[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

First of all, I'll acknowledge that my personal belief is that Strength IS undervalued.

However, I have a couple things to say in defense of Strength in its raw, RAW state:

"Dumping" stats is a meaning that has now changed as of 6we.  2 is not a dump stat- 2 is "average".  There's only one value an attribute can be at that's sub-average, and that value is 1.  So if you "dump" strength, then at 1 strength you do have serious issues with encumbrance. Carrying capacity is (STR X STR) X 10 kg.  That's 10kg at 1 Strength.  Per pg. 67-68, you're taking increasing amounts of stun damage for every round you bust your encumbrance limit.  Per rule Zero, the GM is free to penalize you in lesser ways for coming close to your maximum carrying capacity without exceeding it: maybe you move slower.  Can't gain or spend edge if you're real close to max weight.  Whatever.   And bear in mind, at 1 STR just the clothes you wear accounts for 10-20% of your MAXIMUM encumbrance- kitting out "full battle rattle" will surely be entering into the realm of Rule Zero penalties, if not page 67-68's penalty.

If you have 2 STR (which only costs 10 karma in chargen, without using a valuable attribute point) then you're not "dumping" strength.

[penllawen]

Carrying capacity is (STR X STR) X 10 kg.

Hang on - someone with strength 4 can walk around carrying 159 kg without penalty?! That's... that's a heck of a lot.

And someone with Strength 1 is taking stun damage walking down the street carrying 11 kg? That's not just weak; that's enfeebled. You can be well below average strength and carry that weight around without being at risk of collapsing. This renders Strength 1 characters all but unplayable.

And this rule is a good rule we should all pay attention to and enforce, you say?

[Hobbes]

Can you, sure. You can dump almost any stat. But charisma tests come up often even if your face takes the lead.

Con, Influence, Stealth, ect tests come up frequently but adequate dice pools are achievable even with 1 or 2 in an Attribute.  1 Rank and a Specialization costs 10 Karma and are +3 Dice.  Toss in Expertise, get the attribute to 2, find a quality, spell, power, or bit of gear for Edge or another small dice modifier.... you can get to 6 dice in most anything for a modest investment.  6 to 8 dice is about all you're going to get in 6e for your secondary / tertiary dice pools.  You just have less resources in 6th than other editions. 

If a 6th edition GM is consistently throwing 10+ dice on opposed tests or requiring 3+ hits on PC off skills you're going to have a lot of PC fails.  *Shrug*  If a Storm Giant clubs a third level Thief that Thief goes splat.  That's a table / GM thing to work out.

To get back on topic, climbing a chain link fence, or a rope, isn't an uncommon Shadowrunner activity.  You're going to need to get a hit on Athletics plus Strength.  If all you have is 2 dice, you're going to need some help.  If that help is a Troll Samurai or a Levitate spell will depend on the rest of the team.

[penllawen]

To get back on topic, climbing a chain link fence, or a rope, isn't an uncommon Shadowrunner activity.  You're going to need to get a hit on Athletics plus Strength.

That's fair, but you just told us how to pull that off without taking Strength above 1:

adequate dice pools are achievable even with 1 or 2 in an Attribute.  1 Rank and a Specialization costs 10 Karma and are +3 Dice.  Toss in Expertise, get the attribute to 2, find a quality, spell, power, or bit of gear for Edge or another small dice modifier.... you can get to 6 dice in most anything for a modest investment.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Carrying capacity is (STR X STR) X 10 kg.

Hang on - someone with strength 4 can walk around carrying 159 kg without penalty?! That's... that's a heck of a lot.

4 Strength, while low by an optimizer's standard, is rather high by in-universe standards.  If you have 4 strength, you're noticeably stronger than average people.  Works as intended?

And again, remember rule Zero: 159 kg is a lot more than 5kg. Just because you're at 1kg shy of suffering stun damage every 3 seconds for bearing the load, it doesn't mean you're suffering NO penalties.  GM can still adjudicate movement loss, edge denial, etc. Maybe even stun damage once per minute rather than once per round.  Whatever.

And someone with Strength 1 is taking stun damage walking down the street carrying 11 kg? That's not just weak; that's enfeebled. You can be well below average strength and carry that weight around without being at risk of collapsing. This renders Strength 1 characters all but unplayable.

Yes, Strength 1 is "all but unplayable" is my counter-argument to "why doesn't 6we give you reasons to not dump Strength?"

And this rule is a good rule we should all pay attention to and enforce, you say?

It's always your table, your game.

[penllawen]

4 Strength, while low by an optimizer's standard, is rather high by in-universe standards.

It's 2/3rds of human max. It's high, it's not that high. But 160 kg is easily twice of what an elite soldier carries into battle today, which (famously) is very much a lot.

God, a human with muscle replacement or a racial-max un-uaged troll can just casually pick up five motorbikes or a small car and just walk around. They're strong. They're not Superman. Max strength is, what, 12? That's 1.5 metric tons. Pick it up, walk a few miles, no big deal.

Western Dragon strength is 40! That's 160 tons! Just carrying around 160 tons for a few hours, without strain!

Scaling this with the square of Strength is crazytown.

Yes, Strength 1 is "all but unplayable" is my counter-argument to "why doesn't 6we give you reasons to not dump Strength?"

"Oh, you think that rule is nonsense? Here's an even more nonsensical one," isn't a terribly effective counter argument.

It's always your table, your game.

Unless it's a Missions table.

[Hobbes]

To get back on topic, climbing a chain link fence, or a rope, isn't an uncommon Shadowrunner activity.  You're going to need to get a hit on Athletics plus Strength.

That's fair, but you just told us how to pull that off without taking Strength above 1:

adequate dice pools are achievable even with 1 or 2 in an Attribute.  1 Rank and a Specialization costs 10 Karma and are +3 Dice.  Toss in Expertise, get the attribute to 2, find a quality, spell, power, or bit of gear for Edge or another small dice modifier.... you can get to 6 dice in most anything for a modest investment.

Exactly.  Str 1, Athletics with a Climb Specialization, or be a mage with the Levitate spell.  I don't see the mechanical issue here.  Characters are going to have lower Attributes and Skills in 6th Edition than 5th because they have less char gen resources.

Same thing for bribing/talking your way past a bouncer, need one hit on some applicable social test.  Charisma plus skill plus Specialization.  4 to 6 dice, no problem. 

There are a lot of folks who don't like Shadowrunners with a 1 in an Attribute.  Totally different discussion.  But if a Player is able to shore up mechanically low Attributes with Skill points or otherwise they're fine.  If a Player isn't able to shore up low Attributes with Skill points (The Decker that skips Athletics for example) then the team is going to have to bail them out occasionally.  That's the way a lot of RPGs work.

I really don't see a problem with a 2 Str being adequate for Deckers, Mages, Riggers, and such.  Or 1 Str being "only" an occasional RP issue for these same characters.  Maybe that's where we're disagreeing?  Because low Attributes are going to happen in 6E, on every character.  Just not enough points to go around.  "Low" is going to be defined by the table.  If you're playing in a game where the GM thinks a 1 in a stat = some kind of cripple, have at least a 2 in all your stats. 

[Hobbes]

4 Strength, while low by an optimizer's standard, is rather high by in-universe standards.

It's 2/3rds of human max. It's high, it's not that high. But 160 kg is easily twice of what an elite soldier carries into battle today, which (famously) is very much a lot.

God, a human with muscle replacement or a racial-max un-uaged troll can just casually pick up five motorbikes or a small car and just walk around. They're strong. They're not Superman. Max strength is, what, 12? That's 1.5 metric tons. Pick it up, walk a few miles, no big deal.

Western Dragon strength is 40! That's 160 tons! Just carrying around 160 tons for a few hours, without strain!

Scaling this with the square of Strength is crazytown.

Yes, Strength 1 is "all but unplayable" is my counter-argument to "why doesn't 6we give you reasons to not dump Strength?"

"Oh, you think that rule is nonsense? Here's an even more nonsensical one," isn't a terribly effective counter argument.

It's always your table, your game.

Unless it's a Missions table.

Go check out 5th edition to see how much you could carry.  It was silly as well, just the other direction.  To the point of needing to be a body builder/amateur athlete to put a normal person in a fireman's carry to get them 100 meters.

Yes they're both bad rules.  Luckily encumbrance isn't typically a big deal in Shadowrun. 

[Leith]

Yeah.  "Strength is a dump stat!"  Unless you're building for Unarmed damage.  "Logic is dump stat" unless you're a hacker.  "Charisma is a dump stat" unless you're the face.  ect. ect. ect.

This is misrepresenting the criticism that is being made.

All characters get some utility out of the attributes that are not the primary ones for their archetype. There's always some pretty core activity tied to the attribute that you're going to need to be doing routinely. Or to put it another way, if you bring a character to the table with a 1 in some attribute, your GM and your fellow players are immediately thinking "jeez, we're gonna get fucked now coz this person can't..."

Wil - resisting spells, memory, composure
Log - first aid, memory
Int - perception, judge intentions, surprise
Rea - initiative, surprise, piloting
Cha - bluffing and lying to people, composure
Agi - hitting people with things
Bod - everybody hurts (sometimes)

What is Strength for that is as important as any of these? Even in 5e, it was arguably already the weakest stat unless your role demanded it. Now in 6e, we've lost its effect on melee damage and on recoil.

Unarmed damage, Ye ole bend bars/lift gates and Climbing tests.  How often these things come up is table and character dependent.  If you want to argue that Memory tests are more important than Climbing tests, go ahead.

You want to argue Str is poorly implemented re: Melee Weapons.  I totally agree, I think everyone does.  House rule away and hope for Errata.  Really nothing else to be done there unfortunately. 

Will, Bod, Intuition, Reaction are universally needed Attributes for any Runner who is physically tagging along with the team.  The "stay in the Van" sorts can dump Bod, Reaction if they really want to.  Every other Attribute is really only needed by specific Archetypes.  Yes 'runners should all have a few dice in skills like Perception, Stealth, Con, Influence.  But you don't need to have a 5 Agility and Charisma on every 'runner. 

Yes, there are more Archetypes that can get by with 2 Str than 2 Agility.  But that has been true for many Editions.  Monowhips have been around since First Edition.  Strength has always been a "Dump Stat".

But unless Unarmed Damage gets some kind of Errata, I'm willing to bet every third Missions character is going to have a high Str for that sweet, sweet Panther Cannon Punch damage.  Strength is not Mechanically undervalued because Unarmed Damage is really good for combat characters.  In fact, short of the Anticipation of Doom build the Panther Cannon Punch build (IMO) is next in line for overall effectiveness.  And you can do both on the same character without much difficulty, you need a high Str combat chassis that picks up Ambidexterity.

Why? Were super strength combat axe trogs everywhere in 5e? Cuz the panther cannon punch is a thing in that version too.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

4 Strength, while low by an optimizer's standard, is rather high by in-universe standards.

It's 2/3rds of human max. It's high, it's not that high. But 160 kg is easily twice of what an elite soldier carries into battle today, which (famously) is very much a lot.

so, again, for the third time now: Rule Zero.  There's a whole universe of GM options between "no penalty whatsoever" and "scaling stun damage every round".  You're carrying 140kg at 4 strength? Sure you're under your max, but maybe you're so burdened you're walking at half speed.  Or can't gain edge till you drop some load.  Or even, you're taking scaling stun damage at some period of time greater than per combat round.

God, a human with muscle replacement or a racial-max un-uaged troll can just casually pick up five motorbikes or a small car and just walk around. They're strong. They're not Superman. Max strength is, what, 12? That's 1.5 metric tons. Pick it up, walk a few miles, no big deal.

Would you like to argue with my prediction that the Olympians of the 2020 games will perform feats beyond those achieved by the Olympians of the 1920 games?  All the explanations for why athletes will lift more, run faster, and jump farther 100 years apart can also apply to why characters of the Sixth world lift more, run faster, jump farther than those of the Fifth. And that'll be before the benefit of fictional, transhuman augmentations that are reality in the Sixth World.

Western Dragon strength is 40! That's 160 tons! Just carrying around 160 tons for a few hours, without strain!

Scaling this with the square of Strength is crazytown.

It largely doesn't matter how much a Dragon can carry, because A) they don't have a bipedal body plan so all the assumptions underlying carrying rules are already off, and B) you can't play one anyway so you don't need to know how much it can carry around.  If the plot needs to know if the Dragon can lift the heavy object you're hiding under off of you, then the rules are there to see if it can.  Spoiler: It probably can.

[Michael Chandra]

If you have 2 STR (which only costs 5 karma in chargen, without using a valuable attribute point) then you're not "dumping" strength.

Just a minor note: That should be 10, right, since Shadowrun requires paying the next rank x multiplier? (I play a system that pays current x multi, but SR is "x new rank".) Of course 10 karma in chargen is easier now that you get 50 base customization karma. You can easily raise four ones to twos and still have a decent chunk left.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

If you have 2 STR (which only costs 5 karma in chargen, without using a valuable attribute point) then you're not "dumping" strength.

Just a minor note: That should be 10, right, since Shadowrun requires paying the next rank x multiplier? (I play a system that pays current x multi, but SR is "x new rank".) Of course 10 karma in chargen is easier now that you get 50 base customization karma. You can easily raise four ones to twos and still have a decent chunk left.

Ah, yes. Mea Culpa.  Corrected in the post.  It's 5xNew Level, not 5.  Still, as you say 10 karma in 6we isn't as pricey as 10 karma in 5e.  Inflation is a thing, even with Chargen Karma...

[Finstersang]

IMO Strength is not a "dumpstat" per se, even besides unarmed combat/Archery builds. A dumpstat is a stat that you can convieniently put down to 1 without having to fear negative outcomes from to it.

However, if you put Strength to 1, you can be easily overwhelmed in grappling combat and also (and I feel that this gets overlooked quite a lot here, because there are no explicit mechanics linked to it), depending on the setting you will face a lot of blockages that you could easily overcome by having a decent amount of Strength - especially if your Gamemaster is not keen on punishing silly min-maxing. Moving heavy stuff, pushing a locked/jammed doors open, intimidation checks*...

But, again, that is not not the problem about Strength: The real (if not only?) problem is that there is a high chance for a high-strength character to get substantially worse by picking up a melee weapon. That just sucks from any possible angle. That´s what needs to be fixed.

*"BuT InTimIdaTiOn iS lInkeD tO CHariSmA" Yeah, of course it is, but if you try to intimidate a bunch of roided up gangers looking like a wet noodle you will be at a disadvantage. Gee, if there only was some kind of auxilary mechanic for these kind of situations where the GM can give some kind of bonus to the side that has an upper hand...

[MercilessMing]

This is the close combat houserule I'm using at my table:

Close Combat Skill
The primary linked attribute for Close Combat is Strength.  Agility is a secondary linked attribute

Unarmed Combat Test
Players may choose between either linked attribute when performing an Unarmed Combat test.

Unarmed Damage
The base DV of a unarmed attack is 2(s)
Only the highest augment applies when determining augmented unarmed DV.

Melee Weapons
Melee weapons are individually tagged as linked to Strength, Agility, or Either. Examples:

Strength
-Combat Axe
-Polearm
-Club
-Sap
-Hardening
-Cyberjaw

Agility
-Whips
-Shock Weapons
-Hand Razors

Either
-everything else

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

But, again, that is not not the problem about Strength: The real (if not only?) problem is that there is a high chance for a high-strength character to get substantially worse by picking up a melee weapon. That just sucks from any possible angle. That´s what needs to be fixed.

I agree with you, but am not at liberty to comment further.