Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

Is anybody advocating for giants and gargoyles that pay a lot to advance their ST stats? If so would you at least grant them (and shudder Dragons) bonus ST on their birthdays or something?

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

I'm not advocating for anyone to pay more than others. Neither am I advocating for anyone to pay less than others. I think the costs should be the same for all PCs but I do think the new ITL listed costs need some tweaking to be fair to all.

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

Making a giant pay just as much to add a point of ST as a point of IQ doesn't agree with the background material that sees giants improving in ST much more often than IQ.

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

The background material (new ITL) caps Giants at 10 for DX and IQ. If you assume Giants live at least twice as long as humans (and lower those XP costs for all PCs at the 40th and higher stats), Giants have plenty of opportunity to reach their ST40 max.

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

A human fighter generally adds one extra point of damage per point of added ST, by trading in for the next larger sword or whatever.

A giant averages around one point of damage for every three added points of ST. Hence make giant ST increases a third the cost and raise their other costs for balance and flavor.

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

High ST gives other bonuses, but if high ST doesn't seem worth its cost, shouldn't that be solved by making high ST worth its cost?

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

Agreed. And to me, it already is since that's basically your Life and your resistance to things like poisons, etc.

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

That seems to be what new ITL is attempting, but I think it undermines the consistency, especially if there continues to be a lack of information about what the normal ranges for NPC figures of those races are supposed to generally be like, and how quickly they generally improve. To me, this makes "equality between PCs regardless of whether they're supposed to be a giant" overpower consistency.

And personally, I care very little about "equality between PCs", especially on an attribute total basis when you mix humans with giants and gargoyles and Reptile Men. I do very much care about having a game where such very different creatures are in fact very different, and the rules try to model the differences in ways that try to represent those differences accurately. If the only way to play a huge reptile man is to play one with attribute totals equal to a human "for fairness", that's not providing a way to play a giant reptile man.

I far prefer the old "IF the GM allows Reptile Man PCs, here are the stats for a Reptile Man" to "here are stats for a PC Reptile Man - oh look, another 32-point character" especially when it comes with "stats for typical Reptile Men are never mentioned anywhere". I don't mind at all it providing for GM's who want to let PCs play 32-point Reptile Men, but to play the sort of world-consistent game I would want, I need to know not only the average adult stats for one, but what the development rate/curve is like, so I can provide a roleplaying experience of being one of those Reptile Men, not the same experience as a human who was polymorphed into a Reptile Man and is limited to the human growth curve for meta-magical (but really "all players should be equal in points to be fair" logic that I have little/no interest in) reasons.

The Giant case is even more off, and is a unique case where new ITL does give the typical NPC stat range as well as a non-32-point starting point: ST 25 DX 9 IQ 7 (the lowest stats listed as normal for giants), which comes to 41 points total. This is exactly as it was in old ITL.

For giant use of experience, old ITL doubled the cost shown on the same table, so 2000 old EP to gain +1. New ITL tries the same thing (minus the mention of doubled costs), but of course it has a doubling scale, so a new ITL giant as written has little chance to ever add more than a point or two at most. Your new table would set it to 5000 XP, which puts it somewhat like the old ITL boat. To me, this is semi-ok for giants using your costs, but really is missing what I'd want, which is more information about how NPC giants generally improve, assuming they do, and at what rates. Do ST 25 giants ever become ST 40 giants, and if so how long does that take them, and what does it involve? Ideally I would want to give a similar rate or even experience to PCs, because it's self-consistent.

I'd want the same sort of information about Reptile Men and Gargoyles - what are their typical high & low stat ranges for exceptional adults, and how long does it take for these (young?) 32-point examples to mature to normal ranges, and how long for the above-average examples to reach those levels. That's what I'd want to base Reptile/Gargoyle/all PC development on, too. And even if I didn't want that for PCs, I'd still want that information for statting and developing the NPCs in the world.

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

I think keeping in the spirit of the minimalist nature of ITL what needed for any of the sentient culture forming races is are the stats for a novice, the average (which most have already), and the experienced leaders.

I think trying to take it a step further and establish a biology is overkill. How long I think a giant needs to take go from novice to average to leader may be different than how you think of it. While the foremention we both equally find useful irregardless of how we view giants.

Re: Racial experence modifiers
 

As for the OP, the design of treating all starting character types is flawed. It works and make sense for Human, Elves, and Dwarves who have the same totals at start but vary the starting levels for ST, DX, and IQ.

To me I have to ask what the point of the XP system among different character type? Is the broad idea that everybody irregardless of starting points has the same point total if they have 10,000 xp. Or the broad idea that 10,000 xp add on top of what the character starts at.

From working with classic D&D for my Majestic Wilderlands accounting for the difference in power between character races is needed but only to a point. A very minimal point.

It seems to me that using point total irregardless of starting total is artificial limitation imposed in an attempt to balance for the higher starting total. And it causing all kinds of side effects. I am not a fan of artificial balance mechanism like D&D's level caps.

What I would recommend is that Total Points should be relative to your starting total along with attribute exception. So the xp chart should start at 1. not 33.

Looking at things I don't see the problem with a giant with 6,400 xp starting with ST 25, DX 9, IQ 7 Cap of 10 on DX, IQ having 8 extra attributes. It would be a Giant with ST 33, DX 9, IQ 7 to a Giant with ST 29, DX 10, IQ 10.

You could tweak it from there by saying something like every increase in Strength is only 1/2 XP (or some other factor) if you think a Giant with 6,400xp should have a higher strength.