It's getting there

The brainstorming is pretty much done, now its time to iron it into something worthy of a playtest and go from there. To that end I began to put together a quickstart combat rule page that will be a work in progress for now. With luck I can get the 4 character classes and character sheets put together and then it should make alot more sense.

Setting Change

I must say that my idea on the setting before was total garbage, I apologize. Shadows are cool but not really what I want to go for. Instead there shall be rifts, tears in reality that appear with monsters at times!

Down with Earth Prime!

Hail Sundered Earth!

So same as before, man manipulates gravitational forces on a global scale causing massive global devastation and tearing reality. This has the effect of distorting and changing everything on the planet. In addition the various realities, or dimensions, begin to crash into one another bringing even more devastation and craziness as they all begin to merge.

At these rifts, or tears, various things will be possible. The area connected to the rift can be stabilized so that other realities stop merging with it. Or it can be agitated into eliminating the area it is connected to. You could 'jump' from one possible version of it to another and possibly stabilize that alternate version.

In addition sometimes crazy monsters emerge from these tears for unknown reasons. Some are merely demonic in appearance and behavior, destroying everything nearby only to vanish soon after. Others are even worse.

Finally when approaching the outer edge of an area there is what appears to be a barrier separating it from the others. Sometimes the barrier is weak, things can pass threw it and you can even see on the other side although it does have some distortion. Other times it is completely solid and prevents anything from passing threw it, to everything between. Just like the rifts no one is exactly sure what they are or how they function, but at times they can be manipulated.

Reality Crystals and Shards will be what are used for manipulating the rifts and barriers. They were formed when the earths were sundered and contain the very essence of reality. These will be valuable, and difficult to obtain.

I think this will work much better, all the organizations I spoke of before will still exist aside from the 'shadow' creatures.

Gear Talk

One of the major focuses on a dungeon crawler RPG and most RPGs in general is the gear. It can also be difficult to design so that the gear is interesting and powerful without breaking the game.

Weapons

As I stated before I want a normal weapon to deal d8 damage. So a standard one handed weapon's stats should look like this:

Damage: d8, Hit Bonus: +0, Expose 20 OR Exploit 1

But thats not very interesting nor does it give a large variety. In addition it does not take into account other factors for the weapon but its ok because that is just the base. I'm going to make a list of modifiers that in the end should equal 1 for a standard weapon. Anything with an (a) is an advanced modifier that will be described later.

Penalties

Melee: -1

Two Handed: -1

Hit Penalty(-1): -1 per

Damage Penalty (-1 die): -1 per

(a) Unwieldy: -1

Bonuses

Hit Bonus(+1): +1 per

Damage Bonus(+1 die): +1 per

(a) Light: +1

(a) Armor Penetrating: +1

Exploit Die Bonus: +1 per

Expose Bonus: +1 per

(a) Wounding: +1

(a) Swift: +1

So for the class I described before I will offer him a choice of a few weapons.

Massive Axe: 2H Melee, Damage: d12, Hit Penalty: -1, Exploit d8

Maul: 1H Melee, Damage: d8, Wounding, Unwieldy, Expose 19

Light Pistol: Light Ranged, Damage: d6, Hit Bonus: +1, Exploit d6

Guess I should explain some of those modifiers a bit.

Wounding: Inflicts 1 temporary condition track damage to target damaged once per round.

Unwieldy: Increases critical failure from 1 to 2.

Light: Reduces the penalty for using it as a secondary attack by 2.

Swift: You may use the weapon for a primary and a secondary attack.

One other thing I really like in STO is that all weapons have a second attack option that is typically stronger than the normal but has a short cooldown attached to it. I think that would work well in a tabletop RPG and help make weapons even more interesting. Here are the 'special attacks' for the above weapons.

Massive Axe(Mighty Blow): Damage: d12+1, Hit Bonus: +2, Exploit d12, Once per Encounter

Maul(Backswing): Damage: d8, Light, Swift, Exploit d6, Every other Round

Light Pistol(Semi-Auto): Damage: d10, Light, Hit Bonus: +0, Exploit d6, Once per Encounter

That will add just a bit more flavor and options to the weapons.

Equipment & Armor

Armor will function as damage reduction primarily, although they can and should be various types of armor or equipment that increases the various defenses and/or secondary stats. Their will also be equipment that grants additional abilities or that increases a characters abilities. I'm going to list a few of the ideas I have for some gear that isn't too powerful.

Combat Armor: This armor provides full body protection against attacks. Armor Rating 2. Speed Penalty 1.

Telescopic Goggles: These goggles enhance a users vision with auto focusing lenses. +2 Perception.

Chameleon Duster: This coat forms a minor distortion field around it interfering with others vision. +1 Reflex Defense.

Stimulant Belt: This belt releases a small bio-electric charge into the user when they are in danger. In cases of extreme danger it can release a larger charge. +1 Saves. When knocked unconscious or severely wounded user may expend a Grit to heal Once per Day.

Armor Rating

Each point of armor rating reduces the damage you take from all attacks by 1 per die used in the attack. Sounds complex but it is actually really simple. If a player is attacked and the attack deals 2d8 damage and they player has an armor rating of 2 they reduce the damage by (2*2) 4.

And thats all I got for now but I think it is really beginning to shape up into something that will work!

Little more on the Setting

Humanity believed it only had one Earth to ruin but were wrong. They had countless earths in countless dimensions and managed to utterly destroy all of them.

On some it was to be used as a weapon. Others a tool for prosperity. And on a handful it was merely a curiosity of what would happen. What would happen if man could manipulate the gravitational forces of Earth on a global scale? Devastation. The Earth is torn apart along with the fabrics of space and time.

All was not lost. Some portions of these earths and the inhabitants survived and merged into what is known as Earth Prime. It is a strange place composed from the leftovers of the destroyed earths. Some areas are relatively stable, and others are always changing as portions are overwritten by those of a different Earth. Sometimes it is easy to cross from one shard of an earth over to another, other times it is nearly impossible.

Yes I know I'm a terrible writer and shouldn't quit my day job, or my night job for that matter :)

Although there is very little society left on Earth Prime it does exist. From small towns to a handful of global organizations that use what they can to achieve their goals, be it simple survival or an attempt to make whats left of the worlds into a better place. Here are a few of those organizations I intent to use.

Seekers of Eden: This group believes there exists an earth where man has successfully learned to manipulate the gravitational forces and seek to bring that earth to earth prime by any means necessary.

Protectors of Fate: They believe that man deserves what they have gotten. If there is an earth that has not destroyed itself it should be left alone, and no one on Earth Prime deserves to live there.

Pure Bloods: Strong believers in the protection of the human race. The pure, unmodified, human race. They seek the elimination of mutants, cyborgs, and anything else that presents a threat to mankind. They will work with those they hate, but only for a time.

Shadows: It is said a shadow will fall upon the portions of Earth Prime that are rejected. At first a strange misty fog begins to gather around the borders hindering travel. Slowly the fog thickens until nothing can pass and burning embers begin to appear inside it. Creatures begin to emerge from the shadows destroying and consuming anything that comes near for seven days. After those seven days the fog rapidly dissipates revealing a barren land inside.

The Adventure Ideas

• There will be ways to 'stabilize' a shard to keep it from fading away.
• There may be ways to travel to the 'alternate' possible shards.
• Shadows.
• Mutant Monsters!
• What happens when a military base of cyborg axis soldiers appear from an Earth where the Axis won WW2?
• As above but Russian after they won WW3?

Hit Points, Damage, and Healing

One of my favorite parts of star wars saga was the higher hitpoints at first level and that lightsaber damage increased in dice instead of just a simple +1. So I really want to keep that style.

Level 1
   Normally I would do the math to figure out an average number of rounds for combat to take based on damage, hit chance, etc, but I'm short on time so its just going to get winged for the most part. I know I want 3 average hits to take out a players HP and average weapon damage will be 2d8. So 9*3 gives us 27 for average HP, 30 for high, 24 for low. I also want a vigor roll to restore not quite half of a players HP so the average for that would be 3d8. So at level one players will deal 2 dice of damage, have 3 dice of vigor, and roughly the above listed Hps. I'll worry about the scaling later.


Damage Dice
  One thing you may have noticed in the first class is everything attack wise listed goes by 'dice'. That is because I want damage to increase in die pool amount instead of simple bonuses, atleast until the pool reaches a size that it becomes unwieldy. So it looks like I need to add another attribute to represent this. Actually I think I need to rewrite that entire section at some point after I get all the details figured out.

Condition Track
  This is something people either love or hate, but I for one love it. Simplifies all the cruddy debuffs into a single easy to use system. Their will be two types of condition damage, normal (temporary) and severe, with two sides to track them. The temporary damage is removed at the beginning of your turn while the more severe types are only removed after a specific condition is met, usually a short rest outside of combat. Condition damage will effect all your attack rolls and defenses with a small penalty. This, like most things, will make more sense when seen on the character sheet.

Action Types & Combat Basics

Tomorrow may be the first session so I really gotta get cracking and plug the gaps I found after writing up that class. Fortunately I have the other classes mostly done and have a good idea of what I want for the rest of the mechanics.

This system will mostly follow the standard d20 convention of having three types of actions, although their names and the details will be slightly different. Class abilities will always have the action type listed with them. Each turn a player may make one of each type of action if they choose.

Major: Most actions in combat with large effects will be of this type, like making an attack or using an ability, and interacting with something in the environmental.

Secondary: Most forms of movement or minor extra abilities or attacks fall under this category. For the most part this replaces the 'move' action to eliminate the 'move-equivalent' action that tends to trip up my players. If any ability allows movement along with it, the ability will state it.

Minor: These are actions that take very little time, like the 5ft step or changing position.

There are two other types of actions as well.

Reactionary: These actions can be done even when it is not your turn. They will cost you one of your actions on your following turn and you cannot use more than one per round.

Free: These actions can be done for free during your turn.

Special Combat Rules

Primary Attack: A primary attack uses a major action and has no special rules or penalties.

Secondary Attack: You may choose to make a secondary attack during your turn if you choose as a secondary action. You take a -5 penalty to the attack roll when you do so. The only restrictions are that you cannot use the same weapon that was used for a primary attack and you cannot use any abilities unless they explicitly state they are secondary attacks. This will typically be used by characters who are dual wielding or have natural attacks.

Flanking: For now I'm just going to eliminate this as most characters will be ranged anyway. But I would like to work something interesting into this that would work well with a mix of melee and ranged characters.

Attacks of Opportunity: Removed for now, but will be available as class abilities and/or feats.

Movement: Is a secondary action and you may move up to your speed.

Position: There are 3 states a character may be in. Changing position is a minor action.

Normal: No bonuses or penalties

Kneeling: +2 reflex defense vs ranged attacks, -2 vs melee attacks.

Prone: +4 reflex defense vs ranged attacks, -4 vs melee attacks.

Aiming: Secondary action adds +2 to your next attack roll.

And thats all I got for now!

Bringing it Together, the First Class

I know bringing what together as I have detailed very little of the system. But thats ok because by making the first class it will show me what else I need to figure out. So without further ado!

Unstable Mutant

A human who has been mutated, typically from exposure to radiation. Most humans die from this condition, but the unstable mutant has gained a limited amount of control over their condition and can use it to become a living weapon.

Vigor: d10

Body: +3

Agility: +1

Mind: +0

Base HP: 28

Mutations: These are separated by family and type. You may only have mutations from a single family active at any one time and you must activated them in order of Minor > Unstable > Expanded. Activating a mutation is a swift action. You may also deactivate all current mutations as a secondary action. If any mutation other than a Minor is deactivated your character is unable to use mutations and takes 2 condition damage until he has time to rest for a minute or so.

Minor Mutations: These provide a minor enhancement to your character of some type. They may remain active for as long as your character desires.

Unstable Mutations: These provide a more significant bonus to your character and possibly even additional options in combat. Each one has an Unstable rating. At the beginning of your turn you must roll a d20. If the roll does not meet or exceed the rating you are forced to deactivate your mutations as a secondary action and suffer the penalties.

Expanded Mutation: These provide an additional benefit when you are already in an unstable mutation. They also have an Unstable rating that is added to the base for the difficulty of remaining mutated. You may have more than one of these active at a time, although their ratings are all added to the Unstable rating.

Mutation Families

Armageddon Fist: An aggressive form where your bones harden and grow into weapons.

Minor: Bones grow and protrude from your hand as weapons.

System: Fists become weapons. D6 damage: +2 to hit : exploit 1. Can be used as a secondary weapon/attack.

Unstable(3): Bones around your fists harden further and spike out from your forearms.

System: Bone Fists become D10 damage : +3 to hit : exploit 1. Can be used as a secondary weapon/attack.

Expanded(+2): Bone blades extend out from your elbows.

System: If you hit with either bone fist make an additional follow up attack with the bone blade. D6 damage: exploit 2.

Expanded(+2): Two extra arms expand out of your body.

System: Increase damage of bone fist to D12 and bone blades to D8.

Stone Skin: A defensive form where your skin hardens.

Minor: Your skin becomes as hard as a rock

System: Your armor rating is increased by 2.

Unstable(2): Your skin further hardens.

System: Armor rating is increased by an additional 3.

Expanded(+2): Your head becomes a weapon.

System: Gain a secondary Head Bash attack. D8 damage : exploit 2.

Expanded(+2): Your body becomes a battering ram

System: You may gain an improved charge attack. Add an additional +2 to the attack roll when charging and you do not take a penalty to defense. In addition an enemy must only be 10ft away to charge and if you hit they are knocked prone. You may also use your Head Bash with the charge as well as your normal attack.

Snake: A hybrid form where you gain ranged abilities.

Minor: You gain the ability to spit acid at your enemies.

System: D6 damage : Expose 20 : Can be used as a secondary weapon/attack

TBD

And that is the first character class I came up with. I can see from this several things I need to write rules for yet, action types, hit points, level advancement, and to finish off the last family.

Changing Criticals

One thing that I don’t like about the newer takes on the d20 system are how they handle critical hits. Never cared for the way the old system did either. It is dangerous as it can get out of control when a player can improve both the damage multiplier and the chance of it happening. Actually anything that can multiply anything one has to be very careful with if they don’t want it to get out of control. But the new systems take all the fun out of critical hits so that’s no good either.

An MMO that I have been playing, Star Trek Online, has an interesting mechanic in ground combat. Some things have a chance to ‘expose’ an enemy. Others ‘exploit’ an exposed enemy and deal bonus damage. This makes you try to balance out a team so the enemy is exposed often enough for the bonus damage, but also that you have the exploit abilities to take advantage. Anything that encourages synergy between characters is a good thing in my book so I’m going to steal it.

Some weapons and abilities will have an ‘expose’ number typically 19 or 20. That will work just like the old critical threat range. If you roll that number or higher on your attack you just might expose the enemy. You make a second attack roll to confirm and if successful the enemy(s) is exposed until the beginning of your next turn. Others will have an ‘exploit’ number and that is how many bonus D6 dice of damage they will do against an enemy who is exposed.

This gives me more options when designing abilities and items. It also gives players more choices on customizing their character and to focus on this mechanic if they so choose with feats and such while being difficult to abuse. Or at least being more fun to abuse as it will be the team doing so and not just one character.

Attributes and Stats

Many d20 systems being with a list of what the attributes are and what they do so I figured it would be a good place to start fleshing out this system. I am going to go a different route by creating labels for the various attributes as some will function differently than what most are used to.

Major Attributes

These attributes effect more than one thing and can only be increased by the class you select and few pieces of equipment. Of these there are only three and they are self explanatory but I will list what they will effect in game.

Body: Fortitude Defense, Melee Attack Rolls, Hit Points

Agility: Reflex Defense, Ranged Attack Rolls, Initiative

Mind: Will Defense, Special Attack Rolls, Saving Throw

Because they effect both attack rolls and damage rolls I prefer to limit their scaling to avoid problems. This may change later in design if I put in a mechanic that would automatically fix it. Actually this topic could take up an entire post and I just may do that sometime...

Minor Attributes

These attributes only effect one thing and can be increased as a character levels with perks, feats, gear, or other things. These are the ones I know I will use for now, but more could be added later.

Sense: Adds to perception rolls.

Wits: Adds to initiative rolls.

Luck: Used for re-rolls.

Grit: Used for healing.

Speed: Determines how far you can move.

Vigor: Determines how much you heal.
Armor: Reduces damage you take from any physical source.

Attacks & Defense

Attack rolls will follow standard d20 formula where you add the relevant bonus(es) and compare it to the target's defense. Your attack bonus is simply:

Item Modifier + Major Attribute Modifier + Level Modifier + Miscellaneous Modifier

Defenses are a set number generated from the same modifiers but you add 10 to the final number.

Saving Throw

I really want to rename this but can't come up with anything. Basically it is used to remove and avoid special effects during combat. It is simply a d20 roll with very few things that add to it, mainly just Mind attribute and/or miscellaneous bonuses. The DC is normally a 10 but it can vary.

Perception, Initiative and Combat

One of the major pains in my experience is determining when the players and/or the enemy detect each other and resolving if a surprise round takes place along with readied actions. This is an attempt to streamline the process.

When combat begins because of anything all parties involved make a perception roll. The standard DC is 10, and add 5 for each complication like poor lighting, distance, etc. If you make your roll you may act normally during your turn. If you fail you may only make a move action on your first turn. Then everyone rolls initiative to set the turn order. Actually should probably flip that, everyone rolls initiative and then perception.

This eliminates the surprise round but keeps the same effect of letting the person who 'gets the drop' on another person getting an extra standard action. And I know, what about stealth you ask? Skills will be completely, and totally divorced from combat with this system so it doesn't matter other than increasing the difficulty of the perception roll. This may not be realistic but that’s ok, neither are hit points.

Luck

This is pretty simple, it lets you re-roll any single roll after learning the result. You must keep the second roll. You may do this once per day for each point of luck you posses. I may redo this as a roll a die and add its result to the original number so it can work for defenses as well but I'm not sure at this point.

Grit

Similar to luck it determines how many times per day you can restore your hit points. Very few things will 'heal' a player without using up a grit. Similar in function to 4Es healing surges.

Speed

How far you can move measured either in feet or squares it doesn't matter.

Vigor

When healing this sets the base 'die' size that you use. Later on I'll get into more detail with this.

Armor
Anytime you take damage it is reduces by this amount. Like damage reduction. 

And that is a wrap! I know it doesn't really make much sense right now but it will, trust me!

Entry 1: Setting and System Basics

In my view you cannot select a system until you know the setting you want to use and the style of game your aiming for. Standard d20 rules work very well for a tactical style of combat but have a hard time dealing with a fast pace action movie style combat. At the same time if one wanted a system that worked well for intrigue and a game with little physical combat the WoD system is really good, but not for a dungeon crawler game. Its basically the GSN concept, or Gamest, Simulation, and Narrative. There is no system that will properly do all three so you have to choose how much of each one you wish to focus on and the setting you choose has a large influence on that.

For this mini-campaign I was inspired by the Gamma World setting. Basically a near future post apocalyptic setting with mutants and a touch of craziness. The story is that somehow earths from various dimensions got merged together destroying pretty much everything and creating mutants, or at least that’s what I got out of it. That sounds pretty cool to me but I didn’t want to be tied to an established setting so I figured I would Ravenloft it up a bit as that was the last setting we played in. So it will still be a near future post apocalyptic setting where Earth from various dimensions are merging to create an Earth Prime. The players will arrive with as much knowledge of where they are from as they wish but Earth Prime will be very different from their Earth. It will also be in a state of flux in various areas as things are still settling. This gives me the option to place nearly anything that is desired into the setting. It will basically be an episodic dungeon crawler with a villain of the week so to speak.

For the system I’m going to use d20 as a base along with some of the subsystems/mechanics from star wars saga and dnd 4^th edition. But I’m also going to modify a lot of it. There are several reasons I chose d20. Its very modular allowing you to add and remove various subsystems. It provides a acceptable non combat rules for when they are needed and provides a lot of focus on interesting combat encounters. Also, most of the players are very familiar with it. When I’m done hitting it with a hammer though it won’t look like the two games that inspired it. This system will focus primarily upon the Gamist aspect. As far as the simulation aspect the campaign has little need of it and I do not want to go with a survival style of gameplay so it only needs to be internally consistent. As far as Narrative goes that will also be limited but I don’t feel its extremely important for the direction of this mini-campain.

Intro

It is time for me to once again wear my DM hat for the group I roll dice with. Often when this happens I have an urge to try something new and different. To play in a setting that we never have before with a new rule-set that may or may not exist. And I get the pleasure of creating them.

This is not to say that I am extremely creative or original. I’m not. I tend to take an existing setting and give it a twist, or take an easy to identify type of setting and give it a twist. With game mechanics I’m not terribly original either. I just take a base system that I think would work well with the setting and my players, then hit it with a hammer. This time I decided to make a blog to catalog my efforts in the hopes that someone out there would find it interesting. Or worst case five years from now I’ll find it and be amused.