Project CELTICA - Skills

This time I'll write about skills a bit. Well, I mostly picked the "common" skills for an RPG, and I tried to tame it as much as I could to the system I had in my mind.
I am imagining the skills in a 5-scale system, and to improve to a new rank, one has to pay for the previous ranks too from his/her skill points.
Making a skill check is a d12 + dx + Ability bonus roll, "x" means the die given by the skill level.
So it would go like this:

• Beginner - d4 - costs 1 SP
• Apprentice - d6 - costs 2 SP (3 SP total)
• Journeyman - d8 - costs 3 SP (6 SP total)
• Expert - d10 - costs 4 SP (10 SP total)
• Master - d12 - costs 5 SP (15 SP total)

At character creation I'm planning not to let the players take skills above Apprentice level. The amount of skill points a character gets in the beginning and per level is still a think to be thought over, I would like to make the skill list first. 

A skill can't be improved more than one level at a level up. An exception is when a character decides to sacrifice 5-10 years of his to learn the trade, e.g. Blacksmithing. Then he can improve his skill more than a rank, but in the meantime, ha mostly focuses on learning the trade rather than chasing monsters and treasures.

About the DC-s of the checks I would set the following:

Easy - 8, Medium - 12, Hard - 15, Challenging - 18, Heroic - 22.

My method setting these numbers was to allow a character "skilled on that DC level" to have a good chance to succeed on his roll. So, for instance a Rogue is an apprentice in picking locks. He is trying to pick an ordinary lock, which is a  DC 12 check. With a Dexterity bonus of +2, his roll is d12 + d6 + 2, so on average this roll would be a 12. 

So these are the plans for the skills, I'll post the skill list sometime later, I still have to think them through. Next time I'm going to describe some general ideas I have in mind for the game, just as I have them written down in my little notes.

Project CELTICA - Combat system

It has been a long time since I last posted on this blog of mine, I have been busy with my other, Hungarian blog, plus I have been moving to England. Hopefully I'll have more time from now on to make posts here too. My aim is to write about Project Celtica more (I have made some progress since), plus some summaries about games I play here, with an English group I have yet to find.

So now, I'm going to write about the system of Celtica, first of all, combat.
As I mentioned, the core dice will be the d12, and the maximum ability bonus is going to be +3. So, according to this, the planned method for rolling an attack:
d12 + dx (weapon damage) + ability bonus + class attack bonus
Some remarks for this:

• With the attack roll we also get the damage, which speeds up battles. Maybe some weapons get some bonus damage (the big, heavy ones), which doesn't count for rolling attack. But that's just an idea so far.
• For ability bonus Strength or Dexterity could apply, depending on the weapon.
• Class attack bonus would be the following: Fighters - class level/2, Rogues - class level/3, Wizards - class level/5. This way the superiority of fighters could be working above the other classes.

So this way a 4th level Fighter with +2 Strength bonus wielding a bastard sword would calculate like this:

d12 + d10 + 2 + 2. The average roll would be 15.

On Defense we have agreed to having a fix score, also to make battles go faster. The character's Defense score would be calculates like this:

7 + half weapon damage + Dexterity bonus + shield or bracer.

Some thoughts:

• The base is 7, because it's the average roll on d12.
• We apply half of the weapon's maximum damage because in a fight, weapons are usually used to deflect blows. This doesn't cause any damage, just applies for defense.
• Dexterity bonus for dodging, parrying, etc.
• For shield and bracer I would use +1/+2, no more, because there won't be any tower shields, medium shield is the best avaliable.
• I would also like this score to improve like the attack, so far I'm thinking about character level/3. 

According to this, the defense of a level 3 Rogue with a +2 Dexterity bonus, equipped with short sword and bracers would be:

7 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 14. 

This way the chance to hit would be about 50-50%, which could mean high paced and deadly fights. So far we haven't figured out the amount of Hit Points the classes are getting. 

Armor won't give any Defense bonus, it will grant Damage Reduction instead. There won't be any heavy armors either, the best would be the chainmail. 

There are going to be 3 base classes, which will have different build options, with a talent system like the one in Star Wars: Saga Edition. At least, that's the plan so far.

The only playable race will be Human, that's almost sure.

For a start this much would be enough I guess, I hope to post again soon about the skills system of Celtica, and after that some general ideas about where I want this to be going. I have that already in Hungarian, but I'll have to get the time to translate it into English.