OK, Challenge, going out to Dumpshock.
Disregard all rules but use only shadowrun Stuff to recreate Chuck Norris.

That probably deserves its own thread...

*Picard Voice*
"Make it so!"

I don't get why anyone would use the climber as an example of a broken sheet. Sure, it's a lot of dice, but... climbing? I don't think I've ever built a character who knew climbing in any edition. I guess it has its uses, but it can't really break the game no matter how many dice you have...

With climbing being a specialization of the athletics skill in SR3 many of my characters had it and even enhanced it with stuff like articulation, reflex recorders and synthacardium ... Particularly certain burglar types that even had the specialization.



Depends on the type of campaign you're playing. In a not to combat but burglary oriented scenario a "super-climber" can potentially break the game ...

How?? By infiltrating somewhere? Isn't that the whole point of the game? Last I checked, there was also this spell called levitate that allowed you to climb as high as you wanted. And one called spider climb. Someone who's able to climb is undoubtedly an asset. But the only way for climbing to break the game is if you think it's game-breaking to go outside the GM's railroading. If the GM wants you to go in the front door and has a whole combat scenario planned, and then you climb, that might "break" his plans. But it doesn't break Shadowrun, there is rarely if ever one route to take on a Shadowrun, as most GMs know, and that's how it should be.

By making certain things too trivial? Or by the sheer fact that one trick ponys - regardless of type - tend to break the game, since breaking the game does not only happen when you're too good at something but also when you're too bad for everytghing else and thus heavily limit the GM's possibilities to provide the scenario where he and the player of the one trick pony can have fun?



Why limit yourself to going in? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)



Infiltrating is the whole point of the game? Since when?



And either of them can be as game breaking as Mr. Super Climber who easily climbs skyscrapers even under conditions where e.g. these spells cannot be used.



Actually there's no need for "railroading" on the GM's behalf although it can ofc occur. A player's choice to have such highly specialized character is also kinda "railroading" by forcing a GM to either come up with scenarios that fit the specialzed characters bill (and thsu exceeding the limits of other characters) or constantly face the situation where either the GM's ideas will be trivialized by the player or the player's character ends up dead due to his lacking other proficencies.



And now think of a case where the GM has a scenario planned that actually involves climbing but expects it still to be challenging to a certain extend and now Mr. Super Climber comes along and trivializes that for himself and cannot be "stopped" or at least be hindered in a dramatic sense for the plot without crippling all other players also involved?
The very same can btw. happen when you have a super combat oriented character: Introducing a potential opponent who can at least pose a certain threat to the "Super Smaurai" can lead to very dead other characters ... unless you now advocate that the GM then railroads to save characters with less combat prowess.

Ok, every time I've ever heard "broken" used to describe something, it's talking about it being too good. If the climber is too shitty to be worth playing, what's the danger that anyone would even play it? How is the possibility of making a shitty character a problem with the system in any way? I could make a mundane with no cyberware who had severe mental and physical disabilities and couldn't do anything. And that shows that there's something wrong with the system? The fact that I could voluntarily make a character that can't participate in shadowrunning? This shows that either a) the term "break the game" is too ambiguous to even be useful in a conversation, or b) you just have no idea what it means.



The GM is responsible for approving everyone's characters in the first place. He can simply tell the climber to make a good character that doesn't suck at everything but climbing if he wants to avoid the situations you're pointing to. But ultimately, the GM cannot be responsible for every player's fun -- if one guy makes a horrible character, and the GM tells him it will suck, and he makes it anyway, it's the player's fault. You can't coddle someone who makes a pure climber build and then has nothing to climb, he has to learn not to be such a jackass and make a useful character.



Are you saying that nobody should be allowed to make a powerful combat character? Are you saying that a powerful combat character is comparable in its effects to a guy that climbs? I'm honestly confused, because neither of those things make the slightest bit of sense on any level. So the GM incorporates climbing into the game, and super climber does it easly. Oh shit, he just broke the whole game, guess we can't play anymore. Defeating the GM's expectations is one of the players' jobs. The GM sets up an ambush, the clever players go around it. The GM sets up a situation where they have to make a difficult climb, and they get a helicopter. There is always more than one way to skin a cat in Shadowrun, just like in the real world. Your argument seems to be, that if someone is too good at any one thing, they won't be challenged by that one thing! No shit, that's what happens when you have specialized people. Where I come from, being good at the thing your specialized for is the whole point of having a specialty. Your argument does not prove that the climber is somehow a threat to game balance, it only proves that no, the GM will not be able to create a dramatic, suspenseful climbing situation for someone with that many dice. Having never once used or seen climbing used in all my Shadowrunning career, my only response to this is, "Aw, snap."

Honestly, I'm beginning to regret responding to you. The more I evaluate the proposition "characters who can climb really well are broken," the more it seems like you must be arguing just for argument's sake, just to provoke me into responding. I sure hope that you're not trolling, and you're simply not thinking clearly about what you're arguing for.

Again, I'd like to see this build of yours. A breakdown under points or priority would be nice as well. Heck, I may want to play said character the next time I find a SR3 game. So, post it!


As other people pointed out, there's a difference in the way the system handles things. Enough so that your comparison isn't meaningful. I can argue effectiveness of characters, however. A pornomancer was not possible under SR3, nor was there anything close.

What's more, power levels are relative, and not absolute. You can create a character with more relative power and relative well-roundedness under SR4 than SR3. That can be shown by the simple fact that it's hard to create a useless character in SR3, but easy to create one in SR4. Both games favor certain uber-builds, certain no-brainer choices that are significantly better options than others. The only difference is, in SR4, the game-breaking choices aren't as obvious. For example, I put together a NPC Leadermancer with Commanding Voice. He proved to not need a team, since he could use Commanding Voice to end any combats, dominated any social situation, could fight, could use an Agent to handle most of his hacking duties, and was magical to boot. His appearance led to a unanimous ban on Commanding Voice in our games.

Easy fix for the leadermancer - make Darkeus' samurai blind and deaf. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

But seriously, good point about relative power levels. SR4 seems weaker at first glance, but characters are weaker across the board. Combine that with hard caps, and you actually have the ability to start out closer to being the best at something. The one thing SR3 did better, depth-wise, was that it was a lot easier to make someone with lots of skills.

Uhm, no?
No Skill-Groups in SR3, so you had to buy every skill for itself.
And as the attributes did not factor into your dice-pool, only into the cost for skills, you could not go high attribute, low skill for a moderate pool in many skills.
low skills meant low dicepool and low dicepool meant probability of sucking bigger. Especially with changing target numbers.
it's hard enough to roll a pair of 8's on 8 dice, much harder on one or two dice . .
SR3 was really more for the one maxed out skill on starting the game. 5/7 and artwinculation made for 5/8 dice on start of game. much people did not need to get that one up further, but instead worked on eliminating negative modifiers to their target number. and because skills are cheaper in SR3 than attributes, people don't raise attribute in game either. most of the time.
mostly, it's seeing:"hey, attribute x is high enough for me to only spend y karma on skill z to get level 5 and thus have a good chance of suckceeding on that"

First: You just encountered a situation where someone said that "broken" also refers to not being good enough.

Second: Over the course of 20 years of playing SR with a substantial number of gaming sessions at conventions I have been confronted with more than enough characters that were deemed "worth playing" by their creators but were such one trick pony types. So the danger of facing such characters largely depends on the kind of campaigns you're playing (where playing at conventions would fall in the category "non-continous campaign" or "one-shot adventures").



I nowhere claimed that such problems are caused by the system ... although ofc you need a system that allows the creation of such characters in the first place. So I guess your questions in this paragraph as well as your binary choice in possible conclusions are simply not hitting the spot and the second one is even going into a rather personal direction (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)



The problem remains that until he has learned that lession (which is one that heavily depends on personal tastes as well) the choice made by the player affects not only him, but also the other players and the GM. "Breaking the game" always is situational, since it's still possible for a GM and all players to have fun with such "shitty" characters.



~hmm~ Reading the text you quoted yourself again: No, I didn't say anything that would call for either question. I said that a super specialized combat character can create similarly unbalanced situations as a super climber and that any character that takes specific proficencies to not only "powerful" but "extreme" levels in terms of game mechanics is going to create situations where putting him to at least a minor test will automatically put other characters at a point where they simply do not have any chances.



It's possible that your confusion stems from interpreting stuff into my text that isn't there at all and I'm starting to doubt that you actually understood me, since I was speaking of a GM incorporating climbing into the game as an aspect that actually challanges the climber and then looking at the consequences of such a challenge for all others sitting at the table. Having Mr. Super Climber can even create situations where he still isn't challenged at all (due to the sheer number of dice he can roll) and the rest already hasn't got a good enough chance of overcoming the challenge.



One can have objections about that first claim. If that's your gaming style, so be it. I can only say that I have meet players that didn't see that as their job. The latter is a conclusion drawn from a wrong assertion ... Logically right but also wrong ...



And where I come from, there's a difference between being specialized and taking it to extremes where the system's capabilities of modelling the gaming world simply falls apart. Your conclusion concerning my "argument" is based on your wrong interpretation. In logic we're now again at the point where you draw a conclusion from a faulty assertion. The result is: You're logically correct while being totally wrong on all other levels. Oh and ofc a gm will be able to create a dramatic, suspenseful situation for such a character ... The problem lies with the consequences of such a gaming situation for all other players being in the very same situation with our climber.
As for you having never having encountered gaming situation where climbing was used during your SR career? "Aw, snap" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Or should I say "I pity you for not having GMs that were capable of incorporating a rather usual skill"?



Interestingly enough it wasn't me who brought up this socalled "proposition" of "characters who climb really well are broken" and actually the original proposition done by others went into a "sllightly" different direction. I merely tried to present you with a different outlook onto something that you - by your own words - could not comprehend. If trying to be helpful now turns out to be perceived by you as argumenting for the sake of an argument, I'm more than happy to say: Pleased to not having helped at all and having gotten stupid assertions on your behalf.

And as for you last sentence there: The fault is always with others ...

Again, no books. The strategy was to use an elf with fairly average attributes, i.e. mostly 4's, and then boost everything up to 6 or 8 with cyber. Thus, instead of an unbalanced person with some attributes high and some low, you end up with this perfect being who has no flaws. Assigning the skills you need is then a simple matter, and can be changed based on how you want the character to play. The only problem with the build is that it creates a mundane combatty type person, it obviously wouldn't work for a decker or rigger or mage because those things take up so many of your resources.



Are you including the SOTA rules for social adepts in that? I don't know what they were, but I'm not positive that they weren't comparable to pornomancers. That said, the pornomancer is one example of a really over the top build that you couldn't make in SR3.



You can use commanding voice to end any combats? You do realize that at the gamemaster's discretion, the target just stands confused, right? That's the check against making a commanding voice person invincible. And I guess you never fought against any drones.

Regardless, the difference in my opinion is that no matter how strong you get in SR4, you always have a kryptonite. If you're a mundane, your kryptonite is magic. That wasn't true in SR4, because with a Willpower 6 a sammie would rarely get seriously hurt by magic, and with the damage code system, there were few spirits alive that you couldn't blast out of existince.



You've helped. You have shown me that anyone who seriously thinks that the troll climber is problematic is batshit insane. Thanks for being helpful!

Some forms of ignorance truely are bliss

In other words, you created a powerful elf street sam. I can create powerful troll street sams as well. WHat's your point? He's still weak versus magic.


Well, the leadermancer was a NPC. Second, the more successes you get, the more likely is it that they'll follow the command... and with his dice pool, he could buy critical successes. If he rolled, he would score much higher. So, they would tend to obey the command; and those who didn't throw down their guns would get shot as they stand around confused.

Also, in both editions, Magic was the "kryptonite" to any mundane character. Even with Willpower 6, you were no match for an 8D Manabolt with some spell pool behind it.

A good GM always plays to his PC's strengths. Trying to come up with a climbing challenge every game, one that will challenge the troll but not leave everyone else behind *is* problematic. The same holds true for combat challenges, magical challenges, decking challenges, and so on and so forth.

I would challenge the notion that the entire point of the game is to "challenge" characters. I understand that GMs might get frustrated when specialists just solve their challenges without breaking a sweat. I don't see the problem, myself. They spent the points to be good at something, so let them. You don't have to almost kill people to have a good game. The way to have a good game is to use story, and to challenge the players to think laterally to get things done. A GM who can't challenge the players except by almost killing them with powerful threats is not cut out for the job.

Now, people have mentioned convention play. TBH, if this game was designed for convention play, it would have to be easily as restricted and single-track as D&D 4. Playing a game with a bunch of strangers, with no chance to review sheets beforehand, with no ability for the GM to refuse sheets that won't work, that's a recipe for an awful game of Shadowrun. I'd say it's a miracle every time a convention game isn't fucked up somehow. The game is built for tabletop with a more or less set group. Placing it in a non-ideal situation like conventions does not show problems with the system as written, it shows the problems with transplanting a tabletop game into the harsh soil of a convention.

POINT LARME!!

In SR3, you could start out with 50 points of skills, and no limit to how many 6's that you had. Perception and dodge were tests, not separate skills. Athletics, sorcery, conjuring, and stealth didn't have to be skill groups - they were single, all-encompassing skills.

I like SR4 a lot, but there are certain character types that you can make in SR3 but not SR4, and vice-versa. In SR3, I could make a viable sorcerer with 50 points worth of skills, and only 6 of those points needed to go to a single skill, sorcery, to take care of his magical abilities. You simply can't get a similar lavish spread of skills in SR4.

If you don't wanna use Skillwires.
Those are KING in SR4.

Really costly with SR4A's changes, though. I'm not that familiar with the rules for buying pirated stuff, which might bring the cost way down if you get stuff after char-gen. Still, with the restrictions on Edge use (even with the expert system mod), I would only use them for tertiary skills.

Pirated Skillsoft is 10% Price.
in SR3, those were hellishly expansive

It breaks dramatic tension. Sweating bullets and fighting for your life in a RPG is fun, and fun is the whole point of the game. If things break down into Monty Haul-ism, you're not having as much fun as you could.

Also, there is a concept called: "Spotlight time", where each character should have an equal chance to shine. The problem with spider-man is that it's hard to give him spotlight time, if his focus is on climbing. You have to offer him contrived climbing challenges, that break the plot and take spotlight time away from other characters.


A good game should be versatile. It can't only work for a certain group, it has to work for all groups. Convention play, like it or not, is one way of testing out the versatility of a game.

The solution? Don't let a random esoteric builds into your campaign. The problem with the climbing build isn't how many dice he has, it's how many points he's wasted on climbing. It would be the same with a guy who spent all his points on having every language at 4, or a guy who spent all his points on swimming. Can estoeric characters mess up a game? Sure. Is that unique to the climber? No. How do you deal with it? Check peoples' character before they start, have them start over if they're going to seriously break the proper allocation of spotlight time. You're playing at a convention? Maybe you shouldn't play conventions where the ruleset allows "any legal character no matter what."



Here you are again, arbitrarily defining what a good game should be, based on your own person opinion. And what do you even mean by versatile? That's not exactly a word that applies intuitively to RPGs. Conventions are a perfect shitstorm of people who don't know and might end up hating each other, and GMs who can't review characters beforehand to make sure they fit with what the GM has in mind. No RPG is going to survive that, except an extremely limited, formalized one like D&D 4. I'm not saying D&D 4 is bad, but there are lots of people who prefer a more complex RPG, along with all the baggage it brings. Complexity is not inherently bad, it just has its own set of problems. Just like simple RPGs carry different problems, such as characters being similar and generic. Shadowrun has a long history of being a deep, complex game with plenty of ways to abuse the system. It requires, and has always required, strong GM participation to make it work. You can dislike that all you want, but don't tell me that you have the absolute standards that all RPGs must meet to be good. The goodness is subjective, either you like it or you don't. That opinion can be based on rational arguments, but ultimately there is no litmus test or proof of a good RPG, not until you get far out into the periphery like FATAL. Games like that are so horrible that reasonable minds cannot differ about their quality. But Shadowrun is far from that. Reasonable, thinking people can enjoy Shadowrun, including its system. So stop insulting us by telling us that our game has to meet your standards to be considered "good."

Sorry, but I don't like railroading players, and that includes their character choices. I've personally witnessed someone bring a pornomancer into a game, and everyone had fun with it. Right now, I have a player who brought in a skillwire generalist, and he's having fun with it.

You can't arbitrarily pick on players for creating characters you don't like. You have to have a standard. In my games, I have the dice pool cap, which prevents pornomancers and spider-man, but still allows for off-the-wall builds and powerful characters. In other games, they have house rules that fill the same roles. But you should never toss out a character simply because you don't like it.



verâ‹…saâ‹…tile
  /ˈvɜrsətl or, especially Brit., -ˌtaɪl/ [vur-suh-tl or, especially Brit., -tahyl]
–adjective
1. capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavor, etc.: a versatile writer.
2. having or capable of many uses: a versatile tool.

A good game can handle many different conditions, and many different takes on the setting. Rifts, for example, lends itself to only one type of play.

And I've played in many "convention games" of SRM, and we all had a good time with it. In fact, with one or two exceptions, I've always had fun at convention games. What's your beef with them?


What, you've never heard of crtitcism before? If a movie doesn't meet Ebert and Roeper's standards, it's not good. Ultimately, although it's the consumers who decides if something is popular, it's the critic that decides if something is any good.

I thought you've stated many times that you limit your PC's dice pools to 20 maximum. Aren't you "railroading" (albiet politely) there?