A new d20

[Xechon]

I'm currently trying to create a new core system to run d&d on, one that offers more realism, allows more stable customization, is anti-metagaming, and that neither relies on magic items and high magic nor makes such items/classes overpowered. I understand the difficulty of this and that it could take years to do so, but I want to get my foot in the door for a better D&D. Here is what I currently have for ideas:

Core Ability System: I want to have a system thatseparatesmental and physical abilities and allows for physical abilities to be trained to a certain limit (as in real life, aka: exercise) without letting it unbalance anything. Adding this with a limit will also limit metagame, as there will be rule for the abilities todeteriorate under certaincircumstances, allowing for inborn mental skills and fluctuating physical skills.

Skill System: Skills will be broken into categories; Inborn (perception skills, mostly), Simple (Self-Trainable), and Complex (must get help to train). Skills will gain experience after use for simple or after training for complex depending on the challenge it places on the character, and the level of the skill is its ranks. All skills will be class skills, but some, most, or all (haven't decided yet) skills will have prerequisites to train. For example, a person with rock-bottom intelligence cannot train knowledge skills, and a person with an exceptionally low strength can't train climb if he can't climb to train it. If an ability score falls lower than the prerequisite for it to be trained, even if you are trained in it, you cannot use the skills until the prerequisites are met. Using a skill with a physical ability modifier will be a way to keep that score at the prerequisite,non-dependenton training.

Alignment: will work as it does in 3.5e; the same spectrum of chaos to law and good to evil, and alignment can change but is not a limiting factor whatsoever, more providing a general category of your personality.

Races: Races will becreate-ableby a build system that balances them with each other. Races will determine Inborn skills, max ability scores, and some abilities that are race-specific. Races should use the same system that monsters do for creation and leveling, so you can have any intelligent (and I say humanoid) level 1 monster be a race and any level one race be a monster, with class levels being for uncommon peoples (only player characters and a few powerful NPC's), while there may be simple NPC classes for nonplayer characters to take. (ex: An orc shaman would not be an orc with a PC class level, just one with a NPC class that is less in power than PC classes, but more common) Also, races will have their own race-specific traits, as determined (but notnecessarilycreated) by the DM.

Classes: Classes will be broken into categories; Powerful (PC classes), Normal (NPC classes),Prestige (Campaign specific sub-classes)

All ideas will be taken into consideration, and I thank you beforehand for any help you can offer.

[erikun]

I'm currently trying to create a new core system to run d&d on
What do you mean by this? No, seriously: What do you mean?

Are you trying to make something that "feels D&D"? Are you trying to keep it compatable with the existing system to a large extent? Are you trying to make it similar to older, AD&D products? Do you only want to focus on dungeon delving and treasure acquisition?

"Run D&D" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and you may end up receiving poor advise if you don't clarify what you mean - and thus what you are looking for - from the term.


one that offers more realism
Are we talking realism (obeying the laws of physics) or verisimilitude (feeling of consistency)? A lot of people asking for realism are actually seeking verisimilitude - they want the game system to feel like magic and dungeons fit the setting - rather than reality, with concerns that metallic swords and not doing the proper damage when they hit an object.

Note that verisimilitude can be perfectly gritty.


allows more stable customization, is anti-metagaming
One thought I've had along these lines:

Seperate all the class abilities out. Removing the most overbalancing options, then assign them point-buy values. Now put the classes back together, making sure that all classes have the same "point-value" for each level. Any points not taken up by class abilities are "free" to spend, much like feats.

You would then have roughly equal power, as a Barbarian might get two free points each level while the Wizard only gets one every three. You could scale the power level of the campaign, as if the Wizard takes 26 points a level and you limit the campaign to 20 points, then Wizards just can't be played. (Note that you could still play a character with Wizard spellcasting, they just would get Wizard spells every other level or so.) You could even have a "base" or "Commoner" class with no abilities, thus allowing the player to assemble their class however they wish through point-buy like mechanics.


and that neither relies on magic items and high magic nor makes such items/classes overpowered.
This will be fairly difficult to do, either requiring magic to be non-permanent or for magical equipment to be acquired through class abilities. I don't think you need to remove all magical equipment, though. See below for a few thoughts.


Core Ability System: I want to have a system thatseparatesmental and physical abilities and allows for physical abilities to be trained to a certain limit (as in real life, aka: exercise) without letting it unbalance anything. Adding this with a limit will also limit metagame, as there will be rule for the abilities todeteriorate under certaincircumstances, allowing for inborn mental skills and fluctuating physical skills.
One thing that I considered trying: Ability scores for a human would be limited to 1-20. Ability score gains would be two different abilities every four levels (or part of the point-buy system, above). The first is to limit reliance on 18-rolls for stats, as someone with 15 STR will eventually be able to catch up. The second is to allow all characters to "branch out", rather than always focus on their primary stat.

The second is that ability-boosting spells raise an ability score up to a certain point, rather than giving a static boost. Gauntlets of Ogre Power would grant a character 20 STR, regardless of the character's current stat, rather than giving a +4 STR. This makes the item good, but not necessary, and the 20 STR character still has the advantage of operating just fine after a Dispel Magic. In this case, I was thinking that the strongest magic buffs (the +6 items) would equal 24 to an ability score, still making them useful to everybody.


Skill System: Skills will be broken into categories; Inborn (perception skills, mostly), Simple (Self-Trainable), and Complex (must get help to train). Skills will gain experience after use for simple or after training for complex depending on the challenge it places on the character, and the level of the skill is its ranks. All skills will be class skills, but some, most, or all (haven't decided yet) skills will have prerequisites to train. For example, a person with rock-bottom intelligence cannot train knowledge skills, and a person with an exceptionally low strength can't train climb if he can't climb to train it. If an ability score falls lower than the prerequisite for it to be trained, even if you are trained in it, you cannot use the skills until the prerequisites are met. Using a skill with a physical ability modifier will be a way to keep that score at the prerequisite,non-dependenton training.
You might want to look at Burning Wheel for ideas in training skills in-game.

A bigger question becomes "how do you stop players from training skills all the time"? I mean, I could sneak everywhere. I could make it a point to listen for everything. I could make a knowledge check every round for every knowledge skill I possess. By all rights, any character being played could have maximum ranks in every non-complex skill up to their ability limit. This means that, without a restriction, there is very little stopping my 20 Wisdom Cleric from becoming fully trained in Spot equal to any 20th level character.


Alignment: will work as it does in 3.5e; the same spectrum of chaos to law and good to evil, and alignment can change but is not a limiting factor whatsoever, more providing a general category of your personality.
I've had two ideas for alignment. One is to make it purely a roleplay value, like height and eye color. Rather, it would be alignment subtypes, [Holy] and [Axiomatic], that have in-game effects. Something like being a Cleric or being blessed by a deity would allow a character to gain an alignment subtype.

The other idea is a World of Darkness-style rewards system. Namely, you are not "required" to play your alignment, but you do get rewards for doing so. This would likely encourage hammy alignment-based antics (sacrificing a busfull of schoolchildren) as the character gets something significant from doing so.


Races: Races will becreate-ableby a build system that balances them with each other. Races will determine Inborn skills, max ability scores, and some abilities that are race-specific. Races should use the same system that monsters do for creation and leveling, so you can have any intelligent (and I say humanoid) level 1 monster be a race and any level one race be a monster, with class levels being for uncommon peoples (only player characters and a few powerful NPC's), while there may be simple NPC classes for nonplayer characters to take. (ex: An orc shaman would not be an orc with a PC class level, just one with a NPC class that is less in power than PC classes, but more common) Also, races will have their own race-specific traits, as determined (but notnecessarilycreated) by the DM.
I much prefer the idea of monster classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142724). This allows you to play almost all monsters at first level, allow you to increase the monster abilities as you level up, and even provides a convienently scaling monster for the DM to use. Want a dragon, but don't want it at 8th level? Well then, you have a very convienent 2th level dragon challange, along with a 8th level challange with 6th level spellcasting (Dragon 2/Sorcerer 6) and can easily put together a 14th level challange with the same creature.


Classes: Classes will be broken into categories; Powerful (PC classes), Normal (NPC classes),Prestige (Campaign specific sub-classes)
See above for my opinion on classes. If you are using levels in this system (not a guarantee) and Challange Ratings, then do not use classes of variable power. The entire point of the level/CR system the assumption that equal levels mean equal power! There is little point in having a "5th level Warrior" that has less HP, less AC, less to-hit and less damage than a 5th level Fighter. Your "Warrior" could just as easily be statted as a 3rd level Fighter to begin with.

[nonsi]

Well, I can't say that I have rules for exercise, but my house rules cover most anything else.


>> ...allowing for inborn mental skills and fluctuating physical skills
The mind needs training just like the body, you know.

>> Skills will be broken into categories; Inborn (perception skills, mostly), Simple (Self-Trainable), and Complex (must get help to train)
While I see the rationale in this, this will have a rather insignificant impact on your game and in the end, again, you'll be left with Trained Only (yes/no).

>> Skills & XP.
I've encountered this option dozens of times in the past (tried it myself several times).
Not once have I seen the effort not fail miserably.
Do yourself a huge favor and ditch the idea.

>> Skill training
Now there's a concept I find interesting and I'd like to see where you take this.

[Xechon]

What do you mean by this? No, seriously: What do you mean?

Are you trying to make something that "feels D&D"? Are you trying to keep it compatable with the existing system to a large extent? Are you trying to make it similar to older, AD&D products? Do you only want to focus on dungeon delving and treasure acquisition?

"Run D&D" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and you may end up receiving poor advise if you don't clarify what you mean - and thus what you are looking for - from the term.

What I mean is I want to create a system that feels D&D 3.5 (Not 4.0, aka WoW), and not have it really compatible with 3.5 but more based off of. I do not have access to any of the older material, nor have I ever even read any of it, but I might be getting my hands on some AD&D soon to see if there is anything good in it for use. I want the system to focus on the versatile game of D&D, where skills actually mean something and not every encounter is a combat encounter. For treasure, I need to do some major work on that, because it doesn't really make sense to have a chest stuffed to the brim with random items and gold after fighting a pack of wolves, unless, of course, the treasure was the basis of the quest.


Are we talking realism (obeying the laws of physics) or verisimilitude (feeling of consistency)? A lot of people asking for realism are actually seeking verisimilitude - they want the game system to feel like magic and dungeons fit the setting - rather than reality, with concerns that metallic swords and not doing the proper damage when they hit an object.

Note that verisimilitude can be perfectly gritty.

I mean obeying the laws of physics. I understand that magic is an overpowered concept to the real combat of medieval times, but I want to find a way to balance them, by putting limitations on magic. The main thing I want for realism however is a lot of the systems for exploring. In the core rules, if you fall a great distance there is usually a chance you can survive (your not going to survive a 100 ft. drop, no matter who you are), and if you fall far enough for it to matter, you keep advancing in speed (terminal velocity, people). And then there's the screwed up weather rules...


One thought I've had along these lines:

Seperate all the class abilities out. Removing the most overbalancing options, then assign them point-buy values. Now put the classes back together, making sure that all classes have the same "point-value" for each level. Any points not taken up by class abilities are "free" to spend, much like feats.

You would then have roughly equal power, as a Barbarian might get two free points each level while the Wizard only gets one every three. You could scale the power level of the campaign, as if the Wizard takes 26 points a level and you limit the campaign to 20 points, then Wizards just can't be played. (Note that you could still play a character with Wizard spellcasting, they just would get Wizard spells every other level or so.) You could even have a "base" or "Commoner" class with no abilities, thus allowing the player to assemble their class however they wish through point-buy like mechanics.

Yeah, I've had an idea like this since my first time playing DDO, where you get class abilities, and then at certain points in-between levels you get action points to spend on extra abilities. A commoner class, however, would not be necessary because of a class build system. So, in all, a player that wants to play a character not represented in a core class can use a guideline to build a class as they want it, but still has power in balance with the other classes. I could require that they have a certain amount of unspent points and extra abilities to use this mod. Also, when I refer to power, I use the general idea of the teir system, here: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0



This will be fairly difficult to do, either requiring magic to be non-permanent or for magical equipment to be acquired through class abilities. I don't think you need to remove all magical equipment, though. See below for a few thoughts.


Yeah, I know it will be hard, but I think I have a general idea of how to do it. AC is armor + Shield + Dex mod + Feat bonuses. + 10. Attacks are Str or Dex mod + Feat bonuses +BAB + 1d20 (without magic bonuses). In the end, it is supposed to be easy to hit someone wearing robes (wiz) and hard to hit the one wearing plate (fighter). However, as one gains experience, he should get better at defending himself, so a lvl 1 fighter can't have the same AC as a lvl 20 one. So I want to add a armor bonus to classes along with BAB, but not like the unearthed arcana version, more like the d20 modern version. With this, people will be harder to hit, then magic items will just deal extra damage on hits instead of bonuses to hit, so a campaign without magic items will be balanced just as much as a campaign with them. The wiz always presents a problem in this reasoning, though, and I need to find a way around it without excluding it (if magic exists in your campaign)


One thing that I considered trying: Ability scores for a human would be limited to 1-20. Ability score gains would be two different abilities every four levels (or part of the point-buy system, above). The first is to limit reliance on 18-rolls for stats, as someone with 15 STR will eventually be able to catch up. The second is to allow all characters to "branch out", rather than always focus on their primary stat.

The second is that ability-boosting spells raise an ability score up to a certain point, rather than giving a static boost. Gauntlets of Ogre Power would grant a character 20 STR, regardless of the character's current stat, rather than giving a +4 STR. This makes the item good, but not necessary, and the 20 STR character still has the advantage of operating just fine after a Dispel Magic. In this case, I was thinking that the strongest magic buffs (the +6 items) would equal 24 to an ability score, still making them useful to everybody.

I like the system for allowing people to catch up on ability scores, but for the mental abilities I don't think they should be able to be raised from their starting point, because you never get any smarter, you just learn more, y'know? I'll probably just have to over look that, though, because people get wiser with age and can become more likeable or scary, and I suppose people can learn to not be stupid. I like the idea of magic items giving a increase independent of starting score, but for balance they would have to be "activatable" with a certain number of charges per day and a duration for each charge.



You might want to look at Burning Wheel for ideas in training skills in-game.

A bigger question becomes "how do you stop players from training skills all the time"? I mean, I could sneak everywhere. I could make it a point to listen for everything. I could make a knowledge check every round for every knowledge skill I possess. By all rights, any character being played could have maximum ranks in every non-complex skill up to their ability limit. This means that, without a restriction, there is very little stopping my 20 Wisdom Cleric from becoming fully trained in Spot equal to any 20th level character.

Burning wheels? could I get a link for that?

But anyway, I've been thinking alot on that problem. One solution I've thought of is, you only gain experience in the skill if you use it to overcome a DC higher than you have before. There are a lot of bugs in this to work out, but it might just work. Also, I understand the concern of overpowered skill levels, but I want to keep limits off of those for purposes of maximum customization.



I've had two ideas for alignment. One is to make it purely a roleplay value, like height and eye color. Rather, it would be alignment subtypes, [Holy] and [Axiomatic], that have in-game effects. Something like being a Cleric or being blessed by a deity would allow a character to gain an alignment subtype.

The other idea is a World of Darkness-style rewards system. Namely, you are not "required" to play your alignment, but you do get rewards for doing so. This would likely encourage hammy alignment-based antics (sacrificing a busfull of schoolchildren) as the character gets something significant from doing so.

Alignment to me is a purely roleplay value, but the subtypes you presented don't sound to me like a good idea. I don't want to expland the axis of alignment, I just want others to understand alignment is not at all a limiting factor.

For the second idea, however, I am very curious. If you could get me a link with more detail of the system, that would be most appreciated.


I much prefer the idea of monster classes. This allows you to play almost all monsters at first level, allow you to increase the monster abilities as you level up, and even provides a convienently scaling monster for the DM to use. Want a dragon, but don't want it at 8th level? Well then, you have a very convienent 2th level dragon challange, along with a 8th level challange with 6th level spellcasting (Dragon 2/Sorcerer 6) and can easily put together a 14th level challange with the same creature.

*punch the air* YES! This is exactly what I wanted! I did't know they had already made this. I would need to make a system for actually creating these monster classes, because it seems they are just making them based on a range of their abilities, but I can definitely use this. Races would just be a free "lvl 1 monster class with intelligence min of x", and most DMs would probably require them to be a humanoid shape.


See above for my opinion on classes. If you are using levels in this system (not a guarantee) and Challange Ratings, then do not use classes of variable power. The entire point of the level/CR system the assumption that equal levels mean equal power! There is little point in having a "5th level Warrior" that has less HP, less AC, less to-hit and less damage than a 5th level Fighter. Your "Warrior" could just as easily be statted as a 3rd level Fighter to begin with.

I am using levels, but challenge ratings will be more like monster levels, as the comment above. Effective character level will be Monster class level + PC level - 1. Yes, equal level = equal power, but refer to the tier system above- there are different forms of power. While a fighter can overpower a rogue in direct combat, a rogue has many skills and abilities that make it more powerful than the fighter under certain circumstances. But yes, I will balance everything out as much as possible.


Well, I can't say that I have rules for exercise, but my house rules cover most anything else.

Can you send me a link to those? I like all of my info to be in one place, and I'm pretty new to this site, so...


The mind needs training just like the body, you know.

Yeah, well when I made this I was set on you can train knowledge but your stuck with your intelligence, but I've decided to let this one go.


While I see the rationale in this, this will have a rather insignificant impact on your game and in the end, again, you'll be left with Trained Only (yes/no).

yeah, its a lot like that, but for inborn skills, (like perception) training will be impossible. They wont even have an ability mod.


I've encountered this option dozens of times in the past (tried it myself several times).
Not once have I seen the effort not fail miserably.
Do yourself a huge favor and ditch the idea.

Thanks, but no thanks. I am going to try to fix this one and put it in, because it makes so much sense.


Now there's a concept I find interesting and I'd like to see where you take this.

I don't know the route it will take, but I'm glad you like the idea.

Because school has started up again, I will not be able to always reply the same day, but keep coming with the ideas. I will try my best to reply to all comments made.

[Xechon]

-->nonsi

Sorry, I didn't pay attenion to the big bright letters at first, I assumed it was your signoff.

[Stubbazubba]

Good luck and have fun with this undertaking; designing my homebrew system is teaching me a lot about why D&D is the way it is.

I like that you have stated goals about the realism of the mechanics. OK, enough niceties.

PCs in your game are likely going to become very, very specialized with that kind of skill progression mechanic. After the first level or two you lose the ability to train up a Simple skill like climbing in a level-appropriate encounter. For example, if half the party has been training their Climb skill up to +7, they'll roll anywhere from 8 to 31 (including ability mod of 4), averaging 18 (with ability mod of 1), so either the DM has to use climbing checks that are very difficult for the untrained party member to achieve (limiting the player's ability to improve the char's climb skill), or use climbing checks that are very easy for the trained party member to achieve (making the player's previous decision to invest so much time into climbing useless). So, they'll pick what they're good at to begin with, and after a couple of levels, they're unlikely to be able to branch out into new things. I suppose this would help in establishing realism, since medieval types didn't do much branching out, either.

One easy idea to scale AC up with your BAB is to simply add BAB to AC. I've never tried it myself, but it came to mind as I read about your idea, however, I can see the desire to keep the Barbarian at a lower AC than the Fighter, since he has extra HP to make up for it.


your not going to survive a 100 ft. drop, no matter who you are
Unless you're this guy (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/29/man-survives-foot-fall-mountain-standing-rescuers-arrive/).
Or this guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUY9sMg2ygg).


Burning wheels? could I get a link for that?
Yes (http://www.burningwheel.org).

More to come later as I think of things.

[Xechon]

PCs in your game are likely going to become very, very specialized with that kind of skill progression mechanic. After the first level or two you lose the ability to train up a Simple skill like climbing in a level-appropriate encounter. For example, if half the party has been training their Climb skill up to +7, they'll roll anywhere from 8 to 31 (including ability mod of 4), averaging 18 (with ability mod of 1), so either the DM has to use climbing checks that are very difficult for the untrained party member to achieve (limiting the player's ability to improve the char's climb skill), or use climbing checks that are very easy for the trained party member to achieve (making the player's previous decision to invest so much time into climbing useless). So, they'll pick what they're good at to begin with, and after a couple of levels, they're unlikely to be able to branch out into new things. I suppose this would help in establishing realism, since medieval types didn't do much branching out, either.

Actually, they will be a lot less specialized, because they can train every skill the DM throws at them. Also, so that players can keep up their skills, they may train them (up to a limit based on level) in their free time. The reason training out of missions is limited is because (in realism) they will find a place to train and do the same thing over and over again, the same challenge, so they can only get so much better at it, and (in game balance) so that players that somehow get a lot of freetime can't train their skills to infinity. NPCs should be very specialized, however, because most do one thing for their entire lives.


One easy idea to scale AC up with your BAB is to simply add BAB to AC. I've never tried it myself, but it came to mind as I read about your idea, however, I can see the desire to keep the Barbarian at a lower AC than the Fighter, since he has extra HP to make up for it.

That does kind of make sense, but for the reason of having more diverse classes I will separate BAB and BDB (Base-Defense Bonus), so that there can be an agressively based class or a defensively based class. But I might be able to use the same progression table, although to keep people harder to hit to balance for less magic items, ill probably scale it down a bit.


Quote:
your not going to survive a 100 ft. drop, no matter who you are

Unless you're this guy.
Or this guy.

I like the thinking, but tumbling and parachuting a bit faster than normal into soft bushes is not exactly the same as a 100 ft. free-fall. Instead, think more mythbusters.

And thanks for the link :smallsmile:

[erikun]

Well, that clears a number of things up. Another long post here.

"Realistic" Physics:
That isn't quite what I would call a representation of realistic physics. That said, if you don't want characters jumping off cliffs or swimming through lava, just change it to ability (Constitution) damage. After all, anything that would do gross structural damage is more likely to damage the physical body than the desire to continue fighting, or whatever else HP represents.

Then again, I happen to like ability damage being more commonplace. It gives characters more options in combat (do I hurt them or grant penalities?) and gives the characters more and longer-lasting worries than simply topping their HP levels.

(I also say that save-or-die => ability damage. Finger or Death? Strength damage, with death if it reduces to 0. Dexterity damage for petrifying gaze or Hold Person. Constitution damage for Disintegrate, and so on. Wizards stop becoming cast-and-win and instead become team players.)

Burning Wheel:
Burning Wheel (http://www.burningwheel.org/) is a relatively new RPG system. There isn't a free version available, so you won't be able to download a PDF from anywhere. The rough idea behind skill advancement is that there are three classes of difficulty: Routine, Difficult, and Challanging. Routine tasks are ones with roughly 50% chance of success or better. Difficult tasks are ones ranging from 50% down to 0% chance of success. Challanging tasks are ones with less than a 0% chance of success.

And yes, the difficulty of a task takes into account various bonuses. If you accept Aid Another for a +10 bonus, then an otherwise Challanging task becomes a simply Difficult one (to use d20 terms).

In order to advance a skill, you must attempt a certain number of tasks at various difficulties. To gain the first rank in a skill, for example, you must attempt one Routine task and one Difficult/Challanging task. Just trying (and likely failing) Challanging tasks all day won't get you anywhere; you actually need the Routine tasks in order to get the sense of how the skill works. The number of challanges increases as you increase in skill, and by mid-levels (5th skill rank in this system), Routine tasks stop counting for anything. If you wish to increase your skill beyond moderate levels, you need to try your luck at Difficult and Challanging tasks.

There are a few things different with the Burning Wheel system. First, it is actually possible to accomplish a Challanging task, although the system for doing so does not have anything similar in D&D. Second, skill checks are only made when the outcome would be relevant, and you only make one check per "scene". That is, you only roll for sneaking (and gain experience for skills) when there is real danger of getting caught, and you would only roll one 'sneak' roll to see how well you perform throughout the entire enemy camp, rather than against every single guard. Allowing rolls all the time just provokes the problem I mentioned before: it becomes remarkably easy to maximize all skills by practicing them all the time.

World of Darkness "alignment":
World of Darkness has three relevant statistics for this discussion: Virtues, Vices, and Willpower. Virtues and Vices are much like D&D alignment; they are attributes of the character's personality. They are based on the seven virtues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_virtues) and seven sins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins), and every character has one of each. They represent what they character will most stand up for, and their greatest weakness.

Willpower is important in WoD, as it powers a lot of supernatural abilities. It also grants bonuses to dice rolls, either adding to rolls or allowing re-rolls. The only way to recover Willpower, besides downtime during a campaign, is through Virtues and Vices. Following a Virtue to the negative impact to the character recovers willpower. The 'negative impact' part is important; giving a dollar to a poor person wouldn't do it. Giving them your car would, or more likely, stopping to help an injured bystandard while under gunfire or being chased would be making a significant sacrifice and be worth recovering willpower.

Vices behave the same way, with doing something that negatively affecting the character recovering willpower. Just smoking wouldn't be worth it, but pulling out a cigarette in front of an important businessman (or in the middle of a no-smoking restaurant) would do so. The degrees between the two are different as well - Virtues are generally bigger deals and grant a full Willpower restore, while Vices are generally smaller indulgences and grant a single point of Willpower recovered.

As I mentioned, you would need to include some sort of Willpower mechanic, or some other kind of morale bonuses, to make use of this mechanic. It would be pretty easy to determine appropriate Good-aligned or Evil-aligned activities that would trigger it, but you need to make the reward meaningful (more than just a +2) to strongly encourage characters to pay attention.

Monster Class Levels:
One big thing I will mention here: If you want this to work, divorce spells and abilities from their rounds/class level mechanic. Make it rounds/character level instead. It may not quite make sense that a Fighter 15/Wizard 1 can cast Magic Missile as strong at a Wizard 16, but you simply will not be able to balance it if your 16th level characters are stuck throwing around 1st level abilities. (The Wizard 16 still has all other the spells that a 16th level caster gets, after all.)

Otherwise, you have the same problem that 3.5e has with casters, where it simply is not worth it for a spellcaster to take anything but more spellcaster levels.

--
From everything I've seen, I'd like to see more about your skills system. That seems like it will be the most different from the standard 3.5e, and might need the largest work-around to fit together correctly. As such, you probably want to get that working properly first, then make adjustments to the rest of the system to fit it in properly.

[Xechon]

"Realistic" Physics:
That isn't quite what I would call a representation of realistic physics. That said, if you don't want characters jumping off cliffs or swimming through lava, just change it to ability (Constitution) damage. After all, anything that would do gross structural damage is more likely to damage the physical body than the desire to continue fighting, or whatever else HP represents.

Then again, I happen to like ability damage being more commonplace. It gives characters more options in combat (do I hurt them or grant penalities?) and gives the characters more and longer-lasting worries than simply topping their HP levels.

(I also say that save-or-die => ability damage. Finger or Death? Strength damage, with death if it reduces to 0. Dexterity damage for petrifying gaze or Hold Person. Constitution damage for Disintegrate, and so on. Wizards stop becoming cast-and-win and instead become team players.)

With fluctuating ability scores, I could make ability drain more common in magic than blasting spells, but I would need to make the amount drained low-ish so that it takes about the same amount of time to kill the enemy with ability score damage as it would a melee class to hp. I like that a lot because it doesn't make arcane spellcasters glass cannons and instead makes them the support and auxiliary, just keep them behind the meat. However, Ability score damage from environment might get unbalanced if combined with these effects, so I'll have to go through circumstances and consider "does this hurt you no matter what or is there a way to avoid it", because essentially, hp is luck, and 0 through -10 are actual damage.


Burning Wheel:
Burning Wheel is a relatively new RPG system. There isn't a free version available, so you won't be able to download a PDF from anywhere. The rough idea behind skill advancement is that there are three classes of difficulty: Routine, Difficult, and Challanging. Routine tasks are ones with roughly 50% chance of success or better. Difficult tasks are ones ranging from 50% down to 0% chance of success. Challanging tasks are ones with less than a 0% chance of success.

And yes, the difficulty of a task takes into account various bonuses. If you accept Aid Another for a +10 bonus, then an otherwise Challanging task becomes a simply Difficult one (to use d20 terms).

In order to advance a skill, you must attempt a certain number of tasks at various difficulties. To gain the first rank in a skill, for example, you must attempt one Routine task and one Difficult/Challanging task. Just trying (and likely failing) Challanging tasks all day won't get you anywhere; you actually need the Routine tasks in order to get the sense of how the skill works. The number of challanges increases as you increase in skill, and by mid-levels (5th skill rank in this system), Routine tasks stop counting for anything. If you wish to increase your skill beyond moderate levels, you need to try your luck at Difficult and Challanging tasks.

There are a few things different with the Burning Wheel system. First, it is actually possible to accomplish a Challanging task, although the system for doing so does not have anything similar in D&D. Second, skill checks are only made when the outcome would be relevant, and you only make one check per "scene". That is, you only roll for sneaking (and gain experience for skills) when there is real danger of getting caught, and you would only roll one 'sneak' roll to see how well you perform throughout the entire enemy camp, rather than against every single guard. Allowing rolls all the time just provokes the problem I mentioned before: it becomes remarkably easy to maximize all skills by practicing them all the time.

I love that system. It allows for leveling of skills without having to track individual XP, but is not too fast a progression. I am going to look more into this, and might just have to buy me a copy. However, at 0% or lower, how do you accomplish the task, especially if the tasks take into account bonuses?


World of Darkness "alignment":
World of Darkness has three relevant statistics for this discussion: Virtues, Vices, and Willpower. Virtues and Vices are much like D&D alignment; they are attributes of the character's personality. They are based on the seven virtues and seven sins, and every character has one of each. They represent what they character will most stand up for, and their greatest weakness.

Willpower is important in WoD, as it powers a lot of supernatural abilities. It also grants bonuses to dice rolls, either adding to rolls or allowing re-rolls. The only way to recover Willpower, besides downtime during a campaign, is through Virtues and Vices. Following a Virtue to the negative impact to the character recovers willpower. The 'negative impact' part is important; giving a dollar to a poor person wouldn't do it. Giving them your car would, or more likely, stopping to help an injured bystandard while under gunfire or being chased would be making a significant sacrifice and be worth recovering willpower.

Vices behave the same way, with doing something that negatively affecting the character recovering willpower. Just smoking wouldn't be worth it, but pulling out a cigarette in front of an important businessman (or in the middle of a no-smoking restaurant) would do so. The degrees between the two are different as well - Virtues are generally bigger deals and grant a full Willpower restore, while Vices are generally smaller indulgences and grant a single point of Willpower recovered.

As I mentioned, you would need to include some sort of Willpower mechanic, or some other kind of morale bonuses, to make use of this mechanic. It would be pretty easy to determine appropriate Good-aligned or Evil-aligned activities that would trigger it, but you need to make the reward meaningful (more than just a +2) to strongly encourage characters to pay attention.

Ooh, interesting. I have a question though: Can a character have more than one Vice or Virtue? Other than that, i might use this, the bonuses and penalties being Karma instead of willpower, and is kinda like action points (Unearthed Arcana http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/UA:Action_Points). Willpower in my mind is a DM judged +2 bonus to a check because a loved one was hurt, they are suddenly inspire, (enter cliche here), etc.


Monster Class Levels:
One big thing I will mention here: If you want this to work, divorce spells and abilities from their rounds/class level mechanic. Make it rounds/character level instead. It may not quite make sense that a Fighter 15/Wizard 1 can cast Magic Missile as strong at a Wizard 16, but you simply will not be able to balance it if your 16th level characters are stuck throwing around 1st level abilities. (The Wizard 16 still has all other the spells that a 16th level caster gets, after all.)

Otherwise, you have the same problem that 3.5e has with casters, where it simply is not worth it for a spellcaster to take anything but more spellcaster levels.

I do not understand your wording of the issue (rounds/class level, rounds/character level), but I understand the problem and have another premade variant to save the day: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/UA:Magic_Rating

It essentially counts melee classes as part caster levels so that spellcasters CAN multiclass, and monster classes with low caster levels but high levels will be spared.


From everything I've seen, I'd like to see more about your skills system. That seems like it will be the most different from the standard 3.5e, and might need the largest work-around to fit together correctly. As such, you probably want to get that working properly first, then make adjustments to the rest of the system to fit it in properly.

Okay, I'll focus on the skill system, but I want to get a copy of the burning wheel before I go into too much depth. Glad you like the mods :smallsmile:

[erikun]

With fluctuating ability scores, I could make ability drain more common in magic than blasting spells, but I would need to make the amount drained low-ish so that it takes about the same amount of time to kill the enemy with ability score damage as it would a melee class to hp. I like that a lot because it doesn't make arcane spellcasters glass cannons and instead makes them the support and auxiliary, just keep them behind the meat.
I was actually indicating that melee should get into the ability damage race. 3.5e Rogues can already deal Dexterity and Strength damage in exchange for sneak attack (through the use of feats), and there are both prestige classes and magic weapons (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#wounding) that deal Constitution damage. 3d6 Strength damage might be pretty impressive for a Wizard, but that's a 7th level spell and the only thing you are guaranteed is a -5 to hit/damage if it hits. A Fighter or Rogue that can deal 1d4 each attack may seem less impressive, but all that damage adds up throughout the day.

They can all work together as well, having everyone focus on STR damage to take out a big threat together.

Also, I would recommend just using Ability Damage (which actually lowers the score until recovered) and Penalities (which grants a penality to any appropriate rolls). Ability Drain is confusing compared to Ability Damage and quite annoying that your character has no way of recovering from it, and Ability Penalities just add more confusion. It would be far clearer if Ray of Enfeeblement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/rayOfEnfeeblement.htm) gave -2 to any Strength rolls (including weapon damage) instead.


I love that system. It allows for leveling of skills without having to track individual XP, but is not too fast a progression. I am going to look more into this, and might just have to buy me a copy. However, at 0% or lower, how do you accomplish the task, especially if the tasks take into account bonuses?
That would be Artha. Artha is gained through roleplay to your character's traits and beliefs, and is spend to ignore penalities and increase a roll. It works a lot like WoD's Willpower, including traits and beliefs being similar to virtues/vices. Unlike other bonuses, bonuses from Artha does not affect the difficulty of the task.

Consider it this way: If a DC 20 task is difficult for you, and you get five friends to help you out, is it still as difficult? Do you still learn as much from it? Unlikely. However, if you take the effort to "put 110%" into the task - spend Artha - you have the chance of overcoming even your normal limits.

Also note that you need to test the skill, not necessarily pass it. Of course, this means your character is faced with a dilemma: Either take the easy and safe route without challange, or grow from the challange but face a high risk of failure.

Burning Wheel is very much about roleplaying the significant choices that the character makes.


Ooh, interesting. I have a question though: Can a character have more than one Vice or Virtue?
No, although during some significant downtime a character may exchange one Virtue for another. (The same with Vices.)


I do not understand your wording of the issue (rounds/class level, rounds/character level), but I understand the problem and have another premade variant to save the day: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/UA:Magic_Rating

It essentially counts melee classes as part caster levels so that spellcasters CAN multiclass, and monster classes with low caster levels but high levels will be spared.
I mean that most spells have a duration of "1 round/caster level" or a power of "1d6/caster level", and most spells have a saving throw of 10 + spell level + ability modifier. This runs into a problem with high-level characters with low spellcasting levels; who cares about your 1d4 Burning Hands or one round Summon Monster when you are fighting a 15th level opponent?

Instead, I recommend that it be 1 round/character level, 1d6/character level, and 10 + 1/2 character level + ability modifier for saving throws. This means that even our Fighter 15/Wizard 1 can make meaningful use of the spells they have.

The problem with the UA Magic system is that, unless we are only dipping in the non-caster for a level or two, the class combination ends up devistating for the spellcaster. A Figher 5/Wizard 5 isn't any better with that system than in the standard one, and it only gets worse at higher levels.

[Xechon]

I was actually indicating that melee should get into the ability damage race. 3.5e Rogues can already deal Dexterity and Strength damage in exchange for sneak attack (through the use of feats), and there are both prestige classes and magic weapons that deal Constitution damage. 3d6 Strength damage might be pretty impressive for a Wizard, but that's a 7th level spell and the only thing you are guaranteed is a -5 to hit/damage if it hits. A Fighter or Rogue that can deal 1d4 each attack may seem less impressive, but all that damage adds up throughout the day.

They can all work together as well, having everyone focus on STR damage to take out a big threat together.

Also, I would recommend just using Ability Damage (which actually lowers the score until recovered) and Penalities (which grants a penality to any appropriate rolls). Ability Drain is confusing compared to Ability Damage and quite annoying that your character has no way of recovering from it, and Ability Penalities just add more confusion. It would be far clearer if Ray of Enfeeblement gave -2 to any Strength rolls (including weapon damage) instead.

Okay, so I want to pretend that we have only the SRD books as content to be modified for this system, and all other books can just be for any good ideas they have in them. I say that because, I know of the Str damage rogues can deal, but I've never seen any feats or abilities that deal dex damage, or practically any other ability damage. I have thought of giving every class ability damaging features, however, I don't know exactly how to balance that well, because if everyone in the party suddenly starts attacking a monster's con, the encounter will take 10x less time, effort, and resources for every encounter. Also, if we just give monsters higher ability scores, then they will be better than usual, and can just use ability damage on the players, completely undermining their power. To use this system, we would have to use either very minimal damage chance or increase the ability score to more drastic ranges. Also, at level 13, if a wizard is dealing 3d6 Str. damage, isn't that a bit overpowered? on one end, it could deal 3 points on Str, damage, a -1 to melee and damage, not that big of a deal to most. However, on the other end, 18 points of Str. damage out of 20 max? That would be an equal of a wail of the banshee at even high levels, except without a save.

And also, when I say Ability (damage, penalty, drain, insert negative here), I just mean ability damage. I've never supported the idea of permanent ability loss, and don't think I ever will.


That would be Artha. Artha is gained through roleplay to your character's traits and beliefs, and is spend to ignore penalities and increase a roll. It works a lot like WoD's Willpower, including traits and beliefs being similar to virtues/vices. Unlike other bonuses, bonuses from Artha does not affect the difficulty of the task.

Consider it this way: If a DC 20 task is difficult for you, and you get five friends to help you out, is it still as difficult? Do you still learn as much from it? Unlikely. However, if you take the effort to "put 110%" into the task - spend Artha - you have the chance of overcoming even your normal limits.

Also note that you need to test the skill, not necessarily pass it. Of course, this means your character is faced with a dilemma: Either take the easy and safe route without challange, or grow from the challange but face a high risk of failure.

Burning Wheel is very much about roleplaying the significant choices that the character makes.

I do want to reward roleplaying and punish metagaming and distracting behavior, but not in the way of another static bonus. To me, putting 110% into something is just a figure of speech actually meaning "put more than what you Think is your 100% into the task. I do agree that getting friends to help you wont give you near as much experience, but I also don't want to scale task difficulty on skill bonus. It makes Players who actually spent time and effort training these skills at the same level as the lazy ones. Also, I will not be able to obtain the burning wheel content for some time, so I think I will just go by what you have told me about it so far and learn by trail and error.


No, although during some significant downtime a character may exchange one Virtue for another. (The same with Vices.)

Hmm... Well that doesn't make much sense, but I suppose it helps with game balance, so you wont get a penalty every time you do something bad nor a bonus every time you do something good. However, this raises the question: Within roleplaying, a player can commit more of the virtues and/or vices than just their chosen ones, just without a bonus, correct? Because, c'mon, greedy people are usually envious of other's wealth, sloth and lust go together, ect.


I mean that most spells have a duration of "1 round/caster level" or a power of "1d6/caster level", and most spells have a saving throw of 10 + spell level + ability modifier. This runs into a problem with high-level characters with low spellcasting levels; who cares about your 1d4 Burning Hands or one round Summon Monster when you are fighting a 15th level opponent?

Instead, I recommend that it be 1 round/character level, 1d6/character level, and 10 + 1/2 character level + ability modifier for saving throws. This means that even our Fighter 15/Wizard 1 can make meaningful use of the spells they have.

The problem with the UA Magic system is that, unless we are only dipping in the non-caster for a level or two, the class combination ends up devistating for the spellcaster. A Figher 5/Wizard 5 isn't any better with that system than in the standard one, and it only gets worse at higher levels.

I have a few problems with that. The first one is, a Fighter can take 20 levels, then start a 1st level wiz and have the same power as both a level 20 Fighter and lvl 10 with a limited spell list. Also, with this combination, at 1st level the wiz could start researching epic level spells right away, and the fighter would gain the ability to do everything, because the only thing a wiz can't do is tank. The only things I can think of to fix this is to have a lower caster level for non-caster classes (so wiz and sorc could stack, that would give more options), make spellcasters less overpowered (less power in spells, but add feats for no arcane failure chance with proficient armor (long chain, you'd have to get armor prof then this feat) maybe), or create a variant of this variant for spellcasting spontaneously: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/words-of-power

If we use the third options, sorcs become "wordcasters" (definatly gonna change the name), change spellcasters anyway to become less overpowered (wiz still uses spell slots) and keep psionics on the power points. Also, if iit hasn't become apparent by now, I do not like divine magic, nor do I even pretend it exists. If you want "divine magic", I say have a wiz with div specialty and use buff spells mostly. The reason for my reasoning is that healing is overpowered in any way, because no one wants a solid "just heal, no combat" type, and so if players really want to survive, they can just all be a party of clerics, taking turns duking it out and healing repetitively. Druids are auto balance, and I don't agree with "nature gives you magic", and Rangers the same thing. You can create a class with any of these feels, but for the sake of the creators sanity I say count it as arcane, with the ability to cast in certain armors. Aslo, i've been using the www.dandwiki.com system for class creation as a basis of all of my ideas on the subject. Heres a link: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Class_Construction_System_(DnD_Guideline)
This page helps supplement it: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Character_Class_Design_Guidelines_(DnD_Guideline)

Sorry for the long time for this post, had a busy day today. I'll try to get the next set of ideas ready, but most of my time is actually wrapped up and swimming in all these ideas; thank you all, and keep 'em coming.

[erikun]

I have thought of giving every class ability damaging features, however, I don't know exactly how to balance that well, because if everyone in the party suddenly starts attacking a monster's con, the encounter will take 10x less time, effort, and resources for every encounter.
I guess it depends on what you consider appropriate length for an encounter. I feel that anything running more than 5 rounds should be mostly decided, one way or another, unless both sides are pulling out everything they have and expending large numbers of resources. I don't much like fights that drag on past 20 rounds because each side has difficulty hurting each other.

Your vision of what combat should be might be different, and in that case, my recommendations might not be as helpful. I never indicated that everything I thought up would be the best, after all. :smalltongue:

Also, you could balance how much they can do. 1 point of STR damage in exchange for +4d6 sneak attack (for rogues) or +4 BAB (for fighters) is probably not too imbalancing, but still considerably dangerous to a wizard or other weak fighter.


Also, at level 13, if a wizard is dealing 3d6 Str. damage, isn't that a bit overpowered?
Your 13th level wizard is casting that spell once per day; twice, with bonus spell slots. The fact that they might kill a single target with a lucky roll and a failed Fort save isn't really any worse than, say, a 5th level wizard throwing a Fireball for 5d6, dealing ~30 damage and dropping a group to half health.


And also, when I say Ability (damage, penalty, drain, insert negative here), I just mean ability damage. I've never supported the idea of permanent ability loss, and don't think I ever will.
Yay! I'm not a fan of complexity for complexity's sake, and if something can be done just as well under simplier terms, I say stick with the simple way.


I do want to reward roleplaying and punish metagaming and distracting behavior, but not in the way of another static bonus.
I was just pointing out how Burning Wheel does things, and the logic behind the system's decisions. The same logic won't apply for every system, and I don't see a practical way to implement Artha in a d20 game anyways.

Hopefully, though, it will give you some ideas of what you do want to implement (and what you don't) for your own system.


Hmm... Well that doesn't make much sense, but I suppose it helps with game balance, so you wont get a penalty every time you do something bad nor a bonus every time you do something good. However, this raises the question: Within roleplaying, a player can commit more of the virtues and/or vices than just their chosen ones, just without a bonus, correct? Because, c'mon, greedy people are usually envious of other's wealth, sloth and lust go together, ect.
Eh, it was probably a system decision. Plus, I could say the exact same thing about the alignment system. Good people can not care in some situations and feel cruel and selfish at times, freedom-loving individuals can appreciate structure and follow orders, etc.


I have a few problems with that. The first one is, a Fighter can take 20 levels, then start a 1st level wiz and have the same power as both a level 20 Fighter and lvl 10 with a limited spell list.
The power of at 10th level wizard isn't a 5d4+5 Magic Missile or a Shield spell that lasts 10 minutes, it is the 5th level spells they know and all the spell slots they've acquired. The solution isn't quite as bad as you indicate.


Also, with this combination, at 1st level the wiz could start researching epic level spells right away, and the fighter would gain the ability to do everything, because the only thing a wiz can't do is tank.
Epic spellcasting is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE and one of the worst parts of the 3.5e system. If nothing else in the system, it needs to be heavily changed or removed. :smallmad:

Besides, our Fighter 20/Wizard 1 still can't cast epic spells. Epic Spellcasting requires a feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#epicSpellcasting), and one of the requirements include casting 9th level spells. There is no way someone with only 1st level spell slots qualifies for that.


I don't have much to say about the rest, except that healing is really terrible in 3.5e. I've played plenty of Clerics, and I can tell you that 1d8+5 just isn't enough to patch up the damage coming from more than one opponent. Even something like 3d8+10 generally heals a rather pathetic amount, compared to the damage of wizards or giants.

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169653) is a version of the sorcerer that uses "spell seeds" (basically, non-epic version of epic spellcasting) as its means of casting spells. I never actually gave the class a try to see how it played, though.

[Xechon]

I guess it depends on what you consider appropriate length for an encounter. I feel that anything running more than 5 rounds should be mostly decided, one way or another, unless both sides are pulling out everything they have and expending large numbers of resources. I don't much like fights that drag on past 20 rounds because each side has difficulty hurting each other.

Your vision of what combat should be might be different, and in that case, my recommendations might not be as helpful. I never indicated that everything I thought up would be the best, after all.

Also, you could balance how much they can do. 1 point of STR damage in exchange for +4d6 sneak attack (for rogues) or +4 BAB (for fighters) is probably not too imbalancing, but still considerably dangerous to a wizard or other weak fighter.

I tend to favor the long, epic, drawn-out battles, 1-on-1 or party vs. powerful foe. However, your comments have proved invaluable for launching this process, and for that, I thank you.

Thank yous aside, I believe that a rogue would be very upset with its 4d6 damage becoming 1 Str., especially since it already can deal str damage. However, I have a proposition: Increase the range for ability scores quite a bit, then get rid of HP altogether. Instead, most enemies will deal Con damage, and other effects can deal other types of damage. If this is not a good idea, for hit points I have also considered getting rid of negatives and giving everyone their con score to HP at first level, mod at all other levels, and the rest given by class is luck, like regular HP is. every night, the hp is restored fully, but life recharges 1 a night.

Sorry, busy day toady, ill reply to the rest tomorrow if I can.

[Xechon]

Your 13th level wizard is casting that spell once per day; twice, with bonus spell slots. The fact that they might kill a single target with a lucky roll and a failed Fort save isn't really any worse than, say, a 5th level wizard throwing a Fireball for 5d6, dealing ~30 damage and dropping a group to half health.

Yeah, ok, blasting spells need to be fixed anyway, maybe I'll make rules for creating spells and only start with a few base ones. Balance the spellcasters a bit, y'know?


Eh, it was probably a system decision. Plus, I could say the exact same thing about the alignment system. Good people can not care in some situations and feel cruel and selfish at times, freedom-loving individuals can appreciate structure and follow orders, etc.

Alignment looks like that in the PH but in actuality, if you read the DM's guide, you will see it says that alignment is a general category and not a limit or guideline, and that's what I'm using for it. I really like the seven virtues and vices, even though I'm not catholic, and want to use it but will have to have some way of letting people have as many as they want but not tip the balance of the game completely.


The power of at 10th level wizard isn't a 5d4+5 Magic Missile or a Shield spell that lasts 10 minutes, it is the 5th level spells they know and all the spell slots they've acquired. The solution isn't quite as bad as you indicate.

Okay, when balancing spells I will try to implement this kind of thing into them, so character level will be caster level. However, do you have any ideas on how to explain a character instantly gaining a class, especially wiz, because level 1 is supposed to represent past training, and if a newbie wiz can somehow just cast stronger than others just because of levels in barbarian..


Epic spellcasting is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE and one of the worst parts of the 3.5e system. If nothing else in the system, it needs to be heavily changed or removed.

Besides, our Fighter 20/Wizard 1 still can't cast epic spells. Epic Spellcasting requires a feat, and one of the requirements include casting 9th level spells. There is no way someone with only 1st level spell slots qualifies for that.


I don't have much to say about the rest, except that healing is really terrible in 3.5e. I've played plenty of Clerics, and I can tell you that 1d8+5 just isn't enough to patch up the damage coming from more than one opponent. Even something like 3d8+10 generally heals a rather pathetic amount, compared to the damage of wizards or giants.

Here is a version of the sorcerer that uses "spell seeds" (basically, non-epic version of epic spellcasting) as its means of casting spells. I never actually gave the class a try to see how it played, though.

Have to agree with you there. I've never played any epic level character before, but I've read some epic spell descriptions, and I don't know anyone who would want to deal 1000 damage for extreme material cost and over half of the damage dealt to themselves. And also, I can see the purpose for cutting a mountain off of the ground, flipping it over and making it float permanently in the air, but really?

I didn't know that epic spellcasting took a feat, but that was a very good idea. If one DM made the slightest wording error in their houserules, 20 fighter, 1 wiz casting epics would be born.

I don't think there is any way at all to add healing in the game while keeping it balanced, which is one of the main reasons I like to kick divines on their way out the door.

I'm not going to use the classes for spell seeds, but I might just use this instead of or as an alternate of the wordcasting system, they have many similarities and they both share the general idea of what I want for spontaneous spellcasters.

[Kuma Kode]

Okay, when balancing spells I will try to implement this kind of thing into them, so character level will be caster level. However, do you have any ideas on how to explain a character instantly gaining a class, especially wiz, because level 1 is supposed to represent past training, and if a newbie wiz can somehow just cast stronger than others just because of levels in barbarian... The same way that characters who have no training with magic get better at resisting it. Or how fighting monsters makes you more resistant to the flu and to poison. Or how one soul-eating touch from a spectre kills a commoner but is an average encounter for higher level characters; inner strength.

Gaining experience can represent a strengthening of the character's soul and inner power, which would naturally allow them to manipulate magic better than someone without the same self-awareness.

[nonsi]

@Xechon - have you started formulating skills' prerequisites already ?

[Xechon]

The same way that characters who have no training with magic get better at resisting it. Or how fighting monsters makes you more resistant to the flu and to poison. Or how one soul-eating touch from a spectre kills a commoner but is an average encounter for higher level characters; inner strength.

Gaining experience can represent a strengthening of the character's soul and inner power, which would naturally allow them to manipulate magic better than someone without the same self-awareness.

Yeah, that'll need some work, but thanks for your description


@Xechon - have you started formulating skills' prerequisites already ?

Well, no, I'm waiting for replies so I can have a build for the ability score system before I do the skill prerequisites, for a good base to stand on, and less revision later.