GreenTongue
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jul 2003
Posts: 999
Location: Orlando, FL
|
 Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 12:54 pm Post subject: Merging BoL with SW, Anyone do it yet? |
 |
|
Saw this and wonder if anyone else has tried using the idea. Looked like Barbarians of Lemuria to me.
| Asklepios wrote: | Sure. We're about five sessions into our first ever campaign, and our first house rule has been to decouple attributes from skills.
Instead we've got a "profession" list that looks like this:
Commander
Courtier
Investigator
Magus
Ranger
Rogue
Scholar
Warrior
(add yer own)
Because these are a lot broader, I've given the players just 10 dots instead, but at a flat 1 pt per die-type costing, and with the XP system changed so that 1 skill increase always equals 1 advance.
The idea behind above system is to reduce the number of "unskilled" rolls going on, so basically unless something requires professional training you can always opt to make an attribute check instead. Making it career based also keeps it broad and makes it no longer so "single task" focused. So for example, if you want to climb a wall, you could use Rogue, Warrior or Agility. You want to talk to someone you could interrogate them as an Investigator, intimidate them as a warrior, deceive them as a Rogue or charm them as a Courtier.
We like it so far. We like it because now everyone can participate in social interaction with NPCs without having to sink points into social skills. We like it because instead of trying to find the points to match a concept, the concept itself is the skill. We like it because you no longer have odd situations like an expert acrobatic agile dude being inept at climbing, or a spellcasting wizard with exceptional knowledge of history knowing nothing about other academia, or a brutish warrior or powerful mage being unable to use said skills for intimidation, etc. etc.
The only thing it breaks is the "natural cap" that went with attributes limiting skills, but we've found it self balancing, as now you raise attributes for their own sake rather than because you want to be able to buy your skills up. There's more D12 skills floating around than would have been otherwise, however, but I've not minded that so far.
I also like the greater transparency of the process now, as it makes it a lot easier to add up points spent, and check whether you've spent all your advances yet, which is not uncommon in our group as they tend to "ding" their level up at the end of a session, and be too tired to think about spending it that night.
My players like the idea that their characters are now automatically proficient at everything they visualised during the concept stage, instead of trying to work the points to make the simulation match the idea.
The best thing about our house-ruled system, however, is the fact that the professions now lend themselves directly to characterisation. If you buy Engineer, we now know you're an Engineer... instant hook for characterisation, for the other players to recognise your niche, and for the GM to know what sort of stories you want. |
= |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
