Character Attribute Pool Guide

[Skydancer]

Hello forum creepers,

On many occasions I've observed experienced players demonstrate a lack of understanding of how character attributes are calculated, which is often then.. attributed.. to a UI display bug or something similar. In order to address this common misunderstanding, as well as arm all players new and old alike with the knowledge to understand more about the tradeoffs of your character selection I have put together this guide.

Key points of discussion will around your pool of total attributes so you know what to look out for on the character screen.

First I will outline a set of definitions used to explain the system:

Term	Description
Maximum Potential	The sum of all individual attribute caps for your character (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Psyche, Intelligence, Size)
True Potential	Your characters attribute pool, or the maximum number of attributes that can be allocated to your character
Fixed Potential	The sum of bare minimum limits to attributes possible (eg. 10 in main attributes, varying size minimums depending on race). These cannot be changed or lowered
Active Potential	The number of available attribute points you can actually allocate across any of the 6 player attributes between the minimum and maximum

As few players are aware of how the attribute pool affects the true potential of their race selection, often balance discussions rest solely on the maximum potential of individual attribute caps, or a combination considered the most vital to combat roles. This is still a perfectly valid premise from which to make your character choice, but I feel that without knowing what your characters true potential is, you might be missing part o the equation using this strategy (Which will become more and more true over time as more content is added and people want their characters to be able to perform more roles than at launch.

Here is our case-study to demonstrate the role the varying potentials of each race can have on choice, both at Age 18 for simplicity, and races that have comparable attribute strengths and weaknesses:

	Sidoian​	Sidoian​	Blainn​	Blainn​
Attribute	Min​	Max​	Min​	Max​
Strength	10​	105​	10​	109​
Dexterity	10​	96​	10​	92​
Constitution	10​	103​	10​	127​
Intelligence	10​	103​	10​	103​
Psyche	10​	77​	10​	85​
Size (rounds up on odds)	84 (168/2)​	99 (197/2) ​	78 (156/2)​	87(173/2)​
Total	134​	583​	128​	613​
Attribute Pool	134​	468​	128​	440​

Lets put these into a potential table:

Character	True Potential​	Active Potential​	Fixed Potential​	Maximum Potential​
Sidoian	468​	334​	134​	583​
Blainn	440​	312​	128​	613​
Difference	-28 (-6%)​	-22 (-7%)​	-6 (-4%)​	+30 (+5%)​

Now lets compare the maximum potential of the individual attributes

Character	Strength​	Dexterity​	Constitution​	Intelligence​	Psyche​	Size​
Sidoian	105​	96​	103​	103​	77​	99​
Blainn	109​	92​	127​	103​	85​	87​
Difference	+4 (+4%)​	-4 (-4%)​	+24 (+23%)​	+0 (0%)​	+8 (+10%)​	-12 (12%)​

As you can see, Sidoians excel at Size by quite a lot, while Blainn Excel at Constitution and Psyche. While Many would recommend Blainn over Sidoian purely based on individual attribute caps and their utility, few would go out of their way to mention whatever your build, Blainns will always be 28 points behind in overall potential.

Summary
In conclusion, every single race combination has its own true potential, super high attribute caps usually come at a price and a long-term decision should factor true potential into a character choice for anyone wanting to pack in as many skills as possible and be competent at many roles in a single build. Priority should be given to the size of your races attribute pool, not just the size of your attribute caps. What good is a cap if you don't have the points to utilise it?

I hope this guide helps anyone who is keen on squeezing the most out of their character to know exactly what they are signing up for at race selection.

Disclaimer

• While attribute levels will no doubt change over time, the principles outlined in this guide will remain the same throughout the life of the game
• This guide makes no value judgments on the utility of individual attributes or nor their maximums
• This guide does not factor in immeasurable racial attributes such as clade gifts and abilities
• This guide does not factor in thematic preferences. There are many others on these forums who can provide detailed analysis on the value of different attribute levels and what key milestones are in terms of effectiveness and utility for each (weapon requirements, magic damage, hitpoints and speed etc)

 

[Necromantic]

As I said in the other thread, that is supposed to change by changing either the starting attribute points in the character creator depending on size or the remaining attribute points once in-game. I asked Henrik before and he said it's only that way for now. But since they are doing all those attribute changes and this still hasn't changed I'm going to remind them every time until it is done.

On top of that they should just get rid of uneven size numbers, since we can't reliably choose them anyway and that means sometimes one point in size (for the uneven) will give or take 1 attribute point instead for only 1 size instead of two. It will lead to other rounding problems as well and what even happens when we can adjust size in-game later on by some means?
It's really just all a problem with how they set up the size and everything surrounding it.

 

[Kaemik]

It's worth noting, there is a total attribute point spread between the clades that get the most (Full-Tindremene, Full-Sarduucan, Full-Sheevra) and the races that get the clades that get the least (Full-Huergar, Full-Blainn, Thursar-Khurite). 476 vs 440 attribute pool.

So even between the most extreme examples, it's a fairly small gap.

If you were to say, make a Tindremic pureblood fighter, you actually end up with a ton of leftover points after maxing Str/Dex/Con/Size. While if you make a Heurgar fat mage, you have all the points you need to max Int/Psy/Con.

So is there applications for Tind/Sard/Sheevra? Yes. Especially Sheevra. The higher attribute totals are exceptionally useful for any kind of hybrid or foot-mage. But for instance, if you want to be a mounted fat mage, even with 440 points, there are Huergars, and there are inferior clades. I don't think there is room to make a reasonable argument that up to 36 points of Str/dex/size is useful enough to a fatmage under the current system to outweigh 136 int cap with good psyche and con.

So while attribute totals are an improvement over previous systems, if you want a system where there are viable versions of most major build archetypes available to most clades, it's only a single step in the right direction.

 

[Skydancer]

@Necromantic Ok cool sorry about that. Size is definitely the odd one out here and it seems easier to consider a race minimum size as 0 and work all attribute bonus from there. I think Henrik floated that concept on stream one day RE: Str bonus potental of shorties vs tallies

@Kaemik I mostly agree with all that - this guide was just to explain that this is something to consider and that might affect peoples plans as one cannot just say - characters get x points to spend on their attributes over the course of the game.

I do however see a potential gap of almost 10% of your spendable points as significant. It limits build possibilities. Not a deal breaker by any means but surely there's better ways to create racial differences. Also a difficult concept to explain to new players - All characters get 440-476 points based on your choices. Why? Because Oghmir are simpletons who can only do one thing at a time relative to Tindremenes? It seems that way on the surface. Alvarin have huge dex caps and solid caps all round but have some of the largest pools. Seems like a a penalty to dwarves rather than a buff to elves

I don't think its the best system that could exist, especially the major differences between humans. For hybrids it could be the difference between +-30 psy - a decent chunk of mana and mana regen rate which just seems like an unnecessary difference. Overall through you are probably right, everyone mostly gets enough points to become a specialist, plus gift points which MO1 didn't have. I ran some test builds just between these two and arguably blainn has the upper hand even with a lower pool. Seems simpler to normalise it all for each clade and differentiate it in the gifts/caps.

Logic doesn't always prevail in game design anyway since if SV say every race of human shares the same gifts because they share ancestry, then technically they should share the same maximum attribute caps and pool anyway by that logic.

I was actually thinking that tying attribute pool to character age would be more fun - more wisdom with age = more attribute pool at the expense of diminished physical capacity. Solves the attribute cap problem and the build diversity problem at the same time while giving age more meaning as a character variable (provided it can be modified in game).