PDA

View Full Version : Hold My Beer: Fixing DnD Singlehandedly



Pronounceable
2018-05-31, 11:57 PM
​Warning: The following is very long. I suppose I'm just long winded.

Below, you'll see me fixing all of DnD. "All" obviously means "the bits I personally don't like", as is always the case in such attempts. And it's not just me homebrewing stuff regularly but also explaining why it's broke and how the things I'll do actually fixes the problems. The actual rules, if you were to remove all of my explanations and thoughts and justifications, wouldn't be nearly as long as this massive wall of text. But it's important to be clear when trolliputting things out on the internets for feedback.

Preface
DnD has a lot of problems and everyone who’s played it a while knows it. It’s a confused, bloated mess and there’s so much stuff I hate in it that I’d rather not sit down to play at all.

So I’ve decided to fix it. Like literally millions of people before me. But this thread will be different from all the others. Because it’s me doing it, the chances of me liking the result is far greater than any other alternative anyone else ever made. I want the end result to be so radically different it’s not even DnD anymore and will only be called that to lull any potential people I’d play with into a false sense of familiarity.

Also this variant (named neoDnD cos why’d I bother with a fancier name?) is made by me, for me. Anyone else liking the cut of its jib is just a bonus.

Design 101: What do I want?

We need to start designing somewhere. So I’ll start with my two patented FUNDAMENTAL AXIOMS. These are absolute. They will form the bedrock upon which everything else will be built.

1) I don’t have time for fiddly bull****
Time and effort are both valuable and will not be wasted on inane minutiae like keeping track of +2 to this, -3 to that.
2) I want it all and I want it now
No I will not play for 12 goddamn levels and who knows how many hours to get the one cool thing I want for my character, **** that noise, give it to me now.

These axioms are both essential and indisputable. Nothing that goes against either of these ideas will exist. That said, let’s start with the actual designing. We’ll take the regular old DnD to start and do things to it.

A) When you add the FUNDAMENTAL AXIOMs up, you shoot the first of DnD’s innumerable sacred cattle right in its dumb face: No levels. There’ll be no levels, no experience points, no progress, no advancement. You get a character and that’s it, any further “progress” and “growth” of your guy will be roleplaying and character work.

Some might object, claiming players need something to look forward to. They do. It’s called continuing to play the game. If they didn’t want to play the game for the end result of having played the game, the hell did they even play it for?

As for the bog standard zero-to-hero story, it has absolutely nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with words. If your character is Dan the Noob Fighter, he’ll be described as a green recruit that just flails around with his crappy sword. After some gaming happens and he finds a less crappy sword in some low risk dungeon, start describing Dan as a less nooby fighter who knows that the pointy end goes into other guy. If your game lasts long enough that Dan should’ve become a legendary badass warrior, he’ll be described as such without a need to write down +18 next to his fightyness skill.

The entire hobby hinges on make-believe anyway, why’d you need some numbers that have no true meaning (beyond what our consensus gave them) to arbitrarily increase in order to claim your make-believe guy has become better?

B) So since we started taking shots at the sacred, here goes number two: No gear. Heroes are heroes because they’re heroes, not because they have fancy ****. Your legendary badass warrior Dan is just as deadly with a broken chair leg as he is with the mythical +24 turbosword of badassery.

Here, I can already hear the wailing of the average DnD player: but mah shineeeeyzz... Nope, not gonna happen. Killing the gear threadmill not only puts a stop to the tsunami of inane numbers that DnD’s traditonal Magemart produces, but also ends the ocdness inherent in having to acquite that one thing your build needs to reach nirvana. Another cool bonus is the chopping down of DnD’s patented Christmas Tree. Besides, what are you, a magpie?
Consult FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 and FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 2 if you have any counterarguments.

sub-B) If you’re one of those players who need to get their increasing number fix, this whole thread ain’t for you. You can stop reading. Far as I’m concerned, the whole lot of y’all should go play Diablo where the computer will handle all the calculations those mountains of fancy **** creates. Or, even better, Cookie Clicker (which might someday even cure you of this illness).

If you’re one of those other players who, for some reason, enjoy the mandatory character building pregame minigame with its millions of options made up of hundreds of tiny details comboing in increasingly bizarre ways, this whole thread ain’t for you either. You too can leave now. This ain’t applied mathematics class.
If you’re in both of those groups, you were prolly already gone before this sentence even started.


You’re still reading. So I assume you’re fine with what we’ve got until now (a mathematically static and stable character free of all the mathly concerns of regular DnD and its ilk) and willing to continue.

C) Next cattle to murder is a real good target who totes had it coming: No misses. No one will ever miss in our neoDnD because missing ****ing sucks and absolutely everybody hates missing. So why the hell would I keep it? Into the trashcan. Hit points are already a completely abstract (and already cause millions of debates about what they “really” mean) method of indicating something’s ability to defend itself. There’s no need to have more stats than necessary (aka fiddly bull****, see FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 for further details) for the exact same thing in the game.

This could’ve gone the other way. I could drop damage and come up with a method of determining an attack’s results with total attack roll vs target AC/saves. Even drop hp itself and come up with something like a condition track instead, but for what? This is so much easier. Less work for me, less new concepts for anyone else to learn. You already know what hp is (a thing that’s %100 abstract), you already know what damage is (a thing that’s just as abstract) and you already know how these two interact.

I’m killing two cows with one stone, always a plus. There’s no to hit bonus or any modifiers it might have, no armor class or any modifiers it might have, no BAB or thac0 or other variations. So now whenever you attack something, you roll your damage, therefore never utterly fail like a goddamn loser.

We are, however, gonna call rolling maximum on damage a critical and rolling minimum on damage a fumble (for reasons).

D) This particular sacred cow, we’re not gonna shoot. We’ll just maim it: Intelligence, wisdom and charisma are effectively cancelled. Their names are still sticking around because they’re as good names as any, but they are now actually Mental Strength, Mental Dexterity and Mental Constitution. They’re also arranged to reflect it:
Str Cha
Dex Int
Con Wis
These stats already kinda do this in regular DnD but here it’s explicit.

Now all the confusion about what these real world mental qualities mean inside the game are lessened. Number and/or degree of dumb arguments about it ought to go down. Cha is not your leadership or talkyness or boob size or any other potential real world meaning of the word “charisma”, those are well outside your combat parameters and have no business being on the character sheet. Cha is the number you add to various dice you roll while playing neoDnD. Asking but what does it meeeeannn? is completely missing the point.

E) Relatedly: There are no stat scores. They’re utterly useless anyway. Stats will appear as integer modifiers and will go all the way down (and up) to infinity. Not that any stat will actually be infinity cos that’d be dumb. We should strive to never have any values greater than maybe half of the highest number on the dice being rolled, but no hard rulings on that front.

F) Not touching the basic workings of save and skill checks. If it ain’t broke, you must acquit. Except since we trashed all those fiddly +2s and -1s, we don’t need no fiddling tables or formulas for our difficulties. DM tells you how hard the thing you’re about try is and then you roll a d20 to see if you managed.

very easy (don’t roll 1 aka 95%)
easy (roll 6+ aka 75%)
normal (roll 11+ aka %50)
hard (roll 16+ aka %25)
very hard (roll 20 aka 5%).

G) I guess we trashed the save and skill bonuses too, by definition. Good; long live FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1. We have not, however, trashed different characters being different. So a fighty guy and a thinky guy won’t have the same difficulties for the same thing. I’m not putting down any hard rules for this because presumably both the players and DM has a brain and can figure out whether a beholder’s disintegration beam should be an easy or a hard check for a given player character, depending on the power level their game is supposed to be at. (I’m aware how unreasonably optimistic this is)

H) Advantage and disadvantage is now canonically beatified to replace all those cattle we shot. They’re the best thing that has happened to DnD since the fall of thac0.

Are you still reading? Not turned away by how ~videogamey~ it’s getting round here? Then brace yourself. Now that we’ve established some basics, it’s time for us to finally have some class. Kinda.

Putting the Role in Roleplay

MMOs have a good thing going with their standard trinity. It’s useful, makes lots of things very clear for the player (and the designer too). However three isn’t really necessary, I’m sure we can make do with less. So meet our two “new classes” (neither of which are actually classes).

A Defender is the type of character who’s good at not being defeated. It’s made up of predetermined numbers that facilitate this without any sort of descriptions as to how it happens. This may be the result of anything, ranging from personal fighting ability to vampiric regeneration to hiding behind walls of summons to absolutely anything else you can imagine. To state the obvious, Defender’s role is to defend.
An Attacker is the type of character who’s good at defeating enemies. It’s made up of predetermined numbers that facilitate this without any sort of descriptions as to how it happens. This may also be the result of literally anything, only limited by your imagination. To state the obvious again, Attacker’s role is to attack.

Immediately upon chucking the standard concept of class, the player gains literally endless options. Do you want to be a kung-fu guy? Do you want to be a fire wizard? Do you want to be a stealthy assassin? Do you want to be a fire kung-fu assassin? Now you can be. Without hassle.

Oh, there goes another cow. Eat it, nerds!

By replacing the zillions of classes (and subclasses and prestige classes and whatever other **** they came up with to sell more books) with two solely mechanical packages, players can become whatever they want simply by flavoring their role to their heart’s content and not worry about pesky metagame crap like “balance” and “broken” and “trap” and etc (also consult FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 2). Both the kung-fu guy and the interdimensional archwizard get exactly the same stats to free us from having to worry about numbers. Any given character concepts are only seperated by the flavor of the game players want to play and DM wants to run.

This might remind some of the infamy of DnD4e. It is assuredly not, because 4e doesn’t go near the lengths I will go to homogenize the **** out of literally infinite archetypes that can and should happen in the fantasy genre.

Breaking Bad(guys)

Before we can start crunching player numbers, we need a basic badguy prepared to see how players’ stuff will work out. Gotta start from somewhere as always.

So meet Bob the Basic Baddie: He’s got d8s for hit dice and hits for 1d8. He has no tricks, no special properties, nothing. Having gone back to the drawing board, we gonna use the good ol’ hit die to represent the number of times something can get attacked before going down. It won’t actually feature in the game after we’re done crunching numbers.

So right away, I demand some things from Bob. He needs to not go down in one hit, that’s a minion, not basic enemy. He should be unthreatening by himself and shouldn’t take too long to defeat.

I also want him mathematically incapable of beating a player mano a mano. In fact, I want two of him to be generally incapable of beating one player. 3 Bobs may have any real chance of winning. A player (who’s supposed to be some sort of hero) should lose only when outnumbered by regular joe baddies. There will be a better enemy than Bob to challenge a hero singlehandedly. Later.

And it’s a party game so there’ll be at least 2 players. Since Basic Bob should survive at least one round, he must take at least one more hit than there are players. So say hello to scaling stats: Bob has X hit dice (where X = # of players+1), so Xd8 hp. He’s also got straight 0s on all stats because he’s the average joe.

Bob (melee or ranged regular enemy)
Str0 Cha0
Dex0 Int0
Con0 Cha0
hp: Xd8
dmg: 1d8

Bob the Basic Baddie is ready to be broken.

Ready Player One and Two

Let’s meet Defender Dan, our first labrat (for simplicity, assume he’s your basic melee fighting tough hero). He’s better than a Basic Bob, so he gets d10 for his hit dice. His job is not beating dudes per se, so his damage is 1d6. The second sample, Attacker Al (assume he’s your basic skilled archer hero), is gonna be reversed and packing d6 for hd and dealing 1d10 damage. Incidentally, having to be in the middle was also why Bob had d8s. Symmetry is for ease of remembering.

As heroes, Dan and Al are above average. So they don’t get straight 0s in their 6 stats. What they get is a +3 and a +2 on their two most important stats. For the rest, they’re free to do whatever they want with a +1, 0, -1, -2 array (a total of +3 shows they’re not random schmucks).

Their important stats will be determined by their concept and be used according to their roles. Defender gets the primary stat added to “defense”, which means hp now that we trashed so many fiddly bits and gets d10+3 hp. Attacker, predictably, gets primary stat added to “attack”, which of course means damage now so hits for 1d10+3. However secondary stats don’t get added to things, both because addition is math and we’d rather avoid it, and also because we want to keep that as a special little bonus for the better class of enemy who’ll be able to go solo at a player and not lose by design.

Before we can get to determining how many HD (and therefore hp) heroes should be getting, we need to figure out how they’ll play. There has got to be something for players to do other than attacking to and getting attacked by enemies until someone runs out of hp. Since we’re not doing class features or spells or feats or manuevers and crap in order to not clutter the rules with massive laundry lists of **** (consult FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 and FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 2 for further explanation), we need a simple system of a bunch of mechanical things that will be fluffed out by players when they’re making their characters. And what better way to do that than to use the supermeter?

The supermeter, for those who somehow may not know, is a system lots of vidyagames use to give players cool and/or powerful moves in a limited manner. It’s the best way for us to yoink because the other game methods of player ability limiting are either a) a limited ammo system or b) a point pool or c) individual cooldowns on each ability. Since it obeys our FUNDAMENTAL AXIOMs best, not to mention being very intuitive in general, supermeter is in. Though ours will be much smaller than traditional supermeters, more like a supercentimeter because less is more. And since we have only two things to design here, the starting condition of the meter is a fine way to differentiate them.

Every player has a Resource that’s the source of their character’s coolness (and they’ll get to name it something appropriate to their concept). Dan starts full so he can “grab agro” (in a rather literal way) and Al starts empty so he can’t go nuts and wipe out half the enemies on first round. And the size of this pool will be 3. Because I like 3. It’s a good number, one of my favorites, and is entirely possible to instinctively keep track of. So players will build their Resource pool up with their basic attacks and then spend those Resources to do things better/cooler than I attack. The three abilities will be the 1 Resource Cost Ability, the 2 Resource Cost Ability and the 3 Resource Cost ability. We’ll be cute and call them players’ Supers.

Let’s see what’s our labrats’ “character sheets” look like so far:
Defender Dan (melee defender)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 on other stats
hp: ?d10+???
dmg: 1d6
Resource: 3/3
S1: does something
S2: does something else
S3: does something important

Attacker Al (ranged attacker)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 on other stats
hp: ?d6
dmg: 1d10+3
Resource: 0/3
S1: does something different
S2: does something even more different
S3: does a big thing

Rather more involved than Basic Bob, which is to be expected.

Zen and the Art of Hadouken Maintenance

Now we have to design the supers of our players. Once again, they must be purely mechanical effects with zero soft and fluffy bits.

Dan is gonna need some sort of way to “take aggro”. Once he’s done that, he’s gonna need to regain his hp and there’ll be no “healer” at his back. That’s 2 super ideas found. We can split the agro thing into single and multi target. We can give him a big chunk of damage in case Al, the glass jawed yokel that he is, goes down. We can give him a sort of protective ability to toughen him up further. We can give him something to help Al hit fools even harder. We could’ve done a lot of things.

Finding Al universal attacker things to do is harder. Obviously there’ll be a big finisher hit kind of thing but then what? A protective move in case Dan goes down? A way to replenish hp? An “agro dump” in a manner of speaking? Some way to support Dan? Many potential moves can be imagined, but most of those kinda stray from beating up Bobs of the world, which is Al’s real job.


In the end, below is what I’ve decided to go with in order to preserve the “mechanical purity” of the roles.

Defender S1: Mark one enemy in appropriate range for 1d6, a markee must attack the marker on its next turn or be automatically hit for 18 (maximized 3d6)

We’re marking, yes. Marking is genius, just like minions and advantage. I’m stealing all things of value from whatever DnD editions they appeared in. This mark is also less fiddly and more simple than what 4e had. It’s straight up massive punishment for not attacking the defender for any reason. Dan cares not why Bob isn’t attacking, doesn’t matter if he’s trying to move away or attack Al or just doesn’t have a melee/ranged attack that can hit Dan; if Bob doesn’t deplete Dan’s hp once marked, Dan will deplete his. This is Dan’s job, he is there to get attacked and he’ll make you.

Defender S2: Mark many enemies in appropriate range (up to 4) for 1d6, all markees must attack the marker on their next turn or be automatically hit for 18 (maximized 3d6)

%100 more bang for your buck! A real bargain. It should be noted that I don’t actually have a rationalized reason to cap it at 4. >5 just seemed too much and <3 felt too low.

Defender S3: Regain all hp

Dan isn’t an MMO tank with an MMO healer at his back. We don’t have healers or other support personnel here, since every single type of character who helps others be cool in fantasy genre is always summable as an attacker or a defender already. They simply have unconventional “attacks” and “defenses” that manifest through other characters. Back to Dan, his job also requires him to keep going despite getting repeatedly attacked, which means he needs to be able to replenish his hp (or have a stupidly huge total, which would cause all sorts of issues). It’s here at the last spot of supermeter because we don’t want Dan to be too invincible. It’s full recovery because anything else would be unnecessarily numbery (consult FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 for indepth explanation).

Attacker S1: Hit one enemy in appropriate range for 26 (maximized 2d10+6), regain all hp if enemy is defeated

Al’s job is to beat things before they beat him. The simplest way of doing that is obviously big damage. Throwing out a huge killer hit every two rounds indefinitely is a stellar way of making sure Al does what he’s supposed to. Doing double damage every other round to one dude adds up to merely half an extra attack every round over just plinking away with basic damage too, so it’s not like Al has suddenly evolved to machinegun from bow. It’s just the maximized dice that makes 26 a killer blow, as Bob has 2d8-9d8 (9 - 40,5 average) hp depending on player numbers and most Bobs of the world will go down with a single 26 hit. The recovery component is there to make sure Al doesn’t go down due to attrition, because Al’s job also includes continuing to beat up Bobs of the world.

Attacker S2: Hit multiple enemies (up to 4) in appropriate range for 21 (expected average 2d10+6 with advantage)

Dan can get away with having same damage on both supers because damage isn’t even the point. But Al hits much harder and putting S1’s damage here would be a bit much up against a whole Bob quartet. Besides 21 still takes out 4 or less hd Bobs instantly (on average). Not putting the recovery on this one because there’s no need.
Also, yes, advantage. It’s a thing in neoDnD because it’s genius as mentioned.

Attacker S3: Hit enemies in appropriate range for 78 (maximized 6d10+18) total damage, distributable as desired up to 4 targets

Bob isn’t the only one Al is gonna have to beat up during his career. And better types of enemies will be packing far more hp. Also S3 isn’t too strong since Al could’ve done two S1s in the four rounds it’ll take to get up to this, which adds to 52+2d10+6 (average 69). Also also S3 hitting triple of S1 is slightly neat. Also also also, this particular super is as close to defying FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 as we will ever come in neoDnD. It’s definitely a bit fiddly and arithmeticy but it’s not the DM who’ll be doing the addition here and players generally love rolling dice and kicking major ass.

Now, someone might calculate the highest total dps rotation or something with these as written. Because it’s clearly a thing when you make numbers this rigid. It’s fine, just because FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 exists doesn’t mean players have to be wilfully ignorant.

Oh Sheet

Now all we need is to decide how many hd players will have and pc design will be done. Which is 5. Because I like it. And also because players will get it maximized, so that should be more than enough for both types to survive long enough to get their refills. Defender gets primary stat bonus to hp, just like Attacker getting that +3 to damage, so it’s a +15 for 5 hd.

So now, at long last, here’s neoDnD’s Official PC Sheets, the fruits of my labors:

Defender (melee/ranged)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 other stats
hp: 65
dmg: 1d6
Resource: 3/3
S1: mark 1 enemy for 1d6, punish for 18
S2: mark up to 4 enemies for 1d6, punish for 18
S3: regain all hp

Attacker (melee/ranged)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 other stats
hp: 30
dmg: 1d10+3
Resource: 0/3
S1: hit 1 enemy for 26, regain all hp on a kill
S2: hit up to 4 enemies for 21
S3: hit up to 4 enemies for 78 total, divisible


Applied Sheeting 101: Character Making for Noobs

I’ll just quickly state one fundamental point I got here: if you can’t get an utter newb to all things RPG (such as, in a completely implausible example, an existing player’s girl/boyfriend who just wants to hang out with the bunch of you nerds) to finish making a character before they get bored/confused, you have FAILED.

Anyway let’s make you, the thread reader, someone who’s clearly not an utter noob at rpgs, a neoDnD character by following these steps:

-Decide what sort of fantasy character you want to play. This is the tough part. For those used to DnD, think of this as the flavor of your class. Flavor. As in, not mechanics.

-Decide if you want to be a Defender or an Attacker. Then, keeping your concept in mind, decide if you want your abilities to work in melee or range. Also decide what sort of bling you’re rocking as part of your appearance. You wanna swing your dad’s ancestral holy avenger sword and wear your mom’s ancestral godforged fullplate right ****ing now, knock yourself out.

-Two of your six stats are your main stats (mark them on character sheet). One is your main attack stat, the other is your main defense stat. Your chosen flavor and role determines what’s what.
(i.e. If you’re a bog standard DnD Fighter, these are gonna be Str and Con.)

-If you’re a Defender, put +3 on your defense stat. Then put +2 on your attack stat.

-If you’re an Attacker, put +3 on your attack stat. Then put +2 on your defense stat.

-The rest of your stats will be +1, 0, -1, -2. Arrange them however you want, while keeping your character’s flavor in mind.

-If you’re a Defender, you have 65 hp. If you’re an Attacker, you have have 30 hp. Write the number on your sheet.
Now describe what your hp really means according to your chosen flavor. This little trick is here to keep the (hypothetical) utter newb engaged.
(i.e. The bog standard DnD Fighter’s hp is his ability to stop incoming attacks with his skill and armaments. The bog standard DnD Rogue’s hp is his ability to evade and avoid.)

-Damage of a Defender’s basic attack is 1d6. Damage of an Attacker’s basic attack is 1d10+3. Both have a backup attack for 1d4. The backup attack is ranged for melee characters and melee for ranged characters. Ranged attacks can’t hit enemies in melee and melee attacks can’t hit enemies at range (even if I feel dumb for stating the obvious here).

-Pick the type of damage your attacks deal (physical, fire, psionic, poison, necrotic...). Basic and backup attacks do not have to have same damage type. Now describe your basic and backup methods of attacking in combat.
(i.e. The bog standard DnD Fighter will be attacking with his sword and thrown projectiles. The bog standard DnD Evoker Wizard will be casting different damage spells.)

-Name your Resource, the source of your ability to do cool things, fitting with your flavor. If you’re a Defender, you start every battle with 3 Resources and can immediately start spending. If you’re an Attacker, you start every battle with no Resources and must first fill up with basic attacks. All of your better moves must be either melee or ranged, conforming to what you picked at the beginning.
(The bog standard DnD Fighter might call it Prowess or, if feeling particularly injoky, Feat. A bog standard DnD Barbarian would call it Rage. A questing knight kind of character might call it Honor.)

-For a Defender, describe the three supermoves you have as cool things your character can do; (optionally name them too)
Super1: do 1d6 damage to one enemy and if that enemy won’t or can’t attack you on its next turn, automatically hit for 18
Super2: do 1d6 damage to up to 4 enemies and if those enemies won’t or can’t attack you on their next turn, automatically hit for 18
(an enemy “taunted” by multiple defenders gets hit by all defenders that don’t get attacked)
Super3: refill your hp back to full

-Do the same for an Attacker too;
Super1: hit one enemy for 26, refill hp back to full if this attack defeats its target
Super2: hit up to 4 enemies for 21 damage each
Super3: hit up to 4 enemies for as much damage as you wish, for a total of 78 damage

Congradulations! Now you have a made-up character you can play neoDnD with.


INTERLUDE:
Now I’m gonna admit that the above looks pretty thin. It seems all static and samey. Well, duh. That was the whole point. I, as a DM, am not going to do maths homework for 2 hours before every session just to stroke your increasing numbers fetish or satisfy your optimization problem obsession. Go play vidyagames where computers do all that and more for us in a microsecond and not get sick of tedium. I'm not saddling any real human beings with boring maths when I play Diablo or whatever, and refuse to get saddled with it myself for anyone else either.

The Bog Standards

As a more hands on tutorial, here’s me doing some of the basic DnD archetypes as pcs.

Guardian Fighter (melee defender)
Str+2 Cha0
Dex-2 Int+1
Con+3 Wis-1
Has breastplate, longsword, shield, throwing axes
hp: can fight off 65 worth of attacks
dmg: strike with longsword for 1d6 (physical) in melee
backup: throw axe for 1d4 (physical) at range
Starts battle with 3 Prowess.
Prowess1: engage an enemy in melee combat for 1d6 (physical), heavily punishing it if it doesn’t fight back for 18 (physical).
Prowess2: engage your enemies (up to 4) with your martial skill in melee for 1d6 (physical), heavily punishing any and all of them if they don’t fight back for 18 (physical).
Prowess3: focus on your defense and pace yourself to restore all of your hp.

Battle Cleric of Pelor (melee defender)
Str+1 Cha+2
Dex-2 Int-1
Con0 Wis+3
Has ceremonial platemail, holy sun icon of Pelor, a copy of the Book of Noon
hp: can heal away 65 worth of attacks by the benevolence of Pelor
dmg: holy icon’s touch sears for 1d6 (light) in melee
backup: shoot a ray of sunlight from icon for 1d4 (light) at range
Starts battle with 3 Radiance.
Radiance1: wreathe an enemy with Pelor’s light for 1d6 (light), which will cause severe burns if your channeling of divine power isn’t interrupted for 18 (light).
Radiance2: call down holy sunlight to your immediate vicinity, searing enemies (up to 4) for 1d6 (light) and burn them further if they don’t interrupt your channeling of the divine for 18 (light).
Radiance3: recite the Sunday prayer to petition to Pelor for strength, restoring all of your hp.

Assassin Rogue (melee attacker)
Str-1 Cha-2
Dex+3 Int+2
Con0 Wis+1
Equipped with unremarkable clothes, poisoned dagger, poison darts.
hp: can feel 30 worth of attacks coming and evade
damage: stab with poisoned dagger for 1d10+3 (physical) in melee
backup: shoot poison darts from blowgun for 1d4 (poison) at range
Starts battle with no Premeditate and must fill up with basic attacks.
Premeditate1: suddenly lunge at an enemy to surprise them for 26 (poison) in melee, your already alert reflexes grow even more twitchy at the sight of death if you kill your enemy and restore all of your hp.
Premeditate2: become a whirlwind of blades swinging at enemies around you (up to 4) for 21 (poison) each.
Premeditate3: strike at vital spots of up to 4 enemies for a total of 78 (poison) in melee.

Evoker Wizard (ranged attacker)
Str-2 Cha+3
Dex-1 Int+2
Con0 Wis+1
Equipped with wizard robe, pointy hat, walking stick
hp: arcane shield is complex enough to withstand 30 worth of attacks
damage: fire a scorching ray for 1d10+3 (fire) at range
backup: electrocute with shocking grasp for 1d4 (lightning) in melee
Starts battle with no Evocation and must fill up with basic attacks.
Evocation1: shoot a lightning bolt at an enemy for 26 (lightning) at range, creating a power feedback to energize your arcane shield and restore all of your hp if the enemy is defeated.
Evocation2: throw a ball of fire that explodes for 21 (fire), burning multiple enemies in a large area (up to 4) at range.
Evocation3: create a shower of burning meteors on a large area to hit enemies for a total of 78 (fire) at range

Going Where No DnD Has Gone Before (disclaimer: some DnD at some point might have gone to some of these places before now)

After doing the most stereotypical four DnD characters, let’s spread neoDnD’s wings a little. While you look at these example pcs, imagine how much time and effort would need to be wasted in any edition of DnD to play something resembling these guys. Then imagine how much more obnoxious the same task would become if you wanted to be “balanced” or “competitive” or whatever other terms whippersnappers these days use.

Preacher of the Black Hand (melee attacker)
Str-2 Cha+3
Dex+1 Int-1
Con+2 Wis0
Equipped with Banite inquisition outfit, branding iron
hp: can take 30 worth of attacks right to the face and keep trucking through sheer fanaticism
damage: brand an enemy with red hot iron for 1d10+3 (fire) in melee
backup: shout at an enemy of the inescapable dominion of Bane for (1d4 mental) at range
Starts battle with no Fervor and must fill up with basic attacks.
Fervor1: brand an enemy for heresy against Bane for 26 (fire) in melee, reaffirming your fanaticism if the enemy is defeated and regain all of your hp.
Fervor2: urge enemies around you (up to 4) to sell their loved ones to Banite slavers now to be spared the day that Black Hand falls upon these lands for 21 (mental).
Fervor3: tell your enemies of the eternal punishment that awaits heretics sacrificed to Bane in graphic detail for a total of 78 (mental) in melee.

*This would be some dumb bard/cleric combo in any regular DnD edition that barely functions, let alone keeps up with melee specialists.

Beastmaster Druid (ranged defender)
Str-1 Cha+3
Dex+1 Int0
Con-2 Wis+2
Equipped with wolfhead cloak, hide armor, ramskull staff
hp: summoned animal protectors can take 65 worth of attacks in master’s place
damage: summon a stag to gore for 1d6 (physical) at range
backup: summon a flock of birds to assault an enemy for 1d4 (physical) in melee
Starts battle with 3 Calls.
Call1: summon a giant snake to constrict and crush an enemy for 1d6 (physical) at range, forcing that enemy to fight it or take 18 (physical).
Call2: summon a pack of wolves to harrass and occupy your enemies (up to 4) for 1d6 (physical), forcing enemies to fight them or take 18 (physical).
Call3: swiftly grow goodberries all around the battlefield so your summoned animals can eat and rejuvenate to regain all of your hp.

*Just try to make this guy in any DnD edition without completely wrecking the system. I dare you. I double dare you.

Frost Sorcerer (melee defender)
Str+2 Cha0
Dex-2 Int+3
Con+1 Wis-1
Equipped with fashionable nobleman’s outfit, ice golem exoskeleton from Frosted Shell spell
hp: can create enough icy blocks to require 65 worth of attacks to break through
damage: pummel with icy golem fists for 1d6 (cold) in melee
backup: throw an icicle for 1d4 (cold) at range
Starts battle with 3 Frostbites.
Frostbite1: stomp the ground to freeze an enemy to the spot for 1d6 (cold) in melee, who must then break free of your ice or suffer 18 (cold).
Frostbite2: radiate bitter cold to coat enemies surrounding you (up to 4) with thin sheets of ice for 1d6 (cold), who all must then break your ice holding them or suffer 18 (cold).
Frostbite3: recast your Frosted Shell spell to repair your ice golem exoskeleton and regain all of your hp.

Frost Sorcerer’s Cousin (melee attacker)
Str+3 Cha0
Dex-2 Int+2
Con+1 Wis-1
Equipped with fashionable nobleman’s outfit, ice golem exoskeleton from Frosted Shell spell
hp: can create enough icy blocks to require 30 worth of attacks to break through
damage: pummel with icy golem fists for 1d10+3 (cold) in melee
backup: shoot hail for 1d4 (cold) at range
Starts battle with no Frostbite and must fill up with basic attacks.
Frostbite1: grapple an enemy with your ice covered arms for 26 (cold) in melee, absorbing its frozen body wholesale into your Frosted Shell to reinforce it if the enemy was killed and refill all of your hp.
Frostbite2: release a strong burst of bitter winds to flashfreeze your enemies (up to 4) for 21 (cold) in melee.
Frostbite3: grow spikes of ice out of the ground around you to skewer enemies for a total of 78 (cold) in melee

*These are the exact same guy, on display here to prove that neoDnD’s Defender/Attacker conundrum is purely mechanical and imposes absolutely no restrictions on your character’s flavor. He’s also a punchy sorcerer with an ice elementaly transformation, making him some sort of unworkable sorcerer/monk/druid abomination in regular DnD.

Cybershinobi (ranged attacker)
Str+1 Cha-2
Dex+3 Int+2
Con-1 Wis0
Equipped with 1000-folded Hanzo steel katana, Adamant Exosuit MkIV, gauntlets of electroshock, headband of ninjitsu
hp: will have turned out to have evaded 30 worth of attacks by the time enemies notice they missed
damage: dash forward to strike one enemy and pirouette back where you started faster than anyone can react for 1d10+3 (force) at range
backup: perform five inch death strike for 1d4 (physical) in melee
Starts battle with no Anime and must fill up with basic attacks.
Anime1: pretend to dash forward to assault one enemy while unexpectedly slashing at another at the last instant for 26 (force) at range before backflipping to your starting position, if the enemy is suddenly defeated like this all the others get very confused about your true whereabouts and refill all of your hp.
Anime2: throw your katana to ricochet between multiple enemies (up to 4) for 21 (force) each.
Anime3: use a smoke bomb to cover a large area and hit blinded enemies (up to 4) for a total of 78 (force) at range.

*This one is here to show that “melee” and “ranged” descriptors are also mere mechanical concepts wholly divorced from whatever your character is actually doing ingame.
It’s also here to prove that neoDnD rules will allow you to make absolutely any character you can think of, for it’s not the rules’ place to tell you what you can or cannot play as; it’s the DM’s. You come to me with this for a game, I will tell you this dude has no place in my setting but neoDnD nevertheless lets you make it and it could fit someone else’s game.

Master Interdimensionalist (ranged defender)
Str-2 Cha+2
Dex-1 Int+3
Con0 Wis+1
Equipped with Robe of the Five Dimensions, the Eye of Xyl’th-Qwyrm, the Hypercubic Rod.
hp: can warp reality to make 65 worth of attacks never happened
damage: disrupt spacetime continuum for 1d6 (disruption) at range
backup: brandish the Eye of Xyl’th-Qwyrm for 1d4 (disruption) in melee
Starts battle with 3 Warps.
Warp1: banish an enemy to a void dimension for one round for 1d6 (disruption) at range, where they must struggle against your will to get out or suffer 18 (disruption).
Warp2: temporarily shunt your enemies (up to 4) to alternate universes where they will be assaulted by unnervingly similar yet very different versions of themselves for one round for 1d6 (disruption), they must fight their alternate selves or suffer 18 (disruption)
Warp3: swap places with a fresh and rested you from a parallel reality to regain all of your hp.

Dragonwrangler (melee attacker)
Str+2 Cha-1
Dex+3 Int-2
Con0 Wis+1
Is too cool for equipment.
hp: can punch 30 worth of incoming attacks away harmlessly
damage: suplexes for 1d10+3 (physical) in melee
backup: clap to produce shockwave at range for 1d4 (physical)
Starts battle with no Piledriver and must fill up with basic attacks.
Piledriver1: grab an enemy by the throat (or equivalent bit) and chokeslam for 26 (physical) in melee, refilling all of your hp if the enemy is defeated with the joy of asskicking
Piledriver2: catch one enemy in melee and slam it into all the others (up to 4) for 21 (physical).
Piledriver3: grab one or more enemies and drill all of them into the ground with a spinning piledriver for a total of 78 (physical).

*And lastly, here’s a couple of epic characters. You can tell they’re epic by DnD standards because it’s completely impossible to do the stuff they’re described doing without a stupid number of levels and it’s possibly still impossible even then (because DnD simply doesn’t want to let you grapple gigantic beasts). What makes epicness epic is epicness itself, not adding a couple extra zeroes at the end of all the numbers across a character’s sheet.

You ever heard how a “high level fighter” hitting “real hard real fast” is basically worthless compared to warping reality with magic? That happens because the fighty guy hitting for 700 instead of 7 is an utterly mechanical event and is completely hollow on a storytelling level, even if it was mechanically equal (which it wasn’t). Good thing neoDnD right here gets rid of that crap, innit?

Temporary Conclusion

So here’s the main thrust of neoDnD, made by yours truly, for yours truly. If I ever get offered to play DnD again, I’m gonna have a counter offer instead of having to come up with excuses to wiggle out of it. I’d say this is a fine way to play DnD without having to play actual DnD.


TLDR: There's no tldr. Scroll up and read you lazy bum.

...
So if anyone has any comments, suggestions, questions, accolades, insults or anything else they might have to say about all this; do it. Speak now or forever hold yospeak later. Either is good.

There’ll be some addendums later, about things such as that oft mentioned better class of enemy, so stay tuned (assuming you read this far). And maybe some more sacred slaughtering too. We’ll see.

Mr Beer
2018-06-01, 12:02 AM
If you want no levels and no gear, you might be better off with a different system rather than trying to fix D&D.

Lord Raziere
2018-06-01, 12:16 AM
Not exactly the system I'd make myself, but...I could see myself playing it.

*applause*

Mordaedil
2018-06-01, 01:49 AM
Congrats, you made Maid the RPG.

Rynjin
2018-06-01, 01:53 AM
Congrats, you made Maid the RPG.

Or Magical Burst.

Or Time Wizards. I forgot about Time Wizards for a while.

Basically, everybody's not-quite-freeform RPG they hammered out over the course of a night.

Satinavian
2018-06-01, 03:12 AM
YUP, hardly new and hardly interesting. It is even one of the worse ones.

- Can't do anything mechanically that is not fighting outside of roll high for good and low for bad and narrate the outcome.
- Every fight is mechanically boring in the extreme due to everything being the same and utter lack of strategic options. And it is not even fast. Would be better to skip the fights altogether.

Thrawn4
2018-06-01, 04:45 AM
I liked the writing style. Very in-your-face and amusing.
And I agree to the axioms.
But the result is not very elegant, I am afraid.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-01, 07:32 AM
Have you... have you read non-D&D systems? Because it feels like you're trying to do a lot of re-inventing the wheel here.

EDIT: The main issues I see:

d20+small number is awful. The difference between a +0 and a +3 is practically invisible compared to the flat distribution of 1-20. Given that this is one of the only ways to differentiate between characters and affect the world, that seems kind of important. I'd suggest a smaller die.
Having generic easy/moderate/hard DCs is fine, but assigning them on a character-by-character basis is awkward. It leaves players with very little idea of what they're capable of. Combined with the previous point, it means your resolution basically boils down to "roll a d20 and hope the DM thinks it's good enough."
Combat is the only thing that's fleshed out in any detail, which is... D&D, I guess, but it's in an awkward spot. There's too much for it to be entirely abstract, but not enough for tactics to make sense. You're basically left with "roll damage dice until one side's numbers hit zero." Games like Fate deal with this by having different skills that can be used in different circumstances, and by having generic "affect the fight without hitting someone" moves. You don't.
Conversely, you have nothing about non-combat capabilities beyond "roll a d20." Can the wizard teleport? Can the cleric? If so, what does the Fighter get to do? I foresee a LOT of "guy at the gym" problems.

CantigThimble
2018-06-01, 08:03 AM
If only removing all the things that ever annoyed us made things better instead of worse, then fixing systems would be easy.

But as it turns out, when you just take all the rules and restrictions that you don't like and wipe them out you find that there were a lot of things you did like that go with them, as well as problems you never even considered that they were preventing.

Eldan
2018-06-01, 08:19 AM
Have you... have you read non-D&D systems? Because it feels like you're trying to do a lot of re-inventing the wheel here.

That's what it comes down to me, really. This reads as if youre trying to invent a minimalist system, of which there are already many. Have a look at... I don't know what are the big ones? FATE, certainly.

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-01, 08:20 AM
If you want no levels and no gear, you might be better off with a different system rather than trying to fix D&D.

Yeah.

I mean I'm currently writing a 'D&D fix', but it tries to keep to the core of D&D.

Well, I'm keeping the six stats, for the moment at least, and the class and level structure.

What's changed a lot is the classes. The current ones I'm going for are Mundanes, Mages, Elves, and Dwarves. I'll probably throw in a few more at a later point, but those are my core ones. Mundanes begin with a bunch of feats (thinking of renaming them, how about Talents?) and gain another one every level, mages begin with a handful of spells and learn one or two every level, elves get some feats and some spells as they advance in level (mage and elf spells are seperate lists), and dwarves get feats alongside a handful of special 'tinker' abilities. In very rough terms Fighter, Wizard, Fighter/Wizard, and Thief.

Another thing is feats are along the 5e lines of you get several things and/or an increase to an ability score, but are a much more central part of characters. These are what grant most proficiencies as well, even the Mundane only begins with a handful of weapons and light armour. Feat chains are gone, and prerequisites toned down. Want to play a Paladin? A Mundane 2 can pick Weapon Training, Armour Training, Detect Supernatural, Smite, and Magical Initiate, and can then focus their later feat picks on things such as Inspire or Rally. A D&D style cleric is likely a Mage who spent their starting feats on Weapon Training and Armour Training, and picked healing and supportive spells.

Armour is also simplified. You add your Proficiency bonus to your AC, and armour gives +1/+2/+3 for light/medium/heavy. Weapons have also been brought more into differentiated by tags rather than damage die.

Spells have had most levels of power cut. Mages can learn any spell, which are not seperated into levels and instead balanced on their Spell Point costs. Your basic attack spell is Chromatic Orb, which costs 2SP for 3d6 damage and scales at 1d6 per additional SP. Lots of utility magic, but an attempt to not make spells that directly solve problems. You can pick a lock at 10m, but you still need to make your check. Raw power ends at about 3rd level spells, and mages get a handful of SP per level.

Monsters... are roughly the same. Stats and level determine attack, AC, and hp, while almost creature gets one or more special abilities, which range from numerical increases to Feats and Spells.

Assumed starting level is level 2. This is because Elves and Dwarves are archetypal members, and players might want to multiclass at 2nd level.

Mundane 2
STR +3
DEX +2
CON +2
INT 0
WIS -1
CHA 0

HP 19

AC 17 (10+2 DEX+2 proficiency+2 armour+1 feat)

Feats
Weapon Training (sword, bow, spear, axe)
Armour Training
Shield Mastery
Dodge

Weapons
Sword (Atk +5, damage 1d6+3, versatile)
Bow (Atk +4, damage 1d6, ranged)

Armour
Medium (chain)

Other Equipment
Stuff

Mage 2
STR 0
DEX +1
CON -1
INT +3
WIS +2
CHA +2

HP 7
SP 14

AC 13

Feats
Scholar
Elementalist (fire)

Spells
Chromatic Orb
Mage Hand
Far Seeing
Flame Shield
Illusion

Weapons
Mage's staff
Dagger

Elf 1/Mundane 1
STR 0
DEX +3
CON 0
INt -1
WIS +2
CHA +2

HP 13
SP 10

Feats
Weapon Training (bow, sword, throwing knife, dart)
Low light vision
Hunter
Fleet footed

Spells
Pass Without Trace
Beast Senses

Weapons
Bow
Knife

And that's as far as I've got. It's still months away from 'alpha'. But the idea is to keep a lot of D&Dness while letting it be more flexible.

Ah, I can hear you now. 'But Anonymouswizard, you supremely intelligent and wonderful man, why are you doing this? Several games do something along these lines already, such as , surely you can just pick up one of those?'

Ah, but that's not the point. The point isn't to make a unique game, it's to practice writing a game while coming up with a D&D-derivative I might actually enjoy running. It's supposed to reinvent the wheel. I'm currently playing around with stuff like proficiency bonus scaling, I like the idea but I think going from +2 to +6 might not work for me, I'm considering +3 as the start and upping it roughly every three levels, and 'oficially' capping the game at 10th level (class design means you could continue if you wanted).

As you can see fiddly bull**** is still around, but I'm trying to cut down on it. The number of abilities you get is smaller, and quite a few will boil down to bonus proficiencies, numerical increases, or 'not affected by rule X'.

But what if you want to be a human thief? Well mundanes can be built as anything feats are given for, so you'll miss out on special dwarf technological tricks but you'll still be able to stealth and disarm traps.

Oh well, going with yours let me try to recreate my current character, Andromedus Vitalus, renegade guild wizard.

-Well Andy's flavour is 'runaway guild wizard looking to spread magic'. To go a bit further, he specialises in creating images and changing objects.
-Andy doesn't have any direct attack magic, so he's obviously a defender who works at range. He wears guild robes with the identifying bits removed and carries a (undecided on wand or staff).
-Well, my main stats are probably Intelligence and Charisma (I'm a very pretty wizard), and I guess one's my attack stat one one's my defence stat. How am I to know which fits the concept better? Let's say Int is defence and Cha is attack.
-Well, looking at the stats I have to change Andy's capabilities up a bit. He used to be above average in Strength and Dexterity and had dumped common sense, but he now needs higher Wisdom.
-Well, I suppose Andy's hp represents his clouds and illusions.
-Aaaaand now we run into a problem Andy doesn't attack, he throws up clouds, makes illusions, and alters terrain to support. His backup attack is easy (melee dagger 1d4), but it's hard to fluff his ranged attack because he so rarely actually affects an enemy. I think I'll go with 'confused senses'.
-My resource? Because I'm very much an indirect wizard I'm going to call it [I]Illusions. It powers my ability to mess with enemy's heads.
-The supers fail to interest me, because they're hard to fluff into illusions, clouds, or transmutations.

Andromedus Vitalus
Ranged Defender
HP 65 (clouds and illusions)
STR -1
DEX -2
CON 0
INT +3
WIS +1
CHA +2
Starting Illusions: 3
Ranged confused senses 1d6
Melee dagger 1d4

I declare this system bad, as it makes it really darn difficult to properly represent my concept :smalltongue:

Aetis
2018-06-01, 08:50 AM
Seconded on the appreciation of the writing style.

Very fun read.

Pronounceable
2018-06-01, 03:37 PM
If you want no levels and no gear, you might be better off with a different system rather than trying to fix D&D.

Congrats, you made Maid the RPG.

Or Magical Burst.

Or Time Wizards. I forgot about Time Wizards for a while.

Basically, everybody's not-quite-freeform RPG they hammered out over the course of a night.

Have you... have you read non-D&D systems? Because it feels like you're trying to do a lot of re-inventing the wheel here.

Have a look at... I don't know what are the big ones? FATE, certainly.
Look at all the comments I'd preemptively answered. I'll answer again, because I'm magnanimous like that.

I want the end result to be so radically different it’s not even DnD anymore and will only be called that to lull any potential people I’d play with into a false sense of familiarity.


But
- Can't do anything mechanically that is not fighting outside of roll high for good and low for bad and narrate the outcome.
- Every fight is mechanically boring in the extreme due to everything being the same and utter lack of strategic options. And it is not even fast. Would be better to skip the fights altogether.
this one particular comment is just wrong. Because high roll=good, low roll=bad, followed by ingame explanation is the whole of DnD experience in a nutshell, including combat. And neoDnD is so much faster than the regular one it's not even funny (because nobody has to waste time on inane fiddly crap or pointlessly many options), not to mention "mechanically boring" beats "too goddamn fiddly for anyone's good" all days of the week, every week, twice on wednesdays.


And I agree to the axioms.
But the result is not very elegant, I am afraid.
This is the sort of comment I like to see, cos I don't get it. What exactly is not elegant about neoDnD so far compared to regular ol' DnD?


Having generic easy/moderate/hard DCs is fine, but assigning them on a character-by-character basis is awkward. It leaves players with very little idea of what they're capable of. Combined with the previous point, it means your resolution basically boils down to "roll a d20 and hope the DM thinks it's good enough."
Combat is the only thing that's fleshed out in any detail, which is... D&D, I guess, but it's in an awkward spot. There's too much for it to be entirely abstract, but not enough for tactics to make sense. You're basically left with "roll damage dice until one side's numbers hit zero." Games like Fate deal with this by having different skills that can be used in different circumstances, and by having generic "affect the fight without hitting someone" moves. You don't.
Conversely, you have nothing about non-combat capabilities beyond "roll a d20." Can the wizard teleport? Can the cleric? If so, what does the Fighter get to do? I foresee a LOT of "guy at the gym" problems.

I'm naively full of hope that most people have enough brains to figure out this stuff according to their character's chosen flavor and game's power level at the table. So I'm not going to spell nitty gritty of that stuff out explicitly. Also there is no small number. It's a d20.


I declare this system bad, as it makes it really darn difficult to properly represent my concept :smalltongue:
Course it's darn difficult to represent cos you did it wrong. But you know what? I'm gonna fix that up for you. But first a reminder:

Cha is not your leadership or talkyness or boob size or any other potential real world meaning of the word “charisma”, those are well outside your combat parameters and have no business being on the character sheet. Cha is the number you add to various dice you roll while playing neoDnD.

So, you wanna be an illusionist wizard who functions as a ranged defender.
Confounding Illusionist (ranged defender)
Str+1 Cha+2
Dex-2 Int+3
Con0 Wis-1
Equipped with unidentifying mage guild robes, a sawnoff staff that might maybe be a wand, a dagger
hp: can create illusions to misdirect 65 worth of attacks
damage: create an illusory danger for 1d6 (mental) at range
backup: stab with dagger for 1d4 (physical) in melee
Starts battle with 3 Illusions.
Illusion1: create an illusory pit underneath one enemy for 1d6 (mental) at range, causing an additional 18 (mental) if they can't shake it off and believe they fell in.
Illusion2: create a cloud of utter blackness in a large area, making your enemies (up to 4) momentarily feel eternally lost in the dark for 1d6 (mental), they must see the illusion for what it is or take 18 (mental) on their next turn
Illusion3: reveal the you all the enemies had been attacking was the illusion all along by letting it dissipate to regain all of your hp.
Take that. Andromedus Vitalus is a guy who creates confusing and confounding illusions until his enemies are knocked out by their own inability to tell truth from illusion or possibly just grow tired of his trickery bull**** and decide to leave. Hey nobody said hp=0 means dead.
He defends with his "intelligence", which is actually his "mental dexterity" at quickly constructing detailed and believable illusions and attacks with his "charisma", which is basically how much his mind presses at the bench.
Andy also literally cannot have dumped common sense, as it's not a thing that can be dumped. He might be kinda dumb in certain matters tho, if that's what he's supposed to be like. He might also be pretty as a popsicle, which doesn't actually do anything in combat as that's unrelated to what he actually does in a fight. He's a bit stronger than the average guy which also kinda does nothing despite being on his character sheet, but at least it's an immediately meaningful and understandable thing and might actually do something one day if an enemy tries to grapple him or something.

That was a meaty chunk of commentary. Anyone else has more to say, say it. It's all cool.

Lord Raziere
2018-06-01, 04:18 PM
ah, I see, if you want to play a negotiator just make a ranged attacker then fluff your attacks as convincing people to not fight, the damage is represented by their willingness to fight and if you defeat them, they drop their weapon and run away to go do something else. just say its nonlethal damage and done.

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-01, 04:26 PM
Look at all the comments I'd preemptively answered. I'll answer again, because I'm magnanimous like that.

But... you didn't. Sure, the game's meant to be 'not D&D anymore', but most of the quotes seem to be about how you seem to not know about other systems.


Course it's darn difficult to represent cos you did it wrong. But you know what? I'm gonna fix that up for you. But first a reminder:


So, you wanna be an illusionist wizard who functions as a ranged defender.
Confounding Illusionist (ranged defender)
Str+1 Cha+2
Dex-2 Int+3
Con0 Wis-1
Equipped with unidentifying mage guild robes, a sawnoff staff that might maybe be a wand, a dagger
hp: can create illusions to misdirect 65 worth of attacks
damage: create an illusory danger for 1d6 (mental) at range
backup: stab with dagger for 1d4 (physical) in melee
Starts battle with 3 Illusions.
Illusion1: create an illusory pit underneath one enemy for 1d6 (mental) at range, causing an additional 18 (mental) if they can't shake it off and believe they fell in.
Illusion2: create a cloud of utter blackness in a large area, making your enemies (up to 4) momentarily feel eternally lost in the dark for 1d6 (mental), they must see the illusion for what it is or take 18 (mental) on their next turn
Illusion3: reveal the you all the enemies had been attacking was the illusion all along by letting it dissipate to regain all of your hp.
Take that. Andromedus Vitalus is a guy who creates confusing and confounding illusions until his enemies are knocked out by their own inability to tell truth from illusion or possibly just grow tired of his trickery bull**** and decide to leave. Hey nobody said hp=0 means dead.
He defends with his "intelligence", which is actually his "mental dexterity" at quickly constructing detailed and believable illusions and attacks with his "charisma", which is basically how much his mind presses at the bench.
Andy also literally cannot have dumped common sense, as it's not a thing that can be dumped. He might be kinda dumb in certain matters tho, if that's what he's supposed to be like. He might also be pretty as a popsicle, which doesn't actually do anything in combat as that's unrelated to what he actually does in a fight. He's a bit stronger than the average guy which also kinda does nothing despite being on his character sheet, but at least it's an immediately meaningful and understandable thing and might actually do something one day if an enemy tries to grapple him or something.

That was a meaty chunk of commentary. Anyone else has more to say, say it. It's all cool.

Okay, here's the problem. None of that represents what Andy does in any way. I mean, technically, but because he's forced to choose between 'attacker' and 'defender', neither of which perfectly fit, it ends up being forced.

I mean see those three 'supers'. They all do 'must attack Andy or take damage'. But that's not how Andy defends, he defends his allies by manipulating and denying options. Setting up clouds of fog so people can't see parts of the battlefield, creating false allies, effects, or terrain, and other things that don't actively affect an opponent's ability to fight.

Here's the thing, Andy works so much better in D&D because he's given more options than one of two cookie cutter characters. A lot of what makes Andy is his ability to pull from a versatile but indirect array of abilities to throw out a wide range of effects. With your very strict way of turning combat into hp damage and identical 'supers' within roles nobody feels meaningfully different.

Alex doesn't defend, he denies. And even 4e realised that Deniers (Controllers) and Enablers (Leaders) can be as important to a tactical battle as Attackers (Strikers) and Defenders (guess). Hell, it's take on Defenders was much better, they dish out good damage (but not to Striker levels) and encourage you to attack them under the threat of more damage (although generally less than they dished out on their turn).

EDIT: maybe a better explanation, how do I represent somebody who indirectly affects the outcome of combat. Who doesn't cause the enemies to fall down, but creates the situation where it's possible.

Pronounceable
2018-06-01, 05:56 PM
Quote on top of quotes, what is the world coming to?


the damage is represented by their willingness to fight
hp have always meant "the totality of everything that might even remotely be related to something's ability to keep fighting". That's where all the arguments come from. Far too many people just can't get that completely intangible things like will to keep fighting or sheer dumb luck or goodwill of gods or swordfighting skill to parry blows are just as valid components of hp as basic physics like toughness or size; because the whole damn thing is one massive mess of abstraction. Granted, it's quite hard to wrap your mind around without someone explaining it better than rulebooks (which usually suck at it).


but most of the quotes seem to be about how you seem to not know about other systems.
No, they're saying why don't you play X instead?, for which the answer is obviously cos far too many people generally wanna play DnD and not X. Hence the need to lull them. Or at least that was common theme.


Okay, here's the problem. None of that represents what Andy does in any way.
The particular stuff I made up may not represent what Andy does, as he's not my character, but dealing and taking damage absolutely represents every single possible thing Andy (or anyone else) can do in combat. At least when you understand what hp/damage really means.


I mean see those three 'supers'. They all do 'must attack Andy or take damage'. But that's not how Andy defends, he defends his allies by manipulating and denying options.
See that "65 hp worth of illusions" line in the sheet? That's all the illusions he's throwing all over the place to "manipulate enemies and deny their options". What do you imagine happens when Bob "attacks" Andy to not get hit by that mark punishment? Bob realizes that the pit isn't real and becomes less likely to fall for whatever the next illusion Andy is gonna throw at him. 1d8 less likely to fall for the next illusion to be exact, so now Andy's 65 hp worth of illusions are lessened by 1d8. If Bob hadn't "attacked" Andy (meaning he tried to "attack" someone else or run away or whatnot) he would've thought he fell into a deep magical pit that then disappeared and be shaken and disturbed and suffering in imaginary pain and wanting to be not here anymore, which means 18 mental damage. Those types over there ain't for show, why else would I have always written them consistently on each supermove for every example character, considering my intense hatred for fiddly bull****?
Sooner or later, as in once 64 of those 65 hp has been removed by actions of Bob and his buddies, they will all realize that Andy's everything is fake and will walk right through whatever new images he makes and bash his pretty face in for that last hp and he'll fall.

All it takes to put the whole system into perspective is to realize that "hit" in "hit point" doesn't actually mean "hit".


ability to pull from a versatile but indirect array of abilities to throw out a wide range of effects. With your very strict way of turning combat into hp damage and identical 'supers' within roles nobody feels meaningfully different.
"Indirect combat ability" just means "deal X mental damage to enemy" or "deal X damage to enemy on ally's turn with ally's damage type" or "make enemy not deal X damage to Y". This is what ALL buffing and debuffing is. I also do not want any of the numbers in to feel or be remotely "different". Dealing with varying numbers is a waste of everybody's time and effort.


maybe a better explanation, how do I represent somebody who indirectly affects the outcome of combat. Who doesn't cause the enemies to fall down, but creates the situation where it's possible.
He does damage to enemies. That's what all of DnD combat is; removing enemies' hp until they have none left. Just cos regular ol' DnD did that damage on his allies' turns through his allies weapons/spells, doesn't mean that damage didn't actually belong to him. neoDnD is just putting it back to its original place.

InvisibleBison
2018-06-01, 06:19 PM
No, they're saying why don't you play X instead?, for which the answer is obviously cos far too many people generally wanna play DnD and not X. Hence the need to lull them. Or at least that was common theme.

If I understand you correctly, your goal is to trick people who want to play D&D into playing something else by pretending that the something else is a form of D&D. Leaving aside the obvious moral issues with this approach, I don't see how it could possibly work. The system you've presented is very obviously not D&D, and anyone who's played D&D before would recognize that. How exactly is calling the system "neoDnD" going to make them fail to notice that?

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-01, 06:50 PM
Okay, simplest terms possible.

Your system boils everything down to 'deal damage'. But there are those of us who want to influence the course of a fight without ticking down numbers.

Note that a system can provide options for both simpler and more complex characters. Because I've got the book in front of me, take Unknown Armies 3e. If I want as simple a character as possible I can play a mundane, or maybe a psychic. I pick my starting Hardened and Failed notches to determine my basic ten abilities, split 110% between two or more Identities (one or both of which may allow me to do freaky stuff), and finally pick my obsession (with associated identitiy) and Fear, Noble, and Rage triggers. More complex? I can make one of my Identities an avatar Identity, giving me from one to four Channels (abilities) based on it's rating. Keep track of your taboo, you don't want to lose skill points. Even more complex? Let's go for an Adept, once you take your Adept Identity you'll not only need to track minor and significant charges (and if you're very lucky maybe a major), but also your Taboo (break it and you lose all charges) and how you generate charges (you don't want your Cinemancer to lose out on that charge because somebody yells 'KHAAAAN' into their phone). Plus about fourteen spells and your random magick domain.

The other thing that Unkown Armies does is the large number of character abilities not dedicated towards combat. This is partially because it considers getting into combat as something lame people do, but it really ups the number of potential characters (especially if you're willing to homebrew). Delivering information is so much easier if you know an avatar of the Messenger, Urbanomancers have the ability to manipulate the city (such as perfect public transport, plus their basic attack spell is 'the next time you cross the road you will be run over by a bus'*), Vestimancers get access to a versatile set of clothes-themed magic, and even the gun wizards have 90% utility spells such as 'be sexy', 'scare animals', or 'know personality' (three out of fourteen have direct combat application).

Yes, being a gun mage gives you access to a 'be sexy' spell. It fits with the symbolic logic of the School.

But the advantage of having these noncombat powers and a combat system that is not just 'roll damage against hp' is that I can suddenly use these noncombat abilities in combat. I can be anything from Vestamancers temporarily replacing their Vestimancer Identity with a police Identity, to causing a train to arrive to provide cover, to causing the badass mercenary to trip on a banana peel (also a great spell for parties), to abusing the fact Agrimancers can make everybody in a crop field lose their sense of direction. These tactical choices don't have to get in the way of the game, they are the game.

* Which works brilliantly, because again fights aren't something you seek out. If you can get rid of your opponent by sending them to hospital without ever engaging in combat you've got the idea.

Quellian-dyrae
2018-06-01, 06:59 PM
I...kinda hesitate to make suggestions given that this system was written by you and for you, and you by definition will have a better understanding of what will make the system perfect for you than I will, on account of my not being you. That being said, the stated design goals suggest some different final mechanics to me, so I figure I'll make the suggestions on the chance they would be useful but were not originally considered.

I feel like you could probably get rid of the ability scores entirely at this point. Since the noncombat checks are pure fiat, the ability scores are explicitly divorced from fluff, and the only score that matters is your {class-affiliated} score which is always +3, they're just six (well, eight, if you count choosing which is Attack and which is Defense) more choices to make during character creation that serve no actual purpose. (You could maybe replace them with some simple means of defining the broad sorts of things your character is good at to assist the DM in calculating non-combat roll requirements).

I'd also maybe get rid of the melee/range distinction. At this point you may as well just let people describe their positioning and moving how they want without worrying about the distinction. Blah blah the wizard teleports back and casts lightning, the fighter charges forward and attacks it with its sword, and nobody cares about spending actions on it, let alone if we're talking about 30 feet or 30 miles. I assume your hatred of fiddly bits extends to battle maps? This also allows you to play, like, the ranger who is just as good with its bow as with its two weapons. Or the monk who can throw around ki blasts just as well as it can beat enemies with its fists. If the player doesn't want to be as good at one as the other it simply always has the character use the one and not the other (or fluffs the one as the other as with the Cybershinobi.

Another option to consider (although this would require a rework of the Supers) would be removing the notion of individualized hit points. Instead give each team a hit point total equal to the sum of all involved characters' hit points. This would kinda help reinforce the idea that defenders are protecting their entire party; you can do things now like if an enemy attacks the wizard the fighter comes jumping in to block or the priest raises a shield over them or whatever. More importantly, it would remove the situation where a PC gets dropped and has to just sit out for the rest of the battle. At this point you could probably even streamline the supers down to just adding and removing damage. So a basic attack deals 1d6 (Defender) or 1d10+3 (Attacker) damage, and if you don't spend any Resource on the attack you gain 1 Resource. An Attacker can spend 1 Resource to add another 1d10+3, 2 Resource to add 3d10+9, 3 Resource to add 6d10+18 (or something). A Defender can spend Resource to remove that much damage from the party's pool as well. You don't need marking or multi-targeting if it all winds up hitting the same hit point total anyway. If you did this you could probably have both Attackers and Defenders start with the same Resource total.

For things like can the characters do stuff like teleport and whatnot, I'd maybe go with the following:

Outside of combat, an Attacker can spend 1 Resource to auto-succeed a check to accomplish some sort of goal or overcome some sort of obstacle (for the entire party where applicable), 2 Resource to auto-succeed a check to protect itself (and the party where applicable) from some sort of hazard or problem, and 3 Resource to do something cool that furthers the story without breaking it. A Defender inverts the first two options. Characters could gain 1 Resource each time they (attempt/fail?) a noncombat check. Not sure if you'd want Resource to refresh/reset for each scene out of combat too, or maybe have it as a persistent total so how you end one scene will impact how you go into the next scene. (In the latter case, you could also remove the cap of 3, maybe starting play with 3 but not setting a limit on how high it could get, which I think would add a bit more tactical depth without being too fiddly).

Mike_G
2018-06-01, 08:24 PM
I just want to say I love the whole concept.

So much stuff is abstraction anyway, and the number inflation, and really stupid amount of fiddly modifiers at high levels, once you have items and buffs and so on, I like the simplicity of this. It allows you to just tell the story of heroic deeds, and bask in the awesomness.

Maybe not everybody is ready to embrace it, but as a grognard who is old and tired of Christmas trees and fiddly modifiers, I'm a big fan.

Rynjin
2018-06-01, 08:40 PM
No, they're saying why don't you play X instead?, for which the answer is obviously cos far too many people generally wanna play DnD and not X. Hence the need to lull them. Or at least that was common theme.

I was saying your system isn't particularly original or good, but if your main issue is playing other systems with people who only want to play D&D...well I mean just playing a different system and calling it D&D is the same end result as what you're trying to do here.

Bad Wolf
2018-06-01, 09:10 PM
No offense, but i thought this was a very subtle piece of satire.

Doorhandle
2018-06-02, 01:21 AM
Hold My Beer: Fixing DnD Singlehandedly

Here we go. *Cracks Typing Knuckles.*

I know this your pet project for your pet peeves and I respect you for admitting it’s your pet project for your pet peeves. However, it still just rubs me the wrong way.
I like the mechanics, and they fit your design goal, but I just despise the presentation and some of the things you fix aren't universally problems, or leave what are problems in my opinion.

It reminds me so much of The angry DM, (http://theangrygm.com/) who has many brilliant ideas but states them in such a way that you want to punch him in the face for it. I feel you both come across as being more interested in fighting people about your ideas than the actual homebrew itself, regardless of if it’s you intention. And frankly if you go looking for fights on the internet, you find them. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, that's in the way of actually making your point.

To mangle a saying, I feel that you are your own messenger, and you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

That said, I have decided to give the system a breakdown, bit by bit. I will not at this was done pecimesl, some of the criticism at the early stages (good or bad) may be invalidated as we go further down.



1) I don’t have time for fiddly bull****
Time and effort are both valuable and will not be wasted on inane minutiae like keeping track of +2 to this, -3 to that.

Yes please. The entirety of 3.5 is a combinational explosions of random fiddly modifiers. That said, I personally think you go too far with this, at the cost of variety.


2) I want it all and I want it now
No I will not play for 12 goddamn levels and who knows how many hours to get the one cool thing I want for my character, **** that noise, give it to me now.

Less of an issue in D&D itself I find, but I’ve played enough Computer RPGS to find this is the thing I usually hate about talent trees. But again, looking back over it, there are not enough cool things.




a)No advancement…Eh, Mixed feelings about this. The main benefit of advancement (besides the endless skinner box of levleing) is that is provides change- it gives you new and inserting abilities and skills to toy with. Likewise, the gameplay priorities change from low-level to mid levels to high levels, and a lack of advancement all means this change is absent; an variety is the spice of life and gaming alike.

In summary it’s probably not a bad thing in it’s own right (advancement has its own issues ) but it means there’s less variety without a subsystem to maintain continuous change.


b) No gear’s kinda good: it is fiddly and gear-dependant classes are lame. But again, it has a run-on problem in that it removes a source of motivation. You need to make sure the PC have one, otherwise they’ll just sit on their asses, and while it doesn’t have to be money or power, both of them are mutlifacted motivations than can be used for endless plot hooks. (ex. I need money to feed my staving family, I want money to fill the emptiness in my life, the power of the magic doodad will allow me to retake my throne, ect. Ect.)

Sub-B: It’s excellent that you define what sort of players will enjoy your game (or at least, what sort of player won’t)
That said, neither of these things are bad in of themselves. If this forum has proven anything it’s that many players love the character building minigame.

c) No misses…No problem with this one in the slightest actually. It removes a bit of RNG, but that in of itself is a mixed blessing.

d) Mental stat changes: this is brilliant actually. My only nitpick is that “Mental constitution” frankly sounds stupid: it should be mental fortitude or something like that.

e) No stat scores…What you describe there still sounds a lot like stats as wel know them. Can you explain how it’s different? It is just that the modifers are you stats?

f) I kinda like this breakdown of challenges into skill brackets. Simple, but still has variety. Plus it’s always hilarious whenever someone has to roll anything but a one…rolls one.

Another thing if this is literally the same for every character (as some other respondents have replied) it may result in the game getting to samey (see g). It’s unclear if you add the stats scores to these rolls.

Other have suggested that the small bonuses are an issue, but I do not
Finding a way to model the probabilities is always a good idea however.

g) We will see about this. The main problem with most simplified systems is that every character feels very similar. You do some good thing to avoid this and other things which I dislike, but are not innately bad.

I will also note that many systems do a lot of these already, to various degrees.
I can provide examples if you desire.

The thing about sacred cows is that they’re not sacred to everyone: Hindus honor their cattle: most other religions eat them. Likewise, you come across as wanting to be thanked for doing something that hasn’t been done…but it has been done a lot outside of D&D and the Old School Revolution.

TLDR: A, B,and G are not innately bad but pose some risks, particularly for a long campaign. C, D and F are great. E and F are confusing/unclear. Don’t brag about metaphorically killing them cattle, Metaphorical butchers have done it as well.




I honestly think it should be a quaternary: damage migration(battfield control, debuffing enemy damage, moblity) damage control (healing, removing debuffs) damage enhancement (buffs, debuffuing enemy defence, moblity) and damage dealing (hitting people.) Or a trio if there’s 3 options: Damage, control/buffs, defence. Just my 2 cents though.

Replacing classes with archtypes is not a bad move in of itself: every class fulfils an architype in of itself, it’s just removing a film of fluff from it.
With or without the fluff, the issue here is that there are a grand total of…2 classes.With different coats of paint.
This is fine for oneshots or a shot campaign but means that the game will exhaust itself comparatively quickly.

Plus there are no options for battlefield control or buffing/debuffing. This does simplify things, but again, at the cost of variety.

TL:DR Classes as archetypes is interesting…but there’s not much longevity.





Scaling stats is not the worst idea: but in most video games that have it, everyone is a damage dealer to some extent. If too many of the opposing players are defenders, it could cause a battle to drag out longer than it should.

A potential pitfall but looking over the rest of your system you seem to have the opposite problem (more on that later).

How much health per player? From the way it’s described, he has 8 health against one foe, 16 health against 2 foes, 24 health against 3, etc. It greatly affects my analysis of the rest of this system.






Aside from this, let’s see: the difference in damage/HP dice are a good start in making the classes different. There doesn’t seem to be a real “control mage” archetype available, that is good at migrating damage but terrible at taking it. I will mention at this point that the point of all the class features and spells and such is to foster a difference between classes and even members of the same class, which is quickly becoming the theme of this response.

Supermeters an untapped mechanic in RPGs…Though I will point out the defender’s supermeter is basically a point’s pool. :smalltongue: Definitely keeping it simple here while allowing significant differcnet between classes. The best part so far!

TLDR: What about our squishy wizard? So far avoiding the pitfall of making attackers/defenders playing the same. I'm loving the super-meters.



The first thing I’m noting: every class has the exeat same skills. A difference through fluff is nice, but again there's 2 classes, and every member of each class has come off as exactly the same.
it would be nice if you could cherry-pick from a bunch of related abilities for each tier, effectively making the 2 classes explode into an arbitrarly large number of classes.

Defender S1:
I think this damage is a bit much: it makes the strategy is less: “ encoruage them to stop hitting my buddy” and more “get them to hit my buddy so they IMMEDATLEY EXPLODE.” At this point, Bob’s health against these 2 is only 16, so if he steps out of line he instantly dies. it’s only when he’s up against a 4 person party (24 that this is possibly acceptable damage. The idea is sound, however.

It’s also good that it’s “soft” protection rather than a WoW style taunt. Otherwise the game would boil down to
1. Taunt asshat.
2. Attacker wails on him while you sit there picking your nose.
3. Laugh.


Defender S2: Mark many enemies in appropriate range (up to 4) for 1d6, all markees must attack the marker on their next turn or be automatically hit for 18 (maximized 3d6)
A good idea for a skill, (with the caveat above), but the issue with this one is that it’s just “s1, but MORE,” which is boring when you only have 3 skills. The area of effect does make it a bit more interesting, but it still just feels… unimpressive.

Defender S3: Regain all hp

An excellent ability. It counters one of the flaws in your design, is simple while still being interesting, and is as powerful as you could expect from an SP ability that requires your entire “mana bar” (short though it is). I’d allow him to uses even if he’s gone unconscious, so long as he can pay the 3 SP.


With the attacker, you mentioned struggling with the idea that they should have albites other than damage: on one hand, it’s their entire job, on the other hand it’s a bit lacklustre only be able to do one thing.
The key thing lacking here is to make them do something else AND damage. Many skills in MOBAs are “does damage AND something else:” Such as a leap that “does damage AND lets me leap over obstacles for some distance” or a shield “that gives me extra health temporality AND does damage.”
Even skills that are just “click on enemy for instant” damage technically have something added It’s “damage AND I basically can’t miss.” Just my 2-cents.

Attacker S1: Again, the design is solid, but the damage is too dang high. Plus, it kind of contradicts what you said about bob, which is “he needs to not go down in a single hit, that’s a minion, not a basic enemy.”

It is balanced out a bit in that attackers start with no charges, but that still means the only reason he doesn’t die is that Al can’t use his 1-hit attack straight off the bat.
Also again, this would become less apparent with more players.
I’d leave it at random dice roll rather than instantly maxing damage, while possibly offering minim damage value that’s higher than a triple snake-eyes. Instant-maxing should maybe be saved for an ability in it’s own right, rather than being the default.

Attacker S2: Same as defender s2, it’s a little boring because it’s “the same, but more!”

Attacker S3: The same, but EVEN MORE! Bleh. I’m a bit more forgiving because it is a LOT more, but again there’s not much contrast.

One thing that is good is that you’d addressed the risk that attacking + s1 is better than attacking thrice and then using the s3, which is quite clever.
It’s also good you’ve addressed mini-maxing as well, and I have nothing to add to that specific comment.

Overall, there seems to be no real room for utility. This makes planning dungeons simple (can't dig through these walls)… but it also a) means less variety and less fun and b) is a big part of what separates tabletop rpgs from their computer competitors. Let the rogue open lockboxes, pickpocket the dragon, lie their way into the princess’ privy! Let the mages cats passwall, teleport, summon greater 10-ft pole! Let the fighter bust damns by flexing, coordinate tactical advacnes, build the own forge with their bare hands! Give room to go beyond combat!

TL:DR:
The concept is solid…but the example abilities are boring.
Every attacker and every defender is exactly the same! Shame on you!
Everyone does too much damage in a 2-person party; allow for more randomness.
Attackers’ abilities should be “do damage AND-“
Utility! Where'd it go?




Only a TLDR here:

So the health is just decided by your class. Ok.
Again, despite their being only 2 classes the difference here is big, and I greatly appreciate that. They each have a niche.




Not sure how I feel about attacks/backup attacks. Is there any benefit for melee attacks at all? Ranged attacks are implied to have the benefit of, y’know, range. Without anything to counterbalance that range becomes the constantly-optimal option, and a very obvious one. At least is provides more difference between two attackers/defenders.

Very interesting to let them describe HOW the HP abstraction/resource works for each character. Though at this point I would rename it away form HP, as HP still implies “you survive damage through virtue of being able to take a great-sword to the face like it’s nothing:” that’s a nit-pick though.

TLDR:
I think melee attacks have no advantages compared to ranged attacks.
I am likening the little details for resources/HP.




Interlude:
I can accept the sediment, but I still feel your game lacks options; which means it lacks longevity, which is what will make it “D&D Neo”, as opposed to “Yet another fantasy heartbreaker…” I feel you have exchanged one tedium for another.

Again, however, it’s good that you clarified that this is not target at every player. Where it falls is the target audience… or rather, the audience the systm’s title suggests.

The very name “D&D Neo” suggests it’s targeted at fans of D&D. However, many of these fans may prefer variety in mechanics and classes, may wish to take time to tinker, may prefer to drool over loot, may want not just written descriptions but a tangible chain of character advancement… and you’ve very specifically said your ruleset doesn’t cater to that. To these players, you are fixing things that aren’t broken, and they’ll leave their reading of this ruleset frustrated.

To be a fix, it would have to do something more difficult than simply removing loot, classes, advancement or mechanics tinkering: it has to keep the good parts of those mechanics while removing the worst of their downsides: so I feel describing it as a "fix" is not going on the right track.

Overall, The bad news is that it’s not a fixed version D&D. it's not even a different edition of D&D.

The good news: this is because it’s an entirely different system, and deserves better than being treated as and addon or a repair-job.

TLDR: The system's design goals are different from a lot of editions of D&D.
Therefore It’s not fix: it’s a new, different system with it’s own goals. Treat it like one.





First, it's always good to have examples. If they could fit, I would ask that every spell in any edition of D&D has it's own example of use.

Preacher of the Black Hand: Hard to do in D&D sure… But not in Fate or Fate Core. Plus you could just use those words as fluff for a cleric with ordinary cleric spells, or even stat him as a particularly devout bard.

Beastmaster Druid:
Make this guy? Simple. Basic 3.5 druid with argument summons. Spam summons at every turn, never use ordinary spells. Maybe not good from level 1, but workable from about lv 6 onward.

Cybershinobi:
Ok, so ranged/melee is just arbitrary. That’s actually fine, the real issue is “What’s stopping players from just using their basic damage for literally every attack?”
Also, Anime as a source of power. Beautiful.

The epic characters:
Pretty dang epic. While this may not be beyond D&D, it’s not beyond other systems. Mutants and masterminds, for example, could make them pretty handily.

TLDR:
Just because they can’t be done in D&D 3.5 doesn’t mean they it can’t be done outside that system.

Also: Now it’s not “does melee have any disadvantages” but rather: is there anything to stop us from melee 24/7” and if not, why even have backup attacks?






In summary:

I like much of the system, but you come across as aggressive and self-congratulating. I resent that, and I do not think I am alone in that.

The base mechanics and classes are pretty good…but there’s only two of them, under all the fluff. And they have little to them out of combat.
I want more variety than what you've provided, but that is not the design goal, so I will not receive it.
There’s also not a lot out out-of-combat differences between them.

You have met your design goals, but the name D&D Neo suggests it’s aimed at people who play D&D: and their desires from a system may not meet yours.
So I suggest a new name free of the relevant baggage.

And this is all I have to say so far. When you make mechanics for boss monsters, expect another counter-rant.

Kaptin Keen
2018-06-02, 01:44 AM
I think you're trying to do the same thing I'd wanna do. However, the result you've wound up with feels like there'd be a solution to combat. As in, you could work out an optimal formulae, and apply that - always.

Which is less than ideal.

Obviously, I'm not going to sit down and work out that formula, since that would be fiddly and boring, and in contradiction of your axioms =)

War_lord
2018-06-02, 07:58 AM
Congratulations on the brilliant satire of would-be amateur game designers.

Pleh
2018-06-02, 09:12 AM
Congratulations on the brilliant satire of would-be amateur game designers.

Agreed. It's a brilliant joke setup: aggressively and passionately defending one of the most bland and inoffensive proposals that anyone could make just to try to get a rise out of people over nothing.

It's a bit of a niche audience, but a well constructed joke, nonetheless.

Pronounceable
2018-06-02, 05:34 PM
I tried to update the first post but hit the character limit. That had never happened before, I'm so excited!!!1!

So just mentally paste this post to the end of first one. I'll go over the new comments later.
....

Moving On To Greener Pastures

So we’ve made the player characters. We’ve made the most basic enemy for target practice. Soon we’ll have to make something bigger and better, for a neverending tide of Bobs would get old real fast. However before we get there, we need to go over the combat outside of the barest of its bones and making of pcs. Combat is pretty dang important in all DnDs and neoDnD is no exception. Moreover, I like combat. Beating up orcs is cool and good. That’s like the whole point of bothering make this neoDnD here, I could’ve just offered any potential people who’d wanna play rpgs with me to play a freeform roleplaying thing if I didn’t wanna roll dice to smoke some goblins.

Some commentors above seemed to be under the impression that neoDnD combat is just throwing identical damage dice until cows come home. I have no idea what gave them such a strange impression. Maybe they suffer from the disease known as thinking that if something isn't written down, it doesn't exist. And since this is a forum post about some homebrewing, aka a written medium about something completely made up, it's not a terribly odd mistake to make. Nevertheless, who knows what confusion lurks in the hearts of men?

Taking A Page From Wizards (of the coast)

Let’s see what DnD has to officially say on combat. Firstly I look at 5e phb’s “Combat” section, and I see a bigass list of bulletpoints. Strap in, we’re gonna be here for a long while.

First matter is obviously “initiative”. Also includes surprise and turns and actions. Roll buckets of d20s at the start of every combat, for every pc and enemy, not to mention having the stat on all character sheets? That is as many as four tens (of d20s)! This is the very [I]soul of fiddly bull****.
At the start of the session, players determine for themselves in what order they’re gonna be acting during combat. They may decide all Defenders first, then all Attackers, or alternating roles, or whatever else they think will work best. Afterwards, I’d suggest they actually sit around the table in that order, starting from DM and going clockwise for a simple and very effective reminder of action order. But that’s not necessary, it’s just a thing I think neat, you can just write down the order on a small paper or something. This order doesn’t change (consult FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 for elaboration), but they can swap around on a new session. Then, when combat happens, DM decides when enemies will go. They may all go before the players, all after the players, alternating with players, minions first-normals in middle-strongs last, or whatever other way DM feels like.
This cuts down on the numbers and rolls we have to deal with and I also love the smell of napalm in the cowshed.
As for surprise, there’s so many insignificant bits and bobs that affect it, we may as well roll it up and blow into it (like a goddamn fiddle).

Next up on the phb, there’s turns. Specifically movement and actions. Putting aside the fiddly nature of various types of actions; on their turn, a player or an enemy can move then attack, attack then move, move then move more, move a little then attack then move a little more (but not attack then attack again). It’s fine. You might ask, what about the movement? Movement and grids (so long as they’re not obnoxious crap like hexes, wtf are you playing, Beehives&Dragons?) are actually something I don’t despise. The move/speed stat is just a single number and doesn’t keep changing like certain other ******* numbers (looking at you, initi... oh wait, you’re already dead, nvm), so it’s not an abomination unto me. The odd occasions where it does change are gone though, don’t you fiddle with me. Also hell naw to swim speeds and burrow speeds and fart speeds because FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1.

So welcome all to another new concept: optional rules. These are for the things that I don’t feel strongly about either way. I may not despise movement and grids, but I don’t adore them either. All players and enemies have a static move/speed stat if the group is playing neoDnD on a grid (30 feet or 6 squares for human sized creatures, and y’all can figure the rest from there). There’s no such stat if the group has decided to play theater of the mind style.

Coming back to the fiddly nature of action types, the distinctions are another thing that’s going to the trash. Bonus actions and reactions and free actions (even though they don’t call it that in 5e) are just complications for complications’ sake. On your turn, you can do stuff other than moving or attacking. Well, duh. Not on your turn, you can jack or you can squat. Because double duh. If this other thing you wanna do on your turn is something quick and simple, you just do it. If it’s moderately involved, you give up your move or attack for it. If it’s a hard or complex thing, takes all of your turn. I ain’t slapping labels on this crap, that’s just asking to drown in silly minutiae. All players and DMs are humans with millions of gray cells. Exercise those.

Then comes some silly in the form of “difficult terrain” and “prone” and “moving through creatures”. You can guess what happens to them.

And then suddenly, size. Size %100 matters and anyone claiming otherwise is a liar. So far, the crunching has been all about Bob and Dan and Al. But what’d happen if one of those was a giant? A dragon? A giant dragon? The answer is, nothing fiddly. We trashed a lot of traditional numbers so now only hp and damage (and maybe speed) remains. If the party’s power level is supposed to be where Bob can be a giant, he’ll still be Bob. Any lower level, and a giant is already a (yet unnamed) boss or a miniboss. So we don’t actually need rules like +1 size=+%50 hp or whatnot. It’s just that size matters and I want that to be emphasized.

Also, optional alert!!! If you’re not doing theater of the mind, you get Reach on big things. Again, DMs can exercise the gray cells to figure out the nitty gritty. And by that I mean just use regular ol’ DnD rules for it. They’re not fiddly, variable crap in need of a guillotine.

Next up on phb5e is a list of combat actions, plus improvization. This is silly, because they haven’t gotten around to explaining opportunity attacks yet, but they’re still mentioned here.
-Attacking/casting is just dealing damage, we know that.
-Dashing/running is just moving twice without attacking.
-Disengage is all a big mystery for now. (and thus prolly nothing important)
-Dodge is going full defense, which is just recovering your hp in neoDnD.
-Hide and Search are both out of combat skill checks for something in combat. Yeah, no. One does not simply cross the streams.
-Ready is some simulationist crap and has no place in something as heavily abstracted as neoDnD.

-Help is granting advantage to a buddy. It is IMPORTANT so gets a new paragraph all to itself. As we beatified advantage/disadvantage, this is totally in in neoDnD combat. Y’all kept going on about tactics above, well, here’s your fiddling tactics. Give up your basic attack and Resource generation to help your buddies deal better damage on theirs. Throw in the damage types (we’re getting there) on everyone’s attacks, resistances/vulnerabilities to them (also getting there) and the great advantage (yours truly’s speshul recipe), then you have a shovelful of “tacticool options” to worry about.

FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 allows this because there’s actually a gigantic difference between mandatory fiddly bull**** and optionally bothering with tactics.

After that, there’s some waxing poetic about attack rolls before finally getting around to describing opportunity attacks. Except we don’t need them. Defenders already have their marking to bring enemies who aren’t doing what they should in line. Attackers already do all the damage they’re supposed to be doing. And melee/range distinction already puts anyone caught at the wrong spot in a pickle. What more value can opportunity attacks bring to either? So off with their heads.
Which, yes, also means disengage isn’t a thing either.

Interrupting this discussion with breaking news:
You cannot move after you enter a melee enemy’s range.
You can only back off from the melee enemy until you’re outside melee range and then stop if you start your turn inside a melee enemy’s range.
A much cleaner, direct pair of rules that doesn’t have any of fiddling potential of opportunity attacks. It does jobs of both opportunity attacks and disengaging. If there isn’t enough space between the melee ranges of two enemies for your character to fit, you’re not allowed to move past them and will get stuck in melee if you approach. As a rule it’d work a lot better on a combat grid but even theater of the mind style will allow chokepoint shenanigans with this.
Imperatives=good, fiddly numbers=bad.

Afterwards more stuff we already trashed gets mentioned (like grappling and shoving), followed by cover. As we’re passionately in love with advantage/disadvantage, we’ll grudgingly let cover exist. With the caveat that the game must not be theater of the mind style, allowing cover to exist only makes sense on a combat grid. So again, optional alert!!! Cover exists. Not the small insignificant type though, gotta be a hard obstacle covering at least half of a target to count as actual cover and grant disadvantage to whoever is attacking. pcs and enemies aren’t cover either, cos there’s no such thing as a miss in neoDnD and friendly fire would make you feel even more like a total goddamn loser than merely missing.

Next up, criticals! We already changed that to rolling maximum on a damage roll, and then named the minimum “fumble” to boot. So what exactly does a crit do? It lets you roll again for bonus damage, similar to the usual. Except damage is attack now, meaning an extra die is an extra attack. Therefore you can in fact get multiple attacks on multiple enemies in one turn if you don’t want to hammer the same guy over and over. Crits are more likely to happen now that we’re rolling smaller dice too. This is cool, everyone loves getting crits. In fact, everyone loves crits so much I’m not even capping it. You keep rolling max on your die, you keep getting extra attacks. Besides if anyone rolls like twelve 10s in a row and one shots your big campaign boss on first round, it’s time they quit this dumb hobby and go to Vegas to get stinking rich anyway.

Astute readers will notice that Defender supers had rolling and wonder. The answer is yes: Defender supers can crit, allowing them to mark one extra enemy 1 time out of 6 (and two extra enemies 1 time out 36 and three extra enemies 1 time out of 216, ad infinitum). S2 in particular is kinda as likely to mark 5 dudes as 4. Attacker supers already hit hard and don’t need any extra damage (they also don’t have rolls).
Fumbles don’t bring extra punishment. A fumbled S1 doesn’t fail to mark or grant disadvantage or inflict any other penalty. The unbearable shame of having rolled a ****ing 1 at the worst possible moment is enough punishment. I’ve merely named it "fumble" to rub salt into it.
Bob doesn’t get crits btw. Because he’s basic. His betters will though.

Then we finally get to damage types and resistances. Actually this kinda has to become a big deal now that we’ve trashed so much, because types of damage are the single biggest thing we have left in the system if I wanna spice up combat every now and then (which I do). There’s a list, which I’m not gonna put right here because it actually has some slight bits of fluff attached. As in, says necrotic damage is “undead damage that withers body and soul”, which is a setting statement and goes kinda against neoDnD’s pure hard crunch stance; because how do I know this isn’t “shadow” damage that comes from the plane of Shadowfell or something else in your setting? That’s a very slight quibble but I’m leaving out a complete list of damage types and their descriptions for this reason. You just need to know that damage type is a thing and you should make a list for a game of neoDnD.

Of course, regular DnD’s “damage resistance” means halving it. As a wise FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 once said, Suffer not the division to live. So there goes a calf (this one wasn’t a full cow). In its stead, we’ll keep X immunity: take no damage from X. Then there’s X vulnerability: take double damage from X, it’s simple enough to live.
So for example, your warrior with flaming sword will always do 0 damage to an enemy efreet with his (fire) attacks but will do double damage to an enemy ice drake with the same attacks.

Next up, 5ephb reminds us that resurrection magic is a thing. Well thanks. Except it doesn’t have to be. Since hp means nothing (and also everything), running out of it can mean anything too. So fights can be ending with absolutely any result. Just because Dan ran out of hp doesn’t mean he got murderhoboed. Sky really is the limit in neoDnD, and not just in player character making.
You don’t want revolving door of resurrection? Then “defeated” players are just wounded, or fainted, or scared and ran off, or sympathized with the enemy and gave up, or too intimidated to move, or cried themselves to sleep after being cussed at. You want that grim and gritty grimdarkness of the dark in your game, everyone who falls has died screaming in pain.

Relatedly, you hit 0 hp, you’re out of combat. No death saving throws, no stabilizing, no healing to get back up. I gave both Attackers and Defenders ways of easily refilling their hp. They still manage to run out, they’re out. Whether they’re straight up dead or need to be taken to a temple for magically healing their wounds (as in actual wounds, like on their body; something that’s utterly unrelated to hit points) or just knocked out and only needs a bucket of water to the face is up to the DM (or rather up to the tone of the game everyone wants to be in).

Finally, last bits of 5ephb combat chapter has mounted and underwater combat. Not even dignifying that with a completed.

Now that I’m done with that, I’ll skip doing the same thing to previous phbs. I was gonna do that at first, but this line by line crap takes waaaay too long. And from what little I remember, 3e wouldn’t have anything groundbreakingly important over this and I don't even have 4ephb at hand. So, with my speshul recipe as the final point, this part about combat stuff should come to an end:

Advantage is awesome. Disadvantage is also awesome. We know these sentences to be truth. But what if I add them up? What happens if I put one awesome thing on top another awesome thing? It becomes the Great Advantage: when you have a combat advantage while your opponent has a combat disadvantage, you automatically crit.

Advantages/disadvantages don’t stack, that’s their whole point and makes them infinitely superior to older school +mods and their inane fiddlyness. But one’s advantage and another’s disadvantage are two seperate things and since we beatified them, we want them to be featured even more.
(disclaimer: There might still be a way to "solve combat" after all that, for a particular group of pcs. I don't care. Anyone who would go to all that effort would've quit reading this up at pc creation anyway. I've already done my best to chase them away, it should be fine by now.)

That's a whole lotta pages taken from wizards and hammered into a more pleasing shape.

Gloves Are Off: A Better Class of Enemy

So now that we’ve looked into that load of regular DnD rules (and trashed or mutilated a whole lot of them), we’re finally ready to get into making of the sausage.

Say hello to Adam the Advanced Adversary. Here’s Adam’s life goals:
-Be superior to Bob in every way
-Be able to maybe beat a pc mano a mano when the dice gods smile
-Be dangerous enough to be always notable in combat
-Have some cool and strong abilities
-Live long enough to show your cool stuff
-Don’t be better than pcs

The solution is obvious: Adams have supermoves too. But an actual supermeter would be a bit too much bookkeeping, there’s every chance that multiple Adams will happen, so they’ll just use a super every other round instead of tracking Resources for each. If there’s two Adams, have one use a super every round. If there’s three (or more), have them rotate doing their supers.
This is for cutting down on bookkeeping, as Adam is still just a henchman and doesn’t merit that much effort on DM’s part. We still haven’t quite made it to the big baddies with their own functioning supermeters.

Adam also has stats, because he’s superior to Bob. Moreover, since he doesn’t have a role, he’ll get them both on his hp and dmg.

First order of business, the bare bones. As a superior Bob who’s nevertheless inferior to (Defender) players, Adam gets d8+2 on his hit die. Since he’s gonna need to survive at least 3 rounds to show off his supermove, his total hd needs to be more than twice the number of players at least. So Adam’s hp becomes Yd8+2Y (where Y=2*players+1). Therefore, Adam’s average hp is 19,5 in a single player game and increases by 13 for every additional player. Bob can look at his piddly 9(+4,5 per) average hp and cry himself to sleep.

Remember readers, these are all averages. If you like to roll dozens of dice in your spare time, feel free to roll for all those hps while preparing for a game. No way in hell am I ever gonna do that but I see no reason to officially ban it.

(at this point, I’m open to suggestions about beefing Adam’s hp up further if they make sense)

Then, again, as a superior Bob who’s nevertheless inferior to (Attacker) players, Adam gets 1d10+2 on his basic attack. He even gets a backup attack to make sure he poses some theat to all players at all times, which is only slightly worse than his basic attack at 1d10.

Show us your stuff, Adam:
Adam the Advanced Adversary (strong enemy)
+2 on 2 main stats
random numbers on 4 stats
hp: Yd8+2Y (Y = 2*players+1)
dmg: 1d10+2
backup: 1d10
Super: Does a thing

Looking here, Adam’s just never beating Dan or Al solo. Dan will refill his 65 hp every 4 rounds and Adam, even on the virtually impossible event of rolling four 10s in a row, doesn’t have enough “deeps” to take Dan down, which means Dan will eventually grind him down to dust. Meanwhile Al will just light him up on round 2. Good thing he has a super, without that Adam can’t achieve his life goals.

At this point, Adam gets choices. I already see the objections: but dude, you steadfastly refuse to give players one single mathematical choice, how come enemies get customized? The answer is simple: enemies are all played by DM and not even slightly expected to be balanced with each other. And they’re also supposed to lose, so it’s not like their options are gonna be particularly good (unless DM is bad and/or doing it wrong).

Back to Adam’s potential supermoves, all of which are all pure crunch just like player stuff and also of which he can only have one:

A) Hit a player for 2d10+4 with advantage

B) Hit players (up to 4) for 1d10+2 with advantage

C) Hit a player for 1d10+2, recover same number of hp

Now here’s something that’s open to debate. Adam has no role, so he can have a Defendery super or an Attackery super. But whatever he gets, it’s gotta be weaker than player version. And all of his moves can crit (so can his basic/backup attack). And if dice smiles upon him, Adam can win against Dan or Al with any one of these supermoves. His chances of winning doesn’t have to be perfect odds, just that the possibility exists at all (unlike Bob) is enough.

I even thought of giving Adam moves forbidden to players. Such as healing Bobs or summoning minions/Bobs or making other enemies autocrit or making players autofumble or making himself immune to attacks or... I decided against it. That’s big baddie stuff, above Adam’s paygrade.

However! I have decided to do one solid to Adam and give him one passive bonus according to his flavor. If, for example, Adam is a displacer beast, his fake double means half of all attacks will miss him. Which, in neoDnD terms, translates to double hp. Or if Adam is a vampire, his draining touch inflicts disadvantage on any player he attacks for a round. Similar things can be stuff like damage type immunity, removed traditional vulnerability, autodamage aura, triple damage crits and whatever else DM can think of that’s not fiddly number bull**** (like +x to blargh).
As usual, I’m naively assuming that DM is actually in possession of large numbers of gray cells and will use this bit of rules to make things more fun instead of more dumb.

I welcome opinions or alternatives or analysis of this particular bit right here. Enemies are kind of a big deal for the funness of playing rpgs. I’m even debating about giving some passives to the basic baddie, cos if Bob’s a skeleton, he needs to have at least immunity to poison and whatevs.

Also btw, in case I haven’t explicitly mentioned until now, a minion is just Basic Bob with 1 hp. Keep that at the back of your minds.

A Bad Enough Dude: Power Equals Power

And finally, we’re up to the big bad. The head honcho. Now that mooks and henches are done, it’s time to meet the boss. I feel I’ve done enough explaining until now, so meet Steve without commentary.

Scumbag Steve (boss)
+5 both main stats
some more numbers on other stats
hp: 75 per player (maxed 5d10+25)
dmg: 1d4+5 (melee and range)
turns per round: #players-1 (minimum 2)
Resource 2/6
S1: Attacker S1
S2: Defender S2
S3: Summon 1d8 minions or 1d4 basic enemies or 1 strong enemy
S6: Defeat 1 player (very hard save to ignore, medium save to survive with 1 hp)
As many passive qualities as appropriate to flavor.

This isn’t something we should be throwing at a solo player. A couple of Adams with some minions seems to be about the upper limit of what one player can be subjected to. Steve needs to be faced with like at least 3 pcs to not become a pointless slaughter.
Also each Steve will be markedly different thanks to the last line.

I’m also open to suggestions here too. Steve might actually be too much, especially with all the extra stuff I’m gonna be piling on him.
Battle Bestiary

So let’s put all the badguy sheets together for quick comparisons. And I have, in fact, decided to hand out as many passive qualities to enemies as appropriate regardless of their type. So long as these passives aren’t fiddly ****, FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM 1 is satisfied.

Manuel the Minimal Monster (minion enemy)
hp: 1
dmg: 1d8 (melee or ranged)
As many passive qualities as appropriate to flavor.

Bob the Basic Baddie (basic enemy)
hp: Xd8 (X=players+1)
dmg: 1d8 (melee or ranged)
As many passive qualities as appropriate to flavor.

Adam the Advanced Adversary (strong enemy)
+2 main stats
some other numbers on other stats
hp: Yd8+2Y (Y=2*players+1)
dmg: 1d10+2 (melee or ranged)
backup: 1d10 (ranged or melee)
Super: does a cool thing every other round
As many passive qualities as appropriate to flavor.

Scumbag Steve (boss enemy)
+5 both main stats
some other numbers on other stats
hp: 75 per player
dmg: 1d4+5 (melee and range)
turns per round: #players-1 (minimum 2)
Resource 2/6
S1: Attacker S1
S2: Defender S2
S3: Summon 1d8 minions or 1d4 basic enemies or 1 strong enemy
S6: Defeat 1 player (very hard save to ignore, medium save to survive with 1 hp)
As many passive qualities as appropriate to flavor.

There we have it, folks. Enemy statblocks are a go. Possibly there should be another rank between strongs and bosses but for now it looks good.

And now for something completely different: examples. In order to make the following examples concrete, I’m gonna have to assume a party size. So 4 is as good a number as any. Also by definition, these enemies have to be from some sort of setting, therefore I’m gonna use my generic one. Now that we’re clear about these, let’s go.
Human Bandit (basic enemy)
hp: 22 (5d8)
dmg: hits with sword for 1d8 (physical) in melee
Cowardly: Vulnerability to all ranged damage
Bandits are the worst humanity has to offer and shy away from even the idea of getting hurt themselves.

Look at that, I’m even putting in some light fluff on their basic crunch.

Orc Warrior (basic enemy)
hp: 22 (5d8)
dmg: hits with axe for 1d8 (physical) in melee
Savagery: always have advantage in melee combat
Orcs always relish the prospect of close combat.

Elven Bladedancer (basic enemy)
hp: 22 (5d8)
dmg: hits with dual swords for 1d8 (physical) in melee
Dancer’s Grace: Immunity to ranged physical damage
Elven warriors are well trained in evasiveness.

One crunchy passive is worth 1000 fluffy words. No, your pcs aren’t getting similar passives because they’re expected to never ever outshine each other.

Dwarven Defender (basic enemy)
hp: 40 (5d8)
dmg: hits with warhammer for 1d8 (physical) in melee
Dwarven Constitution: hp is maximized
Dwarves are famous for their toughness.

No matter how fancy any Bob looks, your pcs are still better; meaning no, you can’t get this, or any other passive, either.

Goblin Thrower (basic enemy)
hp: 22 (5d8)
dmg: throws sharpened sticks for 1d8 (physical) at range
Death Fanatic: refill all hp whenever any ally or enemy is defeated
All goblins are psychopaths obsessed with killing and dying.
Fey Madness: Immunity to mental damage
Mortals just cannot comprehend the oddity of the fey minds.

Even when they’re extremely weak and borderline useless, good passives can do wonders for flavor.

Skeleton Soldier (basic enemy)
hp: 22 (5d8)
dmg: hits with rusted broken weapon for 1d8 (physical) in melee
Mindless Undead: Immunity to poison and mental damage
Skeletons do not have sentience. Or life.
Necromantic Binding: refill all hp at the start of your turn
The foul power of necromancy keeps these lifeless bones together.

Zombie (basic enemy)
hp: 40 (5d8)
dmg: slams for 1d8 (necrotic) in melee
Mindless Undead: Immunity to poison and mental damage
Zombies do not have sentience. Or life.
Shambling Dead: hp is maximized, refill all hp at the start of your turn
They never stop coming.
Boom Headshot: instantly destroyed with any crit, regardless of damage type
It’s the only way.

The dead traditionally make more dangerous foes than the living. Also you don’t need a moronic number of numbers to be imaginary and/or creative.

Dragon (basic enemy)
hp: 22 (5d8)
dmg: breathes fire for 1d8 (fire) in melee
Gargantuan Sized: fills 4x4 squares on a grid, has 4 square reach [disregard the line if not playing on a grid]
Dragons are big.
Elemental Being: Immunity to fire, cold, lightning, poison, acid, force damage types, Vulnerability to light, necrotic damage types
Dragons are of Elemental Chaos.

If you want a game so “high level” that you’d be beating up dragons and giants and archdevils by the dozen, you can very easily have it on neoDnD. Just like pcs, the exact numbers on the statblocks are utterly meaningless.

You’re obviously not gonna be mixing this Bob with one of the previous Bobs. It’s blindingly obvious that would be completely nonsensical so I’m not putting unnecessary fiddly rules around this sort of stuff. If, for some reason, you do need a rule to tell you to not put this dragon next to the above dwarven defender and then whine that hp numbers make no sense, you have bigger problems than the exact mechanics of the rpg system you’re playing with.


Moving on to some Adams, their biggest thing is the super. They also have more hp, dmg and a backup attack but it’s the super (and their passives) that’ll produce the variety that players crave.

Pyromancer (strong enemy)
Str-2 Cha+2
Dex0 Int+2
Con-1 Wis0
hp: 58 (9d8+18)
dmg: shoot bolt of fire for 1d10+2 (fire) at range
backup: spray flames from hands for 1d10 (fire) in melee
Fireball (every 2 rounds): blast players (up to 4) at range for 1d10+2 (fire) with advantage
Pyromania: Immunity to fire damage
This mad wizard dedicated his whole life to mastering fire and now his magic absorbs it harmlessly.

The mad wizard of . A very traditional enemy. He could’ve been a Bob just as easily as an Adam.

Giant Juggernaut (strong enemy)
Str+2 Cha+1
Dex-2 Int0
Con+2 Wis0
hp: 58 (9d8+18)
dmg: bash with giant mace for 1d10+2 (physical) in melee
backup: throw big rock for 1d10 (physical) at range
Hardball (every 2 rounds): grab and fling away a player in melee, preferably at another player at range, for 2d10+4 (physical) (to both if it’s used on two players)
Giant Sized: fills 2x2 on a grid, has 2 squares reach [I][disregard if not playing on grid]
Heavily Armored: Immunity to physical damage
The giant blacksmiths are extremely good at their craft.
Inhuman Strength: Every attack knocks players back 2 squares away from the giant
The force of a giant is impossible to stand up to for mere mortals.

Another very traditional enemy concept. It’s pretty much immune to the bog standard DnD martial classes. Luckily neoDnD “martials” aren’t locked to one damage type as a matter of course.
And also, I’m breaking my own rules here. The super hits two players instead of the usual 4 and does double damage to compensate. This is twice as strong as the single target enemy super, but with its advantage removed for a slight concern for balance. Long and short of it, the coolness of the ability justifies this irregularity (also known as screw the rules, it’s awsom).

Phase Spider (strong enemy)
Str0 Cha-1
Dex+2 Int+1
Con+2 Wis+1
hp: 232 (quadrupled 9d8+18)
dmg: bite for 1d10+2 (poison) in melee
backup: planeshift to Ethereal Plane to bite a player’s soul then return for 1d10 (necrotic) at range
Astral Shock (every 2 rounds): momentarily knock a player’s physical body to Astral Plane for 2d10+4 (disruption) with advantage
Instinctive Phaseshift: hp is quadrupled
Spiders of the cracks between realities have mastered the art of planeshifting and are almost impossible to hurt.
Feeding Frenzy: if a player is defeated with basic attack, phase spider drags the prey to Astral Plane and doesn’t come back (player is lost)
Interdimensional spiders don’t stick around the Material world once they get what they want.

Instead of being obnoxious *******s and making players miss a billion goddamn times in between a scant few hits, neoDnD’s ultraevasive enemies get copious amounts of bonus hp for the exact same mathematical end result. And then there’s a little fluffy bit of crunch that’s virtually useless in combat, a trademark of various DnDs. That’s actually a fun and neat thing if it doesn’t result in pointless extra calculations.
Although a phase spider’s prey isn’t necessarily permanently gone (as it’s possible to get an extraplanar rescue going if pcs have such capabilities), the odds of them having such a capacity is very low at a “level” where a single phase spider is an Adam instead of Bob. And if that was the case, you may as well just remove that passive unless it’ll do something important for the plot.

Dragon (strong enemy)
Str+2 Cha+4
Dex-1 Int+2
Con+2 Wis+3
hp: 58 (9d8+18)
dmg: rend with claws for 1d10+2 (physical) in melee
backup: breathe elemental energy of a type of its choosing for 1d10 (fire or cold or lightning or acid or force) at range
Draconic Rage (every 2 rounds): grab a player with jaws and breathe on for 2d10+4 (fire or cold or lightning or acid or force) with advantage
Gargantuan Sized: fills 4x4 squares on a grid, has 4 square reach [disregard the line if not playing on a grid]
Dragons are big.
Elemental Being: Immunity to fire, cold, lightning, poison, acid, force damage types, Vulnerability to light, necrotic damage types
Dragons are of Elemental Chaos.
Aura of Power: All players in melee range have disadvantage
A dragon is a terrifying force of nature and just being near them is painfully dizzying.

And here’s the exact same dragon again, when faced by lower “level” players. It has very high mental stats but just for fluff purposes. It uses its physical abilities in combat, so those are the ones that affect his dmg and hp. Since it’s now an Adam, it gets to freely pick its damage type because it deserves more effort from DM. Which means yes, dragon Bob above could’ve also breathed nonfire energies; this might’ve come up outside of combat but it defaulted to fire for fighting because that was its the strongest breath.

General principle: When the game’s power level is chosen to be high enough that a particular enemy will be Bob, its stats and some passives cease to matter and are thus removed from its sheet. A Bob fire wizard wouldn’t be immune to fire. A Bob giant wouldn’t be able to knock players around.

Demodand (strong enemy)
Str0 Cha+2
Dex0 Int0
Con+2 Wis+2
hp: 58 (9d8+18)
dmg: slam with caustic sludge for 1d10+2 (acid) in melee
backup: incite memories of the worst moment in one’s life for 1d10 (mental) at range
Embrace of the Depths (every 2 rounds): engulf a player for 2d10+4 (acid+evil+chaos) in melee with advantage [requires Immunity to all damage types to be immune]
Tarterian Collective: Immunity to acid, poison, psionic, force damage types
Natives of Tartarus are well accustomed to their plane’s conditions that would kill any mortal within seconds.
Murky Form: Vulnerability to cold damage
The caustic red mud of demodand bodies is particularly susceptible to being frozen.
Tide of Evil: a demodand defeated with any non-cold damage becomes a portal to Tartarus that summons two more
The Tarterian Collective is an inexorable tide of evil that can drown all opposition.
Schadenfreudivorous: Absorbs mental damage to regain lost hp
The demodand mindset is so antithetical to mortal comprehension that most assumptions about it backfires.

Here’s a critter that’s about 90% against the principles of neoDnD on account of being a particularly hubar’d version of a DnD beastie. Almost like more fluff than crunch. But is a good example of what sort of diversity you can get without fiddly numbers.
And yes, I prolly should’ve put dmg Absorption up in the rules next to dmg Immunity.

......
And here's that addendum that was promised. And another addendum added to it.

jindra34
2018-06-02, 08:06 PM
You have a lot of personal emotional investment in this but I want you to consider something: A lot of the RPGs that get recommended, and have displayed staying power in communities have lots of those fiddly bits, modifiers, and pretty much directly contradict your axiom's. So here's a question: Is this system just for you, or is it something you expect people to want to come back to and play multiple times after playing it once?
Because in the later case you need to sit down, look over a lot of systems, do a lot of work, and take yourself out of the design process. Simple fact is that all those bits your extracting, 'mutilating' and other wise disregarding do work, even if its only to help people all stay on the same standards so that character A is character A regardless of GM. Whats sometimes called Convention Logic.

Pronounceable
2018-06-02, 11:15 PM
And here's me answering, as promised.

...your goal is to trick people who want to play D&D into playing something else by pretending that the something else is a form of D&D...obvious moral issues with this approach...
Stay tuned for the spinoff thread: Was Pronounceable Morally Justified In Committing Heinous Homebrew?

I don't see how it could possibly work. The system you've presented is very obviously not D&D, and anyone who's played D&D before would recognize that.
You'd be surprised how much random **** people are prepared to swallow when it's presented to them as "my homebrewedTM DnD" instead of "neat new indie osr game Cairns&Catoblepas".


Your system boils everything down to 'deal damage'. But there are those of us who want to influence the course of a fight without ticking down numbers.
Note that a system can provide options for both simpler and more complex characters.
But the advantage of having these noncombat powers and a combat system that is not just 'roll damage against hp' is that I can suddenly use these noncombat abilities in combat.
These tactical choices don't have to get in the way of the game,
Yes I know all of those. And you also know what my answer to all those is (which is not happening here). You know my main goal here as well, since it's is your own main goal in that nuDnD you're making, and the ideas you advocate don't fit.


That being said, the stated design goals suggest some different final mechanics to me, so I figure I'll make the suggestions on the chance they would be useful but were not originally considered.
Oh hey, a post with actual meat on it. Neat.


I feel like you could probably get rid of the ability scores entirely at this point.
I had, in fact, already gotten rid of them first. There were only the 4 combat stats on first go, misses were still in back then, those were the days... But then I brought them back because they're useful in defining characters and are one of the more nonoffensive sacred cattle. And can still act as guidelines about a pc's noncombat actions, even with mental ones mutated. Dude what put -2 on str prolly doesn't even lift, so you give him higher difficulty than other dude with +1 on it when they're trying to something muscle related.


I assume your hatred of fiddly bits extends to battle maps?
Strangely enough, no (tho I do ****ing despise minis and would burn them all given the chance, as an extension of my hatred of capitalism that tries to convince me to buy pointless dumb **** every moment of every day). A grid map just sits there, not randomly going up to +12 from -7 or demanding you roll an extra die every 17,5 seconds. And range does matter, in a very solid crunchy way, both as the single precious bit of customization allowed for player characters and as a matter of tactics.


Another option to consider (although this would require a rework of the Supers) would be removing the notion of individualized hit points...
On one hand, that's a neat idea and would make a real kickass game. On the other hand, it would also be a bridge too far, as neoDnD is at least trying to pretend it's even remotely related to ordinary DnD. That would also make players feel like cards of a deck in a cardgame instead of individual heroes working together to save the world/get rich.


Outside of combat
I'm keeping out of combat unruled on purpose. Without any official rules to constrain them, players will be able to do whatever they can think of so long as it fits the power level of the game chosen by the group.


Maybe not everybody is ready to embrace it, but as a grognard who is old and tired of Christmas trees and fiddly modifiers, I'm a big fan.
I knew this stuff would appeal to old schoolers who'd've been sick of fiddly bull**** about a decade before now.


well I mean just playing a different system and calling it D&D is the same end result as what you're trying to do here.
You're not wrong but I feel that putting a rulebook that says "FATE/GURPS/M&M/13A/etc" on the table would kinda give it away.


No offense, but i thought this was a very subtle piece of satire.

Congratulations on the brilliant satire of would-be amateur game designers.

Agreed. It's a brilliant joke setup: aggressively and passionately defending one of the most bland and inoffensive proposals that anyone could make just to try to get a rise out of people over nothing.

It's a bit of a niche audience, but a well constructed joke, nonetheless.
I can multitask.


It reminds me so much of The angry DM, (http://theangrygm.com/) who has many brilliant ideas but states them in such a way that you want to punch him in the face for it.
OK. Go on.


a)No advancement…Eh, Mixed feelings about this. The main benefit of advancement (besides the endless skinner box of levleing) is that is provides change- it gives you new and inserting abilities and skills to toy with. Likewise, the gameplay priorities change from low-level to mid levels to high levels, and a lack of advancement all means this change is absent; an variety is the spice of life and gaming alike.
Human is a malfunctioning product. It craves order and stability, it demands that tomorrow should be exactly like today. But whenever it gets what it claimed to want, it starts to sulk. Complains about the status quo, whines that everything is all repetitive and same and boring and demands things to change. And if that happens, it complains even more, comparing how everything has become worse these days and that back in the day it was so much better and whines about wanting to make things great again. It is impossible to satisfy. I'd take it back to shop and ask for my money back if I still had the receipt.

What that pile of bull**** means for this particular thread is that no, you cannot have variety in your neoDnD player characters. They're for stabilizing and grounding you into the made-up fantasyland and its neverending chaos and excitement, as will be provided by the DM.


b) No gear’s kinda good: it is fiddly and gear-dependant classes are lame. But again, it has a run-on problem in that it removes a source of motivation. You need to make sure the PC have one, otherwise they’ll just sit on their asses
I don't understand why someone who doesn't actually wanna play the game would be sitting around this table in the first place. Like, I know it sometimes happens, but just tell those players to, like, not do that. That's not the sort of problem any game rule can fix anyway.


d) Mental stat changes: this is brilliant actually. My only nitpick is that “Mental constitution” frankly sounds stupid: it should be mental fortitude or something like that.
I don't think it's any stupider than mental dexterity. Nevertheless, int/wis/cha is still sticking around just for such opinions.


No stat scores…just modifers?
Yep. I'm given to understand it's one of the commonest homebrews all over the nerdy world.


It’s unclear if you add the stats scores to these rolls.
You don't. It's all arbitrary handwringing anyway, DM is (and has always been) free to assign whatever the hell he/she/it wants as difficulty class. All those +2s and -3s and **** is always just dumb numbers for dumb numbers' sakes. We're just making a steak of the middlecow.


I will also note that many systems do a lot of these already, to various degrees.
Great artists steal.


Don’t brag about metaphorically killing them cattle, Metaphorical butchers have done it as well.
Yet they are still around. Clearly those butchers didn't do a good enough job.


I honestly think it should be a quaternary...
Everything just boils down to damage after you give it a good shake.


Plus there are no options for battlefield control or buffing/debuffing.
What's a buff? Isn't it just my damage that happens to happen on someone else's turn? Why yes, it is. And is control just putting some bonus hp on whoever the "controlled" enemy was going to hit? Lemme think... yes, it is.


If too many of the opposing players are defenders, it could cause a battle to drag out longer than it should.
No cos too many Defenders S1ing the **** out of him will rock his world faster than any number of Attackers can. Tho you prolly saw that later.


How much health per player? From the way it’s described, he has 8 health against one foe, 16 health against 2 foes...
Averages to 9+4,5s. Or you can roll each die if you feel like it.


Supermeters ...The best part so far!
Yes I'm pretty happy how they turned out.


it would be nice if you could cherry-pick from a bunch of related abilities for each tier, effectively making the 2 classes explode into an arbitrarly large number of classes.

That'd require me to make a bunch of related abilities for each tier. And then the next thing you know, you're publishing Monster Manual 14 with snotslinger goblin and fiendish megatipede (XXL size) in it. Slippery slope, that.


At this point, Bob... steps out of line he instantly dies.
He a basic. That's his job.


does damage AND
I might maaaybe let them inflict disadvantage. But I'm rather happy with how supers work atm.


Let the rogue open lockboxes, pickpocket the dragon, lie their way into the princess’ privy! Let the mages cats passwall, teleport, summon greater 10-ft pole! Let the fighter bust damns by flexing, coordinate tactical advacnes, build the own forge with their bare hands! Give room to go beyond combat!
Question: When do the players not do those things?
Answer: When there are rules wrapped around them.


Not sure how I feel about attacks/backup attacks. Is there any benefit for melee attacks at all?
Yes. It's on the other one.


To these players, you are fixing things that aren’t broken, and they’ll leave their reading of this ruleset frustrated.
I mean, I already told them what's gonna go down almost right at the start. If they're still reading unhappily, it's on them.


Preacher of the Black Hand: Hard to do in D&D sure… But not in Fate or Fate Core. Plus you could just use those words as fluff for a cleric with ordinary cleric spells, or even stat him as a particularly devout bard.
And is he gonna be able to keep up with a power attacking greatsword fighter or a sneak attack machinerogue or whatever noneuclidian halfaasimar/quarteraarakocra/demihalfling barbarian/monk/paladin/warlock/seal clubber abomination that the Internet Experts came up with as the peak melee damage delaer? I don't think so.


Beastmaster Druid: Simple. Basic 3.5 druid with argument summons.
Simple to make? Maybe. Simple to run with those eleventy hundred summons running around every goddamn round? Hell naw.


“What’s stopping players from just using their basic damage for literally every attack?”
Uh, the... rules? Melee attacks aren't ranged attacks.


I like much of the system, but you come across as aggressive and self-congratulating. I resent that, and I do not think I am alone in that.
Alright.


And this is all I have to say so far. When you make mechanics for boss monsters, expect another counter-rantIt's up.


So here's a question: Is this system just for you...?
Yyyes? Isn't that, like, right at the start? Anyone else is just bonus.

This takes so much time it's not even funny. I shouldn't have said I'll go over the comments. Well, next time I'll know better.

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-03, 04:23 AM
Because in the later case you need to sit down, look over a lot of systems, do a lot of work, and take yourself out of the design process. Simple fact is that all those bits your extracting, 'mutilating' and other wise disregarding do work, even if its only to help people all stay on the same standards so that character A is character A regardless of GM. Whats sometimes called Convention Logic.

Oh god, the amount of research you have to do to seriously design a game is insane. My current target is Unknown Armies 3e, I'm trying to figure out what counts as 'broken' in the system (I mean, you can make some pretty wild custom Adept schools, but they'll generally either be more limited than useful or really hard to get Charges for).

A lot of my current design pulls out of needing a compromise with my group. I want something more customisable than D&D, but they'd have problems building characters in something like The Dark Eye. That's why my game is based around turning class features into Talents, and flips back and forth between using a proficiency bonus and skill ranks (note using Skill Ranks* again, but with a maximum rating of your level/3+3, rounded mathematically). Then again I've essentially give in the exact opposite direction to this thread, adding several more derived stats in order to make play less fiddly (for example AC has become Melee Defence, Ranged Defence, Psychic Defence, and Spiritual Defence, but they very much remain static).

I really do agree with cutting down the Christmas Tree, and honestly have considered doing away with it as well. But I've met many players who like weapons being differentiated by more than fluff, which is why I'm going with tags (versatile, trapping, reach, lever, light, thrown, ranged, heavy, brutal, just as a few examples). It keeps weapons different without requiring a bunch of different dice (want to dismount an opponent? A lever weapon is your friend).

* Seriously, if 5e would use your proficiency bonus it's a skill. Mundanes get a lot of skill points, making them the most versatile warriors but not the best.

Lalliman
2018-06-03, 10:01 AM
The formula I've found to be true while experimenting with rules-light and rules-heavy games is as follows: The more rules-light a game is, the more it accommodates players and DMs who are creative, cooperative and well-attuned. The more rules-heavy a game is, the more it accommodates players and DMs who are uninspired or poorly attuned.

This sounds like a judgement on the latter, but it's not, it's simply an appraisal on the values of each approach. In a rules-light game, a creative and skilled DM will flourish while a mediocre DM will crumple without the scaffolding that the rules provide. In a rules-heavy game, a highly-creative player will feel confined by the limits of the system, but an average player will feel inspired by the various options that the rules provide, options that they might not think of themselves or that they might otherwise disregard as invalid if no structure for them exists.

This is of course a generalisation that only represents one side of the divide between rules-light and rules-heavy games, but it's the one I mention because it's relevant here. Also note that rules-light and rules-heavy is a spectrum, not a binary distinction. D&D 5e is rules-light compared to D&D 3.5, but rules-heavy compared to Fate Core.

Now the point: What I see here is a system that attempts to be rules-light in the extreme in order to accommodate creative and well-attuned players. It could certainly work... if you had four clones of yourself to play with. That's the limiting factor here. This system is so idiosyncratic, so strongly dependent on the creativity and assertiveness of the players to create their own fun, and on the DM to create interesting stories and challenges with basically no support or scaffolding, that you're going to have a difficult time finding anyone else who would prefer this wasteland of opportunities over the support and consistency provided by a different system, even a different rules-light one.

Like, I have a rules-light game of my own design that I like very much, and that I bring out when playing with my close friends. But I still use D&D 5e for general purposes, because no matter how much one could rave about fiddly and restrictive mechanics, having a consistent framework of meaningful options makes life so much easier for the casual player.

So, yeah. I'm not gonna tell you what you should or shouldn't do, but I'm curious to hear of your experiences once you finish this up and play test it a couple times. Because I expect that no matter how eloquently you back up your design decisions, the response you'll get from most people will be "Meh, it's alright. I wish there was more to it."

Kaptin Keen
2018-06-03, 10:13 AM
The formula I've found to be true while experimenting with rules-light and rules-heavy games is as follows: The more rules-light a game is, the more it accommodates players and DMs who are creative, cooperative and well-attuned. The more rules-heavy a game is, the more it accommodates players and DMs who are uninspired or poorly attuned.

I'm guessing you don't particularly enjoy the rules-heavy systems, then?

Pleh
2018-06-03, 10:38 AM
The formula I've found to be true while experimenting with rules-light and rules-heavy games is as follows: The more rules-light a game is, the more it accommodates players and DMs who are creative, cooperative and well-attuned. The more rules-heavy a game is, the more it accommodates players and DMs who are uninspired or poorly attuned.

Yes and no.

Rules are blockages. They act like physical blocks of material that prevent moving through them.

For the uninspired and/or poorly attuned, the common use for blockages are prohibitions to narrow the playing field.

But for the mechanically minded player, these rules can be stepping stones or even building blocks rather than stumbling blocks. The game of optimization is a powerful tool that isn't possible in rules light games like it is in a well built rules heavy games.

Some of the character builds in the Iron Chefs are certainly "inspired and well attuned" and they emphasize the heaviness and complexity of the rules.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-03, 11:41 AM
Based on some of your responses, I'm going to make two more suggestions:

The first is to make... to be honest, I'd say two more archetypes: the Controller and the Supporter, with the former's abilities hampering foes (reduce-their-next-damage and/or deplete their super meter) and the latter's abilities boosting allies (increase their damage and/or super meter and/or health). I sort of see how you can sum them up under defender and attacker with a very abstract definition of hit points, but I think the extra... honestly, not even half-step in complexity would make things a lot more intuitive, and help the combat be at least a little bit less "roll dice until someone falls down." Not to mention allowing you to have more party-members who don't step on each others' mechanical toes.

The second... I would suggest taking a page from Fate's Aspects system, and introducing some sort of keyword feature. Not really as a mechanical thing so much as a way to formalize character concepts a bit, to say "these are the things that make my guy special." Fighter John might be Really Strong, a Great Leader, and have some Seven League Boots. Wizard Jane might be particularly good at Telekinetic Magic, Fire Magic, and be a Great Historian. They would then serve to guide the GM a little bit in how difficult to make checks and what they should allow in terms of out-of-combat capability. Jane might need to make a Hard check to convince the guard to stand and fight, but for John it might only be Easy. Conversely, Bob might find it impossible to retrieve an item from the other side of an iron grate (at least without ripping it out of the wall), while Jane would have no problems doing it via magic. (As a bonus, this would probably let you go the rest of the way towards eliminating ability scores).

Kaptin Keen
2018-06-03, 12:01 PM
Rules are blockages.

Nonsense - rules are conduits. If creativity is water, rules are the channels that allow creativity to create something useful - rather than something random.

Pleh
2018-06-03, 12:18 PM
Nonsense - rules are conduits. If creativity is water, rules are the channels that allow creativity to create something useful - rather than something random.

We're not actually disagreeing, but if we're picking nits, I'm game.

False dichotomy: if random were not useful, no one would sell dice.

The point of rules is constraint. Conduits and channels constrain flow of fluids. They employ blockages to create this constraint.

The usefulness of removing constraint in a game is allowing more spontaneous creativity. In these games, your creativity is fighting against writer's block.

The usefulness of imposing constraints in a game is provoking more deductive creativity. In these games, your creativity is puzzle solving to work out an optimum solution given a set of parameters.

Whether you beat an ogre by smart, tactical use of mechanics or by randomly attemptinh to drop a chandelier on it isn't a question of usefulness. Both methods have exactly the same use: overcoming the ogre. They employ different kinds of creative problem solving.

Rules block a player from choosing ANY solution, but they can point a player to solutions they might never consider if their intuitive solution weren't blocked.

Rules are blockages.

Kaptin Keen
2018-06-03, 03:19 PM
We're not actually disagreeing, but if we're picking nits, I'm game.

False dichotomy: if random were not useful, no one would sell dice.

The point of rules is constraint. Conduits and channels constrain flow of fluids. They employ blockages to create this constraint.

The usefulness of removing constraint in a game is allowing more spontaneous creativity. In these games, your creativity is fighting against writer's block.

The usefulness of imposing constraints in a game is provoking more deductive creativity. In these games, your creativity is puzzle solving to work out an optimum solution given a set of parameters.

Whether you beat an ogre by smart, tactical use of mechanics or by randomly attemptinh to drop a chandelier on it isn't a question of usefulness. Both methods have exactly the same use: overcoming the ogre. They employ different kinds of creative problem solving.

Rules block a player from choosing ANY solution, but they can point a player to solutions they might never consider if their intuitive solution weren't blocked.

Rules are blockages.

I'm pretty sure we agree here: I just felt the opposite view needed representation, and I'm trying to be very slightly humorous about it.

If creativity is water, having no constraints at all means you have only a puddle on the floor. Having too many means you have something like a fountain - it may be pretty, but it doesn't allow for much freedom. Ideally, you have like (sorry, just going with the metaphor) a water mill, churning out good ideas.

Heh - right? =)

Lalliman
2018-06-04, 12:58 PM
Rules are blockages. They act like physical blocks of material that prevent moving through them.

Nonsense - rules are conduits. If creativity is water, rules are the channels that allow creativity to create something useful - rather than something random.
As you've already figured out, we're all in agreement. Because what is channel, if not a blockage on both sides of the stream?


The game of optimization is a powerful tool that isn't possible in rules light games like it is in a well built rules heavy games. Some of the character builds in the Iron Chefs are certainly "inspired and well attuned" and they emphasize the heaviness and complexity of the rules.
This is also true, for reasons that fall outside of my stated hypothesis. As I said, I only stated one perspective because that's the one that is relevant to this thread. Obviously, many people like complex mechanics just for the sake of them, and that is also who rules-heavy systems are for. I think you could create an alignment grid for this, replacing Good vs Evil and Law vs Chaos with Inspired vs Uninspired and Mechanically-Minded vs Abstractly-Minded, which I think would provide an incomplete but mostly-applicable blanket answer for the complex topic of why people prefer light or heavy systems. But this is getting off-topic.

Psyren
2018-06-04, 06:21 PM
I was saying your system isn't particularly original or good, but if your main issue is playing other systems with people who only want to play D&D...well I mean just playing a different system and calling it D&D is the same end result as what you're trying to do here.



You're not wrong but I feel that putting a rulebook that says "FATE/GURPS/M&M/13A/etc" on the table would kinda give it away.

You could always rip the pages out from {favorite system} and rebind them in a spine that says "Totally Real D&D, Honest!" :smalltongue:

Otherwise, yeah, kudos on the satire! (I think.)

Knaight
2018-06-04, 06:33 PM
You could always rip the pages out from {favorite system} and rebind them in a spine that says "Totally Real D&D, Honest!" :smalltongue:

Otherwise, yeah, kudos on the satire! (I think.)

Or you just sandwhich them between Pathfinder and OSIRIC.

Pronounceable
2018-06-06, 12:50 AM
Thread is going off rails. Has some bits of interestinghood though, so it's all right. A whole bunch of enemy designing is updated to show what's actually going on in combat too, so we've got that going for us.

Choice comments:

This system is so idiosyncratic, so strongly dependent on the creativity and assertiveness of the players to create their own fun...
"Hit points and damage are stupidly abstracted amalgamations of ****loads of unrelated things" is a radically idiosyncratic and difficult to grasp idea? Well, that's news to me.

having a consistent framework of meaningful options makes life so much easier for the casual player.
Do you (and also all the other yous in this thread) seriously think the fiddly maths cancer systems like regular DnD make life easier for a hypothetical casual player than a stable and static set of numbers? Like, seriously?

The first is to make... to be honest, I'd say two more archetypes: the Controller and the Supporter, with the former's abilities hampering foes (reduce-their-next-damage and/or deplete their super meter) and the latter's abilities boosting allies (increase their damage and/or super meter and/or health).
Let's assume for a moment I wanted to do this. How would those not be a bunch of fiddly +s and -s? The only possible way would be to start throwing around maximize/minimize next rolls and inflict advantage/disadvantages. And then we might as well just throw the dice to trash and play a collectible card game.

and help the combat be at least a little bit less "roll dice until someone falls down."
This just ain't happening.
Alternately, that's a description of all versions of DnD if you boil it down enough.

Not really as a mechanical thing so much as a way to formalize character concepts a bit, to say "these are the things that make my guy special." Fighter John might be Really Strong, a Great Leader, and have some Seven League Boots. Wizard Jane might be particularly good at Telekinetic Magic, Fire Magic, and be a Great Historian. They would then serve to guide the GM a little bit in how difficult to make checks and what they should allow in terms of out-of-combat capability.
All of that is just common sense and would get drowned under a bunch of formalized rules. Sure, one DM's common sense may be different than another's, but that's a feature of pnp games. As I've said before, this is year 2018. If we want a load of intricate inviolable rules surrounding a blackhole of maths, we should just play Diablo.

"Totally Real D&D, Honest!"
You know what, imma rename this whole project that. It's not neoDnD anymore.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-06, 07:21 AM
Let's assume for a moment I wanted to do this. How would those not be a bunch of fiddly +s and -s? The only possible way would be to start throwing around maximize/minimize next rolls and inflict advantage/disadvantages. And then we might as well just throw the dice to trash and play a collectible card game."
Numbers off the top of my head:

Controller (melee/ranged)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 other stats
hp: 40
dmg: 1d8
Resource: 3/3
S1: Hit one enemy for 1d6, reduce their next damage roll by the same amount
S2: Hit up to four enemies for 2d6 and immobilize them.
S3: Hit up to four enemies for 3d6 and they lose their next action.

Leader (melee/ranged)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 other stats
hp: 50
dmg: 1d6
Resource: 0/3
S1: Hit one enemy for +1d6, one ally can mov
S2: Grant one Resource to an ally, and they can move and make a basic attack immediately.
S3: All allies heal 21 and their next attacks deal +2d6 damage

Nothing too fiddly, certainly no worse than the Defender's marks, but a nice little bit of extra variety.

Lalliman
2018-06-06, 03:43 PM
"Hit points and damage are stupidly abstracted amalgamations of ****loads of unrelated things" is a radically idiosyncratic and difficult to grasp idea? Well, that's news to me.
I don't know why I needed another confirmation, but the sheer irrelevance of your repetitive response speaks volumes about the pointlessness of this discussion. You can't play chess with a pigeon, people.

Kish
2018-06-06, 03:47 PM
You can't play chess with a pigeon, people.
I've known some very smart pigeons.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-06, 03:57 PM
I don't know why I needed another confirmation, but the sheer irrelevance of your repetitive response speaks volumes about the pointlessness of this discussion. You can't play chess with a pigeon, people.
It inspired me to write an even-more-barebones system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560350-Kid-Friendly-One-Notecard-RPG&p=23117683#post23117683), so... progress?

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-06, 04:19 PM
You know what, imma rename this whole project that. It's not neoDnD anymore.

As it should have been from the start.

Heck, even my 'newD&D' project has never been referred to as XD&D. It began off as the very bland A20, but it's honestly on something like it's fifth or six iteration and has pretty consistently used the title Wraiths and Ruins since the last days of version 1.


Numbers off the top of my head:

Controller (melee/ranged)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 other stats
hp: 40
dmg: 1d8
Resource: 3/3
S1: Hit one enemy for 1d6, reduce their next damage roll by the same amount
S2: Hit up to four enemies for 2d6 and immobilize them.
S3: Hit up to four enemies for 3d6 and they lose their next action.

Leader (melee/ranged)
+3 primary stat +2 secondary stat
+1, 0, -1, -2 other stats
hp: 50
dmg: 1d6
Resource: 0/3
S1: Hit one enemy for +1d6, one ally can mov
S2: Grant one Resource to an ally, and they can move and make a basic attack immediately.
S3: All allies heal 21 and their next attacks deal +2d6 damage

Nothing too fiddly, certainly no worse than the Defender's marks, but a nice little bit of extra variety.

Now those are some nice roles.


It inspired me to write an even-more-barebones system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560350-Kid-Friendly-One-Notecard-RPG&p=23117683#post23117683), so... progress?

Honestly, I think it's a better system. It seems to have a definite audience, I like how Skills and Powers add variety to characters without increasing complexity, and while the combat is a little more complex than it needs to be, it's actually more active than in notneoD&D.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-06, 05:05 PM
Honestly, I think it's a better system. It seems to have a definite audience, I like how Skills and Powers add variety to characters without increasing complexity, and while the combat is a little more complex than it needs to be, it's actually more active than in notneoD&D.
Thanks :smallredface: Any thoughts on what to cut from the combat?

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-06, 05:19 PM
Thanks :smallredface: Any thoughts on what to cut from the combat?

It depends. I'm not overly sold that the system needs positioning as a part of combat, but as I could take Sword Fighting or Marksmanship as skills there might still be situations where it comes up. It might just be because I prefer theatre of the mind.

Note that 'more complex than it needs to be' is not 'bad'. With or without positioning being important KFONRPG still has more tactical combat without actually being more complex (because each successful attack deals one hit, but you can do stuff other than attack). You could potentially even add in a fourth Nice move, Defend (give the next person to attack you a Bad Die) without making it more complex, but I like how not having that option makes it more active.

The difference is that KFON has much simpler characters than NNDD, but slightly more complex combat. Not that much more complex, instead of an attack and three supers I have to keep in mind six actions and my Specials, and it does come out much simpler. But those simple characters are significantly more flexible, even if you can essentially spend a Special in order to attack with your highest Ability.

Cealocanth
2018-06-06, 06:32 PM
You seem to ignore the issue of power creep here. Is there a system in place for determining what a character's super-move or special ability can do? The closest thing to one, as far as I can tell is relying upon the GM to determine if something will be OP or not and not allowing things he thinks will be OP.

Power creep is an issue a lot of games face where abilities, characters, and the like are expanded upon over time in reoccuring expansions. In your case, it comes from players making new characters. If Alice makes a character who has the supermove to deal 1d6 and disarm the opponent, Bob may decide, with his character, to be able to deal 1d8 and trip the opponent. Then Carl comes along and makes his ability deal 40 damage and steals all the HP from an adjacent opponent. Then Dave comes along and makes a character that has the ability to remove all HP from an opponent on a whim. It's when one-upsmanship goes overboard, and you end up having to either play a literal god or not be able to play the game at all because their generic Dave the Fighter character can't possibly measure up to Rxkly'kix the Lovecraftian God who also happens to be in the party.

Most MMOs don't fix this problem, which is why after each expansion, everything in the previous expansion becomes mostly obsolete. MTG curbs power creep (although does not eliminate it entirely) by limiting the amount of extra powerful cards that come in a new deck and reintroducing old cards to the game.

The problem with relying on GM discretion is that it is not friendly to new GMs. Fresh GMs who just picked up your game have no idea what is and is not too powerful in your game, and can only learn that by playing the game for a long period of time and making mistakes. D&D tries to fix this issue by basically making it Spreadsheets: the RPG, in that the entire system is meticulously balanced so that no number is out of place. I emphasize the word try here, because they fail in quite a few places and the balance has become more and more shot with each expansion they add to the game. I understand that this system is for you, though, so if you're not interested in helping others learn the system, then you have no need to try and tackle this.

Of course, you don't have to try to tackle power creep, but it does become rather disappointing when your 1d6/1d8/2d6 fighter can't hold a candle to the demigod on the group, just because the barbarian he was playing before died. It's not friendly to the players, and it's not fun. Players shouldn't be shooting themselves in the foot just because they don't want to play a god. Yes, Gandalf was way more powerful than Frodo, but his power was used sparingly and removed quickly so that it did not completely overshadow the rest of the party.

Ways I've seen games handle this:
1. ) The Savage Worlds Method - set out a list of premade and generic powers that any flavor can be applied to, so the mechanics are seperate from the flavor but they still work together.
2.) The 5e Method - Generate all the numbers players can throw out onto the field using a specific algorithm along with a set of pre-defined effects they can apply based on the power level of the character. In other words, the main meat of the game.
3.) The 4e Method - Do the same as the above, except have a computer do the calculations. All you see is what comes out of the machine.
4.) The Rebalance Method - Every time a character is made, carefully tweak the numbers of them and all others in the party to make all players reasonably balanced. Boy does this get annoying after the bard dies a few times, though.
5.) The Exalted Method - Completely ignore the issue of power creep and advertise your game as a system about playing gods, limited only by your imagination and the whims of your GM.

Pronounceable
2018-06-08, 07:04 AM
You can't play chess with a pigeon, people.
What are you, a racist? Yep, you're totally a racist. WE GOT A PIGEON RACIST HERE, PEOPLE.

Controller
...
Leader
...
That's a neat and laudable effort. I laud. It could even work on someone else who wasn't as certain as I am about this matter. But I'm me.

More elaboratedly; I'm against messing with actions. Look at all the problems it causes in regular DnD and also if players could do it, high end enemies could too. And getting locked down is a trillion times more ****ing obnoxious than just missing, which we straight up trashed for being obnoxious bull****. And while other potential supers aren't very fiddly, they're adding/subtracting a variable number to a future dice roll, thus still fiddly so I'm gonna have to pass on those.

However lemme repeat my point again, because it's the pointiest of all my points:
S3: your closest ally hits an enemy for 26 damage (doesn't work if you have no allies)
This is the sort of thing a hypothetical Leader Liam would dream to have and it's already Al's day job.
Meanwhile,
S3: one enemy has to not attack at all next turn or will be immediately defeated
And this is the best possible thing a hypothetical Controller Connor would get and it's simply Dan's mark on drugs.

So still no good way of being buffer/debuffer/controller other than being an intern to Dan or Al or both. And why'd you wanna be the intern instead of a regular?

It inspired me to write an even-more-barebones system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560350-Kid-Friendly-One-Notecard-RPG&p=23117683#post23117683)
I'd play that over any of the official DnDs any day of the week.

power creep
Uhh... Wut? I went back and read all the stuff I wrote once more. So again, wut? There cannot even exist any amount of power creep in Totally Real DnD, Honest. Literally every single number is static and unchangable. Any kind of creep is mathematically impossible.

While yes, you're fully correct that power creep is a big messy deal, I can't even fathom how you thought it might happen with these rules.

Cluedrew
2018-06-08, 07:47 AM
Hold My Beer... well you are entering the nightmare with your eyes open. And I very much like HP and several other bits show promise.

My problem is that as you have stripped so much that you are left with a combat system. What if I want to play a socialite? An actual leader who can't fight but can get others to work together? A... any person who's most important characteristics are not described in a fight?

Also advice doesn't "work on you", it may not be ready to put into the game as is, it may not be what you are looking for. But I doubt people aren't trying to trick you into changing your game design.

Cealocanth
2018-06-09, 11:23 AM
Uhh... Wut? I went back and read all the stuff I wrote once more. So again, wut? There cannot even exist any amount of power creep in Totally Real DnD, Honest. Literally every single number is static and unchangable. Any kind of creep is mathematically impossible.

While yes, you're fully correct that power creep is a big messy deal, I can't even fathom how you thought it might happen with these rules.

The mechanism where this becomes an issue comes when characters die and players make new ones, as I did not see any clear system on defining what exactly a character is capable of doing as its special ability. From the very first post:
"S1: does something
S2: does something else
S3: does something important"

As far as I can tell, these numbers don't seem to be coming from anywhere except for the whims of the players and the GM. So, imagine this scenario:

Character A: Has an ability that lets him do 10 damage.
Character B: Has an ability that lets him do 10 damage.
Character A dies.
Player A (playing character A) remembers how he feels underpowered. He tries to remedy this in his next character by choosing a stat arbitrarily higher because there is no clear place on where numbers come from.
Character A2 (replaces Character A) now has an ability that lets him do 12 damage.
Repeat until characters are outputting obscene damage.

Now, if you have a system where the numbers are coming from to generate a character's powers, and I either just missed it or it was unstated, then there is no creep issue.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-09, 12:39 PM
That's a neat and laudable effort. I laud. It could even work on someone else who wasn't as certain as I am about this matter. But I'm me.
So you're... completely, 100% certain about every aspect of this system you've come up with, with no feedback or suggestions desired?


More elaboratedly; I'm against messing with actions. Look at all the problems it causes in regular DnD and also if players could do it, high end enemies could too. And getting locked down is a trillion times more ****ing obnoxious than just missing, which we straight up trashed for being obnoxious bull****. And while other potential supers aren't very fiddly, they're adding/subtracting a variable number to a future dice roll, thus still fiddly so I'm gonna have to pass on those.
If "+- 1d6 damage" is too fiddly for you, why do you have supers at all? Or character types? Hell, why have resource management at all? That's an inherently fiddly aspect of gameplay. Why not boil it down even more-- how 'bout "expend 1 resource to get +1d6 on a die roll" and let everything else be up to the player? (Perhaps pair with different resource recovery mechanics-- 3/day, 1/hour, or 1/x pts of damage received would give some distinction without being too complicated)


Now, if you have a system where the numbers are coming from to generate a character's powers, and I either just missed it or it was unstated, then there is no creep issue.
Pretty sure is that every character is either an Attacker or Defender with those exact same stats (or at least supers)

Karl Aegis
2018-06-09, 02:14 PM
So, do I just get a handful of defenders and stack marks on the same target to automatically win every time? It seems like if it's impossible for the goon to attack all the defenders they just die without being able to do anything. I just make all my defenders pale dudes in jackets that always look down while they slowly dance and smoke cigarettes.

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-09, 03:01 PM
So you're... completely, 100% certain about every aspect of this system you've come up with, with no feedback or suggestions desired?

I too, find it a bit weird.

It almost makes me want to brush off my 'Simple Generic Percentile' system an plonk it in homebrew to see what the Playground thinks. Because the trick isn't the writing of the system, it's working out the fiddly bits in the design such as 'is 18 too much damage for a mark'.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-09, 04:29 PM
I too, find it a bit weird.

It almost makes me want to brush off my 'Simple Generic Percentile' system an plonk it in homebrew to see what the Playground thinks. Because the trick isn't the writing of the system, it's working out the fiddly bits in the design such as 'is 18 too much damage for a mark'.
With rules-light games, I find the art is less about WHAT the rules are and more about WHERE they are (and aren't). Providing as much clarity as you can without inflating things too excessively. What can be left to the GM and what really needs guidelines.

As can be seen with this thread, designing mechanics is easy; building the rest of the system is the trick.

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-09, 05:06 PM
With rules-light games, I find the art is less about WHAT the rules are and more about WHERE they are (and aren't). Providing as much clarity as you can without inflating things too excessively. What can be left to the GM and what really needs guidelines.

As can be seen with this thread, designing mechanics is easy; building the rest of the system is the trick.

Exactly. I didn't want SGPS to get bogged down in pages and pages of combat rules, so there's not even a combat section anymore. It's just lumped in with the contested rolls bit, with a note that unless you have a really dangerous weapon you probably need to win with a crit to kill your opponent, they should probably survive but without the thing they went into combat to get/achieve.

So yeah, I went into writing SGPS knowing most of what I wanted, and it's been refined to be almost the polar opposite of Totally Not Dungeons & Dragons. It's key idea is that it uses aquisition resolution, the idea is that unless the roll can get you something or move you towards a goal why roll.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-09, 05:18 PM
Exactly. I didn't want SGPS to get bogged down in pages and pages of combat rules, so there's not even a combat section anymore. It's just lumped in with the contested rolls bit, with a note that unless you have a really dangerous weapon you probably need to win with a crit to kill your opponent, they should probably survive but without the thing they went into combat to get/achieve.

So yeah, I went into writing SGPS knowing most of what I wanted, and it's been refined to be almost the polar opposite of Totally Not Dungeons & Dragons. It's key idea is that it uses aquisition resolution, the idea is that unless the roll can get you something or move you towards a goal why roll.
Whereas STaRS does have fairly concrete conflict rules, but they're generic enough that they can be used any time you need want to zoom in and turn a single check (did I kill the monster/persuade the guard/escape the fire) into an extended scene.

Pronounceable
2018-06-10, 11:24 PM
A... any person who's most important characteristics are not described in a fight?
That's what we call an "NPC" in DnD. That sort of thing doesn't have (and never had) any place in DnD and its derivatives, no matter how hard the theater major crowd wished or how much bull**** wotc spewed over the years about the i word and the v word. Look at any DnD, each one overflows with combat rules and character options and logistics crap, whereas you'll be lucky to find half a page about roleplaying anything outside the context of beating up dudes or prelude to beating up dudes or going to place where beating up of dudes will commence.

OTOH, lemme repeat my point about pc making in Totally Real DnD, Honest yet again:

Commander (ranged attacker)
Str-2 Cha+3
Dex-1 Int+2
Con0 Wis+1
hp: can direct allies to prevent 30 hp worth of attacks on self
dmg: order an ally to attack closest enemy for 1d10+3 (their damage type) at range
backup: allow an ally to surprise an enemy near you for 1d4 (their damage type) in melee
Command: 0/3
S1: you direct one ally to attack an enemy for 26 (their damage type), reaffirming your leading ability in your allies' estimate if the enemy is defeated and refilling all of your hp (doesn't work if you have no allies)
S2: you rally your allies and they hit the enemies closest to them (up to 4) for 21 (their damage type) each (doesn't work if you have no allies)
S3: you formulate a plan of attack then shout orders at your allies so their coordinated efforts hit up to 4 enemies for 78 (their damage type) total (doesn't work if you have no allies)


as I did not see any clear system on defining what exactly a character is capable of doing as its special ability. From the very first post:
"S1: does something
S2: does something else
S3: does something important"
I'm going to assume that you were so impressed with what you'd seen until then, you just had to comment right away before reading the rest of that same post. Yes, that's what we'll go with. The other alternatives are inexplicable (and impolite).


So you're... completely, 100% certain about every aspect of this system you've come up with, with no feedback or suggestions desired?
No I do desire feedback and suggestions. It's just that no one put out anything that blew my mind so far, therefore nothing has changed yet. (except possibly the group hp thing, but that's a bridge too far for a DnD pretender)


If "+- 1d6 damage" is too fiddly for you, why do you have supers at all? Or character types? Hell, why have resource management at all? That's an inherently fiddly aspect of gameplay.
Because supermeter isn't fiddle. It's a tactics. And neither are character types. They're a meaningful choices. Maths is fiddle, so no +-XdY is allowed. Laundry lists of options that exist only to rub certain folks' math problem solving fetish is fiddle, so all the numbers are set in stone.


Why not boil it down even more-- how 'bout "expend 1 resource to get +1d6 on a die roll" and let everything else be up to the player?
It's already what I do, just not with that exact ruling. Players get a fixed number of fixed numbers and a few very distinct options, what those numbers mean and options do is up to them.


So, do I just get a handful of defenders and stack marks on the same target to automatically win every time? It seems like if it's impossible for the goon to attack all the defenders they just die without being able to do anything.
Well sure. If you're up against Bob on his lonesome. Then again, you could get a handful of attackers to just attack the same Bob and automatically win every time too. It's Bob, it's a feature.

I just make all my defenders pale dudes in jackets that always look down while they slowly dance and smoke cigarettes.
S1: Bump into an enemy while slowly dancing and smoking cigarettes for 1d6 (rude), enemy must attack you on its next turn to disperse your cloud of smoke or take 18 (cancer)


it's working out the fiddly bits in the design such as 'is 18 too much damage for a mark'.
That is the exact sort of feedback I'd be looking seriously at. Alas, it's not coming so it's either ignore people or do this.

MeimuHakurei
2018-06-11, 01:36 AM
Can a mod put this into the Homebrew Forum?

Pleh
2018-06-11, 06:07 AM
(doesn't work if you have no allies)

Is it really so important that D&D function as a solo game? I think everyone knew that was always a niche, inessential fringe variant of play.

Not a very strong criticism. After all, say for some reason we DO want to play solo campaign with Commander; let the player have 2 characters. Problem fixed, so stop whining about things not working that are working just fine.

EDIT: oh, were you thinking about splitting the party? Well, there's your problem.

Don't split the party.


No I do desire feedback and suggestions. It's just that no one put out anything that blew my mind so far, therefore nothing has changed yet.

Well, the basic premise you've offered so far has likewise been fairly short of inspiring, so what exactly did you expect? Praise? A participation award?

You like your D&D as bland and uncomplicated as possible. Cool story, bro. Suggesting you've done anything profitable for anyone else is stretching things a bit much.

And were you looking for advice on how to make the game even more bland and unimposing?

Well, if we're compressing all classes down to attacker and defender, why not go all the way and ditch classes altogether? Just use raw stats and play however you want.

Anonymouswizard
2018-06-11, 06:21 AM
That is the exact sort of feedback I'd be looking seriously at. Alas, it's not coming so it's either ignore people or do this.

That's partially because when we tried to give feedback you got all llssive, and so many of us stopped trying. Sure a lot of us want different games to you, but this is a forum with a strong TO heritage. So yeah, personally I got turned off from analysing the mechanics agree you took my character who doesn't affect enemies directly and flavoured his supers to... affect enemies directly.

Mordaedil
2018-06-11, 06:36 AM
The fact that you can solo Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights ought to be proof enough that playing D&D solo is perfectly doable, even on ironman rules.

CantigThimble
2018-06-11, 07:07 AM
The fact that you can solo Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights ought to be proof enough that playing D&D solo is perfectly doable, even on ironman rules.

Adventures do tend to be easier when you've read the module beforehand. And the DM doesn't have anything change in response to your actions. Regardless, it's not supposed to be a matter of 'adventures are too hard unless you have more people' it's a matter of 'why would I want to bother playing this if I'm not playing it with my friends?'


And to the OP: If you want to cut out everything that makes the game overcomplicated and everything that isn't directly related to combat why not just play a tactical board game like Descent? There are tons of games like that, that try to strip D&D down to its combat essentials and streamline those. At the very least there are probably a lot of thoroughly playtested mechanics you could borrow for your system in them.

Cluedrew
2018-06-11, 07:41 AM
That's what we call an "NPC" in DnD. That sort of thing doesn't have (and never had) any place in DnD and its derivatives,In your gleeful slaughtering of sacred cows you decided to leave that one alone? I do think it did exist actually, but only as an end point, where you sort of transcend the need of combat.


That is the exact sort of feedback I'd be looking seriously at. Alas, it's not coming so it's either ignore people or do this.Fix the big problems before you start worrying about the little ones. And a lot of people agree that this system still has big problems. Not my non-combat one, a lot of people seem to prefer free forming that even with detailed rules for combat. I don't understand why but I can accept that. But for all your reflavouring and flexible options, I don't feel the urge to do anything with it because it will come down to some degree of "make HP go down" or "make HP go up" and that... I find that boring.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-06-11, 08:37 AM
Fix the big problems before you start worrying about the little ones. And a lot of people agree that this system still has big problems. Not my non-combat one, a lot of people seem to prefer free forming that even with detailed rules for combat. I don't understand why but I can accept that. But for all your reflavouring and flexible options, I don't feel the urge to do anything with it because it will come down to some degree of "make HP go down" or "make HP go up" and that... I find that boring.
Basically this. It feels like you're in a weird spot combat mechanic-wise. You've abstracted away almost all of the tactical elements like positioning, battlefield control, and environmental elements that make for non-rules-based engagement, but and the ones that do exist don't really have enough options and decision-points for rules-based engagement. At the same time, they're slow and... complex isn't quite the right word, "multi-step," maybe?... enough that you can't just treat combat like any other skill challenge and move past it with a roll or two. You're basically stuck in extended-skill-check, "roll until I say you have enough successes" territory, which is just...dull.

You say you want feedback? I really, honestly, think that your idea as it currently stands is unsustainable. You need either more or less to your combat rules. Adding in, oh, movement rules, a standard damage bonus for having a better position (+1d6? rolling more dice is fun), and a standard damage for an environmental attack (throwing someone in a fire or collapsing a pillar on them-- say 2d6+stat, a little better than a standard attack* but worse than a super. Or heck, just "make a basic attack with the standard bonus") would go a long way towards making fighting less static. Alternately, cutting back still more would place "fighting" on the same level as everything else, and place the emphasis on creative bull****ting-the-DM descriptions and tactics where it belongs.



*Yes, it is important to have it be a bit better-- if tactic-you-have-to-think-about is no more effective than the tactic-you-don't, everyone will stop trying to look for unusual things to try.


Adventures do tend to be easier when you've read the module beforehand. And the DM doesn't have anything change in response to your actions. Regardless, it's not supposed to be a matter of 'adventures are too hard unless you have more people' it's a matter of 'why would I want to bother playing this if I'm not playing it with my friends?'
I mean, you could have a one-on-one system, but I think it would need to be built from the ground up that way.


[quote]And to the OP: If you want to cut out everything that makes the game overcomplicated and everything that isn't directly related to combat why not just play a tactical board game like Descent? There are tons of games like that, that try to strip D&D down to its combat essentials and streamline those. At the very least there are probably a lot of thoroughly playtested mechanics you could borrow for your system in them.
Actually, taking a look at some of the D&D-esque board games (by which I mean "Betrayal at the House on the Hill" style, not D&D-branded stuff like Lords of Waterdeep) might be a worthwhile idea-- that seems to be the level of complexity you're gunning for.

Lacuna Caster
2018-06-16, 12:45 PM
That's what we call an "NPC" in DnD. That sort of thing doesn't have (and never had) any place in DnD and its derivatives...
Pronounceable, while I respect your persistence, I think that if you have to argue this hard to convince people that the design isn't bad, then you've already failed. Ease-of-entry is half the battle.