Balancing starting dots and XP at character creation

Question

In Vampire: The Requiem, the character has points to spend between attributes, skills, disciplines, etc. Purchasing a new level in a skill, attribute or other merit has a linear cost.

During game however, the xp cost of new level depends on the level of the skill you want to improve, meaning that you always should min-max at character creation if you want to optimise the xp-value of your character.

Is there a way to neutralise this effect and ensure xp-equivalence of each character at creation, without needing to calculate too much?

Answer 1

Yes

Fix:

Eliminate Bonus points or Undo the growing cost increase on attributes, skills, disciplines, etc. or Add the growing cost to Bonus Point pricing.

The Problem

Baring that, any time where character creation resources have a different math then leveling resources, there will be an 'optimal solution path' in which a character built using that path toward their desired power set will have a mathematical advantage over one that didn't.

In Vampire, it means if we have a guy (Bob) who bought Skills A, B, C, D, & E to four at character creation and a guy (John) who bought A, B, C, & D to five at Chara-gen, and they're both using XP to get rating five in A, B, C, D, & E, then John will have an extra ~15 xp to play with for following the path.

Answer 2

I suppose one must first as, Why must one min-max the character? If your looking at points on a sheet, then I wonder if any Storyteller system will work.

IE: The points on the sheet, should reflect the person. It actually takes more work to go from the Master's to a PhD than it does to go from Bachelor's to Master's, or HSD to Bachelors..

In that I feel the xCurrent Level XP buy is reflexive of natural progression. Also, backed by the rule that you cannot buy from 0 to 4 in a skill with XP. You have to buy them all incrementally.

If I recall, as I don't have my books:

0 > 1 3pts

1+ 2xCurrent level

so ..

1 > 2 2

2 > 3 4

3 > 4 6

etc, etc..

Now, pregame, what is the character? a Jack of all trades then yes, they should have a lot more points spread out and not min-maxed, a specialist will min-max. The backstory calls for it.

One modification that has proved successful in doing what I think you want, is to not only require the roleplay of working to improve a skill, but to add for a few players a 1 XP skill roleplay at the end of a session. The idea being that a player purposefully chooses and wants to increase a skill or such, goes out of their way to use or or in fact practice.. That should be rewarded.