[Glyph]

I'd alter the SR4 stat "average" table down a notch.  I think SR5 runs a little more smoothly (with the priority system and the changes in starting attribute points, etc) if you consider a 2 to be average-ish, instead of a 3.

I tend to think of a 2 as low-average, and a 3 as high-average.

So a reaction 6 and Agillity 6 Gunslinger Adept would be a incredible level of coordination and speed? How would you roleplay that?

I like the detail that Beta went into, and I agree that "average" stats would be more of a bell curve, but I think he weighted the high and low ends a bit much.  The low ends, without any accompanying negative qualities, are comparatively easy to improve.  Someone with a Body of 1 might get winded by a flight of stairs, but he isn't an invalid, and can improve himself fairly quickly by eating a bit better and getting some moderate exercise.  People with attributes of 5 or 6 are naturally gifted, but they won't necessarily stand out too much - they will be buff, or bright, or personable, that is all.  High attributes will be rarer (but not unheard of) in the general population, but will be more common in the circles that shadowrunners operate in.  But like him, this is just one person's take.

An adept with a reaction and agility of 6, I would roleplay as someone used to being quicker and more coordinated than the people around him, and shocked at encountering so many people as good as him, or better - because both of those attributes can be improved with augmentations or magic.  If that adept has base stats of 6 and then improvements from augmentations or magic, he will be a heavy hitter in the shadows.  There are all kinds of ways you can play this, from being a smug guy who really is that good; to someone impatient with all of these slow, clumsy, plodding meatbags all around him; to being mellow and placidly calm because he has supreme confidence in his ability to handle nearly any situation.

[Dinendae]

I'd alter the SR4 stat "average" table down a notch.  I think SR5 runs a little more smoothly (with the priority system and the changes in starting attribute points, etc) if you consider a 2 to be average-ish, instead of a 3.

I tend to think of a 2 as low-average, and a 3 as high-average.

So a reaction 6 and Agillity 6 Gunslinger Adept would be a incredible level of coordination and speed? How would you roleplay that?

I like the detail that Beta went into, and I agree that "average" stats would be more of a bell curve, but I think he weighted the high and low ends a bit much.  The low ends, without any accompanying negative qualities, are comparatively easy to improve.  Someone with a Body of 1 might get winded by a flight of stairs, but he isn't an invalid, and can improve himself fairly quickly by eating a bit better and getting some moderate exercise.  People with attributes of 5 or 6 are naturally gifted, but they won't necessarily stand out too much - they will be buff, or bright, or personable, that is all.  High attributes will be rarer (but not unheard of) in the general population, but will be more common in the circles that shadowrunners operate in.  But like him, this is just one person's take.

An adept with a reaction and agility of 6, I would roleplay as someone used to being quicker and more coordinated than the people around him, and shocked at encountering so many people as good as him, or better - because both of those attributes can be improved with augmentations or magic.  If that adept has base stats of 6 and then improvements from augmentations or magic, he will be a heavy hitter in the shadows.  There are all kinds of ways you can play this, from being a smug guy who really is that good; to someone impatient with all of these slow, clumsy, plodding meatbags all around him; to being mellow and placidly calm because he has supreme confidence in his ability to handle nearly any situation.

Just to add to Glyph's second post, there are a ton of examples out there in entertainment that you could use as a base for such a character: John Preston from Equilibrium, Twitch from Mel Odom's new novel Deniable Assets (although she doesn't use magic nor augmentations, she's just at peak stats for a normal meta-human), or just about any gunslinging and/or swordfighting character from anime.

[Beta]

I should have added that I was thinking about unimproved stats.... Think your graduatinghighschool class, minus adepts and anyone who'd been in really heavy training already.

Due to training, cyberware and magic, actual distribution will skew much higher.

[Sendaz]

Part of the problem is your trying to fit a whole range of human ability within just a 1-6 scale, and that's not even counting what augmentations can do.

And while there is argument just what the effective ability of a stat of 1 is,  we do know what a zero in a stat is like thanks to spells like Decrease Attributes:

If a Physical Attribute is reduced to 0, the victim is incapacitated and paralyzed.
If a Mental Attribute is reduced to 0, the victim stands still, mindlessly confused.

So to be fair, I suspect an actual Str 1 Body 1 human would be more than a little winded going up some stairs, but really is it that critical to the game to enforce something like this on a player?

This is why I like how they used Qualities to fine tune things if you want someone who is wheelchair bound or has other handicaps, whether it be physical or mental.

If I was rewriting it to better represent the full breadth of it, I might consider spreading the stat range out a bit making normal human scale from 1-12 before considering other augmentations, and a 1Str would truly be like a small child.
But then you have to reconsider so much like reworking how skill usage works - like making it Stat/2 + Skill  for some rolls and so on to keep it working the same, that it really seems more work than it's worth.

The current scale is not perfect, but it represents the functional range of ability for the players.
If this doesn't exactly jive with every scenario, well we are in a world with dragon and elves so suspension of disbelief is already part and parcel to the game.

[Beta]

Yah, the 1-6 base scale is absolutely cludgy, but it is part of what makes SR what it is.  I really did look at trying to port a different rule set into this setting when I was getting back into the game, but concluded that some of the awkwardness of the 1-6 range was part of what made the game as charming as it is.  You need a few imperfections to really appreciate something, perhaps.

[All4BigGuns]

The low ends, without any accompanying negative qualities, are comparatively easy to improve.  Someone with a Body of 1 might get winded by a flight of stairs, but he isn't an invalid, and can improve himself fairly quickly by eating a bit better and getting some moderate exercise.

Only through the metagame viewing of looking at Karma cost would it be "easy to improve". That 'moderate exercise' would only be moderate for someone with the average attribute. For the attribute 1 person, it would be like the average person going to the gym and trying to start out lifting 300 pounds the first day.

[celondon]

I consider the "Average person" to have a 2.5 in all Attributes and most people you meet will be centered around that.

Someone with a stat of 1 should stand out as being substantially deficient. It becomes a defining aspect of the character -- it isn't just a "dump stat."

[Beta]

Someone with a stat of 1 should stand out as being substantially deficient. It becomes a defining aspect of the character -- it isn't just a "dump stat."

Agreed on that.  I generally have avoided stats of 1, and even play up a stat of 2, but I'm prepping my first character with a 1 -- he's spent the last who-knows-how-long as a dog and is just relearning what it means to be human.  Logic 1, Intuition 6 -- he's still running almost totally on instincts and really struggles to analyze things in a remotely logical sort of way.  It will be a pretty defining part of the character until I get bored enough to buy it up to 2.  In my game I have one named NPC with a stat of 1 -- a massively obese troll mage with an agility of 1.  Even with his strength he waddles around slowly and his extreme bulk makes it awkward for him to do many things, hence the agility of 1.

[Sendaz]

[
Agreed on that.  I generally have avoided stats of 1, and even play up a stat of 2, but I'm prepping my first character with a 1 -- he's spent the last who-knows-how-long as a dog and is just relearning what it means to be human.  Logic 1, Intuition 6 -- he's still running almost totally on instincts and really struggles to analyze things in a remotely logical sort of way.  It will be a pretty defining part of the character until I get bored enough to buy it up to 2. 

That and his habit of chasing the Rigger's ride when outside or hanging his head out a window when inside.

In my game I have one named NPC with a stat of 1 -- a massively obese troll mage with an agility of 1.  Even with his strength he waddles around slowly and his extreme bulk makes it awkward for him to do many things, hence the agility of 1.

You too?  Ours was a Chinese wujen soothsayer type almost as big around as he was tall with a sweet tooth for certain hard to find candies which we had to obtain to sweeten any dealings with him, but it was worth the effort.

[Sphinx]

HUMAN ATTRIBUTE RATINGS
RATING DESCRIPTION
1 Weak
2 Underdeveloped
3 Typical
4 Improved
5 Superior
6 Max unmodified human

The six-point attribute scale is a cornerstone of the game. You can find this same table in SR1 (p.31), SR2 (p.42), SR3 (p.41), SR4 (p.62), and SR4A (p.67) ... SR5 is the first edition not to reprint it, but it's the same scale. Picture a bell curve with Rating 3 (Typical) at the peak. Among humans, at least, Rating 3 is "most people," which makes Rating 4 "better than most people," Rating 5 "better than almost anyone," and Rating 6 "the best you've ever met."

Most NPCs in my games start with attributes at Rating 3 across the board (adjusted for metatype), with an occasional 2 or 4 if they're meant to be unusually weak or strong in a particular stat. If a security checkpoint is staffed by grunts who are all iron-willed, eagle-eyed Rhodes Scholars and Olympic-caliber athletes, something ain't right.

[MijRai]

Agreed, Sphinx.  Adding two points to every stat is a good 'average' for most anything.  Maybe 1 point to Logic for those who got a poor education.  They even used that logic for the ghoul stats in the core rulebook; they're flat-threes with the ghoul adjustments applied. 

[Reaver]

That's the problem when you try to put anything in a scale that covers something as diverse as a species...
It gets really hard to find the specifics...

I try to think of it as a scale and not so much an absolute. A 1 (one) in an attribute puts the person at the bottom end of the spectrum. Now, that's still a very diverse spectrum.

Using the easiest attribute (strength):
A 1 may be someone who is very young, physically weak, physically impared (more then one way to be impared), or even just underdeveloped.
Unless they have a negative quality, they are free to improve (and justify it any way they choose.).

A 6 in strength on the other hand stands as the peak a human can achieve.... and leave it at that. I don't try to say 'and that number is 514.43kg'. Its just the 'peak'. Leave it at that.


But things get more murky with less raw stats. How do you measure endurance on a scale? Is it simply blood oxygen to muscle acid levels? Do you consider mental fatigue rates? Is how far someone can run?

What about inituition? What IS a normal range? How do you explain, test and tabloid inituition?


Yea, stat ranges are only good for the math of a game. Leave trying to compare that to real life.... just gives you a headache

(And yet, as gamers we have an compulsive NEED, to try )

[Novocrane]

A 6 in strength [...] stands as the peak a human can achieve.

Unless they already have Exceptional Attribute in some other area, 6 isn't any given human's peak. Exceptional Attribute is available during chargen or in game. Genetic Optimisation (with Phenotype Variation) can be taken as naturally occurring or passed on from previous generations. Metagenetics can express subtly.

That leaves 6 as the peak characters can aspire to without drive and training, or winning the genetic lottery. The actual peak of natural human achievement isn't naturally available for PCs - they have to tinker with themselves to get there, and even then it takes some serious personal effort in the form of karma.

That's why I say 6 is just an upper limit on 'average'.

[rednblack]

I wonder if it's more useful to think in terms of Limits than individual Attributes.

Pros: this nicely sidesteps the "STR 1 chars can't lift more than a one-year-old" and "LOG 1 chars are too deficient to become shadowrunners" arguments, which I find to be problematic as STR isn't the only Attribute used for lifting and LOG isn't the only Attribute that describes mental acuity

It also works much better with game mechanics.  Your BOD: 6, REA: 1, STR 1 human is going to be a big dude who can take some punishment, but doesn't have any raw strength or reflexes to speak of, though he can carry around 10kg without any trouble, and can dead lift up to 120kg if he got really really lucky.  On the other hand, his Physical Limit is going to be 3, so no matter how much he tries to learn Kung Fu or how to be a little sneak, he's not going to get very far.  I won't even get into Running.  If we want to be more realistic about it, we can look at a char who has BOD: 3, REA: 3, STR: 1, Physical Limit: 3. If we compare that to a char who had a 3 in all of those stats, that'd be Physical Limit 4, so yeah STR counts for a lot, but generally when we're talking about how "fit" someone is, or even how "strong" they are we really talking about an interplay of multiple attributes.

Similarly, when we're talking about how smart someone is, we're rarely talking about LOG in the SR sense.  A middling LOG, high INT character may be able to "feel" her way to the right solution, but a LOG: 1 INT: 6, WIL: 1 char is going to have a rough go of it.  Even with a Professional skill ranking in Perception, she just won't have the fortitude and systematic thinking processes to notice a lot of things that have been hidden -- or to know where to look for them in the first place. 

Cons: this leaves AGI out in the cold.  Honestly, I'm kind of ok with that.  Your weakling gun bunny might be really light on her feet, able to cover long distances elegantly and quickly, and shoot with the best of them, but a low BOD and STR are going to tax her on things that she should rightly be taxed on.   

Anyway, don't mean to derail; just my 2¥