I haven't re-designed the rules in function of the chosen feel. In other words, what I did could be used on a campaign based on FO1, FO2, FO3 or FONV.
My primary aim was to simplify everything. After years spent RPGing (I have translated RPGs, and even had a few materials published), I almost always gave preference to simplicity. To me, a GM should never have to read his rulebook during a gaming session. The rules should be so simple that between character sheets, the GM screen and his head, everything should be there. Also, an action should require a single throw of dice.
With that in mind, here are the current differences between my thingie and Mical's :
- Skills
I decreased the number of skills to 14. I took away all the ones that were unimportant in a PnP RPG. What was left was : Tribal Weapons, Modern Weapons, Military Weapons, High-Tech Weapons, Athletics, Speech, Thievery, Barter, Medicine, Pilot, Awareness, Repair, Sciences, Survival. As you may notice, I made some cuts in the fighting area, and reorganised them in a different fashion. (They're organised by cultural framework, rather than by similarity of items : for instance, now, tribal weapons gathers HtH, melee, throwing, etc...)
Skills may have bonuses or penalties, ranging from +40 to -40 depending on various factors. Since things were unclear in Mical's system, I decided to have critical hits always equal to your luck, and critical failures always equal to 10-luck. That can be changed by perks or traits of course, but that's the basic system.
I have kept the Tag! concept, and I think that I will adopt FO2's system for skill points per level. There's no way I will adopt the skill book system. I think it's a ridiculous idea.
Hit Points
I haven't yet decided how to calculate them. My main problem is that I will not use at all a localisation system, nor will I allow HP/Level. You'll start with a set number of HP, period. It can be changed with perks, but that'll be it. So, I need to review everything in the weapons/monsters lists to see how to create a reasonable formula.
Action Points
FO2 system
Sequence
Unsure, but that's not a real problem.
SPECIAL
Not much to say here, I'm using the 7 SPECIAL characteristics. The only thing is that I think that Strength and Charisma are far less important than Agility or Intelligence, so I shall create or modify perks to give more importance to S & C.
Perks.
I decided I would allow perks every two levels (note that I plan to have a cap at Lvl 20, and that getting a new level will be slow, very slow). I design campaigns so that my players live a story, not a Hack n' Slash lootfest orgy.
That said, Perks is what is giving me the most work. There is absolutely no coherence (to me) whatsoever in all the existing systems (FO1, FO2, FOT, FO3 or Mical's). Level reqs, characteristic reqs, results, etc, everything seems to lack coherence. So, I made a list of ALL the ones that already exist, and will start working on all of them.
Perks are (to me) what makes FO's system so cool. They give substance to the character and are fun. So, this will be where I will eventually spend the most time. For the moment, my characters are Lvl 1, so I have some time to finish other things before perfecting what already exist.
Combat.
That'll be for another post, I'm running out of time. Btw, my character sheet is done, I'll post a pic of it in the next post.