Everyone's got house rules and they are just like opinions

I have decided that beyond character creation, characteristic advancement through xp is just not workin' for me. It is both too expensive and too unchecked. I see the potential to have characters with zero mechanical breadth simply because they piled on Characteristic advances over things like talents, actions, etc. Hurray you have the most intelligent Soldier in the world...welcome to Rank 3...what else you got?

My group and I liked the process in previous editions where you had to hop into the right career if you wanted to advance a characteristic. Fellowship wasn't an option for a guardsman for instance. And as you landed in higher careers you had to have a higher advancement potential if you wished to pump more points into a stat. It kept everyone from having a 100 score and it kept people from stepping too far oustide a career's intended purpose. We never saw that as a limitation because...you could always choose a different career if you wanted to make a well rounded character.

So I am thinking of having the following House Rule:

Once play begins the following rules apply for XP advancements of a characteristic.

As a character gains experience and advances through their careers they may wish to increase a characteristic to take better advantage of new abilities, or simply to gloat over having a very strong/tough/beguilling character. To advance a characteristic after play has begun apply the following:

• A Characteristic may only be advanced once per character rank, and only once per career
• A Characteristic may only be advanced if it is listed as a primary characteristic on the current career sheet. No "Out of Career" characteristic advancement is allowed ever...ever...don't ask...No exceptions.
• Characteristic Advancement is a two stage process
• Characteristic Advancement costs 1 Advance
• Fortune Dice are no longer available on Characteristics not listed on the current career sheet, and are now considered to be a "Characteristic Advancement" per the conditions above. This also qualifies them as an Open Career Advancement.
• The first stage of advancement is purchasing the fortune die.
• The second stage of advancement, if the above conditions allow for it, replaces the Fortune Die with a blue Characteristic Die and the character gains all the rights and privaleges of telling their best mates that they now have that 6 toughness they've always dreamed of.
• If future careers and higher ranks allow for it, the characteristic can be advanced again starting at the first stage of aquiring a fortune die, and then proceeding to a characteristic die, rinse. repeat. By Rank 4 a character could potentially have increased a characteristic by 2 full points (6 max stat for humans, 7 max stat for freaky deaky non humans).

In my games I believe this will: Allow for people to see progression in their characteristics without sacrificing all other advancement, simplify the "how many fortune dice can I have on a characteristic" debate, eliminate the issue of out-of-career advancement, and it won't allow for higher characteristics than you'd normally see on a character. Players who wish to power game will find a way to do it no matter what, and I'm lucky to have no extreme cases at my table, so everyone's mileage will vary on that point.

In terms of character creation I apply stat advancement as written, where it takes so many creation points to nudge up a stat. Additionally, I have modified Character Creation in line with Commoner's House Rules where a 4 is the top you can buy, unless you are a non-human with a loopy stat and can get to a 5.

We are early enough in our adventures that it hasn't caused the game to go tilt. Can anyone give me some situations where I'm going to have issues with my xp advancement for characteristics? I'm not worried about dwarfs with high toughness in gromril armour because they tend to drown or get covered in tar and set on fire around me...

I don't agree with the concept, but I like your rule none the less. It's a good way to adress the issue you don't like. Personally I like that increasing characteristics is a huge investment and that at rank 3 you may only have increased one or two characteristics.

But your rule is a great way to handle it

Gallows said:

Thanks Gallows, just the kind of perspective I was looking for.

I completely removed characteristic fortune dice in our game. They just don't make sense to me. Your strenght is now a bit more lucky

There is enough dice in the pool and the balance won't suffer by removing them. It's one thing less to spend points on as well.

I think it's a good start. You could slim it down a bit.

Since I don't use the regular caree change rules (we just change careers at RANT/10 xp whether you min-maxed your career or not), I only have two rules (similar to yours):
* You can only advance a characteristic once per rank
* You can only gain one fortune die in a characteristic per rank

..but I'm leaning towards getting rid of "white dice bloat" as others have done and move towards ONLY doing skill specialization (situational) instead.

jh

A Characteristic may only be advanced once per character rank, and only once per career

With only 6 open career slots for increasing a characteristic ... there is no way to ever buy two advances in a characteristic in a single rank or career, and only the barest of ways to increase two characteristics (assuming they in-career ones and they are raising both from 2 to 3, which is highly unliekly). So, these "rules" are totally unnecessary.

I think you're honestly taking away a player's options with regards to character development. There are both pros and cons to a player increasing their characteristics. Overall, a Characteristic upgrade good, because it affects all skill tests involving that characteristic. However, in terms of specific skill use, training in a skill is much more powerful. The yellow training die for a skill is the best die in the game, having both a comet and the righteous success, and a 5/6 chance of a good result roll. Also, keep in mind that training a skill during a career gives a free specialization upon career completion purchase. Of course, Action cards are important because they are the specific "DO Things" abilities that players perform. Having a high Strength but only having access to the basic Melee Strike limits the player, while having a lower strength but a broader choice of attack actions has many benefits. Additionaly, to raise a characteristic requires the PC to go without any "improvment" for the time it takes to gain the necessary number of points to advance the characteristic. Meanwhile, those taking skills and action cards can start using those right away.

So anyway, my point is that it is a player choice if he wants to endure the cons for the benefit of raising a characteristic. It should be a choice, however, that the player makes. It shouldn't be easy for them to choose. I think making a characteristic cost only 1 advance is too good, even if you limit it to every other rank, since PCs get 6 Open advances. It would be a no brainer to take 1 fortune rank 1 for 1 open advance, and then 1 open advance at the start of rank 2 to raise their characteristic. Heck, it's worth raising two characteristics for that price. Consider most starting PCs have a 4 in a stat, that means for 4 advances they get to raise two characteristics to 5 plus two fortune dice in those stats too. It's just too cheap the way you suggest. All it does, essentially, is prevent a characteristic increase at rank 1, while making it easy to gain two increases in rank 2.

I also don't see why you have an issue with out-of-career characteristic advances. What is wrong with allowing a Wizard to decide he wants to raise his toughness, for example? Again, the player is choosing to spend his hard-earned advancements the way he wants. He wants his Amber wizard to be more macho then smart, for example. OR, that bright wizard wants to beef up his strength so he can wield a sword in battle better. He is making the choice to sacrifice taking other goodies, like spells, to design and progress the PC the way he envisions him. A fighter might want to raise his intelligence, of a Thief raise his fellowship (when it isn't one of his career stats). In essence, you are pigeon-holing your PCs and severely restricting them. It would be like telling a PC in a Combat career that they are not allowed to buy any Social actions.

I think the premise of your idea is interesting, but I'm having a difficult time understanding or seeing *why* a house rule is needed to "fix" anything regarding this, so I cannot find a constructive way to suggest anything at the moment.

I would agree with Emirikol that I think fortune dice should be restricted similar to training dice; you cannot have more than 1 per rank in a characteristic.

House Rules don't need to fix anything. They can be personal tweaks and style modifications right? My OP was mostly intended to bounce an idea around. I wasn't trying to "fix" anyone else's game. I was just sharing some thoughts that perhaps others would have input on. Gallows put it into perspective pretty easily and I stated as such in my reply. Sorry if you felt like I was being offensive in some way dvang.

To the first part of your post I am in agreement that the cost itself will slow someone down from advancing a characteristic, as I said previously. That part I've pretty much tossed out from my OP and have "seen the light" so to speak.

In terms of my sticking point with out of career characteristic advances it isn't how things were done in older editions and if someone wants to be a super strong Student they can transition into a career with Strength as a primary characteristic. It's not something that has to catch on with mass appeal, as it would only be in effect at my table. I am still going to limit people to advances in characteristics listed on their current career. If they want to be a jack of all trades they can train themselves in skills since that is more powerful in some respects anyway.

As always YMMV