Monday, August 27, 2018

Yet Another OSR Skill System




A thought has been bouncing around my skull for a bit and I'm curious if it's ever been brought up?

The idea was inspired by ADnD 2E's Saving Throw Priority system.

Essentially, if a task comes up, the DM assigns difficulty by having the player's roll against their best Saving Throw (lowest) or their worst Saving Throw (highest).

The DM could decide that if a task falls within a character's class or background, they use the lowest Saving Throw and if it falls outside those parameters, they use highest saving throw. Essentially, creating a Trained and Untrained target number.

E.G. A 1st level Cleric has Breath Attacks at 16, Poison or Death at 11, Petryify or Paralyze at 14, Wands at 12, and Spells or Spell-like Devices at 14. Their Trained Save would be 11 and their Untrained Save would be 16.

You could even abandon Thief Ability percentages in favor of this system.

Has anyone employed something similar to this or seen it written about?

1 comment:

Bruno said...

I like it. To answer your question, Castles and Crusades resolves everything with their Ability Score-based Saving Throws, which have Primes and Non-Primes. For a Prime you must get 12 or better, 18 or better for non-prime. You add your Level to your roll but you remove for difficulty and even monster HD. (It makes for a pretty harsh system when you remove a monster's HD from your roll and are expected to hit an 18 though.)

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