GlassJaw said:
Do you have a copy of that version? I would much like to take a look. As far as hp's go...eh. Even though you have a life meter in Thief, the whole point is to not get into melee combat. I think a non-hp system would reward and emulate that style of play.
I sure do. If y'gimme an email addy, and can accept files, I'd be glad to route it on over to you.
Alignment?!?! Bah, I say, BAH!
I definitely wouldn't use alignment in a campaign like this. The great thing about it is that even though there are distinctive factions, you never know where anyone's true allegiance lies. The Builders seem like a very lawful group but there are certainly members that have their own motivations. Some are good, some are certainly evil and probably not even lawful. It's obviouls that the Builders are a lawful organization and the Pagans are chaotic. But their "alignment" is only defined by the organization. Moral ambiguity is one of the attractions to the Thief world IMO.
Even Garrick himself is better without trying to figure out his alignment. He's just....Garrick. 'Nuff said.
I don't view alignment the same way as most, I suppose. To me, alignment is not how you act, but more the like the aliegence system in d20 Modern. If you're strongly Lawfully Aligned, you take on the Lawful subtype, and can be effected by Law/Chaos spells. The Order of the Hammer, for instance, would have enough members with the Lawful alignment that investing in a spell/item that dealt damage to all non-lawful critters in an area would be worthwhile. I don't view Alignment as something you can detect with low level magic, but somethign that modifies what magics you use and what magics effect you. I suppose I shouldcome up with a different name for it... I'm all about moral ambiguity, and I firmly believe that using traditional Dnd alignments in a thief game would simply render most people evil, and not be terribly useful after that. So, I'm throwing out the DnD magic system and the DnD alignment systems entirely, and building up from scratch.
Another reason why I like Grim Tales. For this style of game, I don't want "tons" of classes - I want options. I like you lose some of the mystique of the setting as soon as everyone within it is defined by a class and set of abilities. Grim Tales gives you an infinite number of combinations and you are only limited by your concept. I also don't want the feel of the game to get bogged down with mechanics.
I'm not very familiar with Grim tales, so I can't say one way or the other, here. you make a good point, and I agree thatthe DnD core classes are too restrictive for a thief game. I mentioned the Ultimate classes (I'll link to them eventually, I promise) because they have many different paths you can go with to get your class abilities. It's very useful to promote diversity even with a greatly reduced number of classes to choose from.
Again, I probably wouldn't. The organization a character or NPC belongs to should be the sole descriptor of someone's abilities. The members of the various organizations vary greatly within each. Why should each Builder have the same prestige class? Again, as soon as each Builder or Pagan gets reduced to a prestige class, some of the shadows get lifted off the setting.
A note on Prestige Classes.. I really do look at them more like Advanced classes from d20 Modern. 95% of the classes I make are 5 level classes, so you can easily finish 3 of them throuought your pre-epic career. I also don't think that PrC's should be tied to a group or faction either. I prever very generic PrC's that are based upon specialization of a task rather than a class that a group sponsors (with the exception of the Keepers, whom I'm still making a few PrC's for) . I don't want each group to be defined by it's PrC's, I want each group to have members of many different PrC's, because each group is made up of specialists in certain fields. Hell, I'll bet even the Hammers have Rogue-like characters to carry out the Builder's will in places where a common brother could not go... Hammer Assassin.. Now there's a wickedly evil idea..
I agree though that the magic system will have to be handled with care. I don't spell burn is necessarily a requirement but has to be extremely rare, limited, and difficult to learn. Most magic is certainly tied to items though. It's very rare that someone uses magic unaided.
I'd almost go so far as to eliminate actual spells completely. When magic is used in Thief, it has a much more "earthy" quality to it. They are more like magical "effects" rather than actual spells (although you could certainly translate existing spells to accomplish this).
In the Magic department, again, I'm going with EoM. It's very Element-based, which is a recurring theme in the Thief series. It can cover all the different types of Magic with it's rules (Divine magic from the Builder or Trickster, Arcane magic from the Elements fro the Hand Brotherhood, Necromancy from the Eye and Undead, Glyph magic from the Keepers, and anything else I can think of that I'd want to add). It uses spell lists instead of specific spells, so you can build a new spell based upon it's game rules effect, adding in whatever fluff you'd like. Very versatile, and if I keep it behind the scenes, the Players will never know what's going on.
I think that the feel of the game needs to be expressed through the characters more than the players. I'm playing with people who can seperate "You take 3d6 points of Law damage," and "as the Hammerite priest clutches his hammer rosary and calls upon the Builder to smite the heretic, sending a ghostly hammer flying through the air to strike your shoulder as you dive for cover." However, if you think you know another way to do it, please share.
- Kemrain the [Evil]
