Had a few more ideas for this recently. A skill and stat system, mostly.
Stats:-There are eight stats, organized into four pairs.-Each stat pair represents a paradigm- roughly put (as in, the names of the paradigms are not final, and probably unnecessary), they represent Brute Force, Finesse, Mind, and Spirit. For any roll made using one stat of a pair, there's at least one action that can be made to oppose it... and the roll for it probably uses the other stat. They also tend to fit an active/passive dichotomy.
Brute Force is composed of Strength and Fortitude. Finesse is composed of Dexterity and Reflexes. Mind is made up of Intelligence (think academic knowledge, logic... ivory-tower sort of things) and Wisdom (common sense, street smarts, intuition, creativity). Finally, Spirit is composed of Spirit (the strength of one's soul, the force of their presence, how magical they are/could be) and Will (the strength/resilience of their sense of self, their spirit, and their ability to negate or withstand magic).
Skills:
Basically, with skills, I wanted to find a way to make the D&D 3.x skill system stop being broken. Turns out, it's actually pretty easy to do. I call it the ATTrEB system... though I'm open to a better name. ^^
Skill rolls are still a 1d20 with modifiers attached, but I've done some streamlining on the modifiers. That's actually where the name 'ATTrEB' came from; it's an accurate summary of a skill roll. To break it down, a skill roll is:A d20 roll;the character's Talent bonus. This is basically the character's ability score modifier- but keep in mind that raising ability scores is harder/nigh-impossible than in D&D. It's effectively near-static;the character's Training bonus. This one covers education in the use of the skill. Unlike D&D, this isn't a simple binary thing- it starts at +0, for 'nobody ever showed me anything', and goes up from there.the character's Experience bonus. When a character spends XP to buy skills in mid-session/mid-campaign, they're just upping their Experience bonus. At the end of- or between- campaigns/sessions, they can spend XP on upping Training, potentially.any Bonuses that may apply, depending on the situation.
The thing is that the sum of Talent, Training, and Experience cannot exceed 20, and bonuses are both transitory and typed. This represents the limitations of being human, and/or logical sense.Think about it. What made 3.x skills so broken was that it was comparatively easy to raise a skill to absurd levels- getting Diplomacy high enough to turn bitter enemies to fanatical allies in two actions, or raising Bluff high enough that you could convince a male troll that it was, in fact, a young halfling girl, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Put a cap on what can be reached through purely mundane means, get a better handle on what bonuses can be acquired, and the rest of the system actually makes some good sense.
"But what about characters that are beyond mundane limits?", you might ask. There's actually a fifth modifier spot for that. Any enchantment, spell, enchanted item, or other form of character enhancement that allows a character to exceed mortal/logical/human limits goes there, stacks with the other four categories, and doesn't count towards the +20 modifier limit.
Oh, and here's the clever bit. Combat can be modeled as a skill roll. Talent for whatever stat your attack is keyed to. Training is how well you've been educated in whatever martial art/style you're using, Experience represents itself, and Bonuses include things like flanking, attacking a surprised enemy, and the like, and anything that makes a character able to hit in defiance of their own skill goes in the Superhuman box.
So that's what I've come up recently. Thoughts? Suggestions? Quibbles?
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.
Stats:-There are eight stats, organized into four pairs.-Each stat pair represents a paradigm- roughly put (as in, the names of the paradigms are not final, and probably unnecessary), they represent Brute Force, Finesse, Mind, and Spirit. For any roll made using one stat of a pair, there's at least one action that can be made to oppose it... and the roll for it probably uses the other stat. They also tend to fit an active/passive dichotomy.
Brute Force is composed of Strength and Fortitude. Finesse is composed of Dexterity and Reflexes. Mind is made up of Intelligence (think academic knowledge, logic... ivory-tower sort of things) and Wisdom (common sense, street smarts, intuition, creativity). Finally, Spirit is composed of Spirit (the strength of one's soul, the force of their presence, how magical they are/could be) and Will (the strength/resilience of their sense of self, their spirit, and their ability to negate or withstand magic).
Skills:
Basically, with skills, I wanted to find a way to make the D&D 3.x skill system stop being broken. Turns out, it's actually pretty easy to do. I call it the ATTrEB system... though I'm open to a better name. ^^
Skill rolls are still a 1d20 with modifiers attached, but I've done some streamlining on the modifiers. That's actually where the name 'ATTrEB' came from; it's an accurate summary of a skill roll. To break it down, a skill roll is:A d20 roll;the character's Talent bonus. This is basically the character's ability score modifier- but keep in mind that raising ability scores is harder/nigh-impossible than in D&D. It's effectively near-static;the character's Training bonus. This one covers education in the use of the skill. Unlike D&D, this isn't a simple binary thing- it starts at +0, for 'nobody ever showed me anything', and goes up from there.the character's Experience bonus. When a character spends XP to buy skills in mid-session/mid-campaign, they're just upping their Experience bonus. At the end of- or between- campaigns/sessions, they can spend XP on upping Training, potentially.any Bonuses that may apply, depending on the situation.
The thing is that the sum of Talent, Training, and Experience cannot exceed 20, and bonuses are both transitory and typed. This represents the limitations of being human, and/or logical sense.Think about it. What made 3.x skills so broken was that it was comparatively easy to raise a skill to absurd levels- getting Diplomacy high enough to turn bitter enemies to fanatical allies in two actions, or raising Bluff high enough that you could convince a male troll that it was, in fact, a young halfling girl, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Put a cap on what can be reached through purely mundane means, get a better handle on what bonuses can be acquired, and the rest of the system actually makes some good sense.
"But what about characters that are beyond mundane limits?", you might ask. There's actually a fifth modifier spot for that. Any enchantment, spell, enchanted item, or other form of character enhancement that allows a character to exceed mortal/logical/human limits goes there, stacks with the other four categories, and doesn't count towards the +20 modifier limit.
Oh, and here's the clever bit. Combat can be modeled as a skill roll. Talent for whatever stat your attack is keyed to. Training is how well you've been educated in whatever martial art/style you're using, Experience represents itself, and Bonuses include things like flanking, attacking a surprised enemy, and the like, and anything that makes a character able to hit in defiance of their own skill goes in the Superhuman box.
So that's what I've come up recently. Thoughts? Suggestions? Quibbles?
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.