Fantasy Concepts: An OGL Fantasy Saga Project

[drothgery]

(will DCs change to Saga-style conventions)

The answer to question #1 precludes that the DCs will have to be converted to Saga-style.

Not really. You could use different progressions than Saga for skills (possibly having a 'trained' and 'untrained' progression rather than trained = untrained + 5), and/or put a minimum level prerequisite on Skill Focus.

 

[nobodez]

I agree with Alchemy, 'Blacksmithing', Carpentry, 'Masonry' (just name changes ). I'd also add Leatherworking (armor, some clothing, generally working with skins and furs), Tailoring (robes, more clothing, anything with cloth/weaving) and Artistry (painting, sculpture, calligraphy, fancy stuff). I'd probably move gems into 'Jewelling' and make that include all jewellery items.

So summarily: Alchemy, Artistry, Blacksmithing, Carpentry, Jewelling, Leatherworking, Masonry, Tailoring. I think this is a nice trade-off between specific medieval/fantasy inspired roles and broad skill usage. Trapmaking would go into either the metal, wood or stone crafts.

I think a good place to look at this is Iron heroes, where there are basically six craft skills, two each for wood, metal, and rock, and three each for trinkets/tools and objects/structures. You would of course need to add in leather, cloth, and (al)chemistry, or just throw leather and cloth together for leather/cloth (t/t), alchemistry (t/t), wood (t/t or o/s), metla (t/t or o/s), and stone (t/t or o/s).

You could also adapt the d20 Modern model, and have six varieties: chemistry, mechanical, electrical, pharmaceutical, visual arts, and writing. You could probably meld it down to alchemy, tools/trinkets, objects/structures, visual arts, and writing.

 

[Flynn]

Thanks, guys, for the helpful suggestions.

More Later,
Flynn

 

[Mokona]

Number of Skills

I see a lot of suggestions for way too many skills (since each specialty of Craft or Perform or Profession counts as a different Skill Training choice).

Saga doesn't have a bunch of different craft skills. Marginally useful skills in Saga are streamlined by falling under broad categories or coming for free (see the free languages each character receives from their Int bonus).

If this product increases the number of skills I suggest that each class get at least one (1) additional trained skill or more if enough skills are added to the system.

A Star Wars party of four characters will probably have a number of Trained Skills between 20 + 4*Int (Luke=Scout->Jedi, Lea=Noble, Han=Scoundrel, Chewbacca=Scout) and 14 + 4*Int (Sia-Lan=Jedi, Rorworr=Scout, Vor'en=Soldier, Deel Surool=Scoundrel). We can also assume that a lot of characters will have the same skills; initiative stands out as a skill many or most character will overlap with one another.

Since there are 25 skills in Saga I'd add +1 trained skill choice per character class per 4-5 skills you add to the skill list. Each specialty added to craft counts as adding a new skill to the skill list.

Be careful not to create too many skills no one wants or you're just giving more skill selections that are sure to be spent on the useful skills Wizards of the Coast already thought of.

 

[Flynn]

I see a lot of suggestions for way too many skills (since each specialty of Craft or Perform or Profession counts as a different Skill Training choice).

Saga doesn't have a bunch of different craft skills. Marginally useful skills in Saga are streamlined by falling under broad categories or coming for free (see the free languages each character receives from their Int bonus).

If this product increases the number of skills I suggest that each class get at least one (1) additional trained skill or more if enough skills are added to the system.

A Star Wars party of four characters will probably have a number of Trained Skills between 20 + 4*Int (Luke=Scout->Jedi, Lea=Noble, Han=Scoundrel, Chewbacca=Scout) and 14 + 4*Int (Sia-Lan=Jedi, Rorworr=Scout, Vor'en=Soldier, Deel Surool=Scoundrel). We can also assume that a lot of characters will have the same skills; initiative stands out as a skill many or most character will overlap with one another.

Since there are 25 skills in Saga I'd add +1 trained skill choice per character class per 4-5 skills you add to the skill list. Each specialty added to craft counts as adding a new skill to the skill list.

Be careful not to create too many skills no one wants or you're just giving more skill selections that are sure to be spent on the useful skills Wizards of the Coast already thought of.

Agreed. The Craft skills, I believe, are necessary for the game because crafting is something that is useful in D&D (even the old secondary skill system from 1st Edition focused on crafting skills), particularly with magic item creation. Star Wars doesn't tell stories of Bob the Blacksmith, but fantasy games definitely do. I definitely agree on keeping the numbers of skills low, though.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Flynn]

A quick update: I'm continuing to work on the skills chapter, and BFGEditor is wrapping up races. With those done, it'll be time to hit feats, classes and combat.

More Later,
Flynn

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

A quick update: I'm continuing to work on the skills chapter, and BFGEditor is wrapping up races. With those done, it'll be time to hit feats, classes and combat.

More Later,
Flynn

Heh, this should be interesting.....

 

[EditorBFG]

As I work on races, I wanted to discuss a couple points that have been made.

I have to say that I don't really like races giving trained skills. Something just rubs me the wrong way. I wouldn't have a problem with granting class skills, or Skill Focus if the character does train in a skill (working as a kind of Favoured Class mechanic when a character would be drawn towards classes with their race's skill as a class skill so they could train it).

What do you guys think? I was just going to give each race an automatic trained skill, since Trained Skill is a feat and I thought 2 free feats and 1 free talent per race had a certain simplicity I liked. Do you think a free trained skill for each non-human race is the wrong way to go?

I would prefer, however, the Saga approuch of Take10 and rerolls for skills. Since there would be many races with these qualities, a general description could be given at the beginning of the race section such as calling the Take10 skills Accustomed skills and rerolls Exceptional skills, and then just noting which skills have this quality for each race.

First of all, I think naming these two mechanics is a good idea. That said, if I went this path for all the races, should one or both of these mechanics become a feat or a talent? Or could race write-ups work like this:

Elf
Ability Modifiers: +2 Dex, -2 Con
Bonus Feat: Preternatural Sense
Bonus Talent: Vigilance, from the Elf Talent Tree
Bonus Talent Path: An elf gains free access to the Elf talent path. Whenever she receives a talent from her class, she may choose a talent from that class's talent paths or from the Elf pathk.
Accustomed Skill: Perception. An elf may always take 10 on Perception rolls.

Please weigh in soon, as I'm working on this stuff right now.

On the planetouched talents, I'd separate the energy resistances to a separate talent that let you choose three of four energy resistances (perhaps with an option for one resistance at 10 instead of three separate ones to allow for the elemental planetouched). Darkvision in and of itself is a rather good ability, and coupled with a semi-useful spell-like ability should be a decent talent. Not to mention it would allow a small degree of customization, even if the real possibilities are rather limited

I was hoping that a Planetouched could have all his or her accustomed 3.5 abilities at level 2, simulating the existing L.A., which is why their first talent is so "front-loaded."

I should point out that talents are not meant to balance with each other. Since a racial talent is something only a character of that race can ever acquire, it does not need to scale with class talents. Anything I took from the Planetouched 1st talent, I would have to roll into some kind of bonus feat they would get at 1st level. However, in this system of races, feats represent cultural stuff, whereas the racial talents mostly represent genetics. Are there any Planetouched abilities people think would be cultural (a feat) instead of hereditary (the starting talent)?

By the way, feats as learned stuff and starting talents as inherited brings us to another point:

Personally I'd do this the other way around where biological benefits are bonus feats or unique abilities (only when no feat is close enough). Then talent trees that let you "grow" into your race are for cultural development.

I wanted to explain, quickly, why we are not doing it this way. The reason is, we are going to avoid having feats with a racial or class specific requirements. Feats should be something anyone can pick up, since talents, by their very nature, are limited by class and (now) race. So, the reason an elf's inborn biological gifts are all given in one talent is so an elf can have them at first level and no one else can. The half-elf will not receive the same first level abilities as an elf, but will be able to pick talents up, since they are a part of her heritage.

Obviously, not all talents will be based on heredity, just the starting talent each race receives for free at first level.

What do you think?

 

[olshanski]

If you take the number of views for this thread, and divide by the number of posts, you get just over 14. While not a true representation, it does indicate that at least 14 people are reading this thread.

With that in mind, I'd like to hear from some of you guys that haven't posted yet, just to make sure we're not catering Fantasy Concepts to the most vocal parties. That's one of the reasons I ask for thoughts and input, so that I can see what people think and desire in a finished product of this nature. So please feel free to speak out, so your voice can be heard.

With Regards,
Flynn

This is a very interesting thread, I've been following it closely.
My input is not even close to the kinds of things other people are saying, but here goes:
1) I'd like to keep the core d20 mechanic. That was brilliant.
2) I'd like to keep "levels"
3) I'd like some serious pruning of a LOT of D&D bloat. Fewer classes, fewer feats, fewer spells, fewer skills, less equipment, fewer conditions, fewer special attacks, fewer energy types, fewer special materials, fewer multipliers, fewer "conditional attacks" (sneak attacks, flank attacks, high ground, invisible, blinking, smite, rage, power, touch, incorporeal touch, energy drain) fewer everything. If the rules could get down to 30 or less pages of "crunch" that'd be great... something so that new players (wives, children) could figure out the rules without needing to devote one or more months of reading the rules.

I guess I am not so much interested in a port of SAGA to D&D as I am interested in a wholesale gutting an pruning of D20. Was it here that I read the quote about desgning? "You aren't finished when you have nothing else to add. You are finished when there is nothing else you can take away".

 

[Flynn]

Accustomed Skill: Perception. An elf may always take 10 on Perception rolls.

Pssst.... This is how I would phrase this particular ability, based on a Saga philosophy:

Heightened Awareness: An elf may choose to reroll any Perception check, but the result of the reroll must be accepted even if it is worse.

Take 10 is only allowed to those skills in which you are trained.

As for the way that Conditional Bonus Feats are worded, here it goes:

Conditional Bonus Feat: A character with {skill} as a trained skill gains Skill Focus({skill}) as a bonus feat.

Replace {skill} with the actual name of the skill, of course.

Hope this helps,
Flynn