Characters that break the game, I want to see some of these at generation monsters. Options

[Glyph]

One thing about SR3 was that spellcasting characters were significantly more powerful. You had spells like Force: 6 manabolt with a fetish modifier, where your base TN to soak Drain was a 2. Your target number was the victim's Willpower, and if you got no net successes, the spell fizzled. But - even an albino gnome with exceptional Willpower was at a disadvantage.

First, you could cast it at D damage, meaning even one net hit was an instant kill. Then, you could pile on the dice - +3 from, say, the Dragonslayer totem, 6 more from a manabolt focus (although SR3 didn't limit you to only one focus, so you could have conceivably even more dice), and 3 spell pool dice (saving the rest for Drain), added to sorcery: 6, and that's 18 dice. Far from the maximum, too. Against most enemies, you can cast that spell at M damage, and still stage it up enough to kill them, usually soaking Drain completely, too.

Magical characters tend to be less durable than sammies, but one advantage they have is that, unlike sammies, they usually only need to spend Combat Pool defensively, instead of splitting it between attacking and dodging.

The elemental attack pack has already been mentioned (supplement if with watchers to get that friends in melee bonus in most astral engagements).


I'm not sure they were gamebreaking, though. While more powerful than their SR4 counterparts, they were still vulnerable to mundane attacks and opposition from similarly tricked-out spellslingers. SR3 and SR4 both have that oft-quoted "eggshells with hammers" thing - there are a lot of one-shot takedowns possible, but it is very easy to die.

[ElFenrir]

Re: Mages being less durable:

Under SR3 rules, Power Foci added directly to the Magic score. Now, while cyberware took more Essence, and Bioware lowered magic as long as it was in(it acted as a ''damper'' to magic in SR3; it didn't totally remove it, but it lowered it as you wore it. One surgery later and the Bio could be gone and the magic back to normal), the Power Focus could easily gain back the magic.

As a Sorcerer(Priority B), with Resources A(1,000,000), and Attributes C(24 points, which is very solid; without Summoning you couild drop Charisma a bit too and have some impressive stats), you could load down your mage with about 4 essence of ware, use a bunch of resources for more Force points(which were used to buy spells), take the spells Exclusive to reduce cost(so a Force 5 spell cost only 3 points to purchase), or Fetish to reduce cost(1 point off the price), and THEN get yourself a force 4 Focus...bam, Magic 6, tons of spells, and as much Ware as a sam.

Also remember, SR3 took out grounding. This was SR2 and back only.

In fact, the biggest combat monster I ever built was a mage. And also the best physical fighter in the party. I also retired him after one play because he was actually too boring to play he was that powerful. (His combat skills were insane too, he dealt enough unarmed damage to remove heads. Oh yeah, those old Unarmed/Melee rules where the defender could actually turn the attack around were in play, too...)

Adepts could be pretty nasty in SR3 as well. Not as bad as 1, but I'd say a traditional physad was nastier in SR3 than SR4, but that's just me.

[Stahlseele]

PhysAds are completely Nasty, because they can go so over the top so damn easy in SR3.
Skill 6, easy enough.
Improved Skill 6, easy enough,
Combat Pool 6, easy enough.
Bam, 18 Dice allready. Then do something to get your Target Number down and you simply don't fucking need more dice.
Because in SR3, NOTHING detracts from the dice you chose to use. Meaning you cann ALLWAYS use these loads of Dice.
If you can get Target number to 2 or 3 you are pretty much good to go. And with TN of 2, if you can do that, you are so
more or less guaranteed your 10 to 15 Successes too . . Now take a weak ass Human Adept with that in close combat.
STR1 Means 1light Stun. let us say out of 18 there are 14 successes . .
2 go from light to medium,
2 go from medium to sewere,
2 go from sewere to deadly.
that's 6 of those 14 successes used up.
leaving you with 8 successes.
dunno if it was +1PN for every success ABOVE Deadly Damage, or if it was for every TWO successes.
but still, a STR1 Human would have AT LEAST 6D Damage output from his fingertips.
If every single Success above deadly damage means +1PN you get up to 9D Damage bare handed.
Without ANY kind of negative side to this. Now imagine someone STARTING with STR10 for example.
You are more or less guaranteed to hit your target with that many dice.
And most every Target you hit with those dice is more or less guaranteed to just keel over like that.
And you can Exchange the Close Combat for . . Assault Rifles for example O.o
Or Shotguns with Burst Fire. . 13D BASE DAMAGE. Even Big Critters will find it hard to resist that.

[The Jake]

Possession based tradition mages (ab)using Troll Street Samurai party members as vessels would come pretty darn close. I think a well built karmagen free spirit would too.

- J.

[Chibu]

I personally don't think this stuff is broken. It IS very specialized, to be good at one thing. (Everyone chooses combat....) But well, if you're 18dice physical adept attacks a security guard with 2 points of hardened armor... he just laughs at you and then slaps you. And again, a good Chaos spell brings those 4's (or 2's) you need up to 6's or 8's That means you're going to be getting about 3 successes. And well, a random guy from the street can soak 2M... In specific situations where everything goes as planned, these are pretty good characters. But since you're planning to use your whole combat pool to attack, you can get killed by soneone else if you can't soak it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Stahlseele]

If you are going up against Hardened armor, you don't use close Combat.
If you are facing Spellslingers, you don't use close Combat.
If you face close Combat Spirits for example, you slice and dice them with this.
And don't forget, at least with the only 18 Dice Adept, you can switch out close combat for ANYTHING ELSE.
Including things like Vehicles, Computers and other such sillyness. Only reason why there's no Pornomancer in SR3 is the single fact, that combat pool is NOT useable in social combat.

[DireRadiant]

Any PC build that has a dice pool 4+ greater then any other PC can possibly create an imbalance.

[Stahlseele]

Especially in a System where NOTHING has an Influence on your Dice-Pool-Size.
Only the Number of Successes is important. Even if you have a Target-Number of 30(Equivalent to -30 Dice on your test in SR4), with 30 Dice you CAN reach that one . . Even if it is pretty improbable. While in SR4, when not playing something horribly twinked, you are looking at negative dice pool Numbers. Lucky/Long Shot is your best Guess.

[Chibu]

I think raised target numbers are alot more realistic, personally. if you have a target number of 30, you're going to miss. But you could get lucky and accidentally get it. If you're counting... TN 30 is about 1/7776. That's how the old system works in general, target numbers go up exponentially (kind of).
6 = 1/6
12 = 1/36
18 = 1/216
24 = 1/1296
and so on.

As such, if you raise a target number just from 4 to 10, you change the probablity from 50% to 8.3%. So yes, if you're rolling 14 dice, you will probably get a success, But that's not much different from lowering a dice pool from 10 to 4.

[Stahlseele]

The Beauty of the System with automatic exploding 6's:
Allmost every single time i actually DO get to play . .
I Manage to roll one Dice up to 30 or 40 ^^

[Chibu]

lol, oh wow. Well, yeah, it's possible. We usually don't get that high, but 20's are probably seen every session. Then again, we probably do roll at least a few hundred dice per session, so I guess that's expected.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not totally disagreeing with the point. I was just saying that there are ways to stop it. I played an Adept with Missile Mastery that used playing cards as his primary weapon. I could do damage on the same level (after they soak a few levels of it) as people with guns, and sometimes more. But, whenever we ran into hardened armor, or a vehicle, or a spirit, that kind of attack was completely useless. he was doing 2or3L and had 14 dice (before combat pool, which I always saved to soak damage if necessary) to attack so, generally I had 6-8 successes or 3D(or D+a fake level) damage. But well, almost everyone can get 2 3's, so that dropped it immediately down. He was really good, most of the time. I ended up having to take a weapon focus to deal with spirits (sometimes we didn't have a a mage).

One could also argue that a sammy with 3d6+12 initiative (i'm sure it's possible) could easily take out that adept before he has a chance to do much. So, the question is this. Who's better? Someone who can attack 4 times (times two bullets per action) every turn with 6 dice, or someone who can attack 1-2 times per turn with 14 dice.

[Stahlseele]

In SR3, Less Attacks with more Oomph are better.
Because EVERYBODY AND THEIR GRANDMA can have 5 Points Ballistic/Impact Armor.
And thus even Heavy Pistols or Shotguns are not all that bad, if you have 3 to 4 body.
More Power-Niveau is allways better than more Damage Level.
I'd take 12M above 10S Damage all the time.

[ElFenrir]

Staging up was easy. But SR3 had some imbalances(Dikote, which was a must-have essentially), and how some things were *that much* obviously better than others. Screw the unarmed physad with killing hands-meet the Polearm Physad. Sure, he had the disadvantage of having a large weapon, but...sheesh.

But then give him Polearms(Choice) 5(7), Improved Skill + something, and the fact a polearm had 2 Reach. Polearms did Str+3S damage. Dikote made this Str+4D. Then make it a weapon focus. This guy didn't even have to be Superman. A 6 Strength human had a 10D, +2 reach weapon. Make it a weapon focus for + whatever more dice. Really, this guy could literally just slice vehicles in two. His base dice with it at 5(7), 4 levels of Improved Ability and a Rating 5 Weapon Focus was 16. He didn't even touch his combat pool yet. HIs base TN to hit, if he used the Reach for his advantage, was 2(he could always fail on a 1. A 1 was always a failure-a TN couldn't be reduced below 2.)

I also recall the rule that once it went to D, each 2 successes staged up the damage 1 point.

Oh yeah, if he won a defensive roll, he got to counter-attack. Get ready to soak what was likely going to be 13+D damage. That could be used against spirits and hardened armor, thanks to the focus/dikote. (Yeah, Dikote was stupidly good.)

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, Favourite Character Design of mine.
Strength maxed out Troll. 15 or 16.
Pole-Arm with Dikote. 20D Damage. Reach of 3.
Unarmed Damage due to Plastic Bone-Lace 18M Stun.
Ranger-X-Bow for Str14, Ex-Ex-Tips.
Reach of 950 or 1000m 20M Damage.
Unholy, i know.
But it can get worse.
Troll with STR of 16,
Two Cyber-Implant-Weapons with Dikote.
Meaning 16+4M Damage with one and 24M Damage with Both hands.
Could rend every larger Critter.
If you wanna be REALLY Mean, you add in Poison Sacks with GammaScopolamine for another 10D Stun Damage which is resisted only with Body.
Presto, Mucho Damage over Range and in Close-Combat.
Silent but Deadly. Like a Troll-Fart.
Int of 4, Quickness of 8,
Meaning a Combat Pool of 10,
Skills Pole-Arm(Pig-Sticker) 5/7
Projectile Weapons(Ranger-X) 5/7
Unarmed/(Fist or Kick) 5/7
Cyber-Implant-Combat/(Chosen one) 5/7
Improved Artwinculation.
4 Skills with 8 Dice+Combat Pool and in Close Combat modified by Reach.
And in Long Range Combat Modified by Image Magnification Level3 and then Laser-Pointer for -1
Target Number of 3.
If you really wanna twink, try to get aptitude for one of those by your GM.
Nothing really too Game-Breaking.
Custom Built Weapons were worse.
Burst Fire Capable Sniper-Rifle.
Or Shotguns with 10s/13D Damage with Slugs.
Or Heavy Pistols with 10/13S Damage.

[Cochise]

While not a hard and fast rule, 22 is a bit much, and makes him not really at the level of a starting character as he's made with much higher build points.

Since I was the person who made these characters (and didn't get credit from Stahlseele here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ) I'd like to comment on this a bit (regardless of the fact that just as with the pornomancer or the climbing troll in SR4 both were merely proof of concept):

1. Just as with aptitudes on combat skills, you already noted that the sentence you quoted is merely a recommendation.
2. Said recommendation is already altered (if not invalidated) by the rule description and its option on page 16 of the Companion:
   
   Players can purchase Edges and Flaws in the same manner using the the point-based character creation system. Optionally a gamemaster may allow players to spend or gain Building Points when selecting Edges and Flaws. In this case, a player can spend Building points to buy Edges or increase the number of Build Points he has availible by the point value of any Flaws he takes. For example, a player who takes the Flaw of Blind (-6 points) can add 6 Building Points to his allowance. We recommend allowing no more than 6 Building Points to be gained or spent in that manner.
   
   Both versions of the Phys-Ad of the Magician's Way (really only needed for legally bonding the used weapon focus in either build at chargen and to provide some options for later on developement) do fit that recommendation, since they do not gain more than a net number of 6 Build Points- resulting in a build with 126 instead of mere 120 (which is the actual value by RAW instead of the mentioned and very commonly used 123 average of archetypes) ... which is totally fine with that second recommendation. I could have left out that recommendation if wanted, since the only real hard capped thing concering Edges and Flaws is the number of Edges and Flaws: 5 of either type
3. This recommendation finally went overboard at the point when the makers introduced the 8 point edge value for max level ambidexterity

Oh and as far as credits go: Both charatcers are based on the ideas of IIRC Dr. Funkenstein from this board, who originally presented me with the possibilty for bonding a force 6 weapon focus on a Phys-Ad at chargen.

[Stahlseele]

Hey, i said i only translated! i forgot to look up the name of the poster x.x . . i'm sorry, my bad ._.
*grumbles* damn copy right creeping into character design now <.<
Right now, i ain't even sure why i posted these in here.. Personally, i don't think they are game breaking.
ANYONE with a good gun and a half way decend skill/combat pool(so really, most other characters) can deal with him just fine.
I just thought it impressing/depressing to see such numbers in SR3 Terms too . .

[Kyoto Kid]

Not seen you in a while KK. Good to see you're still about!

re: OP, I've seen some pretty obscene stuff out of the box in SR3, but whether they're game breaking or not, I don't know.

...thanks. Been caught up in the whole 3D CG thing. Creating a lot of cool pics as well as learning modelling and creating textures. Also spending time on several of of the related forums. Currently there is a cyber art challenge on the DAZ site which I already entered one pic in and am working on another.

Here's the first entry, If you've played the TCG, you know the character (one of my fave "contacts").


Shopping Cart Lady

[Cochise]

Re: Mages being less durable:

Under SR3 rules, Power Foci added directly to the Magic score. Now, while cyberware took more Essence, and Bioware lowered magic as long as it was in(it acted as a ''damper'' to magic in SR3; it didn't totally remove it, but it lowered it as you wore it. One surgery later and the Bio could be gone and the magic back to normal),

Just a minor nitpick here: After Errata on bioware it caused normal Magic Loss based on BI / 2 that was added to Essence Loss before calculating final Magic Loss. And BioIndex didn't go away when removing bioware just as essence wasn't recovered once the ware was out ...

[Glyph]

The errata actually made bioware better for mages, though. You could get a mix of the two and only lose one point of Magic, rather than losing one point of Magic, then taking another point of "virtual" Magic loss that couldn't be geased away.

One other thing about mages - spells above Force: 6 were relatively rare, so mostly, a Magic of over 6 didn't do you much good. Once you had a few grades of initiation, you could cram in a ton of cyberware and bioware, and not really feel much of a difference, power-wise.

[Chibu]

The errata actually made bioware better for mages, though. You could get a mix of the two and only lose one point of Magic, rather than losing one point of Magic, then taking another point of "virtual" Magic loss that couldn't be geased away.

One other thing about mages - spells above Force: 6 were relatively rare, so mostly, a Magic of over 6 didn't do you much good. Once you had a few grades of initiation, you could cram in a ton of cyberware and bioware, and not really feel much of a difference, power-wise.

Yeah, (not in a starting character but,) in game if I'm playing a spellcaster, I almost always end up taking spells over force 6. Force 12 mana bolts and the like. And I did once play a cybered out mage for a magic rating of 1. If I can find his character sheet, I'll post him on here. He wasn't 'game breaking', but he summoned elementals, and used mostly a bunch of 'Slay X' spells at force 6. So yeah sure, everything he cast through back physical drain, but I calculated it well enough that he didn't ever actually take drain anyway (2S isn't that hard to deal with). I think he was a sniper too. I didn't get to play him enough, but I was going to start anchoring spells to bullets =D

[Cochise]

The errata actually made bioware better for mages, though. You could get a mix of the two and only lose one point of Magic, rather than losing one point of Magic, then taking another point of "virtual" Magic loss that couldn't be geased away.

Ofc the errata made Bioware better for mages. That's what the fluff around bioware always said, but actually wasn't backed up by the original rule of ungeasable seperate virtual magic loss.
So what the errata did, was merely making bioware to what it already was supposed to be: Less invasive for the Awakened