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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ BP for Karma

Posted by: -X- Jun 4 2006, 06:14 PM

Without going full on Becks method, has anyone worked out a reasonable BP for Karma rate? I want to run a fairly high adventure campaign (Sort of a Harlequin's Back level game) and want to allow some level of initiation prior to the game starting. (Starting with 500 BP)

Posted by: Thanee Jun 4 2006, 06:32 PM

I would go with 3 BP for 5 Karma.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Teulisch Jun 4 2006, 06:36 PM

big problem with that idea- you can get two very different karma results from BP expenditure on attributes. also, it puts metahumans at a signifigant disadvantage versus humans for stats, compared to the regular BP system, as the stat bonuses seem to happen before you buy stats, rather than after.

If you want to allow initiation, i would suggest charging BP equal to the karma cost. so grade 1 initiation costs 13 BP, grade 2 costs 16 more, and so on. remember you have to buy up the magic attribute seperately. to keep game balance, you may want to set grade 1 at 15 BP, so it still costs 25BP to get magic 6 either way.

Posted by: blakkie Jun 4 2006, 06:50 PM

The ratio of karma to BP costs range from 1:1 up to around 2:1. Mostly it hangs in around 1.5:1. Initialization is relatively cheap now because the extra Magic is purchased separately. However if you go with BP only you might want to consider how this is going to impact what their maximum Magic is. If you allow them to purchase it up to 6+Grade, with 6+Grade-1 still at only 10BP that's going to throw things kinda out of wack.

EDIT: Teulisch posted while I was still working on mine. See, even setting it at 15BP they still get 6 Magic at the normal cost and the Grade for "free". Another possibility is that you give the option for a PC to be built with 450BP plus an extra 50, or maybe 60 karma after that. That sounds like a crappy deal on the surface, swapping 50 BP for 50 karma, but with a bit of exploiting planning (and not actually having to play with a slightly gimped PC to get that 50+ karma) it should come out fine.

Posted by: Butterblume Jun 4 2006, 06:56 PM

Biggest problem is: BP costs are linear, Karma costs aren't.

Posted by: blakkie Jun 4 2006, 06:57 PM

QUOTE (Butterblume)

Biggest problem is: BP costs are linear, Karma costs aren't.

They aren't quite linear, that last 10BP to 25BP cost for the last point of an attribute is really steep. But for the most part the rest are, ya.

Posted by: hobgoblin Jun 4 2006, 07:54 PM

and that 25BP jump only works because the character build system is static. and the jump is allso artificial, a game balance tactic to stop people from maxing stats all over the place.

this allso allows for some growth when in game.

basicly, unless the character absolutly need that stat maxed, its not worth it at char gen.

but all this leads to some wonky math when trying to convert BP to karma...

Posted by: Butterblume Jun 4 2006, 09:01 PM

I want an official karma-based chargeneration method. Just to mention it again. I don't think something like that will ever come.

It would negate the greatest weakness of SR4, the linear char-creation system.

Posted by: hobgoblin Jun 4 2006, 09:10 PM

its not 100% linear, and allso, why is it a weakness?

if anything it speeds up char creation. just take the level wanted, multiply with the base point cost and your done.

non-linear stuff have a bad habbit of making you go back and forth to check the scale.

the stuff that tripped up some new people that i had make chars for a intro game was gear, and that my head was still somwhat in SR3 mode (free contacts and all that).

Posted by: Butterblume Jun 4 2006, 09:29 PM

QUOTE (hobgoblin)

its not 100% linear, and allso, why is it a weakness?

The way the rules are, it is much more efficient to get a few skills at rating 4 than a lot of them at level 1 at char creation.
Also the attributes, it's much more efficient to get a few at (nearly) max.

Posted by: hobgoblin Jun 4 2006, 09:39 PM

so, it makes people specialize rather then generalize.

i dont think thats a bad thing.

Posted by: blakkie Jun 4 2006, 09:46 PM

QUOTE (Butterblume)

QUOTE (hobgoblin)

its not 100% linear, and allso, why is it a weakness?

But then you have to play the character with only a few skills. So the benefit of the BP vs. karma efficiency is mostly lost. That is unless the character doesn't have to risk getting killed, which is what happen when you add karma on top of BP during creation. That's why karma for BP of 1:1 during creation should work out ok. You just assume they'll use the karma in the most adventageous way, buying things like Specialization, and single point skills, and maybe even bumping up really low attributes. It cuts out most of attribute/BP advantage. The one place that it still exists is any meaningful was is raising an Attribute from 1 to 2 only costs 6 karma instead 10 BP, but it still means they have a pretty low attribute somewhere when they start in a dangerous campaign. In a well rounded campaign/game there aren't too many dump Attributes. The closest is Str and Logic.

Posted by: -X- Jun 4 2006, 11:21 PM

I was originally just planning to use it for Initiation and possibly Ally spirits but I'm tempted to just do it for a 1:1 basis and put a cap on how much karma they can buy.

I'm hoping to encourage certain types of character choices without making the players feel railroaded.

Thanks muchly for the help!

Posted by: Serbitar Jun 5 2006, 12:33 AM

Look in my sig for my version of a karma based creation system

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 5 2006, 01:16 AM

If you want to allow initiation prior to the game starting why not have them generate standard characters and then give them X karma to spend? People could increase their skills, initiate grade, resonance, or whatever.

Posted by: Jaid Jun 5 2006, 05:35 AM

QUOTE (Serbitar)

Look in my sig for my version of a karma based creation system

i don't think that's what he's looking for...

as i understand it, he's saying "i want to allow my players to spend BPs at chargen to gain karma. what do you think is the best conversion rate?"

of course, i may be completely wrong of course, but i presumed that's what he meant when he said he didn't want something like BeCKS

Posted by: Edward Jun 5 2006, 06:41 AM

I would change your setup. Replace 500 build points with 400 build points (standard) and 100 karma. You will probably also want to increase the maximum cash available to at least 500k. And decide what you want to cap skills at after karma expenditure (I doubt you will impose a limit but you should make that decision).

Edward

Posted by: blakkie Jun 5 2006, 02:17 PM

QUOTE (Serbitar @ Jun 4 2006, 06:33 PM)

Look in my sig for my version of a karma based creation system

The problem being that you went and changed the normal in play karma costs themselves too. So to use those numbers he'd get saddled with a bunch of extra ubiquitous rule changes that aren't really nessarary (and thus potentially bring complications that had been perviously ferreted out by several man-years of playtesting).

It also means that you pretty much have to use that creation technique for all the characters, instead of in mixing standard creation characters in the same game.

Which makes it very much not BeCKs since BeCKs very purposefully avoided that.

Posted by: -X- Jun 5 2006, 11:42 PM

QUOTE (Edward)

I'm already planning on not capping nuyen at all for the most part. I'm going to make up a bunch of characters with 500 point buy with karma purchasable at a 1:1 ratio with a maximum of 100 bp spent on karma.

Obviously I'm going to only allow karma to be spent after all other BP's are taken care of or some really cheesy options become available and it makes things a little less complicated.

Posted by: Serbitar Jun 6 2006, 12:12 AM

QUOTE (blakkie @ Jun 5 2006, 09:17 AM)

QUOTE (Serbitar @ Jun 4 2006, 06:33 PM)

Look in my sig for my version of a karma based creation system

The problem being that you went and changed the normal in play karma costs themselves too.

I know. And I also realize, that this makes my system incompatible with 90% of the people out there. Point is: You can not make a Karma Creation System with the normal rules. Everybody would buy extremely high atribute values, as they cost nothing compared to skills. Only massive and very hard caps can enforce something else. So this is very artificial.

You realize this fully when making a "pure" Karma Creation System (like BeCKs) using the original rules. The attribute costs of humans are extremely low, compared to skills costs. And the attribute costs for trolls skyrocket compared to humans.

Na, what am I talking about, I think everybody knows this.

Posted by: Solkari Jun 7 2006, 04:02 AM

I just got my former D&D group to start Shadowrun, after years of hounding them. I looked at the rules and decided that I'd put together some quick karma creation rules for them too use. I found that a simple threat kept most them from going too high on their various rating. "Munchkins will be met with bigger Munchkins" I made sure that they knew that I'd exploit any skill gaps they had and trip them up where-ever I could. And the one min-maxer I had decided to use a sample character instead, so my plans for showing him the ropes won't be needed yet.

In other words, I didn't need to change the karma rules to keep somethings in check. The players managed that themselves.