Karmagen has always been in my opinion the "best" chargen system since it uses the same character advancement rules as you would see in-game. I'm sorry Trolls get the short end of the stick, but that's up to the developers of this game to fix if they truly see it as a problem. Instead they give us a system even more restrictive than BP and tell us on these very forums how wrong we are to want to specialize our characters. As it stands, SR5 is totally unplayable to me since in my personal mindset I can't willingly take an attribute at 3 when I would be "losing" X karma by not taking it at 6 and formulating other dump stats. I also can't make the kind of characters I like (attribute focused, lots of low skills) since I am locked into the point totals of the priority ranks and, again, am punished for taking any attribute or skill below the max allowed.

So, they hauled Jensen in and decided to rip out his other ware and stuff a bunch of cyberparts on him. Without asking, of course.

Suddenly he went down to the Normal rules, but that's okay for this test.





Moral of the Story: Cyberparts freakin' rock in this.

In your writeup of the Normal level Adept your write (emphasis mine).

Unless I missed a statement from the Devs in the Errata thread, what you want is no longer possible as Critical Strike now doesn't have a rating anymore, it gives a flat +1DV in the chosen skill (can be taken once per skill where applicable, though).

The book adept has 2 levels of Unarmed Strike Critical Strike. I actually assumed it was the way you mentioned as well, until I saw that the archetype had 2 levels of it. Now it may have been a misprint and those two levels were Unarmed and something else. I'm actually not too sure.

A Dev stated that Critical Strike changed somewhere late in the process, where Critical Strike became a +1DV per choice per skill, once per skill. So the Archetype example is wrong.

Cool with me-makes the decision to only give him 1 level of it in the first place good. I'll make sure when I put my next article up I'll include that in. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (I can't say I mind the new Critical Strike with only 1 per skill, actually.)

We're discussing this Critical Strike thing too, over in this thread. Looks like there is some ambiguity and errata needed one way or t'other.

Here's the aforementioned Dev I mentioned talking about the issue: Here. And the reasoning behind the change.

I do think, all in all, it's positive. While the Ork/Troll thing doesn't much apply(I tend to play them against stereotype and use them for thinky or social roles), what actually I like about it is that it makes *weapon adepts* more viable again. Before, Critical Strike adepts were too easily surpassing people with big stabby things. Now, Stabby adepts surpass them in sheer base damage(as well they should, and I say this as a fan of unarmed), but Unarmed adepts have the edge of not needing to invest in a pretty expensive Foci to hit stuff with immunity to normal weapons, as well as not having to rely on their weapon's Accuracy.

The fella I made hits for 11P. He's not even got his Foci yet to take his strength to 11(thanks to Exceptional Attribute he can get that), which will net him 13P after that and his knucks(for the record, at our table, knucks stack with critical strike, whether or not that's in the book.)

(I do admit, I hope to see Penetrating Strike back. You could only stack that to 3 as it was, so it wasn't overpowered, but gave a nice little edge.) I imagine we'll see some Martial Arts rules, though I actually wonder if Bonus DV will be making an appearance again. (I didn't have a problem with it, but I feel that bonus DV should be limited to +1, for any sort of attack. That will keep blades ahead but let people get a little something if they want-then again, perhaps martial arts should be more about maneuvers and other benefits, like bonus Reach and stuff like that. Downfall wants Kick Attack.)

Much obliged

I think this kind of statement deserves a little sarcasm: except for chargen, initiative, attacks, defense, recoil, the entire Matrix, magic drain, direct and indirect combat spells, riggers, vehicles, and most cyberware and gear, they're the same.



And I think this is better for making characters -- strengths and weaknesses rather than averages.



Different philosophy. Should characters be able to mitigate all their weaknesses at chargen? Should tech-based Awakened easily be able to slip around the majority of negatives that mixing tech and magic create?

There is a difference between GLARING weaknesses and ALL OF THEIR Weeknesses. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

There's a difference between 'glaring' weaknesses and 'just not as good at stuff' as well. Maybe the tech adept can only start with a very tightly-focused range of skills. Maybe he can only afford one really decent piece of 'ware to start. Maybe his attributes are pretty average compared to people who have more points to specialize. Maybe his Magic is really low compared to other adepts.

Why exactly is any of this a bad thing?

Epicedion, why do you insist on telling us how we should play the game? We had perfectly usable karma and bp gen in SR4A that they have decided to neglect until the Companion book in favor of an IMO bad new restrictive method. Why do we have to like the same thing you do?

What? You're free to complain about Priority and how bad-awful-terrible-gameruining it is, but rebuttal is considered "telling you how to play the game?" How bizarre.

I went and developed up a Karmagen system. It has not gone through extensive testing yet, but I plan on fixing it up onto one document and then giving it a post up here. It seems about right where I can see a Karmagen system being at the moment.

I decided to run some numbers on the priority generation, mostly focused on magic/resonance.

Looking at Priority B, it seems pretty obvious that adepts and aspected magicians are valued equally; they both get the same side benefits right?

Jumping up to Priority C however, magicians and adepts have the equivalent of 50 and 51 karma of benefits respectively, but aspected magician only has 40, so for some inexplicable reason aspected magician is now considered more valuable than either adept or a full magician by ~10 karma, and gets less benefits to compensate.

Now at Priority B, magicians and adepts are again equal at 120 karma of value, but aspected magicians are suddenly at 145 karma value, so in the exact opposite of C, both adepts and magicians are 25 karma more valuable than aspected, instead of less valuable.*

Technomancers at Priority C, B, and A have 26, 93, and 168 karma of benefits respectively, so the technomancer quality is apparently considered considerably more valuable than any of the magical qualities, but not by a consistent amount.


I have been increasingly viewing the Magic/Resonance category as a whole a problem, in regards to how it basically says awakened characters use Priority E while mundanes are on a 4-category system. It should have been handled the same way metatype was - if you want to play a human, you are not locked at priority E, you can do so at higher priorities to get additional benefits.

On the subject of high priority humans and mundanes, did you realize the system allows you to play a human at A, and mundane at E? While doing so, you have an Edge attribute of 7, and four additional points for special attributes that you are quite literally unable to use (well, you could take Lucky and only have 3 unused points...)

The more I look at it, the more I'm convinced priority is a piece of shit.



I am also having progressively worse issues with the layout of the book, particularly where the examples will interrupt rules text for pages at a time, mid sentence.


Edit: Apparently a number was added randomly in my calculation for priority B aspected magicians, and the actual value of their 'bonuses' is 120 - the same as adept and magician/mystic adept. While this means the problem is far less extreme, it's still there - aspected magician has the same cost as a full magician, for no apparent reason.

or, alternately, you could solve your problems by not choosing human at priority A when you already know it's going to be way more than you need.

Jaid, as a mundane human, your choices for metatype priority is literally C or lower. B, even with lucky, will waste points, and so will A. Which seems like a problem to me, because all priority matches should be mostly viable.

the only way for them to have possibly managed that is to make sure never to add more points than someone could use... ie, priority A human could be 5.

but that would suck. instead, they made it scale to a point where it's a potentially good investment for someone who is awakened or... err... emerged? resonating? whatever technomancers consider themselves.

i mean, are you going to try to tell me that resources A isn't a terrible investment for a magician? sure, they *could* spend it all, but it's *waaaaay* beyond what you need to make an effective magician.

the high end is generally only useful to people that need it, in any category. being able to waste the stuff that goes way beyond what you're ever likely to need doesn't make it good.

just pick something else for priority A and B other than human. that's the advantage of being a mundane human. it gives you a useful bonus, in that it leaves you more points to spend elsewhere.

i mean, really what do you want? you could let someone spend those excess points on attributes. but wait, there's already a category that lets you put lots of points in attributes at priority A.

what possible area do you imagine you could invest it in that isn't already covered by just not picking priority A for human in the first place?

Or, they could have changed the 'Magic/Resonance' category to 'Special Attributes', and tiered it with adept/magician/etc, and points to special attributes. Then change the 'Metatype' category to cover how much Karma you receive.

You know, something along the lines of making a 5-category system actually five categories for everyone involved.

Something like E gives 1 point, D gives 3 points OR adept/aspected and 1 point, C gives 6 points OR adept/aspected and 4 points OR magician/mystic/technomancer and 2 points.


Edit: Oh, and there's a huge difference between having resources you don't really need, and resources you can't use.

When you lose unspent karma/ nuyen at the end of character generation, it really is exactly the same thing.

What next? People complaining because they take magic at C on a mundane character concept?

Heaven forbid you should have to stop and think about what priority you choose.

So I went to my doctor and said, "Hey, doc, my wrist hurts when I turn it like this."

My doctor said, "Stop turning it like that, then."

No, it's not the same thing. If you take resources A, it's a failure of YOUR imagination if you can't spend all the resources. If you take Human A, it's a failure of THE SYSTEM that you can't spend all the resources.

However there are ways that you can use Human A that don't waste points. It's not rocket science to simply not choose Human A if you don't fit the criteria for making it useful.