6th Edition Rules for previous editions

[Hugh Neilson]

I think INT is fairly priced now.  I could see house ruling that PER is 10+(INT/10)- and it would still be close enough.  I think DEX is likely overpriced. Most of this game is combat - attack rolls and effect rolls and defenses, et al. Skill rolls and CHA rolls are less common/less useful, IME. But because of DEX's use in combat occasionally (DFC, etc.), I can try to live with DEX at 2.

How does the fact it takes more INT to bump up PER influence the pricing of enhanced PER?

 

And if my cyborg detective with artificial eye and ear implants buys +3 Sight and +3 Hearing, that costs 12 points. Or for the same 12 points, I could get +4 with Sight, Hearing, Smell/Taste, Touch, and anything else!

I don't think the fact costing issues exist elsewhere means we should abandon any hope, but that we should assess costing of related abilities overall. At some point, we hit the granularity limit that we can't differentiate any further, but when we see an example such as the above, where you can clearly pay less and get more, I think it should be addressed.

 

I could live with the cost of +3 to Sight and Hearing being equal to the price of +3 with all senses. This simply indicates the bonus to the other senses does not add enough benefit to make it worth more points (or, taken another way, that "Only Sight and Hearing" is not even limiting enough to merit a -1/4 limitation).

 

However, if we move to the theory that enhanced PER is merely limited INT, we are presently paying 60% of the cost of INT to enhance those PER rolls, or a "-2/3" limitation, so somewhere in the -1/2 to -3/4 range. I don't think that is right, but let's proceed on that basis. Maybe instead of "3 points for all senses, 2 for one sense group, 1 for a single sense", we should just use limited INT. For most characters, is "only normal sight" appropriately a -2 limitation on something that would otherwise impact all senses? If it is, I suggest "only smell" should be a way higher limitation anyway.

 

If we accept that PER is half of the value of INT, and that INT all together is only worth 1 point, +1 still is in the 3 point range (2.5, but we don't price in half points). So let's work with that - PER Only is a -1 limitation on INT (and so is "No PER Bonus).

 

Your cyborg only gets sight and hearing. What is he losing? Does he have enhancements to other senses? If not, sight and hearing will cover most of the rolls he makes, so this is a pretty minor added limit. Let's change from -1 to -1 1/4. +15 INT, PER only then costs 15/2 = 7.5, rounds to 7. +15 INT, Sight and Hearing PER only costs 15/2.25 = 6.67, rounds to 7. So you still save no points, but getting a bit less costs the same instead of more. If you later decide to improve to +4, all PER would cost 10 and Sight/Hearing costs 9, so we reach a breakpoint eventually. +2 would have been 5 or 4 points.

 

Now, if we accept that +1 to all non-PER INT rolls is worth 5, and +1 to all PER INT rolls is worth 5, we have +15 INT (PER only) costing 30/2 = 15, and +15 INT, sight and hearing only, costing 30/2.25 = 13.

 

As I think on it, the problem is that simple and fair move in opposite directions. It is simpler to set a flat price for +1 with all sense groups, one group and one sense. But that skews costing in some cases, as we can see above.