...I'm looking for a system that has the following criteria:
1) All characters have access to all skills, thus no real classes, but perhaps arch-types
2) When you level up, you can gain "skills" every X amount of levels
3) Also when you level up, you get a certain amount of "power" which you can put into your "skills". In this fashion, spells and attacks are all equal in power without requiring class levels because their power is derived from how much "power" you invest into each skill, but do you choose to invest into your attack, your dodge, your health?
I know I've played a system similar to this in the past. Was it Battletech? I have no idea. Thoughts? Suggestions?
Do you want an actual 'level' based system?
d20 and DnD are level based systems where players get rewards at specific points in their life.
There are also systems that give continuous rewards or 'skill' growth.
I would check out the Open D6 system from West End Games.
The system works by assigning a different number of d6s to each attribute and then assigning points to skills within each attribute. Everything works off of how many points you invest in your skills - with combat and magic being some of the skills you can invest in. So you might have 3D6 for Strength but 3D6+2 for melee combat.
When creating characters you can either custom build your characters by or start from one of the archetypes/templates (like fighter, rogue, wizard, etc).
Best part? The rules are all available for free from RPG Now. Check them out.
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...I'm looking for a system that has the following criteria:
1) All characters have access to all skills, thus no real classes, but perhaps arch-types
2) When you level up, you can gain "skills" every X amount of levels
3) Also when you level up, you get a certain amount of "power" which you can put into your "skills". In this fashion, spells and attacks are all equal in power without requiring class levels because their power is derived from how much "power" you invest into each skill, but do you choose to invest into your attack, your dodge, your health?I know I've played a system similar to this in the past. Was it Battletech? I have no idea. Thoughts? Suggestions?
3rd Edition Dragon Quest from TSR. It's really old, but for a fantasy setting it's certainly fits your description.
S.
It sounds like you are just looking for a point buy system. There are plenty out there.
True20 has Classes, but they are pretty broad and I believe all three have access to all of the Skills. Feats are restricted by Class.
I liked how in the first editions of Call of Cthulu, there were no real classes. You could be a Detective, or Reporter, or whatever, but it was a "role" more than a class with abilities. However, CoC didn't take it's skill system very far.
Then there was Battletech. I'm not sure if Mechwarrior uses the same game system, but I do believe the first editions of Shadowrun had similar rules to Battletech. In that system, you used all D6's for everything! Every level increase, you got to put points into your current skills to improve them by D6, or get new skills with enough points. You could also improve your health, ability to dodge, etc. It was completely up to you how you wanted to improve your character. The sky was the limit and no skill was overpowered, so it was very balanced and customizable. And the funnest part was earning enough cash to build mech's. But that's not what I'm talking about... Just looking for a system that's similar to both of those two mentioned systems (CoC and BT). Damage was different in BT; you had a finite amount of life; the D6's were rolled like in Heroscape where the higher dice won and did damage over the lower one (or "soaked" the damage); excess dice were direct damage. I'm pretty sure this changed when Star Wars came out and introduced the more cinematic "damage soaking" rules, and was reflected in new versions of Battletech, but since I haven't played either in over 16-years, I really can't say anymore.
Fate (there are lots of flavors)
G.U.R.P.S.
Hero System
Mutants & Masterminds
Prose Descriptive Qualities a.k.a. PDQ (might be too rules lite for your tastes)
Savage Worlds