Chris Rutkowsky's page

Swim + Climb + Jump = Athletics. That is how they should do it.

Well, as someone who plays a character with a +7 STR mod, I can attest that d20 SUX for strength contests. If I had a nickle for everytime a STR 12 character beat my STR 24 character in a tug-o-war, I'd put them in a roll and punch the GM in the face with it.

The d20 is too random-- it doesn't give the due respect to such a huge difference in ability scores.

My solution: The person with the higher modifier always takes 10. It doesn't matter if they are under stress, etc-- it is much easier for the person w/ the higher mod-- so that person takes 10, while the weaker person has to roll good to beat them.

So my character taking 10 would be a DC 17 STR check for the STR 12 character-- requiring a 16 to tie and a 17 to beat me. Much better than the cursing & screaming that happens when my character rolls a 4 and loses to the dead average person who rolled dead average.

When it comes to tests to break down a door, if you could do it by taking 10, then you should automatically do it. If it would take more than a 10, then you have to roll.

Essentially allowing people to take 10 for abilty checks would really fix a lot of problems I think.

If you want everything to be dice rolls-- like arm wrestling, then instead of a d20, use a d6+mod. Then it can still be random, w/o the person with the HUGE str mod having barely any advantage at all.

I noticed that taking 1st level in rogue is WAY too good also-- so I have a solution to the problem:

All classes get 4+Int mod skills. There are no class / non-class skills anymore. A fighter wants to waste his time on learning to identify spells he cannot cast, that is his business.

Now what is different between the classes-- and especially good to prevent level dipping, is the RATE at which new skills are gained.

Rogues gain a new skill every 2 levels.

Rangers, Bards, Barbarians, Monks gain a new skill every 3 levels.

Fighters, Wizards, Clerics, etc gain a new skill every 4 levels.

So assuming a 10 intelligence, a level 10 rogue has 9 skills, a level 10 fighter has 6, and a level 10 barbarian has 7.

To make this work, the skill list would need to be compressed a bit more too, so that low level rogues are still the best at what they do. Don't have Jump, Climb, & Swim as separate skills. All of them as 1 STR based skill called athletics works great for me.

So a typical non-human rogue at level 1 w/ 14 INT--

Athletics (Swim, jump, climb)
Stealth (hide, move silently, maybe slight of hand)
Perception (listen, spot, search)
Acrobatics ((Balance, Tumble, Escape artist)
Thieving (Roll together slight of hand, disable device, open locks)
Streetwise (Roll together Bluff, Knowledge Local, & Gather Info)

So.... looks like this never got going... bummer.

One of the things I thought was STUPID in all editions of D&D was the idea of a "class skill list" that as a member of a certain class, you could only access certain skills. Perception? Profession? These are things that ALL CLASSES should have access to.

"But that would let fighters learn about Arcane Knowledge stuff"

So what. You have a fighter who chose to read books about magic instead of how to craft weapons-- is letting something like roleplaying & creativity into the character creation process necessarilty a bad thing?

I can understand some classes being more skilled than others, but I think that skills should be available at full value regardless of what class you are (class would just determine how many skill choices you get-- not what list you get to choose from (it is already a small list as is).

Count me in. I want to play a Half-Orc Fighter! What level am I creating for?

For my d20 Cred-- I freelanced a bunch of stuff for Goodman Games (converting DDCs from D&D to C&C). I also published two short products: the Fatal Flaws disadvantage system for D&D and the "Amazing One-Sheet Dungeon". Much more of my work, however has been in the Indy game field, especially with my own label, Basic Action Games (www.bashrpg.com we make rules-lite cinematic style games for the Superhero, Fantasy, & Sci-Fi genres).

As for Pathfinder, I am pretty positive about it. I hope that it will stream-line just a bit more (get rid of the iterative attacks, etc). I am really liking some of their "fixes" though-- especially the new grapple rules!

My problem with weapon training (aside from the 1 sword pony thing) is that some of the weapon groups are totally illogical.

Picks should be in the AXES category, not Spears!

Javelins and darts should be in the SPEARS category (not ranged weapons)

Whips should be their own category-- definitely not "ranged". How is using a whip anything like hurling a sling bullet? If you want to specialize in whip, don't cry because you are only getting one weapon out of the group-- you made that silly choice.

Slings should also be their own category, for the same reason as whip.

Someone has to have SOME opinion on it... BUMP!

Thirded. Down with iterative attacks.

Fourthed even!

I would like to propose a rules adjustment for spells to make per encounter (and possible at will-- though there seem to several options for that given by Domains & Schools) a reality for this game. /Encounter spells is one of the few things in 4e that I actually LIKE!

Normal Casting in D&D is Spells / Day with a number of slots based on spell level. In order to make people able to "go longer" adventuring, I am proposing the following options (so if a campaign used these rules, the wizards could still use all their daily slots as per normal if they wanted).

/Encounter
You can spend 2 Daily slots of a spell level to turn it into one /Encounter slot. Your highest spell level cannot be made into /Encounter spells. A /Encounter spell cannot have a duration measured beyond "minutes". So Sleep can never be a /Encounter spell, nor could permanence, etc. Furthermore, the duration is changed from "x minutes" to "this encounter"-- so if you cast "Bull's STR" and you are 10th level, it won't last 10 minutes if you use it as an /Encoutner spell-- it will only last for the encounter in which you cast it (this is a possible reason to keep some spells as "daily") Furthermore, your effect of the spell is as if you were Half your current level. So if a 10th level wizard were to have Fireball / Encounter, it would only do 5d6 damage. This is another reason to keep some spells as daily instead of /encounter. Note-- Healing magic that is /Encounter can be used between combats-- but only once between encounters per person, or maybe only once every 5 minutes (So in theory, the cleric could heal the party to full strength, but to do so could take hours!).

/At-Will
You can spend 2 Daily slots of a spell level (from spells in the bottom half of your castable spells) to turn them into one /At-Will Slot. At Will spells cannot be from your top 3 spell levels, nor can they be in the top half of your spell levels. At-Will spells cannot have a duration beyond "rounds". In addition, spells that heal damage cannot be used "at-will" (but can be per/encounter). Finally, At-Will spells have an effect as if the caster were 1/3 his actual level (round down). So a 10th level wizard with Magic Missile "At Will" would only be able to cast 2 missiles (he is effectively 3rd level). If he had it as a daily it would be 5 missiles-- so you can see there is still reason to pick some spells as "daily" or "encounter" rather than "at will". One more note-- if you have say, "Summon Monster 1" at will-- you can only have 1 in effect at a time before casting another one!

So for example: A 5th level wizard w/ 18 Intelligence: His daily allotment would be:
0th x5; 1st x5, 2nd x3, 3rd x2.

Instead he chooses the following:
3rd: Fireball 2/day
2nd: Acid Arrow/Encounter, Mirror Image/Day
1st: Magic Missile/Encounter, Charm/Day, Shocking Grasp/Encounter
0th: Mage Hand/Will, Mending/Day

This wizard is sacrificing variability & potence for reliability.

A 10th level wizard w/ 18 Int would normally prep:
0th: x6, 1st: x6, 2nd: x5, 3rd: x4, 4th: x4, and 5th: x2

Instead he does the following:

5th: Telekinesis/day, Cone of Cold/day
4th: Wall of Fire/Encounter, Polymorph/day, Fabricate/day
3rd: Fireball/Encounter (5d6), Tiny Hut/day, Water Breathing/day
2nd: Acid Arrow/Will, Mirror Image/day
1st: Magic Missile/Will, Sleep 2/day
0th: Mend/day, Endure Elements/day, Message/encounter, Mage-hand/encounter

One last note regarding healing spells: If you have a healing spell set as /encounter, you can cast only ONE of them between encounters on all allies. So, if you have Cure Light/encounter, and Cure Moderate/Encounter, and Cure Serious/Day, you could cast Cure Mod on all party members between encounters-- but not the Cure Mod & Cure Light. If one wanted to give the OPTION of allowing healing spells to be used "at will" I would say that they CANNOT be cast outside combat at all (A 6th level cleric casting "Cure Light" 1/round in combat is not game breaking. Using it to heal everyone to full health between fights is).

One of my concerns is the fighter's weapon mastery groups. I think the concept is great-- but Picks do not belong in the spear group. They belong in the Axes Group!

There are similar problems in these weapon groups-- like having whip in with "ranged weapons" along with slings & javelins. Whip should not be in a group-- it is a whip. If a fighter wants to be the ultimate whip master, he'll have to pay the price of specializing in a weapon that is a group unto itself. Second, Javelin fits better in the spears category than "ranged".