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Trolls are now a bonus to play!!!

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Dwarven Godfather:
I was looking over creation on page 3 and found it to be very weird that Trolls are a negative 10 BP and even the example supports the theory that Trolls are a bonus 10 points and looking over the Troll, I did not see the draw-backs out weighing the bonuses for the Meta-type. I am actually hoping this is a typo or even Jason and crew can explain it better why Trolls are now a Draw-back in the Packs system as I would actually do see more people wanting to play the Trolls more since they do have some great bonuses and now even give you 10 points in creation.

Raventrickster:

--- Quote ---PACKS costs are the same as normal character creation costs. To see that, let's compare PACKS to normal character generation, using the Brawler attribute kit, which goes like this:
Body 5, Agility 4, Reaction 3, Strength 5, Charisma 3, Intuition 3, Logic 2, Willpower 3. The kit costs 200 BP.

Then we decide to make this character a troll, and we get the following scores:
Body 9, Agility 3, Reaction 3, Strength 9, Charisma 1, Intuition 2, Logic 1, Willpower 3. We get back 10 BP, so the total cost is 190 BP.

Now let's do character creation the conventional way. We choose the troll metatype, which costs us 40 BP. As a result, we have the following base attributes:
Body 5, Agility 1, Reaction 1, Strength 5, Charisma 1, Intuition 1, Logic 1, Willpower 1

To get to the same level as the character we made with PACKS, we have to make the following adjustments:
Body +4, Agility +2, Reaction +2, Strength +4, Charisma --, Intuition +1, Logic --, Willpower +2.

Combining all those pluses gives us +15. Since attribute costs are 10 BP per point, that means the total costs of making those changes is 150 BP. We add that to the 40 BP cost of choosing to be a troll and get 190 BP, which is the exact same cost that we got through doing it with PACKS.

The elegant thing about PACKS is, nothing in the rules changes. It just does a lot of the math for you so that you can do things quickly and easily. But whether you use PACKS or whether you generate the normal way, the BP cost remains the same. PACKS, then, is not doing anything with BP costs that the SR4A rules didn't already do.

Jason H.

--- End quote ---

This keeps coming up, and the fact is that it's just fine.

Chaemera:
Remember, using the PACKS system, you subtract from attributes that you already paid for when applying the Troll to your character.

How they developed the "new" cost of a metatype is they took the base cost, then subtracted the attribute reductions.

In the case of the troll:

Base Cost: 40 BP
-1 AGI: -10 BP
-2 CHA: -20 BP
-1 INT: -10 BP
-1 LOG: -10 BP
PACKS Cost: -10 BP (40 - 50)

Same math works out for the Ork costing nothing.

Dwarven Godfather:
Actually, the original BP took into account both bonuses and negatives before the Pack system came out otherwise I am sure the Troll would have been more expensive in the original creation rules. I know my players are going to questioning the reason for it since they are already use to the Troll costing more than the other Meta-types since the Troll has a lot more advantages than disadvantages like the Armor and the Reach capabilities as well which have to be accounted for.

Critias:

--- Quote from: Dwarven Godfather on ---Actually, the original BP took into account both bonuses and negatives before the Pack system came out otherwise I am sure the Troll would have been more expensive in the original creation rules. I know my players are going to questioning the reason for it since they are already use to the Troll costing more than the other Meta-types since the Troll has a lot more advantages than disadvantages like the Armor and the Reach capabilities as well which have to be accounted for.

--- End quote ---
There is a difference between the "negatives" in PACKs, though.  Rather than simply lowering the attribute limit, PACKs races actually lower the attribute.  That's a big, big, difference in cost (which is what makes it work out).

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