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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6293670" data-attributes="member: 17106">I'd take all the numbers and character abilities and throw them into one pot. Then I'd probably divide that into two sections, one for "nature" (stuff that is inherent to your being) and "nurture" (stuff that you learn). That is to say, you'd have skills (dimensional) and feats (categorical), and then another dimensional and categorical set of properties for everything else. Racial abilities, class abilities, feats, skills, base attack, saves, and supernatural abilities would all fall under the same envelope. Ability scores would stay where they are.Math: The numbers would progress at the same rate regardless of what benefit they're granting. That rate would probably equate to 1/2 level, or a max of (pre-epic) +10. Furthermore, I would make all of these dimensional commodities tiered; that is to say you can have five ranks in the basic skill, but then you have to take the other five in a specialty of that skill. Martial skill would specialize to a particular weapon or weapon group, fort saves would specialize to a bonus only against poison or magic or something, stealth would specialize to Hide and MS.Combat: I'd talk to Trailblazer and take its combat reactions to cover active defense (dodging and parrying). I'd add in a new health system (probably along the lines of vp/wp). I'd integrate these things into the character building mechanics. I'd emphasize gridless movement and maybe strip away some implicitly grid-based elements; perhaps make movement and range less specific. I'd also add in more ways of changing movement rates as part of building a character. Combat maneuvers would be built out to emphasize that it isn't necessary to build a character specifically to do them.Characters: I'd adopt a standard level-based advancement to cover all skills and feats, and a standard non-level-based scheme to cover their inherent equivalents. I'd present classes as suggested builds that spend part of your skill- and feat-based resources, and add in an option for classes or class/race combos to give you essentially a small discount or a few extra benefits (to carry forward the idea of favored class bonuses and rewarding traditional archetypes). I'd add in significant nonlinear advancement (rerolls and taking 10 under pressure, and perhaps more) as a standard element. I would build all characters (player and nonplayer, human and monstrous) from the ground up using the same elements.Feats: Feats would include traditional feats, class abilities, and part of magic. Feats would rarely or never enable the use of any new abilities (except for supernatural ones), and would not grant flat numerical bonuses to skills (no weapon focus or skill focus). Typical feats would improve access to basic combat or noncombat mechanics; providing combined actions, improving exchange rates (for trade-ins like expertise and power attack), making existing actions easier in terms of time or resources.Attributes (?): The biological version of feats would include all racial and monstrous abilities and some class abilities as well. Inherent magical abilities would show up here. Flaws and disabilities would show up here.Skills: Skills would include attack rolls, and would be greater in number than in the existing PF, adding more scope to the knowledge, interaction, and other noncombat areas. Skill points would also be more numerous than the existing game. Class skills would simply be forgotten.Traits (?): The biological version of skills would include perhaps some skills, saves, and maybe a few neologisms. Again, drawbacks would be presented in this area.Magic: Magic would be a combination of skills (reflecting caster level in a school/subschool) and feats (reflecting categories of spells). Rigorous prereqs would require characters to make a significant investment to be effective spellcasters, but anyone could try a few basic functions untrained given the opportunity. Strict divine/arcane distinctions would be enforced. The equivalent of spell slots or other recharge mechanics would be grafted on to this structure in a flexible enough way to allow for different approaches. Psionics would be presented similarly and in the first release.Items: Given the changes above, it would be time to seriously tone down the effect of magic items on "spine numbers". After all the math above runs smoothly, add in some less dramatic magic item effects and make the items rarer and more costly. Make crafting more involved and harder. Add in categories of nonmagical advancement for items to reflect craftsmanship.***Given this structure, I'd try to bring most of the content from the existing game forward. The mentality is about taking existing elements and repackaging them in a more standardized way, while occasionally adding depth to some neglected areas.</blockquote>

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