I feel like the "can cast without a focus but casts better with one" rule would work best as something specifically for Sorcerers, to emphasize the innate nature of their abilities.
In the lore of my campaign world Sorcerers use foci, not valuable but deeply personal, wizards use components as they essentially hack the system after studying how sorcerers cast spells so they need something more. Elves can use foci but have to have them made to order at great expense. Also have a system of extra components that make spells more powerful, albino bat guano for enhanced fire spells for example.
It really helps builds like Valor Bard. No lomger need a focus to cast spells. The foci rules could apply to Sword Bard’s swords and make them slightly better at casting for having said focus
I’m reminded of the 1E Druid that used mistletoe as the holy symbol for spells, specifically harvested with a golden sickle on a full moon night. If the Druid had lesser mistletoe (not harvested in the prescribed way) or even some other material such as holly or even oak leaves then the spell is still cast but is less powerful. There was (of course) a whole chart describing the percentages that duration, range, etc. would be affected. I always thought the opposite could be used, such as more expensive or rare substitute material components could be used to make a spell more effective than normal.
I'll be honest, I simplified foci at my table. I just allow the hand holding the focus to count as free for the purposes of somatic components; after all, I imagine wands and etc. to involve a lot of whippy-flippy-spinny motions anyway, and if that's not a somatic component, I don't know what is. It's still a hand not used for a shield, a weapon, or an item of some kind, so I think it's fine (and, probably what was intended, perhaps). Making some foci have a magical benefit turns them into useful loot to find at the end of a dungeon, though!
It's definitely clunky in the rules, but I think it is good for balance. Casters with shields are some of the strongest in a lot of aspects even when played poorly.
Material components without a cost are just a role playing tool anyway. Complex rules around S and M interactions just lead to arguments at the table and should be simplified
I'd steal "Willpower" from Chronicles of Darkness, and mash it up with the often-forgotten "Inspiration". Each character has a number of Willpower points equal to their Proficiency Bonus. One willpower point can be spent to grant advantage on a D20 roll. These points recover at a rate of one per long rest. Additional points can be recovered by giving into your character's flaws, or staying true to your character's ideals in a difficult situation.
I'd steal the entire PF2e ruleset. Joking aside, I've been trying to homebrew battle of wits and other stuff from Burning Wheel into my D&D, trying to get a framework going for RP that is more than "do whatever".
PF2e is frustratingly difficult to steal from because most of the good stuff would require implementation or modification of large numbers of individual abilities rather than being single rules you can apply generally.
@@timeforsuchaword Just play PF2e them. I have made the switch and all things are woking great, and even better, working as intended by the book. More people that are currently unsatisfied with 5e need to know 2e. Its great!
@@kat_boss5520 I have the pdfs and have played 2e a bit, but it's a bit of a mixed bag for me. I don't particularly like some the design decisions regarding magic, magic classes (I'm a little salty over the witch), and how much of the game revolves around +1/-1 modifiers. I like what they've done with martial classes, skill feats, degrees of success, and archetypes. I'm neutral on the 3 action system.
Were we to use the Escalation Die system, a DM could decide that different sources of escalation/deescalation are not created equal, and assign different buffs/debuff/situations as some number of 'Steps' on the Escalation table. I don't know that you necessarily need to merge things like Bless and magic weapons in there, but you could, and it wouldn't be much of a stretch. Still, I'd imagine a Cloak of Displacement being, say, three steps, while a simple low-level Fog Cloud being one or two steps down, flanking or a prone foe being one step, Reckless Attacks being two, and so on. On the Bounded Accuracy topic, that's mostly a failure of anticipating multiclassing on their part; most single-classed characters don't have the tools necessary to stack bonuses up to nullify it.
the problem with implementing shadowrun focus rules into dnd is that a dnd spellcasting focus is a mundane item as are the material components in the component pouch, where as a shadowrun spellcasting focus is a Magic Item (crafted through the shadowrun enchanting rules). I would thus Classify the non costly material components and the dnd spelcasting foci as reusable fetishes, the costly expendable components as expendable fetishes, and require shadowrun spellcasting foci as magic items.
I'd like to see Arcane focus treated more like weapon and tool proficiencies and without them on hand you couldn't add your proficiency to you spellcasting
We set up spell focuses to cost 100gp per Spell Level (of the Spell in question). A Focus is reuseable for casting that spell and the focus is used for one spell per the spell capacity of the focus. The SPELL capacity of a Focus is... Ring = 1 spell Medallion = 2 spells Wand = 3 spells Bracier/Glove = 4 spells Rod = 6 spells Staff = 8 spells Our Component Pouches system allows 10 pouches with 10 *components per pouch. Thus you could carry 10 spells worth of components with 10 castings per spell. * Under our system, spell components are consumed with a SUCCESSFUL CASTING of a spell. We say "successful casting" because the caster must make a PROFICIENCY check against their ARCANA Proficiency with a DC of 10 + Spell Level (Proficiency bonuses all apply) to successfully cast a spell in 5e.
I like these, especially the second initiative order for spells. I would love for most spells to require that spell action to START casting, and then it would take effect the following normal initiative order. This would allow martials to have a chance to act before the spell takes effect, potentially interrupting the spell or ducking out of the way, unless the spellcaster had a crazy good initiative. It makes spellcasters more MAD which makes sense for rapid combat while performing crazy magic. Counterspell would stop being a reaction spell and would instead be a spell you can cast as a non-spellcasting action in that first initiative order. Cool ideas!
We use to play this way for 1981 basic. Just looked at the rules and realised we had it wrong but it was better. It’s side based initiative and each side declares actions, then ranged attacks then spells then melee attacks. That way a ranged attack can interrupt a spell. This does nerf magic users which was bad in 1981 but good in 5e
This is one of the optional rules my group has looked at. The good spells that everyone takes get longer casting times, and the weak stuff that always gets passed over gets fast/instant resolution. Seems good for fine tuning spell balance.
@@ldl1477 We use the THREE ACTIONS system from MYTHRAS the RPG. In our game, every ACTION takes about 2 seconds and involves attacks, moves, dodges, etc... So a PC might Move, Attack, and actively Defend which is his or her three ACTIONS. For casting, we use one ACTION for Somatic, Verbal, and Material Component use. This means that casters aren't really moving while casting (the Combat Caster FEAT allows Reaction to be used for the Verbal component so they can move). The Spell then takes effect on the NEXT round. We do this to reduce the power of casters in 5e a little bit.
One rule/option I really like in Shadowrun is specialization within a skill. You specify one aspect within a skill which you specialize in and gain a bonus +1/+2, but for everything else within the skill you get a -1/-2. The 1 or 2 signifier would depend on how narrow you specialization is. This could work something like this: Your Cavalier Fighter is proficient in Animal Handling. You could ask the DM to specialize Animal Handling in domesticated horses, excluding anything else like livestock animals, pets and obviously wild animals. Because it makes sense for a cavalier to have better rolls on handling their horse than anything else.
I personally like the magic item improvement from Earthdawn. As you use an item more (or accomplish heroic deeds with it), it can gain power. Hate the idea of discarding old trusty +1 sword that carried you through levels once the shiney +2 came along. On that note: Counting Coup from Deadlands works nicely into the above idea as well.
I liked the idea of the Flashback system in Blades of Darkness. It could be applied to D&D by allowing players to use the feature for either of the primary ability scores tied to their starting class. That way, it encourages role play, engages the player in the story, and highlights what makes their character unique (as a fighter, cleric, rogue, etc).
In 5e when my players roll a crit, I have them just assume that one of the dice is maxed. Nothing sucks more on a crit than double 1s, so with this a critical hit is guaranteed to do max damage +1, it makes it feel a bit more special.
I cannot remember which Edition of Chivalry and Sorcery that I tried, but it had a very unique initiative system that harkened back to earlier editions of AD&D using Weapon speeds, and Casting times shorter than "1 round"; You would roll initiative once, and then every thing you could do cost a certain number of action points which would deduct from your initiative total, and when you get to the point of needing more points than you had initiative you would wrap around to the next round and start deducting from your original initiative total (I could be remembering the wraparound rule incorrectly though). so things like your standard 6 squares of movement would cost 6 action points, attacking with a long sword would deduct points based on the size and weigh of the weapon, etc. it seemed complex on paper but in play was actually kind of elegant
I played the original C&S for about 20 years. My books have fallen apart and I can no longer find anyone willing to try it now. Granted, I simplified it a lot. I took a long time to play if you used the rules as written.
Hey, Shadowrun and Vampire are in here. These have totally different dice systems at their core from the d20 standard, I'm excited to see what you found!
One of my absolute favorite rules to steal is the Flashback system from Blades in the Dark. The game is meant to emulate a Mission Impossible-style heist movie's plot structure, and Flashbacks allow players to (within reason and, vitally, without creating paradoxes/retcons) go back in time and set up something they can use to help themselves, whether that's paying off a guard, shopping for supplies, laying a trap, or what have you. I've always felt that inspiration is ironically quite uninspiring in 5e, and Flashbacks make an excellent alternative inspiration sink, right along with the Calrissian Gambit / Lando Rule (which lets players basically say "I know a guy" and invent a potentially helpful NPC the party can track down and ask for aid from).
I felt that I wanted to use pretty much all core rules from BitD, at which point I decided It was best simply to play It. Flashbacks, stress, partial successes, loads, engagement roll, group rolls, resistance rolls, position & effect, myriad clocks, etc. Its all so juicy, d&d could learn a lot from this. Just how It solves skill/help pilling is so incredibly simple. "Oh sure you all can help. But If you fail you increase lead stress, plus you share consequences :)"
Great video as always, Chris! In regards to the In Nomine thing, it's an interesting concept. I think making non-casters and casters go on seperate "rounds" might be a little too much. Personally, if I were playing a Chronurgy or War Wizard and specifically tried to make my initiative high to get to use some nice control spells, it'd feel bad if every mundane guy with a weapon acted before me in every fight. Where I do think it'd be interesting though is for certain NPC characters. Say you have a big scary boss with supernatural powers, and you want to have a cinematic battle featuring them doing something at the start of combat. This may be an interesting way to do that. Have this supernatural being have this "supernatural action" it can take on a seperate round before the party get to act. Think it would certainly make the players pay attention to this guy, and to show that this isn't their normal enemy.
I love the Test of Wills idea! I’m definitely going to implement that when I DM, thanks for this fun mechanic. I’m currently playing in a Strahd game, and the DM has taken the stress and panic mechanics from Mothership, which has been working out really well. Much better than the stress penalties in VRGtR, highly recommend it for any horror D&D campaigns.
Test of wills could act as initiative. I think it may be a good solution to the pc who attacks while the NPC is talking - your initiative roll becomes a sleight of hand or deception and the NPC’s roll is a perception roll. Everyone else rolls normally
I like that one as well as a "general" system, but I would run it more like a series of opposed "death saving throws" (i.e. the one to win three checks win the contest). Winning a check by a large margin might grant you two successes instead of only one. And then, if you win the contest 3:0 you get a bigger benefit than if it were 3:2, for example. That kind of test could also be for opposed arm wrestling matches, etc.
Its like you can read my mind. This topic was just what i was thinking about on the last few days to make some houserules for my future tables. So very nice, thank you
I also started d&d back in the 80s in college. I do remember our DM had a Homebrew rule for critical hits. If we rolled a nat 20 on an attack roll he would ask us to roll percentage dice. Depending on the percentage our hit could be we rolled max damage on the weapon die, did double or triple damage, wounded a leg to immobilize our opponent or for rolling 90 and above we severed a body part off up to a roll of 100 meaning we cut the head off. He also had a similar rule for a nat 1 where we could possibly drop or break our weapon or even injure ourselves. I really like the human frailty that brought to the game.
My favorite rule I've taken was the stealth & awareness rules from PF2e. It cleans up so much confusion amongst players who want to Hide in combat. *Unaware:* They don't know you're there. *Hidden:* They know you're there, but they don't know where. *Concealed:* They know where you are, but they can't see you. It just really clears up all the, "But they know where you are!" & "But my Stealth beat their Passove Perception!" complaints that come with using Hide in combat. Yes you hid from them, no they don't see you, yes they have a solid idea of where you are. It's basically RAI already, but since the rules on stealth make no distinction between different ways of being hidden, it means that GMs constantly have to create their own definitions that either make the Rogue OP or make Cunning Action to Hide literally impossible to use.
Those distinctions are great. I've always had trouble thinking of just how hidden you'd need to be for certain benefits to make sense. Would you mind explaining what mechanical differences you run between these 3 stages of awareness?
On Vampire: If you wanted to run a very lethal, gritty game, you could have exploding damage dice. Obviously, this makes pretty combat and hazards a *lot* more dangerous, but if you are implementing this rule then that's probably the style of game you are after. That would really favor Rogues, Paladins, and certain spells like Fireball. If you just wanted to make normal attacks more lethal, you could say this only applies to the normal damage dice of a melee weapon attack, which would mitigate some of these concerns.
@@DaDunge Magic missile, if you followed the "roll a bunch of d4, not just 1d4 then multiply" method that some prefer (I do, even though it's more work), would be REALLY scary with the exploding die rule lol Yeah just weapon die seems like a good idea
1) One of my favorite parts of Shadowrun was its initiative system, which rewarded characters for rolling really high by potentially giving them extra turns in a round of combat. It would absolutely have to be tweaked so as not to be destroyed by Crossbow Expert Sharpshooters, but it would help to give Dexterity-based melee characters not to regret not making a GWM/PAM Strength-based character instead. It might even make dual wield characters feel like they're contributing via death by a thousand cuts. 2) I like inspiration points when DMs give them out and more when players do something really cool to earn them. But I really, really liked the Force Point system in the WEG's version of Star Wars. You were actively encouraged to try to use your points to be cool and heroic, and could be rewarded with more points when the usage was successful. Again, would probably require some degree of balancing to combat. 3) At a time when THAC0 was still a thing, I really appreciated the simplicity of Paranoia's rolling - roll well, you did good. Roll high, you did bad. 3rd Edition D&D went the opposite, but to this day when I get someone to play Paranoia for the first time there a genuine level of glee when they roll a 1 and you tell them it was a critical success. Meanwhile, the schadenfreude of them thinking a 20 was a good thing is palpable. Sometimes it's amusing to make up a random results table and have the lower results be the better options.
Force Points in WEG Star Wars are great for making the game _feel_ like Star Wars. You can practically hear the John Williams score kick in when a player spends one.
One rule that I adapted from another game came from Pathfinder 2e: Each time a character drops to 0 HP and is then healed (with say a Healing Word or Cure Wounds, or even a natural 20 on the Death save), that character is affected by the near-death experience. They immediately suffer 1 level of Exhaustion, and will recover 1 level after each long rest. If they nearly die several times in 1 day, it will take several days for them to fully recover all those Exhaustion levels, and they could even die simply from the sheer Exhaustion of all that trauma!
What if with the Situation Di, that you add them when you have multiple sources of advantage. Like if you have advantage and then would gain advantage from another source then you get still get advantage but also a 1d4 situation di etc...
"If a spell has a somatic component, you can use the hand that performs the somatic component to also handle the material component." SAC so only one hand is required
I have a very similar house rule. Spell casters still need a spell focus or a spell component pouch. Players don't need components to cast a spell (except those that have a GP cost) just as you mentioned however, the player has the option to make the effort to actively search for and obtain the spell components (in-game). I don't make all the components so easy to obtain. I also occasionally add rare/upgraded versions of spell components to my games. If a player uses the spell components that they have actively obtained when they cast a spell, then I'll give the player a minor bonus to the spell's effect. The spell components are always consumed in the casting of the spell unless specifically stated in the spell's description. If they used rare upgraded versions of the spell components then I add a major bonus to the spell's effect.
I think just tying proficiency bonus for spellcasting to the foci would work too. It lets spellcasters in a prison situation still use their spells, just not nearly as well.
Situation die seems very interesting BUT in tabletop, keeping track of all variables would get tedious and drag down your turns with extra computations. If done automatically, like in a videogame, im all for it
Oh, GURPS. I still remember having to do integrals for the vehicle rules. The Staredown rules from Deadlands are also some of my favorite thing ever in TTRPGs. It's SO intanse.
Here isone I've been discussing with my wife: the help rules from Mongoose Traveller 2e (a scifi system). A player can assist a different player at a skill roll by rolling a different skill and their sucess or failiure translates into a bonus (potentially negative if they rolled low) for the "primary task". Here is an example from traveller: the sensor operator wants to scan asteroids in a belt for a hidden research station the players want to discover. The mechanic gets the idea that they could try to finetune the sensors for that specific task. So the mechanic rolls a "computer (intelligence or education)" check and their result becomes a modifier (ranging from -2 to +2) for the "sensors (education)" check of the sensor operator. The way to translate the result of the first roll is by checking how far above (or below) their DC the first person was - e.g. between DC - 1 and DC + 1 the main task gets a +0, but between DC + 2 and DC + 5 they'll get a +1 (above that would be a +2, and similarly for bad results - of course I just made up these numbers the intervals could be different) One last thing: of course the way the 2nd person assists must make sense, which is up zo the DM to interpret.
Oh I forgot to add: there can be more than just 2 people in the so called "task chain". A 3rd player might have an idea how to help the mechanic in which case they roll their check and the mechanic uses that modifier for their own roll, helping or hindering them.
@26:40 Love the scaling of the rolls, like the 1-4 over the tie you get to unnerve the opponent, and above something stronger. Had the idea earlier that as the many spells that control the opponent (charm person, hold person, etc.) have a very stark cutoff point of either working or not, how about have them have a lesser effect instead if the roll is between the range of say -5 - +5? Such as: Hold person, when it half-succeeds, instead slows the target, or the spell duration is only 1 turn. Charm person could similarly be "confused" for a turn, meaning incapacitated or stunned, or the duration is set to 1 turn. Many other spells could have a similar effect.
So here is one for your one shot horror adventures (such as Curse of Strahd or other Ravenloft adventures) - the Stress system from Alien: The RPG. Each character has a stress level, which goes up when they see something horrific and goes down when they rest. A character's stress level adds both benefits and potentially penalties for checks and actions. it also ties the party together - one character failing a stress check and freaking out affects everyone else.
One recently released Kickstarter project called Level Up 5e more or less implements the Alternity situational die as 'Expertise' die as a way to give out situational bonuses. It's quite interesting!
I think one thing I would add to 5e from a different system is the Luck skill from Call of Cthulhu. As a DM it just gives you so many options, firstly the ability to give players more agency in scenes and secondly to make "luck" a characteristic of the character rather than the player. It's such a fun mechanic and I often find myself reaching for it even when I'm not DMing for CoC.
Agreed. It's great from a narrative of pov that players have a resource they can can save for key rolls, and if they used it up earlier and fail a key roll it has some player agency leading to that failure, not just pure bad luck.
Alternity! I played a psychokinetic fraal mind walker when I was 12 and I haven't thought of those words in that order since! Blast from the past! Thank you for that ❤
The vampires of the masquerade mechanic you spoke about reminds me of the exploding dice from other games. I always thought that would be a neat feature to have in D&D but not sure how to implement it.
I like that advantage and disadvantage don't stak but I with the help action allowed a player to either grant advantage or choose to remove disadvantage from a roll to give the help action more use
man i watching your vid and literally in the middle of converting some rules over to d20 for a starwars game from alternity i loved that game back in the day
What are your thoughts on 4e? I know it gets a lot of hate, but it really rewarded optimization and had some rules worth stealing. Minion enemies were great. PC Weapon Size made more sense in 4e. A normal sized short-sword did 1d6, a large sized one did 1d8, then 1d10 etc. I don't like the implied rules that PC weapons increase from 1d6 to 2d6 to 3d6 in 5e. It makes for weird power scaling in edge cases, not that it comes up terribly often in either system. Flanking in 4e gave advantage, which was just a +2 to hit back then. There's the optional flanking rule in 5e, but I think they should keep it at +2 to hit so that it could stack with advantage OR disadvantage. I also think that action conversion was really neat. In 4e, you could give up your standard action to take either an extra minor action or move action on your turn, or give up your move action to take another minor action. While move actions aren't a thing in 5e and this wouldn't fit 5e's action economy since bonus actions are balanced around the idea of only getting one per turn, there could easily be spells that use up your ability to move instead of your actions. Like if Misty Step let you teleport but you couldn't move normally that turn, rather than costing a bonus action, or even gave you the option between the two. Or if giving up your movement speed let you do other strategic things that turn. Imagine a fighter maneuver that cost no action, prevented you from moving, but gave an ally a huge boost to speed, basically replicating a Warlord power from 4e.
I totally use Minions in my 5e game, and I usually tell my players when an opponent gets bloodied. Though there are no mechanical keys to being bloodied in 5e, it does give the PCs a better idea of which enemies are most injured.
Alterity's situation dice sound like what I would add in: Shadow of the Demon Lord's boon and bane system. All the "situational dice" are d6s. Boons and banes add and subtract from each other, so 2 banes and three boons make one d6 that gets rolled and added to your roll. You may want to check it out. It may be closer to d and d and is a good game. It's basically d and d edge lord edition. Oh! Shadow of the demon lord has fast and slow turned. Certain actions are fast and some are slow. May be worth looking at.
I love the outside of the box thinking. For me I went back to my favorite childhood game which was champions. While I know it would be a complete change from the current system. getting rid of the d20 and moving to a 3d6 method would be a great start to the concept of bounded accuracy.
as for that "test of wills" staredown in fantasy - it could maybe even work for melee combat as well. Just as the gunshlinger reads teh opponent, so does the swordsman, knowing which attack the enemy will make, what feints will be used, and how to get around them. There is a great scene in the Shadow of the Conqueror book, near the beginning, where the very old POV character explains this after besting a young guy, even tho he can barely walk in his old age.
The first rule Id move over would be the concept of contacts in shadowrun. these are NPC your charfacter knows that can help them out every now and then. it adds beckground and roleplaying opportunity into the system in a very realistic and helpful way.
The rule I like for initiative is everyone roles and there are two phases: phase 1 is movement and goes from lowest to highest, phase 2 is your actions and go from highest to lowest.
The rule I like conceptually for initiative is from DC Heroes 3rd edition. Where you roll for initiative each round and the lowest in the tally declares what action they are wanting to take, then you follow the list up from next lowest until you reach the top. The person with the highest init does not declare their action. They instead just act. Then you resolve every declared action in order. If you change your action at all during your turn then you have a penalty to your action. This setup seems like a really cool idea, but takes forever to get through a round.
Edge of the Empire/Force and Destiny/Age of Rebellion has some 2-sided "force" tokens that you flip randomly at the start of each session. The GM can take a token that has the dark side facing up to give a bonus to one of the opponents, and then flip it over to light side. The players can use any tokens on the light side for a bonus to one of their rolls, and flips it to the dark side. Could replace inspiration, which nobody ever seems to use
So, situation bonus die is basically the PF circumstance bonus/penalty. For the stare down, I liked Rifts’ use of horror factor for their gunslingers. I personally would pull the PF2E rule for magic weapons where each +1 adds an additional damage die to bring parity between martial and magic characters. I also like the concept of critical success/failure that it has, where the effect happens whenever you succeed/fail by 10. I would also pull martial arts styles from 3E or PF2E.
I'm not sure if it was something taken from another system, but a DM I played with a while back had something he called a Shenanigans Dice: basically a d60 that was rolled at the beginning of the session to set a DC for the session. Then, anytime a player wants to try something that doesn't have a mechanical option or something totally off the wall, they'd roll the d60 to beat the previously set DC, resetting the DC each time using the roll they just made. I realized now as I use it in games that it's like the Force Points (I think, I might be mistaken) from the FFG Star Wars RPG, where players can rewrite minor bits of reality to allow for cool stuff to happen.
I loved the initiative cycle/wheel concept in Exalted, where different actions had a speed which told you how many counts should pass before your next action. A lot of video games have implemented this since the count is automated, and I wish there was a convenient way to do it for a game like D&D. I like the idea of getting Shaken from Savage Worlds in terms of it representing the ebb and flow of combat, getting put on the defensive and needing to regain momentum.
The main rules I'd steal for 5e D&D come from 4e D&D. 4e style weapons with clearly defined weapon category keywords that feats & class features can key off of, and variable bonus to both hit and damage. 4e style implements that basically work like weapons with the same kinds of trade offs for one or two handed, variable bonuses to spell attack rolls, and various damage dice which spells would then use. For example, a spell might deal 4x your spell focus damage, which might be a hefty 8d6 for a damage focused two handed staff with 2d6 damage (the casting version of a greatsword), or a mere 4d8 for an accuracy focused one handed wand (casting equivalent of a rapier). 4e style encounter design, where a 'standard' encounter for a 4th level party of four is four cr4 monsters, but with cr4 'elite' monsters that count as 2 or 'solo' monsters that count as 4, with hit points and action economy to fit but attacks and defenses still appropriate for level 4. By the book encounter design in 5e is a big hassle, especially for single enemy 'boss' encounters. In 5e if you want a boss encounter you use a higher level monster... & either tpk the party because they cant hurt it and it one shots all the pcs or, more often, the party steam rolls it due to overwhelming action economy, with legendary saves and lair actions being both fairly inelegant and mostly failing to make up the difference. 4e style commitment to each class/subclass having cool things it can do all the time, stronger things it can do some of the time (encounter powers / short rest recharge abilities), and a few big guns that only get to come out once a session or so (daily powers / long rest abilities). These things don't have to look the same, 4e giving every character the same number of the same type of powers at the same levels was a mistake, but I think some of the 'essential' classes kate in 4e's life were on the right track. Eg the executioner assassin with martial art technique at will powers, one big assassin strike per encounter in place of other class's selections of more modedt encounter powers, and a set of poisons they could brew each day in place of daily powers with combat uses if spplied to weapons or other interesting non-combat uses if applied in other ways. Yes the balance wasnt perfect, that assassin strike wasnt really equivalent to 3 to 4 encounter powers on another striker, but the idea was there, and the point is that, even with relatively unique abilities, the class still had a similar dprwad of at-will/encounter/dsily effects which meant they were affected in similar ways by unusually long or short adventuring days. Which is the big benefit here. In 5e a DM can't vary the daily encounter structure without throwing off class balance.
My favorite RPG theft for D&D is from Tenra Bansho Zero and I use it to modify Inspiration, which is probably the least used rule from 5e. Rather than explain how it works in TB0 here's what I do in D&D: I use poker chips. Each session every player gets a white poker chip. Any time during the session if another player does something they think is worthy of inspiration they can exchange it for a blue chip which goes to that player that did the inspirational thing. As DM I also can give out red chips whenever I think someone did something worthy of inspiration. At the end of the session any unused blue chips are lost (though occasionally I'll declare they stick around if we have to end mid initiative due to RL circumstances) but red chips persist. This offloads some of the responsibility of calling out the players cool actions from the DM. Aside from persisting between sessions both blue and red chips can be used just like inspiration. This can lead to a player having 2 inspiration (one blue, one red) but it's fine. I don't allow use on the action that garnered the inspiration. That is to say, if player A declares they're going to do some kind of awesome chandelier swinging swashbuckling action or just a great RP description of what they're about to do, even if player B gives them inspiration for it, they can't use it on that roll. This avoids mising the system, and as DM I can always veto it if the players are exchanging chips for purely mechanical results. Finally sometimes when Player A does something awesome and I wholeheartedly agree and another player goes to give them inspiration, I'll instead give Player A a red chip and have Player B keep their white chip to give to someone later.
I was hesitant to watch this video because I try to avoid homebrew. However, it ended up being a pleasant watch filled with nostalgia and strong game design theory. I love GURPS, and In Nomine, and Shadowrun, Deadlands, White Wolf despite their flaws. It is nice to hear Chris share some of the sentiment.
For our critical hits, we use a number of SPECIAL EFFECTS based on the weapon/attack types and many of these effects come from either MYTHRAS or FANTASY AGE. On a roll of 20 (when a 20 isn't needed To Hit) you get the weapon's MAXIMUM DAMAGE plus a Special Effect. On a roll of more than 5 over the To hit number (including all bonuses), you get to pick one of your weapon's effects but no maximum damage. Some examples of those Special Effects include... IMPALE (piercing weapons) = Max damage + rolled damage and the weapon is embedded in the target unless you roll a STR save to pull it out. SLASH (slashing weapons) = Roll 3 sets of Damage dice and discard the lowest result. The weapon is embedded in the target just like above but you have ADVANTAGE on any test to remove the weapon. CRUSH (bludgeoning weapons) = Max damage and the target is STUNNED for 1 round + an additional round if the damage inflicted exceeds the target's CON score. The target must make a DEX or STR save (whichever is the lower save) or be knocked prone as well. They have DISADVANTAGE on the Save if damage exceeds CON. PIN OPPONENT (nets, shields, polearms, spears, staffs) = The opponent must save against either DEX or STR (using whichever is better) or be immobilized by the attack (cannot move or act) on the next round. They suffer DISADVANTAGE on the save if damage exceeds STR. This PIN action lasts until the attacker releases it or the target saves. ENTANGLE OPPONENT (nets, whips, flails) = You entangle the opponent's weapon or limb preventing attack (but not the movement of the target) unless they save against the worst of STR or DEX (with DISADVANTAGE if damage exceeds STR). TRIP OPPONENT = You trip your opponent so hard that they fall and must save versus DEX (with DISADVANTAGE if damage exceeds STR) or suffer DISADVANTAGE from the fall all of next round. They are also prone and must spend their ENTIRE move action getting back up. DISARM OPPONENT = You knock your opponent's weapon out of their hand IF they fail a DEX save (with DISADVANTAGE if damage exceeds STR). Two-handed weapons get ADVANTAGE on the save. The weapon is knocked 5ft (1-2), 6ft to 10ft (3-4), or 11ft to 15ft (5-6) away and the target MUST use its normal attack action to retrieve the weapon. PUSH/REDIRECT OPPONENT = IF your opponent fails a DEX save (with DISADVANTAGE IF damage exceeds STR), you can move them 5 feet or change their facing 90 degrees against their will. If the damage exceeds the target's STR, you may move them 10 feet, change their facing 180 degrees, or move them 5 feet AND change their facing 90 degrees. INTIMIDATE/OUTMANEUVER = You inflict DISADVANTAGE on the target and their INITIATIVE roll is halved next round IF they fail a WIS or INT save (whichever is lower). There are more SEs which we use. These are just the basic ones. We award Special Effects by Weapon Type, Feats taken, Class Ability, and [Fighter's] Fighting Style. The player chooses which special effect they will use based on the current situation they find themselves in.
I feel like the In Nomine inverted initiative idea would work well for mid- to low-magic games where the party has, at most, one or two spellcasters. It'd offer another tactical layer to combat, at the expense of potentially slowing it down, as you're shuffling initiative priorities on a turn-by-turn basis. Initiative boosters like the Chronurgist's would still be valuable, but not encounter-destroying; the difference between a Hypnotic Pattern slung into the enemy's ranks on the first round, versus the first turn after everyone has (potentially) engaged in melee, is tactically interesting, and might offer some more frequent critical thinking and opportunity-cost management. I don't think it's for most groups, though. I feel like we could use the battle of wills for quite a few situations; I can imagine such a thing being a culturally-significant part of tribal societies. Perhaps that Frost Giant village decides its next chieftain when the last dies by a contest of wills; their leader must have the 'iciest stare' in the village, opening up the chance for your Goliath PC to step in and make a bid for it, for example.
I love the action economy system from Shadowrun / Pathfinder 2e, where things cost varying numbers of Action Points, which is much more intuitive of having Actions and Bonus Actions.
20:45 If you really wanted to do that how about spells are declared during the main phase but only resolves during the spellcasting phase. So you could see like "Oh no that casters is starting to cast fireball (though we don't know where, he only choses the spot when the spell resolves.), we need to spread out" or "Quick damage him down before he gets that spell off"
Comments and suggestions Shadowrun - Making bard spells useable with focuses is easy. Allow focuses to be used with any spell regardless of components. My main issue here is that it gives a power boost to foci, the 5e insert to make spellcasting easier, but then sidelines material components almost entirely. You'd need something to balance this out. I would suggest rare material components that can boost or change the spell. To differentiate the options I would go with spell foci changing the casting/maintaining spell elements, like you listed, where rare materials would change the elements of the spell itself. Damage type, damage total, save type. Each material would be a consumable magic item, and any given one could only work on a limited list of spells, but as such the effects could be larger and more varied. Alternity - I like this. Two potential variations. First, instead of having the extra dice scaling up and down you could have each instance of dis/advantage add a d6 which cancel each other out. You then roll all of them taking the largest number. You might also want to make each 6 beyond the first add +1 to the total. This choice is a little more tactile plus more intuitive when adding the dis/advantages. My other take is that you don't remove normal dis/advantage, but in certain places that would give you dis/advantage get the added dice instead. Blindness is a perfect example of this. You might want to have these instances give you dis/advantage first, but add the dice if it's cancelled out or you get another instance of dis/advantage. In Nomine - There is a basic issue with this idea, the action economy muddies the clean lines of this. You could use the speed factor initiative system from the DMG to build on this. Also you might want to have 3 passes. Ranged; Melee; Magic. Some variations to that could be, hidden creatures and melee creatures with *class* movements bonus can go during the ranged pass. Casting a spell as a bonus action could move them to the Melee pass, provided they don't also cast a cantrip. Clerics (maybe druids and bards) can spend a hit dice to go during the melee pass but only to use a spell that heals allies, provided they don't do anything that would deliberately harm an enemy (walk into range with spirit guardians up for example). Characters who don't cast spells could go in the spell pass to gain advantage on a skill check (mainly stealth). Deadlands - Ridicule would be Intimidation (Cha) or Performance (Cha) vs Insight (Cha) (Think of spells that require charisma saves). Bluff would be Deception (Cha) or Persuasion (Int) vs Insight (Int or Wis). Overawe is Intimidation (Cha) vs Insight (Wis). Vampire the Masquerade - *Exploding dice!* My criticism of rerolling the D20s on skill checks is that the average bonus is 10.5 to the roll. 10 is the difference in DC between Easy and Hard checks, and between Hard and Nearly Impossible checks. When an ability check has tiered difficulty levels it is usually spread out in chunks of 5. Instead roll a d6/d8/d10 (I don't know which) and then add the result then explode *this* dice. Maybe allow the player to roll two and take the highest if you have advantage. This might be dangerous though. As for critical hits, just do one reroll. If that is a crit then explode the damage dice rolled. d12s, and maybe d10s, should explode on the two highest options. Btw, for those not in the know. The term "exploding dice" is the name for this mechanic originating from Warhammer 40k
I have used a rule of sorts from Shadowrun, it is a similar rule that is in Werewolf/Vampire/Etc., that is the more you are hurt the worse you are doing. Now I don't do it the way it does in those games though. What I have done in my game is when you are bloodied, you have disadvantage on pretty much anything, until you are knocked out. It doesn't apply to death saves. But, it is reflective of the fact that you are hurt, you are not operating at full potential.
What I wanna know is how do you balance enconunters for optimized parties? I would imagine you play with other optimizers, so I'm curious if the DM has to do anything with the numbers, mechanics or playstyle to compensate or if the party just steamrolls every encounter.
The WEG d6 Star Wars system is my favorite ruleset ever. It's so simple and elegant compared to d20-based games of the same era like D&D 2e and the various Palladium systems (e.g. _Rifts_ ).
I like FATE a lot and use some rules variations from it for D&D. Success w/ Consequences: sometimes a player will fail a die roll that stalls out forward progress of the game (picking a lock, interrogating a suspect, knowledge/lore check, etc.); but the PCs are supposed to be capable action heroes, so I'll narrate a success but add a consequence that's outside the character's control (set off a trap or alarm, gives up the location but keeps secret the presence of a trap or hidden sentry or adds a red herring, leaping a 'bottomless' pit might have you scrambling up the other side as your backpack or swordbelt falls away from a broken strap.) Crit. Fails: on a natural 1, I'll let a player narrate a crit fail on their character in return for Inspritation (which I mostly forget to use); maybe something more if the consequences more lasting than drop my weapon or slip and fall prone. Sacrifice Equipment: (I forget where I first saw this, in a youtube broadcast game) I'll let a player sacrifice a shield or take damage to their armor to negate a crit. or be dropped to 1hp instead of 0hp. Spin: 3rd ed. FATE: on critical hit, instead of doing extra damage, a character can cause a special affect (disarm, knock prone, blinded for 1 turn, ???)
Although it's a bit more complex, if I were to mess with initiative specifically for casters I'd probably have spells declared at initiative but resolve at initiative minus x (where x is maybe spell level or something) with negative-number initiative looping back around to 20 and counting down on the next turn (or happening at the start of the caster's next turn). Spells are still usually taking effect after martials take their turn, but if casters pump up their initiative enough they can get spells off before anyone can react. Depending on how kind you want to be, declaration of a spell could be either: - specific spell and target - spell school and target - specific spell only
Currently playing through a Deadlands campaign, and it's been kinda scary how good exploding dice have been. While that wouldn't come up much with d20s (really only necessary for skills/saves that were impossible otherwise), it could be a mechanic to add more damage to weapons and spells and make the game deadlier, and much faster at higher levels when HP totals tend to make battles take forever. Would also make feats like Savage Attacker and Piercer much better.
I think test of wills would work well with the saving throw mechanic. While some tests of will make sense as an opposed roll, ridicule seems really well suited for causing the target to make a wisdom saving throw. Rather than having exploding dice, one of my tables does +3 or -3 for natural 20s and 1s respectively on ability checks. It helps keep the bounded accuracy while giving a nice little boost.
One of the best rules I've taken from another game are Battletech's hit locations. It's just a simple 2D6 roll + a modifier for the direction and than you lookup everything on a small table. The big advantage over D20 based versions of hit locations, is that you need less information and that it can be rolled together with an attack. Only problem is when you need to figure out whether a beholder is a quadropede or not :) Super useful for things like called shots, kills, etc..
Just going with a D8 or D10 by default, and applying different weight by creature proportions or angle would probably be good enough. Beholder gets, on a D10 from the front, for example, 1-2 central eye, 3-4 mouth, 5-6 a nondescript area of the upper head, and 7-10 would individually correspond to specific minor eyes. You could adjust the weighting of each table by player declaration of intent, angle of attack, facing, ect, by referring to just a basic summary of targetable parts, and what effects, if any, either damaging at all, or reaching specific damage benchmarks would have. As much or as little complexity as you want, too, you thing angle and facing are too complicated, then throw 'em out, and maybe unify "arms" and "legs" as necessary.
5:00 Treantmonk do you not know about the PHB errata (look up "dnd spellcasting errata" and it should be the 1st result, go to the 3rd page of the pdf) saying "Material (M) (p. 203). The final paragraph now reads, 'A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell’s material components-or to hold a spellcasting focus-but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components.'"?
I think for rule 1 "no foci", it should work as of u had an empty hand (no shield or weapon) u could hold a foci to add your proficiency bonus, but if u wanted to cast with sword and shield in hand (without having to drop them) u could still cast but would lose your proficiency bonus on the cast... Making war caster more important for those characters.
I would put a few Rules: -System Shock: When a Huge Blow hits you, like a Desintegrate Beam, even if you don't insta die for the damage, you should roll a d20. If you roll less than your Con, you survive, otherwise you fall unconscious. -When someone dropped to 0 and get some healing. The unconscious player must roll a System Shock. If he fails he will get up in D4+1 turns. If the character gets to 0 again he must success in 2 System Shocks to get up. -1 More: If You Get a Critical Hit: you get an extra action or deal max damage.
I think it does make sense that you don't have advantage against a prone enemy in a fog cloud. If you can't see them, you can't take advantage of either the fact that they can't see you or that they're prone, so a straight roll is still right.
I liked the idea of the staredown, exploding 20s... favors people who make a lot of attacks. Which you think favors Fighters over casters who just have a DC, but then you remember eldritch blast... or Scorching Ray (if you have a way to bypass fire resistance)... and Elven Accuracy becomes even a bit better than it is already, since crits are that much more powerful. Paladins also become _concerningly_ nova.
That spellcasting penalty needs the option of reactively change and do something else that isn't spellcasting depending on what the other actors have done on their turn, a regular turn, just delayed essentially.
Nice work Chris - well done! Stare down rules are truly needed. DCC had a version for Magic contests but those rules are too easily abused. Deadland e1 rules - by John Wick - were derivative of his predecessor game Legend of the Five Rings - a pure d10 dice pool system that inspired Vampire. Circles within circles. I agree the magic focus needs changing - I use the rule that a WAND as a focus allows for S,M requirements to be met - so this makes a Wizard's wand special. I also use this ruling for HOLY SYMBOL as foci too. IMO - Giving Martial characters a boost via an initiative hack should be avoided; I run group initiative for my game and it works much better and quicker. The power of SPELLS is still the biggest IMO for 5e, and Concentration is a horrible nerf all round. My game I fixed it by crimping cantrips (they don't scale) and casting a spell is always a DC10 + spell level skill test vs spell casting attribute (removed spell attack rolls). And have the same restrictions on the skill test as a ranged attacker who has an adjacent enemy. I also really like your two weapon fighting fix.
Remember when AD&D initiative rules were 1) role for initiative order, 2) all magic users took their turn casting their spells, 3) all rage attacks were made, 4) all melee attack were made and resolved, 5) The range attacks resolved, 6) the spells resolved? I forgot if that was 1st edition, 2nd edition, or I'm remembering it wrong... but the logic was that it took longer for range attacks to reach a target when the hand-to-hand fighters were already in the scrum and magic users needed time to cast the spells. It's certainly mean a lot more spells could hit after the targets were dead from a sword through the chest.
Interesting vid to be sure, Chris! Thank you for posting! I'd be interested in seeing some of your thoughts of some of the classes and subclasses you find most interesting from Valda's Spire of Secrets. Your advert for it a few months back interested me enough in purchasing it and I think it's full of great (if a little strong at times) content!
I really feel the bit in the intro about just not being into most current RPGs. At least a couple times a month I'll be skimming through a new Kickstarter in the tabletop gaming section, read the words "Powered by the Apocalypse", and hit the back button and never look at that campaign again.
Rerolling max rolls on die is often called exploding die. I think it could be fun for certain damage rolls. The main downside i see to it is that it takes something thats already swingy and turns it up to 11. It seems like it would work best in situations where you are already rolling lots of dice and are more likely to get at least one exploding die. It might also work well as a feature for wild magic sorcerers. Like the damage die decreases a step but can explode
Agreed, exploding dice tend to work best when there are enough dice being thrown that them exploding, and even getting more than one explosion per turn, isn't weird, just good. Like, for example, say in a system, proficiency with a weapon or skill is reflected by giving you, as in Game: The subtitle games, then rolling 6 d10's to either determine number of successes, or else just add together to determine your overall performance, then getting an exploding dice is more than likely going to happen every other check, with a double explosion happening around every 4, assuming my defective ability with number magic is sorta right. There's still the potential for a truly absurd check, but the difference between getting, say, a 32 and a 38 off of one explosion or even a 32 and a 44 off of 2 is just the difference between rolling well and rolling poorly, and more nudges the game towards higher average rolls, or favoring player actions slightly if only players get it, than being overly swingy and chaotic. It DOES also encourage the idea that anything could be potentially lethal under the right circumstances, so may still want some consideration there. No badass, power armored demigod or genuine tank will ever be truly safe from a random thug smacking them with a tire iron for 2000 damage, cratering them and the surrounding street instantly. Having things like fate points might be a good idea.
Im not sure if i have the rule right because i only played it once. But I really like the advantage and disadvantage system in Starwars Age of resistance. Basically allowing positive or negative effectsto occur apart from your attack. You could miss, but still cause a good effect, or hit but a bad effect still occurs.
Best game I ever played in was an Alternity game. I really enjoyed the Ordinary/Good/Amazing success levels for actions. It helped with immersion quite a bit.
I think it could be fun to have the Vampire the Masquerade crit rules apply to the damage dice rather than the d20. So for example, a player gets a critical hit with a shortsword, normally dealing 1d6. That's increased to 2d6 because it's a crit, plus they get to re-roll any sixes they get and add the new die to their total damage. This way its more likely to come up, but still isn't too game breaking, and has the fun randomness factor.
Maybe you need to cast with a focus in a hand to benefit from your proficiency modifier? I REALLY like the idea of giving mechanical benefit to mages casting with two hands. It feels more analogous to martial classes that way. Results in some nice combo variety. Shield plus free hand, free hand plus focus. But then with war caster, you unlock shield plus weapon, two handed weapon, shield plus focus, and weapon plus focus. All with distinct mechanical pros and cons.
So much to unpack. 1) Magic for Beginners (Dragon Magazine #149) and More Magic for Beginners (Dragon Magazine #181) have rules for spell foci that can be ported forward much more easily as could the 4e rules. SR 5e was probably the best rule set I've seen (though I did grouse about limits). 2) Yes the resolution system is great and I loved running Alternity. Put I would probably start with advantage and disadvantage as the floor and then use additional dice either way. The 3.5e Unearthed Arcana has rules for porting the Alternity rules into D&D (albeit 3.5). 3) In Nomine was interesting, but your system is close to bringing back weapon speeds and casting times from AD&D or using the Exalted Battle Wheel (not that the latter would be a too bad an idea). 4) Deadlands was another fun one and some days thanks to it and the 5e Saga game I've thought about using cards instead of dice and using chips for Inspiration (just one, pfft...). But the rules for Psychic Duels can also be found in the original Oriental Adventures and Iaijutsu Focus in 3.0 OA was supposed to be another way with dealing with it (Hmmm...bring it back as a skill, make the base DC 0, and make the additional damage equal to the roll, hmmm....) 5) And with Vampire I think you are conflating different editions. Originally a 10 was just an automatic success, then it became a reroll and then it became two successes. It was never two rerolls, but the 10again and 10 as two successes fought each other through oWoD to Trinity to Exalted to nWoD to 5eWoD so much that I think there were factions in the White Wolf offices.
The only thing I question about the situation dice, is how that would work with the rogue's sneak attack? Would you change it to you have to roll a situation die to get it? Would you make it so if you have multiple sources you can add more sneak attack damage?
Hey, TM, Ever try Iron Kingdoms? I really enjoy the warmachine mini's game and they have an rpg that i thought the rpg was also quite good. The rule were real crunchy and I really enjoyed that part. Was just wondering.
Having a different benefit for each type of focus would be very thematic. Wands give +1 to ranged spell attacks, crystals raise spell save DC for mental stats by 1, and so on.
I think the biggest issue with situation die is that it very quickly breaks bounded accuracy, right? Bless is already hailed as a very powerful spell through all levels of play. With this change a wizard would get the same benefit all the time with his familiar using the help action and wouldn’t even need to use a spell slot!
I feel like the "can cast without a focus but casts better with one" rule would work best as something specifically for Sorcerers, to emphasize the innate nature of their abilities.
I'd say it would work well for artificers too, provide a material component and you can negate the need for either somatic or verbal components.
In the lore of my campaign world Sorcerers use foci, not valuable but deeply personal, wizards use components as they essentially hack the system after studying how sorcerers cast spells so they need something more. Elves can use foci but have to have them made to order at great expense.
Also have a system of extra components that make spells more powerful, albino bat guano for enhanced fire spells for example.
It really helps builds like Valor Bard. No lomger need a focus to cast spells.
The foci rules could apply to Sword Bard’s swords and make them slightly better at casting for having said focus
I’m reminded of the 1E Druid that used mistletoe as the holy symbol for spells, specifically harvested with a golden sickle on a full moon night. If the Druid had lesser mistletoe (not harvested in the prescribed way) or even some other material such as holly or even oak leaves then the spell is still cast but is less powerful. There was (of course) a whole chart describing the percentages that duration, range, etc. would be affected.
I always thought the opposite could be used, such as more expensive or rare substitute material components could be used to make a spell more effective than normal.
I'll be honest, I simplified foci at my table. I just allow the hand holding the focus to count as free for the purposes of somatic components; after all, I imagine wands and etc. to involve a lot of whippy-flippy-spinny motions anyway, and if that's not a somatic component, I don't know what is. It's still a hand not used for a shield, a weapon, or an item of some kind, so I think it's fine (and, probably what was intended, perhaps). Making some foci have a magical benefit turns them into useful loot to find at the end of a dungeon, though!
Simple and elegant, I like it!
I do the same thing. It streamlines the spellcasting experience by a lot.
That is already how the rules work tho
It's definitely clunky in the rules, but I think it is good for balance. Casters with shields are some of the strongest in a lot of aspects even when played poorly.
Material components without a cost are just a role playing tool anyway. Complex rules around S and M interactions just lead to arguments at the table and should be simplified
I'd steal "Willpower" from Chronicles of Darkness, and mash it up with the often-forgotten "Inspiration".
Each character has a number of Willpower points equal to their Proficiency Bonus. One willpower point can be spent to grant advantage on a D20 roll. These points recover at a rate of one per long rest. Additional points can be recovered by giving into your character's flaws, or staying true to your character's ideals in a difficult situation.
Wait, this is exactly what I did in my own Rpg system for a while. Just not advantage and not a d20.
I like that idea, I'll steal it
I'd steal the entire PF2e ruleset.
Joking aside, I've been trying to homebrew battle of wits and other stuff from Burning Wheel into my D&D, trying to get a framework going for RP that is more than "do whatever".
PF2e is frustratingly difficult to steal from because most of the good stuff would require implementation or modification of large numbers of individual abilities rather than being single rules you can apply generally.
@@timeforsuchaword Just play PF2e them. I have made the switch and all things are woking great, and even better, working as intended by the book. More people that are currently unsatisfied with 5e need to know 2e. Its great!
@@kat_boss5520 I have the pdfs and have played 2e a bit, but it's a bit of a mixed bag for me. I don't particularly like some the design decisions regarding magic, magic classes (I'm a little salty over the witch), and how much of the game revolves around +1/-1 modifiers. I like what they've done with martial classes, skill feats, degrees of success, and archetypes. I'm neutral on the 3 action system.
Were we to use the Escalation Die system, a DM could decide that different sources of escalation/deescalation are not created equal, and assign different buffs/debuff/situations as some number of 'Steps' on the Escalation table. I don't know that you necessarily need to merge things like Bless and magic weapons in there, but you could, and it wouldn't be much of a stretch. Still, I'd imagine a Cloak of Displacement being, say, three steps, while a simple low-level Fog Cloud being one or two steps down, flanking or a prone foe being one step, Reckless Attacks being two, and so on.
On the Bounded Accuracy topic, that's mostly a failure of anticipating multiclassing on their part; most single-classed characters don't have the tools necessary to stack bonuses up to nullify it.
the problem with implementing shadowrun focus rules into dnd is that a dnd spellcasting focus is a mundane item as are the material components in the component pouch, where as a shadowrun spellcasting focus is a Magic Item (crafted through the shadowrun enchanting rules). I would thus Classify the non costly material components and the dnd spelcasting foci as reusable fetishes, the costly expendable components as expendable fetishes, and require shadowrun spellcasting foci as magic items.
Treat them as common magic items.
...fetishes?
I'd like to see Arcane focus treated more like weapon and tool proficiencies and without them on hand you couldn't add your proficiency to you spellcasting
We set up spell focuses to cost 100gp per Spell Level (of the Spell in question). A Focus is reuseable for casting that spell and the focus is used for one spell per the spell capacity of the focus. The SPELL capacity of a Focus is...
Ring = 1 spell
Medallion = 2 spells
Wand = 3 spells
Bracier/Glove = 4 spells
Rod = 6 spells
Staff = 8 spells
Our Component Pouches system allows 10 pouches with 10 *components per pouch. Thus you could carry 10 spells worth of components with 10 castings per spell.
* Under our system, spell components are consumed with a SUCCESSFUL CASTING of a spell. We say "successful casting" because the caster must make a PROFICIENCY check against their ARCANA Proficiency with a DC of 10 + Spell Level (Proficiency bonuses all apply) to successfully cast a spell in 5e.
I like these, especially the second initiative order for spells. I would love for most spells to require that spell action to START casting, and then it would take effect the following normal initiative order. This would allow martials to have a chance to act before the spell takes effect, potentially interrupting the spell or ducking out of the way, unless the spellcaster had a crazy good initiative. It makes spellcasters more MAD which makes sense for rapid combat while performing crazy magic. Counterspell would stop being a reaction spell and would instead be a spell you can cast as a non-spellcasting action in that first initiative order. Cool ideas!
We use to play this way for 1981 basic. Just looked at the rules and realised we had it wrong but it was better. It’s side based initiative and each side declares actions, then ranged attacks then spells then melee attacks. That way a ranged attack can interrupt a spell. This does nerf magic users which was bad in 1981 but good in 5e
This is one of the optional rules my group has looked at. The good spells that everyone takes get longer casting times, and the weak stuff that always gets passed over gets fast/instant resolution. Seems good for fine tuning spell balance.
@@ldl1477 We use the THREE ACTIONS system from MYTHRAS the RPG. In our game, every ACTION takes about 2 seconds and involves attacks, moves, dodges, etc... So a PC might Move, Attack, and actively Defend which is his or her three ACTIONS. For casting, we use one ACTION for Somatic, Verbal, and Material Component use. This means that casters aren't really moving while casting (the Combat Caster FEAT allows Reaction to be used for the Verbal component so they can move). The Spell then takes effect on the NEXT round. We do this to reduce the power of casters in 5e a little bit.
One rule/option I really like in Shadowrun is specialization within a skill. You specify one aspect within a skill which you specialize in and gain a bonus +1/+2, but for everything else within the skill you get a -1/-2. The 1 or 2 signifier would depend on how narrow you specialization is.
This could work something like this: Your Cavalier Fighter is proficient in Animal Handling. You could ask the DM to specialize Animal Handling in domesticated horses, excluding anything else like livestock animals, pets and obviously wild animals. Because it makes sense for a cavalier to have better rolls on handling their horse than anything else.
I personally like the magic item improvement from Earthdawn. As you use an item more (or accomplish heroic deeds with it), it can gain power. Hate the idea of discarding old trusty +1 sword that carried you through levels once the shiney +2 came along.
On that note: Counting Coup from Deadlands works nicely into the above idea as well.
I liked the idea of the Flashback system in Blades of Darkness. It could be applied to D&D by allowing players to use the feature for either of the primary ability scores tied to their starting class. That way, it encourages role play, engages the player in the story, and highlights what makes their character unique (as a fighter, cleric, rogue, etc).
In 5e when my players roll a crit, I have them just assume that one of the dice is maxed. Nothing sucks more on a crit than double 1s, so with this a critical hit is guaranteed to do max damage +1, it makes it feel a bit more special.
I cannot remember which Edition of Chivalry and Sorcery that I tried, but it had a very unique initiative system that harkened back to earlier editions of AD&D using Weapon speeds, and Casting times shorter than "1 round"; You would roll initiative once, and then every thing you could do cost a certain number of action points which would deduct from your initiative total, and when you get to the point of needing more points than you had initiative you would wrap around to the next round and start deducting from your original initiative total (I could be remembering the wraparound rule incorrectly though). so things like your standard 6 squares of movement would cost 6 action points, attacking with a long sword would deduct points based on the size and weigh of the weapon, etc. it seemed complex on paper but in play was actually kind of elegant
I played the original C&S for about 20 years. My books have fallen apart and I can no longer find anyone willing to try it now. Granted, I simplified it a lot. I took a long time to play if you used the rules as written.
Hey, Shadowrun and Vampire are in here. These have totally different dice systems at their core from the d20 standard, I'm excited to see what you found!
One of my absolute favorite rules to steal is the Flashback system from Blades in the Dark. The game is meant to emulate a Mission Impossible-style heist movie's plot structure, and Flashbacks allow players to (within reason and, vitally, without creating paradoxes/retcons) go back in time and set up something they can use to help themselves, whether that's paying off a guard, shopping for supplies, laying a trap, or what have you. I've always felt that inspiration is ironically quite uninspiring in 5e, and Flashbacks make an excellent alternative inspiration sink, right along with the Calrissian Gambit / Lando Rule (which lets players basically say "I know a guy" and invent a potentially helpful NPC the party can track down and ask for aid from).
I felt that I wanted to use pretty much all core rules from BitD, at which point I decided It was best simply to play It.
Flashbacks, stress, partial successes, loads, engagement roll, group rolls, resistance rolls, position & effect, myriad clocks, etc. Its all so juicy, d&d could learn a lot from this. Just how It solves skill/help pilling is so incredibly simple. "Oh sure you all can help. But If you fail you increase lead stress, plus you share consequences :)"
That is an amazing idea! Think I’m going to steal that for my game. Thank you.
Great video as always, Chris!
In regards to the In Nomine thing, it's an interesting concept. I think making non-casters and casters go on seperate "rounds" might be a little too much. Personally, if I were playing a Chronurgy or War Wizard and specifically tried to make my initiative high to get to use some nice control spells, it'd feel bad if every mundane guy with a weapon acted before me in every fight.
Where I do think it'd be interesting though is for certain NPC characters. Say you have a big scary boss with supernatural powers, and you want to have a cinematic battle featuring them doing something at the start of combat. This may be an interesting way to do that. Have this supernatural being have this "supernatural action" it can take on a seperate round before the party get to act. Think it would certainly make the players pay attention to this guy, and to show that this isn't their normal enemy.
I love the Test of Wills idea! I’m definitely going to implement that when I DM, thanks for this fun mechanic.
I’m currently playing in a Strahd game, and the DM has taken the stress and panic mechanics from Mothership, which has been working out really well. Much better than the stress penalties in VRGtR, highly recommend it for any horror D&D campaigns.
Test of wills could act as initiative. I think it may be a good solution to the pc who attacks while the NPC is talking - your initiative roll becomes a sleight of hand or deception and the NPC’s roll is a perception roll. Everyone else rolls normally
I like that one as well as a "general" system, but I would run it more like a series of opposed "death saving throws" (i.e. the one to win three checks win the contest). Winning a check by a large margin might grant you two successes instead of only one.
And then, if you win the contest 3:0 you get a bigger benefit than if it were 3:2, for example.
That kind of test could also be for opposed arm wrestling matches, etc.
Its like you can read my mind. This topic was just what i was thinking about on the last few days to make some houserules for my future tables. So very nice, thank you
I also started d&d back in the 80s in college. I do remember our DM had a Homebrew rule for critical hits. If we rolled a nat 20 on an attack roll he would ask us to roll percentage dice. Depending on the percentage our hit could be we rolled max damage on the weapon die, did double or triple damage, wounded a leg to immobilize our opponent or for rolling 90 and above we severed a body part off up to a roll of 100 meaning we cut the head off. He also had a similar rule for a nat 1 where we could possibly drop or break our weapon or even injure ourselves. I really like the human frailty that brought to the game.
My favorite rule I've taken was the stealth & awareness rules from PF2e. It cleans up so much confusion amongst players who want to Hide in combat.
*Unaware:* They don't know you're there.
*Hidden:* They know you're there, but they don't know where.
*Concealed:* They know where you are, but they can't see you.
It just really clears up all the, "But they know where you are!" & "But my Stealth beat their Passove Perception!" complaints that come with using Hide in combat. Yes you hid from them, no they don't see you, yes they have a solid idea of where you are. It's basically RAI already, but since the rules on stealth make no distinction between different ways of being hidden, it means that GMs constantly have to create their own definitions that either make the Rogue OP or make Cunning Action to Hide literally impossible to use.
Those distinctions are great. I've always had trouble thinking of just how hidden you'd need to be for certain benefits to make sense. Would you mind explaining what mechanical differences you run between these 3 stages of awareness?
On Vampire: If you wanted to run a very lethal, gritty game, you could have exploding damage dice. Obviously, this makes pretty combat and hazards a *lot* more dangerous, but if you are implementing this rule then that's probably the style of game you are after.
That would really favor Rogues, Paladins, and certain spells like Fireball. If you just wanted to make normal attacks more lethal, you could say this only applies to the normal damage dice of a melee weapon attack, which would mitigate some of these concerns.
Yeah I would only let die from weapons do exploding damage.
@@DaDunge Magic missile, if you followed the "roll a bunch of d4, not just 1d4 then multiply" method that some prefer (I do, even though it's more work), would be REALLY scary with the exploding die rule lol
Yeah just weapon die seems like a good idea
I use the exploding dmg die rule at my table for any dmg source. I like the excitement it adds.
Vicious Mockery just got WAY better
1) One of my favorite parts of Shadowrun was its initiative system, which rewarded characters for rolling really high by potentially giving them extra turns in a round of combat. It would absolutely have to be tweaked so as not to be destroyed by Crossbow Expert Sharpshooters, but it would help to give Dexterity-based melee characters not to regret not making a GWM/PAM Strength-based character instead. It might even make dual wield characters feel like they're contributing via death by a thousand cuts.
2) I like inspiration points when DMs give them out and more when players do something really cool to earn them. But I really, really liked the Force Point system in the WEG's version of Star Wars. You were actively encouraged to try to use your points to be cool and heroic, and could be rewarded with more points when the usage was successful. Again, would probably require some degree of balancing to combat.
3) At a time when THAC0 was still a thing, I really appreciated the simplicity of Paranoia's rolling - roll well, you did good. Roll high, you did bad. 3rd Edition D&D went the opposite, but to this day when I get someone to play Paranoia for the first time there a genuine level of glee when they roll a 1 and you tell them it was a critical success. Meanwhile, the schadenfreude of them thinking a 20 was a good thing is palpable. Sometimes it's amusing to make up a random results table and have the lower results be the better options.
Force Points in WEG Star Wars are great for making the game _feel_ like Star Wars. You can practically hear the John Williams score kick in when a player spends one.
One rule that I adapted from another game came from Pathfinder 2e: Each time a character drops to 0 HP and is then healed (with say a Healing Word or Cure Wounds, or even a natural 20 on the Death save), that character is affected by the near-death experience. They immediately suffer 1 level of Exhaustion, and will recover 1 level after each long rest. If they nearly die several times in 1 day, it will take several days for them to fully recover all those Exhaustion levels, and they could even die simply from the sheer Exhaustion of all that trauma!
I played so much Shadow Run in the 90s. Chris is right - rules are a mess, but a good GM can make it work. Lots of fun.
What if with the Situation Di, that you add them when you have multiple sources of advantage. Like if you have advantage and then would gain advantage from another source then you get still get advantage but also a 1d4 situation di etc...
"If a spell has a somatic component, you can use the hand that performs the somatic component to also handle the material component." SAC so only one hand is required
Variable initiative is already implemented somewhat in the DMG. It adds an “action speed” system!
I have a very similar house rule. Spell casters still need a spell focus or a spell component pouch. Players don't need components to cast a spell (except those that have a GP cost) just as you mentioned however, the player has the option to make the effort to actively search for and obtain the spell components (in-game). I don't make all the components so easy to obtain. I also occasionally add rare/upgraded versions of spell components to my games. If a player uses the spell components that they have actively obtained when they cast a spell, then I'll give the player a minor bonus to the spell's effect. The spell components are always consumed in the casting of the spell unless specifically stated in the spell's description. If they used rare upgraded versions of the spell components then I add a major bonus to the spell's effect.
I think just tying proficiency bonus for spellcasting to the foci would work too. It lets spellcasters in a prison situation still use their spells, just not nearly as well.
Situation die seems very interesting BUT in tabletop, keeping track of all variables would get tedious and drag down your turns with extra computations. If done automatically, like in a videogame, im all for it
Oh, GURPS. I still remember having to do integrals for the vehicle rules.
The Staredown rules from Deadlands are also some of my favorite thing ever in TTRPGs. It's SO intanse.
Here isone I've been discussing with my wife: the help rules from Mongoose Traveller 2e (a scifi system). A player can assist a different player at a skill roll by rolling a different skill and their sucess or failiure translates into a bonus (potentially negative if they rolled low) for the "primary task".
Here is an example from traveller: the sensor operator wants to scan asteroids in a belt for a hidden research station the players want to discover.
The mechanic gets the idea that they could try to finetune the sensors for that specific task.
So the mechanic rolls a "computer (intelligence or education)" check and their result becomes a modifier (ranging from -2 to +2) for the "sensors (education)" check of the sensor operator.
The way to translate the result of the first roll is by checking how far above (or below) their DC the first person was - e.g. between DC - 1 and DC + 1 the main task gets a +0, but between DC + 2 and DC + 5 they'll get a +1 (above that would be a +2, and similarly for bad results - of course I just made up these numbers the intervals could be different)
One last thing: of course the way the 2nd person assists must make sense, which is up zo the DM to interpret.
Oh I forgot to add: there can be more than just 2 people in the so called "task chain". A 3rd player might have an idea how to help the mechanic in which case they roll their check and the mechanic uses that modifier for their own roll, helping or hindering them.
@26:40 Love the scaling of the rolls, like the 1-4 over the tie you get to unnerve the opponent, and above something stronger.
Had the idea earlier that as the many spells that control the opponent (charm person, hold person, etc.) have a very stark cutoff point of either working or not, how about have them have a lesser effect instead if the roll is between the range of say -5 - +5?
Such as:
Hold person, when it half-succeeds, instead slows the target, or the spell duration is only 1 turn.
Charm person could similarly be "confused" for a turn, meaning incapacitated or stunned, or the duration is set to 1 turn.
Many other spells could have a similar effect.
So here is one for your one shot horror adventures (such as Curse of Strahd or other Ravenloft adventures) - the Stress system from Alien: The RPG. Each character has a stress level, which goes up when they see something horrific and goes down when they rest. A character's stress level adds both benefits and potentially penalties for checks and actions. it also ties the party together - one character failing a stress check and freaking out affects everyone else.
One recently released Kickstarter project called Level Up 5e more or less implements the Alternity situational die as 'Expertise' die as a way to give out situational bonuses. It's quite interesting!
Yeah, I noticed that too!
I think one thing I would add to 5e from a different system is the Luck skill from Call of Cthulhu. As a DM it just gives you so many options, firstly the ability to give players more agency in scenes and secondly to make "luck" a characteristic of the character rather than the player. It's such a fun mechanic and I often find myself reaching for it even when I'm not DMing for CoC.
Agreed. It's great from a narrative of pov that players have a resource they can can save for key rolls, and if they used it up earlier and fail a key roll it has some player agency leading to that failure, not just pure bad luck.
please do more videos like that, I love that type of content
Alternity! I played a psychokinetic fraal mind walker when I was 12 and I haven't thought of those words in that order since! Blast from the past! Thank you for that ❤
The vampires of the masquerade mechanic you spoke about reminds me of the exploding dice from other games. I always thought that would be a neat feature to have in D&D but not sure how to implement it.
I like that advantage and disadvantage don't stak but I with the help action allowed a player to either grant advantage or choose to remove disadvantage from a roll to give the help action more use
man i watching your vid and literally in the middle of converting some rules over to d20 for a starwars game from alternity i loved that game back in the day
ive been use this system for multi advantage for a bit now it great
What are your thoughts on 4e? I know it gets a lot of hate, but it really rewarded optimization and had some rules worth stealing. Minion enemies were great. PC Weapon Size made more sense in 4e. A normal sized short-sword did 1d6, a large sized one did 1d8, then 1d10 etc. I don't like the implied rules that PC weapons increase from 1d6 to 2d6 to 3d6 in 5e. It makes for weird power scaling in edge cases, not that it comes up terribly often in either system. Flanking in 4e gave advantage, which was just a +2 to hit back then. There's the optional flanking rule in 5e, but I think they should keep it at +2 to hit so that it could stack with advantage OR disadvantage.
I also think that action conversion was really neat. In 4e, you could give up your standard action to take either an extra minor action or move action on your turn, or give up your move action to take another minor action. While move actions aren't a thing in 5e and this wouldn't fit 5e's action economy since bonus actions are balanced around the idea of only getting one per turn, there could easily be spells that use up your ability to move instead of your actions. Like if Misty Step let you teleport but you couldn't move normally that turn, rather than costing a bonus action, or even gave you the option between the two. Or if giving up your movement speed let you do other strategic things that turn. Imagine a fighter maneuver that cost no action, prevented you from moving, but gave an ally a huge boost to speed, basically replicating a Warlord power from 4e.
I totally use Minions in my 5e game, and I usually tell my players when an opponent gets bloodied. Though there are no mechanical keys to being bloodied in 5e, it does give the PCs a better idea of which enemies are most injured.
Alterity's situation dice sound like what I would add in: Shadow of the Demon Lord's boon and bane system.
All the "situational dice" are d6s. Boons and banes add and subtract from each other, so 2 banes and three boons make one d6 that gets rolled and added to your roll.
You may want to check it out. It may be closer to d and d and is a good game. It's basically d and d edge lord edition.
Oh! Shadow of the demon lord has fast and slow turned. Certain actions are fast and some are slow. May be worth looking at.
I love the outside of the box thinking. For me I went back to my favorite childhood game which was champions. While I know it would be a complete change from the current system. getting rid of the d20 and moving to a 3d6 method would be a great start to the concept of bounded accuracy.
as for that "test of wills" staredown in fantasy - it could maybe even work for melee combat as well. Just as the gunshlinger reads teh opponent, so does the swordsman, knowing which attack the enemy will make, what feints will be used, and how to get around them.
There is a great scene in the Shadow of the Conqueror book, near the beginning, where the very old POV character explains this after besting a young guy, even tho he can barely walk in his old age.
I really like the situation die concept, especially if integrated throughout the design.
The first rule Id move over would be the concept of contacts in shadowrun. these are NPC your charfacter knows that can help them out every now and then. it adds beckground and roleplaying opportunity into the system in a very realistic and helpful way.
Magic school specific spell focus. + half proficiency bonus (rounded down) to save DC
The rule I like for initiative is everyone roles and there are two phases: phase 1 is movement and goes from lowest to highest, phase 2 is your actions and go from highest to lowest.
The rule I like conceptually for initiative is from DC Heroes 3rd edition. Where you roll for initiative each round and the lowest in the tally declares what action they are wanting to take, then you follow the list up from next lowest until you reach the top. The person with the highest init does not declare their action. They instead just act. Then you resolve every declared action in order. If you change your action at all during your turn then you have a penalty to your action.
This setup seems like a really cool idea, but takes forever to get through a round.
Edge of the Empire/Force and Destiny/Age of Rebellion has some 2-sided "force" tokens that you flip randomly at the start of each session. The GM can take a token that has the dark side facing up to give a bonus to one of the opponents, and then flip it over to light side. The players can use any tokens on the light side for a bonus to one of their rolls, and flips it to the dark side.
Could replace inspiration, which nobody ever seems to use
So, situation bonus die is basically the PF circumstance bonus/penalty. For the stare down, I liked Rifts’ use of horror factor for their gunslingers. I personally would pull the PF2E rule for magic weapons where each +1 adds an additional damage die to bring parity between martial and magic characters. I also like the concept of critical success/failure that it has, where the effect happens whenever you succeed/fail by 10. I would also pull martial arts styles from 3E or PF2E.
I'm not sure if it was something taken from another system, but a DM I played with a while back had something he called a Shenanigans Dice: basically a d60 that was rolled at the beginning of the session to set a DC for the session. Then, anytime a player wants to try something that doesn't have a mechanical option or something totally off the wall, they'd roll the d60 to beat the previously set DC, resetting the DC each time using the roll they just made.
I realized now as I use it in games that it's like the Force Points (I think, I might be mistaken) from the FFG Star Wars RPG, where players can rewrite minor bits of reality to allow for cool stuff to happen.
I loved the initiative cycle/wheel concept in Exalted, where different actions had a speed which told you how many counts should pass before your next action. A lot of video games have implemented this since the count is automated, and I wish there was a convenient way to do it for a game like D&D.
I like the idea of getting Shaken from Savage Worlds in terms of it representing the ebb and flow of combat, getting put on the defensive and needing to regain momentum.
Awesome ideas! I'm stealing several of these for my home game.
The main rules I'd steal for 5e D&D come from 4e D&D. 4e style weapons with clearly defined weapon category keywords that feats & class features can key off of, and variable bonus to both hit and damage.
4e style implements that basically work like weapons with the same kinds of trade offs for one or two handed, variable bonuses to spell attack rolls, and various damage dice which spells would then use. For example, a spell might deal 4x your spell focus damage, which might be a hefty 8d6 for a damage focused two handed staff with 2d6 damage (the casting version of a greatsword), or a mere 4d8 for an accuracy focused one handed wand (casting equivalent of a rapier).
4e style encounter design, where a 'standard' encounter for a 4th level party of four is four cr4 monsters, but with cr4 'elite' monsters that count as 2 or 'solo' monsters that count as 4, with hit points and action economy to fit but attacks and defenses still appropriate for level 4. By the book encounter design in 5e is a big hassle, especially for single enemy 'boss' encounters. In 5e if you want a boss encounter you use a higher level monster... & either tpk the party because they cant hurt it and it one shots all the pcs or, more often, the party steam rolls it due to overwhelming action economy, with legendary saves and lair actions being both fairly inelegant and mostly failing to make up the difference.
4e style commitment to each class/subclass having cool things it can do all the time, stronger things it can do some of the time (encounter powers / short rest recharge abilities), and a few big guns that only get to come out once a session or so (daily powers / long rest abilities). These things don't have to look the same, 4e giving every character the same number of the same type of powers at the same levels was a mistake, but I think some of the 'essential' classes kate in 4e's life were on the right track. Eg the executioner assassin with martial art technique at will powers, one big assassin strike per encounter in place of other class's selections of more modedt encounter powers, and a set of poisons they could brew each day in place of daily powers with combat uses if spplied to weapons or other interesting non-combat uses if applied in other ways. Yes the balance wasnt perfect, that assassin strike wasnt really equivalent to 3 to 4 encounter powers on another striker, but the idea was there, and the point is that, even with relatively unique abilities, the class still had a similar dprwad of at-will/encounter/dsily effects which meant they were affected in similar ways by unusually long or short adventuring days. Which is the big benefit here. In 5e a DM can't vary the daily encounter structure without throwing off class balance.
My favorite RPG theft for D&D is from Tenra Bansho Zero and I use it to modify Inspiration, which is probably the least used rule from 5e. Rather than explain how it works in TB0 here's what I do in D&D: I use poker chips. Each session every player gets a white poker chip. Any time during the session if another player does something they think is worthy of inspiration they can exchange it for a blue chip which goes to that player that did the inspirational thing. As DM I also can give out red chips whenever I think someone did something worthy of inspiration. At the end of the session any unused blue chips are lost (though occasionally I'll declare they stick around if we have to end mid initiative due to RL circumstances) but red chips persist. This offloads some of the responsibility of calling out the players cool actions from the DM. Aside from persisting between sessions both blue and red chips can be used just like inspiration. This can lead to a player having 2 inspiration (one blue, one red) but it's fine.
I don't allow use on the action that garnered the inspiration. That is to say, if player A declares they're going to do some kind of awesome chandelier swinging swashbuckling action or just a great RP description of what they're about to do, even if player B gives them inspiration for it, they can't use it on that roll. This avoids mising the system, and as DM I can always veto it if the players are exchanging chips for purely mechanical results.
Finally sometimes when Player A does something awesome and I wholeheartedly agree and another player goes to give them inspiration, I'll instead give Player A a red chip and have Player B keep their white chip to give to someone later.
I was hesitant to watch this video because I try to avoid homebrew. However, it ended up being a pleasant watch filled with nostalgia and strong game design theory. I love GURPS, and In Nomine, and Shadowrun, Deadlands, White Wolf despite their flaws. It is nice to hear Chris share some of the sentiment.
For our critical hits, we use a number of SPECIAL EFFECTS based on the weapon/attack types and many of these effects come from either MYTHRAS or FANTASY AGE. On a roll of 20 (when a 20 isn't needed To Hit) you get the weapon's MAXIMUM DAMAGE plus a Special Effect. On a roll of more than 5 over the To hit number (including all bonuses), you get to pick one of your weapon's effects but no maximum damage. Some examples of those Special Effects include...
IMPALE (piercing weapons) = Max damage + rolled damage and the weapon is embedded in the target unless you roll a STR save to pull it out.
SLASH (slashing weapons) = Roll 3 sets of Damage dice and discard the lowest result. The weapon is embedded in the target just like above but you have ADVANTAGE on any test to remove the weapon.
CRUSH (bludgeoning weapons) = Max damage and the target is STUNNED for 1 round + an additional round if the damage inflicted exceeds the target's CON score. The target must make a DEX or STR save (whichever is the lower save) or be knocked prone as well. They have DISADVANTAGE on the Save if damage exceeds CON.
PIN OPPONENT (nets, shields, polearms, spears, staffs) = The opponent must save against either DEX or STR (using whichever is better) or be immobilized by the attack (cannot move or act) on the next round. They suffer DISADVANTAGE on the save if damage exceeds STR. This PIN action lasts until the attacker releases it or the target saves.
ENTANGLE OPPONENT (nets, whips, flails) = You entangle the opponent's weapon or limb preventing attack (but not the movement of the target) unless they save against the worst of STR or DEX (with DISADVANTAGE if damage exceeds STR).
TRIP OPPONENT = You trip your opponent so hard that they fall and must save versus DEX (with DISADVANTAGE if damage exceeds STR) or suffer DISADVANTAGE from the fall all of next round. They are also prone and must spend their ENTIRE move action getting back up.
DISARM OPPONENT = You knock your opponent's weapon out of their hand IF they fail a DEX save (with DISADVANTAGE if damage exceeds STR). Two-handed weapons get ADVANTAGE on the save. The weapon is knocked 5ft (1-2), 6ft to 10ft (3-4), or 11ft to 15ft (5-6) away and the target MUST use its normal attack action to retrieve the weapon.
PUSH/REDIRECT OPPONENT = IF your opponent fails a DEX save (with DISADVANTAGE IF damage exceeds STR), you can move them 5 feet or change their facing 90 degrees against their will. If the damage exceeds the target's STR, you may move them 10 feet, change their facing 180 degrees, or move them 5 feet AND change their facing 90 degrees.
INTIMIDATE/OUTMANEUVER = You inflict DISADVANTAGE on the target and their INITIATIVE roll is halved next round IF they fail a WIS or INT save (whichever is lower).
There are more SEs which we use. These are just the basic ones. We award Special Effects by Weapon Type, Feats taken, Class Ability, and [Fighter's] Fighting Style. The player chooses which special effect they will use based on the current situation they find themselves in.
I feel like the In Nomine inverted initiative idea would work well for mid- to low-magic games where the party has, at most, one or two spellcasters. It'd offer another tactical layer to combat, at the expense of potentially slowing it down, as you're shuffling initiative priorities on a turn-by-turn basis. Initiative boosters like the Chronurgist's would still be valuable, but not encounter-destroying; the difference between a Hypnotic Pattern slung into the enemy's ranks on the first round, versus the first turn after everyone has (potentially) engaged in melee, is tactically interesting, and might offer some more frequent critical thinking and opportunity-cost management.
I don't think it's for most groups, though.
I feel like we could use the battle of wills for quite a few situations; I can imagine such a thing being a culturally-significant part of tribal societies. Perhaps that Frost Giant village decides its next chieftain when the last dies by a contest of wills; their leader must have the 'iciest stare' in the village, opening up the chance for your Goliath PC to step in and make a bid for it, for example.
I love the action economy system from Shadowrun / Pathfinder 2e, where things cost varying numbers of Action Points, which is much more intuitive of having Actions and Bonus Actions.
You're amazing, Treant!
I really like the idea of a test of wills
20:45 If you really wanted to do that how about spells are declared during the main phase but only resolves during the spellcasting phase. So you could see like "Oh no that casters is starting to cast fireball (though we don't know where, he only choses the spot when the spell resolves.), we need to spread out" or "Quick damage him down before he gets that spell off"
Comments and suggestions
Shadowrun - Making bard spells useable with focuses is easy. Allow focuses to be used with any spell regardless of components. My main issue here is that it gives a power boost to foci, the 5e insert to make spellcasting easier, but then sidelines material components almost entirely. You'd need something to balance this out. I would suggest rare material components that can boost or change the spell. To differentiate the options I would go with spell foci changing the casting/maintaining spell elements, like you listed, where rare materials would change the elements of the spell itself. Damage type, damage total, save type. Each material would be a consumable magic item, and any given one could only work on a limited list of spells, but as such the effects could be larger and more varied.
Alternity - I like this. Two potential variations. First, instead of having the extra dice scaling up and down you could have each instance of dis/advantage add a d6 which cancel each other out. You then roll all of them taking the largest number. You might also want to make each 6 beyond the first add +1 to the total. This choice is a little more tactile plus more intuitive when adding the dis/advantages.
My other take is that you don't remove normal dis/advantage, but in certain places that would give you dis/advantage get the added dice instead. Blindness is a perfect example of this. You might want to have these instances give you dis/advantage first, but add the dice if it's cancelled out or you get another instance of dis/advantage.
In Nomine - There is a basic issue with this idea, the action economy muddies the clean lines of this. You could use the speed factor initiative system from the DMG to build on this. Also you might want to have 3 passes. Ranged; Melee; Magic. Some variations to that could be, hidden creatures and melee creatures with *class* movements bonus can go during the ranged pass. Casting a spell as a bonus action could move them to the Melee pass, provided they don't also cast a cantrip. Clerics (maybe druids and bards) can spend a hit dice to go during the melee pass but only to use a spell that heals allies, provided they don't do anything that would deliberately harm an enemy (walk into range with spirit guardians up for example). Characters who don't cast spells could go in the spell pass to gain advantage on a skill check (mainly stealth).
Deadlands - Ridicule would be Intimidation (Cha) or Performance (Cha) vs Insight (Cha) (Think of spells that require charisma saves). Bluff would be Deception (Cha) or Persuasion (Int) vs Insight (Int or Wis). Overawe is Intimidation (Cha) vs Insight (Wis).
Vampire the Masquerade - *Exploding dice!* My criticism of rerolling the D20s on skill checks is that the average bonus is 10.5 to the roll. 10 is the difference in DC between Easy and Hard checks, and between Hard and Nearly Impossible checks. When an ability check has tiered difficulty levels it is usually spread out in chunks of 5. Instead roll a d6/d8/d10 (I don't know which) and then add the result then explode *this* dice. Maybe allow the player to roll two and take the highest if you have advantage. This might be dangerous though.
As for critical hits, just do one reroll. If that is a crit then explode the damage dice rolled. d12s, and maybe d10s, should explode on the two highest options.
Btw, for those not in the know. The term "exploding dice" is the name for this mechanic originating from Warhammer 40k
I have used a rule of sorts from Shadowrun, it is a similar rule that is in Werewolf/Vampire/Etc., that is the more you are hurt the worse you are doing. Now I don't do it the way it does in those games though. What I have done in my game is when you are bloodied, you have disadvantage on pretty much anything, until you are knocked out. It doesn't apply to death saves. But, it is reflective of the fact that you are hurt, you are not operating at full potential.
That also stops the tactic of "heal them 1 point after they drop" from being as effective.
@@Wouldyoukindly4545 Yes it does. Pre-emptive healing becomes more important, as does good tactics.
@@Scott-ig6nx that's what I meant. It makes pre-emptive better than post-emptive. As is, it is usually better using small heals *after* they drop.
What I wanna know is how do you balance enconunters for optimized parties? I would imagine you play with other optimizers, so I'm curious if the DM has to do anything with the numbers, mechanics or playstyle to compensate or if the party just steamrolls every encounter.
Loved this video Chris! Did u ever try the old d6 star wars rpg? To me the most fun die system😁
The WEG d6 Star Wars system is my favorite ruleset ever. It's so simple and elegant compared to d20-based games of the same era like D&D 2e and the various Palladium systems (e.g. _Rifts_ ).
I like FATE a lot and use some rules variations from it for D&D.
Success w/ Consequences: sometimes a player will fail a die roll that stalls out forward progress of the game (picking a lock, interrogating a suspect, knowledge/lore check, etc.); but the PCs are supposed to be capable action heroes, so I'll narrate a success but add a consequence that's outside the character's control (set off a trap or alarm, gives up the location but keeps secret the presence of a trap or hidden sentry or adds a red herring, leaping a 'bottomless' pit might have you scrambling up the other side as your backpack or swordbelt falls away from a broken strap.)
Crit. Fails: on a natural 1, I'll let a player narrate a crit fail on their character in return for Inspritation (which I mostly forget to use); maybe something more if the consequences more lasting than drop my weapon or slip and fall prone.
Sacrifice Equipment: (I forget where I first saw this, in a youtube broadcast game) I'll let a player sacrifice a shield or take damage to their armor to negate a crit. or be dropped to 1hp instead of 0hp.
Spin: 3rd ed. FATE: on critical hit, instead of doing extra damage, a character can cause a special affect (disarm, knock prone, blinded for 1 turn, ???)
I would love to have a pdf of these suggestions. Easier to see and learn for some of us!
Although it's a bit more complex, if I were to mess with initiative specifically for casters I'd probably have spells declared at initiative but resolve at initiative minus x (where x is maybe spell level or something) with negative-number initiative looping back around to 20 and counting down on the next turn (or happening at the start of the caster's next turn). Spells are still usually taking effect after martials take their turn, but if casters pump up their initiative enough they can get spells off before anyone can react.
Depending on how kind you want to be, declaration of a spell could be either:
- specific spell and target
- spell school and target
- specific spell only
Spell focuses as a beneficial but not mandatory item already existed in D&D - that's how implements worked in 4e.
In Nomine has such amazing lore! Such a wonderful game!
I saw a paladin roll 4 20's, or was it 5, we called him the Insectbane, because it was all on giant mites.
Currently playing through a Deadlands campaign, and it's been kinda scary how good exploding dice have been. While that wouldn't come up much with d20s (really only necessary for skills/saves that were impossible otherwise), it could be a mechanic to add more damage to weapons and spells and make the game deadlier, and much faster at higher levels when HP totals tend to make battles take forever. Would also make feats like Savage Attacker and Piercer much better.
I think test of wills would work well with the saving throw mechanic. While some tests of will make sense as an opposed roll, ridicule seems really well suited for causing the target to make a wisdom saving throw.
Rather than having exploding dice, one of my tables does +3 or -3 for natural 20s and 1s respectively on ability checks. It helps keep the bounded accuracy while giving a nice little boost.
One of the best rules I've taken from another game are Battletech's hit locations. It's just a simple 2D6 roll + a modifier for the direction and than you lookup everything on a small table. The big advantage over D20 based versions of hit locations, is that you need less information and that it can be rolled together with an attack.
Only problem is when you need to figure out whether a beholder is a quadropede or not :)
Super useful for things like called shots, kills, etc..
Just going with a D8 or D10 by default, and applying different weight by creature proportions or angle would probably be good enough.
Beholder gets, on a D10 from the front, for example, 1-2 central eye, 3-4 mouth, 5-6 a nondescript area of the upper head, and 7-10 would individually correspond to specific minor eyes.
You could adjust the weighting of each table by player declaration of intent, angle of attack, facing, ect, by referring to just a basic summary of targetable parts, and what effects, if any, either damaging at all, or reaching specific damage benchmarks would have. As much or as little complexity as you want, too, you thing angle and facing are too complicated, then throw 'em out, and maybe unify "arms" and "legs" as necessary.
5:00 Treantmonk do you not know about the PHB errata (look up "dnd spellcasting errata" and it should be the 1st result, go to the 3rd page of the pdf) saying "Material (M) (p. 203). The final paragraph now reads, 'A spellcaster must
have a hand free to access a spell’s material components-or to hold a spellcasting focus-but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components.'"?
I think for rule 1 "no foci", it should work as of u had an empty hand (no shield or weapon) u could hold a foci to add your proficiency bonus, but if u wanted to cast with sword and shield in hand (without having to drop them) u could still cast but would lose your proficiency bonus on the cast... Making war caster more important for those characters.
I would put a few Rules:
-System Shock: When a Huge Blow hits you, like a Desintegrate Beam, even if you don't insta die for the damage, you should roll a d20. If you roll less than your Con, you survive, otherwise you fall unconscious.
-When someone dropped to 0 and get some healing. The unconscious player must roll a System Shock. If he fails he will get up in D4+1 turns. If the character gets to 0 again he must success in 2 System Shocks to get up.
-1 More: If You Get a Critical Hit: you get an extra action or deal max damage.
I think it does make sense that you don't have advantage against a prone enemy in a fog cloud. If you can't see them, you can't take advantage of either the fact that they can't see you or that they're prone, so a straight roll is still right.
I liked the idea of the staredown, exploding 20s... favors people who make a lot of attacks. Which you think favors Fighters over casters who just have a DC, but then you remember eldritch blast... or Scorching Ray (if you have a way to bypass fire resistance)... and Elven Accuracy becomes even a bit better than it is already, since crits are that much more powerful. Paladins also become _concerningly_ nova.
That spellcasting penalty needs the option of reactively change and do something else that isn't spellcasting depending on what the other actors have done on their turn, a regular turn, just delayed essentially.
Nice work Chris - well done!
Stare down rules are truly needed. DCC had a version for Magic contests but those rules are too easily abused.
Deadland e1 rules - by John Wick - were derivative of his predecessor game Legend of the Five Rings - a pure d10 dice pool system that inspired Vampire. Circles within circles.
I agree the magic focus needs changing - I use the rule that a WAND as a focus allows for S,M requirements to be met - so this makes a Wizard's wand special. I also use this ruling for HOLY SYMBOL as foci too.
IMO - Giving Martial characters a boost via an initiative hack should be avoided; I run group initiative for my game and it works much better and quicker.
The power of SPELLS is still the biggest IMO for 5e, and Concentration is a horrible nerf all round. My game I fixed it by crimping cantrips (they don't scale) and casting a spell is always a DC10 + spell level skill test vs spell casting attribute (removed spell attack rolls). And have the same restrictions on the skill test as a ranged attacker who has an adjacent enemy.
I also really like your two weapon fighting fix.
Remember when AD&D initiative rules were 1) role for initiative order, 2) all magic users took their turn casting their spells, 3) all rage attacks were made, 4) all melee attack were made and resolved, 5) The range attacks resolved, 6) the spells resolved? I forgot if that was 1st edition, 2nd edition, or I'm remembering it wrong... but the logic was that it took longer for range attacks to reach a target when the hand-to-hand fighters were already in the scrum and magic users needed time to cast the spells.
It's certainly mean a lot more spells could hit after the targets were dead from a sword through the chest.
Interesting vid to be sure, Chris! Thank you for posting!
I'd be interested in seeing some of your thoughts of some of the classes and subclasses you find most interesting from Valda's Spire of Secrets. Your advert for it a few months back interested me enough in purchasing it and I think it's full of great (if a little strong at times) content!
I really feel the bit in the intro about just not being into most current RPGs. At least a couple times a month I'll be skimming through a new Kickstarter in the tabletop gaming section, read the words "Powered by the Apocalypse", and hit the back button and never look at that campaign again.
Rerolling max rolls on die is often called exploding die. I think it could be fun for certain damage rolls. The main downside i see to it is that it takes something thats already swingy and turns it up to 11.
It seems like it would work best in situations where you are already rolling lots of dice and are more likely to get at least one exploding die.
It might also work well as a feature for wild magic sorcerers. Like the damage die decreases a step but can explode
Agreed, exploding dice tend to work best when there are enough dice being thrown that them exploding, and even getting more than one explosion per turn, isn't weird, just good.
Like, for example, say in a system, proficiency with a weapon or skill is reflected by giving you, as in Game: The subtitle games, then rolling 6 d10's to either determine number of successes, or else just add together to determine your overall performance, then getting an exploding dice is more than likely going to happen every other check, with a double explosion happening around every 4, assuming my defective ability with number magic is sorta right.
There's still the potential for a truly absurd check, but the difference between getting, say, a 32 and a 38 off of one explosion or even a 32 and a 44 off of 2 is just the difference between rolling well and rolling poorly, and more nudges the game towards higher average rolls, or favoring player actions slightly if only players get it, than being overly swingy and chaotic. It DOES also encourage the idea that anything could be potentially lethal under the right circumstances, so may still want some consideration there. No badass, power armored demigod or genuine tank will ever be truly safe from a random thug smacking them with a tire iron for 2000 damage, cratering them and the surrounding street instantly. Having things like fate points might be a good idea.
Im not sure if i have the rule right because i only played it once. But I really like the advantage and disadvantage system in Starwars Age of resistance.
Basically allowing positive or negative effectsto occur apart from your attack. You could miss, but still cause a good effect, or hit but a bad effect still occurs.
The focus import from Shadowrun would make the Armorer Artificer extra good. XD
In Nomine was only licensed by Steve Jackson, it was actually from French company I think, great game.
Best game I ever played in was an Alternity game. I really enjoyed the Ordinary/Good/Amazing success levels for actions. It helped with immersion quite a bit.
Burst dice on crits is a good rule. Just make sure to put a cap on total dice rolled.
I think it could be fun to have the Vampire the Masquerade crit rules apply to the damage dice rather than the d20. So for example, a player gets a critical hit with a shortsword, normally dealing 1d6. That's increased to 2d6 because it's a crit, plus they get to re-roll any sixes they get and add the new die to their total damage. This way its more likely to come up, but still isn't too game breaking, and has the fun randomness factor.
Test of wills sounds like the rules for psychic duels from oriental adventures in in adnd.
Maybe you need to cast with a focus in a hand to benefit from your proficiency modifier?
I REALLY like the idea of giving mechanical benefit to mages casting with two hands. It feels more analogous to martial classes that way. Results in some nice combo variety. Shield plus free hand, free hand plus focus. But then with war caster, you unlock shield plus weapon, two handed weapon, shield plus focus, and weapon plus focus. All with distinct mechanical pros and cons.
So much to unpack.
1) Magic for Beginners (Dragon Magazine #149) and More Magic for Beginners (Dragon Magazine #181) have rules for spell foci that can be ported forward much more easily as could the 4e rules. SR 5e was probably the best rule set I've seen (though I did grouse about limits).
2) Yes the resolution system is great and I loved running Alternity. Put I would probably start with advantage and disadvantage as the floor and then use additional dice either way. The 3.5e Unearthed Arcana has rules for porting the Alternity rules into D&D (albeit 3.5).
3) In Nomine was interesting, but your system is close to bringing back weapon speeds and casting times from AD&D or using the Exalted Battle Wheel (not that the latter would be a too bad an idea).
4) Deadlands was another fun one and some days thanks to it and the 5e Saga game I've thought about using cards instead of dice and using chips for Inspiration (just one, pfft...). But the rules for Psychic Duels can also be found in the original Oriental Adventures and Iaijutsu Focus in 3.0 OA was supposed to be another way with dealing with it (Hmmm...bring it back as a skill, make the base DC 0, and make the additional damage equal to the roll, hmmm....)
5) And with Vampire I think you are conflating different editions. Originally a 10 was just an automatic success, then it became a reroll and then it became two successes. It was never two rerolls, but the 10again and 10 as two successes fought each other through oWoD to Trinity to Exalted to nWoD to 5eWoD so much that I think there were factions in the White Wolf offices.
Addendum to 2) I also think about bringing back miss chances instead of using just using Adv/Disad on Blur and Invisibility.
The only thing I question about the situation dice, is how that would work with the rogue's sneak attack? Would you change it to you have to roll a situation die to get it? Would you make it so if you have multiple sources you can add more sneak attack damage?
Hey, TM, Ever try Iron Kingdoms? I really enjoy the warmachine mini's game and they have an rpg that i thought the rpg was also quite good. The rule were real crunchy and I really enjoyed that part. Was just wondering.
Having a different benefit for each type of focus would be very thematic. Wands give +1 to ranged spell attacks, crystals raise spell save DC for mental stats by 1, and so on.
I think the biggest issue with situation die is that it very quickly breaks bounded accuracy, right?
Bless is already hailed as a very powerful spell through all levels of play. With this change a wizard would get the same benefit all the time with his familiar using the help action and wouldn’t even need to use a spell slot!
the thing that least makes sense about advantage: firing a longbow at 600 ft range is easier if the enemy is in a fog cloud