[X] My Assistant

[Troyminator]

I was wondering this but couldn't seem to puzzle it out in SR4A.

Say I wanted to start my characters at a street level campaign (300 or 350 BP's). How many karma would need to be rewared before the characters were powered up enough to be roughly where they would be at a 400 BP start?

I hope that isn't too confusing of a question.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Critias]

Not to derail too much (hopefully), but I'm firmly of the opinion that "street level" games have lots to do with GMs communicating their desires with players and carefully inspecting character sheets, and very little to do with just flat out points limitations. Running a 300 BP game means your characters won't just not be shadowrunners, they might struggle just to be average human beings. I think you're better off letting them have the normal 400 BP, but having some campaign guidelines that will discourage the things you're not interested in, that will encourage contacts instead of top-end gear, or whatever else it is you're after (and not after).

[Cain]

My advice? Don't try.

Power in SR4.5 is not dependent on BP, but on how many dice you can squeeze out of those BP. Instead of measuring things in terms of karma and BP, measure things in terms of how big of a dice pool everyone can throw.

My suggestion would be to ask the players to cap their dice pools at 12-15 for a "street" level game, possibly lower if you really want to. From there, let them earn their way up to dice pools of 18 or so, which is about what a decent starting shadowrunner should be throwing. By the time they're throwing 20+ dice, they'll feel like they've earned it.

[KeyMasterOfGozer]

A rough ball park is that 1BP = 2Karma. This is, of course, only a rough guide-line, as somethings cost more or less depending on the circumstance.

[Whipstitch]

I gotta second what Cain and Critias said, particularly since trying to nerf the methods players use to gain power rather than the end result can easily have some unintended consequences. For example, putting lower caps on gear points and availability tends to hurt humans disproportionately given that in the absence of great gear your next best value often lies in buying raw your standard attributes up nice and high, something that humans simply aren't very good at.

[TheOOB]

Remember that with 300 BP you can't even make an average human(3's in all attributes), and 350 makes someone who is roughly average attribute wise.

Honestly, I would never change the number of BP players are starting with, I would ask players to limit dice pools(as mentioned above), and limit equipment availability.

You could go further, only one attribute at 5(before meta bonuses), only one skill at 4(none 5+), and say limit availability to 10.

[Irion]

If you want to go street level use Karma gen with the latest tweaks.
(Races cost BP Karma and Attribute*5 )
And say start with 500 to 550 Karma.
Low BP only means you may hyperspecialice or be behind forever...

Just as an example:
You could still build a mage with magic 5, use ware to increase strength and agility and have spellcasting 6 etc.
If I think of one of my characters he would just drop one fluff skillgroup of 4 and some other skills...

[Neraph]

Not to derail too much (hopefully), but I'm firmly of the opinion that "street level" games have lots to do with GMs communicating their desires with players and carefully inspecting character sheets, and very little to do with just flat out points limitations. Running a 300 BP game means your characters won't just not be shadowrunners, they might struggle just to be average human beings. I think you're better off letting them have the normal 400 BP, but having some campaign guidelines that will discourage the things you're not interested in, that will encourage contacts instead of top-end gear, or whatever else it is you're after (and not after).

I wanted to do something like the OP, where the players were 300 BP bikers who went pro, and well... They were pro at freaking 300 BP. What have I wrought?

It is imperitive that you talk to your group and agree that they will "behave themselves;" that is to say, they will conduct themselves within certain reasonable limits.