Levels vs. Skills

It was brought up in the design doc thread that before we know how hitpoints are calculated almost all the combat design is a moot point.

However, before we can decide the hitpoint formula there's one (fairly major) question that hasn't been settled.

Are we doing a level based system with skills tacked on, ala D&D, or a purely skill based system like Call of Cthulhu?

In game, leveling is just a convenient time to apply the stat bonuses you've earned. With pen and paper, that can just as easily happen at the beginning or end of every session, basically rendering leveling a moot point.

Level up was also when you gained more HP, regardless of whether you put more in endurace or not.

Unless, like me, you have a seamless leveling mod installed, whereby the game calculates HP based on current ST and END using a slightly different formula.

I like levels, if for no other reason than I'm a bit of a traditionalist. However, I'm open to the idea of a skills-only system. My only question is, how do we treat attribute advancement? Every n skill advances = one attribute advance of the corresponding skill? So, say, 5 Long Blade advances = +1 Strength? If that's how we do it, we'll need to pay close attention to what skills use what attributes so we don't have every character beefed up to 100 strength and people who try to play PER monsters struggling to break 50 in their chosen attribute.

Wasn't the fact that we're not using levels one of the first things we've agreed on? All numerical properties of the character depend entirely on skills and abilities, not on arbitrary points along the XP curve where you suddenly become tougher and more magicky.

I'm in agreement; I'd just as soon dispense with a leveling mechanic entirely.

Slotha Sil wrote:Wasn't the fact that we're not using levels one of the first things we've agreed on? All numerical properties of the character depend entirely on skills and abilities, not on arbitrary points along the XP curve where you suddenly become tougher and more magicky.

If we use levels, they won't be "arbitrary points on the XP curve." They'll be proper, Elder-Scrolls style levels where n skill point advances = 1 level. However, as I said I wouldn't mind a level-less system; we just need to make sure that our replacement mechanic allows for advancement of attributes and not just skills.

You do stuff -> you get XP (character points or something) -> you increase skills you want -> skill increase slowly increases attributes -> more hit points, magicka, fatigue.

To be frank, there was no need for level mechanic in the game at all; everything was already interconnected. This thing above was literally lifted from the way "leveling up" worked in Morrowind. Hit points only raised on leveling because the script that worked with hit points was broken (try increasing your stamina and see what good it does). We only changed 'skill use' to 'Scroll Keeper rewards character points', because keeping precise track of skill use required lots of paperwork (and because of people who would try and spend a session jumping up and down to increase acrobatics). Now when you use a skill you tag it, and can increase it by more than 1 point.

Also, not using levels comes hand in hand with doing away with classes. Because there is no 'progress towards level increase' gauge at the bottom of the screen, there was no need to limit characters to a selection of skills, so now using anything lets you increase it and its related attribute. Selecting primary and secondary skills is just distributing bonuses to skills your character is good in.