Post/Author/DateTime	Post
KitsuneSoup 09-17-07, 03:30 AM	This was originally typed in Word, and I'm trying to reformat and copy and paste and other things, so if it looks weird, I'll try to fix it. The Short Version: I don't like the skill system. It breaks down beyond 10th level, because after that, everyone is a master of his class skills. By 20th level, no DC is really difficult at all from the PHB. So I reworked it. It's not a huge change, but it makes skills more interesting and a better factor longer. In general, it makes the skill system a little grittier, a little more dynamic, and a little more interesting for longer. Please look it over and give me suggestions. IMC, all those feats that provide +2 to 2 skills are reduced to one feat, Skill Versatility, that can be taken repeatedly to apply to different skills. This was mostly to avoid skill stacking through various sources, making the skill system break as early as level three. Optimizers: Yes, I know I didn't even try to max out my skill bonuses in the examples. Epic Players: These rules are not based for epic rules, so you might want to skip this entirely. I could adapt, but I haven't taken it to that level yet. Skills in Codex are handled slightly differently than in the standard D&D setting. Players continue to gain the same number of skill points per level based on character class, and the expenditure of the skill points remains the same. However, the DC’s of skills do not change proportionally to the characters’ skill levels, and even if they did, the world would rapidly become very unrealistic. Therefore, the following changes are implemented in Codex: All skills cap out at 10 skill ranks. This means a player can have learned all that conventional wisdom will have taught by 7th level. While this seems like a harsh cap, most DC never go beyond 20, and in the PHB, only one skill has a DC of 40. Look at the following example: Bane is began play as an elven wizard with an Intelligence of 18. At 8th level, he has added his two ability increases to his Intelligence, giving him a score of 20 for a +5 ability modifier. He has placed 10 ranks in Knowledge (arcana), giving him a total of +15 to skill checks. If he casts fox’s cunning before attempting a Knowledge (arcana) check, he has a +17 to his check. To make a DC 30 skill check for obscure lore, he needs to roll a 13 or higher, a 40% chance of success. If he encounters a 7HD creature, he automatically knows something about it, and can gain up to four bits of knowledge about it with an excellent die roll. This change means that skill checks are still profound even at very high levels, and skill challenges still function as realistic but interesting points in an adventure. But what about beyond 7th level? For every two skill points spent beyond 10, the character gains one reroll on that skill per day. While you've learned everything conventional wisdom can teach, you continue to think of new ways to adapt it. So, a character at 20th level, having faithfully maxed his skill points expenditure, will have 10 ranks and 6 rerolls per day (the 23rd skill points spend is fractional and lost). This improves the chances of success on skill challenges that are difficult, but doesn’t create a ho-hum view of DC’s from 20 to 30. At 20th level, Bane has increased his Intelligence to 25 for a +7 modifier. He has spent 22 skill points on Knowledge (arcana), giving him 6 rerolls per day. If he casts fox’s cunning before attempting his roll, Bane has a +19 modifier on his check for obscure knowledge (giving him a 50% chance of making a DC 30 check), and can reroll up to six times per day, making his possibility of success ~89% if he requires every roll. Players should keep track of how many rerolls they have remaining per day, and rerolls return as the body is refreshed through the normal manner (usually requiring eight hours of rest). If a player rolls a natural 1 on a skill check or his reroll, he automatically fails and cannot reroll the result, suffering the normal penalties for failure. Because of the change to the system, the following systems need to be clarified: Feat Bonuses: Skill Versatility and Skill Focus still grant their normal bonuses, making these selections more powerful. Skill Mastery has changed slightly, as listed below. Skill Mastery [General] You have achieved mastery over one skill. Benefit: Select one skill. That skill is always considered a class-skill, and you gain one reroll per day with that skill. Special: You may select Skill Mastery as a feat up to three times. Each time, its effect applies to a different skill. Spell-like bonuses: Bonuses coming from another source, such as the jump spell or certain soul-melds, grant their normal bonuses. Masterwork Tools: Masterwork tools continue to provide a +2 bonus on the appropriate skill checks. Magical Items: Magical items have been changed to reflect additional rerolls, not flat bonuses to skills. A magical item that provides a single reroll per day to a skill costs 1,000gp, increasing by a sum of factors for each additional reroll granted (1,000gp for one, 3,000gp for two, 9,000gp for three, etc.). Necklace of Persuasion: This platinum and emerald necklace provides its wearer with two daily rerolls of the Diplomacy skill. The necklace must be worn for 24 hours before its effect can be used. Faint illusion; CL 11th; Craft Wondrous Item, creator must have two rerolls in the Diplomacy skill; Market Price: 3,000gp. Prerequisites: For all feats, prestige classes, or other mechanics that check for skill ranks, assume that the character has ranks equal to the number of skill points he has spent as normal. KitsuneSoup
KitsuneSoup 09-17-07, 03:36 AM	The Page of Why Skills become increasingly boring as a campaign progresses and characters become more powerful. To maintain a level of parity, NPC’s must be of roughly the same level as the characters, or they are easily outmatched. However, a king (HM Nob18) doesn’t need an adventuring party to assist in running his kingdom, because his +35 to Diplomacy ensures that he never makes anyone angry with him! An amazing lock, with a DC of 40, is already easily opened by a Rog12, and unless it’s an unusual world, most kingdoms should only even have one or two locks of that caliber in existence; and unless the kingdom can afford to maintain a legion of War14 guards, he will never been seen while stealing whatever he wants. These changes are designed to make skills stay fresh, dynamic, and important to the party throughout their career, much like they were in previous editions of D&D. Even a 20th level rogue needs to plan to take 20 to defeat that DC 40 lock around the crown jewels, meaning that there needs to be more forethought and planning, instead of touching it with a forefinger and watching it fall apart. If you simply crunch the numbers, take this Ranger for example. At level 20, he has at the most basic level a +46 to his Survival skill (23 ranks +7 Wisdom modifier +2 Skill Versatility +3 Skill Focus + 2 masterwork tools +10 magical item bonus). That means if he rolls a 2 on his d20 (since a 1 is a failure anyway), he can perform the following: • Feed himself and nineteen other people in the wilderness per day while moving at half speed, • Always have a +2 bonus to Fortitude saves against weather conditions, and spread that bonus to 33 other people, • Accurately predict the weather for seven days, or • Track a fly across a smooth rock, after a snowstorm, in the dark, five days after it happened. While the first one is potentially possible (the party must move at half speed for the day, and five deer should be able to feed twenty people), the next two are becoming radically unrealistic, and the fourth example is simply too far-fetched by anything but the most pulp of adventures. The same ranger under the new system could have a more realistic +24 (10 ranks +7 Wisdom modifier +2 Skill Versatility +3 Skill Focus +2 masterwork tools), which with the same roll of 2 provides the following: • Feed himself and eight other people while moving at half speed, • Always have a +2 bonus to Fortitude saves against weather conditions while moving at half speed, and spread that bonus to eleven other people, • Accurately predict the weather for three days, or • Track a deer across smooth rock or a riverbed with no moonlight, provided it drank there in the past 24 hours. Some skill checks remain incredibly simple to make (crafting an Alchemical item is only requires a 6 or better for most dedicated alchemists at level seven), but some checks remain interesting and exciting at high levels (even at level 20, masterwork manacles require an 11 or higher to escape). To prevent die rolling contests between the DM and the players, the DM may wish to implement a rule that directly opposed rolls (such as Bluff and Sense Motive) can spend rerolls to counter an opponent’s reroll. That is, if Bane wins his Sense Motive roll against Sephina’s Bluff, and she attempts to reroll, he can choose to expend a reroll of his own to prevent her. If Bane rolled high enough, he may not care to prevent her; however, if he only won the contest because she rolled poorly, he may wish to utilize this option. Remember that many skill checks that seem opposed are not (Forgery, Use Rope), although the initiator may choose to reroll until they get an exceptional result. Magical items that give bonuses to skills should be of artifact level if this system is used, representing an ability that is far beyond a human’s capacity. Some magical items are simply replaced (cloak of elvenkind, goggles of minute seeing), while others may need repriced. Since spells continue to give skill bonuses when cast, they represent a world where magic literally bends the laws of reality, not just making the simple easier. Jump becomes a powerful spell even at higher levels, and the attribute boosting classification of spells (such as owl’s wisdom) become much better choices when dungeon crawling, and for more than just battles. KS
Nadaka 09-17-07, 11:59 AM	Interesting... Looks like a hybrid between the standard system and starwars saga. Though even with the reduced number of ranks, I would still boost the bonuses granted by skill feats to +3/+3 and +5 personally. Simply because unless you are a fighter or wizard, you probably need most of your feats to define your combat style.
KitsuneSoup 09-17-07, 12:03 PM	Is this SaGa? I don't own that thing... it's so expensive. But okay, thanks for the input. KS
Nadaka 09-17-07, 12:14 PM	in SAGA there are no skill ranks. Instead everyone gets +1/2 level to all skill checks. Class skill proficiencies add a +5, skill focus feat adds a +5. Other racial and class abilities grant re-rolls rather than specific bonuses. The similarities I see are the "rank limit" of 10 (yours hits at level 7, theirs hits at level 20), and the inclusion of rerolls instead of a half a dozen +1 to +3 stacking bonuses.
EjoThims 09-17-07, 01:20 PM	Congratulations. You've just stopped anyone from having interest in a character based on skills. You have, in fact, made skills less exciting. Fewer options and fewer variables are enver more fun, especially if you're ina group where skill use is prevalent. As a DM you need to be scaling your game to your players. If you have several skill monkeys who can do just about anything, just remember that there are NPCs out there that can build a better lock or who are also smart enough to put ranks in Sense Motive, Spot, and Listen. Give your jumpers gaps that they can barely make it across. Make your climbers have to work across a slippery ceiling with no handholds but only a rough surface while bein shot at by archers. Or while trying to be perfectly silent. And they ahve to do it in a hurry. The examples in the PHB are just base-line examples. They are meant to be scaled to present a challenge to players. You should not be looking for ways to stop the layers from beating the PHB examples, you should be looking for situations in which the skill ranks your players have are still challenged.
Nadaka 09-17-07, 02:21 PM	I think that adding rerolls increases the exitement of the skill system by making it a more dynamic resolution system. Its not as though the system proposed is as straitjacketed as SAGA, its just intended to keep mundane abilities more mundane and allow skill based challenges (of a less than supernatural scale) to continue to be challenging up into higher levels. The issues I see are that you have assumed that everyone will spend 2 of their 7 feats in order to be passable at a particular skill. For example: to identify a 9th level spell after making a saving throw? DC 34. Without an investment in feats a divine caster or sorcerer can never pass that skill check (unless they have an 18 or better intelligence). For a rogue to be able to beat a DC 30+ lock & trap? it will take 5 of his 7 feats (skill focus (search, disable device & open lock) & two +2/+2 feats). And in my experience, most locks and traps tend to have DCs of 30+. And if he also wants to be good at a couple more skills he will be able to spend 0 or less feats to improve his combat abilities.
EjoThims 09-17-07, 02:56 PM	For a rogue to be able to beat a DC 30+ lock & trap? it will take 5 of his 7 feats (skill focus (search, disable device & open lock) & two +2/+2 feats). And in my experience, most locks and traps tend to have DCs of 30+. And if he also wants to be good at a couple more skills he will be able to spend 0 or less feats to improve his combat abilities. Exactly. Under the current system it is possible for someone to be good in skills without giving up combat potential. With the current system you only have to give up combat ability if you want to constantly excel at skills. I honestly don't see anyone playing a skill based character in a system like this, unless you're literally forcing them to by playing entirely non-combat games (and then why are you nerfing skills?) or by laying out so many traps that survival is impossible without saddling someone with the role while the rest carry his weight in combat. Even then, with this system, som pretty basic stuff trap-wise could still prove quite lethal.
KitsuneSoup 09-17-07, 11:20 PM	Give your jumpers gaps that they can barely make it across. Make your climbers have to work across a slippery ceiling with no handholds but only a rough surface while bein shot at by archers. Or while trying to be perfectly silent. And they ahve to do it in a hurry. So you're saying, to make the system work, I should constantly create unrealistic situations, or force my players to deal with nine different variables, because if I don't, everything's too easy? The examples in the PHB are just base-line examples. They are meant to be scaled to present a challenge to players. You should not be looking for ways to stop the layers from beating the PHB examples, you should be looking for situations in which the skill ranks your players have are still challenged. That... doesn't make any sense. Let's say that my players have been playing in the same general region on the game world from level 1 to level 8. By level 8, your logic dictates that the landscape suddenly becomes dotted with cliffs and canyons, everyone mysteriously has the money to go buy better locks for their houses, and every rooftop is suddenly slick with cocoa butter? Yes, I'll be encouraging them to move to another locale, and they will still be off to other countries... but should the small towns and even large cities in the new countries suddenly be more advanced? This isn't Rule 26 (http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html), because that's really illogical for a game setting. On top of that, where is the logic in dungeon design? If the party has to make DC 30 Climb checks and Balance checks and other assorted checks appropriate for level eight, how did monsters without the ability to make those checks manage to get into the dungeon, and how do they move around? I think the difference is in style of play, not in any attempts at crazy screwing. You're playing in a pulp fantasy world, and I'm playing in a slightly more gritty fantasy world. You might have no problem with the beggar that got the king's signet on accident mysteriously having a Hide check of 40 and an amazing lock on his secret stash, even though he has no money for clothing or food. And as far as combat ability goes... yes, you forfeit some combat ability to be the absolute master of your skill. That's rather realistic, too. If you train all day every day to open locks, you don't spend a lot of time out there stabbing with swords. And since people who do train their skills are so much better at it then people who don't, you end up with a more interesting game full of people who wonder how to use Hide, Use Rope, and Balance to solve their problems rather than just barging in the front door. Anyway. The issues I see are that you have assumed that everyone will spend 2 of their 7 feats in order to be passable at a particular skill. Well, that may be true. At the same time, there will be fewer really high damage or complex traps (few people can make the checks to create them), fewer amazing locks and masterwork manacles (that kind of precision takes too long to make, considering that most people can't break out of the normal ones). Since I know as a trapmaker that most people in the world can't beat my DC 20 trap (without the feats, most players are looking at +14 or less, but most common criminals are looking at +8), why would I make a DC 30 all the time? And why would the King of Nowhere buy it? Using the trap example, it would take someone with the same specialization in skills and also a great deal of time and money to make that trap. As a player, I would be upset to find out that an NPC attacker defeated my trap because they had a high DEX / WIS modifier and a magical doohickey boosting those two options, where I had spent feats and time to make my hidey-hole tough and secure. You have a point about the Spellcraft DC, but I don't know if I want to scrap a project just because of one skill... hmm... There's another option drifting about for combat that I'm working on, though. We're taking "weapon proficiencies" from AD&D and using them as the basis of a system to give everyone select powers from Tome of Battle based on class, skills, and weapon choice, so needing to purchase feats for all your combat tricks may end up being unnecessary. In general, the feat system kinda blows. It's supposed to represent specific training in techniques, but it turns into FSBNNR. Really, a fighter is crap, because they made a feat system to keep everyone from getting all of his tactics, and then didn't give him enough feats to make him work it. Still, both criticisms are taken and appriciated. In a few days, we're playtesting, and I'll continue to take info until then, and then post a playtest report. KitsuneSoup
EjoThims 09-18-07, 07:47 AM	So you're saying, to make the system work, I should constantly create unrealistic situations, or force my players to deal with nine different variables, because if I don't, everything's too easy? To put it simply, if you want your players dealing with 'realistic' situations, DnD probably isn't the game to use. The average human is a commoner 1. In a 'realistic' world, level 8 characters would be legends. Level 20 characters can create entire demiplanes. There should be no challenge in a 20th level character who spends any kind of interest in lockpicking to be challenged by a mundane lock. Most safes should be a breeze. Hell, the best proffesional safe crackers are at most Expert 4-5, so why should a level 8 Rogue struggle where they don't?
KitsuneSoup 09-18-07, 10:11 AM	That's the difference, then. ^^ We're playing too different styles, and mine works for me. I admit that mine wouldn't work for yours. There's nothing wrong with us, we're just from different worlds. I call Mars, it has all the monsters. Still, thanks for the input, and I am looking it over with one of my players today to see how he feels about it. Hell, the best proffesion [sic] safe crackers are at most Expert 4-5, so why should a level 8 Rogue struggle where they don't? I crunched a lot of math in this once, using a blacksmith, the Craft skill, and time, to see how old NPCs that never adventure should be at each level of their lives. At 23, a dedicated blacksmith doing nothing but making things should be around level 4 (also, unless it's taxed into oblivion, he's worth more than an adventurer). I can't find the second page, but if he retired his hammer at 40, he'd be level 7. While I hadn't looked at that page before I did this system, it does mean that the blacksmith down the street has reached the peak of human skill at level 7, with the appropriate feats, which kinda makes sense. KistuneSoup
Captain_Kobold 09-19-07, 10:22 AM	I think the base system would work better in most games. How does your system handle opposed rolls KitsuneSoup? Does one roll to set a DC, and the other is allowed to use his rerolls to defeat it, or are both allowed to use rerolls until they run out? What do you do about those situations where the DC is well over 30? Some such situations are from the PHB, more were expanded on in Complete Adventurer. • Feed himself and nineteen other people in the wilderness per day while moving at half speed, • Always have a +2 bonus to Fortitude saves against weather conditions, and spread that bonus to 33 other people, • Accurately predict the weather for seven days, or • Track a fly across a smooth rock, after a snowstorm, in the dark, five days after it happened. While the first one is potentially possible (the party must move at half speed for the day, and five deer should be able to feed twenty people), the next two are becoming radically unrealistic, and the fourth example is simply too far-fetched by anything but the most pulp of adventures. Of course its unrealistic. You're talking about a Level 20 Character. He left realistic behind at around 8th level, and Legendary at 12th. Compared to this ranger, Aragorn was a bumbling, half-trained amateur. Bear in mind that NPCs don't tend to earn XP or increase in levels as Player Characters do. That skilled village blacksmith is likely to be an Expert or Commoner 2 or 3, and still be that when he retires. Although I would be interested to see what you based the math on for those calculations.
KitsuneSoup 09-19-07, 08:14 PM	Sure, Captain. This is an old post that I had copasted into my Word files, so I could look it over. It uses normal rules and contains a modified rule that you'll see, which is nice for proving what level what NPCs should be. There was originally a debate as to how much governments taxed people, and it does ignore "incident thefts" and the like. But here you go: Why blacksmiths are never poor Let’s assume that we have an age 15 blacksmith who lives in the mountain. He’s a fairly clever lad with an Intelligence of 13. He’s trained to be a blacksmith and now has a Craft (blacksmith) with 4 ranks in it. He’s also purchased Skill Focus (Craft) with his first feat. So, at first level, he has a total Craft check of +7. That’s not bad for a first level character. Since he lives on the mountain, and the mountains are full of treasure and things to kill, adventurers come by the drove, and he spends most of his time making pitons for them. A piton is a simple item, mostly just a large nail. He’s not overly challenged by this work, and takes his time. Every week, he makes 255sp Craft-Worth of pitons. Since a piton only costs 1sp, he’s made 255 pitons each week. He pays 1/3 of that value in raw materials, so every week he makes 170sp. That’s 17gp a week, which is more than the farmers in the valley are making. In fact, a trained hireling in the city expects only 21sp a week; our blacksmith is getting wealthy quickly. After a year, he’s made 8,840sp, or 884gp. The hirelings in the city get 1,092sp in that same year. Even with the cruel taxes from the king below taking 25% of his earnings, our blacksmith can now easily afford a new house to impress his girlfriend and have a good 63gp left for living. Being fairly frugal with only the occasional splurge, the blacksmith spends 1sp a week in living. By the end of the year, he’s got 57gp left. Let’s take the example a step further, and give our young blacksmith 1/25 of his Craft-Worth in experience points. Each week, he earns about 10xp. Since he needs 1,000xp to achieve level 2, he’ll be making pitons until he’s about to turn 17. By the time the blacksmith is 17, he’s got 114gp hanging around. He purchases a 55gp masterwork artisan’s toolkit, and a 50gp gold ring for his new wife. The piton business is still going strong since adventurers discovered the dragon on the mountain, and he’s expanded his business to include simple grapping hooks. Mostly, he’s just bending the end of his pitons and adding a simple loop to one end. He now has a Take-10 skill check of 21 (+3 Skill Focus, +1 Intelligence, +5 ranks, +2 circumstance). He alternates his weeks between pitons and grappling hooks: In piton-weeks, he has a Craft-Worth of 315sp. He makes 315 pitons a week. That’s a difficulty of 15 (Simple item DC 5 + 10 faster work) times his Take-10 value of 21. Each piton-week, he earns 210sp, or 21gp. In hook-weeks, he has a Craft-Worth of 420sp. He makes 42 grappling hooks a week. That’s a difficulty of 20 (Typical item DC 10 +10 faster work) times his Take-10 value of 21. Each hook-week, he earns 28gp. After a year of this work, he’s made 546gp in piton sales and 728gp in hook sales, for a total income of 1,274gp. Taxes take their 25% again, but our smith has still made 955gp this year. Experience-wise, each piton-week earns our blacksmith 13xp. Each hook-week earns him another 17xp. In each one of these years, he’s earned 780xp. He needs 2,000xp to get to level 3, so he’ll be making pitons and hooks until he’s nearly 20 years old. Of course, he’s racking in the money, so what does he care? By the time he’s 20, he’s squirreled away 2,865gp. He’s spent most of the money he saved from his level 1 life, but this is quite a bit remaining. He takes his new wife and moves to the city, where he opens a new shop. He sells his old house for half its value, bringing that 300gp with him. A basic smithy and house costs him about 1,100gp, and his wife and him become established in the city. He’s got about 1,500gp left from the past two years, after moving expenses and basic living needs. During his travel, he meets a strange wizard who likes to tinker in the smithy himself; our blacksmith seems doubtful, but buys an [/i]apron of craft +1[i] from the wizard for 100gp. The blacksmith, upon learning that the apron works, feels he may have cheated the old man. Our blacksmith is now level 3. He has the following bonuses to his Craft check: +3 from Skill Focus, +1 competence from his new apron, +1 from his Intelligence, +6 skill ranks, and +2 circumstance from his precious tool set. He’s got a total bonus of +13, and a Take-10 value of 23. While living in the city, he mostly makes cookware in the form of pots and kettles. These are typical difficulty items, with a normal Craft DC of 10. To make them faster, he increases the difficulty to 20, well within his Take-10 value. For sake of nostalgia and for his old loyal customers, he spends a week a year making both pitons and grappling hooks. His piton-week nets him a Craft-Worth of 345sp, or 345 pitons. The total income from this week is 230sp, or 23gp. His hook-week earns a Craft-Worth of 460sp, or 46 hooks. His total income from this week’s work is 31gp. Making pots isn’t that much more difficult that making grappling hooks, and each pot-week earns the same value as a hook-week. For the remaining 50 weeks of the year, he makes pots. His Craft-Worth in those weeks is still 460sp, and that makes 92 pots a week. He sells them for a total of 460sp, earning him 30gp a week. In a year, our smith makes a total of 1,554gp. After taxes, he has about 1,165gp left. At the rate he’s earning experience, he gets 952xp a year. He’ll need to keep making hooks, pitons, and pots until he’s got another 3,000xp, and that’ll take about three years. At the end of those three years, he’s tucked away about 3,000gp. That’s 4,500gp. Now he’s 23 and worth as much as some professional merchants. In fact, a 3rd level adventurer normally is worth about 2,700gp, almost half of what he’s got! Now that he’s level 4, he gets a stat up, and he adds it to his Intelligence, increasing his blacksmith repertoire. His total Craft skill bonuses are +2 Intelligence, +7 skill ranks, +1 competence, +2 circumstance, and +3 Skill Focus, for a total of +15. His Take-10 value is now 25. Having completely saturated the cookery market, the blacksmith is ready for a challenge. He branches out into making bells (1gp, Craft DC 15), hammers (5sp, Craft DC 10), sledges (1gp, Craft DC 10), and shovels (2gp, Craft DC 10). He’s more than skilled enough to increase the difficulty on all of these items, and begins working, cutting his time between them equally. For the equivalent of 13 weeks, he makes bells, for a total weekly Craft-Worth of 625sp. That’s enough to make 62 or so bells a week, which he makes a total profit of 41gp a week. His hammer-weeks give him a Craft-Worth of 500sp, which makes 100 hammers a week. He makes 50gp selling those hammers, for a total profit of 33gp. A sledge-week gives him the same Craft-Worth, but makes only 50 sledges. He sells them for the same cost, making another 33gp. Finally, a shovel-week is still a Craft-Worth of 500sp, but makes only 25 shovels. A shovel-week still earns him 33gp. In one of these years, he makes 1,820gp. With the taxes taken into account, he’s making 1,365gp a year. It looks like diversity hasn’t been helping his income. Really, to keep profits up, he has to start selling items that are worth his skill only; if he had made only bells this year, he’d have made around 1,600gp instead. This year he earned 1,105xp. To get to level 5, he’ll need another 4,000xp, so he’ll be making bells, hammers, sledges, and shovels for the next four years. In those four years, he’s made another 7,000gp. Coupled with the earnings of years gone by, he’s worth 11,500gp. Although he just turned level 5, he’s almost worth as much as a 6th-level adventurer, but they’re gaining on him fast, and he’s 27 years old. So the end result is that an expert who concentrates on making nothing but his Craft quickly makes more money than adventurers, but gains levels incredibly slowly. Using the 1/25 Craft-Worth number, it’s taken our blacksmith twelve years to earn the experience that some adventurers can earn in only a few years of travel. However, all this math could give a DM some idea as to what a NPC might be worth, and might have tucked away in his house. It also could explain why most NPC’s seem to have somehow earned a few magical trinkets.
KitsuneSoup 09-19-07, 08:23 PM	It's a lot of read, I know. But the end result is a basic idea as to how you could judge where your NPC levels should be. After all, not every NPC can be a retired adventurer. The end result is that PCs gain more xp because they adventure, so they become more powerful more quickly, but NPCs have a fairly standardized growth rate, as well. An NPC that kept working until the day they died would accelerate in levels, using either Profession or Craft, because as that blacksmith gets older, he gets better and better at swinging that hammer (age helps your skills, remember?). He'd never get to that wonderful level 20 that a PC would, but 7 or 8 is completely reasonable. While it doesn't even begin to make a dent for PCs, if you have someone that makes the group sit still for a week while they do something Crafty, you might want to consider giving everyone that 1/25th xp like my NPCs get. That way you have a system in place to allow them to do something moderately productive. KitsuneSoup
EjoThims 09-19-07, 09:28 PM	So your entire basis for the level of a crafting NPC is based off a house-rule to give xp when crafting? Can't say that's very convincing at all.
KitsuneSoup 09-20-07, 12:55 PM	So your entire basis for the level of a crafting NPC is based off a house-rule to give xp when crafting? Can't say that's very convincing at all. No, originally, it was only that I was trying to figure out how people earned money in the game. Then, it was suggested to me to invert the xp cost for creating magic items and see where that math took me. So, I'd say that it's pretty good, considering that the original debate was judged an excellent judge of how NPCs grow and act. And for it to have been "convincing", I would have had to be "convincing" you of something. Since I was just posting an article at someone's request, where I merely showed some interesting math. Using it as justification for 'human masters are level seven' was originally brought up by others, not me, since you're the one that said: The average human is a commoner 1. In a 'realistic' world, level 8 characters would be legends. So really, that whole lot of math is a method to prove your point, not mine. You're welcome. KitsuneSoup
EjoThims 09-20-07, 04:47 PM	Sorry to sound so abrasive, but I was in a hurry. While it's a good house rule to reward PCs who make use of their crafting abilities, it's just that. And my point was that it's not a good basis for establishing the norm of NPC class levels, nor in limiting the skill potential of PCs.
KitsuneSoup 09-24-07, 10:30 AM	No, I apologize. My retort was very snippy, and it didn't need to be. Honestly, I think that the system is decent, if you step back and look at my entire world put together. I accept your statements, because you don't see the modified combat rules (giving everyone Nine Swords abilities based on class and level) or the greater storytelling aspect. I'm using D&D instead of, let's say, White Wolf, because all of the "storytelling" systems do epic combat very poorly and players play for months before they see a single useful skill increase. I feel D&D is the comfy middle ground between them. But thanks, Ejo. My playtesting is going well, and any input is appriciated. ^^ KitsuneSoup
EjoThims 09-25-07, 07:59 AM	Ah, I was thinking it would be used in a relatively unchanged game, and I still think it would be a poor fit there. I am in fact dreading to see the 4th E skill rules, as they are supposedly similar, but offer even less diversity (all skills based on your level). To me, the 3/3.5 skill system did something incrediably wodnerful for the DnD system. It took non-combat abilities and let you improve them to match the epic combat prowess of your character without having to make a lackluster combatant. This meant that even the most combat oriented campaigns could afford for characters to spend resources developing roleplaying, either with backstory skill sets or simply social and other non-combat skill sets. At the same time, the presence of feats and classes that did focus on skills over combat still gave the option of making this trade for those characters who revolved their cocnept around one skill or a set of skills. I am truly hoping that 4th E isn't as generic is many are making it out to be, but as with your system, if the rest of the game has changed enough for these ideas to still be feasable instead of simply sacrificed for simplicity, then I suppose it's not such a bad thing. :D