Post originally by Roy Morgan at 2005-02-18 16:55:58
Converted from Phorums BB System

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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.
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“Bull. Standard distribution for abilities BEFORE freebies was 7/5/3. In that system, a vamp MUST have a 4 in at least one stat, and if at this bare minimum then the other two under the same category are at 3. Having 5 in a stat costed one more point than having 4 in a stat, unlike VtR.”

Find the right tree to bark up. We were discussing the SCALE of attributes, not the starting points.

“In VtR, the distribution is 5/4/3, then one +1 due to Clan. I've shown how this can be munchkined to get one 5, but the other two stats under the same category (P/M/S) were 2. It actually costs more to get one 5 unless you cheat as I did in my example on another thread, which was technically just like a VtM cheat. It is impossible to have two 5s without having four 1s in VtR. If you min-max, you will have six 1s, two 5s, and one 4. When we talk freebies, I'll get another laugh out of this, as freebies created "5-palooza"

“Point: Not a good idea to Min-Max the Attributes of VtR.”

Point: You can now see why I think starting characters in this game are pathetic, considering how much harder it is to succeed at anything in this game, even on unresisted rolls. Which is fine if you're a power-tripping GM, but rotten if you're a player.

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We've been here already. The scale IS the same.
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“Technically, as written, it is the same. But not in practice. The above attribute distribution REQUIRED that you be exceedingly above average at Physical, Mental, or Social stats, the new game doesn't.”

Which is fine for Victim Horror, but not a lot of help if you want characters to survive for a little while.

“In the new game, you can play a guy with four 3s and five 2s in stats, suitably more average. It is mathematically impossible to have no 4s in VtM unless you take a flaw to do so. And 4 is supposed to be Exceptional. Hell, Mortals in that game were 6/4/3, which meant that they were at least Good at an entire category (P/M/S). They didn't stat the creatures to scale in the game, IMO.”

“Also, since the success ratio per die went from (technically) 50% to 30%, the scale also went down as a result, mathematically. “

Now we get into something that addresses the perception of the scale of attributes. And you’re right, the SCALE itself doesn’t change. I believe I said something about that, remember?

In practice, it is indeed harder to get higher attributes. It’s also MUCH easier to fail at even easy actions, since successes are so much harder to get than in the old system. And you have to get them now with fewer dice on harder actions. Yes, one success will grant you victory, but often you can’t even get that. Playtesting was downright embarrassing sometimes. It also left my old VtM group (of some eight or so years) insisting we go back to the old game, or at least that we start working on fixing this one. The latter won out.

“I'm sorry, this seems like a personal problem, not one of the system.”

Looks are deceiving.

“What, were you fighting Werewolves every encounter?”

Nope. Often they were low-level vampires who were prepared for trouble, or even ordinary people who knew a little about what made vampires tick, and prepared accordingly. I usually played members of ‘attitude adjusting’ squads, so I know very well how combat works. I shudder to think of THREE starting vampires going up against even one starting werewolf in oWoD. Dead meat, literally.

If werewolves are as pathetic as everybody else in nWoD, though, that’ll probably change.

“I remember that I usually had one to three 5s, four to six 4s, a multitude of 3s, and at least 5 points in Disciplines on my VtM CS. That's what I would call a badass if I took the scale of the system into account.”

That’s what I would call impossible, if characters in the old system were created strictly according to the 7/5/3 attributes, 13/9/5 abilities (skills), 3 disciplines, 15 Freebie Points VtM chargen system.

“You do realize that in VtM characters were supposed to start as Neonates!”

Sickeningly aware, actually.

“Seriously, scale it down if the adversaries seemed to powerful, it's because they were scaled too high. Or the Storyteller wanted to go home.”

Somehow I doubt scaling was an issue, considering many of our opponents were made up with the same starting points as we were. And if my players weren’t smart enough to handle that, I’d want to go home, too. Thankfully, that was never a problem with our group. The GM’s lucky dice were the usual difficulty.

Of course, the neonates tended to die like flies when anything slightly more powerful showed up, especially when they had no chance to prepare.

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"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.
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“I'm stopping you right there. So you're saying that a flat rate for all abilities vs a progressively more expensive rate for higher abilities "encourages min-maxing"?

Indeed I am. You’ll see why below.

“Ok, lets do some math. If the higher you buy something, the more it costs to buy it higher, you will have lower abilities. Your arguement is that the characters will min-max with the starting flat points, and use the exp to buy low skills.”

“At CC in VtR, you have a scant amount of attribute points.”

No question of that.

“I've shown this. You get 11/7/4 to spend on Skills, which are set in 3 categories of 8 each. That means that no matter what, in two of those categories, you will be untrained in something. If you min max, you probably won't be able to do squat because using Mental Skills forces a -3 to die rolls with that skill, Using Physical and Social skills without any ranks forces a -1. So if you min-max, you'll be SOL about 90% of the time after CC. You will have a grand total of 3 skills in the 11 category (one at 5, one 4, one 1, 5th dot costs 2), 2 skills in the 7 Category (One at 5, one at 1), and 1 skill at 4 in the 4 Category. This combined with high-low Attributes means you will be doing JACK!”

“Or, to be more technical, you will have 2 Master skills (in different categories), 2 Expert skills (in different categories), and 2 Novice skills (yes, in different categories). That's 6 out of 24 skills learned. The rest will be at die penalties and you'll get a chance roll (10% chance of success) to use most of them. On that chance roll, you will also have 10% chance of utter failure (worse than the regular kind).”

“Point: Not a good idea to Min-Max in the skills system.”

I’ve already explained this previously, but here we go again…

Here’s some math. Costs for Exp for skill levels are, from 1-5, 3-6-9-12-30 (remember, the fifth dot costs the same as spending two dots for skills in chargen). And you have to buy each level separately, so it comes out as 3-9-18-30-60, if you start from scratch and go to five. Even just buying that all-important fourth level when you’ve bought three with your skill pool from chargen is really expensive. Costs for using the skill pool? 1-1-1-1-2! Totaling 1-2-3-4-6! Easy min-max for this junker of a chargen system? BUY ALL YOUR HIGHER SKILLS WITH THE SKILL POOL, THEN THE LOWER ONES WITH EXPERIENCE POINTS!! How’d that get by you?!

To get more technical yet, you don’t have to ramp every skill up to its absolute maximum to be min-maxing. Higher does not mean all-powerful. All you have to do is put it fairly high (4), which will save you points in the long run, and give you enough to have 2 skills at 4 in one category, 1 in another, and one in one more if you really want to blow your whole load of points on one skill in that tertiary category. You still have 3 points on one category, 3 in another (and maybe 4 in that last one if you’re careful), and then 11 1-dot skills with Exp. That’s enough to be skilled in all but four skills (or none of them if you don’t buy that oh-so-tempting 4 in the tertiary category). A true min-maxer will make sure there’s at least one dot in every Mental skill, to avoid that stiff –3 Unskilled penalty.

So no, no point. Good thinking, but you were thinking in the wrong direction.

“I recommend NOT starting anyone with any XP, because it makes for a level playing field, and sticks to the same story as the previous game (VtM) that the characters just got let out of their sire's care.”

My old group would never go for that, and understandably so (and this crew has been Good Roleplayers And True, despite spotty pasts, for a very long time now). Said sire would have to be both sadistic and lazy not to teach his childer better than those poor neonates. And more than one vamp is known to look for people who are already capable individuals in order to create neonates. Which leaves starting VtR characters off his list of possibilities.

“I have been told that the book recommends 35 XP, but I have yet to read this therein or be cited a page number for said recommendation. An example of this possibility follows. “

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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).
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“Actually, with the method discussed and 35 XP to spend, someone who min-maxed originally and looking to round out their character would be able to buy 11 skills at level 1 and have 2 XP left over. They would still not be skilled in 7 skills, nearly 1/3 of the list. The remainder would be GREATNESS at 4 skills and relatively pathetic at the remaining 13.”

Right. And if they were a bit more conservative and didn’t max out those few skills? They could end up having 1 in nearly half the skill list just from Exp-bought skills, and still be decent at seven or eight skills. And they’d avoid those really nasty unskilled penalties, particularly if they dropped most of those 1s into Mental Skills.

“Not a good idea to do this at all. The game really doesn't work with min-maxers. It's one of the reasons I like it, and don't think I haven't had this arguement with myself before.”

I think you need to have it again.

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This is exacerbated by the fact that the experience point amounts given don't go very far at all.
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“Nope sorry, if you were looking for Vampire Superheroes, you will have to play something else (I actually recommend Angel over VtM, it was written much better and you don't have to be a Vamp if you don't want to).”

Having played the Buffy RPG and read the Angel RPG, I’d recommend Angel over anything by WW now, even if you’re like me and just want to play a solid supernatural game that’s fun. Repeatedly watching easy unopposed rolls come up empty in VtR is definitely no fun. Pick up Angel instead of nWoD and VtR. Better game, and you’ll save money, too.

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The same mechanic also applies to attributes. The freebie point system avoided this, as every dot in the same category had the same cost.
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“Which didn't avoid it, it facilitated it. High stats in this game cost too much to buy effectively at CC in VtR, while in VtM I was lucky not to see four 5s on my character sheet.”

Are you sure you’re playing VtM ‘strictly according to the standard chargen rules’? I mentioned the attribute spread above. At most, you can buy three points worth of attributes with the standard allotment of Freebies (15). That’s not enough to get four 5s in anything.

“Is the problem that you want to roll 10 dice for every action?”

No. Stop trying to sound clever. You’re terrible at it.

“I really don't understand this arguement. The 2nd dot in an attribute costs 10 XP, the fifth costs 25. Wouldn't you rather buy the fifth if it only costs 2.5 times as much?”

See above. And check your math. The last dot would cost 50! Remember, it costs the same as TWO attribute points to buy the fifth dot in an attribute. Even if it didn’t, how many points would you still have to boost other attributes? Not a lot, neh? And isn’t the point of min-maxing to get the most benefit for the least expenditure? You won’t do that buying high attributes that you can get much cheaper with the Attribute pool from chargen. The new system discourages having 5 in anything. It really doesn't discourage anything else.

“If you use the above example and buy your low stats with a 35 XP starting splat, you'll only get three of the six 1's you min'ed back to 2. Then your skills will REALLY suck.”

But your attributes won’t. And they can potentially add to every skill, right?

“Moral of the story: Not a good idea to Min-Max in VtR.”

Untrue. Particularly if you can persuade your GM to allow you to start with Experience. In my group, that wasn’t hard, considering how pathetic everybody thought starting characters were. So we started creating characters with 35 Experience Points. When the mention of the min-maxing problem I noticed came up, we kept at it with 75 Exp, then 100, as the process of finding the flaws of the system became more morbidly fascinating. Combat got even better. In the end, we figured we were all better off for only having bought one copy of the book (except me, as I’d paid for the copy).

I’d sell it if it weren’t so easy to convert d20 material to it, and I couldn’t houserule it into usability. I mean, the Merits list reads like a Feat list. The first thing that sprang to mind was ‘RAVENLOFT!’

“It's funny that you say that VtR's exp system facilitates Min-Maxing, then say that it doesn't give enough XP to be good at facilitating the Min-Maxing of the system.”

You’re amazingly good at misinterpreting what I say. Here it is again, condensed: The chargen system encourages min-maxing. Which is a good thing, considering how pathetic starting characters are, in a game that makes succeeding at anything much harder than it should be. Just make sure you get a higher starting total of Exp. You won’t improve much on 35.

“But what do I know? It's just my logic and math skills on my side, nothing more.”

At least you presented a reasonably intelligent argument. Kudos to you for that.

“Have a nice day.”

Et toi.

CONTROL FREAK GMS TAKE NOTE! If you’re dealing with min-maxing players (or any kind of players, for that matter), nWoD is your wet dream. Starting characters are so amazingly pathetic that they’d have a hard time heckling a Peewee League baseball game (even without the parents) and coming out of it alive. And if they do, and you get tired of it, all it takes is one overpowered NPC (after all, YOU don’t have to pay attention to those annoying chargen rules! And what about those combat rules, hey-hey!) with a sawed-off shotgun (it kills at 80 yards!), a greataxe (five more melee dice, baby!), and a few stakes to correct their delusions of adequacy. Kill characters and correct that annoying problem of having players in your game in one fell swoop!