[sn0mm1s]

Required for a Face, Negotiation.  If your table uses Etiquette for legwork then yes, max, otherwise, splash.  Con I'd max out, but most missions/modules you can get through without ever checking Con.  Intimidation and leadership are no way required.  Impersonation and disguise, you need the right team to really make use of these skills.  Standard shadowrunner package, Stealth, Perception, Combat, sure.  Computer, just not needed at all for a Face. 

The quoted skill list is for a Face in a solo game.  Assensing, every social skill, Computer, plus standard shadowrunner skills?  What is the rest of your team doing?

Missions/modules are often one shots and again - it sounds like many people play the face as:
"We all go together - but you do the talking."

Which is fine - but isn't what I think of when playing a face.

[Soahl]

What even uses pilot walker? Did I miss it when the corps started deploying BattleMechs?

The Shiawase Kanmushi, the Aztechnology Crawler, the Ares Duelist, Bust-A-Moves, Clockwork Greyhound, and possibly some of the other Stolen Souls ones. Those aren't very clear on what type of skill they need.

That's not to say that any of the above are particularly good, just that there's a number of drones that do use the skill.

On topic: I get what most everyone's saying here. It's ridiculously easy to make a character using Skills A who isn't optimal. But I think that's where the wires are crossed here. A lot of those who are saying that Skills A isn't a trap are saying you can make perfectly viable, useful characters with them. The moniker "trap" suggests that anything that uses it is useless, broke, or otherwise an impediment to a group. That isn't true. Sure, there's tons of ways to build a character with Skills A that's terrible, but the same can be said for any Priority of A.

Is Skills A easier to make sub-optimal than the others? Maybe, leaning toward yes. But does it almost definitely ensure a useless character? Not in the slightest.

[Whiskeyjack]

The moniker "trap" suggests that anything that uses it is useless, broke, or otherwise an impediment to a group. That isn't true. Sure, there's tons of ways to build a character with Skills A that's terrible, but the same can be said for any Priority of A.

Is Skills A easier to make sub-optimal than the others? Maybe, leaning toward yes. But does it almost definitely ensure a useless character? Not in the slightest.

Sure, but as I've said before in the thread, "traps" frequently refer to pitfalls that ensnare new players who lack much system knowledge or experience as to what works better. Players can certainly build useful characters with Skills A. I would say the percentage of new players capable of doing so is much lower for any number of reasons discussed in this thread. I'd even say new players building characters with Skills A are more likely to build a worse characters than new players allocating Resources, Attributes, or Magic to A. It's simply a lot easier to screw up.

[Wakshaani]

For what it's worth, I'm personally of the opinion that social adepts were a bad thing to add. Magic overshadowing everything's been a problem since the old initiative system was changed (Back when STreet Sams dominated everything) but social interaction was the one area that 'normal' people had. Social Adepts took that away. Making magical reflexes a bit worse for Adepts, removing the spell from magicians (Or at least making it MUCH worse), then trimming social Adept powers would be part of a general rebalancing I'd like to do, but, it's WAY above my paygrade. (Mind you, I'd also be tossing a LOT of stuff at Adepts, and a few things at mages, to make up for this removal!)

But that's a whole other topic.

[adzling]

I agree Wak with a lot of that Wak.

I think casters should never have access to the same type of top end initiative enhancements a sam does.
Adepts shouldn't have access to astral at all.
Mystic Adepts should not exist.
Aspected mages should be able to astrally project.

Magically active characters should still risk magic loss from life-threatening injuries.

Taken together the above would help mundane folks retain value instead of turning it into magic run.

[Whiskeyjack]

I think casters should never have access to the same type of top end initiative enhancements a sam does.

Part of this is game fun practicality. It's boring when you can act once for every three times your friend does. Hell, you die if you act once for every three times your opponent does.

Magically active characters should still risk magic loss from life-threatening injuries.

Magicrun aside this creates a huge negative play experience due to factors totally out of the player's control. It sucked. Good riddance.

[Facemage]

Weird mage rage. If you think that the mage is unbalanced, fix it. The easiest way is ban the use of reagents to setting limits. Another easy way is set the use of reagents to be visible (you need to take those stones and minerals to your hand and new items after the spell has been casted, so anyone notices that you are doing something probably magical). Without that the only maybe stronger than weapons and grenades strategy (witness my hate and reagents) is not available. If you look at the combat spells you should notice that they are weaker than weapons and grenades. Their damage is lower and the caster needs to resist drain. Manipulation spells (chaotic world) are better but still not as good as grenades.

Later, if you allow your mage player sustain 8 quickened spells, mages are indeed stronger than sams. But this is easy, some strong wards should be enough.

[ikarinokami]

What even uses pilot walker? Did I miss it when the corps started deploying BattleMechs?

The Shiawase Kanmushi, the Aztechnology Crawler, the Ares Duelist, Bust-A-Moves, Clockwork Greyhound, and possibly some of the other Stolen Souls ones. Those aren't very clear on what type of skill they need.

That's not to say that any of the above are particularly good, just that there's a number of drones that do use the skill.

On topic: I get what most everyone's saying here. It's ridiculously easy to make a character using Skills A who isn't optimal. But I think that's where the wires are crossed here. A lot of those who are saying that Skills A isn't a trap are saying you can make perfectly viable, useful characters with them. The moniker "trap" suggests that anything that uses it is useless, broke, or otherwise an impediment to a group. That isn't true. Sure, there's tons of ways to build a character with Skills A that's terrible, but the same can be said for any Priority of A.

Is Skills A easier to make sub-optimal than the others? Maybe, leaning toward yes. But does it almost definitely ensure a useless character? Not in the slightest.

it's pretty tough to go wrong with A attributes.

[Soahl]

it's pretty tough to go wrong with A attributes.

That's true. Attributes is the easiest one to not screw up. It's still possibly, mind you, but that involves a rather high level of ignorance (willful or otherwise).

Sure, but as I've said before in the thread, "traps" frequently refer to pitfalls that ensnare new players who lack much system knowledge or experience as to what works better. Players can certainly build useful characters with Skills A. I would say the percentage of new players capable of doing so is much lower for any number of reasons discussed in this thread. I'd even say new players building characters with Skills A are more likely to build a worse characters than new players allocating Resources, Attributes, or Magic to A. It's simply a lot easier to screw up.

I think this might be selling new players short. Even if you're brand new to the system, it's not hard to go "I want to be an awesome gun fighter, so I'm going to max out pistols and, uh, automatics I guess. Longarms too because I want to use shotguns sometimes!". I know people on this thread have already pointed out that raising multiple weapon skills is "bad" because it's inefficient, but there are also definite perks to it outside of min/maxing. Granted I'm looking at this from a roleplay point of view (where you're trying to come up with a character to fit a story and not vice versa), so that may be skewing my perception on what the crux of this conversation is about.

I agree wholeheartedly that with our huge list of skills that it's easy to waste points on skills that'll never be used, to throw too few points to make the investment useless, or to throw too many points into a skill to thoroughly bury yourself in diminishing returns. But this just comes back to my original point: Every game of Shadowrun I've played has had new people in it who have built their own characters (both homebrew and Missions), and a number of them have had Skills A. None of them have been useless to the group, most were still very useful and some were way more useful than we imagined. This is why I have a hard time of saying "Skills A is a trap", because I have never actually seen it produce a useless character unless someone was purposefully making one to prove a point.

And again, I fully agree that Skills A is the least optimal of the A Priorities.

[Hobbes]

I think this might be selling new players short. Even if you're brand new to the system, it's not hard to go "I want to be an awesome gun fighter, so I'm going to max out pistols and, uh, automatics I guess. Longarms too because I want to use shotguns sometimes!". I know people on this thread have already pointed out that raising multiple weapon skills is "bad" because it's inefficient, but there are also definite perks to it outside of min/maxing. Granted I'm looking at this from a roleplay point of view (where you're trying to come up with a character to fit a story and not vice versa), so that may be skewing my perception on what the crux of this conversation is about.

Mechanically the call to split firearms into three skills is one of the more immersion breaking things in the game.  You can take a Savalette Guardian, a large pistol capable of firing 3 round bursts, and bulls-eye every shot.  You then take an Ares Crusader, a large pistol capable of firing three round bursts, and you're suddenly unable to shoot straight.  It is one of the traps that pull players into over prioritizing skills because "My character is a great shot with any gun" requires a significant investment, for a small mechanical payoff.  I really never saw the mechanical need to split up Firearms, as near as I can see the only thing it accomplished is to punish players for a lack of system mastery and trying to build to character concept. 

[Chaos Monkey]

I would agree that ultimately it probably would make more sense to simply have a single small arms skill and then make each type of firearm a specialization.  Much like heavy weapons skill covers machine guns, cannons, and missile launchers (which are all much different weapon systems).

By the same token then the close combat skill group should just become a regular skill with it's constituent members made into specializations.

Plenty of other systems over the years have gone that route.

[Soahl]

Mechanically the call to split firearms into three skills is one of the more immersion breaking things in the game.  You can take a Savalette Guardian, a large pistol capable of firing 3 round bursts, and bulls-eye every shot.  You then take an Ares Crusader, a large pistol capable of firing three round bursts, and you're suddenly unable to shoot straight.  It is one of the traps that pull players into over prioritizing skills because "My character is a great shot with any gun" requires a significant investment, for a small mechanical payoff.  I really never saw the mechanical need to split up Firearms, as near as I can see the only thing it accomplished is to punish players for a lack of system mastery and trying to build to character concept.

I agree. It's just silly. I was going to give examples, but then realized you've basically already beat me to all the ones I was going to make! I would love to see Firearms split into like Small Arms and Long Arms where Small Arms carries anything one-handed and Long Arms carries anything two handed. And, you know, keep Heavy Weapons to focus on the weapons that also tend to be heavy.

[Novocrane]

You don’t always have to default a skill when you don’t have it.

Sometimes your gamemaster might allow you to use a different skill, probably with a dice pool penalty. For example, if you’re trying to use makeup to disguise your face, and you don’t have a Disguise skill, the gamemaster could let you use your Artisan skill with (say) a –3 dice pool penalty.

You can always do this swapping trick to use an Active skill in place of a Knowledge skill (like using your Pistols skill at a penalty to see if you know where the closest Ares Predator V manufacturer is), but never vice versa. Knowing the history and mechanics of the modern pistol doesn’t make you a better shot.

The only reason (I can see) to say "you're suddenly unable to shoot straight" with a non-skill weapon is to preserve some kind of value in the firearms skills you don't have. Personally, I like the idea of using a fraction of the skill for somewhat related uses (pistols count for half skill rank with a sawnoff shotgun or dart pistol), and an absolute value for things that have even less in common. (any rank in pistols is equivalent to one rank in heavy weapons)

[Glyph]

For what it's worth, I'm personally of the opinion that social adepts were a bad thing to add. Magic overshadowing everything's been a problem since the old initiative system was changed (Back when STreet Sams dominated everything) but social interaction was the one area that 'normal' people had. Social Adepts took that away. Making magical reflexes a bit worse for Adepts, removing the spell from magicians (Or at least making it MUCH worse), then trimming social Adept powers would be part of a general rebalancing I'd like to do, but, it's WAY above my paygrade. (Mind you, I'd also be tossing a LOT of stuff at Adepts, and a few things at mages, to make up for this removal!)

But that's a whole other topic.

Social adepts were relatively balanced in the main book, when all they had was kinesics to resist social skills, voice control and improved potential to raise their social limit, and improved ability to improve social skills at double what it cost to do so in SR4.  True, they could add tailored pheromones: 3 on top of all that, but mundanes were still competitive.  Then Street Grimoire came out, with authoritative tone and cool resolve.  Now it's go adept, or go home.  Mundanes can still be face/something else hybrids, but adepts are the overwhelmingly superior choice when you go all in.

Adepts are broken for two reasons.  First, magic being better for some things and augmentations being better for others means that adepts get to pick the best option for what they want to do.  Secondly, adept powers and augmentations frequently stack - tailored pheromones and authoritative tone, for example.  Background count is a horrible way to balance magic, period - it basically capriciously penalizes characters in areas they have invested in.  Plus, it affects the non-optimized adepts that have a lot of flavor powers the most.  If they want to fix adepts, it isn't too difficult - just make augmentations much, much less compatible with Magic, as far as Essence cost.

[Facemage]

But do you really need authoritative tones and cool resolves? If you have cha 8, skill 5-6, specialization and berwick suit, your dice pool is 16-17. It is more than enough very often. At least during first runs. Later, if it isn't, you can get the increase charisma spell (by casting it yourself or your friend mage does it). => your pool is 20-21 which is again enough.