Dice!

[Cornflower MM]

Whaaaaaaaat?

[Gwen A. Mouse]

Ignore them. D&D is basically a fantasy role-playing game, played with pen, paper, dice, and imagination. For simplicity's sake, rule #1 is: Whatever the DM says, goes. (Thereby rendering most rules meaningless if s/he wants to.)

(Btw, about headaches- do you get migraines? If you don't want it discuss it here, you can PM me about it.)

[Rusvul]

Yes. What the DM says, goes. Many DMs will let you do absurd and stupid stuff in your campaign. Which is awesome. Apparently my DM doesn't want me playing Monster Manual races... But yeah. If your DM will let you do something, you can do so. Heck, a DM can even make up rules if they want.

Okay. So each character has a few things- Ability scores, a race, a class, a number of hitpoints, etc. Starting with ability scores.

Ability scores determine the character's physical and mental power. 10 is the baseline for any character, 20 is the highest a player character's base ability score can be, as that's the highest roll possible on a d20- A twenty-sided die, used for a lot of things in D&D.

Strength- Physical strength. How much you can carry, how hard you can hit, how likely you are to be able to wrestle someone to the ground.

Dexterity- How agile and dextrous you are. How likely you are to avoid a hit, pick a lock, or stab someone in a vital organ.


Constitution- How much physical punishment you can take. How many times you can be clubbed over the head before dying, how much beer you can drink before you pass out.

Intelligence- How smart you are.

Wisdom- Also how smart you are, in a different way. Will explain that later.

Charisma- How much people like you, how attractive you are, how good you are at social abilities like Bluff, Gather Information, and Diplomacy.

The difference between INT and WIS-

Intelligence is being able to read 'Do not press' in seven languages on the big red button.

Wisdom is not pressing the big ominous red button because you think it's a bad idea.

Classes:

Rogue: Sneak attacks and such.

Ranger: Archery and nature-based spells.

Wizard: Trained in arcane magic, low hitpoints.

Sorcerer: Has innate arcane magic, equally low hitpoints.

Fighter: Swords, shields, melee fighting and blocking the squishier members of the party.

Bard: Jack of all trades- Plays music, casts spells badly, fights usually in both melee and ranged badly. Basically, they can do almost anything, but they're not going to be very good at it.

Cleric: Heavy arms and armor, although preferably isn't in melee combat much. Follows a deity and derives powers from it, usually a very good healer.

Paladin: A bit like Cleric and a bit like Fighter, holy warriors with both healing and smiting capability. Always upholders of good and the law. Cannot abide evil acts- Morally obliged to slay or punish anyone who commits such acts.

Monk: A heavily trained and ordered monk trained in the art of unarmed combat, able to use her (D&D manuals use 'her' as a default rather than 'him.' Kind of a neat little thing.) fists as effectively as any weapon.

Druid: Ally of nature and animals, casts natural spells and such.


...I think there's something else, but I can't quite remember. Anything to add, Gwen?

@Jet: Thematically, maybe not. Much of that shares from LOTR, which is, to my knowledge, first of its kind. However there's such a vast pool of mechanics. I don't know if anyone's ever played WoW, but many spells and abilities are literally named the exact same or extremely similar to in D&D. Lay on Hands, Arcane Missiles rather than Magic Missiles, Shadow Word: Kill rather than Power Word: Kill...

D&D may not be the only root, but mechanically, at least, it is the largest.

[Gwen A. Mouse]

I think you covered basic character stuff pretty well, except you forgot race. I would cover it but I don't have any books, so it would just be off the top of my head... yeah. Probably not a good thing.

So I talked to the group, and here was some advice and suggestions from them:

1) Play a human- you don't take penalties for multiclassing (with only two classes, anyway).

2) Put your first level into Rogue (so make your first-level character a rogue).

3) Multiclass with Sorcerer- that way you don't have to prepare spells every day like wizards do.

4) From then on, do either one in rogue for every two levels, or two in rogue for every three levels (depending on whether you want to have more magic faster or actually play as more of a rogue).

By the way, we fought some giant centipedes today... With some help from another party member, I very nearly convinced the fighter that they were made of coffee. It was great. Our DM was just like, "Wait- what are you guys trying to do? Why?" And the other party member were just shaking their heads at us.

[The Mask]

AH yes I played once and really enjoyed. Unfortunately I have no board or rules and no one to play with

[Rusvul]

I didn't put down race because I don't know any of the stats except for Human, Elf, and Half Elf.

And yeah. For storyline reasons, I think I have to play an elf. Basically, the wizard of the party is the baron of an elf barony, and my character (A Mistvane Dragonblooded sorcerer) used to live in his barony, but then was found out to be a sorcerer and not a wizard. The baron, Eurist, didn't like that- He thinks Wizardry is by far superior. So he sentenced me to college. And our campaign begins after we all graduate from the Adventuring University and go into the town dungeon to get our adventuring licenses. So if my character dies, I want his brother to come, be a Mistvane Dragonblood caster, and bind to his familiar and join the party. I think that'd be neat.

The one thing I'm considering... Wizard might be better than sorcerer for utility, because I get a wider selection of spells and I take no penalty for being a multiclass wizard as an elf. And INT is the stat for Disable Device, which is useful. Hmm... As a Sorc, though, I'd have high charisma, which is helpful for UMD... Also a really nice Rogue skill. Also, though, as a wizard, Eurist can scribe me spells and I can learn then and we can be really cheesy about it. Two wizards in the party means they can both specialize and then scribe down all their spells and have their fellow wizard read it. It's really cheesy.


@Mask: How'd you play D&D with no rules and just yourself? That seems nigh impossible. Wouldn't you need at least a DM and one player?

[Gwen A. Mouse]

Oh, okay... All right. Well in that case, I'd say yeah, go with an elf, but if you can, take your first level in rogue, then level up as outlined above. Best of luck to you and your party!

@ Mask: Oh, man. Knowing a fun game and nobody else knowing how/wanting to play is probably one of the worst things ever. I'm sorry... Maybe try to find an online campaign? I'm sure there's at least a few out there.

[Cornflower MM]

Oh, okay! I get it a bit now. Thanks, guys!

[Rusvul]

I'm not sure if this is a bump or a revive. Meh, I don't care. It's a post, how about that?

After listening to a few episodes of Rollplay Numenera, I want to create a ruleset. My thinking is this- In most RPGs, there's two main groups of characters- Physical and magical. I want to expand on that.

I want to have only two character classes- Corporeal and Psionic- And they'll both be good at attacking and defending with their powers. A psychokineticist might only be able to take a few physical hitpoints of damage, but he can take a lot of mental damage. A ranger might be the inverse- They can take a relatively high amount of physical damage, but just a few potent mind-stabs and they'd be down.

Now, within that, I want only two classes- Corporealist and Psionicist (Names subject to change). You'd be able to specialize your class, with big features, somwhat like Feats, and smaller features, more like Skills. In the Numenera ruleset, you have a main class (Glaive-Melee, Nano-Wizard, Jack-Has some aspects of both, sort of like a UMD rogue), a Focus (Lots of them, they modify your powers) and a Descriptor (Similar to focus). I'm thinking of a system similar to that, but with more versatility. At higher levels, you could specialize even more, or try to be more versatile.

As a Corporealist, you'd probably end up fitting the archetype of Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Monk, or any other RPG melee or ranged class.

As a Psionicist, you'd probably be more along the lines of Pyrokineticist (Firemover), Psychokineticist (Controls physical objects and creates ethereal objects), Psychoillusionist (causes tricks and illusions), Psychomartialist (Makes melee attacks that deal partial physical damage and partial mental damage), Psychoevocationist (Summons objects), Psychodevastationist (Self explanatory, really), Psychoinfluentialist (Someone who uses psionic power influence others), or Psychorestorationist (someone who heals with psionic powers).

These names are all general, you could use whatever term you want to describe yourself, as classes are not set ability sets, but flexible and adaptable to any playstyle.

It will be futuristic, medieval ranged weapons such as bows and slings are 90% obsolete but swords, daggers, and other bladed weapons are not, some are even supplemented by technological or psionic powers- Some swords are even made entirely of plasma. In addition, there are a multitude of futuristic weapons such as blasters, zappy bits, really a lot of things. Some weapons are also designed to amplify or specify psionic energy.

If it ever becomes a full game, there will be fewer cheesy Psycho- names. If you have any complicated futuristic-sounding names that have psy- psycho- psi- or anything else to denote psionic-ness, please tell me... More original names are good.

Anyone is welcome to state things that they think should be included, and I would appreciate it if people did so.

[Wylder Treejumper]

Sounds interesting, but I really hate psionics, so I can't really offer any help there.

I myself only play 2ed D&D and OSRIC- I hate all the newer versions of it.

[Rusvul]

What do you have against psionics? I find the whole concept and aesthetic really interesting.

What's OSRIC?

[The Mask]

Mr Cuddles let me go for a minute. The one time I played was with a friend. he had a board and the rules.

[Wylder Treejumper]

I don't really know, Rus- it just annoys me for some reason.

OSRIC stands for Old School Rule and Index Compilation- it's a more simplified 2 ed without the crazy complex stuff like weapon speed and all that.