Your favorite character advancement scheme

[TarionzCousin]

Raise monsters in captivity, and kill them at your leisure. It worked really well for Bob, Dave, and Brian.

 

[Necronomitron]

I dig Burning Wheel's method of advancing skills. After you've tested your skill at an array of difficulty levels it goes up by one. There are mechanics that prevent spamming skills just to get the tests, like the notion that every time you roll dice the story changes, succeed or fail. Also the "Let it Ride" rule which states that you can't reroll on a failed test prevents skill spamming as well. The idea is that your roll doesn't represent a single attempt at an action, but your overall ability to succeed at that action during that scene.

I also like White Wolf's method of advancement. It's a pretty standard method for skill based games. New ranks in skills/powers cost a varying degree of XP depending on what rank you are buying into.

I do have to agree with the OP though. I'm not the hugest fan of advancement in 3.5 or 4E. Standardized advancement lacks a sense of satisfaction for me.

 

[Nadaka]

In the mid 90's I had a home brew sci-fi game that I called "Pair O' Dice" that gave a bonus to skills on a FAILED skill check. That way you were always rewarded for trying something.

IIRC, on a failed skill check you earned the less of your %chance of success or failure * 1% to the skill.

if you had a 50% skill, on an unmodified failure, you get +0.5% to the skill. But if you had either a +25 or -25 modifier to the check (75% success or 25% success), a failure would only give +0.25%.

The purpose of that rule was to make it so that you didn't gain much from trying ludicrously easy or nearly impossible tasks and gained more for attempting tasks appropriate to your skill.

I can't really say it is my favorite, leveling by overcoming challenges like in d20 modern is a lot more balanced and flexible, but its something you guys probably have not seen before.

 

[Punnuendo]

I second Burning Wheel's system. Nothing else has ever felt quite as organic to me, though a lot of point buy system like HERO and Savage Worlds have come close.

 

[xipetotec]

I really like the BRP system for advancement. I find it makes it easy to have players pop in and out of games with their existing characters despite experience. ( whereas in a outright level based game, having a level 10 character playing with a level 2 character is just plain crazy ). And like you said, "logical", succeed at a skill, you can gain experience in that skill.

 

[Umbran]

I've found I like the scheme seen in original Deadlands:

At the beginning of a session, characters draw 3 random chips from a pot (chips are worth 1, 2, or 3 points). The chips may be spent on altering die rolls or soaking wounds. If they aren't spent, they can be turned in for XP between sessions, which can then be spent on advancement.

It can be a tad uneven - some folks can have strings of poor draws - but otherwise seems to be working well.