Recreating Allomancy in My D12 Game

[Berrymand71]

Myself and a couple friends are creating a new RPG system. The system works on one primary mechanic and almost everything is a variation of that mechanic. You build a pool of 12 sided dice and roll equal to or under a target number, count successes and compare with the difficulty. The purpose of the system is to be able to recreate any book world and play in the favorite worlds of our literary heroes. Other systems, especially D20 magic, CAN NOT duplicate any magic system like allomancy.

Long version: There are 9 attributes, 3 each for physical, mental and social. Each attribute gives points of effort which we use cards to represent. You get to use three attributes in a turn but can use as many points of effort from those 3 attributes as you have available. Almost everything takes effort. So typical round... you pick your 3 physical attributes and have 2 effort for each, 6 effort total. You move (1 effort), open the door (free), move again (2 effort for second move), attack (1 effort) then decide to save the last 2 effort for defense. The attack consists of 1 die for the 1 effort spent plus bonus dice for your skill level (let's say 3) so 4 total dice or "dice pool", written 4DP. The target number is based on the higher from your skill level or base attribute. Starting attributes are target number 3, written T#3. So the attack is 4DP/T#3. You roll the 4d12 and count how many are a 3 or less... probably 1 in this case. The difficulty to hit the defenseless creature was 1 so you do damage.

Now, Allomancy:

Potential spoiler alert if you havent finished Mistborn book 3: The Hero of Ages

Spoiler

Skills determine pretty much everything you can do in this system, and how well you can do it. There are three stages of skill, the base skill is from rank 1 to 12, the category is rank 13 to 24 and the specialty is 25 to 36. The base skill would be Allomancy and as you practice and get better, you spend XP directly on the skill. All your allomancy skills get better.... Until you reach rank 12. At rank 13, you must practice and advance a specific category so physical, mental, enhancement or temporal. Beyond rank 24 you must advance each specialty separately which for allomancy is each metal type. So a coinshot would only be able to advance allomancy-physical-steel while a mistborn could work on physical to 24, then steel to say 30. leaving enhancement at say 16 but everything else would be left at rank 12 because they didn't advance them any further.

Here's my question. Total dice available means able to reach a higher maximum number of successes which translates to raw power while higher target number means a higher chance of success or more skilled. Increasing skill ranks gives extra dice and raises the target number. This makes a more skilled allomancer potentially more powerful and more likely to succeed. I think flaring would double bonus dice, as would an appropriate hemalurgical spike. Finally, other things might give bonuses also which means a LOT of dice. Does this track with the way it works in the books?

I'd like feedback, even if it's negative. It makes the system better in the longrun.

 

Thanks

[Mist she/her]

On 9/25/2020 at 10:23 AM, Berrymand71 said:

Myself and a couple friends are creating a new RPG system. The system works on one primary mechanic and almost everything is a variation of that mechanic. You build a pool of 12 sided dice and roll equal to or under a target number, count successes and compare with the difficulty. The purpose of the system is to be able to recreate any book world and play in the favorite worlds of our literary heroes. Other systems, especially D20 magic, CAN NOT duplicate any magic system like allomancy.

Long version: There are 9 attributes, 3 each for physical, mental and social. Each attribute gives points of effort which we use cards to represent. You get to use three attributes in a turn but can use as many points of effort from those 3 attributes as you have available. Almost everything takes effort. So typical round... you pick your 3 physical attributes and have 2 effort for each, 6 effort total. You move (1 effort), open the door (free), move again (2 effort for second move), attack (1 effort) then decide to save the last 2 effort for defense. The attack consists of 1 die for the 1 effort spent plus bonus dice for your skill level (let's say 3) so 4 total dice or "dice pool", written 4DP. The target number is based on the higher from your skill level or base attribute. Starting attributes are target number 3, written T#3. So the attack is 4DP/T#3. You roll the 4d12 and count how many are a 3 or less... probably 1 in this case. The difficulty to hit the defenseless creature was 1 so you do damage.

Now, Allomancy:

Potential spoiler alert if you havent finished Mistborn book 3: The Hero of Ages

  Hide contents

Skills determine pretty much everything you can do in this system, and how well you can do it. There are three stages of skill, the base skill is from rank 1 to 12, the category is rank 13 to 24 and the specialty is 25 to 36. The base skill would be Allomancy and as you practice and get better, you spend XP directly on the skill. All your allomancy skills get better.... Until you reach rank 12. At rank 13, you must practice and advance a specific category so physical, mental, enhancement or temporal. Beyond rank 24 you must advance each specialty separately which for allomancy is each metal type. So a coinshot would only be able to advance allomancy-physical-steel while a mistborn could work on physical to 24, then steel to say 30. leaving enhancement at say 16 but everything else would be left at rank 12 because they didn't advance them any further.

Here's my question. Total dice available means able to reach a higher maximum number of successes which translates to raw power while higher target number means a higher chance of success or more skilled. Increasing skill ranks gives extra dice and raises the target number. This makes a more skilled allomancer potentially more powerful and more likely to succeed. I think flaring would double bonus dice, as would an appropriate hemalurgical spike. Finally, other things might give bonuses also which means a LOT of dice. Does this track with the way it works in the books?

I'd like feedback, even if it's negative. It makes the system better in the longrun.

 

Thanks

I think it sounds like it works the way it would in the books. Spikes decay and lose some power.