Grimoire Spotlight - Design Goals

[Ghostwheel]

Quick background - Grimoire of the Balanced Wheel is a rules revision I'm writing for D&D 3.5; it's made for a more cinematic feel where combats take 4-8 rounds (6-8) and is mostly based around the rogue level of balance. I've borrowed (stolen) ideas from both PF and 4e while keeping the core 3e chassis to get more-or-less what I want.

The system itself is very modular, and the spotlight will examine various parts of the system itself for constructive critique and the like.

For now we'll simply examine the design goals of the system:
[*] Shorter rounds in real-time by...
1. Making spellcasters less prominent.
2. Simplifying monster abilities.
3. Simplifying special attacks (bull rush, grapple, trip, etc).
[*] Have PCs be pre-optimized but not very optimizable which means...
1. PC classes are good straight out the box, and are powerful within their own right, allowing one to take just about any feat for flavor's sake.
2. Classes aren't very optimizable, meaning that even if someone optimizes considerably they still won't put other characters who aren't optimized to shame.
3. This also removes some of the disparity of power between characters of different classes and build choices.
[*] Move towards a more cinematic type of combat that's 6-8 rounds long.
[*] Tactical combat choices make a bigger difference rather than planning, due to everyone being towards the middle of the random number generator.
[*] Characters have an interesting list of choices in combat, where feats come in. Feats are there primarily to introduce options, rather than pure power.
[*]Make DMing easy after the setup, especially the building of encounters. Scrap the CR system for something that works.
1. This also means limiting the power of PCs to completely go off story rails, putting the DM in a bad situation where he has to make things up on the fly.
[*] Monsters should not have immunities that render players completely useless.
[*] World-changing and story-derailing abilities should be kept out of the hands of players for the most part (with exceptions for story purposes).
[*] Keep everyone on the RNG as far as modifiers go.
[*] Allow people to adventure for the whole day rather than having the "15-minute workday" problem, with a soft cap using healing surges.
1. This makes it so that people aren't very strong towards the beginning of the day and then suck the rest of the day.
2. It also gives people a reason to continue adventuring rather than choosing to rest between encounters to regain daily abilities.
3. Players can rest if they want to, and it won't give them a sizable bonus, which means that the DM doesn't need to throw "filler" encounters to make characters balanced according to the D&D 3.5 encounter system where characters are supposed to have 4 encounters per day to make the daily abilities balanced.
4. Subsequent encounters don't need to be easier due to the party's loss of resources.
[*] Simplify magical items so that a character's power comes from their class, rather than their equipment.
[*] Allow all characters to contribute in social interactions.
[*] Play the same basic game at higher levels, rather than the game (and potentially story) breaking down once PCs come close to level 20.
[*] Get rid of Character Wealth by Level, make the Big Six part of a character's power rather than items that are needed for the character to be any good, and remove the "Christmas Tree" magical item effect.

I know that many people might disagree with the design goals, but "you're dumb, this is stupid" won't help much and will mostly be ignored. Constructive criticism however is welcome and I'm looking for good idea to help make the revision shine

[Grek]

Things you'll need to do:

-Give everyone scaling bonuses as a class ability and delete items of +N. Possibly, consider making the scaling bonus only apply if you have the 100gp more expensive masterwork version of whatever, so you can still do the whole "PCs are captured wake up in a prison without their gear!" as an alternative to "PCs are captured and then murdered." thing while still only putting them each 1000gp into the hole tops when you do that.

-Make dragon hordes huge again. For the children.

-Make full casters less good. Two ways to do this, I think. Either tie Caster Level and Spells Per Day to Character Level and then figure out a workable way to give Spells Known out so that a single level of a spellcasting class gives you some reasonable powers for 1 level of a class, OR just design all new 'themed caster' classes ala Fire Mage and Beguiler which have the requisite power level.

-Make Fighters more good. Step one would be to give them more skills. Step two would be to make fighter feats more interesting. Step three is give them stuff to buy now that items do not scale and they're not spending all their gold ever on swords.

-Get rid of subtypes that have immunities. Rewrite them to only do things that we always want everything with that subtype ever to have.

-Make the new CR system something along the lines of "This monster the party charmed is worth 16 points, to balance it you should add 8 two-point goblins to the other side." That would be excellent.

-Go ahead and get rid of Vancian Magic. It is why we have a 15-minute work day.

-Let the PCs go ahead and beat up efreets in exchange for wishes for giant gold statues of themselves. It's purely cosmetic once you've got 1000gp worth of masterwork equipment.

[Ghostwheel]

-Give everyone scaling bonuses as a class ability and delete items of +N. Possibly, consider making the scaling bonus only apply if you have the 100gp more expensive masterwork version of whatever, so you can still do the whole "PCs are captured wake up in a prison without their gear!" as an alternative to "PCs are captured and then murdered." thing while still only putting them each 1000gp into the hole tops when you do that.

Check (grimoire classes have scaling bonuses to damage), and replace with something else. I plan on doing a showcase of a few of the ones I've written up later. I've also implemented a BoG-like system where everyone gets the Big 6 (ability score bonuses, resistance to saves, natural armor, deflection, magic weaponry, and armor enhancement) for free, and then you can have up to 5 "misc" items split into least, lesser, and greater items depending on cost and what the DM thinks an item should be. Will go more in-depth once I do a spotlight on it, but it's already written up.

-Make dragon hordes huge again. For the children.

If you like

-Make full casters less good. Two ways to do this, I think. Either tie Caster Level and Spells Per Day to Character Level and then figure out a workable way to give Spells Known out so that a single level of a spellcasting class gives you some reasonable powers for 1 level of a class, OR just design all new 'themed caster' classes ala Fire Mage and Beguiler which have the requisite power level.

-Go ahead and get rid of Vancian Magic. It is why we have a 15-minute work day.

I actually do replace vancian magic with the recharge variant in UA and a lengthened casting time variant which heavily nerfs spellcasters and makes meat shields who can actually draw enemy fire important to stop enemies from interrupting spellcasting with impunity. Furthermore, just change the recharge time of problematic spells on a case by case basis. For example, I don't like Glitterdust. Thus, I make the recharge time 24 hours, allowing someone to use it 1/day to potentially end an encounter. A DM could make it longer or shorter depending on how powerful they feel a specific spell is.

-Make Fighters more good. Step one would be to give them more skills. Step two would be to make fighter feats more interesting. Step three is give them stuff to buy now that items do not scale and they're not spending all their gold ever on swords.

Everything scales automatically, no need to waste anything to get a magic +5 sword by level 20. Also fighters are basically gone, replaced by warblades. Insert a few other classes for some of the more classic ones, and add the classes I've been working on.

-Get rid of subtypes that have immunities. Rewrite them to only do things that we always want everything with that subtype ever to have.

The biggest immunity that shafts PCs is generally against SA. Instead of just removing it, I HRed that SA deals 1/2 damage to creatures normally immune, and there's a feat that removes even that.

-Make the new CR system something along the lines of "This monster the party charmed is worth 16 points, to balance it you should add 8 two-point goblins to the other side." That would be excellent.

Something like that, but with less charm. I've already got all the numbers typed out and such for levels 1-20, and have a variant that removes epic levels in favor of something else.

-Let the PCs go ahead and beat up efreets in exchange for wishes for giant gold statues of themselves. It's purely cosmetic once you've got 1000gp worth of masterwork equipment.

If it's just gold statues, then certainly. Since power isn't tied to wealth anymore, that's totally fine, though using it to wish that the story was gone wouldn't be kosher.

In short, I've got tons of the things already written up, but will be revealing them one by one. Of course you can cheat and look at everything already on the wiki, but I want to discuss them one at a time rather than dumping everything at once so that people can understand all the different facets and how everything works together.

[Grek]

The recharge variant is one giant caster buff.

[Ghostwheel]

The recharge variant is one giant caster buff.

Completely agree with you--if you're assuming the normal rules. However, when you go about changing the recharge variant to anything you want (for example, making a high recharge on non-damage spells), you actually nerf specific problematic spells. It also gives casters a per-encounter paradigm, rather than a daily one, which I'm also shifting characters towards.

[violence in the media]

-Get rid of subtypes that have immunities. Rewrite them to only do things that we always want everything with that subtype ever to have.

The biggest immunity that shafts PCs is generally against SA. Instead of just removing it, I HRed that SA deals 1/2 damage to creatures normally immune, and there's a feat that removes even that.

How does this feat differ from Natural Spell? As in, why would you ever elect to eschew it if the thing it buffs is one of your main schticks?

[Ghostwheel]

Because not all enemies encountered are going to be immune to SA, and because it only increases the damage against those, and because it's a horizontal increase in power (ability to affect more foes) rather than a vertical one across the board (increase power of SA directly).

If a character wants to use up one of the 10 feats they get (I give an extra feat at level 2, 4, and 5), I have no problem with them being able to do their main shtick, which is far from overpowered, against virtually every enemy they meet.

[violence in the media]

I'm just thinking of this from the standpoint that if I'm picking a class that can stab fools in the kidneys, it's largely because I want to stab fools in the kidneys. If there is an option that will allow me to stab more fools in the kidneys then, seeing as that's what I'm there to do, I'm going to take it. I might wait until the point where I'm gaining back a noticeable number of SA dice on a noticeable number of attacks, but that's only a question of when and not whether--kind of like Natural Spell.

Wait a minute, how many SA dice are we potentially talking about here? There's a difference between getting back 3 dice over 2 attacks versus potentially 15+ dice over 4+ attacks.

[Ghostwheel]

At most, at level 20, a grimoire rogue is going to get back 5d6 on each attack with the feat, with at most 4 attacks per round.
Note though that since they're on the RNG, often around 2 of those attacks will miss every round.

[erik]

At most 4 attacks? And they miss with some of them? What's wrong with these rogues? =-(

I know that the last rogue I played in Living Greyhawk I jumped through all sorts of hoops to take Unseen Seer just to ensure that I could sneak attack any sort of creatures that cock-sucking mod writers decided to screw me with.

I seriously had entire adventures multiple times where every enemy was either, plant, elemental, undead or construct. Every single one. Lots of mod writers looooved doing that for some reason.

Anywho, I would gladly give up a couple sneak attack dice at higher levels just to be certain that I could reliably use my main source of contribution in all combats. A rogue without sneak attack dice usually might as well sit out combat as they are relegated beneath cohort level strength.

[Ghostwheel]

Remember, it's halved against enemies who are usually immune to it.

And a rogue who's hitting on 2/4 attacks is still dealing around 135 damage, which is around where I want them to be.

[LR]

That's disappointing, because this is the standard for Rogue-level, which is your stated goal.

Your Rogue directly prevents Rogue-level tactics, which means that your Rogue is not a Rogue-level class. Your Rogue is, at best, a decent cohort for somebody with levels in a real class. It's also more complicated than a normal Rogue so I'd probably just as soon take an Adept if the MC isn't allowing cohorts with levels in real classes.

[Ghostwheel]

Not really. The rogue-level I'm shooting for doesn't need to piggy-back on the abilities of other classes, is not completely hosed by see invis, and doesn't try to exploit a bonus feat for free epic feats.

A grimoire rogue can have non-magical daggers and be bereft of all magical items and deal over 100 damage every round, even if half of its attacks miss. Want an actual example of what I'm shooting for? Take a look at martial adepts, for example. Or a duskblade. Or what a well-done psychic warrior can dish out. It's not shabby by any measure, and even missing half the time they can dish out damn good damage.

[LR]

What are you defining as good damage? 100 damage won't even get the attention of a 20th level monster. Your Rogue is exactly like the PHB Rogue except he doesn't get the things that make Rogues playable past early level. What does your Rogue bring to a party besides being a warm body that dies when he tries to go into melee with actual melee brutes?

[Ice9]

# World-changing and story-derailing abilities should be kept out of the hands of players for the most part (with exceptions for story purposes).
# Play the same basic game at higher levels, rather than the game (and potentially story) breaking down once PCs come close to level 20.

While "not breaking down at high levels" isn't a bad concept, I've often seen it boil down to "there's no real point to the level system, because nothing actually changes".

For example, there's nothing wrong with saying "at low levels, a swamp/mountain/desert is a major obstacle and there's nothing you can do bypass it". But if we get to 20th level, and you're still saying "the major obstacle here is a swamp, stop trying to bypass it", then I'm going to ask "so why did I do the paperwork to level up 19 times?".

TL;DR - a system where the basic story never changes is a system where you don't need levels, and certainly not twenty of them.

[LR]

While "not breaking down at high levels" isn't a bad concept, I've often seen it boil down to "there's no real point to the level system, because nothing actually changes".

For example, there's nothing wrong with saying "at low levels, a swamp/mountain/desert is a major obstacle and there's nothing you can do bypass it". But if we get to 20th level, and you're still saying "the major obstacle here is a swamp, stop trying to bypass it", then I'm going to ask "so why did I do the paperwork to level up 19 times?".

TL;DR - a system where the basic story never changes is a system where you don't need levels, and certainly not twenty of them.

That's the biggest problem I see with this. If he really succeeds in his goals and successfully nerfs the monsters to match his PC nerfs, then he'll most likely wind up with a game that stretches LotR out to twenty levels. There aren't 20 levels worth of new abilities in low fantasy, so I can't imagine that ever working.

[Ghostwheel]

The first time you went through the mountain, you had big problems with the bugbears, the orcs, the goblins, and the kobolds. Once you reach higher levels, you waltz through them, slaughter them as you please and continue on. Except now you need to fight the fire goblins mk 2, the cyborg-ninja orcs, the abyss-infused kobolds, and the giganticus-born hobgoblins while travelling the 835th layer of the abyss. In a similar vein, people playing Devil May Cry or God of War enjoy the game despite the fact that they're basically playing the same game at higher levels except with more/cooler abilities and against much stronger foes.

And it's not that hard to find powers that don't "change the game" to spread through 20 levels. Just look at Tome of Battle for a good example, or Duskblades, or most of the powers that Psychic Warriors get. And then there are tons of PrCs that can be open--just one example is an Iaijutsu Master. You can get a feel for what I mean by "pre-optimized without much chance for optimization" with a look through the class.

[LR]

The first time you went through the mountain, you had big problems with the bugbears, the orcs, the goblins, and the kobolds. Once you reach higher levels, you waltz through them, slaughter them as you please and continue on. Except now you need to fight the fire goblins mk 2, the cyborg-ninja orcs, the abyss-infused kobolds, and the giganticus-born hobgoblins while travelling the 835th layer of the abyss. In a similar vein, people playing Devil May Cry or God of War enjoy the game despite the fact that they're basically playing the same game at higher levels except with more/cooler abilities and against much stronger foes.

And it's not that hard to find powers that don't "change the game" to spread through 20 levels. Just look at Tome of Battle for a good example, or Duskblades, or most of the powers that Psychic Warriors get. And then there are tons of PrCs that can be open--just one example is an Iaijutsu Master. You can get a feel for what I mean by "pre-optimized without much chance for optimization" with a look through the class.

You just described a world populated by palette-shifted monsters and knee high walls. People who want that experience can just play a video game and don't need to bother getting a game together. People play tabletop games because they want open-ended worlds, and if your abilities do not meaningfully interact with the setting then your world is not open-ended.

[Ghostwheel]

Please don't overgeneralize. What you might want is different from what I might want. That doesn't make either of our perspectives on how game design should work wrong, just different.

[Ice9]

ToB doesn't exist in a vacuum though. A 20th level ToB character, while he may not personally have a "fly over mountains" power, has the wealth and connections to buy a flying carpet, could have a cohort or even hireling mage able to do that, and for that matter has other party members who can probably do it.

In a similar vein, people playing Devil May Cry or God of War enjoy the game despite the fact that they're basically playing the same game at higher levels except with more/cooler abilities and against much stronger foes.

Also, I don't think the fact that something is fun in a video game - with real-time gameplay and nice graphics - means much in an RPG. I mean, Tetris is a fun game, but I wouldn't play a Tetris RPG.

[Ghostwheel]

ToB doesn't exist in a vacuum though. A 20th level ToB character, while he may not personally have a "fly over mountains" power, has the wealth and connections to buy a flying carpet, could have a cohort or even hireling mage able to do that, and for that matter has other party members who can probably do it.

Apart from the last one, those are all excellent examples of "story" ways to do things
Just because the characters themselves can't ignore the mountain, it doesn't mean that they can't get someone else to do it for them as part of the story. If a DM wants to give these things to players, he's more than welcome to. But if he doesn't want players to be able to say, "screw you" to the adventure and teleport halfway across the world or to another plane and ignore the story and everything he's prepared, I think he should be able to have that too.

Also, I don't think the fact that something is fun in a video game - with real-time gameplay and nice graphics - means much in an RPG. I mean, Tetris is a fun game, but I wouldn't play a Tetris RPG.

I might not have explained myself well then; people can enjoy doing the same thing over and over as long as the story changes, there are interesting tactical changes to the game, and they feel themselves progressing in power and options. At least, that's been my experience and what I've seen. Others who have playtested Grimoire (specificially Aarnie, though I don't think he comes on here) have also reported great success with the system in general.

[For Valor]

so at level 1... I make an attack against a monster with a 50% chance of hitting it.

And at level 18... I make the same attack against a proportionally stronger monster, and I should have a 50% chance of hitting it?

That's... 4e. I kind of see you saying "there are tactical changes", and I hope that my above example isn't Grimoire, but the way you describe it / the way the combat mechanics are written out... well, it honestly seems that way. So what "tactical changes" are we talking about? Also, there should be much larger variability as you get into higher levels, so that players feel like they're going somewhere unique with their abilities. Will your system do that?

[Ghostwheel]

What were you expecting? That at level 18 or 20 you'll be hitting every single time against monsters who are supposed to be a challenge for the level your character is? That makes for a rather boring game.

Tactical changes mean more options. An example that's already present in the game is martial adepts; as you go up in levels, you gain different things that can be used to do "other stuff", but your primary shtick rarely/never changes and the damage you deal goes up in accordance with the HP monsters have. It's a fake gain that doesn't actually make your character any stronger compared to monster of your level much of the time. This is not a bad thing--or if it is, it's simply because our design goals differ, not because it's a bad thing objectively from an absolute standpoint.

If you want to call it 4e, then that's fine. It might even be the way 4e does things. I think you might be calling it that because of the gut emotional reaction that many people have for some of the more retarded things that 4e did, but that doesn't make that one part of the game bad.

As far as what characters can actually do, I plan on doing a spotlight on some of the grimoire classes, so look forward to it

[cthulhu]

https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&s ... W4OJysWjYA

You need to read it. Then fill it out.

[Ghostwheel]

Why? *headtilt* I know what I'm going for more-or-less--or would it be helpful for other people to critique what I'm writing? *unsure*