Munchkins, to me! Which trait to max? Options

[HentaiZonga]

So, the absolute maximum you can get an attribute, with Exceptional Attribute, Genetic Optimization, and the correct metatype, is:
Body - 18 (Troll)
Strength - 18 (Troll)
Agility - 13 (Elf)
Reaction - 12 (Several)
Intuition - 12 (Several)
Logic - 12 (Several)
Willpower - 13 (Dwarf)
Charisma - 15 (Elf)
Edge - 8 (Human)

What would you want to max out?

[Cardul]

For what type of character? Oh..wait..Munchkins..simple, uncomplicated, and gives the most plusses to the most areas...Well, for most things, I would say Agility, though for alot of other things(namelys taying alive) I woudl go Reaction..

[Kerberos]

For what type of character? Oh..wait..Munchkins..simple, uncomplicated, and gives the most plusses to the most areas...Well, for most things, I would say Agility, though for alot of other things(namelys taying alive) I woudl go Reaction..

Meh to reaction, You don't need to dodge if they didn't see you (stealth) 'till you shot them dead (firearms). Agility all the way.

[weblife]

That depends on what you want to do.

But, being abit of an optimizer my self I sort of sepnt the time to calculate the BP to Karma ratio on skills and attributes.

Basically, if you are a Human, you want to put as few BP's into your attributes as you can get away with. The only exception being Logic and Intuition, where you want just below the cap in each.

Then look at the skill groups with 4 skills in them, Athletics and Stealth being good ones, Electronics too. These are real bargains and should be taken up to 4. If you cannot afford level 4, do not get the group.

Skills, any skill set at less than 3 is not outperforming Karma. 2 single skills at 5 saves you more Karma than one at 6.

If you play a Meta race it is most cost-effective to pump the stats you have bonuses in, than any other thing, skill or otherwise. You get up to a 50% rebate using BP's than later buying them up there with Karma. - And that includes taking Exceptional Attribute and filling the point, but only do this if you really feel you need it...

If you do get exceptional attribute, always fill it at creation. Doing it later with Karma is too expensive.

Contacts are über. Each BP spent here equals 2 Karma. No other place has such a good conversion rate. Do not be afraid to define your perfect contacts here, it'll cost you twice as much in Karma to buy ingame. (If you do not pay Karma for a contact in your games, you can skimp here, the GM will provide tools for the game (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )

When it comes to Magic, Powers and 'Ware, focus on stuff that cannot be replicated by skills first... Get those extra Passes or make sure you have planned a path to get them soon. More than anything an extra Pass increases survivability and striking power.

Of course, make sure the character is viable... adhering too strictly to these rules of thumb can leave you a gimp. It only the method to get the most out of your BP's, but that does not always equal the most powerful character out of the gate...

[Method]

First, we should get this out of the way, since we're bound to hear it: there is no such thing as munchkin, it all depends on your game, blah blah blah...

Second, Agility. Hands down.

[Cthulhudreams]

Munchkins thinking long term always make their statistics 1 or <softmax> before the application of racial modifiers because that's the most bp/karma efficient play.

[toturi]

Edge. It doesn't matter what you want to do, you can never have too much of an Edge. There are even Edge rolls now and those rolls... you'd never want to roll low.

Everything else you can use some cyber/bio/nano/magic to augment. There hasn't been an Edge enhancement implant yet.

[Divine Virus]

I have to second Edge. With Edge, you can literally do the impossible, up to eight times a day.

[Method]

Ah yes. Edge is also a good candidate... Coarse the more dice you have in Agility the more you can reroll with Edge... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[ElFenrir]

Honestly, if you want the most munchkin bang for the buck(well, for fun)...

Agility, Logic, and Charisma. These three stats link to more skills than all the rest of them put together and doubled. Pump these three to powerful heights(but go human, even though elves get the bonus. You want the extra Edge point. Remember the Elf bonus equals out their BP cost; and if you are looking at pure munchkining power, that's not as good as an Ork, which gets alot more for less.)

So yeah, human, pump and purchase up those three stats, and dump the rest to Edge. Then, naturally, gimp a few stats, but buy them up. Yes, this means Str1(3) and the like, the famous old munch tactic since Strength isn't as important(especially with the invention of Martial Arts and the crazy DV bonuses it gives. A 100 year old geriatric man can punch like a troll.) At least a 3 body natch, to wear decent armor; if you can scrape it up to 4 all the better. Reaction can be cheesed up with several enhancers and some IP enhancers.

Skillwires seem to be able to help this character, too. And yeah, Edge as high as you can make it while still keeping large die pools for large numbers of skills. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Im surprisingly not a munchy player; i really was never into purposefully gimping stats just to munch out stats which give more skill bonuses, but i have made a bunch of 'playaround' characters to see what kind of crap you can do.

[Ryu]

I voted Intuition just to be different. Loads of linked knowledge skills, gives BP for buying said skills, part of initiative, Perception...

The point can be made for most attributes, even strength.

[last_of_the_grea...]

I go with Edge. Not only can it apply to any die roll, it also makes it possible for a human to have a stat higher than a Great Dragon can! Sheer kewlness gives it an edge (Teehee (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) over the other attributes.

[sunnyside]

For the true twink? Edge.

Oh Agility is nice. But you can get it high enough using this that and the other.

But maxed edge can just be broken. You can do things with edge 8 and the longshot rule that will have a houserule by the next session.

So make it good.

[sunnyside]

Can we delet double posts here?

[Screamin Demon]

Edge is where its at. I have a player with 8 edge and 8 times per game he gets to do pretty much whatever he wants.

[fool]

will to resist the most nasty magic. and it's used to resist drain, and I like to play mages

[Sir_Psycho]

For SR3 Magicians it was definately willpower. My god, because drain was force /2 (give or take +1 +2 etc.), you might have to resist 3, 4 Deadly damage, but with Albino Dwarves with Bonus Attribute Willpower... (that's 9, people), and likely some drain resisting cyberware... Eugh.

In SR4, what you munch depends on what you do. Combat? I'd say Reaction hard maxxed and a soft maxxed Agility. Moving A bunch of times before anyone else is pretty valuable, but only Move-By-Wire gave you the most bang for your buck there.

I'm building a Mad Scientist runner right now, and I'm doing fun things with Logic.

[Daier Mune]

I voted Intuition just to be different. Loads of linked knowledge skills, gives BP for buying said skills, part of initiative, Perception...

The point can be made for most attributes, even strength.

i, too, vote for intuition. why? because in addition to boosting your perception skill (one of the most universaly important skills in the game), it also directly affects initiative. more to the point, once you hit the cap on intuition, thats pretty much it. there isn't much that you can do to boost it (that i know of). max it out at character creation, and spend your hard earned money and karma on other attributes.

[HentaiZonga]

i, too, vote for intuition. why? because in addition to boosting your perception skill (one of the most universaly important skills in the game), it also directly affects initiative. more to the point, once you hit the cap on intuition, thats pretty much it. there isn't much that you can do to boost it (that i know of). max it out at character creation, and spend your hard earned money and karma on other attributes.

That's a good point: what 'ware affects mental stats?

I know Tailored Pheremones is a dice modifier, not a stat bonus (although really, maybe it should be a stat bonus); I believe an Encephalon is also a dice modifier. Is there anything that directly augments any mental attribute, other than Quickened spells?

[Cthulhudreams]

Cerebral boosters directly boost the stat in question.

[Kerberos]

That's a good point: what 'ware affects mental stats?

I know Tailored Pheremones is a dice modifier, not a stat bonus (although really, maybe it should be a stat bonus); I believe an Encephalon is also a dice modifier. Is there anything that directly augments any mental attribute, other than Quickened spells?

Cerebreal booster. p. 339 BBB boosts logic.

[Glyph]

I would say "none of the above". Hard-maxing Magic can occasionally be worth it for adepts with a very narrow combat focus, or for certain mage builds, but for everything else, soft-maxing is so much more cost-effective.

If you are a true munchkin (as opposed to merely a min-maxer or powergamer), then you will only start out with a character that doesn't have glaring weaknesses and rules problems if you post the build on Dumpshock to get analyzed. After that, don't worry about getting any stat to its max level - you simply won't live that long. Munchkins have a low life expectancy in most campaigns.

By the way, some of those values aren't possible. Mental stats may have a high augmented max, but there aren't enough actual augmentations for those Attributes. Plenty of dice pool modifiers, though.

[Fortune]

By the way, some of those values aren't possible. Mental stats may have a high augmented max, but there aren't enough actual augmentations for those Attributes.

You mean outside of the Improved Attribute Powers and Spells, right?

[HentaiZonga]

You mean outside of the Improved Attribute Powers and Spells, right?

Improved Attribute only works on Physical Attributes, I thought?

[HentaiZonga]

Cerebreal booster. p. 339 BBB boosts logic.

Aha, so it does! So Logic can hard-max to 11 (since you can't get more than +3 from the Cerebral Booster), but that still leaves Intuition, Charisma, and Willpower without any non-spell augmentations, correct?