So I mentioned magic item crafting earlier so I'm going to go more into detail with that. Before I get to magic items though I need to bring up a tidbit on how crafting and magic items work in general.

First let me say making a crafting system is a pain in the ass. Its about as painful as attempting to make a socializing system. Now generally craft "thing" is a background skill in that it doesn't have many uses. In 3rd edition crafting was either under powered (you didn't get enough time to craft what you want, what you could craft wasn't worth not getting stealth) or overpowered (You had magic item crafting and basically could craft any magic item you wanted and fucked the wealth by level system sideways). I've never seen any middle ground with this without changing how crafting works. On one side of things the ability was so blah that some people forgot they had it at all while on the other end you needed to be able to craft magic shit and have loads of time on your hands to do it. Craft just didn't do enough for me such that I would give away bonuses on craft away practically for free.

In my game I respect that people want to be able to craft stuff, so unlike profession and perform which aren't skills anymore I decided to keep crafting in. First off there are 5 kinds of crafting:

Alchemy: Things made out of plants, bodily fluids from creatures, made artificially through chemistry, etc.

Engineering: Constructs, buildings, vehicles, etc

Herbalism: Anything made primarily out of plants (this includes lumber from trees)

Smithing: Anything made primarily out of stone or metal.

Weaving: Using various things to produce cloth, rope, and anything else that's woven together.

Being trained in any of these allows you to make knowledge checks about things made through these skills and gives you the ability to "mine" for them under appropriate circumstances.

Now some people might say that these are too general. I would agree but to make these more specific would invite needless, and at the end of the day unappreciated, complexity.

There are various things you can do with the craft including being able to take apart, repair, or damage things related to the crafting skill better. You can generate gold (as profession allowed you to) or generate the material you need to craft whatever in order to mitigate the actual cost. These are also necessary skills for rafting magic items.

Moving on: Magic Items.

Now there are tree types of magic items: Regular "Implements", "Artifacts", and single use Magic items.

Single use magic items are things like scrolls. They don't use the craft skill to make though as scrolls require the linguist skill in order to make and cast.

"Implements" are the main magic items the game will have in bulk though. Firstly I'm going to mention that to use an implement takes a feat. Yes, that's right. To use these kind of magic items requires a permanent expenditure, but there is a reason. This is to keep things under control. Getting the feat allows you to open an "Implement Slot". This does mean some people will be able to create but not use magic items. This is ok with me. Now Implements merely copy spell powers much like scrolls except that they copy them indefinitely and use the Mana from the wielder in order to operate.

For example you have a Flaming Sword that, when activated, shot a small ball of fire 30ft. This would be usable from level one. The fire ball is emulating a first level spell with one meta magic attached (That is the basic Fire spell + Extend to make it ranged). The user deals X amount of damage with it at base (For a first level fire spell this would be 1d6 + Charisma Bonus). The wielder, by default, only has to use one point of mana to power it. When wielding the weapon that Mana is used whenever the ability is activated. A user may place more Mana into it for greater effect. For example if they use 2 Mana on it it deals 1d6 + 2 + Charisma bonus damage.

Now this is all pretty basic stuff nothing complicated so far. So what happens down the road when our adventurer comes into possession of a magic cape of flying? Well Fly is a 2nd level spell but its also a channeling spell which means it costs 2 Mana to start and locks up 1 point of Mana per turn. So since our adventurer only has one slot he may choose to stop powering the sword and power the cape instead. Now this means he can wear both and still use the sword for what it is while benefiting from the cape. If, during a fight, he wants to use the sword again he has to switch which item he's fueling (swift action). So basically an adventurer can have a golf bag of goodies they can switch in and out of use on the fly.

So that would seem like it would kick actually casting magic to the curb right? Well in order to make sure casting magic wasn't put on the back burner and overshadowed by having a bunch of maic items I made a few rules. Firstly magic items are truly unique. There is no wealth buy level system and magic items are hard to make (they cost XP which most normal NPCs don't have) and aren't sold in regular markets (so are drastically overpriced and hard to find). so there is no "expected" way to get a magic item and once gotten it can be sold by groups who aren't interested for ludicrous amounts of cash should you have access to the right markets. What's more magic items aren't as versatile as spells. Metamagic doesn't work on them (which means the ranged attack fireball on the sword will always be ranged), they can be broken as any regular item, and they cannot overcome antimagic effects (as the "caster" would be the item and thus doesn't have a roll to oppose it). So several things actually keep magic items from breaking magic over its knee.

Artifacts I won't go into detail as they are planned to be as rare as artifacts from D&D. Artifacts in essence are items that break all the rules. They won't and will not be meant to keep the game balanced. An Artifact shouldn't be given lightly. Artifacts don't require a feat to use and thus are usable by anybody.




So with that explained we move on to the act of crafting a Magic Item. As mentioned before crafting a magic item requires having the correct craft feat and the correct knowledge. The craft skill has to be relevant to the item you imbue the spell into. As a point of order temporary items (such as potions) cannot be enchanted nor can larger constructs (which kicks engineering to the curb). A spell must be weaved into the item when crafted, so you have to decide when you crafting the item for it to be magical. You have to know about the spell you want to imbue on the item (that's where knowledge comes in) and have enough Mana to actually cast it. If the item will produce an effect that would require Metamagic you must also have the applicable metamagic feat. Crafting the item takes twice as long as regular and requires you to expend XP on creating. Now this expenditure of XP won't stop you from gaining a level (I'll explain that when I explain "Plot Devices") but the cost will be considerable nonetheless (numbers are not available right now as some math is still being hammered out over XP gains and levels). After crafting the item the crafter's ability to craft another such item will be locked for a time equal to however long it took them to create the item.

That's all I feel like typing before lunch, more later on.

Quote from: MGuy;560162This is something I've pondered but I don't have any particular problem with people wanting to go Nova. The Mana set up is used more to allow for abilities to scale easy more than anything else. I actually intend on characters with 10 mana to be blowing 10 mana on each ability at the level they are allowed to blow that much on it. In fact that's why I have HP scale just to accommodate this. This also inspires players to do what it takes to keep their mana up which helps on the management side. They also have to deal with continuous effects (like if they shape shift, mind control someone, buff someone, etc) if they way to keep up those from round to round, and that eats up mana.

So you can cast your highest level 1/day or a couple lower level spells (instead of highest level 1/day and lower level spells)? This is shaping up pretty differently from standard D&D here.

How does one get back mana? Is it a daily thing? Roughly encounterly? Spend actions in combat to recharge? Sorry if I missed something.

Additionally, are full mages more combat-capable than in 3x standard? How big a deal this smaller gas tank is depends partly on what's left when you run out.

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On items, I'm seeing a few things I like and a few things I don't.

I like that it doesn't look like there's failure on item crafting. Making item creation a gamble was pretty dumb of 3x, even if they had gotten it balanced. For my own potion skill, I had rolls determine the number of doses, with the minimum still at one. Similar reasoning there.

I don't like the TGD item slot logic, nor do I like XP for items. Mostly just a taste thing, but I prefer a limited number of items on hand (the rest are in your pack and harder to get out), a stricter weight economy (no bags of holding), and a market that doesn't even know what to do with the money they're asking for magic items (so you'll be paying for things in acres of land instead).

People powering magic items I can take or leave, but I'm a little baffled how that's going to make constructs work.

Oh, and aren't downtime costs sort of contextual? As in, it might be a big deal or it might not matter at all, depending on what's happening? I don't know if you'd see this as a problem or not, but it's just a bit weird.

Quote from: beejazz;560674So you can cast your highest level 1/day or a couple lower level spells (instead of highest level 1/day and lower level spells)? This is shaping up pretty differently from standard D&D here.

How does one get back mana? Is it a daily thing? Roughly encounterly? Spend actions in combat to recharge? Sorry if I missed something.

Additionally, are full mages more combat-capable than in 3x standard? How big a deal this smaller gas tank is depends partly on what's left when you run out.

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On items, I'm seeing a few things I like and a few things I don't.

I like that it doesn't look like there's failure on item crafting. Making item creation a gamble was pretty dumb of 3x, even if they had gotten it balanced. For my own potion skill, I had rolls determine the number of doses, with the minimum still at one. Similar reasoning there.

I don't like the TGD item slot logic, nor do I like XP for items. Mostly just a taste thing, but I prefer a limited number of items on hand (the rest are in your pack and harder to get out), a stricter weight economy (no bags of holding), and a market that doesn't even know what to do with the money they're asking for magic items (so you'll be paying for things in acres of land instead).

People powering magic items I can take or leave, but I'm a little baffled how that's going to make constructs work.

Oh, and aren't downtime costs sort of contextual? As in, it might be a big deal or it might not matter at all, depending on what's happening? I don't know if you'd see this as a problem or not, but it's just a bit weird.

There are no 1/day slots so everything a character has is pretty much always available to them as long as they have the actions, Mana, etc to actually use them. I' not planning on staying particularly close to "traditional D&D". I don't wanna feel like there are any sacred cows or legacy things that I would be forced to keep.

How one recharges Mana depends on the class. The default way (everyone has) is to get 1 Mana back per minute of rest. The mana count is low (the default max being half the character's level rounded up) which makes things easier. As mentioned different classes have different recharge mechanics. For example:

The Barbarian gains mana whenever he takes damage. He gains mana equal to half the damage he took.

A Champion has a separate Mana pool called "Resolve". Whenever the Champion is targeted he gains resolve. He may use this resolve as Mana but if he does he loses it. A number of abilities' have their effectiveness change based off of how much/little resolve the Champion has. So he has to balance having mana to use vs the effectiveness of some of his abilities.

The Performer (Bard) recharges Mana with every turn he performs. Performing eats up the smallest action it can except when starting it or using a performance effect.

Scoundrels (rogues) can "borrow" Mana. They can spend as much Mana a they want but must "pay it back" a minute later or suffer consequences. They can reduce the "payback" cost by making "sneak attacks" in order to steal the necessary Mana from opponents.

Druids naturally gain Mana and can retain twice the normal amount. They regain half of their max every round. A lot of their class abilities are continuous effects that grow in effectiveness based off of how much mana the druid has left so once again a balancing act may occur (which is the intent).

Mages just get a large pile of Mana that actually can't be regenerated during combat effectively (takes about 5 minutes). A Mage is either encouraged to go completely nova on all their abilities or to plan and use them wisely.

All in all Mana acquisition is how I plan on influencing people's fighting styles. If someone finds clever ways to game these that is also ok with me.

As for whether or not full mages are more combat capable than 3rd standard I'd have to say yes and no. Yes in that there aren't as many things keeping a given mage type class from participating fully in melee or other styles of combat. No in that there are no Save/Die or Save/Suck effects. With magic toned way the fuck down mages aren't killing or majorly gimping ancient beings with a single spell.


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On items: There are indeed no bags of holding or anything but I'm more anti magic item than most people from TGD. Were it not for a good portion of people I game with insisting otherwise magic items would've been taken off the table completely. However, since I'm keeping them and there's a whole lot of utility to be had with basically having a spell that you didn't put in a feat for I figure the cost/opportunity expenditure to get magic items, slot them up, and use them that it was a good balancing point.

That balancing mechanism makes it a lot easier to simply not worry about magic items at all. There's no reason I have to worry about how many they get, how hard they work to get them, or anything really. The weight thing is still on (encumbrance works pretty much the same way as it does in 3rd) and there are no extra dimensional space items unless you drop an artifact because there are no extra dimensional space spells. Its a lazy way to do it but one that keeps the theme I'm goin' for.

As for contextual time yes, I'm familiar with the issue. I mentioned as much. but I'm not going to worry about it. Crafting magic items isn't necessary for the game and the time it takes to craft them isn't really a "punishment" or anything its more of just an arbitrary length of time. Crafting takes time, crafting magic shit logically takes more time.

I do like having a characters' magic items and spells draw from the same mana pool. It makes a certain sense (unlike milestones). I was thinking of doing something similar with a system I'm doing at the moment (though I was considering using some sort of ability damage mechanic rather than level-based mana).

Quote from: beejazz;560674I like that it doesn't look like there's failure on item crafting. Making item creation a gamble was pretty dumb of 3x, even if they had gotten it balanced. For my own potion skill, I had rolls determine the number of doses, with the minimum still at one. Similar reasoning there.

I don't know do you fail item crafting in 3.x ?
We actually ditched the magic item creation feats and added a bunch of Craft skills for magic item creation, so that it would be failable process (where are these cursed items coming from again?). Few people ever bothered taking the feats when you could just get an NPC to do it (albeit at higher cost).

Is this based on 3rd edition?

Quote from: Declan MacManus;560916Is this based on 3rd edition?

It started that way. Its become quite a different looking monster at this point.

Quote from: MGuy;560702How one recharges Mana depends on the class. The default way (everyone has) is to get 1 Mana back per minute of rest. The mana count is low (the default max being half the character's level rounded up) which makes things easier. As mentioned different classes have different recharge mechanics. For example: (snipped)

Okay, so it's one of those thematic recharge things with a point system. So kind of like Iron Heroes or Bo9S? I can see that working well with max total being the same as the cost of the highest level ability.

Scoundrels and champions (and to some extent druids) look interesting in their recharge effects.

QuoteAll in all Mana acquisition is how I plan on influencing people's fighting styles. If someone finds clever ways to game these that is also ok with me.

I'm not one to disparage rules mastery myself, as long as the rules run according to their goals most of the time.

QuoteAs for whether or not full mages are more combat capable than 3rd standard I'd have to say yes and no. Yes in that there aren't as many things keeping a given mage type class from participating fully in melee or other styles of combat. No in that there are no Save/Die or Save/Suck effects. With magic toned way the fuck down mages aren't killing or majorly gimping ancient beings with a single spell.

I was asking more about the former than the latter, though I figured that sort of offensive magic might be toned down.

QuoteOn items: There are indeed no bags of holding or anything but I'm more anti magic item than most people from TGD. Were it not for a good portion of people I game with insisting otherwise magic items would've been taken off the table completely.

Personally, I'd normally recommend not including things you don't like as much. Especially if you're not after D&D's sacred cows.

QuoteHowever, since I'm keeping them and there's a whole lot of utility to be had with basically having a spell that you didn't put in a feat for I figure the cost/opportunity expenditure to get magic items, slot them up, and use them that it was a good balancing point.

My gripes are mostly about the feel of the rules. But if it works it works.

How do you plan on dealing with the way different items can be "powered" by multiple in-game effects? Druids for example might be better at using magic items from the sound of it. Or there may be exploits. Like what if the barbarian includes himself in an AoE for a neverending mana loop? I know, I know... costs hit points. But the specifics could get hairy.

QuoteThe weight thing is still on (encumbrance works pretty much the same way as it does in 3rd) and there are no extra dimensional space items unless you drop an artifact because there are no extra dimensional space spells. Its a lazy way to do it but one that keeps the theme I'm goin' for.

I'm cool with bans on extradimensional spaces and unbreakable walls of force and anything terribly easy to exploit and not especially iconic, as a rule. It's not so much lazy as it is sane.

QuoteAs for contextual time yes, I'm familiar with the issue. I mentioned as much. but I'm not going to worry about it. Crafting magic items isn't necessary for the game and the time it takes to craft them isn't really a "punishment" or anything its more of just an arbitrary length of time. Crafting takes time, crafting magic shit logically takes more time.

Personally, I use the workshop requirement to keep crafting out of the dungeon (which is what I see the time as useful for).

If wealth/gear is not critical for character power growth, will you be scaling back treasure? Giving the party something else to spend it on? Assuming the bulk of it goes to expendables?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;560907I don't know do you fail item crafting in 3.x ?
We actually ditched the magic item creation feats and added a bunch of Craft skills for magic item creation, so that it would be failable process (where are these cursed items coming from again?). Few people ever bothered taking the feats when you could just get an NPC to do it (albeit at higher cost).

Craft skill rules had failure that wasted ingredients, IIRC. Magic item creation not so much.

Quote from: MGuy;560944It started that way. Its become quite a different looking monster at this point.

If there is even a fraction of 3rd edition in it's DNA, then the game is utter shit, and can only ever aspire to just shit. I won't waste any of my time looking at it for fear of getting shit in my eyes.

How dare you wave shit around at me? How dare you???

You're wasting your time. Write a nice dice pool game instead.

Quote from: beejazz;560945Personally, I'd normally recommend not including things you don't like as much. Especially if you're not after D&D's sacred cows.

If it weren't specifically people I actually game with insisting on it I'd toss it out. I don't think its inclusion will be that big of a deal hopefully.

QuoteHow do you plan on dealing with the way different items can be "powered" by multiple in-game effects? Druids for example might be better at using magic items from the sound of it. Or there may be exploits. Like what if the barbarian includes himself in an AoE for a neverending mana loop? I know, I know... costs hit points. But the specifics could get hairy.

Druids wouldn't need magic items much. The Druids are built ideally to be able to cast spells regularly. Druids also just gain Mana at a set rate. If they expend too much in a single round they can't up their recharge rate like the barbarian because they have a set income rate they have to worry about. This means they are more suited to using continuous effects that have an expected cost per round to use which is easier on them then going  Nova every round.

The barbarian cannot endlessly generate Mana because it not only costs HP to do so (and SHP to heal the damage) but he doesn't have an extra pool for Mana which means he can only gain a maximum of half his level at any point. So doing the same thing continuously is possible but it doesn't really put the barbarian ahead. The Barbarian is meant to essentially use a single Mana based ability a turn at full then get back to smashing things (attacks don't cost Mana unless its used for special effect).

QuotePersonally, I use the workshop requirement to keep crafting out of the dungeon (which is what I see the time as useful for).

Some things straight up don't need a workshop like making arrows, basket weaving, and similar small time things. Other things do like Engineering and Smithing since with those you are working on larger projects or more difficult material. A number of alchemical items would be "shop" specific but I haven't gotten too deep into the specifics of gear yet. I'm supposed to have a helper aiding me and doing a bunch of cost weight fixes on gear but he's proven very unreliable thus far so I'm probably going to end up having to do it myself at some point.

QuoteIf wealth/gear is not critical for character power growth, will you be scaling back treasure? Giving the party something else to spend it on? Assuming the bulk of it goes to expendables?

I wanted to get rid of Wealth by Level as it only seems to ever cause problems. It either necessitates the usage of items, promotes players to try and find a way to circumvent it for more power, necessitates DMs to shut down players that try to gain a bunch of wealth too quickly, etc. So by making so that having a bunch of money doesn't offset game balance in any major fashion I free it up for the players and DM to fool around with it. Players can now use wealth to buy their castles, flying ships, armies, luxury, whatever and not have to worry about not getting that magic sword they wanted because their characters wanted to splurge. You can also play characters that are consistently broke and not have to depend on handouts to survive. So those constantly broke Conan types, the vow of poverty mofos, the charity case Paladins can all work without special rules.

Okay, arrow fletching and stuff is a good reason to not put a workshop req across the board, and ditching WBL I can get behind.

As for weight/value ratios, I'm afraid I don't have much to contribute except to say that I'm in the same (ish) spot wondering what to do about mules. Value them too low, and the bonus carrying capacity becomes a big deal. Value them too high and cattle rustling starts to look too good (they're treasure you don't have to carry). Random encounters can help a bit with both, but you don't want mules to be more trouble than they're worth. [/tangent]

If there's a historical period you're after you could start with researching that period and letting the chips fall where they may, especially if WBL is a non-issue. You could always tweak it after the fact if you uncover issues.

Quote from: beejazz;561119Okay, arrow fletching and stuff is a good reason to not put a workshop req across the board, and ditching WBL I can get behind.

As for weight/value ratios, I'm afraid I don't have much to contribute except to say that I'm in the same (ish) spot wondering what to do about mules. Value them too low, and the bonus carrying capacity becomes a big deal. Value them too high and cattle rustling starts to look too good (they're treasure you don't have to carry). Random encounters can help a bit with both, but you don't want mules to be more trouble than they're worth. [/tangent]

If there's a historical period you're after you could start with researching that period and letting the chips fall where they may, especially if WBL is a non-issue. You could always tweak it after the fact if you uncover issues.

Dropping WBL is something that obviously needs to happen. Nothing WBL does or promotes has ever been any good for my games. It suffers as many problems as conflict based XP in all honesty so I nixed them both.

Tired for tonight so I don't have anything to add for tonight. I may drop some more stuff thursday when I'm off.

Well after a catastrophic hardware/software failure I won't be updating this for a long time as I have to redo much of the work I've already done now.

Ouch.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;563044Ouch.

You have no idea. However I've already done my crying and wondering how the fuck my external hard drive and laptop could both freak out on me in the same day. So I just have to dust off and start all over again.

With the loss of a second laptop I am getting pretty frustrated with making my rules set. I had been lazily been working on it for a long time and lost the lion's share of what I'd done. Then, when I got done crying over the spilled milk (and my terabyte hard drive) I wiped away my tears and got started again. I got 4 pages day one. 17 pages 2 days later when I was off. Tried to save that and somehow got shunted back down to 4. Got back to page 10 after recovering from procrastinating again. This time it just didn't pretend to let me save and the whole machine decided it wasn't even going to pretend working any more. Well I'm over that depression and I'm going to use all this frustrated energy to focus again. However, I don't want to do it alone again.

The little side project BStupidJ made has inspired me to get a hopefully functional team together that is willing to help me bring this thing to life. I explained a bit of what I'm doing Here and  here. If this seems interesting to you hand you have some spare time, and perhaps some sample ideas, please feel free to hit me up. I only need a small team, like 3 or 4 people who are willing to work on this completely not for profit time sink.