IQ points, talents, spells, XP

[Chris Goodwin]

I keep wanting to veer off into house rules territory out there, so I thought I'd start a topic in here for open discussion of how the general readership would house rule it.

I'm thinking of something even cleaner than my other house rule: characters start with 44 (or 46, or 48, or however many...) character points. Out of those character points you buy your attributes, talents, and spells. If you're a hero, spells cost 3 points per, and talents cost their listed cost; if you're a wizard, spells cost 1 per, and talents cost double, with exceptions as listed. If you go above 34 total points in attributes, any attributes above that cost double for each point above 34. In other words, that 35th point would cost 2, the 36th would cost 4, etc. It's possible this threshold could be 32 (or "however many").

So you could go attribute heavy, if you wanted to spend the points; you could go attribute light and talent or spell heavy; whatever combination you wanted.

You would be allowed to buy spells or talents that you don't meet the prerequisites for; you just wouldn't be able to use them until you do.

XP would buy you character points at a flat rate of 100 XP per character point. The cost progression for total points in attributes above 34 (or whatever the threshold ends up being) continues to apply. Talents and spells continue to have their regular cost.

That means "racial talents" and "special abilities" would come out of your initial however many points. For instance, the Silver Slime just has Lightning as a species ability; the writeup for that monster even specifies that it works just like the spell, including ST cost.

[platimus]

I like that character point approach. I'm not so sure about the numbers and costs though.

I like the official rules/changes regarding IQ only matters during character creation and XP buys stats, talents, and spells after that. I will definitely change the XP costs to the ones below though...

Added attribute point / XP cost
33 / 200
34 / 400
35 / 600
36 / 800
37 / 1200
38 / 2000
39 / 3000
40th and later / 5000

Talent(1) costs 400XP
Talent(2) costs 800XP
Talent(3) costs 1200XP

You may notice that the cost of going from a 32-point character to a 35-point character (3-point increase) is the same as the cost of a 3-point Talent.

[Chris Goodwin]

Originally Posted by platimus

I like that character point approach. I'm not so sure about the numbers and costs though.

Those might change. I at least wanted to have the basic character points idea, and doubling above a certain attribute total.

I like the official rules/changes regarding IQ only matters during character creation and XP buys stats, talents, and spells after that. I will definitely change the XP costs to the ones below though...

I was composing a long post to go into the IQ/Talents thread, complete with analysis of costs, and comparisons of starting points with XP. That thought led to "Why not build everything with XP," which led to "No, character points," and "100 XP equals one character point..." I also realized that as someone else mentioned somewhere, I can't remember who or on which thread, Talents is effectively a derived stat based on IQ. I thought, why not make it its own stat... and that other post evaporated, and this one asserted itself.

(Less disjointedly: if you take the XP chart literally, and extend it downward, that means each of the first 32 points you start with are effectively worth 100 XP each. Except that the ones you spend on IQ are effectively worth 600 XP each, because they give you +1 IQ and 500 XP worth of Talents or Spells. If you don't take IQ 16, you're leaving points on the table. Logically, that means we should separate talent/spell points from IQ entirely. Still thinking in terms of XP, I tried to keep attribute points at 100 and talents at 500, but that made the exchange rate wonky; the next step was to make them all character points, and buy talents as well as attributes at 1/1; the cost of attributes increase above 34, to match with the XP progression, but talents are always 1/1. The back-conversion of 100 XP to 1 character point was obvious.)

[TippetsTX]

Interesting idea, but what is your problem statement? Are you trying to 'fix' something or simply creating a variant character creation mechanic?

[Chris Goodwin]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Interesting idea, but what is your problem statement? Are you trying to 'fix' something or simply creating a variant character creation mechanic?

The problem statement is that during character creation, points spent on IQ effectively get you 600 XP worth of "stuff" (e.g. 1 IQ plus 500 XP worth of talents or spells), while points spent on ST or DX effectively get you 100 XP worth of stuff (e.g. 1 ST or 1 DX), but that relationship breaks after character creation. From a cost benefit standpoint, there's no reason to have characters that aren't ST 8 DX 8 IQ 16, and invest all of your XP into ST or DX as needed, because you'll always be behind the curve on talents and spells.

[platimus]

Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin

The problem statement is that during character creation, points spent on IQ effectively get you 600 XP worth of "stuff" (e.g. 1 IQ plus 500 XP worth of talents or spells), while points spent on ST or DX effectively get you 100 XP worth of stuff (e.g. 1 ST or 1 DX), but that relationship breaks after character creation. From a cost benefit standpoint, there's no reason to have characters that aren't ST 8 DX 8 IQ 16, and invest all of your XP into ST or DX as needed, because you'll always be behind the curve on talents and spells.

Oh. Well, I've got an easy solution to that:

New (human) characters start with ST8, DX8, IQ8 and 8 points to distrubute. New characters start with 10 points of talents/spells. After creation, talents/spells cost 500XP or more.

[TippetsTX]

OK, but your premise doesn't take into account the fact that ST and DX are arguably just as critical (if not moreso) even w/o the 'extra' benefit of being used to purchase talents. I believe that character survivability and martial effectiveness have just as much inherent weight as what you get from IQ.

[Chris Goodwin]

Aptitudes: These go along with the above. These would replace the hero/wizard split, and would be groupings; Combat Aptitude, Magical Aptitude, Social Aptitude, Scientific Aptitude, Criminal Aptitude, and so on. The first of these would cost 0, the second would cost 1, the third would cost 2, and so on. Essentially, everything is expensive (talents double their listed cost, spells triple), but if you have an aptitude that includes it, it's normal cost. (This might replace my "cheap list" and "expensive list" idea.)