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[Interest On] Experimental D20 System

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Posts

  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Oh no, I wouldn't want for a separate charisma stat. I was using charisma for its literal meaning. Willpower should be the base for the skill, like Quoth mentioned, but there should be something that allows non-psionic characters to play by word and reason effectively in a situation where a telepath or empath could simply violate someone's mind to get them to do what they want.

    Such a skill would either not be as powerful as raw psionic manipulation, or be restricted from characters with psionic abilities... perhaps a psionic's advanced knowledge of a person's mental state would prevent them from being able to fully grasp/present their desires to people through this skill. They know how to invoke emotions and thoughts, but the way this skill does it is just different in a way that I'm having difficulty explaining in words at this moment... :U

    A 1:1 ratio on deductions to bonus is really high though.

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Being diplomatic towards someone would be simpler, very true. I.e., if you persuade someone to give you the information you require, you're not having to pit their will against your own- a standard DC instead of an opposed roll. To steal yet another aspect of D&D, there'd be a Diplomacy specialisation or similar- and rolled in conjunction with an appropriate mental stat.

    ...or maybe give the players an opportunity to choose which stat they use. Willpower-based persuasion relies on D&D-esque charisma and confidence. Intelligence-based is very logical discourse. Focus-based is somewhere between the two.

    And you're right: what we should probably do for deductions is give people two or three points for every -5 they have to a speciality. That should limit people from taking -10 in Melee just so they can boost their Psi Defence to insane proportions, and similar.

    Edcrab on
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  • RazorwiredRazorwired Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Such a skill would either not be as powerful as raw psionic manipulation, or be restricted from characters with psionic abilities... perhaps a psionic's advanced knowledge of a person's mental state would prevent them from being able to fully grasp/present their desires to people through this skill. They know how to invoke emotions and thoughts, but the way this skill does it is just different in a way that I'm having difficulty explaining in words at this moment... :U

    A 1:1 ratio on deductions to bonus is really high though.

    Making it easy to physically spot a psionic would make it pretty easy to block off the skill to a telepath. After all, an NPC would be a lot harder pressed to trust someone if they were known to manipulate thoughts. For example, in the dead RPG Nobilis there was a limit that marked characters by their past deeds, murderers would have bloody hands, liars would have silver tongues, etc.

    If you were to add something like Telepaths having messed up eyes, or Telekinetics having more pronounced veins. It would make it pretty easy to spot people who are either A, obviously psionic in nature or B, suspicious due to the fact that they're dressed in a way that makes it hard to tell that they're psionic.

    Also, I think it would be interesting if you were to develop double-edged skills or abilities. For instance, give psionics an ability called Tactile. It would require the character to physically touch his target but could add some kind of bonus like extra free casts or a positive modifier to their roll on the related skill.

    Or something that would turn your power into something like a Rod of Wonder, which would make save rolls against said power higher due to the fact that the unpredictable nature of your ability makes it impossible to predict, of course, you wouldn't have as much to worry about if a telekinetic throw hit you with a gust of wind instead of a car. And a telepath would have a much harder time if making a suggestion to help had the potential to be, "Tell me I'm pretty." instead of, "Open the gates."

    I for one am very interested in finding out where this experiment ends up.

    Razorwired on
  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Actually, now that you mention it, you might not even need a physical trait (although that is a neat idea). You could just assume that psionics are prevalent enough that non-psionics take active steps to avoid being manipulated. Maybe technology has developed to shield people from psionic effects, for example.

    I'm reminded of how in Dune, once those personal shields were invented, lasers became obsolete and everything reverted to knife-fighting (if I remember correctly). But you don't want to make psionics obsolete, of course, you just want to make them more difficult to use. Or do you?

    Quoth on
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I love how this brainstorm is coming along. Seriously, I'd never thought about half of these possibilities.

    Massive world building dump ahead, apologies in advance:
    My idea is that psionics are fairly common in the setting: say, one in every ten thousand people has the potential, although very few of those will ever have both the training and mindpower necessary to do anything really noticeable.

    In the past psychics- when they were even rarer than they are in the “modern” day- were persecuted. But time passed and now telepaths (at least the talented ones) tend to be in positions of power or authority: there's great demand for supercorps and governments to have psychic lawyers or advisors or even bodyguards. Telekinetics, however, tend to be a lot less trusted as they form less than a third of the psionic populace and stereotypically they're a little... eccentric.

    TKs are even viewed with suspicion (and a little jealousy) by telepaths as they can affect the physical world rather than the mental- likewise, TKs often resent their counterparts’ easier acceptance into society, as well as the fact that they’re vulnerable to their psychic attacks (the ability to repel gunshots won’t help you repel thoughts).

    Many telekinetics find themselves in the employ of criminal syndicates or militaries: those most likely to train and utilise them with no questions asked. Even telepaths sometimes resent society’s expectations and it’s not unknown for them to boycott the various academies and foundations and do their own thing- untrained, unregistered, and potentially very dangerous. But despite fear mongering, it’s virtually unknown for any kind of psychic to lose control and do a Carrie impersonation.

    There’s no such thing as total psi-immunity, but at a similar level to the incidence of psychic ability- i.e., 0.01% of the populace- people are born with minds constructed in such a way that they’re psionically inept, and thus virtually impossible to influence. Even “normal” people have been known to boost their mental defences through vigorous conditioning and training- and some of the most famous commandos and spies in history have been psionically “dead” to best protect national secrets.

    Human arms race, really. Mad dash to recruit psychics, and a similar urgency to counter them with highly trained psi-resistant operatives or cyborgs with suppression implants.

    (Or if you’re the setting’s resident superpower, ten-ton killer robots based off ancient alien technology.)

    Incidentally, although it’s ostensibly illegal to genetically engineer a human to have psychic abilities, you can bet your ass it happens a lot.

    What this means in game terms is that it wouldn’t be surprising for, say, a soldier PC to have a fair amount of psi-defence, or for NPCs in positions of power to take measures to protect themselves. Whether that means resorting to drugs, obsessive training, implants, or their own psychic bodyguards would depend on their personal taste.

    So yeah, agreed, it should be significantly harder to read/influence/whatever someone if they know it’s coming. By law, psychics must make their abilities apparent if they hold a job where they’re expected to interact with others: the ramifications in court or in diplomatic situations would be immense.

    Expect trouble if you’re a psychic lacking a uniform (or otherwise hiding your ability) if you run into a law abiding counterpart, or if you mess up your roll and alert someone to your mental presence.

    But I think low-level psychic activity would be hard to block out: i.e., it wouldn’t be impossible for an empath to detect someone’s feelings on a topic, even if they’re pretty wilful. Most of the time, in fact, it’s low-level activity that telepaths use so they can improve their attempts of persuading someone by selecting suspiciously emotive references.

    And since I view psychics as a kind of (beneficial) mutation in the setting, I’d agree with Razorwired, their abilities could sometimes come with an odd appearance or some sort of physical defect.

    In fact I did have someone play a martial arts expert who was a blind man with massive psychic potential (great physical stats, average Intelligence, terrible Focus, legendary Willpower). In practise, it was agreed amongst the team that he’d be allowed bonuses to his Focus if he beat an opponent’s psi-defence roll- precognition at its best.

    Incidentally, he eventually got his ass kicked by a psi-resistant mutant with six arms. (In my defence he’d been doing far too well! He was like freakin’ Daredevil.) Of course this was an older system with a frankly broken dodge mechanic, which might explain why the guy worked so well.

    Edcrab on
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  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    All right, thinking of starting up an OOC and IC in a couple of days. It'd probably be best to start small, as a sort of test run, but if I get eight people I wouldn't exactly object :P

    I know Ryadic's put forward a prelim character, so if anyone else has time to try this out I'd like to see what else we can come up with.

    On a system-building note, play tests have made me think Health might need an overhaul. Either Health rolls shouldn’t get the usual +stat bonus, or it should be a much more expensive stat than the others. It’s not impossible to damage someone and take them down a point of Health, but it certainly seems to take a while.

    Edcrab on
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  • RyadicRyadic Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Sounds good. I'm all for trying this out. Sounds like it could be fun and once we start play-testing ideas, we will find out what works and doesn't work. Even tweak a few things. Let me know if you think of something that could impact character generation, and I'll see about making changes, but as it stands I think I'll keep the build I have.

    Ryadic on
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  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I can't think of anything- at least not right now. Any changes would probably be to how points are distributed for low-level characters, and I think we've decided that a 45-point build is probably the equivalent of a level 3 or 4 character in D&D. Good for testing though!

    So to put this out here, I'd even be open to suggestions during the run through itself. So no problem with someone having an idea for conflict/event resolution in the OOC...

    Edcrab on
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  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I guess my character would look like:
    Health 5
    Strength 4
    Agility 4
    Focus 7
    Willpower 7
    Intelligence 6

    Telekinesis of some kind

    Quoth on
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Okay, just as a sort of experiment, I'm toying with allowing characters "special" criticals (thanks to Arcanis for helping out with this stuff) just to give them a little more flavour. As noted below regular criticals aren't outright successes, they instead just grant a (not insignificant) boost to the roll.
    Assuming the relevant stat is 6 or higher, each character is allowed one of these "special" criticals. Note that even if you have a "special" one, you can still just choose to have your natural 20 act as a regular +10 critical.
    Improved Critical is an exception, in the sense that anyone can purchase it if they want to put 5 points aside.
    The Vitality and Power Criticals might seem a bit too specialised, but in practise being able to damage/defend against an opponent regardless of the threat they pose could prove pretty damn useful.



    Normal Critical: +10 to your roll (i.e., a 20 is actually a 30).

    Improved Critical: In combat or contested rolls, a roll of 19+ counts as a critical. [5 point speciality]

    Vitality Critical: outright success. Applies only to Health checks. [Prerequisite: 6+ Health]

    Power Critical: outright success. Applies only to melee attacks. [Prerequisite: 6+ Strength]

    Technique Critical: double your +speciality or +attribute bonus, whichever is higher. [Prerequisite: 6+ Focus]

    Gambit Critical: either take the 20, or re-roll and double the value. [Prerequisite: 6+ Willpower]

    Inspiration Critical: roll an additional D20 and add the value to your original roll. Only compatible with Intelligence checks. [Prerequisite: 6+ Intelligence]

    Edcrab on
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  • RazorwiredRazorwired Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Here's a quick roll that comes with a quick question, do you have a budget for items or are we able to assume that we have anything a low to mid level police/military officer would have?

    If you don't wanna mess around with writing a whole bunch of stuff about cash prices and whatnot, Big Eyes Small Mouth does a pretty good job with Personal Gear and Item of Power as character traits.

    They make mundane items(ropes, bags clothing) free. Personal gear can get you one major item(vehicles, machine guns, a hacker's toolkit) and three minor items(pistols, climbing gear, ammunition) per level of the Personal Gear Trait.

    Item of Power is more for magical or supertech items that give the character a special advantage. Cybernetics, experimental weapons, and psi-enhancing implants would fall under this. The point dump into this depends on how much of an advantage the item would give the character.
    6 Health (-8)
    4 Strength (-4)
    5 Agility (-6)
    6 Focus (-8)
    6 Willpower (-8)
    4 Intelligence (-4)
    Psionics: Empathy
    +2 Combat: Pistols

    Based on what your verdict is on gear I'll probably revise this.

    Razorwired on
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Never tried Big Eyes Small Mouth, but that sounds like a very smart way of managing things.

    So mundane items (someone’s uniform, objects that contribute to RP but have little effect elsewhere etc.) would just be part of a description, but otherwise you’re limited on what you can take with you? Currently specialities in general come from either skill or equipment, player choice: i.e., a Melee +2 may be because they’re packing a good quality sword rather than talent, but as it costs the same in point terms it’s a mostly aesthetic difference- so yeah, assume you’d have police-level equipment.

    I should probably mention that in the current system, melee attacks are based off a Strength roll (plus any modifiers), but that ranged attacks are a set, weapon-specific value (plus speciality bonuses).

    I.e., a civilian-grade pistol forces a Health check of DC9 and would deduct one Health point if successful: so it’d be hard pressed to damage a tough PC with a 6+ Health bonus or similar.

    But a Pieren-Gillesse X750 (the photon Desert Eagle of the setting) has a DC of 15, and when factoring in speciality bonuses, that’s much more likely to wound.

    So thinking of what Razorwired was saying, you’re entitled to civilian-level tech at will, but it’d probably be wise to limit psychics from packing DC20 heat as well as their mental abilities. Razor’s character, for the record, would probably have pistol(s) around the DC8 to 12 mark.

    And I don’t think I’ve mentioned how armour works/could work: currently it’s just represented as a speciality, i.e., Armour +2. When passing a Health check versus physical damage (not biological threats like poisons etc) Armour gives you a bonus- whether it’s intended to be interpreted as natural hardiness or an actual worn suit.

    But put simply I shouldn’t go complicating matters by creating a sprawling Mundane/Minor/Major Item chart right now, so knock yourselves out! I’ll trust that we won’t have any Telekinetic Empaths with 10 Health, a DC50 fusion cannon and a +20 Armour speciality :P


    Oh, and I was talking to gredavin about crit tables/psionic consequences for failure, and although I had rejected this originally I’m starting to think it’d make sense- especially because I think specialities (i.e., Razorwired’s + pistol skill) would increase the value rolled. Note that in combat it’s not just natural 20s that are taken as criticals: if a damage roll is three times higher than an opposing Health roll (like 12 versus 4 or lower), the attacker is entitled to roll on the critical table.

    Just for future reference, to see what you guys think- this is back from before I decided to go all-D20 in checks, so if it ever did get thrown back into the mix, it’d need a rethink or two:
    Critical Hit
    (attacker rolls)

    1-4: One damage
    5-6: Two damage
    7-12: 1D3 damage
    13-14: 1D4 damage
    15-19: 1D6 damage
    20: 6 damage


    Mindblow Table
    (victim rolls)

    1: The character’s mental attributes are set to zero and they lapse into a Near Death state.
    2: The character loses 2D6 points from each of their mental attributes and is knocked Unconscious for three turns. If any attribute hits zero or lower, they lapse into a Near Death state.
    3-4: The character loses 1D6 points from each of their mental attributes and is knocked Unconscious for one turn. If any attribute hits zero or lower, they lapse into a Critical state (DC 10).
    5-6: The character loses 1D3 points from each of their mental attributes. If any attribute hits zero or lower, they must roll again on the Mindblow table.
    7-9: The character loses 1D3 Willpower. If their Willpower hits zero or lower, they must roll again on the Mindblow table.
    10-15: The character is knocked Unconscious for one turn.
    16-19: The character cannot use their psionic abilities for one turn.
    20: Perfect recovery. The character suffers no ill effects.


    Near Death: The character is moments from passing on, and has to be stabilised before their Health reaches a negative value. The character’s health will decrease by one point each turn.
    Critical: As Unconscious, but the character must pass a Health check every turn (based on the wound they received) or risk lapsing into the Near Death state.
    Unconscious: The character is immobilised and incapable of defending themselves, but they’re in a stable condition. This usually occurs once a PC’s Health hits zero, but other effects can cause it.
    Fatigued: The character has taken enough damage or exerted themselves enough to start to feel the effects. A PC with a -3 or greater penalty to one or more stats is considered to be Fatigued.

    Edcrab on
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  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I'm not sure about something, but I'll remember what it was and ask you about it later.

    Also, my character:
    Health: 4 (-4)
    Strength: 2 (-2)
    Agility: 7 (-10)
    Focus: 8 (-12)
    Willpower: 5 (-6)
    Intelligence: 4 (-4)
    Combat - Marksmanship: 4 (-4)
    Psi Defense: 3 (-3)

    I call the agile but extremely weak guy spot.

    Edit: Are there any stealth skills?

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    To be honest I haven't really given stealth much playthrough time, but at the moment there's just the one speciality: Stealth. Probably a bit oversimplified in the long run, but stealth checks usually just involve Focus + Stealth vs Focus + Sense. Oh, and it'd probably make sense to allow stealth to draw from Focus and Agility- that is, so you choose which attribute you want for your base modifier- in case people have higher Agility than Focus in their rogue-wannabe builds.

    Incidentally, donuts, that chap there would have +12 to hit with his chosen ranged weapon- so if you go into action with a high-DC gun you're going to mess things up. Good job you'll go splat with a couple of solid hits, though!

    Edcrab on
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  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Actually to compensate for that, I'd think the character would be self-restricted to low-DC guns or thrown ranged weapons, because he's "that good".

    In that respect though, perhaps there should be some kind of hard cap or limiter in the lines of a "max-<score> attribute" to your stats and equipment, as without psionics you can build a heavy min-max'd character. Perhaps guns /cyborg enhancements have their own portions that provide the bonus (an auto-aiming component, precise muscle control) such that characters with high scores would cause a negative synch with them?

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    He's probably not quite as potent as you think. Here's an example of if your character was using a DC 12 weapon (a higher-powered pistol or lower-powered rifle). This is massive, so sorry people.



    So for some reason tastydonuts’s guy decides to shoot Ryadic’s character.

    donuts rolls to attack with his gun: 15. This becomes 27 when factoring in his (pretty awesome) Focus and Marksmanship.

    The gun has a power of 12, which becomes 14 with his Marksmanship.

    In this instance, Ryadic knew it was coming, so he tries to Block the shot: he rolls a 10, which becomes 17 with his Strength bonus.

    If one of the rolls is countered by Block, as in this case, the attacker isn’t entitled to an automatic critical (excepting natural 20s), no matter how high their firepower might be. If Block fails to oppose both rolls, the defender loses a point of Strength and has to make the usual Health check. If Block beats both rolls, then the shot is entirely nullified.

    So Ryadic’s 17 is enough to beat the gun’s power, but not enough to beat tasty’s original accuracy roll: so it’s assumed that donuts has hit, but that Ryadic has angled himself in such a way as to absorb some of the impact.

    Ryadic makes a Health check, and disaster strikes: a 2. Even with his +7 Health bonus, that’s only a 9: and tasty’s accuracy roll was triple that, usually grounds for an automatic critical. But Ryadic made a successful Block check, so tasty isn’t allowed one, and simply loses a single point of Health.


    So now Ryadic is rightfully pissed off, and decides to go punch/slice/stomp some sense into tasty. His Agility is lower than tasty’s Focus, so tasty is allowed a free shot while his attacker tries to close the distance: but this time his luck runs out, and Ryadic totally nullifies it with a Block.

    Melee is simpler: just one combined roll to attack and hit. With 7 Strength and Melee +3, Ryadic promptly rolls a 9, giving him 19.

    But poor old tastydonuts chose to take a shot rather than defend himself, and he’s immediately required to make a Health check. Needless to say with only 4 Health, he fluffs the roll, and is left with only 3.

    What he is good at is running- so donuts falls back, knowing that he doesn’t stand a chance against Ryadic up close, especially if he’s forced to fire with a -3 penalty to hit (from Ryadic’s Melee speciality).

    Ryadic gets another attack as tasty spends his time fleeing, but this one doesn’t connect (tasty’s +7 Agility is nothing to sniff at).

    And now… uh… we’re back where we started. A melee fighter standing a little way away from a gunman. Which is a bit daft.


    As proved by a bunch of very helpful comic-book nerds on a games day, this can be a little… dull. Ryadic, for example, is also entitled to grab tastydonuts and hold him in place- that’s right, Grapple checks (based on Strength + Grapple vs Agility + Evasion). If successful he could wail on the poor guy until he manages to squirm free. But even that is pretty mechanical.

    Basically, the entire system is based off proposals from the players- this is especially true of psionics, but you can declare your intent to do anything. If those two had been fighting in a rubble-strewn chamber, Ryadic could’ve stated that he was going to pick up a rock and smash it against donut’s face, or take a flying leap at the guy so he smashed into a heap of debris, or that he was going to try and physically pick him up and throw him in a big hole.

    Essentially everything comes down to a character’s six attributes, and arbitrary DCs or opposed rolls- I've even defied established mechanics if the narrative called for it.

    And I’m not sure why donuts decided to shoot Ryadic. What the hell, dude?

    Edcrab on
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  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    That reminds me of a quote from V for Vendetta...
    Creedy: Bollocks. Whatchya gonna do, huh? We've swept this place. You've got nothing. Nothing but your bloody knives and your fancy karate gimmicks. We have guns.
    V: No, what you have are bullets, and the hope that when your guns are empty I'm no longer be standing, because if I am you'll all be dead before you've reloaded.

    Plus, even with my 4 intelligence I know to never start a fight in close quarters against a guy that specializes in melee, even though he's living in a time full of psionics, guns, and robots! :P

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Oh, Ryadic probably has a gun too. He just wouldn't be such hot shit with it... :P
    In that respect though, perhaps there should be some kind of hard cap or limiter in the lines of a "max-<score> attribute" to your stats and equipment, as without psionics you can build a heavy min-max'd character. Perhaps guns /cyborg enhancements have their own portions that provide the bonus (an auto-aiming component, precise muscle control) such that characters with high scores would cause a negative synch with them?

    And going back to this, I think that'd work. Say, a cyborg could use a D20 + their Focus or rely on an implant that gives them a flat value of 20 for accuracy, and the gun they're using doesn't take Marksmanship into account, or whatever.

    For example, I imagine scatterguns have a higher DC, but Armour values are doubled versus them and they have a cap of five points on Focus and Marksmanship bonuses. So arguably a humble pistol in the hands of an insanely accurate fighter is potentially more dangerous.

    Edcrab on
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  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Ok, so thus far we have Ryadic, Quoth, Razorwired, and tastydonuts with character outlines (assuming I haven't missed anyone). I think that's enough of a basis to start an OOC, although I'll try to think of a better thread title than "Experimental D20 System" :P

    Edcrab on
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  • RazorwiredRazorwired Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Okay, but as a forewarning I am starting finals now so my post schedule will be based on when I can find time for about a week.

    Also when you get an OOC up I'll probably post a tweaked version of my outline.

    Razorwired on
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