metatypes unbalanced?, are the BP costs for metahumans fair? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[captainwhizz]

sorry if this has been discussed before, it's my first time on the board, but does anyone else think that the BP costs for the different metatypes are broken?
specifically, for Elves. I realise that Orks, Dwarves and Trolls all have reduced racial maximums and Elves don't, but looking at starting characters:

Ork: 20 BPs. Attribute bonuses: 5 (50 BPs-worth). Low Light Vision.

Dwarf: 25 BPs. Attribute bonuses: 4 (40 BPs-worth). Thermographic Vision, Path/ Tox resistance.

Elf: 30 BPs. Attribute bonuses: 3 (30 BPs-worth). Low Light Vision.

Troll: 40 BPs. Attribute bonuses: 8 (80 BPs-worth). Thermographic Vision, extra Reach, extra Armour

An Elf pays 10 BPs more than an Ork, but gets 20 BPs-worth less attribute boosts. Does capping the Ork's Charisma and Logic at one lower than norm really account for a 30 BPs difference?

[FanGirl]

If you made it advantageous to be an elf, the shadows would be overrun by them. I mean, elves are awesome enough that The Powers That Be need to give the other races special incentives just to ensure diversity.

[Ophis]

Major point agility is the best ability score, look how many skills link to it, yes elves are worth 30. Orcs are cheap though, thats volume for you :)

[Synner]

Don't forget that Orks (and Trolls for that matter) get an unspoken disadvantage - racial prejudice and marginalization (at least in proper society)... depending on how much roleplaying and NPC interaction figures in your game that can be a pretty powerful disadvantage.

[captainwhizz]

Orks and Trolls get discriminated against, but they can smack the stuffing out of people too.

It's not a huge problem, but it just bugs me that it doesn't seem properly balanced.

[Dissonance]

Well, another thing to consider is that body is really a reactive stat. Sure, you can soak more damage and, like, add one die to certain social intimidation tests if you have a body above six, but it's really difficult to use the body stat proactively against somebody.

Well, with the exception of athletics type stuff.

Stuff like strength and agility and charisma and agility and all that? Those are the stats you use to actively F someone up. Body's prime use is damage mitigation.

[James McMurray]

Dwarves and trolls get to pay more for their gear also, at least the size specific stuff. It doesn't come into play during character creation, but the longer the campaign runs the more of a downside it can be.

[Kremlin KOA]

[FanGirl]

I wonder whether captainwhizz really wants to play an elf. If he preferred another meta race, I'd imagine that his comments would be more along the lines of "Ha ha, Orks and Trolls get more attribute points than stupid gimpy keebs!" Anyway, you shouldn't let balance issues steer you away from elfhood if that's what you truly want. Remember, role over rollplaying!

I've noticed that humans are absent from your equation. Humans get the worst deal, statwise: one measly Edge point. This is clearly anti-human discrimination! With their inferior stats, humans have nothing from which to defend themselves against the other races. This injustice cannot stand! Think of the children!

The above paragraph is brought to you by the Humanis Policlub. :P

[Jaid]

of course, humans actually get the best bonus... something for nothing :P

but actually, elves are fine as is, IMO.

for one thing, YES, that penalty to log and cha really hurts.

you may not realise just how much. for example, both of the current magic traditions require at least one of those attributes.

charisma is a huge thing in SR, for *everyone* in the team. you really, really don't want your cha 1 troll ganger threatening the Yaks, or for that matter failing to give rigid attention to japanese etiquette when in his presence. it makes your team look unprofessional, and that reduces your pay. and, in the wrong situation, can get you killed.

if you are trying to con your way into someplace as part of your run, that 1 charisma troll better have some skill, or he automatically gets 0 net hits... not so good, because it frags over the entire team, not just him.

Anytime you want to get gear, or do legwork, charisma will come into play. and legwork is huge in SR.

also, logic is worth free BPs for knowledge skills. and yes, knowledge skills are good to have in SR.

furthermore, charisma is an important attribute for all magicians, regardless of tradition (For spirits) and is also important for technomancers (for sprites, and for not having your brain come dripping out of your ears).

so, yes, that penalty to logic and charisma is not like the half-orc from D&D, where you can pretty much never worry about them (and for that matter, it's not even a big penalty even if those are important stats to your character)... this is 1/6 of your maximum for each point, and it also affects the maximum you can ever get.

frankly, all things considered, unless trolls start off with their bod and str almost maxed out, they are going to be hurting when it comes time to raise those stats later....

oh, and finally... phsyical stats are easy to boost, generally speaking, compared to mental ones... so a large bonus to physical stats is not as big of a deal, because a human can get to 9 strength, body, agility, and reaction much more readily than a troll can get to his whopping augmented max of 6 in logic and charisma.

[FanGirl]

[eidolon]

[Glyph]

Elves actually have a good deal. Essentially they sacrifice a point of Edge to have the ability to start out with higher Agility and/or Charisma. Attributes are much more important now, and with the last/maximum point costing extra, having a higher cap also means much more. Getting 6 Agility or 7 Charisma for only 40 points is huge. They make awesome speed sammies, faces, and mages.

A troll will start out with incredible Attributes, but their only truly high scores can be in Body and/or Strength, and over time they will be far more limited.

[captainwhizz]

[Ophis]

The attribute "penalties" are not that much of a proble IMHO, since trolls can have 3 cha at the same price as a human why is it a problem? It just means they have a hard time excelling in cha based field. The penalty is just a cap It only alters the cost of the final point and everything starts at 1.

[Xavier Grimwand]

Tried a code block?

[Shrike30]

[Azralon]

Everyone starts at 1 in SR4 (modified by race), and then you buy up using BPs. If your race effectively has an attribute "penalty" then it just means your cap in that attribute is lower.

So, according to my understanding, a troll buying a Cha:3 has to spend 20 BP. Getting a Bod:6 costs him only 10 BP because trolls start with a 5 in Body.

[captainwhizz]

[Moon-Hawk]

Look, way back in SR history, FASA tried making all the metatypes mechanically balanced. The result? Everyone played elves. F***ing elf fanboys/girls. (not to say I haven't played my share) Except for the people who played trolls.
I think if you include the game mechanical balance (unbalanced as it is), combine that with in-game prejudice, combine with that the out-of-game prejudices of the players toward the different metatypes, and I think you'll find that each metatype begins to crop up about as often as any other.
In other words, I think you should leave it as-is, because if they're mechanically balanced, then believe it or not, it unbalances them.

[Shrike30]

:eek: Dude.

That is a serious change from SR3- that I didn't even notice.

I wonder if my players did? Our ork shaman might have higher stats than he thinks...

[Azralon]

When describing the races to new SR players, I (over)generalize thusly:

Trolls: Best beatstick performance. Highest cost.
Elves: Highest accuracy and face performance. High cost.
Dwarves: Best durability-to-cost ratio. Medium cost.
Orks: Best beatstick performance-to-cost ratio. Low cost.
Humans: Best overall performance-to-cost ratio. Lowest cost.

[fool]

actually, if yoyu add in all the minuses that the diferent metatypes get then all the metatypes wind uop with a net of +3 attributes. Now remember that limiting an attribute is more severe than upping one is beneficial (imo at least), and your metatypes become much more balanced.

[James McMurray]

How severe a limitation is greatly depends on the chaacter. For most typical orks and trolls, not being able to get a 6 charisma is not a limit at all.

captainwhizz: I'd never allow the elf at less than 30BP. +2 agility is way too powerful, as it affects a huge number of skills that every shadowrunner should have (guns, infiltration, palming, and a coupl others I can't think of withotu a chart in front of me to look at).

[FrankTrollman]

[Teulisch]

lets consider bioware for a moment. +2 logic, +4 bod to resist damage, +2 strength, +2 agility. +2 reaction for that higher initive. Its faily easy for a human to get 5(7) in multiple attributes starting out.

pretty much anyone can grab muscle toner 2, and start with a default of 6 in all those fun agility skills. grab a skillwire, and you can start with 10 dice in your skill of choice, just from technology alone.

so its not just that a troll can have 10 strength... he can have 9(11), and do 9P with his unarmed attacks, at reach. sure agility is low at 4(6), but with a decent skill he can still roll a lot more dice than most people. 2 essence of bioware at 22 BP of gear, and any hit will kill a normal man in a single blow.

[Brahm]

[Azralon]

[Kyoto Kid]

Hmm...

So far, I have been running humans because I feel there are other places I would rather spend BPs. I do have two Metas in the wings, A Dwarf Healer/Mage and KK4.1's twin sister Kyle who is only the second elf PC I ever designed (the first being Night Angel, my Fallen Angel PC who was built on the Powerful BP level from MJBB for a specific campaign - Surprisingly she was a Face/Agent instead of a mage.)

Even in SR 3, most of my characters were human, with the exception of My dwarf Merc Gracie, my Ex-Cosmonaut Katyana Markova (also a dwarf), and the aforementioned Night Angel.

If I'm going to spend the extra BPs I pretty much favour the Dwarf since as alluded to, they are more durable and can work well as almost any runner type (even an adept).

[Shrike30]

I'd say the metatype I find myself gravitating towards is the Ork. Partially because I identify with them a little (being a little over six foot, 210 lbs, and preferring the "direct" approach socially), and partially because it's an interesting step out of my existence (as a middle class white guy in Seattle) to play a metatype that's got social stigma against it, despite being a rapidly growing near-plurality of the population.

[captainwhizz]

[captainwhizz]

[captainwhizz]

[Brahm]

[captainwhizz]

[James McMurray]

Sorry, I swapped agility and charisma in my head. +1 agility still means +1 die to all those skills. Not in your examples, but in the long run. The +2 charisma is also beefy for a shaman or a face. I've got a group with a couple of minmaxers in them and nobody is upset about the differences between the races. We've even got an elf (Face) and an ork (combat rigger).

[captainwhizz]

[Brahm]

[captainwhizz]

yes, GURPS has a points value for different eyesights.

basically, your character starts blank. attributes go from 0 to 20. to take an attribute at 10 costs 0 pts. the points are weighted so that to go from 15 to 16 costs more than to go from 10 to 11.

you then buy skills, advantages, and disadvantages. you get points back for picking disadvantages, but the amount you can get is capped.

GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing System- the main rule book is just rules, no story, no setting. You can buy different background books for different fantasy, sci-fi, horror, western, cyber-punk, etc. settings. There's also GURPS Werewolf, Vampire, Cthulu, etc.

As there are no specific racial packages in the main rulebook, they're either in the source books, or you make your own source book. So you can make up your own racial packages (eg, Orks start with Strength 13, Charisma 8, and low-light vision) and the points would be the same as a character in a sci-fi setting taking those same stats.

As for others getting to Elf levels, only an Elf can have CHA 8, yes. But who starts with CHA 8?

As I pointed out, is it fair that you can have an Elf and an Ork with exactly the same stats, but the Ork is cheaper? It doesn't seem fair to me, and nobody has justified it apart from the capped attributes, which aren't an issue until you've been playing for a long time.

[James McMurray]

Point systems would have to be added to accommodate the prejudice side effects of being an ork or a troll, which changes drastically from GM to GM.

[Dissonance]

[James McMurray]

What's the karma cost to upgrade attrbitues? 2 or 4 per new rating?

[Dissonance]

Not a clue, and I'm pretty sure it's per rating BEFORE racial modifiers. Otherwise, you get insanity in the form of trolls spending decades worth of karma to increase one point of strength or body.

[James McMurray]

No, it's definitely after racial modifiers, which is why it's better to max the stat during chargen and close the holes in the weak stats later. I just can't remember the karma costs, so I can't make a post about how much better it is.

[Ophis]

Some of my elf characters start with Cha 7, do that with another metatype if you would. If I had the points I would start at cha 8.
I like elves and I like characters who can manipulate people. Perfect match. My human builds for similar concepts would start with cha 5. While in character creation all attributes cost equally they are not equal in play. Strength for example is rarely used (run, climb and swim) with skills, but often used with melee damage. However melee damage is based off 1/2Str, so a +1 str is not really very good, +2 is much better, str is just worth less than aglity in actual play, except for specific builds (who prolly still want lots of agl).

Also gurps runs on a bell curve probability which means that different values are worth more or less depending on how it shifts you position on the bell curve (Gurps using 3d6 and roll under total I recall means points thats take you up around 11 has more effect on sucess than 15-16). Shadowrun 4 has a linear progression I think (not my strong point here) more dice means a proportional increase in chance of success (more hits). This all means that comparison between them are not particularly good for logic as they are based on very different ideas.

I think the races are fairly well balanced as is, though orcs are a bit on the cheap side. If you want balance between races just rember some stats ARE better than others in play, and give up Roleplaying, no game that I've ever seen has ever been properly balanced. Game balance is a lie, do what is right for the world. So far the way things seem to be going is that as PCs humans are the most common with elves and orcs tieing for 2nd then trolls and dwarves tied for 3rd. Which is close to the proportions you should find in a poulation sample from the SR world. Neat huh, I actually rallied to a point.

[James McMurray]

IIRC you have to have a strength of 10 and a katana to equal the damage output of a monowhip (which you can now start with at chargen). True, a monowhip has risks, but a critical glitch in your weapon of choice should be fairly rare.

Strength is highly useful for a particular concept, but completely unnecessary if you just want to be good at melee.

[Ophis]

Monowhip is 8p but has -4 AP and 2 reach, so better than troll str by a fair way. and at 3000 :nuyen: cost less than a build point...

[Dissonance]

And, well. Let's face it. Monowhips are cool. Giant two-handed polearms are cool, too, but you don't have quite so many chances to get your Berserker on.

[James McMurray]

It's a lot easier to conceal a monowhip too.

[schmitzzy]

i see one flaw that no one has addressed in this discussion about the elf is that he is socially higher than all other metatypes except humans you are all saying orcs have racism on them witch would lower point value but never said that having a higher social level would increase there point ever think of that and don't be "in the numbers" so to say

i have an elf decker/rigger and i picked elf because i love elves and always have and my friend has a dwarf gunslinger because his stats might help a little no because he liked dwarfs i remember playing D&D he was a dwarf i was a an elf.

i am merely saying pick a race because you are fascinated by it or it intrigues you or you most relate to it or because you thing they are flipin cool not because there advantages will help my class

-p.s. sorry if you are angered if i don't use periods but try to make sense of it

[captainwhizz]

I'm not saying that SR4 is busted, or that GURPS is amazing (adding together multiple d6 rolls always creates a bias towards the centre of the range of outcomes), just that the Elf/ Dwarf thing struck me is odd.

At the end of the day, the people who wrote SR4 (hopefully) had a lot more experience in games design than I did, so I'll trust to their rules.

It just struck me as weird that two characters should be statistically identical for different points. I guess it's just because I was looking at designing a combat-ish character, and comparing combat-leaning races to less optimised races.

[James McMurray]

Elves have better charisma and wannabes following them, but their societal advantages are nowhere near the equal of the societal disadvantages of orks (at least not in games I've played in).

[James McMurray]

Yeah, try making an ork face witht e same points as your elf face. :)

You also kept attributes fairly even across the board, but most folks that pick trolls by the numbers do it because they want to be really strong and have a really high body, and so generally don't end up with stats like that. The same would hold true for other races. If you're picking an elf it's robably because you want the high charisma and/or agility, and will likely dump more points into ti.

[Brahm]

[Glyph]

[jervinator]

I just thought I'd repost this from > Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun 4 > Character Creation Min-Maxing 101

[James McMurray]

Seems like an awful lot of work for a coincidental endpoint. I somehow doubt that's the formula they used. :D

[Kremlin KOA]

I dunno, somehow it seems right

[jervinator]

That was only ~20 minutes work. for me to come up with.

Just to show you what sort of g33k I am at times, I reverse-calculated the BV point values for BattleTech weapons so I could make my own and keep them balanced. THAT took me almost two days, but I got the values to within 1%. When you consider the sheer number of variables involved (including not limited to the 2d6 probability 'curve', missile hits table, minimum range penalties, and 'head-chopper' bonuses), this was a breeze.

[James McMurray]

And all it means it that you found a formula that works for the examples. It doesn't necessarily mean that any race (or weapon) based on the formula is balanced.

[NightHaunter]

[captainwhizz]

does that formula take into account the increased basic stats?
either way, I still doubt the fairness of the system, but I'll live with it.

[Dv84good]

Well I play with someone who makes troll mages. the troll can have
bod-6 agi-4 rea-5 stre-5 char-3 int- 4 log-4 will-5. All the important stat for this character are unpenalized except intuition. He is above average in most everything. Is this fair?

[Shrike30]

Given that he's 3 meters tall, has a hard time dealing with things like the back seat of a taxi, needs much larger objects than the normal meta to get "cover" and will probably be viewed with more suspicion than the average human runner if he tries to pass himself off as, say, an employee of a Japanacorp, then yeah, I'd say it's fair.

How're his knowledge skills? How's his summoning? Those are both pretty handy when you're a mage...

[Azralon]

[James McMurray]

The size costs don't take effect during character creation, and only affect gear that is size specific. It could be argued that only the polearm part of that focus is affected by size, not the magical aspect.

There's a reason there's been a Troll combat Mage in every edition of SR. They can be pretty bad ass. They won't be as good at summoning probably, but everything is a tradeoff.

[Azralon]

[Shrike30]

... they suggest mod costs not be incurred during character creation?

[James McMurray]

Yep. I'm not sure why, but it's in there.

[ThreeGee]

[Butterblume]

Yeah, in SR2 the combat mage was human. The guy floating 15 cm above the ground ;).

[James McMurray]

Sorry, I didn't mean in the actual book, I meant as a talked about iconic possibility.

[ThreeGee]

Sorry just checked -1 will -2 int and -2 cha in 2nd edition, still pretty gimped as casters.

[evilgenius]

I always felt that the running / movement speed differences should factor more. Chasing and escaping become virtually impossible as a dwarf... Which may be accurate, but that limitation should be worth more in terms of build points...

Special vision should be valued less, considering that for a measly few hundred nuyen and 0.1 or 0.2 essence you could get the same damn thing. Plus, if you DO get cyber eyes, your "special" vision is gone...

Toxin / disease resistance is useful, but not nearly as useful as +1 armour and +1 reach...

I mean, for Orks and Trolls the social stigma justifies their relatively cheap cost in my opinion... But the dwarves posess a negative social stigma too (albeit a different negative). To me, it's the dwarves who get the "short" end of the stick in terms of build costs.

[Azralon]

[James McMurray]

Special vision options are more valuable to magically active individuals and technomancers, who don't want the cyberware.

It's easy to get an extra die of armor, fairly hard to get an extra die of toxin / disease resistance.

[Dv84good]

[James McMurray]

Those 40 points can instead be spent on 10 ranks of skills (or 4 in a group). He could spend them on 200,000 worth of gear or a base edge of 5 instead of 1. IIRC you can start with 12 spells, which will cost you 36 points.

Mages are highly point intensive, tossing 40 into race is a hard decision.

[Azralon]

What James said.

40 BPs will pay for any starting magician's entire spell list and you'll still have some left over. 40 BPs pays for raising your starting Magic:1 all the way up to Magic:5. 40 BPs can buy a lot of foci goodness. Only 20 BPs can go into Positive Qualities like two levels of Focused Concentration.

It's a point-buy system. There will be trade-offs no matter what you do. Some are more efficient in the short term, some in the long term. You and your group just need to decide which is more important and spend accordingly.

[Shrike30]

I'm sure you can figure out how to spend 40 build points (the cost of the troll) in such a way that the troll's 4 more dice against incoming damage are compensated for by the human. Like, say, a Dodge skill, some spells, a Sustaining foci you cast Armor into... 200k :nuyen: worth of BP have got to go *somewhere* useful...

[captainwhizz]

when talking about Troll mages vs Human mages, you don't *have* to spend 200 BPs on the Troll's attributes:

[James McMurray]

You've convinced me. I'll never play another non-troll mage again (unless I want to avoid the hassles of being a troll). :)

[Dv84good]

Dam right your convinced! :)

[Dv84good]

[James McMurray]