 Jon's Glorious Karma Character Generation System, beyond BeCKS |
  |
  Apr 2 2013, 05:05 PM
Post
#1
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802  |
Navigation:
SR3R Master Thread Jon’s Glorious Karma Character Generation System (S3CKS) Decking Ranged Combat Astral Space, Essence, and the Awakened New Gear Cyberware Time, Pool, and the Flow of Combat _________________________________________________ In this thread I'm going to develop and discuss the SR3R Complete Karma System, which I may or may not be able to resist naming S3CKS. A few points: First, some of this is definitely going to be predicated on rule changes from SR3R. I'm going to have to dig in a bit before I'll be able to say how easily this will be adaptable to someone using otherwise pure-canon SR3 rules; I suspect that the damage will be mostly limited to metarace costs and costs for modified edges/flaws (possibly more generally, where unmodified edges/flaws overlap or interact with others), but as I say I'll need to get into things before I can be sure. I also suspect that adoption of a few specific rules from SR3R (like rebalanced metaraces and modified edges/flaws, say) will enable use of this system with at most modest changes even without more wholesale adoption of SR3R, but, as I say, I won't be sure for a bit yet. Second, for those familiar with BeCKS, this is an extensive modification—in addition to some metaracial stat mod rebalancing, resource costs are substantially modified, edges and flaws are (over and above some changes) given individual pricing rather than a flat multiple of BP cost, and assorted other things. I waffle over whether to call it a modification of BeCKS or a whole new thing, though I've definitely been using it as a starting place. Third, if anyone is feeling like they have too much free time and want to help out (apart from commenting on things), the most effort-intensive part of this is building different types of characters as demonstrations of viability/nonviability/overpoweredness. Find the most recent summary (when one exists) and make something! ~J Edit: also, I'm going to be maintaining an updated version of the current proposed rules in this post to prevent people from having to assemble it themselves from chaotic thread discussion (or monologue, as the case may be). I'll include notes of significant proposals, even if they haven't been conclusively added to the current rules. Summary of Current Rules Initial allotment: 425 karma points (kp) Metarace
All metaraces gain Karma Pool every 10 karma. Humans gain some other benefit yet to be determined (leading proposal: +10% Good Karma, so every time they get a point of Karma Pool they also get an additional point of Karma that doesn't count towards earning more Karma Pool) Magic
There are no free Spell Points; everything previously done with Spell Points is now done using general karma. There is no limit to how much karma may be spent for these purposes. Attributes Attribute costs, both at chargen and afterwards, are shifted by the Racial Modification; improving a Dwarf's Strength (+2 mod) from 3 to 4 costs the same as improving a Human's strength from 1 to 2, 4 karma. The obligatory first point in every attribute is free (so you can make a Human with 1/1/1/1/1/1 stats without spending anything on Attributes); attributes with penalties still get to 1 free, but the cost of improvement thereafter is shifted, so improving a Troll's Charisma from 1 to 2 costs the same as improving a Human's Charisma from 3 to 4, 8 karma. Attributes may be purchased above the RML for the usual 3*[new level] cost, shifted as above. Starting attribute costs: (rows: attribute rating, columns: racial bonus/penalty) CODE -2 -1 +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 1 0 0 0 - - - - - - 1 2 8 6 4 0 - - - - - 2 3 18 14 10 4 0 - - - - 3 4 30 24 18 10 4 0 - - - 4 5 51 36 28 18 10 4 0 - - 5 6 75 57 40 28 18 10 4 0 - 6 7 - 81 61 40 28 18 10 4 0 7 8 - 108 85 61 40 28 18 10 4 8 9 - - 112 85 61 40 28 18 10 9 10 - - - 112 85 61 40 28 18 10 11 - - - 142 112 85 61 40 28 11 12 - - - - 142 112 85 61 40 12 And so on. Skills As per post-chargen costs. Specialization is now unrestricted and works the normal way. I'm toying with the idea of lifting the Skill 6 cap, but if I do specializations would probably need to be capped (see below); if the Skill 6 cap remains, Specializations would have a cap of 7. Resources
There's a proposal to support exchanging karma for cash by extending the exchange past 1M¥ (probably capped at chargen), recording how much had been spent previously (including on Resources), and going from there. Contacts
Edges/Flaws Edges:
Flaws:
|
 |
 
|
|
Apr 2 2013, 07:02 PM
Post
#2
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Ok, to start out with, I'll summarize what I have right now. There are more rule modifications than I'd remembered, so I'm going to have to come back and provide context for some of these costs, but I'd rather get the list up right away than wait until everything else is in a row.
For reference, previous discussion on the SR3R board is here; we had a big spam attack that I've deleted all of, but there appears to be some lingering corruption in the topic indices, so it's pretty much unbrowseable at the moment. Going to have to make time to fix that. We also had some relevant discussion on rebalancing the metatypes, but aside from making everyone earn karma pool at the same rate and giving humans some other undecided-on perk to make up for it all of the conclusions there are, IIRC, up in the air pending investigation of the effects of karma-based chargen. Ghouls, Shifters, and Metavariants are as-yet unsupported; Otaku aren't on this list but I think I'd settled on a price for them somewhere so they'll probably be in soon. Based on an initial allocation of 425kp: Metarace
Magic
I'm not sure why adepts cost the same as Full Magicians and Magician's Way Adepts; the other alterations were deliberate, so Adepts may have just gotten missed. Alternatively, it could be because Adepts don't need to buy Spell Points. There's also a proposal out there to allow more flexible purchase of magical ability (fewer than 6 points of Magic), but it may or may not end up making it in and even if it does I have no thoughts yet on what the costs would be. Attributes Attribute costs, both at chargen and afterwards, are shifted by the Racial Modification; improving a Dwarf's Strength (+2 mod) from 3 to 4 costs the same as improving a Human's strength from 1 to 2, 4 karma. The obligatory first point in every attribute is free (so you can make a Human with 1/1/1/1/1/1 stats without spending anything on Attributes); attributes with penalties still get to 1 free, but the cost of improvement thereafter is shifted, so improving a Troll's Charisma from 1 to 2 costs the same as improving a Human's Charisma from 3 to 4, 8 karma. Since attributes are no longer cheaper at chargen than afterwards, there's a proposal to lift the ban on purchasing above the Racial Modified Limit; if we go with it the usual 3*[new level] cost would apply, shifted as above. Skills As per post-chargen costs. Specialization is now unrestricted and works the normal way. I'm toying with the idea of lifting the Skill 6 cap, but buying skills above 6 seems more likely (and the relative cost increase is smaller) than buying attributes over RML, so I'll have to be careful with this; in any event, Specializations to at least 7 seems reasonable. Resources
These are somewhat ugly numbers; the ultimate goal is to have single-karma granularity on resource purchasing, but I haven't worked out the precise formula yet. I have scribbled down here an alternate cost list which was intended to produce neater prices for tiers that broadly correspond to those available in point-build; I don't remember my thoughts on it relative to the above, but here it is:
I also had a scheme to support exchanging karma for cash by extending the exchange past 1M¥, recording how much had been spent previously (including on Resources), and going from there. I seem to remember a plot to do something broadly similar in reverse to support exchanging cash for karma, but I'll need to dig around to see if I wrote down the details; certainly, the exchange rate near the bottom of this chart looks like it would make karma too cheap. Contacts What I have written down is the Becks formula of L1=1kp, L2=5kp, L3=25kp, but I thought I'd been leaning towards something different. There were some plans to flesh out the contact system, so I may have just decided to wait on those rather than try to fine-tune the current system's costs. Edges/Flaws There are a bunch of edges and flaws that need rethinking or scrapping; many have very poorly-defined effects or a heavy reliance on GM treatment. For some of the ones that were workable as-is I tried to assign prices, even if there were proposals to change them. I'll discuss a few others at the end. Edges:
Flaws:
Comments on a few noteworthy odds and ends: Bonus Attribute Point: would be obsolete if we allow "free" buying above RML; if not, I figure between 1 and 5 kp on top of the over-RML cost. Ambidexterity: I thought I'd made a stab at pricing; in practice, only the 6-BP (for melee) and 8-BP (for ranged) versions exist, and I seem to remember the melee version looking cheap while the ranged looked expensive using direct BP->karma translation. Might even be worth splitting into separate edges, we'll see. Good Reputation: altogether too powerful. I had trouble finding a price where it wasn't an automatic buy for anyone planning to use social skills. Needs rule modifications. Incompetence: I really think this should be a "skill flaw", modifying the price of the skill in exchange for the penalty (so you can get a cheap additional skill in exchange for being bad at it, with the additional price that you can't later decide—at least not as easily—that you don't want to be bad at it anymore). The rest are a mix of things I think need to be changed or scrapped and a few that seem reasonable but that I haven't put in the time examining to feel confident about setting a price for. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 3 2013, 01:37 AM
Post
#3
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
This is a learning experience in the dangers of dropping a project for over a year without making sure your notes are in order.
I'll try to put everything into better order tomorrow or possibly Thursday, but a few things for the interim: I'd made reference to metaracial stat mod changes, but aside from the replacement of different karma pool accumulation rates those have all been revoked pending examination of the balance effects of karma-based chargen; the characters I've whipped up have suggested that metahumans are dramatically more viable, even with current stat mods. They may emerge, but I'm not sure. The edge/flaw lists above appear to be an older version; it looks like most of the costs are right, but I put costs to a number of other edges/flaws that are missing in the above list. I'm not entirely sure what's up with the magic costs, but I'm pretty sure part of it is that we've done away with Spell Points—since the whole point of Spell Points was to act as a karma substitute, and we're now doing the entire chargen process in karma, they seem rather extraneous. I'm dubious about Magician's Way Adepts costing the same as ordinary Adepts, but as a percentage of starting chargen resources ordinary Adepts are already noticeably cheaper than under point-build; maybe MagWay adepts should be more expensive. I'll investigate it. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 3 2013, 02:29 PM
Post
#4
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Ok, on the matter of Magician's Way Adepts:
For 128BP, being a MagWay Adept consumes 30/128=~23.4% of chargen resources. At BeCKS-standard 90 karma that's… ~21.2%. So there's already a discount. Admittedly you lose between 6 and 36 karma worth of free Spell Points, so it's really between ~22.6% and ~29.7% depending on how much Magical Power they buy at chargen. At the price above, you consume between ~19.1% and ~26.1%, with the tipping point being at 4 points of Magical Power (~23.3%). I feel like 4 is high for a typical MagWay adept, and you gain in long-term options by being MagWay instead of regular—but isn't there some funky rule where they get less out of Initiating than ordinary Adepts? Yeah, they lose the ability to buy Power Points with Karma (which I'm inclined to scrap as superseded by Initiation anyway) and they have to choose between metamagic and a new Power Point (it's not clear if their Magic attribute still goes up) instead of being able to get both. I'm a little dubious about that restriction, but not confident enough to propose scrapping it; in any event, while that's a real disadvantage I still think 75kp is too cheap. Maybe 85? ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 3 2013, 03:40 PM
Post
#5
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
I mentioned concerns about uncapped skills and especially specializations above. I'm going to discuss that a little more.
I'm not certain there's actually cause to be concerned about skills, given that when not buying beyond the linked attribute skills above 4 cost more as a percentage of total chargen resources than they do under point-build; skill 6 costs ~7.06% with karma as opposed to ~4.69% with points, and is roughly the same relative cost as buying a Skill 6 with a Linked Attribute of 3 under point-build. Higher skills get even more expensive; even if you manage to get a linked attribute up to 9, a skill of 9 would cost 65 karma, or a whopping ~15.3% of starting chargen resources. I'll need to look at what happens in the hands of mages or dual-wielding ambidextrous adepts, but for a mundane character I'm not sure that's too scary. Specializations, on the other hand, are significantly cheaper, especially with Absorbable Specializations; worse yet, many skills have a specialization that encompasses all or most of what a character would actually use a skill for, especially above a certain threshold: Biotech/First Aid, Demolitions/Plastic Explosives, Sorcery/Spellcasting, for Riggers almost every vehicle type/Remote Operations and Electronics/Electronic Warfare, Projectile Weapons/Pull Bows, Throwing Weapons/Grenades, Conjuring/Summoning, Intimidation/whichever of Physical or Mental the character is more suited to, etc. One particularly alarming scenario is a WIL 8 Dwarf mage with Sorcery 5 (Spellcasting 10) for 50 karma (~11.8%), or with Sorcery 4 (Spellcasting 8) for 26 karma (~6.1%). That particular case might be solvable by tying Spell Defense pool use to Sorcery (Spell Defense). Possible ways of addressing this include capping Specializations at, say, Skill+2, or max(Skill+2,6), or somesuch. Thoughts? (Of course many specializations could do with rethinking, but I'm dubious about whether that will be enough to solve the problem by itself.) ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 3 2013, 04:38 PM
Post
#6
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Ok, Contacts are due for a big overhaul, but so that I don't have to hold everything up for that to finish I'm going to examine the costs for the current system.
The fractional costs for BeCKS are as follows: L1 ~0.24%, L2 ~1.18%, L3 ~5.88%. For point-build it varies by what you spend on Resources; at 5 points/20k¥ it's ~0.98% for L1, at 15 points/200k¥ it's ~0.29%/~0.59%/~11.72%, at 20/400k¥ ~0.20%/~0.39%/~7.81%, at 25/650k¥ ~0.15%/~0.30%/~6.01%, and at 30/1M¥ ~0.12%/~0.23%/~4.69%. Of course, this ignores the opportunity cost of the resources you can't now spend elsewhere, especially since you need to start with at least 10 points in Resources for a Level 2 Contact to consume less than 10% of the marginal return of going up a Resource level. I might be inclined to put a Level 2 contact at 3 or 4 karma, but since I'm going to replace it anyway I'll keep what we've got now and try the reduced cost if Faces are really getting squeezed. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 4 2013, 01:43 AM
Post
#7
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
A tidbit hoisted from PMs:
QUOTE (Cochise) why do your regular adepts have identical costs to full magicians and MagWays in the first place? I can't remember ever hearing that the adept cost (that equaled the aspected magicians) was "too low". So what was your reason behind having "groggies" at lower costs but raising Adept base cost? This comes down to eliminating Spell Points. Adepts are slightly discounted relative to 128-point point build: 75/425=~17.7% of chargen resources vs. 25/128=~19.5%. Full Mages and especially Groggies appear substantially discounted (~17.7% vs. ~23.4% and ~11.8% vs. ~19.5%), but they no longer get any free spell points—so if you're going to devote at least the formerly-free amount to stuff you would have had to do with Spell Points, you're actually looking at (75+25)/425=~23.5% and (50+35)/425=20%, a (very) slight increase in price. Adepts don't need to spend anything else to get what they used to get. That's my logic for the current relative pricing. There are two main ways I could see it breaking down, though: first, if there's a lot of value available in making a Full Mage or Groggy with substantially fewer than 25 or 35 (respectively) karma invested in spells/etc., and second, the marginal cost on something that would have formerly cost an additional Spell Point is now ~.24% of chargen resources, while the lowest it went in Point-Build was ~.59% plus opportunity cost if you took the million. I need to spend more time on both, but right now the first possibility worries me more. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 5 2013, 08:44 PM
Post
#8
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
So my plan had been to do the per-karma resource equation today, but it's turning out a lot uglier than I had anticipated (which explains why I didn't finish it when I was working on it before). I still think it's tractable (and even if I'm wrong I'm pretty sure 5-karma increments are doable), but it's clearly something I'm going to actually work at rather than something I can bang out in a bit of free time on a Friday afternoon.
Might be able to get something else up today, we'll see. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 02:06 PM
Post
#9
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Ok, it's a beautiful morning and time for some quick sample characters. I'll be using the "ugly" version of the Resources chart for the moment.
Let's start out with some Riggers, 'cause that's what I know. Starting with Human, straightforward: Attributes: 172kp net BOD: 3 QCK: 6 STR: 3 CHR: 4 INT: 7 (EA) WIL: 6 Reaction: 6, Combat Pool: 9, Control Pool: 6+2*VCR Skills: 123kp net Gunnery 6 Car 6 Car (B/R) 1 ([primary riggermobile] 3) Electronics 5 Electronics (B/R) 3 Rotorcraft 4 Etiquette 4 One additional specialized skill at 1 (3) (maybe Rotorcraft B/R? Maybe a personal combat skill?) Contacts: 10kp net 2xL1 free 2xL2 (10kp) Resources: 1M¥ 100kp net Edges/Flaws: 20kp net Exceptional Attribute: Intelligence (10) Vehicle Empathy (10) Seems respectable at first glance. Not up to the standards of a point-build Rigger, but point-build Riggers were ridiculous and leaned incredibly hard on the fact that high stats/skills are cheap at chargen, and Riggers in general threaten to outclass other archetypes, so I'm ok with that. I'm also not making much use of specializations here; let's see where that takes us. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 02:23 PM
Post
#10
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
First, a brief digression on specializations.
With Absorbable Specializations, specializations no longer declare a freezing of improvement of a skill. To guide effective character design, I'm going to discuss a bit the reasons why a player might still want to avoid specializing a skill. The most obvious reason is that they're going to use more of the skill than a single specialization covers. This is a fairly straightforward tradeoff by itself, and doesn't require much examination in isolation. A more interesting issue is pool use: where the use of dice from pools is limited, that limit is typically set by the base skill. When you're only interested in the specialization this isn't a problem (you don't get the ability to use an extra die of pool, but you get an additional die that doesn't come out of pool), but it's an additional cost when trading off points in the base skill that you'd really like to have in order to free up karma for use elsewhere. There's also a little bit of tradeoff regarding defaulting, though in my experience there are only a few cases where players deliberately plan for the possibility of defaulting and even then they rarely end up doing so (defaulting from Gunnery to Launch Weapons or from Rotor Aircraft to other aircraft types for Riggers, defaulting from Intimidation to Interrogation, etc.). So with that under consideration, let's take a look at what we can squeeze out of our exemplar Rigger. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 02:39 PM
Post
#11
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Ok, redoing just the skills:
Skills: 115kp net Gunnery 5 (MMG 7) Car 5 (Riggermobile 7) Car (B/R) 1 (Riggermobile 3) Electronics 3 (Electronic Warfare 6) Electronics (B/R) 3 Rotorcraft 4 Etiquette 4 One additional specialized skill at 1 (3) (maybe Rotorcraft B/R? Maybe a personal combat skill?) EDIT: I somehow completely missed that the last levels of So while it's still a valid option, 5 (7) on base skill 6 isn't the big win I'd been presenting it as. There's room for savings by going 5 (6) for 24 karma instead of 30, but there you're giving up a die at full pool use so it's also a real tradeoff. Not that this is a problem, necessarily, but it's not what I originally presented. EDIT2: Man, I really suck at this. The character has Int 7 from EA:I, so only Riggermobile takes the higher-cost hit. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 02:54 PM
Post
#12
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 702 Joined: 21-August 08 From: France Member No.: 16,265 |
Honestly, I wanted to check what your project was and what you wanted to upgrade, but it's a forum full of viagra ads and I don't even found the basics (that is, the genral rule for a skill/attribute roll).
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 02:59 PM
Post
#13
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Now to see how this comes out as an Elf. There are two ways to deal with the bonus attributes: either make a better version of the original by keeping the same relative attribute buys, or making a cheaper version by adjusting down the investment in attributes to end up at the same level without spending as much on it. I'll start off with something closer to the "better" version.
Elf (20kp) Attributes: 164kp net BOD: 3 QCK: 7 STR: 3 CHR: 5 INT: 7 (EA) WIL: 6 Reaction: 7, Combat Pool: 10, Control Pool: 7+2*VCR Skills: 111kp net Gunnery 5 (MMG 7) Car 5 (Riggermobile 7) Car (B/R) 1 (Riggermobile 3) Electronics 3 (Electronic Warfare 6) Electronics (B/R) 3 Rotorcraft 4 Etiquette 4 One additional specialized skill at 1 (3) (maybe Rotorcraft B/R? Maybe a personal combat skill?) Contacts: 10kp net 2xL1 free 2xL2 (10kp) Resources: 1M¥ 100kp net Edges/Flaws: 20kp net Exceptional Attribute: Intelligence (10) Vehicle Empathy (10) This comes in at 425 karma exactly, so we are a little behind the human version, but in exchange we get extra Quickness and thus Reaction, Combat Pool, and Control Pool, and can capture back 6 more karma dropping Charisma back to 4 to equal the human version. I don't think you'd ever want to do it, but if you also dropped Quickness back to 6 you'd match the human version in stats and have 18 karma left to throw around, which is 4 more than the human gets. So barring some strong outside effect (either a big perk for humans—I don't think +10% Good Karma would be enough—or a major strengthening of the metahuman prejudice rules), I'd say it looks like at 20kp Elves make strictly better Riggers than humans do, suggesting they might be undercosted. We'll see. EDIT: so the Elf actually has the stats of 7 that I was mistakenly assuming above for specialization costs, meaning that he's actually slightly better-off than I had initially estimated. We'll have to see how Elves do after some more stuff is added in. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 03:52 PM
Post
#14
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
I still need to build more characters under the current rules to be sure of how costs shake out, but let me quickly take a look at the value of the stat bonuses/penalties for metahumans as compared to the currently-assigned costs.
Elf Elves get +1 Quickness, +2 Charisma, and Low-Light Vision for 20kp. Quickness is an incredibly valuable stat; I can't see a reason to take it at less than 6 in the metaraces that don't have penalties to it, so I'd peg the +1 Quickness value at a bare minimum of 12 karma if not 14; it's almost certainly higher, but let's start there. Charisma is less valuable in general, but Etiquette is important enough to discourage dumping it; figure a value for most characters of at least 10 karma (the assumption being that they would have otherwise bought Charisma up to 3 for 10kp but now get that for free). For Edge purposes we've pegged low-light vision as worth 6kp. So that's a bare minimum of 28kp worth of stuff for 20kp, and that's very much a lowball estimate—the value for +1 Quickness ignores the benefits of raising the Racial Max and of always getting an extra point of Quickness for equivalent cost, while the value of Charisma assumes that the stat is always of minimal value. Elves seem pretty clearly too cheap at 20kp. Dwarf Dwarves are trickier. They get more bonuses, but to generally less valuable stats, and with additional bonuses/penalties that are hard to value. Still, let's try ballparking. For 20 karma, they get +1 Body, +2 Strength, +1 Willpower, Thermographic Vision, +2 Body to resist disease or toxins, -1 Running Multiplier, +10% cost on some gear. Willpower is pretty important. Mages obviously make huge use of it, and Riggers and Deckers soak certain kinds of damage off of it; for everyone else, it defends against much hostile spellcasting and goes into Combat Pool. I'd say it's worth at least 12 karma. Body is pretty variable, but I think the baseline character is going to want Body 3, maybe 2 if they're a Rigger or Decker hiding from the front lines; split the difference and call it 5 karma. Strength is likewise variable. I think with karma making low attributes cheap people are usually going to want at least 2; I'm not sure how many are really going to want 3, but I could see people taking that much anyway. Call it 5 karma as well. Natural Low-Light vision is superior to Natural Thermographic vision except in full darkness or light/heavy non-thermal smoke/fog/rain, so if natural low-light is 6kp, maybe call it 3kp for thermo? They've got the equivalent to two levels each of Resistance to Pathogens and Resistance to Toxins, only normally you can only buy a single level, and I feel like the combined effect isn't worth the implied 10kp without specific rules and guidelines causing characters to come into regular contact with pathogens/toxins; maybe call it 5kp? That's the same as a single level, but I think it works as a lower bound. So that's at least 27 karma worth of stuff for 20 karma. The sticky wicket comes with their drawbacks. I still have a feeling that dwarves might be undercosted, but I'm not nearly as confident about it as with Elves. Need to build some Dwarf characters. Ork Now we're getting into tricky territory. For 15 karma, +3 Body, +2 Strength, -1 Charisma, -1 Intelligence, and natural Low-Light. As above, I feel like most characters are going to want at least Body 3, so that's 10 karma worth of value right there; I'm not sure they're all going to want Body 4, but it's always a nice touch, so value that at half the marginal cost for a lower bound of 14 karma. Strength follows the argument for Dwarves above, though I feel like the mental penalties encourage Orks to pursue builds where Strength will matter more. Maybe call it 7 karma. Natural low-light, as above, we value at 6 karma. So that's 27 karma worth of stuff before penalties for 15 karma. The penalties, though, aren't small. Charisma will matter a lot for some builds, but assume a middle-of-the-road build targeting 3 Charisma: the penalty increases the cost for that by 4 karma, so we'll call it -4kp. That leaves us at 23-for-15. Intelligence is a whole other ball of wax. It's the single most valuable stat, and I don't want to get too deep into the weeds on valuing it but I think -12 is probably an extremely low estimate. That more than covers the gap above, which means that for Orks to be worthwhile they need to make better use of their bonuses. On the flip side, I think they can make better use of their bonuses—I'm valuing Orks here on a model that assigns very little weight to Strength and not much to Body, and I don't think it's a tragedy if Orks are too expensive when built as shut-in Riggers or Deckers. I'll have to build characters to be sure, but it looks to me like this is a modest pressure (not even a strong one like in point-build) on Orks towards using their physical abilities, which is ok. I want to avoid the "orks/trolls need to do everything with Strength and Body to be worthwhile" syndrome of point-build, but this doesn't obviously fall into it. Trolls Trolls combine huge bonuses with big, sweeping penalties in such a way that I really think it's faster to just build characters rather than try to put prices on the bonuses/penalties. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 03:55 PM
Post
#15
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
QUOTE (sk8bcn @ Apr 8 2013, 09:54 AM)  Honestly, I wanted to check what your project was and what you wanted to upgrade, but it's a forum full of viagra ads and I don't even found the basics (that is, the genral rule for a skill/attribute roll). They're all deleted but still showing up in the topic list; it's residual database corruption that I need to resolve. I'll stick it on the agenda for today. As for the skill/attribute roll, that's standard SR3 rules. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 8 2013, 05:37 PM
Post
#16
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
QUOTE (sk8bcn @ Apr 8 2013, 09:54 AM) Honestly, I wanted to check what your project was and what you wanted to upgrade, but it's a forum full of viagra ads and I don't even found the basics (that is, the genral rule for a skill/attribute roll). Ok, it's still a little bit buggered up (per-forum post and topic counts are still wrong, as well as some other issues here and there), but I rooted out the remains of the spambot-posts. The forum should be browsable again. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 9 2013, 08:09 AM
Post
#17
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 702 Joined: 21-August 08 From: France Member No.: 16,265 |
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But now, I'm not even allowed to read it without subscribing !
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 9 2013, 12:35 PM
Post
#18
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
QUOTE (sk8bcn @ Apr 9 2013, 03:09 AM) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But now, I'm not even allowed to read it without subscribing ! Seriously? @#$#%@#… let me see here… Huh. Are you sure? I can't reproduce the problem… is there some particular forum or topic that you run into this issue with? (Also, for the record, registration of new users is currently disabled. As you saw, our previous anti-spam measures broke down epically, and I haven't gotten around to rigging up new ones yet.) ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 9 2013, 01:23 PM
Post
#19
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 702 Joined: 21-August 08 From: France Member No.: 16,265 |
"Board index » General Rules Discussion » Design Philosophy All times are UTC - 5 hours Design Philosophy You do not have the required permissions to read topics within this forum. " mmmm yes, the rest is open. I've clicked on the particular one that isn't open (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Wanted to check the general direction of the project. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 9 2013, 03:22 PM
Post
#20
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
How strange. The permissions on that forum must have been wrong all along, or at least since before the spampocalypse—that could explain why it was the only subforum spared.
Live and learn, I guess. Should be fixed now. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 11 2013, 07:44 PM
Post
#21
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
So in the process of whipping up a character generator of sorts, I discovered that I'd been mis-ordering the mental attributes all these years. I've edited the characters above to conform to the proper order.
Also, it turns out to be a good thing that I'm building a character generator—I seem to be incapable of getting the costs right. I've made a few small but significant edits above to reflect errors I'd made in pricing specializations (I exceeded the base attribute but failed to use the increased cost). The big jump in specialization cost between ≤[base attribute] and >[base attribute] looks to make metahuman stat bonuses more valuable. I'll have to look at that. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 11 2013, 07:55 PM
Post
#22
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
So now, because everyone needs more stumpy:
Dwarf (20kp) Attributes: 148kp net BOD: 3 QCK: 6 STR: 3 CHR: 4 INT: 7 (EA) WIL: 7 Reaction: 6, Combat Pool: 10, Control Pool: 6+2*VCR Skills: 115kp net Gunnery 5 (MMG 7) Car 5 (Riggermobile 7) Car (B/R) 1 (Riggermobile 3) Electronics 3 (Electronic Warfare 6) Electronics (B/R) 3 Rotorcraft 4 Etiquette 4 One additional specialized skill at 1 (3) (maybe Rotorcraft B/R? Maybe a personal combat skill?) Contacts: 10kp net 2xL1 free 2xL2 (10kp) Resources: 1M¥ 100kp net Edges/Flaws: 20kp net Exceptional Attribute: Intelligence (10) Vehicle Empathy (10) That's 421 karma spent, as compared to 417 for the specialized human; he comes out a point of Combat Pool ahead in the process. This seems like a tradeoff, rather than the Elf who was edging towards "Human+". ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 11 2013, 08:09 PM
Post
#23
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
On to the Trogs. Because of their penalties, particularly to Rigger-important stats, I think I'm going to have to diverge a bit from the highly-focused characters above to make a serious attempt at answering the question "can we build an acceptable Trog Rigger", but I'll take a stab at something similar to the above first.
Ork (15kp) Attributes: 144kp net BOD: 4 QCK: 6 STR: 3 CHR: 4 INT: 6 (EA) WIL: 6 Reaction: 6, Combat Pool: 9, Control Pool: 6+2*VCR Skills: 116kp net Gunnery 5 (MMG 7) Car 5 (Riggermobile 7) Car (B/R) 1 (Riggermobile 3) Electronics 3 (Electronic Warfare 6) Electronics (B/R) 3 Rotorcraft 4 Etiquette 4 Contacts: 10kp net 2xL1 free 2xL2 (10kp) Resources: 1M¥ 100kp net Edges/Flaws: 20kp net Exceptional Attribute: Intelligence (10) Vehicle Empathy (10) That's 425 exactly. Not nearly as bad as I feared, and if you kick Charisma and Etiquette back down to 3 you have 399 spent karma (402 if you add back in the dropped 1 (3) specialized skill). Add in the extra Body and cheap Strength and you're ready to branch out into some light melee combat. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 11 2013, 08:23 PM
Post
#24
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Now for the tough one.
Troll (35kp) Attributes: 138kp net BOD: 6 QCK: 5 STR: 5 CHR: 3 INT: 5 (EA) WIL: 6 Reaction: 5, Combat Pool: 8, Control Pool: 5+2*VCR Skills: 102kp net Gunnery 5 (MMG 6) Car 5 (Riggermobile 6) Car (B/R) 1 (Riggermobile 3) Electronics 3 (Electronic Warfare 5) Electronics (B/R) 3 Rotorcraft 4 Etiquette 3 One additional specialized skill at 1 (3) (maybe Rotorcraft B/R? Maybe a personal combat skill?) Contacts: 10kp net 2xL1 free 2xL2 (10kp) Resources: 1M¥ 100kp net Edges/Flaws: 20kp net Exceptional Attribute: Intelligence (10) Vehicle Empathy (10) That's 405 points. If we dropped the specializations above base stat, we'd have 32 karma remaining. He's never going to make a first-rate Rigger like this, but I wouldn't call him third-rate either—I'm not sure how often I'd want to actually build one, but a player who did wouldn't be condemning him- or herself to the "dramatically less effective than everyone else on the team" scrapheap. Also, a lot of these things might start looking more nuanced once we add in Resources and people have a way to raise stats without spending Karma. ~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 11 2013, 08:25 PM
Post
#25
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
So for Riggers at least I'm broadly pleased with the balance, worries about Elves excepted. The main concern here might be that Humans don't offer a clearly interesting advantage; I'll have to prioritize deciding on their perk more highly.
~J |
|
|
|
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 8th September 2024 - 01:45 AM |
Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.