It's less errata and more having to state outright "no, we didn't mean to imply that this wargear allows you to ignore any and all armour saves, we just suck at phrasing things properly" because people are butts
So I'm going to try and convince my D&D group to playtest my homebrew system in the next couple weeks, and I need some help brainstorming.
Without going into too much detail, it's a system from which I've tried to excise most number crunching, and I'm trying to make it so it fits into most settings. Each character has three classes: one for combat, one for social encounters, one for skill encounters.
Combat is standard grid-based minis. All attacks auto hit, and a character or standard monster needs to be hit twice in one round to be taken out.
Social encounters are based on poker hands, and powers revolve around different ways of drawing more cards or causing NPCs to discard cards.
Skill encounters are the least fleshed out, and for the moment I've basically copied some of the mechanics from Dread, that jenga-based horror game. A character's skill class determines whether or not they have to move bricks around during a specific skill challenge. It needs work.
Each class has a suite of powers which you can access once per round, and a kinda constant, background bonus/flavor. I need help expanding the Power options.
What I have so far:
Tactical powers (unless otherwise noted, these take the place of your normal attack):
Block-get out of one attack free (without sacrificing normal attack)
Boost-Move an ally two squares
Charge-move two extra (without sacrificing attack)
Daze-prevent the target from acting this round
Defend-stop an attack on an adjacent square
Flurry-make two attacks against two different targets
Heal-bring one eliminated die back into play
Push-Move an opponent two squares
Retreat-Move two in response to an attack
Restrain-prevent a target from moving next round
Smash-make two attacks on the same target
Sprint-Move 4 extra
Social powers:
Curry Favor-You and one opponent of your choice may draw two cards each
Eat Your Words-If the encounter is called this round, you switch hands with one opponent
I Must Insist-Prevent a character or NPC from calling and ending the social encounter
Intimidate-Force an opponent to discard a random card
Insight-You may look at one opponent's hand
Start Rumor- Everyone draws one card
Talk Up-Allow an ally to draw a card
Use Knowledge-You may draw an extra card
For example, a Berserker combat class might have access to Charge, Flurry, and Smash, and once per encounter s/he could shrug off an attack as the class' passive bonus. A Courtier social class might have access to Curry Favor, Insight, and Start Rumor, and be able "call" or end a social encounter at will if it takes place in a high-class setting.
I also need help brainstorming what to do with Skill encounters. The Jenga mechanic is on the right track, I think, but I don't know how to allow different classes to do different things in that context.
I like game systems where every single player has the capacity to contribute combat, social, and utility skill input
Colour me intrigued
That was my main goal.
I was inspired by the D&D game I'm part of right now, where my character wrecks faces in combat, but the group really likes long, drawn out RP and skill heavy stuff. That part is good too, but my character does not have stats to contribute to non-combat stuff in any meaningful way. I participate, but feel like I can't do anything of substance for 75% of the game.
I like game systems where every single player has the capacity to contribute combat, social, and utility skill input
Colour me intrigued
That was my main goal.
I was inspired by the D&D game I'm part of right now, where my character wrecks faces in combat, but the group really likes long, drawn out RP and skill heavy stuff. That part is good too, but my character does not have stats to contribute to non-combat stuff in any meaningful way. I participate, but feel like I can't do anything of substance for 75% of the game.
I had a similar kind of revelation and tried to make it that skill ranks worked with a range of attributes (STR for intimidation, INT for diplomacy, etc) so there was a kind of unification and it was much less troublesome to make a character who could hold their own at multiple disparate things
The problem? The social stuff was still shallow compared to the endless range of combat mechanics so I like the sound of what you're doing
Even though it's a fun game to play sometimes, I dislike that the way people play it, just to win.
I also don't like their business model of demanding that you play with their spaceman dollies and then releasing a new set of rules every so often that basically makes you need to buy more to stay competitive.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
i am kind of hoping whatever replaces skill challenges in 5 is better then skill challenges in 4. cause despite the good they do, they are hard to make, make sense, and involve everybody. specially when someone is a skill monkey and is better at all the main things you had originally planned for everyone to be able to help with.
I would say i hate that guy, but whenever i play bard i am that guy, and i feel bad "dude, i'm the bard, it's kind of my thing. you can help? you know what, i will help you. Team work!"
and then they just grimace at me and i do most of it.
I like game systems where every single player has the capacity to contribute combat, social, and utility skill input
Colour me intrigued
That was my main goal.
I was inspired by the D&D game I'm part of right now, where my character wrecks faces in combat, but the group really likes long, drawn out RP and skill heavy stuff. That part is good too, but my character does not have stats to contribute to non-combat stuff in any meaningful way. I participate, but feel like I can't do anything of substance for 75% of the game.
I had a similar kind of revelation and tried to make it that skill ranks worked with a range of attributes (STR for intimidation, INT for diplomacy, etc) so there was a kind of unification and it was much less troublesome to make a character who could hold their own at multiple disparate things
The problem? The social stuff was still shallow compared to the endless range of combat mechanics so I like the sound of what you're doing
Yeah. I really like how it's taking shape in terms of combat and social, though I can already tell getting at least the combat classes well-balanced is gonna be a pain in the ass.
What I really need is advice on how to do skill-based stuff, keeping in mind the themes of the system:
-no number crunching or numbers-based dice rolling
-modular class-based character creation
-classes being defined by the extra powers they bring to the table
CorporateLogoThe toilet knowshow I feelRegistered Userregular
edited May 2012
Warmahordes should called Eirysshordes
Can't ever tone that model down, Privateer
CorporateLogo on
Do not have a cow, mortal.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
The only thing I worry about with your multiple class system is that it will develop imbalances based on its players, rather than its characters.
I know some people who will deliberately play combat focused characters so they don't have to be in a social environment, as that's what they do not enjoy. I, while pretty good at tactics, have been known to do the exact opposite. It can be dull for stretches of game, admittedly, but being the only one who can wreck faces, or the only one who can sweet talk a queen, that is pretty rewarding.
In your system, everyone can wreck faces and sweet talk and be skilled. That is pretty cool, and as long as everyone participates in everything, it works. You don't have stand out stars of combat or social necessarily, but everyone can be involved.
What I'm worried about are the players who suck at social interaction, and deliberately sequester their characters from it normally. They may still choose to go background during social encounters, but they can't take foreground during combat because the party face can do that just as well.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
cause classes and such give people defined expectations that they can build to and know what they are doing. a lot of classless systems you hear a lot of "i don't even knwo if this is going to be good or not" and then either it's fine, it's super, or useless. classes can at least give you expectations.
Plus, if i can't be a paladin or a wizard, i'm out.
cause classes and such give people defined expectations that they can build to and know what they are doing. a lot of classless systems you hear a lot of "i don't even knwo if this is going to be good or not" and then either it's fine, it's super, or useless. classes can at least give you expectations.
Plus, if i can't be a paladin or a wizard, i'm out.
cause classes and such give people defined expectations that they can build to and know what they are doing. a lot of classless systems you hear a lot of "i don't even knwo if this is going to be good or not" and then either it's fine, it's super, or useless. classes can at least give you expectations.
Plus, if i can't be a paladin or a wizard, i'm out.
The only thing I worry about with your multiple class system is that it will develop imbalances based on its players, rather than its characters.
I know some people who will deliberately play combat focused characters so they don't have to be in a social environment, as that's what they do not enjoy. I, while pretty good at tactics, have been known to do the exact opposite. It can be dull for stretches of game, admittedly, but being the only one who can wreck faces, or the only one who can sweet talk a queen, that is pretty rewarding.
In your system, everyone can wreck faces and sweet talk and be skilled. That is pretty cool, and as long as everyone participates in everything, it works. You don't have stand out stars of combat or social necessarily, but everyone can be involved.
What I'm worried about are the players who suck at social interaction, and deliberately sequester their characters from it normally. They may still choose to go background during social encounters, but they can't take foreground during combat because the party face can do that just as well.
Yeah, I can see that. I sort of hope I'll be able to design it so that certain characters excel in different situations within combat and social encounters. There will be classes especially good at sweet talking and seduction, which will leave the angry orc warboss relatively unimpressed, and your super intimidating barbarian is unlikely to get the king to give you use of his army. That's why I'm also trying to develop the "class ability" a little more. Especially in social encounters I hope I can design passive bonuses that will really give a character an advantage, but only in certain circumstances.
Like in my example, only in a high society encounter a Courtier (who knows the perfect time to ask for favors and catch others off guard) can choose at any point to go "We're done here, everyone show your cards," which is really a pretty powerful thing to be able to do. But when dealing with thugs the back room of a bar, an Intimidating Presence class (who doubles all power effects on the hands of hostile NPCs) would work a lot better. The Bard social class can actually accomplish supernatural social effects (convince people reality is entirely different from what it is, ask unreasonable things, etc.) but only when they have a large audience. I also hope that the fact that there is a very strong mechanical element to social encounters will encourage people who have little desire to ham it up to still participate.
On the other hand D&D 4e has shown me that a game can still be fun when everyone can wreck faces in combat.
Yeah, I can see that. I sort of hope I'll be able to design it so that certain characters excel in different situations within combat and social encounters. There will be classes especially good at sweet talking and seduction, which will leave the angry orc warboss relatively unimpressed, and your super intimidating barbarian is unlikely to get the king to give you use of his army. That's why I'm also trying to develop the "class ability" a little more. Especially in social encounters I hope I can design passive bonuses that will really give a character an advantage, but only in certain circumstances.
Like in my example, only in a high society encounter a Courtier (who knows the perfect time to ask for favors and catch others off guard) can choose at any point to go "We're done here, everyone show your cards," which is really a pretty powerful thing to be able to do. But when dealing with thugs the back room of a bar, an Intimidating Presence class (who doubles all power effects on the hands of hostile NPCs) would work a lot better. The Bard social class can actually accomplish supernatural social effects (convince people reality is entirely different from what it is, ask unreasonable things, etc.) but only when they have a large audience. I also hope that the fact that there is a very strong mechanical element to social encounters will encourage people who have little desire to ham it up to still participate.
Sounds a lot like a high-fantasy version of Apocalypse World. It might be worth your time to check that system out, if you haven't already.
i am kind of hoping whatever replaces skill challenges in 5 is better then skill challenges in 4. cause despite the good they do, they are hard to make, make sense, and involve everybody. specially when someone is a skill monkey and is better at all the main things you had originally planned for everyone to be able to help with.
I would say i hate that guy, but whenever i play bard i am that guy, and i feel bad "dude, i'm the bard, it's kind of my thing. you can help? you know what, i will help you. Team work!"
and then they just grimace at me and i do most of it.
I've personally had a lot of success with doing straight ability checks in skill challenges. Doing regular skill checks makes everybody try as hard as possible to shoe-horn in a skill to use, or just do nothing. Doing ability checks seems to work a lot better, because you can do group-check style rounds, and you can use skill training to unlock special optional things. Like a character trained in History or Arcana will still make a regular Int check in a skill challenge, but their training may award the group a special extra thing. Non-training doesn't really affect the ability to make the check, it just means you don't get the extra gravy out of it.
The biggest problem with skills in 4e, I've found, is that people tend to focus on their strengths. Skill training could be used to supplement for bad ability scores, but instead PCs end up with +OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!! in two to four skills, have one or two others that are okay, and suck at all the rest. I don't like that, and I hope Next comes up with a better solution.
Why not just play games where there are no classes and you can be good at whatever you choose to be good at?
:rotate:
I used to pursue this doctrine religiously and eventually chickened out and went for preset skills
Turned out that someone picking "pistols" or "rifles" wasn't really far enough removed from a simple "Ranged" ability anyway
Don't chicken out! Let people pick what they like! There's nothing worse than when a character idea is constricted by classes, which say you must have X skills, Y feats and Z abilities etc.
cause classes and such give people defined expectations that they can build to and know what they are doing. a lot of classless systems you hear a lot of "i don't even knwo if this is going to be good or not" and then either it's fine, it's super, or useless. classes can at least give you expectations.
Plus, if i can't be a paladin or a wizard, i'm out.
That's what skill packages come in. Stick together a bunch of skills that make a character good in an area, price them up, and have them in little side-bars saying "if you want to be good at this, this package is a great base." Then they can change around with that as they see fit. Pre-generated characters are always good as well, like in EP, both when it comes to providing new players with easy to pick up characters, as well as expressing what kind of things you can do with the character creation system.
And you can easily play a Paladin or a Wizard (should the background have them) in point buy games, you just buy the Paladin/Wizard stuff. Or parts of it, and bits of other things, for even more customisation etc.
I can see that classes provide people with nice, safe routes of play, but if you are willing to put the effort in free-form point buy systems can provide far more flexibility. As far as the argument about people min-maxing and power gaming go, the game which is worst for that, in my experience, is by far DnD, the bastion of class/level based systems.
Yeah, I can see that. I sort of hope I'll be able to design it so that certain characters excel in different situations within combat and social encounters. There will be classes especially good at sweet talking and seduction, which will leave the angry orc warboss relatively unimpressed, and your super intimidating barbarian is unlikely to get the king to give you use of his army. That's why I'm also trying to develop the "class ability" a little more. Especially in social encounters I hope I can design passive bonuses that will really give a character an advantage, but only in certain circumstances.
Like in my example, only in a high society encounter a Courtier (who knows the perfect time to ask for favors and catch others off guard) can choose at any point to go "We're done here, everyone show your cards," which is really a pretty powerful thing to be able to do. But when dealing with thugs the back room of a bar, an Intimidating Presence class (who doubles all power effects on the hands of hostile NPCs) would work a lot better. The Bard social class can actually accomplish supernatural social effects (convince people reality is entirely different from what it is, ask unreasonable things, etc.) but only when they have a large audience. I also hope that the fact that there is a very strong mechanical element to social encounters will encourage people who have little desire to ham it up to still participate.
Sounds a lot like a high-fantasy version of Apocalypse World. It might be worth your time to check that system out, if you haven't already.
I will look into it. Also, I tend to think in terms of high-fantasy, but I don't want all the classes to be built on those lines. The mini-campaign I'm gonna try to play test it with is actually an alternate history Western. With wizards.
Why not just play games where there are no classes and you can be good at whatever you choose to be good at?
:rotate:
I used to pursue this doctrine religiously and eventually chickened out and went for preset skills
Turned out that someone picking "pistols" or "rifles" wasn't really far enough removed from a simple "Ranged" ability anyway
Don't chicken out! Let people pick what they like! There's nothing worse than when a character idea is constricted by classes, which say you must have X skills, Y feats and Z abilities etc.
cause classes and such give people defined expectations that they can build to and know what they are doing. a lot of classless systems you hear a lot of "i don't even knwo if this is going to be good or not" and then either it's fine, it's super, or useless. classes can at least give you expectations.
Plus, if i can't be a paladin or a wizard, i'm out.
That's what skill packages come in. Stick together a bunch of skills that make a character good in an area, price them up, and have them in little side-bars saying "if you want to be good at this, this package is a great base." Then they can change around with that as they see fit. Pre-generated characters are always good as well, like in EP, both when it comes to providing new players with easy to pick up characters, as well as expressing what kind of things you can do with the character creation system.
And you can easily play a Paladin or a Wizard (should the background have them) in point buy games, you just buy the Paladin/Wizard stuff. Or parts of it, and bits of other things, for even more customisation etc.
I can see that classes provide people with nice, safe routes of play, but if you are willing to put the effort in free-form point buy systems can provide far more flexibility. As far as the argument about people min-maxing and power gaming go, the game which is worst for that, in my experience, is by far DnD, the bastion of class/level based systems.
I mean, the classes as I have them are essentially skill packages. The skills are just basically perks/powers in my thing. And you get to independently choose a combat skill package, a social skill package, and a skillful skill package (still working on this part). Hell, I actually kinda like the idea of building your own class by selecting different powers/perks, then designing or choosing a "class ability" with the GM. I just frame it with a class system because that's where my mind goes.
i am kind of hoping whatever replaces skill challenges in 5 is better then skill challenges in 4. cause despite the good they do, they are hard to make, make sense, and involve everybody. specially when someone is a skill monkey and is better at all the main things you had originally planned for everyone to be able to help with.
I would say i hate that guy, but whenever i play bard i am that guy, and i feel bad "dude, i'm the bard, it's kind of my thing. you can help? you know what, i will help you. Team work!"
and then they just grimace at me and i do most of it.
I've personally had a lot of success with doing straight ability checks in skill challenges. Doing regular skill checks makes everybody try as hard as possible to shoe-horn in a skill to use, or just do nothing. Doing ability checks seems to work a lot better, because you can do group-check style rounds, and you can use skill training to unlock special optional things. Like a character trained in History or Arcana will still make a regular Int check in a skill challenge, but their training may award the group a special extra thing. Non-training doesn't really affect the ability to make the check, it just means you don't get the extra gravy out of it.
The biggest problem with skills in 4e, I've found, is that people tend to focus on their strengths. Skill training could be used to supplement for bad ability scores, but instead PCs end up with +OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!! in two to four skills, have one or two others that are okay, and suck at all the rest. I don't like that, and I hope Next comes up with a better solution.
Yes Nerath. i was reading the rule book and i was like "yeah i could get into this. seems simple enough but has enough room for things going to pot." but it's like 70 to 90 dollars and haha, no.
Interesting idea on ability checks vs skill checks, worth looking into if i can build another DnD group offline.
@Solar, tell me how to build a paladin in shadowrun. I have been trying, and outside of mystic adept and sucking i ain't got a thing.
Paladin's are holy warriors, in my view, and that's not really how magic works in Shadowrun. There's not really any divine sources of magic, though some believe their magic is divinely sourced.
That said, one way you could do it would be to play a mage who uses religion as their technique. I believe there are some archetypes along those lines. Then take spells which augment that theme, such as offensive fire spells (to fit the theme of cleansing flames), spells which improve your own physical abilities such as Armour, and the ability to summon spirits that fit your idea like Guardian spirits (you might even be able to use them as a mount!)
It could be done. There's not really going to be a smite evil type power available to you, though, because morality in Shadowrun doesn't, and shouldn't, work that way. Your smiting power would likely work regardless of what your target has been up to.
Could you ignore those classes and just take whatever selection of skills you like?
Well, all the classes I've been designing so far have
-three powers, two that I see as lower powered for their playstyle, and one that strikes me as more powerful/useful and
-a class perk that provides some strong effect either in a narrowly defined situation or once per encounter
The system could be reworked to essentially something like a powerbuy system. At character creation you have 4 points to spend in combat, 4 for social, and 4 for whatever I decide my skill system will be. "Weak" powers are 1 point. "Strong" powers are 2 points. I would just have to classify them as such and then think of a method for designing or choosing the class perks.
For my playtest I'm gonna go with a class system, but the modularity of what I described just above intrigues me.
and then, like, Enhanced Skill: Blades, Enhanced Attribute, Counter-Attack (or whatever it is called). Basically make a combat monster adept with a few spells to fill out the theme.
Man, talking about Shadowrun makes me want to play that Elf Urban Shaman that I created. Shame I can't play in the CF game right now.
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It's less errata and more having to state outright "no, we didn't mean to imply that this wargear allows you to ignore any and all armour saves, we just suck at phrasing things properly" because people are butts
Without going into too much detail, it's a system from which I've tried to excise most number crunching, and I'm trying to make it so it fits into most settings. Each character has three classes: one for combat, one for social encounters, one for skill encounters.
Combat is standard grid-based minis. All attacks auto hit, and a character or standard monster needs to be hit twice in one round to be taken out.
Social encounters are based on poker hands, and powers revolve around different ways of drawing more cards or causing NPCs to discard cards.
Skill encounters are the least fleshed out, and for the moment I've basically copied some of the mechanics from Dread, that jenga-based horror game. A character's skill class determines whether or not they have to move bricks around during a specific skill challenge. It needs work.
Each class has a suite of powers which you can access once per round, and a kinda constant, background bonus/flavor. I need help expanding the Power options.
What I have so far:
Tactical powers (unless otherwise noted, these take the place of your normal attack):
Boost-Move an ally two squares
Charge-move two extra (without sacrificing attack)
Daze-prevent the target from acting this round
Defend-stop an attack on an adjacent square
Flurry-make two attacks against two different targets
Heal-bring one eliminated die back into play
Push-Move an opponent two squares
Retreat-Move two in response to an attack
Restrain-prevent a target from moving next round
Smash-make two attacks on the same target
Sprint-Move 4 extra
Social powers:
Eat Your Words-If the encounter is called this round, you switch hands with one opponent
I Must Insist-Prevent a character or NPC from calling and ending the social encounter
Intimidate-Force an opponent to discard a random card
Insight-You may look at one opponent's hand
Start Rumor- Everyone draws one card
Talk Up-Allow an ally to draw a card
Use Knowledge-You may draw an extra card
For example, a Berserker combat class might have access to Charge, Flurry, and Smash, and once per encounter s/he could shrug off an attack as the class' passive bonus. A Courtier social class might have access to Curry Favor, Insight, and Start Rumor, and be able "call" or end a social encounter at will if it takes place in a high-class setting.
I also need help brainstorming what to do with Skill encounters. The Jenga mechanic is on the right track, I think, but I don't know how to allow different classes to do different things in that context.
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it's fun for friendly games and has nice models
but competitively it's shit
Colour me intrigued
Aside from 'Ard Boyz (which is now dead, thankfully) 40k tourneys can be an enjoyable time
but it is, and i only have new hampshire with a dollar sign.
That was my main goal.
I was inspired by the D&D game I'm part of right now, where my character wrecks faces in combat, but the group really likes long, drawn out RP and skill heavy stuff. That part is good too, but my character does not have stats to contribute to non-combat stuff in any meaningful way. I participate, but feel like I can't do anything of substance for 75% of the game.
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I had a similar kind of revelation and tried to make it that skill ranks worked with a range of attributes (STR for intimidation, INT for diplomacy, etc) so there was a kind of unification and it was much less troublesome to make a character who could hold their own at multiple disparate things
The problem? The social stuff was still shallow compared to the endless range of combat mechanics so I like the sound of what you're doing
40k is so not my style anymore.
Even though it's a fun game to play sometimes, I dislike that the way people play it, just to win.
I also don't like their business model of demanding that you play with their spaceman dollies and then releasing a new set of rules every so often that basically makes you need to buy more to stay competitive.
flames of war and warmahordes both have decent notoriety and both have way more balanced armies
I love warhammer, but fucking christ they have no idea what balance means
Warmahordes is a far superior competitive wargame
mostly because it is actually designed to be competitive as well as fun
and it is quite popular. Not as much as 40K overall, maybe, but not so much amongst tournament gamers.
I would say i hate that guy, but whenever i play bard i am that guy, and i feel bad "dude, i'm the bard, it's kind of my thing. you can help? you know what, i will help you. Team work!"
and then they just grimace at me and i do most of it.
But I would have no idea where to start.
Besides I kinda wanna play Germans or Soviets and I don't wanna get weird looks...
Yeah. I really like how it's taking shape in terms of combat and social, though I can already tell getting at least the combat classes well-balanced is gonna be a pain in the ass.
What I really need is advice on how to do skill-based stuff, keeping in mind the themes of the system:
-no number crunching or numbers-based dice rolling
-modular class-based character creation
-classes being defined by the extra powers they bring to the table
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Can't ever tone that model down, Privateer
I know some people who will deliberately play combat focused characters so they don't have to be in a social environment, as that's what they do not enjoy. I, while pretty good at tactics, have been known to do the exact opposite. It can be dull for stretches of game, admittedly, but being the only one who can wreck faces, or the only one who can sweet talk a queen, that is pretty rewarding.
In your system, everyone can wreck faces and sweet talk and be skilled. That is pretty cool, and as long as everyone participates in everything, it works. You don't have stand out stars of combat or social necessarily, but everyone can be involved.
What I'm worried about are the players who suck at social interaction, and deliberately sequester their characters from it normally. They may still choose to go background during social encounters, but they can't take foreground during combat because the party face can do that just as well.
a ton of people play the reds and germans, just don't be that guy that get's too into detail about your waffen brigade
:rotate:
I hear there are other good WW2 rules sets too.
Also maybe some ancients would be cool to play.
I used to pursue this doctrine religiously and eventually chickened out and went for preset skills
Turned out that someone picking "pistols" or "rifles" wasn't really far enough removed from a simple "Ranged" ability anyway
Plus, if i can't be a paladin or a wizard, i'm out.
What about a Deva biker
well, yeah alright.
only because i like you.
Because I kinda like class systems. vOv Also making up a homebrew system has been fun.
Yeah, I can see that. I sort of hope I'll be able to design it so that certain characters excel in different situations within combat and social encounters. There will be classes especially good at sweet talking and seduction, which will leave the angry orc warboss relatively unimpressed, and your super intimidating barbarian is unlikely to get the king to give you use of his army. That's why I'm also trying to develop the "class ability" a little more. Especially in social encounters I hope I can design passive bonuses that will really give a character an advantage, but only in certain circumstances.
Like in my example, only in a high society encounter a Courtier (who knows the perfect time to ask for favors and catch others off guard) can choose at any point to go "We're done here, everyone show your cards," which is really a pretty powerful thing to be able to do. But when dealing with thugs the back room of a bar, an Intimidating Presence class (who doubles all power effects on the hands of hostile NPCs) would work a lot better. The Bard social class can actually accomplish supernatural social effects (convince people reality is entirely different from what it is, ask unreasonable things, etc.) but only when they have a large audience. I also hope that the fact that there is a very strong mechanical element to social encounters will encourage people who have little desire to ham it up to still participate.
On the other hand D&D 4e has shown me that a game can still be fun when everyone can wreck faces in combat.
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Sounds a lot like a high-fantasy version of Apocalypse World. It might be worth your time to check that system out, if you haven't already.
Which one? Conquest of Nerath? That looks hot as shit and I wants it bad.
I've personally had a lot of success with doing straight ability checks in skill challenges. Doing regular skill checks makes everybody try as hard as possible to shoe-horn in a skill to use, or just do nothing. Doing ability checks seems to work a lot better, because you can do group-check style rounds, and you can use skill training to unlock special optional things. Like a character trained in History or Arcana will still make a regular Int check in a skill challenge, but their training may award the group a special extra thing. Non-training doesn't really affect the ability to make the check, it just means you don't get the extra gravy out of it.
The biggest problem with skills in 4e, I've found, is that people tend to focus on their strengths. Skill training could be used to supplement for bad ability scores, but instead PCs end up with +OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!! in two to four skills, have one or two others that are okay, and suck at all the rest. I don't like that, and I hope Next comes up with a better solution.
Don't chicken out! Let people pick what they like! There's nothing worse than when a character idea is constricted by classes, which say you must have X skills, Y feats and Z abilities etc.
That's what skill packages come in. Stick together a bunch of skills that make a character good in an area, price them up, and have them in little side-bars saying "if you want to be good at this, this package is a great base." Then they can change around with that as they see fit. Pre-generated characters are always good as well, like in EP, both when it comes to providing new players with easy to pick up characters, as well as expressing what kind of things you can do with the character creation system.
And you can easily play a Paladin or a Wizard (should the background have them) in point buy games, you just buy the Paladin/Wizard stuff. Or parts of it, and bits of other things, for even more customisation etc.
I can see that classes provide people with nice, safe routes of play, but if you are willing to put the effort in free-form point buy systems can provide far more flexibility. As far as the argument about people min-maxing and power gaming go, the game which is worst for that, in my experience, is by far DnD, the bastion of class/level based systems.
I will look into it. Also, I tend to think in terms of high-fantasy, but I don't want all the classes to be built on those lines. The mini-campaign I'm gonna try to play test it with is actually an alternate history Western. With wizards.
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Kill all classes
freedom for all PCs!
I mean, the classes as I have them are essentially skill packages. The skills are just basically perks/powers in my thing. And you get to independently choose a combat skill package, a social skill package, and a skillful skill package (still working on this part). Hell, I actually kinda like the idea of building your own class by selecting different powers/perks, then designing or choosing a "class ability" with the GM. I just frame it with a class system because that's where my mind goes.
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Yes Nerath. i was reading the rule book and i was like "yeah i could get into this. seems simple enough but has enough room for things going to pot." but it's like 70 to 90 dollars and haha, no.
Interesting idea on ability checks vs skill checks, worth looking into if i can build another DnD group offline.
@Solar, tell me how to build a paladin in shadowrun. I have been trying, and outside of mystic adept and sucking i ain't got a thing.
or people trying to break 3.x on purpose.
That said, one way you could do it would be to play a mage who uses religion as their technique. I believe there are some archetypes along those lines. Then take spells which augment that theme, such as offensive fire spells (to fit the theme of cleansing flames), spells which improve your own physical abilities such as Armour, and the ability to summon spirits that fit your idea like Guardian spirits (you might even be able to use them as a mount!)
It could be done. There's not really going to be a smite evil type power available to you, though, because morality in Shadowrun doesn't, and shouldn't, work that way. Your smiting power would likely work regardless of what your target has been up to.
Well, all the classes I've been designing so far have
-three powers, two that I see as lower powered for their playstyle, and one that strikes me as more powerful/useful and
-a class perk that provides some strong effect either in a narrowly defined situation or once per encounter
The system could be reworked to essentially something like a powerbuy system. At character creation you have 4 points to spend in combat, 4 for social, and 4 for whatever I decide my skill system will be. "Weak" powers are 1 point. "Strong" powers are 2 points. I would just have to classify them as such and then think of a method for designing or choosing the class perks.
For my playtest I'm gonna go with a class system, but the modularity of what I described just above intrigues me.
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take those spells
and then, like, Enhanced Skill: Blades, Enhanced Attribute, Counter-Attack (or whatever it is called). Basically make a combat monster adept with a few spells to fill out the theme.
Man, talking about Shadowrun makes me want to play that Elf Urban Shaman that I created. Shame I can't play in the CF game right now.