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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Asmor" data-source="post: 5471186" data-attributes="member: 1154">One of the things I really liked about 3rd edition was the variety in the classes. Particularly towards the end of its lifecycle, things like The Book of Nine Swords and the Factotum stick out in my mind as being wildly different in playstyle from other things out there.The d20 SRD lead to a lot of innovation, but when you came down to it, everything still had some pretty similar assumptions...I'd like to see a system that takes it a step farther, and implements an "API." For those not familiar with APIs, it's a concept in programming where basically I make a program, but then I publish documentation which tells you how you can make your own programs interact with mine, e.g. if you issue command x I'll give you response y.So I picture a system with a set of required "interfaces" and guidelines.Here's an example of a very simple interface:*All characters can make an Attack, and every Attack must be opposed by a single specified defense (reflex, fortitude, and will). If the value of the Attack exceeds the value of the defender's defense, the Attack hits and deals damage.*All characters have reflex, fortitude, and will defenses.*All characters can receive damage.*All characters have a level attribute, which is a rough estimation of their combat prowess.*All characters must be able to receive a "disabled" condition, which reduces their damage dealt by half, and doubles damage they take.And some guidelines to go along with those:*Defenses should be approximately equal to the character's level.*A character who takes damage equal to approximately 10 times their level is defeated.*A character who is capable of taking more damage before being defeated should have lower than average defenses, and vice versa.*A character's attack value should on average be equal to its level.*If a character hits, its attack should deal approximately 3 damage per level.*A character with a lower chance to hit may deal more damage, and vice versa.*Additionally, characters should have attacks which are limited either expressly (e.g. certain number of uses) or by difficulty of pulling off. These limited attacks may deal increased damage and/or have better chances to hit, proportional to how limited they are in actual play.Ok, so nothing terrible groundbreaking yet... but now that we've got this API defined, we can start letting our imaginations run wild.I'm running a game using this system. My players are Bob, Carol, and Dan.Bob is playing a fairly traditional character, a fighter class that came with the main "book". He has a character sheet with numbers on it and rolls a d20 for his attacks and 2d6 for his damage.Carol is playing a mage, but rather than the spell-point based mage that came with the book, she's using a D&D-inspired Vancian "Fire-and-forget" wizard published by a third party. She's got a selection of spells she can use, such as "Spirit Shackles", which she can use once per day, does 5 damage, and disables the target until Carol's next turn.Dan is playing a huckster, a class he found on a message board that he thought sounded really fun. Thematically, hucksters are mages who use gambling implements like decks of cards to channel chaos magic. Dan doesn't even have a character sheet-- he has a deck of cards. Whenever he takes damage, he discards cards from the top of his deck, and when it runs out, he's defeated. He also maintains a hand and draws cards every turn. His basic attack requires him to discard a pair and does damage equal to the value of the pair (10 for face cards). He can also discard a full house for a devastating chaos attack that deals 20 damage.It's the climactic game of the campaign, and they've finally tracked down the BBEG, the brilliant, cunning, and unfortunately-named Dr. Puppetmaster. I set a Go board down on the table and place a couple dozen black stones on it. "He gets to play one on each of his actions," I announce. "Whenever you deal damage you get to place that many white stones on the board. When you capture the last black stone, you win!"</blockquote>

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