What are people homebrewing?

Igwilly said:

Well, I’m doing something like this. I’ll reduce spell lists across the board, and I would like to use the term “Arcane” somewhere else. However, I still like “generalist” wizards, so I’m having trouble finding another name for the broad category of “non-priestly” magic.
I should also tell that I’m Brazilian, so the challenge is finding a better Portuguese name. Portuguese has much fewer words for fantasy terms. Anyone has any ideas?

Click to expand...

I like to use thesaurus.com to find interesting alternate words. I don't know Portuguese, but I know how to use google translator...

Mystical (místico)? Sorcery (feitiçaria)? Occult (oculto)? Esoteric (esotérico)? Erudite (erudito)? Sophic (sophic)?

AbdulAlhazred said:

Oddly EnWorld doesn't appear to have a specific home brew forum area (exception being the monsters sub-forum, not sure why its that specific).

Click to expand...

Just as a side note, there used to be a lot more granularity with dedicated forums but many weren't getting enough individual traffic so those were collapsed into somewhat wider, more active ones that shared a theme. This way all of the topics discussed would get more eyeballs and hopefully a more lively discussion.

I’m glad you’re willing to help! Thanks.

C4 said:

I like to use thesaurus.com to find interesting alternate words. I don't know Portuguese, but I know how to use google translator...

Mystical (místico)? Sorcery (feitiçaria)? Occult (oculto)? Esoteric (esotérico)? Erudite (erudito)? Sophic (sophic)?

Click to expand...

From these I’m leaning towards feitiçaria (sorcery), or taumaturgia (thaumaturgy). Erudito (erudite) is linked to knowledge, albeit not in an “occult” way. Oculto (occult) and esotérico (esoteric) are similar to arcano (arcane), which can be good or bad, depending on how I want to show their representatives. I couldn’t find the translation for sophic. Mysticism is primarily a religious area – and so I plan to use it elsewhere. Sorcery or Thaumaturgy seem to be the best choices; though the translations might be problematic to linguists, few Brazilians would ever confuse D&D's two broad areas of magic if I use one of the terms.

C4 said:

Most of PoL is in pre-pdf form atm, but I do have a few google doc teasers to provide a taste of what is to come.

Thanks for your interest, and thanks for starting this thread! After talking about my condition tracks here, I've realized that it'd be just as easy to shift what may be their too-fiddly interaction with minions, elites, etc. to an optional rules variant. (Of which there will be many!) Check out the Friends & Foes doc to see what I've been talking about with the condition track interaction.

Click to expand...

Another option might be to make the tracks into your core combat mechanics, so if you got rid of the OTHER stuff, like hit points and surges and all that jazz, then condition tracks might be a pretty easy thing to deal with. You could also just have 3, a FORT, WILL, and REF track, or something like that, maybe just 'PHYSICAL' and 'MENTAL' or something. Then different conditions would just be degrees on a given track. Certain things like 'slowed' could then be 'riders' or something (IE indicated by a chit on the track). Lot of ways to potentially parse that.

Blue said:

Just as a side note, there used to be a lot more granularity with dedicated forums but many weren't getting enough individual traffic so those were collapsed into somewhat wider, more active ones that shared a theme. This way all of the topics discussed would get more eyeballs and hopefully a more lively discussion.

Click to expand...

Ah, makes sense. I just don't see one at all for homebrewing your own game system. There IS one over on RPG.net. OTOH I think there's a more 4e-knowledgeable group of people in this forum, and I frankly am less interested in what a lot of people that endlessly throw muds at anything that reminds them of 4e have to 'contribute'. RPG.net IS however a good place to talk about game design. I encourage its use.

C4 said:

Also, I've been thinking I want to have a monster morale option but don't have much direction. Yours looks interesting, but it's a bit unclear...how's it work?

Click to expand...

I realized I never answered this, but its funny you ask, because when I originally wrote it I THOUGHT that I had created something that was roughly feature complete. Then a LONG time later, like a year, I was running some playtests of different fights on roll20, and making morale checks came up. What do you know, going back to that section was clear as mud! So, I definitely have it on my list of things to clean up.

The IDEA is actually kinda prototypical, the 1e DMG had a system and in effect this is its spiritual descendant. If NPCs are taking casualties, or facing other situations that are obviously not good for them, then they will need to make a morale check to remain on the field of battle. This is meant to allow for a bit more dynamic situation than the idea that morale is fundamentally reflected by hit points. I agree, you can interpret loss if hit points as a loss of morale, but there are bigger things going on here. If a band of 10 goblins suddenly takes 4 casualties, then the others are likely to reconsider their course of action. I don't really know how you would mechanically represent that as damage, its more of an overall effect. So a magical attack that disheartens opponents might just cause psychic damage as a vs WILL attack. A morale check however is called for whenever certain (admittedly not currently well-defined) conditions come about.

The GM would determine what the morale DV is, using the chart in World and Play's morale section, and then toss a d20 and see what happens. Some, all, or none, of the monsters will fail, and those monsters will flee. They may surrender if flight isn't an option. Note that NPCs might be allies of a PC and fail morale. The PC could then attempt to command them to stop fleeing, effectively rallying them, that would be a Leadership check.

There are 2 other types of related checks, Loyalty, and Obedience. A Loyalty check is called for when an NPC is in a position to commit a betrayal or disloyal act. An Obedience check can be used to determine if an NPC complies with an order or command. They are often practically the same thing, but not always. In both cases this is a situation where a PC is involved, either commanding the NPC or subverting it. I don't personally use dice to make determinations behind the scenes, though you could in some situations where a PC was the employer of the NPC.

AbdulAlhazred said:

you can interpret loss if hit points as a loss of morale, but there are bigger things going on here. If a band of 10 goblins suddenly takes 4 casualties, then the others are likely to reconsider their course of action. I don't really know how you would mechanically represent that as damage, its more of an overall effect. So a magical attack that disheartens opponents might just cause psychic damage as a vs WILL attack. A morale check however is called for whenever certain (admittedly not currently well-defined) conditions come about.

Click to expand...

One possibility: if 4 of the 10 goblins fall, make a vs Will attack to turn the rest into minions. If it fails, they keep all their hp. If not, they are now all minions and can stand and be cut down or try and flee as the mood takes them.

pemerton said:

One possibility: if 4 of the 10 goblins fall, make a vs Will attack to turn the rest into minions. If it fails, they keep all their hp. If not, they are now all minions and can stand and be cut down or try and flee as the mood takes them.

Click to expand...

Wow, I really like that concept. It could play well with the "Leader" roll. If the group Leader is killed, monsters make a save or become "disorganized" and turn into minions. Maybe a "Rout" rule or some such would be a good term.

Speaking of tracking HP/Conditions, I'm gearing up to run a Dark Sun and was trying to think of a way to make HP a little more "real." What do people think of adding a Shock/Wound system to 4e? I like the idea of the Bloodied mechanic for it (you take wounds when you hit bloodied) but I was thinking of making it start at 1/3 HP instead of one half. With that, all "Spend a Healing Surge" powers only restore "Shock", while Wounds would only heal during a long rest, possibly only on a successful Heal check. It would certainly make things far more difficult for PCs and make Heal an actual relevant skill.

Thoughts?

pemerton said:

One possibility: if 4 of the 10 goblins fall, make a vs Will attack to turn the rest into minions. If it fails, they keep all their hp. If not, they are now all minions and can stand and be cut down or try and flee as the mood takes them.

Click to expand...

Well, it would probably be mechanically less complex to just say "you take 50% of your hitpoints in damage" or something like that, but either way. I am just finding it simpler to have them flee. I mean really its purely narrative at that point. The mechanics of the encounter are mostly over. The fleeing enemy may surrender or be captured if that seems appropriate. A 'boss' might now and then rally a few of his troops perhaps, but this is going to be pretty rare. In the end it seemed like 6 of one or half-a-dozen of another, so I just chose the path that required less mechanical process to explain. Also its less messy when its friendlies this way. The idea certainly has some merit though.

Cyvris said:

Wow, I *really* like that concept. It could play well with the "Leader" roll. If the group Leader is killed, monsters make a save or become "disorganized" and turn into minions. Maybe a "Rout" rule or some such would be a good term.

Speaking of tracking HP/Conditions, I'm gearing up to run a Dark Sun and was trying to think of a way to make HP a little more "real." What do people think of adding a Shock/Wound system to 4e? I like the idea of the Bloodied mechanic for it (you take wounds when you hit bloodied) but I was thinking of making it start at 1/3 HP instead of one half. With that, all "Spend a Healing Surge" powers only restore "Shock", while Wounds would only heal during a long rest, possibly only on a successful Heal check. It would certainly make things far more difficult for PCs and make Heal an actual relevant skill.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Well, it certainly would make for a more 'grubby' kind of game. Normally 4e works well as 'big damned heroes' but DS is of course a fairly anti-heroic setting. So maybe you could spin it as 'heroes die young' in that milieu. The PCs can spend most of their time running around and hiding while they heal, and once in a while get into some really stupid heroics that lead to the next round of hiding and healing. Might work. Might get old after a while too though. Seems like there should be a point at which they 'graduate' to being able to hold their own. Not sure how that would work, maybe just there are certain items or whatnot that bypass the 'Wounds' rule.