Tuesday, November 13, 2012

More about The Unleashed RPG - Design Journal 1

(Edit: Note the Unleashed RPG rules, are based on the OGL, thus this does not fall under the CCNA that most of my Blog work does, but under the OGL)

So what are some of the design considerations behind Unleashed RPG?

    The main design consideration is obviously the d20. By dropping the 5% chance of any number it creates a more manageable average of 11. Only a 1% chance of rolling a 2 or 20. This caused an issue with criticals of course. Obviously a 20 would normally be a threat in d20, and an improved crit rapier is a 15+ to threaten. Now I didn't want the numbers to drop that far for the 2d10 System. So the solution I have is exploding dice. Most weapons will have a 10/1 Threat. That means if you roll a d10, you get to roll ONE extra. Improved critical will make your Crit threat look like this 10/2. You can roll and keep up to 2 additional dice. Yes, so theoretically you would roll a 40; as a 1 in 10,000 chance.  1in10 x 1in10 x 1in10 x 1in10.  

   Weapons with expanded critical ranges (which normally hit not as hard) have a TR with a lower number. For example a rapier would have an (8/1), while a keen rapier would have an (8/2).  This makes a manageable crit range.

   Another concept in Unleashed is the lack of a damage roll. Damage is determined by margin, up to the maximum damage of the weapon; or critical MAX damage of the weapon. No more rolling a critical and doing 2 measly points of damage. Say you beat your target's AC by 8 with a critical. Your damage range including all bonuses is (1-16+3) = 4-19. Margin of Success 8. Add 8 to low end of the range  for 12 damage. Had the Margin been too high, then the maximum damage would be 19. With all the modifiers built into the stat block of the weapon on the character sheet, it should make for a fast to play system. And if there's a little math involved, GOOD. When you look at the stat block the battle axe looks nice, with that 24 max damage, but you'll notice the speed characteristic of the weapon. It is a bit slower than the longsword. Weapon speed is the iterative modifier in this system. Multiple attacks suffer the modifier. So two attacks would be a -5/-5. (These penalties can be reduced by feats).  More on this in the  Unleashed RPG Design Journal 2.

Example Weapons
Longsword
1-16 [9/1] Speed:4 Min: Str:11 Dex:11
Versatile
Battle Axe
1-24 [20/1]  Speed:5 Min: Str:12 Dex:10
Heavy Slash
Dagger
1-8 [9/1] Speed:3 Min: Str: 6 Dex: 10

This is early design, and concepts may change. However if this sounds like something you might want to Alpha test, shoot me a line at EpicRPGBlog@gmail.com

Next Journal: Weapon Speeds, Actions and more. (Armor, that's what I meant to say)

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