New mechanic: Action Dice!

[YRUSirius]

If you find grammar and spelling mistakes (you will) - thanks for your patience, I'm not a native speaker.



I homebrewed something for my version of D&D Next, and I'm sure I've seen something like this on this forum before. Basically I made the expertise dice mechanic a global mechanic; every player character gets them. "Oh noes!" you might think, but please keep reading...



I gave everyone 3 action dice (3d6) per day. These "Action Dice" are like 3E action points. You can spend one action die to increase any d20 roll you don't like by +1d6 points. They replenish after a long rest. This way every character has a daily ressource.

(A nice side effect of 3E-like action dice is, that they can be a nice failsafe for the players. If a critical ability check doesn't succeed, they can use these drama points to increase their chance.)



The interesting thing now is that my classes all have different features how they can use this new daily ressource. For example fighters can "Power Attack" and spend 1 action die to get +1d6 damage. Or they can "Parry" any damage they or an ally get (a hybrid of "Parry" and "Defend").

Rogues can add +1d6 damage on sneak attacks when they spend an action die ("Backstab") or they can "Dodge" damage (if they move they can get 1d6 damage reduction per action die for one round).

Clerics can use their action dice to channel divinity (heal 1d6 damage or +1d6 holy damage). Wizards can "Strengthen" their spells by adding +1d6 damage when they spend an action die. There are various other ways in my D&D Next version where the rules interact with my action dice rules (races for example - humans get 4d6 action dice at level 1).



I like my concept of action dice, because this represents something like stamina. This ressource is a daily ressource, but it doesn't strain believability as much as martial dailies did in 4E, because action dice are like a maneuver/power point system. It might remind some of you of the 4E psionic or 4E essentials mechanics, if I'm correct. For example the action dice class features of the fighter can represent flexible daily powers that enhance the fighter's "at-will" attacks.

There are no real expertise dice in my D&D Next version. This results in overall lower round by round damage (no +1d6 fighter damage per round) and instead increases damage output over the course of one day (+3d6 fighter damage per day, or something like +1d6 damage per encounter if you have 3 to 4 encounters on one day). The amount of action dice a character can get increases (for example 5d6 at level 5 and 8d6 at level 10) so their potential damage output increases too.

I see this action dice system as a hybrid between 4E's common ground of powers, 4E's psionic enhancements, 3E's action point drama points and 3E's feats (my D&D Next specialities and feats could give new action dice maneuvers/effects).

Funny thing is: I'm designing my classes so that you could strip away the global action dice mechanic completely and you would have a game like AD&D without changing the balance between the classes (because everyone would lose their action dice mechanics). No action dice powered maneuvers or effects. Just pure attribute checks, attack rolls and spells.



What do you all think? Any important things I didn't think of? I know that I will have to get the correct damage/hp balance between pcs and monsters for example and that I might have to make wizard spells fairly low damage to keep the balance between fighters and wizards (because wizards get 3 dice at level 1 to enhance their at-will cantrips and their daily spells).

But anything else I might have forgotten?



-YRUSirius

 

[the Jester]

Sounds interesting. I'd be curious to know how it plays as compared to the standard 5e playtest methods.

That said, while playtesting, I personally plan to stick mostly to the rules as written in order to give accurate feedback.

 

[DogBackward]

I like the basic idea... but I don't think three dice per day, even at level one, are enough to really make it worthwhile as a primary "backbone" mechanic. Personally, I'd say the dice should reset with a short rest. That means you can't just use them all wildly each round, but you don't have to worry about having nothing interesting to do for the rest of the day if you have to use them all in a tough fight.

Edit: Although, now that I think about it, this is the sort of mechanic that would respond very easily to modifying the refresh rate. Some DM's might want them to refresh daily, and some per short rest. And it looks like, as a base mechanic that every class has, that would work pretty well.

 

[variant]

I never understand why people homebrew rules for a playtest. The point of the playtest is that you playtest the rules as written so you can give a report based on your results. I am also pretty sure that homebrewing like this and posting it on a forum violates the agreement you signed to participate in the playtest.

 

[YRUSirius]

I'm not posting my rules here, I'm just telling you all about it. I don't think this violates the agreement. I'm not publishing my variant rules word for word, therefore I'm not "publishing" a playtest document with WotC's copyrighted words. Though I'd really like to.

I know the purpose of the playtest and I think I know the intention of the designers. I can acknowledge that my variant rules aren't for everyone. But basically I'm doing nothing else than the real D&D Next designers: I'm proposing rules and players and readers can then give feedback about the feel and the mechanics. If someone likes this idea they could later take the official D&D Next "Basic" game and add my custom "advance" module. Homebrewing at its best.

The last two to three playtest packages weren't exactly my cup of tea and so I took the elegant and simple basis of the very first playtest and added the bits and pieces of the later playtest versions that I liked (dice pool for maneuvers and powers) and changed them to my liking by making this "action dice" mechanic (yes, I gathered it isn't THAT original; spycraft and all).

Back to my variant: I feel that taking the D&D Next Basic game and adding my custom rules might decrease the overall power of D&D Next character classes. Fighters don't have +1d6 per round at first level, but the potential to enhance their at-will attacks 3 times per day (equal to around +1 encounter power).

I feel like I took the balance of AD&D and added a little bit of power to them (not so much power like the later official D&D Next playtest packages).

My intention is to really play with my homebrew rules - I feel I can get to a pretty good "Best of D&D" that feels like D&D to me.

-YRUSirius