Power Stat

[ThriceHonored]

All powerstats go from one to ten but would it be world ending if a new stat went to say...7? Tweak the increases so that max attributes cap out at ten per usual for a supernatural, max fuel stat/per turn etc...

Opinions?

[SunlessNick]

So long as disadvantages are similarly fast-tracked, probably not.

[Tessie]

It would break the convention, but a convention is not a rule. However, there should be a reason as for why the power is limited. Without knowing that reason it's hard to say whether it makes sense to increase trait maximums and fuel/turn rates.

[Stupid Loserman]

A minor point to consider is that some mechanics scale with Supernatural Potency, especially if the trait still maps one-to-one to Supernatural Tolerance. This might lead to a 7-dot character, who may be balanced to be otherwise equivalent with a typical 10-dot character, being slightly easier to affect with certain magic that's meant to calibrate more easily for small fry.

It's a pretty minor point if you're adjusting from 10 to 7, but it might matter if you adjusted to, say, 3.

[Pale_Crusader]

All powerstats go from one to ten but would it be world ending if a new stat went to say...7? Tweak the increases so that max attributes cap out at ten per usual for a supernatural, max fuel stat/per turn etc...

Opinions?

I had previous house-ruled a capping of Power Stats at 5, with a spiked acceleration in the downside while keeping the upside, flattened. It worked okay. My methodology about Power Stats now is much closer to Vanilla with the caveat I treat them like Ephemeral Entity Ranks, and have it so each level of Rank or Power levies an additional Ban, which makes for more nuanced Ephemeral Entities and where I insert the quirky "not quite a bane but definitely a limitation" mechanics of the various Major Template. Also like Ephemeral beings above Rank 5 don't show up in the Material World without Applied Phlebotinium, to Major Templates with Power Stats 6 or above in my homebrew begin to have trouble interacting with the Material World without Environmental Condition, like Ephemeral Entities.

The Lists of Bans are here, and besides flattening the playing field in terms of raw metaphysical might in the Physical World, they also drive in-world behaviors, like Werewolves claiming Territory and being in Packs, or Mage having Apprentices and Initiates members Consillium form cabals to investigate and deal with Abyssal threats.

Anyway, the point is if things are done across the board in regard to balance of Power Stats the setting can even be improved and made consistent with themes in the source material even as the mechanics change, but in a way that further reinforces the story elements already established.

Now if you just make a Template that can do in six steps of XP expenditure what the other Major Templates take in 9 steps, then that's clearly Power Creep for your fan-splat from a balance point of view. Which leads to the question do you care about balance as a Storyteller? Your answer may vary, my answer is yes
(to read how much so, see this spoiler)

to the point I've extensively retool and added mechanical factors which stabilize the settings by grounding character with relationships, tying characters to the setting and NPC in meaningful ways so violence is not nearly so useful as solutions and has meaning consequences to things important to the players and characters, along with retooling Banes, Bans, and making Mage borrow a bit more from Lovecraftian themes and significantly more from Mage the Ascension. (The Mage developer isn't a Lovecraft Fan, didn't really lean into the 'Darkness' part of Chronicles of Darkness, and with one little tweak to the effect of Mana in spell casting I introduce Lovecraft seamlessly) Also I reintroduce Objective Morality by cooping the Atrocity and Hell is Other People rules from Vampire the Requiem 1st ED and Danse Macabre for everyone rewritten for 2nd Ed, and not just Vampires. Morality and Vulnerable Character ties, and tying power to exploitable weaknesses, and making 5 the effective upper limit for Power Stats due to the severe restrictions with interacting with the Material World past that point, do a lot to "balance" the various Major Templates when comparing each other since it makes white rooms pretty meaningless because everything becomes intricate layers of context.

But yes isn't the only valid answer to a setting that can produce rich and interesting stories. Very interesting things can be done in unequal power dynamics, and if your new Major Template is just better then you'll want to spend a lot of time thinking how your entire world will be radically different from Canon because of your Template out competing existing Templates which has a shared niche.
So you can adjust your fan-splat to balance with and not out compete (either by increasing the gradient of its Power Stat or reduce the gradient of the existing Major Templates in your Chronicles) or you decide to have your Template out compete and dominate and think how that would change everything, with all the cause and effect needed to make your setting internally consistent and richly details so it is still compelling. Alternatively you might try some measure to saddle them with some weakness in their XP lightness to reach what others take more XP to gain to try and balance them some how, which is a third option.

[Dave Brookshaw]

Deviant's goes from 0 to 5. It's not that difficult, you just have to figure out something else to base Supernatural Tolerance on.

[Heavy Arms]

5 is probably easier for getting Supernatural Tolerance to 10, because there's lots of 5 dot Traits to combine it with. 7 would need to be paired with either a Merit or something unique it the splat the some how gets you from 0 to 3, which is doable, but a bit more work.