One step back and two steps forward

[CatharzGodfoot]

I've been looking at those horrible 1e books with "fighting men", "magic users", three kinds of armor, and "Swords | Other weapons".

There's a lot of bad stuff in there: bad art, sexism, racism (or at the very least major ethnocentrism), dumb mechanics, and more. But I also like some of the simplicity of 1e. I like that the base book only cares about the lowest levels. I like how there are three kinds of armor and three kinds of shields. I like how there aren't that many weapons. I like Fighter and Magic user as the two main classes.


Anyway, the actual point of this is that I'm pondering Tome-series 1e. One step back and two steps forward.

For a start, the three basic armors: leather, chainmail (DR/Bludgeoning or Piercing), platemail (DR/Bludgeoning and Piercing). Light, Medium, and Heavy. Two basic shields: shield and tower shield. Shield and Great shield. All advance with BAB.

I want to cut down the weapon selection a bit too. I might just be doing this to keep my mind off finals.

[JonSetanta]

The generic armors and weapons are a good conclusion to the schizophrenic mess of inventory that AD&D and 3.x has left us.
That is a good idea, going backwards in that aspect.
It would be like in a video game where the values of an item stay the same but the object or sprite can be switched out.

For instance, Greataxe = Greatsword = Scythe = Halberd = Greatclub.
Same damage. Same crit (multiplier, bonus damage, whatever the game would use by then)
Only the name would change out of style.

3 types of armor would be fine: Light, Medium, Heavy. Maybe 2 more work in, adding Sparse (chainmail bikini or Cloud's one-arm shoulder pad) and Tank (think Samus, or the Definitive Harness in Arcana Unearthed)


And shrinking the class variety is once again closer to my much-ranted subject of classless d20 as being the Ultimate Destiny of the game, but even a smaller number of more varied archetypes is fine.
Why have Paladin, Monk, Ranger, Warlord/Marshal, Warblade, Crusader, and Fighter when it could ALL be Fighter with different abilities?

[K]

Yeh, simplification rocks. I'm been looking over the old Red, Blue, Black and Gold boxes for inspiration for a new edition, and it really outlines how many unnecessary rules are included in just about every edition of DnD.

On the question of armor, I think magic needs to be addressed as a basic function of armor. One of the most interesting parts of an old dnD books called Azure Bonds was that they mentioned that while the lady's armor exposed her boobs, it was actually more protection than platemail because it was magical. I think this is only real reason why you'd have a chainmail bikini, and it meshes with fantasy conventions pretty well.

http://www.amazon.com/Azure-Bonds-Forgo ... 0880386126

[Bigode]

Yeh, simplification rocks. I'm been looking over the old Red, Blue, Black and Gold boxes for inspiration for a new edition, and it really outlines how many unnecessary rules are included in just about every edition of DnD.

Could you give an example? I knew AD&D and never played it, in no small part for the lack of important (IMO at least) rules, mainly skill issues.

[JonSetanta]

I played AD&D until 3.0. You're not missing anything. It was a game system rules by charts.


EDIT:

Gods forbid the munchkin male adventurers that discover the power of minimal weight/maximum protection chainmail bikini.
You know they are out there.

I think this is only real reason why you'd have a chainmail bikini, and it meshes with fantasy conventions pretty well.

http://secretlivesofmobs.com/index.php?strip_id=20

(shiver)

[Koumei]

Gods forbid the munchkin male adventurers that discover the power of minimal weight/maximum protection chainmail bikini.
You know they are out there.

"Yekshimas! My name are Borat, I come from Stygia, is nice!"

[Harlune]

On the question of armor, I think magic needs to be addressed as a basic function of armor. One of the most interesting parts of an old dnD books called Azure Bonds was that they mentioned that while the lady's armor exposed her boobs, it was actually more protection than platemail because it was magical. I think this is only real reason why you'd have a chainmail bikini, and it meshes with fantasy conventions pretty well.

http://www.amazon.com/Azure-Bonds-Forgo ... 0880386126

I've often thought about trying some house rule where all armor has two different bonuses: AC (as normal) for the physical damage it can stop and a reflex/fortitude save bonus to represent the magical damage it can stop.

And then the general idea would be to have the heavy armors have the higher ACs as normal while the enchanted robes would have higher save bonuses. With a few exceptions like caster killer plate or robes of the battlemage here and there, of course.

But this idea kind of fell apart when I realized that heavy armor generally already sucks to begin with and that this system wasn't doing much to help fix that.

[Username17]

By the way, it's actually "Jak se máš?" (pronounced: Yak say mash) - it's Czech for "Wassappening?" Borat uses it all the time for the same reason that he filmed all the "Kazakhstan" bits in Romania. You know, Slavs. Whatever.

In any case, the original D&D stuff had racial classes and all kinds of crazy. I don't really want to bring that back. The old "Thief Skills" rules were crap ad I don't want them back (no way am I going to have "hear noise" brought back as a percentile skill), but the 2nd edition AD&D "Non Weapon Proficiencies" had promise. I honestly don't really care if someone is a 13th level Tailor, I basically just want to know if someone is a non-tailor, a tailor, a good tailor, or a legendary tailor. I don't give a rat's damn about in-between numerics for those activities.

---

That being said, having three (or four, or six, whatever) categories of armor would be good because it would allow us to go back to the old rules where certain creatures counted as wearing chain mail while other creatures counted as wearing plate armor and that could actually matter. And yet, it would still be less to remember than the current rules because I can virtually guaranty that no one here can name the Armor Bonus, Max Dex, and ACP of Banded, Splint, Half Plate and Full Plate without checking the book. And I can totally 100% guaranty that no one here can name the effects of the 8 flavors of Light Armor from the Arms and Equipment Guide without checking up on it.

Imagine for a moment that armors were classified very basically into the deflective armors (like plate armor) and the absorbent armors (like chain mail). The first group is better against spears and the second group is better against hammers. And if those are your classifications you can have people running around dressed in insect carapace and cloth bound baskets without having to write dozens of pages of rules that no one understands.

Another real possibility is to tie defenses to the kinds of armor classes. If you had armor that ran off of your Wisdom, for example, it would behoove certain kinds of characters to wear it. And that 6-part armor division would naturally encourage druids to run around in funky cloaks rather than giant robot suits.

-Username17

[ckafrica]

I am totally game for having armor types reduced to a very basic mechanical set. I've been harping on only having light medium and heavy for a while. I want my barbarian slicked out in heavy hides that make him stand toe to toe with an armored knight. Who cares about the mechanics of how they defend you, they just do.

Same goes with weapons. Maybe I like the look of the glaive but I don't want to be stuck with a sucky weapon.

For both armor and weapons you should be able to use whatever you want stylistically and be provided the same benefit as another choice. Provide a list of special abilities you can choose to be added to the weapon and armor upon crafting to provide customization. To have a sense of progression have levels of quality that only be achieved by people with the right level of craftmanship (using whatever method of craft that we define) and allow these items to have extra or superior qualities. Items might even be able to be reforged so you can add these qualities as you progress without having to throw out your favorite item of sentimental quality.

So you might have a basic polearm at 1d8 x2 as a standard weapon and then you choose to add reach or increase the crit modifier to x3. An exceptional polearm might have both plus a damage increase to the next size plus a trip bonus just for laughs. (Just pulling ideas of the top of my head)

Any thoughts?

[Kaelik]

I can virtually guaranty that no one here can name the Armor Bonus, Max Dex, and ACP of Banded, Splint, Half Plate and Full Plate without checking the book. And I can totally 100% guaranty that no one here can name the effects of the 8 flavors of Light Armor from the Arms and Equipment Guide without checking up on it.

+6, +0
+6, +1
+7, +0
+8, +1
And: -6 for fullplate, no idea for that other crap.

As for Arms and Equipment, No way anyone can remeber all that crap, but I remember the Moon Ivy that would grow on you every night, someone must have been smoking crack when designing that book.

[Voss]

The only important thing to remember with the heavy armor category is that except for full plate, they aren't any good.

In basic 3rd edition, you wear on of three things: any variety of light armor, depending specifically on the whether you are first level and what your dex is, a breast plate, or full plate. And if its the other two, its usually mithral.

Wearing anything else is actively stupid, because 7<8<9

[CatharzGodfoot]

On the question of armor, I think magic needs to be addressed as a basic function of armor. One of the most interesting parts of an old dnD books called Azure Bonds was that they mentioned that while the lady's armor exposed her boobs, it was actually more protection than platemail because it was magical. I think this is only real reason why you'd have a chainmail bikini, and it meshes with fantasy conventions pretty well.

Yeah, although that brings up the issue of 'Do we want chainmail bikinis?'. I'd rather see really agile characters or characters with really good natural armor just wear whatever they like (as long as it's light enough).

...That being said, having three (or four, or six, whatever) categories of armor would be good because it would allow us to go back to the old rules where certain creatures counted as wearing chain mail while other creatures counted as wearing plate armor and that could actually matter. And yet, it would still be less to remember than the current rules because I can virtually guaranty that no one here can name the Armor Bonus, Max Dex, and ACP of Banded, Splint, Half Plate and Full Plate without checking the book. And I can totally 100% guaranty that no one here can name the effects of the 8 flavors of Light Armor from the Arms and Equipment Guide without checking up on it.

Imagine for a moment that armors were classified very basically into the deflective armors (like plate armor) and the absorbent armors (like chain mail). The first group is better against spears and the second group is better against hammers. And if those are your classifications you can have people running around dressed in insect carapace and cloth bound baskets without having to write dozens of pages of rules that no one understands.

I was thinking very much along those lines too. Ogres having 'leathery' hide, dragon skin counting as chainmail, and earth elementals plate.

It might be worthwhile to reclassify weapons into three categories based on what armor they were most efficient against. Don't worry about whether they're B|P|S. Normal swords just flat-out do more damage, but against a guy in chainmail you'd rather have something like a rapier or a crossbow (which do less base damage). And against a guy in platemail you'd want a warhammer/flanged mace/morningstar/heavy small-bladed axe/can opener.

I was having trouble coming up with the implementation though. DR? variable AC? Different base damage? They all seem to add a lot of complexity.

Another real possibility is to tie defenses to the kinds of armor classes. If you had armor that ran off of your Wisdom, for example, it would behoove certain kinds of characters to wear it. And that 6-part armor division would naturally encourage druids to run around in funky cloaks rather than giant robot suits.

-Username17

That's an interesting idea. It would probably result in much more uniform ACs across the board, and uniform appearance. Depending on implementation, of course. At that point it might just make more sense to say 'you get your prime requisite to AC, wear something that looks cool'.

Races of War-style armors would make it work, but that would add a lot of stuff to a character sheet. Not necessarily a bad thing. If we assume that a scaling suit of armor is part of every character's stat block, it would be possible to move crap out of the character and into the armor.

For both armor and weapons you should be able to use whatever you want stylistically and be provided the same benefit as another choice. Provide a list of special abilities you can choose to be added to the weapon and armor upon crafting to provide customization.

Yeah, that would be a decent way to do it.
1) What kind of weapon is it (ranged, reach, melee)?
2) What kind of damage is it (Devastating, Piercing, or Wrecking)?
3) What specials does it have (choose 2, or 3, or whatever)?
4) Scale to size.

To have a sense of progression have levels of quality that only be achieved by people with the right level of craftmanship (using whatever method of craft that we define) and allow these items to have extra or superior qualities. Items might even be able to be reforged so you can add these qualities as you progress without having to throw out your favorite item of sentimental quality.

IMO reforging is only cool when you're talking about artifact swords which have been broken. I don't want to go through the trouble of 'reforging' my weapon when I level. Just figure them out in the beginning. Quality is a nice flavor thing ('That's a Hatori Hanzo sword!'), but it can get obnoxious.

[ckafrica]

Well this is what I wrote up as base stats my apologies for the formating.

The DR was a vague idea that you could use a fractional DR rather than a base subtraction to reduce damage but that could just be crazy talk on my part. I I chose eighths because any small increment seemed insubstantial. I'm not sure its a good idea or not so ideas if you got them. It have to be incorporated with a system of increased damage for passing the AC by a certain threshold (reducing the DR if you got a good strike)


Armor Price Bonus † MDB ACP `AF Weight DR
Light Armor 25gp +2/1 +6 0 10% 15lbs 1/4
Sp lt. armor 125gp +3/2 +7 0 5% 15lbs 1/4
Mst lt. armor 1250gp +4/3 +8 0 0% 10lbs 3/8
Md Armor 50gp +4/2 +4 -3 20% 30lbs 3/8
Sp. md 250gp +5/3 +5 -2 15% 30lbs 3/8
Exq. med 2500gp +6/4 +6 -1 10% 25lbs 1/2
Hvy Armor 100gp +6/3 +2 -5 30% 45lbs 1/2
Spr hvy 500gp +7/4 +3 -4 25% 45lbs 1/2
Exq. Hvy 5000gp +8/5 +4 -3 20% 40lbs 5/8
† second # if using DR rules

Some special qualities I imagines could be things like stealthy, camouflaged, spell casting, rapid movement, even maybe resistance.

For weapons the base that I came up with was to go back to 3.0 weapon sizes. I assumed that a 1-handed weapon should do as much as a claw of a monster the same size so I figured this could double as a template for monster damage.

Fine 1d4
tiny 1d6
small 1d8
medium 2d6
Large 2d8
Huge 4d6
Gigantic 4d8
Collossal 8d6
Enormous 8d8

I would assume that a ranged weapon would do one size smaller than a melee weapon of the same size. and base crit. multiplier is x2

Special characteristics could be anything you find as a standard variation from weapons in the PHB: extra crit range, extra crit multiplier, reach, set vs. charge, good trip, good disarm, throwable, finessable etc...

Any further thoughts? what's crap, what's not?

[ckafrica]

Well this is what I wrote up as base stats my apologies for the formating.

The DR was a vague idea that you could use a fractional DR rather than a base subtraction to reduce damage but that could just be crazy talk on my part. I I chose eighths because any small increment seemed insubstantial. I'm not sure its a good idea or not so ideas if you got them. It have to be incorporated with a system of increased damage for passing the AC by a certain threshold (reducing the DR if you got a good strike)


Armor Price Bonus † MDB ACP `AF Weight DR
Light Armor 25gp +2/1 +6 0 10% 15lbs 1/4
Sp lt. armor 125gp +3/2 +7 0 5% 15lbs 1/4
Mst lt. armor 1250gp +4/3 +8 0 0% 10lbs 3/8
Md Armor 50gp +4/2 +4 -3 20% 30lbs 3/8
Sp. md 250gp +5/3 +5 -2 15% 30lbs 3/8
Exq. med 2500gp +6/4 +6 -1 10% 25lbs 1/2
Hvy Armor 100gp +6/3 +2 -5 30% 45lbs 1/2
Spr hvy 500gp +7/4 +3 -4 25% 45lbs 1/2
Exq. Hvy 5000gp +8/5 +4 -3 20% 40lbs 5/8
† second # if using DR rules

Some special qualities I imagines could be things like stealthy, camouflaged, spell casting, rapid movement, even maybe resistance.

For weapons the base that I came up with was to go back to 3.0 weapon sizes. I assumed that a 1-handed weapon should do as much as a claw of a monster the same size so I figured this could double as a template for monster damage.

Fine 1d4
tiny 1d6
small 1d8
medium 2d6
Large 2d8
Huge 4d6
Gigantic 4d8
Collossal 8d6
Enormous 8d8

I would assume that a ranged weapon would do one size smaller than a melee weapon of the same size. and base crit. multiplier is x2

Special characteristics could be anything you find as a standard variation from weapons in the PHB: extra crit range, extra crit multiplier, reach, set vs. charge, good trip, good disarm, throwable, finessable etc...

Any further thoughts? what's crap, what's not?

[Bigode]

Same goes with weapons. Maybe I like the look of the glaive but I don't want to be stuck with a sucky weapon.

A glaive's a sucky weapon how? I always thought it was the best PHB martial melee weapon (lance for mounted use excepted, of course) ...

[Username17]

For D&D purposes it would probably be best to just hit everyone with armor that was Light (+3 AC, -1 ACP), Medium (+5 AC, -3 ACP) or Heavy (+7 AC, -5ACP) and get rid of the Max Dex crap altogether. More AC for less movement and more Armor Check Penalty is fine as a tradeoff. Then you can let people go ape shit wearing dragon hide (that gives Energy Resistance) or other special materials if you want, but all the setups (wicker vs. bark for example) are the same within a weight category.

---

For TNE I think it might want to be a little more out there, not the least because it can be and there aren't saves to worry about. A simple example might be to divide things into Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma armor. Being armored up properly would defend you based on your appropriate stat and give you a bonus to your appropriate armor class. That could be factored into your basic Armor Classes on the assumption that you were going to be wearing appropriate armor like pretty much all the time. If you gave it a maximum (like +7 or +8 ) it would allow each character a range of potential armors and not overly benefit min/maxed characters.

So in this model, a Gadgeteer would only be fighting at full power if he was armored in Strength based armor or Intelligence based armor. So like one of these:


On top of that, you could easily throw on a side system where whatever armor was either absorbent or reflective, and gave a flat damage reduction to attacks that were the wrong type. If we go to the 3d6 damage roll and compare to damage thresholds, a flat shift of +2 or +3 is actually a big deal. Avoiding a wound effect is huge. Like an X Box.

-Username17

[Calibron]

You forgot Diminutive, also, wouldn't the standard for Medium Weapons with 20/x2 non-reach weapons be 2d8? That is, if you want to use the Great Sword and Great Axe as your balance point.

[Bigode]

You forgot Diminutive, also, wouldn't the standard for Medium Weapons with 20/x2 non-reach weapons be 2d8? That is, if you want to use the Great Sword and Great Axe as your balance point.

In D&D? That totally fails to keep said weapon useful at high levels, while being a no-brainer at 1. The only thing that can keep up with a good critical setup in D&D for any character is additional properties.

[Calibron]

Eh? I wasn't actually advocating the use of purely vanilla 2d8 beatsticks. Just pointing out that according to Ckafrica's system that the top tier martial weapons, 2d6/1d12 with better crits, are equivalent to 2d8 20/x2.

[Bigode]

Eh? I wasn't actually advocating the use of purely vanilla 2d8 beatsticks. Just pointing out that according to Ckafrica's system that the top tier martial weapons, 2d6/1d12 with better crits, are equivalent to 2d8 20/x2.

And I was telling you that that comparison isn't balanced, and that only more properties than good-for-criticals have will balance against them.

[ckafrica]

My best recollection of the 3.0 rule is that a weapon the same size as you is one handed so for a medium character, a small is same as light and large is 2 handed. If that ain't the case that was what I was writing under the assumption of. Diminuitive is only there to fulfill the chart rather than to be expected to see the light of day unless of course you are playing a character who is that small.

As for glaives I was picking something at random rather than looking at a chart. Regardless a sub-standard weapon.

Any thought on the DR btw? It was a shot in the dark that seemed to alleviate completely reducing attacks of low damage while maintaining relevance against large damage quantities. Or I could just be wacking off.

[JonSetanta]

Here's some concepts that came to me recently.

I'd like to avoid crit multipliers. Crit damage would be a flat bonus of, say, +4 for medium 1 hand weapons, possibly increased or decreased from there depending on size, hands-on-grip, or modifications.

2x 1-handers = 1x 2-hander in as many aspects as possible. This would mean that STR bonus (or DEX for weapons with the "Finesse" ability) applies evenly to both 1-handers and double for 2-handers.

In all aspects of power and reach should larger weapons be advantageous. In contrast, smaller weapons would be better for precision or Finesse.
Scaled numeric bonuses to certain types of attacks would work, but in what way?
Multiplying the DEX, STR, or other stat bonuses to damage?

As for DR, if we use such a concept for armor I would like for all armors to have it. Some armors would have more as an enhancement, perhaps called "Absorbant" or "Padded", which would increase it by a flat amount or perhaps by size of the user. Armors such as chainmail, hide, clay, kittens, supernatural deflection (like a Protoss shield), or whatnot would have the ability, but otherwise the DR-to-AC-value ratio would be universal for all protection.

[Jacob_Orlove]

If we're making armors generic, weapons should be too. Everyone can just use whatever weapon they want, and the rules shouldn't care:

1) 1d6 damage for each hand you're using to hold the weapon (2d6 for two weapons or a two-hander). Your stats apply to attack and damage as long as you have a weapon of some kind. Not sure if we even need this, but people seem to like it.

2) two-handed weapons have reach

3) shields do something awesome--maybe they give you an extra wound box?

4) treat two weapons as being a single attack, but you get to make two rolls and take the highest

Are there even any other weapon properties that matter besides reach? If we want everyone to have +2 to the combat test of their choice, we should just do that, instead of making them justify it with some arbitrary weapon flavor. Otherwise, get rid of the random bonus. We don't need it.

And double weapons can die a thousand fiery deaths. With fire.

[JonSetanta]

4) treat two weapons as being a single attack, but you get to make two rolls and take the highest

That's a good alternative. It also works better with the Weeaboo Fightan Majicks of nowadays, with warriors flying up to deliver the powerful Rheumatic Skyfire Dragonlord Raging Flameblast or whatever fruity name Skip invented for a maneuver, which usually allows only a single attack roll.

[Draco_Argentum]

For D&D purposes it would probably be best to just hit everyone with armor that was Light (+3 AC, -1 ACP), Medium (+5 AC, -3 ACP) or Heavy (+7 AC, -5ACP) and get rid of the Max Dex crap altogether. More AC for less movement and more Armor Check Penalty is fine as a tradeoff. Then you can let people go ape shit wearing dragon hide (that gives Energy Resistance) or other special materials if you want, but all the setups (wicker vs. bark for example) are the same within a weight category.

I think that shoehorns melee into wearing light armour. When you absolutely must out maneuver your opponents saddling yourself with a speed penalty right from the start seems rather stupid.