BP's vs Karmagen Options

[Cain]

No, all you are encouraging is for them to have as many cap maxed dice pools as possible. So instead of rounding out their characters, they are still squeezing life out of every last point.

So instead of a Mr "I will talk their pants off", you get a Mr "I talk their pants off or I blow their heads off". That's isn't much of a difference from my POV.

That is a possibility, but not one I've encountered yet. Few players seem interested in capping out more than one or two dice pools. And even if they do, they're not at problem levels. They're not breaking the game with two dice pools at 30; instead they're strong with three dice pools at 15.

[toturi]

That is a possibility, but not one I've encountered yet. Few players seem interested in capping out more than one or two dice pools. And even if they do, they're not at problem levels. They're not breaking the game with two dice pools at 30; instead they're strong with three dice pools at 15.

Actually in my experience, it would be more of not broken at 2 dice pools at 30 but instead broken at 6 at 15.

Instead of a logical gap in the armor where NPCs can exploit the PC's weakness, there is now no/little weakness to logically exploit and now it is just brute dice pools against each other.

[Cain]

It's always *been* brute dice pools against the other. Suggesting a cap doesn't change that in the slightest. It just keeps things manageable.

Additionally, it's difficult to get one dice pool at 20, and then a bundle of others at 15. You might hit it in a group, such as firearms; but it's tricky to get 15 dice in firearms, decker skills, and social skills all at the same time. Certainly, you'll never see the "six at fifteen" you describe!

[toturi]

It's always *been* brute dice pools against the other. Suggesting a cap doesn't change that in the slightest. It just keeps things manageable.

Additionally, it's difficult to get one dice pool at 20, and then a bundle of others at 15. You might hit it in a group, such as firearms; but it's tricky to get 15 dice in firearms, decker skills, and social skills all at the same time. Certainly, you'll never see the "six at fifteen" you describe!

They're not breaking the game with two dice pools at 30; instead they're strong with three dice pools at 15.

2 dice pools - 2 skills, 6 dice pools - 6 skills. Certainly it is quite easy to get 6 dice pools at 15.

Example: Firearms(3 skills), Stealth(2 Agility linked skills), Influence(5 skills)

Assuming as base 4 for skill group and 6 for Attribute.

2 for smartlinks, 3 for Adrenaline Pump, 1 for Reflex Recorder. 16 - 3 skills

3 for Adrenaline Pump, 1 for Reflex Recorder, 1 for Enhanced Articulation. 15 - 2 skills

6 for Emotitoy. 16 - 5 skills

Total number of dice pools that is 15 or more = 10

Firearms, Cracking and Influence has 11 dice pools. Even if you manage to only do half of those 11 dice pools at 15, you already have got 6 dice pools at 15.

I am already low-balling the figure when I said 6 dice pools at 15.

[Cain]

You can't get 6 for attribute in all those. You're also including the rather unreliable adrenaline pump, which only really works when you're wounded. That drops you down to high, but not unmanageable, dice pools.

Additionally, all that can be accomplished without dice caps. The difference is, you're dealing with a 51 die pool on top of all those others.

If you're going to dispute me on a build issue, take 400 BP and build a character with 10+ dice pools at 15.

[toturi]

You can't get 6 for attribute in all those. You're also including the rather unreliable adrenaline pump, which only really works when you're wounded. That drops you down to high, but not unmanageable, dice pools.

Additionally, all that can be accomplished without dice caps. The difference is, you're dealing with a 51 die pool on top of all those others.

If you're going to dispute me on a build issue, take 400 BP and build a character with 10+ dice pools at 15.

You can easily get 6 in attributes in all with karma. Adrenaline Pump may be replaced with Muscle Toner 2 and Oxygenated Fluorocarbons. Additionally, if you want that 51 die pool, you do not have the resources to have all the rest of the other dice pools so high.

If you are going to dispute me on a build issue, why don't you take a 750 karma and see if you can't build a character with 10+ dice pools at 15.

Little Miss Airhead aka Illegally Blond

Elf
B4
A6
R4
S1
C7
I3
L1
W5
E3

Firearms 4
Influence 4
Stealth 4

Reflex Recorder
Reflex Recorder
Enhanced Articulation
Muscle Toner 2

4000 nuyen and 8BPs left

[Glyph]

750 Karma? Ha! Too easy. Here's one with 400 BP. Note that the 'ware is only the relevant stuff - the character has enough Nuyen and Essense left for other things (wired reflexes, cybereyes, etc.).

BREAKDOWN (400 Points)
Core Attributes: 200
Special Attributes: 0
Race: 0
Active Skills: 160
Qualities: +15
Contacts: 5
Resources: 50

=Attributes=
Body: 4
Agility: 5(9)
Reaction: 4
Strength: 2
Charisma: 5
Intuition: 3
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3
Magic: 0
Edge: 2


=Qualities=
Restricted Gear (x 2)
Surge II
> Glamour
5 more positive, 10 negative
-----------------
35 negative


=Active Skills=
Automatics/Assault Rifles: 4/+2
Gymnastics: 4
Infiltration/Urban: 4/+2
Influence Skill Group: 4
Monofilament Whip: 6
Long Arms/Sniping Rifles: 4/+2
Perception: 2
Pistols/Semi-Automatic: 4/+2

=Bioware=
Enhanced Articulation
Muscle Toner: 4
Reflex Recorders:
>Infiltration
>Firearms
>Gymnastics
>Monofilament Whip
Synthcardium: 3
Tailored Phermonones: 3
[total cost of bioware: 202,000 Nuyen]

Other relevant gear:
Monofilament whip with personalized grip
Commlink (using the second restricted gear quality) that can run a microsensor and empathy software: 6

so we have:
4 social skills: 21
3 firearms skills: 16/18
infiltration: 15/17
gymnastics: 18
monofilament whip: 19

Would such a build really be unbalancing, though? The character is good enough to do well in several different areas, but I don't see him dominating the game. You could create a character without as wide a spread of skills, but better damage soaking ability, 4 IPs, and a high Edge, for example. Both BPs and karmagen involve tradeoffs in character creation.

[toturi]

Would such a build really be unbalancing, though? The character is good enough to do well in several different areas, but I don't see him dominating the game. You could create a character without as wide a spread of skills, but better damage soaking ability, 4 IPs, and a high Edge, for example. Both BPs and karmagen involve tradeoffs in character creation.

My point was that a character that was created with the dice pool caps would be as unbalancing as a character that was created without. The character created with caps has legitimate cause to hog the spotlight because instead of trying to impose his one skill into all situations, he can genuinely say that his character would shine in those many situations.

And indeed, having a character with that spread of skills at that depth is too easy to build.

[Cain]

My point was that a character that was created with the dice pool caps would be as unbalancing as a character that was created without. The character created with caps has legitimate cause to hog the spotlight because instead of trying to impose his one skill into all situations, he can genuinely say that his character would shine in those many situations.

Again, would that character be unbalancing? Considering that he's capped in most of those dice pool areas we can eliminate most of the excess back down to 15, so it's not as bad as it first looks. And certainly, the character would be powerful, that was exactly the point.

But compared to someone slinging 51 dice in one dice pool, and 30+ dice in a few others? A hyper-optimized character will overwhelm anything but another hyper-optimized character, every single time. And because of the critical success rule, he not only gets to hog the spotlight, he gets to dominate it when he has it. 21+ dice should be reserved for the BBEG.

[toturi]

Again, would that character be unbalancing? Considering that he's capped in most of those dice pool areas we can eliminate most of the excess back down to 15, so it's not as bad as it first looks. And certainly, the character would be powerful, that was exactly the point.

But compared to someone slinging 51 dice in one dice pool, and 30+ dice in a few others? A hyper-optimized character will overwhelm anything but another hyper-optimized character, every single time. And because of the critical success rule, he not only gets to hog the spotlight, he gets to dominate it when he has it. 21+ dice should be reserved for the BBEG.

A hyper-optimized character under any set of rules will overwhelm anything but another hyper-optimized character, every single time. 21+ dice should not just be reserved for the BBEG, it should be for everyone who wants to have it (and can pay for it).

[Stahlseele]

isn't that kinda the whole premise for shadowrun somehow?
you can't do something, so you go chop off whatever part of your body is not operating in the standards you want to set, and then you replace that part of yours with something that DOES what you want it to do . . you wanna punch through walls, but even your racial maximum strength of 8 with exceptional attribute and genetweak won't allow you to do that . . you lop off one arm, boost it up untill eleven strength and switch off the pain receptors and overdrive it to about 15STR and voila, after some whacks you're through the wall O.o
i am still peeved about the stun from redlining that won't even be stopped by augmenting the rest of your body to keep up or switching off the pain receptors of the whole body . . redline to double maximum rating and you're dead meat in some seconds <-<

[Glyph]

Hyper-optimized in one dice pool, or optimized in numerous dice pools, are both potentially good builds, but they are not the only way to go. A lot of characters can be optimized in two or three things, then tweaked for the other three biggies - initiative/initiative passes, high Edge, and good damage dodging/soaking.

If you pimp out too many dice pools, you don't do as well in those other three areas. My example guy has above average stats, and could afford wired reflexes: 2, but if I hadn't given him so many high dice pools, I would have been able to make him a super-fast and super-tough SOB with an Edge of 5 or 6.

A hyper-optimized single dice pool is not fun from a metagame standpoint. You spend too much time simply figuring out which modifiers apply or not. You are boringly dominant in your area - the GM might tell you "Yeah, yeah, you do (such-and-such), don't bother rolling" for most tasks. On the other hand, the GM will also be paying more attention to ways to "challenge" you, so you might wind up having more problems than if you simply rolled 20 dice or so and succeeded most of the time. Some GMs might be able to run with it, but for other GMs, you could wind up being bored when your specialty comes up, and twiddling your thumbs the rest of the time.

[Cain]

A hyper-optimized character under any set of rules will overwhelm anything but another hyper-optimized character, every single time. 21+ dice should not just be reserved for the BBEG, it should be for everyone who wants to have it (and can pay for it).

That's one of the reasons why a suggested cap is so important. It lets you know what power level the players want to run at. If you ask them to keep things under 15-20, and they all go over by one or two, you can adjust accordingly. If everyone brings you a highly optimized character, you also know what they want. And if almost everyone sticks to the caps, except for one guy who brings you a pornomancer, well, that also tells you something important.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, I just think of it in terms of equilibrium. I care more about the players being roughly equivalent in value to eachother than about whether they're doing their job with 8, 15 or 20 dice. If the PCs want to have pain editors, ceramic skeletons, jacked up reflexes, elite skills, and personal Agent Smith/Drone armies, that's fine by me-- but they're not going to be offered many small-time milk money jobs. I can adjust NPCs and gear the campaign towards being a high powered prime runner level campaign if I have to, and they'll need that stuff if they expect to waltz into an MCT laboratory and live to tell the tale. But what I can't do is easily adjust a PC's sheet once it's in play without feeling like I failed to get everyone on the same page in the first place. I'd much rather set some limitations up front than tell someone to pare back their character later on, especially if their character concept was heavily based on being specialized in one skill set. I'd rather set some groundrules than jerk around a player later, even if his character concept could best be described as Billy Badass the incredibly generic street samurai with a million dice.

[Malachi]

And because of the critical success rule, he not only gets to hog the spotlight, he gets to dominate it when he has it.

You seem to place a lot of stock in that "critical success" rule. Not one of my players has ever asked to use it. My understanding was that it was intended only to be a small "narrative flourish" and shouldn't dominate any play session.

[Aaron]

But compared to someone slinging 51 dice in one dice pool, and 30+ dice in a few others? A hyper-optimized character will overwhelm anything but another hyper-optimized character, every single time. And because of the critical success rule, he not only gets to hog the spotlight, he gets to dominate it when he has it. 21+ dice should be reserved for the BBEG.

Er ... I think you're misreading the rules, there. Lemme check ...

There are many other possibilities for rewarding
characters with Edge points:
[ ... ]
• Scoring a critical success (p. 59) against the odds.

I'm not sure a hyper-optimized character would often qualify as being "against the odds" in most cases. Rolling, say 15 dice against six, ten, or even fifteen can hardly be considered "against the odds," I think.

[Whipstitch]

Agreed, I really wish Cain would stop bringing up the ridiculously nebulous and ultimately fluff oriented critical success rule. In the example given in the books, the PC involved needs to do a repair test, which traditionally is an Extended test with an interval determined by the GM. Since the PC in question managed to beat the test in a single interval, the job was done really damn quickly whether you really follow the Critical Success rules or not. The PC is allowed to add flourishing details, sure, but the event was already unqualified success by any standard. I mean, really if a PC moonlights in a trog rock band down by the Barrens and gets a critical success to impress the crowd, he's well within his rights when saying he played a kick-ass guitar solo. It's a flourish and doesn't tell us anything we didn't really already know about how the situation panned out. But if the same scenario results in the player claiming "I impress everyone so much that a Horizon talent scout immediately contacts me about a recording contract," then well, it's not really a "flourish" at all and the GM has every right to tell him to dial it back a notch, since the rules never give players the right to start railroading the storyline.

[Cain]

I'm not sure a hyper-optimized character would often qualify as being "against the odds" in most cases. Rolling, say 15 dice against six, ten, or even fifteen can hardly be considered "against the odds," I think.

Who said anything about getting Edge back? I'm talking about the Critical Success rule, which is the worst implementation of narrative rules I've ever seen.

According to the Rules As Written, a critical success allows a player to add whatever "flourish" they like. It doesn't matter how silly, or ridiculous, he gets it and No One Can Override Him. If someone wants to jump into low earth orbit, they can. They want that huge recording contract, they get it. So long as it's a "special effect", they're allowed to break disbelief in the game as much as they like.

Even if they're not openly breaking things, the ones who score consistent critical successes get more accolades from the table: more cheers, more high-fives, more "Damn, that was a nice roll!" from everyone. That's effectively the same as more spotlight time, and a higher quality of it at that.

I don't know who said that no one ever uses it, but that doesn't make the rule any less broken. I don't see many full-fledged pornomancers appearing at tables, but that doesn't make them any less broken. Just because something doesn't happen often doesn't mean it won't happen. Just because pornomancers are rare doesn't mean that one won't show up at your table someday; and just because people don't use critical successes doesn't mean that someone won't abuse it in the near future.

[Fortune]

Cain's definition of 'flourish', especially used in this context, differs greatly from mine, and that of many others here.

[Whipstitch]

Are you sure you understand what the word flourish means in this context? It's an ornamental detail, an embellishment. Your italics on "no one can override him" are a flourish. The italics don't mean jack shit; all the meaning was invested in the words you chose, not the silly details you used for emphasis. What you are calling a flourish in your examples are not flourishes, they are material changes to the meanings of the dice rolls, and thus are not covered by the critical success rules.

In fact, it's quite possible for me to get a critical success while attacking my opponent in unarmed combat followed by him rolling a critical success on the soak test. In such a case I can describe myself as expertly launching a punch straight to the kidneys while the other guy says his incredible conditioning allows him to absorb the force of the blow. At no point are either of us allowed to say "killing him instantly" or "his foot bounces off my rock-hard abs, shattering into a million pieces" because those aren't flourishes, they're railroading and don't even really reflect the result of the dice rolls. A flourish does not materially change the course of the game, it just reflects the fact that there's been a clash between the unstoppable force and an immovable object.

[Malachi]

According to the Rules As Written, a critical success allows a player to add whatever "flourish" they like. It doesn't matter how silly, or ridiculous, he gets it and No One Can Override Him. If someone wants to jump into low earth orbit, they can. They want that huge recording contract, they get it. So long as it's a "special effect", they're allowed to break disbelief in the game as much as they like.

You consistently have the strangest reading/interpretation of the rules I have ever seen.

[MaxMahem]

Ditto's to what everyone else said. Its clear that Cain's post is even self-contradictory with itself.

If someone wants to jump into low earth orbit, they can. They want that huge recording contract, they get it. So long as it's a "special effect", they're allowed to break disbelief in the game as much as they like.

I doubt any rational observer would consider "jumping into orbit" a "special effect." Maybe if this was a superhero's game, but clearly not in Shadowrun.

[Fortune]

We've done this debate before, but I find that I still get a kick out of it. It's kind of like watching an old episode of Mork and Mindy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Aaron]

Cain, you seem to be using definitions of the words "flourish" and "detail" that of which I am unaware. Could you offer us the definitions you're using?

[toturi]

By RAW, there is no definition for "flourish" or "detail". Even when we use the dictionary definitions, there is still no guide as to what constitutes a "flourishing detail" in Shadowrun.