The HP system works the way it does to enhance game play. I can't think of a single player who really wants to role-play their character being laid-up for weeks on end while their vitality recovers. What does the rest of the party do? Play tiddly-winks? Twiddle their thumbs? If the DM simply says, "OK, 4 weeks have passed and your vitality is restored." what's the difference? I get it's not realistic for a character to take 100 points of damage, rest for 8 hours, and be good. Or, rather, it wouldn't be realistic if HP represented only the amount of physical damage a character can take, but it does not. It represents a whole lot more than that.
From the PHB, "Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile." I understand that desire to interject more 'realism' into the HP system, but I believe that desire stems from a belief (one I used to have) that Hit Points represents nothing more than a character's ability to absorb punishment. It does not. It represents how hard it is to kill a character (or monster), only part of which is physical damage.
A 10th level character is better at dodging, blocking, parrying, moving, using armor, positioning, etc. So a blow that might fell a 1st level character might 'miss' a 10th level character. It might hit the AC but 12 points of damage to 10th level fighter is a lot different than that same 12 points to a 1st level fighter. For example, a 1st fighter might not recognize that the large stone to his left will offer a bit of protection and is hit fully by the great axe. However, the 10th level fighter (with, say 70 HP), does recognize that so positions herself close it as her enemy closes and when the great axe swings, the enemy has to adjust for the rock and so the axe misses. The character took the same 12 points but isn't nearly as concerned about this as the 1st level fighter.
Do most players/DM take this into account when they role-play? No. Could they? Sure. Would it make for better role-playing? I think so.
All of the rules I've seen so far for adding 'realism' to D&D combat add more complexity, bookkeeping, and time to the players, or slow down game-play, or both. Another PBP game I'm in uses the 'gritty realism rules,' which means a short rest is a day and a long rest is a week. So, sure, that's more real. But what's the actual affect on the game? Instead of continuing with the adventure and fun, the party has to troop back to the city to rest for a week and adventure OVER. Now we have to put together another party (and putting together the first one took awhile) and that has to wait until there's a DM available. Result: End Of Fun. Yay...I'm so glad we added realism.
^That...sounds like a drag. Some of the most fun games I've played have been really rules minimal (the RISUS system is fun, as is Dead Simple Role Playing). I think Lorrdwolf is right, how do we want to spend our time? I'd rather further the beautiful story we are making together! The story is most important to me. If we're too squishy? Maybe we should stick to fighting rats in the cellar for a while? I'm always in favor of simplification, but willing to adapt to play a part in this.
^That...sounds like a drag. Some of the most fun games I've played have been really rules minimal (the RISUS system is fun, as is Dead Simple Role Playing). I think Lorrdwolf is right, how do we want to spend our time? I'd rather further the beautiful story we are making together! The story is most important to me. If we're too squishy? Maybe we should stick to fighting rats in the cellar for a while? I'm always in favor of simplification, but willing to adapt to play a part in this.
Works for me. If we can some realism that others want, I'm OK as long as it doesn't unduly drag down play. I'm with SrDeebs...I'm loving the role-playing in this campaign. I can't wait to see what happens with Kallista and her journey to ranger-ness, and Hyre's love-affair with Barna while he struggles to deal with his emotional issues, and Lazlo's journey to I am not sure what XD is cool and I want to see what happens next.
You track a score that is equal to Con. This way, you don't mess with Con while having the same thing. I wouldn't call it more to keep track of. Got a Con 17? You have vitality 17. Con 8? Vitality 8. Does it scale with levelling? No. Does your method? If I didn't miss something, no, unless you have any way to give a bonus to the save, such as proficiency/some feature. Also, like the 2nd e rule, it just means you're Human (or Eld, Dwarf etc.) and not a god. Being level 20 means a lot, but it doesn't mean your head being chopped off doesn't affect you. Avoiding hits as a 20th level compared to a 1st level is easier. Once you lost your life though? A body is a body.
Okay, after re-reading the rules a few times, I think I FINALLY understand how it works, but there are a few things I don't get. Say you're a fragile level 2 wizard. If you rolled your HP poorly and you're at 2 vitality that you could end up with a negative HP max from the CON penalty? Like, for your 2 hit dice, say you rolled a 1 and now you're at 3 vitality, meaning -4, so your fragile level 2 wizard who has 6 CON could have an HP max of 0. I'm assuming this system only works for fixed level HP gains. Also, as you take vitality damage, that means you'd be having to re-calculate your HP max CONSTANTLY doesn't it? That seems like a LOT of extra work that would just slow things down.
It also isn't clear exactly how vitality absorbs damage after HP is gone. I mean, to deplete someone with 17 vitality to 12, they'd have to take 50 damage right? And any overdamage is applied to vitality... so a level 2 character with 16 HP and 17 CON actually has 16 HP and 170 damage in vitality? Or suddenly vitality is only worth 1 HP of damage and they instead have a total of 32 damage they can take before they go down? The rules don't say. It also doesn't say if the healing to restore vitality has to be consecutive or not; so say you were at max HP and got healed for 7, got interrupted in a minor scuffle, restored back to full HP again, and healed for 13... does that restore 2 vitality or just the 1? Because again, this seems like a LOT more busywork and again I don't see how my vitality system is more complicated.
Also, do these rules apply to monsters too? Now I'm even more lost. How does that even apply to damage vulnerabilities and resistances and regeneration? The variant rules leave a lot of questions unanswered.
Also, speaking of critical hits, it makes a critical hit that deals minimum damage still matter. A critical hit with a greatsword that ends up dealing only 7 damage (4d6+3, minimised) is incredibly disappointing. In Vitality, at least you lowered their Vitality by 1.
Again, I don't understand how the system works. Does a point of vitality mean 10 HP or not? There seem to be a lot of inconsistencies in how this system handles damage.
Personally, I'm more for crits meaning 'double total damage' rather than 'additional dice' because if you rolled for lousy damage but have +3, a bad greatsword crit goes from doing a disappointing 7 damage to at least a respectable 14.
^That...sounds like a drag. Some of the most fun games I've played have been really rules minimal (the RISUS system is fun, as is Dead Simple Role Playing). I think Lorrdwolf is right, how do we want to spend our time? I'd rather further the beautiful story we are making together! The story is most important to me. If we're too squishy? Maybe we should stick to fighting rats in the cellar for a while? I'm always in favor of simplification, but willing to adapt to play a part in this.
Works for me. If we can some realism that others want, I'm OK as long as it doesn't unduly drag down play. I'm with SrDeebs...I'm loving the role-playing in this campaign. I can't wait to see what happens with Kallista and her journey to ranger-ness, and Hyre's love-affair with Barna while he struggles to deal with his emotional issues, and Lazlo's journey to I am not sure what XD is cool and I want to see what happens next.
Yar, I'm not going to shove any additional rules at you guys unless it's necessary. Again, this is just coming from what I've seen of the D&DB dice. There have been a LOT of 1's rolled... WAY more than there have been nat 20's. I find the dice bias highly suspect.
Like, if I'm doing my job right, there won't even be a need for the 'cinematic' rules... but damn if the dice roller here hasn't trolled us. If my tally is right, it took Kallista 14 tries to roll higher than 13 for her medicine skill increase. That's just cruel.
I don't particularly like the dice roller- it does usually spit out garbage... (My 'favorite' dice at home gave me four nat 20's last game at home. He's a keeper... but he throws in some natural 1's as well) but is there an easy alternative? Not that I can think of
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Fleabag Fleabane-Tabaxi Ranger | Lenny Coggins- Halfling Barbarian | Sid Shatterbuckle- Dwarf Fighter/Rogue| Lazlo - Satyr Bard in Training
I don't particularly like the dice roller- it does usually spit out garbage... (My 'favorite' dice at home gave me four nat 20's last game at home. He's a keeper... but he throws in some natural 1's as well) but is there an easy alternative? Not that I can think of
Shhhh!! It'll hear you!
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DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
The HP system works the way it does to enhance game play. I can't think of a single player who really wants to role-play their character being laid-up for weeks on end while their vitality recovers. What does the rest of the party do? Play tiddly-winks? Twiddle their thumbs? If the DM simply says, "OK, 4 weeks have passed and your vitality is restored." what's the difference? I get it's not realistic for a character to take 100 points of damage, rest for 8 hours, and be good. Or, rather, it wouldn't be realistic if HP represented only the amount of physical damage a character can take, but it does not. It represents a whole lot more than that.
Well, for one, the way the campaign is going right now, we're mostly in a city anyways. Also, finally, a good reason to stay in town for other campaigns. I run the DoIP campaign to two groups now, and it annoys me to see people coming home after a life-and-death experience, only to set on another one before even sleeping.
All of the rules I've seen so far for adding 'realism' to D&D combat add more complexity, bookkeeping, and time to the players, or slow down game-play, or both. Another PBP game I'm in uses the 'gritty realism rules,' which means a short rest is a day and a long rest is a week. So, sure, that's more real. But what's the actual affect on the game? Instead of continuing with the adventure and fun, the party has to troop back to the city to rest for a week and adventure OVER. Now we have to put together another party (and putting together the first one took awhile) and that has to wait until there's a DM available. Result: End Of Fun. Yay...I'm so glad we added realism.
Both these rules require the DM to know they're going to use them, that's true. The adventure must be made in order to support them. The way of going back to the city is one option. Another option is just very long survival, with many small encounters. None of the encounters is particularly deadly, but over time, it makes it all harder. You are tired, hurt, hungry... Fighting those 3 goblins might not be as easy anymore. It makes sense. The particular campaign you're bringing up has other issues, but it's not the rule's fault, it's actually the fault of the DMs choosing to run it for so many people, or for so many people to want to join. Both, actually.
As for the story, the way it's going so far, I don't really see how the extra rules hurt it, other than slowing us down by making us argue about them instead of playing. As we are waiting on Leon anyway, however, I'm not sure if it slows us that much.
Also, in the defense of the dice roller, I believe it's fine. Overall, I think my rolls are balanced. I had bad times and good times, fortunate characters and unfortunate characters. Despite all that, I believe my average roll would be ~10 and that I rolled about as many 1's on the d20 as I have 20's. If anything, I may have rolled more 20's.
Okay, after re-reading the rules a few times, I think I FINALLY understand how it works, but there are a few things I don't get. Say you're a fragile level 2 wizard. If you rolled your HP poorly and you're at 2 vitality that you could end up with a negative HP max from the CON penalty? Like, for your 2 hit dice, say you rolled a 1 and now you're at 3 vitality, meaning -4, so your fragile level 2 wizard who has 6 CON could have an HP max of 0. I'm assuming this system only works for fixed level HP gains. Also, as you take vitality damage, that means you'd be having to re-calculate your HP max CONSTANTLY doesn't it? That seems like a LOT of extra work that would just slow things down.
I'm not sure I understand. You're a level 2 Wizard with 6 in Con, right? You rolled for HP but got a 1. So now, you have a max of 6+1+Con mod*level=3 HP. If you lose another Vitality point, your max will be 1. Two more points (3 total) lost and your max really is <0. At this point, though, it's as if you have 3 in Con (score, not mod). If you rolled for stats and got a 3 and chose to put it in Con, you'd have the same. You'll essentially be dead by reaching level 2. No Vitality, just normal rules. As for calculating the max HP, you just reduce it by your level for each time you lose 2 points (just like having your Con mod reduced). I don't find this a hard calculation, especially through PbP where we have quite a lot of time for simple math.
It also isn't clear exactly how vitality absorbs damage after HP is gone. I mean, to deplete someone with 17 vitality to 12, they'd have to take 50 damage right? And any overdamage is applied to vitality... so a level 2 character with 16 HP and 17 CON actually has 16 HP and 170 damage in vitality? Or suddenly vitality is only worth 1 HP of damage and they instead have a total of 32 damage they can take before they go down? The rules don't say. It also doesn't say if the healing to restore vitality has to be consecutive or not; so say you were at max HP and got healed for 7, got interrupted in a minor scuffle, restored back to full HP again, and healed for 13... does that restore 2 vitality or just the 1? Because again, this seems like a LOT more busywork and again I don't see how my vitality system is more complicated.
Also, do these rules apply to monsters too? Now I'm even more lost. How does that even apply to damage vulnerabilities and resistances and regeneration? The variant rules leave a lot of questions unanswered.
You lose vitality equal to the damage taken divided by 10, rounded down. Vulnerability/Resistance halves/doubles the damage taken, that is all, so they'd happen before the x/10 calculation. Crits lower 2x that amount, with a minimum of 1. Once your HP goes to 0, you lose Vitality instead. So, 16 HP and 17 Con characters have essentially 33 points to take, though they might lose them at different rates. If they take 1 damage every time, they can take it 33 times. If they take 10 damage in a single hit, it lowers 11 from that 33. A critical hit dealing 10 damage would lower 12 from the 33. Thinking about the two pools together will only confuse you, though. As for healing, it truly doesn't say. Personally, I'd just rule it to require a 10+ healing in a single moment/spell's casting/hit dice rolled/whatever.
Again, I don't understand how the system works. Does a point of vitality mean 10 HP or not? There seem to be a lot of inconsistencies in how this system handles damage.
No. There are multiple ways to lose Vitality. Crits deal more damage to it. When your normal HP is 0, you take direct normal damage to it. Normal hits when you have HP deal only x/10 damage to the Vitality, rounded down.
Getting OFF of combat, something else I had rattling around in my brain that I wanted to address and get opinions on.
Once the prelude is over, we'll be using standard rules so you won't be able to learn skills like you did before... but that got me thinking, why NOT? I mean, obviously, the skill learning rules I have in place are super simplified and just a bit too convenient. If we kept things the way they are to build proficiency bonuses, you guys would have like, +10 from proficiency before you're even level 3.
However, I don't really buy how SLOW you gain proficiency either. Like, getting +4 doesn't happen until you're level 9. I'm not a fan of how slow skills build over time, or how you just automatically gain proficiency in all of them at once no matter what. Put simply, I want to offer different ways for characters to grow. So much of D&D is tied to your ability scores, but what about characters with more average stats who work harder to keep up? Does natural ability just trump hard work? I don't think so, so for characters with not-so-stellar ability scores, this offers an avenue for a character who maybe wasn't the most blessed genetically to keep up with the gods-among-men through sheer hard work and dedication.
So, I'm trying to think of some simple but organic rules to introduce a means to gain proficiency in a way that's not too easy but not overblown. Like, the rules for 'training' are pretty vague. I'm just spitballing here.
The Sims route (little complicated, but seems the most fun and RP-centric):
Basically, as per the PHB, you need to be 'trained' by a professional at the skill you want to learn. Roll a d100 and add your INT and keep rolling until you roll at least 75(a fairly respectable grade). Every failed roll represents a week it will take for your character to learn 'the basics'. Once your character knows 'the basics' they no longer need a trainer, and from then on need to practice their skill on their own time.
(In the Sims 3, learning 'the basics' of a skill took a while, but after your Sim got the basics, you would gain levels a LOT faster than it took to get to level 1. I don't know if it was just a glitch in my game due to the mods I was using, but level 1 always takes forever unless you take a class or learn it from a book.)
Just like before, you need to be in perfect condition to practice, not hurt, hungry, tired, or otherwise burdened for the practice to be effective. You must be allowed to conceate. Yes, this isn't exactly how it happens in real life but it keeps you from practicing a skill while nursing a deep gash or nearly fainting from hunger, which is not very LIKELY to be effective. You may only practice for 1D6+2 hours in that day (without interruptions) before your noodle gets baked from the effort. Some days, it just takes longer to get your focus. For every hour you practice, you make a skill roll, trying to roll UNDER your INT. For every bonus point in proficiency you have, that RAISES your skill roll. So, if you're trying to get +3 proficiency in a skill you're practicing and you have 15 INT, you need to roll UNDER 15 but your skill roll will have +3 added to it, making it harder as you get more proficient. Like death saves, you need 3 in a row during your practice to earn a 'skill point'. This you can mark down on your character sheet under your notes as 'skill points for X'. After a long rest, you may invest the skill points you have to try and increase your proficiency OR save them for a level up.
You need as many skill points as proficiency bonuses that you have, so if you've just learned 'the basics' you don't even have +1 yet, so you only need 1 skill point to gain a +1 proficiency. +2 needs 2, etc. You can save up as many skill points as you like. If the dice are hot, milk those suckers!
If you choose to invest your skill points after a long rest, there is a chance the points won't take. After reflecting on all the practice you did, the next time you perform the skill you want to raise, whether it be proficiency in a weapon, language, or other skill, if you fail to hit or succeed, those skill points are lost and you don't improve. It's a gamble. Succeed, however, and the proficiency bonus is yours!
If you choose to save your skill points for a level up, you may apply them without the gamble. Patience is rewarded.
Again, this is a throwback to 3.5 when INT was just a good AS to have no matter what class you are as it allowed you to build proficiency way faster instead of only being important for wizards and artificers and sometimes rogues. INT doesn't get very much love in 5e. Having a high INT makes it way easier to build skills, as you would kind of expect it to.
The Elder Scrolls route:
Same as before, but after you've learned 'the basics', your time logged practicing is instead what's important. Time, and nothing else. You want to improve, every point of proficiency bonus represents 100 hours of practice. Going beyond +2 means 300 hours of practice that you need to log on your character sheet. Simple but grindy.
The 'breakthrough' route:
Some say that improvement, real, appreciable improvement comes from 'eureka' moments, great leaps and bounds after discovering new ways to do skills more effectively. This is the most gambly of the skill building routes, as you are entirely dependent on chance whether you EVER improve from your practice.
Practice eats up 1 long rest. You don't get any of the benefits of the long rest while you practice, and you end the practice with 1 level of exhaustion. Roll 1D4. This is the number of chances you get to roll a nat 20. No skill points, no INT bonuses to improve your odds, you need to roll a 20 to increase your proficiency or that time all goes to waste.
Skills as combat:
Something something something sacrifice XP gains for proficiency gains I haven't thought this one totally through yet something about picturing the barrier for skill improvement as being like a combat encounter and you have to 'defeat' your skill block before you can get better maybe help me out on this something something......
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Simulations for skill building using the Sims route.
Character INT: 14
Current proficiency: +2
day 1: 4
Practice results: 79 ooh so close
day 2: 6
Practice results: 88
There's 1 skill point.
day 3: 7
Practice results: 46
day 4: 7
Practice results: 40
day 5: 8
Practice results: 62
Eyyy there's 2 skill points. Oh dammit, the dice broke.
day 6: 3
Practice results:76
Now, if nat 20's and 1's are counted as 2, like with death saves, then that would be 3 points. That was nearly a week with 35 hours of dedicated practice. I think it'd be fair to say that someone working that hard would probably see some real improvement if that's what they were spending the majority of their effort of the day on.
One more day! Make it a full training camp.
day 7: 6
Practice results: 39
Oh dang, lucky rolls there. So 4 skill points in 1 week, and that's with a character with pretty decent INT, to boot. Hmm. If you had 18 INT, it would be pretty damn hard to fail... but at the same time, you're basically playing a genius at that point. hmmmmmm.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Simplified Sims version: You can attempt skill rolls 1D6+2 times a day when you've declared that you're going to practice. You need to roll under your INT on a d20. Your current proficiency bonus is added to your skill roll, making it harder to roll under your INT the more skilled you are, but the higher your INT is, the easier it is to roll under. Yeah, it's kind of like THACO. You need 3 successes in a row to get a skill point.
So, if you have 14 INT and +3 proficiency, the roll would look like this:
Practice time: 6 hours.
Results:
18
17, 18, 17... no skill points that day. You need to roll UNDER your INT. My simulation post got the dice roller all borked up.
Rather, to make it way easier to read, yeah, just roll the d20's separately.
Results: 23716
No skill points for that day's training... though part of me wants to say that rolling a 1 or a 20 counts as 2 successes, kind of like critical failures or successes for death saves, in which case that WOULD mean that day's practice would net 1 skill point for the day. I do question whether that would make it too easy to get skill points, though.
Skill points can be saved or gambled for instant increases to proficiency after a long rest. You must declare that you intend to spend your skill points after your long rest. This is basically your character reflecting on what they learned during their time practicing.
You need as many skill points as the proficiency bonus, so +3 needs 3 skill points. If you choose to gamble your skill points to raise your proficiency instantly, you must succeed on the next time you use the skill you're trying to improve or lose those skill points. It's safer to save them and spend them when you level up, but you can only improve your proficiency once per level if you save your skill points.
The skill points you save can only be spent on the skill you practiced, not on a skill you DIDN'T, but you CAN save as many skill points for a certain skill as you want, so if you're a lucky bugger who managed to save up 7 skill points for say, medicine, over the course of a week, you could potentially raise it from +2 to +4, performing medicine like a 9th level...which, looking at it, really isn't THAT big of a bonus, but if your stats suck, it could mean all the difference in the world.
It's not that complicated, I just explained it poorly. Yay me.
This seems... highly abuseable. A 1st level rogue could technically have +12 in a skill only from proficiency, just at level 1. I think that ib this case, the normal way is better. You're also saying that you hate the dice roller, but keep adding more rolls to do, a strange way of thinking if you ask me.
I agree with FireCat. Maybe if you put in a rule that your proficiency can never exceed your levelx2 or perhaps your level+2. That way a 1st level character can't have a proficiency in any skill higher than 3 but a 10th level character could have one up to 12.
The current rules allow for learning new tools and languages (Downtime Activities, TCoE), albeit your proficiency remains the same. There are no official methods I know of to increase ability scores or earn a proficiency in a skill...wouldn't mind seeing something like that. Also, realistically speaking, with enough time and training, improving an existing skill or learning a new one ceases to be about chance and becomes just about time.
RE: dice rolls, you've added a lot of chance into the mix which doesn't really fit life. Also, I'm not understanding how the dice roll and expending skill points works.
If you feel like progression is something that's important to you though, there's a good way to do it RP-wise without changing much in the way the game works. I'm running this idea for one of my group, here's the way I introduced it to them:
"The way levelling in this adventure usually works is by Milestone Levelling which means that at certain points you all level up. If I don't level you all up at the same time, it doesn't mean you will have level gaps bigger than one level above (levels 3 and 4, for example). My point is, I don't want you to just come back from a small trip and suddenly the wizard just knows more spells, the fighter found out he can use magic and the druid just remembered that time where he dreamed he was a butterfly and couldn't decide whether he's a man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man. Rather, I would prefer the wizard to learn these spells during downtime where he has time to focus on that, the fighter, in this case, learns to use magic through watching the wizard and the druid... well... maybe in a pinch he prayed for his ancient god of spiders to save him, suddenly finding himself to become a spider. Idk. I would also let you know a little earlier that you're going to level up soon so you'd know that it's about to happen, that way you'll know to aim for that. It can be many different things, or not. I want to try it, but only if it's fine by you all."
In practice, I have them RP learning new abilities, new spells and everything all the time. They might level up but receive only some of the benefits, but not all. For example, our 3rd level Ranger doesn't have their subclass yet (though they're expected to receive it very soon) and our Sorcerer only knows one of their Metamagic. By RP training these things, I allow them to get the abilities later. To avoid having people still trying to find a way to RP abilities like Divine Health (Paladin 3rd level), I either help them with outside events, characters that teach them or dreams. I really like dreams, so I use that often. Otherwise, they gain all the benefits of any level they didn't manage to complete when they level up again (receiving the 3rd level abilities once they reach 4th, automatically; for example).
I could explain more if you like the idea, or not.
This seems... highly abuseable. A 1st level rogue could technically have +12 in a skill only from proficiency, just at level 1. I think that ib this case, the normal way is better. You're also saying that you hate the dice roller, but keep adding more rolls to do, a strange way of thinking if you ask me.
I'm MOSTLY being facetious about the dice roller. Mostly.
Ahh, I definitely see the hole, yeah. If you basically save up as many skill points as you want, you could take a couple of weeks off and do nothing but practice and have enough skill points to raise your proficiency to a ridiculous level. Yeah, definitely ripe for abuse.
So, no skill point saving. You can only store up as many skill points as you need to raise your skill level, and you need to make the choice to gamble it or save it.
The current rules allow for learning new tools and languages (Downtime Activities, TCoE), albeit your proficiency remains the same. There are no official methods I know of to increase ability scores or earn a proficiency in a skill...wouldn't mind seeing something like that. Also, realistically speaking, with enough time and training, improving an existing skill or learning a new one ceases to be about chance and becomes just about time.
RE: dice rolls, you've added a lot of chance into the mix which doesn't really fit life. Also, I'm not understanding how the dice roll and expending skill points works.
Yeah, that's something that I've disliked from day 1, that your physical stats are completely and totally locked outside of magic effects or leveling up, and can't be improved with intense training. Not only is it restrictive from a gameplay aspect, but it doesn't make much narrative sense. How many stories have we seen where a frail, underestimated character throws himself at hard work and emerges as concrete slab smuggling melons under his skin?
Main problem with that though is I'm not sure what would be a balanced AND fun way to depict training. Like, my first instinct is to say if you're trying to increase your stats, you have to sacrifice XP gains because your character is focusing on their physical attributes rather than learning from their experiences and it takes a certain number of 'training points' to raise your ability score, so you would be actively sacrificing overall character growth for those GAINS BRO. I mean, thematically, it makes a LITTLE sense. You're running around in full armour, getting into fights, exerting huge amounts of energy, yeah, I can see that making ANYONE physically more capable over time, but it's also not actually focusing on training, either. Don't even get me started on whether or not it should even be possible to train INT or WIS.
Raising your skills isn't really JUST about chance though, because you have to actively set aside practice time without distractions. This means you can't just practice out in the field, you need to be in a safe place where you're not worrying about watching for trouble or exposed.
Here's how the rolling works, super super simplified and revised to be a little bit harder to succeed because KJ sucks at exposition.
Roll 1D6+2. This is the number of times you get to make skill rolls. Practice, no matter what you roll, eats up 8 hours of your day regardless however, and if you're interrupted in a narratively significant way, the practice is LOST. Rolling low implies your character just isn't that focused that day.
Next, for your skill rolls, you need to roll below 10+INT bonuses. If you don't have any INT bonuses, the roll can't go any lower than 10 (though that's debatable). Your goal proficiency bonus is ADDED to your roll.
So, say you're a level 2 character with a respectable 15 INT. This means you need to roll below 12, 10+2. You already have +2 proficiency but you're trying to raise it to +3, so 3 is added to your die roll. Add what you're trying to get to, not what you already have.
So, in this case, your roll would look like 1D20+3 with the goal being lower than 12. And, just like death saves, you need to succeed in rolling under the goal 3 times in a row. Rolling a 1 counts as 2 successes.
So, say you rolled 6(4+2, this guarantees that you roll at LEAST 3 times) for the number of skill rolls, so you'd roll 1D20+3 six times. If you roll under 12 three times in a row ANYWHERE in that block of rolls, you get 1 skill point. You may only get 1 skill point per day.
This also means that every time your skill increases, it gets harder and harder to succeed in getting skill points, meaning more and more time spent practicing, unless you're incredibly, and I do mean INCREDIBLY lucky.
Math ramble!
Mathematically, it gets exponentially harder to make your rolls once you hit +4 proficiency, even if you have 18 INT... let's face it, 15 is probably higher than most people would put their INT unless they're a wizard, in which case, they're not even really using SKILLS that often. Also, +4 isn't that huge of a bonus, either. +4 is only an additional 10% chance of success. So, say you have +4, you'd then be rolling 1D20+5 and trying to roll under 12. At 15 INT, that's a 35% chance of success over the course of 3 rolls in a row, and there's only a 12% chance of THAT happening unless you're lucky and get to roll 8 times for that day, in which case your odds improve to about 20% to get ONE skill point after being very lucky already. (excluding the possibility of rolling 1's, I don't feel like figuring out the math for that probability).
That's a 20% chance of getting a skill point for 8 rolls, and you'd have to do it 4 more times at LEAST. On average, to raise 5 skill points when you're at +4 proficiency and 15 INT (meaning you're mentally gifted already), you'd need to dedicate some 20 days to practice alone, and that's if you're super lucky and getting 8 skill rolls every day. That's a pretty significant amount of time you'd need to set aside even between adventures. Even rolling optimally, that's less than a 1 in 4 chance that your practice would be fruitful, and that's kind of how practice goes, frankly. Some days, you try your hardest and you just don't get any better, other days, you just hit upon a breakthrough while taking a break on the toilet.
After a certain point, you'd need a pretty realistic amount of hours practicing to get any better at your skill, and at least you're actually PRACTICING and not just 'somehow' getting better at skills you may not have even had to USE just because you hit level 5.
If you feel like progression is something that's important to you though, there's a good way to do it RP-wise without changing much in the way the game works. I'm running this idea for one of my group, here's the way I introduced it to them:
"The way levelling in this adventure usually works is by Milestone Levelling which means that at certain points you all level up. If I don't level you all up at the same time, it doesn't mean you will have level gaps bigger than one level above (levels 3 and 4, for example). My point is, I don't want you to just come back from a small trip and suddenly the wizard just knows more spells, the fighter found out he can use magic and the druid just remembered that time where he dreamed he was a butterfly and couldn't decide whether he's a man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man. Rather, I would prefer the wizard to learn these spells during downtime where he has time to focus on that, the fighter, in this case, learns to use magic through watching the wizard and the druid... well... maybe in a pinch he prayed for his ancient god of spiders to save him, suddenly finding himself to become a spider. Idk. I would also let you know a little earlier that you're going to level up soon so you'd know that it's about to happen, that way you'll know to aim for that. It can be many different things, or not. I want to try it, but only if it's fine by you all."
In practice, I have them RP learning new abilities, new spells and everything all the time. They might level up but receive only some of the benefits, but not all. For example, our 3rd level Ranger doesn't have their subclass yet (though they're expected to receive it very soon) and our Sorcerer only knows one of their Metamagic. By RP training these things, I allow them to get the abilities later. To avoid having people still trying to find a way to RP abilities like Divine Health (Paladin 3rd level), I either help them with outside events, characters that teach them or dreams. I really like dreams, so I use that often. Otherwise, they gain all the benefits of any level they didn't manage to complete when they level up again (receiving the 3rd level abilities once they reach 4th, automatically; for example).
I could explain more if you like the idea, or not.
I WOULD prefer to approach character growth in that way, but having rules in place, much like there are in this prelude, makes it easier on the folks who may or may not have very much time to type out posts to describe their character undergoing development to just roll and see what happens.. as long as I actually explain the rules well, which apparently I have trouble with.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
More simulations! Character INT: 13. Need to roll 10 or under. Current proficiency: +2, trying to get to 3.
Day 1: 7 Results of practice: 19211323 No skill points. Day 2: 4 Results of practice: 139196 1 skill point earned! (Rolled a 1 with a success involved) Day 3: 3 Results of practice: 114202123912
Yeah, this would be a pain to try and set up if say, you declared that your character is spending 2 weeks at a retreat to improve a certain skill. I should streamline this a bit more so it takes into consideration dedicated chunks of time rather than day-by-day practice.
Maybe, if you want to dedicate X days to practice, you get to roll 5 times a day, so a fixed number of chances rather than rolling day to day.
So say, player is dedicating a week in-game to practicing a skill, it'd end up looking like this...
Day 1: 20178218 Day 2: 84687 Day 3: 520151113 Day 4: 13913617 Day 5: 142223813 Day 6: 9410723 Day 7: 8911411
Bit ugly but not unmanageable. 2 skill points in a week. That's fair.
The HP system works the way it does to enhance game play. I can't think of a single player who really wants to role-play their character being laid-up for weeks on end while their vitality recovers. What does the rest of the party do? Play tiddly-winks? Twiddle their thumbs? If the DM simply says, "OK, 4 weeks have passed and your vitality is restored." what's the difference? I get it's not realistic for a character to take 100 points of damage, rest for 8 hours, and be good. Or, rather, it wouldn't be realistic if HP represented only the amount of physical damage a character can take, but it does not. It represents a whole lot more than that.
From the PHB, "Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile." I understand that desire to interject more 'realism' into the HP system, but I believe that desire stems from a belief (one I used to have) that Hit Points represents nothing more than a character's ability to absorb punishment. It does not. It represents how hard it is to kill a character (or monster), only part of which is physical damage.
A 10th level character is better at dodging, blocking, parrying, moving, using armor, positioning, etc. So a blow that might fell a 1st level character might 'miss' a 10th level character. It might hit the AC but 12 points of damage to 10th level fighter is a lot different than that same 12 points to a 1st level fighter. For example, a 1st fighter might not recognize that the large stone to his left will offer a bit of protection and is hit fully by the great axe. However, the 10th level fighter (with, say 70 HP), does recognize that so positions herself close it as her enemy closes and when the great axe swings, the enemy has to adjust for the rock and so the axe misses. The character took the same 12 points but isn't nearly as concerned about this as the 1st level fighter.
Do most players/DM take this into account when they role-play? No. Could they? Sure. Would it make for better role-playing? I think so.
All of the rules I've seen so far for adding 'realism' to D&D combat add more complexity, bookkeeping, and time to the players, or slow down game-play, or both. Another PBP game I'm in uses the 'gritty realism rules,' which means a short rest is a day and a long rest is a week. So, sure, that's more real. But what's the actual affect on the game? Instead of continuing with the adventure and fun, the party has to troop back to the city to rest for a week and adventure OVER. Now we have to put together another party (and putting together the first one took awhile) and that has to wait until there's a DM available. Result: End Of Fun. Yay...I'm so glad we added realism.
Just my two-cents.
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
^That...sounds like a drag. Some of the most fun games I've played have been really rules minimal (the RISUS system is fun, as is Dead Simple Role Playing). I think Lorrdwolf is right, how do we want to spend our time? I'd rather further the beautiful story we are making together! The story is most important to me. If we're too squishy? Maybe we should stick to fighting rats in the cellar for a while? I'm always in favor of simplification, but willing to adapt to play a part in this.
Fleabag Fleabane -Tabaxi Ranger | Lenny Coggins- Halfling Barbarian | Sid Shatterbuckle- Dwarf Fighter/Rogue| Lazlo - Satyr Bard in Training
Works for me. If we can some realism that others want, I'm OK as long as it doesn't unduly drag down play. I'm with SrDeebs...I'm loving the role-playing in this campaign. I can't wait to see what happens with Kallista and her journey to ranger-ness, and Hyre's love-affair with Barna while he struggles to deal with his emotional issues, and Lazlo's journey to I am not sure what XD is cool and I want to see what happens next.
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
Okay, after re-reading the rules a few times, I think I FINALLY understand how it works, but there are a few things I don't get. Say you're a fragile level 2 wizard. If you rolled your HP poorly and you're at 2 vitality that you could end up with a negative HP max from the CON penalty? Like, for your 2 hit dice, say you rolled a 1 and now you're at 3 vitality, meaning -4, so your fragile level 2 wizard who has 6 CON could have an HP max of 0. I'm assuming this system only works for fixed level HP gains. Also, as you take vitality damage, that means you'd be having to re-calculate your HP max CONSTANTLY doesn't it? That seems like a LOT of extra work that would just slow things down.
It also isn't clear exactly how vitality absorbs damage after HP is gone. I mean, to deplete someone with 17 vitality to 12, they'd have to take 50 damage right? And any overdamage is applied to vitality... so a level 2 character with 16 HP and 17 CON actually has 16 HP and 170 damage in vitality? Or suddenly vitality is only worth 1 HP of damage and they instead have a total of 32 damage they can take before they go down? The rules don't say. It also doesn't say if the healing to restore vitality has to be consecutive or not; so say you were at max HP and got healed for 7, got interrupted in a minor scuffle, restored back to full HP again, and healed for 13... does that restore 2 vitality or just the 1? Because again, this seems like a LOT more busywork and again I don't see how my vitality system is more complicated.
Also, do these rules apply to monsters too? Now I'm even more lost. How does that even apply to damage vulnerabilities and resistances and regeneration? The variant rules leave a lot of questions unanswered.
Again, I don't understand how the system works. Does a point of vitality mean 10 HP or not? There seem to be a lot of inconsistencies in how this system handles damage.
Personally, I'm more for crits meaning 'double total damage' rather than 'additional dice' because if you rolled for lousy damage but have +3, a bad greatsword crit goes from doing a disappointing 7 damage to at least a respectable 14.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Yar, I'm not going to shove any additional rules at you guys unless it's necessary. Again, this is just coming from what I've seen of the D&DB dice. There have been a LOT of 1's rolled... WAY more than there have been nat 20's. I find the dice bias highly suspect.
Like, if I'm doing my job right, there won't even be a need for the 'cinematic' rules... but damn if the dice roller here hasn't trolled us. If my tally is right, it took Kallista 14 tries to roll higher than 13 for her medicine skill increase. That's just cruel.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I don't particularly like the dice roller- it does usually spit out garbage... (My 'favorite' dice at home gave me four nat 20's last game at home. He's a keeper... but he throws in some natural 1's as well) but is there an easy alternative? Not that I can think of
Fleabag Fleabane -Tabaxi Ranger | Lenny Coggins- Halfling Barbarian | Sid Shatterbuckle- Dwarf Fighter/Rogue| Lazlo - Satyr Bard in Training
Shhhh!! It'll hear you!
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Ha!! I mean the dice roller is my best friend, my best friend in my whole life.
Fleabag Fleabane -Tabaxi Ranger | Lenny Coggins- Halfling Barbarian | Sid Shatterbuckle- Dwarf Fighter/Rogue| Lazlo - Satyr Bard in Training
Well, for one, the way the campaign is going right now, we're mostly in a city anyways. Also, finally, a good reason to stay in town for other campaigns. I run the DoIP campaign to two groups now, and it annoys me to see people coming home after a life-and-death experience, only to set on another one before even sleeping.
Both these rules require the DM to know they're going to use them, that's true. The adventure must be made in order to support them. The way of going back to the city is one option. Another option is just very long survival, with many small encounters. None of the encounters is particularly deadly, but over time, it makes it all harder. You are tired, hurt, hungry... Fighting those 3 goblins might not be as easy anymore. It makes sense.
The particular campaign you're bringing up has other issues, but it's not the rule's fault, it's actually the fault of the DMs choosing to run it for so many people, or for so many people to want to join. Both, actually.
As for the story, the way it's going so far, I don't really see how the extra rules hurt it, other than slowing us down by making us argue about them instead of playing. As we are waiting on Leon anyway, however, I'm not sure if it slows us that much.
Also, in the defense of the dice roller, I believe it's fine. Overall, I think my rolls are balanced. I had bad times and good times, fortunate characters and unfortunate characters. Despite all that, I believe my average roll would be ~10 and that I rolled about as many 1's on the d20 as I have 20's. If anything, I may have rolled more 20's.
I'm not sure I understand. You're a level 2 Wizard with 6 in Con, right? You rolled for HP but got a 1. So now, you have a max of 6+1+Con mod*level=3 HP. If you lose another Vitality point, your max will be 1. Two more points (3 total) lost and your max really is <0. At this point, though, it's as if you have 3 in Con (score, not mod). If you rolled for stats and got a 3 and chose to put it in Con, you'd have the same. You'll essentially be dead by reaching level 2. No Vitality, just normal rules.
As for calculating the max HP, you just reduce it by your level for each time you lose 2 points (just like having your Con mod reduced). I don't find this a hard calculation, especially through PbP where we have quite a lot of time for simple math.
You lose vitality equal to the damage taken divided by 10, rounded down. Vulnerability/Resistance halves/doubles the damage taken, that is all, so they'd happen before the x/10 calculation. Crits lower 2x that amount, with a minimum of 1.
Once your HP goes to 0, you lose Vitality instead. So, 16 HP and 17 Con characters have essentially 33 points to take, though they might lose them at different rates. If they take 1 damage every time, they can take it 33 times. If they take 10 damage in a single hit, it lowers 11 from that 33. A critical hit dealing 10 damage would lower 12 from the 33. Thinking about the two pools together will only confuse you, though.
As for healing, it truly doesn't say. Personally, I'd just rule it to require a 10+ healing in a single moment/spell's casting/hit dice rolled/whatever.
No. There are multiple ways to lose Vitality. Crits deal more damage to it. When your normal HP is 0, you take direct normal damage to it. Normal hits when you have HP deal only x/10 damage to the Vitality, rounded down.
Varielky
Getting OFF of combat, something else I had rattling around in my brain that I wanted to address and get opinions on.
Once the prelude is over, we'll be using standard rules so you won't be able to learn skills like you did before... but that got me thinking, why NOT? I mean, obviously, the skill learning rules I have in place are super simplified and just a bit too convenient. If we kept things the way they are to build proficiency bonuses, you guys would have like, +10 from proficiency before you're even level 3.
However, I don't really buy how SLOW you gain proficiency either. Like, getting +4 doesn't happen until you're level 9. I'm not a fan of how slow skills build over time, or how you just automatically gain proficiency in all of them at once no matter what.
Put simply, I want to offer different ways for characters to grow. So much of D&D is tied to your ability scores, but what about characters with more average stats who work harder to keep up? Does natural ability just trump hard work? I don't think so, so for characters with not-so-stellar ability scores, this offers an avenue for a character who maybe wasn't the most blessed genetically to keep up with the gods-among-men through sheer hard work and dedication.
So, I'm trying to think of some simple but organic rules to introduce a means to gain proficiency in a way that's not too easy but not overblown. Like, the rules for 'training' are pretty vague. I'm just spitballing here.
The Sims route (little complicated, but seems the most fun and RP-centric):
Basically, as per the PHB, you need to be 'trained' by a professional at the skill you want to learn. Roll a d100 and add your INT and keep rolling until you roll at least 75(a fairly respectable grade). Every failed roll represents a week it will take for your character to learn 'the basics'. Once your character knows 'the basics' they no longer need a trainer, and from then on need to practice their skill on their own time.
(In the Sims 3, learning 'the basics' of a skill took a while, but after your Sim got the basics, you would gain levels a LOT faster than it took to get to level 1. I don't know if it was just a glitch in my game due to the mods I was using, but level 1 always takes forever unless you take a class or learn it from a book.)
Just like before, you need to be in perfect condition to practice, not hurt, hungry, tired, or otherwise burdened for the practice to be effective. You must be allowed to conceate. Yes, this isn't exactly how it happens in real life but it keeps you from practicing a skill while nursing a deep gash or nearly fainting from hunger, which is not very LIKELY to be effective. You may only practice for 1D6+2 hours in that day (without interruptions) before your noodle gets baked from the effort. Some days, it just takes longer to get your focus.
For every hour you practice, you make a skill roll, trying to roll UNDER your INT. For every bonus point in proficiency you have, that RAISES your skill roll. So, if you're trying to get +3 proficiency in a skill you're practicing and you have 15 INT, you need to roll UNDER 15 but your skill roll will have +3 added to it, making it harder as you get more proficient. Like death saves, you need 3 in a row during your practice to earn a 'skill point'. This you can mark down on your character sheet under your notes as 'skill points for X'. After a long rest, you may invest the skill points you have to try and increase your proficiency OR save them for a level up.
You need as many skill points as proficiency bonuses that you have, so if you've just learned 'the basics' you don't even have +1 yet, so you only need 1 skill point to gain a +1 proficiency. +2 needs 2, etc. You can save up as many skill points as you like. If the dice are hot, milk those suckers!
If you choose to invest your skill points after a long rest, there is a chance the points won't take. After reflecting on all the practice you did, the next time you perform the skill you want to raise, whether it be proficiency in a weapon, language, or other skill, if you fail to hit or succeed, those skill points are lost and you don't improve. It's a gamble. Succeed, however, and the proficiency bonus is yours!
If you choose to save your skill points for a level up, you may apply them without the gamble. Patience is rewarded.
Again, this is a throwback to 3.5 when INT was just a good AS to have no matter what class you are as it allowed you to build proficiency way faster instead of only being important for wizards and artificers and sometimes rogues. INT doesn't get very much love in 5e. Having a high INT makes it way easier to build skills, as you would kind of expect it to.
The Elder Scrolls route:
Same as before, but after you've learned 'the basics', your time logged practicing is instead what's important. Time, and nothing else. You want to improve, every point of proficiency bonus represents 100 hours of practice. Going beyond +2 means 300 hours of practice that you need to log on your character sheet. Simple but grindy.
The 'breakthrough' route:
Some say that improvement, real, appreciable improvement comes from 'eureka' moments, great leaps and bounds after discovering new ways to do skills more effectively. This is the most gambly of the skill building routes, as you are entirely dependent on chance whether you EVER improve from your practice.
Practice eats up 1 long rest. You don't get any of the benefits of the long rest while you practice, and you end the practice with 1 level of exhaustion. Roll 1D4. This is the number of chances you get to roll a nat 20. No skill points, no INT bonuses to improve your odds, you need to roll a 20 to increase your proficiency or that time all goes to waste.
Skills as combat:
Something something something sacrifice XP gains for proficiency gains I haven't thought this one totally through yet something about picturing the barrier for skill improvement as being like a combat encounter and you have to 'defeat' your skill block before you can get better maybe help me out on this something something......
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Simulations for skill building using the Sims route.
Character INT: 14
Current proficiency: +2
day 1: 4
Practice results: 79 ooh so close
day 2: 6
Practice results: 88
There's 1 skill point.
day 3: 7
Practice results: 46
day 4: 7
Practice results: 40
day 5: 8
Practice results: 62
Eyyy there's 2 skill points. Oh dammit, the dice broke.
day 6: 3
Practice results:76
Now, if nat 20's and 1's are counted as 2, like with death saves, then that would be 3 points. That was nearly a week with 35 hours of dedicated practice. I think it'd be fair to say that someone working that hard would probably see some real improvement if that's what they were spending the majority of their effort of the day on.
One more day! Make it a full training camp.
day 7: 6
Practice results: 39
Oh dang, lucky rolls there. So 4 skill points in 1 week, and that's with a character with pretty decent INT, to boot. Hmm. If you had 18 INT, it would be pretty damn hard to fail... but at the same time, you're basically playing a genius at that point. hmmmmmm.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
OK...that's very complicated.
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
Simplified Sims version: You can attempt skill rolls 1D6+2 times a day when you've declared that you're going to practice. You need to roll under your INT on a d20. Your current proficiency bonus is added to your skill roll, making it harder to roll under your INT the more skilled you are, but the higher your INT is, the easier it is to roll under. Yeah, it's kind of like THACO. You need 3 successes in a row to get a skill point.
So, if you have 14 INT and +3 proficiency, the roll would look like this:
Practice time: 6 hours.
Results:
18
17, 18, 17... no skill points that day. You need to roll UNDER your INT. My simulation post got the dice roller all borked up.
Rather, to make it way easier to read, yeah, just roll the d20's separately.
Results: 23 7 16
No skill points for that day's training... though part of me wants to say that rolling a 1 or a 20 counts as 2 successes, kind of like critical failures or successes for death saves, in which case that WOULD mean that day's practice would net 1 skill point for the day. I do question whether that would make it too easy to get skill points, though.
Skill points can be saved or gambled for instant increases to proficiency after a long rest. You must declare that you intend to spend your skill points after your long rest. This is basically your character reflecting on what they learned during their time practicing.
You need as many skill points as the proficiency bonus, so +3 needs 3 skill points. If you choose to gamble your skill points to raise your proficiency instantly, you must succeed on the next time you use the skill you're trying to improve or lose those skill points. It's safer to save them and spend them when you level up, but you can only improve your proficiency once per level if you save your skill points.
The skill points you save can only be spent on the skill you practiced, not on a skill you DIDN'T, but you CAN save as many skill points for a certain skill as you want, so if you're a lucky bugger who managed to save up 7 skill points for say, medicine, over the course of a week, you could potentially raise it from +2 to +4, performing medicine like a 9th level...which, looking at it, really isn't THAT big of a bonus, but if your stats suck, it could mean all the difference in the world.
It's not that complicated, I just explained it poorly. Yay me.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
This seems... highly abuseable. A 1st level rogue could technically have +12 in a skill only from proficiency, just at level 1. I think that ib this case, the normal way is better. You're also saying that you hate the dice roller, but keep adding more rolls to do, a strange way of thinking if you ask me.
Varielky
I agree with FireCat. Maybe if you put in a rule that your proficiency can never exceed your levelx2 or perhaps your level+2. That way a 1st level character can't have a proficiency in any skill higher than 3 but a 10th level character could have one up to 12.
The current rules allow for learning new tools and languages (Downtime Activities, TCoE), albeit your proficiency remains the same. There are no official methods I know of to increase ability scores or earn a proficiency in a skill...wouldn't mind seeing something like that. Also, realistically speaking, with enough time and training, improving an existing skill or learning a new one ceases to be about chance and becomes just about time.
RE: dice rolls, you've added a lot of chance into the mix which doesn't really fit life. Also, I'm not understanding how the dice roll and expending skill points works.
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
If you feel like progression is something that's important to you though, there's a good way to do it RP-wise without changing much in the way the game works. I'm running this idea for one of my group, here's the way I introduced it to them:
"The way levelling in this adventure usually works is by Milestone Levelling which means that at certain points you all level up. If I don't level you all up at the same time, it doesn't mean you will have level gaps bigger than one level above (levels 3 and 4, for example). My point is, I don't want you to just come back from a small trip and suddenly the wizard just knows more spells, the fighter found out he can use magic and the druid just remembered that time where he dreamed he was a butterfly and couldn't decide whether he's a man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man. Rather, I would prefer the wizard to learn these spells during downtime where he has time to focus on that, the fighter, in this case, learns to use magic through watching the wizard and the druid... well... maybe in a pinch he prayed for his ancient god of spiders to save him, suddenly finding himself to become a spider. Idk. I would also let you know a little earlier that you're going to level up soon so you'd know that it's about to happen, that way you'll know to aim for that. It can be many different things, or not. I want to try it, but only if it's fine by you all."
In practice, I have them RP learning new abilities, new spells and everything all the time. They might level up but receive only some of the benefits, but not all. For example, our 3rd level Ranger doesn't have their subclass yet (though they're expected to receive it very soon) and our Sorcerer only knows one of their Metamagic. By RP training these things, I allow them to get the abilities later. To avoid having people still trying to find a way to RP abilities like Divine Health (Paladin 3rd level), I either help them with outside events, characters that teach them or dreams. I really like dreams, so I use that often. Otherwise, they gain all the benefits of any level they didn't manage to complete when they level up again (receiving the 3rd level abilities once they reach 4th, automatically; for example).
I could explain more if you like the idea, or not.
Varielky
There’s nothing wrong at all with requiring training to get the benefit of the brw levels
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
I'm MOSTLY being facetious about the dice roller. Mostly.
Ahh, I definitely see the hole, yeah. If you basically save up as many skill points as you want, you could take a couple of weeks off and do nothing but practice and have enough skill points to raise your proficiency to a ridiculous level. Yeah, definitely ripe for abuse.
So, no skill point saving. You can only store up as many skill points as you need to raise your skill level, and you need to make the choice to gamble it or save it.
Yeah, that's something that I've disliked from day 1, that your physical stats are completely and totally locked outside of magic effects or leveling up, and can't be improved with intense training. Not only is it restrictive from a gameplay aspect, but it doesn't make much narrative sense. How many stories have we seen where a frail, underestimated character throws himself at hard work and emerges as concrete slab smuggling melons under his skin?
Main problem with that though is I'm not sure what would be a balanced AND fun way to depict training. Like, my first instinct is to say if you're trying to increase your stats, you have to sacrifice XP gains because your character is focusing on their physical attributes rather than learning from their experiences and it takes a certain number of 'training points' to raise your ability score, so you would be actively sacrificing overall character growth for those GAINS BRO.
I mean, thematically, it makes a LITTLE sense. You're running around in full armour, getting into fights, exerting huge amounts of energy, yeah, I can see that making ANYONE physically more capable over time, but it's also not actually focusing on training, either.
Don't even get me started on whether or not it should even be possible to train INT or WIS.
Raising your skills isn't really JUST about chance though, because you have to actively set aside practice time without distractions. This means you can't just practice out in the field, you need to be in a safe place where you're not worrying about watching for trouble or exposed.
Here's how the rolling works, super super simplified and revised to be a little bit harder to succeed because KJ sucks at exposition.
Roll 1D6+2. This is the number of times you get to make skill rolls. Practice, no matter what you roll, eats up 8 hours of your day regardless however, and if you're interrupted in a narratively significant way, the practice is LOST. Rolling low implies your character just isn't that focused that day.
Next, for your skill rolls, you need to roll below 10+INT bonuses. If you don't have any INT bonuses, the roll can't go any lower than 10 (though that's debatable). Your goal proficiency bonus is ADDED to your roll.
So, say you're a level 2 character with a respectable 15 INT. This means you need to roll below 12, 10+2. You already have +2 proficiency but you're trying to raise it to +3, so 3 is added to your die roll. Add what you're trying to get to, not what you already have.
So, in this case, your roll would look like 1D20+3 with the goal being lower than 12. And, just like death saves, you need to succeed in rolling under the goal 3 times in a row. Rolling a 1 counts as 2 successes.
So, say you rolled 6(4+2, this guarantees that you roll at LEAST 3 times) for the number of skill rolls, so you'd roll 1D20+3 six times. If you roll under 12 three times in a row ANYWHERE in that block of rolls, you get 1 skill point. You may only get 1 skill point per day.
This also means that every time your skill increases, it gets harder and harder to succeed in getting skill points, meaning more and more time spent practicing, unless you're incredibly, and I do mean INCREDIBLY lucky.
Math ramble!
Mathematically, it gets exponentially harder to make your rolls once you hit +4 proficiency, even if you have 18 INT... let's face it, 15 is probably higher than most people would put their INT unless they're a wizard, in which case, they're not even really using SKILLS that often. Also, +4 isn't that huge of a bonus, either. +4 is only an additional 10% chance of success. So, say you have +4, you'd then be rolling 1D20+5 and trying to roll under 12. At 15 INT, that's a 35% chance of success over the course of 3 rolls in a row, and there's only a 12% chance of THAT happening unless you're lucky and get to roll 8 times for that day, in which case your odds improve to about 20% to get ONE skill point after being very lucky already. (excluding the possibility of rolling 1's, I don't feel like figuring out the math for that probability).
That's a 20% chance of getting a skill point for 8 rolls, and you'd have to do it 4 more times at LEAST. On average, to raise 5 skill points when you're at +4 proficiency and 15 INT (meaning you're mentally gifted already), you'd need to dedicate some 20 days to practice alone, and that's if you're super lucky and getting 8 skill rolls every day. That's a pretty significant amount of time you'd need to set aside even between adventures. Even rolling optimally, that's less than a 1 in 4 chance that your practice would be fruitful, and that's kind of how practice goes, frankly. Some days, you try your hardest and you just don't get any better, other days, you just hit upon a breakthrough while taking a break on the toilet.
After a certain point, you'd need a pretty realistic amount of hours practicing to get any better at your skill, and at least you're actually PRACTICING and not just 'somehow' getting better at skills you may not have even had to USE just because you hit level 5.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I WOULD prefer to approach character growth in that way, but having rules in place, much like there are in this prelude, makes it easier on the folks who may or may not have very much time to type out posts to describe their character undergoing development to just roll and see what happens.. as long as I actually explain the rules well, which apparently I have trouble with.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
More simulations!
Character INT: 13. Need to roll 10 or under.
Current proficiency: +2, trying to get to 3.
Day 1: 7
Results of practice: 19 21 13 23
No skill points.
Day 2: 4
Results of practice: 13 9 19 6
1 skill point earned! (Rolled a 1 with a success involved)
Day 3: 3
Results of practice: 11 4 20 21 23 9 12
Yeah, this would be a pain to try and set up if say, you declared that your character is spending 2 weeks at a retreat to improve a certain skill. I should streamline this a bit more so it takes into consideration dedicated chunks of time rather than day-by-day practice.
Maybe, if you want to dedicate X days to practice, you get to roll 5 times a day, so a fixed number of chances rather than rolling day to day.
So say, player is dedicating a week in-game to practicing a skill, it'd end up looking like this...
Day 1: 20 17 8 21 8
Day 2: 8 4 6 8 7
Day 3: 5 20 15 11 13
Day 4: 13 9 13 6 17
Day 5: 14 22 23 8 13
Day 6: 9 4 10 7 23
Day 7: 8 9 11 4 11
Bit ugly but not unmanageable. 2 skill points in a week. That's fair.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.