 Hard Skill Limit, Is max rating 6 too low? |
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 Jan 13 2006, 07:38 AM
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#26
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Bushido Cowgirl  Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490  |
Already posted on the Chargen Cap thread about this. Just to reiterate, Skill (and even attribute) caps after chargen just don't make any sense. Any player worth their salt wants to make their character better than the next guy. If everything tops out at "level X", you either end up retiring the character or screw up their concept by taking skills they noramally wouldn't learn just to spend your Karma. In the long running campaign (which I tend to be involved in as both a player and GM) it doesn't work.
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Jan 13 2006, 07:55 AM
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#27
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 261 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Massachusetts Member No.: 2,115 |
Skill caps make sense. Skills compare you to the other users of the skill, and there's a certain point where you're at the absolute peak of your field and you're not going to get any better. From a game mechanic standpoint in Shadowrun 4th edition a reasonable character shouldn't run into the skill cap until they have a couple hundred karma - which is a place where many games never get.
On the other hand, it's not reasonable that the in game skill cap be the same as the chargen skill cap. Character advancement is a big element of role playing games, and it's out of flavor to start as the best in the world with no advancement possible. As such, I think there should be a couple of levels of skill advancement beyond the starting max. The easiest fix is to disallow starting characters to have ratings of 6 or 7 in skills. That makes it possible for "superior" NPCs to exist and for the players to have some room to grow. If your game goes on for a while and you start bumping the skill cap hard, I'd suggest the following: Increase the overall skill cap by one for every 200 karma a character has earned, but keep a general double cost for skills above 6. That lets you have a skill of 11 on your 1000 karma character, but prevents localized sillyness greater than the overall campaign sillyness level. |
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Jan 13 2006, 08:12 AM
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#28
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
The easiest fix is to remove the skill cap from existing characters. Keep the starting skill cap as-is, and just poof away the hard cap for earned karma. It would be as simple as deleting text, and that's pretty simple.
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Jan 13 2006, 08:17 AM
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#29
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Bushido Cowgirl Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490 |
KK is a 300 + Karma character, that is the type of campaign I am involved in. She's been around since SR1 and been updated with each new version until SR4 hit. Just no way to make the conversion. Basically, she loses skills and abilities even with the Karma she's earned. (Her character background alone is a 20+ page short story. Someday I may post it) |
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Jan 13 2006, 09:16 AM
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#30
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Given a closed grading system, that is a question about resolution. Of course you can make a scale from 1 to 100 and allocate - thats what D100 games do. That doesn't change anything, though, as the the difficulty and modifiers are set accordingly. So the real question is whether a closed grading system is something reliable. Considering that's what schools still do to evaluate students capabilities, it seems like that's the most practical solution around. |
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Jan 13 2006, 10:23 AM
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#31
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 261 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Massachusetts Member No.: 2,115 |
An important thing to remember when converting is that characters aren't in isolation, what you really want to convert over is the campaign. The next important thing to remember is that when a game system changes, you will never get a perfect conversion - you can, at best, get a character with a sufficiently similar feel that you can play them as the same person. Reguardless of what the official conversion book says I'd suggest the following: Rebuild your character as a starting character and then add earned karma and equipment on top. Skill levels won't come out exactly right, and also remember that 2 SR4 skill/attribute points are a lot like 3 points in an SR3 skill or attribute. Try to build for the same *capibilities* rather than the same numbers - an already played character isn't a collection of numbers, it's a fictional person who has a reputation for two things: being able to do things and being good at things - as long as you can still perform all the same in-game actions you could before you've got the same character. With a major game system conversion like SR3 to SR4, you can't really do better than that. You may have been spoiled by the SR2 to SR3 conversion (almost no change), but try a MechWarrior 2nd edition to MechWarrior 3rd edition conversion if you want to complain - it makes SR3 to SR4 seem trivial. |
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Jan 13 2006, 12:28 PM
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#32
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 297 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 248 |
Indeed. |
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Jan 13 2006, 12:31 PM
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#33
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Awakened Asset Group: Members Posts: 4,464 Joined: 9-April 05 From: AGS, North German League Member No.: 7,309 |
We decided on a fresh start with SR4. Character concepts can be translated easily. As I said before, decide on a way you want to play. If your campaign requires room for monotone growth, disallow skills above 4 and aptitude on chargen. Problem solved.
(Removing the attributes cap and limiting skills to 3s and a few 4s and a single 5 might work even better.) As a roleplaying tool, the skill caps of SR4 finally set a top level as point of reference. Did no one else HATE the description of some npcs as "superior" regardless of pc experience? A hard system works much better, IMO. |
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Jan 13 2006, 12:51 PM
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#34
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Loved to hate, indeed. |
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Jan 13 2006, 07:55 PM
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#35
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Target Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 3-January 06 Member No.: 8,130 |
I would hesitate to remove a skill cap in a system that uses attrib + skill for dice pools. One, if a person chooses the right selection of skills to dump all their karma in, they become very difficult to stop, which jeopardizes game balance. Two, there are plenty of places to spend karma even after hitting a cap.
There is no hard cap on qualities after character creation. If a GM will allows it, a person who has capped out in a skill could be allowed the opportunity to purchase an aptitude or set of aptitudes in their specialty skills. That will suck up 20 karma per skill before you even buy that seventh point in the skill, which should still cost double. Also, a gm could allow someone who has previously used skill groups to buy their way into diversifiing those skills, then they would be eligible for specializations. Further, just expanding your skill list does not always violate your character concept. Character concept should not be a limiting factor for a character. If your character isn't social, don't max out in social skills. If you character isn't a gunman, don't max out in firearms skills. There is also the much overlooked practice of buying off flaws. And I'm sure someone will come up with a rule for using karma to gain contacts or resources. Most decent players will begin to realize that its retiring time when it becomes almost impossible to challenge that character without nuking the rest of the group or without basically bringing down the corporate court on their head (which should be considered if the players just isn't taking the hint. |
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Jan 18 2006, 04:06 AM
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#36
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Bushido Cowgirl Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490 |
Have already attempted this. Some things just don't exist any longer or have yet to be released in upcoming sorcebooks/expansions. Actually as a starting character, she's pretty good, in some ways even better than she was in SR1/SR2. There are some benefits such as she can now use a smartlink at it's full potential and acquire sensory enhancements without needing to go the implant route. To rebuld her in total, I would need to see what the sourcebooks (particularly the ones for Magic & Combat) have to offer. For now I am thinking of just starting all over wth KK version 4.1 and see how she progresses in as the new setting unfolds more |
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