Ok, first, thanks for the reply, this helped a lot.
Now on the elf, I typo’ed. I get 6.5 not 8.5. However, the difference here is that according to the Wiki, it says Fey costs +0.5, but you show Fey as a cost of 1. Is this an error in the Wiki? If so who has the ability to edit?
Anyone can edit the wiki. The values came from either Spycraft 2.0's origin creation page or me running numbers with Morgenstern giving hints as to what some of the specific values are. Thus they went through many revisions and it looks like Fey got left out of one revision.
Fey should be 1. Tonight I'll post the last version of the spreadsheet I was using to figure this out.
Now for the dwarf, I guess this is an interpretational issue. I got 6.5 vs. 7 because I stacked “Banned Checks” twice for a total of -1. Why? They are banned from 2 specific skill actions and one combat action that prevents them from taking a feat tree. Also when considering the following, I thought -0.5 too little for 3 penalties.
Banned checks always contains more than one check. It looks like either 2 or 3. There's probably a way to determine how common a check is and thus how many make up a .5 penalty. Right now though it looks like a judgment call. Dwarves and Orcs both have 3 banned checks and get .5 for their trouble. Centaurs have Climb and Jump banned and get the same. I think it's frequency of the check but a developer would have to say for sure.
Ex 1: In the ability "Iconic Classes” it states “If your level in any base class is higher than your level in either X or Y," specifically saying that there are 2 factors (classes in this case) applied to the species.
All of the existing Iconic class penalties incorporate two classes so having 2 iconic classes is worth a penalty of 1. I'm not sure that it would be possible to make a balanced penalty on a per class basis. Having more iconic classes would be less of a penalty (or maybe no real penalty) not more of one. Also, the penalty costs aren't always linear. Reviled -10 isn't worth twice the penalty of Reviled -5.
EX2: In the ability "Banned Checks” it states “You may not use x checks" which, according to the way the other ability is written, would indicate only 1 factor (skill maneuvers in this case) are applied to the species.
Originally x was "2 or 3" but it was changed. Maybe we can figure out what x is.
I am not sure that a -0.5 cost is a fair price for being able to stack on as many Banned Checks as you want all under the same cost. If there is supposed to be a limit, such as 2 Skill Tricks and 1 Feat Tree, it needs to be added to the wiki description.
I'd suggest 2 common/important checks or 3 less common/less important checks. But that's vague. Maybe others can clear it up a bit more.
I'd also say that one should be careful about putting the same penalty on a talent twice.
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