Cha 1 Uncouth Rigger, How should I deal with him? Options

[Samantha]

[Ravor]

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Buster]

Mage: "Take that: a Trid Phantasm of Trolls in speedos!"
Victim: "No. Noooooo. Arrrrrrrgh!"

[Cain]

[Ravor]

Touche'

Mr Lucky and his Edge does throw a monkey wrench into the gears but how well does he do once his Edge is blown? (I don't remember the build off the top of my head, but then again I tend to skim over builds as well.)

[Cain]

[Demon_Bob]

[Wasabi]

[Jaid]

[Cain]

[Wasabi]

Thats quite possibly the funniest thing I've read in a loooong while!

[Cain]

Oh, here's the example:

The team's van is barreling up to the waterfront, only to discover their target's speedboat is already a klick out to sea, dodging its way at full speed through the Seattle waterfront traffic. The troll sam shouts: "Drek! I can't get a bead!" So, Mr. Lucky grabs the HMG from the troll, which he can barely lift, and takes a shot.

The lighting conditions are bad: Extreme Range (-3), Partial light (-2), With Glare (-1) and Heavy rain (-4, this is Seattle, after all). Mr . Lucky is in a moving vehicle (-3) as is his target; the GM assigns an additional -3 to reflect the boat's speed and pitching. The target has total cover (-6), and since Mr. Lucky only has the vaugest idea what he's shooting at, he gets the -6 Blind fire penalty. To make, matters worse, MR. Lucky has two Serious wounds, for 9 boxes on both monitors (-6). He's never even picked up an HMG before (-1), but he does know where the selector switch is, and cranks the thing into full auto for a narrow burst (-9, doubled to -18 because it's a heavy weapon and the gas-vent system is fouled due to an earlier critical fumble).

Mr. Lucky is at -53 to hit. He could try to aim, but since there's no point, he simply hauls the thing into the general direction and fires. He has a negative dice pool, so he spends a point of Edge, giving him 8 dice to roll. He could simply *buy* two successes with that; if he were to roll, he'd average 2.66 successes, rounded up to 3. Since his target is an average wageslave, he only has his Reaction of 3 to defend with, which will average one success-- not enough. And since Mr. Lucky called for a Narrow Burst, there's simply no way the target can soak.

[Kerris]

That's... sick.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That's abuse is what it is, but it's funny as hell.

[DireRadiant]

I always thought -53 + 8 = -45

Edit, ah, except for the specific Long Shot test.

[Wasabi]

[Cain]

[Buster]

[KoneV]

[Cain]

Except then, longshots become completely impossible. In the example above, there's no reason why the shot couldn't succeed-- unlikely, yes, but not impossible. It also unfairly penalizes low-Edge characters: a -1 shot becomes impossible for an Edge 1 character.

[Jaid]

not to mention the incompetence *gives* BPs without wasting precious negative quality BPs, whereas a partially used uncouth/infirm/uneducated or whatever quality both gives and takes BPs, and cuts into the amount of BPs you can spend on negative qualities.

in other words, if you're infirm but intend to ever use, oh, i dunno, say, infiltration, perception, and gymnastics (just as some examples), then you're looking at spending a minimum of 12 extra BPs just for the privilege of using those skills at all. while still being unable to climb, swim, sprint, etc. that's a net gain of 8 BPs only (minimum, if you want at better than rating 1 it gets even worse). additionally, you have used up 20 of your allowed negative quality BPs for a net gain of only 8 BPs.

in comparison, if you take incompetence: swim, incompetence: climb you have already gained 10 BPs with none of those BPs needing to be be spent towards un-crippling yourself. you don't need to put any points into the other 10 or so physical skills that infirm would prevent you from using, and you still have 25 points left that you can choose from the negative qualities (allergy and addiction, here i come!)

from a numbers perspective, you are much better off with just incompetence than you could ever be with the broader skills, unless you literally *never* intend to use *any* of those skills (and on that note, there are two words you should never use, because they will always get you in trouble: never and always)

[Buster]

I just take Incompetencies for skills I know I won't have karma to spare for a long time. For me it doesn't matter if the cost is double, triple, or to the power of 10, because as a mage, my next 200 karma are already spent on initiation, metamagic, magic attribute, drain attribute, magic skills, spells, foci, quickenings, etc. I simply won't have any karma to spare for social skills or physical skills until I'm an old man.

Skillwires (4) is incredibly cheap and I split the cost of skillsofts with my friends. The whole problem with Incompetencies are completely sidestepped with a very small stack of cash. In no time flat I have skill 4 in everything I need.

[Jaid]

[Ravor]

Well every good mage should be burning one or maybe two points of Essence anyways, so as long as there is room left over for ( Rating 3 ) Cybereyes then it is nuyen very well spent.