NOVUS Old School Hack

[Fidoric]

Regarding the skill list above, I think we can make it more compact:

- Combine Athletics and Acrobatics in one Athletics skill, the difference between those skill will be made by which stat is used (Str, Con or Spd)
- Combine Bluff and Influence --> Influence
- Combine Locks, Traps and Trickery (and Streetwise ?) --> Thievery (if you consider streetwise as the "lore" side of thievery , it could be a Int + Thievery skill)
- Combine Tracking and Survival -->Survival (Outdoor), that skill could cover outdoor traps too.
- Use your first combat skill option to reduce the number of combat skills overall (with maybe some further reduction of specialties, for example axes & hammers could include clubs too for basically they are used in the same way: a handle with a heavy business end). Weapon categories should be established according to how the weapons are used rather than how they look (your axes & hammers is a very good example as is the suggestion to combine staves, spears and polearms).

The list could be:
 
    Athletics - swimming, running, lifting, perhaps climbing can be included here as well, to show off different type (str vs agility), jumps and rolls and swinging and climbing
    Combat Skills - Four types of combat skills (Melee, Missile, Thrown, Unarmed)
    Crafts - each craft includes all all skills to do the job and the lore behind it
    Healing - encompasses First Aid and more involved types of things such as surgery at higher levels of ability (it could be blended into the Crafts skill but I can see it be a defining skill so maybe it can be left on its own).
    Influence - This is the skill of negotiation and trade, of knowing how to use bribery and of making treaties and  so forth
    Lore - Must be specialized into at least a broad category (i.e. Dragon Lore, Demon/Devil Lore, etc..., can be used to cover all sorts of skill gaps
    Magecraft - for all things magical, including casting of spells
    Perception - skill in noticing what is around you...
    Performing Arts - maybe rename to Play Instruments since Bluff now covers Acting...  would perhaps specialize by type of instrument (i.e. horns, drums, stringed, woodwinds)
    Riding - as before
    Stealth - As before
    Survival - covers previous Survival and Tracking and Outdoor trapping
    Thievery - This is sleight of hand type trickery only, picking locks and disarming traps, streetwise....

[imported_Rasyr]

Okay.... so going with Fidoric's suggest (and with me playing with some slight fiddling bits...  as always...)

That gives the following....

[li]Athletics - includes all type of physical activity such as swimming, climbing, acrobatics, etc.. Stat used may be Con, Dex, Spd or Str depending on what the skill is used for[/li]
[li]Combat, Melee - used for melee combat with weapons - must have a specialty in the weapon group or may only use 1/2 skill bonus (and no stat bonus)[/li]
[li]Combat, Missile - used for ranged combat with weapons that are fired/shot[/li]
[li]Combat, Thrown - used for weapons that are thrown at a foe[/li]
[li]Combat, Unarmed - for unarmed attacks - for Brawling, no specialty is required, and it will use Str/Dex as stats if there is no Specialty, one one stat if there is a Specialty[/li]
[li]Crafts - each craft includes all all skills to do the job and the lore behind it -- can be used to fill in all sorts of gaps in the skill list[/li]
[li]Healing - encompasses First Aid and more involved types of things such as surgery at higher levels of ability (it could be blended into the Crafts skill but I can see it be a defining skill so maybe it can be left on its own).[/li]
[li]Influence - This is the skill of negotiation and trade, of knowing how to use bribery and of making treaties and  so forth[/li]
[li]Lore - Must be specialized into at least a broad category (i.e. Dragon Lore, Demon/Devil Lore, etc..., can be used to cover all sorts of skill gaps -- just as Crafts can[/li]
[li]Magecraft - for all things magical, including casting of spells[/li]
[li]Outdoorsman- covers previous Survival and Tracking and Outdoor trapping -- while I am not positive of the name Outdoorsman, I do like it better than Survival... hehe[/li]
[li]Perception - skill in noticing what is around you... the two main types of perception be sight and hearing, this would also (using half skill bonus) be used for searching for specific things like Traps or Secret Doors (unless character had another skill that gave knowledge of such thing, like Thievery, which would then allow full bonus to be used).[/li]
[li]Performing Arts - maybe rename to Play Instruments since Bluff now covers Acting...  would perhaps specialize by type of instrument (i.e. horns, drums, stringed, woodwinds)[/li]
[li]Riding - as before[/li]
[li]Stealth - As before[/li]
[li]Thievery - This is sleight of hand type trickery only, picking locks and disarming traps, streetwise....[/li]
[/list]

That gives a total of 16 base skills....
     
It also allows for some interesting possibilities.....

For example, if Dwarves had a +1 Stone Sight (+1 to all perception rolls involving Stone work), that would allow them to use their full bonus (with the +1) when searching for secret doors in a stone wall (but not a wooden one).

Or perhaps a race might have +1 Hearing as a trait, allowing for a +1 modifier to all Hearing related Perception rolls...

As for weapon Specialties, we can trim them down to the following, I think...
































[b]Melee[/b]	[b]Missile[/b]	[b]Thrown[/b]	[b]Unarmed[/b]
Bashers* Chains Plus Great Blades Heavy Blades Light Blades Pole Arms** Short Blades Sword & Board*** Two Weapon Combo****	Archery Crossbows Slings	Thrown Axes & Hammers Thrown Blades Thrown Spears	Brawling (no specialty required) Boxing Martial Arts Sanju (requires Martial Arts) Wrestling
* = includes Axes, Hammers, Maces, Clubs, Batons, War Hammers, and any other short-hafted weapons with a fixed head. ** = includes Staves, Spears, Short Spears, Pole Arms and Pole Axes *** = requires Specialty in Light, Short, or Heavy Blade **** = requires proficiency in primary weapon's group, secondary weapon cannot be larger than Tiny if primary weapon is Medium or Large, and Not larger than the primary weapon if primary weapon is Tiny or Small.




This gives a decent selection of Combat Specialties (20, but it need not be limited to that, especially since TWC is kinda like Crafts in that it is a bucket specialty, that can and should be customized for each Combination..)

This would be enough to perhaps create a generic Fighter class that perhaps gave 1 rank in 2 weapon skills, and allowed for 5 Specialties.. (letting the Fighter select which Specialties).

Then there could be a Duelist Class, a variant of the Fighter, which gives that 1 rank in the same weapon skills, gives the Specialty of Light Blades, allows for the selection of 2 other Specialties, and gives a +2 to Light Blades (works just like that +1 Hearing trait mentioned above). the basic idea here being that a Fighter type gets 5 Specialties to start off, and the variant trades a Specialty for a +1 in one of the selected Specialties (could even allow the player to do this himself in some cases)

As for the Combat Moves from Novus, perhaps allow 1 Combat Move for each Specialty (note: the Duelist only has 3 Specialties for this, since 2 of his Specialties were spent to increase skill in Light Blades)....

This would allow for a few Special Moves without it getting too overwhelming...


Just a few thoughts....
   
    [/list]

[imported_Witchking20k]

I like the approach of developing a single melee skill and allowing Warriors to use Talent Points, or perhaps a Class Talent, that gives them a further bonus to a particular skill.  It is a game; and because I am trying to narrow the options we do have to be flexible with where a character will be in 2-3 levels.  If said warrior uncovers a Magic Mace and has specialized in Sword the whole time the mace is useless to him/her.  If is level 3 and has +3 with all melee weapons and a further +1 with Swords then its not such a big step back for him/her to decide to wield the mace. 

[imported_Witchking20k]

Actually, this conversation on skills got me thinking to one of my better home-brew games:

The game was a mixed dice system that used 4 A's: Archetype, Attributes, Abilities, & Aptitudes
The Archetype is a whatever you call your character- Elven Archer for example.
There are 4 Attributes: Agility, Brawn, Intellect, Psyche
                4 Abilities: Athletics, Awareness, Influence, Knowledge
                4 Aptitudes: Arcana, Combat, Thievery, Survival
Essentially every roll you might need in a game can be covered using 1 Attribute and 1 Ability or Aptitude.

You allocated dice pools of D10, D8, D6, D4 to Attributes: D8, D6, D6, D4 to Abilties, and D10, D6, D4, D2 to Aptitudes.

Your Archertype starts at a D4 and you can pick 2 Specific Skills that you can spend a Legend Point to add your Dice to.

So our Archer might look like this:

Elven Archer: D4 (Bow, Tracking)

AG-D10          ATH-D6           ARC- D2
BR-D8            AWR-D8          COM-D10
IN-D6             INF-D4            THV-D4
PSY-D4          KNW-D6           SRV- D6

So, to roll an attack the Archer would roll D10+D10 with his bow, and if he really wanted to make sure he hit- he could spend a legnd point and add his Archetype Dice of a D4

A tracking Roll would be D6+D6 and also could have a D4 added to it.

A Lift Roll would be D8+D6, and Acrobatics roll D10+D6....etc...its quite easy to mix and match.

All rolls made against TNs 5, 7, 9, 11, 12

Anyway, the point is that you can trim the "skills" down quite a bit- we used this to play a Pulp Actin game where the characters were agents trying to thwart plans to explode an airship over Ottawa (where I live) during WWII....quite fun.

Anyway- just some thoughts

[imported_Witchking20k]

I totally got nothing done today- well, except for actual work

[imported_Rasyr]

Okay.....  As I said in that other thread, I had a minor epiphany -- it came from your comment about "characters getting better at what they do"

First thing  I think that I think I need to point out is that your progression table for each character IS actually the same (the only difference, I suppose would be the Spell Points (and I noticed some minor differences in the talent Points).

You could create a universal progression table and have it apply in to all the classes equally. If a class gets an extra talent point at first level, give it to him in the class description. The same with Spell Points, +2 Spell Points per level or +1 Spell Point per level. This way these modifiers stack or build upon what you have in that universal table.

The problem you still run into is Combat skills (and perhaps spell casting as well).

Put them in separate sections from the skills....
Unfortunately, with only 4 combat skills, you still fall into the problem of ALL weapons being equally useful, and thus no all combat oriented classes will look too similar...

I still strongly suggest going with proficiencies.... But he is a new twist on them...

In the combat section, mark the 4 combat skills as Favored, Standard or Restricted -- and then give the proficiencies.... Any proficiency that is NOT known, is treated as one progression type less...

For example, your Fighter as the Short Blades and Spears proficiencies (and Combat: Melee is a Favored Skill). This would mean that Great Blades and heavy Blades would use the Standard progression -- They still get to use all weapons out there, but they just aren't quite as good (and this is better than saying Half Bonus for them).

And for those who have the Combat Skills as Standard skills, this means that all unknown proficiencies would fall into the Restricted Column...

[imported_Witchking20k]

I totally understand what you are saying- when I originally started playing with a linear progression table I had 5 skill groups:
Arcane, Combat, General, Survival, Thievery.  I think i sent you a 2d6 version that better demonstrated it....I'll see if I can dig that up again.

As for proficiencies- I basically decided that you could pick a skill focus at level 1 and get a +1 bonus to it for your primary skill group- so, a swordsman could pikc +1 to Sword and start at +2 Combat with sword, and +1 combat with all other weapons at level 1.  This worked very well actually

[imported_Witchking20k]

I will try and update my Old School Hack and post it later- as I believe this is part of the problem too.  I am probably working off of an updated draft adn haven't actually showed it to you Tim...LOL

[imported_Rasyr]

Yeah, that does make it harder when we are basing discussions off two different sets of core assumptions..

[imported_Witchking20k]

Such is my brain in recent months

[imported_Witchking20k]

So, I reviewed the Old School Hack yesterday.  I think I am going to strip away a good chunk of the skill development and shrink the TN range to 11-13-15-17-19.  I am leaning towards making it a more "stat" driven system.

[imported_Rasyr]

cannot wait to see!!!

[imported_Witchking20k]

OK, totally started to dabble with this again- and I have a regular and willing cohort I believe.  I am going to re-read these threads and start revising my documents again. 

[imported_Rasyr]

I know the feeling... I recently started dabbling with the FX rules as well.. heheh -- Perhaps I ought to think about posting them someplace

[imported_Witchking20k]

I have decided to stick with my original vision of a very stream-lined game with linear development in skills and stats.  I've picked up a few ideas over the last few months that I think will work out quite well.  Ultimately- I think I just want to finish it.  I know it spurred a lot of the thoughts that led to the NOVUS revision- but, it's intention was to be a rules-lite game based on the NOVUS dice rolling that could be used for one-off sessions and classic dungeon crawling.  For me (career with 2 kids and limited time) I need a go to game that paints with broad brush strokes so I can maximize the time I have.  After I am done reviewing these threads I think you could probably remove them Tim.....less clutter- and I'll end up posting the revised version anyway.