nemedeus wrote:I can see this go two ways:
Option A, your variant: with 1 for 1, it makes sense to me that one may burn up to 3 SA points on conflicts.
Option B, 33's variant: with 1 for 2 (1 for 4 in combat), it makes sense to me that you can burn only 1 SA point in a given conflict.
I'll here propose an Option C that i've been pondering on for a while now, and i'm still not entirely sold:
We keep individual SA values, and you do get the value as a bonus, however, to GET the bonus, you must burn a point.
In other words, make them work same as Edge in Shadowrun.
two ways to go about this one too:
Option C.1: you burn 1 point and get a bonus equal to the SA's value NOT INCLUDING the burnt point -> SA range 1 to 5.
Option C.2: burn 1 point, bonus equal to the SA's value INCLUDING the burnt point. -> SA range 1 to 3 (i don't want to say 4 because it ironically would be a quite an ODD number to show up in the game).
As i said, i'm not completely sure on this myself. I'm feeling inclined to option C.2, but overall, i think i like option A most, actually.
And as per usual, i will remark again: SA firing => Exploding Dice. Even more so if we are switching to d6.
It just makes so much sense in my mind, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and on fire and exploding.
thirtythr33 wrote:I was initially against this proposition because I think a 1 SA for 1 dice ratio is too low. If it gave you 2-4 dice, I think it is a workable system because the player can then expect to make a profit of SAs by entering into voluntary conflicts. The idea has grown on me and to me is certainly preferable to having fixed attributes for skills.
The two main issues with the "burn SAs for dice" thing are:
1. Burning SA points to get dice to win conflicts to get SA points seems a bit like a zero sum gain, especially if you wind up spending additional dice in the conflict.
2. It turns the SA thing from a bonus to a kind of resource-management game. The dynamic changes from a "you perform better when following your motivations" to "do stuff to earn meta-currency so you can afford to be awesome later." It was something that was kind of meh in Burning Wheel and even worse in Fate.
thirtythr33 wrote:2) I don't see how tier 5 skills are any more maxed out than attributes or social class at tier 5. Proficiency is the only one that can't be maxed out, but even that is because it is uncapped and attributes and skills are not.
Attributes vs. Skills is an interesting point of discussion. At first blush, it would seem like there's a parity there, but there really isn't.
Tier 5 in attributes gives you 20 points to spend (+1 free grey dot). Tier 5 in Skills got 31 points to spend (+1 free grey dot).
At this level, Attributes need to be spread out among 8 scores currently, giving you an average score of 3.5 in each (the first dot is free). Maxing out any one attribute at character creation is still a decent expense. Andrev wound up looking like: 5, 3, 5, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4. He has room to grow, if he wanted, but he already fits his concept pretty well. Attributes tend to be pretty static, as a whole, as you're encouraged to buy the character you actually wanted in this way. Attributes tend to be more central to who the character is as a person than their skills are, because skills are something you can learn and change. Mechanically, Attributes are among the most expensive single thing you can purchase with advancement.
Skills, on the other hand, are relatively cheap and easily advanced. While their 3s and 4s you get at character creation seem relatively balanced against the average 3.5 for attributes, there is no set requirement on number of skills you need to have (nor is one really desirable). If I decide my concept is thief, I really need: Athletics, Larceny, Legerdemain, Manipulation, Stealth, and Streetwise. With a Tier 5, I can get Athletics 4, Larceny 6, Manipulation 4, Stealth 5, and Streetwise 3 -- in addition to my 3 free expertises. Out of the gate, this character is at his maximum capacity for what the concept was looking for.
Through play, they are going to keep earning SAs if they are playing properly.. but where will they go? As the thief player, I'm now either required to constantly burn for narrative effects or start broadening my concept to buy additional skills or combat ability just as a points sink.
Of course, if one were gaming the system, the most optimal thing then for a skill character is to go Tier 5 attributes, max out the attributes you are going to use most (probably agility and cunning), and then build my thief on a tier 4 skill setup. Slightly fewer skill points (25 instead of 31) but 5s in agility or cunning are worth way more than 5s in any one or two skills I might take, and the latter are much cheaper after character creation. This is going to be the case any time you make 1 attribute point = 1 skill point on a roll. It will
always make attributes more valuable than skills at character creation.
Social class is a whole different issue for two reasons.
1. There's no such thing as being maximum social class. You can always get more. More land, more money, more power. I'd argue that this exact thought is the driving force of much of human history. Even if you start as a greater noble, you can fight your way to being king. Even if you become king, you can try to become an emperor and conquer other countries. The maximum social class is "Conquered the world," which is a far cry from what you can actually purchase at character creation. In addition, the primary benefits of that selection are social and economic, both of which can be gained and lost through play, unlike skills and attributes which don't go backward.
2. You can't upgrade your social class through SA expenditure after character creation regardless, so "maxed out" is irrelevant.
thirtythr33 wrote:Why is proficiency uncapped anyway?
Agamemnon wrote:ChaosFarseer wrote:On another note, is there an upper limit to proficiency? At character creation you can go up to 11, and the number 12 comes to mind for some reason. I ask because the old skill + attribute total dice pool and the new skill dice pool should have the same range as proficiencies. Maybe that's just a desire for consistency. The automatic-successes-if-you-have-more-than-ten-dice rule suggests that the intended maximum dice pool is 10, though.
As written, the current limit for proficiencies is really just established by how many points you can physically put into them at max-SA cap. That said, I'm not as worried about proficiency ranges and skill/attribute ranges falling into line for three reasons.
- Proficiencies aren't really rolled against obs. You can technically use them as a skill check for something related to that proficiency, but it's such a niche use that I'm not worried about it.The reason one would want to put a cap on skills or attributes is that the ob scale becomes meaningless if everyone can run around with 15 Agility and 20 Larceny.
- A corollary to the above, proficiencies are only really interesting in reference to the proficiencies of the other characters, and the mechanics of combat are such that you're splitting your dice anyway.
- You can only kill someone so dead. At a certain point, there are diminishing returns. Yes, you could theoretically get to Prof 36 in Longsword, but even if we assumed you maxed it out at character creation (11 with a priority A), you've spent a staggering 611 SA points to do so. At a rate of 3-4 SA points earned per session, that's 174 sessions worth. Even played weekly, you've spent two years doing nothing but making this character a better longswordsman -- and now? Uh. They can .. fight three people at the same time comfortably, I guess.
thirtythr33 wrote:
One could set an arbitrary cap in there somewhere, but I'm not sure it's strictly necessary.
thirtythr33 wrote:Going d6 with a wound table with results like NA/NA/BTN5/BTN5/BTN6 combined with DR and AV = BRAWN/2 dead levels and rounding up could end up with some seriously wonky interactions.
1. Impact still happens on every wound level, just as before. You're just ticking boxes slightly less often.
2. Mathematically, if DR/AV mods were Brawn/2 then it would be mathematically identical to what we're doing now, as Brawn only exists if we're doing a 1-10 scale of attributes. If things are rolled in pairs then we have to keep both strength and stamina in order to roll strength in the first place (which seems more silly every time I say it). If it were Brawn/3, then the effect would be even less of an issue. This is an issue that is completely independent of whether we are operating on a d6 or a d10, as is any issue of dead levels.