage in, so it doesn't help much at later levels. You have certainly improved on the system, bu to what extent I can not tell. It is still far too stilted towards mages and clerics at higher levels. Yes, at low levels, fighters would probably be the best class, but mages and clerics would still be essential to a party. Clerics are needed as they can heal the fighter after every battle. Mages are needed for backup fire, and later on, they will be the only real way to cause any damage. A good party may be mage, mage, cleric, fighter, although at later levels the fighter will be left in the dust, only helping when the enemy has spell resistance. And I'm sorry to say it, but rouge sounds patently useless. Fighter and ranger have better BAB, and don't need to flank to do good damage with their abilities. This might make a good board game with some tweaking, but it is nothing at all like D&D. This WILL NOT help teach people to play D&D. I am willing to test play the game, to see if my assumtions about the game are correct. If I find anything out, I will let you know. You never know, maybe I'm being too harsh on you.
Rustmonster 07-07-07, 12:01 AM	And please, please tell me the answer to some of my old questions. 1) How much is a bow or crossbow? 2) Do you have to buy arrows or bolts, or do you just have infinite? 3) If you do have to buy arrows or bolts, do arrows or bolts cost 5 GP each as your price rules suggest? 4) Why do you state that charisma helps with some penetration check, when there is no class that uses charisma for this? 5) Why do you even have charisma as a stat? Your examples didn't have any bonuses to it, and from what you have said, that it is more for dungeon delves, why even have a social related stat? It seems like your fighter simply took it as a dump stat. Why would anyone NOT give themselves a -2 in charisma, so that they can have +2 bonus to usful stats? It doesn't DO anything. I would also ask you to please give actual prices for magic items, as well as a description of what they actually DO. I have no idea what a ring of protection does, nor what a cloak of resistance does. How much does a magic weapon cost? How much do any of these things cost?
Tequila_Sunrise 07-07-07, 12:48 AM	It is important to note that saves are not supposed to succeed a constant 50% from level 1-20. Because spells are are weanie-busters at 1st level and ground-shakers at 9th level, saves are actually designed to increase faster than DCs so that clerics don't have to spend a week to resurrect the party after each encounter.
mshea 07-07-07, 09:26 AM	And please, please tell me the answer to some of my old questions. 1) How much is a bow or crossbow? 2) Do you have to buy arrows or bolts, or do you just have infinite? 3) If you do have to buy arrows or bolts, do arrows or bolts cost 5 GP each as your price rules suggest? 4) Why do you state that charisma helps with some penetration check, when there is no class that uses charisma for this? 5) Why do you even have charisma as a stat? Your examples didn't have any bonuses to it, and from what you have said, that it is more for dungeon delves, why even have a social related stat? It seems like your fighter simply took it as a dump stat. Why would anyone NOT give themselves a -2 in charisma, so that they can have +2 bonus to usful stats? It doesn't DO anything. I would also ask you to please give actual prices for magic items, as well as a description of what they actually DO. I have no idea what a ring of protection does, nor what a cloak of resistance does. How much does a magic weapon cost? How much do any of these things cost? I probably wouldn't bother with ammo costs. I never worry about it in my normal D&D game. I'm not sure on the prices of magical items. I don't think I'd have a party buy them as much as earn them as they increase. If I'm converting this to a more D&D miniatures type system, I wouldn't worry about the costs for such things. Likely it would be whatever is in the DMG. Charisma is good for charisma-based skill checks. I only list five classes but there's no reason other classes couldn't be converted over that also use CHA bonuses. You're right, it makes little sense for a combat-based game. I'll have to continue looking at the balance of casters and fighters. Thanks again;.