Raising Int and gaining skill points

[Trodax]

OK, this is how it works (in Conan and in D&D); if you have a high Int-score, you get bonus skill points. If you raise your Int you do not, however, retroactively gain the points from previous levels that you have “missed out on”.
So, for example, if my Int is 11 and I raise it to 12 when I hit level 4, I get 1 extra skill point at level 4, but I do not get the 6 extra points for levels 1-3 that I would have had if I’d started out with Int 12.

This is the way I’ve always played D&D. In my current gaming group, however, one of the players has come from a group where they’ve always allowed the gain of such “retroactive skill points”. So, in essence, if you raise your Int, you get a chunk of extra skill points for all your previous levels (same as you get a chunk of extra hit points if you raise your Con). We’ve been discussing this some, and I think he made some pretty good points. Therefore, I’m a little torn at the moment as to whether or not to allow this in my game. I’m aware that since you get a lot more ability increases in Conan (and your Int will always increase), it’s a much bigger deal then in D&D.

So, basically, I’m looking for advice. Have any of you used such a houserule? Is a totally stupid idea?

This is how I look at it:

The Good
What I like about the houserule is that I think it evens out the value of raising the different abilities. As it is now, Int is the only ability where you benefit from starting out with a high score and putting your ability raises into something else. Also, it makes it easier to stat out high-level NPCs. I haven’t checked all that thoroughly, but it seems this is the way the NPCs in at least Scrolls of Skelos are made up (they don’t always exactly add up though, so maybe they’ve just winged them).

The Bad
I guess its not all that realistic that you suddenly get a big chunk of skills all of a sudden (and at high levels this chunk will be pretty large). Also, with multiclassing it might get complicated to determine what the max ranks for different skills should be.

 

[Arkobla Conn]

I've tried hard to add those points that they earn for each level, but I admit if I make a character or NPC at a higher level, I may forget...

I'm interested in how other GM's are taking this, as I am usually reasonable about some things, and it would depend just where those oints are going before I ruled one way or another...

(IE - I am more apt to allow charcter broadening skills than those core skills used every day...)

 

[AZZA]

The Bad
I guess its not all that realistic that you suddenly get a big chunk of skills all of a sudden (and at high levels this chunk will be pretty large). Also, with multiclassing it might get complicated to determine what the max ranks for different skills should be.

Could you get the player to do skills for going up a level as per normal then give them the extra skill points for raising intelligence under the proviso that they only increase current skills and by a max of 1 rank each? This could be explained as a deeper understanding of the characters current skills.
EG character gets to 6th level and intelligence goes up. character does everything as per normal for getting to sixth level. DM then gives them their extra 5 pts for increased int.
I don't think your second point above should be a problem. Don't skill points from high INT ignore the cross class skill rules? I'm pretty sure you can spend them on anything up to a max rank of your total character level.(Unlike standard d20)

Personally my group have never given retroactive skill points for increased INT but why not? Think I might start doing it though I agree with Arkobla that making high level characters from scratch will take a little more work.

 

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't allow it. If the character wasn't made retroactively more intelligent, then he shouldn't get the skill points retroactively either.

 

[Trodax]

I wouldn't allow it. If the character wasn't made retroactively more intelligent, then he shouldn't get the skill points retroactively either.

Retroactively becoming more intelligent. Do you mean that as in:

"Remember that test I flunked two years ago? Turns out I actually passed it since I used to be smarter than I thought."

OK, that seems a bit weird. But the same thing could be said for retroactively gaining hit points when you raise your Con:

"Remember that time I got slapped around by your mama? Turns out I wasn't actually hospitalized since I used to be a tougher bastard than I thought."

(OK, maybe its not the same thing. )

I agree that maybe its not all that realistic to gain retroactive skill points. That doesn't really trouble me that much though, if I would decide to use it, I would do it more for game-balancing reasons. As I said above, in the standard rules you benefit from placing a high score in Int at character creation and raising your other abilities during play. I don't really like this. In my present game, for example, two of the players (who are totally new to d20) placed rather low scores to Int (because it fit their character concepts). They are now (at level 4) thinking of raising their Int-scores to get some more skills. Had they been more familiar with the d20 system, they would of course have instead started with high Int and later raised whatever ability got a lower score. Seems bad to punish them for not being strategic enough at character creation.

 

[Trodax]

Could you get the player to do skills for going up a level as per normal then give them the extra skill points for raising intelligence under the proviso that they only increase current skills and by a max of 1 rank each?

Wouldn't work for skills that have been maxed out. In my current game the players have spread their skill points pretty broadly though, so yeah, in my game it could work. I agree that it would be more realistic to get better at skills you already know than suddenly gaining totally new (maxed out) skills. Not a bad idea, thanks!

Don't skill points from high INT ignore the cross class skill rules? I'm pretty sure you can spend them on anything up to a max rank of your total character level.(Unlike standard d20).

Yeah, you can put the bonus points into any skill. But, as I've understood the rules, the usual max ranks for cross class skills still applies (not sure about this though).

Anyways, I'm actually thinking of completely removing this limitation on cross class skills (don't really see its point), and in that case it wouldn't be any trouble.

Personally my group have never given retroactive skill points for increased INT but why not? Think I might start doing it though I agree with Arkobla that making high level characters from scratch will take a little more work.

More work? How so?
I'd say it would be easier; if you make a high level character, you just give him his Int-raises and then calculate his total skill points for all levels based on his final Int. Without retroactive skill points, you'd have to decide at which levels his Int was raised to calculate his total skill points.

 

[Ichabod]

I wouldn't allow it. If the character wasn't made retroactively more intelligent, then he shouldn't get the skill points retroactively either.

Retroactively becoming more intelligent. Do you mean that as in:

"Remember that test I flunked two years ago? Turns out I actually passed it since I used to be smarter than I thought."

OK, that seems a bit weird. But the same thing could be said for retroactively gaining hit points when you raise your Con:

The dissonance between the way the two attributes work does strike me as a tad odd. Actually, it would make the most sense to me to drop the bonus hit points for Con going up, but that would further weaken an attribute I don't think highly of in Conan.

"Remember that time I got slapped around by your mama? Turns out I wasn't actually hospitalized since I used to be a tougher bastard than I thought."

(OK, maybe its not the same thing. )

I agree that maybe its not all that realistic to gain retroactive skill points. That doesn't really trouble me that much though, if I would decide to use it, I would do it more for game-balancing reasons. As I said above, in the standard rules you benefit from placing a high score in Int at character creation and raising your other abilities during play. I don't really like this. In my present game, for example, two of the players (who are totally new to d20) placed rather low scores to Int (because it fit their character concepts). They are now (at level 4) thinking of raising their Int-scores to get some more skills. Had they been more familiar with the d20 system, they would of course have instead started with high Int and later raised whatever ability got a lower score. Seems bad to punish them for not being strategic enough at character creation.

Knowing what I know now, I would have significantly changed how I designed my character. I went the path of assigning attributes based on my vision of the character ... and I feel screwed. I would have easily have had my highest stat be Int as I consider Str and Int to be the two power attributes in Conan (not Str because I wanted to learn about finesse fighting characters). Can, of course, chalk this up to experience, but it does seem odd how players are encouraged to be brainy out of the gate but can toughen up whenever.