More de-errataing, ...and this time they are getting creative Options

[_Pax._]

Really the only time strength becomes an issue is when dealing with bows.

And melee. And throwing anything. And, if the optional rule is used, Strength provides some recoil compensation.

Oh, and at my table Armor Encumbrance is determined by "Body + Strength", not "Body x 2".

And then you start hitting silliness of a bow doing more damage than a main tank cannon. But that's a whole nother can o worms.

A can that has long since been exterminated. Bows are lmited to Min Strength 8, now. SR4A, don't have the page numbr offhand.

Pax: your metatype costs are way too low.
The closest thing to meta's is the 20BP metagenic improvement which both raises the max and gives a free ponit as it raises the min.

20 per +1 would be impossibly ruinous. Noone would EVER play a Meta with more than one, maybe two +1's. Which then evolves everything into "humans with fake ears / fake beards / etc".

Similarly.. the attribute penalty is only worth -5BP or so. -10 is being rather generous. Why?! People don't play trolls for their charisma! The cap is normally irrelevant it costs just as much to softmax human 'average' cha3 as it does for a human to play cha3. So the cap is for most purposes irrelevent!

I specifically indicated -5/point for the cap reductions. And no, they're not irrelevant. A Troll makes for a very durable spellcaster or technomancer ... but the cost is, they'll never be quite as good as a human, elf, or dwarf could be. You're complaining about my price, and then counter-proposing ... the same price!!

[Falconer]

Really 20BP too much... people pay 20BP all the time for surged metagenic enhancement, which does the EXACT SAME THING. It's the closest thing we have to a cost. My only point behind -10 was that it was half of 20. The other closest quality in game is exceptional attribute which is blown out of the water by metagenic enhancement... going by exceptional attribute standards each meta-point would be worth 30+ (20quality, 10 more for the rank)

It's just like thermographic vision or night vision (both 5BP positive qualities, one normal the other surged).


No your costs listed are completely without merit Pax. Anything of similar cost/benefit wasn't referenced at all when you pulled 10 and 5 out of thin air.

[StealthSigma]

Those also arguing for freebie knowledge and contacts... are out to make substantially MORE powerful 750karma characters than 400BP can even. In my experience 400BP normally makes a 600-650karma character easily leaving an extra 100 for knowledges and contacts! So these for free doesn't make sense if you're trying to keep 400BP comparable to 750karma character.

Free contacts is a houserule for BP anyway and free knowledge skills and contact under karma gen is still just a houserule. Comparatively speaking, free contacts and knowledge skills have a much lesser impact on the game compared to the impact of costs of attributes which have a considerably more active presence.

Even that tends to fall apart though... elves aren't really penalized... because the attributes they get boosts to are really really relevent to many skills.

Charisma is tied to tons of social skills so gets a LOT of milage (also ties into spirits/sprites).
Agility has many more active skills tied to it than most others (logic and cha being the other big 2... intution gets perception skills though)... and most of them quite useful. So an agility boost is generally a lot more useful than a strength boost.

Charisma is tied for 5th as far as quantity of skills go. Logic, Agility, Intuition, and Reaction all have more skills and various skills and agility and reaction both have active skills that are open ended (Exotic Weapon/Vehicle). Logic and Intuition are open with knowledge and language skills. The benefit argument of Agility is not really the quantity of skills but the fact that agility itself is used when attacking. You have 12 skills related to weapons so most character won't be taking most of them. Having more than half of them might be an overkill. I would suspect that more than 6 weapon skills for a single character might be pushing it.

Logic: 19 + 2
Agility: 16 + 2
Intuition: 7 + 3
Reaction: 6 + 1
Charisma: 6
Magic: 6
Resonance: 3
Strength: 3
Body: 2
Willpower: 2

Really 20BP too much... people pay 20BP all the time for surged metagenic enhancement, which does the EXACT SAME THING. It's the closest thing we have to a cost. My only point behind -10 was that it was half of 20. The other closest quality in game is exceptional attribute which is blown out of the water by metagenic enhancement... going by exceptional attribute standards each meta-point would be worth 30+ (20quality, 10 more for the rank)

It's just like thermographic vision or night vision (both 5BP positive qualities, one normal the other surged).

There's a night vision PQ for 5BP.
There's a lowlight vision MGPQ for 5BP.

The metagenetic version is superior.

[Thanee]

Karmegen surely isn't perfect, but the problem with the metas is far less prominent there IMX.

You get those starting Attribute points (your metatype minimum) fairly cheap, but in BP you get the high-end points cheap, which is far worse.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. Humans are a very viable choice in both systems. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Karmegen surely isn't perfect, but the problem with the metas is far less prominent there IMX.

You get those starting Attribute points (your metatype minimum) fairly cheap, but in BP you get the high-end points cheap, which is far worse.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. Humans are a very viable choice in both systems. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Of all the characters I have made, Humans come in at about 85% of them.

[_Pax._]

Really 20BP too much... people pay 20BP all the time for surged metagenic enhancement, which does the EXACT SAME THING.

Actually, most people pay only 10BP for it - and some cosmetic oddness. Because to even access Metagenic qualities, most characters have to first pick up the Changeling quality.

Also, unlike a metatype, the metagenic improvement can be targeted at exactly the attribute you most want to improve.

And finally, remember that we're talking about PER POINT, where some metatypes are .... well, look at Trolls. +4 Body, +4 Strength, =1 Logic, =1 Intuition, and =2 Charisma. By my suggestion, that's going to cost 60BP. By yours, 12- or 140. Which price do you think people would look at, and say "ouch" but still occasionally play anyway? And which price do you think all but the most die-hard few would see, and say "FRELL no" ...?

[...] going by exceptional attribute standards each meta-point would be worth 30+ (20quality, 10 more for the rank)

he problem here is, you're forgetting that those have to include a built-in premium for being "special" compared to baseline metahumanity.

Which owuld suggest that Metagenic Enhancement is almost certainly underpriced, mind you. But that's a different debate entirely.

It's just like thermographic vision or night vision (both 5BP positive qualities, one normal the other surged).

Wee nitpick: "night vision" is not the same as, nor as good as, "low light vision".

No your costs listed are completely without merit Pax. Anything of similar cost/benefit wasn't referenced at all when you pulled 10 and 5 out of thin air.

+10 is the cost to raise an attribute by 1 point during BP generation. So getting a Body 6 as an Ork, would cost the same as getting it as a Human. (The change to maximums is priced at 0, as it's part of a package deal AND costs further points to actually get to those maximums).

The -5 was a guesstimate based on half the +10.

And both together produced IMO much more sane Metatype costs. (Though I didn't take the time to decide what to charge for Trolls' natural armor and reach. I'd probably slap another 10-20 BP onto the final price, to account for those.)

[_Pax._]

Of all the characters I have made, Humans come in at about 85% of them.

Same here. Humans, followed by Orks, followed by Dwarves (including Gnomes). And then a smattering of Elves and Trolls. They're just what "feels right" to me, and for me.

[Falconer]

Pax. That's ONLY because the changeling metatype (not quality) packs a negative quality in addition to the positive. Very convenient to forget that. Also even better (for the GM), the negatives can be picked by the GM not the player!

Just like you said, the cost to RAISE the attribute is 10. Now how much extra is it to also raise the attribute maximum as well?! Which is also a huge factor in making metas superior picks to humans for most purposes. I'm not talking RP... I'm talking from a pure mechanical by the numbers standpoint. Similar things in game like genetic optomization in game only raise the max without raising the attribute itself. I seriously wasn't saying exceptional is a good cost... but to say that me pointing out 20BP for metagenic improvement is bunk is rather silly on your part.


And your 'wee-nitpick" talk about not even taking the time to read the book.
Night-vision grants natural "low-light vision". Read the quality! "This means human characters with this quality gain the advantages of low-light vision" and points right at the visibility table. Nice for people who don't want to take an essence hit for cybereyes... though still rather costly 5BP quality (vs 25k in cyber out of the equipment budget instead of qualities).
The metagenic quality is literally called "Thermographic Vision"... I don't see how anyone gets these confused or calls one inferior/superior to the other... low-light is better for some uses and thermo for others.


I seem to end up with an inordinate amount of orcs, dwarfs, and occasionally elves. I've never ever found a good mechanical reason to ever play a human outside of pure RP. Also lets not forget this is 4e, not 1e-3e where it cost you a priority to take a meta. This is a prime consideration when asking how many of your characters are human. How many of your 4e chars tend to be human.

Allowing for humans starting out...
20BP for metagenic edge.

Going purely by surge costs... a troll is MASSIVELY undercosted.
5BP thermographic, 5BP elongated arms (+1 reach), 10BP Dermal Deposites. That's 20BP before even touching attributes!
160BP for 8 metagenic improvements...
-25BP for 5 impaired attributes.
call it -5 or -10 for special equipment sizing.

So even runners companion is honest that metagenic improvmeents are 4times better than impaired attributes. In my opinion the best way to make the costs come down and balance things is to actually TREAT impaired attributes as impaired attributes... not allow them to buy up to human average for human average costs.

Orcs similarly...
5BP Night vision
100BP 5 metagenic improvements
-10 for 2 impaired attributes.

Dwarves:
5BP thermographic, 10bp toxin/disease resist, 10BP toxin disease resist x2.
80BP 4 raised attributes.
-5 BP impaired attribute
-5 or -10 for special equipment size.

Elves:
5BP Night Vision
60BP worth of metagenic improvements

In each and every case, humans get the short end of the stick... including all those people who famously like to spout off that elves aren't as good as humans because humans get 10BP for free, while elves only get 30BP worth of attributes for 30BP race ignoring the higher caps which come with them!

[All4BigGuns]

I seem to end up with an inordinate amount of orcs, dwarfs, and occasionally elves. I've never ever found a good mechanical reason to ever play a human outside of pure RP. Also lets not forget this is 4e, not 1e-3e where it cost you a priority to take a meta. This is a prime consideration when asking how many of your characters are human. How many of your 4e chars tend to be human.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I've played 2 elves (1 was PbP), 1 ork probably somewhere around 8 or 9 humans in SR4. (I had fewer characters in SR3--much fewer--but I played 4 humans and 1 troll back then.)

[Yerameyahu]

the changeling metatype (not quality)

Huh?
And no one ever mentions that any metavariant can freely take 'SURGE' qualities (… right?), if you want to avoid those minor cosmetic issues.

Yeah, mine are always orks (even if I try not to), just like they were always dwarves or maybe elves in SR3.

[Falconer]

Yes and was your primary reason for doing so RP?


My point is mainly I wish I didn't feel like I was getting completely screwed over for choosing to RP a human instead of something with a better package.

[Thanee]

Play a human-looking ork. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[All4BigGuns]

Yes and was your primary reason for doing so RP?


My point is mainly I wish I didn't feel like I was getting completely screwed over for choosing to RP a human instead of something with a better package.

Not really. It's more that I play human more in the majority of games, though the fact that human in and of itself doesn't have a point cost does help.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Same here. Humans, followed by Orks, followed by Dwarves (including Gnomes). And then a smattering of Elves and Trolls. They're just what "feels right" to me, and for me.

63 Characters for 4E

Never made a Dwarf,
1 Elf
1 Minotaur
1 Naga
2 Trolls
2 Orks
1 Surged Human
All the rest are Base Human.

So about 88% Human, I guess

[_Pax._]

63 Characters for 4E

Never made a Dwarf,
1 Elf
1 Minotaur
1 Naga
2 Trolls
2 Orks
1 Surged Human
All the rest are Base Human.

So about 88% Human, I guess

Just looking at my HeroLab portfolios (the ones that I've hung on to), and not counting the PCs for the game I'm running ("1KK" = "made with 1,000 Karmagen"; the rest are 400BP):

1KK "kid adept"; melee/stealth Adept, Changeling w/ Neoteny; HUMAN
1KK "face adept"; karmagen rebuild of face adept below; ELF
1KK "ghoul parkour adept"; posted upthread, under street name Soylent; ORK // SABONSAM
"aug hacker"; augmentation-based hacker; HUMAN
"face adept"; ELF
"hacker adept"; HUMAN
"hacker AI"; AI
"Maus"; mystic-adept go-ganger; DWARF
"Rook"; gunslinger; HUMAN
"pixie healer"; magician, pacifist; PIXIE
"rigger adept"; GNOME (dwarf)

So that's ...

4 Humans
2 Elves (and technically, it's the SAME character, built to two different standards)
2 Dwarves (including 1 Gnome)
1 Ork
1 AI

So out of 11 characters actually on-file, I have 36% human, 18% Elf (even counting it as 2 separate characters), 18% Dwarf (including metavariants), 9% Ork, and 9% AI.

Meanwhile, the players in my game? I have 1 Pixie, 1 Troll, 1 Dwarf, 1 Elf, 1 Nartaki (Human, kind of), and 1 undecided. Basically, a 1-of-each "variety pack".

[_Pax._]

Pax. That's ONLY because the changeling metatype (not quality) packs a negative quality in addition to the positive.

Changeling is a Quality, and counts against your Positive Quality limit. It is not a metatype.

I seem to end up with an inordinate amount of orcs, dwarfs, and occasionally elves. I've never ever found a good mechanical reason to ever play a human outside of pure RP. Also lets not forget this is 4e, not 1e-3e where it cost you a priority to take a meta. This is a prime consideration when asking how many of your characters are human. How many of your 4e chars tend to be human.

I'd estimate that 50% of the characters I've made for 4E, tend to be Human. Orks and Dwarves are 30% between them. The last 20% is a mix of everything else - elves, trolls, shifters, AIs, all of it.

Yes, in fourth edition.

Orcs similarly...
5BP Night vision
100BP 5 metagenic improvements
-10 for 2 impaired attributes.

That's 95BP. Almost exactly 1/4 of your starting allowance. At that price, NOONE would ever play an Ork.

Dwarves:
5BP thermographic, 10bp toxin/disease resist, 10BP toxin disease resist x2.
80BP 4 raised attributes.
-5 BP impaired attribute
-5 or -10 for special equipment size.

95 or 100 BP. Same problem.

Elves:
5BP Night Vision
60BP worth of metagenic improvements

65BP, which is 16.25% of starting resources. You might see some people playing Elves. But still very, very few - and most of those, less about numbers and more about "elves are sexy, I'll do ANYthing to be an elf". IOW, people who would be Elf Posers IRL, if they could.

[Thanee]

Yep, orks might be slightly underpriced, but certainly not by that much.

Bye
Thanee

[Udoshi]

Yep, orks might be slightly underpriced, but certainly not by that much.

Bye
Thanee

I think its 20-for-55, dude. They're one of the best deals in the game.

[Yerameyahu]

Yeah, a no-brainer unless your concept simply can't have them.

[UmaroVI]

Yeah, orks are underpriced by about 20 points...not by about 75 points like Falconer thinks.

[Falconer]

No Umaro.. I'm using the costs AS PUBLISHED BY SR4 to illustrate how badly undercosted they are. That doesn't mean I actually believe an orc should be 100. I was taking issue with Pax's 10BP figure pulled out of thin air... which didn't reflect anything in game except the cost to raise a stat BUT NOT IT"S MAXIMUM.

IMO: a far better measure is +-5BP for a raise lower in the attribute max, then 10BP for the free point itself. Which produces far better numbers. But yes I do think orcs are underpriced by about 30 to 35 points. (not a mere 20 as you suggest).

By that measure... You're looking at about 50 points in freebie attribute rasies, Another 15 in attribute max changes. Then 5BP for low-light... which comes out to 70BP... take out 15BP towards the humans starting edge advantage... 55BP. Toss in a 10% package discount... and we're at 50BP. So we're at a figure far closer to yours than you seem to think. (I'd even toss in another -factor for short lifespan if lifespan actually got enforced... instead of this... oh he goblinzed as a teenage angst story so has a normal lifespan nonsense wasn't so prevalent... see Bull for a prime example of this).

If an orc had to pay 50BP for his race... he'd be net -10 Bp behind a human on stat values ignoring maximums. HOWEVER, he would still have the much higher body/strength limits! At 40BP you give no consideration at all to the value of the higher attribute maximums or innate abilities. Is 20 worth more or not... if you're trying to play a street tough, sam or melee adept, then probably yes it is (cha or log cap doesn't hurt you... but the bod/str caps help a lot). The cost is so close enough to 0... that it becomes ROLEPLAY decision as opposed to a MECHANICAL decision.

That's the current problem in the system... from a mechanical perspective there is no reason to play human. Especially if you're a player worried about karmic advancement costs later. If you're a GM making up NPC's...

[Halinn]

Most character types don't really need a high strength, so the relative value of that stat is not as high as, say, agility or body.
If you're comparing stat increases with the cost of metagenic improvements, you're undervaluing edge, as that can only be raised by lucky and then purchasing one more edge, so by that notion it's worth 30 points.
The goblinized races might also warrant a slight discount because of prevalent racism towards them.

[Yerameyahu]

It's true, but everyone needs Strength up to 3 or 4, so that's worth it. You're not getting the benefit of the increased Strength max, it's true.

[Mäx]

JH's aversion to errata is nothing new, so nobody should be surprised to hear he doesn't like that attribute costs in karmagen were changed from Attribute*3 to Attribute*5. But instead of simply ignoring that change as in previous cases, we're in for an ingenious little gem:

http://forums.wolflair.com/showpost.php?p=...amp;postcount=1

Yup, Jason brings out the calculator with the expressed aim of getting back to the glorious days when mixing karmagen and BP-gen characters at one table was a sure recipe for disaster. Thanks a lot!

Your post is just ridiculous.
Upping the available karma from 750 to 1000 is quite logical when the cost to buy something with that karma was changed from 3xrating to 5xrating and few additional costs added too.
This doesn't have anything to do with "aversion to errata".

[Yerameyahu]

Surely the cost was raised from x3 to x5 because x3 was too low, because karmagen was too good? So raising the budget to 1000 just de-fixes it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)