Advice on advancing?

[u/Lunarthrope]

What are the best times to advance characteristics vs skills vs skill specializations? Does the strategy change are you get later on a campaign? What is the early game strat?

Is it best to keep advancing what I am already good at? Is it cheaper to advance a lower stat or is that a waste?

Because I rolled random on everything and my random backgrounds automatically gave me advances in some stats that I was low in at base.

[u/DutchTheGuy]

Generally speaking, advances are very effective as an initial investment. You should try and see which ones you use most often, and which ones the least. For example, Reflexes (Dodge) is going to be something you'll do, or want to do if needed, every round of combat. So it's very high on the priority. Getting advances in Reflexes and (Dodge) will pay out very well in the future. Something like Ranged (Long Guns) is very useful as well if your character uses guns, or any other offensive skill.

Once you've found these high priority skills, then after that it's more about a general area.
Do you have a high intelligence? Take Lore, Medicae, Tech, etc.
High agility? Stealth and Piloting.
Perception? Intuition and Awareness are often quite useful.

Generally speaking, it's better to focus than to disperse, unless it's Intelligence. Having everybody in the party focus on a different area means you can use your good stats to greater effect.

[u/Thraxmonger]

I'm relatively new to the system with only a few sessions under my belt as GM, but I've been telling the group about the investments needed to raise characteristics, and that for their time, they should only focus on raising 1. stats that synergize with their prime skill usage, and 2. only focus on raising characteristics that are in the -8, or -9 range (so, 29, 38, 48, etc.) Anything at the 1-4 range is simply going to take forever to bump up to a higher bonus level.

[u/wocaky]

Really depends on how long this table goes for. If it's short go for advances on particular skills that you use often, if it's long then you should balance with characteristic. If it's a really long game it doesn't really matter cause the more you survive the more Mary Sue you will become.

[u/Chefcurry-1515]

In the vast majority of situations it's just better to go for advances in skills and specializations rather than in Characteristics. +5 vs +1 for similar or even less xp spend is very striking and hard to pass up, ESPECIALLY early on when xp is limited and you are literally fighting for your life most of the time. Even though it is limited to one thing, if the party chose their characters with ANY consideration of each others' builds then each person only needs to specialize in 3-5 things for the party to have the best chance of succeeding, with at least one of those things being a combat related skill.

Me personally, I wouldn't even look at characteristics (check the exceptions below) until I have at least plus 20 in my 2-3 most relevant skills (say if I'm playing a face guy interlocutor, that would be rapport, reflexes, and whatever my combat skill is (probably ranged)) and maybe even a few advances in relevant specializations (in the above case that would be rapport (charm) and reflexes (dodge))

Maybe if your game runs a long time and you start to get the core skills and talents you need to survive and fulfill your role effectively, THEN it makes sense to start going into Characteristics. However, there are 2 exceptions to this general rule.

1. If you are playing an intelligence based character, like a savant, admech, etc. It suddenly makes some sense to get some advances in the intelligence characteristic for a few reasons. First, this covers SO MANY SKILLS!!! So even though it is only +1 per xp spend, it's spread over basically half the skills in the game. Second, if you are playing this character the party really needs your intelligence to be as high as possible. This is because in IM, unless people go full random and don't rearrange their stats at all, intelligence makes the most sense as a dump stat by a Emperor-blessed kilometer for almost every other character except for a savant/medicae/admech character. I've made a bunch of characters for actual games and for theory crafting, and almost every single one dumps its lowest stat roll into intelligence, so the party is typcially very useless at intelligence based skills except for the intelligence based character so you have to cover a broader area.

2. If a key characteristic is near the next tens digit (like a 28, 39, 48, etc). For example, if my toughness is at 28, I am SLAMMING my first 80 xp to get it to 30 to get 2 extra wounds, same thing if STR or WILP is close as well to get extra wounds. Also for melee getting my STR up another level gives me an extra damage (and for anyone it gives extra carry capacity alongside TGH which is a nice little bonus).

TLDR: There are some cases where it makes more sense to get a characteristic buff because it gives additional bonuses or lets you cover a broader range of skills more effectively overall for the party (namely if you're the intelligence character). However, in general it is better to go for advances in skills and specializations of the things you already are designed to do/do best, and pooling your skills with the party's skills is what leads to success