Wise Turtle Publishing

So, I'm running OVA for the first time (this is my second session, to be accurate) and my players are frustrated because they don't feel useful or balanced.

One of my players made a character using the sample Samurai and Assassin as a starting point and ended up with a TR of 22, when everyone else had a threat rating around 10, but then when rebuilding we found that most of the characters use slightly different points totals and that many of them don't total up to the same balance totals... Unless they're using scaling points?

I dunno, I'm just having a little trouble wrapping my head around how these are supposed to be balanced, or if they're even supposed to be balanced? I don't have a lot of fights in my game, but whenever a fight starts up, it feels like half the group is useless.

Balance in OVA is intentionally a little loosy-goosy since the swinginess of the dice mechanic can forgive a pretty big discrepancy between opponents’ abilities. And of course, characters can find ways to contribute without being directly involved in the fight. Braun isn’t likely to be much use with fisticuffs, but he could easily be hacking a way out of a sticky situation as his comrades hold off the enemy. Likewise Fukiko is a little underpowered offensively, but her Healer Ability can make her useful in a fight just the same.

But if your players are all geared to be fighters, yet one greatly outclasses the rest, it’s probably time to look critically at the way the characters are drawn up. 12 points is a wide gap, and you should discuss with your group how to either beef up the 10 TV characters or tone down the 22 TV assassin. Arguably you should do both and meet in the middle.

Again, I don't think it's necessary at all to make everyone exactly the same, but bringing the characters closer together should prove helpful. That, or you need to give the rest of the party non-fighty (but still important) things to do while the assassin plays bodyguard.