Frequency of Experience Rolls

[Baconjurer]

Is there a case to be made for more frequent experience rolls? Would it help prevent swapping weapons frequently if you could roll a chance increase every round instead of every adventure? Would it slow combat down too much? What if instead of one experience box you had 10? Would characters grow too quickly? I'm looking for a solution to the somewhat illogical mechanic that you can only improve at something once per adventure. It doesn't make sense to me that once you successfully strike with your sword that's it, you either improved or didn't for this adventure. I think using your sword more should increase your chances, and I'm looking for a smooth mechanic that can reflect that thought. Or maybe I can be shown the logic from the by-the-books point of view.

[Questbird]

I allow experience rolls once per session, at the end, regardless of whether the adventure is finished. I also allow checks if a couple of weeks of game time go by in a session (I think the rules support this one).

At the moment I play an RPG session only once per month, so it's a long time between drinks if you only get experience checks at the end of a whole adventure.

[Baconjurer]

I've looked over another thread which isn't precisely on topic 

I liked one of the ideas: on each successful roll add a check. The alteration is that you can have more than one check. Then after the combat or dangerous situation when you have a moment to reflect you can roll experience rolls for each. Or another alternative was that each check increases your chance of improving the skill by 1%, or that you can spend 4 checks for a guaranteed improvement.

Does anyone have any examples of successfully house ruling in such a way? My main fear is that player's will notice that it's much more advantageous to swap up weapons as often as possible so as to not waste opportunities for improvement, and I'd like a system that doesn't encourage that.

[Akerbakk]

I think the intent behind an improvement roll each adventure is good: it is a moment for a character to reflect on significant actions and ponder their way ahead, or drill in those new lessons learned. I like doing checks at the beginning of each session. It's a great lead in from the last session, doesn't break the flow of the game, and can easily be done during "pre-game" when players are arriving, you're getting organized, food is on its way, etc.

If the implementation as written doesn't suit you then I would absolutely change it. I would not go so far as an experience check every round. Combat skills would greatly outpace non-combat. I think immersion would suffer as well with constant mechanical breaks from the action.

Based on what you are saying here, I might try an experience check after an encounter/ scene (you guys mount your steeds after clearing the dungeon/ bed down for dinner after playing politics at the dinner party - EXP check!) and see if that gets your people where you want them. Aim for 3 to 5 checks a session after major plot points or side quests in your game, when there is a natural pause in the action for someone to realistically think to themselves "how did x go for me? You could even limit combat skill checks saying that improvement comes from sustained practice under stressful conditions and let them pick 1 weapon per encounter to improve.

I mean, come on. Realistically can you expect to get better with your axe when you only pull it once per fight for one wild swing in to hopefully get an experience check? No. Swing, parry, feint, swing again, hack, hack, hack, pry, hack again, coup de grace. Turn at next corner. Repeat. Only when you, victorious in your departure, covered in the gore of your enemies, a path of viscous fluids trailing you, your axe singing sweetly as it is holstered amidst the percussion of dripping enemy entrails do you have the opportunity to say to yourself "man, that went well." EXP!

[Baconjurer]

What would you think of just scrapping the skill check system? Replacing it with a pure training and research based system, and letting using skill in stressful situations count as 300x the time, i.e 5 rounds of combat = 1 minute x 300 = 5 hours research?

"To learn an additional 1d6-2 percentiles of a skill, an adventurer must train for hours equal to the amount to his current percentage ability with the skill." E.g. current skill 55% requires 55 hours of research.

You could even keep in place the RQ3 rule that limits training with an instructor to 75% and any research/training beyond 75% must be done on your own through stressful situations.

Is this too much more complicated than a check mark each time you use it? I'm envisioning just using tally marks to track how many hours you've worked on the skill, e.g each combat round using sword add a talley to your sword research box during the bookkeeping phase, but I'm too inexperienced with the system to know how well this could work in play.

 

Edited November 23, 2016 by Baconjurer

[Thot]

It comes down to what you want in your campaign. If you want to have fast improvement, then allow the rolls more often - if not, then not. If it is realism you are looking for, I would say the by-the-book rules cover that, but you could add a rule for forgetting stuff you don't train.

 

But for an RPG, I must say I tend to prefer player choice over "roll for what you used". Not because it is realistic, but because it is better for what the player has in mind for his character. I'd even go so far as to give out percentage points as "experience points", and skip the whole "experience roll" altogether - which would mean that point distribution during character creation and point distribution during character improvement would be the same. So I'd prefer to give out, say 10 percentage points at the end of a session, and the player just adds those to the skills he chooses. Sure, that removes the diminishing returns inherent in experience rolls, but I believe that's worth it.

[Baconjurer]

I want something that makes some sense. I don't like the d&d class and level system. I also don't want anything that requires too much arbitration on my part. I don't like giving out story points or roleplaying points or any of that, because I like running more sandbox style games.

I like the premise of the as written skill improvement system, especially the ones modelled from RQ3, but I see some potentially serious problems with it, namely the weapon swapping, e.g. wanting to use your spear for the solely because your sword already has a check mark. It's too obvious for gaming the system, and forces me as ref to interfere with character freedom, or ignore it and bear the obvious gaming of the system.

So I'm looking for a house rule that preserves the logic of using your skill more improves it, while avoiding the downfalls of RAW.

The more I think on it the more I like the time spent in stressful situation/combat = time x 300 toward research. That way every minute spent using your sword improves you, but doesn't make too experienced too quickly. I'm just worried it's a bit TOO much book keeping to keep track of time spent researching/training skills.

[Thot]

Well, in the case of "various tools for the same task", you could simply subsume all alike skills (such as all melee weapons) under a single skill ("melee combat") to avoid weapon-swapping.

Another solution might be to make skill rolls and success with them so relevant that players simply cannot afford such actions, or declare that whenever they feel weapon swapping is doable, the stress cannot be that much, and thus no experience checks are gained from this fight.

[colinabrett]

Reading this thread, the idea came to me that Critical and Special successes could allow higher experience rolls. The BGB says the a successful experience roll is normally adds 1D6 but could be D8 or D10. Therefore, a normal success grants 1D6, a Special grants 1D8 and a Critical grants 1D10. Perhaps this way even a Fumble could provide experience rolls. When the character has a chance to think "Oh! So that's where it went horribly wrong," could grant a 1D4 (or 1D6-2) experience roll (in the latter case, the potential loss of skill indicates a clash of training versus experience ... "But I was taught that. Why did it go wrong? I'm confused now").

Colin

[g33k]

Personally, I like allowing crits & fumbles to grant some advantage when it comes to skill-check time...

My own "base" version of BRP/d100 is RQ2/RQClassic, which uses 5% skill-gains; as I noted in another thread, "2d4" gives a bell-curve that peaks at 5%, but gives chances for better (or worse) results.  It also gives you some interesting ways to play with your skill-advancement... only 1d4, or 3d4, or best-2-of-3, or 1d4+1d6; just a flat +1 on the roll; etc etc etc:  LOTS of room to play here.

I could see collecting "tick marks" for each success, and just allowing a 1% per tick on a successful skill-check rolls; IMHO however that adds a LOT of rolls/mechanics/bookkeeping.  The biggest upside I see is that getting to make a lot of rolls makes it vanishingly-unlikely that you won't get ANY improvement -- some of those many rolls will come through for you.  The biggest downside I see is that the experts will get a LOT of rolls, so their XP-gains won't slow down as they approach 100%-mastery; adding some sort of cap or governor seems advisable.

I have to agree though that adding skill-check-rolls during combat just seems like it'd slow things down, reduce immersion/excitement, etc:  Let's add BOOKKEEPING to combat!!!  Also, it doesn't much fit my own experience of learning:  when you learn something new, you generally need to go through it slowly at first, try minor variations, etc:  you need to figure out the intentional way to recreate/avoid what you previously stumbled into.  Still, if it works at your table, feel free...

I allow rolling a skill-check when the character has time to both CONSIDER what they learned, and time to PRACTICE it:  they need to re-train muscle-memory to twist the blade -j-u-s-t_s-o-  as they parry, to push the foe's blade just that bit further out-of-line to allow the counterstrike; etc.

My HouseRule for fumbles/crits is that normally you only get 1 skill-check roll per skill, when it's time to roll your XP-checks; but if you've had a fumble or crit, you can make 2 rolls:  there is just more to be learned, and the memory is more-vivid.

FWIW, I note separately that the "logic" of XP-gaining may differ from combat (and other large-motor physical skills) vs. other (e.g. "knowledge" and "social") skills:  how you learn, how you learn BEST, how you convert successes and failures into better skills, may not exactly match combat...

 

[g33k]

I want something that makes some sense. I don't like the d&d class and level system. I also don't want anything that requires too much arbitration on my part. I don't like giving out story points or roleplaying points or any of that, because I like running more sandbox style games.

This issue seems entirely-different, to me... like a separate thread.

But offhand, I don't think I understand your issue here:  to me, "sandbox" describes a style-of-campaign (without regard to mechanics) with a wide-open exploratory nature, unscripted/undirected, and with few/no pre-determined "adventures" built a priori by the GM.  Instead, the GM allows the players' interests and their characters' actions to guide the adventures that happen to them.  OTOH, "story points" are usually taken to be a game-mechanical currency that the players can "spend" in a variety of situations, in a variety of ways; typical uses would be to re-roll, shift margin-of-success-and-failure, declare a "true thing," etc; often referred to as "player agency" mechanics.  D&D's class/level is even more purely mechanical (though nothing to do with "player agency," beyond their choice of class).

I don't see that choosing a "sandbox" campaign (or not) has very much to do with the game-mechanics of the game-engine, XP, storypoints, etc.  If anything, I'd say the wide-open player-driven "sandbox" campaign is (slightly) BETTER suited to a game with "story points" and other player-agency mechanics...

9 hours ago, Baconjurer said:

I like the premise of the as written skill improvement system, especially the ones modelled from RQ3, but I see some potentially serious problems with it, namely the weapon swapping, e.g. wanting to use your spear for the solely because your sword already has a check mark. It's too obvious for gaming the system, and forces me as ref to interfere with character freedom, or ignore it and bear the obvious gaming of the system.

This is often called "tick hunting:"  you get one "tick mark" by each skill, to show a prospective skill-improvement roll; and once you've got your single "tick" by the skill, the system incentivizes players to switch their skill to something else, to get a "tick" in another skill...  Thus, you begin "tick hunting."

Some folks report this as a serious issue at their table, some say the problem doesn't occur for them.

I'll propose the solution that has worked for me (and others):  you only get a "tick" when the situation warrants one.  You can do the action, but not get that "cheap" tick.

For example, if you're going hungry tonight without a successful hunt, you can get a tick; if there's already ample food, you CAN hunt, but it doesn't REALLY matter to you and you don't have that survival-focus that's needed to get an experience-roll.

For example, if you're almost uninjured and have already disabled the foe's right arm and left leg with your 90% Rapier skill, switching to your 30% Battle Axe is... actually pretty safe for you.  You aren't focused on survival -- that's essentially assured -- and you aren't facing a genuinely "dangerous" foe whose defeat can teach you something new.

Alternatively, you might want to declare that these "cheap ticks" are only worth a flat 1%, not a d6% roll or flat-5%

Another alternative is to recall that they may also roll a Fumble... and you should warn them that the less-serious / less-focused / non-survival activity that is all varieties of Tick Hunting is liable to much-more-severe fumbles!  That extra hunting?  Ooops, a fumble?  Huh... look at you:  5 miles from camp, a huge gash in your leg (bleeding freely! Half movement, no running, rest often), and the wolves who were ALSO hunting deer have decided that wounded prey is better prey...

NOTE that you aren't actually interfering in characters' "freedom" here -- they remain "free" to do any 5tup1d-a55 thing they want to!  But it nerfs the mechanical reward for actions that are senseless from an in-character perspective:  REAL hunters don't usually go hunting when they don't need the food (waste of energy, risk of injury); REAL soldiers don't usually swap out an inferior weapon -- not in ANY field-situation, it's not a game to them!  Etc.  That's the PLAYERS meta-gaming.  Solution:  no (or minimal) reward.

 

[Questbird]

13 hours ago, ColinBrett said:

Reading this thread, the idea came to me that Critical and Special successes could allow higher experience rolls. The BGB says the a successful experience roll is normally adds 1D6 but could be D8 or D10. Therefore, a normal success grants 1D6, a Special grants 1D8 and a Critical grants 1D10. Perhaps this way even a Fumble could provide experience rolls. When the character has a chance to think "Oh! So that's where it went horribly wrong," could grant a 1D4 (or 1D6-2) experience roll (in the latter case, the potential loss of skill indicates a clash of training versus experience ... "But I was taught that. Why did it go wrong? I'm confused now").

Colin

You can increase the speed of skill advancement by increasing the die roll. BGB generally has 1D6 per successful skill roll, but Elric! uses 1D10 by default (I think the impending end of the world hurries everything along). I use a house rule that if you get a critical success or a fumble you immediately get a 1 point skill increase (you also get a tick for an experience check if the skill succeeded). That way you don't have to keep track of individual rolls.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Questbird

[Baconjurer]

Here's the rough draft I have of my house ruled experience point system. I'm planning on only rolling skill checks if they try to use the skill beyond their usual ability (e.g an apprentice artisan attempting to achieve the quality work of a veteran artisan), or if they are in a situation that makes things difficult (e.g. working without tools, working under intense time pressure, etc). Otherwise they will automatically succeed, and thus gain no checks/experience points. My aim is that characters end up skilling up approximately as fast or slightly faster than the suggested tick system, but avoid the strangeness of only one use counting toward growing experience, and the meta-gamey skill shuffling.

 

Novice - 0-24%

Apprentice - 24-49%

Veteran - 50-74%

Expert - 75-99%

Master - 100+%

 

Improving Skills

Skills can improve through research, training, or experience. The more you use the skill, learn about it, hone it, the better your skill becomes. The amount you use and hone these skills and spells is tracked in experience points. Once you gain enough additional experience your skills may improve.

 

What gives you experience points?

 

Self Study (1 week = 1 experience point)

Whacking practice dummies repeatedly, opening the same lock over and over, pouring over manuscripts and tomes on the topic, etc. Self study is the foundation of learning and improving, but perhaps not the fastest way to mastery. You must have a minimum of 25% in the skill to progress by self study. As your skills improve the costs of equipment, books, etc increases. Certain tomes or training equipment, especially those which challenge characters of high skill, may require difficult questing to obtain.

Working with a skilled teacher (1 week = 2 experience points)

Teachers make study a lot faster, as they can spot when you're going wrong and answer your questions immediately. Teachers must have a skill level 25% or more higher than the student’s to give any advantage to learning. The more skillful the teacher the rarer they are and the more valuable their time is. The same goes for teachers with rare or unusual skills. The cost of hiring a teacher is a function of their normal wealth level, their skill level, their social level, and the number of students they can train at once. They will price their time in order to support their usual wealth level, generally between average and affluent.

Skill Check (1 use = 1 experience point)

If a skill check is called for you gain an experience point in that skill. Skill checks are not rolled when characters have lots of time, all the tools of the trade, are in sufficiently relaxed environment and are aiming for a result within their range, because they will always succeed in these cases. Thus, no experience points are gained. There must be genuine pressure to succeed on the character along with some doubt of their odds for a skill roll to be called for and grant experience.

How many experience points do you need?

Current skill level	Experience points needed to increase skill
01-10%	1
11-20%	2
21-30%	3
etc...	etc...

Formula: XP needed = (current skill level)/10 rounded up to the nearest whole number

How much does your skill increase once you gain enough experience?

When you obtain the required number of experience points you can spend them to roll a 1d3-1 to see if your skill increases. Remember to remove your experience points after you spend them on a skill increase roll.

[Mugen]

In my view, experience checks are part of the defining features of BRP. 

I prefer assigning them at the end of the game, though, to avoid tick hunting.

Nevertheless, in my attempt at "simplifying" RuneQuest, I ditched them in favor for an xp system quite similar to yours

[Atgxtg]

14 hours ago, Baconjurer said:

Skill Check (1 use = 1 experience point)

If a skill check is called for you gain an experience point in that skill. Skill checks are not rolled when characters have lots of time, all the tools of the trade, are in sufficiently relaxed environment and are aiming for a result within their range, because they will always succeed in these cases. Thus, no experience points are gained. There must be genuine pressure to succeed on the character along with some doubt of their odds for a skill roll to be called for and grant experience.

I think this will lead to more skill check hunting rather than less. Since players will now need a lot more checks to improve they will simply try to use their skills more frequently. 

In my experience (sorry, too good a spot for a pun), I've found skill check hunting to be a non-issue. If the players start making frivolous rolls, then they don't get any checks. If they start making more non-frivolous rolls (i.e. switching weapons during combat) then they tend to open themselves up to the consequences when they fumble or when their "no-threat" opponent rolls that "lucky" (actually inevitable) critical. I've seen more than one player lose a character while trying out his "great idea" for faster improvement, and I have absolutely no sympathy for them. If you were in a real fight for your life would you prolong the fight, take a few more hits, and risk getting killed just so you can possibly improve faster in your secondary weapon? Would you do over it time and time again? 

 

[Baconjurer]

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I think this will lead to more skill check hunting rather than less. Since players will now need a lot more checks to improve they will simply try to use their skills more frequently. 

I don't mind them using skills more frequently. I just don't want the immersion broken by "oh, I've got a check in melee combat (sword) during the last battle, might as well switch to a mace now."

For frivolous rolls I don't even call for a check. They just automatically succeed if it's something someone at their current skill level would be able to do under the conditions. If it's not it's probably not frivolous or they are actually engaged in self-study and will need to continue for a week to get an experience point. 

[Atgxtg]

On 2/6/2017 at 4:10 PM, Baconjurer said:

I don't mind them using skills more frequently. I just don't want the immersion broken by "oh, I've got a check in melee combat (sword) during the last battle, might as well switch to a mace now."

I think you will still get that. In fact I think you will get more of it, since players will need more checks. 

On 2/6/2017 at 4:10 PM, Baconjurer said:

For frivolous rolls I don't even call for a check. They just automatically succeed if it's something someone at their current skill level would be able to do under the conditions. If it's not it's probably not frivolous or they are actually engaged in self-study and will need to continue for a week to get an experience point. 

By frivolous, I don't mean non-challenging. I mean that players will start purposely looking for ways to get more chances to make rolls rather than to resolve a situation. They might switch weapons, attempt some sort of called shot or other maneuver rather than go for a simple strike that could end the fight. They might even decide to provoke more fights in oder to get more chances to earn checks. 

Basically, by allowing more checks in a contest, and requiring more check to improve you give the player more incentive to go skill check hunting, and to switch weapons in melee rather than less. 

And the more often the dice are rolls the better the odds that a PC will end up on the wrong end of a special or critical. 

[Questbird]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

By frivolous, I don't mean non-challenging. I mean that players will start purposely looking for ways to get more chances to make rolls rather than to resolve a situation. They might switch weapons, attempt some sort of called shot or other maneuver rather than go for a simple strike that could end the fight. They might even decide to provoke more fights in oder to get more chances to earn checks. 

People talk about this and I can see it might come up in theory, but I've never found it a problem in my games. I've never even noticed things like players changing weapons in combat (except for things like changing from a missile weapon to a melee weapon) for the purpose of getting extra skill checks.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Questbird

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Questbird said:

People talk about this and I can see it might come up in theory, but I've never found it a problem in my games. I've never even noticed things like players changing weapons in combat (except for things like changing from a missile weapon to a melee weapon) for the purpose of getting extra skill checks.

I agree. I've only seen a few players deliberately start changing weapons to try and get some extra skill checks, and it inevitably backfired on them. 

[Baconjurer]

Thanks for the thoughts guys! This discussion has got me thinking about eliminating experience points and skill check boxes and only allowing skill up through training/research. Has this been discussed on the forums before?

[Darius West]

Personally I favor the "roll ups at the end of the session" system.  I also have a nice house rule.  If you roll a fumble, you get to attempt a skill up on the spot... of course you also fumble, but the point is that you might learn from your mistakes, and it takes a little of the sting out of the mistake.  I also control what gets a tick pretty carefully.  I don't mind a bit of tick hunting but I don't like abuse of the system for the sake of power gaming, so I discourage that.  

I personally also dislike level and experience point systems.  To my mind rolled ups as per RQ/BRP is the better system.  With BRP characters learn by doing, but the players don't have utter focus on what their character learns and so allow system abuse and power gaming.  The system self regulates too, as the higher your skill gets, the harder the increases are to roll.  I don't mind players paying money in-game for training either, but I try to emphasize the value of money for solving their personal problems.  Family in poverty?  Invest!  Law a problem?  Bribe!  Can't marry a girl?  Dowry!  There is always something to spend that hard won money on apart from training.

[g33k]

I've certainly seen tick-hunting at the table; the most-common IIRC has actually been out-of-combat skills:  everyone goes hunting (generally in 2 shifts, so as to not leave camp abandoned)... even though the one guy with the hunting/outdoor/survival/etc skills already has enough food for today AND tomorrow!

It made for some snarky remarks such as "You go hunting.  All you find is ticks.  The REAL hunter mocks you... and when you get to town all the girls think you have Pox (from where the ticks bit you); the only ladyfriends you can find are ones who actually DO have Pox..."

Early-on in my 1st RQ game (1980ish), a PC almost died from in-combat tick-hunting:  the foe was almost down and so the PC switched out from an 85% longsword to a 30% axe (or something like that), hoping to get a Tick before the foe fell... a round or two later, their parry-roll (that WOULD have succeeded if rolled on the longsword) failed to stop a crit to the gut, and nobody had a big-enough Heal to save them; they DI'ed and didn't "DIE" but lost 7 points of POW...   That pretty much did-for "tick hunting" at the table, in any really critical (ahem) situation...

===

Personally, I *dis*like pulling the tick-boxes out of the equation - the veteran fighter is experienced in real life, and generally in a real-world fight will trash the guy who only got "skilled" through "training" (real-world experience pretty much always is superior to "formal" training, except/unless when something newfangled comes along and and the newbie got the training but the older one hasn't seen it).

If you find tick-hunting to be actually a problem at your table... why not make "get a tick" be something explicitly and only assigned-by-the-GM when the GM finds it to be justified (which the GM generally WON'T find "tick hunting behavior" to justify).

 

[Atgxtg]

On 2/9/2017 at 8:05 AM, Baconjurer said:

Thanks for the thoughts guys! This discussion has got me thinking about eliminating experience points and skill check boxes and only allowing skill up through training/research. Has this been discussed on the forums before?

I don't believe so, but then you run into the problem of players wanting to just hang around and study. Frankly, I thing the RAW is about as good a way to handle it as any of the alternatives. 

 

Basically, if you are worried about people skill check hunting just remind them that if the bad guys roll a crit and kill them while they are fumbling with thier third best weapon, well that's just too bad.

If you really want to give the players something for using a skill repeatedly then you could use extra checks as a modifier to the % roll to improve the skill. Although if you do that I'd suggest going with a doubling progression just to avoid really high bonuses after a long session or battle. 

 

[Atgxtg]

5 hours ago, g33k said:

I've certainly seen tick-hunting at the table; the most-common IIRC has actually been out-of-combat skills:  everyone goes hunting (generally in 2 shifts, so as to not leave camp abandoned)... even though the one guy with the hunting/outdoor/survival/etc skills already has enough food for today AND tomorrow!

I've occasionally seen it, but I find that when a player makes a habit of it it tends to backfire. Basically the player risks the consequences of failing/fumbling a lot more times in order to get the additional checks. Then there is the fact that the opposition will get more chances to roll the dice and get in a lucky hit, or when they become  aware that someone is switch to a skill that they are inept at, exploit it. 

5 hours ago, g33k said:

If you find tick-hunting to be actually a problem at your table... why not make "get a tick" be something explicitly and only assigned-by-the-GM when the GM finds it to be justified (which the GM generally WON'T find "tick hunting behavior" to justify).

Technically that is how GMs are supposed to handle it by the RAW. A GM could simply view most skill check hunting as practice and allot practice hours rather than skill checks. Hmm, maybe even on a 1 for 1 basis.

[g33k]

1 minute ago, Atgxtg said:

... Technically that is how GMs are supposed to handle it by the RAW...

I'd better go re-read that bit of the RAW, I guess:  I learned it (and always played it) as "when you succeed, put a tick by the skill" with no GM-check step...