Pretender Balance Mod

[LintMan]

Originally posted by PvK:
Seems like that might be a good idea (altering the base path costs by a factor, and then giving that sort of factor as an advantage to pretenders like the humans).

I'll be interested to hear the opinions of folks who have played humanoids and rainbows successfully as to whether they think this could be unbalanced for strong RB/human players.

I had thought the idea Chris mentioned was interesting as well and was thinking about bringing it up, so thanks for saving me the effort, Chris!

I'm not an expert on the balance issues, but I have done some calculations on what you could do with cheaper costs per point.

Let's assume the Crone, with 10/point initial paths, no starting magic. Costs listed are just for the magic paths, and don't include the initial Crone cost (25) or dominion increases, etc.

At standard 8pts/level:
One path to L2: 26
7 paths to L2: 182
8 paths to L2: 208

One path to L4: 82
3 paths to L4: 246
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 376
7 paths to L4: 574
8 paths to L4: 656

One path to L8: 290
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 372
2 paths to L8: 580
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 662

At 7pts/level:
One path to L2: 24
7 paths to L2: 168
8 paths to L2: 192

One path to L4: 73
3 paths to L4: 219
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 339
7 paths to L4: 511
8 paths to L4: 584

One path to L8: 255
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 328
2 paths to L8: 510
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 583

At 6pts/level:
One path to L2: 22
7 paths to L2: 154
8 paths to L2: 176

One path to L4: 64
3 paths to L4: 192
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 302
7 paths to L4: 448
8 paths to L4: 512

One path to L8: 220
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 284
2 paths to L8: 440
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 504

At 5pts/level:
One path to L2: 20
7 paths to L2: 140
8 paths to L2: 160

One path to L4: 55
3 paths to L4: 165
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 265
7 paths to L4: 385
8 paths to L4: 440

One path to L8: 185
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 240
2 paths to L8: 370
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 425

At 4pts/level:
One path to L2: 18
7 paths to L2: 126
8 paths to L2: 144

One path to L4: 46
3 paths to L4: 138
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 228
7 paths to L4: 322
8 paths to L4: 368

One path to L8: 150
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 196
2 paths to L8: 300
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 346

Overall, it seems to me that 7pts/level wouldn't be an unreasonable boost for the human pretenders. Maybe 6pts/level might work, particularly if it was offset with a larger new-path startup cost. Anything below 6pts/level IMHO seems like it could be very unbalancing.