I'm not sure if this is the right board for this buuut. A while ago I stumbled across a game style for D&D 3.5 in which the entire party plays as mutant doppelgangers. They start with 10 in every stat, low health and pretty much just low everything. They also start with no known languages but can understand basic mime (hand gestures conveying simple concepts) Here's the clever bit though, whenever one of the doppelgangers strikes a killing blow upon a creature he can gain a feature of said creature such as an ability score, power, trait, class feature, cosmetic feature, known language etc. Only one feature can be gained from a slain creature and only once (no raising that dragon from the dead so you can kill it again).
Now I was thinking of trying this out with my players for a fun little mini campaign, how would you go about this and what restrictions would you put in place?
As for restrictions - the following might make it less broken, or at least give it some longevity as a roll game . . .
1) I would try to find a point-buy "classless" character system for D&D 3.5. I expect you could find one or two. In general these are abusable, but they might play nicer with restricted access to purchase abilities
2) Base the total power amount that is stealable on PC level, and restrict by point value.
3) Give each monster 2 or 3 "stealable" traits that make thematic sense, but don't have to match 100% to actual creature powers. You could probably pick a class feature, the highest stat, and a defining attack or defense.
4) Never give out exact powers of any creature that is rated "not-for-PCs" (it has no Level Adjustment rating). Insetad pick the available themes from closest character class feature. That's because traits like being permanently insubstantial or ethereal will break your game with almost immediate effect.
5) For humanoids, playable races, or NPCs built using the regular class systems in v3.5, you can probably just make their class and.or monster type features available. to steal. One way of avoiding oddities with Dragon powers etc is to only populate your adventures with more mundane class-based enemies.
Ah, I failed to specify that I wanted to adapt this to 4th Ed, sorry :<
Most of your advice still stands though, thanks.
Possibly the easiest way to work this is to come up with a class that allows for this to happen. The PCs need a starting array of skills and powers in 4e. From there, level 2+ utlity powers, 3+ encounter powers and 5+ daily powers can be acquired from a pool of abilities "stolen" from their enemies prior to the level. Make sure to make each array different for the players in order to balance things out, but give each player a set of abilities that befit whatever "role" they're playing as.
Mind you, this becomes more potent if you let your players play as Changelings, because they can take the Chameleon paragon path and dupe their allies powers in addition to their enemies, making for nasty combinations. I'd disallow that little bit in doing this.
