I've always felt that in order to be effective in play the choice of which ability score to increase every fourth level was already made for me. This left little room for the sorcerer who wants to raise his Charisma AND Strength.
I've tossed around the idea of having an ability score increase every 2 levels rather than every 4. The catch is that you may not choose the same ability twice in a row. The sorcerer probably will still choose to raise Charisma at any chance he can get (2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, & 18th level) but has to choose different ability scores to raise at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, & 20th.
Is it too powerful?
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Star Wars Saga does something similar to this, only every four levels you get to increase two different stats by one point each. It seems to work well, though it builds slightly more powerful characters.
Someone else mentioned a system on this board earlier today, that the more I toss it around in my head the more I like it. Instead of getting an ability score every 4 levels, each level you get one 'stat point' that you spend just like in the point buy system. Thus if you had an eight you could raise it to a nine after one level. But if you had a 18 it would take 4 levels to raise it to a 19. This obviously shows favoritism towards building up your weaker stats, but I think it would start to discourage min-maxing in some ways. It does stop getting absolutely high ability scores(can't take an 18 to a 23 like you can normally because once you hit the +5 bonus it starts costing more then normal) but I think that makes characters with scores that high even more exceptional which I totally dig.
-Tarlane
Star Wars Saga does something similar to this, only every four levels you get to increase two different stats by one point each. It seems to work well, though it builds slightly more powerful characters.
I like that, the other version (every two but may not increase the same twice) is too much bookkeeping
Someone else mentioned a system on this board earlier today, that the more I toss it around in my head the more I like it. Instead of getting an ability score every 4 levels, each level you get one 'stat point' that you spend just like in the point buy system.
Again, it leads to increased bookkeeping, since we have to keep track of those points unless you keep increasing everything below 14.
Plus, you have to extend the chart for point buy (not that this is the biggest problem).
And as good as high scores being exceptional sounds, I'd say it shouldn't be too exceptional. In my definition, characters, being heroes, are exceptional already.
I considered using the Saga system, that you can raise 2 abilites instead of one. But I made some quick calculations, and it turned out the level 20 outcome is exactly the same as it is for 30 points point buy, which I allready use.
How about dropping some of the Epic feats down to just normal feats? You can increase stats with some feats.
Maybe a little "DM's Option" in the side talking about how if the fighter spends the 2 months the wizard is building a wand o killer zappy in the lab pumping iron, eating a proper diet, and in general busting himself trying to get stronger, the GM might allow an infrequent STR or CON bonus? Lots of GM's I know use that rule, it just doesn't get talked about all that often, since it's more of a GM's adjudication than a straight mechanic.
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I've always felt that in order to be effective in play the choice of which ability score to increase every fourth level was already made for me. This left little room for the sorcerer who wants to raise his Charisma AND Strength.
I've tossed around the idea of having an ability score increase every 2 levels rather than every 4. The catch is that you may not choose the same ability twice in a row. The sorcerer probably will still choose to raise Charisma at any chance he can get (2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, & 18th level) but has to choose different ability scores to raise at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, & 20th.
Is it too powerful?
My campaign allows a +1 ability score increase every 2 levels and found it works very well - much less need for stat buff magic items to keep up with increasing CR.
I recently had a discussion with some friends about the stat system in D&D and there were some good points raised.
My main beef with D&D in general is the levelling system, that you are unable to advance your skills, abilities, talents without gaining a level. Lets take the wizard and fighter duo again. It's off season for adventurers and they're in town. Every morning the fighter starts his workout routine and takes the wizard with him. There's sparring, running in armor and lots of cardiovascular stuff and in the evenings the wizard teaches the fighter magical theory and tries to show him how to do basic cantrips. This goes on for months, but due to the levelling system neither of them gains anything by this.
But say they go and kill a bunch of goblins. Then the fighter can easily learn some cantrips and then some (wizard multi-class) and the wizard can get his point in strength, or con, as soon as they hit level 4.
It just feels too clunky which is why I tend to attempt to "crossfade" levels. It's plenty of extra work for the DM but I find it generates more aesthetic results than a type of "ding" level up.
As for gaining ability points this way it presents a problem. Once you've given a player a stat point you'll find it hard to just take it away again and still come out being fair. For this I've yet to come up with a stable solution.
My main beef with D&D in general is the levelling system, that you are unable to advance your skills, abilities, talents without gaining a level.
But that's one of the very basics of D&D. Changing that would completely change the game, and apparently the opposite is intended.
I recently had a discussion with some friends about the stat system in D&D and there were some good points raised.
My main beef with D&D in general is the levelling system, that you are unable to advance your skills, abilities, talents without gaining a level.
That's D&D. It's class/level based. If you take that away, you no longer have D&D. The system would in all likelyhood be absolutely incompatible with virtually all the existing material out there.
And on top of that, the fans would be annoyed. A lot of the outrage over 4e is because they changed the game so radically. And this would be more radical than anything they introduced for 4e. In fact, I think it would be more radical than any 4 4e changes combined.
I have seen many d20 variants. I've seen different classes. I've seen virtually classless systems, but the one thing I have seen almost never is a level-less d20.
What you describe isn't D&D. I don't want to chase you away or anything, but I think a different game system would be better for you, simply because d20 would have to be reworked from the ground up to suit your needs: With levels gone, all the NPCs and Monsters out there just went out of the window. The way you determine the difficulty level of encounters change. All the level-dependant stuff like HP, saves, attack bonus and so on have to change. You have to come up with a system to determine how you advance your abilities - the old xp/level system just retired, and didn't leave its new address in Florida. Is a skill point 100xp? 100*new rank? How much for a feat? Increased ability scores?
There's free-form systems like WoD and semi-free-form systems like L5R out there that are more elegant. But level-based systems have their advantages, too.
Getting back on topic! I've been giving my Players an ability point every even level for over a year now, and the results have been more than satisfying. As for concerns that they'll just dump everything into one stat, so far I've yet to have a single player actually do that. If you pay attention all of the classes have *MULTIPLE KEY ABILITY SCORES*. Now, I'm not saying that some people (AKA Power Gamers, etc), might try and use this to there advantage, but they've been finding ways to break D&D for years.
All in all, I strongly feel that in general giving players more ability points encourages them to actually spread them out amongst multiple areas related to their classes, rather than just dumping them into a single stat.
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Getting back on topic! I've been giving my Players an ability point every even level for over a year now, and the results have been more than satisfying. As for concerns that they'll just dump everything into one stat, so far I've yet to have a single player actually do that. If you pay attention all of the classes have *MULTIPLE KEY ABILITY SCORES*. Now, I'm not saying that some people (AKA Power Gamers, etc), might try and use this to there advantage, but they've been finding ways to break D&D for years.
All in all, I strongly feel that in general giving players more ability points encourages them to actually spread them out amongst multiple areas related to their classes, rather than just dumping them into a single stat.
I've used a similar system (feat every odd, ability increase every even) and its also worked fine. What I did do was remove the inherent bonus items (tomes/manuals) which is an idea I got from a R&D article on wizards. Potentially you could add them back in, but I'll experiment some more with the system.
BTW Lurion, welcome to the Paizo boards, 'bout time you got here!
EDIT: It's ironic that my 250th post is inresponse to your 1st one!