Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: DragginSPADE on <05-07-16/1312:50>
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So as I continue to read the SR5 rules and read the forums I find that there is a lot of interesting stuff in the new (to me) edition. But one thing that jumps out at me is the sheer number of skills required to do what could be done with many fewer skills in earlier editions. Since I like the magical side of SR the best I'll use it as an example.
In SR5 it requires 7-8 skills plus a metamagic to do what a starting magician in SR3 could do with 2 skills.
SR3: Sorcery and Conjuring. You can do any basic task spellcasting related, conjuring related, summon watchers, put up wards and modify your area of effect spell sizes out of the gate with those two skills. Astral tasks used those skills or an attribute.
SR5: All three skills in the sorcery skill group, Two to three skills in the conjuring group depending on whether you count Binding, plus Assensing and Astral Combat. Additionally, you'd need to take the Watcher and Ward ritual magics and the metamagic Spell Shaping to match a starting 3rd ed character could do. And if you want to cast any of your spells ritually you need to take an extra ritual for that too.
I'm not bashing SR5, there's a lot of cool new stuff added such as Preparations, the ability to use spell regents in normal casting, etc. All very cool. But from theory crafting new characters and reading the forums, it seems this diffusion of skills means new characters will be either less broadly capable than earlier starting characters, or much more specialized into a single niche, at least at first. Granted you get a lot more skill points at character creation than we used to, but it doesn't seem to be enough to make a generalist of equal skill.
My question is, does anyone know from a developer or other official source if this tendency towards ultra specialized character creation now is Working As Intended, or a product of Law of Unintended Consequences?
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This is just an educated guess:
There was likely a discussion about the powerfulness of a character that could start with two skills maxed because that's all they before they got into character specifics. Instead of pressuring people to start weaker by not capping their abilities at the beginning and creating a "damned if you do/don't" scenario, they likely just opted to spread out the responsibility from 3 to 4e and then again from 4 to 5e. I don't think the developers wanted to make it require two awakened (because 1/100*(<1)/100=(<1)/10000) to have most aspects of the the awakened world covered. What likely happened was they tried to expand skills to be able to cover more than one skills end goal by indirectly doing the same thing, and wound up adding more skills in the process.
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6 skills does cost a lot of Karma to raise
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It's largely to reduce the power of a single skill. That said, it did kind of end up separating the part of the skills that people care about from the ones people don't care about.
Realistically, a magician cares about spellcasting and summoning. Then, maybe they care about counterspelling and binding, and they probably don't care about banishing or ritual magic.
You can be a fully functional mage with, say, Spellcasting 6 with a specialization in your favorite school and Summoning 1 with a specialization in your favorite spirit. The rest is gravy.
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You can be a fully functional mage with, say, Spellcasting 6 with a specialization in your favorite school and Summoning 1 with a specialization in your favorite spirit.
Unless you plan to build into a more versatile magician over time, it might make sense to save skill points/karma by building an aspected sorceror. Let the team hire an aspected conjuror for calling up bigger spirits.
Better yet, back up the sorcery specialist with a magician that can be flexible among sorcery and conjuring tasks. Crossfire and multiple lanes of fire can be wonderful things - ever notice that few surviving shadowrunning teams have only one gunner?
In a similar vein, an aspected enchanter taking on some of the noncombat/utility spellcasting can still rig drones or fire weapons in combat. Preparations triggered by contact or elapsed time do not require LOS. That was not the Lego block you wanted to step on.
It does look to me like the developers wanted to encourage having more Awakened and more diverse Awakened characters on Shadowrun teams. Now the question is which one to geek first.
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Unless you plan to build into a more versatile magician over time, it might make sense to save skill points/karma by building an aspected sorceror. Let the team hire an aspected conjuror for calling up bigger spirits.
Better yet, back up the sorcery specialist with a magician that can be flexible among sorcery and conjuring tasks. Crossfire and multiple lanes of fire can be wonderful things - ever notice that few surviving shadowrunning teams have only one gunner?
In a similar vein, an aspected enchanter taking on some of the noncombat/utility spellcasting can still rig drones or fire weapons in combat. Preparations triggered by contact or elapsed time do not require LOS. That was not the Lego block you wanted to step on.
It does look to me like the developers wanted to encourage having more Awakened and more diverse Awakened characters on Shadowrun teams. Now the question is which one to geek first.
There's almost no reason to ever make an aspected mage, sadly, except maybe if you need priority D magic for some reason.
The above is just hoodoo on a budget, but even with someone spending so lightly on magical skills, that one rank in summoning with a specialization, for nine dice to summon, say, a fire spirit? That is still extremely useful and provides you a broad selection of powerful options above and beyond what's available to an aspected sorcerer.
I also would never recommend an aspected enchanter. Two of those skills barely have any defined use, and Alchemy is... not good. There are some uses you might be able to find for it, but it really isn't good. You can get some mileage out of an aspected sorcerer or conjurer, but an aspected enchanter? Ugh.
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Some people seem to feel a "fun challenge" is something most people give up on because they're just getting frustrated by beating their head against a brick wall. I recall one computer game forum where someone complained the raids were to easy and you shouldn't be able to beat them until you were in the tier above. That is a raid in the t6 bracket would only be fun for them if it was impossible to complete for anyone actually in t6. Not very hard, not only beatable by the best players but impossible. I can see then wanting to play an aspected enchanter.
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The most likely way I can see it working is if it were little more than a hobby while you have an actual job. A face could free up the resources easily enough, and maybe get a little mileage. Just not much.
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You have to remember too DragginSPADE, you are talking 2 whole edition changes :D
Things are way different in 5e from 3e, just look at dicepools and target numbers. How combat runs now, VS how it did in 3e....
Some of these changes were in the name of simplifiation, some where to address 'balance issues'.
And lets be honest, magic really did need some balancing :D (coming from a guy with a 4300+ karma mage!).
Are things different? Yes. Does it make characters weaker then 3e? Too hard to say, what with the list of changes done...
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Considering people still too frequently call Shadowrun "MagicRun" and complain about how OP magic is... ;)
It tends to be perception, IMO. I've played a couple mages (Straight up spellslinger, and an Alchemy focused mage) and both were pretty viable but not overpowered. But again, it's perception.
Too many folks go in assuming you have to have 6's in appropriate skills to even be playable, and that you have to have high attributes. But a character with 8-10 dice pool for their primary skill or two is supposed to be a skilled, viable character. YOu don't need to start at 12+ and work your way up.
However, this depends a good deal on your GM and what he's throwing at you as well. Your skills only need to be proportionate to the enemy. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or like you're not useful because you don't have enough dice to regularly beat your opponents and challenges, talk to the GM, because he may simply be setting your thresholds and enemies at too high a level.
The game should be a challenge. But it should also be fun. It's the GMs job to find that balance.
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Bull, you hit it on the head with Dice Pools, and seen what you are saying, well every time someone posts a character to the forums :P
There does in fact seem to be a huge disconnect between players/Gms and 'acceptable' dice pools.
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Bull, I totally get what you're talking about with "good" skill levels being relative to the campaign difficulty. Of two magicians I played back in the day one started as a street level shaman with pretty poor skills and about one or two starting spells. Had a blast working my way up from there.
Logically, I understand that it's a new edition and things change. But as I theory craft a character and realize I can't cover all of what I consider the essential "full magician" starting bases anymore my grognard hind-brain just starts screaming. ;D
Anyway, I was just curious if all the splitting of skills in the new editions was an attempt to deliberately de-power magic a bit or if someone thought it would add more flavor to characters to not all have the same proficiencies.
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More then a little bit of both would be my guess.
Remember, 4e started off as someone else's property (Fanpro). So the ideas behind the 4e (original) changes are lost to history (and those that made them).
A lot of 5e is about returning to some of the original flavors of SR1-3. Decks and Rigs being the two most obvious 'additions' to 5e that hark back to pre 4e roots. But the 2 system magic that was in place (namely the divide between Hermetics and Shamans) was thoughly shattered by 4e and the UMT.....
So what i think you see with the magic skill bloat is an attempt to both diversify magic power, and return some flavor to mahic through skill choices. No longer can you be a mage that excels at every aspect of magic right out of the gates..... but you CAN be an excellent Summoner, or Spellslinger, or Alchemist....
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Yeah, once the idea to add alchemy to the game, and the magic rituals, it meant that magic skill groups needed rebalanced some, because we now had three focuses to magic rather than just two (With Enchanting being secondary thing).
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Too many folks go in assuming you have to have 6's in appropriate skills to even be playable, and that you have to have high attributes. But a character with 8-10 dice pool for their primary skill or two is supposed to be a skilled, viable character. YOu don't need to start at 12+ and work your way up.
However, this depends a good deal on your GM and what he's throwing at you as well. Your skills only need to be proportionate to the enemy. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or like you're not useful because you don't have enough dice to regularly beat your opponents and challenges, talk to the GM, because he may simply be setting your thresholds and enemies at too high a level.
One of the things about Shadowrun rewards the super minmaxy side of things way more is how character creation rules and character advancement rules differ. Taking your Troll with Exceptional Strength and Genetic Optimization Strength and advancing Strength from 10 to 12 in play costs 115 karma. That same advance in character creation costs two attribute points.
Advancing Charisma from 1 to 3 in play costs 25 karma in play, but it costs those same 2 attribute points in character creation. Much cheaper and more practical to start with strength twelve, then buy up charisma later.
Skills are in a similar spot.
I recommend starting at around fifteen dice in your main skill not because you need that many dice to be effective, nor from an idea of working up from there, but because it's so much easier to start really good at your specialty, and then build that broader ability base out in play than it is to start out spread out and build up into a specialty.
Also, I like having my main base covered, then spending my advancement however I feel like and however feels appropriate for the campaign.
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One of the things about Shadowrun rewards the super minmaxy side of things way more is how character creation rules and character advancement rules differ. Taking your Troll with Exceptional Strength and Genetic Optimization Strength and advancing Strength from 10 to 12 in play costs 115 karma. That same advance in character creation costs two attribute points.
Advancing Charisma from 1 to 3 in play costs 25 karma in play, but it costs those same 2 attribute points in character creation. Much cheaper and more practical to start with strength twelve, then buy up charisma later.
Skills are in a similar spot.
I recommend starting at around fifteen dice in your main skill not because you need that many dice to be effective, nor from an idea of working up from there, but because it's so much easier to start really good at your specialty, and then build that broader ability base out in play than it is to start out spread out and build up into a specialty.
Also, I like having my main base covered, then spending my advancement however I feel like and however feels appropriate for the campaign.
Spot on. You get more mileage out of having a few high dice pools at character creation, since it's easier to pick up a lot of low-medium pools later. Especially if you do this and also take Jack of all Trades.
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Not something I'm a fan of as I'm a generalist at heart and always hate the pressure to put 6 in x and 0 in Y rather than 3 in each. Especially as mages have to pay in karma for all advancements and there's a lot of non-magic and even non-runner related skills I'd like to put a few points in like artisan.
I know it'd be a pain to rebalance everything (why I haven't tried) but I'd really like to see at least some of these magic skills combined to reduce the number you need to focus on. At least the mirror image ones enchanting/disenchanting, summoning/banishing, maybe spellcasting/counterspelling or spellcasting/ritual spellcasting. I'd say all 3 to be honest into one spellcasting skill but casting/counterspelling are major usage skills do there'd be a major effect on gameplay compared to lumping in the in my experience largely niche enchanting, disenchanting and banishing skills. I'd also like to see arcana dropped and it's functions spread out over other skills with assensing being lumped into perception checks. Even those changes would drop 12 magic skills to 7/8 depending on how many of the spellcasting ones you grouped into one. The remainder (with the exception of alchemy which depends on how you treat it) are distinct enough in their own right to make sense from a common usage perspective for me.
Of course this isn't solely a magic issue given the number of times I've debated computer use here. Still its one of those annoying issues where you wind up with either not enough skill points to make a character who suits your tastes in terms of what someone should have or you wind up with dice pools too low for what the game community encourages people to aim for (if only because it costs less to buy low rank skills later than to buy low rank ones up to higher values). However if you increase the number of available skill points you'd probably only increase the gap between a generalist who spreads them out to cover things like basic computer use (don't bother debating this i know I'm in the minority with my views and most prefer to default) or artisan for cooking or even chemistry and a minmaxer (as opposed to a munchkin) who after getting the required magic skills puts a six into automatics.
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It isn’t just magic, it is certainly similar with computer skills. If you want to be an all-around decker who can play any roll, you are looking at half a dozen skills (plus probably some related knowledges). If you wanted to be at “professional level, you could get a job doing this” (not exact words, but roughly how level six skill is described in the CRB), then you’d want a six at all of these – but short of skill priority A that would pretty much be all of your skill build points, or more. So in reality you’ll have to choose to be good at some computer related stuff and weaker at others, in order to have some modest meat-space skills.
That is fine, but it doesn’t align well with the fiction and fluff, where deckers are typically described as being pretty omni-competent in the matrix. At least with the fluff on magicians they often don’t include alchemy, if only because that is relatively young related to the game history.
That said, the situation reminds me a bit of first edition. Yes, skill were broader then, but skill points were in pretty short supply. I don’t have the sheet or the 1st edition book, but I seem to recall that my first character, a shaman, had six in spellcasting and summoning, a bit of stealth and perception, and managed two points in each of etiquette, bikes, and firearms (as well as starting with only three spells, only one them at a high force level). I do recall there being some dissonance in 1st edition between the descriptions and quotes of the archetype character builds, and their actual skill levels. The former tended to suggest seasoned professionals, the latter suggested people just getting started in the field – although attribute points were higher, typically, in first edition so that characters at least felt like gifted amateurs.
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Interesting you choose to use a skill of 6 as the starting level of "professional".....And I think this speaks to the risconnect both me and Bull were alluding to.
By the skill write ups, professional kicks in around rank 4.
So this means the "average professional" has a dice pool of 6 to 8 on average. 4 for skill, then 2 to 4 for the attribute. (Plus modifiers for gear).
BUT, many people insist you NEED a skill of 6 minimum. You Don't. Not really. But what does happen is there seems to be an arms race between the GM and the players that seems to go around in a circle.
GM feels "gutter punks" should have 12 dice for guns.
Players want to be better then punks, do they make sure their skill is 18.
GM watches players waste punks, ups 'cops' gun skill to 18.
Players invest more resources to overmatch cops, raising skills to 22...
And the dice arms race continues...
The only thing I can think of is this is a legt over mindset from DnD days in many players and GMs who think after every session the CR of the monsters has to improve (in this case, dice)....
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I just looked up 1e and 2e for skills an attributes. Attributes went 30/24/20/17/15, Skills 40/30/24/20/17. Keep in mind there used to be only six Attributes, and you started at 0. Skills had no cap and Attributes were not added to Skill rolls. It was a bit different...
I too believe there are too many skills. I would prefer a return to the more general skills of earlier editions, and just lower the starting points in priority. There have been other threads about a compromise, combining some of the skills and/ or putting more into groups. Both are good ideas.
Going to a flat rate cost to improve Skills and Attributes would go ways toward making it more viable to build a balanced character besides one min maxed, because honestly, you are penalized by not min maxing with Priority generation (and to a lesser extent, Life Modules too).
If we combined some Skills and rearranged Skill Groups, then changed improvement to flat Karma costs, I think it would go a long way toward improving what is still a great game. Oh, and dropping Skill maximum to 9 (10 with Quality) as well.
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Dump-statting all but the attributes and skills that support a few competencies does go a long way towards answering the question: "Why are all these computing gurus and grand high wizards running the shadows instead of working for the corporations?" It's not so much a protest against "selling out", but the result of failing the recruiters' vetting process. :D
It probably doesn't help that the people most likely to be offended or wierded out by nonconformists tend to work in HR or middle management.
"For the interview, couldn't you at least try to summon something a bit more cuddly or even client-friendly than 'Belphegor, Hell's Ambassador to France'?"
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Yeah, there'd be some reworking if I were GodKingEmperor, but thank goodness there are bunches of smart people around to whack me with magazines when I start spinning off into ideas that are too weird. I mean, I have an outline for a rework of the magic system in my head, which starts with "Magic is too cheap" and goes from there.
And while that works for some styles of game, it doesn't click for ALL of them, and I have to remember that the greater sandbox is for everyone, so, I need to not break other peoples' toys. Because that's just rude, yo.
As for skill diffusion, it's both working and not working. People have spent time to find "The best" skills, discarded the "weak" ones, and the idea of fluff skills is sitting out on the sidewalk, weeping. "Why would I spend 4 skill points giving my street samurai origami?" But but but!
In the Olde Days, having, for instance, "Firearms", a single skill that covered all bangbang was an issue. Unfortunately, the split that came from it gave us "Automatics", which people quickly jumped on as it gave them pistols (well, machine pistols), SMGs, and assault rifles, thus was the 'best' skill. You can find similar with magical skills.
So, I'm in an odd place where I'd love to combine and remove several skills, while adding a few more, and establishing a sort of baseline that we can work from in the future.
And then we get to skill ratings and dice pools. That ... is a long, painful talk. And, again, we need to allow for a wide array of playstyles, ranging from streetscum to worldbeaters.
And THEN you get to karmagen vs build points vs lettercodes and ... man. It's a LONG conversation.
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For me I don't feel magic is too cheap but I do feel forced every time I make a character to put 6 in x with a specialisation to be "viable" where I'd rather have 4 and 2 points in swimming and 1 in artisan for basic cooking and a 3 in computer use because my mage has basic professional knowledge there but struggles with complex tricks, maybe a 2_3 in drive ground vehicles and oh I forgot summoning so 4 there and. . . I'm out of skill points already guess I need to take that at a higher priority what do I sacrifice attributes or magic. It's all those useful/vital life skills that cost for me since I choke on the 0 untrained but just default attitude.
Even if I've given way on a lot of it I'd still rather a mage with 1 hobbyist rank in all magic skills because it turns can't roll into 8 dice give or take some character creation which as you said is equivalent to normal professional level even if your relying heavily in innate talent rather than actual knowledge. Sure my sorcery is 4)5 maybe even 6 for a die pool of 10-12 but I'm still good at alchemy and enchanting should it ever come up
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Not something I'm a fan of as I'm a generalist at heart and always hate the pressure to put 6 in x and 0 in Y rather than 3 in each. Especially as mages have to pay in karma for all advancements and there's a lot of non-magic and even non-runner related skills I'd like to put a few points in like artisan.
Personally, I find that uninteresting, and kind of a cop out to making the choice.
It's kind of like the person who comes to the table with a scientist.
What kind of scientist? A botanist? A chemist? A physicist? A geologist?
I have a degree in science!
People specialize. They invariably gravitate towards one method or another that works for them and becomes their go-to. They may have some base level of competence in one or the other, but more than likely, they are not going to have 3 in all skills relevant to their field. More likely, they'll have one that's their best, a couple that are okay, and some they have a base level of competence in, creating a more dynamic ability profile.
And it's just 2 karma to buy rank 1 skills after you've spent all your skill points. You can get a LOT of rank 1 skills, and you can get a ton of mileage out of 'em. Even rank 1 summoning can get you some significant overwatch.
Plus, put two similar characters who specialize in different directions, who therefore operate very differently and it's far more interesting than someone who tries to spread themselves too thin.
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To each their own, I think its a bit of a disconnect between us in where that specialization comes in. For you if I read your post right its in the skills i.e. your a sorcerer or a summoner or a alchemist whereas to me those are the base skills equivilent of the basic math's, reading, research skills any of those different disciplines would have. The specialization comes in with the spells you learn and metamagics you master as opposed to the active skills. That is it doesn't matter if you have multiple mages with 6 summoning, 6 sorcery, 6 ritual casting they can still be very different mages. Mage A could be the traditional DND, movie style combat mage with lots of combat spells offensive and defensive, mage B might have no combat spells but lots of healing spells to deal with disease, addiction, injuries, poisons, mage C might be more inclined towards construction and sustainable resourcese with spells to cleanse the earth, air, water and also to shape and move it and mage D might have specialized with metamagics and learnt spells to fengshui your apartment for the rich and fashionable. 4 very different mages ones a soldier, another a doctor, the third a builder and the last a fashion designer but all have the same base skills.
Of course part of that could be because so many of the skills to me shouldn't be split up even though they feel like the same thing e.g. enchanting/disenchanting. It leaves me with the feeling their less chemistry and more having one skill for chemical reactions and another for chemically seperating compounds and another for something else. So your not looking for a "chemist" but rather a chemist who can mix two things together as opposed to the many other chemists who don't know how to do that. Different views for different people.
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Personally, I find that uninteresting, and kind of a cop out to making the choice.
It's kind of like the person who comes to the table with a scientist.
What kind of scientist? A botanist? A chemist? A physicist? A geologist?
I have a degree in science!
Personally, I do have a degree in geology. ;) It looks to me like you're underestimating the breadth on knowledge a recent graduate with a four-year degree should have, while overstating the amount of specialization to be expected. Even a doctoral candidate will normally have significant interests and expertise outside the four walls of a classroom or wet lab.
Granted, you may find playing Dr. Phish Outtawater, PhD, MIT&T, far more interesting than a runner with a BS in earth or biological sciences (or related engineering fields), and maybe a military hitch in their background. But for some of us, it's the hyperspecialist that may not always ring true.
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Whenever this argument crops up, I like to remind people, that you can default on skills - especially knowledge skills - and you can substitute skills at a penalty. So you really only need to be good in your main field. The peripheral knowledge you accumulate can easily be simulated by taking a -3 to the test.
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I guess it also depends quite a bit on whether you expect the campaign you make a character for to be either long or short. I can see the temptation to min/max if you expect the campaign to be relatively short. For me i knew that the campaign we started several years ago would be long, so it made sense to make sure that all my magical skills were good, and as far as specialization goes, that is my specialization....Magic, not only spells, not only spirits or enchanting but all of it. But since i knew it would be a long campaign i also wanted to make a well rounded character with hobbies, normal skills that people pick up and stuff, but i can toally see that that would be considered a Waste of karma if you knew that the campaign would over before you made 30 karma points. Yes focussing on all aspects of magic is definitely expensive, but when you know the campaign will be long, totally worth it as it heightens your characters utility and Senko is right that there are many more ways to differentiate between mages than just if they are focussed on spells or spirits, spells and metamagic are great for specializing and differentiating.
Also......Magic is too cheap?!? In what universe is that? I guess you could say that if you made one of those min/maxed characters that were only really really good at one or two magical skills, but magic is still by far the biggest karma sink there is, tonnes of skills ( 12 by my Count not counting relevant background skills : Assensing, Astral combat, Arcana, Enchanting Group, Conjuring Group and sorcery Group ) including relevant background skills, foci binding...etc. When i started back in 3rd edition you had sorcery, conjuring, enchanting, arcana and i don't actually remember if astral combat and assensing were skills of their own back then, but in essence a lot less skills, when we went to 4th edition, sorcery and conjuring were split into Groups of 3 skills each, the others were kept as single skills, in 5th we have further split enchanting into a skill Group of 3 skills, so magic has become extremely diffused and quite the opposite of cheap unless you go for extreme specialization.
Is it working as intended? Well if the object of the diffusing effort was to force players to become one- or two trick ponies, then yes it's working as intended, which is quite clear to see from several of the comments here and also in the character creation section of this forum, unless of course you are willing to wait and sink hundreds of karma points into your mage, but as i stated in the beginning it very much depends on your expectation in regards to the length of the campaign you're about to play.
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Whenever this argument crops up, I like to remind people, that you can default on skills - especially knowledge skills - and you can substitute skills at a penalty. So you really only need to be good in your main field. The peripheral knowledge you accumulate can easily be simulated by taking a -3 to the test.
True you can do that and if you enjoy playing that way have fun but like I said I personally choke on that attitude. My mage picking up . . . an assault rifle and trying to substitute long arms because i'm bracing it against my shoulder as an emergency "I don't want to die" action sure but just doing it as a basic thing on a regular gaming basis for skills that are to me universal. I hate it as I really do find it spoils a lot of my fun. I'm not trying to play a doctor who style character of I know everything about everything but I do want to have my mage be viable and still have some basic knowledge of cooking, have learnt how to swim and drive a car etc. I know its per the rules and like I said I've accepted I'm in the minority about this but its a basic difference in how I see things I don't think I'll ever get over. Rating 0 is untrained and in the little sidebar is described as
"The default level of knowledge obtained through interaction with society and the Matrix. Though untrained, you have a general awareness of the skill, and occasionally may even be able to fake it."
and its here where that argument comes up. The idea of rating zero drive ground vehicle being "Drive normally and only need to default if doing something out of the ordinary" to me rings false both because of my own experiences when learning to drive and the description quoted above. Yet that's the normal one people take as you said of don't put points in it rating 0 is drive normally and default if you need to "fake" a stunt. Its why a teenager who's only seen driving on tv/movies/games and via chatting with friends still has to LEARN to drive with a qualified driver in the car (here anyway) to ensure they don't have as many accidents.
Same with all the other "life skills" that to me should be at a 1-4 for most character's regardless of specialization unless they're doing a lifestyle where they didn't grow up in this kind of society e.g. a shifter or a sinless street rat. Swimming, artisan, computer use, drive ground vehicle and the slightly more specific but still largley useful ones like first aid, etiquette, negotiation or first aid. Sure they wont be 4+ skilled professional much less a 6+ sought out and name their price one but any runner who's grown up around the matrix would in my opinion be at least a 1 beginer in computer use or have picked up a 1/2 beginner/novice in negotiation if only to ensure the face doesn't negotiate a 10,000 yen run take a 8,000 yen cut and split the remaining 2,000 four way's or to handle buying their own supplies.
Still no point arguing about it I've accepted there's the majority view of . . .
6+ in one or two skills and 0/default in the rest.
and my view shared by a few others of. . . .
4+ in your specializations and 1-3 in the other skills to fill out general lifestyle things you pick up like learning basic driving skills. It just means I have to be careful what games I play in and ensure the DM isn't starting the characters off against the 12-18 die pool range as the basic opposition.
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I think part of the problem is the knowledge skills to be honest. A basic high school graduate these day's is going to have knowledge of mathmatics, chemistry, literature, possibly a second or third language, electives like chemistry, biology, acting (which is active skills but we did get some theory), home ec (artisan another active skill), some schools offer mechanical courses. Try to make a runner who has that background AND the running skills they need and you start to struggle or at least I do. Sure its fine if your going with a 0 is what everyone know's and default the stunts but if your not then its almost impossible to make especially if your going with a sam who needs combat stats more than mental ones and may only have 8 or 10 knowledge points. Hmmm I might start a character creation thread tommorow on what a typical high school graduate should have and see how easy it is to make just that.
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I agree with Senko that it's difficult to have all the skills you expect a person with at least some education to know. Try taking all the skills you have yourself and then see what priority you have to give it if you want a character to have all those skills.
I always have the same problem when creating a runner that I want to have a fully rounded character with hobbies and all that, and it eats up a lot of skill points. Unless I play a very strange character I never let a runner go out the door without at least one social skill, one combat skill, one hobby, one knowledge interest, drive, perception, computer use and first aid. That means at least 4-5 skills outside their main specialty.
I think it comes down to what type of game you play at your table. When we played shadowrun we had characters with the highest dice pools not higher than 12-15. If everybody is in the same range, it's not a problem as the GM can adapt to that and you can very much enjoy yourself. It also means that if someone can't make it, or if the group has to split up, you have other characters who can take up the slack (not as good, but enough to get by) by using their secondary skills.
If at your table you play with hyper-specialists who have 20+ dice in their niche, that's fine for me either. It's your game. The only problem is when some do it one way and some the other way, as that might create problems (what's a challenge for one character, is a walk-over for the other).
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I decided to rework the skills and skill groups. Sorry I don't know how to make the below a spoiler:
AGILITY: Armed Combat, Athletics, Escape Artist, Gunnery, Heavy Weapons, Locksmith, Palming, Small Arms, Sneaking, Targeting, Unarmed Combat, Exotic Weapon
BODY: Diving, Free Fall STRENGTH: Athletics WILLPOWER: Astral Combat, Survival
REACTION: Pilot Aircraft, Pilot Ground Craft, Pilot Watercraft, Pilot Exotic
CHARISMA: Animal Handling, Con, Impersonation, Intimidation, Leadership, Negotiation
INTUITION: Assensing, Disguise, Language, Tracking, Interest, Street
LOGIC: Aeronautics Mechanic, Arcana, Armorer, Automotive Mechanic, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Computer, Cybertechnology, Demolitions, First Aid, Forgery, Hardware, Industrial Mechanic, Nautical Mechanic, Software, Academic, Professional
MAGIC: Conjuring, Enchanting, Sorcery
RESONANCE: Tasking
ACTING: Con, Disguise, Impersonation
BIOTECH: Biotechnology, Cybertechnology, Medicine
CLOSE COMBAT: Armed Combat, Targeting, Unarmed Combat
COMBAT ENGINEER: Armorer, Demolitions, Industrial Mechanic
ELECTRONICS: Computer, Hardware, Software
ENGINEERING: Aeronautics Mechanic, Automotive Mechanic, Nautical Mechanic
EXTREME SPORTS: Athletics, Diving, Free Fall
FIREARMS: Gunnery, Heavy Weapons, Small Arms
INFLUENCE: Intimidation, Leadership, Negotiation
METAPHYSICS: Arcana, Assensing, Astral Combat
OUTDOORS: Animal Handling, Survival, Tracking
PILOT: Pilot Aircraft, Pilot Ground Craft, Pilot Watercraft
THIEVERY: Escape Artist, Locksmith, Palming
Artisan, Performance, and the surgery aspect of Medicine are Knowledges
Archery and Throwing are now Targeting
Automatics is part of Heavy Weapons
First Aid is part of Medicine
Long Arms and Pistols are now Small Arms
Gymnastics, Running, Swimming are now Athletics
Instruction is part of Leadership
Navigation is part of Survival
Cybercombat is part of Computer
Electronic Warfare and Hacking are part of Software
Pilot Aerospace is part of Pilot Aircraft
Pilot Walker is part of Pilot Ground Craft
Etiquette is now an Attribute Only test, Charisma + Intuition
Perception is now an Attribute Only test, Intuition + Willpower (+ Logic to Observe In Detail)
Defaulting Attribute -3, appropriate Skill -2, appropriate Skill Group -1
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Whenever this argument crops up, I like to remind people, that you can default on skills - especially knowledge skills - and you can substitute skills at a penalty. So you really only need to be good in your main field. The peripheral knowledge you accumulate can easily be simulated by taking a -3 to the test.
True you can do that and if you enjoy playing that way have fun but like I said I personally choke on that attitude. My mage picking up . . . an assault rifle and trying to substitute long arms because i'm bracing it against my shoulder as an emergency "I don't want to die" action sure but just doing it as a basic thing on a regular gaming basis for skills that are to me universal. I hate it as I really do find it spoils a lot of my fun. I'm not trying to play a doctor who style character of I know everything about everything but I do want to have my mage be viable and still have some basic knowledge of cooking, have learnt how to swim and drive a car etc. I know its per the rules and like I said I've accepted I'm in the minority about this but its a basic difference in how I see things I don't think I'll ever get over. Rating 0 is untrained and in the little sidebar is described as
"The default level of knowledge obtained through interaction with society and the Matrix. Though untrained, you have a general awareness of the skill, and occasionally may even be able to fake it."
and its here where that argument comes up. The idea of rating zero drive ground vehicle being "Drive normally and only need to default if doing something out of the ordinary" to me rings false both because of my own experiences when learning to drive and the description quoted above. Yet that's the normal one people take as you said of don't put points in it rating 0 is drive normally and default if you need to "fake" a stunt. Its why a teenager who's only seen driving on tv/movies/games and via chatting with friends still has to LEARN to drive with a qualified driver in the car (here anyway) to ensure they don't have as many accidents.
Same with all the other "life skills" that to me should be at a 1-4 for most character's regardless of specialization unless they're doing a lifestyle where they didn't grow up in this kind of society e.g. a shifter or a sinless street rat. Swimming, artisan, computer use, drive ground vehicle and the slightly more specific but still largley useful ones like first aid, etiquette, negotiation or first aid. Sure they wont be 4+ skilled professional much less a 6+ sought out and name their price one but any runner who's grown up around the matrix would in my opinion be at least a 1 beginer in computer use or have picked up a 1/2 beginner/novice in negotiation if only to ensure the face doesn't negotiate a 10,000 yen run take a 8,000 yen cut and split the remaining 2,000 four way's or to handle buying their own supplies.
Still no point arguing about it I've accepted there's the majority view of . . .
6+ in one or two skills and 0/default in the rest.
and my view shared by a few others of. . . .
4+ in your specializations and 1-3 in the other skills to fill out general lifestyle things you pick up like learning basic driving skills. It just means I have to be careful what games I play in and ensure the DM isn't starting the characters off against the 12-18 die pool range as the basic opposition.
EDIT
I think part of the problem is the knowledge skills to be honest. A basic high school graduate these day's is going to have knowledge of mathmatics, chemistry, literature, possibly a second or third language, electives like chemistry, biology, acting (which is active skills but we did get some theory), home ec (artisan another active skill), some schools offer mechanical courses. Try to make a runner who has that background AND the running skills they need and you start to struggle or at least I do. Sure its fine if your going with a 0 is what everyone know's and default the stunts but if your not then its almost impossible to make especially if your going with a sam who needs combat stats more than mental ones and may only have 8 or 10 knowledge points. Hmmm I might start a character creation thread tommorow on what a typical high school graduate should have and see how easy it is to make just that.
Other than maybe a language, you do not need ANY knowledge skills to represent a high school education. In fact, NOT having that basic knowledge is what requires a mechanical representation in the form of the uneducated quality. There is no skill roll required for a normal, educated adult to calculate the area of a square, or identify a rabbit and know it eats plants.
Likewise, having zero ranks in swim does not mean you don't know how to swim. If you drop a baby in a pool, they will swim. It's a natural instinct. But most people avoid swimming anywhere there are significant currents or rough seas because most people, while they CAN swim, are not skilled swimmers and they know it.
There are numerous other things that are basic, normal life skills that you do not need a skill or a roll to do. If you haven't used GridGuide all your life, driving is one of them. Sure, it takes some time to learn, but so does walking and so does potty training. Would you require a diaper for characters who don't take Knowledge: Potty Training?
Rank 1 in drive would be more like if you spent a day or two at one of those driving courses where they do the Nya like slicking the course so you can practice recovering from slipping on ice.
Artisan is not an every day skill, either. Anyone can pick up a book or turn on a show and put together a decent meal. It won't be anything fancy, but you don't need to spend karma to boil pasta and add sauce and meat for a decent meal. The Artisan skill, though is actually very significant. A single rank is a broad and extensive schooling on the arts. All of them. If you have Artisan, you're not just a cook. You're a cook and a painter and a carpenter and more.
The mindset that you need to spend zots on every single aspect of existing gets in the way of actually making your character into... anything.
Common knowledge. It's a thing. Doesn't cost anything.
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As for swimming, not everyone has the instinct. I've never been able to learn, for instance. Put me in water and I go down like I ate a Devil Fruit.
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Have to agree with Blue Rose here. A lot of skills in SR, you as a person just couldn't learn without some other skills along the way.....
Demolitions is a prime example. In the real world, you wouldn't learn jack shit about defusing a bomb OR building one without background knowledge in electronics, physics, chemistry, mathmatics, engineering and kissing asses goodbye. Yet in SR, you just grab demolitions, throw a few skill points into it and you're dufusing nuclear dirty bombs hardwired with triple reduntant deadman switches in less then 5 weeks!
Sometimes, you just got to take a step back and realise its a game. Not a life simulator. A game.
Enjoy it!
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This as I said is where we differ. Blue Rose plays it as rank 0 = basic knowledge, me as rank 0 = know of it. It's a subtle difference but an important one. For your example of demolitions if I where making a character with that I would want ranks in those skills. It's just a fundamental difference in play style.
I think I will take the suggestion and try to stay myself put an actual mechanical number to the skills I've picked up in high school and real life. When I make the thread I'd appreciate Blue Rose or someone like them posting their stat's in there. I think it'd be interesting and possibly helpful to see how big a difference in representing a normal person based on our different views of what the various ranks and functions mean in terms of character creation.
EDIT
Actually comparing different peoples probably not the best way to go about it. Anyone with blue roses views willing to help me with this. We both stat the same person. . ..
White collar family, normal school education, college educated business degree, mid 20's or so
Not to make a great runner but make them as I think the different skills and levels could help people get an idea of your majority view vs the view some of us have.
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The way another game put itwasitwas, roughly, the skills and relationships on your character sheet are not everything and everyone you know, but rather the ones that let you really do things to the game world. So sure you might know some chemistry but you don't remember enough details to quite remember how to make things with any confidence. Etc.
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The problem is this attitude there is a matter usually of I know how to cook even though there's no cooking skill not I know how to sail a boat even though my character sheet specifically says I don't. That is they also apply it to the skills on their sheets e.g. treating a 0 drive as basic every day driving not I've seen it on the movies. That is you can do chemistry at 0 and "default to whip up a chemical compound to hide the taste of arsenic. Rather than an I see it you know that chemistry 0 means you know they do things with chemicals and can fake doing that by pouring various chemicals into a container and hoping they don't give you away by blowing up.
EDIT
I think it's one of two fundamental differences between the playstyles how you view a zero rank in a skill. One group sees it as basic level of skills to USE in day to day living the other maybe you can fake it up to a point having heard of it but faking is not the same as general use. You put me behind a boat or a plane and I could fake a few things before the inevitable crash that to me is a 0. Others treat it as a 0 drive ground vehicles is having your licence and knowing how to change gears accelerate, brake, when to do so, turn corners and so on all the normal day to day parts of driving.
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Senko, it really seems like you are creating a problem that isn't in the rules, and then complaining about the problem you created.
What you describe is not skill 0. It's more like being unaware of a skill. And 'unaware' does not, despite the name, mean you do not know a skill exists. If you're uncouth, you still know what manners are, you just aren't any good at it.
There are disadvantages that make you as uninformed as you describe. Uneducated, Uncouth, Incompetent. If you aren't one of those, you have the basic, common knowledge. If you aren't uneducated, you've gone to school and you've learned basic science, math, history. Even if you don't have the Spanish skill, anyone who went to school in the CAS probably knows, "Me llamo Maria," and, "Donde esta el bano?"
You're making this way harder on yourself than it has to be, hermano/a, and the rules don't really support you.
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I'm on the side where having a skill Untrained means you generally can't do it under pressure unless it is something intuitive/some other mitigating factor (like directions on the box). If you don't have any points in it, why should we assume you can do it at a base proficiency? Almost everyone has seen a sailboat go across the water, but that doesn't mean they can default and operate it. And Senko has a good point on the car bit; I would never allow someone to just default on driving on a day-to-day basis, because no points in the skill means you don't know jack. That includes not knowing traffic laws, or having the knowledge to get your license. It doesn't mean you can't own a vehicle; you just use GridGuide like most folks do.
It might not be the rules as written, but it's how I'd do things.
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Driving is a special case due to GridGuide, sure, you could argue that one. I'd say basic ability to drive day-to-day is the default.
That said, all this talk of needing to buy all these skills and spend all these skill points and karma just to be a basic member of society instead of, you know, already being a member of society with basic knowledge of your world and the basic skills required to be a part of your world? Well, now you're making a serious problem.
You are a shadowrunner. You have to be a shadowrunner. That's the game. You will spend zots to be a shadowrunner who does shadowrunning things. If you also MUST spend zots on math, science, biology, anatomy, music, economics, this, that, the other just to have the bare minimum basic level of knowledge expected from a person in the world? Either now you don't have zots to spend on actually making your character interesting and fleshed out, or now you don't have zots to be a shadowrunner.
Just like lifestyle subsumes a lot of the petty couple nuyen here, couple nuyen there cost of living sorts of things, common knowledge subsumes that baseline common knowledge, freeing you up for things that actually warrant the accounting and matter to the character and the game.
Senko, your method makes characters less interesting.
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I don't feel it makes them less interesting I feel its a problem with character creation especially given the sheer number of knowledge skills you get with life modules it seems to me how the dev's want us to play. As you said either you don't have enough to make a realistic character or you don't have enough to make it a runner and that is the probelem with character creation as I see it. Especially given the min max approach that most people feel is necessary for the game (and I'm not arguing that method doesn't make sense given the way character creation/improvement works).
Like I said I originally did try to make characters that were in possession of the skills I felt they needed and basically got told they were so unviable in a game there was no point making them so instead I'm making ones that are not fun for me because I have to leave off skills I feel they should have or that I want them to have.
Its why I want to try this two people make one character idea because while I've always been aware of the whole 6+ for 20+ dice pools at character creation attitude the posts in this thread have really gotten me thinking the disconnect on just what a 0 skill actually is and how much knowledge goes unstated may be an even bigger one for my kind of player. So I really am hoping someone will take me up on this and make a "normal person" build to compare to mine so I can see just how large that gap really is.
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But... it's not a problem, other than the one you made yourself.
*Facepalms.*
Anyways, getting a knowledge skill takes one karma. Getting a standard skill costs two. If you can't fit in the essential skills at those prices, you have an unreasonable expectation for how broad your character's skill base is.
If you want to build up or build out, that's what character advancement is for.
And neither I nor anyone else is saying you need skills at 6+ or dice pools of 20+. Just because you're not wasting points on potty training does not mean you only have one skill.
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Considering people still too frequently call Shadowrun "MagicRun" and complain about how OP magic is... ;)
It tends to be perception, IMO. I've played a couple mages (Straight up spellslinger, and an Alchemy focused mage) and both were pretty viable but not overpowered. But again, it's perception.
Too many folks go in assuming you have to have 6's in appropriate skills to even be playable, and that you have to have high attributes. But a character with 8-10 dice pool for their primary skill or two is supposed to be a skilled, viable character. YOu don't need to start at 12+ and work your way up.
However, this depends a good deal on your GM and what he's throwing at you as well. Your skills only need to be proportionate to the enemy. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or like you're not useful because you don't have enough dice to regularly beat your opponents and challenges, talk to the GM, because he may simply be setting your thresholds and enemies at too high a level.
The game should be a challenge. But it should also be fun. It's the GMs job to find that balance.
People do say you need 6's and your primary stats at creation should be 16+ especially on the character creation forums here but fine I'll let it drop since its obvious you wont indulge my little experiment.
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As i said in my earlier post in this thread, the Whole min/maxing attitude that a lot of people have towards character creation probably stems from the fact that most campaigns tends to be fairly shortlived, so you want to get the most out of the character you make, not make a real life realistic person that you won't be using very long anyways.
If you have a reasonable expectation of playing a long campaign, then Things like that becomes more important as characters invariably gets fleshed more out.
But the OP's question was....Is the skill diffusion working as intended? Well the skill diffusion sort of forces you to become a 1-2 trick pony for most games, unless as i said you can expect the campaign to be long and therefore will need to be more versatile, so if that was the intention then yes it's working, if it wasn't the intention then no.
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Senko, you do realize you are quoting someone who says you don't need those 20+ dice, and does so relative to a much lower and more attainable number, right?
And I still fail to see the point of your experiment. The character creation rules are not made for wageslaves. It'd be a couple minor skills at unnoteworthy levels and a little knowledge, not spending most of the resources.
Rosa: I strongly disagree. The mindset that if there are twelve magic skills, you must be good at all of them instead of having a dynamic ability profile, the idea that you can't have weaknesses? THAT is what makes for shallower and less interesting characters.
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Senko, build your supposed average Joe Normal by hand with Karma and then build him using Life Modules from RF. Post the results and discuss.
Life modules might be for you in general.
Also don't listen to "them" and just do not raise relevant skills to 6. Use 4 maybe 5 and a few at 3 or 4, pick up lots of rank 1 skills with karma during chargen. Sure it's not optimized, who cares.
I feel the discussion is too hung up on 0 ratings, let's discuss what 1-6 means. Is it a linear scale or exponential? Which level is professional? I feel the skill rating table in the core book can only be taken in context of attributes. Better to have a dice pool rating explained table.
I like Life Modules for giving a baseline view. Try it out with a few combination and see where you get. Add a few individual things and note the leftover karma. (You probably do not need all karma for avg Joe Normal) Notice how different things get if you choose different paths. Try to build yourself with it.
Also check out this thread on mundane characters (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=23988.0#top).
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@Blue Rose
Yes I do, I quoted it because they say that is a common attitude in the community. You fail to see the point of my experiment fine I've admitted my way of playing is bad wrong fun so lets just let it drop ok?
@Thanael
It doesn't seem much point now as its been made very plain to me that kind of playing is bad wrong fun and I expect I'd just get more comments along Blue Roses line that I'm wasting my time even trying to make a pointless comparison.
I do actually prefer life modules although I would prefer a bit more karma to play with. I had made that "generic teen" by picking General UCAS, Arcology Living, High School. The skills they wound up with prior any other life experiences or runner specific real life modules were . . .
Athletics Group: 1
Chemistry: 1
Electronics Group: 2
Computer: 5
Software: 4
Etiquette: 3
Perception: 1
Knowledge Steet "City": 2
Knowledge Academic "Corporation": 3
Knowledge Street "Hometown/City": 1
Knowledge Academic "History": 1
Knowledge Academic "Any": 1
Knowledge Academic "Any": 1
Knowledge Street "UCAS": 1
Language "range of choices": 2
Knowledge "range of choices": 1
Knowledge "range of choices": 1
14 points to spend as desired from the attributes.
Body: 2
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2
Strength: 2
Willpower: 2
Logic: 5
Intuition: 2
Charisma: 4
Recommended Age: 17
So for a pretty generic late teens not even been to college/university which add more skills knowledge and active and attribute points human we're looking at from as far as I can tell the dev's preferred build style 3 Group Skill points, 10 active skill points and 28 knowledge/language skill points and some 13 attribute points (Equally obviously I've just posted what you get only you could always combine some of those e.g having the same language to give you say Spanish 3 which I think a lot of American's learn). That's a lot of resources to invest for skills/attributes that aren't necessarily even related to your running role just a basic 17 year old's high school education.
As for your question I feel the current skill system is neither linear nor exponential there are some pretty big jumps in some areas and a very minor progression in others but I skipped breakfast to make this post and now I have to go to work, I'll be happy to discuss this more (and I'll look at that thread you linked) this weekend when I have time to properly spend on it.
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Bull alluded to a much milder mindset than the one you describe existing out there somewhere, yes. Are they here? Because you keep building that straw man as if you're talking about folks in this thread.
If you want to look at what the devs had in mind for characters' knowledge skills, why not look at the characters they actually made as examples.
Burned company man? Surely went to school.
Knowledge skills? Poetry 2, Psychology 3, Small Unit Tactics 2. Does this mean the devs intend for this educated company man to not know even basic math, as there is no math skill on there? Of course not.
I'd say the Run Faster archetypes are the clearer example.
And I would like to point out that by your own reasoning as presented, needing a nearly seasoned professional level of computer skills coming off of logic 5 (significantly above average) just to graduate high school is patently absurd and clearly a relic of oddities in the life path system. That is not any reasonable depiction of an average high school student, even from the Renraku Arcology.
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Rosa: I strongly disagree. The mindset that if there are twelve magic skills, you must be good at all of them instead of having a dynamic ability profile, the idea that you can't have weaknesses? THAT is what makes for shallower and less interesting characters.
I never said that you have to be equally good at all 12, that would be rather difficult under the current system. The problem with magic skills and the reasons why magicans have been hit the hardest by the skill diffusion is that, you cannot default magic skills, you either have them or you don't, period. No other archetypes in SR have this issue, save perhaps technomancers. So the game system has consistently since i was introduced to it moved towards more and more niche specialization. Some people might think thats a good thing, i find those characters 2-dimensional and boring ( others will disagree, i know, but their disagreement makes them no more right than i am, as this is opinion ) and what is worse for a RPG, they force your hand, choice is taken away from you...yeah yeah i know what people will say now, but you still have choice, between which skills to focus on and bla bla bla. Yes i have the choices i am being forced to take, which is no choice at all when you're being forced, i can either choose to make the kind of character catalyst have decided that we should aim for or i can make a hopelessly useless character, and anyone WHO thinks that this is not the reality needs to go and look at the threads in the character creation forums, it is not uncommon for people to be told to dump attributes ( seriously...some people think that a magican character is viable with a logic/intuition/charisma of 1, just because it isn't their drain stat?!? Their GM's must be really kind to those players, i know my GM would make me feel it if i ran arund with either a logic or charisma of 1 ) that aren't considered essential for their build or to drop skills that aren't considered essential for their build, notice that Word "build" it gets thrown around an awfull lot in the character generation forum, as if there is a correct way to make your character and anything that doesn't follow that is a Waste of time, tbh it reminds me a bit of MMORPG's and their talent trees.
Tbh i'm not against a certain level of skill diffusion and specialisation, i actually prefer the way it was in 4th edition, so i'm not advocating a return to 3rd edition, but here in 5th edition especially for magician characters due to no defaulting on magic skills, it has simply been taken a step too far.
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Keep this in mind when referring to magic skills:
SHOOTING
Skill (15) + Agility (12)+ mods (+4) = 31 dice.
this is pretty much the max.
From this, Damage is determined.
MAGIC:
Spellcasting (15) + Magic (unlimited!*) + Mods (unlimited!**)
There is no max, as magic has no upper cap. And since magic has no upper cap, Foci have no upper cap.
Damage is either determined by Net hits (force), OR force + net hits.....
So, damage potential is only limited by the force, which directly relates back to magic... thus unlimited.....
There is a reason mages are called "Karma sinks" and the nickname for the game is "Magicrun". The only thing that limits a mage's power really, is the karma available in a game. IF your game goes on long enough, the awakened in the party really start to outstrip everyone else in the group.
What good is the samurai in combat when his limitations are his weapons or his body compared to my mage that can easily throw Force 30 fireballs, hitting every thing within 70 meters for an average of 42p -15AP (if I buy successes), with only 2 stun damage (again if I buy successes)???
Granted, I have over 4300 karma invested in my character which is vastly more then most players get to (I know of only 2 others on these forums who are not in my group), but it doesn't take that extreme level of karma to start to notice it.
Spells.
Spirits.
Rituals.
Alchemy.
Enchanting.
All ways to power, that are dependant on the magic stat in one way or the other, which essentially makes all the magic skills open ended in power and utility.... and you want to boil down this "karma sink" to fewer skills, allowing that power growth to happen quicker?
If you want less skills in your game, house rule it. That is what house rules are for.
But be careful when you start toying with the mechanics of a game, more then a few GMs have come here whining for help after their house rule Fubar'd their games.....
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@Reaver
Sure that's a probelm at the extreme end but that's a lot of karma to get to 31 dice and for most they're going to need a higher number of mods to equal your shooter because they can't get their stats to 12 as any ware drops their magic resulting in a sort of offset situation from what I see. I also have no idea how you got 15 skill, none and this doesn't assume the mage will want to put karma into another role such as getting your high shooting or as close to it as they can.
I'm not saying it can't happen I've played with incredible minmaxers I just don't think a game should be balanced around the extreme edge cases when you have people who like to generalize, people who are new and don't know how to get that kind of power, people who simply don't play enough to get the karma/cash for that kind of power. In this case I agree with Rosa as I am very much inclined to put at least 1 point into every magic skill because that makes the difference between I roll 7 dice if I need to and I can't roll at all. However I get told that's a waste of creation points/karma because 7 dice isn't going to achieve anything worthwhile. I've also seen a lot of posts complaining about enchanting/alchemy and I'm not sure how those are a route to power but I'll take your word for it. Still if you don't want to allow fewer magic skills what's your view on removing the no default as again like Rosa said those are the only skills that have that limitation?
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I never said that you have to be equally good at all 12, that would be rather difficult under the current system. The problem with magic skills and the reasons why magicans have been hit the hardest by the skill diffusion is that, you cannot default magic skills, you either have them or you don't, period. No other archetypes in SR have this issue, save perhaps technomancers. So the game system has consistently since i was introduced to it moved towards more and more niche specialization. Some people might think thats a good thing, i find those characters 2-dimensional and boring ( others will disagree, i know, but their disagreement makes them no more right than i am, as this is opinion ) and what is worse for a RPG, they force your hand, choice is taken away from you...yeah yeah i know what people will say now, but you still have choice, between which skills to focus on and bla bla bla. Yes i have the choices i am being forced to take, which is no choice at all when you're being forced, i can either choose to make the kind of character catalyst have decided that we should aim for or i can make a hopelessly useless character, and anyone WHO thinks that this is not the reality needs to go and look at the threads in the character creation forums, it is not uncommon for people to be told to dump attributes ( seriously...some people think that a magican character is viable with a logic/intuition/charisma of 1, just because it isn't their drain stat?!? Their GM's must be really kind to those players, i know my GM would make me feel it if i ran arund with either a logic or charisma of 1 ) that aren't considered essential for their build or to drop skills that aren't considered essential for their build, notice that Word "build" it gets thrown around an awfull lot in the character generation forum, as if there is a correct way to make your character and anything that doesn't follow that is a Waste of time, tbh it reminds me a bit of MMORPG's and their talent trees.
Tbh i'm not against a certain level of skill diffusion and specialisation, i actually prefer the way it was in 4th edition, so i'm not advocating a return to 3rd edition, but here in 5th edition especially for magician characters due to no defaulting on magic skills, it has simply been taken a step too far.
So you can't make your character the way you want because some random schmucks on the internet who aren't even involved in this conversation will waggle their fingers at you? Interesting. I shouldn't think they would be relevant.
Old school, a shaman could not bind spirits, and a hermetic couldn't not bind spirits. To this day, if you're Order of St. Sylvester or Order of the Temple, you can't summon or bind at all without the pope's direct approval. If you don't have that papal approval, you either never learn/use those skills or you're a heretic. Back in the day, no one knew alchemy.
And you can still do this stuff in the current edition. Or rather, not do this stuff.
Mages still have the D&D style, "I have class features stronger than your entire class," thing going on. You have significant liberty in making an effective mage. And as long as summoning or spellcasting are one of the things you're pretty good at, you will be an effective runner almost automatically.
@Reaver
Sure that's a probelm at the extreme end but that's a lot of karma to get to 31 dice and for most they're going to need a higher number of mods to equal your shooter because they can't get their stats to 12 as any ware drops their magic resulting in a sort of offset situation from what I see. I also have no idea how you got 15 skill, none and this doesn't assume the mage will want to put karma into another role such as getting your high shooting or as close to it as they can.
I'm not saying it can't happen I've played with incredible minmaxers I just don't think a game should be balanced around the extreme edge cases when you have people who like to generalize, people who are new and don't know how to get that kind of power, people who simply don't play enough to get the karma/cash for that kind of power. In this case I agree with Rosa as I am very much inclined to put at least 1 point into every magic skill because that makes the difference between I roll 7 dice if I need to and I can't roll at all. However I get told that's a waste of creation points/karma because 7 dice isn't going to achieve anything worthwhile. I've also seen a lot of posts complaining about enchanting/alchemy and I'm not sure how those are a route to power but I'll take your word for it. Still if you don't want to allow fewer magic skills what's your view on removing the no default as again like Rosa said those are the only skills that have that limitation?
Through a combination of having a magic stat of Yes and using reagents to let you get lots and lots of hits, the mages don't really have to care about attributes other than Magic too terribly much.
That said, when your magic score is Yes, you can afford to spend a little bit of it to get a few key upgrades. And you already have the ability to cast Increase Attribute to easily hit your augmented max, so the only real bit of 'ware you'd need to hit 12 in a drain stat is Genetic Optimization.
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I do actually prefer life modules although I would prefer a bit more karma to play with. I had made that "generic teen" by picking General UCAS, Arcology Living, High School. The skills they wound up with prior any other life experiences or runner specific real life modules were . . .
Athletics Group: 1
Chemistry: 1
Electronics Group: 2
Computer: 5
Software: 4
Etiquette: 3
Perception: 1
Knowledge Steet "City": 2
Knowledge Academic "Corporation": 3
Knowledge Street "Hometown/City": 1
Knowledge Academic "History": 1
Knowledge Academic "Any": 1
Knowledge Academic "Any": 1
Knowledge Street "UCAS": 1
Language "range of choices": 2
Knowledge "range of choices": 1
Knowledge "range of choices": 1
That's a very high computer/software skill for a high school kid. I feel like it's a design error. Probably no life module should provide any increase greater than +1.
Then I could see it for a gifted high school graduate.
14 points to spend as desired from the attributes.
Not sure what you mean by that?
Body: 2
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2
Strength: 2
Willpower: 2
Logic: 5
Intuition: 2
Charisma: 4
there's something wrong here. Starting at 1 the modules give us Logic 4, Cha 3, rest 1.
Average sheltered Joe Normal is quite cerebral. Though I personally do not much like the attribute modifiers from the Nationalities modules. Generic UCAS are smarter than all others? Talk about opening a can of worms...
Recommended Age: 17
So for a pretty generic late teens not even been to college/university which add more skills knowledge and active and attribute points human we're looking at from as far as I can tell the dev's preferred build style 3 Group Skill points, 10 active skill points and 28 knowledge/language skill points and some 13 attribute points (Equally obviously I've just posted what you get only you could always combine some of those e.g having the same language to give you say Spanish 3 which I think a lot of American's learn). That's a lot of resources to invest for skills/attributes that aren't necessarily even related to your running role just a basic 17 year old's high school education.
As for your question I feel the current skill system is neither linear nor exponential there are some pretty big jumps in some areas and a very minor progression in others but I skipped breakfast to make this post and now I have to go to work, I'll be happy to discuss this more (and I'll look at that thread you linked) this weekend when I have time to properly spend on it.
I think that both the life module system and the other systems do not represent a world building tool for joe normal. The life modules probably should do it better. Making them cheaper and provide only +1 each could do the trick. It leaves you with more customization and lower baseline skills/attributes.
You should not leave high school with an average computer 5/software4 IMO. Max 3 after three module makes more sense.
Also a broad group of average probably does not exist anymore in fantasy Dystopia. It's all over the place...
Let's say I liked the fun free interest knowledge skills always. I would probably houserule more interest skills into chargen.
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I'm on the side where having a skill Untrained means you generally can't do it under pressure unless it is something intuitive/some other mitigating factor (like directions on the box). If you don't have any points in it, why should we assume you can do it at a base proficiency? Almost everyone has seen a sailboat go across the water, but that doesn't mean they can default and operate it. And Senko has a good point on the car bit; I would never allow someone to just default on driving on a day-to-day basis, because no points in the skill means you don't know jack. That includes not knowing traffic laws, or having the knowledge to get your license. It doesn't mean you can't own a vehicle; you just use GridGuide like most folks do.
It might not be the rules as written, but it's how I'd do things.
Not allowing defaults on skills in a system with so many niche skills is pretty rough, there is a reason its a Negative Quality. Keep in mind a moderate difficulty unopposed test still needs two hits and you're not getting that with a low to average stats and 0 skill points without help. (Edge, Gear, Assistance, whatever...) And a difficult or opposed test becomes essentially impossible. Instead of just flat saying "no" put the threshold at two or three hits and let the players figure it out.
You've got oddball cases like the 10 Agility Cyber Elf making a default check on Gymnastics, or the 9 Str Troll making a Climb check. They're going to be able to do quite a bit with the default dice pool due to innate physical gifts. But for the most part when a PC is defaulting they don't have superhuman stats. Mainly because the first thing a PC with a Superhuman attribute does is throw 1 or 2 points into every skill that uses that stat ; )
The defaulting rules are a key element to how the game works on the low end/average person scale. Flat out refusing to let defaults work has amusing consequences to every day Sixth World life. No defaulting on skills like Driving, Navigation, Survival, all get funny when applied to a metroplex of a couple million people.
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Not to mention a GM can allow you to default to another Skill, according to box on pg 130. If that becomes norm, no big deal not having every conceivable skill for your runner. Especially if you can default at -1 or -2.
Still, I think SR5 should have taken a cue from other RPGs that condensed Skills, not expand.
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Normally if you see a different skill allowed it's simply a different threshold rather than a default with a penalty. Player asks can I use X skill instead of Y, if it seems applicable to the situation you pick a random number between 1 and 4 and let the player roll.
The assorted B/R skills are good examples. There is simply so much overlap in what those skills could conceivably cover you let a Player use what they have and carry on. Repairing a Diesel Motor for example, how many different skills could be used? Just because the Diesel motor is in a car, or a boat, or turns a conveyor or whatever it's still a Diesel motor.
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Like I said, Hobbes:
"generally can't do it under pressure unless it is something intuitive/some other mitigating factor (like directions on the box)."
I'm generally not letting anyone default on stuff like electronic warfare, piloting aircraft, etc. (unless you're being guided through it, at which point I'd probably make the Guide roll with a penalty for working through a proxy). That said, navigating a region you're familiar with? Sure. Cooking a box of soy-steak while reading the instructions on the back? Yeah, that works. Most of the physical active skills and socials could likely be defaulted on, but I draw the line at high-level Technical stuff.
Instead of letting people waste their time trying things when it is above their difficulty, maybe just tell them 'yeah, you can't do it.' Sure, sometimes having the PCs hit a wall in-game can be useful, but this isn't even a wall. It's a roll. It also prevents folks from going 'I spend Edge and miraculously do just fine.' I'm not a big fan of that usage.
I'm also a big fan on the concept of 'if you want to be able to do something, spend the points on it.' If you're playing a skills-intensive system, you generally have to allow for that.
Besides, most of those people who 'drive' and 'navigate' the Metroplex aren't actually doing jack. GridGuide is doing it for them. If they're out on the streets 'surviving,' they probably have a couple points in Survival.
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Keep this in mind when referring to magic skills:
SHOOTING
Skill (15) + Agility (12)+ mods (+4) = 31 dice.
this is pretty much the max.
From this, Damage is determined.
MAGIC:
Spellcasting (15) + Magic (unlimited!*) + Mods (unlimited!**)
There is no max, as magic has no upper cap. And since magic has no upper cap, Foci have no upper cap.
something doesn't add up here at face value, I'm curious how you get these numbers
max skill 12 + specialization 2 + Aptitude (14 karma btw) 1 + max attribute 8 + exceptional attribute (another 14 karma so you can't have both) 1 + max augmentations 4 = 28
only a 3 dice difference but still ... ??
while magic techincally has no upper limit considering that initiation is required to go above 6 (7 with exceptional attribute I know) and initiate grade can not exceed you magic rating, plus factor in bonding cost and availabilty ratings of foci ... at what point do you pass the point of worthless investment of karma? ... anyone plot this curve by chance?
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Keep this in mind when referring to magic skills:
SHOOTING
Skill (15) + Agility (12)+ mods (+4) = 31 dice.
this is pretty much the max.
From this, Damage is determined.
MAGIC:
Spellcasting (15) + Magic (unlimited!*) + Mods (unlimited!**)
There is no max, as magic has no upper cap. And since magic has no upper cap, Foci have no upper cap.
something doesn't add up here at face value, I'm curious how you get these numbers
max skill 12 + specialization 2 + Aptitude (14 karma btw) 1 + max attribute 8 + exceptional attribute (another 14 karma so you can't have both) 1 + max augmentations 4 = 28
only a 3 dice difference but still ... ??
while magic techincally has no upper limit considering that initiation is required to go above 6 (7 with exceptional attribute I know) and initiate grade can not exceed you magic rating, plus factor in bonding cost and availabilty ratings of foci ... at what point do you pass the point of worthless investment of karma? ... anyone plot this curve by chance?
Those numbers are pretty much the max that can be squeezed out, and even then, with a lot of work.
Skill (15) comes from the max of 12, +2 for specialization, and aptitude. (You can always buy traits and qualities after character generation. Just costs double)
Agility (12) comes from an elf (7 max normally) +1 for execptional attribute, +4 for max moding (however you choose to get there)
+4 modifier bonus addmittedly was rather abritrary. Smartlink for +2, and the other +2 for something/anything I missed (there are alot of little mods for firearms that can give a situational bonus)
And yes it depends on Karma, but that is not the point. The point is that there IS a limit on mundanes that isn't there on awakened.
No matter how much karma a Sammy has, he can not break that 31 dice limit*
But an awakened can continue to 'throw karma' into his dice pools through initiation and magic increases.
It there a point of diminishing returns? I would say yes, but where that point is, is going to change from table to table.....
And DECREASING the number of skills doesn't help with this issue, as the LESS skills there are, the LESS incentive a mage has to invest his karma in skills, and quicker ALL skills get 'maxed out'.... which leads you down additional problems.
But, like I said before: if you don't like how many skills there are, houserule to your heart's content. Just be aware of the consiquences.
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@thaneal
In order.
Regarding the high computer Skill I could have gone with Sinless, Orphan, Street Kid which gives no skill higher than 3 but the point isn't really any one specific skill's rating its the number of skills overall that a 17 year old has in the life modules system.
Regarding the comment about 14 knowledge skills I meant you get knowledge points as normal under the life modules system so at that stage with those stats the character has 14 knowledge points they can spend on any knowledge/language they like. I was in a bit of a rush and left them unspent because they nicely balanced against the number of knowledge skills those life modules had given the character. Either you can spend them as per the rules for 28 knowledge skills or if you weren't making a character via life modules those background knowledge skills/languages would have cost all 14 points you have to spend.
Regarding the attributes your quite right this is made with herolab because I only had a short time before work and it added 1 to all attributes automatically they should have been lower and had a lower knowledge skills as a result my bad there. I can only say sorry I was in a rush and made a mistake. I have my own issues with the attribute increases but again the point isn't really whether or not I/you agree with them its this is what a dev set up as the skills gained by someone who's only 17.
Regarding Joe normal I agree I was merely using this to point out you do wind up with a lot of skills by the time you graduate school and the dev's life modules system indicates that as well.
In fact why not I made sure to drop the attributes to 1 this time here's an Ork orphan named Stubbins who grew up on the streets (SINless, Orphan, Street Kid). . .
Body: 5
Agility: 2
Reaction: 1
Strength: 3
Willpower: 3
Logic: 1
Intuition: 1
Charisma: 1
Bad Rep negative quality
Acting Group: 2
Stealth Group: 1
Clubs: 1
Computer: 2
Etiquette: 1
First Aid: 1
Gymnastics: 1
Intimidation: 1
Negotiation: 1
Perception: 3
Running: 1
Sneaking: 3
Survival: 1
Knowledge (City), Street: 5
Foster System, Profession: 3
History, Academic: 1
UCAS, Street: 1
English: N
Spanish: 1
Pretty tough little 17 year old and again a wide range of skills and knowledge's appropriate to their situation.
@Skill defaulting
Its already got a precedent for not being allowed in magic skills I can have 6 in counterspelling, 6 in spellcasting but if I don't have a point in ritual spellcasting I simply can't do it, at all, even though the skills should be pretty much the same in essence. Personally I'd be more inclined to treat it on a case by case basis (and tell my players I'll be doing that at the start). You want to default on a climb check, go ahead its something fairly straightforward and simple you just try to pull yourselves up. You want to default on a drive check by yourself no again I speak from personal experience that I couldn't just get into a car especially a manual and just drive it. Heck just yesterday I stalled the car of a guy at work because his cap on the gear stick had broken off and it unlike the other 4 work cars for our depot has reverse and 6th gear switched. You want to substitute a similar skill e.g one of the mechanic skills for another I'd probably allow that.
@Banshee
Good question I was more wondering at what karma point a mage passes a mundane in terms of how many dice they can roll so I had an idea how likely it was to hit it (if its at say 190 that's very different to needing 1,400). However at what point the karma investment to raise magic when you have to also initiate first hmmm . . .
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Keep this in mind when referring to magic skills:
SHOOTING
Skill (15) + Agility (12)+ mods (+4) = 31 dice.
this is pretty much the max.
From this, Damage is determined.
MAGIC:
Spellcasting (15) + Magic (unlimited!*) + Mods (unlimited!**)
There is no max, as magic has no upper cap. And since magic has no upper cap, Foci have no upper cap.
something doesn't add up here at face value, I'm curious how you get these numbers
max skill 12 + specialization 2 + Aptitude (14 karma btw) 1 + max attribute 8 + exceptional attribute (another 14 karma so you can't have both) 1 + max augmentations 4 = 28
only a 3 dice difference but still ... ??
while magic techincally has no upper limit considering that initiation is required to go above 6 (7 with exceptional attribute I know) and initiate grade can not exceed you magic rating, plus factor in bonding cost and availabilty ratings of foci ... at what point do you pass the point of worthless investment of karma? ... anyone plot this curve by chance?
Those numbers are pretty much the max that can be squeezed out, and even then, with a lot of work.
Skill (15) comes from the max of 12, +2 for specialization, and aptitude. (You can always buy traits and qualities after character generation. Just costs double)
Agility (12) comes from an elf (7 max normally) +1 for execptional attribute, +4 for max moding (however you choose to get there)
+4 modifier bonus addmittedly was rather abritrary. Smartlink for +2, and the other +2 for something/anything I missed (there are alot of little mods for firearms that can give a situational bonus)
And yes it depends on Karma, but that is not the point. The point is that there IS a limit on mundanes that isn't there on awakened.
No matter how much karma a Sammy has, he can not break that 31 dice limit*
But an awakened can continue to 'throw karma' into his dice pools through initiation and magic increases.
It there a point of diminishing returns? I would say yes, but where that point is, is going to change from table to table.....
And DECREASING the number of skills doesn't help with this issue, as the LESS skills there are, the LESS incentive a mage has to invest his karma in skills, and quicker ALL skills get 'maxed out'.... which leads you down additional problems.
But, like I said before: if you don't like how many skills there are, houserule to your heart's content. Just be aware of the consiquences.
Highest possible mundane Skill would get even a bit higher:
(Note: this is a huge money and karma sink and way down the road of diminishing returns. Going 70-80% of it is stil borderline practicable though).
Skill: Automatics.
Nocturna with Aptitude and Genetic Optimization: Agi 12 (note: those points don' need to be filled up, we just need it as a theoretical base frame to make the base for our Cyberlimbs. 4 Cyberlimbs at Agi 12 + 3 Agi Enhancements + Redliner (Note: i assume that this doesn't fall under the general +4 cap. If you assume otherwise, substract one die from the total), all of which are optimized for the specific skill, giving +4 Limit, + 2 Skill.
+2 from Smartlink, +1 from Reflex Recorder, +1 from Synch (after the first action), +13 from Skill and +2 from Spec.
12+3+2+2+2+1+1+13+2
So we are at 38 Dice, 36 if you go for the other interpretation of redliner.
But wait, there is more!
"Take Aim" with smartlink gives a max bonus of WIL/2.
So we take the 6 Base WIL, add genetic Optimization for another one (Aptitude is only allowed once), Cyber Singularity Seeker for another +2 and Rating 1 Adrenaline Pump + Pain Editor for the last two, taking us to WIL 11.
Add a Rating 3 Tremor Reducer and the max Bonus for Aiming goes to 11/2 + 3 = 9.
(Pixies could cheese out an additIonal Die due to their natural max of 8 in WIL, but alas, i refuse to do anything with these pests).
Add this to our pool from above and the ceiling for a cyber mundane would be 45 Dice for a single shot (or 43 if you don't allow the Bonus from Redliner to go up to +5 and take synch out of the equation).
Melee Fighters could use "Revels in Murder" for an additional Die, but loose out on all the Smartlink bonuses.
Now, if you put all this into an adept with a Mentor spirit, you could add an additional 17/2= 9 Dice from the Adept Power and 2 if you take an appropriate (Toxic) Totem, bringing you to 56 Dice.
Letting a Technomancer optimise your Smartcrap might also give you some bonus Dice, but i know nothing about these.
Its already on a decent level though and if you still want more you could always get yourself infected with a nice Dose of HMMV to increase the Attributes even more.
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"@Banshee
Good question I was more wondering at what karma point a mage passes a mundane in terms of how many dice they can roll so I had an idea how likely it was to hit it (if its at say 190 that's very different to needing 1,400). However at what point the karma investment to raise magic when you have to also initiate first hmmm . . ."
That would be very hard to answer theoretically, because you have to ask: at what point is paying 60 Karma to increase Magic to 12 worth more to the character than learning 12 new spells? And that would be different in different campaigns, depending on what kind of dice pools are the characters facing. If you're consistently outpooling the enemies with 11 Magic, you might prefer the 12 spells. If you're not, then you might feel the need for another die to be more important than the spells. So I'm not sure how someone would really answer that other than making 10-20 mage characters with different priorities and seeing at what point do they break the 'Muggle Level' in their dice pools.
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All this math is fine and all, but you all seem to forget limits ( something mages have had since 4th ed. i might add. It' doesn't really matter if i have a theoretically unlimited dice pool, if i cast a force 6 spell, i'm limited to 6 successes period ( unless using reagents or edge of course )...and so on. Yeah maybe mundanes can "only" achieve a dice pool of somehwere between 38-45 or something but they too are limited eventhough mundanes in contrast to mages have more ways of raising the limit with gear and such. So to get my 6 successes i basically only "need" a dice pool of somewhere in the vicinity of 20-24 and i'm pretty much certain to get my hits. So it might be that on paper mages look overpowered with that theoretically unlimited dice pool, but in reality it will never be a factor as the game is now.
I do however agree that at some point through character progression a mage becomes quite powerful and maybe even more powerful than the mundanes in the team, however in my experience that has more to do with sheer versatility than huge dice pools, at some point after having gone through initiations, learned many new spells and raised spellcasting and summoning, as well as magic and drain stat, then yes they can be rather hard to deal with, on the other hand they also have more weaknesses than the mundane runners on the team. Enemy mages with spell defense, spirits being sicced on them, background counts, generally lower dodge and soak dice than the mundan team mates oh and surprise, mages generally don't deal well with being unprepared. I know that mundanes would also suffer by being surprised of course, but due to the aforementioned generally lower dodge and soak pools, it hits mages pretty hard, i know from personal experience :(
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The limit of a spell is force.
Force is tied to Magic for determining drain.
Initiation ranks add to drain resistance with a single metamagic quality.
Thus, initiation helps to resist drain, cast larger spells, and have a larger limits...
@Coyote,
Which brings us back around to dice pool and perceptions of dice pools.
There is a large and vocal community here that insists you need a dice pool of midteens to low twenties (14-22) to effective (or professional, useful, good, or whatever the descriptor of the week is....). Don't believe me, visit the character creation forums.
Seriously, someone's 'Average 17 Year old' has a logic higher then 90% of the people on the planet???? Come on! Every 17 year old I have ever met I have wanted to hit with a shovel -to hopefully BEAT some sense into them.... Ihat 17 year old, on a high school education is a better programmer then 70% of the 'professionals' ::)
Perceptions.
Look, play the game however you want to play it, with whatever dice pool levels you want. IDGIAF.
But the level of contradictory whining by the same people, who usually haven't taken the time to learn or read all of the rules and history...... Just WOW.
So the Biggest agruments I have seen, boil down to 2 camps of basic thought.
Camp 1: there are too many skills, and because there are too many skills, I can build my super elite character at the aritrary dice pool minimums I have arbitrarily set.
Camp 2: skills don't reflect the vast range of knowledge that a person has, thus we need more skills and skill points so my character can have all these arbitrary skills, that may do nothing mechanically for the game, at an arbitrary value so I can be effective at the arbitrary skills that probably have no bearing on 90% of the game.
Well, Solution for both sides!
House rule it! The book tells you its a frame work, and a frame work only. If you don't like something you are free to change it! And you don't even need MY or the writers, or the editors permission! They have it to you in the introduction! (You did read that right?)
The only time what the book says matters verbatum is Missions play. And that isn't going to change (Heck, Missions play it can be argued is a dumbed down version of SR, what with banned qualities, racial meta types, and what not...)
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To be fair a lot of us who came in on 5th don't have the resources from earlier editions to read the history and try to do the best we can with no idea of something is (a) still in effect and just hasn't been mentioned or (b) is not in effect as its been removed but that hasn't been explicictly stated so when we go by the 5th ed books someone tells us we're wrong. I'm still trying to find several magic resources that were recommended from earlier editions as reading (mainly a time constraint) but even if I do find them I wont know if that's been retconned or not unless there's a mention somewhere in 5th ed that either supports the earlier view or contradicts it. Espeically when said contradiction is not likely to be a clear "This is no longer in effect" but simply "X is Y" as part of the general rules. There was a debate in a thread I started awhile back about how spirits view the world that was eventually resolved when people realized one group was arguing they still saw it as they had in previous editions when there's ONE sentence in one paragraph that describes how they do view things which changes how they view things. Not a clear "This has changed in this edition" but a "Spirits see in X manner" and if you miss that because you have read the history you wouldn't realize it'd changed.
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The limit of a spell is force.
Force is tied to Magic for determining drain.
Initiation ranks add to drain resistance with a single metamagic quality.
Thus, initiation helps to resist drain, cast larger spells, and have a larger limits...
Worse than that.
A lot of spells care only about hits, not force.
Limit can be superseded by reagent or edge use on lower-force spells, allowing you to artificially deflate drain values, removing drain as a limiting factor much of the time.
Wanna get real crazy? Shapechange into a monkey. Get 20 hits. Add +20 to your agility. Pick up a rifle.
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The limit of a spell is force.
Force is tied to Magic for determining drain.
Initiation ranks add to drain resistance with a single metamagic quality.
Thus, initiation helps to resist drain, cast larger spells, and have a larger limits...
Worse than that.
A lot of spells care only about hits, not force.
Limit can be superseded by reagent or edge use on lower-force spells, allowing you to artificially deflate drain values, removing drain as a limiting factor much of the time.
Wanna get real crazy? Shapechange into a monkey. Get 20 hits. Add +20 to your agility. Pick up a rifle.
Yup and yup.
Also, to whom it concerns, when adepts get brought into a skill pool equation you are no longer talking mundane.
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I'm pretty sure I saw an errata that shapechange obeys the usual +4 to a stat max bonus. If it doesn't shapechange specifies a voluntary target so you could just as easily shapechange the street sam into a monkey in which case who really cares since its the party that benefits?
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There is an errata that alters how Shapechange works from, "I got 20 hits. +20 to everything!" to, "I got 20 hits. I have 20 points to spread around physical stats." It makes no mention of augmented limits.
And also changes critter form from letting you change into one mundane critter, like a hellhound or cockatrice, to one mundane critter, like a dog or cat, and it now has a lower drain code.
I believe Shapechange has the essence bug, so it would be cast at a penalty, and I somehow suspect the super cybered up street sam would be a little put out at, "Don't worry, Mister Tank; Imma turn you into a monkey so you can shoot better!" Druids tend to take to that sort of thing better than the bastard spawn of Gojira and a trash compactor.
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..."Don't worry, Mister Tank; Imma turn you into a monkey so you can shoot better!" Druids tend to take to that sort of thing better than the bastard spawn of Gojira and a trash compactor.
(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/godzilla/images/3/3d/TOMG_-_MechaGodzilla.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140228212634)
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..."Don't worry, Mister Tank; Imma turn you into a monkey so you can shoot better!" Druids tend to take to that sort of thing better than the bastard spawn of Gojira and a trash compactor.
(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/godzilla/images/3/3d/TOMG_-_MechaGodzilla.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140228212634)
...
I so need to make that a thing. Lots of casemods and Distinctive Style!
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I guess it also depends quite a bit on whether you expect the campaign you make a character for to be either long or short.
This is an interesting topic, and is one that came up during SR5 development amongst the freelancers. We were discussing character growth, specifically a combination of "How much karma should characters get per session", how expensive it should be to upgrade skills or attributes, and why we were limiting starting characters to skills of 6, but having the rankings go up to 12.
I was making the argument that we wanted characters to have room to grow in a long term campaign, and that if it was too cheap to upgrade or we handed out too much karma by default, that characters would rapidly be capping out or simply outgrowing campaigns too quickly. I was citing my experiences with games I've played in and run, where the games lasted 2 or 3 years (or in the case of the original Bull the Ork Decker, 7+) and characters accumulated hundreds of karma.
And another freelancer was shocked at this. He had never played in or seen a game that had lasted for more than a year, nor had players or characters ever break 100 karma.
It really drove home to me how different campaigns can be. I frankly consider a game to be just getting settled and rolling at 100 karma, and I never sit down to a game expecting it to only run a few game sessions. I always go in as if I will be playing this character or running the campaign for years. But obviously, there are others with different expectations and experiences.
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Hmm your right I guess I must have just gotten the idea from somewhere that it doesn't bypass the normal limits on augmenting a skill.
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It is not an unreasonable houserule for those that want to avoid 40P lion maulings after two spells.
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I guess it also depends quite a bit on whether you expect the campaign you make a character for to be either long or short.
This is an interesting topic, and is one that came up during SR5 development amongst the freelancers. We were discussing character growth, specifically a combination of "How much karma should characters get per session", how expensive it should be to upgrade skills or attributes, and why we were limiting starting characters to skills of 6, but having the rankings go up to 12.
I was making the argument that we wanted characters to have room to grow in a long term campaign, and that if it was too cheap to upgrade or we handed out too much karma by default, that characters would rapidly be capping out or simply outgrowing campaigns too quickly. I was citing my experiences with games I've played in and run, where the games lasted 2 or 3 years (or in the case of the original Bull the Ork Decker, 7+) and characters accumulated hundreds of karma.
And another freelancer was shocked at this. He had never played in or seen a game that had lasted for more than a year, nor had players or characters ever break 100 karma.
It really drove home to me how different campaigns can be. I frankly consider a game to be just getting settled and rolling at 100 karma, and I never sit down to a game expecting it to only run a few game sessions. I always go in as if I will be playing this character or running the campaign for years. But obviously, there are others with different expectations and experiences.
I have the same expectations from a starting campaign. I expect to play for hundreds of Karma at the least. Yes, occasionally, it is nice to get a one off for a few sessions or so, but ultimately, I want character development and growth. Our SR5 Campaign has been going on since it came out, and we are running at about 315 Karma for the long term, non-dead characters that started the campaign - Decent growth with what I would call average to low Karma Rewards (with an occasional windfall), and enforced training times. I would say the Skill diffusion works pretty well, but then, I am in the camp that more skills is better than less skills. I absolutely hate the characters that come out of chargen with 4-5 skills maxed out and no support skills, nor Knowledge skills showing life experience prior to campaign start.. In that regard, I agree with Senko, Like Paths work amazingly well.
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Wow, lots of replies since I last checked. Makes me wish I could hang out online more often than once or twice a week right now.
As for the main point folks have been discussing, I kind of split the difference between Senko and Blue Rose. Rules for defaulting are in the game for a reason, along with the guidance that you only need to roll for important things, not driving to the grocery store. But at the same time, we kind of have to assume such because of how few skill points there usually are in character creation vs how many skills there are. Ultimately I would like to be able to make a well rounded character at creation but there's rarely enough points for everything. At least with knowledge skills you have some room to show a character's knowledge or interests outside of how well they Shadowrun. (Free points in Knowledge skills in character creation is one of the changes in later editions that I like the most.)
As for other points made, I'm also in the "prefers long campaigns" camp, with two under my belt that stretched for 3-4 years each before I moved away from my group. But even in those long games in earlier editions that had no cap on max skills, I never saw a character get above skill 9 in anything. After a certain point you just weren't getting enough benefit from one more skill point to make it worth spending that much karma on.
And Wak... first, thanks for answering in this thread. I know everyone's got different opinions regarding balance in shadowrun, so here's my 2 nuyen: PLEASE don't nerf magic because you think it is "too cheap" or anything like that. I LIKE magic in Shadowrun, it's my favorite part of the game. If the designers feel like there's a real (vs perceived) balance problem then please fix it by boosting tech, not nerfing magic. ;)
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I have no power to do that unless asked from above, so you're safe. :)
My biggest problem right now is with social adepts. Physical adepts being on par with street samurai is fine... different approach, roughly the same result. Mages have always been a thing, and while there are one or two spell issues or summoning issues, by and large, just fine. They hit hard or sneak well, handle medical, etc.
The traditional Face, however, has no chance when social adepts are around. The adept does everything the face does, and better, without a downside. That's a balance problem and eliminates an archetype, so, it's something that I'd like to address. Probably couldn't be dealt with until the distant future, but, 5th ed is all about "Choices have costs" and "There is no one best way", so, having a clearcut "This is better" is bad.
My other bit is wanting to make magic a bit more rich, in terms of depth, and getting people to embrace the magicalness of Magic in a way that we don't do just now.
(Mind you, in my perfect world, there'd be no Magic attribute, but that's a whole other discussion.) :)
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I have no power to do that unless asked from above, so you're safe. :)
My biggest problem right now is with social adepts. Physical adepts being on par with street samurai is fine... different approach, roughly the same result. Mages have always been a thing, and while there are one or two spell issues or summoning issues, by and large, just fine. They hit hard or sneak well, handle medical, etc.
The traditional Face, however, has no chance when social adepts are around. The adept does everything the face does, and better, without a downside. That's a balance problem and eliminates an archetype, so, it's something that I'd like to address. Probably couldn't be dealt with until the distant future, but, 5th ed is all about "Choices have costs" and "There is no one best way", so, having a clearcut "This is better" is bad.
My other bit is wanting to make magic a bit more rich, in terms of depth, and getting people to embrace the magicalness of Magic in a way that we don't do just now.
(Mind you, in my perfect world, there'd be no Magic attribute, but that's a whole other discussion.) :)
Fair enough. Keep in mind that I'm a grognard who hasn't had a real chance to play since 3rd edition. Adepts were still physads then, the idea of them filling social roles was barely getting started. My magicians were always full magicians. (Speaking of which, I'm kinda baffled why Mystic Adepts seem to be so popular on the boards right now. I get that they get adept abilities along with mage abilities for MUCH less disadvantage than they had in earlier editions, but they can't ASTRALLY PROJECT. Astral Projection is AWESOME.)
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Astral projection also leaves you very vulnerable, and when you can get full access to adept powers instead? Well, that's pretty huge.
Also, mystic adepts can astrally project. With sufficient application of Shade.
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I have no idea what Shade is. If it's some kind of BAD that lets folks Astrally Project who can't normally then it probably also comes with a nasty drawback or two.
And yeah. Astrally projecting makes you vulnerable, which is why any mage worth the name does it from a safe place with wards and/or spirit guards unless in dire extremis situations. But man, is it FUN. And so very, very useful when used right.
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That said, you can get a lot of the benefits with few of the drawbacks by letting spirits take care of that for you.
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I have no power to do that unless asked from above, so you're safe. :)
My biggest problem right now is with social adepts. Physical adepts being on par with street samurai is fine... different approach, roughly the same result. Mages have always been a thing, and while there are one or two spell issues or summoning issues, by and large, just fine. They hit hard or sneak well, handle medical, etc.
The traditional Face, however, has no chance when social adepts are around. The adept does everything the face does, and better, without a downside. That's a balance problem and eliminates an archetype, so, it's something that I'd like to address. Probably couldn't be dealt with until the distant future, but, 5th ed is all about "Choices have costs" and "There is no one best way", so, having a clearcut "This is better" is bad.
My other bit is wanting to make magic a bit more rich, in terms of depth, and getting people to embrace the magicalness of Magic in a way that we don't do just now.
(Mind you, in my perfect world, there'd be no Magic attribute, but that's a whole other discussion.) :)
Huh in my perfect world it'd replace the second stat so you'd have willpower/magic but that's just me.
As for mystic adepts they have some very nice options but I just can't personally accept the permanent loss of astral projection. Purely a taste thing but I love the whole astral projection part of my mages and even for the large boosts from the various powers I can't bring myself to give it up so I remain a pure mage.
As for making magic deeper I think part of the issue is spells are limited at charcter creation and cost 5 karma per spell aftewards so spells that are more thematic/non run related spells like clean earth/fire, healthy glow, catalog or other things that aren't a spell yet but should be well within the limits of shadowrun magic like repel normal insects, find lost items, cleaning an object (such as a computer fan that's gotten dusty), changing the apparent flavour of food are never actually developed because the cost for benefit is simply not there.
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As for mystic adepts they have some very nice options but I just can't personally accept the permanent loss of astral projection. Purely a taste thing but I love the whole astral projection part of my mages and even for the large boosts from the various powers I can't bring myself to give it up so I remain a pure mage.
Astral overwatch and shadowing can be very useful (as well as risky, but that's shadowrunning), no question. However, if the magician isn't very sneaky, there are multiple spirit types that could do as good or better job. The player just has to be familiar with the capabilities the spirit offers.
At worst, there's another NPC to roleplay with, or inject more flavor to the ongoing activity.
"Hey boss, the car you sent me after blew up real good before I got to it. Anything else you have in mind instead?"
"Let's take a look, shall we? Oh my. Look at all that flammable paper. I'd like to see it burn"
"For the last service, do you see all the cars in that impound lot? Don't get caught, but have fun with whatever strikes your fancy."
Spirits of Fire can be fun :D
As for making magic deeper I think part of the issue is spells are limited at charcter creation and cost 5 karma per spell aftewards so spells that are more thematic/non run related spells like clean earth/fire, healthy glow, catalog or other things that aren't a spell yet but should be well within the limits of shadowrun magic like repel normal insects, find lost items, cleaning an object (such as a computer fan that's gotten dusty), changing the apparent flavour of food are never actually developed because the cost for benefit is simply not there.
A couple of those are in SR4A, unless I've got the wrong Street Magic. If they aren't in SR5, because the spells needed for a run should be a priority when working against text space constraints, there likely are ways to convert them.
However, I'd really hate to be knocked over stunned by drain just to clean the toilet bowl (a candidate for Sterilize if there ever was one!) Yes, reagents are a thing, but if I have that much cash to blow on housework, why would I be running the shadows? Casting at F1 could work, but that's no fun. And being confronted by a backed-up loo on the hung-over morning after a very drunk night before :-[ ... would indeed be grounds for overcasting 8)
There's probably a good reason for none of the GMs I game with being interested in running any "A Day In The Life" sessions.
Assuming the magician isn't enough of a wierdness magnet to subconsciously generate minor knots of magic to do such things (or, to blow the toilet up), cleaning/cooking/etc. could be the sort of spells one runs across while researching something useful. Unless the outcome is mechanically critical, it just gets done, instead of costing karma.
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The traditional Face, however, has no chance when social adepts are around. The adept does everything the face does, and better, without a downside. That's a balance problem and eliminates an archetype, so, it's something that I'd like to address. Probably couldn't be dealt with until the distant future, but, 5th ed is all about "Choices have costs" and "There is no one best way", so, having a clearcut "This is better" is bad.
Boring meta crap incoming.
Four flavors of faces, Mundane, Adept, Mage, Mystic Adept. Mundanes and Adepts have less access to Charisma buffs, pretty much Novacoke and Narco is the way to go for them to get Charisma buffs. Mages and Mysads can usually find a way to sustain a +4 Charisma buff if they want.
Skill buffs, Adepts and Mystic Adepts have access to powers that increase skills that Mundanes and Mages simply don't have access too. It's not that Mundane characters can't get bonuses to skills, its that Adepts have all the same options plus several other, relatively cheap options.
IMO you'd need to introduce a cyber/bio/whatever Essence using Augment that increases Charisma. You probably want a couple of options, one that stacks, one that doesn't, ect, ect. Choices with costs.
IMO the other thing you'd need to introduce is an Augmented Skill Cap. This way an Adept can't stack a Mentor Spirit, Increase Skill, Adept Powers, Fancy Suit, Positive Qualities, ect, ect. Keep it consistent with a +4. Mundane Faces can easily hit a +4 in a skill, give them access to a Charisma Augments and you've now got parity in dice pools at the top end. I can't think of what else an Augmented Skill Cap would break. Physical Adepts probably? Anything else that gets more that +4 in a skill is a corner case. (Catlike, Reflex Recorder, and Chameleon Suit for Sneaking, honestly can't think of anything else off the top of my head?)
Teamwork buffs can stand outside the Augmented Caps to give you a mechanical option to stack a buff without hitting the Augmented cap.
MySads and Mages will still likely be "Better" as they're full blown Casters/Summoners still. But you can put together a Mundane Face that has comparable Social Skill dice pools and is a Samurai lite as a secondary. Then you've moved your balance issue back to Mage vs Mundane, at least at a 10,000 foot view.
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A big thing would be to bring all modifiers into a sort of focus. A blanket "Regardless of the source... magical, mechanical, or chemical, you can only get +X. After that, you get nothing." ... then you have different ways of reaching it, but you can't just pile 'em on all day long.
It'd snuff the older "Cyber-Adept" combinations, and allow a bit more freeform in design, most likely.
Regardless, there need to be limits and a fair playing field for everyone.
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Yeah, lowering the overall ceiling makes less optimized builds more viable. Or perceived to be more viable anyway.
Also makes writing modules easier ;D
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@HobDobson
Its the flavour that I like about astral projection not the mechanical uses just floating as an astral projection at the bottom of the sea or in what remains of the amazon jungle as a break from the mundane day to day life.
@Wakshaani
I could have sworn there was a blanket +4 bonus maximum somehwere I have to try and find it.
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That +4 limit only applies to augmenting attributes.
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Well if they suddenly introduce a arbitrary skillcap of +4 into the game, then congrats they've just broken the foci rules, the initiation rules...and probably more.
As was suggested by one of the previous posters, buffing tech or introducing some new ware would make sense as you don't start changing rules which will suddenly require a fundamental changing of the whole game system.
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Speaking of Skills and Life Modules, has anyone allowed some customizing regarding them? Swapping some of the Skills for others. I don't see this working for all Modules (the corporations and military are going to train you as they see fit), but I could see a lot of room for others.
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Well if they suddenly introduce a arbitrary skillcap of +4 into the game, then congrats they've just broken the foci rules, the initiation rules...and probably more.
As was suggested by one of the previous posters, buffing tech or introducing some new ware would make sense as you don't start changing rules which will suddenly require a fundamental changing of the whole game system.
"Broken" isn't the word I'd use. Magical characters have many more sources for additional dice than Mundane characters. It's one of the reasons folks call it Magicrun.
Introducing some new source of additional dice buffs everyone and doesn't address the balance issues that Wakshaani is looking to address. Although you have an excellent point about Foci and Initiation, a skill cap will be a rough pill for existing characters that have made huge investments in high rating Foci ect.
I suppose you could introduce something that lowers magic and buffs dice pools for moderate costs. I can't think of what that would be in game fluff though.
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I suppose you could introduce something that lowers magic and buffs dice pools for moderate costs. I can't think of what that would be in game fluff though.
I think that a reasonable option would be to have most drug use lower dice pools for magical tasks. The problem seems to be not with magic options for boosts, but with the fact that it's too easy to mix magic and other sources of benefits such as cyberware, bioware, and drugs. Cyber and bio are theoretically handled via Essence loss, but there is no real penalty for using drugs to augment magic use.
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Well if they suddenly introduce a arbitrary skillcap of +4 into the game, then congrats they've just broken the foci rules, the initiation rules...and probably more.
As was suggested by one of the previous posters, buffing tech or introducing some new ware would make sense as you don't start changing rules which will suddenly require a fundamental changing of the whole game system.
"Broken" isn't the word I'd use. Magical characters have many more sources for additional dice than Mundane characters. It's one of the reasons folks call it Magicrun.
Introducing some new source of additional dice buffs everyone and doesn't address the balance issues that Wakshaani is looking to address. Although you have an excellent point about Foci and Initiation, a skill cap will be a rough pill for existing characters that have made huge investments in high rating Foci ect.
I suppose you could introduce something that lowers magic and buffs dice pools for moderate costs. I can't think of what that would be in game fluff though.
It does "break" the system in the sense, that if you introduced a cap on bonus skill dice then you would effectively be forced to completely redesign the rules for foci, initiation, adept powers, aim actions...and probably more. I'm not saying that it couldn't be done, but it would be much much easier to introduce new ware that gives bonus dice to skills plus it would easier to explain in fluff.
fx.
skill wires version 1.0: essentially the traditional ones we already have.
skill wires version 2.0: adds it rating to an existing skill ( or possibly group )
Tailored pheromones: make them rating 1-6 rating instead of 1-3 as that are now.
Reflex recorders: make them stackable with skill wires and allow them to enhance any skill, not only physical skills
These ideas were just off the top of my head, I'm sure people can come up with more.
As for this imbalance that people talk about. First of all I think we all agree that at some point magical characters will surpass mundane, however as was talked about earlier in this post it doesn't happen until you amassed some hundreds of karma ( exactly how many is a matter of debate ), but the thing most games never ever come close to that amount of karma ( someone claimed most games never pass the 30 karma mark in another thread ), so how big of an issue is this imbalance actually in most games? Second of all, I have never ever seen or played a rpg that does not have this issue, in fact I would say that it is rather common for games that include magic, that magic characters start out a bit behind the curve in terms of stat and skills but then close gap and eventually overtake the mundane. Now given the fact that most people apparently play shortlived campaigns, then again how much of an issue is this really? Of course there will be balancing issues that's the way of these games, but one should be extremely carefully in how you go about adressing them, need I say Technomancers?
As for having to swallow a bitter pill, well maybe some would, I won't, we are already playing a mix of 4th and 5th edition rules at my table due to the many issues with 5th edition and I would not feel compelled to play a new edition if it just made things worse. In essence I'm ranting because I hope that efforts will go more towards fixing all the issues with the current edition so new players can get to enjoy Shadowrun the way it's supposed to be enjoyed like the rest of us have done for years without having to be mystified and frustrated due to...well you know.
That's not a bad idea Coyote.
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So there's a couple of main problems I see:
1). Magic is pretty much the best route to raw power and the most flexible for everyone but riggers and deckers.
If I hadn't limited it our whole table would be mages.
2). Mystic adepts are the best at whatever the are designed to do. I had to ban them outright at our table.
3). If you want to cap things how about dice pool augs are limited by skill? (attributes are still subject to the separate +4 aug max)
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Unfortunately, any augmentation you introduce, mages can get it, too. Adepts in particular.
And when doing anything to magic, particularly buffs or anything else sustained, you have to be mindful of both casting the spell at a low force for four hits and saying frag the limit, using some combination of edge and reagents, and getting twenty hits. And making both relevant but not ludicrous is a feat.
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Unfortunately, any augmentation you introduce, mages can get it, too. Adepts in particular.
Absolutely and unfortunately 5th ed. has made it much more forgiving for mages to have low magic
And when doing anything to magic, particularly buffs or anything else sustained, you have to be mindful of both casting the spell at a low force for four hits and saying frag the limit, using some combination of edge and reagents, and getting twenty hits. And making both relevant but not ludicrous is a feat.
Yes, as much as i love the Whole idea of reagents, it probably needs to be reworked so you can't so obviously abuse the rules. As i said 5th ed. has made it much more forgiving to have low magic than previous editions. In earlier edition it was always a tough choice, go for augmentation and Loose magic power? Or stay pure magician and have the most magic power you could but no augmentations. Now its a no brainer, because if you have low magic you just use some edge or reagents to remove limits, so therefore no real downside to having low magic.
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What if Essence loss imposed a cumulative penalty to using Magic, instead of just reducing it? Like -1 die for every 0.5 Essence, rounded up.
It could be like a special Background Count/Astral Hazing that only applies to the Awakened character due to his Essence loss. Instead of losing Magic when he loses Essence, he finds it harder and harder to use.
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If you're worried about all these over-powered spells blowing past available defenses, a simple remedy would be to return to SR4A's spell defense rules. Instead of breaking down a skill rating + bonuses pool into smaller pools per initiative pass, go back to the pool defending the selected members of the team against all incoming spells for the round. At the low end of the casting spectum, a team's caster is only defending against one spell a round, if that, so there's little effect. But once the opposition starts scaling up, it should make a significant difference (the best weapon against a magician being another magician, backed up with advanced weaponry of course.)
Likewise, if mystic adepts are too overpowered for a given table, houseruling that counterspelling can be used to unweave their fancy effects to an extent or that disenchanting can temporarily throttle down a focus might be an option. Seeing as how they have to squeeze the most effect out of their few appicable skills on a regular basis, a GM could reasonably limit that to aspected mages and specialists ("When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.")
Probably neither idea would satisfy most folks, but overhauling the whole bonus system seems like a lot more work.
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Likewise, if mystic adepts are too overpowered for a given table
The relatively simple solution that I use to balance Mystic Adepts without banning them is that they are limited to either using skills from Sorcery or from Conjuring, but not both. Giving up Astral Projection to go from Mage to MysAd is not a big penalty, but giving up spirits is a major penalty, and it seems to balance Mages vs MysAds quite well.
There is still the usual "Magic-using characters are better than non-mages", but that's now just a general magic issue rather than a problem made specifically worse by the MysAd rules.
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that's good but it only moves the problem to Mystic Adepts make better Physical Adepts than Physical Adepts do.
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that's good but it only moves the problem to Mystic Adepts make better Physical Adepts than Physical Adepts do.
Which is why they cost more to play... A Mystic Adept with access to spells/spirits IS better than a Physical Adept.
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Yeah but they don't cost more to play.
They cost more to develop in every area they could possibly develop, but that's an irrelevant argument/ logical fallacy.
The best measure is what you can do out of chargen and if you could build a non-MA that is better than the MA.
A Mystic adept out of chargen can do anything (except decking and rigging due to high $$ requirements) better than any other build route.
This, if your entire group optimizes for effectiveness, means that the MA is the "correct" choice almost all the time with a few exceptions.
This is demonstrably borked balancing/ game design.
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Yeah but they don't cost more to play.
They cost more to develop in every area they could possibly develop, but that's an irrelevant argument/ logical fallacy.
The best measure is what you can do out of chargen and if you could build a non-MA that is better than the MA.
A Mystic adept out of chargen can do anything (except decking and rigging due to high $$ requirements) better than any other build route.
This, if your entire group optimizes for effectiveness, means that the MA is the "correct" choice almost all the time with a few exceptions.
This is demonstrably borked balancing/ game design.
You are demonstrably incorrect...
They DO cost more to Play.
Mystic Adept is a Higher Priority than a Pure Adept is for all categories.
Mystic Adept Costs More in Point Buy/Life Modules (35) than An Adept does (20) (and even more than a Magician Costs (30), in fact).
SO... Not sure why you think they do not cost more, since the rules indicate that they do?
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You can create a mystic adept in chargen that is better at your chosen area of expertise than any other type of build, excepting some high resource archetypes like riggers and deckers.
So given the above why would you play anything else?
This is borked game balance/ design at its worst.
The cost to achieve this dominance is the same as building any other character in chargen, your priorities + 25 karma.
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And, at 5 karma per power point (they start with 0), they have to expend a fair bit of karma to get those adept abilities.
I have a MA, PA, a mage, a sammy, and a decker in the game I GM and they are sitting around 220 karma earned (more or less).
At this level of play, all I can really say about the MA is he is extremely flexible. But that has generally been because he has been 'behind the curve' almost the entire time.
In getting everything he wanted (which I advised against... but, his character), it caused him to be not only short on in dice pools, but also in skills. His equipment just wasn't up to par, and his flaws hampered him big time.
Now, his dice pools were low, but not dangerously (for my style of play) at 8 to 10 on average, it meant he always 'just' got by, or took a little more drain, or did just a little less damage then the pure mage or physical adept.
And while the pure mage and PA where trading in money for karma, the was hording money to buy a focus. When they where spending karma on initiation, he was bonding foci..... he just continues to be that step behind the others.
Which in turn has affected his character build and decisions. I KNOW that when he created his character he, had a vision of some indomiable force on the battlefield, punching heads clean off with one hand, while frying groups of enemies with fireballs from his other... (cause after 5 years of playing with him, that's ALL he plays :D)...
But the reality is, he can't out punch the physical adept, and he can't out cast the pure mage. But what he can to very well is suppress and support enemy forces, if not out kill them. So now instead of fireballs (which he used to use all the time), its Chaos world and Orgy. Instead of trying to go toe to toe with the front line fighters, he leaves that to the PA and sammy while he goes decker/rigger hunting.... In short, he's the 'back up guy'. He's never the primary lead in any tactical plans, but every single contingency plan seems to revolve around him...
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that's good but it only moves the problem to Mystic Adepts make better Physical Adepts than Physical Adepts do.
I'm not so sure about that. I think that the accurate description is that MysAds make better CHARACTERS than PhysAds do. But in terms of what a PhysAd does, whether it's a social Adept or a combat Adept, it is possible to reach the augmentation maximums without spells, have the same skills in your interest as a MysAd would, etc. What a MysAd adds to the build is something that's outside the PhysAd's purview. For example, a MysAd could heal and cast combat spells.But that's not what a PhysAd does, so it's not reasonable to say that the MysAd is a better PhysAd. I personally think that the flexibility allowed by spells is both great (for the character) and too great (for the game), but someone running a PhysAd is doing so because they want social abilities and/or combat ability, not spellcasting. A MysAd is not doing that with much better ability, and while they have some minor gains (the Influence spell for social-oriented Adepts, for example), they have to spend a lot more Karma on the spells and spell-oriented foci, and on the magic skills, and have to split their Initiation grades between power points and spell-oriented Initiation abilities. As long as you're willing to run a character with a focused build, a PhysAd is fine.
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Stat increases are very expensive for Physical Adepts, either in PP or in Action Economy/Drain. For Mysads stat increases are comparatively cheap, either a sustained spell or an Alchemy prep. Please note, "Comparatively" cheap.
A Physical Adept can be Fast, Agile, Dodgey, or Stabby. Pick two, two and half if you're willing to optimize the hell out a build. MySads can hit all four if they're willing to blow off a fair bit of "Mage" stuff.
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meh, you're all ignoring the problem.
for example if you build a physical adept and mystic adept you can make the physical adept do everything the physical adept does.
At worst he does it at parity.
If built well he could well be better.
Then toss in he gets to also summon spirits, cast spells etc.
What is the point of the physical adept then?
Reaver's post highlights this, his player built for general utility rather than focussing on one thing.
If he had his mystic adept would at worst be just as good as the PA at that one thing, but he would also get a smattering of spells and spirits putting him at significant power advantage over a pure PA.
I've made my point and I don't want to totally threadjack so I'll stop right now.
If you want to discuss MA OP more let's create a separate thread.
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If Mysads dominate so much, then yes the rules as they are are partly to blame but then so are the GM's because the GM's have been handed extra tools to counter characters that rely too much on sustained spells and spirits, background Count and enemy dispelling are just two of them, but probably the two most effective in this situation. Physads and mundanes on the other hand operate more or less like normal in these situations.
The thing is, this balance issue that so many talk about is partly our fault as well for not using the games balancing tools enough then. Seriously an eveil minded GM could make it practically impossible to play a mage or mysad if he/she so desired by using nothing more than the games balancing tools. Of course such a game would hardly be fun in the long run, but it does illustrate that the Whole issue about balancing is more than a rule question, it is also a gaming style question.
As i said in an earlier post, it is an illusion to think a game like this can be totally balanced right from chargen, magic does tend to screw with game balance and its like that in every game i've ever played, but shadowrun actually gives us more tools to balance characters during gameplay than any other game i've played especially magic characters.
Oh and Adzling is correct, this thread has become somewhat derailed.
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Then going back to skills, what do folks think of turning Perception and Etiquette into Attribute only tests?
Perception could be Int+Wil (+Log for Observe in Detail).
Etiquette could be Cha+Int.
Replace Intimidation with Etiquette in the Influence Group.
For gear, spells, etc that increased Perception Limits, have them reduce Threshold by a similar number. Same could apply for Etiquette.
This wouldn't break the game really for any character types, and would potentially free up a few skill points for some builds.
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Then going back to skills, what do folks think of turning Perception and Etiquette into Attribute only tests?
Perception could be Int+Wil (+Log for Observe in Detail).
Etiquette could be Cha+Int.
Replace Intimidation with Etiquette in the Influence Group.
For gear, spells, etc that increased Perception Limits, have them reduce Threshold by a similar number. Same could apply for Etiquette.
This wouldn't break the game really for any character types, and would potentially free up a few skill points for some builds.
I dunno. I'd be all about some skill consolidation, but I played in an era when Perception was a straight Intelligence roll. It saved a few skill points in character creation, but let to the hilarious effect of most combat monsters being genius level smart. Paying attention to your surroundings and knowing how to interact with people without pissing them off really are things that require some experience and/or training to get good at in real life.
Seriously, in 1-3rd ed Shadowrun almost every street sam I saw had an Intelligence of 5 or 6. It became a running joke in our group for a while. :) If I was going to consolidate skills again I'd leave in some of the new ones that make sense like Perception and just make some of the skill Groups back into the single skills that they used to be.
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I started with 1E too. The Street Sam archetype had Intelligence 5, but there were only six Attributes then. :)
With all the changes in 5E though, I thought it made sense. I looked at the new Ork Street Sam; he has no Perception! Then I looked up Surprise tests. It's a Reaction + Intuition roll (which makes sense; while noticing threats is important, it's more important you are able to react quickly to a deadly environment). That's when I thought about just making it an Attribute test.
Same with Etiquette. Reading the Skill description, it could just as easily become a Knowledge that assists in situations. Same with Perception; a Knowledge that represents formal training of innate instincts. Since I'm on this band wagon, I'd also like to see First Aid merged into Medicine, and the surgery aspects of Medicine become a Knowledge skill.
I agree that some of the Skill Groups should be combined into single Skills (I also think 9 should be the maximum, but meh). Other RPGs seem to have made the transition from having many specialized skills to fewer generalized ones.
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Too many folks go in assuming you have to have 6's in appropriate skills to even be playable, and that you have to have high attributes. But a character with 8-10 dice pool for their primary skill or two is supposed to be a skilled, viable character. YOu don't need to start at 12+ and work your way up.
However, this depends a good deal on your GM and what he's throwing at you as well. Your skills only need to be proportionate to the enemy. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or like you're not useful because you don't have enough dice to regularly beat your opponents and challenges, talk to the GM, because he may simply be setting your thresholds and enemies at too high a level.
One of the things about Shadowrun rewards the super minmaxy side of things way more is how character creation rules and character advancement rules differ. Taking your Troll with Exceptional Strength and Genetic Optimization Strength and advancing Strength from 10 to 12 in play costs 115 karma. That same advance in character creation costs two attribute points.
Advancing Charisma from 1 to 3 in play costs 25 karma in play, but it costs those same 2 attribute points in character creation. Much cheaper and more practical to start with strength twelve, then buy up charisma later.
Skills are in a similar spot.
I recommend starting at around fifteen dice in your main skill not because you need that many dice to be effective, nor from an idea of working up from there, but because it's so much easier to start really good at your specialty, and then build that broader ability base out in play than it is to start out spread out and build up into a specialty.
Also, I like having my main base covered, then spending my advancement however I feel like and however feels appropriate for the campaign.
This is one of the primary problems with the karma system as written. The scaling costs make it so the system actively rewards minmaxing at chargen. Compare this to other points-based systems, such as M&M, BESM, GURPS, Champions, and more. Going from one rank to three in a skill or ability costs the same as going from eight ranks to eleven. This makes it so that it is easier for players to actually branch out early on, and build up things later, as you don't have to spend four runs worth of Karma to get 1 extra die.