My current D&D campaign is meant to revolve around social and mental challenges to an extent which far exceeds the usual assumptions of the game as written, and I've long intended to come up with some new mechanics to support the change. I want them to be every bit as rigorously balanced as the combat mechanics, but to pertain to things like politics, economics, espionage and criminal investigation. All we have is a handful of tables suggesting typical DCs for basic situations; this doesn't satisfy me. I also think it'd be nice to expand these rules to even intersect with combat; when the Monster Manual says "Yuan-ti are geniuses and fight as such", it annoys me that the mechanics don't back this up, because there's no opposed Intelligence rolls between the Yuan-Ti plotting an ambush and the party wizard or rogue, to determine whether the scheme is clever enough to succeed.
For now this is all very preliminary. Toss ideas out there and bat them around; we'll see whether it goes anywhere.
Brainstorming new D&D mechanics (3.5)
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willpell
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Brainstorming new D&D mechanics (3.5)
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
My long-neglected blog.Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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ThroughTheWell
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Re: Brainstorming new D&D mechanics (3.5)
By current, do you mean the one here on the boards, and thus want those players NOT to read this thread?
I survived the forum move 4 times... yeah, I feel old.
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willpell
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Re: Brainstorming new D&D mechanics (3.5)
Those players are completely welcome here; I won't say anything that they're not meant to know (or if I do I'll say "oops" and get on with my life). I was referring to that game, along with the other session I'm playing in the same universe on a different forum, and by extension several of my previous games which I've retroactively rolled into the same universe as long as they didn't actively contradict it; it's a big project of mine.
For another example of the kinds of modified rules I'm looking for...I currently use the Wealth By Level system religiously when designing my NPCs, which I think is important to do for game balance reasons. Given any two Level 1 fighters, the one who has a Masterwork Falchion (375 gp) and a +1 Chain Shirt (1250 gp) is almost always going to have an unfair advantage over the one who has normal equipment and has to use the Longsword and Scale Mail because of a low roll on his starting GP. Likewise, at high levels, a huge number of Attribute-Enhancement wondrous items, and Wands or a Staff for spellcasters, just makes an incredibly big difference in how much a character is capable of. Yet unless you actually sit around rolling Profession all the time, you can't get more gold than WBL allows, and may actually be capped as a result of the next level's WBL. Relaxing that rule is advisable, yet risks serious imbalance.
So what I'd like to include in my game is a very sophisticated set of rules for modifying WBL to reflect the character's capabilities with a Profession or other money-making skill, as well as accurately reflecting cost of living and the expenses of the character's trade (ie Class). It could for instance serve as a partial balancing factor on the power of high-tier classes, forcing Wizards to spend through the nose on spell ingredients or parchment for experimental spellbooks, and requiring Clerics to tithe heavily for their church, while a Fighter gets off mostly scot-free. I've seen bits and pieces of rules like this in several books, but never a comprehensive system.
The closest version I've yet encountered is an optional rule called Upkeep in Unearthed Arcana; it's not a bad start, but it's only like three paragraphs, nowhere near enough to go into much detail. Ideally, I'd like to see some way of affecting both day-to-day cashflow access and overall long-term wealth, so that you can zoom in on whatever timeframe is relevant and accurately calculate how much gold the character should have on hand, whether for the moment or on a permanent basis, without having to make too many tedious rolls.
For another example of the kinds of modified rules I'm looking for...I currently use the Wealth By Level system religiously when designing my NPCs, which I think is important to do for game balance reasons. Given any two Level 1 fighters, the one who has a Masterwork Falchion (375 gp) and a +1 Chain Shirt (1250 gp) is almost always going to have an unfair advantage over the one who has normal equipment and has to use the Longsword and Scale Mail because of a low roll on his starting GP. Likewise, at high levels, a huge number of Attribute-Enhancement wondrous items, and Wands or a Staff for spellcasters, just makes an incredibly big difference in how much a character is capable of. Yet unless you actually sit around rolling Profession all the time, you can't get more gold than WBL allows, and may actually be capped as a result of the next level's WBL. Relaxing that rule is advisable, yet risks serious imbalance.
So what I'd like to include in my game is a very sophisticated set of rules for modifying WBL to reflect the character's capabilities with a Profession or other money-making skill, as well as accurately reflecting cost of living and the expenses of the character's trade (ie Class). It could for instance serve as a partial balancing factor on the power of high-tier classes, forcing Wizards to spend through the nose on spell ingredients or parchment for experimental spellbooks, and requiring Clerics to tithe heavily for their church, while a Fighter gets off mostly scot-free. I've seen bits and pieces of rules like this in several books, but never a comprehensive system.
The closest version I've yet encountered is an optional rule called Upkeep in Unearthed Arcana; it's not a bad start, but it's only like three paragraphs, nowhere near enough to go into much detail. Ideally, I'd like to see some way of affecting both day-to-day cashflow access and overall long-term wealth, so that you can zoom in on whatever timeframe is relevant and accurately calculate how much gold the character should have on hand, whether for the moment or on a permanent basis, without having to make too many tedious rolls.
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
My long-neglected blog.Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.