Would this be too much bookkeeping?

[the Jester]

I've been working on a D&D system that will take the best things from each edition to build a system that is absolutely perfect for my personal tastes (and prolly okay for some people, not too cool for some others). Anyway, I wanted to get some feedback on whether a mechanic I'm strongly considering requires too much bookkeeping.

Basically, instead of powers, anyone can try to pull maneuvers by spending action points. A maneuver might be a bull rush, trip, dual wield, charge, total defense, etc. A character prolly starts the day with somewhere between 4 and 6 action points, and a lot of the tricks you can do require you to spend action points. By the same token, characters will gain more action points quite often. For instance, a fighter gains an action point each time he hits an enemy; he gains 2 APs when he scores a critical hit and he gains 3 APs when he drops a foe.

So let's take a hypothetical dwarf fighter in this system, Dwarfy McDwarferson. Each day he starts with 6 APs (4 + 2 for high Strength). He goes adventuring with some useless elf and halfling, and they run into goblins.

In the first round, Dwarfy charges (cost: 1 AP) and hits (gain 1 AP). He comes out even at 6 APs.

In the second round, he is surrounded, but he's bad ass with his axe and he starts laying about him. Because of his Power Attack feat, he can spend an action point for +2 melee damage, so when he hits (gain 1 AP) he does it (spend 1 AP). This drops the goblin (gain 3 APs), and he now has 9 APs.

Then he decides that he needs to kick more ass, because there are still four goblins surrounding him, and he spends 3 APs to take an extra standard action and makes another attack, but he misses. It's close enough that he spends another action point to add 1d6 to his roll, but he still misses, ending the round with 5 APs.

Etc... would this be horribly annoying? Or would it be tolerable?

 

[Sammael]

IMO, this sounds similar to the Iron Heroes token system, which I found too fiddly. It would be tolerable if it replaced some other resource-management mechanics, but I'm still not sure its benefits outweigh the added complexity.

 

[Stormonu]

I agree, I would have used the Iron Hero system, but the tracking tokens turned me off.

At the same time, both wizards and psions have a similar system, and they do have to track resources all the time. However, their points/resources are set before combat begins and it isn't added to; you simply count down your resource as it is used, which generally makes it easier to follow/track.

I made a system for my fighters called an "adrenaline surge" that basically gave them points for special effects - somewhat along the lines of the Tome of Battle maneuvers. Again, this was something that the character had a set amount and it simply went down as maneuvers were expended during the course of the adventure (my test player had about 3-4 points for his fighter character, total). My test player really enjoyed it, and it didn't seem to slow things down noticeably - in fact, it tended to speed combat up as the fighter really tore through enemies.

 

[Dausuul]

I think an Iron Heroes-style token system (which this is, as far as I can tell) is quite workable as a resource management tool, but it should be the only form of resource management used in combat, aside from the all-important action economy. And there should be strong incentives to not build up more than a few tokens in the pool, no more than 1-3 most of the time.

 

[LostSoul]

I think it could be interesting if the things that triggered AP gain were interesting. Something like "Fighting an enemy one-on-one".

It would be a lot to track, so you'd want to make the tracking important. If you could tie that to some other areas of the game...


What's the goal? Why do you want to have this mechanic in place?

 

[ExploderWizard]

As presented I think its too fiddly. A set amount of badassery that can be spent is a cool idea but constant recharges and expenditures on a per hit basis is a bit much.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yes, I tend to think that overall, it's too fiddly. And I also suspect it will be difficult to "maintain" over the life of the system, assuming you ever intend to add something.

If you want a system to gain a short-term resource, my best guess would be to make it a dedicated, special action.

But even then, I know that quite a few players in my group don't like 4E Psionics because of the fiddly power points. (Even the Assassin is disliked due to his stacking-shroud-mechanic.)

 

[lkjopajdowma]

A side effect of this in regards to getting APs for dropping an enemy is that "kill stealing" could create problems.

 

[the Jester]

Good feedback guys, thanks.

Part of the goal is to dispense with the power system for martial characters. Another part is to assist in making it viable for high and low level pcs to adventure together. As you level you'll get more options (via feats) and some small improvements on things like your attack bonus, but nowhere near what you get now. Action points let everyone pull off cool tricks and maneuvers and tailor them to the situation. We'll see how it all works out- I'm playtesting a rudimentary version of the system this weekend sometime (and one or two people are going to make characters tonight either before or after the D&D Experience session).

Given your guys' feedback, one of the major things I'll be asking about is, "Is this too fiddly?"

odhen, good point about kill stealing, although to be fair, each class regains APs for different things. But that doesn't help the fighter, if the rogue finishes his target off!

 

[ExploderWizard]

Part of the goal is to dispense with the power system for martial characters. Another part is to assist in making it viable for high and low level pcs to adventure together. As you level you'll get more options (via feats) and some small improvements on things like your attack bonus, but nowhere near what you get now. Action points let everyone pull off cool tricks and maneuvers and tailor them to the situation. We'll see how it all works out- I'm playtesting a rudimentary version of the system this weekend sometime (and one or two people are going to make characters tonight either before or after the D&D Experience session).

Given your guys' feedback, one of the major things I'll be asking about is, "Is this too fiddly?"

odhen, good point about kill stealing, although to be fair, each class regains APs for different things. But that doesn't help the fighter, if the rogue finishes his target off!

Let us know how this plays out.

I'm knee deep in working on the weapon skill/ martial system for my own homebrew ( Heh, throw a rock around here and you will hit someone making up a game ) and started working on the same types of problems. I would like non-magical fighter types to get away from limited resource management for thier skills completely without the constant spamming of abilities which are too nasty to pull off all the time.

My answer to this is the gambit system. Gambits can be learned or improvised and the number/type available to a character depend on general martial competency and weapons/styles studied.

The implementation of the system hinges on the initiative mechanic which will be a straight unmodified roll determined every round. Instead of tracking points/uses, opportunities for gambits will depend on openings. Winning initiative allows for the possibility of an opening. The probability of an opening depends on general martial competency (fighter level).

So if the party wins initiative, fighters just have 1 die to roll. After that there isn't anything to track. All studied gambits will on the character sheet and all improvised ones will need to be judged on the fly anyhow.

I realize that this system is very unpredictable but for me this is design goal, not a flaw. Fighters won't suck if they are not able to pull off a gambit. Basic weapon damage will be skill dependent too so a skilled swordsman will be pumping out great damage without using a special move.

Still a lot of work to do before its ready for prime time.