MW4/AToW Test Character, Where have I gone wroung?

[Drop Bear]

OK going through AtoW to see if I'm doing things right and I have this test character the life path is

Basic Package 850
Affiliation: MoC, 100
Early Childhood: White Collar, 170
Late Childhood: Military School, 500
Education: Military Academy (MechWarrior) W/OCS, (830 + 150 -30 +150 -30) + (550 + 150 -30) = 1740
"Real Life": ToD Periphery, 700
Age: 22

Total XP spent: 4060 of 5100 (including Age Modifier)

now I've assigned flexibles from the Paths but haven't spent the last 1040XP or gone in to buying Adds & Dads so the character looks like this

Str 1
Bod 2.5
Rfl 2.4
Dex 1
Int 1.9
Will 1.5
Cha 4.4
Edg 2

Traits
Equipped 1.75
Gregarious .5
Illiterate -.25
Reputation -.25
Enemy -1.5
Extra Income .5
Wealth 4
Connections 1 
Fit .15
Rank 4.7
Vehicle 1

Skills
English                           1 +10xp
Spanish                          1
Perception                      2 +10xp
Streetwise/MoC              2
Acting                             1
Art/                                 1
Interest/Soccer              3
Career/Solider                3 +30xp
Computers                     1 +5xp
Interest/Military History  1 +5xp
Leadership                     5 +30xp
Martial Arts                     3 +20xp
Medtech                          2 +10xp
Melee Weapons              3 +30xp
Running                           2 +10xp
Small Arms                       3 +10xp
Strategy                          2 +15xp
Swimming                        2 +15xp
Nav/Ground                     2 +20xp
Pilot/Mech                        2 +5xp
Gunnery/Mech                 2 +5xp
Sensor Opps                   1
Tactics/Land                    2 +5xp
Tech/Electronics               1
Admin                              1
Training                           1
Negotiation                     0 +5xp


now I have to spend 190XP to even out my stats and then they will still be pathetic, and an other 330 to even out my Traits (getting at least a light mech) that leaves me with 320XP left over, 225XP from leftover skills XP this leaves me with 545 XP to try and bring my Stats and core skills to a respectable level.

either it can't be done or I've gone wrong somewhere, just to get worthwhile stats I'm looking at another 2K I've got 500 & change to spend and if I wanted to pull down lots of bad stuff on my own head another 500

for the record I want a Medium Mech, Attractive trait and possibly a minor title so that's another 400-700XP I just don't have

[Archameades]

It looks right, at a glance, to me.  While your character is a little lacking in a few areas, it makes up for it in others.  Keep in mind your Cha, Rank, and Wealth account for almost a full third of all the points you've spent so far.

If you need some extra points to get the character that you have envisioned, try advancing their age a bit to give them a few more points.  I believe your character is around 22 years old now, so if you're ok with using the 100 extra xp for year over 21 rule.  Then you already have an extra 100 xp points for your pool.  Keep in mind also, that you could also apply aging modifiers which kick in at 25 and 31 years old.

[Maelwys]

Keep in mind that you can add up to 500 points of negative traits to increase your XP pool, and you can shave those extra points off of your skills and dd them to the pool as well if you want.

The attributes do look a little low, but not unsurprisingly so.

ATOW seems geared towards very straight-forward characters with little embellishments, so if you want all the perks, you may need to age the character, or talk to your GM about raising the base point costs.

(I must admit, I still have no idea how any character gets made if you want to have two Stage 4 Lifepaths :) )

[Trenchknife]

Your field costs are wrong.  Each skill in a field costs 30 points, but each skill in said field gains 36 XP.  Thus your basic trianing and mechwarrior fields should cost 150 points each, not 120.  Your skills are actually decent, I normally don't allow any starting skill aboved +4.  Just make sure that you spend the majority of your points on Attributes now.

[Drop Bear]

Way I read Fields they cost you 30 X Number of Skills (150 for most IS fields) then Rebate you 6 X Number of Skills (30) so after Rebates it costs you 24 X Number of Skills (120 for most IS fields).

[Trenchknife]

Way I read Fields they cost you 30 X Number of Skills (150 for most IS fields) then Rebate you 6 X Number of Skills (30) so after Rebates it costs you 24 X Number of Skills (120 for most IS fields).

You know...now that I've reread it...I believe you're right.  Huh...wonder if I drew that from the beta release and just skimmed over the Field description in the released book.  Live and learn!  :)

[Tslammer]

ATOW is balanced around having stats of 4 and Gunnery and Piloting skills of 4+. Being exceptional is usually way out of the budget.  If your going to have exceptional characters in your game your going to need to offset with some disadvantages and maybe get the GM to bump the starting XP a little.

[Drop Bear]

I don't think in MW4 (at least in the Core book) your meant to do more than four moduals or certern combos, you don't have the points. in my opinion the PTB's want your characters to be green kids who have only been around the block once if at all, I tend to get in to the most trouble when I go for a Officer + ToD combo.

as to leadership 5 + change, it just kind of went their on it's own by going through Military School, Academy & OCS

[Daryk]

I tried running your character through my spreadsheet, but I couldn't quite get the math to add up.  I pasted a copy of your skill list out to the right for ease of reference, and marked the discrepencies with red font.  If you strip out the flexible XP spent on skills, you'll have 230 XP left vice a 100XP deficit.

[JamesPryde]

I don't think in MW4 (at least in the Core book) your meant to do more than four moduals or certern combos, you don't have the points. in my opinion the PTB's want your characters to be green kids who have only been around the block once if at all, I tend to get in to the most trouble when I go for a Officer + ToD combo.

as to leadership 5 + change, it just kind of went their on it's own by going through Military School, Academy & OCS

I asked that question in another thread and Herb said (paraphrase) they wanted to simplify and speed up the generation process to get the game going. (not sure how to refernce threads)

[Bagpuss]

Keep in mind that you can add up to 500 points of negative traits to increase your XP pool, and you can shave those extra points off of your skills and dd them to the pool as well if you want.

And I believe before you even pick those -500 pts of those negative traits (gaining you 500xp to spend), you can optimise the negative traits you already have.

Illiterate -.25
Reputation -.25
Enemy -1.5

So make Enemy -2 (which gets you 50 xp)
Make Reputation -1 (which get you 75xp)

You will probably want to buy off Illiterate rather than buy up a Lang to level 4 (unless you buy Fast Learner (which nearly everyone does)).

I'm also amazed you don't have any other negative traits, every time I've been through the character creation rules I've ended with at least a couple of Compulsions

[peterbehere]

You should run the numbers through Battletech Character Creator (BTCC)!  New version out: bthub.net   :)

[Drop Bear]

Oho I have and it ain't pretty, short all over the place on compatant stats, clearly the PTB's don't like Officers. I havent ended up with characters this Green since I played MW1

[Tslammer]

In our ATOW game we limit peoples starting Skills (any) to 4+ We also have several people with a few attributes in the 6-8 range. At least one of my characters has an 8 for DEX and INT. All with 5500 starting points and 550 additional disadvantages.




But were using straight skills instead of converting to 2D6 piloting and gunnery numbers. Because were doing this were allowing link to affect piloting and gunnery. In our setting 4+ gunnery skill does not make you a hot shot gunner its relative to your actual targets actions attributes and piloting skill (plus the normal range, your movement and terrain mods). For instance a PSR target is a base 12 minus skill and any link (plus any damage modifiers). Even on 2D10 this can be tricky until your skill and link gets the target to a 6 roll.

But then again we are the 2D10 heretic's.

[Daryk]

Oho I have and it ain't pretty, short all over the place on compatant stats, clearly the PTB's don't like Officers. I havent ended up with characters this Green since I played MW1

I think TPTB like officers just fine.  They just need to pay for that extra authority with a couple extra negative trait points.  Seriously, as near as I could tell, your desired skill levels would only take one more negative trait point to pay for.

[SeaRaptor]

But were using straight skills instead of converting to 2D6 piloting and gunnery numbers.

I've been struggling to figure out how to do this, but need some assistance.

How do you convert the skills on the character sheet for piloting and gunnery into numbers for Mech combat with Total Warfare?

[monbvol]

Target Number - Skill Rank.

For a Spheroid/Freeborn mechwarrior this would be 8 - Skill Rank.  For a Trueborn mechwarrior this would be 7 - Skill Rank.

So say you have a Spheroid with a 4 in AToW Skill Rank in Gunnery/Mech the math would be 8 - 4 = 4.

[Maelwys]

I wanted to post that earlier, but for the life of me, I couldn't find it in the book.

So where's it hiding, Monbvol? :)

[monbvol]

The little box at the end of Page 40.

[Maelwys]

ah thanks. I knew it was near the front, I just forgot it was in a massive block of text instead of being a chart :)

[monbvol]

Yeah that probably could be more clearly stated and probably could do with at least one more reference in the Tactical Combat Addendum.

[SeaRaptor]

Thank you kindly!  I couldn't find it for the life of me.

[Tslammer]

I've been struggling to figure out how to do this, but need some assistance.

How do you convert the skills on the character sheet for piloting and gunnery into numbers for Mech combat with Total Warfare?

Did not see this till today PM sent.