NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zustiur" data-source="post: 6040773" data-attributes="member: 1544">Excellent questions. Let's see...1) Not like implements. Hmm. I was thinking along the lines of 'you can't use skills without them. e.g. fighter can't fight without weapons. Rogue can't pick locks without picks. Cleric can't heal without holy stuff. Wizard can't cast spells without components.2) I totally agree that's a requirement, and it's currently confounding my own FRPG design. On one hand I want everyone to be able to choose any skills. On the other, I want rogues to be thieves. Ultimately, I think to work as intended, most skills would need equipment. However, skimming the 3.5 skill list tells me that only about 8 skills could require that. [MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION] I see two potential pay-offs. One is very minor, the other very significant.The first is an added level of character customisation. The more detail there is in the equipment options, the more you can customise. "My rogue uses acids to melt locks, he doesn't use picks".The second ties in more with resource management.I'm playing around with ideas here, but the rough shape of this is that every class has equipment they need to maintain and/or restock.The fighter needs to repair his armour and weapons (all melee combatants will, but fighters will notice it the most)The rogue needs to replace broken picks etc (all users of certain skills will, but rogues will notice it the most)The cleric needs to stock up on holy water (you get the picture)The wizard needs to stock up on spell componentsThe ranger stands out by NOT needing anything.I'm looking for reasons to drag the PCs back to the city. Something that stops them from doing back-to-back adventures, and which gives them cause to spend time at home. I'm looking at something less hand-waved than 1E DMG P25:I want something that actually details that expense and can become part of the roleplay. This equipment idea is just one possible element that feeds into that overall expense.To clarify; I'm thinking in terms of each item having the equivalent of hit points. When your sword reaches 0 HP, it breaks, and you have to get a new one. If you don't want to break it, you need to return to town and get is straightened/sharpened/repaired before it gets to 0 HP.Each time you fail to pick a lock, you break a pick, meaning you have less picks left. When you run out of picks, you can't actually pick a lock.If you run out of particular spell components, you can't cast that spell anymore. You might have components left for fireball, but not for lightning bolt.And so on.The other side to this is that I want encumbrance to mean something. There are several threads running on this theme at the moment, so I'll keep this short. I'm looking at ways to make 'wandering in the wilderness' challenging for reasons other than 'monsters might kill us'. Not being able to carry 6 weeks worth of rations plays into that. Not being able to use the same armour all month without repairs also plays into it. Not having a never-ending supply of spell components... and so on.Note: Most gaming groups would balk at this idea as being 'too much work for too little fun'. I understand that. I'm not trying to push this into 'core'. At most it would be a module and perhaps a couple of extra lines in the equipment tables. More likely, it'll be something that goes in to my own personal game without affecting any other game groups.</blockquote>

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