BAB to Skill based?

[librarius_arcana]

In the end, that's what I had to do. In my system the Combat skill is applied in full to the Offence roll, but only half ranks are applied to Defence DC. I had to give the warrior (the universal tank type in my system) a +1 bonus to Offense and damage rolls at every odd level, in order to separate them from other classes that have Combat as a class skill, and to give them enough damage potential (due to low-magic world).

one of the main things in my option is that the skills cost more and more as things progress,
so it more likely that players will start to level off due to cost, so if you really want to get those really high levels in what ever skill it will be at a cost to the rest of your skills,
its a lot more realistic that way, and munchkins who wants lots of weapon skills will lose out elsewere,

but the great thing about this is you could reward the player per game session with a few points, they won't make alot of diffrents at first and will need to save them to get even a one level raise in a skill over 3 points, with little impact on game balance,

but really need Lorehead to give this the crunch test at the mo,
if he finds the unbalanced, may rethink some areas, but the basic concept is sound

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I need some good ideas to turn BAB to skills within the game

Wondered if you guys could come up with anything

Okay come on, what ya got?





Btw new guy in town, so no giving me a hard time

Maybe it could work with a Skill Group System like in Iron Heroes. A Skill Group consists of several skills. if you have access to a Skill Group, you need to spend only one rank in the gorup to gain 1 rank in each skill. There are no cross class skills.

Full BAB Classes gain to the "Full Combat Skill Group". This include all combat skills you like.
Medium BAB Classes gain access to ine "Medium Combat Skill Group". This includes only a limited selection of skills.
Poor BAB Classes gain access to no Combat Skill Group at all.

There are still a few balance concers:
1) Anyone can get a full attack bonus in his favored weapon. I think you might want to compensate this a bit by adding special benefits to Full BAB and Half BAB classes (maybe extra skill points, more feats, bigger HD)
2) Nobody can have an expected "minimum attack bonus". A Wizard that never bothers to take a rank into a Melee Skill will simply have no attack bonus for such attacks - this will suck for situations like Grapples (though I doubt it would actually be worse than it already is ).

 

[librarius_arcana]

Maybe it could work with a Skill Group System like in Iron Heroes. A Skill Group consists of several skills. if you have access to a Skill Group, you need to spend only one rank in the gorup to gain 1 rank in each skill. There are no cross class skills.

Yeah thats what I planned
you can have an "Area" say something like "Marksmanship" which would cover any and all ranged combat skills, you can raise these "area" ranks independently from the related skills (in this case things like bows, crossbows, thrown, sling, etc, which you could also raise independently from the areas, so you could have marksmanship 3 with no other related skill under it, or you could have marksmanship 0 and bow 5 etc)

 

[JohnSnow]

Okay, first off, I'll confess that I think Iron Heroes is closest to the "right way" to handle d20 classes. In IH, classes represent fighting style - because it's the one thing that doesn't "track" or "balance" well in a classless system. Basically, every character gets their own style so that nobody's treading on the other guy's "fun."

That said, if you insist on modelling the combat ability as skill, you have to model ALL abilities through a combination of skills and feats. d20 Modern sorta halfway does this and then introduces a bastardization of feats called "talents" which are basically feats that are class-specific. Basically, I guess I'm saying if you want to make combat skill-based (as well as feat-based), then spellcasting should also be skill-based.

The only way I can think of to properly balance the system is to introduce Feat Mastery (a la Iron Heroes) and then let each character choose which categories of feats they want to master. Give them enough skill points that they can buy their combat, noncombat, and spellcasting skills. EVERY character now gets the same number of skill points. Fighter-types devote them primarily to combat with some noncombat capability. Spellcasters primarily to spellcasting (with some combat and noncombat abilities). And your rogue types would be primarily noncombatant skills, with some combat.

Balancing it so that the players could all have a chance to have fun in most games would be a nightmare. West End Games Star Wars RPG and TSR's Top Secret S.I. both worked like this, as did, IIRC, Alternity.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You know the word is there is going to be an official game, (but not d20)

so they say........

What publisher? And any idea of when?

The FASA version needed work on the skill resolution system, and Time Lord is a bit too simple for my tastes. I agree that a full d20 version with all the bells and whistles would be too complex for the fast play that Doctor Who requires (IMHO). I'd like to see something more like the FASA game, but with simplified d20 skill resolution and combat....in other words, exactly what I am doing.

But I'd sure as heck take a look at something official!

(Aside: This Doctor Who thing is begining to feel like a true thread hijack to me. If there's any interest, I'd be happy to discuss a DW RPG in another thread?)

RC

 

[ValhallaGH]

I don't hear you complain about the fact that a sorcerer can roll higher hit points than a Fighter, yet you complain about my idea for the skill points and it's the same thing

1) I dislike the idea of a sorcerer being a better tank than a fighter so much that I use a completely different type of hit die (1d4 + Constant Bonus; I'd have stolen it from IH but I'm playing IH so it's all good).
2) I didn't complain about your skill generation method, though I was sorely tempted to, that was a different poster. I just have a nasty habit of answering rhetorical questions.

Now that that's out of the way, let's see if I can produce a useful post.

The easiest method is to create several new combat skills (melee, ranged, defense for examples, though you can have as many as you want) that follow all the normal rules for ranks and purchasing, remove BAB from all classes, and let the players choose which combat skills, if any, they will have ranks in. If you're feeling merciful you can grant bonus points to the classes based upon how much BAB they lost. The principle disadvantage of this method is that the ability to attack will either be slightly better or will be a good deal worse. The priciple advantage is that this allows for compromises, such as Clerics get melee as a class skill but not ranged or defense (varries by diety), Rogues get defense but not melee or ranged, Rangers get defense and either melee or ranged, Fighters get all three, Paladins get any two, etc.

one of the main things in my option is that the skills cost more and more as things progress,
so it more likely that players will start to level off due to cost, so if you really want to get those really high levels in what ever skill it will be at a cost to the rest of your skills,
its a lot more realistic that way, and munchkins who wants lots of weapon skills will lose out elsewere,

but the great thing about this is you could reward the player per game session with a few points, they won't make alot of diffrents at first and will need to save them to get even a one level raise in a skill over 3 points, with little impact on game balance,

Honestly, the more I read over your idea the less I think that the class basis of D&D (or any d20 system) is for you. The class-level design concept assumes that certain things improve at a certain rate for people in certain classes, Period. One of those things is combat ability. By removing those assumptions you remove the foundation of the class system and begin to approach a classless system where you only have one "class" because everyone gets the same basic benefits per level, then uses their various character resources to purchase extras, including combat skill, 3.X skills, magic and potentially anything else. If you wish to hand out skill points in game as a reward then you've removed the need for level as a guide to power and it becomes all about how many skill points the character has. Very soon you'll be playing a d20 based GURPS, WoD or ShadowRun-esc game.
If that is what you want, or you don't mind that, then carry on! This work is headed in an interesting direction and could be most enlightening for all players. However, I know many people get uptight about the very concept of classless games, and if you're one of them then you'll need to carefully evaluate just how good and useful you make your new skill system, as well as how you balance the granting of extra skills, lest you end up with a system that has classes in name only.

I would also like to say one, slightly different, thing. If you do implement a skill-basis for you combat, and you want to give out skill points at the table as a reward, then you'll need to put all skills (or all the useful ones) on either the same purchase scale or you'll need to leave the level-based cap on ranks for the non-combat skills.

 

[Lorehead]

If you tried to represent BAB as a skill, and changed nothing else, you'd run into a great many consequences. You might tear out and replace the entire combat system, but if I had any interest in doing that, I certainly would not begin with "skill-based" as the sole design goal.

• All full-BAB characters would have an extra +3 to hit.
• The BAB difference between a first-level fighter and a first-level wizard would be two points instead of one, and would only increase. This means that you'd have a choice between giving fighters a bonus and giving wizards a penalty.
• As others have mentioned, there's no method in the current rules to represent a 3/4 progression, so we'd have to introduce a new skill cap as a special case, or else abandon it.
• Taking one level of a full-BAB class would be enough to ensure full BAB through an entire career. An example of the many builds this would affect would be two-weapon fighters. Two levels of ranger are enough to grab TWF and full BAB for life, and rogues have plenty of skill points with which to buy BAB. Indeed, every rogue and cleric would probably take at least one level in a class with full BAB.
• Since buying BAB is not optional for adventurers, you'd have to change the number of skill points the classes get.
• You could no longer use BAB as a prerequisite for a prestige class, which means coming up with new prerequisites for a number of them. It's no longer a restriction.
• You would likewise find that all classes are able to take feats with BAB prerequisites at the same time.
• Splitting combat skills into one per combat style would produce a mostly undesirable situation: if everyone maxes out all the styles they'll ever use, you've replicated the RAW, but with more needless complexity. If characters neglect one or the other, you suddenly can't make them switch tactics against a particular opponent. They'd be totally incompetent at it; they've locked themselves into one combat style.

Any attempt to replace BAB should, as a beginning, address these problems. I personally think that the RAW work in this regard.

 

[Nyeshet]

I like the idea of replacing BAB with skills, and I second (or third, or fourth, etc) the idea of using defensive skills instead of a class defence bonus (the use of which would in effect create a reverse BAB situation - certain combat replaced with certain defense). I believe that weapon groups are the best path to follow, although I admit that - for simplicity's sake - I can see the attractiveness of melee combat (str), melee defense / parry (str), range / light melee combat (dex), dextrous defense / dodge (dex).

 

[librarius_arcana]

Okay, first off, I'll confess that I think Iron Heroes is closest to the "right way" to handle d20 classes. In IH, classes represent fighting style - because it's the one thing that doesn't "track" or "balance" well in a classless system. Basically, every character gets their own style so that nobody's treading on the other guy's "fun."

That said, if you insist on modelling the combat ability as skill, you have to model ALL abilities through a combination of skills and feats. d20 Modern sorta halfway does this and then introduces a bastardization of feats called "talents" which are basically feats that are class-specific. Basically, I guess I'm saying if you want to make combat skill-based (as well as feat-based), then spellcasting should also be skill-based.

The only way I can think of to properly balance the system is to introduce Feat Mastery (a la Iron Heroes) and then let each character choose which categories of feats they want to master. Give them enough skill points that they can buy their combat, noncombat, and spellcasting skills. EVERY character now gets the same number of skill points. Fighter-types devote them primarily to combat with some noncombat capability. Spellcasters primarily to spellcasting (with some combat and noncombat abilities). And your rogue types would be primarily noncombatant skills, with some combat.

Balancing it so that the players could all have a chance to have fun in most games would be a nightmare. West End Games Star Wars RPG and TSR's Top Secret S.I. both worked like this, as did, IIRC, Alternity.

I agree with most of that, and planned on some of it,
I keep hearing Iron Heroes pop up alot, I may have to get a copy,

Balance within character was more dependent on the on going cost of the skills, if your Wiz or Rog character really wants to be better at weapons than with sneak or spellcasting thats fine, but don't come crying to me later when you can't do your job,

the class's still lock in abilities, DH, saves, etc, but I want to open up and free the skill structure so you can define the type of harater you really want (instead of the standard cookie cutter line)

the way the skills cost will limit the upper levels of skills (you can have lots at a lower level or very few at higher, or something inbetween ) so you really need to be commited to a skill (due to the penatlies of loosing out elsewhere) to get very high skills


(btw I have kind of a large rpg libary of well over 100+ game, including all the non d20 games you mentioned)

 

[librarius_arcana]

If you tried to represent BAB as a skill, and changed nothing else, you'd run into a great many consequences. You might tear out and replace the entire combat system, but if I had any interest in doing that, I certainly would not begin with "skill-based" as the sole design goal.

• All full-BAB characters would have an extra +3 to hit.
• The BAB difference between a first-level fighter and a first-level wizard would be two points instead of one, and would only increase. This means that you'd have a choice between giving fighters a bonus and giving wizards a penalty.
• As others have mentioned, there's no method in the current rules to represent a 3/4 progression, so we'd have to introduce a new skill cap as a special case, or else abandon it.
• Taking one level of a full-BAB class would be enough to ensure full BAB through an entire career. An example of the many builds this would affect would be two-weapon fighters. Two levels of ranger are enough to grab TWF and full BAB for life, and rogues have plenty of skill points with which to buy BAB. Indeed, every rogue and cleric would probably take at least one level in a class with full BAB.
• Since buying BAB is not optional for adventurers, you'd have to change the number of skill points the classes get.
• You could no longer use BAB as a prerequisite for a prestige class, which means coming up with new prerequisites for a number of them. It's no longer a restriction.
• You would likewise find that all classes are able to take feats with BAB prerequisites at the same time.
• Splitting combat skills into one per combat style would produce a mostly undesirable situation: if everyone maxes out all the styles they'll ever use, you've replicated the RAW, but with more needless complexity. If characters neglect one or the other, you suddenly can't make them switch tactics against a particular opponent. They'd be totally incompetent at it; they've locked themselves into one combat style.

Any attempt to replace BAB should, as a beginning, address these problems. I personally think that the RAW work in this regard.

I don't understand what RAW means?

but the rest, there are meant to be areas of skills, for combat this will include

Armed combat (all weapons)
Unarmed combat (anything not needing tools)
Marksmanship (all aimed ranged combat)

now you can buy (at great cost, +feats to boost) points in these areas,

so you could have something like this
Armed combat: 3
Unarmed combat: 2
Marksmanship: 5

then on top of this you can define your choosen skills within those areas
so you could have,

Armed combat: 3 greatsword 2 shortsword 4
Unarmed combat: 2
Marksmanship: 5 bow 2, thrown 1

so you would have greatsword 5 (3 from the area+ 2 from the skill)

The "area" would work pretty much like BAB covering there related areas,

(btw, this Area+skill concept would be use across the board, example, you would have a Stealth (area) with sneak, hide, shadowing, camo (skills) etc (giving in effect a rog skills along the lines of bab for fighters but within there class skills instead of just combat,)

I know this is doable, and will work within the class, level system, whats more it would enrich it by allowing for some skill progression between levels (but due to the cost very little) and better defining characters, this is the sort of thing that would make me want to play this system (and not just me, but others),