 January 18, 2008 - 7:29am | Why do Race Ability Scores Modifiers have to equal a balance of 0 when creating characters? (except Humans, I think they get a +5 to any one ability match) I noticed that if a race has a +5 to say STR/STA they get a -5 to say....uhm... PER/LDR. You could call them offsets as well. Take the new race Weren for example:
...just curious Caveat: For the most part, looking at race ability modifiers I can see a balance with the exception of Yazirians, it seems most material reads, "There are two BIG Yaz's in the corner watching you." Seems like there always treated as big and grumpy. Grumpy is a skill, ask me I know. | ||||||||||
 January 18, 2008 - 8:19am | I like them to sum to zero only because the core races in the Alpha Dawn book do. It makes characters have an official feel to them and helps to balance their influence in the Frontier. But technically, you're right. There really is no reason for it. It's an artificial form of fairness built into the rules. The real power of a species is seldom coded into its ability scores (except perhaps extreme bonuses and penalties), it is in its special abilities. I rejected a racial submission once (for the SFman) that had a PC race who could form kinetic bubbles of psionic distructive energy and launch them at their foes. It cost them Current STA to hurl. Each 1 point of STA resulted in a 1d10 grenade-like blast. For example, someone who wanted to hurl a frag-grenade effect would spend 8 of their Current STA. They had no other mental abilities. I said it was a little too powerful, and suggested that the STR/STA score should have a negative penalty to keep these people from becomming walking batteries of free frag grenades. I went back and forth with this person trying to balance the race but eventually he stopped the dialogue. (btw - if you're on this site and want to continue the discussion, please email me, as the race wasn't bad just a bit overbalanced). 3. We wear sungoggles during the day. Not because the sun affects our
vision, but when you're cool like us the sun shines all the time. |
