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[ElFenrir]

Me and my group got used to playing chars for awhile, making them a little higher end. Getting used to that, when we try SR4, rather than do full conversions(ie. remaking them, then dumping on karma...we're just learning the system and it might be nightmare to try to convert totally), we decided to try 450 BPs to start, to reflect this.

Seems that the old archetypes(SR3), had more Bps under the new system, but after reading some threads, it looks like the stuff has been 'lowered' so to speak. IE, a pistols 4 in the new system would nearly be pistols 6 in the old system.

Would 450 starting BPs be decent for slightly esablished characters already, is it too much, or too little? 400 seems good for slightly more wet behind the ears runners, or runners who have a few under their belts perhaps.

Or is it easier to build with 400 then tack on Karma representing slightly more 'been there, done that...at least a little' runners?

After reading conversion threads, i am not even going to attempt full out conversions til we learn the new system better.

[Azralon]

An extra 50 BP can equate to an extra 5 attribute points to spread around, but you're still going to run into the 200 BP attribute cap in chargen (unless you expand that too).

An extra 50 BP can't be sunk into any more Positive Qualities since they, too, are capped (at 35). You might want to raise that cap too.

An extra 50 BP can't go into more gear because that's already capped at 50. I suppose you could look at it like "I get free gear." Yet another cap you could raise.

Spells and Complex Forms are capped by their respective skill levels, so no direct help there.

Really all 50 BPs could mean to you is 5 more points in (at least two) skill groups, or about 12 more points in an assortment of active skills. Alternatively you could load up on Contacts or one of the special Attributes. A high Edge is pretty darn handy, and 50 BPs plus another 15 from somewhere can get you maxed out in that.

The book mentions that 500 BPs approximates a "seasoned" runner, by the way. I haven't done a cost analysis yet (I'm sure someone has, likely in a conversion thread) but my initial gut feeling is that an SR3 starting character would be worth about 500 and have correspondingly higher chargen caps.

[blakkie]

I think others have commented that 500ish seems to about the normal SR3 range, although i think 450BP is closer though maybe a bit on the downside. Depends on character type, and which chargen system you used in SR3. Even more it depends on how good you have wrapped your head around powergaming a SR4 chargen vs. how good you were in SR3.

If you try build an SR4 character like you were playing SR3, which is typically where you'd expect a player just learning SR4 to start from, you can easily gimp a 500BP PC.

EDIT:

[ElFenrir]

We're not really going for total powergaming or anything, just slightly more seasoned runners. We built a couple 450 BP pcs, and on paper they don't seem to bad, but I more or less wanted some opinions of some folks who maybe used it. 500 BPs seems quite a lot under the new system. But i have heard a few places the SR3 folks were more in the 500 range.

We're not totally going for a perfect conversion, tho. I guess the best bet would be to try to run with the 450 BP and see how balanced it is. Trial and error I suppose.

This lets you dump 225 into your starting attributes...220 technically since 5 BPs dont give anything there. Extra two points really doesn't seem bad. The real band seems to be the extra 30 BPs you can toss around for skills and contacts, and Edge, of course...which to me make up a bit more of the meat of a more seasoned runner than attributes, anyway.

[blakkie]

Well if you buy up one of the Attributes to thier top point it costs 25BP, so that extra 5BP could get used.

However as i've mentioned in other threads if you spend all of that 225BP available on just the 8 Phys/Mental Attributes there is a good chance you are short-changing your character somewhere else.

EDIT: And for quickly twiddling to learn how things shape up creating characters i highly recommend getting your hands on one of the eletronic chargen aids in the Community forum. I've heard good things about Daegann's stand alone chargen program, the Excel/Open Office sheet i've helped with is linked in my sig, and there are a couple of other Excel sheets too there.

[Zolhex]

I am in a group and we use 450 BP everyone has made nice rounded characters useing that amount.

I have played at making other toons and yes I can make some pretty cool guys but for the game I try to keep things rounded out because this is a role-playing game and in game advancement is fun.

As to what 50 BP will do for you I see no one mentioned you can be meta-human for free with BP left over.

If your not out to make I kill you by looking at you then 450 BP will make some nice characters.

On average I use 2 skill groups and 4 to 6 other active skills most skill and groups range around 4.

Knowledge/language skills average about 6 to 9 range runs between 3 and 4.

Qualities pos run about 20-25 neg run about 25-30 and my gm has said as he finds an opening in his game he is gonna use our negatives against us some he already has.

Most attributes run between 3-5 unmodified then you toss in racil and cyber/bio but I only spend BP on 3-5 points per att.

Lastly gear I use between 20 and 50 BP in cash depending on my needs for that character being magical/technomancer uses some of my money BP so those type of characters get less cash while mundane humans get more sams and hackers I tend to give more for the cyber/bio I use.

All in all I think my guys are well rounded and yes I have one (I and most of you) would call a munchkin he's got cyber arms legs and torso but hey he's legal at 450 BP.

I also have the gear guy aka the duck who has just about everything one might need on a run but again legal at 450 BP.

So I think 450 BP is ok for a experienced character.

400 BP average

500 BP advanced

wet behind the ears 350 BP

vetran 650+ but that is my opinion as a vetran would have like 10 -20 skills at 4 to 5 all att. at 4-5 before racial/cyber/bio and more than likely the preverbial duck gear out the butt cause he has learned to stock lots of different gear in many different safehouses so s/he is ready to go asap.

well hope a brief run down of my characters was usefull and remember it's just a game have fun play nice don't argue alot. :rotfl:

[Jaid]

full cyberlimbs won't make us think you're a munchkin. in SR4, that limits your attributes pretty badly. although, i suppose you will be able to take lots of physical damage.

still, i can't say i'm impressed by that, really... more Hit Points (or damage boxes, in this case) don't make someone better, they just make you suck for longer :P

(that is, provided they sucked in the first place... if they were already good, then Hit Points will obviously let them be good for longer ;))

[Zolhex]

I wasn't out to impress just showing that 450 BP did alow for some nice characters.

And cybrerlimbs suck? human max is 6 cyber arms start at 3 and adding 4 points on is no problem so at chargen I have body agi str at 7 1 higher than human max how does that suck?

Remember the rules do say cyber/bio can push you past racial max.

So out of the 8 att. 3 are over max leaveing only 5 I need to raise useing karma.

[Jaid]

have you looked at muscle replacement lately?

and have you considered the implications of cyberlimbs on anything other than a normal human?

muscle replacement 4 costs 20k and allows that human to hit their racial max in both agility and strength, costing 4 essence for basic grade. add in titanium bone lacing for 1.5 essence and +3 body for damage resistance and +1 armor, and that's another 40k for a total of 60k :nuyen: and 5.5 essence.

now, to do that with cyberlimbs, you need:

2 Full Arms (1 essence each, 15k each)
2 Full Legs (1 essence and 15k each)
1 Torso (1.5 essence and 20k)
1 Skull (.75 essence and 10k)

for a total of 90k and 6.25 essence. starting to notice any problems yet?

now then, let's add in the upgrade costs (since those limbs are all at 3 right now). this is for 7 strength and agility, and 6 body. note that to get this, the muscle replacement needs only 3 strength, agility, and body.

arms: another 2,600 each. 4 capacity each remaining.
legs: another 2,600 each. 9 capacity each remaining.
torso: not possible. drop one attribute of your choice by 1, costing either 2,400 or 2,350 depending on which attribute you sacrifice. i will assume the body will be dropped 1.
Skull: yeah, right. you can put only 4 points worth of enhancements on it. we'll ignore body, and go with 2 agility, 2 strength. 1,000

additional cost: 8,600

now then, you actually only have an overall strength of 6.6 (rounded down to 6), overall agility of 6.6 (again, rounds down to 6), and a body of 5.3 (rounds down to 5).

assuming you aim for overall 7 in agility and strength, and 6 in body, that's another 2 points in agility and strength somewhere, and 4 points in body somewhere. that's another 8 points off of your capacity (we'll put it in the legs). and costs another 1,800 to pull off.

in order to really pull off the full effect of duplicating the muscle replacement/titanium bone lacing, you also need 6 points total of armor somewhere amongst your limbs: that's another 12 points off your capacity, and another 1,800 to do, which means you have 6 points of capacity left over, you are .25 essence worth of dead, and you have spent 102.2k to match it. your 7 body plan would also require that you give up 4 of your remaining capacity and 800 although at this point, that's no biggie.


like i said, cyberlimbs are not munchkin in SR4, they are actually not as good as other things (plus for added fun, you could use some bioware stuff that i probably haven't even considered at 1/2 essence cost if you go the muscle replacement route, whereas full cyberlimbs won't allow you to use any bioware).

[Teulisch]

actualy, thats a little inacurate.

You get a basic cyberlimb with strength, agility, and body 3. You can upgrade this to 6, or up to 10 with a cyber-torso (limited to 7 at chargen by availibility).

Cyberlimbs suck, in comparison to characters with high physical atributes. A min-maxer will get muscle toner+augmentation, as the most cost-efective strength+agility increase. getting 7 agility is easy- .4 essence and :nuyen: 16k, with bioware (which may be only .2 essence if your cybered up). with a cyberlimb, you need both the limb and the torso, or 2.5 Essece and :nuyen: 36k.

but if you get a hand blown off from a gernade? go get the cyberlimb. having a weaker hand is always better than no hand at all.

[Zolhex]

[Critias]

It's a sad fact, but cyberlimbs have always sucked in SR. They had a chance to fix it, and didn't. It's unfortunate -- if anything, they should be filthily overpowered compared to more subtle/less obvious enhancements, in order to give them a reason for existing. CP:2020 is the only RPG I've seen that really manages to make them usefull enough to justify a character ever wanting one (much less multiples).

[Taki]

[Liper]

pff limbs have rocked, make a decker with a deck in the leg, cheep and mobile decker with no bulky deck to get shot up, or internalise alot of things to ultimately save essence.

limbs haven't sucked, just the enchancment of limbs beyond default has.

[Jaid]

Casazil, you need 6 points of armor because it is divided by 6 (however many cyberlimbs you have).

in order for you to have 7 strength without the cyberskull, you need to have a natural strength of 7 (which kinda defeats the purpose of having the cyberlimbs) or you need to put extra points on the other limbs to make up for it (mind you, i do have to agree that it's rather stupid, RAW, that the strength and agility of your head affect your overall stats, that's the rules).

cybertorso and cyberskull are considered cyberlimbs. thus, it is a house rule (again, one that i would support, but a house rule nonetheless) to allow other cyber/bioware to be placed in them.

the simple fact is that cyberlimbs just aren't all that great. you are better off augmenting your physical stats some other way.

[SMDVogrin]

[blakkie]

But what about real muscle heads that have a cyberskull installed?

[FrankTrollman]

[PlatonicPimp]

[Zolhex]

Thanks for the back up guys nice to see others interpet the rules the way I read them.

Jaid I agree I would need Str. Agi. in the head if I useally went around headbutting stuff in game but I don't so my guys Str. Agi. is 7 and Bod. is 8.

Yes I can do better using mods the only do this or that unfortunately those items are not aloud at chargen I was going for max at chargen.

Yes I have a char. I am planing as I get the yen to do mass upgrades but that will take me some time to do in game and the approval of the gm for me to find the cyber/bio I want.

And as was pointed out armor is not an attribute.

Now bod. attribute I don't know yes I say it is an 8 yes it gets the head factored into it but I find nothing in the book listing what the bod. value is for a natural head.

So I have no way to know what value to use for rounding out my total bod. so I figure seeing as it is a small area it just don't really bring the over all rating down any.

[Liper]

actually if you read your man and machine book, it pretty clearly states that for armour, unless the hit is a called shot to a location (in which case you use that locations armour) you average the value of the armour of all limbs.

I'm assuming FrankTrollman never read the rules on armour layering either and probably has a SR with 4 lined jackets on top of each other.

[Zolhex]

[Zolhex]

[Gothic Rose]

[SMDVogrin]