Game Ideas 3 - rpg punk

Four Save Model instead of Archaic Model

First, what is the Archaic Model of saves? That’s what I’m calling the Save vs Poison, Death Ray, Breath Weapon, Wands, Spells, etc. Where you’re supposed to use Breath Weapon for area effects and dodging stuff, and Poison or Death Ray is for save vs Death. It’s convoluted, new players constantly have to have it explained to them, then they spend 5 minutes trying to find it on their character sheet, and it just sucks and I don’t like it.

The three save model was popularized by corporate Dungeons and Dragons, and works pretty well by simplifiying saves and therefore speeds things up. I think so, anyway.

Instead of a bunch of sort of random yet arbitrary saving throws with arbitrary values based on… what? I don’t know. My Four Save Model goes like this…

I’ve never played 3/3.5 DnD, so I don’t know how saves work in that game. I’ve played 4th, which honestly is the inspiration for this. Don’t judge me too quickly! 4th was a fun fantasy tactical game, but was marketed incorrectly.

Willpower – Anything that requires a save like resisting delicious ice cream, trying to ignore terrible sounds like Alanis Moressette songs, working through a fear of darkness without a night light, etc
Fortitude – eating a three day old, room temperature Taco Bell Taco Supreme (yes, with sour cream) without getting food poisoning, beer bonging a handle of cheap vodka without puking, seeing your grandparents having sex, etc
Agility – dodging out of the way of a thrown wrench, dodging fireballs shooting up from the floor as you cross a bridge only to discover your princess is in another castle, running and leaping away from the big climactic explosion even though you’re getting too old for this shit, etc
Magic – Pretty much anything not covered by the other three saves.

These are roll-over values on a d20. In layman’s terms: roll a d20 and get a high number.

The value you must roll above is not arbitrarily chosen by some unpaid game designer with a chip on their shoulder. Instead, it is determined by YOU, the player! Cool, huh?

Willpower is your character’s Wisdom modifier + Charisma modifier, subtracted from 17.
Fortitude is your character’s Strength modifier + Constitution modifier, subtracted from 17.
Agility is (you guessed it) your character’s Intelligence modifier + Dexterity modifier, subtracted from 17.
Magic is your character’s Intelligence modifier + Wisdom modifier, subtracted from 17.

So, there is an arbitrary bit in there; why 17, and not 20? Because some characters will have no modifiers, and they’ll have to save by rolling over 20.

If you have a negative modifier, like from having a really terrible attribute, that modifier is added to 17. So it IS possible to have to roll a 20 (or higher) for a save.

So at first level, you’ll have a save range of 12-18. Since your modifiers have already been used to determine this value, they are not added to subsequent saving throw rolls. Sorry.

This model is used the same for all classes. So your clericky character should have a decent Willpower, your Fighter-type should have a decent Fortitude, and your Wizardy or Thieving types will have decent Agility.

Other bonuses apply to your roll; like if your character has a +3 vs Poison for whatever reason, then you would add +3 to your Fortitude rolls when dealing with poisons. If your character has a +1 to balance because they have a background as a child acrobat, then you add +1 to Agility rolls when you’re trying to walk on a tight rope.

Easy peasy.

Example:

Tim the first level Fast Talking Specialist has the following attributes:
Charisma:15 (+2 mod)
Constitution: 5 (-2 mod)
Dexterity: 17 (+3 mod)
Intelligence: 9
Strength: 11
Wisdom: 11

So, his Saves are as follows:
Agility: 17-3 = 14
Fortitude: 17 – (0-2) = 19
Willpower: 17 – 2 = 15
Magic: 17 -0 = 17

Yeah, that’s a really shitty Fortitude.

Fortunately, saves can improve! Each class will have an experience progression table which will include improving saving throws.

I haven’t play tested this yet; it is in the thinking about stage right now.

Thoughts on Shields Shall be Splintered

The original is at Trollsmyth’s page here.

It’s a wonderful rule and I’ve incorporated it into LotFP games in the past. I wrote a previous post about shields and armor, with different shield sizes and materials. Wood can be sacrificed once, metal can be sacrificed twice. I am thinking about changing that though. Both can be sacrificed once, but metal shields give a bonus of +2 melee AC and +2 ranged AC, as opposed to the +1/+2 of a wood shield. The idea being that a metal shield will allow fewer things to go through; much like leather armor and plate armor cover the same amount of body area, but the material of plate gives it a much higher armor class.

Anyway, back to Shields Shall be Splintered…

Looking through the comments though, I got some ideas.

Why can’t armor be sacrificed in the same way?
Can you use the rule to block damage from any attack? Like a giant throwing a huge boulder that would realistically squish you completely?
Since the shield already adds to your AC, why should it also block damage?

So, to address the first point, allow armor to be sacrificed. That helps to get rid of the armor the player character has had for the last 10 years of game time through hundreds of battles and a half dozen levels. It makes armor more than just an after thought, same as it does for the shield.

The second point, is simple; GM fiat. That’s the GM’s job after all; to adjudicate situations. In the aforementioned example, I would say no, you can’t sacrifice your shield or armor to block that attack.

Third point is the trickiest and least likely to be incorporated; just an idea I’m bouncing in my head. Instead of simply blocking damage, a shield or armor can be sacrificed to turn a critical hit into a regular hit. This would not be applicable to sneak attacks or backstabs, as the person being attacked is surprised.

Skills and Saving Throws

I’m always trying to think of ways to streamline and simplify rules and mechanics. Well, that’s not really true, usually I’m trying to think of something else (Should gorilla-men who live in treehouses and dump their waste to the forest floor have any special immunities or bonuses to save against the spores and disease of the fungus-people who collect the waste?) and then I get on a mental tangent and spend the rest of the day wondering why only Thieves have skills and why they are use a percentage die system while every other dice mechanic in the damn game is a d6 or d20.

More systems means more complication and more distractions during the game as players stop and ask which die they roll for a particular thing, and I find that terribly annoying. On the other hand, using a single die or mechanic for every single thing is boring and usually ends up with dice pools and all the bullshit and headaches that entails.

I like to keep it simple, yet interesting.

So I was thinking about the Prime attribute system in Castles and Crusades. It was created to simplify saving throws and skills by making them attribute checks. A Prime atribute means you have to roll 12 or better, a Secondary attribute means you have to roll an 18 or better. The GM also has modifiers (difficulty levels) that they can throw at your roll but that’s the gist of it.

The problem is that I’ve run Castles and Crusades before, and the players were constantly confused as to which attribute was prime and what they roll and what their bonus was and… the campaign fizzled. I thought maybe it was my fault, I didn’t explain the system well enough… blaming myself, really.

It wasn’t me though. The SIEGE system (what C&C calls their mechanic) is cluncky and weird and doesn’t work all that well when you look at it closely.

Sure, some skill might be under one of your Prime attributes, but since you’re the wrong class, you don’t get to add your level to it. Or, you are the right class, but you don’t have the right Prime attribute so you suck at something you should be good at. And why does every system want to front-load badassness into every character at 1st level? I remember back in the day all these hipster scumbags shitting on Rifts for front-loading characters and now every game does it. First level characters should be shit, and they should become slightly less shit as they gain experience.

Especially if you aren’t playing a superhero RPG.

When is someone going to publish a perfect system that I won’t have to rewrite?

Anyway… here is Saves and Skills

I believe characters should be built over time, hence the entire point of experience points and levels. Some games and players don’t use xp or levels. This isn’t for you.

Saving throws

Basically the same as C&C, but the terminology is removed because it is unnecesary.

To save, roll 18 or higher on a d20. Include all applicable modifiers. The GM (me) can add modifiers to indicate the difficulty of the situation. For example, the HD of a spellcaster is added to the dificulty of any saves against that spellcaster’s magic. Or an invisible trap will be harder to detect than an obvious hole in the ground.

If your character is a…

Warrior: You get +6 to Strength based saves
Magic User: You get +6 to either Intelligence or Wisdom saves (Player’s choice)
Specialist: You get +6 to Dexterity based saves

All characters get to choose two other attributes. The saves from each of these attributes have a bonus of +3.

Every level your character goes up, you get a +1 to ALL saves.

Skills

Skills doesn’t just mean the special skills of the specialist. Skills are pretty much anything not covered by a saving throw. For that reason, I’m not including a skill list.

To successfully roll a skill, you have to roll an 18 or higher on a d20.

Warriors and Magic Users focus on fighting and magic. Therefore they are not as adept at things not involving those two things.

Warriors and Magic Users add attribute modifiers to applicable skills.
This gives Warriors and Magic Users a 10% chance of success at first level, not including attribute bonuses.
Warriors and Magic Users have the possibility of selecting a “Class Skill,” which gives a particular skill the bonus of +1 per level of the character.

Specialists are all about skills. That’s the strength of the class!

Specialists receive a +3 to all skills, in addition to applicable attribute modifiers
Specialists receive a bonus of +1 per level of the character to all skills.
This gives the Specialist a 25% chance of success at first level, not including attribute bonuses.

Special note about Languages

Regardless of class, the Intelligence modifier indicates how many languages the character can speak and read, in addition to their native language.
There is no maximum number of Languages a character can know.
The Language skill is used to determine if the character knows a particular language when it is encountered for the first time. It is rolled as any other skill.

Armor and more on Encumbrance

Because of the specifics of the setting I’m working on, the large list of armors from Castles & Crusades, as well as the very small list of armors from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, do not work for what I want.

First, about armor and encumbrance. I detailed encumbrance in this post.

Shields and helmets are considered a standard item, for encumbrance purposes, so they take up a single item slot.

Helmets: While there are a dizzying array of helmet designs, they fall into the following categories. Helmets provide an AC bonus only against attacks specifying the head. Helmet AC is not added to regular AC. Cost is generic: I haven’t decided to go with a silver or gold standard yet.

Leather Cap: +1 AC, cost: 4
Metal Pot: +2 AC, cost: 5
Helm: +5 AC, cost: 10
Great Helm: +7 AC, cost: 20

Shields: Shields provide two defensive bonuses, and a special defense. The first is against melee attacks, the second is against ranged attacks, and the third is the Shields Will Be Broken Rule. This rule is that a shield may be sacrificed to take the full damage from a single attack. A Modification to the rule allows for the material the shield is made of. Wood shields are unusable after being sacrificed. Metal shields can effectively be sacrificed twice. This rule does not apply to the Buckler, which is too small (you’d be sacrificing your arm).

Buckler: +1 AC melee, +1 AC ranged, cost: 2
Small Shield: +1 AC melee, +2 AC ranged, cost: 3 wood, 9 steel
Medium Shield: +2 AC melee, +3 AC ranged, cost: 5 wood, 15 steel
Large Shield: +3 AC melee, +4 AC ranged, cost: 7 wood, 21 steel

Like any other item, armor uses up an item slot. No matter what kind it is, armor takes up a single item slot. Heavier armor, because of its weight, bulk, and restriction of movement, also has a further penalty.

There are three basic types of armor, and how they work with encumbrance is as follows:

Light Armor fills an item slot.
Medium Armor fills an item slot AND a point of encumbrance.
Heavy Armor fills an item slot AND two points of encumbrance.

A half suit, basically covering the chest and torso, or the classic chain/plate bikini, or the bracers/gauntlets, shoulder plates, shin guard combo all work the same, and are considered a half-suit for game purposes.

A half suit of Light armor takes up an item slot.
Half suit of Medium armor takes up an item slot.
Half suit of Heavy armor takes up an item slot, AND fills one point of encumbrance.

Now, on to specific types of armor available! The armor listed includes the Armor Class bonus for half and full suits, as well as the cost. These are guidelines, but cover most types of armor. While many other types of armor exist, they all effectively fall within these categories and use the same stats.

Light Armor:

Hide or Leather: +1 AC half suit, +2 AC full suit, cost: 5/10
Studded Leather: +2 AC half suit, +3 AC full suit, cost: 12/24

Medium Armor:

Chain or Scale: +3 AC half suit, +5 AC full suit, cost: 100/200

Heavy Armor:

Plate: +5 AC half suit, +8 AC full suit, cost: 300/600

Encumbrance; a Little Less Sucky

Encumbrance is probably the least used and most boring part of RPGs. I don’t think I’ve ever been a player in a game where encumbrance was ever an issue that really came up, as most games use complicated systems that suck the fun right out of the game, so no one ever bothers with them. Or they use a system based on Strength and how much you can lift and nothing else, making it silly and unrealistic. Castles & Crusades, at least in the 4th printing that I own, has a terribly convoluted and dare-I-say-it unplayable encumbrance system. I knew when I started this that it would be the very first thing I scrapped from the system.

Encumbrance doesn’t have to be so crappy, though.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess was the first game I ever played that had an encumbrance system that wasn’t terrible and was simple to implement.

So I’m porting that into this game.

In LotFP, you can carry any number of items. However, the more you carry, the more Encumbrance Points you accrue. It uses a system of equipment slots. Every sixth slot you fill grants an encumbrance point. Small items, like an arrow, can have many carried before filling a slot. Certain types of armor automatically count for encumbrance points.

Having so many encumbrance points affects your speed and, in the case of Magic Users, your ability to cast spells.

While Encumbrance doesn’t have to be continually tracked throughout play, the Referee is allowed to audit a player’s equipment at any time, with the player penalized accordingly if they are carrying too much stuff.

Add to this the importance LotFP places on hiring retainers, and it’s a very effective and simple system.

In a nutshell;

Carrying 6 or more items is a point.
Carrying 11 or more items is two points.
Carrying 16 or more items is three points.
Carrying 21 or more items is four points.
Oversized items, two-handed weapons, some armor = 1 point.
Giant sized items, some armor = 2 points

More on armor and how it affects encumbrance in the next post.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess, though, is designed for a more gritty, low-fantasy, setting. Not the high-fantasy, ridiculousness of Strathos. Some some changes are necessary.

Constitution Modifier applies to Encumbrance. This means that you receive extra item slots based on your Con mod, before you take an encumbrance point. On the other hand, having a negative Con mod means you can fill fewer slots before taking an encumbrance point.

Example 1: Sheila the Barbarian has a +2 Con modifier. This translates to her being able to fill 7 slots of items before accruing an encumbrance point.

Example 2: Brxrfrx the Mushroom has no Con modifier. It can fill up to 5 slots of items without accruing an encumbrance point.

Example 3: Trent the Wizard has a -2 Con modifier. He can only fill up to 3 slots of items before accruing an encumbrance point.

Okay, but what does it mean to accrue and Encumbrance Point? How do they affect the game?

Zero or One encumbrance points = Unencumbered. This has no effect on your character.
Two encumbrance points = Lightly encumbered. Speed is reduced 20%.
Three points = Heavily encumbered. Speed is reduced by 40%, and Magic Users cannot use magic. Characters suffer a -1 penalty to all combat rolls and skill checks, as well as dexterity based saves.
Four points = Severely encumbered. Speed is reduced by 80%. Characters suffer a -3 penalty to all combat rolls, skill checks, and Dexterity based saves.
5 points = Overencumbered. The character cannot move.

Example 4: Trent the Wizard is carrying a spell book (1 item slot), a pen and ink set (1 item slot), a dagger (1 item slot), a weeks worth of rations (1 item slot) and a staff (two-handed weapon: 1 encumbrance point), making him Lightly Encumbered. Why? Because he has filled 4 item slots (remember, he can only fill three slots without accruing a point) and has a two-handed weapon. That totals 2 encumbrance points.

While all of this makes sense to me, I know that it doesn’t necessarily make sense to anyone reading this. So I am happy to answer any questions.

Fighters like it Rough

This is a rough draft of some stuff I’m considering. Hence the title. My previous post about fighters is here, and I just want to give a shout out to Zak, since his posts on Barbarians and Fighters inspired much of this.

I’m still messing around with formatting posts. I like to add pics to give a visual presentation of the ideas I’m trying to convey. Sometimes I think I overdo it, though.

This is essentially an idea to combine Fighters and Barbarians and Monks and Knights and Paladins into a single, all encompassing, class.

Fighter
Prime Attribute: Strength
Hit Die:

d8: Roll or pick 4 abilities from the list
d10: Roll or pick 3 abilities from the list
d12: Roll or pick 2 abilities from the list
All: Roll or pick twice from the list when you level up.

Special: Trade 1 ability to learn 1 spell of any level below your own. If this is chosen at character creation, the spell is a level 0 or 1. If chosen after level one, the spell must be one known by someone willing to teach you. This grants the ability to cast a spell, it does not automatically give you a spell. The cost to cast such a spell is 3 HP per level of the spell.

Abilities:

Weather/Element Resistance: Wearing a chain mail bikini in shin deep snow doesn’t bother you.
Animal Domination: Big, scary, wild animals take a liking to you and do what you want them to do.
Primal Attraction: have you seen those Frazetta paintings? Or in the following case, Brom? Through charisma, pheromones, or whatever, other people are attracted to you. No matter how ugly you are or how much gore you’re splattered with.
Defensive Stance: +1 AC, -2 to hit. This can be taken multiple times
Armor costs 1 less encumbrance
Unarmored AC bonus: for the barbarian types
Tactics: Intelligence check to give allies +1 to all combat rolls for first round of combat.
Two weapon fighting: penalty for off-hand attacks is reduced
Extra attack
Improved unarmed combat: +1 damage with bare fists
Giant-killer: +1 hit and damage against creatures at least 1 size level bigger than you
Intimidation: Charisma +1 vs opponent’s Wisdom or Fear
Strength bonus: +1 to strength up to racial max
Pain tolerance: +1 vs pain saves
Saving throw bonus: + to all saves
No Fear: +1 vs fear saves
Skill point
Taunt: Charisma check +1 vs opponents Wisdom
Ranged weapon bonus: Faster reloads, trick shooting, etc
Use two handed weapon one-handed (like Guts in Berserk!)
Mounted fighting bonus (Knights, Lancers, Mongols, etc)
Berserker rage
Offensive stance: +1 to hit, -2 AC. This can be taken multiple times
Improvised Weapon

Goblinoid Races

In the previous post I mentioned that I had to create several new playable races for Castles and Crusades. Well, here they are if anyone wants to use them.

As I said before, the race descriptions are based off of those from Palladium Fantasy.

Roll the standard 3D6 for attributes. I always let my players reroll ones.

Goblin
Modifiers: +1 Dexterity, -1 Strength
Racial Traits and Abilities:
Animal Empathy: Goblins can read the emotions of animals. They can not conversate with them, though.
Combat Expertise: When fighting against Gnomes and Halflings, Goblins enjoy a bonus of +1 to hit against AC.
Dark Vision: 120 feet – can see in total darkness, but needs 1 round for eyes to adjust.
Hearing: Goblins receive a bonus of +1 to listening based checks.
Size: Height is 3 feet plus D12 inches, Weight is 60 + 5D8 pounds

Goblins are short and skinny with spindly arms and legs, pencil necks, skin colors that range from yellow and light green to brown and dark green, and hair that is either black, dark brown, or deep red. Eyes are large and ears are pointed. Teeth are sharp and pointy.

Kobold
Modifiers: +1 Constitution, -1 Dexterity
Racial Traits and Abilities:
Racial Animosity: -2 on Charisma checks when dealing with Humans, Elves, Halflings, and Gnomes.
Darkvision: 120 feet – can see in total darkness, but needs 1 round for eyes to adjust.
Underground Direction: Can sense approximate depth underground without needing an attribute check.
Fearless: +2 to savings throws vs Fear.
Resistant to Poison (Constitution) +2 to savings throws vs Poison.
Movement: 20 feet per round
Size: Height is 3 feet plus D12 inches, Weight is 70 + 5D8 pounds

Kobolds are short, thin, with leathery skin that is dark muddy brown or red. They often go bald on the top of their heads and do not grow facial or body hair. What hair they do have is white. Their eyes are yellow or red, and their teeth are sharp and pointed.

Orc
Modifiers: +2 Strength, +1 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -1 Charisma
Racial Traits and Abilities:
Twilight Vision: Able to see clearly and in color for 1 mile under starlight or moonlight.
Sense of Smell: Detect the presence (but not location) of creatures within 30 feet, or 60 feet if upwind. Strong scents can be picked up at twice that range, and Exceptionally strong scents at three times the range. Provides a bonus of +2 to Track if a Ranger.
Martial Prowess: +2 to AC when not wearing armor. The Orc does not receive this bonus if wearing armor of any kind.
Resistance to Disease: +2 to save vs Disease
Size: Height is 5 feet plus D20 inches, Weight is 130 + D100 pounds

Orcs are broad shouldered, muscular, with sharp teeth and small tusks coming up from the lower jaw. Their noses are flat and pig-like, with long tongues used to wet the nose to improve their sense of smell. Skin colors range from dark green and dark brown to black, with thick black hair.

Troglodyte
Modifiers: +1 Charisma, -1 Wisdom
Racial Traits and Abilities:
Fearless: Troglodytes are naturally inquisitive and confident. +2 vs Fear.
Twilight Vision: Able to see clearly and in color for 1 mile under starlight or moonlight.
Resistant: +1 to all Constitution-based Savings throws.
Spot Hidden Doors: Troglodytes natural curiousity gives them a +1 bonus to find hidden doors.
Empathy: Troglodytes are the most liked of the Goblinoid races, and receive a +1 to Charisma checks when dealing with Goblinoids, and no negative modifier when dealing with other races.
Size: Height is 4 feet plus D12 inches, Weight is 130 + D100 pounds

Troglodytes are broad shouldered, with pale waxy skin, large dark brown eyes, flabby bodies and heads that vaguely resemble Salamanders or Newts. They are generally friendly, trusting, and curious. They like to eat well and party hard.

Hobgoblin
Modifiers: +2 Wisdom, -1 Charisma, -1 Constitution
Racial Traits and Abilities:
Enhanced Senses: Vision is exceptional, and large ears provide a +2 bonus to checks involving listening and sound.
Twilight Vision: Able to see clearly and in color for 1 mile under starlight or moonlight.
Charm Resistance: Hobgoblins are resistant to spells that Charm or cause Sleep: +10 to save
Spot Hidden Doors: Hobgoblins receive a +2 bonus when searching for hidden doors/compartments.
Movement: 30 feet per round
Size: Height is 4 feet plus D12 inches, Weight is 90 + 6D10 pounds

Hobgoblins resemble their goblin cousins, but are taller and have comically over-sized ears. Hobgoblins are notoriously hard to get along with; gruff, arrogant, pompous.