Ive got an idea

[Lucidator]

Hey guys and gals of the fg forums.

ive been struck by an idea recently and ive been thinking of how to implement it into a campaign setting.
The idea is fairly simple and it revolves around downtime activity and stat progression.
I want to try to give players the ability to raise individual stats according to what they do in between quests and when they are staying in town.

Now i'm not a DM but im asking for some advice for the future when i probably eventually do get in to running games for people.
I realize though that this probably isnt a new concept but i just want to see what the more seasoned DM's out there think about this.

[JohnD]

Sounds like everyone will quickly be running around with a sac full of 18s.

[Zacchaeus]

Yes, as JohnD says increases in stats have a big impact. For what rule system are we talking about though?

[Trenloe]

Yep, what ruleset? Pathfinder has downtime activities and (re)training in Ultimate Campaign: https://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/downtime/downtimeActivities.html and https://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/campaignSystems/retraining.html Some other RPGs (BRP springs to mind) allow structured training in downtime.

[Lucidator]

What i'm thinking is that you would get a single stat point after quite lengthy period of time of doing a single action or a combination of actions. for example if you play a wizard and research a certain subject for long enough and gain a good amount of knowledge or wisdom that would lead to and increase in a stat relating to the subject matter.

and yeah i forgot to mention its for 5E. I realize that this might sound a bit mad however the increase will have be limited and balanced. I'm really just tossing this out there as more a concept than an actually fleshed out mechanic.

Take it for what you will i'm just posting this here to ask what you guys think of it as a concept.

[Trenloe]

D&D primarily gives advances by leveling up through experience - you can get stat increases as part of leveling up (if you don't take a feat in 5E). Doing stuff like this is outside of the experience/level mechanic and would need very, very careful balancing; but go nuts if that's what you want to do. Just make sure you have lots of 60 year old level one wizard NPCs sitting around in cities with an INT of 25 as they've had lots of 'downtime" outside of adventuring to increase their stats. :)

[Roakana]

i like this idea for abilities more than stats. Especially since there is almost no way to affect abilities (beyond a feat) after level 1. so if I were to study history or another ability and I get a +1 to that ability... that is appealing. this would not allow proficiency but could perhaps allow a boost after long study / training. there would be a cap of course.

[Zacchaeus]

Abilities increase too with levelling up since proficiency bonuses increase over time.

[LordEntrails]

Question, (sorta silly, but...) Is your PC an "Adventurer" or a "Scholar"?

If you are playing an adventure RPG (like most 5E campaigns are), then your PC's are not sitting around for months at a time doing research or practice or something else. They spend their time delving into dungeons, hunting down renegades, fighting off an army of invading orcs, or travelling the shadowfell in search of a legendary artifact. So... why bother developing such a mechanic? Wouldn't you rather be slaying a band of roving trolls?

[Mask_of_winter]

I thought leveling up was a downtime activity that could be explained by experience and training during said downtime activities.

[damned]

In Old School D&D didnt you need to find someone to train you (and you had to pay them a decent chunk of your loot) to advance levels? So you would all do this between adventures.

[Roakana]

only things you have only put proficiency in at level 1. (or feat). i was just riffing on the idea that you could choose to study up a little on a specific category. otherwise if i didnt take History as a young pup I will never get better at history without a feat or intellgence stat increase. I accept 5e has streamlined alot of things for convenience but it seems out of sync to think just because a character wasnt passionate about training when starting out they will never grow in that skill. It is a place where older systems did better job of simulating growth in skills. 5e has chosen streamlining which in most cases is a good choice. here... there seems like a little room for improvement. BTW it is also odd that if I take a Feat at lvl 8 a category that i had no skill in suddenly jumps to mastered because of proficiency bonuses in one go. there is a whole field in the skill tab to allow bonus points in a skill... which is almost never touched. Anyway... i was having fun with the idea without it going to full ability boosts that do seem to be handled by the every 4 levels boost built into game.

[Full Bleed]

only things you have only put proficiency in at level 1. (or feat). i was just riffing on the idea that you could choose to study up a little on a specific category. otherwise if i didnt take History as a young pup I will never get better at history without a feat or intellgence stat increase. I accept 5e has streamlined alot of things for convenience but it seems out of sync to think just because a character wasnt passionate about training when starting out they will never grow in that skill. It is a place where older systems did better job of simulating growth in skills.
This is true. But, that said, this is the mechanic they've supposedly balanced the game around. You'd have to be careful about trivializing skill checks in your game (particularly at higher levels depending on how much new "down-time skill" you'd allow).

Here are some thoughts...

Option 1:

Journeyman Skills (Variant)

1) At every increase in proficiency bonus allow a player to add a Journeyman skill. A Journeyman skill would be a skill check that could be made with half of their standard proficiency bonus (using system rounding rules).


Option 2:

Skill Focus

For every week of down-time study or focus on a particular skill, you can acquire an expendable Advantage roll for that particular skill.

That doesn't really account for any permanent increases in newly acquired skills or open up 5e's 1st level skill lock, but it would give players that care about downtime and skills something to leverage at various points in the game.

[Lucidator]

Okay thanks all of you guys replying. I agree with most of your posts however this idea will mostly be put towards long running campaigns as characters will go through a lot of levels during a six month campaign for instance and there will probably be quite a bit of downtime. Now that said after giving it more thought i could see applying this after some great feat of adventuring so to speak, for example if a group of adventurers take down a young green dragon at lvl 4 (this has happened in a group i was in) through some clever trap or whatnot that could be a viable situation for some kind of ability or stat increase.

I have to say though that i didnt expect this thread to garner so much attention so thanks again for your thoughts and suggestions.

[JohnD]

Its your game. If you want to do it, nobody is hurt. Seems way overpowering though, regardless of the rationale you use to justify it.

[thedougalbug]

There is actually a really great section in the Dungeon Masters Guide that deals specifically with different ways of giving your players levels.

As has been mentioned it is your game so do what you like but I might advise you this:

As a player of D&D since the tender age of 5, the most rewarding experience points or levels I ever received were the ones I fought hard for, they were never gifted.

But go check out the DMG section on this for some ideas OP