I had this nightmare I was surrounded by walls of argumentative text.....nope nope just Dumpshock.

i'm guessing one of the most seen house rules of SR5 will be:"fuck limits"

Attributes in general are a game mechanic with a vague (see the difference between Body and Strength) analogy to real world properties, now we get another set of what essentially are derived attributes and the same is true for them. Problem?

Now, the actual numbers are another question of course...reigning in the god stat Agility is a sound move, but Strength as the main factor is also easy to boost.

I bet not. You will stick to SR4 or use them. Because, when your full equipment system is build around those limits, I don't see you ditch it all.

Since I had matlab running anyway: What you may expect from dice rolls in the future, depending on your Limits

It was a sad, sad day when I had to stop playing Oni. Of course, after Guerilla T faded, I was left with the P2O hound, and that was just too much exposure. Ninja work better in the shadows, not on the big screen.

Sort of... When you ignore all the rules for limits, it will not matter that the equipment is built upon them. Limits will just cease to exist, and that particular gear will no longer be used. SO in the end, Limits will be ignored, and then you will go back to SR4A, where the system actually made sense, and was easily controllable. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I know for me, the more I see of the new system, the more disappointed I become. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Something about that file does not look right.
Or maybe I am just reading it wrong.

But that's only averagers.

How the results are distributed is much more intersting.

It could matter that equipment was built on the grounds of limits. Logically, the cost and balance of a weapon would be based around how they affect limits. So you might have a very power gun that has a low limit while a comparatively priced gun may instead have a much higher limit and lower power. Removing the limits makes the first weapon vastly superior. Of course that's no different that SR4 where there's one to three weapons in any given category that are leagues above the others.

True...
As for the one gun to rule them all syndrome; I cannot ever remember, in all the years of SR4, using those particular guns. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Um, skill caps were in the core book.

Unless you're saying that the core book copied you.

And even the SR4 skill caps had a variable component, being "20 dice or double skill+natural attribute". A well built character could STILL be chucking well over 20 dice.


-k

Yeah, but 15x25 distribution functions are a bit difficult to handle. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

As a rule of thumb, I'd say if the Limit is more than one standard deviation "right" of the normally expected value not much happens, if it's spot on the normally expected value around ~50 of the rolls land there, and when the limit progresses further "left" the PDF starts looking like Mt. Everest in dropped into Holland...

@TJ: Where exactly do you see the problem? Did I confuse you by using commas as decimal separators? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Probably... should they not be percentages (and should they not descend as the Limits increase)? Once the numbers went above 1, I was lost. Maybe I am just misunderstanding what the numbers are supposed to represent.

For example...
WIth 7 Dice and a Limit of 7, what does the value of 2.333 actually represent?
With 25 Dice and a Limit of 15; What does the value of 8.331 actually represent?

I get that with 1 Die, no limit actually matters, and with 10 Dice a Limit of 1 is ludicrous, but the numbers are just scrambling my brain... I might just be too early for me here, but... Yeah, the numbers are confusing me a bit. Been a LONG time (20+ years) out of Statistics.

From my perspective, it looks like the numbers should represent the probability that the DP will exceed the Limit at each level... But I know that is wrong.
I can normally grok this stuff, but something is just not working for me today. Probably because I did not get my Cthuloops for breakfast today. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

If you want to search Dumpshock, you'll see I proposed pool caps long before SR4.5 came out. Same's true with the stuff on teamwork tests, and the longshot exploit. A lot of the changes made from SR4 to 4.5 were based on fan complaints on Dumpshock, and I was complaining pretty loudly back then.


It kinda makes things worse, actually.

In SR4.5, min/maxing amounts to one thing: huge dice pools. That's easy to grasp, so you don't require as much system mastery to build a powerful character. Under 5e, that just got more complicated, by adding another axis to calculate. If you just ignore limits, 5e starts to fall apart, because limits is how they balanced the system.

In strict SR4.5, there is no limits: it's all about the size of your dice pool. That makes the game uncontrollable. Remove limits from 5e, you potentially make the game unbalanced *and* uncontrollable.

Indeed, you are right.

However, in my opinion, SR4A is not that hard to control. Enforce SKill Descriptions (an old argument, I know), and avoid escalating DP to extremes, and the game is emminently controllable, with out having to place caps on DP's, or having an arms race between players and GM's. You will get a natural progression that will, eventually, hit that 20+ DP size, but it will not generally be right out of the gate. One style of play, to be sure.

The other way is to just use the rules in SR4A (as you indicated) to keep things sane. Use the optional DP cap (20) and just move along. There is less incentive to actually game the system to insane levels at that point.

*shrug* I have never really had many character issues with SR4A in the controllable department, personally (at our table). A character or two has cropped up over the years, to be sure, but they were easily addressed issues. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I, too, see the problem with Agility not being part of the physical limit.
It becomes more an more obvious when comparing silly maxed out builds which depend on different limits.

E.g.:
15 Agility Elf Shooter w/ 4 in the rest of physical stats (which still is above human average and should be more than sufficient to hold and fire a gun accurately ... hell 10 year old kids can do that) rolls 25 dice for his favorite Firearm and has a physical limit of 6 ((4*2+4+4)/3=5,33 rounded to 6)

15 Charisma Dryad Pornomancer with 4 in all other relevant stats (WIL+ESS) rolls up to 50+ dice for her social skill of choice (with only getting that to 25 dice you can actually do that in a playable character) and has a Social Limit of 13 ((15*2+4+4)/3=12,66 rounded to 13)

(You can do the math for a LOG based "Heal-Bot" as well, turns out much like the Pornomancer.)

Why is one aspect that penalized when compared to other aspects of the game?

Somehow that whispers to me: Shooting stuff sucks, forget Pink-Mohawk we only want Mirrored-Shades now!

2.33 average successes per roll?
8.33 average successes per roll?

Shooting isn't limited by physical limit but by the accuracy stat of the gun
And also to get charisma 15 you need a force 10 increase charisma spell with 5 successes sustained on the pornomancer, with out that his limit drops to (10*2+4+4)/3=9,333 rounded to 10

Like Draco said those are the expected values, i.e. what previously was simply "DP/3" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Ahhh... There we go. The clouds have parted and the sun shines through. Thanks Draco18s and Sengir. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Boy, was I reading way too much into the numbers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Nice, never realized that, thanks. Now I just need to hope that there are some accurate enough guns out there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
But for the example: Strike shooting, set Infiltration, that's 23 dice with a limit of 7.



Or you take a speedball of Ex,Red Mescaline and Novacoke for CHA 13 and a limit of (13*2+4+4)/3=11,33 rounded to 12, which still is pretty good.

+ Re-calculating Limits every time some takes some drugs will be annoying as hell ... esp. for lots of NPCs...

I frankly can't really see the problem with shooting. Max augmented stat (9) + max skill (12) + spec (2) + whatever mods is only giving you around 8 hits on average. Accuracy 6 gun with a smartgun system seems like anyone can get.

And yet, in SR4A, I have rolled 15 Dice on a shooting test and received 11 hits, no Edge Spent. The limit rules potentially punish a character for being exceptional or lucky.

Max augmented stat (15) + max skill (12) + spec (2) + whatever mods is giving you around 10 hits on average...

FTFY.