Last October I was talking about Hit Dice, Hit Points & Weapon Damage in my various games, and how I want to work to unify some of this.
Since that post I’ve thought a lot and want to move forward with things it does, and this required a few changes. First up, I recategorized the classes:
Couple things: I will be adding a feat that allows you to bump your Hit Die to the next die up (maximum of d12). I like feats in my games! I think big chunky complex games like what else should have lots of customization options.
Under this system, your hit die is also your hit die, as in the die you roll for damage. Your character does damage, not your weapon. That’s not to say weapons won’t have differences; I am much more strictly implementing a “light/medium/heavy” system and locking those weapons behind class proficiencies. I prefer light/medium/heavy to the 3e “simple/martial” divide; it just makes more sense to me.
For equipment I’ll be starting with my Canonical Weapons List. I really like this one as it simplifies the list just enough. Probably, I will deep dive into the Martial Options I’ve got for my 5e house rules and compare against the Wolves weapons. (I keep going back but then stopping for some reason. It obviously works in that game or in OD&D. Why am I so hesitant here?)
But, the first thing I’ve got to cut from the weapons list is the damage. And once that’s done, there’s a little bit of work to be done to ensure an “archetype” exists for each one–there’s 3 damage types, so if there’s a heavy weapon there needs to be 3 of them, one for each type.
Light weapons will be disadvantage on damage (roll 2, take the lowest) while Heavy weapons will be advantage or when you take the weapon, you can increase it from your Hit Die up one step (maximum of d12).
Still working on the magic system. I have always liked the way 5e does saves and so I’ll be sticking to that, but I am thinking of changing the way they are statted. I think this version of my game is removing “proficiency bonus” the way it works in 5e. You’ll still have a base attack bonus that increases with level, but skills are moving to a skill ranks system ala 3e, and saves are probably going to use the New Modifiers system.
And, two house rules that I’ve been using for a while now that are going to stay: Hit Points are your Hit Die plus your CON Score (no modifiers ever added) and Stats are 1d6+8 six times, assign as desired.
The first thing I’m going to wholly design for this is probably the Barbarian, because I have an interesting and new take on it.
