LordofPlataea
2016-10-16, 05:00 AM
Hey guys. I'm looking for some help on a project that's been rolling around my head for a while. Now I know there are some Fallout Pen and Paper games out there already but they don't appeal to me, as they're either based off Fallout/Fallout 2 (as is the case with Fallout PnP), designed for d20 (Fallout d20 and Exodus RPG), or reskinned for GURPS (Fallout GURPS).
I want to create a percentile based system, taking my inspiration from Fallouts 3 and New Vegas as their skill systems are the most enjoyable in the franchise. What I have below is super rough, it's pretty much just my notes, but it's enough to get an idea of what I'm trying to do. I would love your comments/suggestions on what I have and what I can do to make this game the best it can be.
A note on combat: the current idea for combat I have is based on the Combat Skills like Guns and Melee Weapons. My working idea right now is that, in order to hit with a gun, assuming a gun skill of 25, the player would need to roll 76-100 on a percentile. I'm thinking of increasing the difficulty of this check, depending on the armor/agility of the person you're shooting at. Maybe this works? I'm not sure, thus why I'm here :D
Lastly, it is very late as I post this, so bear with the poor formatting for the time being and I'll fix it at a later date. Also, I do not know the Metric system that well, so I'm attempting to learn it as I make this game so if I make any glaring mistakes in my metric measurements, please forgive me. Thanks in advance guys!
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
This section deals with the effects that the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats have on your character and summarizes each stat and what each effects. S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. These are your primary stats, and they directly influence your skills - and thus gameplay.
Strength allows you to hold more items in your inventory and increases your unarmed damage. It also influences which weapons you can and cannot (effectively) use.
Associated Skills: Melee Weapons and Unarmed
Derived Stat: Carrying Capacity = Str x 15 kilos (about 33lbs.0)
Adds extra damage on melee and unarmed damage rolls.
Perception lets you spot enemies easier, assists in precise activity, and helps you spot danger.
Associated Skills: Explosives and Lockpick.
Endurance increases your maximum health, poison resistance, and radiation resistance.
Associated Skill: Survival
Charisma improves your success when talking to people.
Associated Skills: Barter and Speech.
Intelligence increases the amount of skills points you gain to distribute over your skills when you level up.
Associated Skills: Energy Weapons, Medicine, Repair, and Science.
Agility increases your Action Points in V.A.T.S., and improves how fast you draw, holster and reload your weapons, as well as your running speed.
Associated Skills: Guns and Sneak.
Derived Stat: Action Points (AP) = AGL x 3
* Derived Stat: Sequence = AGL
Luck increases your chance to deliver critical hits and boosts all your skills. Enemies will more often miss their shot at you.
Associated Skills: ALL.
Derived Stat: Critical Chance = Luck Score
Table 1: Skill Modifiers
Stat ScoreModifier
1+2
2+4
3+6
4+8
5+10
6+12
7+14
8+16
9+18
10+20
Table 2: Poison and
Radiation Resistances
ENDPoison Radiation
Resistance Resistance
1 0% 0%
2 5% 2%
3 10% 4%
4 15% 6%
5 20% 8%
6 25% 10%
7 30% 12%
8 35% 14%
9 40% 16%
10 45% 18%
Table 3: Skill Points Per
Level
INTSkill Points
110
2-311
4-512
6-713
8-914
1015
Table 4: Luck Skill Bonuses
LUCSkill Bonus
1 +1
2-3 +2
4-5 +3
6-7 +4
8-9 +5
10 +6
Skills
Base Stat Calculations (before TAG): Stat Score + Stat Modifier + Luck Bonus
Example: assuming all scores at 5, Guns, which is based on Agility, would have a base score of 5 (stat score) + 10 (stat modifier) + 3 (luck bonus) for a total of 18. So at 1st level, a character is relatively assured to succeed at a task 1 out of every 5 attempts.
TAG Skills: at character creation, each character chooses 3 skills that represent areas of expertise for that character. Each of these skills receives +15 points to the base skill. So, our gun skill in the example above would increase from 18 to 33, at 1st level!
Skills can be separated, and on the character sheet should be separated, into combat and utility skills. The separations are thus:
Combat Skills:
Energy Weapons (INT): Proficiency at using energy-based weapons.
Explosives (PER): Proficiency at using explosive weapons, disarming mines, and crafting explosives.
Guns (AGL): Proficiency at using weapons that fire standard ammunition.
Melee Weapons (STR): Proficiency at using melee weapons.
Unarmed (END): Proficiency at unarmed fighting.
Utility Skills:
Barter (CHA): Proficiency at trading and haggling. Also used to negotiate better quest rewards or occasionally as a bribe-like alternative to Speech.
Lockpick (PER): Proficiency at picking locks.
Medicine (INT): Proficiency at using medical tools, drugs, and for crafting Doctor's Bags.
Repair (INT): Proficiency at repairing items and crafting items and ammunition.
Science (INT): Proficiency at hacking terminals, recycling energy ammunition at workbenches, crafting chems, and many dialog checks.
Sneak (AGL): Proficiency at remaining undetected and stealing.
Speech (CHA): Proficiency at persuading others. Also used to negotiate for better quest rewards and to talk your way out of combat, convincing people to give up vital information and succeeding in multiple speech checks.
Survival (END): Proficiency at cooking, making poisons, and crafting "natural" equipment and consumables. Also yields increased benefits from food.
Using Skills:
Method 1: To accomplish a task, you roll a d100 and the result, taking into account any relevant modifiers, and compare it to whatever skill you are trying to use. For example: you are trying to Repair an item. In order to do so, you are required to pass a Repair check. Unbeknownst to you, the Player, the Overseer sets the difficulty at normal (DC 25). Your character has a Repair skill of 30, so you can attempt to make this check. You roll your d100 and roll a 26. This doesnt exceed your skill rating, and therefore counts as a skill pass, and exceeds the DC your Overseer sets and therefore counts as a successful repair check. DCs and Skill ratings essentially set a window your character has to roll within to be successful.
Method 2: instead of the window method, which after a read through seems stupid hard, your character should instead take the DC as a penalty on the check. So, with a Repair skill of 30 and a DC of 25, you would have to roll a 5 or lower (30-25=5) in order to succeed. Add to this your LCK stat (say its 5 in this example) and your chance to pass this check is effectively 10 or lower. If instead the DC is 50, your success chance would drop below 0% (30 50 +5= -15%) so the only way to pass this check would be to Critically Pass the check, or roll a natural 1.
Method 3: each skill, after being calculated fully, will be followed up with the inverse of the skill to represent the chance of failure. In order to succeed at a task, one must roll higher than ones failure chance. For example: the Repair check from above has a rating of 30, its chance of failure would therefore be 70%. Factor in the DC25 check and the failure chance increases to 95%. In retrospect, no luck would factor into this check as a luck bonus is already imparted on each skill at character creation. The skill list would look like this: Repair 30%/70% with the first number being success and the second being failure.
Difficulty Checks: rather than the normal fallout DCs of 25/50/75/100, it would probably be better if we had no more than a 60% penalty to any check. So a Very Hard locked door would have a difficulty adjustment of +/-60 depending on which method of skill checks we use. We can separate the 60% into increments of 5% or 10%, to reflect varying levels of difficulty. Super easy checks would only have a difficulty adjustment of 5%.
Another method would be to have an 80% difficulty adjustment, to represent things only a master can do, and then only rarely. We could use the standard Very Easy to Very Hard scale of checks in fallout by separating the checks into 20% increments. So Very Easy checks have a difficulty adjustment of 20% whereas a Very Hard check has a difficulty adjustment of 80%.
I want to create a percentile based system, taking my inspiration from Fallouts 3 and New Vegas as their skill systems are the most enjoyable in the franchise. What I have below is super rough, it's pretty much just my notes, but it's enough to get an idea of what I'm trying to do. I would love your comments/suggestions on what I have and what I can do to make this game the best it can be.
A note on combat: the current idea for combat I have is based on the Combat Skills like Guns and Melee Weapons. My working idea right now is that, in order to hit with a gun, assuming a gun skill of 25, the player would need to roll 76-100 on a percentile. I'm thinking of increasing the difficulty of this check, depending on the armor/agility of the person you're shooting at. Maybe this works? I'm not sure, thus why I'm here :D
Lastly, it is very late as I post this, so bear with the poor formatting for the time being and I'll fix it at a later date. Also, I do not know the Metric system that well, so I'm attempting to learn it as I make this game so if I make any glaring mistakes in my metric measurements, please forgive me. Thanks in advance guys!
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
This section deals with the effects that the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats have on your character and summarizes each stat and what each effects. S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. These are your primary stats, and they directly influence your skills - and thus gameplay.
Strength allows you to hold more items in your inventory and increases your unarmed damage. It also influences which weapons you can and cannot (effectively) use.
Associated Skills: Melee Weapons and Unarmed
Derived Stat: Carrying Capacity = Str x 15 kilos (about 33lbs.0)
Adds extra damage on melee and unarmed damage rolls.
Perception lets you spot enemies easier, assists in precise activity, and helps you spot danger.
Associated Skills: Explosives and Lockpick.
Endurance increases your maximum health, poison resistance, and radiation resistance.
Associated Skill: Survival
Charisma improves your success when talking to people.
Associated Skills: Barter and Speech.
Intelligence increases the amount of skills points you gain to distribute over your skills when you level up.
Associated Skills: Energy Weapons, Medicine, Repair, and Science.
Agility increases your Action Points in V.A.T.S., and improves how fast you draw, holster and reload your weapons, as well as your running speed.
Associated Skills: Guns and Sneak.
Derived Stat: Action Points (AP) = AGL x 3
* Derived Stat: Sequence = AGL
Luck increases your chance to deliver critical hits and boosts all your skills. Enemies will more often miss their shot at you.
Associated Skills: ALL.
Derived Stat: Critical Chance = Luck Score
Table 1: Skill Modifiers
Stat ScoreModifier
1+2
2+4
3+6
4+8
5+10
6+12
7+14
8+16
9+18
10+20
Table 2: Poison and
Radiation Resistances
ENDPoison Radiation
Resistance Resistance
1 0% 0%
2 5% 2%
3 10% 4%
4 15% 6%
5 20% 8%
6 25% 10%
7 30% 12%
8 35% 14%
9 40% 16%
10 45% 18%
Table 3: Skill Points Per
Level
INTSkill Points
110
2-311
4-512
6-713
8-914
1015
Table 4: Luck Skill Bonuses
LUCSkill Bonus
1 +1
2-3 +2
4-5 +3
6-7 +4
8-9 +5
10 +6
Skills
Base Stat Calculations (before TAG): Stat Score + Stat Modifier + Luck Bonus
Example: assuming all scores at 5, Guns, which is based on Agility, would have a base score of 5 (stat score) + 10 (stat modifier) + 3 (luck bonus) for a total of 18. So at 1st level, a character is relatively assured to succeed at a task 1 out of every 5 attempts.
TAG Skills: at character creation, each character chooses 3 skills that represent areas of expertise for that character. Each of these skills receives +15 points to the base skill. So, our gun skill in the example above would increase from 18 to 33, at 1st level!
Skills can be separated, and on the character sheet should be separated, into combat and utility skills. The separations are thus:
Combat Skills:
Energy Weapons (INT): Proficiency at using energy-based weapons.
Explosives (PER): Proficiency at using explosive weapons, disarming mines, and crafting explosives.
Guns (AGL): Proficiency at using weapons that fire standard ammunition.
Melee Weapons (STR): Proficiency at using melee weapons.
Unarmed (END): Proficiency at unarmed fighting.
Utility Skills:
Barter (CHA): Proficiency at trading and haggling. Also used to negotiate better quest rewards or occasionally as a bribe-like alternative to Speech.
Lockpick (PER): Proficiency at picking locks.
Medicine (INT): Proficiency at using medical tools, drugs, and for crafting Doctor's Bags.
Repair (INT): Proficiency at repairing items and crafting items and ammunition.
Science (INT): Proficiency at hacking terminals, recycling energy ammunition at workbenches, crafting chems, and many dialog checks.
Sneak (AGL): Proficiency at remaining undetected and stealing.
Speech (CHA): Proficiency at persuading others. Also used to negotiate for better quest rewards and to talk your way out of combat, convincing people to give up vital information and succeeding in multiple speech checks.
Survival (END): Proficiency at cooking, making poisons, and crafting "natural" equipment and consumables. Also yields increased benefits from food.
Using Skills:
Method 1: To accomplish a task, you roll a d100 and the result, taking into account any relevant modifiers, and compare it to whatever skill you are trying to use. For example: you are trying to Repair an item. In order to do so, you are required to pass a Repair check. Unbeknownst to you, the Player, the Overseer sets the difficulty at normal (DC 25). Your character has a Repair skill of 30, so you can attempt to make this check. You roll your d100 and roll a 26. This doesnt exceed your skill rating, and therefore counts as a skill pass, and exceeds the DC your Overseer sets and therefore counts as a successful repair check. DCs and Skill ratings essentially set a window your character has to roll within to be successful.
Method 2: instead of the window method, which after a read through seems stupid hard, your character should instead take the DC as a penalty on the check. So, with a Repair skill of 30 and a DC of 25, you would have to roll a 5 or lower (30-25=5) in order to succeed. Add to this your LCK stat (say its 5 in this example) and your chance to pass this check is effectively 10 or lower. If instead the DC is 50, your success chance would drop below 0% (30 50 +5= -15%) so the only way to pass this check would be to Critically Pass the check, or roll a natural 1.
Method 3: each skill, after being calculated fully, will be followed up with the inverse of the skill to represent the chance of failure. In order to succeed at a task, one must roll higher than ones failure chance. For example: the Repair check from above has a rating of 30, its chance of failure would therefore be 70%. Factor in the DC25 check and the failure chance increases to 95%. In retrospect, no luck would factor into this check as a luck bonus is already imparted on each skill at character creation. The skill list would look like this: Repair 30%/70% with the first number being success and the second being failure.
Difficulty Checks: rather than the normal fallout DCs of 25/50/75/100, it would probably be better if we had no more than a 60% penalty to any check. So a Very Hard locked door would have a difficulty adjustment of +/-60 depending on which method of skill checks we use. We can separate the 60% into increments of 5% or 10%, to reflect varying levels of difficulty. Super easy checks would only have a difficulty adjustment of 5%.
Another method would be to have an 80% difficulty adjustment, to represent things only a master can do, and then only rarely. We could use the standard Very Easy to Very Hard scale of checks in fallout by separating the checks into 20% increments. So Very Easy checks have a difficulty adjustment of 20% whereas a Very Hard check has a difficulty adjustment of 80%.