True20?

[Endovior]

I recently took a look at some of Green Ronin's True20 stuff, and it looks pretty good... they've basically balanced spells and swords by making each spell a feat. Casters (Adepts) gain spells by taking a feat, everything scales to your level, and everyone gets a feat every level.

Am I missing something here, or is this what we've been looking for in a D&D fix?

[angelfromanotherpin]

The problem is that not everything scales to your level.

Attack Focus is still Weapon Focus: a +1 to hit. Yet it costs the same Feat as Plant Shaping, which can entangle enemies in an area, or create a hedge maze of difficult terrain.

Attack Focus never ever improves. Plant Shaping improves a very small amount over time.

I really like a lot of the design for True20, but it still has the same caster bias. Now, if each of the abilities you got at a rate of 1/level also improved every odd-numbered level, that would be cool.

[RandomCasualty]

1187792632[/unixtime]]
Attack Focus is still Weapon Focus: a +1 to hit. Yet it costs the same Feat as Plant Shaping, which can entangle enemies in an area, or create a hedge maze of difficult terrain.

Well honestly, bonuses to d20 rolls don't have to scale or improve, because they're bonuses to d20 rolls.

See, your saves, attacks and what not automatically scale as you gain levels. So having that +1 is like saying "you're +1 better than what someone of your level can normally do."

In fact, you run into trouble if they do scale, because you risk pushing people off the RNG.

The problem isn't so much that the +1 never improves, but rather that the +1 is so small. Really, nobody cares about a +1 attack bonus, it's not significant enough to really improve your character.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Hm, yes. Poorly organized thoughts. Redone.

1) The weapon-based feats still suck compared to magic-based feats.

2) The level-based scaling is incredibly uneven. The Attack Focus feat never improves at all. Plant Shaping improves in one way (level x40 feet radius of difficult ground) and actually becomes worse in another way (Flat DC20 Escape Artist to break the entangle effect, so at higher levels one escapes more easily).

Also, RandomCasualty, the Attack Focus ability can scale with level in many more ways than just making the number bigger. So when I complain that it doesn't improve, please don't assume I'm thinking about a bigger number.

[Koumei]

A friend of mine ran a True20 game, and mentioned that he liked it a lot, but he felt casters were actually a bit underpowered in this if they chose to go the direct damage path. As in "a fighter with a stick is doing better damage and not knocking themself out in the process."

[erik]

Heh, that's why you take Suggestion and simply add the bad guys to your side.
30 minutes per rank is pretty darned good.

Who would want to be a blaster when you can instead teleport and bring people back from the dead? Oy.

Imagine the dilemma. +10 to checks to wake up when sleeping... or bring people back from the dead. Hrmmmm. I do realize that Restore Life isn't a level 1 usable ability, but still, it is at some point offered as an alternative to crap like Light Sleeper. So yeah, the feats need massive work but the basics are pretty good for True 20.


I'd propose a very quick fix which would save you from having to balance feats.

Gestalt everything.

For first level I'd recommend granting 6 feats, 3 of which may be adept feats/powers. At each additional level gain another 4 feats, one of which may be an adept feat/power.

At each additional level you get 1 feat of each kind (adept, expert, warrior and general)... or better yet, 1 adept feat/power + 3 other feats... I'd hate to make someone take a warrior feat if they didn't want one. That would be petty.

Also you get warrior BAB and expert skills. As their one "class difference" characters could choose their good save and determination ability as the means of classifying them as a warrior, adept or expert. Reputation could be whatever. It's just not that important.

I could care less if people chose 10 non-adept feats each level, they're just so weak (with the exception of some expert feats which are pretty much adept powers), but giving the potential to have 1 per level of each kind of feat seems fair. If my players wanted a particular ability that didn't have a feat for it, I'd be likely to simply let them take a feat to grant said ability, so long as it wasn't outrageous.

There's really no reason that a warrior shouldn't be able to do much of the adept stuff anyway (healing like a paladin, supernatural speed, supernatural strength, weapon enhancement, enhance ability, nature reading, etc... any and all of them can make perfect sense). If an adept type character doesn't want to wail on people with their full BAB they aren't required to optimize their physical stats, so they can just focus on having good DCs on their powers.

The best part about turning T20 characters into gestalts is that you really don't have to mess with the monsters much at all. The most aggravating part of making up a roleplaying system for me is that I have to make alllllll the damn monsters from scratch. Gestalting the characters really won't make them much more powerful than a normal adept since non-adept feats are mostly crap and more crap (i.e. fluff), so challenges from critters will still be about the same and the bestiary remains just as usable (I should disclaim that I haven't looked at the T20 bestiary, so I don't know if it was usable in the first place).


[edit: fleshed out the feat selection of a T20 gestalt some, mostly changing my mind from "1 feat of each kind per level" into "4 feats per level, one of which may be adept"... since forcing people into taking warrior feats is just spiteful. I wouldn't want to even force a warrior into taking warrior feats. Ugh.]

[Koumei]

Heh, Warrior feats that bad? Are we talking "D20 Core Fighter feats", "D&D Fighter feats, even including supplements", or are we talking "Some of these make Weapon Focus look good"?

[erik]

I'll list the True20 Warrior feats in the core book. There aren't many of them.

Attack Specialization (+1 damage)
Greater Attack Specialiazation (+1 damage)
Cleave
Chokehold (cause pinned opponent to suffocate)
Critical Strike (may crit against favored enemies normally uncrittable)
Favored Opponent (favored enemy, +2 skills, +1 dmg)
Great Cleave
Greater Attack Focus (+1 atk)
Rage
Seize Init (spend conviction to go first in Init order)
Smite Opponent (smite attack)
Spirited Charge (+3 melee damage when charging)
Tough (+1 bonus on damage soaking)
Weapon Bind (free disarm attempt after parry)
Weapon Break (free sunder attempt after parry)

There are many fighteresque feats that are actually general feats. Improved Grab, Quickdraw, Point Blank Shot tree of feats, Elusive Target (+4 AC vs ranged when in melee), etc.

[Koumei]

Wow... that sucks.

Though Critical Strike could be a useful one in regular D&D. Maybe.