Module - Natural Ability Score Progression - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Sol_seeker Apr 26, 2015 12:07:42	Ability scores have always been an interesting topic to me. When using random stat generation you inevitably have somewhat of an imbalance between characters. For this reason I prefer a point buy system. Through the course of running a campaign it occurred to me that the amount of stat raises which occur on the path to level 20 seemed low when you consider those raises needed to be sacrificed to obtain feats. I alleviated this issue a bit with two new modules of my creation. The first module which I will post at a later time is Advanced Training for Feat Acquisition. It basically allows players to spend gold and time to purchase feats from trainers. It works well as a gold sink but is still being balanced.
#2 CCS Apr 26, 2015 12:53:51	Interesting. Years ago I played in a game that did a similar thing. Every score had an additional % attatched to it. At first lv that % was 0%. Every time you leveled up you rolled a % dice for each score and added that number to your existing %. If you met or exceeded 100%? Then that score rose a point & the % reset back to 0%.
#3 Kentus Apr 26, 2015 13:28:36	Jack-of-all-trades seems to upset this system a bit, since it's easier to succeed with skills/abilities, you're not good at. Normally it shouldn't be much an issue, but since one of the reasons you made this system is that all characters should have about the same ability scores.
#4 Sol_seeker Apr 26, 2015 13:43:11	Kentus wrote:
#5 ankiyavon Apr 26, 2015 13:48:09	CCS wrote:
#6 Coredump00 Apr 26, 2015 15:19:53	IIRC it was also a 2E rule....maybe only for Caveliers... hmmm... There is the inherrent problem that some traits have a lot more skills, and some skills are used much more frequently, and some skills can be used much more easily. I think the 'trick' to this system is a DM that has a good grasp of how he wants it to work and willing to tweak things to make it effective. The one thing I would advise is some sort of self-regulating mechanism. For example, perhaps change it from 5 groups of 5, to only 3 groups of 5 (or even only 2 groups of 5). But then require a D20 roll to actually gain the increase. If you roll equal or above your current ability score, you go up one. If you roll below, nothing happens. This means that it is easier to get the increase when you have a 12 score, then when you have an 18 score. Which means it does more to help low scores than it does to boost the optimized builds.
(Reply to #5) CCS	ankiyavon wrote:
#8 ankiyavon Apr 26, 2015 20:18:54	CCS wrote:
(Reply to #8) CCS	ankiyavon wrote:
#10 Tempest_Stormwind Apr 27, 2015 8:25:56	What did you replace the Ability Score Improvement feature with?
#11 ankiyavon Apr 27, 2015 12:15:43	CCS wrote:

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Sol_seeker

Apr 26, 2015 12:07:42

Ability scores have always been an interesting topic to me. When using random stat generation you inevitably have somewhat of an imbalance between characters. For this reason I prefer a point buy system. Through the course of running a campaign it occurred to me that the amount of stat raises which occur on the path to level 20 seemed low when you consider those raises needed to be sacrificed to obtain feats. I alleviated this issue a bit with two new modules of my creation. The first module which I will post at a later time is Advanced Training for Feat Acquisition. It basically allows players to spend gold and time to purchase feats from trainers. It works well as a gold sink but is still being balanced.

CCS

Apr 26, 2015 12:53:51

Interesting. Years ago I played in a game that did a similar thing. Every score had an additional % attatched to it. At first lv that % was 0%. Every time you leveled up you rolled a % dice for each score and added that number to your existing %. If you met or exceeded 100%? Then that score rose a point & the % reset back to 0%.

Kentus

Apr 26, 2015 13:28:36

Jack-of-all-trades seems to upset this system a bit, since it's easier to succeed with skills/abilities, you're not good at. Normally it shouldn't be much an issue, but since one of the reasons you made this system is that all characters should have about the same ability scores.

Sol_seeker

Apr 26, 2015 13:43:11

Kentus wrote:

ankiyavon

Apr 26, 2015 13:48:09

CCS wrote:

Coredump00

Apr 26, 2015 15:19:53

IIRC it was also a 2E rule....maybe only for Caveliers... hmmm...

There is the inherrent problem that some traits have a lot more skills, and some skills are used much more frequently, and some skills can be used much more easily.

I think the 'trick' to this system is a DM that has a good grasp of how he wants it to work and willing to tweak things to make it effective.

The one thing I would advise is some sort of self-regulating mechanism. For example, perhaps change it from 5 groups of 5, to only 3 groups of 5 (or even only 2 groups of 5). But then require a D20 roll to actually gain the increase. If you roll equal or above your current ability score, you go up one. If you roll below, nothing happens.

This means that it is easier to get the increase when you have a 12 score, then when you have an 18 score. Which means it does more to help low scores than it does to boost the optimized builds.

(Reply to #5)

CCS

ankiyavon wrote:

ankiyavon

Apr 26, 2015 20:18:54

CCS wrote:

(Reply to #8)

CCS

ankiyavon wrote:

#10

Tempest_Stormwind

Apr 27, 2015 8:25:56

What did you replace the Ability Score Improvement feature with?

#11

ankiyavon

Apr 27, 2015 12:15:43

CCS wrote: