Starting Characters and Minimaxing

Strange, but different is good


I am intrigued by this idea of making the character sheets (and maybe the character concepts) for the players.  I will definitely try it at least once.


I highly enjoy making characters, and if I were to tailor the character stats to work with eachother (my players don't seem to want to do that) then I would be able to throw much more dangerous monsters and situations at them knowing full well that they could defend themselves appropriately.  Having three archers with melee specialties is weird.


I have tried giving my players more to work with (more bonus points etc.) in character creation because I feel that newly Exalted Solars are not super-charged enough to be capable of "leading attacks on the gods themselves as the demi-god like warrior-kings".  The original character creation leaves the character power range at only highly-exceptional humans in my opinion.  Only a little bit above Heroic Mortals far below earth shaking.


With my beefed up character creation, they are a bit closer to being the ownage vessels they're supposed to be and save the players (and myself) from their growing pains.  I'm still working on it, though, to find a comfortable balance point with just enough killing ability to start them off without fearing death at every moment.
 
If you want to mini-max, fine.  As a storyteller, be creative and try to put them into situations that depend on their mini-skills/attributes.  Then they'll be scrambling fast to balance.  Keep them off guard and switch to an ability that they don't have many points in again.  Sure, sailing doesn't come up that much when you're sitting in the middle of the Elemental Pole of Wood, but I'm sure you could come up with some creative ways to get them to start making better allocations of their dots, such as getting to a place where they need a skyship to get there, and they can't trust anyone to crew it for them without getting them killed or taking advantage of them.  When your Exalts are in a bind, mortals will recognize it and try to take advantage of it because now they're better'n an Exalt for a change.
 
Personally, I don't think you should be bothered by players who min-max.  There are a lot of players out there who loves to figure out ways how to work the system.  I'm one of them in fact.  I'm currently playing 3.5 D&D and all of PCs are battlebots.  Despite that, the DM actually looks up to me for it because, unlike the other 4 players of my troupe, I'm able to min-max because I know the rules.  For about 6 months one of the PCs casts Bear's Endurance, Mass, which grants 2 hit points per level.  Every single time it's cast on her, she has to ask us how many hit points she gets.  EACH AND EVERY TIME.  FOR THE PAST 6 MONTHS.


Why?  Because they haven't bothered to read the rules.  They just want to play and have fun and hang out and have characters with great stories and backgrounds.  Unfortunately, they don't take the time to learn how they're able to do things, like cast spells or use combat maneuvers.  They want to do things according to the story even though they don't know, and won't bother to find out, how those things work within the system.  Even the current DM.  And because I've studied up on the rules but he finds them fishy or he hasn't counted on them, this usually means he has a lot of house rules that go against a lot of printed rules.  This can be maddening for somebody like me who has taken into account the rules by the book and must deal with the often faulty rulings of a DM.


So if you have players who are tweaking the rules, just remember that it could be worse - they could decide to play without bothering to learn any of them.


But if you're still going to be worried about it, I have three ways to address it.


The first is to ask if that person's character would really have that kind of build.  An example once again has to do with D&D.  One of the guys I play with wanted to make for one of my games an Arcane Archer build that lets him attack with a bow and, if he gets a critical hit, use the epic feat Devastating Critical to possibly instantly kill a target from range.  The thing is Devastating Critical has among its prerequisites Power Attack, Cleave and Great Cleave, all feats that can only be used in melee attacks, not ranged.  So I asked him why an archer would even choose to learn those feats.  He thought about it and couldn't give me a good reason and decided to drop it.  He couldn't come up with a reason why a person, if they were real, would do something like that.


My second way to address it also has to do with real life.  How could a person with a Strength and Dexterity of 5 have trained their bodies that well when they could only excercise in short spurts because their Stamina is so low?  Can a person really attain the human perfection of strength and grace when he only trains for 5 minutes and then needing to rest for a half hour before he's able to train again for another 5 minutes?  Perhaps you should point out this logic to them.


The third way I have to address it has a bit to do with the storyline of Exalted.  You might be able to keep your PCs from min-maxing too much by pointing out that the Solar Exalted are superb generalists.  You could infer from that that the Unconquered Sun only Exalts generalists who are the best at their vocation.  Yes, a heroic mortal may be able to hit an enemy with such accuracy and might to lay him low with one blow, but do you really think the Unconquered would bestow his blessings to him if he has a glass jaw?


Bring these points up to your players and ask them again if this is what they really envision how their characters are.  If they say yeah, accept it and don't fight them on it.  Trust me, it's not worth it.  These are their characters, after all, and not yours.  If this is what they really want to play, let them.  It's no big deal.  And a game is meant to be fun for everybody, the players AND the ST.  If you won't let the players play the kind of characters they really want to play or let them play it how they want to play them, it won't be good for anybody.


As had been said before, one reason why they're probably min-maxing is because they're afraid.  They don't want to lose which means they're mapping out strategies to make losing as small a possibility as they can.  Try to reassure them that you're not going to be out to kill them.  What you might want to do is do that suggestion from the corebook where at the beginning of the game none of the characters will be able to fall below Incapacitated for a time.


Since they are new to the system, perhaps what you should do is instead of starting them out as Exalted you should start them out as heroic mortals.  This way, all of you can ease into the system.  As heroic mortals, you guys can get some practical experience about the combat system without having to deal with the exceptions and additional complications of Charms.  It will also give them a feel to what to expect and will force them to use their resorces better.  Maybe they will put a few starting dots into Stamina when they realize they can't spend motes to increase their attack pools to instantly kill PCs.  Perhaps it will make them more careful about picking fights against enemies who may have access to Charms.  If they think they won't be able to pick a fight with those enemies, perhaps they'll find other ways to deal with them, such as making social attacks and waiting until the time is right to ambush and attack their enemies.  As heroic mortals, they won't be able to Exalt as Solars until they do something worthy of Exaltation through roleplay.  That may make them less inclined to min-max and think more about story.


Remember, though, that Exalted is inherently a game of massive power.  Your characters will be able to get favored charms at least every other week, which means they'll become pretty powerful pretty quickly.  Naturally, your players will become a bit drunk on this power and may abuse it.  But then again, that's what happens to Solars and that's why the Usurpation came about.  If your players are really into powergaming and destroying anybody who comes across their path, they are liable to make quite a few enemies.  I remember in the Book of Three Circles that there was once a nemissary so powerful that three Immaculates trained 10 years for the sole purpose of destroying him.  Perhaps you could do something similar and make a story out of it.


But, then again, all of you are new to the system.  For the most part, I'm sure that you guys just want to test it out and see how it can be bent and broken.  I say that within six months destroying hordes of hobgoblins with a single sweep of a daiklaive will become boring to most of your players and when that happens they'll probably make new characters that are powergamed towards social combat and get armies of mortals to onslaught the hobgoblins instead...
 
Min-max-ing is not a prerequisite to rules knowledge.


 Idiots who don't bother to learn the rules may annoy more consistently than  min-maxers, but it's not an all-or-nothing deal.
 
I will admit that I tweak the crap out of the d20 system when I play.  


Our Star Wars game, I've got a mid level Scoundrel with enough modifiers to make R2D2 blush for repairs and tech related rolls--because I invested in LOTS of complimentary skills and equipment bonuses.  Because I wanted to play a character that could make R2D2 blush and step aside.  Blake isn't a combat guy, not a terribly skilled pilot either, but if anything breaks down, or we need to run a bypass, he's the guy.  DC 40?  On it.  DC 50? It'll take a little more time.  DC 55? I need the Red kit, my Blue kit, something to drink, and keep those damn droids off my back.


Comes to a stand up fight, he can pull a blaster and do OK, but the first chance he gets to get behind something and rewire that fucking battledroid to do the fighting for him, he'll take it. Slice the automated guns on the station, he'd rather do that. NOT get into the fight in the first place?  He's all over that.


But Blake's also the voice of reason with that group.  He's the guy who's saying we salvage ships instead of blowing them up.  He's the guy who advocates getting jobs that actually pay us, instead of taking these fool quests to find Jedi crap.  And he's always looking to upgrade his equipment and tool kits.  He can get by without them, but if you can add a few points to your skills with a good kit, then why not take that?  The others are investing in their Force powerz, while Blake is becoming a tech guru.  Because he's fun that way.


But, Blake has his moments.  In getting to be a Tech guru, he's had to take a fair amount for Dexterity.  That helps. He's not min on Stamina or Strength either, because those things help in moving crap around.  I took a fairly stock Scoundrel, and built him up using the rules for complimentary skills, added as many equipment bonuses as I could, and rolled from there--because I wanted a character that could survive just about anywhere.  


He just tends to look for solutions with a hydrospanner instead of a blaster.  He's got the Jedi-In-Training and the Force Witch and Soldier to knock crap down for him--and he is a smooth tongued devil at getting sweet deals for their cargo and parts.  In a fight, he does OK, but that's not what he's there for--he'd rather avoid the whole thing, and slip into the maintenance ducts to go around the shooting and the swearing, and get the goods out while others distract the heavies.  


I prefer to call him practical.  Been a couple of situations where Blake has bribed the heavies to go away, without a blaster being pulled.  And then spaced their asses to keep the goods once they turned their backs.   He is a Scoundrel after all...


You can invest your character for a role, without question, the question is what role is that?  I have no problem with folks investing their characters in a role, and following that, but I have a huge problem with folks who do so at the expense of making characters that are only one dimensional.  Combat monster only?  OK, but that's going to bite you on the ass later.
 
Mind you, Blake's current project is adding repulsors to a Heavy Repeating Blaster, so that it's easy to lug around, and with a voice activated targeting system with enough intelligence to pick and choose its own targets, essentially a gun droid that he can unpack and have it follow him around--he calls it Fido.  


Come here Fido.  Sic 'em boy.  Go fetch the slicer.  Give the Jedi some cover fire, while I get this door open.


Blake has no illusions about his own combat expertise, but he is not about to give folks a fair fight--a fair fight is for suckers.  Blake would rather scream like a girl, run down the hall, and then when the bad guys grin and chase him, they discover the trip mines that Blake set while they were grinning at each other...


Hardly heroic and brave, but it gets the job done, and with the minimum of his own and his homies hide left on a bulkhead...
 
Even within the context of a lot of the examples given here, minmaxing is fine as long as the player thinks about the choices that they make and owns up to the flaws as well as the strengths.  Any disparity between stats is imagineable.  I can see someone having an insanely high Manipulation and Appearance but a hideously low charisma.  Even in physical characters, the example of the str 4, dex 4, sta 1 character makes sense in my mind; reminds me if Tachibana Ukiyo from Samurai Showdown.  He was an amazingly accomplished swordsman who was fast and strong but suffered from consumption so he coughed up blood at the end of every fight.  His weakness was the back bone of his story, his personality and his general coolness.


In theory though, i don't have a problem with characters BUILT like this; heroes are characters of overwhelming strengths and overwhelming flaws.  A ST just needs to make sure that they hold their players accountable to the flaws inherant to the character.


Of course, too often players get kinda upset when their characters faced with their weakness.
 
They do have a tendency to get pissy when you tell them they have to act out their flaws or lose what they gained in getting them.
 
Well really my advice comes down to: Don't play with idiots.


Give them one fair warning to come up with a character concept for the numbers they have and act it out. if they don't do kill the character, give them one last try and if they don't cooperate kick them out of the group. yes the players are there to have fun, but that does not mean that they should be allowed to ruin yours. and if one character simply doesn't fit into the campaign then any player should just save him for another campaign and create a new one. at least that is how we handle it.
 
Think about it


Blake reminds me Dr. Who a little bit.


My idea of a Solar Exalted or a "hero" is Brock Samson from Venture Bros.  Their overwhelming strength IS their overwhelming weakness.  e.g. "My bad, guys! I only meant to throw that guy through one wall!" or "Damn!! I gotta remember to stop drinking myself into tearing down a building..."


I always find myself making-up Virtue Flaws that are horribly 'beneficial' (imagine Brock whenever he goes into combat mode).  I do this because all of the core book examples aren't painful enough to everyone else.  One of the flaws is similar to Brocks rage but it focus on a singular enemy.  So what if an Exalted goes into seclusion or flips out a little bit?  I want total death!! :evil:


Whether I want it or not!!!
 
I'm not sure how you're going to do training times in your campaign because I don't know what kind of campaign you're going to be running.  If you're going to be running one where the PCs are constantly jumping about, that'll be really tough on them because they won't have the time to dedicate to their training.  One thing they might try to do is say, "Well, our PCs will take time off between every session in order to be able to buy whatever we want."  That seems somewhat cheesy to me.  Here are two solutions I offer to that.


1) You could have it so that a character could only increase one trait at the beginning of every session.  This will greatly limit how fast they'll spend their XP.  Yeah, the XP costs to lift Sta 1 to Sta 5 is more efficent than putting dots into it and rasing Str and Dex to 5, but their progression will be quite halted because they can only buy one thing at a time.  Yeah, it might take them a month to get the XP to raise Stamina, but they can't buy anything else during that month because it all has to go to Stamina.


2) Instead of spending XP every so often, have the PCs bank their XP and spend it all at once.  You could run 5, 10, 20 sessions all in a row but tell your players that they can't spend any XP until they're done with the story.  This means that they will be forced to spend 5, 10, 20 sessions with the stats they've already put into it.  That will be very tough on them and teach them that when it comes to designing a person that it doesn't always do well to be a statistician about it.
 
Just let it develop naturally, sometimes there is time to train, sometimes not and if players decide to take off 6 months to raise the essence in the middle of the story it is their fault if they come back and the story went on without them, allies dead etc.
 
When our group plays exalted stat people plan on using and increasing are usually 1/5 and stats people don't plan on raising are in the 2-3 range.  Skills are usually 0, 3, or 5.   Same as Deadlands classic since the disparity in char creation and XP spending is tremendous.


But in a game like Legend of the Five Rings which uses the same system for char gen that it does for XP all the characters were fairly well balanced.


I don't blame the players.  I blame the game system.
 
Silly wannabe min-maxers...[snort]...they can't even get it right.


 Unless you're positive you'll never want to improve an Ability, you try to place one (and only one) dot in as many Abilities as possible.


 Compare:


1 Ability w/ 2 dots, 1 Ability w/ no dots.


2 Abilities w/ 1 dot.


(Assume no discounts.)


Cost in xp of raising #1 to 3 dots each: 4 (2 to 3) + 3 (buying first dot) + 2 (1 to 2) + 4 (2 to 3) = 13xp


Cost in xp of raising #2 to 3 dots each: 2x [2 (1 to 2) + 4 (2 to 3)] = 12xp


 This is even better for #2 if the Abilities in question are Caste/Aspect/Favored.
 
Your math works between 2 skills at 1 or 2.  But not when you start to calculate the costs of several skills and figure they could go to 3.


3 skills break even at 1/1/1 or 3/0/0 at 18xp either way to take all 3 to 3.  


But when you figure that for two more BP you can get 5/0/0 instead of 3/1/1 then the numbers are really skewed.
 
3 skill points break even for non-favored Abilities (but do better for favored if spread out); however, three points does allow you the option of applying bonus points, which swings the balance back towards concentration.


 Therefore:


For Favored abilities--unless you intend to boost the Ability to 5 (if you only raise to 4, go directly to min-max wannabe school, do not pass Go), it's worth it to spread the dots out.


For non-Favored abilities--three dots is fine, but keep it spread out otherwise.


 And don't get me started on players in long-term campaigns who simply must start off at Essence 3...
 
Yes, it's a very hokey system.   I like starting off as essence 3 not because of efficient BP expenditure but because then I can start out with a scene long defense and/or spells.  For that it's worth it.


What's a good number of XP to use if building a character up from scratch with no BP and starting skills, just XP?


8/6/4 would give you roughly 8xp per = 144xp


28 skills would be approx 3xp per = 84xp


5 virtues 5xp per = 25xp


Charms @ 9per = 90xp


Bonus points @ 3 per = 45xp


388 xp - or round up to 400xp at character creation?  Base character being 9 stats at 1 each and 4 virtues at 1 each, essence 2, and nothing else?
 
After reading here what kind of minmaxers seem to be running around I am going to hug my players when I next see them.
 
I can make a nice simple RP character, but I can minmax, but you have no clue how bad my one friend is. Dear God...
 
Safim said:
After reading here what kind of minmaxers seem to be running around I am going to hug my players when I next see them.
Click to expand...
 [shrug] Need to know how the twinkers think when


you hunt the motherfuckas down, bitch!
 
I never give  npcs xp. I give them the stats they realistically should have. as should any gamemaster which makes twinking basically pointless 'cause I always have the bigger guns.
 
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