DM_Nel's blog listings. Feed Zend_Feed_Writer 1.10.8 (http://framework.zend.com) http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel Using Warhammer Magic Dice in my D&D game
In my D&D game I currently have 3 types of magic-users: wizards, sorcerers and warlocks.  Wizards study magical formulas and tap into the universal pool of magic.  Sorcerers have innate magic and tap into personal magical resources.  Warlocks borrow or steal magic from magical beings.  I already have detailed systems for the sorcerer and warlock, so I’m thinking that the magic dice will be best suited for the wizard class.  My initial thoughts are to change all wizard spells so that the damage they do are all d6-based.  I can then incorporate the magic dice into the spell system as one of the dice that is rolled for spells that have a variable outcome requiring dice rolls.  Of all of the d6’s that a wizard rolls for any given spell, one of them has to be the magic die that corresponds to that spell’s school.  When that die is rolled and it comes up with the school’s symbol, then something special happens with the spell.   Maybe it maximizes all of the damage or maybe a school-specific effect goes off, or maybe it causes on-going damage.  Anyway, that’s my initial thought on it.  I’d also like to figure out a way to have a reason for the wizard to roll all of the magic dice for a spell or class feature, just haven’t figured out what yet.
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]]> Wed, 06 Feb 2013 19:18:52 -0600 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2013/02/06/using_warhammer_magic_dice_in_my_dd_game http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2013/02/06/using_warhammer_magic_dice_in_my_dd_game
In my D&D game I currently have 3 types of magic-users: wizards, sorcerers and warlocks.  Wizards study magical formulas and tap into the universal pool of magic.  Sorcerers have innate magic and tap into personal magical resources.  Warlocks borrow or steal magic from magical beings.  I already have detailed systems for the sorcerer and warlock, so I’m thinking that the magic dice will be best suited for the wizard class.  My initial thoughts are to change all wizard spells so that the damage they do are all d6-based.  I can then incorporate the magic dice into the spell system as one of the dice that is rolled for spells that have a variable outcome requiring dice rolls.  Of all of the d6’s that a wizard rolls for any given spell, one of them has to be the magic die that corresponds to that spell’s school.  When that die is rolled and it comes up with the school’s symbol, then something special happens with the spell.   Maybe it maximizes all of the damage or maybe a school-specific effect goes off, or maybe it causes on-going damage.  Anyway, that’s my initial thought on it.  I’d also like to figure out a way to have a reason for the wizard to roll all of the magic dice for a spell or class feature, just haven’t figured out what yet.
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]]> 0 D&D My Way Update #4
A similar thing occurred with my Warlock player.  The class features that I gave that class (borrowed heavily from the 3E Binder class from Tome of Magic) resulted in an interesting class on paper, but in reality the class didn't have enough in it to give the player enough to do once their encounter powers were exhausted.  So I modified the class some more to give them an at-will ability to supplement their encounter powers. 

It's this kind of flexibility that has made this experiment of mine very fulfilling.  I look forward to more play and more tinkering.   
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]]> Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:29:56 -0600 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2013/02/05/dd_my_way_update_4 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2013/02/05/dd_my_way_update_4
A similar thing occurred with my Warlock player.  The class features that I gave that class (borrowed heavily from the 3E Binder class from Tome of Magic) resulted in an interesting class on paper, but in reality the class didn't have enough in it to give the player enough to do once their encounter powers were exhausted.  So I modified the class some more to give them an at-will ability to supplement their encounter powers. 

It's this kind of flexibility that has made this experiment of mine very fulfilling.  I look forward to more play and more tinkering.   
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]]> 0 D&D My Way Update #3
This post I'd like to discuss the changes I made to the concept of "advantage" and "disadvantage".  In D&D Next, advantage is when you have a situation that allows you to roll 2d20 and to take the higher roll (or the lower roll if you have disadvantage).   I made a slight modification to advantage because I wanted to use the concept for things like flanking, but 2d20 was a little too good for minor benefits like that.  So I created "minor advantage", which was rolling a d20 and adding a d4 to the roll.  This worked okay in my first session, but it was a little weird because it could potentially produce a better roll than 2d20.  It was also a bit limiting, as there were now two levels of advantage, but there were situations when a greater range would come in useful.  So I modified the advantage rule to be an escalating range of bonuses.  It starts with d20 + d4, then goes to d20 +d6, then d20+d8, and so on.  This allows me to start at a d4 and escalate bonuses as the situation warrants.  Some bonuses will start at a higher level, say a d6 advantage or a d8 advantage.  
         
This solves the weirdness problem of advantage, but both I and my players liked the "roll 2d20" rule.  So I've implemented a new rule called a "Fortune/Misfortune Roll"  This rule will come into play when luck affects a situation, not skill or strategy.  So if a magical/divine affect grants a lucky reroll, it will be a Fortune roll.  My halflings have a racial quality called "Lucky" which will be a Fortune roll. 

I'm pretty stoked about these modifications and have high expectations on how they're going to play out.  We'll find out this Saturday.  
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]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:49:34 -0600 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2013/01/09/dd_my_way_update_3 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2013/01/09/dd_my_way_update_3
This post I'd like to discuss the changes I made to the concept of "advantage" and "disadvantage".  In D&D Next, advantage is when you have a situation that allows you to roll 2d20 and to take the higher roll (or the lower roll if you have disadvantage).   I made a slight modification to advantage because I wanted to use the concept for things like flanking, but 2d20 was a little too good for minor benefits like that.  So I created "minor advantage", which was rolling a d20 and adding a d4 to the roll.  This worked okay in my first session, but it was a little weird because it could potentially produce a better roll than 2d20.  It was also a bit limiting, as there were now two levels of advantage, but there were situations when a greater range would come in useful.  So I modified the advantage rule to be an escalating range of bonuses.  It starts with d20 + d4, then goes to d20 +d6, then d20+d8, and so on.  This allows me to start at a d4 and escalate bonuses as the situation warrants.  Some bonuses will start at a higher level, say a d6 advantage or a d8 advantage.  
         
This solves the weirdness problem of advantage, but both I and my players liked the "roll 2d20" rule.  So I've implemented a new rule called a "Fortune/Misfortune Roll"  This rule will come into play when luck affects a situation, not skill or strategy.  So if a magical/divine affect grants a lucky reroll, it will be a Fortune roll.  My halflings have a racial quality called "Lucky" which will be a Fortune roll. 

I'm pretty stoked about these modifications and have high expectations on how they're going to play out.  We'll find out this Saturday.  
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]]> 0 D&D My Way Update #2 Classes:  I've written up 10 classes.  The martial classes are barbarian, fighter, ranger, thief.  The divine classes are cleric, druid, paladin.  The arcane classes are wizard, sorcerer and warlock.  I don't like the direction WotC is taking with D&D Next classes; they are all pretty boring to me, so I revised the classes to make them more interesting to me and my group.  Here are some details.

Martial Classes: I don't like Expertise Dice as they seem needlessly complicated, but I do like the Combat Maneuver feats, so I took that concept and divorced the Expertise Dice from it.  Now all martial classes have access to the Combat Manuever feats, but none of the other casses do.  Fighters gain the most maneuvers since they have fewer class-specific abilities.   For the other classes, I tried to make them similar in structure, but very different in what they gain from class features.  I changed the name of the rogue to thief, mostly because I prefer that 1st edition name for the class.  Thieves have "Sneaking" abilities that they can gain as they level, and the player can customize their thief based on which sneaking abilities they choose.  These include sneak attack, sneaky move, attack from above, evasion, hit and run, night vision, quick stand, speed boost, backstab, critical damage, improved hidng and hide life (a little idea I stole from the novel Neverwhere).  The barbarian has the class features of Rage, of course, but then the player can customize their barbarian by choosing barbaric qualities at various levels.  These qualities are things like head-butt, bite attack, intimidating glare, terrifying howl, and others.  Rangers have their Hunter's Quarry basic ability and then choose from options to customize as they level, with choices like wild empathy, woodland stride, camoflage, hide in plain sight, advanced tracking, chosen enemy, and animal companion. 

Arcane Classes: My goal with the arcane classes was to create a unique magical system for each class.  I dislike the classic Vancian magic system, and don't care much for the D&DN version either, so I modified it further. In my game, wizards are magical physicists; they use formulas to control magical energies and those formulas are spells.  Only wizards use spells.  Warlocks borrow their arcane power from vestiges, and I use the Binder class from the 3E Tome of Magic as my template for the warlock.  My sorcerer is one born from a bloodline of magic and as such magic is more of an art, an expression, than it is a science.  They use magical concepts instead of spells, so my sorcerers have disciplines such as "energy" and "foresee" and "summon" an they create magical effects using mana points from these basic magical disciplines.  I used the Epic Level Handbook's spell seeds as the basis for this system. It is a very free-form class and one that is designed to allow the player to be very creative within certain parameters. 

Divine Classes: I must admit, I dislike pretty much every divine class and I really considered dropping them altogether, but I wasn't quite ready to go with a divine-less D&D, so my version modified the classes in an attempt to make them more interesting to me.   I think I still have some work to do here, but I've got a good start I think.  One of the main things I did with the divine classes is that I'm treating divine power as a separate thing from arcane magic.  Dispel magic won't work on divine miracles.  Clerics in my campaign worship the entire pantheon, not one god.  As such, they gain access to one prayer from each god, so every cleric has 9 prayers they may use per day.  The prayers are no longer divided by level, but are divided by tier.  There are Heroic, Paragon and Epic tier prayers.  Clerics also channel divinity that give them at will powers.  Druids worship the goddess Gaia and gain powers from her.  I made wild shape a basic class feature they get at 1st level and as they increase in levels, their wild shape gets more powerful. Druids do have spell-like powers I'm calling "affinities with nature", and they gain a certain number of these that they can cast per day. Paladins worship the god Paladine and their powers are based on how well they adhere to the strict code of conduct Paladine demands from them.  I have created a system that reflects Paladine's "favor" upon the paladin, which determines how powerful the paladin is in accordance to how well he pleases Paladine with his behavior.  This favor must be earned every day and may increase in power as the paldin proves his worth to his god.  The paladin's powers manifest mostly through their holy weapon.  Since the paladin is a divine class and not a martial class, they don't get combat maneuvers, but instead they get paladin stances that aid them with combat.

That is a high level summary of what I've done with classes so far.  

 
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]]> Sun, 25 Nov 2012 15:07:32 -0600 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2012/11/25/dd_my_way_update_2 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2012/11/25/dd_my_way_update_2 Classes:  I've written up 10 classes.  The martial classes are barbarian, fighter, ranger, thief.  The divine classes are cleric, druid, paladin.  The arcane classes are wizard, sorcerer and warlock.  I don't like the direction WotC is taking with D&D Next classes; they are all pretty boring to me, so I revised the classes to make them more interesting to me and my group.  Here are some details.

Martial Classes: I don't like Expertise Dice as they seem needlessly complicated, but I do like the Combat Maneuver feats, so I took that concept and divorced the Expertise Dice from it.  Now all martial classes have access to the Combat Manuever feats, but none of the other casses do.  Fighters gain the most maneuvers since they have fewer class-specific abilities.   For the other classes, I tried to make them similar in structure, but very different in what they gain from class features.  I changed the name of the rogue to thief, mostly because I prefer that 1st edition name for the class.  Thieves have "Sneaking" abilities that they can gain as they level, and the player can customize their thief based on which sneaking abilities they choose.  These include sneak attack, sneaky move, attack from above, evasion, hit and run, night vision, quick stand, speed boost, backstab, critical damage, improved hidng and hide life (a little idea I stole from the novel Neverwhere).  The barbarian has the class features of Rage, of course, but then the player can customize their barbarian by choosing barbaric qualities at various levels.  These qualities are things like head-butt, bite attack, intimidating glare, terrifying howl, and others.  Rangers have their Hunter's Quarry basic ability and then choose from options to customize as they level, with choices like wild empathy, woodland stride, camoflage, hide in plain sight, advanced tracking, chosen enemy, and animal companion. 

Arcane Classes: My goal with the arcane classes was to create a unique magical system for each class.  I dislike the classic Vancian magic system, and don't care much for the D&DN version either, so I modified it further. In my game, wizards are magical physicists; they use formulas to control magical energies and those formulas are spells.  Only wizards use spells.  Warlocks borrow their arcane power from vestiges, and I use the Binder class from the 3E Tome of Magic as my template for the warlock.  My sorcerer is one born from a bloodline of magic and as such magic is more of an art, an expression, than it is a science.  They use magical concepts instead of spells, so my sorcerers have disciplines such as "energy" and "foresee" and "summon" an they create magical effects using mana points from these basic magical disciplines.  I used the Epic Level Handbook's spell seeds as the basis for this system. It is a very free-form class and one that is designed to allow the player to be very creative within certain parameters. 

Divine Classes: I must admit, I dislike pretty much every divine class and I really considered dropping them altogether, but I wasn't quite ready to go with a divine-less D&D, so my version modified the classes in an attempt to make them more interesting to me.   I think I still have some work to do here, but I've got a good start I think.  One of the main things I did with the divine classes is that I'm treating divine power as a separate thing from arcane magic.  Dispel magic won't work on divine miracles.  Clerics in my campaign worship the entire pantheon, not one god.  As such, they gain access to one prayer from each god, so every cleric has 9 prayers they may use per day.  The prayers are no longer divided by level, but are divided by tier.  There are Heroic, Paragon and Epic tier prayers.  Clerics also channel divinity that give them at will powers.  Druids worship the goddess Gaia and gain powers from her.  I made wild shape a basic class feature they get at 1st level and as they increase in levels, their wild shape gets more powerful. Druids do have spell-like powers I'm calling "affinities with nature", and they gain a certain number of these that they can cast per day. Paladins worship the god Paladine and their powers are based on how well they adhere to the strict code of conduct Paladine demands from them.  I have created a system that reflects Paladine's "favor" upon the paladin, which determines how powerful the paladin is in accordance to how well he pleases Paladine with his behavior.  This favor must be earned every day and may increase in power as the paldin proves his worth to his god.  The paladin's powers manifest mostly through their holy weapon.  Since the paladin is a divine class and not a martial class, they don't get combat maneuvers, but instead they get paladin stances that aid them with combat.

That is a high level summary of what I've done with classes so far.  

 
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]]> 0 D&D My Way Update
There aren't many changes to the basics: there are still 6 ability scores that drive pretty much everything, there are still the core classes and are still hit points.  There are some pretty significant changes to other aspects of the game, which I'll attempt to elaborate on here:

- Defenses instead of armor class:  Each of the six ability scores are also a defense score for any attacks that target what that ability score represents.  Most attacks will target the Dexterity defense.

- Armor Class now represents damage resistance.

- Hit Points and Health Points: Hit Points represent that quality unique to heroes to survive in harsh environments, take punishment that would kill normal people and defy the odds.  Hit points are an indicator of how much of this quality adventurers have at any given time.  Hit points do not represent a character's actual physical or mental health; that is represented by their Health Points.  Normally, when a character takes damage from an attack, they deduct the damage from their hot points.  However, critical hits are deducted from both hit points and health points.  A character that runs out of hit points is still alive and can still function, but a character out of health points is dead.

- Power Sources: Each class falls under the category of one of the three power sources; martial, divine and arcane.

I'll go into the classes more in my next blog post.
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]]> Thu, 22 Nov 2012 09:18:20 -0600 http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2012/11/22/dd_my_way_update http://community.wizards.com/dm_nel/blog/2012/11/22/dd_my_way_update
There aren't many changes to the basics: there are still 6 ability scores that drive pretty much everything, there are still the core classes and are still hit points.  There are some pretty significant changes to other aspects of the game, which I'll attempt to elaborate on here:

- Defenses instead of armor class:  Each of the six ability scores are also a defense score for any attacks that target what that ability score represents.  Most attacks will target the Dexterity defense.

- Armor Class now represents damage resistance.

- Hit Points and Health Points: Hit Points represent that quality unique to heroes to survive in harsh environments, take punishment that would kill normal people and defy the odds.  Hit points are an indicator of how much of this quality adventurers have at any given time.  Hit points do not represent a character's actual physical or mental health; that is represented by their Health Points.  Normally, when a character takes damage from an attack, they deduct the damage from their hot points.  However, critical hits are deducted from both hit points and health points.  A character that runs out of hit points is still alive and can still function, but a character out of health points is dead.

- Power Sources: Each class falls under the category of one of the three power sources; martial, divine and arcane.

I'll go into the classes more in my next blog post.
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]]> 0