D&D 3E/3.5 Changing 3e to d20 rules! Am I doing this right?

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

A few things I noticed:

Wound Points
In the Star Wars system, when you reach 0 Wound points, you are dying. There are no negative Wound points. I would recomend against having negative wounds.
Also, in SW, when you take wound damage, you make a Fort save at DC 10 or be stunned for 2d6 rounds. I think you should just make a Fort save or be Disabled.

I don't understand what you mean regarding no negative WP. In D&D, you are dying at -1 to -9 HP, and die when you reach -10.

As to the Fort save, this is the information I got from d20 ShadowChasers in the latest Dungeon/Polyhedron, so I assume it will be part of the revised SW rules in May and the upcoming d20 Modern rules in October.

Originally posted by WaterRabbit Sneak Attacks
Sneak attacks become fairly powerful, especially in light of the fact that many opponents won't even have vitality points. One suggestion I have seen is to increase the crit range for sneak attacks. It depends on how easy it is to bypass the DR of armor.

If the sneak attacks do damage directly to WP, then a mid-level rogue could kill just about anybody in one hit! Ouch...

Originally posted by WaterRabbit Action Points
I think you should call them Luck points. Action points has more of a "how much can I do in a round" feel to them. Similiar to Force Points in SW. I think the SW mechanic is slightly cooler.

I agree about Action Points being a lame name, but it was what they called them in Shadowchasers. I prefer Luck Points.

Originally posted by WaterRabbit Defense Bonus by Class
Defense is generally Reflex save + 2. I think that classes that are based upon heavy armor should not get the best defense values. Fighters, for example, should just get the poor defense values. Which leads to my next comment.

The new SW rules and d20 Modern rules will be changing this, I think. The problem I had when I made this list was that I did not have SW and there were no exactly comparable classes in Shadowchasers to aid me, so I guessed.

Originally posted by WaterRabbit Damage Reduction
Armor should just limit your dexterity (and perhaps Dodge bonuses) and not your Defense Value. Defense bonuses due to class max at +14. Which means you need a 24 or better to hit your opponent. BAB maxes at +20, which means you need a 4 or better to hit. If armor reduces Defense, then you create the situation when a high level fighter is always using Power Attack with all of his attacks and always needing a 2 or better to hit.

OK. I misread this in Shadowchasers. Armor limits DEX bonus, not Defense bonus, as you said.

Originally posted by WaterRabbit Shields
Shields should provide a Cover bonus to Defense.

A cover bonus. Gotcha. That way it is specific so we know whether it stacks with other types of bonuses.

Originally posted by WaterRabbit Critical Hits
I would not allow a weapon to have a range better than 19-20 or a multiple greater than x2. Instead of increasing the range or
multiple, give those weapons Penetration, which ignores some of a target's DR.

Good idea. Will work on that!

Originally posted by WaterRabbit Reputation
About as interesting as alignment. I think reputation should be reflected by a character's deeds more than their level.

Yeah, I was going to make Rep more about deeds, but they didn't do that in Shadowchasers and simply made it into two feats: Famous and Infamous, each providing a +3 bonus to Charisma based checks in situations where your REP would come into play. I like the simplicity of that, but it kind of sucks as far as realism goes, and who wants to spend a feat on that? It seems like something that should be gained threough RPing (like Leadership feat) rather than by just spending the feat to get it. I know SW had a REP by level chart and that's where I got the idea of mixing the two styles from. Still not happy with either, so maybe I'll just scrap it.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Edited original post. Scrapped REPUTATION and incorprated many of the changes WaterRabbit advocated (marked as [EDIT] or [NEW]).

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

TOTALLY REVISED and replaced the original post. Please take a look and tell me what you think... Thanks!!!

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Question: How does Star Wars d20 deal with Subdual damage? Does this go through VP first, then WP, or go direct to WP but not count as permanent injury?

Also in SW, how quickly do VP and WP heal?

 

[WaterRabbit]

Subdual Damage

In SW, there is no sudual damage. Instead, weapons have a stun value. For example, a Stun Baton does 1d6 points of damage and the target must make a Fort save DC 12 or be rendered unconscious for 2d6 rounds.

VP return at Character Level per hour.
WP return at 1 per day or 2 per day on a sucessful Treat Injury DC 15 (Just like the Heal skill rules in D&D)

 

[WaterRabbit]

How WP work in SW

In SW, WP are equal to your Con + Toughness Feat(s).

When a character gets to 0 VP, they are Fatigued and further damage goes to WP. They also must make a Fort saving throw DC 10 or be Stunned for 2d6 rounds.

When a character gets to 0 WP, they are unconscious and dying.
At 0 WP character makes a Fort save at DC 10, if they fail, they are dead. If they suceed, they make an new Fort save every hour at DC 10 +1/hour of unconsciousness. If they fail they are dead.

If they make the roll by 10, successfully treated by Treat Injury skill, or Heal Another Force skill is usled they stabilize. (Note: Heal Another Force skill has a DC 10 just to stabilize another and costs the user 1 VP.)

Also, in SW, certain Force skills and feats cost VP.

Personal Thoughts
I think that SW is a little harsh here. I would let a character go to 0 VP without penalties. However, when they took a WP, I would have them make the Fort check DC 10. If they failed, they would become Disabled. At 0 WP, then they are unconscious and dying.
I believe that it is a little more heroic that way.

 

[WaterRabbit]

Damage Reduction

It have thought quite abit about how damage reduction should work.
The problem with having DR only protecting WP is that combats with fighters will end up with them getting hit a lot and burning through Vitality very quickly. Then they slowly get beat down. They are now done for a few hours, because that is how long it will take them to recharge. (Note: in a game like SW, healing is harder to come by).
I would recommend that DR protect VP as well. It keeps armor useful. I D&D, more so than SW, the amount of damage each character does rises dramatically with level. If you don't have DR protect VP you will devalue medium and heavy armors, because the penalties don't balance with the benefits. Which, by the way is the current problem with D&D.
What you could do to mitigate this somewhat, is to have magic bonuses for weapons also increase the penetration of that weapon.

 

[WaterRabbit]

Spells

SPELLS
A successful saving throw against a spell where
the result is half damage deals 50% VP and 50%
WP damage. "
and
"Any spell that automatically hits its target with
no save allowed (such as magic missile) deals
damage direct to WP. "

I think this is a bad idea. Spells should do VP damage only. They will get to the WP soon enougth. You will kill characters very quickly with this rule unless you really tone down magic.

Electricity effect spells (such as shocking grasp and lightning bolt) ignore the DR of metal armor.

The Heat Metal spell ignores the DR of metal armor.
Any spell that is capable of continous physical
damage for more than 1 round (such as melf’s
acid arrow) deals damage direct to WP.

The chill metal and heat metal spells ignore the
DR of targets in metal armor.

This is unnecessary, since armor does not provide Energy Resistance and DR only protects against physical damage.

Again, unless a spell is specifically designed to cause Wound damage, I would not allow it to bypass Vitality points.
Remember that Vitality points are essentially Plot Immunity for the Player characters and important Foes. Think of Plot Immunity as they amount of time that a movie gives to a character. For example, in Lord of the Rings, most orcs had less than a couple of seconds of film time. However, the cave troll had a few minutes of film time.

Here is an example of something that should bypass vitality: Falling Damage. In SW a hero suffers 1d6 points of damage for every 10 feet fallen. A Reflex saving throw at DC 10 +1/10 feet allows the damage to go against Vitality. On a failure it goes against Wounds. A tumble check can reduce the height of the fall as normal.

 

[WaterRabbit]

Some Quibbles

CRITICAL HITS

Any weapon that had a threat range of 18-20 or
better now bypasses 25% of an armored target's
DR.

Any weapon that did x3 damage now bypasses
50% of an armored target's DR.

Any weapon that did x4 damage now bypasses
100% of an armored target's DR.

I think that these should be fixed amounts instead of percentages. x3 weapon ingnores 3 points and x4 weapon ingnores 4 points. This allows Armor that has a magical enhancment to mean something.

WEAPON PENETRATION
Description: Crossbows are designed to pierce
armor and have greater penetration power than
regular bows. As a result, such weapons bypass
some or all of an armored target's DR.

Hand crossbows ignore 25% of armor DR (rounded up).

Light and Repeating Crossbows ignore 50% of
armor DR (rounded up).

Heavy Crossbows (including great crossbows,
seige crossbows, ballistae and similar heavy
designs) ignore all armor DR.

Same quibble here.

Also, minor quibble, poison and disease does ability damage and not vitality or wound damage.

And Defense is
10 + Class Defense Bonus + Dexterity Modifier
+ Size + Cover Defense Bonus + Other Bonuses

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Thanks, WaterRabbit, you are really a BIG HELP to me with this (not having the SW book and all). I have made nearly all the changes you suggested, modified a few and left negative WP the same. I guess I just like the feel of being able to go to -10 WP (HP) too much from D&D.

Now that the original post has been totally revised yet again, anybody have any comments or suggestions?