The way characteristics are increased is a topic I've had reason to give some thought recently. My players have cleverly realised that an increase in characteristics is one of the most effective ways to improve their characters - especially in the long run. They also feel, still being in the first rank and having already trained their career skills at creation, that there isn't a lot to spend advances on except raising characteristics (extra wounds, stance pieces etc. are fun but not that substantial).

So, the thing I'm wondering about is how you have handled raising characteristics overlapping change in careers. Do you allow players to put, say, three open advances to fill up a career and then continue with two open advances in the next to buy for example Str 5? And in that case, how do you handle the cheaper "primary" buys since the characteristic might not be a primary one for both careers? I think I'll allow it, simply because it's a bit boring to force a player to buy an cha increase completely within a career, in effect excluding almost all other choices for that career.

Magnus

Technicaly, they cannot raise and attribute over 2 Careers and you should not allow it (in my opinion).

Attributes *are* powerful, the downside of it is you have to (need to) choose between raising one or buy lots of other stuff. If you raise Int from 4 to 5, you cross off 5 of the Open Career Advances and are left with only 1 Open Career Advance. The 4 other Advances are predetermined as 1 Action, 1 Talent, 1 Skill (or Spec) and 1 Wound. You can easily plan a little bit ahead. If you and your players realised that after a few games (as we did), allow them to do a single "respect" (retrain of Advances) so that they can get what they want.

Only then you can pay for the Dedication bonus and switch Career at reduced cost. Whenever you switch Career you have to pay a cost even if you don't get the Dedication bonus (it can be free for Humans only). Can't justify to spread an Attribute increase before and after, i'd say.

On a side note, about Character Rank and skill training. Once you have 10 Experiences, you are Rank 2, whatever Advances you saved up (remember that Experience is a total that only goes up and determines your Rank, you spend Advances to improve your character). So, if you trained Observation at Character creation, have 10 Exp and 2 advances unspent (8 already spent then), you can train Observation again with the 9th Advance as you are Rank 2 (10 Exp) and still in your 1st Career (if you did not switch without completing it). You can even train a second skill you may have trained at character creation with the 10th Advance.
The Dedication bonus will not apply to skill trained at character creation, but it will if you trained them a second time later in your Career (waiting to be Rank 2).

I'll provide a counterpoint: I would allow it.

If a character paid for 3 points of the cost with Open Career Advances from Career 1 , and then finished with a last Open Career Advance from Career 2 , I'd say that they've still paid the total cost of the Attribute increase.

...and while they are powerful, they are not overpowering (IMO) as they've forgone the chance at a large number of talents, skills, etc. that can be every bit as useful.

DOesn't it say somewhere in the rulebooks that the maximum stat is 6 because of the 6 open slots available to any career.

Illustrious said:

I thought so to, making me believe you can't "share" the cost over several careers.

For most careers the two stats will be a choice (unless you have really low stats).

Also think the players, and game, benefit more from the diversity of having several talents/actions, than just 2 of each that you use over and over. I enjoy it a lot when my players use "weaker" actions, just for the theatrical sake of it.

Illustrious said:

It's in the FAQ if I'm not mistaken.

Illustrious said:

Yeah, reading the FAQ it's pretty clear that a maximum raise is up to six, using all open advances within a career. My question was more if you have handled it in other other way, since it feels somewhat limiting to me and my players that you have to decide from the very beginning of a career (first open advance) that you're going for the attribute increase.

I think I'll house rule that you can spread out the advances over careers, raising the attribute as soon as you reach enough points. But thanks for the input people!

obviously allowing this is going to make it even less likely that your players will try and advance anything other than characteristics, which seemed to be one of your orginal concerns, but its your game, your choice.

I'd still set the maximum characteristics to 6 for career characteristics (and 4 for non-career). Even if I let my players raise characteristics over several careers.

I think 6 should be enough.