[d20 Patch] Dirty Dungeons

[JonSetanta]

Dirty Dungeons

I thought up an easy RPG fix for d20 using games.

75% hit rate and save throws

This mean TN 6+ on a plain d20, no bonuses on accuracy allowed


ODDS OF SUCCESS

Excellent (reroll two failures)
Good (reroll one failure)
Average (pass on a roll of 6 or higher, 16 or higher is a critical success)
Bad (reroll one success)
Terrible (reroll two successes)


If the target has armor, decrease odds by one for each category of Light, Medium, or Heavy

If the target is immobile, no roll is required to hit



ABILITY SCORES

Basic (10-11)
Above average (14-15) upgrade all relevant rolls by one step
Exceptional (18-19) upgrade all relevant rolls by two steps

Str adds to Brute weapon damage
Dex adds to Finesse weapon damage
Con use score for Health Points at level 1 + 8 for each additional level
Int number of bonus trained skills at level 1
Wis score is Mana Points, each spell draining an amount equal to spell level
Cha adds to spell damage at level 1

You get two Aboves and two Exceptional

These determine the bonus of 0, 2, or 4 for things like damage output and the number of retries a character gets every 10 minute rest using the stat to roll.


LEVELING

Only 6 levels.

To defeat higher level opponents, try planning, using terrain, build an army, or just flee.


WEAPONS

Weapons:
Light 1d6
Medium 1d6+1
Heavy 2d6

Add relevant stat and level to damage.

Critical success rolls maximize damage.


SPELLS

1d6 base with +8 per level + stat standard spell damage or healing
Spells that deal damage and apply a debuff get only 1d6 +4 per level + stat


SKILLS

Skills increase the odds of success for relevant tasks by one step. They are either trained or untrained.

Offense skills:
Melee
Ranged
Magic

Defense skills:
Fortitude
Reflex
Willpower

You can probably guess which classes have these skills trained or not by default but the option is there to add to them.

Classes either have 4, 6, or 8 skills.

[Kaelik]

you just discovered DIce Pools. Congrats. Can't wait till you discover the decades of design development on dice pools!

[JonSetanta]

It's not Dice Pools. It's rerolls.

Also, yes, you're absolutely right Kaelik, how dare I have an idea. I should delete this immediately.

[Kaelik]

Dicepools and rerolls are the same thing, except that one is faster then the other. I never said you can't have ideas. I said that you should look into all the existing design work on these systems to improve your idea.

[JonSetanta]

Ok. So, any recommendations?

[Kaelik]

Well for example, if you have a variable TN where 6 and 16 are breakpoints, then what you actually have is a 1d4. Save yourself a lot of time just rolling d4s with 4 crit success and 1 failure.

But also, instead of saying "you have to roll 3 dice and hit on all three" for terrible, you could just make the default Hit amount 3, and give people a dice pool of 3 as a default, and give them more dice on each step up they go. I also think you should use d6s and start from scratch on the hit numbers.

But all of this advice (except the d4s) is aimed at the same goal, which is having far LESS swinginess based on skill then your current system is designed based on.

[JonSetanta]

I stuck with d20s because D&D players typically expect that, but good point on the d4s.

The only reason I didn't go with d4s is that they suck, and I mean absolutely worst, geometric design.
Hard to randomize.
Hard to pick up from the table.

[JonSetanta]

So, what about increasing the TN to 11 so that there's more room for up/down?

[JonSetanta]

This is version 2...

Dirty Dungeons v2

I thought up an easy RPG fix for d20 using games.

50% hit rate and save throws

This mean TN 11+ on a plain d20, no bonuses on accuracy allowed


ODDS OF SUCCESS

Excellent (reroll two failures)
Good (reroll one failure)
Average (pass on a roll of 11 or higher, 19 or higher is a critical success)
Bad (reroll one success)
Terrible (reroll two successes)


If the target has armor, decrease odds by one for each category of Light, Medium, or Heavy

If the target is immobile, no roll is required to hit



ABILITY SCORES

Basic (10-11)
Above average (14-15)
Exceptional (18-19)

Str adds to Brute weapon damage
Dex adds to Finesse weapon damage
Con use score for Health Points at level 1 + 8 for each additional level
Int number of bonus trained skills at level 1
Wis score is Mana Points, each spell draining an amount equal to spell level
Cha adds to spell damage at level 1

You get two Aboves and two Exceptional

These determine the bonus of 0, 2, or 4 for things like damage output and the number of ability score related retries a character gets every 10 minute rest.


LEVELING

Only 6 levels.

To defeat higher level opponents, try planning, using terrain, build an army, or just flee.


WEAPONS

Weapons:
Light 1d6-1 to a minimum of 1
Medium 1d6+1
Heavy 2d6

Add relevant stat and level to damage.

Critical success rolls maximize damage.


SPELLS

1d6 base with +8 per level + stat standard spell damage or healing
Spells that deal damage and apply a debuff get only 1d6 base +4 per level + stat


SKILLS

Skills increase the odds of success for relevant tasks by one step. They are either trained or untrained.

Offense skills:
Melee
Ranged
Magic

Defense skills:
Fortitude
Reflex
Willpower

You can probably guess which classes have these skills trained or not by default but the option is there to add to them.

Classes either have 4, 6, or 8 skills.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Let's try the concise version of the response to this.

Why?

[JonSetanta]

Why?

Why not?

I joke. My design plan was an experiment based on something Frank wrote years ago when he said "I don't want to play an RPG that is just a series of coin tosses", which got me thinking, what would that look like anyway?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

So... you created a system based on a "series" of "coin flips" with 75% chance of success? Or were you trying to move away from coin flips (and immediately gave up) which "that" were you trying to look like, because it's far from clear even with "explanation".

So someone nudged you about how its basically just a dice pool but slower than an actual dice pool.

So you reluctantly moved your "coin flips"(or anti-coin flips?) to 50-50 and to "make more room for up/down" whatever the fuck that meant in this context. Which didn't especially help with the dice pools thing or even the d4s thing since you moved closer to d2s.

That sounds more like you accidentally moved towards a series of coin flips while failing to respond to a basic structural critique but you are somehow doing so under the unrelated excuse of still "leaving room" for modifiers you already ruled out (for accuracy only WTF?).

There is more. A lot more. For far too few words to explain itself this "patch" from it's very title raises many disturbing questions about itself.

Your explanation, like your patch, like all your posts, doesn't parse.