A little more power to the players

[QMaverick]

So, my brother and I developed our own little system for character creation, and I was wondering what you guys thought.

The book is...well, light on Character dice from our perspective since we want to have more adventures with more powerful bad guys in them. So, what did we do?

16 Attribute dice and 16 Skill dice...that's what we did. Hahaha...it sounds like a lot, but if you go well rounded, you end up with 3D in all your attributes and a braod skillset with average skill levels.

It's kinda fun this way, and it allows our relatively small group to do big things. What do you guys think? Have you modified the character creation rules at all? (by the way, this still makes for relatively weak starting Jedi unless they pump most of their dice into force powers--which means they can't do anything else)

[Gry Sarth]

Nothing wrong with that, and quite understandable. 16D for attributes is the norm for player characters, anyway. In my group we sometimes start out with 10D for skills, instead of the official 7D. 16D really doesn't make THAT much of a difference, but it helps if you want to make a slightly more satisfying character from the get go.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[masque]

[Gry Sarth]

Uh, yeah. I got a little mixed up. He said 16D for attributes, resulting in a 3D average. That doesn't add up. I think QMaverick meant 18D in attributes, since his whole point is giving more power to the players, not less.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[garhkal]

So rather than work up to the real big baddies, you just went ahead and went straight to them. To me part of the draw of RPGs is the fact that you can advance yourself any way you want. But when you just start out big and bad, where left is there to go?

I have seen rather than 7d skills, 12d skills with no more than 3d in any one, for a more experienced adventurer, and 16d with 4d max in one skill, 3d in all others above for veteran ones. But they were also short run games.
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[masque]

[Ankhanu]

Ya know, I never had an issue with standard dice, other than a desire to be uber powerful once in a while. It's easy to make even basic mooks a challenge for PCs of, really, any power level if you approach things properly.

That said, yeah, increasing the skill dice to increase the player effectiveness isn't game breaking. I'm not always keen on increasing Attribute dice, but for more fundamental reasons than anything.
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[QMaverick]

Yup, I meant 18...sorry about that

Even so, the characters typically end up being a little more well rounded in our games...and they still have a rough time of it.

We have a starting Jedi, for instance, and he finds it frustratingly hard to get any of his force abilities to work without first making his concentration roll (which he tends to fail too)

So it seems to work out...like I said, the main reason for the extra dice is to get that well roundedness...I think it works for small groups. I don't know that I'd be so generous with the dice with a larger group. I've got 3 player characters...sometimes 2

[garhkal]

Well, with just starting out characters, especially force users, they are going to have isues bringing up force powers.
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[ifurin]

if you use the rule where beginning skills are limited to 2D above the attribute then you should have more well rounded characters.

[Ankhanu]

[garhkal]

Plus those who have to work to get it, respect it more. In some games where we started out (ie for one shots) above the norm, those who had force powers just used them for darn near everything. Where as when we played from start to that level, there are a number who only used the force when they had to.
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[Whill]

Players in my game get 18D in attributes and a base of 8D in skills. Then each species has their special abilities balanced against 4D worth of skills, meaning that their special abilities and disadvantages are assigned a net worth 4D or less. If less, then the difference is made up by bonus skill dice.

Humans, having no special abilities, get 18D in attributes and starting skill dice of 8D + 4D = 12D. Most aliens PCs will have 18D attributes and 8D-12D of skills.

I still use the 2D max per skill so the skill levels don't start out too high. But the characters are a little more well-rounded starting out. This is mainly because I tend to have smaller groups (3-4 players). The extra skill dice for each player in a small party helps to maintain a similar skill set of a larger party. But keeping the 2D max for all these skill dice still allows for that starting level advancement.

Oh, and Ewoks get 15D attributes and maybe 7D skills, tops. Sorry, but I deny the existance of an 18D Ewok.
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[Gry Sarth]

That sounds like a very good system, Whill. I always felt it was a bit strange how unbalanced the different species were. Humans are completely bare-bones, but some aliens have endless lists of special abilities, worth a good number of skill dice.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[garhkal]

In sparks we balance it out by charging a pip or three (though i think some could do with more) for their species. Humans are the base, and cost nuthin'. Some races like chandrafans and abyssians are a pip off your starting 7d. The less bonuses the race gives the lower its cost.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!