Author Topic: Monbvol's House rule emporium  (Read 94316 times)

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #30 on: 22 March 2011, 01:47:39 »
I can agree as written Citizenship is poorly handled.  I am thinking about a mashing together a couple traits, mostly Rank and Title, and calling it Status.  Maybe rolling Citizenship into that would be a better option.  For now I'll use what I got because it works but it does give some food for thought.

What the heck I'll put what I got mulling in my mind out here even though I feel it isn't quite complete.  One of the things I'm toying around with for Status is giving what would amount to specialized Connections trait effects.  Like Military Standing would give better People and Equipment rating, okay Information rating, and worse Wealth rating.  I'm still working on how to balance it so that Connections in of itself is worthwhile as a general trait but your Status in an organization just automatically gives you some of these things.  Though I think I just figured it out.  Use your Status trait for one of the subcategories of the Connections trait, add 3/4s round down to another, 1/2 round down to a third, and 1/4 round down to the fourth.  So like say you want to be a Mechwarrior.  That would be Status 4 with the Military.  As a Mechwarrior you get authority over your technicians that keep your mech running and the grunts who keep the enemy from slitting your throat during the night(People 4), on good terms with the Quartermaster so they'll let you check out better stuff than normal(Equip 3), being a bit of a low man on the totem pole you don't get to hear much(Info 2), and not being allowed to use unit funds because of past problems(Wealth 1).

It doesn't much matter how you break it down as long as it works out.  Like a Lancemate could instead break it down People 1 because he is not well liked by the support grunts, Equip 2 because they've misused issued equipment in the past, Wealth 3 because they have dirt on the disbursing officer, and Info 4 because they have a buddy in intel.

I'm thinking about having it stack with the general Connections trait, I'll have to think about that and maybe see if that would be too powerful.  One thing is certain I do want to add something of an Extra Income flat rate.  By the system it is completely possible to have a Battalion Commander be paid less than one of his Company Commanders just because the Company Commander is better in combat and frankly that irks me.

Any rate the ranks and how much it adds.

-1 Non citizen with my listed effects
0 Could be little more than a slave for those places that don't allow slavery, Slave for those that do.
1 Just enough to get a few perks, 100 extra C-Bills a month
2 250 extra c-bills a month
3 500 extra a month
4 Some appreciable standing now.  May now be a Mechwarrior and/or an Officer now. 750 extra a month pay.
5 1000 extra a month
6 1500 extra a month
7 1750 extra a month
8 2250 extra a month
9 3000 extra a month
10 4000 extra a month and normal player limit unless overruled by GM

Jackmc

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #31 on: 22 March 2011, 14:23:43 »
I think you're on the right track.  Waht we really need are three groups of attributes, physical (the 8 we have now), Social and Equipment.  Ideally everyoen would have the same opportunitties in the physical atts (excepting phenotupes) while they would have to dedcide where to invest their points between Social and Equipment. 

The pain is that sometimes in real life, someone gets lucky and gets the best of everything which blows point buy right out the window.  Maybe a hybrid system with a enough default points to build a decent character and then roll for a random number of bonus points?

-Jackmc   


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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #32 on: 22 March 2011, 20:27:07 »
This wasn't in response to your last post, it was a addendum to my earlier post because this was a point I had wanted to make in that post but had forgotten to include.

My general view on Citizenship is that it's bad game design.  It's the default state for the majority of characters with not having it being the exception rather than the rule.  If you're going to use a game mechanic, it should be to address the exception rather than the default.   


-Jackmc.


So drop Citizen as a trait, make a negative trait 'non-Citizen' instead.
C4 trumps 4 Aces

Jackmc

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #33 on: 22 March 2011, 21:23:05 »

So drop Citizen as a trait, make a negative trait 'non-Citizen' instead.

Exactly

-Jackmc


monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #34 on: 22 March 2011, 23:48:10 »
I'm not sure if I'd go that far but I have to admit AToW does feel like it could benefit from something like the old Social Standing attribute from CBT:RPG/MW3ed, especially for a stratified neo feudalistic society that we've all come to know.

Status does still feel a bit unfinished but with that last brain storm it does feel like I'm homing in on the problem.  My main concern is that it may be a little too over powered to keep a stand alone Connections trait.  Which also begs the question if there should be a stand alone Connections trait at all or if it should have some customization in the four subfactors like what I'm kicking around for Status.

A fair amount to think about but that is for another time as I need to start focusing on my job interview coming up soon.

BirdofPrey

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #35 on: 23 March 2011, 00:38:02 »
Personally, I would like connections to me more customized.  The max levels should stay the same but you should be able to trade them around (swap info for people, or wealth for equipment for instance) to represent that different people have different kinds of connections, some people are friends with the quartermaster while others know people who keep their ear to the ground.  I do think it should be kept separate from the person's social standing (though that doesn't rule out standing having some effect on connections in a similar manner to link modifiers effectively adding or subtracting a skill levels); after all, even the lowliest of grunts know people.

I never did MW3ed, what exactly does the SOC attribute affect?

Jackmc

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #36 on: 23 March 2011, 09:10:55 »
I'm not sure if I'd go that far but I have to admit AToW does feel like it could benefit from something like the old Social Standing attribute from CBT:RPG/MW3ed, especially for a stratified neo feudalistic society that we've all come to know.

GURPS 3rd edition (possibly 4th too, but I don't remember) did a fairly good job of tracking social status and there's advantages/disadvantages in GURPS that mimic ATOW traits which would give you a benchmark for calculating the trait costs for a revised social system.

-Jackmc


monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #37 on: 23 March 2011, 09:23:47 »
Personally, I would like connections to me more customized.  The max levels should stay the same but you should be able to trade them around (swap info for people, or wealth for equipment for instance) to represent that different people have different kinds of connections, some people are friends with the quartermaster while others know people who keep their ear to the ground.  I do think it should be kept separate from the person's social standing (though that doesn't rule out standing having some effect on connections in a similar manner to link modifiers effectively adding or subtracting a skill levels); after all, even the lowliest of grunts know people.

I never did MW3ed, what exactly does the SOC attribute affect?

I too would like Connections to be a little more customizable for pretty much the same reasons and while the trait value will not go past 10 TP to make the customization worthwhile the sub ratings would have to go beyond the normal 10 or else there would be very little variety in a 10 TP Connections trait.

My initial thought on Status and it's specialized Connections is that this should do a pretty decent approximation of what you can use your position of power to get things done without having to deal with the normal once every so many days use your connections that can accomplish more all things said and done.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #38 on: 27 March 2011, 00:51:54 »
I forgot to answer Bird of Prey's question about what SOC covered in CBT:RPG/MW3ed.  The short answer is it pretty much is what the Title trait is now with Citizenship thrown in.  Some affiliations and Life Paths had a minimum SOC to enter or avoid being a slave/political non-entity.  Over all really thinking about it SOC hasn't gone away.

After recent events I am starting to think about certain things a bit more.  I'm thinking about making attributes a bit more expensive by making the progression non-linear or at the very least more expensive.  I'm even entertaining the thought of upping the Target Numbers for several skills so that you can never have better than a -1/-1 G/P when translating to Total Warfare.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #39 on: 12 April 2011, 17:21:12 »
I've been kicking a few things around lately and I find myself ready to get some feedback on a few things.

First up since I've learned about a bit of fluff where Terrans can live to around 200 years or so I've been thinking about the Aging rules and how to reflect that.  I've pretty well come to the conclusion that it needs an overhaul and makes a great opportunity to have another trait in the mix that actually makes sense.  To balance it out I'm going to junk the +/-100 XP per year before/past 21/18 thing.

Aging:

Character gets +25 flexible XP per year that may only be spent on attributes or traits that can be argued as a matter of physical training, mental training, or surgery/drugs up until Peak Age.  After Peak Age is reached -25 Flexible XP is applied each year in addition.  At Middle Age Attributes become more expensive to raise by 25%.  At Old Age Attributes become even more expensive at a total 50% cost increase and an additional -10 XP for a total of -35 XP of flexible XP is applied.  In the End Years the cost for Attributes is doubled from original costs and the negative flexible XP assigned each year becomes a total of -50 XP.  Except for Edge.  Edge may never be altered by this aging effect unless desired by the GM.  To determine Peak, Middle Age, Old Age, and End Years refer to the new Aging trait found below.  Because of how Good/Poor/Genetics interacts with Aging the player should calculate the bonus XP at the Final Touches stage and be spent or banked at that point as normal.

New Traits:

Aging[-5 to 5]
Character Trait

Whether because of genetics, planetary conditions, or access to medical care you suffer from the rigors of aging differently than everyone else.  Aging effects can be altered through access to better medical science or conversely removal of said medical science as well as prolonged exposure to hazardous environments and a character's bad habits(GM's call).  To represent this in game terms the player applies the modifiers of their new Aging trait starting that year and forward.

TP Peak Age Middle Age Old Age End Years
-5 11 22 33  44
-4 16 32 48  64
-3 19 38 57  76
-2 22 44 66  88
-1 24 48 72  96
0  25 50 75  100
1  26 52 78  104
2  28 56 84  112
3  31 62 93  124
4  35 70 105 140
5  40 80 120 160


And I've been thinking about Phenotypes and I find myself not liking their current lack of balance.  Let's face it for most AToW scale campaigns it is just so much better to be an Elemental phenotype.  So instead I'm creating two more traits.  The second is part of a fix to the Skill XP to Rank problems I'm growing unsatisfied with because it does make life a little too difficult at times figuring out how all those traits interact.

Good Genetics[1 to 8]
Character Trait

If by some blessing of chance or through modern science you can excede the limitations of mere mortals.  For each trait point invested a character may receive either a +1 to an Attribute or may adjust their attribute maximums by a combined total of +1 instead.  Attributes may not be increased beyond 10.  Edge is exempted from this trait.  When comined with the Aging Trait the character receives an additional amount of XP each year equal to 10 times trait level(1 TP grants 10 XP, 8 TP grants 80 XP).

Poor Genetics[-1 to -8]
Character Trait

Whether a scientist created you for some sick experiment or your family tree is a little trunk like you have gotten a poor lot in life.  For each rank of this trait an attribute is applied a -1 to either it's final rank or maximum threshold.  No attribute may be reduced to less than a final rank of 1 with this trait and likewise a maximum rank for an attribute may not be reduced below 1.  During Aging a character gains a number of XP equal to the Trait Points of this trait times ten(-1 would be -10 XP, -8 would be -80 XP) to be distributed to attributes or appropriate traits.

Intensive Training[1-2]
Character Trait

Between hard work, natural talent, and a well designed training program you have an easier time with a field of work.  This trait causes one of the Character's advanced fields related skills to have their target number dropped by 1.  For 1-5 skills in the field this trait costs 1 TP.  For 6+ this trait costs 2 TP.

Yes Tech Empathy is getting dropped for Intensive Training.  Now for the rest of the fix.

Revised XP system:
Every time a character rolls for a skill or attribute check they get 1 XP towards that skill or attribute.  On a fumble they get an amount equal to the MoF.  On a success they get 1 additional XP per MoS of 5 or fraction thereof.  For skills this XP can be applied to the skill itself, the link attribute(s), or a relevant trait instead.  Characters will always receive Int divided by 2 round down each month.  Training and awards by the GM function as normal.

Fast Learner[2 TP]
Character Trait

A character with Fast Learner doubles all XP gains from the revised XP system and from training exempting campaign rewards.

Slow Learner[-2 TP]
Character Trait

A character with Slow Learner halves(round down) all  XP gains from the revised XP system and from training exempting campaign rewards.

Illiterate[-1]
Character Trait

As normal except the 10% cost adjustment to skills with a link attribute of Intelligence is dropped.

Gremlins[-2]
Character Trait

As normal except the 10% cost for technical skills adjustment is gone.
« Last Edit: 13 April 2011, 12:51:35 by monbvol »

Gaifin

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #40 on: 12 April 2011, 19:19:06 »
I like what you have done with the aging thing! I am going to try it out with the new campaign i have just started.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #41 on: 12 April 2011, 19:51:24 »
Okay Aging brackets for the Aging trait attached as a spreadsheet attachment to previous post along with total XP up to the maximum age of each bracket figured out for you.  I also decided I will be revising the costs of attributes and also did up a table showing how much they cost at each age bracket.

Made a few more adjustments so be sure to go through and reread what I've put up there.

I know it makes some things more complicated but honestly I feel better about handling them this way.

Oh and I've decided since I'm tossing Phenotype and Trueborn for Genetics there will be no free traits.  You want it you got to buy it.  Likewise to represent the stratified society of the Clans and to account for their lack of money for warriors to rework my status trait a bit and make having that level of status a requirement for the indicated Caste.  Likewise they will have to pay the cost for Intensive Training trait I have added.  My only real problem to this point though is I may be hitting the Clans a little too hard for a module build but I do like the implication of not all Clan genetics programs being equal that this creates.
« Last Edit: 13 April 2011, 12:40:18 by monbvol »

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #42 on: 13 June 2011, 19:47:21 »
Having toyed around with these rules a bit more extensively I have hit a bit of an unintended snag.

I'm not sure how much of a snag it really is since I kind of did screw up the experiment and the points of comparison were a bit wonky as a result.

I'm fairly pleased with my random event rolls.  I'll have to take a look here and make sure I did zero sum them in the post like I have in my document.

The main point of contention I am having is more that one of my goals was to make it slightly less expensive to get an attribute bonus.  The thing is now I'm worried one of my traits may create a workaround that makes it too easy.

I'll have to think on if it really actually bothers me that much or not.

Tslammer

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #43 on: 14 June 2011, 10:38:21 »
Some mulling on the Attributes issue that seems to have come up again.  I'm still toying around with it but I figure why not put my initial thoughts here to see what others think.

Attribute ScoreModifier
0-4
1-3
2-2
3-1
40
50
61
71
81
92
102
We did something similar
1         -3
2         -2
3         -1
4-5       0
6-7     +1
8-9     +2
10      +3


monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #44 on: 14 June 2011, 11:06:27 »
I'm still debating that scale somewhat.  I haven't sold myself on having a +3 be possible but it might be a nice incentive for those attributes that don't have other uses beyond the modifiers.  Like Strength adding to melee damage, Body making you harder to kill, and Will making you tire less easily are all good incentives to have those attributes as high as possible.  The rest are nice to have high but really I do feel like there is less incentive to go past a +1.

I'm still toying around with my cost scale too because I do like the idea of it not being xp/100=attribute.  The way I have it now is that yes it costs 50 XP more to have a 6 but the advantage is you get a +1 modifier versus the as written cost to get the same modifier being 50 XP greater than the way I have it.

Tslammer

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #45 on: 14 June 2011, 17:10:46 »
I like the straight cost for Attributes MW2 made them to important and to expensive to buy up later. Because our version of the MW3 Solaris rules uses attributes in mech combat we upped our starting XP to compensate. One year later we still have a balanced group and no one character stands out over the others. So I feel we have avoided some munchkin issues.

One character seems to be better than the rest as she has 7-8 solo kills but that is due to a lucky streak of head kills rather than being built more uber than the rest.

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #46 on: 14 June 2011, 23:14:51 »
I'm still debating that scale somewhat.  I haven't sold myself on having a +3 be possible but it might be a nice incentive for those attributes that don't have other uses beyond the modifiers.  Like Strength adding to melee damage, Body making you harder to kill, and Will making you tire less easily are all good incentives to have those attributes as high as possible.  The rest are nice to have high but really I do feel like there is less incentive to go past a +1.

I'm still toying around with my cost scale too because I do like the idea of it not being xp/100=attribute.  The way I have it now is that yes it costs 50 XP more to have a 6 but the advantage is you get a +1 modifier versus the as written cost to get the same modifier being 50 XP greater than the way I have it.

You also have to remember that chart TSlammer posted was also setup for 2D10.

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monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #47 on: 15 June 2011, 01:19:42 »
True.

I like the idea of a progressive scale for attributes because it does feel more realistic and can help with some of the issues I keep coming across.  Mostly that if I do want attribute bonus I feel like I do tend to give up a little too much.  The way I have it now does feel like it needs a little refinement but it is only slightly cheaper to get attribute bonuses and I'm feeling pretty okay with that.

Where I'm having difficulty is with the Genetics trait I added.  It may be too easy of a work around.  Like I've said though I do need to run through more experiments.  Especially without screwing up the points of comparison.

Cannon_Fodder

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #48 on: 15 June 2011, 01:39:29 »
8 it the normal Maximum for normal humans (for all but CHA and EDG). Having the very top be +2 feels right.

The only time you are going to get into the +3 at attribute 10 is when dealing with Clan Phenotypes combined with Exceptional Attributes.

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monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #49 on: 15 June 2011, 09:09:29 »
I will admit it is tempting and I'm not entirely against it.  I think I just may make the switch once I finish working out my Genetics trait to make sure it isn't quite so easy to get a 10 in an attribute.  I was wanting it to be a bit more free form but I think I am just going to have to make it to where my players have to select a premade phenotype.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #50 on: 15 June 2011, 23:00:07 »
Okay I managed to come up with an alternative that makes me feel a bit better about my Genetics trait.  Cap the actual attribute rank modifier at a maximum of +2.  I'm still debating the target number issue.  Sometimes I think the odds of success are a little too good but at other times not so much.

Cannon_Fodder

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #51 on: 16 June 2011, 08:52:32 »
The 2D10 conversion for skill targets we used are

Code: [Select]
Old TN New TN
 7 11
 8 12
 9 14

And with a starting skill cap of +4 it seams to be working fairly well.

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monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #52 on: 16 June 2011, 09:20:23 »
Part of my problem is that it just doesn't feel like there is enough disparity between people who've trained all their lives to be masters of particular skills and rank amateurs who practice on the weekends.  Yet at the same time my own experience with fire arms tells me that there are skills that shouldn't take a lot of training before you start getting decent odds of success.

Jackmc

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #53 on: 16 June 2011, 10:35:48 »
Part of my problem is that it just doesn't feel like there is enough disparity between people who've trained all their lives to be masters of particular skills and rank amateurs who practice on the weekends.  Yet at the same time my own experience with fire arms tells me that there are skills that shouldn't take a lot of training before you start getting decent odds of success.

What you're missing is a ranking on the difficulty of any given skill.  GURPS uses a hiearchy of Easy, Average, Hard and Very Hard.  In GURPS the Guns skill is an Easy skill so anyone with average dexterity and a little bit of training can become a decent shot.  On the other hand, Computer Programming/Hacking is a Very Hard skill which means that excelling in the art takes a massive amounts of both raw intelligence and time expended (skill points in GURPS reflect time spent learning/practicing a skill).   

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #54 on: 16 June 2011, 10:36:54 »
lurking to see if there's anything here I'd use in the future.
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monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #55 on: 16 June 2011, 11:42:12 »
I understand that Jackmc.  I'm not missing anything there.  I'm willing to admit it probably is just a matter of perception.  I will also admit the idea of going to 2d10 is an interesting solution that could quite possibly solve a lot of what I perceive to be such problems.

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #56 on: 16 June 2011, 12:28:30 »
I understand that Jackmc.  I'm not missing anything there. 

sorry, poorly communicated.  What I meant is the concept's missing the skill difficulty ranking, not that you're overlooking it.

-Jackmc


monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #57 on: 16 June 2011, 15:32:17 »
Ah now that makes more sense.  Though I am starting to consider the possibility that it could just be more a matter of that I'm not properly exploiting the existing suggested modifiers.  I know that getting some additional special abilities worked out will probably help the remainder of the issue.

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #58 on: 23 June 2011, 23:11:05 »
Recent discussions are now causing me to think about the Equipped trait as a stand alone trait.

As I keep trying to think about how to fluff Equipped I keep coming back to how it seems to depend more on things that really would be better represented by my new trait Status, the existing traits of Connections, and Reputation.

I'm still working out exactly how to express this so stay tuned.

« Last Edit: 23 June 2011, 23:47:44 by monbvol »

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #59 on: 24 June 2011, 00:02:22 »
Okay this will be reworking my status trait a bit but I think I like it better this way.  Sure it makes the player work/think a bit harder but so far I'm fairly happy with the results.

Both provide a pool of points with which you can buy the subsets of Equipped, Info, People, and Wealth.  To keep Equipped and People from being too easily dominating of choices they take up two points for each level in that subset.  Everything else follows the rules and information as presented in AToW.  Basically Connections still has to be rolled for while Status does not.

I've decided to not enforce maximum limits on People or Info.

Attached is a spreadsheet that'll help customize how you want your subsets for Connections and Status.  I've included dropdowns for everything that has defined limits.  Cells intended for data entry have been shaded yellow.  Tab 2 shows the chart for how many points I intend each level of these traits to provide for their subsets.