Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Fundamentally, gold has become a character-building resource. You spend it on magic items, rituals, consumables and the like, and if you blow all your money on ale and whores, you're going to make life hard for yourself (without some intervention from the DM).
I'd like to propose a system to fix this, but I'm going to need help balancing and critiquing it.
The key is that someone who is buying story items (ie - houses, boats, apple trees) shouldn't be penalised in combat for doing so.
The solution (partially cribbed from arcdream's "wild talents" rpg) is story points.
Story points can be spent just like action points, and you may spend a story point in addition to any action points during a single encounter, but not during the same round as an action point is spent.
Only one story point may be spent per encounter.
Story points recharge when you meaningfully interact with whatever it is that you spend the money on. Meaningfully interact is a kind of up-in the air thing: in general the interaction is something that will not happen other than in between-adventures downtime. You need to go somewhere specific and out-of-your-way.
You start with one such thing (it might be a person, a place, an item or whatever), and may buy one more such item per 5 levels, and the price is the price of a magic item of your level.
Ideally there should be a severe penalty for the thing getting harmed: if the DM kidnaps your wife, you should be more invested than "meh, I'll do without my story point for a while". Additionally choosing your fellow adventurers for story points should lead to some seriously tense and game changing moments.
Additionally if you did choose a fellow adventurer, anything that you can do while adventuring is not going to count as meaningful interaction: after all, you hang out all the time, so sharing a kiss under the moonlight (or slaughtering some bandits, depending on the type of relationship) is insufficient. You need to go somewhere special and spend time working on your relationship for it to count.
Example:
So, at level 1 I get a story point and something that it ties to. I decide my adventurer has an elderly grandfather who used to be an adventurer, too old to adventure any more. We go off to slay the kobold menace, and during an encounter I spend 1 action point, then next turn I spend my story point. We have another encounter, and after that I get my action point back, but my story point is still spent.
We eliminate the kobolds and return home. I go and visit my grandfather, telling him an epic tale of how we vanquished the kobolds, and presenting him with a keepsake I took from the kobold leader. I regain my story point.
At level 5, I could buy another story item, but I choose not to.
At level 7, I spend the price of a level 7 item and buy a hunting lodge. I now have 2 story points, and whenever we have downtime, I go visit my grandad and tell tall tales, and then take some time off hunting in my lodge.
At level 10, I hire some people to maintain the lodge and train a cadre of rangers there. My downtime is spent visiting grandad, hunting and training new rangers.
At level 15 I choose not to get anything.
At level 21 I choose to build a hunting reserve, and buy 2 points at once.
And so on and so forth.
The major points of contention:
1. I think my scheme makes the points too cheap to acquire. Or too expensive. I really can't decide. How good is 6 extra actions per adventure?
2. Do you think that just losing the story point forever is enough of an inspiration to keep the "thing" safe. My main problem is that this messes with the original idea of not hitting up a character mechanically for investing in story... I'd much prefer some short-term penalty.
I'd like to propose a system to fix this, but I'm going to need help balancing and critiquing it.
The key is that someone who is buying story items (ie - houses, boats, apple trees) shouldn't be penalised in combat for doing so.
The solution (partially cribbed from arcdream's "wild talents" rpg) is story points.
Story points can be spent just like action points, and you may spend a story point in addition to any action points during a single encounter, but not during the same round as an action point is spent.
Only one story point may be spent per encounter.
Story points recharge when you meaningfully interact with whatever it is that you spend the money on. Meaningfully interact is a kind of up-in the air thing: in general the interaction is something that will not happen other than in between-adventures downtime. You need to go somewhere specific and out-of-your-way.
You start with one such thing (it might be a person, a place, an item or whatever), and may buy one more such item per 5 levels, and the price is the price of a magic item of your level.
Ideally there should be a severe penalty for the thing getting harmed: if the DM kidnaps your wife, you should be more invested than "meh, I'll do without my story point for a while". Additionally choosing your fellow adventurers for story points should lead to some seriously tense and game changing moments.
Additionally if you did choose a fellow adventurer, anything that you can do while adventuring is not going to count as meaningful interaction: after all, you hang out all the time, so sharing a kiss under the moonlight (or slaughtering some bandits, depending on the type of relationship) is insufficient. You need to go somewhere special and spend time working on your relationship for it to count.
Example:
So, at level 1 I get a story point and something that it ties to. I decide my adventurer has an elderly grandfather who used to be an adventurer, too old to adventure any more. We go off to slay the kobold menace, and during an encounter I spend 1 action point, then next turn I spend my story point. We have another encounter, and after that I get my action point back, but my story point is still spent.
We eliminate the kobolds and return home. I go and visit my grandfather, telling him an epic tale of how we vanquished the kobolds, and presenting him with a keepsake I took from the kobold leader. I regain my story point.
At level 5, I could buy another story item, but I choose not to.
At level 7, I spend the price of a level 7 item and buy a hunting lodge. I now have 2 story points, and whenever we have downtime, I go visit my grandad and tell tall tales, and then take some time off hunting in my lodge.
At level 10, I hire some people to maintain the lodge and train a cadre of rangers there. My downtime is spent visiting grandad, hunting and training new rangers.
At level 15 I choose not to get anything.
At level 21 I choose to build a hunting reserve, and buy 2 points at once.
And so on and so forth.
The major points of contention:
1. I think my scheme makes the points too cheap to acquire. Or too expensive. I really can't decide. How good is 6 extra actions per adventure?
2. Do you think that just losing the story point forever is enough of an inspiration to keep the "thing" safe. My main problem is that this messes with the original idea of not hitting up a character mechanically for investing in story... I'd much prefer some short-term penalty.
