Game Name Game

Back when 4E was looming on the horizon, I started working on what I called Project 39, my attempt to combine the best of what I had seen in the 4E mechanics with what I wanted to keep from 3.5.

4E hit, I blew up my campaign world to accommodate the huge shift it represented, and we converted our ongoing campaign to 4E. That last a few sessions until I hit on a way to do more granular advancement (something I frequently tinkered with in d20) and hit on the idea of 4lacarte, an a la carte advancement system where players bought powers, feats, skills and what not piecemeal, rather than a surge of power once in a while when they leveled.

Cruising the InterBlogs, I stumbled across Robin Stacey's Microlite system. The idea behind Microlite was to boil down D&D to its barest bones, with the basic rules taking up a couple pages. A small community developed around the idea, all doing their own takes on it. I realized it would be easy for me to distill down what I was doing into a simplified system, basically just expanding slightly on the Microlite idea but keeping my idea of advancement divorced from level. I called it MicroZ.

Microlite was bought by Seth Drebitko of Kobold Enterprise. Microlite20 or M20 continues to have its community and Mr. Drebitko is continuing to develop the system. However as thing progressed I could see his path and my development path were diverging enough that I felt that my system was not quite Micro and many of the mechanic introduced to M20 were not ones that met my needs.

I flirted with the name z20, a play off d20 and the z in Oz. But it isn't very descriptive, then I hit on an idea for a name that sums up the core of my iteration of d20. Skill20.

Advancement in Skill20 mostly hinges on Skills. While there is Stat (Ability or Attribute such as Strength) advancement, Stats don't change much over time. Skills are the driving force in this game. Hence the name.

I'll go into more details on Skill20 in a future post.

Read the rest!

Feats For MicroZ

Note to self - I really need to update lordoz.com so I can actually post the rules for perusal.

Note to reader(s) - MicroZ is inspired by and based on Microlite d20.

Note to blog - don't worry blog, I won't leave you for microblogging like Twitter. I need more than 140 characters.

Any ways, feats. I decided that I still needed some crunch and customization options to differentiate characters a bit more. What I had seen in my a la carte experiments was that players loaded up on feats, both because they provided useful abilities and they had a flat rather than escalating cost.

I had two design decisions to make. How to handle and reign in the gaining of feats, and what kind of mechanics did I want to use for the feats themselves?


The first was simple when I hit on it. Break feats down by Stat association and tie the accumulation of feats directly to the Stat. Want another STR (Strength) feat? Buy up your STR. This limited the number of feats a character could have, meaning I could also keep my feat list small without characters ending up with most of them. But assigning gaining of feats to odd numbers greater than 11, I made to odd Stats actually useful rather than a stepping stone.

As for the feats themselves, in the case of skill-affecting feats I borrowed a page from Star Wars Saga d20 and used feats that gave a reroll under certain conditions or uses of skills. It's also possibly to expend an additional feat to upgrade it to rolling twice and keep the best roll. I just had to make sure not to let it be available for combat (including magic) skills.

Read the rest!

MicroZ - Testing Starting

So I got some positive feedback from my players when I sprung on them converting from 4e a la carte to MicroZ. The downside is that we haven't tested combat yet, they were too busy role-playing, investigating, and rescuing innocents from burning farmhouses to get in a fight. I expect the combat system to get a workout next game session when they catch up to the nefarious brigands that set said farmhouse fire.


At some point I need to clean up my LordOz website and post the MicroZ rules there, but I'm partly waiting to see how things shake out with the recent sale of Microlite d20.

Read the rest!

Micro-ing Weapons

I'm continuing on my adaption of Microlite for my own evil purposes.

Originally I thought that weapons would be a matter of copy and paste, but as I looked at the weapon tables, a couple of things struck me.


The first was that even in Micro form, D&D clung to an esoteric assortment of weapons for what I could best attribute to nostalgia. The original D&D was derived from war-gaming, and that pedigree shows in the variety of weapons. But when was the last time someone used a pick? How about those various flavors of polearm? In the interest of keeping MicroZ micro, I started dropping weapons.

The other thing I noticed was that simplification made certain weapons in each category more desirable than others. Why use a scimitar for d6 when you can use a bastard sword for d10? Why use a dagger for d4 when you can use a shortsword for d6? So I began looking at the weapons in the various categories and tried to balance them. It meant adding a little more detail, but hopefully I'll do so without encumbering the system.

In some cases it meant tweaking damage values... the scimitar, longsword and bastard sword in one hand all do d8. A flail only does d6 but is +2 vs. shields, a shortspear does d6 but can be thrown and a rapier does d6 but subtracts 2 from the DR of armor.

DR of armor? That's another post.

Read the rest!

Starting on MicroZ

First to give credit where credit is due, and in case you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, Microlite is a super-condensed form of D&D. Intrigued by the possibilities I've started tinkering with the system.

Two of the big considerations are adopting Microlite for my level-free experiment, and adopting it for my campaign world.


Stats was easy. I'm keeping the three used in the original Microlite design, Strength, Dexterity, and Mind. While I debated on the idea of combining Intelligence, Wisdom/Willpower, and Charisma into the Mind stat or not, I finally squashed my mechanics-hydra by rationalizing that specific aspects of mental abilities are also reflected in skills.

Speaking of skills, level-free construction and the voices in my head required me to beef up the 4 (or 5 for expert) skills used in Microlite. My skill list consists of Athletics, Discipline, Influence, Knowledge, Magic, Melee, Missile, Subterfuge, and Survival. While this may seem to be a bit much for a "micro" system, these skills also replace attack bonuses, caster levels, and armor class (more on that in a later post).

Each class has three class skills, which they start with 2 ranks each. Class skills are less expensive to advance than other skills, but there's no rule to keep a fighter from buying up ranks of Magic. It will be more expensive and he won't have a mage's special abilities for casting, but effectively multi-classing is a matter of investing skill points.

Advancement is easy now (compared to my 4E a la carte). You have class skills, other skills and stats.

Read the rest!

Sundered Veil - P39 or Cortex

So I picked up the Cortex Core Rules at GenCon. These are the rules used in the Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, and Supernatural role-playing games by Margaret Weis Productions. As I was looking through the book I realized the rules would be well suited to my ideas for the Sundered Veil campaign setting.

Crunch work would be tuning the magic system, coming up with the spells, tweaking advancement, and building my bestiary. Fluff work would be the same regardless of what rules I use.

Read the rest!

Project 39: It's a kind of magic

So for my Sundered Veil campaign setting I'm thinking there will be three kinds of magic.

Arcane Magic is classic energy manipulation, making things move or burn. While there won't be any room clearing fireballs, this is the most useful magic for combat.

Spirit Magic is derived from faith, and in fact many users won't even think of it as "magic". It will be healing and protection magic. Always useful to have when combing otherbeast infested ruins.

Druidic Magic (working title) taps into the primal magic that flows between the Otherworld and our world. Most useful for "tweening" between the worlds, affecting otherbeasts/otherkin and affecting nature.


The approach I'm looking at has some resemblance to the Force users in Star Wars Saga. The hero has a feat to qualify, a la Channel Magic, has a specific skill to use a given kind of magic, then uses additional feats to pick up "spells". More powerful spells would likely have lesser spells as prerequisites, such as having Ignite (a minor spell used to light fires) as a prereq for Combust (a combat fire spell useful for setting bandits and ogres on fire).

The hero has their "suite" of spells, each of which may be used once per encounter. Some might take multiples of the same spell to get multiple uses, others might have feats that let them get certain spells returned to their suite under certain conditions during the fight.

The other mechanic I'll be using I call Axiom. It represents the mundane worlds "resistance" to magic. When a spell is generated, a number of Axiom dice are rolled, and the result is subtracted from the skill check. So Ignite might have an Axiom of 1 (roll 1d6) while Combust might have an Axiom of 3 (roll 3d6). Of course there will be feats that modify this mechanic.

The idea is to keep more skilled casters from automatically toasting everything every time and to reflect the difficulty inherent in more advanced spells. Say Willy the Wizard has an Arcane asset of +10 (that is his skill plus all modifiers come to 10). With an average d20 roll of 10 (I know, it's really 10.5), that generates an average of 20. The odds of a target not getting hit by Combust is pretty abysmal given an average Reflex Defense of 10 to 12. Willy has to autofail to miss anyone with a Reflex lower than 14.

Throw in Axiom, and now it becomes more challenging for Willy. Using Combust becomes much dicier, as the average Axiom generated will offset his asset.

I'm still chewing on the terms Druidic and Axiom. I'm staying away from the term Primal Magic because of the Primal Power Source in 4e, but I haven't thought of a better name.

Read the rest!

Project 39 - Defenses

Project 39 is the nickname I've used for my various attempts to make an Ozzified d20 that falls between 3.5 and 4e. Rather than make a new tag for my a la carte home-brew, I've been using the Project 39 tag, so I might as well call the class-less version by that name.

To the matter on hand, I've been chewing on defenses. I've decided to do away with Armor Class or Defense Bonus (the mechanic used in Modern d20). Star Wars Saga does a similar thing, though their system with armor can get kind of messy. I also have to consider my use of Combat Skills.


Just using Reflex as a defense has some problems. Say Phil Farmer, who has a total of +3 with swords, is fighting Bill Badass, who has +10 with swords. Let's assume their Reflex Defense is the same. Their target numbers are the same. Bill's superior skill doesn't help keep him from getting hit.

What I'm considering is a set of feats that allow the character to use an appropriate skill as defense. This means with that feat and wielding a sword, Bill would have a Defense of 20 (10 base + 10 for swords) against a melee attacker instead of his Reflex Defense. But this doesn't help is Oscar the Ogre decides to lob a cinder block at Bill.

As for calculating the base Reflex, Fortitude and Will Defenses in the absence of class bonuses I came up with a simple idea. Instead of a given Defense being 10 + stat bonus + class bonus + level bonus + feat bonuses it would be Stat plus feat bonus. If you have a Dex of 13 (and no applicable feats) your Reflex Defense would be 13.

Read the rest!

More class-less musings

Why do I get my best ideas at work or when I'm driving?

Anyways, I've been chewing on character creation for my latest a la carte iteration of d20. The one advantage of classes was they made character construction easy and relatively balanced. Giving the players free reign opens things up to balance issues, both intentional and unintentional.


Novice players I figured out an easy fix in designing beginning packages themed around different kinds of characters like Woad Warrior, Hedge Druid, Faith Healer and Ley Raveller. I'm thinking there won't be any mechanical benefits, players building characters from scratch can get the exact same results, but it will make it easier for someone who wants to play a "healer" type and not spend two hours crunching mechanics to pick the Faith Healer template, plug in a couple of things and go.

Think on this led to a chain of ideas. I was considering how to handle Weapon Proficiencies, trying to decide how detailed I wanted to get and how to balance how many feats a starting character should have when I had the heretical thought "get rid of them."

Huh?

In most systems not having a proficiency inflicted a penalty. But since I was replacing Attack Bonus with Combat Skills, did I really need a penalty. If Phil Farmer picked up a sword, what would the difference be between him and Bill Badass? Well Bill would have skill ranks and Phil wouldn't. If Phil later got a little training or practice with the sword, he wouldn't leap from -4 to 0 by buying proficiency, he'd go from 0 to +1 by buying a skill rank.

Eliminating weapon proficiencies meant not having to worry about giving starting characters enough feats to be adequately diverse in weapon choices without finding an artificial means to prevent a min-maxer from loading up on a narrow focus.

I'll also be handling skills the same way. Instead of a penalty for not having a skill, it will just be a lack of bonus. This get rids of the rank zero skills I've used in other iterations of a la carte.

Read the rest!

d20 with no class?

Yes, my headline does lend itself to many obvious slams, but this isn't another e-skirmish in the Edition Wars.

I've been thinking about my campaign idea I call "The Sundered Veil" or Sundered for short. In a nutshell a science experiment run amok punches a hole between this world and the one that the beings of myth and lore retreated to after the Milesian Accords. This breaks the accords, allowing these beings and magic to enter the world. For some reason when they enter a large chunk of mankind vanishes. Oh, and did I mention there was a global EMP when the rupture occurred? Bye bye digital age.


A quick comparison would be a cross between the various urban fantasy novels of Charles de Lint and Ariel - A Book of the Change. My mental vision for this is a nomadic druid on an antiquated Harley with a sword and a shotgun riding through a foggy countryside.

With my recent experimentation (and so far success) with my a la carte adaptations of 4e and Star Wars Saga, I've been mulling a Modern d20 adaptation, taking good math from 4e and the basics of Md20 and combining them. As I contemplated this, it occurred to me the system might be ideal for Sundered.

When I tackle a game system, I tend to think about character generation first. Even though I liked the Md20 classes, each based on a Characteristic, I realized I could entirely eliminate classes and just keep the Characteristic associated talent trees. By maintaining prerequisites in the talent trees I could mitigate cherry-picking. The hardest part of an a la carte system versus the level framework is balance. I saw that when my players converted their Star Wars characters and heavily invested where they could get the most bang for the buck. A good GM rule is that if players really want something you've ruled against, odds are you did the right thing.

In my other a la carte conversions I still kept classes for character creation purposes. Players built a first level character, using the changes I had put in like having separate skill ranks instead of universal skill progression and having weapon skills instead of attack bonuses. Then they advanced the characters in the new a la carte advancement until they ran out of xp to spend.

In Sundered, I can just give the players the numbers for starting stats, skills, feats and talents and go from there. Seeing as the characters are the "new heroes" of the new age, or at least will be eventually, I can be as generous as 4e in attributes and make sure they have enough hit points that the first goblin with a pointy stick doesn't end their heroic careers. The trickiest part will be magic, which I'm thinking I will do as a self-contained module so that the new core system is easily ported to different settings.

Read the rest!

4e a la carte?

I gave up on my original Project 39 idea, making 4e more multiclass friendly and less videogamey as being too much work. Then yesterday something someone said sparked and idea that has been running rampant in my brain the past 24 hours.

One of the gripes that some multisystem players have with d20 is the pigeon-holing of characters into class structures and restricting advancement along those guidelines. That got me to thinking, why couldn't the system be set up so that if someone wanted to buy a feat, skill, or stat, they could do so?


My brain quickly started breaking down character advancement into blocks, things that improve and would need to be purchasable. There were a couple of questions and one big caveat that sprang to mind.

The caveat was that doing this made measuring a given character's power level much more difficult. I wasn't worried about munchkinism (too much). I play and run in systems where characters buy advancement such as Champions and my iteration of Marvel Saga. If the GM feels something would be unbalancing, he says no. Also, characters have to have justification for purchases, not just because it gives a games-mechanic advantage.

THe two big questions were how do I handle character creation and should advancement costs be linear (a la Champions) or progressive (a la Cortex)?

My first thought for character creation was to reverse engineer all of the classes into their basic building blocks and assign costs. That idea lasted maybe 30 seconds. Then I thought about having first level characters be pretty much "as is" in the current rules, as it represents the formative years for your character. Also, since all 1st level characters are presumably balanced, everyone starts on an even playing field. Finally, it saves me from deciding costs for things like class features and healing surges.

Regarding the second question, I'm leaning towards progressive. Part of that is probably because progressive advancement will keep a game from power-bloating out of control longer than linear.

Now I just need to decide on costs for skills, feats, talents (my own house system), attribute points, powers, defense increases, hit point increases, and attack bonus increases.

Read the rest!

Project 39 - Fighter first draft

I figured the fighter would be a good class to start my Project 39 endeavor. I'm using the overall template for classes used in Modern d20 and Star Wars Saga Edition (SWSE), with alternating feats and talents. I'm also only building to Level 20... my campaigns very rarely reach epic levels and that represents a whole new set of headaches.

This draft of the fighter is meant to be much simpler to run than a 4e fighter, with a lot of talents applying persistent modifiers to attacks to certain weapons with a few special moves triggered by burning surges.


I am eschewing the encounter/daily uses for fighter talents. While that system is better than the Vancian system for spell-casters, it didn't sit quite right with me for fighters.

The next step will be to sit down and build some fighters of the same level in P39 and 4e and see how they compare in performance on the battle mat.

Also, I've decided to use condition steps as in SWSE. My math for determining damage threshold is Fortitude Defense or Bloodied value, whichever is lower. This makes it easy to compute on the fly from existing stat blocks.

Read the rest!