Priority System in SR4 Options

[sulimo]

I'm wondering, has anyone tried to implement an old-SR style priority system for char-gen with nu-SR?

[warrior_allanon]

no you cannot do this with SR4. the priority system doesnt even come close to being able to cross over.

[Butterblume]

I wouldn't say 'cannot'.

The only 'advantage' i see would be for min-maxers who could perhaps squeeze a few BP out of the inconsistencies, that would surely exist.

[emo samurai]

Which did everyone prefer? The priority or the BP system?

[Eryk the Red]

There's no reason someone couldn't set up a priority system for SR4. It would just take a bit of work (and math) to make it fair and even. The advantage of having this option is that it makes character creation less daunting to a new player, as it serves as a kind of guide, rather than the "go out and play" philosophy behind the build point system. I thought about making a priority chart, but now that me and my players are more familiar with the rules, I don't see any need. By now, we'd all prefer the freedom of build points.

[Butterblume]

[Thanee]

[Azathfeld]

I always liked the priority system, myself. It was unique and fast, and not terribly abuseable unless you combined it with the build-point qualities.

It's not hard to work out a priority system. You just design in such that the differences add up to (about) 400 BP.

Starting with attributes, I'm going to assume that an A priority indicates spending the maximum on attributes--200 BP. We'll save Edge for later.

We'll assume that assigning an A priority to Magic indicates buying the Magician quality and a Magic of 6, so that's 80 BP.

An A priority for race indicates a Troll, since they're noticeably more expensive now. B is Elf or Dwarf, C is Orc, and anything else is Human.

I'm going to call Gear and Contacts one category, and Skills and Edge another, as Edge can indicate general competence.

So, picking a pretty arbitrary rate of staging things down, this is my off-the-top-of-my-head priority system:

Attributes (must assign at least one to each physical attribute, one attribute can be maxed for two attribute points):

• A priority: 28 attribute points (200-205 BP)
• B priority: 26 points (180-185 BP)
• C priority: 24 points (160-165 BP)
• D prioririty: 22 points (140-145 BP)
• E priority: 20 points (120-125 BP)

Skills and Edge (may trade 3 skill points for one level of a skill group):

• A priority: 5 Edge and 27 skills (130-148 BP)
• B priority: 4 Edge and 25 skills (114-130 BP)
• C priority: 3 Edge and 22 skills (94-108 BP)
• D priority: 2 Edge and 20 skills (78-90 BP)
• E priority: 1 Edge and 18 skills (60-72 BP)

Magic or Resonance priority:

• A priority: Full magician or Mystic Adept with 6 Magic (75-80 BP)
• B priority: Magician or Mystic with 5 Magic, Adept or Technomancer with Magic/Resonance 6 (60-70 BP)
• C priority: Any of the above with 4 Magic/Resonance (35-45 BP)
• D priority: Any with 2 Magic/Resonance (15-25 BP)
• E priority: Non-magical, non-resonance character

Gear and Contacts:

• A priority: 10 points in contact connection/loyalty (split as you like) and 250,000 nuyen (60 BP)
• B priority: 8 points in contacts and 210,000 nuyen
• C priority: 6 points in contacts and 170,000 nuyen (40 BP)
• D priority: 4 points in contacts and 130,000 nuyen (30 BP)
• E priority: Single 1 connection/1 loyalty contact and 90,000 nuyen (20 BP)

Race:

• A priority: Troll (40 BP)
• B priority: Elf or Dwarf (25-30 BP)
• C priority: Ork (20 BP)
• Anything else: Human

All told, characters in this tend to end up slightly weaker than the standard system. You can have up to, I believe, a 413 BP character, but I think that's the worst abuse of it possible--and that character is pretty non-optimal, having maxed one attribute for the cost of two attribute points. It should be possible to tweak it to be more in-line with the BP system with more effort than I'm going to put in, given that I'm not using it in my game. The advantage of this system is that it would be much faster than using build points.

[nick012000]

Make it so you can spend 5k :nuyen: for a contact point as well. That way a Rating E Resources magician can have decent contacts.

[Azathfeld]

Yeah, sure, fine by me.

[Jaid]

wow... 90k nuyen is still quite a bit...

[warrior_allanon]

Honestly, in SR3 i prefered the priority system. it allowed all my GM's to be on the same page with my characters across games. For SR4 however, i have to say that since the BP system is what they give in the initial book, its superior simply because theirs no questioning how its really supposed to be

[James McMurray]

We never used point buy in other SR editions, as it seemed frought with too many holes, and we were already familiar enough witht he priority system's holes to know how to close them easily. One of my first thoughts reading SR4 was "oh crap, point buy." But having read it over and made some characters I'm happy with the way it worked out.

[evilgenius]

A: Race: Troll = 40 build points (BP)
B: Resources: 210,000 :nuyen: + 8 contacts = 50 BP
C: Magic: Adept with 4 Magic = 35 BP
D: Skills: 22 skills + 3 Edge = 94 BP
E: Attributes: 20 points = 120 BP

Total: 339 point build

I would increase the ammount you get with priority D and/or E for skills and/or attributes - it seems that some builds could get left shortchanged...