Castles and Cocks, the Basics.

[erik]

Agreed. Of course many people are going to start at level 1, because fucking obviously. If you have named tiers, then there can be multiple "1" options, however.

Fledgling 1
Adventurer 1
Icon 1
Legend 1
Epic 1
Deity 1

[edit] And I just went back and read everything Kaelik said and I agree with him even harder on just about everything in this thread. In the tier layout I put above, Kaelik is saying include content for first tier (snakes n mooks), but you expect players to start at Adventurer tier.

As for worrying about 4 HD too many HP, that is a 3e problem. There is no reason that a fantasy heart breaker has to have hit dice, or that they will be the same as 3e.

Either this is a 3e kludge, in which case, just polish your turd, or it is a whole new creature, in which case don't limit yourself to mechanics that you can already observe are problems.

[Hicks]

How do you resolve damages in Kaelik's proposition? A "green trained soldier" (4HD) should still risk dying from a sword slash or a 20' fall, and these guys should have like 25 hp.

Don't determine hit points using HD, particularly level-based HD? The Basic Tier should honestly just have hit points decided by size or species and have defense scale with AC and save bonuses for all of Basic.

Don't have hitpoints. Use proportional damage damage tracks like 3e Shadowrun (light, severe, critical, KO, and Dead based on how much you exceed a damage threshold). What would be considered a boss monster at level 3 (vs Troll level 5) becomes a 1 hit minion trash mob a level 10. Characters and chellenges scale up indefinitely, and mirror matches of equivalent bonuses are threatening whenever they come up. Just be mindful of the least powerful challenge you want to simulate, the floor of housecats and snakes, and shake that out with bears, tigers, griffons, dragons, Asmodeus, and Azathoth.

Your challenges should have a floor and a ceiling. So what is your end game? ACKs domain management? Wizard throws mountains with telekinesis while the fighter slices through mountains as a reactikn? World conquest? Galactic overlord? Smashing an infinite plane of existence into another as a standard action?

How far you want to go determines what mini-games are important, and therefore what you should be spending your time working towards. Games break down when their rules do not match their expectations: 3e D&D expects a locked door to matter a level 11+, and breaks because the rules were accidently/badly designed to be too powerful; 4e expects an epic battle with the demon king of the undead and delivers 2d8+[w] and push 2 squares because it's rules are too low powered for it's vision; ACKs wants a game where you run a kingdom, and although it is neckbead for the sake of neckbeard it delivers what it set out to do and has verisimilitude, in that its rules supports instead of invalidates its setting.

[Mistborn]

* Is leveling up a linear or quadratic advancement in power?
* Making every tier the same levels long, like say 5, seems neater and will make players who like different tiers feel that the game pays equal attention.
* It'd help to make your list of monsters/challenge by level first, so we know what a level 1 vs level 20 hero is suppose to be able to overcome

Leveling is quadratic one of the goals is to fit all of D&D into 21 levels I'm pretty sure that people don't want 5 levels of Basic tier. Basic tier classes have a short shelf life in terms of concept and are designed to be replaced by "being a drow/dragonborn/whatever" it's easier to write them if they're only 3 levels long.

But yeah basic tier challenges
-The bandits are coming to ransack the village and there are like 10 of the assholes. Help the villagers defend their livelihoods.
-There's an [insert low level monster here] in the woods and it's been attacking people. Go kill it or something.
-A tribe of Orcs has camped out near the village and the mayor wants you guys to do something about it.
-Your party has heard rumors that there's treasure hidden in the forgotten caves. Unfortunately the forgotten caves are also full of giant spiders. Have fun with that.
-There have been murders in your village and you suspect that the killer is a doppelganger or something. Get to the bottom of it before there are more victims.
-A mad (but low level) Necromancer has been animating skeletons and then releasing his control over them. It's really obnoxious. Get him to stop.
-Goblins have kidnapped the mayor. Are you bad enough dudes to rescue the mayor?

[Username17]

Many DMs are going to start at level 1, regardless of what the book recommends, because "that's how it's done". So make level 1 fucking playable.

The old argument is that it is less confusing to have the levels count linearly, but it is easier to get people to accept different starting points if the levels start over at 1 for each tier. That is to say that it is easier to figure out how things fit together power wise if Heroic Tier starts at level 5, and it is easier to get people to accept starting at Heroic Tier if the first level of Heroic Tier is called "Heroic Level 1." The advantages of both are well established and documented, and either choice is defensible.

Fractional CR is fucking bullshit and no one should like or support it because it doesn't work for shit.

Castles and Cocks Feats should be small in number and high in impact. Basically every official revision of the feat system has given players more feats while making feats be worth less, and that's terrible. It leads to terrible play patterns where people feel like they have to take certain feats just to keep up or have to overspecialize just to remain relevant.

This is pretty much totally wrong.

The larger a selection is as part of the whole of your character, the more intrusive it is going to be. The bigger the individual selections you make, the larger the difference between choosing "right" and "wrong" is going to be.

Or to put it another way: options don't become more or less "mandatory" just because they are a bigger proportion of your character design, they just leave you with less other choices to make once you've taken the mandatory bits. If a Necromancer is required by law to take Tomb Tainted Soul, then she's required by law to take Tomb Tainted Soul. If Tomb Tainted Soul is a single selection that you get from one of six feats your character has, then that mandatory selection leaves you five choices. If Tomb Tainted Soul is one selection from two feats that your character gets, then you only get one real choice.

Bigger, less numerous feats are more oppressive rather than less. K and I made a "bigger feats" system. Would not do it again.

-Username17

[Mistborn]

Castles and Cocks Feats should be small in number and high in impact. Basically every official revision of the feat system has given players more feats while making feats be worth less, and that's terrible. It leads to terrible play patterns where people feel like they have to take certain feats just to keep up or have to overspecialize just to remain relevant.

This is pretty much totally wrong.

The larger a selection is as part of the whole of your character, the more intrusive it is going to be. The bigger the individual selections you make, the larger the difference between choosing "right" and "wrong" is going to be.

Or to put it another way: options don't become more or less "mandatory" just because they are a bigger proportion of your character design, they just leave you with less other choices to make once you've taken the mandatory bits. If a Necromancer is required by law to take Tomb Tainted Soul, then she's required by law to take Tomb Tainted Soul. If Tomb Tainted Soul is a single selection that you get from one of six feats your character has, then that mandatory selection leaves you five choices. If Tomb Tainted Soul is one selection from two feats that your character gets, then you only get one real choice.

Bigger, less numerous feats are more oppressive rather than less. K and I made a "bigger feats" system. Would not do it again.

-Username17

I think we might disagree about what a feat system is supposed to do.

See In my opinion the character customization system exists to produce the largest number of viable unique characters with the minimum amount of written content, while at the same time demanding as little as possible in the way of system mastery from the players. If you want to do that it's basically big feats or classplosion and big feats require less page space

Like the fundamental problem with the Tome feats was that people where running around with 10 of them at once. If the number is smaller that sort of mechanic is way less oppressive. Like people should be able to take "Two Weapon Fighting" as a feat at level 1 and have that be part of their character for the rest of their career without feeling like they have to spend more resources on that.

[Username17]

See In my opinion the character customization system exists to produce the largest number of viable unique characters with the minimum amount of written content, while at the same time demanding as little as possible in the way of system mastery from the players. If you want to do that it's basically big feats or classplosion and big feats require less page space

Like the fundamental problem with the Tome feats was that people where running around with 10 of them at once. If the number is smaller that sort of mechanic is way less oppressive. Like people should be able to take "Two Weapon Fighting" as a feat at level 1 and have that be part of their character for the rest of their career without feeling like they have to spend more resources on that.

If that's your goal, your solution is wrong. The bigger the feats are, the larger the difference between having the "right" and "wrong" feat is going to be. And by implication, the more punished you are going to be for having less system mastery and the larger a percentage of the potential playspace is going to be non-viable.

The problem with Tome Feats is not that you get a lot of them. For fuck's sake, an 8th level Barbarian or Knight only gets 3 of the fucking things. The problem is that the difference between taking the right and wrong three is very very large and it leads to a big difference between players at slightly different levels of optimization.

You're just wrong. Big feats does not do the thing you claim to want it for.

-Username17

[Mistborn]

If that's your goal, your solution is wrong. The bigger the feats are, the larger the difference between having the "right" and "wrong" feat is going to be. And by implication, the more punished you are going to be for having less system mastery and the larger a percentage of the potential playspace is going to be non-viable.

Well the thing is that you really can't idiot-proof a TTRPG, if for example people take none of the melee combat options you offered them and insist on running up to the monster and trying to hit it with their sword. Well they're gonna have a bad time pretty much regardless of whatever system you create. It's better to assume that your working with naive optimizes and work from there which is a much easier. Like having some concepts eat more character generation resources sounds like a pretty useful balancing factor.

[Kaelik]

If that's your goal, your solution is wrong. The bigger the feats are, the larger the difference between having the "right" and "wrong" feat is going to be. And by implication, the more punished you are going to be for having less system mastery and the larger a percentage of the potential playspace is going to be non-viable.

Well the thing is that you really can't idiot-proof a TTRPG, if for example people take none of the melee combat options you offered them and insist on running up to the monster and trying to hit it with their sword. Well they're gonna have a bad time pretty much regardless of whatever system you create. It's better to assume that your working with naive optimizes and work from there which is a much easier. Like having some concepts eat more character generation resources sounds like a pretty useful balancing factor.

Mistborn you are still an idiot.

The point isn't that people are stupid, the point is that people are smart, so if they have two feats, they will pick the two much better feats for their character, and you WILL NOT HAVE CHARACTER DIVERSITY FROM FEATS.

So you will fail in your stated goal.

[Grek]

Mistborn, every single one of your design decisions seems to lead to a conclusion of "Make an RPG that is a rewrite of 3.5 + Tome-inspired house rules" despite your stated objectives not suggesting those decisions or that conclusion. Care to explain why? Are you a liar, or merely ignorant of the probable results of your intended actions?

[Mistborn]

Mistborn, every single one of your design decisions seems to lead to a conclusion of "Make an RPG that is a rewrite of 3.5 + Tome-inspired house rules" despite your stated objectives not suggesting those decisions or that conclusion. Care to explain why? Are you a liar, or merely ignorant of the probable results of your intended actions?

Like I said this is fundamentally a "make a fanmade edition of D&D that doesn't suck project". Like that's where the term Castle and Cocks initially came about. Any of use could make a better D&D than Pazio or Mearls but it doesn't exist because none of us are willing to buckle down and write it.

I think I have a workable system mapped out, like it might not work but that's a little in the future. Remember we're starting with challenges here designing the PCs is a little way off. Like my plan right now is to write all of basic tier myself and then see if anyone is interested.

That said what challenges are there for Basic tier PCs

the environment: since Basic PCs are still pretty much normal humans a lot of stuff that gets sort of glossed over on later levels is an actual challenge. stuff like getting from point a to point b or surviving outdoors in a hostile climate can be legit challenges to PCs at this level.

other humanoids: one of the more basic conflicts in fiction is person vs person. These don't need much introduction, and the make for easy adventure seeds. Some asshole has done/is doing/is going to do something that rustles the PCs and they need to stop them and/or bring them to justice

wild beasts: the thing about low level monsters is that fundamentally they're just animals. This includes weirdly aggressive real world fauna but some more exotic stuff like magic beasts of low end aberrations. The might be powerful or dangerous animals with weird powers but they're still animals. When basic level adventures go into the woods to fight monsters it's not war, it's pest control.

The fair folk: the fair folk are sort of like people but they don't really get humanoid society and they're kind of assholes about it. They all have some magic powers (mostly illusions and enchantment) but they also have weird banes and vulnerabilities. They come from the world on the other side of the looking glass (sometimes literally because most artificial portals to the world of the fae take the from of mirrors)

The undead: while an infestation of the living dead is often the result of irresponsible necromancers, sometimes in D&D land the dead just rise. It could be because a person or group of persons died with unfinished business or for seemingly no reason at all. Like the fair folk the low levels of undead tend to have restrictions but otherwise the use the crawling darkness interpretation of necromancy so putting the dead back in their graves is usually a heroic act.

[GâtFromKI]

Basic has to have Literal Cats and Rats and Snake, Commoners, Dire Rats, Trained Soldiers. That's at least 4 levels right there, and you probably want to have at least 2 levels of Soldier.

Once you accept that you are going to write "PCs start at level 4 by default" somewhere, you realize that Basic has to cover lots of different stuff that is weaker than PCs start, and that come in numbers.

And below the snake, there is the toad, and below the toad, there is the sardine, and below the sardine, there is the fly, and below the fly, there is the ant, and below the ant, there is the dust mite, and below the dust-mite, there is the plankton. What you need is a system with 5864 levels, where viruses are level 1 and PCs begin at level 4230.

Wait; what ?

It's just silly. Level 1 is the smallest level you allow for PCs, by definition. Stuff that aren't even as powerful as the least powerful PCs have negative or fractional levels, not because it's a good design, but because the lowest possible level is minus infinity (or 0 if you use fractional levels) and you have to chose an arbitrary level as the level 1.



@Lord Mistborn: your design goal should include some quick PC creation rules at the beginning of each tier. If I want to play epic, I want to create a level 16 PC rather quickly, I don't want to bother about choosing between magic missile or shocking grasp. Otherwise, your whole tier concept is useless.

[Username17]

It's just silly. Level 1 is the smallest level you allow for PCs, by definition. Stuff that aren't even as powerful as the least powerful PCs have negative or fractional levels, not because it's a good design, but because the lowest possible level is minus infinity (or 0 if you use fractional levels) and you have to chose an arbitrary level as the level 1.

As previously mentioned, that is in fact totally wrong. If you are extremely fetishistic about player characters starting at level 1, there exists the system of having the game restart the numbering at each tier. There's nothing stopping you from calling the first level of Paragon "Paragon Level 1" rather than "Level 11 (Paragon)." And you don't have to be fetishistic about the number 1 in the first place - no one choked on a dick and died because Mutants and Masterminds starts at level 6.

-Username17

[Mistborn]

@Lord Mistborn: your design goal should include some quick PC creation rules at the beginning of each tier. If I want to play epic, I want to create a level 16 PC rather quickly, I don't want to bother about choosing between magic missile or shocking grasp. Otherwise, your whole tier concept is useless.

That sort of comes with a lot of the of the current PC as it's outlined with it's goal of fewer more impactful decision points. You only chose which class to level up at the start of each tier. You only get so many feats (but every feat you take stays relevant from level 1-21) and you pick spells in thematic groups rather than individually.

[ishy]

Instead feats should be the second most important thing you chose after classes, if for instance fighting with two weapons is core to your characters you should be able to take "Two Weapon Fighting" at level one and that should be that. Basically we want Tome feats but in smaller numbers. Anything that's not worth a feat ought to be folded into the skill system.

While I realise this is just an example, you might not care and this is just a very personal design decision, you should not have a feat like "two-weapon fighting".
IMHO players should be able to use and switch between weapons often. If they find the sacred undead-smiting sword of Not-Pelor, the response shouldn't be, I have the two-weapon fighting feat so nobody can use it.
And people fighting harpies should be able to grab a bow and shoot at them, not feel useless because they didn't take the bow fighting feat.

[Mistborn]

While I realise this is just an example, you might not care and this is just a very personal design decision, you should not have a feat like "two-weapon fighting".
IMHO players should be able to use and switch between weapons often. If they find the sacred undead-smiting sword of Not-Pelor, the response shouldn't be, I have the two-weapon fighting feat so nobody can use it.
And people fighting harpies should be able to grab a bow and shoot at them, not feel useless because they didn't take the bow fighting feat.

The current plan for [Combat Style] feats is that that they scale hard but they don't stack. You can only have one of them active at a time. So if fighting with two weapons is something that's important to your character concept then you take that feat a level 1 and ideally you never feel like you have to spend another feat on it.

Theoretically keeping up with melee combat and archery should just require two feats. As for gear issues. Well gurisame guy who only ever uses gurisames and refuses to even consider picking up a halberd is obviously a concept we can't support. However people defining their combat style in less specific ways seems more defensible. Like weapon focus obviously has to go but I'm not sure of TWF/[Combat Style] Dual Wield needs to go with it.

[Username17]

The current plan for [Combat Style] feats is that that they scale hard but they don't stack. You can only have one of them active at a time. So if fighting with two weapons is something that's important to your character concept then you take that feat a level 1 and ideally you never feel like you have to spend another feat on it.

That throws the character concept of "master of many styles" under the bus. Hard.

Every non-stacking combat style you take provides less benefit than the one before. So a player who wants to do different kinds of fighting is inherently very weak compared to a player who wants just one kind of fighting and spends their remaining slots on other kinds of problem solving.

I don't know about you, but honestly I find the "Trident User 4 Life" type crap of 4th edition and 2nd edition to be some of the dumbest parts of those editions. If you have a choice of what kinds of characters your game will support, and when making a new game you obviously do, I have no idea why you'd elect to invest in that one.

-Username17

[Mistborn]

That throws the character concept of "master of many styles" under the bus. Hard.

Not necessarily, if say the Fighter class was handing out combat styles as bonus feats then they wouldn't be competing with other feats. (and "master of all styles" could seriously just be the Fighters capstone at lv 9/Heroic 6)

Of combat styles that a written up right now none are currently tied to a specific weapon type. The closest it gets is stuff like dual wielding which (oviously) requires you to be wielding two weapons (or a double weapon I guess?)

[ishy]

That throws the character concept of "master of many styles" under the bus. Hard.

Not necessarily, if say the Fighter class was handing out combat styles as bonus feats then they wouldn't be competing with other feats. (and "master of all styles" could seriously just be the Fighters capstone at lv 9/Heroic 6)

Of combat styles that a written up right now none are currently tied to a specific weapon type. The closest it gets is stuff like dual wielding which (oviously) requires you to be wielding two weapons (or a double weapon I guess?)

That sounds suspiciously as, if I don't make those feats, feats they are not a problem.
But the problem with style feats is that whenever the player can't choose to use that style, they'll feel gimped. A much better way to reward dual-wielding is to have a feat that gives you a free rider on every hit or something (assuming dual-wielding gives you extra attacks). That way, the character can go sword&board when the situation calls for it and still be useful.
I honestly don't see the benefit in having feats tied to specific weapon types.
And if you need to spend two feats to keep up with both archery and melee fighting, then it sounds like you've created feat taxes for no real reason (not to mention punish people who don't take those feats)

[Mistborn]

A much better way to reward dual-wielding is to have a feat that gives you a free rider on every hit or something (assuming dual-wielding gives you extra attacks). That way, the character can go sword&board when the situation calls for it and still be useful.

The thing is that doesn't actually solve the "problem" it just makes the question "should you be dual wielding" unintuitive to new players. If combat style is less of a gameplay choice and more of a character customization choice (which I would argue it should be) then you don't want people to be asking "is dual wielding mechanically efficient for my character?" They should just be asking "do I want to play a character that dual wields" and if the answer is yes then they should be able to take a feat labeled "[Combat Style] Dual Wielding" and then feel good about their life choices.

[Roog]

If combat style is less of a gameplay choice and more of a character customization choice (which I would argue it should be) then you don't want people to be asking "is dual wielding mechanically efficient for my character?" They should just be asking "do I want to play a character that dual wields".

So why even charge a feat for it?

Also, if fighter it not an appropriate concept for to be a class beyond low tiers, how can Dual Wielding be an appropriate concept for a feat beyond low tier?

[Mistborn]

So why even charge a feat for it?

Also, if fighter it not an appropriate concept for to be a class beyond low tiers, how can Dual Wielding be an appropriate concept for a feat beyond low tier?

Because "Be a level appropriate melee combatant" is worth like 1 feat, so you should only charge 1 feat for it.

[MGuy]

Be a level appropriate melee combatant means what to you? At lower levels being able to shoot a bow is level appropriate. At higher levels being able to fly becomes a necessity . So do you spend one feat over and over again to 'combat feats' that range from shoot a bow to fly or do you get a single feat that automagically upgrades your numbers and gives you the ability to fly?

[Wiseman]

If it's so necessary, should it even be a feat? Shouldn't we just put that straight into the class abilities? If it's a feat, then there's the option of not taking it, regardless of how much of a dumb choice that would to be.

[Mistborn]

If it's so necessary, should it even be a feat? Shouldn't we just put that straight into the class abilities? If it's a feat, then there's the option of not taking it, regardless of how much of a dumb choice that would to be.

The idea is that the "martial classes" give out combat styles for free but if you want to cleric archer you have to pay out of pocket.

[Wiseman]

I wouldn't exactly call cleric archer essential to be level appropriate.