Character creation - skill groups question Options

[Abbandon]

Im finally getting around to making some characters for sr4 and Im kinda unhappy about the grouped skills. Do you guys think you should stick to groupings religiously or do you think its ok to switch out certain skills for others. For example:

Firearms:
Automatics
Longarms
Pistols

The above is the default. Do you think its ok to tweak it so it is the following:

Firearms:
Heavy Weapons
Exotic Ranged Weapons
Throwing Weapons

Do the weapons not in the skill groups justify not letting you get them for as cheap as the group skills?

Also regardless of the above. Lets say you get skill group fire arms at rating 4. Can you then increase one of the specific skills ? Like:

Firearms (4)
Automatics
Longarms (6) (for 12 extra bp's)
Pistols

(im gonna have to go back and atlar alot of things on my guys my bp's are evaporating before my eyes and i havent even got around to gear and weapons)

[Samaels Ghost]

[Lagomorph]

The skills are in a group because they are resonably similar to one another, throwing weapons and heavy weapons aren't in there, because they aren't similar. I probably wouldn't allow switching out in most cases, however I could see switching a skill in the firearms group for heavy weapons or gunnery.

The general consensus is that it is not in the spirit of the rules to be able to buy up a skill after it is bought in a skill group. The characters in the book adhere to this from my understanding.

[Abbandon]

Yeah your right i meant 8 and not 12.

Nothing stops you from raising skills individually after character creation so i dont know why it would before....It still costs points.

[Samaels Ghost]

You can look here too for what has already been said on breaking skill groups during character creation. http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=13503

I agree with this post by Derek:

[Ankle Biter]

I like the idea of breaking up skillgroups at startup as it is good for mages/hackers as generally speaking they want high levels in both their relevant skill groups, but also the ability to specialise and have some edge in some of their skills. It allows for more varied characters, as it does not force people to take the good all rounder route.

As for "Swapping out" skill groups "Exotic Ranged Weapon" counts as a different skill for each weapon, so skill grouping would only be allowed for certain of the exotics.

I would not allow Gunnery in the firearms SG, as it is used mainly while drone rigging, swapping out pistols for the "mounted on a vehicle, and physically firing the weapon" part of the skill is ok, but not the "firing while jumped into a drone". (I always felt that they should be seperate anyway).

Swapping Pistols for Heavy weapons is Ok, you are just used to long barreled weapons, but Throwing makes no sense in that context, though archery works a little better.

That being said Archery is a bone of contention with me, Having used longbows, crossbows, and slingshots, the difference between using those three is far greater than the difference between a sport rifle, and an assault rifle, for example. I would add slings to throwing, crossbows to longarms, and have longbows, and slingshots as exotic weapons. I have yet to find a weapon that fires significantly like a longbow, the closest is probably the slingshot, so I could live with that being part of the same skill as the longbow.