Right, so... I made this thing:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NfDeoZE2vwCrOBEuE07RhWtpzOtLTr8Kmy0UGypzpU4/

What is it? Besides "about 600 pages", it's... a rebuild of 5E, mostly inspired by my disappointment that the OneDnD project doesn't look like it has the balls to just be a new edition (or even half-edition, like 5.5E or whatever).

So I rolled my own. Like I said, 600 pages. My bad.

It's probably about as different from 5E as the OG Pathfinder was from 3E?

I started with "I like 5E's simplified mechanics, they give me some interesting opportunities to bolt my *own* complexity back onto the system", and kept folding things in, then paring things back, until I wound up with something I liked.

It's got a *little bit* of a different setting flavor than modern D&D, in that it's trying to be a little more coherent.

Oh, yeah, and it's got skill points. And proficiency dice. And a bit lower-level spellcasting than D&D default, but still recognizably D&D (I hope).

Anyway, let me know what anyone thinks about it. I'd love actually useful critique, but one gets what one gets.

I'm not particularly looking for a more complex fantasy rpg (and am actively trying to step away from d20 games in general myself) but I am curious what you think of the "advanced" 5e system put out by the folks at enworld and how that compares to your take on the premise.

Very different thematically, but similar starting goals. My rules evolved in a different direction; I'm still trying to put the difference into words.

Some of the bigger differences are:

- If you already know 5E's combat system, my system will take a lot less time to learn. I only have two major differences from 5E's combat mechanics (my action economy around 'reactions' has more interactivity), while ENWorld's thing feels like it had a much more "throw it in" approach.

- my system has much more rules-narrative binding, especially regarding character creation and class powers. I put a lot of emphasis on answering questions like "okay, my character is 'preparing spells'; but what are they actually *doing*?"

I'll find an example quote and post it here.

Here we go, this is from the Wizard section:

Quote
Preparing Spells
Your wizard training has taught you to prepare the spells that you record in your spellbook, so that you can cast them later. Each arcane spell has three components, called the spell's Arcana, Materia, and Soma.

Arcana
A spell's Arcana is the specific configuration of runes and sigils as laid out in the wizard's spellbook. Each arcane spell has a unique Arcana, which can be copied from one spellbook to another.

Materia
A spell's Materia is the magical "fuel" used to help power the spell; this is usually a material component with magical properties, which is ground into powder during the spell's preparation to create magical ink, which is then painted onto the wizard's body in a pattern following the runes and sigils dictated by the spell's Arcana. This pattern is nearly complete, only requiring a trigger to perfectly match the Arcana as described in the spellbook.

Soma
A spell's Soma is the specific triggering words or gestures that must be performed by the wizard to "complete" the spell, activating and consuming the prepared Materia and producing the spell's effect. Each spell's Arcana must be placed in an appropriate place on the wizard's body, and the wizard's skill and training determine how large and precise the spell's Arcana must be in order to be reliably triggered by the spell's Soma.

Preparation
During each long rest that you do not spend on other activities, you may prepare a number of first-circle arcane spells from your spellbook equal to your Arcana proficiency. Each spell to be prepared requires an amount of magic ink worth 1 silver; this ink is both created and consumed during the spell preparation process, and the silver cost represents ground-up and emulsified Materia with the same aspect as the spell. You may prepare a spell more than once, if you think you might need to cast it multiple times in the same encounter or wish to prepare multiple separate effects of the same spell. Preparing each spell takes approximately 10 minutes.

Most spells have a trigger-sigil prepared onto one of the wizard's hands, which must be free and empty in order to cast the spell. Much of the remainder of the spell is prepared onto other portions of the wizard's body, which can be covered by clothing or light armor, but not medium or heavy armor, in order for the spell's Arcana to properly function.

Spell Scrolls
You may choose to use specially prepared parchment, rod, and ink worth at least 100 gp per circle while preparing a spell to prepare it onto the scroll instead of your body; if you do, that scroll becomes supernaturally resilient, and will retain its potency indefinitely until used. A scroll prepared by a wizard may be used by any other arcane spellcaster to cast the prepared spell.

Higher Circles
At 5th level, when you prepare spells during a long rest, you may also prepare a number of second-circle arcane spells equal to half your Arcana proficiency + 1. Each second-circle spell costs 2sp worth of ink and Materia to prepare.

At 9th level, you may also prepare a number of third-circle arcane spells during each long rest equal to half your Arcana proficiency. Each third-circle spell costs 5 sp worth of ink and Materia to prepare.

At 13th level, you unlock greater secrets of the universe, allowing you to prepare epically powerful spells. You may prepare one fourth-circle spell during each long rest, in addition to your first-, second- and third-circle spells. If your Arcana proficiency is +5 or higher, you may prepare two fourth-circle spells. Each fourth-circle spell costs 1 gp worth of ink and Materia to prepare.

At 17th level, you reach the pinnacle of Arcane power. You may prepare a single fifth-circle arcane spell in addition to your other spells. If your Arcana proficiency is +6 or higher, you may prepare two fifth-circle spells. Each fifth-circle spell costs 10 gp worth of ink and Materia to prepare.

Arcane Spellcasting
Beginning at 1st level, you may cast the cantrip and first-circle effects of any arcane spell that you have prepared from your spellbook.

Casting a Spell
When you cast a spell's first-circle or higher effect, the Materia within the spell's Arcana glows brightly, then burns away in a harmless flash of magical fire. As it does so, you use the spell's Somatic gestures and words to specify any parameters for the spell, such as aiming a Fireball at a target, or speaking a suggestion to a Charmed creature. That spell is then removed from your prepared spells list.

Casting a Cantrip
Most spells that you have prepared may also be cast as a cantrip. When you cast a spell as a cantrip, you get the spell's cantrip effect instead of its normal spell effect, but the spell remains prepared. A few spells do not have a cantrip effect.

Ritual Casting
You can cast an arcane spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your spellbook. You don't need to have the spell prepared.

Arcane Focus
You can use an arcane spellcasting focus when you cast arcane spells. When you concentrate while holding an arcane focus, you gain advantage on Concentration saving throws.

Also, here is my Alignment and Class system:

Quote
Alignment
Characters typically begin play with an Alignment roughly similar to the culture they came from. Thus, most Backgrounds will generally provide Skill proficiencies that orient towards a particular Alignment.

These Alignment background orientations are meant for inspiration, not as hard-and-fast rules. Heroes by their nature break the mold, and can begin play with any imaginable combination of background skills.

Unaligned
Many mortals live their lives without considering any of the four cardinal Alignments, or dedicated Neutrality. Such characters may have a tendency towards one Alignment or another - characters from a highly technological society will tend towards the Arcane over the Primal, for example - but they don't have any particularly strong views one way or the other.

Arcane
Characters with an Arcane alignment typically come from cultures that prize technology, progress, and material wealth over ecological balance and sustainability. They have decided that the benefits of technology - advanced medicine, abundant food no matter the season, comfort and shelter even in the face of disaster - easily outweigh the costs. A character from such a culture will typically hold onto these assumptions subconsciously, even after months or years away from their culture's direct influences.

Primal
Primal cultures value sustainability and ecological balance over technology, progress, and material wealth. They have decided that the costs of technology - ecological damage, wealth inequality, and alienation - are too high for the benefits and conveniences it offers. A character from such a culture will often subconsciously maintain these assumptions even after months or years away from their culture's direct influences.

Divine
Characters with a Divine alignment often come from cultures that prize social cohesion, cooperation, and conservative stability over individual expression and freedom. They have decided that their culture's social mores and customs are integral to the fabric of their society, and that flouting them is dangerous - even for seemingly good reasons. A character from such a culture will typically hold onto these assumptions subconsciously, even after months or years away from their culture's direct influences.

Eldritch
Characters with an Eldritch alignment often come from the same cultures as Divine-aligned characters, but found the expectations and restrictions of their culture stifling. An Eldritch-aligned character values their freedom of expression too highly to conform to any particular social mores, and will often rebel against any demand for conformity on mere principle. A character from such a background will typically hold onto these assumptions subconsciously, even after months or years away from their culture's direct influences.

Mystic
Mystic characters emphasize balance in all things, and carefully weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each choice they make. A particular choice, whether it leans towards Primal, Arcane, Divine, or Eldritch values, will be weighed against all other possible choices, with the concerns of each perspective carefully weighed and considered. The truly neutral alignment that Mystics value is more difficult to practice than any of the four extremes.

Classes
Player characters have a character class, an adventuring occupation or archetype that defines how they relate to the world and their role in it. Classes are divided into six Alignment categories, based on their underlying philosophy and the source of their power. Each category has three classes - a Warrior, an Expert, and a Mage.

The Natural classes are the Fighter (Warrior), the Rogue (Expert), and the Sorcerer (Mage). Natural classes gain their power through training, experience, and raw natural talent, and so can be any alignment.

The Arcane classes are the (Warrior), the Artificer (Expert), and the Wizard (Mage). Arcane classes gain their power through experimentation and (mad) science.

The Primal classes are the Barbarian (Warrior), the Ranger (Expert), and the Druid (Mage). A Primal-aligned character can also be Divine or Eldritch aligned, but their intuitions and assumptions are incompatible with the Arcane alignment. Primal classes gain their power through attunement to the natural order.

The Divine classes are the Paladin (Warrior), the Inquisitor (Expert), and the Cleric (Mage). Divine classes gain their power through faith, dedication, and obedience to the Divine order.

The Eldritch classes are the Herald (Warrior), the Occultist (Expert), and the Warlock (Mage). Eldritch classes gain their power through direct bargaining with a patron, in defiance of the Divine order.

The Mystic classes are the Monk (Warrior), the Bard (Expert), and the Sage (Mage). Mystic classes gain their power through meditation, inspiration, and insight into their own nature and the nature of the universe.

Does that help pin down the 'feel' that I'm going for?

It helps but honestly your first post was more helpful as I was going more for your design goals/intent rather than rules quotes but I appreciate both.  Are you doing this for yourself or do you already have a group that is interested in a more intricate version of the 5e ruleset?   Everyone has their own biases and in my case I've found myself leaning more towards rules light personally as I age whereas I'd probably have gone gaga over a more complex fantasy ruleset back in my 3/3.5 days.  For example, do you feel that tracking monetary costs for individual spell preparation adds to the experience of playing a wizard?  If a player is short on cash, do you plan on enforcing the rule and not allowing the wizard their primary in game mechanic?

Quote from: RNGm on April 03, 2024, 12:52:50 PM
It helps but honestly your first post was more helpful as I was going more for your design goals/intent rather than rules quotes but I appreciate both.  Are you doing this for yourself or do you already have a group that is interested in a more intricate version of the 5e ruleset?   Everyone has their own biases and in my case I've found myself leaning more towards rules light personally as I age whereas I'd probably have gone gaga over a more complex fantasy ruleset back in my 3/3.5 days.  For example, do you feel that tracking monetary costs for individual spell preparation adds to the experience of playing a wizard?  If a player is short on cash, do you plan on enforcing the rule and not allowing the wizard their primary in game mechanic?

Part of the individual spell preparation cost is to encourage foraging / exploring / adventuring for supplies; wizard and druid spell materia can be "anything with a matching elemental or aetheric correspondence" - so any creature that does fire damage can be harvested for materia for flame or radiant spells, for example, while any creature that does psychic damage or has charm effects can be harvested for materia for illusion or charm spells. Arcana, Crafting, Nature, Medicine, and Lore can all be used to gather these materials, so a player should be able to keep themselves supplied pretty easily (especially since level 1 spells only cost 1 silver worth of materia to prepare).

That said, I should probably make that much clearer in the 'exploration' section, so thanks for helping me clarify!

Another way to clarify the difference between my stuff and A5E, is that I'm starting from B/X, and then adding carefully selected 5E complexities on top of it, rather than starting from 5E, and then adding *additional* complexities on top of that.

For example:

- my system uses 'proficiencies' that go from +2 to +6 for everything, each with a corresponding die (+2=+d4, +3=+d6, +4=+d8, and so on)

- my system ties all class features to proficiencies (so my Bardic Inspiration feature says "Use your reaction to add your Performance proficiency die to an ally's roll, or subtract your Proficiency die from an enemy's roll"; my Wizard's Third Circle Spellcasting feature says "You can prepare a number of second-circle Arcane spells equal to half your Arcana proficiency"; my Rogue's Sneak Attack feature says "if you hit, you deal an additional die of damage equal to your Sleight of Hand proficiency die, gaining additional dice of damage at the levels shown".) This means there's almost no tables to look up.

- my system also ties all saving throws to proficiencies (so a fireball says "the target may make an Acrobatics save to reduce this damage by half")

- a lot of fiddly things in my system say "roll a proficiency die and use the result", for example foraging for materia would net (proficiency die) x 1sp per 10 minutes of foraging.

90% of the "complexity" of 3E and 5E, where you get lots of bonuses coming from random places, boil down to "use an appropriate proficiency to determine the bonus" in my system.

On reflection, it might make sense for me to walk through my core mechanics, B/X style, so ppl can decide whether they want to read the whole thing.

Abilities
All creatures have the standard D&D Ability scores, which always range from 3 to 18, regardless of race/species. Each Ability score produces an Ability modifier, following B/X scaling (3 is -3, 4-5 is -2, 6-8 is -1, 9-12 is +0, 13-15 is +1, 16-17 is +2, 18 is +3).

A creature's race/species will provide a racial adjustment to one or more Ability modifiers; player character races always provide a +1 to one fixed Ability modifier and a +1 to another where the player can choose between two options (for example, Elves provide +1 to Wis and +1 to Dex or Cha).

Proficiencies
Characters, NPCs and monsters have a 'base combat proficiency', plus 18 skill proficiencies that they can level up. Each proficiency starts at +2/+d4, and increases by +1/+die size up to a maximum of +6/+d12 whenever a skill point is invested. Player characters get 1 skill point per class level (Expert classes get an additional +1 skill point every odd class level), and skills caps increase by +1 every 5 levels (or every time they take a feat or class feature that explicitly grants a skill point).

Combat proficiency is based on level (with Warrior classes starting at +3/+d6 and gaining +1 every 4 Warrior class levels, Experts starting at +d4 until class level 2 when they count as Warriors at half their Expert class level, and Mages starting at +d4 and staying there).

Hit Dice, Hit Points, Wounds, and Fatigue
Each class gets 1 hit die at level 1, and +1 hit die every 4 levels; these are used for rest-healing just like 5E hit dice. A character's hit dice determine their maximum skill proficiencies, as mentioned above.

A character's base hit points equals their Constitution score; they also gain hit points each class level equal to that class's hit die average + their Con modifier.

Characters also have Wounds, which are the equivalent of "failed death saving throws". You can gain Wounds by failing a death saving throw (obviously), but also by taking critical hits, or by explicitly life-draining attacks. A character dies when they've suffered more Wounds than their Con mod + 5.

Characters also have Fatigue, which works approximately like 5E's Exhaustion. Wounds and Fatigue both count towards Exhaustion, so when your total (Wounds+Fatigue) exceeds your (Con mod + 5), you're done for the day. Between (Con mod +1) and (Con mod +5), you start being Exhausted, which imparts conditions like Dazed or Slowed as your Exhaustion increases.

That's basically it; everything else is just details unique to a particular class/skill/monster/scenario.

Quote from: HephaistosFnord on April 03, 2024, 01:09:47 PM
Another way to clarify the difference between my stuff and A5E, is that I'm starting from B/X, and then adding carefully selected 5E complexities on top of it, rather than starting from 5E, and then adding *additional* complexities on top of that.

I'd probably suggest leading with that the next time as I don't believe that's the first impression most folks will get when reading your thread.  Even just the title suggested you were starting with 5e and adding in 3.x/PF style complexity back into it.   Regardless, I wish you well as, with 600 pages and counting, you've already got alot of work put into it and possibly much more to go given normal development!

I like your ideas. I had my doubts at first, but the alignment/class matrix really grabbed me.

What is the "smiley face" arcane warrior?

I love the "die type for skill rank" idea. Do you ever use the flat value (+1, +2, etc.) or just the die?

Base HP = Constitution score is nice. Prevents the death funnel.

Wounds = failed death saves and crits. Interesting!

I'd rename Divine Mage from Cleric to PRIEST, to be closer to S&S religious sorcerer archetype.
Clerics is very D&Dist term tied to templar like divine-mage/fighter hybrid.

Priest I think have more cloistered sense.

I'd also probably go with Witch instead of Sage - or Mystic - because Sage really sounds like non magical Expert.

If your arcane is more magi-tech than just occult esoteric (you seems to drop it to Eldritch) I'd go with let's say Sentinel. I think quasi sci-fi vibe suits such weirdo. Or maybe Battlemind - psionic warrior from 4e.

Sounds like you're having trouble with an arcane fighter class. Here is what I came up with for that role:

Arbiter / Runeblade

Given your (and my) modifications, you can't import these wholesale, but perhaps they can give some inspiration.

Quote from: Wrath of God on May 18, 2024, 05:12:04 PMSage really sounds like non magical Expert.

Not to anyone familiar with Final Fantasy.