This makes me laugh. Synner (or maybe Adam) said 8-9 Karma average in SR4A. When it was brought to his attention that this was not implemented in SR4A, he said it was accidentally left out, & they changed the Karma Awards chart to reflect this change in the updated PDF.

I now go to look at it, & the Karma Awards does noticeably increase the Karma Awards, but the description accompanying it is still identical to SR4 (aka 1 Karma for completing 2/3 of objectives, not 1 per objective - suggested award 4-5, not 8-9).

That's just fucking hilarious. They fix the table, while ignoring the accompanying text.

That's exactly where the misunderstanding is.
Mr Lucky buys 1, The reference dude of the team 4,5,6.
Mr Lucky adds 8 dice to vital roles so he doesn't need high skills.
The other characters can't constantly roll edge so they require higher skills.
That's why Mr Lucky is well and good if he can afford to raise a skill to a low level whereas the random team member chosen for reference needs high levels.
You don't pick one specific point, you pick two.

Unfortunately that analogy entirely fails to translate for a comparison of burning Edge. Because:
1) you haven't built it in
2) if you did try to you'd have to rework it somehow so that SR "cost of living" would actually be $0 for Mr. Lucky and $240 and $400 for Mr. Stupid in SR4 an SR4A respectively, and Karma expenditures were all disposable income

Then things get really confused (for you) because for the disposable income you have to bring in the purchasing power factor I mentioned earlier, which is NOT actually influenced by the Karma available because for at least several hundred Karma you are in you have an extremely elastic supply of Skills to purchase up ... in truth it doesn't even follow free market pricing, it is an artificially set price.

An artificially set price set in the rules that sets in stone the value of Karma to purchase advancement in SR4A at something with a lower boundary of 60% (prior Stat cost 3 Karma/point, new cost 5 Karma/point) and an upper boundary of 100% (prior Skill cost 2 Karma/Skill point and 5 Karma/Group point, same as the new cost) of the Karma in SR4. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And yet again, you go wrong in your assumption that we care about "to Burn or not to Burn". We don't give a damn - it is fucking obvious that it is far more cost effective not to burn.

What we care about is, under the assumption that you do burn, is it better or worse under the new rules?

Then why are you in this thread, again? To swear at me?



For Edge 8 ... unless the outcome is a HUGE payoff (like the character not dying). But with lower Edge values it becomes more cost effective with lower payoff for a burned point. This exercise also helps get a better handle on whether that Edge value that it switches over [for a given payoff] is at a higher or lower value now. It actually is switching over at a lower value (as follows from it being more costly in SR4A to burn Edge 8 ... any Edge really).

See it actually does matter, whether you give a damn or not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



Oh, yeah that. See that IS what I'm measuring. It is worse because you fall behind the other characters much faster than before. True you don't go backwards quite as fast (EDIT: well maybe you do, depends on just how much of that extra Karma really comes through in play) because the overall advancement rate is upped some, but you do fall behind faster.

That's why what you profess to not give a damn about matters [to you]. Because it answers the question you care about.

Check SR4's Karma awards. Make out a list of "awarded for an average run." You'll get about 3 to 6 depending. Average, say 5.

Follow the same rules for SR4A, that number comes out to 7 to 10. Average, say, 9.

9 / 5 = 1.80

Voila. 80% increase.



Actually I did. It was the "cost of living."



All of that is irrelevant. The whole point is I already burned the fucking edge. Once I buy it up again (under SR4 vs. SR4A) where do I come out "ahead"?

Oh, that was confusing because it's the wrong ratio in the cost of living values. So yeah, you just really screwed up implementing the analogy. All that analogy as you've laid it out is saying "look, I can spend faster on hookers (AKA burning Edge) because I've got more cash(AKA Karma) and I can buy more hookers because the absolute value increase the hookers are charging didn't entirely eat up my wage increases". ((EDIT2: Which of course isn't even something firm to hang your hat on because the Karma earning ratio is variable to the point that inside what appear to be reasonable ranges of variance it can actually flip that. ))

It doesn't say anything about just how crappy the SR4A burn is compared to SR4 burn.



Only you don't come out "ahead", it's actually a matter of the degree to which you are behind. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) In both cases you come out behind by burning Edge (before accounting for the payoff of whatever the Edge was spent to gain, which we can assume is the same in both SR4A and SR4, right?). That's just what burning Edge does. Only in SR4A you come out further behind.

EDIT2: As an added bonus, besides actually being something fairly useful to base gaming decisions on, this analysis is applicable and valid for Karma earning above or below the 9:5 ratio (as long as there is some Karma coming in and it isn't thousands of Karma)

Your analysis is pretty crappy because you continue to ignore that there's no linear correlation between karma and dicepool.

The Karma to die pool correlation doesn't need to be entirely linear. It just needs to be direct and significant, of which it is both.

The correlation is actually fairly close to linear when you are making the choices because of the breadth of Skills. For the non-linear effects to start having meaningful impact the gap in power between a choices much be huge (hundreds of Karma, where upon the characters are just in completely different classes) or you have to be at that part of the curve where things elbow up very steeply (after the characters have way higher than 1000 Karma in advancement under their belt ... I'm not sure where that range is these days but obviously it's higher than it was under SR4).

EDIT: Though for really low values of Edge the discrete step of a single choice does start getting affected sooner, the difference is a little more abstract, and somewhat diminished sooner. But then the price paid is lower and much more likely to be the better payoff anyway.

Hence the god damned quote marks you hair spitting "the argument is wrong because he misspelled something" neat-freak.

What??? Misspelled what? Where?

Your measurement is nigh meaningless and just I assumed it was because you didn't understand that you were expending an asset? This is about the asset expended (burning Edge). You don't even need to the exact track the timing of getting the Karma back to valuate how much you've loss, that is actually effectively irrelevant to valuation of that asset expended. As is this bit of Karma overtop when you arbitrarily set at 5 session the time at which you total up +/- Karma spent/expended at.

You referring to it as coming out ahead seemed to go to the root of that misconception.

You can't get ahead. But if the edge is already burned where would you like to be? SR4, or SR4A?

SR4A.

Q

E

D

(Note: My point about being "ahead" was the SR4 burner compared to the SR4A burner: one of them is ahead of the other; no other build needed for the comparison)

That's crazy talk.

Because the hole you find yourself in is notably deeper than it is in SR4. It's the same answer because it's the same question dressed up differently. That burn cost(s) more in SR4A, whether you did it 5 minutes ago or whether your might choose to do it 5 minutes from now.

I give up. I've proven empirically that SR4A is better. You keep seeing two holes, one deeper than the other and fail to take into the account the size of the wheelbarrows dumping dirt into the holes.

LOL. You are blind to the same wheelbarrows dumping the same heaps of dirt for the other PCs. So at the end of those few sessions you are still looking up.

I showed how the cost was higher when you were considering spending in the future, right? So how did the cost change between the 5 minutes before and the 5 minutes after the Edge was burnt? The answer is that it changed in your own subjective judgement, and only there.

I highly suggest you stay away from casinos and such. That's how casinos make their money, off people that can't keep the various veils of illusion from obscuring the objective, logical facts. At least at the RPG gaming table the stakes are pretty much inconsequential, you aren't going to lose your rent money or anything.

Guys, can we avoid running discussions into the ground, and then stomping on them until they stop twitching?

I guess we could, but seriously, would this be dumpshock anymore then? ^^
But i guess being a little more friendly could not hurt in these cases <.<

Twitching? It was coming right at me!

The other PCs do not matter to the original question.








Would be nice.

See! It keeps coming right at me! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)



Sure they do. Their level of abilities influences the difficulties of the environment the character ends up in. If the other character's abilities go up more the difficulty of the environment increases, either because the GM is purposely upping the heat or the other players are pushing further.


Again, what you profess to not care about matters for answering the question.

You are making the very mistake you talk about with raising wages. The absolute amount of advancement in SR4A for the edge Burn character is marginally higher with the SR4A after 5 sessions (assuming Karma is earned at least 67% faster) than SR4 but the other characters have increased their advancement faster, too. So the SR4A falls behind more.

The whole of the character's situation, therefore the whole of the influence of the rules changes (and thus other characters), must be considered to understand the difference.

... but you just can't stop? Even after giving up?

Don't worry, I love you too and I won't give up on you. I've got a soft spot for trying to eliminate ignorance and misconceptions. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif) EDIT: I have faith in you, that you'll come through in the end!

They do, because a Mr. Lucky build isn't going to be burning Edge in the first place. The question is the low-Edge chars, who can afford to burn with impunity. We should be examining Edge 1-2 characters, not Mr. Lucky.

Not total impunity but they can afford to burn much, much more readily. SR4A at least boosts their cost the same approximately 20%, even if +20% to not much is still damn small, and puts some meaningful pressure on the mid-range too Edge, too.

The main thing keeping the Mr. Burn build with Edge 1 in check, besides player self restraint from min-maxing, is the danger inherent in only having 1 point of Edge for cushion. ((There isn't anything prohibiting burning down to Edge 0, is there?))

But this burn and then repurchasing of Edge becomes worse depending on how Edge refresh is handled. If the refresh rate is longer than just the end-of-session and Edge that is bought [at the end of the session] is considered to come already refreshed (I'm not sure the rules are explicit on this?) that's a further loophole that Edge 1 or Edge 2 can exploit through min-maxing.


EDIT: One potential mechanical change that would have made a much more serious impression would have been to add/change two rules:
- burn Edge is a permanent penalty to your Edge Attribute, meaning lower effective maximum and also higher cost (because with a -1D penalty you still pay for Edge three even when you are only getting the Edge 2 effect).
- an alternate to burning Edge is spending Edge * 5 Karma, minimum 20 Karma, that you have banked

That gets a little more complicated but it addresses Mr. Burn.

Seems par for the course from what I've seen so far with SR4A.

Thanks for checking and posting that, answers a question I asked somewhere else.

New rule:

Spend 5 karma to not die.

How much does that gimp a character in relation to his pals?

Not much, I'm betting.

(5 karma: the cost to raise your Edge to 1 and burn it.)

Not only can he do this every run, but gains 4 karma on top to boot. Compare to the cost in SR4:

3 karma to raise Edge to 1, 5 karma gained per run.

2 karma or 4 on skills? 2 karma or 4?

I think I'll take the 4.

Q.

F.

E.

D.