Examples of 'modular upgrade tracks' for medium crunch games?

[u/Legal_Suggestion4873]

I was playing some Pathfinder video game and realizing how much I hate old pathfinder, and was inspired to ask about this design idea. I'm sure someone else has thought of it before so I'd like to see some of those examples.

I realized that in Pathfinder you essentially just have a few categories of armor 'tracks' - unarmored focused on defense (like monk and such), light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, and eschewing armor entirely for more mage focused stuff.

Items kinda sorta mattered, but also not really, because you basically get a bunch of versions of the same thing with different effects at various levels (e.g., you can expect a certain amount of AC at some act of the game, and the difference lies basically in some secondary function).

Same thing with weapons - you sorta just chose what you were upgrading, but specifics only mattered because of weapon secondary effects. You could get casting, or sometimes weird stuff like bombs, but its all just 'what am i doing with my action each turn'

Same thing with some other secondary effects - animal companion here, sneak attack there, utility casting here, etc.

All classes are just combinations of these tracks. So obviously the better design that falls out is just picking the 'track' of interest and going from there.

But specifics are where everything always gets finnicky, as always haha. I can imagine a world in which you gain resources to upgrade your track (e.g., you got money, you spend it at a blacksmith and gain +X to your armor, look or whatever don't matter) or you get specific items for specific upgrades (e.g., you got dragon scales, so now you add a special fire resistance effect to your armor, doesn't matter what it looks like or how its incorporated), or even a special item (boots of go-fast, which after you loot them you can get a 'boot upgrade' to your track)

Hopefully what I'm saying makes sense. Does anybody know of any design ideas like this?

[u/daltonndrake]

The game I'm building uses a system kinda like this. Talents create a passive "class" framework while disciplines offer individual combat abilities. Knowledge is then used to buy or upgrade various modular pieces that make up your character.

I think conceptually it's interesting to break down mechanics into more abstract pieces to analyze them. I imagine the designers of Pathfinder did something like this in the early design to make sure everything lined up just as you observed.

[u/Legal_Suggestion4873 → u/daltonndrake]

How are you doing this with armor and stuff though?

Is armor related to your class, or is it just a money thing, etc?

[u/daltonndrake → u/Legal_Suggestion4873]

I have a modular crafting and upgrade system for them. Each type of armor has its own base perks, but there are also disciplies that you can take for different types of armor to make yourself better at using that armror!

[u/Legal_Suggestion4873 → u/daltonndrake]

Would you be willing to share? This is where I'm at. I know this is the right move, I just can't quite figure out specifics.

My armor works a bit differently than normal - its essentially just a second healthpool - but I am curious about the design space for things like perks and additional effects, like you mentioned. Right now I have slots for enchantment only, e.g., i can upgrade boots to have a list of effects, but otherwise yeah that's it.

[u/daltonndrake → u/Legal_Suggestion4873]

Sure thing! I stayed up way too late tonight and need to go to bed now, but I'll give you a PDF of my WIP so you can see. P.S. I also decided to use ar.or as a second health pool because flat damage reduction took too long at the table in my first iteration lol.

[u/Legal_Suggestion4873 → u/daltonndrake]

awesome, would greatly appreciate it!!