One of the things that bugs me in Oblivion is the way you accumulate Attribute points. How many points you can put into each Attribute type is based on how much you use skills governed by them. But because it's done based on every 10 major skills you level, you create a weaker character the more you use you major skills(because you take time to level minor skills and don't get as many attribute points to dish out). I find it stupid that you're punished for using major skills more, the ones you class is supposed to use more often. This article explains it better, in the first point 'An intuitive skill system'.

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-elder-scrolls-v-what-we-want-to-see/a-20100727104656838025/p-1

What I like about dishing out points is that there is an extra layer of choice in how you build your character, but I don't think it works well with points coming from skill usage. If you're not using skills governed by x attribute, why would you bother putting a point into their governing attribute, when you could benefit more from rasing the attribute of skills you do use? (because you get more points to them) Having two layers is redundant.

I think a possible way of solving it is to make it so levels aren't based on major skill usage, instead make them based on how many attribute points are raised. Keep major skills in the game, but only have them give a boost to the level of those skills at the start of the game, and level those skills quicker. Each skill no matter if major or minor could contribute x points towards it's governed attribute, and when you've gained enough total attribute points you could then sleep and rest to gain a level. That way all characters will raise the same amount of skills and attribute points per level.


If you could change how attribute points and level were handled in TES, how would you do it?

I think it made sents if you meant the whole article because I read it all and forgot most of it it was long. But good.

You get 5 or 6 points per level-up. Depending IF there is a 2x multiplier. No bigger multipliers are present. You start with attributes of 40 +/- 20, that is between 20 and 60, you can CHOOSE how you distribute the points. You gotta sacrifice one in order to boost the other.

Less points per level, more points to distribute in the character creation. Harder to get a 100 in any of the attributes, even yet to max them all out.

Hitpoints do NOT go up every level, you ALWAYS have 100+END hitpoints, so END affects it but not cumulatively; you don't miss out any HP if you raise END slower.

I would tie the attributes right to the skill increases without having overall levels.

This.

I would rather your skills have a more gradual effect on how your player progresses. That is, I don't mind learning new spells and attacks and such every certain number of attribute points (ala blade and destruction), however I would like there to be gradual increases in damage, damage mitigation, spell effectiveness, etc., with each attribute point you gain from raising your skills.

I think the idea of using your skills to increase them is one of the things that makes the TES series great. However, they need to do a better job making some of the less combat-focused skills more useful, like speechcraft and acrobatics. It's cool to be able to persuade someone to tell you information or jump higher (or on water), but that's about as far as those skills go. Being more skilled in speechcraft should give you the opportunity to change the heirarchy of factions, persuade humanoids that you are on their side so you can stab them in the back, and change the political environment of the world to suit your fancy (depending on how skilled you are, of course). Acrobatics should unlock new areas unreachable by non-nimble folks, and allow you to do some different combat moves to dodge and get behind an opponent in battle. Some of the skills were really just useless, and it would be nice if they had some real impact on your gameplay.

Levels should go out the window. The different attributes (endurance, strength, etc.) should be kept, but should be affected by the armor that you wear. Don't worry, I am not saying that we should be searching for the next greatest armor all game long. But all armor types should be available at the beginning of the game, each with its own attributes and effects on skills. For example, leather armor would increase your speed and make you more effective at sneaking, but decreases your strength and makes you less skilled in 2h weapons. As you increase your skill in that armor type, you change the attributes and skill increases (and decreases) it gives your character. Similar types of things could apply to weapons. And it would be nice if there were some special armors and weapons in the game that were particularly powerful and imbued the wearer with greater abilities, but it shouldn't be a staple part of the game. I think enchanting could take care of the "in-between" armor sets before you are powerful enough to get the best armor and weapons.

You're right using skills to increase you characters developement is a defining feature of TES, I'd keep them too. I like levels though, they give you a sense of accomplishment, measuring your progress. With them removed, would you replace that with anything?

Personally don't like the idea of customer character attribute by items instead though. It is it the character or the items who makes the individual?

The thing is, levels don't really mean anything. You gain some hit points, fatigue, magicka, or some of the other attributes, but what does a level mean in real life? To me, getting rid of the levels makes the game more immersive; the skills that the player develops is defined by the player, and the effectiveness of those skills is determined by the use of those skills in the course of mastery. Why does raising my blade skill 10 points give me more hit points? It makes little sense.

What I would replace this with instead is a system much more focused on the skills that the player develops. Someone with a higher blade skill does more damage than someone with a lesser skill with swords, which makes sense. If I use a sword more often, I am likely better swinging the weapon and have gained the muscle necessary to do more damage. Higher block skill means that I have grown stronger by use of my shield and have a greater understanding of how to position my feet and mitigate damage. And at certain levels of mastery of a skill (hopefully not the exact same for all), I have the abililty to learn new spells, attacks, etc., that are more powerful, or make certain situations more controllable, such as those involving multiple enemies. I think they should have to be learned in some way from a teacher or tome, but they increase my effectiveness in combat (or politically in the case of speechcraft, you get the idea).

As for gaining hit points, magicka, fatigue, and strength, I propose this: Hit points and fatigue are related to endurance, so you increase them through running, jumping, swimming, fighting, or anything physical. Getting hit also increases your endurance. You gain more magicka through the use of it, so casting many spells, especially a vast array of spells, increases your intellect, as well as reading books (maybe just on magicka and nature?). Increasing intellect also increases magicka regeneration. Strength you gain through carrying large loads (so when you clear dungeons and load up the loot, you gain strength and can carry more loot). Speed is increased through a combination of strength and endurance. I think luck is just that, so increasing it is just strange. You don't get luckier by playing the slots more. Willpower is absorbed into intellect, agility is unnecessary with the skills the way I described them, as is personality with the different social skills.

Also, this system would allow skills to continue to rise without cap, and would be gradual enough to keep the player from becoming uber-god very quickly (if balanced correctly).



The armor and weapons wouldn't determine the attributes or skills of the character, but rather hinder/increase as would be sensical. I shouldn't be able to sneak around people in full steel plate. I should shine and make a lot of noise. The people would have to be blind AND stupid to miss me. But in OB, this is wholly possible if you sneak skill is high enough. Different types of armor and weapons should have corresponding changes to attributes that make sense. Heavy 2h weapons should have a slower swing speed, and decrease my ability to hop around my opponent. However, they should do more damage and possibly knock opponents down, and they have the ability to block melee attacks. Things like these would add to character customization, really. I could be a close-quarters combat guru who wears leather armor. I just need to make up for my lack of physical protection with acrobatic dodges, quick hand speed, and fast feet. Increasing armor skills increases corresponding attributes, like strength for heavy armor, speed for leather, intellect for cloth, etc. They could be different combinations, but its what makes more sense (EDIT: that is, the more you wear a certain type of armor, the better stats it imbues upon you when you wear it. These effects disappear if you stop wearing that armor type.)

The biggest problem with the Elder Scrolls leveling system since Morrowind is that it runs counter to the very premise of the series. In a "Do what you want, when you want," sandbox, players should be most rewarded for doing so. The player who just takes skill increases as they come as s/he plays should, given the same amount of levels, end up as strong as the player who runs/swims in place over night, or creates 1mp level-raising spells. I'm the sort of player who does the latter - always maximizing my multipliers, and necessity dictates that this be done in an artificial, almost laboratory-like setting. I would be much in favor of getting rid of multipliers. Don't allow every attribute to be max in the end, or allow them to level infinitely - either would work. What we have now are people playing a videogame like laboratory animals, and it seems so artificial, and for their reward, they end up pretty much exactly the same as the thousand other min-max characters alongside them. Preventing straight 100 stats, or allowing infinite post 100 stats would negate the motivation to power-game. If the only difference between a powergamer and a more intuitive player is the amount of time spent attaining a reward, and not a hard cap on said character's potential, everybody would win. And - we'd have diversity in the high level characters. Not everyone wants to be a master of all trades. Maybe some would've rather stuck to the mage (or whatever) archtype they chose at start.

I'm also of the opinion that stat multipliers and level/skill caps need to disappear. The stat multipliers encourage people to power-game, while the skill caps encourage players to make a jack-of-all-trades character. Eliminating these would go a long way towards allowing people to focus more on utilizing thier character's class-specific skills, as they will no longer feel the need to train new skills after they have maxed out their majors and minors.

It made sense. Someone who trained how to swing a sword wouldn't easily know how to run faster (Speed), would he?

No, he'd know how to swing his sword faster (Agility), or swing it harder (Strength).

Without levels how would your system provide a player with consistent challenge? For that is, after all, what levels do (the game uses player level to determine which enemies to place in game). What mechanism would your system replace levels with?




A good thing, in my opinion. The concept of "class" in roleplaying needs to go. It's a meta-game mechanic, it has nothing to do with roleplaying. Adventurers in real life (pioneers and trappers on the American frontier, as an example) are darn well going to be jacks-of-all-trades. Their lives depended on being able to do everything. A real person adventuring on their own would never dream forsaking magic because they were a 'Rogue,' or would go without armor because they were a 'Mage'. Hell, no: they'd do anything they could, learn any skill they could learn, to stay alive. The idea that a group of four or six people would arrange themselves into a tiny bureaucracy in which only one of them could pick locks, only one could fling a fireball, only one could wield a two-handed sword, etc, etc, etc, could only be thought up by glasses-wearing geeks in a comfortable middle-class basemant, far away from the real world.



As far as the leveling system goes, I felt that Bethesda did not have what my mother would call the "courage of their convictions." I've always felt that Bethesda would have preferred to offer a game with a more innovative skill-based leveling system but felt they needed to offer players who were used to old-time Dungeons and Dragons leveling a compromise. The result is a confusing hybrid system composed of skill-based advancement with an unspectacular, unsatisfactory bonus-point system tacked on as an afterthought. I believe that if they had focused exclusively on either system they would have ended up with a game that was more coherent, character leveling-wise.

A jack of all trades by choice is wonderful. It's just one more kind of character a person can play. I just believe specialization should be equally rewarded. Jack of all trades should be a status of choice, not the final result for every character, given enough play time. I'd make a jack of all trades now and then myself, if I didn't know that my mage was going to be jack of all trades in 30 levels or so. If such weren't the case, you could make tons of characters and see how they play differently. Make a character to rise the fighter's guild. Make one for the mage's guild. Make one that doesn't get to the top in either, but gets pretty far in both. That's the sort of thing I'm going for.

Daggerfall style

I think there should be a set number on skill increases per level. Like you get only 5 points to distribute how ever you want, with no multipliers. Nothing will decease or increase this. No needing to harrass mud crabs into helping you level up your block skill.

I think some areas should be more dangerous and difficult to get through than others. Levelled lists ala OB made me feel like my character never got any stronger; when I reached level 20 and maxed out multiple skills, I was not facing the same enemies that I was at lvl 2...thus I couldn't see how my character had progressed. All things are relative. I went back to a dungeon I visited at the beginning of the game at ~lvl 15, and I was facing ghosts, will o the wisps, and other, much stronger enemies. I wanted to go back and demolish the enemies I was toe-to-toe with at lvl 3, but instead fought much more difficult enemies. But why? Why are there enemies in the dungeon that are so much more difficult than the first ones I encountered? If there was some reason (besides "well there was an opportunity for them to take over with the weaker guys gone," because that reasoning is awful), then I would not have been so annoyed. But they were more difficult simply because I was stronger. Why is it that the enemies that exist at any time in the world depend solely on my level? What does level actually physically mean?

The answer I come to is non-sensical. Level is simply the world's way of reacting to the player's progression. But the player's skills should not determine the enemies that spawn in the world. They should all exist from the beginning of the game, and be the same at lvl 1 as they are at lvl 30 (unless there is a specific reason as to the change in ruling regime, like a vampire infecting a crew of bandits, over-hunting certain animals, or significant natural disasters that change the ecosystem.

Sorry that I didn't answer the question right away, but I felt that I needed to point out what I found wrong with the current system before I could say how to fix it. So here goes.

Make some areas more difficult that others. By this I mean the area is designed to be a challenge for a character with, say, 35 blade skill, or 30 destruction skill, or various other skill combinations. I am ok with some dungeons being more difficult for certain skill sets than others, just like it would be more difficult for a farmer to navigate a ship in the middle of the ocean than a veteran sailor. These areas should be more difficult for a reason (like they are the headquarters for a certain band of mercenaries, or something to that effect...this could tie in very well with guild quests and advancement). The enemies that spawn should be the same at all levels. This gives me a reason to want to increase my skills, as I would get smacked around otherwise. It also gives me the ability to see my character get stronger, as I can revisit a dungeon with a 75 blade skill and level everything in the 30 blade dungeon. This doesn't have to be a strict thing, as different players are more skilled than others at playing the same type of character, so someone with a 30 blade skill might be able to beat the 40 blade skill dungeon because they are a great player, whereas a less adept player may require a skill of 45 to get through it. This also keeps the world from becoming "the world based on this character."

The issue that will arise is the one from MW, with people becoming uber-gods. In this system, it would eventually happen. However, if they make the steps more gradual, you will likely spend more time trying to get through a dungeon, and with more higher end content that is very difficult, players will find themselves spending plenty of time raising the skills of their characters to access higher dungeons. The harder the dungeon, the better rings/amulets/spells/etc. you should find (I say armor and weapons should be used sparingly, so as to avoid the "need to get claymore X from this dungeon to replace the slightly less effective claymore Y that I have now" feel. They should really be saved for the very last "best of the best" type gear). The best gear in the game should require you level relevant skills. For example, level your destruction skill to 200, or else you will have no chance of getting through this dungeon to get the best three destruction spells in the game.

On a final note, I would love to see even more diversity of skills, like breaking up destruction into ice, fire, earth, etc., or adding a parry component to weapons that could be used to do it. The more ways to define your character through the use of skills, the better.



Agreed. Allow players to experiment with any skills they choose. If you don't want to be a warrior who knows magic, fine. But restrictions on the player to conform to certain classes is counter-intuitive. I should be able to learn anything if I spend enough time using/studying it.



Also agreed, although someone who focuses solely on one skill should be better than the jack of all trades at that skill. Hence the reason for no skill cap; the person who levels only that one skill will increase it much faster than someone using a multitude of skills.

I think that Attribute increases should happen automatically in the background with the ability to boost Luck +1, any other attribute by +2, and any favored attribute by +3 at a hard level up (still limited to 3 attributes for this increase).

If I raise my Speech skill twice, my Personality should get an immediate +1.
Then, when I reach level 2 I should still have the option to put +2 into 3 attributes (+3 if they are one of my two favored attributes or +1 if it is Luck and not favored).

Example;

Level 1

Speech - 25 (major)
Barter - 25
Alchemy - 25 (major)

Personality - 40 (favored)
Intelligence - 40
Luck - 50

Halfway to Level 2

Speech - 28 (major) (+3 from use)
Barter - 26 (+1 from use)
Alchemy - 27 (major) (+2 from use)

Personality - 42 (favored) (+2 from skill increases)
Intelligence - 41 (+1 from skill increases)
Luck - 50 (no change)

Level 2 (assuming I choose the attributes used above for the Hard Level bonus)

Speech - 30 (major) (+2 from use)
Barter - 27 (+1 from use)
Alchemy - 30 (major) (+3 from use)

Personality - 46 (favored) (+1 from skill increases and +3 from Hard Level)
Intelligence - 44 (+2 from skill increases and +2 from Hard Level)
Luck - 51 (+1 from Hard Level)

As you can see, in ths system if you super focus on skills from a particular attribute, favor that attribute, and choose it at hard levels, you will increase it much faster than the current system, however, this system also allows slow growth for less used attributes.


This will make attribute increases less wasteful and more useful.

My issue with a "hard level" system is the fact that it makes no physical sense. I fight things for a while, or make some potions, or repair armor, whatever, and gain enough experience to level up. I wake up in the morning with the choice to be stronger, more intelligent, have more willpower, have more endurance, be more agile, be more personable, or be luckier. But aren't those things that happen over time? If I raised my skills enough to increase my strength, shouldn't my strength automatically increase to reflect that? Why do I wake up the next morning with greater physical capability than when I went to sleep? I get stronger through physical training! And luck, by its very nature, is something you cannot control. So why do I get to increase my luck? This would imply that luck is a tangible, controllable variable. Intelligence you increase through reading and studying. Maybe I can have more willpower in the morning, but even that is something that you work up, not just decide one day you have. Sleeping certainly does not make me more agile, nor more personable than any other day when I had a good night's sleep. Same thing goes for endurance. These are skills that accumulate over time, so why is it that these only increase at discrete intervals?

GCD style with skills leading directly to attribute increases and level going up once you had a certain number of attribute increases
The main point of levels would be to determine random enemies and loot

edit: And no caps to skills or attributes although it would become very slow to increase an already high attribute or skill

If I am understanding the your OP right:

• levels are based on attribute gain over skill gain
  
• Major - Minor - Misc skill gains have different attribute multipliers
  
• As skills increase attributes automatically increase (as with what Shades said)

I like this.

I'm rather indifferent to whether or not RPGs continue to define character specializations in terms of seperate "classes". It seems to me that it is a rather archaic concept that adheres to the traditions of PnP RPGs, but still serves some purpose in that is gives one's character a sense of identity, kind of like a job does for people who live in the real world. As for the 'problem' of the 'jack-of-all-trades syndrome', Pompidou summed up my thoughts about it pretty well. There's nothing wrong with such a character if one chooses to make one and devotes their time to building up all of their skills somewhat equally. But, the problem with the Elder Scrolls' current system is that once you hit the skill and attribute cap, there's nothing left to do to progress your character except work on those skills that haven't been maxed out. Thus, having skill and attribute caps encourages players to increase/max-out skills that they probably wouldn't if those caps were removed, which all but forces players to create a jack-of-all-trades later in the game, regardless of whether they meant to or not.

Roleplay.

Of course, if a player's motivation to play is purely to gain levels then I guess I could see why that player might think there was nothing more to do...but that is not the attitude of all players.

I like the way GCD and nGCD do it. Your attributes increase according to the skills you increase, leveling up happens completely in the background, the only way to tell you've leveled up is to check the character sheet. Or when you're suddenly standing naked in a Sigil Tower when Quest Award Leveler upgrades your armor (like happened to me last night :blush:)

The multipliers in the default system are just stupid, and frankly i'm amazed they carried over that system from Morrowind to Oblivion.

I agree with everything you say here 100%. I mainly use Realistic Leveling myself, but both mods do an excellent job of allowing you concentrate on playing your character. There's been many times when I actually had no idea what level I was. I'd look at my character sheet and be amazed that I was four or five or six levels different from what I thought I was. I love that. It means I've left the mechanics of leveling far behind and have become immersed in my character and in the game world - which is what I play Elder Scrolls games for.

I think the Dungeons and Dragons style of leveling up (going into a menu, assigning points manually, etc) is valid. It's just that it doesn't mix well with the Elder Scrolls' skill-based system. It's like grafting a Giraffe head onto a Rhinoceros. I like both animals but I don't want to see them joined together.

Ok, forget most attributes, I want to talk about LUCK and only LUCK.

It's a fairly modest and straight-forward concept, which is offered with the details "as I would do it" for the sake of illustration. I want to hear about the overall concept. If it has legs, we can worry the details (or TESV will come out and I'll actually have to try to MAKE IT SO)

1. Luck starts at 0. No race, class, or birthsign is exempt.
2. Luck cannot be raised by conventional means (leveling, skill increases, etc)
3. Luck increases happen when you accomplish something specific, and never at any other time.
4. The relevant accomplishments should be outlined in books, rumors, notes, or other in-game bits of dialogue or text, but they should not be the most common occurances.
5. As a matter of design, getting to luck 50-70 should be easier in total than moving from 70 to 80.

So how would it work? Well, we're going to mentally retrofit this onto Oblivion as an illustration.

You come out of the sewers and you're down on your luck. Suppose you brave the bandits outside Vilverin and come across "Immortal Blood" (a skill book). Reading that book will not only increase your skill, but as your first skill book, it increases your Luck to 1. The essentials of a TES skill book are that they seldom restrict themselves to teahcing a skill. There's almost certainly little details about Nirn in there that a crafty adventurer might use to gain that slight advantage (ie, exactly what Luck does). Now you swim south a ways and encounter the Wayshrine of Stendarr there. Praying there culd have two possible effects: it depends on whether "the designer" considers the chapels or the wayshrines "holier". If the Wayshrines are the "true holy sites", then you'd get a point of Luck for each one. Otherwise, you'd need to pray in the chapels (and KotN's Shrine of Kynareth for a 9th Luck point) However, praying to ALL of the divine wayshrines seems like an ideal "clear point of Luck" as well, so either way, this shrine grants some benefit.

On the other hand, a few hours later, you spot Vaermina's Shrine in the distance and check it out. Either you choose to serve her (and in my book, earning a little tolerance from a Daedric Prince is a sure way to help slant the world in your favor a little bit), or not. The latter is great for your morals and/or conscience, but as a consequence, you do have a major power that isn't pleased (as evidenced by the point of Luck you chose not to earn).

A while later, you happen on a rare volume of "King", a tale of Eslaf Erol. Having already chanced on Beggar, Thief, and Warrior, you've collected and read the entire series, and you understand Tamriel a bit better through their humor. One point of Luck (although it's reasonable to argue that longer series deserve it more).

In summary, Luck isn't something you can increase because you beat up enough mudcrabs under this proposal. It's something you have to either chance on, or otherwise act towards. Whether it is leveling skills you may not really use to reach Apprentice with them, or serving a Daedric Prince despite having some misgivings, or simply taking the time to track down rare books, or praying to the gods. You have choices and consequences: choose to be a god-hater, and you pass on divine favor. Choose to avoid the Daedric Princes for moral reasons, and you have no one to blame but yourself for the slight favor they might have granted. There's not COMPULSION here to power-game: it's not as if Luck is a crippling attribute. Each point of Luck is .2% missed potential (assuming the traditional Luck bonus to actions of Luck-50/10 = % change)
Meanwhile, it makes Luck stand out, and if anything, encourages the casual audience to really get into the world a bit more in search of ONE MORE point of luck

Oh dear I could say a lot on this ones but I'll try to give a short version what I'd suggest:

1. Skill groups:
Instead of each single skill free floating have skill groups, this way you can have way more skills, for example splitting up short blades into daggers, knifes, short swords etc but grouping them together. This means each of them levels individually but also profits from being in the same group since they have a very similar basic handling.

2. Multiple attribute bindings:
One skill would not just be bound to one attribute, it would be bound to several at once. Shooting a bow for example needs some fidelity in your fingers, strength and a good eye coordination, it would need at least 3 different fields. So every skill is bound into several attributes, the attribute gain would not be equal though, some give you more gain towards one, some more towards another. Swinging a hatchet for example needs strength, speed and some precision, strength would be primary (gets the biggest boost), speed secondary (gets a slightly smaller boost) and precision third (gets a smaller boost). Swinging a dagger would be primarily speed, secondary precision, third strength. Additionally the order could change depending on HOW a weapon/skill is used, swiftly slashing a dagger would give more boost to speed, ramming it into someones body more to strength.
Additionally I would do the same to attributes as to skills, split them up into more fields. In what I'd suggest you wouldn't have to keep a constant eye on them and it would very well allow you to have more than right now.

3. Luck is a fluent attribute:
Instead of being able to directly level up luck it is a fluent attribute, it can constantly change between going up and down. Influences could for example be pain (reduces luck and with that your abilities), pleasure (makes your character feel better increasing your luck), curses, lucky charms etc. Additionally luck shouldn't really be a visible one, I'd actually be for luck being fully invisible.
A property of your character could actually be “lucky person” which means you have a higher base luck but are more vulnerable if it's lowered.

4. Fluent leveling:
The core of this is primarily to eliminate the “need” for numbered levels. Skills would not level on a 1 – 100 base but on a “pool” that slowly fills up. There's no “DING, new level”, you just “get better” over time.
Your character itself would not even need a level as well, your attributes level up the same time as you skills do since their pool too fills up along with them.

5. Fluent level caps:
The caps of skills and attributes are not solid, they are flexible and can be extended past 100%. Once over 100% they can drop again though, the flexible cap has different “tension” on the level differing between races, sixes and characters so for one extending past a cap will drop again faster and it gets harder to level past a certain point than for other.

6. “True mastery”:
With the fluent level caps I'd also change what mastery of a skill is. Reaching 100% is not mastery, it's reaching a very well trained level. True mastery would be closer to reach 150%.
With the different flexibility for different character types reaching mastery in certain fields is easier than to others. Additionally since skills over the 100% cap can drop again over time it means you CAN reach well trained in all fields (which is realistically possible) but only mastery in those you can really push and HOLD above 100%.
Think of it as the difference between a well trained track runner and a Olympics sprinter, the Olympics sprinter is clearly faster but if he starts slacking and doesn't train he will not be able to hold his old record, but he could likely still keep up with the track runner.

7. Gaining health, magic and stamina different ways:
Since personally I'd kick character leveling there would of course have to be other ways to gain them, also because I didn't really like how it worked so far (like the health gain bias for raising endurance).
My method would be that you gain by recovery. You'd have a natural regeneration, health, magic and stamina all regenerate on their own when you keep up your character. When you regenerate the maximum slowly rises. However it would only do for regenerating naturally, just drinking a potion to fully boost yourself up doesn't do too much, you can however use ones that can accelerate the regeneration.
It would also be dependent on your “long term fatigue” (this is from a different idea someone else brought up a while ago) so it's not that you just jump into a pile of rabid mudcrabs, let them pinch you repeatedly and then just get out till you're regenerated, when your long term fatigue gets used up the regeneration will slowly stall and the gain from the regeneration would stall too.
Though this system is still very fuzzy so I can't really elaborate on it too well.


Well I think those are all major points in “abridged” form... how much was that now 1,5 word pages?... so much for making that short :rolleyes: