Treasure-Based Advancement: Can it work?

[GX.Sigma]

I'm imagining a system for D&D where characters advance by acquiring treasure. It's not quite as simple as "GP=XP," since the setting I'm using doesn't have money. I was considering a conceit where monsters (and PCs) obsessively seek to hoard a certain kind of magical gems, and those are equivalent to XP. But what if there was another way?

I've been playing old Nintendo games, and noticed something about the way they do character advancement. Zelda, Metroid, and Mega Man do it the same way: it's based on treasure.

Link gets better, not because he gets XP every time he swings his sword, but because he gets items. He finds a heart container, and he can take more hits. Samus finds a missile expansion, and she can deal more damage. Mega Man gets the metal blade, and the incidental enemies just aren't a threat anymore. There's usually an element of secrecy and exploration involved (you have to be perceptive and solve puzzles to get upgrades), which I like in my D&D.

But could this work in D&D? The heart container thing is easy enough: find a heart container, get a hit die appropriate to your class. But what about class features? Spells as treasure are traditional, but what about spellcasting levels? What about fighter or thief levels? Maybe you could have consumable items that grant a level in a certain class (ala 3.x multiclassing), but that would be a step away from a class-based game. I want the character's choice of class at level 1 to remain significant. But, if you restrict them based on initial class choice (e.g., only monks can use this; it increases your monk level), the party ends up with a bunch of them they can't use (like if there are no monks in the group). Maybe you just have to restrict it to a few classes?

And how would the group divide this very important treasure?

I feel like I'm close to a solution, but I just can't solve it.

Is there a way to do it? Has anyone tried it?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It worked fine for many years. It was part of D&D until 3E.

As for your particular wrinkle, it feels like you're trying to make it more complicated than it needs to be. XP in D&D has never been divided into "Bob gets XP for this kill, but Alice, who also participated, doesn't." Just split the full value of the XP/treasure pool down the middle. If someone wants to steal more of it on their own, that's an issue independent of the system; players attempt to cheat each other all the time.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm imagining a system for D&D where characters advance by acquiring treasure. It's not quite as simple as "GP=XP," since the setting I'm using doesn't have money. I was considering a conceit where monsters (and PCs) obsessively seek to hoard a certain kind of magical gems, and those are equivalent to XP. But what if there was another way?

I've been playing old Nintendo games, and noticed something about the way they do character advancement. Zelda, Metroid, and Mega Man do it the same way: it's based on treasure.

Link gets better, not because he gets XP every time he swings his sword, but because he gets items. He finds a heart container, and he can take more hits. Samus finds a missile expansion, and she can deal more damage. Mega Man gets the metal blade, and the incidental enemies just aren't a threat anymore. There's usually an element of secrecy and exploration involved (you have to be perceptive and solve puzzles to get upgrades), which I like in my D&D.

But could this work in D&D? The heart container thing is easy enough: find a heart container, get a hit die appropriate to your class. But what about class features? Spells as treasure are traditional, but what about spellcasting levels? What about fighter or thief levels? Maybe you could have consumable items that grant a level in a certain class (ala 3.x multiclassing), but that would be a step away from a class-based game. I want the character's choice of class at level 1 to remain significant. But, if you restrict them based on initial class choice (e.g., only monks can use this; it increases your monk level), the party ends up with a bunch of them they can't use (like if there are no monks in the group). Maybe you just have to restrict it to a few classes?

And how would the group divide this very important treasure?

I feel like I'm close to a solution, but I just can't solve it.

Is there a way to do it? Has anyone tried it?

Yeah, this totally works.

If you want the class to remain an important choice, the most important bit of that is going to be proficiencies. That's the "list of things I can use."

Include in those proficiencies whatever MacGuffins you want to impart class abilities.

So, say, Wizards have "Book Proficiency," which allows them to gain new abilities from books. And Fighters have "Exotic Weapon Proficiency," which allows them to gain new abilities from elaborate and specialized weapons that others just can't wield (the results of this will look a lot different depending upon what edition-chassis you put this on top of). And Clerics have "Relic Proficiency," where they gain new abilities from artifacts of the gods. And Thieves have "Tool Proficiency," where they gain new abilities from specialized theives' tools (lockpicks, grappling hooks, a cloak for stealth...).

If you want to jut run your home game like this, it's probably smart to find out what classes people want to play, and then make up a special "class ability proficiency" for them, just so you can avoid doing a buttload of extra, irrelevant work. Samus never comes upon an upgrade she can't use after all.

You can expand this into 3e/5e style multiclassing by sprinkling around items that give you new proficiencies. Perhaps there's a wizard book that gives you the ability to acquire an exotic weapon or somesuch.

You can break up a "level" into its individual parts. Again, this will depend upon edition, but items that grant increases in HP, spellcasting capacity, existing skills (like attack bonuses), etc., can all be individualized items, or they can be one big item. These would be "universal" items, but you can only use so many of them at once. Perhaps adopt a "slot" system, so that an HP slot, once filled with an item that ups your HP, cannot be filled with another such item -- 3e's and 4e's magic item slots are not a bad reference point for this:

Armor Slot items give you extra HPs'
Hands Slot items give you attack increases.
Head Slot items bestow greater spellcasting power.
Neck Slot items up your saves.
Weapon Slot items give you a class power.

...or something.

...this makes me think of the FF-style "mastery" system, where your equipment gives you a particular trait and, after X amounts of fights with it, that trait becomes mastered, meaning you can use it even if you change equipment...

The big thing to watch out for in this kind of set-up is a player who wants a particular kind of character, one with a particular specialty. Someone who wants to play a fire-blasting arcanist, or a spear-wielding warrior, is going to not find this kind of game very suitable. Your heroes in this kind of game are going to have a big diversity of abilities they can call on, and are going to tend to be generalists, not specialists.

Which is why this kind of game pushes in the direction of classless. And you could adpot that, too, by giving everyone proficiency in everything and letting them sort it out. Maybe having "class" give you an edge with certain abilities. That might actually work OK with a game like 5e, ultimately. You could probably hammer 4e or 3e into that shape, too.

But if you WANT classes, proficiencies are going to be the way to separate them out.

 

[Li Shenron]

Personally I think completely arbitrary DM-driven level advancement works.

Therefore treasure-based advancement should work as well.

 

[TerraDave]

Treasure as powers?

Thats D&D! At least old school D&D. Non-spellcasters where very dependent on found treasure, and Magic-Users also had to find their spells. Clerics and Druids knew spells automatically, though they didn't get many in general. (Overall, druids seems to be the least magic item dependent AD&D class).

Take a retro-clone, add the rule that clerics and druids also have to find prayer books or runes (or something) for their spells and you are basically there.

 

[MortalPlague]

I thought this was going to be another thread about 'gold as XP', but I was pleasantly proven wrong. This seems like a really interesting idea with a lot of potential. I could see it working very well in 5th Edition especially, with the flat math making pure "plusses" from level less important. Finding a magic sword that also grants you a class feature serves the double purpose of also making magic feel more, well, magical.

 

[Li Shenron]

But could this work in D&D? The heart container thing is easy enough: find a heart container, get a hit die appropriate to your class. But what about class features? Spells as treasure are traditional, but what about spellcasting levels? What about fighter or thief levels?

Not sure if this is too far from what you want, but how about letting the PCs find teacher/trainer NPCs, tomes of knowledge, and training locations, all of which can be "used" only once, and will benefit only characters with prerequisite knowledge?

For instance, in the course of an adventure high in the frozen mountains, the party stumbles upon a legendary weaponmaster hermit who will teach the Fighter the techniques equivalent to his next feat (or entire level), a lost tome of magic which the Wizard reads to gain her next spellcasting level (or entire level), and a mythical location known as the Rogue's Riddle where the Rogue faces an 8-hours whole course of challenges that will level him up. The weaponmaster won't teach his mastery to non-Fighters because they are way behind in combat basics, the book is understandable only to those who already have many arcane spellcasting levels, and the mythical training ground is simply impossible to any non-Rogue.

 

[Minigiant]

A friend of mine once thought up a setting where magic items would change depending on the owner and items could absorb the magic of other items.

So a magic dagger in the hands of a fighter would grant bonus attacks, in a rogues secrete poison, and in a wizard's hands fire spectral blades. A staff would be a magic weapon for a fighter, a climbing pole for a thief, a healing staff for a cleric or a staff of blinding rays for the wizard.

When you feed your items the magic of another item, it would either gain powers associated to your class or of the previous owner. So if you wanted cold damage on your sword, kill some ice wizards and break their wands.