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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5778220" data-attributes="member: 59082">@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=54877" target="_blank">Crazy Jerome</a> , I'm not really sure what you mean by "hook?"A couple things. I would think the best way to go about designing a complexity dial system is to think of the core (simple) baseline and a default level of complexity that would represent the sweet spot for most games. If we're using the often-used RPG terms rules lite, medium, and heavy, and let's say that 1 is lite, 2 is lite-to-medium, 3 is medium, 4 is medium-to-heavy, and 5 is heavy, then I would think core should probably be set at 2 and the default "advanced" game at 4, but with the recognition that you can set the dial at 3 or 5 if you like (maybe even 1, but it is harder to "dial it down").In terms of skills, I would think the core could look something like this:Untrained: d20 + Ability Mod vs. target numberTrained: d20 + Ability Mod + Level Mod vs. target numberNow given that this is the core and needs to stay relatively simple but not too simple, I would posit that "Level Mod" would be pre-set depending upon class and choice during character creation and be of three varieties: Primary (full level), Secondary (half), and Tertiary (quarter, or increasing at 4, 8, etc). So a character would have a different level mod for every ability score, depending upon the class, and everything a character can do is tied into those ability scores. Every class would have one ability score that is primary (fighter - STR, rogue - DEX, cleric - WIS, wizard - INT, etc), one to three secondary, and 2-4 tertiary. Classes with highly specialized training (wizards) would be weighted towards mainly tertiary skills, whereas bards and rogues would be strongly weighted towards secondary skills; all classes would have some choices as to what is secondary and what is tertiary. In a sense, this would re-organize classes into groups based upon which ability score they have as primary. After that, you have all sorts of different configurations possible, depending upon what a player wants to emphasize and specialize in. That said, the one problem I see is that primary far out-paces secondary or tertiary, so it would be hard to make a balanced two-stat character ala the ranger or barbarian or paladin. It might be that primary, secondary and tertiary should increase akin to 3E defenses: +1 per level, +3/4 levels and +1/2 levels, respectively.For a more complex system, primary, secondary and tertiary are replaced by skill points, and the "accordion" of skills is pulled out from just ability score groups (e.g. STR) to broad skill groups (Athletics) and possibly specialties (Climb).Also, to  @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=56388" target="_blank">Wightbred</a> , I'm not sure why difficulty levels need to increase--actually, this has never made sense to me except in terms of game balance. Why not have static values of routine (say, 5), simple (10), moderate (15), hard (20), very difficult (25), herculean (30)?If the core skill rule is d20 + bonus + level modifier (which could be full, half, or quarter), then it gives a solid frame to work with, while the 4E system is rather "slippery" and it is hard to get a sense of what target number represents what degree of difficulty because it changes depending upon level.</blockquote>

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