Freelance Henchman
Arcane
I've been wondering if that would be an interesting thing to implement in a CRPG (where the computer would take on the numerical heavy lifting). I would imagine it would go somewhat like this (some things are fairly similar to the Elder Scrolls system):
Characters have:
* A set of ability scores, STR, DEX etc.
* A hit point max value, likely influenced by a CON score or such.
* Ranks in a number of skills, e.g. Swords, Heavy armor, Evocation magic etc.
Progress would be made by "successful use" of abilities, skills and even the hit point max. Basically for each value in the character sheet there is a progress counter, which is incremented with every successful use. For skills that is obviously every time a successful check for that skill is made. The next skill rank is reached after passing some limit of the progress counter.
For abilities successful use would have to be tied to whatever actions involve that specific ability, so skill use would also increase the progress counter for the relevant ability a bit. But stuff like attacks would increase the STR and/or DEX counters too, magic use would increase the INT counter etc.
Even for hitpoints there would be a counter that increases every time the character when he gets damaged, i.e. "successfully avoids death".
This makes quest rewards a bit more complicated of course, since you can not just dump a bunch of nonexistant XP on the party. And of course balancing the progress amounts (and likely putting in some limits to avoid characters becoming ridiculous) would be a lot of work.
What do you think?
Characters have:
* A set of ability scores, STR, DEX etc.
* A hit point max value, likely influenced by a CON score or such.
* Ranks in a number of skills, e.g. Swords, Heavy armor, Evocation magic etc.
Progress would be made by "successful use" of abilities, skills and even the hit point max. Basically for each value in the character sheet there is a progress counter, which is incremented with every successful use. For skills that is obviously every time a successful check for that skill is made. The next skill rank is reached after passing some limit of the progress counter.
For abilities successful use would have to be tied to whatever actions involve that specific ability, so skill use would also increase the progress counter for the relevant ability a bit. But stuff like attacks would increase the STR and/or DEX counters too, magic use would increase the INT counter etc.
Even for hitpoints there would be a counter that increases every time the character when he gets damaged, i.e. "successfully avoids death".
This makes quest rewards a bit more complicated of course, since you can not just dump a bunch of nonexistant XP on the party. And of course balancing the progress amounts (and likely putting in some limits to avoid characters becoming ridiculous) would be a lot of work.
What do you think?
to this.
but that degrades some other ability, for example - "Musclebound" and "Cardio" means you can fight longer or larger groups of enemies but you also burn more calories because of your bigger mass. So you have to buy more food, also you are bigger, so ther armor, chainmail have to be bigger too - so they cost more money etc. Also because you are bigger and can withstand more punishment your sneaking skills go down (because of lower agility/speed/flexiness) 
