The Tier System

Tier System Notes

Thematthew and I have been working a bit on this system here and we'd appreciate ideas and feedback. It's still in its very early stages so, please forgive the roughness. The design intent is for it to work well with and parallel the PT/LL system but, also to be something a bit different. For example, when its "finished", you should be able to swap out the Racial Traits of PT/LL for our Character Traits, use our combat system instead, or other such mixing and matching without much effort. We'd continue working on this silently but, we're both a bit lazy and without something/someone to react to we tend to only end up working on things when we're just very bored. We're also only two people and will get creativity blocks or just won't see things a larger group would.

As you'll note, currently it's modeled as a Star Wars game. However, that's just the model we're starting with. When we're "finished" it shouldn't be a lot of work to create different setting versions. Our rough ideas for such currently are a supers setting, a medieval fantasy setting, and considering that this is being posted here I'm sure we'll end up with a MLP one whether we wanted one or not. =P

Just to head off any drama related stuff... Yes, we asked Dan about posting this here. No, we aren't saying that the PT/LL isn't good, we just like designing stuff.

My first thoughts are... It looks at a glance to be very complex... And that's the only thought I'm able to clearly form about this.

It's a bit more complex than the PT/LL system but, overall is still pretty simplistic.

Dice pools, kinda reminds me of Shadowrun to be honest. I quite enjoyed that system. (initial thought)

Edit: I noticed Derp seems a little harsh, I'd suggest maybe making a roll of 1 count as 2 failures instead of a blanket 1 downgrade, just a thought...

The system itself was inspired by the dice pool system created for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, though their version doesn't really work because of specialized dice so we came up with this instead. Personally I was a big fan of Shadowrun myself, both system and setting, and there are definitely things which I learned from working with that system being brought in here.

As far as Derp being too harsh, a blanket 1 downgrade is significantly less harsh than giving a chance to cancel out successes, since one can get upgrades to their dice pools relatively easily. It was actually one of the worst parts of the old WoD system that you could cancel out your successes by rolling 1s. In fact, with the way their variable target numbers worked, you could reach a point where additional dice were a liability, and could actually do more harm than good based solely on increasing the chances of botching.

That having been said, thank you for the feedback.

I added in an example of how rolling for a check works out. I hope that helps lessen some of the confusion.

Thanks Ramsus, that REALLY helped explain things with the whole "dice pool" idea that I couldn't wrap my mind around how that worked until seeing your sample roll.

So basically, it's like the dice system in Shadowrun?

It's similar but, not exactly the same.

I'm glad it helped Xel. There'll be a few more explanations for other things soon.

So, lol, I accidentally got my example wrong in my haste to get it out there. I blame it being late. So those of you who saw it before should probably re-check it.

The first three classes now exist in an unfinished state. If people have ideas for Boon-like abilities that'd probably be a big help. They don't necessarily have to be aimed as a benefit for the whole team.

We added some keywords to Talents and added triggers for the existing Refresh Powers.

We'd appreciate suggestions for what Melee/Ranged should do besides being just a check to see if Slow/Deflect and other things apply.

Added in a Cyborg option. Thanks to Caden for help with the idea.

Added in Boons (which are a bit different from PT Boons) and all the Tier 1 & 2 Classes. Currently contemplating an optional Talent Specialization deal. Philli, your input on that would be appreciated. Assuming you ever see this post.

Also, we've got Xand as our editor, so hopefully soon things will look nicer.

Figured out the point costs and how many points we want people to have for Character Traits. Wish we had a few more 1 point traits so, if anyone has any ideas that'd be really nice.

O....k. Haven't updated this in a while.

Stuff of note:

A lot of work got done a while ago on all sorts of things. Most recently, implemented a tweak to how Encounter Powers work.

Xand stopped being our editor a while ago so stuff still isn't pretty because we don't really have one.

Philadelphus began work on a version of Talent Specialization for us.



We still need more 1 point character traits and really any suggestions for basically anything would be appreciated (aside from "this is bad, change this entire thing" or such).

This is a really interesting concept, and I can see with a lot of effort it could be a very interesting thing to try and incorporate into a higher level game than lv 10. At the moment, it is a bit too complex for me to fully comprehend this late at night for me, however I might be interested in looking through it a bit more readily, if you'll allow me to make a few comments, later today after I've slept.

Why exactly is the system called the "Tier System"? Why not just call it Star Wars supplement? Or is it deeper than just Star Wars?

It's called the Tier System because that represents one of the core mechanics of the system and it is intended to function for other settings besides Star Wars. Also calling it any version of Star Wars anything is kinda meaningless as it'd just end up with a subtitle as there are lots of Star Wars systems out there. It's not a supplement to anything, it's its own system so "Star Wars supplement" would be inaccurate.

Added the Toxified status condition (thanks Paper Shadow) and the Local Lore talent.

Added a new Character Trait, Internal Clock (yay another 1 pointer, we really need more of those).
Added new Talents: Mind of Its Own, Green Thumb, Memories of the Dead, Like a Surgeon, I'm a Doctor, not a Bricklayer, and Artificial Gravity.
Added a new Weapon Specialty for Poles: Reach.

Special thanks for this update goes to ZamuelNow, Hayatecooper, and Zarhon.