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D20 ranges from gritty to superheroic.
Progression is awesome, but becoming a superhero when gritty is desired can be problematic. Going long periods without progression can also be lacking.
So, the idea is to gain progress by improving versatility, but not raw power.
I also worked in a couple other things, such as save based health replacing hit points, less reliable magic (though ni longer limited by slots), etc.
Overview
Feats are gained by reaching set amounts of total xp.
Class levels are purchased with xp, with learning a new class being cheaper (to a point, the cost increases with more classes, making it expensive to have too many).
Characters have a Tier which sets things like bab, saves, hit dice, skill rank cap, etc.
Magic is slotless, less reliable, less powerful, and no longer limited by a static amount of use per day.
When a character takes damage, they make a soak roll.
A soak roll is made by rolling their hit dice and adding their fort save. If they rolled higher than the damage, they shrug it off gaining a wound point.
Wound points apply a -1 stacking penalty to further soak rolls.
If the soak roll fails, they take two wound points and gain an injury.
If the soak roll fails by 5+, then the character is also disabled.
If the soak fails by 10+, the character is dying.
Disabled characters do not fall unconcious nor become dying from taking a standard action, unless particularly strenuous (such as making a charge maneuver, or running). If the character does perform a particularly strenuous action, they become dying but not unconcious.
A dying character can make a will save each round (dc 15) to remain concious. A dying character is also disabled.
An injury is a result from a table.
The injury table, roll a d10,
1, injured foot, halve base speed
2, -5 checks affected by armor check penalty,
3, count as one encumbrance level higher
4-6, gain 2 ability damage to str(4), dex(5), con(6)
7, -1 attack rolls and double range penalties
8, -4 penalty on mental stats
9, blinded/deafened (d2 to pick one)
10, crippled limb, roll a d4 to determine which one. The limb is unusable (severed or simply hanging limp is choice, or d2) until healed with a restoration spell.
Critical hits cause an injury in addition to the result of the soak roll (damage rolled normally).
A character starts with 6 skill points.
They also gain 2+int mod skill points per tier (u.e. a level 3 gains 6+3*int mod skill points).
The skill rank cap is tier+3.
Class skills do not grant +3 when trained.
Favored class bonus does grant extra skill points (nor hit points obviously, see health spoiler). Instead, trained skills that are class skills rom favored class get a +1 bonus.
New Feat
Skill Training
No requirements.
Gain 2 skill points.
This feat may be taken three times per tier.
Young characters can be represented as having less than 1000 xp, and thus not yet have a class. They get 1 skill point at 100 xp, and gain another skill point every 150 xp until they have earned 1000 xp.
A character starts with a d4 hit dice size. At all times, a character has a number of hit dice equal to their tier.
The folowing feat improves one hit die at a time.
New Feat
Hard to Kill
No requirements.
Improve the size of your hit dice according to this progression-> (d4->d6->d8->d10->d12)
Hit die may only be improved three times.
May be taken multiple times.
Special, barbarians may improve hit die four times as long as they have a number of levels equal to, or greater than, their tier. Barbarians are thus the only ones able to achieve d12 hit dice. (classes that normally get d12 hit dice count as barbarians for this feat).
Will post more soon.
Your base save bonus for all saves is initially 1/3 of your tier.
New Feat
Saving Grace
No requirements.
Improve one of your saves to 1/2 of your tier.
This feat may taken for each save.
Tier is a stat. The tier can just be set at the desired level for the players, with tier representing a creature's innate power and capacity. Tier is approximately the same as level in standard d20, thus tier 5 is the highest tier for "natural and/or realistically human" level of ability, i.e. what a real life human could achieve.
If it is desired to progress through tiers during play, it is suggested to progress to the next when the total xp gained is equal to their current tier squared * 90,000 xp.
CR should be compared to tier instead of level.
A character gains +1 to all ability scores for every 4 tiers.
Base Attack Bonus is now the Base Combat Bonus and applies to both attacks and AC (including Touch AC).
Considering previous balancing of equipment granting AC bonus but not attack bonus, the following rules balance this out again.
Weapons gain an Attack Bonus. Add up any of the following that apply,
Light weapons, +1
One handed weapons, +2
Two handed weapons, +3
Martial, +1
Exotic, +2 (bastard swords still count as 2-handed when used exotically in one hand)
Reach, +1
Masterwork, +1
Keen, +1
AC is considered to protect against being meaningfully hit (since using armor to parry/deflect a blow is a key point in wearing it, but obviously doesn't help against touch attacks).
Likewise, some weapons are better able to puncture, slice through, or otherwise hurt an opponant despite the armor or protections.
BCB is initially equal to 1/2 tier.
New Feat
Skilled Combatant
No prerequisites
The feat may be taken twice. The first time, BCB improves to 3/4 your tier. The second time, BCB improves to equal tier.
As a character gains xp, they track the total they've gained and the amount they've spent on classes.
The cost of gaining a level in a class depends on two factors, the number of higher level classes, and the level to be advanced to in the desired class. A tied level class does not count as higher level.
X=number of higher level classes plus 2
A=the level to be gainedin the desired class
formula; A*A*(500*X) is the cost in xp
Casting a spell requires two checks, a casting check and a fatigue check. Spells also have a power level rather than a caster level (mostly a rename for conceptual reinforcement).
Power level determines how broad an area/volume the spell affects, how far it reaches, and how long it lasts.
A casting check determines success, how difficult the save is, and the maximum power level achieved.
The DC of the spell's save is 10 plus the margin of success of the casting check.
The maximum power level of the spell is the margin of success divided by two.
The second check is the fatigue check. The fatigue check is similar to the soak roll. You roll a number of dice equal to your tier. The size of the dice is based on the type of caster you are. A full casting class rolls d10s, a medium casting class rolls d8s, a low casting class rolls d6s, and a non-casting class character (such as for SLAs or rituals) rolls d4s. So the caster rolls their dice, if they roll equal to or higher than the desired power level plus the spell level, the spell works, but they take a cumulative -1 penalty on further fatigue checks. If the fatigue check is twice the spell level plus desired power level, then no penalty on further checks is gained. If the fatigue check fails, the spell fizzles. This penalty is reduced at a steady pace if one point per 8 hours, regardless of activity (not affected by a ring of sustenance or similar effect).
The desired power level must be declared before rolling either fatigue or casting checks. If the casting check caps a spell at a lower power level, the spell works, just not as powerfully as intended. If the casting check rolls a higher power level cap, the lower declared power level is still used as only that much power was put into the spell.
Metamagic effects increase the dc of the casting check by twice their level adjustment, but do not adjust the level of the spell. By default, they do not alter the power level check, except those that increase reach, damage, area, and modify factors that
are improved by power level will add their level adjustment to the power level check DCs.
This was built with the expectation of using the Players Roll All The Dice section from the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana.
Thus any stat that has a "10+ modifiers" or "11+level" removes the 10 in favor of a d20 roll plus modifiers/level.
On the flip side, npcs trade in the d20 in favor of a static +10. Certain enemies, such as bosses can still roll as this adds to the tension, but should generally not happen with groups.
Very interested in how this progresses.
Very interested in how this progresses.
I'm glad someone noticed it. :D
It is still an alpha draft. I hope someone tries it. I don't have players myself and my gming style doesn't seem to work well for pbp. Actually I just don't do well with pbp period.
See anything I missed? Holes or issues that I've missed?