The Campaign Builder's Guild

The (TBD Name) Hoers d20 System

Ability Scores

In this system there are six ability scores - three passive and three active. These are marked with a (Passive) or an (Active) indicator respectively. In some cases you can receive bonuses (or penalties) to your passive or active stat group. Passive stats determine your character's general resilience and durability, while active stats tie into actions and situations that may be contested by others. Note that no stats determine the strength of Red or Green Magic.

All ability scores default to a value of 0, which provides a +0 bonus. Gaining character levels may provide you with extra points to sink into these in addition to the points you distribute when creating a character. Each stat provides a bonus in a 1-to-1 ratio with the value. So at 1 you have a +1 bonus, at 4 you have a +4 bonus, at -3 you have a -3 bonus, etc. There is no upper limit to your stats, but the lower limit for any character or creature of any size is -10. (I'll add a table later when I figure them out)


Endurance (Passive)

Endurance is your ability to survive gruesome wounds, stave off disease, and resist the elements. It also determines the size of your Stamina pool, allowing you more freedom to attack, defend and move during combat.

Wisdom (Passive)

Wisdom is a measure of your ability to sense your surroundings, understand the processes in your environment and your mental strength. It also determines the potency of Black Magic.

Mana (Passive)

Mana is the ability score that determines how many magical powers you can harness between moments of rest and meditation. It also provides those who possess a high score with minor innate magical abilities.

Strength (Active)

Strength determines your ability to force motion in objects or opponents, and determines what levels of encumbrance are comfortable for you, and along with Dexterity, dictates your damage bonus and effectiveness with particular weapon groups. It is particularly important for use in ranged attacks.

Dexterity (Active)

Dexterity determines your physical accuracy and coordination, as well as your ability to avoid attacks. It determines your ability to hit enemies with your attacks and which weapon groups you can use without issue. It is particularly useful to warriors who use a wide array of melee weapons.

Charisma (Active)

Charisma is your character's force-of-will and presence. It aids in social interaction, determines effectiveness of some combat manoeuvres, and additionally dictates the potency of any Blue Magic you may use.



SpaceHoers: Maybe, but a very heavily modified d20
7:08 pm   SpaceHoers: Make classes just be combos of base stats like in DkS
7:08 pm   SpaceHoers: You can level however you want to take your character
7:09 pm   SpaceHoers: Having an Attunement-type stat seems to help both making hybrid characters, and not requiring stupid high amounts of Intelligence/Wis/Cha to be a decent caster
7:09 pm   SpaceHoers: Especially if you also introduce a kind of magic that doesn't get tied to any stat, like Pyromancy
7:13 pm   SpaceHoers: Having a Faith stat and/or a stat like Humanity might also be an interesting way of replacing Alignment without totally annihilating the concept of certain magic being more potent in specific situations
7:18 pm   Polycarp: so it's basically just a "magic" stat as opposed to having magic tied to some kind of mental stat like wisdom or intelligence
7:19 pm   SpaceHoers: Yes, although Int and Faith would improve the potency of spells tied to them (in DkS, Sorcery and Miracles respectively), and the damage output of Magic/Enchanted (Int) and Divine/Occult (Faith) weapons
7:19 pm   Polycarp: does attunement have any kind of... roleplaying sigificance, I guess?
7:20 pm   SpaceHoers: So if I were to model the magic system off of said game and include a branch of magic that doesn't need Int or Faith to use, you could theoretically dump 40-50 points into physical stats, a bunch into attunement, and throw fireballs around (at a limited quantity)
7:20 pm   Polycarp: I mean, in D&D all the abilities are ostensibly things that affect how you play your character
7:20 pm   SpaceHoers: That's what I'm wondering
7:20 pm   SpaceHoers: It could conceivably carry auxiliary effects, like being more easily detectable by certain magic, I haven't thought about that too much though
7:21 pm   Polycarp: "magic-ness" as an attribute seems like it would basically have no impact on how you played a character
7:21 pm   SpaceHoers: In DkS putting a point into ANY stat increases your defensive values by a bit
7:21 pm   SpaceHoers: Yeah. But keep in mind such a system would necessitate a level range of 1-100+ rather than a more rigid 1-20
7:22 pm   Polycarp: hm
7:22 pm   SpaceHoers: And character strength would mean less as long as they were within 10 or so levels
7:22 pm   Polycarp: is there anything that prevents this being a very obvious "dump stat" for a character who doesn't use magic, or does pretty much everyone need to use magic?
7:23 pm   SpaceHoers: So sinking 5-10 points into Attunement for extra spell slots (keep in mind the lowest it'd probably start at from any class would be 8, with 0 slots) wouldn't mean as much over the long-term
7:23 pm   SpaceHoers: Well, if you aren't using any magic at all, it'd be a waste of points really. You'd just as easily get more out of increasing End/Vit and getting more action points/stamina or health, or Str/Dex for more damage/weapon choices, or Cha for more interaction options
7:24 pm   SpaceHoers: You'd still get small bonuses to your resistances from levelling it, but you would from Str/Dex/End/Vit/Cha, so you might as well put the points there and get their benefits too
7:26 pm   SpaceHoers: It'd be tricky to figure out because DkS runs on a system where you have Stamina to determine how many actions you can complete in a given time. Basically the stamina bar is constantly regenerating, and heavier equip load reduces the rate (but you generally have more damage/damage reduction; there are also some items that increase the rate). A big part of the
7:26 pm   SpaceHoers: video game is managing your stamina so that you have enough to get hits in while also being able to dodge or block
7:27 pm   SpaceHoers: Presumably any system like this would need to include that, but part of me thinks it could make the game slower than a typical D&D game

I've been playing a ton of Bloodborne recently so I'll be following this with interest.

It seems to me the Souls games rather wonderfully capture the spirit of old school D&D in many ways - big, cruel megadungeons where little is spelled out, where the story comes from exploration rather than a rigid plot, and where trial and error are key. I think a big part of adapting those games would be capturing some of that feel in the system: a lethal system that rewards forethought, careful tactics, and player skill.

What about having the magic-ness attribute start at "zero", requiring characters to take points from other attributes to have any value at all, and advancing differently than the other attributes. It's been a while since I looked at d20 magic rules, but don't the spells require to you have a minimum level in their particular casting attribute to be able to cast them? You could have it scale from 1-10 instead of 8-20 - I don't know if this perfectly emulates the DkS system but it's a potential compromise.

Dark Souls works well as a video game, but I'm not sure how well its concepts adapt to tabletop, so I personally wouldn't try too hard to replicate its stats and systems too faithfully. I do like the idea of a "Stamina" system and I think it would make a pretty good resource management scheme, especially for martial characters; I don't think it would inherently slow the game down too much as long as it wasn't any more complicated than any of the other "spend points to do stuff" systems that exist and work pretty well.

I also think a "Magic" attribute is an interesting idea. I do like the idea that casting stats aren't tied to certain specific mental aptitudes-- it kind of sucks that (by the numbers) in Pathfinder you can't have a daft witch or awkward sorcerer, for example. The idea that if you don't do magic it is a pure dump stat could create some problems, but, on the other hand, depending on how powerful magic is, it could help to remedy potential martial/caster disparities, because martial characters would just plain have more points to put into their other abilities.

Quote from: sparkletwistDark Souls works well as a video game, but I'm not sure how well its concepts adapt to tabletop

I think it depends on which elements are being borrowed.

In a certain way, Dark Souls' integration of death/resurrection into the fabric of the game works to remedy some of the lethality issues that can make old-school D&D unpleasant for some players.

Quote from: SteerpikeI think it depends on which elements are being borrowed.

In a certain way, Dark Souls' integration of death/resurrection into the fabric of the game works to remedy some of the lethality issues that can make old-school D&D unpleasant for some players.

Cool things about Soulsborne titles that transfer well to the tabletop:

Nifty death/(in)sanity mechanic: All these games situate the player character somewhere outside of conventional humanity and mortality. This is reflected in gameplay, lore and NPC interactions. Players can take deliberate steps to become more or less human, repositioning themselves in the metaphics of the setting, and accessing different gameplay opportunities.

Weapon movesets: The souls stats increase damage and health and so on, sure, but that's all busywork and bland minmax minutiae. What makes them interesting is how they gate access to weapon classes and tactical opportunities. Rapiers should play very differently to great hammers. I'd go so far as to say that capturing the complex, methodical, tactical feel of DS combat is more important than any other consideration.

As far as magic is concerned, perhaps you're coming at this backward. If magic is an exhaustible daily or otherwise refreshing resource, should you perhaps first figure out how a typical adventure/dungeon-delve is paced before you try to hash out the mechanic that is most dependent on that pacing?

I'm on mobile so I'll have a hard time using some forum features to respond.

I completely agree on the games capturing that feel Steerpike. A big part of what I envision for such a system is what you, sparkletwist and Pareidollhouse have all mentioned in some capacity - a tactical system with a stamina mechanic that dictates essentially your action count for a combat or oppositional activity round, and with weapon classes that feature distinct uses.

Rhamnousia, that would be interesting. I feel like keeping all stats at a baseline of 8 like what D&D point-buy did would be better for consistency, although whether it has merit towards conditions that drain your stats and such would be more questionable.

I agree sparkle. The ultimate goal of a stamina system is to essentially diversify both martial characters' builds and distinguish them as a whole from casters or hybrids. Martial characters could either invest minimally in the stamina stat in favor of stats that allow them to hit harder, or put more points into it so they might, for example, be able to get a couple of jabs in with a weapon AND be able to take a block/parry action in the same round. There might be some useful mechanics in Star Wars Saga Edition (lightsaber combat talents) to draw inspiration from. One thing that might still need a re-imagining is ranged (non-throwing) weapons.

I also really like the idea of a magic stat that isn't tied to your actual aptitude with a certain kind, but it is important in my opinion that there is some sort of magic, however minor, that is tied to some sort of foci only (in Dark Souls, this is Pyromancy, the actual potency of which is dictated by how much you've updated your Pyromancy Flame "weapon", but it still uses Attunement slots the same as Sorcery and Miracles) , rather than a focus and a stat (although the latter would certainly be more powerful).

In such a system I am also wondering about the opposite situation - a character with a high Int, for example, but insufficient Magic. Would they be able to activate scrolls, wands, tattoos, etc.? Maybe still have an affect on ritualistic magic?

I'm not sure on pacing, but while I like the humanity and death mechanics in DkS, I wonder how easily they transfer. It seems like they could limit the theme/setting options with such a system, as a more high-magic or high-fantasy setting might be required to fit said mechanic.

What do you guys think?

Quote from: SteerpikeDark Souls' integration of death/resurrection into the fabric of the game works to remedy some of the lethality issues that can make old-school D&D unpleasant for some players.

I guess. To be honest this seems sort of video gamey to me, and I'm not really fond of the idea. The way death and resurrection works in higher level D&D also seems a bit silly to me. Also, I think video games tend to work better with a certain amount of repetition and backtracking (even in video games too much annoys me, but that's a different topic) so any retry mechanic that just "sends you back" is probably not fit for tabletop. I'm personally generally in favor of softer failure states, because they allow players to fail more often without completely wrecking their chances to succeed at the overall adventure, but then, if a character is dead, that either means that character is gone for good or there is a major quest.

Thoughts About Stats

Been thinking a bit about how this would work out. I'm a little more shaky on mental stats than physical ones, so I have omitted them for now. One thing I'm really wondering is if three mental stats (the D&D Int, Wis, Cha) are really required. Int and Cha or Wis and Cha seem like they could work well enough, particularly in the latter's case if knowledge skills are still a thing. I do think multiple mental stats would need to have benefits to different elements, or different styles, of magic.

One final thing to note is that this is obviously very much in progress and nothing is 100% concrete. There's definitely a certain feel (a bit more video-gamey) in mind, but ultimately it still has to be both playable and fun, or else the mechanics are no good.

Stats

All schemes (below the stat descriptions) would include the same array of stats, and each would probably have a base value of 8 or 10 (for my examples I'll assume 10) for any characters or creatures (to allow room for spells, size and conditions to penalize).  They are:

Vitality: This is likely a stat that would solely determine HP. whether actual HP or a wound-point system.

Endurance: A popular stat for everyone no doubt, this would determine stamina points (for actions as mentioned in my previous posts), resilience to things like disease and other matters of health, and extreme conditions. Equip load (ability to wear more and/or bulkier gear without being significantly slowed) too, maybe.

Strength: One of two physical statistics that determines your ability to deal high damage, and also which weapon classes you can wield without struggle (mostly melee). Also ties into various physical skills. Maybe Strength would provide a bonus to "stamina breaking" or "stagger", as a further distinction from Dexterity, which could do it's typical "increased AC/dodge" thing?

Dexterity: The other physical stat that dictates damage bonus and what weapons you can use effectively (some melee, some ranged). Also ties into various skills.

Mental Stat A

Mental Stat B

Mental Stat C?

Mana: A stat that is especially important for its ability to provide Vancian spell slots (or maybe a mana pool). Also could boost natural "resistance" to magical effects or something. Presumably there will be some sort of magic that can be performed by virtue of having a decent value in Mana without one in the mental stats.

Faith: Rather than a true stat, this seems like if it were included at all, it'd be some sort of replacement for alignment that is much more fluid. It could be a stat, in which case it'd probably be tied to the potency of a divine-sort-of-magic and of certain enchanted equipment. Maybe some sort of luck factor.


Schemes

One has to wonder about how the stats actually shake out in this system. I see three possible variations:

Scheme A: The D&D-esque stat system essentially. Stats start at 8, you point-buy a certain amount, and every other point essentially changes the bonus, so you have a lot of dead stat levels. This has the advantage of bringing a tiny bit more familiarity to most players, but not much else. The only thing you might get from the "intermediate" values is efficient use of different weapon classes.

Scheme B: More Dark Souls-esque. Every point provides some sort of bonus, although some said point bonuses might consist of passive bonuses to "skill group" use or something, rather than more damage/spells/etc.

Scheme C: Somewhere in between. Early point increases provide bonuses every time, but diminishing returns become a factor. You might get an extra spell slot at 11 and 12, but need to hit 14 for a 3rd, 16 for a 4th, 19 for a 5th, etc. If the stat system had caps for all of them (with the physical ones maybe being based on creature size), then this would be there too, with the peak value being expensive but with a high bonus.

Thoughts About Equipment

First off, not sure about armor at all, other than it likely being more of a damage reduction thing.

Weapons: I like some complexity in my systems, but one thing I really friggin' hate about D&D is the way proficiencies work, where you can either dip into a martial class and suddenly use every single simple and martial weapon no problem, or you suck with anything but a select few. I like the idea of weapon classes - an example of what could be done is to go from having 10 different kinds of sword to "light blades", "heavy blades" and "great blades", although I still see this being a problem with classification of things like scythes (honestly any way of breaking it up will have problems though). The concept of proficiency as D&D does it would be replaced by stat requirements, and certain weapon types might even have different "damage bonus" rates based on your Str/Dex. "Proficiencies" could refer to specialization and provide slight bonuses. It could end up that only weird/particularly unwieldly weapons come with some sort of innate penalty. I actually really like the idea of categories being fairly ambiguous to avoid having players struggle with that fancy weapon they want to use.

Shields

I think it's kind of funny that this category seems more important to me than weapons. This plays into the stamina system and block/parry, which is inspired as much by Star Wars Saga Edition's lightsaber combat talents as the Dark Souls way of doing things. I am thinking there would be 3.5 "grades" of blocking bonuses, and because I haven't codified a proper stamina system yet I have to estimate, but say that they fall into the following categories:

Light: This is the "parrying for dayz lel" category. Great at the parry as stated. That'd be a stamina-using action that can maybe do something like roll against an opponent's attack, using your own stamina to do so, and if you beat the attack roll you can cause them to use double stamina on that action or something. Not a huge fan of going full-out Dark Souls "leave them vulnerable to a critical attack", but maybe that could work too. Anyway, a "Light class" shield would have the highest parry bonus and lowest block bonus (say +6 and +2).

Medium: The bread and butter of most warrior types. Decent at both parrying and blocking (+4 and +4?).

Heavy: These are tower shields or literal doors (if you're feeling particularly bold). Either high block and low parry (+6 block, +2 or even +0 parry), or high block and the total inability to parry. If the latter, then it might balance by reducing the stamina cost of a block move a bit.

Weapon Block: This category is the 0.5 I was referring to. All weapons would get some base blocking value you could use, although it probably wouldn't count against ranged weapons (without a feat or something). This is inspired a bit by the Star Wars Saga Edition "Lightsaber Defense" talent, which was a Count Dooku thing where you got a bonus to your defense when wielding a lightsaber one-handed exclusively. In this system, it'd allow you to go one-hand wield or even dual-wield and gain some sort of block bonus anyway. There'd be some unusual (usually oversized, e.g. the weapons of giants or demons) cases where the weapon would provide higher block than you'd think, but as a humanoid one would have to wonder if you'd be using a big, devastating weapon to block at all anyway.



-------------------------------------

Any thoughts on any of this?

Quote from: sparkletwistAlso, I think video games tend to work better with a certain amount of repetition and backtracking (even in video games too much annoys me, but that's a different topic) so any retry mechanic that just "sends you back" is probably not fit for tabletop.

I agree that this could be terrible, but I've actually had some success with a sort of version of this. An item my Planescape players absolutely loved was a sort of Prince-of-Persia-esque pocketwatch they could use to very occasionally rewind time in short bursts. They have used this to great effect, and it's allowed me to give them challenges which would otherwise seem "unfair," but which because they have the equivalent of an undo button they can totally take on.

Example: they were in Niflheim, and came across this:

[ic=Niflheim Encounter]Down the tunnel, you hear sounds of turning wheels, Giant voices snarling, and the whimper of beasts.  Shapes begin to materialize out of the fog: three ogres,a  frost giantess, and an ice troll escorting a series of wagons through the gloom.  The caravan is being drawn slowly onwards by large white wolves, which look terribly exhausted.  Some of the wagons are laden not with goods but with cages full of slaves – dwarves, elves, and other humanoids all crammed together.  The ice troll is the clear leader of the group, shrieking orders in the Giant tongue.[/ic]

They waded in and got absolutely slaughtered - two party members dead in as many rounds, others dropping HP rapidly, heading towards what looked like a possible TPK. But they did a rewind and instead followed the caravan by stealth, eventually cutting the reins of the abused wolves and freeing them, using spells to further encourage them to attack the giants. They still lost a party member in this fight (which led to its own interesting adventure, actually), but they took the giants down.

Quote from: Space HoersOne has to wonder about how the stats actually shake out in this system. I see three possible variations:

Scheme A: The D&D-esque stat system essentially. Stats start at 8, you point-buy a certain amount, and every other point essentially changes the bonus, so you have a lot of dead stat levels. This has the advantage of bringing a tiny bit more familiarity to most players, but not much else. The only thing you might get from the "intermediate" values is efficient use of different weapon classes.

Scheme B: More Dark Souls-esque. Every point provides some sort of bonus, although some said point bonuses might consist of passive bonuses to "skill group" use or something, rather than more damage/spells/etc.

Scheme C: Somewhere in between. Early point increases provide bonuses every time, but diminishing returns become a factor. You might get an extra spell slot at 11 and 12, but need to hit 14 for a 3rd, 16 for a 4th, 19 for a 5th, etc. If the stat system had caps for all of them (with the physical ones maybe being based on creature size), then this would be there too, with the peak value being expensive but with a high bonus.

I would probably go B, maybe C, but wouldn't do A.

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: sparkletwistAlso, I think video games tend to work better with a certain amount of repetition and backtracking (even in video games too much annoys me, but that's a different topic) so any retry mechanic that just "sends you back" is probably not fit for tabletop.

I agree that this could be terrible, but I've actually had some success with a sort of version of this. An item my Planescape players absolutely loved was a sort of Prince-of-Persia-esque pocketwatch they could use to very occasionally rewind time in short bursts. They have used this to great effect, and it's allowed me to give them challenges which would otherwise seem "unfair," but which because they have the equivalent of an undo button they can totally take on.

Example: they were in Niflheim, and came across this:

[ic=Niflheim Encounter]Down the tunnel, you hear sounds of turning wheels, Giant voices snarling, and the whimper of beasts.  Shapes begin to materialize out of the fog: three ogres,a  frost giantess, and an ice troll escorting a series of wagons through the gloom.  The caravan is being drawn slowly onwards by large white wolves, which look terribly exhausted.  Some of the wagons are laden not with goods but with cages full of slaves – dwarves, elves, and other humanoids all crammed together.  The ice troll is the clear leader of the group, shrieking orders in the Giant tongue.[/ic]

They waded in and got absolutely slaughtered - two party members dead in as many rounds, others dropping HP rapidly, heading towards what looked like a possible TPK. But they did a rewind and instead followed the caravan by stealth, eventually cutting the reins of the abused wolves and freeing them, using spells to further encourage them to attack the giants. They still lost a party member in this fight (which led to its own interesting adventure, actually), but they took the giants down.

Quote from: Space HoersOne has to wonder about how the stats actually shake out in this system. I see three possible variations:

Scheme A: The D&D-esque stat system essentially. Stats start at 8, you point-buy a certain amount, and every other point essentially changes the bonus, so you have a lot of dead stat levels. This has the advantage of bringing a tiny bit more familiarity to most players, but not much else. The only thing you might get from the "intermediate" values is efficient use of different weapon classes.

Scheme B: More Dark Souls-esque. Every point provides some sort of bonus, although some said point bonuses might consist of passive bonuses to "skill group" use or something, rather than more damage/spells/etc.

Scheme C: Somewhere in between. Early point increases provide bonuses every time, but diminishing returns become a factor. You might get an extra spell slot at 11 and 12, but need to hit 14 for a 3rd, 16 for a 4th, 19 for a 5th, etc. If the stat system had caps for all of them (with the physical ones maybe being based on creature size), then this would be there too, with the peak value being expensive but with a high bonus.

I would probably go B, maybe C, but wouldn't do A.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of A either. Even if different weapon classes were "unlocked" by some intermediate levels, it wouldn't be consistent enough to make them valuable, and then you'd have the problem of wasting ability points just to use a few extra weapons (not the right priority really). I think C is probably best, but I'm interested to hear opinions on B.

Quote from: Space HoersOne thing I'm really wondering is if three mental stats (the D&D Int, Wis, Cha) are really required.

For what it's worth, Asura has one purely physical and one purely mental stat, but it also has three stats that combine aspects of both: Grace is both physical and social grace, Senses is for observation and coordination, and Vitality is for both physical endurance and mental willpower. It works really well for Asura, but I'm aiming for a different genre. It still might be useful to you, though.

Quote from: Space HoersOne has to wonder about how the stats actually shake out in this system. I see three possible variations

I like option B the best, maybe small amounts of option C, but I think diminishing returns should only come into play if you're finding that generalists are being punished relative to specialists more than you'd like.

Quote from: Space HoersI actually really like the idea of categories being fairly ambiguous to avoid having players struggle with that fancy weapon they want to use.

I like this, too. I'm honestly not sure if you really need to bother with weapon proficiencies at all. If weapon use is more heavily linked to your stats, which it seems like you're going for, then a wizard who isn't strong is never going to truly excel with a sword, so there's no need to put up an artificial barrier if he wants to gish it up a bit.

Quote from: Space HoersAll weapons would get some base blocking value you could use, although it probably wouldn't count against ranged weapons (without a feat or something)

Given the amount of emphasis you seem to have placed on melee combat, and the amount of emphasis that probably should be placed on melee combat to make this system feel true to the feel I think you're going for, I think it's perfectly reasonable to make ranged combat a bit less optimal as a basic system assumption. This means that, in general, I think it should be easier rather than harder to avoid ranged attacks-- for example, in one of my Fate hacks with similar goals, you could spend a fate point to get +2 to defense against a melee attack, but a fate point spent against a (non-critical) ranged attack would simply make it miss. So, while blocking ranged attacks with a weapon might strain verisimilitude and may not be something you want to allow without a feat, if players have invested in that feat, they should have a very good chance of doing so, and there should probably be things that even players without the feat can do.

Quote from: Space Hoers
Weapons: I like some complexity in my systems, but one thing I really friggin' hate about D&D is the way proficiencies work, where you can either dip into a martial class and suddenly use every single simple and martial weapon no problem, or you suck with anything but a select few. I like the idea of weapon classes - an example of what could be done is to go from having 10 different kinds of sword to "light blades", "heavy blades" and "great blades", although I still see this being a problem with classification of things like scythes (honestly any way of breaking it up will have problems though). The concept of proficiency as D&D does it would be replaced by stat requirements, and certain weapon types might even have different "damage bonus" rates based on your Str/Dex. "Proficiencies" could refer to specialization and provide slight bonuses. It could end up that only weird/particularly unwieldly weapons come with some sort of innate penalty. I actually really like the idea of categories being fairly ambiguous to avoid having players struggle with that fancy weapon they want to use.

Somewhat relevant, when thinking about weapon proficiency overlaps and suchlike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaG_cSB0Zek

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: Space HoersOne thing I'm really wondering is if three mental stats (the D&D Int, Wis, Cha) are really required.

For what it's worth, Asura has one purely physical and one purely mental stat, but it also has three stats that combine aspects of both: Grace is both physical and social grace, Senses is for observation and coordination, and Vitality is for both physical endurance and mental willpower. It works really well for Asura, but I'm aiming for a different genre. It still might be useful to you, though.

Quote from: Space HoersOne has to wonder about how the stats actually shake out in this system. I see three possible variations

I like option B the best, maybe small amounts of option C, but I think diminishing returns should only come into play if you're finding that generalists are being punished relative to specialists more than you'd like.

Quote from: Space HoersI actually really like the idea of categories being fairly ambiguous to avoid having players struggle with that fancy weapon they want to use.

I like this, too. I'm honestly not sure if you really need to bother with weapon proficiencies at all. If weapon use is more heavily linked to your stats, which it seems like you're going for, then a wizard who isn't strong is never going to truly excel with a sword, so there's no need to put up an artificial barrier if he wants to gish it up a bit.

Quote from: Space HoersAll weapons would get some base blocking value you could use, although it probably wouldn't count against ranged weapons (without a feat or something)

Given the amount of emphasis you seem to have placed on melee combat, and the amount of emphasis that probably should be placed on melee combat to make this system feel true to the feel I think you're going for, I think it's perfectly reasonable to make ranged combat a bit less optimal as a basic system assumption. This means that, in general, I think it should be easier rather than harder to avoid ranged attacks-- for example, in one of my Fate hacks with similar goals, you could spend a fate point to get +2 to defense against a melee attack, but a fate point spent against a (non-critical) ranged attack would simply make it miss. So, while blocking ranged attacks with a weapon might strain verisimilitude and may not be something you want to allow without a feat, if players have invested in that feat, they should have a very good chance of doing so, and there should probably be things that even players without the feat can do.

Hmm yeah... I'll have to go with option B and see how it works out. Not sure about stats yet. I agree that proficiencies probably aren't necessary at all, but feats/talents that let you get bonuses with specific types should still be a thing I think. Blocking ranged attacks is going to be tricky, but I'd like to see the bow/crossbow crowd at least become more of an indirect fire option than something someone might use in what you'd think of as a typical D&D combat round. This one is a definite TBD but I like the ideas you've suggested.

Quote from: Kindling

Quote from: Space Hoers
Weapons: I like some complexity in my systems, but one thing I really friggin' hate about D&D is the way proficiencies work, where you can either dip into a martial class and suddenly use every single simple and martial weapon no problem, or you suck with anything but a select few. I like the idea of weapon classes - an example of what could be done is to go from having 10 different kinds of sword to "light blades", "heavy blades" and "great blades", although I still see this being a problem with classification of things like scythes (honestly any way of breaking it up will have problems though). The concept of proficiency as D&D does it would be replaced by stat requirements, and certain weapon types might even have different "damage bonus" rates based on your Str/Dex. "Proficiencies" could refer to specialization and provide slight bonuses. It could end up that only weird/particularly unwieldly weapons come with some sort of innate penalty. I actually really like the idea of categories being fairly ambiguous to avoid having players struggle with that fancy weapon they want to use.

Somewhat relevant, when thinking about weapon proficiency overlaps and suchlike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaG_cSB0Zek

Yeah, I love his channel. I may have to watch a lot more to get a feel for some of the combat system.

So I'm thinking a bit more about stats and whatnot and I'm going to start putting together drafts of things in the first post. I'd also like to take a lot of inspiration from the E6 Pathfinder progression that we used to use in old games. A 10-level system that grants some stat improvements but also focuses on skill and feat progression would probably be best.

Also I'm wondering about everyone's thoughts on the Dark Souls-style spell use in a tabletop system: in Dark Souls, you have spell slots from Attunement, but you also have each spell come with a number of uses with each "scroll" you acquire. So for example, in said game, a pyromancer starts with 2 spell slots and 1 scroll of Fireball, which gives them 8 castings attuned to one slot. A much more powerful Faith-based AoE spell called Wrath of the Gods gets 3 castings, and various other spells range from 30 uses (Soul Arrow) to 1 use (Homeward), with an average number of uses per scroll sitting somewhere around 3-5. I like the idea of porting this and having variation in the potency of different scrolls/books/etc. that caster players come across, but it'd need to be handled properly. If I go with this, I'd like to tie it somehow into a departure from the D&D concept of spell levels, since mental stats would dictate which spells you can use rather than needing to hit a certain level to have access to them. My main concern in this case then is ensuring that I (or any other GM) won't cripple a caster by limiting their access (or on the other hand, providing too much access) to spell scrolls from which they can choose spells for the day.

Just to clarify, I'm not necessarily saying you should model your combat system on real historical martial arts - super-granular simulationist combat mechanics aren't necessarily the most fun or streamlined in play - just that his points about translating a kind of "general weapon-based martial arts ability" from one weapon set to another are relevant to your thoughts on weapon proficiencies and could potentially be translated into something gameable in a more abstract, less hardcore simulationist sense.