Short enough question by my standards -- here is a short answer and then a
longer discussion on character creation ideas in 4th Age...
A character must have 30 points of regular rank before applying king,
prince or racial bonus points. So A would not be legal, B would be legal.
As a suggestion, while in 1650 and 2950 there are many starting characters
with multiple skills, which may be high or low respectively, in 4th Age,
because you can craft your own characters, it is often better to have
characters which have at least one decent skill rank, and no more that two decent
skill ranks. During the game you can really only make use of two high
skill ranks at once, so having three high skill ranks is overkill, and you are
better off splitting those ranks up between different characters. At the
other end, having three relatively low skill ranks means a lot of training
may be needed before the character is good at any one thing. Command rank,
of course, can be taken at a mere 10 rank and still be very useful, whether
for hiring armies/recruiting troops, naming 10k multi-ranked characters,
or whatever -- plus command rank is the one skill that can be increased
without the character needing an order, as a character with command rank in an
army is able to get free skill increases every time the army commander does
a 435 order or whenever the army wins a battle.
One thing to note is the 1300 king points is perfect for an E50, and since
every nation ought to have at least one E50 or E60 so that all the starting
non-capital loyalties are fairly high, I generally use my king points for
that. Similarly, the 800 prince points are perfect for an A40, and in my
opinion having at least one agent is worthwhile for any nation as well, so I
generally use my prince points for that.
It looks like you wish to have a command/agent/mage as your prince. For
king and prince characters, I generally start with one of three options for
the base points -- C30 (400), or C10/M20 (400), or M30 (300). Then use the
prince points for A40 (800). If you want more mage rank, i.e. for more and
better spells, spending a bit more on the mage points is fairly cheap and
effective -- for example in a recent game I decided I wanted both my king
and prince to be decent mages, so for the base ranks for both, I started
with C10/M40, costing 700 points, and then took E50 and A40. The characters
are basically dual-ranked characters for most purposes -- their M and E or A
ranks provide two decent skills capable of working effectively in both
areas -- while the extra 200 points for C10 rank means that if needed they can
join an army and help with troop recruiting, or work on getting that C10
rank increased quickly if I decide I need another decent commander, or
whatever. It provides options, and is the starting point for an old style
experienced triple-threat, but in the early going two decent skill ranks is more
than enough, and I will have some other character with higher command rank
to do things like taxes and relations changes. But if running shy on
points and wanting a decent mage rank, as long as you have at least M30 you
don't necessarily need C10 rank as well. Hence my three typical options, C30,
or C10/M20(or higher), or M30(or higher).
Also note, the racial discount CAN be used on a king or prince character
IF it has not already been used. For example, a mannish nation which has
not already bought an E60 for the E50 price, can take an E60 with its 1300
king points, since it only needs to pay the E50 price -- so a mannish nation
can take E40s as its best other emissaries if it wants, and have the king
be an E60, and all the non-capital loyalties will be 60 at the start.
Another good reason for the king not to have a high command rank -- C30 is good
enough, or C10 with some mage rank for cheap, works fine -- is that as a
high-ranking emissary it will want to get out to do camping right away and
then improvements once the limit is hit, and if you give the king high ranks
in other things, he will be wasting them during that period. Similarly, an
Evil non-human nation that had not yet bought an A50 could use its 800
prince points for an A50 rank, paying the A40 price.
You can also use the royalty points for stealth, if you want a stealthy
character. For example if you want your prince to be a CA or AM with
stealth, you can buy the agent rank normally -- A30 minimum, up to A50 -- and
spend the prince points using 600 for stealth and 200 for either C10 or M20
rank. If you want a stealthy AE character, you could use the king points for
that, again buying the agent rank normally, an A30 minimum, or spend more
for a better agent, and then spend the king points using 600 for stealth and
700 for E40 rank. I don't do this, but I know some players who like
having a character that later on can serve double-duty in an emissary or agent
company, either scouting for an emissary company or doubling allied agents
in an agent company, and again, having two decent ranks can allow the
character to do something useful in each skill every turn without wasting any
ranks.
Except possibly for straight 40-rank characters, in general I believe that
none of your starting characters should actually be types you could name
normally on turn 1. Straight 40-rank characters you normally cannot name on
turn 1 unless you have one of the Name X40 SNAs -- and 40-rank characters
are expensive enough, and the SNA is useful enough, that having one or two
straight 40-rank characters of the same type is great since it lets you take
immediate advantage of the SNA. Of course you can also have multi-ranked
characters that let you do the same thing, but my point here is, other than
those types, since you CAN name straight X30 types for 5k and multi-ranked
characters with 30 ranks total for 10k once the game begins, having such
characters at the start of play simply because you ran out of points
probably means you spent too many points on some other character.
As an example, while having a very powerful king can be cool from a
role-playing perspective, and certainly may be a great challenger and such,
starting with a C40/E50/M50 as a king and then having a C30 and an M30 elsewhere
in the court because you ran out of points means that while the king is
wasting at least one high rank every turn, and quite possibly wasting two high
ranks whenever using one of his orders for movement or for miscellaneous
orders, you also have a couple lame characters who cannot do the hard stuff
with their own C or M rank. Instead, for the exact same points -- and
keeping the concept of a cool multi-ranked king -- you could have a C30/E50/M30
as the king, a C40 as a straight commander actually more capable at things
like downgrades and tax hikes, and an M50 who can actually spend both
orders working on mage tasks (casting, prenticing and researching new spells,
any two of the three can keep a mage busy the entire fortnight). And the
basic idea of the king is still as a cool multiranked character -- who in the
long term may become as awesome as you wanted to start him out at, but in
the interim is not wasting most of his ranks while creating camps and
moving. Or wasting at least one of his ranks while perhaps being chauffeured
around by another character in a small company, such as a CA prince who
guards and moves company each turn while the king does E and M stuff...
Efficiency is important in leveraging those starting characters. And in
the meantime, on turn 1+ you can name up to four characters for 5k or 10k as
appropriate that may fill your need for minor commanders, mages, etc. to do
capital orders, build armies, etc. By definition the king and prince
characters are going to be fairly cool multi-ranked characters even if you just
start with 30 cheap ranks before adding the royalty points -- they do not
have to hog all the high skill ranks, you want to spread those around
amongst different characters so that ALL the starting court are at least better
than newly named characters with 30 ranks... 
-- Ernie III
In a message dated 3/23/2013 8:21:04 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
RedWinger_1@excite.com writes:
I've got a few questions about character creation in FA1000.
Which is considered a "legal" example?
A) 10 Comm (200 points) 20 Agen (purchased with 500 prince bonus points)
30 Mage (purchased with 300 prince bonus points)
or
B) 30 Comm (400 points and the 30 SKILL rank meets the required 30 for a
created character) 20 Agen (500 prince points) 30 Mage (300 prince points).
I'm just wondering if in example A, that the character only has 10 skill
points before the prince bonus skills are added. Does a character need 30 in
various skill ranks BEFORE applying the king/prince bonuses toward OTHER
skill ranks?
Sorry if this was a bit wordy, lol.
Thanks.
···
------------------------------------
Middle Earth PBM - hit reply to send to everyone
To Unsubscribe: http://www.yahoogroups.com
Website: http://www.MiddleEarthGames.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]