Originally Posted by
Elrundir
The main trouble with this is that, as Max said, it's getting too complicated. The trouble with implementing systems like this is that you have to throw in exceptions and clarifications and additional rules to deal with all the possibilities that pop up, and for each one of those that you add, three more loopholes appear that someone will exploit at some point. Add in the confusion to players both new and old, and you'll wind up with a system that no one wants to even bother with. Even the previous way of using adjectives was somewhat unhelpful--it's just no fun figuring out whether a "master" swordsman at level 2 is better than your "expert" swordsman at level 4. It's even less fun if you just happened to forget to upgrade your pyromantic proficiency from "above average" to "expert" (or... master or whatever the heck comes next; see the problem?) in your level-up thread.
Powergaming isn't really something that needs to be prevented by putting in rules against it; if you powergame, you basically have no chance of winning a battle or getting a high score in a quest. That's enough of a safeguard, I think. The average Althanian will probably powergame once at most, realize that "winning the battle" doesn't win you the battle, and never bother with it again. At least, not if they want to gain any real experience and rewards in their time here.