For a while our guild has been using a system that has constantly evolved and been adapted as we’ve grown and changed both in terms of story, and in terms of purpose. As it stands now, the system is in a good place and only minor tweaks here and there are needed. As such, we thought it might be a nice idea to share the system with the community as a whole - in case anyone is looking for a fun event system for their guild that includes items, levelling, resistances, NPCs and a decent level of complexity without being too much a burden on the players!
The system is predominantly based on the use of two key addons, Total Roleplay 3: Extended and DiceMaster. These can be found with links on the guide’s main page. We appreciate feedback and hope you can get some use from it, even if you adapt it and change it for your guild’s needs! Please find the link below:
If you have any questions, feedback or comments, please leave them here or get in touch.
So I’ve given this two five skim reads to get an idea of it. Say I’ve got a passing familiarity with D&D already. How would you sell your system over that?
I don’t want to come across as a negative nancy but…
Some thoughts
The armour section is vague. Armour has resistance to damage types ‘based on what armour they are’…but then it doesn’t specify how that works at all with the example making little sense. On the first read I thought that armour only ever provided slashing damage resistance via your example, but on a re-read it seems like your armour resistance is an amalgamation of all the different pieces? Is it asking the DM to determine the various resistance types for each piece of armour for each person?
Spellcasters seem to be extremely unsupported, with a vague ‘magic spell’ damage at a flat 1d6+stat, and no magic weapons to buff them unlike martials. Wands don’t count, since thematically many spellcasters don’t or won’t use wands. (eg. Elemental Shaman).
Healing, likewise, is vague and outside of the barebones Abilities section I couldn’t tell you what a healing spell looks like. All the examples cost Life (which I assume is the same as Health, but it’s not clear) instead of mana or energy or some other resource?
Also the third example ability does nothing other than hurt you. It costs an Action Point and ten life to restore one depleted Action Point (presumably to someone else?) except everyone gets their depleted action points back at the start of their turn anyway.
The skill section mentions how you can spec into longswords to be ‘better’ at them but I can’t figure out what that means. Flanking apparently guarantees a melee hit, but from now reading through the sections again I can’t see when a hit isn’t guaranteed. There doesn’t seem to be any explanation for what an ‘attack roll’ looks like.
I think there’s more I could write about it but that’s just what’s jumped out at me. I didn’t touch on some of the weapons (Warglaives objectively inferior to Sabres) or the mounted combat stuff at all.
It’s simultaneously very specific as a system (9 stats! Dozens of weapons!) about certain things and then impossibly vague about others to the extent that I cannot visualise a character or the execution in combat.
if it works for your guild, super, I don’t wanna take anything away from that, and perhaps when you’ve been dealing with it through the evolution process it’s all very simple and clear, but from an outsider’s perspective…nah, sorry.
Can you be more specific on what you find vague? I would be happy to update it to elaborate more. As for the system over that of D&D, I would simply say it’s very similar, merely adapted more towards this universe instead of Faerun.
What does a healing spell look like? Healing is one of the three pillars of WoW and yet there’s not a single comment about building a healer. What does my skill in a longsword or lockpicking do, and how do I get better at it? What’s my starting skill? Do I have an allocation of skill points separate to attribute points? What does an attack roll look like? What does a piece of armour look like? In the armour section you mention dodges/parries/counters but nowhere is it explained what those actually are.
The heavy armour entry says that it offers the most protection, but when talking about actual “points” for quality of item it seems to be agnostic of armour type. Please go back and read the armour section and try to view it from the perspective of someone who has never touched your system before.
Also I just read that “Wits governs loot drops” but…how. Is there a separate file for dealing with that or is it all left to the DM to make up on the fly? If I’m playing with a group where one guy has a Wits of 40 and another has a Wits of 0 what does that mean for loot? Does one guy just get a ton and the other gets nothing? Can Wits-master then dish it out to his friends?
Setting books (such as Ravnica or Eberron) aside D&D isn’t tied to one setting. You could use the base rules entirely fine for a Warcraft game. I am not clear how your rules are more adapted to Warcraft.
I hope I’m not coming across as harsh but these are all questions that I’d expect anyone picking up your system to have, ones that would need answering.
A healing spell would be an ability, as shown in the abilities section. That is up to your character in what magic they use and how your character performs it.
Skills, as explained in the text, increase your roll by the skill level. Say if you have a skill of 5 in Longswords, and you attack something with a Longsword, you will get +5 to your roll. I will put an example in if it helps!
Skills have no set number of allocation points - I will put it in that skill levels are just personal to what your character’s level in said skill is, so if you are fluent in Darnassian, you could put 10, as an example.
I will update the Action Point - Defending bullet point to include dodging, parrying and countering.
Heavy armour does have the most protection, I will update the doc to show that Heavy armour has 5 per item, Medium 3 and Light 1
Points are agnostic of amour type, simply the type of resistance changes for armour type as well as actual level of physical armour.
Loot is determined by the DM, though I will update that the Wits roll merely determines if you fine extra loot, or a special item. Though that is completely up to the DM if they wish to use that.
As for the items themselves, that is completely up to the DM!
Thanks for your feedback, I’ll update the document now
So “make it up and hope the officers in your guild say yes”?
So you can just say you’re a master at a bunch of weapons and skills without any restriction.
Again though, what roll?
Example: I’m Bob Grunt attacking Joe Footman.
I want to attack with my Waraxe.
Run me through the process for doing so, what stats are used and where.
From what I can tell, I might roll to see if I hit, or maybe I don’t, since there’s no rules for doing so.
I do 1d8+Power damage, reduced by his armour by a percentage based on his resistances which are an accumulation of all the points of the armour he equipped, and then a further reduction based off of armour value? But how those figures are arrived at is unclear. Is there ever any reason to not have armour in an item slot, to fulfill the “shirtless barbarian” or “ascetic monk” theme?
Bob Grunt is only a Grunt so we’ll make him an Apprentice (40 points). He’ll max out power and the rest of the stats don’t matter for this example.
Now Joe Footman is of course wearing Heavy Armour as a brave soldier of the Alliance, and we’ll throw a medium shield on there too so he’s not too slowed down. At +5 per armour piece (head, torso, hands, legs, feet) and +10 from his medium shield he’s rocking at 35 armour stat.
Before factoring in resistances, Bob’s average damage roll is 14.5 (4.5 from the d8, +10 from his power stat) from what I can tell, meaning that on a standard hit it is literally impossible for him to hurt Joe Footman. On a maxed damage roll (18) power attack (x2) he deals 1 point of damage.
Unless the plate armour has any sort of slashing resistance, which is pretty likely, in which case it’s impossible for Bob Grunt to hurt Joe Footman.
So, one could do that, theoretically, but not only will that ruin the point of character progression for them, but it would also be at the DM/Guild Officer’s discretion if they wish to challenge any of that. Ultimately it’s relying on players to be true to their character. As for your scenario:
As it shows on the weapons list, a waraxe is a Power roll. So, to attack, you would roll on your Power stat. Let’s say Bob did max out power and so has 10 Power.
If Bob Grunt does use a power attack, they would deal a maximum of 36 Slashing damage like you said. Say Joe Footman:
A) Blocks it with his medium shield that has 10% slashing resistance. Bob’s damage is reduced to 16, and the shield absorbs 10 of it, so he deals 6 damage to Joe’s Armour. No good.
B) If Joe fails to block it, he takes the full whack. Total slashing resistance is say 20%, so Bob does 29 damage, and then the armour absorbs 25 of it, dealing 4 damage to Joe.
Perhaps it’s easier seen in an actual encounter, but I will try and update to reflect this in the doc.
As for a character who wants to play the barbarian trope, or a monk? Not only does having no heavy armour on their torso increase their range of movement, but also with custom abilities they can design their build around it!
I’d note the hypothetical involved maxed damage there. An average damage roll (4.5), even on a power attack, would deal zero damage.
Do you think it’s a problem with your system that the most basic Warcraft conflict - Footman vs. Grunt - is represented so that a Grunt has a fraction of a fraction of a chance to deal even one bit of damage? Has to hit, has to not be blocked, has to roll above average on his damage dice, and can only do so once per turn since a power attack takes 2 of his 3 AP.
Even if he somehow hit and rolled max damage on every attack it’s still 13 turns of back and forth minimum (depending on if Joe Footman put any points into his health stat) before Joe falls over.
In the examples you’re writing, what exactly do you mean by “Bob rolls on his Power”? it appears to be a d100 roll, and with bob’s 18 power i’m not sure where the roll value comes from, and how power has anything to do with it?
So, with the DiceMaster addon, every character can have a sheet for their Statistics and Skills. To “roll on Power”, Bob would need to find Power in his Statistics list and press the dice button next to it! This will roll a d100 and automatically add his Power Statistic value to it. So for his example, he has 18 power, so he would roll 1d100 to get 32, and then +18 to make 50!
I’ve been in the guild for some time and while I’m obviously biased, I’m a very big fan of this system. Here’s why:
It’s not perfect, nor as fleshed out as what you’d find in DnD. But to me, it doesn’t have to be. What it’s -really- good at is allowing you freedom to represent your character as you see them, be it through the skill points or through the abilities you can design.
You are free to act in any manner you see fit, and the system allows for that and gives the DM options to evaluate how likely your success is. Through Dicemaster, where you can create NPCs with visuals, buffs, stats as well as abilities, it adds a whole extra layer to encounters. Rather than stare at glowing markers, you can actually see and evaluate your enemies, then make decisions from there.
I understand that it’s daunting and even somewhat confusing at the start, but everyone (so far) who has used it understands quickly and comes to enjoy it greatly.
I haven’t read about the system, but I would think that specifying how a healing spell looks would be unnecessary as as far as I understand it, it is based on WoW lore, as in a D&D -esque system adapted to WoW.
So you are still playing WoW just with an overlaying RP combat system.
As said I haven’t actually read about the system, so I could be totally wrong here.
I assume that means that I am wrong, which I did point out I might be.
Sorry for trying to help, even if I realize my help was based on more or less qualified guesswork, based on the other comments in this thread (and the headline of it), but since you actually read about the system in question I assumed you would know yourself if my suggestion was being helpful or not, if not you are of course completely free to ignore it.