"Buy the numbers" ... for races?
- Thread starter der_kluge
- Start date
I already went the route your looking at. I returned to some systems like FH and RQ that I had played in the past, and tried HARP. In the end I realized bringing myself up to speed on a new system was even more work than revising what I didn't like about d20. Plus each of the other systems had bits and pieces I didn't want, or wanted to change.
In the end I realized that it was pointless to try to go through this amount of work on character creation when anything I came up with would only apply to six or seven characters, maybe a dozen if I went total killhappy on the players.
Instead I came up with some solid guidelines on what I wanted in the campaign, i.e. races, cultures, type of magic. I limited the classes to only the three from the UA, with feats and skills they were more than sufficient. Then I had the players give me the concept they wanted. It was easier tweaking things, or even creating out of whole cloth, for just a few people than trying to develop an entire sytem. The wizard didn't like fire and forget spells, so I told him to bring me something else - he did, cobbled together from the net, and now we're both happy.
After all, who cares if you develop fifteen different types of gnomes if only one person in the next three years will even glance at the list? You (hopefully) don't stat out every stableboy in the campaign. The same principle applies here, just concentrate on the important things.
In the end I realized that it was pointless to try to go through this amount of work on character creation when anything I came up with would only apply to six or seven characters, maybe a dozen if I went total killhappy on the players.
Instead I came up with some solid guidelines on what I wanted in the campaign, i.e. races, cultures, type of magic. I limited the classes to only the three from the UA, with feats and skills they were more than sufficient. Then I had the players give me the concept they wanted. It was easier tweaking things, or even creating out of whole cloth, for just a few people than trying to develop an entire sytem. The wizard didn't like fire and forget spells, so I told him to bring me something else - he did, cobbled together from the net, and now we're both happy.
After all, who cares if you develop fifteen different types of gnomes if only one person in the next three years will even glance at the list? You (hopefully) don't stat out every stableboy in the campaign. The same principle applies here, just concentrate on the important things.
Turjan
Explorer
adwyn said:
This sounds reasonable. I have no experience whatsoever with Fantasy Hero, but I heard that it's even more complicated than D&D and that it does not emulate the Fantasy genre very well (as I said, I don't have my own experience with FH, so don't sue me on this
). HARP, on the other hand, seems rather similar to D&D, and the learning curve does not seem to be too high, even for a newcomer to RPG's. Heroquest is very different to D&D and not too complicated, but it somehow still lacks a good easy to understand introduction (although the Hero's Book tries to achieve this, I think it does not really succeed, and Heroquest's ever present ties to Glorantha don't really help). Talislanta has a very easy system, but the missing character creation system and the alien setting present a hurdle, too. In this regard, HARP should be a real seller.Then again, after a fresh look at some other systems, you may happily return to d20. Anyway, I don't see this as a waste of time. It somehow just helps putting things into perspective
.Go check out this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=82858
It's a thread where several of us helped design a character buy system and it aheppened pretty much at the same time as the books providing the same came out. Was fully independent and I can't recall now if DrSpunj actually ended up looking at the other things taht came out towards the end of the thread or not. Later versions of the files are found in the latter pages. Was a good system I thought. I wanted to run Arcana Unearthed using Spunj's customization as well as the Revised Grim N Gritty rules Ken Hood posted and we discussed heavily in House Rules.
Arcana Unearthed may be enough of a change of pace for you to be enjoyable too. I know it definitely is more interesting to me right now than standard D&D, but the group I'm in is playing regular D&D so I'll stick with that. Our gaming is intermittent enough that I don't wanna pus hit heh.
Hagen
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=82858
It's a thread where several of us helped design a character buy system and it aheppened pretty much at the same time as the books providing the same came out. Was fully independent and I can't recall now if DrSpunj actually ended up looking at the other things taht came out towards the end of the thread or not. Later versions of the files are found in the latter pages. Was a good system I thought. I wanted to run Arcana Unearthed using Spunj's customization as well as the Revised Grim N Gritty rules Ken Hood posted and we discussed heavily in House Rules.
Arcana Unearthed may be enough of a change of pace for you to be enjoyable too. I know it definitely is more interesting to me right now than standard D&D, but the group I'm in is playing regular D&D so I'll stick with that. Our gaming is intermittent enough that I don't wanna pus hit heh.
Hagen
der_kluge
Adventurer
SSquirrel said:
Wow. That's... complicated.
Man, someone put a lot of work into that, DrSpunj, I'm guessing. It's neat. I'd have to spend some time absorbing that. I assume I could lower the available CPs and tone things down? Because keeping wizards and sorcerers as they are, and allowing fighters more feats is kind of the opposite direction of where I'm headed...Wizards and sorcerers gain AU style spells which means no fire and forget and greater flexibility overall. Giving fighters the additional feat was a means of making them more balanced with the other classes. Cleric is still probably slightly higher, but the material gives Core, AU and Tweaked style classes, as well as room for you to make your own. Basically in the end everyone can build charcters into exactly what they want if you like, made even easier b/c in AU there is no Arcane/Divine, it's all just magic.die_kluge said:Wow. That's... complicated.
Also remember that in AU you don't have spells like Fireball. AU has healing magic available to anyone who casts spells, but Greenbonds will be the most effective healers in the game, followed by Champions of Life. Well maybe Magisters before teh Champion, but they would have to make sure healing magic was included in their spell list. In AU you have a set list of your spells you memorize. Instead of forgetting one when its cast it stays in your mind and you could make it all the spells of that level if you wanted that day. You memorize your list of spells and you can never change that in your life if you wish and you'll always have those spells memorized. No restudying each day. If you need a different spell, just spend an hour switching it out. Much more flexible magic system without becoming overpowered b/c the standard (sometimes overpowered) D&D spells are not included.
I'm hagen48639 on Yahoo and am happy to discuss Spunj's spreadsheet or AU more there if ya like. Playing Diablo 2 as well right now so I'll see a mesg eventually if ya send one heh.
Hagen
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Yes no more magic missle. Eh, no big loss. There's some amazingly good spells in AU and some of them quickly. Not that I can find my copy of AU rigth now as my house is a wreck.Turjan said:No more Magic Missile *sniff*
Hagen
Turjan
Explorer
SSquirrel said:
Don't worry, I have it and I love it, at least ruleswise
. I'm not fond of the races, except Mojh, which I find a cool concept, and the Sprytes inspired me to do something similar to elves. Runechildren are a nice concept, too .In principle, AU addresses quite a few points of Curtis' catalogue. As I said, I like the concepts, just the flavor of AU leaves me cold. But this is a problem that is easy to circumvent. There is nobody who keeps me from giving some of the AU classes their classic names (in those cases where the similarity is obvious), and there is no problem in disconnecting race stats from race appearance and name. I like to have my orcs, trolls and elves, and I can always plug these names and appearances on any statblock and level advancement I find and assume appropriate.
That means that nearly all the work is already done
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