04/19/24: Hack Hack Hack
My friend David and I went to ForgeMidwest a couple weekends ago and had a good time, though it was cut short a day for Nox related reasons. IYNYN
That isn’t what this is about.
On the drive home, David asked me questions to keep my occupied with other thoughts. One of the questions was 13th Age related and was something like: what would you do different?
Obviously, this is catnip to my game design brain and I started listing off my thoughts.
Use 2d10 instead of a d20. I don’t like the swingy-ness.
Get rid of all escalating numbers. Characters still level up and get new abilities but, for the most part, their numbers don’t change.
Make Armor class reduce damage done to a character rather than a to-hit number.
A 10+ always hits in combat. If you roll doubles and you hit, it’s a critical.
Depending on playtesting, I might borrow the escalation die from 13th Age.
Definitely borrow the Backgrounds from 13th Age to replace Skills.
Attributes run from -1 to +3 rather than deriving a bonus from an attribute that isn’t used otherwise. This also allows them to be used, straight up, for Saving Throws.
Monsters and characters have levels. When a monster is half or less level than a character, it becomes a mook with 5 hit points. It’s no longer much of a threat.
There is probably more but that is, I think, a strong base for what I want to see in a fantasy heartbreaker.