Before we start, let me just say again, this is not what I really expect 6e to look like. I'm expecting a system with stats, rounds, d20 rolls, levels and so on. Most of the rest of what I'm going to write will centre around a system that looks like that. But what if...
That's what this post will focus on, and sections of future posts will look back at this.
Making your Rolls
I've touched on this before, but all rolls will use 4dF. These are fudge die, essentially d3, but labelled +, 0 or -. You add a modifier and try to beat your target number TN. Thus far this is the same as d20+modifiers to beat the DC.
Because we're really messing things up here, we're going to have strong successes, moderate successes, weak successes and failures. You do three bits of maths per roll, you take your modifier as a base, get +1 to it for each + you roll, if that beats the TN, one "success", if the modifier without plusses makes it, that's another, if the modifier with -1 per - you roll makes it that's a third. One success is weak, two is moderate, all three is strong. A strong success means you succeed with no penalties, a moderate success is a success with a minor penalty (-1 recovery time, -1 to a secondary resource etc.) a weak success is a success with a major penalty (you take a wound, you have an incident or similar) and a failure means you just get the major penalty.
On 4dF you won't always get all the results - you might roll 4+'s or 4 0's or 4-'s - but you calculate the results for each using 0 in the number. So if roll 4+'s your 0 and - result would be the same and if your modifier is high enough to succeed on its own, you get a strong success. If you roll 4-'s your + and 0 result would be the same and if your modifier is high enough to succeed on its own, you still get a moderate success.
Stats
Your modifier is usually made up of Skill Points that you've spent to improve your skills. One option, to keep it more similar to 5e would be to keep stat modifiers. Get your Dex to 20, get +5 on all Dex-based skills. Nice. But because we're kicking over the applecart here, how about reworking stats too?
Stats, in this system, give you a pool of points to spend. You can only spend them on rolls related to that stat, but you can spend them when you choose. Need to make that roll? Spend points from your pool to increase your modifier and make the roll, sorted, at least until your pool runs out... pools refresh a little on a short rest, wholly on a long rest.
Rolling Combat
Every weapon has a damage stat, as we're used to, so a dagger does d4, a greatsword 2d6 say, although if you want to keep the fudge dice paradigm throughout they'd have a modifier and a TN to do damage instead. Either way works. They have reach, a damage type and possibly special features, just like we're used to. But they also have a recovery time.
Players have a speed, which is generally going to be low, 1 or 2 spaces.
Spells have either a casting time, or a recovery time, and a duration, that is measured in time units as well. There is a benefit to having a recovery time, as it makes hybrid characters, that switch between casting and martial activities have a single system, rather than be really slow when they go from martial to magical and really fast when they go the other way.
Spell effects can still be written, like Green-Flame Blade, that you cast the spell AND make an attack as part of the spell completion.
When combat starts, the DM calls time=0, time=1, time=2 etc. When it's your time to act, and potentially on every turn, you act. When you're in cool down, you might move, but you can't take any other action.
Normally you'd take a single over-arching cool down timer, so you can either do a magical action or a martial action. Note that, because ONLY PCs roll, the need for initiative is less urgent. If two players act on the same tick, sort it out between you who would like to go first.
If we think of 5e for a second, game balance has a fighter, above 11th level, getting 3 and then 4 attacks per round and a monk from 5th level typically getting 3 or 4 attacks per round. This is to balance out things like a paladin's smite and the extra damage a caster might do from fireball and so on. In 6e we would need to think about that - monks can still get a flurry "invocation" of course, but the easiest way to achieve this speed up is to provide a skill, through invocations or class features or otherwise, that reduces the cool down period. So, lets say a dagger starts with cool down 5 and a greatsword with cool down 12 (these are just illustrative and not at all balanced). The fighter might get 1h cool down -1 (minimum 2) at every 5th level, and 2h cool down -1 (minimum 3) at every 4th level. A 20th level fighter would have dagger with cool down 2 and greatsword with cool down 7. They're piling out much more damage because they can hit more often.
Reactions might be a separate skill, with their own cool down, which is complex, or on the main cool down, which means you can move away from your main opponent just after they've attacked you in safety if you're one-on-one. That's relatively undesirable so more attacks will have a rooting ability stuck in there on a moderate or better success so you can't just run away the second you've been hit.
Handling Encounters if the DM never rolls
We've got so used to the DM rolling that, at first, it seems unthinkable that they won't. But lets imagine two fights for a moment, where there are the same level of challenge for the party. One is with a big bad, because we're imagining D&D 6e, lets make it a dragon. The other is with a horde of goblins.
Because these fights are the same challenge, we make the number of boxes to be ticked off by the party to succeed the same. Lets say it's 100 boxes, that's quite a challenge. In terms of figures though, that's one dragon or 100 goblins. The dragon is a tough old fight, we set the TN to be 10, the major penalty to be 3 wounds, the minor penalty to be -5 to the recovery time. We might also set some legendary actions, like a breath weapon, but we'll pass on that right now. The horde of goblins are much easier to kill individually, although being surrounded and outnumbered, we set the TN to 7 (they support each other and make it hard for you to get a clean blow in safety, it might be a 5 if you get them one-on-one, the major penalty to be 1 wound and the minor penalty to be -3 recovery time - you're still being jostled and bashed from all sides. And off you go - the fight against the goblins, although the overall size of the task is the same, is much easier, as it should be.
If you want that breath weapon, you set it as a legendary action where everyone makes a saving throw, or people in a certain area do. Saving throws work just like any other roll but strong successes mean no effect, moderate successes mean a minor effect, weak successes mean a major effect, failures mean a minor and a major effect. The minor effect would, again, probably be something like -5 recovery as you get up after diving for cover, the major effect 3 wounds from the fire or similar.
Stretching the point: No Levels
In D&D, since forever, we've had levels. What if we didn't? What a level does for you is, in essence, give you a package of bonuses in a discrete lump. Everyone gets more HP and other advances, in 5e your proficiency bonus rises, you get ASIs, casters get more spell slots, you get extra class features, extra attacks, sub-class features and so on.
What if that became more granular? Deconstructing the classes, as I've suggested in modelling everything around the warlock and invocations, could go one step further and become fully deconstructed. Lets say that fight with the dragon earns 300xp, the goblin horde 100xp (it's boxes x major penalty level). So you pay something like 200x tier for a new invocation, 300x tier for a new stat point, 100x tier for a new skill point and so on. You really can choose to be the ultimate glass cannon, never improving your HP, or the ultimate meat-shield, never improving your combat skills but soaking all that damage with your enormous HP pool.
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