Chargen with Hubris

[Archade]

I like the idea of action points for the critters - that way min/maxers can't take advantage of it.

Rather than work out point buy, I'd go back to my idea of counting up stat modifiers. If a PC has +5 total (+2 more than they should), give the monsters 2 action points *every* encounter. If lots of the players have lots of hubris, it means the monsters will roll higher every combat...

 

[Nyaricus]

A very intriguing beginning to an intriguing sub-system. I'm listening closely to see what becomes of it

 

[DerHauptman]

I have let my players pick their scores for some 6+ years and I have really not had any ridiculous scores. Sometimes a guy will make a 50 point buy or something but when that happens the players sort of balance it out among themselves.

They will tolerate one guy taking center for a scenario or campaign then let someone else do it next time. My players are about ideas, sometimes an idea might require those scores. However, next time the player who got to be the hero will take his turn with the cleric or bard...support, support, support.

We don't play with the theory that all 12's and no gear makes for a more challenging game. Its the flavor that matters, a game with power house characters can be just as challenging -provided one knows how to balance the challenges to the characters abilities. Reading straight out of the MM will not be challenging for 30+ point buy characters.

Overly restrictive choices and limits turn players off. Let them play what they want and you as the DM do the work to make the challenges appropriate. Let them work out their party balance issues themselves with roles and such. It has always worked out in the wash for me and my crew.

Hell, I found that the sheer peer pressure put on each other to be realistic has been more of a controlling factor than any - DM imposed balance system.

I guess if you have pick up games and rotate players a lot it might require some intervention but IMG we've had only 4 new guys in that same time frame (6+ years) so even though sometimes the new guy will overreach the first time he makes a new character he will soon realize that he has sort of imbalanced the game a bit.

I have even had a player work with me to make some in game reason for his character to loose ability scores permanently because he felt bad about making some choices he thought were a bit off.

DH -

 

[jcfiala]

This reminds me a lot of "Good Stuff" and "Bad Stuff" from the Amber Diceless RPG. I think I might like it.

It's been a while since I've read the Amber game, and I don't own a copy - can you remind me how that worked?

 

[Michael Silverbane]

It was much as you described it in your initial post. If something bad was going to happen to someone in the party... It was going to happen to the guy with bad stuff. People treat folks with bad stuff poorly, as a matter of course. The guy with bad stuff gets splashed with mud on the way to the royal ball. A volley of arrows launched at a group of people strikes the fellow with bad stuff... etc. And the opposite with good stuff.

Obviously, with the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game, there was very very little system guidance for how to adjudicate or implement good or bad stuff. Everything was pretty much left up to the game master.

Later
silver

 

[Fenris]

I think useing total bonuses over N and then subtracting that from Action dice available would be a good way of going.

The characters with all high stats will be heroic pretty much all the time. But the guys with the lower stats will outshine them when the going gets tough by having the action points to pull off the truley remarkable feats of heroism.

Might play well into different people's expectations of what thier particular vision of a hero can do ( the hero vs the everyman who has to dig deep.)

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

total points spent - 32, divide by 10 or part there of. This is the increase in the size of the action dice you may use against that paticular PC

So a base D4 becomes

D6 1-10
D8 11-20
D10 21-30
D12 31-40
2D8 41-50
2D10 51-60
2D12 61-64* (at all 18s)

Kinda harsh at 2D8+, maybe...

1-10 D4
11-20 D6
21-30 D8
31-40 D10
41-50 D12
51-60 D12 or reroll, if your NPC rolls a 1 for example.
61-64 D12 or declare a "natural twenty".

Only one per round for the DM. DM gets one dice for every 3 levels of the party average. These refresh each session/adventure. And yes, zero hubris means you are immune to action dice.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I agree with the action point idea above.

Another idea may be to do something like the following: To use an action point requires rolling over your huburis on 3D6. Each failed roll adds a +2 synergy bonus to the next attempt.
There should probably be some sort of limit/cost with attempting to use an action point, say, just straight losing it regardless of the roll's success or failure. Or, maybe it costs a move action to try and use an AP.

I'm against a "DM decides to do bad things to a character with high huberis" sort of idea. I'm much more of a carrot than a stick guy. Especially when it's an arbitrarally wielded stick. If it's a stick, I like it to be as fair as possible.

 

[iwatt]

I think useing total bonuses over N and then subtracting that from Action dice available would be a good way of going.

This is similar (but alot more thought out ) than wjhat I posted earlier in this thread. I'm not sure how the numbers will turn out. The SRD rules for Action Points state that the number of action points gained at each level is.

5+1/2 Level


It's also somwehat assumed that players aren't hoarding the action points too much, since the starting APs for higher level charcters is the same. How true this is ina ctual play experience will probably vary.

So say you set N as the mean PB. For every 2 points over N you earn one AP less per level. For every 2 points under N you earn 1 AP more.

OPinions? I chose 2 because if we set N=32, because 22-42 seems like a decent spread.