I was driving back home today in the pouring rain and got to musing about a d20 variant. I am sure something like this probably exists, as most permutations of d20 games do, but bear with me. This is just idle thoughts, and very much not thought through. Forgive the train-of-thought style of the post. I'm making it up as a go along.
So, everything is a skill, with a score from 1-20+. Most normal people are in the 1-10 range for the thing they're best at.
Melee combat is a skill, ranged combat is a skill, reflexes are a skill, climbing is a skill, magic is a skill, sneaking is a skill. Nailing down the skill list will be hard.
All actions are an opposed roll. Melee vs. Reflexes. Brawn vs. Brawn. But rather than actually opposing the roll, speed of play means you just have a static value next to every skill equal to 10+skill.
So if you're attacking a goblin, and your Melee is 6 and its Reflexes is 4, rather than rolling 1d20+6 vs. 1d20+4, you simply roll 1d20 vs 14.
A spell might be Magic vs. Resolve.
So far, so simple.
Now, character creation is a life path system. Each choice grants you skills. You choose:
Heritage
Childhood
Adolescence
Apprenticeship
For example, you might choose human, orphan, street gang, thieves' guild. Each gives you certain skill boosts, usually 1-2 max. When you start play, you'll probably have one skill at 6 or so, a couple of 4 or so, and a few at 1 or 2. And a bunch at 0. Let's say, for example, you end up with:
Melee 2
Ranged 3
Thievery 6
Stealth 6
Persuasion 4
Appraisal 3
Climbing 2
Running 2
Resolve 1
Wealth 1
A bunch of other skills 0
Or something.
OK, so that's your starting character.
You can thereafter takes classes. For simplicity let's say that's Warrior, Rogue, Mage. Probably there would be more. Probably dozens and dozens and dozens of them. They're small things, and each gives you a bunch of skill points. You can multi-class freely.
I haven't figured out hit points or health yet. I think maybe each class just gives you some hit points. Warrior gives you 4, say, while Mage gives you 1. Needs some thought.
You'll have noticed there are no special abilities of any kind yet. My thinking is that everybody basically has "spells" but the spells might not be magic, they might be maneuvers or tricks or stuff. Let's call them "exploits" for now (since that's a term I use in one of my own games).
You get one exploit at each level. Each class has a list of ascending exploits, either a linear path or a tree. Magic-wise, you'd choose a theme (fire, nature, enchantment, necromancy, whatever) and they would be paths/trees. The further down a path you go, the more powerful the exploit. Probably the hardest part of the game would be coming up with all the exploits.
Anyway, that's it so far. Not much yet. Like I said, a train-of-thought.
So, everything is a skill, with a score from 1-20+. Most normal people are in the 1-10 range for the thing they're best at.
Melee combat is a skill, ranged combat is a skill, reflexes are a skill, climbing is a skill, magic is a skill, sneaking is a skill. Nailing down the skill list will be hard.
All actions are an opposed roll. Melee vs. Reflexes. Brawn vs. Brawn. But rather than actually opposing the roll, speed of play means you just have a static value next to every skill equal to 10+skill.
So if you're attacking a goblin, and your Melee is 6 and its Reflexes is 4, rather than rolling 1d20+6 vs. 1d20+4, you simply roll 1d20 vs 14.
A spell might be Magic vs. Resolve.
So far, so simple.
Now, character creation is a life path system. Each choice grants you skills. You choose:
Heritage
Childhood
Adolescence
Apprenticeship
For example, you might choose human, orphan, street gang, thieves' guild. Each gives you certain skill boosts, usually 1-2 max. When you start play, you'll probably have one skill at 6 or so, a couple of 4 or so, and a few at 1 or 2. And a bunch at 0. Let's say, for example, you end up with:
Melee 2
Ranged 3
Thievery 6
Stealth 6
Persuasion 4
Appraisal 3
Climbing 2
Running 2
Resolve 1
Wealth 1
A bunch of other skills 0
Or something.
OK, so that's your starting character.
You can thereafter takes classes. For simplicity let's say that's Warrior, Rogue, Mage. Probably there would be more. Probably dozens and dozens and dozens of them. They're small things, and each gives you a bunch of skill points. You can multi-class freely.
I haven't figured out hit points or health yet. I think maybe each class just gives you some hit points. Warrior gives you 4, say, while Mage gives you 1. Needs some thought.
You'll have noticed there are no special abilities of any kind yet. My thinking is that everybody basically has "spells" but the spells might not be magic, they might be maneuvers or tricks or stuff. Let's call them "exploits" for now (since that's a term I use in one of my own games).
You get one exploit at each level. Each class has a list of ascending exploits, either a linear path or a tree. Magic-wise, you'd choose a theme (fire, nature, enchantment, necromancy, whatever) and they would be paths/trees. The further down a path you go, the more powerful the exploit. Probably the hardest part of the game would be coming up with all the exploits.
Anyway, that's it so far. Not much yet. Like I said, a train-of-thought.
