Fixed skill advancement per experience check

[Roko Joko]

Here are two simple tables that:
1. Give you a way to handle skill advancement without experience rolls at the end of the season.
2. Tell you the level of an average person's highest skill, by age.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to homebrew something like this, but here goes.

1. Experience

Record experience checks normally.  Then at the end of the season (or whenever), instead of rolling to see whether each experience check advances your skill, give yourself a fixed advancement that depends on your current skill level.

Skill        Advancement
up to 75%    1%    
76-90%       1/3%
above 90%    1/5%

You could either track fractional skill levels, or (what I'd do) track the number of experience checks that you've accumulated toward the next 1% improvement.

There's a refined version of this table, using skill category modifiers, in section 3.

2. Average person

Let's call him Olaf.  We're looking at his best skill or skills.  He has 13 INT and SIZ, one other 13, one 8, and three 10s.  We can assume the skill category modifier for his best skill is +5%.  Let's ignore all the cultural and rune stuff, and even base skill levels, and just say Olaf starts getting an experience check in his best skill every season starting at age 5, checking for advancement every season.

Then, using the fixed advancements above, the level of his best skill will be:
Age  Skill
 5     0%
10    25%
15    50%
20    75%
25    85%
30    90%
40   100%
50   110%
60   120%
He gets his 5% skill category modifier added to these.  There's a little rounding in there at ages 25 and 30.

I don't know about you, but those numbers look pretty good to me.  Page 63 of RQ:G calls 0-25% novice, 26-50% amateur, 51-75% professional, 76-90% veteran, and 91%+ master.  Veteran at age 20 - I don't know, maybe it is a little higher than intended for RQ:G?  But given that it's the premodern world the general statement doesn't really bother me.

3. Comments

• I believe Olaf's pace of advancement in section 2 is in the ballpark of what you get if you calculate it using the actual RQ:G skill check rules.  I won't spell out all of the arithmetic, but for example, at skill level 100% Olaf's chance of an experience advancement is just his category modifier, 5%.  That means once every 20 seasons, he gets an advancement of either 1d6% or 3%.  That's about 4% every 4 years, hence 1% per year.
• Up to 75%, the advancement is 5% per year, the same as you get in your best skill using the Experience by Occupation rules in RQ3.
• You probably want PCs to advance faster than Olaf due to their heroic ability scores, as they do in the standard rules.  One way you could do that is with a table like this.  Compared to the simple table in section 1, this makes high category modifiers give faster advancement at high skill levels, where they make more of a difference in the standard rules.

       Skill Advancement per Experience Check
                      Category Modifier
     Skill         +0%     +5%    +10%    +20%+
     Up to 75%:     1%      1%      1%      1%
     75-90%:      1/5%    1/3%    1/2%    1/2%
     90%+:       1/10%    1/5%    1/3%    1/2% 

• Fixed advancement makes it easier to round skills to 5% increments, if you're into that.  With advancements based on +1d6% or +3% that's a bit awkward, but with fixed advancement you can count the number of checks required to advance to the next 5% increment.
   

[Akhôrahil]

The big thing this does is make skill category modifiers, and hence characteristics, less important, if you go without that additional table.

Edited August 7, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Roko Joko]

I double-checked myself and noted that the RQ:G rules advance you faster than 1% per experience check at low levels.  Using a 0% skill category modifier to keep it simple, the average skill advancement per check is 3%, 2%, and 1% at the following skill levels:

Skill    Average advancement             
13%      +3%    = 87% x 3.5%
43%      +2%    = 57% x 3.5%
71%      +1%    = 29% x 3.5%

So instead of 1% per check from 0-75%, you could say that you advance:
* 3% per check from 0% to 25%
* 2% per check from 26% to 50%
* 1% per check from 51% to 75%
Then you get from 0% to 50% in 20 checks (4 years at one check every season) rather than 50 checks (10 years at one check every season).

I think it's better to do that.  PCs won't get a lot of experience checks for their low-level skills - both because those are probably the skills they use less often, and because they'll fail the skill checks more often - so it's better to give them the full 2 or 3% when they do get a check.

[Roko Joko]

To go a little off topic, but continuing with the idea of improving skills by 1%, seasonal experience can give you a way to limit a spent experience system.  For example, suppose you say that at the end of every season each PC just chooses 8 skills and advances each one by 1% (or maybe 3% if it's below 25% and 2% if it's below 50%).  Spent XP systems sometimes let players load too much XP into their top skill, but when you limit advancement to 5 times a year, you know it maxes at +5% per year.  Then if someone who wants to max their top skill starts at 100% at age 20, the max is 200% at age 40.  That's high but not crazy for a hero, and it's easier to make it work if you're expecting it.

[Stephen L]

On 8/7/2020 at 5:42 AM, Roko Joko said:

skill category modifier

You could make it easier by taking off your modifier from the skill level, before looking up the increment.

Is there a rational for why you want to do it by table?

For calculating someone's skill level by age, you could do it from the rules as written, its an integration problem (simplified again if you take away the modifier before you start).

Increase per season= Delta Skill / Delta t = 3.5*(1-skill/100)

It's quite straightforward formula to calculate, and I can send the answer if integration isn't your cup of tea.

Also remember that the rules are written for adventurers, rather than "background" characters, so my Glorantha would not be so generous for non-heroic folk.

Stephen.

[Lordabdul]

On 8/7/2020 at 2:23 AM, Roko Joko said:

I double-checked myself and noted that the RQ:G rules advance you faster than 1% per experience check at low levels.

Yeah I was gonna say, that first version of your table was nerfing character advancement quite a lot... that second table looks much better. What's the goal, though? You want a more regular gain over adventures, free of the disappointment of a failed experience gain roll?

I'm not so sure about the second table for skill scores by age.... is it for quickly stat'ing up NPCs? I'd rather use a table that gives recommended scores per specialty (novice/amateur/expert/master). Although your table might be useful for capping scores, like for example: an NPC might become an expert by age 30, but you're meeting that NPC at a younger age, so here's the cap on their score. Or a table that shows how fast an NPC might progress on the road to mastery based on how much time they dedicate to that skill, which, in turn, affects the other skills. So for instance you might meet an 18 year old NPC who's already an expert at something, but as a result all their other skills are capped quite low.

[Roko Joko]

Thanks for the comments.

"What's the goal, though? You want a more regular gain over adventures, free of the disappointment of a failed experience gain roll?"

Mainly that.  But also if you understand how fast the rules will advance PC skills in fictional time, it might be easier to plan a campaign, decide how often to do advancement, or decide that you need to house rule the advancement rules in order to get a certain game pace.

It might also give you a more specific understanding of the worldbuilding compared to the novice/amateur/professional/master table.  For example if I have an analysis that tells me that most people have 75% in their best skills by age 20, that's helpful to me.

"[Why did you use a table rather than a delta formula]?"

I think it's easier to understand; you can work with it in your head.  And it's OK with me if the advancement curves have elbows rather than being perfectly smooth.

"[The RQ:G advancement rules are written for adventurers, not ordinary NPCs]."

Sure; I'm showing what would happen if you did use them for ordinary NPCs, and comparing it to two things that were written for ordinary NPCs: the novice/amateur/professional/master table, and (arguably) the RQ3 Skill by Occupation rules.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Roko Joko

[Akhôrahil]

I would not want to take away the joy of successfully making that 8% chance for skill increase roll from my players.