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View Full Version : Where to go for help homebrewing an entire game system?



Vagrant Lustoid
2008-11-13, 07:08 AM
I have no idea where would be best to ask this, but I figured it would make sense to ask here.

I'm about to attempt to homebrew an entirely new game system specifically related to the Diablo universe. Thus characters would have Strength, Dexterity, Magic and Vitality as their core stats, and because you can put +5 into these skills at each level with almost 100 levels I've immediately discared and idea of using DnD, especially since my area is very isolated and nobody I know (including me) has ever played or even seen a DnD game take place.

So basically, I need to build a game system from scratch with relatively simple way to play it and I have no idea where I should go to get suggestions about it. Can anybody help?

Mr Pants
2008-11-13, 07:24 AM
You need to decide what you're going to use as the framework for your system. Is it going to be rules heavy? combat-heavy? what kind of dice is it going to use, if any? are you going classless, I wouldn't really wanna homebrew 100 levels for each class. how are your skills going to work? Homebrewing a system from scratch basically involves a lot of decision making in the beginning and then you build upon it from there.

If you're going to abnormally simple, my friends and I made a system we called "Generic d12". It's classless and you just have different levels of skills that you can increase at each level. You just roll 1d12 and add your skill modifier to meet the DC and that's it. It's not at all serious though, the equivalent of constitution is a skill called "Not Dying".

Vagrant Lustoid
2008-11-13, 07:35 AM
Given that it's going to be based on the Diablo system it'll involve skill tree for each character, and each level you can place 1 point in a single spell you've met the requirements for, up to a limit of 20 points. Though in the game there were 30 skills per character I'll go for about 15 skills per character, and simply work out how much they progress per point. Given that there's already some 300 skills from the Diablo games already released, I merely have to tweak them.

I guess it'd be relatively combat-based, since in Diablo you wade through wave after wave of monster, and level pretty quickly for the first 20-40 levels. My intent is to try to design rules so that I can use the stats for monsters and items from the game with as little adjustment as possible, at least for the first attempt, since I've not really done anything like this before.

Knaight
2008-11-13, 05:48 PM
I would try to capture the spirit of the game, not the mechanics, they work well on a computer, but they will cause things to fall apart. But you can take the basics, so:
Attributes: Same name, not necessarily same granularity.
Skill System: Feat Trees(D&D) Gift Trees/Talent Trees(a lot of systems)
Hit point and mana system.
Weapons: Damage and speed. Damage is just damage, then have an initiative system where people roll initiative, then take points off it as they attack, with whoever is at the highest making a move. So if two people were at 20, one with a great axe(slow, so speed 5) and a dagger(fast so speed 3), dagger would attack, making it 20/17, then axe attacks, making it 15/17, dagger attacks 15/14, axe attacks, 10/14, dagger attacks, 10/11, dagger attacks again 10/8, axe attacks, 5/8, dagger attacks 5/5, dagger attacks 5/2, axe attacks 0/2, dagger attacks, 0/-1. Roll and add the remainder for next round. So axe gets 4 attacks, and dagger 7. You could actually just start everyone off at 100, and do it that way, movement works the same way, as do skills, but they also take mana.

Vagrant Lustoid
2008-11-13, 10:36 PM
I like the initiative and attack speed thing you list there. I think that could definitely be applicable. I'd have to combine it with inherent speed (warrior classes are faster at attacking than firing bows or spellcasting, and the spellcasters are the opposite), so I'd probably run with 100 as the score.

It's the interaction between Dexterity scores, Attack Rating and Armor Class that's the problem. Determining attack and defence rolls. I want to keep the stats as they are in the game, and work out a system based on that. So the Rogue class has a DEX cap of 250 or something. My idea is this: Each attack in a single fight you may subtrct a number from your Attack Rating (which is the same as your current DEX) and add it as an attack bonus to your attack roll. Meanwhile, the defender simply adds his total Armor Class to his defense roll. In such a system, your Attack Rating will diminish over time. So you can deal fewer attacks with higher Attack Rating to increase the likelyhood of hitting opponents with higher AC scores, but when you get swarmed by 20 low-level minions (as happens almost constantly in Diablo) you can take much lower Attack bonuses because the opponents have lower AC, allowing you to dish out a vast number of attacks to slay all the minions.

Determining the chance of magical attacks hitting would be somewhat similar, but using Magic Rating based on your MAG score.

Obviously such a system would need work, but that's my current idea for the core of attack/defence determination. What do you guys think?

Knaight
2008-11-13, 10:52 PM
Lets just say that you could get a similar effect with some of the options in my signature(point by round combat, an elaboration of what I showed before). That said, I could totally see being able to sacrifice dex points to increase initiative before attacks are done, or even between attacks, but losing attack bonus doing so, which sounds like the easiest method to do what you were talking about. Or you can adapt a precise, slow stance, a beserker, low defense, but hits often and quickly stance, a normal stance, and a not precise, reasonable defense, hit often stance. Basically you have 3 ratings:
Initiative/Attack/Defense
Precise -/+/0
Quick +/-/0
Defensive 1 0/-/+
Defensive 2 -/0/+
Beserker 0/+/-
Agressive +/0/-

That covers all of them, then you just have various degrees of these.