Where does D&D have Research Points?

2nd Edition Skills and Options. Not exactly the same thing; but close enough.

I really don't see the relation to D&D however. I haven't played in ~12 years, since they scrapped the above in favor of 3rd edition; but I don't recall it being anything like this. Oh.. wait.. there was that backstabbing **** I had to play with.


Guy had a character that was Tiefling, (half-demon for all intents and purposes), and an Assassin/Thief; while I played a more respectable Solamnic Knight of sorts, turned Fighter/many multi-classes. We were all stuck in the Abyss, somewhere around the 66th layer, and trying to find our way back out of a rather twisted version of the Demonweb pits, after somehow getting transported there from Krynn.

Don't know if any of you have any familiarity, but every layer and domain of the Abyss is different; with warped and twisted deviations of what you might find in the real world. Nothing is really what it seems at face value, and with the GM we had; well, it was a lot worse than usual.

Long story short, we couldn't really die, as we just respawned back in a salt mine somewhere as slaves with nothing but rags and a will to get out of there. Assassin guy was a pain in the neck as he usually was about as trustworthy as the plane itself, and in at least one game I missed; the GM allowed him to assassinate my character.

Without surprise, that was the game in which they all escaped, and I never did end up getting out until much later. I solo palyed after that for awhile and eventually got out; but not without some serious issues with my characters actual condition. Never was sure after that, whether he was actually dead or alive.

He ended up rebuilding Krynn as a quasi-diety after my GM let loose the forces of the Abyss on it and wiped out all semblance of life; leaving it a lava strewn wasteland, with no more than mineral value and base elements to work with. That was some time, (Multiple Plane hops, more than a few worlds-some unknown), and many travels later of course.

I actually came to like the Salt mines and the idea of my character peaceably slaving away there. Better than playing with those guys again. It was about 2 years before I picked up where I'd left off that day, and took that character through the rest of his journeys.

Funny I remember that so well.

EVE is a little more static I think, and not nearly as deep as all that. Plus, there's SP, and thankfully no 3rd edition