I will do you one as well...
WtF? Not everyone needs Karma Gen to make an effective charater... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
While KarmaGen can make a slightly more rounded character, I have had no problems making effective characters with BP either. BP is FAR FROM UNUSEABLE. It is all in the concept, and the execution of such, from my experience.

While BP can make more specialized characters cheaper, if you resist the temptation to go as high as you can go, it also makes some not to bad generalists as well. They both have strengths and weaknesses, of course. *shrug*

Of course you can make "effective" chars in BP, never thought one couldn't. I just don't see any strengths in BP whatsoever. Just use an automatic charsheet (like that from DamienKnight here in the Forums) if it's too complicated for your taste otherwise. Of course it's true that in the beginning only BP existed. But today, there's really no reason to use it anymore. I mean, the players should know char advancement rules nevertheless for later. So why use an alternative system instead of the one that is persistent throughout the game?

BTW, it was the same story in SR3 back then when they introduced Karma Gen there as well. I seriously have no clue why they brought back BP and - *gasp* - even priority system with version 4 at all.

Because not everyone agrees with you?

*shrug* Either one works fine. It's not a competitive game or anything, so who cares? I liked Priority fine in SR3, as well. They're all just equivalent.

Just for the record: They are totally not equivalent as is shown by simple maths.

Depends upon your End Goals, of Course... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Didn't say numerically equivalent. They're equivalent in that they're all chargens, and they work fine. They start at the same place (no character) and end at the same place (new character), and that's all they're supposed to do.

I fill up the gap in my defenses, perhaps I bought to much armor and not enough magic defense?

First thing I will do is raise my WILL, or try and purchase a Surge Quality for Astral Hazing or its like.

Perhaps I bought to much magic Defense and not enough Armor?

Raise my Body, buy PQ's that increase my damage resistence

etc etc etc

I usually buy the right skills for my character during creation, or use my money to buy the skills I don't have, so normally I spend my Karma on making me tougher to kill.

That they are not equivalent does not mean that one is head and shoulders better than the other. They're just different.

I'm working on something right now to kill named Dragons, here is what I got so far by using BP. Personally I love the BP system as it is streamlined and effective.
As for Karmagen you can do some CRAZY things with it that you normally cannot do at game start...such as Initiating your magical character. Everyone draws the line somewhere but Karmagen is basically easy mode, and I like a challenge.

DISCLAIMER: This character is not complete, it is simply a shadow of what it will become and is purely for theoretical purposes. I have a number of scenarios to think on and items to get, please don't tell me why something wont work if it is a theoretical unknown. This is all done from memory so I do not have exact numbers for certain things as of right now, if I am not sure of something I will place a ** next to it. Any numbers in parenthesis are gained from spells/effects.

Atlas: Nosferatu Human Mystic Adept (Voodo Tradition)
38 BP left to spend

Str (9)
Agi (9)** or (13)** or (17)** Agi 9 or 10 if I stay in Vamp Form =(
Bod (9)
Rea (9)
Will (13)
Log (13)**
Int (13)**
Cha (13)
Edge 6
Magic 5 (13) (2 Power Points, 3 Spells)
Initiative 34**+4IP
Essence 6 (18)

PQ's:
Mystic Adept 10
Aptitude (Long Arms) 10
Martial Arts 5
Restricted Gear 5
5 left

NQ's:
In Debt 35

Maneuvers:
???
Setup

Spells x14:---All Spells/Spirits at F20 if needed, 12 minimum hits, use edge as needed /*-EDIT/*-I can only have 10 spells
Critter Form (Human)
Increase Reflexes
Increase (LOG,WILL,INT,CHA)
Analyze Device
Levitate
Imp Invis
Hawk? Eye
Chamelon
Crank
Nutrition
???

Powers:
Increase Longarms x3
.5 ???

Skills:
Long Arms 10+2
Sorcery 5+2
Summoning 5+2

Contact:
6/6 Technomancer

Misc:
Vamp Powers

185,000k Spending Money---:
Items Needed---:
Electronic Sniper Rifle with Range Mods, Full Auto (assuming Model 121)
TAC Net (Freeware)
Some Drones with Clearsoft
Sustaining Focus x??
Misc equipment
Tracer Rounds (F20 Spirit Posses at least 1)
Renfield x??

+ To Hit in optimal situation:
AGI 9/13/17** AGI 9
Analyze Device +20
Long Arms+10
Spec +2
Smart Link +2//Laser Sight+1
Tracer Rounds +3
Setup +10
Edge +6
Rule of 6 +17 (average hits)
Teamwork Bonus +10
Take Aim +1
TAC +4
Large Target +5

Total+83
Total adding Edge +90
Total hits using Edge with Rerolls: Average of 32
Total extra hits by using Edge when adding +17
Minimum Damage with Possessed Bullet and/or Gun +32, -1/2 AP
32 Hits +41(long Narrow Burst) Damage = 64P -1/2 AP from 1600+ Meters away
Assuming all numbers average each Dragon from Street Legends will die in 1 hit
Disclaimer: Does not include penalty's to shoot, assumes I can see my target

I'm still working on him and he is by far incomplete, but as you can see you can do some nice things with just BP, and the upside is that it is done very quickly as opposed to Karmagen that slows you down by keeping track of numbers.

I become a god. I figured out how to do it with only 35 karma. I'm the reason that Ancient History was going to add in this to a magic sourcebook in progress:


Off the top of my head....
Agility 10.
Analyze Device: I highly disagree with the application.
Smart Link/Laser Sight can't stack.
Nosferatu max Edge is 7.
Setup... What do you mean?
Teamwork Bonus... from whom?
Take Aim can go up to +3.

My tally is 48 before setup/teamwork/Rule of 6.

I'll let you fix how possessed weapons don't really do what you are thinking... maybe...

I far prefer BP to KarmaGen - I find it simpler and more streamlined. Also I think that the KarmaGen benchmark of 750 karma was way too high in comparison to 400 BP; admittedly this can easily be fixed by lowering the value to 600 (which I would consider roughly equating to 400BP), but then PCs might feel they were being screwed or something.

I do use a set of house rules to curb potential min-maxing tendencies of players within the BP Gen system, if anyone's interested I would be happy to post them. But more than this, for me the character sheet has to seem plausible enough to fit the character's background to get the GM stamp of approval to play in my sandbox, and in this way more than anything cardboard-cutout one trick ponies and STR 1 ex-Special Ops characters get consigned to the rubbish bin.

Not even going to get started on your cardboard cutout monstrosity of a pseudo-character. All I will point out is that the Critter Form spell is restricted to critters, which are defined in SR as non-sentient, so metahuman Critter Form is out by RAW.

I find this very odd - what does it matter to you how other people run their games?

There is no inherent reason why chargen should or shouldn't be in line with in-game advancement because there's no indication that chargen is advancing characters retrospectively from birth. However the PCs got to their starting point and however much karma they must have spent in the process, the sole requirement of chargen is to make all character options balanced with each other and this question is not answered by a comparison of the two (three with Priority) systems.

I'll echo the sentiments that karma gen vs. BP gen are different, but neither is inherently better. Karmagen has the nice appeal of making it pretty easy for a player to see exactly how much it will cost her to increase her stats, but it doesn't necessarily make it better for all. I think BP gen goes a little bit quicker and is certainly good for making more specialized characters (in my opinion). To each their own.

Most of the time (outside of a few hyperspecialized chars), a BP character redone in karmagen will have 100 to 150 spare karma. Plus with karma you can initiate/submerge at chargen which can lead to much more powerful characters (especially for TM).

But as long as everyone around the table use the same system, it doesn't really matter.

...which only indicates that the suggested starting karma-level creates more powerful starting characters than the suggested starting BP-level. Which in turn may suggest that starting karma level is set too high, given that BP was first...

If more powerful characters is your single goal, then yes - karma gen may well be 'better'.

Wait, stop! I never read the topics about karmagen vs. BP because there seemed to be no big difference, but having 100-150 karma left if you redo a BP char in Charmagen is massive. Before i start with rebuilding my current chars. with karmagen, please give me a verification about that. Thank you.

Are you using the printed version (i.e. Attribute Cost = New Rating x3)?

To my knowledge it has never been updated to SR4A officially.


There is a post somewhere around here from Ancient Knowledge (IIRC), explaining what changes are necessary to make it SR4A viable (most notably the cost to raise Attributes should be x5, and then some stuff about metatypes). I would also add to those changes, that the limit of half Karma for Attributes only applies to Physical and Mental Attributes, but not to Special Attributes (just like under the BP system).


The german version of the Runner Companion has the updated rules already, but the english original does not, and I don't think they exist as errata or FAQ (though maybe I am wrong there?).

Bye
Thanee

@Machiavelli: I've seen this happen with my last 3 characters. And that was after optimizing the characters for the BP system.
There are a few cases where a 400BP char will be worth more than 650 karma points, so if you're just looking to get the most powerful option, just do your character with one method, convert in the other and see where you've got points left.

But if all you're looking is the most powerful character, it's even easier to ignore creation rules and put "OVER 9000" everywhere.

EDIT:
@Thanee: yes, it's using the latest rules (Attribute cost x5, metatype cost taken into account and so on).

You know that the most powerful character is always my goal, but always "within the rules". Not mainly because i am a powergamer, but because the more powerful the char. is, the higher is the chance that he survives long enough to enable good roleplaying. So i will check my medusa-char. with the karmagen system and then i will see if there are significant changes. I will keep you updated....a new hope in the powergamer heaven rises.....*shudder*.

If you're powergaming, then it depends on several factors: is the GM letting Karmagen have access to post-chargen options for no good reason (usually yes); is the GM giving your more karma than you need (750? yes); is the GM using the wrong Attrib costs, or giving away free races? Hehe. Basically, the bad GM can really mess with karmagen's balance (as Blade and Thanee mentioned).

This may no longer be the case, but it used to be the BPgen was better at disgusting powergamer minmaxing, and then you could 'cheaply' fill in the gaps with karma post-gen. (You see the same effect in any system that has linear chargen costs, but increasing experience-point costs, like Exalted/WOD.) I've seen a whole thread here about 'getting the most value' out of BPgen, for example. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) In theory, anyway, karmagen is not meant to be 'stronger', but to encourage well-rounded characters (by punishing very high skills and attribs).

What is often neglected from consideration is that this relies on a GM who doesn't up the threat level as the PCs get stronger. You have to ask the question "Would the NPC stats be the same if I were 100BP lighter?" If the answer is no then chargen optimisation is a waste of time except that your dice rolls need bigger hands.

Also, I'd be interested to learn how you define "good roleplaying" in such a way that it requires surviving for a minimum length of time. No facetiousness here, I'm honestly curious. In my current campaign the rigger was a vivid and unique character that provided a lot of fun for all over only two adventures before going out in a blaze of glory (caused tragically by a simple misunderstanding that led him to take out a key pawn in the fight to save humanity).

About that - are you saying Karmagen should be charging for races at the usual rate of 2:1? I thought the idea was that the race was free because of the extra cost in raising their boosted attributes.

I think most people split the difference (1:1)? You're right that it depends a lot on the precise method used; I know in other threads, we've discussed the difference between adding the race bonuses before or after buying attribs. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Some people complain this leads to 'weak orks' and things, when people take a free race with no intention of raising their stats to the expensive levels; they really are getting something for nothing. It also depends on whether a given race's strengths are in attributes, or somewhere else (in which case, they won't pay for those), and so on.

My main point is that BPgen and Karmagen are *intended* to be equivalent, whether or not the specific details all work out right. If your table finds that they're not equivalent, and you get someone like Machi scheming to abuse it… just fix it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Lower the Karma/BP equivalence, charge more (or less) for races, whatever is needed. I don't think there's ever a reason to allow Initiation/Submersion/etc. for Karmagen (and not BPgen), assuming you even want those things in chargen at all.