It definitely needs work. It is just an un-fleshed out idea at the moment.
At DDC 15, having a great court, and the support of an AA, likely just gets you the basic pool. You would need to back the action with influence to get any sort of significant pool. As so to how the MoS affects the pool, I don't know right now, maybe 2 for 1? I don't really think it matters largely, but it will depend on what the full menu of options for building are. Once the character basics are selected added purchase options for personality, skills, etc will quickly diminished a point system.
to use Influence make take ten impossible, so it is always better to take a "Hail Mary" attempt as Andy called it and try to get the best possible character. - He wanted to avoid that so I try to respect that.
Incidentally, I don't see how your concerns can't happen with any action. Abuse is Abuse regardless of the rules that are set forth.
Well, if you don't include rules for how to make an epic great blood strength wizard, then people can't try to abuse the rules by hiring one.. - So you could try NOT to invite abuse by removing the dangling a carrots? Just like Matt is removing the P&H. You know that some people get tempted to do stupid. If you like them you remove the temptation so they can't do it. If you don't care you remove them after they have abused the rules.
I do like this because at minimum, it could simplify the current set of rules and afford a lot of options for DMs without over complications. As someone who has run RoE before, it is a complex game with tons of moving pieces and complexity works to make the game overly difficult to run in a way that is fun for a DM.
You got me there, I have not tried to run RoE. But it seems to me, that not creating so large an opportunity for power gaming should be in the interest of the DM team in order to keep the complexity at a minimum.
And even though Matt is going to run this game very different from how roe2 was run, and roe 2 was run differently than roe1. I still think that when you bring up that you have been DM in RoE I am entitled to expect a more well thought through idea, understanding for why giving the option to abuse encourages abuse, and the absence of bad numbers added to your idea.
The basic idea is still sound, but everything past: "What if we did a system of build points for AA's and hirelings?", is as I see it just you showing how not to do it.
To work your idea need:
DDC directly depending on BP of character. This depend on the method of action resolution.
Action resolution needs to be either all or nothing, cumulative or sequence. To accommodate Andy's request.
Or alternatively 100% on success or half of what you rolled on failure(so if you go after a DDC 19 but only roll modified 18 you get a character as if you rolled 9. or a 3 BP character by your BP calculations. If you on the other hand roll modified 25 you still only get your DDC 19 character.) This will also accommodate Andy's request.
The ridiculous high levels and BS need to be removed.
Proficiencies need to be addressed as they are more of a power factor than what class a character has.
Caster level needs to be addressed because it is not proportionally more powerful to get a wizard lvl 7 instead of a fighter lvl 7, than it is getting a lvl 2 wizard instead of a lvl 2 fighter.
When Matt decides how he wishes to run the action All or nothing, cumulative, sequence or something else, then we can start on a point by that work in synergy with that choice.
A BP system where DDC = BP is basically also what I have suggested for the cumulative action.
And in the interest of keeping things simple, it might be easier to keep BP = DDC and then DM can tweak the BP cost to get the DDC at the level where they want it.
You can also strip the cumulative action down to only Hire help, no other actions can apply, only once per character per turn and then take it from there. It will actually make the action more transparent in terms of what you can get and how long it will take. The other things were just fluffy additions that could bring life to the story. If the DM's feel that choice make the idea of cumulative more manageable.
Nothing is set in stone.
