Homebrew D&D System- Would like opinions and help if available

[Arctic Wolf]

Hey all how are you doing? I am doing this to mostly for fun and to see what you all think of it. While I don't have too much experience in rpgs, with the only experience being 4th mostly, with a tad of pathfinder and 3.5e, I just wanted to see how far I could get. So I guess lets get to the main course . This is only a small bit and I will add more as I get time!

Stats

-Same basic six: Strength, Consitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

- Now for rolling stats I am not sure if I want to do 3d6 or 4d6 and remove lowest 1. And you get any stats as you level at every odd level.

- Here is how the stat bonuses are done: 3-9= -1 ,10-11= +012-13= +1, 14-15= +2, 16-17= +3, 18-19= +4, and 20= +5.

- Stats can go past 20 but they only inc dmg which is a 2 for 1. So say you have 22 str: you still only get +5 to atk but instead of +5 dmg on that atk, you do +6 dmg.

- Con mod reduces damage over time by that amount.

Stamina and Wounds

- Starting Stamina is your 10+ Stamina Dice + Con mode for level 0.

- Each time you level up, you gain Stamina equal to your Stamina Dice + Con Modifier.

- Everytime you take a hit while at 0 you take 1 wound and when you take 3 wounds, you die or pass out. There will be rules that say how much wounds attacks can do.

- So basically once you hit 0 Stamina, you lose the ability to do special class actions, like the fighter's combo system or the mage's first tier+ casting and can only do basic attacks or cantrips.

Levels

-You start at level 0 which is just the very basic of your class that you have chosen, and can go to the max of 15(?).

- Every even level you get will give you one additional feat.

- Every odd level you level up to will grant +1 to one ability score.

- There are 4 tiers of play: lvl0- basically you are just starting on your journey and no one really knows you, lvl1-5- you are know to maybe a few villages/small towns, lvl6-10- known to an entire region, and lvl11-15- which you are known to an entire kingdom. As least that is what I am aiming for for designing stuff.

Defenses

- Only 3 defeneses Fortitude (STR or CON mod), Reflexes (DEX or INT mod), and Will (WIS or CHA mod).

- Classes will have specfic bonuses to 1 or 2 of them. Not sure about traits giving bonuses since I want them to be unique.

- Can choose to add 10 to the modifier or roll a d20. I like the idea of static defenses like 4e but can see the appeal for saving throw type defenses.

Weapons and Armor

- The highest bonus is a +1 which counts as masterwork and gives +1 atk roll and +1 dmg with weapons and another -1 dmg with armor.

- Light Armor -1, Medium Armor -2, and Heavy Armor -3 damage taken.

- Random items, Daggers, and Shields 1d4 dmg (daggers do double dmg on a 20+ and a crit).

- Other One-Handed weapons 1d6 dmg.

- Two-Handed weapons 3d4dmg or 2d6 dmg, haven't decided yet.

- I am thinking that if you use an offhand that does a 1d4, your mainhand will do 1d8 so that way it seems max dmg will total to 12 without mods. Daggers will work differently but not sure yet.

- Shields give you a chance to roll for a block against attacks.

Combat

- Your atk roll mod is determind by your highest stat.

- If you roll something that totals up to 20 it is considered a "soft" crit. You roll the dmg and the dmg is reduced by the armor.

- A natural 20 is a "hard" crit and does max dmg that isn't affected by armor.

- All combat actions that can be taken within a round: Main, Sub, Move, and Reaction.

Classes

Cleric- Main feature at the moment is what I call the light and darkness system. You can pick one or the other. In this homebrew light is protection and darkness is the intent to kill. So you need to decide where you character draws his strength from. So each time you use an ability that falls in-line with what you picked you get a +1 to dmg or healing and it can stack up to 5. You can choose when to use it, but if you use the opposite kind of ability that you have a bonus to, you lose the bonus.

Fighter- Main features will be knowing all your moves from the beginning so that you can slowly get better with them and the combo system which lets you combo atks either with other moves like disarming or more atks. So as you lvl up you can pull off more combos.

Barb- may be a feature for this subclass - adrenaline system: When you score a 20+ or a crit, you can +1 adrenaline, stacks to +5. When you do damage or take damge, you can reduce the damage you take or increase the damage you do.

Rogue- Main feature is the Cunning system. If you do not have control you can do roll to see if you can. Next part is called Up the Ante, which if you have control and win you get supperior control or if you lose you get disadvantage. Or if you have disadvantage and win you have control and if you lose you have complete disadvantage.

Wizard- Main feature is the spellbook system. So wizards can learn any amount of spells as long as it follows any subclass rules. So because of this rule it may be encouraged for the DM to reward wizards with spells. Basically vancian system but lvl0 spells don't cost any slots but higher lvl spells will take time to cast. So 1-3 can be used on that turn, 4-6 takes two turns to cast, and 7-9 will take three turns to cast. Another feature is the focused mind system which gives you pts equal to your int mod and you can use them to reduce casting but only that many per day. You can also offer up lower or higher lvl spells to cast lower or higher lvl spells. So say you want to cast another 9th spell you can offer an 8th and 1th. A rule so this isn't abused too much is that one of the spells offered up is a lvl before it, so like in the case above, if you want to cast a 9th lvl spell, one of the offerings has to be an 8th lvl spell.

Runes

- I am a fan of Suikoden, so I wanted to add this in here. Basically if you find a rune you can choose to put your class feats into your rune to advance that. So you could have a rogue who had a shadow rune and use it to make your stealth more magical. Or a fighter who uses a fire rune to hit ghosts since his weapon can't damage them.

Feats

- I am trying to make it so that all feats will be non combat choices but we will see.

Races

- Humans will be +1 to all stats and pick 3 feats.

- Other races will have different builds/subraces that have different things with +2 to two different ability scores and be able to have 2 feats since the different builds/subraces will be unique.
ex: A dragonborn variant that can fly with only light armor vs a variant that takes less dmg from melee atks.

 

[GMMichael]

1) Looks like defense scales with attack bonus since both come from ability modifiers. So you'll have a good 50% miss rate going up through the levels. Nothing wrong with that - but consider that the 50% of attacks that hit will be further reduced by damage reduction of armor and con mod(?). It could end up feeling like combat's not going anywhere.

2) The 3-wounds mechanic makes it all but impossible for someone to get a lucky, lethal hit. Assassin-types will need a class feature overcoming this.

3) Looks will be a lot simpler if they follow the same rules as the other abilities. If they're not intended to be another ability, you might consider making Looks a feat, instead.

Other than that, your system seems to have several good ideas that I've included in my RPG:
- Endurance = CON stat
- 3 defenses
- take 10 on defense (I allow it on all rolls)
- armor as damage reduction
- shields = avoid.

I like the subsystems for classes. That reminds me of AD&D 2e, since all the tables that each class had were essentially subsystems. And a fatigue system is a really great idea, but I think 1d10 endurance damage is a little harsh. I'd do fatigue as a derivative score, and it's a number of rounds that each character can last in battle. After that number of rounds, he takes some penalty to certain rolls (until he takes a healing surge!)

My rules are attached in the Modos Rulebook thread if you want to steal any.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

1) Looks like defense scales with attack bonus since both come from ability modifiers. So you'll have a good 50% miss rate going up through the levels. Nothing wrong with that - but consider that the 50% of attacks that hit will be further reduced by damage reduction of armor and con mod(?). It could end up feeling like combat's not going anywhere.

2) The 3-wounds mechanic makes it all but impossible for someone to get a lucky, lethal hit. Assassin-types will need a class feature overcoming this.

3) Looks will be a lot simpler if they follow the same rules as the other abilities. If they're not intended to be another ability, you might consider making Looks a feat, instead.

Other than that, your system seems to have several good ideas that I've included in my RPG:
- Endurance = CON stat
- 3 defenses
- take 10 on defense (I allow it on all rolls)
- armor as damage reduction
- shields = avoid.

I like the subsystems for classes. That reminds me of AD&D 2e, since all the tables that each class had were essentially subsystems. And a fatigue system is a really great idea, but I think 1d10 endurance damage is a little harsh. I'd do fatigue as a derivative score, and it's a number of rounds that each character can last in battle. After that number of rounds, he takes some penalty to certain rolls (until he takes a healing surge!)

My rules are attached in the Modos Rulebook thread if you want to steal any.

1) That is true, the main thing about combat is that you should be trying to get control and superior control since it gives you +3 and +5 to hit respectively. The con mod only applies to if you are wearing light armor and have a few traits/feats to get it up there and it doesn't stack. But I see what you mean.

2) I will probably change it to where if you hit zero you are knocked out unless you roll high and the wound thing was just to decide if want to kill them. Also, some moves will do more than one wound, just wanted to get out a quick bit to see what people say and yeah, I suck at organizing my work when it comes to typing lol.

3) Gotcha, may be good to make it a feat or so. Also thanks, I wanted to get a system that made sense to me and it always bothered me to see armor as it's own defense xD. And I have never taken a look at 2e so that is cool that it is similar. I want those systems to be the main feature and each sub-class will act differently with it so it feels different when compared to one another. For example, with the warlord subclass of the fighter, I was thinking to have the adrenaline effect who you are commanding within your party to go where and stuff. I imagine it like a drill sergent who keeps on telling you to keep on trucking when you are in a bad situation.

The way I am using Fatigue is a bit different as you can see. What I imagine is that you are focusing to use a special attack and after you use it you feel a bit drained and you can only do that so many times before you reach your limit in combat. And yeah, 1d10 does seem a bit high especially if you really need to use more special abilities to defeat an enemy. So I will probably lower it. Still not sure how I want Fatigue to dissipate. Was thinking that if you have a small rest your fatigue gets cut in half. What do you think? And thanks for the feedback =) And I will check that out too thanks!

 

[GMMichael]

Spend a round defending, get a fatigue point back. In real life, if you get fatigued, your only hope of survival is that your opponent is fatigued too. But you're not designing a real life simulator, right?

Just remember that bookkeeping slows down combat, and slow combat is boring combat. But that might be a whole different thread...

 

[molepunch]

If you have a (more) complete/updated set of rules my group is happy to play test it!

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Spend a round defending, get a fatigue point back. In real life, if you get fatigued, your only hope of survival is that your opponent is fatigued too. But you're not designing a real life simulator, right?

Just remember that bookkeeping slows down combat, and slow combat is boring combat. But that might be a whole different thread...

I was going to make it a bit more real life-ish but yeah not too much. I actually may use what you just said as a way to get fatigue back in combat xD, so thanks! And yeah, it seems that I may have a lot of stuff to keep track of >_>.

@molepunch - Once I get everything organized I would not mind at all! =)

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Sorry for the double post but I am sort of anal about seperating out different thoughts xD. I just wanted to add what I came up with for skills.

Skills

So first off there will be a Main skill and Sub skills.. As an exmaple, a main skill will be Arcana. Main skills are just the general stuff related with that thing. Next will be the sub-skills and as an example for Arcana, let's say Demon Magic/lore.

The only way to get trained in the main and sub skills is to train it and you don't need to have the main skill trained in order to get a sub skill. If you are trained in a main skill though, half of it counts towards the sub skills. You can get specific sub skill training so it would use the same number as the main skill. So if you get a main skill training of Arcana, which is +4, then your sub skills would be +2. But if you get a sub skill training, then it uses that +4 instead of the +2.

You can apply any skill with any stat to find something out. So you could use an Arcana Con roll to see what state your enemy is in, Str to see how strong they are and so forth.

The only way to get skill points is to either get the skill training feat or the bonus from classes which is a +2 to two general skills. (at least at the moment)

 

[DMZ2112]

Hey, Wolf. Sorry it took me so long to get to this; I kind of took the holidays off.

-Same basic six: Strength, Consitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. I decided to also add something called Looks, and it is just a simple 1d10 roll to see how you rate how you look. Pretty much used to give you a bonus to charming and what not (not the whole number but depending on how high you are ad what you are charming likes).

Comeliness is an old AD&D rule, going back to the early 80s. It needs a new name and has always been a little wonky (I believe that originally, it was treated like a seventh ability score but was limited in some way by your Charisma), but the concept is sound. The internets say Comeliness was introduced in the 1985 Unearthed Arcana sourcebook, but I never owned that and I definitely remember reference to it in the 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set. I also recommend checking out the 1995 Player's Option: Skills & Powers book for some background. Skills & Powers split all six ability scores into two, and one of the two Charisma subscores was Appearance.

-Now for rolling stats I am not sure if I want to do 3d6 pick 2 or 4d6 and pick 3 since you can get +1 to whatever stat as a trait (aka feat). And you can get it as many times as you like since you don't get any stats as you level.

I think this is a decision your dungeon masters will want to make for their own groups. You're best off suggesting how to make a few options work with your math.

- Starting Endurance is your Con Stat + 15, 10, 5, or 0, depending on how hard you want to make it for your character. (not sure on this yet)

I'm assuming this is set for the whole group? Or is it an individual choice? What are the benefits of picking +0?

- This is replacing the death saving throws. You can do a roll on a turn that you are passed out on to see if you can get up and do a basic attack.

And then what? Do you stay up? I'm assuming your endurance stays at 0, so if you take a wound, do you fall unconscious again?

- Can choose to add 10 to the modifier or roll a d20 (probably will decide at the start of the campaign and whatnot).

If your intention here is to create a target number, I recommend 3d6 or 5d4, or even 2d10, instead of 1d20 -- 1d20 is going to generate wildly variable defensive values. Characters rolling a 1 will be helpless, characters rolling a 20 will be untouchable.

- When you go past 10 fatigue, each further fatigue does 1d10 endurance since you are tired as hell and are pushing yourself to go on.

Holy hell, I get what you are trying to do here, but that is potentially a lot of endurance. Consider lowering the die, or at least using a bell curve like 2d6 or 3d4.

How do you restore fatigue? 10 is not a lot. Is that per encounter? I worked up a similar system back when I was trying to make D&D4 work for me. My Stamina values were calculated on a daily basis but were still much, much higher.

- If you roll something that totals up to 20 it is considered a "soft" crit. You roll the dmg and it is affected by armor.

How is this different than a standard hit?

- I am a fan of Suikoden, so I wanted to add this in here. Basically if you find a rune you can choose to put your class feats into your rune to advance that. So you could have a rogue who had a shadow rune and use it to make your stealth more magical. Or a fighter who uses a fire rune to hit ghosts since his weapon can't damage them.

I loved Suikoden III.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Hey, Wolf. Sorry it took me so long to get to this; I kind of took the holidays off.



Comeliness is an old AD&D rule, going back to the early 80s. It needs a new name and has always been a little wonky (I believe that originally, it was treated like a seventh ability score but was limited in some way by your Charisma), but the concept is sound. The internets say Comeliness was introduced in the 1985 Unearthed Arcana sourcebook, but I never owned that and I definitely remember reference to it in the 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set. I also recommend checking out the 1995 Player's Option: Skills & Powers book for some background. Skills & Powers split all six ability scores into two, and one of the two Charisma subscores was Appearance.

Np, it is cool. How was your break? And cool I will.

I think this is a decision your dungeon masters will want to make for their own groups. You're best off suggesting how to make a few options work with your math.

True, probably should just offer suggestions. Only reason I was thinking 2d6 was because you can get +1 to a stat with feats.

I'm assuming this is set for the whole group? Or is it an individual choice? What are the benefits of picking +0?

Yeah, this depends on the group and the +0 was if someone wanted to play it a bit harder since you would have less Endurance. Still need to come up with a way to come up with values for that and enemies. I was thinking of having boss characters around 250 ED, elites at 100 ED, standard at 50 ED and minions at 10 ED. Again, still not sure how I want that to be overall since I didn't want Endurance to increase with level, just if your Con stat went up or a few traits (which are this games feats).

And then what? Do you stay up? I'm assuming your endurance stays at 0, so if you take a wound, do you fall unconscious again?

Yeah. The main point of the wound system was to prevent from killing enemies/PCs if they want to capture them. So get them to 0 hp and then the wounds would protect them from dying instantly. And different atks would do different amounts of wounds. Might base the # of wounds on how much dmg the atk does.

If your intention here is to create a target number, I recommend 3d6 or 5d4, or even 2d10, instead of 1d20 -- 1d20 is going to generate wildly variable defensive values. Characters rolling a 1 will be helpless, characters rolling a 20 will be untouchable.

Yep was aiming for a target number incase people wanted to roll their defenses.

Holy hell, I get what you are trying to do here, but that is potentially a lot of endurance. Consider lowering the die, or at least using a bell curve like 2d6 or 3d4.

How do you restore fatigue? 10 is not a lot. Is that per encounter? I worked up a similar system back when I was trying to make D&D4 work for me. My Stamina values were calculated on a daily basis but were still much, much higher.

Gotcha. Ok, may lower it to something more managable and more forgiving like a 1d4 or maybe make it1d10- con mod. As it seems, I am trying to make Con matter a lot more since, to me at least, it seems devalued. Well I am going to take your idea of being able to use a standard actions to regain 2 fatigue and do nothing that turn so you won't need to worry too much but I was figuring that if you take a short rest you would regain maybe up to 4 fatigue or half your fatigue back. What do you think?

How is this different than a standard hit?

I loved Suikoden III.

Well, since my system only gives you an atk bonus of +5, (4 from stats and 1 from a masterwork weapon, which you aren't guaranteed), I figured it would be a nice bonus. And the way I imagine it is that atks that are *regular* hits wouldn't do much dmg while *soft crits* are atks that would of done a lot of dmg but armor was in the way.

And yeah, I think I got half way in that game before my brother stole it and sold it and I never bothered to get back to it...sigh. I just love how they use runes in that world and am sorta trying to use it in my homebrew world. So what do you think of runes being a way of multiclassing?

 

[DMZ2112]

Np, it is cool. How was your break? And cool I will.

Good. Relaxing. Hope you had a happy holiday.

Yeah, this depends on the group and the +0 was if someone wanted to play it a bit harder since you would have less Endurance. Still need to come up with a way to come up with values for that and enemies. I was thinking of having boss characters around 250 ED, elites at 100 ED, standard at 50 ED and minions at 10 ED. Again, still not sure how I want that to be overall since I didn't want Endurance to increase with level, just if your Con stat went up or a few traits (which are this games feats).

That's fine so long as the ED bonus is static across all PCs. If you're going to give individual PCs a choice of how fragile they are you should have a way to balance the extra fragility. More fatigue, maybe.

Yeah. The main point of the wound system was to prevent from killing enemies/PCs if they want to capture them. So get them to 0 hp and then the wounds would protect them from dying instantly. And different atks would do different amounts of wounds. Might base the # of wounds on how much dmg the atk does.

It has advantages over HP and death saves.

Well I am going to take your idea of being able to use a standard actions to regain 2 fatigue and do nothing that turn so you won't need to worry too much but I was figuring that if you take a short rest you would regain maybe up to 4 fatigue or half your fatigue back. What do you think?

It really depends on the fatigue costs of attacks. I devoted whole spreadsheets to this problem two years ago.

Well, since my system only gives you an atk bonus of +5, (4 from stats and 1 from a masterwork weapon, which you aren't guaranteed), I figured it would be a nice bonus.

I don't see the bonus. Explain?

And the way I imagine it is that atks that are *regular* hits wouldn't do much dmg while *soft crits* are atks that would of done a lot of dmg but armor was in the way.

I'm definitely not understanding something about the way damage is calculated in this system. It's possible I misread something.

So what do you think of runes being a way of multiclassing?

Well, thematically it is interesting. I'd have to see more numbers before passing judgment on it as a mechanic, but it doesn't sound too different than having multiclassing feats, as D&D4 does.