Or just change in chargen cost to 1BP or karma cost to 4, if you must use BP-gen.

Hm. I guess that this brings up a question - should I be using Karmagen?

Is it really that superior as a system to BP gen?

If so, I might have to go back and convert all of the characters that I've done so far to Karmagen, and use it on the remaining two in the (loose) playable team that I've been cooking up.

Should you? I don't know that I'd say that. What I will say is that any character you make in BPgen, you can make better in karmagen. I once made a mage... let's see... He's a dwarf ghoul, and I wanted to hardmax his Willpower at 9, so I thought "Willpower 9 is 175 karma, and binding a Force 4 Power Focus is 32 karma, as opposed to 65 and 4 BP respectively, so I'd be better off using BP, right?" So I did. Then I remade him in karmagen, and had enough karma left over to initiate twice. A druid with Intuition 5, Willpower 9 and two initiations (one of which is Centering) can throw Force 9 Manabolts all goddamn day, and buy 4 hits on drain resistance. Throw in a centering focus, and things get ugly.

Well, roger that, then. I'll work on going back through and re-making the four existing characters that I've done so far using Karmagen instead. Should be pretty easy, since the basic outline is there - I'll just have to convert the point expenditures and then figure out what to do with leftover points (since it sounds like I'm quite likely to have more to spend). I'll re-post all four (in a single post, do you think?) when I get it done, and then continue on to make the last to in Karmagen... I'll probably have the conversions done late tonight/early tomorrow, and then I'll start working on the new stuff.

Sure. Just come up with a name for the team, and throw them in a post. Sounds like fun, and cross-checking them will reveal any holes in the group.

In my mind karmagen creates much more organic and beliviable charactes, but that mostly becouse you usually will have a bunch of extra points left, after character is "ready", to be used for background thinks like knowledge/language skills and "unnessecery" active skills.

Ofcource right know the problem with karmagen is the fact that it's yeat to be upgraded to SR4A.

I'm totally stealing all these guys for use as NPCs and premade PCs in my own game, btw. Very nice work so far.

Why is this a problem? From a brief glance at SR4 BPgen compared to SR4A BPgen, the things that make Karmagen more efficient (namely Attributes and Skills) didn't change price from 4 to 4A, so I'm guessing that they probably wouldn't change for Karmagen any more than they did for BPgen.

EDIT: Oh, hey, while I'm thinking of it... I did the math on the Street Samurai already, and if my math holds up, I have an extra 258 Karma or so to play around with... that's crazy.

Atributes cost for karma changed from x3 to x5, using that fill eat almost all of that extra karma.

Cool. I'll run with that cost for the Karmagen, since I think that it'll be a lot closer to being balanced against BPgen and it'll be in line with the SR4A Karma costs for advancing attributes.

I think that I might just draw up the rest of the characters, then, and post the ENTIRE team in my next post asking for critique. I know that it'll be putting a lot of work on you guys' shoulders, checking them all over again along with the two new ones, but it'll be a whole team and will buy me some extra time to work out the math on the existing four such that it fits with Karmagen.

Jeez, DarkKindness, you're such a slave-driver. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I know it, I know it. Forcing you guys to read through my character and team concepts day and night... get back to it, slaves!

Seriously, though, this is partly a teaser post - I just finished doing the math on converting the four existing character to Karmagen, and they're pretty heavily improved and much better rounded in my opinion.

That said, it seems like Awakened/Emergent archetypes are actually harder to do in Karmagen than BPgen in that their additional stat is rolled in with the half Karma limit on attributes... found that out when I was working on the Gunslinger Adept - wasn't a problem there, but I'm wary about it in future builds.

Speaking of future builds... I'll build the Mage first tomorrow and then move on to the Matrix person - how the Mage goes will likely determine whether I go Technomancer or Hacker for the Matrix build (though I've been leaning Hacker all along... we'll see). I'm particularly concerned with doing a TM, given how important attributes are to their Living Persona and overall Matrix performance - I think that I could do better with (and probably have a better in-universe grip on) an augmented mundane Hacker. Thoughts?

I hadn't noticed that - I had assumed it was only the basic Attributes, like it is with build points. I like to think that it might only be incredibly poor wording. Hopefully they will clear that up in the errata. Actually, it didn't hamper you that much when Attributes were at the (x 3) cost, but with the new cost, the half Karma on Attributes rule could make creating a decent mage or technomancer all but impossible.

No Glyph, he has it correct. Under karmagen... all attribute spending comes under the cap (even edge and magic)... which is yet another reason metas are broken under it. (they get more points 'for free', and can spend more on top of it...).
Also under karmagen, you don't get free points to spend on knowledge/languages like you do under BP 3x(Int+log)


To the OP, I don't recommend using karmagen as published. It's fine if everyone is a human, and all other characters are human, (or everyones the same metatype). But it's badly broken because of the highly questionable metatypes for free nonsense that was pulled. (this is reportedly supposed to be errataed w/ the SR4a update to RC).

If your players are new, BP generation is a lot faster. Karma would be fine as well... but you'll find that metatypes again throw an unrecoverable monkey wrench in unless you're willing to house rule (and know how to house rule it). Though quite frankly, I have nothing against exposing new characters to karma advancement costs right away.

IMO: here's the advantages to karmagen.
There is no push to max it or bust like there is under BP (the more BP you spend on a higher attribute or maxing out a skill, the better the karmic value of that expenditure).
Characters feel much better about only putting 1 or 2 ranks in an assortment of skills and attributes, making better rounded characters. As there is no penalty cost for doing it now, as opposed to doing it later.

If you're using karma, use only karma, if you're using BP use only BP. The generation methods are not equivalent!!

And if you're making NPC's... ignore it... just make what seems appropriate with only a weak nod towards BP.



As far as the rest... the character concept is okay. Don't worry so much about the power-gaming tweaks. Just be prepared to say, why does the character have only bioware, etc.

Couple of things - Karmagen is also preferable because, even after accounting for new attribute x5, it's more efficient than BPgen and gives even a Human character more points to spread around, and even considering paying for Knowledges and Languages out of your pool of points. Knowledges and Languages are SO cheap in Karmagen that they make almost no impact on your points pool.

Also, taking the attribute x5 change into account, 'free' metavariants aren't nearly so broken as they were when it was x3. Buying up the attributes that they start high in gets -monstrously- expensive in a hurry, and even the extra Karma allotment to attributes only means that they'll start eating away at their skills, gear, etc... I really think that the x5 change does a pretty good job of balancing it out.

And as to the character... he doesn't have only Bioware! About 2/3s of his augmentations are Bioware, 1/3 Cyberware... it's been a while since I saw a Bioware Datajack or Cybereyes, for instance =P

As far as the character, that's after you editted it. I haven't looked at it again since you've revised it. I just gave my initial suggestions (stealth skills, cybereyes.. etc.) then stopped reading the thread.


Now onto karmagen:
I disagree strongly about the karmic costs of buying knowledge/languages. For a face/mage it turns into a large expenditure. A logic mage could easily start w/ 39 ranks in knowledges. If each is rank 4, that's 39/4==9 + one rank3. 11*9+8*1== 107 karma. Not a little. Even someone w/ more average, 5*11==55 karma or about 8%.

Now make an orkl intuition tradition magician or adept... and laugh all the way to the bank... as you don't care about buying up body sky high, and strength can sit there at the racial minimum quite easily. And low-light for free! (massive value on a magician where visibility mods are one of your biggest negative dicepool components).


That's the problem, You give stuff for free, and they can spend massive amounts on other things! It's just free karma up front and not implemented as a bonus or penalty to spending the karma. (EG: apply racial mods after stat buy, or buy up stats from rank1 (no mins), or pay reasonable karma cost for meta up front (1x or 2x BP cost)).
It costs a human 45 karma to get rank 4 attribute. All 4's in 10 stats is thus 440 karma, or 75 karma over the limit. (humans get edg2 for free so that's 10 karma)

If you go with an ork. You get 70 karma for free (min body4 (45), str3 (25)). PLUS you can spend 40 karma more on attributes than a human.
It costs the ork 380 karma for the same base stats, PLUS he still has 35 more karma free for attributes.

If we spend 10 karma each for Night vision (human) and Human Looking (ork) and they're almost equivalent.

See the problem. The problem stems from the whole 'something for nothing' right at the start which started the whole mess.

So please don't even start to try and defend it... this has been argued to death. Wait for the errata, then we can go into it with gusto! (I don't shy from a good debate).

Right - I should've qualified my statement that it's somewhat balanced by adding if you're actually going to improve the stats that your race gets bonuses to. The added expense from boosting those adds up pretty quickly. I agree, however, that if you're going to min-max and not boost the stats that you get bonuses to, it's a candy store of free goodies for min-maxing. Somehow I think that that's probably how the developers wound up wording it the way they did - they looked at the astronomical costs for increasing stats that have higher caps and higher starting minimums and said 'oh, hey, metavariants need more points to spend on that!' without considering how badly it's broken if people choose to ignore their racial bonus stats... just sayin'.

They make no impact, unless you actually want to get a desend amourt of them.
My Sasha for example has 54 points froth of both knowledge and language skills, thats actually a sicnificant amount of points.
Of cource if the errata nerws karmagen( implements new cost, but doesn't raise the karma amount) most of those will have to go along with the flavor active skill so that i have enought point for her stats.

I see no reason to make knowledge/language skills cost more in karmagen than BPgen. I realize that they do, I just don't see why.

Well, that raises a question, I suppose - do most people on the boards use Karmagen or BPgen? Which is more common at folks' tables? And which does Catalyst support for official (Cons and the like) games?

build points are far more common.

They also must be used for official events like SR missions.


I prefer karma in theory, just not in it's published implementation.

In theory, I'd want to build my character with karma (which lends itself to generalization) and improve him with build points (which lend themselves to specialization). BP and then karma seems to lead to characters who're optimized for one job, and then kinda pick up whatever else they feel like. I'd prefer a well-rounded character who finds a niche, and then excels at it.