[PR] S.T. Cooley Publishing releases "Buy the Numbers"

pogre said:
Sigil,

I bought By the Numbers and am most pleased. I was wondering if you have a spread sheet that could do some of the calculating to allow DMs to build NPCs? Grafting is easy, but an aid in building would be most helpful for me.
Now you see, this is one of the nice "perks" of PDF publishing. I've gotten considerable feedback already, and I'm going to try to spend some time in the next week or so implementing some of the suggestions... including expanding the content another 6 pages or so (I hope to incorporate psionics and d20 Modern) and of course a spreadsheet to aid in calculation should be forthcoming. Hopefully I can squeeze them off by the "one-month anniversary" of BtN (July 29) and everyone who has purchased a copy will get a link for a free update. :)

--The Sigil
 

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Sounds like a great add-on. I'll look forward to the calculating sheets although like you, I don't care about psionics.

Sorry I screwed up the title of your product in my first post. I fixed it.
 

POGRE's call for a spreadsheet is well placed. I too think that would be a handy and welcome addition. I did want to make one comment about the book. Your assertion in the Introduction is a correct one. Perhaps developing an iconic character, giving him (or her) a background, and progressing him through the levels as you read through the book would break the, erm, dry effect of reading a bunch of math facts. From the sound of things though maybe you dont need to do that. I understand this is quite a sleeper hit. Congratulations and I look forward to seeing a spreadsheet if you can get one made.
 

In addition to the spreadsheet I am wondering how races with level adjustments, templates, and other abilities that are gained outside the class/level systems would be treated in this system?

Overall, though, its a damn fine book.
 




on the long table like BAB it would be nice to also havea table of what it costs going from say a 3-4 BAB instead of just having the total cost.
 

Crothian said:
on the long table like BAB it would be nice to also havea table of what it costs going from say a 3-4 BAB instead of just having the total cost.

Great suggestion - that would be helpful
 

Ok, I bought the pdf and did the math on the three generic classes from Unearthed Arcana (and dude, you forgot tower shield proficiency! :) ). To save time, I measured them at 20th level only. And I freely admit my math-fu may be weak. But assuming that the spellcaster's access to druid, cleric and sorceror lists counts as one major list (because otherwise it gets even worse -- see below) the generic spellcaster "costs" the most and ends up at the very high end of 20th level equivalent at 208 538. The generic warrior gets 181 580, putting her midway between 19th and 20th. The generic expert gets 164 990, putting her mid-way between 18th and 19th. So it is official, Sigil. According to your system the generic expert, in fact, got the shaft compared to the generic warrior and, it seems, the generic spellcaster. One fix is to give the generic expert 2 more skill points per level. That puts the expert's score at 183 620, which is pretty close to the warrior.

I was very surprised to see that the spellcaster was so much higher in the experience points (does this make her "broken" compared to the other two?) One quick, albeit drastic, solution, is to stick the generic spellcaster with 3 bad saves. Then she would be at 180 538, again within spitting distance of the warrior.

Note, a non-spontaneous version of the spell caster would only cost 191 433, but even that puts her ahead of the other two. Mind you, no one said the generics were *fully* balanced, and maybe all that magical power is worth it. Who am I to judge?

I wonder if the spontaneous casters get shafted a bit in your system, since they have to pay twice, once for spell slots and once for spells known, while you give clerics a free ride on spells available to be chosen from for the day (and a lesser free ride to the wizard, with that "Free 2 spells per level" stuff) I would have access to spells for non-spontaneous casters something to be bought with xp, and maybe made that closer to the Simple proficiencies (single weapon or group)/ Martial proficiencies (single weapon or group) that you use. Thus a cleric who only wanted one "preparable" spell per level (the relevant cure spell, say) would get a cheaper deal than the cleric that got access to every spell on the cleric spell list when she prayed/prepared for spells.

However, overall I appreciate the work you put into this, and do not regret my purchase, and only slightly regret the aggravation of learning how the heck paypal works (but at least that is a one-time aggravation cost). Besides, the aggravation is greatly outweighed at the joy of having a system to point to that added support to my intuition and contention that the generic expert got the shaft! :)

Now you have me thinking about designing a "tough", with good BAB, d12 hd, 3 good saves, and not much else...
 

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