Ability Increases

[Zuty]

Hi,

First of all, I really like DCC so far. I've spent the last couple of days thumbing through the base book and I am very happy with the simplicity the game offers. I'm a newer fan to RPs (been playing for about 5 years now), so I don't have as much experience or know-how as everyone else does, but I decided I wanted to run a small game when our DM is unable to make it. Most of my friends who I RP with have been RPing 15+ years; two of which have been RPing and DMing since D&D was first introduced. So when I mentioned DCC and showed them the core book, they fell in LOVE with the presentation of not just the game system, but the illustrations and classic, nostalgic feel they enjoy. Our group plays 2nd edition D&D almost exclusively; we tried 3rd once and all came to the same agreement to stop and go back to the old system. We looked into 4th edition once, but we were so jarred by it that we didn't even finish creating our characters, let alone play a full session. Ever since then, we've been looking for a new RP to play. We currently have a Star Wars RP (the WotC version, not the terribly overcomplicated West End version or the just plain terrible Fantasy Flight version) which we all seem to love very much. We've attempted to play other games and have other DMs, but 99% of the time we didn't even get through one full session. I was luckily, or unluckily, the 1% of that statistic that everyone enjoyed when I ran my custom Avatar (the cartoon, not the movie) game that I made from scratch that didn't run on any dice system. It's a lot to explain and I am just now realizing how much I've rambled, so I'll wrap up my life story and get to my question.

I'm sure this has been asked time and time again, but I've used the search function on the forums and been flipping through my base book for over an hour now and I CAN NOT seem to find when players can increase their ability scores. I understand how brutal this game can be and how rare it is for players to achieve a level higher than 5, but even the course of those levels I would think the player would increase in their abilities one way or another.

The only thing I could find on here was that someone on the forums tends to give out ability bonuses whenever he feels the need to and I don't see anything wrong with that, but I don't want my players begging me for ability scores or going out of their way in game in an attempt to increase their Agility by saying they spend their free time running and doing parkour. I'm also a little nervous about saying they can increase X score(s) every Y level(s), because it could lead to gimped characters or twinked characters if I pick the X and/or Y values incorrectly.

I could be just worrying too much about this, but, as I said before, I am still very, very, very new to DMing and even newer to DCC. So what should I do?

Thank you for your time,

~Zuty

[Colin]

You haven't missed anything; there are no rules for regular ability increases. That gives you the freedom to houserule it as desired, ignore ability increases altogether (the benefits of which become ever less apparent as levels increase anyway), or make ability increases the focus of quests or adventures.

Check out these threads:
ONE
TWO
THREE

Colin

[Ravenheart87]

Follow the "Quest for it!" mentality emphasized on page 306. It would make things a bit more interesting then just giving out even more bonuses when leveling up.

[Tortog]

Yup, there is no rule covering the increasing of stats and it sounds like you don't want to have to deal with having everyone sync-up their questing schedules. I think a good rule of thumb is that "nobody gets something for free... there are always onerous strings attached."

EX: Player wants an increase some stats for their character. OK, but the character must bargain with an Imp (or something) who walks away from the deal with 1 syllable of the character's true name per increase. (roll 1d10+level of character to see how many syllables they have to bargain with) The more syllables the Imp gets, the greater its influence will be over the PC. If the Imp gets all the syllables, then they take the character's soul and may command him or her as it suits the Imp's whims.

Have fun storming the castle!

[cthulhudarren]

Unlike most other editions of DnD, DCCRPG does not rely on stats to make good characters. Stat increases are not necessary.

[Zuty]

Wow, thank you all for the hasty and helpful replies. I think you'll start seeing me around here more often for that very reason.

I read through all yout replies and checked out the other topic/info you each suggested and I think I came up with a plan ...

At the end of the first encounter, the player picks a remaining character to level up to 1. All there other characters leave ... For now at least.

Their remaining lvl 1 character, after picking a class, gets a permanent ability score bonus of 1d3 to two different ability scores. The choosen scores MUST make sense for the class and they CAN NOT pick Luck. Or, they may instead choose to raise any one ability (besides Luck) score with a negative or +0 mod to instead be bumped up to the first ability value that gives them a +1 mod. For every 2 ability points gained this way, <PENALTY>. ie. A score of 3 (modifer -3) would need to be increased by 10 to barely give the player a +1 mod. That means, <PENALTY>.

I am thinking of making the penalty for the second option be a temporary lose of health, because they were busy busting their butt to get that score up. I am also thinking of making the penalty an 'XP' tax. The bonus will not kick in until they "pay off their taxes". So if they did go from a score of 3 to 13, they would owe me the first 5 XP they earn. Is that too harsh? Not harsh enough? Or just right?

~Zuty

[Caffiend]

I dunno, Zuty. Sounds really lenient. The best part about DCC (my POV) is that player's can't number-crunch your way through it to min/max their PCs. There are no feats. There are no ability bonuses. And yet -- there are many ways for the ability #s to change.

Take Spellburning, for instance: If you give a Wizard the chance to raise his Agility every time they level, with the justification that he has to be able to dodge quicker with no armor, what you are truly giving him is more of an opportunity to max out a spell at a low level. He can burn Agility points to cast...and hey, no worries, he'll just raise his Agility again next time he levels.

That ain't right. It's supposed to be challenging. If it was easy, the 0-lvl PCs would start with 1d20 HP.

However, if someone got stuck with a 3 in something, I'm not saying "don't offer a chance for help". Play with it. Rather, make them play for it. The witch could reward him with a bonus of +1 to that ability at the end of Doom of the Savage Kings. Or he could find an item that takes his ability modifier to -2 vs. -3. It doesn't have to be cruel, but it shouldn't be handed to them. (And XP penalties are rough, when you're looking at an average of 10 XP per module.)

[cjoepar]

Welcome to the system and welcome to the forums.

I'd suggest you try it first without doing any ability increases unless the party does something really extraordinary. Just try it that way - if you find that there seems to be a need, then you'll have enough experience with the system to judge for yourself how much is enough after you've played 6 or 8 times.

I thought about ability bumps at first, too. In the end, the only thing I ended up doing beyond the RAW was that I give each character 2 extra hit points when they hit 1st level to help their survivability a bit.

[Zuty]

@Caffiend - Ah, very good point on spellburning. Although, my idea for increasing stats happened at 1st level and never again.

@Cjoepar - Also a very good point. I'm hoping to try out a mini adventure this Tuesday. So far, I've rolled up three level ones and played them against some goblins by myself at home in an attempt to understand the game. It helped A LOT and showed me that, even though there aren't ability increases from leveling, feats, talents, etc. ... The game doesn't need it. Combat was fast and easy, character creation was incredibly fun and easy, and the first dungeon experience I threw at myself proved to be fun! I think the best thing about DCC so far is the fact that I didn't show up with a character and his bag of tricks all planned out, I had to work with the rolls I got and then I pickef a class I felt workef best for my character as a person, not as a means to win or "break" the game.

For instance, in all my previous D&D games I played a caster who would give bonuses to allies or negatives to foes. I never played anything that hacked and slashed their way through combat and I certainly never played as a "leader". Then, one day our DM told us in his new game we were going to be randomly given characters before we rolled up stats and picked feats, talents, and such. I pulled a warrior who was all about leading the group. Even though we only played this game once, (our group didn't like 3.5 very much) I liked this new perspective and started to help take charge in our main game.

Same thing happened in my first test of DCC. I rolled the dice for my stats and got high agility, averagr strength, VERY high stamina, low int, and average luck. My character was also a Miner with a pick axe as a weapon and after my first kill, I was able to go "I gotta work on this guys back story!"

~Zuty

[Skyscraper]

Hi there,

Here are a few thoughts.

1) you probably know this, but remember that if stats (other than luck) decrease for one reason or another, PCs often recuperate them at the rate of 1 point per good night's rest.

2) PCs usually don't recuperate luck, but don't hesitate to reward players with luck bonuses (usually +1) for daring moves. Maybe not every player, every game session, but often enough. This has two favorable consequences IMO: (1) it allows players to actually burn some of their luck, knowing that some might come back, if slowly; and (2) it pushes players to do daring moves I've given a PC a +1 luck bonus, for example, simply because he jumped into a dark hole in the hut of a witch - that ended up being a treasure cache.

3) Having low ability scores can simply be part of the game. It doesn't really matter. PCs with scores in the 16+ range then become exceptional, and I think that's fine. The bonus curve is very slow in DCC and there is no game balance issue with playing PCs that have no ability score bonuses. Unless you throw battles at the PCs that are simply too tough for them - but even then, high ability scores should not prevent them from dying.

4) If really you want PCs with higher ability scores, you can roll them up with different rules than 3d6. For example, you can use the 4d6, drop lowest technique.

5) Giving rewards can be fun also. Those can come in the form of items, boons, background or story awards. Background bonuses I think are particularly easy to push into play, e.g. the player tells you how his thief went on to be an acrobat for one year, and you give him a +2 boost to his agility score. For example, between the funnel and level 1, you can say that some time passes and interact with the players to learn how their PCs learned their new class. In my game, one year passed between the funnel and level 1, and the players told me how and where they learned their new class. However, other stuff can happen that's more punctual, e.g.:
- a cleric finds a hidden, ancient shrine to his god and as he bathes in the radiance of the area, he receives forgotten lore and gets +1 or +2 to INT or PER or both. But perhaps he also suffers from higher expectations by his god, and his disapproval starts at 2 instead of 1 (on his d20) each day.
- a warrior is bitten by a strange scorpion in a wizard's lab. He gains +2 to STR, but he is particularly susceptible to poison (-4 to all saves vs poison).
- etc...

6) Drawbacks that come with bonuses, usually of lesser impact than the bonuses themselves, are often fun as they give additional RP opportunities.

[Zuty]

@Skyscraper - I will TOTALLY use your suggestion of back story bonuses. That's what I want, story building, not just no-name punks running around and slashing with swords and casting spells; I want to know their names and I want to know why they are running around and doing all this slashing and casting.

I think the reason I am most concerned about ability scores is because of a number of players in my groups who purposely make a broken character right off the bat that just becomes more and more powerful. DCC makes that a lot harder, borderline impossible in my opinion, but I am still worried about one of these players managing to roll up good enough stats or arguing with me over loop holes so they can become "god like".

In our last Mutants and Masterminds session (a super hero themed RPG), we had two players who deliberately made characters that broke the game. They were on Superman levels of broken while everyone else in the group were the equivalent of the Teen Titans, just starting out and still learning what our powers were. We'd go into a room of bad guys and before anyone else could even act, these two already killed all the targets and saved the day. It got to the point where the DM had to use max level NPCs just to go toe-to-toe against these two players; even though everyone in our group was the same level. I think I may have been two or three levels higher than both of them actually, but I played my character as someone new to being a super hero who was still figuring out his powers where as these two guys thumbed through the books, found loop holes, got into lengthy arguments with the DM which sucked up a large portion of our available play time, and min-maxing to twink their characters out. I don't want this to happen and I think that if one of these guys rolls 16+ stats, they will make the game incredibly difficult on me and the other players since I will need to introduce higher level NPCs just so I stand a chance. And from past experiences, I know that these guys enjoy inner party turmoil and messing up the game. For example, I could add a high level ogre to the game just so they can't solo everything in the room and what they will do is throw the other players into the fray and have them die so that they can escape or get into a better position to slay the ogre and steal all the glory. And trust me on this one, this has happened before.

Worst case scenario, I end up looking like a huge jerk by not letting them play if I see this stuff happening. Even though DMs should have the final say, it never really turns out that way in our group which enrages me, especially when I am said DM.

~Zuty

[Ravenheart87]

I think the reason I am most concerned about ability scores is because of a number of players in my groups who purposely make a broken character right off the bat that just becomes more and more powerful. DCC makes that a lot harder, borderline impossible in my opinion, but I am still worried about one of these players managing to roll up good enough stats or arguing with me over loop holes so they can become "god like".

The charm of DCC is that the rules will bite them in the ass over time. Either because the cosmic powers don't like jerks and will drain their luck (that's the Judges part), or their own tools of trade turns against them (a warrior gets a crit, a wizard a spell failure). All of us saw characters with good rolls die horrible deaths, and weaklings survive in DCC far often, than in other rpgs. If they try to brake the game, make sure the game breaks them too.

I still recommend instead of adding more rules just for advancement, let the players do a quest for their goals. And if one of the stronger character wants to achieve more power, make that quest even harder. If Olaf, the weak wants to become stronger, he needs to find the druid in the forest and collect the ingredients of his potion. If Ragnar, the slayer wanted the same thing, he would have to take a bathe in the blood of the red dragon of Isaheim.

[Zuty]

@Ravenheart87 - I am hoping I won't need to give buffs here or there or make up house rules so that my players don't die so often; I want that to happen. I've been thumbing through the core book and I am really starting to feel more confident about running a game. I'm going to try my hardest to do it straight from the book and I'm going to try even harder to make sure that I do break a character if they attempt to break the game.

Thanks again everyone for all the great suggestions and feedback. I'm going to run a small test game tomorrow, so wish me luck.

~Zuty

[Skyscraper]

I think the reason I am most concerned about ability scores is because of a number of players in my groups who purposely make a broken character right off the bat that just becomes more and more powerful. DCC makes that a lot harder, borderline impossible in my opinion, but I am still worried about one of these players managing to roll up good enough stats or arguing with me over loop holes so they can become "god like".

(...)

Worst case scenario, I end up looking like a huge jerk by not letting them play if I see this stuff happening. Even though DMs should have the final say, it never really turns out that way in our group which enrages me, especially when I am said DM.

Why do you keep up with these players? They seem pretty disrespectful and unpleasant, per your description. Ditch them!

This being said, they might not like DCC. This is a game that harckens back to the power-to-the-judge (you!) approach. Rules are often worded in an open way, allowing the judge the leeway to decide one way or another. If their fun is to bend and break the rules, like it was mentioned, have their PCs pay for it. They want to use their superpower to win? Ok, but a real superpowerful being now takes notice, and sends something their way. Something dark and unpleasant.

In my last session, one PC openly insulted a wizard. (The player is a good friend, not a jerk. It was just his PC being funky like we lik'em .) So I made him roll a will save vs DC 15 and the next morning, he woke up with severe articulation rigidity, getting 1d6 (he rolled 6) agility penalty. There was no signature to the event, but of course he knows where this curse comes from.

If they ask where this comes from, what spell this is (the player in my game didn't), you have no reason to provide explanations. It just is.

[Monster]

Never played the game before and got trapped in a 2 year long prison sentence with the cleric with a 5 personality?

The wizard with the 3 stamina and 1 hit point per level?

If I had any ideas on the game or stats effect on characters, I would go back and advise myself and anyone else to play a warrior if you have low or average scores. It sucks even more if you sit at a table with people who had hot dice the night you rolled your scores. The game does not need stat boosts, but Marloe the Crippled Wizard can be killed at level 8 with a single sword attack. His friends with the 18 strength/18 Stamina warrior has platemail and 83 hit points. Tell me that is balanced and only a fun challenge! Scores do vastly effect the game and the outcome for a player trying to have fun.

I think both the player and the judge can fix this in a quest over a few levels.