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Anaraxes · 12-22-2020, 09:41 AM

A death check does sound more appropriate. I just didn't know if you wanted to push the character that far. If you really wanted to price it all out, you could build in some one-time insurance like an Extra Life or One-Use Only Unkillable 1. But I'd probably just handwave it. (It'd probably actually be free anyway with enough thought put into the build -- say, make an Extra Life an AA with the Valkyria transformation, so when the player uses the Extra Life, it's gone, leaving the Valyria as the only thing in the AA group and thus always selected.)

The sub-par problem is a classic problem with point-buy systems. Get the powerful race template, less points left over for actual attributes and skills, and thus while perhaps equal to the normal humans, the character is definitely a poor example of that race. (Which at least gives him a reason to hang around with his fellow losers.) If fairness is a potential problem, then I'd probably give all the PCs a Potential Advantage package of equal value (possibly in secret, or perhaps 1-on-1 consultation with each player individually). You're then still stuck with the unfairness if some of them wait longer for their powerups than others*, but that's not terrible.

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* This is the D&D 1e wizard argument, trying to balance being OP at the end of the level cycle with being underpowered at the beginning. But that's just unfun for some characters on one end of a seesaw while unfun for others at the end. It might be fair, but the point of a game isn't to have exactly fair unfun. Constant fun would be much better.

12-22-2020, 09:41 AM	#9
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: Statting the Valkyria A death check does sound more appropriate. I just didn't know if you wanted to push the character that far. If you really wanted to price it all out, you could build in some one-time insurance like an Extra Life or One-Use Only Unkillable 1. But I'd probably just handwave it. (It'd probably actually be free anyway with enough thought put into the build -- say, make an Extra Life an AA with the Valkyria transformation, so when the player uses the Extra Life, it's gone, leaving the Valyria as the only thing in the AA group and thus always selected.) The sub-par problem is a classic problem with point-buy systems. Get the powerful race template, less points left over for actual attributes and skills, and thus while perhaps equal to the normal humans, the character is definitely a poor example of that race. (Which at least gives him a reason to hang around with his fellow losers.) If fairness is a potential problem, then I'd probably give all the PCs a Potential Advantage package of equal value (possibly in secret, or perhaps 1-on-1 consultation with each player individually). You're then still stuck with the unfairness if some of them wait longer for their powerups than others, but that's not terrible. -- This is the D&D 1e wizard argument, trying to balance being OP at the end of the level cycle with being underpowered at the beginning. But that's just unfun for some characters on one end of a seesaw while unfun for others at the end. It might be fair, but the point of a game isn't to have exactly fair unfun. Constant fun would be much better.