Re-calibrating Attribute Costs

[mburr0003]

As can be seen at the end of the other thread (Odd Question in raising IQ) I have a disagreement with the cost of Attributes in relation to the price of Skills, namely Attributes are too dang inexpensive.

It makes balancing certain Character combos nigh impossible. I'm not the first person to have issues with "high Attributes", and this is certainly not the first time I've looked at implementing a solution... this will just be the first time I'm looking at implementing a very GM labor intensive solution.

Actually, the solution is pretty simple, change the cost of Attributes. It's the next step that becomes more untenable; change the cost of the Advantages and Disadvantages that should be changed relative to the cost of Attributes.

And really, I need to back up a step further... because once you start tinkering with Attribute costs... you need to look very hard at starting Character Point allotments.. and woooo. It's a bit of an interconnected nesting problem.

So to step back to the bottom-most level... I think Skill costs are mostly okay (that's a whole nother TEDtalk), they really should be the bottom out cost. 1 point, and they get slightly more expensive... but again, another discussion. (Okay, Perks and some Advantages lurk down here as well.)

So from there we have to decide what Attributes should cost based around the idea of "broadly and competently skilled but low attribute" PCs should be able to be made alongside "high attribute with a few skills" PCs and not be some variant of "one of them is a point croc". Now, I'm also not suggesting that "all builds are need to be equal". Certainly the IQ 18 PC who has all their IQ defaults in the 14 range doesn't need to be the same Character Points as the IQ 10 PC who has purchased every single IQ skill to 14. That would be madness... there is a certain symmetry to it, but it is madness.

I've looked at a number of ways to do this (fixing IQ) over the years, one person here suggested putting a cap at what point Attributes affect skills and defaults, but allowing them to be bought past that point for cheaper (for Attribute rolls alone)... which actually kinda works, but it's fiddly and complicated, and just didn't sit well with the Players, or with me. It felt like putting a bookcase over the mold spot in the wall, the problem was still back there, it was just hidden behind arbitrary nonsense. It was neither elegant, nor a solid fix.

Same with "just cap IQ"... I don't want to cap IQ. I like playing high IQ PCs myself, I have Players who like playing high IQ PCs. This is not a solution, this is another arbitrary "doesn't fix the problem, it just avoids running into it" bandaid. And whats worse, it doesn't even avoid running into it, it just shuffles the problem below where most Players feel the competence level lies so they're just usually okay with an IQ 14 PC's defaults being better than the IQ 10 PC's 80 different bought skills with only one point in each (and actually, usually if your done here where IQ 14 feels high, you don't have enough points to be buying 80 different skills... so no one wants to try make the "low IQ but still somehow competent" PC).



Anyway, I'm not really sure what cost to set for IQ, DX, or even ST and HT (those are also on the table to be discussed) right now, I just figured I'd toss my two cents out there and see if it generates a discussion before digging any deeper.