SR3R Project Forum

Take Joe Huge, your ordinary, everyday Troll. He's an average Troll in every way; Intelligence of 2, Charisma of 1. In particular, our Joe Huge has a Strength of 7.

Joe Tiny, meanwhile, is your ordinary, everyday Human. He's got straight 3s across the board. For some reason, Joe Tiny and Joe Huge become gym buddies and start working out together.

Joe Tiny advances faster than Joe Huge. Eight karma later, he's already Strength 4. By sixteen karma, as Joe Huge finally makes it to Strength 8, Joe Tiny is almost halfway to Strength 5. Indeed, in the 8+10+12+21+24+27=102 karma it takes Joe Tiny to reach the pinnacle of (non-Exceptional-Attribute) human physical strength, Joe Huge has only reached the peak of ordinary Troll strength (Racial Modified Limit), and has another ten karma to go before reaching even the first level of exceptional strength. It'll take another 91 karma just to reach parity with where Joe Tiny is, that is, three points beyond the Racial Modified Limit (reaching the Racial Max is another 144 karma from there, but given the extended length of the gap between RML and Racial Max I think I'm ok with not having parity between reaching that benchmark).

Of course, with Strength and Body this is clearly wrong; the extra value from having high scores in these stats currently doesn't provide meaningful benefit. Joe Lean over there with the pointy ears does throw a spanner in the works. Nevertheless, the only attributes that get huge bonuses, thus really throwing this imbalance into sharp relief, are Strength and Body.

Especially if we're moving to karma-based chargen, I would like to throw out the proposal that we base the cost of an attribute on its level before Racial Modifications are taken into account.

This isn't a deeply-thought-through proposal, and there may be unanticipated edge cases that make it desirable; in particular, the question of what happens to attributes that have racial penalties comes to mind. I think provided we don't charge for an Attribute of 1 this would provide a fair tradeoff; a Troll with Intelligence 4 would have paid 2*((1+2)+(2+2)+(3+2)+(4+2))=2*(3+4+5+6)=36 karma for the privilege. Now that I think about it this is a straight price cut, but given that the trogs, being the only metaraces with attribute penalties, get screwed anyway I think this provides some balance. Anyway, it's almost full price for an attribute of 4 instead of 6.

I think I like this. Any thoughts?

Edit: though it does have some disadvantages; currently a Troll can aspire to Intelligence 6 for only 15+18=33 karma, while this makes it cost 21+24=45. That said, I was meaning to propose a reduction in Trog attribute penalties anyway.

~J

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Failure: when your best just isn't good enough.

I'm sorry, are you including the racial bonus when calculating the karma cost for boosting an attribute? I don't think you do it that way (at least I never have). The results are ridiculous. The cost for a troll maxing out his strength are astronomical compared to a human doing the same, and the penalties for attribute penalties are basically reduced because it's just making it easier to boost them in the future.

If the rules don't already ignore racial bonuses when calculating karma, they should.

I'm pretty sure they don't. The Improving the Character section of Beyond the Shadows in SR3 certainly doesn't imply anything of the kind; it says you use the natural, unaugmented attribute, but the racial mods are generally considered natural and unaugmented.

~J

_________________
Failure: when your best just isn't good enough.

One thing this does is make the -Attributes more of a negative; right now all they do is lower the racial limit, but under the new idea you'll see many more races for whom their negatives actually define them.

In other words, I approve.

They already define them; both races with actual penalties have Intelligence penalties (but see the Rebalancing the Metatypes thread). Even without an increase to the cost of advancement, having a penalty to the single most valuable stat (and for Trolls, also having a penalty to the second most valuable stat) is serious business.

~J

_________________
Failure: when your best just isn't good enough.

Regardless, we have three approvals.

I too thought it worked the way you're proposing that it should work. If it doesn't, it should.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

~J

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Failure: when your best just isn't good enough.

Extraneous agreement.

Also, as we discussed, since there seems to be consensus, get this baby into some sort of resolved state.

Another [redundant] yes vote.
This sounds an easy fix for a longheld injustice, people who played trolls in our games have tended to start with maximum STR and BOD to avoid the hefty karma bill.