O.L.D. May play test

[Korth]

so i was building a few character to playtest with and i noticed an issue with the primitive tradition. Is there a reason that the primitive starting tradition only has 2 skills (nature and outdoor skills). I would think that a primitive would have survival skills to live exposed to the elements and herbalism to know what they can and can’t eat and how to heal themselves like a shaman. Also they only have 3 attribute points where others have 4. also to that end the same issue is seen with slave and urchin. Other then for story line reason I see these traditions as a lose if they are used at all.

I would purpose the following changes to balance them with the others.

Primitive: (I see them as tribal barbarians)
STR +1 | AGI +1 | END + 1 | LUC +1 (they have to have some luck to survive in the wilds)
Nature, outdoor skills, survival, herbalism
+2 to your SPEED

Slave: (born into the slave pit. The worst slave conditions possible … with chains, little food, no rights, floggings, ect)
STR +1/-1 (+1 due to a life of hard labor or -1 from malnourishment)| END +1 | WIL +1 | LUC +1 (have to have some luck to get away from a life to would have been sure to kill them)
Crafting skills, Animal handling, Farming, Mining
Gain an extra death/dying countdown die when reduced to 0 HEALTH

Urchin: born on the streets or escaped to them very early in life (I see this a the kids that grew up on the streets maybe in a gang, knew little of a normal home life).
AGI +1 | END +1 | WIL or CHA +1 (+1 to WIL to find a place and way to survive in the streets as a kid or CHA to con your way through it)| LUC +1
Perception, Running, Stealth, Survival, Thievery
Heal a bonus 1 die HEALTH each day

This could just be house-ruled to to make it to my liking but i wondered if anyone else saw this a problem? Am i just reading to much into it or is there some reason that they are set up that way?

 

[Sniperfox47]

Outdoor skills is a category, one that includes survival among other things. When a category is on a skill list you can choose any skill from it.

 

[Morrus]

Yup; outdoor skills contains a whole bunch of 'em!

 

[Korth]

ok that make much more sense. thank you Sniperfox47 for clearing that up.

now what about the attribute issue? why only 2 or 3 total where the others get 4?

 

[Sniperfox47]

I think that ones because of... Raisins? Reasons? Something like that!

Seriously though, that seems to be an issue with more than just starter traditions. The guide suggests increases of "about 2-3" but there are quite a few traditions that deviate from this quite substantially...

 

[Korth]

Seriously though, that seems to be an issue with more than just starter traditions. The guide suggests increases of "about 2-3" but there are quite a few traditions that deviate from this quite substantially...

i agree that with some of the higher traditions that they pull away from this rule but that could be explained away due to the tradition being of an advanced nature and having requirements for the tradition. now there are a few that seemed over powered but the starting traditions (i think anyway) should be more of a level playing field where a character from any starting tradition starts with the same amount of gain as any other.

 

[Khaalis]

I had noticed this too. In a different thread I had suggested balancing the Attribute bonuses by category. A few changes have been made so I'll re-summarize.

* I would recommend a balance in Attribute points given out by each "group" of Traditions since we have 2 tiers - Starter/Background and Class-based tradition.

* Current Starter Tradition Attribute bonuses: I would recommend making this a standard +4 for all Starter Traditions.
-- Acolyte = +4 / Farmhand = +4 / Noble = +4 / Page = +4 / Primitive = +3 / Slave = +2 / Urchin = +3 / Wizard's Apprentice = +4


* Current Advanced Tradition Attribute bonuses:
These Traditions seem to be all over the place making many of them much more optimal than the others (e.g. ranging from +3 to +7). I would rather see these built on a common frame of say +6 Attribute points.

 

[Morrus]

Not all attributes are equal; neither are all abilities. Ensuring an exact total wouldn't achieve balance and would be unnecessarily confining when designing traditions. A WIL bonus, for example, is not the same as an AGI bonus. And some traditions have stronger abilities or wider skill selections, or higher requirements, etc. Many characters rely on a couple of strong attributes (depending on the character) and having a sprinkling of exactly equal lower attributes wouldn't actually affect gameplay particularly. A wizard with a high INT and MAG attribute isn't going to be more 'balanced' by giving him an extra point of STR - it won't benefit him at all. Similarly, giving a high AGI sniper type extra WIL isn't going to help him much. It's easy to be lured by a sense of symmetry, but I've always felt that the danger of that is falling into blandness. Balance and numerical symmetry aren't always the same thing.

The best way to achieve balance (and this isn't 4E - exact symmetry isn't a goal in itself, and balance is a tool not an end) is to test the traditions and note which feel too weak or too powerful. I'm hoping for some playtesting data on that.

So certainly traditions likely need tweaking, and will do as the playtest progresses as, but focusing solely on mathematical equality in attributes isn't a very strong method of determining that.

So yes, you may have a point, and there may be some which are a bit underpowered, but the solution isn't to ensure that all traditions are exactly symmetrical, it's to tweak 'em until they feel right. It's as much art as science!

 

[Morrus]

As a side note - based on this thread I'm going to make a minor format change in later playtest documents. Skill categories (like magic effect categories) will be surrounded by square brackets. That will indicate it's a category, not a skill. So a skill list in a tradition might look like (for example):

Bluffing, Appraisal, [Performance Skills], Tracking
​

 

[Khaalis]

That makes sense. Question. Is there a rhyme or reason to the order the skills are listed? They aren't alphabetic so are they listed most common/important to least or are they just random?