This is my final article in this series, where I am writing down notes for a hypothetical RPG that I would write to replace D&D. In this article, I will address some issues with game play. This isn’t a very cohesive article, but it is necessary to conclude the series.

It took me a month to get around to publishing this. I thought I’d find some way to tie this series up nicely, but it didn’t. So, instead, it ends like a new road which ran out of budget.

Combat

I’d like to simplify and speed up combat. It would be nice to be able to run a session with more than two fights, and have time to do other things. It would also be nice to run combat so that one player isn’t taking most of the time, leaving others to sit and yawn while they wait. I don’t have any comments on this beyond that it needs to be fixed. Any such fixes would take live play testing to prove they’re better. My best action here is to borrow from another system, perhaps from older editions or one of the old school clones. I will bring back surprise and morale checks, however.

Death

Cutting someone off from playing because they were reduced to 0 points always seemed harsh to me. Negative hit points don’t work for me, the concept doesn’t make sense, and the timing is too clear. You know you have 9 rounds to get to the character and heal them, and maybe the fight will end in that time, so don’t bother. I’m not completely certain about the death and life saves of fifth edition, but it’s better in giving you some uncertainty.

I think it would be better to combine the death saves with exhaustion. This means one less space to keep track of things on the worksheet, especially something that’s rarely used. It also means that its possible to reach 0 and not be unconscious.

In Fantasy Quest, if a character takes damage that brings them to 0, they have a dying and unstable conditions. If the remaining damage is equal to their maximum hit points, they are instantly dead. The rest is handled by those conditions and the exhaustion condition as described in the fifth edition rules.

Dying

When a creature is dying, they can not fight and can only move a few feet if they can move at all. If a dying creature takes any damage in a round, they take a level of exhaustion. If they take damage equal to their maximum hit points in one attack, they are instantly dead. Once a dying creature has more than 0 hit points, they are no longer dying.

Unstable

When a creature enters the unstable condition, and each round thereafter, they must succeed on a Constitution reaction check or take a level of exhaustion. An unstable creature can be stabilized by healing magic or a successful medicine skill check.

Dying NPCs. In this game, these same rules apply to NPCs, unless the creature has a trait that causes something else to happen when they reach 0 hit points. While this can make the quest master’s work a little more difficult, it adds the possible drama of a foe you thought was dead getting up and moving somewhere else. It also allows for an action-movie style of story where minions can be knocked out without counting it as a kill.

Ghosts. If a player character die in the midst of a combat or a series of challenges, the quest master may allow the character to become a ghost. Such ghosts have limited communication and no unique powers, but they can be invisible and still contribute to combat and other physical actions. The ghost must pass on when the task is completed, the characters take a long rest, or the session ends – unless the player can convince the quest master why the ghost is not finished and must stick around.

Critical Hits and Misses

I’ve thought about this hard, as it takes a bit of fun and excitement from the players, but Fantasy Quest won’t allow a natural 20 to be an automatic success. There should be some things for which the difficulty class is basically impossible without sheer luck, and 5% chance is too big of a chance to represent sheer luck. I think I’ve come upon solution which maintains the fun of a natural 20 while not guaranteeing success. In Fantasy Quest, what happens on a natural 20 depends on whether the roll would have resulted in success or not.

Critical Success. If a natural 20 is rolled on an attack, and after applying bonuses, that attack succeeds against the opponent’s armor class, then the damage rolled is multiplied by 2. If a natural 20 is rolled in any other check, and the result would be a success, then the quest master may authorize equivalent benefits to double damage.

Bonus Roll. If a natural 20 is rolled on any check, including attacks, skill checks and reaction checks, and after applying bonuses the check still results in a failure, the player may roll 1d20 a second time. The results of the second roll are then added as an additional bonus to the first roll to determine success. A roll of 20 on this bonus roll does not constitute a re-roll. This is still an automatic success if the DC was 1 point beyond your ability, but if it was five, ten or even twenty points beyond, the chance of automatic success drops to 3.7%, 2.5% or 0.25%. And if the DC was more than 20 points beyond your ability, it is still impossible.

Critical Failures and Automatic Failures. It makes sense that the opposite end of the die rolls should also be manipulated in this way. Although as entropy prefers failure to success, a 5% chance of automatic failure makes sense. Rolling a natural 1 automatically fails, no matter what the difficulty class would have been. However, I haven’t decided on whether critical failure should be allowed. If it is allowed, critical failure would only apply if the natural 1 would still have been a failure after all bonuses are added.

Critical Results and NPCs. All of these rules will apply just as much to NPC actions, whether beneficial to the players or not, if the quest master so chooses.

Inspiration

A recent preview of the next version of D&D suggests that the new rules will grant inspiration on a natural 20. While I like the idea of making inspiration rules-based, for the above reasons, I feel like this may be too often. In Fantasy Quest, inspiration remains something given out by the quest master to reward interesting role-playing, although it’s a little different.

Every player gets inspiration at the start of their session, which they can use any time during that session to get an advantage for their character or other character’s they are controlling. In addition, at any time during the game, the quest master can reward great role-playing or interesting choices by renewing inspiration for all players at the table who’ve used theirs already. This inspiration can be used by each player for their own character or any other character they control.

The quest master can not give inspiration to NPCs they control. However, if the players vote unanimously, they may grant inspiration to the quest master to use for a specific NPC. I’d suggest coming up with a way to keep the vote secret but also not in the quest master’s hands.

When a player has inspiration, they can decide to use that inspiration after almost any single die roll, to re-roll that die. They can then pick which result they want to use. It can not be used on a check already made with advantage, nor can it be used on a bonus die roll after rolling natural 20. However, it can be used for non-d20 rolls, such as damage dice, as well as one die rolled in a check with disadvantage.

Repelling Undead

In what you may hope is my last nomenclature change, I’m renaming the cleric ability “turn undead”. I feel the usage of that verb in this sense is somewhat obscure, and is usually used for collective nouns like mobs. The ability to repel undead is much clearer on what it does: it causes undead to avoid you, possibly flee if possible.

Challenge Rating

While the experience point rules make challenge rating for monsters less important, it’s still useful to have a number to look at to know how challenging a monster is. A good challenge rating can be used to plan an encounter quickly. Calculating a challenge rating can also help a creature designer know if actions and defense are imbalanced. In Fantasy Quest, there will be a clear way to calculate these challenge ratings, and published monsters should follow these rules. No parts of the calculation system will be hidden. The methods may change over time, as a better understanding of the results are found. The most up-to-date methods should be published in an easily accessible location.