[X] My Assistant

[Glyph]

[Ravor]

You're right, I do consider being able to build massive dicepool characters at char-gen to be a major bug, I try not to think about the sample characters considering that at least one of them actually breaks the rules by having an illegal mod installed into his cybereyes, and I don't consider Fourth Edition to be "the worst-designed game ever", sure it has it's share of warts, and there are times when I have to wonder what the devs were smoking (The Matrix comes to mind, and the devs apparently not considering the full effects of Fixed TNs is another.).

And of course, I disagree that high dicepools aren't broken even if you include all of the proper modifiers, but then again, I don't like playing in an over-the-top Anime game.


However, with all that said, remember that at worse in Fourth Edition ( Rating 6 ) is the same as ( Rating 9 ) was in Third Edition, and I'd argue that it sure feels like a character can pull off more hijinks in Fourth Edition then they could in Third Edition even using the x1.5 guideline.


Oh, as an aside, I do agree that I would have liked it better if the fluff for the skills included total natural dicepools as well, but considering that I can figure out the stat side of things fairly easily it doesn't bother me that much.

[Glyph]

Many of the sample characters are done very sloppily. Things like characters with the Uncouth quality not getting dinged double charge for social skills, a character with an Ingram and no automatics skill, a character getting double points for the spirit bane flaw, and characters missing essential skills or gear for their stated functions.


The huge dice pools are kind of hardwired into the game - starting out with a lower powered game only delays the problem. If it really is a problem for you, the rules for grittier gameplay (such as limiting hits to double the skill rating, and making glitches easier for defaulting and long shot tests) would probably be a better fix than trying to limit dice pools.

What kind of specific problems have you actually had with high dice pools? I'm curious. I don't consider SR4 to be over-the-top anime. In anime like Noir or any of the Lupin III movies, normal and unaugmented humans seem to be able to do things that would be impossible for the most freakishly augmented or overpoweringly initiated shadowrunner.

[Ravor]

Yeah, I use several of the "gritter" optional rules, but to answer your question perhaps the best way to explain the primary problem that I have with high dicepools is with a rant about combat.


For you see, I want the first thought that goes through the team's mind when they are taking fire to be "Oh frag!" as they take full defense and dive for the nearest cover, and I want the runners to actually consider aiming in order to get a bead on their target. I want both sides of a firefight to sweat and pray for every last positive modifier they can think of while at the same time trying to shut down each other's dicepool by using every dirty trick in the book.

I also want to be able to challenge the runners without breaking suspension of disbelief and throwing team after team of equally highly skilled foes at them, or using the typical RPG meme of seperating challenges between goons, mini-bosses, and bosses, everyone in the campaign world is a person and although I might not have fleshed out his/her history and dreams, he/she does have them and has access to every rule that the characters do.


Although the above example focused on combat, the same sentiments apply to every other aspect of the game as well, and high dicepools that allow the characters to skirt the edges of the impossible goes against what I see as the trend of trying to bring Shadowrun back to a more street level gamestyle.

In other words, I want the runners to suceed based off of their cunning and wits, not because they roll enough dice to be able to realibly shoot out the dots on a playing card or juggle lightsabers without fear.

The fact that with lower dicepools problems like becoming uber by having one of your spirits posses you and trollbows being turned into anti-tank weapons also go away is also something I like.

[toturi]

I would believe cunning and wits would come under the purviews of the Mental Attributes. So do your PCs have high Mental attributes or are they only as cunning and witty as the players? Or does the PCs have a metagame attribute not reflected on the character sheets and are the NPCs only as smart or dumb as the GM?

[ElFenrir]

Hmm. Not poking at anyone, just in general; ive noticed lately alot of these discussions end up as ''street'' vs. ''more professional'' and ''high dice pools are bad''.

I guess, since our table is more known for kinda pretzelish gaming, and the fact it IS just a game, we don't concern ourselves to the point of hairpulling about dice pools. Someone wants to play someone that kicks ass? Great. We've seen our share of kickass characters get smacked around just like everyone else. (I recall one game where i wouldn't call it uber-heroic or uber high powered, just kickass, professional characters...who occationaly ended up in instances that were downright scary and epic.)

I guess as a GM ive been more concerned about things like character background, to see what the players want to play, and i can usually fit any game plot around varied power levels.

I can recall one instance where, even with good dicepools, things worked against the characters. To make it short, the players met a pilot NPC who would be happy to fly them to London to meet their contact with all of their cool gear; but he didn't have a plane good enough to make a trans Atlantic flight, and it probably wouldn't have even had enough fuel to make the first refueling spot(it was one of those little puddlejumpers). So, he said, if you help find me a bigger plane, ill make the trip.

Well, even with good Negotation pools, Ettiquette pools, and Contact help...luck was not with them. They ended up having to fly commercial, and check their licenced handguns thru baggage. Their other toys? had to stay at home. They still rolled a fair amount of dice with their handguns, but they were pretty limited. And, well, nervous i could tell.

Again, just because characters are pro, doesn't mean they can't be challenged. I guess i think that at our table, putting more effort into the characters and story rules out worrying on wether Gun Guy rolls 16 dice or 12 dice.

Im not knocking anyone's style though; if anything, i guess for more laid back gamers like us, it's just hard to understand the seeming stress people go through when dealing with things like dice pools. We don't play superheroes or anything btw, either. Perhaps some gamers might not understand why we can be so 'laid back' about it. Again, it's a game. There's no right or wrong way to play it. I don't think people stressing about the PCs in their game having dice pools is wrong; it's how you play it. Myself, though, i'd rather worry about plots, characters, and wether or not my table is even having fun first and foremost.

Dunno. Sorry if i sounded cranky, but ive just seen so many discussions end up as '''dice pools are too high'' lately.

[Kyoto Kid]

...once again excellent observation.

I spend far less time in character design worrying about dice pools than I do over what makes this character want to go out & risk getting her hoop shot at every other night. Why would any rational sane person (OK KK the PC excluded here) want to face such dangers rather than sit in a nice safe cubicle earning a steady paycheque? This was part of the reason behind the 100+ page novel I wrote about the Short One (another influence was a thread on this forum that asked the question "why would someone become a runner").

[Glyph]

Bingo. That's about the most important question, right there. Why a character becomes a runner also gives you a running start into their long-term goals. Someone forced into running the shadows by circumstance will have a different outlook than someone who does it out of idealism, and a burned-out ex-corporate troubleshooter will usually be far more cynical than the street kid who only sees that he's getting a lot more respect now that he got those wires and that smartlink put in.


The skills matter a lot to me, though. They should fit not only the background, but the realities of the game. It doesn't do any good to say the character is a good shot, if the dice can't back it up. And it helps to look at the kind of game being run, too. The same dice pool can be too much for one game, or too little for another game. Some might call that metagaming, but it's metagaming to ensure that the background of the character matches the nuts and bolts. Worse metagaming, to me, is when people with Logic as a dump stat and no social skills try to play their character as a tactically savvy, take-charge guy.

[Kyoto Kid]

...agreed skill choice is very important. A good GM you will usually give the players an indication from of the threat level of the campaign before it begins.

...oh and "Tactical Savvy" was almost hard enough for the Short One to pronounce let alone comprehend. Made for some interesting scenes. Now surviving the streets, that's an Intuition thing.

When someone once asked her what to do during a firefight she said, "you try to shoot at the bad guys first before they shoot you." :grinbig:

[Ravor]

[Glyph]

The GM and players both have disadvantages trying to roleplay characters more intelligent than they are. The player disadvantage is that, unlike the GM, they don't have the prep time before an encounter that the GM has, nor do they have the same control of the environment. The GM, on the other hand, is only one person, and therefore outnumbered by the players, brain-wise. Even the most intelligent GM can miss something that one of the players can exploit.

Mental situations are harder to adjudicate than simpler things like combat. Should a player's plan get vetoed if his character wouldn't be able to come up with it, or should the GM just penalize him on karma? Should an intelligent character about to do something stupid get a Logic roll to see if he notices the flaws in his plans? If the players discover an easily exploitable security hole in an ultra-intelligent villain's defenses, should the GM plug up that hole on the fly? Or otherwise make use of knowledge the villain wouldn't have, to simulate that villain's superior intellect?


Now, me, I can sympathize with wanting more roleplaying, rather than reducing tactics and social interactions to pure dice rolls, but I think the numbers on the character sheet should still jive with what the player is attempting. The ork with Logic: 1 trying to utilize Sun Tzu is probably the type of example toturi was objecting to.

[Cardul]

[Riley37]

Dice pool arguments have infected many threads - now one more!
Rather than a slippery opinion, here's two of many possible examples of 15+ DP at chargen:

Mage with Trickster mentor spirit, Spellcasting (Illusions) 6, Magic 5, Power Focus 2. Spellcasting 13 for non-illusions, 17 for illusions. Can cast illusions at Force 5, can reliably get 5 hits. Mass Confusion at that Force is Drain 4, which she can fairly reliably soak. WIS 5 CHA 7 Elf shaman, for 12 DP to soak Drain; see previous post for an elven shamanic illusionist background story...

Replace Trickster and Illusions specialization for any equivalent combo, eg Bear mentor and Spellcasting (Health Spells), or Wise Warrior and Spellcasting (Combat Spells).

Street samurai with soft-max AGI 5, Muscle Toner 2 for AGI 5/7, Automatics (Submachineguns) 6, has DP 17 when firing SMG with smartlink, or can split DP 15 firing two-gun. Make her an elf with AGI 7/9 and you've got DP 19 with smartlinked SMG. If she's an adept instead, ditch the Muscle Toner and put 5 Magic into Improved Skill: Automatics for DP 27.

Both these examples can also afford, within 400 BP total, INT 5, Perception 4 (Visual), glasses with +3 Vision Enhancement, for visual perception of 14.

Neither of these examples have hard-maxed attributes, let alone Exceptional Attribute and Aptitude, with which another +3 becomes possible.

[Fortune]

[Ravor]

I don't disagree with what you just said Glyph, in fact the fact that I want the character's dicepools to "jive" with their actions is exactly the reason that I'm so strongly in favor for a lower dicepool world in general.


Cardul I would agrue that although everyone has an occasional brain-fart, the "dumb" people who come up with flashes of insight are for that moment using their average Intuition as opposed to their sub-standard Logic much as one of Kyoto Kid's character does.

However, someone who is using their Intuition isn't going to enact or explain their plan in the same way as someone who is relaying on a logical stance. Of course, exceptions can happen, but I like to think that my bullshit detector is tuned enough to tell the difference.


Riley37, although I haven't checked the math on the street sammy, your elven mage has paid 267 BPs according to my calculations for just the ability to throw those dice in her area of expertize, not what I consider the start of a wellrounded character by any stretch. And of course, this is ignoring the fact that the character in question is a virtual paragon of elfdom, with three stats softmaxed, with a Shaq-like level of magical skills before factoring in her affinity with illusions.

[Kyoto Kid]

...@Cardul, I like your take. Sometimes the simplest minds can see the simplest solutions (as in the quote of the Short One on what to do in afire fight). Yeah it's basic, but is still a most sound strategy. "Shoot him before he can shoot you." It is kind of like how children can sometimes see right to the heart of a matter that adults occasionally miss because of all the preconceived notions we have developed.

@Ravor, thanks. Intuition indeed comes into play here as well and can make up for lack of logical reasoning. Yeah KK may not be able to mentally calculate the all the perfect angles from which to get the best possible advantage on her opponent but she still knows if her enemy is hiding around that corner of a building she is not going to blindly run up there to get shot in the face. In this respect Intuition is part common sense: "I go out in the open he shoots me. I stay behind this dumpster he has to step out to shoot at me." She's seen enough "old western" vids and anime (interest knowledge in both) to know you don't walk into an ambush. This is where part of her background and personality comes into play.

If someone starts rattling off complex tactics she looks at him with a puzzled expression and I have her roll a comprehension test (same as committing details to memory) with the GM setting the threshold. Makes for some interesting times [Remember the scene at Swamp Castle in [i]Holy Grail with the king giving orders to the guards who were to supposed to watch his son? Yeah, you get the idea.[/i]]

Consider also that Street Knowledge (e.g. "street smarts"), Survival, and Perception are all Intuition based skills and Initiative is a function of Reaction and Intuition (which is also used for surprise tests). Yes it is very plausible that someone like KK with a 1 Logic but high Intuition and Reaction can survive the shadows. Instead of pre-planning her moves she is more the type to stay aware of what's going down (reflected in her excellent perception DPs and Combat Sense) and adapt to the situation. Yes it does mean she sometimes acts on impulse but that can be as much an advantage as a disadvantage as it could catch her opponent off guard.

How many times have I seen (both as a player and GM) elabourate plans and tactics fall apart when something that wasn't anticipated occurs. This is when the character who can make that snap adjustment is valuable.

I'm not saying it is easy. On one run for example, I as the player knew the briefcase KK was given to plant in a car on a Puget Sound ferry was a bomb, but she didn't. It got even worse when there was a tanker truck parked behind the car. I knew she was about to kill everyone on board as she missed all the possible signs but still played though it. There was no way she would have been able to deduce the case contained high explosives with the information she was given. The funny thing was nobody else on the team (characters and players alike) suspected otherwise either. Given the situation (the run was during the Metroplex Election), it seemed perfectly reasonable to them that it contained what the Johnson said it did, incriminating evidence which would sabotage the opponent's campaign. It was a case where the smart were so "smart" and expected something that complex they were outsmarted by a simple plan.

[Glyph]

@Cardul & Kyoto Kid:

I don't disagree with you - that's why I said those situations were so hard to adjudicate. My own approach would be that 1 is the lowest functional Attribute, and such characters are still capable of the occasional insight or bright idea. I would only have a problem with someone consistently using mental Attributes as dump stats, and still playing the character as a tactical genius and natural-born leader.


As far as dice pools, the thing that boosts them to high levels is all of the modifiers. Things like muscle toner, smartlinks, and reflex recorders. In my opinion, though, someone with biogenetically improved muscles, special added neural connections, and a combat computer attached to his gun should be capable of superhuman feats. So, to me, lower dice pools kind of weaken the whole transhumanist theme of the game.

[Kyoto Kid]

...@Glyph...apologies

Didn't mean my response to be a rebuttal to your comments so much as to satisfy toturi's argument that there are a few of us who really do go out of our way not to metagame outside of our characters' concepts.

How often I find myself holding my breath when someone :ic: asks a question that I as a player know but my character wouldn't. It sometimes infuriates the other players when I shrug & don't give them the answer they want, but that is the character they are dealing with. If it is a rules interpretation that deems an :ooc: response be made, that is different for then it is me talking P to P rather than P to C.

[sidebar]
As a GM I had to deal with a player who frequently made this mistake. Made for a fun little wild goose chase on one mission when I set up a situation that dealt with a case of potential mistaken identity and he made the wrong assumption based on his own personal :ooc: knowledge & not the character's. Nothing that threatened the character or anything like that.
[/sidebar]

[Riley37]

[Ravor]

[Glyph]

To address Cardul's question about dice pools, generally you will see them in combat, spellcasting, or social skills, and they can get so high because they all have potential positive modifiers that stack together. Examples:

Combat: Agility: 5, muscle toner: 2, firearms skill: 6 with specialization, reflex recorder for that firearms skill, and smartlink. 18 dice.

Spellcasting: Magic: 5, spellcasting: 6 with specialization, +2 mentor spirit bonus, +2 power focus bonus. 17 dice.

Social: Charisma: 5, Magic: 6 reduced to 5 by bioware, adept quality, influence group: 4, intimidation: 4, tailored pheromes: 3, Kinesics: 5. 17 dice.

And none of those examples are maxed all the way, especially the social skills one. On the flip side, all of these specialties also face a lot of potential negative modifiers (visibility, racism, background count, etc.). Characters with such dice pools are far from invincible - things like security guards can use tactics, get lucky, or simply wear them down by attrition, and runners have plenty of peers in the shadows, from SWAT teams, to underworld heavy hitters, to corporate strike teams, along with more exotic foes like free spirits and vampires.

High dice pools are only a problem if you want the runners to sweat in every fight. So I consider the "problem" of high dice pools more a matter of different playing styles (with no "right" one) than an inherent imbalance in the system.

[Riley37]