Character Creation for a new system

[Day_Dreamer]

I'm currently working on a new RPG system that's kind of like World of Darkness meets D&D. As such, your character starts as a pretty developed entity, possibly expert at a given field

Currently, I'm trying to streamline the char-gen process, while maintaining both balance and meaningful choices. I would like feedback on the bones, as I've been working way too much on this by myself.



There are a number of classes both magical and mundane.
Players have a set quantity of experience that they can use to purchase ranks in a class.
Each class has up to five ranks, with progressively higher costs and benefits to investing in the higher ranks. Players have enough experience to max out of single class an invest somewhat in another, or generalize between them.

Purchasing ranks in a class gives you skill points that you can spend on various abilities relevant to that class. A Fighter can spend skill points on all of the combat skills, but few of the social or knowledge ones, while a scholar is primarily knowledge-based. Higher investment into a class allows you to spend more points in a single skill, and gives you more skill points generally

Purchasing ranks in a class also allow you to buy traits. Traits are passive skills, like the Fighter's dual-wielding, or active powers, like a rogue's ability to attack without being noticed. Magic effects are either their own sub-system (spellcasting) or a specific trait.
Traits are organized into different levels, with the higher level traits requiring more expensive investment into a given class. Some traits can be upgraded with a repurchase.


Example:

Fighter
Fighters are those who find battle, or battle finds. From old soldiers to mercenaries to swordsmen, anyone with particular aptitude for combat is a fighter. In the Kingdom, many Nobles receive basic training with blade or bow, and a good number of mercenaries find employment as swords-for-hire. In the Realm, nearly everyone receives some training with fist or blade, to ensure that they are effective Spirit-Callers.
Class Skills:
Melee (all), Climb, Swim, Endurance, Strength, Block,
Ranged (all), Evasion, Acrobatics,
Lore (Nobility), Lore (History), Heal, Use Magic Device,
Awareness, Sense Motive, Sixth Sense,
Intimidate, Integrity
3 xp: 1 T1 points, 4 skill points (cap 4)
6 xp: 2 T1 points, 1 T2 points, 9 skill points (cap 5)
10 xp: 3 T1 points, 2 T2 points, 1 T3 point 15 skill points (cap 5)
15 xp: 3 T1 points, 3 T2 points, 2 T3 points 21 skill points (cap 6)
21 xp: 4 T1 points, 3 T2 points, 2 T3 points, 1 T4 point 28 skill points (cap 7)
T1:
Dual-Wielding: 1 pt: Off-hand attacks are no longer Rough Actions; they’re just Minor Actions.
Toughness: 1 pt, Tiers 3: +2 Health.
Soldier: 1 pt: +1 bonus to all combat rolls within Mass Combat, provided entire group has Solider perk.
Weapon Specialty: 1 pt: Gain a +1 on rolls with a given specific type of weapon.
Armored Warrior: 1 pt, Tiers 3: reduce penalties from armor by 1.
Combat Style: 1 pt, Tiers 3: Choose a combat maneuver. +1 on rolls.
Parade Formation: 1 pt, Tiers 2: Gain a +1 on rolls to parade or do weapon demonstrations; not applicable in real combat.
Brawler: 1 pt: Remove penalties for improvised weapons.
Lunge: 1 pt: You may take a -2 penalty to defensive rolls for a round to increase your reach by 5 feet
Aegis: 1 pt, Tiers 3: reduce penalty from using a shield by 1.
Martial Arts: 1 pt: Attacks with your bare hands are counted as weapons and deal 1 damage.
Quick Draw: 1 pt: You may draw or sheath a weapon as a Swift action.
Acrobatic Fighter: 1 pt: You may use Acrobatics instead of Evasion to defend if you have taken a Move action this round.
Weapon Finesse: 1 pt: Melee (Short Blades) is now a Dexterity Skill.

T2:
Mounted Combat: 1 pt: Add Ride to your class skills, and reduce the penalty for attacking while mounted to -1.
Loyal Beyond Death: 2 pt: You may ignore all physical Wound penalties, and take an action after you have been reduced to less than one Might Wound
Bar-room Legend: 1 pt: You may pick up and attack with an improvised weapon as a single action.
Cleave: 1 pt: Upon killing an enemy, you may make an attack with the same successes -1 to an adjacent foe
Retaliatory: 1 pt: gain +1 dice on Attacks of Opportunity

T3:
Great Cleave: 1 pt: Improves Cleave, to allow you to make any number of attacks each at a stacking -1 penalty.
General: 1 pt: Gives a +1 bonus to all rolls in Mass Combat
Master of All Weapons: 1 pt: You may use any weapon as though it was a weapon of your choice for the function of using a relevant Melee skill

T4:
Critical: 1 pt: All 1s on Melee rolls add an additional damage
Perfect Defense: 1 pt: You win ties as a defender.



So, any feedback on thoughts, ideas, or ways to further streamline would be much approved.

[erikun]

Alright, a few questions and observations.

How is your current setup any different from simply dumping all the traits into separate piles (direct combat, stealth combat, etc) and not bothering with classes? How is it better than putting all traits in the same pile and not placing restrictions on grabbing "cross-class" traits? How is it better than simply putting traits and skills together, and just making it a standard point buy system? Right now, the whole class system seems to really be adding complexity to everything.

What do classes give the player? I'm under the impression that picking a class should provide most of the manditory options for the player already - this is why they're picking a class rather than picking those numbers and skill ranks directly.

What counts as an expert in a field in this system? How do the resolutions work? Can your starting characters actually be experts in a field, and accomplish things that an expert could reasonably be expected to? Would a character with little training be capable of doing the same thing?

How is picking a bunch of skills/combat traits a meaningful choice. You listed this as one of your big concerns about the system, so I'm curious as to what you mean by that.

[Day_Dreamer]

Ok, some responses:

The current system allows for more interesting class types, the Fighter is pretty generic as these things go. The Wilder, for example, has both the animal-companion stuff, the ranger-tracker stuff, as well as barbarian rage. You could play one a ton of different ways. This ties strongly into the setting of the game; people who have monster companions are people who live outside of civilization and therefore have access to a lot of related traits.

The system agreeably adds complexity, but (at least of the gamers I know) simple point systems are often overwhelming in the number of choices. This system allows a bit more of a hierarchy (you choose to be a fighter, then you choose some relevant skills, and some relevant traits from a fairly small list for each option). It also makes it much harder to make a completely min-maxed character, although that ties more strongly into other parts of the system than straight character experience.

Classes give the player different traits, largely. Traits are ways of clearly customizing your character; traits don't really overlap. Some classes, like Sorcerer, are more dramatic and give you an entire subsystem to play with. Magical classes/Prestige classes give you much more dramatic powers.

A character optimized for a task will, on a basic level, by about 4x more effective than a character with no experience. The system is d10 based, and an expert will expect to be rolling 6-7 dice at target number 6-7 (higher is better), while an amateur will roll 3-4 dice at target number 3. Experts will also have relevant traits that enable easier use more interesting use of skills. A starting character could totally be an expert, but it would cost slightly in a lack of proficiency in other fields.



Meaningful choices are, simply put, choices that matter in a way clearly visible to the player. D&D does a great job at making class choice very meaningful, although feat, attribute, and race choice are often not (within limits) and skill choice rarely is. I would like class choice to be very meaningful, skill choice to be moderately to significant meaningful, and trait choice to be highly meaningful.

[DMMike]

Streamlining:

It looks like you get points, so you can buy points, so you can get more class features. See the extra step in there?

Drop the tiers of class features. Make them all equal in significance. You can still make them class-specific, but to get more powerful features, you either stack them, or work your way up a branch. This makes some features greater in significance than others, but the CHANGE in power from one level to the next should be about the same as the power of any lone feature.

[Day_Dreamer]

I've tried out some variations on this, it doesn't play very well with the main magic system. Maybe you have some ideas.

Sorcery works currently on a 5 ranked buy-in. Each ranked does 3 main things: increases the number of dice you roll using Sorcery, gives you more perk points to invest in unlocking more forms of sorcery, and points you need to spend on sorcerous flaws.

Positive points unlock new schools of sorcery (abjuration, evocation, etc.), which have basic things you can do with them. They also unlock more features for that given school (more elements with evocation, longer range for your spell, make it a different shape, etc.).

Negative points force you to do more things when you cast (somatic components, you need a holy symbol to cast, limited number of spells per day, etc.).

It's a pretty big fluff point that people with a lot of positive points have a corresponding lack of negative points. Any ideas on how to do this effectively without a more tiered based system?