Character Creation
Race – Humans only.
Class – Any, though classes that require the worship of a diety instead revere domains.
Abilities – Point Buy system with 30 points.
Hit Points – Hit Dice + Con modifier. At first level Hit Dice are considered to roll their maximum. If the character is in their favored class, second level is considered to roll maximum as well. Every level after that the player rolls their hit dice and keeps the result. If the character is in their favored class, that die result is considered to be at ¾’s maximum unless the die result is better.
Background – at creation, no player has a background for their character. In fact, no player should have a name for their character. That will come with play.
Hero Points – We will be using an altered form of Hero Points in the game. Each character will start each game session with 1 hero point. Over the course of the session, hero points can be earned through good role play at the discretion of the DM. These hero points can be used in any of the standard ways described in the core rule book. These will be represented by white poker chips at the game table.
Blue Chips – Each player will receive a blue poker chip at the beginning of each game. They can hand out those blue chips to other players at the table or save them. The DM can hand out as many Blue Chips as desired. At the end of each session, the player with the most blue chips will start the next session with an extra Hero Point.
Combat
Critical Hit – a critical hit is achieved when a player rolls an attack and the die shows a number that is within their critical hit range as defined by the weapon or attack. Rolling in this range is called a threat. A threat always hits the target. Once you achieve a threat, you roll your attack again. If that second attack roll hits the defense of the target, a critical hit is achieved. On a critical hit, the DM will deal the player a card from the Critical Hit deck. That card will describe a special effect of that hit due to it being critical, based on the sort of attack. If the weapon has an increased critical multiplier, damage will double for each increment over 2 of the multiplier.
Critical Fumble – a critical fumble is achieved when a player rolls an attack, and the result is a 1. Once the 1 is rolled, the player rolls a second attack. If this second attack fails to hit the defense that was originally targeted, the attack is a fumble. When a fumble is achieved, the DM will deal the player a card from the fumble deck and that card will describe the effect based on the type of attack.
Defenses - I prefer the Defense system of 4th Edition over the save system of 3rd style gaming. As such, we will be using Defenses instead of Saves. Each person already has spots on their sheet for Saving Throws. Your Defenses are equal to your saving throws +10. Any feat, ability, or modifier that would add to saving throws instead add the same bonus to the equivalent defense. Equally, any time an effect lists a Saving Throw DC, that number becomes an attack with a bonus equal to the listed DC -10. If an area-of-effect requires a save, it instead makes an attack against the appropriate defense of every creature that would normally have to make a save.
This is not a universal rule, but a general one. Situations where the save is being made, not as a reaction, but as an action, will revert to the normal standard. If a character throws a grenade-like weapon, for instance, every creature that would be effected would make a save to avoid. Additionally, situations such as when a character has to make a reflex save to avoid falling off of a cliff would still require a save.
Additionally, special substances or circumstances that represent an active resistance on the part of the defender, such as poisons or a magical effect that requires periodic Will Saves to shake off would continue to be saves vs. DC’s rather than attacks vs. defense. Think of it as such: the attacker is always rolling, whether that be a wizard attempting to consume a group of goblins in a rain of fire or a poisoned fighter attempting to expel the harmful material from their body.
Spells that have an attack roll already built into the spell already function exactly the same as they are printed; they are attacks vs. AC. If a spell has both an attack roll and a save, one or the other will be dropped, though I am unaware of any spell that has both. Spell resistance continues to function as written with no changes.
Evasion will function much the same way it always has, just in reverse. If a character takes damage from something that targeted Reflex, it takes half damage instead.
I believe that the math works out the same, probability works out the same; it just creates a more immersive system where the dice rolling is always on the side of the attacker. Additionally, this creates a much higher probability that magic users get to enjoy the critical decks as well.
Hit Points and Wounds – Hit points are abstractions. A starting level fighter has, on average, 13 hit points. An average hit from a long sword (1d10+3) does between 8 and 9 damage to that fighter. At first level, a hit from a long sword represents between 62% and 70% of that fighter’s hit points. However, at 2nd level, that same fighter has 26 hit points, reducing the long sword to doing between 31% and 35% of his total health. A fighter does not become 50% more resilient to the effects on a sharpened length of steel in his gut just because he’s adventured for a few months.
So it seems obvious that hit points do not represent actual wounds taken in combat. Instead, they represent a balance of energy, of vitality if you will, that a character has at their disposal. Think of it in terms of movie combat. A fighter gets pounded on by the orc warrior with the huge club, but keeps his shield in the way. While the fighter is not taking any wounds, per say, he is still being exhausted and worn down by the barrage. In game terms, he’s losing hit points, but has taken no wounds.
Wounds diminish characters, no matter how superficial they may be. A fighter that has taken a slash to the thigh is hobbled, while a wizard who got cut over the eye has a harder time seeing the combat clearly.
I’ve tried, in games, to combine a wound track with a hit point track, and never been satisfied with the results. I’m going to do something different this time.
A character will take a wound when it reaches 50% of its hit points. Whenever a character is critically hit, it will also suffer a wound. If a character takes more than their constitution score in a single hit, they suffer a wound. When a creature takes a wound, a location of the wound will be chosen, either by selecting one that is story appropriate, or rolling on a random table.
A cure spell can be expended to cure a wound, though it does not then also restore hit points. A monk’s Ki Healing will not remove a wound, though a monk can spend 1 ki to remove a wound without healing any hit points. Lay on hands will either heal the set number of hit points, or 1 wound, but not both. Natural healing will heal 1 wound per night of bed rest.
Each wound a character is suffering from gives a -1 modifier to all actions (anything rolled with a d20). This penalty is cumulative. When the total number of wounds a character has becomes equal to their constitution modifier (minimum 1), they gain the staggered condition for 1 turn. A staggered creature only gets 1 action on their combat turn. Any additional wounds that the character takes after the staggering one continue to add to the penalty, but will not stagger them again. A creature who enters combat with a wound already will be staggered when they take their first wound of the combat. A successful heal check at DC (15+1/wound currently suffering) will allow a character to ignore the penalty of wounds for (1 turn for every 3 that the check beats the DC). Note that this does not negate the other effects of wounds, just the penalty. Additionally, a Hero Point may be spent to negate the effects of a wound for the whole of the current combat.
When a character goes unconscious, each wound they have taken reduces the number of hit points negative they can be before dying.
A wound that goes untreated for 24 hours will fester. A festered wound no longer gives a -1 to all actions, but instead imposes a penalty based on the location of the wound. A successful heal check of DC (10+1/wound currently suffering) will delay the festering for 1 day. This DC goes up by 5 for each day after the first that the wound goes untreated.
As a result of adding wounds to the system, we’ve upped the difficulty of combat a bit. To accommodate for this, each character will begin each day with their full compliment of hit points so long as they got an appropriate amount of rest and no other factor is preventing full healing. This system only applies to Player Characters and a very rare few NPC’s. This system replaces the DM’s use of the critical hit deck for his own monsters, except in those rare few NPC’s.
Combat Rounds – I prefer a much more cinematic combat round. Combat Rounds are not assumed to be short intervals of time, but rather longer intervals. A combat round is, thus, considered to be roughly a minute in length. This does not mean that a character is only doing one thing per minute, or swinging his sword once per minute, but rather that the important things he is doing are what actions are being taken. Everything else is flavor and cinematic.
The fighter is in a constant state of giving ground and taking ground, side stepping and blocking and turning away attacks. He and the hobgoblin have been trading blows back and forth, not one flurry at a time, but rather in a fluid give-and-take with one giving a step here and then quickly taking it back. The fighter thinks he may have finally found a hole in the hobgoblin’s defenses, and takes a mighty swing at his foe’s head. Almost! Just in time, the hobgoblin got his shield up to block the fighter’s sword, but not without cost; the hobgoblin staggers a moment before recovering his feet, but he’s obviously had his bell rung. It’s all he can do to keep his shield between him and the fighter’s weapon until he shakes the cobwebs out. But when he does, when the Hobgoblin gets his wits about him, he has finally had enough of this annoying pink thing and shoves the fighter away. The fighter stumbles a step backwards and isn’t in position to block the Hobgoblin’s mace as it slams into his side, spreading pain through his body and darkening the edges of his vision.
While both the fighter and the hobgoblin in that little story each threw probably a dozen swings at each other and stepped around a dozen times, they really only took one meaningful attack at each other apiece. On the fighter’s turn he took his attack action and hit, dealing some hit points to the hobgoblin. On the hobgoblin’s turn, he took his attack action as well, dealing some hit points and likely a wound to the fighter. At the end of the combat turn, they’ve each attacked, they’re roughly in the same area they were (each square is representative of five feet, not exactly a tiny area). However, the description of the combat round is a whole lot more dynamic than how it could have been. I much prefer the above to the following:
The fighter makes his attack. It’s a 21, which is enough to hit. He does 9 points of damage. Ok, it’s the Hobgoblin’s turn. He rolls a natural 20, and confirms the critical. He does 15 points of damage and 1 wound.
Role playing and good story telling in combat can earn you benefits. Anything from a positive modifier on an action to an extra move action to an extra attack.
Spells with a casting time measured in minutes are clearly not intended to be cast in the midst of combat, and will remain that way. Without changing the casting time, we can alter the flavor just a bit. A spell like Sending, with a casting time rendered in minutes, just takes too much concentration to perform while in the ebb and flow of combat. This is, of course, a general rule.
Spells with durations measured in rounds continue to act as they did when rounds were only 6 seconds long. This is a rule change to make things more cinematic, not harder for you. A spell with a duration listed in minutes instead has a duration of “combat, + minutes per level - 1.” Again, this change is for flavor, not to screw you with your spells.
If you pop in a movie like Lord of the Rings and watch some of the fight scenes there, you’ll notice pretty quickly that there isn’t really a way to represent those fights in 6 or 10 second rounds. An average fight in Dungeons and Dragons usually takes about 2-6 rounds to complete. At 6-10 second rounds, that means we have fights going for about 12 seconds to a minute long. A minute long fight is ridiculously quick no matter how lopsided it is. The minute-long rounds, while not perfect, do more accurately depict the length of the type of skirmish we’re representing.
Adventuring and Out-of-Combat
Experience Points – we’re not necessarily using an experience point system. Everyone will be staying at a consistent level through the entirety of the game. As a general rule, I will be assuming between six and ten encounters between moments of gaining a level, but I’m not keeping track of experience points, and neither should the players. When it is story appropriate, I will be granting levels to the party. Any crafting system that requires experience points simply don’t any longer.
Death and Dying – The primary focus of this game is to tell a story together, the DM and the players. I’ve invested a lot of the story in the particular characters being portrayed, and the players have done the same. It can sometimes be jarring to the flow of a game to have a character suddenly disappear. But it can also be poignant to see a comrade fall. It is a hard balance to find. That is why I’m adapting the following system. A character that falls bellow -10 hit points isn’t necessarily dead. Though, the can be if the DM or player decide that is the case. A character who reaches -10 hit points will be able to become active again after a number of weeks of bed rest equal to the number of wounds they had on them at the time of “death.” In addition, at the DM’s discretion, they will receive the negative of one of the location wounds as a permanent penalty to their character. They suffered a mortal wound, and never quite walked the same after that. If a player decides that they don’t want to continue their character after suffering a mortal wound, they can choose to bring in a new character. This new character will come into the game 1 level lower than the party, and will remain behind until the party reaches a level again. Then they’d catch up.
Treasure – Magic items are an assumed part of the Dungeons and Dragons experience. Monsters are balanced assuming a certain level of magic available to the party. This is bad, and I dislike it. One of the things we are doing with this story is telling the story of amazing people in a world that is totally unused to anything outside the mundane. There may be items of magic in the world, but if there are, they are rare and well guarded. As such, they will be used as story rewards, and not a matter of game balance. But that does not solve the issue of compensating for the fact that the game balances for magic. We will be adapting a system that I believe will be the easiest way to keep the game balanced and yet keep the flavor we want.
Here is a table for the way that the advancement will go.
Level 1: A&D +1, A&S +1
Level 2: Deflection +1
Level 3: Resistance +1
Level 4: Natural +1, Ability Boost
Level 5: A&D +2, A&S +2
Level 6: Deflection +2
Level 7: Resistance +2
Level 8: Natural +2, Ability Boost
Level 9: A&D +3, A&S +3
Level 10: Deflection +3
Level 11: Resistance +3
Level 12: Natural +3, Ability Boost
Level 13: A&D +4, A&S +4
Level 14: Deflection +4
Level 15: Resistance +4
Level 16: Natural +4, Ability Boost
Level 17: A&D +5, A&S +5
Level 18: Deflection +5
Level 19: Resistance +5
Level 20: Natural +5, Ability Boost
A&D: Apply this bonus to all attack and damage rolls you make with weapons and unarmed attacks as an enhancement bonus.
A&S: If you don’t wear armor, this is your armor bonus. If you wear armor, apply this bonus as an enhancement bonus to your armor. If you wield a shield, apply this bonus as an enhancement bonus to your shield too.
Deflection: Apply this bonus to your AC as a deflection bonus.
Resistance: Apply this bonus to your saves as a resistance bonus.
Natural: Apply this bonus to your AC as a natural bonus. If you already have a natural AC bonus, apply this bonus as an enhancement to that bonus.
Ability Boost: Each level at which you get an ability boost, apply a +2 enhancement bonus to one of your ability scores. You can’t stack ability boosts until 6th level, and then any stacking you do is limited by your level:
Level 1-5: Maximum +2 per Ability
Level 6-10: Maximum +4 per Ability
Level 11-15: Maximum +6 per Ability
Level 16-20: Maximum +8 per Ability
Damage reduction, thusly, disappears unless it is for a specific material or element. This also makes spells like Magic Weapon and Flaming Weapons much more valuable. They do stack with this table.
This is not a perfect representation of the amount of magic that each character would have access to at later levels, but two things mitigate that. First, I started the game off with more ability points than even epic level games have access to. To put it bluntly, you each started out better than you had any right to. Second, story rewards will compensate in ways that will catch the party up to these standard levels.
It has been pointed out to me that the table for maximum enhancement bonus is pretty much pointless.
ReplyDeleteThe Hit Point/Wound system looks very convoluted and overboard while being overly punitive to players. While your numbers seem generally reasonable for a “average fighter” using a Longsword (1d8 not 1d 10) one handed it takes next to no effort at all to get out of hand with a slightly above average fighter. An average two-handed weapon such as a Greatsword on a Fighter beginning with 16 STR does an average of 12 dmg on a successful hit (3.5 per dice since there is no 0 + 4 from STR + 1 for your flat bonus as there is no magic) this is without including stat bonuses due to leveling, no magic bonuses due to leveling, and feats like Power Attack. It is very easy to see a level 1-3 Fighter making every hit a wound with very little problem and it only gets worse as the characters level and their abilities increase too.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn’t take into account a Fighter doing this and taking crit increasing abilities in order to score even more wounds on top of getting all of the benefits from the Crit Deck. All of which means more upkeep for your NPCs unless they don’t suffer the same penalties. If they don’t that is an even greater injustice to your players as a GM and his NPC/Monsters has an exponentially greater chance to Critical than Players do. The fact that “Wounds” are cumulative as well makes your PCs get ever worse from encounter to encounter as well while you keep bringing in fresh opponents for them.
Wizards has tried Wound systems before with little success in their d20 format, most people don’t play with it because they tend to heavily favor the GM and his minions over PCs. I would say that the reason that Pathfinder Base Rules doesn’t use a Wound point system is because the mass amount of players that worked on updating the system found them to be extraneous. If I were one of your players I would have created a character to capitalize on these extraneous rules to help bring all of these points to light, but I’m not so I only have this outlet to try and explain how broken a system they are.
My best suggestion would be to get rid of the rule where they take a wound whenever taking their CON in damage from a single hit, and to change it from getting an automatic wound from a crit to making it an option over drawing from the Crit Deck. Everytime you take 50% hit points in one go seems more than reasonable as does being staggered under these changes. My only other change would be to make mid to high level cures heal a wound or more as well as the hit points, it is magic in a little to no magic world right?
That is my only concern with the rules at least that I have noticed so far, and its not like my points really even matter as it isn't my game but I thought I would point them out on the off chance any of your players felt the same.
The Blog is really cool and I do really love the way you started them out. It should make for a very interesting story and I'll continue to enjoy reading it.
Thanks
-Targul