[X] My Assistant

[tete]

this thread has taught me i still need to wait on buying 4 copies of SR5...

[Fatum]

The issue here is how logical those consequences that are to be enforced are supposed to be. I love Mass Effect as an example in what comes to consequences - like, you know how your guys will die in the last mission to a stray bullet unless you did their loyalty mission? That's consequence alright, but it follows from the world's logic in no way.
Having cyberzombie mage snipers ambush your team for daring to do the smart thing and turn the wireless off makes about as much sense.

[Glyph]

I think a GM needs to challenge players on multiple vectors, and not worry if they are good at resisting one avenue of attack. Let them get what they paid for or planned for. Let the troll unflinchingly soak small arms fire, or the old-fashioned gunslinger laugh at hackers trying to crack his non-existent wireless link, or the mage stop incoming hostile spells like a magical defensive lineman. There are still plenty of other ways to challenge them! The limited resources available at character creation ensure that even the most well-crafted characters will have some vulnerabilities, by necessary omissions if nothing else.

[Machiavelli]

I heavily hate SR5. We just had our first session yesterday and i really don´t see any improvement in comparison to SR4. I DO admit, that i only know about combat and magic rules and care a sh**t about hacking/decking, but at least in my 2 fields of work, there is nothing better than before.

Limits: Limits sounded right at the beginning, but after what happened yesterday limits can lick my ba**ls. SR is a game played with dice. The lower your pool is, the lower the chance to succeed in a test. If i play a goon with 3 dice and i have the luck to get 3 successes, these 3 successes SHOULD COUNT. You have earned it, Lady Luck said it so...whatever. But that successes don´t count because of some stupid limit....? What did they think about it? If i play a combat oriented char. my physical attributes are high anyway. So i have limits so high, that i have problems to roll an equivalent number of hits.

Higher Skills: Karma rewards dropped in average by 30% compared to SR4 (IF you don´t fight against high-end runners with dice pools of 20 commonly), but you have skill ratings double as high than before. What does this mean? Either you can´t raise your skills over 6 (maybe just one main skill) and your other dice pools will basically stay the same like at character creation. So why the hell can the skills be raised anyway if barely nothing changes? For the OPTION? Bull***t and you know it. If i can´t reach the maximum skill ratings, i don´t see the meaning of implementing some.

Magic: I don´t think that i have to point out the great developments the Devs did. Direct compat spells are useless, indirect ones are not worth the drain and every GM will hate what will - no, what HAS to happen next: Mind-Control-mages everywhere. Highly specialized on maniulation spells - up to the point they can´t do anything else (because as if the mages weren´t f**ed up enough, now the defensive dice pool of an enemy can be nearly as high as yours (two attributes)) and if your opposition has a mage with spell defense, you can basically go home or order some pizza. To be at least a bit competent you still have to focus on mental attributes, so that you are STILL a glass cannon, but now - newly and improved - without a cannon....have fun!!!

Spirits: If i haven´t overread something important, spirits a still a high risk to summon because of the drain. Low-level-spirits are still useless in combat and high level spirits can now be blown away with a common gun, because the damage codes of the weapons were improved SO MUCH, that even a heavy pistol will automatically bypass the ITNW. Auto-successes really don´t better the situation and a force 6 spirit, hurt by a Ares Predator (without armor piercing ammo) is just wrong.

Rituals: I have to PAY to know a ritual? Karma? From what karma? The one that has been reduced already? The one i have to invest in double-high skills? Now i even don´t know how to summon a Watcher anymore? Or a ward? Things that have been basic knowledge in prevoius editions? Sorry but i don´t get it. How often do you use Ritual Spellcasting? Or a Watcher? It is NEVER worth the costs. Don´t even think about the TIME the need to finish the ritual. Circle of Defense that will be completet after [force] hours? What use should this ritual have? If it would be a Dresden-files-circle-in-a-second....ok. But hours? Useless bull***t, but HEY....THANK YOU FOR OPTIONS...Options that will NEVER be used because of stupidity. Thank you for even more useless watchers, that will now rather be replaced by force 1 spirits.

Echanting / Reagents: read the rules or believe me that it is useless to need hours to make a preparation that will last minutes, (unless you spend karma that you don´t have) and you save a lot of time. But again, THANK YOU FOR THE OPTIONS...if you play a game where your alchemist-lab is located in a van, so that the mage can prepare the useful stuff on-time and can jump in action right after finishing the preparation..it may be different. I still wonder how you will get that van into the high-security-office on the 120th floor you have to inflitrate, but hey....i am sure for every other playing group this is common business....NOT.

Wireless: What did they smoke as they came to this solution? Did a guy from the Shadowrun-Police stay behind them with a club, forcing them to do SOMETHING, no matter if it makes sense? And in the overall panic they came to this rule? Guys: The meaning of a smartlink is to give additional dice. Now the MAIN-PURPOSE only works as an addition? An addition that makes you vulnerable to attacks? Bull***t. And hardware damaged by hacker attacks? Wonder how this can happen. But logic doesn´t seem to be the strong side of these guys. Maybe they shouldn´t have fired all the competent employees and freelancers and keep the game-balancing to guys who know the game.

Mystic Adepts: So you really wanna tell me, that i can be a mage AND a FULLY CAPABLE Adept at the same time, WITHOUT negative consequences? Please tell me, WHY the hell somebody should play a common adept anymore. IIRC the mystic adepts had been called overpowered in SR4 and THIS is your solution? Aha...ok.

Elemental-Attack: only magic meters? Really?

RESULT: See first line of my post. If prevoius books don´t fix the system massively, SR5 is the worst system that has ever been published. Sometimes it looks to me, that they wanted to purchase the licence for Cyperpunk 2077 but couldn´t get it. So they reduce the magic-part of SR over time until it is the same. To the devs: Guys...SR is a game-world WITH MAGIC. MAGIC IS POWERFUL, OTHERWISE IT WOULDN`T BE MAGIC. DEAL WITH IT FOR GODS SAKE!!!

[binarywraith]

That sure is a lot of butthurt.

The limits and skill limitations are there to create a sense of meaningful growth in character progression. In the SR4 style, and less so but still quite evident in the SR3 style, a character will have 90% of everything they'll ever have coming out of character creation. Limits have since been imposed to make starting characters obviously weaker than experienced characters.

Beyond that, yes. Magic is no long a push to win button. Your mileage may obviously vary on the quality of the methods used. For magic to be a PC usable skill, it has to be able to be brought within a mile or two of being balanced compared to other character choices, rather than being 'cast stunbolt, win combat, rinse and repeat'.

That said, it sounds like you may want to stick with SR4, given how angry a different game balance set seems to make you.

[Medicineman]

In the SR4 style, and less so but still quite evident in the SR3 style, a character will have 90% of everything they'll ever have coming out of character creation.

This happened twice to me/my Chars in SR3 and never ,ever in 4A. most of my Chars need some 100 Karma to develope and maybe 800-1000 or more Karma to be at the End of Developement and I consider myself a Min/Maxer.
Saying that all starting Chars are at 90% final Potential is quite ...subjective
But Machiavelli has a good Argument (besides his ranting)
If You need more Karma to develope Your Char and You receive less Karma per Adventure it takes even longer for Chars to develope/prosper and thus the Game can be more frustrating than former Editions

with a developed Dance
Medicineman

[Stahlseele]

And he did not even mention that you are supposed to get even less karma, if you follow the way of money and not be a goody two shoes instead.

[Smirnov]

What are these rules contradictions you keep talking about? Besides troll lifestyle costs and all those mistakes from previews

[Fatum]

What are these rules contradictions you keep talking about? Besides troll lifestyle costs and all those mistakes from previews

There.

[Smash]

Limits: Limits sounded right at the beginning, but after what happened yesterday limits can lick my ba**ls. SR is a game played with dice. The lower your pool is, the lower the chance to succeed in a test. If i play a goon with 3 dice and i have the luck to get 3 successes, these 3 successes SHOULD COUNT. You have earned it, Lady Luck said it so...whatever. But that successes don´t count because of some stupid limit....? What did they think about it? If i play a combat oriented char. my physical attributes are high anyway. So i have limits so high, that i have problems to roll an equivalent number of hits.

Limits are simply there to stop people heading straight for dice pool caps which slow down the game. Now you have to work on not only your skill pool but your limit as well. Your character still improves but without needing a bucket and a boxing ring to roll your tests (at least initially). Even your example is confusing because in most cases the limit the goon will have with any weapon will be greater than 3.

Higher Skills: Karma rewards dropped in average by 30% compared to SR4 (IF you don´t fight against high-end runners with dice pools of 20 commonly), but you have skill ratings double as high than before. What does this mean? Either you can´t raise your skills over 6 (maybe just one main skill) and your other dice pools will basically stay the same like at character creation. So why the hell can the skills be raised anyway if barely nothing changes? For the OPTION? Bull***t and you know it. If i can´t reach the maximum skill ratings, i don´t see the meaning of implementing some.

Does Shadowrun 5 have hard and fast Karma rules now? I haven't read this anywhere (although that certainly doesn't mean it isn't there) but in every edition thus far karma has been totally subjective. You want your game to progress faster then award more karma, if not then award less. I don't see an issue here besides you just looking for things to hate.

Magic: I don´t think that i have to point out the great developments the Devs did. Direct compat spells are useless, indirect ones are not worth the drain and every GM will hate what will - no, what HAS to happen next: Mind-Control-mages everywhere. Highly specialized on maniulation spells - up to the point they can´t do anything else (because as if the mages weren´t f**ed up enough, now the defensive dice pool of an enemy can be nearly as high as yours (two attributes)) and if your opposition has a mage with spell defense, you can basically go home or order some pizza. To be at least a bit competent you still have to focus on mental attributes, so that you are STILL a glass cannon, but now - newly and improved - without a cannon....have fun!!!

Direct combat spells are not useless. They are just niche now instead of a complete no-brainer like they were before. Having indirect spells being more generally effective has made Shadowrun magic more thematic, which is a good thing.

Mind control mages were MORE overpowered in 4th ed than they are now. I think you'll find that most people who have jumped on that concept have not actually read the rules on how mental manipulation spells work now. For instance getting 2 mental stats to resist is a massive improvement and being able to shake the effect is also new.

Spirits: If i haven´t overread something important, spirits a still a high risk to summon because of the drain. Low-level-spirits are still useless in combat and high level spirits can now be blown away with a common gun, because the damage codes of the weapons were improved SO MUCH, that even a heavy pistol will automatically bypass the ITNW. Auto-successes really don´t better the situation and a force 6 spirit, hurt by a Ares Predator (without armor piercing ammo) is just wrong.

I think people have lost perspective on how good spirits are. It gives you a sentient follower who can potentially use magic, move through walls, fly and have excellent durability which you can summon with one action. They are better than any single spell by a country mile........... and you hate how they're no longer virtually immortal to non-casters? Jeez.................

Rituals: I have to PAY to know a ritual? Karma? From what karma? The one that has been reduced already? The one i have to invest in double-high skills? Now i even don´t know how to summon a Watcher anymore? Or a ward? Things that have been basic knowledge in prevoius editions? Sorry but i don´t get it. How often do you use Ritual Spellcasting? Or a Watcher? It is NEVER worth the costs. Don´t even think about the TIME the need to finish the ritual. Circle of Defense that will be completet after [force] hours? What use should this ritual have? If it would be a Dresden-files-circle-in-a-second....ok. But hours? Useless bull***t, but HEY....THANK YOU FOR OPTIONS...Options that will NEVER be used because of stupidity. Thank you for even more useless watchers, that will now rather be replaced by force 1 spirits.

I'd suggest that if you were up with your mechanics that force one spirits are actually quite hard to summon and that is probably why they have made watchers a ritual, but that aside I actually kind of agree that perhaps this is not a virtue of the system, although circle of healing is a nice ritual.

Echanting / Reagents: read the rules or believe me that it is useless to need hours to make a preparation that will last minutes, (unless you spend karma that you don´t have) and you save a lot of time. But again, THANK YOU FOR THE OPTIONS...if you play a game where your alchemist-lab is located in a van, so that the mage can prepare the useful stuff on-time and can jump in action right after finishing the preparation..it may be different. I still wonder how you will get that van into the high-security-office on the 120th floor you have to inflitrate, but hey....i am sure for every other playing group this is common business....NOT.

Enchanting was more useless in prior editions. It certainly needs some clarification but your description is full of hyperbole. It doesn't take hours to prepare but actually minutes. It doesn't last minutes it actually lasts hours before it even starts to lose potency. When you use the preparation it does actually only last minutes then but how long does it have to last? A combat turn lasts 3 seconds. The benefit of removing drain from combat (and possibly even sustaining penalties, although this pushes the whole thing into over-powered status and needs to be clarified) is simply awesome and easy to manage.

True you can't make 50 of them now and start using them next week but that doesn't make alchemy useless, it just makes it a strategic resource.

Personally, I don't like it, but it's easily ignored just like I assume you have been in 4th edition anyway?

Wireless: What did they smoke as they came to this solution? Did a guy from the Shadowrun-Police stay behind them with a club, forcing them to do SOMETHING, no matter if it makes sense? And in the overall panic they came to this rule? Guys: The meaning of a smartlink is to give additional dice. Now the MAIN-PURPOSE only works as an addition? An addition that makes you vulnerable to attacks? Bull***t. And hardware damaged by hacker attacks? Wonder how this can happen. But logic doesn´t seem to be the strong side of these guys. Maybe they shouldn´t have fired all the competent employees and freelancers and keep the game-balancing to guys who know the game.

Again, this is a viewpoint generated by people who read the rules and saw the implications to their favorite OP street-sam. The intent of the system is that deckers are rare and should not pose much of a threat to Runners out in the real world. Corporate deckers are too busy guarding nodes to be patrolling corporate grounds waiting to brick Shadowrunner cyberware, especially as a deck that isn't completely worthless costs about $150k. On the flip-side the new marix protocols took 99% of hackers out of the game, so NPCs should feel quite comfortable leaving their wireless on for the benefits. Not only that but if you slave all your gear to a good comlink (or your deckers deck) it's very hard for a decker to touch your stuff and you will know when they are doing it. They basically have to be within 100m to do it to you and have to have spotted your devices in the matrix previously (not just randomly find them online). There are some issues when perhaps a decker becomes familiar with your gear and escapes combat they can THEN find your stuff online but they will have to worry about noice and the GOD (if they are not corp sanctioned) and other hacking duties that don't go away.

The rest of the arguments about wireless are driven by realism, which I don't care about because I play a fricking vampire in the future. Realism need not apply. If you just let the wireless system be what it is it works fine. You may even find that someone might actually want to play a decker which hasn't happened since about 2nd Ed I think in most people's experience.

Mystic Adepts: So you really wanna tell me, that i can be a mage AND a FULLY CAPABLE Adept at the same time, WITHOUT negative consequences? Please tell me, WHY the hell somebody should play a common adept anymore. IIRC the mystic adepts had been called overpowered in SR4 and THIS is your solution? Aha...ok.

I agree this needs some work. I think Mystic adepts needed to be improved from 4th Ed but they are definitely too good now. Some minor tweaks will do that. Still not a terminal issue for the edition though.

Elemental-Attack: only magic meters? Really?

Maybe a little short. LOS with no range penalty was too good though.

RESULT: See first line of my post. If previous books don´t fix the system massively, SR5 is the worst system that has ever been published. Sometimes it looks to me, that they wanted to purchase the license for Cyperpunk 2077 but couldn´t get it. So they reduce the magic-part of SR over time until it is the same. To the devs: Guys...SR is a game-world WITH MAGIC. MAGIC IS POWERFUL, OTHERWISE IT WOULDN`T BE MAGIC. DEAL WITH IT FOR GODS SAKE!!!

That's clearly not the case. Shadowrun has much better penetration than Cyberpunk which I think no-one has played since about 1990. So for this edition is the best one they've ever made. Deckers are back, cool and playable. A mage can choose other spells besides stun/power/bolt/ball now which is awesome! This is by far the best edition to date.

NOTE: People considering the switch, the pdf is $20, hardly a big deal. Just get it and give it a read. Don't take negative opinions on forums too much into account. No matter what the topic, negative opinions are always over-represented on internet forums because most people happy with a product are too busy being happy with it to come here and tell you about it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Smirnov]

There.

I was hoping for some summary. ) Can't force myself to read that thread...

[tete]

Higher Skills:[/b][/u] Karma rewards dropped in average by 30% compared to SR4 (IF you don´t fight against high-end runners with dice pools of 20 commonly), but you have skill ratings double as high than before. What does this mean? Either you can´t raise your skills over 6 (maybe just one main skill) and your other dice pools will basically stay the same like at character creation. So why the hell can the skills be raised anyway if barely nothing changes? For the OPTION? Bull***t and you know it. If i can´t reach the maximum skill ratings, i don´t see the meaning of implementing some.

Magic: I don´t think that i have to point out the great developments the Devs did. Direct compat spells are useless, indirect ones are not worth the drain and every GM will hate what will - no, what HAS to happen next: Mind-Control-mages everywhere. Highly specialized on maniulation spells - up to the point they can´t do anything else (because as if the mages weren´t f**ed up enough, now the defensive dice pool of an enemy can be nearly as high as yours (two attributes)) and if your opposition has a mage with spell defense, you can basically go home or order some pizza. To be at least a bit competent you still have to focus on mental attributes, so that you are STILL a glass cannon, but now - newly and improved - without a cannon....have fun!!!
... snip ...
To the devs: Guys...SR is a game-world WITH MAGIC. MAGIC IS POWERFUL, OTHERWISE IT WOULDN`T BE MAGIC. DEAL WITH IT FOR GODS SAKE!!!

I have a 2E Character with over 500 karma (roughly 3 years of play), another guy in that group is nearing 1k. These characters were not possible in 4e as there was no room for growth. You have 1k karma in 4e and your playing the Mage/Hacker/Street Sam with nothing to spend karma on.

Mind control spells are the only thing I know of in SR4 that doesnt have at least 2 pools to pull from. Its not like they sell mind armor. So broken, 4e was Magic-run more so than 3e which seemed again to be way easy on the Spellcasters compared with 2e (where each drain code was a separate spell you paid exponential karma on). Now magic getting easier makes sense with the whole earthdawn tie ins but Mind control was still stupid easy in 4e.

[Glyph]

SR3 was probably the high point for awakened characters, power-wise. SR4 made them slightly less powerful, although there were a few problem areas such as spirits being too hard for mundanes to damage at all, overcasting being too easy to do, and mental manipulation spells being potentially game-wrecking. Possession traditions were also a can of worms - mainly from it being abused against opponents (there should have been a rule for it to work on prepared vessels only, rather than making everyone vulnerable to an attack from astral space).

SR5, unfortunately, hit mages too hard with the nerf bat, to the point where they are barely effective. Or maybe it only looks that way. I would love for DrZaius to have a mage vs. mundane battle on his next Saturday Night Pit Fight, so we can see how good (or, more likely, bad) mages are in combat. But spells have higher Drain, do lower base damage (for direct combat spells), and the target gets two Attributes to resist them even though hits are still capped. So they don't look that viable to me, outside of a support role.

[binarywraith]

I was hoping for some summary. ) Can't force myself to read that thread...

You really have to read the thread to get the full scope of just how badly edited the 5e release is. The thing's riddled with issues that a more careful proofing would have eliminated.

My favorite one so far is used cyberware at character creation. The character creation chapter says you can get standard, alphaware, or used cyberware at creation. The gear section uses the exact same sentence structure, but specifically says you can only get standard or alphaware at creation.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Medicineman]

@Tete

I have a 2E Character with over 500 karma (roughly 3 years of play), another guy in that group is nearing 1k. These characters were not possible in 4e as there was no room for growth. You have 1k karma in 4e and your playing the Mage/Hacker/Street Sam with nothing to spend karma on.

I Myself have dozens of chars that prove you wrong. I calculated that they neeed 1500-2000 Karma (some even more) to be fully developed.
(and I'm afraid I will never see that coming because I don't play often enough)

Hmmm If You get an average of 5 Karma per run, it would take You about 200 Runs to get at 1000 Karma.
If you play once a week( Each Sunday f.e.) and you finish a Run with one or sometimes two Sessions ( my Groups need mostly 1 or 2 Sessions per Run )
Than you need an average of 6 Years of continous playing with only one Char each week (or even longer)
So If You start playing now each and every Week once You're at 1000 Karma CGL wil bring out SR 6th Ed.
What I'm saying is that talking about extreme high end Chars is ....kinda moot.
It reminds me of People complaining that MAG is theoretically unlimited with Initiations but they keep forgetting that it takes 200 Karma to raise MAG from 5 -->9 only

with a theoretically unlimited Dance
Medicineman

[binarywraith]

You can tack any amount of karma bloat onto any character, Medicineman. But how much of that was actually honestly going to expand your character's ability in their primary role, and not just adding ability to cover secondary roles and more options in tough situations?

A well-rounded character has many more ways to meaningfully grow, and putting limits on how deeply specialized a character can be coming out of creation is one way to encourage making more rounded characters.

[Fatum]

Yeah, thing is, sammies encounter the same problems (try saving up the money for wired reflexes 3, especially non-standardware), but don't have that unlimited potential. It's the asymmetry that is the issue.

[apple]

But even as a Streetsam in SR4 you can put hundreds of karma into combat/physical skills and combat advantages. Increasing the limit to 12 is too much, 8or 9 would have been better - and the so much talked OP of mages is mostly a result of overcasting of spells and spirits (even the infamous stunbolt is only so effective because he can be cast on force 9 to 11 with low drain) and a lot of GMs missing basic rules (like BGC or +4 spelldefense when in cover). Remove overcasting (or reduce it to magic +2), increase the drain of combat spells a little bit, decrease the drain of elemental spells et voila, a lot of problems are gone.

SYL

[Godwyn]

I wasn't active on forums for the 3rd to 4th changes, but are all edition changes so divisive? I read Machiavelli's long rant about SR5, and most of the points made are changes I liked. Adding limits forced me to reevaluate the way I've built certain archetypes time and again. That's a good thing.

Awakened still rule the world a bit too much sadly, but SR5 has it close to where it needs to be. They just always have more options for development. If ever a piece of cyber is more valuable than a point of magic, they can make that choice, mundanes never get the option in reverse (in the case of latent awakening they are not actually mundane). And with unlimited caps on initiation/magic, there is really no upper limit to either side for them. Though that does rarely come into play.

Honestly, the all caps ranting about magic makes me think, and I admit I could be wrong, that his personal cheese finally got called out, so now he has to adapt and refuses to. The campaign I currently run has 4 awakened and 1 decker with his deck in a cyberarm. So. . .I really don't see this OMG magic is unplayable. If it was maybe I could get more of my players to play cyberpunk not magicrun. And no, none of them are ever useless. From the mage levitating cars to cause wrecks during a car chase, to the adept Sammy who destroys things in combat, everyone does their role well. Which I think is the most important part of an cooperative RPG, everyone has a part to contribute. It is far more difficult for an awakened character to be able to come out of chargen doing everything. I find this to be a good thing. I want the players who play different aspects of the game to not get outshown in that aspect by single spells representing only a 5 karma aside from the mage.

On Mystic Adepts-I have found that in actual play, with the Missions errata to 5 karma per powerpoint at chargen, and the changes to power point acquisition, they are fairly balanced. On paper they look too good, but from what I have seen in play is they get spread too thin.

Spirits- I am comfortable with most of the changes, some bad some good. No longer can I have my half dozen+ watcher spirits floating around, ah well. Spirits do still have some problems, I like them being hurt by mundanes. It helps stop the magicrun problem. If only awakened can deal with spirits, what do mundanes do to spirits on a run? Why have a mundane at all if magic can always contribute, but in some circumstances the mundane never can? My personal preference would be for each spirit type to have a weakness so mundanes could combat them similar to Supernatural, but I will settle for mundanes simply not being useless. This makes having ranks in magical knowledge useful for even a cybersam just to know what loadout to use, and how to identify the types.

Matrix-If they only brought back implanted hard drives and megapulses, I would be set (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . Best matrix rules in awhile. A very good meshing of workable rules (generally) with SR fluff, without getting too distracted by how computers really work.

Wireless-I dislike the bonuses. Not the concept, the implementation. Too many of them are pointless functionality, or actually a detriment. Stealth suit needing wireless? Why stealth when you are broadcasting your location?

As for hacking them, it is dataspike which is the biggest problem. Though it does take a very good deck to do it, one shotting gear with a dataspike with no marks on it gets pretty easy.

As for editing and typos and layout. Those are all pretty bad. But some excellent artwork and the 3 page fold outs of the cityscapes are phenomenal.

I think it comes pretty clearly that I like the new edition. But I love learning new systems and then playing with them, as long as the system is good and functional. And SR5 is good and functional, though it is a few steps from perfect.

[Ryu]

You can tack any amount of karma bloat onto any character, Medicineman. But how much of that was actually honestly going to expand your character's ability in their primary role, and not just adding ability to cover secondary roles and more options in tough situations?

A well-rounded character has many more ways to meaningfully grow, and putting limits on how deeply specialized a character can be coming out of creation is one way to encourage making more rounded characters.

A "competent character filling one role" is subjective. In SR4 maxing a single skill at chargen is easy, while in SR5 starting as a competent team member is impossible even for that easy definition.

Specialists will need the additional dice from skills. IE: Samurai need to cope with 15-20ish defense pools pretty often. Let´s call it 100 karma/skill.
Attributes are even more valuable using SR5 due to limits.

If you are coming from some old-school system you´ll feel at home in SR5. For our style of play I´d need to have karmagen available (to amp up the starting ressources), hand out about two times the karma, and limit ingame attribute increases. For comparison: The current SR4 chars have 300 karma, need at least 200 more, and with some breaks from playing (SR4) the journey has taken two years.


Medicineman´s figures are insane, I remember (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) (Just jealous...)

[Fatum]

I wasn't active on forums for the 3rd to 4th changes, but are all edition changes so divisive? I read Machiavelli's long rant about SR5, and most of the points made are changes I liked.

Yeah, unless we're talking evolutionary change (like SR1->3, or D&D 3->3.5), edition changes are always divisive. That depends on the quality of the new edition and the depth of the change, of course, so for instance D&D2->3 wasn't nearly as dramatic as 3->4.

[binarywraith]

A "competent character filling one role" is subjective. In SR4 maxing a single skill at chargen is easy, while in SR5 starting as a competent team member is impossible even for that easy definition.

Specialists will need the additional dice from skills. IE: Samurai need to cope with 15-20ish defense pools pretty often. Let´s call it 100 karma/skill.
Attributes are even more valuable using SR5 due to limits.

If you are coming from some old-school system you´ll feel at home in SR5. For our style of play I´d need to have karmagen available (to amp up the starting ressources), hand out about two times the karma, and limit ingame attribute increases. For comparison: The current SR4 chars have 300 karma, need at least 200 more, and with some breaks from playing (SR4) the journey has taken two years.


Medicineman´s figures are insane, I remember (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) (Just jealous...)

We've got a very different definition of 'competent team member' if yours requires the expectation of a maxed-out skill (noted in the fluff as 'best in the world class') coming out of chargen.

Basic characters with zero advancement should not be the best in the world at what they do. They aren't Prime Runners. They are very, very small fish in a very big ocean, who might maybe survive to be big fish given a few years and a whole shit-ton of luck.

[Fatum]

A competent character is capable of succeeding at typical tasks required of him. And yeah, that requires high skill ratings (what a surprise!)

[binarywraith]

A competent character is capable of succeeding at typical tasks required of him. And yeah, that requires high skill ratings (what a surprise!)

Not much I can say to that other than that I don't think you've grasped the basics of game design here very well.

[Ryu]

We've got a very different definition of 'competent team member' if yours requires the expectation of a maxed-out skill (noted in the fluff as 'best in the world class') coming out of chargen.

Basic characters with zero advancement should not be the best in the world at what they do. They aren't Prime Runners. They are very, very small fish in a very big ocean, who might maybe survive to be big fish given a few years and a whole shit-ton of luck.

I´m Ryu, and I´m a skill junkie. I prefer karmagen for the number of possible skills (among other reasons), and despite spending heavily on low-rated skills and skillgroups usually can´t afford what I would like. I still have to admit that some areas can functionally be covered using only 2-3 skills. Especially in one-shot convention games.

I can spend tons of karma within my spec using SR4, and it will take years in RL for said char to be really good. And I´m not really allowed to increase magic beyond 5.

Using RAW numbers said progress takes many times longer using SR5, so I´d look at fixing that. As for relative positions (again, RAW), the SR4 character can be very competent in parts of their given field, while the SR5 character straight out can´t reach the necessary dicepools. Again, some people might prefer the new way of doing things.



@Fatum: IMO you don´t need the last few dice using SR4, so you can skimp on 2-3 dice from skill if you got yourself nice attributes and solid gear. On the other hand I would not like to loose dice using SR5. Combats last much longer when offensive and defensive pools are on the same level (say 14), compared to a 16:8 gap.