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I think the main problems are as follows, with the biggest problem being add level:
Ac and attack add level:
All this does is make high level characters invincible to low level characters
If you always vs adversaries that are similar level to you the dice rolls never change, this results in you never feeling more powerful, it’s the world of warcraft syndrome where you don’t feel like your getting stronger Le, they feel it in that game because of fear, we fell it in this game because the number goes up each level for no reason.

Hit points too high:
Too many rpgs go with more and more hit points, it’s a shame they didn’t try a spin on the FFG Star Wars, soak system.
Where armour soaks damage but you don’t have many hit points so once the reduction occurs the excess goes through and can kill you.
With higher and higher hit points, higher and higher damage output needs to occur. Keeping the numbers smaller makes it more manageable.
This is seen by the mistake of making magic weapons increase dice number.

Skills
adding level to skills seems stupid, my 20th level fighter can make a better bow then a 2nd level bow maker because he’s killed more people, really?

How to fix:
Ac and to hit and hp and damage;
This issue could be fixed by separating being hit and having your armour hit.
By this I mean you take a war hammer approach of, roll to hit then the person takes an armour save roll, although in this case there would be no armour save roll, you would just reduce damage by the armours soak value,
Excess would be done to the player.
You could incorporate a hit location, and certain armours protect different areas better or worse, example a breast plate would not protect the arms, getting hit there would not only receive full damage but if the damage exceeded a percentage amount the ads would be destroyed, eg a hit occurs, it’s on the arm, the breast plate doesn’t work, the damage exceeds 10% of the characters hit points, so the arm is destroyed. You could do a lesser version without hit allocations nd it would work too.

Hp is fine at first level, but the increases to fast.
If you incorporated a soak system you could have caster health increase by 2 per level, rogue types by 3 per level, fighters by 4 per level, barbarians by 5 per level.
Con bonus would be added per 5 levels.
Resulting in a human wizard with con 10 at level 20 having 48hp
And a human barbarian with con 18 at level 20 having 128hp
It brings in the numbers, now those magic weapons go back to a magic increase is +1 damage for. +1 magic item and +5 damage for a +5 magic item (you could make a a +1 item be +1 to hit, +2 damage and so on)

Skills:
Skills tiers are enjoyable, but maybe instead of ramping up the scores, you reduce the dc scale of what’s needed for easy and hard.
Make the players get skill points to invest as before, maybe give them heaps, but have the ranks in skills harder to attain.
Example:
Have ranks untrained, apprentice, adept, professional, master, legendary
Untrained is 0 skill points, apprentice is 1-2, adept is 3-6, professional is 7-11, master is 12-17 and legendary is 18 ranks
A character can only invest 1 point per level
And gains 8 skill points per level, a bard might get +1 per level and rogue + 2 per level.
Bonuses to skill rolls would be ranks invested plus ability score, and the ranks would unlock new benefits similar to feats automatically upon reaching them.
Weapons and armour and magic schools could also have a similar system, but it would be automatic, and gained through the class.

Spells should also have options, as I have said in another post, making spells be templates that combine together, would allow for far more creativity. Eg as a level 0 spell I choose bolt and combine it with the template fire, fire says deal 1d8 damage and if the character fails a save, it’s catches slight suffering 2 damage per turn until put out, bolt says action, 60yard range 1 target, but I could have chosen frost bolt, same range and target and somantic components, but frost deals 1d8 and prevents 1 of the targets actions next turn from being slowed.
As a level 3 spell I combine the blast template which deals damage to everyone in a 20ft radius at 120ft range with the sonic template, which means it deals 6d6 sonic damage and deafens everyone it hits for 1d4 rounds.
The same could be done for healing spells and so on.

I also think something like 5e cantrips could help keep casters competitive with melee.

Anyway hope this feedback helps


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Vic Ferrari wrote:
Hakon007 wrote:

the problems you speak of OP happen because of the system using an out dated back bone known as a d20

change it to 2d6 or 2d10 and then you well get a nice bell curve.

There is an official variant for this (3d6):

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/bellCurveRolls.htm

thank you, I wonder how this would work with 2d10, 3d6 just seems to fat a curve, bit of overkill


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sunder should totally be in the game, it makes repair magic and crafters be useful, if they can repair equipment. how many fantasy settings have a blacksmith go along on a mission, make a black smith a useful party member (well not so much in an all druid party hahaha)

but repairing and damaging objects adds to realism, and I'm all for it


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the problems you speak of OP happen because of the system using an out dated back bone known as a d20

change it to 2d6 or 2d10 and then you well get a nice bell curve.

in a 2d6 system, an untrained person attempting a basic dc of 10, should have a +3 modifier for what ever reason.
rolling a 7 or more 58% of the time to pass the test.

your chance roll goes as follows:
number/chance/percantage chance/chance succeeding if minimum
2 = 1/36 = 2.8% = 100%
3 = 2/36 = 5.5% = 97.2%
4 = 3/36 = 8.4% = 91.6%
5 = 4/36 = 11.1% = 83.3%
6 = 5/36 = 13.9% = 72.2%
7 = 6/36 = 22.1% = 58.3%
8 = 5/36 = 13.9% = 41.7%
9 = 4/36 = 11.1% = 27.8%
10 = 3/36 = 8.4% = 16.7%
11 = 2/36 = 5.5% = 8.4%
12 = 1/36 = 2.8% = 2.8%

in this system auto crits happen half as often (as do auto fails)
but you don't need these huge numbers, you can remove the add level to the proficiency
having the following system for skills:

untrained +0 (-2 or 3 if requires training)
apprentice +1
adept +2
professional +3
expert +4
master +5

dc's would be

5 hard to fail
6 easy
7 normal
8 medium
9 challenging
10 hard
11 difficult
12 superior
13 extreme
14 masterful
15 godlike

so in such a system an untrained villager trying to make a bow which is a hard task

would have a 16% chance to do so
where as an intelligent character with int 14 (+2) and a master at making bows has a 97.2% chance of making the bow

as to the other point if you want to raise the floor so to speak you are taking away both realism and fun, the scores need to be compacted not raised with level, you need to stop raising dc's first, yes the rogue will always sneak passed the guards and find it trivial, he should, he should only have a 3-10% chance of failing, its his job, it should be on the rogue to help the others, sneak somewhere else, distract the guards so the others can make it.
it should not be an auto succeed for a lvl 15 wizard to sneak passed a level 1 guard