Alright, I wasn't sure which forum to post this in, but I figured here or Conversions . . . so, whatever.
I got thinking the other night as I was playing the Star Wars MMO. In SWTOR they have what's called Legacy experience and levels. For those not familiar with the game it's a seperate experience track that every character you have gains, but which is shared between all your characters. It's gained at a slower rate than normal experience, but every new character you start you have whatever amount of Legacy you've already accumulated. The higher Legacy level you have, the more perks you have access to for all your characters.
Now, I'll freely admit that I don't think the Legacy system was implemented as well as they intended in SWTOR, but that's not here nor there right now.
What I was thinking is trying to figure out how I could apply a Legacy type system to my Pathfinder game. Yeah, setting up a seperate experience track for the players is easy (even if I just track it myself for right now), but I'm trying to think of ways I can think of legacy perks or boons that can be provided when their Legacy level goes up.
The only thing I can think of is if for one reason or another a player gets bored of their current character and wants to change out their PC for a new one. Their new PC would have their character level start at the same level as the player's Legacy level. It'd be easier than having them start from level one.
I'm just not sure what other options should be available to players as they get a high legacy. I plan to have the Legacy tracking persistant through multiple campaigns (within the same homebrew campaign world), but I thought I could push the idea out to the community to see if anyone else had thoughts.
Well let's break it down. In normal Pathfinder, as you gain experience your character levels up and you gain new abilities in your class (or multiclass), as well as other stuff like feats and ability score increases not tied to your class.
So let's assume that we don't want to give the player's next character the class abilities, hit dice or skill ranks from their last class. The feats and ability score increases should be given automatically, if the player starts at the same level or one level below.
So what can we give them? Extra feats? Maybe a free magic item? If it's really a legacy it should be a hereditary thing right? Star Wars Saga Edition introduced Legacies in the Legacy Era Campaign Guide.
The SWSE Legacies let you spend a destiny point to do something. An example:
Fel Legacy
You are a descendant of Baron Soontir Fel, former Imperial Pilot and loyal subject of the Empire of the Hand, and a relative of the current Emperor-in-Exile Roan Fel.
Prereq Human or near human
Legacy Destiny If you have a Legacy Destiny, you can spend a destiny point as a free action to grant all allies in your line of sight a +5 destiny bonus to Will Defense until the end of the encounter.
If you want to do a collective experience thing, maybe let it grant a hero point or something every time a tier is reached. Much higher tiers will introduce special magic items or maybe a legacy quest. The experience required should be at least double what it takes to level up. Maybe even triple.
All new characters in my campaigns have the same XP as the rest of the party. So I don't really see the point unless you're playing some kind of rogue-like game.
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Track all characters played by a single player's XP. Once you reach 500,000 XP across any combination of characters, each character played by that character has their point-buy increased by 2. This may be applied immediately to all characters.
At 1,000,000 total XP, they gain a free 3rd level or lower SLA once a day, chosen from the Cleric or the Sorcerer/Wizard list.
At 2,000,000 XP the characters also gain the first level of another class for free at character creation. Treat this add a gestalt character for that first level.
At 5,000,000 XP, each character played by that player gains an additional 3 points in their point-buy.
At 10,000,000 XP, each character starts the game with a +1 weapon, armor, or other similarly enhanced piece of equipment. This also grants proficiency with that one piece of equipment.
At 15,000,000 XP, the bonuses are increased by 100%. This means you gain an additional 5 points to your point-buy that you may apply immediately, a second +1 piece of equipment or upgrade your first piece to +2 for free. You gain another 3rd level or lower SLA or are able to use your previously gained SLA three times a day. Each character also gains an additional level of a gestalt class.
At 20,000,000 and every 5,000,000 XP thereafter, each character played by that played gains the an additional +5 to their point-buy, an additional 3rd level SLA or 3 times the users of the previous SLA, and an additional +1 to their equipment. The character gains an additional gestalt class level.
At 50,000,000 XP, each character created by this player gains 1 Mythic Tier to add to his characters, +1 for every 10,000,000 XP thereafter.
Additional (new) players that have no Legacy Experience begin with an amount of Legacy Experience equal to 1/5 the account of Legacy Experience accrued by the player with the highest amount. All players lower than this amount begin play with at least this amount of Legacy Experience.
For reference, 500,000 XP is equal to a character just short of 14th level using the Slow advancement track. You gain 1,000,000 XP a little after 15th level in a single character.
2,000,000 XP is gained by a 17th level character.
A character can accrue 5,000,000 XP at 19th level and not hit 20th on the Slow progression track, whereas a Fast track character gains 2,000,000 XP by level 19.
If you play a single game from levels 1-20, your players will have gained enough XP to increase their total point-buy by 5, gain a SLA, and a single gestalt level. Players new to the table gain 2 points to their point-buy and a free SLA, plus they can start gaining experience themselves.
CalethosVB did it much better than I. If you want legacy experience, go with that.
CalethosVB, that's fantastic.
Calethos, that is a thing of sheer beauty.