[Mirikon]

Yes, but for the mage you have skills, attributes, an extra attribute, spells, binding, quickening, anchoring, initiations, foci...

A speedboat and a destroyer both like having plenty of fuel, but one uses a helluvalot more than the other.

[Shadowjack]

That's another thing I think is somewhat flawed in Shadowrun. Awakened characters generally don't grow outside of their specialty.

[Mirikon]

Because they don't have the karma for it, yes. Meanwhile, Sammys can do new things, but are constantly broke.

[Shadowjack]

Precisely. Although Street Samurai do get to enjoy Karma and money to a nice extent. I wish you could actually see a Mage start the game with 0 in Demolitions and end with 5, but the way the game is set up, you will probably never see that happen. That's a reason I tend to not play Awakened characters as much as mundane. But they are still cool, of course, I just prefer the mundane progression more often than not.

[Kincaid]

Precisely. Although Street Samurai do get to enjoy Karma and money to a nice extent. I wish you could actually see a Mage start the game with 0 in Demolitions and end with 5, but the way the game is set up, you will probably never see that happen. That's a reason I tend to not play Awakened characters as much as mundane. But they are still cool, of course, I just prefer the mundane progression more often than not.

Also, a Demolitions skill of 1 has ended more campaigns than any sec guard could dream of.

[Reaver]

Armors:

you have to keep in mind the fluff for some of the armors, especially the military grade stuff. "Each suit is custom tailored to the physology of the soldier"... meaning that even if it "falls off the back of a truck" it is pretty useless to anyone but the owner that is was designed to fit. And to fit the armor, you need more then a simple set of hand tools... you need a full on facility to do the work, and a full on medical facility to do the measurements (No, a tape measure is not going to do the trick)

The next thing to keep in mind is that heavy armor (and weapons) is illegal and you CAN NOT get a permit for it... so if you get caught, you're screwed..... A lot of players seem to forget that there are WAAY more police and drones then they have bullets.... and HTR teams pack some pretty serious firepower... So while it may sound cool to have heavy armor, the associated problems of it make deploying it anywhere there is a police presence almost certain suicide for the team.


Money:

This is what happens when the payouts are too big ... the players go on a field trip to the local Krime Mall, and buy the place out... Payouts for a run should be high enough to cover costs, put a little in their pocket, and a little towards their next toy (be it cyber, bio, armor, lifestyle,weapons, etc) IF after every run, your players are droping $5000+ on new gear, you got a problem.

Mages:

The problem with Mages is that they are beholden to Karma.... Sure they can buy new spell formulae, or a focus, or a gun with cash... they still need karma to improve.... or learn that spell, or bond that foci. If you have too much money floating around and average karma payouts, the mage feels like he is being outstripped by the Neuyen characters in terms of power.. so they focus only on improving their spellcasting ability... (or summoning, or whatever)

this holds true usually for the first 400+ karma of a game... and usually by this time, increasing their magic through initiation also starts getting next to impossible and the player starts to branch out a bit and learn new skills...... but with magic, a lot of skills are actually redundant.

stealth skill? Why when the mage can cast invisibility?
Ettequtte skills? Why when the mage can cast influence?
Demo skills? Why when the mage can cast wreck, or fireball?
Gun skills? Why when the mage has a host of combat spells?
Basket weaving skills? Why when the Mage can just BUY a basket?
Medtech Skills? Why when the mage has a host of health spells?


the Awakened generally don't need as many skills as their mundane counter points.... it's just a "waste" for them when they have MAGIC!

[All4BigGuns]

IF after every run, your players are droping $5000+ on new gear, you got a problem.

That should be the absolute minimum left over for putting toward upgrades of gear or implants after paying for lifestyle, replenishing consumables such as ammo and medical supplies, replacing fake SINs and licenses and putting at least another 5,000 in their pocket.

[Noble Drake]

IF after every run, your players are droping $5000+ on new gear, you got a problem.

That should be the absolute minimum left over for putting toward upgrades of gear or implants after paying for lifestyle, replenishing consumables such as ammo and medical supplies, replacing fake SINs and licenses and putting at least another 5,000 in their pocket.

That all depends on how many runs per month you have your team do.

If you only do 1 per month, then you need high enough pay to accommodate the characters being able to maintain/improve living conditions as you desire... but if you are working on an assumption that the team takes as much work as they think they can handle, you can pay less per run and still have them paying their monthly expenses and banking extra cred.

There is no absolute minimum left over per job.

[DWC]

If they're not clearing 5k+ per job (after living expenses of course), then the gear dependent characters are never actually going to get to upgrade things like control decks, cyberdecks, and cyberware.  This is particularly true for the drone riggers who are randomly going to take 25k+ losses in the course of jobs.

[martinchaen]

Don't forget that SR5 has the Karma for Nuyen/Nuyen for Karma system (as per the MIssions FAQ, so it's viable in regular games as well).

Karma heavy builds can sacrifice cash, and nuyen heavy builds can spend some karma for more cash...

[All4BigGuns]

Don't forget that SR5 has the Karma for Nuyen/Nuyen for Karma system (as per the MIssions FAQ, so it's viable in regular games as well).

That is an entirely optional entity for anything other than the Missions. One can not count on it being active. (In fact, the stingy miser GMs will probably not be allowing it, and will probably be howling and screaming calling it "broken".)

[Reaver]

the idea for paymenats and karma are to keep things relatively close, so that all characters can gain a benefit at roughly the same time.....

IF your cash is too high, and karma is average, the Cash characters will be boosted up much, MUCH faster then the Karma Characters.

IF your Cash is too low, and karma is average, then the cash characters can not get the warez they need to improve while the Karma characters do.

[Crunch]

It's worth noting that the "cash" characters have a lot more uses for Karma in 5E than they did previously. Taking a single level 6 skill to 12 would cost 114 Karma. A Samurai probably has 4 or 5 key skills, a Decker at least 3, a rigger at least 3. So unless your games are going VERY long (500-600 Karma worth) there's a lot more karmically related up for the core competencies of your mundane characters than in 1-4 .

[Reaver]

It's worth noting that the "cash" characters have a lot more uses for Karma in 5E than they did previously. Taking a single level 6 skill to 12 would cost 114 Karma. A Samurai probably has 4 or 5 key skills, a Decker at least 3, a rigger at least 3. So unless your games are going VERY long (500-600 Karma worth) there's a lot more karmically related up for the core competencies of your mundane characters than in 1-4 .

good to know.

[Shadowjack]

Quite busy so I'll make some brief notes. Iirc Suprathyroid Gland, just a basic one, costs 140k. So even at 5k profit per run you would be able to get one only after 28 runs. Iirc again, the book uses 3k to 36k per run as a guideline to follow.