[House-Rule] Question about No-Level growth

[Adragan]

My group and me, we are playing a campaing, mixing Freeport with AGE System.. but we are old players form 7th Sea.. and we love the No-Level or the point based growth system..

With Siroh's house rules of Eternal Shadows we almost have it done all the way down (Thanks again Siroh if you read this!)

The "problem" is that with Levels, you have the Traits and Health/Mana Increase.. and there is some special traits (Class oriented) that you can't take them of and use them like a normal trait.. like Backstab for i.e.

In 7th Sea you are your own class yourself.. so, if you want to be a pirate.. you can choose your own pirate skills.. or whatever skills you want to have with your pirate.. or the same if you wanted to be a musketeer.. Thats the hing i miss in some rpg games.. to be "tied" to your class.

I know that a point based can lead to a ubberpowered characters, but this is (or would be) a house-rule, and in my group i can tell that we don't like to create a demigod lvl1 char.. so, things like a mage/warrior is aberrant for us..


Well, enough talk; anyone has an idea or though of how can be a point based sys for AGE?

[kain]

Not sure if your asking for a homebrew point system or not. My 2 cents would be to use GURPS set. It was what I started out using before the DA RPG box sets came out. Since it's really just a base system of play, as opposed to a genre or specific lore rule set, you basically create the characters as you see fit. It also happens to have been my favorite system for most genre types due to the robust nature of the rules and the ability to use either the simple combat system or the more complicated system (or even mix and match or swap back and forth without hassle). Only reason I haven't been using it lately is that we were looking for something different to alternate play every few weeks, and the AGE system was simple, and easy to learn in 15 min or so, yet despite it's simplicity, the stunt system makes it very interesting for my group. Of all the game systems we have used in the past 25 years (yeah, guilty, started on the original AD&D and a few other systems like Star Frontiers), we keep going back to GURPS for it's utility and ability to make whatever you want and still have a balance.

That aside, level based systems are often the least complicated and are a great way to introduce new players. I have nothing against them, but as you stated, I like to make my pirate however I want to vs cookie cutter mold.

I still recommend getting the box sets for DA though no matter what to use as source material at the very least - and ideas (you never know when you see something you might want to adapt from one system to the other as far as rulemechanics. Plus it's a great way to support pen and paper gaming (you can't expect people to print material if everyone is just going to take idea and use different system or own). It's a one time investment in books that should last longer then any XBox game for the same price for both sets.

--Sorry, off subject rant: It always amazes me when people complain about the price of gaming books. Yet they fail to remember that one set of books, can literally be used for the entire game group for years(I assume most gamers like to have the books themselves though and by them as players too, like I do). Yet the same people complaining, seem to have no qualms about plunking $59 - $69 for console game, play it for a month - beat it and never play again. Gaming books are expensive because there is little resale value, people rarely need to replace them making it a one time purchase, and not everyone buys the supplement stuff.

[Siroh]

There are plenty of home brew systems on this board. One uses points. Another uses talents to approximate class features. You'll have to Search for them though. I wasn't trying to handle high fantasy with the gain sporadic benefits after Level 10 rule in Eternal Shadows, so your mileage will vary applying it to anything where superhuman levels of power are expected (such as some 7th Sea games. In fact I doubt any starting character in 7th is less powerful than a 3rd level AGE character.)

[Lynata]

For such a system, I'd let players buy attribute increases and talents, focuses and weapon groups with XP (or points), but have talent ranks and focuses come with attribute requirements. Hitpoint and Mana increases could be "side-effects" from buying Constitution and Magic (just like Defense and Damage are already side-effects from Strength and Dexterity).

To penalize cookie-cutter builds I'd also make attribute increases progressively more expensive the higher they get. Attributes that do not come with an automatic benefit beyond situational tests (such as Communication and Willpower) could also be made a little cheaper to balance attractivity, the same would apply to "lore" focuses (potentially leading to a wider knowledge specialization amongst the characters depending on their backgrounds).

[Zapp]

Well, enough talk; anyone has an idea or though of how can be a point based sys for AGE?

I know nothing of 7 seas, and so I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but I am interested in a level-less Dragon AGE game myself.

In my case I'm going for a fairly standard XP-driven variant, i.e. you get an amount of XP after each session which you use to buy various talents advances and other bonuses.

Now back to your scheduled programming

[drakahn99]

sounds like you want the free form system listed here:

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=10333