So I am running a D&D game with my group of knob heads… er… players recently.  Despite not being the biggest D&D fan, I’ve got a good sized collection of 3.5 books, and I’ve seen some interesting ‘bitz’ and ‘gubbinz’ in some third party shit, stuff I wanted to import into the game to make things… cooler.

Right away things turned to shit.  I’ve got Unearthed Arcana Bloodlines alongside Fantasy Craft Racial Feats, the Iron Kingdoms Gun Mage went from broken to broken in a few levels, and so forth.

Then it got worse. The party, at 5th level average took down a CR 17 boss mob and broke the XP chart. Oh, sure, there were twice as many players as recommended, and a few Goodies to even the difference, but one kicker was the raw amount of magical power the players bring to the table.  

None of this is the point, however.  I’ve been running this system for a while, and while I’m not the worlds greatest GM, I know the system pretty well by now, and I’m sick of working end runs around the bloat and the just plain idiot rules (Skills, for example.  I have players who literally can not fail ‘crucial’ skill checks that are remotely level appropriate alongside players who can barely succeed in the skills they are allowed to take… (Seriously: The 4th level Elf had a +14 Spot check!)

It was resolved in the earliest sessions that the game would be used to test bed some houserules. This evolved quickly into the seed idea of a complete reworking from 3E principles.   It is now resolved that I will begin writing the actual rules into a book format for my group to use, a la a PHB, thus reducing the number of the books at the table to 3 (PHB, DMG, MM).

This thread is to solicit feedback and to recruit eye to head off problems before they get calcified into the system.

Core Principles/Goals:
A fixed 1-20 level system, familiar classes, six attributes rated from 3-18 (Base), familiar racial options.  All classes remain viable across the level spectrum.  Streamlined combat/non-combat rules with reduced stress for the random number generator system.

Notable changes:  Feats/class abilities, Armor as DR. No class/cross class skills, with reduced ‘numbers’ in Skill system.  Fighter archetypes will get more impressive at high levels, magic will have a reduced number of effects/metaphysical limits (Still, wish spell will probably remain… powerful magic is powerful)

Magic Items/treasure will be overhauled as well:  Gone are straight boost items (+1 sword? Gone. A flaming sword is cool because its ON FIRE!, to steal a formulation), as well as many attribute boosters.   Since Magic Items will not affect success/failure they become less mandatory


Enough with the generalities, on with some specifics.

Attributes: I’ve a mind to restrict the game to a points buy for attributes, with a high end 18 a major effort to secure, but I’ve got players who would revolt if I took their dice away.  NPC write-ups, if I ever get that far, would stress how unusual even a single 18 is.  I am satisfied with the existing bonus structure: a major change is that the bonuses will be less universally applicable.

The reason to keep the 3-18 is not just for nostalgia. Conventional ‘stat checks’ will be literally flat dice checks against the number, yes to keep the number actually relevant.    Yes, races will offer bonuses to attributes, since I’m not clever enough to come up with a more elegant idea.

Strength: No longer increases chance to hit, but will continue to offer bonus damage for most weapons.  Encumbrance chart will have penalties for higher levels of encumbrance, to discourage just carrying the most shit you can… this will probably be ignored by players, however.

Dex: Also will not increase chances to hit, but will increase damage for relevant weapons (accuracy), and will continue to increase AC

Con: Very passive as is.  May be used more in combat/damage chapter.

Int/Wis: Bonus spells may not continue to exist. Bonus skill points do not exist (see Skills), but bonus starting languages might.

Charisma: a more robust social system (not, however, social combat/diplomancy) will make this stat more relevant. Still a casting stat for some casters (see Classes)

Races:
Standard D&D races exist with few changes.  At the moment I am not particularly compelled to change the vanilla races very much. That is NOT to suggest I won’t be mucking around with the races at all.  I am strongly tempted to roll up the Halfling/Gnomes into a single entry, but I don’t want a rebellion from without!
Notably, however: Half Orcs are now just Orcs. Half Elfs may not exist, pending hue and cry from the peanut gallery.   However: Options for halves continue to exist, keep reading.
Also: the addition of a lizard race of some sort (Dragon born or actual Lizardmen) is a must. One: I have a player who has a real fetish for scales, and two, in twenty-five years of playing I have observed that this is not an unusual phenomenon. I am willing to pander.
I am tempted to streamline races significantly, however. I resist the urge to redefine races by a single modifier (Elves are pretty, +2 Cha; Dwarves are tough, +2 Con) because I’ve observed that this makes races seriously fucking boring, not to mention min-max bait, where everyone just plays the race that gives them the right bonus for their class.   I may, however, reduce bonuses to +1’s… not entirely certain.
Gone, however, are the vast plethora of sub-races. Poof! No Aasimar, no Tieflings, no Genasai, no Whisper Gnomes or Lava Dwarves… all gone.

Instead: Each race will have ‘racial feats’ available. An Elf Player could seriously take ‘Dark’ as a starting racial feat and be, essentially, a Drow.  There will be universal feats (Dark, takeable by evil/underground versions of any race) and racial specific (Fairy Elves, but no Fairy Dwarves…what have you).  This will be fully fungible at character creation with other ‘background’ choices (like in 3E you could seriously chose to have Snakeblooded as a Feat, but only at first level.  This is a painful dilution of Feats as it stands, but are not a poor way to understand a character… taking a racial background may replace taking a more ordinary background (being a dark elf means you were not raised in a circus… sad, but true…). The only problem here is deciding how many backgrounds are truly appropriate. One is easy, but seems too…limiting.  

Example of a Limit to just one Background: This is meant to replace ECLs for ‘powerful’ choices.  This means that the number of steps of available ‘power’ are strictly limited to the number of backgrounds the player can commit.  Adding races like Minotaur or Ogre seem feasible, but would necessarily ‘consume’ background options far more than playing a ‘dark (one background) elf’.  Note: inherently few, if any, races would have ‘innate spells’.

Classes:

There are nine Classes, three primary and six hybrid.  The best way to explain my intent here is to envision a circle with three points equidistant on that circle. Those three points are Fighter, Caster and Expert.  Between any two points on the circle are two smaller points. Those are hybrids. Fighter-caster, Caster-Fighter, etc.

Names are slightly more colorful. An Assassin, for example, is a Fighter-Expert (filling in a role similar to a 3E rogue, a combatant who relies on stealth and treachery to do massive damage), while a Monk would be a Expert-Fighter (relying more on unusal and esoteric lore to be useful). New classes are possible to replace existing points on the circle.

Classes have three important distinctions: Numbers, Cores and Abilities.  Numbers are balanced, generally, between the classes.  Fighters would have a full BAB and a full Def, while Casters would have a weak BAB.  The points also represent your default primary save.

Note: Clerics are, so far, functionally identical to Wizards.   Note also: Barbarians and rangers are, at least so far, merely flavorful expressions of the Fighter. A ranger may, however, be a hybrid Fighter-Expert (having a pet and unique knowledges (favored enemies and so on) are Expert type abilities) or a Figher-Caster (having ‘clerical/woodsy spells).  

A theoretical conceptual space  in the middle of our ring could exist but I have no real desire to design it.

From the perspective of the reader these divisions would not be evident.

Numbers, however, do not make a class.  Instead, each class has access to ‘ability trees’, akin to Star Wars Saga/ D20 Modern.  Casters would have, literally, a ‘Spell level’ tree, where they boost their mastery of magic. Actually, they’d have at least two trees (one for power, one for knowledge, and a third, at least, for meta-abilities like Quicken or what have you).  Each class would have access to half a dozen total trees, and no tree can be accessed back to back (to keep spell casters from spamming ‘Spell level’ to hit ninth… however: I am more inclined to not tax the spell casters too badly here. Increasing spell level gradiation to 20 levels is a secondary design possibility). Fighters, for example, would have access to a ‘Rage’ tree.

Fake Edit: Alternative (perhaps better?): Casters 1’st pick is ‘Spell Casting’, regardless (choice of ‘schools perhaps?) which like many/most abilities scales with level. Further tree picks would increase things that currently fall under caster level.

Note: Ends of trees should be ‘BAD ASS’ regardless. The fighter learns to stab armies in the face, the Expert has a pet dragon, the Wizard gets wish.  

Also: Some trees are ‘universal’, accessable to anyone.  Prestige Classes (or ‘multiclassing’) exists in the form of gaining access to new, specialized trees. Not all trees need to be equal in length or total bad-assitude, either.), yes this is a method of selling ‘splats’, creating ‘bloat’ later on down the line… mwahahahahahaha!!!!

Cores: One thing that occurred to me is that frequently many things we consider important to a class are scattered where the character is ‘improving’ or what have you, or otherwise relegated to fixed.  Level 1 should still be ‘weak’ but the play should still have meaningful choices to make for interesting. Also, many of the ‘core’ classes are not distinct in the system at this time.   I won’t go too in depth here, but the easiest explanation is to look at casters (who, yes, as of this writing have been given the most thought here…)

A caster would chose his ‘Casting Stat’, with the distinct influence on his casting that would come from that.  By default, all Int Casters have to memorize their spells (but are not wizards), while Wisdom casters have a wide open spell list but fixed conditions/rituals to access those spells, and  CHA casters have a small spell list but utter flexibility within that list.  Then the caster can also chose his ‘flavor’ of magic.  You can totally have an INT based Cleric or a Cha based Druid.  Your Flavor determines your actual spell list.  Note, anyone with a Spell Casting Tree would have to make similar choices (Hybrid classes, essentially, though a ‘prestige/multiclass’ pure Fighter or Expert might have to make such choices later (Or be given them by the Prestige tree that gave them access to spells).

Experts would have to make similar choices (A social based rogue, a dex based monk type etc.)  

It is intended that core choices influence more than just flavor/use mechanics but also provide some other ‘note’.  An INT based caster may have a bonus for using paraphenlia (orbs, wands, whatever), and an Arcane Caster may always have a familiar/Athame, or what have you.  Yes, this and the trees are still mostly in the brainstorming stage, fuck you.

Levels:

Note, the 20th level is intended as a Hard Cap for leveling. At this point the character should be looking for other options to ‘upgrade’, such as becoming a God or just retiring, what have you. A possibility I’ve entertained is they could access additional Tree/ability picks in return for big fucking piles of XP.  

Hit Points:

The lazy part of me wants to keep HP as is.  This is despite a personal distaste for growing pools of hit points, tank and spank fighting and so forth. This is also explicitely against the unofficial mission statement to remove any obviously wonky rules from the game. Hit Points simply break down if looked at too closely, and in so many situations. A high level hero should never consider it practical to fall off a cliff rather than fall down because the ‘damage’ is too small to bother him. While that might suggest an improvement to falling rules, the fact is HP are the core of too many situations where the rules break down if looked at. Easier to first fix the root problem, yes?

So: The wind/wound system, the damage saves and ‘status tracks’ are all available to me as examples. The Wind/Wound system still has a HP inflation (ugh), but real damage is…well.. real, reducing stupid HP tricks. However, people have noted that ‘instagibbing’ still occurs frequently regardless of level, and that is not so good.  

Some hybrid between them seems useful. One vague thought I had was to allow traditional style hit point rolls, with the option to ‘sell’ Hit Points back for other damage options (more wounds, for example, or a smidgen of DR), though balancing the point breaks is hard. If no one sells back HP, the costs are probably too high, if everyone sells it all back, they are too low/other options too good.  I don’t want to be testing this until the end of time, you know…  Regardless, I’m going to have to resolve what to do with HP before I get too deep in combat rules, obviously.


Skills:
The skill list will have some streamlining. A major design element is that every skill should have relevance in an adventure.  This is more aimed at Ride than Craft. Ride frequently is a binary consideration in games I’ve observed/played. The player either has it because he needs X amount of Ride, or he doesn’t because he only gets on a mount to go from point A to point B.  Thus either Ride is removed from the game or given some sort of importance to adventurers.  
Spot and Listen become one skill, as to Hide/Move Silently.  Not necessarily the most realistic treatment, but it eliminates half the potential rolling in a sneaky situation. Search is right out, as it replaces playing with rolling.
Craft may or may not be removed. Knowledges are likely to be reduced to a smaller, more intuitive list.  A ‘monster lore’ skill may replace having to have five skills to be able to positively identify an ooze.

Class does not impact number of skills. What does? My instinct is to tabulate the numbers from Attribute Bonuses, but this gets fiddly and, combined with random rolls penalizes players who roll badly, which I want to avoid. That one series of rolls should NOT be the central determinant of a character’s viability.

Compounded problem: The ‘end state’ for any given skill should be something on the order of +10 total (innate), with DC’s scaled to match.  Many skills will be done opposed. Lock Picking, for example, is opposed by the skill of the locksmith, with conditional modifiers adjusting either party.  Obviously the GM would determine the opposed value ahead of time, like normal, providing a streamlined rolling process (that is: Do not roll every perception check, but determine how attentative that guard is in general… a lock, once made, is largely fixed in difficulty unless something changes to the lock itself (the mechanism rusts, broken lockpicks jam the mechanism, whatever).  Note that attributes do not impact the raw skill roll.  They may still have significant impact (strength may offset penalties for armor for some skills, Cha can offset penalties for negative attitudes).  

One idea behind the extreme limit to skill totals is that a low level character should be able to attempt almost any task. A high level character will succeed more often and with more panache, but at no point should there be, say, a wall that says ‘Only level 12 and up can attempt me!’. Neither should there be an utter lack of challenge for high level characters beyond a certain threshold. (a high level acrobat may not worry about falling off the roof of a building, but the ability to dance across a high wire does not mean he can ignore the difficulty/risk either).   Obviously outside modifiers are reduced (+1 should be a big deal, obviously).


Feats:

If these exist at all anymore, they should be totally fungible with the backgrounds mentioned earlier.  If they exist at all, they are purely a function of level, no class should be built around bonus feats (see also: fighters get nice things now).  They do seem superfluous now, however.

That said: Working from an assumption that there will be some sort of Feats in the game, they should represent heroic, esoteric techniques not normally replicated elsewhere. They are not to represent keys to access the combat system, for example. A ‘good’ example of a 3E feat would be ‘Improved Initiative’, a ‘bad’ example would be ‘Improved Disarm’.   Another good one, from outside the normal range is Monkey Grip. This is totally a signature move that some fighter type would develop and be known for…  no one else in the Kingdom may know how to do it.  Of course, Monkey Grip or Improved Initiative could totally be Abilities as well (from the Class Trees), so keeping “Feats” doesn’t necessarily add much here.  


Equipment:

Good bye, sacred Cow!  I keed!

I am seriously inclined to reduce the complexity of weapon choices a little here. The traditional D&D weapon’s list is… wonky.  Gone are Exotic weapons, of course. I’d also like to see a removal of essentially random damage codes. How much I change weapon’s damages depends massively on how I resolve the HP/Damage conundrum.  But a small/medium/large split on generic damage appeals. That’s not to say there won’t be weapon entries, but a good chunk of those entries will be more ‘keywordy’ than ‘what weapon does the best damage’.  This would certainly interface with the available ‘weapon trees’ in the abilities (or, potentially, in Feats…). A Master Fencer would not be able to use those Abilities (fencing specific) with a Battleax, but could with a Sabre.  This is notional at the moment, of course.

One thing that is not is ‘Finesse Weapons’. Without a feat, these weapons automatically default to Dex, not Str for combat calculations (damage, specifically).

Implied setting is important here as well, for the record.

However: Three generic styles of combat (Two hander, Two Weapon and Sword and board (though, just sword should exist as well… four?)) should all be equally viable/appealing to players. The choice of what style of fighting should be more personal than rational.  I don’t mind having wrong choices, but ‘right’ choices are right out.

Armor: Already noted that armor will impact how hurt the player is from a hit, not so much how often they are hit.  DR is a good model for this, but there may well be tweaks based on final damage calculations.  Some minor tweaks (leather and hide?) may be in the works…

Note that Masterworking will either be tweaked or removed.  Fantasy Craft had some inspired starting points for ‘upgraded’ armor and weapons.

Shields: These will get some upgrades.  I have considered giving them a flat increase to AC bonus, but must consider.  Improved against missile fire particularly (cover bonus automatic? May be fiddly).  However, ‘flexible’ weapons would bypass/reduce/ignore shield AC.  

Note: Touch/Flatfooted AC’s:  Fuck them up the goat ass. I understand them, certainly, but they either add nothing to the game but confusion (Flat footed is the big offender) or are brokenly powerful (Touch AC) and common, rendering armor useless early one.  

Combat:

No iterative attacks, but the ability to do high spike damage is a design goal.  Monsters will be generally ‘jiggered’ to go down easy, but will have numbers on their side. That is, remove the insane HP of monsters at any given level.   That won’t actually appear in this chapter, but is notable as it will affect the combat rules.

First Note:  ‘Active/Passive’ Defense for higher level characters to oppose attack. This may mean that ‘DC’ of combat checks will deflate. This does increase ‘wiff factor’ but this should be offset by more impact for hits.  

Note that attacks are ‘opposed’ by defensive bonus.  Consideration: Success over defense adds bonus damage (limited by BAB?).  ‘Active defense’ is to roll DEF bonus (DB?) vs opposed BAB roll.    Temporary modifiers for advantages/disadvantageous conditions/buffs/penalties.

Grappling: somehow overhaul. Differentiate between simple ‘Grab’ and ‘Grapple’?  

AoO: Removed as is. However: Similar utility. Consideration of ‘Disadvantaged’ as conditional Status.  Disadvantaged would apply when flanked (Trigger sneak attack damage, for ex), and could trigger other abilities or negate defenses.  Avoid mess of triggering interrupts and freebee attacks without giving free reign to everyone.

Adventuring:

As a chapter I’m sort of ‘meh’. I like a unified rules chapter with combat/no combat rules being treated as functionally identical.  I can’t think of anything off hand that would need serious tinkering. Advice maybe….

Alignment:

This is a sort of lede for the magic chapter.  I personally have next to no use for the existing alignment system, or even the vaguely improved system from, say Palladium.  However, I do like the Fantasy Craft system, so I may wind up more or less porting that in directly. Also, swearing ‘Pacts’ to powerful deities provides temporal power appropriate to said Diety, and is freely available to anyone. (Cleric types are assumed to either function non-demoninationally or can chose to swear a pact (and may get an upgrade in their alignment automatically).  Pacts are, at the moment (in play) essentially a Clerical Domain, in return for appropriate oaths/behavior/ritual placations.  I may continue this route, as it is easy and effective.

Magic:

Casters are divided three ways.  By casting stat, by type of magic, and by ‘purity’ of class.
Int based casters are not necessarily wizards, but they are ‘spellcrafters’. They require accoutrements (wands, staves, rods, orbs, charms, etc) to cast their spells (possibly one ‘device’ per school, by default).  They require study and memorization of their spells, and must research or seek out new spells to add to their repitoire (Spellbook).
Wis based casters are not necessarily clerics but they are ‘ritualists’.  They have a wide range of spells available to them, but cast purely off their ability to perform the rituals correctly. Many of their rituals will have slower casting times, and may be ‘precast’ and ‘triggered’ as needed.  Directly casting a ritual is a long slow process, limiting the caster to chanting and minimal to no movement.  
Cha based casters may not be sorcerers or bards, but they are definitely ‘Talents’, with a limited pool of spells, almost no ability to change them, but the free ability to cast from that pool at will, with an absolute minimum of work. They are the fastest casters. (note that the casting stat can have two effects, the fluffy ‘hows’, and a rule modifier (like casting time alterations).

Arcane spells are direct magic, altering reality to create ‘magic’.  
Divine Spells/Miracles: Are channeled from the Gods and focus on people, undead and ‘outsiders’.
Natural Magic: Spells invoking the power of Nature and Spirits, animals and plants more than people.

Note that spell lists will have some overhauling. Metaphysical rules and constraints will pull some power out of spell casting, but not too much.  Durations will get an overhaul. Short/medium/long duration categories (short being combat only spells, medium being spells that last for hours/all day, long being spells that last even after the character sleeps (days or more).  Spells with ‘minutes’ duration do not exist as they are obnoxious to adjudicate.

Pure Casters (Caster Class): Gain a spell level every time the level (Spells go to 20 now. Wish is a 20 level spell), automatically.  ‘Caster’ level may or may not be separate (have to do those trees!)

Hybrid Casters (classes with the Caster as a sub clas), gain a spell level every other level, do not gain automatic spells from research (Pure casters gain 1 spell a level for free, obviously not Wis casters, however), but can increase caster level via ability picks.

Non-Casters (Fighter or Expert or hybrids of the two) can only gain spell casting and spell levels by Ability picks (from multiclassing or prestige classes), period.


Spells per day:  While Cha casters may get an edge here (maybe), the simple thought is that ‘1 or 2’ spells per day is far too few. But how many is too many for level 1 casters (who, admittedly, will have few choices as well…)  Arcane Casters will suffer for changing spell accoutrements (the idea is that even a 1st level spell is reasonably powerful at first level, but may be slower to cast by default (abilities to speed spell casting up, to reduce needed ‘implements’ and so forth.)   By high levels the caster will have gobs and gobs of low level spells per day.

One concern is to reduce Save or Die type spells, though ‘save or sit out the fight’ is tolerable.

Another concern: Spells should not replace skills, reasonably speaking. There is still room, even necessity for Spider Climb and Invisibility, but those should not negate Climb and Hide… per se. Knock, for example, could be expressed as a fixed DC, be unsubtle and/or not work/only work on magic locks.

Non-magic classes will also have ways of dealing with magic effects, or at least availability of contra-magic abilities.

Spells that are poorly explained/implemented would be removed or re-written.  The list of offensive spells is well known (Polymorphs of all sorts…). Some keywording may be used.  I am singularly unimpressed with keywording in any RPG I’ve seen it in, mostly because of lack of followthrough.


DMG Stuff:

Magic Items:

This is a big one, but I’ve mentioned it before.   Removal of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe/item creation… Some guidelines towards ‘minor magics’ for ‘permanent’ enchantments of limited effect.  Consumables, however should be fully creatable.

Gone are the +1 items and the conventional stat boosters, the books of ‘gain a level’ and so forth.  Magic armor is magic because it does something… magical. Magic weapons, ditto. Pluses are not magical.  No problem keeping intact the existing system outside that (note, however, that the + chart goes to +5 this way, and frankly is unnecessary except as a possible optional rule).  

Description of “Magic Item Economy”, and how to get the ones you want.

Colorful items like Gauntlets of Ogre Power would still exist, but instead of raising strength/strength bonus, would have specific effects (which would probably mimic the effects of a high strength, to be honest…)

Less colorful one (Cloak of charisma, Bandana of brains?) can be ditched entirely. Charisma like items provide specific magical effects (Charm person, what have you).  This should reduce the tendency to start looking to fill slots with ‘must have boosts’.

Implied Setting:

Aside from advice and reworking magic items, This may be the bulk of the otherwise purely notional ‘DMG’ portion.  A sketched out ‘pre-made setting’ for use with the rules (as written), examples of ‘colorful but neglected’ elements of designing a setting (Trade caravans..you’ll see them as you adventure, but what are they actually like, and what does that say about your setting.  Local lords, etc…). Purely my own whim to cover such shit, of course.

NPCs:

Commoners and the like, plus ‘bad guy’ Npc classes designed for streamlined creation (Savage, Shaman, etc) for ‘bad guys’.   Guidelines (pull back the curtain) for making new classes, prestige trees and abilities, etc, cohorts, leadership, pets and so forth..  Examples of ‘major’NPCs  in settings (example: few PC class NPC above level 10)



Monster Manual:

All intelligent humanoids are scaled to ‘playable’, with the intent that their threat is determined by NPC levels. This also provides additional ‘races’ for use by players/GMs for setting building. ‘Powerful’ races (ogres, minotaurs, etc) may be challenging to scale properly, obviously. Races need not be equal, but less power is required as ‘baseline’.

Note: Monster HP inflation is gone. Core assumption re: Combat, more challenging fights are more challenging because of numbers or external factors.  A first level party should feel challenged facing equal numbers of orcs. A fifth level party should feel challenged fighting twice as many, or an orc can summon reinforcements/ruin a stealth mission if not silenced quickly enough.   Fewer touch attacks, I should think.   Savage Species scaling is stupid.

Primary rejiggering of monsters will involve DR vs AC. Universal threat scaling for GM guidelines, but primary ‘scaling’ should be via numbers.

Further Discussion Threads:

Pika D20- Alignment

I don't think I can address everything in your monster post but I'll nitpick a few things:

Races that are +2 to stat being min/max: IMHO the problem here isn't race design but class design. Classes should be less single-ability-dependent so that for example you can have a clever fighter (the old knight with high Int/Wis) and not just Conan.

Half-orcs/Half-elves: could potentially be a feat ('orcish blood') - since the opportunity cost to be a half-elf is basically your human bonus feat anyway.

Backgrounds in general: there was some good discussion in the Iron Heroes review (I think Frank is the guilty party), where the point was raised that mechanically codified backgrounds eliminate character depth by forcing someone to (say) choose between +2 to Strength and being a fisherman/ having a moustache.

Feats: if abilities are class-specific, feats should be stuff that is wide-open available to most classes i.e. Metamagic, Power Attack or Improved Sneak Attack type stuff should be part of a classes' ability choices, rather than a 'feat'.

Skills: the 3.5 hybrid approach where half the skills are non-adventuring and the other half are adventuring doesn't really work since it forces uncomfortable choices (be a goldsmith/begger/play the flute OR be able to swim and tumble and find food- but if you think its unbalanced to have significant differentials in adventuring skills between characters anyway, you might as well go the other way and use an appropriate saving throw to spot/ride/find food in the wilderness, keeping skills for just the non-combat stuff.

Attributes and skill rolls: the mitigation of penalties rather than flat bonuses is a very interesting idea, though I can see the implementation being a bit tricky.

Thank you for the feedback.  Using the Caster class as a template, every class would be customizable at 'choice' and via ability picks anyway. I agree, I have always hated the way abilities/classes interface in 3E.  This is a side benefit of the mechanical choice to de-emphasize attribute bonuses.

Agreed on the half orc comment, btw.  Half races are totally in mind as 'racial feat' choices.  

I also tend to agree with Frank Trollman's comments about background choices, but I think that if they are kept to 'big things', then its totally workable.

Gotta go, I'll get back to this later!

I'm reading this with interest. I just don't have a lot of feedback. (It is a wall of text, and my brain has not yet absorbed it all.) I like many of the ideas here.

 I wouldn't rule gear out myself, instead simplifying it to bonuses to tasks. Have Thieves Tools? +X to to appropriate skills. Decide what the common bonus is for regular non magical equipment and stick to that. I like +2 with magic going to +5, but these are straight modifiers to rolls. Though this is similar to how I use gear in Derelict Delvers now.

One thing to do is to decide everyone gets X Feats, a solid number, then can use those feats to shift them in one direction along the various circle of classes. Starting at a neutral (No Class) and moving towards fighter, expert, caster? Perhaps? Not sure about that just an idea.


I'd ditch variant hit points for the classes. Plainly put a caster knows how to fight--with magic. They're still as tough/lucky/skilled as a warrior, just differently. I'd use 1d8, and let fighter types pick a feat to give them +2 a level. (No dropping it below 1d8 though.) Especially if you moves spells to a straighter tree. (1-20, one spell level per level, which means essentially ditching the two meanings for level, and I like that idea. Sure you can get more spell uses per level as well. )

Quote from: Spike;433560... (Seriously: The 4th level Elf had a +14 Spot check!) ...

Out of curiosity, how is this possible?

The max ranks in a class skill at 4th level is 7.  
A half-elf gets a +1 racial bonus to Spot checks.
If he had the Alertness feat, this would be another +2.

How are the other 4 points made up?

Drohelm: I'd have to ask her, but full elves get a +2, not a +1, so that's one point.   The rest comes from a high Wis score I believe.  

Silverlion: Not sure I can use the feats to pick classes right now, but I'll ponder it.

One possibility regarding hit points is the 'universal trees' that I think I mentioned in passing. Anyone could chose to 'give up' a class based ability pick to pick a universal ability (such as moving their hit die up a step... which does set an interesting benchmark for abilities to scale by level (which... I want, so...)

One Idea that I'm strongly fond of for hit points, in general, is the Wound/Vitality split.  This gives a real grounding for 'hit points as physical damage", while still allowing a cushion for higher level characters to fight longer. However, by default it tends to be plagued by 'insta-gibbing' across the levels. One unlucky hit and a high level character is suddenly as vulnerable as a starting character.  The possible mitigator here is 'wounds' providing a scalar pool for various negative conditions (a la Saga edition), the more time your wound pool is capped the farther down the condition chart you slide (allowing for unconciousness and death, not just dying and dead).

But this still leaves me with 'MASSIVE' Hit point pools, potentially, as Vitality is essentially Hit Points on top of Wounds.  One thought I had was allowing Hitpoints/Vitality to be 'traded in' for Wounds or a limited form of DR (only against wounding damage), giving players a chance to  customize their version of toughness.  At least one of my players is enthusiastic about this idea and I think I've got two weeks to work it out before the next game so it can be 'test bedded' in the current game.

I agree that gear should not be entirely bonus free. I just disagree that collecting bonuses from lots of gear is a good mechanical idea. I totally am down, though, with a proper/improper tools modifier for certain skill checks.  Some could be 'built into' the skill, however. Climbing with a rope is a different DC than climbing without a rope, is totally different than climbing with a climbing kit.

BSJ, Cont.:

Feats:  Agreed. I had toyed with, originally, pulling a lot of the 'class abilities' and totally making them feats, so you could play a fighter who raged or a barbarian who stabbed backs, but that totally turned certain classes into waste material (seriously, why play a rogue, when you can have more HP and better armor, hit more often and STILL back stab or open locks?)... actually I think the Class Wheel (which should be totally opaque to the players... seeing that sort of mechanic laid out tends to rob games of their mystique!), which led the other way.   However, this train of thought totally leads me back to getting rid of Feats... and without something to balance against the racial stuff, there is no reason NOT to play a drow, or what have you.  Choice without options isn't much of a choice.  Hrm... feats as Multiclassing/picking up extra Ability picks is workable... just don't know if its 'good'.

Skills:  One thought was to pull skills that are not very 'adventuresome', like crafting or playing flutes. They'd still be 'in the game', mechanically, but presented as an 'alternate choice' for the guy who really wants to say he was a blacksmith or a farmer or a flute player, and is less concerned with his ability to see ambushes.

Of course that leads back to the whole 'paying a tax to have a moustache' that Trollman pointed out. One solution is Shadowrun's secondary skills split, you totally can take a second 'pool' of skill points that are used to buy 'color' skills to explain 'who you are'.  

The other solution is to FIND adventuring uses for all skills.  Every 3E game I've ever played has seen knowledge checks constantly to 'know about monsters'... though I actually think this may harm the game TBH.  I've seriously ran three sessions straight were the big 'enemy' was the weather... and survival was the most important skill, but we're counting survival as an 'adventuring skill'.   Hrm...  the number of 'final' skills in the list is important because it sets a benchmark for 'how many skill points is too much/not enough.

Attributes: yeah, the key factor is to keep them relevant without making them over or underpowered.   Like I noted: keeping the total number of bonuses for mechanical 'd20' checks is actually important to keep the game from breaking.

Quote from: Spike;433681Drohelm: I'd have to ask her, but full elves get a +2, not a +1, so that's one point.   The rest comes from a high Wis score I believe.

Duh!  I miss read it and as half-elf, and forgot about the stat bonus.   Yeah, reading skills low today.

No problems, man... I had to think about it for a few minutes myself to remember.

This collection of ideas has been lying fallow since before Thanksgiving, so I'm occasionally having to dredge memory. One thing that was kicked around with my players was the skill 'numbers' going only to about 8 or so (which left more room for stat bonuses and so on...) but balancing THAT between twenty levels would have been a nightmare I think...

I am worried about the very low starting numbers, of course: distinguishing between a default +0 for a skill and a +1 is... practically non-existant!  Of course, an idea of 'non-proficiency' becomes appealing (widening the gap between 'sneaky' and 'not sneaky'), but presents other problems...

Good stuff...lots of interesting ideas here. Sorry if this is a bit disjointed but I think I'm going to have to continue breaking up my thoughts here for readability.

Classes w/ feats: is OK though I all implementations of this I've seen (Blue Rose, Unearthed Arcana generic classes) look a bit flat, compared to regular D&D classes. Also since every class is balanced off a set of abilities - its more difficult to balance individual abilities in isolation.

Splitting skills into adventuring/nonadventuring: Adds a little bit of complexity, of course, but its more balanced. There are also system out there with varying costs for skills depending on how useful they are, but I haven't seen anything like that used for D20. Finding adventuring uses for skills - maybe, though it can seem a bit forced.

Non-proficiency penalties: these don't really narrow the maximum gap between complete incompetence and skill expert, though I guess the distribution (of character ability) shifts toward the middle since PCs are encouraged to spread ranks around to negate the larger initial penalty. It does avoid the classic 3E problem of a rogue multiclassing to fighter having a ton more skill points than the fighter multiclassing to rogue, and its neater than Pathfinders' '+3 if you put in one rank'. The downside is that its an extra modifier that players may forget.
I've also seen this built on in systems (e.g. LegendQuest, an old d100-based system) so untrained penalties were cross-matched'between skills in a pretty classy way. For example, if you don't have Ride, you would take your Ride untrained penalty on say archery rolls from horseback as well.  

Fixing the scaling issue with bonuses is tricky. Partly you can try to cushion penalties by having multiple skills that could apply to a problem, reduce bonuses by converting them into rerolls rather than flat pluses, perhaps add 'levels of achievement' so that just pass/failure is less critical, and add mechanics like 'Accelerated Tumbling/Climbing' that help compensate for large bonuses by giving characters an incentive to shaft themselves.

Wounds/Vitality: yep... characters are a bit 'brittle' with this approach. A pitfall is that if HPs scale up rapidly then your damage probably also scales up rapidly...if that massive damage then gets applied to the (smaller) wound track under some circumstance such as a critical, it makes higher level characters occasionally explode. I've always sort of liked having 'CON damage' as serious wounds as well as HP damage (since it doesn't require creating additional values to keep track of), but I don't think this works terribly well with the default 3E system of calculating HPs. I've seen complaints that ability damage is broken (forever ago I wrote something about this myself to Regdar's Repository on the old WOTC boards...) but I think that's just due to damage in 3E scaling up too much and erratic use of whether or not characters get a save, for the most part...along with saves themselves being reasonably wonky in 3E.

Misc. stuff from the first post: four weapon styles (sword and shield, two-hander, two weapon, single weapon) were in The Complete Fighter for 2nd ed, that might be good for some ideas, perhaps. I quite approve of the 'flavourful' non bonus magic items, and removing AoOs. And the 'Disadvantaged' condition is a good idea (one of 4Es few really good ideas, IMHO).

Well the idea here isn't that classes are built with feats, but that you have choices in your 'class abilities'.  Consider the current Fighter/Barbarian split.

Really they are the same class, the same heroic archetype, but one 'rages' the other 'knows a lot of combat manuevers'... or something.  Having two different classes is not only an artificial distinction, but it restricts player choices and leads to distracting 'optimization' attempts (Such as Drizz't do'Urden being such a twink with one level of Barbarian tossed into 10 levels of fighter/ 5 of Ranger... Drizz't is a dude who hits shit with swords, why does he need three classes to express that?).  Instead of breaking up the archetype into several classes, they are compressed, and the player has control of which/what class abilities he gets.  His fighter gets mad and hulks out? He takes a rage ability. He wants a guy who fights tactically most of the time but still can hulk the fuck out? He takes fewer rage abilities...

Wounds/Vitality: Ideally the Monsters will not have inflated (3E style) Hit point pools. That gets into 'GM advice'... assuming I ever wanted to take it that far... in that the way to 'scale up' a fight is to... add more monsters!!  Tougher monsters shrug/bounce more damage, not 'absorb' it like some sort of HP sponge.

Of course, for that to work, canonically, weaker monsters still have to have the ability to inflict non-trivial damage with some reliability.  Crits as wounds does accomplish that as written, but that brings us back to the insta-gibbing 20 level characters...

Regarding four 'fighting' styles: I do remember reading those supplements, which helped me remember 'HOW' people fight, at least in game terms...

I want to avoid adding a layer of rules in this aspect, however. The idea behind remembering those styles is that mechanically, a character that chooses to fight a certain way should be able to, mechanically, feel like he's made a choice with real impact.  The guy with the big honking great sword should feel different in a fight than the guy with two rapiers (or whatever)... which 3E did to an extent (with Power attacks vs lots of weaker attacks), but is generally held to be flawed.

Certainly there is little valid reason to fight with just one weapon, no sheild, in 3E terms, and sheild fighting is somewhat sub-optimal unless you are stacking big magic ac bonuses.

Hmm...okay your trickiest problem seems to be rejiggering the hit point system. I'll mention True20 (Mutants and Masterminds etc.) has a "toughness save" that does away with HP entirely, similar to the system in Unearthed Arcana, and that's perhaps the most workable alternative I've seen, though its probably a bit swingy.

Revising HPs to slow down HP escalation I guess means fiddling with all the PC damage as well...no more +10d6 sneak attack or 25d8 polar rays...

Fights between lots of monsters in D&D, rather than one big monster the little guys have a couple of problems...apart from the damage, but they also have problems hitting the PCs unless you constrain AC improvements (1E/2E armour class was illogical in regard to how the fighter never improves his AC except by putting on better armour, but it at least did give the orcs a chance to hit him) or perhaps give monsters bigger 'gang-up' bonuses (make flanking and aid another +4, perhaps). There are other systems out there where characters have to split their defense between multiple targets, of course.

You eventually start running into problems with larger groups just needing to roll too many dice, too. (I find roll-under systems really work faster than additive systems if you've got buckets of dice).

Also: aargh Driz'zt! Yes well broader character classes is good...Drizzt's also totally runner-up in the FR Special Olympics with his -40% xp penalty for having multiclass levels out of balance. (1st place I give to Storm Silverhand for being a multiclass bard/sorceror with an arcane spell failure % from armour)

I was just sitting here reading your post when I realized that the multiclassing in 3E was horribly broken only because someone made a strong distinction between "Class Level' and "Character Level". Moving towards EITHER one of those as the only 'Level' would 'fix' existing multiclassing to a large extent.

Strangely, that is exactly what my proposed system actually does: You only have a Class Level, essentially.

Yeah in regular D20 you do have some classes that are character level based (Fighters w/ BAB, rogues with skill ranks) and some that are class level based (casters).

Its not as noticeable, but fighters in D&D have a feat tree problem as well: many feat prerequisites (e.g. Dodge, Point Blank Shot) aren't as good as later feats up the chain. So once you finish the Whirlwind Tree its back to Square One to get Point Blank Shot...
Anyway, your system still does look better than regular 3E multiclassing, but just something to watch for when you're building prerequisite chains.

One thought I had about the trees was to avoid chaining them. If I can keep abilities 'progressive', I don't need to build in many prerequisites, and thus you can skip 'roadblock' abilities you don't want.

In theory I could put a minimum level on abilities deeper in the tree, though this suggests abilities below that minimum are 'less cool' which isn't what I want.

One way to look at is is the Metamagic Feats in 3E. You should be able to take 'quickening' at any point, and it is useful at almost any point... you get more power out of it as you deepen your spell list. Most of the metamagic feats work like this... as long as you have enough different spell levels to 'fuel' the feat, they are useful, and the higher spell levels you have, the more powerful spells you can apply it too.

Of course, building several hundred (potentially) abilities that all work like that is... epic.   I don't think I've got it in me to be epic.


My thought regarding spell casting: It is a single ability pick in any given tree. The level of spells you have access too is based off your level, regardless of when you take it.  This frees up spell casters of all sorts to take other abilities, rather than spending all of them on 'I can cast more spells', and THAT was what was making me think I needed to put in arcane rules for picking abilities.  

Note: With 'multiclassing' by tree, a non-caster class could pick up spell casting, of course, and even a high level character would, more or less spontaniously sprout a deep spell list.  Obviously the true power difference between casters would not come directly from spells, per se, but from the other ability picks. In addition to metamagic 'feats', which would only be available to pure casters (or hybrid casters who 'multiclassed' to take that tree), your spell variables, traditionally a function of level, would be altered instead by your ability picks. Thus a Fighter might multiclass and suddenly be able to cast Fireball, but its a weak, chump Fireball compared to the wizard who has pumped up his spell damage by ability picks.

One thing I need to do is 'mock up' some sample 20 level characters, to look at how the 'end game' will look, design the abilities so that they are both 'precious'... meaning there will be abilities you want but can't 'afford', but with enough wiggle room so that you don't just have to pick the minimum to be viable.   I think... and this is a ball park, that out of 20 ability picks that 15 should be near mandatory to be 'competent' as a specialist, leaving five for fun.

This means a 20 level caster would have 1 pick to cast spells and 14 to pump them up to look like a 20th level caster (damage boosts, range boosts, area boosts... spell penetration maybe?... gotta think about this...), leaving him five to explore things like 'hitting shit with a sword' or 'pull emergency spells out of my ass' abilities...whatever.

A fighter would spend his 15 'mandatories' filling up his character concept (fighting style upgrades, extra armor (if he's 'tanking') abilities, whatever), and have five to do shit like "I want to hulk out, so I'll take a rage feat. And hey, I think I want to punch a motherfucker in the face once in a while!")

Following that ballpark, if I build 'trees' around 5 progressively cool abilities, that means a character can take four full trees, three of which should be 'I really need this to make my concept work'... though of course every class would have to have more than 5 or 6 trees, leaving plenty of flexibility in choices.

A mock up 'Spell Casting' Tree, utterly lacking the 'end state awesome' would go

1: Spell Caster: The Character may cast spells (pick a casting stat and power source), Casts at Power 1
2: Spell Power 2, requires Spell Power 1
3: Spell Power 3, requires Spell Power 2
4: Spell Power 4, Requires Spell Power 3
5: Spell Power 5, requires Spell Power 4

With a spell like fire ball would say something like " does 2d6 fire damage  times Spell Power", and possible "Radius is 5 feet times spell power".

Now, that is some boring looking shit, but not every tree has to be gold.  It seems mechanically functional, and since I've already tasked myself to re-write the fucking spell list, why the fuck NOT do something like that? It doesn't exactly create extra work.

In theory that gives me two complete trees for Casters, the Spell power tree (may need level pre-reqs on Spell power upgrades now that I think of it...), and a Metamagic Tree (where I totally just take the SRD metamagic feats and turn them into abilities).