Eberron, With a System That Actually Fucking Works

[DragonChild]

There is a huge difference between magical wands and guns, though. Namely, wands require skill to use - while I'm fine with the wand-slinger concept, I am pretty sure there weren't massed peasants with wands of magic missile, unless I missed something somewhere.

[Parthenon]

How attached are you to the current 13 Dragonmarks and Houses? Can we get rid of some and make them better defined?

And thinking about it, what range of power will there be in the setting? Are you assuming a 20 level range which has the same power levels as 3.5 or are you going to try and sanify it at all?

And are Dragonmark powers based on character level or position within the House?

The current Dragonmarks are:

• Detection
• Finding
• Handling
• Healing
• Hospitality
• Making
• Passage
• Scribing
• Sentinel
• Shadow
• Storm
• Warding
• Death

So, whats the difference between Detection and Finding? Especially since you Detect information about a magic item with a Finding Mark. And the difference between the Storm- mostly used for aiding travel- and the Passage- again mostly used for aiding travel?

So, heres the plan. You get a limited number of magic items you can use at any one time, and the Least Dragonmark permanently uses one of those slots but gives you a permanent benefit of a similar level to a magic item. Any time after 5th level you can choose to grow your Dragonmark into a Lesser Dragonmark but this permanently uses another item slot and after 10th level you can grow it to a Greater Dragonmark for a total of three item slots. You can use the item slots anyway, but while you are using the magic item and for 24 hours after the Dragonmark doesn't work.

The benefits you get have to make sense though- why would you go to Cannith to buy magic items rather than a random Wizard or Artificer? Least Mark of Detection currently gives Detect Poison 2/day. Why do you give a shit about that? It needs to be something that is widely spread across the continent and you care about.

I think to some extent you have to work backwards. House Cannith has a monopoly on magic items. Which means it has to have a lot of level 1 people working on creating magic items day in and day out. The thing stopping this is not getting enough XP. So, the Least Mark of Making means you reduce the XP cost of crafting magic items by 10xlevel to a minimum of 0. Bam. Instant monopoly on magic items. Lesser then comes in two varieties- one for adventuring and one that lets you give Magewrights working for you a similar but lesser ability- like reducing costs by 3xlevel.

This way you have a reason that House Cannith has a monopoly and why people with better Dragonmarks have higher positions in the House, as well as make the party members want a mark.

---

So what possible monopolies are there in the setting, and how can we make a Dragonmark that helps that?

Monopoly	Dragonmark	Least	Lesser	[Greater]
Magic Item Crafting	Making	Reduce XP requirements by 10*character level for Crafting	Allow others to reduce XP costs OR Greater Magic Weapon/Armour at will, something else	???
Animal Husbandry	Handling	+level to Handle Animal and Ride, Calm Animals at will	Some sort of fertility thing to encourage breeding?	???
Crop Farming	Growth	???	Plant Growth at will	???
Transporting Goods (transporting people same monopoly or different?)	Passage	???	???	???
Healing	Healing	Lay on Hands, Cure Disease 1/week, +level to Heal skill	Remove Curse 3/day	Heal 3/day
Banking and security	Warding	Cheap traps / Alarm at will / able to store spells and release them on an Alarm	???	???
Construction	Building	Lyre of Building effect- if have a construction manager with Mark of Building then work gets done faster	Earth Shape or stone wall or whatever	???
Communications	Scribing?	Message at will	Scrying, video communications?	???
Entertainment	Shadow?	???	???	???

I'm stuck. I have no idea what would be good powers for some, and I'm lost for good monopolies. Since it's not industrialised we don't have water, waste or power monopolies. We could have the spy, bodyguard and detective monopolies I guess.

[Username17]

I'd like to see a working version ebberon that actually simulates at least up to the industrial revolution, but using magic in place of science.

How would that look?

Well first of all, when people say "Industrial Revolution", they are mostly talking about the Second Industrial Revolution, because that one is more recent. That's the one with coal smoke turning the London fog yellow on through to Henry Ford with all those Dickensian nightmares along the way. But if you were pushing Eberron into the Industrial Revolution, you'd be pushing it into the First Industrial Revolution. That's where people start really harnessing wind, water, and steam to replace human strength in manufacturing. Water powered scribbling machines, coal refining to higher grade fuels, mechanical pumps to dig deeper mines with, and all that.

But really it gets down to what you mean by "magic". If it really works like the industrial revolution, it works by the replacement of arcane skill with capital and technology. And anything that really works like that is going to be technology rather than magic. So I guess your real question is one of having an industrial revolution happen with "alternate technology", at which point the question becomes one of what the alt-tech does. Right now, the only real provision is that it's supposed to have a kind of hermetic magic feel.

The biggest suggestions for magic production enhancement are the creation of extra laborers with necromancy, elemental summoning, or golems. Which is of course not industrialization. That is "Mega-Feudalism", where the standard of living for the over-class increases because you add more or better serfs and slaves at the bottom.

First of all, to feel even vaguely industrial, Dragon Shards have to actually power things that ordinary people can use. Dragon Shards should be being shoveled in to power looms and felt presses and lathes and shit. But of course, it needs to do something magic-esque so as to make "Dragon Shards" feel somehow "magic" rather than simply being a substitute for high grade coal. I suggest that they should function more like electrical batteries, and that they should be running "conduits" from the shards to the machines. A world where they have Edison-style direct current battery power before they have the internal combustion engine is at least different enough alt-tech so that you could call the difference "magic".

-Username17

[Maxus]

I suppose you could do some stop-gap stuff. Boilers powered by sheets with Wall of Fire cast on one side, Decanters of Endless Water set to 'guyser' and powering waterwheels--or other mechanisms with water pressure as the motive force.

So in this world, they'd worry about sealevel rise not from carbon dioxide, but from all the water runoff from the Decanters.

[Drachasor]

I'm not sure how much sense it makes to try to figure out where in our history a world with magic, sentient "robots", and other fantastic things fit. Because in some ways they are far more advanced than we are, whereas in others they are less so.

Sure, they largely don't have replaceable parts, but they do have Mending and Make Whole. Golems and zombie workers are not really like feudalism since they are more like making robots to do labor. One should not expect the technological development or advancement of such a dramatically different world to mirror our own. I certainly don't think Eberron does.

Naturally, in a world with high-powered magic that largely must be used by specially trained individuals, you'd expect advancement to happen quite differently.

You can certainly state similarities here and there, but I think going beyond that is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Hmm, or perhaps a round peg into a larger square hole -- what you say might be true, but leaves out.

[vagrant]

Parth, I think a few of the marks that seem to provide the same economic function - sentinel and warding, passage and storm - are actually genetically related, which is why they seem similar. Why anyone would think doing that would be a good idea as a game setting, I dunno, but I'd rather not muck about with it too much. Ideally, once the system is finished you can seriously just plug the fluff in and it'll work, and you can see how that world could function in line with the mechanics.

For example - alignment and XP costs for crafting are gone. Poof. They were shit ideas anyway. Suddenly the moral ambiguity of a setting that exists alongside shit like 'Detect Evil' is actually there, instead of being laughable. XP costs for making magic items, gone, meaning that a fucking magewright does not need to spend every morning killing rabbits for XP to do his fucking job.

One thing I realised re-reading the lore and shit is that the Industrial Revolution as we know it - moving capital from human labour to mechanised labout - is dead in the water in Eberron. Magic items (powered by dragonshards, natch) should be commonplace and require no great skill to use, but the crafting of those magic items are still restricted to magewrights and artificers - so they're products of individual labour as opposed to mechanised.

However, schema still allow for mass-production (and honestly, schema will need to be better than a reusable 1/day scroll for that to actually work), just not by huge pools of unskilled labour but still specialised and educated workforces. Everyone knows magecraft, at least, so that bonus means everyone is producing higher-quality goods with magical assistance.

Dragonshards should power shit ordinary people use - in the illustrations they have dragonshards powering magical lifts, supporting floating sub-cities, and pretty much stuck onto otherwise simple devices like hooks and pulleys. (Because it looks cool, but we can just as easily say that using dragonshards gives the rope a higher weight tolerance or some shit.)

[vagrant]

Also, there is in fact a cyborg prestige class. (Hint: It's actually only half a turd because you still get +1 caster progression for all but two levels.)

The picture, however, makes me want to play Eberron. So it's good motivation.

I'm of the personal opinion that fantasy cyborgs are fucking awesome.

EDIT: Also derp, found this gem further proving Frank's point. Which is slightly annoying.

In many ways, Eberron’s pseudo-medieval culture already
shares many elements of a later renaissance society. This
is an important point, because it underscores the fact
that the benefi ts granted by the wide-scale manipulation
of magic are not provided by arcane factories of mass
production. Instead, Eberron’s magical wonders remain
the purview of individual practitioners, artisans, and
expert crafters.

[Drachasor]

Also, there is in fact a cyborg prestige class. (Hint: It's actually only half a turd because you still get +1 caster progression for all but two levels.)

The picture, however, makes me want to play Eberron. So it's good motivation.

I'm of the personal opinion that fantasy cyborgs are fucking awesome.

EDIT: Also derp, found this gem further proving Frank's point. Which is slightly annoying.

In many ways, Eberron’s pseudo-medieval culture already
shares many elements of a later renaissance society. This
is an important point, because it underscores the fact
that the benefi ts granted by the wide-scale manipulation
of magic are not provided by arcane factories of mass
production. Instead, Eberron’s magical wonders remain
the purview of individual practitioners, artisans, and
expert crafters.

I would note, however, that if ONE man can churn out the output of a factory, then you end up with a very different economic system the likes of which we've never had on Earth.

Sure there are parallels, but they have significant limits. Especially since advanced technology in reality requires a LOT of supporting infrastructure, industries, thousands or millions of people working, etc. Magic-based advances bypass a lot of those requirements for the same effects.

[Parthenon]

So the fluff cannot change in any way, only the rules? There has to be a guild of bodyguards and a guild of detectives? You aren't taking the basic themes of Eberron and making them awesome, you are rejiggling the rules until it makes more sense, but at the same time relegating all melee characters to NPCs and all races to being different colours?

Thats certainly one way to do it.

---

I really like the idea that the magitech ignores steampunk and dieselpunk and instead uses batteries. This is a world with horse-drawn laser cannons and maglev trains, but no cars or steam trains. Photocopies but no printing press. It is closer to having replicators than it is to having a spinning jenny.

How would the Guild system in Eberron affect the magitech revolution? Supposedly one of the factors of the first industrial revolution was that the guilds had mostly died out allowing new people to come up with new methods and not be run out of business. What does that mean for the Houses and the Magitech?

[vagrant]

Like I said, I'd rather not fuck with the fluff overmuch. Also, House Deneith (the bodyguards) is more private security up to providing entire merc legions, while House Tharashk (the detectives) are seriously more miners and prospectors, and make most of their money mining.

I'm pretty sure I can figure out a way to keep melee viable.

The whole House thing, as I pointed out earlier, is seriously not really all that related to the historical guild system of the real world, and more to multi-national Asian corporations, where advancement comes both from family ties and meritocracy. All the Houses face competition from independent elements of some fashion (despite their best efforts.)

Parth, would you prefer a magitek fantasy heartbreaker? I get that feeling.

[Ancient History]

Part of the problem with magitech industrial revolutions is that there are relatively few examples in the fiction - mostly Harry Turtledove's The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump and Darkness saga come to mind. In both cases, people tend to assume industralization because a) the magic-fueled stuff is commensurate with technology, and b) magic-based tech appears to be ubiquitous, to the point that troops are issued magical wands analagous to rifles as a regular thing and glowing crystals are in place instead of light bulbs. The actual processes that go into making all this happen are generally (but not always) glossed over, and there is often more than a couple deficiencies because the civilization skipped a couple of steps in using magic instead of tech.

Really, in the Eberron setting you're looking at a couple basic ideas:

1) Magic is a skill that anyone can learn. It's like welding. There is no inherent special gift needed to learn how to make magic work, and you can train anybody to be a magewright just like you can train anybody to do a bit of whitesmithing.

2) Magic is still pre-industrial, but it is ubiquitous. Anybody can use magic, so everybody does use magic wherever it is convenient and profitable to do so. Potters crank out jugs with embedded dragonshards that keep the contents cool, cobblers crank out boots with shard-powered spring heels for leaping, dwarven swordsmiths have shards embedded in the handles of their razors to power runes of sharpness and shaving, etc.

3) Magic was not always ubiquitous. This is a relatively recent change, probably brought about by the last big war. Maybe dragonshards were known but rare and the technique to use them was not refined, but during the war the whole process was ramped up so you could raise wand-regiments and new sources of dragonshards were discovered and now society is reaping the benefits.

4) The ubiquitous magic is resource-driven as well as technology-driven. Dragonshards (treated, primed, charged, or otherwise made useful) are the prime resource that allows magic items to be manufactured easily, quickly, and reliably, and this creates a constant and steady demand for them. This is going to lead to a resource rush to meet demand.

5) Dragonshards have nearly universal application, so those applications have not been exhausted. A lot of people are still stuck in a pre-Dragonshard era mentality, and their ideas of magic items and their application is fairly dated. This means there is conceptual room for a class of new, creative, maybe ruthless up-and-comers to challenge the old ways of doing things. These are the guys that make enchanted rod-bayonets instead of magic swords, and trying to figure out how to get food to keep better on long journeys, etc.

6) If you have new up-and-comers, that mean you have crochety old-fashioned assholes who control the market. In the absence of powerful magicians, this is basically the dragonmarked houses: before the War, these guild-families had a basic lock on the more powerful magics you'd need for really substantial magical items, but more than that these are the guys who established networks of magical services and set the prices on them so that they were both essential and highly profitable. This control is being threatened by the new dragonshard-tech, because you don't need a magic messenger service when you can get the magewrights to whip you up a telegraph-analogue from small crystal balls.

...which basically sets you up for a society in transition, where the challenged guilds are busy adapting to this new influx of magic they don't completely control, and a society that is used to and accepting of magic is coming to grips with the increasing speed of innovation - in the days when it took five years for the dragonmarked houses to build and enchant a flying galleon that was the fastet thing in the skies, a bunch of magewrights might be able to knock out a cheap water-elemental bound ironclad wheelboat in a twelvemonth.

So, it's still pre-industrial, but it has a lot of trappings people associate with the Industral Revolution, and the society is straining to keep pace.

[vagrant]

AH, that is precisely what I envision when I picture Eberron. The Houses, though, aren't just hidebound geezers - plenty of their members (and some of their higher-ups) see the writing on the wall and are trying to get their magewrights to crank out the new wiz tech before anyone else. (Or god forbid an independent.)

This gets into the availability of dragonshards, and the three types.

Siberys shards have a two-fold purpose - they enhance Dragonmark abilities, and they enhance psionic abilities. This makes them no so useful in general magitek applications, but still highly prized by the scions of the Houses. They're expensive and sought-after, but used mostly for one scion to get a leg up over another. Luckily, because they aren't the type normal people actually use to do shit, the fact that they're horribly rare and found mostly in Dragon-land or Drow-land means plot-hooks galore, yet magitek isn't severely impacted by the rarity.

Eberron shards are the workhorses that actually fuel everything, and they're usually found a few feet underground. This is why House Tharashk and the Mark of Finding matters, because they don't really do detective work - they're prospectors. An oil company, really, though since they've got divination magic they're usually pretty damn good prospectors. Eberron shards are the really universal ones, and they're obviously the most common.

Khyber shards have industrial applications as well - they bind shit. Or to be more precise, they bind elementals into devices that then resembles 'tech'. Also hugely valuable, but their rarity (they're deep underground and often found near fiend and demon encampments) means that magitek progress is going to be slowed a bit, since so much of it revolves around refinements in elemental binding.

[vagrant]

Right, so mechanically I can see that there's no fucking room for the Vanilla Action Hero. Everyone has magic. Everyone uses magic in some sense. Which is perfectly fine by me.

This has also led me to realise that I was conflating melee==VAH which isn't necessarily the case, so I've a few ideas on keeping melee viable.

[Ancient History]

You can /have/ a vanilla action hero, you just can't have a VAH that uses a traditional D&D-based system. Armor Class and hit points should probably go, leaving you with a much more lethal system. The VAH with a magic sword is still a VAH; a knife in a wizard's back will still seriously cramp their style. That said, learning magic should be relatively easy. I might again point to Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series on this point.

[Drachasor]

So, it's still pre-industrial, but it has a lot of trappings people associate with the Industral Revolution, and the society is straining to keep pace.

I would point out that the D&D setting is not one where you'd have an Industrial Revolution as we know it.

Replaceable parts? Who needs them? You just magic something fixed.

Assembly Lines? Outside of shoving stuff into a magical item that duplicates Fabricate and then shoving them out, you don't need that.

Increasing individual productivity? No thanks, let's just go with magic and constructs (undead too if you don't care about how you use bodies). Cleaning? Household chores? Prestidigitation is a level 0 spell and Unseen Servant is just level 1.

It's the kind of world where the economic problems we might see in the next 50-100 years (robots/computers replacing all/most human labor) is something they'll see with a lot less technology or advancement. The issue of how society changes and adapts to a world where you can provide for everyone and hardly anyone needs to work is something a D&D world, particular Eberron is pretty close to.

While in Earth today we can certainly feed and clothe everyone, that's a bit different from providing fresh water, housing, medical care, technology, etc with minimum effort. Heck, in D&D magic also has the nice feature of lasting a really, really, really long time without needing maintenance of any note.

So sure, an item of unlimited Prestidigitation might cost 900 gold, but that's something that can be used for generations. No more going down to the river to clean clothes as 900 families could share one such device pretty easily for generations (well, they'd need more as the got bigger or for more convenience). That's 8 items cleaned each day per household if it is only used for effectively 12 hours each day. And of course, it can clean pots, pans, etc, not just clothes. And actually, it would be far from impossible for a community to afford an item like this every week or two.

The whole situation is honestly quite radically different from anything we've ever had on Earth.

[Ancient History]

The whole situation is honestly quite radically different from anything we've ever had on Earth.

This is true. However, a few points:

1) D&D does not have a setting. Really. D&D is a game system to which settings are loosely attached.

2) This thread is specifically about separating the D&D system from the Eberron setting.

3) The reason for this is that the D&D system is terrible for actually providing the basis for the Eberron setting, because of stuff like fabricate.

So yes, if the established D&D system were being used, you might have a point.

[vagrant]

I think a lot of the game-changer spells like fabricate shouldn't be spells, exactly, insomuch as abilities granted by Dragonmarks. Which would explain a lot of their dominance - if the Mark of Making literally lets you insta-magically poof raw materials into processed product, that's definitely something monopoly-worthy.

If teleport only existed if you had a Mark of Passage, and Scrying only existed if you had a Mark of Detection, well. And yet a lot of the Dragonmark abilities should be tied to profession checks and skills checks - so having more ranks in Craft (Weapons) does let you make better-quality swords with fabricate and more ranks in Profession (Mapmaker) lets you use teleport more accurately.

[vagrant]

Okay, let me see if I can put down a more cohesive class structure now.

Dragonmark caster = Dragonmarked Scion
Dragonmark noncaster = Dragonmarked Scion

There are twelve houses, with some marks contributing more to one role than the other. I'll get there.

Magitech caster = Artificer
Magitech noncaster = ???

I'd say Warforged fits that slot - but I don't want to restrict Warforged to a single class any more than I want to restrict non-Warforged to do the same. It can't just be 'Dude in Elemental Armour' because anyone can fucking use elemental Armour and it's not really a big deal.

Arcane caster = Warmage.
Arcane noncaster = Wandslinger

Actually a Wandslinger might be more of a magitek noncaster - but I can't think of anything else that fits the Arcane noncaster slot. I might actually stick berserker here - he'd get his power from a dragon totem or fiend-pacts or dinosaur-bonds or what have you, but distinctly arcane magic.

divine caster = Cleric
divine noncaster = Paladin

3.5e Pallys still get a partial spell list - would Paladin just be 'Dude with sword who can smite harder than a cleric? To be honest, I always wondered why I'd play a Paladin over a Cleric in 3.5 anyway, so I'd prefer if they were more distinct than 'One's a full caster and the other gets a magic horse.'

psionic caster = Psion
psionic noncaster = Monk/Mindblade

Monk and mindblade should really just be the same thing. 'I CAN MAKE SWORDS WITH MAH BRAIN' is a cool picture, but not that fancy of a trick. Mix that with ki maneuvers and kamehamehas though, and it's something workable.

The only issue I have with this breakdown is that it leaves out shit that I want to have - shit like Master Inquisitives, Extreme Explorers, etc. Skillguy might not be a workable class concept, but it should exist somehow as a characters primary function. Hell, I personally like playing skillmonkeys who might be shittier in combat, but make that up with out-of-combat utility.

Another thing still missing are melee-viable characters - people are still gonna wanna play 'Dude in earth elemental-bound plate who hits things with fire elemental-bound warhammer' and have that distinct from a cleric in blessed plate who hits things with his holy warhammer.

Actually, I can fit those concepts into the breakdown.

Magitek noncaster - Skillmonkey (I'd like a better name.)
Arcane noncaster - Elemental-Bound Warrior (Ditto.)

That still leaves a few concepts unconsidered, though. Elemental-bound weapons and armour are expensive, and pretty damn rare. If someone wanted to play a Talenta halfling (who are barbarians who ride raptors), or Valenar elven raiders (who are basically Mongols) there's nowhere they really fit. They wouldn't have elemental-bound gear, or a discernible power source...which leads to the Fighter Problem. I could just not have those, but that feels shitty.

Maybe I could make a catch-all mundane combat class, but force it to multi-class into something else at a certain point. That certainly seems doable.

That, or as suggested get rid of AC and HP points and replace them with Shadowrun style condition monitors and direct armour deduction from to-hit modifiers? (So if you're wearing plate, it gives anyone attacking you a -4 on their attack roll, but if you get rid of AC, what are you rolling against?) I could possibly just give a flat DC of 10 to hit, but then I'd need to really insure the math so people don't go flying off the RNG one way or another.

[Drachasor]

The whole situation is honestly quite radically different from anything we've ever had on Earth.

This is true. However, a few points:

1) D&D does not have a setting. Really. D&D is a game system to which settings are loosely attached.

2) This thread is specifically about separating the D&D system from the Eberron setting.

3) The reason for this is that the D&D system is terrible for actually providing the basis for the Eberron setting, because of stuff like fabricate.

So yes, if the established D&D system were being used, you might have a point.

They do have mass-produced constructs. Mindless Warforged CAN be made, and so you can mass-produce labor that doesn't need to breathe, get tired, and give no ethical concerns. So a lot of what I said is still relevant.

Given that things like Creation Forges are possible, I don't see how lesser Forges that duplicate Fabricate or the like don't make sense in the setting. It would certainly be a bit bizarre if you could ONLY mass-produce constructs. The Creation Forge is indicative of a world where you'd probably skip the industrial revolution.

That said, certainly figuring out what parts of D&D magic such a setting would have matter quite a bit.

I think a lot of the game-changer spells like fabricate shouldn't be spells, exactly, insomuch as abilities granted by Dragonmarks. Which would explain a lot of their dominance - if the Mark of Making literally lets you insta-magically poof raw materials into processed product, that's definitely something monopoly-worthy.

If teleport only existed if you had a Mark of Passage, and Scrying only existed if you had a Mark of Detection, well. And yet a lot of the Dragonmark abilities should be tied to profession checks and skills checks - so having more ranks in Craft (Weapons) does let you make better-quality swords with fabricate and more ranks in Profession (Mapmaker) lets you use teleport more accurately.

I'd point out that Fabricate DOES work like this already. It's just usually considered with Wizards who have a high intelligence. Since craft in D&D can be used untrained and is int-based, Wizards can Fabricate very well with little or no investment (DC 15-20 while taking 10 is easy for them to hit). Sorcerers have a bit more work to put into it. In D&D of course.


And if I went into 3.5 talk too much, my apologies. I am a bit fuzzy on what the system for New Eberron is going to look like, mechanically speaking. Is it using 3.5 but changing the allowed classes? Is it a d20 game? Is it going to be something new? It's unclear to me.

[vagrant]

Actually, that gives me an idea for schema. Instead of being shitty reusable 1/day scrolls, what if they allow artificers and magewrights the ability to used an etched Dragonmarked ability?

So a Cannith artificer could have etched fabricate onto a minor schema for his non-dragonmarked House magewrights to use - meaning that the Dragonmarked Houses exert even more economic control, because the schemas are all directly produced by them.

EDIT: I plan to use some sort of d20 system, yeah.

[Drachasor]

That, or as suggested get rid of AC and HP points and replace them with Shadowrun style condition monitors and direct armour deduction from to-hit modifiers? (So if you're wearing plate, it gives anyone attacking you a -4 on their attack roll, but if you get rid of AC, what are you rolling against?) I could possibly just give a flat DC of 10 to hit, but then I'd need to really insure the math so people don't go flying off the RNG one way or another.

I've toyed a bit with the idea of getting rid of AC and replacing it with temporary hit points that refresh at the beginning of your turn (call this Defense). It would require rebalancing damage a bit. One advantage is that "misses" would be a bad damage roll, but it wouldn't be useless if a friend attacks the same enemy before their turn. Attacking recklessly might be representing by lowering your Defense by X to up your Damage by X.

Edit: Alternatively, you could have Defense and Health. Defense regenerates each turn by a certain amount, Health does not and is much lower. NOTHING directly attacks health until all defense is depleted.

I've come to really loathe the "roll to see if you do anything this turn" mechanic. I'd rather have a "roll to determine how effective you are".

[RobbyPants]

Magitech caster = Artificer
Magitech noncaster = ???

...

divine caster = Cleric
divine noncaster = Paladin

3.5e Pallys still get a partial spell list - would Paladin just be 'Dude with sword who can smite harder than a cleric? To be honest, I always wondered why I'd play a Paladin over a Cleric in 3.5 anyway, so I'd prefer if they were more distinct than 'One's a full caster and the other gets a magic horse.'

The only issue I have with this breakdown is that it leaves out shit that I want to have - shit like Master Inquisitives, Extreme Explorers, etc. Skillguy might not be a workable class concept, but it should exist somehow as a characters primary function. Hell, I personally like playing skillmonkeys who might be shittier in combat, but make that up with out-of-combat utility.

Could you possibly break it down so that Magitech noncasters are Extreme Explorers (you'd have to fluff some of their exploration abilities to be from magical tech, of course) and Divine noncasters are Master Inquisitives? As you noted, you don't have to have Cleric and Paladin be distinct.

[vagrant]

Well, the genre, loosely speaking that I want to represent is good old fashioned cinematic heroic pulp. Noir, too, but combat shouldn't be quite that lethal, I think.

You're still gonna be fighting DnD monsters at some point, after all, so an SR style combat system where the goal is 'drop the opposition and get out' wouldn't replicate it well.

At least I think so, I'm a bit sleep-deprived and my brain refuses to give me scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark to reference like usual.

[vagrant]

Could you possibly break it down so that Magitech noncasters are Extreme Explorers (you'd have to fluff some of their exploration abilities to be from magical tech, of course) and Divine noncasters are Master Inquisitives? As you noted, you don't have to have Cleric and Paladin be distinct.

I could, but Philip Marlowe ain't Philip Marlowe because he's a Catholic priest. And 'fantasy noir PI' in fact a concept I want to have. (Mainly because that's who I actually want to play, natch.)

[Ancient History]

They do have mass-produced constructs. Mindless Warforged CAN be made, and so you can mass-produce labor that doesn't need to breathe, get tired, and give no ethical concerns. So a lot of what I said is still relevant.

Creation Forges are unique artifacts that pretty much come from Previous High Magic Civilization. And they're not being used to churn out mindless warforged to slave away on the sugar plantations. So I don't think those count and I still think you're full of shit.