I think the problem comes from the fact that not-spending special attribute points is less useful than spending them (because either you get higher edge or you get nothing). There's no tradeoff, what you're saying is possible is a false choice, like "Chocolate cake or death?"

You're right, I can't draw a conclusion. Ergo my use of the words "tentatively" and "from what we see". Since I don't have all the parts and I'm seriously missing most of the assembly instructions, I'm not sure if this game is going to fly, dig, or swim. All I can see is that it's a machine.

So I stand by what I said. It looks like it will ignorable, at this point. I may be wrong. I'm fine with that.

Though, I seriously doubt limit removal would be so upsetting as gear needing to be rebalanced. As I see it, in the worst case scenario and assuming there are no other balance factors, we end up with SR4's problem that some tools/guns are strictly better and players will gravitate to them. But we don't know for sure. So I repeat: We'll see.

-Temperance

1. It's already been stated that many pieces of gear provide a limit increase and no other benefit.
2. Accuracy is a stat that's been added to weapons which acts as another axis of balance.

These together show how and why gear would need to be rebalanced by removing the limit mechanic. In the first huge swaths of gear become points to acquire as they no longer have any stats. In the second case, by removing an axis of balance you upset the balance of weapons. Weapons that had a high damage offset by a low accuracy suddenly become the only guns worth using. Weapons with a high accuracy but lower damage codes are suddenly not worthwhile.

Like I said, I *like* Priority. I've always considered a good template system to be superior to any point buy system, and harder to break. And I admit, I haven't dissected the table yet, so I don't know how the math goes.

But even then, I'm not "wowed" by it like I was when I opened SR1 many many years ago. I remember being blown away by SR3, and even though I disliked SR4/4.5, I was impressed that they made a huge change and almost had a working system. The new Priorities... it's nice, but it's not setting me on fire like it should.

I know marketing isn't your department, but I haven't seen anything about SR5 that really makes me excited to play the game. And until I feel that excitement, I'm not going to spend actual money on it. See my dilemma?

Patrick. As the person who got the ball officially rolling on the Priority system, maybe you can tell me the following:

What were your reasoning behind changing over to this system, rather than staying with the FAR morer flexible Build Point or Karma system of 4a? What's your perceived advantages of this system to the 4a system?

I'm fairly sure that you must have had a well considdered reason for the proposal, but as someone who generally dislikes any form of character creation system that doesn't allow me to freely create the character I want to play, and advance it as I see fit, I'm genuinely currious about the thoughts and arguments that motivated the change.

/Kyrel


P.S.


You should really watch that movie Temperance. It's great.

I know what lead to it getting suggested:

Trolls.

Trolls in chargen were brutalizing the system, and Priorities got suggested as a way around it.

Since forums are generally a place where dissenters come to voice their opinion, I just wanted to say that I love the re-introduction of the priority system. IMO, there were just way too many abuses to the BP/Karma systems resulting in unrealistic characters. I think the priority system will result in varied and interesting characters that will be fun to role-play.

If there is abuse in the character creation system, blame your GM. They are the final say in who makes it in and who doesn't.
I don't think the design team should be "fixing" what is ultimately a player responsibility.

Really? In what way?
Trolls were not a popular choice for most players I know (we have only had 4 or so in the last 6 or so years).

This...
And you will see just as many Broken builds with Priority, as well... They existed in Previous editions, they will continue to exist in future editions. It is not the system's job to curb abuse.

In general i kinda like the priority system(this might sense when the companion is released and i try to remake my character as dryad, as elf she seemed quite doable in priority gen), it's just that there are some weirdness to it.
As for the option to not spend the special attribute points, as Draco18 said thats kind of a non choice as you dont get nothing for not using them.

Edit:As the preview 4 thread got locked ill ask this here, am i reading the rules right when i get the impression that mages can now shoot a gun and cast a spell in the same IP if their willing to take increased drain(simple action to shoot + simple action to recless cast)

No.

The GM can't catch everything, and the more ways there are to break a system, the more ways there are to hide it.

If the rules aren't providing consistent, balanced characters, then the rules need to be fixed. The GM has enough responsibilities, auditing each and every character sheet should not be one of them.

I don't think that part's public yet, so I can't go heavy into detail (NDA and all that), but, I can paraphrase a bit.

Let's say you had 100 points to make a character. Putting together a magician takes 50 of 'em, a street samurai takes 50 of 'em, a face takes 50 of 'em, and so on. Being a Troll wound up taking so many points that it was an archetype in and of itself.

"She's a hacker, he's an ork shaman, that guy's a Dwarf Mercenary, and I'm a Troll."
"Troll what?"
"Just a Troll."

RIght now, you're thinking, "Trolls didn't cost that much in 4E." and you'd be right.

Lots of problems with 4E were noted and were things that the rules guys wanted to deal with. (And quite a few of the non-rules guys. Like me, I didn't write a single word of the SR5 rules, but I had a list of things I wante dto see fixed. Luckily, almost every one of those was on the agenda. Like Stick-n-Shock. So hey.)

So, with Trolls, there was a problem in that they were getting taken more and more as "Discount Body". You could get a 5 Body, plenty for what everyone needed, a high strength for 'free', and off you went. Trolls went from being big heavy guys that you took along for oomph to "Cheaper way to get your stats boosted". Not quite as much as Orks, but close, and so many side-benefits (Fast speed! Body armor! Thermo vision! Whee!) that people were snapping them up for the wrong reasons.

So, if you want to encourage big thick meaty guys, the rules need to reflect that by giving them a way to do so. It was shockingly hard to do so. Ideas were floated for, like, half price on Strength, but that threw all these othe rmetrics out that had to be adjusted, or changing how stats were purchased but that tanked a few other things ... getting that balance right was dang hard. I'm not sure what the final angle will be, but when Priorities came up, it let us re-jigger things quick and easy, and suddenly Trolls could fit in with everyone else again.

And everybody went, "Phew!" and jumped on it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It'll have to be opened back up when a Karmagen system is assembled (I think Bull mentioned that's a possible future goal), at which point we'll chew over it again. Once the chargen rules are more opened up for view, make sure to poke me to come back to this and I'll go into actual mathematical detail. Not as well as Aaron could mind you, but I'm a bit more chatty than he is by default. Who knows? Maybe you guys will see an angle we missed and hit a better way to do it.

Troll stats bonuses are just so *large* that it stresses the system.

You could choose priority E, which would give you a starting Edge of 3. It would be wasted, but could be done

I would argue that it is in fact an impossibility to create an unabusable system, and thus pointless to even attempt it. Make a flexible system, and let the GM and players make sure that they don't abuse it.

I agree and disagree. I agree that Priority will produce plenty of broken builds, just as much as BP did, and it will do nothing to minimize min-maxing. I disagree that it is not the system's job to curb abuse. I do think that the system should mechanically incentivize characters to behave in the way that best works within the system. This can be done in a number of ways, with or without priority, but I don't think the current system quite hits the mark. Right now in the system there's really very little incentive to not start out with your core skills as high as character generation will let you go (at least as far as we've seen), and if skills/attributes have progressive costs after character gen, with the currently shown linear costs before character gen, you still end up with starting characters as highly specialized with maxed skill in a couple areas with no skill at all in others (since it's cheaper to pick those up post character gen).

I also have problems with attributes in general, and the more the attributes get discussed, the more I feel that there should be a clean break between attributes that contribute to active skills, and attributes that provide passive benefits, with different costs for each type. Because that really feels like the main cause of attribute imbalance. But that's really a whole different topic.

Then how about simply reducing those bonusses.

Retcon!
2nd Class Ork!

There's a reason not everyone plays a troll.
Negatives in Agility, Intuition, Logic, Charisma and 40 build points less to spend? YES PLEASE!
I don't just like paying extra for all my gear, I LOVE IT!
Want to play a magician? I hope you like drain.

Yes but everyone knows that Body and Strength are the most valuable stats in the game, so getting big boosts to them is totally worth it even if you lose those lesser stats (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

No. A system should help the GM, not make more work. You can make systems that are more resistant to abuse, and the only reason to not try is laziness.

The GM is still the ultimate arbiter. As a GM, if you allow something overpowered into YOUR game it is YOUR fault.
If one of my players wants to play a dragon or walk down main street with an auto-cannon, it's up to me to tell them no.

Oh, I feel where you're coming from, believe me. Though it's probably just as well that I'm not the marketing guy, because I suck at things like that.

One of the great ironies of my life: The system's out there for all to see, but the proposal I wrote (which would have saved me some typing) is still under NDA and I can't post it. So I think I'll just can this answer for the next time someone asks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

One of my playtesters, very early in the process, said (approximately) the following: "I really miss the priority system. I could make a character in less than an hour and be ready to play by the time the pizza got here."

This brought to my mind one of my perceived issues, with BP and karmagen: The amount of choice faced in character generation is dizzying. Almost paralyzing, in fact. This is especially true for newbies, but it happens to old farts like me, too, who've been doing this for a while.

One thing I thought we should be shooting for, futile a notion as it might be for a game as complex as Shadowrun, was "Keep it simple, stupid." Priorities, in my head, fit that better than build points or karma. Here's your species, your magic/resonance, your stats, your skills, your cash. Spread these around, give your character a name, and you're ready to sling some dice.

As I imagined things, it would be quick and clean, and not overwhelming. What we got was a little more complex than I'd foreseen, and I don't think we necessarily stick as closely to KISS as I'd have liked, but it's a lot better in that regard than BP or Karmagen.

Those can take hours, and you generally have to make time for a new player ahead of the rest of the game. All the fiddly bits kind of get in the way. Priorities make it possible for a new guy to walk up to a table at your FLGS, and actually get into the game, in the time it takes for the other players to get set up and get some pizza delivered.

My primary considerations for pushing for priority system were speed and ease of making a character, and getting someone new into the game (whether they're new to Shadowrun period, or just new to your table) as quickly as possible.

That was on some peoples' minds, yeah, but it wasn't my primary motivator. I don't recall really having much of a dog in that particular hunt, but I could be wrong. I've slept since then.

Didn't say it was necessarily a good option, just that it was there. I personally like all the potential Edge points, because if I'm a mundane I'm gonna need all the help I can get in surviving. But that could just be me.

Sorry about that. I couldn't resist the pun.

It does seem like you can do both, unless there is some clause not yet seen where casting a spell makes it so that your weapon is no longer "readied".

It's not a "good option" versus "bad option" here. It's a non-option.

Have you ever met anyone in SR4 who said, "You know what, I know this is a 400 BP game, but I'm only going to spend 370. No no, not going to turn them into cash or anything. I'm simply not going to spend them"?

It's not a "suboptimal" choice, or a "bad choice," it's actually downright a muther frakking trap. It's not even a disguised trap, it's an outright spiked pit with no cover on it that has a sign saying "valid choice (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) "

No it's not a valid choice! It's a blatantly obvious trap! No one is going to walk into it