Post originally by Roy Morgan at 2005-02-17 21:55:33
Converted from Phorums BB System

"You are aware that 3 in a stat is good now, real good."

"When it comes to skills its like this: So your friend would have 1 in most hobbies, 2 if he could use them to work for a living. If you have two stats at 3 then your a pro. If you want a 4 then your like a 20 years of experience in the field kind of guy. And 5 is reserved for people like Steven Hawkin."

"When it comes to Attributes the scale is alittle diffrent (not alot): 1 in a stat is bad while 2 is human avarage. 3 on the other hand then we are talking good. 4 and we are talking olympic style (of course coupled with high athletics). 5 we are again at Steven Hawkin level."

Which means that nothing's changed since the original. 3 was exceptional even then. The scale of attributes and skills hasn't changed. Why the perception of it has changed is a mystery to me. And by the way, it's Steven HAWKING.

"The scale in nWoD is not the same as in oWoD. Now a uber doctor would be 3 in IN,T 4 in Medecin and a speciality in his field. While your avarege doctor would be 2 in INT, 2 in Medecin and a speciality in his field. The avarage doctor would more then handle him self most of the time."

We've been here already. The scale IS the same.

"Also remember that giving XP is what your suposed to do unless you want to run a campain with avarage joe player."

And where was it said that this was not the case? Besides, the 'standard' starting characters in nWoD wouldn't be Joe Average, they'd be Mister Meat Snack. oWoD had a similar problem, but not to this degree.

"That is the strength of the new system. It starts its scale with avarage people and if you want to move above that you can just scale up."

It could be viewed as a strength, but it's very messy in practice. It also encourages min-maxing, which the freebie points didn't do. Since you have to pay for each level individually, and the cost goes up with each level, it encourages players to use the 'free dots' they get from the standard skill pool to buy their higher-level skills, then use experience to buy the one-dot skills that are too useful to do without (a major issue, since there are much harsher skilled vs. unskilled mechanics in nWoD). This is exacerbated by the fact that the experience point amounts given don't go very far at all.

The same mechanic also applies to attributes. The freebie point system avoided this, as every dot in the same category had the same cost.