LoE a D20 system overhaul (PEACH) (WIP)

[Virdish]

I know it seems to have become a new trend on these boards to start new systems which I am all for. Independent people I feel will usually make better system then a company who is looking solely at the bottom line. Me and a couple friends have been working on a system now for a little while and I actually posted it up earlier on these boards to little review. I have had more time to work on the system now so it is less of an infant and moving towards realization. The system is made with a particular assumed setting in mind however I plan for it to be transferable to most any setting. My inspirations for this system include a wide variety including 3.5, pathfinder, legends, white wolf, mmo's such as wow, and various other systems and ideas along with a good helping of my early experience playing off the cuff roleplaying games with friends. One of my most highly held beliefs is that above all else a rp should be fun and easily tweaked to fit a group. In this vein I give you:

Legends of Eridia

LoE as me and my friends and team have come to call it is a roleplaying game not unlike many others, however we strive to give it a unique identity. We have borrowed things from other systems, tweaked some more things and created our own unique touches to polish it to something we believe is a going to be a fun and unique system.

Here is an overview of some of our design plans and features

Races
1. The biggest change here is that race will no longer simply be something you take at first level to gain a few bonuses. Your race will be part of your adventure throughout. A level 20 elf warrior(not that we will actually have elfs) will play and feel like an elf instead of a human with less feats and pointy ears.
2. Race will give you stat adjustments like normal as well as set your movement speed, size, and most of the normal stuff. There will be however no such thing as starting racial proficiencies and things of the like. Nor any bonuses to skills. this will be handled by racial traits discussed below.
3. Racial traits. When you select a race you will gain access to a special list of traits that you will choose from throughout your career. These will be akin to the aforementioned skill bonuses. These will have prerequisites so that we can design them in a way that will keep your racial traits relevant even at level 20.
3. Akin to pathfinder races will effect your class as well by providing alternatives to certain class features or in addition to. Basically these will be built in acf's

Classes

4. Magic classes will be reworked entirely. Most magical classes will be specialists however there will be a dabbler of sorts which will have lesser power but more versatility. See the magic section for more on magic and it's users.
5. Marshal classes will get some much needed love with the addition of special attacks. Some of these will be gained automatically with BAB, while others will be based off of ae list available from your class.
6. Every class is being reworked from the ground up. Iconic abilities such as rage and wild form will be present but in augmented form for different reason (wild shape for instance will be much less versatile while rage will be more unique and be buffed to truly effective and unique instead of just some bonuses.) And every class will have powerful capstones to motivate sticking with the class.

Magic

7. Vancian spellcasting is gone in favor of a modified spell point and invocation system.
8. Spell points (known as mana) will be used for spellcasting as well as powering magical items and special equipment. In this vein all characters will have mana based on their Cha score (the exact amount has not been decided yet) with spellcasters gaining extra to allocate to their invocations.
9. Spellcasters will have more invocations known then a warlock for instance but this will be counter balanced with the need to invest mana at the beginning of the day to allow them access to those invocations. There will be a system to swap investments though it will be limited (maybe one or two invocations swapped)
10. All casters with the exception of the dabbler will have a highly specialized list of possible invocations that will fit along a theme with the ability to take a couple invocations outside of their list on a limited basis to assist in a certain amount of versatility.
11. Dabblers will use a slightly different mechanic that will be less powerful then their specialized brethren though I have yet to truly decide what that will be.
12. Invocations will be reworked from the ground up to avoid brokenness whenever possible. (for instance transmutations spells will be nerfed by making a person's "being" intrinsic and unmutable therefore you can look like a bear and gain some bonuses but you are really you. The only exception will be the druid analogue though like I said they will be highly nerfed through the new interpretation of wild shape.)

Combat

13. Bloodied will be used in this system heavily. PC's and monsters will have different options when they or their enemies are bloodied.
14. HP will be constitution score at first level plus a class modifier. Subsequent levels will give you con mod plus class mod. This will inflate HP a little hopefully helping alleviate rocket tag.
15. PC's will now not die until they are negative equal to constitution plus HD.
16. Just me reserving for things that will need work. Combat is honestly my weakest area so if someone wants to help me here I would be appreciated

Feats and Skills
17. Feats will be entirely reworked to cut mandatory feat taxes and to remove boring +2 feats. Feats will be new things that you can do.
18. Skill will be condensed and reworked to be more usefull as well as allow players to spread out their skill points a bit. Some things that are feats now will be moved into special attacks, and class features while the weapon chains may be connected to BAB.
19. Feats will be gained as 3.5 for now though I am thinking of moving to pathfinders system on this.

Equipment

20. "magical" equipment will be replaced with special materials that when mana is invested will produce a certain effect. For instance a sword made of dragon bone could flare to life (pun intended) when mana is invested. More traditional magic items will become artifacts from an ancient time when magic could still be infused into items.
21. Since equipment is now mainly dependent on materials item creation should be more profitable especially due to a large lack of items currently made from this material. Your character is one of the small amount of people able to use mana. (though everyone has it. Most just don't know how to unlock the latent ability. Mana is what makes you better then npc's no more need to make an imaginary reason.... well you get the point.)
22. Magic wands of cure light wounds simply do not exist however potions that heal do. The heal skill will be buffed to make it possible, if dangerous, to travel without a healer. Potions give fast healing 1/5/10 depending on the potion

Miscellaneous
23. Point buy will be simplified every point trading on a one for on basis. Given an even distribution of points all six core stats will be 13 meaning 72 points. Highest score before racial modifier's will be 18 and core races will never give more then a plus 2 in any given stat. Therefore max is 20 at character creation.
24. Listen, spot, and search will be removed in favor of a secondary stat perception which at this point is set at wisdom score+racial modifier+1/2 hit dice. This is meant to help immersion since now there will be no "make a spot check." "well now even though we failed we know something is coming" conditional modifiers based on distraction or vigilance may be added ad hoc by dm fiat. (though if it is easier I will create a table for a baseline)
25. Critical successes and critical failures will mean more then just auto success auto fail. With combat for example botching could mean dropping your weapon

[Virdish]

Because Sam pointed out that I didn't post up my design goals

1. My main goal is to create a fun system.
2. I want to rework the balance point. 3.5 is a great system but WoTC is horrible with balance.
3. I want every class to always have something to do, other then "I full attack"
4. I want race to be an important part of the experience
5. I want a system that encourages unique characters.
6. I want to balance magic. It's a big goal I know but fixing 3.5 means fixing this first
7. I want each class to be varied and fun to play as well as fit well into a party. Each bringing something to the table
8. I want to drastically lessen spellcasters ability to walk around and be a better "insert class name" then someone who has that class.
9. I want to streamline tgings as much as possible.

Magic

Magic is integral in the world of LoE. In fact it is litterally part of the make up of every living creature in Eridia due to millenia of "magical radiation". This has caused a basic and fundemental change in the way creatures genetic structure is made up. Beings in Eridia have a triple helical DNA where the third helix is what they tap into when using magic. This is represented by a characters mana pool. Though all beings in Eridia have a mana pool not all beings have the ability to tap into it. A beings mana pool is equal to their charisma score as magic literally involves forcing ones will onto the cosmo's. Certain classes learn to better harness their innate magic and as such gain an incresed mana pool. This includes but is not limited to spellcasting classes (henceforth referred to as invokers). Invokers use this extra mana to bind invocations every day. Every invocation has a requisite mana cost that must be paid to bind it. After it is bound an invocation may be cast at will. Usually bound invocations are unbound upon sleeping as an invokers will is turned inwards, however certain invocations can be made permanent with an extra expenditure of mana. Making an invocation permanent requires 6 hours of meditation, removing a permanent invocation takes another 6 hours. Invocations that can be made permanent have description of what effect making it permanent has though for most this simply allows the invocation to be used at any time even if the invoker is awakened from sleep.

Mana and Equipment

Certain materials respond to mana in unique ways. These materials, when used in item crafting impart effects to the item that can be activated by investing mana into them. Investing and uninvesting mana into an item is a move equivalent action, giving players the ability to quickly react to changing situations. Mana that is invested into a item is removed from a players total mana pool until it is uninvested or the item is no longer in the players control (for instance if a weapon is taken or the player removes his armor to sleep).

Artifacts

Rare items from millenia long past will sometimes be imbued with magic in a more integral way. These items need no investment of mana since the magic is crafted into their very being. Artifacts will generally work for anyone who uses them regardless of wether they are able to tap into their own mana or not though some artifacts have requirements that must be met by the user for them to activate ex. A cursed weapon may only activate when held by an evil character.

Power of Artifacts; a note for DM's

Artifacts in this system represent a powerful tool in the hands on PC's and NPC's alike as it allows them access to magical effects without spending resources to use, because of this it is advised that artifacts be a rare thing in the world. Artifacts make good rewards fir especially hard tasks or especially good roleplaying. Along with this it is suggested that any Artifact be given a history and significance in the plot due to their rare nature.

[Virdish]

Reserved post number 2

[Virdish]

Reserving some more. Tralala

[Virdish]

One last reserved post just in case

[Virdish]

Added functional working description of magic and mana. Working on example invokers description of the invocation system as well as example invocations known. Race template and example race also in the works.

[Yitzi]

Firstly, if your system is similar enough to D&D that it makes sense to list the changes from D&D (rather than just describing your system on its own), it isn't really ground-up design.


The system is made with a particular assumed setting in mind however I plan for it to be transferable to most any setting.

Generally a good idea.


My inspirations for this system include a wide variety including 3.5, pathfinder, legends, white wolf, mmo's such as wow, and various other systems and ideas along with a good helping of my early experience playing off the cuff roleplaying games with friends.

You should be aware that that's a wide range of positions when it comes to the narrativist/gamist/simulationist triad, so you may need to decide where on that spectrum you plan your game to fall.


1. The biggest change here is that race will no longer simply be something you take at first level to gain a few bonuses. Your race will be part of your adventure throughout. A level 20 elf warrior(not that we will actually have elfs) will play and feel like an elf instead of a human with less feats and pointy ears.
2. Race will give you stat adjustments like normal as well as set your movement speed, size, and most of the normal stuff. There will be however no such thing as starting racial proficiencies and things of the like. Nor any bonuses to skills. this will be handled by racial traits discussed below.
3. Racial traits. When you select a race you will gain access to a special list of traits that you will choose from throughout your career. These will be akin to the aforementioned skill bonuses. These will have prerequisites so that we can design them in a way that will keep your racial traits relevant even at level 20.

Sounds good. I would strongly advise, in the interests of what you're trying to be doing, that you make the racial traits be things that actually have a strong effect on playstyle, rather than just small numerical bonuses to skills or the like.


3. Akin to pathfinder races will effect your class as well by providing alternatives to certain class features or in addition to. Basically these will be built in acf's

Sounds good. I'd advise you find a theme (or more than one) for each race and build your racial traits around those, as the key to making this work will be having racial traits synergize with each other, and a theme can help greatly with that.


4. Magic classes will be reworked entirely. Most magical classes will be specialists however there will be a dabbler of sorts which will have lesser power but more versatility. See the magic section for more on magic and it's users.
5. Martial classes will get some much needed love with the addition of special attacks. Some of these will be gained automatically with BAB, while others will be based off of ae list available from your class.

I would advise that you make the special attacks not use any game-y systems like special attack bars or anything like that, but rather something more realistic-seeming (but not too similar to your magic mechanic). One that seems a decent idea is to have each special attack either apply a negative condition to the target, or require that the target have a particular negative condition (also applyable by that class), or both; that way you can get nice combos without seeming too unrealistic.


Every class is being reworked from the ground up. Iconic abilities such as rage and wild form will be present but in augmented form

"Augmented" means "increased", and it sounds like you're planning to decrease some of them. Not a problem with the idea, you just might want to be careful with your language.


(wild shape for instance will be much less versatile while rage will be more unique and be buffed to truly effective and unique instead of just some bonuses.) And every class will have powerful capstones to motivate sticking with the class.

Sounds good.


12. Invocations will be reworked from the ground up to avoid brokenness whenever possible. (for instance transmutations spells will be nerfed by making a person's "being" intrinsic and unmutable therefore you can look like a bear and gain some bonuses but you are really you. The only exception will be the druid analogue though like I said they will be highly nerfed through the new interpretation of wild shape.)

Sounds good.


13. Bloodied will be used in this system heavily. PC's and monsters will have different options when they or their enemies are bloodied.

I personally don't like the bloodied mechanic, as I don't really think you should get advantages for being weakened, but that's more stylistic than a real objection.


14. HP will be constitution score at first level plus a class modifier. Subsequent levels will give you con mod plus class mod. This will inflate HP a little hopefully helping alleviate rocket tag.

It really just ends up giving you a small fixed bonus, which doesn't do much for rocket tag.

If you really want to get rid of rocket tag, you should:
A: Remove all always-hits or almost-always-hits abilities, except maybe a few very weak ones. Rocket tag is characterized by a heavy emphasis on offense, and the most common cause of that is when defense cannot prevent attacks, meaning that the only viable defense is a good offense.
B: All save-or-lose (including save-or-die) effects, if you allow them at all, should be either designed for use on key lower-level enemies (i.e. a max hit die well below the caster level, or a DC well below 10 plus the save bonus of a same-level target), or require a not-very-easy setup. Easy one-hit kills (or effective kills) are the essence of rocket tag; do away with them, and rocket tag should disappear.


15. PC's will now not die until they are negative equal to constitution plus HD.

Better than the current system, but still means that they can be killed with a smaller portion of their total hit points at level 20 than at level 1.


17. Feats will be entirely reworked to cut mandatory feat taxes and to remove boring +2 feats. Feats will be new things that you can do.

Sounds good. Stuff like Combat Expertise and Power Attack should still stay, though.


18. Skill will be condensed and reworked to be more usefull as well as allow players to spread out their skill points a bit. Some things that are feats now will be moved into special attacks, and class features while the weapon chains may be connected to BAB.

Sounds good, especially linking weapon chains to BAB.


20. "magical" equipment will be replaced with special materials that when mana is invested will produce a certain effect. For instance a sword made of dragon bone could flare to life (pun intended) when mana is invested. More traditional magic items will become artifacts from an ancient time when magic could still be infused into items.

Sounds good, although be aware that you'll still have more equipment=more options=more effectiveness.


Your character is one of the small amount of people able to use mana. (though everyone has it. Most just don't know how to unlock the latent ability. Mana is what makes you better then npc's no more need to make an imaginary reason.... well you get the point.)

So your system is based on the assumptions that the PCs (as well as presumably a few select NPCs) are some sort of metaphysical elite rather than simply being highly trained and capable (Chosen Ones as opposed to a SWAT team, essentially)...that will change things significantly, make sure you want that.


22. Magic wands of cure light wounds simply do not exist however potions that heal do. The heal skill will be buffed to make it possible, if dangerous, to travel without a healer. Potions give fast healing 1/5/10 depending on the potion

Sounds good.


23. Point buy will be simplified every point trading on a one for on basis.

I would STRONGLY advise against this, as (assuming the minimum is 3; you didn't say) it will mean you'll see a lot of builds with the 4 most important abilities at 18 and the other 2 dumped at 3. The increasing-cost point buy is meant to provide an incentive to lean more toward an even distribution, counteracting the tendency to focus on the most important abilities.


24. Listen, spot, and search will be removed in favor of a secondary stat perception which at this point is set at wisdom score+racial modifier+1/2 hit dice. This is meant to help immersion since now there will be no "make a spot check." "well now even though we failed we know something is coming"

You shouldn't get that anyway; the DM should either roll those sorts of spot checks himself, or call for spot checks at random intervals anyway so that you don't know that something is coming.


Magic

Beings in Eridia have a triple helical DNA where the third helix is what they tap into when using magic.

From the POV of anyone who knows biology, this makes no sense and sounds like someone trying to technobabble their way into an explanation. If you want to have it be in their DNA, say it's a special gene that produces proteins that aid in the manipulation of magic, but keep away from the triple-helix idea.


Invokers use this extra mana to bind invocations every day. Every invocation has a requisite mana cost that must be paid to bind it. After it is bound an invocation may be cast at will. Usually bound invocations are unbound upon sleeping as an invokers will is turned inwards, however certain invocations can be made permanent with an extra expenditure of mana. Making an invocation permanent requires 6 hours of meditation, removing a permanent invocation takes another 6 hours. Invocations that can be made permanent have description of what effect making it permanent has though for most this simply allows the invocation to be used at any time even if the invoker is awakened from sleep.

I assume that a permanent invocation permanently ties up its mana cost?


Rare items from millenia long past will sometimes be imbued with magic in a more integral way. These items need no investment of mana since the magic is crafted into their very being. Artifacts will generally work for anyone who uses them regardless of wether they are able to tap into their own mana or not though some artifacts have requirements that must be met by the user for them to activate ex. A cursed weapon may only activate when held by an evil character.

Power of Artifacts; a note for DM's

Artifacts in this system represent a powerful tool in the hands on PC's and NPC's alike as it allows them access to magical effects without spending resources to use, because of this it is advised that artifacts be a rare thing in the world. Artifacts make good rewards fir especially hard tasks or especially good roleplaying. Along with this it is suggested that any Artifact be given a history and significance in the plot due to their rare nature.

Sounds good.

[Virdish]

First off thank you for your time in reviewing my system.


Firstly, if your system is similar enough to D&D that it makes sense to list the changes from D&D (rather than just describing your system on its own), it isn't really ground-up design.

True. I'll change the thread name to represent this.


You should be aware that that's a wide range of positions when it comes to the narrativist/gamist/simulationist triad, so you may need to decide where on that spectrum you plan your game to fall.

I plan for it to be somewhere in between storytelling and simulationist.


Sounds good. I would strongly advise, in the interests of what you're trying to be doing, that you make the racial traits be things that actually have a strong effect on playstyle, rather than just small numerical bonuses to skills or the like.

Will deffinently keep this in mind. I hadn't thought about it that way. Thank you for pointing that out to me.


I would advise that you make the special attacks not use any game-y systems like special attack bars or anything like that, but rather something more realistic-seeming (but not too similar to your magic mechanic). One that seems a decent idea is to have each special attack either apply a negative condition to the target, or require that the target have a particular negative condition (also applyable by that class), or both; that way you can get nice combos without seeming too unrealistic.

This was originally going to be tied to a game-y system called energy but a little before I posted it I thought about it and it seemed far too much like an mmo for me to include in good conscious. My main thought process for "Special attacks" is to implement stuns, negative conditions, and ways to bypass certain defenses. For instance I want to give the rogue analogue a way to bypass crit immunity.


Sounds good. I'd advise you find a theme (or more than one) for each race and build your racial traits around those, as the key to making this work will be having racial traits synergize with each other, and a theme can help greatly with that.

As it stands the system only has a very small amount of races which all fit into certain themes. For instance the Narzul are brutish, proud, and have a more primal intellect.


It really just ends up giving you a small fixed bonus, which doesn't do much for rocket tag.

If you really want to get rid of rocket tag, you should:
A: Remove all always-hits or almost-always-hits abilities, except maybe a few very weak ones. Rocket tag is characterized by a heavy emphasis on offense, and the most common cause of that is when defense cannot prevent attacks, meaning that the only viable defense is a good offense.
B: All save-or-lose (including save-or-die) effects, if you allow them at all, should be either designed for use on key lower-level enemies (i.e. a max hit die well below the caster level, or a DC well below 10 plus the save bonus of a same-level target), or require a not-very-easy setup. Easy one-hit kills (or effective kills) are the essence of rocket tag; do away with them, and rocket tag should disappear.

This is all a big part of my rework of the invocations from their spell predessescors. I have always disliked save or dies. I'm fine with save or sucks though they will mostly have to be toned down as well.


Better than the current system, but still means that they can be killed with a smaller portion of their total hit points at level 20 than at level 1.

I had originally intended to do this as negatives equal to their HP but it seemed a little extreme to me.


Sounds good. Stuff like Combat Expertise and Power Attack should still stay, though.

These are exactly the kinds of feats I want. They give you interesting new things to do. I also like cleave. Also I fully realize that these are feats that melee builds rely on to a huge extent.


Sounds good, especially linking weapon chains to BAB.

I've always thought that most of these advantages should be integral to classes like the fighter.


Sounds good, although be aware that you'll still have more equipment=more options=more effectiveness.

I would love to remove item dependence however I am not sure what that will imply as far as additional tampering with the balance point. Sadly D20 games tend to balance with items being important.


So your system is based on the assumptions that the PCs (as well as presumably a few select NPCs) are some sort of metaphysical elite rather than simply being highly trained and capable (Chosen Ones as opposed to a SWAT team, essentially)...that will change things significantly, make sure you want that.

This fits into the setting. The main continent where the game is implied to take place is under the heel of a powerful church that reacts to many foriegn things as blasphemy. Most PC's are either endorsed by the church and thus taught by them or are specifically against the church.


I would STRONGLY advise against this, as (assuming the minimum is 3; you didn't say) it will mean you'll see a lot of builds with the 4 most important abilities at 18 and the other 2 dumped at 3. The increasing-cost point buy is meant to provide an incentive to lean more toward an even distribution, counteracting the tendency to focus on the most important abilities.

I would rather put a higher limit on minimum perhaps 8 then to move back to the increasing cost point buy as to me it just seems overly complicated. If it will really lead to too many min maxed characters I will move back. I guess this is just the simplistic mind set speaking. I like things to be simple and intuitive.


From the POV of anyone who knows biology, this makes no sense and sounds like someone trying to technobabble their way into an explanation. If you want to have it be in their DNA, say it's a special gene that produces proteins that aid in the manipulation of magic, but keep away from the triple-helix idea.

This idea was kind of something I made up one day and it just kind of stuck. I am not that knowledgable in Biology so I will concede this point willingly and make it a gene.


I assume that a permanent invocation permanently ties up its mana cost?

Yes I forgot to specify that. I will make sure to edit it in.

[Yitzi]

This was originally going to be tied to a game-y system called energy but a little before I posted it I thought about it and it seemed far too much like an mmo for me to include in good conscious. My main thought process for "Special attacks" is to implement stuns, negative conditions, and ways to bypass certain defenses.

I'd say the key to that is make it gradual. You can't stun someone healthy with a special attack, but you can apply a weaker effect, and then daze someone with that effect, and then stun someone who's dazed. Give each of those effects a Fort save to resist, and it'll be something special but still not MMO-ish.


For instance I want to give the rogue analogue a way to bypass crit immunity.

Keep in mind, crit/sneak attack immunity represents that that particular monster has no weak points. With that in mind, what would bypassing crit immunity represent?


As it stands the system only has a very small amount of races which all fit into certain themes. For instance the Narzul are brutish, proud, and have a more primal intellect.

You don't have to make every race themed, but it's probably the easiest way to create the synergies that will make each race have a different playstyle.


This is all a big part of my rework of the invocations from their spell predessescors. I have always disliked save or dies. I'm fine with save or sucks though they will mostly have to be toned down as well.

Yeah; save or -2 to rolls is ok, save or lose your action really isn't.


I had originally intended to do this as negatives equal to their HP but it seemed a little extreme to me.

Then consider making it half their HP. Or keep what you have; just be aware of what you're accepting in order to do that.

Game design often involves compromises between different goals, and that's ok. I just don't want you to do something you didn't mean to because you didn't realize the consequences.


I would love to remove item dependence however I am not sure what that will imply as far as additional tampering with the balance point. Sadly D20 games tend to balance with items being important.

When you're tampering this much, it's probably better to do balance from the ground up rather than trying to adjust it from a previous position.

Two ideas that are very worth keeping in mind when it comes to balance:
A. The farther apart the roles of different classes are, the easier it is to balance them. Balance failures are usually due to one class being clearly superior to another; when their roles are sufficiently different, both are needed, so balance is a lot easier.
B. Balance becomes much easier if every class or ability has a counter (i.e. a class or ability other than itself that beats it; the resulting network will end up looking like a more complex version of rock-paper-scissors). The reason for this (and it goes double with a heavy simulationist approach) is simple: If class A is overpowered, then more people will go into class A, which increases the effective power of the class that counters class A (call it class B), so more people go into class B, which decreases the effective power of class A.


I would rather put a higher limit on minimum perhaps 8

Then you'll still end up with the 3 most important scores at 18 and the other 3 dumped at 8.

The only ways to encourage people not to move all their points into a few abilities are:
A. Make ability score increases more expensive the more you have in that ability.
B. Make it so every ability score is important for defense, and that is a major portion of the importance of ability scores.

[Kane0]

Alrighty, lets have a look see...

1. Sounds good
2. Also good
3. I dont usually use traits but this seems like a good way to do it
3. Also good

4. Specialists are good, just beware the trouble spells
5. Special attacks? Otherwise yea please!
6. As to be expected of a system rewrite

7. Spell points are good, but beware spam. I love me my Invocations, but same issue
8. Maybe a secondary stat instead of CHA?
9. Good idea
10. So more of the Necromancer, Warmage and Beguiler? Good stuff
11. Keep us posted!
12. Will they still be unlimited? Keep us posted!

13. I like bloodied. Also advantage/disadvantage, but thats up to you
14. Fine by me
15. Good at low levels but gets less great as damage outpaces it
16. Full attack as standard action! Redoing action economy! AC balance! Skills in combat! Etc

17. Getting rid of boring feats is very welcome. I like feats being new abilities or developments of existing abilities
18. Good stuff
19. Depends on how many feats you have and how many abilities classes get. The more you pack into the characters the less feats they need. Especially if feat taxes are gone.

20. Very interesting. I like it
21. Very good
22. I like it

23. Almost identical to what i was thinking, but even simpler. I might pinch this :smallwink:
24. Im a bit iffy bout this, but it does make sense that everyone can percieve. Id like to see how it turns out
25. Woo!

Edit: On the topic of Point buy:
My solution was to set every ability at 10 and give 12 points to spend (10 for difficult games, 14 for high fantasy games) on a one for one basis, up to a max of 18 before racial modifiers. I didn't set a minimum, but it could be as low as 7 i guess.

[Virdish]

Alrighty, lets have a look see...

1. Sounds good
2. Also good
3. I dont usually use traits but this seems like a good way to do it
3. Also good

4. Specialists are good, just beware the trouble spells
5. Special attacks? Otherwise yea please!
6. As to be expected of a system rewrite

7. Spell points are good, but beware spam. I love me my Invocations, but same issue
8. Maybe a secondary stat instead of CHA?
9. Good idea
10. So more of the Necromancer, Warmage and Beguiler? Good stuff
11. Keep us posted!
12. Will they still be unlimited? Keep us posted!

13. I like bloodied. Also advantage/disadvantage, but thats up to you
14. Fine by me
15. Good at low levels but gets less great as damage outpaces it
16. Full attack as standard action! Redoing action economy! AC balance! Skills in combat! Etc

17. Getting rid of boring feats is very welcome. I like feats being new abilities or developments of existing abilities
18. Good stuff
19. Depends on how many feats you have and how many abilities classes get. The more you pack into the characters the less feats they need. Especially if feat taxes are gone.

20. Very interesting. I like it
21. Very good
22. I like it

23. Almost identical to what i was thinking, but even simpler. I might pinch this
24. Im a bit iffy bout this, but it does make sense that everyone can percieve. Id like to see how it turns out
25. Woo!


3. I want it to lead to divergent play styles for different races. I personally hate the fact that at higher level you can basically forget that you are a different race
4. Trouble spells will be dealt with accordingly. Since I am going to need to translate spells into Invocations (which for now is a working title) I will have ample time to trim the fat.
5. Special attacks will basically be applying negative effects, push backs, fear causing, morale boosting, and other flashy type things.
7. Honestly spam is kind of the point with an invoker. However with much more specialized lists they will be much less broken. I mean the warlock can cast all day long but is a solid tier three.
8. Each different invoker will be tied to a second stat. My original idea was 10+racial mod+cha mod but basing it off Charisma seemed easier. Invokers will be two skill dependent for casting as they will have a second stat governing it as well. I actually plan on using strength for the blaster type.
10. Deffinently more of those type, they in fact were my inspiration
11. Will do. It will be tied to mana like the others but I am playing with multiple idea's. Highest on my list right now is ritual casting/alchemy goodness
12. Yes Invocations will be at-will. however only a certain number will be preparable per day. This will be limited by the caster's secondary stat
13. I don't know enough about the advantage system to say whether I will use it
15. I am looking at alternatives.
16. Full attack as standard action stolen. Action Economy is a weak point of mine. I am looking at alternate AC systems.
23. You are perfectly welcome to use it. I hope it helps.
24. I'll keep you posted as to how it turns out.

[SamBurke]

To start with, I LIKE. I like it ALOT. That said, I'm gonna go ahead and make a few points, to be taken as you will, numbered with their point of interest on your outline.

FIRST: Goals? What are the goals of this system, the things it's trying to fix? Is it trying to make more sense out of it all? Perhaps trying to make a deeper, more logical world? Maybe you're looking for more fulfilling combat? Whatever it is, we need to know.

1-3[3]. Note: You've misnumbered here, as there are two threes. Races I like, but I'll make a warning: You're going to increase the power level using these. So, be careful, and make adjustments accordingly. If that's what you're looking to do with PCs, then fantastic. I personally like the idea of more choice. I am ALL for that.

7-9. I like the idea of removing Vancian casting (it's horrifically stupid anyway), but I think choice is good. So, what is the goal with removing the casting? What are you angling to do?

14. Not quite sure that giving PCs *MOAR* HP is what we need to stop rocket tag... honestly, I'm a fan of what DnD Next did with its Bounded Accuracy. Besides that, I'm not really sure it stops rocket tag at all. I'd like to see it developed more.

20-22. I'll be interested to see what you actually *do* with magic items. Are they still craftable? How do you make them? What items are not allowed in, what are? I assume wands are out, but what was the design decision behind this? *WHY* are they being cut out? I'm not saying that because it's a bad choice, it may be a good one. That just depends on what you're trying to do with that choice.

25. Careful with Critical Fumbles... a lot of people just plain don't like them. As it was so brilliantly put: "Put up a line of dummies and level one warriors, and have them fight. If, after five minutes, any one of the warriors is crippled, bleeding, blind, or dead, something is really wrong." So, that could be a problem with that idea. Your call, and your angle on it could be very different. I hope to see some cool stuff on that.

[Virdish]

I have put a spoiler in my second post talking about my goals

I'm fine with powering up PC's as my system assumes they are a rung above the average person anyways. I'll change the second three to three a just so I don't have to renumber

My goals with removing vancian casting are coming from multiple directions.
1. I always found vancian casting to be absurd. Especially where divine casters are considered. It just doesn't fit the flavor I imagine and come on the wizard who just cast a spell is really going to forget how to cast it....
2. Vancian casting is horrible to try and balance
3. I always loved the warlock because though he had a much more limited list of magic he can cast it all day. I don't like a system that leaves a character with nothing to do just because he happened to have an amazingly tough fight and have to use his daily allotment.
4. Using invocations allow me to provide balance and give class features as well. I never play wizard or sorcerer because yay I get spells but that's it.

As far as the rocket tag point you are right. I'm still looking at other methods. Another point of this was to simplify leveling up.

Wands being out is more of a flavor issue. When I release the game in full I might leave a note on things that can be changed. My other gripe with wands is it allows even more flexibility in casting classes that are already so diverse. Most of what was needed to have a wand for will now be available in potions in a modified form.