Karma Costs of Priorities, Analysis of Karma spent for each Priority Table Choice Options

[Chrome Head]

I'm looking at the range of karma points each priority entry in the table could be worth, focusing on the cheapest karma cost and most expensive karma cost in each case. I'm using this analysis to estimate what would be a good amount of karma for a karma gen system that leads to characters of similar power level.

Assumptions (for simplicity):

[ Spoiler ]

- Humans only. Race costs deserve their own analysis.
- +1 Edge for humans is applied after chargen
- All points of whatever for a priority could be spent (metatype A and B) and were spent.
- Ignore qualities for simplicity, especially exceptional attribute and skill
- Whatever cost for being awakened or resonant gives you 1 special attribute for free
- Skill points cannot be used to increase skills obtained for free by a magic priority (again just for simplicity)
- To compute lowest cost of skills, I assume one takes only rating 2 skills, not rating 1 which is just unplayable, but even then it's a bit crazy, I concede
- Round up karma cost in the one place where it matters in resources

Full Analysis

[ Spoiler ]

Metatype:

A: Human (9) -- karma spent: 180

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Only possibility
Edge 1-->6: 90 karma
Magic 2-->6: 90 karma

B: Human (7) -- karma spent: 130-155

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Lowest cost:
Edge 1-->5: 70 karma
Magic 2-->5: 60 karma

Highest cost:
Edge 1-->6: 100 karma
Magic 4-->6: 55

C: Human (5) -- karma spent: 80-100

[ Spoiler ]

Lowest cost:
Edge 1-->4: 45 karma
Magic 2-->4: 35 karma

Highest cost:
Edge 1-->6: 100 karma

D: Human (3) -- karma spent: 40-75

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Lowest cost:
Edge 1-->3: 25 karma
Magic 2-->3: 15 karma

Highest cost:
Magic 3-->6: 75 karma

E: Human (1) -- karma spent: 10-30

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Lowest cost:
Edge 1-->2: 10 karma

Highest cost:
Magic 5-->6: 30 karma

Attributes:

A: 24 -- karma spent: 360-470

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Lowest cost:
all att. 1-->4: 45 karma times 8 = 360

Highest cost:
4 att. 1-->6: 100 karma times 4 = 400
att. 1-->5: 70 karma

B: 20 -- karma spent: 280-400

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Lowest cost:
half att. 1-->4: 45 karma times 4 = 180
half att. 1-->3: 25 karma times 4 = 100

Highest cost:
4 att. 1-->6: 100 karma times 4 = 400

C: 16 -- karma spent: 200-310

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Lowest cost:
all att. 1-->3: 25 karma times 8 = 200

Highest cost:
3 att. 1-->6: 100 karma times 3 = 300
1 att. 1-->2: 10 karma

D: 14 -- karma spent: 170-270

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Lowest cost:
6 att. 1-->3: 25 karma times 6 = 150
2 att. 1-->2: 10 karma times 2 = 20

Highest cost:
2 att. 1-->6: 100 karma times 2 = 200
1 att. 1-->5: 70 karma

E: 12 -- karma spent: 140-225

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Lowest cost:
4 att. 1-->3: 25 karma times 4 = 100
4 att. 1-->2: 10 karma times 4 = 40

Highest cost:
2 att. 1-->6: 100 karma times 3 = 200
1 att. 1-->3: 25 karma

Magic or resonance:

A: karma spent: TM+180; FM+210

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Technomancer:
Resonance 1-->6 (100) + 2 rating 5 skills (30 each) + 5 complex forms (4 each)

Full Mage:
Magic 1-->6 (100) + 2 rating 5 skills (30 each) + 10 spells (5 each)

B: karma spent: TM+93; FM+120; Ad+120; AM+120

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Technomancer: 93
Resonance 1-->4 (45) + 2 rating 4 skills (20 each) + 2 complex forms (4 each)

Full Mage:
Magic 1-->4 (45) + 2 rating 4 skills (20 each) + 7 spells (5 each)

Adept:
Magic 1-->6 (100) + rating 4 skill (20)

Aspected Mage:
Magic 1-->5(70) + rating 4 skill group (50)

C: karma spent: TM+29; FM+50; Ad+51; AM+40

[ Spoiler ]

Technomancer: 93
Resonance 1-->3 (25) + 1 complex forms (4)

Full Mage:
Magic 1-->3 (25) + 5 spells (5 each)

Adept:
Magic 1-->4 (45) + rating 2 skill (6)

Aspected Mage:
Magic 1-->3(25) + rating 2 skill group (15)

D: karma spent: Ad+10; AM+10

E: -

Skills:

A: 46/10 -- karma spent: 213-469

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Lowest cost:
23 skills at rating 2: 23 x 6 = 138
5 skill groups at rating 2: 5 x 15 = 75

Highest cost:
7 skills at rating 6: 7 x 42 = 294
1 skill at rating 4: 20
1 skill group rating 6: 105
1 skill group rating 4: 50

B: 36/5 -- karma spent: 143-327

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Lowest cost:
18 skills at rating 2: 18 x 6 = 108
2 skill groups at rating 2: 2 x 15 = 30
1 skill group rating 1: 5

Highest cost:
6 skills at rating 6: 6 x 42 = 252
1 skill group rating 5: 75

C: 28/2 -- karma spent: 99-203

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Lowest cost:
14 skills at rating 2: 14 x 6 = 84
1 skill group at rating 2: 15

Highest cost:
4 skills at rating 6: 4 x 42 = 168
1 skill at rating 4: 20
1 skill group rating 2: 15

D: 22/0 -- karma spent: 66-146

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Lowest cost:
11 skills at rating 2: 11 x 6 = 66

Highest cost:
3 skills at rating 6: 3 x 42 = 126
1 skill at rating 4: 20

E: 18/0 -- karma spent: 54-126

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Lowest cost:
9 skills at rating 2: 9 x 6 = 54

Highest cost:
3 skills at rating 6: 3 x 42 = 126

Resources:

A: 450k = 250 karma

B: 275k = 138 karma

C: 140k = 70 karma

D: 50k = 25 karma

E: 6k = 3 karma

Compiled Table

[ Spoiler ]

.......Metatype....Attributes...Magic................Skills........Resources
A.....180............360-470.....qual+180-210...213-469.....225
B.....130-155......280-400.....qual+93-120....143-327.....138
C.....90-100........200-310....qual+29-51.......99-203.......70
D.....40-75..........170-270....qual+10...........66-146.......25
E.....10-30..........140-225.....0.....................54-126.......3

Discussion on the magic column

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There are some notable fuck-ups in the magic column. Being a technomancer costs more than being a mage by a long shot (21 to 30 karma difference). In priority B, being a FM costs same as Ad and same as AM (which is kind of strange to begin with), and in priority C, it is as if AM quality somehow costs 10 more karma than Ad or FM, and in D, Ad and AM are the same again. Overall I think there actually are incentives to NOT be an aspected mage, which I find frustrating.

In the following tables I use only the FM values.

Table of Averages (imo a good approx. of karma spending by a reasonable player)

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.......Metatype....Attributes...Magic.........Skills......Resources
A.....180............415.......qual+210........341........225
B.....143............340.......qual+120........235........138
C.....90............255.......qual+50..........151........70
D.....58..............220.......qual+10..........106........25
E......20.............183.......0....................90...........3

Table of average differences in cost by priority

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.........Metatype....Attributes...Magic.........Skills......Resources
A-B....37.............75..............90+q.........106........87
B-C....53.............85..............70+q.........84..........68
C-D....32.............35..............40+q.........45..........45
D-E.....38.............37..............10+q.........16..........22

Discussion on the differences table

[ Spoiler ]

The last table is very interesting to me, and shows that there are some strange things going on with the priority system. The last three columns are relatively consistent with each other, whereas the first two are all messed up.

The metatype column might be a bit weird because it also tries to account for other race options which were not included in my analysis, and the strange stuff that happens with trying to put some of the points in magic or resonance, especially with priorities A and B, but also for all computations related to it. In options C, D, E, if we assume that all goes in edge, it's much easier to deal with: you get karma costs of 100 ©, 45 (D), and 10 (E), which lead to differences of 55 and 32, which is more consistent with the rest.

The attribute column is really quite strange however (and this remains true even if we're not using the averages), with differences in the 30s between C-E and differences in around 80 for A-C... the other columns are all shaped similarly and even with very similar values as well, which I don't think is by accident. There are all sorts of things we might conclude from this.

Trying to estimate karma costs

[ Spoiler ]

Let's try, using the average values per priority, to evaluate how to maximize and minimize your karma spending with different paths in the priority table. Special care is taken to take into account the strangeness of the metatype column: i.e. if you're not a mage, the karma values are 100©, 45(D) and 10(E)

I have to give a value to the magical quality at this point, and I'll say that a reasonable value appears to be in the 10-25 range, for argument's sake, I will go with 15.

Highest karma path:
Skills A (341), Attributes B (340), Reources C (70), Metatype D (58), Magic E (0) = 809

Lowest karma path:
Metatype A (180), Resources B (138), Attributes C (255), Magic D (25), Skills E (90) = 688

I might have missed a better path in either direction, but interestingly the difference here isn't too high anymore. The average of highest and lowest karma paths is 748.5

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TLDR:

Proposed karma system based on the analysis above and really sticking to what I observed:

You get 1 in all stats for free, including special abilities which only appear if you pay for an appropriate quality.
You get to spend 775 karma, ignoring racial modifiers to attributes during char gen only.
Karma cost for choosing a metatype other than human: Elf (40), Ork (75), Dwarf (75), Troll (140)
To stay in the spirit of the current rules, don't spend more than half of the karma for skills on skill groups.
Similarly, Attributes are capped at 24 increases, normal skills at 50 total points, and skill groups at 15.
The maximum amount of nuyens you can obtain is 450,000.
You can spend 40 points to become a technomancer, or 15 points for being awakened (any kind, pick one).

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Of course, personally, I would change that last line for: You can spend 20 points to be a mystic adept, 15 points for technomancer, full mage or adept, and 5 points for being an aspected magician.

I plan to complete this analysis with more on the metatypes.

I know this is a hot topic and there are a lot of different things we might want to discuss, so fire away! Please stay on point though and avoid just flaming or raging about stuff you don't like.

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Edit: A few minor additions.

Edit 2: metatypes added in the suggested karma gen rules.

Edit 3: Note that you would get an additional 25 karma for the karma gen to be truly equivalent, accounting for the free 25 karma of the last step in the priority system.

[Muspellsheimr]

I had started this analysis a while back, but ended up quitting after the Magic/Resonance column. Glad to see someone finished the entire thing.

The priority character generation in Shadowrun 5 is one of the major reasons why I recommend people avoid the edition now, and these tables clearly illustrate one of the central problems I have with it.


Of special note though:

You get to spend 750 karma, ignoring racial modifiers to attributes during char gen only.

No.

This is the same issue I had with SR4 build points, part of the issue I have with SR5 priority, and with SR5 quality costs. The cost of acquiring something needs to be identical both during character generation and during gameplay, and in the case of attribute advancement, the cost should be based on the attribute prior to metatype 'modifiers' - this means a troll going from 5-6 strength only pays the cost of 1-2, but the same troll going from 1-2 charisma pays the cost of 3-4.

[Chrome Head]

I can't agree more. To me, we should ignore racial modifiers at all times. 50 karma to raise body to a troll's racial maximum, really!? But then again, do they include this drawback in the way they design those races? I don't know.

My proposed karma gen tries to stick to the RAW as closely as possible.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I had started this analysis a while back, but ended up quitting after the Magic/Resonance column. Glad to see someone finished the entire thing.

The priority character generation in Shadowrun 5 is one of the major reasons why I recommend people avoid the edition now, and these tables clearly illustrate one of the central problems I have with it.


Of special note though:

No.

This is the same issue I had with SR4 build points, part of the issue I have with SR5 priority, and with SR5 quality costs. The cost of acquiring something needs to be identical both during character generation and during gameplay, and in the case of attribute advancement, the cost should be based on the attribute prior to metatype 'modifiers' - this means a troll going from 5-6 strength only pays the cost of 1-2, but the same troll going from 1-2 charisma pays the cost of 3-4.

See, In Karma Gen, in 4th Edition, you do not get a free lunch when it comes to the enhanced Attributes of the Metatypes, unless you use a houserule. In the end, you will see a LOT of Median Range Metatype Stats, rather than high-end ones. Big benefit of the Metatype races is that you do not have to account for the Penalties of the Race (assuming they have any), since they only affect Attribute Maximums. And I LIKE that. You want to play a Troll with a 10 Strength/Body, it SHOULD cost you to do so. But then, I generally stick with Median Stats anyways, regardless of Race. Want higher stats, use Cyberware/Bioware. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Chrome Head]

I completed a similar analysis for each metatype and added that information in the karma gen suggested rules in the opening post. Once again, the karma costs correspond to the average drop in karma value you'd expect from choosing a different metatype in the sr5 priority system.

I personally don't like that elves are so dirt cheap right now. Trolls sure are expensive at a cost of 140 of your 750 karma allotment.

[Makki]

you're at least the fifth guy doing this. Could have saved yourself some math and just used the search function (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Chrome Head]

Oh well. It was fun doing it by myself anyway. It's not like I don't like the math, you know. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[ElFenrir]

What I don't like about the highly expensive 'lower' attributes with metas(paying after the minus), instead of just the lower cap, is that it encourages more stereotypes, and I'm not keen on that. (Don't get me wrong, so do non-karmgen systems, which is one thing I don't like about them, but I vastly prefer SR5's core Prio over the RAW 4e 400BP. Vastly.)

If a Troll needs 20 Karma to raise his Cha to 2, he's more likely to just play a bruiser, and I like seeing more metahuman variety, and like to support people playing metahuman variety. If someone WANTS that sure, but I don't like 'punishing' them for wanting to play 'off-class.' But then at the same time I don't want to overly punish people for wanting to actually play the stereotypes-I just don't want to push them too favored toward it. (Which is mainly why I've been messing with a different way of doing it; higher out of the gate Karma cost, but no extra cost for attributes with -'s on them, and everything gets purchased up from 1, regardless of the attribute getting a bonus or penalty. Just the caps you need to follow. So far it feels much better, IMO, for my table. Of course, other's mileage may vary. We tend to not play in a weekly game with 6+ karma per week like some though-we play more sparsely, and thus don't earn Karma as fast-so attributes are not something that go up quickly.)

Essentially, in my game, I ignore the modifiers in both chargen and later on. But with x5 Attribute Cost, that troll that wants a 10 Body(yes, that'll be 30 karma) is still 30 Karma, and unless you give enormous Karma awards, it'll take awhile. But this way since they know they won't have to pay out the nose for their bigger attributes and they don't have to pay too much for the lower ones, it actually encourages 'big physical stat' metas to play different things.

[Medicineman]

get the SR4A Rules (the errataed with Metarace Cost = BP Cost and Attr x 5 )
use 1000 Karma and 5000 ¥ per Pt. in Resources, get CHA x3 for Free Connection-Points(maybe also [INT & LOG]x2 free Knowledgepoints) and you're ready to go

With a simple Dance
Medicineman

[shinryu]

since this seems to be the actual karmagen thread:

agree that closer to 800 might be a better number in SR5 if you figure costs from min-maxing, which may be more appropriate. however, seems like magic is underpriced at 15 karma. quoting myself:

"equate magic to resources as best as possible. the best comparison i can find is wired reflexes 2, which is 2.5 power points for the adept equivalent or about 70 karma in resources. figuring for the difference between 2.5 and 3 power points, we'll call the equivalent used wired 2, which costs 55 karma in resources. since magic 3 would cost 25 karma, this analysis suggests the cost of entry for magic is 30 karma as well.

part 2 is figuring out how much better off a mage is than an adept or aspected magician.

priority B is the only good example of this. i'm going to ignore the skills for this part of the calculation. by priority b, you get a mage with magic 4 or an adept with magic 6. the difference between the two is a full 55 karma, which fits pretty well with a mage being three to four times as capable as an adept or aspected magician. it also suggests that being an aspected magician is 25 karma better than an adept, but i think that's too much for just one magic type and astral perception.

so we'll call it 30 to be an adept, 40 to be aspected, and 90 for full mage or mystic adept (extra five for astral projection or being a fucking mystic adept) with a magic of 1. call technomancers 40 too since they're priority C. 15 points a pop for power points seems fair for the mystic adept given he has to get them via initiation in play, so figure the average cost of 6 intiations is about 20 per power point, plus a small break for having to buy the magic attribute too. still, you get double the power you now pay the price."

otherwise it's so cheap to be an adept or a mage there's little reason not to outside of character concept. even at 40 + 100 karma for magic 6 an adept is still only spending as much karma as a sam does for full-out resources.

completely agree racial modifiers need to come after karma cost. otherwise you had better dump everything into a troll's body and strength off the top, cause they ain't going anywhere after character creation. i figured race costs as the modifier to the flat human attribute, but no breaks for drawbacks. hopefully balances the initial boost out.

[Wakshaani]

What I don't like about the highly expensive 'lower' attributes with metas(paying after the minus), instead of just the lower cap, is that it encourages more stereotypes, and I'm not keen on that. (Don't get me wrong, so do non-karmgen systems, which is one thing I don't like about them, but I vastly prefer SR5's core Prio over the RAW 4e 400BP. Vastly.)

If a Troll needs 20 Karma to raise his Cha to 2, he's more likely to just play a bruiser, and I like seeing more metahuman variety, and like to support people playing metahuman variety. If someone WANTS that sure, but I don't like 'punishing' them for wanting to play 'off-class.' But then at the same time I don't want to overly punish people for wanting to actually play the stereotypes-I just don't want to push them too favored toward it. (Which is mainly why I've been messing with a different way of doing it; higher out of the gate Karma cost, but no extra cost for attributes with -'s on them, and everything gets purchased up from 1, regardless of the attribute getting a bonus or penalty. Just the caps you need to follow. So far it feels much better, IMO, for my table. Of course, other's mileage may vary. We tend to not play in a weekly game with 6+ karma per week like some though-we play more sparsely, and thus don't earn Karma as fast-so attributes are not something that go up quickly.)

Essentially, in my game, I ignore the modifiers in both chargen and later on. But with x5 Attribute Cost, that troll that wants a 10 Body(yes, that'll be 30 karma) is still 30 Karma, and unless you give enormous Karma awards, it'll take awhile. But this way since they know they won't have to pay out the nose for their bigger attributes and they don't have to pay too much for the lower ones, it actually encourages 'big physical stat' metas to play different things.

Yeah, the big question in regards to races, and especially Trolls, is this:

Should the numbers be tweaked to encourage typical Trolls (Big, tough, strong, kinda dimwitted) or to encourage variety (Small, comparitively weak, brainy) ... if one's more affordable than the other, then people will naturally gravitate towards one or the other. Lean too far in one direction and you wind up introducing either a "Stereotype Tax" or a "Speial Snowflake" tax. Is there a way to avoid that feature and, if so, how? If not, then which tax do you put into place?

[shinryu]

Yeah, the big question in regards to races, and especially Trolls, is this:

Should the numbers be tweaked to encourage typical Trolls (Big, tough, strong, kinda dimwitted) or to encourage variety (Small, comparitively weak, brainy) ... if one's more affordable than the other, then people will naturally gravitate towards one or the other. Lean too far in one direction and you wind up introducing either a "Stereotype Tax" or a "Speial Snowflake" tax. Is there a way to avoid that feature and, if so, how? If not, then which tax do you put into place?

on the face of things, it seems like applying the racial modifiers after the fact avoids this problem, at least in play. the balancing question then becomes the fair cost of getting the boost out of the gate. i spec'd a troll at about 160 karma (70 karma x2 for body and strength at 5, 5 for thermographic, 5 for reach, 10 for armor based off toughness being 18 karma and armor being "half" as good). that seems like a fair cost of entry at 600-800 karma for a character, but perhaps not.

the problem ultimately is that's it's impossible to balance shadowrun in terms of karma costs without figuring out how much things like essence loss or having to buy a magic attribute really offset the cost of improvements via karma. in theory, you should pay as much for having strength 6 from cyber as you do from buying it naturally minus some modifier for essence loss, ala GURPS*. as is, the cheapest possible cost for an extra point of strength or agility is 5 karma (via used muscle replacement), which is a huge savings over karma advancement. essence loss balances this out, of course, but it's very difficult to calculate the real cost of essence loss. essence loss really becomes a meta-balancing "only so much of this shit you can pull" factor, rather than there being a clear difference in cyberware drawbacks = this reduction in karma cost. on the other hand, it's more expensive for adepts to get the next marginal point of enhanced attribute than improving the attribute normally, unless the attribute is already higher than the magic you'd need to buy to get enhanced attribute. but then you start initiating, and the costs get much cheaper again for any attribute over 4, at least for the first three initiations. so, yeah, total balancing is probably impossible without burning the system down and starting over.

*for fun, try to spec out a decent shadowrun mage in GURPS sometime. a thousand points, at least. even if you use the GURPS magic system as an approximation, the costs for being able to summon spirits alone using the ally rules are hundreds of points. every samurai ends up walking around with wired 3-equivalent cyberware and shit.

[Jhaiisiin]

Balancing by essence cost has the additional complication of there being essence grades, thus reducing the essence cost.

[Chrome Head]

What I did with the proposed karma costs in the OP is try to emulate the priority table in a way that you can build about equivalent characters either with my proposed karma gen or with the priority table.

I don't try to evaluate "how much a troll is worth" or "how much being an adept is worth", I just observe what the priority table designers assigned for the karma cost of those things, deliberately or not. In particular, notice the absurd cost for being a technomancer when compared to being a magic user. Or the fact that aspected magician has the same cost as being full magician. I still included those things, because I wanted to go for an impartial reproduction of the priority system into my proposed karma gen system.

Trying to make things better can get complicated, and becomes almost entirely opinion-based. I find it very hard to determine how to price access to magic-use and resonance, or even the price of being an elf for that matter. Right now, 40 for being an elf also seems way too low to me.

[shinryu]

Balancing by essence cost has the additional complication of there being essence grades, thus reducing the essence cost.

do you mean in terms of a system using essence as a separate number, or in terms of pro-rating karma cost due to the essence loss? in the former case, yeah, it's definitely a complication. in the latter case it's simply a matter of downscaling the price break to reflect the fact you're losing less essence. in an extreme example, if a theoretical high-grade bioware version of muscle toner gave you +1 strength without essence loss, then it's worth as much in karma as just getting your strength up to the new value naturally* in my opinion. it's the essence loss that gives you the price break.

bit of a tangent, but given augmentation bonuses stacking at +4 you could more fairly price attribute boosting ware or adept powers in terms of the costs for attributes 2 to 5, as with a flat racial bonus.

*excepting those odd cases where your augmented value doesn't count, another complication.

chrome head:

i agree trying to make things better is often a recipe for disaster, but catalyst screwed up the priority table really badly as it is. if there's not some incentive to be an aspected mage at least then something needs to change in about as objective sense as possible. the b priority is the only sensible insight we have into their intent in that case for now.

[Chrome Head]

i agree trying to make things better is often a recipe for disaster, but catalyst screwed up the priority table really badly as it is. if there's not some incentive to be an aspected mage at least then something needs to change in about as objective sense as possible. the b priority is the only sensible insight we have into their intent in that case for now.

Doing this exercise really made me realize that indeed there is something broken with the table. Overall, I'd say being a full mage or mystic adept is overpowered, and so are some specific choices for specific priorities. Above all, it seems that taking high priorities for skills and (to a lesser extent) attributes is a superior choice. Very annoying. I used to enjoy the BP system, but now I just can't stand anything other than a karma gen.

Now like we've been saying, the only problem is to determine how to fix the karma gen itself.

[ElFenrir]

Doing this exercise really made me realize that indeed there is something broken with the table. Overall, I'd say being a full mage or mystic adept is overpowered, and so are some specific choices for specific priorities. Above all, it seems that taking high priorities for skills and (to a lesser extent) attributes is a superior choice. Very annoying. I used to enjoy the BP system, but now I just can't stand anything other than a karma gen.

Now like we've been saying, the only problem is to determine how to fix the karma gen itself.

In any system that isn't Karmagen, it's worth, it, numerically, to take the stuff you want high off the bat, since it's going to take a long time to increase them. Skills don't suffer as much because they're cheaper, but even then, if you look at numbers, some might decide that they want their Face to be maxed in Negotiation out of the gate and then they can grab that 1 in whatever for 2 Karma later. Pistols(Revolvers) 5(+2) is really nice, but do you take 6(+2) now or pay 12 Karma in game to get it? Your Smart character is smart at Logic 5-do you sacrifice a point from somewhere for Logic 6 or pay the 30 Karma in game?

(And a disclaimer: This has NOTHING to do with 'well don't optimize and role play instead' that can get brought up. Optimization and Role Playing are NOT mutually exclusive and can co-exist and I've seen plenty of people who like to optimize have plenty of personality and awesome in their characters, and people who don't optimize who have characters with all the personality of Jell-O.)

Regardless if it's SR4BP, Priority, Sum to 10 Priority, SR3/SR2 Build Points, or what-if the stuff costs that much to raise in game, it's just more cost effective to take it while it's 'cheap'-which is arguably why karmagen in general IS, pound for pound, probably the most 'ideal' system. One thing was back in the day-Attributes were cheaper to raise. So it wasn't as bad to say, like 'Well, I want a smart/tough/fast/etc character. But I don't want to be deficient anywhere. I can sacrifice 1 point from whatever stat I want high because a 5 is still very high and toss the point into this 2 to make it a 3, and it won't cost me an arm and a leg to get a 6.' Now it IS expensive, so in a non Karmagen based system, yeah, people want to likely get the attributes they want at the start.(Especially since skills go to 12 now.)

Now, again, Karmagen has it's own bits of min-maxing involved; as I've said it's not immune to it. There's a bit of the old 'Well, I can buy this, or this AND this, or these THREE things, for X amount of Karma.' Like, 25 Karma can be 2 skills raised from 5 to 6, or 2 new skills of 3, or an Attribute raised from 2 to 3, or 4 skills at 2, or a whole lot of skills combined at 1 and 2, and so on. It's just it takes the whole 'It'll be cheaper now than later to get whatever I want' out of the picture, which is a benefit(and it does allow for more fine-tuning, which is another benefit.)

I have to disagree that priority is broken; I find it quite nice for making a large variety of concepts, and haven't run into any blatant problems with it. I don't think any of them are totally overpowered, to be honest, but my idea of OP may be different than someone else's. I've made a lot of characters, but I can't find where anything here is more broken than any Priority system in the past. IMO, it has the standard 'Advantages and Disadvantages' of any other Karma system. (Older Karma systems did have a similar level of 'get it now or later'-but as I said above, stuff was cheaper to raise in the old days, so people could worry less about it. That's a result of prohibitive costs in game, IMO, rather than the chargen system itself.)

[Irion]

Doing this exercise really made me realize that indeed there is something broken with the table. Overall, I'd say being a full mage or mystic adept is overpowered, and so are some specific choices for specific priorities. Above all, it seems that taking high priorities for skills and (to a lesser extent) attributes is a superior choice. Very annoying. I used to enjoy the BP system, but now I just can't stand anything other than a karma gen.

Now like we've been saying, the only problem is to determine how to fix the karma gen itself.

Skills at a high priority is great, no question about that. High priority for attributes on the other hand is questionable. With C you will be close to the 300 Karma but with A I guess you won't be making the 470 Karma. Add to that the fact, that you do not need every attribute at an high value for every character....So there is potential to be wasted.

Skills are that great, because of those skill-groups. But again 10 skill groups? When to use?
The major issue in any prority system is to get the priorities sorted in order to achiev 2 goals.
1. Get a working character.
2. Get a good deal for your Karma.

Now a mage hast to start with low resources, I guess.
Lets just go though it for a mage:
Race: Can be anywhere, even down to E but to have Edge is always nice.
Magic: Has to be at least C
Attributes: The higher the better. Should be C or above.
Skills: At least C or you do not get any skill group.
Ressource: I guess taking E here does not hurt much...

Of course I could go with:
Magic A, Skills B, Attribute C, Race D and Ressources E.
So I got myself a low Edge human with no starting gear, a lot of Skills and high Magic.

[shinryu]

I have to disagree that priority is broken; I find it quite nice for making a large variety of concepts, and haven't run into any blatant problems with it. I don't think any of them are totally overpowered, to be honest, but my idea of OP may be different than someone else's. I've made a lot of characters, but I can't find where anything here is more broken than any Priority system in the past. IMO, it has the standard 'Advantages and Disadvantages' of any other Karma system. (Older Karma systems did have a similar level of 'get it now or later'-but as I said above, stuff was cheaper to raise in the old days, so people could worry less about it. That's a result of prohibitive costs in game, IMO, rather than the chargen system itself.)

the problem isn't so much "can't handle certain concepts" as "why would you ever gimp yourself by doing that?" the biggest offenders are aspected mages, who are vastly inferior to a full mage or mystic adept and yet get no bonus over them except at priority B. giving an aspected mage skill groups for free is actually a penalty in a way, since he then gets less karma for his choice as compared to getting x number of spells. in addition, the aspected mage's "bonus" at priority B is a single magic point. one. this for giving up astral projection/adept powers and two other schools of magic. you can make an "aspected" mage by just being a mage and only taking the skills you like without locking yourself out of huge areas of future capability. advantages to be aspected? nope. you're just a dipshit for being one. sorry about the great character ideas for aspected mages that shits on.

magic in general is too cheap at character creation, but i concede that is a personal setting gripe to some extent; if aspected mages are so much more common than full mages, then you either need a carrot that encourages you to make one or a stick that makes being a full mage prohibitive unless you devote your resources fully to being one. however, the imbalance between types of magic user is about an objective a problem as there can be in game design. it's so bad not even a single archetype is aspected in the examples.

[Chrome Head]

the problem isn't so much "can't handle certain concepts" as "why would you ever gimp yourself by doing that?" the biggest offenders are aspected mages, who are vastly inferior to a full mage or mystic adept and yet get no bonus over them except at priority B. giving an aspected mage skill groups for free is actually a penalty in a way, since he then gets less karma for his choice as compared to getting x number of spells. in addition, the aspected mage's "bonus" at priority B is a single magic point. one. this for giving up astral projection/adept powers and two other schools of magic. you can make an "aspected" mage by just being a mage and only taking the skills you like without locking yourself out of huge areas of future capability. advantages to be aspected? nope. you're just a dipshit for being one. sorry about the great character ideas for aspected mages that shits on.

magic in general is too cheap at character creation, but i concede that is a personal setting gripe to some extent; if aspected mages are so much more common than full mages, then you either need a carrot that encourages you to make one or a stick that makes being a full mage prohibitive unless you devote your resources fully to being one. however, the imbalance between types of magic user is about an objective a problem as there can be in game design. it's so bad not even a single archetype is aspected in the examples.

The aspected mage is really not a good option at any of the levels, except perhaps at D for having the chance to have magic at such a low priority, but who wants that anyway. The magic rating for aspected mages, in priorities B, C, and D, could be 1 point higher, and I'd still consider the full mage option to be clearly superior. But at least it would be a start. If/when I GM SR5, I will just use karma gen instead though, so whatever.

[PriorityKarmaGen]

Here's my attempt at it.

I started with the assumption that a given priority level adds the same amount of karma no matter what category it's used in.

We came up with similar total karma values (750 vs. 775) and our metahuman/magic/resonance quality costs are also very similar.

[Chrome Head]

Interesting take on it. I'm not surprised it ends up with similar values, as it appears to use just as objective an approach. I disagree with your conclusion that adept and aspected is 5 points less than full mage and mystic adept. To me the table clearly shows, numerically speaking, that they are all valued at about the same, or that aspected costs a little more, and I suspect a bias because you wouldn't want it to be that way.

[PriorityKarmaGen]

Interesting take on it. I'm not surprised it ends up with similar values, as it appears to use just as objective an approach. I disagree with your conclusion that adept and aspected is 5 points less than full mage and mystic adept. To me the table clearly shows, numerically speaking, that they are all valued at about the same, or that aspected costs a little more, and I suspect a bias because you wouldn't want it to be that way.

I used the lowest priority level with the quality to determine the cost. I think when I looked at a higher priority levels, they may have been the same cost. Regardless, I'd agree the costing of magic/resonance qualities is really wonky (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . 5 karma is not enough to compensate the downsides of Aspected Magicians. Not to mention, WTF were they smoking with technomancers?

By the way, I'm pretty sure Ork should cost a bit more than Dwarf due to the difference in Priority C.

[ElFenrir]

Out of the current karmagen I'm working on now(and I realized something that actually isn't as bad as everyone made it out to be as I'll post soon, but it's long), I have Orks at 60 and Dwarves at 50(with 730 still being the amount.)

The thing I realized is that, using the old method of 'start at base and buy up, yes, this means expensive big stats', I am able to make Trolls-even costing 130-perfectly fine under the method. Sure, they give up stuff for buying high levels in big stats, but they *should.* No race or combo can have everything, and they're no exception. I made 'Textbook the Troll', who rocks a 9 Body and Strength with this method(despite the fact they both cost 150 Karma each), who has a decent enough spread of skills, no 1's, and even a nice chunk of nuyen to spend. Oh, he's not overly loaded in other zones, but IMO? He's a textbook troll for those who want to play one.

I'm beginning to think that the whole 'the old Karmagen with the German Errata doesn't work for trolls' was more 'The old Karmagen with the German Errata doesn't work for trolls because I can't make a troll with two 10's and max stats in everything else.' No one can do that. I'm looking at the characters I made now under this method, and it's fine. It's really, really fine, and I'm really wondering what the big deal was. (To be fair, skills cost a bit more under the old system; the first point was 4 instead of 2 and it could add up a bit, but still.) Honestly I think I might run with this. I've made 'Wheezy the Troll' (one with more heavily weighted mental stats), 'Textbook the Troll' and 'Average the Troll', and they all work just fine so far. I'm testing other races out at the moment and so far, I haven't come across anything silly.

[Chrome Head]

Well I have to say that we all have a different approach to how we come up with our proposed karma gen system. It's hard to find a concensus although we are all in the same ball park.

My intuition was really just to emulate the priority table with karma, to allow for more flexibility and prevent the obvious min/maxing problems of wanting max stats and skills as much as possible, because it's worth so much more karma. This way you could also consider that either generation method leads to roughly equal characters. I think I have achieved that.

Now, back to the discussion of what we would want to see in a good karma gen. I really like the idea of paying a hefty price for your race, but then not paying the extreme karma costs of high stats on top of that. To complement this, I would also continue to not overcharge the racially modified attributes during gameplay as well.

If you go the other route of charging karma costs as in the book for racial attributes, then definitely consider lowering the race costs a bit to allow more wiggle room. It becomes complicated though, because if they are too low, then you get "free attribute points" in a way. Still, I would never consider 130 karma for being troll as the right amount in that setting. I think somewhere around 100 should be more appropriate.

About Dwarves vs Orks, with the technique I used, priority C didn't come up for the calculation of cheapest or most expensive path so that difference was lost. To stick to the rulebook as much as possible, the difference between them should be at the very most 5 karma, since the only difference comes in priority C, and it is pretty much worth 10 karma.