I never found that to be the case in our games. Not Once.

The problem is not the characters I play, but the assumptions that are being touted as the only way (and face it, that is exactly what what is being said here, otherwise you are apparently just a loser of a shadowrunner). You have misinterpreted what I have said. Apparently a character is ONLY COMPETITIVE if they take the max value of skill that they are allowed, or they are a waste. I find that attitude offensive. I can be on board with a skill or two being at a 6, dependent upon skill, but when I hear that the only way to be competitive is to max them out, I tend to disagree.

The Game world establishes a baseline (Most skills are considered Professional at Skill 4 in SR5... SR4A placed that level at 3), and yes, I expect that the baseline is what the verisimilitude of the world supports. That baseline is not to take 7 skills at 6. Saying so is just ludicrous, especially when the rules themselves do not support that assumption. Shrug*

TJ, this is meaningless. I am not a shadowrunner. Nor am I in a game which gives skill in discreet skill points. Furthermore when I create a Shadowrunner, unless I'm specifically making a "normal" person who was dragged into the shadows, I am going to create a highly specialized professional shadowrunner. I regularly play former FRT, spec ops, or prodigies, and I like to play Big Damn Heroes trying to salvage a bit of light from a very gray and uncaring world. But Big Damn Heroes aren't in any shape "realistic" because it's a cinematic trope, which works for my table because we focus on stories a hell of a lot more than any sort of world simulation.
And even on an appeal to "realism" using the fluff from the book, you're going to have an extremely hard time convincing me that the average shadowrunner is equal to the average person in Shadowrun. These are people who regularly tweak the noses of the corporations... and get away with it! How the hell is it "realistic" for them to be no more than just decent at anything? See also Sendaz's response.
That is not the standard. There is no standard. There is no place in the book which states all "true" runners must have a certain range of skills. It doesn't exist and you are projecting your ideas as to what a PC should have on the game.

Again, there's multiple different ways to play an RPG. There's your way, which is so heavily focused upon "realism" that you attack anything you perceive as violating that "realism," my way which doesn't give a rat's ass about "realism" and instead focuses on the narrative, and a myriad of others, including treating RPGs as a stat based tactical game where characters are more akin to playing pieces and adventures are intellectual challenges to overcome. If your way works for you and your table, great! Just don't assume your style of play is universal, and anyone who plays it differently is having Bad Wrong Fun.

God damn TJ, way to threadcrap.

No, the thread was originally about what is the most karma efficient way to game the priority system with a Shaman, and that can be quantified. That's it, there was no value judgment, just "what gets me the most karma?" All the other issues are your own issues that you brought along with you. No one was saying karma efficiency was the only way, and I personally would say that the most karma efficient path is not always the most "optimum" path anyways, as there's a lot of other considerations that have to go into a character and their role with the team. I can almost guarantee any properly optimized melee character isn't going to be karma efficient, but they're going to hit harder than any gun.

Please stop using the word verisimilitude.

If the baseline for attributes is 3 and skills is 3...that makes a dice pool of 6 which is quite terrible for any professional shadowrunner.

Why? It is a perfectly adequate word. Maybe that word makes you uncomfortable when you evaluate your characters and realize that they shatter the verisimilitude of the world in which they exist.

Baseline is 4 Skill, 3 Stat and a Specialty - That is 9 Dice, and that is perfectly viable as a Shadowrunner at the start of his career. *shrug*

Indeed, Rating 4 is Proficient and you’re comfortable with what you do and perform well under normal pressures. "Professional level for most jobs."

It is canon. However does using that skill in the context of shadowrunning count as "most jobs"?

The question was not "what is the most realistic build" but "what nets the most stats".

Of course it creates characters which should not exist (and it would not be any better if all those skill points were evenly spread out), one of the reasons why priority gen should be killed with fire.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
The point is the SR Creation system. There are Games out there which use non-linear costs, even at creation. And what a wonder, characters tend to have several skills at low level.
Why? Because having one additional point in "shooting" is not worth 5 points in running.

The argument, that Shadowrunner have to be the best of the best is mood anyhow, because beeing the best shooter, while nearly unable to walk is NOT best of the best.

Due to the system Shadowrun characters have always been one directional glass cannons. I am the best in a gunfight, but I can't jump over a 1.5 meter wide pitch...

It is better now, then it was in 4th, but still....

That's the key. It is fine if you are making a shadowrunner at the start of his career. A more established shadowrunner might have a skill (or several skills) at 6 and be equally developed Attribute-wise. The assumed default level of priority seems to be (judging from how the variants to it are described) the same as 400 BP, which is to say, shadowrunners who are somewhere between street-level guys just starting out and the prime runners who do the big jobs. Priority may be less flexible, and force weaknesses in certain areas, but like build points, I imagine you can still make runners who are all up and down the power scale. To me, verisimilitude is only broken if the skills or Attributes chosen don't match the concept. A street samurai might be very proficient in several combat-related skills, but a private detective might have a wider spread of lower-rated skills.

And why would that be? Because with the right priority combination you will run out of skills to max and have to spread points elsewhere?

Yesferatu:
I'd say the best distro is Pri A Magic... you poo poo the extra 3 free spells and skill points... but those are worth quite a bit of karma. You want magic as high as possible generally, so no dumping that.. you will be buying more spells eventually and 7 is fairly narrow. One of the keys of being a mage is that... other people sneak... you use invisibility. IE: magic replaces, or helps skills. The skills are valued upon how high you stack them... remember you can use your normal 'skill' points to raise them further... that's why even pri D skills is an option. Hence why the common complaint of 'spellcasting' becomes the one skill to rule them all for magicians... (and to a lesser extent summoning... giving access to spirit powers).

Priority B attributes... why? it's only 10 karma to raise a dumped stat... 25 total to get it to avg 3. The powergamer method of stat distro is first 5 points into one attribute to max it... then keep putting 4 more into other stats... until you run out of stats. Leaving 1's in the remaining stats. (low stats are 'cheap' to raise to semi-acceptable levels with karma later).

Priority C or D... race or skills. Elf with a bit of points for edge is nice for a shaman... or human with maxed out edge works wonders too. Elf helps out with priority B attributes as well... 3 less special attribute points for 3 extra normal attribute points. Otherwise... the extra skills can come in handly and 2 ranks in skill groups.

Priority E. Cash... you can get more cash in chargen with karma. Boohoo... you don't start with a focus... you're tossing 12/14/16 dice on your chosen spells still with your. Not only that with high cha and a good negotiation.. you should be rocking the payment negotiations and bringing in the scratch.

Also those extra spells can easily cover a dumpstat... for example on a logic based mage... set Cha=1... then learn Increase Cha with one of your bonus spells... now you can have 5 charisma on demand for those social encounters. With focused concentration sustaining it isn't a problem either.

My take is exceptional attribute is kind of bleah... yes you get more magic... and 'save' yourself buying rank 7 for 35 karma later and an initiation... but it's only 1 die more... And the opportunity cost for it was First. buying the exceptional attr and Second. dropping your edge by 1 point. If you have low to non-existent edge... then that may save you karma... but if you have high edge as well. It's a sucker bet. High edge... you can get +7 dice when it matters (even as a contingency rolled after the skill check) as opposed to +1 die all the time. But lets say you're rocking Pri C elf... edg 5... 5th point of edge is worth 25 karma... 7th point of magic 35... and the cost of the quality....

Otherwise qualities... focused concentration, and the mentor spirit for sure (shaman's tend to roll with mentors... hermetics not as much). If you go elf though... your cha is going to be 7 or 8... too high to 'increase cha' on and sustain it with the quality (only goes to rank 6). So a human can actually edge out the elf in negotiations with the spell raising him from 5(9) or 6(10) with high enough focused concentration. A force 7 or 8 health sustaining focus is going to have severe availability problems. There's always quickening with initiation though... that brings up other problems like how do you mask magic that strong.

That's my take on an optomized shaman. As well as some semi-coherent ramblings....

I would say Yes, at the beginning of your career, it would count for that.

In my opinion, it is WORSE now (in SR5) than in SR4A. *shrug*

And I have no issue with a Skill or two being at 5-6. It is the statement that you should purchase as many skills at 6 as you can at chargen because it is the mechanically superior option and thus mandatory to create a skilled shadowrunner. Which is BS, and breaks the verisimilitude of the game. In my book, that immediately flags as not in harmony with the concept of a character. And there is really no argument that can make it fit a concept, because the choice was not a concept choice, but a mechanical optimization (Karma expenditure) choice.

That is specifically what the OP asked for so you're just arguing to argue.

No, I'm Not...
There is a difference between "best bang for the buck, priority wise" and "lets max out everything to create an unrealistic character."
Most Efficient (which is what Yesferatu asked for in his original post) does not equal Min-Max to hell and back.
If you are incapable of recognizing that difference, then you are right, there is really nothing to talk about.

Yes, yes you are. Go back and read the original post in this thread. He's asking specifically for what combination of priority creation would net the character the most equivalent karma. Not what is "realistic." Not even how to optimize a character to make it the most "powerful" it can be out of character creation. The only thing that matters is how much karma, and that is only a matter of math. Every other consideration you choose to try to shoe horn into the argument on efficiency is an attempt to threadcrap.

If instead of declaring the min-max approach "horrible" and "unrealistic," perhaps if you actually wanted to add to the conversation, you could have attempted to say something like: "Hey, I see what you're doing there, can I ask why this is important to you? I personally enjoy realism in my games because X, Y, and Z. How does this compare to your experiences?" But no, you had to be a judgmental dick about the whole thing.

You have your right to approach character creation however you wish, but every other player has that same exact right to approach character creation as they wish. However, you have absolutely no right to declare a differing approach to be "ludicrously stupid" and that it "breaks the verisimilitude of the game," just because you don't like that approach to gaming.
The most efficient way to gain the most in karma equivalent stats is to put the most stats that you can at the highest number that you can, and leave the rest at the minimum you can get away with in order to be raised more cheaply with actual karma once the game begins. If you have some sort of magic math that can get you more in equivalent karma without that method, please share it with the world and expound upon that mythical difference, because you would literally revolutionize basic math.

Again... Most Karma does not mean Most wild character creation scheme. I thought that was self-evident, but apparently it is not.

Karma is a unit of resources. Stats can be measured by this unit. Each new rating of a stat is worth a number of karma times a various multiplier that depends on the specific stat. Priority creation uses a linear model that gives points for each of these stats. The more of these linear points you put into a single stat, the more that stat is worth in equivalent karma. The most karma equivalence out of priority character creation is the most efficient, and therefore the most "bang for your buck." This is just math. I thought that was self-evident, but apparently it is not.

Has someone run the numbers for Karma value of hard/soft maxed strength/body for a troll? It's got to be getting close to priority A in skills, particularly if you minmax all physical attributes and intuition...

IF I can eke out 1000 Karma (actually looks like 957 per your priority scheme) from Priority (I believe that was you who did the math), then no matter how I spend that resource within the priority choice, I have the same amount of Karma. Making the assumption that the goal is to minimize post character creation expenditures to create a workable character is ludicrous. The character should be functional out of the gate. And that is where the strategy you are espousing shatters the verisimilitude of the game world.

But you apparently want to be insulting instead of actually discussing that particular tidbit, so... *shrug*

How can you justify that statement? If you spend the priority character creation resources in a different manner than Min/Max you get a different equivalent amount of karma because different levels of a single stat are worth a different amount of karma, but yet are worth the same amount of priority character creation resources, provided you spend the same amount of ranks. A skill of 2 is worth 6 karma but worth two skill points, two skills of 1 is worth 4 karma, but worth the same amount of skill points as the first distribution. This is the entire raison de etre of the Min/Max school of thought. If different distributions of skill points were always equal in karma equivalence, it would completely eliminate the min/max school of thought and be replaced with one more aimed at a different area of optimization (say, being able to cover more roles by spreading out the points).

You change the distribution of priority character creation resources, you change the karma equivalence.


You are the only one making the connection that the goal is to make a workable character. The goal is to create a character with the greatest karmic equivalence. End stop. No other considerations enter the area of thought or the entire exercise changes. That is part of the insinuation I made when I said that the particular array is a keeper, because Race could offset the magic rating and bring it back to 6. If it didn't, I probably wouldn't consider it particularly workable, as there is also the distinct problems in that specific array that gets the said 957 karma of a lack of spells, nuyen, and edge. Those issues might make the character "unworkable" depending on one's interpretation, but that does not take away from the fact that the array gets the most karma.

Then again there's the whole issue of Min/Max, which wouldn't work at my table, but my table isn't at issue here, only what gets the most karma. But I am not the one jumping up and down telling that a different approach than mine is "horrible."

I'm calling a dick out for being a dick. You want to actually discuss the merits of a different approach than min/max for maximizing karma in a thread about maximizing karma, you probably shouldn't lead off with insults.

Argh, you are right! Mea culpa, it does end up as more karma, and you don't even need to sacrifice Skills A to do it! I was working the previous efficiency under the assumption that as a shaman, that the attributes would go initially towards drain attributes and a maxed Magic rating would be a major goal. If those assumptions aren't followed, yeah, a shaman Troll with maxed Body/Str would have more equivalent karma. Metatype B, Attribute D, Magic C, Skills A, and Resources E, is the spread, but that would leave Magic at 3, Edge at 1, no money, crap for drain stats, but definitely the most karma.

A mundane or adept troll, specializing in melee, is probably a more... "workable" character by boosting Str/Bod for the karma equivalence.

Well, in the 4. Edition you could start with a maxed out skill, so...
(And due to some things in the BP system (Powerfocus anyone) you could get a lot of bang for the buck.)

Even Karma has a similar Problem:
Getting one skill to max costs:
SR4: 44 Karma (R6)
SR5: 158 Karma(R12)

Getting a skill to at least one half max:
SR4: 28 Karma (R3)
SR5: 44 Karma (R6)

So in general in SR 4 you get less than 2 skills to half the maximum raiting for the cost of one skill to the maximum raiting. In SR5 we are talking about more than 3 almost 4 skills. So it is better. Other games go up to 5.

It gets even more explicit if you look how many skills you may raise for the last points or evenjust for the point from 9 to 10 compared to 5 to 6.

In SR4 you always should have maxed your main skills, before it was reasonable to raise secondary once. An argument could be made for the first point, but nothing above that. In SR5 it ain't that bad anymore. So a gun bunny who did not max his pistols skill is still viable and not "meh are you stuuupid". In SR4 a gun bunny with a pistol skill of 4 would have been seen as "not optimized" to put it mildly.