D20 Variant for Kids and Console RPG Gamers

[Murrquan]

It's yet another d20 variant! This one is going to be based on Mongoose Publishing's OGL System, however, allowing it to contain character creation and levelling rules out of the box.

First off, I have looked at Gary S.'s D20 Lite Variant. For those of you who haven't seen it, his system is designed to be "freeform," eschewing feats, alignment, and classes, and with a revised combat system. This version is pretty much the opposite. It places strong emphasis on selection of premade feats and classes, and uses miniatures-based combat. The idea is for it to be easy for kids and teenagers to pick up, with well-defined character creation choices and a combat engine like that of tactics-based console RPGs. It's not meant to be sophisticated or to push the boundaries of Indie game design, but hey, Heroscape isn't either and it's a hit!

I start by using some of the streamlining innovations being introduced in D&D 4th Edition, as well as Star Wars Saga Edition and Knights of the Old Republic:

• Skills are pared down and consolidated, like how KotOR put Listen and Spot into Perception. Furthermore, you no longer have skill ranks -- instead, you're either "Trained" in a skill or not. This is something I was already doing in the games I DMed for kids, for all intents and purposes, since it's easier to tell a 12-year-old "You get five skills" than "You get twenty skill points."
• Saving Throws are eliminated, as is Armor Class. Instead, characters have a Fortitude Defense, a Reflex Defense, and a Will Defense. Most attacks are made against Reflex Defense, while spellcasters roll magic attacks against whichever Defense is appropriate. This reduces the number of die rolls, and lets mages get in on the Critical Hit action.
• Also, characters will have Action Points, since those are an incredibly cool mechanic.

Others I improvised, or came up with after being inspired by the above sources and others. Here are the big changes:

• The combat engine is heavily streamlined! It basically boils down to two actions in a round plus one Attack of Opportunity, with a handful of modifiers like flanking, charge attacks, and shooting into a melee. Special attacks are now handled by feats, sort of like how you took Improved Disarm if you wanted to be any good at disarming anyway! I'd also like to make each special attack a single die roll, maybe with a -4 penalty -- this could be overcome by spending an Action Point, which would help to encourage people not to keep disarming the final boss over and over again.
• Armor and weapons now have a rock-paper-scissors effect. Instead of adding to Armor Class, armor gives you a penalty on Reflex Defense, with an extra -4 if you're nonproficient. In return it gives you damage reduction, but only against specific types of damage. Modern sporting equipment, for instance, like BMX armor and Western Football padding, might give DR 2 against Bludgeoning damage, while a Kevlar vest might give DR 5 against Ballistic.
• Because it's a modern to near-future setting, Equipment is no longer micromanaged. Players are encouraged to pick out whatever gear they like, and to assume that they have everything they need to use their skills. Only if they wield a "heavy" weapon or wear heavy suits of armor are they considered Encumbered. Everyone gets to choose one Masterwork item, which grants them a +1 bonus on the relevant rolls -- chars who take a feat to be "Rich" can have a lot more of their gear Masterworked.
  
  Part of the reason the system's so generous is because a lot of the appeal is going to be getting to try out high-tech prototypes, which will be harder to come by! So in return, and in order to simplify things, "mundane" gear is essentially free.
  
  
• Feats will be simplified and made to resemble each other more, so that players won't have to spend as long min-maxing and end up making the "wrong" decision. For instance, Mobility, Combat Casting and Point Blank Shot will all give +4 to Reflex Defense, versus Attacks of Opportunity caused by doing the things in question. Furthermore, vehicle operation feats are thrown out altogether -- all they do is penalize people who play in all-mecha or all-starfighter campaigns, or cost players a feat for the dubious privilege of having to sit out a fight.

Magic is based on Spell Points, but there are a few differences from normal d20 magic:

• Spell Points accrue linearly, like Hit Points, not exponentially. However, they recharge after every encounter, and characters can roll a Concentration check (similar to how you regain Psionic Focus, in D&D) to regain a handful of Spell Points once per encounter.
• All Spells are free to cast, but have only minor effects unless augmented with Spell Points. For instance, Magic Missile might deal 1d6 damage for free, or it could be augmented to deal extra damage and allow the caster to roll an attack versus Fortitude Defense, in order to knock the target prone.
• Caster Level is eliminated! Instead, spellcasting classes have a "Magic Attack Bonus" that characters add to their attack rolls with spells.

Hit Points also recharge after every encounter, and can also be regained during combat via Concentration check. Characters gain triple the maximum starting Hit Points, as in 4e and Star Wars Saga Edition. Finally, there are no negative Hit Points -- being reduced to 0 HP "KOs" your character. You can Coup de Grace a KOed character as a full-round action, which provokes Attacks of Opportunity. Or you can use first aid to bring him back in a "Staggered" state, where he still has 0 HP, can only take one action per turn, and needs someone else to support him or can only crawl one space in a turn. Staggered chars don't regain HP after the encounter, until they get treated at a hospital or receive magical (or high-tech) healing.

So. What am I missing? Are there obvious pitfalls here that I'm not seeing? Finally, do you think it'd be fun to play, at least for its target audience? Thanks in advance for everyone's input.

[Callan S.]

Hi Murrquan, welcome to the forge (can I use your real name?),

The reseting of hp and spell points after each encounter is really interesting (I was suggesting that somewhere else, recently). But relative to it, why a concentration check to regain them mid fight? Isn't it interesting to see whether even with full hp/sp the player might lose the battle? Can monsters do con checks to regain hp? I mean in practical terms as well - they might have the option, but will they have any realistic chance of doing so in combat (or will they be always being too distracted to do so).

With feats and how it's possible to choose wrong, is that because you don't want people to be able to be wrong when exploring feats. Or is it okay to find out you chose wrong, but then it just drags on because while the player admits he made an error, there's nothing he can do to change that even after having admited it?

[Murrquan]

Well, I guess you're right that it's probably kind of clunky to make people give up their whole turn to regain HP/SP. Maybe a mechanic more along the lines of giving up an Action Point as a free action to regain HP/SP would be a better idea.

As far as the feats ... I guess it's more based on my experiences in trying to explain things to kids. I was hoping for more than just eight token feats (like in the D&D Basic Game), but at the same time, the way feats are now they have very little in common with each other. Understanding the way one feat works does not really prepare you to understand how any other works.

I'm hoping that by grouping feats together, unifying effects and making things seem more logical, it'd make it easier on me and other GMs to explain to kids and teens what their options are. As it is, when I'm discussing level-up options with kids I often have to pick out which feats from the core book I think would most help their chars, and then give them the choice of those few. I'm hoping that by simplifying and categorizing the feats, I can make it easier on kids and their GMs.

As far as finding out you made the wrong choice, personally I just let the player rechoose on the fly. It occurs to me that if everyone has to do this, then maybe there's something intrinsically wrong with d20, but at the same time I'm not sure how to remedy that! Aside from making it harder to make a "wrong" choice, anyway.

[Murrquan]

Ah yes, real name ... Jared S. if you like. My apologies, I'm used to going by screen name. I understand that's not how things are done here, though!

[David C]

Instead of the specific ways that d20 handles feats, why not make them serve a general purpose?

Dodge gives +1 to Reflex
Weapon Focus gives +1 to attack (with any weapon)
Exotic Weapon Proficiency lets you use any exotic weapons
Mounted Combat lets you use Ride instead of Reflex for your AC.

then trim out all those feats that really shouldn't be feats in the first place, like Sprint, Endurance, that Wizard one that lets you "memorize" spells... (how that fits in with Vanecian casting fluff, don't ask me...)

[David C]

Oh, also, I want to throw this out there. Instead of purchasing "unusual" equipment, why not let there be a "Packrat" skill? Several games out there have this, where if you want a grappling hook, you roll your skill to find out if you have one handy!

[masqueradeball]

You should go check out STAR WARS, Saga Edition. It's the latest incarnation of "D20" (though they no longer call it that) and they already made a lot of the same changes your talking about (no ranks in skills, simpler combat, less feats, etc...). It might already be what your looking for or help to give you some ideas of where to go next.

[Murrquan]

David C: That's pretty much what I'm doing, in terms of feats. The "Packrat" feat would be redundant, though. There's only three kinds of gear in this game -- mundane gear (take as much as you want), masterwork gear (take only one, or a few if you're rich), and high-tech prototypes. These are treated like magic items, and dispensed sparingly.

In essence, everyone has the Packrat feat, and automatically succeeds at their checks.

masqueradeball: I actually cited Star Wars Saga Edition as one of my inspirations. I don't own the core rulebook myself, but I've taken a look at it and heard about most of its innovations. I also keep up with the D&D 4th Edition design diaries, as they're using the same system as Saga Edition.