D&D General What Would You Base A non-OGL 5e-alike Game On? (+)

[DMZ2112]

What is better than the D20 mechanic? Maybe a 2d10 system to get more average numbers. Add a d10 when you have advantage and take one away with disadvantage. Do the same with skill checks.

Wahey, nice to see other folks thinking about this.

I started experimenting with 2d10 two years back, and while I was really pleased with how few changes to the rules were necessary to support it, I was never fully satisfied, so I went to 3d20, read the middle result. That's really cool probability magic, and not only do you not need to modify the rules at all, it comes with advantage and disadvantage baked right in -- just take the high result for advantage and the low result for disadvantage.

Unfortunately, players hated it because it feels like to roll well at all you have to roll well twice, and if you roll poorly you've often rolled poorly three times, which is kind of the point but also a hard sell. :\

 

[DMZ2112]

that is still the case in 5e too (minus the fixed slot the value goes in), so not sure what you want to gain back. Is it just to assign the rolls in order ? You can houserule that, in the official I would let the players choose

It's not, though.

In D&D5, ability scores only modify the d20 roll with a flat linear bonus from -5 to +5. Standard array gives you [-1, 0, +1, +1, +2, +2]. Rolling 4d6kh3 might move these around somewhat, but it's the relative difference between the individual bonus values that is relevant here.

If the modern d20 System really modeled an ability score bell curve, the differences between the bonuses would be greater the further you got from 10 ([+1, +3, +6, +10, +15]), which is not feasible using whole numbers, as it would obviously change D&D mechanics substantially.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm not sure if this is a cop out, but I think that if there are 100 replies to this thread, you will get 100 different and possibly incompatible ideas.

In my opinion, that is what makes D&D and its 3PP diaspora great. It's not the best designed game, and never has been, but that has never stopped a large number of fans with substantially diverse TTRPG interests from playing it successfully and joyfully throughout the years, and deriving innumerable stories about some very different topics from it. None of us want the same things from it, and yet more of us stick around than not.

With the exception of a few niche generic systems, nearly every other RPG is concept- or setting-locked to a degree that requires some technical conversion to adapt to other playstyles. You can get surprisingly far with RAW D&D just by reskinning things.

If I knew how to recreate that in a vacuum, I wouldn't explain it here, I'd publish it.

I guess if I had one concrete request, it would be to reintroduce a bell curve to the core mechanic. In early D&D, the bell curve was baked into ability score generation -- you rolled 3d6, in order, and if you got an 18 in Strength, that was a 1 in 216 chance and you'd already beaten the odds, so you picked Fighter and every Strength check you made during the game with a simple, flat 1d20 was 90% successful on average, and that was okay.

Because your character got crushed by a falling slab at 3rd level, and you rolled your next character and got a 3 Dexterity and smug condolences from your fellow players. The wheel of fortune turns!

Ever since the move to linear ability score modifiers, the game has gotten very swingy. Can't argue with the simplicity, but the die has a linear 20-point spread; in D&D5, your character sheet doesn't become more relevant to success than that doom until about, what, 8th level, with some focused development? Probably closer to 10th or 11th, right at the end of the sweet spot.

Yeah this is why I prefer multi-die resolution mechanics, and/or success ladders.

3d6 roll under is a lot of fun, as are dice pools built by your character stats, especially if you are rolling under fyour ability score plus skill bonus, and rolling under your ability score gets a better result than rolling between that and the total number. ie, you have a 5 dex and a 2 in fencing, and you try to disarm someone, rolling under 5 is even better than rolling under 7, even though both succeed.

In my own game, it's d12+d6 rank dice, with a static DC success ladder. Roll under 9 and it's a total failure, between that and 14 is mitigated failure (you fail but can get something out of the attempt like setting up an ally), between that and 20 is partial success (you get what you want but there is a cost or complication), and 20+ is total success. It works really well, with most results early on being one of the two mixed results. Since you can use attribute points to push a result up one step, this means that AP get spent on that a lot more early on, and as you get more competent you naturally use AP mroe and more to power special abilities.

I don't think I can bend that into a dnd feeling shape, though.

 

[mamba]

It's not, though.

In D&D5, ability scores only modify the d20 roll with a flat linear bonus from -5 to +5. Standard array gives you [-1, 0, +1, +1, +2, +2]. Rolling 4d6kh3 might move these around somewhat, but it's the relative difference between the individual bonus values that is relevant here.

If the modern d20 System really modeled an ability score bell curve, the differences between the bonuses would be greater the further you got from 10 ([+1, +3, +6, +10, +15]), which is not feasible using whole numbers, as it would obviously change D&D mechanics substantially.

I guess I misunderstood, to me the 3d6 / 4d6kh3 already are your bell curve for attributes.

You are basically doing an inverse bell curve for the bonuses on top of that, which should kill the bounded accuracy. Personally I think BA is a good idea

 

[Clint_L]

quite a few actually, certainly more than all the other games combined.

I certainly want the level of complexity 5e has, maybe slightly less, goign story heavy like PbtA is not for me, sorry @Clint_L

That's cool; my preferences are not for everyone. Lately I've been substituting other games, especially Dread in for D&D, while still playing in the same campaign.

I'm also not opposed to a rules-heavy system. I enjoy granularity quite a lot, sometimes. Just seems like we've already got D&D and a lot of D&D-similar games that cover that niche, including some non-OGL ones. Heck, I still have my old Palladium books.

Right now I'm working on figuring out how to combine Fiasco with D&D. I want to see if we can do a shared DM game with the act-structure and improvisation of Fiasco while keeping it in our campaign structure and using D&D rules as necessary to resolve encounters. I think there is a lot of potential if I can work it out.

 

[Faolyn]

What is better than the D20 mechanic? Maybe a 2d10 system to get more average numbers. Add a d10 when you have advantage and take one away with disadvantage. Do the same with skill checks.

I quite like this. I do prefer a little bit of a curve over pure randomness.

I also like Level Up's expertise dice, since it adds a level beyond advantage and disadvantage.

I suppose the next question is, regardless of the dice mechanic used, what sort of skill list this would have, and how they would be implemented. A flat bonus like in 5e, or using something like those expertise dice instead, or no skills at all, just using stats. Or something else.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I quite like this. I do prefer a little bit of a curve over pure randomness.

I also like Level Up's expertise dice, since it adds a level beyond advantage and disadvantage.

I suppose the next question is, regardless of the dice mechanic used, what sort of skill list this would have, and how they would be implemented. A flat bonus like in 5e, or using something like those expertise dice instead, or no skills at all, just using stats. Or something else.

I like the idea of making everything that has a proficiency in 5e to be a skill, including defenses and the types of magic, with weapons and armors being skills for categories rather than individual weapons or armor.

 

[Aldarc]

I would play Rob Schwalb's upcoming Shadow of the Weird Wizard, based on his Shadow of the Demon Lord system.

 

[Minigiant]

One thing I pondered was basing a game of rolling 3d6. Advantage adds a d6. Disadvantage removes a d6. And you criti if you roll two 6s.

But the core would be taking the TOP 20 Class fantasies of 5e and making them the base classes.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

One thing I pondered was basing a game of rolling 3d6. Advantage adds a d6. Disadvantage removes a d6. And you criti if you roll two 6s.

I like this, it works really well for Fantasy Age.

For crit, if you roll doubles you add the 2 ''double'' die and add it to damage dealt? And you cant crit if you have disadvantage.

IIRC, it puts the chance of crit-ing at 44%, which is more interesting than a 5% chance of adding a single die.