Dammit Victor
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Based on the interest expressed in What IP/games would you like to see?, I thought I'd start a thread for each of my ongoing gaming/fiction projects to discuss what I'm trying to accomplish.
Galactic Dragons grew out of one of my perennial White Whales-- the need to implement the Player's Option rules for customizing race and class abilities and the Oriental Adventures martial arts rules into a D&D system without some of AD&D's... peculiarities. I started gravitating toward Spelljammer as a default setting, because of course I did, and over time I started incorporating features from Palladium Fantasy and Rolemaster.
The default setting is still in a rudimentary state, but the core of it is that there's a spiral galaxy with one arm dominated by an empire based on the colonial English and Spanish and one arm dominated by the "oriental" mashup of Chinese and Japanese culture represented in Oriental Adventures. The action of the game takes place in the unfortunate spiral arm between them, which both empires consider the object of their respective manifest destinies. About a century ago, the "season of revolution" swept through this part of space, with the majority of colonies from both empires declaring independence and establishing their own alliances and rivalries.
The system starts with a d20 base-- six ability scores, 3-18, regular ability modifiers. You pick your race and your class (working on multiclassing system) and your background and you gain levels. Ability scores increase with level based on your race and class.
That's where we turn left.
Player's Option
There are three vectors of customization available: Proficiencies, Feats, and "Options".
Proficiencies replace skill points and some feats. They're based on the optional skill slot rules from Pathfinder Unchained with a dose of Palladium; investing multiple proficiency slots in a proficiency grants additional bonuses beyond improved skill checks.
Feats are the heftier 5e-style feats, except they are gained automatically. These are not ranked, and I would like to avoid prerequisites
Finally, "Options" are the big one. These add major race/class features, replacing 5e's Subrace/Subclass, 3.X Prestige Class, and 4e's Paragon Path.
Galactic Dragons grew out of one of my perennial White Whales-- the need to implement the Player's Option rules for customizing race and class abilities and the Oriental Adventures martial arts rules into a D&D system without some of AD&D's... peculiarities. I started gravitating toward Spelljammer as a default setting, because of course I did, and over time I started incorporating features from Palladium Fantasy and Rolemaster.
The default setting is still in a rudimentary state, but the core of it is that there's a spiral galaxy with one arm dominated by an empire based on the colonial English and Spanish and one arm dominated by the "oriental" mashup of Chinese and Japanese culture represented in Oriental Adventures. The action of the game takes place in the unfortunate spiral arm between them, which both empires consider the object of their respective manifest destinies. About a century ago, the "season of revolution" swept through this part of space, with the majority of colonies from both empires declaring independence and establishing their own alliances and rivalries.
The system starts with a d20 base-- six ability scores, 3-18, regular ability modifiers. You pick your race and your class (working on multiclassing system) and your background and you gain levels. Ability scores increase with level based on your race and class.
That's where we turn left.
Player's Option
There are three vectors of customization available: Proficiencies, Feats, and "Options".
Proficiencies replace skill points and some feats. They're based on the optional skill slot rules from Pathfinder Unchained with a dose of Palladium; investing multiple proficiency slots in a proficiency grants additional bonuses beyond improved skill checks.
Feats are the heftier 5e-style feats, except they are gained automatically. These are not ranked, and I would like to avoid prerequisites
Finally, "Options" are the big one. These add major race/class features, replacing 5e's Subrace/Subclass, 3.X Prestige Class, and 4e's Paragon Path.