Attributes karma cost, Why cheaper than skill group? Options

[Charon]

So I'm getting back into Shadowrun. Was around the site during the drama of the announcement of SR4. Gotta say things are surprisingly tame these days!

Overall I'm happy with the rules but there are tidbits that annoy me and wants to be sure I understand well not only the rules, but how it affects the game in your experience.

For this thread ;

Improving...
An active skill by 1 : New rating X2
An attribute by 1 : New rating X3
A skill group by 1 : New rating X5

In chargen mode, attributes are 10 BP per points except for the maxing out point where it is 25 BP. Skill groups are 10 BP per points.

Okay, so attributes at creation are as expensive or perhaps slightly more expensive than a skill group.

But in play, that is reversed quite dramatically.

How does this affect your campaign? I have yet to play the system but it seems to me that rational behavior would dictate that you invest all your karma in attributes. Given the skill+attribute system, until your linked attribute are maxed there is no point in investing a single karma point in skills if the cost for attributes is X3 (Initiations excluded).

Shouldn't it be X5 or even X6 ?

Thoughts, comments? What's the karma expenditure behavior like in your campaigns?

[Cynic project]

here is what i have done in building characters. Half the cost of skills. Ie two point for one skill, andfive point for one skill group and ten for attributes . I then dare you to see how many charatcer do nto spend 200 points on attributes.

If you insite on using karma after you made character I would say something along the line of skills*1 skill groups*3(maybe even 2.5) and attributes at least*5 if not more.

[Charon]

[Cynic project]

Well, let's say your character put all their point into skills. That sounds like abetter bet than attributes, right? Well, in someways it is but let me ask you something. How many attributes have more than 5 skills linked to them? Also in the basic rules you can only raise skills so high. 6-7. So you are going to run out of point you can put on your skill.


In the basic rules as theya re, if you are shooty mic shoot, you would only raise your fire arms skill group when you can't rase your quickness attribute.Sorry i do not have the name remeberized but I think you can the point. In the basic rules you get the same amount of dice for rising yoru attributes, as you do your skill, for that one skill.You also get more dice pools for other skills. It is this way, why pay more power for less?

As for things other than karma, you could go on using the build points you used to make you charatcer.Only after you made them they can buy less htings witht hem.IE no money or contacts.

Why drop karma?Well in all other edetions of shadowrun there was no edge, and the number of karma points you had gottenr eally matered.You were more luck for just having more karma points. These day you have to buy edge.

[Raptor1033]

I wouldn't lower the cost of skill group raises considering that cost is based off the cost of raising a single skill. Look at any of the costs of groups vs individual whether at chargen or post, groups always 2.5 times as much as a single skill. Mostly because all the groups have at least 3 skills in them. If you wanted to balance it you'd have to raise the attribute multiplier to keep the skill costs balanced, I'd say x5 would be pushing the effective cost barrier. Personally I leave the rules as they are because I assume they did extensive playtesting and kept it at x3 because it seemed the most balanced.

[Charon]

[Glyph]

One of the rule tweaks (pg. 69, under "Grittier Gameplay") is to limit the number of hits to Skill x 2, which makes skills more relevant compared to attributes.

[Serbitar]

in my SHP (see sig) I do the following:

limit hits in certain "skill critical" skill tests to skill+1
up attribute costs to 5x new grade (and apply metahuman mods afterwards)

the last thing made it, of course, neccessary to overhaul the whole creation system

[irdeggman]

I don't have access to my book at the moment, but isn't the rule on attributes - only 1 attribute at its maximum?

I don't think it specifies this is only applies at character creation.

IIRC the rules on max skill ranks (i.e., 1 at max (6) with the rest at 4 or 2 at 5 with the rest at 4) only applies at character creation.

Which means that you won't be able to keep on adding to attributes in order to "max" them all out - there is a real limit to what can be accomplished there.

[Edward]

There is a real limit to attributes.

You can’t take them above the max.

Once your spending karma you can max the lot.

If its only one skill group your really using with an attribute then for efficiency you would bring the skill to 3 before taking the attribute to 6 skill 4 before attribute 8.

I agree it doesn’t seem right.

Edward

[Charon]

[Dewar]

[ethinos]

[Charon]

[ethinos]

Ok. I see what you mean, but that wasn't how it came off to me.

However, you don't fire a gun with the Firearm Skill Group. You use the individual skill. So, unless you fire a pistol, a shotgun, and an assault rifle interchangibly through an adventure, raising a skill would be cheaper and more common.

Only skill group my mundanes ever even consider taking is Influence.

Weapons? Usually a pistol and something larger. Since I don't use both a shotgun AND an assault rifle with any characters, buying the whole skill group is unnecessarily expensive.

Raising a skill group is meant to make it cheaper at raising all the subskills as a whole. Not every skill is in a skill group either (like Intimidation). Nor does everyone want or need to shoot an AK97 as well as a Predator.

With your scenario, raising an attribute is always a more attractive scenario.

Even without your scenario, raising your attributes will always be more attractive anyways, since attributes are almost always used more often. And to counter this, attributes are more pricey. Should they be higher? Or maybe skills cheaper? Who knows.

In reality, most folks will significantly raise, or even max out their "essential" attributes with the first several runs. At some point however, that last point or two will be pretty expensive, and they might opt for the skill instead. Plus, some skills limit success based on the skill level.

The rules accomodate most situations effectively. Sometimes the rules favor one situation, sometimes they negatively deal with another. Its the way these things work I guess.

[Moon-Hawk]

Huh, I've had a different experience regarding groups vs. individual skills. I see players buying lots of skill groups. Their attitude seems to be, "If I want at least two of the skills in the group, then I should pay the little tiny bit extra to get the entire group." Even for a character that only ever plans to use pistols and longarms, buying those two skills up to 4 vs. buying the firearms group up to 4, the group is only a little bit more expensive and it gives them options.
So I generally only see them buying skills instead of groups if there's really only one skill in the group that they're interested in.

[Charon]

I think I'll bump attributes to X5.

Skill X2
Skill group X5
Attribute X5

It's exactly the same ratio as

Skill 4 BP
Skill group 10 BP
Attribute 10 BP

It's still more rational to increase an attribute over a skill group if they are equal, but with those figures you probably may want to increase skill groups before attributes are maxed (i.e. SG from 3 to 4 = 20 Karma while Attribute 5 to 6 would now = 30 karma)

And individual skill would definitely be increased more often over attributes.

I'll give it a shot anyway.

You can always decide to backpedal and refund karma paid in excess. It's easier to do than work the other way around and raise the cost later in the campaign if I'm not happy with the result.

[Brahm]

On my main character, Human, I've gone through 85 karma and haven't maxed out an Attribute yet. I've now got, as of the Karma email last night, 23 unused Karma so I'll likely max out Edge, which will be it's first increase, which will put me over the 100 mark to get to the first Max. Although I've given a lot of thought of instead spending it on starting in the Computer Skill Group and then a 3 points in Pilot Ground Craft spread over a few sessions, since 1 point per Skill per session is our groups limit.

I've spent about 40 BP on Skills including a few Specializations, with about 45BP on Attributes. The highest I've bought a Skill so far is one 3, the rest are 1s and 2s. I nearly bought a point in Skill Group Computers, and likely will for my next purchase. The rest of my Groups I either don't actually use that much, so they aren't a priority, or they started out at 4 which is pretty good.

I've actually got a long way to go on maxing out any other Attributes because besides not having reached the natural limit on any of them, I don't have any augmentations yet.

Maxing out Skills and Skill Groups are certainly more of an end game when fleshing out your character. At least for mundane characters, since Awakened and TMs characters can keep sinking karma into Magic and Resonance. But that's really what Skills represent SR4, more polish and less raw ability. That is part of the change to Attribute + Skill.

@Charon

If you are going to increase Attributes like that you should look at bumping up karma handouts. Especially for Attributes in metahumans with bonuses to their Attributes that gets crazy. 50 karma for the last point of Strength/Body on a Troll? Wowsers. I haven't got any of that and you can see how much Karma I've gone through without maxing out anything and that is without the extra costs of raising to non-human ranges.

[Serbitar]

I recommend to apply metahuman modifers afterwards and not include them in attribute advancement. Makes much more sense anyways.

[James McMurray]

[Moon-Hawk]

I tend to agree with Serbitar on this. Why is it harder for an average-strength troll (by troll standards) to get stronger than it is for an average-strength human (by human standards) to get stronger, just because the troll is "above average" by human standards?

edit: I can always tell I've been rambling when I arrive at the end of a sentance and I forget what punctuation I'm supposed to finish the sentence with. :-)

[Charon]

[Brahm]

[Dreizehn]

The current chargen system seems to reward picking up skill groups where useful at maximum value of 4. After generation the system reverses course and heartily encourages one to get maximum attributes. I imagine that it wouldn't be that difficult to spend a small amount on initial attributes and lots of points on skills, with an eye on spending all karma on attribute points.

Regarding earlier comments on the usefulness of the Firearms Skill Group over just picking up Long Arms/Pistols/Automatics. As my group's designated smasher of people and things, I like to keep my options open. One day the AP IV will be the correct tool, the next day, it could well be the AK-97 (w/ underbarrel grenade launcher - of course). Then there are those *special* days when your first 2 - 3 guns break (or run out of ammo) and you need to use whatever guns happen to be lying around.

A clever GM can quickly dismantle a weapon specialist by making their chosen weapon completely inappropriate for the situation they are in (like close quarters for the sniper expert - or obscenely long ranges for those melee/pistol fiends).

All of that, however, points to the usefulness of having high attributes since they are widely applicable to linked skills.

Good smashing!
13

[Lagomorph]

alternately, you could just do away with karma, and hand out build points since you like the build point system better than the karma system. Each has it's own specific rules on increasing attributes and skills. The only possible issue would be initiation and submersion, in which there is no BP cost, only karma cost.