Character Improvement
Learning New Skills
New skills can be acquired in 3 ways:
By Doing
The Warden is encouraged to award new skills organically if the players show consistent dedication to learning them.
After campaigning with the Outriders of Valanti for two months, Orgal is now a skilled Mounted Warrior.
By Training
Training requires a trainer in the mentioned career. If a character wants to learn how to pick a lock, go find a thief. It’s as simple as that. Hiring a trainer will cost about 50 gold per week — though often trainers will want other incentives than just gold in order to train you.
Finding a trainer and convincing them to train a character is a prime part of the “engine” of Block, Dodge, Parry. See Finding A Trainer for more.
If the players are stumped by a lock on an ancient stone door somewhere in the city sewers, this should motivate them to find someone who can pick locks. Thieves can be assumed to have this skill, so if the players invest proper time and effort to find a skilled thief, it’d be a good reward to have that thief be a lockpicker. The thief might require the service of the players first, of course.
By Studying
Knowledge can also be gained from books. Proper treatises and manuals will seem more expensive and difficult than hiring a trainer, but the benefit is that once purchased, others can follow the training as well. A book that can teach a skill should cost about twice as much as the estimated cost for training; if a skill takes three weeks to learn for 50 gold per week, a book teaching the same skill would cost 300 gold. Training from a book will also take about 50% longer than studying under a trainer.
How To Track Progress
Learning a new skill is essentially a Complex Task:
- A simple skill takes 1d4+2 Steps, and a Step takes 1 day.
- A hard skill takes 2d4+4 Steps, and a step takes 1 day.
- An expert skill takes 4d4+8 Steps, and a step takes 1 day, 1 week or even 1 month.
For modifiers, use the assumed skill of the trainer in educating and teaching: a +1 for a skilled instructor, a +2 for an expert instructor.
Combat Experience
Fighting a type of foe multiple times can increase a character’s combat experience. Combat experience should be somewhat specific, bound to a specific type of enemy (goblins, bandits, sea reavers, spider folk), a location (forests, hills, desert), weapon type (bows, up close) and/or situation (at night, from ambush).
Combat experience should be a reward for committing to a specific foe and context.
“Due to the skirmishes he fought alongside the elves, Wren is now adept at fighting the goblins of the Great Wood of Fahrak” is good (and flavorful).
“Wren is an adept at fighting humans” is too general.
The three levels of combat experience each increase a character’s minimum damage:
- Adept: Your minimum damage against this foe is 2.
- Seasoned: Your minimum damage against this foe is 3.
- Expert: Your minimum damage against this foe is 4.
If a Seasoned fighter rolls a 1 on a 1d8 longsword attack against a goblin, the damage increases to 3, reflecting the Seasoned minimum damage.
Gaining combat experience should feel like a meaningful reward gained by characters. As a rough guideline:
- Adept: 3 fights against this particular foe.
- Seasoned: 7 fights against this particular foe.
- Expert: 15 fights against this particular.
Combat Superiority
If within the fiction the player characters are simply superior to their opponents, all their attacks are Enhanced. This allows for a degree of power fantasy, without necessarily introducing a severe power creep. Use HP as a general guideline; if a player character’s max HP is at least 8 points higher than their opponent’s max HP, it can be assumed that they are skilled enough to land Enhanced blows. By the time a player character has 12 max HP, they’d definitely make short work of a bandit with 3 HP.
These rules can also apply to NPCs; a superior NPC might act as a one-being detachment, and a horde of inferior NPCs might need to group together to land effective blows (with the PCs basically becoming the one-person detachments). See Features in Friends, Foes & Monsters for more.
Gaining More HP
Anyone with notably more combat experience than a PC can give general combat training, which increases HP. A trainer is required to have more HP than the character they are training. If the roll PCs make for their new max HP is lower than their current max HP, ignore the roll and increase max HP by 1.
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Regular soldiers, sellswords, and similar folk (those with 6 max HP or less) can give basic combat training, which takes 1 week and costs 50 gold, after which the PC can roll 1d6 for their new max HP.
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Veterans and expert trainers (those with 7 to 12 max HP) can give advanced combat training, which takes 4 weeks and costs 75 gold per week, after which the PC can roll 2d6 for their new max HP. Taking this training requires a base max HP of 6.
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Legendary heroes and champions (those with 13 or more max HP) can give training that allows the PC to roll 3d6 for their new max HP. Taking this training requires a base max HP of 12.
Optional Rule: Milestones
When a character completes a significant milestone involving combat, such as partaking in a big battle or contributing to the downfall of a dangerous foe, have them roll for their HP as per general combat training above.
Increasing Abilities
A PC can increase their Abilities through training. This training costs 200 gold per week. At the end of the week, roll a D20. If they roll above their current maximum ability score, it increases by 1. An ability cannot be raised above 18.
- Strength Training can be given by physically strong trainers, such as sailors, blacksmiths, and soldiers, but also by dwarves and giants.
- Dexterity Training can be given by thieves, assassins, and hunters, but also by elves and the like.
- Willpower Training can be given by magic-users, priests, or similar folk.
Crucial Saves
Abilities can also be increased by failing Ability Saves in dramatic moments. When a player is about to make a dramatic, important Save in a moment with high stakes, the Warden can declare it a Crucial Save. After laying out the consequences of success and failure within the fiction, the player rolls their dice. If they fail the Save, the used Ability has its maximum increased by 1.