Game Designers ASSEMBLE

[TravelLog]

You're right of course, which teaches me not to brainstorm immediately upon waking. That said, one other thing I've been tossing around is an alteration of the CR system that goes creatures a "weak", "average" or "strong" rating in addition to their CR to better fit parties of low, medium, and high optimization respectively, because as we all know, a party of 10th level fighters and a party of 10th level wizards are two very different things. Moreover, it would also help DMs fit challenges to players better without being forced to adjust CR through levels and templates. Your 9th level party unoptimized but need a challenge? Throw a pair of average CR 9s at them. High op? Throw a pair of strong CR 10s and maybe a weak CR 11.

[Ziegander]

I've been very busy these past few days, but tomorrow I will try to put in some quality time for this project. While I get things settled and until I finalize my game plan, I'd like to ask those involved to try to refrain from discussing ideas for mechanical tweaks or revision. We'll have plenty of time for that once the game is afoot, and all it does now is encourage people to become set in their ideas before any direction for the project has been decided on. Baby steps, everyone, baby steps.

[veekie]

Hmm, I could help out, though my time resources are kinda tight lately. I'd second Robby in that you definitely should come up with a design plan, maintain veto rights and parcel out tasks to people though.

One thing I'd like to see also is divorcing required wealth from the system. Magic items, yes, sure, but for effects,  not numbers.  Magic items for numbers just make the RNG go off scale faster and insert unnecessary variance.

Other things is to make defense a lot less dependent on gear and more on martial skill(i.e. BAB) tie your defensive abilities to BAB and it'd be far more relevant than it is now, a footnote.

[Prime32]

One thing I'd like to see also is divorcing required wealth from the system. Magic items, yes, sure, but for effects,  not numbers.  Magic items for numbers just make the RNG go off scale faster and insert unnecessary variance.

Something like this?

Flaming: Damage dealt by a weapon with this property counts as fire damage whenever it's more convenient. Against [Cold] effects this weapon provides a shield bonus to AC and Ref saves equivalent to a heavy shield, but you do not take any of the normal penalties for carrying a shield.

[veekie]

Something like that, though more of Flaming causing the condition of being On Fire than simply rotating the damage around.

[Ziegander]

One thing I'd like to see also is divorcing required wealth from the system. Magic items, yes, sure, but for effects,  not numbers.  Magic items for numbers just make the RNG go off scale faster and insert unnecessary variance.

I absolutely agree with you 100%. I hope I can get the design team on board with this, but if not it won't be the end of the world. But I could not agree more. All the wealth by level concept does is add unnecessary clutter and complication to the game. A game should be able to be played, in my opinion, without the PCs needing to spend hundreds of thousands of gold pieces on magic items as they gain levels.

[TravelLog]

One thing I'd like to see also is divorcing required wealth from the system. Magic items, yes, sure, but for effects,  not numbers.  Magic items for numbers just make the RNG go off scale faster and insert unnecessary variance.

God yes. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I say we make it happen to the best of our ability.

[littha]

I absolutely agree with you 100%. I hope I can get the design team on board with this, but if not it won't be the end of the world. But I could not agree more. All the wealth by level concept does is add unnecessary clutter and complication to the game. A game should be able to be played, in my opinion, without the PCs needing to spend hundreds of thousands of gold pieces on magic items as they gain levels.

I actually feel that the horde of magic items appoach is fundimental to D&D as a property and a departure from it would be a step in the wrong direction. Magic items are often the focal point of many quests and storylines and should play a big role in the game. Wealth by level works out fine.

However, I do feel that pure numerical bonuses should be either automatically included on base character stats or scrapped completely depending on where you want the RNG to be in the final design. Magic items should be necessary but only for things like flight or breathing underwater, not +2 to hit.

[Prime32]

I absolutely agree with you 100%. I hope I can get the design team on board with this, but if not it won't be the end of the world. But I could not agree more. All the wealth by level concept does is add unnecessary clutter and complication to the game. A game should be able to be played, in my opinion, without the PCs needing to spend hundreds of thousands of gold pieces on magic items as they gain levels.

I actually feel that the horde of magic items appoach is fundimental to D&D as a property and a departure from it would be a step in the wrong direction. Magic items are often the focal point of many quests and storylines and should play a big role in the game. Wealth by level works out fine.

However, I do feel that pure numerical bonuses should be either automatically included on base character stats or scrapped completely depending on where you want the RNG to be in the final design. Magic items should be necessary but only for things like flight or breathing underwater, not +2 to hit.

Well if you had an attunement system and some way to empower yourself via rituals, you could choose between items and rituals.

[littha]

I have never generally been fond of attunement systems, they always leave me feeling like I should be playing a wizard instead of a fighter or whatever. Additionally they are extra paperwork which should be discouraged whenever possible.

I think one goal we should aim for is fitting a whole character onto a single A4 sheet. Probably not possible but its good to have as an aim.

[Garryl]

I wouldn't mind being able to focus on a few interesting and powerful magic items instead of an arsenal of them. Doubly so if that also involves less accounting. More Dungeons and Dragons, less Spreadsheets and Sales Reports, if you know what I mean.

[Ziegander]

Also, an update: I have been slowly working on the concrete design goals. It's just been at a snail's pace. From the d20 SRD, I have gotten through Modifiers and up to Ability Scores. That's not to say that I've got tons of stuff for The Core Mechanic and/or Dice sections, but more to say that I have not had much chance to work on it. I'm trying. I'm hoping later tonight and more this week I'll be able to really hammer some things out.

[Seerow]

I absolutely agree with you 100%. I hope I can get the design team on board with this, but if not it won't be the end of the world. But I could not agree more. All the wealth by level concept does is add unnecessary clutter and complication to the game. A game should be able to be played, in my opinion, without the PCs needing to spend hundreds of thousands of gold pieces on magic items as they gain levels.

I actually feel that the horde of magic items appoach is fundimental to D&D as a property and a departure from it would be a step in the wrong direction. Magic items are often the focal point of many quests and storylines and should play a big role in the game. Wealth by level works out fine.

However, I do feel that pure numerical bonuses should be either automatically included on base character stats or scrapped completely depending on where you want the RNG to be in the final design. Magic items should be necessary but only for things like flight or breathing underwater, not +2 to hit.

Well if you had an attunement system and some way to empower yourself via rituals, you could choose between items and rituals.

One thing I've always wanted to do was make magic items work like Incarnum, where you take your item and bind it for one effect, but you can pump more essentia into it for a greater effect. So a character could get by with 1-3 pretty strong magic items, or could have a whole christmas tree of weaker ones if preferred/available.

More recently I've been thinking about wanting to remove the Divine Power source, and make devout worshipers ascetics. ie you can pick up divine blessings/domains/vestiges/whatever, and use those instead of magic items. So you no longer need a cleric or paladin class. If you want the bookish cleric, you have a Wizard with the Knowledge Domain. If you want a Paladin, you might take a Fighter with the Protection Domain.  It would allow for a broader range of concepts, because now religious followers aren't limited to just one class, any class can take on religion and gain power from it. You can have worshipers of Pelor who are Warmages/Sorcerers/Evokers with the Fire and Sun Domains.

[Prime32]

^ Maybe powerful races count as items?

[littha]

On that thought, making giving LA a cost in GP would be helpful for arbitration.
For example: Half Celestial +4 (2,000gp).

Then you make it so that you pay a portion of the cost every level until you are above the LA.

Character pays say 50% of their WBL on being half celestial until they have either paid off the gp template cost or reached level 5.

[Seerow]

On that thought, making giving LA a cost in GP would be helpful for arbitration.
For example: Half Celestial +4 (2,000gp).

Then you make it so that you pay a portion of the cost every level until you are above the LA.

Character pays say 50% of their WBL on being half celestial until they have either paid off the gp template cost or reached level 5.

But if you're removing wealth by level (which is the point), then a GP cost doesn't really fit


However, I could easily see something along the lines of a 6th level creature, rather than being 6RHD and LA+3,  gets 6RHD, and loses an amount of essence equal to what a 6th level character has at max.  So playing a troll, you can come in as a 6th level character using the straight up troll stat block, with no essence or magic items. The guy who's playing a human might have say 21 points of essence that he can use for magic items/domains/whatever, plus his 6 levels worth of class abilities, which altogether makes the two of you a fairly even match. At 7th level he's up to 28 points of essence, while the Troll only gets 7, and his first class level.

This gives you a definite balancing point for monsters, and lets them be powerful enough to be a challenge, and still lets you integrate them into the party if a player wants something different. It might take some tinkering to get the balance exact, but it feels like it should be doable.

[littha]

On that thought, making giving LA a cost in GP would be helpful for arbitration.
For example: Half Celestial +4 (2,000gp).

Then you make it so that you pay a portion of the cost every level until you are above the LA.

Character pays say 50% of their WBL on being half celestial until they have either paid off the gp template cost or reached level 5.

But if you're removing wealth by level (which is the point), then a GP cost doesn't really fit


However, I could easily see something along the lines of a 6th level creature, rather than being 6RHD and LA+3,  gets 6RHD, and loses an amount of essence equal to what a 6th level character has at max.  So playing a troll, you can come in as a 6th level character using the straight up troll stat block, with no essence or magic items. The guy who's playing a human might have say 21 points of essence that he can use for magic items/domains/whatever, plus his 6 levels worth of class abilities, which altogether makes the two of you a fairly even match. At 7th level he's up to 28 points of essence, while the Troll only gets 7, and his first class level.

This gives you a definite balancing point for monsters, and lets them be powerful enough to be a challenge, and still lets you integrate them into the party if a player wants something different. It might take some tinkering to get the balance exact, but it feels like it should be doable.

I never advocated removing WBL, I just think that we need a better system to balance high ECL characters than we currently have. The essence system above will cause a lot of paperwork at higher levels and be a nightmare to balance against races but I see your point.

[Ziegander]

Again, we're getting way ahead of ourselves.

The problem with the current usage by D&D 3.5 of the concept of Wealth by Level is that after a few short levels (seriously often times by like 5th level or less) the players are laden down with so many different items that offer little minor benefits here and there that they forget what bonuses and abilities they have.

If we eliminate the +X items, change magic items into things with useful abilities, but then keep the existing notions and practice of Wealth by Level, what we get is a bunch of characters with lots of interesting abilities, where 75% or more of those abilities come from equipped items and carried trinkets. Players will have an even harder time keeping track of what they can do, and may feel even less heroic than they currently do, considering their magic items, and not their build, is where the majority of their versatility comes from.

Wealth by Level, along with Challenge Rating, are at the heart of some of D&D 3.5's biggest troubles, arguably a lot moreso than the imbalance between classes and the uber power of magic. Those issues are/will be a top priority. However, I don't think simply keeping Wealth by Level as is and eliminating +X items solves enough problems, and it definitely creates new ones.

[littha]

It is much easier to just balance the prices of items than coming up with an entirely new system. On top of that we would still need a system for buying/selling things so it might as well be gp.

[DonQuixote]

Just saw this, and I have to say that I'm tentatively interested in helping, but have no idea how much of a time commitment I'll be able to provide.