Lost Galmagia: Bonus on Earned Experience

 When I started this I had no intention of providing experience adjustments for high attributes, but the more i read of the OSR, the more I decided to do so… as long as I went back far enough. I’ll let Stephen Wendell explain.

https://www.donjonlands.com/2022/11/three-paradigms-evolution-of-ability-score-adjustments-and-the-prime-requisite-bonus-in-old-school-dd.html

Like many other people in the OSR, I find the Complementary style elegant: smarter and wiser fighters get bonuses that can offset a lower strength score when it comes to getting that sweet, sweet experience point bonus. The OD&D rule has a lit of fiddly bits, so I’m also going to gleefully steal Ivan the Unpleasant’s house rule for this (https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/nviwox/on_prime_requisites_and_xp_adjustments/)
and just use his secondary attributes
• Fighters and Dwarves have Strength as primary and Erudition and Divine Favor as secondary.
• Thieves have Dexterity as primary and Erudition and Divine Favor as secondary.
• Clerics have Wisdom as primary and Strength and Erudition as secondary.
• Mages have Intelligence as primary and Dexterity and Divine Favor as secondary.
• Halflings are treated as both a fighter and a thief, i.e. halflings add their Int bonus (if they have one) and their Wis bonus (if they have one) to both their Str and their Dex for the purpose of figuring XP adjustments.
• Elves are treated as fighters and mages separately, adding any Eru bonus to their Str, any Dex bonus to their Int, and any DF bonus to both their Str and Int when figuring XP adjustments.

This all works on the standard table from B/X

Prime Requisite	Modifier to earned XP
3-5	-20%
6-8	-10%
9-12	0
13-15	+5%
16-18	+10%

The one PC we have rolled up so far, evynrude’s Fighter has the following
Str 12 (+0); Eru 13 (+1); DF 9 (+0), Dex 18 (+3); Con 9 (+0); Cha 13 (+1)
which means she has an effective Prime Requite of 13 (her 12 Strength is increased by +1 from her superior Erudition). While she has an amazing Dexterity that doesn’t factor into a Fighter’s prime requisite. Her Strength isn’t increased for purposes of hit and damage, but it does get her that sweet, sweet +5% on earned XP. The character sheet will have to have an entry for “effective prime requisite” next to experience points. But this all feels much better than lowering some attributes to raise others. 

Why designate “Earned XP”? I’ve just decided that since the rules are specific on this, there are going to be places in the Giant’s Shadow where you can get Gifted XP – usually from the gods or powerful magical effects – and those are not subject to a modifier from your prime requisite.

Likewise, I’m going to be including more places that modify your attributes on a semi-permanent basis. There’s already a curse that cuts your prime requisite in half (a standard curse effect), and a trap that if it should have killed you instead mangles your hand for -3 Dex until you can get some magical healing from a 6^th level caster (which is, admittedly, better than being dead).

I’m really appreciating the way these rules are interacting to make the characters more distinct and dynamic, especially if they can change frequently during play.