Malancthon wrote:I hope you don't feel I am antagonizing you, since I do appreciate the ideas you are bringing up.
Likewise! I know I can be (or come across as, anyway) pretty argumentative. XD
Malancthon wrote:Does Tough and Vigorous still come into play? Replacing Tough and Vigorous with your level up idea probably would not be overpowered, especially if you cap the level at 10 (therefore, the characters max at 100 Health and Endurance, equal to a character with Tough +5 and Vigorous +5). Going to level 99, though...
The idea was that Tough and Vigorous would still have an effect, not that they'd be replaced. A Tough character would still have more Health at a low level than a regular character. At higher levels (I imagined this scaling as much as necessary -- level 99 and beyond if you've gotta) there would be less difference, unless you allow Abilities over +5.
Malancthon wrote:My own tentative thought about a level system is based more on the Base Zero idea, where you're "level" is equal to your difference in points between Abilities and Weaknesses. So a standard character with a 5 pt difference (say, 15 Abilities, and 10 Weaknesses) is therefore a 5th level character. Someone with only 1 point (+15/-14) is then 1st level, and someone with 10 points (+23/-13) is 10th level. But I haven't really gone any further in investigating the idea.
I think this was initially my thought, as well, when I first picked this idea up years ago, but there's a pretty huge difference between even base zero characters if one of them overloaded on Weaknesses. I guess it might be best combined with a power ceiling?
Malancthon wrote:I generally stick with the Base Zero rule, and usually recommend starting with +15/-10, as that gives plenty of freedom to build a decent character without going overboard (Although it isn't easy to make one, it always seemed weird to Me that a +37/-32 character is considered roughly as balanced as a +12/-7 character).
Yeah, yeah, that's what I was talking about! (This is pretty much the same guidelines I give players for character creation as well.) With Power Ceiling rules, "...all characters start with a number of Levels to distribute among Abilities but may gain more equivalent to the total Level of Weaknesses they take. However, the total Level of Abilities can never exceed a
Power Ceiling set by the Game Master." The actual example in the book is 5 Levels plus up to 10 additional Levels offset by Weaknesses for a Power Ceiling of 15 -- exactly what you recommend.
If we reduce it to 4 Levels with a Power Ceiling of 14, it makes characters start at "level 4", which matches up with my 10 Health/End per level idea. In that case, whenever a character levelled up, they'd also get a point to put into their Abilities (or to use to buy off Weaknesses; either way it would increase their total Ability Level by +1.)
Have you tried Scaled Costs at all?