Priority Character Creation [Archive] - Wizards Community

Priority Character Creation [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Max Octavious Xavier
07-07-07, 04:33 PM I have been thinking of trying a new idea for character creation. This system is similar to the system found in Shadowrun. You pick what priority each aspect gets, using 1 of each. I am concerned about balancing the different aspects.

Any thought? How balanced is it? Is there some combo that is broken?

First Proposal
Point Buy
A- 36
b- 29
c- 22
d- 15
e- 8

Starting Level (all CR's will be based on a party level of 4)
A- 6
b- 5
c- 4
d- 3
e- 2

Racial LA (in addition, the character suffers a 5% xp penalty per LA)
A- +4
b- +3
c- +2
d- +1
e- none

Social Position/starting gp (magic items must be approved by the DM)
A- Major Noble/20,000gp
b- Minor Noble/5,000gp
c- Knight/1000gp
d- Freeman/100gp
e- Commoner-Slave-Servant/0gp
(an NPC has a legal hold over your pc/you owe gp/etc...)

Special
A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...)
b- Minor advantage (an extra feat)
c- none
d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws)
e- major disadvantage (missing an arm/3 flaws/etc...)

Fixed staring ECL (currently 6)

Point Buy
A- 36
b- 28
c- 18
d- 10

Stating gp x character level (magic items must be approved by the DM)
A- 5,000 (5th character starts with 25,000gp)
b- 1,000
c- 100
d- 0 (you owe gp to an NPC at 2(or more)gp/gp spent to equip the character)

Social Position
A- Noble
b- Knight
c- Freeman
d- Commoner-Slave-Servant (an NPC has a legal hold over your pc)

Special
A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...)
b- Minor advantage (an extra feat)
c- none
d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws)
legophreak
07-08-07, 07:26 PM I would assume you are referring to 3rd edition Shadowrun?

4th edition Shadowrun is now 100% Build Point character creation.

With your priorities, just like in Shadowrun. Unless you force Priority A to be a full mage, everyone is going to take A resources.

A level 4 character with 100,000 gold to me seems extremely ridiculous, unless i am missing something?
Salla
07-08-07, 08:47 PM Smart players will 'dump' starting level, since the 3.5 XP system self-corrects and grants more XP to lower-level characters, eventually neutralizing the drawback.
Max Octavious Xavier
07-08-07, 09:37 PM Smart players will 'dump' starting level, since the 3.5 XP system self-corrects and grants more XP to lower-level characters, eventually neutralizing the drawback.
Good point, I will be doing CR and xp as if every was 4th level, so if everyone dumps starting level they might be in trouble and they won't be getting more xp for being lower level.

A level 4 character with 100,000 gold to me seems extremely ridiculous, unless i am missing something?
Ok, would these numbers be better;

Social Position/starting gp (magic items must be approved by the DM)
A- Major Noble/20,000gp
b- Minor Noble/5,000gp
c- Knight/1000gp
d- Freeman/100gp
e- Commoner-Slave-Servant/0gp
(an NPC has a legal hold over your pc/you owe gp/etc...)
Roog
07-09-07, 06:37 AM Any thought?
What are you trying to achive with these changes?

How balanced is it?
Probably, quite unbalanced.

You are likely to end up with a party with hugely varying combat survivability and power, especially at the start of the game. (E.g. ECL 3-9).

Some options pay off immediately (SL, LA, GP), while others are pay of later (PB, Spec, Social).

Assuming the party ends up significantly varied, this will add significant difficulty balancing combat/encounters.
However, if the game focus is different from standard D&D, and its expected that characters will contribute in different ways and to significantly different levels, it could work out OK.

Another thing to note is that this seriously changes the relation between ECL and starting wealth. A ECL 9 character (normally 36kGP) will likely have less starting wealth than a ECL 3 (normally 2.7kGP), since the ECL 9 has already allocated their highest priorities.
This may encourage players to share the effects of their starting wealth. (E.g some PCs working for the others). And that in turn may encourage the players to have one or two PCs with Wealth as first priority in order to provide the party with sufficient wealth.

Point Buy
A- 36
b- 29
c- 22
d- 15
e- 8

Starting Level (all CR's will be based on a party level of 4)
A- 6
b- 5
c- 4
d- 3
e- 2

Racial LA (in addition, the character suffers a 5% xp penalty per LA)
A- +4
b- +3
c- +2
d- +1
e- none
The general consensus when creating PCs seems to be that character levels are better than LA. Here, you have made LA worse than normal (by use of a XP penalty), but their increments of increase with priority are the same.

Social Position/starting gp (magic items must be approved by the DM)
A- Major Noble/100,000gp
b- Minor Noble/10,000gp
c- Knight/1000gp
d- Freeman/100gp
e- Commoner-Slave-Servant/0gp
(an NPC has a legal hold over your pc/you owe gp/etc...)
1: I don't see anyone choosing c or d unless all their other priorities are used up.

2: In this game PCs start with ECL 3-9, and you assume ECL 4 for CR purposes.
ECL 3 => Wealth 2700, ECL 4 => Wealth 5400, ECL 9 => Wealth 36000.
Wealth levels B and C look a bit too low. (I would make C ~5kGP)

Special
A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...)
b- Minor advantage (an extra feat)
c- none
d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws)
e- major disadvantage (missing an arm/3 flaws/etc...)
Is one Feat (or one less flaw) as valuable as +7 point buy?
Bobson
07-09-07, 11:08 AM Starting Level (all CR's will be based on a party level of 4)
A- 6
b- 5
c- 4
d- 3
e- 2

Racial LA (in addition, the character suffers a 5% xp penalty per LA)
A- +4
b- +3
c- +2
d- +1
e- none

A better way to do this would be to have a starting ECL category, and let the player choose the split between the class levels they chose and the LA of the race they want to play. Otherwise LA will become an E-dump, and you may as well not have five choices on the others. LA is painful enough as it is, but adding both an XP penalty (which doesn't work at all, see here (http://boards1.wizards.com/leaving.php?destination=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/LAvsXPpenalty.html)) and a priority (which means something else has to be lowered too) just makes it almost too painful to take.
Max Octavious Xavier
07-10-07, 01:25 AM Please be patient, my job makes my internet access unreliable during the week, I may not respond right away. I will edit the op as changes are made.

A better way to do this would be to have a starting ECL category, and let the player choose the split between the class levels they chose and the LA of the race they want to play. Otherwise LA will become an E-dump, and you may as well not have five choices on the others. LA is painful enough as it is, but adding both an XP penalty (which doesn't work at all, see here (http://boards1.wizards.com/leaving.php?destination=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/LAvsXPpenalty.html)) and a priority (which means something else has to be lowered too) just makes it almost too painful to take.

Yeah, I like this idea. I will work on it.

What are you trying to achive with these changes?
It is an attempt to give the players more control over the character creation process while maintaining fairness and balance. Please note the reduction in gp at the upper end.
Roog
07-10-07, 01:58 AM It is an attempt to give the players more control over the character creation process while maintaining fairness and balance.

Is this meant for general play or do you have some type of campaign in mind?

For a regular game (with regular assumptions) I think a system with a start-up like this would be more balanced.

ECL: fixed

Point Buy: choose A-D for some set of point buy values

Social Position/GP: choose A-D

Special Advantages: choose A-D for special advantage/disadvantage (including possible small Racial LA at the higher end - this would the only way to increase ECL at the start)

Luck/Action Points/Plot Protection/Destiny/etc: A-D etc. This could be split into two sections: Game mechanical luck and GM fiat. Arrange it to use whatever mechanisms you feel comfortable with.

Character Class: Depending on the setting starting class could be limited, for example in a low magic setting a full caster level class could require high priority. This would probably not be appropriate for standard D&D worlds.

That gives 4-6 categories (and 4 is probably the minimum needed for a system like this to work).
Each choice should have both a shot term and long term payoff.

Please note the reduction in gp at the upper end.

Reducing the max GP from 100k does seem reasonable, but like I said before:
2: In this game PCs start with ECL 3-9, and you assume ECL 4 for CR purposes.
ECL 3 => Wealth 2700, ECL 4 => Wealth 5400, ECL 9 => Wealth 36000.
Wealth levels B and C look a bit too low. (I would make C ~5kGP)
If wealth is meant to be as good an option as others, then consider matching Starting Wealth and Starting Level Options for A,B&C (D&E should be disadvantages).
(So Max(Starting Wealth) >= Standard Wealth for Max(Starting Level) etc)
Max Octavious Xavier
07-14-07, 09:18 AM Thanks for the replies so far. You can see the modifications in the op, but I will also list it here.

Fixed staring ECL (currently 6)

Point Buy
A- 36
b- 28
c- 18
d- 10

Stating gp x character level (magic items must be approved by the DM)
A- 5,000 (5th character starts with 25,000gp)
b- 1,000
c- 100
d- 0 (you owe gp to an NPC at 2(or more)gp/gp spent to equip the character)

Social Position
A- Noble
b- Knight
c- Freeman
d- Commoner-Slave-Servant (an NPC has a legal hold over your pc)

Special
A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...)
b- Minor advantage (an extra feat)
c- none
d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws)

My goal is to give the players more control over the character creation process, while maintaining fairness and balance. They must choose between wealth, position and personal power. You can't have it all.

It is for a specific campaign, planning on low magic. Also, an event will cause the "Rules of Magic" to be "rewritten". I was going to restrict casters to 3rd level spells, and let them use the 4th+ spell slots for metamagic versions of lesser spells. That is the short version if the campaign idea.

Mostly, I just want to see what neutral brains think about the idea, if it is workable and what the consensus on balance points are. Are all the A choices approximately equivalent, etc...

Random thoughts;
-I wonder if it could work for a published setting (as most published things assume 28pb and wealth-by-level)?
-Yes, I am aware of wealth by level guidelines and I'm ignoring them (for my specific campaign).
-Starting gp are (mostly) meant to represent a family magic heirloom.
-I know the "special" category is vague and could be abused. That is where the power of "no" comes in.

Character Class: Depending on the setting starting class could be limited, for example in a low magic setting a full caster level class could require high priority. This would probably not be appropriate for standard D&D worlds.Currently, this is under "Special" and is limited to Psionic classes.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Max Octavious Xavier 07-07-07, 04:33 PM	I have been thinking of trying a new idea for character creation. This system is similar to the system found in Shadowrun. You pick what priority each aspect gets, using 1 of each. I am concerned about balancing the different aspects. Any thought? How balanced is it? Is there some combo that is broken? First Proposal Point Buy A- 36 b- 29 c- 22 d- 15 e- 8 Starting Level (all CR's will be based on a party level of 4) A- 6 b- 5 c- 4 d- 3 e- 2 Racial LA (in addition, the character suffers a 5% xp penalty per LA) A- +4 b- +3 c- +2 d- +1 e- none Social Position/starting gp (magic items must be approved by the DM) A- Major Noble/20,000gp b- Minor Noble/5,000gp c- Knight/1000gp d- Freeman/100gp e- Commoner-Slave-Servant/0gp (an NPC has a legal hold over your pc/you owe gp/etc...) Special A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...) b- Minor advantage (an extra feat) c- none d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws) e- major disadvantage (missing an arm/3 flaws/etc...) Fixed staring ECL (currently 6) Point Buy A- 36 b- 28 c- 18 d- 10 Stating gp x character level (magic items must be approved by the DM) A- 5,000 (5th character starts with 25,000gp) b- 1,000 c- 100 d- 0 (you owe gp to an NPC at 2(or more)gp/gp spent to equip the character) Social Position A- Noble b- Knight c- Freeman d- Commoner-Slave-Servant (an NPC has a legal hold over your pc) Special A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...) b- Minor advantage (an extra feat) c- none d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws)
legophreak 07-08-07, 07:26 PM	I would assume you are referring to 3rd edition Shadowrun? 4th edition Shadowrun is now 100% Build Point character creation. With your priorities, just like in Shadowrun. Unless you force Priority A to be a full mage, everyone is going to take A resources. A level 4 character with 100,000 gold to me seems extremely ridiculous, unless i am missing something?
Salla 07-08-07, 08:47 PM	Smart players will 'dump' starting level, since the 3.5 XP system self-corrects and grants more XP to lower-level characters, eventually neutralizing the drawback.
Max Octavious Xavier 07-08-07, 09:37 PM	Smart players will 'dump' starting level, since the 3.5 XP system self-corrects and grants more XP to lower-level characters, eventually neutralizing the drawback. Good point, I will be doing CR and xp as if every was 4th level, so if everyone dumps starting level they might be in trouble and they won't be getting more xp for being lower level. A level 4 character with 100,000 gold to me seems extremely ridiculous, unless i am missing something? Ok, would these numbers be better; Social Position/starting gp (magic items must be approved by the DM) A- Major Noble/20,000gp b- Minor Noble/5,000gp c- Knight/1000gp d- Freeman/100gp e- Commoner-Slave-Servant/0gp (an NPC has a legal hold over your pc/you owe gp/etc...)
Roog 07-09-07, 06:37 AM	Any thought? What are you trying to achive with these changes? How balanced is it? Probably, quite unbalanced. You are likely to end up with a party with hugely varying combat survivability and power, especially at the start of the game. (E.g. ECL 3-9). Some options pay off immediately (SL, LA, GP), while others are pay of later (PB, Spec, Social). Assuming the party ends up significantly varied, this will add significant difficulty balancing combat/encounters. However, if the game focus is different from standard D&D, and its expected that characters will contribute in different ways and to significantly different levels, it could work out OK. Another thing to note is that this seriously changes the relation between ECL and starting wealth. A ECL 9 character (normally 36kGP) will likely have less starting wealth than a ECL 3 (normally 2.7kGP), since the ECL 9 has already allocated their highest priorities. This may encourage players to share the effects of their starting wealth. (E.g some PCs working for the others). And that in turn may encourage the players to have one or two PCs with Wealth as first priority in order to provide the party with sufficient wealth. Point Buy A- 36 b- 29 c- 22 d- 15 e- 8 Starting Level (all CR's will be based on a party level of 4) A- 6 b- 5 c- 4 d- 3 e- 2 Racial LA (in addition, the character suffers a 5% xp penalty per LA) A- +4 b- +3 c- +2 d- +1 e- none The general consensus when creating PCs seems to be that character levels are better than LA. Here, you have made LA worse than normal (by use of a XP penalty), but their increments of increase with priority are the same. Social Position/starting gp (magic items must be approved by the DM) A- Major Noble/100,000gp b- Minor Noble/10,000gp c- Knight/1000gp d- Freeman/100gp e- Commoner-Slave-Servant/0gp (an NPC has a legal hold over your pc/you owe gp/etc...) 1: I don't see anyone choosing c or d unless all their other priorities are used up. 2: In this game PCs start with ECL 3-9, and you assume ECL 4 for CR purposes. ECL 3 => Wealth 2700, ECL 4 => Wealth 5400, ECL 9 => Wealth 36000. Wealth levels B and C look a bit too low. (I would make C ~5kGP) Special A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...) b- Minor advantage (an extra feat) c- none d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws) e- major disadvantage (missing an arm/3 flaws/etc...) Is one Feat (or one less flaw) as valuable as +7 point buy?
Bobson 07-09-07, 11:08 AM	Starting Level (all CR's will be based on a party level of 4) A- 6 b- 5 c- 4 d- 3 e- 2 Racial LA (in addition, the character suffers a 5% xp penalty per LA) A- +4 b- +3 c- +2 d- +1 e- none A better way to do this would be to have a starting ECL category, and let the player choose the split between the class levels they chose and the LA of the race they want to play. Otherwise LA will become an E-dump, and you may as well not have five choices on the others. LA is painful enough as it is, but adding both an XP penalty (which doesn't work at all, see here (http://boards1.wizards.com/leaving.php?destination=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/LAvsXPpenalty.html)) and a priority (which means something else has to be lowered too) just makes it almost too painful to take.
Max Octavious Xavier 07-10-07, 01:25 AM	Please be patient, my job makes my internet access unreliable during the week, I may not respond right away. I will edit the op as changes are made. A better way to do this would be to have a starting ECL category, and let the player choose the split between the class levels they chose and the LA of the race they want to play. Otherwise LA will become an E-dump, and you may as well not have five choices on the others. LA is painful enough as it is, but adding both an XP penalty (which doesn't work at all, see here (http://boards1.wizards.com/leaving.php?destination=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/LAvsXPpenalty.html)) and a priority (which means something else has to be lowered too) just makes it almost too painful to take. Yeah, I like this idea. I will work on it. What are you trying to achive with these changes? It is an attempt to give the players more control over the character creation process while maintaining fairness and balance. Please note the reduction in gp at the upper end.
Roog 07-10-07, 01:58 AM	It is an attempt to give the players more control over the character creation process while maintaining fairness and balance. Is this meant for general play or do you have some type of campaign in mind? For a regular game (with regular assumptions) I think a system with a start-up like this would be more balanced. ECL: fixed Point Buy: choose A-D for some set of point buy values Social Position/GP: choose A-D Special Advantages: choose A-D for special advantage/disadvantage (including possible small Racial LA at the higher end - this would the only way to increase ECL at the start) Luck/Action Points/Plot Protection/Destiny/etc: A-D etc. This could be split into two sections: Game mechanical luck and GM fiat. Arrange it to use whatever mechanisms you feel comfortable with. Character Class: Depending on the setting starting class could be limited, for example in a low magic setting a full caster level class could require high priority. This would probably not be appropriate for standard D&D worlds. That gives 4-6 categories (and 4 is probably the minimum needed for a system like this to work). Each choice should have both a shot term and long term payoff. Please note the reduction in gp at the upper end. Reducing the max GP from 100k does seem reasonable, but like I said before: 2: In this game PCs start with ECL 3-9, and you assume ECL 4 for CR purposes. ECL 3 => Wealth 2700, ECL 4 => Wealth 5400, ECL 9 => Wealth 36000. Wealth levels B and C look a bit too low. (I would make C ~5kGP) If wealth is meant to be as good an option as others, then consider matching Starting Wealth and Starting Level Options for A,B&C (D&E should be disadvantages). (So Max(Starting Wealth) >= Standard Wealth for Max(Starting Level) etc)
Max Octavious Xavier 07-14-07, 09:18 AM	Thanks for the replies so far. You can see the modifications in the op, but I will also list it here. Fixed staring ECL (currently 6) Point Buy A- 36 b- 28 c- 18 d- 10 Stating gp x character level (magic items must be approved by the DM) A- 5,000 (5th character starts with 25,000gp) b- 1,000 c- 100 d- 0 (you owe gp to an NPC at 2(or more)gp/gp spent to equip the character) Social Position A- Noble b- Knight c- Freeman d- Commoner-Slave-Servant (an NPC has a legal hold over your pc) Special A- Major Advantage (allowed to play a psionic character-where magic/psionics DONT effect each other/2 extra feats/etc...) b- Minor advantage (an extra feat) c- none d- minor disadvantage (2 flaws) My goal is to give the players more control over the character creation process, while maintaining fairness and balance. They must choose between wealth, position and personal power. You can't have it all. It is for a specific campaign, planning on low magic. Also, an event will cause the "Rules of Magic" to be "rewritten". I was going to restrict casters to 3rd level spells, and let them use the 4th+ spell slots for metamagic versions of lesser spells. That is the short version if the campaign idea. Mostly, I just want to see what neutral brains think about the idea, if it is workable and what the consensus on balance points are. Are all the A choices approximately equivalent, etc... Random thoughts; -I wonder if it could work for a published setting (as most published things assume 28pb and wealth-by-level)? -Yes, I am aware of wealth by level guidelines and I'm ignoring them (for my specific campaign). -Starting gp are (mostly) meant to represent a family magic heirloom. -I know the "special" category is vague and could be abused. That is where the power of "no" comes in. Character Class: Depending on the setting starting class could be limited, for example in a low magic setting a full caster level class could require high priority. This would probably not be appropriate for standard D&D worlds.Currently, this is under "Special" and is limited to Psionic classes.