Life module and optional stage 3 and 4

[vagabondluc]

I really love the deepness the characters have when you use the life module, so i asked my player to use them. But...

Has anyone had any trouble with the facts that stage 3 and 4 are optional?

I have two sixteen year old character in my game that are better at handling mech than a merc that has done the life modules until stage 4 (military academy, tour of duty, space born etc). They also have the surgery skill a 4 and title to the max, and skill up to 4 (and in some case 5) all across the board.

I am about to put a personal ruling sheet that impose some skill restrictions based on age in my copy of a time of war (something like 1 skill at lvl 3 for a 16 year old, 2 skill at lvl 3 at 17 or 1 at lvl 4, and so on).

Anybody has any tought on the matter?

[Liam's Ghost]

Are you imposing this option (pg 49)

At the gamemaster’s discretion, however, this amount can be adjusted by +100 XPs for every year of age over this baseline, or –100 XPs for every year of age under it.

Because if not, what you describe is basically inevitable. The life paths lock up a huge number of experience points in specific categories. Taking as few lifepaths as possible lets you avoid this and place the XP where you please. Modifying XP based on the age of the character helps a lot to deal with this. Also a great way to deal with min-maxing would be to put characters in situations where their lack of well rounded skill is a weakness. I've seen characters that were minor dieties when it came to shooting things from their mechs, but a girl scout could crack their skull with a box of cookies.

(if you feel bad about putting them in situations they didn't prepare for, don't, that's what they're doing to you).

Of course imposing all the modifiers for aging means you can game the system the other way (hey Monbvol, when was it again that the aging penalties actually result in a net loss?) but at least old experienced godlings makes more sense than sixteen year olds who basically belong in shonen anime.

[monbvol]

If the attribute penalties are simply repeated and your character just naturally ages to that point so you have to keep buying off Slow Learner and Glass Jaw 131.

[vagabondluc]

Yes, my 16 year old character have 4500 xp. I am imposing the -100/+100 per year under/over 21 year option but they still look and feel more powerful all around.

And one of 'em is a physical brute, really good at stealth and a aerospace pilot.

[Orion]

In my games, I have a couple general campaign rules that apply for all genres.

1. No kids - everyone has to be a functional and legal adult that is of age to have graduated college and drink beer.
2. If you want to be really good at stuff and have lots of skills, you have to be old enough to have earned all that.
3. No super-characters.  You can be a great pilot, gunner, tactical genius, etc., but you can only be one of them.  We aren't playing Jamie Wolf and Morgan Kell, so don't design characters like them.
4. A full character background that explains how/where all that experience and skill was gained must be supplied to me.  There is wiggle room in the first three, but never in this one.  If you want something out of the ordinary, you need to explain it.
5. If you design a character optimized for combat, I will spend my time making you regret it.  Well-rounded characters are the goal.

So I might allow a 16-year-old character that is a natural pilot, but they are going to have zero leadership and tactical skills.  Of they might be a tactical genius, but constantly walk their mech into trees.

[Liam's Ghost]

Yes, my 16 year old character have 4500 xp. I am imposing the -100/+100 per year under/over 21 year option but they still look and feel more powerful all around.

And one of 'em is a physical brute, really good at stealth and a aerospace pilot.

(sorry I didn't respond promptly, got distracted)

I guarantee the older characters will have a broader range of skills and abilities (even if they don't have high marks in specific abilities). Try playing up those elements.

[StuartYee]

As a GM, I generally use the Module system as a "guideline" than actual rule. It helps to develop a "skeletal" background story for a character, but the 5000 XP rule overrides what comes up "organically" using the modules.

I helped one of my players build a character based on a few guidelines:

0 Draconis Combine/Rasalhague (3030 campaign, so I sorta fudged this one a bit)
1 Farm
2 Military School
3 Military Academy
-Basic
-Mechwarrior Training
-Officer Candidacy School
4 Tour of Duty

After that, I rounded out the attributes, traits and skills so that the total was 5000 XP. I did things like nerfed the Compulsion/Xenophobia and Fit traits. I also allowed the SPA: Jumping Jack trait (I get that SPAs aren't intended for beginning characters, but whatevs, it's my game) and added some esoteric skills like Driving and Sensor Operations. The player mentioned that he'd like his character be good at cooking bacon, so he has Interest/Cooking Bacon at level 3 - with the right tools, he can make TURKEY bacon palatable.

I don't know if that answers your question, but I guess in summary, since the 5000 XP rule takes precedence in my campaign, the "optional" tracks don't give me problems. 

[Col Toda]

I like just a point allocation for a character .  The life path is good as guidelines of what skills you should have but you should determine if it should be unskilled  or skill level 0 - 6 depending what your character should be .

[hive_angel]

The player mentioned that he'd like his character be good at cooking bacon, so he has Interest/Cooking Bacon at level 3 - with the right tools, he can make TURKEY bacon palatable.

This would be perfectly useful in the situation of using the universal greeting "bah weep grana weep ninny bon".

[StuartYee]

This would be perfectly useful in the situation of using the universal greeting "bah weep grana weep ninny bon".

Combined with bacon, there's no one you can't make peace with.

Therefore in ATWO, the universal greeting and bacon combo should be banned, otherwise the game would be broken.

[solmanian]

They also have the surgery skill a 4 and title to the max, and skill up to 4 (and in some case 5) all across the board.

Simple. Can't be done.
Title to the max? Unless they're Joffrey Baratheon, the mad child-king, nobody is gonna acknowledge them until they're at legal age.
Also, a title has to have some substance. If they're teenage nobles who spend their time fighting across the galaxy in mechs, they can expect to have zero political power and influence. For the hack of it, make them the rightful ruler of nobody-gives-a-frakistan: a jewel of the Terran hegemony in the star league days.
That is now an uninhabitable black rock.
In clan territory.

You can't have skills over level 3 without training with a master of the field. Surgery 4? Who are they supposed to be, Doggy Howser?
Ask them to explain, in detail, how they think their teenage characters reached those levels. Without also acquiring basic skills like driving, protocol/affiliation, swimming, interest/porn, etc...

When dealing with minmaxers, the guideline is to never give them an inch. Always hit them in the "minis"; literally, and metaphorically. They sunk their points into being legendary mech jockeys? Make sure they spend 99% of the time outside the cockpit. Heck, get rid of the mech altogether; make an adventure out of it. Drown them in red tape, as vengeance for not putting points in administration, and career skills.

Send them into the shed with some sharp objects: let them acquire some "lost limbs" traits, if you know what I mean.  >:D

I'd even impose 25%-50% penalty on their starting XP. A character hitting the ground, without going through stage3&4, is suppose to be a helpless toddler; uneducated, and with zero understanding of real life. No future, no hope. Unqualified for anything bigger than "paper or plastic". Decide all those "uber" skills, apply only to video games, and impose penalties on "real life" application.

[cloudedknife]

OP, in answer to your question what I noticed, that I didn't see mentioned in your original post was this:

5000 starting xp represents a character that's 21years old.  Add 100xp per year over that, and subtract 100xp per year under that.  So the first thing I would do is ask you, "did you take 500xp from your two players with 16yro characters?"

Then I will tell you what I decided to do as far as starting skill maxes.  Stage 3 exists not only to flesh out a character but also to represent a degree of training that a character would have that they just couldn't get elsewhere, absent GM-player agreement and a damn good backstory.  As such without my prior consent, no combat skill can be greater than +3 "out of the box" without it showing up in a field they've taken, and combat skills "in field" are capped at +5.

I also miss the randomness that MW3rd edition life paths gave.  To that end, rather than using the 2d6 random XP modifier that AToW companion offers, I am having my players roll 2d6 on the corresponding MW3rd lifepath event chart.  The module names are almost all lifted straight from MW3rd, and the same goes for traits.  I've decided that 1MW3rd skill point is equal to 9xp in the same skill.  Traits have the corresponding XP value at their given level (100xp per vehicle or promotion rank for instance).  These are 'free' XPs, in addition to the starting total, in the same fashion that AToW random modifier XPs are 'free'.  this also means that if they roll a 9 in Military Academy, they can end up with two AIT fields.  If I want it to be a 'powerful' game, I give them a reroll, a +1, and a +2, and -1 to their rolls that they can assign freely.

[Mendou]

One other option is to build every character in MW3, then convert to AToW via the rules in the AToW Companion. Your skills will be much lower (my 22-year-old Clan Aerospace Star Commander has no skill over +2, and most of those are in her Skill Field), though attributes will be much higher (you'll end up with much fewer 4-in-every-stat characters this way). The characters will be significantly more than 5000 XP, of course, and will obviously not be balanced in any way, other than by the whims of the random Life Path tables.

[solmanian]

This does raise a question, what to do with the 5000 do allotment, when you want PCs to be "underpowered". If I want my PC to be your average, fresh out of the academy cadets on Their cadre duty, it makes no sense to live them thousands of XPs so they'll be wealthy noble land owners... That's no where near "average".

[monbvol]

Well being a land owner can get quite XP costly fairly quickly.  I find 5,000 XP is about right for a fresh out of the academy character, just have to keep in mind all the different things that they really should be spending XP on that are not Property, Wealth, and Equipped.

[idea weenie]

This does raise a question, what to do with the 5000 do allotment, when you want PCs to be "underpowered". If I want my PC to be your average, fresh out of the academy cadets on Their cadre duty, it makes no sense to live them thousands of XPs so they'll be wealthy noble land owners... That's no where near "average".

Drop the XP total and their age.  This makes the players start off with lower power levels, but also gives the players time for their characters to become more powerful.

Worst case scenario is you end the Life Path after stage 3, and toss them into action right there.  Less skills, but they also have a lot more time to gain XP.

[Kobura]

Frankly if someone actually prosecuted a character like that in my game, I wouldn't want that player in my game.

I told my guys when we did a character rewrite "minmax elsewhere, this game isn't for that"

Nobody built a character without me, no exceptions. Not allowed. I had the final say on everything, but mostly used it FOR the player rather than against them, as it turned out.

I made them rounded but sharp on their specific points. The oldest characters are 25, everyone else is 21 or over. They're all going to get the benefits of aging from 21 to 25 if they didn't already, everything after that is to be earned via experience, not by living in a bubble and magically growing muscles. One of my characters has Gunnery/Mech 4 and Piloting 4, and Natural Aptitude/Gunnery/Mech. Yea, he doesn't miss much, but when they finally negotiated for some personnel on Galatea, he realized just how 'pack animal' he had to be, and that he actually made a terrible leader.

Another of my characters has a pinkie-swear with me to keep it cool, but has a Demolitions of 6 with a specialty in Anti-Mech. We decided if it was much lower, he'd simply cease to exist sooner than later unless I ruined the rules, so I opted to just play it on scout's honor and let him be experienced enough to pull it off. So far, he's my favorite player, and has (aside one recent newcomer) been the most eager to roleplay out situations and eschew dice, despite also being the best prepared to roll them.

Frankly, if someone wanted to be a 16yrold House Lord with 2str 2bod 2dex 2ref 7cha 7wil and all that... I'd tell them where the "players wanted" board at my local nerdshop was. I don't want a player that wants that.