 Skills at char creation, buying groups, then adding to skills |
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  Nov 9 2005, 09:28 PM
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#1
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 49 Joined: 6-November 05 From: Darwin, Australia Member No.: 7,930  |
A quick question about skills and skill groups.
It gives the example in the book that someone buys the "stealth" skill group at level 4 at creation, then decides a month later that they mostly use infiltration so they split the group and increase their infiltration skill to 5, so they then have the seperate skills, infiltration5, disguise4, palming4, shadowing4. My question is, can i do this at character creation or only later with karma? I want to give my char the firearms skill group at level 4, but then increase my pistol skill to 6. Can i buy the firearms skill of 4 then spend to increase just the pistols skill, splitting the rest? (ie pistols6, automatics4, longarms4) Or do i have to buy the skills seperately (and at a much higher karma cost) if i want to do that? Cheers in advance for any help |
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Nov 9 2005, 09:49 PM
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#2
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 565 Joined: 7-January 04 Member No.: 5,965 |
hmm. offhand, im not aware of anything ruling either way. ask your gm, but its probably fine. It will just cost more karma when you decide to raise the rest of the skills in the group.
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Nov 9 2005, 09:50 PM
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#3
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Yes. You may do this at character creation or only later with karma. The rules don't actually say. -Frank |
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Nov 9 2005, 09:56 PM
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#4
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 504 Joined: 8-November 05 From: North Vancouver, BC Member No.: 7,936 |
Except that when you upgrade one of the skills, the group is broken up and can't be upgraded as a skill group anymore, they all have to be done individually |
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Nov 9 2005, 10:00 PM
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#5
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Target Group: Members Posts: 49 Joined: 6-November 05 From: Darwin, Australia Member No.: 7,930 |
thanks for the fast replies guys :)
yep im happy to raise the other skills manually later with karma, i just want my pistols skill at 6 from the get-go :) |
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Nov 9 2005, 10:04 PM
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#6
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 141 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Austin, TX CAS Member No.: 1,097 |
IMHO, I still think that is a cheap tactic to get a discount on build point costs for skills.
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Nov 9 2005, 10:07 PM
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#7
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Target Group: Members Posts: 49 Joined: 6-November 05 From: Darwin, Australia Member No.: 7,930 |
possibly, but i justify it as im an allrounder with firearms to a skill of 4, but have mainly concentrated on pistols giving me extra skill with them
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Nov 9 2005, 10:39 PM
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#8
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558 |
I had a player in my group ask me about this as he was building his character. Here is what I think about it.
Buys Firearms Skill Group 4 costing 40 build points. Bumping Pistols to 6 costs an additional 8 BP. For a total of 48 BP. And it breaks the Skill Group. If he had instead purchased Automatics 4, Longarms 4, and Pistol 6 then it would have cost him 56 BP. So he saves 8 BP's just because of the way the purchased the exact same skills. This kinda smells of a powergaming loop hole in the rules to me. Though it doesn's say that you can do this in character creation. |
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Nov 9 2005, 10:49 PM
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#9
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
That's like saying it's a powergaming loophole for players to buy skill groups at all. Or a powergaming loophole for streetsamurai to not purchase themselves the magician quality and then burn out when they get cyberware. There are lots of ways for you to flush BP down the toilet for no practical benefit.
Yeah, getting the firearms skill group saves you up to 8 BP in exchange for you having every basic gun skill in spite of the fact that you are normally only going to use one or two. I seriously don't see the problem. The question you should be asking is whether 40 points of Firearms is overpowered. And since it gives you the same number of dice as 40 points of Agility, I think that's a very hard case to make. Skills in SR4 are flat too expensive. By a lot. Asking people to pay even more is absurd. -Frank |
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Nov 9 2005, 11:07 PM
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#10
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Target Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 31-October 05 Member No.: 7,915 |
How is this powergaming? If he wants the 3 skills at 4, and 1 at 6, then buy them that way. You can do the exact same thing with karma. I did that with my technomancer. I had several skills I wanted to get to at least 4, but I am willing to break the group since I don't care to raise all of them to 5 or 6. *shrug*, it's just how the skill system works, what's the big deal
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Nov 9 2005, 11:12 PM
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#11
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Target Group: Members Posts: 49 Joined: 6-November 05 From: Darwin, Australia Member No.: 7,930 |
hmmm i get the feeling that unless an errata is released, this is going to be one of those issues that is going to be on a per-GM basis whether its allowed or not...
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Nov 10 2005, 02:26 AM
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#12
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558 |
Well if you look at the example under Creating a Shadowrunner on page 75. It says.
Now in the example he also purchased Longarms 3 and Automatics 4. From the wording you cannot purchase a skill group and then raise it over 4. Even if it is just an individual skill. But it's your game to do with as you will and if you want to allow your players do it thats fine. I am just saying that I will not. If feels like cheating to me. |
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Nov 10 2005, 03:40 AM
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#13
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Target Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 6-November 05 Member No.: 7,928 |
the real ? that need to be ask is why are skill put into group in the 1st place.
seem to me that they are alike in what you are doing so are easer to learn how to do them all. if this is why you feal that groups where made. then it is lodical that you could get them as a group then split them up after you have raze it even at char gen. where as if you have to go over the basic a 2nd time on a new time of skill. you may have of forgotten what you have learned because i in intuitive now. when you trying to mod that at a later date if can make for issues and having to back track... that the way i look at it anyway. |
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Nov 13 2005, 09:08 PM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 598 Joined: 12-October 05 Member No.: 7,835 |
I tried to find an example of breaking a skill group at character generation in the rule book. I could not. The writers go out of their way in several places to imply that it is against the rules.
Characters should be able to do this for a few reasons. First, there is a synergy among similar skills that allows less effort to learn them. For example, it is easier to several languages if all of those languages are of the same language family. Second, starting characters are limited to either one skill at level 6 or two skills at level 5. Therefore, allowing it does not break the game. Third, it makes sense that a person with related skills would be especially good at one of them. It makes less sense that a person would be elite at something and untrained in a closely related skill. So the character has saved 8 BP for a three-skill group and 24 BP for a four-skill group. Big deal. I actually like it when players spend BP on things other than attributes and gear. Otherwise magicians will tend to get Spellcasting at 7, counterspelling at 4 and ritual sorcery at 0. Let them spend a little more BP to get ritual sorcery too; its not that big a deal. They will be raising the "non-essential" skills, and that is just the opposite of power gaming. |
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Nov 15 2005, 05:40 AM
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#15
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 504 Joined: 8-November 05 From: North Vancouver, BC Member No.: 7,936 |
pg. 264 basically states that to "break" a skill group, all you do is buy a point for a single one of the skills from the group i.e. Say you have Firearms 3, and you want pistol 4, you pay 8 bp (4X2) and then the char would have each of the seperate firearm skills at 3, and pistol at 4. Also, the page after the sample chars describes how if you raise each of those skills up to the same amount again, its a skill group again |
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Nov 15 2005, 06:13 AM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 263 Joined: 18-October 03 From: Cal Free State Member No.: 5,734 |
I am of the opinion that if the writers intended this to be illegal they should have said something along the lines of "skill groups cannot be broken during character generation." They didn't, so break away.
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Nov 15 2005, 06:39 AM
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#17
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
:rotfl: :rotfl: OMFG. Well lets look at what the rules say you can do, just to make sure it would be reasonable to expect some weaseling weenie to claim such. So looking to improve a skill, page 264, the header of that section talks about:
So sure, you can improve a skill within a purchased skill group during character creation as long as you: 1) are between adventures 2) use karma for the purchase 3) have a GM braindead enough to fall for that crap Oh, man this thread is just priceless. :eek: |
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Nov 15 2005, 06:47 AM
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#18
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Target Group: Members Posts: 49 Joined: 6-November 05 From: Darwin, Australia Member No.: 7,930 |
That still doesn't say anything about breaking groups during character generation. Ultimately once our group finishes our campaign and we start up 4th Ed, im going to submit the idea to our GM and as always he gets the final say. I was just checking to see if there were any official rulings against it, but as i said earlier it looks like this is one that is going to be interpreted differently by each GM |
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Nov 15 2005, 06:56 AM
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#19
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Target Group: Members Posts: 53 Joined: 11-November 05 From: Tri-Cities, WA - USA Member No.: 7,947 |
I fail to see how it really matters whether or not its in the book. If your GM approves it, then it's okay. If your GM says no, it's not. IMHO, breaking up the group at character creation is munchkin powergaming. But that's just my opinion... YMMV.
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Nov 15 2005, 06:59 AM
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#20
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 504 Joined: 8-November 05 From: North Vancouver, BC Member No.: 7,936 |
Its only munchkining if your GM allows it, and dont forget, skills have a max limit of 1 six, or 2 fives, the rest have to be 4 or below, which makes breaking skill groups at char gen kinda pointless, when you could just up the groups at gen, and then just use karma to buy each skill, with a specialization that you want |
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Nov 15 2005, 07:19 AM
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#21
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Target Group: Members Posts: 53 Joined: 11-November 05 From: Tri-Cities, WA - USA Member No.: 7,947 |
That's kind've my point, though. If a GM let's you do something munchkin, you'll probably need it (either that, or he's a poor schmuck).
As to the actual topic, if there's no good reason for it, why does it even matter? |
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Nov 15 2005, 07:28 AM
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#22
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Ummmm, where is the only place it says that you can "break up" a skill group by buying a skill? Under Improving Skills and Skill Groups. Outside that section there is no rules that allow you to advance a skill from a skill group. So go ahead, as long as you can meet those 3 criteria during character creation no problem. Well i guess all you need is the 3rd one....or a GM that's cool with house ruling it that way. *shrug*
Hey, i just broke it down why by RAW it's not legal. If you don't like that, fine. Just be honest and point your GM to this thread when you ask so he knows he's [barring Fanpro coming out otherwise] making a house rule. *shrug* P.S. I remember somebody posted a reply from info(a)shadowrunrpg.com regarding advancing by Skill Groups when one of the Skills had a Specializated (it is NOT allowed). You remember that Franktroller? ;) I'm drawing a blank on who posted it, and i'm coming up empty on Search so far. But there might have been something about this in there. EDIT: There is one possible RAW loophole. So for all you rules lawyer weasels, if the Skill Group has 4 Skills it is cheaper to buy the group up to a level and then rebuy one skill from 0 to above the group level. So if you wanted the Influence group at 4, and Etiquette at 6 it would cost you 4*10 + 6*4 = 64 BP. That's cheaper than buying all the skills separately, 3*4*4 + 6*4 = 72BP. |
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Nov 15 2005, 07:33 AM
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#23
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Target Group: Members Posts: 49 Joined: 6-November 05 From: Darwin, Australia Member No.: 7,930 |
I was just having another look through character creation and found this example:
So looks like it can't be done at char creation unfortunately, back to the drawing board for my char design :P |
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Nov 15 2005, 07:39 AM
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#24
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Ya you can do it. But look at the costs assigned in the example:
Group Skill cost? Nope. But you can still buy them all. |
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Nov 15 2005, 10:55 AM
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#25
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 263 Joined: 18-October 03 From: Cal Free State Member No.: 5,734 |
Blakkie: " :rotfl: :rotfl: OMFG? " Is there a reason you're being rude?
The section on page 264 is regarding karma expenditures after play has started. If you want to apply them to character creation as well, then I assume you allow your players to take 35 BP worth of positive qualities at creation on credit, to be paid back with their first 70 points of karma, as is stated at the bottom of the second column of that page, right? There may be an implication that discourages breaking a skill group during creation, they may even errata it in later, but there is no prohibition against it in the book now. If the basis of your argument is out of context, it is a false argument. If you disagree with an opinion say so, but if you feel the need to be rude, make sure you have the right of it first, please. If I misinterpreted your statement as rude when it was not meant to be so, I apologize. Such is the way of the internet and text based discussion... |
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