Experience points in QuestWorlds

[mikuel]

When you have 10 experience points in QWs, you can buy 2 advances. 

One advance is 10 improvement points across standalone abilities.  What does "across" mean?  Could you take one ability and raise it from 17 to 27, or 7M?  In Heroquest, you had to multiply the improvement points by 2. So, raising an ability from 17 to 2M would have cost you 10 Hero Points. 

[Ian Cooper]

On 12/7/2024 at 8:08 PM, mikuel said:

When you have 10 experience points in QWs, you can buy 2 advances. 

One advance is 10 improvement points across standalone abilities.  What does "across" mean?  Could you take one ability and raise it from 17 to 27, or 7M?  In Heroquest, you had to multiply the improvement points by 2. So, raising an ability from 17 to 2M would have cost you 10 Hero Points. 

It just means that you can spend a total of 10 points on raising your standalone abilities (not keywords or breakouts); cost is one improvement point to one ability point.

[mikuel]

This seems like a lot of improvement points for a character.  If they "select two of the following" and they choose 10 improvement points across standalone abilities, they could put them all in I'm going to kick your ass!  giving them 3M2.  How does this track with HeroQuest's rate of improvement?  

[Ian Cooper]

20 Improvement Points would indeed raise a single ability by a mastery. However:

* "I'm going to kick your ass!" would probably be a keyword, unless it was interpreted very narrowly - allows you to kick somebody, in the ass.

* You can only buy a given advance once, unless it is listed twice

* Rate of improvement is always a little "depends on your taste". If the rate given is too fast for you, raise the number of points required to buy an advance.

Edited December 12, 2024 by Ian Cooper

[soltakss]

On 12/12/2024 at 9:40 PM, Ian Cooper said:

"I'm going to kick your ass!" would probably be a keyword, unless it was interpreted very narrowly - allows you to kick somebody, in the ass.

I make this even easier and make everything keywords.

[Ian Cooper]

On 12/15/2024 at 12:52 PM, soltakss said:

I make this even easier and make everything keywords.

QuestWorlds emphasizes the use of keywords and breakouts over stand-alone abilities, but they are still there for when they make more sense

[Harry the Dirty Dog]

On 12/20/2024 at 10:52 PM, Ian Cooper said:

QuestWorlds emphasizes the use of keywords and breakouts over stand-alone abilities, but they are still there for when they make more sense

I was going to ask this because Questworlds doesn't mention stand-alone abilities at all.

So, the guidance for Questworlds is to use keywords and breakouts, but there is nothing stopping a player using standalone abilities?

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Harry the Dirty Dog said:

I was going to ask this because Questworlds doesn't mention stand-alone abilities at all.

So, the guidance for Questworlds is to use keywords and breakouts, but there is nothing stopping a player using standalone abilities?

There is nothing stopping a player from using such. They are not explicitly named, but the SRD text notes "other [abilities] might represent specific capabilities or assets..."

Breakouts have the benefit of getting increases if the keyword goes up. Specific abilities you have to independently increase. Where specific abilities are useful is with augments or being the right ability at the right time and may give you a situational bonus. (Remember that a breakout ability cannot augment its parent keyword or another breakout within the same keyword.)

Edited January 16 by jajagappa