Adjusting for Player Experience

When designing character templates, be sure that they take into
account the character-creation habits of your experienced players. For
instance, if all their warriors have Combat Reflexes and all their wiz-
ards have Magery 3, your templates should follow suit – even if the
“typical” warrior or wizard in the setting lacks this level of talent. This
puts the characters of inexperienced players who use your templates on
an equal footing with those of more experienced players.
1. Select attribute levels that mini-
mize the cost of the chosen skills. For
instance, an Average skill at DX+2
level costs 8 points; six such skills
would cost 48 points. An Average skill
at DX+1 costs 4 points; six skills at this
level would cost only 24 points. By
lowering six skills from DX+2 to
DX+1, you could free up 24 points –
and if you then spent 20 points on DX,
you could raise DX by one level,
regain the original skill levels, and
save 4 points!
2. Add advantages that give skill
bonuses at discount rates – notably
Talents (see p. 89).
If you have trouble justifying this,
remember: templates are blueprints
for adventurers – exceptional charac-
ters built with more points than the
average person – so high attributes
and rare advantages are going to be
more common than in the general
population.