House Rules de Santa Cruz, Mostly as regards BPs and Karma Options

[FrankTrollman]

OK, here's a list of house rules that we're going to be using. Reasoning follows "-". We've

Character Generation:
400 BPs, 200 BPs on Mental and Physical Attributes.
-This is standard.

Metatypes:
Ork, Elf, or Dwarf costs 25 BPs.
Troll costs 35 BPs.
-This scales the costs of all meahumans to reflect the actual bonuses they get, rather than in reverse incentivization to the popularity of metatypes.

Attributes cost 10 BPs up to 1 less than the normal racial maximum.
The point of normal racial maximum costs 25 points.
-This is standard.

Skill groups cost 5 points, and may be purchased up to 4.
Individual Skills cost 2 BPs per die, and one of them can be brought to 6 or two of them to 5 (all others capped at 4).
Knowledge and Language skills cost 1 BP per die.
Specializations cost 1 BP
- The math has been posted exhaustively on this subject. Skills in the basic game cost too much. At half price, it is no longer possible to mathematically prove that skills cost too much, which indicates that they might be cheap enough to be worthwhile.

Wealth and Resources:
You must purchase at least 3 months of your lifestyle during character generation in order to have that lifestyle.
-This neatly removes the monetary incentive for characters to live the highlife.

For every 1 BP you spend on resources, you get 7000 :nuyen:
-A Street Sam made under standard rules ends up less impressive than does a Magician or Adept. Also, there's a new unfunded mandate

Availability:
The maximum availability for character generation is twelve.
-This is a clarification, the book says both 12 and eight.

Contacts:
Loyalty ratings go from zero to five, with descriptions moved appropriately.
-This makes the cost of contacts which give you no special treatment more reasonable.

Qualities:
Natural Aptitude, Lucky, and Exceptional Attribute do not exist.
-These are not required based on the house rules pertaining to advancing characters.

Character Advancement:
Purchasing anything after character generation costs build points. BPs are awarded after successfully completing missions, in roughly half the amount that are suggested for Karma Awards in the basic book.
-There is only one way to make Karma Costs and BP costs balanced against each other, and that is to make them the same.

Skill groups cost 5 points up to 6, and 10 points per die up to 9
Individual Skills cost 2 BPs per die up to 6 and 4 points per die up to 9.
Knowledge and Language skills cost 1 BP per die.
Specializations cost 1 BP each.
-Allowing characters to aspire to being better than characters can start is a given.

Commutation:
You may purchase skill groups up even if you have one or more skills bought up separately inside. Increasing the skill group increases every individual skill inside them. If you would be purchasing a skill group up to six or less, and this would raise an individual skill to 7 or more, you must pay 2 extra BPs per skill. You may not raise a skill group if that would push an individual skill past 9.
-Since we are going linear, we can use the commutative property of addition. This means that characters are not punished for taking skills or skill groups in any particular order.

Attributes cost 10 points up to 1 less than the natural maximum.
Attributes may be purchased up to 3 more than the natural maximum, at a cost of 25 BPs per point.
-This is simply an extension of the reasoning for skills.

Learning a Spell costs 3 BPs.
-Obviously.