Point-Based Character Creation?

[The Galactus Kid]

No point-buy that I remember.

[Sentinel]

Characters like robots, bionics/Borgs, and the Eugenics (HUII, PUII) are characters purchased (almost literally, since the points are in $$$ value).
For the most part though, character generation is a matter of the classic random roll system with templates for each character class/occupation/race/etc.

[MikeM]

Hi mechanimorph!

Robotech is what brought me back to Palladium Books as well.
I hadn't touched a Palladium broduct in 10 years. Rifter 12 was the last thing I bought and it was brand new at the time. Why do I keep sharing that fact?

Anyway, I personally would LOVE to see a point based character creation rule set. I think something like that would work great for games like ATB, Beyond the Supernatural, Ninjas and Superspies and especially Robotech.

If you do come up with something, I agree with Misfit KotLD, submit it to The Rifter.

MikeM

[bigbobsr6000]

This is what I came up with before. It is based on all Attributes are rolled with 3d6's. You can find my post below. Feel free to use and abuse. At least I hope this helps.

POST

Adjustments for more or less d6's rolled. (These are later changes now posted.)
#die=base starting number
1d6=6
2d6=8
3d6=10
4d6=12
5d6=14
etc........

Enjoy

[bigbobsr6000]

This is what I came up with before. It is based on all Attributes are rolled with 3d6's. You can find my post below. Feel free to use and abuse. At least I hope this helps.

Cool thanks for that... I can see straight away that I'll need to give incentives for players not to min/max their non-"essential" stats to 9 or 10 because there is a dead spot between 9 and 16 as far as penalties and bonuses are concerned.

How about this as a bonus to add to skill/skills of choice for each attribute point above the base. +2 to added to a skill buy point bank above the base. EX: Using base 10, PB of 18 = 18-10=8x2=+16 added to his skill point bank. This is addition to gaining the skills normally as per OCC/RCC/PCC.

Spend point=Result to skills
1=+1% to any existing skill
50= A new OCC/RCC/PCC skill
35= A new OCC/RCC/PCC related skill
20= A new OCC/RCC/PCC secondary skill
Note that all skill rules apply as to starting percentages.

One could also come up with a Skill Point Buy system based on the table above. You could limit them to say 12 OCC skills, 8 related and 6 secondary, or whatever. Based on above say 1100 points to buy skills to customize their character. You would then award Skill Buy Points along with the XP's so they could buy new skills at levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15. Of course you could adjust any of this as to the campaign, setting, GM's whim, etc. And all must be approved by the GM.

So, what do you think?

[bigbobsr6000]

Fixed, and thanks for reminding me, I forgot to go back and change it.

[bigbobsr6000]

I edited the orginal with the info you have quoted, Was there something else?

[bigbobsr6000]

I don't know how to do that.

[bigbobsr6000]

Yeah! I figured it out, its fixed.

[bigbobsr6000]

Nice

You're a bit ahead of me with the OCCs and skills at the moment. That's currently Step 5 and I'm dabbling in Step 3.

There are also attribute limits on selecting existing OCCs so that is another disincentive to leave attributes at the base level. I need to look closer at typical O.C.Cs to see if they work as a form of Occupation "Template" in order to get cheaper skills. From my memory of RIFTS OCCs though, I'm thinking that could be problematic. Especially those OCCs that drift between Occupation and Racial character classes.

I also have another area where some character bonuses/abilities need to be derived from the core attributes which will also give them incentives to get the most out of their character's attributes.

I would really like to see your system when you get it finished. If you do not want to post it, you can PM it or email me if you are so inclined. And thanks for your comments.

Big Bob..................................

[Brian Manning]

I was going to do something sort of point buyish. Not a full out point buy system, but something less random than 3D6. I'm going to run Rifts and/or Robotech (separately) with my gaming group, and I'm trying to think of something that will help them build charcters specially suited to a certain task with a little more control than "roll 3D6 eight times and place the results in whichever attribute you like."

Here's what I came up with (it's very rough, and just brewin' around the top of my head...I don't think it speeds things up, though. Just gives the players a little more stable base to build characters from):

all 8 attributes start at a base of 10 (possibly 8 or 9, but I'm not too concerned with that)

They would have an additional 8D6 to distribute amongst the attributes. So they could either add 1D6 to each of the 8, or place more emphasis on a certain attribute and adding 2D6 to that one (I was thinking a max of 2D6 per attribute, but obviously one of the others will be stuck at 10).

On top of all that is an option to also roll a D6 and subtract that amount from one attribute and add that amount into another attribute (I would probably allow the player to add that amount to an attribute they already added the max 2D6 to) if you really want to place more emphasis on a certain attribute or character type. If you allowed that, then the minimum attribute would be 4, and the max (before skills) would be 28 (10 + 2D6 + 1D6 leeched from another attribute).

I don't know if any of that makes sense, but it sounds about right in my head. I've never done it, or put much thought into it beyond typing it here, so I don't know if there are any glaring issues that pop up to anyone here.

*edit*
OK, so I've been putting a little more thought into this (thanks for sparking my imagination, mechanimorph ) and if I had the base number for the eight attributes at 12, it would probably work out better as far as minimum and maximum attributes (5 and 30 respectively, since I allow my players to reroll 3's and 4's anyway). But then you would have a lot of very capable characters (if they chose to add 1D6 to all attributes, they could potentially have a character with all 18s before skills). I don't know what you guys think about that, though.

Perhaps I could also just change the "attribute leeching" part as well. Instead of allowing them to pull 1D6 from an attribute and add it to another, I'll just say subtract 2 from an attribute and add it to a different attribute (but you can only subtract a total of 4 from any one attribute). I don't know, just throwin' out ideas here.

[NMI]

I was going to do something sort of point buyish. Not a full out point buy system, but something less random than 3D6. I'm going to run Rifts and/or Robotech (separately) with my gaming group, and I'm trying to think of something that will help them build charcters specially suited to a certain task with a little more control than "roll 3D6 eight times and place the results in whichever attribute you like."

Here's what I came up with (it's very rough, and just brewin' around the top of my head...I don't think it speeds things up, though. Just gives the players a little more stable base to build characters from):

all 8 attributes start at a base of 10 (possibly 8 or 9, but I'm not too concerned with that)

They would have an additional 8D6 to distribute amongst the attributes. So they could either add 1D6 to each of the 8, or place more emphasis on a certain attribute and adding 2D6 to that one (I was thinking a max of 2D6 per attribute, but obviously one of the others will be stuck at 10).

On top of all that is an option to also roll a D6 and subtract that amount from one attribute and add that amount into another attribute (I would probably allow the player to add that amount to an attribute they already added the max 2D6 to) if you really want to place more emphasis on a certain attribute or character type. If you allowed that, then the minimum attribute would be 4, and the max (before skills) would be 28 (10 + 2D6 + 1D6 leeched from another attribute).

I don't know if any of that makes sense, but it sounds about right in my head. I've never done it, or put much thought into it beyond typing it here, so I don't know if there are any glaring issues that pop up to anyone here.

*edit*
OK, so I've been putting a little more thought into this (thanks for sparking my imagination, mechanimorph ) and if I had the base number for the eight attributes at 12, it would probably work out better as far as minimum and maximum attributes (5 and 30 respectively, since I allow my players to reroll 3's and 4's anyway). But then you would have a lot of very capable characters (if they chose to add 1D6 to all attributes, they could potentially have a character with all 18s before skills). I don't know what you guys think about that, though.

Perhaps I could also just change the "attribute leeching" part as well. Instead of allowing them to pull 1D6 from an attribute and add it to another, I'll just say subtract 2 from an attribute and add it to a different attribute (but you can only subtract a total of 4 from any one attribute). I don't know, just throwin' out ideas here.

could limit the amount of points they can subtract total as well as limit the amount of stats they subtract from. also if they subtract from one stat, say PS, they cant later add to it except for possible skills.

[Brian Manning]

Yeah good idea, I just want to make sure there's not a ridiculous amount of of number maneuvering/book keeping, but I still want the players to be able to control their starting attributes a little better.

OK, here's my latest refinement:

eight attributes start at 10 + 1D6. You are allowed to pull the 1D6 from one attribute and apply it to another (but you can only add that additional 1D6 to an attribute once) and apply it to another attribute. Additionally, you can pull up to 4 points off of an attribute that you already pulled the 1D6 from, and distribute it amongst other attributes, however you can only add those points to attributes that you haven't already pulled additional points from (but if you pulled the 1D6 from that attribute, you can still add those points).

I'm kind of confusing myself here. Does this make sense to you guys? I'm probably going to use it (once it's refined here) for my next game.

[bigbobsr6000]

Cool system, I like it.

[NMI]

Looks good.
the calculator doesnt seem to work though. It wont let me input data, attributes, change starting CP points, etc..

[NMI]

deific.nmi@gmail.com

[bigbobsr6000]

Hey, mechanimorph, would you please hook me up to? Thanks.

bigbobsr6000@gmail.com

[Mediapig71]

Sorry this is a necro, but I was wondering, has anyone come up with a point buy just for attributes? I always let players pick and choose the rest, but a simple attribute point buy would really help. (or even something like Arrays, from D&D)