Has anyone attempted to gamma world(ize) D&D?

[Evenglare]

Sure gamma world came from D&D, but the ease and simplicity of gamma world made me begin to think. It would be pretty cool to take gamma world concepts and implement them for D&D for a quick and easy Game. Let me explain.

Origins could be divided into say... 6 races, and 12 classes or something. Even more if you wanted. Im just throwing some stuff out here ...

Roll a d6 for your race. (something just off the top of my head.) Each race has a Primary stat. This stat begins at 18...
1-Human (Str)
2-Elf (Dex)
3-Dwarf (Con)
4-Halfling ( Wis)
5-Gnome ( Int)
6-Half Elf ( Cha)

Roll a d12 for random class... each class has a secondary stat.. that begins at 16...
1-Fighter (Str)
2- Rogue (Dex)
3- Wizard (Int)
4- Cleric (Wis)
5- Paladin (Cha)
6- Monk (Str)
7- Sorcerer (Cha)
8- Bard (Int)
9- Barbarian (Con)
10- Druid (Wis)
11- Ranger (Dex)
12- Psion (Int)

If both race and class are the same stat, begin at 20...

Max level goes to level 10...

Each race/ class grants one power thats unique (usually at will)... so you will have 2 at will powers.

Add +level instead of +1/2 level.

Each class would grant a +4 bonus to a certain skill, as well as rolling for an additional random skill. (see gamma world for more info on this...) .

Xp is greatly reduced for level gain. You would also gain a critical hit benefit at level 2, at level 3 get a utility power from race or class, etc etc.
Sure we dont have alpha powers or whatever, but those could be replaced with some sort of powers or something... maybe a feat type of thing pertaining to each class instead of alpha power....

Random item generation would be easy... basically roll on a table of (heavy/ light , melee/ ranged weapon) which would have generic stats, so there would be no short sword, or long sword, it would just be a heavy or light weapon of whatever you wanted.

Back to item generation, just roll for your weapon/armor, and then roll for a type (fire, ice , electric, sonic? , holy, shadow, ) Your weapon would deal +1d6 that type of damage, or armor would reduce that type of damage by 5 or something.

The object is to have a quick pick up and go game of D&D . I know you say essentials is that, but honestly its not as quick as gamma world. Anyway, comments ?

 

[Dice4Hire]

Something like this could work well. Organize it like th themes in Dark SUn, with one power of each level, and give races one power of each level, and you are good to go.

 

[Evenglare]

Ill start working on some drafts, and post it to see if anyone likes it. Never really done anything like this, so it probably wont look terribly pretty right now.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The most significant thing about GW is that is goes from a daily balance to an encounter balance. Days don't really matter, you could have a whole 1st-10th level campaign happen in one day. You get back all your hps after every encounter. There are no daily powers. There are no healing surges.

 

[Evenglare]

Gotcha, thanks for the tip, im re fluffing a lot of the stuff in gamma world so i don't accidently break the system to much, such as elf > as the speedster, and human as the engineered human except str based..... I'm using a lot of the essentials race stuff for the racial abilities that you get similar to when you select your origins. Haven't touched class stuff yet, i assume it wont be to dissimilar. Im still at odds on what im going to do with the Alpha powers, im thinking have a small feat section or something. Perhaps even randomized? Not sure yet. Suggestions would be helpful.

 

[OnlineDM]

This is a good idea - I'm surprised no one has tried it yet! (Maybe someone has and I just haven't heard about it.) It sounds like "quick-start, streamlined 4e," which might be a lot of fun, especially for one-off games.

You'll have to think about whether you want to do Gamma World style healing (Second Wind as a minor, and you regain half of your maximum HP) or regular 4e style (Second Wind as a standard, and the Leader role can hand out healing as a minor; value healed is a quarter of maximum HP plus possible bonuses). I agree that doing away with surges and daily powers is the way to go - have everything recharge at the encounter level. If you go with Gamma World style healing, what will be the benefit of being a Leader class? On the other hand, if you go with 4e style healing, what happens if no one happens to roll a Leader class?

If you want to make use of actual daily powers, you can make your equivalent of Omega Tech into dailies. So, take Flaming Sphere and make it a special power that you can discover and use once, with the possibility of it sticking around for another battle depending on your saving throw roll at the end of combat.

Hmm, yes, I think Alpha Mutation = Feats and Omega Tech = Daily Powers could work pretty well. You can also have utility powers in your Alpha Mutations and magic item daily powers in your Omega Tech, but I think the general idea of having random bonuses that come and go instead of choosing feats and daily powers could be a lot of fun.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

 

[Evenglare]

Awesome, i havnt even looked at omega stuff yet , im just trying to get down everything class and race wise... I may have omega tech be some weapons that have some sort of cool power associated with it. Either way ill keep everyone informed. I'm going to try and stay away from dailies if possible, but who knows .

 

[RangerWickett]

I considered homebrewing a system that would break up current class archetypes into two 'half-classes' each. Then you'd make your class Gamma World-style by picking any two half-classes and gaining their powers at varying levels.

So, like, Lightweapon Sneak = Rogue. Greatweapon Tank = Fighter. But you could also do Lightweapon Tank or Greatweapon Sneak. (Or Pyromancer Commander, Beastmaster Demon-killer, Kung-fu Shapeshifter, and so on.)

 

[Locien]

What I thought of when reading the thread title was of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world; then I thought of a campaign where the characters try to go back in time to the apocalypse to kill the source of the destruction, fighting past the corrupted world left in its wake.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you're going to try your hand at creating origins, check out this thread on the WotC forums:

Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible