4e-derived homebrew system

[p.d0t]

I started working on this game a long while back, and over the years it has morphed into an attempt at streamlining 4e; this is largely because 4e does a lot of things right that I wanted my game to do in the first place.

Here is the link to the player resource document. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kmJJtLZ2syGQK8jCP1VRS92GWMtvOLJv_koPrZgApuM/edit?usp=sharing)

Some of core concepts of the game:

Three attributes: Originally there was Mind, Body, and Spirit; they have since become unnamed. These attributes determine nearly all of the mathematical framework of the game, with the intent being that any (legal) stat array will be viable. There are no magic item enhancements or half-level or class/racial/equipment/etc. modifiers to convolute and bloat the math.
No d20s: Aside from it having been done to death, I just found d20s to have too wide a variance, and the "natural 1/natural 20" setup to be not very compelling, particularly in a mechanically sound system such as 4e. The game instead uses only d6s and d10s, with 1d6+1d10 being the main action mechanic.
No numbers-go-up: The only math that increases is Damage and HP; this allows attack, defense, and skill ratings to remain consistent. The game utilizes a "roll-under" mechanic for skills, to better take advantage of this.
Build-Your-Own Classes: Choose whether you fight with magic or weapons, what sort of armaments and equipment you use, and your 4e-style role. There are no pre-defined "classes" in the traditional D&D sense, so the backgrounds and fluff are up to you!
Build-Your-Own Powers: Instead of having distinct powers, you get Encounter and Daily points; these work sort of like a mashup between Essentials-style powers and psionic-style augments. Parameters are in place, allowing you to use your points to deal more damage or to inflict penalties onto your enemies.
Opposed rolls, less-binary resolution: The outcome of the attack dice determines certain special effects that can happen on a miss or a hit! Players roll for attack and defense, so there is less time spent doing nothing while waiting for your turn.
Simplified condition tracking: durations are either until the end of the next round or until the end of the encounter, and penalties are simpler and easier to keep track of.
Feats: Generally fewer, simpler, better, and more interesting, and with (hopefully?) no useless/trap options or mandatory taxes.


...plus some other new/improved mechanics.

I am really hoping to get some feedback on any improvements that could be made, so please comment here or on the Doc itself. Your advice will be much appreciated and will help me make the game better.

[Yakk]

1d6+1d10 is average 9, Var (35+99)/12=11.166666666666666666666666666667
1d20 is average 10.5, Var 399/12=33.25

So the effect of your change is these 3 steps:
1) Subtract 10.5 from the target number
2) Divide by 1.73
2) Add 9 to the target number
to get your new target number.

This excludes any impact on your top 5% / bottom 5% (critical hit/miss) mechanics.

When you integrate the result of a reasonable number of dice for a roll over/under system (ie, calculate the CDF), you find that the pretty bell curve you started with becomes nearly undedectable in play, and what you have left is make-work adding of numbers.

"The game utilizes a "roll-under" mechanic for skills, to better take advantage of this."

Oh, roll under. So just flip some of the stuff above, roll-under is nearly indistinguishable from roll-over mathematically.

"Instead of having distinct powers, you get Encounter and Daily points; these work sort of like a mashup between Essentials-style powers and psionic-style augments."

Psionic classes are among the least interesting classes to play and build in 4e, as you tend to be reduced to the same move repeated. Essentials classes (with few power choices) rivial them.

Not sure if you should take them as your source of inspiration. There are parts of essentials classes and psionic classes that are neat -- but the "build your own power as you attack" doesn't look like the lesson I'd take from actually playing with those classes.

"Players roll for attack and defense, so there is less time spent doing nothing while waiting for your turn."

While significantly increasing the time to resolve each action?

If the defence had a purpose other than "cancel the action", I say go for it. But you shouldn't add dice rolls pointlessly.

As an example, suppose you have a game where rounds are resolved simultaneously. Everyone declares their plan. Then you all roll to determine what actually happens.

Your "attack" and "defence" rolls become the same roll -- being able to block a foes attack before you hit them is part of a good attack, and taking a foes attack and using it to knock them off balance, leaving an opening for your counter attack is part of a good defence.

Such a system needs a way to deal with 5 folk ganging up on one target, naturally, that works well.

"durations are either until the end of the next round or until the end of the encounter, and penalties are simpler and easier to keep track of."

So an action early in a round that, say, slows a foe impacts 2 rounds of foe movement, while an action late in the same round only impacts 1?

This seems to make "where you are in the round order" a large factor, which is very gamey? Or do you have simulatneous actions?

"The only math that increases is Damage and HP; this allows attack, defense, and skill ratings to remain consistent. "

How **fast** do HP and Damage go up? Because 4e's power curve is extremely steep, mainly because of the scaling attack/defences.

+5 to hit/defence makes you easily 3 times stronger. +30 is about x1000 times stronger (piecewise).

[p.d0t]

"durations are either until the end of the next round or until the end of the encounter, and penalties are simpler and easier to keep track of."

So an action early in a round that, say, slows a foe impacts 2 rounds of foe movement, while an action late in the same round only impacts 1?

This seems to make "where you are in the round order" a large factor, which is very gamey? Or do you have simulatneous actions?

Yes, it's very gamey and not unintended. Turn order is your standard D&D-initiative order, but rolled at the top of every round. This is partly to make init-opping a good option, but also to mix things up a bit; since the initiative roll is 1d6+1d10, that skews things towards the middle, so rolling every round just lets things get shuffled.


"The only math that increases is Damage and HP; this allows attack, defense, and skill ratings to remain consistent. "

How **fast** do HP and Damage go up? Because 4e's power curve is extremely steep, mainly because of the scaling attack/defences.

+5 to hit/defence makes you easily 3 times stronger. +30 is about x1000 times stronger (piecewise).

Your attack modifier is determined by your lowest attribute, and your defense is a component of your attributes and your Armaments; this math never goes up, apart from spending feats (even then, it's only defense that can be improved, and that's within a certain mathematical framework).
As for the HP and damage, the short answer is it's effectively +1 HD every level, with extra at tier levels.

Give the link a quick read, I think it'll explain most of the stuff you're wondering about. I wasn't intending the OP here to be more than just an introductory glance. :smallsmile:

[GPuzzle]

Well, if the defenses are going up, higher level monsters are harder to hit, while your average D&D character should hit on a 6, 4 if he's got CA, throughout his career. That is a problem, because you'll end up with nearly unhittable enemies that you can kill them if you can hit them but you can't actually hit them.

[p.d0t]

Well, if the defenses are going up, higher level monsters are harder to hit, while your average D&D character should hit on a 6, 4 if he's got CA, throughout his career. That is a problem, because you'll end up with nearly unhittable enemies that you can kill them if you can hit them but you can't actually hit them.

The way defense "goes higher" is to take a feat which improves the minimum roll of your defense die. That's all.

This is done by a mechanic that gets recycled throughout the game, called "advantage"
When you have advantage, you can treat a roll of less than 5 on a d10 as 5, and a roll of 1 on a d6 as 6.

Your defense will either be 1d10+Highest attribute, 2d6+middle attribute, or 1d6+1d10+lowest attribute.

[Kurald Galain]

Why not just use d8's for everything (1d8, 2d8, 3d8) instead of a mixture of d6+d10? The game plays faster if players don't have to think about what kinds of dice to roll for a regular check.

[Yakk]

"When you have Advantage, you can treat rolls of 1 on a d6 as 6 and rolls of less than 5 on a d10 as 5."
Very fiddly.
"There are 4 tiers of play, and Tier Levels are gained at levels 1, 4, 7, and 10; maximum level is 12."
A level 12 vs level 10 is nearly indistinguishable. A level 3 vs level 1 is a huge range.

4e had a problem with this (here heroic is a larger range of power), but yours is much much larger (due to lack of ATK/DEF modifiers in 4e).

"Attribute Scores": Random. I really don't see the point of this subsystem? You could set the values to fixed numbers just as well. Attributes that let you take a character concept and match a build to is useful: I really am not sure how you'd do this under your system.

...

1d10+2 as a damage die? Ik.

Having 3 ways to add up to an average damage of 7 seems strange, especially as they are 2d6, 2d6 and 1d6+1d10-2. The 1d10+2 option has a bit higher average.

...

Light gains (60% of 1d6+4) + 40% of 5 = 6.5 HP/level, or 5-10 HP.
Medium gains 8.67 average, but 4-12 (chance of less than Light).
Heavy gains 7-16, or 10.83 per level.

The quirk that a bad roll on medium can be less HP than any light looks flawish.

...

Note that a 4/4/4 build loses very little from going Heavy Armaments (other than feat choice). The Training feat is then useless. Funny.

...

"To succeed, you must roll a number equal to or lower than your skill score, with 2 exceptions: a roll of 6 on a d6 resulting in a tie is a failure, but a roll of 10 on a d10 is always a success."
Your game systematically removes option complexity, then adds seemingly random rules complexity throughout the game. You should stop doing that.

Element complexity is modular, and can be avoided or used. Rules complexity cannot be avoided.

...

Done looking at it now.

[p.d0t]

Why not just use d8's for everything (1d8, 2d8, 3d8) instead of a mixture of d6+d10? The game plays faster if players don't have to think about what kinds of dice to roll for a regular check.
The short answer is, I'm racist against d8s :smallwink: d6 and d10 are more common.

Having two die-shapes also gives some extra options for granularity. As a designer, it just gives me more knobs to fiddle with.
To wit, there are fewer skill DCs you can fit into the attribute framework if you only use d8s.

As a 4e player, I always roll a d20 plus my [W] when I make an attack, so I don't see how this is any harder.


"When you have Advantage, you can treat rolls of 1 on a d6 as 6 and rolls of less than 5 on a d10 as 5."
Very fiddly.
"There are 4 tiers of play, and Tier Levels are gained at levels 1, 4, 7, and 10; maximum level is 12."
A level 12 vs level 10 is nearly indistinguishable. A level 3 vs level 1 is a huge range.

4e had a problem with this (here heroic is a larger range of power), but yours is much much larger (due to lack of ATK/DEF modifiers in 4e).
Can you expand on this, because for the life of me I can't parse what you're saying here :smalleek:


"Attribute Scores": Random. I really don't see the point of this subsystem? You could set the values to fixed numbers just as well. Attributes that let you take a character concept and match a build to is useful: I really am not sure how you'd do this under your system.
Sure, I'll give some examples.
So if you're playing a Leader or "summoner", you probably want more reserves, which will influence where your attributes end up. Defenders and controllers can inflict penalties "at-will" without needing to hit, so that gives them more flexibility to "dump" their lowest stat in favour of others. A striker (or basically anyone who wants to focus on damage) will probably want to have high attack and/or damage, so there will be tradeoffs of other modifiers.

Admittedly, not all things are equal but the point of it is to allow you to make tradeoffs (with a few safety nets in place) instead of making the system paint-by-numbers


1d10+2 as a damage die? Ik.

Having 3 ways to add up to an average damage of 7 seems strange, especially as they are 2d6, 2d6 and 1d6+1d10-2. The 1d10+2 option has a bit higher average.
Well, you can't really have the averages be very different, otherwise the lower-average options become a trap. This sort of hegemony pops up to varying degrees in 4e. Keep in mind there is universal DR (which is applied to each attack) as well as the Special Attack options, which gives different benefits depending on the weapon used.


Light gains (60% of 1d6+4) + 40% of 5 = 6.5 HP/level, or 5-10 HP.
Medium gains 8.67 average, but 4-12 (chance of less than Light).
Heavy gains 7-16, or 10.83 per level.

The quirk that a bad roll on medium can be less HP than any light looks flawish.
It's one that I'm aware of/willing to live with, but thank you for the analysis :smallsmile:



Note that a 4/4/4 build loses very little from going Heavy Armaments (other than feat choice). The Training feat is then useless. Funny.
Yup, and that is prefaced in the introduction to the feat section:
"Training feats let you swap out a lower modifier for a higher one, for certain character statistics. Depending on how your character is built, some Training feats may not be useful, i.e. if your character is already using the highest modifier possible for a particular stat."

Admittedly it can be a trap, but it's noted in the rules, and in the case you point out (and others) it should be apparent. :smallredface:



"To succeed, you must roll a number equal to or lower than your skill score, with 2 exceptions: a roll of 6 on a d6 resulting in a tie is a failure, but a roll of 10 on a d10 is always a success."
Your game systematically removes option complexity, then adds seemingly random rules complexity throughout the game. You should stop doing that.


Yeah, this is a byproduct of 1) using attributes as currently instituted, 2) limiting the game to the 2 die-shapes, and 3) making sure the math works out.
Admittedly the skills system is a departure from the rest of the mechanics, so any advice to fix/change/improve it would be helpful.

[Kurald Galain]

As a 4e player, I always roll a d20 plus my [W] when I make an attack, so I don't see how this is any harder.

Because that is always the same every turn, whereas in your system it's not: you mentioned sometimes rolling 1d10, sometimes 2d6, and so forth.

[p.d0t]

Because that is always the same every turn, whereas in your system it's not: you mentioned sometimes rolling 1d10, sometimes 2d6, and so forth.

Right, but those dice (defense) are effectively locked-in by your char-gen choices; they don't actually change within gameplay. So yes, it is not a fully "unified mechanic" because attack and defense rolls are different for 2/3 characters.

I could see that being annoying until you get the hang of it, but is it debilitatingly so? :smalleek:

[Yakk]

Powers in 4e are complex, but players both pick their powers (so how tricky do they want them to be?), and become gradual experts in them.

Core game systems are not "picked".




A level 12 vs level 10 is nearly indistinguishable. A level 3 vs level 1 is a huge range.

4e had a problem with this (here heroic is a larger range of power), but yours is much much larger (due to lack of ATK/DEF modifiers in 4e).Can you expand on this, because for the life of me I can't parse what you're saying here
So, suppose you have 20 Hp at level 1, and you deal 5 damage per hit.

At level 3 you have gained 2 HD and some damage per hit. So you have 30 HP, and deal 10 damage per hit. You are 30/20 * 10/5 = 3 times as powerful as you where at level 1! (+200% more power) (you could fight 3 copies of yourself in a row, one at a time, and have a 50-50 chance of winning roughly)

At level 10 you might have 100 HP and deal 30 damage per hit. At level 12, you have gained 2 HD so you have 110 HP and deal 35 damage per hit.

You are 28% more powerful than you where at level 10 from your damage/HP.

The difference between the "start" of tier 1 and the end is HUGE. The range over the last tier? Ridiculously smaller.

In 4e, heroic tier varies in damage/hp by a factor of roughly 13/4 = 3.25x. Paragon by a factor of 23/14 =~ 1.64x, and epic by a factor of 33/24 = 1.38x.

This damages 4e gameplay (in heroic tier, higher-level monsters are more threatening than in later tiers, which causes issues), but the fact that a huge portion of your power growth comes not from HP/damage but from ATK/DEF helps hide it somewhat.

Over those 30 levels, you are about 1000x more powerful due to your increased attack/defence bonuses, and 8x more powerful from HP/damage.

The problem in 4e is that "never hitting" and "always being hit" is a boring way to up difficulty, and it means that to-hit optimization gets over-rewarded in high optimization groups (as the primary "dial" the DM has is higher level opponents). This is probably why there is such backlash against scaling-by-level attack/defence bonuses (plus the orc problem -- you cannot fight orcs past a certain level unless you transform them into minions, and that is cludgy).

However, at least it ensures that the tiers have some power grows in them.

Heroic: 10x power from ATK/DEF, 3x power from HP/damage
Paragon: 10x power from ATK/DEF, 1.7x power from HP/damage
Epic: 10x power from ATK/DEF, 1.4x power from HP/damage.

[p.d0t]

Just taking a glance at your math, it seems a little off; not sure that it'll make the resulting numbers better or worse, so please let me know either way.

Your Base Hit Points is your (character level + tier level) * highest attribute. So each level, you gain (highest attribute) worth of hit points, plus another (highest attribute) every tier level, in addition to the HD that you roll.

So for example (unless I messed up the quick excel work I did)
At levels 1/3/10/12

A character with light armaments will have, on average, 23/46/161/184 hp
A character with medium armaments will have, on average, 27.3/39.5/191.3/218.6 hp


Would it make more sense to just cap levels at 10?


I get how picking your own powers in-combat can cause "analysis paralysis"
I think that's where the entry-level feats and roles help focus characters, which sort of specializes you into what effects you're going to use more often. Admittedly it is very obfuscated, but I wanted the keep options open. It's also easier as a designer to make broad powers anyone can use, than manual specialize them by class/role/etc.

Would it be preferable to go with more "distinct powers" instead?

[Yakk]

The particular details don't matter much, as much as your HP are basically linear (or affine technically) with a few deviations.

So your HP nearly double over Tier 1, and barely move (percentage wise) in Tier 4.

If you look at 13th age, they "solved" this by using non-linear HP and damage tables. It is pretty clunky.

Your DR system also introduces a kind of super linear component to power levels (as it sort of a scaling "to damage" roll), but as it will be extremely sensitive to the ratio between expected damage and DR, it is hard to analyze with a half-polished system (any conclusions would be highly unstable). But basically, if DR is high enough to frequently cause slightly lower level opponents to deal 0 or near zero damage, its impact is larger (power curve wise). But much like to-hit and defence modifiers, in that case you have to take extreme care of what its values are and what its range is (see Starcraft 2 for a game that does this: armor is extremely effective against some units, and nearly pointless against others). I don't fully understand your damage system, so cannot determine if this is the case in your game or not.

I've sketched 4e like systems where each tier has linear HP, and as you go up in tiers you access a "new subclass" type thing that grants even more HP and damage output per level (and your previous class may also ramp up its game as well). This helps keep the HP/damage curve from becoming relatively flat.

[p.d0t]

Should I get rid of the DR?

TBH it was something that seemed like a good idea in earlier iterations to supplement the relatively-low starting HP, but since then I have added Encounter reserves to basically accomplish the same end. And I realize that the DR in no way scales relative to the damage (plus there are ways around it with Attack Effects.)

Pertaining to the actual HP scaling, if the assumption is that opponents are always at-level, does it generally make much impact on gameplay? I mean, I dunno if this is obvious, but I'm not much of a math-guy; will people notice the discrepancy? My hope was to have the damage and HP scale up approximately equally and in a simple manner, but if that's actually horribly broken as-written, it makes more sense to me to just get rid of it (in this particular system, anyway) than to come up with a complicated fix.

...

The way damage scales up is by giving you extra Daily/Encounter powers and making them scale up in damage. If there's a better way I could get this across in the rules, let me know. Also, if this doesn't actually work as intended, any help fixing it would be appreciated.

So, if you're tier 1 (level 1-3) and you spend 1 point on an encounter power, you deal 1d6 extra damage. This scales up slightly as you add points (1d10 @ 2 points, 2d6 @ 3 points, 1d6+1d10 @ 4 points). This deliberately has diminishing returns to discourage alpha-striking (stupid goal, maybe?).

At tier 2 (level 4-6) if you spend 1 point, it instead deals 2d6 extra damage, and additional points are likewise "doubled." Keeping in mind, you're gaining more points every level. Another thing to consider is that this effectively works like "Power Strike"; you confirm the hit and then can add the damage afterward, so it's generally pretty reliable. Daily powers can deal the bonus damage on a hit or miss (intended to mimic the feel of "Miss: Half Damage" kind of thing, if not exactly numerically identical)

I've done some basic math, and, all things being average, I'm estimating that "monsters" should get somewhere in the ballpark of 10 HP per level + 30 HP per tier level (assuming 5 DR, IIRC)
Does that jive with your figuring?

[p.d0t]

Update:


Got rid of "1d10+2" weapons, since they were clunky; changed other entries to reflect this (particularly Striker features)
Streamlined "Special Attacks" and "Attack Effect" sections (now labelled "Attack Types" and "Attack Effects") and hopefully made the resolution of attacks easier to understand
Buffed Glancing Blow, Counterattack, and Counterspell to make them a little more useful.
Removed any reference to unarmed attacks; giving it its own set of math separate from the existing weapon dice was getting too clunky.
Changed feat progression from 2 @ tier levels, to 1 @ non-tier levels.



I got a request/suggestion to rearrange the document so that all the Char-Gen stuff is right at the beginning, as well as putting those steps more thoroughly/specifically into the Table of Contents, so I might look into how to arrange that, soon.