First time character building

ThisAdamGuy

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I just started working in earnest on my litrpg project today, and I want to make sure my character building makes sense before I get too deep into it. This is the first character who's going to be introduced:

Class: Cat Burglar
Race: Faun
LVL: 14
Str: 49 (+4 per level)
Dexterity: 112 (+7 per level) (race bonus: +3 per level)
Constitution: 49 (+4 per level)
Intelligence: 71 (+6 per level)
Charisma: 69(+4 per level) (race bonus: +2 per level)


Every character starts off at level 2 with all of their stats set evenly at 5. They choose their class at level 3, and their stats will increase by 25 points every time they level up, with those points being distributed differently depending on their class. At level 5 they have the option to change their race, with certain races having added bonuses, like the extra +3 to dex and +2 to charisma this character gets. The end goal is to have her excel in stealth and acrobatics, with spellcasting as her primary means of combat, but where she can still hold her own in a fight if she has to.

Did I do a good job here, or do I need to rethink the point distributions?
 

Tyranomaster

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I'm going to do quite brutal here, for your sake. Note that you should assume readers will have no extra context for any additional changes to a core rpg ruleset you might want to impose, so they either need to be self evident after a short time, or be explained in world in some way.

0. Fundamentally, your character makes no sense because all characters in LitRPG make sense only in context, which you didn't provide. That said...

1. Why do characters start off at level 2? Is there a profound reason for this? Otherwise, this is bucking a core trend for no particular reason. Level 0 or Level 1 are usually the starting points.

2. Numbers have no meaning without greater context. Why and with what purpose do those numbers mean anything? D&D, for example, uses much lower numbers for stats.

3. Related to number 2, all the other numbers mean nothing without context, which is usually integral to LitRPGs The stats mean something, combat works like a spreadsheet.

4. It's an interesting choice to change race at level 5. Does every 5 levels give something as powerful as changing your entire race? If not, why is this a mechanic? Does the story plan to end after 1 novel (which is fine, but it is very important to consider these things).

5. Making a class Cat Burglar implies a lot of classes exist, or classes come in tiers related to an overarching theme. This is a fine choice, but it has implications on the world as a whole.

With those five things in mind, I'm going to make some comments now based on some of your previous threads. These are harsh, but they come from an honest place on what I think on the matter at hand.

LitRPG is a saturated and shrinking market for new authors. Breaking into the market is hard, even harder if you aren't familiar with tropes or how to write the genre already. I've made the statement before, but LitRPG is based on the idea of RPG games which almost all have one thing in common, a very fleshed out world.

It is hard, (and I'd argue impossible to do in a way that one succeeds), to start writing a litrpg from characters first. LitRPGs require context for any character to make sense. Let me use your character as an example: 'Class: Cat Burglar', are they a thief? Do they do crime? Did they choose this class? Are classes inate to individuals? Can you change class? Are thief like characters just a party role that determines their combat abilities?

All of those questions have vast impacts on the way society would act around that character, and further how society would organize itself. You might think I'm nitpicking this, but it's what LitRPG readers are going to do as well. Say your answer is, it's inate, and they do crime because it makes them good at it. Many readers will question why people who are born with it aren't simply arrested on the spot. It's a valid question. If people were born with an innate ability to not show up on security footage, and an inordinate amount of them robbed banks, at the very least we'd be suspicious of anyone who fit the description.

We can repeat this question for every single line of your character's information. Ultimately, in a LitRPG, characters, while important, are only half of a story. If you attempt to pants a LitRPG you'll write yourself into a nonsense corner after a few tens of thousands of words, and the only way to continue will be to begin breaking your own rules.

Since you didn't provide that context in this thread, I'll assume that either it doesn't exist, or that you might not fully grasp what is fundament about LitRPGs that readers in the genre want and enjoy. They want 'Number go up', but only in the context of numbers having meaning. They get excited for what perk or ability the character might get next, or how those abilities affect the world as a whole. It can be a journey to godhood, or simply how the abilities influence and change how society interacts or behaves, but they need meaning.

Writing a LitRPG requires you be a game creator, like Paizo, developing an RPG system, while also being a Dungeon Master, creating an entire campaign to play in that system, then ALSO being all the players in that world, playing out the campaign. It's a lot of hats to wear at once.

I say this as someone who read a lot of, played a lot of, and writes LitRPG. I don't personally encourage someone to just hop into writing the genre without experience. It's saturated, and you'll be competing with people with a lot of experience. If it's just trying to write it because it's popular, then you're gonna have a really rough go of it.

That said, I do encourage, if you're doing it as a learning experience, to go for it. It does build a lot of skills that are useful for telling other stories. Some people write it because they can't play D&D with other people anymore, I, for one do play and run Pathfinder campaigns still. It does a good job of forcing you to focus on world development and forethought.
 
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Nahrenne

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I just started working in earnest on my litrpg project today, and I want to make sure my character building makes sense before I get too deep into it. This is the first character who's going to be introduced:

Class: Cat Burglar
Race: Faun
LVL: 14
Str: 49 (+4 per level)
Dexterity: 112 (+7 per level) (race bonus: +3 per level)
Constitution: 49 (+4 per level)
Intelligence: 71 (+6 per level)
Charisma: 69(+4 per level) (race bonus: +2 per level)


Every character starts off at level 2 with all of their stats set evenly at 5. They choose their class at level 3, and their stats will increase by 25 points every time they level up, with those points being distributed differently depending on their class. At level 5 they have the option to change their race, with certain races having added bonuses, like the extra +3 to dex and +2 to charisma this character gets. The end goal is to have her excel in stealth and acrobatics, with spellcasting as her primary means of combat, but where she can still hold her own in a fight if she has to.

Did I do a good job here, or do I need to rethink the point distributions?
I feel like @Tyranomaster gave a lot of good points to consider.
It is indeed a little difficult to say if you did a good job or not since we have no context on the things he mentioned.

I am curious why you want characters to gain so many points from a single level up. It makes it feel like the much later levels would be super inflated, to the point a light nudge from them could kill a lower level. I don't know if that was the goal with designing the stats like that, but that's the vibe I get.

As for whether you should rethink the point distributions, or not...
Well...from what you said, you want your character to be a primary spellcaster.
Does that require Intelligence?
What does the Charisma stat do? Are you basing it on warlocks and in D&D?
Why did you have your character choose Cat Burglar if you want them to be a primary spellcaster?
I'm not sure if it's just me, but that class name conveys the image of someone who does physical attacks rather than magical.
Phantom Thief would sound like a class that could potentially use magic, like illusions and such - as an example.

Going back to what Tyr said about context, I don't know what 1 point does to a stat.
To use Tyr's example, in D&D 10 is the stat of an average human.
Anything below 10 is considered below average.
Anything above is considered above average.
20 is the absolute max a stat can be, and having such a stat would be seen as superhuman in some ways.
These stats affect a whole load of different skills, giving varying modifiers to the rolls using said skills.
So...
...what does 1 signify in your story?
What are the starting stats?
What is the max level one can achieve?
How much 'energy' is needed to cast spells? Or is it just done?

As for advice on how to distribute stats...I'm not very good at that kind of thing so can't say.
I do wonder why you put so much into Strength and Constitution if your implied end goal is to be so acrobatic you can't get hit, and using ranged magic attacks.
Then again, I don't have the context, nor your idea on how combat (if any) will be done by your character, or what kind of stuff they will be doing in general.

I do wish you well with your writing, and hope you manage to gain something from what has been said.

X
 

ThisAdamGuy

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Why do characters start off at level 2? Is there a profound reason for this?
There is, and it also answers a lot of your other questions. The basis for this story is that the world was remade into a fantasy world complete with its own RPG system, but 99% of the population was turned into mindless NPCs. Imagine a world filled with Oblivion characters being Oblivion characters, and you've got the right idea. They can only do and say the things they're "programmed" to, so they're practically zombies. The remaining 1% are players or adventurers. They keep their sentience and have access to the RPG system, but they have to keep continuously earning XP or they'll eventually regress into NPCs themselves.

A big part of the story revolves around the adventurers finding their old friends and family from before the remaking, waking them up, and then using a "bug" they discover in the system to keep supplying them with enough XP to keep them sentient while also keeping them out of danger. Eventually they have a whole city full of non-combatant "adventurers" and the man upstairs realizes they're breaking the rules and starts pushing back.

The reason they start at level 2 is because level 1 is the NPC level. You need an adventurer's help for it to even happen. Once you reach level 2, you regain sentience and become an adventurer. You choose a class at level 3 because you didn't level yourself up to 2, the adventurer did. Now that you're awake, you have to prove yourself by leveling up on your own before you can access the benefits the system gives you.

(In actuality, you're proving yourself to the god who usurped Earth's old god and remade the world. He's a god of rules and order, hence why everything runs according to a system made up of numbers and statistics and the people are programmed to act certain ways, but he also respects ambition, which is why he allows people who aspire to be more than NPCs to do so, but they have to earn it.)

So considering all of that, it wouldn't make sense for you to choose a class at level 1, and level 2 is your probation period more or less, so you actually start benefiting from the system at level 3. Choosing your race at level 5 is an extension of that. You've proven you're not just going to rest on your low level laurels, so here's a little more of a reward. At level 10, you can evolve into a more advanced class (like this one going from rogue to cat burglar). And you're also continuously learning new skills when you level up, or you can buy scrolls to learn skills that aren't directly related to your class.

You do get to choose your own class and race, they're not innate, and since everyone starts off on equal footing every race and class is obtainable (At first, anyway. If you choose to be a paladin at level 3, you can't change your race to a goblin or some other traditionally evil creature at level 5.) It's not unheard of for people to try to pressure new adventurers into picking certain classes to fill in holes in their ranks, but it was designed to let you become who you want (and more importantly, aspire) to be.
 

Tyranomaster

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This is a good leaping off point.

I would advise putting some additional thought into the concrete numbers, and what progression is going to look like over time. Right now, it sounds to be a non-traditional LitRPG, which is fine just something to be conscious of. I'm not opposed to it, my current work doesn't follow the traditional system for leveling and what it means to grow, the next novel I'm working on also doesn't follow the traditional form. It comes with drawbacks though. What is the upper limit for leveling? Is everything in stats? I personally recommend fleshing out what a max power character looks like, even if that is simply "They're powerful enough to kill and replace god".

I mentioned it before, but LitRPG is a quite hard genre to write successfully without planning. You need to be able to see a path that incrementally makes sense for the character to reach that max power (if that is the intent). If that isn't the intent, you still should consider what the end case for any system looks like. Otherwise you get infinite exponential scaling that occurs way sooner or way slower than you want. That also helps you put understanding to your own numbers.
 

ThisAdamGuy

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"They're powerful enough to kill and replace god".
1744412560620.png


I'm planning on making the max level 99 (with 100 theoretically being infinite power *cough*) and while I don't have everything planned out from level 1 to 99, I still have a basic idea of how I want the story to go, and I plan to wrap the system around that rather than wrap the plot around the system.
 

Tyranomaster

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You don't need to have all of it planned out, and you can wrap the system around the plot, that's fine. You just need to have a mental map of what checkpoints are important along the way, and where you want the characters to be by then.

In practice, it is something like writing two plotlines that occasionally intertwine with each other. You need XP sources to occur periodically from the system plotline to coincide with character plotline stuff so they don't miss each other. Otherwise pacing ends up weird. At least, if you have combat stuff planned, if the world is a sandbox, this isn't an issue as much, since you can throw appropriate forces in when you want them.
 

CharlesEBrown

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Well, if you're curious, here's the system in my only LitRPG/System story so far

  • Each Traveler has a number of skills in one of seven ranks: Novice, Expert, Master, Epic, Legendary, Mythic, Deity. Each Rank contains nine Grades from 1 to 9 - a skill that would exceed Grade 9 immediately advances to the next Rank instead, except the Deity Rank which theoretically has no upper limit but there are no records of anyone attaining a rank above Deity 3.
  • Travelers may also possess some Talents initially, with others unlocked by events or skill advancement. These Talents grant special benefits in certain situations.
  • Travelers are assigned a set of attributes - a standard baseline human has ratings of ten in all areas, though partially named characters tend to have one score of twelve and one of eight, and fully named characters tend to have at least one fifteen rank and may have at least one stat much higher. The Attributes are Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Stamina and Willpower.
I chose not to use levels, except on the skill rankings, partly because the game I based the experience system on does not have them (it uses "Paths" - you pick a profession, or goal of some sort, shopkeeper, cattle rustler, lawman, and gain points as you progress towards the goal) - and no "hit points" or "wound levels" because they CAN be used to enhance drama, but usually, IME, detract from it instead.

Edit - did not mention how improvement works:
At each Milestone, a character may gain Skill Points or Character Points - and Character Points may be "spent" to buy five Skill Points.
Skill points increase a skill one Grade per point at Novice or Expert, one grade per two points at Master or Epic, one grade per four points at Legendary or Mythic and one per 5 at Deity.
Character points may be used to improve attributes, or banked to add Talents (which cost a LOT of points if not earned by milestones or events)
One CP for two points if the stat is below 10
One CP for one point if the attribute is 11-20
Two CP for one point if the attribute is 21-30,
And doubles every ten after that.
 
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AYM

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I think you are inflating your stat points too high. Someone can reach a triple-digit value at level 14? This doesn't seem right. At this rate you'll be seeing four-, maybe five-figure stats by the time your main character gets to divinity slaying levels.

There's a lack of balance in the "early-game" which punishes starter level characters too unfairly.
Running the numbers using your example character, a level 7 has an average of 28 across the board. Compare that to a level 3 character, who still has 5s in every stat because the character has no race and classes don't give extra points until level 4.

Level​
3​
7​
Strength​
5​
21​
Dexterity​
5​
42​
Constitution​
5​
21​
Intelligence​
5​
29​
Charisma​
5​
27​

A four-level difference led to five times the stat difference. If 5 is the baseline for an average person, four extra levels quadruples a person's physical abilities, intelligence?, and attractiveness???. I'd feel even worse for the NPCs. They're forever stuck at all 5s.
Even if your system's stats are scaling logarithmically or through some other function giving diminishing returns, it doesn't solve the issue of early-level strength disparity. It also may cause issues later down the line. It'll be harder for you, the author to intuitively evaluate when stats are reaching four-digits.

My suggestion is you increase the base stats of level 2 characters and decrease the amount of points per level classes/races give. Here are some methods for the second suggestion.
  • Offload a majority of the original stat bonuses per level to their advanced classes. Whether or not you allow promotions to advanced classes to apply their bonuses retroactively is up to you.
  • Significantly reduce stats given per level from classes but also give characters points they can freely allocate. For example, class Cat Burglar gives only 2 Dexterity, 1 Intelligence, and 1 Charisma per level, but characters also get 5 points per level to allocate wherever. Car Burglar doesn't sound like a class that even should give +7 per level in any stat anyway.
Also it feels odd to know a character can change race. I reach level 5 and I can slide the melanin bar to maximum?
I read your previous response to know there are class-race restrictions. But it's odd that race is fluid, and you pick a class before you pick a race.
I need more context. Is the change superficial or does the transformation happen at the cellular level? Is this a one-time change? What races were the characters originally? Do the races of parents affect the child? Do they have organically children or does the world generate new ones?

Beside those questions I don't understand what's the purpose of race, not to mention a changeable one. Since you not only get your race and stats later than you get your class and stats, you also get far less stats from your race than you get from your class. Whatever it's doing, class seemingly does better.
 

ThisAdamGuy

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it's odd that [...] you pick a class before you pick a race
I don't understand what's the purpose of race, not to mention a changeable one. Since you not only get your race and stats later than you get your class and stats, you also get far less stats from your race than you get from your class. Whatever it's doing, class seemingly does better.
Choosing your race is a much bigger decision than choosing your class. No matter what class you choose, you're still human, whereas if you change your race, you're becoming something entirely different and there's no going back. Ideally if you change your race, it's to augment your class, like how the faun race gets a bonus to dexterity so it augments the cat burglar class. But changing your race effects how the NPCs treat you (not to mention the sentient people) and may even alter your personality. Becoming an orc can be a huge help if you choose a barbarian class, but it can also turn a normally even-tempered person into a raging aggroholic. Most people decide that losing what makes them them isn't worth whatever boost it would give their class, and stay human. And because it's such a big decision, the system gives you a few levels to test things out and get used to your class before letting you decide. But after thinking about it, I'll probably push it back to level 10 just to give them more than two levels to think about it.
What races were the characters originally?
Everyone starts off human.
Do the races of parents affect the child? Do they have organically children or does the world generate new ones?
NPCs don't have children. Children from before the remaking became NPCs like everyone else, they're just programmed to run "bratty_kid.exe" and will transition to "boring_grownup.exe" when they get old enough. If a human male and human female adventurer got together, yes they could have a kid, but it would be born as an NPC. It could be awakened like any other NPC, but the remade world is so dangerous (especially for adventurers) that most couples decide not to have kids in the first place.

I don't know what happens when a nonhuman male and female get together. I'm leaning toward the child being born human since that's the "default" and then they choose their own race later like everyone else, but I'm not sure.
 

Clo

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I will echo what many people in this thread have said about the stats scaling drastically.

I'll also mention that racial stat bonus is pretty passé at this point in RPGs. In a videogame (and thus LitRPG) it's fine if the race gives a +1 bonus to one or two attributes. When all your stats are 5~7 or so at Level 1~2, the +1 from dex for being an agile race can help.

But ideally, by the time your characters are level 75, and they have ~100 in an attribute (from level ups, traits, gear, buffs), the +1 from their race is now inconsequential.

That's usually the prefered way of doing it: The race pick feels meaningful at low level, because +1 is a 15% increase to your stat. But at max level, the +1% it gives isn't pigeon-holing you into a role. You want to avoid things like "Oh, you didn't pick the race with bonus constitution? You'll NEVER be a proper tank!"

What I also want to reiterate — something I’ve said in other interviews — is this:
For everything you put into your system (titles, classes, stats, achievements, races, skills, spells, abilities, passives, buffs, food, etc.), there should be a narrative reason to do so.

You want to avoid cognitive bloat; every idea you introduce comes with a mental cost. You're asking your reader to remember it, track it, anticipate its relevance. They essentially “carry” that feature across your chapters, waiting for the moment it pays off.

If it never pays off — narratively, metaphorically, or mechanically — then it was a burden for nothing. Avoid making the reader hoard dead weight around.
 

miyoga

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This may sound like a really dumb idea, but I'm going to provide something to try as a bit of a proof of concept for your character and system.

Despite what we might think of AI tools like GPT, I'd suggest going and starting a chat with it using the prompt "I'd like you to DM a pathfinder style campaign with these rules..."

Provide your system as the basis, have it create a setting and story similar to what you're planning and just run your mc as if you were playing PF2e because the mechanics of it all seem way off and in need of an overhaul, as the others have said. Keep the race change because it's definitely unique, but remove the limits on what you can choose based on your class. You want to be a paladin, but you're a goblin? Great, be a dark paladin! Don't want to be evil? Great, break the mold and go against the stereotypes!

Your concept seems to turn the world into a real-life DnD world, which would mean that there should be both good deities and evil deities. They might be "lesser" in your story, but having them included might be beneficial. If you don't want them, then let's look at the Judeo-Christian god for a comparison. How many different sides of him have we heard about? There's the Old Testament "fires and floods" vengeful God, the New Testament "kindness, forgiveness and love" God. Then there's still all the various archangels, Lucifer and the fallen angels, the pseudo-deity Lillith (the first woman originally made in Eden) and the named demons/Princes of Hell which would allow for an "evil paladin" to exist.
 

ThisAdamGuy

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Ok, I've made some changes. The character (who is now level 18) starts off as a thief at level 3. The total sum of their stat increases comes out to 10 per level. They get to choose their race and start getting race bonuses at level 15. At level 25 they're allowed to choose as advanced class which adds 1 point to each of their stat upgrades per level and raises the total to 15, not including the race bonuses which also go up by 1. So how does it look now?

LVL 3-19: Thief
Str: 5 (+1 per level)
Dex: 5 (+3 per level) (race bonus: +2 per level)
Con: 5 (+1 per level)
Int: 5 (+2 per level)
Cha: 5 (+3 per level) (race bonus: +1 per level)

LVL 25+: Cat Burglar
Str: 27 (+2 per level)
Dex: 93 (+4 per level) (race bonus: +3 per level)
Con: 27 (+2 per level)
Int: 49 (+3 per level)
Cha: 82 (+4 per level) (race bonus: +2 per level)

Current level: 18
Str: 20
Dex: 58
Con: 20
Int: 35
Cha: 54
 

Paul__Michaels

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I'm...not going to answer a question like that unless you have a really good reason for asking.
Because I'm trying to understand your mindset for this book and I'm wondering how lenient I should be.

Everything that you put out about your story comes off like you only care about the system and nothing else.

So help me understand, is the MC of your story going to be cool with everyone around them changing into NPCs or are they going to have a grand old time?
 

ThisAdamGuy

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Everything that you put out about your story comes off like you only care about the system and nothing else.
Of course I care about the rest of the story. But I've written over a dozen books, so I already know I can handle the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, etc. This is my first litrpg, though, and I want to make sure the system I end up using makes sense and isn't going to drag the rest of the story down.
 

Paul__Michaels

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Listen, if you are making a game then the numbers and stats are extremely important. But this is a story, and the numbers don't mean shit in the long run... They're just going to get in the way at some point and won't be the reason why readers stay.

Anyways, this story idea could be interesting from a psychological standpoint with the MC's family, friends, and whoever become looping dialogue trees. Trying to find some way to reverse what's happened.
 

Clo

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I would aim for stats nearing 100 around level 75, not 25.

That’s because I’m conscious of the cognitive load that comes with numbers going past three digits. Once you’re dealing with 300s, 400s, 500s, you start to lose granularity, and it's harder for readers to intuit what those numbers actually do.

You don’t have to change anything — feel free to keep the direction you’re going — but I’d still recommend reducing the stat gains further.

A gentler scale could look like:
+1 per level to your two primary attributes (Dex and Cha), and cycle +1 among the others:
Str, Int, Con, Int, repeat.

Also: I would still suggest lump-sum bonuses for racial traits rather than per level gains. The per-level route contributes heavily to attribute creep over time.

Let’s break it down:

With +3 Dex per level from class, and +2 per level from race, by level 100:

Base Dex: 5

+300 from class

+200 from race

Total: 505 Dexterity before gear, buffs, or other boons


Now imagine a battle between characters at that level:

Enemy
STR: 469
DEX: 303
CON: 525
INT: 218
CHA: 242

MC
STR: 177
DEX: 666
CON: 284
INT: 410
CHA: 390

Let’s say the MC has the appraisal skill to see these stats.

What should the takeaway be?

What mechanical advantage does 666 Dex give the MC over 303 Dex?

Does the enemy’s STR mean the MC can’t block their hits at all?

How does a 177 STR interact with a 469 STR enemy? Is that 38% of their lifting power? Their damage? Their knockback?

Is STR on a logarithmic scale? A flat one? Are there breakpoints?

Before you tune how your number grow, define what they mean relative to each other.
Then the math will feel like an extension of the narrative, not noise.

Or do like I do, and hint numbers exists, but don't even show them. Or use plateau. "Silver rank strength", "diamond rank dexterity"
 
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