D20-like system

[arkangel111]

I've been working on a homebrew system and decided to ask the board. The system leans heavily on the standard d20 system but with some major changes that I think ultimately justifies it coming as a new system instead of some supplement.

First thing I wanted to change was the useless complicated math for stats. so instead of an 17 strength being (((17-10)/2) Round down) for a +3 I've just cut out all that math and went straight with +1, +2, +3. In my experience it rarely ever mattered that someone would have a 17 strength vs a 16. Of course this changes magic items and feats to always grant a +1 now instead of what used to be a +.5 if of course a magic item was going to give a stat increase at all. In addition to this I've done away with the every 4 levels get + .5 to a stat.

I've also reduced the stats to 3 stats instead of 6. Going with a simple Mind, Body, Magic. My thought process on this is that a dextrous fighter and a strength based fighter should be able to go toe to toe and let their skills/luck determine the victor rather than having a build be mechanically superior by design. With this all characters start at +1 across the board for stats. I plan to have feats and skills play a more significant role to help define your character's actual abilities.

Mind +1
Body +1
Magic +1


Races modify this of course. But for now lets just assume this is a stock human. My question is if you give the player a +1 to a stat every level including 1st, at what arbritrary cap should we place on the stats? Should the Cap maybe scale as you level? How does this ultimately affect the game? To me it seems like you start off weaker but gradually get to an even point if not slightly stronger.

[olskool]

I've been working on a homebrew system and decided to ask the board. The system leans heavily on the standard d20 system but with some major changes that I think ultimately justifies it coming as a new system instead of some supplement.

First thing I wanted to change was the useless complicated math for stats. so instead of an 17 strength being (((17-10)/2) Round down) for a +3 I've just cut out all that math and went straight with +1, +2, +3. In my experience it rarely ever mattered that someone would have a 17 strength vs a 16. Of course this changes magic items and feats to always grant a +1 now instead of what used to be a +.5 if of course a magic item was going to give a stat increase at all. In addition to this I've done away with the every 4 levels get + .5 to a stat.

I've also reduced the stats to 3 stats instead of 6. Going with a simple Mind, Body, Magic. My thought process on this is that a dextrous fighter and a strength based fighter should be able to go toe to toe and let their skills/luck determine the victor rather than having a build be mechanically superior by design. With this all characters start at +1 across the board for stats. I plan to have feats and skills play a more significant role to help define your character's actual abilities.

Mind +1
Body +1
Magic +1


Races modify this of course. But for now lets just assume this is a stock human. My question is if you give the player a +1 to a stat every level including 1st, at what arbritrary cap should we place on the stats? Should the Cap maybe scale as you level? How does this ultimately affect the game? To me it seems like you start off weaker but gradually get to an even point if not slightly stronger.

Use a Proficiency Bonus type step up. For example...

Level 1 to 2 = +1
Level 3 to 5 = +2
Level 6 to 9 = +3
Level 10 to 14 = +4
Level 15 to 20 = +5

[Maat Mons]

Clearly a weapon-user wants Body. And clearly a caster wants Magic. Who is the Mind score for? Is there anyone who wants it as their primary ability? Or is it at best a secondary stat?

Personally, the only way I've figured out to how make a non-magical mental ability score appealing in a combat-focused game is to use it for Initiative and resisting mind-influencing magic.

What behavior do you want to encourage? If you want people racing to max out their main ability score, and ignoring others until they get it capped off, a fixed maximum is what you want. Otherwise, you'd want a cap that increases slower than a player gets points to spend.

One thing to bear in mind is that capping ability scores while continuing to give ability score increases makes it impossible to play a one-trick pony. Eventually, rounding yourself out becomes mandatory, because you have to spend the points on something. This could be a benefit or a drawback, depending on your perspective.

One of the most challenging things in balancing D&D is that some people want to play one-trick ponies. They only get excited when they get better at their main thing, and they don't even remember to use their other abilities most of the time.

[LecternOfJasper]

One thing to bear in mind is that capping ability scores while continuing to give ability score increases makes it impossible to play a one-trick pony. Eventually, rounding yourself out becomes mandatory, because you have to spend the points on something. This could be a benefit or a drawback, depending on your perspective.

One of the most challenging things in balancing D&D is that some people want to play one-trick ponies. They only get excited when they get better at their main thing, and they don't even remember to use their other abilities most of the time.

Yes. Look at what you want the end game to look like. If you want maxed out characters to be exclusively really good at one of these, make the amount of points you get over their whole career roughly equal to the cap on one ability. If you want them to be able to get one really good and one pretty decent, then scale the point gain to make that the outcome of the final level.

Having only 3 abilities and scaling one by 1 per level makes this math much easier. If you keep this scaling (and it's very reasonable), you can scale the max level and the ability cap independently to get to a level of variation you'd want.

Personally, at this scaling, I'd want no more than a 40-50% difference between the ability of a 1st level character in any given category and the abilities of a max level character. But I also don't want a character to be able to max out two stats with these bonuses. So I would put the cap at +8, and maybe the maximum level as 12. That makes the most extreme stat array at +8, +6, +1 before other modifiers.

[arkangel111]

Thanks for the responses.

@Olskool I've thought about the whole proficiency bonus from 5e and I plan on using something similar for skills and feat scaling. For instance a feat might let you add your proficiency bonus to damage for fire spells, or while dual wielding, thus representing how your character has worked harder at training a particular 'Skill'. I figured this would eliminate having to do the 3.5 or PF option of needing 5 feats to represent two weapon fighting, or scaling feats at arbitrary levels (+2 to appraise becomes +4 at level 10)

With this option feats are going to be a real determining factor on how a character is built. instead of 8 million feat options with only 20 or so being relevant I am planning for every feat to play a major role. with that said I currently have 3 'levels' of feats. With the lowest really just making minor tweaks for flavor, the middle altering class abilities or granting new abilities, and the highest changing the rules of the game. The lower level is probably where I'll throw in the proficiency feats, though maybe some of the combat feats will fit in the middle group.

@Maat Mons first for mind, think of classes like the Rogue (any), Factotum (3.5), Alchemist (PF), or prestige classes like the Chameleon (3.5) most likely this stat is going to be for anyone wanting to play a 'Mundane' spellcaster type. The classes will focus on emulating spellcasting or hyper focusing on skills. These classes will also have ways to double a proficiency bonus or apply it to a wider array of situations. To use skill checks and skill tricks in combat.

@Maat Mons and @LecternOfJasper as for what I want to encourage... I am trying to make things balanced, like even if someone attempts to make something severely overpowered, they would only be overpowered in a specific set of circumstances and would take some significant drawbacks to get there. In classic 3.5/PF/5e spellcaster's reign unchallenged pretty much past level 5, I mean E6 exists for a reason and 5e really didn't do anything to change that. That being said a character can hyper focus on something and break the game as early as level 1 and the only reason these builds aren't played is because the game would get dull in a single session. Many classes clearly stand above others without contest. Originally I embarked on this project thinking to just eliminate options to close this gap but soon found it was easier just to scrap and start fresh, pull things I like and rewrite as needed. In fact that is what my mish-mash home game currently is running off of and most rules I'm having to make up on the spot cause I removed something or changed how it worked. That's why I haven't posted it on this board. My goal is to lessen the gap between the power gamer and the newbie. I don't want to punish the newb because he's playing a smarter barbarian than the power gamer who just dumped everything into strength because he understands the mechanics from the get go. so assuming you can get a max of +20 stat points maybe limit it to +11? that would be a worst case scenario of +11 +11 +1? hrm... maybe I want a slightly bigger swing so that there is a little more difference between characters at high level since this makes what 3 possible builds assumes everyone wants to max out whatever they start putting points in? +13 +9 +1? seems decently good. puts a balanced build +13 +5 +4. Maybe I'll put some threshhold feats in keeping these numbers in mind.

[MTempio]

Have you looked at a tri-stat system? Back in the 90's, I used to play with an old (now defunct) game system called Big Eyes, Small Mouth, produced by the Guardians of Order (now out of business). That was originally a 2d6 system (with the option to use 2d10 instead for a wider range) the used Body, Mind, and Spirit. Physical types used Body to hit/resist, Mental types (like Mages and Psions) used the Mind stat, and Soul was used for the Divine/mystical side. I believe they even offered a way to use the OGL d20 system. There are a few other systems out there that use Body, Mind, and Soul as your base stats. I'd suggest them by name, but I'm not sure if that's kosher with the form's rules...

[LecternOfJasper]

Thanks for the responses.

@Maat Mons and @LecternOfJasper as for what I want to encourage... I am trying to make things balanced, like even if someone attempts to make something severely overpowered, they would only be overpowered in a specific set of circumstances and would take some significant drawbacks to get there. In classic 3.5/PF/5e spellcaster's reign unchallenged pretty much past level 5, I mean E6 exists for a reason and 5e really didn't do anything to change that. That being said a character can hyper focus on something and break the game as early as level 1 and the only reason these builds aren't played is because the game would get dull in a single session. Many classes clearly stand above others without contest. Originally I embarked on this project thinking to just eliminate options to close this gap but soon found it was easier just to scrap and start fresh, pull things I like and rewrite as needed. In fact that is what my mish-mash home game currently is running off of and most rules I'm having to make up on the spot cause I removed something or changed how it worked. That's why I haven't posted it on this board. My goal is to lessen the gap between the power gamer and the newbie. I don't want to punish the newb because he's playing a smarter barbarian than the power gamer who just dumped everything into strength because he understands the mechanics from the get go. so assuming you can get a max of +20 stat points maybe limit it to +11? that would be a worst case scenario of +11 +11 +1? hrm... maybe I want a slightly bigger swing so that there is a little more difference between characters at high level since this makes what 3 possible builds assumes everyone wants to max out whatever they start putting points in? +13 +9 +1? seems decently good. puts a balanced build +13 +5 +4. Maybe I'll put some threshhold feats in keeping these numbers in mind.

Hah. I tried to do the same thing, but with far more of a departure from d&d and d20 systems. The main problem I had with them was how swingy a d20 was, throwing all the small numbers off for me.

I think for what you're doing, +13 being the maximum would probably work out well. Just bear in mind that that is an extra 60% compared to a +1, assuming there aren't other modifiers.

The difference between a proficient level 1 character in 5e and a level 20 is, roughly, +5 to + 12, without expertise, magic items, or advantage. Including +3 magic items (the only one of these most people get) offers a difference of about +10. High, but beatable in a contested check roughly 25% of the time.

So a +12 difference is okay if you want the max to work out about the same as 5e, without all the scattered increases and slowly-getting-better-at-everything built in that happens there. And assuming there are no other modifiers to these raw numbers.