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View Full Version : Threshold: A New d20 System



BillyBobJoe
2011-06-10, 10:37 PM
Threshold (http://www.d20openrpg.com/) is a classless OGL system that I was working on for a while, and thought I should share. It attempts to take the standard d20 system, and simplify it and refine it. I honestly think it is fairly well done, and would like to see the Playground's opinion on it. What's your opinion on:

-Balance
-Ease of Use
-Whether it is fun to play?

Would anybody consider running this, though a few things are still in the works?

BillyBobJoe
2011-06-11, 12:51 PM
No one's interested?:smallconfused:

Kilbourne
2011-06-11, 01:27 PM
Honestly I'm really waiting for the creators to finish of the talent trees for each class.

Iceforge
2011-06-11, 02:38 PM
I think you might also want to go over it for consistency, I was giving it just a brief look and found some inconsistencies:

I noticed there was some defense pools, and under ability scores, it mentions I get a fate pool based on charisma, which it says a few times but under ability challenges in the "ability pool details" it says fate is based on wisdom and Will is based on Charisma, all of the sudden

EDIT: Brave to venture into creating a truly class less system, it can become great, no doubt, but it needs more work I think, so consistency issues aren't found within a few minuts browsing, maybe I was just unlucky to stumble upon one that quickly tho

EDIT": You might consider looking up "LordStrange" on YouTube, as he has not that long ago had a few videos on how he made DnD classless as well, can't remember what he called the project, but should not be more than a few months ago, and he talked a lot about some of the interesting aspects of removing classes from DnD

erikun
2011-06-11, 03:03 PM
I think you might want to wait more than two hours for a response. We can move pretty fast at times, but expecting several critiques over a full wiki of information only two hours later is asking a bit much. :smallwink:

Anyway, here are my first impressions.

Points, points, and more points. We have Action Points, Movement Points, Fatigue Points, Talent Points, Power Points, Reflex Points, Health Points, Wit Points, Willpower Points, Fate Points, and even something named Endurance Points on one page. This is in addition to recording your six ability scores, six ability score modifiers, and six half-ability score modifiers. And that's not getting into talents yet! I'm not sure how you see the game playing out at your table, but that looks like a lot of scribbling and re-writing on a piece of paper.

There seems to be some confusion about the Ability Pool Points and the Ability Scores. Or is there? Does running out of Ability Pool Points drop your Ability Score to 0, then?

The Ability Conflicts section seems particularly bizarre. Wisdom (Will/Willpower) is used to resist death effects, but failing against a death effect and being dropped to 0 Wisdom is not fatal. Heck, it isn't even fatal if you already have 0 Wisdom! The Intimidation example is another strange one - it is said that it is resisted by Wisdom, but Charisma is listed as "resist mental control or fear". There is also the fact that you don't imtimidate people into doing what you want - you intimidate people until they are knocked into an unconcious vegetative state.

Using two ability scores for all talents gives some truely strange results. Why does having a high Intelligence allow me to hold my breath longer (Endurance, Con+Int)? How does being friendly and sociable help me recall things (Memory, Int+Cha)?

Epic Talents have a prerequisite of "20th level or higher", but I don't see any sign of levels in the system. On the same note, some talents talk about having multiple ranks... which doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else.

Surprise and Initiative are, as far as I can see, Ability Conflicts - you are rolling your ability scores against other characters' ability scores. Which would seem to mean that beating them by a large enough margin means you could knock them out simply by surprising them. I'm sure this isn't what you intended, but it sure looks like what the system says.

One of the combat options for 5AP is the Complete Move, which reads "Perform a Complete Move action." I don't see the Complete Move action mentioned anywhere else, so I am confused as to what it does.



As for if I would run this, probably not. There seems to be far, far too much to keep track of during gameplay. The talent system doesn't look to be any more complicated that GURPS or D&D's skill system, but the large number of pools, points, and partial ability modifiers would make it a nightmare to teach to a new player.

I also note that the point buy is set unusually low, which would be incredibly aggrevating when nearly every situation calls for use of all six ability scores.