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Hack Or Heartbreaker?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7718434" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>I'm not sure how oWoD does it, but if it essentially amounts to gating certain abilities behind different experience thresholds, then that's a rough level system. The concept of levels is too useful to be discounted entirely.</p><p></p><p>That's not any different between a class+level system and a pure-points system, though. The only difference is that the class+level system sees you progress in everything simultaneously, where the point-based system sees you gain one new ability at a time. There's still a singular instant between not being able to do the thing and being able to do the thing. The question is, in terms of acceptable breaks from reality, which is more acceptable?</p><p></p><p>Does it make more sense that an adventuring wizard will have <em>necessarily</em> gained some knowledge of combat and improved in their ability to take a hit, by the time they have wielding enough powerful magic for them to unlock further secrets? Or does it make more sense that an adventuring wizard should <em>only</em> improve their spellcasting ability, and never learn <em>anything</em> about combat, regardless of how much the witness first-hand?</p><p></p><p>In the GURPS rulebook, they say how a fighter-type character shouldn't just throw everything into improving their one fighting skill, because it makes more sense for them to also improve their Strength and Dexterity and reputation and tactical skills as they get better at fighting. In practice, players will usually throw everything they possibly can into their one fighting skill, because it gives them an always-hit insta-kill attack by making called shots to the eye, and they never fail to parry. The book flat-out states that it makes more sense to improve in a bunch of different things at once, but then the actual rules encourage you to hyper-specialize. (You can see a similar issue with non-combat skills, where an engineer-type character will never improve at math or physics, because their career depends on their engineering roll and you never improve in math or physics unless you explicitly spend points on them.) That might be conflating two related points, but that just goes to show how great the class+level paradigm works.</p><p></p><p>Improving everything at once might lead to some silly situations, sometimes, but only ever improving one thing at a time can easily lead to even sillier situations.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7718434, member: 6775031"] I'm not sure how oWoD does it, but if it essentially amounts to gating certain abilities behind different experience thresholds, then that's a rough level system. The concept of levels is too useful to be discounted entirely. That's not any different between a class+level system and a pure-points system, though. The only difference is that the class+level system sees you progress in everything simultaneously, where the point-based system sees you gain one new ability at a time. There's still a singular instant between not being able to do the thing and being able to do the thing. The question is, in terms of acceptable breaks from reality, which is more acceptable? Does it make more sense that an adventuring wizard will have [I]necessarily[/I] gained some knowledge of combat and improved in their ability to take a hit, by the time they have wielding enough powerful magic for them to unlock further secrets? Or does it make more sense that an adventuring wizard should [I]only[/I] improve their spellcasting ability, and never learn [I]anything[/I] about combat, regardless of how much the witness first-hand? In the GURPS rulebook, they say how a fighter-type character shouldn't just throw everything into improving their one fighting skill, because it makes more sense for them to also improve their Strength and Dexterity and reputation and tactical skills as they get better at fighting. In practice, players will usually throw everything they possibly can into their one fighting skill, because it gives them an always-hit insta-kill attack by making called shots to the eye, and they never fail to parry. The book flat-out states that it makes more sense to improve in a bunch of different things at once, but then the actual rules encourage you to hyper-specialize. (You can see a similar issue with non-combat skills, where an engineer-type character will never improve at math or physics, because their career depends on their engineering roll and you never improve in math or physics unless you explicitly spend points on them.) That might be conflating two related points, but that just goes to show how great the class+level paradigm works. Improving everything at once might lead to some silly situations, sometimes, but only ever improving one thing at a time can easily lead to even sillier situations. [/QUOTE]
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