SR5 Preview #3, In which is discussed character generation Options

[thorya]

You know, it occurs to me that I would like them better (and maybe other dumpshockers though not likely since as a group we hate everything), there would be less resistance and worries of players getting upset about "I can't use all my hits", it would make more sense in explanation wise, and probably be easier to implement mechanic wise, if the limits had just applied directly to dice pools. So you had DP caps as a mechanic. Obviously they would have to be higher than the current limits, but it would keep a handle on things while allowing a second knob for tuning things.

i.e. A top of the line fully modded sniper rifle might have an accuracy of 20, meaning you can use 20 dice if you've got them but pushing your pool to 25 doesn't help you because your gear can't match you. But if you're using the dented hold-out pistol you bought second hand it might only have an accuracy of 8. So you only roll 8 dice regardless of whether you've got a pool of 8 or 80, because no matter how well you aim the grouping on that thing is terrible.
Or, you can be the best, smartest hacker in the world, but if you're using the cheapo deck that caps out at 10 you're not hacking any government mainframes without a lot of luck. You could still potentially get 10 hits and use them all, but the system is just not fast enough to keep up with your uber fast matrix skills.

You can even keep dice pool modifiers if you want with such a system. In fact, if you were to make it so that penalties adjusted the limited dice pool size down more than the dice pool penalty you make it so that low level people still have there chance at a shot in the dark while professionals are impaired.

i.e. Maybe the penalty for concealment power at force 6 is -3 to dice pool and -6 to total dice pool penalty. So the guard with perception pool of 5 and a dice pool limit of 12 (mental limit?)- instead rolls 2 with an adjusted dice pool limit of 6. He's effected but still has a chance of success, though slim, and he doesn't have to worry about the limit since he's not near it. While the specialized spotter who usually has a perception pool of 14 with a limit of 14, is reduced to a pool of 8. He still has a good chance of success, but the penalty is harder to shake off.

Just an idea, kind of pointless though since the rules are already written. Might be something I try as a houserule when/if I run a 5e game. Might just take the current limit rules and multiply by 2 to get new limits.

[Nal0n]

Iirc the Limits limit max. Successes not the number of dice you can roll.

[Seerow]

Iirc the Limits limit max. Successes not the number of dice you can roll.

It does, Thorya is proposing an alternate system that they think may have gotten better traction.

Which honestly just sounds like a more complicated version of capping dice pools at attribute+skill * 2 (from the SR core).

[Fatum]

Max augmented stat (15) + max skill (12) + spec (2) + whatever mods is giving you around 10 hits on average...

Highest Agi in the table is 7. Where are you getting augmented stat max 15?

[Nal0n]

It does, Thorya is proposing an alternate system that they think may have gotten better traction.

Which honestly just sounds like a more complicated version of capping dice pools at attribute+skill * 2 (from the SR core).

I stand corrected, sorry, I'll make sure to read the posts more careful in the future.

As for the cap you mention: attribute+skill * 2. I do not think that would work that well. For extreme specialists that can still go up to the 40s, but I fear that it might "gimp" your secondary and tertiary skills too much and thus lead to more one-trick-ponies instead of more balanced characters (which seems to be the goal of Limits).

[Nal0n]

Highest Agi in the table is 7. Where are you getting augmented stat max 15?

Elf (AGI 7) + Surge II (Metagenetic improvement AGI) (= AGI (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) + Ex. Attribute (AGI) (=AGI 9) + Genetic Optimization (AGI) (=AGI 10) + Muscle Toner 4 (=AGI 10(14)) + Suprathyroid Gland (= AGI 10(15))

[Mäx]

Nice, never realized that, thanks. Now I just need to hope that there are some accurate enough guns out there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Colt America(witch isn't exactly top of the line) the example character has is an accuracy 7 light pistol so the limit on shooting shouldn't be to bad, there are surely more accurate guns and i have heard that targeting helpers(like smartlink or laser sight) got turned in to accurasy boosters instead of dicepool booster, so accurasy 8 gun with smartlink would give you a limit of 10 hits same as the non drughead pornomancer

Or you take a speedball of Ex,Red Mescaline and Novacoke for CHA 13 and a limit of (13*2+4+4)/3=11,33 rounded to 12, which still is pretty good.

But now your a drug addict and also stacking of drug bonuses like that is GM call, many might not allow it.

As a side note did you look up that drug combo from the books or did you took it from one of my post containing updated pornomancer stat list outs(i have posted it a few times in various topics)[just mildy curious, nothing else]

Edit: by the way where are you getting max skill 12, in SR4 atleast max skill is 10(natural 7 with aptitude augmented to 10 with improved ability adept power)

Edit2:Just read the other samples, all raise to who ever got the "round up,unless specifically told otherwise" side note added to shadowrun concept section

[Fatum]

Elf (AGI 7) + Surge II (Metagenetic improvement AGI) (= AGI (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) + Ex. Attribute (AGI) (=AGI 9) + Genetic Optimization (AGI) (=AGI 10) + Muscle Toner 4 (=AGI 10(14)) + Suprathyroid Gland (= AGI 10(15))

You have no way to know how SURGE, Genetic Optimization or implants are going to work in this edition.

[Nal0n]

Colt America(witch isn't exactly top of the line) the example character has is an accuracy 7 light pistol so the limit on shooting shouldn't be to bad, there are surely more accurate guns and i have heard that targeting helpers(like smartlink or laser sight) got turned in to accurasy boosters instead of dicepool booster, so accurasy 8 gun with smartlink would give you a limit of 10 hits same as the non drughead pornomancer

Sounds reasonable, I guess I have to wait for the actual guns to see how far I can take that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But now your a drug addict and also stacking of drug bonuses like that is GM call, many might not allow it.

Sure, but as this is purely "food for thought" and not for a playable character I decided to go with the "worst case".
imho it helps going to the extremes if one is looking for mechanical flaws.

As a side note did you look up that drug combo from the books or did you took it from one of my post containing updated pornomancer stat list outs(i have posted it a few times in various topics)[just mildy curious, nothing else]

I played around with some pornomancer-like concepts a few years ago and read up on the different builds here and in other forums.
Just now I looked through my SR stuff and found some text files with a lot of "weird" Min/Max'ing stuff in them, incl. my pornomancer notes, one of which mentioned drugs and the above speedball.
So: Was that from your post? I can't really say tbh, might be, might not be. But I did double check the stats in the books (at least in those I have available atm) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cain]

And yet, in SR4A, I have rolled 15 Dice on a shooting test and received 11 hits, no Edge Spent. The limit rules potentially punish a character for being exceptional or lucky.

That's exactly what I was afraid of. In my experience, players love it when they make exceptional rolls. It's part of the fun when playing a bucket-o-dice game, with SR4.5 definitely was. Taking away their exceptional success doesn't sound like fun to me at all.

I'm also worried about how fiddly this makes character creation. The new Priority system looks a lot faster, but if you're constantly rejiggering things so you can improve your Limits, that's going to make things take longer. Also, one of my beefs with SR4.5's chargen was that it was wildly inconsistent. It was way too easy to make gimped characters alongside overpowered ones. Limits look like another area where it's easy to accidentally gimp yourself. It's basically a trap for the unwary, so those who have a lot of system mastery will make characters that are even more overpowered in comparison.

[StealthSigma]

I'm also worried about how fiddly this makes character creation. The new Priority system looks a lot faster, but if you're constantly rejiggering things so you can improve your Limits, that's going to make things take longer. Also, one of my beefs with SR4.5's chargen was that it was wildly inconsistent. It was way too easy to make gimped characters alongside overpowered ones. Limits look like another area where it's easy to accidentally gimp yourself. It's basically a trap for the unwary, so those who have a lot of system mastery will make characters that are even more overpowered in comparison.

I don't think it's possible to completely remove the ability to gimp yourself. The question is how quickly/easily is it to fix when someone notices it before the game has started or even after if that sort of thing is permitted. In that case, it's much easier to do so in SR4 since it's just subtract from here, here, here, and here to add to here, here, here, and here. With priority you have to, as you said, rejigger the character and if that requires adjusting priorities.... well you might as well start from scratch.

[Umidori]

Regarding exceptional rolls and not being able to use all the hits you were "lucky" enough to get on a stupidly large dice pool, remember there's always the option to use Edge to exceed your limits.

~Umi

[StealthSigma]

I just noticed the mental skill limit formula. It's great to see that they exacerbated the problem with logic being a super stat (the other being agility but I say logic is the worse offender). If they didn't strip logic as a linked attribute for a large number of skills this is just going to make that stat even more valuable and worthwhile to raise than it was in SR4.

[Umidori]

Overall, I feel people are being kind of absurd. First they complain "Limits won't have an effect on most characters, and thus are useless!" and then they complain "Limits are going to severely hamper min/maxed character designs with absurd dicepools!". Guys. That's the point. Limits are supposed to do exactly that - limit the amount of massive dice pool cheese that optimizers try to pull off, while not adversely affecting normal characters.

Limits don't break the system. When people can make wildly imbalanced characters that throw 25+ dice on shooting tests or 50+ dice on social tests, the system is already broken. Limits fix that. They stop people from making glass cannons and one-trick ponies, while in no way adversely affecting well rounded characters. How in the name of Dunkelzahn is that a bad thing?

Now, I love loopholes. I love building insane concept characters, and pushing the very limits (pun intended) of the rule system of the game. I've laughed my ass off reading about pornomancer exploits and I've personally built a character I dubbed Frothy The Murder Gnome, whose sole purpose was to live in a box and be deployed as a drug fueled combat machine by his allies when the drek hit the fan. But I recognize that these are things to laugh at for their absurdity, not strive to create more of. And yet the once-joke Pornomancer is everywhere, these days. The optimized gunshooter is considered a character design standard now. Surely someone else is as troubled by this as I am?

If any game needs that sort of imbalanced nonsense trimmed, it's Shadowrun. And moreover, if any SR community needs the same, it's us at Dumpshock. We are a bunch of weasely, rules-bending, min/mixing nutjobs who argue over the most absurd nonsense imaginable just so we can cram the maximum amount of power into our insane little experiments. I've done it, I admit it, and so have most of us.

It's fun, I know. I'm guilty of three of four threads which pretty much unravel entire sections of the ruleset, because I want to do things that there just are no rules for, or that no one ever really thought about the ruling's implications hard enough to bring to their every last absurd logical conclusion. But I honestly want Limits just for the sheer thought that they're going to cut down on the high-end insanity and promote better rounded, balanced characters.

Is it a perfect system? No. Is it somewhat inelegant? Sure. But does it hurt the average player? Not at all. The only people who stand to suffer are those who are used to getting away with abusing the old system.

~Umi

[KarmaInferno]

Elf (AGI 7) + Surge II (Metagenetic improvement AGI) (= AGI (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) + Ex. Attribute (AGI) (=AGI 9) + Genetic Optimization (AGI) (=AGI 10) + Muscle Toner 4 (=AGI 10(14)) + Suprathyroid Gland (= AGI 10(15))

You have no way to know how SURGE, Genetic Optimization or implants are going to work in this edition.

Additionally, the devs have said they are deliberately designing in fewer dice pool bonuses than 4E had.


-k

[Cain]

I don't think it's possible to completely remove the ability to gimp yourself. The question is how quickly/easily is it to fix when someone notices it before the game has started or even after if that sort of thing is permitted. In that case, it's much easier to do so in SR4 since it's just subtract from here, here, here, and here to add to here, here, here, and here. With priority you have to, as you said, rejigger the character and if that requires adjusting priorities.... well you might as well start from scratch.

There's a difference between suboptimal and gimped. A suboptimal character is one that's playable, just not as powerful as others. A gimped character is actually crippled. In SR4.5, it was very easy to gimp yourself, by forgetting things, like contacts or gear.

In many other systems, it takes effort to gimp a character. It's fairly difficult to make a gimped character in Savage Worlds, and it's pretty close to impossible in D&D 4e. You certainly aren't likely to do it by accident. In Sr4.5, however, gimping yourself on accident was easy; SR5 actually looks to be slightly worse in this area.

[Draco18s]

Overall, I feel people are being kind of absurd. First they complain "Limits won't have an effect on most characters, and thus are useless!" and then they complain "Limits are going to severely hamper min/maxed character designs with absurd dicepools!". Guys. That's the point. Limits are supposed to do exactly that - limit the amount of massive dice pool cheese that optimizers try to pull off, while not adversely affecting normal characters.

My thoughts exactly, which is why I've been largely absent for most of this thread. Lot of rehashing over minute details that I don't care to read about.

[KarmaInferno]

Limits don't break the system. When people can make wildly imbalanced characters that throw 25+ dice on shooting tests or 50+ dice on social tests, the system is already broken. Limits fix that. They stop people from making glass cannons and one-trick ponies, while in no way adversely affecting well rounded characters. How in the name of Dunkelzahn is that a bad thing?

The issue isn't reining back "wildly imbalanced characters".

It just, if the problem is massive dice pools, why not just cap the dice pools?

Instead of this limit system of allowing them the dice pools and then capping the hits.

Mechanically, yes, they are similar in result. However, on a visceral, emotive level, getting a huge number of hits, and then being told that some of the don't count, can feel worse than simply not being able to get the huge number of hits.

It's a tease. A cruel tease. "Hey, look, you had an awesome roll! But it doesn't count. Throw away those extra hits."



-k

[Nal0n]

You have no way to know how SURGE, Genetic Optimization or implants are going to work in this edition.

No, I have not, apart from being resonably sure that they WILL be there in some way.

So I assume the "worst" and hope to be positively surprised when to books arrive (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Stahlseele]

Regarding exceptional rolls and not being able to use all the hits you were "lucky" enough to get on a stupidly large dice pool, remember there's always the option to use Edge to exceed your limits.

~Umi

doesn't edge use have to be declared before rolling for such things?

You have no way to know how SURGE, Genetic Optimization or implants are going to work in this edition.

Additionally, the devs have said they are deliberately designing in fewer dice pool bonuses than 4E had.


-k

and they do it by . . doubling maximum skill . . which doesn't factor into limits at all somehow O.o

[Cain]

Overall, I feel people are being kind of absurd. First they complain "Limits won't have an effect on most characters, and thus are useless!" and then they complain "Limits are going to severely hamper min/maxed character designs with absurd dicepools!". Guys. That's the point. Limits are supposed to do exactly that - limit the amount of massive dice pool cheese that optimizers try to pull off, while not adversely affecting normal characters.

Limits don't break the system. When people can make wildly imbalanced characters that throw 25+ dice on shooting tests or 50+ dice on social tests, the system is already broken. Limits fix that. They stop people from making glass cannons and one-trick ponies, while in no way adversely affecting well rounded characters. How in the name of Dunkelzahn is that a bad thing?

Because it might not work.

Look, if limits come into play too much, they'll be stealing successes from players. That's no fun. If they don't come into play often enough, then they're not doing anything, and players are still rolling those buckets of dice. There is a middle ground, but it's really just a thin line.

Now, huge dice pool games can be fun. It all depends on your personal preferences, so I'm not going to judge. Small pool games can be fun, too. The problem is, limits don't prevent huge dice pools: they just reward those who can min/max in multiple areas. I don't think limits are going to effectively contain huge dice pools, and I think they're actively going to hamper the average player. My opinion is that they would have been better off designing a smaller pool game, or tackling pool size directly, instead of trying to make a complex end run around the problem.

[Nal0n]

I still wonder, apart from convention play and such, did anyone ever have a problem with the size of dice pools?

For the groups I played in we just talked about it beforehand. We talked about what roles everyone wants to cover and which size of DPs we wanted, so we never had such problems.

Was it so different for you guys?

[Umidori]

If the problem is massive dice pools, why not just cap the dice pools?

Presumably because you can exceed your limits with Edge. If you want to succeed massively and get 15 hits, or whatever, you can. You just need to spend Edge (which is something they wanted people to do a lot more compared to 4E, and stop hoarding it).

Now, why not just make Edge allow you to exceed dice pool caps? Because... well... your dice pool shouldn't be changing that much, that often, yeah? If you want a dice pool of 25, but only 20 is allowed to count, you're just probably just going to stop building your character's pool when you hit 20 dice. At that point, spending Edge to exceed the pool limit doesn't really work, because you'd also have to spend Edge to add extra dice necessary to exceed the limit.

And even then, you still have the problem of what the roll comes up as - you might get very few hits, even with your boosted dice pool, so you just wasted Edge increasing your pool for no reason. But if you already have a large dice pool, you can spend Edge to exceed your Limit only when you actually get enough hits to need to do so.

Also, limits do something else. They cap your maximum success, but they don't take away the ancillary benefits of a larger dice pool, even if the pool is too large for the limit. Just because you can only get X amounts of max hits on a roll doesn't mean that a dice pool of 25 is no better than one of 15. Why? Because those extra dice still increase your chances of getting hits, or put another way, reduce the likelihood of you getting very few or no hits.

Mechanically, yes, they are similar in result. However, on a visceral, emotive level, getting a huge number of hits, and then being told that some of the don't count, can feel worse than simply not being able to get the huge number of hits.

It's a tease. A cruel tease. "Hey, look, you had an awesome roll! But it doesn't count. Throw away those extra hits."

So you're cognizant of the emotional irrationality you as a player are experiencing, and your response is to complain that the developers of the game aren't properly manipulating you to achieve the psychological effect you want them to induce? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I mean, yeah, I'm aware of the JC Penny's effect, but at the same time, I can't help but feel depressed by the fact that people are so genuinely irrational that they care more about the feelings they get from their own flawed thinking rather the logical truth behind the results they actually get. Yeah, on one level, bad game design to have "hidden power", or to impose the "burden of knowledge", but at the same time, I have to fault all of us, as players, for not only being so easily swayed, but for wanting to be manipulated in that way.

Ahh, humanity. What idiots we all are, deep down. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

~Umi

[binarywraith]

Overall, I feel people are being kind of absurd. First they complain "Limits won't have an effect on most characters, and thus are useless!" and then they complain "Limits are going to severely hamper min/maxed character designs with absurd dicepools!". Guys. That's the point. Limits are supposed to do exactly that - limit the amount of massive dice pool cheese that optimizers try to pull off, while not adversely affecting normal characters.

Limits don't break the system. When people can make wildly imbalanced characters that throw 25+ dice on shooting tests or 50+ dice on social tests, the system is already broken. Limits fix that. They stop people from making glass cannons and one-trick ponies, while in no way adversely affecting well rounded characters. How in the name of Dunkelzahn is that a bad thing?

Now, I love loopholes. I love building insane concept characters, and pushing the very limits (pun intended) of the rule system of the game. I've laughed my ass off reading about pornomancer exploits and I've personally built a character I dubbed Frothy The Murder Gnome, whose sole purpose was to live in a box and be deployed as a drug fueled combat machine by his allies when the drek hit the fan. But I recognize that these are things to laugh at for their absurdity, not strive to create more of. And yet the once-joke Pornomancer is everywhere, these days. The optimized gunshooter is considered a character design standard now. Surely someone else is as troubled by this as I am?

If any game needs that sort of imbalanced nonsense trimmed, it's Shadowrun. And moreover, if any SR community needs the same, it's us at Dumpshock. We are a bunch of weasely, rules-bending, min/mixing nutjobs who argue over the most absurd nonsense imaginable just so we can cram the maximum amount of power into our insane little experiments. I've done it, I admit it, and so have most of us.

It's fun, I know. I'm guilty of three of four threads which pretty much unravel entire sections of the ruleset, because I want to do things that there just are no rules for, or that no one ever really thought about the ruling's implications hard enough to bring to their every last absurd logical conclusion. But I honestly want Limits just for the sheer thought that they're going to cut down on the high-end insanity and promote better rounded, balanced characters.

Is it a perfect system? No. Is it somewhat inelegant? Sure. But does it hurt the average player? Not at all. The only people who stand to suffer are those who are used to getting away with abusing the old system.

~Umi

I can be a bit more blunt. Most of the whining about limits really, really comes off as munchkins preemptively whining that their favorite rules exploit got nerfed, before even seeing the full rules. It's seriously starting to read like WoW patch notes in here, and that unnerves me.

[tasti man LH]

Considering that the other alternatives to "fixing" SR4's bloated Dice Pool problems would have been either:

a.) rebalancing/reducing existing DP modifiers (which probably could be house-ruled away anyways, and wouldn't necessarily stop players from trying to stack a crapton of mods)

b.) going full tilt back to variable TNs (which, judging by the dev blogs, they have no intention of doing)

c.) removing situational and gear modifiers entirely, which would make the entire concepts revolving around SR gear to be pointless.