Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: markc on <09-01-16/2351:05>
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I went to the GM house today and started to work with his program to input my PC and noticed that Life Path qualities seemed to count against your max quality amount of 25 points.
1)Is this correct? Or are life path qualities a separate pool from other qualities (so to speak)?
To me it seems you should get to pick 25 point in addition to those qualities you get from the various life paths as most of them have negative qualities to go along with them. It is almost as if you are paying double for the positive qualities if you include the fact that you can buy off the negative qualities.
Thanks
MDC
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Yes, qualities gained from life modules count against the limits.
The quality limits do not apply during the module selection process.
After selecting your modules, if the qualities exceed the limits, you have to buy some off to add some more.
So, you can get over 25 karma of positive or negative qualities by module selection, and not have to buy any off if you choose not to.
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I understand where you're coming from, but you have to remember that the Life Modules are about bundling together groups of skills/attributes/qualities/etc into one big chunk that you are paying a flat rate for karma-wise. You can't really look at a module and say that the qualities are being payed for by the negative qualities that are in that particular module. The costs may or may not even come close to coming out that way. And you're definitely not paying double by buying off the negative since you never paid directly for any of the qualities in the first place. (plus now you don't have the negative, so you don't have the first cost).
So yes, the qualities gained from life modules are actual qualities and you follow all the rules for them while finishing up your karma at the end step of Life Modules. Because of the way it works, life modules lets you potentially start with more positives than normal, because your modules might give you that many positives. But you don't get to buy more on top of that.
Now, that all being said, I do think there should be a way to customize the modules at least a little bit. And I don't think it is unreasonable for a player to get GM permission to trade out qualities. For example I made a character where I swapped Toughness for Guts (and paid the 1 karma difference). It made sense for the background I was going for and the two qualities are fairly comparable in terms of the source and background for why a character would have it.
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Thanks all for the quick replies and responses.
I have been playing RPG's since 79 so I know a thing or two about balance and that every game/game group is different (and back in the 90's we often used a custom hack of the SR rules for other types of games) do you really think that rank is a balance changer? It is the sole problem that I have seen in the other wise good system of making a good PC quickly and fairly easy for new(er) players (ie small learning curve pick path and go then with the GM select other skills and equipment).
The other positive qualities that I can think of right of the top of my head (because I got it from the path I picked) was IIRC Compatibility (chose bio or cyber) which is a good ability and one IMHO that should count towards your limit.
When I have the time I will make a list of the positive qualities included in the path's and post them because I do not think there are many.
BTW, I could also see a list of benign(ish) qualities to include in life paths at no cost and others that would apply to the cost.
Do you use the life path system? Or another PC gen method?
Thanks
MDC
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Now that I think on it I generally do not like to post rule info from the book unless I have to, how do the boards feel about such things in general, would it be ok for me to post the info on positive and negative qualities from the life paths?
Thanks
MDC
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Go ahead and list the qualities and modules, just leave out the descriptions.
I know that Compatibility only could of come from the Test Subject module.
Ranks for qualities doesn't change the balance from my perspective.
As for Rank the quality, given that the military version costs 15 more points, comes off as balanced.
If you want to get your character critiqued, go ahead and post your build in the character section.
I prefer to use life modules for my characters due to the increased starting limit on active and knowledge skills.
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First I would like to say that I am only trying to offer constructive advice and nothing more to a game system I know many people love and make it better. I my self have no problem house ruling the system as we had created many custom rules back in the 90's to expand the core system to pure fantasy.
Second, I know why the game designers defined the 25 point quality rule as I have said when we used the system back in the 90's there were some crazy point builds and the GM had to step in a make some rulings. But all in all 99.98% were on the up and up. The other thing we tended to see was there often were qualities that were not chosen during PC creation or at all. Now I know that can be highly variable depending on your game style but I think if you do an analysis of your game you will find the exact same thing happening.
Lets say the GM decides on the following:
1) use life path for PC and NPC creation
2) Have qualities apply to limits
Game Effect Fluff:
Since Military Academy/College gives you Rank 20, then the academy would automatically reject any students with more then 6 points of positive qualities. So I think you can think of many qualities that the mil acad would like for its students to have and or select for; ambi dext and quick heal (IIRC 6 points), anti magic 3, etc.
If you go through mil acad then you cannot go on to another life path (job) that provides a positive quality above 5, ie no mil acad, tour duty then combat corr (as combat corr provides guts (11). Which again does not make a whole lot of real world sense.
Some fixes that might work:
1) Chose to ignore the qualities you want (but this does not make sense thematically or story wise, ie Role Play vs Roll Play)
2) As above but when you ignore a quality you do not spend the points for that quality, ie you get a rebate
3) create a list of qualities that do not apply to your 25 point total and define why they do not so others can make informed decisions on new qualities.
4) As 3 but have a more granular approach in that you can have some qualities that apply to your 25 point max but at a lower rate, ie for every 5 of Military Rank only points/5 apply to your 25 point total
5) Use a system in which you had a multiple applied to the cost of every quality beyond a specific point value and you start with the highest point costs first and go to the smallest at the end.
For example: Quality Multiple of x1 for qualities up to 25 points, for points between 26 and 40 x2, for 41-50 x8 and 51+ x16. So if you had qualities of the following point costs 12, 10, 10, 8, 8, 4.
You would compute the Karma cost as follows the 12 would be 12K as you are under the 25 point limit, then go to the next. 12+10=22 under the 25 point limit so cost is 10K. The next 12+10+10=32 over the 25 limit so cost is x2 for 20K. Next is first 8 for 12+10+10+8=40 for a cost of 8x2=16, next 8 would be at a total of 48 and cost 48K and the last quality of 4 points would put you at a total of 52 and cost 16K.
The total Karma cost for your 7 qualities (of 12, 10, 10, 8, 6, 6, 4) would be 12+10+20+16+48+16=112K.
Some math is involved but not burdensome IMHO when looking at the strait karma gen system in total.
I myself like the 3, 4 or 5 approach as it seems to fit what would happen in real life more, or more organic I would say but again the GM would have to approve every quality combination or even say no to some quality combination's for game and or story balance.
MDC
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I also went and did a quick(ish) karma build of my PC to compare to the life path method to see just how close they could be and here is my analysis.
Concept Transhuman, rescued from lab studied by Sioux Nation, military acad(med) , tour of duty(army)
Stats: Higher with karma by a 3 to a 4, (note under Equipment/cyber/Bio/Gene) , advantage karma
Skills: more focused with karma gen with better advancement for the future, with life path often groups were split up so I will need to raise individual skills to have parity with other skills then raise whole groups. This is going to cost me more karma in the long run. Also with Karma I was able to have whole groups at a higher rank then with life path. Advantage karma
Qualities: (See note under Equipment) had to take sinner(5) for karma gen, life path had mil rank-20. Advantage life path but eventhough the points are not the same new 5 ver post 20, I think they are about equal in nature do to the huge neg game efects a SIN can have.
Equipment (bio, cyber, gene broken out below): Note: do to life path's selected I received up to $48,000 in bio free, this made me dramatically alter my spending on equipment. So no car, less med supplies, no fake sin, fewer weapons with karma gen. Advantage Life path
Bio: Same
Cyber: Same
Gene: Same
So in my quick analysis, and if I have not made a mistake in my math the advantage is Karma Gen do to 1 extra stat point and focused skill groups and skill groups at higher ranks. The two life paths I took that gave biowear $ are the only two that give $ in the life path system (unless I missed some or do not know of any) so if you remove that factor again I think the advantage would be Karma Gen.
Now why do I prefer the Life Path if I can build a better roll-play PC? Well the life path can build a better role-play PC. That is to say it fills in back ground skills that often I do not think most players would pick, it provides some basic info for backstory and ideas to help build you character concept.
Thanks,
MDC
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Go ahead and list the qualities and modules, just leave out the descriptions.
I know that Compatibility only could of come from the Test Subject module.
Ranks for qualities doesn't change the balance from my perspective.
As for Rank the quality, given that the military version costs 15 more points, comes off as balanced.
If you want to get your character critiqued, go ahead and post your build in the character section.
I prefer to use life modules for my characters due to the increased starting limit on active and knowledge skills.
Thanks for the info, I will do that. Like I said I hate to post company info on sites as I know the the company need to the $ so they can produce more books.
MDC
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I think there might be a slight misunderstanding with how Life Modules and Qualities interact.
Life Modules does not limit you from selecting particular modules based on the Negative or Positive qualities. Basically while selecting your Life Path, note all of your qualities, but don't worry about any of the costs. If at the end of everything, when you're just spending your excess Karma, if you have too many qualities, you can just leave them. You sort of get a free pass because you didnt pay for them directly.
However, you can't add even more on top of that. The exception is that you're allowed to buy off Negative Qualities, and you can only pick up new negatives if adding the additional quality doesn't push the total value of your negatives over the cap.
For example (using the standard 25 karma quality limits):
After selecting all of your modules you have 32 karma of positive and 29 negative. You're over the limits, but you can just leave them if you want. If you really want a particular negative (for flavor, presumably) you would have to buy off negatives until your total (after adding the one you want to add) is 25 or less.
If you make it through the Life paths with less than the limit, you can of course get more qualities. You just can't take qualities in that final step (free reign karma) that would violate the limit.
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I admit Rank has always felt like an odd quality to me never quite sure how to treat it and some variants seem a bit overpriced given its limitations.
As Kiirnodel said you can just ignore any karma costs when selecting modules its only when you get to final karma spending after purchasing those you need to worry about qualities and even then the only limit is you can't buy more if your already over the limit but if you are you don't need to buy them off.
Life Modules has a lot of drawbacks but honestly as a player I really like playing with them and hope to see more + maybe some revisions in how they work. For example some qualities that raise magic stat as mage is very expensive to build a potential 30 (mage) + 60 (12 spells) + 100 (6 magic) for a total of 190 karma out of your 750 and that's without selecting any modules, spending money, adjusting character, playing a non-human race which could add another 100 or more easily.
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Thanks all and I think it is necessary for me to again say that my comments are constructive in nature and not bashing in any way.
Kiirnodel,
Thanks for the info on positive qualities and max. I did not pick up on that reading the Run Faster book, was it there and I missed it or is it some where else? If not I think it would be key for the errata that I see is being updated.
But that does not solve the real world ideas/concepts that the people that Mill Acc would want (simple example Army ambi dext + quick heal (6 IIRC), not allowed because of Mill Rank (20)) people who have exception qualities in specific areas for there programs and there forces.
A simple work around might be just to have a note in each life path on which ones apply to your Max of 25 and which do not. ie after a qick scan on then RF book last night and memory of life paths from chrome flesh, I think the only game changer would be Bio-Compatibility the rest are not big game changers but should be there for Role-Play. In fact you could make a blanket statement that qualities do not apply to your quality total unless they say that they do in the life paths text.
This would be a great way IMHO to fix the problem with existing and future life Paths and the core rules, is fairly simple and the rules group could make decisions on just what they think the overall balance would be by a particular quality or group of qualities.
The fact that you can buy more qualities (ie over the 25 point limit) could be a benefit of using the life path method vs the other methods.
Another option to fix this that I just thought of was if you use the life path system you ignore all qualities for point costs but you still can pay karma to buy off neg qualities (no benefit from removing positive qualities) and you can still take up to 20 points of positive or negative qualities.
Thanks
MDC
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I admit Rank has always felt like an odd quality to me never quite sure how to treat it and some variants seem a bit overpriced given its limitations.
As Kiirnodel said you can just ignore any karma costs when selecting modules its only when you get to final karma spending after purchasing those you need to worry about qualities and even then the only limit is you can't buy more if your already over the limit but if you are you don't need to buy them off.
Life Modules has a lot of drawbacks but honestly as a player I really like playing with them and hope to see more + maybe some revisions in how they work. For example some qualities that raise magic stat as mage is very expensive to build a potential 30 (mage) + 60 (12 spells) + 100 (6 magic) for a total of 190 karma out of your 750 and that's without selecting any modules, spending money, adjusting character, playing a non-human race which could add another 100 or more easily.
Yes rank is a strange one vs the others but it is almost a direct post over from another game (IIRC) and one of the problems is how to differentiate officer vs NCO ranks and influence. With the life path system you can say you need to go to Mill Acc to be an officer vs if you do not your are enlisted. Simple fix.
If a PC really wants to be an officer raised from the ranks, either create a life module that would allow for that and or allow them to buy additional qualities based on the idea I presented above (ie qualities are ignored from life paths and you can spend karma on 20 more points or simply ignore all qualities for quality total except for those that say you include them. )
As to limit and why I still have a problem, see my reply to Kiirmodel please.
Thanks
MDC
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I vaguely recall (awhile back it was) a post about it being made on the forums, I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the books themselves.