I don't know where the 20 dice come from. I've never build a 20-die character. I pulled that number from the forum posters of those who say that is the ONLY range you should be in (or better, but at 400 BP you can get into 18-20 just fine).



The problem with the premade characters is that they could get 4 to 6 dice better on 5 BP or less. IIRC one of them lacks a smart link.



That's what wikipedia is for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

Rules for normally distributed data:
The central limit theorem says that the distribution of a sum of many independent, identically distributed random variables tends towards the normal distribution. If a data distribution is approximately normal then about 68% of the values are within 1 standard deviation of the mean (mathematically, μ ± σ, where μ is the arithmetic mean), about 95% of the values are within two standard deviations (μ ± 2σ), and about 99.7% lie within 3 standard deviations (μ ± 3σ). This is known as the 68-95-99.7 rule, or the empirical rule.

For various values of z, the percentage of values expected to lie in and outside the symmetric confidence interval (CI) (−zσ,zσ) are as follows:

Getting high numbers of dice is not even super-difficult; you don't even need to minmax excessively.

Take a guy(Agility 4, above average), give 2 levels of muscle toner(6).

A skill of 5. This is damn good, yes, but not world class. In other words, there are likely a fair amount of humans who exist with a skill of 5. Make it a gun, toss on a specialization. There's 7 more dice. Toss on a Smartlink. 15 dice and that's not even trying, really.

Make an elf(Agility 5, which costs the same BP as Human agility 4), and let's say he has one level of Restricted Gear and has a Superthyroid, or Muscle Toner 3. Same skill level. 17 dice. Again, that's not, IMO, particularly munchy.

Even going lower down, a guy with Longarms(shotguns) 4(+2), Agility 3(5) and a Smarlink throws 13 dice. Compared to a garden-variety NPC made by book stats(let's say, 3 Agility, 3 Firearms and a smartlink), he's got 5 dice on him already.

IMO, I'd have rather seen a chart of general diepool ranges, with augmented folks included.

15 dice is ~3rd standard deviation under my post above. His augmentation helps him get there. Normally he'd only be at +2 SD. This is acceptable for ShadowRun characters in my opinion.

The elf is at....4th SD, half way to 5th. Being an elf, and having the better gear gets him there. This is acceptable for ShadowRunners in my opinion, though encroaching on the high end. Restricted gear is a little cheesy IMO. The racial trait is perfectly acceptable in order to get a slight advantage.

The dude with longarms falls in at above average, at +2 SD. +0 SD is 8 dice, for reference: 3 stat, 3 skill, +2 bonus. It's really really hard to not have a +2 bonus to something you're supposed to be trained. Specilization for any skill, or a smartlink for guns. A +4 is more standard for ShadowRunners (10 dice, +1 SD).

My idea of a good starting character is one who has somewhere to grow. Starting off with maxed dice pools in my primary function means I can only expand sideways. I want to be good at my job (+1 to +3 SD) while having room to grow.

Everyone has their own preference character growth; though I admit I don't have any particular one way that I like a character to grow-or even start out.

I'll post 2 fast examples:

I have a kinda old-school detective as one. He's a late 40s guy based heavily on Brisco from the old Law and Order. I started out his attributes from 3-5, gave him a decent Edge, but very light augmentation. (His sheet is in my collection but if I recall his statline, made with 750 Karma/SR4, was around 3/4/3/3/4/5/5/5) I think he has a smartlink and a few eye/ear mods. He does have 2 5's in skills(Perception/Visual and I think it was Infiltration), but the rest were so-so. His best combat skill was Pistols(Revolvers) 4(+2) and a smartlink. His die pools, for the most part, were very tame, though he has a ton of different skills. He's not meant for a big campaign. He's all about working the contacts, being at the right place at the right time. He actually made decent use of skill groups, as well, in his concept. He can grow both up and out.

To contrast, my sammie mentioned already, the elf with a 9 strength and agility, loaded with ware(we don't use availablity limits in our games) huge melee damage and a large(17) melee die pool, as well as a 14 die firearm die pool, and other rather hefty ones. He's made to be my kickass sam. He still has room to grow out, though-I had recently invested in a couple of low, new skills that I figured he would have. His main thing is superb melee combat, good firearms(doesn't prefer them but is good with them), great armoring, with solid stealth skills, social isn't as much his thing but he has the bases covered well. As a contrast-he does not make a lot of skill group use-besides the ones mentioned, Firearms 3/Athletics 2, he goes more basic.

Both characters are fun, both fit in well with the parties, and both grow-but one grows both ways, one grows sideways. Both of them have backgrounds and stories, and fun to play personalities. Both were made with 750 Karma.

I don't think Restricted Gear is cheesy, though. It's a great perk for someone who may have worked for somewhere where they could have gotten a high-tech piece of gear(an ex hacker with a piece of high-end tech, for example.)

But going to skill groups-the top guy makes heavy use of them and it fits him well; the bottom guy, however, I found taking the separate skills for the most part fit him much more.

I never said that huge dice pool characters were wrong, I just think its wrong to think its the norm and that any deviation downwards "hurts fun time."

Obviously if you're playing a game where you're a genetically engineered cyber supersoldier* you're not going to "have fun" where 1 shot kills you. Remember, there's a difference between "fun" and "challenging."


*I'm particularly thinking of Rogue Trooper, which I played on Normal so that I could actually play the game and feel like a genetically engineered super soldier. After finishing I was satisfied at the challenge level, the fun level, and the story level (it was based on a comic strip). I could have played on Hard where it has more challenge, but why? I'm a super soldier, I should be able to walk into a fire fight going "BUHAHAHAHA!" and blow things up with little care about ammo usage or damage.

Ok, rogue trooper did make you manage your ammo usage, but really only for the higher caliber weapons (rocket launchers, mortar, etc.) because you only NEEDED them in certain situations, pretty much anything else died to the machine gun.

You know, tying in games with tabletop isn't always a bad idea.

My favorite Resident Evil is 2. I love the feel of the game, the characters, the plot, and I liked how I had to conserve ammo and be careful. 4 is my second favorite RE game; the ONLY thing that keeps it from edging over is the fact that it felt a little less like RE and more like ''Leon S. Kennedy, Kicking Massive Ass.'' Now, I LOVED it. I loved kicking off heads and mowing down Plagas. But...it lacked a little tiny bit of the survivor horror feel in this transition. But you know, sometimes I am more in the mood to play 4 than 2; I WANT to play the Badass Leon and kick off Plagas heads-other times I want to play part 2 and be more ''oh shit, there are 3 zombies this way, a licker next door and I have 10 shots left.''

Likewise with my Devil May Cry-sometimes I play it on Normal so I can be like Dante in the cutscenes. Sometimes I play on DMD mode so I have to earn every victory.

I'm the same with Shadowrun. Sometimes I want to play Derek(investigator), use the more non-optimal skill groups, light ware and moderate die pools for the feel; other times I want to bust out Kael(the sam), bring katanas to gunfights and cut off heads while curb-stomping another while the rest run in fear.

(I do have to say though even I have my lower-and upper-limits in Shadowrun. It gets to a point where I feel like I am playing someone SO unexceptional and average that I might as well be playing a mailman, or someone a bit too much for this setting, and I might break out Exalted instead for that.)

I used the skill groups for padding. My group has a heavily cybered sammy who feels that if it doesn't doesn't agree with you it should be cut in half, and a mage who feels that all non-awakened are barely better then cattle. I am playing a technomancer, and since I realised that we would be needing to sooth some ruffled feathers and my charisma is the highest, I went ahead and took rating one in the Influence skill group. I could have taken those ten BP and got another rank in one skill with a bit left over for money or contacts, but I felt that basicaly getting two dice on four skills that I was the most likely to use in the group was a better way to spend those points.

Obviously, if I had gone with a super specialized character like the vat-job and the wiz, I would have wanted that extra die in my Hacking. However, sometimes it is a greater help to be a little rounded* if you find yourself in a group of already specialized characters.

*And I am already round, check out my profile...

Not to berate your choice, but I'd have put 1 die in 3 of the skills* and then pumped Negotiation. I doubt intimidation would sooth the ruffled feathers, con will only make it worse. Etiquette might help, though only between you and them, not for them to anyone else.

At 20 BP and 4 skills you're better off taking skill groups, but More likely what I'd do is toss 1 die in Etiquette and then 4 dice in Negotation. Maybe 2 and 3 respectively.

Then you'd have spent at least twice as much as he did. He only raised Influence to 1; the "two dice" he's referring to are the 1 die from having the skill combined with the removal of the -1 die defaulting penalty.

Random aside, my hacker rigger has a modified Logic of 12. Where exactly does that fall as far as society/reality is concerned?

Touche. Then, I'd spend 4BP on 1 rank in Negotiate. Maybe 1 rank in Etiquette.



Augmentations really are a hard thing to place into standard deviations, but assuming that we don't alter the bell curve any, then a 12 is roughly a +9 SD...for a human. Given that you'd have to have an unaugmented Logic of 8 to even have an augmented of 12, you're really only at +7 for your race. Without the augmentation you're at about a +3 or +4 (natural IQ) depending on Exceptional Attribute or not.

i had theorised his 12 came from having the gene treatment and the quality that improve your natural maximum attribute by 1. and that, as such, his normal racial max would be 6...

The natural 8 comes from exceptional attribute and the metagentetic improvement quality from SURGE (RC 114). The genetech is something I intend to invest in soon enough, it's mostly a RP thing for this guy to have the biggest brain on the planet.

I'd forgotten metagenetic. So yes, pre augmentation he's got an IQ of like 175 or better. After its close to 230.

Think Flowers for Algernon, only non-fatal.

Don't forget to find a nice Nosferatu to bite him.