True20 is the ONLY 20 for me!
- Thread starter baileyrecords
- Start date
Nyaricus
First Post
I bought the print version from my FLGS, and I am interested in what I see. Personally, though, I am a min-maxer at heart. I know I am. True20, while interesting, wouldn't allow the same sort of system I am used to, where I can customize my PC up the ying-yang.
However, as a DM, I think it might be fun to play in a campaign using the d20 rules, since they are so streamlined - it would make adventure-making a snap!
Altogether, I was relatively underwhealed with True20, but interested enough to give it a shot.
Iron Heroes, as an alternative to D&D, garnered much more attention from myself and my group, to the point of one of my players (an aspiring DM
) buying the core book and the monster book too 
It's defintly neat, but it's just not my cup of tea.
However, as a DM, I think it might be fun to play in a campaign using the d20 rules, since they are so streamlined - it would make adventure-making a snap!
Altogether, I was relatively underwhealed with True20, but interested enough to give it a shot.
Iron Heroes, as an alternative to D&D, garnered much more attention from myself and my group, to the point of one of my players (an aspiring DM
) buying the core book and the monster book too It's defintly neat, but it's just not my cup of tea.
Very few are willing to open up their rules and give it away for free like Dungeons & Dragons. A few have but not many. Gaming would be much more fertile outside D&D if Vampire and Shadowrun had an OGL SRD <arg! too many acronymsPsion said:
>.Green Ronin comment about an individual removed is unlikely to follow in Wizards' footsteps by going down the SRD path.
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Chris Tavares
Explorer
Rather ironically, the entirety of the True20 mechanics is open content. So there may not be a separate SRD document, but there's nothing stopping anyone from writing one.
One minor correction: the skills simplification thing is in Blue Rose. In True20, you still have skill points that you spend on skill ranks. There is some simplification (at first level you choose X number of skills and they're all maxed out instead of spending skill ranks) but as you go up levels you're distributing skill ranks.
True20 is interesting, and if I had to run a D20 system it'd be my first choice, but Savage Worlds is currently my go-to system for personal stuff.
One minor correction: the skills simplification thing is in Blue Rose. In True20, you still have skill points that you spend on skill ranks. There is some simplification (at first level you choose X number of skills and they're all maxed out instead of spending skill ranks) but as you go up levels you're distributing skill ranks.
True20 is interesting, and if I had to run a D20 system it'd be my first choice, but Savage Worlds is currently my go-to system for personal stuff.
There is also a quick start PDF at the Green Roain True20 wed site that will give you a bit more feel of the game system.Mercule said:
LINK: http://true20.com/support/
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Well, the original post is somewhat deceptive IMO.Goblyn said:
Much of the "simplicity" of T20 is that there is currently very little material to support conversions. Simplicity's easy to achive if you skimp on options (q.v. Castles & Crusades). We are trying a Star Wars T20 campaign, and we basically had no guidelines to work from. Eventually, someone published their homebrew T20 Living Force rules, and that's what we worked from, but even then much is ad hoc. You have to make up rules for any kind of specialized gear, and things like protocol droids that speak 6 million languages are house-ruled against the way that T20 handles languages. Note that I'm not saying this stuff is particularly hard to house rule, just that once you're doing it's kind of a cheat to give the system credit for all the great stuff you came up with.
However, my biggest beef is that the core classes--warrior, expert, and adept--are pretty skewed. Bear in mind tthat when someone praises the loss of a vancian magic system, what they're really praising is allowing spellcasters greater liberty in tossing out lots of spells. Slots (a "hard" control) are replaced with fatigue (a "soft" control; i.e. it's easier to mitigate) in some cases, while non-fatiguing powers are usable at will.
Likewise, when someone praises the loss of a hit-point-based damage system for a toughness save, what they're really praising is the effective removal of the "meat shield" role as a character (or rather, if not removal, then certainly a major demotion). Warriors have access to a feat called Tough that adds +1 to their toughness save, but that's kind of a slap in the face because it's such a small bonus that it basically requires a warrior to cash in several feats to get a decent bonus--and remember, all a character gets in terms of class features is one feat per level.
So, put the two paragraphs together, and you might start to get the picture. But let me make it even more clear. As previously stated, all classes gain one feat per level. However, adepts get to cash in their feats to buy powers. This is a pretty sweet deal since a typical T20 power is wonderfully potent numerous applications, and easily better than a single feat that's available to other classes, even taking fatigue into account (I provide some examples a couple of paragraphs down).
But wait, there's more. Every class gets a core ability at first level--this is your reward for taking your first level in that particular class. Experts can spend a Conviction point to gain 4 ranks in any skill. Warriros can spend a Conviction point to remove minor wounds from their character. Adepts? Adepts can spend a Conviction point to emulate any power. Oh, and they get a second ability that allows them to remove all fatigue penalties from their character (remember how I referred to fatigue as a soft control earlier?). Bearing in mind that there are few skills that can't be outright trumped by powers, and that there are powers that can heal your wounds (even the not-so-minor ones), who has the better deal?
I played briefly in a T20 fantasy session. The adept could Teleport home whenever he felt endangered or needed something or was just bored, could blast mobs with a variety of artillery, could use Object Reading and Mind Reading to solve mysteries, could detect ambushes with Sense Minds, and could fix his boo-boos with Cure. Oh, and whenever it seemed like a warrior's superior combat bonuses gave that class an edge, the adept could dispel that illusion by revving up Combat Sense.
Now, don't get me wrong. This won't be a problem for everyone. Lots of folks don't mind one character that can routinely dominate any given scene--someone's gotta be Gandalf or Anikin, and someone else has got to be Pippin or Jar Jar, right? But for me, seeing how easily a rules-savvy adept can marginalize other characters got old real fast.
As for our Star Wars T20 game, the GM simply put enough work into limitng adepts that they're reasonably capable without being over-the-top.
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