pseudovere
2008-07-09, 09:23 PM
This system was quite literally thought up in less than 30 seconds (I wish I could explain it in less than 30 seconds) by combining and mutilating several existing skill and ability systems. (Although admittedly one of which is my creation.) Understanding that, any advice, constructive criticism, or feedback of any sort would be much appreciated.
Explanation of my goal in this project:
I have been thinking alot about most ability systems recently (by that I mean the past 30 minutes), especially the dnd system, my homebrew system (see link in signature (the spoiler I believe)), the "tri-stat" system, and the proposed A Song of Ice and Fire system.
I have had criticism on my game about how it has abilities that most people won't use, how it is too complicated, and how even dnd has too complicated a stat system. I find that I have to agree: each player needs to memorize exactly what each stat does what. On the other end, you have the tri-stat system, which while simple, from its lack of abilities gives you a very limited number of choices in what to do with your character. (For example, you cannot have a strong, yet clumsy character, as physical is lumped into one stat.)
However, I found the proposed Song of Ice and Fire system (if I'm talking about it so much, I should probably give a link to the pdf (http://64.17.155.164/gr_files/SiF_Fastplay.pdf), and tell you that the ability information starts on page 5 (7 of 35)) very intriguing. It actually manages to blend typical ability scores with something a bit more like a dnd 3.5 skill system.
However, it had the error of making specialization in specific skills too strange, and, it occurred to me, creating odd boundaries for characters. Why can't somebody have a combat style based on agility rather than the catch-all 'fighting?' What happens if you want to specialize in skills based on the same ability? What if you want a character who is gullible as a result of their inability to understand facial expressions (low awareness score) but with extraordinarily good senses otherwise? (high awareness score)
I then realized that this was even more apparent in dnd, and even my system. Seeing as my system is designed to be freeform, with skills being invented by the player, decided I needed to revise the ability system that eliminated this problem with flexibility, but had a good amount of simplicity. And thus I came up with what you see before you.
THE SYSTEM:
Each character has a certain amount of XP, which can increase through (big surprise) experience. XP can be spent in multiple ways, the only 2 of which I will bother to describe here being Abilities and Skills. On each individual skill or ability, you may invest up to your skill maximum in XP. Your skill maximum is your total XP divided by 10, rounded up. (10XP Skill Maximum=1, 20XP Skill Max=2, 341XP Skill Max=35)
Skills: Skills represent a training on a specific task. Skills can be anything that you can think up, whether physical, magical, social or mental. They must also be very specific. For example, "Parry" would not be a suitable skill, while "Longsword: Parry" would.
When you make a roll to see whether or not you succeed at a specific skill, you roll 1d20 and add all XP spent on the skill to the roll. (example: A character has 4 points in Spot or similar skill, depending on the choice of the player. (Visual Awareness, Vision, Seeing, etc.) To check whether the character notices a strange marking on the wall as the character walks past, the player rolls 1d20 and adds 4. They roll a 8, giving them a total of 12.)
Abilities: Abilities grant bonuses to skill rolls. For example, you could take an ability such as "Parry" to grant bonuses on all skills involving parries. Other examples include "Toughness," "Art," "Entertaining," "Acrobatics," "Awareness," "Breaking and Entering Thievery," and basically anything else you can think of, as long as it does not apply to one specific action, in which case it is a skill, and does not describe a result to an action rather than the action itself. (For example, "Staying Alive," "Omnipotence," and "Wealth" are not suitable abilities, or skills for that matter.)
While abilities are useful for characters that have a wide variety of similar skills, (a longsword fighter could much benefit from the skill "Longswords" as it would most likely entail basically any reasonable combat maneuver involving a longsword they could think of) they simply aren't as effective as skills at specific tasks. For every 2 XP you invest in an ability, you only get a +1 bonus on any involved skill. Thus a character with 100 XP would only be able to invest a maximum of 10 points in any one ability, thus achieving a maximum of a +5 bonus on any one skill without investing points in the skills themselves. A character can have multiple abilities, but when more than one effects a single skill roll, only the ability with the largest amount of XP counts.
Using Skills and Abilities in Combination: A character can gain bonuses from XP invested in both skills and abilities in one skill roll. However, the character may not gain bonuses in the skill that exceed it's skill maximum.
For example, a character with 100 total XP could have 10 XP in the ability "Illusion Magic" and the skills "Feint" with 2 XP, "Entertainment" with 5 XP, "Disguise" with 10 XP, and "Bridge Building" with 8 XP. The character would get a +7 (5 from the ability, 2 from the skill) to its Feint rolls, +10 to Entertainment (5 from the ability, 5 from the skill), +10 on Disguise (5 from the ability, 10 from the skill, putting the character over their Skill Maximum of 10, so the ability is limited back to 10) and a +8 on Bridge Building (+0 from the ability, unless its an illusionary bridge, +8 from the skill, but probably only if it's still a real bridge.)
Explanation of my goal in this project:
I have been thinking alot about most ability systems recently (by that I mean the past 30 minutes), especially the dnd system, my homebrew system (see link in signature (the spoiler I believe)), the "tri-stat" system, and the proposed A Song of Ice and Fire system.
I have had criticism on my game about how it has abilities that most people won't use, how it is too complicated, and how even dnd has too complicated a stat system. I find that I have to agree: each player needs to memorize exactly what each stat does what. On the other end, you have the tri-stat system, which while simple, from its lack of abilities gives you a very limited number of choices in what to do with your character. (For example, you cannot have a strong, yet clumsy character, as physical is lumped into one stat.)
However, I found the proposed Song of Ice and Fire system (if I'm talking about it so much, I should probably give a link to the pdf (http://64.17.155.164/gr_files/SiF_Fastplay.pdf), and tell you that the ability information starts on page 5 (7 of 35)) very intriguing. It actually manages to blend typical ability scores with something a bit more like a dnd 3.5 skill system.
However, it had the error of making specialization in specific skills too strange, and, it occurred to me, creating odd boundaries for characters. Why can't somebody have a combat style based on agility rather than the catch-all 'fighting?' What happens if you want to specialize in skills based on the same ability? What if you want a character who is gullible as a result of their inability to understand facial expressions (low awareness score) but with extraordinarily good senses otherwise? (high awareness score)
I then realized that this was even more apparent in dnd, and even my system. Seeing as my system is designed to be freeform, with skills being invented by the player, decided I needed to revise the ability system that eliminated this problem with flexibility, but had a good amount of simplicity. And thus I came up with what you see before you.
THE SYSTEM:
Each character has a certain amount of XP, which can increase through (big surprise) experience. XP can be spent in multiple ways, the only 2 of which I will bother to describe here being Abilities and Skills. On each individual skill or ability, you may invest up to your skill maximum in XP. Your skill maximum is your total XP divided by 10, rounded up. (10XP Skill Maximum=1, 20XP Skill Max=2, 341XP Skill Max=35)
Skills: Skills represent a training on a specific task. Skills can be anything that you can think up, whether physical, magical, social or mental. They must also be very specific. For example, "Parry" would not be a suitable skill, while "Longsword: Parry" would.
When you make a roll to see whether or not you succeed at a specific skill, you roll 1d20 and add all XP spent on the skill to the roll. (example: A character has 4 points in Spot or similar skill, depending on the choice of the player. (Visual Awareness, Vision, Seeing, etc.) To check whether the character notices a strange marking on the wall as the character walks past, the player rolls 1d20 and adds 4. They roll a 8, giving them a total of 12.)
Abilities: Abilities grant bonuses to skill rolls. For example, you could take an ability such as "Parry" to grant bonuses on all skills involving parries. Other examples include "Toughness," "Art," "Entertaining," "Acrobatics," "Awareness," "Breaking and Entering Thievery," and basically anything else you can think of, as long as it does not apply to one specific action, in which case it is a skill, and does not describe a result to an action rather than the action itself. (For example, "Staying Alive," "Omnipotence," and "Wealth" are not suitable abilities, or skills for that matter.)
While abilities are useful for characters that have a wide variety of similar skills, (a longsword fighter could much benefit from the skill "Longswords" as it would most likely entail basically any reasonable combat maneuver involving a longsword they could think of) they simply aren't as effective as skills at specific tasks. For every 2 XP you invest in an ability, you only get a +1 bonus on any involved skill. Thus a character with 100 XP would only be able to invest a maximum of 10 points in any one ability, thus achieving a maximum of a +5 bonus on any one skill without investing points in the skills themselves. A character can have multiple abilities, but when more than one effects a single skill roll, only the ability with the largest amount of XP counts.
Using Skills and Abilities in Combination: A character can gain bonuses from XP invested in both skills and abilities in one skill roll. However, the character may not gain bonuses in the skill that exceed it's skill maximum.
For example, a character with 100 total XP could have 10 XP in the ability "Illusion Magic" and the skills "Feint" with 2 XP, "Entertainment" with 5 XP, "Disguise" with 10 XP, and "Bridge Building" with 8 XP. The character would get a +7 (5 from the ability, 2 from the skill) to its Feint rolls, +10 to Entertainment (5 from the ability, 5 from the skill), +10 on Disguise (5 from the ability, 10 from the skill, putting the character over their Skill Maximum of 10, so the ability is limited back to 10) and a +8 on Bridge Building (+0 from the ability, unless its an illusionary bridge, +8 from the skill, but probably only if it's still a real bridge.)