This seems like a good place to put this.
I am designing a system that will allow for climatic battles, both on a personal level (thus the temporary name: Fantasy Duel System(FDS)) and against huge monsters.
I know that that is a tall order, but I think it can be accomplished.
In addition, I am shooting for mechanics somewhere between GURPS and D&D 3.5, point-based and level-based, but not level-limited.
I need help in analyzing the effectiveness of what I have created thus far. Any critique is helpful!
By the way, this is a
really long post. Sorry about that.
ExplanationUpon reading the rules for GURPS, I thought it absurd that the game wasn’t level-based. I realize that it is intended that the game be played with more or less static and specialized characters, but the game stresses that a few points should be allotted to players at the end of every session. Eventually, your character will be too cool for the game and need to face enemies crafted just to challenge him!
Well, all you need to do is not give out points until a character levels up, then you can have enemies with like point-values pre-made. All that needs to be done is make sure that characters don’t fall too far behind in any one place. I haven’t quite figured that out yet, but I have come close, I think.
Table of Contents:
Character creation
-Basics
-Spheres of Skills
-Specialization
Stamina
-Basics
-Uses and Expenditure
Exertion Points
-Use
-Exertion Dice
Character Creation
Basics
FDS is a point-buy game. Everything about your character can be bought, hopefully making for characters that are highly customizable, varied, and evenly matched at each level.
I want to ensure that every character concept is made room for. To do this, there are a few basic principles to character creation. A character’s total abilities are defined by a combination of his attributes, skills, and traits.
Ability ratings (or “attributes”) are the equivalent of D&D’s ability scores, but the connotation of “scores” implies having accomplished something (which further implies that you rolled well). Attributes start at 15, and can be raised by spending character points or lowered to gain character points (10 and 20 are the minimum and maximum starting scores under normal circumstances, and represent the range of normal human abilities). All skills are based on them, and some traits cannot be had without certain ability ratings.
Skills denote the different techniques one can use to resolve certain tasks. One’s skill rating denotes how much training a person has in a skill. Skills ratings are raised point by point, and can be lowered to get character points back if one does not use the skill for a while. All actions are resolved through skill conflicts, in which one rolls to get a better skill result than the difficulty. The difficulty is either set, or based on an opponents opposed skill check.
Traits are the qualities of a character that essentially let them break the rules. Traits give new rules or abilities to a character, and are a lot like feats. There are positive traits, which cost character points, and negative traits, which give character points. Therefore, traits are a lot like advantages and disadvantages in GURPS as well.
Skill SpheresIn order to make character creation less freeform, therefore exploitable, than GURPS, I have created Skill Spheres to limit things. There are six Skill Spheres, each with its opposite:
Physical vs. Intellectual, Social vs. Personal, and Combat vs. Magic.
Physical skills require ableness of body, like climbing, leaping, hiding.
Intellectual skills require a steady hand or mind, like art, engineering, forgery.
Social skills require presence of mind and force of personality, like lying, convincing, and charming
Personal skills are those that are honed by self-perfection, like senses, concentration, and self-control
Combat skills include weapon attacks, damage, parrying, and dodging
Magic requires natural enchantedness, and governs how well you cast spells
Choosing a negative trait from a certain Skill Sphere grants full character points within that Skill Sphere, but only ¼ character points to other ones. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is designed to make one specialize more in each Skill Sphere while preventing extreme minmaxing (death gorillas with social anxiety).
So while you may drop your weapon occasionally when you miss, that doesn’t mean you can’t be good at martial arts, dodging, or armor usage.
SpecializationUpon character creation, one must specialize in three of the six Skill Spheres. A Skill Sphere that you specialize in allows you to have twice as great a skill rating as a nonspecialized Sphere, and they get more benefit from attributes. You get three out-of-sphere skills to choose from; these skills are treated as specialized-Skill Sphere skills. This is where character concepts really come to life.
Examples:
Rogue: Social, Physical, Intellectual, w/ parrying, rapier use, and sneak attack
Paladin: Social, Combat, Physical, w/ healing magic, concentration, and self control
Wizard: Magic, Personal, Intellectual w/ dodging, parrying, and hiding
Druid: Magic, Personal, Physical w/ animal relation, nature lore, and scimitar use
Barbarian: Combat, Personal, Physical w/ intimidate, animal relation, and nature lore
Cleric: Combat, Magic, Personal w/ religion lore, history lore, and charm
You’ll notice that there isn’t really any support for “just a fighter.” Even putting all of your points into combat skills means that you have two other spheres that are above the other three just because of ability rating involvement.
I’ll probably limit the number of character points that can be put into any one Skill Sphere to half, though.
StaminaFDS is designed to emulate realistic fantasy combat, but with an allowance to go to the extreme.
I want to create a realistic but elegant system to record one's reserves of strength and their expenditure.
What I have currently is a system where using stamina, short term energy, too excessively, leads to incurring Fatigue, which depletes Endurance.
Concept Basics: One round is 5 seconds, and a character acts in half-second slots of time. Therefore. Stamina usage is measured by round and used by slot. For every ten stamina one uses in one round, they incur one Fatigue. One regains 5 stamina per round, but Endurance does not recover without rest. As one depletes their Endurance, they suffer status effects due to tiredness. Running out of stamina and still acting reduces an equal amount of hp as the stamina used in that action.
Use and Expenditure: Any action that requires any sort of exertion uses stamina: attacking, casting a spell, running, blocking, dodging, etc. There are only a few things that don’t use stamina: things that require only the use of your hands, walking (at 4 miles per hour, which is 3 feet per second), and resting. The rest action actually gains you 1 stamina per slot spent resting (so up to 10 additional stamina per round at first level).
Stamina can also be used for exertion dice.
Exertion PointsI want the FDS to be endless, going up to whatever level players want (probably with support to level 100). Unfortunately, even if I have the game roll 3d10, the RNG will be escaped by level 60.
Since the game is based on equal-level challenges as well as opposed skill checks, this presents an interesting obstacle. At any given level, people who have been maxing out their abilities will be on equal footing. A troll versus a paladin will both rely on their rolls to win in combat, since their skill ratings are within 30 of each other. However, anyone who hasn’t been putting ranks into skills will not be level-appropriate in opposed skill checks.
I have therefore invented exertion. One has a number of exertion points equal to their level. Spending exertion points lets one bridge the gap between specialists and nonspecialists when it matters most.
Use:The Skill Spheres Personal, Physical, and Combat are all unique in that simply trying harder can give veritably better results. I therefore think it is appropriate that a mechanic exist that bridges the gap for nonspecialists.
A character can incur one Fatigue to treat themselves as if they had a skill rating in one skill from one of the above Skill Spheres equal to half their level for one round, which is called the exertion rating of the skill.
In addition, one can expend three stamina to get an exertion die, using up one of their exertion points. An exertion die is 1d6 that is added to a single skill check from one of the above Spheres. A character can only use up to half their level in exertion points each round (rounded up), and each die gained uses 3 stamina, no matter what is rolled on it.
This system is there for three reasons: to let non-melee guys get out from under the threat range of melee juggernauts by making that desperate dodge check; to let people be able to tell when someone is lying or sneaking occasionally; and to make death by falling less likely.
Hopefully, combining exertion rating with exertion dice will allow the wildly disparate skill levels to match up once a day or so when it really matters.
So what do you think? These three mechanics are the most basic parts of my game. I really want feedback on character creation and exertion points and exertion ratings. These are the most controversial parts in my eyes.
Ideas?