Home Made D&D Edition

[The Crimson Binome]

I made the distinction between "Skills" and combat abilities because the game mechanics do. They're acquired differently, they work differently.

The game makes an arbitrary distinction. They do not work differently, within the reality that the rules are trying to reflect.

They advanced in an inflationary manner, but couldn't be enhanced whether you used/practiced them or not.

No, they advanced under the assumption that you were practicing them, to some extent; or at least watching others practice them, such that you could pick up a little knowledge second-hand. The basic idea is that a fighter cannot possibly get to level 20 without observing some Thievery in action. As far as design assumptions go, it's no worse than letting a 3E fighter put ranks into Craft (Blacksmithing) after spending three levels in a dungeon where there are no forges to be found.

By "inflationary", of course I mean the UPB bumped them by a point every so often, but since the target numbers advanced at the same rate, the "advancement" was an illusion. We talked about that before. A meaningless numbers game.

That's actually a common misconception of 4E. The numbers don't advance on their own. Rather, the expectation for what would challenge the party is what advanced. A very simple lock might start as DC 15, and it would remain DC 15 in the face of a level 30 fighter whose half-level bonus to Thievery was +15.

Advancement under such a system is only an illusion if the DM contrives for the party to only face same-level challenges. Within the reality of the game world, the characters are actually improving quite significantly, by any objective measure. If you wanted a solid argument for why a level 20 wizard should have +12 to hit with their sword, it's because a level 20 wizard still lives in a world alongside level 1 fighters and CR 4 ogres, and some threats are too trivial to warrant spending a spell slot on.

So let's just say it: Generic advancement (i.e. the UPB) is an idiot simple way to handle a mechanic. It emphasizes the "Level" part of a class/level system, and ignores the differences between the classes, or the differences between individuals of differing ability. It's far less realistic/believable than the 3.* approach, or the AD&D or 0D&D, but if idiot simple is what you're looking for then go for it.

Your mileage may vary. I'll count the standardized advancement rate as a streamlined and efficient method of guaranteeing characters don't fall outside the usability-spectrum which is imposed by the idiotically-simplistic d20 system. A more realistic/believable approach would involve something like a 3d6 bell curve to guarantee such things, but short of just abandoning the d20 system in favor of GURPS, standardized advancement makes for an easy-to-use and entirely-functional rules patch.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well PAthfinder 2 is out and I cna slavage parts of that. All good armor there adds up to around 17.

IN my homebrew I am working roughly with this.

Light armor tops out AC 17
Medium AC 18
Heavy AC 19

This is to prevent dex being a super stat. Heavy armor is the best but the gap between the two is no so extreme. I leaned a bit more towards 3E as well but added some AD&D armors back in. For example platemail is AC 17 with a +2 dex modifier, halfplate is AC 18 with +1 dex modifer, full plate is AC 19.

Chainmail is AC 15 with a;'la 1E-3E but I might make it AC 16 and treat it as medium armor for proficiency but in effect its heavy armor.

A bit more complication than 5E is fine, think I will add a +2 bonus to hit for flanking a'la #E, 4E and Pathfinder. 5E doesn't have iot and the optional rule is advantage which is a bit much IMHO. I'm thinking of a universal bonus similar to 4E and skill focus/expertise will be a flat bonus perhaps +3 over 4E +5. Also avoids the +6 modifier to skills in high level 5E or +10 if I went with 5E expertise (Bard/Rogue class feature).

I kind of like the Pathinder 2 bard over the 5E one. The 5E one s great but it feels more like a Beguiler or wizard over Bard.