Chapter 1: Creating a Character
Chapter 2: Talents
Chapter 3: Feats
Chapter 4: Magic Overview
Chapter 5: Spell Descriptions
Chapter 6: Skills
Chapter 7: Skills
Chapter 8: Equipment
Chapter 9: Rituals Overview
Chapter 10: Ritual Descriptions
Chapter 11: Sidekicks (Familiars, Animal Companions, Cohorts)
Now that I've got the majority of the work done, I'm prepared to show it to people to see if I'm on the right track.
A couple of fair warnings:
1. The races aren't at all balanced. I need suggestions on how to do that. I want them to be about the half-dragon's power level.
2. I tried to keep the save-or-loses from being total save-or-loses, but I know that I've missed some of them. Please give suggestions.
3. Disease/poison rules are not worked out. I have ideas, but there's nothing concrete yet. That means the spells that give diseases and poisons are probably going to be changed.
4. I have not done magic items yet. I am going to do them, but my intent is to balance the system around 0 magic items.
5. The PDF isn't formatted for things like online viewing. My apologies in advance.
6. Here are a list of the "big changes" to the system:
1. Classes advance according to one table, accumulating feats, talents, and skills as they progress.
Things are…very different. Everyone gets bonuses to certain things—AC, attack rolls, damage rolls, and the like. These bonuses improve by +1 for every character level that you have.
2. Characters use Defenses rather than saves—your base Defenses are all 10, and they get bonuses and penalties based on your stats and feats. Effects that would normally require saving throws are rolled similarly to attacks. See the class section for how Defenses advance.
Reflex Defense takes the place of Armor Class.
Magic checks are used by spellcasters to “attack” the Defenses of their opponents. Defense checks, on the other hand, are rolled as an attack against the Defenses. They usually get a bonus, so something that receives a +5 Reflex Defense check is really an attack roll against an individual’s Reflex Defense with a +5 bonus. (“Defense check” is just shorthand for “check against the target’s Defense.”)
As a quick conversion guideline: subtract 7 from a save DC. What you’re left with is the bonus you’ll use to “attack” an enemy’s Defenses.
3. Encounter powers: they exist. For purposes of using them outside of encounters, assume that all your uses “recharge” every ten minutes.
4. Starting hit points: You get a lot of them. They are equal to your Constitution score + your (maximized) starting HD + your Constitution modifier. (Yes, you technically get goodies from your Con score twice. This is because I know that I’m likely to accidentally add a character’s Con modifier an extra time when calculating his HP, so I might as well make it a part of the rules.)
Characters have a “death threshold” equal to 10 + their Constitution scores. You can have negative hit points equal to your death threshold before kicking the bucket.
Also, all HD are maximized. Since damage has been increased overall, this (hopefully) works out well.
Environmental damage has been increased to 1d10 points of damage for every 1d6 that was originally rolled.
5. Armor and natural armor provide damage reduction, not AC. The damage reduction is roughly 1 DR/— for every two points of AC the armor/natural armor normally provides. DR from natural armor and armor stack.
Damage reduction applies against all forms of physical damage, including falling and crushing damage.
6. Changes to the way modifiers work:
All -4/+4 modifiers have been changed to -5/+5 for the sake of “it’s easier to counter by fives than it is to count by fours.”
There is no such thing as miss chance. That is annoying. Anything that grants your enemies a 20% miss chance now gives them a -2 penalty on attacks. Anything that grants your enemies a 50% miss chance now gives them a -5 penalty on attacks.
7. The spell system has been completely overhauled. It now uses a spellpoint system similar to the 3.5 psionics system. If there’s anything in these rules that’s not covered, refer to the XPH for details.
And there are rituals. Kind of like in 4e, but without the fail.
8. Skills have been merged and overhauled. Writing it here would take up too much room.
Use Rope doesn’t exist, as it was a dumb skill. Instead, tying someone up is automatic, and the rules are listed under grappling.
9. More combat options for melee characters. You get to do less boring things now!
Dexterity gives a bonus to damage on ranged attacks. And you can use a swift and immediate action in the same round.
Oh, snap, I almost forgot: combat advantage. I stole it from 4e and it exists. Read the rules on it—but as a quick conversion guide, anything that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus causes you to grant combat advantage.
10. Experience points have been divided by 10. It’s easier that way.
11. Magic items have been completely changed. You’ll need to read the magic items section. Also, you don’t have to pay XP when creating magic items.
12. Disease and poison rules are less of a hassle. I think.
13. Spell resistance does not exist. Neither does energy resistance—at least, not in the traditional sense. There’s no more “cold resist 5” and “fire resist 10.” If you’re resistant to energy, you take half damage from it. That’s all. That means that lots of monsters are going to lose their resistances.
14. Weapons are different. All weapons auto-crit on a natural 20, and all the dice you rolled for the attack are maximized, not multiplied. (No more x4 crits, thank God.)
Projectile weapons give you your Dexterity modifier to damage rolls with them.
15. For magic checks and attacks, a 1 is an automatic miss while a 20 is an automatic success.
16. There’s a condition track! Huzzah. If you’ve got under ¾ your hit points, you take a -1 penalty on things. If you’ve got under a ½ your hit points, you take a -3 penalty on things. If you’ve got under ¼ of your hit points, you take a -5 penalty on things.
(That wasn’t much of a track, I know.)
I fully expect to have fucked up royally in some parts. Please be sure to tell me where I have so that I can fix it. And don't forget spelling or grammatical errors. I hate those.
17. Feats have been vastly overhauled. Many have been merged to reduce their suckitude. Some feats have become talents.
And Combat Reflexes no longer exists—you can make a number of attacks of opportunity in a round equal to 1 + your Dexterity bonus.