Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Trigger Lynx on <02-09-20/1726:54>
-
Hey, gang. Just got my hands on a copy of SR6 a week ago and after digesting the bulk of the core rules, I have to say the Karma cost for some of the Qualities are just grossly disproportionate to their effect. I'll use two Negative Qualities, Honorbound (pg 76, 10 Karma) and Scorched (ph 78, 6 Karma) as an example. Honorbound disallows Edge gain or expenditure fo 24 hours after breaking a tenet of your code, which is largely avoided by simply roleplaying your character properly. Scorched disallows spending Edge on any roll associated with using the Matrix, which happens virtually (see what I did there?) every waking moment of a PCs life. Barring Athletics, Close Combat, and Magical skills, every skill can (or must) be used with the wireless Matrix.
And for what it's worth, I dig the new edition. I've played 2nd and 4th edition SR for many many moons, and I enjoy what the Sixth World has become in 2080, but there are just some glaring oversights and omissions in the new product.
-
Interesting choice of qualities. I totally expected to see some other ones, after reading the title.
-
Same. As for wireless Matrix: First of all, it's when accessing the Matrix, as the fluff also clarifies: It's when you're using comms, smartlinks, etc. Firing guns without smartlinks is still quite doable, you can drive manually, pick a lock no worries, so this isn't that bad. Plus not being able to spend Edge, eh? It's easy to have a build that doesn't suffer from those. Simsense Vertigo and AR Vertigo are worse when it comes to their downsides.
As for Honorbound: That's a quality involving both proper RP and your GM giving you devilish decisions to make. Just like the various levels of SINner in SR5, the quality depends on whether the GM plays it right. If the GM feels they cannot give it decent value, they should simply ban it.
-
Lolz, fair enough, but those two specifically were in mind. Trying to make my first 6e character with those qualities, and that's the first I noticed the cost/effect balancing didn't seem right. Toxin Resistance and Gremlins are also good examples, but I didn't want to paste a wall of text =]
Using my previous examples, it just struck me as odd that Honorbound is basically 10 free Karma at character creation with little to no chance of a drawback while Scorched can possibly effect every single roll you make in an encounter and it gives you just over half of the Karma for it.
And I don't know what involvement you have with the game, but I meant it when I said I like the new edition. I like the new Edge-focused system, and the Attack Rating/Defense Rating mechanic. I really like how the Matrix is handled. If I read it correctly, the UMT is in full effect regarding what kind spirits can be summoned, regardless of Tradition, and I like that a lot also. Couple things I didn't like, but that's on me, not on the game. I'll get over it, and maybe even come to enjoy those things. Hell, I remember when 3e came out I refused to play it because I thought the wireless Matrix was too much if a deviation from "classic" Shadowrun, but when I saw a copy of 4e at my local hobby shop I thumbed through it and the first character I made was a Technomancer. I became infatuated with the WMI after my first game session. After that, if anyone in my gaming group had questions about how the wireless Matrix/PAN topography worked they came to me, even the GM =]
-
Asides from 'we left out a tiny rule-section which needs filling in asap' parts, I really love SR6, but you're right that some qualities are definitely in need of rebalancing. With Honorbound, however, it's more of an 'RP vs mechanics' balance. In some games it might be free karma, in others it will be significant. On the other hand, if a Troll uses a lasersight, they're kicking ass without worries about Scorched or Vertigo. So I consider it same as SR5 Criminal SIN: Depends on GM and players to agree if the cost and consequences are fair, or if it should just be banned.
As for involvement: I am just an enthousiastic fan right now. =) (Also, one of the Sprawl Ops backers that ended up in the Rogue's Gallery Deck.)
-
Ok, those are pretty clear cut examples and perhaps I am misreading it.
[q]Game Effect: You cannot spend Edge while accessing the Matrix. This includes through use of commlinks, smartlinks, and any other source of data coming in from the ether.[/q]
I see that and my interpretation is that if a character is using an image link/sound link/smart link/simsense for any reason that they just flat out can't spend Edge. It doesn't specify what actions are affected, just that Edge can't be spent. If a character is trying to commcall a contact, whether it's an AR window or they're putting the commlink up to their ear and speaking into it like a caveman, they've accessing the Matrix and they can't spend Edge on Con or Influence tests they make while trying to get the info. That's hardly worth 6 Karma.
And I agree with you about AR/ Simsense Vertigo having far worse downsides due to the Nauseated status. Especially AR Vertigo, which is both technologically and socially crippling in the Sixth World... and they're both worth less than Honorbound. Regardless of how devious a GM can be or how coercive the other PCs are, you straight up CAN'T force an Assassin's Creed player to kill an innocent witness or a White Hat player to hit the Corp Spider with Biofeedback.
I'm not trying to nitpick, but having a moderate lactose intolerance gets you more Karma than not being able to interact with AR technology without tagging the street with your stomach contents, and people use AR in their day to day life. You can simply choose not to drink milk and never have to deal with the -4 penalty. In a setting where you take on the role of a high tech lowlife with robot arms and magic spells in a dystopian society where milk is rich people food, that isn't balanced.
And again, I hope I'm not coming off as abrasive, that isn't my intention at all. I'm just an average Joe Chummer that's putting his.02Ĩ in for the sake of future errata or reprints of the product. Thank you for taking the time to reply =]
-
Vertigos are also more nasty because they prevent you from gaining Edge. With Edge benefits smaller than in the past, it's normal for many characters to not spend Edge on certain tests anyway, so that's not that bad. But you can still for example gain Edge when firing your gun, then use it after you turn your Smartlink off. But AR Vertigo will still work with commlink calls, while Simsense Vertigo will still work with smartlinks, so each of them has its upsides and downsides, and a player interested in any can pick the one that fits their playstyle best. Meanwhile, the mage won't care about AR Vertigo at all, while the Face doesn't worry about food allergies due to their Middle lifestyle allowing them easy access to decent food.
And yes, you can't force a player to kill an innocent witness. Which means you left a witness and a trail, and will cause trouble down the road. Merely knocking the Spider offline allows them to dial in backup and trigger an HTR team. Being lactose intolerant can be cheap karma, but it could also mean the GM rolls a die every time you eat to see if there's cross-contamination. Being addicted to cigarettes at level 5 means nothing to me unless a run takes me 6 continuous hours of not being able to take a breather. Decreasing my max Strength with 4 is free karma for any build that will never involve Strength to begin with.
As SR5 example I referenced SINner. Specifically the 25-karma level, which was basically the entire pool you were allowed in SR5. This was basically a death sentence to a player if ever revealed. And a GM could decide not to do anything with it, making it 25 free karma, or force the player into horrible scenarios despite any precautions they take. So I used to give the advice 'unless your player and you explicitly agree on the possible consequences and frequency of action required, do not allow any negative quality past 10 karma'. In the end, whenever a quality involves a GM making active decisions on how often and how much to harass you, it could be free karma in some games, and extremely nasty in others. There's a reason SRM banned a lot of qualities in SR5: Because to not make them free karma, would take significant time away from the game itself.
So I agree with you qualities should be balanced, but in some cases, it's a significant matter of opinion and GM style regarding consequences where the balance point should lie. So I'm going to point you at one of the most important things I ever tell any GM: If you don't like it, ban it. Seriously. If a character concept rubs you the wrong way, or you feel your game won't do justice to certain negative qualities and make them too much like free karma, you're always allowed to say 'sorry people, not allowing X'. (Example: In SR4, I banned Orgasm because I felt there were other spells to reach that effect and its description was just gross.) You're playing WITH your players, and obviously 'negative qualities should have an impact correlated to their bonus karma' is a big deal on making both players and GM treat the game as a fun shared storytelling event. If your table won't handle a quality the way you think it should be based on its bonus, do whatever you feel needed to fix that. But at another table, it might be too expensive instead of too cheap.
-
Same. As for wireless Matrix: First of all, it's when accessing the Matrix, as the fluff also clarifies: It's when you're using comms, smartlinks, etc. Firing guns without smartlinks is still quite doable, you can drive manually, pick a lock no worries, so this isn't that bad. Plus not being able to spend Edge, eh? It's easy to have a build that doesn't suffer from those. Simsense Vertigo and AR Vertigo are worse when it comes to their downsides.
There are much more obvious contenders for fragged up Qualities. The worst contender costs 3 Karma and lets you earn free edge for literally just thinking hard about stuff ::)
Side note: It kinda irks me that there are so many Anti-Tech/Matrix Qualities (Vertigos, Scorched, Gremlins, Uneducated...) in the CRB, but nothing that forces the character into the other extreme. How about an opposite quality to AR Vertigo (AR Dependency?) where your character is so accustomed to using Matrix support for even the simplest task that you canīt earn/spend Edge on tests where you donīt have some kind of AR overlay to help you with it?
-
There are much more obvious contenders for fragged up Qualities. The worst contender costs 3 Karma and lets you earn free edge for literally just thinking hard about stuff ::)
Nobody:
No-one:
Not a soul:
Catalyst: "Here's that big ol' buff to Focused Concentration you've all been asking for!"
-
Side note: It kinda irks me that there are so many Anti-Tech/Matrix Qualities (Vertigos, Scorched, Gremlins, Uneducated...) in the CRB, but nothing that forces the character into the other extreme. How about an opposite quality to AR Vertigo (AR Dependency?) where your character is so accustomed to using Matrix support for even the simplest task that you canīt earn/spend Edge on tests where you donīt have some kind of AR overlay to help you with it?
That is an addiction!
-
There are much more obvious contenders for fragged up Qualities. The worst contender costs 3 Karma and lets you earn free edge for literally just thinking hard about stuff ::)
Nobody:
No-one:
Not a soul:
Catalyst: "Here's that big ol' buff to Focused Concentration you've all been asking for!"
To be fair, the limit on drain means at least you can't FC up a big initiative dice bonus.
-
To be fair, the limit on drain means at least you can't FC up a big initiative dice bonus.
You can get +2/+2d6 to init from Increase Reflexes for a drain value of 6, staying under the Focused Concentration threshold. Quite a lot, IMO, for a 5-karma spell plus a 12-karma quality, or a nominal value of 34k nuyen. In contrast, Wired Reflexes II costs 2 Essence and 150k, for a similar mechanical benefit.
-
Lormyr said it best:
Sovereign casts Increase Attribute: Charisma [4 hits on 14 dice for spellcasting, 6 hits on 18 dice for drain vs. 6 drain], taking no damage and sustaining with focused concentration. He follows up with Increase Attribute: Willpower [5 hits on 14 dice for spellcasting, 8 hits on 22 dice for drain vs. 6 drain], taking no damage and sustaining with focused concentration. He finishes with Increase Reflexes [buys 2 hits, 7 hits on 22 dice for drain vs. 6 drain], taking no damage and sustaining with focused concentration.
-
To be fair, the limit on drain means at least you can't FC up a big initiative dice bonus.
You can get +2/+2d6 to init from Increase Reflexes for a drain value of 6, staying under the Focused Concentration threshold. Quite a lot, IMO, for a 5-karma spell plus a 12-karma quality, or a nominal value of 34k nuyen. In contrast, Wired Reflexes II costs 2 Essence and 150k, for a similar mechanical benefit.
I'm not saying FC isn't stupidly good. Oh, it is. Especially if you abuse a certain negative quality that I expected to see on this list in order to easily pay for FC3.
On the topic of AR Vertigo: Prior to my discussions with the designers, I very much agreed with the OP in that it was a crippling effect.
Turns out that no, no it isn't really. You can use your gear, even your commlink, without being in "AR User Mode". Using your commlink in a manner similar to real life (holding it up to your head, looking at the screen, messaging your teammates by tapping out a message with your thumbtips, etc) doesn't rise to the level of what shadowrun calls "AR". If you're driving your car, and you rely on the instrument panel rather than an immersive holographic Heads Up Display, that's not AR. If you're doing a technical task and not making use of holographic technical orders floating in space, that's not AR. Etc.
-
Turns out that no, no it isn't really. You can use your gear, even your commlink, without being in "AR User Mode". Using your commlink in a manner similar to real life (holding it up to your head, looking at the screen, messaging your teammates by tapping out a message with your thumbtips, etc) doesn't rise to the level of what shadowrun calls "AR". If you're driving your car, and you rely on the instrument panel rather than an immersive holographic Heads Up Display, that's not AR. If you're doing a technical task and not making use of holographic technical orders floating in space, that's not AR. Etc.
Hmm. Id say these interactions are pretty common in Shadowrun; being out in public and referring to your physical commlink for directions or messaging must surely mark you out as either a performative Luddite hipster or desperately poor. And the third example, in particular, it might render you borderline unemployable. My headcanon is that AR is absolutely ubiquitous in and crucial to all kinds of jobs. Even manual labour on an assembly line is AR-guided.
Which could be interesting character background fodder for why someone with this quality might fall through the cracks and end up a criminal...
-
Turns out that no, no it isn't really. You can use your gear, even your commlink, without being in "AR User Mode". Using your commlink in a manner similar to real life (holding it up to your head, looking at the screen, messaging your teammates by tapping out a message with your thumbtips, etc) doesn't rise to the level of what shadowrun calls "AR". If you're driving your car, and you rely on the instrument panel rather than an immersive holographic Heads Up Display, that's not AR. If you're doing a technical task and not making use of holographic technical orders floating in space, that's not AR. Etc.
Hmm. Id say these interactions are pretty common in Shadowrun; being out in public and referring to your physical commlink for directions or messaging must surely mark you out as either a performative Luddite hipster or desperately poor. And the third example, in particular, it might render you borderline unemployable. My headcanon is that AR is absolutely ubiquitous in and crucial to all kinds of jobs. Even manual labour on an assembly line is AR-guided.
Which could be interesting character background fodder for why someone with this quality might fall through the cracks and end up a criminal...
Absolutely... while there are end arounds that allows you to function in everyday life you will definitely stick out like a sore thumb and not be very efficient operating in common roles that's why it's a drawback afterall ... but ad SSDR points out it's not crippling
-
Absolutely... while there are end arounds that allows you to function in everyday life you will definitely stick out like a sore thumb and not be very efficient operating in common roles that's why it's a drawback afterall ... but ad SSDR points out it's not crippling
Aye, seems reasonably balanced to me. Although it's one of those slightly tricky qualities where the GM has to be on their game; putting in just enough story elements that the player feels the pain, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming or tedious. Not a bad thing, just needs the GM to keep on top of it.
For example, I routinely have the corp facilities my players sneak into have zero physical signage or mapping. It's all in AR, as a security feature, and because all the workers have AR. And if they didn't get a basic hack done on the building facilities host sub-system, they can't see the signs, and they're probably lost now. Sucks to be them.
I'm torn on whether or not more upscale neighbourhoods have any physical street signage at all, or if a sufficiently well-heeled one is un-navigatable with AR. (And in the Barrens, the opposite effect: no useful AR at all, just crude spam and cruder graffiti.)
Sorry. Bit OT. This has been on my mind lately. I'm writing another of my stupidly long docs about "everyday Matrix things" where I try to get my headcanon clear.
-
For example, I routinely have the corp facilities my players sneak into have zero physical signage or mapping. It's all in AR, as a security feature, and because all the workers have AR. And if they didn't get a basic hack done on the building facilities host sub-system, they can't see the signs, and they're probably lost now. Sucks to be them.
That is hilarious!
I'm picturing this workplace that looks like the most soulless, sterile place, just white walls with no decorations, the carpets this drab beige, etc. But of course, in AR, its completely different! Beautiful fixtures, lots of tasteful color schemes, helpful signage to get you to the bathroom or the top secret lab, bulletin board for office activities, the decorations for Jane's birthday party, etc.
God forbid you work in such a place with AR vertigo, it would be an unending misery. It would make your typical cubical hell in today's terms look like a paradise.
-
AR can also be weaponized/used offensively.
See the slipcover for the physical "No Future" sourcebook. The troublemaking rioter uses AR to completely overlay an adorable, certainly harmless teddy bear ARO to conceal the lit molotov cocktail in her hand.
-
I'm not saying FC isn't stupidly good. Oh, it is. Especially if you abuse a certain negative quality that I expected to see on this list in order to easily pay for FC3.
Speaking of, can Impaired be used on Special Attributes? It doesn't specify either way. And if so, does Initiation/Submersion trump Impaired?
EDIT: I'll try to clarify with an example. TK the VK has Impaired 2 (Resonance) and Submersion grade 2. TK's max Resonance is 6 then, right?
-
AR can also be weaponized/used offensively.
See the slipcover for the physical "No Future" sourcebook. The troublemaking rioter uses AR to completely overlay an adorable, certainly harmless teddy bear ARO to conceal the lit molotov cocktail in her hand.
I know it's canon but I don't find that (or the use of AR for general personal cosmetics) as compelling/understandable. It seems to me that you're placing a lot of trust on someone else's commlink to help you out and do exactly the right thing - and that commlink is going to be running antispam countermeasures and various other user preferences that make it a poor bet that it'll co-operate with you. Plus I don't think AROs are typically photo-realistic enough, outside of special (expensive!) sculpting, for it to look convincing. And finally, it doesn't seem likely to me that most people would default to sound on for all visible AROs - it'd turn any spam, or even just normal density advertising, into a hopeless cacophony. So your cosmetic AROs might be visible to some of the people on the street as you walk past them, but couldn't make any noise, including incidental noise from eg. moving around; which would trigger some powerful uncanny valley. Meanwhile a whole bunch more people can't see them at all. Seems like it's more hassle than it's worth, overall.
Dunno, just thinking aloud.
-
So your cosmetic AROs might be visible to some of the people on the street as you walk past them, but couldn't make any noise, including incidental noise from eg. moving around; which would trigger some powerful uncanny valley. Meanwhile a whole bunch more people can't see them at all. Seems like it's more hassle than it's worth, overall.
Dunno, just thinking aloud.
I can see where you're coming from. Now, I've had it in my head that as of 2070, AR is a part of every day life. From Matrix searches to street signage to grocery shopping to personal entertainment to setting up back alley meets, AR was involved in pretty much everything (which is one of the reasons I feel Scorched and the Vertigo's are just awful Qualities, cost/effect wise). I feel the real draw to AR cosmetics and fashion was purely because it was en vogue. Using AR to improve or alter one's appearance wasn't necessarily used as a means of Disguise (per crunch), but more of a social trend. AR was the way the world worked now (then), so AR fashion was just the "hot, new thing" people did because it hadn't (more specifically, couldn't have) been done before.
-
Turns out that no, no it isn't really. You can use your gear, even your commlink, without being in "AR User Mode". Using your commlink in a manner similar to real life (holding it up to your head, looking at the screen, messaging your teammates by tapping out a message with your thumbtips, etc) doesn't rise to the level of what shadowrun calls "AR". If you're driving your car, and you rely on the instrument panel rather than an immersive holographic Heads Up Display, that's not AR. If you're doing a technical task and not making use of holographic technical orders floating in space, that's not AR. Etc.
Hmm. Id say these interactions are pretty common in Shadowrun; being out in public and referring to your physical commlink for directions or messaging must surely mark you out as either a performative Luddite hipster or desperately poor. And the third example, in particular, it might render you borderline unemployable. My headcanon is that AR is absolutely ubiquitous in and crucial to all kinds of jobs. Even manual labour on an assembly line is AR-guided.
Which could be interesting character background fodder for why someone with this quality might fall through the cracks and end up a criminal...
It all depends heavily on the character concept and on the campaign location.
At my current table, the setting is Berlin, so the virtual world is already a bit more... shoddy. Spam, faults, patchy connectivity and outright jamming in the alternative districts - you will be often better off without AR reliance, and you will have at least have a good explanation on why you still use your thumbs on your spiderwebbed commlink display like some caveman. Also, being in AR also means being visible and trackable. There are enough Luddites and Paranoids in the City who only turn on one of their 2D6 Burner Kommlinks when itīs absolutely needed. There are even seperate sub-grids and a whole wires-only Matrix beyond the city. So, being a little bit "old school" isnīt going to raise that many eyebrows. Maybe you will get a little quip here and there, but youīre not considered a freak. And even if you were: Itīs Berlin.
So, one of my players actually rolled a character with AR vertigo: A gunslinger Adept with a strong western theme. Old school Akimbo revolvers, dusty longcoat and (armored) Hat, and a fitting Code of Honor, since the player in question is a huge fan of the Dark Tower series. Outside of Combat, the AR Vertigo is mostly a funny quirk that offsets the character from the other, more tech-reliant characters (a Rigger and an Infiltration expert). Heīs often lagging behind and quite laconic in Matrix conversation because heīs typing so slowly, but this often leads to rather comedic "complications". And sometimes, there are actually situations where itīs beneficial to the team to have one member on the watch in the real world without any AR overlays. Since the Adept is also serving as the teamīs Astral spotter, heīs even less dependant on AR to serve his role.
In Combat situations, not using AR has certain drawbacks, but nothing that is really a total dealbreaker - especially when combined with the unique skills of the awakened. He canīt use Smartlinks, and in fact, his revolvers are 100% mechanical throwbacks without any electronics. Thatīs missing out on +2 AR and 1 dice, but he still rolls 17-18 dice and gets +2 AR thanks to Adept powers. Tactical communication is a little bit trickier as well, but good planning, Subvocal mics and handsigns are not the worst substitutes. And of course, you are a lot less prone to hacking. It offers some unique challenges, but thatīs what you get your bonus karma for.
-
Love that, Finstersang!
-
AROs might be visible to some of the people on the street as you walk past them, but couldn't make any noise
According to the book pretty much everyone is using AR. There are only some/few people that are not using AR - the world would actually look strange if you *don't* use AR. Street signs, when it is OK to pass the street when it is OK to drive, name of the pup you are about to visit, how many spare slots the parking garage have, prices and information about products in the supermarket, if people you pass on the street are on your friends (or ignore) list, the true smell of the city would probably also not be very pleasant. Depending on the grid you are connected to you will probably also get different types and different levels of targeted ads (just like we used to/still do get in the subway or when we use free aps on our smartphones, and the big billboards down-town etc).
While this is not Shadowrun I still think it give a hint of how it might look in the future:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs
According to SR5. regular AR (not having access to DNI) give you Video (image link, like looking at the screen of your commlink, wearing contacts or glasses or having cybereys), Sound (sound link, like the speaker in your commlink or earbuds or cyberears) and Touch (which you can get from wearing an AR glove). "Super AR" (having access to DNI,which you get from wearing trodes or installing a datajack - which in this edition pretty much everyone have... you also gain DNI by installing a commlink, cyberdeck, control rig or cyberjack) give you access to the above without using different devices plus it also give you access to Smell and Taste (without entering VR).
-
name of the pup you are about to visit...
I have no idea if this is a typo or not, but now I am picturing the future AR equivalent of "We Rate Dogs" where the name and cuteness rating of every dog you meet while moving about in the world just appears floating above their doggy heads.
https://twitter.com/dog_rates?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
-
Theyre all good dogs, skulchamist
-
Devil Rat, I personally was impressed with the slipcover for the physical "No Future" sourcebook and have used it as an example for AR/IRL to gamers.
As for FC. Yeah it can be used in a broke manner, but what games doesn't have it Power Gamers and they always find a way to break/abuse something.
If you have someone abusing it, doesn't mana barriers neglect the spell? There is always a way for the GM to work around something.
Regards,
Ludwig
-
What about Impaired Attribute (you are bound to have dump stats. The point system forces you to min max). Or Analytical Mind which gives you one logic outside of limit for 3 karma :) For 11 karma you sneeze when you eat something common. For 12 karma you have to drug yourself every 6 hours :P The whole section is bonkers...
-
What about Impaired Attribute (you are bound to have dump stats. The point system forces you to min max). Or Analytical Mind which gives you one logic outside of limit for 3 karma :) For 11 karma you sneeze when you eat something common. For 12 karma you have to drug yourself every 6 hours :P The whole section is bonkers...
Yep that's the one I think is most broken. For 30, 40, hell 70 bonus karma you can forfeit hypothetical maximums you don't ever plan to reach anyway?
Rather bad design imo. It effectively just makes the game "build your character with as much starting karma as you want".
-
What about Impaired Attribute (you are bound to have dump stats. The point system forces you to min max). Or Analytical Mind which gives you one logic outside of limit for 3 karma :) For 11 karma you sneeze when you eat something common. For 12 karma you have to drug yourself every 6 hours :P The whole section is bonkers...
Yep that's the one I think is most broken. For 30, 40, hell 70 bonus karma you can forfeit hypothetical maximums you don't ever plan to reach anyway?
Rather bad design imo. It effectively just makes the game "build your character with as much starting karma as you want".
Still limited to 6 total Qualities and a net of 20 Karma gained from Qualities. It's not like a Troll Decker could walk out of there with an extra 150 Karma to spend on Skills and Nuyen.
Impaired Attribute is an incredibly obvious "Best Negative Quality" for all the reasons mentioned. Nerf it, something else takes its place. At this point in time it basically lets you squeeze in one, maybe two, extra positive qualities while still hitting the 20 Karma gained maximum. And lets face it the "best" Positive quality is Analytical Mind and nobody was having trouble coming up with the 3 Karma to fit that in.
Future sourcebooks could of course print something godawful (and probably will). But I don't think picking up a couple levels of Built Tough is going to unbalance anything.
Or to put it another way, yes Impaired Attribute and Analytical Mind both perform far better than other Qualities from a cost/benefit analysis. But its in a category that has multiple hard limits on it and overall has the least impact to your character build. And these only stick out now because we just have the CRB. Once a few Splatbooks come out, they'll have company on the "Most broken" list.
(Also having a super cheesy negative quality lets players grab less mechanically "good" qualities for RP reasons and still hit the 20 extra Karma for Skills, Stats, Nuyen).