Skillwired Chameleon Characters, What do you allow ? Options

[Skarn Ka]

One of my players has designed a character with almost no skills and the 1 million in ressources. But he has tons of skillsofts and the corresponding cyber, which makes him competent in almost everything he wants. since you'll never use more than two or three skills at the same time, he virtually has all his skills available.
His background is very good, coherent, and I wouldn't like to punish him. But the problem is:
-if he's got his chips, he's a munchkin (from the start !)
-if he loses his chips, he's nothing, not playable at all

Note that he has some natural skills, not very high, not numerous, but all in coherence with his char's concept.

How would you limit it, while keeping the fun and originality of the char, and respecting the player's creativity ?

[Abstruse]

Remember that skillsofts are preprogramed responses of skills. Which means that when using a skillsoft, you tend to act like a robot using preset definitions and things like that. Usually doesn't matter, but when you're experiencing something new, then you're going to have a bit more trouble. This doesn't matter with Pistols, but it does with things like Electronics. You may know how to re-route the circuits in anything known, but if you run across a prototype you've never seen before, you might run into a little trouble.

Plus with linguasofts, you'll tend to sound very machine-like, similar to reading a translation off Babelfish. You'll be able to get your meaning across, but slang and small vocal tricks will give him some trouble.

Don't penalize them, but just try to emphasize the computer-based nature of skillsofts...and for Coyote's sake do NOT, I repeat, do NOT let him use his dice pools unless he gets the upgrade thingy I can't remember the name of right now. That's a BIG disadvantage...

The Abstruse One

[Birdy]

We use the old rule from Cyberpunk (based on a line in "Hardwired") that you have to work with your skillchip to give chip the chance to adapt to your body. This is only done with a new chip but takes time (1 day/level for lingua, 1 week/level for active) and after that the chip only works with you.

Birdy

[Dashifen]

[wienerwürstchen]

..the DIMAP Option from the Arsenal

[BlackSmith]

[The Jopp]

[The White Dwarf]

Three things:

1) Skillwires are, in almost every case, so cost prohibitive that they are unusable at starting in anything other than a minor/supporting role. Before anything gets the greenlight, double check all cost calculations (including alphaware costs and options changes to soft's price, etc etc) because I find it impossible that this is usable enough to be considered munchy without the hardcopy proof (not that you need to post it, just be sure theres not some clerical error here).

2) The task pool is not broken. The only imbalancing instance is that it allows a dice pool for social skills, which normally have access to none. In all other cases it does NOT equal 6 skill + 6 pool = 12 dice. Its a pool, it refreshes per normal pool rules, the task pool section says as much explicitly. Sure you can do a 12 dice skill roll, then you get no pool until they refresh per normal, same as anything else.

3) To quote "almost no skills and tons of skillsofts". Id offer some advice here if you provided more concrete numbers; for example "10 skillpoints and 40 points worth of softs". It would take a seriously skewed number in both areas for this to really be a problem when combined with points 1 and 2. In addition, assuming the character is non-magical, Im not sure how few skillpoints they could be using. Under the BP system, even if they did 60 in attributes and 30 in resources, and lost 6 to edges, they still get 24 points for skills with a 120 total. 24 isnt huge but its not few either, heck 24 is a decent letter priority iirc. So theres not much I can offer in this area unless you want to clarify the situation, except that comparitvly I again find it highly unlikely that an imbalance of any substantial scale could occur.

[BlackSmith]

i still dont know about this Arsenal thingy but sounds about broken stuff.
anyway, chipskills will never get ANY pool dices used in our games.
sure it gets expencive at higher skill rates but so what, it is only money.

and when i GM any lightning spell making more than light damage cooks the chips.

[Kagetenshi]

[Abstruse]

I actually figured this out. It's cheaper in build points to shove a chipjack in your skill and buy linguasofts than it is to buy the damn skills. Or was it karma from BeCKS...probably both...

The Sleep-Deprived One

[The Jopp]

[Siege]

[Abstruse]

BTW, there is a social stigma to skillsofts (at least in my games...) Basically, your skill doesn't come from your talent, but from your pocketbook. If I had a character like that in my game, you can be assured that many NPCs would be making references to the "Little rich boy playing shadowrunner".

The Abstruse One

[Cochise]

[The Jopp]

[The White Dwarf]

The Jopp:

Nope, wrong. See the skillwires cost is double what you listed.

Quote:
Skillwires with 216MPS memory, thats enought for 2 skills at once.
Rating X 500 X MPS= 6*500*216=648000

In order to run 2 skills at once, the Rating value must be 12, the total assist value of 2 rating 6 skillsofts. This is clarified in CC. Thus the actual cost of the skillwires alone comes to 1,296,000 nuyen ... more than you can start with.

In order to make the system affordable it cannot run at the level needed to be munchy. You can try to use options to offset this some, but then the program cost starts to double and you get screwed from that end.

Kagetenshi:

No the pool isnt broken. Take these two examples:
Troll, modifed body 12, combat pool 8, gun skill 6.
Human, modified body 6, combat pool 8, chipped gun skill 6 + task pool 6.

The troll comes out ahead in total "combat dice" as long as he is shot and hit at least once because his body is higher. You can skew this comparison an untold number of ways to illustrate this point. A high combat pool adept, any well built tank sam, etc. The illusion of 6 "extra" combat pool really doesnt amount to anything at all when you consider the impact of the other dice in the situation, and the fact that the pool is spread out over multiple actions in almost every circumstance.

If you get shot with 3 or 4 successes from a burst capable gun (not uncommon) those 6 "extra" dice arent enough to even dodge but half the attack. Then you get shot again as another simple action, with no extra dice, and again the next pass or two with no dice. Trying to say "trolls are unbalanced because they get more body" is a sounder argument.

[Siege]

As written, using a skillchip instead of a natural skill has no drawbacks.

Except for the obvious "don't lose the chip or you get fragged."

There are various house rules to address the perceived imbalances but as to what you choose to use in your game is a matter of taste.

Except for the power monkey I used to game with, skillwires were never really a big issue in my circles.

-Siege

[Kagetenshi]

I'm not going to get into combat because it's too early in the morning for that kind of math; maybe I'll address it after Calc later. However:

Person with natural 6 in Electronics: 6 dice, maybe plus a point or two of task pool if he or she has spent a lot of money on other 'ware.

Person with rating 6 chip and CED-6: 12 dice, every time, unless for some reason they need to make more than one Electronics test in three seconds.

Same for every other skill.

~J

[The Jopp]

White Dwarf:

Ah, so THAT's where they put the balance maker. :)

In that case you could buy them with a lot less money then? A rating 4 skillwire for 1 Jack would be 4X500X48Mps= 96000. This mean you would have to balance both the MP rating AND the actual skill rating, which is more number crunching just to calculate. So WHY would I need the MPs in the first place? Is that just to calculate the final cost or do they have any other use?

Could you give me a page reference in CC so I can check it?

[The White Dwarf]

Uh, the front of the skillwires section. When theyre talking about pulse and assist ratings. Pg 58-60. You need MP for a limit just like you need the skill rating. 'Wires need to be able to run both totals to work. So yea, you could probably fit a rating 4 skillwires with one jack... but thats not really overbearing. If a player wants to sink 200k-250k into having a few chipped skills, fine. Pretty close to just using points on em.

As for the pool thing, yea fine on non-combat skills it could get a bit fuzzy. But seriously what situation have electronics 6 or 7 (specialization or enchanced articulation) been insufficent. Tech characters can take aptitude in the relevent skill, they can use tools like a sequencer to help them, they can be assisted by other characters, they can have complementary skill help in some situations, and theres an edge that even lowers the defaulting penalty for those in the event they dont have what the need. I fail to see how youd really ever need the dice in these situations, hence I wouldnt consider them for balance reasons since past 5 or 6 its all pretty much moot anyhow. (I could see the exception would be like a rating 10 lock or something, but you dont go up against something like that unprepped, and the higher the tn the less more dice matters statistically, so again nbd as youre likey to find another solution anyhow). Social skills I will give you tho, thats the one area skillwires can be abused... more dice do matter on those tests and theres no other way to get them (besides buckets of karma).

[Sphynx]

If you get a chance, check out the [Info] section of Skillz, the leader of our group. Explains alot about how Skillsofts work and was the reason for my skillsoft calculator everyone likes.

Sphynx

[Kagetenshi]

B/R times can be made pretty absurdly short with 12 dice. Demolitions tests? Ouchie. Computers skill? The free-for-all nature of hacking pool makes it less significant, but under some circumstances you can rack up the extra successes for searches and other circumstances when you need five dice. Not to mention that technically you could allocate all of your hacking pool dice to detection factor and then have your CED dice sitting around to use, though I'll admit that I don't know a GM who would allow that one.

As for combat, the extra dice make a difference. They may or may not be spread out that much, depending on the speed of the character in question; for someone getting one action a round, that's either three dice per attack or six to one attack. That's pretty bloody significant, an average increase of .5 or 1 expected success against a TN of 6. Even with speed-freak sammies getting four actions a combat turn, it means that if they really need to they can pour everything into a single attack if they've got a particularly nasty opponent who needs to die NOW.
A little analysis of your argument:

Troll, effective body 12, CP 8, pistols 6
Human, body 6, CP 8, Pistols chip 6, r6 CED.

In this case, which at least in the games I've encountered is pretty reasonable (maybe your games tend to feature heavier artillery, but pistols is the norm that I've seen), we'll say that neither character is particularly smart and they're standing out in the open blasting away at each other with Predators. They are also not wearing armor. I don't know, maybe they're dueling or something.. 9M, TN 4. Troll rolls 6 dice, gets 3 successes; human rolls six of his eight combat pool dice to dodge, gets three successes, no damage. Troll rolls his six again, gets two successes (Ok, he probably gets 1 RC for Strength, but that just means you allocate two of the dice that were rolled for the first dodge test to the second and take two moderate wounds rather than a single serious), human rolls his remaining two dodge dice and his body dice, receiving a moderate wound.
Then the human goes. TN 6, 12 dice, two successes. Troll burns off four dice on dodge pool to dodge it completely, and then another two when the second attack and its one expected success comes around. Doesn't look particularly unbalanced, does it?

Now, with the human going first. Since the first shot has the lower TN, it'd make sense to use all of the dice on this one. 12 dice, 6 expected successes. Troll dodges four, and is expected to get at most one success on his body test, so he takes a Serious wound. With a +3 to all actions, it doesn't matter what happens next; short of a miracle, he's lost the fight. Odds are that he'll die in the next shot, anyway.

Again, with five points of ballistic armor, troll going first: Troll fires, three successes, human rolls six dice, complete dodge, then second attack, two successes, human rolls two and dodges one success, then tries to soak 4M. Three successes, he takes L damage.
Then he goes. TN 5, 12 dice, 4 successes. Troll burns off six dice to dodge three of those, then soaks the remainder. Next shot only gets a single success, almost certainly soaked if not dodged. Disadvantage human.

Now, human first: 12 dice, 6 successes, troll burns all eight dice to get down to 3 successes. Troll is facing Serious damage, but he gets his expected 6 successes and soaks it. Second attack gets two successes, but we've just shown that the troll can expect to soak 4S no trouble.
Doesn't look broken, does it?

Let's compare the costs. Minimum cost for skillwire/CED combo, plus a few skills: ~25 BP.
Cost for Troll: 10 points.
Cost for 6 points Body: 6 points.
Cost for Pistols 6: 6 points

That's 22 points. Still seems that we're getting off cheaply.
Except for that little addition.
"Plus a few skills."
We've got someone who may not be able to stand toe-to-toe with a troll, but who can be a valid threat under the right circumstances. And who also has several more rating 6 skills (rating 12, effectively) for free.
Now, let's try two characters that are the same, except one natural and one chipped:

Human, body 6, CP 8, Pistols 6
Human, body 6, CP 8, chipped Pistols 6, CED 6
5 ballistic armor for both

Natural human gets 3 successes, chipped human dodges all with 6 dice. Natural human goes again, gets 2 successes, one dodged, Light wound for the chipped human after soaking.
Chipped human gets 4 successes with his 12 dice. Natural human dodges everything with his entire CP. Chipped human gets a single success, natural human takes a Light wound. Since we're tied, we'll take this to the second combat round.
Natural human rolls his six dice, two successes, three CP go to dodge one and then one CP goes to make the soak complete. Natural human gets a single success on his next attack, easily dodged by the remaining CP. Then the augmented human goes and throws 12 dice, for 4 successes. Natural human can't be expected to dodge three of them, so he goes for one and spends three CP. Then he has to soak 4S, but with all his dice he can only muster 5.5 expected successes, so he takes another Light and has nothing left. The next attack has but a single success, but he can't defend against it, and he takes a third Light to bring him up to Moderate. He's not winning this.

Give the chipped human the first attack and it's even worse. Twelve dice, six successes, four of which are dodged, one level of soak, Moderate wound. Second attack, two successes, one level of soak, another Moderate for a total of Serious. He's definitely not winning that.

A skillwired person will eat their nonskillwired counterpart for breakfast.

~J

[BlackSmith]

well if tWD has it right, in Kagetenshi's case we are talking about huge piles of platium credsticks.
and with that load of money you should beat a regural pedestrial.

[Kagetenshi]

Skillwires for one skill: 500*6*108=¥324,000
CED r6: ¥30,000
10 (!) rating 6 Activesofts:¥108,000
Chipjack: ¥1,000
Total cost thus far: ¥463,000, so costing a minimum of 25 build points. This means that at any given time this character can be toting around ten skills, using one at a time, and throwing 12 dice at them. Say we go a 4-slot multi-slot chipjack; then we're up to ¥466,000. We can't use all of these at once, true, but we can instantly switch between any of 4 rating 6 skills, with a 6-die pool, and an additional 6 skills left to swap in if needed.
That's less than half the capacity of a platinum credstick. Two and a half gold credsticks.

~J