Retroactive Intelligence Bonus: Pros and Cons

[Balsamic Dragon]

I am planning on changing rules so that you can gain the full benefit of a permanent Intelligence gain. The rule as it stands is that an Int gain does not give you the retroactive benefit of additional skill points. The new rule would be that you can go back and figure out how many additional skill points you would have gained, and apply those points to any class skill that you have ranks in already, or any skill that does not require training. Thus, you could not gain a new skill that requires training with your retroactive bonus points.

Pros:

Skill points for characters can now be calculated without needing to know when a player raised his/her Intelligence score.

Raising Intelligence now provides a more substantial benefit to non-Wizard characters. (Before, it would only apply to skill checks and Int based skills.)

The new rule cannot be exploited to gain the results of training that have not been represented in play. (i.e., gaining many ranks in a completely new trained-only skill all at once).

Cons:

It is a house rule (this is always a con for any substantive rule change).

In a worst case scenario, a character reaching 20th level could raise their Int score by one point and gain 22 retroactive skill points all at once, in addition to the skill points he/she would gain from leveling to 20. These skill points could, for example, give a character a Climb skill that goes from 0 at 19th level, to 23 at 20th level.

So there are strong arguments on both sides. What I want to know is whether others have used this type of house rule and whether there are pros or cons I have not thought of. Right now, I think the balance is on the side of the house rule.

Balsamic Dragon

 

[Uruk]

I've used the same rule, but only with skills the player already had. I didn't really have any issues, but you could always rule they have to have used the skill occasionaly or limit how many points they put in on any given int increase to prevent the 20th level example you gave.

 

[ichabod]

If you implement this, you'll have to decide what happens when someone's int permanently goes down. That might be a pain.

 

[Beholder Bob]

What about putting the INT SP into knowledge skills relevant to what that PC has done in the past? You gain X SP due to an INT increase, so you gain X SP worth of knowledge (Drow in a game that has been heavy into Drow, nobility for PC's who have dealt with them, etc). While still a cross class skill, it prevents abuse in that the knowledge skill focuses on what that PC has been doing in the game. You can limit it to SP = 1/2 current LV in knowledge (any 1 subject). As PC's get into a lot of things, I assume you could assign several Knowledge skills that would be appropriate. It may be a class skill for most people, but it would still be a skill they gain that they lacked before. A 4th fighter in an ocean going game who gains enough INT to gain SP learns 1 Rank in Ocean Trade, 1 Rank in Piracy (cross class skill, each costs 2 SP). You also know, then, which skills to remove if INT drops permanently.
- SP = Skill Points

Just a thought.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

If you implement this, you'll have to decide what happens when someone's int permanently goes down. That might be a pain.

Actually, I'm not sure what happens currently when someone's Int goes permanently down! In any case, I've never seen a stat loss that wasn't eventually fixed later in the game, so it would be a temporary problem at best.

Balsamic Dragon

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

What about putting the INT SP into knowledge skills relevant to what that PC has done in the past? You gain X SP due to an INT increase, so you gain X SP worth of knowledge (Drow in a game that has been heavy into Drow, nobility for PC's who have dealt with them, etc). While still a cross class skill, it prevents abuse in that the knowledge skill focuses on what that PC has been doing in the game. You can limit it to SP = 1/2 current LV in knowledge (any 1 subject). As PC's get into a lot of things, I assume you could assign several Knowledge skills that would be appropriate. It may be a class skill for most people, but it would still be a skill they gain that they lacked before. A 4th fighter in an ocean going game who gains enough INT to gain SP learns 1 Rank in Ocean Trade, 1 Rank in Piracy (cross class skill, each costs 2 SP). You also know, then, which skills to remove if INT drops permanently.
- SP = Skill Points

Just a thought.

I like this idea, although I think I'd still like it to be the players choice, rather than the GMs. But it is certainly a good argument to allow cross-class or trained only skills where they would be particularly appropriate, given what the character has been doing.

This is sort of related to the overall problem of how to make characters take skills that they should have, such as Knowledge skills, when the players don't want to spend the points. I usually give a lower DC for a Knowledge check if the player can demonstrate that his character has, during gametime, learned about an area of knowledge.

Balsamic Dragon

 

[IndyPendant]

What I've ruled (though the situation has yet to come up) is that a character gets all skill points retroactively for a permanent Int increase--but is limited to increasing any one skill to 3 ranks/level (not including 1st level of course: ). This gives them their int bonus while keeping the situation of running from 0 to 20 ranks in one shot from happening. In theory, it should work well.

Haven't thought of a permanent Int decrease--but if it ever happened I would probably rule that the character does not gain any ranks in skills until his level 'catches up' with his newly calculated total skill ranks...

 

[Kodam]

no retroaction

I rule it that way, that there's no backward-effect of a hightened or reduced Int. I see Int is a measure of your learning speed. When your Int goes up you learn faster and from then on gain more skill points. If Int is reduced less skill-points will be gained in the future but the current skill-ranks won't change in either case. The Char has this knowledge and he doesn't loose it anymore.

If a Char has a Headband of Int, he gets the additional skill-points on his next level, if he wore it while gaining more than 50% of the neccessary XP. "Wearing" means that he has it on all the time, with only very minor interruptions.

 

[Norfleet]

I'd use retroactivity both ways. When a character becomes smarter, he can learn more skills, perhaps with all of the caveats described.

Of course, the same applies in reverse: Should he suffer PERMANENT DAIN BRAMAGE, he loses skills. If I shoot you in the head, and you survive with permanent dain bramage, you're not going to be the same genius self you were before.

I avoid the magical boost problem by simply not awarding bonus skill points for magical int boosts, ever. You get all of the other benefits, just not skillpoints, because, seriously, nobody is going to wear that item all the time. It would start to smell pretty rank if he did.

 

[FireLance]

Here's how I intend to handle it:

1. Permanent increases in Intelligence (e.g. inherent bonus, level increases) increase skill points retroactively. The character gains 1 skill point for every level of every class he has (4 for his first class) which can be used to buy 1 rank in a class skill or 1/2 rank in a cross-class skill. Normal skill rank maximums apply. E.g. a Rog2/Wiz3 (first class Rogue) would gain 8 skill points. 5 can be used to increase Rogue class skills by 1 rank each, and 3 can be used to increase Wizard class skills by 1 rank each. The mathematics is fairly complex, but I think it's OK as it shouldn't happen often.

2. The reverse happens when Intelligence decreases semi-permanently (ability drain, but not ability damage). The character has to reduce his skills by level+3 ranks in total (player's choice) and keep track of which skills have been reduced. These points are restored whenever Intelligence is restored to its previous level, either by reversing the drain or by permanent Intelligence increases.

3. Items that boost Intelligence are keyed to one specific skill for each 2 points of increased Intelligence, and grant skill points equal to 3+level to that skill. The character gains 1 rank for each level for which the skill is a class skill and 1/2 rank for each level for which the skill is a cross-class skill. If the skill is a class skill for the character's first class, he gains 3 ranks; otherwise he gains 3/2 ranks. These skill ranks overlap (do not stack) with any existing skill ranks. The skills which an item grants bonus points to can be changed with a Limited Wish (one Limited Wish per change). This way, the question of "what happens when a character takes off the item and gives it to another character" is easily answered.