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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris_Nightwing" data-source="post: 3633709" data-attributes="member: 882">This may turn into a long postHey again Flynn, I've been following the thread with interest and thought I'd voice my thoughts!I'm not particularly interested in using all aspects of the Saga system to create a fantasy game. In particular, when taking a typical D&D game as a starting point, some aspects of it would not fit, such as using the same statistic for reflex saves and defense/AC - classically it's the warriors with the AC and the rogues who avoid taking area of effect damage and such. Similarly we mustn't forget that the skill system in Saga is designed with Star Wars cinematic-type situations in mind and so for a more D&D-esque game it will need adjustment.Wizards have obviously been experimenting (and probably watching threads like this) carefully with other systems since they more or less finished everything they could do with basic 3.5e. We've seen d20 Modern, which has some excellent concepts, a bunch of different magic systems, fighting styles and that sort of thing from complete books, and now Saga. If they're working on 4e, which they ought to be, they'll be combining everything they've seen and heard about from the community over the years. It wouldn't surprise me if something that either Flynn or BFG create is a nice precursor to the official system. I don't want to put you guys off, but if you're thinking commericially, consider your payoffs as well as legalities!Now for the crunchy bits! With regards to classes, I think you have to go with a 4 or 6 class system. 4 classes provides a warrior, a rogue (including all the charismatic stuff), a mage and a priest or holy type (priest doesn't sound right, there must be a more generic name). A bit like the old 2e class sets. 6 classes would be more the stat-based d20 Modern point of view, I guess with constitution representing the wilderness type abilities (barbarian, ranger, druid). Within those classes you need talent trees to cover most of the 3.5e abilities that currently exist. Don't be afraid to get rid of some, or make some into feats, or move some feats into talents, or just make up entirely new ones that still fit an archetype of the class. Also consider that sticking the talent/feat/repeat advancement doesn't work well if you make +1d6 sneak attack a talent, so why not key it to something (class level, base attack bonus, defense bonus, whatever) and have it advance to some level as the character does. This works nicely for spellcasting, as you can make a talent tree which is 'cast levels 1-3', 'cast levels 4-6' and cast levels '7-9' (or split that to 7-8 and 9 if you feel). The only challenge I've found in thinking in these terms is deciding how an ability will advance, to what level before another talent is needed and whether it's horribly exploitable.With regards to the magic system, Vancian all the way baby. It allows for wonderful resource management, gives you quirky individual spells and provided you balance spells in a given level, provably works. As for prestige/advanced classes, yes, they're needed. However, I don't think they should be necessary. Make your base classes span 20 levels, with high level generic talents (high-level spells, extra attacks, amazing healing or domain abilities, assassination etc..). Then advanced classes can represent something specific, paladins, rangers, bards, for instance, a bit like the old days there. Prestige classes really should be annoying to qualify for but have decent abilities for the trade-off, so archmage, hierophant, etc.I've got about a dozen more ideas. If it wasn't for a full time (well, more than full-time really) job, I'd have made my own complete version about a year ago. Instead I'll pester you guys <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />. If I don't sound like a madman and you're interested in my thoughts, then do email me! Sneak previews - making PCs harder to kill outright with a small easy fix, fixing healing/resurrection so it doesn't, well, suck, separating racial abilities into inherent and background (dwarf raised by elves anyone?) as well as other suitable backgrounds which give players customised skills and feats to begin with, wizards who have more to do than shoot a crossbow at 1st level, a narrowed skill set from 3.5e and caster levels even when you're not levelling up as a caster (shock horror, no 500 prestige classes to cover every combination of 2 spellcasting classes).One more thing. From an obssessive compulsive point of view, and just because it's neat, do everything in threes. Ability, improved, greater, it's worked so far, it looks good in d20 Modern and I just darned like it!</blockquote>

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