BP, Karma, Priority, What's the best? Options

[AndyZ]

This will take a while, but I suggest using both BP and Karma to try to make characters and see what you can come up with. One system will probably stand out above the others as a good method that gives you more. I don't know much about Priorities but if you have the time you may even want to try that too.

If you want to say what you want to make, I'm sure a bunch of us would be glad to help you out.

If you absolutely want to completely twink out the BP system:

Attributes should be either 5s or 1s, assuming you're human. Use the equivalent for any other metavariant: either don't put any points at all or put them just shy of the maximum so you don't have to pay the 25bp. (This may seem extreme, but just consider it if the other players are as bad as you mentioned.)

Buy either one skill at 6 or two skills at 5. Any other skills or skill groups you buy should be at 4. Don't buy any specialties.

I wouldn't bother with too many spells if you're a magician, but max out your complex forms if you go technomancer.

Binding Spirits beforehand with BP isn't really worth it. Registering Sprites definitely isn't.

If you take a High Lifestyle, set 1200 nuyen aside to give you +12 to the roll. That equates to +6000 on the starting nuyen roll.

Knowledge skills are just the opposite. Don't waste any Karma on these when the game begins, so if you get a decent Intuition and Logic score, put single points into lots of languages since you can't default in them.

I hope some of that helps.

[Shinobi Killfist]

You can get pretty high with priority.

Priority 1 for special attributes (human)
Priority 2 for magician
Priority 3 Attributes
Priority 4 Skills
Priority 5 Resources

This way you can get an edge of 7 and a magic of 6
The scary part is magician is not counted towards your 35 points of postive qualities under the priority system.

Not bad, your attributes and skills will suck but with a magic 6 and edge 7 who cares.

Edit to add:
Just put together a quick mage like this. Not great, it has some glaring flaws, but they are cheap to remedy with karma if the GM is giving standard karma rewards.

Bod 5
Str 1
Agl 1
Rea 3
Chr 1
Int 2
Log 4
Will 6
Essence 6
Edge 7
Magic 6


Sorcery 4
Binding 4
Summoning 4
Assensing 4
perception 4

And you have 5,000 to spend(hey look armor) and you get 2 contacts. Not bad, even ignoring the max attribute penalties for will magic, and edge this comes to 379 points. 394 after the magician quality. In this version you can get 35 more points in positive and negative qualities, where as in the normal you could only get 20 more points in positive(though I often used the points for attributes or skills)

[Karoline]

The (really) simple breakdown is that generally BP is better for powergaming min/maxing shenanigans with the rather notable exception of a generalist type (Which I guess isn't exactly a powergaming character).

As others have said, BP encourages you to either buy it to max or not touch it, while karmagen encourages you to get a smattering of everything and leave maxes alone. The only character that really benefits (from a powergaming standpoint) from karmagen is one that will be taking a large number of skills and/or alot of stats in the mid to low range.

Not sure about priority system. I think it is actually geared towards new players and/or creating characters quickly because you don't have to worry about every little BP, you just pick stuff and go. I would imagine however that it encourages the 'take it to the max or leave it alone' style that you get in BP because (I think) that a 5 to 6 boost costs the same as a 0 to 1 boost, so why bother with any low skills?

As an aside it is for that exact reason I prefer karmagen. I want to be able to give my characters a smattering of 1 and 2 point skills without feeling like my first action in the game was to shoot myself in the foot.

[Omenowl]

Not bad, your attributes and skills will suck but with a magic 6 and edge 7 who cares.

Edit to add:
Just put together a quick mage like this. Not great, it has some glaring flaws, but they are cheap to remedy with karma if the GM is giving standard karma rewards.

Bod 5
Str 1
Agl 1
Rea 3
Chr 1
Int 2
Log 4
Will 6
Essence 6
Edge 7
Magic 6


Sorcery 4
Binding 4
Summoning 4
Assensing 4
perception 4

And you have 5,000 to spend(hey look armor) and you get 2 contacts. Not bad, even ignoring the max attribute penalties for will magic, and edge this comes to 379 points. 394 after the magician quality. In this version you can get 35 more points in positive and negative qualities, where as in the normal you could only get 20 more points in positive(though I often used the points for attributes or skills)

I may have not ordered them correctly. I remember coming out with more than the 400 BP.

[Shinobi Killfist]

The (really) simple breakdown is that generally BP is better for powergaming min/maxing shenanigans with the rather notable exception of a generalist type (Which I guess isn't exactly a powergaming character).

As others have said, BP encourages you to either buy it to max or not touch it, while karmagen encourages you to get a smattering of everything and leave maxes alone. The only character that really benefits (from a powergaming standpoint) from karmagen is one that will be taking a large number of skills and/or alot of stats in the mid to low range.

Not sure about priority system. I think it is actually geared towards new players and/or creating characters quickly because you don't have to worry about every little BP, you just pick stuff and go. I would imagine however that it encourages the 'take it to the max or leave it alone' style that you get in BP because (I think) that a 5 to 6 boost costs the same as a 0 to 1 boost, so why bother with any low skills?

As an aside it is for that exact reason I prefer karmagen. I want to be able to give my characters a smattering of 1 and 2 point skills without feeling like my first action in the game was to shoot myself in the foot.

I prefer karmagen for the same reason, I build diverse characters and they feel like someone who might have actually had a life and grown to where they are instead of being constructed in a lab.

I may have not ordered them correctly. I remember coming out with more than the 400 BP.

It is over 400 points in that that maxing magic and edge costs an additional 15 points each so that is 409 which I did not put into my numbers, since I also maxed will that would knock it to 424. But maybe putting attributes in 4th place would be worth even more, i don't know.

[Omenowl]

Of the systems I prefer the karma system only to get a better rounded out character. I do think the karma level is set too high, but otherwise I prefer the system. I think the system needs to require a certain number of knowledge skills.

[toturi]

The (really) simple breakdown is that generally BP is better for powergaming min/maxing shenanigans with the rather notable exception of a generalist type (Which I guess isn't exactly a powergaming character).

As others have said, BP encourages you to either buy it to max or not touch it, while karmagen encourages you to get a smattering of everything and leave maxes alone. The only character that really benefits (from a powergaming standpoint) from karmagen is one that will be taking a large number of skills and/or alot of stats in the mid to low range.

Not sure about priority system. I think it is actually geared towards new players and/or creating characters quickly because you don't have to worry about every little BP, you just pick stuff and go. I would imagine however that it encourages the 'take it to the max or leave it alone' style that you get in BP because (I think) that a 5 to 6 boost costs the same as a 0 to 1 boost, so why bother with any low skills?

As an aside it is for that exact reason I prefer karmagen. I want to be able to give my characters a smattering of 1 and 2 point skills without feeling like my first action in the game was to shoot myself in the foot.

I disagree. A generalist type character is exactly a powergaming character. A min-maxed character can't powergame all the time by virtue of min-maxing, there will be a min somewhere sometime. A generalist has everything covered, there are no weaknesses, it is power-on all the time.

BP by itself encourages max or nothing but the game mechanics discourages that due to the defaulting rules. You take low skills because you do not want to default, defaulting means shooting yourself in the foot, buying a Rating 1 means gaining 2 dice from Rating 0. Therefore BP in a practical sense mandates touch it for 1 or max it. Thus the skill limits actually play a part, you can only have 1 skill at 6 or 2 at 5, the rest has to be 4 max.

[Omenowl]

I disagree about a balanced character being a power gamer. BP and priority encourage min/maxing, but also if you have a large enough group you don't need to be balanced. Within 5 or 6 sessions odds are you filled out your basic skills/attributes to at least a level 1 for those skills that come up regularly. Most people in the real world use unskilled defaulting for their daily tasks. Extended tests and simple issues make it fairly easy to coast through life. It is only when you run up against something with a timeline, skills that one can not default, or critical nature you need a skill.

Most players either pick a skill for their character so they don't have to worry about it, or avoid having need to use that skill. Do all the player negotiate or just the face? Make influence, negotation, etc a skill characters need to use every game and you will find that it needs to be raised.

Don't get me wrong I like generalists, but only to fill out niche roles or to support a larger group in cases the specialist is neutralized.

[Cain]

From what everyone has said, it sounds like BP is better if you want some maxed stats, and Karma is better if you want fine grain control of everything but attributes. The exception in both these cases seems to be the special character types. I do like Glyph's suggestion of building in BP and checking legality in Karma. He mentions that BP is better than Karma if you want an Awakened character. Does this mesh with everyone elses thoughts? If I wanted to make a mage, or a stealth type, or a TM, all with at least some competency with firearms and a decent reaction attribute, should I stick to BP for the exceptional attributes?

That depends. Does your GM allow initiations at chargen with karmagen? If so, you can get some stupidly powerful Awakened types. The same is true for Submersions/Otaku. In particular, a min/maxed summoner build (either mage or otaku) can get out of hand really quickly. You can't do this under BP's.

Personally, I've built insane characters using both systems. It really depends on what you're going for. Do you have more of a character concept in mind?

[FriendoftheDork]

I disagree. A generalist type character is exactly a powergaming character. A min-maxed character can't powergame all the time by virtue of min-maxing, there will be a min somewhere sometime. A generalist has everything covered, there are no weaknesses, it is power-on all the time.

BP by itself encourages max or nothing but the game mechanics discourages that due to the defaulting rules. You take low skills because you do not want to default, defaulting means shooting yourself in the foot, buying a Rating 1 means gaining 2 dice from Rating 0. Therefore BP in a practical sense mandates touch it for 1 or max it. Thus the skill limits actually play a part, you can only have 1 skill at 6 or 2 at 5, the rest has to be 4 max.

A min-maxed character means you minimize weaknesses and maximize advantages. Thus you're karma char IS a min-maxed character.

You can also min-max with BP of course, in that you ignore skills or stats you're not likely to use, while maximizing those you think you need or will use.

Generalists does not need to be min-maxed or power gamed at all, it's just someone with lots of diffierent skills and abilites. It's alot harder to make a generalist that is "power on" than a specialist, especially in BP system.

[wanderer_king]

BP is powergame.... right.... seriously, it is broken and I won't allow it at my table.... every time I build a Karmagen character the start at effective 600+ BP..... that is powergaming. Also, its just as easy to min max, but your min maxed character will snag up an extra role or two to due when his specialization isn't needed. (This happens frequently for my combat hacker.)

[Surukai]

With min-max in this context I refer to identifying and using "dumpstats". The typical example is having strength 1 because strength is useless for most characters, bodyx2 determines armour capacity anyway etc. Charisma 1 is another, who cares if you roll 1 or 3 dice for negotiation? You won't find shit anyway, let the face with his 40+ dice do that stuff.

BP literally scream "buy either 5 or 1 in your attributes, anything in between is stupid, fix that with karma later!". Any character not getting either min or max in their stuff (skills, stats, etc) will be suboptimal. Don't even bother getting skills to 1 unless the're critical (i.e. you actually need it and it can't be defaulted). It costs 4 karma to get a new active skill but 4 BP to get one at 1. Karma is worth about half as much, meaning it's twice as cheap to buy it with karma later than getting it from start while raising your troll body to 9 from 8 costs 10 BP but a massive 45 karma (more than 4 times as much karma as bp, or +350% more bang for your buck compared to that no-good active skill at rating 1)

[nezumi]

This is sort of a trick question, really. What are you doing, and how many points do you have in each? If you're making somebody with a few very high skills, point-buy is *probably* best. If you're looking at someone with a very diverse set of skills and attributes, go karma. Someone odd like a troll mage, go with priority. If the option is 750 karma or 180 points, go with karma.

You may want to figure out your character concept, then build them in all of the systems, to see which works out best. That would be truly munchkin (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

The other thing to remember is, inevitably, you'll be using the karma system once gameplay begins. This means using EXCEPT the karma system for chargen will likely be best, because then you have a hybrid system - you can leverage the benefits of both.

(For the record, I've found sum-to-10 is the best balance of complexity and balance, so I used that. Even so, I fully expect characters to start with 1 in at least one attribute, and mostly 6s in their skills.)

[Glyph]

Saying Karma is better for a "generalist" is a bit of a... generalization. You can get a skill of 6 or two skills of 5 at character creation, and while that might be a bit pricier in karmagen, it's still doable. I fiddled around with building a mundane ork character, testing out the revised rules (higher costs for Attributes, spend the race's BP cost in Karma), and even though it was min-maxed, it still came out slightly better than it would have in BP, and that included actually buying knowledge skills equivalent to what he would have had under BP.

But some metatypes definitely come out better in Karmagen, and orks are at the sweet spot (although they are that way under BPs, too).

As far as BPs go, I have not found it to encourage "buy it at soft max, or buy it at 1". That might be a valid min-maxing tactic for some builds, but when using it normally, I have not felt that temptation - I usually get the skill of 6 or two skills of 5, then get other important skills at 3 or 4, with 1 or 2 for tertiary or less critically important skills. In BP, skills are a flat cost, so it is actually beneficial to take numerous high ones. Specializations are costlier at character creation under BPs, although from a powergaming perspective, sometimes getting +2 dice from the starting gate is more important than saving a few points.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

With min-max in this context I refer to identifying and using "dumpstats". The typical example is having strength 1 because strength is useless for most characters, bodyx2 determines armour capacity anyway etc. Charisma 1 is another, who cares if you roll 1 or 3 dice for negotiation? You won't find shit anyway, let the face with his 40+ dice do that stuff.

BP literally scream "buy either 5 or 1 in your attributes, anything in between is stupid, fix that with karma later!". Any character not getting either min or max in their stuff (skills, stats, etc) will be suboptimal. Don't even bother getting skills to 1 unless the're critical (i.e. you actually need it and it can't be defaulted). It costs 4 karma to get a new active skill but 4 BP to get one at 1. Karma is worth about half as much, meaning it's twice as cheap to buy it with karma later than getting it from start while raising your troll body to 9 from 8 costs 10 BP but a massive 45 karma (more than 4 times as much karma as bp, or +350% more bang for your buck compared to that no-good active skill at rating 1)

Wow, Really? I have not pictured it this way since 4th came out...
I guess everyone has their own perceptions though...

Keep the Faith

[Karoline]

Saying Karma is better for a "generalist" is a bit of a... generalization. You can get a skill of 6 or two skills of 5 at character creation, and while that might be a bit pricier in karmagen, it's still doable. I fiddled around with building a mundane ork character, testing out the revised rules (higher costs for Attributes, spend the race's BP cost in Karma), and even though it was min-maxed, it still came out slightly better than it would have in BP, and that included actually buying knowledge skills equivalent to what he would have had under BP.

Yes, Karmagen isn't bad for making a specialist character, but my point was that a generalist is much easier to make in karmagen. For example, getting all the skill groups and a large chunk of the non-grouped skills at 1 costs something like 140 BP or 140 karma. Getting all those skills up to 2 costs 280 BP or 280 karma. So with BP you've spent almost 3/4ths of your BP allotment, and with karma you've only spent about 1/3rd.

On the other hand, if you're trying to make someone who really excels at something, you're looking at a cost of 24BP to max out a skill to 6, or 44 karma. Using the golden 2:1 ratio this is actually a fairly even number, but where you really see the difference in making a specialist is in the stat costs. Lets say you're making a troll melee brawler guy. Getting Str and Bod up to 9 in BP costs 80. Getting them up to 9 in karma however costs 300, which is absurdly more expensive (Granted I'm using the most expensive option here, but I'm just making a point).

This is why I like Karmagen. Because you certainly can make specialists, and you can make generalists, and both are very viable under the system. About the only thing Karmagen restricts is the ultra high stat trolls, orcs, and elves, and even those are doable to some extent. BP on the other hand mostly forces your hand to either leave a stat at 1 or 5, and a skill at 0 or 4 or 6.

I just feel that Karmagen creates much more real characters, ones with 3s and 4s in alot of stats with an occasional 2 or 5. It creates characters with a smattering of 1s and 2s in skills not because they are vital, but for much more RP reasons (Under karmagen I am very likely to pick up a couple points in Artisan to represent my character liking to draw or paint or play guitar or had piano lessons when she was a kid or whatever, but generally won't consider it in BP because those same 4 points could go to something exceedingly more useful).

Karmagen also encourages you to take specialties in your skills (Cost of 2 karma vs 2 BP so you want to avoid buying them with BP) which is once again very realistic. In general someone may only be passable at shooting with 'longarms' but very good at shooting a hunting rifle. Or they might be okay at running in general, but they were on the track team as a sprinter, so they are much better at that. And so on. I've heard some GMs say how they were wary of allowing too many specs, but the truth is that specs are how most people really do operate. They are okay in a general area, but they really only practice one particular area.

[Ancient History]

In every game system, there are limitations. In SR these are things like skill caps, maximum attributes, and minimum Essence before you die. Min-maxers are roll-players that build their characters to maximize their dice pool in one or two specific areas, taking advantage of all possible modifiers to increase their dice pool until they achieve those limitations and so are numerically "the best" in their chosen area, usually at the expense of other skills, attributes, and equipment.

Shadowrun is the kind of system where min-maxing is, if not encouraged, then implicitly seen as a "fair cop." If a character wants to max out their Strength and Close Combat Skill Group, and they have the points to do it, then Ghost bless. The reason this seems grossly unfair (or at least unsporting) is because a) a beginning character can start out at the "pinnacle" of ability in a particular skill or attribute, with little room or no room or need for improvement and b) in most of the chargen systems (barring an errata'd Karmagen) the costs to do so are lower to do so at chargen than during actual gameplay.

In classic Dungeons & Dragons, everybody starts off at 1st level. There is literally almost nowhere to go but up. In Shadowrun, your beginning character can be a world-class assassin if your budget your points right. Granted, they probably wouldn't be able to do much else; they may even be a quadriplegic assassin rigger named Snowdonia Foxx that has to double-tap her opponents through her drone-rifles, but the option to be "the best of the best" is still available to the character.

Some people don't like this. Some people haven't taken the time to understand this. Personally, I'm kinda cool with it. There is not a one of us here that doesn't have the potential to be fabulous at some area of life, be it ice sculpting or gravedigging; whether we actually take the time and effort, and make the sacrifices, that require such dedication is something else. So while I do feel like nerfing the pornomancer build, it's only because it seems like an unreasonable exploit on the system, not because exploiting the system by maximizing your dicepool is wrong.

[Glyph]

While I still wish you weren't able to start out as the absolute best, I like how the system subtly encourages you to stop just short of that point, by making those last points disproportionately expensive.

But I think you, and some other people, get your notions of min-maxing from looking at botched builds from would-be-powergamers. The truth is, you can be very good at your chosen area without sacrificing in other areas. Builds such as mages, hackers, and covert ops specialists are actually more tight in other areas, since their "specialties" are entire sets of skills, along with gear and/or spells.

The pornomancer "fix" amuses me, because I rarely hit that limit, even with my purer face builds. Although the fix they really need to do is for empathy software, which, even as a bit of a powergamer, I find cheesy.

[Cain]

Shadowrun is the kind of system where min-maxing is, if not encouraged, then implicitly seen as a "fair cop." If a character wants to max out their Strength and Close Combat Skill Group, and they have the points to do it, then Ghost bless. The reason this seems grossly unfair (or at least unsporting) is because a) a beginning character can start out at the "pinnacle" of ability in a particular skill or attribute, with little room or no room or need for improvement and b) in most of the chargen systems (barring an errata'd Karmagen) the costs to do so are lower to do so at chargen than during actual gameplay.

I have to disagree.

As my roommate would put it, the whole *point* of an advancement system is to see your character improve. Otherwise, you may as well be playing a first-person shooter. Advancing your character is part and parcel of playing a roleplaying game. The only other RPG I play that doesn't have a character improvement system is Wushu, where the action is much more high-flying than Shadowrun, and still IMO suffers from the lack. In Wushu, nothing is impossible unless Vetoed; in Shadowrun, there are things that are things that your character cannot do, and due to the advancement/chargen caps, will never be able to do.

More importantly to me is the huge variability in characters. It's easy to accidentally nerf your character in Shadowrun, or accidentally overpower it. Both are a serious problem once play begins. I don't have to tell you what an issue an over- or under-balanced character can cause. A good character system will encourage balanced characters, where even a min/maxed character won't steal too much thunder from the other players. Also, it will even things out, so that skill at building characters won't be such an unbalancing factor. For example, I was frustrated when I played Exalted, because I couldn't make a character who could compete as well. I didn't realize the importance of some things like a Perfect Defense and a high mote pool. In SR4.5, there are just as many unbalancing tricks and exploits.

What's more, a good system is easy to use. All the SR 4.5 build systems are tricky, fiddly, complex, and difficult to use. If you don't know the tricks of the trade, you could end up with a subpar character quite easily. They take a long time to create characters in, encourage twiddling down to the most minuscule level, and are generally a mess to work with. You can't create a character in reasonable time without a spreadsheet; and even then, you spend too much time fiddling with too many variables to be really fast. This is as bad as HERO or GURPS, where character creation can take days.

[Draco18s]

You can't create a character in reasonable time without a spreadsheet; and even then, you spend too much time fiddling with too many variables to be really fast. This is as bad as HERO or GURPS, where character creation can take days.

I'd have to second this. My shadowrun characters are never complete, even post first session (hell, three weeks in I noticed that my character had a stat that was below the minimum for his race and Damnien's sheet hadn't highlighted the cell as a problem, suddenly I had to scramble and find 20 BP to make up the difference, 20 BP on a character that was already tightly strapped for BP to the point of having his single highest skill at 4 and everything else at 1s and 2s*).

*I've also found myself continuously rolling a higher dice pool than I should, by accident, on account of doing two things:
1) Mystic Adept (rolled 5 magic instead of 3 for casting spells one session--notably though it didn't matter, as none of them are combat spells and low enough force that I was shrugging off the drain anyway)
2) Adding 5 dice for edge, not 3 (due to two factors: 1) having never before had a character that did not have 5 edge as well as 2) reading the "magic" line in the sheet!)
I've edited the sheet now where I have magic split out into two parts and have created a spot for "current edge" so hopefully I won't do either again.

[Ancient History]

Not to be a pill Cain, but I don't see where any of what you've said disagrees with what you've quoted.

[Cain]

Not to be a pill Cain, but I don't see where any of what you've said disagrees with what you've quoted.

Fair enough.

SR4.5, according to you, sees extreme min/maxing as a "fair cop". Starting at the absolute pinnacle of achievement is fine and dandy, if I read your post correctly. But not being able to advance runs counter to the entire point of having an advancement system. You may as well be playing HALO.

[Karoline]

Fair enough.

SR4.5, according to you, sees extreme min/maxing as a "fair cop". Starting at the absolute pinnacle of achievement is fine and dandy, if I read your post correctly. But not being able to advance runs counter to the entire point of having an advancement system. You may as well be playing HALO.

Even FPS games (single player mode only generally) have a vague sense of 'advancement' as you access to new weapons. You start with a crowbar, pick up a pistol, and eventually have a mini-nuke.

Once again, this is why I like Karmagen. There is no transition pain from BP to karma. If you chose something poorly in Karmagen, it didn't really cost you anything extra, because it was all with Karma in the first place. But with BP you go from '10 BP gets me from 1 to 2 or 8 to 9' and you pick the 1 to 2 and then realize you really wanted the 9 and you're set back by 35 karma. There is no 'I really want to make sure to bond lots of foci in CG with BP because they cost a couple times more to bind with karma'.

Basically there is just much more room to make your character and not worry so much about efficiency of spending your points because they are the same points you will always have. I admit there is still plenty of tweaking and going back in karmagen, but not nearly as much.

I suppose priority suffers least from tweaking but most from transition shock.

[Ancient History]

Okay, I get where you're coming from now.

It's a "fair cop" insofar as it's legal to do it in the context of the system - if you pay the points, you get the skill/attribute/gear/etc. In a system without a ceiling, this means that there is no "top" to get to - everyone can always get better, and the "top" is wherever you declare it to be. I kinda dislike those systems, because they lead to inflation - consider SR1 and SR2 when you had NPCs (and at least some characters) with skills up to 12 and 13 - which makes beginning characters the equivalent of 1st level D&D characters.

Which I don't like. I like the idea that you don't have to start with a character that's worthless and face certain death if you meet a challenge above your level. I like the idea that you can start out being a character you wouldn't mind watching a movie or reading a story about. I like the fact that even if you're the best there is at what you do, that is only one thing, and your character advancement can always continue. You can always buy another skill. You can always learn another spell. You can always look at the implant in the window and wonder at what could be.

That said, those are my thoughts and impressions on the system. If there's a design philosophy behind BP-gen in SR, I wasn't privy to it. If that's not the kind of system you care for, then that's your completely valid opinion.

[Karoline]

You can always look at the implant in the window and wonder at what could be.

Great mental image of a huge troll with all kinds of implants looking doefully at a cyber-arm covered in spikes through a window.