Skill-based d20 balancing?

[Heretic Apostate]

In another thread, it was mentioned that a skill-based (as opposed to class/level based) d20 system is impossible to balance. I can see this as being so, but I'm hoping people have other opinions and can provide examples.

(This is an off-shoot of my desire to produce some Frankenstein-like amalgam of D&D3E, D20Modern, Alternity, and GURPS: something with the modularity of 3E/D20M/Alt and the non-epic feeling of "realistic" GURPS Fantasy.)

So, thoughts, opinions, options?

 

[DanMcS]

I should have a list of links I can just cut and paste whenever someone asks this question, we seem to see it once a week. Not that it isn't interesting to talk about.

To make D&D entirely skill based, including BAB, BDB, magic-using, plus all the things that are already considered skills, you'd end up changing it so much that it wouldn't be recognizable as D&D. It's not impossible, but it's a lot of work. Plus, you'd just be re-inventing the wheel, there are already skill-based systems out there. If you really want one, use it.

Problems: For instance, BAB would be a super-skill. Characters would max it out all the time. And why wouldn't they? Say you have one combat and one skill-challenge in a night (climbing a wall or whatever). In that one combat, you're going to roll to hit at least once a round for the 10 rounds or so the combat takes. You'll roll climb once or twice, total. Your other skills (jump, swim, open locks) wouldn't be used at all. Strictly on a per-use basis, BAB is the best use of a PC's skill points. To make it more balanced with other skills, you'd need to divide it up into something like swung weapons, thrusting weapons, pole weapons, or however else you divided it.

Plus, it would start at +4, instead of +1, so people would hit much more at lower levels. You'd have to adjust enemy ACs or hit points to compensate. Or you could max out skills at =level instead of level+3, but then a DC 15 challenge, normally considered appropriate for a 1st level character with that skill as a class skill, is really too hard for a 1st level character to be expected to succeed at regularly, so you have to scale down the DCs of normal checks. Or else 1st level characters become incompetant boobs, and that's not real fun to play.

And skill-based magic? Fuggetaboutit. You can't retain the feel of D&D magic with a skill-based system. It's hard to even get a work-similar, let alone a work-alike. I worked on it for quite a while and couldn't get anything I was happy with.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

There are just some things about D&D3E & d20Modern that just irk me. And Alternity is just too inflexible (what with the whole "no multiclassing" thing). But GURPS is too flexible--I need a little rigidity in my games!

There are certain things I want in a game:

A non-Vancian magic system. No fire-and-forget system, that is. But one that requires the use of spellbooks still. (Handled quite well, for instance, by Monte's Arcana Unearthed, where you have the spellbook of a wizard, but the spells readied of a sorceror.)

Spells that don't decimate entire city populations. (Which, I guess, could be handled by limiting the top level of magic.)

Fighters that don't decimate entire city populations. (Some of those feats are too much...)

A hit point system with consequences. No "you've been skewered by a sword, so you lose 12 of your 150 hit poiints" situations. (I'm hoping that a VP/WP system, matched with the critical rules from Torn Asunder, might help with that.)

A more gradual scaling system for pseudo-levels. (So while a "20th-level-equivalent fighter" is much more skilled than a "1st-level-equivalent fighter," an encounter with a dozen city guardsmen will still cause experienced adventurers to fear for their safety.)

Stuff like that. A mixture of GURPS, d20Modern, d20 third-party products, D&D3E, and Alternity. All in one unholy mess with house rules sticking out all over the place.

 

[swrushing]

Well, with MnM you have an OGL, not quite D20, that is point buy construction. having been GMing it for a while, and just concluding my 3 yr dnd game toio, I can say i do not see any more severe balance issues in MNM than in DND.

The thing you LOSE when you give up classes is not balance but description.

If your character is hurt in a DND world and you need healing where do you run to? The temple? Sure. How did you, the player, know this? because the classes told you that and much much more about the world you are in.

Classes are most useful in worlds much different from ours,. The bigger the "knowledge of the world around me" gap between player and character, the more classes become informative tools which serve as helpful encyclopedias about "whats the world like."

If i was to run a fantasy game using the MNM system, its very doable and balance would not be any worse than In DND. However, what I would have to do ahead of time is write up a lot of "the world is like this" and "you can buy that but only after this" info so my players would understand the environment their character grew up in.

For fantasy games or really alien scifi games, i actually find classes very useful. Midnight is one of the best systems for having class and culture very much intertwined , complinentary and informative.

For modern stuff, where the player knowledge of the world gap is slim to none, I find classes not all that helpful, still useful in some ways, and i prefer for any classes used there to be very customizable.

But again, balance is not to me an issue, either way.

 

[DanMcS]

There are just some things about D&D3E & d20Modern that just irk me. And Alternity is just too inflexible (what with the whole "no multiclassing" thing).

Alternity pretty much allowed you to do without classes altogether. The classes were more like beginning packages, templates really. Make all the skills class for everyone, come up with a way to figure that one stat that was class-dependant (base initiative maybe? Something like that.) And then run with it as a point-based system. You don't need multiclassing in a point-buy.

Matter of fact, even without dropping the classes, it didn't need multiclassing, since anyone could buy any skill.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

So how do I get MnM?

And what does the acronym stand for?

It's not Malls and Morons, I take it, since the website is gone. What is it, Mutants & Masterminds?

 

[takyris]

Problems: For instance, BAB would be a super-skill. Characters would max it out all the time. And why wouldn't they?

Aha. That's why you don't turn BAB into one skill. You turn it into about eight skills. In the whacked-out thread that just got moved here (mine), I had combat skills as something like:

Combat: Stabbing (any piercing weapon of medium-size or smaller)
Combat: Cutting (most slashing weapons, where damage is delivered along an edge -- primarily longswords, scimitars, falchions, bastard swords, sickles, scythes, etc)
Combat: Bludgeoning (most bludgeoning weapons, plus axes and picks, which deliver damage via a single impact point rather than a slash across an area)
Combat: Reach (most pole arms and spears)
Combat: Bows (including crossbows for simplicity)
Combat: Thrown (including slings)
Combat: Flexible (includes chains, whips, and may include flails depending on realism level -- real flails didn't have very long chains, and so are more likely bludgeoning, but for these purposes, they might pop on in here anyway)

So that's seven skills right there. If you gave the fighter 8 combat skill points and 2 normal skill points, plus Int, per level, he'd have to spread them out everywhere to be a "normal" fighter. Or he could choose to be a really great swordsman who has no idea how to use a pole arm or chain.

 

[swrushing]

So how do I get MnM?

And what does the acronym stand for?

It's not Malls and Morons, I take it, since the website is gone. What is it, Mutants & Masterminds?

yup mutants and masterminds

green ronin

i would suggest frpgames.com for online purchase.

 

[DanMcS]

Aha. That's why you don't turn BAB into one skill.

I said that, later on in the paragraph.

Combat: Stabbing (any piercing weapon of medium-size or smaller)
Combat: Cutting (most slashing weapons, where damage is delivered along an edge -- primarily longswords, scimitars, falchions, bastard swords, sickles, scythes, etc)

Does anyone ever learn how to do one of these and not the other? To slash with a sword, but not stab? It seems like an odd distinction.

Combat: Bludgeoning (most bludgeoning weapons, plus axes and picks, which deliver damage via a single impact point rather than a slash across an area)

Yeah, tip-weighted swinging type weapons, nice grouping here. Needs a better name though, it's not obvious that picks belong to the "bludgeoning" skill.

Combat: Reach (most pole arms and spears)
Combat: Bows (including crossbows for simplicity)
Combat: Thrown (including slings)
Combat: Flexible (includes chains, whips, and may include flails depending on realism level -- real flails didn't have very long chains, and so are more likely bludgeoning, but for these purposes, they might pop on in here anyway)

Hmm. I'd probably go:

Simple Melee (medium and smaller spears, knives, most everything on the Simple Weapons list really, clubs etc). (Kamas, sianghams, etc go here, too, since they are really items on this list with funny names).
Simple ranged (throwing, and crossbows).
Bows.
Polearms.
Cutting (swords, mostly).
Smashing (blunt plus tip-weighted sharp things, still needs a better name).
Hmmph, this is hard. Wouldn't it be better to have an exotic type set of skills, too? So a hand-and-a-half sword would fall under the regular cutting skill, but a double sword would go under double-weapons. Ah, heck, I don't know.

 

[takyris]

So you did. Sunuvagun. My bad.

But hey, I got to make a cute little chart!