7.4
| Version |
7.4 |
|---|---|
| Development Began |
2014-May-28 |
| Launch Date |
?? |
7.3 brought us attributes, skills, feats, powers, power sources, and races, all using different mechanics. Things have gotten too complicated. Complexity is good when you want to dive in and tweak a character, but bad when it is impossible to make a simple character (or monster for that matter).
7.4 will return to the original concept of System 7, having resolved the issues that arose in the first attempt.
In short:
- Attributes remain unchanged from 7.3
- Skill Points are reserved for mundane skills (such as Survival, Healing, etc), and may be Int based
- Feats are unchanged from 7.3
- Each level, you select 1 class and 1 power source.
- This works much like multiclassing in 3e. You can choose the same class over and over, thus increasing your level in that class, or you can branch into new classes.
- A "class" is a general combat style, such as Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, etc. Most grant no supernatural or spell-like ability at all, but there are several classes that do, such as Practitioner.
- A "power source" is a source of supernatural power. It grants abilities by itself, and may also allow access to a certain limited range of powers, as appropriate to the power source.
Classes
Classes encompass everything you need to approach combat in a certain way. Fighter, for instance, is for those who emphasize martial skill. Rogue is for those who emphasize cleverness, sneakiness, mobility, etc.
The most useful abilities of the 7.3 general skill list will be folded into classes. Want to tumble through threatened areas, inflict sneak attacks, and vanish into the shadows? Take Rogue. Want to taunt enemies and grant allies cover with your shield? Fighter. Want to stand in the back and hurl spells? Practitioner.
Most people you'll meet in a fantasy/modern/sci-fi world have some levels in one or more classes, but few have Power Sources. A Power Source makes you extraordinary. A class makes you ordinary...at least in terms of cinematic logic. You can build an Action Hero with nothing but classes. You can even build a Wizard. Classes produce the kind of power you expect from most cinematic experiences. For more, see Power Sources.
Fighter
Stances, maneuvers, talents. See the System 6 fighter (minus the artifice and barbarian parts).
Practitioner
By itself, something of a low-magic wizard. Rituals, wands, magic items, that sort of thing. Imagine playing a 7.3 magic user without any Mana, and you'll get the idea. They gain unrestricted access to Powers (some sort of resource mechanic), but they need to use techniques such as blood magic, soul magic, summoning, etc to wield real power handily.
Power Sources
Power Sources are sources of power, plain and simple. They always describe innate talent, whereas classes describe training and experience. They are designed to be self-contained--any rules therein are intended to be used only by the Power Source. This is to limit the effect of multi-Power-Sourceing, to prevent exploits that break game balance.
Power Sources can work however they want, but as a rule, they generally grant some combination of the following:
- Innate bonuses to attributes
- New attributes (e.g. Rage, Blood)
- Ability to invest in Powers
- List of bonus feats
All races with any sort of power are Power Sources.
Anyone who has an Energy attribute (i.e. Mana, Force Points, etc) must have gotten it from a Power Source; there is no universal attribute for such.
Artifice, Armortech, Alchemy, etc
Trade-skill-based power sources have been shown to work well. Armortech is a good example of a self-contained power source. Just imagine it with 20 levels instead of 20 skill ranks.
Magic
This is the tricky one. One solution is to make Invocation, Thaumaturgy, and Evocation each their own power source. However, that may not be ideal--they all use mana, after all.
Another solution might be to say that Magic is the power source, as distinct from The Force and Psionics. Inv/evo/thaum are skills or powers available to Practitioners, but not to other classes. Thus, a magically-inclined Fighter might be able to pull off a convincing magic hybrid, but will lag well behind pure casters in ritual power.
Yet another solution might be to split Magic a few ways, depending on the campaign setting. Perhaps Arcane, Divine, Primal, Shadow, and Psionics all work differently. It's an opportunity to enhance the flavor of each setting, rather than relying entirely on evo/inv/thaum.
In any case, think of it thus:
- Magic gives you Mana
- Mana is used to conveniently power your Powers
- Without Mana, it's much harder to make Powers work (but not impossible)
Skills
Skills once again work just like in 3e. No longer are the mundane skills "squished" together as they were in 7.3, nor are they required to have a long laundry list of cool uses and feats as in 7.2. They are simple: you roll a d20, add your modifiers, and get a result: if that result is high enough, you win.
(the uncertainty is: should we stick with skills to explain things like Dodge, Melee, Parry, etc? or shall we revert to attributes, influenced by classes? both options have their appeal)
Powers
Powers are actual uses of supernatural power. Where "Infernal" is a Power Source, "immolate" is a Power.
You gain access to Powers by taking levels in a Power Source, or in a class that grants access to Powers.
Each Power belongs to a "school". This is just a convenient way of organizing powers; if Schools become too limiting, they will be changed or eliminated. Ultimately, the list of Powers is what matters.
Each Power has 5 ranks. When you gain "a power", that means you gain rank 1 in a power you didn't have, or advance the rank by 1 of a power you did have.
For example:
- Let's say the Dragon Power Source grants 1 power per level of the Fire school.
- Also, your choice of dragonflight (i.e. color) adds another school option: Water for green dragons, Time for purple, etc.
- Let's say the Practitioner Class grants 2 powers per level of any school you want.
- Nyx gains a level. He chooses Dragon and Practitioner.
- For his Dragon level, he chooses Breath of Fire, a power in the Fire school. He already had rank 1 of this power, so he advances it to rank 2.
- For his Practitioner level, he chooses Earth Shaping and Water Bending, advancing the rank of each of those powers by 1.
- Now that he has Breath of Fire, rank 2, he can spend actions and Mana (or Rage) to produce gouts of fire, per the description of Breath of Fire.
Another way to look at it is that the current 7.3 power list is a list of "schools", and each path therein is a "power".
Multiclassing
Multiclassing created a big problem in System 6: the mechanics for each class were designed solely for that class, and when mixed, they produced undesirable results, breaking game balance.
The general guiding rule to resolve this is that whatever abilities a Power Source grants should be dependent on the energy source granted by the same Power Source, and should not extend beyond that PS. For example, if Channeler and Mage were Power Sources, the old mage/druid trick of "5x damage from channeling and +500% damage from Mana means +25x damage" would not work, as each Power Source's abilities would not affect those of the other.
This only catches some cases, of course. The real solution is to ensure that each Power Source is built in an intelligent way. A better version of the classic mage/druid combo might work thus:
- Each round, a Channeler may spend a free action to advance their channeling effect by one rank. Once per round, as a swift action, he may withdraw 1 free mana per rank of the effect.
- A Mage may spend a swift action to Evoke Energy, gaining 1 free mana per rank.
- While it is possible to gain the effect of both, it would now cost 2 swift actions, and the "double mana" would be the fair result of double actions. Instead of multiplying exponentially, the two sources of mana would stack linearly.