Need help fleshing out a power I want to introduce in a fic.

[Knight-Night]

So basically am writing a fic and I want to give the MC the power to basically allocate points to his stats.

He basically starts with 10 or so points he can add to his natural existing stats with while unlocking more points as he grows stronger. He can also passively increase his stats normally like bodybuilding or studying. Is there anyway I can improve this?

 

[Sadim]

So basically am writing a fic and I want to give the MC the power to basically allocate points to his stats.

He basically starts with 10 or so points he can add to his natural existing stats with while unlocking more points as he grows stronger. He can also passively increase his stats normally like bodybuilding or studying. Is there anyway I can improve this?

Click to shrink...

Sounds like a gamer-like power. (Or maybe a Gamer-lite power instead.)

Depending on the 'weight' and the scaling of the points (and the difficulty) in acquiring more, that can go in a lot of different ways.

Linear scaling vs. exponential scaling vs. logarithmic scaling can make a huge difference here.

Ironically enough my recommendation is to not do that, because it's overdone as a genre, due to the deluge of Gamer fics that become a grind- and number-fest pretty quickly.

The numbers are hard to keep track of if you don't clamp down on the points and the natural gain hard, which makes it a pain to calculate everything correctly and decreases the joy and flow of writing for it.

-

Edit: For improvement I would recommend you 'pivot' and make the points able to increase his Skills, rather than his stats.

Then there are two clearly separate ways forward.

The points being able to redeem knowledge on a given topic (or be used for a Shop-like interface) is also flat out more helpful for writing an engaging story, as it gives more potential ways for improvement.

 

[humon]

Another way to reimagine it is to have the points only applicable within the domain of magic, where it becomes a bit like managing a starship's power distribution between shields, weapons, engines, etc. To avoid losing track of the math you can simplify it as percentages rather than absolute numbers (like 30% to physical enhancement, 40% to mental protection, 15% to telekinesis, 10% to passive mindreading, 5% self-healing, that sort of thing), but still describe the total capacity growing as you progress.

The value here is that it occupies a layer on top of the physical, meaning that for example, to increase strength he doesn't actually have to grow more muscle mass, which takes a long time and a high protein diet, but he can devote more of his magical power into amplifying the strength he currently has. But also, the more physical muscle he builds up over time, the more base strength he has available to amplify, making this amplification even more powerful.

Likewise studying can help him gain knowledge, but by applying his extra power to it he can remember clearly more of what he learned, or make the process of learning it faster, more efficient, as he is able to quickly filter out all the useless details of a subject that would bog normal students down. But then taking away that power allocation might leave him in a brain fog where he can't quickly recall the things he just learned (like when you're tired and burned out and can't focus on anything).

It would also be useful to have rules for diminishing returns, so if the MC decides to zero out everything and put 100% into a single power, he's not getting ten times the power as if he only put 10%, but rather he might only get like 70% power and 30% wasted energy by doing that. So he's incentivized to keep a balanced distribution and seek out ways to do more with less, and to grow his overall power so that in later chapters he can do the same thing with 50% that would have needed 100% at the start of the story.

Also you'll have to answer the question: why doesn't he just shift everything to whatever ability he needs for the task he's doing at the time, and then shift it back to default when the task is finished? And the answer to that question might be, that it's not an instant process, it takes time to reconfigure your allocation of power, and you never know when an emergency will come up that requires immediate action before you have time to do a power shift. So he would have to have a minimum baseline power in a bunch of useful places just as insurance in case he gets attacked or whatever. A bit like playing a D&D wizard and having to prepare your spells in advance. You don't know what you're going to face on any given day, so you just have to have a baseline set of general-purpose combat spells and then maybe one or two utility spells that might help in more niche situations (like Feather Fall or Spider Climb, things like that).

 

[randomlurkerr]

The first thing that popped into my head was a radar chart. That would be good for pure stats, and relatively easy to draw out and visualize.

 

[Knight-Night]

The first thing that popped into my head was a radar chart. That would be good for pure stats, and relatively easy to draw out and visualize.

Click to shrink...

Hmm. Yeah it would look great

 

[Soupervan]

I've tried writing gamer fics before- none were good enough to publish but I figured out a few things through it.
First off, decide what the stats mean. For example, have a regular human average be 5 points, where as a top athlete would have 7-10 strength, stamina, a top scientist having 7-10 intelligence and/or wisdom.
Second, you might consider using unconventional means to gain stat points. Sure, the conventional methods of defeating enemies to level up or exercise/reading/playing chess/gambling work for strength and stamina, intelligence, wisdom and luck work but I've seen light novels where you need to earn fame to convert into points for lotteries and see no reason you couldn't adjust that to stat points forcing the MC to come up with some way to farm points early on like becoming a musician, actor, athlete or what have you which can add another dimension to your novel outside of just endless fights and training.
Last but not least is the problem with scaling; most gamer fics have the MC get overpowered quick which makes for some pretty boring fights. You can solve this is several ways, make sure to reward minimal points to slowly increase the character's stats, let them get overpowered then do a soft reset such as granting them an item that allows them to earn twice the stat points but makes them restart from level 0, or, my personal favorite, just roll with being overpowered and make the rest of the fic your victory lap... before sending them somewhere their new power isn't all that useful or great.

 

[Knight-Night]

I've tried writing gamer fics before- none were good enough to publish but I figured out a few things through it.
First off, decide what the stats mean. For example, have a regular human average be 5 points, where as a top athlete would have 7-10 strength, stamina, a top scientist having 7-10 intelligence and/or wisdom.
Second, you might consider using unconventional means to gain stat points. Sure, the conventional methods of defeating enemies to level up or exercise/reading/playing chess/gambling work for strength and stamina, intelligence, wisdom and luck work but I've seen light novels where you need to earn fame to convert into points for lotteries and see no reason you couldn't adjust that to stat points forcing the MC to come up with some way to farm points early on like becoming a musician, actor, athlete or what have you which can add another dimension to your novel outside of just endless fights and training.
Last but not least is the problem with scaling; most gamer fics have the MC get overpowered quick which makes for some pretty boring fights. You can solve this is several ways, make sure to reward minimal points to slowly increase the character's stats, let them get overpowered then do a soft reset such as granting them an item that allows them to earn twice the stat points but makes them restart from level 0, or, my personal favorite, just roll with being overpowered and make the rest of the fic your victory lap... before sending them somewhere their new power isn't all that useful or great.

Click to shrink...

So here's what i have come up with so far. Basically, the 'gamer' system for the mc is actually an active skill unlike the original one which is always passively there. This means it is an ability that he has to consciously activate to be used. Every power and perk that comes with it is only available only if he activates the ability. The ability basically integrates certain aspects from games.

IN the beginning MC only has HUD and the 10 stat points. These points can be respeced whenever he wants but there is a cool down maybe 5 minutes to an hour so hes not continuously reallocating points.

Much like how you said, the stats are basically 5 for baseline humans and 10 for pinnacle of humans. 10 and above is superhuman levels but it costs extra points to cross the threshold for a stat like 5 points to cross from 10 to 11.

He earns points as long as he has the ability is active but only combat gives him the most points. He can use these points to buy equipment and skills. However like the old school games which kind of resets your character at the beginning of each level, the points and the things he bought from them will disappear once he deactivates the ability with the exception of certain skills and stats.

Basically this forces him to rely on weapons and consumables he buys from actual vendors instead of his ability.