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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guilt Puppy" data-source="post: 813993" data-attributes="member: 6521">First, sounds good, and I don't think you need to tread so carefully about it -- you're not making absurd enough claims to warrant any flames (you're definitely not trying to sell it as some "be-all, end-all" infinitely better system.)What you describe sounds like a solid d20 product, not too different from others in a fundamental sense... If wanting to make a d20 product was flame-bait, I don't see why so many publishers visit these forums.Personally speaking, it sounds like the sort of thing I'd love to have, assuming the price is right <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Actually, it sounds like a fix for a lot of the things I don't quite like about D&D as-is (other systems work better for my style of fantasy in certain respects, but on a purely mechanical level d20 is the most fluid, well-engineered system I've seen, so I stick with it.)There's really a lot of praise I could pour on to the basic idea, but I have a feeling you know it all already -- I imagine it's why you took the time to make the system. So, on to criticism:I've seen this done as a solution to a lot of classes (the whole system in the ELH essentially revolves around it), and it never really sat well. It seems like a kludge people seem to apply to a class-based system when they really want to be playing a skill-based system: Really, why not just get rid of classes and have feats at every level, or even just points that you can spend on things like skills, feats, et cetera... Or, an entirely different system <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />That said, it doesn't mean it's a bad approach. The appeal of a class-based system is the ability to play archetypal characters with your own variation -- it can be accomplished in skill-based systems, but it tends to lose a lot of its flavor (and takes a lot more work.) D&D really revolves around its archetypes -- IMO, to call a game D&D requires a class-based approach.Which it does sound like you're taking... Just be careful to avoid making the classes too generalized. Each should have its own distinct flavor, right out of the box, which can be changed and manipulated into something else, even something entirely different, but is at least there to begin with. It does sound like you have this in mind (you mention each class having at least one exclusive ability), but I just wanted to emphasize its importance -- I haven't seen a class yet that uses a feat-system without becoming a little bland (and yes, that includes the PHB fighter, albeit to a lesser degree -- "has a lot of combat feats" does have its own flavor to it, that just disappears when every fighter-type is like that, just with a different list.).Also important: If feats are really a central game mechanic, make sure they're solid. A good feat, IMO, must first describe some special thing a character can do, and then provide rules to back it up. A lot of feats I've seen do this the other way around -- they come up with something that is nice to be able to do from a meta-gaming perspective, and then maybe tack on some sort of flavor to describe it. Of course, flavor can be taken too far, and I've seen a lot of other feats that are just too weird, and have weird rules to back them up -- in other words, feats should be fairly general, something it would make sense for any character to be able to do. If it's not general, it should be a class or prestige-class ability (given your feat approach, you might get away with using a lot of class-specific feats). A good feat should be elegant and simple, both flavorly and mechanically. (The PHB feats remain the best example of this, IMO.)Another potential problem with your suggestion is that it hedges out new players... D&D is easy to learn because most of the classes can be played "out of the box," with a fairly minimal but still impactful amount of selection required. Your approach ups this -- it sounds like players will have to be making choices pretty much every level, even if they want to achieve something fairly archetypal. People familiar with the system already will have no problem with this, but novice players will struggle... Of course, this is less of a problem considering yours would be more of a niche market of veteran players, but it's worth mentioning.Finally, will the system deviate enough to make other materials unuseable? I can see doing a little bit of conversion, but if I'd have to totally rewrite any prestige class I see, I'd be much less interested. Conversion is especially important when you're sitting in the DM's seat -- will an NPC in a module or a monster from the Manual make any sense in the redesigned system? At the very least, is it balanced with existing material, such that a PHB Barbarian can reasonably stand toe to toe with a Barbarian of your design of equal level? If so, then at least game balance won't be particularly interrupted by existing materials (although in-game consistency might be.)Anyway, a lot of this is probably stuff you've thought about, but it's the most relevant criticism I could find for the given information (I can understand not wanting to post specifics, but that makes it hard to critique the specifics <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ).(Oh, and by the way, re: Clerics and domains -- excellent. It's always bugged me that a Cleric of Pelor and a Cleric of Nerull are more similar than just about any two Sorcerors. Dividing all the spells up into domains -- where every domain has a large number of spells, possibly without overlap -- and then just giving Clerics access to only spells within their domains, would be terrific, considering I don't want to do all that work myself <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )(edit: Wrote this up before, or rather while, you were posting more specifics... I'll read and respond to those tomorrow probably, but it's sleepy-time now <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )</blockquote>

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