Post originally by Roy Morgan at 2005-02-18 13:51:09
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"You have never made a char in oWoD have you?"

I own editions of all five of the oWoD RPGs, and have played all of them off and on over the last 12 years. I also participated in a VtM campaign, with characters included from Werewolf and Mage, which ran for over six years. All of that requires making more than a few characters. So yes, I know EXACTLY how chargen works in oWoD, and in nWoD as well.

"thanks to how many points you got to put out you have an illusion of 2 being bad while 3 being avarage and 4 being good."

WRONG. The delusion is entirely yours.

"You do know that all starting chars in oWoD had alteast one 4 in an atribute dont you? Also this divalued 4 as a stat becouse it is easy to have, and it being vary possible to have 5 divalued that too. In nWoD 4 is rare and 5 is damn rare so theory and practice works out in nWoD unlike oWoD."

Yes, I'm well aware of just how easy it was to have a 4 in at least one attribute, and sometimes even a 5. However, we were discussing the SCALE of attributes, and the level of competence that said scale represented. And the scale hasn't changed.

As for devaluing 4 and 5 as ratings in attributes? Why is having such ratings a bad thing? The characters in oWoD were supposed to be rather exceptional individuals, not the victim-horror caricatures that starting nWoD characters are. For that matter, starting characters in nWoD are supposed to be rather exceptional individuals (which is a laughable notion at best).

"Also 4 and 5 is much more valueble in nWoD becouse of how the dificulty system now works, now with two 4 and a speciality in works even the hardest task is not that hard, still four in dicepool. Well thats another thing that kicks as, the hardest dificulty is -5 in nWoD while in oWoD it was dif 10. Dif 10 just makes statistics brake down and the better you are the higher the chance of a botch."

Higher attributes were useful in both games, as the same condition applies: the more dice you have, the easier it is to succeed. This was especially apparent when the botch mechanics in oWoD were rewritten to correct exactly the same problem you just described.

And Joe Average in nWoD still only rolls one die, with a 10% chance to botch and only a 30% chance to succeed, on the very hardest (-5) actions. Even a character a little above average has this problem. And this is an improvement? 'Tis to laugh!

"Yeah soo? I got dyslexia, so I would be suprised if you didnt find more things spelled wrong in my post. What does that have to do with the argument at hand."

As I recall, YOU dragged 'Steven Hawkin' into this discussion by making attribute and skill comparisons to him. Steven Hawking, a great man who had many more problems than dyslexia, deserves to have his name spelled correctly, even in incorrect statements about attribute scales.

"If you look at Mortal creation rules in oWoD, they create that yes."

Yes, those Mortal creation rules always did have their problems. Which is why my group abandoned them after using them exactly once. And why I never require anyone to create inexperienced characters in nWoD, which has the same problem to a similar degree.

"But the basic vampire created what Sir Uber McKickass. It is always easier to scale up then down."

Again, no. In the campaigns I've played in, the basic vampire tended to get his bloodsucking ass handed to him on a plate when he tried to play 'Sir Uber McKickass'. You had to be smart and careful if you were playing neonates. Most characters in written adventures could reduce you to a bloody smear in no time flat. And if they couldn't (very rare, that), they had LOTS of friends. You couldn't Celerity your way out of a dogpile that big. And did I mention the way so many of those vampires that are already in power tend to stick together?

"You think Freebies dont encurage min maxing? LOL!!!"

Read my post again and do the math.

It's very simple. Buying a 4 skill would cost 12 points by the Exp system, if you already had the first three levels bought with your skill pool from chargen. You could, at most, buy two such skills using the Seasoned Experience count (leaving you 11 points, just a bit too low for three). Or you could use one of your skill pool points to buy that 4th dot, and save your Exp for taking 1-dot skills that are too useful to do without (You could buy 11 of those with the Seasoned Exp pool That's one point in NEARLY HALF THE SKILL LIST). Min-maxers will plan ahead and buy all their high skills with skill pool points, and buy all the stuff they dabble in with the Exp points, to make them go much, much farther. After all, it's better to have just one point in a skill now than absolutely none, with the new Unskilled mechanics.

With the old freebie point system, every skill dot cost the same amount. No particular need to scrimp on them, so not as much incentive to min-max. I didn't say it didn't happen, only that the ways to do so weren't as glaringly obvious to anyone willing to scrutinize both game systems.

"Well, if you would have checked my fix for this in the Limiting Stats comment then you would know I find this a problem."

Where did I say you didn't find this a problem? Oh, right, in your imagination.

"It was worse in oWoD. Or are you claiming you never saw a char with 5 in a stat?"

This is another one of those infamous things that you know I said because you imagined it, right?

"In nWoD is much harder to start with 5 then it was in oWoD."

Noticed. And how is that a good thing? It's harder for the same reasons that characters come across as rank amateurs in anything in nWoD. Yet another min-maxing example from the Exp system: it costs two dots from the Skill pool to purchase the fifth level of any skill. It costs 30 Exp points to purchase the same dot (since the fifth dot requires you to spend two dots worth of Exp). Now how much would you pay?

"Also you should read the post I comented on. The problem I have was his friend that claims he has problems stating him self, i have seen people claim the same, these are poeple saying they have 4 in minimum 3 stats and alteast one 5. I just bet his friends are one of those used to how the stats really looked in oWoD."

I DID read the post, and I can see his problem. Once, for the hell of it, I actually statted out a friend in the oWoD system. He had several 3s, but no 4s, and most of his statistics were 2s. To his credit, he had NO 1s in my opinion. In skills, he did have one 4, but he was very, very good at that skill. I showed it to several friends, and they said they agreed with my stat-up, as did the person himself. I tried to match that in nWoD, and ran out of points, even with the Seasoned experience pool. And my friend isn't a seasoned adventurer. He's a working Joe from the same town as me, who played in a D&D group I was in at the time.

I've never met the college student as described in Manga Boogie Man's post, but I've run into the same dilemma as he did.

And fanboy, don't make bets about people you know nothing about. You'll end up broke really fast.