Posts Tagged ‘Game System’

Equipment Damage X in 6

June 10, 2025

“The dragon’s breath roars around the elf, roasting him in his armor until there’s nothing left but cremated bones … and his perfectly-intact bow, leather armor, and feathered arrows”

Wait. What the hell?

Depending on your edition and your gaming group, that’s a very normal situation. But in 1st edition D&D, you’d expect the elf who fails his saving throw vs. the dragon’s breath would have to begin rolling item saving throws for all his gear. The wood, leather, and cloth probably fries. This is part of the balance of acquisition in 1e, “easy come, easy go”, and is one way that wealth can exit the adventuring party. Players hate it. Not only when their own gear gets blown up, but also when their own blasting magic (which slays the enemy with ease) also destroys enemy gear which should become their loot after the battle is over. The DM doesn’t want to include too many blasting/crushing attacks lest his adventurers be left clambering around in a daze, naked and wielding the sharpest piece of trash available.

I came up with a house rule to make the item damage system in 1e more lenient, allow for PCs trying to get equipment repaired, for found equipment to come pre-damaged (the former owner suffering much worse), for cheap PCs to be able to buy low-quality or used equipment at a discount, and it ties in with a Shields Shall Be Splintered issue with magic shields.

Run the rules as written, until an item fails an item save. Then, it receives 1 point of damage out of 6 for every pip by which it failed its save. So, if you need a 15 to save but you rolled a 17, the item is now damaged 2 of 6.

  • Damaged armor and weapons operate at -1 to hit and damage and -1 to AC until repaired.
  • Nonmagical miscellaneous equipment that is damaged and then later put under stress (a rope being used to climb for example) must roll over its damage on d6 to work properly, else it fails. A failing rope snaps (but can be tied back together!), a failing lantern extinguishes and must be relit, a failing saddle slides off your horse. So, if your rope is damaged 4 of 6, it has a 4 in 6 chance to fail under stress.
  • Magic items must roll to see whether they operate magically during this game session, needing a roll over the damage count. If they roll equal or under the damage count, the item fritzes out and counts as nonmagical for the whole session. I’d be generous and give them their usual item save bonus as a magic item, and they detect as magical, they just don’t perform their magical functions.

You’ll normally not have a note next to your items. Only if they’re damaged! Then you’d write something like “1 of 6 dmg”. Items that reach 6 of 6 damage are destroyed.

“You dig through the wreckage of the battle and find a dull, bent shortsword. You do your best to straighten it but it needs a smith’s attention to fix properly. At least it’s better than your bruised fists. You see torchlight flickering from the intersection ahead.”

Repairs can be done in town by a craftsman, costing 10% of the item’s normal value per damage point restored. Yes, this makes magic items expensive to repair. The DM may decide that a master craftsman is needed to repair magic items, or that you need a spellcaster of a certain level (say 7th) to aid in the repairs, or they need extremely high-quality materials, and those are the reasons why it costs so much.

“The weaver wrings her arthritic hands, and behind her the silent Druid stands silhouetted in the open back door of the shop. You let your magic rope slip through your fingers, the fraying and nicks all gone. You wondered how they would find enough grasshopper legs at this time of year to fix it. The Druid, seeing your satisfaction, leaves without a word. The weaver gratefully takes the coins. It’s quite a pile, probably enough for her to fix the dilapidated roof.”

If you’re going to include item damage like this, you really might consider switching from a flat-rate upkeep cost for leveled characters of 100 GP / level / month as the 1e DMG instructs, and either make that amount lower, or just switch to itemizing expenses for when they stay in town. The money will be spent on repairs or replacements instead of generalized upkeep (and that general upkeep is hard to justify at high levels). Characters with little equipment, Monks especially, who should have low lifestyle expenses, will end up with low repair bills.

If you’re using the Shields Shall Be Splintered rule, consider how it integrates:

Shields Shall Be Splintered
When you’re hit by a normal blow, you can choose to let your shield absorb the attack and be destroyed. If the blow is from a large or magical source (a giant’s boulder, or a dragon’s breath) the attack is reduced by 1d6 damage and the shield is splintered. Magical shields are better at taking hits. Against large/magical attacks the damage blocked is 1d6 + shield magic value. And, when absorbing any blow, a magic shield is not destroyed but instead takes 1 point of equipment damage.

“You stagger back under the giant’s blows. Your trusty shield has kept you alive for the past five minutes of battle, and now when you raise it you can see his shape through the crack in the middle. A wet gasp comes where you expected another smash, and the giant hunches forward and falls, finally bleeding out from his wounds. You lean against the wall and gulp the air. You turn the shield around and see your family’s crest is battered but still visible.”

This means SSBS is not just a rule that people would only use with a nonmagical shield, because they can safely take up to 5 hits on a magic shield before it’s destroyed. It gets expensive repairing it! But notice how:

(1) a sword-and-board fighter has a nice option to use that’s defensive (so it thematically makes sense with their fighting style) while two-weapon fighters get their one extra attack with overall penalties, and the two-handed fighter gets a bigger weapon that deals more damage and has more reach.

(2) it turns a magical shield into both a passive magic item and a consumable with 5 charges – and a 6th if you need it to save your life.

CONCLUSIONS

I think the item saving throw / equipment destruction rules are valuable for a variety of reasons. I think it’s very much worthwhile to soften the blow with this item damage house rule. I think, then, a DM who wants the original item destruction effect just needs to goose up the amount of area-effect magic thrown out by the opposition – which is also great fun.

However, I can also see someone saying they don’t value the effects on their campaign enough to do the extra bookkeeping for some items that are damaged and not yet repaired. It’s definitely a tradeoff, and opinions will vary.

“The thief perched in the window. She could hear guards rushing from room to room, stabbing behind heavy curtains, slamming doors shut. The cool free air blew in, her rope tied off and dangling down to the ground a hundred feet below. But the rope was scorched by flames from the wizard’s trapped strongbox. Would it hold her weight? Would his dungeon cell be worse than striking the pavement and exploding like a sack of tomatoes? She wished she were a bird. She prayed, truly, for the first time in her life. She climbed over the sill and began to climb down.

She watched the window rush away from her as the wind struck her back and scattered her hair, the great starry sky wheeling above her. She spread her arms, and spread her fingers, and a moment before she met the earth she cried out and twisted about and flew away far over the hills and into the moonlight. And she was forevermore a creature of the wind.”

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Percentage Learning Mechanic

March 1, 2025

It’s possible I got this house rule from another game, maybe Lejendary Adventures. It’s used for less-important skills that a PC might pick up if you’re playing 1e or something that lacks a skill system, but isn’t used for tasks like combat or casting. You also wouldn’t use this for trivial things like smoking or narrow tasks like skinning deer.

Or, if you’re writing a game, maybe this is how all your advancement works.

To start with, determine the PC’s skill level on a percentile scale. Maybe equal to their relevant ability score for novel skills or double that for things people in their social class probably have exposure to. That’s their success chance, and they need to roll under that on d%. Add a negative modifier for really difficult conditions, but for easy tasks give double the bonus you think they should get.

If they fail (rolling over the skill percentage), make a note of that. At the end of the game session, award +1% to every skill if it had at least one failure during the session, and if 2+ failures, then there’s an X in 10 chance to get an extra 1%.

This means you can’t improve a skill if you don’t use it, you learn fast at the start but slower if you’re really good at it, you learn more by taking big risks instead of grinding easy tasks. You’re incentivized to do a wide variety of tasks throughout the session.

It can work really well for learning languages.

If you use this as your main advancement mechanic, consider throwing in additional skill point awards which players can choose to apply to any skill that’s 75% or under. Maybe a bonus 1% for finally defeating the bandit lord, 1% for rescuing the brainwashed prince he kidnapped, 1% for returning the entire treasure the bandits stole. A given session might offer 0-2 of these achievement-based bonuses.

I also think if you’re using this as your core advancement mechanic, it could work to help limit the power of casters by saying the caster has to improve each spell independently, just like any warrior would need to learn all their weapons independently. But, to reflect that there is some cross-knowledge where knowing Shortsword makes you a little better at picking up Longsword, you’d need an adjustment in there. Maybe half your chance to hit comes from the specific Fireball skill and half from your Evocation group skill.

Another cool percentile rule I found from Basic Roleplaying (I think) is that on any percentile roll, doubles are a critical, but it’s a critical success if it’s a success, critical failure if it’s a failure. So this naturally produces critical outcomes 10 in 100 which is equivalent to 2 in 20 for natural 1s and natural 20s on a d20 roll. But it also spreads those out in a way that makes high-skill characters more likely to get critical successes and low-skill characters more likely to get critical failures. And that just feels right.

Anyway, I think this is a cute idea, but I’m also just very happy with the comprehensive secondary skill system and using d20 under ability score checks for miscellaneous tasks.

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Modular D&D

February 25, 2025

5.5e D&D comes out and the community splits, like always.

I want to remind everyone that it is possible for WotC to produce a version of the game where the rules are written in a modular way. That is, you could decide to use the Type A XP advancement charts, Type C XP award system, Type C core races plus a few specific extras, Type A for your martial classes but Type D for casters and Type B for Rogues, a Type M equipment list that’s representative of late Bronze Age tech level, Type B weaponless combat rules, Type C surprise but Type A initiative, etc. Then your group would just print out the pages and everyone would have binders for your group’s PHB.

If the company needed to send out an update to fix an exploit or ambiguity, just download that page and print it out if your group even uses that page.

WotC can’t / won’t do that because it’s not profitable, even though it would be the best game for each individual group.

The only downside for the community would be that when you visit another table, you have to print out their binder, because there isn’t a single standardized D&D. Although one could argue that with variants, expansions, setting-specific extras and changes, and all the house rules, there is no standardization, and the idea that a “Type A across the board” is the vanilla game could stand in for that standard.

No reason why we couldn’t do it ourselves, sans profit motive as we’re hobbyists. But it would be difficult because it’s an openhearted heartbreaker – inclusive of all the ways the author doesn’t want to play but by necessity must include, because it is the soul of the project.

(By the way I don’t use the WordPress feature to auto-email you all for every post. Just once in a while. Don’t want to bug you.)

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LOTFP Grindhouse Received

May 8, 2011

I participated in a “Make up a 1st level M-U spell” competition on Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which I won (I was pretty surprised) and for which I received a copy of his new Grindhouse box set (I was pretty delighted). I won’t have a chance to read it for a few hours because my hopeless human eyes can stay open for only so long at a time.

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Undersea Adventure

May 5, 2011

Adventuring underwater is all about the alien environment, the mystery, the danger. Our real-world deep underwater explorers suffer from extreme risks compared to other types, and could be compared somewhat to space travel or deep caving. Our literature source material is thick with the trials of underwater adventure. I think that should translate well to D&D.

That said, you need to figure out how to balance the danger with the danger-mitigating technology of D&D: magic.

Breathing: A 3rd level Water Breathing spell removes the most important danger, breathing. But can it let you breathe even in especially high pressure? I don’t think it should matter, although Water Breathing as written in 1E/2E (I’m not sure about later editions) doesn’t do anything except help breathing.

Game Mechanics: I say you can hold your breath for twice your CON score in 6-second rounds. You use twice as much air when fighting or other strenuous activity. This lets an average person hold his breath for about a minute. I’d give a longer time if the person was calm, had plenty of time to oxygenate and take in a full breath, and did no activity at all.

Pressure: There is a point below which humans will just be crushed. Does this matter to you? What about the depth below which you need pressurized air and can’t breathe using a long tube? The reason a snorkel is of a pretty standard length is because you can’t inhale unpressurized air if you have too much pressure on your lungs. I would assume if you carried air with you and it was also under pressure (air in a bag, diving bell) it would be okay. Likewise if you came to an undersea air pocket like in a cave or ruin it would be breathable.

Game Mechanics: Based on basic info I found, you can’t metabolize air past about 200′ depth. If you’re in a depressurized container, obviously this doesn’t count. I give -1 to all your rolls per 50′ of depth due to pressure (dizziness, hallucinations, blacking out, etc). If you rise faster than 10′ per round you suffer 1 HP per extra 10′ in the round from “the bends.” A Necklace of Adaptation should compensate completely.

Vision: Water inhibits vision because light doesn’t pass through it as easily. But it also blocks light from the sun and moon, so below a certain depth you should assume that it’s effectively “night” all the time. You can offset this with bioluminescent fish and plants, especially to illuminate the lairs of various intelligent sea creatures and cool things you want PCs to see from far away. The muddiness of the water will be an absolute limit to vision, but even in especially clear water there will be some obscurement.

Game Mechanics: Your vision underwater is normally obscured the same as in Monsoon precipitation. Muddy water may make this zero vision, very clear water may be lighter precipitation level equivalent. I don’t care about light obscurement because that’s taken care of in the precipitation vision rules. A Helm of Underwater Action or any X-Ray Vision should compensate completely.

Temperature: It’s pretty cold underwater. Typically deep ocean temperature hovers just over freezing. If the PC is soaked, that means he’s going to die of hypothermia very quickly.

Game Mechanics: I would count this as exposure to Cold or even Arctic weather without any protection. My exposure rules give -1 penalty to rolls due to Fatigue and 1d6 damage per hour exposed in such weather. Waterproofing magic would help, reducing it to just the fatigue penalty, but a Ring of Warmth would remove the danger entirely.

Movement: You can’t fight as well as you can on land, nor swim as fast as you could run. It’s because you’re not native that that environment; undersea creatures have no penalties.

Game Mechanics: You have normal base movement, but can “jog” to double move only on the surface. You can’t “run” to multiply movement at all, and can’t jog underwater. You can’t fire missiles indirectly (like a catapult). If you’re a surface-dweller, you always lose Initiative to sea-dwellers and you always have -4 to hit and Armor Class. A Necklace of Adaptation might circumvent this, but I don’t remember. A Helm of Underwater Action maybe? Certainly a Ring of Free Action would do it.

—
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Now that we have the dangers put down, and the possible ways around them using magic, there is another problem. If there are no special environmental conditions, what’s the point of adventuring underwater? Instead consider limited magical benefits, such as a reduction in the penalty rather than removing it, or a limit on times per day, charges, or a single-use item that had a duration.

Also consider the Zelda adventure pattern: you have access to Area A, but the way to Areas B, C, and D are blocked. You need Item B to get to Area B, etc. So you explore what you can (Area A) until you find the item needed to access one of the other areas. So it goes until you have access to everywhere.

So we can start with the assumption that the PCs will eventually have access to every undersea area, but they must earn those tools. Begin with diving for Water Breathing items. Then they need to gather items to relieve Pressure so they can go deeper. Then they need Cold Resist items to dive even deeper into the coldest reaches. In all cases they will have movement and vision problems, except that some of them will find temporary, limited efficacy, or even permanent mitigating magic for those two. Now we have three different adventure zones which require various types of equipment to explore.

Note that there are ways around the zone restrictions. They could wrap up in furs, build a big diving bell, and hit the bottom right away. But their exploratory ability will be pretty reduced.

Now we worry about what kinds of monsters and treasure there are to find down there. Try to focus on sea-based things: pearls, coral, shells, driftwood, shark skin, shipwreck goods, etc. Typical weapons will be nets, knives, spears, tridents. This way the treasure is clearly from the undersea adventure sites, and players will remember seizing it from the special undersea monsters they never fight elsewhere.

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Magic Item Creation: Nurturing

May 4, 2011

Blogger Zero XP Adventures talked about his ideas concerning magic item creation. He suggested that an item should require a bearer to adventure with it for some time to awaken its power before it could be actually used. I’m still having problems replying to Blogger, so here’s my input.

I like the fact that the weapon (or any magic item) must be carried to attain its power. Almost like the enchantment is just the birth and the PC must raise the magic item like a child, bathing it in the blood of his enemies (or the up-swelling of human development, if you like). You could say that the magic item needs to be in the presence of a certain amount of XP (it doesn’t take a share or anything, you just need to gain that amount) before it’s fully activated. That would reduce the rate of magic item creation and make it so you can relax the magic item creation costs in XP and/or GP. It also prevents someone who has a stash of money from just sitting in a cave and churning out magic items for sale like a vending machine left plugged-in.

Making the bearer gain 1 XP per full GP value of the item seems appropriate. And you can’t nurture more than one fresh magic item at a time. If you do, you have to choose which one bathed in the XP anytime you gain some.

I don’t necessarily see the connection between, say, Boots of Striding and Springing and fighting XP. It would make more sense to require a certain amount of travel on foot for that item to awaken. But I think it’s probably easier to balance an XP gain requirement in general.

What to do about potions and scrolls? Are they low-power enough and boring enough that you can just make them and pay the costs? I think so.

I like the idea of a magic weapon continuing to advance (as in, you make a +1 Sword and nurture it to fruition but then it continues growing after that), but maybe at a slower rate once it hits its basic awakening. Or maybe you need to accomplish some great deed with it to birth a new ability in it which must then be nurtured through more XP bathing. It’s like how Philotomy (Session 4, second to last paragraph) promoted a zero-level NPC to 1st level Fighter because of how well he had distinguished himself in battle. Was the weapon always something special and just wasn’t appreciated fully? Or did it “level up” and grow into its new status as a result of the great deed?

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Ability Score Driven D&D

May 3, 2011

This is in response to a Blogger post by Omnipotent Eye. Apparently it’s impossible for me to post on Blogger no matter what I do (WordPress, Anon, Input Name, etc). I just get a generic unhelpful error message that says something like “Blogger can’t be assed today.” I guess they really only want Blogger people to talk with Blogger people.

Omnipotent Eye talked about using Ability Scores as saves. Here’s the response I would have given if Blogger had cooperated.

Invent some shit on the spot. This is the Way.

Rocks fall? Have everyone roll d20 trying to get under DEX.

Wading through a leech-infested swamp? Roll d20 trying to get under CON.

Getting the tough sell from a merchant? Roll d20 under WIS.

Give a bonus for easy things, like the bite of a weak spider, or a penalty for tough things like the breath of a dragon. It’s appropriate to use the existing save bonus/penalty (whether a straight +/- in 1E/2E, or the number above or below 11 in 3E).

You could do the same thing with attack rolls. No reason why that type of success should be any different. I’d go with STR for melee, DEX for missile.

You can simulate the improving saving throws from gaining levels by giving +1 to save per 3 levels or something. That means a reduction on your roll, making it easier to get under your stat.

Likewise you can give bonuses for skills, as with the proficiency system in 2E D&D. If a character is said to have +2 with Carpentry, have him take a -2 on the d20 roll against STR when trying to raise a barn. Or maybe against INT when designing a building. But don’t give level-based bonuses for skill checks: it doesn’t make sense that just because someone is an accomplished swordsman that he has a better chance to design a building.

Although it might be better to just go with the same premise and consider whether the task falls under that class. If you’re a Fighter you’re good at fighting type stuff and maybe also wilderness things, sailing, falconry, horsemanship, equipment maintenance, etc. A Thief is good at picking locks, sneaking, climbing, hiding, bribery, escaping handcuffs, appraising and fencing loot, etc. A Magic-User is good at sage knowledge stuff in general but not necessarily application. Give them the level-based bonus (+1 per 3 levels or whatever you decided) to those tasks.

Then it’s just up to each class to have some special skill. Fighters get multiple attacks, good equipment choices, and high HP. Thieves get backstab, easy level advancement, maybe a luck bonus to saves. Magic-Users get spells.

Consequences: this system makes low level characters have a better chance at success than in 1E/2E D&D (I’m not sure about 3E, I remember something like a 50-50 chance or better at low level). They don’t improve as quickly. The DM has to figure out what a save should be against every single time. It makes ability scores really important. It requires changes to all the magic items, spells, and abilities that reference specific saves. It makes a “save vs. spells” a lot more complicated than 1E/2E people are used to (although it won’t make much difference for 3E people).

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Session Update and Other Associated Updates

April 6, 2011

Gaming Group
The group now meets at my dad’s house, where I played with his group years ago. My group still meets on Sundays. It now includes only one original member (Mark) and four other regulars (Kristy, John, Callie, and Zack). We have two who play now and then (Jeanette and Lexi).

Campaign Synopsis
The adventurers explored around the peninsula with the frontier town Earthstrike, establishing themselves in an ancient keep some 20 miles away. They tangled with the denizens of the peninsula forest of Brackenwood, including giant black squirrels, dryads, and angry forest spirits that beseiged their “Chateau D’ Awesome” with an army of pumpkin-men. Earthstrike was menaced by a fort of goblins across the inlet to the south.

After they were chased out of there they explored more widely, venturing down into dungeons as it pleased them, realizing early on that the game’s primary reward was treasure, and the best treasure was down in dungeons. During this period they explored a haunted asylum monastery, the City of the Ghosts which comes to “life” again every night, the dungeons under a collapsed village. They were spirited away by a ghost ship that took them to a skull-shaped island where the stars were wrong and a great underground harbor seethed with piratic culture. They worked their way out of the trap-filled caves to escape, only to find on their return that the island was in some other dimension and several years had passed.

Earthstrike was a cold ruin: the goblins had won and left with many captives. The adventurers tracked the goblins to the pass leading into their lands, and shied away at the brink. They got new six-legged troll-horses from a troll village in that green mountain valley and went back to exploring elsewhere. They felt themselves unready for the rescue attempt.

In the dungeons under a wizard’s laboratory near the City of the Ghosts they noticed but did not disturb a dragon – the first they have seen. Later they found a village of dwarves who traded with them, and plainsmen nearby, but no other civilization. One player fell afoul of a Deck of Many Things, losing “all property.” She handled it really well.

Game Design
I’m almost done with the player’s guide rewrite. I’m also having second thoughts on one basic design premise, which was replacing classes with a list of 3E style feats that characters could learn as they gained levels. It’s different from a class-based game, but I’m not sure it’s objectively better. I am sure it’s not better on all counts. I need to solicit last-minute feedback from my players.

The magic item book is done. It’s hot. This magic item book is the pimp snizzle. So palpable.

Next up: the monster book, then finalizing my referee notes into a referee guide.

Of course I’ll put it all up on the blog for free (as in free beer).

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Classless 2E

October 9, 2009

The proficiency system in 2E D&D is able to handle non-fighting and non-spellcasting skills. It refuses to handle Thief skills because those are the province of the Thief class, but it could perform admirably in that way also.

So what if we don’t like the idea of classes? What if we don’t like that a Fighter beats on Orcs for several days and then spontaneously learns how to build ships?

(No, the ship is not in the shape of an Orc)

We have just one “class” – everyone rolls 1d6 for HP. Saving throws are as Thief (which is kind of in the middle of everyone). XP advancement is as Fighter. Everyone gains 7 proficiencies at first level, plus two per level thereafter. No proficiency can have a higher bonus than your character level. So at first level you must choose 7 different skills or else save some for later.

General: Blacksmithing, Herbalism, Horse Riding, Move Silently, Tracking, Weather Sense, etc. (Everything but a weapon or a spell school)
Weapons: Axe, Hammer, Dagger, Bow, etc.
Magical: Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, etc.

There’s no real reason to split them up like this. I just figured it would help to visualize.

General
You spend your proficiency slots to buy proficiencies: they all cost one slot to purchase. At that point you have +0 to the proficiency check. Every additional slot you put in, you gain +1 to the check. If you’re not proficient you have -4 penalty to the check.

The object is to roll under the related ability score, so a bonus will raise the number you have to beat.

Example: Horse Riding at basic proficiency is (WIS+3) and your Wisdom is 12. You need to roll 15 or less on d20 to succeed. If you put an extra point into Horse Riding, it becomes (WIS+4) and you need to roll under 16. On your character sheet, you need to note what proficiency you have and in parentheses the number under which you must roll.

Weapons
For weapon skills, the number of points you put into the skill is your attack roll bonus with it. This takes the place of THAC0 advancement by class. If you’re not proficient you have -4 to attack with that weapon.

Example: You have Axe +2 and Sword +1. You are nonproficient with Daggers, Maces, Hammers, and Unarmed. On your character sheet you need to note which weapon it is and what your bonus is. It helps also to put your total attack and damage modifiers next to each weapon you commonly use.

Note that none of this gives you any damage bonuses. You get that from magic or high Strength.

Side note about weapon specialization: this doesn’t exactly replace it, it replaces the THAC0 advancement. Specialization should be eliminated in this scheme since it was put in to help single-class Fighters.

As for multiple attacks per round, you get an extra half attack at +7 skill and another extra half attack at +13 skill. This neatly gives little capstone abilities, which you may want more of. Maybe +9 or +10 (“name” level in 1E) is the point where each proficiency gains a special little ability. That’s beyond the scope of this and may complicate matters too much. Though players don’t need to be told what the capstones are, just that they exist.

Magical
For magical skills, you cast spells of a maximum level equal to the extra points you’ve placed in the school. In any case your spells per day and caster level are based on your character level and are found on the Magic-User spell progression chart.

On your sheet you need to note the school and what your bonus is. You should try to keep at least one school high enough to gain access to the highest level of spells youc an cast by character level.

Example: You’re Level 3 and have Abjuration +3 and Evocation +2. In your spellbook you have Fireball (Evo Lv 3), Dispel Magic (Abj Lv 3) and Find Familiar (Conj Lv 1). You can cast 2 first-level spells and one second-level spell per day because you’re level 3 (found on the Wizard spell progression chart).
You can’t cast Fireball (you’re too low-level and you don’t have enough Evocation skill),
You can’t cast Dispel Magic (you aren’t high enough level to access third-level spells), and
You can’t cast Find Familiar (you can use first-level spells in general but you don’t have Conjuration skill).

Note that you still need to find the spell. All spells listed have the Magic-User school, even the Clerical ones. Yes, you can use Clerical spells, but they exist in scroll and spellbook form just like Magic-User spells. Yes this means you can have one character with Cure Light Wounds and Raise Dead and Vampiric Touch (all Necromantic).

Why is this worth doing?
1: More organic character development, more player choice, more interesting character skill sets, and believable NPCs.

2: Yet it allows you to use all the proficiencies out there, all the spells, and all the little modifiers in sourcebooks as-is. No need to change any text or rewrite anything. No need for custom monster statistics or anything – monsters work exactly as they used to.

3: It’s really just a mod of 2E, and players familiar with 2E will be able to jump right in. The only really funky thing is that you can’t be multiclassed. Heck, you could even still use kits from the Complete X Handbooks. Just nothing that modifies the rate at which you gain proficiency slots (such as many homeland kits). Bonus proficiencies are fine but stick to the level-based proficiency limitation.

What about game balance?
What’s to stop someone from spending all their points on Swords at level 1? Well, you can’t have a skill above your character level. So your maximum is proficiency and then +1 bonus. As for magic, you’re actually unable to keep up with all the schools you want to cast from. Effectively every spellcaster is a specialist to some degree. Which is still balanced with standard 2E because you get access to Clerical spells too.

DM’s Note
Remember that you shouldn’t have the player roll for every little thing. If he wants to build a fire in dry weather with little wind and plenty of tinder, just let him start it. If conditions are bad, make him roll unless he’s proficient, in which case he gets it automatically. If conditions are really bad, demand a roll at -4 or -8. But it’s okay to say something is impossible – you wouldn’t give someone a 1 in 20 chance to light a fire underwater, would you? Or to jump to the moon?

Deciding that a task is impossible unless you’re proficient may be tough to swallow but it reinforces the importance of the proficiency over just bashing at the task with the -4 nonproficiency penalty.

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