Some thoughts on the character generation.
I like the life path, but noticed some things I thought I'd bring up for discussion. I haven't really made up my mind about them myself.
1. Age effects are not really age effects since they come independent from aging. It's mechanism to give something negative to having a lot of terms completed. I mentioned this in another thread, but if we want to discuss char gen, I'll put it here.
My initial feeling is that the attribute drop is too big, and that comes from the coarse grading (A-D). 1 step is a lot on that scale.
2. For the same number of terms, everyone is equal. This gives a balance between PCs, but the there's no 'edge' to the special forces. They get some more starting equipment, that's all (maybe that's a bigger deal than I realize?). What can be done to give them an edge, but some drawbacks to compensate for it? 1-2 specialties / term (1 automatic, 1 on promotion)?, CUF modification?. But what negative effects could they get(except dropping stats, as mentioned in my first point)
One answer to the first point could be to optionally use the MENTAL crit table(p. 73) instead of dropping stats.
What's your thoughts?