Expertise: A new experimental Stat

homebrew
#5

Thanks! It was an idea that has been pretty sticky in my head, even if it’s mutated around a bit.

#6

I was thinking that this is what the easy/hard mechanic was addressing. I’m not totally against the idea though. Would be interested to hear from anyone that tries this out in their games.

#7

Does anybody really use EASY/HARD to say every attack by warriors is EASY? Every spell cast by wizards is EASY? Every stealth roll by a shadow is EASY? Because that hasn’t been my experience at all.

Maybe I’m an outlier, but I feel like Expertise and EASY/HARD do different things, for different fictional reasons, and can coexist without overlap.

#8

I am reminded of what backgrounds are for in 13th Age (although there is more back and forth between player and GM to narratively make sense of applying the background-bonus to a skill roll).

Player: “My character was part of the Nemesian Guard that prides itself on quick combat reflexes, so when rolling DEX, I should get my background bonus of +5.”
GM: “Yeah, you are right. Roll DEX plus your background.”

I would probably try to cover expertise with tags, instead of having separate stat. Those tags can also be focused on narrative rather than mechanic by not having a clear rule attached to them so what the tag “Nemesian Guard” means, can be decided in play.

#9

I normally let players roll EASY if its something their character had in their background or profession TAG, but I am really intrigued by the floating stats that lets the player choose what they like to boost in a particular situation; better chance to hit, do more fixed damage, longer range. I think I’ll give it a shot at our table and see how it goes.

#10

I did talk about something similar, before: Proficiency for Effort?

And Five Torches Deep did something along those lines, if you’re interested in reading, I recommend that book.

Cheers!

#11

Oh, that seems like a very similar idea. And you were proposing a list of skills that would define the actions that got the effort bonus? And I guess each PC gets a set number of skills?

#12

Something along those lines, related to their classes, with additional tags for them to add their bonus to if they want!

Instead, we could split the proficiency bonus for checks & attempts, so you’d have two, and one applies to Effort?

#13

Yeah, you could have it floating, able to be applied to either, or separate boxes, and the player simply checks the box for applying to the attempt or the effort; that feels to me like a really easy way to handle taking the same skill twice.

#14

Or three times, since you also wanted it to apply to the critical range which is a pretty cool thing to have as well!

#15

So to be clear, you aren’t giving players more power, you’re giving them a more specialized outlet for their power.

My initial criticism was that giving characters a +2 proficiency bonus to use just means I’m gonna end up ramping up the TARGET by 2. I recall another person on here saying they assume all characters are proficient, and that’s why the TARGET stays at 12.

If I’m understanding correctly though, you’re not giving anyone an “Expertise” bonus, you’re giving people a way to invest in “class” features instead of STAT features.

So I could build a fighter by putting 3 points in STR, or by putting 1 in STR and 2 in EXP. Same “attack” roll, but the first fighter is also good at smashing down doors, while the second is gonna be better at something like repairing armor.

#16

Exactly! You got it.

#17

One could be called Proficiency or Mastery and the other Impact.

You apply Proficiency to appropriate D20 rolls and Impact to the Effort rolls of the right category. Some categories are specific to D20 rolls, others to Effort rolls, but tags can be assigned to whichever so the system remains flexible.

Then you play with this: Effort and The Single target - Rule alternative?

What do you think? :smile:

Separating effort types from bonuses
#18

I worry a little about the number of terms and what they mean; now you have two different terms basically relating to different categories of bonus, and an indeterminate number of tags which seek to define when those bonuses apply. I personally like to keep tags separate from mechanical rules to keep them in the realm of a fictional descriptor, and away from the code name of a rule set.

As for defining the target based on the kind of action being undertaken, I just think about the discussions of whether or not GUN effort was a good idea, or if we should have just kept it to TOOL/WEAPON and MAGIC/ENERGY. Like is swimming across a river a survival action or a physical action? Is a political debate, even an impromptu one, a social action or a proficiency action when debating a professional politician? It’s a really cool idea, by the hierarchy is just less intuitive, and as I see it more prone to debate - but that’s armchair game design. Have you played this way? How has it gone?

#19

I have so many thoughts about this that my head has been spinning all day!

It bothered me so much that all melee weapons were STR based when I first picked up ICRPG. The fact that you can’t build a guy who’s a hand to hand fighter without also building a guy who is good at breaking down doors seems really weird. Why is it STR to swing a 5 pound, balanced sword, and DEX to draw a 150 pound Warbow?

I finally figured out that it’s because it’s a game. You need a melee stat and a ranged stat, STR and DEX are tradition. Now, I’m actually thinking about simplifying even further, but that’ll have to wait for another post.

I think this is a really cool way of solving some of the weirdness that results from the standard DnD stats trying to cover all possible actions. I’ll definitely be thinking about this idea for awhile, I’ll try to let you know if I have any useful thoughts!

#20

EFFORT POINTS are the only bit of the ICRPG rules that I am not fancy too much.
During the character creations, giving bonuses to dice by “size” rather than by what they represent in-game seems a very video-gaming thing to do to me.

And I think this Expertise stat really has the potential of fixing this. The Exp bonus to Effort gives the feeling of the payoff of the character training, and it is extremely easy to use as Merlitron proposed.

We are testing this with a different set of stats that is also interesting in the Merlitron’s game. So there is still tests to do. The first trial of the EXP stat wasn’t convincing me, but this current version seems very promising.

My take on this for character creations with the usual ICRPG/DnD stats would be playing with 7 Stat (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA, and EXP) and 7 Points (or 8 if an odd number feels strange) to give them.
Then no Points for efforts, but instead list 4 simple words (or 3 or 2, again, it depends from balancing) where the characters can apply the EXP bonus to them. I might call them Expertise Tags.

I.e. for the fighter before the four Tags might be Fencing, Armor crafting, Tactics, and Survival. And it would get the EXP bonus in any action related to those with GM approval.

And if 7 Stat feels weird, the Exp might get into WIS, substituting WIS to EXP at all or just giving this additional Expertise’ use to the WIS.

#21

I’m probably wrong, but it seems the recent addition of Abilities into the ME rules covers the general objective of this thread. Abilities have a lot of range in their mechanical application (similar to Stunts in Fate Core) and are class specific. Since ICRPG culture is largely about homebrewing, I don’t see why a homebrewed Ability couldn’t grant a bonus to a probability or effort roll.

To your point about effort bonuses, this also bothered me a little until I took BlazingPolyhedron’s perspective that equates skill proficiency with efficiency of effort application. It’s still gamey to have only 5 areas of skill proficiency, but it keeps things simple. An easy alternative is to use the five efforts as a means of determining loot effectiveness, but having custom effort bonuses as both BlazingPolyhedron and The_Merlitron have recommended or alluded to.

#22

As an ability, how much bonus would be provided? Right now it draws from the same pool as your stats, so it’s a matter of investment at character creation or milestone rewards. What would you see this looking like as an ability (which would mean not having something else as an ability, and this being kinda the focus of the character - maybe like a lucky fool type?)?

#23

Personally, I use the “pay for progression” method. I feel it gives my players more agency, and, once I’ve designed the economy, it takes a load off my shoulders.

As my players traverse the world, they acquire various loot or coin that can used or traded for more preferable loot at shops that exist in various places. Abilities could be learned in a similar fashion by paying a trainer at these locations. How much an Ability upgrade costs would depend on the overall benefit received.

As a simple example, and to make progression exponentially more difficult, an upgrade to a +1 Ability might cost 100 coin. A +2 ability might cost 300 coin. +3, 600 coin, etc. (Using a 1+2+3 progressive algorithm).

Alternately, you could make ability increases based on Effort expended. So a character could, during non-combat turns, expend effort toward a desired new ability or an increase to their existing class specific abilities.

In either case, conscious effort by the player is required in order to progress, which I always thought made them more invested in the game.

#24

So if someone picked this as a starting ability, it would begin at +1?