I'm wondering what you all as GM's think about allowing your Players to up their characteristics. My thoughts on it where the PCs would have to spend credits on it and train or study or something of that sort to up it by one point each time. And they would have to do it a few times like boosting a skill in videogame rpgs. I'm super new to this whole process and just wanted a GMs point of view on the idea.
Allowing characteristic boosting yay or nay
There are dedication talents on every talent tree, or just about every one of them, that are meant to symbolize that.
If you let PCs buy stats directly they will quickly realize there is zero point in buying Skills or Talents if they can just raise stats directly. It's a direct path plussing up the size of dice pools.
1 hour ago, Shadow5021 said:I'm wondering what you all as GM's think about allowing your Players to up their characteristics. My thoughts on it where the PCs would have to spend credits on it and train or study or something of that sort to up it by one point each time. And they would have to do it a few times like boosting a skill in videogame rpgs. I'm super new to this whole process and just wanted a GMs point of view on the idea.
OK for what it is worth, my response isn't at all to smack you down, but there are many, many posts that have been made on this very topic. The answers are always the same.
It is best if you do not allow characteristics to be raised outside of the normal process (e.g. Dedication Talent). The game system has been playtested and vetted. Allowing XP to be directly spent on stats outside of character creation will break your game.
2 hours ago, Magnus Arcanus said:OK for what it is worth, my response isn't at all to smack you down, but there are many, many posts that have been made on this very topic. The answers are always the same.
It is best if you do not allow characteristics to be raised outside of the normal process (e.g. Dedication Talent). The game system has been playtested and vetted. Allowing XP to be directly spent on stats outside of character creation will break your game.
I appreciate the feedback I've looked and hadn't seen any addressing it probably just didn't go far enough back. I was just thinking as another way for the PC's to use credits. I wasn't going to use xp for but more like have them buy a gym membership or take a course at the local academy depending on where they were stuff like that. I also was thinking about making it limited like you could only add a point to the respective skill and make it cost more each time you advance in each of the say 5 sessions it would take to complete it.
Edited by Shadow5021
There is a way to boost characteristics using credits. Cybernetics.
Can house rule that they can be sheaths that fix over existing limbs if they don't want to cut up their characters - they just need medicine/mechanics checks and a few hours of operation to add or remove.
Special Modifications allows building custom cybernetics that add to skills also.
Edited by DarzilThank you everyone for your input and I apologize again for the bringing up old questions I appreciate your patience and knowledgeable answers. As I said I'm super new to this whole system thanks again guys.
The problem with boosting attributes via the long slow path is that the engine gets kind of wonky when you're in the five dice range. All RPGs have a shelf life where the engine breaks down - and that's where the FFG engine falls apart.
If your party has too few ways to spend credits, you don't shoot their ship to crap enough
Ok, without joking, ship repairs, ship supplies, give them the option to buy expensive upgrades for their ship, give them a base that wants to be supplied, and generates maintenance costs. You will need NPCs to run the base, some can generate income, like traders operating on your base, but most of the personnell will want to get paid.
Edited by MasterZelgadis25 minutes ago, Desslok said:The problem with boosting attributes via the long slow path is that the engine gets kind of wonky when you're in the five dice range. All RPGs have a shelf life where the engine breaks down - and that's where the FFG engine falls apart.
Have they?
Ubiquity seems to do fine no matter the amount of dice … and it can roll fist fulls of dice.
Besides, 5 dice range is avaible to starting characters AND the probability distribution seems intentional to work for success with threat if you scale the difficulty dice up in the same way. which does look very intentional. Not sure if you can call this even breaking.
14 hours ago, Desslok said:The problem with boosting attributes via the long slow path is that the engine gets kind of wonky when you're in the five dice range. All RPGs have a shelf life where the engine breaks down - and that's where the FFG engine falls apart.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point. I'm running a campaign where the players currently have 1700 or so XP, and the system is holding up just fine. I need to take their skill levels and talents into account when designing NPCs and encounters, but it's not a problem in any way.
Hey, I'm just going by what I read in a dev chat, why they went with the increases that they did. Go hassle them, man!
On 1/26/2018 at 4:41 PM, Desslok said:Hey, I'm just going by what I read in a dev chat, why they went with the increases that they did. Go hassle them, man!
Someday, I'm going to find a popular RPG system where the devs appear to understand the game to its margins the way players do.
On 27.1.2018 at 12:41 AM, Desslok said:Hey, I'm just going by what I read in a dev chat, why they went with the increases that they did. Go hassle them, man!
So the change in the probability distribution is just by pure luck, they overlooked the option to go straight at charGen to a 5 green dice pool, did make the xp needed to reach 5s in skills accidently so easy to reach?
Sorry, I am willing to believe anything bad said about FFGs writing, layout and editing without source. The conclusion would be that the designers are idiots and I am not willing to take without a quote with full context.
Though I will admit that the system feels like it has been written for random pick up groups going for a few sessions and getting abandoned afterwards, because there seems a lot of locus on starting with knight play and quitting once you have 300 xp gained. At least when you consider what the official adventures are aiming at.
Still, I doubt that the devs just assumed that everything breaks when you reach 5 dice. especially when the maximum of the system is at rolling about 9 dice + a fist full boost dice AND starting a knight level character rolling 6 dice on his primary skill is an option in the system. You don't design a system that way, call it broken afterwards and reuse those mechanics again and again for more stuff. Broken by design not something which a designer would acknowledge while repeating the mistake afterwards.