Status and DnD Post II (Patreon)

An early warning no chapters today. I've been so excited about drawing up a system to make it work that I couldn't wait. Regularly scheduled programming resumes Wednesday.

So the point of this post is then to outline some of the changes that I'll be making for the game version of LoRG. Specifically, the variant from typical Dungeons and Dragons rules to make the System work.

For those of you who will be participating, there will be instructions on how to roll a character at the bottom of this post. As I said yesterday, please start thinking about your characters. Don't want to take up too much time in that first session.

Stats:

Okay, first thing first, Stats. Stats will be altered from the typical LoRG format to the following nine: Endurance, Vigor, Strength, Dexterity, Reflex, Willpower, Intelligence, Control, and Determination.

Endurance affects Health, Vigor affects Stamina. Strength is physical damage, while Dex is physical hit chance, among other things. Reflex is a mixture of Perception and Agility. Willpower is resistance to magic attacks and status effects, as well as giving Mana Regeneration. Intelligence is raw Mana and damage, while Control is to-hit for magical attacks. Determination will affect your ability to train and gain Skill Levels.

We could have used my same notes for stats, but I wanted to make everything a bit more predictable in what it improves.  And to get rid of the more intangible stats.

Oh, in addition. For stats, every 10 points is a watershed; the tens digit of your stat will be used like a proficiency bonus. So someone with 10 would add 1 to relevant rolls, someone with 29 would add 2.

Paths:

Paths are an important part of LoRG, and I wanted them to be present for obvious reason, and feel impactful beyond being a different sort of Leveling thing. So the Path System will be simplified so that Paths will be longer in terms of PP, and always reward a Skill.

In addition, you will always be given a choice between a minimum two Paths and will lose access to the Path you did not pick. New Paths will be generated upon completion of your current Path. And only one Path at a time.

Stat gains will be concentrated in the growing of the Path and less so as a reward.

Skills:

Which brings us to Skills. This will take some more DM discretion to determine the finer details, but  Skills can function both as active and passives. In both cases, Skill watersheds occur every 25, rather than ten. That is, you will get a +1 to hit rolls and an addition dice of of the relevant type of damage every 25 Skill Levels.

In addition, there is a hard cap on what I'm going to refer to as "Natural Skills" of 6 for all characters. That is, your character will only be able to learn 6 Skills without relying on a Path or Class to earn them the old fashioned way.

My thought is that its just too much to have Randidly like growth in terms of available Skills, and also I didn't want to get into a scenario where I would need to give someone Aether Deprivation because they had too many Skills. So let's just agree to keep the naturally developing Skills to 6.

After reading the comments, I'm more inclined to start our story immediately after the System arrives. But even so, your character will start with 2 of their natural Skills. So they have something to use and develop immediately.

For some context, Natural Skills come in many forms. Things like Cooking, Farming, Wood Cutting, and Dashing would be natural Skills. So would Resistances to Pain, Poison, Acid, Fire, etc.

Also things like Herculean Strength, (as a passive stat boost), Stealth and Sleight of Hand, (as more role focused physical Skills), or something more weird like Charming Smile or Meditation.

Based on my plan, characters will very quickly learn their third Natural Skill, which will be some sort of combat proficiency. So don't worry about that for now. Just focus on what other natural Skills flesh out your character's flavor to start.

This is me, rambling about systems. If you have any questions, please comment.

Oh, and no Skills that use Mana would be considered natural Skills.

Combat and the Difficulty Modifier:

Okay, finally, with some context we can talk about difficulty modifiers.

Because the System is constantly escalating, your modifiers will adjust depending on the strength of your opponent. As I mentioned briefly before, you will get modifiers by getting stats to a different tens digit and Skills to 25. But that modifier will constantly be compared to a monster's difficulty modifier.

Okay, let's make this concrete. 

Meet Greg and Sally. 

Greg's Streamlined Stats:

Str: 11

Dex: 6

Woodcutting Lvl 24

Sally's Streamlined Stats:

Str: 6

Dex: 11

Spear Mastery: 25

They are fighting an Armored Badger Lvl 1. But all you really need to know about the Armored Badger is his Difficulty Modifier is 1.

This is still a d20 system with an AC. But right now, I just want to focus on the modular modifier.

So when Greg tries to hit the Armored Badger, neither his Dexterity nor his Skill gives him a +1. So his base Modifier is 0. Subtracting the Badger's difficulty modifier, all of Greg's attempts will receive -1.

Meanwhile, both of Sally's give her +1, taking her to +2. Subtracting the difficulty modifier, all of her hit rolls will receive a +1.

Again, I want to stress that this modification only affects to-hit rolls. If Greg lands a hit, he will get +1 to damage for his Str even if the difficulty modifier is above his strength. 

Okay, a few more details of combat. It is my goal to make the Mana and Stamina System work. So I've designed combat with that in mind. If it becomes too complicated, we can scrap it later. Plus, I like having the freedom to make bad decisions. So everything will be based on using up your Stamina and Mana.

For example, if you earn the Dodge Skill, you can always spend a certain amount Stamina to briefly raise your AC in response to a monster attacking you. If you burn through your Stamina and can't attack next turn, so be it.

So all physical actions take Stamina, and you will have one given action on your turn. But if you are attacked, you get a free action because you have been attacked. As above, you could use that action to Dodge. Or, you could use it to attack the person who is striking you again.

Of course, if you ever hit 0 Stamina, you skip your next turn. At your base, you have 1 Stamina Regeneration per round. So if you bottom out, you will skip your turn and not regenerate then, and only recover on the second turn. And by recover, I mean you will have 1 Stamina. Which would likely be only enough to run away. And if you do that, you will bottom out again.

Suffice to say, running out of Stamina is bad.

Okay, okay, I bet some of you are thinking that there will be a lot of numbers involved in this. And that's true. But I promise you that most of them will be abstract things. It's a lot up front, but once the character is running, it shouldn't be too difficult to manage.

Ah, one more thing on the subject of Stamina. Objects have weight, especially weapons. So the bigger the weapon, the more Stamina you lose using it. Even more so if you use a Skill like Heavy Blow to empower it.

Uh, should I give an example for this too? Just to illustrate. Okay, okay, back to Greg. He has gotten some Skill Levels since we last met him being bullied by the Armored Badger.

Greg's New Streamlined Stats

Str: 19

Dex: 15

Woodcutting Lvl 25

Heavy Blow Lvl 25

Good for Greg! So diligently training. But we need a bit more background before we can do the example. Greg has an axe that costs 4 Stamina to swing. Also, Greg's Vigor is 10, giving him 30 Stamina.

So when he swings his Axe at the damnable Armored Badger, Greg's modifier is going to me +3, because he is activating Heavy Blow as he does so. So +1 for 15 Dex, +1 for Woodcutting (assuming that is functioning as his combat proficiency), and +1 for Heavy Blow. Since the difficulty modifier is still 1, Greg get's +2!

Well let's talk Stamina. Heavy Blow doubles the cost of any action in exchange for an extra dice of damage. Since it has reached 25, it gives an extra two dice of damage.

So Greg swings in exchange for 8 Stamina. He has 22 remaining. Tragically he misses.

Greg lives a tough life.

The Armored Badger attacks on its turn, and Greg uses his reaction to attack again with Heavy Blow! (Please also note, attacking as a reaction will lower your AC...)

They both hit. Greg takes a small amount of damage, and he inflicts 3d6 worth of damage on the Armored Badger. It is seriously wounded!

But Greg did use 8 more Stamina. He now has 14 left. When it becomes his turn again, he regenerates 1 and is at 15. Two more Armored Badgers arrive. Greg wonders whether he has enough Stamina and Health to survive~

Okay, which brings us to the final topic.

Skill Levels:

This is the most delicate, and also the engine that makes the LoRG System run. So off the top, I want to say that Skill Levels function like experience: you can only receive them during a short or long rest. No growth mid-fights, please. DnD combat is long enough as it is xD.

There are two ways to gain Skill Levels. The first is by raising your Determination Stat. At the end of every session, players will be given the chance to 'train'. The higher the Determination, the more Skill Levels you can earn here. This also lets the player choose where the Skill Levels go.

The other way is by accumulating difficulty modifiers through a session. 

So, Greg overcoming three Armored Badgers would earn him 3 Skill Levels, distributed equally to the Skills that he used to defeat them. So he might get two for Heavy Blow and one for Woodcutting (DMs, when allocating Skill points, they should always go to the active Skill first to break ties, then the passive. Based on the assumption that Passive Skills can affect more things).

To this end, I think I'll whip up a little Combat Log form that players can use to keep track of their Stamina and Mana and DMs can use to remember what Skills a player was using.

The more I write, the more I realize that this is a lot to keep track of xD. But I promise most of the hard work falls on me. And this is what I love to do~

Making a Character:

Okay! Let's get down to it.

Again, we have 9 stats:  Endurance, Vigor, Strength, Dexterity, Reflex, Willpower, Intelligence, Control, and Determination. Explanation of what they do can be found above.

To make a character, please get roll a d4 three times and drop the lowest roll. Feel free to rearrange the numbers on the stats if you want to lean toward certain stats. But that means that all stats should start between 2 and 8.

Next, don't worry about Paths; everyone will start with the Newbie Path 0/10. Which, of course, is a branching Path! But I've shifted how it branches a bit from the story.

Third, choose your two "Natural Skills". If you want an example, consult the Skill section above. Basically, things like First Aid, Farming, Meditation, Sneaking, Fire Resistance, Sharp Hearing, Bargaining, or Foraging fit into this category. Pick two that show how your character's real life affects them now that the System is here.

Finally, pick what sort of combat proficiency you want for you character. I don't mind weird things, just know that you will be discussing it with me to get the final approval. You won't stat with it, but the starting scenario will be designed that you learn it quickly.

Okay! I'm super excited. If anyone has questions, feel free to comment. We will discover this all together!