My personal system (Revision 1)

[alhoon]

Inspired by some discussions in the General forum, I decided to write down a system for d20 incorporating many of my house rules, and I present it here, attached. The system isn't geared for Ravenloft, so I post it here.

More or less this system has been floating around my mind and parts of it are tested in my campaigns, while others (most notably the magic system) I didn't have the chance to use.
My personal system is influenced by most of the d20 systems I've played which are too numerous to list.
I was mostly influenced by 3.5 edition, Wheel of Time RPG, Saga and 4E in that order, while I've borrowed ideas from various other sources (even from ScS Great war project).

What it has:
- Magic system where spellcasters can cast spells in their basic forms all day, or they can squeeze their expendable reserves of spell points to buff the spells up to do something powerful, or even risk blowing themselves up to cast spells that exceed the power they can safely cast. The spell casters can cast the basic spells daylong, but basic forms of the spells aren't powerful enough to make the day and the character can only have a limited spells active at any time (to prevent "bull strength + divine favor + divine power + shield of faith + bless + ... " things).
- Classes that fill a certain thematic role, with talents to differate one fighter from the other.
- Prestige classes feeling the role of specialist.
- Dodge bonus for every character 1/3 of level, but armor restricts dodge bonuses along with dex.
- Armor restricts reflex save too (to a degree).

If anyone's interested, check it and tell me suggestions or ideas. I haven't tried it as a whole yet.
PS. the writting of the system of course isn't polished.


EDIT: First revision for anyone interested. (I'm happy I did upload this, because my other computer broke down)

[brass]

Interesting stuff. I love playing around with systems and house rules. Would people be interested in sharing their house rules and reading others? When writing the Mistfinder Pathfinder conversion I try to stick as close to the core system as possible so other people can use it easily, but I have some changes of my own.

[alhoon]

Well... post them here. It's not just about MY system. I'm interested in other people's ideas too. That's why it's on a forum, instead of sitting just in my laptop.

[HuManBing]

I have not read the .rar file yet, but just based on the summary, I think you're doing a really interesting and good job. Two thumbs up!

The spell system gave me headaches as well, and I like your solution to it: use as many low-level castings as you wish, but you'll have to judiciously spend energy to increase the effect to worthwhile fantasy levels.

The Dodge bonus fits in well with the common battlefield wisdom of "older more experienced fighters make for more canny fighters". The grizzled veteran who hears the twig snap, or hears the bow string sing out, or just gets prickles on his skin... these all feed into the well-established trope of "experience is the best teacher".

Were you the one who was also concerned with firearms? The dodge mechanic would also lend itself well to buffing up firearms vs. armor too. All you'd need to do would be to give bullets a penetration bonus (ignoring the first X points of actual Armor AC defense) and then suddenly people want to wear less armor and just move faster.

Looks very interesting - keep us posted of your own experiments and experiences!

[alhoon]

Yeap. I was the one that suggested the penetration of armor by firearms thing. It has been tested by me for at least 5 years and worked fine. As for armor being thrown when firearms advance, well... that was the main reason armor was abandoned until 2 decades ago.

As for testing the whole thing? Unlikely in the immediate future. I'm playing 4th edition these days.
If you want, read it when you have the time and tell me your opinion.

[brass]

Here are some of the basic house rules I use with the Pathfinder system. They are a bit rough since they were only for use with my players.

1. Save or Die.

I will not ever use as a GM a save or die effect as written. Straight death sucks. I will think about it but one solution seems to be,

Save or go to -1 HP

This allows other players to get the guy back on the feet and still is threatening.


2. Nauseated

Nauseated sucks and pretty much a death sentence in the wrong situation. It should be horrible but not session ending.

Nauseated now reads

Nauseated creatures may take single move or standard action per turn. They are at a –4 penalty on all attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.

3. Evasion ( avoidsion)

It seems to me this is not really a balance issue. What do people think about evasion? Great ability but makes little sense during a building sized explosion.

I was thinking that when you avoid the damage due to evasion you are thrown up to your base speed in a random direction, avoiding obvious hazards like jumping of a cliff or into lava. This would only have the ability to throw you up to the effect area +5ft. This would still work with lines as a you sidestep a lightning bolt.

Opinions about this one please as I know it's just wanting less suspension of disbelief. Plus diving away from an explosion is cool.

4. Petrification

When an effect call for you to be turned to stone it should work like the touch of stone spell from PHB2.

Essentially you have your save and take a -2 penalty to dex. Every round you get a -2 penalty as the turn to stone effect happens and you get a save every round. You are a statue if you reach 0 dex. I'm also ruling that if you want you can break off a limb in the first two rounds to stop the effect.

5. Disintegration

This will work in much the same way as being petrified, except as a mounting -2 to Con with a save at the end of each round. No option here to sever the leg but you may lose a limb based on the spell.

[alhoon]

Very nice ideas. I'll steal a few.

Now:

Save or die: Good idea if you get rid of raise dead spells etc. Still, to the day I didn't have a campaign where 12th lvl PCs weren't falling dead because of some lucky rolls of the enemy. So I keep raise dead and resurrection spells in the game, at their level to boot. So, the bishop of a city with 6500 people has the ability to bring people back from the dead. I hate that. But I couldn't find a way around it.

Nauseted: Still to harsh IMO. A -4 because your stomach tells you to double and vomit? I would turn it to something like the dazed of 4E with a -2 to attacks, skill checks and (perhaps) saves. I.e. one action/round, you don't make AO + this -2 I mentioned.

Evasion: Nice idea.
Also works for things like "It's a straight, empty corridor, 5 feet wide, 200' long. You're in the middle. The fighter presses the trap plate and from the far end a bolt of lighting covers the whole corridor. As you're in single line you're all hit... except from the halfling."
Still... a bit game changing. Everyone loves this power as it rocks, even those that love to complain.
I've used something similar more or less in a couple of situations where evasion made absolutely no sense (there's no way you can find cover from a fireball in a desert, so I ruled the rogue moved 10' away etc). When I can avoid moving the PCs though, I do. I.e. if there's something the thief can duck under or behind of nearby, I consider he took total cover there.

Petrification: I'm pretty sure I've used that for some monsters, but for a medusa, I want the original "turns a man to a stone in a couple of heartbeats". For other monsters I had the penalty different from monster to monster. I.e. -4 for some, -1d6 for others etc.
I used it like this: When the petrifying monster successfuly hits/bites/gazes the char, the char immediately takes the penalty, then the char has to make a save each round or the situation progresses. If the monster hits the char again, it applies the penalty again. So with a -4/round, a character could turn to stone with 2 successful hits and a failed save.

The rate that dex returns is also different from monster to monster. On others it's 1/minute and on others it's pure dex damage that takes days (or a restoration spell).

Disintigration: That's the only part we disagree it seems. I'm pretty fine with disintigrate doing damage instead of con damage.

[Manofevil]

Nauseted: Still to harsh IMO. A -4 because your stomach tells you to double and vomit? I would turn it to something like the dazed of 4E with a -2 to attacks, skill checks and (perhaps) saves. I.e. one action/round, you don't make AO + this -2 I mentioned.

Hmm. How bout a vomit ATTACK? If you're fighting something and your lunch is coming up, LAUNCH IT RIGHT IN THE ENEMY'S FACE! Do a Lardass from the movie 'Stand by Me'.

[sndwurks]

I actually hammered together a d20 variant based mostly on the Wheel of Time RPG for a Ravenloft game I ran a few years back. It worked surprisingly well, as it made magic mysterious and kind of scary, since using it had a tendency to drive people mad if they pushed themselves too much. I think I still have a copy of it around here somewhere, if someone actually wants to take a look at it.

Currently, I'm working on a setting port of Ravenloft to a Victorian era Shadow-Chasers style d20 Modern game. And I've run a 4E Ravenloft game. Which, I guess, all goes to show that I am plain silly when it comes to Ravenloft, and am actually rather adverse to running it by its base rules since 2E.