bekeleven
2015-05-17, 01:04 AM
I built a classless, HD-less total conversion for D&D. It's based heavily on Complete Control, a similar endeavor by Dreamscarred Press.
Here are the problems I tried to solve from DSP's attempt:
Adjust balance. I think DSP costed some things too harshly. A good example is feats: When you can buy numbers directly, you end up spending feats on either things your build needs to be able to do, or on annoying prerequisites. Either way, spending as much as they charge for feats feels bad.
Simplify complication. DSP's complete control used HD to determine HP (and nothing else), but its complication was incredibly obnoxious, where you could buy every HD from D4 to D12, but D12s were about always better with low con and D4s were better with high con. The system they used to buy skill ranks was too complicated to even make a table, especially due to the fact that the first four ranks used a different pricing system. Speaking of...
Some of DSP's issues (not all of them) come from the fact that they were attempting to perfectly emulate D&D's XP scaling. For instance, the first 4 skill ranks scaled differently (and less) than the others, or the fact that the first two of basically anything cost leagues less than the rest. I award XP ad-hoc when I DM and don't much care about where the designers said "Third level, you need some real numbers now!"
Their system had vague and simplistic pricings of class features. For instance, you could buy "constant abilities" and "variable abilities," where a constant ability is anything that doesn't scale by level and a variable ability is the other thing. Evasion is constant. Sneak attack is variable. Evasion can be gained at level 2 so it costs X, whereas sneak attack up to rogue 9 costs Y. Is uncanny dodge a constant ability or is it variable (because it leads into improved)? Is improved its own ability, allowing me to buy it separately? Is improved a variable ability due to its extremely rare corner case where its level matters? They answer this example in the text, but what of similar abilities? Do the fighter's bonus feats count as a constant ability, a progression, or neither? And let's not forget the stacked progression tables...
Spells. The system allows you to min/max and buy spells pretty cheap.
A spreadsheet. I made a second sheet (click the tabs at the bottom) that allows you to build a character and tracks your points spent at each juncture. The problem with the system, especially the skills (mine and theirs) is that there are so many small fiddly numbers. Well, problem solved. Every possible cost of XP - except maybe buying over 20 separate skills - is accounted for.
The DSP system covers level-based ability increases but leaves initial stat generation as an exercise to the reader. One of DSP's design goals was to make a system for character creation seamless transition into character advancement; I can only assume there's some obscure rights reason they didn't do this themselves. So I implemented one.
So, some words on what my system is and is not meant to do:
Races. The game I want to run with this will only allow balls of putty (take humans and erase the free skills and feat, for the perfectly generic race). Buy racial characteristics you like along with the rest, assuming they're bonuses to skills, saves, abilities, etc.
Spells. My players will not be spellcasters. I limited the system to generating abilities from The Professional (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=332829) as well as warlock invocations. (and not blast stuff, either.) Yes, HP are a limited resource; the closest thing to healing is ranks + Skill Mastery in Use Magic Device. (or, you know, heal.)
XP Scaling. As mentioned above, I ad-hoc my XP adjustments, which allows me to smooth my scalings. DSP's complete control prices the first feat at 100, the second at 160, then the third at 680, which starts the progression of each one costing 520 more than the previous. I didn't make exceptions for #2 like they did.
The characters created using my starting XP - 5000 - should have approximately 3rd-ish power level. I did whip up one character with leap attack but I couldn't buy enough BAB to take much advantage of it.
An int 20 character may take rank 1 of every skill for free. Since no stat can go to 30, rank 2 may never be bought for free. Some skill corner cases aren't in the sheet formulae because I whipped the whole thing up in four hours; I'd replace the entire skills cost system with on onEdit macro if I thought my players would abuse it.
Here's the system (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bK50NXitgLvwNdaN0zhjayp0etgkw7dpVPnxCj8BMH4/edit#gid=0). Feel free to make a copy and play around. Here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1STpHfH5co1wqmJPQDRYEP-yQdq-1co84eY0QuBZIm6I/edit#gid=1980026399)'s an example character. If you want to make your own character, go to file -> Make a Copy, because I'm not giving you editing rights (sorry) Visitors now have edit rights to the sheet but only on the cells players are meant to edit. If you want a character other people won't mess with, however, still copy it. On the character sheet, anything bold and blue adjusts points spent; other boxes are for other character stats, misc bonuses and the like. The character sheet would probably have space for gear if I ran the campaign, and calculate AC and the like. I added space for gear, languages, AC, and character notes.
I'm looking for specific ways to break this system, costing advice, or any other feedback you're willing to offer. Thanks for reading!
Here are the problems I tried to solve from DSP's attempt:
Adjust balance. I think DSP costed some things too harshly. A good example is feats: When you can buy numbers directly, you end up spending feats on either things your build needs to be able to do, or on annoying prerequisites. Either way, spending as much as they charge for feats feels bad.
Simplify complication. DSP's complete control used HD to determine HP (and nothing else), but its complication was incredibly obnoxious, where you could buy every HD from D4 to D12, but D12s were about always better with low con and D4s were better with high con. The system they used to buy skill ranks was too complicated to even make a table, especially due to the fact that the first four ranks used a different pricing system. Speaking of...
Some of DSP's issues (not all of them) come from the fact that they were attempting to perfectly emulate D&D's XP scaling. For instance, the first 4 skill ranks scaled differently (and less) than the others, or the fact that the first two of basically anything cost leagues less than the rest. I award XP ad-hoc when I DM and don't much care about where the designers said "Third level, you need some real numbers now!"
Their system had vague and simplistic pricings of class features. For instance, you could buy "constant abilities" and "variable abilities," where a constant ability is anything that doesn't scale by level and a variable ability is the other thing. Evasion is constant. Sneak attack is variable. Evasion can be gained at level 2 so it costs X, whereas sneak attack up to rogue 9 costs Y. Is uncanny dodge a constant ability or is it variable (because it leads into improved)? Is improved its own ability, allowing me to buy it separately? Is improved a variable ability due to its extremely rare corner case where its level matters? They answer this example in the text, but what of similar abilities? Do the fighter's bonus feats count as a constant ability, a progression, or neither? And let's not forget the stacked progression tables...
Spells. The system allows you to min/max and buy spells pretty cheap.
A spreadsheet. I made a second sheet (click the tabs at the bottom) that allows you to build a character and tracks your points spent at each juncture. The problem with the system, especially the skills (mine and theirs) is that there are so many small fiddly numbers. Well, problem solved. Every possible cost of XP - except maybe buying over 20 separate skills - is accounted for.
The DSP system covers level-based ability increases but leaves initial stat generation as an exercise to the reader. One of DSP's design goals was to make a system for character creation seamless transition into character advancement; I can only assume there's some obscure rights reason they didn't do this themselves. So I implemented one.
So, some words on what my system is and is not meant to do:
Races. The game I want to run with this will only allow balls of putty (take humans and erase the free skills and feat, for the perfectly generic race). Buy racial characteristics you like along with the rest, assuming they're bonuses to skills, saves, abilities, etc.
Spells. My players will not be spellcasters. I limited the system to generating abilities from The Professional (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=332829) as well as warlock invocations. (and not blast stuff, either.) Yes, HP are a limited resource; the closest thing to healing is ranks + Skill Mastery in Use Magic Device. (or, you know, heal.)
XP Scaling. As mentioned above, I ad-hoc my XP adjustments, which allows me to smooth my scalings. DSP's complete control prices the first feat at 100, the second at 160, then the third at 680, which starts the progression of each one costing 520 more than the previous. I didn't make exceptions for #2 like they did.
The characters created using my starting XP - 5000 - should have approximately 3rd-ish power level. I did whip up one character with leap attack but I couldn't buy enough BAB to take much advantage of it.
An int 20 character may take rank 1 of every skill for free. Since no stat can go to 30, rank 2 may never be bought for free. Some skill corner cases aren't in the sheet formulae because I whipped the whole thing up in four hours; I'd replace the entire skills cost system with on onEdit macro if I thought my players would abuse it.
Here's the system (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bK50NXitgLvwNdaN0zhjayp0etgkw7dpVPnxCj8BMH4/edit#gid=0). Feel free to make a copy and play around. Here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1STpHfH5co1wqmJPQDRYEP-yQdq-1co84eY0QuBZIm6I/edit#gid=1980026399)'s an example character. If you want to make your own character, go to file -> Make a Copy, because I'm not giving you editing rights (sorry) Visitors now have edit rights to the sheet but only on the cells players are meant to edit. If you want a character other people won't mess with, however, still copy it. On the character sheet, anything bold and blue adjusts points spent; other boxes are for other character stats, misc bonuses and the like. The character sheet would probably have space for gear if I ran the campaign, and calculate AC and the like. I added space for gear, languages, AC, and character notes.
I'm looking for specific ways to break this system, costing advice, or any other feedback you're willing to offer. Thanks for reading!