What are people homebrewing?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Also I like none of their MC systems. Instead, I'm thinking about using themes, backgrounds and paragon paths to cover a lot of it, while something like 4e's power swapping does the rest.


Also, the plan is to do 30 levels, but without the epic power jump. Instead, the epic destiny will cover that, and be designed to not care what level you are. The DM/group decides when the campaign becomes epic, and whether that is at level 1, or level 2, the character get epic destinies.

Yeah, that's cool. I liked themes and backgrounds, PPs, and EDs.

Here's my thought though, why should they be 4 different things? I mean, background is a bit special in that you are defining a lot of story stuff, but mechanically its all "something that gives you something." Being a reductionist I decided to simply merge all of these things into one thing, and subsume feats as well. That thing is called 'boons' (after the 4e DMG2 divine boon mechanism which was somewhat inspirational).

Boons generally give you something a bit intermediate between a feat and a theme. Most of the ones I've done so far have about 3 powers (there are some with none or one, it kind of depends on the nature of the thing). Each time you get a boon, you also get a level. Note how that is the reverse of what happens in -AFAIK- all other RPG systems, level measures your power, it doesn't set it (well, lots of other stuff then keys off level, but basically how many boons you have is how powerful you are). The powers you get from these are, mostly, just available picks, you don't actually get to use all of them at any one time. So you define the universe of things your character COULD do, and then pick what really interests you. Other boons may just give static benefits though, like riding, training, etc. Some boons are 'minor', like learning a language, they don't give you a level.

The point is, you could well have something 'epic' at level 1, its really up to the GM and the players to generate a narrative that brings that about. Everything happens for narrative reasons, there's no XP to gain. You find a honking awesome magic sword, congrats your level 2!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've made PoL options all very tightly thematic, but I've also made it easy to cross boundaries via multi- and dual-classing. Which reminds me, I should add those things to the 'heartbreakers' section of my intro doc...

I really should read it. I mean I think I did peek at it once a while back, probably things have changed, lol.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, that's cool. I liked themes and backgrounds, PPs, and EDs.

Here's my thought though, why should they be 4 different things? I mean, background is a bit special in that you are defining a lot of story stuff, but mechanically its all "something that gives you something." Being a reductionist I decided to simply merge all of these things into one thing, and subsume feats as well. That thing is called 'boons' (after the 4e DMG2 divine boon mechanism which was somewhat inspirational).

Boons generally give you something a bit intermediate between a feat and a theme. Most of the ones I've done so far have about 3 powers (there are some with none or one, it kind of depends on the nature of the thing). Each time you get a boon, you also get a level. Note how that is the reverse of what happens in -AFAIK- all other RPG systems, level measures your power, it doesn't set it (well, lots of other stuff then keys off level, but basically how many boons you have is how powerful you are). The powers you get from these are, mostly, just available picks, you don't actually get to use all of them at any one time. So you define the universe of things your character COULD do, and then pick what really interests you. Other boons may just give static benefits though, like riding, training, etc. Some boons are 'minor', like learning a language, they don't give you a level.

The point is, you could well have something 'epic' at level 1, its really up to the GM and the players to generate a narrative that brings that about. Everything happens for narrative reasons, there's no XP to gain. You find a honking awesome magic sword, congrats your level 2!

A very cool idea. Just, not one I want to use to make a 4.5e, as it were. The plethora of distinct things you get that give you stuff is a thing I like about 4e, and a big part of what defines it, for me.

Also, the thing with epic destinies is that the whole group gets them, or no one does, it's a layer of the game you can optionally use to make the game Epic, boosting power level and making characters into Hercules or whatever. Which it can only do as an optional layer that is separate from everything else.


also the fact that you have that, and call it "Boons", make me sad because a similar idea with the same name is a cornerstone of the RPG I'm writing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A very cool idea. Just, not one I want to use to make a 4.5e, as it were. The plethora of distinct things you get that give you stuff is a thing I like about 4e, and a big part of what defines it, for me.

Also, the thing with epic destinies is that the whole group gets them, or no one does, it's a layer of the game you can optionally use to make the game Epic, boosting power level and making characters into Hercules or whatever. Which it can only do as an optional layer that is separate from everything else.


also the fact that you have that, and call it "Boons", make me sad because a similar idea with the same name is a cornerstone of the RPG I'm writing.

hehe, well, our games are just cousins then. The path I actually took in thinking about this was that DMG2 talked about giving out basically character features as 'treasure'. Now treasure in 4e is firmly fixed to levels, you just get N treasures per level, so in effect it is exactly what my boons are, character features that are given out based on narrative considerations, at a fixed rate per level! Once I decided those were the main advancement mechanic and hit on the reversing the cause/effect relationship between level and boons, then all the feats and PP/ED/Theme, etc became redundant.

In practice you can still give out something like feats, and treasure too. They are the minor boons. Stuff that isn't significant enough to enhance the character's connections to fate and destiny. So a big pile of gold wouldn't advance you in level (though maybe if it was big enough and that was focus of play in that game, then it might actually be a major boon). A potion won't advance you in level. You can learn a new weapon proficiency or language, you won't advance in level then either.

I guess in theory a character could be 'sandbagged' and gain tons of minor boons but not advance. I'd actually say that was kind of a FEATURE of the game though, you can keep playing fairly low level stuff and rarely advance. I mean 6th level could be your highest. As you say though, the 6 boons you got from that COULD be 'epic', there's not really rules in HoML that say "you can't do this till level N". I did put a level on each power, but I wonder if I should even do that. I mean, which boons you can get is PURELY narrative. If the story makes sense with a level 6 PC having an earth-shatteringly strong power, well, why not?

While I'm not a GIANT fan of so-called 'bounded accuracy', I have cut back somewhat on the growth of bonuses, which means that you can probably take on some fairly tough stuff at, say, level 6, certainly legendary tier material (some of the dragons and such things). So I think the upshot is that the game won't break if you hand super powerful stuff to lower level PCs. The math will shift a bit, but not to total wiff-fest so quickly as 4e does. In any case I retained only 20 levels and designate level 20 as the top of the mythic tier of play. That also cuts down on bonuses.

As of now you get a +1 level bonus about every 3 levels, proficiency bonus of +5, max ability bonus of +5 (rare), and maybe another +3 from other sources, tops. So that's something like +26 being pretty much the highest bonus in the game. So if a defense of around 35 is 20th level creatures, then a level 6 guy can ALMOST hit them! Certainly a level 12 guy has some chance. You wouldn't be taking on level + 8 unique monsters, but level + 5 is in the range, and that's a pretty good hunk of the total power curve of this game. I'd say about 50% of all monsters can be 'in play' potentially for high heroic or low legendary characters.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

Gamma World D&D

Apart from mini adventures for my Epic-Level 4e campaign (we're doing the LFR Epic series), I am working on what I hope will be my next campaign - Using Gamma World 7E for a science fiction game.

First of all I thought it should be based on the Rifts world of Palladium games but as December came around, just like last year, I wanted to be playing in the Star Wars galaxy.

It is easier to design Gamma World D&D origins than 4E classes, as each only needs one at-will attack, a utility power, and an encounter attack, plus some small features.

Since science fiction characters don't all get their abilities from biology, magic or psionics, I've added origins with two more power sources, Skill and Tech. Skill has powers mostly like 4e's Martial power source, where Tech takes cues from Arcane powers with flavor changes.

For all the origins I already had (official and from other homebrewers), I've written up flavor suggestions on how they could represent Star Wars species and occupations. The majority of the Dark and Psi origins work for Jedi, Sith, and other Force users, and many of the Bio origins have equivalents in species from the Star Wars canon and Expanded Universe. For instance, a player wanting to make a Wookiee could select the Giant, Simian, or Yeti origin.

One origin is going to take up a lot of space compared to the others, and that will be the Lightsaber Style Student. That origin will represent most of what the Jedi and Sith do with their lightsabers. My current plan is to have a At-will attack with many riders that reference the 7(ish) styles of lightsaber combat, and will resemble the 4E Fighter's Weapon Master's Strike at-will attack.

If you played Star Wars Saga Edition, you are likely familiar with two talents that every Jedi ended up taking, Block and Deflect. So they don't show up again in every fight, these will become encounter powers in the Alpha deck, rather than the At-Wills that doubled the amount of rolls in a SWSE Jedi fight.

I'm considering making a blog to share all of these new rules and cards, I'm hoping that there will be interest among Gamma World D&D fans. Once all of the origins are written up (planning to have a total of 100 - official and homebrews), I am going to write conversions of the Dawn of Defiance campaign to these rules, with 1 Gamma World level to each adventure.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

hehe, well, our games are just cousins then. The path I actually took in thinking about this was that DMG2 talked about giving out basically character features as 'treasure'. Now treasure in 4e is firmly fixed to levels, you just get N treasures per level, so in effect it is exactly what my boons are, character features that are given out based on narrative considerations, at a fixed rate per level! Once I decided those were the main advancement mechanic and hit on the reversing the cause/effect relationship between level and boons, then all the feats and PP/ED/Theme, etc became redundant.

In practice you can still give out something like feats, and treasure too. They are the minor boons. Stuff that isn't significant enough to enhance the character's connections to fate and destiny. So a big pile of gold wouldn't advance you in level (though maybe if it was big enough and that was focus of play in that game, then it might actually be a major boon). A potion won't advance you in level. You can learn a new weapon proficiency or language, you won't advance in level then either.

I guess in theory a character could be 'sandbagged' and gain tons of minor boons but not advance. I'd actually say that was kind of a FEATURE of the game though, you can keep playing fairly low level stuff and rarely advance. I mean 6th level could be your highest. As you say though, the 6 boons you got from that COULD be 'epic', there's not really rules in HoML that say "you can't do this till level N". I did put a level on each power, but I wonder if I should even do that. I mean, which boons you can get is PURELY narrative. If the story makes sense with a level 6 PC having an earth-shatteringly strong power, well, why not?

While I'm not a GIANT fan of so-called 'bounded accuracy', I have cut back somewhat on the growth of bonuses, which means that you can probably take on some fairly tough stuff at, say, level 6, certainly legendary tier material (some of the dragons and such things). So I think the upshot is that the game won't break if you hand super powerful stuff to lower level PCs. The math will shift a bit, but not to total wiff-fest so quickly as 4e does. In any case I retained only 20 levels and designate level 20 as the top of the mythic tier of play. That also cuts down on bonuses.

As of now you get a +1 level bonus about every 3 levels, proficiency bonus of +5, max ability bonus of +5 (rare), and maybe another +3 from other sources, tops. So that's something like +26 being pretty much the highest bonus in the game. So if a defense of around 35 is 20th level creatures, then a level 6 guy can ALMOST hit them! Certainly a level 12 guy has some chance. You wouldn't be taking on level + 8 unique monsters, but level + 5 is in the range, and that's a pretty good hunk of the total power curve of this game. I'd say about 50% of all monsters can be 'in play' potentially for high heroic or low legendary characters.

I really may have to show you my RPG at some point, if you're interested. It's very different, but reading your ideas feels a lot like one of the paths I almost went down when designing my game.

In my RPG, you have an Archetype, an Origin (of which race is a part), and a Boon. Your boon is character defining, and the precise rules are currently being reworked to rely less on character creativity. Previously, many players hit a solid wall of analysis paralysis because of how unguided and open ended it was. Anyway, Archeytpe and Origin give you 1/3 each of your skills, and you choose the other 1/3 freely, and both give you 1-2 skills you are especially reliable with.

Rounding things out are Traits, which are like your combination of feats and themes and such, but with point costs, and archetypes providing 1 automatically, and a discount on a handful more.

You gain levels when you've earned 100 character points, which only adds to your pool of Attribute Points.

the attributes exist as pools of spendable points, like Eberron's hero poiints, and don't directly add to skill checks. Instead you use them to reroll flubs, or to activate abilities. Each skill has basic uses that are free, like at-wills, but advanced stuff, and more powerful learned abilities like spells, require 1 or more (usually 1) AP.
So, if you remember the idea folks had to give martial characters more surges, and have their powers cost surges? It's like if you do that, but your attributes and surges are combined into to Reflex, Will, and Fortitude Surges.

I may still use that part as a model for my 4e conversion.

I've gone further than bounded accuracy in my RPG, also. Damage is almost always 1d10, unless you are doing something complex enough to add 1 or more d6. Any such complex action requires AP. HP increases pretty slowly, accordingly, and accuracy vs defense is pretty much within a dice pool range like games like The One Ring. More powerful things are harder to hit, but every creature can be hit, mathematically. The trick is getting around things like damage immunity or resistance, because research/investigation is a pillar of the game.

For my 5.4e, I'm just cutting the numbers way back, and streamlining all the math to follow similar progressions like 5e's prof bonus.

 

[Igwilly]

Hehehe, great minds think alike! I like Shadow. OTOH I ditched 'Arcane', it just means 'knowledge' anyway, and I wanted power sources to be rooted in some specific aspect of the game cosmos, not just "I know a lot of cool stuff." You can know lots of cools stuff about shadow, life, sprit, etc! hehe. Besides it kind of removes some of the danger of a kitchen-sink wizard. Truthfully though, with the ease of pulling in boons from any thematic source in HoML its kind of hard to restrict a character to a limited repertoire anyway. I may want to consider some sort of way to encourage thematic coherency, but I'm not sure how to do it and yet encourage people to create new and different combinations of elements. I never liked the way in 4e some things are just hard to do for purely thematic reasons.

Oh man, I've been in homebrew-land for so long I've started to forget where I diverged from D&D! My arcane source is about light/darkness, charm/fear, illusions, and force effects, for just the reasons you mention. My themes are what 4e calls builds. My encounter-power effects use (save ends) durations just like dailies, for the consistency reason you mentioned earlier in the thread. Lots and lots of little changes.

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?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I really may have to show you my RPG at some point, if you're interested. It's very different, but reading your ideas feels a lot like one of the paths I almost went down when designing my game.

In my RPG, you have an Archetype, an Origin (of which race is a part), and a Boon. Your boon is character defining, and the precise rules are currently being reworked to rely less on character creativity. Previously, many players hit a solid wall of analysis paralysis because of how unguided and open ended it was. Anyway, Archeytpe and Origin give you 1/3 each of your skills, and you choose the other 1/3 freely, and both give you 1-2 skills you are especially reliable with.

Rounding things out are Traits, which are like your combination of feats and themes and such, but with point costs, and archetypes providing 1 automatically, and a discount on a handful more.

You gain levels when you've earned 100 character points, which only adds to your pool of Attribute Points.

the attributes exist as pools of spendable points, like Eberron's hero poiints, and don't directly add to skill checks. Instead you use them to reroll flubs, or to activate abilities. Each skill has basic uses that are free, like at-wills, but advanced stuff, and more powerful learned abilities like spells, require 1 or more (usually 1) AP.
So, if you remember the idea folks had to give martial characters more surges, and have their powers cost surges? It's like if you do that, but your attributes and surges are combined into to Reflex, Will, and Fortitude Surges.

I may still use that part as a model for my 4e conversion.

I've gone further than bounded accuracy in my RPG, also. Damage is almost always 1d10, unless you are doing something complex enough to add 1 or more d6. Any such complex action requires AP. HP increases pretty slowly, accordingly, and accuracy vs defense is pretty much within a dice pool range like games like The One Ring. More powerful things are harder to hit, but every creature can be hit, mathematically. The trick is getting around things like damage immunity or resistance, because research/investigation is a pillar of the game.

For my 5.4e, I'm just cutting the numbers way back, and streamlining all the math to follow similar progressions like 5e's prof bonus.

I started out with the concept of archetypes, warrior, mystic, and trickster. Then every class would be a manifestation of one of those three. However, it didn't really mesh with power sources cleanly at all, and I LIKE power sources. Archetypes were kinda nice, but power source give you more connectivity with the rest of the setting's cosmology and whatnot. Archetype is only about YOU, but power source helps define relationships. So I finally ditched archetype as just being redundant. In any case it was feeling kinda like there were just 3 classes, and that was a bit restrictive, even if they each had a bunch of 'subclasses' (that were called class). Obviously the archetype approach WILL work, and you can spin it to be much like 2e's classes, were the 'group' provided some rules hooks but no actual features.

My idea is characters always start with 3 major boons. Your race can provide one or more, your background can provide one, and your class always provides at least one, but could provide 2, or even 3 (if you just ignore all your racial boons, which is allowed). You also get a few racial attributes, and background gives you some implicit knowledge. You can actually start out 'doubled down' on your race, or even tripled down on your race and not pick any of your class boons at all starting out. You'll still have your power source, which gives access to some thematic powers, and a damage die that reflects your role as well, as well as your weapon/implement/skill stuff from your class. You can always acquire class boons in the usual way later too, it just means you're more 'dwarfy' and less 'knightly' or whatever. Likewise you can forgo any background boon if you want, though you always get some training out if it if you want it.

There are a bunch of things I do with 'Healing Surges', that is Vitality Points, which can be used to power up 'encounter' powers multiple times, and which are required to unleash a 'daily' type of power. You don't really get more points than in 4e, roughly, though, which means you really can't toss out Vitality powers, or do recharges, much. It does allow for a bit of extra use of a really signature power though, when its fully appropriate. You can get a point back after a milestone.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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?

Can't help you with Portuguese, though I do know some hot Brazilians! lol. There's still a wizard in my game as well, but its a class that doesn't HAVE an explicit power source. They're inherently generalists. That means they can do a lot of things, but they also tend not to be so focused. Individual wizards will probably focus on some kind of more specific mastery. Maybe mastering all the elements, or something (there's also an elementalist class for those who want to be master of a specific element).

 

[C4]

I really should read it. I mean I think I did peek at it once a while back, probably things have changed, lol.

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.