I'm curious what you magnificent bastards think.

Cross-posted on d20 Haven - here.

sounds neat.  i'd like to see what you come up with, as far as common maneuvers, or what things just become class abilities instead, or what have you.

Check out the Talislanta/Omni system. No feats, just skills.

Quote from: HaffrungCheck out the Talislanta/Omni system. No feats, just skills.

d20?

Links?

Come on man.  You can't just throw something like that out and walk away!

Nevermind.  I got off my lazy ass and used this here google box.

For those interested, it's not d20, though based on a twenty-sider.  The core system is available here.

I'm only hesitant at the "rules lite" claims.  If I get to my good FLGS today, I'll see if they have it...

EDIT: Also concerned about "focus on the social aspects" business.  I'm not looking to make it a rules lite system.  I've just always had a thing about feats.  They seem...odd....to me.

On the whole, I think it wouldn't be that great.  Feats are one of the things that most D20 players like about D20.  If you do that, what aspects of D20 are you trying to keep instead of just using one of the many skill based systems?

I'm not really clear on why a game needs to have two categories of special abilities: skills and feats. Why not roll them into one Cool Things You Can Do category?

Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily aiming for anything in particular.  Although, Nicephorus, I don't think your description is that far off the mark - a more generalized skill system based on d20.

As to the "Cool Things you Can Do," this is part of my...thing...with feats. Instead of opening up things, it's tends to narrow choices.  As others have said (I think, in particular, Pundit when describing FtA!) the feats end up facilitating the repeated use of a set of tactical maneuvers. "I use my [insert Feat here] again," or "He's my [insert designation based on Feat Here]," are things I've heard at the table quite often.

I'm thinking of regressing the d20 system (if you can call it that kind of possibly derogatory term) by combining it with the standard +2/-2 approach suggested in the D&D core rules.  That is, a character with a set of skills describes what is to be done, the GM assigns a difficulty, and the roll is based on the appropriate skill.

So I want to shoot two arrows at once. Everyone should be allowed to try that.  If you have the skill Long Bow (10), it will be easier, even with a -4 modifier determined by the GM as the difficulty of trying to shoot two arrows at once, than if you have Long Bow (1).

I'm also wondering if there's a way to codify this, or to support the community that might want to use it, by offering difficulty modifiers for different maneuvers attempted. So there might be a list, that can be used as a guideline, that encompasses the 10 or 20 most seen maneuvers with the long bow. That list can be updated on a regular basis so when somebody tries something new it can be included.  Properly categorize and classify that list, and it becomes a handy reference to support his kind of play.

All of this is just my mind kicking around possible approaches. Idea in my head bounce around a a lot due to the immense empty space...

are you thinking of using skills for weapons, based on your example?  would that be in addition to, or instead of, BAB?

You might want to be careful.  Based on my limited experience with the 3rd ed., it seems that they made the spellcasters more powerful and introduced Feats to bring the typical fighter back into balance -- hence allowing the fighters and other character with limited magic to gain Feats more often.  I too have had a problem with the Feat system.  The game I am designing using Talents (more similar to those presented in FASA's old Earthdawn game) but I am not using any character classes.  So a Talent can be purchased that gives the character the ability to cast spells, for instance.  The D&D Feats just seem to be something they started out with as a catch-all category and it just kind of grew -- like the junk drawer at home.  I think a lot of the Feats should be skills instead (I mean, Tracking is a Feat?)

Todd

Quote from: beeberare you thinking of using skills for weapons, based on your example?  would that be in addition to, or instead of, BAB?

I was thinking of using some kind of combination of weapon and combat skill to replace BAB.  Haven't thought that through yet, but I was definitely looking at weapon skills as opposed to the Simple, Martial, and Exotic Weapon Proficiency feats.

I don't mind the classification, per se - that is having weapons that are easier to use/learn than others - and then determine the skill cost depending on the class.

Over in the main RPG forum, there are a couple of posts about 4e feats.  It looks as if they may be moving away a focus on feats - much to my agreement!

It so happens that I was considering the same thing last night, as I don't want to have to explain feats to my soon-to-be 7 year old, nor his 9 or 11 year old friends, as they are anxious to try out a D&D game.

My thought was, as it seems now close to what the 4e guys might be thinking, to move feats into class abilities ala 1ed PHB.  I started kicking around how to handle the meta magic feats - details on my (admittedly rough) idea are here.

Y'know: Just this weekend I was thinking to myself that I'd really like to write up a list of core feats for a D20 game. Only... my core feats list would wind up being something like a quarter of the existing feats.  'Cause it's either that or start handing out freebie feats to characters at the drop of a hat!

It explicitly came about when I was staring at my 1st Ed Spycraft book and remembering the last time I drew up a high level commando/spy dude and realized that I could absolutely NOT be good at both shooting shit and kung fu with the same character... never mind taking any of the colorful feats that a cool spy dude should have. (note: if I resolved to absolutely suck at one of the two, I did have feats for colorful stuff).

The Feat chains and constant reinforcing of role (ie range or close combat) by forcing further feats to keep current when combined with necessity of taking feats to be 'competent' rather than 'improved' is just too much.

I'll move further discussion on the role of Feats to another thread. I've already drifted...

I liked your post so much it got me thinking along other lines - and posted about it over at d20 Haven.  So thanks!