[X] My Assistant

[Nim]

[PH3NOmenon]

[James McMurray]

Can you buy skill groups up with karma?

[Grogs]

[Nim]

[Geekkake]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Ryu]

Skill groups enhance the "basic knowledge" of characters, no doubt. SR2 accomplished the same thing by using skills like "firearms". SR3 split many core skills up to allow for skill set diversity. SR4 is a good compromise, as both "number crunching" by selecting only needed parts and "reality gaming" by simulating probable skillsets are possible.

Alltough I´m in the camp of "not allowed, therefore forbidden", permitting the splitting of groups at chargen improves the diversity of chars whithout overwhelming potential for misuse.

Sanity-checking can´t be recalculating, as costs differ between chargen and char improvment.

[Abbandon]

Hmmm i've had the very same thought as the original post when i was making my guys for the first time. Not only that but i also thought you should be able to replace some of the skills in a group. Like instead of taking firearms group and getting auto,long, and pistols, you could take heavy weapons, thorwing weapons, and exotic long ranged weapons.

I dont see how skill swappage or group breaking would affect gameplay at all. When you raise individual skills your paying MORE points this should negate any feeling of unbalancing something.

The way i read the rules for improving group skills are as follows. Yeah sure go ahead and raise a specific skill for its normal individual cost. However. You will not be able to raise all the skills in a group for the cheaper group rate again until you raise the others individually up to the highest skill in the group.

The only thing they didnt want you to be able to do was raise an individual skill and then raise the group later on like this example:

Firearms (group) (5) auto, long,pistol. Then you spend some karma to raise longarms and have Firearms (group) (5) auto, long (6), pistol. AND THEN try to raise the entire group with karma at the reduced cost. Firearms (group) (6) auto, long(7), pistol.

They werent saying no you cant raise things individually. They were saying you dont get the reduced karma cost unless all the skills in the group are of equal rating.
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And what possable difference could it make to let somebody raise a different set of weapon skills for the same price as somebody else. For example switching out automatics for heavy weapons. Who cares??? The person lost the ability to use automatics. That sounds like enough of a penalty

Why does bob get to work on 3 firearm skills for less karma than Fred just because Fred wants to use different weapons?

[Samaels Ghost]

I think it is because Heavy weapons isn't generally included or emphasized in training. You're more likely to me trained in common weapons (pistols, riflesand automatic weapon) than the big boys (bazooka, RPG, Heavy machine guns).