Your Thoughts on Best Advancement System?

[BarroomBard]

Hey, Playground!

I enjoy investigating different game systems, especially if they use unique or innovative mechanics.

As I imagine the playground has a wider pool of experience than I do, I pose this question:

What do you think is the best advancement system? Most unique? Most interesting?

By advancement system, I mean levels, experience, and all the trappings thereabout.

[dsmiles]

I like Mouse Guard. It's advancement is based on a certain number of successes and failures for each skill/trait/etc. To advance something a rank, you need (N) number of successes and (N-1) failures.

For example, one of the skills is Pathfinding. If you have a Pathfinding rating of 3, you need 3 successes and 2 failures to advance to a rating of 4.

It's unique, and fairly realistic, IMO. Successes are getting it right, and failures are trying new ways of doing it that may, or may not, pay off later.

[Moofaa]

Hmmm.

Call of Cthulu is pretty interesting. You "level" by increasing skills that you actually used during the course of the adventure. Characters don't reach the overwhelmingly powerful statuses that standard D&D characters do, instead you remain pretty much as frail as when you started. It's also one of the few games where a character can actually be worse by the end of the adventure.

4th edition has a nice streamlined method of character progression. Gaining new daily/utility/encounter powers always feels like a fun reward.

3rd edition is a mixed bag. Entirely depends on class(es), and what level. Some classes just get a crappy attack bonus/save increase and nothing else exciting. Getting that first level of a multi-class you've been planning on for months is pretty awesome and so is just gaining a class level where you get access to some nifty feat or class feature that really makes your character build shine.

Mutants & Masterminds can also be really interesting, since you can create your own new abilities or modify/power up existing ones.

[kaomera]

In a Wicked Age: you have to earn the right for your character to even show up in future sessions!

[Mastikator]

The best one I've seen was fairly simplistic, it was Trudvagn.
You had experience points, you had skills, skills covered everything. To advance a skill, you paid in equal amount of experience points the skill level you wished to advance to, per step. So from 3 to 7, it was 4+5+6+7=22. Then you had specializations, which either enhanced a specific case of skill use, or enabled a specific action.
For example, if you had combat at 9, then you could either increase it to 10 for 10 points, or buy a specialization in hand-axe use for 10 which granted an extra 5 points when using one handed axes in combat.
Simplistic, elegant, diminishing returns and encourages specialization.

[Totally Guy]

In a wicked age is great; if it's your character coming back, you can level up a power in the game that the character has. Or you redistribute his array of stats and you say "this is him as little boy/ghost/a new form". Or you heal wounds, this is the only way to heal too! I think you can invent a new power for your guy too.

I also really like Mouse Guard's advancement system.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I like Bliss Stage because you level up Relationships to power your character.

In order to increase your effectiveness in the Mission portion of the game your main character (a "Pilot") has a freeform RP scene with another character (usually played by another Player) while a third person judges the whole thing based off of a simple rubric. At the end of the scene, the Judge picks an outcome based on what happened in the scene and modifies the Pilot's character sheet appropriately.

[Krazzman]

I would say for me this is the smiling and crying face.

On the one side I prefer DnD/PF because of it's base system with classes and the simple magic system.
DSA and Shadowrun, both Point based are from a systematical pov better than strict classes.

I tried to merge DSA and DnD once because I like DnD but certain things in DSA are better...others worse.

If you are interested:
Choose a Class. Use this as Chassis to get a specific set of skills and special abilities (i.e Magic use, Sneak attack bonus).
Now you will get EXP and track them in 2 parts: Spent EXP and earned EXP.
Earned would give you an indication of level. On certain milestones you earn a level, this brings Bonus points/skills/access to other things. With Spent EXP you can buy skills/feats/specialities.

Skills: They are keyed off of more than only one Stat. [Example Climb would now be keyed of of (STR, CON & DEX)]
Feats now would be special abilities that you buy, the same as spells are.

Such a system would be perfect for me and I would still be working on it if I weren't currently in my end-project of my apprentienceship.