That's why I was specifically making the point about a reader who starts in Book 5 or later. No Sommerswerd or Silver Helm, so that's a +10 CS they don't get. The only CS-boosting items they can bring in are the Silver Bracers, the Kagonite Chainmail (which they need a lucky roll to acquire), and Helshezag (which they'll lose in Book 16).
The Magnakai Weaponmastery and Psi-Surge bonuses effectively allow them to choose two additional disciplines (because given the difficulty of the GM books, a new player would be crazy not to pick Grand Weaponmastery and Kai-surge from the get go).
So yes, a player coming into Book 13 having started after Book 4 and rerolling their scores might be at a bit of an advantage over a new player, but if they don't reroll their scores they'll be at a very serious disadvantage to a new player by the time Book 17 rolls around.
By the way, I consider rerolling scores and flat out adding 10 to CS and subtracting 1 from EP to be more or less equivalent.
Ben On Wed, 9 May 2012, James Durrant wrote:
I remember getting a little confused about the options here all those years ago! I'm fairly sure I went with carrying my stats and keeping my bonuses. As has been noted below - if you generate new stats (or "upgrade" them) AND keep your equipment & bonuses, you become uber-powerful, which seems to defeat the object. The original wording of "can" seems to give the choice to the reader, but without a complete explanation of what that choice means. Quite a conundrum! The canny reader would probably elect to go with new stats - so maybe "should" is a better wording? I also agree with the point about where you start reading. These are the online editions we're talking about, so why wouldn't you start from the beginning - especially with our software department taking off in a big way? Conclusion? Not sure. I don't like changing things for the sake of it - particularly without precedent - but in this case, "should" feels more accurate than "can". (And I'm also not a big fan of too many footnotes.)
From: johntfs@xxxxxxxxxxx To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [projectaon] Re: Book 13 Erratum Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 15:51:19 +0000From: feline1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [projectaon] Re: Book 13 Erratum Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 07:25:09 +0100 I agree with Chris's reasoning below, and furthermore do we have any canonical basis for changing it? To be honest, it's a bit like that thing were a kid in school asks the teacher "Please Miss, can I go to the toilet?" and she says "I don't know, can you?" and they apparently should have asked "May I got to the toilet?" (Well, they used to do that in the UK in my day, at least.... it's probably illegal now or something ;) i.e. it's pedantic and we could add a footnote musing about the possible interpretations if you want, but they seem to pain some people.Assuming that Veteran players can reset their stats, does this also mean that they can also keep and use their various allowed Special Items (Sommerswerd, etc)? Also, does this means that they can use their Magnakai bonuses(Psi-surge, Weaponmastery) as well? Let's take an example, shall we? At the end of the Magnakai quest we have a Lone Wolf with a CS of 20 and and EP of 36(his initial picks back in FFtD were 5s for both stats). Like a dutiful (and fortunate) Lone Wolf, he's collected all the various Special Items and of course has the Magnakai Disciplines. So, he does a stat reset and rolls 5s again. At this point his effective stats will be CS 30, EP 35, but we're not done yet. Adding in the Special Items' bonuses, he generally enters any fight with a CS of 45 and an EP of 37. He also gets +4 for Weaponmastery and may use Psi-surge against many opponents. Thus, at Book 13, this version of Lone Wolf can have an effective CS of 55 and an EP of 37. For my part, I still prefer my idea if simply adding 10 to your base CS at the end of Book 12 and subtract 1 from your EP. Also, you get no bonuses from Magnakai skills except the +1 EP per section from Curing as everything is already considered to be added in. At which point you proceed as a normal Grandmaster(gaining the full +5 for Grand Weaponmastery when/if you take it).-----Original Message----- From: Chris Neilson Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 12:19 AM To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [projectaon] Re: Book 13 Erratum On Tue, 2012-05-08 at 15:56 -0700, Jonathan Blake wrote:On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Over on the forum is a post about something we intend to alter for the next release of Book 13, specifically the hoary old chestnut about re-picking stats when transitioning from Book 12 -> 13. Since you don;t repick your starts in transitioning from Book 1 -> 2 (just in case you might get better numbers), it seems obvious to me that you do NOT re-pick stats, but some feel otherwise. <http://projectaon.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=helpwanted&action=display&thread=2248> Anyone want to field a reply/response? Are we happy with the changes we intend to make? Am currently laid low with a very unpleasant bug, so I'll leave it in the capable hands of the rest of the PA staff! ;-)Hope you're feeling better now. This seems to have gotten very little discussion the first go 'round because we got caught up with +3/+5 Bow bonus. I can see the point of someone being at a disadvantage if they started in the middle of the series (although I wonder if anyone does that now that all of the books are freely available online). Should we just reverse our decision and leave it as "can"?I believe we should leave it as "can". Its my opinion that the Grandmaster books are balanced for a player not carrying stats over from previous books. Therefore playing with stats that are lower than the lowest possible book13-only stats puts you at a distinct disadvantage (especially if you have not obtained the Sommerswerd for whatever reason) - I actually get the impression this whole thing was a way to nerf the CS imbalance by those with the sword and those without (it would have been much better if the sword set your base CS to X while wielding it rather than adding X - ah well). I cant see any reason why a veteran player should not have the option of dumping all their stats and resetting them for books 13+ if they so choose. The word "can" implies you have this option, as does "should" - but "should" is pushing an interpretation of the rules that is not backed by any official (ie from Joe or newsletters) recommendation (as far as I am aware). Basically it seems like a case of changing wording for no benefit. ~~~~~~ Manage your subscription at //www.freelists.org/list/projectaon ~~~~~~ Manage your subscription at //www.freelists.org/list/projectaon
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