Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: AvalonDreamer on May 08, 2008, 07:16:22 PM
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I haven't heard anything about it from an official source (looked around a little), so I was thinking about making Mistborn rules for the d20 system. Initially I was hoping to gauge people's interest, then start gathering ideas and finally putting a finished product together as a PDF or something. Thoughts?
**Edit**
Added "Both".
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You forgot to include "interested in both" ;D so I'm waiting...
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Totally interested (even though D20 is not my favored system)! I'd totally be willing to help with this project (I have an interest in it for my RP group).
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Updated to "Interested in both", working on classes. Naturally, I figure we could have Mistings continuously getting stronger in their allomantic ability, but I don't know how to go about doing Mistborn without making it too broken. We don't necessarily have to do d20, but it seems to be the most popular format. More than happy to accept suggestions on every aspect though - I want this as a community project.
**Edit**
Well, yes, I do hope to get Brandon's permission, but since I've not heard that they're putting out their own, and I personally don't plan on using this to make money (heck, Brandon can take it after we're done and put it out as the Mistborn Campaign Setting), I figure we're probably in the clear.
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Having Euol's authorization would also be a great idea. Are you reading this, Brandon ? At least, I would feel much more comfortable and who knows ! Maybe it could get as big as D&D, Brandon could create books (or at least one) and collect more author's right on this. ;D
As for Mistborn, there could not be many. And do not forget that before they get stronger in their ability, they first have to escape death before they snap and do become Mist-whatever.
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This sounds very interesting. I would love to help out with it.
Ideally, after the 3rd book is out, Brandon would be willing to publicize further information on the magic systems (eg. What could a Feruchemist store in Malatium? In Electrum? Also, presumably, there are more metals/alloys out there that could be burned by Allomancers that no one knows about.)
Playing as a Feruchemist could be interesting. In order to fit into a leveling system, the amount of an attribute that could be stored at a given time could grow as that character levels, or additionally/alternatively the rate at which the Feruchemist can use stored attributes.
For Allomancers, burn rate would be a logical thing to increase as the character levels.
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Hmmm... Yeah, we would be more effective if we had all the info contained in MB3, but that doesn't mean we can't get off to a start. I like the idea about having capacities change as each gets higher, which logically makes sense - as an allomancer's body gets more used to having metal in it, it'd be able to stomach more, and feruchemists probably learn over time how to more efficiently pack attributes into a metalmind.
Idea for a new skill: Control (allomantic ability/metal) - represents the combined elements of focus, learning and natural skill. Would be used in place of an attack roll for Coinshots, or would set the overcome DC for a Smoker's coppercloud, etc. Moving larger objects/trying to effect larger areas (such as mass Soothing) would incur penalties such as a -2 for every size larger than small an object is, or every five feet the radius of effect is.
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D20 is going a little fishy with the 4th ed of D&D coming out...
Then too, yes, we're waiting a few months yet on Hero of Ages.
However, yes, I agree that we have some basics that we can devise something in the meantime - rules for use of various known allomantic metals. Tin, Bronze, and Copper to my mind are simple enough - usable as a skill or proficiency with required rolls and relatively simple to define effects. Pewter is a bit more complicated with extended drags and high burn rates but I can see some loose rules already.
Soothing and Rioting should probably involve some experience-dependent influence - Kelsier was ultimately the more powerful allomancer but he couldn't match Breeze in terms of emotional allomancy. Vin also had a good deal of experience with it.
If Brandon Sanderson is ok with our little project items like cost of metals and burn rate could be answered.
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As you pointed out, Mistborn aren't as powerful in any one area as their Misting counterparts, yet they still have their specialties - I was hoping to rectify this by giving them the first 4 or 5 class abilities from each Misting class, then allowing them to take a "focus" in one area where they gain an additional 2 or 3 class abilities in that area.
I realize that Wizards is mucking up a fine system with the release of 4.0, but since it's not out, and it's looking to suck, I've based all of my notes on 3.0/3.5. I do hope to get a little input from Brandon about this, as I'm a bit confused about a few things too - the costs of metals and burn rates as you said, but also the quantities in which they ingest them, and what the units of measure for the world are.
One of the other things I wanted to do some work on is other races such as Kandra and Koloss, I imagine that playing a Kandra would be easy enough, but Koloss and Mistwraiths would end up as montsers most likely. Another thing I'd like help from Brandon with is what other kinds of creatures exist in his world - farm animals, dangerous beasts, etc.
Pewter - reduces damage, increases STR, DEX, CON, and land speed. Prolonged use inflicts subdual damage after.
Soothing/Rioting - higher level means higher DC to resist, or higher maximum area of effect.
Tin - competency bonus to Reflex saves, pluses to spot, search, listen and survival checks, and rerolls/bonuses against concealment, etc.
New feats and the like would be useful as well...
Input plz? lol.
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So far, AvalonDreamer, all of these ideas look like they are coming along very well. Looks Good. :)
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1.) Feruchemy ideas:
- Metalminds store a certain number of points in their attribute depending on their size category - i.e. small metalminds store 8 points, medium can store 16 points, etc.
- Reducing an attribute by X points for Y days yields X*Y points stored in a metalmind. Points can be reallocated every 8 hours, and 1 point spent from a metalmind increases the corresponding attribute by 1 point for 24 hours, and can be compounded as much as one would like (i.e. 1 point can increase an attribute by 2 for 12 hours, 3 for 8 hours, etc).
The above assumes that attributes are stored into a metalmind at a 1:1 ratio, but if memory serves, it doesn't quite work that way. Help?
2.) More allomancy ideas:
Smoking v. Seeking: opposing caster level checks (d20 + lvl) determine if Seeker overcomes Coppercloud. If the Seeker wins by more than 2 they can feel what quadrant it's from on the circle, more than five they can tell if it's internal or external as well, and more than 7 allows them to tell what it's acting upon.
Smoking v. Rioting/Soothing: Smoker's will save to resist a emotional allomancy is adjusted by their level, or some other number that increases every few levels.
Ideas on how to deal with Flaring? Or something like Duralumin?
Come on people! Help! ^^ I like doing this, but I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff...
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I'm kinda new to P&P rpgs. My brother just got me into them a month ago so i'm not sure if i can help much but i would love to play a mistborn one. My suggestion would be maybe using the D&D classes and converting them to a mistborn class, i.e. tineye=rogue thug=warrior coinshot=ranger and so on.
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All help is good help. I hadn't actually considered how to go about doing the classes yet (still playing with the core mechanics behind each metal), but that way seems like it'd work. If you want, go through and strip away 6-8 levels worth of class abilities from each, so we can put the Misting abilities in? I think Rogue would go better with Mistborn, though maybe the assassin class from 3.0 would work...
Emailed EUOL about this project and got this reply (didn't expect to hear back for a month at least):
AvalonDreamer,
I'll go have a look at it!
In general, I have no problem with people doing things like this. It's like fanfic, in a way. As long as it's not commercial, then I'm not going to slap it down.
You may want to know, however, that I AM in talks with an RPG company to release an official Mistborn RPG. It wouldn't be out until next year at the earliest, but it would probably use D20 or the Open Gaming thing. (Or whatever it's called with 4.0.)
I'll try to drop in and nudge, but I'm ridiculously busy now with the Wheel of Time book, so I can't promise anything.
As always, thanks for reading!
Best,
Brandon
Working now on how to make some of the less action-oriented Feruchemy things to work. Please people, just grab something, make an idea out of it and toss it up here! ^^
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I like the ideas on Feruchemy so far...The points thing should be based on hours rather than days though, and then you can just increase the number of points a metalmind can hold. Otherwise it just takes a really long time to store up points to use. I would say that for the non-action stuff, much of it is insignificant in an RPG setting. For instance, storing age is useless. Unless you need to fool someone about how old you are for something...not sure why that would be necessary. Copperminds...maybe have someone only able to remember so many skills or something like that and a coppermind increases the number of skills you can remember. I don't know. Maybe have some really cold place where you have to be warm in order to survive which provides a use for brass. Or bronze. Or whatever it is that stores warmth. I'm assuming we're talking about what the metals can be used for, correct? That's all I remember without my books, I'll post more when I get them back.
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You have to be careful, though... especially with that storing age, thing. No other Feruchemist but TLR knew that you could store age in Atium. Atium had been hidden from people just like a lot of other metals as well.
I do not know how you could do it, but you should allow feruchemy to "discover" other metals when experience develop up to a certain level.
I am rereading MB1 and 2 to discover more about Inquisitors. See if there are any mention of metals other than Iron and Steel... That will help you as well. I spoke to a friend... and he says he won't help us unless he can play an Inquisitor ;D He is crazy ! But Inquisitors have to be thought of for sure.
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Inquisitors are a must, but we can't do much about them without knowing how exactly they work. Aside from that, still waiting on my books....
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Maybe inquisitors can be something a mistborn can become at a certain lvl like class change.
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Feruchemist class: gains access to a few levels to start, and proficiency in the others as they grow?
Inquisitors: We need to wait until MB3 to do more work on them, unless someone who's read it is willing to spill? Jk, wouldn't ask anyone to violate EUOL's trust. For now, I'd say they'll have a hefty level adjustment, at least. More in a bit.
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As with every adaptation from book to any other media, we could make some small changes and not be entirely true to the story it is derived from. If we take kelsier and Vin and place them as the pinnacle of mistborn ability, a mistborn could start out extremely weak. Remember that Kelsier trained for a long time to achieve the skill Vin attained quickly.
So the players could be mistborn, just start out extremely weak. I know that we have talked D20 all along, but the rules from Vampire lets the players play vanpires, and have differens skillsets they can put points into at level-ups. So a mistborn would start with zero points in all metals, which gives the player only the weakest of abilities, but as they level up, they can distribute points among the different metals.
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What's the base system Vampire is built from? I'll take a look at it. The only ones I've played/read up on are GURPS, d20/True20, and White Wolf's generic set. I've been thinking about how to go about doing it in all of those, and d20 seems to work best in my mind.
As for how you described Vampires, that works great for mistborn, but what about mistings? They'd only have a single power to put points into... And we still don't know how Inquisitors work. Argh.
Take a vote?
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My vote is ignore mistings. No one is going to want to be a misting when they can be a mistborn. I vote that for now, we ignore inquisitors and add them when we know more about them. I vote that the points for the mistborn's ability is a really good idea. I think I'm now done voting.
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My original intent with a misting was to have them become great with thier ability, then have Mistborn be able to get 75% that in thier one good power, and 25% that good in all the rest. I do like the point idea, and it seems to be popular enough, so maybe we can take the vampire system and do a full revamp.
**Edit**
After reviewing the Vampire system, it seems to be pretty good, but has anyone looked at GURPS? It's generic base rules lay a fairly good ground, and we can model Mistborn/Feruchemy powers from the Supers books. Characters spend points to gain innate Str, IQ, Dex, and Health, as well as various advantages (ranging from having especially good vision, to never having to sleep; this category includes where they stand in the social chain), skills, and powers; likewise points can be recouped by taking disadvantages (curiosity, schitzophrenia, etc.).
New thoughts?
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I have not read up on GURPS, and know very little about vampire except from what i have already told. I merely liked the way vampire incorporated different skillsets.
As to the misting/mistborn, there is no reason not to have both. The way they are played will be up to style. The players could all be mistings working together and gaining experience in their ability, and in the end of the scenario/campaign, they are up against a mistborn or two. If they work well together, they will be able to beat the mostborn(s) but if they throw themselves aimlessly at the mistborn(s) they will probably die. The whole idea can be turned on it's head - especially if the party of players are not big, or the group are somehow split. The players are mistborn and are confronted by a group of mistings that are working well together.
I see no reason to not incorporate both.
Inquisitors. We know next to nothing. There is nothing we can do at the moment.
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Here are the rules for GURPS - Steve Jackson Games regularly publishes this Lite version (which contains basic rules and such) as a free resourcee. Keep in mind that this PDF in whole or part, while free and subject to the open gaming license, is owned by Steve Jackson Games, Inc. I think that covers our bums from a legal perspective ^^.
http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG31-0004
(You have to 'buy' it, even though it's free... and never asks for an account... blegh.)
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Even if I don't know much I agree with Eudaimoniac. If you take out mistings and players are all mistborns... where is the challenge ? What scenario could make any story fun ? Actually, mistborn should be limited in quantity and roles should be taken on roll of dice. Only 20% could be Mistborn, same as Feruchemist, and the others all Mistings or skaa :P as long as we do not have any more infos on Inquisitors, of course.
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Within point-based systems like GURPS and Vampire, the problem of having too many Mistborn is solved easily - just make them cost obscene amounts to run, and have the same be for Feruchemists (Ex.: you start with 200 points to buy attributes, just to be a mistborn with basic abilities could be 150 pts, while mistings are only 50, and feruchemists 100).
If someone could work out a rough ratio between non-allos, mistings, and mistborn, it would be extremely helpful in determining how much the cost would be.
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Well... we do see that Straff had one full Mistborn for 6 mistings. It could be the average, I guess. Also the House of Cett had only 1 misting and he had to "rent" from other houses to get a party to attack Vin - 1 mistborn and 7 mistings (not counting his own daughter which was not there, so that makes 8 mistings for 1 only mistborn) - on those only one Smoker, 3 or 4 Coinshots and I don't remember the others. Feruchemists are thought to be erased so they have to be very few.
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2 Mistborn: 1 feruchemist: 16 mistings: 200(?) regular work for everyone then? That makes them 1%, .5%, and 8% of the population respectively.
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If you're going to go with the buying attributes thing, you ought to have mistborn cost 15 times as much as a misting, as he/she/it can burn 15 more metals. That would about do it. Feruchemists are even rarer, but I would put them just under mistborn in cost because it is a slightly less action-oriented power. Still to have that work, you'd have to have like 400 points to start, being a skaa costs 5, a misting costs 25, a mistborn costs 350, and a feruchemist costs 300. That would make it rather annoying to start as a mistborn until you learned a bit more about the game.
I like the ratios you give, Avalon, they seem to be pretty accurate.
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If you are talking about the entire population (skaa and nobles) those ratios seem about right, but If you are only including nobles I would put the ratios at 40-50% Mistings and 5-8% Mistborn. Because of their "pure" bloodlines the chance of being either one is much, much higher and there are many more skaa than nobles. Besides who would choose to play a character that is ordinary skaa or noble(neither misting, mistborn, feruchemist, or inquisitor)?
I would probably say that the ratio of inquisitors is about that of regular mistings, since you most likely have to be a misting to be an inquisitor (just the way I see it, not Canon from EUOL). I came to this conclusion due to the prevalence of inquisitors in the noble society.
EDIT: 22 May 08, 11:36PM MDT
(It has come to my attention that I goofed. Please substitute obligator for inquisitor in every case in the preceding post.)
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Woah. Prevalence of Inquisitors? We see like fourteen in the entire book. We know that there are more, but they are described as being an exclusive, rare bunch. I would put them at about the same prevalence as mistborn. The only reason we saw as many as we did was because of the scenes in Kredik Shaw. If we had seen all th mistborn and mistings in Luthadel, I would imagine it would be considerably more than fourteen. Other than that, I agree with you. no one wants to be regular in a game....
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It is possible to be exrtraordinary and not be mistborn. Dockson was a prominent character, and he was skaa. In GURPS, everyone starts with the same number of (GM-decided) points, so in theory, everyone can be just as extraordinary as each other, its just a matter of working out point ratios and power levels. Instead of levelling, the GM hands out a few points at the end of each game, which can be put into more attributes or saved for later (so, if you start a Misting, and manage to acrue 300 spare points, you can have your character find out that they were a mistborn all along).
If this ends up where metals are being used like the super-powers (which seems best now...), one would buy power levels in thier metal, as well as spending points toward 'skill' with that metal, if you catch what I'm trying to say. I think that works here, as we've seen people like Vin - with her uber-power - yet she didn't always have much control.
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I disagree... it is not all mistings that become Inquisitors so, it has to be more expensive, for one thing. Second, our beloved friend, TLR himself, said that Inquisitors were very expensive to replace. It should reflect these two points, I think...
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You know you are right. It was late when I wrote this and I was thinking of the obligators. So for my previous post please subsitute obligator for inquisitor in every case. (I could go back and modify it but then other posts wouldn't make sense.)
As for the ratios, the number of obligators would be around that of regular mistings and the mistborn/inquisitor ratio would be more or less the same. I think we need to include obligators because most (if not all) are mistings. The only major difference between a regular misting and a misting-obligator would be some kind of mental discipline feat.
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Have it purchasable as a social advantage? Given that an average PC starts with 500 pts, how many do you think being an obligator would be worth? On top of the amount necessary to be an aristocrat already.
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Vintage, the Lord Ruler says inquisitors are difficult to replace, not expensive. The only reason inquisitors might get expensive is because of their spikes. Avalon, I really like the points going toward skill in metals thing. It makes a lot of sense.
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Within point-based systems like GURPS and Vampire, the problem of having too many Mistborn is solved easily - just make them cost obscene amounts to run, and have the same be for Feruchemists (Ex.: you start with 200 points to buy attributes, just to be a mistborn with basic abilities could be 150 pts, while mistings are only 50, and feruchemists 100).
If someone could work out a rough ratio between non-allos, mistings, and mistborn, it would be extremely helpful in determining how much the cost would be.
If we were to go along with these general numbers an obligator would cost the base 50 points that a misting costs plus, say an additional 25 points to buy the additional mental discipline feats needed.
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Obligator 25/50/75 - Each level purchased increases your rank as an Obligator of your canton and strengthens your will rolls?
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dude this is awesome
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And the highest rank should be really higher and there you gain the wonderful and fabulous plane of being an Inquisitor. :D
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100 pts then at highest level? Inquisitor has nothing to do with rank as an obligator, though, they are just a type of obligator. Maybe have a requisite that they be second-rank Obligator, then make it cost... 100 more pts? or 150, since it's both a rank improvement and a new set of powers...
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The books does say that Inquisitors choose the best, the most promising... recruits. Would it be possible that if you make a certain quantity of points in a very limited time, that you would get the Inquisitor grade as bonus ?
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The way I see the points working out for an obligator is: 50 points initially to become a misting, add 25 for a base obligator, and then to rank up as an obligator add 25 points for each rank increase. I see 3 maybe 4 ranks to be achieved beyond the base obligator. Total number of points to max out an obligator in ranks is 150-175 depending on the number of ranks allowed. That is 75 points to become a base obligator and an additional 75-100 points to gain rank.
the recruitment to be an inquisitor would happen at the base level or rank 1 maybe 2, ranks 3 and 4 would be a no go because the rivalry between the obligators and inquisitors would be too ingrained. To transition from obligator to inquisitor you would have to pay enough points to take your total points paid for your class to 175. So if you are just a base obligator, you have paid only 75 points and would have to pay an additional 100 points to become an inquisitor.
I see inquisitors as being more rare than mistborn, and if mistborn cost 150 points as a base, inquisitors should cost 175.
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I agree. Inquisitors should cost at least as much as feruchemists, if not mistborn. I like the idea of having it be an advancement from obligators, though.
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So are we looking at a 175 pt cost for Feruchemists too? Then have them be able to pour points into each metal to allow them to...? Ideas?
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I see feruchemists as rare but costing only 100-125 points as a base but in order to amp up storage capabilities more points would need to be spent (kind of like an obligator advancing in rank). Ranks for feruchemists would cost 10-25 points depending on the metal affected.
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hum... points could be determined with metal... when you get a copper earring, a gold bracelet or an iron ring etc... the ability of the feruchemist could increase following this pattern.
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I think that a better way would be to say that the longer you are a feruchemist the more of an attribute you can store in a given amount of metal, and the more metals you can carry. I think that would be a good way to limit them too, how much metal you can carry.