Re: basic permanent stats
I see you point.
But think of it this way. Two character concepts will go through one adventure, in this adventure they will face two fights. One where they are attacked by unarmed thugs and they don't have guns themselves and one combat where they have guns and are attacked by armed thugs.
The two characters are built as combat specialists one with martial arts and the other with guns.
Lets imagine that they are built on 75 point base with 75 points of disadvantages. The martial artist takes plenty of martial art maneuvers, buys up his speed and pd, increase his str and con and takes talents that help him in fights.
The gun guy buys up his dex and int, takes skill levels with pistols, buy himself talent to fire two guns at once, buy max allowed skill levels for beginning characters with his guns and takes extra skill levels only to counter hit location penalties.
Now they are in the adventure and as you might expect the martial artist kicks *** in the first combat and the gun wielder in the next one.
What I am saying is: If they were built on lower points the amount of asskicking they would deal out in the different combats would be much closer to each other, even though they might fight thugs built on lower point totals.
Do you understand what I mean?
They might look different on the paper but in "actual" combat they would be quite equal.