Are Skillwires overpowered? Options

[Draco18s]

For the record, it was 3 times, but that was intended to be more of a 'neah neah' than a "yew eediot!"

Slow thought:
I've also come to the conclusion that my character built as a Troll (non-drake) would be about 30% more effective.
(I thought it was 3 times, but I looked at my quoted text and only saw two; all is forgiven)

[Neraph]

Slightly off topic, but:

If you're gunna go Drake, do it at chargen for the 65BP, not Latent Dracomorphosis for the 130 karma cost in game. And even then, it's only really effective for a character that'd put that magic to good use, and even then not really. For that cost, it's like maxing out your magic score twice... For what? A couple stat bonuses that won't let you use normal gear when you want to use the stats?

Granted, the breath weapon is cool, and being a dragon is cool, but it's like being a free spirit: find another way to make it more better-er.

Plus, if you're a drake you can't use skillwires, and if you don't use skillwires, you can't contribute to this thread.

[Orangexplosion]

I agree that it isn't the only, and necessarily best build for a cybered character. I was merely demonstrating how drastic the difference in BP that can be attained with skillwires. I am still struggling with how I feel about skillwires, due to the restrictions put on using the skills they provide. The more I look at them, the more I think that they are best used for supplement skills, and not skills necessary for your character. For example, I wouldn't use skillwires for infiltration on a covert ops character.

All in all, balanced I suppose

You're arguing that they're super-efficient, but this simply isn't the case as of the anniversary edition. Activesofts (Without pluscode or personalization) are 40,000 nuyen for rating 4. That's a huge chunk out of your average runner's resources.

[Neraph]

You're arguing that they're super-efficient, but this simply isn't the case as of the anniversary edition. Activesofts (Without pluscode or personalization) are 40,000 nuyen for rating 4. That's a huge chunk out of your average runner's resources.

Emphasis added. See above, about having 330,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for only a net 40 BP cost. 330,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) is more than enough to get 5 or fewer R4 skillsofts that are Pluscoded and Personalized. At 40,000 each, you can afford almost 10 of them. And you only really need 4 (Dodge, Perception, Automatics, and a close combat [Blades or HTH]).

[Wasabi]

40000 for one team member is a lot. 40000 split 5 ways isn't a lot and the effect of having 5 team members being able to drive with 5 dice+REA or kung fu someone with 5 dice+AGI or lie with 5 dice of con+CHA is pretty awesome.

A better fix for skillwires wouldve been to allow one activesoft per skillwire SYSTEM, remove skillwire ratings, and have each skillwire system use its own subscription on the commlink but alas... only cost got changed...

[Draco18s]

Slightly off topic, but:

1) If you're gunna go Drake, do it at chargen for the 65BP, not Latent Dracomorphosis for the 130 karma cost in game.
2) And even then, it's only really effective for a character that'd put that magic to good use, and even then not really. For that cost, it's like maxing out your magic score twice...
3) For what? A couple stat bonuses that won't let you use normal gear when you want to use the stats?

Granted, the breath weapon is cool, and being a dragon is cool, but it's like being a free spirit: find another way to make it more better-er.

4) Plus, if you're a drake you can't use skillwires, and if you don't use skillwires, you can't contribute to this thread.

1) Duh, that's what I did.
2) Did that too. Adept.
3) Oriental: can still use guns/shields. Plan on it (of course, have Unarmed Combat because plus some Martial Arts to reduce the "in melee" ranged combat modifier.
4) I do believe my original post was in fact regarding the topic: "Who wouldn't use skill wires?" Drakes. QED, contribution.

[WeaverMount]

There is a totally broken skillwire's build, which is .... Cabala. Yup a mage. the basic idea is that possession get's all your physical stat's really high, so high that even with out specializations and 5s + 6s you are in the same ball park as specialist(6 spirit + 4 skill wire + 3 average base stat ~= 13). Where it get's really stupid is in logic linked skills. Get you logic up to 8 (soft max + Ceph(3) . Then throw on neo-cordical simulators. Congrats you are now throwing 15 dice at any give technical skill. This is all without unwired malarkey.

Now just to save a round with the naysayers

-You can fit skill wires 4 w/ exert system the ceph and cyber eyes in under a point of essence.
-It's expensive. Only kinda, but now your mage actually has something to spend money on 12k for new DP in the mid teens is pretty nice.
-You need channeling, yup. And that's not generally available at char gen. Yup this build doesn't really shine until you get about 100k and 30 karma. Then it can do everything ... litterally.


About skillwires in general though glitching isn't an issue. You can easily get your DP to the point that pretty much doesn't come up and rerolling failures get's you more dice than adding your edge. Do some math, exploding 6s aren't really all the great (you must roll 18 dice to except to gain a single hit from exploding 6s). About advancement skill how often do you really buy a skill from 4 to 5? There are tons of way better things to do with that much karma especially for an awakened.

[Wasabi]

As an aside both spirits and technomancers have powers that can prevent glitching and downgrade critical glitches. Spirits cant affect full VR of course but other than that glitching is pretty avoidable with even a F1 summoned spirit and if the device is matrix equipped a rating 1 machine sprite can do the same thing.

[Wasabi]

Can possession allow a character to exceed their augmented attribute maximum?

[suppenhuhn]

I wouldn't call them broken, they make a character very versatile, which is great when you don't have enough players in your game to cover every exotic skill out there or when your specialist simply is somewhere else when needed. Especially on tests where you need many successes they're outclassed by learned skills though, especially with high edge chars of the same skill level they will probably give 1 or 2 fewer net hits which can make a difference.
IMO they're good to have but in no way are they overpowering. Making an overpowered high karma possession mage even more powerful doesn't change that.

[suppenhuhn]

Can possession allow a character to exceed their augmented attribute maximum?

Yes, because it basically isn't the character anymore but the spirit.
Possession has quite a lot of issues but that's not the topic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[WeaverMount]

Valid. You can put a lot of the blame for that build on possession rather than skillwires. I the reason I call the build broken is that rolling teens greatly erodes the characterization you get from secondary skills. I played this build and was a better medic than the character rolled up as a Magician/Medic, a better mechanic than the rigger, etc. Those had nothing to do with magic except benefiting slightly more from logic.

[Muspellsheimr]

Skillwires are broken because they literally allow a single character to do everything except Magic/Resonance at very little cost.

Are the broken balance-wise (opposed to gameplay)? If you are using only the BBB, not so much. If you are using Unwired, fuck yes.

SR4A does not fix the problem - it does not even address the problem, simply make it less noticeable by 'sweeping it under the carpet', so to speak. They are still ridiculously cheap outside of character generation - you can immediately pick up 2 R4 once gameplay starts, and assuming your GM gives out balanced Nuyen/Karma rewards, you can expect another 2 immediately after your first run. And you can run 10 Rating 4 at a time, as already covered.

My solution to the problem, instead of simply removing them (costs will be reverted to pre-SR4A:

[ Spoiler ]

p.320 Skillsofts
Change the description to:
"A skillsoft program is a programmed/recorded skill - as in, a person's knowledge and memory (including "muscle memory"). When used in conjunction with the proper cyberware, skillsofts enhance users skills, adding their Rating to the users Skill, subject to augmented maximums.
Users may not use Edge on any test using skillsofts."

p.320 Activesoft
Change the first sentence to:
"Activesofts enhance skills requiring physical activity, including all Active skills linked to a Physical attribute."

p.320 Knowsofts
Remove Knowsofts

p.321 Linguasoft
Remove Linguasofts

[GreyBrother]

Why would you remove Lingua- and Knowsofts?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Skillwires are broken because they literally allow a single character to do everything except Magic/Resonance at very little cost.

That's their point.

Remember that SR4A (which will be in the next errata) dramatically increased the cost of skillsofts.

Of course, Options are a no-brainer now, especially DIMAP.

[fistandantilus4....]

1) I am an oriental drake
2) The idea of a shield came up only this last session (it'd boost my human armor to 14+)
3) I have mystic armor, but only 2 points of it because I decided not to be hyperspecialized (because I like having LOGICAL and BALANCED characters)
4) Adept, not Mage, also not Summoning
5) I wanted to be a drake because I fucking wanted to be a fucking drake so stop being an ass. I knew the limitations I was going to have going into it, I knew that cyber/bio ware was not an option, my post here was offering a valid point (albeit a humorous one rather than serious, though RAW), not to be a douche. You on the other hand had to be the douche and tell me not to play the character I wanted to play not once, but twice.

Don't answer a smarmy post with name calling. Let it go or take it up with us if you feel seriously offended. All this will get is you get a talking to instead of him.

[Mäx]

Here's my issue with it.

My current character, without skillwires, has spent the following BP amounts on active skills. (Note that skillwires may only equip activesofts, not knowledgesofts, thereby only allowing the learning of active skills)

Stealth skill group rating 4 - 40 BP
- Infiltration 4
- Shadowing 4
- Palming 4
- Disguise 4
Blades 3 - 9 BP
Pistols 6 - 24 BP
Armorer 3 - 9 BP
Dodge 3 - 9 BP
Perception 3 - 9 BP

So all in all a total of 100 BP, or 1/4th of my character
Here's what I can do with skillsofts:
Effectively the only skill that I can't use skillsofts for is pistols, as the skill level is too high, so that limits me to these options
Skillwire system rating 4 - 8,000
- Infiltration skillsoft 4 - 12,000
- Shadowing skillsoft 4 - 12,000
- Palming skillsoft 4 - 12,000
- Disguise skillsoft 4 - 12,000
- Blades skillsoft 3 - 9,000
- Armorer skillsoft 3 - 9,000
- Dodge skillsoft 3 - 9,000
- Perception skillsoft 3 - 9,000
For a grand total nuyen cost of 92,000. Sound's heavy, right? Well, let's convert that nuyen amount into BP cost. 92,000 nuyen = 19 BP!
Add that to the 24 BP required for the pistol skill at rating 6, and we have an effective BP ratio of 100/43, or 5/2, roughly
So getting skills with skillwires saves me 57 BP to allocate to other attributes, like edge or magic or even *gasp* other skills, all while leaving me an effective 155,000 nuyen with which to purchase other things, such as lifestyle and vehicles, weapons and gear. Quite a lot, if you ask me.

Well with the latest rules thats
Skillwire system rating 4 - 8,000
- Infiltration skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Shadowing skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Palming skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Disguise skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Blades skillsoft 3 - 30,000
- Armorer skillsoft 3 - 30,000
- Dodge skillsoft 3 - 30,000
- Perception skillsoft 3 - 30,000
For a grand total nuyen cost of 288,000 67,6=68BP(10 of those are from Born Rich quality)

[Muspellsheimr]

That's their point.

And they are broken because of it - in other words, they need to be reworked or removed. My initial stance was removal, but then I couldn't decide what to do with Move by Wire, so reworked them instead using a suggestion of one of my players.


I removed Linuasofts & Knowsofts entirely because they where at best meh with my new system, & largely duplicated with AR assistance.

[Starmage21]

Well with the latest rules thats
Skillwire system rating 4 - 8,000
- Infiltration skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Shadowing skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Palming skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Disguise skillsoft 4 - 40,000
- Blades skillsoft 3 - 30,000
- Armorer skillsoft 3 - 30,000
- Dodge skillsoft 3 - 30,000
- Perception skillsoft 3 - 30,000
For a grand total nuyen cost of 288,000 67,6=68BP(10 of those are from Born Rich quality)

You forgot Restricted Gear, so really thats 73BP!

So, for a difference of 27BP, you got a bunch of skills that you can only use 3-4 of at a time, and cant use edge on. Hope you dont need Infiltration at the same time you need Perception, disguise and dodge!

[Stahlseele]

Anybody remember the . . what was it?
50 build points and one day in game time to actually get all skills that are available? ^^

[Rotbart van Dain...]

And they are broken because of it

Hardly.

[Gunslinger057]

For the record, I wasn't aware of the new rules set when I posted about the BP difference. So, my only error was that I did not account for the 5 BP required for restricted gear. Which you could of course get around by buying all the activesofts at character creation and then buying the skillwire system after your first run. But for all those people calling me out on nuyen amounts - and therefore BP amounts - I plead ignorance.

At 40,000 for rating four, they are definately balanced, especially considering the restrictions on using the skills they provide.

[Adarael]

I regard the concept "Skillwires are overpowered" with some bemusement, in that same way I regard "(Initiative Boosters) are overpowered."

On some level, you have to accept that Skillwires, like nervous system boosters, are not simply a piece of gear, but in fact are a fundamental part of the genre itself. They have been since Neuromancer, and they've been part of the game since first edition.

Saying that they're overpowered because they work as intended is amusing to me, because it's functionally the same (in my opinion) as saying "Augmented characters are unbalanced! Their cyberware lets them do things ordinary people can't!" To which I want to say, "Yes, yes they can. That's the entire idea."

[DireRadiant]

Game Systems come in many flavors. SR is a game system where the mechanics and system is designed to support a Genre. A Genre with Magic, Cyberware, and all the other goodies. It's deliberately designed to encourage PC with magic, implanted technology, and lots of wiz gear. PC get additional IPs, they get spells, they get attribute enhancements, they plug their brains into machines, they become more then human.

If you want a game system where everyones cost for getting the same 10 dice pool is always equal, pick a game like Champions or GURPS which are specifically designed that way. In those game systems, the build costs for the same 10 dice work out the same for all characters.

[Neraph]

I mean, if you really want, let's play a 6 foot tall, blond hair blue eyed gydje who summons Guardian spirits to posess her, giving her multiple combat skills at rating 6 (or higher).

Suddenly, a couple skills at rating 5 (personalized) sounds less intimidating.

Also, it should be noted that r5 Alpha-grade Skillwires cost 20,000 with one Restricted Gear at chargen. Pretty cheap, if you ask me.