Tequila's D&D Revamp (in progress)

[Tequila Sunrise]

At the request of a couple fellow posters, I'm creating this thread to broadcast my efforts at revamping the 3.x system. I use 3.5 as my guideline in all things, as it is the game system that I know best. As such, I have organized my rules in the order in which they appear in the PHB.

My mission statement is straightforward: make the game simpler and more intuitive. I welcome any comments, critiques and suggestions. Keep in mind that I am unlikely to consider any critiques or suggestions that add complexity or 'bogusness' to the game.

Chapter 1: Abilities

Strength: physical power and endurance
Damage rolls.

Dexterity: physical agility and speed
Reflex saving throws.

Constitution: health and fortitude
Hit points per level.
Fortitude saving throws.

Intelligence: memory and ability to learn
Number of languages at character creation.
Skill points per level.
Spells per level.

Wisdom: intuition, instinct and willpower
Will saving throws.

Charisma: confidence, presence and social aptitude
Mana points per level.

At character creation, each score starts as a 6 and the following point-buy method can be used to increase each score (using 30 points):

7-1
8-2
9-3
10-4
11-5
12-6
13-8
14-11

A score of 10 is a +0 bonus, and each point away from 10 adds or subtracts a bonus.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Chapter 2: Races

I haven't done anything with races yet other than brainstorm a bit. Other than the classic fantasy races, I may include the following racial themes: Animal, Planetouched (template), Alignment, Dualist (large males, small females), Amazons. I'm fairly certain that there will be no Small or Large PC races, as I do not 'cushion' either size category the way d&d cushions Small creatures (enhanced threat range and carrying capacity, namely). I will however, provide smaller/larger Medium races with bonuses and penalties that are half those of true Small/Large creatures. (we'll get to exactly what those modifiers are in the DMG section)

Chapter 3: Classes

I have 2 'must-have' character archetypes (instead of the d&d 4): the warrior and the mage. The rogue doesn't do it for me as a must-have archetype (I even started a thread about this), and it's always felt weird to me that we need a different character to heal and another to blast.

I won't cut and paste the character charts that I have because they just get too messy. Explaining them should suffice, though, as they are very simple. The Warrior looks exactly like the Fighter except that at each odd level, he/she gets +1 Weapon Expertise which grants a bonus on all attack and damage rolls. There are no magic items in my system, so this bonus is VERY important. The Rogue is exactly a Warrior except they replace Weapon Expertise with Sneak Attack. Like all other specialty class features, I'm going to convert the rogue's into feats. I haven't got the spellcasting classes down completely, as I have a lot of ideas about them (magic has always been what fantasy is all about for me). The 'basic' caster class is the Sorcerer, which is a very customizable class. At 1st and every 3 levels thereafter, a sorcerer gains a bonus feat that can be used to buy feats from several caster-trees that I will create. There will be a religion-tree, a bloodline-tree and so on that will each make certain types of spells easier to cast or provide a similar benefit.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Chapter 4: Skills

The biggest change to this chapter is turning BAB into the Combat skill. Combat must be taken in a particular group of weapons, such as straight blade, curved blade, club or bow. Combat produces the Defensive DC and the Offense Roll, both of which are modified by Dex. A character adds his/her full ranks to the Offensive Roll but only half ranks to Defensive DC. I've given every class 2 more skill points per level than they get in PHB to account for the Combat skill, except for caster classes. Though I think maybe I should assume that every caster will take a full Combat progression, even if it means 1/2 ranks? I've been considering making a progressive version of Mage armor to suplement a caster's lack of Combat skill but I'm trying not to railroad casters into needing any particular spells.

Another change in skills is that I've converted Caster Levels into the Spellcraft skill, which is modified by Wisdom instead of Intelligence. Each spell has a certain requirement of spellcraft ranks to cast. Spell save bonus (which is rolled against the target's save DC) is merely a Spellcraft check.

One last thing that's always bothered me is Concentration being modified by Wisdom instead of Constitution.

Synergy: Bonuses apply at a rate of +1 per 5 ranks.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Chapter 5: Feats

I've barely started the feats chapter. As I said before, I'm converting all special class abilities into feats, creating more for themed-casters and changing existing standard feats. One thing for sure is that I'm getting rid of any feat that grants overall bonuses to skill checks (skill focus and the +2/+2 feats).

Chapter 6: Description

Haven't made any changes here yet. I've considered eliminating the chaos/law axis, as it can get very blurry, but I haven't been able to sufficiently convince myself. If I ever run a game with my new system, I'll have very much more historical type religions, rather than the d&d pantheon.

A thought that only today occurred to me: Me, the DM, creating premade characters that hail from specific organizations in the campaign world. Each would include a description of the culture and organization from which the character comes, including a value system. I've recently wondered why paladins are the only class with specific moral compunctions. This would also solve the problem of players that don't like to create characters; those who do can modify their characters as they see fit.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Chapter 7: Equipment

Everything is metric, because American units are just retarded.

Weapon groups are as follows: Straight swords (S), Curved swords (S), Axes (S), Morningstars (B+P), Hammers (B), Clubs (B), Bows (P) and Crossbows (P). Each have 3 to 5 different sizes (for example, the kukri to the falchion). In addition to being classified as Light, One handed and Two handed, each weapon has a required Str score (except for unarmed, gauntlets, daggers and kukris). All Medium sized weapons do one die of damage, from 1d3 to 1d12. Weapons sized for other size categories get flat bonuses or penalties (in +/-2 increments) per size category.

Armor is classified in 2 ways: the first is Light (just shirts of armor) which grants +2 Defence, Medium (piecemeal fashion-armor) which grants +4 Defense and Heavy (full body-coverage armor) which grants +6 Defence. The second is material: leather (can also include wood and bone: DR 1), chain (DR 2), scale (DR 3) and plate (DR 4). Like weapons, all armors have a Str requirement which replaces Max Dex and speed reduction though I am still iffy in my mind about this.

Shields are as in PHB except that heavy shields grant +4 to Defense; light shields +2. Armor check penalties mirror Defense bonus exactly.

I've left weapon and armor descriptions purposely vague, as I am no history buff and besides, every player has a different idea of what exactly his/her equipment looks like.

There are 5 grades of masterwork quality to replace magic bonuses. Masterwork weapons add +1 to +5 to Offense and Damage Rolls, while masterwork armor adds +1 to +5 to Defense DC and DR. Armor check penalties do not improve with masterwork quality.

As for item pricing, I have numbers for each item but don't know if they're perfect yet or even if it will matter. As masterwork items will be the only necessary cost to adventuring (because there are no magic items), I think that I will not even incorporate wealth guidelines into my system. Characters will acquire better masterwork items more by prestige than by looting (the King doesn't care how much cash you've stolen from his enemies, he'll only commission a new sword for you if you've proven yourself. And yes, you do need a King to commission a sword for you! All swordsmiths are jealously guarded by the aristocracy.)

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Chapter 8: Combat

Characters have a lot more hp; warriors get 24 at 1st and 12 every level thereafter, while sorcerers get 16 at 1st and 4 every level thereafter. The reason is this:

Healthy (3/4+1 base hp to full hp)
Full-Round Action: Free
Standard Action: Free
Move Action: Free
Free Action/No Action: Free

Injured (1/2+1 to 3/4 base hp)
Full-Round Action: 1 hp
Standard Action: Free
Move Action: Free
Free Action/No Action: Free

Disabled (1/4+1 to 1/2 base hp)
Full-Round Action: 2 hp
Standard Action: 1 hp
Move Action: Free
Free Action/No Action: Free

Dying (1 to 1/4 base hp)
Full-Round Action: 4 hp
Standard Action: 2 hp
Move Action: 1 hp
Free Action/No Action: Free

Dead (0 hp)

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Chapter 10: Magic

As mentioned earlier, each character has 3 save DCs that protect from many spells. Poor progressions range from 16 to 35; good progressions from 17 to 40. As casters must roll Spellcraft checks to defeat these DCs, a spell generally has a 50% chance of defeating a poor save DC and a 25% chance of defeating a good save DC. This might end up being overpowered for casters at high levels, but the d&d baseline is too blurry to use as a yardstick here.

I'm trying my best to give all spells effects that happen even when the caster's Spellcraft check doesn't overcome the target's save DC. For example, Charm Person shifts the target's attitude 1 category on a failed Spellcraft check and 2 categories on a successful check.

I'm doing away with schools of magic for the moment, and instead standardizing particular types of spells. For example, all fire spells catch the target on fire with a successful Spellcraft check. All acid spells deal less damage initially, but linger so that they deal more damage over time.

At the moment I am torn as to how to handle spell progressions: Should I use PHB as a guide (ex: fireballs do 1d6/rank of Spellcraft, but casters only learn a couple new spells per level) or should I do something different (ex: fireballs do a flat 5d6 damage, but casters learn a handful of spells per level). At the moment I'm leaning toward option B, as I would prefer for an adventuring group to only really NEED a single caster (with a wide spell selection) than to need 2 or more casters (one to heal, one to blast).

 

[Treebore]

"Everything is metric, because American units are just retarded."



So true. I wish we would fully convert to metric and get it over with.

 

[Land Outcast]

"Everything is metric, because American units are just retarded."

Woooooooooooohooooooo!!!!!!!!!!


BTW: in "Magic" I support option "B"... actually I support psionics, have looked at the system? I haven't seen psionics myself ever in game, but I feel that's the one way to define power of spells and nº of spells per day should be handled.

I like the Combat section... (Done a similar thing myself)

About the skills:
Sounds like a viable alternative to CL and Bab... and I was thinking exactly the same about concentration... I'm working on a combat use of Concentration... which allows to make a series of moves (either techniques, building momentum, finding the enemy's center, flavor goes with character) which end up dealing greater damage or have a better attack bonus, I'll post it on this forum eventually this week probably. You see how Constitution just didn't make it.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Everything is metric, because American units are just retarded.

I'd have no qualms with the metric system had I been taught it in school, alas that isn't the case.