What are the "Roles" in True20, Etc?

[Arkhandus]

Save or die? It seemed like you could absorb quite a few hits in True20 to me, is that not so? And what about Savage Worlds, is that save or die? If it is, that doesn't seem like a good system to me.

It seems to me that good system would allow for the ability to minimize damage using the same mechanic that damage is avoided altogether. So if you barely get hit, it only hurts a little. Thus if the opponent is of appropriate level, you're probably not going to get clobbered.

Depends on the system. Many systems with a flat-hp-set or whatever, like Shadowrun, are more deadly and expect you to avoid combat most of the time, as in real life, because there's such a significant chance of things going awry and ending with casualties.

In Shadowrun even a veteran shadowrunner may die if some random goon takes a shot at him with an Ares Vigorous Assault Cannon (booyah! ), IWS Multi-Launcher, Death Touch spell, or Power Bolt spell. Of course, most of the time, if they're not a chump, they'll have some dice available in the right dice pool to try dodging or resisting some of the damage, but even then it'll be tough to avoid moderate, serious, or deadly wounds from an Ares Vigorous Assault Cannon.

What you're talking about though wouldn't really make D&D any better. It'd most likely just make anything further than 1-5 or 1-10 levels away from your PC completely ineffective against you or completely impossible to defeat, depending on whether it's higher or lower in level. Stuff that's more than just a few levels below you will be unable to damage you at all, no matter how many armies of them assault you simultaneously, while stuff that's more than just a few levels above you would totally demolish you and be untouchable by you.

In Shadowrun an experienced troll shadowrunner can pretty easily shrug off the attacks of all but the most deadly foes, by using magic or cybernetics to max out their Body rating (SR trolls don't regenerate, but they are exceedingly tough).

D&D heroes are expected to battle dragons and giants and whatnot at middle and upper levels. To do that with the kind of flat-hp-system you want, they'd have to become utterly, 100% invulnerable to all creatures that are several levels/hit dice lower than themselves.

And armies or legions of typical archers would never be able to fend off, let alone defeat, a dragon or giant that went on a rampage in the local kingdom. There wouldn't be much point in having armies, or henchmen, most of the time. Every kingdom would invest in training its few exceptional individuals to be very loyal and very powerful, while everyone else lives as lowly commoners, since they'd all be useless to the kingdom in any kind of crisis. This leads to other problems with having adventurers around, except for thoroughly-brainwashed state-controlled locally-confined servants-of-the-King adventurers.

 

[Anthtriel]

And armies or legions of typical archers would never be able to fend off, let alone defeat, a dragon or giant that went on a rampage in the local kingdom. There wouldn't be much point in having armies, or henchmen, most of the time. Every kingdom would invest in training its few exceptional individuals to be very loyal and very powerful, while everyone else lives as lowly commoners, since they'd all be useless to the kingdom in any kind of crisis. This leads to other problems with having adventurers around, except for thoroughly-brainwashed state-controlled locally-confined servants-of-the-King adventurers.

For what it's worth, D&D actually has that problem already. If the common soldier has only one or two hit dice, a low- to mid-level fighter with decent strength, a Spiked Chain and Great Cleave will ravage armies.

 

[Imp]

As I recall True20 has stacking aid-another mechanics that make coordinated attacks by groups of otherwise low-power individuals significantly dangerous... a troop of archers really does present a threat to large monsters.

 

[Pbartender]

...PCs depend heavily on the rerolls from spending Conviction points to stay alive in combat.

...or finding alternate, non-violent solutions to the challenges presented in the game.

 

[Goken100]

As I recall True20 has stacking aid-another mechanics that make coordinated attacks by groups of otherwise low-power individuals significantly dangerous... a troop of archers really does present a threat to large monsters.

Ya, that's the sort of thing that would make lower level creatures continue to be a threat (or allow players to threaten higher level creatures!). Why is it that heroes sometimes surrender in movies? They're vastly outnumbered! So there should be a mechanic to represent the difficulty of battling so many foes. Then you're set.

 

[Baduin]

...True20, unlike the current edition of D&D, has a strong narrative mechanic in the form of Conviction. The latter is more important, but is, IMO, separate from the damage mechanics - games with hit points can also have strong narrative mechanics.

True20 without Conviction would be really, really lethal, though. ....

Mechanically, Conviction is not a narrative mechanic (the only narrative thing about it is that you can regain it for good roleplaying, although you get 1 per day automatically). Conviction is mechanically an improved kind of hit points. It has the following benefits compared to standard hit points:

1) It does not allow to survive a fall from orbit, or anything similarly ridiculous. A really strong hit will kill you, conviction or no conviction. On the other hand, you can survive a lot of sword cuts with it.
2) It works not only against damage, but also against spells requiring saves. Accordingly, you have only one resource which allows you to avoid all kinds of adversities. Because of this, non-damage spells and damage scale better.
3) It can be used to fuel special abilities, both general and specific for a character.

In effect, the amount of Conviction left shows how long a character can keep going.

 

[Anthtriel]

Ya, that's the sort of thing that would make lower level creatures continue to be a threat (or allow players to threaten higher level creatures!). Why is it that heroes sometimes surrender in movies? They're vastly outnumbered! So there should be a mechanic to represent the difficulty of battling so many foes. Then you're set.

It's kind of inconsistant though. Sometimes you get surrendering heroes, sometimes you get the inverse ninja law or the Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.

 

[Baduin]

And, to answer the original question:

The roles in True20 are Adept (spellcaster), Warrior and Expert. They are taken from Unearthed Arcana.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm

Adept has magical healing. In fact, you only need a few levels of Adept to be competent in it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Mechanically, Conviction is not a narrative mechanic (the only narrative thing about it is that you can regain it for good roleplaying, although you get 1 per day automatically). Conviction is mechanically an improved kind of hit points. It has the following benefits compared to standard hit points:

1) It does not allow to survive a fall from orbit, or anything similarly ridiculous. A really strong hit will kill you, conviction or no conviction. On the other hand, you can survive a lot of sword cuts with it.
2) It works not only against damage, but also against spells requiring saves. Accordingly, you have only one resource which allows you to avoid all kinds of adversities. Because of this, non-damage spells and damage scale better.
3) It can be used to fuel special abilities, both general and specific for a character.

In effect, the amount of Conviction left shows how long a character can keep going.

Basically, it tries to do the same thing that hit points try to do, but maybe it is in fact better then hit points at it. Hit points only relate to damage, they have nothing to do with spell effects, social interaction and so on.

Hitpoints were created decades ago. Conviction (and similar reroll mechanics) is a newer concept, with the same basic goal.
I don't know since hit-point bypassing mechanics exist that rely on a single roll (like spells with Saves), but I wonder if the major reason for their inception was there to add a new element of "thrill" or danger to high hitpoint characters.
And so I wonder, if in a few decades, There will be types of attacks that don't affect Conviction?

Or are conviction/karma/action point/reroll based "danger buffers" an actual improvement/refinement of hit points, and will never need circumvention like hit points? (I hope so. )

 

[Gloombunny]

And, to answer the original question:

The roles in True20 are Adept (spellcaster), Warrior and Expert. They are taken from Unearthed Arcana.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm

Adept has magical healing. In fact, you only need a few levels of Adept to be competent in it.

This does not, in fact, answer the original question. Just because True20 calls them "roles" doesn't mean they aren't just classes. (Very broad and flexible ones, but still.) The question was asking about an entirely different kind of "role".