1) Characters: I'm thinking of going with four players - Warrior, Mage, Priest, Rogue.
There will be stacks of cards each representing a class. When levelling up, a character may choose any card and add them to his character. This helps emulate D&D 3.5e character creation - you can be Warrior 1/Mage 3/Cleric 1.
2) Stats: There are four of them: Melee, Missile, Magic, Mundane. Each class will boost two out of those four stats.
Warrior: Melee + Mundane.
Priest: Melee + Magic.
Rogue: Missile + Mundane.
Mage: Missile + Magic.
Each stat starts at zero, so the Warrior 1/Mage 3/Cleric 1 example above would have Melee 2, Missile 3, Magic 4 and Mundane 1.
3) Battle: I want this to be sort and simple, probably an abstraction, meaning I don't want mechanics such as initiative, movement, cover that make gameplay slow.
The mechanic I'm thinking of using is that each BBEG is going to be generated on-the-fly, from a combination of cards (e.g. BBEG template + special ability(ies) ). That would give him four scores that the players must defeat him (using melee, missile, mundane and magic, respectively).
Before the battle, each player rolls a number of colored dice (d6) equal to each of his scores. He keeps those die rolls on his character.
Now players in clockwise order place a number of dice on each of the BBEG's categories (a player may put 1 die per category, minimum total 1, maximum total 4) - if the dice allocated to that category sum up to 7, then they are removed, a 'wound' is scored and the player that last allocated a die receives a 'victory point'.
A round ends when no player has any dice left (all are allocated) or the BBEG has been defeated (the BBEG'S life point total will be something like 'player level' or '#of players' or 'player level'x'#of players'.
If the characters defeat the monster, they level-up. If they don't, they each lose a 'victory point', if they have any.
The classes will probably have certain special abilities (based on the #levels that the player has in them) that will enable to alter they die rolls just a bit (or reroll, combine scores, use certain discarded dice, etc).
What do you think? Interesting/Boring? Any games that can be related to the above?
1. "When levelling up, a character may choose any card and add them to his character." Any card? or might there be a level restriction based on what was chosen earlier? I would guess I can't go straight to level 3 wizards spells without taking lesser cards.
2. "Melee, Missile, Magic, Mundane". Wouldn't mundane be either melee or missile?
3. "That would give him four scores that the players must defeat him (using melee, missile, mundane and magic, respectively)." Where does this tie in? Are these wound amounts of each type that have to be done? Do the players need to get all 4 scores, or only one?
I'm thinking #3 might be interesting if there were different wound thresholds depending on die type. i.e. instead of a sum of 7 for a wound, there would be different numbers for melee, missile, magic, etc. A low number would mean the boss is quite vulnerable to that attack (and less dice would have to be used), while a high number means it is resistant to that attack. A single die of a type might be required to use that number (or over half of that type or some other calculation). It would certainly make the calculations of the players trying to grab the victory points more interesting if the number could change based on die type.
1. Yes, any card. Characters basically feature two bonuses (e.g. wizard has +1 missile +1 magic) and a special ability that gets stronger the more levels you have in the specific class. There are no spells/feats/etc.
2. Yes it would. The same is true for Magic though. When you're hitting a character you're choosing a 'mode' that combines (magic or mundane) and (melee or missile). That means that I must revise my previous statement in the original about allocating dice to the BBEG - you can influence only two areas, based on what you choose to attack with.
3. I'm thinking of it like this - if the target sum is 7, you can at most hurt a BBEG once per level (because you get two dice per level). So, the amount of damage the party is able to do to a BBEG is at most (#players)*(#level). So the BBEG's 'life' should be less than this.
Aside from this those four scores will not have anything to do with damage (because once you get consecutive dice that sum up to 7, they are discarded for the round).
So, no, they are not wound amounts, they will be just columns with slots for dice. The amount may vary, too (so, for instance, if a BBEG has a column that can only hold 2 dice, you can only apply damage to him using that category by using only two dice, e.g. {3,4}, {2,5}. If the same BBEG has another category with four slots, a player could score a hit by applying {1,2,2,2} or {3,4}).
You give some interesting points, especially for BBEG abilities, such as "resistance" (higher target sum) at certain abilities. I'm skeptical about vulnerabilities reducing the amount to less than 7 (and thus requiring a single die to score points).
Thanks for the comments, it's very helpful talking about it :D