Rearranging Character Points

[VariousRen]

I both play in and run several fantasy games, and I noticed something when looking at my wizard's character sheet. Early on, when I had a hand full of spells and only a few were useful, I had bumped the actual spell skill up an extra level for 4 of my spells. Now I have ~15 spells, a few levels of magery, and a few levels of aspected magery. Those 4 extra points that I put into individual spells could have been used to up a level of aspected magery to normal magery, with no loss of skill levels!

This got me thinking from a DM perspective: should I allow players to rearrange points among skills and abilities if it results only in a completely positive change?

For example, if a player put an extra 10 points into a bunch of different spells (taking them from 1 point to 2), should they then be able to move those 10 points into a single level of magery? The skill levels for those spells stay the same, and all of my other spells receive a bonus.

Has anyone tried this? Are there any pit falls that I haven't noticed?

[Lia Valenth]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

This got me thinking from a DM perspective: should I allow players to rearrange points among skills and abilities if it results only in a completely positive change?

Has anyone tried this? Are there any pit falls that I haven't noticed?

I have run some campaigns and allowed a number of points (generally 2-5) to be reallocated between session. That way if people didn't like their powers, or were going to get abilities that made previous ones pointless, they wouldn't have wasted points. This did cause some interesting effects, but did not cause any problems.

While it did not cause any problems in my game I suspect that is because of my players. If you have munchkins in the group I could see this becoming a problem, continuously min-maxing to different situations.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

For example, if a player put an extra 10 points into a bunch of different spells (taking them from 1 point to 2), should they then be able to move those 10 points into a single level of magery? The skill levels for those spells stay the same, and all of my other spells receive a bonus.

Provided that buying that level of Magery is permissible within the setting, this should be fine. Doing this with related sets of skills (and that's what spells are) seems to work fine. The process is formalised for skills in the recently published Social Engineering: Back to School.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

This got me thinking from a DM perspective: should I allow players to rearrange points among skills and abilities if it results only in a completely positive change?

For example, if a player put an extra 10 points into a bunch of different spells (taking them from 1 point to 2), should they then be able to move those 10 points into a single level of magery? The skill levels for those spells stay the same, and all of my other spells receive a bonus.

Has anyone tried this? Are there any pit falls that I haven't noticed?

I don't like doing this at all. Because I don't want the goal to have the most min-maxed optimized characters. I want to have characters that show the journey the character has been on. That includes some things that are not the most optimized.

Also, there is a difference in concept between Magery 1 and Skills at Level +2, and Magery 2 and Skills at Level +1. The former represents someone who doesn't have as much innate talent but has studies the spells longer, while the latter represents someone who has studies the spells less and but has more innate talent. That should be part of the character concept...not something that just gets changed around to optimize. I also regularly make sure to float checks to base 10 or other attributes, or deal with familiarities, to makes those differences mean something. The number of points spend in skills/spells (vs Magery/Attributes) means something in regard to Combat or Magic Styles. Which I also like to utilize.

So...I don't let people rearrange, that is not part of the way I see the campaign world.

N.B. I will let people adjust their character after the first two sessions when they are still feeling out their concept, but once the concept is set (which includes the Attribute vs Talent vs Skill point ratio), then there is no adjusting...there is only growing through experience.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Also, there is a difference in concept between Magery 1 and Skills at Level +2, and Magery 2 and Skills at Level +1. The former represents someone who doesn't have as much innate talent but has studies the spells longer, while the latter represents someone who has studies the spells less and but has more innate talent.

I've got news for you. GURPS doesn't simulate that distinction.

[Peaches]

If this is in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, why not? It's not so subtly implied that munchkinism is heavily encouraged, so rearranging points for better optimization suits the genre well. Otherwise, as mentioned before it doesn't make too much sense fluff wise. However if in game there's some excuse for the changes to be allowed then sure.

[philosophyguy]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I've got news for you. GURPS doesn't simulate that distinction.

I think it does, actually. B171-172 describe using skills with other attributes or without attributes at all. In these cases, the relative level of the skill matters, but the player doesn't benefit from high attributes or advantages. I would imagine the same method could be used to distinguish someone with a strong magical background but limited knowledge of a particular spell versus someone who is not innately talented at magic but studied a specific spell really well. For instance, imagine a character seeing old residue from a fireball. As a GM, I would allow a player to roll against relative skill on a fireball spell to see if their character knew telltale signs of how fireball is cast differently by different groups of wizards, which might provide a clue as to who cast that fireball. Granted that it's a niche scenario, but it is possible.

[Celjabba]

Keeping in mind trooper6 point about relative skill levels, I see no objection to reassign point from skills to an attribute, talent or bonus-granting advantage, and I have allowed it with no ill effects. If it make sense, and doesn't go against the campaign caps.
It is a good way to represent training and allow players to enjoy their experience while building toward an huge purchase, and in most of my games it is actually The 'approved' way to improve IQ or DX after creation. Spells to magery... it depend on the setting but if magery is learnable, why not.
I would not allow it between attributes and talents.
Of course, I also float skills to 10 or to others attributes sometimes, so too much minimaxing will hurt in this case.

Celjabba

[VariousRen]

Rearranging points also seems like a solution to a problem I noticed a few sessions ago. In a recent fight we had lost several characters, and had just restocked in town before a long adventure. The new PC's started at the same point value as the lowest current PC, which was ~70. My wizard was a solid ~85 points, being the only surviving member of the original group.

One of the new PC's was also a wizard, and after a few fights I realized that despite being 15-20 points behind they were a better wizard simply by virtue of not having spent points on immediate survival skills (like fast talk when I knew we had no front man for several games, animal handling because there was no one to take care of the mount). They weren't min-max'd in the munchkin sense of the word, but they were better at what I did than me, despite point values.

We've since diverged in style to avoid stepping on each others toes, but I could see this being a problem in groups without a good grasp of niece protection. Additionally, if the problem continues, what's my game play incentive to keep living if I would become more powerful when I died and came back as a new PC?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Provided that buying that level of Magery is permissible within the setting, this should be fine. Doing this with related sets of skills (and that's what spells are) seems to work fine. The process is formalised for skills in the recently published Social Engineering: Back to School.

Yes, and I don't see any objection to applying it to spells, which after all are just skills. Note that the Back to School treatment requires you to have points distributed among a bunch of different skills! The idea is that by learning broadly diverse things you eventually raise your overall competence. For magic, a plausible compromise might be "you must take the points from five spells in different colleges." Unless of course you're buying up "Magery (One College Only, -40%)."