What will probably not be a well received idea...

[bhu]

I've been kicking around an idea for a semi classless system for d20.  I'm curious to see what people think, and so I present the following:

The Basics

Step 1: Design a Chassis and assign your Ability Modifiers.  You have 12 'Design Points' (DP) with which to build your Chassis.

Hit Points 0 DP: 6+Con at 1st Level/3 hp per Level after, 1 DP: 8+Con at 1st Level/4 hp per Level after, and 2 DP: 10+Con at 1st Level/5 hp  per Level after.

Base Attack Bonus 0 DP: +0, 1 DP: +1, 2 DP: +2.  BAB does not increase with Level, and is a prerequisite to some Class or Racial Abilities.  There will be Class Abilities with the potential to increase BAB.

Defenses Yes these are similar to the Defenses from Saga except that you don't add your Character Level.  'Good' Defenses get a +2 Bonus.  1 DP: 1 Good Defense, 2 DP: 2 Good Defenses, 3 DP: 3 Good Defenses.

Beginning Skills  Feats, Skills, Skill Tricks, and Armor/Weapon Proficiencies will all be rolled into Skills.  The more ranks you have in a skill the more abilities you have with it.  In short most Fighter Type Feats will be skills now, and instead of weapon or armor proficiencies you will have ranks in the appropriate weapon or armor skill.  Having ranks in a Skill makes you Proficient, and you add Stat Bonus +2 to Checks for Proficient skills as opposed to just the Stat Bonus.  O DP: Choose 6 skills, 1 DP: Choose 8 skills, 2 DP: Choose 10 skills.  You get to choose that many and they are considered Class Skills.  Optionally some classes may require a skill (for example instead of saying 'choose any 8', Cleric may say 'choose any 8, one of which must be Knowledge: Religion').  After first level you may spend 2 skill points to get another class skill at 0 ranks.

Skill Points Per Level (x4 at 1st Level) 1 DP: 4+Int, 2 DP: 6+Int, 3 DP: 8+Int

Class Abilities 1 DP: Choose 2 at 1st Level, 2 DP: Choose 3, 3 DP: Choose 4 at 1st Level (plus 1 per additional Level).  Class Abilities vary by name depending on Class (Maneuvers for Fighters, Spells for Wizards, etc.).  You may also upgrade one power per level, and there may be a list of generic everyman powers any class can take.  As an option instead of taking Class Abilities, you may take Abilities based on your Race instead.  You decide which at each Level.  Each power lists it's Associated Ability Modifier.  You use that Ability Modifier for Bonuses, etc.

Beginning Attributes  Instead of a Attribute Scores you have Modifiers that applies to Checks, Defenses etc.  Distributable is the amount of points you can break up among your abilities at first level to custom modify your PC.  They can be assigned to one attribute or broken up as you wish (for example if you have a +3, you can raise your Str to a +3, or raise three attributes by +1 each).  The maximum Bonus that can be assigned to an Attribute at 1st Level is +4 (this can be higher due to Racial Bonuses or Class Abilities).  Optionally you may take Flaws that will lower an Attribute to a Penalty as opposed to a Bonus in exchange for more higher Attributes, but the Penalty cannot be lower than -4.  1 DP: +7 Distributable, 2 DP: +6 Distributable, 3 DP: +8 Distributable.

Class Bonuses You gain a Bonus every 6, 8, or 10 Levels (I'm thinking of just restricting this to 10 levels period).  Bonuses are increasing an Attribute, increasing the Bonus to a Class Ability/Good Save/ BAB/Class Skill, some sort of Class Specific Power, etc.  Basically you get something nifty. 0 DP: Every 10 Levels, 1 DP: Every 8 Levels, 2 DP: Every 6 Levels.

Step 2: Choose a Race and apply it's Ability modifiers and choose 1 free Racial Power at 1st Level.  Races basically just give you a set of Ability Modifiers, a Type (and possibly Subtypes) and one free Racial Power with access to additional Racial Powers at each level.  Effectively races with multiple abilities that would have LA in 3.5 now have a set of abilities to choose from at each Level.

Step 3: Choose an Alignment.  This is not the traditional behavioral restriction, it is which of the powers that be that you have chosen to align yourself with.  For example a Demon worshiper would be Chaotic Evil, while worshipers of other Gods would be differing Alignments.  You may also choose to be Neutral and remain unaligned.  Some Class Abilities may require a specific Alignment.

Step 4: Choose initial Class and Class Abilities and assign Skills and Feats.  There are 7 Classes: Arcane Caster (Supernatural Abilities from skill or personal power), Divine Caster (You have Supernatural Abilities base on interaction with various Powers That Be), Rogue (Skill based class that handles various out of combat problems and assists in fighting sometimes), Scout (Rogue/Warrior), Trickster (Arcane or Divine Caster/Rogue), Warmage (Arcane or Divine Caster/Warrior), and Warrior (class primarily associated with combat skill).

Step 5: Generate wealth and buy equipment.  Magic items will now be a generic class ability any class can take.  That ability will be the prerequisite to unlocking further abilities.  For example if you take Magic Item (Weapon, Melee) your melee wepaon is now a magic one for purposes of overcoming DR.  You also now can get further abilities with it like Vorpal, Keen, etc.


Yes I know it's in a very rough stage, I'm wondering what people think before I pursue it further.

[bhu]

40 views and the silence is deafening...

[altpersona]

advance one class ability per level? so casting is the only thing you advance for the first 17 levels?

[bhu]

advance one class ability per level? so casting is the only thing you advance for the first 17 levels?

Each spell will be a specific class ability.  You don't need to upgrade the same ability over and over (although you can specialize if you want).  For example lets say you wish to play a wizard and you've set your chassis to have 4 class abilities at 1st level.  That's 4 'spells' you get (Maneuvers if you're a Warrior, some mix of the two if you're a Warmage, etc).  Lets say one of the 'spells' you took was Silent Image.  As Levels progress you can change the range, duration, components, save DC etc or you can upgrade it to Minor Image.  Basically at 1st Level and certain other Levels you will get the basic version of some class ability which you can then upgrade to perform better in some way.  The goal is to make it so that if you want you can make an entire party of 6 Warriors, none of whom look or play alike.

[RobbyPants]

Granted, it's hard to picture this without examples, but I do have one question on a preliminary reading:

Beginning Attributes  Instead of a Attribute Scores you have Modifiers that applies to Checks, Save DC's etc.  You begin with 2 Stats at +2, 2 Stats at +1, 1 stat at +0, and 1 Stat at -1.  Distributable is the amount of points you can break up among your abilities at first level to custom modify your PC.  They can be assigned to one attribute or broken up as you wish (for example if you have a +3, you can raise your +2 Str to a +5, or raise three attributes by +1 each). 0 DP: +1 Distributable, 1 DP: +2 Distributable, 2 DP: +3 Distributable.

Do you really need attributes in a system like this? Couldn't you just purchase some base modifiers with Design Points or something? It seems like an extra layer of abstracting that you probably don't need, but then again, I might be missing how this system works.


In general, this type of system will likely be problematic, just because it's really hard to assign arbitrary point values to things. Even if abilities appear balanced on their own, once you start mixing and matching them, you will definitely have some good and bad combos available. Although, given how this has been the norm for D&D for forty years, you might be able to get away with it.

[bhu]

It's why I'm asking for interest up front.  Because assigning arbitrary point values means eventually I'll need playtesters who can say that it works or ask what the hell was I thinking.

I like your idea though I'll edit that in. 

[bhu]

Initial post has been altered a bit.

[RobbyPants]

The end of step 4 says that you choose an ability score for your abilities. Toward the end of step 1, you get to assign points to your abilities. Is there a reason you wouldn't boost the hell out of ability score X and then pick that score to be your primary stat?

[bhu]

Lets say you choose to max out available stat points at +8 and wish to be a warrior that specialized in two handed weapons.  You put +4 (the max allowed) in Strength, and +4 in Con.  Everything else is a 0.  So now you basically have great damage in melee and have an excellent Fort Defense.  But you kind of lend yourself towards being a one trick pony depending on how you've designed the rest of your chassis.  Warriors who rely on Dex to attack (as well as Rogues) will find you to be much easier to hit.  Casters can choose to use spells that take advantage of the two Defenses  you have that are lower.  You have less skill points which is something a Warrior needs to get all that nifty combat stuff. 

The idea behind it is that by choosing a stat for your class abilities to key off of you're choosing a combat style so to speak.  For example as a warrior if you intend to be a greatsword or polearm fighter you're going with Str.  Ranged or Finesse guys will go with Dex.  Relying on feinting or intimidation or other forms of psychological warfare select Cha.  I was considering having players choose which fighting or casting 'style' they wished to use when making a pc, but that's basically the same thing as I have now just worded differently, and writing it this way was shorter and took less time.  It's still kind of clunky and I intend to maybe rewrite it somehow, but in general I intended to write things as "you can really specialize if you want to, but you leave yourself vulnerable by doing so".  Even if I said "This classes key stat is x", anyone playing that class would put their points in that stat anyway.  Does anyone currently play a Wizard without maxing out Int? 

[dither]

What are the primary advantages of a classless system you are trying to capture?

Generally speaking, the value of individual class features is based upon circumstances beyond the control of the player. Higher accuracy, damage, defenses, and hit points are certainly desirable -- but in a skill-oriented campaign they're considerably less useful.

Experience has shown me that many players have difficulty enough visualizing their own character, let alone the characters described in print and illustrations provided with P&P RPGs. Abstracting the creation process further seems counter-intuitive.

What kind of stories will a classless system allow you to tell that a class system won't?


--Dither

[bhu]

None.  Making story telling easier wasn't the point of doing this.  One of the main things I see about 3.5 is that people absolutely love customization.  What they hate however are stupid taxes for taking prestige classes or making multiclassing optimal or making some sort of PC theme (such as a decent archer).  They also always want to be able to do something that while it sounds neat, becomes clunky when they try to do it within the system.  So why have all that crap standing in the way?

In the system i want to make if you want a combat oriented campaign then you design the chassis of the class to reflect that.  If you want it rp heavy you do the same.  Class is just there for power selection.  PrC's in the system will just be gaining access to a different power list and as a prerequisite will require powers you'd be taking if you intended to get the PrC in the first place (i.e. if you want to play a Frenzied Berserker the only requirement will be Rage, which you'd already be taking to get optimize Frenzy anyway).  Multiclassing will sort of be handled the same way I guess.  There are classes that are combinations of the other two archetypes so im not sure I'll need to address multiclassing if I write it correctly.  Which will come after lots of playtesting i hope...

The downside is you need to plan long term when you first make the PC. 

[RobbyPants]

Lets say you choose to max out available stat points at +8 and wish to be a warrior that specialized in two handed weapons.  You put +4 (the max allowed) in Strength, and +4 in Con.  Everything else is a 0.  So now you basically have great damage in melee and have an excellent Fort Defense.  But you kind of lend yourself towards being a one trick pony depending on how you've designed the rest of your chassis.  Warriors who rely on Dex to attack (as well as Rogues) will find you to be much easier to hit.  Casters can choose to use spells that take advantage of the two Defenses  you have that are lower.  You have less skill points which is something a Warrior needs to get all that nifty combat stuff. 

The idea behind it is that by choosing a stat for your class abilities to key off of you're choosing a combat style so to speak.  For example as a warrior if you intend to be a greatsword or polearm fighter you're going with Str.  Ranged or Finesse guys will go with Dex.  Relying on feinting or intimidation or other forms of psychological warfare select Cha.  I was considering having players choose which fighting or casting 'style' they wished to use when making a pc, but that's basically the same thing as I have now just worded differently, and writing it this way was shorter and took less time.  It's still kind of clunky and I intend to maybe rewrite it somehow, but in general I intended to write things as "you can really specialize if you want to, but you leave yourself vulnerable by doing so".  Even if I said "This classes key stat is x", anyone playing that class would put their points in that stat anyway.  Does anyone currently play a Wizard without maxing out Int?

Okay, that makes sense. What you'd probably do is put +4 in your good stat and give yourself some spells/maneuvers with your remaining points so that you have some options, but you're good at all of them.

I do have one complaint. This reminds me a bit of what 5E suggested in allowing people to swap feats for ability score increases, which is a bad idea. I don't like that you have one pool that you use to select ability scores (which tell how well you do something; vertical advancement) and spells/maneuvers (the things you do; horizontal advancement). It's hard to balance those, and in a group, it seems the optimal thing is to always get really good at a handful of things, and make sure the party covers all the bases (really well).

I'd recommend having one pool that you use to select ability scores/and or BAB and saves (these are all d20-affecting numbers) and a second for selecting abilities that do things (and don't affect the d20 roll).

[bhu]

I'm still thinking on what to do with the pool.  Hit points for example doesn't have anywhere near the utility of the other slots. 

Time for my next thought: I'd like to base xp of something other than CR. Specifically the amount you get is decided by how badly the parties resources are exhausted.  I'll still have CR as a guideline for 'if players are level x then monsters shouldn't be more than x", but even with that there's still things like horrible dice rolls and just plain bad luck/decision making. 

[bhu]

Revised op with new stuff,  got rid of Primary Class Attribute idea, and replace it with an associated attribute specific to each class power.  This will let you go SAD or MAD at your whim, and either be a generalist or a specialist.   You now have 12 design points for your chassis as not all of the various parts of it cost the same anymore. There's other changes sprinkled about too.

[bhu]

Another idea I'd like to run by people: Instead of making separate attack damage rolls, find a way to get the results of both from one roll.

Thoughts?

[RobbyPants]

I'm still thinking on what to do with the pool.  Hit points for example doesn't have anywhere near the utility of the other slots. 

One option could be to give everyone the same HP (maybe 10 HP, or whatever. It might not even scale with level), and to allow people to purchase some sort of Soak attribute (similar to DR and Energy Resistance). There are good and bad ways to use this type of mechanic. The bad way that WotC did was to give a flat number that didn't scale with damage and quickly became useless. A better, but still clunky way is percentages. That's still a pain because it takes more math at the table to adjudicate. A happy medium might be a scaling number that is subtracted from damage, that is based off of expected damage at that level. That way, you do the math up front as a developer and present the player with a table that they look up only when leveling. Then, they write their static Soak (or whatever) number on their character sheet, and know that they always subtract five points of damage from every attack.

This allows you to keep a Soak attribute relatively low while avoiding rocketing HP as PCs gain levels.

Time for my next thought: I'd like to base xp of something other than CR. Specifically the amount you get is decided by how badly the parties resources are exhausted.  I'll still have CR as a guideline for 'if players are level x then monsters shouldn't be more than x", but even with that there's still things like horrible dice rolls and just plain bad luck/decision making.

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you want to decouple XP from combat? Personally, I think that's a good thing. Just hand it out for quests. You might come up with a chart based on the magnitude of the quest (small - single encounter, medium - partial play session, large - entire play session) and base it on that. You'd want to break large, multiple-session adventures into single-session chunks so you don't wait six weeks to award XP.

If they figure out how to circumvent a large adventure in a single encounter by being creative, give them the full amount for being clever and working smarter, not harder.

Revised op with new stuff,  got rid of Primary Class Attribute idea, and replace it with an associated attribute specific to each class power.  This will let you go SAD or MAD at your whim, and either be a generalist or a specialist.   You now have 12 design points for your chassis as not all of the various parts of it cost the same anymore. There's other changes sprinkled about too.

This is probably good. I'm a bit worried about the generalist and specialist idea, though. I've yet to see it pulled off well, except in a solo setting. The game typically encourages the party to be composed entirely of specialists who cover any deficiencies in the party individually. A generalist in such a group will never feel like they're contributing at any given time. At best, they'll feel like they're pinch hitting as a different PCs side-kick each time.

Another idea I'd like to run by people: Instead of making separate attack damage rolls, find a way to get the results of both from one roll.

Thoughts?

This is probably a good idea. There much of a reason to have separate attack and damage rolls, other than it's easier to get variations in damage if you roll for it. In a computerized system, it's easy to turn the degree of success of an attack into a percentage modifier of base damage, but that doesn't work well on pencil and paper.

One way to pull this off would be to combine this with having a more standardized HP total for all PCs and to have defense equal Soak. So, you'd roll your attack and compare it to the enemy's defense/soak. If their defense is higher, your attack misses, or hits for no damage. If it hits, it deals damage equal to the difference of the attack roll and the defense score. Stronger attacks add bigger modifiers.

Note that this approach requires you to keep tight controls of your modifiers to keep things from going to crazy town quickly. Also, it may make rolling on a single d20 too swingy for your tastes. I've seen suggestions on this type of system that use 3d6. It allows for "crits" (high damage rolls compared to the defense) that don't happen too often.

[bhu]

One option could be to give everyone the same HP (maybe 10 HP, or whatever. It might not even scale with level), and to allow people to purchase some sort of Soak attribute (similar to DR and Energy Resistance). There are good and bad ways to use this type of mechanic. The bad way that WotC did was to give a flat number that didn't scale with damage and quickly became useless. A better, but still clunky way is percentages. That's still a pain because it takes more math at the table to adjudicate. A happy medium might be a scaling number that is subtracted from damage, that is based off of expected damage at that level. That way, you do the math up front as a developer and present the player with a table that they look up only when leveling. Then, they write their static Soak (or whatever) number on their character sheet, and know that they always subtract five points of damage from every attack.

This allows you to keep a Soak attribute relatively low while avoiding rocketing HP as PCs gain levels.

Damage isn't going to scale as quickly as it did before.  For example a lot of spells were 1d6 per levels.  Now, if I do the setting damage based on how well the attack roll did compared to the defense, it does a specific amount of damage.  If you upgrade a power to do more damage, it will, but otherwise I'm not intending for abilities to scale with levels, they scale by being upgraded. You can upgrade 1 class ability per level, and you gain one class ability per level.  That will probably change a little as I work out powers

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you want to decouple XP from combat? Personally, I think that's a good thing. Just hand it out for quests. You might come up with a chart based on the magnitude of the quest (small - single encounter, medium - partial play session, large - entire play session) and base it on that. You'd want to break large, multiple-session adventures into single-session chunks so you don't wait six weeks to award XP.

If they figure out how to circumvent a large adventure in a single encounter by being creative, give them the full amount for being clever and working smarter, not harder.

It's more like 'XP for combat will be determined by how badly the encounter fucks up the party and drains it's resources'.  There will be non-combat xp and other stuff, but for fights I'm thinking of abandoning CR.  It's a bitch to adjudicate, and it also assumes the PC's making characters know what they're doing and know how to fight.  Instead of XP based on the monsters CR, I want to base it on : How many party members died?  How many had to go nova or expand a lot of their power just to bring this thing down?  How badly were they hurt?

This is probably a good idea. There much of a reason to have separate attack and damage rolls, other than it's easier to get variations in damage if you roll for it. In a computerized system, it's easy to turn the degree of success of an attack into a percentage modifier of base damage, but that doesn't work well on pencil and paper.

One way to pull this off would be to combine this with having a more standardized HP total for all PCs and to have defense equal Soak. So, you'd roll your attack and compare it to the enemy's defense/soak. If their defense is higher, your attack misses, or hits for no damage. If it hits, it deals damage equal to the difference of the attack roll and the defense score. Stronger attacks add bigger modifiers.

Note that this approach requires you to keep tight controls of your modifiers to keep things from going to crazy town quickly. Also, it may make rolling on a single d20 too swingy for your tastes. I've seen suggestions on this type of system that use 3d6. It allows for "crits" (high damage rolls compared to the defense) that don't happen too often.

The current idea is this:

Each Power has an Attack roll made against an appropriate defense.

The Attack roll is the Associated Ability Modifier+BAB+1d20

Bab ranges from +0 to +2

The Defense is 10 plus Associated Ability Modifier +2 if it's a 'good' defense plus other modifiers from size/powers/etc.

If you equal their defense you do damage equal to your Associated Ability Modifier plus BAB

if you exceed it by up to +5 you do AAM plus BAB plus 1/2 your Level

if you exceed it by +6 or more you do AAM plus BAB plus your Level

I may change this as I have been given the advice I may have shortened the RNG a tad too much.

[bhu]

What would you guys say to rolling 2d10 instead of 1d20?

[RobbyPants]

What would you guys say to rolling 2d10 instead of 1d20?

Do you mean for all of the normal "d20" rolls (attacks, saves, skills, etc)?

If so, it can work. You get a sort of V-shaped distribution of numbers (not exactly a true bell curve, but similar). Note that your average roll will now be 11 instead of 10. You may or may not want to have all of your "static" numbers that oppose d20 rolls have a base of 11 instead of 10. That means all ACs would start at 11 and work up, and all save DCs would start at 11 and work up. It's not mandatory, but if you don't, rolling is slightly stronger than the static number.

Two downsides are that it takes a little longer at the table (you have to add two numbers for each roll), and it's harder to calculate probabilities than on a straight d20. The first problem isn't that big of one. The second one isn't huge either, but it can be annoying. On a d20, a +1 bonus always calculates out to a +5% point chance of success (assuming you're not off either end of the RNG to start with). On 2d10, you have to know what your target number is at that point to be able to calculate the bonus. A +1 when you need a 10 to succeed is bigger than a +1 if you need a 17 to succeed.

There's a good chance you already know all of this. Really, it will mostly come down to personal preference.

[bhu]

I was thinking specifically for attack rolls but I suppose I could apply the concept to other rolls yes.