[tytalan]

Okay I'm starting a game in a month or so and I would like everyone thoughts on the core book and run faster.  Basically what is broke and what house rules have you used to fix it?   Also any suggestions on things to just stay away from

[Medicineman]

>>> Basically what is broke and what house rules have you used to fix it?

Chars do not get enough Karma (especially if they Play Missions) !
I used to fix it, by refering to the Table from SR4A which gives Chars ca 50% more Karma .

I'm playing SR5 since the Start(SR3 and SR4A too ) .I'm actually in 2 different Groups as a Player and in one more as GM. I attend lots of RPG Conventions (I live in the Center of the RPG Community in Germany ) and spoke to lots of Gamers and GMs.
I've never (never ever) seen a player raise a Skill > 7 ( if at all to 7) because it costs too much Karma
Raising one single Skill for one single Die to 7 is 14 Karma.
an Adept can initiate for 13 Karma to get 1 Powerpoint (to get a +2 in the same skill) or get two different specialisations for +2 TWICE for the same 14 Karma.Or you can get awesome pos Qualities for 14 Karma that benefit the Char so much more than a mere +1 Die....
or raise an Attribute 2-->3 for 15 Karma ,and Attributes affect way more Skillpools )
a Mage can get 3 different Spells for 15 Karma
Skills of 8+ are are (ImO) a Carrot on a string that Players/chars never reach.It dangles in front of them but its not reachable

he who dances without a Carrot
Medicineman

[Coyote]

Mystic Adepts seem to be too good compared to either Mages or Adepts. My solution is to prevent MysAds from taking skills from both the Sorcery and the Summoning groups. So they can either cast spells OR summon spirits, but not both. This still leaves them as a powerful combination of adept powers and spells (usually), while giving them a much more noticeable drawback than merely losing Astral Projection.

[Kamikazzijoe]

The worst min maxing is largely attenuated by using the karma buy system rather than the priority system.

If your adept player starts talking about quick draw and bows, just slap him.

[MijRai]

Karma-buy also severely curtails growth in some aspects; it makes being a troll or ork suck, because raising your Strength or Body by an appreciable amount becomes ludicrously expensive. 

[tytalan]

Hay Coyote I thought that the magic points they use to by adapt power are considered lost lowering their spell casting and summoning respectly at least that how it was in 3rd.  Did I read it wrong? Or does your magic rating mean that ,much less in 5th.? 

Like I said I'm just getting going on running 5th and the last game I ran was 3rd

[MijRai]

The way Mystic Adepts work in 5th Edition is that your power points are separate from your Magic; at character creation, you spend 5 karma a power-point to the maximum of your Magic.  After that, the only way for a Mystic Adept to get a Power Point is to Initiate and take the Power Point Metamagic. 

So your Magic score is always your Magic score, that doesn't change.  You only get as many Power Points as you spend on at the beginning of the game and pay for with Initiation later on.  Therefore, most 'good' mystic adept builds are front-loaded with Power Points because you have no means to get any in-game without Initiation.  Some people have problems with this. 

There's been multiple discussions on this topic over the years, so I'm not going to express my opinion on the rule.

[Medicineman]

 >>> Therefore, most 'good' mystic adept builds are front-loaded with Power Points because you have no means to get any in-game without Initiation.  Some people have problems with this. 
Correct
and since such a Frontloader Mystic Adept has no Points left vor Pos Qualities.
so any "vanilla" Adept or Mage can Start wqith 25 Point in Pos Qual that a Mystic Adept has to pay later in Karma x2 ( so a mystic Adept not only lacks Astral Projection but also (up to) 50 Karma that a full mage has
But MijRai is right
this is not the Thread to discuss weather a Mystic Adept is Overpowered or not
(ImO they're not .they start better but need so much longer and so much more Karma than other Awakeend that in the end they're on ean.... even Playgroun (do you say that in the U.S .? )

With a Dance on an even Playground
Medicineman

[Coyote]

so any "vanilla" Adept or Mage can Start wqith 25 Point in Pos Qual that a Mystic Adept has to pay later in Karma x2 ( so a mystic Adept not only lacks Astral Projection but also (up to) 50 Karma that a full mage has

Well, you would start with 25 points of Negative Qualities, pushing up to 50 Karma, out of which you spend 30 to max out the Power Points. That leaves you with 20 points to spend on Positive Qualities, while the normal Mage has 25 (and an additional 25 that can be spent on other benefits). So you really only pay the double price for 5 points worth of Positive Qualities. So the cost of a Mystic Adept is usually Astral Projection, plus 30 Karma points for the Power Points, plus 5 points for doubling the price of the last 5 points that a normal Mage gets in his starting Positive Qualities.

But MijRai is right
this is not the Thread to discuss weather a Mystic Adept is Overpowered or not

I would say this is exactly the thread for it, not as a specific topic, but as one of many. After all, the OP wanted to know what is OP (heh), and it seems that "whether MysAds are OP or not" would fit into answering their general query. If all of the responses devolved into a discussion about MysAds and their balance, then it might be considered a threadjack, but as long as it's just one of several topics, it seems reasonable to me that it is discussed.

[Beta]

Okay I'm starting a game in a month or so and I would like everyone thoughts on the core book and run faster.  Basically what is broke and what house rules have you used to fix it?   Also any suggestions on things to just stay away from

The only outright broken thing I can think of is pretty trivial, and that is the vehicle speed table (the km/h equivalents of the game rating speeds .... get stupid when you add any speed boosting).  There is a better table in the Rigger book, but various people have house ruled things like: speed x 40km/h, speed x 30km/h, (speed+1) x 30 km/h....any of those give you something much better than what is in the core rules.

More broadly:
-  making an effective technomancer is challenging.  If you have a player who really wants to play one, I'd suggest looking up some of the threads on here discussing various builds and giving the player some guidance.
- Magic is powerful.  Cleverly built mages can take that from powerful to pretty much imbalancing due to their ability to sustain boosting spells.  One key balancing mechanism only appears in Street Grimoire: background count. Either getting SG, or researching this on-line, is highly suggested.
- Take time to make sure you are comfortable with spirits' 'immunity to normal weapons' power.  It is not full on immunity, but it is powerful, and unfortunately the way it works needs to be put together from about three different sections of the CRB.
- There are still plenty of vague areas, confusing bits, details buried in big text blocks .... so make sure everyone is willing to be patient with the learning curve, and be ready to make 'this is how we are going to do it today, I'll research and let you know if we are doing something different going forward' rulings, rather than stopping things for ten minutes while flipping through the rule book

[MijRai]

Yeah, things to keep an eye on include...

Drone and vehicle speeds (a Bulldog's max speed is 40mph?  There's a lot of problems with the ratings applied, if not the table itself).
Drone and vehicle durability (light pistols can shoot down 'combat drones' reliably).
Suggested income/karma for 'runners (far too low in my mind, when net income a year is 20k-30k, it means any nuyen-advanced characters will spend year after year trying to earn their next bit of 'ware while magic-types traipse on by).
Professional Rating discrepancies (6, 8, 11, 18, 20 dice pools).
Background Count's pervasiveness (by the descriptions and rules, it is everywhere, at all times, and all magic users constantly take penalties unless they spend the 10-20 karma to acclimate).
Certain Run & Gun actions (looking at you, Bull's Eye Double-Tap).
Adept Ways (horribly edited, way over-priced).
Metavariants/Metasapients have a rather large number of flaws (costs, abilities, etc.)


The list goes on, these are just some of the more egregious problems in my mind. 

[Kincaid]

The first thing that jumps to mind is a recursive Edge/RIM build that using microdrones (as rams) at long range.

[Jack_Spade]

Certain Run & Gun actions (looking at you, Bull's Eye Double-Tap).

I'll have to disagree on this point:
Bull's Eye Burst is one of those very necessary options for mundanes to stay relevant against spirits. If anything this option fixes a very obvious "I-win" button of summoner mages.

 

[Mirikon]

The Karma system has been broken for pretty much ever, but it is a sacred cow that no one wants to fix, because "that's the way it has always been".

Technomancers have been literally raped up the ass with a sandpaper dildo by this edition. And that is me being polite about it. You'd be much better off throwing out all of that and rewriting them from the ground up.

Actually, just use 4th Edition's rules with 5th edition's timeline. You'll have a lot fewer problems.

[MijRai]

Bull's Eye Double-Tap is ridiculous in theory as well as mechanics, and I've never actually seen it used against spirits.  Just everything that wears armor ever.  There's other options to take out high-Force spirits.