Alright, we all have house or optional rules that we tend to make up to either make the game more balanced, or more fun, and I'm wondering, what rules have you guys made up?
I've never played the game, but even so, that doesn't mean I haven't looked at the rules and thought "Would the game be more fun if I did this."
1. Extraordinary attributes: Basically, at every power level this is a maximum attribute rank, but (if I were to run some sort of game), I'd allow either 1 attribute to be 2 above this max OR 2 attributes to be one above this maximum. The reason behind it is because everyone's talented somewhere, some are slightly stronger then the norm, some more agile, some just seem to know how to talk to people better then others, and this is basically that. It allows for a PC to show that his strength, essence, perception or whatever is slightly better then the norm. Now, thinking about this (just now), I realized how much even one die is... so i'm thinking of just making an allowance of just one attribute one possible point higher, to try to make it a bit more even (and to make it so that min-maxing is still to a minimum.)
2: No more then three: you can only have three attributes maxed out for the power level. This not only makes it so that players just spend all of their points on attributes, but it also saves them points to put elsewhere (whether they know it or not).
3: Max skill rank: Yet one more way to try to put min-maxing to a minimum. By adding a Max skill rank equal to the max attribute rank +2, I'm able to avoid people trying to max out one attribute, then take a skill that uses that attribute, and buy that skill up to impossible levels. So someone won't be able to get a maxed out agility for the power level, and then throw his attack and evade up to 12 dice, at a lower power level (alright, bad example, but you get what I mean.) This caps that so that I don't run into anyone trying to break the game (Like my roommate, who seems to do that to every RPG), and it also helps the player flesh out his/her character more by almost forcing him to spend the excess points either in OTHER skills, or in other places in general.
4. Further Skill specialization: This came up when I thought you could already do this, but it turned out you couldn't. With this, I'd allow anyone to specialize in their skills, allowing them to spend the normal "Rank-up" cost, but instead specialize in said skill, making a normal "rank-up" equal to 2 ranks instead of one (at the cost of making that rank-up situational). So, lets take the skill "Brawling." I was saddened, while reading the book, that you took a penalty for doing maneuvers while brawling. With this, I could spend 3 points to "rank up," and specialize in doing head shots while brawling. Now, I get my normal brawling dice for when I just want to make a general attack, but if I call a shot for his head, I get +2 dice (as opposed to a +1 all round), effectively removing the penalty I get for doing so using brawling! (normal penalties are still applied for doing the maneuver though). Another example could possibly be "while attacking from behind" for any attack skill, "while flying" for most paksin, "Party talk" for conversation, or "while reading lips" for any language you may know, etc, etc. Also, if rule 3 is in practice, you can specialize a maxed out skill to effectively have an added +2 while doing that skill under it's specialization. I like the idea of this rule because it fleshes out character even more, and gives a lot of characters something new and unique, and I believe it would give some VERY imaginative moments in trying to figure things out to the best of a characters abilities "hmmm... well, I'm good at pole vaulting... so maybe if I use this spear, I could, possibly, jump the gap..."
Those are some Ideas I have, as I said, I haven't been able to play the game with my group as of yet (some are a bit iffy on the whole "you're an animal" thing, and the rest don't know enough about the setting to actually, get into it, and I make for a horrid GM...) What do you think? AND have you guys tooled around with some of the rules to make them better fit your game?
I've never played the game, but even so, that doesn't mean I haven't looked at the rules and thought "Would the game be more fun if I did this."
1. Extraordinary attributes: Basically, at every power level this is a maximum attribute rank, but (if I were to run some sort of game), I'd allow either 1 attribute to be 2 above this max OR 2 attributes to be one above this maximum. The reason behind it is because everyone's talented somewhere, some are slightly stronger then the norm, some more agile, some just seem to know how to talk to people better then others, and this is basically that. It allows for a PC to show that his strength, essence, perception or whatever is slightly better then the norm. Now, thinking about this (just now), I realized how much even one die is... so i'm thinking of just making an allowance of just one attribute one possible point higher, to try to make it a bit more even (and to make it so that min-maxing is still to a minimum.)
2: No more then three: you can only have three attributes maxed out for the power level. This not only makes it so that players just spend all of their points on attributes, but it also saves them points to put elsewhere (whether they know it or not).
3: Max skill rank: Yet one more way to try to put min-maxing to a minimum. By adding a Max skill rank equal to the max attribute rank +2, I'm able to avoid people trying to max out one attribute, then take a skill that uses that attribute, and buy that skill up to impossible levels. So someone won't be able to get a maxed out agility for the power level, and then throw his attack and evade up to 12 dice, at a lower power level (alright, bad example, but you get what I mean.) This caps that so that I don't run into anyone trying to break the game (Like my roommate, who seems to do that to every RPG), and it also helps the player flesh out his/her character more by almost forcing him to spend the excess points either in OTHER skills, or in other places in general.
4. Further Skill specialization: This came up when I thought you could already do this, but it turned out you couldn't. With this, I'd allow anyone to specialize in their skills, allowing them to spend the normal "Rank-up" cost, but instead specialize in said skill, making a normal "rank-up" equal to 2 ranks instead of one (at the cost of making that rank-up situational). So, lets take the skill "Brawling." I was saddened, while reading the book, that you took a penalty for doing maneuvers while brawling. With this, I could spend 3 points to "rank up," and specialize in doing head shots while brawling. Now, I get my normal brawling dice for when I just want to make a general attack, but if I call a shot for his head, I get +2 dice (as opposed to a +1 all round), effectively removing the penalty I get for doing so using brawling! (normal penalties are still applied for doing the maneuver though). Another example could possibly be "while attacking from behind" for any attack skill, "while flying" for most paksin, "Party talk" for conversation, or "while reading lips" for any language you may know, etc, etc. Also, if rule 3 is in practice, you can specialize a maxed out skill to effectively have an added +2 while doing that skill under it's specialization. I like the idea of this rule because it fleshes out character even more, and gives a lot of characters something new and unique, and I believe it would give some VERY imaginative moments in trying to figure things out to the best of a characters abilities "hmmm... well, I'm good at pole vaulting... so maybe if I use this spear, I could, possibly, jump the gap..."
Those are some Ideas I have, as I said, I haven't been able to play the game with my group as of yet (some are a bit iffy on the whole "you're an animal" thing, and the rest don't know enough about the setting to actually, get into it, and I make for a horrid GM...) What do you think? AND have you guys tooled around with some of the rules to make them better fit your game?