[JustADude]

Okay, was torn between putting this here and in the GM Lounge, but since what I'm looking for is trying to find the (very likely multitudinous) ways this could be abused in a build, I figured it would be better to place it here, where the build-crafters would get a gander at it. If I made the wrong choice, I'm sure Fast-Jack will whisk the topic off to the proper forum tout de suite.

But, anyway, to the subject at hand.

The basic house-rule itself is relatively simple, though there are a few caveats to try and rein in the madness. I just want to see how badly I managed to underestimate the potential for abuse.

All Qualities from all official Source Books are allowed, including Martial Arts and Ways. So, lets see what you guys can come up with.

--- --- ---

You may select any number of Positive and Negative qualities, provided the following conditions are met:

1a) The final total for Negative Qualities must be within +/- 35BP of your total Positive Qualities.
1b) Metagenetic Qualities (other than from Metatypes) must have have at least 1 BP of Negative MQs for every 2 BP of Positive MQs.  Anyone taking Metagenetic Qualities will automatically be considered SURGEd, with all the consequences thereof.
----------This is to keep the overall "impact" of Qualities on your total BP pool within the nominal range, as well as prevent obscene stacking of PMQs *coughMetageneticImprovementcough*.


2a) You must provide some justification for how/why you have the Quality, Positive or Negative.
2b) Metagenetic Qualities must be presented as part of an overall "theme".
----------It doesn't have to be good, but you have to demonstrate some minimal ability to create coherent characterization out of the heaping mass of points. Just a quick notation, like "Born that way" or "Hit by Psychotropic IC while hacking NeoNET" will do for the purpose of the testing.

[UmaroVI]

What do you mean "2:1 Pos:Neg ratio or better, just as described under the Changeling qualities?" Specifically:

1) Is "better" more positives, or more negatives?
2) Do you actually take the Changeling qualities? Or do you mean for people to buy Metagenic qualities a la carte, and you're a changeling if you have any?

Do you allow Martial Arts?

Do you allow Ways?

[JustADude]

What do you mean "2:1 Pos:Neg ratio or better, just as described under the Changeling qualities?" Specifically:

1) Is "better" more positives, or more negatives?
2) Do you actually take the Changeling qualities? Or do you mean for people to buy Metagenic qualities a la carte, and you're a changeling if you have any?

Do you allow Martial Arts?

Do you allow Ways?

1) What I mean is that for every 2 points of Positive Metagenetic Qualites, you have to have at least 1 point of Negative Metagenetic Quality. 10:5, 20:10, 30:15, etc, etc.  10:30 or even 0:50 would also be acceptable. However, you can't go 5:0, because it would require 5:2.5.

2) The Changeling Qualities effectively become redundant, since all MQs have to maintain the same ratio as the Changeling qualities. I'm going to add that if you take metagenetic Qualities, you'll be considered to be SURGEd automatically.

Yes, and yes.


And I fixed the first post to reflect those clarifications.

[UmaroVI]

OK, but you can take more negative metagenic qualities if you want, so say 20:20 is also alright?

The short answer is going to be:

Nothing really horribly broken happens. What this means is that there's no 35-point limit on PQs, so some PQs that are normally marginal are usable, and that you can take more PQs by taking balancing NQs.

You will need to be willing to actively screw with people in proportion to how many NQs they have, because as I'm sure you know, not all NQs are made equal. I don't think you can go all that high without involving a certain amount of stuff that's easy for a GM to bring up, though.

The main things that will happen are:

Mages and Mystic adepts benefit a bit more than everyone else. Non-awakened characters who don't want Martial Arts benefit less (they are going to want less PQs in the first place). PQs that are in theory good but take up too much of the 35-point budget to be useful are now useful - this is mostly just Type O System, and to a lesser extent Adrenaline Surge.

Some PQs that are less efficient than stats are now viable; for example, Focused Concentration, if you are willing to balance them with NQs.

Letting people get all the PQs they want isn't actually abusable. The only place it is abusable is going to be people taking large amounts of NQs. You can't have more NQs than your PQs+35, most people will easily have at least 15-20 points of PQs that they want anyways, and some characters will have way more than that, so the main limit is going to be whether you are actually willing to tolerate the drawbacks of that many NQs. Also, some NQs that are normally worth a lot of points but are really horrible are at least OK without the 35-point cap and with a lot more strictness on the easily abusable NQs.

If I wanted to try to abuse this - assuming that I thought the GM was actually going to enforce "fuzzy" ones that come up at the GMs discretion - the obvious options are:

There's a truckload of NQs that call for Composure tests to ignore, and a piece of 'ware buried somewhere I forget that drops the threshold for composure tests by 2. Combine that with a decent Willpower+Charisma, then take ALL of those composure-test NQs. There's enough of them that you could easily rack up an enormous pile of points - way more than needing to not glitch composure tests is worth. I would suggest just editing that piece of 'ware to not work on your qualities, only on other sources of composure tests.

You can probably stack on a whole ton of metagenic NQs that boil down to "you are freaky looking." Being freaky looking is a legit drawback. Being freaky looking for 20 different reasons is not 20 times more of a drawback. There's various ways to fix this.

Lastly, there's some individual NQs that are a problem - not so much with a 35 point NQ limit, more so without.
-Incompetence (things I sucked at and am unlikely to need to personally do)
-Impaired Attribute (if you weren't going to softcap an attribute, this doesn't mean anything to you)
-Betel addiction (unlike other addictions, you can't ever go beyond Mild, no matter what, and it's cheap and legal).
-Codeblock (a shitty matrix action; only hackers can take it, but there's a ton of matrix actions that nobody cares about anyways)
-Scorched - the book explicitly says it's worth 5 bp even if you aren't a hacker/techno.
-Sensitive Neural Structure - ditto
-Sensitive System on people who weren't getting 'ware anyways; it's not a problem when it was "where are your 35 NQ points coming from," it is when it's 15 free points to not get 'ware.
-Distinctive Style. 2 levels is a legitimate drawback. However, levels after 2 are cosmetic - but still give points.
-Hung Out to Dry on characters with no contacts. Yeah, it's probably not a great idea to have no contacts, but...
-If you belong to the "In Debt doesn't have to be bought off with karma, you just pay the loan back" school of thought, it's a problem. Otherwise it isn't.

You can sorta fix these with an "if you take it, I'll force it to come up" policy - for example, "if you take Sensitive System, your character will be forcibly implanted with cyberware," "if you take Scorched and aren't a hacker, plot contrivance will force you to hack," etc. If you are actually willing to do this, none of these are problematic, although I'd suggest being upfront about this with your players. Personally, as a GM, I don't like things that force me to constantly contrive plots to make them come up, but YMMV.

Otherwise, I would suggest spot fixing all of the above. Do require In Debt to be bought off with karma, don't give points for Hung out to Dry with no contacts, don't allow points for 3+ levels of Distinctive Style (or, alternatively, uncap the drawback), only allow Mundanes and Adepts to take Sensitive System, only allow Sensitive Neural Structure and Scorched on hackers and technos, make a "short list" of acceptable Codeblocks, make Betel Addiction 0 points, ban Impaired Attribute, and be really strict about allowing Incompetence.

[JustADude]

OK, but you can take more negative metagenic qualities if you want, so say 20:20 is also alright?

The short answer is going to be:

Nothing really horribly broken happens. What this means is that there's no 35-point limit on PQs, so some PQs that are normally marginal are usable, and that you can take more PQs by taking balancing NQs.

You will need to be willing to actively screw with people in proportion to how many NQs they have, because as I'm sure you know, not all NQs are made equal. I don't think you can go all that high without involving a certain amount of stuff that's easy for a GM to bring up, though.

*SNIP FOR SPACE*

Yeah, as long as your total NQ points don't go over the +35 limit, you can take as much of that in NMQs as you want, since there's the external cap. I'm enforcing the 2:1 ratio mostly to avoid "perfect" Changelings. You're a genetic anomaly, after all, not an Ubermensch with the "flaw" of Anime Hair.

As for the rest.... yeah, I definitely plan on using every quality I can as a Plot Hook and the rest as Plot Devices. As for how much "cheese" I'm going to allow... well, that really all depends on how well they justify the quality. Scorched on a non-hacker that's a "recovering" BTL-head, for example, makes plenty of sense even though, mechanically, it's "free points".

As for your specific "problem children"... good advice, and I've got a few other solutions planned for them as well, such as Notoriety actually meaning something (pay/attitude modifier for the whole group), and not being able to buy it down with Street Cred until you buy off the Quality it came with.

[Makki]

I really don't see, why there even is a limit on PQs. It's not like there free or something. They cost hard BP, that will be missed in attributes or skills.
The only thing it does, is prevent Type-O Mages. But Type-O wasn't even in the core rules and while being awesome for mages in the long run, it is super expensive at chargen.

[Mara]

I really don't see, why there even is a limit on PQs. It's not like there free or something. They cost hard BP, that will be missed in attributes or skills.
The only thing it does, is prevent Type-O Mages. But Type-O wasn't even in the core rules and while being awesome for mages in the long run, it is super expensive at chargen.

You know...if you do Priority Gen, that is not a problem.

Overall, though..I do agree. Personally, I think things should, generally, come to an agreement between players and
GMs. I usually figure, though, that the 35 point cap is good for less experienced players, and those who are, shall we say,
prone to gaming the system without a solid backstory for their characters.

That said, anyone know if Hero Lab would let you over spend, and still save, print, and lock the character?

[Ympulse]

That said, anyone know if Hero Lab would let you over spend, and still save, print, and lock the character?

The easiest way to to build the character as an NPC.

[JustADude]

That said, anyone know if Hero Lab would let you over spend, and still save, print, and lock the character?

It doesn't allow you to lock if you're over the limit, but there's something in the Adjustments tab to let you tweak the spending limit so it's equal to whatever you bought.

[Glyph]

Martial arts are a potential pitfall in an unlimited PQ situation, since you can get bonuses up to your level of combat skill, and with unlimited PQ, there is less opportunity cost to do so.

For NQ, there are a ton of minor NQ's that have minimal impact on the player - that's not too bad normally, since they can only get 35 points of them, and they have some effect.  But with limitless NQ's, the cheese potential is greatly magnified.  You can have someone have moderate allergies to gold and silver, imcompetence: pilot aerospace and nautical mechanic, scorched, sensitive neural structure, nano-intolerance, prejudiced/biased against two metatypes, a 5-point compulsion such as excessive tidiness, weak immune system, and media junkie: mild.  That's 70 points of NQ's that really don't affect the character too much.

I would recommend - only one NQ of a certain type (no multiple allergies, prejudices, etc.), although addictions are enough of a real drawback that I would allow multiples.  No betel addictions, though.  And incompetent can only be taken for things that the character might conceivably encounter - so no incompetencies such as the two examples I gave, unless you as GM know that the group will be doing runs set in space or aboard a broken-down oil tanker.