Points Buy and Non Human Races

[AnaliseLameth]

For human adventurers you get 80 points to spend on the primary characteristics. How does this work out for non-humans? Is this covered in the new legend monster book? I have MRQ1 and MRQ2 books and while there was a more complete example of creating a non-human in MRQ1 it was very sketchy in MRQ2 and seemed to assume that people would pick the random method for characteristic generation.

If you DO want to allow a points-buy process for non humans does anyone have any thoughts as how to create a formula for how many points and how do you figure out the maximum value (in the case of people using three six sided dice it's 21).

 

[Deleriad]

in RQII, points buy was never explicitly explained for non-humans but you can extrapolate quite easily. Add up the average values each characteristic given in the creature description. Use this value as the points you have to spend on characteristics.

• If you want to increase a characteristic beyond its normal maximum, the cost is doubled.
• Naturally, enough must be added to each characteristic to reach its minimum.

The trick to this method is that the average values given in RQII creatures are rounded up (e.g. 3D6 is 11, not 10.5) so the characters are generally just a little bit better than average. Note however that a human using this method would be 81 points, not the 80 points given in the rulebook so you want to use that value rather than the rulebook one.

To give an example I have to hand from RQII, a 'classic' elf would have 92 points to spend. Which shines a light on something very important about Legend: it is not fair and balanced. Elves are simply better than humans. This will explode the brains of some players.

 

[Deleriad]

The other issue:
I play that the maximum value is equal to the maximum rolled value +1 for each die rolled and an additional +1 if characteristic has an additional value.

E.g. Humans are 3D6 STR so that gives a maximum STR of 18 (rolled) +3 (for 3D6) = 21. They are 2D6+6 SIZ which is a maximum of 18 (rolled) +2 (2D6) +1 (and addition of +6) to give 21.

Elf has STR of 2D6+3 giving it a max STR of 18 (15+2+1). INT 3D6+6 is a maximum INT of 28.

 

[AnaliseLameth]

Thanks, that's pretty much what I thought, Deleriad, but nice to see what other people thought.

Personally I've no issue with the different races being more or less powerful than human, after all, the decision to allow/choose a particular race is going to depend on a number of factors... the locale, the story, the tensions between races and so on... rather than just picking the race that has a characteristic supremacy.