Pathfinder 1E An idea for experience point rewards

[koesherbacon]

I've come up with a little idea for my group to try out and I'd like to hear what you all think about this idea.

I decided to try to let my players spend experience points in character development. They don't have to and if they don't spent the points they'll level up quicker. On the other hand, if they spend the points, they can have a little bit more character development in between levels.

Here's the idea:
Experience Point Purchases

• Experience points can be spent to gain additional character development.
• These Experience Point Purchases can only be spent when in town or camping while adventuring. You cannot spend these points if we stop playing in the middle of an adventure without resting.
• These rules are still in alpha development, the prices might change as we play with these rules

What can be purchased?

• Skill ranks can be purchased for 200 xp for class skills, and 500 xp for non-class skills.
  • The maximum skill rank you can have without purchasing additional skill ranks (see below) is equal to your character level. (10 for 10^th level characters). If you purchase additional skill ranks, the maximum is equal to your character level +3. (13 for 10^th level character).
• Basic and Advanced Feats can be purchased, but you can only purchase 1 additional feat per level.
  • Basic feats can be purchased for 600 xp.
    • These include feats like Stealthy, Power Attack, Skill Focus, etc.
  • Advanced feats can be purchased for 1,250 xp.
    • These include feats like Exotic Weapon Training, Metamagic Feats, Crafting Magic Item Feats, etc.
  • If you have a question about whether a feat would be basic or advanced, just ask. We’ll figure it out.
• Additional spells can be learned or added to a spellbook for 400 × Spell Level xp, but you can only add 2 spells per level.
  • These spells must already be available to your character.
  • You can only add spells from your class’s available spells.
  • And you can only add spells of the spell levels you can cast.
• Additional class features can be purchased for 2,000 xp, but you can only add 1 class feature per 2 levels.
  • This gives you an additional use or uses of a class feature you already have, like bardic training, lay on hands, channel energy, etc.
• Learn the 1^st level class feature from another class for 4,000 xp, but you can only add 1 of these features per 4 levels.
  • This is sort of like mini-multi-classing
  • For instance, if you want bardic knowledge but do not want to take a level in bard, you can learn that class feature this way
  • After purchasing this ability, it can be improved upon up with the rules above for gaining additional uses of class features (2,000 xp)
• Languages can be learned from two sources, but you can only learn 2 languages per 2 levels
  • You can spend 2,000 xp and learn 2 languages immediately but not be able to learn anything else for 2 levels, or you can spend 1,000 at one level and another 1,000 xp the following level. I hope that made sense.
  • To learn a language from a book it costs 1,000 xp.
  • To learn another language from another person (PC or NPC) it costs 500 xp.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for any input

 

[Ramaster]

This is a VERY big change to the base game. Let's look at how it might play in-table.

When I started reading this, "Character development" sounded more like the rewards would be story-based. For example, spend a couple points and gain a valuable contact, better living conditions, the ability to alter things on a campaign or adventure level, etc. But the changes are "local" and related to mechanical character abilities.

IMHO, this kind of thing lends itself for to power gaming. If this was your intention all along, then that is quite fine, of course (as many people say on this forum "Play what you like!").

The issue I have with this is that it seems kind of unnecessary. If you want to take bardic knowledge but don't want to take a level in bard, you might be better off creating an archetype for you class that trades something for that (this is similar to the idea of the original unearthed arcana for 3e. The example given in that case was a fighter that traded away her bonus feats for sneak attack progression).

Other than that, at first glance the system looks a bit imbalanced, but workable by tweaking the XP costs of the different things.

 

[Empirate]

Are you aware of the feat Open-Minded? It gives you 5 instant skillpoints to spend. Something to consider... especially since it's not a very powerful feat at all.

 

[koesherbacon]

Those are some good points, maybe I didn't think it through all the way. I'll give it some more thought

 

[sr123]

One thing to look at for inspiration is "Generic Classes" (go to d20srd - Variant Rules). That ported to PF might lend you some guidance, particularly in terms of balance.

 

[artfulshrapnel]

Thing that jumps out to me is that, especially given the way level costs scale, the feat purchasing in particular could get extremely powerful. Particularly if they're playing feat-heavy classes like fighter or rogue, they'd be silly not to delay by a fraction of a level to get a spare feat every level. For an example of how crazy this would be:

Let's say the group is on the standard XP track, and just hit 10th level for characters that bought nothing. Everyone has earned 105,000 XP total.

People who bought nothing have about 5 feats (8 if they're a fighter), and are 10th level.

I, on the other hand, played a fighter and bought a feat each level I was able. Let's say they were all advanced feats, so I'm down 12,500 xp. That puts me at 15-18 feats, and halfway through level 9 (92,500XP). I'll catch up to 10th level in a session or two, and I've already got as many feats than a 20th level fighter should.

By 20th, my character would have somewhere around 35 feats as opposed to the usual 15, and only be down 24,000xp (or 1/150th of XP I've earned).

EDIT:
I realized I didn't leave any constructive advice, which is a crap thing to do. My solution to letting people buy extras was to tie it to out-of-game contributions instead of XP, and to strictly limit the benefits. I generally award between 1 and 5 points (based on time the thing takes) between each session for out of game contributions. I don't count just buying things as a contribution: no pay to advance. Instead I reward things like writing in-character journal entries, updating the online campaign journal, maintaining a map, drawing pictures of the campaign... you get the idea. Someone even cooked an authentic hobbit meal for game once!

They can turn these in for a limited selection of rewards. They can buy up to 3 extra HP and skill points each level and buy extra spells once per level. They can buy an extra Attribute or Feat increase between each natural (non-class-based) increase.

If they absolutely max this, which takes a lot of out-of-game time, they could get a total of 10 extra feats by 20th, and 5 extra attribute points.

 

[Sunseeker]

Costs should scale with some additional variable like you have for spells. Ie: *cost*X*pc level*, because otherwise things at low levels are cost prohibitive, but at high levels they are amazingly cheap.

 

[sheadunne]

Instead of spending XP, consider giving additional benefits to using one of the three different XP tracks in PF.

Slow progression will give more feats, skills points, etc

Medium progression as is

Fast progression will give less feats, skill points, etc

This will create different level characters, but it seems like you're fine with that anyway. Players who value class abilities above feats and skill points will take the fast progression, while those that want/need those extra feats to make their character come alive can take the slow progression. I'm not sure how it would play out mathematically, but I think it may be a better idea than players spending XP.

 

[BriarMonkey]

In a prior campaign, I did something similar. I allowed players to spend XP on additional skill ranks and feats. I used a scaling cost however, so something like feats would be 1000xp for the 1st, 2000xp for the second, 4000xp for the third, etc.

In that entire campaign, no one actually purchased any feats beyond the second one, and only one or two bought any skill ranks - they valued gaining full levels over the little bits here and there.

With that, I've considered allowing for this in my next campaign - for similar reasons as you. However, I am reconsidering how I may want to actually do this. Since XP is really only a single currency, and its use is fairly narrow and it's the only way to advance in character level, something you may want to think about is what I've been thinking about - use an alternate form of currency - like many skill based rpgs. Basically, characters can earn "character points", or whatever, in addition to XP. Thus, you don't have to tap XP and those other points can be tailored however you want to fit what allowances you want to give the PCs as extras beyond their class abilities.

At least that is what I was thinking before I read the post from sheadunne... The last time I did the math, the difference between slow and medium, or medium and fast xp progression meant a character would be typically 1 level behind those using the faster xp track. I think between slow and fast was 2 or 3 levels. Anyway, using that as a basis for extras means again, you could customize the tracks and benefits to match what you wanted to give PCs. In other words, say between fast and medium, you could get 2 extra skill points, and 1 extra feat every 3 levels. Between fast and slow, mayhaps 4 skill points and 1 extra feat every 2 levels. It'd be an interesting idea to play with as that could be customized by class as well.