The Campaign Builder's Guild

And now a bit of sorcerer. I'm thinking of basing sorcerer's structure a little bit on the 3.5 Warlock's Eldritch Blast related invocations. In this case, the sorcerer has "missile" "cloak" and "shield" which each have their own effect (missile attacks someone, cloak creates a continuous area of pain, and shield is for self-defense) but there are also energy auras (so you can have a fire missile, fire cloak, fire shield, etc.) and shape auras (for widening the area or increasing the range of a spell). The sorcerer can only use one energy and one shape at a time. So no increasing the area and range both at once.

Missile I think would start at close range (into the next zone) and melee area (a cluster of people in melee with each other). Cloak would start at melee range and melee area (it hits anyone standing next to the caster while it goes). Shield would normally be a personal spell, but range would allow you to share it with someone in the same zone as you, and area would affect everyone in melee range with you.

Last thing I should mention is that different energies have different effects if they go over a foe's damage threshold. So fire lights foes on fire, ice slows foes down, lightning has a long stun, and so on (not sure if I'll use acid or sonic).

What do you think so far? Is there another "shape" aura I'm missing besides area and range?

Haven't been following this thread too closely, but on the subject of shape there is also the cone and the line (i.e. everyone in front of the sorcerer gets hit) and the missile might also be channeled into a quick powerful instantaneous "cloak" i.e. a burst attacking everyone around the sorcerer (here I am assuming that cloak has a duration while missile is instantaneous). Also, if area at the moment only applies to the cloak, you might want to consider adding an area variable to the missile so the sorcerer can make his energy blasts explode on impact.
For the missiles, you might also want to consider a secondary effect (or force energy) that pushes opponents.

I should probably explain that I'm using zone based movement. I went over it in another thread, but it would be useful to reiterate here.

Quote from: Point and Zone Movement
These rules are based on what 3.x movement quickly turned into whenever I ran games. As a rule, I eyeballed distance and forgot movement rates and ranges. And somehow it still worked, AoOs and all.

There are zones. Zones are defined as areas somehow discrete from everywhere else, of variable size. Zones can be things like "the room" "the hall" "the dais" or "the balcony."

There are points. Points are just landmarks within zones. Points often include doors or stairs, as these are closed points that one has to pass through to reach another zone.

It is a move action to move from one zone to another. It is a move action to move anywhere within a zone. It is a move action (as an example) to engage in melee with a group or individual.

A melee can include any number of individuals. So if a third person or fourth person joins, all are within reach of each other.

AoOs work as normal. You enter melee, and anyone in the melee can take a swing. You leave, and the same is true. You pass through an occupied point (so you run through a door somebody's waiting at) and whoever's there can take a swing.

Zones or points can have mechanical effects. Rough terrain can take a double move. A bar full of tables allows crouching for cover wherever you happen to be. The idol heals those nearby. Anything goes.

Ranges and areas of effect can include:Target (not a range/single target), Melee (anyone in melee with you/anyone in the targeted melee), Zone (anyone in your zone/everyone in the targeted zone), and Sight (anyone you can see/not an area of effect)

Also, no character abilities in this game have a duration. You're just limited to two continuous effects (auras for casters) at any given time.

That said:

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
Haven't been following this thread too closely, but on the subject of shape there is also the cone and the line (i.e. everyone in front of the sorcerer gets hit) and the missile might also be channeled into a quick powerful instantaneous "cloak" i.e. a burst attacking everyone around the sorcerer (here I am assuming that cloak has a duration while missile is instantaneous). Also, if area at the moment only applies to the cloak, you might want to consider adding an area variable to the missile so the sorcerer can make his energy blasts explode on impact.
For the missiles, you might also want to consider a secondary effect (or force energy) that pushes opponents.

Since I'm not using gridded movement, the shape distinction isn't really there beyond widening the area or extending the range (unless there's more I missed, which there might be).

I figure any item's range or area can be dropped free of cost, but I guess I should make that explicit (so the burst around the caster via missile could sort of work if he doesn't want to use an aura and just needs to hit close right now).

Area applies to all three. It will make the missile affect a whole zone (instead of a melee), or apply the shield to everyone nearby.

I'm considering means of pushing/pulling, but I'm not totally sure how I want to handle the broader category of force effects yet.

So I may need to change the starting math just a little. I'm looking for a way to get ability scores into a -3 to +3 range and massive damage threshold into a similarly close range (about 5 points) before armor (which would probably also go up to about 5 points). So I'm thinking maybe of generating ability scores with 4d4 instead of 3d6 and actually providing a formula for MDT (10 + con mod at zeroth level). Also hp will probably be both fixed and class based (constitution only ties in to MDT).

I'm also considering applying a level-based bonus to both damage and damage threshold instead of bumping things up a die every five levels.

I'm considering capping active stances at two and considering auras a stance type (so that races can get a stance and spellcasters can use it, but also so that non-casters can dabble if need be).

I'm thinking I'll get rid of the PrC-like subclasses every five levels, instead opting for my weird feat-chain variant (there are low-level perks that only require x skill mod, and higher level perks that require both a higher skill and about 3 of the same type of perk... say "disease" or "stealth" perks). As a rule, 3 perks of a type will get you the "second tier" stuff, but you'll have to be level 5 to get said "second tier" stuff so it still allows plenty of wiggle room. And of course, there's "vanilla class" stuff and perks available to all classes, just so no one gets trapped by failing to specialize.

"Shape" auras will probably be available to everybody, but won't affect touch or mind-affecting spells (continuing the discussion from sorcerer).

Abilities will diverge somewhat from the D20 norm (here they may be str, con, dex, spd, per, will, cha, int).

Attack skills will be light melee, heavy melee, thrown, missiles, and grapple. *but* weapons will also have tags describing the similar groups to which they belong (swords, axes, hammers, rope and chain, polearms, etc.). Some perks may apply to a given skill, others will rely on given weapon groups (for example a perk to pull a foe towards you using a rope or chain based weapon). No attack skills will belong to a skill group, and fighting classes will tend to include training in at least one of these.

Defense skills will remain dodge, parry, and shield. None will belong to a skill group, and fighting classes will tend to include training in at least one of these.

There will be an ungrouped magic skill that works for casting most spells, but I may include an arcana skill group for the skills analogous to magic and which most mages would be trained in (this will include at least alchemy, and I'm not sure what else). Magic classes would include training in the magic skill.

Saves will advance like skills, and there will be one for most ability scores (not sure what a cha or int save would be used for though). However, they are determined by race/class and can't be invested in like skills.

Skill groups will probably include social, movement, survival, and knowledge. I'm not sure what else to include (if anything).

Back to class stuff (but more along the lines of formatting and organizing classes) later.

I use 6d4 drop the worst.  Can't be any worse than that.

6d4 drop wouldn't be good for this. I want modifiers from -3 to +3, the average score around 10 (if I keep the modifier/score split), and maybe a shallower bell curve than 5d4 or up would do.

The options I've got really are 2d4-5 (bell curve might not be quite steep enough), 3 fudge dice, or 4d4 (in which case I'd use 3x's score to modifier formula).

Earlier in the thread I said that key abilities would be automaxed and you'd roll for everything else in order, but I think I may allow you to choose between two abilities for each race and class. That way there's less potential for overlap. I think I may do likewise for saves.

Something I just want to write down is that things are going to scale differently in this game. I'm going to try and have them make sense.

To give an example of things not making sense: charm and dominate (or any two vaguely similar spells of differing level). Their DC is set by their spell level. Therefore it is harder to charm a high level foe than it is to dominate them. Indeed, it will be just as hard to charm a lower level foe as it ever was. I want something like the opposite of that (so you can charm the big bad, but you can flat out dominate most of this low-level world). Most of the time, powers are keyed to auto-scaling skills anyway. In the case of charm and dominate the bigger version is just hit with a bigger penalty. This also might help in balancing death effects (which I had initially considered nixing) by making them generally only effective against foes significantly lower level than you (low enough level that they'd drop from one or two sword swings anyway).

To give another example, healing a high level character gets harder. Full healing by potions gets progressively more expensive for some reason. My solution: healing that scales in power with the recipient's level and HD type (I'm probably going to have fixed hp progression, but keep hit dice just for effects like these).

Completely unrelated: Fail a save against poison and it's a randomized (and rolled in secret) countdown to death coupled with a status effect until you're dead or cured. Never have been satisfied with D&D poison that I've seen.

Quote from: beejazz
To give an example of things not making sense: charm and dominate (or any two vaguely similar spells of differing level). Their DC is set by their spell level. Therefore it is harder to charm a high level foe than it is to dominate them. Indeed, it will be just as hard to charm a lower level foe as it ever was. I want something like the opposite of that (so you can charm the big bad, but you can flat out dominate most of this low-level world). Most of the time, powers are keyed to auto-scaling skills anyway. In the case of charm and dominate the bigger version is just hit with a bigger penalty. This also might help in balancing death effects (which I had initially considered nixing) by making them generally only effective against foes significantly lower level than you (low enough level that they'd drop from one or two sword swings anyway).

This problem is more-or-less unique to 3.X. 2nd and 4th Ed determine saves differently. And yes, it was silly.

If death effects are a problem, and only apply to enemies of such low level it's not worth the high level spell slot to cast the spell, you may as well remove the spells. I don't think they add much to the game.

QuoteTo give another example, healing a high level character gets harder. Full healing by potions gets progressively more expensive for some reason. My solution: healing that scales in power with the recipient's level and HD type (I'm probably going to have fixed hp progression, but keep hit dice just for effects like these).

I had a DM that addressed this by having potions heal %. That is, a light healing heals 1 hp / hd, a moderate heals 1d6 / hd or something to that effect.

QuoteCompletely unrelated: Fail a save against poison and it's a randomized (and rolled in secret) countdown to death coupled with a status effect until you're dead or cured. Never have been satisfied with D&D poison that I've seen.

Without the chance your hero fights off the poison through his own natural resilience?

Quote from: Phoenix

Quote from: beejazz
To give an example of things not making sense: charm and dominate (or any two vaguely similar spells of differing level). Their DC is set by their spell level. Therefore it is harder to charm a high level foe than it is to dominate them. Indeed, it will be just as hard to charm a lower level foe as it ever was. I want something like the opposite of that (so you can charm the big bad, but you can flat out dominate most of this low-level world). Most of the time, powers are keyed to auto-scaling skills anyway. In the case of charm and dominate the bigger version is just hit with a bigger penalty. This also might help in balancing death effects (which I had initially considered nixing) by making them generally only effective against foes significantly lower level than you (low enough level that they'd drop from one or two sword swings anyway).

This problem is more-or-less unique to 3.X. 2nd and 4th Ed determine saves differently. And yes, it was silly.

If death effects are a problem, and only apply to enemies of such low level it's not worth the high level spell slot to cast the spell, you may as well remove the spells. I don't think they add much to the game.

There aren't spell slots. Pretty much anything fire and forget in my game is going to be at will. Given that and the fact that most of the world is low level, I'm not really worried about them being underpowered.

Quote

QuoteTo give another example, healing a high level character gets harder. Full healing by potions gets progressively more expensive for some reason. My solution: healing that scales in power with the recipient's level and HD type (I'm probably going to have fixed hp progression, but keep hit dice just for effects like these).

I had a DM that addressed this by having potions heal %. That is, a light healing heals 1 hp / hd, a moderate heals 1d6 / hd or something to that effect.

This is the sort of thing I'm going for yeah.

Quote

QuoteCompletely unrelated: Fail a save against poison and it's a randomized (and rolled in secret) countdown to death coupled with a status effect until you're dead or cured. Never have been satisfied with D&D poison that I've seen.

Without the chance your hero fights off the poison through his own natural resilience?

[/quote]
That's mostly what the save is for, though some classes (barbarians? monks?) might have a little extra they can do in the way of a second chance. The countdown is largely to give spellcaster or apothecary PCs the chance to neutralize poison.

There are definitely aspects of this I'm liking, especially after reading your condensed system thread. Consider me lurking until I get a grasp on the direction you're headed. My own Xev20 project is back on the backburner while I think about things.

I love your stats and saves, as I've been wanting to do something very similar for a long time.

Thanks. I've got a good bit of combat up if you want to take a look.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't trade out monk for something else. Not because of the asian feel (which I don't mind) but because its abilities frequently overlap with what I think should be barbarian or rogue abilities.

What should I include? Bard feels not enough like the vagrant sellsword of low levels, or anything after. I don't know if I'm up enough on my 4e lore to make a Marshall anyone would like (and I'm not sure I want to segregate the military leadership role from the knight's stuff). In any case, I don't feel right with five magic classes and only four non-magic classes.

Hm, I don't know if there'd be too much overlap with the rogue but you could consider a duellist of a sort. Or a mercenary/skirmisher class. I am not sure whether you have explicitly stated you don't want a fighter since it seems to be "missing" from the list of classes?

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
Hm, I don't know if there'd be too much overlap with the rogue but you could consider a duellist of a sort. Or a mercenary/skirmisher class. I am not sure whether you have explicitly stated you don't want a fighter since it seems to be "missing" from the list of classes?

Yeah, fighter's missing. I want specific fighting styles or magic styles to be specific classes. Fighter was fine when the alternatives included a broad magic-user, but when classes get as specific as warlock and hunter, I prefer the knight/barbarian/hunter split.

I might consider a proper fencer. It's also been mentioned that the hunter is the only really ranged character, so maybe if I thought of another of those it would work.

But in your system, if a player wanted to play a soldier and/or veteran what class would he pick?
If he's a footman knight seems unlikely, and barbarian would only make sense if he skipped his discipline training...

If you are looking for another ranged character you might consider a gunslinger if your game allows it (i.e. has guns).
Otherwise there is really only so many ways you can fight with a ranged weapon. Basing a whole class around thrown weapons or sniping seems like overkill.
Taking a hint from an unexpected source of inspiration, you might want to consider a class akin to Diablo's Amazon. Or Iron Heroes' harrier for that matter. Someone swift with a good mix of ranged and melee. But that might be your hunter class?  

If you can come up with the class features, a decent aristocrat class might be a nice compromise. A foil to the rogue, and you could fit fencing in as well.