Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Gearing up for the 4th draft

I thought that the 3rd draft of Beacon would be the one that I could sit on and play with for quite a while. It was certainly the one I wanted to really play test a longer campaign with - especially handing out the book for players to use and comment on (read: break).  Well naturally almost as soon as I published it I had a few small changes I wanted to make - the largest being a switch to the silver standard, but also adding in some minor refinements to polearms, initiative and scrolls to make the rules more obvious.  I also thought about adding in level 7 spells which was something I originally wanted to wait on until I saw how the first 6 levels of spells were being used.  I think that the magic system in the SRD kind of falls apart a little once you hit level 7+ and the spells become either too powerful (wish) or not powerful enough (discern location) for the level, or they are basically large versions of lower level spells - something that might work in a spell slot system but not so much in a spell point system where you can bump up the potency or ranges.  So I might like to work on them or maybe high level spells can stay on the back burner a while - I donno.
I also wonder what other things I should try to slide in there.  I do really want to get a longer term draft so I don't want to introduce anything new that might need to be changed, however I also don't want to put out a 5th draft in a month because I absolutely need something for a campaign.  Some suggestions off the top of my head would be;
  • add in an explicit speed stat (derived) for movement;
  • make a more formal table for combat modifiers;
  • write up something about wands and maybe some other magic items;
  • add a table for water travel to go with the overland travel table; and
  • something just friggin awesome.
    I think I'll try to shoot for end of April as a deadline.

    *update:  I also noticed that the rules for spellcasting neglect to mention that the target DC is 10 +1 per spell level.  I'll be fixing this as well.

    2 comments:

    1. Glad to see that you are going with the Silver Standard. I had hoped that your previous post: The Great Divide, wouldn't stop you from making Beacon unique (IMHO). Bring on the 'Stone' encumbrance and 'Silver Standard'!

      I as I said on the other post, make the rules support your setting. Compatibility is for modules. Viva Beacon!

      Best and look forward to what you come up with,
      TB

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    2. Ha, thanks. Well silver standard certainly won't make Beacon unique, it will however prevent the characters lugging around bricks of gold when out shopping for shoes. The gold standard is just crazy and I tried to rationalize using it, with little success.

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