WotC To Give Core D&D Mechanics To Community Via Creative Commons

Wizards of the Coast, in a move which surprised everbody, has announced that it will give away the core D&D mechanics to the community via a Creative Commons license.

This won't include 'quintessentially D&D" stuff like owlbears and magic missile, but it wil include the 'core D&D mechanics'.

So what does it include? It's important to note that it's only a fraction of what's currently available as Open Gaming Content under the existing Open Gaming License, so while it's termed as a 'give-away' it's actually a reduction. It doesn't include classes, spells, or magic items. It does include the combat rules, ability scores, and the core mechanic.

 

[Umbran]

Shudders. I mean third party arbitrators are needed but maybe some less currently biased ones than SPLC.

Can you explain why you think the SPLC is "biased"?

Mod Note:
I foresee the resulting conversation going something like this:

So how about we not do this, please and thanks.

 

[Jer]

Ok, ok, I'll check out Starfinder already.

You don't even have to buy the book - Archives of Nethys: Starfinder RPG Database - Home

(Though I personally find the physical book or even a PDF of the physical book to be an easier casual read than the archive. YMMV.)

 

[Minigiant]

Star Wars d20 Revised had "vitality" and "wounds" (terrible names btw) where your wounds were equal to your Constitution score (not modifier, score) and represented meat damage. They were protected by your vitality, meaning you would only lose wounds if you were out of vitality - unless you took a crit.

It's a cool mechanic that wasn't really implemented very well for a variety of reasons.

vstamin

Starfinder has Stamina, HP, and Resolve... Not quite the same thing, but pretty close to what you are saying.

The implementation may well not be what you're thinking about, though.

Mine has Fatigue (which adds up rather than being depleted), and Physical and Mental Trauma.

Your friends can reduce your fatigue fairly easily out of a conflict, and even when your ally does something cool via a critical success on a check, the whole team (who sees it) reduces fatigue by 1d.

I was hoping for a system with 3 pools: Stamina/Vitally, Morale/Focus, and Meat/Wounds.

With 3 pools you could start with more HP, but slow the gain of each. And make bypassing one or more of them major. And you could make more sense of warriors having tons of HP as they have more stamina to dodge and more focus to party attacks. It's a D&Dism to lump them all together and narrate what you think makes sense.

 

[Haplo781]

I was hoping for a system with 3 pools: Stamina/Vitally, Morale/Focus, and Meat/Wounds.

With 3 pools you could start with more HP, but slow the gain of each. And make bypassing one or more of them major. And you could make more sense of warriors having tons of HP as they have more stamina to dodge and more focus to party attacks. It's a D&Dism to lump them all together and narrate what you think makes sense.

3 I think is too many. 2 is about perfect.

 

[Minigiant]

3 I think is too many. 2 is about perfect.

I was thinking: 1d10 Stamina 1d8 Morale 1d8+Con Health for a Fighter for 16-17 HP at level 1.
Stamina is easiest to restore and levels fastest. Then Morale. And finally Health.

 

[Haplo781]

I was thinking: 1d10 Stamina 1d8 Morale 1d8+Con Health for a Fighter for 16-17 HP at level 1.
Stamina is easiest to restore and levels fastest. Then Morale. And finally Health.

Eww rolling for HP

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was hoping for a system with 3 pools: Stamina/Vitally, Morale/Focus, and Meat/Wounds.

With 3 pools you could start with more HP, but slow the gain of each. And make bypassing one or more of them major. And you could make more sense of warriors having tons of HP as they have more stamina to dodge and more focus to party attacks. It's a D&Dism to lump them all together and narrate what you think makes sense.

I can see that, I just prefer to have a “what you have left in the tank” pool and a progression of injuries, with physical and mental split.

I’ve considered dropping fatigue and having hits and such deplete you attribute pools, but I disliked it when vitality worked like that in Star Wars RCR

 

[Minigiant]

Eww rolling for HP

Then take averages.

The point is this te time for the D&D community to analyze the mechanics we use and not just follow the past or what TSR/WOTC/Gygax did. For example to me a 1st level fighter should have 15-20 total HP and the 1st level wizard 8-12 total HP. But theyare broken up into 3 Parts with 3 was methods to heal them. And at 0 Health, you just die. But at 0 Stamina or Morale, you just autofail some effects. Soyou get a ncebffer for fights,but if caught unprepared you go wrecked.

And come on. A Fighter should have double or triple the HP of a wizard of the same level. Us Fantasy fans are being ridiculous. I don't care how many pushups a wizard does in the morning, his HP shouldn't be anywhere close to that of a trained warrior.

 

[Haplo781]

Then take averages.

The point is this te time for the D&D community to analyze the mechanics we use and not just follow the past or what TSR/WOTC/Gygax did. For example to me a 1st level fighter should have 15-20 total HP and the 1st level wizard 8-12 total HP. But theyare broken up into 3 Parts with 3 was methods to heal them. And at 0 Health, you just die. But at 0 Stamina or Morale, you just autofail some effects. Soyou get a ncebffer for fights,but if caught unprepared you go wrecked.

And come on. A Fighter should have double or triple the HP of a wizard of the same level. Us Fantasy fans are being ridiculous. I don't care how many pushups a wizard does in the morning, his HP shouldn't be anywhere close to that of a trained warrior.

I'm fine with "encounter" and "daily" HP. Call it stamina and vitality, basically you shoot to have the class lose all of its stamina and a bit of its vitality in an average encounter. So a particularly tough encounter will eat much more into vitality, and you're dipping into it more and more as the day progresses. Could also take a page from Star Wars d20 Revised and say a crit does no extra damage to a target with stamina and just applies directly to vitality.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was thinking: 1d10 Stamina 1d8 Morale 1d8+Con Health for a Fighter for 16-17 HP at level 1.
Stamina is easiest to restore and levels fastest. Then Morale. And finally Health.

Wild idea. May be useless to you, but for some reason your post is what made me think of it.

What if you had dice for each, from d6 to d12, each with an ability modifier added to it. Enemy damage sets a threshold, so on average a d6 weapon attack would set a threshold between 5 and 8. You roll your Health Die, or Stamina Die, or Resolve Die, and if you beat the damage threshold you deplete a quickly regenerating resource but take no injury. If you fail to do so, you deplete that resource and gain 1 level of injury to the appropriate category.

So goblin attacks, 1d6+2, gets a 6. Your Stamina is High, Con (d12+4), and you get 10. You lose 6 Stamina, but gain no injuries.

Every attack is tiring to defend against, but mooks will very rarely actually take you down.