Training Costs to Level Up

[Lanefan]

How about this; ask your players how they train themselves and give them an EXP award if it makes sense for you. EXP is the universal motivator!

Now there, right there, is an infinite loop just looking for a place to happen!

I got some ExP, so I need to train, which gives me more ExP, so I need to train, which gives me more ExP, so I need ... [lather, rinse, repeat until bored]

I think the idea is to bleed off some cash and use up some game-world time, not to make them bump even faster.

Lan-"and here I thought broken infinite-loop combos were something only seen in Magic"-efan

 

[pemerton]

LostSoul, I think Lanefan's idea of guild fees might give you some of what you're looking for, in terms of binding the cycles of play together. This could also be done without gp, if the duty to the guild involves reporting back/praying/tutoring the apprentices/etc.

Something comparable to guild fees might be debts that have to be repayed to a family or other organisation that sponsored the adventurer. (This might also work better with the "treasure divided by 10" change.)

An alternative to spending gold might be to tie levelling (or some aspect of resting/recovery) to completing quests that require returning to town, and which - by having been completed - have some sort of dynamic effect on the town.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

For some characters, like rogues, do guild fees make sense? If you're a rogue who trained in another location and only do rogue stuff while adventuring or self-training, what does the guild do for you?

Thief guild fees are a tax (called the "street tax" in real life). You pay a portion of what you "earn" (steal) in return for police cover (most non-political rogues don't know how to bribe a police chief; that's what the guild leader is there for). While this arrangement suits many NPC rogues, a good or neutral PC rogue isn't brushing up against the law and so doesn't need these services.

 

[LostSoul]

A lot of good replies here. Hopefully other people who use or are considering using training costs can make use of this thread as well.

First up: I wasn't clear about what PCs can spend money on. I don't have magic item shops in the game. PCs can't easily buy magic items. That means that, for the most part, the connection between the character resource of GP and the character's effectiveness in magic items is broken.

Breaking that connection means I want to find some other kind of use for GP. Tying GP to the growth of the setting means that Adventuring leads to GP which leads to Setting Changes which leads to More Complex Adventuring.

Isn't there something else you could do to encourage this? (This isn't options, it's restrictions.)

I want restrictions!

Options are great. A box of Lego has a lot of options. It isn't a game, though. Having restrictions around a Lego-based minis skirmish game that tell you what kinds of pieces you can use and what they do and how to gather points - those restrictions make the game.

*

More later as I think about everything that's been posted. Some ideas rolling around in my head:

• Different requirements for different levels - going from level 1 to 2 to 3 might require A, while going from 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 might require B, and 7 to 8 to 9 to 10 C. (10 to 11 I've already worked out.)
• Different requirements based on class/power source. Divine characters have faith-based requirements - specific to their own worldview? Martial characters need to train. Wizards need to experiment (creating magic items? new spells? new rituals?), while Warlocks - ah, Warlocks! - might have specific requirements based on the details of their Pact.
• Quests tied to a Settlement that level up the Settlement and waive the cost of training? That would remove the need for GP to tie the different cycles together, as pemerton suggested.
• Powerful warlords and monsters are scattered around the setting. If you spend GP to train in their Settlement, you end up "levelling up" their town - do you want to do this? Does the NPC's agenda conflict with your own? The other option for PCs under this scheme might be to require a lot more time, but no GP expenditure.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Janx]

AH, but did he hear a DING after that last accomplishment that granted him XP?

there's not much difference in hearing the Ding for a whole level increase, versus a skills-based game where you earned enough points to improve a skill by one. At some point, a number is incremented that has a direct change in game performance.


The real question for the OP, is what do you hope to gain.

The general point for any cost of gold in the game, is to give incentive for the PCs to do stuff (get gold so you can afford the thing you want) and to remove excess gold from players. Fat purses make for lazy PCs.



Instead of thinking of needing to get training to actually level up (which presents the artificial game mechanic in bright neon lights to the game world), consider that training and living expenses are something the PC pays for continuously.

If the PC is not actively adventuring (ex. time passes), then they have to pay a cost that represents their life style and training upkeep. Different classes would have different costs. But they pay it per month.

 

[the Jester]

This might be slightly tangential, but in the last several years I've come to see the importance of training in the time it takes, not the money it takes.

I hate hate hate the whole "30 levels in three months" thing that 3.x and later editions encourage. Adding training time (if it is significant) suddenly makes a huge difference. What if it takes 1 week per level you are going to gain to train? Then by the time you've attained 30th level, you have spent nearly nine years training.

However, there are two catches. The first is how big of a crimp this can throw in time-sensitive adventures. The second is only a catch if you don't award the same xp to all the pcs all the time, but it's a pain in the ass if they have to take a 4-week break every three days because someone else leveled up.

Of course, this offers its own solutions- like "let's keep adventuring until everyone's ready to level"- but they require making hard decisions about what happens to earned xp after you're ready to level up but before you've done your training.

Just a few thoughts...

 

[LostSoul]

I'm thinking that maybe this thread is best served by covering all sorts of fluff/flavour reasons for spending GP on training, instead of specifics about my own game/hack. That way it could be a good resource to more people.

This might be slightly tangential, but in the last several years I've come to see the importance of training in the time it takes, not the money it takes.

I hate hate hate the whole "30 levels in three months" thing that 3.x and later editions encourage. Adding training time (if it is significant) suddenly makes a huge difference. What if it takes 1 week per level you are going to gain to train? Then by the time you've attained 30th level, you have spent nearly nine years training.

However, there are two catches. The first is how big of a crimp this can throw in time-sensitive adventures. The second is only a catch if you don't award the same xp to all the pcs all the time, but it's a pain in the ass if they have to take a 4-week break every three days because someone else leveled up.

Of course, this offers its own solutions- like "let's keep adventuring until everyone's ready to level"- but they require making hard decisions about what happens to earned xp after you're ready to level up but before you've done your training.

Just a few thoughts...

I was thinking about this as well. In a week of downtime, you can:

• Level up
• Create magic items
• Create masterwork mundane items (arms & armour, alchemical, poison, vehicles)
• Retrain skills, feats, and powers
• Research new skills, feats, and powers
• Gain XP (a set value - 100? - or tied to level - 25 x level?)

 

[ferratus]

For my fantasy D&D system, I'm having training costs for everything but leveling up, and getting rid of experience points.

Instead, the PC's accumulate treasure, and when they have accumulated x amount of treasure they get a new "level of renown". This allows them to collect new HP, a bonus to attack, and a higher level of skills or powers.

For new skills and powers, they purchase them. More or less useful skills and powers are costed accordingly, and skills further away from their base class require more time to train. They must start at level 1 skills and powers and work their way up the tree.

I'm tinkering with it, and it seems to be going okay so far. If anyone can see some obvious shortcomings I'd like to hear them. I know that it would be better for sandboxing than an adventure path, but I like that.

 

[David Howery]

I always just used training costs as a shortcut for all the expenses a person would have in the real medieval world... taxes, tithes, road taxes, bribes, room and board, upkeep, carousing in the inns... plus, you can bet that if it became widely known that the PCs looted the ruins of Castle Whatzit, you can bet that the descendants of long lost Lord Whatzit will come by wanting their cut, etc. If you have lots of time and want to roleplay out all that stuff, fine. Back in my gaming days, I never had all that much time for it (once a week or so), so I preferred to skip all those details... training costs were a way to bypass all that...

 

[shadzar]

there's not much difference in hearing the Ding for a whole level increase, versus a skills-based game where you earned enough points to improve a skill by one. At some point, a number is incremented that has a direct change in game performance.


The real question for the OP, is what do you hope to gain.

The general point for any cost of gold in the game, is to give incentive for the PCs to do stuff (get gold so you can afford the thing you want) and to remove excess gold from players. Fat purses make for lazy PCs.



Instead of thinking of needing to get training to actually level up (which presents the artificial game mechanic in bright neon lights to the game world), consider that training and living expenses are something the PC pays for continuously.

If the PC is not actively adventuring (ex. time passes), then they have to pay a cost that represents their life style and training upkeep. Different classes would have different costs. But they pay it per month.

You missed the point of the joke.

When someone asks how to add training, a good reply is NOT to tell them avoid training, but help them figure out how to add training.

Training is wanted so coming up with reasons to NOT use training defeats the purpose.

Since this is a "4e-hack" I am assuming standard 4th edition rules are used and then modified to make a new system based off 4th edition. If they didn't want training, they would just be using 4th ediiton level-ups as normal.

They WANT training added.

Also I might add, I think your reason for "cost of gold in the game" is flawed. That may be what you do, but not what others do. The reason for cost for gold is manyfold, not just to get people to do something, otherwise you would make it free, because more incentive is had to do things when it takes less to be able to do them.

So this thread is about adding training, not avoiding it.