Increasing main stats..

[Enlightened]

I understand how skills are increased, but what about the main stats like Strength, Education, etc.

Is there a way to increase them in play?

And what about increasing a character's Psychic Strength score? Is there a way?

 

[rinku]

In the MGT rules a written, you can't increase stats normally after charater generation apart from surgical means.

Classic Traveller had a very limited ability to increase them, but CT's post-generation improvement system was not the best.

There are potentially big issues with allowing characteristic improvement, as it impacts on ageing and task resolution. Physical characteristics should in theory be able to be improved through exercise at any age, while Intelligence and Education would need study. Social can certainly change, and I think Dilletante has some discussion of that.

 

[Cleon the Mad]

If I may, also figure social standing can go up (or down) just from roleplaying. Getting an honorary noble title for instance. And the MGT version of the module "Prison Planet" has a list of crimes that if convicted and sent to a prison that would lower your Social standing by a point or two if I recall right, the CT version I think does as well. And as Rinku suggested, Dilletante has it's variants form of social standing, and some rules as to how it could get increased in play.

 

[CosmicGamer]

STR, DEX, END

Do a quick search and you'll find all kinds of house ruled stuff but as far as I know in Traveller the way to get a physical characteristic 'boost' in the rules is by improve the athletics skill.

For me, if a character is 'working out' to improve their physical characteristics this is reflected by rolling on the personal development table instead of a skill oriented table during chargen and is offset by the concept that the time spent working out is time not spent improving skills. I think it is pretty uncommon for a person in real life to be stronger or more agile in their older years than when they were in their 20's. Traveller characters are typically past the age where physical stats improve. In fact, it is the opposite. Characters bodies start to deteriorate as they age. I wouldn't consider any physical characteristic increase unless the character were under the age where aging rolls start. Personally, any additional 'working out' after chargen would be thought of as maintaining ones physique and maybe (again, deciding to spent time on the physical and not improving skills) I'd consider allowing a DM to the aging roll for staying in shape.

If I were to make any change I'd be inclined to go the opposite direction. I'd take a characters starting physical characteristics and if they are improved during chargen it shows the character 'worked out' and if the player does not role play the character continuing to work out during the game then they may start losing their physique and gained characteristics.

INT: Folk do tend do get 'wiser' as they age but is this really Int or is it accumulated knowledge (EDU?), gaining specific skills (Gaining several skills at level 0, especially those with cascades?) or being 'more worldly' and understanding things because you've seen something similar - maybe like a JoaT? Unfortunately the rules don't allow increasing the JoaT skill.

EDU: Just because a character goes to pilot school, or some other instructional school doesn't mean they improved their education. In the game the characteristic is used across a variety of skills. While some people do like learning a variety of things for no reason other than to keep their minds active and some do go back to school for their GED or study a variety of topics, I believe most older folk tend to learn specific job skills or topics of interest.

SOC: I can see this possibly going up and also going down. I also can see certain skills that might reflect this and not actual SOC characteristic. For example, would someone who smuggles and has black market dealings get a decrease in social characteristic or an increase in streetwise skill? Would someone who gets training in proper etiquette in social gatherings gain SOC or steward skill?

 

[BP]

Never gave it any real thought...

One aspect of Traveller (CT) that separated it from the D&D we had been playing was the lack of emphasis on character development after chargen.

Adventures were less about gaining wealth and experience points and often the 'motivations' were simply that events put characters in situations without them directly seeking out wealth or the like, but rather merely to survive or address some moral imperative.

This also removed much of the 'accounting' of the game allowing us to focus on roleplay instead of record keeping. In CT, it was very common for PC's to obtain a ship and enough credits for gear during chargen - so we never bothered with mortgages as any form of motivation for adventuring.

Lacking magic & combat being more lethal meant that character death was a lot more common - and we had fun playing different and multiple characters - instead of becoming so attached to some highly developed character that killing them was 'upsetting'...

 

[DFW]

And what about increasing a character's Psychic Strength score? Is there a way?

As far as I know, psionic strength is what you are born with. It's like I.Q. in that regard.

 

[rust]

In my settings INT is fixed and cannot be increased, the three physical
characteristics can be improved with considerable effort (but almost ne-
ver are), EDU can be improved if the character spends the necessary
time to attend a university or otherwise to study general subjects (the
time spent on this does not count for skill improvement), and SOC chan-
ges quite often through public achievements or blunders of the charac-
ter (and gives a modifier for his skill rolls to influence others). Since I
do not use PSI, I never decided whether it can be improved, but I sus-
pect I would treat it like INT, only decreasing over time without training
in its use.

 

[ScottyG]

My group are all from the swords and sorcery type gaming background and they do like to be able to develop their characters as they travel through the campaign, so we house rule that the basic MGT improvement points can be used for skill improvement and statistic increases (they have to justify HOW they are developing the stat in question).
I rule that to increase a stat it costs 5x the target value in IP's. A Strength 7 character needs to follow a regimen of physical work outs etc, and when able to amass 8x5 IP's (40) he can raise his Strength to a new value of 8.
A game session typically nets 1-5 points and this seems to keep my players happy.
Obviously every group of players have different opinions and preferences on the age old questions of whether characters should 'level', I can only say my group like to 'power up' their pc's as they progress.

 

[AndrewW]

And what about increasing a character's Psychic Strength score? Is there a way?

As far as I know, psionic strength is what you are born with. It's like I.Q. in that regard.

Like the regular stats some careers (such as Psion) allow you to increase this.

 

[IanBruntlett]

Take a look at getting the Jack of All Trades skill. Having that available to players may be a bit of a campaign wrecker...

 

[dreamingbadger]

Characteristic Improvement - HOUSE RULE
Traveller allows for advancement of skills through diligent training, similarly statistics could also be improved. Just as in the real world, some Travellers invest time in the gym or in course of self study to improve themselves.

A player who wants to improve their physical fitness or their intelligence should be able to increase a statistic through diligent self improvement, be it exercise or memory/mental agility games or just a course of advanced and remote study to improve their education. Similarly characters who want to improve their social standing can spend time getting invited to the "right parties" or being seen at the right "social event".

The normal rules for skills advancement are used, but a "Skills Total" is generated for Physical and Mental statistics:

Strength +Endurance + Dexterity / 2= the Physical Skills Total

Intelligence + Education + Social Standing / 2 = the Mental Skills Total

Rounding up in all cases.
Next the character needs to demine the "skill level" of the characteristic to be trained by dividing the exiting characteristic by 2 and then adding 1, this will give you the equivalent target skill level.

It will take the current Skills Total (either Physical or Mental) + the Target Skill Level, in weeks to improve that statistic by one point.

Not all characteristics can be improved in all environments; it is unusual to be able to improve your Social Standing whilst in jump space for example.

In any case no characteristic can be improved by more than 50% (round down) of its value at the end of character generation. e.g. STR 7, could be increased by up to 3 points. Nor can a characteristic be increased beyond its racial maximum.

No characteristic can be improved past the point at which aging impacted it. e.g. a character with END 8 reduces their statistic to 7 due to aging, it can never be raised above 8 using Characteristic improvement, further aging effects do not affect the maximum characteristic further the maximum remains 8 for that characteristic.

Instructors can improve learning times, but, only by 1d2. Their equivalent skill level is their statistic divided by 2 (rounded down).

As with regular skills improvement a character can only train in one "skill" per week (e.g. a skill or a physical characteristic or a mental characteristic).

Example:
Alexander Jamison , STR 6 DEX 8 END 8, wants to improve his STR, his Physical Skills total is 11 (22 for the stats over 2 is 11), with a target skill level of 4 (6/2 +1) means that Alexander will have to spend 15 weeks in the Gym to improve his Strength.

 

[Bense]

I am currently allowing one of my players to slowly increase his Social Standing through paying for a higher standard of living.

 

[zero]

^ Makes sense

I have a current GM PC that suffers from a Soc of 3 (*cough*dump-stat*cough*), well being on their ship they find their surroundings actually pretty cushy, being in a stateroom (even if though they have to bunk) and the ship's food is better than what they had on their homeworld, due to them being poor (This is how I justified the low Soc).
I also like how they worked as a Scavenger before taking up wandering the galaxy (fitting occupation) :roll: