Retroactive Success

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was making a character for Dungeons and Dragons (3.5) last night and I learned that increasing your Con bonus retroactively increases your hit points. In theory, this should work with skill points as well, since if you're going to allow say, a level 15 person to bump their hit points by 15 (one additional HP per level) as well as their level up hit die, then it should apply for skills as well, since the two function pretty much the same in terms of offering an additional bonus at the time of level up. Perhaps this too would apply for spells. One could retroactively have learned substantially more spells in the past, having just become a little smarter in the present. In theory, this could retroactively turn a past failure into a past success because you would have retroactively had those hit points which would have kept you from dying, right?

The reason why I say this is because we all know that Dungeons and Dragons is the epitome of a realistic system whose complexity clearly aligns perfectly with the complexity of the laws of time and space and physics here in our world. Therefore, I've decided to put myself on a regimented system of physical and mental workout. If I can bulk up a little, I will be able to win that fight that I lost in seventh grade. Likewise, if I can make myself just a little bit smarter, history will reshape itself and give me the teaching job I applied for last year because I will have retroactively become the most qualified candidate. I can make my life better without time travel! (though I'm still going to build that time machine to figure out what terrible thing is coming)

Ladies and Gentlemen, let's all begin a mass program of self improvement. If we can get our grandparents to join in, who knows? Maybe we can prevent World War II. Think of all of the jobs we will have always had if we just work that much harder now, after the fact!

Self-Improvement: Changing your present to better your past.

You have been informed.