Deathwatch XP system

[RavenX]

Mathias,

I've thought about the XP system a bit. I'm thinking we could make a single advancement <thing> for each skill and talent advance, then have the specialty bootstrap the relevant picks as shadowed picks at set values of XP. The user could then add the advances they want to the character. For advances like Sound Constitution x2 have the pick bootstrapped twice. Chapters could have a similar set up. Any advances not bootstrapped would be enmassed to the character as Elite Advances.

Does this sound feasible to do? What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Mathias]

I still think it's very important that the thing storing the advancement cost of something be the same as what's being added. Otherwise, you're forcing yourself to create an advancement helper for everything in the game that can be added with XP.

I was thinking of enmassing everything, and then having the picks that set up advancement costs store the costs on the enmassed version, but I guess it would also work to bootstrap a copy of the thing to be advanced from the pick that defines its advancement cost.

The multiple copies for things that can be taken more than once should work.

Remember - enmassing will be applied before any bootstraps, so you'll have an elite advance for everything that's in any compset that can be added with XP. If elite advances always have a fixed XP cost, or some cost that you can calculate, that's preferable to enmassing them, just to cut down on the count of things that have to be added to each character.

 

[RavenX]

I still think it's very important that the thing storing the advancement cost of something be the same as what's being added. Otherwise, you're forcing yourself to create an advancement helper for everything in the game that can be added with XP.

I was thinking of enmassing everything, and then having the picks that set up advancement costs store the costs on the enmassed version, but I guess it would also work to bootstrap a copy of the thing to be advanced from the pick that defines its advancement cost.

The multiple copies for things that can be taken more than once should work.

Remember - enmassing will be applied before any bootstraps, so you'll have an elite advance for everything that's in any compset that can be added with XP. If elite advances always have a fixed XP cost, or some cost that you can calculate, that's preferable to enmassing them, just to cut down on the count of things that have to be added to each character.

Elite Advances have no fixed cost. They are negotiable with the GM. If you have a good reason for taking it, you ask the GM and say I'm willing to pay this much XP, the book recommends 750 as a base line but says the GM may come back with a higher cost. This enables players early access to advances or advances not normally on their lists.

 

[Mathias]

Elite Advances have no fixed cost. They are negotiable with the GM. If you have a good reason for taking it, you ask the GM and say I'm willing to pay this much XP, the book recommends 750 as a base line but says the GM may come back with a higher cost. This enables players early access to advances or advances not normally on their lists.

Isn't there a way to get fixed costs for elite advances? In Dark Heresy, I remember something about taking alternate advances - everything that was on the list you normally would have selected at that Rank is available as an Elite advance for some specific amount above what it would normally cost?

 

[RavenX]

Isn't there a way to get fixed costs for elite advances? In Dark Heresy, I remember something about taking alternate advances - everything that was on the list you normally would have selected at that Rank is available as an Elite advance for some specific amount above what it would normally cost?

Nope, the book specifically states it is negotiable with the GM.

Last steps of gaining an Elite Advance:
Deathwatch p. 59, "an offer of how many Experience Points you are willing to pay to gain the Advance (e.g., " I will happily pay 800 xp to learn the Lore: Forbidden (Mutants) Skill.)"

Your GM may decide not to grant you the Elite Advance or may demand a higher Experience Point cost than you have suggested."

 

[RavenX]

Dark Heresy, page 229 "Skills and Talents should cost at least 200 xp, if not more."
Even in Dark Heresy they leave it to the GM to decide what the XP cost is. (It's actually discussed in the GM chapter of the book.)

 

[Mathias]

I'm pretty sure it was in the first supplement book published for Dark Heresy - look for a section that describes the overall rules of how the alternate advances function.

 

[RavenX]

I'm pretty sure it was in the first supplement book published for Dark Heresy - look for a section that describes the overall rules of how the alternate advances function.

I'm looking in the Inquisitor's Handbook, Elite Advances Rules Summary page 86.
It basically says the same exact thing Deathwatch does.

Looking at Fantasy Flight's website I have to assume this is the first actual supplement since the one before it was a module.

They released The Core Rulebook and GM kit (basically a module), Purge the Unclean (module), and then Inquisitor's Handbook.

 

[RavenX]

Dark Heresy does have "Elite Advance Packages" which bundle some talents together for a fixed price, and then allow access to a new table (such as the red redemptionist table, which I am assuming would be yet another helper bootstrapped to the character), but aside from the packages, the process is the same across the game systems from what I've seen.

 

[RavenX]

Elite Advances Rules Summary (Inquisitor's Handbook, page 86)

"You can also request an Elite Advance for a Skill or Talent not listed on your advancement Scheme, but this must be reasonable and appropriate for your character and the situation they are in. To make a request you will need the following:

• Logical Justification for your character to have the Elite Advance
• An explaination for how you gained the Advance, how you got it, time taken, resources expended, etc.
• An offer of how many Experience Points or other cost you are willing to pay to gain the Advance. The further a Skill or Talent lies outside your character's normal area of expertise, the more it should cost; likewise for particularly rare or unusual knowledge.

Your GM may decide not to grant you the Elite Advance, or request a higher xp cost than you have suggested; or impose some other counterbalancing penalty. Your GM may also rule that you need to pass a series of Tests in order to successfully learn the requested Skill or Talent. This usually ties into your explanation for how you gained the Advance."

 

[Mathias]

Inquisitor's Handbook, pg. 53 - the "Elite Advances from Missed Career Ranks" sidebar is what I was thinking of.

 

[RavenX]

They're still Elite Advances (Space Marines don't have such missed ranks), but it says take what's on the table and add 50 to the cost to gain it in that case. I'd still say that should be user specifiable. The GM is the final arbitrator on such things, and what if he or she decides that those advances cost 100 or 150 more than the listed cost? An Elite Advance is still subject to GM discretion.

 

[RavenX]

So now that we've finally agreed on a method for tackling this project, should I build the advances in thing_advances.dat for each individual <thing> or should it be a separate datafile?

 

[Mathias]

So now that we've finally agreed on a method for tackling this project, should I build the advances in thing_advances.dat for each individual <thing> or should it be a separate datafile?

Use the existing advances, modified to handle the specifics of the category they're offering - you'll need to add scripts to the advancement mechanics that can look up the corresponding "advancement cost" copy of this particular skill or whatever, and then calculate the cost based on the cheapest copy it found.

 

[RavenX]

Ok, so the existing advances in that file just need modification?
I take it the shadowed cost picks will be a separate thing_.dat file?

 

[Mathias]

To reiterate from my first post in this thread "I still think it's very important that the thing storing the advancement cost of something be the same as what's being added. Otherwise, you're forcing yourself to create an advancement helper for everything in the game that can be added with XP."

 

[RavenX]

To reiterate from my first post in this thread "I still think it's very important that the thing storing the advancement cost of something be the same as what's being added. Otherwise, you're forcing yourself to create an advancement helper for everything in the game that can be added with XP."

I translate this as the advance cost field should store the XP cost. Which means change it from what it currently is (as a slot cost) over to experience point cost.

That or you're saying the cost should be set in the skill or talent itself via a field.

I am just trying to hammer this out on paper before tackling it. I want to do it correctly.

 

[RavenX]

To reiterate from my first post in this thread "I still think it's very important that the thing storing the advancement cost of something be the same as what's being added. Otherwise, you're forcing yourself to create an advancement helper for everything in the game that can be added with XP."

To be blunt, Mathias, sometimes your posts aren't clear enough. My requests for clarification may not be as clear as they need to be at times though, but sometimes I do need you to be more clear with me about your meaning on things.

 

[Mathias]

I translate this as the advance cost field should store the XP cost. Which means change it from what it currently is (as a slot cost) over to experience point cost.

That or you're saying the cost should be set in the skill or talent itself via a field.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to explain here.

 

[RavenX]

What I'm asking is for clarification on how to do the storage of information. You're telling me to use what is being added to store the XP cost.

For the sake of argument lets say Awareness is what I want to advance.

Are you saying I should have fields on the Awareness skill to store the various XP Costs at each level, or should the advance be storing the information?