Right now we're working on PC leveling and ways to make all PCs unique. In the universe, everyone has a personal "Inborn" magic. This is an ability or group of abilities that make the PC different from another. Im slowly introducing perks. We're trying this over the traditional class system in D&D.
We're going to give each PC a list where they can circle one of two perks, which give different different strengths.
For example:
+.10 damage with all melee weapons.
+.20 damage resistance on all incoming fire based attacks.
+5 range on all Ranged weapons.
etc.

So buffers, debuffers, extra HP or Spell Channel, Skill point or Attribute score.
Any other ideas?

Thanks, guys.

IMHO these sorts of questions are perhaps a bit difficult to start with since what abilities player characters need, and how they will work, depend a lot on other rules. So I don't know if Improved Initiative works as an idea without knowing if you have any initiative rules, while ubiquity of self-healing powers depends mostly on whether you want a game thats logistical or a series of 'set-piece' battles. Likewise you could have a Skin Armour power and that could either stack with armour (making it mandatory for warriors) or not stack but have no armour penalties, meaning all the wizards take it.
A lot of what's thematically suitable also depends on details of your game's world background and stuff. For one thing, do you intend to have these magical powers be fairly minor or be actual super powers, and are PCs special or would most NPCs have similar abilities? If its the latter you could just raid the powers list off a standard superhero game (I think I have a partial list of powers in my Design Archive thread down the page a bit, too).

Anyway, I don't necessarily advocate writing up design goals or anything - you may have a lot of this in the back of your mind already - just pointing out why I think its hard to get you useful help.

Doom and gloom aside I may as well try and be helpful. You could go for more general categories ('effect based'), or design things piecemeal but with more detail as to specifics - compare a generic Energy Blast (choose damage type) to a Radiating Eyes power that lets you, I don't know, zap someone using a Spot check for 3d6 damage + a roll on the Mutation tables.
Likewise you can have a power that's [Ability Check +2] which could be customized to Con saves. vs. poison, or strength rolls, or Magic checks or whatever; or you could have an ability that's just +2 to save vs. poison that's then costed exactly and limited to appropriate archetypes (e.g. dwarves get it for free and elves can't take it).

Doing the former necessitates more ability to customize powers and possibly a separate advantage/disadvantage system. It may also feel a bit more generic, but gives the players some more room to be creative when designing characters.

Looking just at the framework of powers from an effect-based POV some powers might be:
*Ability boost for specific purpose - could include checks or other ability functions like determining movement speed or HP.
*penalty mitigation i.e. reducing penalty for a negative condition such as darkness, stunning, or even offhand use.
*Restore HP or other ability damage; careful with this and especially mana recovery abilities here to avoid infinite loops.
*Damage mitigation vs. magic, energy types, physical damage etc. Could include armour or similar powers.
*Special damaging power (either weapon special manuevers or separate attack forms - claws, energy blasts, whatever).
*rider effect on another attack or power
*movement effects
*'background' powers like followers, domains or whatnot.

If on the other hand you're designing powers one-by-one in specific detail, options are fairly well limitless - instead of one damage mitigation power you might have Fur (resistance 2 to cold), Armour (resist 10 damage), Infernal bloodline (resist 5 fire, -2 reaction to Good NPCs), or whatever.

Hope that makes sense.

Personally, rather than bonuses/etc., I'd look for perks that give the player additional choices to make during the game.  Getting a crit 1% more often (or even 10% more often) doesn't really make a character more unique in feel - but being able to pull off some semi-unique move (or pull of a less unique move with less strict requirements) will actually change how they *play*.

@BSJ Thanks. I understand it's slightly difficult. My party will be a wide range of classes. Though we don't have a "class" system like Pathfinder or D&D. According to the universe we will be playing in, each individual has a "Inborn Magic." Ex. A special ability only they can use. So they have these. However, my co-creators and I thought giving them another layer of perks To choose from will makeup for some other missing elements. It will be 3 or 4 "Brackets" of this perk or that perk. So:
+5HP or more magic used at once
+2 Skill points or +1 Attribute point.
+.10 more damage for all melee weapons. Or the same for Ranged weapons.
Etc., etc.
And yes that makes a great deal of sense. Thank you, BSJ! Even though the framework of our RPG is still in the making- poison, cold, other misc. modifiers and damage. This is a good note for the future. We haven't exactly reached a point to add those yet. But I'm seeing when we will need them for certain instances.

@robiswrong That kind of fits into our idea of "Inborn Magic." We wanted something more than a unique abilities or tree of abilities. Our players will propose to us some ability before hand, and myself along with the committee(3 of us) will decide a fair way to allow this ability into the game for the player. This is the only "wishlist" we really a lot in our game.
Some players have special rolls in later campaigns, and in a player's descriptionL- "My character will have [so and so epic sword of my little pony] in the story. So, he gets this special sword." And I'm thinking, that's really un-generic. If this sword is so special, why do you have it? How did you get it? Instead of just saying "He's a great and epic warrior with X sword of whatever."
I'm limiting this. And going to plot a unique, special way for him to find a sword that fits him. Instead of granting his wish.

Quote from: Exile;683257And I'm thinking, that's really un-generic. If this sword is so special, why do you have it? How did you get it? Instead of just saying "He's a great and epic warrior with X sword of whatever."
I'm limiting this. And going to plot a unique, special way for him to find a sword that fits him. Instead of granting his wish.

It doesn't have to be that special-and-unique.  It could be that a fighty-type-guy gets the ability to hit two guys in one turn, but only for half damage, as an example.

It's an option.  It's useful in some cases, not so much in others.  But it's a more active part of his character, and of the player's decision-making than just a flat bonus of a few extra hp would be.  It's not necessarily something super-unique to just his character.

You're welcome.
I'd agree with Robiswrong that the '+2% critical' ability doesn't add a lot of interesting options in play. It does depend a bit on the fluff of it e.g. if that's described as being from a magic weapon, defining the history of the magic weapon could lead to interesting things, but by themselves larger numbers aren't very meaningful; they only have a meaning compared to opposing values, or via how they're defined in the fictional world.

That's the whole purpose of them being perks. They just modify game numbers. However, I never considered giving someone the option to attack twice, but deal twice as much damage. I mean, we've discussed doing the same action twice, and adding an extra. Just not with a modifier. That's helpful.

And these perks are just a secondary layer to what their singled-out ability would be. For instance: In our beta testing, a co-creator proposed his Inborn ability was "Magic does not affect him." Or he nullifies it.
This created pros and cons. Direct magic(according the how magic works in this universe) would not affect him. Except for if it was a a fire-based spell. The fire emitted from the magic would affect him. Because fire is a natural element.
Healing spells would not heal him. We're still figuring out all the kinks to this certain passive ability. Which would be pretty cool if it would work.

Quote from: Exile;683322That's the whole purpose of them being perks. They just modify game numbers.

Yeah, I get that.

My point is that if you're really trying to make unique-feeling characters, I think that passive modifiers will give you less of that feeling for the amount of work you'll put into them than more active choices, and in your shoes, I'd at least consider that as an option.

Sure, there's some char-op possibilities in there (if you've got enhanced crit, maybe you want weapons that are biased towards crits, for instance).  But as a general rule, I think that modifying player choices results in far more interesting things than modifying math.

I'd actually argue that math and choosable passive bonuses typically make games less interesting, as the natural tendency to min/max almost invariably creates more dominated strategies, and tends to make characters that have a single go-to "thing" that's used 90% of the time.

But even if you go with the passive bonus thing, it'd be worth thinking about how you can make those modifiers in ways that do change the player's decision process in some way, making certain choices more interesting/viable in situations where in normal cases they wouldn't be.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Thanks. I understand that. The use of more unique abilities to employ the player having more options in the game is considered. Though with my particular set of players, it's not always actions that give them choices in battle. It's sometimes just dealing the most damage or being superior. I don't want to feed this to them, however the option is available.
At this point, I could name off to you what every player wants his character to do. And more and more, I just want to cap them. I don't particularly wish to have a party where: Everything's gotta be fair and balanced. Everyone gets what they want. And nothing bad can happen to anyone. Everyone needs a fair chance. Someone's got to complain because so and so's ability is OP. Someone doesn't do enough damage. Etc.
Well damn right you're not suppose to do enough damage, you haven't even gotten through a village without arguing about what formation everyone's in!
well there's my rant for now. Pardon myself.
When 50% of your players are this way. It will prove for a trial.