Drifting D20 again

[Thor]

I have a chance to run a session with a new group. I had been talking about my desire to run a firefly sort of game and several of my grandson's friends thought it would be cool, but they are very D20 oriented. I haven't played anything with Dungeon in it's title since the first Regan administration and so this weekend I sat down with the 3.0 version of the players handbook thinking that there were about a million OGL games out there I should be able to cobble something up to make it work.

Long story short, I couldn't do it. but I have a compromise that I was going to run by y'all first to see if I had enough together to get the job done. A homebrew that had the basic play of D20 with a lot less of the dross. And a few indie game ideas to let them know what they are missing.

Chargen:

we will use the basic STR, CON, DEX, WIS, INT, CHR from the game but forgo the rolling. The basic stats are all considered average at 0 and rated from -3 to +3 with a character being allowed to select any combination that totaled +3. The characteristics do the same things that they have done in D+D since the stone age; Strength gives a damage bonus in Melee, Constitution gives a bonus in saving throws.

The character will get 10 hit points. allways and forever. but we will get to that in the combat section.

The player will choose a class for their character based on what they want the character to be. This is very Rissus like, but with the multitude of classes and specialty subclasses available in the AD+D universe I didn't want to leave anybody out. I will arrange the development course with each player determining how many skill points they get at each level when we get there. Ditto feats.

I will use a D20 Modern sort of abstract wealth system. this saves me the need to generat a cost list. Things are just available cheap or dear based on their wealth. if you want to get something that you can afford youget it if it is something that you can't afford you roll to see if you can get it.

I also want to make the players build secrets, fears, goals and contacts. I will give some reward for the creation of contacts (especially negative conttacts) since that benefits the whole game, but I will require the rest.

Lastly there will be some sort of Hero point like structure to aid the players along. the hero points will act as the currency in the game for the players to affect the outcome of rolls and improve their characters.

Skills

the Basic AD+D skill system seems to be D20 + Bonus -Obstacle with a target number from 1-40 based on difficulty. I think that I will use this for everything including combat. Set the target difficulty and let them have at it, and the use of a Hero point adding a seperate D6 to the roll. I will have to read more of the skills in the players manual to see that I get the feel right.

The Bonus will be their stat bonus if applicable and some multiplier of their level. I haven't got it quite set yet, but I was thinking that the skill level times the character level would give a good number as long as the skills don't go much over three. any skills that would be under the ageis of their character class would be at 2 times thir level without any cost durring creation.

The player described feats will be activated by the use of hero points at a cost to be determined in character creation.

Combat

I will base the combat part on the difficulty of hitting the target and the damage on how much better you rolled than you needed to. something like every 5 points over the target number you do one more level of damage. I was considering 1 point, 3 points, 7 points and 13 points as the damage levels, but if they whine I will have to find some way of making big guns hurt more.

After damage the player rolls a saving throw to shrug off a portion of the damage and keep going. The NPCs won't get this option so the players should feel sufficently godlike without having to resort to the massive number of hit points AD+D calls for. Hero points to keep a character from dying even though they would go unconsious at zero hit points.

Experience

Players will get hero points for doing what their character should do. Bringing their secrets into the storyline or dealing with their Fears in a creative way and working toward their goals will be rewarded as well as using there class effectively. At the end of each session they will be allowed to use the remaining Hero points to improve their characters. I will probably have the group vote on who should get a bonus for good role play as well.

I havent decided yet on the cost of levels but they will probably be on the order of 10 to 15 hero points to go from level 1 to 2 and maybe 50 points per level as a maximum.  Characteristics will also be raiseable.

Conclusion and desperate plea

I have a huge rules light bent and no desire to build a whole D20 system for something that probably wont last through the winter. but that being said, does anyone see big holes in the system described or can you think of some cool D20 feature that I have forgoten that should be added? I want this to go well and I haven't played outside my group in like forever. I also see this as an opportunity to movethem away from their dependecy on corporate games so please help me make it a great drift.

[Doug Ruff]

Hi Thor,

Two quick questions for you.

1) What does a new level buy you?

2) How will you deal with arcane and divine magic?

Regards,

Doug

[Thor]

Doug

1) What does a new level buy you?

Two times your level in bonus on all pertinant skills.

2) How will you deal with arcane and divine magic?

Being a scifi setting I would punt the answer. If i have to deal with a psionic I would probably develop the ability with the character. My feeling would be that feats are too restricting for a psionic, but daily number of occurences is dumb. I would probably prefer a played out version of the ability at no cost if the player doesn't control the ability and some variable cost to Hit points if it was.

Not knowing how much it's going to hurt to try to levitate something would make it quite cool. Better yet an ability that gave greater powers that sucked hit points from those around the psychic would be cooler still. I can start fires with my mind but the points come from whoever is closest too me. In fact I'm going to push for that one.

[Doug Ruff]

Oops, I automatically read 'D20' for 'D&D' back there (*blushes*).

Sounds like feats will work just fine for Psionics. Having each type of power (Levitation, Pyrokinesis, Telepathy) as a feat wouldbe fine - if you wanted extra granularity, you could make some feats have other feats as prerequisites.

Example, ESP is a basic feat, Telepathy requires ESP and Mind Control requires both ESP and Telepathy (and maybe Level 9+ as well!)

This also allows you to set characteristic requirements as well; for example, Telepathy may require Int 13+, Mind Control may need Wis 15+.

You can still specify some feats as especially risky or harmful, or give them limited usage per day.

Regards,

Doug