Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BerkaZerka]

I’m a firm believer in not being tied down to ‘encounter levels’ or ‘challenge ratings’, but do think it good to have some idea of how difficult a foe will be.

That said, here’s a handy (and completely optional) guide to help you calculate the XP level of you character builds in order to give a measure of comparison between them and other builds.

BZ

[BerkaZerka]

The first thing I do is build the character I want and then total up the XP cost to see how high I’ve went.  Generally, I always go too high and have to make some tough decisions about what to cut to fit in the range I’ve set for myself.

When calculating the XP cost, I focus on the following five sections:

Abilities
Skills
Skill Bumps
Edges
Other

Once I know how many XPs have gone into each section, I simply total them up to get the total cost of my build.

Below is a rundown of how I calculate each section.

BZ

[BerkaZerka]

Abilities

Add up your Ability Scores.  If they equal 20 or less, your XP cost is Zero.

If they go over 20 however, then you got to buy the overage with XP. 

The cheapest way to do it is to spread as many extra points as you can out across the lower valued numbers first and then for the really high values, bumping them from 5.

For example,

STR 7; AGI 4; CON 6; INT 3; WIS 3; PRE 5 = 28

First, set out your 20 Ability Points to form a base you will build up from

STR 5; AGI 3; CON 5; INT 1; WIS 1; PRE 5 = 20

Using the XP Cost to Improve Abilities (Up To 5 = 2 x New Level; Beyond 5 = 3 x New Level)…

STR will cost 18 (to go from 5 to 6) + 21 (to go from 6 to 7) = 39
AGI will cost 8 (to go from 3 to 4) = 8
CON will cost 18 (to go from 5 to 6) = 18
INT will cost 4 (to go from 1 to 2) + 6 (to go from 2 to 3) = 10
WIS will cost 4 (to go from 1 to 2) + 6 (to go from 2 to 3) = 10

Total XP Cost for Abilities = 85 XP

As you can see, increasing Abilities through XP is very expensive.

BZ

[BerkaZerka]

Skills

Add up your Skill Levels (but count all Skills over 5 as a 5 – as skill values over 5 are calculated separately in the Skill Bumps section below).  If your Skill Levels equal 60 or less, your XP cost is Zero.

If they go over 60 however, then you got to buy the overage with XP. 

Skills are easy however, just subtract 60 from your total and multiply the result by 2.

XP Cost = (Total Skill Levels – 60) x 2

BZ

[BerkaZerka]

Skill Bumps

This is where you calculate the cost of all Skills with a value over 5.  For this, simply add up all the additional Skill Levels beyond 5 and multiply by 4.

Note that you only add the amount that each Skill exceeds 5 by, not the total Skill Level itself – so if you had three skills at Level 7, you would have 6 points, not 21 (you already accounted for the rest in the Skills step above).  6 x 4 = 25 XP

XP Cost = (Total Number Of Points That Exceed 5) x 4

BZ

[BerkaZerka]

Edges

Edges are easy to calculate once you figure out how many free ones you get. 

That would be the three you start with, then up to three more depending on how many Flaws you take.  Note that you only get a maximum of three additional Edges from Flaws, regardless of how many Flaws you have beyond the first three.

Once you know how many you have to pay for, the each cost 4 XP.

XP Cost = (Total Number Extra Edges) x 4

BZ

[BerkaZerka]

Other

These are the XP expenditures that don’t follow a handy little formula, but there isn’t that many of them to keep track of, so it’s relatively easy. 

These are adding Languages; Psychotherapy; increasing Luck and Surge Points; and buying off Flaws – as follows:

Languages
XP Cost = 2 Per Additional Language

Psychotherapy
XP Cost = 2 Each Pop

Increasing Luck and Surge Points
XP Cost = 8 Each Pop

Buying Off Flaws
XP Cost = 4 Each Pop

BZ

[BerkaZerka]

And that's how it's done - any questions?   

BZ