The title is the best summary I could figure for my collected "heresy" that takes significant liberties with ACKS as my starting point and base. I've used ACKS for historical games before, with some significant hacking and I keep coming back to the same thing: the core system is perfect for the level of pace and detail I want in an RPG for a historical game. The fact that it also easily plugs into Domains@War (for mass combat and military campaigning) is an added bonus.

I started with a game set in antiquity (circa 300BC), but I've also got in mind 18th or 19th century shenanigans (with Guns of War). The latter period makes armour mostly irrelevant, but adds guns. However, I see no reason why this couldn't work equally well for a medieval/Renaissance setting more akin to regular D&D's assumptions.

I should preface this by listing my assumptions, so that the objective is clearer:

• There's no magic or monsters, this is for straight historical games. The closest to magic is retaining the prophecy-related Proficiencies, because that's always a source of amusement.
• No XP. There's no giving or tracking it, characters level whenever is deemed appropriate. As such, all classes need to be balanced for the same XP progression.
• Chargen is non-random; you pick from either a Standard Array (14, 13, 12, 10, 8, 7) or Elite Array (16, 15, 14, 13, 11, , assign as you like, then add 2 points.
• All characters are assumed to "start" as a Normal Man, with a class level being an advancement on that. 1st level characters are more capable as a result. It also means there is the option to start a campaign at "0th level" and have the PCs choose their proper class later. I'm assuming three potential starting points for characters: 0th level, 1st level or 3rd level.
• Level progression caps at 5th or 6th level (undecided which so far). There are no more levels after that point, so that even the most experienced character is not wildly divergent from a normal person. I'm musing on capping hit dice progression at 3rd level, so it's only +1/+2 hit points for the remaining ones (especially given level-based hit dice are in addition to the d6 from 0th level).
• Instead of the proliferation of classes, where everyone picks just one for that character forever, there are only three: Warrior, Expert and Scholar, which are modular.
• Multi-classing is available, I've got a good notion of how that will work from the way later editions do it. This is where the customisation comes, instead of choosing a class, you build your own as you go. You won't get all the features of a new class just by "dipping" a single level. Obviously this creates the Character Level/Class Level distinction.
• Proficiencies drive a lot of the customisation, my list is revised. 0th level characters get 4 General or 2 General and 1 Class Proficiency - remember everyone starts at 0th level. Progression is also altered (in short odd numbered character levels give Class Proficiencies, even numbered give General). INT bonus applies to additional General Proficiencies at the start. Essentially, characters get a lot more of them.
• Furthermore, thief skills are all codified as Proficiencies, either by expanding existing ones like Alertness (+Near Noise), Climbing (+Climb Walls), Skulking (+Hide in Shadows/Move Silently) or adding new ones for Pick Pockets and Disable Device (Open Locks/Find Traps/Remove Traps).
• I'll need to rework Fighting Style Proficiencies somewhat, to make them broader, but also add some gunpowder-appropriate ones (things like Fusilier and Skirmisher). They're going to be the basis of my Feat-equivalents, though there won't be more than about ten in total.
• I'm thinking Languages will be a General Proficiency with levels. First level gives one additional language, second gives three, third gives five, fourth (?) gives eight.
• I'm using the 3.x-onward schema of saving throws - Fortitude, Reflex and Will, rather than the traditional five.
• Gaining followers happens at 5th level, rather than 9th.

OK, so on to the meat of this. My primary concern is around how to construct those three classes. They are basically thus:

• Warrior is the Fighter, that one's easy. Go-to for soldiers, marines, barbarians and so on.
• Expert is a revised Thief, they lose all the thief skills, but get a host of Class and General Proficiencies which allow you to build a Thief or any skilled tradesman. It should be the go-to class if you want to play an engineer, criminal, sailor or artillerist; most NPCs who have a class level will be Experts.
• Scholar is the wreckage of the Wizard, without any magic. They get Literacy, the option of taking the Thief skill Read Languages and Proficiencies related to learned professions. It's the class for lawyers, priests or scientists.

The issue is around balance. My difficulty is that the absence of magic and the weirder custom abilities makes it harder to make them equal, especially the Scholar. What do they get for even lower hit points and worse weapon and armour selection than the Expert?

Here's my mechanical musings on how each one is structured, which should help illustrate things (I've taken some license with the standard parameters in the Companion).

0th level

Hit Dice Value: d6

Attack Throws: 19

Weapon Selection: Narrow

Armour Selection: Narrow

Damage Bonus: None

Cleaves: None

Saving Throw progression: Starting save values (18+),  modified by attributes

Additional Features: 4 General or 2 General + 1 Class Proficiency (any) + INT in additional General Proficiencies


Just to be clear, every character starts at 0th level, even if the game is starting 1st, so the features of the classes below are additional to 0th level, not instead.


Warrior

Hit Dice Value: d8 on odd/+2 on even levels

Attack Throws: +1 per level

Weapon Selection: Unrestricted

Armour Selection: Unrestricted

Damage Bonus: +1 on each odd level

Cleaves: 1 per level

Saving Throw progression: +1 to one save per level

Additional Features: Seasoned Campaigner, one Class Proficiency and one Fighting Style Proficiency as bonuses at 1st level. Battlefield Prowess at 3rd level.

Gain an additional Class Proficiency at every even-numbered level.
 

Expert

Hit Dice Value: d6 on odd/+1 on even levels

Attack Throws: +2 per 3 levels

Weapon Selection: Broad

Armour Selection: Broad

Damage Bonus: None

Cleaves: 1 per 2 levels

Saving Throw progression: +2 to saves per level

Additional Features: Experts are well-versed in a particular area of craft. They may choose any one of Animal Husbandry, Art, Craft, Engineering, Healing, Manual of Arms or Performance to represent this area of expertise, which begins at two ranks. Alternatively, they may choose a Thief skill.

Experts facility with their chosen area of expertise gives them a bonus to all Proficiency checks relating to that topic of +1 at first level. This increases by an additional +1 at 3rd and 5th level.

They add another 4 points of Proficiencies, which can be bought at the rate of 1 point per General and 2 points per Class. Their Class Proficiencies include the former Thief skills.

At every even-numbered level, gain an additional General Proficiency, on top of the normal progression.

Whenever you gain a Class Proficiency at odd-numbered levels, you may instead opt to take two General Proficiencies.
 

Scholar

Hit Dice Value: d4 on odd levels

Attack Throws: +1 per 3 levels

Weapon Selection: Narrow

Armour Selection: Narrow

Damage Bonus: None

Cleaves: None

Saving Throw progression: +1 to one save per level

Additional Features: All experts are literate and well-versed in a particular area of knowledge. They may choose any one of Art, Healing, Knowledge, Performance or Profession to represent this area of learning, which begins at two ranks. They start with the Literacy and Language Proficiencies for free.

Scholars facility with their chosen area of expertise gives them a bonus to all Proficiency checks relating to that topic of +1 at first level. This increases by an additional +1 at 3rd and 5th level. Furthermore, as their knowledge base grows, they gain a +1 bonus to another area of specialism at 3rd level, with an additional bonus to that at 5th level. Lastly, at 5th level they may add a third area of expertise, to which they gain a +1 bonus.

They add another 6 points of Proficiencies, which can be bought at the rate of 1 point per General and 2 points per Class.

Because of their study of ancient texts and contact with other specialists, Scholars possess loremastery. This knowledge allows them to decipher occult runes, remember ancient history, identify historic artifacts, and similar tasks. At 1st level, an expert must make a proficiency throw of 18+ on 1d20 to succeed in these tasks. The proficiency throw required reduces by 2 per level.

Upon attaining 3rd level, the Scholar gains the ability to read languages, including ciphers, treasure maps, and dead languages, but not magical writings. A proficiency throw of 5+ on 1d20 is required. If the roll does not succeed, the expert may not try to read that particular piece of writing until he reaches a higher level of experience.

At every level, gain an additional General Proficiency, on top of the normal progression.

Whenever you gain a Class Proficiency at odd-numbered levels, you may instead opt to take two General Proficiencies.

At 1st level, Scholars start with double the normal wealth value, and are assumed to be at least of middle/mercantile class.


Is the Scholar an artificial distinction from the Expert? Would they be better off being one class, with the option to trade down hit dice, attack throws, Cleaves and armour/weapon selections for additional Proficiencies and area of expertise bonuses? Or does that overcomplicate the Expert? I do like having the option of a genuinely non-combatant class.


Multliclassing is the other consideration. As above, you don't simply get all the facets of the new class by taking it on. So for example a Scholar picking up Warrior doesn't suddenly gain full access to all armour and weapons, and Cleaves equal to Character Level, and bonus Class Proficiencies all in one go. I'm thinking something like two of those features per Class Level. Yes, this is all more complex than standard ACKS, but still much simpler than 3.x onwards.

 

I'm also conscious that I haven't yet given much thought to what the level-demography looks like in this new system. While I don't subscribe to the "kings must be high level" idea in the original table, I do still think it's useful to consider what the spread amongst the population should be in terms of levels.

0th level: 75%
1st level: 15%
2nd level: 5%
3rd level: 2%
4th level: 1.5%
5th level: 1%
6th level: 0.5%


 
I'm about done for now, but I'll come back to this. Initial thoughts?

Nobody cares about your "heresy", the whole point of the OSR is to do your own thing. The only thing that rubs people wrong is pretending it's heresy, and mischaracterizing how other people play. Anyway, on to the meat:

What are cleaves?

Why not just alternate HD and bonus hit points? 1d8 at 1st level, 1d8+2 at 2nd level, 2d8+2 at 3rd level, and so on. That reaches the same cap, but spreads it out a bit more.

For what it's worth, a 3 or 4 HD cap for the upper limit of physical damage a human can survive is supported by several lines of evidence in the game. For instance, compare humans to animals of comparable size. The toughest animals pound for pound tend to be big cats, and humans are closest in size to the leopard or panther. Which suggests an upper limit of 3 HD, or maybe 4 (panthers are a bit anomalous), for human-size animals. Similar with humanoid chiefs. And while not part of the Basic lineage, the classic die at -10 rule supports it as well. 10 is roughly equal to 3d6, or another 3 HD on top of the 1 HD gained at 1st level. Which makes sense, because IRL most people go down at the first hit (i.e. after 1 HD), regardless of the actual severity of the wound. You can assume that more heroic (higher level) characters are can overcome this and keep going despite their injuries, and therefore take more HD to take down.

I think you should either give bonus damage to everyone, or only give bonuses to attack throws and damage to the warrior. After all, if you get better at hitting (whether slowly or quickly), you should probably get better at damage. But it also makes perfect sense to give scholars no bonus at all -- why should a non-combatant get better at smacking people around, after all? Since you have a level cap, you don't have to worry too much about the difference getting out of hand.

Why do scholars have great saves?

And since you're working with a cap, why not make 1st level characters slightly more exceptional? It makes sense, because IRL when someone is learning a new skill they generally pick up a lot rapidly, and then advancement slows down. This is already taken into account with HD, where d6 is equivalent to d4+1, and d8 is equivalent to d4+2. This also generally corresponds with weapon damage (d4 dagger, d6 mace, d8 sword). If we take that +1 and +2 rule, then give warriors a +2 to attack throws at 1st level (and experts a +1), and then advance from there. Start warriors with a +1 to damage, as well. Same idea with saves.

Why do scholars have great saves?

E6 gives characters bonus feats, after reaching 6th level. Are you going to grant something equivalent, to allow characters to continue to advance laterally even if their numbers reach a plateau? If you go with bonus proficiencies, reflect that in the scholar.

On the king question, there are a couple lines of thought that might be interesting. One is what I call the Jon Snow effect -- in the Game of Thrones, even though he's a bastard and not formally recognized, Jon Snow was raised as a noble. And nobles are the martial class, so that always involves a lot of training at arms. So when he joins the Night's Watch, he's leagues ahead of the rest of the recruits when it comes to combat ability. Anyone who is raised as a warrior (noble) their entire life just has a huge head start. It's not impossible to overcome; there are plenty of skilled warriors from more common backgrounds. But even a regular noble should be pretty badass. This is reflected in Basic, as well -- the noble monster in B/X is a 3rd level fighter. Which happens to correspond to the human physical limits, discussed above. If you're capping characters at 3 HD, you might give the standard noble at least 2 HD worth of combat ability.

Another option is to go back to the divine right of kings, and that the kings represent the land. There's nothing wrong with making that a concrete part of the setting, and say giving them a minimum of 20 hp, which just represents luck and destiny. Though it probably isn't a good fit, since you're not using a medieval setting. A variation that would be more suitable to ancient games is to borrow from the classic Greek concept of the hero, who were all descended from gods. That godsblood could give them a certain toughness, though rather than a fixed number of hp I'd just treat them more like nobles, and make them higher level to begin with.

Edit: Sounds like you're trying to distinguish scholars and experts by making the expert proficient in a crafts or trade, like a weaponsmith, a merchant, or a thief. In comparison, scholars have more esoteric or specialized knowledge. The basic level is the scribe, but this could progress along the lines of a master builder/architect, or a student of natural philosophy or history, like Sir Chrisopher Wren, Ptolemy, or the (historical or legendary) druids. I'd say the most important thing is to make sure there are enough interesting proficiencies. I haven't looked at ACKS in a while so I can't say for sure, but typically D&D and its variants tend to neglect that part of the game in favor of combat. One aspect that might be useful is to consider is the prophet, seer, mystic, or gnostic -- even if you're eschewing magic, some ability to predict or influence the future might be interesting. In fact, that might be a characteristic ability of the scholar in general -- they come up with theories or solutions to problems. (I'm kind of vague on how to implement that; this is still pretty rough.) And if you include rhetoric and oration, then this category can also include Alcibiades and Demosthenes, as well as Cassandra and Pythia.

That said, having a purely combat class and a purely non-combat class might make sense. Just make sure multiclassing works, if you want to have great generals trained in natural history, or great physicians who dabble in fisticuffs, or swordsmiths who are experts at their own blades.

Quote from: Pat;1072608Nobody cares about your "heresy", the whole point of the OSR is to do your own thing. The only thing that rubs people wrong is pretending it's heresy, and mischaracterizing how other people play. Anyway, on to the meat:

What are cleaves?

Cleaves are bonus attacks against 1HD/0th level opponents if you down one. So if you hit and take out one, you keep getting additional attacks for each enemy you one-shot up to your limit. It allows high level Warriors to mow through crowds of lowlier opponents.

Quote from: Pat;1072608Why not just alternate HD and bonus hit points? 1d8 at 1st level, 1d8+2 at 2nd level, 2d8+2 at 3rd level, and so on. That reaches the same cap, but spreads it out a bit more.

For what it's worth, a 3 or 4 HD cap for the upper limit of physical damage a human can survive is supported by several lines of evidence in the game. For instance, compare humans to animals of comparable size. The toughest animals pound for pound tend to be big cats, and humans are closest in size to the leopard or panther. Which suggests an upper limit of 3 HD, or maybe 4 (panthers are a bit anomalous), for human-size animals. Similar with humanoid chiefs. And while not part of the Basic lineage, the classic die at -10 rule supports it as well. 10 is roughly equal to 3d6, or another 3 HD on top of the 1 HD gained at 1st level. Which makes sense, because IRL most people go down at the first hit (after 1 HD), regardless of the actual severity of the wound. You can assume that more heroic (higher level) characters are can overcome this, and therefore take more HD to take down.

That's an intriguing idea, I'm going to have to think about that. Spreading out the cap stops the front-loading of the benefit. Removing the incentive, for example, to take 3 levels of Warrior for the maximised hit points, then switch to other classes for their benefits.

One of my key goals with hit points is to prevent too large a distance between the ordinary 0th level type and even the toughest 6th level Warrior.

Quote from: Pat;1072608I think you should either give bonus damage to everyone, or only give bonuses to attack throws and damage to the warrior. After all, if you get better at hitting (whether slowly or quickly), you should probably get better at damage. But it also makes perfect sense to give scholars no bonus at all -- why should a non-combatant get better at smacking people around, after all? Since you have a level cap, you don't have to worry too much about the difference getting out of hand.

The damage bonus is a Warrior thing, from the ACKS Fighter. Attack Throws are BAB, to use a 3.x-ism, which is why the Expert needs it too, even if the Scholar does less so. Depending on the setting, armour may be more or less significant.

I could drop the Scholar hit bonus to +1 per 3 levels, though that will mean more needs to be done to boost them in other areas to compensate (there's no XP so they all have to be equal "cost" for progression, which means beefing up their powers).

Quote from: Pat;1072608Why do scholars have great saves?

They've got "poor" saves same as the Warrior - the +1 is to one save of your choice, where the Expert has +2 to spend on their saves. I didn't explain that very well. It's stolen from 3.x's notion of good/poor save progression. I'll have to read over how that works again to refresh my memory.

Quote from: Pat;1072608And since you're working with a cap, why not make 1st level characters slightly more exceptional? It makes sense, because IRL when someone is learning a new skill they generally pick up a lot rapidly, and then advancement slows down. This is already taken into account with HD, where d6 is equivalent to d4+1, and d8 is equivalent to d4+2. This also generally corresponds with weapon damage (d4 dagger, d6 mace, d8 sword). If we take that +1 and +2 rule, then give warriors a +2 to attack throws at 1st level (and experts a +1), and then advance from there. Start warriors with a +1 to damage, as well. Same idea with saves.

Don't forget 1st level characters don't just have the benefits of 1st level, but 0th level as well. So they get d6+[1st level class] hit points. For example, a 1st level Warrior has d6+d8+CON (twice?) hit points. Plus all the Proficiencies of both levels (4G or 2G+1C + INT + [1st level class]). 1st level is quite chunky, which is why I want the option of starting at either 0th ("Green") or 1st ("Blooded") level, depending on the sort of game you're playing (3rd is "Veteran").

Starting the Warrior damage progression at +1 for 1st level is a good idea. Fits with the notion of it being a significant level.

Quote from: Pat;1072608E6 gives characters bonus feats, after reaching 6th level. Are you going to grant something equivalent, to allow characters to continue to advance laterally even if their numbers reach a plateau? If you go with bonus proficiencies, reflect that in the scholar.

There's no progression after 6th level; then it would be time-based additional Proficiencies (which is how 0th level NPCs advance, something like a new one every 5 years or so). That fits very roughly with 10,000 hours being just over a year, and having perhaps a third of your time available to master a skill.

So yes, giving the Scholar a time-based progression in their "area of expertise" bonus would be a good way to do that.

Quote from: Pat;1072608On the king question, there are a couple lines of thought that might be interesting. One is what I call the Jon Snow effect -- in the Game of Thrones, even though he's a bastard and not formally recognized, Jon Snow was raised as a noble. And nobles are the martial class, so that always involves a lot of training at arms. So when he joins the Night's Watch, he's leagues ahead of the rest of the recruits when it comes to combat ability. Anyone who is raised as a warrior (noble) their entire life just has a huge head start. It's not impossible to overcome; there are plenty of skilled warriors from more common backgrounds. But even a regular noble should be pretty badass. This is reflected in Basic, as well -- the noble monster in B/X is a 3rd level fighter. Which happens to correspond to the human physical limits, discussed above. If you're capping characters at 3 HD, I'd give the standard noble at least 2 HD worth of combat ability.

Another option is to go back to the divine right of kings, and that the kings represent the land. There's nothing wrong with making that a concrete part of the setting, and say giving them a minimum of 20 hp, which just represents luck and destiny. Though it probably isn't a good fit, since you're not using a medieval setting. A variation that would be more suitable to ancients games is to borrow from the classic Greek concept of the hero, who were all descended from gods. That godsblood could give them a certain toughness, though rather than a fixed number of hp I'd just treat them more like nobles, and make them higher level to begin with.

I prefer the "what makes sense" approach to that, rather than a fixed rule. A noble is indeed more likely to have combat training and possibly experience as an officer (especially a first or second son), though equally a booking sort might not.

Your latter notion is the default for ACKS - partly because gold=XP so if you're rich, you're also experienced. But that conceit doesn't make sense for a historical game, IMO. I'm playing this relatively straight.

Quote from: Pat;1072608Edit: Sounds like you're trying to distinguish scholars and experts by making the expert proficient in a crafts or trade, like a weaponsmith, a merchant, or a thief. In comparison, scholars have more esoteric or specialized knowledge. The basic level is the scribe, but this could progress along the lines of a master builder/architect, or a student of natural philosophy or history, like Sir Chrisopher Wren, Ptolemy, or the (historical or legendary) druids. I'd say the most important thing is to make sure there are enough interesting proficiencies. I haven't looked at ACKS in a while so I can't say for sure, but typically D&D and its variants tend to neglect that part of the game in favor of combat. One aspect that might be useful is to consider is the prophet, seer, mystic, or gnostic -- even if you're eschewing magic, some ability to predict or influence the future might be interesting. In fact, that might be a characteristic ability of the scholar in general -- they come up with theories or solutions to problems. (I'm kind of vague on how to implement that; this is still pretty rough.)

Precisely - and ACKS does have lots of them, some of which have multiple levels and setting implications. For example the Art, Craft, Healing, Performance and Profession Proficiencies all have three levels (Apprentice/Journeyman/Master essentially) which have implications for being able to have your own apprentices and how much you can earn applying your trade (I think the utility of the latter speaks for itself). That's why the deliberate split whereby Profession is Scholar-only, covering things like banking, law, accountancy and so on. Whereas Craft is Expert-only, which covers things like engineering. There are overlaps; Healing is in both, you could be the Expert midwife who's picked up a lot over the years, or the Scholar surgeon who's studied at the top schools and carried out many procedures under the tutelage of renowned doctors.

I'm already thinking I need to boost two of the Scholar's bonus abilities:

Scholars facility with their chosen area of expertise gives them a bonus to all Proficiency checks relating to that topic of +1 at first level. This increases by an additional +1 at 3rd and 5th level. Furthermore, as their knowledge base grows, they gain a +1 bonus to another area of specialism at 3rd level, with an additional bonus to that at 5th level. Lastly, at 5th level they may add a third area of expertise, to which they gain a +1 bonus.

And:

Because of their study of ancient texts and contact with other specialists, Scholars possess loremastery. This knowledge allows them to decipher occult runes, remember ancient history, identify historic artifacts, and similar tasks. At 1st level, a Scholar must make a proficiency throw of 18+ on 1d20 to succeed in these tasks. The proficiency throw required reduces by 2 per level.

The second may seem very specific, but it could just as well apply to a doctor deciphering ancient Greek texts from the Alexandreian school of medicine.

I should also remove the Expert's "trade down" - if you want a less combative specialist, play a Scholar. Ultimately, even if the Scholar is mostly an NPC class, it's still useful to have.

Predicting the future is still in - there are some prophecy-related Proficiencies, like Soothsaying - but they could be any class depending on how you want to spin it. Though an Expert or Scholar is much more likely to have the Proficiencies to spare for that sort of thing.

I might comment a bit more later, but a quick note:

Quote from: Kiero;1072611There's no progression after 6th level; then it would be time-based additional Proficiencies (which is how 0th level NPCs advance, something like a new one every 5 years or so). That fits very roughly with 10,000 hours being just over a year, and having perhaps a third of your time available to master a skill.

I'd say you also need to spend time maintaining your skills, and various positions would also have time requirements that would eat into that. Perhaps half? But prior to modern labor laws, working 12 hours a day (or even 16) wasn't particularly unusual either, so maybe up to a quarter that time, not a third.

One oddity then is that warriors hit the peak of their skill based on levels (6, however long that takes), but everyone else hits the peak of their skill based on time. So if you adventure a lot, that means the warriors advance while everyone else stays relatively stagnant; but once warriors hit their cap, they become stagnant and other skills improve as the years pass.

If you keep that, I'd explicitly structure the game with something along the lines of Pendragon seasons. Maybe one to three notable adventures per year in the Spring through Fall, then downtime and advancement in the Winter. This gives time for non-magical recovery, hooks the players into the natural cycles, and emphasizes what you do with the rest of your life in between adventures. And by making it transparent to the players, you're communicating how non-combat advancement works, setting expectations, and enforcing how both improve in respect to each other, since they're both limited by time. This might also be important for multiclassing, if you have to pick up a new set of skills. This shouldn't happen overnight, after all, just because you leveled. You might have to spend seasons or years on it. Tying advancement times to these units can also help to get away from calculating everything in hours.

Quote from: Pat;1072612I might comment a bit more later, but a quick note:


I'd say you also need to spend time maintaining your skills, and various positions would also have time requirements that would eat into that. Perhaps half? But prior to modern labor laws, working 12 hours a day (or even 16) wasn't particularly unusual either, so maybe up to a quarter that time, not a third.

One oddity then is that warriors hit the peak of their skill based on levels (6, however long that takes), but everyone else hits the peak of their skill based on time. So if you adventure a lot, that means the warriors advance while everyone else stays relatively stagnant; but once warriors hit their cap, they become stagnant and other skills improve as the years pass.

If you keep that, I'd explicitly structure the game with something along the lines of Pendragon seasons. Maybe one to three notable adventures per year in the Spring through Fall, then downtime and advancement in the Winter. This gives time for non-magical recovery, hooks the players into the natural cycles, and emphasizes what you do with the rest of your life in between adventures. And by making it transparent to the players, you're communicating how non-combat advancement works, setting expectations, and enforcing how both improve in respect to each other, since they're both limited by time. This might also be important for multiclassing, if you have to pick up a new set of skills. This shouldn't happen overnight, after all, just because you leveled. You might have to spend seasons or years on it. Tying advancement times to these units can also help to get away from calculating everything in hours.

Well, in the case of someone developing a skill that is their trade/profession, that 12-16 hours a day includes a proportion of improving their skill through use, research to do new things, teaching apprentices and so on.

Warriors will gain Proficiencies like everyone else, and if I maintain the "2 General = 1 Class", then every 10 years, they could add something combat-oriented to their panoply, like another Fighting Style. But yes, the onus is on making it credible for what they're doing. A Warrior who's retired to run a pub and doesn't actually maintain any of their fighting skills shouldn't really be advancing that way.

I do like the seasons idea, it adds on to a notion I had that the game could turn generational. When your main PC starts getting on in years, if they've settled down at some point, you might pick up one of their offspring as your next character, possibly from 0th level. The passage of five Winters to add a Proficiency in downtime seems reasonable to me - more and it might seem too long an interval for players to think it's worthwhile keeping a character who's long in the tooth as their main.

The "between adventures" part is worth considering since even a character who's active military might have years on half-pay between campaigns, or be pensioned off at a relatively young age.

The Scholar is filling out nicely, though it probably needs some more features to balance it against the other two. Meanwhile I'm thinking about multiclassing and Proficiencies.


Multiclassing

An unfortunate additional complication it brings is having to disinguish between character level (the sum total of all levels - for overall progression and Proficiencies) and class level (the number of levels you have in any one class - for class-specific progression and hit dice). There are two elements to multiclassing: universal features and those specific to the class.

Universal
Hit Dice Value: Progresses as per class level
Attack Throws: Progresses as per class level
Damage Bonus: Progresses as per class level
Cleaves: Progresses as per class level
Saving Throw progression: Progresses as per class level
Class Proficiencies: When you gain Class Proficiencies as a result of character level, they may come from the lists of any class you have levels in.

Features specific to the class

Warrior
1st class level:
Weapon Selection: Upgrade one step (Narrow > Broad, Broad > Unlimited)
Armour Selection: Upgrade one step (Narrow > Broad, Broad > Unlimited)
Additional features: Gain Seasoned Campaigner and one Fighting Style Proficiency.

Subsequent levels:
Weapon Selection: Upgrade one step (Narrow > Broad, Broad > Unlimited)
Armour Selection: Upgrade one step (Narrow > Broad, Broad > Unlimited)
Additional features: Progresses as per class level

Expert
1st class level:
Additional features: Experts are well-versed in a particular area of craft. They may choose any one of Animal Husbandry, Art, Craft, Engineering, Healing, Manual of Arms or Performance to represent this area of expertise, which begins at two ranks. Alternatively, they may choose a Thief skill.

Experts facility with their chosen area of expertise gives them a bonus to all Proficiency checks relating to that topic of +1 at first level. This increases by an additional +1 at 3rd and 5th level.

Also gain one additional General Proficiency.

Subsequent levels: Progresses as per class level

Scholar
1st class level:
Additional features: All experts are literate and well-versed in a particular area of knowledge. They may choose any one of Art, Healing, Knowledge, Performance or Profession to represent this area of learning, which begins at two ranks. They start with the Literacy and Language Proficiencies for free.

Scholars facility with their chosen area of expertise gives them a bonus to all Proficiency checks relating to that topic of +1 at first level. This increases by an additional +1 at 3rd and 5th level. Furthermore, as their knowledge base grows, they gain a +1 bonus to another area of specialism at 3rd level, with an additional bonus to that at 5th level. Lastly, at 5th level they may add a third area of expertise, to which they gain a +1 bonus.

Also gain one additional General Proficiency.

Subsequent levels: Progresses as per class level


Proficiencies

There are a number of changes to the lists and ordering of things in terms of what is General and Class, along with sorting out the lists for each class.

Changes to the lists:
Alchemy upgraded to Class
Beast Friendship downgraded to General
Dungeon Bashing downgraded to General
Eavesdropping folded into Alertness
Land Surveying downgraded to General
Language - first level gives one additional language; second level gives three additional languages; third level gives five additional languages; fourth level gives eight additional languages; fifth level gives twelve additional languages.
Literacy - new General Proficiency
Lockpicking replaced by Disable Device, which is broader than just locks.
Martial Training removed
Mountaineering downgraded to General
Survival downgraded to General
Trap Finding also folded into by Disable Device
Wakefulness downgraded to General
Weapon Finesse removed - lighter, one-handed weapons may use STR or DEX for their attack/damage bonus

The following magical Proficiencies removed: Apostasy, Arcane Dabbling, Battle Magic, Black Lore of Zahar, Collegiate Wizardry, Contemplation, Divine Blessing, Divine Health, Elementalism, Elven Bloodline, Familiar, Goblin-Slaying, Illusion Resistance, Laying on Hands, Magical Engineering, Magical Music, Mystic Aura, Quiet Magic, Righteous Turning, Sensing Evil, Sensing Power, Transmogrification, Unflappable Casting.

These changes give us the following General Proficiency list: Animal Husbandry, Animal Training, Art, Bargaining, Caving, Craft, Diplomacy, Disguise, Endurance, Engineering, Gambling, Healing, Intimidation, Knowledge, Labor, Land Surveying, Language, Leadership, Lip Reading, Literacy, Manual of Arms, Mapping, Military Strategy, Mimicry, Mountaineering, Naturalism, Navigation, Performance, Profession, Riding, Seafaring, Seasoned Campaigner (Adventuring), Seduction, Siege Engineering, Signaling, Survival, Theology, Tracking, Trapping, Wakefulness.

Next the Class Proficiency lists. Given the wealth of available General Proficiencies, there's no reason for them to be in the Class lists - they will only comprise the ones that can't be accessed any other way.
Warrior: Acrobatics, Alertness, Ambushing, Blind Fighting, Combat Reflexes, Combat Trickery, Command, Fighting Style, Passing Without Trace, Precise Shooting, Running, Skirmishing, Sniping, Swashbuckling, Weapon Focus
Expert: Acrobatics, Alertness, Ambushing (T), Blind Fighting, Bribery, Cat Burglary (T), Climbing (T), Contortionism, Disable Device (T), Loremastery, Passing Without Trace, Pick Pockets (T), Precise Shooting, Prestidigitation, Prophecy, Running, Skirmishing, Skulking (T), Sniping, Soothsaying, Swashbuckling
Scholar: Alchemy, Alertness, Bribery, Prestidigitation, Prophecy, Soothsaying

An obvious issue above is the very short Scholar list. That's alleviated a little by their ability to convert to two General, many of which have several levels that all those points could be dumped in. High level Scholars would be polymaths, renowned experts in numerous fields of study.


Time-based progression

For 0th level and non-adventuring characters with class levels, they gain a General Proficiency every 5 years, or a Class Proficiency every 10 years. This assumes they are still moderately active within their skillset, not idling their time away. 6th level characters also progress in the same way.

Well, its interesting.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1073444Well, its interesting.

Anything in particular catch your eye?

I'm going to turn my attention to Fighting Styles next, they're the "combat Feat" equivalent in ACKS.

I like the idea, and not just for historical gaming. It directly gets to the class constraints that many dislike.


Personally I would be rather interested in a system where there are no official classes at all and the players buy their "class" abilities. Utility of the features guiding their cost.

You could start with a base HD of d4, each level of increase (d6, d8, d10 etc) costing more. Similar with combat ability, climbing, lockpicking, magical ability etc.


This would better allow for warrior-scholars, brawny huge weaponed, armored wade into combat warriors, and quick, nimble fighters. Allow for a quick sticky fingered magician, a combat mage, wise scholarly sage, or a wise wizard with arcane knowledge, outdoorsy-thief (Robin Hood) vs a city dwelling pickpocket / burglar or a stealthy assassin.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1074114I like the idea, and not just for historical gaming. It directly gets to the class constraints that many dislike.


Personally I would be rather interested in a system where there are no official classes at all and the players buy their "class" abilities. Utility of the features guiding their cost.

You could start with a base HD of d4, each level of increase (d6, d8, d10 etc) costing more. Similar with combat ability, climbing, lockpicking, magical ability etc.


This would better allow for warrior-scholars, brawny huge weaponed, armored wade into combat warriors, and quick, nimble fighters. Allow for a quick sticky fingered magician, a combat mage, wise scholarly sage, or a wise wizard with arcane knowledge, outdoorsy-thief (Robin Hood) vs a city dwelling pickpocket / burglar or a stealthy assassin.

You can actually do "build your own" with the ACKS Player's Companion, which breaks down the XP cost for all those elements. So you could say to the players, your "budget" is 2000XP for level 1, put in anything you like up to that amount. That way everyone could have an entirely customised class.

Quote from: Kiero;1074115You can actually do "build your own" with the ACKS Player's Companion, which breaks down the XP cost for all those elements. So you could say to the players, your "budget" is 2000XP for level 1, put in anything you like up to that amount. That way everyone could have an entirely customised class.

Did not know that, I'm still going through the core book and haven't had the time to get deeply into the companion or Heroic books. ACKS just keeps getting better.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1074124Did not know that, I'm still going through the core book and haven't had the time to get deeply into the companion or Heroic books. ACKS just keeps getting better.

When you get to it, it's Chapter 4 in the Player's Companion.

Given that most Warriors in a Historical context, pre-17th century were highly educated and highly trained members of the Nobility (European, African and Asian), how are you planning to implement backgrounds?  Each region will have it's own set of proficiencies.  How will one's Peerage (Rank and Titles) affect the players and setting?  What is your 'every man' class?  Is it Expert?  Warrior?  Scholar?  In older D&D it was thought that the it was the Fighter (Despite, you know, needing at least a decade of training to use weapons properly), I'm partial to the Rogue archetype, as thieving is something most can do with a bit of luck and practice (remember, pre-18th century, locks could be jimmied with a knife with relative ease, being crude affairs.)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1074195Given that most Warriors in a Historical context, pre-17th century were highly educated and highly trained members of the Nobility (European, African and Asian), how are you planning to implement backgrounds?  Each region will have it's own set of proficiencies.  How will one's Peerage (Rank and Titles) affect the players and setting?  What is your 'every man' class?  Is it Expert?  Warrior?  Scholar?  In older D&D it was thought that the it was the Fighter (Despite, you know, needing at least a decade of training to use weapons properly), I'm partial to the Rogue archetype, as thieving is something most can do with a bit of luck and practice (remember, pre-18th century, locks could be jimmied with a knife with relative ease, being crude affairs.)

I've got two main time periods I'm considering with this, antiquity (500BC-100AD) and the 17th-19th centuries. In both those instances, being a warrior isn't the sole preserve of the aristocracy. Even outside those periods, I don't think that really holds true; every noble had their retinue (which might be the yeoman farmers or tenants from their estate) who weren't necessarily educated, and mercenaries existed throughout history. Even if mercenary officers were often nobles, the ordinary soldiers weren't necessarily.

Backgrounds are done by the player choosing whatever Proficiencies are appropriate to their origins. Nobility is similarly a guideline for the player to apply to their choices, otherwise the impacts are in-setting, rather than mechanical.

0th level can go in any of those directions, largely by dint of how you choose to spend your 2-4 Proficiencies. The real customisation comes with 1st level, though. It's also a big step up from 0th level, being additive.