More Melee Skills Please?

As a result of play testing outside the inner circle, I realized that many of their complaints and requests trended the game back towards D20 style melee. While initially each request seemed simplistic and justified. However in total, the significantly complicated the system.

For example D100 Melee System, has no "Charge" or "Bull Rush" defined as either a skill or an option in the Rules for moving in melee. On the surface these were simple enough to add as skills and whala! We had well defined charge and bull rush and procedure to carry them out. However what I realized is that neither was really needed as the D100 System already supported those actions and had no need for a defined "Charge" or "Bull Rush" procedure. A character could charge in melee by moving and then attacking in the following second. In fact the D100 System is superior without the defined procedure because it affords a good deal of risk in making an attack styled after a charge. The initiative and actions of both characters determine the outcome, rather then some simple check.

It was a good lesson to learn, the requests were coming from a D20 mindset where the definition is required, in the D100 mind set, the character need only sequence their actions to achieve the same goal. Furthermore it did result in one additional rule, that allowed the character to combine a move action and a attack/defend action into one action with considerable deductions.

Missiles in Melee

Well that is why we play test the game. Recently we play tested a real campaign but added two new players, both d20 die hards and both skeptical. All in all the game went well, but the two became confused repeatedly in melee. It seems the fluid and flexible nature of D100 Melee system confounded them in certain situations involving: Missiles and changing weapons. They made excellent points. No rules were changed but we have to alter the terminology some with respect to bows. Namely not referring to the bow as having "melee" points. Rather as a "Rate of Fire" in melee. It is unfortunate that this terminology created such a stumbling block because both became fixated on it. Lesson learned and that is why we play test outside the creator circle!

Skills Skills Skills

The foundation of the D100 Melee System is the development of abilities through characters acquiring skills. Rather then a class model with limitations and bonuses by major categories we developed a simple listing of skills.

How Does A Skill Work?
Each skill is based on an attribute: Strength, Will Power, Reflex, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma and Movement. The base chance of success is the attribute value. As levels in a skill increase the chance of success increases too.

Is its complicated?
No. The most complicated it can get is when a skill has a pre-requisite. All that means is that to get one skill, you might have to first have another skill. It gets no more complicated then that.

Kinds of Skills
From the perspective of melee there are essentially 2 kinds of skills: Martial and Magical. There are other skills for abilities not melee related, for example: climbing, swimming, bluffing, professions etc.

Acquiring and Improving Skills
The skills are built up by awarding the characters with "Improvement Points". The points are used to buy more skills. The system includes guidelines for how Game Masters could choose to dole out points, but really it is up to the Game Master to do what works best for the group at play. The guideline is simple with no complicated formulas what so ever.

What about Feats?
D20 style feats, do not exist in the D100 Melee System. All character abilities are skills.

Even Magic (Spells) is a skill?
Yes all character abilities are skills. Magic skills for the fantasy realm have the most pre-requisites of any list so far developed for D100 Melee System. Magic is different from D20 Style magic, this is for many reasons: Playability, Lethality, Sustainability. In D100 a character could invest "Improvement Points" and make a deadly caster, a sustainable caster would require more points and so on. In play testing thus far, we have found most characters who start as pure casters, do not live very long unless the party is large, or they are very smart about melee. A more typical path has been to split the skills between magic and martial until a certain level of melee survivability is achieved.