So, how would you feel about playing in a campaign where at character creation, you are disallowed to spend any exp on Characteristics? Meaning the only Characteristic bumps you’d get would be through Dedication and Cybernetics.
How do you think this would affect the game, its balance and longevity? What would be the benefits? What would be the drawbacks? Would it stifle creativity?
I think that seriously nerfs the PCs as The Stars of The Show.
It would hugely depend if you start with base XP or on a higher level of experience.
If it would base XP it would pretty tough, I mean at base level there are much missed hard or daunting skill checks due to low skills. If additionally you have no high stats, why care to try?
At a higher level it would be manageble due to higher rate of training ranks.
Nevertheless, I would never do it.
I would seriously stifle creativity and nerf the PCs to a ridiculous degree. It also makes species like Chadra-Fan or Shistavanen extremely attractive for the bonus characteristic raises and makes species like Human unattractive because they don’t get any Characteristic raises.
If you’ve got 2 in the Characteristic, to “get gud” and have a decent chance of succeeding, you’ll need either a Dedication or 3 ranks in the skill, both quite a ways off. You’ll also be lower level than many minions, just from a skill perspective.
@ExpandingUniverse @Dreenan @P-47Thunderbolt
I think I agree. Wanted to just bounce that thought off a few people. What about if Characteristics were only allowed to be raised to a max of 4?
And cap Characteristics to 5, with the exception of Cybernetics to 6, like Genesys.
While a hard-cap of 4 is not as inversely bad, a player who over-invests to 5 often doesn’t have much XP to spend elsewhere; maybe a talent or skill or something cheap. Taking a 3 to a 5 is 90 XP, and most species range 90-100. Even really good characteristics, like Agility, will only take a character so far, unless the GM is only throwing combat and vehicle encounters at the party.
I would consider a cap of no more than species +2, but I would not make a flat cap of 4. Sometimes a character goes to 5 because they want to min-max, other times they do it for a story reason. For example, an Elom that goes straight to 5 Brawn because that’s literally the only thing he’s good at, and he’s mostly comic relief with a side of head-smashing.
I like the thought of this but would make some changes. If I was doing this they could use their starting stats, but then increase 1 other ability by 1 point. This will let some people play races that are not ideally suited for the style they want. I would give them extra experience, probably 100 extra experience so they can increase their skills or buy talents so they are not as weak to start the game. I would remove dedication from the talent tree and work with the players to make a great new ability to replace it on their tree. Then I would Gift the players Dedication once they pass a certain amount of earned experience. Maybe 100 or 150, then every time they earn that much more or maybe slow increase the amount needed, then gift them another dedication rank.
Just my though on it.
It would cause all players to start off as stereotypical members of their Species, a Twilek would always be weak, a human is always a jack of all trades, a droid would become a literal bucket of bolts.
I do like the idea of players starting off with varying skills and talents though, and with removing characteristics from the XP equation (outside of Dedication).
I think you’d want to do a more in-depth overhaul like the following:
The thing is, the way XP on Characteristics works is basically “a pool of ‘Characteristic Points’ that must be spent on creation to flesh out your characteristics.”
The “why” is because you really kinda have to raise your Characteristics as much as you can.
If you went to a system of “here’re three Characteristic Points,” you could jump to 6 in a Characteristic at CharGen.
“Well, let’s adjust the CPs so they are dynamic and you have to spend different amounts for the different ranks.”
That’s basically what we have now, except that any “leftovers” get rolled into your XP for skills and talents.
Example: You get 10 CPs and 10 XP. You raise your human to 333222 (3 CP for each point of the characteristic you’re raising it to), and have 1 CP left. That’s scrapped, and you get no XP for it. That actually reduces how much XP you’d be able to spend on skills and talents.
“But we could refund any remaining CPs into XP!”
Yes, that’s basically how it works now.
The best fix to “not enough skills and talents at CharGen” would be to give bonus XP at the start of the game.
If your concern is that your PCs have too much in Characteristics, then instead you should reduce species starting XP (probably by 30 as a rule of thumb) and give them that much bonus XP.
Many other systems have been able to pull off Ability Score/Attribute purchasing without leaving empty levels. You can easily do the same thing with SWFFG. And you can also fix that ramp to 6 option by simply mandating people start with a lower cap, such as 4.
What you’re proposing is basically a mathematical issue when given the wrong variables. This issue is solved as easily as simply using the right variables.
I’m not very familiar with other systems, so I can’t comment in any great detail on that, though I would guess that it is comparing apples to oranges in some ways.
I guess what I don’t understand here is what you expect to gain from the changes.
Nothing that grand, just the ability for players to be able to not have to choose between the meta of having reliable characteristics, and having some talents at the start to make themselves stand out.
Cause at the moment although anyone can choose there’s a very strong expectation not to due to how Characteristics work in-game.
I think this is the simplest method and have used it in Genesys (that has a characteristic max of 5).
I think that’s best solved by simply giving some bonus XP at CharGen. I rarely begin games at starting level anyway.
That would be bonus Earned XP, right? The kind which can’t be spent to improve Characteristics directly?
(As opposed to Starting XP which comes from the species plus obligation/morality/duty choices.)
Yes, of course. Like Heroic/Knight-level from the Clone Wars supplements and Force and Destiny (respectively).
I could get on board with having CP’s (characteristic-only points) and XP’s (experience points that purchase anything else but characteristics).
So thoughts on how much of each when creating a new character? How much CP vs XP?
After running some numbers I found myself surprisingly wanting to give out 100 CP for “Heroes”. If you wanted a campaign of regular joes, then perhaps 70 CP.
Then hand out 30 XP for skills and talents?
So essentially the same, just renamed starting xp to CP and imposed a house rule to not spend it in characteristics.
I feel this approach way off…
The players are buying characteristics because that’s what the game recommends you and that’s how you get the most bang for your buck. You can certainly limit this, but it won’t change the way the system works and that characteristics are usually worth more.
If your players are not min maxers they can probably not even dump all their xp at the start in characteristics and if they are, they just gonna rush to dedication and still skip everything else, you just delayed them with 30 xp.
I think I explained it confusingly? What I meant is you hand the players 100 CP to be spent on characteristics only. You also hand them 30 XP that can be spent on talents, skills, etc (anything but characteristics). So your total is going up (adjust the amount of each if you don’t like it), and the character is getting a lump of XP that can’t be spent on characteristics so the min/maxers will have more skills and talents then usual. Their characteristics aren’t taking a hit at all.