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<blockquote data-quote="Jaelommiss" data-source="post: 7454859" data-attributes="member: 6775925"><p>Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. My response was delayed while I discussed your feedback with the friends with whom I have been developing these rules.</p><p></p><p>If any of my responses come off as rude or forceful, please do not take them that way. Offense is not my intention. Let me know and I'll try to correct it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>While I may have the time and resources to acquire and learn an entirely new set of rules, not all of my players do. I find it far more efficient to take rules the I want from other games and add them to a framework that my players are familiar with. Even if it takes ten hours to add a rule in a balanced fashion, it's still far short of the hundreds of hours it takes to master an entirely new system.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The two paths works very similarly to 3.5 gestalt rules. A level one character would be level one in two different classes (Barbarian1/Bard1) with HP determined by the first class (Barbarian). A level two character would have two levels in the first class, and two levels to be distributed as desired between other classes (Barbarian2/Bard1/Fighter1) with the HP of barbarian 2. </p><p></p><p>In the campaign that these rules were designed for, safe resting would never be a certainty. Sometimes the party will get a single night to recover, sometimes it'll be three nights, and sometimes it will be a week or two. They will be immersed in a hostile environment at all times, and delaying healing without making it all or nothing until an arbitrary time of safety is reached (such as the week long long rest in the DMG's variant) will allow for at least partial recovery between conflict.</p><p></p><p>Would you mind explaining what you mean about invalidating healing magic? I might have explained it poorly, but the intent was to bolster the amount healed through the expenditure of a limited resource. Instead of healing 2d4+2, a healing potion would restore 2d4+2+a HD. </p><p></p><p>Spare the Dying simply stabilizes a character. As there is no healing at all, it should not interact with any of my rules unless I missed something. Could you please tell me which of my rules you believe would affect it? There is a good chance that I need to rewrite or clarify something.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're right that I'm trying to create a form of gestalt. That was one of my sources of inspiration. I would likely not be using XP for advancement or I'd dramatically alter it to suit my needs if they players insisted on it. </p><p></p><p>I found that there were two ways to look at the characters. As written (which has been how it has been presented to my group), a character has twice as many class features as they should for their level. The way that I have been looking at it is that they are a character who is limited to a maximum of half their levels in any one class, half their HP, and a slightly reduced proficiency bonus. A character could be seen as a Paladin 5 with all the fun toys of a Warlock 5, or as a Paladin5/Warlock5 with half the HP and a -1 to their proficiency bonus. It is the latter that I have been using for campaign design. The big difference is that I don't need to consider how effective a single classed character would be. Big spells like Raise Dead won't come into play until characters are acting as a multiclassed 18th level character. With their reduced HP they would be weaker than that, of course. The multiplier I have been considering is 1.5x (that is, a character with six levels in their primary path would be treated as though they are level nine for balance purposes), but that will require significant playtesting before it can be considered accurate.</p><p></p><p>I will look at capping number of HD allowed to the source's number of dice used for healing. It might interact strangely with healing potions' stack of 2d4+2, 4d4+4, 6d4+6, but that's as simple as making it xd8+2x instead.</p><p></p><p>For ASI, you'd be correct. A Fighter4/Rogue1/Barbarian3 who boosted Str at level four would not be able to again boost Str when they hit level five and became Fighter5/Rogue1/Barbarian4. Unfortunately I could not find a concise way to explain that without resorting to examples. Refering to them in the order gained per path (first for primary path, seconds for primary path, first for secondary path, etc.) would have clarified that greatly.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure I entirely understand what you means about counting as a hit when constitution is lost from failed death saves. Reduction in maximum HP resulting from a loss of Constitution would not count as taking damage. Unless there is a very big hole that I'm missing somewhere, characters should not be losing constitution while they still have hit points, and thus would not be able to lose hit points as a result of losing constitution. If you could explain what you meant in more detail I would appreciate it. It's entirely possible that there is a reasonable case that I have overlooked.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Back in Oct. 2014 I started playing around with the idea of gaining exhaustion when dropped to zero hit points. Although I still like the idea, I found that the exhaustion table was not a good fit for that. In addition to radically changing how advantage and disadvantage come into play for a character with exhaustion, it penalized different characters at different rates.</p><p></p><p>A rogue who tries to hide a lot, a grappler, and a character based around optimizing skill usage all face immense penalties with even a single level of exhaustion while most others are hardly impeded at all.</p><p></p><p>Melee combatants and monks lose a lot from a second level of exhaustion, while ranged characters tend to not notice losing half their movement speed outside of travel rates.</p><p></p><p>Anyone who relies on attack rolls is crippled by a third level of exhaustion. By applying disadvantage a rogue becomes entirely incapable of sneak attacking under any circumstances. Disadvantage on saving throws is rough for everyone. Spellcasters focusing on hampering enemies by forcing them to make saves can still do so at maximum efficacy.</p><p></p><p>The fourth level of exhaustion is brutal for everyone. I removed this effect from the exhaustion scale and instead placed it with and scaled it off of the most common source of exhaustion under my overhaul: temporary loss of constitution.</p><p></p><p></p><p>My intent in creating a stacking penalty was to create a gradual impact that will apply to all aspects of play so that all characters are equally affected. Not immediately altering the balance of adv/dis for characters with exhaustion was a nice bonus.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jaelommiss, post: 7454859, member: 6775925"] Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. My response was delayed while I discussed your feedback with the friends with whom I have been developing these rules. If any of my responses come off as rude or forceful, please do not take them that way. Offense is not my intention. Let me know and I'll try to correct it. While I may have the time and resources to acquire and learn an entirely new set of rules, not all of my players do. I find it far more efficient to take rules the I want from other games and add them to a framework that my players are familiar with. Even if it takes ten hours to add a rule in a balanced fashion, it's still far short of the hundreds of hours it takes to master an entirely new system. The two paths works very similarly to 3.5 gestalt rules. A level one character would be level one in two different classes (Barbarian1/Bard1) with HP determined by the first class (Barbarian). A level two character would have two levels in the first class, and two levels to be distributed as desired between other classes (Barbarian2/Bard1/Fighter1) with the HP of barbarian 2. In the campaign that these rules were designed for, safe resting would never be a certainty. Sometimes the party will get a single night to recover, sometimes it'll be three nights, and sometimes it will be a week or two. They will be immersed in a hostile environment at all times, and delaying healing without making it all or nothing until an arbitrary time of safety is reached (such as the week long long rest in the DMG's variant) will allow for at least partial recovery between conflict. Would you mind explaining what you mean about invalidating healing magic? I might have explained it poorly, but the intent was to bolster the amount healed through the expenditure of a limited resource. Instead of healing 2d4+2, a healing potion would restore 2d4+2+a HD. Spare the Dying simply stabilizes a character. As there is no healing at all, it should not interact with any of my rules unless I missed something. Could you please tell me which of my rules you believe would affect it? There is a good chance that I need to rewrite or clarify something. You're right that I'm trying to create a form of gestalt. That was one of my sources of inspiration. I would likely not be using XP for advancement or I'd dramatically alter it to suit my needs if they players insisted on it. I found that there were two ways to look at the characters. As written (which has been how it has been presented to my group), a character has twice as many class features as they should for their level. The way that I have been looking at it is that they are a character who is limited to a maximum of half their levels in any one class, half their HP, and a slightly reduced proficiency bonus. A character could be seen as a Paladin 5 with all the fun toys of a Warlock 5, or as a Paladin5/Warlock5 with half the HP and a -1 to their proficiency bonus. It is the latter that I have been using for campaign design. The big difference is that I don't need to consider how effective a single classed character would be. Big spells like Raise Dead won't come into play until characters are acting as a multiclassed 18th level character. With their reduced HP they would be weaker than that, of course. The multiplier I have been considering is 1.5x (that is, a character with six levels in their primary path would be treated as though they are level nine for balance purposes), but that will require significant playtesting before it can be considered accurate. I will look at capping number of HD allowed to the source's number of dice used for healing. It might interact strangely with healing potions' stack of 2d4+2, 4d4+4, 6d4+6, but that's as simple as making it xd8+2x instead. For ASI, you'd be correct. A Fighter4/Rogue1/Barbarian3 who boosted Str at level four would not be able to again boost Str when they hit level five and became Fighter5/Rogue1/Barbarian4. Unfortunately I could not find a concise way to explain that without resorting to examples. Refering to them in the order gained per path (first for primary path, seconds for primary path, first for secondary path, etc.) would have clarified that greatly. I'm not sure I entirely understand what you means about counting as a hit when constitution is lost from failed death saves. Reduction in maximum HP resulting from a loss of Constitution would not count as taking damage. Unless there is a very big hole that I'm missing somewhere, characters should not be losing constitution while they still have hit points, and thus would not be able to lose hit points as a result of losing constitution. If you could explain what you meant in more detail I would appreciate it. It's entirely possible that there is a reasonable case that I have overlooked. Back in Oct. 2014 I started playing around with the idea of gaining exhaustion when dropped to zero hit points. Although I still like the idea, I found that the exhaustion table was not a good fit for that. In addition to radically changing how advantage and disadvantage come into play for a character with exhaustion, it penalized different characters at different rates. A rogue who tries to hide a lot, a grappler, and a character based around optimizing skill usage all face immense penalties with even a single level of exhaustion while most others are hardly impeded at all. Melee combatants and monks lose a lot from a second level of exhaustion, while ranged characters tend to not notice losing half their movement speed outside of travel rates. Anyone who relies on attack rolls is crippled by a third level of exhaustion. By applying disadvantage a rogue becomes entirely incapable of sneak attacking under any circumstances. Disadvantage on saving throws is rough for everyone. Spellcasters focusing on hampering enemies by forcing them to make saves can still do so at maximum efficacy. The fourth level of exhaustion is brutal for everyone. I removed this effect from the exhaustion scale and instead placed it with and scaled it off of the most common source of exhaustion under my overhaul: temporary loss of constitution. My intent in creating a stacking penalty was to create a gradual impact that will apply to all aspects of play so that all characters are equally affected. Not immediately altering the balance of adv/dis for characters with exhaustion was a nice bonus. [/QUOTE]
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