PDA

View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other WIP. 3.5e M&M Style



WindStruck
2018-08-08, 08:08 PM
Preface

Have you ever tried to build a character but felt too limited in your options? I'm sure this has happened to many of you - and happened many times. You have a clear idea for a character concept. The background, the fluff, it's all easy to change and come up with something that shapes your character's personality and propels their motivations. And you have an idea of what you'd like your character to be capable of - or incapable of.

Now comes the part where you choose a class (or several classes) that provide what you want. But the problem is, only certain abilities are available to certain classes. For instance, let's say you plan on making a low-strength, high-dexterity fighter. Odds are you're not going to care about the medium or heavy armor proficiencies. Heck, out of all the weapon proficiencies you pick up, you'll also probably only use two or three types for your entire game. But if you also wanted to be quick and agile like a rogue or monk and have evasion? Well, too bad. Either multiclass or pick a different class entirely. But upon choosing a new class, you find that you are still presented with the problem of having abilities you don't want and lacking abilities you do want. In short, you are forced to take 'packages'. Though you still have variety in the type and size of packages, the fact that you are forced to deal with them can be frustrating.

To make matters worse, dipping classes is also often frowned upon. Let's say you just want one particular ability like evasion or divine grace? You have to choose certain classes. But get this: the only reason this practice is seen as bad roleplay is because the classes themselves have a roleplay flavor that comes in their package too. When you take a level of paladin, you are not only getting heavy armor proficiency, martial weapon proficiency, good fortitude saves, and the ability to smite evil; you also get the aspect of a pious warrior, a champion of good, imprinted on your character.

The following system aims to change all this. Everything from proficiencies, to spellcasting, to core class features, and even BaB and saving throws can be customized. Similar to the Mutants and Masterminds systems, characters have a number of points you can spend based upon their level. Each ability or feature costs a certain amount of points. Customize your characters exactly the way you envisioned!

Disclaimer: This homebrew modifies D&D 3.5e and assumes you have some basic understanding of its core mechanics.


Character Points

At each level, a character has a certain amount of character points they can spend. Character points can be saved and do not all have to be spent. Some features or abilities they buy will have a flat, one-time cost. Others will have an incremental cost, based upon the character's level. Keep this in mind, as gaining a level only grants 10 character points! All the abilities and features a character purchases cannot have an incremental cost exceeding 10 per level.



Level
Points


1
50


2
60


3
70


4
80


5
90


6
100


7
110


8
120


9
130


10
140


11
150


12
160


13
170


14
180


15
190


16
200


17
210


18
220


19
230


20
240



Base Attack Bonus, Saving Throws, Hit Points, and Skills

Due to the aforementioned nature of incremental character point costs, which continually increase and reduce the amount of points you can spend at later levels, it's important to emphasize long-term planning. How resilient do you want your character to be? How well can they attack? How skillful and knowledgeable are they? These are pretty vague concepts you should be able to gauge in the character you want to create. Moreover, these particular qualities are incremental costs all characters have, so it's best to get them out of the way first.

Base Attack Bonus
How well can your character attack? Everything from swinging a hammer, to firing a bow, to pointing your finger and shooting a magical ray all use an attack roll. The following table describes the kinds of BaB progression you can choose for your character and their incremental cost.



Type
attack bonus
point cost


Nonexistent
+0 per level
bonus: level/2


Terrible
+0.25 per level
bonus: level/4


Poor
+0.5 per level
0 per level


Average
+0.75 per level
1 per level


Good
+1 per level
2 per level



Bonuses: If you choose a particularly bad BaB progression, you get bonus character points to spend, rather than incremental costs. Simply do the math, dividing your character's level by the number listed, and add those bonus points to your sheet. All figures are rounded down.

Saving Throws
Is your character tough and resilient? Do you envision them having lightning-quick reflexes or a mind that is difficult to overwhelm? Why not all three? Or how about none? Now you have to choose among Fortitude, Reflex, or Will saves. Unlike most choices, you can choose more than one or none. The cost per level depends on how many good saves you wish for your character to have.



Good Saves
Cost


0
0 per level


1
1 per level


2
2 per level


3
4 per level





Non-progressing Saves
Bonus


1
level / 3


2
(2 x level) / 3


3
level



Bonuses: Choosing to have a particular kind of saving throw not progress at all is also an option here. Simply do the math, multiplying or dividing your character's level by the numbers listed, and add those bonus points to your sheet. All figures are rounded down.

Hit Points
Another measure of how tough you are is hit points. It could also represent life force or the will to live. Philosophical debate abound, no one really understands the mysterious nature of HP. But the one thing everyone does know is that when you run out of them, you die.



hit die
cost


d0
bonus: (3 x level) / 2


d2
bonus: level


d4
bonus: level / 2


d6
0 per level


d8
1 per level


d10
2 per level


d12
3 per level



Bonuses: If you choose a very small hit die, you get bonus character points to spend, rather than incremental costs. Simply do the math, multiplying or dividing your character's level by the numbers listed, and add those bonus points to your sheet. All figures are rounded down.

Yes, that is correct. That is a d zero, meaning 0 hit points always, before constitution modifiers and other magical effects. It should go without saying that making a character with negative natural HP is not only something very unlikely to get past your DM, but also hard to play and a bad idea in general.

Class Skills and Skill Points
All the normal skills in D&D 3.5e exist as is, just as they are in form and function. However, the number of skill points you receive per level can be customized, as well as your class skills. Packages are available that increase both skill points per level and the number of class skills you have. In this homebrew system, characters with low int scores will not receive a minimum amount of skill points. It will be possible for them to receive 0 skill points per level with a low or non-existent skill progression. However, regardless of lack of intelligence, these characters can still purchase knowledge and life skills packages, as well as additional class skills and skill points, at their listed price.

Skill Point Progression - must choose one

Package
Skill Points
Class Skills
Cost


unskilled
0 + int mod
n/a
0 per level


basic
2 + int mod
choose any 6*
1 per level


average
4 + int mod
choose any 12*
2 per level


skilled
6 + int mod
choose any 18*†
3 per level


adept
8 + int mod
choose any 24*†
4 per level


expert
10 + int mod
choose any 30*†
5 per level

*Get Profession and Craft plus 2 knowledge skills as class skills automatically.
†Get Perform plus 2 more (4 total) knowledge skills as class skills automatically.

On the above table, the skill points your character receives are quadrupled on their first level. Otherwise they get the skill points as listed. On the below table, these skill points are not multiplied by the first-level quadruple bonus.

Other packages - buy more if you want

Package
Skill Points
Class Skills
Cost


knowledge
3 per level *
choose 5 knowledges
1 per level


all knowledges
6 per level *
all knowledges
2 per level


life skills
5 per level †
Craft, Perform, Professsion
1 per level


class skills
0
choose any 3
1


skill points
2
n/a
1


*Skill points from knowledge packages can only be spent on knowledge skills.
†These skill points can only be spent on Craft, Perform, and Profession.
Skill point addendum: Intelligence (which is covered just below) increases your character's skill points. Any increase or decrease to your character's base intelligence score will retroactively award (or deduct) available skill points from your character. If you do not have enough skill points to pay for the skills your character currently knows, you will either have to purchase more skill points, upgrade your character's skill package, or start removing your existing skill points from somewhere. See the Retraining section below for more information.

Ability Scores

Ability scores represent another fundamental aspect that defines your character, such as how strong, fast, and smart your characters are. They are presented next because there are also incremental costs involved with certain abilities. This homebrew system will allow you to increase your character's stats at any level - not just one point every four levels. Also of note is that even when increasing an ability score at a later level, you still must pay the full cost. For example, at level 8, increasing your fighter's strength score from 18 to 19 costs 4 character points.


Value
Cost
Modifier


1
-13
-5


2
-9
-4


3
-6
-4


4
-4
-3


5
-3
-3


6
-2
-2


7
-1
-2


8
0
-1


9
1
-1


10
2
0


11
3
0


12
4
1


13
5
1


14
6
2


15
8
2


16
10
3


17
13
3


18
16
4


19
20
4


20
24
5


21
29
5


22
34
6


23
40
6


24
46
7


Negative costs: If the cost listed for a particularly low ability score is negative, that means you do not pay character points, but instead receive bonus character points. Very low ability scores can be dangerous or hard to roleplay. Be careful!

Intelligence: in addition to improving certain skills and class features, intelligence also grants bonus skill points, which already have an average cost of 2 skill points per character point. Therefore, for every point of positive int modifier you have, your character incurs an incremental cost of 0.5 character points per level.

Constitution: in addition to improving certain skills, class features, and fortitude saves, constitution also grants additional hit points, which have an average cost of 1 hit point per character point. Therefore, for every point of positive con modifier you have, your character incurs an incremental cost of 1 character point per level.

Proficiencies

The weapons and armor your character can use proficiently also help define the "class" of your character. Below are some tables of packages you may choose to take.
Weapon Proficiencies - must choose one

Package
Weapon proficiencies
Cost


Inept
Any attack roll non-proficient at -4 penalty*
-4


Common
choose 1 simple weapon
0


Basic
choose 5 simple weapons
1


Average
choose 10 simple and 1 martial weapons
2


Skilled
choose 5 martial weapons and all simple weapons
4


Expert
all simple and martial weapons
5


*This includes attacks with natural weapons, touch attacks, ranged touch attacks. Again, any attack roll.

Other weapon packages:

Package
Weapon Proficiencies
Cost


Monk
all "monk" weapons
2


Exotic*
choose 1 exotic weapon
1


*Requires you to at least have the "common" weapon proficiency package.

Armor proficiencies:

Package
Armor Proficiencies
Cost


Light Armors
all light armors
3


Medium Armors
all medium and light armors
4


Heavy Armors
all heavy, medium, and light armors
5


General Shields
bucklers, light, and heavy shields*
2


Tower Shields
all shields*
3


*But not if a shield is being used as a weapon and considered an exotic weapon. In this case, you'll also need the exotic weapon feat for its attacks.

Retraining
We all make mistakes. And it is a fact of life that as we don't use muscles or our brain, they atrophy. The same can be said of skills as well. If at some point later in your game, you feel you want to make a change to your character and reduce some of the above attributes and features you purchased earlier, and upgrade others, you may do so. You will have to recalculate how many character points you used, update your character sheet, and even take away skill points as necessary.

Keep in mind that this is not a free pass to change your character sheet willy-nilly as you please. Even playing an actual shape shifter has more restrictions than this. Any change you do wish to make needs to be OK'd by your game master first. While it would be understandable for a war veteran to have forgotten how to use many of the weapons he once used, or to have your fortitude saves weakened from a particularly deadly experience, it would not make any sense to competently wield a khopesh one minute, then forget the next; or to suddenly have a massive surge in strength at the expense of other stats, and revert them again in a short time.

Game masters are encouraged to let their players change their sheets, however as a guideline, the change must make sense (as in there is some logical cause or reason for it), and only one change should be allowed per story arc. There are no costs in gold coins or experience for retraining under these guidelines.

WindStruck
2018-08-08, 08:11 PM
Reserved for Racial Modifiers and Abilities

WindStruck
2018-08-08, 08:12 PM
Reserved for Class Feature Purchases

WindStruck
2018-08-08, 08:13 PM
Reserved for Feat Listings and Costs

That's all the reservation posts. Feel free to post any comments after this.

aimlessPolymath
2018-08-08, 11:01 PM
A quick cross-link:
http://rumkin.com/reference/dnd/media/classconstruction.pdf

noob
2018-08-09, 05:59 AM
I believed for one instant that it would be additional work on the porting of dnd 3.5 in m&m.(which was done by grod the giant)
I now see that system where I have no idea what I can buy with those points.
And I also am confused on how I buy saves for example if I want one at level and one at good and one at poor how much does it costs?
Your system does not give any answer to my question.
Also if you plan to make the rest of the system dnd 3.5 like then I can tell you that you utterly overestimate the actual value of bab and saves(if saves works the way I understood by reading) and the value of skill points and the value of all non primary stats such as charisma or strength or even int(if you have no class features based on int).
With your system I can not see anybody not putting charisma to 1 except for charisma based casters because it is like gaining the points of a level for no good reason. idem for int if not an int based caster and idem for strength if you do not plan to carry heavy or stab stuff in contact.
So I think you should reduce bonuses and costs for all those things.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-08-09, 09:03 AM
I believed for one instant that it would be additional work on the porting of dnd 3.5 in m&m.(which was done by grod the giant)
...
So I think you should reduce bonuses and costs for all those things.
I did, indeed, work on a similar project (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279503-D-amp-D-in-M-amp-M-a-new-approach-to-rebalancing-3-5-PF) a while back, but with a key distinction-- I used the more-balanced M&M as my base, and modeled classic D&D abilities using its rules; you seem to be taking the less balanced 3.5 and trying to import... some point-buy rules, but not all. You're still buying haphazard level-based abilities, you're still allowing uncapped bonuses, and... as noob noted, your costs are already out-of-whack, even before you get to unquantifiable special abilities. Like, as far as I can tell, just the Barbarian chassis would be 7 pts/level.

If you want something that's close to being in between the two systems, maybe take a look at True20? It's another Green Ronin game, a more point-buy version of the 3e paradigm, and it has a custom class creation system.



*Ish. Provided no-one tries to hard to break things. But it's obvious when you're doing it, and it's not something that's restricted to certain character types.

WindStruck
2018-08-09, 10:44 AM
I believed for one instant that it would be additional work on the porting of dnd 3.5 in m&m.(which was done by grod the giant)
I now see that system where I have no idea what I can buy with those points.
And I also am confused on how I buy saves for example if I want one at level and one at good and one at poor how much does it costs?
Your system does not give any answer to my question.
Also if you plan to make the rest of the system dnd 3.5 like then I can tell you that you utterly overestimate the actual value of bab and saves(if saves works the way I understood by reading) and the value of skill points and the value of all non primary stats such as charisma or strength or even int(if you have no class features based on int).
With your system I can not see anybody not putting charisma to 1 except for charisma based casters because it is like gaining the points of a level for no good reason. idem for int if not an int based caster and idem for strength if you do not plan to carry heavy or stab stuff in contact.
So I think you should reduce bonuses and costs for all those things.

Actually, I think it's true that setting an ability score to 1 might be a bad idea... After all, even the oldschool versions had you roll 3d6. Minimum was three. And animal intelligence is 1-2. I'll really have to think about it.

Bottom line, however, is the DM still has to approve everything. And even if you're allowed to run around with a strength or charisma score of one, just a little poison or certain mobs with stat damaging abilities will quickly make you regret that. I still wanted to throw in the option, however, as this was supposed to be about freedom with character creation.

Might have to see about increasing character points slightly as your character level increases. Keep in mind this thread title was labeled "WIP" so the numbers might see some adjustment.

As of now, I do not believe the costs of skill points and "unused" stats are off. Maybe you are going off the assumption that feats will all cost one character point each? Hah, hardly... some, maybe? Others, not so much.

But if you don't know the cost of something when everything is clearly labeled with a cost..? :smallconfused: I don't know, I can't help you unless you want to be more specific. The bolded part in particular, I don't even think that makes sense in english, so I can't exactly understand what you're asking.

Maybe if I could rephrase? So there's 3 saves: Fortitude, Will, and Reflex. You can choose to set any of them to either good saves, bad saves, or non-progressing. You look at the first chart, and however many saves you made "good", you have that much incremental cost per level. Then if you chose to make any of your saves "non-progressing", you get a bonus back, also based on your level.

Composer99
2018-08-09, 11:42 AM
"Non-progressing" saves, BAB worse than "poor", 0 + Int skill points, "inept" weapon proficiency, and d0 hit points are a terrible idea in a game with as much number scaling as 3.5, especially if you're interested in participating in fantasy adventures with any kind of risk.

IMO, the default (0 cost) options are 3 bad saves, poor BAB, 2 + Int skill points, proficiency in some basic few weapons (probably what the wizard has, or close to it), and d4 hit points, and leave it at that.

One suggestion for adding content: have you thought about adding in the "medium" save progression? (The d20 Star Wars game used them, dunno about other systems.) That progression is 1 + LEVEL*(4/10).

Also, I would ditch those extra costs for Intelligence and Constitution. Character point systems are fiddly enough to deal with.

noob
2018-08-09, 02:43 PM
Actually, I think it's true that setting an ability score to 1 might be a bad idea... After all, even the oldschool versions had you roll 3d6. Minimum was three. And animal intelligence is 1-2. I'll really have to think about it.

Bottom line, however, is the DM still has to approve everything. And even if you're allowed to run around with a strength or charisma score of one, just a little poison or certain mobs with stat damaging abilities will quickly make you regret that. I still wanted to throw in the option, however, as this was supposed to be about freedom with character creation.

Might have to see about increasing character points slightly as your character level increases. Keep in mind this thread title was labeled "WIP" so the numbers might see some adjustment.

As of now, I do not believe the costs of skill points and "unused" stats are off. Maybe you are going off the assumption that feats will all cost one character point each? Hah, hardly... some, maybe? Others, not so much.

But if you don't know the cost of something when everything is clearly labeled with a cost..? :smallconfused: I don't know, I can't help you unless you want to be more specific. The bolded part in particular, I don't even think that makes sense in english, so I can't exactly understand what you're asking.

Maybe if I could rephrase? So there's 3 saves: Fortitude, Will, and Reflex. You can choose to set any of them to either good saves, bad saves, or non-progressing. You look at the first chart, and however many saves you made "good", you have that much incremental cost per level. Then if you chose to make any of your saves "non-progressing", you get a bonus back, also based on your level.
Imagine that with those points we can buy class features.

If we use the barbarian chassis(or the monk chassis which costs as many points per level) which is not awesome we spend 8 points per level and so have only 2 points per level to spend in class features which is 4 times less than if you pick a wizard chassis(which costs 2 points per level and so leaves you with 8 points per level).

Since skills and base stats are in no way able to fight monsters from the manual of monsters you will need to make class features able to beat those monsters and getting 4 times more of those is probably way better than having a better chassis.

Unless you go and rewrite all the monsters to have no fancy powers at all such as flight and petrification or even worse slas.
Basically you would need to have monsters that only have hit points and attacks and to make no class features useful for fights for your point buy system to be balanced with the current absurdly prohibitive cost for chassis you have.


From Grod the giant
I did, indeed, work on a similar project a while back, but with a key distinction-- I used the more-balanced M&M as my base, and modeled classic D&D abilities using its rules
I did read the stuff you ported to m&m(and made some possible adjustments such as making destruction/death a possible effect for affliction or making so that fights by default are more lethal) and that is why I was disappointed that this new thread was not about porting additional dnd stuff in m&m.

WindStruck
2018-08-09, 09:08 PM
"Non-progressing" saves, BAB worse than "poor", 0 + Int skill points, "inept" weapon proficiency, and d0 hit points are a terrible idea in a game with as much number scaling as 3.5, especially if you're interested in participating in fantasy adventures with any kind of risk.

IMO, the default (0 cost) options are 3 bad saves, poor BAB, 2 + Int skill points, proficiency in some basic few weapons (probably what the wizard has, or close to it), and d4 hit points, and leave it at that.

Terrible idea? Sure. But I've always had a soft spot for terrible characters. I've liked emphasizing on RP more than hack and slash. If it really is such a bad idea, the DM can ban those if they deem them inappropriate for a "high risk fantasy" game.


One suggestion for adding content: have you thought about adding in the "medium" save progression? (The d20 Star Wars game used them, dunno about other systems.) That progression is 1 + LEVEL*(4/10).
I've never even heard of that before, so I can consider it.. though it honestly doesn't seem like too great of a difference to bother with, and will make costs even more complex.


Also, I would ditch those extra costs for Intelligence and Constitution. Character point systems are fiddly enough to deal with.The one part where I strongly disagree with you. I've had some experience building characters in M&M, and I found that the "optimal" way some build characters is to completely forgo all other stats, but just max out CON. Because it gave so many benefits at the most economical cost.

When you do the math, with d6 hit die being normal, then a d8 hit die on average yields you one more HP per level, with the incremental costs. As you level more, you get more HP, but you pay more. Constitution, on the other hand, with just a flat cost.. you pay once, and the more you level up, the more exponential it pays off. This is in addition to your fortitude saves, plus any other class features it may improve later. A smart munchkin will just pick the d4 or d2 hit die and then just massively pump their CON to get their HP.

See the disparity in the math yourself. Without the incremental cost to CON, getting 18 con costs 16 character points. At level 20, for instance, you would have boosted your HP by 80 for just 16 CP. But if you chose to get the largest hit dice of d12, you'd only be increasing your HP by 60 for the cool price of 60 CP. Given that scenario, who in their right mind would ever do the latter?? And yet, to cheapen the cost of increasing your hit die would seem to make it way too easy to inflate your HP. The only logical option was to nerf CON.


Imagine that with those points we can buy class features.
If we use the barbarian chassis(or the monk chassis which costs as many points per level) which is not awesome we spend 8 points per level and so have only 2 points per level to spend in class features which is 4 times less than if you pick a wizard chassis(which costs 2 points per level and so leaves you with 8 points per level).
And do you think wizard spells will be free? I'll give you a little hint of what's to come: wizard spellcasting will have large incremental costs that put these "chassis costs" on par with each other.


Since skills and base stats are in no way able to fight monsters from the manual of monsters you will need to make class features able to beat those monsters and getting 4 times more of those is probably way better than having a better chassis.
I don't know what you mean. It's a flat out lie that skills do not have anything to do with fighting monsters or lack importance. Same thing with base stats. :smallconfused:

Grod_The_Giant
2018-08-10, 10:37 AM
Terrible idea? Sure. But I've always had a soft spot for terrible characters. I've liked emphasizing on RP more than hack and slash. If it really is such a bad idea, the DM can ban those if they deem them inappropriate for a "high risk fantasy" game.
But... D&D is a hack and slash game, first and foremost, and the entire purpose of having a level-based system is to force everyone to operate at a certain baseline level of combat competence. If you want to move away from that, lean farther into it--otherwise HD are just a point tax and BAB will be entirely ignored by primary casters.

WindStruck
2018-08-10, 10:41 AM
And hit points are not important? I thought people liked having lots of those.

Attack bonus isn't important? You recall ranged and melee touch attacks?? :smalltongue:

Goaty14
2018-08-10, 11:49 AM
Attack bonus isn't important? You recall ranged and melee touch attacks?? :smalltongue:

Yes, attack bonus isn't important for certain casters. Sure, the spellwarp sniper and/or ray-focused necromancer is definitely going to need *some* attack bonus to be effective. The BFC God Wizard, Focused Buffer, and nearly every other thing that wizards (and other full casters, by extension) do doesn't require attack bonus.

Oh, and Grod's point was that if you made the game all about RP (i.e little/no combat), then the stuff that does matter in combat will be almost entirely ignored.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-08-10, 12:10 PM
And hit points are not important? I thought people liked having lots of those.

Attack bonus isn't important? You recall ranged and melee touch attacks?? :smalltongue:
HP are important; that's why I said "tax." Touch attack bonuses are rather less so; 90% of the time they're just going for 10+Dex. I'd absolutely tank my BAB on most caster builds.

To be honest, I'd suggest dropping BAB, base saves, and hit die altogether--let players invest points directly in those abilities, up to some level-based cap, like M&M does. That should give you finer control in a simpler way. If you want to have class features be a point-buy thing, you might as well cut out formal chassis as well.

PairO'Dice Lost
2018-08-10, 12:21 PM
But... D&D is a hack and slash game, first and foremost, and the entire purpose of having a level-based system is to force everyone to operate at a certain baseline level of combat competence. If you want to move away from that, lean farther into it--otherwise HD are just a point tax and BAB will be entirely ignored by primary casters.

I'd argue with the hack-and-slash term. D&D does involve the large amounts of small-scale combat that that implies, but also heavily incorporates mass combat and "exploration" in several senses (resource-management-heavy wilderness travel and the traps-and-puzzles side of dungeon crawling, primarily) and does have interaction/negotiation mechanics even if they're not particularly solid or fleshed out. In varying amounts by edition and with varying degrees of elegance/focus/complexity, granted, but it's always been there as a possibility and at least an implicit goal.

But that actually reinforces your point. A level-based system isn't about enforcing combat competence, exactly, it's about ensuring that all of a character's main capabilities have certain minimum and maximum thresholds when compared to other characters of the same level--BAB and saves, but also skill ranges, highest-level spells available, and so on. The fact that the 3e skill system makes it possible for a 10th-level character to spend all their points on Profession subskills and never have any ranks in skills they should care about is a failing of the system due to the 3e devs trying to stick too closely to the 2e skill system(s) and character point system(s), not something about the system that's at all worth emulating in any 3e fix, and the same goes for BAB, saves, and other baseline numbers.

Characters that can't contribute in certain areas are bad for the game. To use a non-D&D example, it's entirely possible to have a Shadowrun party containing a street samurai who's awesome at combat and literally nothing else, a decker who's awesome at hacking and literally nothing else, a mage who's awesome at scouting and literally nothing else, a face who's good at social interaction and literally nothing else, and a rock star journalist who's awesome at literally nothing, because there are no minimum thresholds on anything and while point costs make it prohibitive to specialize enough to hit all the max caps in your specialty there's nothing stopping you from continually buying stuff related to your focus and nothing else. It's more realistic that you'd be great at your focus and sorta kinda capable of doing other stuff, but in general there's little incentive to go for breadth when you can have more depth.

That's a thing that should not happen, in any game, because then the PCs are all effectively playing their own game and can't address challenges as a team (and something that various Shadowrun versions have addressed in different ways, with priorities and skill/attribute caps and so on), and that goes double for a level-based system. If you want to focus on roleplaying and not combat, you shouldn't have to (or feel you have to) make a terrible character (Stormwind Fallacy!), you should be able to, y'know, roleplay someone who doesn't like combat and has other strengths even if he doesn't die to a single dagger to the ribs from a commoner at 20th level.


To be honest, I'd suggest dropping BAB, base saves, and hit die altogether--let players invest points directly in those abilities, up to some level-based cap, like M&M does. That should give you finer control in a simpler way. If you want to have class features be a point-buy thing, you might as well cut out formal chassis as well.

In this sort of point-and-level-based setup, I wouldn't ditch the automatic scaling progressions entirely, I'd just give everyone the minimum progressions for basic competence as per Composer99's suggestion, and then allow buying up offense and defense individually instead of having increasing progressions. That gives the desired number-tweaking while still enforcing a minimum bar, so if you want to have a bunch of hit points you can buy some d8s instead of d4s at certain levels or whatever but don't ever need to worry about changing progressions midstream.

noob
2018-08-10, 12:40 PM
And do you think wizard spells will be free? I'll give you a little hint of what's to come: wizard spellcasting will have large incremental costs that put these "chassis costs" on par with each other.

I spoke of the wizard chassis as meaning the hit dice, bab, skills and saves.
spells and the barbarian rage and uncanny dodge are not part of a chassis: those are class features

Of course I sure know you will not put wizard spellcasting(or druid spellcasting or bard spellcasting or cleric spellcasting or beguiler spellcasting or yet any other spellcasting going at least up to level 4 spells including paladin spellcasting) in this game or else it is just plain obvious nobody sapient will ever pick chassis over spells even if it costs your entire chassis(including putting the lowest value to each thing possible in the chassis such as having negatively progressing everything even for hit dice and having all the stats but one at 1(and the only stat not at one is the stat needed to cast spells)) to have spells.

Also you need to make skills that are basically just like spellcasting such as allowing to use survival for tracking anything no matter where it is or what it is if you beat a fixed dc(and letting people use survival to create thousands of tons of food while trapped in a lifeless wasteland) or other stuff like that if you let spellcasting in the game or else skills are just obsolete.

So as far as I know you should probably read mutants and masterminds then use the porting done by grod the giant because it does makes 3.5 m&m style and is way more balanced than doing regular 3.5 with point buy for class features and chassis (at least you should separate the chassis point and the class feature points so that barbarians like people does not find themselves unable to buy cool class features due to their bab and hp oriented chassis).
Unless you actually want 3.5 gurps style since it seems it is what you want to do since you are going to make powers with incremental costs not based on modifiers which is more gurps like than m&m like(since in m&m the cost of the powers is quite continuous and you can apply a lot of modifiers to them).
Maybe you should read gurps.

now let us say that a barbarian with his current chassis can buy all the normal dnd 3.5 barbarian powers in your system and that a crusader with his current chassis can buy all his non chassis powers and likewise for the rogue.
If he picks a wizard chassis (chassis does not include spells in my definition since it is a class feature and I sure hope you understand that) he could pick all the non chassis powers of a rogue(probably at a reduced cost since as a barbarian he already have uncanny dodge as well as trap-sense but without the cost reduction it would still cost only 4 points per level since a rogue spends 6 points per level in chassis) and all the non chassis powers of a barbarian and then have 2 points per level left to get a great portion of the non chassis powers of a crusader.(at least two third of those non chassis powers since the chassis of a crusader costs 3 points per level)
With all that it does not matters that person have a low bab and low hit points: he gets great survivability due to the crusader manoeuvrers and damage mitigation + barbarian rage and can dish out massively more than a regular barbarian thanks to rage + manoeuvrers + sneak attack which compensate widely his low bab.
Oh and if the powers of those classes did cost less than what was left after chassis deduction due to you wanting them to have points to spend on feats then that character will possibly be able to pick more of the crusader powers and have more feats than a regular barbarian.
Unless you decide "Ok now I am going to make mundanes have less cool class features than before so that people will play casters even more than before even if I will nerf those too" having four times more of those fighting class features is what you get if you decide "I am going to barbarian with wizard chassis" and four times more of those class features is way more useful than the barbarian chassis.

So it is clear that chassis should cost less and give less bonus points when dumped so that we do not have the situation where either you nerf barbarians and other mundanes or where you find yourself being better at the job of being a barbarian by getting a weak chassis.