Fria Ligans forum

I thought the same about levels A, B, C, D. But improvements are made in steps. 1 point = 1 letter. D to C, B to A. If the values would correspond to dice, there would be a step of two between values. 12, 10, 8, 6. That would be illogical as well.

No perfect solution either way, but after a couple of times it'll probably seem natural.

The use of the scale D to A mimics the grading system that is used in many countries.

The use of the scale D to A mimics the grading system that is used in many countries.

Not in Australia ... we give number grades (often, but not always, out of 20 or %) which are often then expressed as a 1-5 Grade (at least in NSW until six years ago when I retired after teaching High School since 1977) as mandated by, IIRC, ACER or some other national body for 'consistency' across the several States and Territories.

Phil McGregor
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Author: Space Opera (FGU); Rigger Black Book #1 (FASA); Orbis Mundi 2, The Marketplace, Ithura & Porthaven, Fantasy Europe (PGD); Road to Armageddon & Supplements, Displaced, Audace ad Gloriam, Farm, Forge & Steam (PGD).

The use of the scale D to A mimics the grading system that is used in many countries.

Not in Australia ...

Well, I didn't wrote all, I wrote many. In Sweden we used numbers for a while (I am old enough to have my grades in numbers). I don't think people will have any problems understand a D to A scale.

The use of the scale D to A mimics the grading system that is used in many countries.

It would've been clearer if that's how it were presented in the book. But there it's introduced as "a scale from A to D", which (in my opinion) reads as if D were the higher rating—until you read a bit further and discover that A is apparently just another name for D12.

There are several sections where you have to mentally convert from the letter to the corresponding die size (e.g. when calculating Hit Capacity). I'm not (yet) convinced that there's any benefit to having the letter scale instead of just listing Attributes as STR D10, AGL D6, etc. You could then see at a glance what numbers are involved.

Life Paths

Player's Manual, p 31

8. Age your character D6 years. Then roll another D6 – if the result is lower than the number of terms you have completed, you must reduce one attribute of your choice by one step, due to the effects of age. You cannot go below D. Note that you cannot get an attribute reduction after your first term.

Effects of aging is independent of actual aging.
A mechanism to give negative effects to a character with many terms? Skills increase, but attributes decrease.

The phrase "Note that you cannot get an attribute reduction after your first term." is a bit ambigious. Could be misinterpreted as if you can only get it in your first term, but not after the term (but that's not possible since you need to roll lower than the number of terms)

On Rate of Fire, Ammo dice and Capacity:
There are weapons (the Auto-5 and 311R shotguns, unless i missed something) with a Rate of Fire of 2 and a Capacity of less than 6.

The rules of Ammo spent (page 61) seems to say that even if i use two Ammo dice and roll for example two sixes they will be removed due to them being higher than the number of cartridges left in the magazine.

This would indicate that there is never a reason to use more than one Ammo dice with these weapons, which makes the Rate of fire pointless and the higher cost of the Auto-5 compared to the 870P illogical.

A solution would be that you always keep one ammo dice even if it's higher than the number of remaining cartridges, for instance. This would also make the Ammo dice useful for weapons with a Rate of fire of 1 and a Capacity less than 6 (like the M700 and the M40A3) other than being just a source of mishaps.

On Player character archetypes:

The difference between the archetypes seems arbitrarily imbalanced.

From a game mechanical point the only things that differs one archetype from the others are:

1. Specialties
2. Key attribute
3. Key skills
4. Coolness under fire
5. Gear

The first three are difficult to quantify since they are situational.
However, Coolness under fire is simply better for some archetypes without any visible drawbacks.
The same goes for Gear. Some archetypes have starting gear with a very low value, for instance The Kid with a total value of about 200 if you pick a Hunting bow. The other end of the scale has The Operator at around 1300 and The Civilian at over 2000 if you pick the dirt bike. Or also under 200 if you instead pick the cheapest options.

I realize that starting gear doesn't necessarily have to be perfectly balanced and that RPGs in general don't need to be perfectly fair. But forcing players to choose between "smart" and "fun" can be a big negative factor and starting the game realizing your character is arbitrarily worse than all the other characters can make you feel like you made the wrong choice.

One solution is that Coolness under fire is treated like the other Attributes, something you can increase or decrease during the character creation process. Starting gear is more complex, I'm all for having a different pool of items to pick from depending on archetype but to ensure they are of roughly equal value. Also avoid choices like The Civilians Basic toolset or Dirt bike. It's a choice between a 25 cost item to a 2000+ one.

Life Paths
Player's Manual, p 31

8. Age your character D6 years. Then roll another D6 – if the result is lower than the number of terms you have completed, you must reduce one attribute of your choice by one step, due to the effects of age. You cannot go below D. Note that you cannot get an attribute reduction after your first term.

Effects of aging is independent of actual aging.
A mechanism to give negative effects to a character with many terms? Skills increase, but attributes decrease.

Thinking about it again, to lose one "step" in the A-D scale is huge. 25%!

Losing one "step" would make sense for a 3D6 attribute system (e.g. going from 13 to 12) , but now it feels like it'll be too big. Or is the loss of attribute value worth the additional skills you get for additional terms?

Life Paths
Player's Manual, p 31

8. Age your character D6 years. Then roll another D6 – if the result is lower than the number of terms you have completed, you must reduce one attribute of your choice by one step, due to the effects of age. You cannot go below D. Note that you cannot get an attribute reduction after your first term.

Effects of aging is independent of actual aging.
A mechanism to give negative effects to a character with many terms? Skills increase, but attributes decrease.

Thinking about it again, to lose one "step" in the A-D scale is huge. 25%!

Losing one "step" would make sense for a 3D6 attribute system (e.g. going from 13 to 12) , but now it feels like it'll be too big. Or is the loss of attribute value worth the additional skills you get for additional terms?

Using Life Paths you also start with an additional attribute increase compared to the archetype way (you start with three increases instead of just two).