Shapeshifters can have that same "high stat" problem, although in their case, their higher racial cost works to their advantage, letting them spend a lot more on Attributes at the expense of being more bare-bones at other areas. Awakened characters, in general, have to resign themselves to using Edge as a dump stat, at least humans. And infected characters can run into trouble - because first of all, it is treated as a quality, meaning they have to spend double the points on it. And second of all, they get higher base Attributes, but don't get any extra points that they are allowed to spend on them.

AI's and free spirits have the opposite problem. They were balanced mainly by their super-high racial cost, but in Karmagen, they wind up with a lot more points left over afterwards. A free spirit in BP spends 250 BP, and has 150 BP left. A free spirit in karmagen spends 250 karma, and has 500 Karma left. Big difference! I think Ancient History has admitted that karmagen was never intended to be used for AI's or free spirits.

Slight hyperbole, yes. Though my character's an Adept, so it might look more like this:


Body 5
Agility 4
Strength 11
Reaction 3
Charisma 2
Intuition 3
Logic 2
Willpower 2
Magic 5

Counting Edge and Magic in the 1/2 for attributes seems completely unfair and a mistake in the Karma Gen rules.

Or maybe not counting them in BP is the mistake; either way, you'd think they'd match. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I really don't see a reason for there to be a half in KarmaGen, since high attributes is the best way to minmax BP expenditures and not particularly minmaxxy in KarmaGen at all.

I'm contemplating going old school and applying attrib bonuses after buying points rather than before.

I've just costed the 3 troll archetypes in the book, not counting special attribs, and they come out thus -

Bounty Hunter - 340 Karma (Pre Racial Mod stat line 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 - 31 points)

Enforcer - 370 Karma (Pre Racial Mod stat line 5 4 3 5 4 4 3 3 - 31 points)

Street Shaman - 355 Karma (Pre Racial Mod stat line 1 4 3 1 6 5 5 4 - 29 points)

The bounty hunter has the most average stat line and the lowest overall cost., the Enforcer pays a little extra for his 2 5s and the Street Shaman, although in the middle for cost, loses out on 2 overall stat points, the price he pays for going againts the troll norm.

I'm still looking at overall balancing and metatype costs. I think it could work but I'm not sure if it will