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View Full Version : Could use some help on a totally new system I'm developing



RyanM
2007-05-25, 11:02 PM
Update!

Okay, I've spoiler tagged the old post for archival purposes. I'm still working on an in-depth writeup of the rules which are finalized, so I'll just go over the highlights. Actual set rules will come eventually.

I've decided to call it the RGP system. Officially, it stands for Realistic Gaming Platform. But you can call it Role Gaming Play if you want. :smallbiggrin:

General:
There are ten statistics.
Strength - pretty self-explanatory.
Perception - general awareness level in addition to sensory acuity.
Constitution - physical toughness, immune system strength, etc.
Stamina - pretty self-explanatory.
Agility - whole body agility and speed. Running obstacle courses, gymnastics, walking on a narrow beam, etc., rely on Agility.
Dexterity - hand-eye coordination and fine motor control. Playing the piano, brain surgery, shooting a gun, etc., rely on Dexterity.
Intelligence - pretty self-explanatory.
Intuition - being able to subconsciously pick up on subtle clues, even if you don't consciously notice them. Something like if your Intuition is high enough, the GM will ask you to make your own whatever check, so that you know something is up. Or maybe for stuff like a Spot check equivalent, you roll vs. Intuition and Per seperately. If you pass the Int check only, you get a general feeling or something, like "being watched," or "bad feeling," or "hidden treasure." If you pass the Per check only, you actually notice the whatever, and where it is, but get no clues as to the real nature of what you see/hear/whatever. If you pass both, you both notice the thingie, and you get some clue as to what it is. And if you pass neither, it was just the wind.
Charisma - physical attractiveness, "emotional intelligence," general people skills, je na sa quois (I can't spell it!), etc.
Willpower - the ability to do unusual, even supernatural, things through sheer force of will.
Hit points are based on physical size. One pound of body weight (for a living earth creature) equals one hit point. A 180 pound human has 180 hit points. (some weapons, like elephant guns, do more damage to larger creatures)
Your character's ideal weight is based on their stats. Racial base weight plus strength, plus constitution. The best way to gain hit points is to put points into strength and con (see advancement, below).
Your weight can also change based on how much you eat (there will be set rules, but the vast majority of players will simply declare that they eat the normal amount to maintain their ideal weight, and be done with it).
Losing a lot of weight due to malnutrition penalizes Strength and Constitution by the amount you lose (but eating sufficient food later will restore most or all of your Str and Con, depending on how severely you starved). Always pack enough food!
If you become fat, you get penalized for Agility and Stamina, to the point where if you exceed about 500-600 pounds (for a human), you're basically unable to walk under your own power (maximum mobile weight depends on stats). You do get the extra hit points, though; weight in pounds = maximum hit points. In a modern day type campaign, where food is plentiful and you can get a car and a gun, minor obesity isn't so much of a disadvantage. The extra hit points may be worth it depending on your skills.
When your hit points reach zero or below, your stats are all halved. You can go down to a negative score equal to your Willpower before there's a risk of passing out. Gotta roll vs. Willpower every turn to stay conscious.
If you go down to a negative equal to your maximum HP, you gotta roll vs. Willpower or die.
For simplicity, you can make it so that normal NPCs just collapse unconscious or dead when they reach 0 HP. Most NPCs will have an atrocious Will score anyway.

Combat skills:
The attack roll is a percentile (D100) roll. You must roll under your % chance to hit to score a hit.
The attack roll is also the damage roll. The number you get (rounded up to the nearest 10%) is the % of base damage you do. Base damage is weapon-dependent (also strength, when appropriate).
Because your % chance to hit caps the damage you can do, unskilled opponents will fall quickly and not hurt you much, even if they have about the same number of hit points and the same weapons and armor as you.
In the included campaign, weapons do pretty realistic amounts of damage. One or two good, 100% base damage hits with most weapons will be enough to incapacitate most people.
Weapon skills are broken into 3 categories with 4 skills in each one, and then a 4th "write-in" skill. For a given weapon, you use one skill from each category, plus your write-in skill if you have it.
For melee, the skills are Size (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large), Balance (Tip, Middle, Hand, Flexible), Type (Edged, Pointed, Spiked, Blunt).
I really suck at naming stuff! Name suggestions for skills and stuff are always welcome!
So for example, the longsword uses Medium Size, Hand Balance, Edged or Pointed types (depending on if you're chopping or stabbing), and "Longsword" write-in skills.
A katana, on the other hand, uses Medium, Middle, Edged, Katana. Thus someone who has exclusively trained with the longsword, if forced to use a katana, would be able to use their Middle and Edged skills, and weild a katana about half as well as a longsword.
Because of the write-in skill, a generalist can never be as skilled as a specialist.
The cap for each skill is 100%, so your max base chance to hit is 400%.
Defense skills'll be similar, still working on 'em.
Still working on refining ranged combat skills, too. So far the tentative system is Release (Dynamic, Static, Fast Trigger, Slow Trigger), Velocity (Low, Medium, High, Instant), Form (Thrown, Bow, Pistol, Longarm).
Unarmed has got me stumped, need ideas.
At percent chances to hit over 100%, you always hit. You roll, then add your chance to hit over 100% to whatever you rolled. So at a 115% chance to hit, if you roll 45, then you do (45 + 15 round up) 60% base damage.
Critical misses and hits occur when you roll a 0 for your second digit on the attack roll (multiples of 10). Whether it's a critical hit or critical miss depends on whether you hit or missed.
Severity of the critical hit or miss depends on how high or low you rolled. A critical miss at 90 would be rather minor, while a critical hit for 90 should be pretty good. A critical hit at 10 is nothing special, but you gotta be really drunk to miss if you roll a 10, so a critical miss at 10 is pretty bad.
For a critical hit, you take the % you rolled, add it to your % chance to hit for that attack, round up, and there's the damage you do. So if you've got a 65% chance to hit and roll 40, you do 110% base damage.
Thus, critical hits always do more damage than a regular attack, even if you just roll 10. None of that double damage and then you roll a 1 crap.
00 (or 100) is always a critical hit, and always does +100% damage. Ouch. Fortunately, PCs are immune to critical hits, except from boss-level encounters.
Critical misses cost you action points on the next turn, and lower number ones may cause you to hit yourself or something (effect table maybe?).

General combat:
It's an action point + movement point system. One turn is 2 seconds. An average human will have about 10 action points and 10 movement points per turn.
One movement point will let you walk 1 foot, run 3 feet, or sprint 5 feet (if you sprint, it takes several movement points to stop when you're done).
Using one type of point also uses up the same number of the other one, unless you use both simultaneously (need to explain better!).
I.e., you have 8 movement points and 10 action points. You have a laser pistol that takes 5 action points to fire. You can shoot the laser pistol twice, without moving. You can use 5 movement points to move, then shoot once. You can shoot once, then use 3 movement points to move. You can use 8 movement points to move, while simultaneously shooting twice, but at a stiff penalty to accuracy due to moving while shooting.
Armor. A given set of armor will have a percent coverage rating (with %s given for each general area of the body, for calculating partial sets and stuff).
Take your coverage %, round down, divide by ten. A hit roll ending in that number or less hits armor (if it hits at all).
Because of the rounding down thing, an armor has to have true 100% coverage to protect against critical hits. Power armor, magically reinforced armor, forcefields, something like that. True 100% coverage is also required to protect against some special types of damage, like blast/concussive damage from explosives.
Attacks that hit armor are reduced by some % (subtract it from your roll and round up), based on type of damage. Slashing (draw cuts, like slicing, as opposed to hacking), hewing (chopping), piercing, blunt, and ballistic. If it reduces the % to zero or less, no damage is done.
Some weapons will do multiple damage types. You always use the most advantageous damage type, for everything, in that case. So it may be one type for one thing, another type for another.
Example. So let's say you attack some dude with 85% coverage armor, and you have a 60% chance to hit. His armor has 50% reduction vs. the damage type your weapon does. You roll a 58. It hits, but hits armor, so you do (58 - 50 round up) 10% base damage. Then you roll a 39. It hits, and you manage to nail an exposed area, so 40% base damage.
So a single roll tells you whether you hit, whether it was a critical, how good/bad of a critical it was, whether the attack is affected by armor (if you hit), and the amount of damage you did (if hit). Only additional roll would be on an effect table if you get a really good critical hit or really bad critical miss.

Non-Combat skills:
Trying to get a 3 category, 4 skills in each, plus a write-in thing here, too.
Currently, best I've come up with is Background (Social, Mechanical, Survival, Abstract), Scale (Mental, Fine, Gross, Environmental), Sense (Awareness, Touch, Kinesthetic, Emotion).
There's probably a lot of room for refinement there, need ideas!

Advancement:
No levels.
Doing difficult stuff (including training/practice) gives you experience points that can be put towards a relevant skill or stat.
Increasing a skill or stat by one requires the goal skill/stat level squared char points. So going from 59 to 60 requires (60^2) 3600 points.
Just training or practice gives you 1 XP per minute. So reaching 100% in some skill (25% each in four skills) requires 1.5 months of intensive training (8 hours per day), or 1 year of casual training (around an hour a day). Reaching 400% in some skill requires 8 years of intensive training. About right for some insane martial arts guru or whatever. Gains through actual real world experience are much faster, obviously.
Need equations for combat experience and junk.
If trying to transfer stuff to/from D20, one D20 XP equals about 20 RGP XP.
For increasing stats, the maximum you can increase any stat to is double your starting stat, or double your starting intelligence, whichever is higher.
IQ should never be your dump stat. Intelligence is easily the most important stat there is. "Work smarter, not harder" is a reality. Having a high strength score is a combination of both physical brawn, and knowing how to use your strength most effectively and efficiently. Even the strongest person can throw out his back if he doesn't know the best way to lift, stuff like that.
Going to have something similar to feats, except they have to be learned from like, a guru on a mountain or whatever, so they're campaign dependent.
Players will also be able to make their own "feats," and even teach them to others, but how good they are depends on IQ. Once again, IQ is probably your most important stat, regardless of your playings tyle.

Misc:
Alignment in the D&D sense won't exist.
Instead, characters'll have defining traits that sorta line up with the D&D alignment scales, but can also be divided into stuff like goals, ideals, etc.
Rather than "always lawful evil" crap, certain cultures (independent from species and race!) will have particular ideals. A person of that culture will have a higher than normal chance of having some of those ideals for their defining traits, but it's by no means guaranteed.

So anyway, other than the points highlighted above, what I most need help on right now is magic. I'm going to add a post at the end of this thread summarizing the current magic system, to bump it up.

Hi, new member here, but I've played a bit of D&D and other RPGs, and been a reader of OOTS for awhile. But I've never really gotten into RPGs so much, because pretty much all of the systems have annoying rules and inconsistencies (many of which have been lampooned on OOTS). So I've been working, on and off for the past years or two, on my own RPG system. There'll no doubt be some annoyances and inconsistencies inherent to this one, but I hope to make it simultaneously more streamlined and more "realistic" than the other systems out there.

Any suggestions, advice, and other help would be welcome. Even if it's just to give up. I've been sorely tempted to, many times in the past.

Even though I have very very little done on this (compared to an actual, complete RPG system), this post is a real doozy, so be warned.


Anyway, this is a system that operates on some different paradigms from most of the RPGs I've played, and hopefully has a more logical way of doing things. It's also a pure percentile system, since almost everyone intuitively understands percentages, and will be able to grasp "you have a 50% chance" more readily than "you have to roll an 11 or higher with a 20-sided die."

Just an example of the way I've been looking at this, in terms of both "realism" and playability, is the problem of hit points. Hit points = physical integrity makes no sense in D&D. Real people, at least, don't gain the ability to take more damage, with experience. If you get stabbed in the heart, you're probably going to be dead soon, no matter what level you are.

Conventional HP really appear to be something like a cross between subdual damage and character skill. An attack that would stagger a novice, or even kill them outright, is no problem to a high level hero, who knows all the tricks of rolling with the blow, or absorbing it on the strongest portion of their armor, or deflecting it at the last minute so it does less damage.

But then you've got all kinds of strange quirks and things. Like healing. Apparently, different level characters take different amounts of actual physical damage from the same attack, yet healing spells heal the same number of points. And a character still has all their extra HP if they're naked; at least some of that damage-taking ability has to come from armor, for most character classes. All kinds of weird things like that stem from having HP as the primary defensive stat.

So let's say HP represent actual physical damage. A high level character will have only marginally more HP than a low level one, since they both bleed just as easily. So how should the reduction in damage be reflected? The most elegant system I've been able to devise combines the damage roll and the to hit roll. You have to roll under a number to hit, so at low % chances to hit, you also do reduced damage.

The more you think about it, the more it makes sense (at least to me). An utterly unskilled person, flailing about blindly, is very unlikely to do very much damage (to the other person, anyway) unless they get lucky (critical hit). Likewise, someone very skilled at evading blows should also be skilled at lessening their severity, if only by virtue of trying to out of the way, and thus rolling with the blow; or failing to totally deflect it, but still reducing the strike's effectiveness. So in this system, your % chance to hit also equals the maximum % of the weapon's base damage you can do.

The main problem is that calculating damage becomes very annoying, unless everything is expressed in D100s. And that's one of my main issues with GURPS. Every single darn weapon doing Xd6 gets old fast. But having to whip out a calculator every time you hit would get old even faster.

And yet, combining those rolls solves so many problems. Like critical hits. Nothing is worse than going "Yeah! Natural 20, baby! Double damage! [die rolling noise] Aw, man, 1! So I do... 2 damage. Great. Some critical." In this system, if you roll a critical, you get 100% damage gratis, then roll again, and whatever % you get is added. So even if you manage to roll a natural 1% the second time, at least you still do 101% damage.

It also reflects skill differences quite adequately. Only being able to do 10% base damage when you've got a 10% chance to hit may seem ridiculous, but think of a similar situation in D&D. If some guy in plate armor is so much more skilled than you that you have to roll a 19 or 20 to hit him, would your dinky little 1d8 longsword be anything more than a nuisance to him anyway, even if you do hit repeatedly?

AC bonuses due to size are a bit different, but 10% of the base damage of any respectable weapon would be enough to kill a mouse or pixie or something, when you consider that now HP actually do represent physical damage. A relatively minor wound to a human could easily kill a small animal. I've tentatively decided that pounds of body mass should equal hit points, since, ah... "heavy" people actually do have more blood in them, and are potentially harder to injure, due to their natural "armor." Of course, they'd also have penalties to agility and such.

So it's a very elegant system in many respects, but very awkward when it comes time to actually calculate the damage. It'd be perfectly suited to a CRPG, though, since the computer could take care of all the grunt work. Best idea I've been able to come up with is to just make it so that damage is calculated in 10% increments. If you roll a 1-10 (and it hits), you do 10% damage, 31-40 does 40%, etc. As long as all damages are multiples of 10, that's simple enough. The inventory sheet could even have a spot where you can write the damage your weapon does at different die rolls.

Another, cruder alternative might be to just have vague damage magnitudes, like in Silhouette, but I like that even less than all damages being expressed in Xd100.



Then we've got weapon skills. D&D, GURPS, and every other system I'm vaguely familiar with all have the same problems. They're either too specific, or too general. Like Fallout GURPS only has the following combat skills: small guns, big guns, energy weapons, unarmed, melee weapons, and thrown. That's it. So if you can shoot a pistol well, you can shoot a shotgun equally well (as both are "small guns;" "big guns" refers to things like miniguns and heavy artillery), but not a laser pistol. Yeah, that totally makes perfect sense.

Standard D&D is just as bad, in the opposite way (at least the last time I played, which was, admittedly, quite awhile ago). If you're skilled in, say, the longsword, you must use a longsword to get that skill bonus. If you suddenly find yourself with a bastard sword, the extra few oz. of weight and inches of handle suddenly make you as clumsy and helpless as a child.

Best way I've been able to address that is to have weapon skills broken into several broad categories. For Melee weapons, it's:

1. Size. Weapons can be Very Small (daggers, blackjacks), Small (machetes, shortswords, and the like), Medium (the majority of medieval-style weapons), Large (sledgehammers, greatswords, and the like), or Very Large (mostly spears and staves). The general distinction between Medium and Large weapons is that Medium ones can be comfortably weilded with one hand, while Large ones require two hands.

2. Balance. Needs a better name. Handling? Something like that. Basically, you've got weapons that are heavier at the end that you whack the other guy with (like maces, hammers, and axes), weapons that are heavier at the end you hold (like most cut and thrust swords), weapons that balance around the middle (like falchions, many cavalry sabers, and plain old sticks), and then there's flexible weapons (like chains, flails, and things).

3. Type. Definitely needs a better name, but I've no ideas. Edged, pointy, blunt, and spiked. Whether you use your Edged or Pointy skill with a sword or knife depends on whether you're cutting or stabbing with it. Obviously, you want to hit someone with a stick differently than with a sword, to inflict the maximum possible damage.

4. Individual. This is a "write-in" skill where you put the specific weapon you specialize in. So if you specialize in the English longsword, and suddenly find yourself with a katana or whatever, you can use the other 3 skills, but not this one. On the other hand, if you have a jian instead, you may be able to use some of the Individual skill. I'm thinking a small bonus if using a favorite weapon (as in, a specific individual weapon), base stat if using a weapon of the general class that you specialize in, and a small penalty if it's fairly similar. Actual numbers are up in the air until I can get some playtesting done, which is far in the future for now.

Each of the skills caps at 100%. So you can have a maximum of a 400% (plus the Familiar Weapon bonus) chance to hit, under optimal conditions. Which means every hit (under optimal conditions) would be a supercritical, doing several times the weapon's base damage. Naturally, the skill system will have to be that higher levels of skill are harder to attain. I'd need to hammer out the specifics of the XP system before coming up with anything concrete, but I'm thinking that individual skills up to 25% should be easy to attain (since anyone can whack a tied up person or something 100% of the time), but quickly become more difficult after that.

I'm thinking something like 100% is just basic competence, 200% is mastery as far as mere mortals are concerned, and 300% and beyond require inordinate amounts of training and experience.

Projectile weapon skills and unarmed are almost totally undeveloped, for now. A system with the same 3-generic-skills-plus-a-specific-one theme is obviously called for.

Armor class is fairly well developed. You have 3 categories this time, and no individual category.

1. Evade. Pretty self-explanatory. Heavy armor should reduce this skill, but not below 0. So a heavy armor user may never bother to put any points here.

2. Block. Also self-explanatory. I don't think I'll make any distinction between blocking with a shield or a weapon, as far as the skill goes; having a shield will just add to your Armor.

3. Armor. Derived entirely from the armor you're wearing.

Given that the most protective armors will also reduce your evasiveness, AC would probably effectively cap at less than 300%. And critical hits will still go through, of course.

Finally, special abilities and such. I personally don't really care for the addition of feats in D&D, and I don't think something like that'd work in this system. Instead, there may be "secret techniques," which could either be learned (after doing some quest, proportional in difficulty to the effectiveness of the technique), or an intelligent enough character could come up with their own secret technique (incentive for Fighters to not use Intelligence as their dump stat!).

One that I plan on implementing is based on the real-life Meisterhauwen. If you and your opponent are both armed with two-handed cut-and-thrust swords, and yours has a functional short edge (the "back edge"), and your opponent is lightly armored or less, combat is resolved differently. Add up your two-handed sword skills (large, hand-balanced, edged, 2-hand sword), and subtract your opponent's skills divided by two. So if you're fighting someone of equal skill, you end up with 50%. This is your chance of automatically winning the combat (by either disarming the opponent or killing him, at the player's choice), every round/turn/whatever (that's still up in the air). If you fail, you just roll as usual. Very powerful, as long as you're mostly fighting people with crappy armor. And acquiring this skill would require a very difficult quest.


Noncombat skills are still pretty much undeveloped. There's so much crap a character could possibly learn, I think it would be easiest to have _all_ non-combat skills be write-in. But most characters would require a trainer, or at least a book or something, to even get a skill onto their character sheet, making noncom skills campaign-based. But a sufficiently intelligent character may be able to teach themself a skill. Which would require a bunch of rules for how high intelligence needs to be for each skill. And if someone desperately wants to learn Chicken Juggling... I guess it'd be up to the GM's discretion.

Which brings us to stats. I've decided on the following:

strength
perception
stamina
constitution
agility
dexterity
intelligence
wisdom
willpower
charisma

Stat magnitudes haven't been decided on yet. I guess 1 to 100 could represent the human norm, to make rolling stats easier, with small animals and things having negative numbers? I dunno.

Pretty similar to D&D, but a couple stats are broken up. Perception is seperate from wisdom, willpower from charisma, agility from dexterity. Most of the stats are obvious, but some need some explanation.

Perception is seperate, because it's quite possible to be wise to the ways of the world, and still be utterly oblivious to what's actually happening around you. Perception represents general awareness of one's surroundings, more than actual acuity of the senses (though that is also a factor). "AWareness" may also be a good stat name.

Stamina represents actual physical fitness; the ability to keep on running, fighting, and casting spells when lesser men would have collapsed from exhaustion. Constitution is more like toughness and resistance to damage, whether it's from being in excellent shape, or from having a layer of blubber.

Agility represents whole-body agility, combined with speed. Dexterity is more like manual dexterity; hand-eye coordination, and ability to do precision work. A concert pianist who trips over his own feet all the time would have low agility and high dexterity. A lightning-fast rogue who can evade any blow, yet struggles to tie her shoes, would be the opposite.

And charisma is basically just physical attractiveness combined with people skills.

Nothing more concrete than that, yet.


Finally, magic. This is what I think is the most original aspect of this system. I spent quite awhile thinking of a plausible way that magic could actually work, instead of "it just does." My best idea thus far is Probability Manipulation.

I like to describe it as like the "bowling dance," except it works. Everyone's seen the "bowling dance," if only on TV. You throw the ball, then start to gyrate and gesticulate wildly, trying to somehow get the darn thing to roll in a different direction. It's also fairly common in golf.

Many physical processes are random; it's just the scale that makes them predictable. Let's say you've got a perfectly formed coin that is precisely weighted to favor neither heads nor tails, and a perfectly random machine to flip it for you. The chances of getting either heads or tails is precisely 50%. If you flip the coin only 2 times, you've got a 25% chance of two heads. But if you flip it 4 times, it drops down to 6.25%. If you flip 4 million times, your chances of all heads is basically nonexistant. Any substantial imbalance at all is very unlikely. You're almost guaranteed to get nearly equal numbers of heads and tails.

Many other things work about the same way. If you put a single cold molecule in a box with 3 hot ones, it may stay cold for a very long time, because there will be very few interactions, and each one is random. Every time a hot molecule hits the cold one, chances are good that the cold one will absorb heat, but it's not guaranteed. It's even possible that the cold one will transfer heat to the hot one! In the long run, the 4 molecules will equalize in temperature, but some minor manipulation of probability could prevent that from ever happening, or even make the cold molecule colder with time!

If you put a frosty mug of mead in a hot room, it's the same principles, but on a colossally greater scale. You'd have billions of interactions between the air, the mead, and the glass every second. But if probability could be changed, so that the air and glass molecules tend to take heat away from the mead, rather than adding heat, the mead could stay cold indefinitely, even become colder over time.

That's how magic works in this system; through sheer force of will, the probabilities of various subatomic interactions are changed, in order to produce a result. Naturally, magicians in a medieval-type fantasy setting would not understand this, much like ancient people didn't understand the significance of using various herbs to treat illnesses and things.

Magic through probability manipulation is divided into several schools. For now at least, they're heat, Brownian motion, electricity, chemical reactions, and entropy. Like everything else with this ridiculous system, they need better names.

Now, those of you who are more versed in physics may say "wait, at that scale, heat is Brownian motion!" And you're right. But in this case, "heat" magic mostly deals with transfers of heat, while "Brownian motion" is more the direction the particles move. "Heat" is magnitude, "Motion" is vector, in other words. Heat magic can heat or cool things, while Motion magic can create gusts of wind or waves from nowhere.

Entropy magic is a slightly tricky one, but I'm thinking it could be used to heal wounds and repair equipment, by reducing entropy. You could almost think of it as a form of localized time travel, since time can be measured by the progression of entropy. Using it to inflict wounds, however, would be much more difficult, nearly impossible. Increasing entropy into the equivalent of a disintigration spell would be like reducing it until a person is turned into a few lumps of coal or diamond, a bit of metal, and a few clouds of gasses; basically the same effect.

Given the pseudo-time travel nature of magical healing, it may also be somewhat plausible that when a wound is healed, you experience it all over again, so that magical healing is just as painful as being wounded in the first place, and does subdual damage equal to what's being healed. Heal too much in the middle of combat, and you pass out from pain. Even for characters with a high pain threshold, it's still distracting.

Personally, I find standard, consequence-free magical healing too overpowered. Now, that's far from the case in many actual campaigns, but that's because those campaigns are designed around the concept of consequence-free magic healing!

Finally, one very interesting concept for magic is that of invocation vs. evocation. The Wuxia fantasy genre (Chinese chivalric fiction; the Oriental equivalent to Occidental swords 'n sorcery; stuff like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and House of Flying Daggers) is pretty well unrepresented in mainstream RPGs. With invoking magic as well as evoking, both types of fantasy could coexist in one game.

For instance, an evoker could use heat and chemical magic to create fireballs, electrical magic to create lightning bolts, and motion magic to create buffeting winds as powerful as a physical blow, to assail her foes. An invoker, on the other hand, could use electrical and chemical magic to speed up nerve impulses (including in the brain) and empower muscle contractions to have superhuman reflexes and strength, and use motion magic to speed up their movements, and even lighten their body (by causing every single particle in their body to tend to try and move up, rather than in some random direction) to the point where they could fly. Eastern and Western chivalric fiction existing side-by-side in the same system could prove very interesting.

The final form of probability manipulation is the most powerful one. Influencing actual rolls in the game. Needs a name, again. Let's just call it Will for now. Will, I would consider different from "magic," in that it's a subtle effect changing everything a character does. Will should be inherent to anyone with magical ability, but not really improvable through training or other conventional means. Haven't really decided how increasing it should be done. But the ranks will probably be 1%, 2%, 5%, 10%, 25%, 50%, and 100%, with 25% being the most that's ever attainable by players, and should be ridiculously hard to achieve.

But anyway, there are two forms of Will. One, tentatively called Determination, is sort of the equivalent of taking 20. If your % chance of success is equal to or less than your probability skill, then that means you will succeed at least that much. It's kind of hard to explain without an example. Let's say you have Determination up to 5%, and a 5% chance of succeeding at something. If you fail 19 times in a row, then through sheer force of will, your 20th attempt will be an automatic success. But if the 19th succeeds, the 20th will be rolled as normal; it's only for successive failures. Or successive successes, if you want the roll fail (like if you're messing with an opponent's roll, rather than your own).

The second form of Will simply changes any roll affecting your character (including opponent's rolls, if they're attacking you, or if the roll otherwise directly affects your character) by up to your Will score. This could get overpowered quickly if not balanced. Definitely needs some playtesting once everything's hammered together, but I'm thinking that 2% would be a fair starting point for beginner characters.

For usage, you can use a will ability one rank below yours as much as you want, equal to your rank once per day, and 2 ranks above once per year. So with the standard 2%, you can do 1% as much as you want, 2% once per day, and 10% most likely only one time in the whole campaign.

How common magic is would be campaign-dependent, but in the one I'm working on now, only a very small number of the populace have any probability manipulation ability, and are at the top of the social heap.


That's about all I have so far. Still needs a ton of fleshing out.

My first campaign (which will probably use these rules, unless I'm talked out of developing them) is further along, but that'll have to wait for another post. My fingers hurt.

brian c
2007-05-26, 12:15 AM
You're crazy. I mean that as a compliment though. I can't even begin to comment, maybe I will later, but I like your ideas and I hope you manage to get this fleshed out and usable.

blackout
2007-05-26, 12:24 AM
Finally! A system that makes SENSE when it comes to HP! :smallsmile:

RyanM
2007-05-26, 01:30 PM
Forgot to mention a few things. But the replies so far are appreciated. I'm glad my ideas make sense to more people than just me.

Anyways, in this system, character class doesn't exist. I cannot think of any earthly (or plausible unearthly) reason why someone can't learn whatever the heck skill they want, provided that they're smart enough and/or have access to training.

Also, possibly one of the biggest departures from the norm, level doesn't exist either. Instead, doing things gives you Experience Points, which are "spent" to increase skills or stats. Need to work out some kind of balance, but it basically should be that doing something difficult, like picking a really hard lock, or killing a tough monster, should give you XP that can only be spent on a relevant skill or stat. So if you beat a monster to death with a club, you can use the XP to increase your physical stats or club-related combat skills, but not intelligence. Likewise, practice and training can be used to generate XP at a much slower rate than actually exercising the skills "in the field," but such XP cannot increase skills past, say, 50%. Which is quite high; enough to get your combat skills to 200% chance to hit and 150% AC, but training to that level would take several years in-game. Then quest XP is just general purpose, and can be used for anything you want. You can roleplay that you read a book on the subject or learned it from a passing trader or something, if you like.

Should also be that XP are used to learn Secret Techniques, whether they're from someone else, or invented by your character. Making your own would probably be the GM's discretion as to how much they cost.


Alignment, I'm still debating on. Law vs. chaos and good vs. evil doesn't really work for me. Very few people would genuinely identify with "chaos," except inasmuch as merely being an individualist. Likewise, very few people will ever consider themselves to be "evil," and really, "evil" is nothing more than opposing the dominant moral structure (which may very well be "evil" itself, to some other moral structure).

I'm thinking "alignment" could be more like a personality type system, but with axes that are more relevant to an RPG. Things like:

Altruism vs. selfishness
Individualism vs. conformity
Power vs. happiness
Justice vs. injustice

But any such system would most likely quickly become complex and unweildy, and simultaneously too limiting. I say just come up with a believable character, with a believable amount of depth (i.e., "my character doesn't think about stuff too much" is just as acceptable as "my character is a tortured philosopher-priest who is constantly debating the meaning of 'good' with himself," as long as you stick to it and play it believably).


Finally, I really like the idea of backgrounds and traits and things. The GURPS advantage/disadvantage system is definitely a good idea, one I'll be borrowing from fairly heavily.

One idea I have is that there should be a system for determining various backgrounds, for different age ranges: conditions of birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, old age, conditions of death, post-mortem. Not just for creating a character for someone who is indecisive, but also for rolling up random NPCs who require some depth.

Each background would have a point rating (based on what stat, skill, and inventory modifiers it provides), and you could either just roll them up randomly or choose them, but if you choose them, you're limited to a certain point total (lower than the "average" randomly generated character).

Likewise with stats. If 25 to 75 ends up as the normal range for humans, then the "average" will be about 500 total stat points. So if you go the "safe" way and just allocate points, you should be limited to 450 stat points total. And you can buy extra stats by using your advantage points.

Backgrounds could be a lot of fun. Things like "Raised by Wolves" and "Child Crusader" come to mind. Definitely would need a system for allocating point values to player-created backgrounds.

The character generation process would go something like this:

First, you pick a species. Or if you don't really care, roll for it.

Then roll a D100, say 12 times for your stat values, and then assign the 10 values you want to whatever stats you like, and add on the appropriate species modifiers. Probably something like a human is 25 + 1/2 D100 for each stat.

They don't need to be very high, since they can be improved during the course of the game. Lift weights and you get stronger, play Brain Age and you get smarter, etc. Though perhaps the maximum attainable should be influenced by the starting score; maybe a maximum of double whatever you start with.

Then you roll or choose a Conditions of Birth background. Like Born to Nobility gives you +10 to strength, since historically, "nobles" get their status by being big and strong enough to intimidate other people into giving them stuff, but you lose 10 from constitution because of inbreeding. Also gives you a +10% chance to having an Exceptional-class character (one which has the basic 2% Will/probability manipulation ability, and potential to learn magic), since that's the other distinguishing feature of the upper classes in the campaign I'm working on.

Then you roll for (or choose) whether your character is Exceptional, or just a normal schmuck. A plain NPC would have a 1% or lower chance here, but a PC should be more like 75%.

Then you automatically have to roll for or choose an infancy background, since playing as an infant would probably not be a particularly rewarding experience. "I throw up on the Paladin, then wet myself and start crying really loudly."

Then you roll vs. some very high % to see if you advance to the Childhood background (or choose, once again), otherwise, you start with a child-aged character. And so on, so that most PCs are young adults, with some adolescent and middle aged ones, and very rarely a child or elderly one, or even more rarely, undead.

A different set of tables would be used for generating NPCs when necessary, but the overall process would be the same.

Once again, details need to be hammered out, but I think the basic concepts are solid.

Stay tuned for details about the setting I'm working on (in a different thread). I really need to get all that on paper, too.

Matthew
2007-05-26, 07:09 PM
Ah, the Gamer's trap... "I could totally make a better/more realistic/fun/balanced system than what's currently available. Mine is a Skill Point Based System, low powered Magic, deadly combat and heavy on the story element. It looks a lot like this because it addresses the same problems: Levels, Hit Points, Vancian Spell Casting and Gnomes are stoopid... etc...

Good luck with this, though.

onxy9600
2007-05-26, 10:10 PM
You might want to take a look at a little known minitures game that has probably died out by now: Chronopia. Every weapon has a damage value, and some can inflict multiple wounds. every armor has a value as well. If you exceed the armor value with the attack, you deal a wound. So lets say you have your long sword. Call it a 50/50 weapon (staying with your % dice). when you attack, you get to add 50 to what you roll. Your opponent would get to use his armor value plus a modified roll (because of the inflexibility of their armor) on his ability to dodge your attack. Ok, so now you have Hit him. But he is wearing armor, armor would also have dual stats so in order to hurt them you take your weapons second stat, again a 50, make an opposed roll (your strength) against your opponents ability to suck up that blow (his armor value and an opposed toughness roll).

so it would go something like this:

Abob attacks with his long sword (50/50) against Gurg (a large brute with a great axe, wearing leather armor(-20/60).

Abob rolls a 40 and has a strength of 65, both of which get added to his attack = 155
Gurg attempts to dodge it, but his dex is very low (30), and even his impressive 98 roll with the additional -20 makes the attempt even more tragic for a total of 108.

Now to see if Gurg is actually hurt...

Abob's strength of 65 is added to an dice roll (70) and his second weapon stat 50 for a total: 185

to avoid taking a wound Gurg mus oppose with his 85 toughness and armor protection of 60. Already at 145, Gurg would only need to roll a 40 to shrug off the attack.

You can work with the weapon stats, but if you are going to do low hitpoints (wounds) opposed rolls work well. also by stating wounds, then healing magic becomes easier. no matter what damage was dealt, a wound is a wound. Also you can make some weapons to deal multiple wounds (a flail, multi headed morning sar, trident, ect) in some cases those weapons will have lower damage for each point, or may be unweildly. Finally, for those huge powerful characters... Anytime you exceed the opponents total toughness check by double, make it a bleeding wound (after x number of rounds you take another wound to blood loss).

just a few ideas...

Onxy

RyanM
2008-01-09, 10:51 AM
Man, it's been awhile. Hate to bump up an ancient post like this, but it's easier than retyping all my original work.

Anyway, I've worked out a few more things for this gaming system.

Armor now has a reduction percent vs. each damage type, and an exposure percent (opposite of coverage). A roll which hits an armored person is reduced by the reduction percent, to a minimum of the coverage percent. So if you're wearing a knee-length maille hauberk with long sleeves, and a coif, that's say 50% reduction vs. hewing attacks and 20% exposure. I'll come up with a table for what % each part of the body is. So someone chops you with a sword for 80% base damage. Armor takes off 50%, and 30% base damage makes it through. They hit you again for 40% base damage, but the armor can only reduce damage to 20%, so 20% makes it through.

Then there's how to handle combat turns. I've decided on an action point based system. You get agility divided by ten movement points, and dexterity divided by ten action points, per turn. Humans have average agil and dex of 55 each, so 5-6 of each.

Movement points, something like 1 foot per point walking, 1 yard per point running.

Each turn is only 2 seconds. Remember, I'm going for fast-paced, bang-you're-dead combat here. I figure about 2 seconds should cover 90% of the things you'd do in combat. Draw a weapon from concealment, about 2 seconds. Reload a magazine-fed gun, 2 seconds. Dig something out of your pack, about 2 seconds if it's well-organized. Apply a bandage (that's already in your hand), 2 seconds. Etc. So those would all be 5 AP actions. Going for as few multi-turn actions as possible. Reloading a revolver (using a speedloader), belt-fed weapon, or crossbow are about the only common things I can think of, just off the top of my head, that'd take 10 AP. A normal person could do a 5 AP action in 2 seconds, a very skilled person in 1 second, a ridiculously fast person in less than 2/3rds of a second (for humans, the absolute maximum attainable dexterity is 160, which requires you to not only roll the highest possible dexterity, but also invest a ton of effort and points into dex; 160 represents the absolute highest dexterity that the human body will ever be capable of).

Also, everyone's turn happens simultaneously in the game, and everyone finishes their turn, unless they're hit with an instant death critical (chopped off head, blown out brains, etc.), so that's another reason to keep turns short. Gotta decide how to determine priority of attacks for instant death type stuff, though. Probably just people go in order of descending agility.

Finally, magic. I've decided on a sort of free will vs. determinism theme. Your Willpower stat represents not only willpower in the conventional sense, but also is a measure of your free will. Standard, nonmagical NPC's have a willpower score of zero. This also simplifies combat, because willpower is rolled against to stay conscious when severely injured (HP 0 or below). With no willpower, it's much simpler. HP are 0 or below, you fall over. So you don't have to worry about making willpower saves every turn for a rat or a peasant or whatever.

Anyway, willpower score of zero. Really, most people do not attempt to exercise free will. And magic is the purest expression of free will there is. You simply choose for something to happen, against the conventional laws of physics, and it happens. However, this can only be done in certain ways; probability manipulation in the included campaign. It also requires a great deal of willpower.

For how to dole out spells, I debated between a mana/point system, and spell slot system. Typically, with a spell slot system, your individual spells grow in power faster than you gain slots. With mana systems, it's usually the opposite--you get to cast the same old wimpy spell a million times as you grow more powerful, and even with upgraded spells, it's still basically "spray and pray." Keeping with the fast-paced, deadly combat theme, spell slots obviously work better. And that actually ties in very well with what I decided for how to handle enchantments.

Basically, spell slots operate by a system similar to the "spell trap" mechanic that D&D now uses. I think. I'm too lazy to check. The main difference is that spells must be "trapped" in a physical object, per my system's enchantment rules.

To enchant some item, you impart some of your Willpower score to it, as well as Intelligence for more complex spells. Your stats are thus decreased until you undo the enchantment. Still need to decide on mechanics for that. Probably it has to be done in person, via physical contact, but can be done very quickly.

But anyway, this keeps enchanted items relatively rare, preventing at least that form of munchkinizing. The majority of perma-enchanted items are either legendary artifacts, which are created differently, or mass-produced enchanted things created by more "evil" cultures; they force spellcasters to enchant stuff until they're too feeble-minded to do any more, then kill them. The enchantments remain permanent after the caster's death. Either that or enchantments go away after death, so they keep them barely alive, imprisoned in squalor. Haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning towards enchantments lasting after death.

Legendary type items are things which were not intentionally enchanted. Instead, they're items that a particular, very powerful, high-Willpower person was especially attached to (sentimental value and whatever), which was in their possession when they died. At the moment of death, the whatever absorbed some of their Will and Int, and also some of their personality. Like the enchanted sword of an extremely virtuous paladin will probably slip out of your hands and fall on your toes in combat, if you're "evil."

For spell slots, a character enchants an item to do some spell-like effect upon activation, rather than a constant effect. Most of the time, the item merely serves as a recepticle for magic power, and the spell is simply cast at will. Casting spells in such a manner requires a minimum Willpower score, though, so you can't tie up too much of it in spells. The alternative is to "program" the item to cast the spell under some circumstances (like when it's pointed at someone, or thrown, or whatever), but doing that also consumes intelligence, which you don't get back until the item is used, or you unenchant it.

I'm definitely going to make it so that items must have certain properties to be enchanted certain ways. Possibly based on the periodic table of elements. Or maybe mass spectography, to be really fancy (though noticing that things burn different colors is something that could probably happen with pre-industrial tech levels, compared to discovering the periodic table). Also the shape of the thing, like a long and skinny tube of gas would produce a different effect than a short fat one with the same volume.

Spells can also just be cast whenever, but they take long enough that combat casting is an impossibility for anyone but the most skilled. Something like 1-10 minutes for most spells, probably. That's also the amount of time it takes to enchant an item to cast a spell. Long enough to make combat casting nearly impossible, but not so long that it's a huge inconvenience to have to "recharge" all your spell talismans.

Then there's invoked magic, still. Invoked magic affects the caster only, while evoked magic effects some change in the environment. Doing stuff to other people or animals directly requires combining the disciplines.

So pure invocation is mostly stuff like superhuman reflexes, speed, strength. I'm going for a wuxia (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon type stuff) feel for invoked magic. Instead of spell slots, invoked magic will depend on your current willpower score, and can be maintained indefinitely. Getting invoked skills will be very skill point-intensive, of course, and very subtle in effect at lower skill levels (like the number of skill points it takes to learn fireball would give you like a 5% bonus in regular combat). Still, that way a mage who is skilled in both evoked and invoked magic will not be a pushover when he runs out of spells. But he won't be as skilled in either form of magic as a specialist.

The two disciplines of magic can also be combined to buff others, and other stuff like charm person, death touch, etc. But that requires skill in both, and those spells cannot be stored (after all, every person is different; there isn't going to be a "one size fits all" spell that will work on a bunch of people like that, just as there is no "one size fits all" surgical procedure that could be programmed into a machine, that will work fine every time, without needing to make any adjustments whatsoever). They have to be cast directly, in the presence of whoever you're trying to affect, and it consumes willpower until the spell is called back. So combat-casting a death touch is quite a feat. But an evil character could have as many gurus empower him/her as possible, then kill them from far enough away that they can't revoke the spell. Hm, maybe magic should dissipate with the caster's death, then. Or be revokable at will, rather than requiring physical contact. I dunno.

So, any opinions or ideas or anything?

I think this thing's coming along together fairly well.

Pronounceable
2008-01-09, 09:15 PM
You're missing a very cruicial point. Simplicity:
Those armor rules pain to read, and will be torture to actually run (not to mention it requires tables).

Simultaneous combat is a no. You can try to run it, but it won't end well. You are not a computer that can calculate all that within an acceptable time. Players won't like watching you go thru half a minute calculations to determine what happened in two seconds. And neither will you. And you have to get the calculations right with the "bang-you're DEAD!" style of gameplay.

The general advice: Avoid complexity. Less dice rolled, the better. A ruleset must be smooth. If you can't remember all relevant rules easily, it's bad. If you can't determine what happens within 5 seconds (at longest) of rolling dice, it's worse. If you have to consult a table, it's awful. Really, tables are BAD. They ruin whatever immersion everyone has managed to gather until that moment. They slow down the game. Tables are evil. Unless you have a screen in front of you, in which case you can get away with consulting them during game.

Also: Backgrounds. Charging a player for backstory won't sit well with him. When he sees that half his character creation points are gone so he can have that very interesting background he came up with, he'll be seriously unhappy.


With those said, you have excellent ideas. Merely merging attack and damage rolls into one is brilliant (I admit, I've already done that in my own system; that's why I'm calling it "brilliant", otherwise I'd have said great). It's a great way to streamline combat. Your main ideas reflect mine (I run off of d20, except that I'm sick of linear probability and will switch to 3d6 for those lovely gaussian curves).

You've identified all "wrong" stuff (HP, levels, classes, weapon proficiencies, magic...) and tried to "right" them. Only problem is you're getting carried away. DnD is most popular for a reason: it's simple. You can get as realistic as you like on paper; but when it you're at the head of the table looking at your players, you are obligated to run a game. And you can't do it well with complicated rules. A good game requires immersion, immersion requires smooth play, smooth play requires fast ruling on DM's part. Simple, Fast=Good. Complex, Slow=Bad.

Magic. Yours is too well, too thought out, it's not MAGICAL anymore. Now, your thoughts on magic are pretty good and reflect my stance on magic. But there must be more. Something more mysterious, more "magical" than these should also exist.


If you simplify these rules and put them all together in one place after it's done (a doc or pdf), it'd make a neat system. Your overall ideas seem to mirror mine. Keep going, you'll get somewhere good (and I know that even if I told you to stop, you wouldn't).


Off topic: Are you a physics major, or physicist, or something like that?

RyanM
2008-01-10, 01:38 PM
Don't know if the simplicity problems are that incredibly bad. I'm attempting to get something roughly as simple as D&D, but the more realistic goal is just "less complex than GURPS."

Like the armor, I don't see what's that incredibly bad about it. Just subract the first number from the damage roll, but it cannot ever go below the second number. The coverage table would be used only when in a shop, buying armor. Head, 10%. Face, 5%. Arms, 20% each. Etc. So if you only armor one arm and one shoulder, you'd have 75% exposure or whatever. Then, until you go armor shopping again, that's where the number stays.

On backgrounds, each background affects your stats. That's what the points would be based on. Born to nobility, you have higher strength and endurance/stamina, but lower constitution (weak immune system and other problems due to inbreeding). Things like that. Point cost would just be identical to manually raising and lowering those stats. That's also only one way of creating a character. You could also just use the points to make your stats whatever you want, or you can roll for stats and take your chances with the dice. For either of those, whatever background you come up with for your character will have no effect on the stats/skills; it's up to the player to make them consistent.

I am trying to avoid tables as much as possible. That's what drives me crazy about Silhouette. The only table I can think of that you'd be consulting regularly would be a damage table, and that only if you're terrible at doing math in your head. It'd just be part of your inventory sheet. Something like:

Weapon - Longsword
Damage type: hewing
Strength multiplier: 3x
Strength: 50
Base damage: 150
10% - 15
20% - 30
30% - 45
40% - 60
etc. With room to have up to three weapons listed like that.

As long as you're not switching weapons like the star of a first-person shooter, that'd be fine.

With that kinda table, it would be no harder than playing D&D.

You have a combined chance to dodge (which is written on your char sheet so you don't have to total the numbers up every time) of 50%. I have a combined chance to hit of 100%. 50% chance to hit. I roll a... 43. Less than or equal to, that's a hit. Round it up for 50% base damage. But you're wearing a maille hauberk, so only 20% makes it through. I either do 15 * 2 in my head, or look at my handy inventory sheet and see "30" written on it. You take 30 hp of damage.

Oh, I guess there may also be a critical table. I forget if I already mentioned, but I've streamlined criticals. If you roll a 0 for your second number, it's a critical hit/miss. Which one it is depends on whether you hit or miss, of course. For a critical hit, take the % you rolled and add 100. There's your damage. Then check a table to see if anything happened. Like if you roll a 10 and critically miss... you have to be really drunk to have a chance to hit less than 10%, so it would not be unreasonable for that one to be, you accidentally hit yourself for full damage. On the other hand, if it's a critical hit, almost anyone can hit on a 10, so that one wouldn't do anything special. Just the extra damage. Still, 110% base damage is nothing to sneeze at. It will probably be that the 50% that's most likely to occur (10, 20, 30, 40, 50 for critical hits, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50 for critical misses) do nothing special. You do extra damage for a hit, and you lose some action points if it's a miss, that's it.

That's also a good way of keeping the really annoying criticals from happening too often. Like I said, you gotta get your character real drunk to have any chance at all of the really bad criticals happening. But you also have to be really skilled to score a good critical. Luck will only carry the day so far.

Other tables would be used only during character creation or when buying stuff. The real complex math would be used only when trying to import things from other campaigns, or create weapons and items from scratch.

Simultaneous turns, I don't see what the problem is. You're not actually rolling them all at once, it'd go in order of agility. The only difference from conventional turn based is that if you kill someone, unless you got an instant death critical hit, an enemy will still have one or two attacks left in him before collapsing (unless he's a boss or a mage, with a willpower score, in which case he can keep fighting into the negatives). That's no different in effect than giving all the enemies a few extra hit points, such that it would take one extra turn to kill them. As long as the campaign creator takes that into effect, it's fine.

I'm trying for a more "tactical" feel to the system. Moments like "Come on, this is non-magical fire. It does 1d6 points per round. We'll make two trips" should never occur.

At the same time, players will typically have the odds stacked fairly heavily in their favor. The campaign will be designed so that most enemies will have a less than 30% chance to hit. They're also unable to inflict critical hits, because someone with 0 Willpower can't crit against someone with >0 Will. Basically like designing it so that all encounters' CR is within what the party can handle. Only difference is you're making enemies' skill levels be a certain amount below the party's, rather than hit dice (I think hit dice is what CR is based on, anyway; it's been awhile).

On magic, I'm not sure if I really want it to be magical magic. The campaign I'm writing anyway, has a near-dystopia feel to it, so a low-fantasy-through-"scientific"-magic type thing may fit best. I'm trying to design a cohesive universe, rather than just cobbling something together out of Tolkienesque archetypes.

I forget if I've gone into much detail about the campaign world, but it's sort of a parallel earth. One good example, dwarves. Dwarves are basically my idea of what Neanderthals would have become if they hadn't been wiped out by humans, and if they'd decided to live underground. If you check the Wikipedia article on Neanderthals, yeah. Neanderthals are Dwarves. About the same body weight as humans, but shorter and stockier (though not to as much of a degree as D&D Dwarves). Facial features; heavy "beetling" brows, large bulbous nose, etc. Hunting, they had no or minimal projectile weapons. When's the last time you saw a Dwarven archer?

So Neanderthals fit the Dwarven archetype perfectly. But I've thrown out pretty much everything else. Because of the area the Neanderthals lived in (further north than Humans), I'm giving them a culture somewhat more like the Inuit. Things like that.

Also: I'm a Nanotechnology major. So you were close.

paigeoliver
2008-01-11, 01:39 AM
D&D is way more complicated than Gurps.

Actually, 3.5 D&D is probably the most complicated RPG currently being played. Well most complicated might not be the right word to use, but it is certainly the SLOWEST moving of any popular RPGs.

Note, the slow pace of current D&D isn't something that is evident from reading the rules and won't even manifest itself when your group is first learning how to play the game. But, once they learn how to play it is the slowest thing around.

The largest speed culprits are the attack of opportunity and the initiative system.

Icewalker
2008-01-11, 02:41 AM
I skipped the last post of yours, but read the rest. Why do I only read these when it is already over an hour after I should have been asleep...

Very impressive system, I like a lot of the ideas, and you are fixing a lot of cool realism problems and incorporating some awesome ideas for magic. But, as mentioned above, it looks like it will become overcomplicated at times. It isn't too bad, but some things could handle a paring down.

Actually, my friend is working on his own system which isn't too different from yours, at least not including the magic. 100 instead of 20 based, hp based around reducing damage instead of experience (I don't care how legendary you are, the level one commoner stabbed you in the face with a dagger. You are probably dead), expanding the base stats.

SimperingToad
2008-01-11, 06:32 PM
Massive, massive, massive task to undertake. Having been there and failed several times, I offer good luck to the endeavor.

A few points:

1) I have long understood the strangeness that is D&D hit points. Ah, the 'abstractness' of it all. Having taken up Tai Chi in the last couple of years (yes, it is a martial art when you get past learning the form), I have become aware of what such a thing means, though I doubt that EGG and friends even realized it at the time.

As you improve your skills, you begin to turn the body in ways you normally would not to avoid direct attacks. The sword is no longer being thrust perpendicularly into the abdomen. It just makes a cut across the area instead. I'm still not entirely keen on the 'abstract' idea, but it makes more sense to think of it that way.

2) It took a few years to realize the beauty that is bell curve ability scores. I'd hate to see that abandoned. Try using a score of 50-55% as being equal to 10-11 (average) in DnD. Use a base score of 35% and roll 3d10 (since you have that die for the % rolls) and add them to the base. You should have a range of 38-65%, with an average of 54-55, which can be modified by race, traits, or even sacrificing a % for a benefit of some kind.

3) 'Born to Nobility' getting a Strength bonus may work for a race like the Neanderthal-Dwarves you mentioned, but this does not work for all. Some leaders gain their position through wealth, guile, or sheer ...ahem... Charisma.

Regards,
theToad

Partysan
2008-01-12, 05:55 AM
I don't know, where you are from, but if you can understand german, Die Dunkle Dimension (The dark dimension) is totally your system of choice. It is free to download at www.die-dunkle-dimension.de and is one of the most sophisticated systems I know, and one of the most realistic too.

Kami2awa
2008-01-12, 09:52 AM
What would be interesting would be to design the SIMPLEST possible RPG system that allows reasonable character design flexibility and lots of options for the characters in play. The FF (Fighting Fantasy) system actually works surprisingly well for tabletop RPGs and it only has only 3 stats; Skill, Stamina and Luck. With a few rules for spellcasting added (which were published as a proper tabletop RPG system by Steve Jackson et al) it makes for a game pretty much identical in storyline to most low-level D&D games.

However; here is my thinking regarding system design:

1) Stats: how many depends on how much you want to map out your character as a mathematical model. Every stat should count; too many systems have over-reliance on 1 stat (for instance POW (Willpower or just Power) in Call of Cthulhu) or 1 or more stats that do very little.

2) Dice base: Aesthetically, relying on 1 type of dice (d20, d100, d6 etc) seems to be the rule for recent game design. The dice you pick depends on what "resolution" you want for the rolls; 1d100 gives you very precise control over success and failure chance but do you really need to keep track of +/-1% modifiers? 1d6 is probably too narrow a range so in a d6 based system you would want 2 or 3d6 used for rolls, which gives a bell-shaped probability distribution.

Bell shaped probability is probably more suited to realistic systems like GURPS where the chance of something really, really good or bad happening is reduced (if the real world ran on d20 RAW, a pilot would crash his plain 1 time in 20 since he'll eventually roll a Natural 1).

Using d6 has the additional bonus that d6 are the most common type of dice and often the cheapest. I have more d6 in my dice collection that any other dice type and so do most gamers I know.

3) Difficulty system: This is difficult. You want to be able to modify the difficulty of tasks. d20 does this really well with DC; all the GM needs to do is set a DC for any task. Other systems use modifiers to rolls which have a greater or smaller effect depending on the dice base.

RyanM
2008-01-14, 11:56 PM
D&D is way more complicated than Gurps.

Actually, 3.5 D&D is probably the most complicated RPG currently being played. Well most complicated might not be the right word to use, but it is certainly the SLOWEST moving of any popular RPGs.

Yeah, that's one thing I've noticed. I'm trying to make something more like GURPS, i.e., reasonably fast to actually play, but much more complex if you're homebrewing stuff in. Simply because the system has more internal consistency requirements. D&D, you just play most of it by ear. In this one, I've got some calculation spreadsheets for things like weapon damages.

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I skipped the last post of yours, but read the rest. Why do I only read these when it is already over an hour after I should have been asleep...

Very impressive system, I like a lot of the ideas, and you are fixing a lot of cool realism problems and incorporating some awesome ideas for magic. But, as mentioned above, it looks like it will become overcomplicated at times. It isn't too bad, but some things could handle a paring down.

I have the same problem.

And I am trying to simplify things as much as possible (like how the main hit roll now determines criticals as well), keeping complex junk confined to things you don't do very often. Or at least that you won't do very often in my campaign.

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Massive, massive, massive task to undertake. Having been there and failed several times, I offer good luck to the endeavor.

A few points:

1) I have long understood the strangeness that is D&D hit points. Ah, the 'abstractness' of it all. Having taken up Tai Chi in the last couple of years (yes, it is a martial art when you get past learning the form), I have become aware of what such a thing means, though I doubt that EGG and friends even realized it at the time.

As you improve your skills, you begin to turn the body in ways you normally would not to avoid direct attacks. The sword is no longer being thrust perpendicularly into the abdomen. It just makes a cut across the area instead. I'm still not entirely keen on the 'abstract' idea, but it makes more sense to think of it that way.

Well, that's basically how my system is working. As your skills increase, you take less real damage and inflict more. The main problem with D&D's hit point increasing thing is healing. Heal whatever wounds will heal a critical injury on a level 1 wimp, but that same number of HP would be a mere scratch on a level 20 munchkin. In this system, 50 HP means 50 HP, regardless of skill level, experience, etc. The only thing that matters for your hit point count is physical size. Everything else decreases damage instead of increasing HP.


2) It took a few years to realize the beauty that is bell curve ability scores. I'd hate to see that abandoned. Try using a score of 50-55% as being equal to 10-11 (average) in DnD. Use a base score of 35% and roll 3d10 (since you have that die for the % rolls) and add them to the base. You should have a range of 38-65%, with an average of 54-55, which can be modified by race, traits, or even sacrificing a % for a benefit of some kind.

I've been trying to figure out a way to bell curve some things, but in the end, there are other ways to get a similar effect. Like the critical hit/miss thing. At a high level of skill, critical misses stop happening. Dunno for stats. There is a very wide range of stats for humans, though. Look around anywhere and you're guaranteed to see fat people, skinny people, strong people, weak people, etc.

I think the reason why D&D has to use a bell curve is because the ranges are a bit too broad. Like an Int of 3 probably represents severe mental handicap, given that animals are 1-2. In my system, about the lowest Int gets is the equivalent of an IQ of 50, without a background or disad or something that decreases it even further. Not good, certainly, but not really bad.


3) 'Born to Nobility' getting a Strength bonus may work for a race like the Neanderthal-Dwarves you mentioned, but this does not work for all. Some leaders gain their position through wealth, guile, or sheer ...ahem... Charisma.

In fantasy systems, maybe. In real life, "nobility" got started because the big, strong guys figured out they could extort food out of farmers instead of having to grow it themselves. They also specialized in warfare, hoarded weapons and armor, etc., in order to keep their advantage. Basically a police state, eventually turning into a dictatorship.

It's only after that system is established that various nobles might ascend or descend the social ladder through means other than warfare. And it's only after nobles' health started suffering from inbreeding, that peasant millitias on their own were effective at all.

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I don't know, where you are from, but if you can understand german, Die Dunkle Dimension (The dark dimension) is totally your system of choice. It is free to download at www.die-dunkle-dimension.de and is one of the most sophisticated systems I know, and one of the most realistic too.

Unfortunately, ich spreche kein Deutsch.

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What would be interesting would be to design the SIMPLEST possible RPG system that allows reasonable character design flexibility and lots of options for the characters in play.

I actually am planning on trying to make this system scalable, eventually. Anything from something simple enough to play in the back of a car, with a single 3x5 index card for each player, to the full system.


1) Stats: how many depends on how much you want to map out your character as a mathematical model. Every stat should count; too many systems have over-reliance on 1 stat (for instance POW (Willpower or just Power) in Call of Cthulhu) or 1 or more stats that do very little.

Really trying for that, yeah. There's no point "seperating" out the stats compared to D&D, if they aren't going to be individually used a lot. At this point, just in how I'm thinking, intellimigence is probably going to be the most important stat. That'll determine a lot, even for stuff like fighting (can learn better/more techniques) but that's fairly true to life.


Bell shaped probability is probably more suited to realistic systems like GURPS where the chance of something really, really good or bad happening is reduced (if the real world ran on d20 RAW, a pilot would crash his plain 1 time in 20 since he'll eventually roll a Natural 1).

Yeah, I'm going to try re-using the critical hit/miss concept elsewhere. As your skill rises, your chances of really bad stuff happening decreases, and how bad it is also decreases. And your chances of really good stuff increases. Fortune favors the prepared mind, and everything.

I just like percentages because everyone intuitively understands them. A bell-curve system is nice in theory, but if you tell someone new to gaming like "you have to roll under 8 on 3D6s to succeed," they aren't going to have a clue if that's good or bad or what. I don't even know what percent that translates to. Whereas "you have a 40% chance, so you have to roll under 40" is pretty easy for anyone to understand.


3) Difficulty system: This is difficult. You want to be able to modify the difficulty of tasks. d20 does this really well with DC; all the GM needs to do is set a DC for any task. Other systems use modifiers to rolls which have a greater or smaller effect depending on the dice base.

Yeah, I haven't even started on the noncombat skill system yet. It'll probably crib some rules from the combat side.

It would be really darn cool if it could have a "skill element" or whatever system, like the combat skills. Like some of the skills for lockpicking would also be useful for similar tasks, like trying to repair some kinda device by feel alone. I should start working on something like that.

It really bugs me that there is zero "skill bleed-over" in the majority of systems. But then, most of them have no real way of handling that elegently. Breaking each skill into elements seems like the most logical way to do it.

pseudovere
2008-01-15, 01:43 AM
This is very interesting. I read/skimmed over the entire thing, and it sounds very interesting. It is actually very similar to my system I'm working on, which I will avoid describing here, because I started doing so and wrote about 3 paragraphs before realizing that I was horribly off topic.

I think that you have most things pinned down fairly well, all though I would disagree on numerous things that you listed in terms of simplicity, it is actually frightening how many ideas we arrived at independently. We both decided on a roughly fixed hit point system proportional to body mass, shorter rounds, quicker combat, an ad hoc, synergizing, experience based, classless skill system and an overflowing point-based combat system based on dexterity.

I really feel as if I should say more, but I just want to keep referencing my own game in comparison to yours. I'll be back once I get a topic on my own system up and running... I haven't been very good about writing things down...

Anyway, you have some very intriguing ideas, all very similar in principal to my own, but there's no concept in your system that I would adapt to my own...

Well, I feel like I need to say at least something useful to justify my rambling.

Your posts would be considerably easier to read if you made a new post with bold section headers that formatted similar ideas together, so it would be more easily readable. Don't retype it, just copy/paste. Should make it reading the whole thing to avoid making a comment on how you need to do something that that your already doing considerably easier to avoid.

Also, playtesting. I have a coauthor for my game, who really doesn't do anything except let me rant about how awesome an idea I have is so that I can develop it more, and playtests with me. Don't think for a second that just because you haven't finished your combat system that actually using it is a bad idea. You will probably have to spend a considerable amount of time explaining rules, realizing that you're taking to long to explain it so you have to simplify it, and getting the kinks out, but if you can get somebody else who is interested in the development of the game, they won't get bored, its considerably more interesting than doing it yourself, you have a sounding board for your ideas, and its always much easier to see the flaws in a system when you actually can see it playing out in front of you.

Oh, and you should really put a warning on this thread. I was planning on skimming over this thread quickly, because it was only 15 posts long, but WOW. I just killed over an hour.

I look forward to seeing a more formatted version of the game, and I hope to be able to post a link to my system, but its finals week next week, so the probability of that is not to likely.

RyanM
2008-03-25, 11:33 PM
If you clicked the "view latest post" button, I advise going up and reading the first post. It's been extensively rewritten.

But anyway. Magic!

I've sorta given up on the probability manipulation thing for now (mentioned in previous posts, now spoiler tagged to avoid clutter). Instead, I've decided on a more philosophical bent. Free will vs. determinism. Magic is, essentially, the purest expression of free will there is.

Most people basically have no free will at all. They lead completely deterministic lives. No magical capability whatsoever, and a Willpower score of zero. Both true to life (sadly), and true to the game. After all, NPCs are all controlled by the GM. PCs, however, will always have a Will score, and thus always have magical potential (whether they actually use it directly or not).

Magic I've got divided into four basic categories, some of which loosely line up with D&D archetypes. Basically, there is magic powered entirely by the self, magic powered by one's immediate surroundings (especially nature-based magic), magic from the gods, and subconscious, untrained magic.

Untrained magic, I kind of see as being... almost like having "cheat codes." Ways to mess with the RGP system itself, like reversing the digits of a percent roll (18 becomes 81 or something), or getting the GM to move the screen so that you can see the result of a hidden roll (but not know what the % chance of success/failure was). Needs definite rules and limitations, obviously.

Magic from the self can be divided into two very different categories, invoked (expressed inwardly, bolstering the self) and evoked (used to effect some external change). The two disciplines can also be combined (to directly affect other people, like death touch, charm person, or buffs).

Invoked "sorcery" basically corresponds to Eastern fantasy conventions. One's inner Will/magic/Chi is used to strengthen the body, speed the reflexes and mind, etc. However, keeping these buffs active reduces the sorcerer's willpower score. Doing other magic may require "deactivating" some.

Evoked sorcery is more like the Western convention. Will is used to do something like make a fireball or whatever. This magic can also be used to enchant items, but only at a semi-permanent cost to yourself, in Will and IQ. Will must be imparted on the item to power the actual magic thing, and IQ must be used for enchantments with any kind of complexity whatsoever. The only ones that don't need any IQ would be simple "spell traps," castable at will by the sorcerer that created them, like the D&D Wizardry spell preparation thing, except actual physical objects.

When the enchanted thingie is used up (if it's time limited, or charged, or one-shot), or destroyed, or cancelled by the sorcerer (has to be within 15 feet), they get the Will and IQ back in full. But until then, it's gone. Permanently enchanted items are thus pretty rare, and PCs will probably really not want to make them except perhaps for party members.

The "evil" cultures could mass produce enchanted stuff, forcing sorcerers to enchant crap until their IQ or will is totally depleted, before executing them (if enchantments stick around after death, anyway. At this point, they do). That could also be a great plot hook for a low "level" quest. An enslaved sorcerer escapes, and wants the party to help them track down all the stuff they've enchanted to regain their mind and Will.

Trying to make enchanted stuff at least a little hard to munchkinize. Most people would be very hesitant to make a permanent enchantment, and most of the ones out there were created by exceedingly evil means.

Enchanted junk should have fairly strict requirements based on what the spell is supposed to do, so that more powerful ones need more expensive materials, in addition to greater expenditure of Will and IQ. Like a spell trap for a fireball might need platinum, or something. I dunno, need a system of rules. Enchanting an item or empowering a spell trap requires the same amount of time as casting the same spell spontaneously (a couple seconds to a couple minutes, depending on power and complexity), but once empowered, the effect can be tripped instantly and at will (or whenever whatever conditions built into the enchantment are met, like pushing a button, or pointing at an enemy, or whatever).

Then there's magic powered by one's surroundings. Because the actual magical energy used doesn't belong to the "wizard," spell effects are very dependent on where he is. Druidic type stuff would probably fall into this category. Spell traps are somewhat possible, but they can't be moved far from the place they were empowered in, since the energy isn't the wizard's to take. Most wizards thus have to rely on spontaneous casting which takes a relatively long time (especially given that turns are only 2 seconds). The tradeoff is that because the magical power comes from the surroundings, wizard spells are much more powerful than equivalent sorcerer ones. Like, a successful 30 second spell could instantly win a minor battle, whereas a sorcerer's spells for the same "level" (investiture of XP into magic skills) and casting/enchanting time would be only slightly better than conventional weapons.

Wizards are thus amazing at defense, setting up traps and ambushes, and extended battles in a single location (if well-defended), but not too good for mobile offense or general adventuring.

Since it's manipulation of the magical junk of the environment, it should also be possible for wizards to do group casting, several people working in tandem to Will something to happen.

Finally, Divine magic. I see this one as being highly dependent on roleplaying. Some kinda ruleset sorta like prayer in NetHack. The cleric prays for something to happen, and the chance of success depend on both the cleric's standing with their deity, and whether or not the cleric's goal for the effect of the prayer are in line with the deity's goals and ideals. Naturally, cleric spells are potentially the most powerful, but the gods are fickle, so the effects may be delayed, or it may backfire catastrophically if the god is in a particularly foul mood (critical failure).

So basically:
[list]
Untrained magic - Useful for practically any die roll, but rather limited.
Invoked sorcery - Incredibly useful for buffing yourself for physical combat, but that's about it.
Evoked sorcery - Useful for relatively minor magical type stuff, like small fireballs, but very fast. Also enchanting.
Both sorcery types combined - Useful for directly doing things to people, like buffing them or killing them. Potentially very powerful, but needs a big investment of XP to build up both skill trees.
Wizardry - Potentially incredibly powerful effects, but long cast times and limited utility.
Clerecy - Potentially ridiculously powerful effects, but unpredictable. You have to roleplay devotion to your deity, and use the magic primarily for ends your deity would approve of, to get the best chance of success.

Mostly need some good ideas for that kinda stuff, like how to balance them, and suggested actual hard rules. Stuff that fits with this system.

RyanM
2008-03-28, 06:29 PM
No one has any ideas?

Baron Corm
2008-03-28, 08:08 PM
So, some ideas, then. I'm going to call Druid what you call Wizard, because druids are currently the ones who get magic from nature, and in every language but D&D, sorcerors and wizards are the same thing.

I like the idea of using Willpower to imbue items, taking from your pool of Willpower, and I don't see why that couldn't be used for spells as well, instead of spell slots.

The spells I mentioned are flavorless and basic but you did say you just wanted some ideas and concrete mechanics, so here, I'm throwing some out.

Untrained - Things happening well for them, without them able to control it. Seems like they should get some combat abilities even if they're spending all their experience on untrained magic, because they can't control it. It's more just like an aspect of themselves, than spending time on learning it, anyway. You can't train yourself to become untrained. Maybe make untrained magic a series of feats, freeing up their experience to be used in other areas. You will still need a high Willpower score for your random effects to be potent.

- Has a 1% chance per Willpower (modifier?) to function at a specified time, depending on the spell.

- Empower Offensive Spell [Untrained Magic Feat] - adds 10 to the attack roll of a spell cast within X feet. Taking this feat more than once increases the number added.

- Guide Attack [Untrained Magic Feat] - adds 10 to the attack roll of any attack made within X feet. Taking this feat more than once increases the number added.

- Reverse Fortune [Untrained Magic Feat] - flip the digits of any percentile dice rolled for an action within 10 feet.

- Improved Reverse Fortune [Untrained Magic Feat] - your Reverse Fortune ability always functions in your or your allies' favor.

Invoked Sorcery - Improving yourself with magic! Fairly few options, but something that is fun to do regardless.

- Ability Boost - increases an ability, up to a maximum amount equal to your Willpower, and lowers your Willpower by the same amount.

- Augment Body - grants a new limb, wings, improved eyesight, or something similar. Lowers your Willpower by variable amounts depending on the feature.

Evoked Sorcery - Pretty much magic as we have it now. The ability to say "die" and have something die is encompassed here, so it's tricky to balance. I would balance it by not having save-or-dies, just damage, and if you dealt enough damage, you were powerful enough to cast a save-or-die on that creature. Save-or-sucks are less powerful, and even undesirable with your system, in which I believe it is much easier to just kill. Therefore, it should be even easier to incapacitate than kill (and in no media depiction of magic have I ever seen someone resist it, just avoid it). Permanent curses, just like permanent magic items, should be a rare thing, probably plot related.

- Destroy Creature - deals damage to any number of creatures within X feet depending on your experience spent in Evoked Sorcery (may use whatever flavor you want). Requires an attack roll based on your Willpower. Reduces your Willpower by X per successful attack, gained back when the creature dies or is healed the damage.

- Manipulate Object- gives you control over an object, such as a lever or a bonfire, with the amount manipulated increased with more experience in Evoked Sorcery.

- Manipulate Creature - gives you the ability to incapacitate or control any number of creatures within X feet, with the flavor left up to you. You must hit the creature with an attack roll based on your Willpower, but "damage" is irrelevant. Reduces your Willpower by X per successful attack, gained back when the creature is released or healed. Requires the spending of actions to maintain.

Druidic Magic - Directing the latent magic of your environment. The way you put it, not very suitable for an adventurer. Personally I think this could be made just a flavor difference between other types of magic. You included spells which take a long time to cast but are powerful under here, but that could easily just fit under Evoked Sorcery.

Clerical Magic - Magic from the gods, an ability to further His/Her will. Clerics should be rare, as they require the expenditure of Willpower from the gods themselves to grant the magic, and gods obviously don't like to be weakened by having their power spread thin among many clerics. Again, I feel this magic is different only in flavor from the other types.

RyanM
2008-03-28, 11:21 PM
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that this system has no classes. You can put XP into skills for whatever you want, so there's nothing preventing a "sorcerer" from also learning "druid" spells. Cleric spells are based pretty much entirely on favor with your deity though, so they're more about roleplaying than XP investment (though XP should obviously play a part as well).

For untrained/intuitive magic, I was thinking more like, the more ranks you gain in schooled magic skills, the worse your "untrained" ability is. Thus, a guy with an excellent Willpower score who never learns any "real" magic will have benefits on rolls, and things like that. Rather than using his Free Will to make fireballs and things, he uses it to improve his chances of doing more mundane things.

But magic schooling decreases this natural ability. Doing magic requires strict control over your Willpower and desires, and requires a certain approach, or something like that. Of course, a sorcerer could just come up with a spell called "increase my chances of whacking this guy with a stick" or something like that, so it's not a huge loss.

From a gameplay perspective, it's mostly so that PCs who choose to eschew magic get some benefit out of their willpower score, other than for certain rolls, like rolling vs. willpower to see if you pass out when heavily injured. I don't want it to be that magic is the one and only powergaming solution.

Also, on evoked sorcery (as well as druidic magic), in general, you can't do things like "death touch" or "charm person" with pure evoked magic. I'm thinking it's something sort of like, invoked magic allows you to change your own body, evoked magic lets you change the environment. But changing other people (or animals) directly, in complex ways, requires a combination of the two (meaning twice the XP invested in skills, most likely). So you might be able to crudely rip chunks out of someone with evoked sorcery, but "charm person" would require invoked and evoked in tandem.

On the power of evoked sorcery vs. druidism/wizardry, I do want there to be enough of a power gap for druidism to be useful. Sort of like, 30 seconds of concentration, an average sorcery spell will make a 12" fireball and chuck it at someone, and probably disable them if it's a 100% damage hit. For a druid/wizard spell on the other hand, 30 seconds gets you a fireball more like the D&D one, that blankets a 50 foot diameter area with flame (and almost definitely turn anyone in that area into a crispy critter). The benefit of the sorcery spell is it can be prepared anywhere in 30 seconds, then unleashed later, instantly. The druid spell can only be cast on the spot in 30 seconds (unless you know you're going to be using the spell later, within 50 feet of where you prepare it).

Of course, clever "druids" (most likely NPCs) could leave stationary spell traps, disguised as rocks and trees and things, all over their territory.

Lakoda
2008-03-31, 01:42 PM
The Good:

I like it, it makes sense and like many have said addresses the main issues.
The HP (sub-)system is great...I'm so stealing it ;)

The Bad:

Perception is so generalized, especially compared to the other skills. Sight, touch, smell, hearing...they are all so different a person can be really very good at one and absolutely horrid at the others it seems counter to the detail of the rest of the system.

Trying to define an absolute set of skills is going to ruin you...just wait for someone to find a skill that breaks the whole thing. Particularly the weapon stuff...I like the idea of breaking the skill into categories/parts, but it can be broken and it will. So either accept that or go broader.

The Ugly:

Math...there is too much. Big numbers and lots of modifiers are too much. It will eat up time - I know, that's the catch-22...you want realism AND quick use...well it will never happen so you find a balance. I think you can tweak it some more to speed things up (and simplify) a good amount with out too much sacrifice to your vision. Keep playing with it...play testing will be huge for gaging this so maybe wait to readdress this after more is fleshed out.

Final Word:

I think most of us on this board have attempted what you are trying to do (in making your own system). It isn't easy, but if you have the desire and drive you can do it...this is a great community to get the help you'll need/want too. You have a wonderful start and a refreshing flavor to your system, I think I would enjoy it once you finish it. Keep it up and I hope you succeed where too many of us have given up (it is a LOT bigger task then it seems at first).

One Last Tip:

Be willing to start almost completely over for the sake of not breaking the system...if you have to hack edge cases into the system the players will realize this and it will kill the experience. When you get this specific and this detailed it becomes much harder to make a unified and global system.

{edit: finish out the rest of the system to a play testable state before you attempt magic or you'll be hacking stuff into the magic system to accommodate changes to the main system. Magic is probably the least integrated part of any system (as evident by some people playing without it) so you can safely (and I'd say wisely) work on that last.}

~~Lakoda~~

Pronounceable
2008-03-31, 02:48 PM
finish out the rest of the system to a play testable state before you attempt magic or you'll be hacking stuff into the magic system to accommodate changes to the main system. Magic is probably the least integrated part of any system (as evident by some people playing without it) so you can safely (and I'd say wisely) work on that last.}


That's good advice. First set up the rules of the universe. Then figure out how to tell it to shut up and sit down.

RyanM
2008-03-31, 11:00 PM
I guess magic should go on a back burner for now, then.

I am trying to streamline things as much as possible, but some stuff, like the % of base damage, probably have to stay. The to-hit roll affecting how much damage you do is the very heart of my combat system, and the only reason why my hit points work. Only way of streamlining it is to round rolls up to the nearest 10% when calculating damage, and ensure that all base damages are divisible by 10. Also, there could be a spot on the char sheet where you write down your equipped weapons' damages in increments of 10%. Roll, glance at your char sheet, and there's your damage.

Lately, I've mostly been thinking about ranged combat. I think a D&D style range increment, with -10% chance to hit per increment, should work.

Mostly, I need to figure out a good way of modifying damage based on a weapon's penetration (which should probably apply to melee weapons as well; stabbing a dragon with a dagger is probably a bad idea). Like an elephant gun with monolithic solid bullets would just go right through a human and keep going into the next country. Most of the bullet's wounding potential is wasted. An elephant, though, is much thicker, so it should take a lot more damage.

All I can think of is giving each weapon a penetration rating that corresponds to creature size (for now, cribbing D&D's). Against that size and larger animals, it does the given damage. Against smaller ones, it does reduced damage.

So like, a 9mm might be rated 160 (med). That means it does the same damage to a human and an elephant, but 160 hp is a lot to a human, just a nuisance to an elephant. Against a squirrel it does less, but squirrels have 1 hp anyway...

Don't know though, I think that's a little counterintuitive.

Lakoda
2008-04-01, 08:53 AM
I don't think adding the percent damage is the overly complicated part, you add the 35% weapon damage +/- any modifiers and then you add the die role. The problem would be keeping a running total of your damage, calculating damage done would be very hard, 52% of 112HP means I have how many left? Well as I was thinking of this I realized you don't need HP at all! You just keep track of everything as a percentage of the whole...all damage is a percentage so why even worry about the absolute number of HPs.


Mostly, I need to figure out a good way of modifying damage based on a weapon's penetration (which should probably apply to melee weapons as well; stabbing a dragon with a dagger is probably a bad idea). Like an elephant gun with monolithic solid bullets would just go right through a human and keep going into the next country. Most of the bullet's wounding potential is wasted. An elephant, though, is much thicker, so it should take a lot more damage.

All I can think of is giving each weapon a penetration rating that corresponds to creature size (for now, cribbing D&D's). Against that size and larger animals, it does the given damage. Against smaller ones, it does reduced damage.

So like, a 9mm might be rated 160 (med). That means it does the same damage to a human and an elephant, but 160 hp is a lot to a human, just a nuisance to an elephant. Against a squirrel it does less, but squirrels have 1 hp anyway...

Don't know though, I think that's a little counterintuitive.

A concept of "penetration" damage feels counterintuitive because it is wholly unneeded. A weapon does a certain about of damage, lets call it X. If the weapon is bigger (heavier, longer, whatever) X will be larger, conversely if it is smaller (lighter, shorter, whatever) X will be smaller. These things NEED to be abstracted like this for ease of play. If you start worrying about penetration you will have to worry about weight and sharpness and hardness and the list goes on forever! If you want certain weapons to "penetrate" farther give them for damage or the ability to ignore a certain about of armor - though since you've already talked about armor defending against certain types of damage better then others I would keep all these modifiers on the armor side.

Additionally creatures have more and less hit points based on their ability to cope with differing types of damage. The problem is that you have weapons doing a percentage of total health which only works if all things are equal. A dragon and a house cat hit with a dagger will have VERY different outcomes. So I would solve this by applying size modifiers based on the size of the weapon vs the size of the target. If the weapon is human sized against a human it is RAR if it is a human size weapon against a cat the the cat gets a penalty (to take more damage). If the weapon is halfling sized against an orc the orc gets a bonus (to take less damage). It's all relative to the size creature the weapon was made for vs the size of the target creature (so if a human somehow/magically uses a giant's maul to attack another giant there would be no modifiers). I put all the modifiers on the defenders side again (like I did in the previous paragraph) but that was for consistency, you could very easily transfer them to the offensive side, but whatever you do keep them all on the same size for ease of use.

RyanM
2008-04-01, 11:54 AM
I don't think adding the percent damage is the overly complicated part, you add the 35% weapon damage +/- any modifiers and then you add the die role. The problem would be keeping a running total of your damage, calculating damage done would be very hard, 52% of 112HP means I have how many left? Well as I was thinking of this I realized you don't need HP at all! You just keep track of everything as a percentage of the whole...all damage is a percentage so why even worry about the absolute number of HPs.

That, um, really isn't how my damage system works.

Here's an example, with actual die rolls used.

Let's say you attack a guy twice, who has 180 HP. Your first attack is with a longsword, which has a base damage of, let's say 200. Your second attack is with a dagger, that has a base damage of 80. Let's say you have a base chance to hit of 150% with both weapons, because you're really good, and this guy has a 60% defense, and no armor. So 90% chance to hit.

Longsword attack, you roll 81%. It's under 90%, so you succeed. That means you do 90% (81 rounded up) of 200 damage = 180 hit points. Your opponent is reduced to 0 HP, and has to roll vs. Will (let's say his Willpower is 50), to stay conscious. He gets a 28, which succeeds.

Now you stab him with your dagger. Uh, the rules for how stats affect things aren't in place, so let's say he still has a 60% chance to dodge, so you still have a 90% chance to hit. 10%. You hit, and it's a critical. Because it's a critical, you do your base chance to hit (90%) plus what you rolled (10%) in base damage. So 100% of base damage = 80 HP for the dagger. Your opponent is now down to -80 HP, and has to roll vs. Will again (which is now 25, because stats are halved when HP are 0 or lower). 28. So close. He passes out and is no longer a threat.

A winner is you. Challenge again!

Anyway, on the penetration thing, I dunno. It really is justified for certain weapons to do more damage to big stuff. An elephant gun, say a .375 H&H magnum with monolithic solids, makes no larger diameter a hole than something more like a .44 magnum. The advantage of the .375 is it penetrates several times deeper. A .44 magnum would inflict nothing more than a flesh wound on an elephant (unless it's a really lucky shot), while a .375 is potentially lethal (albeit, the .375 H&H is generally regarded as the minimum caliber to kill an elephant with a double lung shot). But against a human, both weapons do about the same damage.

Dunno. Need some way of scaling for stuff like that.

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In other news, I think I figured out a way to handle called shots. You take a penalty to hit (also a penalty to damage), but you roll multiple times and add up all your rolls. But multiple rolls require consecutive hits. I.e., if your first roll misses, it's a complete miss. If your first hits and your second misses, that's it, you just get the first roll worth of damage, even if your called shot permitted up to 3 or more rolls.

How much of a penalty and how many times you can roll depend on where you aim. Something like trying to hit the leg would be -20% chance to hit and damage, one roll (generic leg shot should do less damage). Trying to hit the knee would be -40% chance to hit, but you can roll up to 2 times, since there's some potential for extra damage with that specific of a target.

Something along those lines. Obviously, the numbers above aren't set in stone.

Lakoda
2008-04-01, 01:44 PM
Ah, OK. I either misread or misunderstood.....it's a lot of stuff to keep in my head =).

RyanM
2008-04-24, 11:30 PM
Okay, I've got three ideas for a damage system.

Current one: You roll D% to see if you hit. If you hit, the roll result is rounded up to the nearest 10%, and multiplied by the weapon's base damage. So if you roll 56% and have a 150 base damage weapon, you do 60% of 150, which is 90 hit points. Base damages are always divisible by 10 and should have no more than two significant figures, so you don't have to worry about really complex math. Because there are only 10 possible damage results, the truly math-impaired could create a simple table for each of their weapons, with each of the 10 possible damages for 10%, 20%, etc.

Alternative #1: You roll D% to see if you hit. If you hit, the roll result is multiplied by a damage multiplier, inherent to the weapon. A multiplier of 1.5X would be equivalent to a 150 base damage. Thus, for a roll of 56%, you'd do 84 damage. Multipliers should be whole numbers or halves, to save on the math a little bit. Possibly whole numbers only, though that really limits things. Really, even increments of 1/2 limits possibilities by a bit.

Alternative #2: You roll D% to see if you hit. If you hit, the roll result is divided by ten and rounded up to the nearest whole number. This is the number of damage dice you roll, the size of which are determined by the weapon. This system would be the most familiar to D20 players. So in the above example... um, the equivalent would be a weapon with D30 damage dice, and a roll of 56% gives you 6D30 damage. 93 on average, possible range of 6 to 180. Very limited in the damages you can do for weapons, and probably actually no easier on the math than either of the above.

At this point I'm really leaning towards the first, and current system. But does anyone see any feasible ways of simplifying either of the other two? The 3rd one could actually be a very feasible system if the success die were a D10 or D20 rather than a D%, and if there wasn't a focus on fast, deadly, high-damage combat.

Actually, I just had an idea for a pure D10 system. The amount by which you exceed the number you have to roll over (with all bonuses and penalties applied) is the number of damage dice (which are D10s) that you may roll, modified by the weapon. Weapons primarily have a maximum dice number, which is the highest number of damage dice you can roll. So like a sword might be... 5. So if you roll a 10, and needed a 2 to hit, you still only get to roll 5D10 for damage, in that case. But for a weapon with a damage of 10, you'd get to roll all 8.

Very powerful weapons will also give you bonus dice, like a weapon with 5+5 damage allows you to have up to 5 dice from exceeding the to hit number, plus 5 "free" dice, meaning that if you hit, you roll anywhere from 5 to 10 dice. Such weapons also give you an additional 10% chance to hit, since rolling equal to the required number normally gives you 0 damage dice, while an X+X weapon gives you the bonus ones still. Or heck, +dice could even be interpreted as "splash damage," so that you still get dice even if you miss by a narrow-ish margin. Also it's similar to the effects of D&D enchanted weaponry that way.

And you could have X*Y stuff. You can get a dice number up to X, and then multiply it by Y to get your actual number of damage dice. Like a 5x2 weapon would allow you to roll 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 damage dice. That way there's bonus damage, but not chance to hit.

Feel free to use this idea.