Character creation doesn’t have to end once all the character points have been spent. If you want more customisation, you can dip into the metadata.
Your character has four bits of metadata (defaults in brackets): Dynamic Potential [4], Static Potential [2], Potential Recoup [2] and Free Resist [1]. For a standard 70 point character, the sum of these should be 9, the number of metacharacter points. If you want to reallocate your metacharacter points the only rule you should follow is that the sum of dynamic plus recoup should never be more than double or less than half the sum of static and free resist. This will stop things getting completely unworkable.
IMPORTANT TIP: Unless you are very very very certain you’re character is never going to need to defend themselves in anyway, always have at least one free resist. They are free and at times the only thing your character will have to resist oncoming danger. Increasing the number of free resists will result in your character taking less damage. It also means you spend less potential to defend yourself, allowing you to act more offensively during your turn.
Dynamic potential is the potential that is used the most, so increasing it will enable your character to use more advantages in a single action. If you take those extra points from your recoup, you’ll have character than can do a lot in narrative, but will have to wait longer in combat to rebuild their dynamic potential after spending it all. Taking it from static is only worthwhile if the character has very few static advantages, as you’re not actually increasing the amount of potential available to spend. Static potential behaves in a similar way. It is only useful to increase the amount of static potential you have if you’ve lots of static advantages to spend it on or one advantage in particular you’re going to be using frequently in combat.
Recoup is a good way of thinking about how fast your character is. Increasing you recoup at the cost of you potential pools will mean that whilst you character will be able to spend less potential on an action, they will be able to do that action more often. Get the balance right and you’ll be able to attack and then recoup up to full potential to either attack again or anticipate for defense. The downside is that each action you take will be with a reduced number of dice. If what you’re trying to effect has a high amount of resistance, then failure will become more likely, though you’ll have the recoup to try again. Also, recoup is only considered during combat. So in narrative play you’ll have the downside of reduce potential without the upside of the higher recoup.
Dip that toe carefully into the metadata pool. It is very easy to break a character or to render some advantages useless.
Image Credit – Sky Metadata by Andrew – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0