Expertise: A new experimental Stat

homebrew

#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?


#25

Sure.

If the objective is to emulate the rags to riches experience of 5e, +1 with the option to grow the ability would be ideal. You could also start that ability much higher depending on the type of game you were looking to play.


#26

Well, that seems like a perfectly reasonable way to do it, but I’ll admit, I’m a little fuzzy on what is gained in terms of options by making it specifically an ability - as opposed to any other kind of milestone reward. Still, rock on with whatever makes sense in your head.


#27

For the students I’ve merged Wis and Int into “Smarts” ( I got tired of differentiating the two) so that may be a way to keep it at 6 slots without technically losing much. If a difference needs to be made on what you are “smart” in thats where the Exp dice/tags could come in- religion, medicine, arcane, science and so on.


#28

Similar to @Nivek’s suggestion, one thing you can do for progression/demonstrating expertise is to allow players to make Target rolls and Effort checks during down time to customize or even craft their loot to determine their progression in a more direct fashion. I’ve always been more for the Core edition’s focus of Loot being the power of the character, but also like players being able to customize their direction and tweak starting gear/milestone rewards to fit their character. Downtime customization Attempts were my solution, and the players really loved it in my Warp Shell campaign.

Basically, the players can each make X Attempts for anything they want during their downtime, and depending what it is you as the GM can set the Effort accordingly. For example:

“The party arrives back in town after a successful mission! Things are peaceful for now, meaning you’ll have about a week of downtime to recover. You get to make 3 Attempts worth of downtime activities.”

  • Player 1 wants to add a STR +1 effect to their magical vampiric sword. I tell them they can make a TARGET attempt to complete 2 hearts of basic effort to grant this effect. This can represent training their muscles, adding magic enhancements, or learning more effective techniques with the gear, but the end result is their sword gets the trait “While equipped: STR +1.”

  • Player 2 wants to make a new magic staff imbued with a Levitate spell. They can make a TARGET to complete 2 hearts of basic effort to craft the gear. With the completion done, player obtains the loot item “Staff of Levitation.”

  • Player 3 wants to raise their INT by 2. They can either follow Player 1’s example and add the effect to a piece of loot (4 hearts effort for +2 instead of 2 hearts for +1), or you can change it and make the attempt a VERY HARD check and/or double the EFFORT if they want to make it innate. On completion, the player gains 2 attribute points in INT.

  • Player 4 wants to learn how to treat wounds in case they run out of magical potions. For each heart of effort they complete, they can choose 1 specific type of injury to become an EASY check to patch up with a first aid kit (i.e. stabilizing/healing burns, cuts, stabs, broken bones, etc. becomes easier)

Any effort made against their effort objective is tracked, meaning if Player 1 only passes 2 attempts and completes 1 heart of effort to enhance his sword this time, next downtime he still only needs 1 heart to finish. This also allows for 2 other major changes: first, since effort persists, multiple different downtime goals can run simultaneously so that the players can make Attempts for 1 or more each downtime they get. Second, more niche and focused growth can be made easier while more ambitious goals can be given higher effort to simulate difficulty, time, and resource requirements.

Additionally, I like to have the players do a bit of role-play during their turns doing these: it can be full on conversations with the blacksmith NPC, a quick blurb about getting the materials from the apothecary, or a brief summary of the books they’re reading in the royal library during their Attempts. That also helps me flavor their success/failures and injects some life into it beyond a simple succeed/fail roll.


#29

That is exactly the same struggle I had with Wis/Int in general, and with a survival game I am prepping for my players in particular. And this is the same solution I decided to use to keep the 6 stats.
For simplicity, I will keep the tag INT and WIS that people are more familiar with, but giving this Expertise role and mechanics to Wis.


#30

I am definitely encouraging my players to do this. Awesome!


#31

It’s a bit off the main topic, but considering it is still a system that can be used to implement an “expertise” type growth mechanic, I might as well expound a bit on how it ran in practice. As if a GM needs and excuse to ramble on about their old games, haha!

Anyways, I introduced this in my custom Warp Shell campaign and found it highly engaging to the players, to the point it could probably help build your games based purely on player goals. If you have a “home base” to work from, it actually works really well as you can have NPCs that request items, give quests, or even make it a mission to recruit more specialists. Here’s an example of how it went from my game:

After a hard mission, it was going to be several weeks of deep-space travel before they reached the next spaceport, meaning the party had 7 Attempts to work with. Each Attempt would play out as a turn for the player, letting them decide how much (or how little) they wanted to role-play their efforts: a Timer 7 worked well to track this.

The first player in the turn order really wanted to use a 2-handed blade, so he decided he was going to the on-ship blacksmiths so he could learn about what he needed and roll his Attempt to craft a hard-light great sword. He ended up role-playing heavily with the smiths, which drew the other players in as the loud and “friendly” hill giants Mull and Grull forged crude but powerful gear to bellowing hymns about eating and killing foes. Everyone got in on the role-playing, making it by far the longest turn of the Downime Attempts, but the party was engaged and eventually all decided they would start questing to get better forge materials, ancient enchantments, and high-tech gear to help the smiths grow and eventually make them and the crew formidable futuristic enchanted armaments.

Anyways, in regards to the original player’s specific goal; when he got around to making the rolls on his turns, he kept botching his Attempts. Each subsequent turn involved the smiths learning from and giving short advice for his next Attempt, giving a bit of role-play to flavor it up but still keep things moving to the next player’s turn. He ultimately finished it after several tries, but because he failed so many times, I gave it an additional trait as well.

  • Refractable: This blade of light is relatively solid, but when striking reflective surfaces the light will scatter wildly (and dangerously), making an Attack against all CLOSE characters including the wielder.
    (Fun Fact: He found out what that trait did by attacking a polished shield in the smithy…)

The next player wanted to customize her room to a workshop then change her Titan’s “Drain Star” class loot to be a ranged heal: after a couple hearts of effort, she was able to spend its charges to heal an Ally in NEAR range, not just herself. She did this solo in her room, mixing a role play of meditation and tinkering. It was much less immersive/engaging, but also faster and more focused. Because it was a simple mechanics change, it worked out and it didn’t bog down the game. It also let her quickly establish that her next Downtime Activity goals were to modify her Drain Star to do extra healing and boost its range to FAR allies.

Another spent their attempts also altering their room, but they made it into a tropical beach paradise for relaxing. Oh yeah, I should probably explain that whole “room customization” thing. That’s actually another Downtime Activity I had in this Warp Shell game: the ship had fully customizable subspace living quarters for each crew member. You could exchange an Attempt to automatically change yours however you saw fit to match your character. It became a very popular choice, even for customizations that gave minimal or even no mechanical benefits, as players were given free reign to unleash their creativity and leave a bit of themselves in the ship. Anywho, after customizing it like so this player did, they could exchange 1 Attempt per downtime to get a temporary (non-recoverable) heart on future missions. This sort of thing was flavored as a player purely relaxing during their downtime; they could be sipping margaritas in a hammock while listening to the waves lapping at the shore, immersing that sore and achy dragonhide in soothing magma, taking off that EVA suit and letting some fresh mercury wash over the gills, etc.

The last two combined their turns and went to the onboard medic together to start learning basic medical training, which is where the bonuses to specific injuries came from and the “expertise” options got fleshed out. They also found out that getting specific materials could help expand what she could give them in their medkits for missions as well as expand what things she could teach them (and operations she could perform).