So, I have been giving some thought to a Version 2 of the Iridium System. You can download a free version at RPGNow or at the HinterWelt site.

Summary of IS

• Ten hit locations dividing up body and armor. This includes varied fortitude to reflect head and chest wounds are more greivous that extremities.
• Weapons recieve multiple attacks that you take on your initiative. All your attacks happen on your initiative giving the advantage to those who win initiative.
• Skills are influenced by statistics. Skills are percentile based with a curved progression (40, 60, 70, 75, 80, 82, 84).
• There are three types of magic, Spell lists, Free Form and Chi. Spell lists use spell points and may be used repeatedly (no fire and forget). Spell lists have spell heirchies. Free Form is stat driven and failure can mean physical or spiritual damage. The player picks an area of expertise and may make up their own spells from that area (specialty area: Fire, may attempt to cast a stream of fire). Chi magic is a limited set of abilities that are powered by chi points.
• IS uses classes as starting packages and rewards taking skills related to your class but does not restrict taking those outside of your class. For instance, a theif may be the best swordsmen in the group or a fighter the best spell caster. Classes are mostly about initial skill packages but do include some special abilities (Psi casting Psi abilities, Clerics casting clerical spells).
• There are 11 Stats. Strength, Constitution, Agility, Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence, Piety, Luck, Will, Appearance, Charisma. The normal human range is between 1 and 20. Stats are normally generated by rolling three d20 and taking the highest. They are used to generate spell points and skill purchase points during character generation.

Some suggestions made by play testers and fans:

• Convert to a single mechanic. Skill checks are roll under % checks, combat is a roll over d20 check. Pick one and go with it.
• Standardize on a range. Make the stats percentile or the skills 1-20.
• Standardize the stat modifiers. Currently there are tables referenced in character generation. These are different depending on the stat. Some modify more than others. They would want all stats to mod the same. For instance, +1 for every point over 14;i.e. 18 INT would be a +4 to intellectual skills.

So, any takers? I am up for discussion. I am a strong believer that no system is perfect and you can always improve.

Bill

Shouldn't this be on another subforum?

Quote from: JongWKShouldn't this be on another subforum?

My bad. I thought I was in Theory and Design . Could a mod move it?

Thanks,
Bill

PM a Mod, just in case.

Aw... and here I thought this was a thread about cutting open small children.

Oh well.

Anyway, just saw the game and I am confused as hell. About everything. I'm not sure if it's just me, if it's the system itself, or if the layout's just messing with me.

I would definitely say a unified mechanic is better than the alternative (but whatever works).

I also think this could use more pictures. Yes. Pictures. They make everything better.

I'm still muddling my way through Nebuleon, so I can't comment yet about the stuff you've said. I will point out something that seemed to be a logical confusion point.

Regarding Improvised weapons... as near as I can tell the more actual weaponlike the object is, the harder it is to use?   That is, if an improvised weapon is club like, you suffer a -2 to use it if you don't have the club skill?

Fine and dandy, except that a, oh, frying pan which is used clublike, but definitely not shaped or weighted for fighting, when used for fighting with Improvised weapons... does not.

Did I miss something?  Would it have been better to just tell people that clublike weapons use the clubbing stuff skill, not improvised weapons?

Quote from: SpikeI'm still muddling my way through Nebuleon, so I can't comment yet about the stuff you've said. I will point out something that seemed to be a logical confusion point.

Regarding Improvised weapons... as near as I can tell the more actual weaponlike the object is, the harder it is to use?   That is, if an improvised weapon is club like, you suffer a -2 to use it if you don't have the club skill?

Fine and dandy, except that a, oh, frying pan which is used clublike, but definitely not shaped or weighted for fighting, when used for fighting with Improvised weapons... does not.

Did I miss something?  Would it have been better to just tell people that clublike weapons use the clubbing stuff skill, not improvised weapons?

This might have been me falling down on the wording. If the object being used is a weapon, designed and formed to be a weapon, then it falls under the skill of that weapon. So, and this is subject to GM discretion, if you take a broom handle of appropriate length, you can use it as a staff with Staff Use. If you are using a broken bottle as a knife (i.e. to stab someone) then it is an improvised weapon. The advantage of an improvised weapon is there are many more of them out there. I had a player who did nothing but improvised weapon and unarmed combat and he was a brawler.

I can understand the confusion and I will need to address that in V2.

Thanks for the observation.

Bill

No problem, Hinter... like I said, I'm still reading through it. Holidays make for LESS time...irony...

Hey, I just reviewed Nebuleon. I hope I wasn't too harsh, but I figured I'd come here to discuss 'issues' I had with mechanics.

A more unified system would be greatly appreciated.   A 'radical' approach would be to completely segregate combat and non-combat skills, less radically, use the same system for both, but stick with your chosen system(s) either way. Right now you have d20 rolls followed by percentile rolls (in the case of crits) and d10 rolls for locations then damage rolls.  Yerg.  

One idea is to make the location roll a part of the 'to hit roll'. Untweaked, you could take the one's digit from the attack roll as the location hit. To 'tweak it', obviously you need to determine how that influences other subsystems (i.e. makeing the head a 0 location, rather than a 1... possibly) this reduces a step and increases the 'flow' of combat.  

Personally I am not fond of 'all attacks at once' or Armor as hit points. I know you never actually say armor is hit points, but that is essentially their role.  Thats just my tastes, so If no one else complains, go with what you know...

Whenever possible you should remove charts. Just a thought. Normalizing stat bonuses, reducing the crits down to simpler, easy to memorize 'ranges'... those can help ease the 'grokking' of the game.  I guess crit charts are a personal taste issue, I've seen the debates here about them, as I'm sure you have as well.


I'll leave off, as I suspect I'm being muddled.  I certainly feel like I'm not being very clear or constructive.

Quote from: SpikeHey, I just reviewed Nebuleon. I hope I wasn't too harsh, but I figured I'd come here to discuss 'issues' I had with mechanics.

I know Bill will like the review, you gave constructive crit.

QuoteA more unified system would be greatly appreciated.   A 'radical' approach would be to completely segregate combat and non-combat skills, less radically, use the same system for both, but stick with your chosen system(s) either way. Right now you have d20 rolls followed by percentile rolls (in the case of crits) and d10 rolls for locations then damage rolls.  Yerg.  

You should chime in over on the hinterwelt boards as well, we have  great discussion going on unifying the mechincs.

QuotePersonally I am not fond of 'all attacks at once' or Armor as hit points. I know you never actually say armor is hit points, but that is essentially their role.  Thats just my tastes, so If no one else complains, go with what you know...

Bill is considering going to a system where each character takes one attack and then goes back around again and again until noonw has any attacks left.

[quopte]Whenever possible you should remove charts. .[/QUOTE]

In actual play the charts are rarely used. We have gone multiple session without even having to look @ the charts.

Quote from: McrowI know Bill will like the review, you gave constructive crit.



You should chime in over on the hinterwelt boards as well, we have  great discussion going on unifying the mechincs.


Bill is considering going to a system where each character takes one attack and then goes back around again and again until noonw has any attacks left.

[quopte]Whenever possible you should remove charts. .

In actual play the charts are rarely used. We have gone multiple session without even having to look @ the charts.[/QUOTE]

I might just do that, but I find myself with ever decreasing free time, and the need to find the balance between patience, endurance and comfort.
 
Sacrifices of internet time are a relatively painless way to buy a bit of breathing room...

Quote from: SpikeHey, I just reviewed Nebuleon. I hope I wasn't too harsh, but I figured I'd come here to discuss 'issues' I had with mechanics.

Well, like Mike said, you made clear cases. I did not agree with some of your points. That does not mean you were wrong, just I disagreed. For instance, I think our character creation is very clear and layout very straight forward. Other have told me so as well. However, others have also brought up your points so, although we differ in taste, I fully acknowledge your points.

Regardless, it was an honest and thorough review.

Quote from: SpikeA more unified system would be greatly appreciated.   A 'radical' approach would be to completely segregate combat and non-combat skills, less radically, use the same system for both, but stick with your chosen system(s) either way. Right now you have d20 rolls followed by percentile rolls (in the case of crits) and d10 rolls for locations then damage rolls.  Yerg.  

See, I never minded this. However, over on the HinterWelt Forums we are talking about going with all percentiles, complete roll over (for skills and combat) and generally pulling things together.

Quote from: SpikeOne idea is to make the location roll a part of the 'to hit roll'. Untweaked, you could take the one's digit from the attack roll as the location hit. To 'tweak it', obviously you need to determine how that influences other subsystems (i.e. makeing the head a 0 location, rather than a 1... possibly) this reduces a step and increases the 'flow' of combat.  

hmm, I am open to the discussion but I think it would drop the tactical quite a bit. In years of play, I have seen too many players get revved up about a hit to the 1 (head) and pissed as hell about a hit to the 10 (the left leg). I think if we were to compress the combat you would loose some of the pacing. I know, I should be looking to decrease the number of rolls but it strikes me taking some of the excitement out of breaking combat into multiple rolls. Sacrilege, I know, I will try and do penance later today.

Another point would be the problem of called shots. Currently, the Targeting skill does this. It would be random in the system you describe.

Oh, idea: Since we are moving towards a unified system (combat and skils being roll over) we could make your to-hit roll equal your Targeting roll. So, one roll to rule the combat. Still suffers from the above points but fits better in the system.

Quote from: SpikePersonally I am not fond of 'all attacks at once' or Armor as hit points. I know you never actually say armor is hit points, but that is essentially their role.  Thats just my tastes, so If no one else complains, go with what you know...

Hmm, you missed some points then. Armor protects from criticals that do not say "pierces armor". So if someone gets a "double damage" but their initial damage does not pierce armor, then they do not double it.

And, well, Armor is Fortitude. It protects you from the damage. This is why armor was worn. You can argue the specifics and talk about simulating armor closer but I think it is a good compromise.

Quote from: SpikeWhenever possible you should remove charts. Just a thought. Normalizing stat bonuses, reducing the crits down to simpler, easy to memorize 'ranges'... those can help ease the 'grokking' of the game.  I guess crit charts are a personal taste issue, I've seen the debates here about them, as I'm sure you have as well.

hmm, as you say, the question of crit tables is one for the ages. I think an important point is much what Mike says. They only have a .0025 percent chance of showing up in combat (sightly more as you go up levels). In actual play, you might see 1-2 crits in a 8h hour game with 6 players and that would probably be some heavy combat. Critical skill success is more common and non-crit chart crits (natural 20 in combat) are even more common. Essentially, we could drop the charts and I woundn't be too sad. It adds flavor but really are not necessary and would ease the removal of levels.

I hope that did not sound like I was dismissing your suggestions Spike. I am very much open and taking all things under consideration.

Thanks for taking the time.
Bill

Oh, and i thought that I would point out that in the print book the chapters are out of order. The new PDF version though has this probelm corrected.

Also I find character generation pretty straight forward and its a nice step by step process.

Bill, as for layout, my book puts the character classes very late in the book, as in after the skill descriptions, after the freaking equipment chapter!!! That is before I 'know' what my character's class is (and what it does for me) I get to shop for gear? Not cool.   My second attempt at the review was more in depth on issues with layout, but that pretty much covers the very worst of it right there. Mcrow posted to say the chapters were out of order in the print run, so that is a possible explanation.  I suspect the huge, mostly setting based, sections for each race compounded it a bit.  The idea, I think, is to get people rolling into the character creation system by breif overviews, rather than bogging them down in a two to three page history lesson.  What you need to know about the Dramin: Big, strong, kinda stupid, former slaves of the Haga with a real mad on about it.  Lizards.  After that, the rest should be pushed back to setting specific chapters.  That is how I view it anyway.

As for the combat bits: I do gloss over the armor obviously by dismissing it as hit points, true.     Ironically, in all the various levels of 'things wrong' with Rifts, their treatment of armor is the one that irritates me most.  It's a peeve, and I admit it freely.  

Crits? Yeah, they would be rare in low level games with the numbers you toss off, on the other hand your two combat examples both include crits as I recall, and a 10th level combatant (and I did not see guidelines on levels...caps or otherwise) would crit 50% of the time on a 20, not counting those special rules that increase critical chances. 2.5% isn't much for a single shot, but you can take 4 or 5 a round, right? But yeah, crit charts are for the ages to decide on.  My off the cuff idea for removing a roll was stolen more or less from WHFRPG, which 'flips' the percentile hit roll for a location roll... to much praise.  But yeah, it was off the cuff, so...

Everything else is a matter of taste. I'm going in a completely different direction with my own project, so its fair to suggest we have different ideas for how a game should play.

Quote from: SpikeBill, as for layout, my book puts the character classes very late in the book, as in after the skill descriptions, after the freaking equipment chapter!!! That is before I 'know' what my character's class is (and what it does for me) I get to shop for gear? Not cool.   My second attempt at the review was more in depth on issues with layout, but that pretty much covers the very worst of it right there. Mcrow posted to say the chapters were out of order in the print run, so that is a possible explanation.  I suspect the huge, mostly setting based, sections for each race compounded it a bit.  The idea, I think, is to get people rolling into the character creation system by breif overviews, rather than bogging them down in a two to three page history lesson.  What you need to know about the Dramin: Big, strong, kinda stupid, former slaves of the Haga with a real mad on about it.  Lizards.  After that, the rest should be pushed back to setting specific chapters.  That is how I view it anyway.

As for the combat bits: I do gloss over the armor obviously by dismissing it as hit points, true.     Ironically, in all the various levels of 'things wrong' with Rifts, their treatment of armor is the one that irritates me most.  It's a peeve, and I admit it freely.  

Crits? Yeah, they would be rare in low level games with the numbers you toss off, on the other hand your two combat examples both include crits as I recall, and a 10th level combatant (and I did not see guidelines on levels...caps or otherwise) would crit 50% of the time on a 20, not counting those special rules that increase critical chances. 2.5% isn't much for a single shot, but you can take 4 or 5 a round, right? But yeah, crit charts are for the ages to decide on.  My off the cuff idea for removing a roll was stolen more or less from WHFRPG, which 'flips' the percentile hit roll for a location roll... to much praise.  But yeah, it was off the cuff, so...

Everything else is a matter of taste. I'm going in a completely different direction with my own project, so its fair to suggest we have different ideas for how a game should play.

A note about layout, that was actually a layout that came from playtesters and customers. I have always gotten beat up over the ordering of chapters. The PDF has the ordering I usually went with and I had people say that was prdered poorly because the rules info was up front. I can't win...:confused: So, with my books after Nebuleon I ignored everyone and went to rules in back or a Reference style. I think it works best. I like the "Read about the setting up front and have the rules as reference" approach. I know others do not.


Bill