Out of interest you work power points and DPs?
Up until now, normal for RM2/RMC, using option 2 for stats above 101 from RoCoI, though that will be slightly changing.
I am also considering increasing the base PP, since basically every RM/SM caster we've ever had got Aura and/or Archtype to they could have enough PP to, y'know, DO something. (I've also had to MASSIVELY decrease cating times to a more D&D-like level, since otherwise its effectiveness compared to guns was laughable. Especially when you realise that the previously deadly spells like Lightning Bolt and Fireball are only actually mediocre when compaed to high AE weapons and grenades; especially since a chap with a gun can shoot about six times in he time it takes to cast one spell of your level in core RM...!)
Anyway, I have had a serious think, and a bit of number fiddling. I believe I shall go somewhere between Hurin's suggestion and RM2.
Looking back at my old stats (because I now generate monsters and NPC by approximating generating characters, something that D&D 3.x did that I decided was far better than treating them as "PCs" and "not PCs"), when I did them, I would naturally be assigning the stats, and therefore naturally assigned them on the basis of "about this bonus" and set the stat at the minimum for that bonus (or 50). (And the added any racial or background bonuses.) So they are full of 50s, 90s, 95s, 98s and 100s (as I believe I mentioned, I have been having to... stretch a bit... to keep up with the PCs!)
So, if I change over to stat bonuses, it'll only be basically doing what I have essentially been doing. I do want to keep the percentile stats, because they do havesome ancillary uses - hit points, exhaustion points - and very importantly, stat damage, i.e. con drain from Undead
1.
However... the percentile stats will be ANCILLERY to the bonuses. I.e., you pick your bonuses, and that tells you want your stat will be. Rather than your stat telling you your bonus. (And it means that your stat will now always match up to your bonus, as opposed to now when you get part of your bonus from your stat and part from race or background or whatnot.) Completely arse-backwards to conventional stats-and-bonuses wisdom, but I think it's just daft enough to be plausible.
In addition, because my existing stats are all set at neat break-point values at the +5s, I can afford to create a new stat bonus table that will smooth the space between the gaps. (I actually made my own, rather than use the one in RoCoI or VI, partly because I'd forget about them and partly because I wanted to work around the +5 units (which that doesn't)
2. This will now give the PCs a little more fine control over their stats if they want, or not if they choose. I also have implemented RoCoVI's fractional DP and PP from bonuses as well, which will also see the PCs just slightly better off.
(Though as per normal I will give them an extra 25% of their DP for spending on background skills. (Or as I term it "not related to your profession and ask the DM if in doubt" skills, since sometimes I'll allow the likes of mages to defer some of their weapon skills to that pool provided they have a reasonable breadth of other skills... Though since I modified Combat Companion's weapon styles into something a bit like what RMU appears to have done with combat training skills, those costs are not quite as steep!))
For the sake of having a little bit of randomisation, the PCs will randomise what number in that range at character generation (otherwise we shall just assume that it is the middle number in the range if required) literally because it looks more organic than it in actuality is.
I'm also thus going to obviate potentials entirely. (That column on the character sheet can be used to record the PCs "base" bonus, in case they do get stat damaged and get their bonus lowered, kind of like hoe 3.X has a temporary column for stat damage, but in reverse!) Instead, I'm going to grant something like +1 stat bonus per level (or possibly +5 every 5th level). I intend to start the PCs off with fairly high stats anyway. I've always taken an approach more that stats don't need particularly to "progress", at least not at the sort of approach that RMU seem to be taking, but a steady trickle (a bit like 3.x) is enough. Also, after the overgenerous of that last twenty-odd years, I feel quite happy in being rather more frugal!
What remains, then, is to decide what sort of bonus value to assign to the PCs. I reckon something like +50 to +60 is not a bad start, since they'll be getting a bit on top with racials (doubly so or being Liches, so I think +50 is the place to start!) For background, I'm going to say "you roll on the table, and if you don't like it, you can swap it for a +10 bonus" with a proviso that no-one can start with more than a +25 bonus (before racial adjustments), so anything over that is wasted. That should keep the insane stacked bonuses down. (I mean, I am - was - no better, we had an NPC with a +65 AG at level 1 back in the day...!)
While we're about: Looking back at my old "lich" (specifically designed for skeleton liches, mind) stat bonuses, think they need a bit of revision. CO +0, AG +10, SD +5, ME +5, RE +0, ST +5, QU +10, PR -10, EM +5, IN +0.
If we disconnect the SD and ST bonuses as being from base human (because templating was a another genius idea from 3.x), what's left is acceptable, though a little odd in hindsight; I think the EM and PR bonuses could do with being swapped, especially since there is a whole "the stronger the will, the more powerful a spirit-bound Undead" thing floating around in my lich fluff. The ME bonus is debatable... The reasoning was I guess that the liches are better set up to remember stuff since they don't now have brains to rot and have incredible longevity, but you could nearly argue the opposite way for the same reason. Though to be fair, a +5 to ME isn't going to make a lot of difference, given how even in SM ME is nearly superfluous! (Gives you a few extra DPs, though, I suppose in this revised system, though.)
It says 8 background options, but I think we can safely laugh in that one's face (though I think the reason for that was actually to select some of the typical Undead abilities like Con drain and Cold crits and such) and replace them with a standard suite of those powers (with options to upgrade) and leave the background options to the base race.
(I'm not worried about inter-PC balance within reason, since the mandate is they are all going to be Liches.)
1The new party is actually going to BE Undead - specifically liches (or rather spirit-bound Undead a la Necromancer base lists with what has been now long-since rules standard stat bonuses different from what RoCoVI assigned to them, since they were done before I owned that (possibly before it was written!)
2Yes, the results are broadly similar enough that probably nobody other than me will care, but let's establish the fact that I just spent the large part of the last week going through every single quest, wargames scenario, random background data and whatnot I could find from the main multiverse I set virtually all my games in from basically the last thirty years to compile an exhaustive list of every star system and planet mentioned or implied which runs to about 1070 entries and shake our heads and realise we're dealing with one of THOSE people...