Cracking the character cost formula: Take two

Fallout Wasteland Warfare
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As some of you likely remember, a couple of months back I did some work trying to figure out the pricing on figures in the hopes of being able to create my own characters. I’ve done this for quite a few games in the past, and while I can’t promise I’ll perfect a formula soon, it’s something I intend to do eventually (I usually figure if I can get within 5% of the original costs on something, I’m usually doing pretty good.

In the case of Wasteland Warfare, I’ve heard that they don’t have a formula on their end and instead it’s more of a guestimating thing, that increases the chances that this will take a little while to work out a final version of this.

I had the privilege of getting to play a couple of games with a fellow wastelander yesterday and in my excitement I started playing around with some numbers. I feel like this latest attempt at creating a formula is much closer to the previous attempt.

Three of the seven models I ran were exact, three of the other four were only a single point off, and the last one was off by two.

So, what I did this time around was that I prioritized skills that are more important to the game rather than the core stats, though this affected the core stats.

Primary Skill: The primary combat skill of the model. In most cases longarms. I multiplied the attribute score times 3.

Secondary Skills: Health and Thrown Weapons. The attribute skill is multiplied by 2

All other Skills: All other attributes, no matter if, or what skills are associated with it, the number you see is the cost.

Armor:
Physical: Number X Itself. So a Physical Defense of one would cost 1 (1x1), a score of three would cost 9 (3x3), etc
Energy: Number you see is cost (It seems to me that the cost is largely baked into the weapons, but I don’t know for sure.)
Radiation: Only one model I ran had this, I priced it at the number you see.

Special Rules:
Only had a single model with a special rule on it, I priced it at 2 in this case.

What is posted above should be close enough to create some fairly basic characters, but I wouldn’t trust it for anything overly powerful or anything with a bunch of special rules related to it. But I’ll let you all be the judge, . . .

I suppose I should jump into the models I ran next:

Knight Patrol
Official Cost: 51
S: 4 (1x4=4)
P: 5 (Primary Skill: 3x5=15)
E: 4 (Secondary: 2x4=8)
C: 4 (1x4=4)
I: 4 (1x4=4)
A: 5 (2x5=10)
L: 1 (1x1=1)
Physical: 2 (Secondary Skill: 2x2=4)
Energy: 1 (1x1=1)
Radiation: -
Calculated Cost: 51

Knight Patrol (Blade)
Official Cost: 49
S: 5 (1x5=5)
P: 4 (Primary Skill: 3x4=12)
E: 4 (Secondary: 2x4=8)
C: 4 (1x4=4)
I: 4 (1x4=4)
A: 5 (Secondary Skill: 2x5=10)
L: 1 (1x1=1)
Physical: 2 (2x2=4)
Energy: 1 (1x1=1)
Radiation: -
Calculated Cost: 49 (2 points off from official cost. That makes it about 4% off from oriignal cost.)

Lancer
Official Cost: 53
S: 4 (1x4=4)
P: 7 (Primary Skill: 3x7=25)
E: 5 (Secondary: 2x5=10)
C: 3 (1x3=3)
I: 4 (1x4=4)
A: 5 (Secondary Skill: 2x5=10)
L: 2 (1x2=2)
Physical: 2 (2x2=4)
Energy: 1 (1x1=1)
Radiation: -
Calculated Cost: 54

Knight
Official Cost: 62
S: 5 (1x5=5)
P: 6 (Primary Skill: 3x6=18)
E: 5 (Secondary: 2x5=10)
C: 5 (1x5=5)
I: 5 (1x5=5)
A: 6 (Secondary Skill: 2x6=12)
L: 2 (1x2=2)
Physical: 2 (2x2=4)
Energy: 2 (1x2=2)
Radiation: -
Calculated Cost: 63

Field Scribe
Official Cost: 43
S: 3 (1x3=3)
P: 4 (Primary Skill: 3x4=12)
E: 4 (Secondary: 2x4=8)
C: 3 (1x3=3)
I: 7 (1x7=7)
A: 6 (Secondary Skill: 2x6=12)
L: 2 (1x2=2)
Physical: 1 (1x1=1)
Energy: 1 (1x1=1)
Radiation: -
Calculated Cost: 43

Minuteman
Official Cost: 54
S: 4 (1x4=4)
P: 5 (Primary Skill: 3x5=15)
E: 4 (Secondary: 2x4=8)
C: 4 (1x4=4)
I: 4 (1x4=4)
A: 5 (Secondary Skill: 2x5=10)
L: 2 (1x2=2)
Physical: 2 (2x2=4)
Energy: 1 (1x1=1)
Radiation: -
Special Abilities: 2pts
Calculated Cost: 54

Alien
Official Cost: 70
S: 3 (1x3=3)
P: 8 (Primary Skill: 3x8=24)
E: 3 (1x3=3)
C: 3 (1x3=3)
I: 8 (1x8=8)
A: 5 (Secondary Skill: 2x5=10)
L: 7 (1x7=7)
Physical: 2 (2x2=4)
Energy: 1 (1x1=1)
Radiation: X (Costed this at 4.)
Calculated Cost: 71

I’ve glanced at the Sentry Bot as well but haven’t calculated things just yet. I can tell just from a quick look that it’s going to be WAY off, so it’s possible that models with high scores might be calculated differently, but I haven’t had time to give it a proper look yet.

That’s all I have time for at the moment. If anyone is interested in running additional models with this formula, I’d love to see the results, and any thoughts, comments, insights related to this.

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Not going to write out all the steps like you did, but ran a few more models. Unfortunately it looks like the formula might be specific to Brotherhood models for some reason. None of the Survivors or Super Mutants I ran were very close, and quite a few were wildly off.

Brute
Official cost: 81
Calculated cost: 70 (I counted the super mutants’ rad immunity and cooked food things as special rules and priced them at 2 each)

Master
Official cost: 95
Calculated cost: 82

Super Mutant
Official cost: 40
Calculated cost: 59

Dogmeat
Official cost: 104
Calculated cost: 77 (I counted the Survivor special rule strong armor tokens as 5 each - since that’s what the rulebook suggests for adding them to balance out game sizes, didn’t include the cost of his built in Dog Bite weapon, and priced AGI at x4 since it’s his primary stat for health and attacking)

Sole Survivor
Official cost: 95
Calculated cost: 90

Sole Survivor Day 1
Official cost: 70
Calculated cost: 80

Settler
Official cost: 40
Calculated cost: 55 (I counted computers as their secondary skill instead of thrown weapons)

Scavenger
Official cost: 30
Calculated cost: 58 (I counted search as their secondary skill stat, since that’s what they’re there for)

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Ouch, . . . that IS pretty far off. Thank you for running those.

I think maybe I’ll run the rest of the Brotherhood models to see if they’re all consistent or not, then try to start from scratch with the rest.

It’s possible that each faction is priced differently, but at the same time it’s possible that the BoS models are just similar enough that the formula worked simply because of their similarities and that models that are a bit different are going to be way off.

Thank you for the help. That saves me a bit of time and gives me a starting point moving forward.

I think the next thing I’m going to do is count up the attribute points and see how similar those numbers are. If the BoS stuff is really similar and the Super Mutants are really different, then it may be some form of scaled point buy system.

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I would be willing to bet that they came up with a point system and used it for everything, then just threw in the faction rules for free afterwords. Seems to be a trend I see among game companies.

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I’d heard somewhere that they had created their point system more by “Feel” than anything else. But I’d be really surprised if they didn’t have some form of guideline that they worked off of.

My goal is to set up a formula that can be used to create characters fairly easily. It would allow for custom characters for us along the lines of statting out our own Sole Survivors, to statting less known NPCs from the various games that will likely never see their own miniatures and cards.

Later this week I should have a little time again. I’ll take a look at another faction and see if I can spot some form of pattern that might explain the discrepancy. It could be something as simple as using half points for some stat increases and increasing the cost somewhere else. I think the skills available to the character as well as the movement will likely play some small part in costing things as well. The original post was something I worked out in about half an hour, so next time I’ll maybe have a bit more time to invest into it.

Both my previous attempt at this and this run at it both felt like I’m in the right neighborhood but missing the mark. Might just be the models I’ve chosen to try statting too. Hard to say for sure.

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This is great stuff. I really want to create my own character to play. That is inherent in the game after all and I really enjoy building my own warleaders in anything from WHF and WH40k to Rangers of Shadowdeep.

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Mate… good luck with finding the formular :slight_smile:

Just a few small hints from my side:

  • Speed of a miniature is a very, very essential attribute…
  • Strong armour should have a heavy impact
  • Some special rules are worth much more than the model itself… dog handler eg is a fantastic rule… or unnerving
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Thanks, I’ll add these hints to my notes.

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One more point… jumping from Strength 6 to Strength 7 seems to be very significant… :wink:

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I was thinking about that too, it seems like there’s a pretty significant ballooning to the price of models when they start hitting +7 points.

I’m getting the impression that you know a bit about the formula for creating figures, . . . . you couldn’t be persuaded to share?

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That’s because the black die is the best one…and strength 7 adds a black die for melee

And yes - I do happen to know how the cap costs of models and items have been brought into existance but unfortunately I can’t tell… only a official Modiphius representative would be in the position to do that

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Fair enough, can’t blame me for trying. :wink:

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Haven’t had a chance to get back to this since the last post I made. Since then, there have been two things that have happened that give me a little pause.

Two things have come up that affect this.

First is the fact that they just released a new item/unit cost list where costs have been adjusted, in some cases fairly heavily. The Behemoth for example has had a 36 point adjustment. Assaultrons have seen a 20 point adjustment. Feral Ghouls 5 points, Hammer 9pts, Suiciders 17pts, etc. Overall, it looks like quite a few models have seen a fairly significant shift in point cost. This means that the little bit of work I’ve done on this so far is largely irrelevant because some of the models I was using for baseline costs have been changed, thus changing my starting point for all of it.

Second the announcement of the RPG along with mention of it being tied into the miniatures game suggests to me that there will be some form of formula presented there. After all, most role[laying games involve some form of advancement for their characters, and for this to be compatible with the miniatures game, there’s a really good chance that there will be some form of formula presented there, this saving me several hours of work figuring things out.

What all of this means is that I’m putting this on hold until the RPG core book comes out and I see if there is anything in there that either helps what I’m trying to do, or saves me the work all together.

In the meantime, time permitting, I want to get started on the roll charts I was thinking about doing for the game. Probably starting with items, then moving to the other stuff.

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Makes sense. This thread was the first thing I thought about when I saw the announcement for the RPG rules. “Well. That just made Gatekeepers job a lot easier!!”

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