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For an upcoming Nightbane campaign, I am considering toying with a balancing idea. I was thinking about rating each of the OCCs with a 1-5 number. The higher the number, the more powerful the OCC, PCC or RCC.

For example: I would rate a Vagabond as a 1 and a Glitterboy as a 5. I would rate a Human as a 0 since they are the default race for many OCCs, but a Human with psionics would be a 1. I would rate an Ogre as a 1 and a Phase World Promethean as a 5.

The goal would be to give the players X points to build their character. Let's say you give them 3 points and they could play mix and match with races and classes and have some sense of balance.

GENERAL CRITERIA and my thoughts on ratings
1 - Vagabond, Rogue Scholar
2 - Coaltion Grunt, Headhunter, City Rat
3 - Crazy, Juicer, SAMAS Pilot
4 - Mind Melter, Ley Line Walker, Full Conversion Cyborg
5 - Dragon Hatchling, Glitterboy

So...do you agree with my ratings? Make your own list of OCC / RCC / PCCs from various books and let's compare thougths!

But what do you consider to be "powerful"? As CaptRory said, playing smart can balance just about any occ/rcc. I think you underestimate the power of an psionic operator with a bag full of home made toys...

Also, your rating system would only be applicable to open combat in the field. Your level 5 glitterboy won't be s*** in a bar fight though, being just a regular human out of the armor.

Yea too many flaws and holes, and really i find that ALL the O.C.C.s have inherent pros and cons that make them ALL worth playing equally.

Spinachcat wrote:For an upcoming Nightbane campaign, I am considering toying with a balancing idea. I was thinking about rating each of the OCCs with a 1-5 number. The higher the number, the more powerful the OCC, PCC or RCC.

For example: I would rate a Vagabond as a 1 and a Glitterboy as a 5. I would rate a Human as a 0 since they are the default race for many OCCs, but a Human with psionics would be a 1. I would rate an Ogre as a 1 and a Phase World Promethean as a 5.

The goal would be to give the players X points to build their character. Let's say you give them 3 points and they could play mix and match with races and classes and have some sense of balance.

GENERAL CRITERIA and my thoughts on ratings
1 - Vagabond, Rogue Scholar
2 - Coaltion Grunt, Headhunter, City Rat
3 - Crazy, Juicer, SAMAS Pilot
4 - Mind Melter, Ley Line Walker, Full Conversion Cyborg
5 - Dragon Hatchling, Glitterboy

So...do you agree with my ratings? Make your own list of OCC / RCC / PCCs from various books and let's compare thougths!

"balancing" is a delicate thing, and your point system already stipulates a power level. The temptation is to try to put numbers on things, but in general, 'balance' is not so easily evaluated. PB does need a character point system.... but it needs one a lot more developed than this.

the number of points stipulates how powerful you want the characters to be, and not much else (is an Ogre juicer with major Psionics... is he *really* on par with a glitterboy? not really, and ogre juicer with major psionics is really not much more than a human juicer). So why not cut to the chase and say, "Ok, I want characters on the power level of Glitterboys", and now that the players know what you expect, they can make characters appropriately. The number is meaningless. It's more about power 'categories', but these are harder to quantify.

Unless you want to really iron out the point system, I would say 'Ogre' is 0.3 points, but something like 'Seljuk' would be 1 or 1.5 points. Juicers tend to be bigger than crazies, so crazies should be more like 0.75 points. T-man conversion... more or less points than borg? The point system *also* requires you to assign point values to *EVERYTHING*... and by the end you're just pulling numbers out of intuition.

Eliminate the point system, instead use the 'points' as power categories and say, "yeah, make characters on par with CS grunts" or "make characters on par with juicers". And allow wiggle room.