My own take on d20: H20 [Help much appreciated]

[StormingMarcus]

Goodmorning to all of you!

I'm here asking for help for a project that unfortunately has recently grown stale.
About eighteen months ago, I wanted to try my personal version of the most famous OGL system. I started some topics on an italian forum, and gauged some interest from the users.
As I could have expected, that interest slowly faded away, so I'm asking if you are willing to help me shaping that roleplaying system. It should be a sword&sorcery oriented system, and its principal sources so far are True20, D&D (3.5 & 4e) and also Fate (in its Spirit of the Century incarnation).

I have produced some documents (in italian) so far, but they are neither complet nor definitive, and the system is far from being ready for playtesting.

I have been slowly (very slowly) started to translate some of the material in english, and I will provide links if there is some intereset in the project.

P.S: H20 means Homebrew20, and yes, it's a very dumb placeholder name.


DOCUMENTS ELABORATED SO FAR
SPARSE NOTES ON THE PROJECT
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
RACES
FEATS
SKILLS
ERUDITE
FIGHTER
ROGUE
COMBAT
HEALTH & HITPOINTS
CONDITIONS
WEALTH
MAGIC

 

[Aus_Snow]

I am always curious to see what others have done, or are doing.

Sometimes, I end up contributing to these things -- whether I know it at the time or not! -- and so long as I have enough spare time, I'm more than happy to do so.

Unfortunately, I know practically no Italian at all. But as soon as any of 'H20' is posted in English, I'll certainly have a look, and comment (if I have anything to say.)

I'm familiar with 3e, True20, and FATE 3.0, so that might help. 4e, not so much, but I know some of the basics.

 

[StormingMarcus]

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Here is the character development document.

Now I am confronting the little I translated with the original docs, checking for differences between the two and correcting them.

Sparse Notes
There are three classes (or advancement patterns): Fighter, Rogue & Erudite.
Skill system is the 4e one.
Core mechaninc is d20 (a bit obvious), but I would not despise a 2d6 or 3d6 conversion.
Encounter and days are used as in 4e.
Looking for an abstract movement ruleset (SotC kinda have it, I'm trying to figure out how it actually works).
Spells are divised in magical attacks (usable at-will) and rituals.
Talents are unique to the classes, but characters with multiclass feat can still acquire them.

P.S: As you might have noted, english is not my first language. So, if you find misspelled words, convoluted sentences and so on, don't be afraid to show them; I'll be grateful.

 

[StormingMarcus]

Here are the others document translated so far; they are still works in progress and might not be up to date, so take them with a pinch of salt

COMBAT
CONDITIONS
HEALTH & HITPOINTS
FEATS
ROGUE
FIGHTER
WEALTH

 

[Stormonu]

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dftbgzkr_50d2jc5vds

Sparse Notes

Looking for an abstract movement ruleset (SotC kinda have it, I'm trying to figure out how it actually works).

I developed an abstract movement for my game as follows:

Adjacent: right next to each other, melee combat range
Close: within about 15 feet of each other, reach/polearm/point blank range
Short: within about 30 feet of each other, charge range or for fighting with ranged weapons at no penalty
Medium: within about 120 feet of each other, double-move range or for fighting with ranged weapons at a one-step penalty
Long: within about 240 feet of each other, two rounds of double-move or one running round away, or for fighting with ranged weapons at a two-step penalty
Extreme: over 240 feet away or so, three or more rounds of movement away, or for fighting with ranged weapons at a three-step penalty

 

[StormingMarcus]

I developed an abstract movement for my game as follows:

Adjacent: right next to each other, melee combat range
Close: within about 15 feet of each other, reach/polearm/point blank range
Short: within about 30 feet of each other, charge range or for fighting with ranged weapons at no penalty
Medium: within about 120 feet of each other, double-move range or for fighting with ranged weapons at a one-step penalty
Long: within about 240 feet of each other, two rounds of double-move or one running round away, or for fighting with ranged weapons at a two-step penalty
Extreme: over 240 feet away or so, three or more rounds of movement away, or for fighting with ranged weapons at a three-step penalty

Thank you for the suggestions, but my main concern is still to distinguish between fast and slow creatures, a thing that abstract systems can not do well.
Eg. an halfling can be at short range with a T-Rex (the halfling can charge the enemy), but the T-Rex will be at close range or even adjacent to the halfling (the dinosaur's reach lets it make melee attacks from that distance); thus, the ranges become relative and more complicated.

I am still to find an abstract movement system that treats speeds well; I think the relative approach is the only one that can do it, but it'll be more difficult to develop a system that kind.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Maybe Abstract movement for scenes can be simple as Range Distances... Think of each distance as a Increment or Zone (I think this is how its done in Spirit of the Century, but I can't remember)

Adjacent: 0 distance
Point Blank: 1 Distance apart
Short: 2 Distances apart
Medium: 3 Distances apart
Long: 4 Distances apart
Far: 6 Distances apart
Extreme: 8 Distances apart

Maybe creatures of different sizes can have a simple move like...

Short/Medium size = 1 move distance
Large/Huge = 2 move distances
Gargantuan = 3 move distances
Collossal = 4 move distances

For a basic move action, and then if a person double moves, they move double, and a full out run action triples this. So, a medium person doing a triple move would move 3 Move Distances in the Scene.

For Firing into Range - a Simple mechanic could be:

Firing at Adjacent/Point Blank: +2
Short: +0
Each Distance after that is -2 penalty to die roll.

So, if you establish that a tavern inn is 3 Range Increments long then you can have people just say where they are in their respective Zone/Increment and play it from there. No need for messy miniatures or anything, and then this opens it up for more Narrative Stunt mechanics as well.

I think this could work very well in a d20 game, it just takes a different paradigm of thought to see the possibility of it happening.

--- I say all this without looking at anything you have linked, but I'll look at it later---

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Thank you for the suggestions, but my main concern is still to distinguish between fast and slow creatures, a thing that abstract systems can not do well.
Eg. an halfling can be at short range with a T-Rex (the halfling can charge the enemy), but the T-Rex will be at close range or even adjacent to the halfling (the dinosaur's reach lets it make melee attacks from that distance); thus, the ranges become relative and more complicated.

I am still to find an abstract movement system that treats speeds well; I think the relative approach is the only one that can do it, but it'll be more difficult to develop a system that kind.

It took me a couple reads to understand what it was your saying...

Have larger creatures have a Reach...
Tiny to Large sized have Reach 1 - they can only attack adjacent to them.
Huge have Reach 2 - they can attack up to 2 range increments away with a melee attack
Larger than Huge have Reach 3 - they can attack up to 3 range increments away with a melee attack.

So that gigantic T-Rex could have a Reach 2, so if he's two Range Increments away he can try to bite that halfling, who has to get closer to try to hit the T-Rex. Poor little halfling going to be eaten

 

[StormingMarcus]

Stacie, your proposal is great!
Thank you very much!
I am going to tie that mechanic into the system, but it seems it would not be a hard work.
As long as I finish, I will provide a link to the updated doc.

Feel free to comment anything else you find interesting or improvable.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Stacie, your proposal is great!
Thank you very much!
I am going to tie that mechanic into the system, but it seems it would not be a hard work.
As long as I finish, I will provide a link to the updated doc.

Feel free to comment anything else you find interesting or improvable.

Your welcome honey. Now, if you ever publish this, I get a playtester credit

And thank you...if I can help somebody out that's all I want to be able to do...of course, if you want more help and if I can give it, I'll be happy to do so.