Simple, Universal D&D

One of the state design goals of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is to allow for a variety of play styles within a single group. If people want 3e-style Skills and Feats, they can have them; if they want to go Old School, they can ignore them.

I’ve played around with designing systems like this before. If your characters is a 3rd level thief, at the most basic level you can do nebulously-defined thief stuff (whatever the player proposes and the GM agrees makes sense) at whatever general bonus you get for being 3rd level; at the opposite end, players can decorate their characters with all sorts of detail and drill down to very specific bonuses for very specific things.

This led me to woolgather about various other mental exercises I’ve engaged in in the past, when I’ve thought about how I’d redesign D&D. The following is an idea I came up with, and while not fully former, I figured I’d share it for discussion. Caveat: I’ve read a lot of D&D variants in 30+ years, so I’m sure it’s very similar to something that already exists, something tucked away in some lost corner of my brain. If it’s been done, please just gently point it out and direct me to the game it’s from. I know that it bears some passing resemblance to concepts in Blue Rose and True20, but it’s different from those.

Character Class
This is a broader starting point than class as it is currently defined. This is a general idea of what the character can do. “Fighter” and “Wizard” and “paladin” and such apply as abstracts, but don’t have every single specific ability nailed down. This allows the player some leeway to alter it. It also makes it simple to add new things and adapt to different genres and settings. All class ultimately means is that, as a cleric, the character can do cleric things.

Good, Average, Poor
For D&D, there are three core ability areas: Combat, Magic, and Skills. Of these three, the character is Good at one, Average at another, and Poor at the final one. We think of a Fighter, for example, as Good at Combat, Average at Skills/other stuff and Poor at Magic; a Wizard would be the opposite. A Thief is Good at Skills (lockpicking, stealth, etc.).

Each of these ratings has a progress track, like Base Attack Bonus. The thing is, they’re not tied to class. You probably want a Wizard to be Good at Magic and a Fighter to be Good at Combat, but what about the Thief? Good at Skills, but can you flip-flop the other two, to have a more fighter-oriented or spellcasting-oriented thief? How about a ranger that’s more about Combat than skills like tracking, or a paladin that knows a lot about religion and courtly manners than magic? It’s an easy tweak.

The rating for magic would also control spells known/castable. Good gives you more, Poor gives you less.

Character Race
As with Class, this is more a vague definition of what characters should be able to do; an elf can do elf things. If you want, give each race three categories and assign Good, Average and Poor ratings. Now, all dwarves are similar but not the same. Your character is Good in working with stone and Poor in dungeoncraft, my dwarf is the opposite. One elf player character is Good at the nature stuff, another is Average.

Saving Throws
The same scheme would apply to Saves: one Good, one Average, one Poor.

Attributes
I could argue doing away with Attributes here as well; use Class ratings and Saves in their place.

Target Numbers
This would include base armor class and any number the bad guy needs to roll to affect the player character. 10 plus the appropriate bonus to Combat, Skill, or Magic. Your Skill bonus is +6 and you set a trap, the goblin has to roll 16 to beat it. Your Combat bonus is +9, your stark naked armor class is 19 (you know how to dodge, parry, and so on; some surprise adjustment would obviously apply). If you’re the target of a spell and your Magic score is +14, the evil wizard has to roll a 24.

Specialization
But, you say, what about characters that don’t cast spells at all? Here’s the deal: you can Specialize, zeroing out your Poor category and adding the bonus you would have gotten it to your Good or Average category. So you take the Barbarian who hates and despises magic and either can’t or won’t use it, and add the Poor rating bonus in Magic to his Good rating in Combat. If, for example, he’s 5th level with a +5 in Combat, a +4 in Skills, and a +3 in Magic, he Specializes in Combat to the detriment of Magic, takes the +3 and moves it so he ends up with +8 in Combat and no bonus in Magic. This is fixed and forever; you do it at each level or you don’t. The Barbarian becomes a combat monster, but the evil wizard has a 10 DC to zap him.

Class Abilities
At each level, you get a +2 bonus to a specific thing related to your class (stealth, longbow damage, magic missile spell), or +1 to a general thing (hit and damage with swords, abjuration spells),

Or, every even level you get an extra+1 to something broad within Combat, Skills or Magic (+1 damage, +1 target) or in increase or reduction in some other metric by 1 step (increased range, increased area, decreased casting time, etc).

Feats
At first level, and every 3 or 4 levels after that (I’m woolgathering here, not nailing down specifics on a system) you get a +2 bonus to add to anything. Works as class abilities, above, except it can apply to race, cross-class abilities (your Ranger gets +2 to pick locks, for example, or the Cleric gets +2 to tracking).

Your Mileage May Vary
If I wasn’t already happily using Pathfinder and felt the need to re-reinvent the wheel, I would probably flesh this out and use it. If nothing else, there may be a rules hack or two you might be able to apply to your game. I’d love o hear your thoughts in the comments below.