Karma Points, How many and how often do you distribute them? Options

[Faradon]

If that is justification to increase karma rewards, then there's no point to change the cost. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

All you're doing is negating a change that is pretty obvious to be intended towards slowing character growth.

From my understanding the increased Karma and increased cost of raising stats is more to promote overall growth instead of just "stat growth"

Under SR4 it was commonplace for stats to be the only things raised over the course of several adventures... by raising that cost and increasing karma it makes it easier to raise skills, add spells & foci, etc. Options other than just stats become more desireable.

[Screaming Eagle]

If that is justification to increase karma rewards, then there's no point to change the cost. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

All you're doing is negating a change that is pretty obvious to be intended towards slowing character growth.

Actually the change included the increase in suggested Karma. Looking at the math it overall speeds growth but slows stat advancement relative to skill advancement. Whether this actually results in slower stat advancement has been debated at lenght.

It does however make you MORE retarted for not sinking max to near max points into stats at character generation.

In 4th A looking at it I'd be awarding 4-15 Karma per session with tha average closer to 7-12. Yikes. Skill central and heavens save us from the initiates.

[StealthSigma]

From my understanding the increased Karma and increased cost of raising stats is more to promote overall growth instead of just "stat growth"

Under SR4 it was commonplace for stats to be the only things raised over the course of several adventures... by raising that cost and increasing karma it makes it easier to raise skills, add spells & foci, etc. Options other than just stats become more desireable.

Exactly, it slows growth. By increasing Karma rewards, it won't hold the same effect as the penalty for going attributes over skills is lessened to the point that it's still better to go with attributes over skills. Under the old system you would need to just commonly use 2 skills in order to justify raising an attribute over the skill. Now you just need to have 3 skills linked to that attribute that you use in order for raising attribute to be more cost effective.

The point is that by increasing the karma rewards AND increasing costs to raise attributes you essentially cancel each other out. You're talking about a karma increase from 4-5 to 7-8 on average, which is about a 60% increase in earned Karma rate. With a 66% increase in the cost of raising attributes you effectively cancel those out. The key is that this change -only- fosters balanced growth IF the attribute in question only has 1 or 2 skills linked to it for the character in question (body and willpower will be set aside since they have obvious functions outside of skills). 1 skill is obviously better to raise via skill rather than attribute, but at 2 skills linked to it, it's dubious as to whether the attribute or individual skills are better. Direct cost wise, yes two skills is cheaper, but if down the line you pick up a third linked skill then the attribute may not be such a bad choice. The point is that it's not difficult for a player to utilize 3 skills that share the same attribute, at which point you haven't solved the problem of distribution between skills and stats.

[Sponge]

Under the old system you would need to just commonly use 2 skills in order to justify raising an attribute over the skill. Now you just need to have 3 skills linked to that attribute that you use in order for raising attribute to be more cost effective.

Which is the same cost/benefit analysis that can be done for skill groups (since attributes and skill groups now cost the same to raise). And some skill groups cover sets of skills that don't all share the same linked attribute, so depending on your needs, one or the other might be better.

[StealthSigma]

Which is the same cost/benefit analysis that can be done for skill groups (since attributes and skill groups now cost the same to raise). And some skill groups cover sets of skills that don't all share the same linked attribute, so depending on your needs, one or the other might be better.

The problem with skill groups is that some are 3 skills and some are 4. Regardless of 3 or 4 skills, you need to actually use 3 of the groups skills to make it more worthwhile than grabbing the 2 individual skills you would use and ignoring the 3rd. However between skill groups an attributes, you need to once again have 3 skills linked to the attribute in question to make the attribute viable. SR4A costs actually make it cleaner to make a comparison between skill groups and attributes since they progress at the same rate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Jericho Alar]

when I was playing 3rd back in 1998-2005 time period I tended to award around 3-5 per session, which worked out to about 1 per hour +/- a bit.

In 4th it's kept up with that, more or less, although we now only award points at the end of runs and not in-between. I tend to give points for a mix of in-character and out-of-character reasons, although general categories are:

successful objective; unexpected plan; humor; good roleplay; survival; 'threat' of run (usually measured by how much damage I inflicted as adversary, not damage that is self-inflicted..); memorable moments; altruism.

as I said before I think a good benchmark is about 1 point of karma per hour played, although I don't generally actually *reward* it that way. (e.g. in my campaigns a character with 100 karma has survived about 100 hours of game, somewhere between 20-25 sessions.) works out to about 180-220 karma a year for us.

incidentally, lethality is pretty high in our games and characters over 50 karma are quite rare.

under the SR4A rules with increased costs for certain things, I think a benchmark of 4-7 karma per 4 hour session may be more realistic and I've found myself moving slowly in that direction.

[Blackb1rd]

I'm happy to see this post has generated a number of helpful and informative replies. thanks again for contributing, when i start GMing sometime in the future I'll probably come back to this and draw from the resources you've given me to develop an unique karma award system.

Thanks again everyone and if you have any more thoughts please provide them.

[MikeKozar]

I've been hearing our Party's Mage talking at length about all the tricky stuff he wants to use to upgrade his character - Long-term bindings, Attuning Foci, and at least three other upgrades I can't recall off the top of my head - and they all cost him Karma. The real painful part of that is that he built his character using a risky build that counted on him earning karma fast to shore up skills and stats. Conversely, my Rigger is already more then competent in his core abilities, and is spending his first 30 karma to buy off a negative quality for RP reasons. Some characters just need Karma worse then others.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Exactly, it slows growth. By increasing Karma rewards, it won't hold the same effect as the penalty for going attributes over skills is lessened to the point that it's still better to go with attributes over skills. Under the old system you would need to just commonly use 2 skills in order to justify raising an attribute over the skill. Now you just need to have 3 skills linked to that attribute that you use in order for raising attribute to be more cost effective.

The point is that by increasing the karma rewards AND increasing costs to raise attributes you essentially cancel each other out. You're talking about a karma increase from 4-5 to 7-8 on average, which is about a 60% increase in earned Karma rate. With a 66% increase in the cost of raising attributes you effectively cancel those out. The key is that this change -only- fosters balanced growth IF the attribute in question only has 1 or 2 skills linked to it for the character in question (body and willpower will be set aside since they have obvious functions outside of skills). 1 skill is obviously better to raise via skill rather than attribute, but at 2 skills linked to it, it's dubious as to whether the attribute or individual skills are better. Direct cost wise, yes two skills is cheaper, but if down the line you pick up a third linked skill then the attribute may not be such a bad choice. The point is that it's not difficult for a player to utilize 3 skills that share the same attribute, at which point you haven't solved the problem of distribution between skills and stats.

Except for one thing... it does not actually work out that way...
If you are raising a skill to a higher rating and you are raising your stat to that same rating, then yes, it is relative to each other and makes little to no difference at the increased costs... However, if I am raising a Skill from 2 to 3 and the relavent attribute is a 5, then I can raise 5 such skills to the single stat point... so it no longer has the correlation to your comparison... If my stat is at capacity, then it is no longer feasible to raise the stat, and skills linked to said attribute become cheaper compared to Karma awards in SR4A (you get more Karma, so skills increase faster, which I think was the reaoning behind the increase)... so you really have a hard time comparing, as every character will be different in the skill/attribute combinations that matter to the character...

Of Course, Your mileage may vary...

Keep the Faith

[StealthSigma]

Except for one thing... it does not actually work out that way...
If you are raising a skill to a higher rating and you are raising your stat to that same rating, then yes, it is relative to each other and makes little to no difference at the increased costs... However, if I am raising a Skill from 2 to 3 and the relavent attribute is a 5, then I can raise 5 such skills to the single stat point... so it no longer has the correlation to your comparison... If my stat is at capacity, then it is no longer feasible to raise the stat, and skills linked to said attribute become cheaper compared to Karma awards in SR4A (you get more Karma, so skills increase faster, which I think was the reaoning behind the increase)... so you really have a hard time comparing, as every character will be different in the skill/attribute combinations that matter to the character...

Which would exist regardless of attribute cost being x3 or x5. While it is easiest to make comparison based on equal attributes and skills, it's not impossible to compare a number of variable skills

NewAttribute * 5 <= TotalNewSkillLevel * 2
NewAttribute * 3 <= TotalNewSkillLevel * 2
We'll use Longarms 4-5, Infiltration 2-3, Palming 1-2 = TotalNewSkillLevel of 10

Under the New System
NewAttribute * 5 <= 10 * 2
NewAttribute * 5 <= 20
NewAttribute <= 4

Under the Old System
NewAttribute * 3 <= 10 * 2
NewAttribute * 3 <= 20
NewAttribute <= 6.667

If either of those equations are true, then raising the attribute is more cost effective. My point is that by increasing both Karma and attribute costs by about 60-66% you don't make attributes any less appealing. It will still take the same amount of time to increase attributes. Perhaps that's the goal, making skill increases more common, but I do believe this is only going to generate an impact on players that spend Karma as fast as they earn it, not players that save up lots of Karma before spending it. The increased karma rewards seem extraneous and unnecessary unless the success cap based on skill is enforced, but it is still just an optional rule. However I personally don't like it since Street Cred is derived from Karma and Public Awareness is derived partially from Street Cred. And Public Awareness can be a problem, a problem which I have heard some people suggest you commit notorious acts just to burn off Street Cred.

There's a lot of cascading down the line from increasing Karma rewards, especially when increasing the rewards was unnecessary to improve the appeal of increasing skills over attributes.

Of course, I tend to subscribe to the school of thought of making small changes rather than big ones.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Which would exist regardless of attribute cost being x3 or x5. While it is easiest to make comparison based on equal attributes and skills, it's not impossible to compare a number of variable skills

NewAttribute * 5 <= TotalNewSkillLevel * 2
NewAttribute * 3 <= TotalNewSkillLevel * 2
We'll use Longarms 4-5, Infiltration 2-3, Palming 1-2 = TotalNewSkillLevel of 10

Under the New System
NewAttribute * 5 <= 10 * 2
NewAttribute * 5 <= 20
NewAttribute <= 4

Under the Old System
NewAttribute * 3 <= 10 * 2
NewAttribute * 3 <= 20
NewAttribute <= 6.667

If either of those equations are true, then raising the attribute is more cost effective. My point is that by increasing both Karma and attribute costs by about 60-66% you don't make attributes any less appealing. It will still take the same amount of time to increase attributes. Perhaps that's the goal, making skill increases more common, but I do believe this is only going to generate an impact on players that spend Karma as fast as they earn it, not players that save up lots of Karma before spending it. The increased karma rewards seem extraneous and unnecessary unless the success cap based on skill is enforced, but it is still just an optional rule. However I personally don't like it since Street Cred is derived from Karma and Public Awareness is derived partially from Street Cred. And Public Awareness can be a problem, a problem which I have heard some people suggest you commit notorious acts just to burn off Street Cred.

There's a lot of cascading down the line from increasing Karma rewards, especially when increasing the rewards was unnecessary to improve the appeal of increasing skills over attributes.

Of course, I tend to subscribe to the school of thought of making small changes rather than big ones.

Thanks for the breakdown... and I do tend to agree somewhat... But it is my firm belief that they did indeed intend to make skill increases more common, while making attribute increases more expensive...

Keep the Faith