Mutant Future Leveling-up House Rules

Over at the Goblinoid Games Mutant Future forums, maoglone discussed his Mutant Future leveling up house rules. As he explains it, he felt the experience bonus for leveling up was pretty paltry. If you look at the Experience Level Bonus table on page 14 of the MF rulebook, you'll see that a PC gets one of only three benefits upon reaching a new level:

• A randomly rolled ability may go up by a point.
• They may get an extra attack per round.
• They may do an extra point of damage in combat.

Annnd...that's it.

Maoglone's house rules improves upon the Level Bonus by rewarding players with the following:

• PCs roll on the Experience Level Bonus table as usual.
• If the PC rolls an ability score increase, they get to choose which ability goes up by a point rather than rolling it randomly.
• PCs get an automatic +1d to their hit points (except androids who stay at 50 hp).
• PCs can choose to "improve" one mutation (this would be house-ruled along the lines of a larger area of effect; an extra die of damage; a longer time of duration; etc.). Or they could reduce the detrimental effect of a mutational drawback instead, if desired.

I can't say I agree with the increase in hit points (I even discussed my thoughts on Mutant Future hit points back in 2009), but the other level boosts sound like good additions. After all, as your Apocalygeddon Adventurer wanders the wastelands, he's getting stronger, faster, more cunning. He's figuring out how to use his mutations to his best advantage (or how best to avoid having his drawback mutations blow up in his face). With experience comes...well...experience, so I can see a PC specifically training himself in his mutation's possible uses as well as improving his weakest points both physically and mentally.

Rolling up a character randomly at the beginning retains that delightfully gonzo randomness I crave in my mutated events, but I like the concept of giving the players a degree of control as to how their characters develop over time. Thanks to maoglone for sharing this!