I'm continuing to make reasonably good progress on my new mini-system, and I'm up to reviewing Experience Gains.  What I've got is based on the following assumptions:

If you fight your twin you have a 50% chance of defeating him.
It takes four such fights for you to advance one complete level.

This, however, gives you only a 6.25% chance of survival to the next level.  Yet my gut tells me that fighting four such battles is about right for level advancement.

I could modify this downward by making it so that you only need 3 such battles, which gives you a 12.5% chance of survival.   Or, by modifying my formula, you'd need 2 such victories, which gives you a 25% chance of survival.   Or even one which gives you a 50% chance of survival to the next level, which to me seems clearly too few.  

The way I'm thinking of it is this:  What percent of the adventurer's in the world survive each level advancement, and is this reasonable in terms of Player Character survival?

If all 1st level fighters, say, have a 6.25% chance to survive to 2nd Level, this means that only 6.25% of those survive to 3rd Level, and 6.25% of those to 4th.   And so on.   I'm only taking into account, btw, not the general population of the world (who mostly are craftsmen and farmers who do not advance in levels at nearly this rate), but adventurer's only.  

Also to be noted that my mini-system has a maximum 12th level for the Deities.   Most humans are not expected to advance above 6th level, at which point they are Legendary.   4th level is Heroic.   And so on.

Thoughts?

I don't know anything about your system, but you seem to be hung up on the notion that

QuoteExperience = killing stuff and nothing else

This, however, is just totally untrue. There are lots of other possible aspects to experience and how it relates to character advancement. For instance, 1E AD&D also gives you experience for recovering/finding treasure, while (IIRC) in Runeslayers the only thing that matters for advancement is roleplaying various aspects of your character's personality. Yet other systems like old D6 give you advancement opportunities ("points") for advancing the plot, while others (at least a lot of computer games, but I assume also RPGs) let you improve by practicing your skills.

All of these can have many different considerations behind them vis-a-vis both gameplay style "justification".

Quote from: PremierI don't know anything about your system, but you seem to be hung up on the notion that...

Yup.  I know.  It only appears that way because I'm focused specifically on this aspect of the experience system at the moment.  I also have a separate method for calculating skills based experience that does not involve combat.  

Basically, any skill that is used as a primary class skill gets this kind of experience calculation.  For fighters its kills in battle.  For wizards it would be the successful use of spells, either for combat or otherwise.  For thieves it is the successful use of theiving skills.   etc.   Right now what I'm doing is trying to work out the mathematical foundation for that system as it applies specifically to fighting.  After that it will be extended to the other class based skills.   And in case you're wondering, I also accord experience for non-class based skills, such as basket weaving, however that is a much slower progression of gains, and so the formula for that is different.

I'd imagine giving out experience for something as simple as good roleplay (no skills involved here) is desirable, but essentially subjective (I.E. you cannot model it mathmatically), how would you deal with this?

Quote from: HawkyI'd imagine giving out experience for something as simple as good roleplay (no skills involved here) is desirable, but essentially subjective (I.E. you cannot model it mathmatically), how would you deal with this?

What do you mean by Good Roleplay?   Do you mean the Character gave a convincing speach to the local peasantry to rouse them to defend the village against the bandits?   If so then I would say that is the use of the Oration Skill, and assign experience accordingly.   Do you mean he figured out a master plan to defeat the bandits by fortifying the village so that the bandits only have one way into the town and thus could be ambushed?   I would say that is a good use of the Combat Tactics Skill and assign experience accordingly.   When you discover new skills that come up in play that you don't have on your list - that's a good time to add them to your list!  

Or do you mean something else?

I'm pretty sure he meant something else. Namely, roleplaying the character. Like, if your character is supposed to be the disowned son of a minor noble who has a code of honour with the ladies and an inplacable hatred of orcs, then the player will actually make the character act that way. As opposed to, say, insulting ladies and avoiding fights with orcs just because these courses of action are more rational; or to acting, speaking and thinking like a teenager from California rather than a disowned noble son.

You know, ROLEPLAYING. It's what the "R" is for in "RPG".

QuoteDo you mean the Character gave a convincing speach to the local peasantry to rouse them to defend the village against the bandits? If so then I would say that is the use of the Oration Skill, and assign experience accordingly.

But you see, roleplaying that speech is not the same thing as using an in-game skill. There's a huge difference between:

"Friends, Romans, countrymen! Lend me your ears! [etc. etc.] We few, we lucky few, we band of brothers."

and

"I, uh, use my Oration Skill to rally the villagers. There, I rolled a 16, is that good enough?"

In the first instance the player puts actual effort, energy and roleplaying into the situation, while in the second he doesn't. Also, the first helps everyone around the table have a memorable and fun time, while the second doesn't. Therefore, and this is the crux of roleplaying-based rewards, the first instance should be rewarded more highly.

Your examples are good ones, and are in line with what I meant.

Its an Intriguing argument, and one which did not occur to me, but it seems a little extreme to create a new skill just to award experience for something which is as yet undocumented in your rule set.  One of the tricky aspects of game design (again IMO) is to create skill lists that are adequet while not being to verbose.  An example that comes to mind is space master which has so many skills it becomes almost impossible to find specific skills, or select skills that are suitable for a given situation from those available.  The latter situation suffers from two main flaws 1) there may be many appropriate skills, 2) the skills are all so specific that although in the right kind of area none are quite suitable.

My point here is that construction of skill lists should be carefully controled and play tested rather than modified on an ad hoc basis which seems enivtable if you always need a skill to allocate experience for.

I often award experience to PCs who have greate insights into my plot which I had hoped to keep hidden (*sigh*), or solve a puzzle a set which was essentially depenent on Intlligence rather a specific skill.  I cannot deney that I could make up a skill that might be appropriate but it is easier just to give them XP as a one off.  

for my two pennies worth, I've always awarded experience based on these rough guidelines:

•   Good and consistent role-play of the character, This represents the player’s ability to role-play their character.  This should be largely balanced against the players selected character traits, and their involvement in the plot and event progression.

•   Excellence in combat, this represents the character ability to neutralise their foes.  This may be via a direct method, such as clubbing them to death, or via the use of other powers or effects which effectively removes an opponent as a threat.

•   Personal Success, Any action which leads to the character fulfilling a personal goal, or performing actions which notably add to his characters personal success in the game world should be rewarded with experience.

•   Party Performance, If the party has acted as a unit to overcome a notable obstacle, then the referee can award points, these are generally awarded at a section end or completion of the adventure.  Normally all the players will all receive this award, and all get the same number of experience.  The amount of experience given here will be dependent on the task(s) that the party have completed.

•   And of course any other reason the Referee sees fit.

Not sure what thoughts you have on these?

Quote from: HawkyYour examples are good ones, and are in line with what I meant.

Its an Intriguing argument, and one which did not occur to me, but it seems a little extreme to create a new skill just to award experience for something which is as yet undocumented in your rule set.  One of the tricky aspects of game design (again IMO) is to create skill lists that are adequet while not being to verbose.  An example that comes to mind is space master which has so many skills it becomes almost impossible to find specific skills, or select skills that are suitable for a given situation from those available.  The latter situation suffers from two main flaws 1) there may be many appropriate skills, 2) the skills are all so specific that although in the right kind of area none are quite suitable.

My point here is that construction of skill lists should be carefully controled and play tested rather than modified on an ad hoc basis which seems enivtable if you always need a skill to allocate experience for.

I often award experience to PCs who have greate insights into my plot which I had hoped to keep hidden (*sigh*), or solve a puzzle a set which was essentially depenent on Intlligence rather a specific skill.  I cannot deney that I could make up a skill that might be appropriate but it is easier just to give them XP as a one off.  

for my two pennies worth, I've always awarded experience based on these rough guidelines:

•   Good and consistent role-play of the character, This represents the player’s ability to role-play their character.  This should be largely balanced against the players selected character traits, and their involvement in the plot and event progression.

•   Excellence in combat, this represents the character ability to neutralise their foes.  This may be via a direct method, such as clubbing them to death, or via the use of other powers or effects which effectively removes an opponent as a threat.

•   Personal Success, Any action which leads to the character fulfilling a personal goal, or performing actions which notably add to his characters personal success in the game world should be rewarded with experience.

•   Party Performance, If the party has acted as a unit to overcome a notable obstacle, then the referee can award points, these are generally awarded at a section end or completion of the adventure.  Normally all the players will all receive this award, and all get the same number of experience.  The amount of experience given here will be dependent on the task(s) that the party have completed.

•   And of course any other reason the Referee sees fit.

Not sure what thoughts you have on these?

I'm working on a computer program to help me GM my world.  So I need systems that are mathematically feasible, so that happens to be my design imperative going on in the background.   However, I also run my system as a tabletop game and so flexability is also necessary.   What I have is that the bulk of skills are members of the skills list, but if I encountered a situation where I as GM wanted to award experience, but didn't wish to associate it to a given skill, I would just add it manually to the experience of the character.  That's perfectly feasible.  But where I want to calculate experience, say for the entire group after a combat, I want the program to do the calculations and provide me with the number of experience gains per character.   That kind of calculation makes use of the skills list.

As for giving experience for good role playing - I don't do it.  Somehow there's too much disconnect between the Player being cool at RPing their Character and the Character's actions itself.  I award experience for things the Character achieves, not the Player.   That's just me.  I don't get complaints from the Players about it.   They assume that the role playing aspect is the fun part of the game and I don't sense they need to be rewarded for doing that well.   Or penalized for not doing it well, either (some players are shyer than others).   So levels are gained by what the Character achieves irespective of how well the Player role plays it.

Not that I'm knocking your system.  It sounds good actually.   But given my needs for programability some of the aspects are too vague - except for my manual entry method.   Even then, how do you determine based on good RPing how much Experience to award?  Do you have a method, or just by feel?

Edit:  oh yeah - also I totally agree with you about the necessity of making the skills list at the right level of detail.   I would have, for example, a skill called Oration - but not add another one for Rabble Rousing, and another one for Political Speach Making, and another one for Appealing to the King, etc.   Oration would cover all speach making of all kinds and not tie to any specifics of task.   Swimming yes.   Ocean Swimming and Lake Swimming, no.   Etc.

Ok, I see your angle on this, and in answer to your question the methods I proposed are subjective (even with semi formal defintions) so ill concieved for a compter program as you have rightly identified.  If I then discard this as a possibility I would probably consider an objective (goal) based system, whereby experience is allocated against goals rather than the use of skills, I.E. the use of skills is a means to an end, and the end result is what gets experience.  

An example of a computer system which I think fails in the allocation of experience is Obivilion, which gives experience for the use of skills regardless of whether it was useful to apply the skill at that point in time (I.E. if you cast fire bolt at a wall 50 times then you are better at fire bolt, which kind of works but is a disappointing method of acheieving experience).  It would be nice if you had goals, which had varous degrees of success, and that the more successful you were the more experience you got.  This is a rather abstract notion, but if it was interesting I'm sure it would be possible to come up with a mathmatical method of a) calculating degrees of success, and b) calculating to what extend characters contributred towards it (may be by the user of sub goals, of which killing a creature may be one).

Quote from: HawkyOk, I see your angle on this, and in answer to your question the methods I proposed are subjective (even with semi formal defintions) so ill concieved for a compter program as you have rightly identified.  If I then discard this as a possibility I would probably consider an objective (goal) based system, whereby experience is allocated against goals rather than the use of skills, I.E. the use of skills is a means to an end, and the end result is what gets experience.  

The way I have this now is that you get experience for Success at using a Skill.   If you are using a Class Specific Skill (for example for Fighters it would be combat skills so the goal is killing the opponent) then you get Kill Experience.  Spell Chanters who successfully cast Invisibility would also get the same relative value of Kill Experience (or I should say Class Skill Success Experience, but that's just too damn wordy).  Thieves get the equivalent Experience for Picking Pockets, etc.   If you learn a Skill that is associated to your specific Class and you use that skill successfully it's Kill Experience.

However, lets say you want to basket weave.  You should gain some experience for that, sure.  And you'll get better at basket weaving and become a Master Weaver after 40 years or so, like other Master Weavers have in the past.   You simply go up in experience more slowly because this is not an Adventure Class Skill (none of the primary Adventure Classes get basket weaving as a core skill).  So you do go up, albeit slowly.   Now lets say you're a big chicken and you decide your character is going to be a basket weaver so all he does is weave baskets.   After 40 years he'll be say 4th Level (which in my system is a reasonably high level - max being 12, and most humans never getting past 6 which is Legendary).   You will also be a 4th Level Fighter if you pick up a sword, but in fact since you didn't become a Fighter it's not a Class Skill for you.  Therefore you only get 25% of your level as your Skill Level with Sword.   So you're 4th Level Master Weaver, but 1st Level at Sword.   If for some crazy reason you ever made it to 8th Level Master Weaver - you'd be 2nd Level at Sword.   So it does not behoove you to be a Basket Weaver with the expectation that going up in that will make you a good swordsman.  It won't.  Thus I have deterence on that score, while still maintaining a rational (I think) system for all classes to increase in their Skills.   The reverse is also true.  A 4th Level Swordsman will only be a 1st Level Basket Weaver.

Conversely, I also have a non-aligned Class called Freeman.  These are people who for whatever reason declined to join the Adventurer's Guild and so they are not members of any one class.  They can, to their advantage, learn any skills they want and the Guild will teach the skills to them - at a substantially higher fee than members.  Whatever Skills they learn, however, accord them Kill Experience if they use it successfully.   So if they learn to cast spells they get Kill Experience for that.   A Thief however might go to the Guild and say "I want to learn a magic spell!"   If he can learn it (ie - his Intelligence and Dexterity allow him to cast the spell) then they will teach it to him as an Elective Skill.   However, he can not gain Kill Experience for using this Skill since that is not his Class.   If he wanted to be a Thief-SpellChanter he could select that as his Class - provided his requisites are good enough (the Guild has tests it conducts to determine this).  Then he could learn Magic and get Kill Experience for it.  

Each class has requisite qualifications.   And each Class has a Base Experience which is multipied by 2 to get to the next Level.  The Base Experience for the four primary classes are Thieves: 10, Fighters: 20,  Mystics: 30.  

For for a Mystic to get to 2nd Level requires 60 Experience.   You may note these may seem like small numbers.   I'm working on my mini-system and the point is to use small numbers for it.   So that's why.   Nevertheless it balances out since ALL of the numbers are small across the board.

So that's the Skills-Class-Experience system in a nutshell with some details left out for (relative) brevity.

Quote from: HawkyAn example of a computer system which I think fails in the allocation of experience is Obivilion, which gives experience for the use of skills regardless of whether it was useful to apply the skill at that point in time (I.E. if you cast fire bolt at a wall 50 times then you are better at fire bolt, which kind of works but is a disappointing method of acheieving experience).  It would be nice if you had goals, which had varous degrees of success, and that the more successful you were the more experience you got.  This is a rather abstract notion, but if it was interesting I'm sure it would be possible to come up with a mathmatical method of a) calculating degrees of success, and b) calculating to what extend characters contributred towards it (may be by the user of sub goals, of which killing a creature may be one).

Yup.  I'm trying to get my system to deal with this issue, but without being too complicated.  A tricky balance to be sure.  

Thoughts?

I think that there is a disconnect between the idea that you want few high level characters and the number of victories you are suggesting to gain a level.

If indeed as you suggest defeating your twin, or I would suppose someone of equal power to yourself, 4 times gives you a level then you will rapidly get characters approaching their maximum (the geometric double each level of xp required still leaves relatively small numbers)
This is especially true if you have experience points for non warrior types which one assumes do not carry the same risk of death as fighting an equal.
Because your numbers are so small giving xp for using a skill will mean that people rapidly advance unless you use fractions of experiences points (ten uses gives you one xp) in which case you might as well multiply the XP up to get rid of some math.
I think the goals suggest is far better. I have set up a system doing this, based in part from Objectives settings done at work.
The Aventure has objectives, rescue the princess kill the evil prince etc etc each has an xp award divided by the PCs that are invovled in its completion, but PCs can also set goals based on what they want to do. At any time a PC can have 3 goals and as one is completed they can create another. These can be anything, even totally against the plot objectives or whatever, but they must involve a conflict (not necessary a physical one) that has to be overcome. Learning to juggle is not based in conflict so is something you do with your experience rather than something that you do to gain experience. The GM sets the experience value of each goal based on difficulty. I don't use levels so for me the reward is in straight development points and I would give 1 -5 for a personal goal compared to maybe 10 -15 for a plot goal (remenber plot goals are shared).

If you did something like this in your game you would close any loopholes in relation to experience gain, you would be able to explain how there are few high level characters despite seeming low experience thresholds, its easy to computerise and there is a lot less housekeeping. I have also found that players like it because they can see that their characters can be rewarded for following their own ambitions and schemes and not just trailing after the plot. Also as it divorces the players from the whole I have to kill x many rats to get to 2nd level as killing rats is only worth something is you have set yourself the goal of 'clense this city of rats' and even then its only worth as many xp as the GM decides.

Quote from: jibbajibbaI think that there is a disconnect between the idea that you want few high level characters and the number of victories you are suggesting to gain a level.

If indeed as you suggest defeating your twin, or I would suppose someone of equal power to yourself, 4 times gives you a level then you will rapidly get characters approaching their maximum (the geometric double each level of xp required still leaves relatively small numbers)
This is especially true if you have experience points for non warrior types which one assumes do not carry the same risk of death as fighting an equal.
Because your numbers are so small giving xp for using a skill will mean that people rapidly advance unless you use fractions of experiences points (ten uses gives you one xp) in which case you might as well multiply the XP up to get rid of some math.
I think the goals suggest is far better. I have set up a system doing this, based in part from Objectives settings done at work.
The Aventure has objectives, rescue the princess kill the evil prince etc etc each has an xp award divided by the PCs that are invovled in its completion, but PCs can also set goals based on what they want to do. At any time a PC can have 3 goals and as one is completed they can create another. These can be anything, even totally against the plot objectives or whatever, but they must involve a conflict (not necessary a physical one) that has to be overcome. Learning to juggle is not based in conflict so is something you do with your experience rather than something that you do to gain experience. The GM sets the experience value of each goal based on difficulty. I don't use levels so for me the reward is in straight development points and I would give 1 -5 for a personal goal compared to maybe 10 -15 for a plot goal (remenber plot goals are shared).

If you did something like this in your game you would close any loopholes in relation to experience gain, you would be able to explain how there are few high level characters despite seeming low experience thresholds, its easy to computerise and there is a lot less housekeeping. I have also found that players like it because they can see that their characters can be rewarded for following their own ambitions and schemes and not just trailing after the plot. Also as it divorces the players from the whole I have to kill x many rats to get to 2nd level as killing rats is only worth something is you have set yourself the goal of 'clense this city of rats' and even then its only worth as many xp as the GM decides.

Thank you kindly for your suggestion.  You make some very interesting points!   I will have to ponder this for a while in order to give it thorough consideration.   I like the direction you're heading.   I'm not sure if I want to do this or not yet, but it is certainly worth considering!   Thanks!  

The purpose, btw, of the Base Kill Gains Multiplier is to moderate the risk level associated with going up in levels in my current system.   The lower the BKGM the harder it is to go up in levels without dying along the way.

For example if the BKGM is 5 then you would have a 6.25% chance of surviving the four necessary combats against your equal to go up to the next level.   You'd have to survive with a 6.25% chance to get to the next level after that, which means that your chance of making it to third level would be quite small.   However, I think those odds run just a shade too difficult.  With a BKGM of 10 there is a 25% chance to survive to the next level.   I think at least for the games I'm running at the moment with a few players that's more likely to be acceptable.   Of course the BKGM is there in order to be modified to suite the current game and group.   For instance I might have a fairly high BKGM if I am playing with kids, making it easier, but then lower it for my older players who can handle a more competative game.   I'll be trying this out over the next few months and see how it goes.  Nevertheless - I like your idea about Objective Oriented Experience Gains.   That might just be crazy enough to work!  

Mark

EDIT: this was cross posted a little, I was replaying to message 10 when I wrote this

So (just to claify my understanding) your system states the following:

1) that as you level you get better at all skills, though skills that are not directly related to your class go up slower

2) that you gain 100% of the normally awarded experience for a used skill that is part of your class, but < 100% if the skill is not realted to your class (say 25%)

Is this correct?

Another quick question ...

1) why do you call it Kill experience ? this kinda of impiles that the use of most skills is specifically aimed at killing things rather than say, basket weaving

To anwer your final question, I.E. how can you be sure that the use of a skill was valid or useful ... well in a computer controlled enviroment this is pretty tricky, thats why I suggested you consider a goal based system, in such a system you might assign the following Experience rewards:

Kill a ghost haunting a house: 100 exp
Weave forty baskets for Bob: 20 exp

How they achieve these things would be left to them, but for example a Warrior might have to do some minor quests to buy a magic sword so that he could go and kill the ghost, and then pay a basket weaver to make the baskets from his ghost huinting proceeds.

Where as a basket weaver may make 100 baskets, sell 60 then use the proceeds to hire a ghost hunter.

my point here is that for you to define experience for goals is genuinly easy,  and in many respects opens up the game play since players whill not be forced to use class skills to level, and should therfore give them more flexibility to improvise etc. As it happens most of the time thiefs will be thiefs and warriors will be warriors and use thier class skills  most of time so its often not worth trying to force them them to do what they do natrually. I.E. if you reward them for using specific skills then thats all they will ever use.

Edit: I think jibbajibba did a better job of expressing what I have just written, but the jist is the same, a goal based system will make your job a lot simpiler and is unlikely to detract from the game play

Quote from: VBWyrdeThe purpose, btw, of the Base Kill Gains Multiplier is to moderate the risk level associated with going up in levels in my current system.   The lower the BKGM the harder it is to go up in levels without dying along the way.

For example if the BKGM is 5 then you would have a 6.25% chance of surviving the four necessary combats against your equal to go up to the next level.   You'd have to survive with a 6.25% chance to get to the next level after that, which means that your chance of making it to third level would be quite small.   However, I think those odds run just a shade too difficult.  With a BKGM of 10 there is a 25% chance to survive to the next level.   I think at least for the games I'm running at the moment with a few players that's more likely to be acceptable.   Of course the BKGM is there in order to be modified to suite the current game and group.
Mark

Again I think you have to consider the type of game you are playing. In my experience players will not face foes that have a 50% chance of killing them unless they have a plan or a team or something that significantly increases their odds. In the MMO environment for example you would just kill twice as many low level foes. If you look at this and winning 8 fights against lower level creatures will get you the same experience then that is what your players will do.
Also there is a continuity here its been discussed in numerous threads on PC deaths. If you really are going to be mathematically pure as you express then a party of 4 characters can expect to loose 2 PCs in a fight with equal foes.
As you say at that rate only 6.25% of the party will survive to the next level. Basically there is no room for role play and getting attached to the characters as character churn will be huge. I expect that you would in fact not be as mathematically pure as the rules indicate in which case you would get far lower death rates (I would say in a typical RPG I would expect a PC to die once in about 10 encounters, working on a party of 5 PCs. This is a survival rate of 98%, more or less).  If you don't run your game as strictly as you espouse then levelling will be far too quick but if you do character churn will be so high that it really will stop being an RPG and become a tactical combat game (or something ...)

Quote from: jibbajibbaAgain I think you have to consider the type of game you are playing. In my experience players will not face foes that have a 50% chance of killing them unless they have a plan or a team or something that significantly increases their odds. In the MMO environment for example you would just kill twice as many low level foes. If you look at this and winning 8 fights against lower level creatures will get you the same experience then that is what your players will do.
Also there is a continuity here its been discussed in numerous threads on PC deaths. If you really are going to be mathematically pure as you express then a party of 4 characters can expect to loose 2 PCs in a fight with equal foes.
As you say at that rate only 6.25% of the party will survive to the next level. Basically there is no room for role play and getting attached to the characters as character churn will be huge. I expect that you would in fact not be as mathematically pure as the rules indicate in which case you would get far lower death rates (I would say in a typical RPG I would expect a PC to die once in about 10 encounters, working on a party of 5 PCs. This is a survival rate of 98%, more or less).  If you don't run your game as strictly as you espouse then levelling will be far too quick but if you do character churn will be so high that it really will stop being an RPG and become a tactical combat game (or something ...)

Yes, I think you're right.   That is why I changed to a BKGM of 10 instead of 5.   This change means that there is now a 25% chance of survival to the next level instead of 6.25%.   If I changed the BKGM to 20 then there would be a 50% chance of survival to the next Level, which I think is too high.  Again it will take some experimentation to see what BKGM feels right.   I suspect 10 is probably it.

On the other hand, Experience is gained in proportion to the difficulty of the task.   If the Characters are victorious over a comparatively weaker foe they get proportionally less experience.   The opposite is true if they attack a more difficult foe.   The way it works out is that you gain experience at the fastest rate by taking a greater risk per combat by battling foes of a higher level than the Characters.   You can play it safe by attacking low level creatures, but unlike WoW that would in fact be too impractical to bother.  

Role Playing is a large part of what I like in RPGs, and so the system does need to support Character longevity - though risk of death in combat must be palpably real as well.   It's a balancing act.   I know that I'll be fine tuning the system for that reason.   Since my system uses small numbers, and has certain key variables that can be modified to change the overall difficulty or ease of the game, I think I will be able to get a tuning that works for me.   And other GMs as they use the system may find they want to tweek those values as well for their own tastes.  

I will be looking out for the points you mention as I play test.  Thanks again for the comments.  Much appreciated!