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#76
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Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
i'm not sure what the two arguments have to do with each other. buying 8 edge does not take away any reason for shadowrunning--it's just an advantage you can purchase, like wired reflexes or a magic rating. |
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#77
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Shooting Target ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,677 Joined: 5-June 03 Member No.: 4,689 ![]() |
Do you always quote replies while omitting what was replied to?
If the PC had had so much experience pre-game -- what's the point of gaining any in-game? |
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#78
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Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
i don't know of any runners who run to gain experience. most runners i see run to make money. if gaining experience is a character's main goal, then yes, statting them up with maxed Edge might not make much sense.
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#79
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Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,598 Joined: 15-March 03 From: Hong Kong Member No.: 4,253 ![]() |
? Because there are many stories that don't use the farmboy as the PC? If Beowulf a valid character concept? Sam from Ronin? McCauley from Heat? Batou for Ghost in the Shell? All of these characters have plenty of experience, but there are plenty to good stories left to be told about them. Besides, Bildungsroman irritates plenty of people, they've seen it too much already. |
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#80
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Shooting Target ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,677 Joined: 5-June 03 Member No.: 4,689 ![]() |
This begs for a spin-off thread. But for now: what does money represent to the runners you see?
Editing to include the Beowulfs, Sams, McCauleys, and Batous of the gaming world into the second question: Would your group still play if you took away karma improvement entirely? and left only money, or whatever their primary motivation is, in the equation? |
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#81
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Freelance Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 ![]() |
What stat penalty do Elves get, in any edition of the game? Because I've played my share -- shit, I've played my share, and your share, and his share, and her share -- from SR1 on, and I can tell you right now they don't have one. +1 Quickness, +2 Charisma, Low Light vision. Once upon a time they got an allergy (like all the other metas), but that's it. No Body penalty, no Strength penalty, nothing like that. And I still can't help but point out that on one hand you continue to insist stat bonuses are no big deal because a human can catch up really easily with cyberware, bioware, or magic -- but then you go on to harp about the poor metas and their stat penalties like they're the end of the world. Which is it? Are attributes so easily picked up in the Sixth World that the net gain +3 all Metas get is no big deal (despite them having access to all that same magic and technology to then push those already boosted attributes even higher)? Or are attributes so hard to come by all the poor metahumans (even Elves, who don't have any stat penalties) are automatically crippled by their penalties, regardless of everything else? You can't have it both ways. |
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#82
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Grand Master of Run-Fu ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 ![]() |
Someone asked me for a Mr. Lucky the Mage. Here's what I came up with. Let's assume he's a tradition with Intuition as the main attribute. This was done using Daegann's 1.1, so if there's any mistakes, let me know.
Body: 3 Quickness: 3 Reaction: 4 Str: 1 Cha: 3 Int: 4 Logic: 2 Will: 4 Edge: 8 Magic: 4 Edges/Flaws: Lucky Apt: Spellcasting Magician Sensitive System* SINner (normal)* Incompetence x 3* *(Yes, I know some people are going to deride these choices as munchkinous. They're just easy examples, so get over it.) Skills: Summoning (Your choice) 3 Binding 3 Counterspelling 3 Spellcasting (Your choice) 7 Pistols (Semi auto) 3 Con (Fast Talk) 2 Infiltration (Urban) 2 4 spells of choice 25,000 :nuyen: in gear (5 BP) One 2/2 contact. As you can see, while he's light in certain areas, he's far from helpless outside of his specialty. For things outside his specialty, he can either blow edge or (more likely) rely on a specialized teammate to cover him. For example, he isn't a front-line combatant, but he's not meant to be; that's the role of the sammies and combat adepts. |
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#83
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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 556 Joined: 28-May 04 From: Moorhead, MN, USA Member No.: 6,367 ![]() |
My proposed longshot house rule is that a character adds edge to his or her pool as normal and may choose to roll negative dice pool modifiers as a virtual opponent. In the Mr. Lucky vs the 1 km out boat example mentioned earlier, Mr. Lucky rolls Edge (8 ) + Agility (2? 3?) -1 (defaulting) for 9 or 10 dice. He expects 3 or so hits, but with exploding sixes he could theoretically get any number of hits. The GM rolls the 53 dice penalty and expects around 18 hits but could theoretically get 0 or 1 or 2. Chances are very high that the GM's hits will reduce Mr. Lucky's hits to well below zero, but it is no longer absolute. It creates a situation something akin to SR1-3 where a Target Number of 30something was possible but certainly not probable. It also means that Mr. Heavy Weapons is more likely to succeed even with his edge of only 1 or 2.
[edit]Hit enter too early[/edit] |
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#84
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Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
i'm not sure what you mean by karma improvement. do you mean spending karma to improve attributes and skills? if you took that away, my players might leave, but their characters probably wouldn't, since that's a abstraction of how things work in the real world. if you mean gaining karma pool, or Edge, then again--my players might take issue, but the characters have no in-game knowledge of karma/Edge. |
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#85
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,116 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,449 ![]() |
Cain:
He adds up to 400 points, but you are only allowed up to 35 points' worth of positive qualities (you have 45). To me, this character, like my elven gunslinger number-crunching exercise, illustrates how it is generally a poor tactic to hard-max anything at character creation. Yeah, he has an 8 Edge. But he could have a still-very-respectable 6 Edge for 55 Build points less (20 for the quality and 35 to go from 6 to 8 ). That's a lot! With that many build points, you could - get a mentor spirit, soft-max Magic, Intuition, and Willpower, buy and bond a Force: 2 power focus, and increase summoning and counterspelling to 4 - to give only one example. |
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#86
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Grand Master of Run-Fu ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 ![]() |
Mea Culpa. Okay, so drop Apt: Spellcasting and reuse those points to do some of what you suggested: Raise magic to the soft cap, and buy/bond a focus. The point is, however, that Mr. Lucky Mage is still more than capable of duking it out magically, without invoking Edge. When he does, he's a magical terror. |
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#87
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Shadow Cartographer ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 ![]() |
Hmmmmm. It depends a little on your definition of fluff. Fluff I take to be in-game background and justifications. With Edge, my dislike is of how it affects the feel of the game, rather than any perception of how the world of 2070 works. Characters who make up for a lack of skill with luck don't contribute to realism for me. Furthermore, I don't like the wild variability between player characters that happens when it's a purchasable attribute. If Edge is a certain movie cool factor, then I want to smear it equally across the characters. Not have one Roger Moore and one Danial Craig. I'm not looking for something to represent experience, and definitely not in the D&D leveling-up sense of the word. If the question your asking is do I think Edge in RAW is unbalanced, then no (although Cain does show how it can be broken, I've seen no player actually abuse that). I do dislike the way it affects the perception of my game world. I also don't see Edge as having a quantifiable justification in fluff, as some sort of mystic attribute. It's just a product of ability and will which cannot therefore be a substitute for other stats. So the progression system I came up with works perfectly for the effect that I want. Does that all make sense? It is one of my three houserules. It's also incredibly simple to use, requiring the GM to write down how much karma he has given out at the end of each game. |
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#88
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 ![]() |
With the exception of hard-maxing the single 7 in a skill - due to the doubling cost rule, it costs the ridiculous amount of 32 Karma to go from 6 to 7 - and 8 BP if done so at chargen. |
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#89
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ghostrider ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 ![]() |
Consider it spun off. That sounds like a damn interesting discussion. |
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#90
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 ![]() |
I like it. It adds more dice rolling, which I'm normally against, but it should come up so infrequently that tossing a few more dice isn't a big deal. |
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#91
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 ![]() |
Hey, that's a really good idea. Personally, I haven't had any problems with longshot abuse (yet), but this does fix the issues. I have no objections, and only one concern: I'd have to look at the numbers, but my only concern would be whether there's an odd hiccup in probability when you go from a pool of X with a penalty of X-1 (and thus are rolling 1 die) to a penalty of X so now you're rolling X vs X. As the penalty approaches and crosses that threshold, does the probability do something drastically weird, or is it acceptably continuous? Thinking..... Well, we're using rule-of-six, so our expected # of successes decreases to 0.4 as we drop the pool to only 1 die. Then as you add another -1 penalty we're looking at an opposed test between DP of X and X. Well, intuitively, there's a 50:50 chance it could go either way, but that's really not the case. Since, in the event of a tie, the characters hits would be reduced to 0, it seems that ties would be considered failures, dropping the success rate (as defined by achieving 1 or more net hits) below0.5. Exactly how much below will depend on the size of the DP, but I'd say that decreasing from 0.4 to a number that is less than 0.5 is close enough to continuous, but nit-pickers could get hung up on this point if they really wanted to. It's not as bad as the glitching with even vs odd DP problem, anyway. Well done. edit: Ooh, James, ya beat me! Hopefully I still had something to contribute. ;) |
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#92
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Technomancer ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,638 Joined: 2-October 02 From: Champaign, IL Member No.: 3,374 ![]() |
The GM could just buy hits. The Mr. Lucky might still be able to beat 2-4 hits with a Long Shot test allowing for the concept of luck, and I don't know that I've realistically seen many penalties beyond -16 in a game. |
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#93
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 ![]() |
True. Or the counter-roll could be replaced with an increase to the threshold of 1 per 3 penalty (or portion thereof). The averages remain the same but the extra die roll and comparison is removed. I don't think I've ever seen a longshot test caused by massive penalties. They're usually caused by a low starting dice pool and some minor penalties. Generally when the penalties get so monstrous that skilled types need longshots, the players begin seriously rethinking their current plan. |
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#94
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Neophyte Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,424 Joined: 31-December 06 Member No.: 10,502 ![]() |
As Glyph pointed out I don't think Cains mage is broken (though munchy in a range of areas).
As was pointed out it costs 55 BP for those last two points of edge. So an equivalent mage could, say, hardmax magic,aptitude up spellcasting, get a mentor spirit, and still have points for a better foci than you. This means that when they roll their edge of 6 in their specialty(and with four spells you can expect things to fall in their specialty) they will probably beat you by 3 die. Also their spell would have a higher base damage value, or the attribute they're boosting could be higher etc. And I think most people would agree that a char with such a limited spell selection and no astral combat/assensing would be rather rough, so they'd be inclined to ease up on the specialty a little and spread out. My strong feeling at this point is that much of the hate for "Mr. Lucky" is either that they're otherwise munchy or that the other players are going with too low edge values. |
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#95
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Grand Master of Run-Fu ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 ![]() |
Having played Mr. Lucky in the strict environment of Shadowrun Missions, I can tell you that he's no more munched out than any other Dumpshock character. The problem is close to your second point: everyone else has a relatively low Edge value, which leaves them in the dust. It isn't that Mr. Lucky is hyperspecialized, just about every effective build is. It's the fact that he's hyperspecialized *and* has such a disgusting Edge that causes problems. Any of the book solutions to restricting edge ends up punishing the other players far more than Mr. Lucky. An Edge 8 character dramatically alters the power level of a game, simply because he can pop 8 bonus dice just about anytime he likes. Suddenly, he's expert in every field outside his specialty, and a terror within it. Even the threat of that can cause mumbles among the other players. In short, Mr. Lucky can break a game just by existing. As far as the mage build goes, that was what I came up with after two hours on Daegann's. I'm noo expert on mage builds, so I challenge the Dumpshockers here to do better. You can create any mage build you like, so long as they have an Edge of 8 (7 if metahuman). Let's see what everyone else can come up with. |
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#96
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 ![]() |
Anyone got a link to the original Mr. Lucky stats? I may play him in our upcoming campaign as a second string runner just to see what he's like, although our refresh rate of once per mission and choice not to abuse longshot rules won't let him completely stretch his muscles.
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#97
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,241 Joined: 10-August 02 Member No.: 3,083 ![]() |
At the start of play, having penalties to both stats AND karma pool is crippling, and certainly not worth a few extra attribute points. |
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#98
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Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
dude, elves still don't have a stat penalty. also, your phrasing of that statement was pretty unclear. i think what you meant to say is that having penalties to both stats AND karma pool is crippling, and certainly not compensated for by a few extra attribute points. |
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#99
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Freelance Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 ![]() |
And yet somehow I have dozens of 50+ karma metahumans that haven't disagree with you as to what the word "crippling" must mean. I, once again, feel you're grossly overstating the case. |
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#100
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,241 Joined: 10-August 02 Member No.: 3,083 ![]() |
Yes, you're correct. And my mistake about Elves. I think I was mixing up 4th (where they have penalties to their stat limits) and 3rd. In any case, I always thought metahumans were a bit of a rip-off in 3rd edition with the way karma worked. Humans already receive the benefit of being "normal"...outside of entering one of the Tirs (and Tir Tairngire would probably just deport you, not lynch mob you to death) or the Ork Undeground (and you could overcome that just by being nice), humans don't have to worry about racism at all. An ork could get killed just walking down the street in the wrong neighborhood. |
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