The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

[Fract]

In settings where there are Characteristic Maxima set, and some level of variance between species or other representative classes, is their a CP value associated with having "above average potential'?

 

For example, taking the following Characteristic Maxima (6E1 50) as the average:

Strength (STR) 20

Dexterity (DEX) 20

Constitution (CON) 20

Intelligence (INT) 20

Ego (EGO) 20

Presence (PRE) 20

Offensive Combat Value (OCV) 8

Defensive Combat Value (DCV) 8

Offensive Mental Combat Value (OMCV) 8

Defensive Mental Combat Value (DMCV) 8

Speed (SPD) 4

Physical Defense (PD) 8

Energy Defense (ED) 8

Recovery (REC) 10

Endurance (END) 50

Body (BODY) 20

Stun (STUN) 50

Running (m) 20

Swimming (m) 10

Leaping (m) 10

 

Now if another species or class had a Body Maxima of 30, what would that difference of 10 potential Body be worth?

 

Just as a vague starting point, I have been been playing with something like:

(Maxima Delta) * Stat's CP Cost/10 = # CP

10 * 1 /10 = 1 CP

I sum all the delta CP values and then round according to standard policy, but I am not sure if 10 is an appropriate value for that divisor, or if the CP cost of a stat is an appropriate weight.

 

I do not know that I necessarily need to bother with this, but it does seem like there is a mechanical value to potential, and I would like to maintain a degree of character balance across species.

Does anyone have any recommendations, or advice on how they have handled this previously?

[prestidigitator]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

I've pretty much joined the, "all races have the same maximums; just buy what you feel is appropriate for your character; if elves generally have high Dex and you want your character to be a typical elf, have him put some extra points into Dex," crowd, but it took me some time. Now I like differentiating things like "race" with small Power-based abilities and cultural packages rather than differences in Characteristics. Usually I make the beneficial parts of a (physical) racial package optional, but the detrimental parts (i.e. Complications) mandatory without a really good background write-up to justify leaving any of them off. ALL parts of a cultural package are optional; they are just guidelines for what will make your character fit in better with his or her normal society (e.g., "Most elves hate goblins, but your character doesn't have to unless you want him to be that way.").

 

But I've used these two methods in the past:

 

1.) Half-Price Shift: What you pay or get for a different maximum is half what it's difference from the normal maximum would cost any other character. So buying your max Dex from 20 to 30 in 6E would cost you (30-20)*4/2=20 points, and selling your max Con down to 15 in 6E would give you (20-15)*1/2=2.5 rounded to 3 points. Notice that the end cost of 30 Dex is ultimately going to be the same for both "normal" characters and the ones with the increased maximum (in one case you simply pay for it up-front), whereas the cost of 20 Con is going to be more expensive for the character with the decreased maximum (10 points for the normal character, but 5+10-3=12 points for the character with the reduced maximum). This seems fair because a character with differing maxima is likely to take advantage of the increases but stay away from the decreases, so decreases aren't worth as many points as increases are.

 

2.) Balanced Shifts: Simply make the difference in all maxima times the normal cost of their Characteristics balance to zero. For example, in 6E if you increase Dex by 5 (5*2=10), you'll need to maybe reduce Str and Con by 5 each (-5*1-5*1=-10). Then you don't pay anything for this part of the racial package.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

It used to be that, to increase maxima, you'd pay the cost of the maxima you wanted to increase. For instance, if you wanted dwarves to have a STR max of 25, you'd pay +5 points.

 

There were two problems with this. The main one was that as a dwarf, if you didn't have 25 STR, you were paying +5 points for potential you weren't using. If you had only 20 STR, you ended up paying 15 points for your STR (+10 STR, +5 for the +5 to max) while the human with 20 STR only paid 10 points for his. The secondary problem was that if you did take the 25 STR, you were paying exactly the same as the human with 25 STR (dwarf: +15 for +15 STR, +5 for +5 max, for +20; human: +10 for +10 STR, +10 for +5 above max, for +20).

 

There are two good ways to handle it; one being prestidigitator's #2, the other being "soft maxima": the maxima are as listed, but no character can go beyond them without a reasonable concept. "Dwarf" and "freakishly strong human" are both reasonable concepts to allow STR above 20.

[Fearghus]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

I've pretty much joined the' date=' "all races have the same maximums; just buy what you feel is appropriate for your character[/quote']

 

Ditto. I will normally not even make templates up for various races anymore. Though I do keep veto power over any special racial abilities that the character wants.

 

I will generally suggest that characters take certain Perks Tallents Powers or Complications depending on the race they want to play. But if you want to play an elf that does not have night vision... go for it.

 

The bottom line is. you spend points on your characters abilities. It does not matter if they are bundled into a race template or if you just take them individually.

[dmjalund]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

so I can buy 20 STR for my mouse sized alien?

[Ice9]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

If it makes sense for that alien to be incredibly strong for its size, then sure.

Otherwise, don't do it.

[Fract]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

. . . Now I like differentiating things like "race" with small Power-based abilities and cultural packages rather than differences in Characteristics. Usually I make the beneficial parts of a (physical) racial package optional' date=' but the detrimental parts (i.e. Complications) mandatory without a really good background write-up to justify leaving any of them off. [/quote']

 

After some thought on your reasoning and suggestions, I decided to use a static Maxima for all player species, and simply require a good story reason for allowing a PC to purchase stats over said limit.

 

I am still doing well-defined species templates, as several of them have abilities that are unavailable to anyone else in the setting, e.g. shapechange/regeneration, and some nasty Complications. I really like your idea of making all the advantages optional, and disadvantages mandatory (without an adequate background explanation), so I will probably go with that as well.

 

Hopefully providing my players with a specific list of available powers/perks/talents, by the names they would be recognized in the "World of Progress" setting, will be enough to inspire development of their own creative combinations.

 

Thanks for everyone's advice!

[Doc Democracy]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

Something I have toyed with over time is changing the characteristic costs for different races. This could be difficult to balance properly but if you wanted one particular race to consistently have more BODY than other races then changing the costs of that BODY would encourage just such a thing in a way that changing characteristic maxima would not.

 

Effectively you would be telling the players, if you want a character with high BODY, then I am telling you to pick race A, it will be cheaper that way. They can go against this and make a character of race Y with high BODY but they will pay a premium for that.

 

The more I have thought about it, the less I have worried about balance. If I have enough choices that anyone gets a bonus on something, then I am encouraging the players to follow the biases of the gameworld I envisage and if they do that then they should be rewarded.

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

Effectively you would be telling the players, if you want a character with high BODY, then I am telling you to pick race A, it will be cheaper that way. They can go against this and make a character of race Y with high BODY but they will pay a premium for that.

 

The more I have thought about it, the less I have worried about balance. If I have enough choices that anyone gets a bonus on something, then I am encouraging the players to follow the biases of the gameworld I envisage and if they do that then they should be rewarded.

 

I think the balance appears in play. If you give one race advantages that make it the clearly superior choice, then PC groups will pretty much favour that race exclusively. If one race has a hammerlock on warrior abilities, and another on mage abilities, expect that those races will be selected for such characters. If that was the goal, then this is an excellent means of accomplishing it.

 

If a race lacks bonuses to encourage it being played, it doesn't get played, and the goal was to discourage that race as they don't tend to be successful adventurers in the game world, that's also mission accomplished.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

I think the balance appears in play. If you give one race advantages that make it the clearly superior choice, then PC groups will pretty much favour that race exclusively. If one race has a hammerlock on warrior abilities, and another on mage abilities, expect that those races will be selected for such characters. If that was the goal, then this is an excellent means of accomplishing it.

 

If a race lacks bonuses to encourage it being played, it doesn't get played, and the goal was to discourage that race as they don't tend to be successful adventurers in the game world, that's also mission accomplished.

 

This is where package deals might come into their own - you get different characteristic costs and possibly different costs for other things so that dwarfs might get reduced costs for STR, BODY, CON and END while increasing their costs for DEX, non-craft based magic and with a few required complications... you can see anyone wanting to build a tank style warrior going for this.

 

Requires thought but definitely gives the players a steer on how you think things should be done. You would also expect the players who want a little bit of everything to stick with vanilla human stuff...

 

Doc

[prestidigitator]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

Something I have toyed with over time is changing the characteristic costs for different races. This could be difficult to balance properly but if you wanted one particular race to consistently have more BODY than other races then changing the costs of that BODY would encourage just such a thing in a way that changing characteristic maxima would not.

 

Effectively you would be telling the players, if you want a character with high BODY, then I am telling you to pick race A, it will be cheaper that way. They can go against this and make a character of race Y with high BODY but they will pay a premium for that.

 

The more I have thought about it, the less I have worried about balance. If I have enough choices that anyone gets a bonus on something, then I am encouraging the players to follow the biases of the gameworld I envisage and if they do that then they should be rewarded.

The problems I would have with that one are that, first, Characteristics are supposed to be priced based on the value they provide in-game. That's not going to change based on race unless you do some pretty funky other things for races also (e.g. dwarves base their combat order on Constitution, not Dexterity?!). Second, it's not as different from changing Characteristic Maxima as you imply, because changing Characteristic Maxima is just changing cost too (for a certain range of values). I'd call changing the overall cost of Characteristics based on race an even more extreme change than changing Characteristic Maxima, and one that fits less with the fundamentals of the game system.

[dmjalund]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

My thought on Race based Maxima is:

 

 

for a race with extra STR, have them buy a base STR of greater than 10 and state that this extra STR does not apply against STR Maximum, so if a Dwarf Package has a base STR of 13, it makes the effective Maximum of 23

[prestidigitator]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

My thought on Race based Maxima is...for a race with extra STR' date=' have them buy a base STR of greater than 10 and state that this extra STR does not apply against STR Maximum, so if a Dwarf Package has a base STR of 13, it makes the effective Maximum of 23[/quote']

Oh, yeah. The old, "buy it as a Power," approach. I've always felt uncomfortable with that. You can always buy a Characteristic as a Power, for no additional cost or anything. It's a simple way to completely bypass Characteristic Maxima. As a GM, I typically look for some significant Limitations and such to justify using that loophole (in a game that uses Characteristic Maxima, of course).

[Doc Democracy]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

The problems I would have with that one are that' date=' first, Characteristics are supposed to be priced based on the value they provide in-game. [/quote']

 

That is right but mostly people look at that as the value they give to the player. I am saying that skewing the costs in this way provides value to the GM by encouraging players to make the kinds of characters that he envisages his game containing.

 

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

Oh' date=' yeah. The old, "buy it as a Power," approach. I've always felt uncomfortable with that. You can [i']always[/i] buy a Characteristic as a Power, for no additional cost or anything. It's a simple way to completely bypass Characteristic Maxima. As a GM, I typically look for some significant Limitations and such to justify using that loophole (in a game that uses Characteristic Maxima, of course).

 

But that approach also has the effect of changing costs. If I can either buy +10 STR for 60 points as a characteristic, or buy +30 DEX, no figured characteristics (-1/2) for 20 points as a power, then I have really benefitted from a -2 limitation for removing the figured characteristics.

 

Really, NCM is the "stick" approach to discouraging players from violating the GM's campaign parameters. NCM simply expresses the GM's desire that characters of all races rarely have stats over the NCM maximum. Yes, you can have stats higher than 20, but they will cost more, hopefully discouraging you from such stats. All Doc is doing is a riff on that theme - he wants to see strong, hardy dwarves who aren't all that agile, so he allows them to pay less for STR and CON, but requires they pay more for DEX. So the dwarf gets a reward (cheaper STR and CON) for following the GM's guidelines, not just a penalty (higher costs for things the GM does not want to see) for violating them.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

You put that so much better than I did Hugh, but I have to spread it around before I can rep you again...

[Fract]

Re: The Value of Potential - Characteristic Maxima and CP

 

My thought on Race based Maxima is:

 

for a race with extra STR, have them buy a base STR of greater than 10 and state that this extra STR does not apply against STR Maximum, so if a Dwarf Package has a base STR of 13, it makes the effective Maximum of 23

 

An effect like this does exist in the setting, for certain species, based around artificial muscle/tendon/sinew implants and bone reinforcement. That, however, breaks into the realm of $ cost vs character point cost-which looks like it is going to be another mess to hammer out, especially given an actively modeled market economy-so I took the quick and lazy option for now.