[Black Sheep]

I'm thinking this is the right area to post this, but not entirely sure.

A friend of mine is putting together a Shadowrun game where all of us are going to be playing characters who have already been in the business for a while. He wants the characters to be built off 400 build points, but then he is going to give us additional karma to represent our existing experience in the field. He's asking me to help him gauge how much karma to start us with, since he's played numerous times but has only run a handful of games in the system.

He wants characters who have enough karma to represent a few years of experience without being on the legendary level of things, and I was hoping I could turn to the forums here for some guidance on how much karma that should be? I have some of my own recommendations I've made to him but I'd like to see if they're in line with what others might consider appropriate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Mantis]

I'd say for a couple years experience, go with around 200 to 250 karma. It would depend on how often your characters ran of course, but the general idea is once a month I think. Missions sets 250 karma as a prime runner, though having played characters with more (as much as 600 karma), I don't find it to be too unbalancing or over powered so long as the GM accounts for that power. One way to do so is to use the suggested karma and BP values for Prime Runners found in SR4A. This gives examples of how much karma and BP an enemy should have compared to the threat they represent and how much the players have. Doesn't work for mooks but mooks are just mooks. Really a character can't even qualify for Street Legend until he hits 600 karma. (500 for Street Legend and then another 100 to buy that one optional power that turns all 4s, 5s, and 6s into successes).
Beyond the karma though, the other thing to decide on is how much cash your experienced runners start with. That can be as unbalancing as too much karma.

[Black Sheep]

He isn't really sure what to do with the money situation either. I believe is plan at current is to have us spend karma for cash as you would in the karma build system, but we are still kicking that idea around as well.

[Triggvi]

Oddly enough it might be easier to have you guys do Karmagen out of the runner companion book and add and extra 150 karma to the total. 900 karma total to build the characters. Bump the availability up to around 16 and allow one or two levels of initiation and betaware.  Make sure characters pay 2xbp cost for race and special attributes don't fall under the attribute cap. You would end up with some really good runners without overkill.

allow and extra 20 karma for money

just some food for thought

[JustADude]

Oddly enough it might be easier to have you guys do Karmagen out of the runner companion book and add and extra 150 karma to the total. 900 karma total to build the characters. Bump the availability up to around 16 and allow one or two levels of initiation and betaware.  Make sure characters pay 2xbp cost for race and special attributes don't fall under the attribute cap. You would end up with some really good runners without overkill.

allow and extra 20 karma for money

just some food for thought

I'd bump it to 1000 Karma and 20 Availability, with double (I.e. 200) Karma allowed for nuyen, but nix the Restricted Gear quality. That would let everyone get the initial "shopping list" of things everyone buys just after CGen, such as Muscle Toner 4 or a Force 4 Power Focus, out of the way but still keep the really exotic stuff out there for them to work towards.

Also, the eratta'd Karmagen rules say races are only Karma=BP, not Karma*2.

[Triggvi]

Where can I get my hands on the errata for karmagen.

Thanks in advance
Triggvi

[JustADude]

Where can I get my hands on the errata for karmagen.

Thanks in advance

If I remember correctly, the latest printing of SR4A incorperates it. Otherwise, just search the forum for German Karmagen. It's called that because the German edition was where it first appeared.

I'd do it myself, but I'm on my phone.

[Triggvi]

Thanks

[All4BigGuns]

Where can I get my hands on the errata for karmagen.

Thanks in advance
Triggvi

The newest printing of Runners Companion (the one with the new cover).

[Mantis]

I was going to suggest using karmagen but many GMs seem to hate it. Personally I like it. It avoids all the min/maxing you get with BP and seems to provide (us anyway) more balanced characters. I know many had/have hate for it due to the old karma costs for attributes but using the latest errataed  version has worked great for our last 2 campaigns.

[Black Sheep]

I cannot seem to find an actual copy of the German errata. Tons of pages that reference it, but apparently, my search fu is weak.

Also, I'd like to avoid the min/max discussion on Build Points vs Karmagen, as that never ends well... I do also personally prefer the Karmagen system, but the GM wants to do BP.

[Triggvi]

something to note is that if you use something like chummer it makes karmagen easier to do and the fact that chummer checks all the totals and availability makes it easier for the gm as well.