Stupid Idea: Achievments vs. Feats

[Ancient History]

I'm thinking (yes, I know this is dangerous to your health) that certain bonuses or abilities granted by feats should be achievements instead. Things like "at will" abilities for wizards or flaming fist for monks (yes, yes, monks suck) should not a focus of what level you are or how much XP you have, but whether you plunged your fist into the flaming heart of Fuk'yo or something like that.

[wotmaniac]

Seems like something similar to "magical locations"; but instead of just visiting some random place, you actually do something cool.

I approve this message.

[OgreBattle]

Wizards can memorize a limited number of spells, but they can write down as many as they can find.

Clerics power up when a new book is released.

It's kind of funny that stuff like this exists alongside "learning to wield a longsword defensively costs the same resource as learning to craft any magic item, and you need int13"


I like your idea, I had a similar one with the idea of picking up Feats in a manner like wizards adding more spells to their book.
It also ties into the old D&D mechanic of "to level up as a fighter you find a higher level fighter to teach you"

That would be pretty cool right? Learning to blindfight from a blind fighter. It would tie into the storytelling too, just have your ass kicked in the dark beforehand.

[Winnah]

So something like a slotless, non-transferable magical item? Referring the above example, Fuk'yo has the Flaming Fist ability, which is like a magical item, but can't be taken unless Fuk'yo is unable to resist a character symbolically extracting the ability.

I guess you could have something more nebulous, like an Achievement slot. Fulfill some vague criteria, then get a vague ability to match, customised/refluffed to the specific details of the story. Limit the number of achievement abilities you can have active at one time, somehow. That way you can have your Flaming Fists, Dragon Shouts and a Living Shadow, but you can't neccesarily have them all active at the same time.

Also, D&D 3.5 had a number of magical locations scattered throughout some splatbooks. Spend some time in an area, fulfill some criteria, then recieve some bonus ability or feat. Worth noting, though probably not worth copying.

[violence in the media]

I like the idea, but I wouldn't want to miss out on the Dragon Shout just because the MC had given us an opportunity to learn the Flaming Fist a few sessions ago, so I don't know that I would limit it in any way beyond the MC's total control of access.

What I mean is that any sort of achievement feat shouldn't be something that a PC can proactively seek out. There's no Knowledge check available to uncover a magic location, no need to keep up a running tally of gnolls slain, or grocery list of components to assemble. It should be something that you either come across organically in play or not, with no real specific fixed location or conditions. Some campaigns might see PCs with a half-dozen Achievments each, while others might have none. The party should never be engaging in some repetitive behaviour waiting for some achievement or the other to drop.

[Ancient History]

I'm gonna be honest, this came to me when I was thinking back about what I liked about AD&D and OD&D - and I was a little shit that used to trawl through the Encyclopedia Magica looking for artifacts that gave permanent items and bonuses and shit; I would look for how the NPCs had gained their CoolPowerz. Hell, in Hackmaster I bought all eight of their Hacklopedias just to see what powers you could get from cannibalizing feykin.

The point is, I think there should be multiple ways to "power up" in a given game - go up a level, improve a magic weapon, unlock an achievement, etc. - and any given character could access many of them at any given time.

[Josh_Kablack]

Well the issue with this sort of thing is precisely what makes it cool: it's a type of advancement that is not accounted for by level. If you're working within a 3e core-type paradigm, where challenges and wealth are supposed to be based on your level, then this breaks CR and Wealth by Level assumption enough that this sort of thing gets problematic if it doesn't have activation costs in gp (core WBL) or XP (Core crafting and perm spells) or limited slots (BoG items) and only horizontal powers or some other restraining factor.

In a 4e type setup, where nobody knows what the fuck the current rules on items are, but everybody gets a bunch of powers, these sorts of options can be subbed in as purely horizontal advancement by making location/adventure based powers available to all classes who visit that location. "You've kissed the Blarney stone, you may now swap out any of your utility powers for an encounter utility that lets you speak and comprehend all languages and grants a +N bonus to diplomacy checks" and that still keeps level as meaningful as it was before.


In a 1e/2e paradigm where that stuff is all arbitrary anyways that doesn't matter and the fact that you are adding cool stuff to your game is all upside, because there wasn't even a pretend agreement as to what level really meant and you were totally expected to fight werewolves before you had a single magic sword and there were modules where you had deal with banshees as 4th level characters who can't possibly make the save vs death and then there were all the Gygaxian death, no saves.

[Korwin]

I want to Bath in Dragon blood!

Actually tried to do that the first time in D&D, we killed one.

[Vebyast]

I like the idea. It just needs a set of rules that make it behave in the way we want it to behave.

In this case, here are the rules that come to mind for me:
[*] The Symbolic Item idea is good. The rogue gets a cloak, the wizard gets a pile of scrolls, the cleric gets a new holy symbol, and the fighter gets to rip out his enemy's still-beating heart and eat it.
[*] Level limitation can be imposed in any way we want. We could go with minimum-BAB or minimum-skill requirements, scales-with-X requirements, or something else entirely.
[*] You can decouple it from DM looting if you let the fighter "craft" it himself by taking appropriate actions in combat.

Anyway, my suggestion is that we add level-tagged item slots at bonus feat levels, and items are "prepared" into the slots by taking some actions. You have a difficult set of thematically-appropriate actions to get the achievement in the first place, and a much easier set to swap the achievement's benefit back in if you swap it out.

For example, Fists of Fire is an achievement that adds +BABd6 fire damage to your unarmed attacks. It can live in any slot tied to a bonus feat that you gained at fourth level or higher. To get the achievement, you have to kill something while on fire (difficult, but still mostly under the player's control). To swap it back in, you just have to light yourself on fire during combat (easy and totally under the player's control).

[Ancient History]

Nooo...that's damn the exact opposite of what I'm talking about. I'm not interested in "you must be this tall to ride the centaur cock", that's ridiculous shit like saying a Level 1 Fighter can't use a +5 longsword because it's not "level appropriate." That's bullshit. I want some actual ability or bonus that benefits a character based on something they have actually done, like eat the heart of fifty enemies or bath in dragon blood or complete a pilgrimage route or read the sanity-blasting book.

[Neurosis]

"Do you know how I learned how to do this, Jedrik? I learned how to do this by punching your brother in the soul."

[hogarth]

What I mean is that any sort of achievement feat shouldn't be something that a PC can proactively seek out. There's no Knowledge check available to uncover a magic location, no need to keep up a running tally of gnolls slain, or grocery list of components to assemble. It should be something that you either come across organically in play or not, with no real specific fixed location or conditions.

Oh please. The idea that the PCs should drink from every fountain they come across in case it happens to give them 18/00 Strength is a stupid idea that should have died with AD&D.

To address the original point, I think "achievements" are a terrible idea for a tabletop RPG. Either the GM keeps the criteria secret (in which case he's essentially just handing out random power-ups whenever he goddamn feels like it) or the criteria are known to the PCs (in which case you get lame video game grinding, where Joe the Fighter has to kill 1000 goblins in order to get the Goblin Killer perk and the rest of the players go off to play Super Smash Brothers).

Achievements work fine in single player video games because there's no one else around who's forced to watch the OCD grindfest.

[tzor]

In a 1e/2e paradigm where that stuff is all arbitrary anyways that doesn't matter and the fact that you are adding cool stuff to your game is all upside, because there wasn't even a pretend agreement as to what level really meant and you were totally expected to fight werewolves before you had a single magic sword

Well I often joked that in order to understand level progression in 1E you needed to take that college level course in differential equations. Some classes were "front ended" (in that they advanced quickly in level at first but those levels were not the same as the slow moving classes) and some where "rear ended" (the monk was a classic example who was really crap at low levels and then *BAM* high powered goodness).

However, I do have to point out that it was general SOP that you got ripped off for silver coated weapons before fighting the werewolves. There were a lot of non magical alternatives in 1E that generally got replaced with "need a +1 weapon" in later editions.

A Gygaxan module is another matter, a lot were more convention oriented or one shot non campaign with death being an expected part of the experience.

[BearsAreBrown]

Either the GM keeps the criteria secret (in which case he's essentially just handing out random power-ups whenever he goddamn feels like it) or the criteria are known to the PCs (in which case you get lame video game grinding...)...

+1

Also has the terrible problem of creating high level characters and arguing over whether or not at some point prior to the game starting your Fighter pissed on magical rocks that gave him the power of fire. The only resolution to this is making fake-magic items in which case just make them magical items.

[tzor]

Oh please. The idea that the PCs should drink from every fountain they come across in case it happens to give them 18/00 Strength is a stupid idea that should have died with AD&D.

The RAW fountains were nothing compared to what my DM's had. My dwarf (with an int of 8) once drank from one of his pools and wound up at the end of one drink (and a plethora of rolls) with an additional +8 to the ability giving him a total of 16. The really scary part was one of those rolls was a +/- roll which meant that in the end he had a 50/50 chance of being brain dead with a 0 int.

(He was also the same DM who came up with an airborne poison based on the blood of a "good drow" where one broken vial probably killed 1/3 of a village packed for festival. Now if that isn't a way to start a campaign - although the breaking of the vial was a result of a player action - I don't know what is.)

Note well: In 1E there was almost no way (other than bizzare pools and age) to change your attributes. They were pretty much fixed. This was changed in later editions.

[Josh_Kablack]

Nooo...that's damn the exact opposite of what I'm talking about.

Which is why I said that the cool parts of your idea break the ideas of level being a measure of power; wealth-by-level meaning something; PCs being expected to fight enemies who are predictably challenging; and Nth level characters being meaningfully similar at different game tables.

You can totally argue that level is a crappy measure of power, wealth by level bites, and that CR is so flawed as to be meaningless -- heck several Denizens have made those exact arguments in the past.

But there is literally no way to implement achievements as you originally suggested without totally abandoning even the basic premises of level or wealth being meaningful measures of anything. Either you implement things the way you want and give up on level==power; or you implement things some other way.

Thus since your original suggestion is either all-or-nothing are-you-down with this or not? It's not actually worth further any discussion - if an MC likes it they can implement it - that's a complete and comprehensive discussion right there. It's just pure rule-of-cool and you outright cannot have parts of the old game with it.


However there are ways to implement versions of achievements which are different from your suggestion and which tie into one of the other advancement schedules in the game in a way that may be compatible with keeping those schedules as useful metrics, and some of the posters here are considering and discussing whether implementing those different-than-you suggest versions might still keep enough of the cool factor without having to ditch fundamental assumptions of the game. (flawed though such assumption may be).

[Ancient History]

Either the GM keeps the criteria secret (in which case he's essentially just handing out random power-ups whenever he goddamn feels like it) or the criteria are known to the PCs (in which case you get lame video game grinding...)...

+1

Also has the terrible problem of creating high level characters and arguing over whether or not at some point prior to the game starting your Fighter pissed on magical rocks that gave him the power of fire. The only resolution to this is making fake-magic items in which case just make them magical items.

I think the issue here is equating achievements with "I need 20 bear asses" or "give the cleric three silver coins and pull the fifth level on the sixth statue on the right to get the blessing of the god GMSGIRLFRIENDWINS4EVER."

Let me try to pitch an alternative.

In most level-based games, like D&D, when you hit X amount of XP you go up a level. It doesn't matter what you did to get those XP - you could have killed a million swamp rats, or seriously abused the little-known prostitution rule, or read a magical tome in certain editions - you get the XP, you go up a level. From a game mechanics standpoint, what you did to get the XP to go up a level makes no difference as to which class you level up in, or what skills you advance, or what abilities you gain.

The idea with achievements is not to have players madly go around killing X number of rats in a personal quest to gain The Ratkiller (+5 bonus to killing rats), it's more along the idea of giving commensurate and appropriate bonuses or abilities to reflect completing certain actions or goals done in game - and while those can be out-and-out power grabs ("If Lord Hinjo gains the power of all five elemental shrines, he will be invincible!"), they can equally be a story-appropriate reward for PCs accomplishing something - through-hiking the Appalachian Trail, completing a pilgrimage, bathing in a dragon's blood, climbing a mountain, creating a unique magic item or spell, etc. And yeah, some of those achievements may be things that PCs can try to grind out, but I don't see that as being any more of an inherent flaw than level grinding.

And the thing is, a lot of games have a limited or primitive idea of this already - in Vampire for example, you have a special respect for characters that create their own bloodline or discipline, not because they're necessarily badass, but because they accomplished something that makes them stand out.

I'm not saying achievements are something that are immediately applicable to any existing game, because most games with levels are tied very strongly to the myth that levels are an accurate indicator of a character's power level or ability, but I like the idea of a game that has completementary systems of improving or obtaining power. Buying/making/questing for better gear, grinding levels, improving skills without increasing levels, unlocking achievements, mega manning, etc. are all valid ways and means of "powering up."

[violence in the media]

What I mean is that any sort of achievement feat shouldn't be something that a PC can proactively seek out. There's no Knowledge check available to uncover a magic location, no need to keep up a running tally of gnolls slain, or grocery list of components to assemble. It should be something that you either come across organically in play or not, with no real specific fixed location or conditions.

Oh please. The idea that the PCs should drink from every fountain they come across in case it happens to give them 18/00 Strength is a stupid idea that should have died with AD&D.

To address the original point, I think "achievements" are a terrible idea for a tabletop RPG. Either the GM keeps the criteria secret (in which case he's essentially just handing out random power-ups whenever he goddamn feels like it) or the criteria are known to the PCs (in which case you get lame video game grinding, where Joe the Fighter has to kill 1000 goblins in order to get the Goblin Killer perk and the rest of the players go off to play Super Smash Brothers).

Achievements work fine in single player video games because there's no one else around who's forced to watch the OCD grindfest.

Why are the other players in the group "forced" to watch the OCD grindfest? Can't they issue an objection to the practice in the first place and shut the offending player down?

Still, my objection to fixed locations or conditions is not an endorsement of LOLRANDOM. It's a desire to prevent bullshit like casually divining the location of the Fountain of Fabulousness with an offhand DC 35 knowledge check, or knowing that if you skin just 12 more kobolds that you MUST be rewarded with the Luggage-Maker achievement so you can go off and stab the dragon you're after.

You'd flip out if, after taking the Craft Wonderous Items feat and meeting all the item requirements, the MC told you that the particular item you wanted to make from the DMG didn't exist in that campaign, right? And understandably so. If you were going to do achievments or magical locations or whatever, I would think that you wouldn't want them to have that same level of expectation or entitlement. Give them a different mechanic for introduction to the game world. Maybe have the MC select an achievement and magical location that the party becomes aware of every time the PCs gain a level, and they can then pursue it if they want after that. Have the achievement be retroactive and tied to the story, but not something that occurs with A+B=C regularity. You happened to get some sort of extra benefit from all of the mind flayers you fought on this recent adventure, but you didn't get anything for the prior adventure with the Kuo Toa despite that one having more total encounters.

[wotmaniac]

it's just a matter of making sure that it's a level-appropriate ability, that can only be gotten by doing something level-appropriate.
You don't get "dragon-proof" (immunity to breath weapons) just because a wyrmling happened to bleed on you ... no, you have to eat the heart of a Very Old+ that you killed yourself.
Leading a rebellion to overthrow the oppressive king and and then successfully claiming the throne for yourself might net you the leadership feat.

or some shit like that.

[hogarth]

Why are the other players in the group "forced" to watch the OCD grindfest? Can't they issue an objection to the practice in the first place and shut the offending player down?

So the solution is to add achievements and then never use them because they're boring? Makes sense to me.

By the way, Paizo tried introducing "Achievement Feats" in the Legacy of Fire adventure path for 3.5. If you passed some ridiculous prerequisite, then you could take an achievement feat which is no better than a regular feat. I can't remember exactly what they're like, but something along the lines of "If you take 300 points of fire damage in your lifetime, then you can take a feat that gives you Fire Resistance 10." What a bargain! Not surprisingly, achievement feats never showed up again.

[Vebyast]

Stop using "kill 1000 goblins" as an example. It's a strawman for your own argument because it's an objectively terrible achievement. You both agree on that. If you keep using it, all you'll conclude is that achievements suck. So start using better achievements, achievements that can be done on your own initiative and without the DM handing you the opportunity. Things like "do more than 100 points of damage with a single damage roll", or "kill one enemy using the body of another", or "kill ten enemies in one round of combat", or "use a ranged weapon to hit something in its maximum range increment".

[hyzmarca]

Change the name. The Term "Achievement" is tainted by inane video game goals "like slay 1000 rats". Instead call them something like quest powers or Benchmark powers or campaign advancement powers.

These powers would be tied to plot points as rewards for actually playing the game, thus discouraging grinding. When the party advance the campaign past a certain benchmark, they all get a new power related to that benchmark.


So if the party slain the Demon Ydilstril on the peaks of Mount Kand, they all get related Ydilstril-slayer powers and your campaign can move on to the next big bad.

[hogarth]

Stop using "kill 1000 goblins" as an example.

It's hyperbole. But the original poster suggested "eat the heart of fifty enemies". Is that better?

It's a strawman for your own argument because it's an objectively terrible achievement. You both agree on that. If you keep using it, all you'll conclude is that achievements suck. So start using better achievements, achievements that can be done on your own initiative and without the DM handing you the opportunity. Things like "do more than 100 points of damage with a single damage roll", or "kill one enemy using the body of another", or "kill ten enemies in one round of combat", or "use a ranged weapon to hit something in its maximum range increment".

Again, those are terrible examples.

(a) 100 points of damage in a single hit = Party sits around while Joe the Fighter wails away at rats armed with a scythe.
(b) Kill one enemy using the body of another = Party sits around while Joe the Fighter throws rats at other rats.
(c) Kill ten enemies in one round of combat = Party sits around while Joe the Fighter uses Great Cleave on rats.
(d) Use a ranged weapon to hit something in its maximum range increment = Party sits around while Joe the Fighter fires arrows at very distant rats.

Or are you being sarcastic? I can't tell.

The idea with achievements is not to have players madly go around killing X number of rats in a personal quest to gain The Ratkiller (+5 bonus to killing rats), it's more along the idea of giving commensurate and appropriate bonuses or abilities to reflect completing certain actions or goals done in game - and while those can be out-and-out power grabs ("If Lord Hinjo gains the power of all five elemental shrines, he will be invincible!"), they can equally be a story-appropriate reward for PCs accomplishing something - through-hiking the Appalachian Trail, completing a pilgrimage, bathing in a dragon's blood, climbing a mountain, creating a unique magic item or spell, etc.

Just to clarify -- I have no problem with "you bathe in the dragon's blood and that gives you a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength" vs. "the dragon has a Belt of Giant Strength +6 in its treasure horde". That's just another type of treasure, as long as the players know about it. But if you're expecting the PCs to bathe in the blood of every monster they come across on the off chance that it does something, that's dumb.

[JigokuBosatsu]

The idea of quest-specific rewards is a cool one. One of the things I liked about the Fallout DLC was that. At the end of Lonesome Road, you got one point in an ability score. In Point Lookout and Honest Hearts you get access to special perks. In Old World Blues you got cybernetic modification and a stronghold. Nuthin' wrong with that.

[BearsAreBrown]

Just to clarify -- I have no problem with "you bathe in the dragon's blood and that gives you a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength" vs. "the dragon has a Belt of Giant Strength +6 in its treasure horde". That's just another type of treasure, as long as the players know about it. But if you're expecting the PCs to bathe in the blood of every monster they come across on the off chance that it does something, that's dumb.

Once again, +1. There must be a balance between the DM randomly handing out bonuses for doing strange shit and people trying to Scry + Magic Mart dragon blood to nickel and dime stats.

The other example of killing the king and stealing the crown granting Leadership feat is passable because it's intuitive enough. Even if it doesn't literally grant the feat, players know if they become the leader of the kingdom they... lead the kingdom.