Hello all, this is my attempts of making a new game/world based on a mixture of Game of Thrones rpg, made by the now defunct Guardians of Order from Canada, and the Codex.

So the Game of Thrones engine is a d20 3.0/3.5 type of game that has been tweaked to fit into the world. The World is the one from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and I highly recommend his books.

One of the biggest changes is the almost complete lack of magic. What magic there is is legendary and extremely rare/powerful. Another big change is that emphasis is taken away from physical combat and put on intrigue.

So when I made my game/world my starting point was to make my new Races and Classes. There are no Races except for humans. None Human being do exists but are mysterious NPC's. Ogres are a high level fight, and other creatures such as Gnomes (I feel that Elves and Dwarves have been over done) are highly elusive. However there are different Ethnicities and Cultures of humans who give different bonus's to different Skills.

CLASSES

Fighter-Since BAB is the most important attribute in the Codex (as it gives attack, defense, and Martial Feats) I think that simply giving fighters the highest BAB at a 1/1 ratio is enough (when coupled with all weapon proficiency's) I kept the bonus feats as before but that's the only thing it has going for it besides for BAB.

Ranger-Now called Huntsman. Has been completely rebuilt and based off of the Game of Thrones class Hunter. Ranger has several problems for me. Two-weapon fighting is in no way a technique that a woodland character would use since it seems to be (in the west anyway) primarily an italian Bravo style. Additionally favored enemy is too weak in a primarily human world (or way too powerful) So I stuck with the Native Terrain feature for GoT where you pick a native terrain (cold forest, hot mountains, etc.) and you gain a +2 to Knowledge Nature, Search, Spot, Survival, Hide, and Move Silently checks in that terrain. As a kicker I decided to give the class a bonus dice when in that terrain. The other bonus's are init, and hiding related. Also I toned down the BAB to a 2/3 ratio.

Wizard-Now called Mystic. Has been completely rebuilt to work with the new magic system.

Barbarian-Gone, you can pick the right mix of feats and weapon proficiency's to fit your concept. Additionally I think that a character who wins fights by simply hitting harder is a completely ridiculous concept that has nothing to do with real combat.

Cleric-Called Priest. Since magic has been completely reworked (and is immensly rare) The priest does not have magical bonus's, rather he has prayers which are in effect psychosomatic effects, and a lot of interpersonal skills (see influence, below).

Thief- Pretty much the same concept just done differently, sneak attack, your choice of special abilities that make you anywhere between an assasin, thug, or spy.

Artisan-a class devoted to influence skills and normal skills (see influence).

Noble- a class that is mostly about influence skills and roleplaying.


So the most important difference in how classes are constructed is in Influence. Influence is based on Charisma and class. Influence points are spent on NPC's and can be used to affect.

[example: My artisan has 34 Influence points, in this adventure I am a representative of the duke who is attempting to break up the monopoly the Dyers guild holds on the city's power. 80 years ago the Duke and his family were murdered by a coalition of the most powerful guilds, for respectability sake they gave the position to a minor noble family but the guilds hold all the power in the body of the Brotherhood of Guilds, with ten members. Each of these members is one of the heads of the ten most powerful guilds. The current Duke has decided that it's time for him to run the city. So I am attempting to break up this cartel. I have 10 in the Duke (since he is my employer) and I put another 10 in the Captain of the Guard, thats 20 points. I put my remaining 14 into the head of the Masons guild. So I can now use my influence to affect them. I can use my influence to make the Captain of the Guard side with us instead of the Guilds, and I can use my influence on the Master of the Masons to make sure that he will either side with us, or at least stay out of the coming conflict.]

Sounds like a cool setting and system. Are the countries roughly historical? Is it set in a particular "tech level" in terms of armor and weapons etc.?

I'm really interested in the influence system. Is there a way to earn more influence points with a certain person, say through bribes or blackmail? Can you get influence points with a particular group like a guild or a whole class of people in a certain town or region? Or a religious sect?

G.

No its a setting I've been working on for awhile, but most of the cultures are historically themed. I have the Alman who are the feudal, high middle ages nobility, knights, highly pious. The Gioni who are pretty much renaissance italian city states. The Vignor (there name will probably change) who are mostly yeoman farmers since the nobility tend to be more poor and are sorta english flavored. The Hevets, who are semi-hussite heretics who've broken off from the equivalent of the catholic church. Cwyth, gaelic highland/irish/welsh. Urds, norse viking. Rhorn, who are pretty much normans. Uhlan, who are a hybrid Polish/hungarian/russian/turkic horse people.

You gain influence based on level, so for example priest class is 8+cha per level. So when you level up you get more points and you can put them into whoever you want that makes sense. You can't just be like, I'm putting them in my worse enemy, but if during the last adventure you helped out and befriended someone, then you can. Influence does also count for blackmail and social status so one of your liege lords, or underlings you could also have influence under. Now their is individuals and organizations. You can only have influence in an organization you belong to (or sometimes, formerly belonged to). You can never have more than 20 influence in anything or one (though there are a whole bunch of social feats that mitigate that).

They way it's used mechanically is say you want to make someone disobey orders (convince a guard to let you into a party your shouldn't be at) then it would be d20+your influence+reputation (i'll get to that later)+cha+how much social status do you have over him (I"ll get to that later too) vs. Influence the queen has over him+sense motive+wis+ his social status+ d20.

However my group decided to use the numbers as metrics and simply role play these (since you also add a bonus depending on how well your bargaining) and leave rolls for really close ones.

Note: this does not replace diplomacy, diplomacy makes someone like you more (mitigate having to use influence, or making it not as hard) influence is calling in favors or using your authority to make something happen.