Making everyone happy.
I can't do it. It's impossible. Everyone is going to have their idea of the perfect system, and no two will be the same. At best, we can all look at a system and say: "Yeah, I'd play that."
D&D has some good things, and those I am trying to keep. It's fast and playable. As much as weapon-dependent types of damage might be interesting, or make sense, I think they will just bog things down.
We tried spell points a couple of times and they just didn't work. A finger of death might slide at 1st, but wish or meteor swarm would not. I think the D&D spell system works rather well. We've enjoyed it with slight modifications.
As for skill caps, they need to exist. -Either as hard caps or as unaffordable asyptotes. I that was one of the things I liked least about Rob's skill system. (Ed too.) Just let a character become a Mozart, Chopin, Michael Jordan, or Tiger Woods and let them start working on some new skills. Modifiers let the DM work with the difficulty. -You are not going to find a golf player measureably better than Tiger Woods, and yet, Tiger is not going to automatically make a 60 foot put. -Give the guy props for working so hard at golf and let him learn something else. In my mind, olympic medalists all have 19's and 20's. In many ways, it just comes down to whether or not the athelete was having a good or bad day. Tiger woods is not better now than he was 6 years ago. He is not going to be any better 6 years from now either. The best he can do is get another skill that can augment his golf skill by some small amount (maybe "read green" or "sense wind").
36 points is a bargain when it buys you 8 more spells per day.
Also, this system hardly has levels. they almost don't exist. -They only define when skill points are earned, and you get a health point. Spells, abilities, proficiencies etc. are not level dependent.
Attributes are now 1 skill point x (score - 5) to buy. Thus 5-6 costs 1 point, 9-10 costs 5 points, 15-16 costs 11 points, etc. Like all abilities, you can only buy one level up at creation. It's affordable, but not silly cheap.
I am going to upload out v3.5 tonight. Have a look.
Know this: I am not going to totally revamp this thing now. Although this talk is confusing, what I've got on paper is getting pretty close to a good system. It's actually approaching what I want: A system that feels familiar, but makes more sense and allows for more player opportunities. You guys have helped a lot. And I think it is a better product because of it.
I am at page 78 or something now with 8pt font. If it doesn't seem worth your while without being totally rebuilt, be my guest and make your own. (Just a word of caution, a lot of ideas seem great until your two-thirds done and you find that two of them don't mesh so well.)
On the other hand, if you want to help me continue to polish this up on the last stretch so I can flush it out with monsters and magic, I'd appreciate it. If so, these are the issues I currently want to solve:
1) How do earn new spells/day (repetiore).
I last suggested casters get 1 spell in each circle they have each time they buy a new circle. After the max circle, it's the last circles cost to continue to do so.
2) Is agility still too good, and if so, how to fix it?
I last addressed this by making strength more worthwhile. I stretched out damage modifiers and made strength reduce the armor dodge modifier.
D&D has some good things, and those I am trying to keep. It's fast and playable. As much as weapon-dependent types of damage might be interesting, or make sense, I think they will just bog things down.
We tried spell points a couple of times and they just didn't work. A finger of death might slide at 1st, but wish or meteor swarm would not. I think the D&D spell system works rather well. We've enjoyed it with slight modifications.
As for skill caps, they need to exist. -Either as hard caps or as unaffordable asyptotes. I that was one of the things I liked least about Rob's skill system. (Ed too.) Just let a character become a Mozart, Chopin, Michael Jordan, or Tiger Woods and let them start working on some new skills. Modifiers let the DM work with the difficulty. -You are not going to find a golf player measureably better than Tiger Woods, and yet, Tiger is not going to automatically make a 60 foot put. -Give the guy props for working so hard at golf and let him learn something else. In my mind, olympic medalists all have 19's and 20's. In many ways, it just comes down to whether or not the athelete was having a good or bad day. Tiger woods is not better now than he was 6 years ago. He is not going to be any better 6 years from now either. The best he can do is get another skill that can augment his golf skill by some small amount (maybe "read green" or "sense wind").
36 points is a bargain when it buys you 8 more spells per day.
Also, this system hardly has levels. they almost don't exist. -They only define when skill points are earned, and you get a health point. Spells, abilities, proficiencies etc. are not level dependent.
Attributes are now 1 skill point x (score - 5) to buy. Thus 5-6 costs 1 point, 9-10 costs 5 points, 15-16 costs 11 points, etc. Like all abilities, you can only buy one level up at creation. It's affordable, but not silly cheap.
I am going to upload out v3.5 tonight. Have a look.
Know this: I am not going to totally revamp this thing now. Although this talk is confusing, what I've got on paper is getting pretty close to a good system. It's actually approaching what I want: A system that feels familiar, but makes more sense and allows for more player opportunities. You guys have helped a lot. And I think it is a better product because of it.
I am at page 78 or something now with 8pt font. If it doesn't seem worth your while without being totally rebuilt, be my guest and make your own. (Just a word of caution, a lot of ideas seem great until your two-thirds done and you find that two of them don't mesh so well.)
On the other hand, if you want to help me continue to polish this up on the last stretch so I can flush it out with monsters and magic, I'd appreciate it. If so, these are the issues I currently want to solve:
1) How do earn new spells/day (repetiore).
I last suggested casters get 1 spell in each circle they have each time they buy a new circle. After the max circle, it's the last circles cost to continue to do so.
2) Is agility still too good, and if so, how to fix it?
I last addressed this by making strength more worthwhile. I stretched out damage modifiers and made strength reduce the armor dodge modifier.
posted by Jimmy Swill @ 7:48 AM
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