The Ultimate (A)D&D Kitbash

[CleverNickName]

I would start with 3.5 Edition, but with a lot of heavy pruning:

- Promote bards, barbarians, druids, rangers, and paladins to prestige classes
- (most importantly) only allow material from the core rulebooks.
- Replace level drains with Con drain
- Cap advancement at 10th level, per the "E6" houserule.
- Get rid of the spiked chain, the dire flail, the two-bladed sword, etc.
- Remove magic item crafting. Period.

Then I would add some of the good ideas in Pathfinder:

- Racial hit points
- Levels of a favored class give +1 hp

Then from 4E, some of the improved (IMO) mechanics:

- The skill system
- The economy
- Two-weapon fighting
- Critical hits

Once I have "fixed" the game mechanics with these steps, I would use the fluff from the old BECMI boxed sets:

- The spheres of influence
- The paths to immortality
- The Mystara game setting
- Name level (this is where the "E6" houserule comes in handy)
- Castles, strongholds, and dominions for the players
- Clan relics (crucibles of blackflame, forges of power, trees of life)
- The Siege Engine rules for mass combat
- Class flavor (druids can't use metal, clerics can't use sharp weapons, etc.)
- Magic items are not for sale.

That's what I'd like to see, anyway. It is a work in progress; as soon as I find a "mana point" system for spells that I like, I am totally getting rid of 3.5 Edition's clunky Vancian magic.

 

[bmcdaniel]

Simple: 4e, but
* More simulationism;
* More fluff;
* Less concern about making everything balanced, in particular PCs could choose "cool" but sub-optimal powers.

 

[Reynard]

Simple: 4e, but
* More simulationism;
* More fluff;
* Less concern about making everything balanced, in particular PCs could choose "cool" but sub-optimal powers.

By simple you mean re-designing the entire game except for the core mechanic?

 

[WayneLigon]

I would combine the 3.0 emphasis on customization and the 1E idea of modular systems that can be interchanged without breaking each other (much).

I'd add on UA/True20's idea of archtypical 'classes' and pare everything down to Warrior/Caster/Expert, then build characters based on several 'paths'. For ease of play, we'd return to the idea of kits, plug-in sets of paths and abilities that mirror your major literary and genre figures: Old Wizard, Farmboy Hero, etc.

Instead of a million seperate feats, we have several overarching options that change based on level, 'class', and 'path'. We use some of the 'skill blocks' ideas from Iron Heroes and 4E to create customizable 'class' skills (really 'my skills') packages that go up per level, while leaving the rest of the skills as 'hobby' skills that you might pick up a few ranks in here and there; these are the things skill points get used for.

Weapons are skills, now, and we use something like the weapon mastery rules in Rules Cyclopedia for high skills in particular types of weapons. Of course you're going to know more tricks and be able to 'wring' more of of your weapon as a weapon master than some kid who just picked up a sword yesterday.

Spells are replaced by powers, which can scale and mutate according to options you choose and 'campaign dials' you set when you create a campaign. In essence, you create a new game every time you fiddle with these things. People can buy the various campaign books if they wish, which set these dials for them, or deal with them themselves. I can have a grim-and-gritty dark ages campaign where a notched sword is the equivilant of the atomic bomb, or a carnival-like magic-faire fairy-tale setting where we go to the moon on hippogryph-back to fight pistol-weilding space-hippos.

The last thing we steal is from M&M, where we replace the dice with just the d20.

It's $15, one book that's less than 200 pages.

 

[Lanefan]

We-ell, I guess my almost-ideal version of D+D is the one I'm running/playing...1e with 27 years of modifications and blatant idea theft from later editions. Note that sometimes this idea theft was quite unintentional, as it occurred long before the edition in question came out.

So, to get here, we:

- started with 1e mechanics, changed the flavour (e.g. Hobbits not Halflings)
- no ExP for treasure, then tweaked the advancement tables slightly
- simplified combat, no weapon speed, no weapon vs. armour, etc.
- slowly eased and then removed most level limits by race
- cut back on Elf bonuses
- slowly adopted the good bits of what became UA as they were introduced in Dragon e.g. Cavaliers, some of the spells
- made Barbarian a race (sub-race of Human) instead of a class
- put in our own crits and fumbles charts
- introduced the most rudimentary of skill systems (generic d10 roll to see how well you swim, boat, and ride)
- redesigned psyonics completely (and, in one case, ditched them instead)
- training rules adopted when advancing a level
- lots of other minor things that would take far too long to list off here

from 2e we took very little except some wonderful setting ideas and a few monsters, and wild magic surges

from 3e we took:

- tougher monsters (started this before 2e came out) so the game would scale better
- lots of interesting spells
- after a fashion, the Necromancer class (3e spells made this viable as a 1e class)

from Star Wars we took:

- a version of the wound-vitality point system (many years before SW had it)

from 4e I suspect we'll take:

- better design of encounter areas to make combats more dynamic

Were I to start all over again from scratch, I think I might do the process in reverse: start with the 3e mechanics but then change most of it to be more like 1e:

- feats reduced to an absolute minimum if kept at all
- prestige classes ditto, though take a few of 'em and make them base classes
- buffs and stat-boost items mostly disappear
- item crafting disappears for PCs (items can be commissioned through full-time artificers)
- random spell selection on starting or training
- d6 initiative rolled each round
- spells have casting times and can be interrupted
- AoO's almost entirely disappear
- polymorph and teleport use the 1e (i.e. risky) versions
- no cap on damage dice
- Con loss on death instead of level loss
- system shock and resurrection survival rolls put back in
- henches, followers, and strongholds return
- and lots of minor things or stuff I can't think of right now.

Lanefan

 

[irontyrant]

What a great thread. There are so many cool ideas that I have read. There are a lot of great posters here. I'm pretty much a lurker because everytime I post something on a board I tend to get banned for trolling or flaming( I'm the best example I know of how someone with a moderately high intelligence and an extremely low wisdom and a relatively low charisma should be role-played). Kudos to the Op.

 

[irontyrant]

What a great thread. There are so many cool ideas that I have read. There are a lot of great posters here. I'm pretty much a lurker because everytime I post something on a board I tend to get banned for trolling or flaming( I'm the best example I know of how someone with a moderately high intelligence and an extremely low wisdom and a relatively low charisma should be role-played). Kudos to the Op. You really got me thinking about thid topic. I have been playing

 

[irontyrant]

What a great thread. There are so many cool ideas that I have read. There are a lot of great posters here. I'm pretty much a lurker because everytime I post something on a board I tend to get banned for trolling or flaming( I'm the best example I know of how someone with a moderately high intelligence and an extremely low wisdom and a relatively low charisma should be role-played). Kudos to the Op. You really got me thinking about thid topic. I have been playing D&D since 1979, started with the

 

[irontyrant]

What a great thread. There are so many cool ideas that I have read. There are a lot of great posters here. I'm pretty much a lurker because everytime I post something on a board I tend to get banned for trolling or flaming( I'm the best example I know of how someone with a moderately high intelligence and an extremely low wisdom and a relatively low charisma should be role-played). Kudos to the Op. You really got me thinking about thid topic. I have been playing D&D since 1979, started with the Moldvay set and moved on to AD&D,2e,

 

[irontyrant]

What a great thread. There are so many cool ideas that I have read. There are a lot of great posters here. I'm pretty much a lurker because everytime I post something on a board I tend to get banned for trolling or flaming( I'm the best example I know of how someone with a moderately high intelligence and an extremely low wisdom and a relatively low charisma should be role-played). Kudos to the Op. You really got me thinking about thid topic. I have been playing D&D since 1979, started with the Moldvay set and moved on to AD&D,2e, RC,3.0, 3.5 AND NOW 4e.