How to get the levels out of d20

[Ridley's Cohort]

I recommend you take a look at Pendragon. It is a d20-based BRP system.

The essential idea is that you discard xp altogether and give "skill checks" for a significant use of a skill. At the end of the adventure, you roll a d20 against your skill, gaining +1 skill if the roll is greater than your skill.

Yes, it is probabilistic. But that does average out over time, and it neatly makes higher skills more difficult to improve without resorting to any charts.

Magic would require more work to convert.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Does the OGL forbid it?
I thought it merely said that the existing leveling/advancement system could not be reproduced. If however it was wholesale replaced and made OGC...

I think it's more that the d20 license forbids it. Ryan Dancey said as much in his interview in Campiagn magazine. He was saying that he'd like to see a levelless system for d20, but that, of course, it couldn't mention d20 or D&D.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Here is a quote from Ryan Dancey in Campaign Magazine, issue 1, p. 33, in answer to the question "What isn't being done that you'd like to see?

I'd like to see someone design a character builder book using the OGL (but not the d20 System Trademark license, for obvious reasons) that would provide a point-based system for creating and advancing characters all while remaining fully compatible with D&D; if only to prove that the classes & levels in D&D are just one of many viable options for d20 and that d20 doesn't mean "a game with classes and levels."

 

[Dinkeldog]

Cohort, there are significant problems with skill advancement that way.

For one, you can't upgrade a skill that the DM doesn't let you use frequently. That means that it's hard to create a character that is significantly knowledgable in Elven history unless your DM puts loads of Elven history into the campaign. Blecch.

The Earthdawn method is much better. Essentially, you use your experience to by ranks in specific class abilities. When you've got enough abilities at a specific rank, you get to advance to the next level and get additionally abilities opened up to you.

And even on this side of the pond you can say "colors" and be correct. The dissenters are just desperately hoping to avoid the inevitable assimilation.

 

[Tsyr]

*sticks his fingers in his ears and begins chanting*

I can't heeeeeeeeeeaaaaar you... It's spelled C-O-L-O-U-R...

*continues chanting in blissfull ignorance*

 

[Horacio]

When I was teached English, they say me to write colour and armour, so for me they have the u...

And the idea of a classless & levelless d20 system is good... besides it wouldn't be d20 anymore, I'm afraid...

 

[Plane Sailing]

I recommend you take a look at Pendragon. It is a d20-based BRP system.

The essential idea is that you discard xp altogether and give "skill checks" for a significant use of a skill. At the end of the adventure, you roll a d20 against your skill, gaining +1 skill if the roll is greater than your skill.

FWIW you could also find (I guess) much the same system in my own sci-fi RPG, Starguild: it has been online for years at http://www.starguild.freeserve.co.uk/starguild

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