So I will ask my players these but floating about to my readers...
My Cave game 15th level how long can it keep going.
Running a bit of post apoc on the side and hope to more over the year.
1 Alignment
As I have made a system of oaths and obligations and a score for your alignment in my game and they can get any alignment holy fanatic powers, magic or mutations. But I have implied there was a earlier alignment based on elements. This was a bit crazy and collapsed and demons and devils and other horrors have broken the tablets of destiny. So a fire aligned person might oaths insisting or forbidding cremation, rules about putting out fires, cooking and other stuff that are scattered among oaths of more modern alignments. These elemental alignments were more arbitrary, weird, encouraged factions to conflict over differences (we must kill those who pollute holy fire with flesh!). I might detail it and could create some other weirdness. Could make a random d12 benefit table but I'm not sure if law guys would do this. So weird new esoteric and elemental alignments.
2 Skill Names
My non weapons proficiency skill system is doing fine but if I was to use in a post apos setting would be fine but id need robot lore, computer lore, atomic lore, chem lore, bio lore which kinda works. But I wanted to run as say a star trek space colonisers it would be off (unless 40k like dark age of space). So I could do a list of alt names and skills for more modern of future stuff. I could distinguish between science fantasy and science fiction. I feel some special gun-fu skills are needed to help you hose down victims with burst weapons. Chaosium hawkmoon RPG of 80s had really good forbidden science lores that let you make monsters, nerve gas, plague bombs, ray guns and sonic artillery with high science lore skills.
3 Stat Names
I have used alt stat names. Some I found were used in games I actively dislike I found later. Partly I wanted to make it clear my idea of wisdom is not a travesty it has been ever-changing in editions. Im ok with it being will and piety and not sensory also. I have a luck point derived as a benefit all can possibly use with high Wis and magic resistance. I changed names to help try and break away from the stat expectations and how stats are used in my homebrew rules (lots). So do I stay weird to change again or go back classic which as I said makes Wis less a dump stat. Wisdom=luck? its foresight and divine favour and fanaticism. Gods love fanatics.
4 Multiclassing
I decided a while ago that a fix for my issues with BX included letting people change classes. I use INT bonus for how many times you can change. Wanna be a dwarf and become a cleric fine. And maybe its tricky to go from a human thief to a elf but I cant actually object to the weird possibility of class changing with a species=class systems. Some of the weird combos proposed for my home brew classes and species based classes are hilarious. A giant dwarf no problem. So your weird species can adopt a basic fighter-theif-cleric-wizard class and none are barred and Im ok with it. I will try to use species as a term vs race. At present, you get your INT bonus +1 changes (low INT zero changes). So a Dwarf INT16 could start a dwarf at 1st then be a wizard at 4th then a priest at 7th and be stuck or perhaps changed back to dwarf after a few years as a wizard for some more HP. Some class race combos work well. My current I idea is once you get a second class you can decide level by level which goes up when (you could roleplay and say "I was more wizardry this session so I pick more wizard"). So the dwarf could change after 1st to a wizard and then a priest and increase any class they pick when they gain a level and could still get a whole new class in old age like a mutant or robot or giant. There are benefits for changing and benefits for not. So far several giant players changed class to fighter so they would stop growing per level and found they gained more finesse.
5 More reskin options
These started as like subclass varients and example characters to help new or quick builds for late people. Ive been making some of these more varied for species classes to help players make their own weird races with reskins. Some include modern professions for core classes like astronaut or species like halflings reskinned as small beastling races like beaverlings. Will be doing ones for post apoc and modern era. Androids as a sf type for abhumans too. Sadly Id like to do a reskin of my robot class but as a golem class with various magic and technological gadgets built in. Like instead of a robot turning into a car turns into a cart with chariot with a golem horse. I made a psuedo undead type of abhuman born again from human copses.
Its all helped make my game weirder and these are options I'm considering and getting player feedback for. I'm liking that the problems people cite for species as race DnD are partly dealt with. I considered making a default human class or a generic class for extra HD and some various skills or mutations or spells to apply to npcs and monsters. It could have various builds outlined for boss monsters or extra cunning beasts so you could slap some skills on a npc or monster or alien.
My Cave game 15th level how long can it keep going.
Running a bit of post apoc on the side and hope to more over the year.
1 Alignment
As I have made a system of oaths and obligations and a score for your alignment in my game and they can get any alignment holy fanatic powers, magic or mutations. But I have implied there was a earlier alignment based on elements. This was a bit crazy and collapsed and demons and devils and other horrors have broken the tablets of destiny. So a fire aligned person might oaths insisting or forbidding cremation, rules about putting out fires, cooking and other stuff that are scattered among oaths of more modern alignments. These elemental alignments were more arbitrary, weird, encouraged factions to conflict over differences (we must kill those who pollute holy fire with flesh!). I might detail it and could create some other weirdness. Could make a random d12 benefit table but I'm not sure if law guys would do this. So weird new esoteric and elemental alignments.
2 Skill Names
My non weapons proficiency skill system is doing fine but if I was to use in a post apos setting would be fine but id need robot lore, computer lore, atomic lore, chem lore, bio lore which kinda works. But I wanted to run as say a star trek space colonisers it would be off (unless 40k like dark age of space). So I could do a list of alt names and skills for more modern of future stuff. I could distinguish between science fantasy and science fiction. I feel some special gun-fu skills are needed to help you hose down victims with burst weapons. Chaosium hawkmoon RPG of 80s had really good forbidden science lores that let you make monsters, nerve gas, plague bombs, ray guns and sonic artillery with high science lore skills.
3 Stat Names
I have used alt stat names. Some I found were used in games I actively dislike I found later. Partly I wanted to make it clear my idea of wisdom is not a travesty it has been ever-changing in editions. Im ok with it being will and piety and not sensory also. I have a luck point derived as a benefit all can possibly use with high Wis and magic resistance. I changed names to help try and break away from the stat expectations and how stats are used in my homebrew rules (lots). So do I stay weird to change again or go back classic which as I said makes Wis less a dump stat. Wisdom=luck? its foresight and divine favour and fanaticism. Gods love fanatics.
4 Multiclassing
I decided a while ago that a fix for my issues with BX included letting people change classes. I use INT bonus for how many times you can change. Wanna be a dwarf and become a cleric fine. And maybe its tricky to go from a human thief to a elf but I cant actually object to the weird possibility of class changing with a species=class systems. Some of the weird combos proposed for my home brew classes and species based classes are hilarious. A giant dwarf no problem. So your weird species can adopt a basic fighter-theif-cleric-wizard class and none are barred and Im ok with it. I will try to use species as a term vs race. At present, you get your INT bonus +1 changes (low INT zero changes). So a Dwarf INT16 could start a dwarf at 1st then be a wizard at 4th then a priest at 7th and be stuck or perhaps changed back to dwarf after a few years as a wizard for some more HP. Some class race combos work well. My current I idea is once you get a second class you can decide level by level which goes up when (you could roleplay and say "I was more wizardry this session so I pick more wizard"). So the dwarf could change after 1st to a wizard and then a priest and increase any class they pick when they gain a level and could still get a whole new class in old age like a mutant or robot or giant. There are benefits for changing and benefits for not. So far several giant players changed class to fighter so they would stop growing per level and found they gained more finesse.
5 More reskin options
These started as like subclass varients and example characters to help new or quick builds for late people. Ive been making some of these more varied for species classes to help players make their own weird races with reskins. Some include modern professions for core classes like astronaut or species like halflings reskinned as small beastling races like beaverlings. Will be doing ones for post apoc and modern era. Androids as a sf type for abhumans too. Sadly Id like to do a reskin of my robot class but as a golem class with various magic and technological gadgets built in. Like instead of a robot turning into a car turns into a cart with chariot with a golem horse. I made a psuedo undead type of abhuman born again from human copses.
Its all helped make my game weirder and these are options I'm considering and getting player feedback for. I'm liking that the problems people cite for species as race DnD are partly dealt with. I considered making a default human class or a generic class for extra HD and some various skills or mutations or spells to apply to npcs and monsters. It could have various builds outlined for boss monsters or extra cunning beasts so you could slap some skills on a npc or monster or alien.
I never use alignment but your alternate oath-based version sounds rad. I especially like the idea that there's a competing old-faith elemental alignment system active simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteFor stat names, I think going your own way makes a lot of sense. The defaults are a little bland and as you mentioned Wisdom is always ambiguous. I've replaced WIS with Alertness in my homebrew. Kind of the opposite approach to making it a piety/fanaticism metric but I think both are improvements.
as i think of wise is often associated with old who frequently have diminished senses or even blind so i just cant marry alertness to wisdom but having a perception/alertness stats is still more clear
ReplyDeletei should post all the eds definitions of wisdom and show how it has morphed
I totally agree! I associate wisdom with age (not exclusively but generally) and it seems totally separate from perceptive ability.
ReplyDelete"Wisdom" as a stat has always felt imprecise and murky to me.
Having a dedicated perception stat on the other hand has been really helpful. If you're going to use stat checks in D&D, various kinds of perception checks will probably be the most common check.
Even in 5e, everyone agrees that perception is by far the most important skill.
i use stat based skill rolls like older dnd and yes they are as basic as saving throws and often establish first round of combat initiative
Delete