Domriso's Massive Homebrew Overhaul Compendium

[Domriso]

So, this is something of a way to keep me on track. When I get an idea, I tend to focus on it for a while, but then get distracted. Either the real world gets too much in the way, or I think of another idea, or maybe I just get bored. In any case, this has resulted in a wide variety of variants, subsystems, revised rules, and the like which I have not finished.

In an attempt to coalesce all of these ideas into one space, I have decided to put this thread up. It will be a major link to all of my work, and also a sandbox of my ideas, such as what people would like to see, or ideas they might throw at me.

So, first off, I will be discussing my design philosophy, and then listing off what exactly I have already done and plan to do.

Cheers~

[Domriso]

STRAIGHT INTO IT
Right, well, let's jump straight into it. My experiences with roleplaying have been less than ordinary. I first was introduced to D&D in high school, got hooked, played, ran some campaigns, grew disenchanted with it, and then moved to other systems. However, no matter how many other systems I tried, I always came back to my first. The d20 system just possesses an elegance and variability that I have not been able to find (or create) in other systems.

So, onto my oddities. I read. A lot. A lot more than most. My best friend and I possess collectively almost every single D&D 3.5 book, and I've read them all, cover to cover (Spell Compendium was not terribly fun, but interesting). I've also read waaaaay too many third party books, other system's books, homebrews, and the like. Yadda, yadda, &c, &c, I read a lot, you get the idea.

The weird part comes in because I essentially self-taught myself to DM, and I also essentially taught all of my roleplaying friends both how to roleplay, and how to DM for those who have taken up the mantle. It's made my experiences rather inbred, but also instilled within me a very obvious fact.

Games are made to be fun.

A simple gesture, and an even simpler sentiment, but one which can be twisted and pulled to produce a wide variety of responses. However, when I say it, what I mean is that, so long as everyone playing is having a good time, then something is going right. So, I have taken this idea as my core ethos in game design, though it looks a little different.

Essentially, I create worlds, and then create mechanics around them. For instance, I've had a rather dislike for the Vancian spellcasting system for quite some time. Right from the start I found it unwieldy, and as I used it more I grew more and more annoyed at it. It was one of the biggest reasons I decided to try out other systems.

But, my love for D&D returned when I discovered Green Ronin's True Sorcery system of magic. Variable, customizable, and comprehensive (perhaps not all-encompassing, but lovely nonetheless), the system was just what I wanted for spellcasting, and so I took it, adjusted it a bit, and then made it my own.

How does this apply to game design? Well, True Sorcery was my first real glimpse of alternate systems. It was a system that worked within the d20 framework, but allowed for a far greater variety of effects, and a truly unique gaming experience. It opened my eyes to the other possibilities of systems, and led me to making my first adjustments.

To be fair, my first few homebrews were terrible, but everyone has to start somewhere. I don't even really remember them much anymore, but I do remember that few, if any, saw any real use. I realized I wasn't so much building my own systems as I was building off other systems and turning them into something different. It wasn't what I wanted, so I changed my approach.

I don't really think that the play-by-play is necessary, or even very interesting, but what I came to believe is that, if you're making homebrew, you have to make it for yourself. Sure, it needs to work enough to be able to use, or otherwise you just have a somewhat interesting document, but the creator needs to have fun with it for it to be worth it.

HOW DO YOU APPROACH CREATING A SYSTEM?

Now, I'm sure there are many possible approaches to creating systems within an already existing framework, but this is how I work. I get an idea (we'll use Geomancy to begin with, because it's my most recent work), and from there I think about it. I play with options in my head (in the case of Geomancy, I was trying to emulate the Geo Panel system of the Disgaea games), see if it is directly translatable (usually this is not the case).

Then, assuming direct translation is impossible, I try to figure out a way to create the same feeling of the original idea, but with useful mechanics (for Geomancy, expanding the effects of the "panels" to be larger and making the effects more focused on buffing and debuffing).

Finally, I see if the system will work how I'm thinking (playtesting is useful for this, but I rarely have the chance to playtest before I've already got a complicated structure in place). I make the basic rules, then I create the more complicated aspects, and I then set about creating all the gritty details.

This works for me. I enjoy the process, and it's fun. But, I also have to say that I look at D&D in a very different way than most. When I decide to make a new set of rules, I'm usually looking to flesh out an aspect of the system that I feel it cannot adequately represent. For instance, I changed the system from Vancian to True Sorcery because when I see spellcasters, I don't imagine the world working like it does with Vancian spellcasting. Flavor is important, but I like my mechanics to back up the flavor.

OKAY, FINE, BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
In a word, complexity.

That alone usually makes people look at me confused, but let me explain.

When I look at a system, I want it to be able to adequately represent the world it is made to emulate, but I also want it to be interesting and fun. However, the d20 system has a nasty tendency to become extremely formulaic, often pushing people to memorize vast amounts of rules that can bog down gameplay, or that a DM may not have taken into account.

Also, I create mechanics to make an interesting story. I run my games in a fashion much like a novel: the players are protagonists, and they might not succeed, but the novel should be as much about them as it is about the plot itself. In essence, I tailor my campaigns to my players, using a basic outline to introduce them, and then altering it to make the players fit in better and be more important.

That being said, I don't like the world being completely predictable. I like it being easily enough understood in a basic way, but there should be a lot of people who don't quite know what is going on, including the players. Another example, I once watched a game get played where one of my good friends, Kaitlin, was playing. While being a good friend, I had never seen her play before, and she surprised me because she was so focused on the rules. I so often overlook simple mechanics in favor for story, and I let minuscule, sometimes not-so-minuscule, details go unreprimanded because they added something to the story. Kaitlin, however, played so close to the rules that the DM wasn't quite able to make the jump from playing one of my games to running one with such an odd player.

So, I don't like my players knowing everything. This is part of why I like complexity, because the more complex a game is, the less everyone will understand. I myself, being the one creating the game, make sure I understand what is going on, but I let my players make mistakes, do crazy things, and sometimes just run wild, simply so I can see what they do.

The other aspect of complexity is just that I feel it better represents the world around us. There are so many interlocking, interconnected aspects of the real world that can be boiled down into simplified mechanics, but keeping some of the mystery in the air can make a game so much more interesting.

THIS SEEMS ODD

Let's use another example. I have introduced two systems to the GitP forums: my Rune system and my Geomancy system. Both are very different from Vancian spellcasting, but they also both emulate some kind of supernatural paradigm that I have seen in books or history. I also use the True Sorcery system, which I feel works better to represent arcane magic in a fantasy setting (or, at least, in fantasy settings I tend to use).

But, I wouldn't try to use these three systems to emulate everything I want in my campaign settings. Psionics are very different, in my mind, than arcane spellcasting, summoning is a special action which involves a lot more than simply muttering a few words and waving your fingers about, and the stars can provide far more than a pretty sight.

If I tried to use the previous systems to build up a variant for additional systems, I would end up dissatisfied. Could I do it? Probably. But I wouldn't like it.

Instead, I see what I think is important for a new system, such as Psionics, and then I build the system to exemplify what I think of as the important features.

UH... WHAT?

Let's take Psionics as an example, because I've mostly finished my variant on the system. Looking at the standard Psionics system, it is basically a mana system, where you have an allotted number of spell points that you use up when making magic. It's claim to fame, I suppose, is that all of the powers can be augmented to produce advanced effects, but in my opinion, that's a pretty weak claim to fame.

This does not fit how I see psychic powers. To me, a psychic power is something that be used almost indefinitely, because the mind is its power source. So, I need something that can make at will abilities. However, I also see psychic powers as being extremely varied in some people, and extremely focused in others, so there needs to be extremes. Finally, I see psychic powers as being able to be overexerted, pushed to their limits to create extremely powerful effects, but that such exertions will weaken the psychic overall, at least until they rest.

So, taking all those things, I made a system that works. Psionic characters still have power points, but they invest these power points to create psychic abilities. Invested power points return fairly quickly (within a few rounds), so most powers can be used over and over again.

To make psychic abilities more varied, I separated the different Powers into collections called Talents. So, for instance, all powers relating to heat and fire are collected in the Pyrokinesis Talent. Psionic characters learn Talents and can use any Power contained within, so long as they have enough power points to invest.

Some powers are more effective and mighty, but they require power points to be burned rather than invested. Burned power points return only after a full-night's rest, so burning power points weakens a Psionic character overall for the day, but this can sometimes be worth it.

Now, this system is very different. It may or may not be balanced (I have yet to test it), but it's also hard to say what is and what isn't balanced when my games possess so many different kinds of systems. Certain combinations may yield better results than others, so I just try to make any character possible.

HOW EXACTLY DOES THIS RELATE TO GAME DESIGN?

Good question. In a nutshell, it means that I make systems so that my world is further fleshed out. Not all supernatural systems are available everywhere, and some places simply haven't discovered even the basics of some systems. There is a cultural element, a story aspect, and sometimes just a balancing aspect.

I work out of complexity. I make my games ultimately understandable, but I like them being very expansive and inclusive. If you want to play a raging berserker who casts spells, go right ahead; I'm sure we can figure something out.

I FEEL LIKE THIS WAS WAY TOO LONG

Perhaps so, but it put out a lot of my ideas, and it might make some of my decisions make more sense in reference to what I ultimately create.

Next, onto putting up my projects.

[Domriso]

SUPERNATURAL SYSTEMS
What's in a name? Well, a lot. I use the term "Supernatural System" rather than "magic system" because I use the term "magic" to specifically refer to arcane magic. Just something to note.

OVERVIEW
This is a summary listing of all of my subsystems that I plan to include in my games. I am listing both systems I have created and systems I have yet to create, one, for posterity's sake, and two, so people can comment on things they might want to see more. I might include more in-depth posts about individual systems so I can explain my views on them.

Without further ado, here are the systems:

"Completed" Systems: The systems here have at least their basics down and are in the very least in the playtesting phase. Some are more complete than others.

Arcane Magic

Spoiler

Arcane magic is the common idea of spellcasting. In fact, the words "magic" and "spellcasting" both refer to the art of the Arcane rather than anything else.
What it is: Arcane magic is the art of controlling metaphysical energies to produce a variety of effects. Casting spells is difficult, and it draws on the natural energies of the body, tiring the caster even as they create powerful effects. However, Arcane magic is also very expansive, containing many weaker forms of other supernatural abilities. It includes both Sorcerers, Wizards, and Bards.

Divine Miracles

Spoiler

Divine miracles are exactly what they sound like: using a mystical connection to a deity, higher power, pervasive force, or what have you to alter the world. Divine miracles are achieved via praying.
What it is: Divine miracles alter the world by divine intervention. These are not abilities prepared in the beginning of the day, but changes which occur when the prayer prays.

Geomancy

Spoiler

Geomancy is the use of ley lines to form Fields, changes to physicality and metaphysicality, shaped by the Geomancer, a conduit of the ley line energy. Geomancy is not particularly offensive, but it grants a great control over the battlefield.
What it is: Geomancy is a controller's dream, allowing the tactician in all of us to erect areas of mystical effects, to our allies benefit and our enemies bane. It takes time and focus, however, making the role of the Geomancer rather specific.
Found: Here

Meldshaping

Spoiler

The power of souls can be controlled, can be imprinted with memories and thoughts and emotions to achieve a physicality, a transient reality amongst our world. Everyday is different, and individual souls can be shaped in a variety of ways, which manifests to create a spectrum of extreme size.
What it is: To control incarnum, is to control souls, shaping them in such a way as to create more power amongst oneself. There are many different souls, and many ways to combine souls, and so the power of incarnum is varied indeed.

Pact Making

Spoiler

The art of pact-making is a hidden art, one which delves into a realm of madness and unreality. Sharing ones body with another being is a dangerous possibility, but it also allows for great power and control.
What it is: Pact making is calling a spirit to oneself and letting it share ones body for a modicum of their strength. Spirits are varied and many, some being truly esoteric and bizarre, known as Vestiges, and others being more obviously present, such as Anima Spirits. In any case, however, the spirits experience the world through others, and grant others their powers for that chance.

Psionic Manifesting

Spoiler

Psionic powers are different from spells in that they involve the power of the mind, as well as the ability be used nearly indefinitely. Psionic powers are also much more varied than their spellcasting counterparts, but lack the ability to be merged together like spells.
What it is: Psionic abilities are psychic abilities. They are not quite on the same power level as other systems, but they provide a wide range of abilities that can be used nearly at-will. More than that, a psionic focus can allow for weaker abilities to be used without any expenditure of energy at all.

Runic Inscriptions

Spoiler

Runes are as they sound: symbols somehow imprinted upon a surface which release a metaphysical power. Runes are highly detailed and require long periods of time to craft.
What it is: Runes are specifically the actual inscriptions upon a surface. Most runes either are activated via a trigger or are constantly active, but they are extremely useful and valuable.
Found: Here

Summoning & Calling

Spoiler

There is summoning, and there is calling, each similar in essence, but different in practice. To summon a creature involves forging a new being of unrealized potential out of the esoteric energies of the multiverse. These creatures have no history, have never lived before the moment of summoning, and return to their potential state when the energies maintaining them disperse. Calling a creature, however, is different, for to call a creature is to summon an actual, living being, possessed of history and power and life (or unlife) to ones side, bargaining with them for help. Both are powerful, and both are dangerous.
What it is: Of the more self-explanatory arts, summoning and calling both are the practice of bringing forth additional creatures to serve another. Some fight, some help, some simply mislead, but all possess a myriad of effects which make them extremely useful.

Xenotheurgy

Spoiler

One of few systems I have taken wholesale, the Xenotheurgy system by Realms of Chaos is phenomenal, and once I saw I it, I knew that I wanted it within my games. I have not adapted it very much at all, yet, so it is as it is.
What it is (as it is): It is madness. Xenotheurgy is the presence of alien powers assaulting ones body and mind, changing a living being into a conduit for the alien influence of the Far Realm. Allowing the power to flow is dangerous, to oneself and all around them, but it provides great power as well.
Found: Here Also, beware, for madness lies in plain sight, unseen.

[Domriso]

Those not yet finished, but whose ideas are already present

Alchemy

Spoiler

I love alchemy. The concept of possessing a vast amount of chemicals and plant parts and mixing those together to create all sorts of nasty concoctions is amazing. However, I feel like the Alchemy presented in standard D&D is woefully lacking. So, I plan to expand upon it.

Now, to be perfectly honest, this system will likely be more of an expansion of my changes to Craft to create Technology. Alongside Alchemy will exist Herbalism, which focuses mostly on plants and animal products to produce their concoctions.

I also have to honest in this regard: I have yet to read up on Pathfinder's Alchemist. It's on my to do list, because I've liked a lot of what Pathfinder has done, but I haven't quite gotten that far yet. Soon, though.

In terms of mechanics, the changes to Alchemy will mostly be expansion. I want there to be a whole slew of different options, from being able to pick normal plants off the ground and make something useful, to foraging for rare herbs and creature-parts to make powerful brews. Think Monster Hunter in that regard (this will involve creating a bunch of lists of what is foragable from what, which should be interesting).

But, that's about it. Not much else to say, really.

Assimiliation

Spoiler

I blame this one on EdroGrimshell. He came up with the idea, I just played around with it until it became something I liked.

The general idea is this. When you walk the path of life, sometimes you find creatures who possess abilities you wish you had. Most people simple dream and wish, perhaps create rituals to attempt to emulate the abilities. Those who practice assimilation, however, can take them for themselves.

Assimilation is much like it sounds. One absorbs a creature's powers into himself to use them on his own. The means are through a complicated ritual which internalizes the powers of the creature.

In terms of mechanics, the idea is pretty simple. Every creature has a certain number of Imprints (abilities which can be assimilated), which are based on their own abilities. So, a creature with natural armor might have that as a possible Imprint, a dragon might have its breath weapon, &c, &c.

The ritual draws the power into the creature, granting them the Imprint, which lets them use the ability. Now, my personal preference is to make the Imprint gained be at least semi-random, but I was told this is a bad choice, so for now it can be chosen. If an Imprint which was already gained was gained again through a ritual, then the creature who performed the ritual instead gains a power boost for that Imprint for a short time. I want to make the power boost be a sort of one-time-only boost that can be used for a while, so that it's not immediately useless.

Beyond that, there will be how the abilities work. Rather than just gaining the abilities and making yourself have so many that you're invincible, the abilities are essentially locked away inside you, until you bind them to your body. Much like soulmelds, Imprints can be bound to your chakras, and then they can be used.

However, Imprints are not Soulmelds. A soulmeld is a coalescence of metaphysical soul energy, the product of experience, past, present, future, forged into a semi-permanent, physical object. An Imprint is the metaphysical essence of a specific type of creature, bound to a mortal form, and given physicality via the creature's own inner energy. Mechanically speaking, Imprints are not soulmelds; they are their own device.

So, an Imprint must be bound to a chakra to surface. Ideally, I will have this system work with my own chakra system when I end up finishing it, but it will work fine with the Incarnum chakra system as is.

Beyond the obvious balancing factor of needing to bind an Imprint to a chakra to use it, Imprints will also bring with them baggage. The ritual which allows the essence of a creature to be absorbed has the side effect of absorbing more than it absolutely needs. When an Imprint is bound, the creature who binds it also becomes affected by the behaviors and psychology, as well as physically altering the creature. So, creatures who bind Imprints begin to act like the creatures they are binding, and also begin to look like them.

And, finally, binding a whole bunch of Imprints from the same creature can allow for a therianthrope-esque ability, where the essence overwhelms the creature and allows them to become almost the creature exactly.

In all, while it will take a lot to make, I love the idea. Should be fun.

Astrolomancy

Spoiler

There's always been magic seen in the stars, as well as in the planets, the days of the month, and other figures of astrological significance. I've seen a few builds to try and accomplish some form of astrology-based powers in D&D, but they've never really seemed to do it justice. So, I intend to put my own fix out there.

In terms of mechanics, I want this system to be complicated, even by my standards. I'm figuring something like this: Every character who practices Astrolomancy has a certain astrological sign which they align with (for this purpose, multiple different types of star systems can exist, but they all essentially boil down to the same 13 bases). But, all astrolomancers can draw power from any sign; their chosen sign is just special.

An astrolomancer can only draw power from the signs which are currently in the sky (so, this changes with the time of the year, but the time in which it appears also changes by year, albeit slowly). The only exception to this is the astrolomancer's aligned sign, which they can always draw upon, and which they gain bonuses when it is high in the sky.

Now, beyond this, every month has certain aligned powers which can be drawn upon, along with every day of the week, and even day of the month. This makes the exact day in a campaign setting very important, because some days will favor certain abilities. It also makes the astrolomancer very dependent on the time of year, day of the year, month of the year, &c.

But, I said I wanted this complicated by my standards, so this isn't good enough. Let's introduce some other complicated aspects of the system.

First is time of day. Certain powers grow with the position of the sun in the sky (or under-sky). A fairly easy one to recognize, it gets slightly more difficult at night, but only slightly.

Second is phases of the moon. As the moon moves about, some abilities grow and change, while others weaken and lessen. In cosmologies with multiple moons, this will become even more fun!

Third is the planetary movement, and the results of positions of the planets in reference to the main planet, as well as whether certain planets are in retrograde or not (well, come on, this is astrolomancy; retrograde is a given).

With those three things in place, astrolomancy becomes a terribly difficult mess to play with, which is exactly how I want it. It's a fun, but detail oriented system that will reward planning and forethought, but allow for all sorts of added absurdity.

Other than that, I haven't really thought about much. Just kind of been letting it stew, waiting for inspiration.

Cartomancy

Spoiler

Drawing from the fun that is the d20 Rebirth project, I fell in love with the concept of magic based on cards. But, I have a few differing opinions on how the system should be implemented, and their Cartomancy system is nowhere near close enough to being playable, so I'm taking my own initiative and making my own system.

The basic idea for this system is that there will be a series of cards, each with their own meanings. I'll probably build off of the Grand Arcana and add in some new ones, try to make it interesting. Those who can use Cartomancy can draw cards and hold them in their "hand." While you can literally hold any number of cards in your hands, your Hand in this sense is basically a mystical limit on how many cards you can benefit from at a time.

When a card is in your Hand, you receive a constant, passive benefit. You also receive a number of simple abilities you can use depending on if the card is in the upright or reversed positions. Thus far, my Cartomancy and the d20rebirth Cartomancy are all the same.

What I'm adding is this: every card can also be "Played," which activates a more powerful ability, but is still thematically interesting. When a card is Played, it is taken out of your deck; you cannot benefit from its powers anymore that day. This is opposed to simple reshuffling your hand, which allows you to place other cards in your hand, but doesn't get rid of the card's power.

And... that's about it for Cartomancy. Moving on.

Chakras

Spoiler

Another aspect of real-world metaphysics that I find fascinating, the concept of the seven (plus) chakras opens up so many possibilities. While I have done some work with creating a variant Monk which focuses on opening and using the Chakras, I would like to delve a bit more deeply into it, making a fuller system that involves the Chakras.

This is a very rudimentary idea, but I'm essentially thinking that opening the Chakras is something akin to the node system of Final Fantasy X. While there are only seven main Chakras, several variant real-world metaphysics believes that there are many more smaller Chakras, and some variant systems of belief actually add to the number of major Chakras.

I look at it like this: by opening up more and more of your Chakras, you become more adept at controlling your internal energies. I'm figuring that quite a bit of protective, offensive, and miscellaneous abilities could be had from opening Chakras.

The really fun part (read: complicated) aspect of this system would be determining what non-humanoid creatures had in terms of Chakras. Since Chakras are both physical and metaphysical confluences of energy, a non-humanoid creature would probably have a different Chakra set up. Figuring out which has what, and if certain creatures have special extra Chakras (maybe dragons have a special Chakra that keys in to their draconis fundamentum?), that will be exciting.

Crystallmancy

Spoiler

How to have fun with crystals, the complicated edition. Crystals have long been used in fantasy to portray power, but they've also been used in real-world history as implements of magic, focuses of energy, and 'cause they're purdy.

I took this idea and ran with it. Originally, I was inspired by RA Salvatore's Demon Wars Saga. I love the idea of crystals which possess magic and can be called upon for greater powers. When I read the Demon Wars Saga rulebook, however, I was not impressed. Probably because I had expanded the ideas far beyond the basics of the books, I was expecting something more.

So, here we go, my basic idea.

Crystals are charged with all sorts of energy. They the base form of matter, expressed in complicated lattices, and corrupted by bits of other matter. The result is a massive number of stones which each possess their own potential.

Every different type of crystal possesses a modicum of potential for supernatural exploitation. The larger the stone, the greater power which can be drawn from it. Now, since I'm a guy who dislikes abilities that are usable only x/day, I wanted to make this system a bit more interesting. Hence, crystals are, you guessed it, more complex.

Multiple smaller gemstones can be used in conjunction to produce greater effects. Essentially, two small gemstones are better than one gemstone, but not as good as a single gemstone which possesses the same mass as the two gemstones put together. I'm still not sure how to work this one exactly, and I might scrap it in the end, 'cause it would make smaller gemstones very powerful. In the very least, some kind of cap will be needed.

Beyond this, all gemstones can have their powers merge a bit, producing more varied effects. This is difficult to do by oneself (IE, holding up two stones and trying to merge their powers is terribly difficult to do), but when combined in an object, this becomes easier to do.

Which leads to the art of crystal imbuing. By placing a crystal upon a weapon, or a suit of armor, or any other object really, one can allow the object to channel the crystal's innate powers. Combine this with runic inscriptions, and suddenly "magic items" becomes a lot more varied and customizable.

In terms of the actual system, I'm a sucker for skill based systems, and so I think that is what this will be. By learning the basis of accessing the powers of crystals, one can call upon their powers more readily. What I'm mostly thinking is that there is some form of Crystallmancy skill, or the like, and that the higher your ranks, the more power you can draw from a gemstone. More than that, larger stones simply have more power to draw upon (in essence there will be some kind of cap based on size, so even if your number of skill ranks is massive, a small stone can only do so much). Over-using a stone, or drawing too much power can also damage a stone, resulting in its destruction.

And then, there are Dragulj. While the reasons are esoteric and vague, crystals sometimes become something more. They reach a level of perfection that grants the simple crystals intelligence. More than that, the newly-awakened crystals long for the ability to move about, desiring to see the world around them.

Mechanically, the Dragulj are pretty much the same as normal crystals, except they are much more potent. Plus, the Dragulj can "use" themselves, activating their powers by themselves, but they have less ability to move, and to guide themselves, so they are somewhat dependent upon another creature to act as a conduit. The really interesting part of Dragulj is that they act like intelligent items in standard D&D 3.5; each possesses their own will and volition, and each has their own motivations and desires. If their wielder is not in line with them, they will fight against them.

Finally, as to what I've done, well, I've thought about stuff. I still need to outline what each crystal does, which will take a while (and I mean it; I intend to use a lot more than the simple ruby/sapphire/emerald/diamond paradigm that so often crops up). From there, it's just ironing stuff out.

Divination

Spoiler

To be perfectly honest, I've always hated D&D divination. It tries very hard to be esoteric and act like real-world divination, but it just doesn't work. As can be seen with the Wizard, it's usually way too powerful, or it simply doesn't stand up to the test of, well, me.

So, I've decided to make some variants for divination. I'm actually going to do something really bizarre here, though, and make divination somewhat odd.

Divination will be real diviniation.

I'm going to recreate a number of divining practices, probably drawing from the I Ching, Nordic runes, and other real-world divination, and I'm going to make some fantasy versions. If the players want to divine, they'll have to actually perform the divination ceremony and draw their own conclusions. This is the basis of divination, and I feel that any true roleplaying game should contain it.

How do I make this work mechanically, you ask? Well, that's the easy part. I don't, really. There's no easy way to make a freeform system that is literally based on chance but is supposed to tell your future work mechanically. That's just... absurd. Instead, I'm going to go with this approach.

Depending on how successfully the characters perform the divination (if any are trained, if they perform it correctly, if the stars are right, if I'm feeling generous, &c), they'll get a certain percent chance to have their divination be "correct." By correct, I mean that whatever the divination spells out is what they want to know. However, because all good divination is up to interpretation, the correct divinations will be correct according to me, and I will tailor the encounters to the correct divination. If the players divine it differently... well, that's there loss.

This will lead to some interesting cases. Most players will likely seek out others to divine for them, because the chance that the divination is successful can be more readily altered by me. Also, players might not divine as much, but I'm okay with that.

I feel I should also put it out there that I separate divination from certain other abilities, such as scrying and asking extraplanar creatures questions. Divination is, at its essence, asking the powers that be what is likely to happen. This way of working divination makes it harder for me rather than the players, because a correct divination will give the players an idea of what they'll be up against, but I will probably have to rework my encounters to fit the divination. But, for the sake of the story, I'm okay with this.

Elementalism

Spoiler

I've always had a fascination with the primal elements, from the four classical elements, to the periodic table of elements, to the correlations between the classical elements and the phases of matter, to a wide variety of other things, the elements have always held a special place in my heart. And, I've always desired a class to represent this, a class which held a special system to showcase their powers. But, I could never think of one, and could never find one I liked.

Until I found the Avater d20 project here on the GitP boards. I loved what they did with it, I loved how close they stayed to the flavor, and I was just blatantly impressed. I wish I had been around to help.

Upon finding it, I realized that bending could easily be what I was looking for. However, I had already decided that there would be seven elements in my system, because in my eyes, the elements only hold power because others believe in their superiority. That meant that there were three elements which the Avatar system did not cover, mostly because they didn't exist in Avatar.

Hence, I am now left with the prospect of creating three new elemental systems of bending (which, for those wondering, are Metal, Void, and Wood) all by my lonesome. This will likely take a while, but it's okay, because I want it done, and therefore I will enjoy the process.

Koulemancy

Spoiler

Color is another thing which has held a fascination for me for many years. The ways that it evokes emotions, the manner in which it draws the eye, and the magnificient way it can be put to work... it's just amazing.

While researching information for my Crystallmancy system, I discovered a book which dealt with both crystals, chakras and colors, and I became even more focused on the idea that I wanted a system of magic drawing from color. While the details are still a bit fuzzy, I have a simple idea.

Essentially, those who practice Koulemancy practice the art of drawing in color and using it to affect the world. Each color possesses a number of inherent traits, ranging from psychologically implanted notions to cultural ideas to simple realities of color. Color gets its power from the ideas behind it, and so cultural backgrounds will come into play.

Everyone who practices Koulemancy can do one of two things: focus in one color, or focus on learning multiple colors. A color has a basic theme, with perhaps some odd add-ons thrown in, but a Koulemancer needs to actually consume the color to power the magic. Doing so takes time and permanently removes the color from whatever it is drawn from, leaving it stark white.

As I said, the idea is somewhat basic, but more ideas are coming, just wait!

Mogrification

Spoiler

Yes, I realize that mogrify is not a word, but that transmogrify is. Well, I don't want to use the term Transmogrify, mostly because I have another system called Transmutation, and I'd hate to have them get mixed up. So, until further notice, I'm sticking with my made up word.

Now, everyone has heard of the problems with Polymorph, and all those nasty things. More than that, everyone and their grandmother has tried to make a fix, some working better than others (I rather like Pathfinder's fix, myself). But, this is not a polymorph fix.

At its most basic, mogrification is the process of making oneself more. It can include complete physical transformation (which is usually the most basic form of mogrification), but it can also include transforming single portions of ones body, or simply adding onto ones body. So, mogrification is the ability to change ones body.

To be fair, I never really intended this as a complete subsystem. More, I intend for most shapeshifting rules to reference this subsystem, so that there is a basis that can be referenced. Again, as I dislike Polymorph, but I want to keep the possibility of changing into other creatures, this is my attempt at a fix.

Mechanically, mogrification will involve taking on additional traits, chosen from a list, which grant the transformer additional abilities. Some might possess penalties, but others will be much greater in scope. The whole point is to allow a kind of mutability, more like a Master of Many Forms than anything else.

Sympathetic Rituals

Spoiler

A new idea (the newest yet): making a system to replicate one of the most common real-world types of magic. Sympathetic magic is, at it's core, the idea that certain objects contain "sympathies." In this case, a sympathy is a connection between two objects, often something like "this small wooden replica of a building is connected to the real building I want to light on fire."

Sympathetic rituals draws on the idea that real-world magic is usually accomplished via complicated rituals that draws on the sympathetic connections between multiple objects and actions to bring about an effect. It was explored as a system by Atlas Publishing in Occult Lore. While I enjoyed their creation, I don't think it goes far enough.

I want to create a concrete system for determining the effectiveness of rituals based on a variety of factors, and on the difficulty of the ritual itself. None of this "invest this many points" nonsense; I want good old ingenuity for my players.

Explorations in this subject will follow, but for now the ideas are just stewing.

Taint

Spoiler

The idea of Taint in D&D has always fascinated me, but at the same time, I never really liked how it was represented. I mean, it works, but the idea that you can be tainted so easily and that it sort of destroys you just... struck me as not something I'd want in most cases. And, until recently, I was going to just leave it at that.

But, come on, this is me. Is it even possible for me to leave something alone?

So, here's my idea: Taint is everywhere. You can't escape it, but you can try to avoid it. The easiest way? Don't dabble in supernatural forces. For adventurers, this is hard. Even fighting a supernatural creature can taint you, so almost all adventurers become tainted to some degree.

What makes this taint system different is that there are multiple kinds of taint. Sure, you have the normal ol' "destructive, ugly, "evil" taint, but you also have natural taint (a la druidic magic), celestial taint, psionic taint, elemental taint, and so on. Taint is not necessarily at odds with other types (IE, the normal kind of infernal taint does not cancel out celestial taint), but, rather, people who become tainted by multiple types begin to manifest all the different types.

You might be asking, how in the world does that make sense, let alone work? Well, my imaginary talking hermaphrodite, it works like this. Different types of taints are not mutually exclusive. Having too much of one type of taint will eventually push other taint away. It's actually very hard to maintain a "balanced" level of taint; most people swing one way or the other. And, sometimes taint can be very good. The real problem comes in when people have major taint from multiple sources, because taint has a tendency to affect the mind, and different types of taint often give conflicting ideas to the tainted creature.

That's all I've got for now, but I really like the concept. I'm sure I'll flesh it out someday.

Technology

Spoiler

Now, okay, fair enough, this isn't technically a Supernatural system. However, I include it as such, much like I include the Initiator system, because it is a subsystem which acts like a magic system. So, ignore that little difference, and you'll be golden.

Onto the basics. I've long wanted a system which actually allowed for the amount of technology I see on a regular basis. But, technology is extremely varied and not necessarily completely dissociated from D&D, so I struggled with a way to figure it out.

What I came up with was this: The Craft system will work just fine.

Crafting is awesome. Why it isn't done more is probably because D&D is a combat simulator and not a mechanics simulator. But, being a DM, and more than that, a story-teller, I like my mechanics to back up my ideas, so the idea of making objects is very important to me. But, the Craft system, at first glance, seems kind of wonky. It's not as bad as I had thought, but that comes later.

So, how to make technology in a D&D setting interesting. First off, steampunk, but also gaslamp, is a big one. I love the genre, and I have always wanted it in D&D, but I have never quite found one I liked. Way too many of them simply take the Vancian spellcasting system and slap on a new face. With this in mind, I came up with this possible change to the Craft system.

Let's take an example. The basic system is, each object has a DC to craft. You also need to know the object's price in sp, or its normal price x 10. You make the check, times that by the DC, and then compare that to the original price in sp. If you succeed the check and you exceed the price, you made it in a week. If you double the price, you did it in half the time, if you tripled the price you did it in one third the time, and so on and so forth.

Now, an actual example. We'll be making a Dagger (2 gp), and our crafter is a Dwarf with 4 ranks in Craft (Blacksmith), the Skill Focus (Craft (Blacksmith)) feat and an Intelligence score of 18 (maybe he's a Wizard, I dunno, I'm assuming PCs here). Being a Dwarf, he gets a +2 to Craft checks involving metal or stone. So, his total bonus is +13 (4 ranks, +4 from Intelligence, +3 from Skill Focus, +2 from being a Dwarf). That's without rolling, and he can already succeed on the DC.

Comparing time: the minimum check (rolling a 2, for a total of 15) times the DC (12) gives us 180. 180 divided by 20 (the Dagger's price in sp), it turns out to be 9 times the needed price. So, we have a Dwarf who can churn out a Dagger a day without even trying. That's okay, I guess.

Except, we can do better than that. You can add a voluntary +10 to the DC to craft an item faster (since it's dependent on the DC), which pushes the DC for the Dagger up to 22. But, since our Dwarf get a +13 regularly, he can easily hit that more than 50% of the time, even just by rolling a 9. So, assuming he rolls a 9, he has now achieved a result of 22 times 22, or 484, which, divided by 20, is 24.2, or very, very fast. A week is normally 168 hours, but dividing that by 24 gives us only 7. He just made a Dagger in 7 hours. And that's assuming that he was working for 168 hours! Realistically, calculating the time spent as 8 hours a day (which, is probably way more than normal), the Dwarf has now produced a Dagger in two and a half hours.

So, we have a Dwarf who can churn out a Dagger in two and a half hours. Well, that's actually fairly reasonable. People in the real world are capable of making simple hunting daggers in 3 hours, maybe even quicker if they try hard enough, but I only discovered that via research. After finding that, it appears that the Craft rules work pretty well, actually. It just means that some of the more expensive creations should take a little longer.

But, expense tends to make things a little weird. I'm still playing with the mechanics of how I want to switch up Craft, but my basic assumption is that basing it on price is risky, because sometimes things are easier, or harder, or not necessarily expensive, especially because expense is variable (note, I like complexity, so standard D&D economics doesn't cut it with me). So, I need to reflect that, somehow.

Additionally, for greater technologies, a lot of "technologies" are really more of building upon bases. Making an air conditioner requires making the plastics, making the wiring, making the dials, making the internal engines, and a whole lot more. Hence, it would require multiple checks to make, since all of the base materials would need to be made, and then the final product (in this case, the base materials of the final product would be the actual products of the original Craft checks).

Now, if that possibility exists, then why can't mass-production exist? I say, it can. Again, mechanics are forth-coming, but if you make a machine that can perform a give task, such as making a Craft check, but which always makes it at a certain level, but only can do a very specific thing, then you can make an assembly line. You still need someone to oversee the production, because the machine will keep working even if it is making poor examples of what it is supposed to.

This also calls into question why extraordinary crafters can't make magic items. Sure, they need the magic to bind to the object, they don't know spells, yadda-yadda. It seems to me, so long as magic items have certain high costs and high DCs, then a magic item could be crafted by a person who had a high enough Craft check. In fact, it sounds like that would fit much better with stories than not. Maybe actual magic characters gain bonuses on making magic items that better support them?

Finally, in closing, I want to throw it out there once again that I am actually envisioning a more Steampunk version of technology than not. I'm building off of a Girl Genius-like version of gaslamp: while anyone can make things, via the Craft skills, true geniuses (like Sparks) can make all sorts of things, but really, really fast. Maybe even out of shoddy materials. So, a proper system for emulating a Spark would require there to be lots of random mechanical parts lying around all the time (hence, in standard D&D settings they would be crippled), but I still love the idea.

Transmutation

Spoiler

Inspired greatly by Fullmetal Alchemist, the idea of changing one substance into another is one which has captivated me for a long time. However, though numerous Fullmetal Alchemist classes have been made, I have never found one I liked very much. It just didn't capture the essence of the manga or anime that much, and it still fell to the usual "Vancian magic dressed up in a different guise" problem I so often see (though, some would argue it isn't a problem, but that's an opinion, so I won't fight them on it).

There's obviously some hurdles to be overcome when making a system like this. One is simple logistics: how do you categorize every object in existence? Another is flavor-wise: if anyone can make gold out of rocks, then why is gold valuable? I think, however, I have figured out how to fix this.

In terms of mechanics, every object is given a Complexity Rating. This is not like a DC; it's not the level you must achieve to reach a certain effect. Rather, it is a simple assessment of the overall complexity of the object itself. Pure metals, such as gold, are very simple, being made of a single element, it doesn't take much to make them. Rocks don't possess terribly high Complexity ratings, considering they are essentially a mixture of random bits of material. Get the idea?

How about some more. Crystals are very difficult, because the crystal lattices are difficult to create without the presence of high heat and pressure. Biological objects are terribly difficult to create, worse than crystals, because they are exceedingly intricate and possess a huge number of objects. One of the easiest things to do, even at low levels, is to change the shape of an object. This is merely changing the arrangement of the materials, not changing the materials themselves, and is especially useful for metals, which can be transmuted like that.

The different Complexity Ratings of objects is the basic manner in which one determines the difficulty in transmuting them. When attempting to compare two different objects, one merely has to look at the two Complexity Ratings, and then compare how "distant" one is from the other.

So, we have Gold and Lead, both possessing of a Complexity 1. So, in the process of transmutation, there are a few steps. First, analysis (this is already done, because we know what the materials are). Then there is decomposition. Decomposing Lead is actually the same as Gold, a difficulty of 1 (equal to the Complexity), and succeeding on that step allows one to reach a pool of unused materials. After that, the next step is to rearrange the materials to assume the new object. In this case, Gold has a difficulty of 1 (again, equal to the Complexity), and when it is finished, one substance has turned into the other.

So, when transmuting one substance into another, it requires the two Complexity Ratings of the materials to be added together, to see how high the overall complexity is. Transmutation is accomplished via a circle (while taken from Fullmetal Alchemist, this was actually a standard of alchemy, even if this is not technically an alchemical system I am creating), which accomplishes both the decomposition and rearranging of the materials.

In the actual game, Transmutation will require specific circles be drawn, which will define the parameters of the change. Basically, base materials, finished materials, process (some, especially relating to biological and magical materials, are rougher with the materials), and, finally, the number of objects. This will allow for a wide variety of effects, but it will take time, both to research the effects and to construct the circles. Permanent circles are possible, but will be strictly defined (as per the circle created).

But, thinking of Scar, of course there is the ability to simply stop after decomposition. This can be dangerous, but it is also useful, allowing Transmutation to be dangerous as well as useful.

And that's about it. A system of Transmutation (not to be confused with actual Alchemy, which I separate from Transmutation) that is useful and mechanically interesting (at least in theory). But what about economics?

Well, quite honestly, the Transmutation system is terribly dangerous to standard D&D economies. Gold can be made extremely easily out of simple materials, which means the basis of currency needs to be moved to other staples. Crystals are an obvious possibility, since they are hard to transmute, though if using the system of crystal magic above, some crystals will be more desired than others, so, uh, yay complexity! Naturally magical objects are another thing which cannot be transmuted, making them a useful basis. A simple barter system could also help, and would likely appear, especially in most areas of lesser technology.

I guess you'll just have to lug around crystals now, huh? Like you weren't doing it before.

Truenaming

Spoiler

To speak the words of creation is to create once more. Truth can be spoken, and the world will listen, adapting as best it can, but such a practice is hard, for how many variations on a sentence can there be?
How it will work: I have ideas for this system. Unlike other systems that separate their abilities into levels, Truenaming will be separated into four parts: Words, Phrases, Sentences, and Paragraphs.

A Word is the basic power of Truenaming. When one speaks a Word, they change the world around them. The thing is, a Word is not really a single word, but is a series of parts of Truespeech, each revolving around a central concept. So, the word Life in Truespeech simply doesn't exist. Words for much more specific ideas that all contained within the idea of Life exist, but there are a near infinite variety of said words. So, using the Word "Life" is actually your character using whatever parts of Truespeech she thinks will best fit the situation, trying to make it work.

A Phrase is what happens when two Words are put together. So, using the Words Life and Death together will produce a whole new effect. But, using the Words Death and Life together is different from using Life and Death; the two constituent words are the same, but being placed in a new order makes the new effect different. Additionally, words can be used more than once, so Life Life and Death Death are both possibilities, which each have their basic effect. You can probably see how this is going to get complicated very quickly.

A Sentence is the result of three Words being put together in sequence. So, If we have the Words "Life, Death, and Burn," we can put them together in the following ways: Life Death Burn, Life Burn Death, Death Burn Life, Death Life Burn, Burn Life Death, Burn Death Life, but also, because we can double up words... Life Life Life, Life Life Death, Life Life Burn, Life Death Life, Life Death Death, Life Death Burn, Life Burn Burn, Life Burn Death, &c, &c. And that's just with three Words.

Finally, we come to the truest of insanity, Paragraphs. Made by four Words in sequence, this is what I have deemed the Epic level Truenaming. Words can be spoken as low as 1st level, but you need to be 7th level to start making Phrases, and 14th level to start making Sentences, but to make Paragraphs, you need to be at least 21st level.

However, assuming that there are only 20 words, that gives us the following numbers of Words, Phrases, Sentences and Paragraphs:

Words: 20
Phrases: 400
Sentences: 8000
Paragraphs: 160,000

So, as you can see, my Truenaming system will be, ah, a bit large. I could make more or less Words, which I might do, but we'll have to see.

[Domriso]

Last post reserved just 'cause I like the number five better than the number four.

[Shadow Lord]

Will you be posting your other supernatural systems on the forums? Because they sound... interesting. I mean, they really sound intriguing, and I hope you put more of your stuff up.

Also, True Sorcery is indeed awesome, but it starts to get crazy at Epic Levels.

[Domriso]

Yeah, I definitely plan on putting more stuff up, as soon as I actually make them. The whole reason I'm putting this on the boards in the first place is to give myself a reminder of what I was working on, and to see if there's any interest (such as from you! ).

And, yes, it does get crazy, but I usually don't play into very high epics, so I haven't seen it too much (though I have seen it, even at lower levels), but I've also altered a few of the aspects of system in minor ways to balance it a bit. However, most of my balancing comes from adding in other systems to level things off.

[Domriso]

Alright, I finished all the different summaries now, so it's about time to go ahead and tear into some of the ideas I have. I'll start with Technology, because that's what I've been focusing on over the past few days.

Now, as I stated in the summary, the Craft skill seems to work pretty good as is, at least in terms of daggers. Would it work as well with other objects? Maybe. I'll need to do the math with them and see.

My biggest complaint thus far is that I needed to highly optimize my Dwarf to be able to spit out daggers so quickly. The prices of most of those things seem vastly out of proportion to other prices. After reading Grain into Gold, I have come to view the prices presented in the Player's Handbook as a bit... skewed.

So, as of now, I have the big issue of revising how the Craft system works based mostly on the fact that it appears that most goods in the Player's Handbook are highly overpriced. I'm still looking into other sources to see if I can find other good information, but as of now, that seems to be the biggest problem.

Putting that aside, I've been working more on how exactly technology would work. I can see a couple of possibilities, but first, let's discuss technology in the real world.

-NOTE-
This is highly biased, based on assumptions, and likely not entirely accurate. I'm doing my best to base my assumptions on good information, but I can't necessarily say that I am correct. As such, any corrections people might have for me would be highly appreciated, because I would like this to be as realistic, while still streamlined, as possible.

Moving on.

From what I can tell, technology in the current age is rarely built by a single person. "Simple" devices, such as tables and chairs might be, but usually they are made in parts by machines, and often assembled as parts by machines. Usually, the most human interaction comes into it is designing new things, manually installing certain parts of objects which are not mass-produced, and manually installing parts of things which they want to be better than mass-produced.

*I would like to put it out there that when I say "simple" devices, I do not mean they are necessarily outdated or easy to create. I simply mean that they do not require mechanical precision to create, and as such still require human labor in today's day and age. Such things could be putting a shower in a bathroom, siding a house, flooring a room, building a house, fixing a radio, and many, many other things.

This isn't to say someone couldn't make a whole bunch of electronic things all by their lonesome; just that it doesn't usually happen, and for a number of good reasons. For one, most electronic parts are so incredibly small, a human probably couldn't reliably produce it with any skill. Another is that mass-produced objects often have a bit of the time/efficiency quotient working for them. So, in other words, in an electronic-based setting, technology works best when in the hands of machines.

Here comes the question, though: how does this translate to D&D? Ignoring the fantasy aspect for the moment, two major possibilities jump out at me for how automatons work (automatons, from this point forward, meaning machines built to build other things, but which do not possess their own sentience). One is that a full-scale factory is, in essence, the same thing as an alchemist's lab, giving the crafter a bonus to their Craft checks equal to some amount, and which certain things cannot be crafted without said factory. Then there's two, that the automatons actually can make their own, very specific Craft checks, which they can reliably do for long periods of time, so long as they have power.

It seems to me that either option could work, but I like the second option better. Why? Well, it seems a bit more elegant, first of all, but also, this type of system allows for automatons to work by themselves, and also allows magic to work on them in interesting ways.

So, to begin with, whille trying to create an electronic-based setting, the Craft skill will work, but we need to include a new type of object which can be Crafted, namely, the Automaton. Here's my write-up of how it will work in terms of game mechanics.

Spoiler

Automatons: An automaton is a device created with a single purpose: to make other objects extremely efficiently. Automatons have no sentience or will; they are objects, pure and simple.

Every automaton, when made, is assigned a single, specific purpose for which it exists. This can be as simple as "split these pieces of wood into 2x4 planks" or as specific as "solder an object in [position X] every 3.5 seconds, for .34 seconds." The exact specifics matter, but can be anything, so long as it is a simple action.

An automaton will carry out its given task adequately so long as power is provided to it. Every automaton is immoveable, though it may (and likely must) possess moving parts to perform its task.

In essence, when provided power and materials, an automaton will perform a Craft check at a predetermined rate (often in the number of rounds or minutes). The automaton, by its nature, constantly takes a 10 on its check, as its mechanical precision is not guided by intuition, but cold, hard data.

Additionally, each automaton is assigned a certain modifier. This modifier is a bonus added to the automaton's Craft checks. More efficient machines possess higher modifiers, thus allowing them to create more difficult products, and to also produce lesser products of a better quality. Creating an automaton with a modifer costs [X; will fill in later] gp per modifier.

For each hour that an automaton works, roll a d%. Every automaton has a chance equal to their Craft modifier of attaining a complication. Most often, complications will not result in any serious problem, but they can pile up, and if an automaton ever possesses five complications at one time, they become unsafe. Unsafe automaton's possess some form of major complication that can seriously damage products produced by said machine, but also harm the machine itself, or the people operating it.

A minor complication can be fixed usually by simple maintenance (often involving a few hours work, and subsequent downtime), but many are often so minor as to be overlooked. A major complication requires several days downtime to identify and fix a problem. It is possible to install a subsystem to monitor for complications which arise, but otherwise it is dependent upon the automaton's operators to notice complications. Minor complications often require a DC 20 Perception check to notice, while major complications are almost always very obvous, such that a DC 5 Perception check is enough to notice them (meaning, unless the operator is severely distracted or just not paying attention, they'll notice them).

Finally, automatons can be created to work together, allowing an assembly-line style process, but such a creation requires more efficient design, and hence an increased Craft DC for the automaton.

It's obvious that some aspects of the automaton creation process needs to be rewritten, mostly to include more specific rules and DCs, as well as the table of minor and major complications, but that's the basic idea. What you get is the ability to make an assembly line, which allows for electronics to be created.

Another thing I want to add, and this is an important point so I'll embolden it, is Blueprints. A blueprint is a creation which aids on Craft checks. They provide a bonus to Craft checks to produce a specific object. Blueprints can be used multiple times, so long as they are not destroyed, but adding onto a blueprint requires creating a new one with altered statistics (essentially, you make a new blueprint with possible changes to make it better).

However, let's think about this again. Electronics are often easily damaged, somewhat difficult to fix, and require people rather skilled in their use to fix. They are not the easiest thing to work with.

This is why I feel that the steampunk genre works better than modern technology for a fantasy setting. With steampunk, there is less need for an assembly line, there are less tiny parts which need to be mechanically produced, and the idea that there are geniuses who can put together massive amazing things is relatively commonplace. In that case, I have ideas on how to work the mechanics.

Essentially, steampunk creations work the same way. Most devices requires simpler parts to be made first, and then more complex devices to be made of the simpler parts (IE, crafting the gears, springs, and other parts, then crafting the clockwork creation). The difference between steampunk technology and electronics is that most of the simple parts for steampunk tech can be readily cannibalized from preexisting devices. It might take a genius to do so, but it's sort of assumed that the Sparks* are like that anyway. It adds to the mystique of the genre.

*Girl Genius reference.

Since the technical mechanics of the Craft check remain unchanged, the question comes as how to make the classes that focus on steampunk technology interesting. In this case, another easy possibility pops up.

Simply, Innovators (for lack of a better term at the moment) can go on sprees of creation. During these sprees, they become able to craft amazing devices, in exceedingly short periods of time, almost as if by magic. In reality, their minds are working so fast that they are just putting together concepts without necessarily fully understanding what they are doing. This grants them several mechanical benefits.

First, they gain a bonus to their Craft checks while in this state. This immediately cuts down on the time they need to craft things, and also increases what they can make. Second, they gain the ability to exponentially increase their speed at crafting, even more than the bonus to Craft would provide. This is the sort of thing that would let them pull a McGuyver; they can take random bits of materials and make a ray gun.

Finally, the big power-balancer, their creations made while in this state last for the duration of their Crafting State, but then quickly fall apart, as they stop unconsciously fixing things that go wrong. Furthermore, attempts at making blueprints while in this state are not successful, because even if they create them, they cannot understand the blueprints when they come out of the state; their writing is just gobbledygook.

This allows us to have a system of technology based entirely on the Craft skill, but also allows us to have a nice, exciting mechanic for the stereotypical "mad scientist" steampunk character.

In additon, I've played with other forms of technology. One that seems promising is crystal-based technology (ala Stargate), which could have all sorts of applications. Another is organic technology, for all your biomechanical needs. I haven't fully thought these ideas out, but they're bouncing around my head.

So... after that giant wall of text, any comments?

[EdroGrimshell]

just one:

EDIT: Make that two, Biotech was actually something someone else thought up a while back, found here, though that is an entire campaign setting so it's still in the works

[Daverin]

Awesome! And considering I already am in love with your geomancy system, seeing how the others will work will be amazing! I especially will be looking forward to your star magic system. I love the idea of star magic, it just has always invoked a more... fantastic feel than regular arcana does for me.

Also, you have played with True Sorcery? How much work would you say it was to play with? I love the concept, but it seemed like it would be daunting in practice.

[Domriso]

Yeah, I do love the idea of astrolomancy. It should be interesting to see how my mind takes it once I let it.

In terms of True Sorcery, it is quite daunting. Getting used to the system really involved me reading the pdf several times over, and the running a few practice sessions with some friends. After that point, I had a pretty good idea of how to use it. My friend played a Wizard in my last campaign, this being the Wizard I altered to use the True Sorcery system, and he eventually got to the point that he could come up with spell effects on the fly, and work out the DC in a matter of minutes. It was fairly impressive.

So, my advice if you plan on using True Sorcery is, make sure everyone who is going to use it knows the system enough to make their own effects. That'll make things go much smoother.

[Domriso]

Okay, let's head down a different route this time. Since this is a thread mostly for my homebrewing, I'll be detailing most of my random thoughts as they come, so you can now see why I have so many unfinished subsystems (the answer is, obviously, that my mind has too many ideas to focus on one for too long).

That being said, it is time to look at...

VESTIGES

I've loved the Binding system ever since I first got Tome of Magic. I bought Tome of Magic for the Truespeech system, but I love it for the Binding system. The concept, the implementation, the fluff... it's all great. I've never had a chance to play a Binder, but the entire thing still makes me all sorts of happy.

That being said, since I haven't used it ever, I didn't think about it for a good long time. When I found Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic (and the fun, free downloadable content), I became reinvigorated with the concept. It eventually led to me adapting the Binder into my own version of the game, and having all sorts of fun.

The final part of my recreation of the Binder was going to involve recreating the Vestiges, making them fit my campaign world, but more importantly, updating them with the additional (and, in my opinion, fun) content that Secrets of Pact Magic introduced. But, as I did so, I noticed something. The core Vestiges are kind of lacking.

Let me explain. When I say the core Vestiges are lacking, I mean that when I look at the Vestiges, particularly the higher level Vestiges, I can't really see a reason that they are so high level, other than that they provide more blanket immunities and such. You look at Acererak and, while it's powerful, it could easily be a 1st level Vestige if some of its abilities were just toned down and made to scale. In fact, all of the Vestiges are like that.

So, that's where I am now. The rest of this post will involve my intended procedure for recreating the Vestiges how I desire.

Wizards did release a couple of web documents detailing how to make your own Vestige (found here and here, respectively), but I didn't find them terribly helpful, to be honest. But, they might help others, so why not spread the love?

Basically, I boil down the abilities the Vestiges grant into the following categories (spoilered for your benefit):

Spoiler

Proficiencies: Several of the core Vestiges grant proficiency with some kind of weapon, series of weapons (like different types of axes or bows), armor, or shields. I am currently in the process of revising the weapon proficiency rules, so this might change, but as it stands, I have no problem with this.

Feats: A lot of the core Vestiges grant feats of some kind. Due to my games using a scaling feat system, bonus feats are never granted, under any circumstances. So, these are out.

Skills: Another common ability is a bonus to certain skills, and sometimes granting the ability to use certain skills untrained. This is pretty cool, but some of the later Vestiges grant huge bonuses (+16? o.O). This is understandable, since the Vestiges are usually allowing you to act in place of other characters for certain situations, but they can be terribly abused by multiclassers, or even worse, a gestalt campaign (+16 to Move Silently and Hide for my Rogue/Binder? Yes, please).

1/5 Rounds: This category are abilities which can be used at will, but after being used the Binder must wait 5 rounds to use it again. I really like this mechanic, mostly because I very much dislike abilities that can be used only a certain number of times per day, so these are some of my favorites. Oftentimes, these abilities are spell-like abilities, which I don't like (as is probably evident, I don't use the Vancian system, so spell-like abilities no longer make sense as a category of abilities), so I'll probably alter these somewhat, especially to make the Vestige's scale.

Constant Abilities: These are, as they sound, constant abilities that are active while bound to a Vestige. Things like deathwatch, featherfall, and the like are all possibilities.

Natural Weapons: Sometimes a Vestige might grant you natural weapons, and sometimes they actually grow in power as the Binder increases in level.

Class Abilities: There are also some Vestiges that grant the abilities of other classes to the Binder, like Poison Use, Sneak Attack, Sudden Strike (they have a love relationship with sneaky characters, apparently).

Miscellaneous: These are all those other abilities that pop up and don't really fit the trend. Newly made abilities (Ricochet was my favorite), summonable companions, summonable armor or weapons, different movement speeds, and other things, the miscellaneous abilities are often the most interesting things given to Vestiges.

With those in mind, and the idea that most Vestiges get anywhere from 4-6 abilities (five being the sweet spot), we have a number of options for Vestiges.

That was core. Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic both include all sorts of new and amazing additions for Binding, including a whole slew of new Vestiges. I haven't evaluated them yet, but my guess is that some are awesome, and some aren't. However, I do enjoy many of their additions, particularly to the Vestiges themselves, so let me illuminate my current model of Vestiges.

Spoiler

Name
Title
<Right here goes a minor summary, mentioning their legend, the abilities they grant, or maybe something else useful. It's usually quite short.>
Legend: This is all the big fluffy part of the Vestige. This is the explanation of why the Vestige is the way that it is, and perhaps why it is a Vestige. Everyone knows that the "sages" love speculating on everything and everything, given even just a small thing debate about.

SUMMONING RULES
Binding DC: The DC required to bind the Vestige. Kinda easy, ya know.
Requirements: This is the special addition to the Vestige ceremony which the Binder must accomplish to summon the Vestige. In the core, this was known as a special requirement, and not all Vestiges had them, but I like the idea that all Vestiges have their own special requirements. They don't need to be big, but it makes the ability to ignore certain Vestige's special requirements that much better.
Manifestation: The big ol' shiny Vestige itself, presented in illusory form for your player's enjoyment. I recommend making this all sorts of screwed up, and also making it a fun roleplaying experience.

SIGNS & INFLUENCE
Physical Sign: Not all Vestiges have an obvious sign, but they all have something. Some Vestiges have abilities which can only be used if their sign is shown.
Personality Influence: Another big aspect of the Vestige, this is the really fun roleplaying aspect that Binder's who fail their Binding check receive. These are some of the best parts of the Vestiges, and why I like my Vestige's having higher binding DCs (translation: 'cause I'm evil).
Favored Enemy: Not to be confused with the class ability of the same name that the Ranger possesses, this is a type of creature which the Vestige has a certain hatred for. Some Vestiges or class abilities can reference these, but they most usually simply influence roleplaying by having the Vestige push hating them. Note, these need not be specific. Some could be very broad, like Sorcerers or Females, but others could be more specific, such as Kobold Fighters, or Lammasu Prostitutes. This should likely be inferred based on the legend.
Honored Ally: Just like Vestige's possess favored enemies, they also possess certain types of creatures which they have a particular love for. This is pretty much the exact opposite of the Favored Enemy, but uses the same idea as the Favored Enemy.

GRANTED ABILITIES
Pretty obvious, but all of the shiny abilities of the Vestige go here. This is the crunchy part of the class. Again, I intend to overhaul this aspect, so we'll focus on it more later.

CAPSTONE ABILITY
This is one of the big things that I love about the Secret of Pact Magic. It adds a special, extra-powerful ability in which can only be attained if the Binder succeeds on their binding check by at least 10 higher than the DC. This is, coincidentally, how I intend to balance some of the more interesting abilities of Vestiges. The binding DCs of the Vestiges which should be more powerful in the normal way, will have higher DCs, so low-level characters will routinely fail. This won't make the binding process fail, but will make too-low level Binders almost always be under the influence of the Vestige, and they won't get the Capstone Ability.

TACTICAL BONUS
This is one of the very interesting additions. Essentially, doing things that the Vestige likes, or things that fit with the Vestige's legend, which grants the Binder a +1 bonus to all their d20 checks until their following turn. There are always exactly four ways to gain a tactical bonus, and they are things like "Move underwater," "Fight within 5 feet of a Hobgoblin ally," or "Escape shackles, bindings, or other restraint." These are one of those simpler, interesting things that add flavor to Vestiges, and can help explain why people act in certain ways when bound with certain Vestiges. They literally just become better when they do it.

For an example, check out Lord Fluffybottoms, a Vestige of mine recently created using this template.

With that in mind, we can move onto how we are going to recreate the Vestiges for this system. I have several things in mind when beginning:

1) Vestiges should all be able to be bound at 1st level. I like this concept, and it involves power scaling, which I also like.

2) Vestiges should all possess interesting backstories that influence their equally interesting abilities.

3) Vestiges should all include each of the sections detailed above. This will make each interesting, and will make each have a variety of aspects to them.

Now, to let you in on a little secret, it turns out that most of the Vestiges introduced in Tome of Magic are one of two things: Easter Eggs from previous D&D products and settings, or Demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon. This makes some of the Vestiges easier to convert than others. I mean, I don't really want to alter existing D&D things, mostly from a copyright perspective, but we'll see how it goes.

And, that's about all I've got for now. I mean, I need to actually recreate the Vestiges, and to make some new ones, but that seems pretty good for one night.

Oh, and for those rare few who make it this far, I accidentally came up with a new possible supernatural system, that of Sympathetic Rituals, while I was working on this. Didn't mean to, but I did, so it's been added to the list of systems to be created. I also spoilered all of those for ease.

[Daverin]

Hey, I read about that supplement! I was actually fascinated by the claim that Wizards actually made a completely accurate depiction of binding in their system. It was good stuff. Also, I like what you want to do with it. Hopefully you do not get overwhelmed by your work!

[Domriso]

Ha, if I had gotten overwhelmed by my work, I would have stopped a long time ago. A lot of my ideas have been in the making for a very long time.

[Domriso]

Minor update: Added Assimilation and Taint to the Supernatural systems to the list of In Development. I really need to stop thinking of these...

Alright, this is a kind of random idea which just occurred to me, sort of a possibility for a social system of rules. Now, I've heard of such systems already existing, though I've never read one myself. So, here's my thoughts thus far, after half an hour of concept.

Basically, I'm thinking of a system in which you are constantly attempting to gain the upper hand over the other person. This can be accomplished via subterfuge, direct debate, intimidation, manipulation, and otherwise. Honestly, I picture it in a kind of token-style "combat," where gaining certain bonuses can let you have greater control over another's actions.

Anyways, my whole idea on this matter is that gaining enough "tokens" over another person allows you to make them do things. Perhaps having a lot of one kind of token just lets you pull crazy stunts without getting them angry, another gets you the ability to have deals, another might get you benefits, maybe a fourth could get you information. I was also thinking of possibly having an extreme result allowing you simple "mind control" or the like.

Any ideas, concepts, concerns? Thoughts in general?
Hey, look! A small update!

[Domriso]

Time to take my musings into a different route. This time, my mind is focused on overhauling the D&D system completely. After much deliberation, I've decided that creating a modular d20 based system, like how Mutants and Masterminds does it, would be a much better thing to do now, before I get too far into my own projects. To that end, I'm going to start off reverse engineering the d20 system.

So, we have ability scores. That's pretty basic, and thus a good place to start. First and foremost, my goal in reverse engineering the d20 system is: 1) to make the game more modular and customizable, but also; 2) to make the game better capable of reflecting real-world people. Once the second of these goals is satisfied, I'll be able to add on more mystical things, so that the game can be interesting for all manners of play.

Right. Back to ability scores.

One thing that always bugged me about ability scores is that a normal human being would likely have all 10s and 11s, and maybe a 12 somewhere in there. However, there really isn't much of a mechanical difference between a 10 and an 11, except for Strength, which alters carrying capacity.

Aha. An idea approaches.

So, first off, my assumption is that all normal people will have 10s or 11s in their ability scores. I'm not altering that. Instead, I want to make every ability score do something interesting at each new point, like how every increase in Strength increases ones carrying capacity. Here's what I've come up with:

Strength: Influences carrying capacity. Haven't really changed this much.

Dexterity: Determines movement speed. A Medium, bipedal creature has a speed equal to 3 x their Dexterity score per round. So, most humanoids have a speed of 30 feet per round (clever, aren't I?). Quadrupeds have increased speed, different sizes will have different modifiers (Small creatures only get 2 x their Dexterity score?), but I'll figure that out later.

Now, obviously this has consequences on the game. First and foremost, changing the movement like this makes the "5-foot square" mechanic a little messy. How do things translate? To be perfectly honest, I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm not going to let a little thing like making the game less miniature happy stop me.

Constitution: Determines how long a character can spend fully exerting themselves before they become tired. In essence, a character can go all out for a number of rounds equal to their Constitution score before becoming fatigued. A full minute of rest automatically resets the countdown, but taking a full-round action can also reduce the stress. By taking a full-round action doing nothing but "taking a breather," a character can restore a certain amount of their score, probably a round, maybe this can be increased somehow? Not sure on that part yet.

Wisdom: Wisdom was the easy one. Taking a long standing idea from a variety of places, every character has a Sanity score of 5 x their Wisdom score. Sanity can be lost in a variety of ways, usually from seeing eldritch abominations from beyond time and space (but also horrors closer to home). This is nothing new, and need not be used in all games, but carrying capacity can be ignored as well, so I'm okay with that.

Charisma: A tougher one to figure out, Charisma influences the number of people that a character can, well, influence. A person can "morally influence" (a term here which means affect, in some way, a creature on an emotional level, including, but not limited to, granting morale bonuses and penalties, influencing through speeches, and the like) a number of creatures equal to 10 x their Charisma score at any one time.

Now, this is a fairly high number, but this does not mean that applying a morale bonus to a large number of creatures is suddenly easy. It simply means that there is now a hard cap.

Conspicuously missing from this list is Intelligence. I... haven't yet figured that one out. It's a tough little bugger, hard to quantify. So, I'm still working on this, but progress is being made!

[Togath]

For dexterity, the 1 inch = 5 feet measurement could be scaled down to 5 millimeters = one foot(about 1/5 of an inch), which would give a small race with 12-13 dex(many of the small races fall into this category) a speed of 120-130 millimeters(12-13 centimeters), and give the average medium creature(with a dex of 10-11) a speed of 150-165 millimeters( about 15-16.5 centimeters).

For int, nothing comes to mind at the moment other than perhaps a bonus to skill & ability checks using int, or something.

edit; fixed math for medium creatures.

[Domriso]

Hm, this I like. I'll need to try and explore the specifics of Dexterity a bit, but I like that idea. And, yeah, I keep trying to think of things you use Intelligence for, but nothing really pops up other than things that the Intelligence modifier is already used for. It's a tough.

Anyway, moving right along: Skills. As I've previously stated, I love the skill system. I think it is absolutely wonderful, and I think we can do a lot with it. But, I don't think it goes far enough.

In my book, skills should be a hell of a lot more useful than they currently are. For one thing, I think that a lot of what are currently provided simply by class should be instead a form of skill. This includes Base Attack Bonus, skill with a weapon, Armor Class, Saving Throws, most of the special combat maneuvers, and a few other little gems, including some which are currently regulated to being just ability checks.

Why would I do this? For one thing, I am doing away with levels in my current revision of the d20 system, so all of these things need different ways to exist. But, more than that, I just feel like a lot of these could be the result of training and focus, not just "being a higher level." Now, this makes the list of skills much, much larger, but I like that concept, so I'm okay with it. The following is my current list:

Spoiler

Acrobatics (Dex)

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This contains Balance, Jump, and Tumble, basically stealing Pathfinder's version of the skill.

Appraise (Int)

Bluff (Cha)

Climb (Str)

Compel (Cha)

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This is a skill I got from reading A Skill for Everything, which essentially involves coercing and demanding other things.

Concentration (Con)

Craft (Int)

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The big change here is that the Craft skill itself is being overhauled, with different subskills (such as Craft (Cooking) and Craft (Alchemy) having their own differences in implementation.

Detect (Cha)

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This is an adaptation of the additional True Sorcery skills introduced by Green Ronin. In it, they have the Detect Magic skill, which can detect auras (instead of it being a spell). I've altered it to be able to detect more things than just magic, and hence I've pulled the word "magic" out of it.

Diplomacy (Cha)

Disable Device (Int)

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Open Lock was mixed in here, 'cause it just should be here.

Disguise (Cha)

Dodge (Dex)

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This is the major form of defense, replacing AC. It involves avoiding blows by, you guessed it, dodging.

Escape Artist (Dex)

Firearms (Dex)

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A skill for marksmen, this is different from Projectile because, lets face it, shooting a gun is very different from firing an arrow.

Fitness (Con)

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This skill is one I thought of after reading A Skill for Everything by Fifth Element Games. This skill lets you run faster, for longer, and other aspect involving general fitness.

Force (Str)

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Another one from A Skill for Everything, this skill involves using brute force to manipulate an object, so it is used to do things like break down a door, break free from chains (really, anything that would have been a Strength check to break something), but also is used for bull rush and overrun attacks. Further, it can be used to push/drag objects.

Fortitude (Con)

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Surprise! This skill replaces the Fortitude saving throw.

Fly (Dex)

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This is a skill governing the use of natural or supernatural means of flight, but not of flying a vehicle; for that, use pilot.

Ghost Sound (Cha)

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Another skill from True Sorcery, this replaces the Ghost Sound spell and can be used in much the same ways.

Grapple (Str)

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Like it sounds like, this skill is used to grab things and not let go. It replaces the normal rules for grappling, and also replaces attack rolls while grappling.

Handle Animal (Cha)

Heal (Wis)

Hold (Str)

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For those wannabe bull wranglers, this skill is the focus of holding things back. Slightly different from Grappling, this is more about restraining something than utterly incapacitating it.

Intimidate (Cha)

Intuition (Wis)

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This one comes from A Skill for Everything, this one is something of a "common sense" skill. It lets you notice odd things, recognize minute details you might not be consciously aware of, and the like.

Knowledge (Int)

Linguistics (Int)

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This one is a revision of the Speak Language skill, drawing heavily from thisvariant. I love it.

Melee (Str)

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For all your "poke it with a stick!" needs. This is the skill you use to wave the sharp piece of metal around effectively.

Memory (Int)

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A skill from A Skill for Everything, it is what it sounds like. It lets you make a check involving memory, so you don't literally need to write everything the DM says down.

Perception (Wis)

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A common one, combining Listen, Sense and Spot, but also all the other senses. I have it also involve the Scent special quality.

Perform (Cha)

Power (Str)

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This is similarly related to Force, as Grapple is to Hold, but it involves using your brute strength to smash and distort other objects, like pushing a door closed, pulling a drawbridge down, but also to exert more damage on another creature.

Prestidigitation (Cha)

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Lookie at the silly barbarian, using simple spells! No, this is turnig the Prestidigitation spell into a skill, for great fun.

Profession (Varied)

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The Profession skill is being retained, but it is also getting a major overhaul, much like Craft.

Projectile (Dex)

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Sending those nasty arrows and bolts across the room to impale things. This is used to make ranged attacks.

Psicraft (Int)

Reaction (Dex)

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Reaction is a fun little skill that involves, well, reacting, such as to the sudden result of a battle. This is not quite reflexes, like jumping to avoid a trap, but recognizing what is going on and properly reacting, including with complex actions. This replaces Initiative checks, as well as other occasions.

Reason (Int)

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Okay, this is really the Common Sense skill. It's for all those really hard puzzles your DM throws at you. When you're in a pinch, you make one of these and force the DM to give you a hint. What fun!

Reflex (Dex)

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Here's our proper Reflex save, remade into a skill.

Ride (Dex)

Sense Motive (Wis)

Sleight of Hand (Dex)

Spellcraft (Int)

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Spellcraft is huge when using True Sorcery. It determines what you can do and how well you can do it with spells. This ain't not throwaway skill.

Spiritcraft (Int)

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A special little skill, this one involves all those deals with spirits, such as making pacts, but also when using Gleaning abilities.

Stability (Str)

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Like Dwarves, Stability is your ability to resist being bullrushed, overrun, and tripped, and also avoiding harsh winds, powerful waters, and anything like that.

Stamina (Con)

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Stamina is your ability to resist pain and discomfort, and also tiring events. This is what is used to stay conscious when tired, not eat for long periods, fight for long periods, and all those fun things.

Stealth (Dex)

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The all-common mix of Hide and Move Silently, Sneak is pretty self-explanatory.

Survival (Wis)

Swim (Str)

Taunt (Cha)

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For those who like messing with other people, a Taunt check can be terribly helpful. You can rattle other creatures, heckle them, and infuriate them.

Throw (Dex)

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This is the Halflings dream, a skill for chucking things. Hard. Replaces ranged attack rolls when throwing things.

Touch (Dex)

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This is a spellcaster's favorite, it is the ability of a character to touch another creature, such as with spells, but also when using attacks that only require touching the creature, such as when chucking a vial of acid or the like.

Trick (Str)

Spoiler

This one is a bit of a misnomer, but Trick is used when making a Weapon Trick, such as disarming an opponent or sundering their weapon, but is also involved with avoiding disarmament and sunder attempts on yourself.

Unarmed (Str)

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As you likely expect, this skill is used to beat people with your fists, but also with your tusks, your feet, hell, even your spleen if you're so inclined.

Use Magic Device (Cha)

Willpower (Wis)

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And here it is, your Will save, in skill form.

As you can see, a lot more skills (my last count was 53, but I think it's changed). It might seem a bit overwhelming, but I like skills, and I think this makes things a lot easier than having some random ability checks, or making things based on level, and the like.

But, let's move on. Specifically, let's move onto my current ideas for Craft and Profession, two skills I think are in need of serious changes. We'll start with Craft.

As I have said in an earlier post, the way that the Craft skills work in vanilla D&D 3.5 are adequate. However, basing everything on the price of an item is not only annoying (how do you quantify some things?), but also doesn't make much sense (some very expensive things can be terribly easy to make). Therefore, I am making all Craft checks possess a "Complexity Rating." This rating essentially takes the place of the price of the object, but is not based on price. Some objects are just more difficult to make. I'm also expanding what is made from what, how certain objects are created, and the like. Making dinner is very different from making a particle accelerator.

Profession is different. In a lot of ways, I've always hated profession, because I could never understand why someone who goes running around killing dragons would make a better butler than someone who has been a butler all their life. However, once you remove the standard levels from play, the profession skill makes a hell of a lot more sense. Now someone who focuses in the Profession skill really does become amazing at what they do.

For instance, let's take Profession (Farmer). It might not come up in battle a hell of a lot, but farming is a very important aspect for real life (and, remember, I'm trying to get the system to reflect real people, and then I'll make dragons). Now, 1 rank in Profession (Farmer) would let you do some pretty nice things (when we're assuming that most people have only 10s or 11s in ability scores, a +1 can be fairly useful), but most people would probably have 2 or maybe even 3 ranks in the skill. 4 ranks would be for those people who have been farmers all their lives and just know what their doing in a hell of a lot of circumstances.

But what about more? 5, or 6, or more, let's get it up there, 10, 11, 15 ranks in Profession (Farmer). Well, now things get epic. Imagine mythological characters, those people who can till an entire acre in an hour, who can churn butter for a country, and all these amazing feats. Are they going to kill a dragon? No, but in some cases they could be even more useful.

Or, how about another case, that of Profession (Sailor). When I think sailor, I think rugged man-pirate, or maybe privateer, sailing the seas, hosting anchors, and surviving rough weather. But, let's make it epic. Many stories talk about captains who somehow do mind-boggling things with their ships, avoiding reefs, passing within an inch of another ship to blow it to hell, catching a wind so perfectly that they jump a wave (kupaianaha!).

And, just because it amuses me, let's pull out a third example, Profession (Butler). Imagine, a butler so good, he seems to know what you need before you even think it. Minute changes in perspiration, body language, odor, skin flush, and sleep habits key him into what you need, and he produces. Your shirt is ripped? He'll have it patched before he leaves the room. Pillows need fluffing? After he touches them, better than opium. Table needs setting? He not only hand folded every napkin, but he made each one. Every little loop of lace.

Like I said, the Profession skill just needs to be imagined like any other skill. When you get high enough, you can do amazing things.

*****

But, before I get too far ahead of myself, I'll stop here and review what I've done. With the ability scores, people are now "normal," which solves some of the problems. Then, with the Skill system so expanded, customization is much larger (your spellswords are now much easier to make), and a lot of the functions of class are simply skills. All that's really left are the class features, which somehow need to be converted into modular elements. I'll start on that in my next post.

[Domriso]

New things acoming. Lots of ideas, and things are starting to form into generalized ideas. But, for this update, let's turn to something new.

First off, I had an idea about skills. Many different magical items which run into the problem of stacking bonuses and the like tend towards the issue of providing too much of a bonus, producing massively powerful characters just based on items. I have a few ideas of how to solve this, but here is one which I recently came up with.

Essentially, the idea is that level of skill is divided into tiers. This is somewhat arbitrary in a way, but different systems can develop. For the sake of argument, let's make a tier system like this:

Tier Name	Skill Ranks
Unskilled	0
Apprentice	1 - 3
Adept	4 - 8
Legendary	9 - 13
Heroic	14 - 18
Mythic	19 - 23
Epic	24+

My idea consists of magical items not providing a simple, static numerical bonus, such as +2 or +4, but that it provide a bonus relating to the tiers. Let me explain.

Let's say you give your player a set of magical thieves' tools. Now, you could normally just apply a certain bonus, but let's make this more interesting. Now, we call these magical thieves' tools an Legendary 1 artifact. This means that anyone who uses the tools automatically has their effective skill rank increased by 1 step in the tier ranking, up to a maximum of the artifact's power (in this case Legendary).

So, we give Gerard the Legendary thieves' tools (we'd give them an awesome name, because that's always fun). Gerard is a Fighter and hasn't invested in any of the normal skills that a thief would use, in this case Disable Device, so he has 0 ranks. But, when using the thieves' tools, his effective rank in the Disable Device skill increases to the next tier, providing him the minimum rank of the next tier, in this case 1. It's not terribly great for him, but it's something.

However, when we give Victoria the artifact, it's a much nicer item. Being a part-time thief, she has 6 ranks in Disable Device. When wielding the artifact, her effective skill rank gets increased by one tier as well, bumping her to 9 ranks (since she jumps to Legendary).

But, some find no benefit for using the artifact. Geoff is a master thief by trade, with 12 ranks in Disable Device. When he wields the artifact, it does nothing for him at all, because he already is more potent than the artifact can provide (being only able to increase the rank to a maximum of Legendary).

So, artifacts in this system would have three different aspects to them: what tier they can increase to, how many tiers they can increase a skill by, and what skill(s) it applies to. You could have something like a Legendary 2 monocle, which increases a character's effective Spot ranks by two tiers, to a maximum of Legendary. You could have a Heroic 1 climber's gear, which increases a character's effective Climb ranks by one tier. You could even have something truly enchanted, such as an Epic 6 flute, which would automatically bounce anyone who used it up to 24 effective ranks in Perform (Wind).

There's also the possibility of cursed artifacts that lower a character's effective skill by a certain number of tiers, to a certain minimum, which would allow for the interesting cases of a weak character not even noticing the artifact doing anything, but a more powerful character suddenly finding themselves crippled.

I'm not really sure how this would mess with game balance, but I feel like it would make magical items a little bit more interesting, because it wouldn't be so much of trying to get as many numerical bonuses as possible, but more of an idea of a power boost (if that makes sense, which my subconscious tells me it doesn't). Maybe it just appeals to me.

[NeoSeraphi]

First of all, it's good to see you back in the Homebrew forum, Domriso!

Your skills idea is nice, especially the masterwork tier-items, as they would allow a character to make an untrained skill check in Open Lock or Use Rope, so you would at least have a chance if you bought one.

I would advise, however, that you clarify that having one of these does not grant you the numerical ranks for the purposes of qualifying for feats, class features (such as bardic music requiring a certain number of ranks in Perform), or synergy bonuses (such as 5 ranks in Bluff giving you a +2 bonus to Diplomacy, Disguise and Sleight of Hand).

Even if you decide it should, which is totally up to you, I would be remiss if you didn't at least add in a note saying that it doesn't allow you to have ranks for the purpose of qualifying for prestige classes.

[Domriso]

Yeah, the semester's starting to roll to a close, so I haven't been working on much. Still lurking, but not doing my own work so much. This idea popped in my head, so I thought I'd throw it out there. Glad to see people still critiquing my work, too, especially you Seraphi, since you're one of those who leaves a bit more of an impression on me (I think it was that whole comment on considering me a bro ^^).

Originally Posted by NeoSeraphi

I would advise, however, that you clarify that having one of these does not grant you the numerical ranks for the purposes of qualifying for feats, class features (such as bardic music requiring a certain number of ranks in Perform), or synergy bonuses (such as 5 ranks in Bluff giving you a +2 bonus to Diplomacy, Disguise and Sleight of Hand).

That's a good point. I hadn't thought of it like that. I would put it out there that it doesn't actually increase your skill, just increases your effective skill ranks when using the items to perform a task.

I do, however, like the idea of the items allowing you to perform a trained skill untrained, so I'd probably throw a line about that into the idea. It just seems useful for a lot of characters.

In fact, when using a variant skill system that changes BAB into skills, this would make magical weapons more interesting as well, since they could actually make you better at using them without completely over powering things.

----

And, because I'm on a roll tonight, I got an idea for a very different style supernatural system today. I'm not even sure what I would apply it to, but my gut tells me it would be best for some kind of special technique or blaster system than anything else.

The idea comes down to how often one can use their powers. Very often, one finds in literature that people tend to be weakened by the use of their techniques, because it somehow consumes their accumulated power. But, this system would offer up a variant to that, focusing on the idea that a character needs to build up a reservoir of power through some means (maybe meditating? channeling? a few of different ideas pop into mind). Then, certain techniques would deplete their accumulated power in a certain percentage; so, a weak attack might remove 5% of the power, while an "ultimate attack" would likely deplete the whole thing.

Now, making it deplete a percentage rather than a set amount sounds a little weird, but that's where this one gets somewhat more interesting. My idea is to have the maximum that the character can accumulate in power equal to their current HP. So, by taking more damage, the character actually can "charge" to maximum power more quickly (since they have a lower threshold). Therefore, by having the techniques deplete a percentage of the accumulated power, low-health characters suddenly find themselves able to perform their more powerful techniques more often.

I'm really unsure of how this would sync up with most other systems, but it sounded novel and interesting in my head, so I thought I would put it out there to look at.

[NeoSeraphi]

Originally Posted by Domriso

Yeah, the semester's starting to roll to a close, so I haven't been working on much. Still lurking, but not doing my own work so much. This idea popped in my head, so I thought I'd throw it out there. Glad to see people still critiquing my work, too, especially you Seraphi, since you're one of those who leaves a bit more of an impression on me (I think it was that whole comment on considering me a bro ^^).

Indeed! Well, you were supporting me when I just started out, and you always had something encouraging to say amidst the swarm of hate I got when I was inexperienced, so you made a good impression on me too!

I mean, just click the link in my signature, if you want to see how far I've come since then.

And it's partially thanks to you, Domriso, so thank you very much. Seriously.

[Xechon]

Originally Posted by Domriso

New things acoming. Lots of ideas, and things are starting to form into generalized ideas. But, for this update, let's turn to something new.

First off, I had an idea about skills. Many different magical items which run into the problem of stacking bonuses and the like tend towards the issue of providing too much of a bonus, producing massively powerful characters just based on items. I have a few ideas of how to solve this, but here is one which I recently came up with.

Essentially, the idea is that level of skill is divided into tiers. This is somewhat arbitrary in a way, but different systems can develop. For the sake of argument, let's make a tier system like this:


My idea consists of magical items not providing a simple, static numerical bonus, such as +2 or +4, but that it provide a bonus relating to the tiers. Let me explain.

Let's say you give your player a set of magical thieves' tools. Now, you could normally just apply a certain bonus, but let's make this more interesting. Now, we call these magical thieves' tools an Legendary 1 artifact. This means that anyone who uses the tools automatically has their effective skill rank increased by 1 step in the tier ranking, up to a maximum of the artifact's power (in this case Legendary).

So, we give Gerard the Legendary thieves' tools (we'd give them an awesome name, because that's always fun). Gerard is a Fighter and hasn't invested in any of the normal skills that a thief would use, in this case Disable Device, so he has 0 ranks. But, when using the thieves' tools, his effective rank in the Disable Device skill increases to the next tier, providing him the minimum rank of the next tier, in this case 1. It's not terribly great for him, but it's something.

However, when we give Victoria the artifact, it's a much nicer item. Being a part-time thief, she has 6 ranks in Disable Device. When wielding the artifact, her effective skill rank gets increased by one tier as well, bumping her to 9 ranks (since she jumps to Legendary).

But, some find no benefit for using the artifact. Geoff is a master thief by trade, with 12 ranks in Disable Device. When he wields the artifact, it does nothing for him at all, because he already is more potent than the artifact can provide (being only able to increase the rank to a maximum of Legendary).

So, artifacts in this system would have three different aspects to them: what tier they can increase to, how many tiers they can increase a skill by, and what skill(s) it applies to. You could have something like a Legendary 2 monocle, which increases a character's effective Spot ranks by two tiers, to a maximum of Legendary. You could have a Heroic 1 climber's gear, which increases a character's effective Climb ranks by one tier. You could even have something truly enchanted, such as an Epic 6 flute, which would automatically bounce anyone who used it up to 24 effective ranks in Perform (Wind).

There's also the possibility of cursed artifacts that lower a character's effective skill by a certain number of tiers, to a certain minimum, which would allow for the interesting cases of a weak character not even noticing the artifact doing anything, but a more powerful character suddenly finding themselves crippled.

I'm not really sure how this would mess with game balance, but I feel like it would make magical items a little bit more interesting, because it wouldn't be so much of trying to get as many numerical bonuses as possible, but more of an idea of a power boost (if that makes sense, which my subconscious tells me it doesn't). Maybe it just appeals to me.

You never fail to impress.

However, I can't help but ask, why is all of this context and tier system necessary? Woudn't just saying "it raises this skill to this number, or lowers if made to do so, only the highest counts, and they only affect skill checks, and only while equipped" be easier, or am I missing something?

The idea comes down to how often one can use their powers. Very often, one finds in literature that people tend to be weakened by the use of their techniques, because it somehow consumes their accumulated power. But, this system would offer up a variant to that, focusing on the idea that a character needs to build up a reservoir of power through some means (maybe meditating? channeling? a few of different ideas pop into mind). Then, certain techniques would deplete their accumulated power in a certain percentage; so, a weak attack might remove 5% of the power, while an "ultimate attack" would likely deplete the whole thing.

Now, making it deplete a percentage rather than a set amount sounds a little weird, but that's where this one gets somewhat more interesting. My idea is to have the maximum that the character can accumulate in power equal to their current HP. So, by taking more damage, the character actually can "charge" to maximum power more quickly (since they have a lower threshold). Therefore, by having the techniques deplete a percentage of the accumulated power, low-health characters suddenly find themselves able to perform their more powerful techniques more often.

An interesting concept, reminds me of "limit break" from kingdom hearts games. This system would probably be more "will to live" or "well of contained power" based, and might be kind of hard to explain, but balancing shouldn't be too hard. Just lower uses per day, give a few more HP, and balance spells normally. I look forward to this.

[EdroGrimshell]

actually limit breaks were originally from Final Fantasy, not Kingdom Hearts, and someone actually made a series of classes collectively called the limit warriors. It's basically a build of energy based on damage you've taken to power your limit breaks

[Domriso]

Originally Posted by Xechon

You never fail to impress.

Why thank you!

Originally Posted by Xechon

However, I can't help but ask, why is all of this context and tier system necessary? Woudn't just saying "it raises this skill to this number, or lowers if made to do so, only the highest counts, and they only affect skill checks, and only while equipped" be easier, or am I missing something?

This one actually comes from some of my work on trying to deconstruct and reconstruct the d20 system into something more like I want. I won't bore you with all the details, but essentially I have turned to the dark side and come to like using 3d6 rather than 1d20 as the basis for most of my rolls, and as such I have redesigned the skill system with this in mind. I designated the different number of skill ranks into tiers, and so I was thinking of that when I was thinking of these variant magical items.

You could certainly simply put it out there that the artifacts simply raise or lower to a certain number, but I like the idea of tiers for aesthetic purposes as well. Raising and lowering to a specific number that correlates with a group of numbers makes me feel that they have a slightly more mystique. Might just be personal preference, but I do enjoy it.

Originally Posted by Xechon

An interesting concept, reminds me of "limit break" from kingdom hearts games. This system would probably be more "will to live" or "well of contained power" based, and might be kind of hard to explain, but balancing shouldn't be too hard. Just lower uses per day, give a few more HP, and balance spells normally. I look forward to this.

I picture this system being something like the limit break, but turned slightly on its head. The idea came to me while playing a flash game, because I thought that the special abilities were able to be used in more rapid succession when I was at lower health. That turned out to not be the case, but it struck a chord with me, so I thought of putting it out here.

If I were to extrapolate more, I feel like this kind of system would actually represent quite a bit of modern fantasy, especially of an anime-style feel, at least in play. When you're healthier, you have to draw up your reserves, then release them to power your attacks, and even at full power, your weaker attacks draw off a lot of your power. But, when reduced to a more damaged state, when everything is starting to look more and more like the end, you can pull off more and more impressive things in repetition.

I'll probably work more with this later. I mostly wanted to put it in writing before I forgot about it. Way too many ideas have been lost that way.

[Domriso]

Koulemancy
So, Koulemancy is one of those ideas that I've loved, but which I have had a difficult time thinking of a proper answer for. I mean, there's a lot of ways to go about trying to have color being a basis for magic, from wearing certain colors producing certain effects to causing effects to those who are colored certain ways, &c. But, I had had my eyes on one particular vein of possibility for a while.

Essentially, one draws color out of an object. So, you grab a leaf, you focus on it, and you absorb some of that green. The color never returns to whatever it was pulled from, meaning that some colors might be more difficult to obtain.

But, even if that works, then came the problem of how the color magic works. I mean, I could have made it a simple variant of a mana system, but that seems really boring. I wanted something exciting. So, I thought on it for a while. Then it hit me.

Color is always a major symbolic power. Red is destruction, passion, life, sometimes death, and more. Likewise, green tends to be associated with life, a la plants, but also illness, a la feeling green. Every color has these sorts of associations. So... why not play on them?

Those who use Koulemancy start out with a simple Association. This is their instinctive association with a color that is easiest for them to use. So, maybe they associate Red with Fire, and therefore it is easiest for them to create fire effects when using their reserves of red. They could use red in other ways, such as trying to strike up some passion between two individuals, but it wouldn't be as effective. As they get more powerful, they can get more Associations, making them more versatile.

So, then comes the question of how the actual system works. For this, I'm thinking we make it an investment system; similar to mana, but slightly different. Most effects which can be used require a certain amount of a certain color to pull off; producing a fireball would take maybe 3 red, for instance. Every individual effect would have a keyword which would key up to a specific Association; so, that fireball effect would be Fire. If you have an effects Association, the cost is lowered by one, to a minimum of one (or maybe a minimum of "zero," where if you have at least one of the requisite color in your pool you can use the effect without draining the pool).

Now, obviously, this would require a lot of effects to be made, and I'm sure some could use multiple colors, or maybe have secondary or tertiary colors that influence the effect. Perhaps fireball is 3 red, 1 orange, and if you throw a blue in there you can pump up the power of the fire. Make the system a little versatile.

Additionally, there are other aspects to the system that could make it fun to use. For instance: color mixing. Say you need some green, but you don't have any. If you take 1 yellow and 1 blue, you can plop them together and get 2 green. Gives you a little bit more to work with (and, if that can work, perhaps the simple colors have more powerful effects? Or maybe not).

Hell, what about thinking of color like light? Some abilities let you morph one color to the left or right of the spectrum, so you can build up some of your pool.

Then again, other fun abilities, like maybe a "when you absorb this color, you get two in your pool instead of one" sort of deal. How to deal with what correlates with one point in your pool is something to think about, too. I mean, simple volume is one possibility. If you pick up a thousand leaves, then you could potentially get a pretty large amount of green.

So, this brings up a good point: how big are pools? I would assume they would need to be correlated to relative power, so levels or the like, to limit things. The pool can stay as filled as desired (meaning most people try to keep them all filled as best they can at all times, so they're prepared). It also means that some locations will have more prevalent colors than others. Wintry areas will be filled with white magic, while forested areas will have a lot of green (and brown, as well as all sorts of colors in autumn).

Another aspect to think of: how long does it take to absorb color? I would make it take a certain amount of time based on the size, so maybe 10 minutes to absorb one point of color into your pool? Other abilities can shorten it and such, but that's significant enough that to fill all of your pools would take you the better part of a day.

Also, as this needs saying: drawing color out of an object makes it lose its color indefinitely. This isn't to say that the object becomes grey, which I'm sure most people would think of when someone says "take the color out of it." No, drawing the color out of an object makes it colorless. This is hard to imagine, but, essentially, something which is colorless loses most of its definition. It might still work for its purpose, so a sword with its color drawn out will still be a sword, but it will no longer possess a color of its own.

You might think that the human mind would read this as either a blank spot, or as empty blackness, but you'd be wrong. There is no color, and as such the human mind has to fill it in with something. It does it in the easiest way it can: by filling in the space with the colors around it. This doesn't mean it has those colors; no, it is forever devoid of color after this, but it does mean that it looks absolutely bizarre.

Finally, another rule to balance out would be that drawing the color from larger objects is harder, because there's more to absorb, but things must be absorbed in their entirety. So, you need some green and the only thing in the room is your favorite green cloak? Go ahead and draw it in, but it will never be colored again, and you might not even get everything you could have if your ability to draw it in isn't good enough.

And... that's all I can think of for the moment. I'm pretty happy with that idea for a system, though, 'cause it just sounds like fun to play with. Having to pay attention to color, and make strategic decisions about said color, make it very interesting to think about a world.

[NeoSeraphi]

Koulemancy needs some kind of color fusion effect so you can make prismatic spells.

[Domriso]

Ooo, that is a cool idea. I'll need to work that in somehow.

[Xechon]

My first thought about this system is: fueling spell seeds from the environment. This is not a bad thing, as spell seeds are an amazing system (True Sorc style, of course), and this provides a way to use a spellcasting system without a limit per day. But there must still be a limit, to keep it on par with melee. So here are some problems and ideas I have.

First of all, casting from nature. Usually that is a problem all in itself, because it seems you have unlimited casting. Taking 10 minutes to draw 1 "SP" of color is kind of absurd, and there aren't many people who would like to wait an hour so the Koulemancer can regain spells per day, but the caster will want to recharge whenever possible, and just start torking the others off. And I know that usually you have to wait an hour for the divine caster anyway, and the book hoarder (Wiz), but after that, no one is going to be happy about it.

Next is the problem with drawing colors from objects. Colors are refractions of certain wavelengths of light. To steal a color would be to steal the atomic structure of the object, or at least the part of it that is reflecting that color. IF you stopped its ability to reflect a color, it would be black, as black is the absence of all color and absorbs it. If you were to make it truly colorless, you would have to stop its ability to reflect and absorb color, therefore making it transparent, invisible. True, the mind would usually fill it in, but if something doesn't exist visually at all, then it doesn't know what to fill in and might as well turn all of your vision a random color.

Colors also have specific functions in living organisms. If you turned a leaf black, it's chloroplasts would get too much light energy and burst, the same reason we have to have energy in small packets called ATP in our cells. If you turned it translucent, you would kill it from lack of energy at all. Also, when you stop absorbing that light energy, the color would return to it if you didn't alter it's atomic structure.

Symbolic color powers can be both abused and rejected. If you leave it up to the character, then they could say that the color green, blue, and/or brown reminds them of fire, and therefore almost always be able to use fire magic, completely ruining the concept of this system, for you could just have a simple fire mage class that draws energy from nature. However, if you make a list, people will disagree and some colors are hard to find. For example, Orange usually means caution, alert, or simply "HEY I'M OVER HERE", something of safety. And then as you mentioned, green is associated with life. But the color Orange means life to Hindus. And where are you going to find orange in a medieval society?

Mixing colors should have an affect of both of those colors, so there would only be 3 primary affects, and combined would give just a different balance of the same three affects (Well, you could stat in tints of black and white, too, but remember what colors are and more specifically what those two colors are).

So, my suggestion:

Have incredibly limited pools, or even better, have them draw the power the same round they cast. In effect, you draw a color from your environment as a move action, attack as a standard, and that attack should scale up to a full attack action from other classes (Less with range and special effects, although it should also take into account how squishy these people are). Then, for a more powerful effect, spend a standard or full round action getting energy before an attack the next round.

When you steal an object's color, you are actually just absorbing that wavelength of light energy, and your attack with that will be based on the absolute color. If you can draw a few colors at a time, combine them as you wish, but there is level limits on the power, and they should have powers still based on the primary colors and tints. Heck, with this, maybe make a link to the color wheel alignment spectrum, changing green to yellow for mixing purposes. If you can draw only one color for use at a time, then you can have each color mean/do something different, but have everyone agree on the color=powers types beforehand.

When you "draw a color" from an object, the color is still there, it's just dulled and depleted for a round or so, so you can't draw from one source indefinitely. This has no affect on the object, even if it is living, because it is still absorbing the light it needs and not the ones it doesn't need.

Sorry for the wall of text, hope this helps, insert another formality here.

Just want to say, I love your ideas. And also, i posted under watercooler on your wiki some ideas, just in case you didn't notice.

[EdroGrimshell]

I think the system is awesome, reminds me a bit of Magic: The Gathering only with more than just five colors. It'd be a little difficult to implement but that's your specialty. As always, if you need help with anything just ask.