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Old 04-27-2023, 12:30 AM   #11
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

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Originally Posted by Bill_in_IN View Post
That's an interesting house rule. I wonder how that would balance against just charging 250 XP for each talent/spell point?

It would seem to promote characters increasing IQ early in the game.
They still have to buy talents/spells with XP in addition to the talent points given. I did not want there to be a difference in assigning IQ to a new character vs increasing the IQ.
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Old 04-27-2023, 01:26 AM   #12
Steve Plambeck
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

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Originally Posted by phiwum View Post
These numbers assume that the players haven't spent XP on talents or spells, right? That's probably not an apt assumption.
And that's a problem with Legacy that we never had with Classic. Used to be that you could total a figure's attributes, and work backwards to calculate their career XP. Or starting with their career XP, calculate if their attribute total was correct. Now it's more fudgey-wudgey because XP can be squirreled away in those tax shelters otherwise known as Talents and Spells. You practically have to be an accountant to compare two characters to see if they're "even". Well, I suppose not as long as you keep track of career XP for every character, and they all started with 32 points.
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Last edited by Steve Plambeck; 04-28-2023 at 02:46 AM.
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Old 04-27-2023, 02:36 AM   #13
ak_aramis
 
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Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

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Originally Posted by timm meyers View Post
If you played the same character every week for a full year (52 games) you would have too average 63.4 xp per session to reach 39 attribute points (no new talents) or 140.3 xp per game to reach 40.
OR
From 32 to 40 is eight "levels" so over the same 52 sessions per year campaign a player would need to gain enough xp to advance every 6.5 games.

Who has any lvl 40 characters since Legacy? How long did they take in time and sessions? What's the longest campaign/game (in number of sessions) that your eldest character has participated in?
I've not used legacy; I dislike a number of SJ's changes.

But, under classic, a lot depended on downtime and use of the Jobs table. In one short campaign, lasting a half dozen sessions, due to the downtime for healing up, one of the PCs wound up having gained a significant number of atts - over 40 - because he got lucky rolls.

I've also used the Jobs as a form of solitaire play... one otherwise boring afternoon in the early 90's was filled with 4 years of a dwarven life...
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Old 04-27-2023, 07:11 AM   #14
Bill_in_IN
 
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Indiana
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

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Originally Posted by phiwum View Post
These numbers assume that the players haven't spent XP on talents or spells, right? That's probably not an apt assumption.
That's a good point. The way that the PCs spends their XP could affect that. I can say that in my game, the PCs haven't spent on talents yet. They are getting their attributes in order with respect to the talents that they want to learn.

This player with a group of 4 characters was originally sent through two or three arena battles before going through Death Test 1 and Death Test 2. These adventures award XP upon completion which can be ~150 to ~250 XP depending upon how the PCs move through it and what foes they survive. So, if it takes two or three (or four) Roll20 sessions to complete, your average award per session goes down.

I assume that the fairest per session average would be to only include the sessions that were subject to per session XP award in the sample. In this case, I estimate my average to be around 50. At least, numbers like that don't make me feel like a cheapskate, LOL!

As stated before, I think that the suggested per session XP award in ITL is a decent guideline to follow. It also has plenty of room for GM judgement/adjustment. Following the XP award methods stated in the micro-quests that are also designed for one to run their own characters through the game and is a good way to keep the process of XP award an objective one.

Last edited by Bill_in_IN; 04-27-2023 at 07:26 AM.
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Old 04-27-2023, 07:58 AM   #15
Bill_in_IN
 
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Indiana
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

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Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
And that's a problem with Legacy that we never had with Classic. Used to be that you could total a figure's attributes, and work backwards to calculate their career XP. Or starting with their career XP, calculate if their attribute total was correct. Now it's more fudgey-wudgey because XP can be squirreled away in those tax shelters otherwise known as Talents and Spells. You practically have to be an account to compare two characters to see if they're "even". Well, I suppose not as long as you keep track of career XP for every character, and they all started with 32 points.
So, what I have done to properly track this accounting nightmare, as I learned Legacy while still having my head calibrated for Classic, is to run hand-written table on the back of the character sheet. I did this to follow character progression but the accounting that you mentioned ends up being a part of that.

The columns are XP earned, XP Spent, and XP Available. In the XP Spent Column, I also write on what the XP was spent (+1 ST/DX/IQ, Talent/Spell, Staff Mana, etc. As the table fills up the sheet, I total up the first two columns and calculate the XP available from that and start over.

The later totals mentioned above collapses this accounting down to Total XP Earned and Total XP Spent. So, if you track it this way, it should alleviate your accounting concerns.

The end result which is how I stated doing it on Roll20 Character sheet other info page is Total XP earned, Total XP Spent (With a list of what was purchased): +#ST/DX/IQ, Talents/Spells, Mana Points). If you update these numbers as you, then things stay on track and can be checked.

I do this when character updates occur for my own characters as well as for my player's character. I must qualify this. Some players just want to play and be guided through the process by the GM. That's OK. But this player specifically asked me to mentor him toward being a GM. So, when character updates occur, I pull him down into the details. Improper character XP accounting can break the development of a character.

Yes, character accounting became more difficult in Legacy but it didn't become impossible.
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Old 04-27-2023, 10:36 AM   #16
phiwum
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
And that's a problem with Legacy that we never had with Classic. Used to be that you could total a figure's attributes, and work backwards to calculate their career XP. Or starting with their career XP, calculate if their attribute total was correct. Now it's more fudgey-wudgey because XP can be squirreled away in those tax shelters otherwise known as Talents and Spells. You practically have to be an account to compare two characters to see if they're "even". Well, I suppose not as long as you keep track of career XP for every character, and they all started with 32 points.
It is certainly a difference. You have to know something of the history of the character, roughly. It's enough to know starting IQ, attribute total and list of talents/spells to figure out what XP was spent, I think, whereas with the old system, attribute total was enough.

That fact doesn't really bother me. I didn't play pre-Legacy, but it seems like DX was very important to improve back then, as was IQ (for talents), but less so ST. If you started with a character with sufficient IQ and DX to gain weapon expertise (were there such requirements back then?), it would take three IQ points to actually gain the talent, which isn't ideal to me.

[ETA] To figure out XP spent:

Calculate cost of attribute total, as always.
Take number of talent/spell points spent, subtract starting IQ and multiply by 500.

It's not too hard, but you do have to recall starting IQ.
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Old 04-27-2023, 12:04 PM   #17
timm meyers
 
Join Date: May 2020
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

In a recent conversation a friend referred to a memory of someone having devised a system of advancement that did not use a progressive level chart. The XP cost to raise a stat was equal to the new number.
So going from ST-10 to ST-11 cost 11 xp. The higher your new stat the greater the cost. This has a built-in difficulty that is quite elegant imho. Some form of base cost for new talents or spells would have to be formulated. A flat 5 xp per IQ cost seems a good place to start.
Anyone heard of such a modification before?
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Old 04-27-2023, 12:07 PM   #18
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Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

IIRC (I had a dragon help me forget), GURPS scales costs as per the individual attribute rather than the sum of all attributes.
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Old 04-27-2023, 01:19 PM   #19
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

While some aspects of XP got more complicated in Legacy, I think in general it is a easier system than the old version. In particular, in the old system the amount of bookkeeping during every fight was burdensome. Every damage point done, every critical role made, every kill with the victim's stats.

Now in Legacy, we played for 3 hours here is 75 XP. You were brilliant when doing X, here is an extra 50 XP for your wizard. Done.

How to spend XP got more complex but in a good way. More choices. Talents got more interesting and more accessible (regarding 500 XP / point). So, I like the changes.
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Old 05-16-2023, 03:42 AM   #20
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default Re: What's your "experience" like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by timm meyers View Post
If you played the same character every week for a full year (52 games) you would have too average 63.4 xp per session to reach 39 attribute points (no new talents) or 140.3 xp per game to reach 40.
OR
From 32 to 40 is eight "levels" so over the same 52 sessions per year campaign a player would need to gain enough xp to advance every 6.5 games.

Who has any lvl 40 characters since Legacy? How long did they take in time and sessions? What's the longest campaign/game (in number of sessions) that your eldest character has participated in?
Looking at the experience rules from ITL Legacy p45 it’s now left up to GMs to decide how much XP to award. This means you can potentially progress much more quickly than in original edition. I don’t play with all the Legacy rules but I don’t see why characters can’t gain an attribute point after every session or even more frequently if desired.
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