Alternate XP progression schedule

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Hi Steve,
Yes! We too played with a modified staff. For us, Staff spell created a staff that was a ST battery equal to your ST. And Staff of Power was equal to your ST x2. The thing about this approach is that it did not make ST irrelevant; just less important so you didn't have to have super beefy wizards.

We also played around with a separate Mana attribute for paying spell costs, and as I'd implement it today I'd do exactly that as well; at one level of expertise the Staff could be charged with mana equal to the wizard's Mana attribute, and at the highest level the Staff could be charged up to the Mana attribute x2.

Now the PC about to cash in XP for a new attribute point has even more of a dilemma. It has to pick between increasing Mana (which counts double because the Staff capacity goes up too, but doesn't help at all with "hit points"), or ST (which does increase "hit points" besides a few other advantages), or one of the other attributes.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Shostak

If I were to completely redesign the XP & Attribute- Talent-buy system, I'd probably get rid of a lot of zeros by having attributes cost their value (so to rise from ST 9 to 10 costs 10 XP)...
Talents and spells would cost 10--again, easy to remember.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

That makes talents quite expensive. Buying even a 1-point talent would cost almost as much as an extra attribute. At that price the only talents purchased are likely to be those absolutely central to the character concept. I don't think this is anything like enough to mitigate Legacy's great talent desert.

Shostak's plan has merit. The problem David points out can be solved and addressed if again we'd consider reverting to the original ITL where an IQ increase includes a "talent point", modified with my suggestion that the IQ increase actually awards two "talent points". At least then increasing IQ twice (gaining 4 "talent points" in the process) would be sufficient to buy that 3-point talent, and a 1-point talent as well for rounding out the character. Alternatively a PC could buy a 2-point talent after every IQ increase, or two 1-point talents after every IQ increase, and all without having to budget XP for separate talent purchases (although you could keep that too if you wanted to, were you to be keeping the Legacy XP conversion table instead of Shostak's suggested scale, thus making for even further character development possibilities).

[David Bofinger]

This gives more talents to characters, but it doesn't give the player control of how many talents they will have, except through changing IQ. They can't for instance, sacrifice IQ for extra talent points.

This is an important difference. You could make a case that being able to sacrifice for talent points is a good thing, because it should be possible to make characters who are experienced but not brilliant, or vice versa. You could perhaps make a case that being able to sacrifice for talent points is a bad thing, because you'll end up with characters who know everything and leave no niche for their companions, and overly-focused characters who say, know nothing except how to kill. Personally I think it's more a good thing than a bad thing, but either way it's something we have to decide before choosing a system.

[David Bofinger]

Everyone else has an experience progression system here so I may as well append the one I used in my last game:

• XPs awarded by GM fiat at the end of scenes.
• To raise an attribute costs 10 XP until you reach the attribute cap, which is campaign-dependent: thereafter it doubles every point.
• Talent points and spells cost 4 XP each.
• After each scene the GM will say something like, "Well, you all spent a lot of time in that scene jumping onto and off boats, so if you want to buy Boating, right now one-time offer, it costs 2 XP," or "The Hermit-Wizard is willing to teach you a spell for 2 XP but it has to be at the level of your current IQ because he doesn't tolerate your wasting your time with anything easy."
• If you want to multiply everything by 10, feel free.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

At that price the only talents purchased are likely to be those absolutely central to the character concept.

I disagree. Talents are valuable and provide things that basic attributes do not. Under these house rules, if your ST is above 10 or more, Brawling will give you a cheaper bare-hand damage bonus than will buying up ST. Raise IQ all you want to, but you can't read until you acquire Literacy. Weapon Expertise costs no more than increasing an attribute to 15. If you want to heal people, you have to buy Physicker. And so on.

But, if 10 seems like too much to you, go ahead and lower the cost to whatever you wish.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Attribute bloat is a lot less of a problem with The Rule of 14, which states that, regardless of how high a stat is, treat it as 14 at the highest after all adjustments. This limits characters to a 90% likelihood of succeeding on a given roll, even at IQ 30. Add 1 to the cap for each extra die added to a roll, so 4d would be against 15 (66% chance of success), 16 for 5d rolls (40%), 17 for 6d (20%). The Rule of 14 does not apply in Quick Contests.

If I were to completely redesign the XP & Attribute- Talent-buy system, I'd probably get rid of a lot of zeros by having attributes cost their value (so to rise from ST 9 to 10 costs 10 XP). It's easy to remember, so chart needed, and it gets more expensive as you increase, but not drastically. Talents and spells would cost 10--again, easy to remember.

The downside to this approach is that characters would become more uniform. It's a lot cheaper to increase your worst attribute, so this would happen more often -- very few IQ 8 or 9 brutes would remain.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

That makes talents quite expensive. Buying even a 1-point talent would cost almost as much as an extra attribute. At that price the only talents purchased are likely to be those absolutely central to the character concept. I don't think this is anything like enough to mitigate Legacy's great talent desert.

You think that characters should have more talents?

My houserule (250XP for first two talent points) does encourage more talents, but I regard this as one of the things I don't like about it. It's good that, when picking a party, some useful talents will almost always be missing. That makes the choice of talents meaningful and important.

(My players have several characters in play, so they have the flexibility to pick appropriately talented characters for each adventure. This mitigates the talent desert considerably.)

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by phiwum

The downside to this approach is that characters would become more uniform. It's a lot cheaper to increase your worst attribute, so this would happen more often -- very few IQ 8 or 9 brutes would remain.

They are pretty rare, anyway, since there are some talents essential for heavies which require IQ greater than 8.

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by phiwum

The downside to this approach is that characters would become more uniform. It's a lot cheaper to increase your worst attribute, so this would happen more often -- very few IQ 8 or 9 brutes would remain.

Originally Posted by Shostak

They are pretty rare, anyway, since there are some talents essential for heavies which require IQ greater than 8.

I concur. A good heavy fighter still needs a higher IQ than 8.

This particular line of thought has inspired me to see how a fighter stuck at IQ 8 can develop. My guess is that they would always be on the short list for being a good tank but not much else. Making it to the final selection will be tough for them.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Shostak's plan has merit. The problem David points out can be solved and addressed if again we'd consider reverting to the original ITL where an IQ increase includes a "talent point", modified with my suggestion that the IQ increase actually awards two "talent points". At least then increasing IQ twice (gaining 4 "talent points" in the process) would be sufficient to buy that 3-point talent, and a 1-point talent as well for rounding out the character. Alternatively a PC could buy a 2-point talent after every IQ increase, or two 1-point talents after every IQ increase, and all without having to budget XP for separate talent purchases (although you could keep that too if you wanted to, were you to be keeping the Legacy XP conversion table instead of Shostak's suggested scale, thus making for even further character development possibilities).

I think it's cool how we've all come up w/ different solutions to the same (or adjacent) design issues.

I like giving players access to more talents, but I also don't want a character to reach a point in their progression where the choice between adding talents or increasing attributes becomes a forgone conclusion (as it does in RAW once they hit high 30s). I believe having both on the table (plus maybe a third choice) throughout the character's lifecycle makes for better long-term gameplay.