At what point is it no longer d20?

[Pants]

Dammit! I was just racing here to make that joke! Pants wins again!

I knew I had to move fast!

 

[Tallok]

btw, this is a really cool system, I may use it sometime for a campaign if you dont mind, of course some more tweaking, but I do like it

 

[takyris]

Thanks, guys. I know it'd be a pain to use most other-company content with that many mods, but it might be a system that I end up liking.

And dude, Tallok, totally use the system. And it needs a LOT of tweaks and a fair amount of ugly body work. I'm still trying to figure out where the "people get too fragile" is -- and how many points raising things should take, and how many combat points people should get per level, and so forth. In a classless, level-less system, everyone might get 4 combat skill points, 4 non-combat skill points, and 4 skill points that can be used for either, +Int mod as appropriate, per level. Only I don't know how to factor in Hit Dice and Save progression for that yet. And so yeah, more messing around.

 

[Tallok]

It does make sense though to have no classes or levels, I mean, how many people in the real world only learn 1 thing, and people don't generally advance by a level system, it's more of different amounts of skill with different topics, but it may be difficult to have a leveless system and add the skill points, as it would then be hard to know when new skills are aquired, as characters still do need to advance, so I would be interested in modding the level system too, but that requires more thought than I can muster while doing homework at quarter till twelve

 

[Michael Morris]

This sounds a little like a House Rule to me, but it's less about the rule itself than the idea behind it. At what point does it cease to be d20 and start to be something else?

Random House Rules I've been mulling, not for the campaign I'm running but for some new campaign, somewhere... Watch as the game slowly turns into something utterly different.

Start with d20 Modern
- Add WP/VP system to replace hit points
- After hearing myself rant on and on about how Strength really means coordination, get tired of being told that there's no book evidence for it. Take out Strength, separate Dexterity into Precision and Agility (a common-enough RPG differentiation point), with Agility modifying melee attacks, defense, initiative, and fast full-body skills like Tumble, and Precision modifying ranged attacks, slow full-body skills like Hide and Move Silently, and Fine-tuning skills like Disable Device. Use Constitution to determine bonuses to melee damage, since most folks have issue with the idea of a weak person who isn't frail, or a tough person who isn't strong.

Legally - it stoped being d20 when you changed the ability statistics. Adding or modifying an ability statistic is a no-no for publishers.

 

[Tallok]

Legally - it stoped being d20 when you changed the ability statistics. Adding or modifying an ability statistic is a no-no for publishers.

[hijack]
Maybe it is now, but do you remember 1e unearthed arcana's comeliness stats? I actually used those
[end hijack]
why might this be, is there a particular reason that this more than any other change is less legal? Or is it just an accepted convention?

 

[nsruf]

[hijack]
why might this be, is there a particular reason that this more than any other change is less legal? Or is it just an accepted convention?

There are certain game terms which no publisher may change if they want to use the d20 license. This includes ability scores, AC, alignments, etc. Mind you, AFAIK you can ignore those mechanics and substitute something else (e.g. a class based Defense stat instead of AC), but you may not totally change AC and still call it AC. IMO, this just serves to keep the system compatible at its core - changes are possible but need to be clearly labelled.

The other thing to avoid is giving rules for determining ability scores and for character advancement. These are explicitly forbidden in d20 products, since WOTC wants people to at least buy the PHB.

But as long as you just change things around for your personal game, worrying what does or does not constitute the d20 system is rather pointless.

 

[Etan Moonstar]

Including rules on how to apply the effects of experience to a character (which are necessary to change from a level-based to a skill-based system) are what changes takyris' game from d20 to OGL (this is also a primary reason for why Mutants and Masterminds is OGL). You may add additional ability scores and still be d20, as long as you don't describe how to generate and assign an initial value to the new ability scores added (although removing ability scores is probably also not a d20-approved practice).

 

[Bagpuss]

This sounds a little like a House Rule to me, but it's less about the rule itself than the idea behind it. At what point does it cease to be d20 and start to be something else?

Start with d20 Modern
- Add WP/VP system to replace hit points
- After hearing myself rant on and on about how Strength really means coordination, get tired of being told that there's no book evidence for it. Take out Strength

Just there... you can't remove attributes and remain D20. I think you can add them, but you can't change the base six.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Hrm, Valar ADDED a stat, appearance, it was a d20 licensed product that was fully complient till the recent changes. So adding a stat is ok, but removing or otherwise changing them is not?