Point-buy / A-la-carte character creation rules

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
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I wanted to see if I could come up with a simple-but-fair method for players to come up with “secret third option” characters a bit more autonomously. After noodling around with some spreadsheets, I’ve got something that feels like it comes very close to being fair with what you would get with guided or constructed characters, but opens up the options.

Basically, this method replaces the first 3 steps in chapter 3, so that background, power source, and archetype are are lumped into one point-buy. Here what you do:

Start with 80 points

  • buy 3-5 qualities (cost is the die size, so a d6 is 6 points, a d10 is 10 points, etc.)
  • buy 3-6 powers (cost is the die size)
  • no more than 1 quality/power can be d12
  • assign 2 green abilities found in the book
  • assign 3 yellow abilities found in the book
  • extra green ability costs 8 each (max 2)
  • extra yellow ability (or a green as a yellow) costs 6 (max 1)
  • no more than 2 abilities in each section using the same quality or power, or 3 abilities total across green and yellow using the same.
  • Pick 2 principles and add their green overcome abilities.

And that’s it. After that, proceed with step 4 and beyond just like you normally would – Pick personality and extra quality as per book, assign status dice as per personality, red abilities, etc.

Some notes:

  • This isn’t intended to handle form changer or modular archetypes’ abilities – it you want those use the regular build methods. Not sure about divided, didn’t look closely at it yet.
  • Powers is limited to 6 and Qualities to 5 just so they fit (with the extra backstory Quality, if you were wondering why the difference) on the normal character sheet.
  • While it is possible to get through the first 3 steps with more than one d12, a limit of one felt like a good compromise for the increased flexibility
  • 80 points should make a very comparable character, but something a smidge lower (like 74?) might make more sense given the flexibility, but right now I’m going with 80 and the assumption that at least some with be spent on fun and interesting things and not a purely optimized build

Anywho, let me know if you have any comments or questions. If you try it out, let me know how it goes and if you think it feels like it is too under- or over-powered.

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Interesting. Some thoughts:

That part concerns me more than anything else. The abilities in the game vary wildly in terms of effectiveness even within the same GYRO code and being able to cherry pick five of them is likely to lead to some pretty awful mini-maxing from all but the most saintly of players. Putting together synergistic combos will be even easier than usual, and the GM will likely still have to to vet and probably veto characters built this way.

Did you mean pick two principles there? You get two of them in the first three steps under the other methods and even with all the added versatility limiting a method 3.5 character to just one seems awfully limiting.

Welcome to the forum.

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That part concerns me more than anything else.

This is quite possible. I’m not sure there’s an easy way to do a point-buy like this without that risk – or at least without adding a lot more complicated rules or restrictions. I kinda see this a good starting point for a player making a character on their own, but I would expect vetting, and especially with those who might min-max to the detriment of others at the table.

Edit: Thinking on it a bit more, at least as a simple restriction you could say “selected from at most two power sources and at most two archetypes” or “selected from at most three powers sources and archetypes total” or something like that. It still adds some flexibility but might help reign it in. And I like the idea that it lends a bit more to making something like hybrid power sources or archetypes out the existing ones… Hmm…

Did you mean pick two principles there?

Yes, mistake on my part, I spaced and thought the second principle came after step 3 so I didn’t need it. Edited & updated the post.

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That would certainly reign it in quite a bit. I like the concept of hybrid sources & archetypes in theory, at least.

I suspect people will tend toward buying larger P/Q dice than many smaller ones just out of efficiency - a d12 is far more than twice as effective as a d6, and arguably more than twice as good as a d8 - but that will narrow their scope some and force them to accept d4s in their pools more often than other characters. Then again, if you minimize how many abilities are tied to each P/Q I guess you only need two or three big dice, so maybe it’ll work out differently.

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I agree, and when I started out I expected it would/should end up with larger dice having an extra cost – but when I evaluated the dice you get from the first 3 steps, it seemed the costing best fit with a 1-1 match to die size, which did surprise me a bit. I admit that keeping the 1-1 cost does keep this cleaner, but a weighted cost would probably make for characters with some more interesting variance.

Edit: Okay, here’s an alternate stab with that in mind-- I was able to scale the point-buy costs down by a factor of 4, so that helps offset a little bit of the complexity:

Start with 20 points, 2 green abilities, and 3 yellow abilities.
Buy 3-5 qualities and 3-6 powers and 0-3 extra abilities.

Point Cost / Item
1 / d6 quality or power
2 / d8 quality or power
3 / d10 quality or power
4 / d12 quality or power (max 1)
2 / Extra green ability (max 2)
1 / Extra yellow ability (max 1)

No more than 2 abilities in each section using the same quality or power, or 3 abilities total across green and yellow using the same quality or power.

Abilities can come from up to 2 different Power Sources and 2 different Archetypes. You can take green abilities as yellow ones.

Pick 2 principles and add their green ability.

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I, too, started to make a more regulated Secret Third Option. It never become more than a half-baked idea, though.

I only got to the Powers and Qualities, not any Abilities. Instead of points, I used dice as the currency. A hero started with, I think, 8 :d8:. You could exchange the :d8: to get other die sizes. I think the exchange rates were something like . . .

  • :d8: :d8: = :d6: :d10:
  • :d8: :d8: :d8: = :d6: :d6: :d12:

(I based the conversions on the Personalities’ Status Dice.)

After exchanging dice, you would assign them to Powers and Qualities, just like in @angramainyu’s system (with similar minimums).

In hindsight, the die conversions were probably unnecessary, and @angramainyu point system is likely a lot neater. And it looks like the numbers would work out the same.

Anyways, the reason I stopped working on it was because I felt it unnecessary. I understand that the Constructed Method doesn’t allow everything one might want to create, but it gets awfully close. You can always swap around a couple Powers, Qualities, or Abilities (probably) without breaking anything. For example, nothing catastrophic is gonna happen if you take a Mobility Power instead of a Self-Control Power.

And if that still isn’t enough flexibility, just do what the book recommends: take a Background, Power Source, etc., but just look at the die sizes and numbers of Abilities, and ignore what Powers, Qualities, and Abilities they say to take.

All that aside, your system does look fairly balanced, @angramainyu. Good job.

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