Gunslinger Adept, Help me find the flaw. Options

[KarmaInferno]

The question isn't really "Why such a low Body".

It's "Why take THAT negative quality when there's so many others".




-karma

[Whipstitch]

A lot of the other SURGE qualities are kinda thematically stupid though. Someone referred to "fuzzy butt" earlier. I wouldn't take fuzzy butt. Same with distinctive eyes. Frailty, I might run with.

[Yerameyahu]

Maybe.

[ZeroPoint]

Because not getting hit is better than trying to absorb damage? using karma to improve stealth/face capabilities instead of body means if there's shooting, you are more likely to be shooting first. And with that high of a dice pool, also means shooting last.

Reaction > Body in my opinion anyway. Even if shot, every hit on your defense test reduces enemies net hit by the same amount. Which means every point of defense reduces damage by the same amount as an equal amount of resistance.

[Yerameyahu]

But Body determines your armor max and your wound slots. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) They're both important, max both.

[Whipstitch]

Depends on the build, I'd say. The difference between a body of 5 and a body of 4 usually isn't big enough to justify taking a big hit to base initiative or hurting your specialty, far as I'm concerned. Then again, I virtually never specialize to the extent this guy has. I'm definitely a soft capper.

[ZeroPoint]

After the amount of BP you dump into getting a DP of 26 for your *shoot gun really good* skill you won't have much BP left over for other attributes and skills

Bumping that 4 Body to 5 is 25 karma. Thats a few runs down the line....in the meantime all your skills are subpar, your charisma sucks if your trying to face on the side so you better get that up, and you need that reaction up first...cuz it also affects initiative and you can't wear the heavier armors that a 5 body would let you wear when your infiltration requires you to wear an actioneer business suit.

your stealth group will be pretty decent without a lot of karma spent on skills because of your absurd agi...but more is always better in this regard cuz it only takes one bad roll to screw the pooch on an infiltration.

And besides....does impaired body specifically prevent you from later getting genetic optimization (body)?

[Saint Sithney]

A lot of the other SURGE qualities are kinda thematically stupid though. Someone referred to "fuzzy butt" earlier. I wouldn't take fuzzy butt. Same with distinctive eyes. Frailty, I might run with.

The easiest way to deal with the "take fuzzybutt" problem is to just count each of those options as a level of Distinctive Style.

[Ryu]

During chargen, sure, it's reasonable to go for 4 Body. What about after that? Hmm, we're starting to run into some pretty nasty opposition, I might want 6 after all. Too bad I took Impaired Body. There's a lot of territory between pure optimization and gimping your character's future development for no discernible reason.

Whipstitch set you up with a nice reasoning already. I´ve chosen Impaired Body because "less bulky" fits the "more agile" theme of this SURGEling, and is, as I said, unlikely to impact the game.

At chargen the attribute BP don´t go far even without super-high Agility; this char needs Body, Reaction and Intuition, and might want decent Willpower and Charisma scores. The 200 BP cap hits early.

Later on 25 karma for Body 5 might be justified by the additional physical monitor box, 30 karma for Body 6 compete with magic increases, Initiation, Skills, other attribute increases... it will never happen really.

[Dakka Dakka]

The easiest way to deal with the "take fuzzybutt" problem is to just count each of those options as a level of Distinctive Style.

IIRC that is not an option but Surgelings get that quality "for free", whether they have "distinctive" qualities or not.

All the advanced character options in this book automatically suffer the effects of Distinctive Style and do not get a BP bonus.

Your GM however may give you the fuzzybutt even if you don't want to have it:

Depending on the level taken, the character must choose a number of Positive and Negative Metagenetic qualities (p. 110), though gamemasters may chose to take on Negative Metagenetic qualitiy selection to ensure balance.

[Glyph]

Your GM however may give you the fuzzybutt even if you don't want to have it:

I've always found that to be one of the lamer optional rules. Other than accepting or rejecting a character, or perhaps suggesting changes if a character does not fit the tone or power level of a campaign, the GM should have NO say in character creation, especially picking out a character's flaws. The whole point of build points is to be able to create exactly what you want to.

After the amount of BP you dump into getting a DP of 26 for your *shoot gun really good* skill you won't have much BP left over for other attributes and skills

There are various ways to pump up a pistols dice pool, and some of them are less costly than others. It depends on how much hard maxing you do. A lot of times, you can wind up with more dice, for a wider variety of skills, than a character built as a generalist. Someone who gets a suprathyroid gland and muscle toner: 4 might have more to spend on skills because of needing less points for Attributes, and be rolling more dice for defaulting to Agility than the generalist rolls for Attribute plus skill. Likewise someone with low Agility and Strength who has custom cyberarms.

To be honest, I will often eschew 25+ dice and settle for a dice pool of 20 or so, and the ability to be good at lots of other things. But even the 25+ dice builds can be more than one-trick ponies.

[ZeroPoint]

True, but that is my point really. There *may* be better uses for your karma than body. You may not be a one trick pony but your only gonna have the one trick thats *really* good. So the rest of your karma is gonna go into making those other things better. Given unlimited karma (several years of regular play with the same character) you will want to increase your body...and given that amount of time you still have options. that suprathyroid gland you got for your agility also increases body by 1, genetic optimization genewear, using the runners companion optional rule to turn the Metegenetic Improvement trait into a genewear (even if it would cost a ludicrous amount of money at half a million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ....but hey, he's been around for years and he's been saving for something right?)

Point is, don't fret the little things that you may think make for a less optimal character because it also makes them a little more interesting.

[Yerameyahu]

Well, I don't subscribe to the idea that less optimal = more interesting, but otherwise yes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I think they were just trying to help in that classic Dumpshock way here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[ZeroPoint]

Yeah, sometimes I forget (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)


But notice I didn't actually say it was a suboptimal choice.

*edit: submitted before I finished my post

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Well, I don't subscribe to the idea that less optimal = more interesting, but otherwise yes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I think they were just trying to help in that classic Dumpshock way here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But whree would you draw the line there Yerameyahu?

Optimization is highly dependant upon character concept. What you may consider Sub-Optimal may be exactly the concept that I am looking for. Optimization for optimization's sake is a losing proposition in my opinion. Maybe this comes from my opinion of the system, but I see a lot of people that are justy not happy unless their Stat is 10 (15), and their skills are at 7... In the immortal words of jane Cobb: "Where does that get fun?"

For Example: Most of my charcters have skills in the 3 range because that is what defines a professional in the game... after that, the quest is to obviously improve as the game goes along (Whether through Breadth or Depth, or both). I do not necessarily like starting with 6's in my skills, and rarely have 5's in most of my initial builds (On occassion, the build will call for one of these options), but the vast majority of my character's skills fall somewhere between 2-4... To me, that is not Sub-Optimal, it is just the way the character is built, because that is what he would have.

To someone Else, I have just gimped myself to the point of unplayability. You see that opinion here on Dumpshock ALL THE TIME.

Pink Mohawk or Ice Cold Professional, you do not need huge dicepools to be competent. Yet that seems to be the ultimate goal for a lot of players. I don't know, it is just sometimes annoying is all... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

I dunno what you're talking about. My point is that less optimal doesn't *mean* more interesting. Neither does more optimal mean less interesting, or more/more, or less/less. The two are not related. That's my whole (not at all novel) point. I didn't say anything about your table and characters (which, you've gotta admit, are totally weird). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I dunno what you're talking about. My point is that less optimal doesn't *mean* more interesting. Neither does more optimal mean less interesting, or more/more, or less/less. The two are not related. That's my whole (not at all novel) point. I didn't say anything about your table and characters (which, you've gotta admit, are totally weird). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But why would that be? What makes my characters "weird?" Like I said, a lot of Dumpshockers would say that they are probably sub-optimal, but I would disagree... I would instead say that they have room to grow...

I agree that your statement "Less optimal does not mean More Interesting" has merit, but by the same token "More Optimized does not mean More Interesting"... which you also said... My question was where you draw that line between "Interesting" and "Optimal." I was looking for an opinion on your tastes... My example was to give you a baseline for my tastes, and nothing more... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

And I really am interested... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Whipstitch]

I mostly just took issue with the "fucking yourself in the ass" statement. The system is varied enough that you can make a highly viable character despite making a few sub-optimal choices here and there. I have no problem with min-maxing in and of itself, but I like to be reasonable about these things and acknowledge that the relative strengths and weaknesses of a lot of qualities depend on the table environment and that not all sub-optimal choices are created equal. A Street Samurai with Combat Paralysis is generally a sub-optimal choice when compared to aggressive use of Incompetent and other traits, but it's certainly not as a problematic a design as say, a strict Pacifist with Spell Knack: Slay Human. Don't laugh; I had someone wanting to play that once. The idea was a con artist/Face who never fully Awakened do to nearly killing her parents with a magical tantrum. I was sympathetic but it really wouldn't have worked given the interests of the rest of the table.


Anyway, my personal rule of thumb with optimization is that I basically just ask myself "What kind of runner are they?" and "Why aren't they dead yet?" From there it usually builds itself and I just min-max in whatever way is needed to accomplish their shtick while still having Perception, Full Defense and either Pistol or Semi-automatics skills, with the last one being decided by whether or not they have Palming.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I mostly just took issue with the "fucking yourself in the ass," statement. The system is varied enough that you can make a highly viable character despite making a few sub-optimal choices here and there. I have no problem with min-maxing in and of itself, but I like to be reasonable about these things and acknowledge that the relative strengths and weaknesses of a lot of qualities depend on the table environment and that not all sub-optimal choices are created equal. A Street Samurai with Combat Paralysis is generally a sub-optimal choice when compared to aggressive use of Incompetent and other traits, but it's certainly not as a problematic a design as say, a strict Pacifist with Spell Knack: Slay Human. Don't laugh; I had someone wanting to play that once. The idea was a con artist/Face who never fully Awakened do to nearly killing her parents with a magical tantrum. I was sympathetic but it really wouldn't have worked given the rest of the table.

Indeed...

And that character... seen it as well (A variation at least)... and it didn't work at our table either... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, I'm all for a varied table, but the bottom line is that none of the other PCs would work with a character like that. The rigger twins would probably have just tossed her out of the back of the van the first time she got flakey in a combat situation. This was back when I GMed for a rotating cast of college students too, so we're talking about people who didn't know each other terribly well. Some groups thrive with a li'l bit of inter PC conflict, but I didn't really feel like having any of my games devolve into dorm drama.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah, I'm all for a varied table, but the bottom line is that none of the other PCs would work with a character like that. The rigger twins would probably have just tossed her out of the back of the van the first time she got flakey in a combat situation. This was back when I GMed for a rotating cast of college students too, so we're talking about people who didn't know each other terribly well. Some groups thrive with a li'l bit of inter PC conflict, but I didn't really feel like having any of my games devolve into dorm drama.

Varied tables are indeed interesting, but when the drama ratchets up, it quickly becomes tedious... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

I just meant, Tymeaus, that *every* time a balance or power issue comes up, you describe your table as uniformly uninterested in power at all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That is *weird*. Nothing wrong with it, but it's important to be aware when making arguments like, 'well, it's no problem for my games…'. Nothing's a problem for your games, so it's not saying much any more, hehe. That's all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I just meant, Tymeaus, that *every* time a balance or power issue comes up, you describe your table as uniformly uninterested in power at all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That is *weird*. Nothing wrong with it, but it's important to be aware when making arguments like, 'well, it's no problem for my games…'. Nothing's a problem for your games, so it's not saying much any more, hehe. That's all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Maybe you have a point... We have little to no balance issues... What is wrong with that? Just means we like the rules and play by them (for the most part) is all... After all, that is what a GM is for, to interpret the situation on the fly and resolve issues... we have few issues with the rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

I actually find it very weird that so many people have so many issues, that they have to change so much, that the game no longer resembles what it started out as...

Which is why I asked your opinion on your style... I was interested in actually having something to compare against (Tablewise) than the typical postings of Dumpshock. You have to admit... MANY Dumpshockers (I know, we tend to be the vocal minority here) are not happy with various aspects of the Shadowrun game system (All Versions included here). It is hard to actually have a perspective based upon what is actually being posted on the Forums here. Too many individuals think that players are either Powerplaying to the detriment of the game, or are so "gimping" themselves that the characters are not playable at all... almost any post for help results in a complete panning of the concept for power. And when concept is brought up as a defense, you get the typical "Well, if you WANT to be less powerful and gimp yourself, sure." response. Because of this, You cannot form an opinion based upon that information, as all tables tend to be different... What would possibly be Vastly overpowered in my game (my opinion), may not be so in another game (your opinion)... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Thus the interest in your actual game versus the assumption that is probably wrong. I would rather ask than assume at this point... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)
If you would rather not, then that is okay as well, I will quit asking at this point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

You don't even read my posts:

Nothing wrong with it,

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

It's not about me (or you), but: my group is in the middle. I guess you could call it 'realistic optimization'. There are no 28-dice TM-riggers or pornomancers, but we are professionals. Professionals do optimize. We choose the pistol with the 32 clip over the identical one with the 12 clip, and we wear good armor, etc. Just like people do in real life.

We laugh all the time about an old player who had a katana he vowed not to use and an SMG with only gel rounds (no, he *wasn't* a pacifist), and a Cap'n Sparrow (this was 10 years ago) pistol that he'd only use on his big enemy. There's such a thing as ruining the game with your 'interesting' character.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

You don't even read my posts: (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

It's not about me (or you), but: my group is in the middle. I guess you could call it 'realistic optimization'. There are no 28-dice TM-riggers or pornomancers, but we are professionals. Professionals do optimize. We choose the pistol with the 32 clip over the identical one with the 12 clip, and we wear good armor, etc. Just like people do in real life.

We laugh all the time about an old player who had a katana he vowed not to use and an SMG with only gel rounds (no, he *wasn't* a pacifist), and a Cap'n Sparrow (this was 10 years ago) pistol that he'd only use on his big enemy. There's such a thing as ruining the game with your 'interesting' character.

Saw the "Nothing Wrong with it" aspect, it just did not give me any basis for comparison... Sorry... Thanks for the comparison though, at least now I know what you are talking about when you say "Professional."

And Agreed, You can ruin the game, if your "Interesting" isn't the same as the Groups/GM's view of "Interesting"... Just needed a common ground to compare from, thanks...

As Always... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)