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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Paid per day?

Posted by: Seven-7 Jun 18 2006, 08:11 PM

Hmmm, something came up today and I couldnt seem to find anything that would help in my choice:

The question is "What would you charge your players per day for a smart person?"

I figured, (INT)*100/Day, seems fair. Especially since 'they' want the people to have knowsoft links and headware memory.

Also, how much per day (Beyond the host renting cost) would you charge players for programing? IE, getting a Software Pirate to program you a R12 Talismongering knowsoft?

I figured (Skill+TP+TeamSize)*150/Day

The reason for these questions being, paying high skilled teams to make R12 Talismongering knowsofts in (around) 1 or two days, instead of paying 45k for one off the market, then putting those chips in the college grads for around 400/day instead of that silly price asked for high skilled enchanters in the back of MITS.

I think, all told, I came out with a total of around 600k for a F10 Power Foci, instead of the market price of 2,100,000.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jun 19 2006, 01:38 AM

I would argue that rating 12 softs don't exist. Who the hell would even have a rating 12 skill to mould the soft from? A rating 8 soft might exist but it would be almost unique and top of the line and would probably be some corporate prototype.

Posted by: hyzmarca Jun 19 2006, 02:39 AM

You can't chip a magical skill. You'd be able to give some magicians all the skills needed to make their own steel from scratch and grow their own wood but they wouldn't be able to actually enchant from a chip.

Posted by: Bodak Jun 19 2006, 03:12 AM

QUOTE (Seven-7)

I think, all told, I came out with a total of around 600k for a F10 Power Foci

One power focus (singular) or several power foci (plural). Just like one stadium, medium, datum, criterion, forum and several stadia, media, data, criteria, fora.

Posted by: Drraagh Jun 19 2006, 05:28 AM

QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)

I would argue that rating 12 softs don't exist. Who the hell would even have a rating 12 skill to mould the soft from?

That depends on the game you play. Yes, most tabletop games, you won't have really high skills because of four reasons I can see. One is the retirement of characters due to boredom, second being the lack of karma in some games to have people wanting to focus on one skill enough to get to high levels, third is the lethality in some games, and the final one is the fact that games that go by the books do cap 8 as the top level skill.

However, I've seen some games, a few TT Games, but mostly in the electronic versions the Shadowrun MU*s where people don't really follow what the book says and, since it is almost a living entity in the fact there's always something going on, some people have a lot of karma to get skills up to 12 or higher. There was one person I saw with a pistol skill of 14 at one point.

Personally, I don't like it since it means that the game just becomes either a cake walk for them or so difficult that other people get disinterested. For example, a PC with maybe 5KP, 7CP and a body attrib and pistol skill of 6... With some good armor, they could take out a gang of five or six people themselves easily and may take a few wounds themselves. Someone with a KP of 20, 10CP, body attrib of 12 and a pistol skill of 14, they could probably take on a gang of like ten to fifteen easily on their own because even with TNs of 6, 8, 10 they statistically have a better chance than someone else.

Anyway, to make a long rant shorter, some games can have the higher skills for different reasons, and if they do, then their worlds tend to change for it. It is almost like a Monty Haul campaign in D&D.

As for the costs of the 'think tank', I would look at money in your campaign as well. IF you want to take money away, that's a good reason. But as for how I would charge them myself, it would depend on what they are looking for. Knowsofts, sure they're good but they're only as good as the people who made them. Not to mention supporting skills and also pools adding to anything you do. Sometimes, natural skills are better in that way, at least to me. But as I said a couple times, it's your world, they just live in it.

Posted by: nezumi Jun 19 2006, 01:53 PM

The cost for a "smart person" depends totally on what the smart person is doing. You can probably find a smart person who is a janitor (somewhere), or smart people struggling in the barrens, who will work relatively cheap if that's around what the work is worth. On the flip side, if you go to hire a very intelligent lawyer so he can lead the charge into a Mitsuhama facility, he'll probably charge quite a lot. Generally my prices for a smart person depend on the skill the smart person specializes in. Lawyers will charge more than astrophysicists because of demand in the field, for instance.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 19 2006, 02:02 PM

In general writing software costs a lot more than buying that software once it's completed. Costs are recouped by selling a lot of units, not by selling one unit at a higher value. This doesn't hold true in all cases, but would be true in knowsofts, autosofts, and similar.

If you're going to let them hire someone to write the programs, charge at least 10 times the base price of the program if bought legally.

Posted by: Cain Jun 19 2006, 05:55 PM

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

Talismongering isn't a magical skill, though. Enchanting is; you can't learn to create a focus from an activesoft. But talismongering is just gathering materials for use in fouces or magic, and you can get that sort of information out of a book. Really, talismongering is just a knowledge skill: you know what components are used in common magical procedures, and you know how to collect them properly.

Posted by: hyzmarca Jun 19 2006, 06:07 PM

But sticking these 'soft's on student enchanters won't make encanting any cheaper. If the point is to avoid paying for skilled enchanters then the fact that these chiped talismongers won't be able to enchant very well poses a problem.

Posted by: Member #5177 Jun 20 2006, 12:57 AM

I always thought the prices in the back of MitS quite reasonable.