[zarzak]

Hey all,

I used to know this but forgot:

For a starting character what is the recommended dice pool for perception?  assessing?  tracking?  sneaking?

Tracking and Perception/Assensing are threshold type things, so they don't need to be boosted up as high as things like combat skills, correct?

Thanks!

[Whiskeyjack]

Assensing is a threshold, but Perception is usually opposed (by Sneaking, as it were).

6s with specs in Perception and Sneaking aren't uncommon. A good INT and Assessing 2 with a spec in Aura-Reading is probably good enough.

[zarzak]

Thanks, Whiskeyjack.

[Rooks]

course detect life beats everything

[Jack_Spade]

If I've learned anything about RPGs than that you need high perception - no matter what character. It's one of the most rolled non combat skills. 10 dice are for me the minimum if I don't build a character who's explicitly inattentive.

[Halinn]

Thankfully, getting bonuses to visual and auditory perception is pretty cheap. Particularly visual can get +6 if you don't mind a 0.1 essence hit (Tetrachromatic vision + goggles with visual enhancement)

[halflingmage]

Hey all,

I used to know this but forgot:

For a starting character what is the recommended dice pool for perception?  assessing?  tracking?  sneaking?

Tracking and Perception/Assensing are threshold type things, so they don't need to be boosted up as high as things like combat skills, correct?

Thanks!

As a general rule, tests that are against a threshold do not require as high a dice pool as tests that are opposed.  Assensing falls into this area.  Perception is often opposed, and sneaking generally always will be.  It looks like you are a caster, however, and if tight on skill points you can skip or skimp on sneak and cover it will spells.  Improved invisibility plus a spirit running concealment will get you past almost anything that can't perceive astral.

As to how many dice you need at your particular table, always talk to GM about expectations.  Power levels vary considerably from group to group, and the sneakiness of the bad guys will just scale up to the level of the party.  You can never win through dice pools alone, the gm has as many dice as he wants to roll. 

[Glyph]

You might also want to see how the GM runs the game.  Shadowrun has a lot of rules and subsystems, and not every GM will use all of them - sometimes things get handwaved, or ignored, so if perception tests are not used a lot, or, like halflingmage says, the GM just adjusts NPC dice pools to match PC dice pools, then you might not want to spend a lot of resources getting a high dice pool for it.

[zarzak]

Right - table expectations are always important.  This was just more for rules of thumb for me to have on hand (I'm working on a character, but this is also good stuff to remember ).

Thanks for all the comments/help, everyone.

[Marcus]

When considering pools as Whisky said, the first question is opposed or threshold?
How Critical is this roll to my team?
How good do I want this character to be?
What level of competition do I expect to see?
What's the table expecting?
Do I endanger the team by having a pool this high? (If your 3 times as hard to hit or damage as everyone else, your going to get your table in trouble, try not swing so big your GM needs to being artillery fire onto the group to threaten you.)

Basic thresholds:
@Below 6 dice, I'm including this skill just b/c it says something about my character it doesn't matter if I am successful when I roll.
@ 6-9 dice for something that won't be opposed but it is important enough that it will get rolled, and failing is could have some level of consequences (unopposed drive rolls, basic etiquette for non-faces, the ability to find something very basic on the matrix)
@12-16 dice professional level- for threshold where you're pushing up values for some reason, in opposed you have a chance against competent Oppo. This a meaningful core skill, something your character has done ever day of his or her professional life. (Most serious competitive rolls)
@18+ Only need for Opposition rolls, for instances when you're pushing envelop, begin to keep an eye on limit at this stage. Even in opposition rolls you're  pushing up values. For most skills this will be the province of focused builds, and are only needed on Archetype core build components, (Negotiate rolls for faces, Shooting tests for Sams, Melee rolls for Adepts, hacker focus area, etc)

Exceptions- Somethings are harder to raise and some are easier. Armor is a great example of something that's fairly easy to push way up, if you're in a game where combat is reasonably likely i'd always recommend going for soak pool in the 20ish range. It's not always going to be enough but it will give ya fighting chance. Magic is an example of something that is expensive to raise, pushing past the 14 dice range starts getting pricey I wouldn't advice trying push that roll too much higher at creation.

[Kincaid]

Another gun-specific wrinkle: Firing mode and base DV are factors when it comes to dice pool size.  If you're character shoots 6-round bursts all day, then you can get away with a slightly smaller dice pool since you're imposing a penalty to your opponent's Defense Test.  If you're firing a sniper rifle (or other high DV weapon), hitting is still obviously important but getting a significant number of net hits isn't do-or-die in many cases.  The lowest damage you'll see from a Desert Strike is 14P/-4, which is an excellent starting point.  Use Edge in the do-or-die scenarios.  If you're character plans on carrying a light pistol and using it as his primary weapon, he's going to need a lot of dice.

[Soahl]

Also, when thinking about acceptable dice pools don't forget about the Limits associated with those pool.

I've had many characters (Snipers, Mages, Faces, etc) run into the issue with Sneaking where I'd be able to get like 16 dice pretty easy, but the limit would be 4-5 because Strength and Body weren't very high. This can also be an issue for Perception with Sams and the like. Being aware of your Limits (and which ones you're likely going to increase in the future, or pre-Edge/Reagent to kick the Limit away completely) is super important when planning out dice pools.