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Thoughtbot360
2007-03-23, 04:32 AM
I hope I'm coherent, its really late at night...

I've been thinking: why not simply sell skill ranks for gold pieces? I mean, every 1st-level character in the world starts with 4x their normal skill ranks and a feat (and humans have even more, of course). Where they born with these talents? I think not! Is it not reasonalbe to infer that characters in the D&D world have to suffer through education in their childhood like people in the real world do? That, for instance, a master blacksmith (5th level expert with 8 ranks in craft: weaponmaking and skill focus: weaponmaking) could actually be teaching his blacksmithing apprentice how to have reach his level of mastery (as opposed to just using him for the +2 circumstance bonus? You know, cause supossedly thats what "appretice" is.)

And speaking of that apprentice, most people don't know "when they level up" and casaully leveling up faceless NPCs has a lot of problems anyway, due to their increase in battle prowess (the weakest adept who knows "raise dead" can probably kick the PC barbarian's ass, if early enough in the game). Therefore the "they learn when they level up" argument fails. Its kind of useful to get some free skill ranks when you level up, just because some people simply improve over time, and pick up new interests and get better as a matter of course, but its useful for them to have other ways to acquire skills during thier downtime. He's my list:

Spending a teaching cycle with a master: You spend a certain amount of your downtime (DM's discression) with a teacher, and make an 1d20 + 1/2 skill ranks check + 2 if you're human (DC= your current skill rank x the sophistication level of the skill - the collective intelligence modifier of the student and the teacher. The DC is reduced by 25% for class skills). Every time you retry you pay the tuition fee again, but you gain a +2 bonus each time. Learning the first rank of a new skill is DC 10 for a trained skill and DC 1 (!) for an untrained skill. You need to pay the tuition costs and go through a teaching cycle again for every rank you acquire, but you are not limited by your level, so you can technically buy ranks over your level limit. However, you have to find a teacher that has that many ranks of the skill in question before you can collect. And the DCs of those Gather information checks needed to find ever more talented masters of the skill you're over-specializing in are just going to get harder and harder and lead to a lot of dead ends and hoaxes. This is a tool for diverisifing skills, not mastering Move silently at 1st level. Learning feats simply has counts as learning the first rank of a new trained skill (DC 10) humans do not get a +2 bonus on this check, but fighters and wizards do (and only if the feat is a fighter feat or wizard feat respectively). Fighter feats (even if the character isn't a fighter) should be have relatively short teaching cycles (as per real world combat training) while metamagic and the like should be relatively long (as per typical fantasy world presupposition that magic is somewhat complicated.)

Tuition costs
For commonly used/boring skills (Sophistication level 1):

2 gp x current rank (for the first rank, pay 15 sp) per teaching cycle.

For mercantile/wilderness/adventuring skills (Sophisitcation level 2):

10 gp x current rank (for first rank, pay 5 gp) per teaching cycle

For scholarly pursuits and exact sciences (Sophistication level 3)

50 gp x current rank (for first rank, pay 15 gp)

For feats (Sophistication level 4)

500 gp x (5 + 1 per prerequiste feat + 1 per prerequisite base attack bonus + 1 per prerequisite caster level). Prerequisite class or character levels are not factored in. Weapon proficencies cost 1/100th as much. (come on, a fighter starts at level 1 having proficency in 55 weapons!) Training for Exotic weapons cost 1/10th as much.

Sophistication level of skills:

1: Climb, Handle Animal, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Proffession, Search, Spot, Use Rope

2: Appraise, Balance, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Disguise, Escape Artist, Gather information, Heal, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Sense Motive, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Survival, Swim, Tumble

3: Concentration, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Dispel Magic *, Divination*, Forgery, Knowledge, Perform, Scry*, Speak Language, Spellcraft**, Class-exclusive skills (namely Use Magic Device, but Animal Empathy used to be one..:smallfrown: )

4: Feats

*-this is an Elements of Magic (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2699) skill, although scry used to be in 3.0....
**-Yeah, spellcraft is used to emulate Identify spells the like in EOM

Self-teaching: Bonus skill points in-between level ups!

I reccomend (perhaps as a new twist on the idea of "roleplaying experience", because XP is just too dangerous a gift.) that the DM hands out 1/4 of a skill point at the end of a session. Humans get thirds instead of fourths (its like their only selling point after 1st level! Seriously, why not polymorph yourself into a Drow or something? *rolls eyes*) The player records some where on his character sheet how much of a skill point he has and he resets that value every time he gains a skill point. He then buys his new skill rank immediately. This isn't limited by his character level, and all skills (except class-exclusive ones) count as "class skills" as far as these bonus ranks are concerned.

Feats addemum

Now you might be scratching your head when you notice feats are in that list. I humbly submit that feats simply won't break your game. Also there are some feats out there that are more nice than they are helpful (Rapid reload, TWF, and Improved unarmed strike come to mind) and people don't get them because "it'd be a waste." A waste of the time getting to the level that gave them the feat! (it took them 3 freaking levels to get here! :smallmad:) You might freak out at the prospect of a fighter gaining 40 greater weapon specializations with his weapon of choice, but I'd like to point out that he has to find another fighter with all those greater weapon specializations first. And if we assume, like the alexandrian does, that 5th level counts as the sort of guy who comes around "once in a generation" (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html) then your fighter will be hard pressed to find another 12 level fighter who has one greater weapon specialization (and remember, he will also have to have more and more greater weapon specializations ALL IN THE SAME WEAPON, to teach the PC fighter.)

For those who didn't click the link, here is the important part of the article:


So what have we learned so far? Almost everyone you have ever met is a 1st level character. The few exceptional people you’ve met are probably 2nd or 3rd level – they’re canny and experienced and can accomplish things that others find difficult or impossible.

If you know someone who’s 4th level, then you’re privileged to know one of the most talented people around: They’re a professional sports player. Or a brain surgeon. Or a rocket scientist.

If you know someone who’s 5th level, then you have the honor of knowing someone that will probably be written about in history books. Walter Payton. Michael Jordan. Albert Einstein. Isaac Newton. Miyamoto Musashi. William Shakespeare.

So when your D&D character hits 6th level, it means they’re literally superhuman: They are capable of achieving things that no human being has ever been capable of achieving. They have transcended the mortal plane and become a mythic hero.

Even though feats are a fighter's selling points, fighters end up relying more on magic weapons created by an NPC wizard (who stupidly throws away his xp making an item that raises a nonmagical stranger's survivability in a hostile, supernatural, high-level world when he could be hoarding the xp for himself, improving his usefulness for the occasion he might have to go on such an adventure).

One major thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of people are level 1, and therefore have 1-2 feats. But supposedly, those feats are varied. And if the Aragorns and Luke Skywalkers of the world are level 5 (as this guy (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html) says) and level 6 and over are super human freaks. Then if people CANNOT teach each other feats, they are stuck with a maximum of 6 feats (if they are human fighters.) and the only people who have whirlwind attack are those who choose to postpone getting their 3rd level feat and get both spring attack AND whirlwind attack at fourth level (both have a prerequisite of +4 BAB) and such people will NEVER get weapon specialization :smallfrown: (unless they become heroes themselves.) Its not a really bad lose as NPCs tend to lead boring lives and like that just fine, but it just seems...a little static for my taste.

So I implore you, DMs of the world, to use these rules and put skills and feats ON SALE! After all, is it really so bad if one guy has weapon specialization in more than one weapon, including unarmed?

Your fighter might even dare to invest in a cross-class skill, Complete with a Skill focus feat for that skill. :smallbiggrin:

Thoughtbot360
2007-03-23, 04:47 AM
Actually, I dare someone to play test this idea: Give a 1st level Fighter with 150 gp of gear and every feat in the PHB, including those that require a prerequisite Base Attack Bonus he doesn't have. (except the fighter spefic ones that require 4th+ level and all the skill focuses) Set him up against a 5th level fighter with 3,000 gp worth of magic items and his normal amount of feats. Heck, make the 1st level a Half-orc with 20 str and the 5th level a Gnome with 6 str if you wanna see if its craaaazy of the charts.

Please tell me what the results are. XD

marjan
2007-03-23, 04:58 AM
*Pst* you forgot Perform.

KoDT69
2007-03-23, 06:27 AM
I've often wondered why the skill system works as it does. You can start a new character with 4 ranks in blacksmithing, advance 20 levels never practicing, and the first time he/she uses the skill, they are a master craftsman... because they killed a bunch of monsters in combat! And how many times has there been an NPC of maybe 3 total character levels but a smith skill at +30 because he's been doing his craft most of his life. In this regard, I think that the first four ranks should be trained by NPC's to represent your 1st level character being ready to go forth and practice on their own. The way I handle it in my campaigns is to allow Level+3 ranks plus 1 more rank above their level for every year of the character's life that they actively practiced that skill given as a free skill point as reward for practice. So a 5th level 10 year veteran fighter that actively crafted weapons could have as many as 18 ranks. I don't think that would break the system at all, and gives the player a sense of accomplishment when the skills come into play in the game. And feats? Eh that one can unbalance a game if not handled properly. I would suggest making a list for your campaign of the feats that really serve little purpose other than to meet better feat prerequesites.

Thoughtbot360
2007-03-23, 03:39 PM
I've often wondered why the skill system works as it does. You can start a new character with 4 ranks in blacksmithing, advance 20 levels never practicing, and the first time he/she uses the skill, they are a master craftsman... because they killed a bunch of monsters in combat! And how many times has there been an NPC of maybe 3 total character levels but a smith skill at +30 because he's been doing his craft most of his life. In this regard, I think that the first four ranks should be trained by NPC's to represent your 1st level character being ready to go forth and practice on their own. The way I handle it in my campaigns is to allow Level+3 ranks plus 1 more rank above their level for every year of the character's life that they actively practiced that skill given as a free skill point as reward for practice. So a 5th level 10 year veteran fighter that actively crafted weapons could have as many as 18 ranks. I don't think that would break the system at all, and gives the player a sense of accomplishment when the skills come into play in the game. And feats? Eh that one can unbalance a game if not handled properly. I would suggest making a list for your campaign of the feats that really serve little purpose other than to meet better feat prerequesites.

Possibly it could unbalance a game, but one thing I tried to bring up (by quoting the alexandrain) is that most the people (although the guy might have meant us the real world, but this assumtion works just as well) in the world are level 1. That means they only have 1 feat (humans have 2, of course), and a player cannot learn a feat from a person that doesn't have it (Also, most people have as high as a 13 in ONE ability score). Buying Endurance (or some similarly boring feat without prerequisites) is easy. Buying Power attack, Improved TWF, or Mobility? Not so much. Of couse, D&D is all about mythic fantasy and they might meet a level 10 NPC (fighter or not) sooner or later and he might just a paralothia of feats with prerequisites, but the player might not know what feats the NPC has. But having a list or some other systemized way to determine feat availibility is probably a good idea because some people apparently do level up and gain new feats....

One important thing to ask oneself is "how do I know when a game is unbalanced?" Blackjack (http://blackjack.dumpshock.com/stuff/BITR6.htm) at his website observe game balance entirely as a player group dynamic:


The definition of "fair" differs greatly from situation to situation. In Shadowrun I've always defined "unfair" as being anything which upsets the game balance. This balance must be achieved on many levels; player participation, pc statistics, attitude, aggressiveness, etc. When an individual creates a situation which upsets any of these balances I consider it an unfair action.

Consider, in brief, the idea of pc stats. If one player decides to create a kick ass character with a bad attitude he throws off the game balance for anybody who has the desire to play a less aggressive archetype. The gamemaster has no choice but to send in his heaviest NPCs when combat is involved and inevitably the weaker characters get torn to shreds in the battle. The gamemaster cannot specifically target the offending PC because it would not make sense. One group equals one target. By creating his kick ass character the player has messed up the game for everybody else.

In a way this makes more sense than looking at the problem entirely from a position of how numbercrunched the the players are, how much freaking money they are swimming in, how badly they are kicking monsters that are their appropriate CR's asses, excetra. You can always give them less treasure and force them to pay upkeep, immigration taxes (walled city states did that, and adventurers tend to wander from place to place, so its perfect!), or just lose money to misfortune. You can always give them tougher enemies or less experience (by the way, the CR in the MM are listed with a party of 4 with 25 points for the point-buy system in mind, more players or more points means the monsters aren't going to be so hot). But if persay, their is a party of bards with balanced stats that are used to going about things carefully, having a Half-orc Barbarian who is tweaked to do insane amounts of damage in round one and whose first impression of any new stimuli is "RAAAR! CHARGE! THE MOTHER OF ALL WARS HAS BEGUN! THE STREETS WILL FLOW WITH THE BLOOD OF THE UNBELIEVERS!" forces the DM to either let the Barbarian dominate the game or risk killing the bards by sending in a monster that can stand up to the barbarian (but doesn't have a particular vendetta against the barbarian and the barbarian alone.)

Supposedly, the fighter will still have less use than the casters after 13th level or so.

Roderick_BR
2007-03-23, 03:59 PM
Wait, you mean demanding gold and time to learn skills and feats? I think several books suggests that kind of thing (at least in 2nd edition).
So, the PC with smith skill, should, at every level, find a smith to teach him, and practice, between adventures.
Likewise, you can use NPC classes to show how skilled an npc is.
For example, a npc smith, with 5 levels in commoner or expert, would have a +13 (base 5+3, Int 12, Skill focus), while a dwarven fighter that practices everyday, using his skills to keep his weapons and armor in top noch after fighting several monsters, and thus having a bigger challenge to fix his gear, would be able to have a +23 (level +3) smith skill.
Still, the DM can demand him to actually get classes from a NPC with such level.

Now, if you want a character to have skill points/feats based solely in how much they train, ie, gold, you would run in the old Wish problem in 2nd edition: Get some rich npc, and he will have ungodly high levels, just because he can afford it. It was normal to have npcs with too high stats, because they could pay for hundreds of wishes (without limit) to boost his abilities.

Skills and feats are based on level just for sake of balance (GURPS usually has a lot of problems with powerbuilds, even worse than D&D, for example, because it's point buy, instead of level based)

Thoughtbot360
2007-03-23, 04:49 PM
Now, if you want a character to have skill points/feats based solely in how much they train, ie, gold, you would run in the old Wish problem in 2nd edition: Get some rich npc, and he will have ungodly high levels, just because he can afford it. It was normal to have npcs with too high stats, because they could pay for hundreds of wishes (without limit) to boost his abilities.


Ah but thats just the thing. Some skills like Heal or Survival can be mastered at first level.


He (Aragorn) leads the hobbits through the wilderness with great skill. (The highest Survival DC in the core rules is DC 15. A 1st level character can master the skill for non-tracking purposes. Aragorn, as a master tracker, would need to be 5th level, have at least one level of ranger, and have spent one of his feats on Skill Focus (Survival) to achieve all of this.)

And you're buying skills and feats not levels or ability scores. The most dangerous feat is greater weapon specialization. You can buy greater weapon specialization multiple times to do ungodly amounts of damage when armed with a specific weapon, so if there IS a wealthy lvl 12 NPC fighter, the potential for abuse is there, BUT he cannot find a guy that doesn't have just one greater weapon specialization and train under him fifty times to get Greater weapon specialzation x 50, he needs to find a guy who has FIFTY FREAKING GWS's!! And that guy, if he even exists, has to be super-duper ultra epic level. He would have to be the heavenly embodiment of everything that is (insert weapon name here). A guy with just two GWS would be 14th level at the least, A guy with 4 GWS would be 16th level at the least. So what you need a God of all Greatswords. He is out of our little 12th level's league. And the Gather Information DC for even learning if such a guy EXISTS would be off the charts. Simply put, it is impossible to buy that many. Get up on your high horse and tell that reality to any munchkin player that wants to abuse this system in such a manner. And if he insists try this:

PC: I *NEED* TO HAVE MORE Greater Weapon Specializations!
DM:"Alright, we'll try it you're way for a while.
PC: WOOT!
DM: By the way, you have just been jumped by a guy wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a non-spiked guantlet*. He gets a surprise round.
PC: No fair! I wouldn't seen him or heard him.
DM: Fine, roll Listen. He apparently took a potion of invisibilty.
PC: HAH! That comes to a 32!
DM: Nope, he beats it.
PC: :smallfurious:
DM: He whacks you with his gauntlet for Ten billion and ... *rolls a d2* one damage.
PC: :smalleek:

And then have the rest of the party kill the attacker because he has crappy stats. He has 12d10 HD, but no armor, poor dex and con, and he has a gout in one leg (15 ft. movement). When they are done, show them a sheet that says: Guantlet +14 to hit, 5 billion GWS: guantlet feats, +100,000 Move Silently. Thats his character sheet. He sold all his worldly possesions to get ridiculous damage. The munchkin will hopefully see eye-to-eye on this particular issue after that.

I mean, he got absolutely murdered by a naked hobo with a guantlet!

If he refuses to learn keep attacking him with guantlet hobos. Have him reinact the scene for Psycho. And have the town besieged by an army of naked guantlet fighters that speak most unintelligenibly. When asked what they want they only say: "The Gubment stoled muh Teefs!" They say that in borg-like unison.

Also, the wish spell needs to die. Besides, one thing to keep in mind is exactly how rich the NPC really is. Can he really keep spending his tax base's money on 9th-level spells? (Or searching for the heavenly embodiment of greatswords?)

*-if you want to be really, really silly, replace all the uses of the word "guantlet" with the word "feces"

KoDT69
2007-03-23, 04:53 PM
I think you got it wrong my man. I suggest it might be acceptible to pay for professional training from a true master at the skill in exchange for gold and TIME. The time investment I use is 1 YEAR per skill rank. That is a major investment and therefore explains why a 30 year vet in blacksmithing can make masterwork adamantine armor, but not be able to fight a dragon. Likewise the players might catch some downtime every now and then, but given this scenario, why would you simply allow them 20 years of downtime to max up a skill? That's not to mention that you could use a proportional factor in cost so that the first bonus rank is 1,000gp and the 5th is 25,000gp. So +5 to that skill would cost a total of 55,000gp and 5 years of downtime. It's possible, but very unlikely for a player character to have that time and gold to invest. As for the buying wishes and stats? We never mentioned that. I played 2nd edition for 10 years solid and never had it then either. Not sure where that thought came from? Buying a few feats isn't that bad either if using the same cost details and limiting specifically as DM what can be bought this way. :smallwink: Oh and the NPC with arbitrary stats from those bought wishes (even tho it's not possible or suggested)? The stat points gained from wishes will grant a grand total of +5 to each stat as an inherant bonus as per RAW AFAIK. So even at that, our NPC with 10 in every stat goes up to 15's and gets a whopping +2 to skills now. Nice way to spend 30 PROPERLY WORDED wishes. :smallyuk:

Arbitrarity
2007-03-23, 04:58 PM
This may explain profession. I mean, come on, every idiot commoner in D&D makes 1 sp a day. If they put 1 rank in any profession skill, their income magically multiplies by 5!

Thought, you are too tired. WTF's with this "multiple greater weapon specializations in one weapon" ****? You can't DO that! You can take it multiple times, FOR A DIFFERENT WEAPON EACH TIME!

Thoughtbot360
2007-03-23, 05:08 PM
This may explain profession. I mean, come on, every idiot commoner in D&D makes 1 sp a day. If they put 1 rank in any profession skill, their income magically multiplies by 5!

Thought, you are too tired. WTF's with this "multiple greater weapon specializations in one weapon" ****? You can't DO that! You can take it multiple times, FOR A DIFFERENT WEAPON EACH TIME!

Huh. *Opens the PHB*

Well, now I just feel silly.:smallredface: Sorry about that....

...Can I still keep my new sig?



I suggest it might be acceptible to pay for professional training from a true master at the skill in exchange for gold and TIME.

Yeah, I mentioned time. Thats what a "teaching cycle" is. Its up to the DM to decide how long that cycle lasts. But some skills are simply too non-complex to take a year. I mean, 1 YEAR to gain a rank in Use Rope? Also, sometimes, many a campaign just doesn't take years and years in game time.

Thoughtbot360
2007-03-24, 03:55 AM
*Pst* you forgot Perform.

btw, Thanks, marjan. I fixed it Perform is a sophisication level 3 skill.

Matthew
2007-03-27, 10:20 PM
Yeah, the old (A)D&D Character Point System handled this aspect a lot better, but the Level System and sliding Skill Difficulties are the root cause.

Justin_Bacon
2007-04-16, 01:39 PM
And if we assume, like the alexandrian does, that 5th level counts as the sort of guy who comes around "once in a generation" (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html)

Hey, I resemble that remark! :)

I like a lot of your thoughts here, but there is an easier way to handle training which also has the benefit of using the existing mechanisms for game balance in the system:

Use the magic item pricing guidelines.

You'll want to use the prices for unslotted items (since, obviously, the benefit from training isn't going to be tied to an equipment slot).

SKILLS

Thus, training for a skill costs (bonus squared x 200 gp).

But what type of bonus should it be? I played around with the idea of creating a new "training" bonus type, but since bonus type bloat is generally a bad idea for game balances reasons, I decided that it should either be a competence bonus or an inherent bonus.

A competence bonus seems like a good fit, but it means that the character would no longer benefit from spells like guidance. While you could make a case for that making sense ("I am too well-trained for that magic fakery to help me"), it seemed undesirable to me. So I think having training grant an inherent bonus is the best fit.

ABILITY SCORES

It will also be consistent with the inherent bonus granted to ability scores through training at a cost of (bonus squared x 2,000 gp).

Why is it important to use the inherent bonus type here? So that it doesn't stack with the effects of a wish spell or any of the appropriate tomes. There's a reason why the designers went out of their way to limit direct bonuses to ability scores to only two types (inherent and enhancement) and limited the former to a maximum +5 bonus.

This means that you can either wish to be smarter and wiser, or you can put in the hard work to train your body and mind. But you're still limited to a certain maximum ability by your natural aptitude.

FEATS

The Arms and Equipment Guide (pg. 128) suggests that a magic item granting a feat should cost 10,000 gp plus 5,000-10,000 gp per prerequisite. However, the second part of that guideline is only useful because the magic item presumably allows you to "skip" the prerequisite feats. Training wouldn't, so using a flat 10,000 gp cost for training in a feat seems reasonable.

The Arms and Equipment Guide makes two exceptions, however: First, feats which just grant a bonus otherwise covered by the magic item pricing rules should use those pricing guidelines instead. (This makes sense, so we'll follow that advice.)

Second, metamagic feats. The advice suggested by the Arms and Equipment Guide is, as far as I can tell, complete gobbledygook. ("Metamagic feats should adjust the level of the spells to which they apply, and thus change the price." Well, yes... if the metamagicked spells are being used to create an item. But that's completely irrelevant if the item is actually granting the metamagic feat. And then the bonuses they give mean absolutely nothing.)

Nor can you use the rules for metmagic rods (since those rods don't actually mimic the effects of the feats).

I'd recommend simply using the 10,000 gp price for metamagic feats.

SAVING THROWS

Sure... why not? The character munches on iocaine powder and bathes in scorpion venom for awhile to build up their Fortitude saves; meditation techniques for Will saves; and dodging through obstacle courses for Reflex saves.

Make it an inherent bonus, too, just to keep things consistent. Cost is (bonus squared x 4,000 gp).

COMBAT

Letting characters train up a dodge bonus to AC is easy enough. The cost is (bonus squared x 5,000 gp).

Where things get more tricky, however, is trying to apply training rules to attack bonuses. There are no magic items which simply boost all attack bonuses across the board. In fact, the only direct way to affect an attack bonus is through the enhancement bonus on a specific weapon (although you can also boost your attack bonus by boosting the underlying ability score).

So you can't just boost attack bonuses across the board. Which would you rather have: A +5 to hit with all attacks or a +5 to hit with a specific weapon?

We could limit weapon training to a specific type of weapon. This doesn't completely eliminate the problem (the fighter can still swap between his ghost-touch longsword and his bane longsword while relying on his underlying bonus to all longswords), but it's probably not that bad.

But what type of bonus should this be? If we make it anything other than an enhancement bonus, then it will stack with the bonus from a magical weapon. But since there's absolutely nothing else in the system that does stack in that way, we should be at least somewhat leery of it.

On the other hand, if we make it an enhancement bonus magical weapons can't actually improve the skill of a trained combatant. As we talked about earlier, this can be explained -- but I still find it vaguely unsastifying.

So, for the moment at least, I don't offer weapon-training because I'm still conflicted about the idea of offering a bonus to attack rolls that stacks with weapon enhancement bonuses.

CHAKRA POINTS AND MAGICAL TATTOOS

In fact, you can generalize this concept to include magical training, too. The effect of any magical item can be learned by a character for the cost of a magic item (or double the cost of a magic item if the magic item is slotted).

Or you can make this more affordable by extending the concept of "slots" to include abilities gained through training. Perhaps the reason "slots" exist is that items bind themselves to certain chakra points in the body. You could either directly imbue those chakra points with the magical training or use a tattoo to do the same thing or any number of flavor-text explanations.

Which is, in fact, the key to this entire system: You can use the existing mechanics while doing nothing more than changing the flavor text.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Seffbasilisk
2007-04-16, 03:52 PM
What you're doing is dissecting the classes into costs of training. From there, why not got to the idea of a game that is just all skill points, and you gain your bonuses in everything depending on what you spend your skill points on.

Tah dah!

Thoughtbot360
2007-04-18, 04:45 AM
Wait, "resemble" that remark? :confused:

But, seriously, I didn't expect you to visit my thread, Justin. Especially after it had fallen to the obscure depths of page 4 and above. What a surprise!

I like your rules, by the way.

One of the things that comes up from all this is if we get into a situation where money actually replaces experience points. The question I now have half a mind to ask is: why not? This wasn't why I originally wrote this up, I was genuinely interested in what harm could come from allowing players to buy skill points.

Now, just like the Noble and his wish spell, there is a problem (when we factor in all of your rules) of if the wealthy might become like unto gods just by paying the price of training. The GM can, relativitely non-cheesiely, say that becoming a god of war is just too hard. Training isn't idly having your wish granted, its a long, tiring process and you only have so much time in this world (I mean, they aren't Player Characters, after all. They don't need to devote all their resources to learning how to fight stronger and stronger monsters, and then more monsters stronger still.) After a while, our Baron can kick the ass of anybody who's important enough to him to ever be his enemy and he kick back and enjoy the decedant life one expects a noble to live. Besides, in a medieval european milleiu, it would be historically accurate to have gentry and royalty that have trained to be knights and therefore have a certain amount of power. But even they would stop training somewhere, and they will be very, very surprised when they learn that there is such a thing as a 20th level character when your Barbarian beats him to the ground. Being one step removed from the God of Barbarians means you have (for a long, long, long time beforehand) earned the privillage of messing up someone who only fought against rioting level 1 peasants at the most exciting moment of his life before meeting you.

Also, money is easier to control than experience points.

Wehrkind
2007-04-18, 04:56 AM
While we are nit picking words, paralothia isn't the word you are looking for. Plethora is the word meaning "overabundance or excess."

I will admit I had to look up paralothia to be certain it didn't mean anything :)

OzymandiasVolt
2007-04-18, 06:03 AM
Wait, so now I can gain ranks in a Knowledge skill by going to a school and studying?

THIS IS MADNESS! (No this is not Sparta. Don't make me hurt you.)

Thoughtbot360
2007-04-18, 07:32 PM
Wait, so now I can gain ranks in a Knowledge skill by going to a school and studying?

THIS IS MADNESS! (No this is not Sparta. Don't make me hurt you.)

Madness? THIS-IS-ATHENS!


...you know, because, school and what not?

Seriously, though, where ELSE would you get knowledge ranks? Divine inspiration? And I suppose you only have bouts of this "Divine" Inspiration every once in a while, like say, once you've defeated a certain amount of monsters or thwarted a certain amount of villanous plots? And everyone who lives a completely peaceful life never improves in any way, shape, or form?:smallconfused: That is madness.

But, then, I think you already understood that and you were only joking. :biggrin:

the_tick_rules
2007-04-18, 08:28 PM
the dmg does offer, somewhere in the 90's i believe, a training system where you pay for feats and stuff. i heard it was designed to be used as a replacement for just getting the feat. but nobody says the dm can't say if you got the coin and the time why not?

Matthew
2007-04-18, 10:27 PM
Character Points are so the answer to this.

Thoughtbot360
2007-04-19, 12:37 AM
Character Points are so the answer to this.

Which book is the AD&D character point system, may I ask?

Matthew
2007-04-19, 02:38 PM
Player's Option: Skills and Powers

Basically, it's a parallel Experience Point System. As you adventure you gain Character Points and Experience Points. When you level up you gain the normal core benefits, but you can also spend Character Points to purchase 'Skill Points' and 'Feats' and such.

Thoughtbot360
2007-04-20, 02:52 AM
Player's Option: Skills and Powers

Basically, it's a parallel Experience Point System. As you adventure you gain Character Points and Experience Points. When you level up you gain the normal core benefits, but you can also spend Character Points to purchase 'Skill Points' and 'Feats' and such.

Ok, thanks. I was able to find the book via the link you PMd me a while back:smallcool: