Character Creation

Rainbay wrote:I recall someone mentioning costs would be by "rank" (novice, apprentice, journeyman, etc.) with novice costing 1, apprentice being 2, raising a journeyman skill 3, and an expert skill 4. If you have a birthsign or racial bonus or something that would let you get over 100 in a skill somehow, every point over master would cost 5.

Since major skills start at least at apprentice level, perhaps we would tone it down so for major it is 1 at apprentice, 2 at journeyman and so on? That still doesn't explain how minor skills would work.

I think that works just fine.

If we directly copy the system from the game (successful use->skill training) and use a n/a/j/e/m system, we could set it up like this:

For every success, you advance X/100 points toward skill increase, where X is:
novice: 5
apprentice: 4
journeyman: 3
expert: 2
master 1
So for novice use of skill (ranks 5-20) you'd need 240 successes, but to get from expert (80) to maxed master (100) you'd need 2000 successes, making it a true testament to single minded dedication to genocide of cliff racers.

For tagged skills, maybe make it cheaper to increase one step. Novice 6 to master 2, for example.

If we decide to use XP to buy ranks, just reverse the numbers, making novice ranks cost 1, apprentice 2, and so on, like Rainbay said.

I think that success=rank up is both exploitable and unbalancing in a multiplayer PnP game, and that spending exp to rank up is a much better way of handling things.

I don't see how they would be unbalancing, or what that means. As for exploitation, the game master will be sitting right there, and likely won't play along with someone's plan to bribe 50 peasants in a row to get 1% increase to their etiquette skill. In d&d, the DM wouldn't give someone 100.000 XP for boiling an anthill even though it's a legitimate tactic by RAW.

Buying ranks with XP would lead to characters suddenly becoming good at something, or improving skills they never used before.

Slotha Sil wrote:I don't see how they would be unbalancing, or what that means. As for exploitation, the game master will be sitting right there, and likely won't play along with someone's plan to bribe 50 peasants in a row to get 1% increase to their etiquette skill. In d&d, the DM wouldn't give someone 100.000 XP for boiling an anthill even though it's a legitimate tactic by RAW.

Buying ranks with XP would lead to characters suddenly becoming good at something, or improving skills they never used before.

Firstly, game designers should never place too much of a burden on the DM. He's going to have enough on his hands already, and the last thing he needs is some jackoff player looking at the rules and arguing with him about how his acrobatics should be 100 by now. As well, they should never design a system assuming the DM will compensate for its flaws--that's just sloppy and lazy.

As well, it seems to be agreed upon that you will not be able to spend exp on skill and ability increases unless that skill was used in getting the exp.

GLIPP wrote:As well, it seems to be agreed upon that you will not be able to spend exp on skill and ability increases unless that skill was used in getting the exp.

Hm. Looks kind of like the same thing, sans the problem of people jumping up and down or casting fireballs into the sky to train. I like it.

The example for character advancement I gave was that, at the end of any given adventure, the GM would hand out a to-be-determined amount of what are tentatively called XP. During the course of the adventure, as the adventurer uses skills, he puts a tick-mark by every skill used during the adventure up a maximum of ten tick-marks. After he gets the XP, he can invest them in any skill in which he has tick-marks, and only up to the number of tick-marks he has. As mentioned earlier, there would be decreasing returns to both represent the game itself as well as mimic the effect of increasing difficulty of mastery. By increasing skills tied to certain attributes, those attributes raise automatically. Now, that's the sort of base advancement that I was planning, and it seems as though people are beginning to gravitate back towards it. Now my question is, how can we refine it? Will it be imbalanced? Or are we mostly happy with this system?

Admin wrote:The example for character advancement I gave was that, at the end of any given adventure, the GM would hand out a to-be-determined amount of what are tentatively called XP. During the course of the adventure, as the adventurer uses skills, he puts a tick-mark by every skill used during the adventure up a maximum of ten tick-marks. After he gets the XP, he can invest them in any skill in which he has tick-marks, and only up to the number of tick-marks he has. As mentioned earlier, there would be decreasing returns to both represent the game itself as well as mimic the effect of increasing difficulty of mastery. By increasing skills tied to certain attributes, those attributes raise automatically. Now, that's the sort of base advancement that I was planning, and it seems as though people are beginning to gravitate back towards it. Now my question is, how can we refine it? Will it be imbalanced? Or are we mostly happy with this system?

Are you saying that you put a tic mark beside each skill that is used at all in a session, or that you put one beside a skill each time you succeed? The latter sounds like a royal pain in the ass, the former sounds like a solid approach. Assuming you meant the former, does that mean I could use ten skills and then increase one of those skills by ten, or that I'd be able to only raise each by one? Do we have a formula/system established for the automatic attribute increase that comes with this?

Let me give an example to illustrate it, because I think that may make things a bit clearer.

Buzgrub the Orc has finished with a long day of fighting off were-cliffracers. He managed to get in a lot of hits with his spear, and his medium armor saved him a few times, so he has ten tick-marks by spear and seven by medium armor. Now, he didn't hit every time, but that doesn't matter because every time he used his spear he gets a tick-mark regardless of his success. His DM awards 15 XP for a job well done, and now Buzgrub wants to spend it! He can spend up to 10 points in Spear and up to 7 points in Medium Armor, so now he has to divide his 15 XP between the two. Decisions, decisions!

Does that clarify things, or did you want me to point out anything more specific?

I'm imagining this would take some spare paper with a system of labels and tallies.

How do these tick-marks work with skills as you advance in ranks? Do they all still count as 1 for each amount used out of 100 possible, or do you need additional amounts to gain a tick?

Say Buzzy has expert in polearms and journeyman in medium armor, so it takes 4 xp to go up one tick on spear and 3 to go up one tick on medium armor, right? So Buzzy could spend 12 xp on spears and 3 on medium armor and get 3/100 for spears and 1/100 for medium armor?

Not quite what I was thinking. Ticks will be given out regardless of skill level, so long as you've actually used the skill. Instead, you can raise your skill a number of points at or below the number of ticks you got, but each skill-up costs more depending upon how skilled you are. Continuing that example, since Busgrub is an Expert it would cost him 4 XP points to raise his skill once, but it wouldn't eat up 4 ticks. Ticks are just a tally of how much you used a skill during a given adventure, and nothing more. Does that make sense? So, if Buzgrub's GM got high on ether and handed out 40 XP, Buzgrub could raise his skill 10 points, given that he had 10 tick-marks. The cap of 10 per adventure is so you don't skill-up too quickly in any given skill, although it likely won't be a problem unless your GM is giving out XP like candy.

I don't really want to keep track of how many times a skill is used. I think it's enough to just mark weather you've used it at all.

That's fine too, although someone expressed concern that a fighter who uses firebite once can level his skill in Destruction up more than a dedicated mage doing nothing but slinging spells. Now, I wouldn't mind just one tick-mark, as it would simplify the system greatly.

Admin wrote:That's fine too, although someone expressed concern that a fighter who uses firebite once can level his skill in Destruction up more than a dedicated mage doing nothing but slinging spells. Now, I wouldn't mind just one tick-mark, as it would simplify the system greatly.

How would it allow the fighter to level up more, exactly? Set a guideline for GMs of 5-10XP per session, allow this to be used on any skills you've used that session. At what point does shit get crazy? They have the same number of points to spend.

What he's saying is you give each character 10xp. You let each one invest in any skills they've used during the session. The fighter cast firebite once, and decides to boost his Destruction by investing all 10xp given into destruction, gaining 10 levels. The Mage had been casting firebite nonstop with all the monsters in the last dungeon. He can also invest 10 into destruction to level it up 10 levels. This seems off.

Perhaps we just aren't understanding correctly.

Rainbay wrote:What he's saying is you give each character 10xp. You let each one invest in any skills they've used during the session. The fighter cast firebite once, and decides to boost his Destruction by investing all 10xp given into destruction, gaining 10 levels. The Mage had been casting firebite nonstop with all the monsters in the last dungeon. He can also invest 10 into destruction to level it up 10 levels. This seems off.

Perhaps we just aren't understanding correctly.

Yeah, he could do that, but at the sacrifice of upping his weapon skills. Maybe he just happened to learn a lot from that fire blast, as he'd been doing it wrong up until now. Likewise, the mage can have an "oohhhh... that's how you swing an axe..." moment every now and again. There are many ways we can do this, and the choice. Is. Yours. If you really want to reign this in, I suggest we do that on the level of tagged skills. Perhaps your tagged skills simply cost less to increase?

You underestimate the player's willingness to munchkin themselves stupid if they see any benefit in it. This could also lead to players using one skill because it is easy, only dipping into the one they plan on using later a little so they can drop massive xp into it and have it all ready for when he gets the sword he wants or something.

I think we "Tag" skills by setting them to major or minor, or by choosing our specialization. This decreases the amount it would take to increase the level, so at each

Rainbay wrote:You underestimate the player's willingness to munchkin themselves stupid if they see any benefit in it. This could also lead to players using one skill because it is easy, only dipping into the one they plan on using later a little so they can drop massive xp into it and have it all ready for when he gets the sword he wants or something.

I think we "Tag" skills by setting them to major or minor, or by choosing our specialization. This decreases the amount it would take to increase the level, so at each

A way to solve this is to tag the skills you used successfully. That way the warrior COULD dumb 10xp into destruction... if he managed to get the firebite off in the first place.

GLIPP wrote:

A way to solve this is to tag the skills you used successfully. That way the warrior COULD dumb [sic.] 10xp into destruction... if he managed to get the firebite off in the first place.

There we go. Problem solved.

Limited skill increases per adventure. I think the Skill Ranks could factor in this. 4 minus rank is the number of times you can level a skill per adventure. So if your fighter has 0-24 in Destruction, he can level it 4 times. Once he hits 25 and Apprentice level, he can level it only 3 times per adventure. 50 and Journeyman, twice. 75 and Expert, once per adventure. This will prevent the exponential growth of skills at high levels. Regardless, you'll still need a tickmark (whether we limit this to successful uses or just uses in general is still in the air).

Outlander wrote:

GLIPP wrote:

A way to solve this is to tag the skills you used successfully. That way the warrior COULD dumb [sic.] 10xp into destruction... if he managed to get the firebite off in the first place.

There we go. Problem solved.

My vote's for this, too.

Saint Jiub wrote:Limited skill increases per adventure. I think the Skill Ranks could factor in this. 4 minus rank is the number of times you can level a skill per adventure. So if your fighter has 0-24 in Destruction, he can level it 4 times. Once he hits 25 and Apprentice level, he can level it only 3 times per adventure. 50 and Journeyman, twice. 75 and Expert, once per adventure. This will prevent the exponential growth of skills at high levels. Regardless, you'll still need a tickmark (whether we limit this to successful uses or just uses in general is still in the air).

I like this idea, makes it more even and such. Also leads to more focus on spreading out your skills and using ones you might not as often otherwise. And we can have minor skills allowed to level up more per adventure, and major skills more than that.

Rainbay wrote:

Saint Jiub wrote:Limited skill increases per adventure. I think the Skill Ranks could factor in this. 4 minus rank is the number of times you can level a skill per adventure. So if your fighter has 0-24 in Destruction, he can level it 4 times. Once he hits 25 and Apprentice level, he can level it only 3 times per adventure. 50 and Journeyman, twice. 75 and Expert, once per adventure. This will prevent the exponential growth of skills at high levels. Regardless, you'll still need a tickmark (whether we limit this to successful uses or just uses in general is still in the air).

I like this idea, makes it more even and such. Also leads to more focus on spreading out your skills and using ones you might not as often otherwise. And we can have minor skills allowed to level up more per adventure, and major skills more than that.

Maybe any tagged skill gets +1 to the number of times you can level it up? Cap is still at 100, of course.

Were we still planning on having a hardcap for non-tag skills, or are we tossing that out the window in favor of "do whatever you want, this is Elder Scrolls bitch!"

Do what we want is sounding more and more appealing...

We still need to find some way to differentiate between major and minor skills besides the bonus they get at the start though I think.

Bonuses for tagged skills:

Advance up to 1 additional time per adventure
Synergize at higher level (maybe 25% instead of 20?)
Any more suggestions to differentiate tagged skills?