Making a D&D Next Character

I made a D&D Next character today using the most recent playtest rules (from the set that includes the monk).

The last time I made a character was with the very first set of playtest rules, and quite a bit has changed since then.

We're doing an online playtest tonight, and the group needs a rogue.  Our experience in the Next game that I DM is that the rogue is pretty powerful, but apparently some smack has been talked about them, so I'm interested in creating one to see just what they can do under the newest rules.

So, race comes first.  Everyone plays a halfling thief, so I figure elf or human, or maaaaaybee dwarf if I come up with a good idea.  Perusing the races my latent min/maxer kicks in - I pick the wood elf for the +1 dex bonus, the automatic training in spot and listen and the enhanced ability to hide.  All good things for a rogue.

Stats come next, roll them up using 4d6 drop lowest - 12, 17, 12, 16, 10, 8.  Those are quite good, actually, especially when you realize that you get to add at least 2 point to those scores.

I'll take Str 10 cause I don't need it, Dex 17 of course, Con 12 for a slight HP edge, Int 16 for the skills, Wis 12 for skills and Cha 8.  Yaay for Charisma dump stat!  Add the +1 Dex for being an elf and I'm sitting pretty at 18 Dex.

I already picked the rogue class, so I get another +1 to add to Str, Dex or Int.  Dex it is for the 19 and the +5 bonus.  Finesse weapons here we COME.  And the damage dice increase on shortbows from being an elf don't hurt none either.

On to the Background, Specialty and Scheme.  So many choices here!  I don't like the Backgrounds and Schemes that I see, too much overlap and duplication of what I already have.  It seems like if you get training on a skill you already have you should get an extra +1 or +2 or something.  Is there a rule I missed?

Since I'm not happy with any of the ones I see here, I'll make up my own.  They thoughtfully give me rules to do that, and hellz, I'm a DM, I make up my own shit ALL THE TIME.

Background: 
Brigand. You are a robber or forester who lives in the wilderness. You have excellent forestry skills, and excel at avoiding pursuit or detection.

Skills: Track, Survival, Search, Climb
Trait: Wanderer – excellent memory for maps and terrain, can find
food and water for up to 5 others each day.

Cool art from this blog.

Scheme: 
Nightrunner. The Nightrunner is an elven assassin, spy and saboteur. They are trained in stealth, climbing and agility, as well as sneaky tricks.
Skills: Stealth, Balance, Disable Device, Tumble
Maneuvers: Danger Sense, Precise Shot, Sneak Attack, Spring Attack, Vault, Controlled Fall, Parry, Tumbling Dodge.

Woot - that means I have training in Listen, Spot, Track, Sneak, Survival, Search, Climb, Balance, Disable Device and Tumble.  Thiefy and scouty!  I get a skill mastery maneuver automatically that lets me add my expertise dice to a skill check, so that enhances all these skills.  Being a rogue also gives me thieves tools, proficiency in light armor and basic, finesse, simple and martial missile weapons for a reasonable weapon selection.

Picking a Specialty is actually pretty tough, as there are a lot of Specialties that fit with my character concept (elven Snake-eyes FTW!)  Eventually, I pick Ambush Specialist, getting the Improved Initiative feat.  +4 on initiative and a minimum of 10 on initiative rolls means that I CANNOT get less than 19 on an initiative roll.  Plus my danger sense maneuver lets me add my expertise dice to initiative.  Minimum 20, then, so I will be going first.  And that is good since I only have 7 HP and 16 AC.

For weapons, being an elf gives me enhanced damage dice on the shortbow, that will be a no-brainer.  I also take a katana (SNAKE-EYES!  SHUT UP!) for the higher damage since I can't use a shield anyways, daggers for thematic effect and throwing and a spiked chain (kusari) because it's cool and I could see it coming in handy.  Indiana Jones always found a use for the whip, so a weighted chain should be useful.

Because of the high Dex and the +2 rogue attack bonus, I have +7 to hit with all my weapons, and most of them get a +5 damage adjustment.  I may not be durable, but I'm pointy.

Leather armor is obvious since my Dex is so high.  I'll also take a raft of sneaky gear:  backpack, climbers kit, 2 grappling hooks, caltrops, oil, ball bearings, pitons, tinderbox, waterskin, chalk, thieves tools, a steel mirror and the obligatory black cloak.  That leaves me enough money for all my weapons and about 20 GP left over, as you are allowed to spend 175 GP if you don't take the standard gear recommendations.

Finalized sheet is here:  Cerdwin

I did have the +1 rogue bonus added to STR instead of DEX on this character sheet, but I'll fix that up shortly.

Some thoughts:

It's a bit fiddly if you care about duplicating skills.

Improved Initiative will be nerfed shortly.

Between Class, Race, Scheme, Specialty and Background there is a LOT to choose from.  Maybe too much for a newbie.  Definitely harder than the first couple of rounds of playtest.

It's really easy to customize character creation, which is great.  Min/maxing is there but less of an issue than 4e and you don't seem to need a doctorate in systems design to plan a character like you did in 3e.

These characters remind me a bit of Palladium system characters.  Many of the basic bonuses and skills are set on creation and the characters don't change THAT much as you level.  Sure you get better, but the basics are all the same.

This rogue is going to be nasty if I don't die immediately.

I could easily die immediately.

It's a bit weird having katanas and things in the equipment lists, but I rationalize by saying that they are just elven-style weapons analogous to katanas and kusari and other ninja/oriental stuff.

You could still do old-school characters very easily on this system by removing Scheme, Specialty and optionally background.  The system would still work at least as well as 1e.  Keeping background and Scheme would mean you basically have 2e.

The feats are simple and the Specialties work more like Vampire Disciplines now - neat new powers every few levels.  I like that.

This is flexible and interesting enough that I like creating characters.  Probably the most interesting character creation in D&D since 2e.

A Great Tool for the Busy DM

StumbleUpon.  You kill me - I should be doing other STUFF.  I have Domain Game turns to work on, prep for my online After The Bomb game, work stuff that I really shouldn't be doing at home.  But yet I click, and click and click.

But.  But, but, but - the clicking finally pays off!  I found this little gem, by Wizards of the Coast, no less.  I haven't really looked at the adventure portion yet, but the little maps it creates are GREAT.  For small post-apocalyptic complexes and buildings, these maps look ideal.

In addition, I can save them right off the website and import them into Maptools with a few mouse clicks.  Super work, WotC, really super.

First Session of After the Bomb

After the Bomb 2e is a stand-alone RPG that uses the core Palladium rules with the TMNT mutation rules added in.  In this game, I'm also allowing things from Ninjas and Superspies, and possibly something or other from Heroes Unlimited.

Basically, it's a post-apocalyptic RPG featuring mutant animals!  I'd forgotten how much I love TMNT characters.  That's what makes this system great.  Cause it sure ain't the over-complex, fiddly combat or the as-bad-as-3e antagonist generation or the "simple" (by GURPS standards) vehicle rules..

But I can houserule all that shit.  The characters...  so good.

Let's see - we have 4 characters in the game at this point.  Perry, the DM from our OD&D game, is playing a 7'3", 380 lb mutant sheep named Baab.  Baab is a trained Farrier (which presumably means he can shoe himself) and also knows Sumo.  He speaks both english and japanese with a scottish accent (lllolll's his lllll's).

Then we have Jennie's character - a currently unnamed mutant Marten (which is like a large, tree-dwelling ferret).  This character is ridiculously fast, knows Drunken Monkey kung-fu, can pilot military vehicles, and knows the Art of Hiding, which is the neat trick where you stand RIGHT BEHIND somebody and move around so fast they can't see you.  Which would be awesome but she took the Musk Gland: Strong and Stinky bit, so the character is basically a really Silent but Deadly fart.  Which is also kinda great.

Next is the brains of the operation: Dr. Cat. Dr Cat is called Dr. Cat because he is pretty much a large scottish fold cat, but with a few minor differences from the traditional cat.  Difference one: Dr. Cat is a medical doctor, with degrees in Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pathology, Radiology and Dentistry.  Also Clinical Genetics, Anthropology, Botany, Analytical Chemistry (I don't even KNOW WHAT THAT IS) and Public Speaking.  Except he can't speak because he IS A CAT.

Oh, and Dr. Cat has ectoplasmic hands - for use in surgery, and a crippling catnip addiction.  And he can drive both motorcycles and trucks.  So he's pretty much Toonces the Driving Cat.

As if that wasn't enough, the final character is possibly the best of all.  He is a 14" tall mutant bat.  Who knows Ninjitsu.  Also he can talk to electronics, sees by ground-penetrating sonar, can fix mechanical objects by touching them, and eats only bugs. Which explains the "Breed and Control Insects" skill.  It does not explain the "Bolt-action rifle" and "WP Grappling hook" skills.  Man.  You can FLY - what do you need a grappling hook for?

Because you are a ninja, is the obvious answer.

The first session consisted of finishing the characters, waking up naked in a tube full of liquid, getting out of the tube, convincing the lab AI to download itself onto a memory crystal, convincing the elevator that it would be fun to release the brakes and plummet down the shaft in order to save electricity (reactor power in the complex is very low), searching through some labs for clothing (Baab is kinda body-shy).

The main feedback, "not enough stuff to kill".  Ah 4e-players, how simple things are in your little world.  I'm very excited - this is shaping up to be epic and silly and awesome, which is pretty much how I like my games to be.

What Good Timing!

http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/how-hard-can-it-be/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CampaignMastery+(Campaign+Mastery)

Yowza!  Nice to read a much more comprehensive and well-thought out post on the structure of skills and skill tests than I had.

This mostly addresses the issue I have of slipperier slime at higher levels.  The conclusion that Mike makes is that slime is indeed slipperier, but not necessarily for higher level characters, but in fact for 2 different characters.

So my mutant skink with PP 30 and athletics and acrobatics will find the slime less slippery than your mutant buffalo with hooves and enormous size?  Not a bad solution, but it makes me do a lot of math on the fly, since I pretty much have to calculate where on the difficulty curve I want the roll to be for each roll.  But on the other hand, I could just use the number of ranks/bonus points that a character has in a skill as a general guide to how good they are at it, and use that to determine what their difficulty is as a flat d20 roll.

Actually, I like that, let's run with it.

And speaking of running with it, let's steal some more - this time from Vampire 2nd Edition.

I always liked how you combined 2 things, attributes and skills, to determine how good the character was at a given task.  So I will be asking characters for 2 numbers, attribute bonus and skill score, adding them together and using that number to determine how good the character is at the skill in question.  Based on that, I will determine what the player needs to roll on the d20 to succeed at the task.  Potentially the overall difficulty would also be modified by people helping and other factors (like, is somebody shooting at you).

Let's try an example and see if it works in concept.

Slinky the aforementioned Mutant Skink has a score of 4 in athletics (3 starting plus 1 bought with skills) and a modifier of +6 for PP, giving him a total of 10.  10 I would rank as pretty fracking great at a given skill, so to run across the slimy slime, he needs to roll a 7 or higher, giving him about a 70% chance of success.

Herbi the Buffalo, though - he has an athletics score of 4 as well (starting 3 plus 1 bought with skills), but only has a PP of 16, for a +1 modifer, plus he has a -2 because he has hooves.  Total score 3.  Which I would rank as intensely mediocre, but not pitiful, so he needs a 15 or better to run across the slimy slime.  About a 20% chance of success.

I think I like the basic idea.  It means that characters who are exceptional can have a reasonable chance of success at something even if they have no specialized skills in that regard, and characters who have such skills AND exceptional attributes have a very good chance of success at something, which is as it should be.

But this means that I have to rebuild the TMNT character sheet.  Which I was pretty much going to do anyways.

Skills in TMNT

OK.  I've decided I want to run a TMNT game.  But there are a few things about the Palladium system that I'm not in love with, and one of them is the whole % skill business.  I like a skill-based game, mind you.  I've kicked around with non class-based systems, and I tend to like them, but there are some issues with them.

The biggest ones, to my mind, are avoiding dead ends or useless skills, and maintaining a reasonable difficulty curve while leveling.

By the first I mean, there should be no useless skills.  And by the second I mean, you shouldn't have to have slipperier slime at higher levels.  You should just be better at dealing with slime.  But not so good that you never slip on slime - it's still more hazardous than dry floor.

I have also decided that I will make no major effort to address these potential issues of a skill-based system while reworking TMNT/Palladium.

Sooooo... how to deal with skills, if I'm not going to use a %-based system.  I want to use the existing body of TMNT skills, it represents a significant resource, and one that I'm not willing to throw out.  My inclination is to go with a difficulty-based d20 system. TMNT uses d20 rules already, so we're not that far off, and d20 is easy to convert into percentile chances, so it should be relatively easy to convert from a % system to a d20-based system.

I also want to rework the skill bonus structure, and the leveling structure to streamline things and hopefully build a reasonable difficulty curve.  I'd thought of using a "Target 20" idea for the rolling system, but I'm not sure it gives me enough flex on the math.  I'll be making a lot of decisions on the fly during the game, so I want a system that gives me lots of options.  I can do % chance converted to d20 in my head, and d20 is simpler for players.

My first thought on converting the TMNT skills to a base d20 system is to take the starting % chance on the skill, divide by 10 and round up.  That's the starting bonus for the skill.  Add a stat-based modifier and a dice roll and you should have a workable system...

But.  Doing that actually makes success in the skills much harder.  If you assume that 20 is the base difficulty, then each +1 on a roll represents a base 5% chance to succeed.  So taking a base 30% skill, making it a +3 modifier means that the player has to roll, theoretically, a 17 to succeed.  Which is really only a 15% chance of success.  Setting a base difficulty of 15 means that a +3 bonus represents a 40% chance of success.  A little closer to the starting point.  But it makes the math on the conversion harder.

Setting the base difficulty for most tasks at 15 works for me, the more that I think about it.  I expect characters at first level to have modifiers on most skills of between 2 (low) and 10 (high and/or exceptional stats).  I'm not sure yet if I want to have penalties on the roll, or higher difficulties for difficult tasks/conditions. Bears more thinking.  And I need to consider how I'm dealing with leveling.

On to TMNT

I'm trying to start a new IRL game, as my online game kinda fizzled, largely due to the fact that I have a 1-year old and not enough time to do all the things I want. And I'm lazy and hate network engineering, which is what I have to do to get Maptools running. So on to something different!

I want to try a TMNT After the Bomb sandbox. Inspired by the redoubtable Zak S. Who is purely the best gaming blogger working right now, in my opinion. I am always challenged and interested by his material. And always inspired as well, which is the important part.

So, TMNT... but. but, but, but. The Palladium system kinda blows. So I'm going to take a page from Mr Zak and beat on the rules a bit, and see if I can come up with something better.

First things first. Steal from Zak.

SCD. Out the Window. Just HP from here on out.

Stats - I like 4d6 drop the lowest. Stick with the extra d6 for 16 and over, and roll once more if you get a 6.

All stats will be capped at 30.

Initial skills - I like the roll d12 idea. I'm also going to allow players to have 2 wps, which can also include hand to hand skills. I'll also allow a bonus number of skills based on the character's IQ.

I'm going to keep the whole Bi0-E/Mutation system unchanged from the 2nd Edition of After the Bomb - it's the part of the system I like the most.

Next time - dealing with combat and leveling.