Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Barbarossa Rotbart 07-19-05, 07:12 AM	Here are some ideas for house rules: Additional ability: Adroitness (Adr) (which replaces Dex in some skills and as modifier of the AC) Additional ability: Appearance (App) No hit dice, but Con + Str-Mod + Class-Mod as hitpoints. The Class-Mod is based on the original HD: d4 -1, d6 +0, d8 +1, d10 +2, d12 +3. A Wizard with Con 10 and Str 8 would have 8 Hp, a Barbarian with Str 14 and Con 15 would have 20 Hp. Weapon Profiency Skills replace the Weapon Profiency Feats and the Base Attack Bonus. Every logical Weapon Group is a particular skill, e.g. Swords, Axes, Maces, Bows. The ranks in these skills replace the Base Attack Bonus. Melee Attack Bonus is based on Str and Adr Missile Attack Bonus is based on Str and Dex Armors have Damage Reduction Shields have a bigger AC-Mod Part of the Attack Bonus can be used for parrying
Arcade 07-19-05, 08:33 AM	Do your players get that amount of hit dice every level or are they stuck with that forever? If they're stuck with it, spells and powerattack are going to be pretty deadly. If they get that every level, then everyone has a lot more hit points which means damage dealing abilities will become less powerful and make anything that requires save or die that much more powerful (and some complain it is too powerful already). Oh, one other thing, if armors give DR, I would be tempted to not give strength bonus to any attack rolls. The strength bonus is used to overcome the armor's DR instead.
Barbarossa Rotbart 07-19-05, 09:40 AM	Do your players get that amount of hit dice every level or are they stuck with that forever? If they're stuck with it, spells and powerattack are going to be pretty deadly. Yes, they are, but the monster would also have as few hit points. An adult black dragon would have 28 hp, an ogre 22 hp, the Tarrasque 60 hp. Any fight will be a lot shorter and much more deadly. Oh, one other thing, if armors give DR, I would be tempted to not give strength bonus to any attack rolls. The strength bonus is used to overcome the armor's DR instead. The Melee Attack Bonus was (Str + Adr) / 2, rounded down, and (Dex + Adr) /2, also rounded down, with Weapon Finesse.
Arcade 07-19-05, 11:00 AM	OK, let's see if I can add some more info then: Weapon proficiency skills- it's come up before. The worst case is that if someone like the rogue decides not to take the full complement of weapons available to him, he can boost his primary weapon group up to match a fighter's BAB. Even if you limit the rogue's skill ranks to be cross class, he can take a single level of fighter (something most rogues do anyway) and then his max ranks in that skill will be the same as the fighter's. Most characters usually use one or maybe 2 weapons in their entire career so specializing like this rarely hurts them. If you decide to limit the max ranks to whatever the character's normal BAB is, there isn't much point in adding this rule since it won't change anything and adds more bookkeeping. Multiple abilities affect to hit- The only downside with this is that to increase your attack bonus by 1, you now need to increase your stats by 4 points instead of 2. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you should be aware of it. With your hit point system, magic wil become very powerful. A mid-to-high level fireball will kill everything in its path, saving throw or not. Sneak attacks will be unstoppable. Basically, any damage that increases as you become higher in level will become more and more deadly until your battles become a matter of who gets initiative in the first round because there won't be a second round. Depending on your campaign, this can be good or bad, but you need to be aware of it. But if you want to try and keep things balanced, I would try and limit any type of damage that increases as you get more powerful (power attack, level based damage spells, sneak attack, etc.) Most of these damage increases are made because hit points increase. If you cap off one, you should likely cap off the other. In general characters will end up doing more damage anyway through higher stats, magic weapons/items, and weapon specialization. That should be enough. I think if you use this last rule especially, you will get a very gritty, "realistic" system that will keep players on their toes. It would take getting use to, but I wouldn't have any problem playing in a campaign with that set of rules.
Sinaz 07-19-05, 12:58 PM	What's the point of Adroitness and Appearance. You're just adding a new Dex and Cha by using synonyms. Do they get a Might (Mig) and an Intuition (Int2)? If I had my say, I'd veto that bill.
Barbarossa Rotbart 07-19-05, 01:09 PM	There are differences between adroitness and dexterity and between appeareance and charisma. Adroitness is not manual dexterity, but your balance and mobility. Appearance is not charisma, but physical beauty.
mrurbanitesmiley 07-19-05, 01:30 PM	So, you're making strength stronger, while splitting the utility of charisma and dexterity... Hmm... The average min-maxed fighter would now have like 3 dump stats which could be 6s without affecting the character much. All dexterity effects is a couple skills and 1/2 of ranged attacks, charisma and appearance don't affect anything either. Intelligence needs to be kept above 8 (or 6 for a human) so you get those precious 4 skill points at 1st level (fighters get 2+int mod right?) for weapon proficiency, but no other reason. But wait. Dexterity effects initiative, and since you can be killed in a single attack, initiative needs to be maxed. Hmmm... Why wouldn't every wizard take a level of barbarian, for fast-movement, +4 hp, +6 hp during a a rage (Usefull if you need to haul *** out of the fight because your buddies got killed in one fell swood) Hmm... I wouldn't play it. And If i did play it, the only viable combat options would be rogue (4d6 sneak attack damage kills anything) or a Wizard (10th level fireball + Improved initative kills tarrasque, 20th level fireball + Improved initiative kills tarrasque on average roll (Magic beats Damage reduction) )
Fargren 07-19-05, 01:36 PM	I believe apearence is nice, but really not usefull. It's just a dump ability, if it doesn't give any modifiers per se. It doesn't even seems to aply to any abilitie checks. And what would happen if it got down to 0? Also, you should proabaly make spells do just D2s for damage. Else they are too powerfull. I beleive you would be more comfortable playing world of darkness...
Sinaz 07-19-05, 01:41 PM	There are differences between adroitness and dexterity and between appeareance and charisma. Adroitness is not manual dexterity, but your balance and mobility. Appearance is not charisma, but physical beauty. I reckoned there would be differences... but really, all the abilities are so abstract, you are better off leaving Charisma as an all encompassing social barometer, and Dexterity as an all encompassing agility/adroitness factor.
Barbarossa Rotbart 07-19-05, 02:54 PM	Let's ignore the additional abilities and the strength influence on the missile attack bonus. How do you like the rest? Here are some ideas for weapon skills: martial arts (Str) short blades (Str) maces (Str) (includes hammers) spears (Str) staffs (Str) crossbows (dex) axes (Str) (includes picks) long blades (Str) fails (Str) polearms (Str) bows (Str) throwing weapons (Dex) Nearly each exotic weapon is a skill of its own. Every character who would gain a specific weapon proficiency feat gains the appropriate weapon skill as class skill. Also the each weapon skill has a -4 penalty so that 4 ranks in a weapon skill give a BAB of +0.
Elvintry 07-19-05, 11:08 PM	well the weapon skills are decent and a call back to the weapon proficiencies of 1st and 2nd edition but what about the fighter's lack of substantial skill points? I mean the fighter's base power is in the variety of weapons. Weapon Group feats are good but skills limit the fighter and other combat classes even more with their skill choices.
Barbarossa Rotbart 07-20-05, 05:34 AM	That's right. The combat orientated classes of Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger will gain four additional skill points all others only two. And all races who gained weapon profrciencies as racial features will loose these, but will gain a racial +1 bonus for these weapons.
lostone 07-20-05, 09:37 AM	I don't like the idea of adding attributes. But for charisma I have been toying with this idea: The way I see it there are four types of people in the world (as far as charisma goes). People who are both good looking and charismatic People who are good looking and not charismatic People who are not good looking but are charismatic People who are not good looking or charismatic So the question becomes how to represent this in the game. I think I have a good way to do it. Charisma becomes seperated into two substats: Physical Charisma and Mental Charisma. The player rolls their Charisma and then they decide which of the four types above they want to be. If they want to be both good looking and charismatic or ugly and not charismatic they do nothing and use Charisma as normal. If they want to be one of the other types then they do the following: Say the character rolls a 15. They decide they want to be mentally charismatic and physically not (they're a paladin). They can then raise their mental charisma by +1 for every -1 (or 1.5 or 2, undecided) they take on their physical charisma. They can't increase above 18 and they can't decrease below some limit (probably 4-6). So the character in our example might take the rolled 15 and assign a mental charisma of 18 and a physical charisma of 12. Charisma based skills use the appropriate modifier, if it might use both (such as bluff where you could be seductive on both a physical and verbal level) you use what is appropriate, probably just the 15 that was rolled. However I find it easiest to leave things alone, as adding more stats complicates matters.
Arcade 07-21-05, 07:12 AM	That's right. The combat orientated classes of Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger will gain four additional skill points all others only two. And all races who gained weapon profrciencies as racial features will loose these, but will gain a racial +1 bonus for these weapons. I've seen this before. It still has the same problems as I mentioned above- every class can get a fighter's BAB by specializing in only a few weapons. Also, if you are using it with straight skill points, your fighter types will likely not use all their weapon skill points and use them for normal skills instead. A ranger only needs to know probably 2 weapon groups. So now it's like he gets an extra 2 skill points for free. This really goes for all the fighting types. They need 1 or 2 weapon groups to be effective.
mrurbanitesmiley 07-21-05, 07:07 PM	Personally, I don't think attractiveness should be a stat at all. 1, because a character should be allowed to look however they want, regardeless of their stats, and 2, grading attractiveness on a 15 point scale assumes there is a normal standard of beautey. I mean, among one group there might be, but in a world of multiple races, I don't think there could be. Examples: Human with 4 'attractiveness' is malformed, warty, and all around gross. Humans shun him. But among orcs or bullywugs, he might be the standard of beautey. A character who is ugly by human standards might gain additional advantages in a situation like this, and you should never reward low attributes. It would be like saying 'your dex is 4, so you trip alot, and get a +4 clumsy bonus to reflex saves' Human male with 18 attractiveness. To women, he's like brad pitt and leonardo de caprio had a love child. To men, he's hated (due to jealousy, mainly but there are other issues as well.) He's effectivly being penalized in some social situations for having a high stat, which is also bad. It would be like saying 'you're so strong, whenever you strike your opponent your sword takes damage' Elves. Elves are by definition attractive. So, what is an elf with 3 'attractiveness'? Ugly elves just don't work. Attractiveness as a stat is a bad idea. Don't do it.
Sinaz 07-21-05, 07:10 PM	Personally, I don't think attractiveness should be a stat at all. 1, because a character should be allowed to look however they want, regardeless of their stats, and 2, grading attractiveness on a 15 point scale assumes there is a normal standard of beautey. I mean, among one group there might be, but in a world of multiple races, I don't think there could be... well put.
MadBlue 07-22-05, 02:11 AM	The way I see it there are four types of people in the world (as far as charisma goes). People who are both good looking and charismatic People who are good looking and not charismatic People who are not good looking but are charismatic People who are not good looking or charismatic So the question becomes how to represent this in the game.I'd handle being "good looking" with a Feat like "Sex Appeal" from Pulp Heroes (+3 to Diplomacy and Bluff checks vs NPCs normally attracted to your gender). The way I see it is that most players don't care enough about how good looking their characters are to merit a separate stat for it, and that those who do want a stat want their characters to be good looking enough that it has a game effect. If it really only matters to some players, it's worth having those players invest in a Feat, rather than having everyone roll dice for attractiveness. If the players who want characters with incredible looks would be willing to put points into an Appearance stat instead of Strength or Constitution, they'd be willing to take the Sex Appeal Feat instead of Cleave or Improved Initiative. MadBlue