Quote from: APN;567188From what I can gather thus far the system involves rolling 1D10, plus stat, plus skill, to equal or exceed target number for success.
 
As for extra successes:
 
Rolling what, equal tn to +2 is 1 success
Rolling +3 to +5 is 2 success
+6 or more, 3 success
 
Successes could be used to reduce time for most tasks, and to either inflict more damage or hit in a specific place in combat.
 
Example:
 
Climbing a cliff takes ten hours for 1 success. For each additional success remove 2 hours from the time taken.
 
Decoding a door lock takes five minutes for 1 success. Every success after the 1st removes 2 minutes from the time taken.
 
In combat, 1 success with a sword inflicts a wound on a limb, damage as usual. 2 successes inflicts a more serious wound, with either a penalty to actions or losing hit points per round, the victims choices. 3 successes inflicts a nasty injury with penalty to actions, loss of hit points per round AND some lasting injury - a scar or limp, for example.
 

What I would suggest is that it may not be necessary to have "success levels" for everything. There could be a table of descriptions for GM convenience, but often there's no need to define effects for higher success levels as such. Instead the GM may decide you needed a 10 to sneak, and you got a 15? So you sneak really well. There's not much point the GM having to subtract and get a +5 and decide that was a +2 level success and look for examples of what 2nd level successes do. I think its easy to go overboard with effect-determination systems; in some ways a consistent guideline is good, but if so it has to be clear that you can ditch it if its not necessary.
 
There are going to be a couple of subsystems where there's a measurable effect and for them, define what a high roll does individually. In combat say a high attack roll means more damage but maybe using a 1:1 conversion rate is going to be the best. Same for locks, if that's important - subtract a minute per point over is better than 2 minutes for every 2 points over, more or less. There could also be a handful of character abilities that are triggered by specific margins of success, perhaps.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;567391What I would suggest is that it may not be necessary to have "success levels" for everything. There could be a table of descriptions for GM convenience, but often there's no need to define effects for higher success levels as such. Instead the GM may decide you needed a 10 to sneak, and you got a 15? So you sneak really well. There's not much point the GM having to subtract and get a +5 and decide that was a +2 level success and look for examples of what 2nd level successes do. I think its easy to go overboard with effect-determination systems; in some ways a consistent guideline is good, but if so it has to be clear that you can ditch it if its not necessary.
 
There are going to be a couple of subsystems where there's a measurable effect and for them, define what a high roll does individually. In combat say a high attack roll means more damage but maybe using a 1:1 conversion rate is going to be the best. Same for locks, if that's important - subtract a minute per point over is better than 2 minutes for every 2 points over, more or less. There could also be a handful of character abilities that are triggered by specific margins of success, perhaps.

I would say if you are goign to use effect numbers (a success score based on how much you exceed the target number by) then don't add a look up just take the raw number , need a 7 roll a total of 15 EN = 8 and I would only use it for opposed rolls.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;567252I am fine with no crit failure. I personally dont have them in my own systems. I think 10% for a crit success is okay though. Especially for a more lethal game.

I normally like having a 1 being a possible fumble, with another roll to avoid it - so failing a climb check just means no progress, 1 means a handhold breaks off and check again if you fall, a 1 on a Driving stunt means you cut off another driver and they have to roll to avoid crashing into you. Its probably too complex for this system though

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;567364It is set in the future though, so the problem of jamming may well have been solved.

What kind of weapon tech are we looking at in this setting?

OK brainstorming some ideas. Some are in keeping with the idea a lot of weapons should be subdual so you can land that juicy flying squid-wolf-aardvark body you always wanted...

Beamer - laser, perhaps variable settings such as infrared (IR), UV, maser (microwave), gamma.
(Blaster, Phaser...)
Tangler - web shooting? Force web?
Needler (spray of poison darts across area?)
Pulse rifle
Frag grenade, Phoss grenade, gas grenade
High-power taser
Combat knife
EM weaponry (any effect on PRISMs ?)
Mini-machinegun with armour-piercing rounds.
Smartguns

I've edited these with numbers for reference, sorry.

Quote from: APN;567188Possible setting suggestions:

1) The far future. Mankind has spread through the stars, and the far flung colonies have turned resentment at the far off seat of Empire into open rebellion. Fight for the glory of the empire, and rise from a lowly legionary to a Centurion, Legate, or higher, whilst sidestepping or participating in the political intrigue and backstabbing. As a rebel, you are outgunned, have uncertain allies with families, homes and crops to tend, and face death if caught, as an example to others to be vigilant, be loyal, and behave, in the Emperors name. You have no choice - fight, win, or die!

2) Mankind first encountered Alien races over 100 standard years ago. The first encounters were nervous, sometimes disastrous affairs. Over time, the exchange of language, technology and culture took place, before the warlike humans killed everyone and took their stuff. Now, the aliens, facing extinction or subjugation, have only one thing to decide - bow to the Humans, or fight back? Players pick from a choice of alien races, or play as the bad guys (humans) with a choice of cybernetic enhancements and genetic tampering to increase their chances of purging and burning in the name of humanity!

3) We thought we were alone. We paid for that naivety when the colony on Therus Prime squawked a hasty mayday, and described hordes of insectoid creatures overrunning the peaceful mining settlement. The mines supply Tribillium, a vital fuel source, and there is a significant credit value attached to the installation. A fear unvoiced is that the Aliens will use Therus Prime as a staging post to spread their hives deeper into human colonies, until it's too late to fight back! The marines are despatched to investigate, thinking they'll have a holiday with what they regard as a 'bug hunt'. They will find out they are wrong, and they'll need bigger guns...

4) People sang and rejoiced in the streets when scientists discovered another planet suitable for human life. Now, after hundreds of years in stasis, the colonisation fleet nears its destination. The planet, nicknamed Eden, is everything it was promised, and more besides. With genetic modification, the population in 20 years will become self supporting, and life will begin anew for the human race, and the 10,000 brave colonists who said goodbye to life on Earth. However, Eden is already home to a race of sentient and they aren't happy about the newcomers... lock and load! It's all out WAR!
Just a few top of the head things. All will be familiar in some way or another from books, films, comics and so on.

#1 is a bit Warhammer maybe? Not bad though.  Maybe it could be spiced up with some faux historical elements maybe if you model the Empire on some historical period?

#2 I do like the humans as villains approach. It'd be good to have a game generic enough to supports both this sort of thing and jibba jibbas fuzzies, the main problem being that they would end up using different races (and this setting needs space/FTL travel rules, although it also doesn't need brain switching?)

#3 lol. I love Aliens but I think possibilities of the setting are fairly limited after that one adventure, unfortunately.
Its great as an adventure idea to include with a generic SF game.

For #4 I think its mandatory to have the Earth be destroyed soon after the colonists left No worrying about space travel/FTL travel required here either. Maybe this one could also have fuzzies and body switching...e.g. perhaps the "colonists" are just stored data until new bodies can be manufactured...

When I mentioned critical failure/success I was more thinking of something simple. 10 above or 10 under being flat critical failure and/or critical success rates. That means that highly skilled people can do very easy tasks amazingly well while nskilled people fail laughably at higher end tasks. i don't like a flat 10% chance at critical success/failure personally.

Setting wise here's what I've got:
1: Nobody knows why communication with the higher ups got cut off and naturally people are starting to forget/have forgotten. As far as some people are concerned things have always been this way.

2: There has to be some form of reproduction or something going on because as technology gets old and battles keep raging there has to be something sustaining the current ecosystem to keep this gravy train moving. As it stands i don't see how the conditions of the setting have been sustained.

3: For versimiliude's sake there should be some kind of adjustment period people go through when taking on a new body. However that may just be my thing.

4: I think that most technological weapons should either be kept rare or be balanced somehow with biotech. On that note robots, do they exist and can you use them to do stuff? Also on that note "vehicles" are they available? What about AI? Also "biotech" is going to be a thing even if i have to do it myself.

5: I don't think things should be random. I know its rules lite but I want to have some semblance of balance between players and random results in character gen are unnecessary and should be optional instead of the standard. As I see it random character generation does not add anything to the game.

6: I have at least 6 major factions in mind that I'll lay down later on today.

Quote from: MGuy;567407When I mentioned critical failure/success I was more thinking of something simple. 10 above or 10 under being flat critical failure and/or critical success rates. That means that highly skilled people can do very easy tasks amazingly well while nskilled people fail laughably at higher end tasks. i don't like a flat 10% chance at critical success/failure personally.

Setting wise here's what I've got:
1: Nobody knows why communication with the higher ups got cut off and naturally people are starting to forget/have forgotten. As far as some people are concerned things have always been this way.

2: There has to be some form of reproduction or something going on because as technology gets old and battles keep raging there has to be something sustaining the current ecosystem to keep this gravy train moving. As it stands i don't see how the conditions of the setting have been sustained.

3: For versimiliude's sake there should be some kind of adjustment period people go through when taking on a new body. However that may just be my thing.

4: I think that most technological weapons should either be kept rare or be balanced somehow with biotech. On that note robots, do they exist and can you use them to do stuff? Also on that note "vehicles" are they available? What about AI? Also "biotech" is going to be a thing even if i have to do it myself.

5: I don't think things should be random. I know its rules lite but I want to have some semblance of balance between players and random results in character gen are unnecessary and should be optional instead of the standard. As I see it random character generation does not add anything to the game.

6: I have at least 6 major factions in mind that I'll lay down later on today.

Re setting - still assuming the one I outlined though some other great ideas knocking about
1. Agree totally in fact the troops ont eh groun may not even know communication has been cut off they may still think they are part of some greater effort

2. Agree totally. My assumption was the Abonimations vat plants are still working so they are turning out trrops and ever more elaborate monsters. the Hybrids are resticted to 'secret bases' with limited new vats but the standard PC will be a fresh vat grown Hybrid. Marauders and renegades may have access to small scale vats that can produce ...

3. Definitely an adjustment period. I alike the idea tha the GM keeps the stats for the new body and you only discover them when you try stuff. so until you run who won't know how fast, etc this should act as a -ve modifier on rolls

4. My feel is tech weapons shoudl be available in military locations. Its a raw material rich world and they would have laid down factories for mass production but I like the idea that the tech is lower than the tech you might find in a crashed satelite, or an underground research lab. I think if you make materiel too rare its gets to post apoc again.
I am all for AI and robots though I like the idea that they lack the ability to maintain them or there is a restiction otherwise why go the genetic route?

5. This might become a philisophical debate. One of the issues is Random = Old School and point buy = CharOp. This might be a pointof contention on this site where generally random is seen as less morally corrupt
Personally I want both. Random determined physical works for me because its a genetic output and your meat isn't permanent. You saw my comments on mental stats and Skills with random or point buy options.
I could see you could pull the random physical and just give Players access to meat builds as predertermined physcial bodies. So if you choose to be a wolf scout you get Strength +1; Agility +2; Stamina +2; enhanced senses. Or you could roll for a Wolf Scout variant and you might do better you might do worse. You basically get to pick random or prefab.

6. factions are good

So BSJ you need to make a call on setting, genre, feel etc and lay down a new version of APNs design goals that encapsulates what you are hoping to get as an outcome.

I prefer a narrower setting that we can do in some detail with the outside being vague and open to later expansion. But that is just one approach. I also think the setting I sketched out feels familar enough that you just grok it but has enough unusual stuff in it that its feels a bit different. It has some obvious adventure hooks, some useful design space to play with and the mechanics will be easy to gel with the setting.

Now having said all that I think its a decision you need to make in the end. How you do that is up to you. Poll the site, take a vote here, or just decide on your own but I think its something we need to do before we move forward.

Quote from: jibbajibba;567507So BSJ you need to make a call on setting, genre, feel etc and lay down a new version of APNs design goals that encapsulates what you are hoping to get as an outcome.
 
I prefer a narrower setting that we can do in some detail with the outside being vague and open to later expansion. But that is just one approach. I also think the setting I sketched out feels familar enough that you just grok it but has enough unusual stuff in it that its feels a bit different. It has some obvious adventure hooks, some useful design space to play with and the mechanics will be easy to gel with the setting.
 
Now having said all that I think its a decision you need to make in the end. How you do that is up to you. Poll the site, take a vote here, or just decide on your own but I think its something we need to do before we move forward.

I think we're leaning toward the body-switching hybrid game, but its an important enough decision that I thought this should be polled - I've created a poll. Also, I'm working on drawing up some revised design goals and framework to move forward with.

OK my take on some ‘design goal’ type stuff based on discussion so far, plus my own thought on it. Feel free to critique...
 
Specifications: the system is intended to be designed as a traditional RPG with fairly light rules. As a fairly light RPG it is designed to have fast character generation, run quickly, and require a minimum of book referencing or table lookups during play.
 
Audience: potentially accessible for people relatively new to gaming. As a light system, it is also more likely to be used by experienced gamers for short one-off games or brief mini-campaigns (the rules being light enough to pick it up easily and prep a scenario without spending a lot of time) as opposed to longer campaigns. It might be used for games with only one or two players (the whole group can’t make it) with little setup.
If campaigns are fairly brief, advancement rate in skills/abilities can also be quite fast (i.e. d10 skills/short RNG is fine). This and operating with few players suggests the system does not require substantial niche protection (classes) and can be skill-based. Characters should start out fairly capable, at least in a few areas.
 
Lethality: as character generation is fairly rapid and games are likely to be short-term ( as well as possibly being options to body switch etc.?) combat can be quite lethal/ gritty.
 
Feel: still depends on setting chosen. As an SF game, its likely to be fairly light in tone despite war themes (perhaps humorous?).
 
Goal of play: victory, survival, and character improvement.
 
Points of difference to existing RPGs and likely competitors / Why would I play this?; TBH, currently the main draw would be the setting.
Its usefulness as a generic system would depend on the final quality of the mechanics developed. If other design goals (fast combat, light rules) are met, it might be useful as a general rules-light SF game. Competitors in a similar space might be Savage Worlds, 3:16, and D6 System/miniD6 (Star Wars?), perhaps the Warhammer 40K family of games.
Building off the ‘Hybrids vs. Abominations’ setting would makes the game more specific, but adds rules useful for transhumanist-type SF games (e.g. it would be sort of useful for running an Eclipse Phase type game, perhaps removing ‘hybrids’).
 
Other Notes: as a War themed game, the game should be able to handle lots of NPCs at once without breaking , and probably some sort of mass combat resolution system would be useful.
 
 
Primary Design Objectives – Prioritized
I thought about putting “Fun!” as the #1 option, but I guess all the goals are aimed at fun in different ways. So instead I’ve put as follows:
1) Simplicity - systems should be easy to remember and use.
2) Speed/Ease of Use- combat and basic tasks should be quick.
3) Interesting combat – without classes/levels or a complex system, its likely there would be a few tactical options and abilities that can be used by any character. In keeping with the immersion thing, and to keep the game working for newbies, ideally abilities should be describable by the player as what their character would do and then interpreted into rules by the GM, rather than requiring players to know the rules and apply them in a metagame fashion. Perhaps use of actual military tactics and strategies (allowing for the circumstances and tech) should be rewarded?
4) Immersion (/roleplay) – it should be possible to develop interesting characters with whom it is possible to identify, despite them being of weird races or whatnot. Rules shouldn’t be too intrusive on player’s willing sense of disbelief; setting should be well-constructed and self-consistent.
5) Scaling – the system should be able to handle multiple NPCs/large combats.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;567529OK my take on some 'design goal' type stuff based on discussion so far, plus my own thought on it. Feel free to critique...
 
Specifications: the system is intended to be designed as a traditional RPG with fairly light rules. As a fairly light RPG it is designed to have fast character generation, run quickly, and require a minimum of book referencing or table lookups during play.
 
Audience: potentially accessible for people relatively new to gaming. As a light system, it is also more likely to be used by experienced gamers for short one-off games or brief mini-campaigns (the rules being light enough to pick it up easily and prep a scenario without spending a lot of time) as opposed to longer campaigns. It might be used for games with only one or two players (the whole group can't make it) with little setup.
If campaigns are fairly brief, advancement rate in skills/abilities can also be quite fast (i.e. d10 skills/short RNG is fine). This and operating with few players suggests the system does not require substantial niche protection (classes) and can be skill-based. Characters should start out fairly capable, at least in a few areas.
 
Lethality: as character generation is fairly rapid and games are likely to be short-term ( as well as possibly being options to body switch etc.?) combat can be quite lethal/ gritty.
 
Feel: still depends on setting chosen. As an SF game, its likely to be fairly light in tone despite war themes (perhaps humorous?).
 
Goal of play: victory, survival, and character improvement.
 
Points of difference to existing RPGs and likely competitors / Why would I play this?; TBH, currently the main draw would be the setting.
Its usefulness as a generic system would depend on the final quality of the mechanics developed. If other design goals (fast combat, light rules) are met, it might be useful as a general rules-light SF game. Competitors in a similar space might be Savage Worlds, 3:16, and D6 System/miniD6 (Star Wars?), perhaps the Warhammer 40K family of games.
Building off the 'Hybrids vs. Abominations' setting would makes the game more specific, but adds rules useful for transhumanist-type SF games (e.g. it would be sort of useful for running an Eclipse Phase type game, perhaps removing 'hybrids').
 
Other Notes: as a War themed game, the game should be able to handle lots of NPCs at once without breaking , and probably some sort of mass combat resolution system would be useful.
 
 
Primary Design Objectives – Prioritized
I thought about putting "Fun!" as the #1 option, but I guess all the goals are aimed at fun in different ways. So instead I've put as follows:
1) Simplicity - systems should be easy to remember and use.
2) Speed/Ease of Use- combat and basic tasks should be quick.
3) Interesting combat – without classes/levels or a complex system, its likely there would be a few tactical options and abilities that can be used by any character. In keeping with the immersion thing, and to keep the game working for newbies, ideally abilities should be describable by the player as what their character would do and then interpreted into rules by the GM, rather than requiring players to know the rules and apply them in a metagame fashion. Perhaps use of actual military tactics and strategies (allowing for the circumstances and tech) should be rewarded?
4) Immersion (/roleplay) – it should be possible to develop interesting characters with whom it is possible to identify, despite them being of weird races or whatnot. Rules shouldn't be too intrusive on player's willing sense of disbelief; setting should be well-constructed and self-consistent.
5) Scaling – the system should be able to handle multiple NPCs/large combats.

I was thinking about the rules for squads, and mass combats and think I have something we could hack based on the same d10 mechanic to make large scale combats fun, immersive and reasonably 'realistic' within the setting. We can port them to any setting by the way as they are a hack of an Amber CCG combat mechanism I built to allow mass combat between forces of any era and any degree of magical power (eg Panzers vs Goblins vs Mongols vs dragons).
Simple system uses a 'unit' as the scale and a unit can be 10, 100, 1000, etc troops.

Quote from: jibbajibba;567537I was thinking about the rules for squads, and mass combats and think I have something we could hack based on the same d10 mechanic to make large scale combats fun, immersive and reasonably 'realistic' within the setting. We can port them to any setting by the way as they are a hack of an Amber CCG combat mechanism I built to allow mass combat between forces of any era and any degree of magical power (eg Panzers vs Goblins vs Mongols vs dragons).
Simple system uses a 'unit' as the scale and a unit can be 10, 100, 1000, etc troops.

Never easy to make that stuff simple and realistic. It usually boils down to the average of numbers of different troop types*troop quality+various battle modifiers. If you make it simple enough to be quick and easy, it tends to lose realism in my experience.

Quote from: The Traveller;567543Never easy to make that stuff simple and realistic. It usually boils down to the average of numbers of different troop types*troop quality+various battle modifiers. If you make it simple enough to be quick and easy, it tends to lose realism in my experience.

Well this uses a tactics skill (attack/defense) and a leadership skill (morale & Numbers)
Attack/Defence/Moral. Weapons affect range and add a +/-.
D10 per unit units can be wounded or killed. wounded units make morale, wounded units can be combined to make whole units with some tweaks.

Like I said built for a card game but I will give a full write up of it later.

First off the mass combat system.

Troops are aligned in units a Unit can be 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 troops. The numbrs don't matter so long as they are realative on each side.

The smaller the unit number the less abstract the combat, the longer it will take and the more rolls to complete. A battle between 2 patalions of 100 troops will feel very different ifd you use unit size 10 (recommended) as opposed to unit size 100...

So 2 skills influce the combat. Tactics and Leadership.

Leadership: The leadership skill controls moral, number of troops and as an optional rule command changes.
When a unit needs to make a moral check the Leadership of the commander (and Stat bonus if we have a Charisma equiv)  acts as a modifier.


Option Rule : Command changes. This variant rule allows a commander to reroll a tactics roll. Tactics rolls (see below ) are made each round and act as modifiers to Attack and defense. They include use of terrain for cover, using flanking etc ... all the stuff you would do if you played out a battle in full on a board with minis.
Tactics rolls are opposed rolls.
Command changes is an optional rule that allows a reroll of a tactics roll the new roll must be kept and a failure on the leadership roll gives a -5 to the effect number of the tactics roll. It represnets the ability of a strong leader to react to the tactics of their oppoents and switch their own tactics getting that message out to all troops.  


Tactics
Tactics is a skill used to respresent general tactical ability. It is rolled as an opposed roll each round and compared to the enemy's roll. The Effect number (the number by which the higher side exceeded the lower) becomes a pool of points that can be spent to improve defense or increase attack rolls each round.
Tactics rolls are also modified for stuff like fortifications, additional intel etc.


The system

The troops

Troops have the following stats

Attack: +1-5
Defense: 1-10
Ranged: 0-5
Moral: +0-5
Tactic modifier: tyoically 0 may rise to +2 (Elite commandos) or drop to -2 (untrained peasants)

The Process:

Range: Range starts at 3. The higher tactics roll can spend effect numbers to reduce or extend that range

Initiative : The higher Tactics roll has initiative.

Attack: The side with initiative rolls their attacks.
Each unit idientifies an opponents unit and rolls a d10 if they are in range.
The Commander may expect Tactics points to increase that number.
If the roll exceeds the defence of the target unit it is wounded.
If the roll is dounble the defense of the target unit it is eliminated.
Repeat for each unit.
Any wounded units need to make Moral checks

The other side then makes it's attack rolls.
The defender may use any remaining effect points to increase the defense of any of its units.
Any wounded units make moral checks.

Repeat for round 2.
Range stays as it was in round 1.


Example:

the Hybrids have 100 troops attacking an Abonination base. The base gives the Abonimation +7 tactics.
We are working with Units of 10.
The Hybrids have a +1 tactics, 5 defense, +3 attack, moral +4, range 3
The Aboninations have 0 tact, 7 defense, +2 attack and moral +0, range 4
The hybrid commander has a toal tactic bonus of +5
The Abonimation Commander has tactic +1

Round 1
Hybrid tac = 5(d10) +5 (tactics) +1 (troops) = 11
Abomination = 4(d10) +1 (tactics) +7 (fortification) for the defense = 12

The Abonimnation commander uses his tactic Effect number (TEF) to extend range to 4.

Abonination attack - 1d10 +2  for each versus 5 defense. 7 successes. 3 Hybrids are killed 1 is wounded. The wounded one makes a moral check d10+4 + leadership vs target number 8. Succeeds and doesn't flee.

The Hybrids can't attack because the range was extended to 4, beyond their range.

the commander electc to retreat.

In this example the fortifications prooved to strong.

In game terms the hydris were unabel to get close enough to the abonimation base before being engaged and were taken apart by the Abonination heavy wepaons,

Second of all in response to the poll looks like we are going to mix the hybrid idea with a New Eden concept?

I think they actually can be made to work together quite easily.....

If you make hte collonists unable to move freely as in avatar so reliant on technology/suits etc...

Quote from: jibbajibba;567908Second of all in response to the poll looks like we are going to mix the hybrid idea with a New Eden concept?
 
I think they actually can be made to work together quite easily.....
 
If you make hte collonists unable to move freely as in avatar so reliant on technology/suits etc...

Have been a bit busy today sorry...
Mixing the Hybrid idea and New Eden sounds like a great idea! (although perhaps I'm biased - those were the two I voted for ). Still can't see who voted for what, ah well...I'm sure I could see it before I actually cast my vote...anyway.
 
I like the mass combat rules. What I would perhaps add is a system whereby the PCs can keep playing with normal 1-on-1 combat, while the mass combat rages on around them, have the results from their battle flow into the overall battle (enemy units destroyed). At least, that might work fun with smaller units (10 figures), PCs can't be expected to do much at the 100 figure or 1000 figure scale.
 
 
I think the next fundamental questions we have yet to resolve mechanically are.
*#1 random roll vs. point-buy
*#2 what attributes to use.
*#3 what scale should attributes follow i.e. 1-10, 1-5, -5 to +5, etc. Ties in to the question of how much is too much difference in a d10 system. Currently thinking 1-10 would be too much, not sure though. 1-5 with 2 being average?
 
I think the answers to the first two questions are linked together, though it also depends on setting. For a body switching game, it shouldn't matter so much what a character's physical stats are, so it would be fine to randomly roll them. Possibly mentals should be point buy; multiple mental stats would be necessary either way- either a random roll for one mental stat gives a character a single bad stat that is their only 'real' stat that follows them forever, and point buy on one stat would give every character the same score. If you did have point buy for all stats, it'd have to be separate sets of points for the physicals and the mentals - body switching would change the array but not the total point score.
 
Perhaps STR, DEX, CON, INT, PER (Perception), CHA as stats ?
 
Random scores could be determined with [3d4-2] if we had a 1-10 scale, or maybe a dice pool (roll, count successes) if its 1-5. Point buy is fairly easy if scores are pretty low - basically you have something like "split 7 points among 3 stats".
 
If people are really bugged about balance, we could also generate stats by making some balanced arrays and rolling which you got (it needs a table, but before the game), or you could have stats in pairs and just roll for how much of each you get e.g. you might have 8 stats that are something like Size/Dex, Con/Appearance (?), Intelligence/Perception, Charisma/Will...you get say 2d4 for the first stat in the pair, then [10-that roll] for the other stat in the pair.