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> Missing karma pool.
MITJA3000+
post May 15 2006, 04:47 PM
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Okay, I'm a 4th. convert now. But man I miss karma pools. I guess the closest thing to it is Edge, which, also has a hard-cap. But for me karma pool always seemed like the perfect way to represent experience: even if you didn't use karma to upgrade your skills or attributes, you'd still be better off as a 200 karma point veteran than a zero karma greenie. And I'm damn sad to see such a grewat thing go away. So, the question is, has anyone incorporated karma pools to 4th edition, and how has that worked out? Or, do you see any complications in this? I guess that if you'd give karma pools the same uses as with edge it would be over-powered, but I was thinking of using it just the way it was in 3rd edition, just extra dice.
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GrinderTheTroll
post May 15 2006, 04:59 PM
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In my groups Karma Pool became a crutch, players would rely on a large pool instead of good planning or tactics. I don't miss it.

SR4 is a different game. Edge has some great benefits more than a Karma Pool ever had IMO.
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emo samurai
post May 15 2006, 05:06 PM
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What's better about Edge that wasn't in karma pool?
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GrinderTheTroll
post May 15 2006, 05:48 PM
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QUOTE (emo samurai)
What's better about Edge that wasn't in karma pool?

The two that stand out:
- Getting an extra IP.
- Going first in an IP.
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James McMurray
post May 15 2006, 06:18 PM
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Also with edge you can survive death more than once and don't have to totally burn out your pool to do it.

If you're really in love with karma pool, just removing edgea nd replacing it witht he SR3 karma pool rules should work fine.
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mfb
post May 15 2006, 06:31 PM
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i don't think i'm going to miss karma pool, either, once it's gone. i like the concept of having a save-your-ass mechanic, but i don't like the speed at which it accrues. it's also completely dependent on the GM to keep the karma pool's size in check.
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Shrike30
post May 15 2006, 07:19 PM
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Edge is basically (IMO) karma pool with a hard cap and some pretty cool extra abilities (one of my players has a fairly high Edge and uses about half of it to keep up to speed in combat, since he's unwired). While you can push it to do some bizarre things, you can't do it as reliably as you could with a high-end character in SR3. The upshot, of course, is that you can *start* with it high.
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MITJA3000+
post May 15 2006, 07:59 PM
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Most of you are pointing out that edge is better than karma pool, and I agree with you. Karma pool has a relatively low effect on the game (at least with lower end characters) compared to edge, which you can use to get the aforementioned extra IP's. But my point in the beginning was that I think that karma pool was a great way to represent experience. 4th ed. doesn't have such a direct way to make a difference between starting characters and prime runners. Yes, you can use karma to raise edge, but to a certain point only, though the only hard cap I'm happy with is precisely with edge, as it would get very overpowered, say with an edge 15. Karma pool on the other hand, didn't have such drastic effects on the game, at least when using it to buy dice, not burning it. Sure, a veteran runner in 3rd with 20 karma pool could survive death many times via hand of god, but he would burn all his karma pool doing that, but at least in my games karma pool was used in most cases to buy extra dice.

So yeah, I'm with you on that edge is waaaayyyy better than karma pool, for characters that is, but karma pool was just a neat way of displaying experience.
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James McMurray
post May 15 2006, 08:11 PM
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My problems with karma pool came from rerolling failures, not buying dice. They weren't problematic enough for my group to change the larma pool rules any, but it could definitely get crazy once pool hit 10+.
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Shrike30
post May 15 2006, 08:21 PM
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Same here. Rerolling failures was one of the most annoying ways in which karma could do sick, sick things to a game. I rarely had players buy extra dice with Karma... mathematically, a single karma point could "buy" a number of extra dice equal to all of your failed dice when you rerolled.
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mfb
post May 15 2006, 08:29 PM
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QUOTE (MITJA3000+)
But my point in the beginning was that I think that karma pool was a great way to represent experience.

the problem with that is, there's no set standard for how 'experienced' a starting SR character is. you can play an aging merc with 20 years of combat experience, right out of chargen, or you could play a young undercover reporter whose only experience in the shadows comes from buying a BTL every other week to relax with. both of those, under the karma system, start out with the same level of experience. i like the fact that with Edge, you can decide how experienced--or lucky, or whatever--your character is.

there are problems with viewing karma as an experience meter, too. what happens when you burn 5kp to keep yourself alive? are you somehow less experienced, afterwards? it just doesn't work well enough to justify keeping it, to me.
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Thanee
post May 15 2006, 08:51 PM
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Edge is cool. :)

The experience thing you mention with Karma Pool was nice, but it's not so much of a loss IMHO. There are enough ways to show experience.

What I'm missing a bit are the combat-oriented dice pools, which allowed to have more offensive or more defensive stance, or a balance between both (especially with Counterspelling, I think this would be a good idea, Counterspelling is so darn simplistic, no amount of thinking or trade-off involved anymore).

Bye
Thanee
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mdynna
post May 15 2006, 09:35 PM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
My problems with karma pool came from rerolling failures, not buying dice. They weren't problematic enough for my group to change the larma pool rules any, but it could definitely get crazy once pool hit 10+.

Do you have a problem with Edge's ability to re-roll failures? SR4 dice pools regularily hit 10+ dice and the SR4 "target number" of 5 is usually lower than most "difficult" tasks in SR3.
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James McMurray
post May 15 2006, 09:54 PM
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Edge can only reroll failures once, and is limited to 6 (7 as a human, 8 with an edge). It has built in balances that karma pool rerolls didn't.
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Cain
post May 15 2006, 10:00 PM
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I think Edge is a pretty cool concept at the core, but it needs quite a bit of work. First of all, the front-loading issue is pretty serious; starting with an Edge of 5 is a lot more overpowering than the starting karma pool.

The problem isn't Edge, though-- the problem is the Longshot test. No matter how many modifiers gets piled on, the character gets his full Edge to make the test with. Further dice reductions don't help, since that'll remove the "incredible stroke of luck" aspect that Edge is supposed to represent. And just allowing exploding dice on the test only makes the initial problem worse. You need to rework the entire modifiers as +/- dice concept in order to fix this issue.
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Kanada Ten
post May 15 2006, 10:07 PM
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I think the Longshot problem can be solved by increasing the Threshold by 1 for every 2 dice below a normal test pool of 0. Then, it's always possible to get enough hits due to the Rule of 6, but it becomes extremely unlikely very quickly.
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James McMurray
post May 15 2006, 10:10 PM
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An edge of 5 can help you at most 5 times before it's refreshed unless you screw yourself over with a critical glitch. Starting with an edge of 5 also means starting with weaker skills, attributes, and/or resources. I personally like the ability to start play as a lucky character instead of having to somehow "earn" my luck by going out and taking runs.

By the way, didn't we already cover the longshot problem in at least three other threads? Would it be simpler just to link to those instead of driving this thread off course witht he same old same old? :)
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Shrike30
post May 15 2006, 10:38 PM
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QUOTE (mdynna)
Do you have a problem with Edge's ability to re-roll failures? SR4 dice pools regularily hit 10+ dice and the SR4 "target number" of 5 is usually lower than most "difficult" tasks in SR3.

I certainly do. I haven't worked out a decent solution to the issue yet, but what I may do is simply disallow it (but allow for the use of an edge point to buy a single success after the fact).
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mdynna
post May 15 2006, 10:45 PM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
Edge can only reroll failures once, and is limited to 6 (7 as a human, 8 with an edge). It has built in balances that karma pool rerolls didn't.

Ok, I had always played SR3 Karma Pool as only being able to re-roll failures once. Plus, I don't know what you're saying about "limited to 6..." Do you mean you can only re-roll 6 failures? Not true.

QUOTE (SR4 pg. 67)
You may re-roll all of the dice on a single test that did not score a hit.
The Rule of Six doesn't apply to these dice, however.

Now, if you meant that Edge itself has a hard cap, then fine. I had my PC's karma pools only refresh between adventures (not even sessions) so my PC's used it very sparingly. Bottom line: I never found Karma Pool to be overly powerful and I still don't see Edge as being overly powerful.
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Kanada Ten
post May 15 2006, 10:48 PM
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In SR3 you could re-roll more, but each time cost one more karma: the first costs 1, the second costs 2 (total of 3)...

I also think re-roll works better for NPCs, since the players never know when it will refresh or when that Longshot test will show up...
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James McMurray
post May 15 2006, 10:54 PM
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By limited to 6 I meant that your edge stat cannot go higher than 6. Humans and those with a specific and expensive edge (20BP lucky) can reach 7. Humans with the edge can reach 8.

House ruling the rerolls to once per roll helps.

It also doesn't make sense to me that the longer you run the shadows the luckier you get.
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Jaid
post May 16 2006, 03:18 AM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
It also doesn't make sense to me that the longer you run the shadows the luckier you get.

well lucky for us it's not the luck stat then, i guess.

it's called edge. not luck. edge.

now certainly, your personal edge stat (for a character) may represent luck. it may also represent skill, or a stubborn refusal to accept failure. it may represent that you've been backed into a corner, and so you're putting 110% into whatever you're doing because if it fails, you're screwed. it might represent an adrenaline rush, a tendency to enter a berserker rage, a state of mental focus, intuition, instinctive use of adept-like powers, or any number of other things, depending on the character. it most certainly is not just luck, though.
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James McMurray
post May 16 2006, 03:27 AM
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I was talking about karma actually, but since you said it...

QUOTE (SR4 pg. 61)
Edge is a combination of luck, timing, and the favor of the gods.


I suppose you could house rule that edge is not luck if you wanted to. I don't have an SR3 book handy, but IIRC it also attributes karma partially to luck.
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Jaid
post May 16 2006, 03:29 AM
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i didn't say edge excludes luck.

i said it isn't *just* luck. it's luck, plus a hundred other little things. precisely what makes up your edge will vary from character to character.
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James McMurray
post May 16 2006, 03:45 AM
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Ah, since I never said it was only luck, and your post seemed to be refuting mine, I assumed you meant the opposite of what I said, which would be that edge is not luck at all. Nevermind then. :)
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