Character Creation Rules

[bravesirrobin]

Thought it would be useful to put these in a more relevant place.

Solars
Attributes: 8/7/5
Abilities: 30 points. not above 4 in favoured/caste, not above 3 in others.
Charms: 25. No more than 5 from any single ability (excluding excellencies). No more than 2 with min essence 3 from any ability (excluding spells).
Freebies: 15 (can be spent on charms that break above limits on numbers)
Essence: 3
Backgrounds: 7 points with a good explanation for all choices
Virtues: 6 points (not above 4 without freebies)
XP: 72

Lunars
Attributes: 9/8/5 +1 floating
Abilities: 26 points. not above 4 in favoured, not above 3 in others.
Charms: 25. No charms/knacks with more than 3 pre-reqs. No more than 2 charms/knacks with min essence 3 from any attribute.
Freebies: 15 (can be spent on charms that break above limits on numbers)
Essence: 3
Backgrounds: as standard
Virtues: 6 points (not above 4 without freebies)
XP: 58

[Blackrat]

bravesirrobin said:

I have been rethinking this slightly, i may reduce the number of freebies back to 15, so I'd like everyone to make a 15 freebie version and a 21 freebie version.

Or we could just average them, and create 40-freebie versions?

[bravesirrobin]

for insane numbers of freebie points, i direct you to the kings of future past dragon king campaign.

[Blackrat]

Point taken

[bravesirrobin]

Freebies are now definitely set to 15. part of the purpose of 21 was to persuade people to take combos. but that is no longer necessary.

[bravesirrobin]

To note, for any new characters joing or replacement characters from this point forward we will have the slight modifications:

1 free 2dot artifact (jade only)
75% of average party XP - currently 7
(this will be 75% of personal XP for replacement characters)

[bravesirrobin]

bump as it may be relevant soon. first post is fully up to date. but if creating a replacement character then it will be 75% of personal XP if this is more than the listed value in this thread. the XP for a new character will change each session.

[Learned Hand]

I've mentioned this before and argued the point but never pursued it because nobody's character has died yet butI don't think 75% of the party''s average xp is a good idea.

I think this because it penalises people whose characters have died and makes the power levels in the party even more unbalanced.

When I mentioned this before there were 2 reasons given in support of the lower amount.

(1) There needs to be a penalty for having a character die.

I'm not sure I agree with this. But in any case, there is - it's the fact your character dies. I would be gutted if Kairos died. That's more than enough incentive for me to keep him alive.

(2) If there was no penalty, then people would create replacement characters and let their other ones die off.

I guess this addresses why there needs to be a penalty. I'd say three thing in response to this. The first is that if somebody is unhappy with their character, then I'm not sure there should be any blocks to their making a new one. I mean, that's essentially a block to the game being more fun for them, right? The second, is that I don't think, as a matter of fact, people will let their characters die off. The third is that I'm not convinced penalising people who tried to keep their characters alive is a fair price to pay for penalising people who didn't try to keep their characters alive.

Here are some alternatives:
(a)
People come back with the same amount of xp, including whatever the bonus was from the session in which they died.
- This has the advantage of being fair.
- This has the disadvantage of not aiding party balance

(b)
As (a) except if you have the most or the least xp then your amount is adjusted to be the same as the person with the xp total closest to you.
- This seems mostly fair, and it aids party balance. I mean, it does seem odd and not-right that any Kairos-replacement would have a load more xp than everyone else.

(c)
People come back with average xp, taken from a total that excludes their character and any others that died.
- This will be the best for party balance.
- On the other hand, it offers the biggest change in xp totals after a character dies.

[bravesirrobin]

I upped the percentage as when I did the calculations 75% did seem a little harsh. Remember the new character will have the opportunity to submit a background to earn extra XP - and though it won't take them up to quite the same total it means they won't lose a whole lot on where they were to start with.

i am not too worried about party balance - the XP totals are already pretty disparate and i don't feel that it is actually too much of a problem. especially with the greater good rule in place.

i think that the recent deaths have renewed my perspective on this, and i agree that people generally don't allow characters to be killed, so it isn't really necessary to disincentivise it. but my feeling is that a new character should start with a little less XP than they had (though i agree that a mechanism to pull them towards the party average is a good idea), i guess i kinda want a link between what the character has done and the amount of XP they have, though that seems a bit silly in some ways.

i'll think about it a bit more. but for now lets assume we'll go with what we've got.

[cardinalsin]

Personally I feel that the advantage of being able to assemble a character from scratch, presumably tailoring everything without needing to worry about such things as "argh I fell into a whirlpool and suddenly need to take a swim specialty", needs off-setting. 75% (or whatever it is now) doesn't seem like an overly large gap. Actually the biggest disadvantage is not being able to start with Essence 4, but I think that's essential, really.

So anyway, my vote would be[/li][li] not to change it, though I reserve the right to immediately change this should Raiden die.

[/li][li] If this were a democracy, that is.

[bravesirrobin]

re-start characters may buy essence 4.

[cardinalsin]

Oh. Ok.

(I think it's a shame if people don't get an essence 4 quest. But I guess if the plan is for us all to become mega-essence-monkeys then this makes sense.)

[bravesirrobin]

ideally i would like one, cos i think it is cool. but the idea is that everyone would be essence 4 by the end of this story - and we're almost out of time.

[scarletharlot]

Ma'ani just got an intimacy to 'live forever'...

1) I would feel really upset if my character died well, doing something they believed in and it was ruled I needed to be punished for letting them die. That's not really an incentive to heroic role-playing. I get much sad when bad things happen to my characters, but a suitable death can often be the best end to a character, certainly a combat one.

2) Should Herla not have got into a fight with those Fair Folk to help me escape? If she'd died that would've been her fault somehow? Surely it would have been my fault, it was me who rolled low on my stealth roll? We play as a group and it's often down to luck if someone is killed. They botch or their opponent rolls well.

3) Also, if a player's been to more sessions and got more stunts why should their xp be averaged with people who've been to fewer sessions? Just my opinion on LH's alternate options.

4) If there's concern that people might come back with characters focussed on the setting in a way that the ST considers twinky when the other players couldn't start with that focus (that was your problem with it cardinalsin?) then the ST can always tell them to alter their character sheet before they start playing.


Also, are we going to be essence 4 by the end of the story? Free 50 xp?

[bravesirrobin]

it's not a punishment. that is not the intention. my sidereal died, he came back on 80% XP, but i didn't see that as a punishment. it's a way to make new characters seem newer and more different. there are IC reasons for it as well as the OOC reasons for it.

XP differences are mostly not due to different numbers of sessions attended. they are due to differences in all the other stuff. whilst people should be rewarded for cool stuff party balance is also worthwhile and 40XP difference does not aid party balance.

the solars will all be essence 4 by the end of the story. not sure if lunars will - would be cool if we can find a way. the XP is not free, no.