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Frog Dragon
2009-11-01, 11:12 AM
I've been hammering out my own version of D&D for a while now, but yeah, it's taking a lot of time. The system (Currently named D20Frog) is focused more on low-magic settings and a bit more gritty playing than standard D&D. It also takes less to fell a character. I'm also trying to make it more balanced though my primary priority is options.
Also. Satyr has given me a lot of inspiration for this with Serpents&Sewers and the style between the two is quite similar. Mine has a fair amout of differing mechanical principles though.

Basic Progression Table

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9482/tablez3.jpg

Ability Scores
D20Frog has 10 ability scores. Strenght, Constitution, Agility, Coordination, Speed, Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower, Perception and Charisma.
This was mostly done to cut the lines between stats more clearly.
Ability scores no longer function on Rolls or pointbuy, but a point for point system with 30 points at the start with all stats starting at 8. You gain 2 more points each level until level 8 where you gain only one. You gain only one every third level after. At others you gain 2
There is also an ability score cap (calculated before racial modifiers). It starts at 14. Goes to 15 at level 3. Ups one again at level 6 and so on.
Ability Score Descriptions

Strenght
Strenght measures your physical strenght and power. It helps you carry things, and deal more damage in melee.
Strenght gives you Carrying Capacity, Melee Damage, and the ability to Bull Rush and Grapple better. Some skills. Other strenght requiring tasks

Constitution
Constitution measures your stamina and health. It gives you more vitality and resistance to harm. It also makes you more enduring in a fight
Constitution gives you Vitality points, Fortitude Defense and some skills.

Agility
Agility measures your general level of dexterity in larger movements. Agility helps acrobatics, your Reflex Defense and some other skills.

Coordination
Coordination measures your Manual and fine dexterity. It helps you aim a blow and for example, sew. Coordination is important in craft skills and in many iconic rogue skills.

Speed
Speed measures your speed of movement and in some cases you can subsitute speed for Agility when rolling reflex defense, representing running the hell out of the way! Speed doesn't help skills

Intelligience
Intelligience determines your learning ability, general smarts and other such stuff. For example a high Intelligience character is likely to be a better mathematician than a low Int character. Intelligience helps spellcasting in some classes, gives you skill points and helps some skills, mosty knowledge Skills.

Wisdom
Wisdom best measures your common sense. A character who does things that simply don't make much sense and is unintuitive likely has low wisdom.
Wisdom helps many knowledge skills and for example, Survival. Some classes also cast off wisdom

Perception
Perception represents your natural level of perception. How good are you at noticing things. This skill mostly helps skills similar to Perception. It also helps your sense motive since you can pick up cues of deception more easily

Willpower
Willpower is just that. It measures your strength of will. It helps your Will Defense, but has little use in skills. Some casters also run off it.

Charisma
Charisma determines your magnetism and the picture you radiate outside. It helps social skills. The more charismatic the person, the better with words and the better he is at influencing others.





BAB and Defenses
BAB works about the same as D&D 3.5.
With defenses there are now 3 levels(Good, Medium, Poor) and the jump of gaining +2 at first level has been eliminated. You also gain a +1 at level 2 even in a poor save

Classes
Current Class List

Barbarian
Bard
Champion
Druid
Fighter
Monk
Mystic
Priest
Ranger
Rogue
Shaman
Sorcerer
Spellblade
Warpriest
Wizard

The Class Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131012)
Tricks
All classes gain tricks. They are the extra options they have representing the maneuvers which are too specific to be standard combat abilities (mostly this). Monks and Rogues are the trickiest classes with the monk getting all sorts of martial artsy moves and rogue just being the scoundrel he is.

The trick system resembles the maneuver system from ToB though most abilities are at will though there is a set limit of how many tricks a character has. Each class has it's own trick list, though many of similar classes overlap (You will most certainly find a lot of the same stuff in Barbarian and Fighter). You can, however gain tricks from other lists, with the Trick access feat.

Feats
Feat aqcuisition is based on feat points which you gain 3 of in the first level, 5th level, 10th level 15th level and 20th level. You gain 2 in all other levels. Most feats are scaling, with additions to your old feats beign purchasable with feat points.

Skills
Maximum Skill Ranks, unlike those of D&D run of the formula of 1+Level. It is the same for both Class Skills and Cross-Class Skills. Class skills gain a bonus though. The bonus is calculated like this. Take all levels of classes of Classes you have the skill as a class skill in. Divide by three. Essentially you get a +1 bonus to a skill for every three levels in which the skill is a class skill.
Current Skill list

Acrobatics (Str/Agi)
Athletics (Str/Agi)
Bluff (Int/Cha)
Combat Maneuvers (Coo/Str)
Concentration (Con/Wis)
Craft (Varies)
Diplomacy (Cha)
Decipher Script (Int)
Disable Device (Coo/Int)
Disguise (Int/Cha)
Forgery (Int)
Handle Animal (Wis)
Intimidate (Cha/Str)
Knowledge: Arcana (Int/Wis)
Knowledge: Architechture&Engineering (Int/Wis)
Knowledge: Creatures (Int/Wis)
Knowledge: Customs&Civilisation (Int/Wis)
Knowledge: Religion (Int/Wis)
Knowledge: Nature (Int/Wis)
Knowledge: The Planes (Int/Wis)
Knowledge: Warfare (Int/Wis)
Linguistics (Int)
Perception (Per)
Profession (Int/Wis)
Spellcraft (Int)
Survival (Wis/Per)
Stealth (Agi)
Sense Motive (Per/Wis)
Use Device (Wil/Int)
Use Of Hands (Coo)


Sets

Cat-Burglar: Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth
Diplomat: Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive
Trap-Expert: Perception, Disable Device, Use of Hands
Magi: Spellcraft, Knowledge: Arcana, Concentration
Tinker: Use Device, Craft: Any, Knowledge: Architechture&Engineering (Int/Wis)
Noble: Knowledge: Customs&Civilisation (Int/Wis), Diplomacy, Linguistics
Sentry: Perception, Sense Motive, Intimidate
Spy: Forgery, Bluff, Disguise
Scholar: Decipher Script, All Knowledge
Ranger: Survival, Knowledge Nature, Handle Animal
Preach: Knowledge Religion, Spellcraft, Concentration
Monk: Concentration, Combat Maneuvers, Athletics
Warrior: Combat Maneuvers, Athletics, Acrobatics




Combat
You now have 2 Standard and 1 Minor Action per round
New options include Parrying which works by an opposed roll against the opponent. I have also decide to add the Drive move, which represents characters squaring off in a duel and allows you to lock opponents in melee.
Interrupt actions have been added. You can forfeit your actions to respond to anything that happens before your next turn. This, in most cases requires an opposed initiative roll.

Attack
Attack is the basic offensive option for a character and the mechanic is almost always based on the Attack option. Attack is a Standard Action
Attacking works by an opposed roll. The person attacking rolls Attack (1d20+BaB+Applicable Ability Modifier+other Modifiers) and the person defending rolls a Defense Roll. (Defenses are extrapolated on below). This is usually Reflex for physical attacks, but Fortitude and Will may be applicable in with some spells and special abilities.
If the Attack Roll equals or exceeds the Defense Roll the Attacked rolls Damage. This works by rolling the damage the appropriate damage dice for whatever weapon you are using and adding ability mod+other modifiers. More Below

Parry
Parry represents blocking an attack and a defender against a melee attack may choose to Parry instead of simply Rolling Defense. When you Parry you roll 1d20+(1/2 BaB+Str Coo/Combat Maneuvers Skill+Str/Coo)+other modifiers. When parrying the defender wins draws. If the attack is succesfully parried it has no effect.
Parry does not count as an action, but you can only do it in reaction to someone attacking you.

Interrupt Action
You can delay a standard action in your normal turn to use it in response to someone else's action. There is no other restrictions to this ability, but that you must declare which enemy action you are interrupting and that the delayed action must be used before your next turn. When you use an interrupt action you roll opposed initiative checks with the character whose action you are interrupting. If you win, you have managed to do your action before the other character is finished with his action. This means that you can, for example, step in front of a charge, disrupt a spell by hitting the wizard casting it or hit a character charging you before he can deal damage.
Certain circumstances give penalties to the character whose action is being interrupted.
The penalties are a as follows
If the character is using a standard and a minor action to do something (like casting most spells) and it is iterrupted he takes a -1 to the opposed initiative roll
The penalty is -2 for 2 standard actions
The penalty is -3 for a full round action.
Interrupting an Interruption
You can certainly do this. It simply works by rolling initiayive yourself. Say
Mick the wizard is casting a spell
Bob the fighter interrupts and stabs Mick
Leon the fighter interrupts and tries to Bull Rush Bob out before he can stab Mick
They all roll initiative (Mick at -1)
Mick gets a final total of 5
Bob gets a final total of 13
Leon gets a final total of 15
Thus, Leon pushes Bob out of the way before he can interrupt Mick's spell. Bob's interrupt is wasted and Mick finishes the spell.

Drive
You may initiate a drive with any attack you make on one character at a time. Initiating a drive is done with an opposed attack roll, and the one who gets the higher roll is Controlling the drive. on a draw, no-one controls. Each round, when in a drive, new opposed attack rolls are rolled to see who controls. If you win an opposed roll in drive by 5 points, you get a free attack against the other party, which may not be parried. This attack may be used to make any kind of melee attack action.
Controlling a Drive
The character who is controlling a drive decides where the driving characters move, as per normal move actions, maintaining the relative positions of the characters.. The other party may decide not to move, but if he doesn't the controlling party gets a free interrupt action against the other party. Each consecutive round made controlling, nets you a +1 to all attack rolls against that opponent in the drive.
Breaking a Drive
The controlling party may break a drive with no penalties while a defending party is subjected to an interrupt action attack. In a drawn drive, both may break with no penalties.


Defenses
AC is no more and you now have Fortitude, Reflex and Will defenses which work of the formulas 1d20+Class Bonuses+Half Character Levels+Ability Mod+Other Bonuses
Armor is Damage reduction and shields simply give a bonus to Parry

HP (Now Vitality)
Rolled hit points have been replaced with a static progression of vitality bonus, which is 20+Size Modifiers+Class Bonuses+Con mod and Injury Score which is your Vitality Score /4 (round down) with classes getting a level 1 bonus (which they only gain if they take the class at level 1). Any hit that does not deal damage greater than your Injury Score is wholly ignored and a hit that does not deal over 2x injury score damage has 1/2 injury score worth of damage deducted from it.
The Vitality Score is the amout of damage you can take and keep up. You also take penalties if you lose amouts of your Vitality Score.
if you have lost
25% you take a -1 to Attack Rolls, Defenses and Skill Checks
50% you take a -3 to Attack Rolls, Defenses and Skill Checks
75% you take a -5 to Attack Rolls, Defenses and Skill Checks
If you lose all your vitality points roll on the table.
Die Roll|Result
1.|Dead+Major Body Part Loss
2.|Dead+Major Body Part Loss
3.|Dead
4.|Dead
5.|Major Body Part loss.+ Unconscious
6.|Major Body Part loss.+ Unconscious
7.|Crippling Injuries+ Unconscious
8.|Crippling Injuries+ Unconscious
9.|Crippling Injuries
10.|Crippling Injuries
11.|Unconscious+ Minor Body Part Loss
12.|Unconscious+ Minor Body Part Loss
13.|Unconscious+ Minor Body Part Loss
14.|Unconscious
15.|Unconscious
16.|Minor Body Part Loss
17.|Minor Body Part Loss
18.|Minor Body Part Loss
19.|Miraculous Survival
20.|Miraculous Survival
This roll is called the Knockout Result Roll.



Size
Size is mostly relative, but big creatures get bonus vitality and weapon damage dice, with little people getting the inverse. There are spot check penalties for trying to spot something smaller than you or trying hit somethign smaller than you. The game can be played on Fine, Tiny, Medium, Huge and Colossal Squares. Medium is the standard. Diminutive takes 2x2 squares on the fine scale with tiny taking 3x3 just as a large or huge creature on a medium scale.

Magic
Magic runs off power points (yes, no vancian casting here!) which each character with magic has 10+caster level x3 (or a higher multiplier with some classes) If you have even one caster class you have a multiplier for all your levels. You only add the 10 once.
Magic also requires either the feat Chosen of the Divine (for divine spells) or Magical Gift (arcane) to be used. If you have either of these feats but no casting classes, you can still have casting by taking the magic trick feat to gain one primary sphere.

Spells
Spells are cast from spheres (thanks Doomriders campaing journal!)
and have 6 levels. Least, Lesser, Advanced, Greater, Superior, Master. You have primary spheres and secondary spheres and you can have at will abilities from your Primary Spheres. Secondary Spheres start of lower than the Primary spheres (You can access Least and Lesser Spells from you Primary spheres, but only Least from your Secondary Spheres) and you never gain Master level spells from your secondary spheres.
The sphere system intentionally limits the amount of things casters can pick from, while keeping the possibilities of what magic userss in general can do, about the same.

Rituals
Some effects are not available as Sphere spells and require complex rituals to accomplish. Such include Resurrection spells for example. They are accomplished by casting specifiic spells and making skill checks to get the ritual right.

List of Spheres

Sphere of Good: Good specific Spells
Sphere of Evil: Evil specific Spells
Sphere of Chaos: Chaos specific Spells
Sphere of Law: Law specific Spells
Sphere of Detection: Detection magics. Detect Magic, Detect poison..
Sphere of Water: Water Manipulation
Sphere of Healing: Healing magic
Sphere of Cold: The Cold sphere. Ice, chill type spells
Sphere of Acid: Acids and other chemical magic
Sphere of Air: Flying magics, general air spells
Sphere of Electricity: Electricity manipulation
Sphere of Fire: Essentially the opposite of the Cold Sphere
Sphere of Earth: Earth shaping magic and other earth based spells
Sphere of Travel: Haste, Teleportationm that kind of stuff
Sphere of Sneaking: Invisiblities, silence spells and the like
Sphere of Facade: Illusions, Magical Disguises and the like
Sphere of Shifting: Polymorphing living creatures
Sphere of Spying: Scrying and other spying magic
Sphere of Ability: Ability Score Buffs and Debuffs
Sphere of Blessings: Divine Blessings
Sphere of Morphing: Transforming objects
Sphere of Curses: Miscellanous Curses
Sphere of Summons: Summoning Magic
Sphere of Harm: Negative Energy spells.
Sphere of Charm: Deals with charm, suggestion and other similar magic
Sphere of Illumination: Deals with light/darkness and other forms of illumination
Sphere of Dispelling: The Antimagic sphere
Sphere of Plantlife: Spells that affect plants
Sphere of Reanimation: Contains the undead raising spells
Sphere of Construct: Contains most effects related to objects such as mending. Golem related also
Sphere of Fabrication: Creating objects
Sphere of the Wild: The rangers sphere. Gives guidance, survival help and other useful nature spells
Sphere of Force: Force Effects.
The Universal Sphere: Everyone gets this. Other misc effects

I'll probably make more spheres. I was also toying with the idea of spells you only get if you have two seperate spheres. Maybe if animal summoning needs both the Sphere of Summons and Sphere of the Wild or somethign like that.

Monsters
CR and LA are thrown into the garbage can. A monster has a level, just like a PC and a level 4 monster is equivalent to a level 4 PC. There are of course, monster levels to balance the powerful racial abilities some creatures get.

Equipment
Armors will grant DR (different amounts vs different damage types) and shields will grant a parry bonus. Weapons will work like before, but the armor modifications mean that a larger amount of weapons will be actually useful

Categories

Simple, Military, Martial and Tricky Weapons
Weapons are categorized by how hard they are to use. Simple weapons can be picked up and used with some effectiveness by pretty much anyone. They aren't really effective weapons though.
Military weapons are things you won't see with any street thug. They are still, however, fairly easy to use and control
Martial weapons are the arms of the elite. They require significant training to use effectively and are generally used only by elite troops, mercenaries and adventurers
Tricky weapons are weapons that, while effective, can be downright dangerous to the user if used incorrectly. They move in bizarre patterns and are used in distinctly nonstandard ways. Tricky weapons always require special training and even the most experienced of fighters won't be able to pick one up and fight with skill.

Weird and Common Weapons
While having no effect on how hard is to actually use, weapons are divided into Weird and Common by the GM. A naginata is not actually harder to use than a halberd, but certainly rarer. Thus, any weapon the GM designates as Weird should cost around 50% more, due to rarity in the region.

Simple
Name|Cost|Damage|Critical|Attack Modifier|Damage Modifier|Weight|Types|Range|Special
Dagger|4sp|1d4|19-20 x2|Coo|Coo/Str|0,3 kg|Slash/Pierc|20ft|Light
Lightclub|4cp|1d4|x2|Coo/Str|Str|0,8 kg|Bludgeoning||Light
Spear|6sp|1d8|x2|Coo/Str|Str|2 kg|Piercing||Reach, Two-Handed
Cestus|3sp|1d4|x2|Coo/Str|Coo/Str|0,2 kg|Bludgeoning||Unarmed
Hatchet|7sp|1d6|x3|Coo/Str|Str|1,2 kg|Slashing|
Cinqueda|12sp|1d6|19-20 x2|Coo|Coo/Str|0,9 kg|Piercing
Club|4cp|1d6|x2|Coo/Str|Str|4kg|Bludgeoning
Greatclub|4cp|1d8|x2|Str|Str|7kg|Bludgeoning||Two-Handed, Heavy
Shortspear|4sp|1d6|x2|Coo/Str|Coo/Str|1,2 kg|Piercing
Staff|2sp|1d6|x2|Coo/Str|Coo/Str|1 kg|Bludgeoning||Two-Handed/Double-Weapon Style
Stick|6cp|1d4|x2|Coo|Coo/Str|0,2 kg|Bludgeoning||Light

Military
Name|Cost|Damage|Critical|Attack Modifier|Damage Modifier|Weight|Types|Range|Special
Longstaff|5sp|1d8|x2|Coo/Str|Str|1,6 kg|Bludgeoning||Reach
War sword|9sp|1d8|19-20 x2|Coo/Str|Str|1,2 kg|Slashing|
Waraxe|7sp|1d8|x3|Str|Str|2 kg|Slashing||Heavy
Halberd|9sp|1d8|x2|Str|Str|2,2 kg|Slash/Pierc||Reach
Shortsword|9sp|1d6|19-20 x2|Coo/Str|Coo/Str|0,6 kg|Slash/Pierc||Light
Rapier|12sp|1d6|18-20 x2|Coo|Coo|0,7 kg|Piercing||
Mace|4sp|1d8|x2|Coo/Str|Str|1,3 kg|Bludgeoning||Heavy
Naginata|9sp|1d8|x2|Coo/Str|Str|1,9 kg|Slashing||Reach
Lucerne Hammer|10sp|1d8|x3|Str|Str|2,6 kg|Bludgeoning||Reach, Heavy
Warhammer|7sp|1d8|x3|Str|Str|1,5kg|Bludgeoning||He avy
Morningstar|6sp|1d8|x2|Str|Str|1,7kg|Bludg/Pierc||Heavy
Sabre|10sp|1d6|19-20 x2|Coo/Str|Coo/Str|1kg|Slashing||Light
Flail|5sp|1d10|x2|Str|Str|1,8kg|Bludgeoning||Heavy
Shortbow|6sp|1d6|x3|Coo/Per|Coo/Per|0,7kg|Piercing|70ft|Ranged
Arbalest|30sp|3d10|x4|N/A|Coo/Per|5kg|Piercing|160ft|Heavy, Ranged, Greater Load Time




Heavy
The Heavy special rule means that a blow from a Heavy weapon lands with more force and is more likely to overcome armor. A Heavy weapon treats any armor it hits as giving 2 points less DR than they actually give. This cannot result in negative DR

Reach
Doubles the reach of a weapon

Light
A Light weapon can be used in circumstances where weapon use is restricted, like in a grapple.

Two-Handed
A Two-Handed weapon requires two hands to use properly, occupying both.

Unarmed
This weapon counts as an unarmed strike and a weapon at the same time.

Double-Weapon Style
You may use this weapon as if fighting with two weapons. The weapon deals damage as one size category smaller when used like this.

Ranged
A Ranged weapon counts as an improvised weapon in melee combat as it is intended to be used in ranged combat.

Load Time
Load Time means that the weapon takes especially long to reload.
There are different levels of Load Time.
Least
Standard Action to load.
Medium
Full round to load.
Greater
2 Full rounds to load.

Enhancements
Magic items will be rare and special, but getting a good sword is not that hard. There will be a lot of special materials and craftmanship modifiers. You can have a (for example) dwarvencrafted weapon which has special bonuses. There will also be seperate levels of masterworkiness.

Parrying Weapon
Any light one handed weapon may be created with the express purpose of parrying blows. A parrying weapon deals damage as one size category smaller than it actually is, but grants a +2 bonus to all parry rolls when the weapon is wielded.
The parrying enhancement raises the price of a weapon by 5sp

Dwarvencrafted weapon
A dwarvencrafted weapon has to be a masterwork weapon as well.
Dwarvencrafted weapons ignore hardness up to 5 (stacking with admantine)
If the weapon has the Heavy special rule, it ignores 2 more points of DR
Extra Cost: 500sp
Note: Different Race-crafted weapon qualities may not be stacked.

Elvencrafted weapon
An elvencrafted weapon has to be a masterwork weapon as well
Elvencrafted weapons weigh 2/3 the normal weight of the item.
Any one-handed weapons (weapons without the two-handed special rule) made with the elvencrafted quality now count as light.
Extra Cost: 500sp
Note: Different Race-crafted weapon qualities may not be stacked.


Appendix of Abbreviations
Str/Coo (other similar): This means that you pick the ability score you have the higher modifier in.
Applicable Ability Modifier: Related to the above entry, in some cases, you can do something with so many ability scores that it is redundant to write in all of them. For example, you can make an attack with Strenght (Certain Weapons), Coordination (Certain), Some mental stats (Magical attacks with casters)

Frog Dragon
2009-11-05, 12:46 AM
I elaborated a bit on what the Tricks do.
Also, as you might have noticed, my system allows you to multiclass, but then not. You can make fun multiclass types with the Trick access (gaining access to the signature moves of other class) and Magic Trick (gaining a primary sphere.)
Also, How do you like my magic system with the spheres and the power points?
Also. I've been thinking about the monsters. I fear there are iconic D&D monsters who just won't fit in that mold I outlined. The intent is to make monsters automatically suitable for Player Characters, but it might shut out some creatures who you seriously can't play anyway. should I bring CR back for these guys?
Also. About concentration and spells. I thought about bringing casting in melee down a notch. You have to make concentration checks if people miss you (it's harder to make the precise motions while dodging attacks). If someone hits you, spell lost. You are not casting with an axe in the stomach. No. Not even then.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-07, 05:23 AM
I put in a basic progression table. Also. Sorry about the last table being split. I couldn't edit it into not doing that with paint.

Also. Comments? There's like 200 views here and no comments?

Anonymouswizard
2009-11-07, 06:39 AM
Looks okay, but I'd go for a list of about 20 spheres and to have each class specialize in one and be able to cast a few others. In my A20 I only have seven schools of magic (illusion is split between the other schools), and all the variant casters are focused on one school (except for the warlock, I need to think a bit about him). Also, how about including a Psionics system that relies on tricks?

Fri
2009-11-07, 06:49 AM
I thought this is going to be an original setting with frogs as the main race....

lesser_minion
2009-11-07, 11:27 AM
Well, the first point I have to make is that your injury system seems a little odd.

It seems like you are asking people to make quite a few calculations to keep track of how badly hurt they are - you might want to simplify that a bit.

A simple way of handling it would be to adapt Satyr's injury system to d20s and then work from there.

As a start, I'd suggest something like the following (untested, but I think I've ironed out the most obvious bugs found in injury systems):

Everything that can be damaged has a value known as the Toughness score which reflects how hard it is to damage or destroy.
A damage roll is d20 + strike bonus. It the result of the damage roll is compared with the target's Toughness scores. A damage roll botches if it is more than ten points lower than the target's Toughness, in which case it isn't even counted as a hit.
A character can only suffer so much punishment over the course of a fight. After a number of hits equal to (some number), the character becomes Hurt. A character who was already Hurt becomes Wounded instead, and a character who was already Wounded becomes Seriously Wounded.
A damage roll that exceeds the target's Toughness score leaves them Hurt and Shocked.
A damage roll that exceeds the target's Toughness score by ten points or more leaves them Wounded and Shocked. A Wounded condition has an immediate effect, worsens after the encounter, and persists for a number of days.
A damage roll that exceeds the target's Toughness score by twenty points or more is a Serious injury. The character may be out of action for several months. A single attack with this result also has a chance of leaving the character with a permanent injury.


Exactly what all of those conditions mean is up to you, but I think you will find this system a little easier to handle than your current plan.

I'd suggest something like:

Hurt: As Winded, and applicable for the duration of the injury. A character must recover the endurance level normally once they recover from the injury.

Wounded: As Fatigued, and applicable for the duration of the injury. The character may recover the endurance levels normally once they recover from the injury.

Serious: As Exhausted for the duration of the injury, and the character is also Disabled and Dying, both of which they must recover from normally.

A character who is injured in combat loses an additional endurance level at the end, if applicable. This can be recovered normally.

Shocked: The character is essentially knocked out of the fight by a combination of loss of composure and a physical response to the injury. A shocked character defends against attacks as a stunned character, and cannot take actions beyond retreating, hiding, surrendering or falling prone.

Note that almost all combatants except for mooks and casters should have some way to avoid Shock, although this should probably be limited - e.g. allow a player to spend a point of Rage/Confidence/Conviction to avoid shock for the duration of a scene.

Zovc
2009-11-07, 11:39 AM
I may or may not review your system (no offense, this is the first thing I felt compelled to post here), we'll see about that.

You may or may not be able to reduce your workload by using the forums table tags.

{table]Roll|Result
1|Spaghetti
2|Hot Dogs
3|Apples
4|Oranges
5|Banannas
6|Carrots[/table]

Yields:{table]Roll|Result
1|Spaghetti
2|Hot Dogs
3|Apples
4|Oranges
5|Banannas
6|Carrots[/table]

You can make as many rows as you like, but you define columns with '|' (on most american keyboards, this key is found above or near the 'enter' key, it is also the '\' key, modified by 'shift.'), I believe you can put as many as you like, but I doubt you'll reach the limit if there is one, as the table tags have been used for something like this before.

Also, I was wondering what was up with all the apostrophes?

Frog Dragon
2009-11-07, 01:19 PM
Rolled Oranges.

I can use the tables, but honestly, copying the PDF table into paint and saving was less work.

Also: English is not my native language so what's an apostrophe?

Also: What's so complex about my injury system? It's just a pool of points (like HP) and penalty track (like Saga ED condition track) plus a rollable outcome when you get your pool full. You're just tracking

Vitality Pool
Injury Penalties

You could even put a spot in your sheet for the percentiles of your Vitality Cap. Then it's even easier!

lesser_minion
2009-11-07, 02:46 PM
Your injury system is less intuitive than it could be, and it also requires more maths than is strictly necessary to handle the concept.

At the moment, what you are saying is that:

- A damage result that isn't at least equal to the target's armour value does no damage at all.

- A damage result between (armour value) and (armour value + vitality/4) does one point of damage.

- A damage result between (armour value + vitality/4) and (armour value + vitality/2) deals two points of damage.

- A damage result at least equal to (armour value + vitality/2) and less than (armour value + 3/4 x vitality) deals five points of damage

- A damage result that exceeds (armour value + 3 x vitality/4) but is less than (armour value + vitality) deals ten points of damage.

- A damage result that equals or exceeds (armour + vitality) causes a serious injury.

Additionally:

- The number of damage points a character has taken is added to all future damage rolls.

- A character who has taken damage points equal to his Vitality is seriously injured.

- A character who has taken damage points equal to 4/5 his Vitality is badly hurt.

- A character who has taken damage points equal to 1/2 his Vitality is bloodied

- A character who has taken damage points equal to 1/5 his vitality is wounded.

- A character who has taken damage points equal to 1/10 his vitality is hurt.

Hurt, Wounded, Bloodied and Badly Hurt characters suffer penalties.

Now, with people who are OK with roleplaying and know what they are doing, this wouldn't be too horrible in play, because you would be able to work out all of the numbers in advance.

The problem isn't playability - you can work out all of the numbers in advance. However, it is quite hard to explain, and it takes a bit of work to understand.

Compare it with other damage systems, and you'll see what I mean:

D&D: You have a number of hitpoints. When something hurts you, you lose hitpoints. When you run out of hitpoints, you might be knocked out or killed. Star Wars Saga Edition: You have a number of hitpoints. When something hurts you, you lose hitpoints. If you run out of hitpoints, you are knocked out and might die. Also, if you lose too many hitpoints in one go, you take a wound. You suffer penalties depending on how many wounds you have. World of Darkness: When something hurts you, you lose a few points of health. Depending on what hit you, you might also take some wounds or some aggravated damage. When you drop below three health, you start taking penalties on all your dice rolls. If you hit zero health, you have to roll every round to stay conscious. If you take too many wounds, you also have a chance of bleeding to death, and if you take too much aggravated damage then you actually crumble into dust. True20: If you get hit, you roll to see how badly. If you're lucky, you might be unharmed, or just suffer a penalty on later rolls to see how badly you were hurt. If you're unlucky, you could be left near death, or take a penalty on all of your dice rolls. Your system: If you get hurt, you roll to see how badly. If you're unlucky, your character will be left near death, but otherwise you gain a few points of damage. The total number of damage points you have gets added to all damage rolls against you, and can also give you penalties on all your dice rolls. If you gain enough damage points, your character is near death.


It's definitely playable, but it is a little bit of a mouthful to explain, and for all of the others it's actually quite easy to work out and explain the relevant numbers.

Another problem is that this doesn't work with D&D style damage rolls - every attack will do one of two different injuries, every single time.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-07, 03:13 PM
Maybe something like this

I add Injury Score. A damage roll below the injury score is null. Armor adds to the injury score. Any attack that gets over it deals full damage. Then I make the Vitality Cap a bit higher and keep the penalties for injury the same. Better?

lesser_minion
2009-11-07, 03:59 PM
That should work reasonably well. I'd suggest also reworking Vitality scores so a character's Vitality score indicates how much damage they can take before moving on the condition track. It's generally a lot easier to multiply two integers than to multiply an integer and a percentage.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-08, 05:07 AM
I added a table on what happens when you're out.
Major Body Part Loss means losing an arm or such.
Crippling injuries would be, for example lung damage, or other stuff that's going to seriously impair you.
Minor Body Part Loss could be losing a few fingers or an ear. It won't stop you from functioning, but will give minor penalties.

I was also thinking about making the injury score actually reduce the damage. Maybe half the injury score is deducted from the damage as long as the hit wouldn't deal 2x injury score damage without reductions.

That because I wan't to reduce the all or nothing effect the current system effect has since it just doesn't make sense to me. And my desing priorities have been
Makes Sense==Options>>Balance
from the start. That is not to say I don't intend to balance though.

Also: Would it be a good idea to give con bonus to teh Knockout Result Roll, but with the clause that a 1 winds you up dead anyways?

AnynomousWizard: I've been thinking about the spheres, but if I end up doing that I'm not sure what spheres to cut/meld together.

Edit: I made a link in the classes Section to the Class thread. The Fighter is over there.

Potential Sphere Change?

1. Sphere of Truth (contains Law and Detection stuff)
2. Sphere of Misdirection (Chaos, Sneaking and Facade+darkness here)
3. Sphere of Blessings (Healing, Blessings and some Good)
4. Sphere of Fire (the same, plus fire summoninga and light spells)
5. Sphere of Water (the same+cold and water summons)
6. Sphere of Mineral (Earth and Acid spheres+ earth summons)
7. Sphere of Fabrication (Construct and Fabrication)
8. Sphere of Creature (the general Summoning sphere)
9. Sphere of Air (Air, Electricity, Air Summons)
10. Sphere of Mind (Charm, Domination, other Mind Affecting)
11. Sphere of Negative (Harm spells and undead)
12. Sphere of Travel (The same)
13. Sphere of Dispelling (The same)
14. Sphere of the Wild (Plantlife, nature summons and the same rolled here)
15. Sphere of Morphing (Changing the Form of things)
16. Sphere of Transplanar (Force and Etheral effects)
17. Sphere of Sound (Sonic effects. Other sound related effects. Silence and the like also)
18. Sphere of Spying (The same)
19. Sphere of Ability (Ability buffs/Debuffs.)
20. Sphere of Curses (Evil and curses.)
21. Sphere of the Universal (I'm thinking of changing this into a normally learnable sphere.)

Anonymouswizard
2009-11-08, 10:57 AM
I thought this is going to be an original setting with frogs as the main race....

So when will we see these frog people? ribbit.
No, seriously. Make one of the main races frogmen, have a class called the frogomancer (master of frogomancy), and make stats for a frog dragon. Also: make all humanoids and monstorous humanoids races with an LA. thats the best you can do.

lesser_minion
2009-11-08, 11:41 AM
The knockout roll isn't too bad as it stands, although it might be a bit grittier and more detailed than is really necessary. Adding the con bonus in would be pointless - tougher people being harder to kill is already represented pretty well by incorporating con into the vitality rules.

I'd still suggest keeping your original idea, but change it so that the Vitality score is the amount of damage needed for the character to lose a wound level (so, about a quarter or a fifth what it is now - class bonuses can remain the same from what I can tell), have the character seriously injured after five wound levels, and suffer increasingly nasty penalties for the remaining four.

That gives you:

Armour imposes a penalty to all damage rolls. Otherwise, record the number of points of damage done by the attack. After taking damage equal to or greater than a multiple of your vitality score, your character loses a wound level After taking four wound levels, a character is seriously injured, and may suffer dismemberment or other nasty fates. At five wound levels, a character has suffered far more damage than they could survive. At ten wound levels, a character is gibbed.


That basically becomes a peculiar hybrid of GURPS and D&D. I'd also consider including a rule that each time your character drops an injury level, they must roll to see if they remain conscious.

On a character sheet, a character's injuries would probably look like a table - on the left would be the various injury levels, and on the right you would find a box for tracking how many points of damage your character has incurred.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-08, 11:56 AM
The end function would be the same and my current system runs better with other things. Size modifiers to Vitality are easier to implement an such with my current system and honestly, I don't see the benefits of implementing your suggestion. It works just fine like it is already.

lesser_minion
2009-11-08, 12:20 PM
The end function would be the same and my current system runs better with other things. Size modifiers to Vitality are easier to implement an such with my current system and honestly, I don't see the benefits of implementing your suggestion. It works just fine like it is already.

Yeah, from here it's really just a matter of taste.

Armour can go back to imposing a penalty on damage rolls now that you've got rid of the extra table.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-08, 12:25 PM
Actually, Armor has been doing the same thing pretty much all along. First it was DR and now it's Injury Score bonus which is almost the same thing.

Anonymouswizard
2009-11-08, 02:30 PM
:elan:argue, argue, argue over the best way to represent injuries!

Frog Dragon
2009-11-10, 01:12 PM
Basic Attack and Parry rules now laid out loud and clear.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-15, 04:56 AM
Been thinking about the spells. They're pretty much the most volatile part of this system. I wan't to keep the versatility and options while escheving the borken. I'm also not sure on what to do with the material components or how to seperate priests and wizards and warpriests and spellblades. Or should I just roll them into two classes (Spellblade&Wizard) with mutable fluff?

Anyway, the spells. There is stuff that obviously has to go like the Prismatic line, but suprisingly, Walls of Force won't be that problematic. I'll just make them dual sphere spells requiring both the Sphere of Fabrication and Sphere of Force. And then make tricks that can bypass this type of stuff. A fighter smashes the wall and the rogue type slinks out of the way when it forms.
The changed mechanics are making a bit of a problem here with the spells. Mage Armor would be an Injury Score bonus along with Shield and Stoneskin. Blur would be giving you reflex defense (I'll most likely be eliminating Miss Chance. It's just way too easy). But then arises the problem of scale. I need to make stoneskin meaningfully better than mage armor, but still make a fighter level defense hard to achieve for a caster. I need to make it scale decently, but not too much.
In essence. Making a flexible not-borkenen magic system is hard.

Anonymouswizard
2009-11-15, 05:47 AM
Been thinking about the spells. They're pretty much the most volatile part of this system. I wan't to keep the versatility and options while escheving the borken. I'm also not sure on what to do with the material components or how to seperate priests and wizards and warpriests and spellblades. Or should I just roll them into two classes (Spellblade&Wizard) with mutable fluff?

Anyway, the spells. There is stuff that obviously has to go like the Prismatic line, but suprisingly, Walls of Force won't be that problematic. I'll just make them dual sphere spells requiring both the Sphere of Fabrication and Sphere of Force. And then make tricks that can bypass this type of stuff. A fighter smashes the wall and the rogue type slinks out of the way when it forms.
The changed mechanics are making a bit of a problem here with the spells. Mage Armor would be an Injury Score bonus along with Shield and Stoneskin. Blur would be giving you reflex defense (I'll most likely be eliminating Miss Chance. It's just way too easy). But then arises the problem of scale. I need to make stoneskin meaningfully better than mage armor, but still make a fighter level defense hard to achieve for a caster. I need to make it scale decently, but not too much.
In essence. Making a flexible not-borkenen magic system is hard.

This may be obvious, but how about making divine and arcane magic different by restricting the spheres available to each? So you have arcane only spheres (like construct, morphing summons...) and divine only spheres (healing, ability, blessings). This is only a suggestion, along with the examples, but I cannot think of any other way to separate the two.

Also, I made this version of prismatic spray to make it more along the lines of what Mazirian in the book by Jack Vance:

Vance’s Prismatic Spray
Evocation [fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 7
Components: V, S
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: 20ft
Area: cone-shaped burst
Duration: instantaneous
Saving throw: fortitude partial
Spell resistance: yes
This spell causes many brightly coloured rays the width of a wire to spring out of your hand and fill a cone-shaped area. Creatures in the area take 2d6 damage per caster level, up to a maximum of 40d6. Creatures that fail their save take 1d6 points of damage per caster level, up to 10d6. All creatures with a HD of 10 or less within 10ft of the spell are automatically blinded for 2d4 rounds.

I just thought you might like it.

lesser_minion
2009-11-15, 09:12 AM
Your spell looks a little overpowered - it's basically an AOE Disintegrate with bonus effects tacked on and more damage on a passed save.

You might want to move it to level 8 or 9.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-15, 09:14 AM
Also, spell damage will have to function very differently here since almost all spells ignore Injury score bonuses from armor and there is less Vitality in this game than HP in 3.5. 10d6 level damage is serious game over stuff with this system, so I need to prevent that.

Anonymouswizard
2009-11-15, 09:21 AM
Your spell looks a little overpowered - it's basically an AOE Disintegrate with bonus effects tacked on and more damage on a passed save.

You might want to move it to level 8 or 9.

I wasn't sure what spell level to put it at, but your right, it is a high level 8 or low level 9 in retrospect. Also, how about adding a material component.

Vance’s Prismatic Spray
Evocation [fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 8
Components: V, S, M
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: 20ft
Area: cone-shaped burst
Duration: instantaneous
Saving throw: fortitude partial
Spell resistance: yes
This spell causes many brightly coloured rays the width of a wire to spring out of your hand and fill a cone-shaped area. Creatures in the area take 2d6 damage per caster level, up to a maximum of 40d6. Creatures that fail their save take 1d6 points of damage per caster level, up to 10d6. All creatures with a HD of 10 or less within 10ft of the spell are automatically blinded for 2d4 rounds.
MAterial component: a sphere of diamond worth at least 10000gp,.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-22, 04:56 AM
I brainstormed the interrupt action mechanics for a while, but I have them done now. It's actually a pretty central part of the game.
And yes making it impossible to interrupt using most spells is deliberate. Since I'm fairly certain I won't be able to bring casters completely to mundane level, I figured I might make the mechanics favor mundanes a bit more this way.
Plus, if I wind up making casters underpowered (Pssht, that'll be the day.) it's pretty easy to power them up a bit.

Altair_the_Vexed
2009-11-22, 05:19 AM
I know this is a WIP, but you need to define more of your terms.
In more than one place you've stated "+ applicable bonus" - we need to know what these are.
More important (I think) - you've used two ability scores for bonuses to rolls (e.g.: "When you Parry you roll 1d20+(1/2 BaB+Str Coo/Combat Maneuvers Skill+Str/Coo)+other modifiers"), and given us skills that are associated with two ability scores (Acrobatics (Str/Agi), Athletics (Str/Agi), Bluff (Int/Cha), Combat Maneuvers (Coo/Str), Concentration (Con/Wis)... ) without telling us how to calculate that . Is it an average between the two? The sum of both? Pick one?

Personally, I prefer to simplify the core mechanics, rather than expand them.

Frog Dragon
2009-11-22, 05:44 AM
It would be pick one (higher).
I put this kind of stuff in an Appendix of Abbreviations in the end of the post.
If there's anything else that's unclear, please tell me. As I obviously know what I mean with the mechanics, I'm pretty bad at judging how clearly I have stated things.

Frog Dragon
2009-12-10, 03:30 PM
As you can see, I put some weapons up there in the table.
Also. Been thinking about carrying capacity. Would it be smart to tell physics to shove off and just make the increasing weight of stuff in advancing size categories proportional to the amount carrying capacity is raised by (after factoring in strenght)? Just thinking that while it does make sense physically, it's really not good as a rule. We already have giants and big frickin dragons that would collapse under their own weight if they ever wound up in the Real World. It just seems like an unnecessary hassle to me

Player: Thorgrim uses this spell to go up two size categories, along with his equipment
DM: Lets see.... increased weight.... carrying capacity.... flip. flip.... flipflipflip..
Ahh. Your enlarged items weigh so much that you are now at well over heavy load.
Player: .... Crap.



Do we actually need that?

I think I'll keep weights the same, but up the carrying capacities for big creatures to keep the proportions same. Screwing around with weights is just too much physics breakery to work well.

Edit: Also thinking of going back to the skill list to expand it some. Meshing stuff like Open Lock and Disable Device is guaranteed, but I'm thinking of seperating Perception and Stealth up into their components and just never giving less than 4+int skill points.