el_octogono

Hi! This dawning project started some months ago when I did a comment about alternative magic systems here at BRP Central. The idea was the Skill roll is made under the current value BUT over the difficulty, so no math was involved. It seemed to me a very clean mechanic, so I went and developed some other basic ideas and personal tastes. These are still in a note/ideas phase, but I wanted to share them here for feedback and whatever.

 

ND100 stands for New D100...

ND100 seeks for "player only" rolling, and adds a "success with a complication" instance.
 

Characteristics
STR    3d6
CON    3d6
DEX    3d6
INT    2d6+6
POW    3d6
CHA    3d6

I got rid of SIZ. I think it brings more trouble than solutions. Instead I use "Scale" which is a broad category. Humanoid characters have a Scale 2. My goal is to keep Characteristic values low, even for large beigns. Scale differences is what matters between different sized creatures. Think something like QuestWorlds "masteries".

Derived Stats
Hit Points = (STR+CON) /2
Energy Points = (CON+POW) /2
Damage Bonus = STR 2 or less (-6), 3 to 5 (-3), 6 to 8 (-1), 9 to 12 (none), 13 to 15 (+1), 16 to 18 (+3), 19 to 21 (+5), every 3 points (+2)
Scale = 2 (human)
Move = 8

Hit Points as usual.
Energy Points are both "magic points" and "stamina", making the pool useful for both magic and non-magic user characters.
Damage Bonus. One thing that usually bothers me is the quite large impact DB has on a characters damage. I made it a fixed value which is, at the same time, easier to use and less impactul.
Scale. As noted above.
Move. Still as usual.

Characteristic Rolls
Effort Roll = STR x3: An Effort Roll is needed when carrying, pushing or throwing objects. Objects of one Scale lower or less don’t require a roll. Objects of the same scale require a successful rol to be carried, with partial success meaning Move and physical skills are halved. Each Scale level above requires a higher success level.
Stamina Roll = CON x3: Stamina Rolls are used when a character runs, or exerts some physical activity during a prolonged length of time. Also required when a character receives a Major Wound or goes to 0HP or below.
Reaction Roll = DEX x3: Reaction Roll establishes which character reacts first in a given situation. If two characters roll the same success level, the one with higher DEX acts first, if it is the same, the one with the higher INT.
Memory Roll = INT x3: A Memory Roll is used when a character wants to recall some knowledge or detail previously seen. If the setting uses vancian magic, this roll determines whether a spell is forgot or not.
Perception/Will Roll = POW x3: Whenever a character may notice something a Perception Roll is needed. This is a passive action. For active perception activities, use the appropriate skill instead. If a character has to resist an intimidation, a moment of doubt or a magical intrusion, a Will Roll is needed.
Charisma Roll = CHA x3: This roll is made every time a character faces another for the first time. A Critical Success means social skills require one less success level. A success means the character is received in a good way. A partial success means the character is treated as any passing by. Failure means the character is not taken into account and all social skills require one higher success level. Fumble means the character is frowned upon and taken as hostile, treacherous or any other appropriate interpretation. No social skill is allowed without a really significant action.

Skills
Skills never go above 99% -- One thing I don't like is skills going higher than 100%... I know it has some useful mechanics, but it feels wrong for percentile gaming.
Skill bases are one Characteristic -- An easy way to give Characteristics more relevance.
Tick boxes -- I like them more than XP.
Skill rises 1d8. After base x5 or 90 (whichever is lowest), it raises by 1d4. -- Again, this is something to give Characteristics more relevance. Also grants some niche protection.


Skill rolls

Against set difficulty

Difficulty is expressed as a percentage value.

Roll 1d100 against difficulty, set by GM

• Roll same number on both dice, under your skill: Critical Success
• Roll under your skill BUT over the difficulty: success
• Roll under your skill AND under the difficulty: partial success, but with a complication or something happens.
• Roll above skill: failure
• Roll same number on both dice, over your skill: Fumble

Against other character or active opposition

Roll 1d100 against both player and opponent’s skill

• Roll same number on both dice, under your skill: Critical Success
• Roll under your skill BUT over the opponent’s: success
• Roll under your skill AND under the opponent’s: both succeed, or partial success, or something happens. Optionally, Player may choose both sides fail.
• Roll above skill BUT under the opponent’s: failure and opponent succeeds
• Roll same number on both dice, over your skill: Fumble

Against other character in combat

Roll 1d100 against the opponent’s skill

• Roll same number on both dice, under your skill: Critical Hit: full+roll damage
• Roll under your skill BUT over the opponent’s: Normal Hit: roll damage
• Roll under your skill AND under the opponent’s: Both sides hit: both roll damage. Player may choose to spend Energy Points* to win the tie. Optionally, Player may choose both sides fail.
• Roll above skill but under opponent's skill: failed defense: opponent rolls damage
• Roll over player AND opponent's full skill: both fail.
• Roll same number on both dice, over your skill: Fumble, opponent gets a critical hit: full+roll damage

*  Player can spend 1d4 energy points to exert himself and win the tie.

This is the meat of the mechanics. It reduces the number of rolls and makes them player facing. It makes opposed rolls less dull. It adds the "sucess with a complication" outcome, while it may be not to your taste, it's something many GMs already do when interpreting some rolls, especially opposed rolls.

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I have some notes on combat as well, but let me know what you think about it so far.

Thanks!

A quick and dirty speed up is to make the percentile and damage rolls together. Any other change I can think of would mess the dice probabilities.

A really easy solution is to have a difficulty threshold expressed in percentiles. If your character has the same or higher skill he automatically succeeds, if not, you just roll. That way you'd also solve the infamous Call of Cthulhu issue with missing clues... Just set the threshold low enough.

Quote

At any point a player may declare that their character is in a state of Fear. When in a state of Fear, the player can choose what the character focuses on. The player has three choices, Fight, Flight or Freeze. Fight gives you a +20% bonus to any Combat moves you take. Flight gives you a +20% bonus to any movement skills you have. Freeze gives you a +20% bonus to any thinking or communication skill.

I have a hombrew game with the exact same three choices, although a character's reaction to fear is chosen once as a character trait and if it tries to act in any other way it gets a penalty (-20% in this case)

I like how it makes characteristics more relevant, in fact I'd do the same with every characteristic, but making every PC choose one as focus. So a social, high APP character can make real use of those additional points spent in the stat.

I just finished a 5ed year campaign. It was uninspiring save for the GM and player effort in bringing some roleplaying moments. I started with a Tabaxi Rogue but ended multiclassing with Bard because at 7th level there were no interesting options for the Rogue, while everybody else was getting new spells and effects. It's a fine game but drifted too much away from AD&D 1st which was IMO the best D&D paradigm iteration.

Hi! I'm giving the QuestWorlds SRD a closer reading. I have some concerns right now:

- Why use the term Rank and give it a numeric value when the rules suggest learning the modifiers instead? I don't know if the Rank Values (-5 to +5) have a use in some other part of the rules. I find it a bit confusing.

- One of the main struggles I have with the system is the disconnection of the success level of the die roll with the Outcome of the conflict. Having rolled a Success and end up being defeated is quite strange and a really bad presentation for new players. (I had some arguing with some players about this). Why not change the terms to something like Ability Performance and give it names like Outstanding, Good, Regular, Bad?  I think it's clearer if a highly skilled character rolls a Bad Performance against a low skilled one that rolled a Good one and still wins the contest. Fail and Fumble are pretty "definitive" terms in my mind.

Thanks!

I agree. One roll should be enough.

2 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

What if.. most skill will be used as contest on a Resistance table like mechanic?

For example, to do power resistance I do POW+Willpower/10% vs POW+Magic/10% on the resistance table (though I don't use the resistance table, I do D20+resist >= 11+attack)

For you climbing skill it will then be DEX+Climb/10% vs Cliff Difficulty

 

Nephilim had a mechanic like this applied to different things (police heat, for example). It used the stat POTency as resistance.

It is a great game. I played the first edition in the 90s. It had some very nice mechanics like the Rational/Irrational. It also had a d10 hit location based on the 'ones' die that makes the process easier than rolling an additional d20. It also had a skill cap that depends on the characteristic stat. The setting is great but may be too realistic and oppresive, not for casual gaming.

Another possible angle would be to make CHA (not APP) and POW a single characteristic: POW. A high Power could mean someone of charisma who can exert influence and manipulate others if wanted.

57 minutes ago, g33k said:

With enough power, lasers become the snipers' weapon of choice.  No windage, no drag, no overshooting for gravity, no delay between firing and impact...

They just need power enough to generate a kill (i.e. put a hole through the target).

Wouldn't fog, clouds, smoke disperse a laser beam?

I'm no Glorantha fan, but really love the Valley of Plenty proposal. I read the "campaign notes" someone posted and really liked what I saw. Congrats!

In real life, charisma is a super useful stat. A high charisma can make you pass under the police inspection radar. May get you a new job. Might make harder for another person to say No to some request. Someone with low charisma is usually ignored, both in presence and speech, even if he is saying something interesting. 

I've made this characteristic roll for a BRP homebrew:

First Impression Roll = CHA x5

This roll is made every time a character faces another for the first time. A Critical Success means social skills require one less success level. A success means the character is received in a good way. Failure means the character is not taken into account and all social skills require one higher success level. Fumble means the character is frowned upon and taken as hostile, treacherous or any other appropriate interpretation.

Hey! Don't forget characteristics! Maybe both have Minor Noble at 57% but one of the characters has a higher CHA, and more suitable for social interaction, and the other a higher DEX, and more suitable for Dancing and other physical aspects of the "occupation".

Insight works like Intuition. A successful roll shouldn't detect lies, but should bring some doubt to the PC. You may also roll Insight to read someone's intent. Perhaps you see someone in the crowd and a successful Insight roll tell you he seems to be looking for someone and has a violent attitude. 

I watched the Cosmic Zap videos and they were awesome. I'm looking forward to it!

I use bolded words for my own game rules  but I usually do it when the term is introduced or really important to the current section. Otherwise I leave it un-bolded. That makes a nice balance and keeps attention to the new stuff you need to point at.

I've only GMed HQ2 twice... but never got it to work properly. Specifically I had much trouble trying to assign a proper difficulty to the challenge. There was a disconnection between the description I made, the difficulty level RAW and how easy it became to the PCs. I don't know if I needed to cut the challenges into smaller challenges and thus increase rolls (and tension), or just go along with the results. I did this last thing but I felt I couldn't transmit the danger to my players. I think a rules revision could include a detailed desrcription not only of the rules but of the whole process and the decisions the GM make.

Having read some Reynold's novels after playing RoH, I now get some of the "tone" of the game. However that is not quite well expressed in the rules IMO. I recommend everyone to read at least Revelation Space for a hint.

@Newt Can I get hold of Skyraiders in PDF? I missed the Kickstarter!

Yes, if I can name flaw in Elric is that of extremely high percentages, with the book even encouraging starting with combat skills above 100%. Also the rules for allegiance gains is confusing... You're supposed to roll a checked force, as any other skill, but then there are many cases where the GM grants points at will. I just used the latter. The table also has some flaws IMO in dividing too much "evil" actions as Chaotic and "good" as Lawful (or balance). 

I agree Elric! Is the best version because of the reasons Nick mentioned above. Although, one thing I disliked was the excessive presence of common spells, which were reworded spells from RQ and other games, with no relation to the setting, except one or two.

If you'd keep Elric! as a base, then maybe I'd allow these options:

• In case of tied success level, the character with higher characteristic wins
• Allow each character to deduce its characteristic points to the dice roll

If not, I would cap skill levels at Characteristic x7 or something like that.

32 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

1. A completely resistance table based game. This one is probably a big departure from normal BRP, but still works in the system I think. You can either throw skills out entirely or scale them down to 1-20, like in Pendragon. Either way, everything is resolved with the resistance table rather than regular skill rolls, with 10 as a baseline resistance.

Nephilim worked that way with many POT rolls and there was a suggestion to roll skills that way if I recall correctly...