[X] My Assistant

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

16 was the DP on my last combat character. He also had a 14 non-emotionsoft/non-Glamour DP on social rolls and a 12 DP on sneak, perception, disguise and most matrix related stuff. I figured I needed that for a convincing former intelligence agent.

My Current Mercenary (SR4A) character has DP's of 12/14 in several combat skills... about a dozen support skills in the 10-12 DP range and 25-30 more from 6-10 Dice (he has almost 60 Skills - Not too shabby for a character with only about 50 Karma - When you do not have to buy Augmentations or Spells/Foci, you can afford a stupid amount of skills in Karmagen, even with only 750 base points). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
None of the Skill Ranks are higher than a Skill 4. And he is unaugmented and unawakened. Now, he does have a ton of Specialties (almost every skill is specialized) to assist in his skill application, and he has some pretty good gear. If he ever augments, he will be very impressive.

[Elfenlied]

Yeah, my example character above is a mundane, albeit augmented. It's amazing how far you can go versatility wise if you don't hardmax and use Karmagen.

2 and 4 plus specializations seem to be the sweet spot in terms of skills in Karmagen, and it is those ratings that I use most often.

[Glyph]

That's one of the features I like about karmagen. Dice pools are one of the major metrics that determine a character's effectiveness, so higher dice pools should be more expensive. Karmagen lets you build a decent, functional generalist far more easily than build points, with its flat costs for skills. Best of all, specialists don't really suffer - you can get what you normally would for them, and have a few points left to add some flavor or versatility to your concept. Generalists, by contrast, make out like bandits compared to build points - but they still don't seem unbalanced compared to their specialist counterparts.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

That's one of the features I like about karmagen. Dice pools are one of the major metrics that determine a character's effectiveness, so higher dice pools should be more expensive. Karmagen lets you build a decent, functional generalist far more easily than build points, with its flat costs for skills. Best of all, specialists don't really suffer - you can get what you normally would for them, and have a few points left to add some flavor or versatility to your concept. Generalists, by contrast, make out like bandits compared to build points - but they still don't seem unbalanced compared to their specialist counterparts.

Indeed... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[toturi]

That's one of the features I like about karmagen. Dice pools are one of the major metrics that determine a character's effectiveness, so higher dice pools should be more expensive. Karmagen lets you build a decent, functional generalist far more easily than build points, with its flat costs for skills. Best of all, specialists don't really suffer - you can get what you normally would for them, and have a few points left to add some flavor or versatility to your concept. Generalists, by contrast, make out like bandits compared to build points - but they still don't seem unbalanced compared to their specialist counterparts.

I think that to most people, this is true, generalists do not seem unbalanced compared to their specialist counterparts. Why? One reason I can think of is that by virtue of the kind of build, the size of individual dice pools are smaller than the specialist largest dice pool and since most people use dice pool size as a gauge for whether a build is unbalanced and the larger a single dice pool the more the build seems unbalanced, thus the build flies under the radar.

But if you use dice pool size but this time instead of the maximum dice for a single pool, you use the combined dice pools of multiple tests, you can quickly see where the generalist is unbalanced. Instead of 10 dice for 1 test, you have 260 dice for 26 tests for a generalist compared with 100 dice for 26 tests for a specialist, you can quickly see the unbalance.

[RHat]

But if you use dice pool size but this time instead of the maximum dice for a single pool, you use the combined dice pools of multiple tests, you can quickly see where the generalist is unbalanced. Instead of 10 dice for 1 test, you have 260 dice for 26 tests for a generalist compared with 100 dice for 26 tests for a specialist, you can quickly see the unbalance.

Are you suggesting that the specialist and generalist should have the same total dice at the end of the day? Because frankly that doesn't track - the specialist gets substantial reward from their specialty that should come at a cost to the total dice they have. The simple fact is that you can't go using just one single metric and pretend it gives you a good view of balance.

[Glyph]

I think the problem with comparing overall dice used by a karmagen build is that you are taking things purchased with exponential costs and comparing them as if they were flat costs and/or equally valuable. Someone with a dice pool of 20 will be more effective, generally, than someone with two dice pools of 10.

This is why I like karmagen. Getting lower-rated skills and Attributes is cheaper. I like that because in build points, being a generalist is not usually as viable as being a specialist. You pay too much for those comparatively low dice pools, and don't get enough versatility to compensate for the loss in effectiveness. And I say I don't mind the boost to generalists - as someone who usually prefers to play specialists.

[toturi]

I think the problem with comparing overall dice used by a karmagen build is that you are taking things purchased with exponential costs and comparing them as if they were flat costs and/or equally valuable. Someone with a dice pool of 20 will be more effective, generally, than someone with two dice pools of 10.

This is why I like karmagen. Getting lower-rated skills and Attributes is cheaper. I like that because in build points, being a generalist is not usually as viable as being a specialist. You pay too much for those comparatively low dice pools, and don't get enough versatility to compensate for the loss in effectiveness. And I say I don't mind the boost to generalists - as someone who usually prefers to play specialists.

I think someone with a dice pool of 20 and another of zero would be less effective generally than someone with 2 dice pools of 10.

Are you suggesting that the specialist and generalist should have the same total dice at the end of the day? Because frankly that doesn't track - the specialist gets substantial reward from their specialty that should come at a cost to the total dice they have. The simple fact is that you can't go using just one single metric and pretend it gives you a good view of balance.

I think that the generalist should have 10-20% more total dice at the end of the day, because frankly the specialist doesn't get that substantial a reward from his specialty dice pool.

[Glyph]

I think someone with a dice pool of 20 and another of zero would be less effective generally than someone with 2 dice pools of 10.

It's hard to actually have a dice pool of zero, since you can default for most skills. Dice pools, to me, represent an opportunity cost more than an absolute value. In other words, what did my specialist give up to have a dice pool of 20? If I have a sniper with a dice pool of 20+ with his sniper rifle, what else can he do? If he is barely functional at skills he doesn't use that often, it might be a good tradeoff. If he is underpowered or lacking in other skills that a sniper needs (such as perception, infiltration, etc.), then that high dice pool might be too costly.

[Blade]

This discussion shows that the answer is something like "discuss it with your GM/table".

In some groups (especially when playing SR4 with no additional book), a character is expected to have a DP of 12-14 in his best areas and 8 in his secondary skills. In others (SR4A + all additional books and karmagen), the character will be expected to have 20+ in his primary skills and 12 in his secondary skills.

In some groups, a successful run is one where no bullet is shot ; in other groups, if there's no need to shoot a bullet, there's no need to hire runners.

[Elfenlied]

In some groups, a successful run is one where no bullet is shot ; in other groups, if there's no need to shoot a bullet, there's no need to hire runners.

And some Runners are literally paid in bullets. I've offered my group pay in either cash or APDS of the same value, and many of them went for the ammo.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I think someone with a dice pool of 20 and another of zero would be less effective generally than someone with 2 dice pools of 10.

Thing is, the Specialist will have stupid high Attributes, so his Defaulting is still in the 7+ DP range for skills with no points (I have even seen defaulting with double digits on some specialist builds). That is not true for a Generalist, most of the time.

[Draco18s]

It's still not as bad as I've seen in some other systems. My gaming group broke Alpha Omega pretty quickly.
You could pick races that were either "high attribute" or "high skill" where the higher your attributes were, the larger the dice you rolled. So at the bottom end you'd have "six d4s"* and at the top end you'd have "six d20s." Mind, it wasn't possible to start the game with more than 6d6, and even that was stretching it for a specialist, as attributes ranged from 1 to 100 (players generally starting in around 10 to 20).

Mechanically you'd roll dice, sum, then add your skill (like D&D). You just split the dice up between your actions, always taking the largest dice you had available each time you picked up one or more dice.

Anyway, the idea and balance was that the same exp investment in skills vs. attributes would average the same. The same cost of getting +1 in a skill worked out to the same cost as getting the next die-size up (and accounting for the fact that attributes covered multiple skills).

The problem came down to a single spell. It was intended as a late-game debuff spell, but throws the whole balance between attributes and skill points out the window.

The spell stated that "the next time you rolled dice, you rolled d% to figure out what your effective attribute was, and took dice accordingly." We realized that this heavily favored skill-heavy races, as you could dump all of your attributes to 1, buy all of the skills, then cast that spell on the party. Targetting up to 10 people, for 10 dice rolls each, expiring in 4 hours cost almost no mana (like 2, and you generally had about 20 before you started casting with blood) and the difficulty was really low. +2 for number of targets, +8ish for effect, +5 for duration. And on a d%, what are the odds that you'll roll below your natural attribute? Who cares! Even with my awful attributes, I still have MASSIVE SKILLS.

All you needed was one specialist in Black Magic and you turned the entire party into hyper-specialized generalists.

*Technically you could go even lower, down to only a single d4, but with the mechanic of how dice got split between combat passes, it was really really advantageous to have 5d4,1d6. If you split 3 dice and 3 dice between two passes, then in each pass you'd roll 1d6+2d4 (as you always take your best dice first). And having less than 6 total dice was just bad.

[toturi]

Thing is, the Specialist will have stupid high Attributes, so his Defaulting is still in the 7+ DP range for skills with no points (I have even seen defaulting with double digits on some specialist builds). That is not true for a Generalist, most of the time.

I would have thought that the specialist would have mostly stupid low Attributes apart from his core Attributes. So his defaulting on those skills linked to his low Attributes would easily be zero.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I would have thought that the specialist would have mostly stupid low Attributes apart from his core Attributes. So his defaulting on those skills linked to his low Attributes would easily be zero.

In some cases, you would/could be correct, but not in all cases. There are 2 Stats that control the majority of skills (Agility and Logic), and it is relatively easy to have very high values in both of these two Stats. Then there are another 2 stats that are crucially important to a runner (Reaction and Intuition) which cover MOST of the remaining skills. So, with a decent investment in 4 Attributes, you can be sure that you cover the majority of skills.

In practice... Most specialists have really High Agility, which then translates into easily defaultable skills that matter the most to specialized runners (Combat gumbies are the ones who seem to abuse/take advantage of this the most). Throw in a decent Edge (And in SR5, it is stupidly easy to have a High Edge - Mundane Humans tend to start at a 5, IIRC) and you are golden, especially with the refresh rates for Edge in SR5.

There are some corner cases to be sure... Charisma and Logic based characters specialize their stats and sometimes don't care about Agility, but that is rare in my experience.

The Generalist will have solid stats across the board, while the Specialist will tend to be more swingy, depending upon how hard they want to specialize, and in what. BUT, the fact remains that Specialisats tend to have extreme high stats in their specialty which translates to high Defaults on skills they do not have. In the end, it will tend to balance out somewhat with the moderately skilled Generalist in that they will roll very similar Dice pools in their non-specialized areas. The glaring difference will be in their specialties.

[RHat]

In some cases, you would/could be correct, but not in all cases. There are 2 Stats that control the majority of skills (Agility and Logic), and it is relatively easy to have very high values in both of these two Stats. Then there are another 2 stats that are crucially important to a runner (Reaction and Intuition) which cover MOST of the remaining skills. So, with a decent investment in 4 Attributes, you can be sure that you cover the majority of skills.

Which is a line of thinking that typifies the generalist, not the specialist. You could have a specialist push one attribute very, very hard (for SR4A, see Logic 6(9), PuSHeD and Neocortical Nanites for a Logic Default Pool of about 12), but 4 is unlikely - a combat specialist in SR4A could push Agility and Reaction, for example, but Logic and Intuition would be at best lower priority.

Now, for SR5, it's a bit of a different animal - Limits force a specialist to spread their attributes out; a stealth specialist would need to look at Strength, Body, Logic, and Willpower for limits alone, plus Agility and Intuition for dice pools.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Which is a line of thinking that typifies the generalist, not the specialist. You could have a specialist push one attribute very, very hard (for SR4A, see Logic 6(9), PuSHeD and Neocortical Nanites for a Logic Default Pool of about 12), but 4 is unlikely - a combat specialist in SR4A could push Agility and Reaction, for example, but Logic and Intuition would be at best lower priority.

Now, for SR5, it's a bit of a different animal - Limits force a specialist to spread their attributes out; a stealth specialist would need to look at Strength, Body, Logic, and Willpower for limits alone, plus Agility and Intuition for dice pools.

I guess that is just how I tend to think, since most of my Characters tend to have average stats for their type to start with, since they had to have survived in society to the point where they became Shadowrunners... *shrug* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Glyph]

It is hard to quantify how many points of dice pool a specialist should have vs. a generalist, because dice pools are not just skill, but skill plus Attribute. Then you have augmentations and magic that can increase an Attribute, increase a skill, or simply add to your dice pool. This would seem to give generalists an edge if you are only counting points, because every skill gets to add those Attributes/modifiers. On the other hand, you can default on most skills, so the difference between a skill of 3 and no skill at all is just 4 dice.

Take two characters, both with augmented Agility of 9 and smartlinks. The first guy gets pistols of 5 with a specialization (34 karma). The second guy gets the firearms skill group at 2 and the heavy weapons skill at 3 (34 karma). So the first guy has dice pools of pistol: 18, automatics: 10, long arm: 10, and heavy weapon: 10, for 48 total dice. The second guy has dice pools of pistol: 13, automatics: 13, long arm: 13, and heavy weapon: 14, for 53 total dice.

So these guys are close, with the generalist having slightly more dice. This is about where toturi thought it should be, with the generalist getting 10-20% more dice. But that is only with everything else being equal. That is rarely the case. Just going by the specialist and generalist builds that have been posted on Dumpshock for character critiques, they usually seem to be built with different philosophies. The specialist builds I have seen tend to be heavily augmented, with high Attributes and comparatively few points spent on skills. The generalist builds I have seen tend to be lightly augmented, with Attributes in a more average distribution (3's and 4's instead of 2's and 5's), and more points spent of a wider array of lower-rated skills.

I think a lot of this stems from how the characters are envisioned. Specialists tend to be former company men, mercenaries, career criminals, or security/police officers, and moving to shadowrunning just involves a lateral move to going freelance. Generalists tend to be more average Joe types who suddenly find themselves uprooted from their comfortable lives to survive in the shadows. Obviously, these two types of characters will not be close to the same power level, even though they may be made with the same number of points.

[RHat]

I guess that is just how I tend to think, since most of my Characters tend to have average stats for their type to start with, since they had to have survived in society to the point where they became Shadowrunners... *shrug* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I find average to be a good starting point - though I don't at all mind reducing attributes where it's suitable.

[toturi]

I guess that is just how I tend to think, since most of my Characters tend to have average stats for their type to start with, since they had to have survived in society to the point where they became Shadowrunners... *shrug* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Characters should have dice pools that would have enabled them to survive in their circumstances before they became shadowrunners. Most characters live within society, so their dice pools should enable to them to survive within society. If they had low stats, then maybe they barely scrap by with low skill or are considered "normal" if they are skilled enough to compensate for their low stats.

[Glyph]

I think that shadowrunners should also have dice pools that would have enabled them to survive in their circumstances after they became shadowrunners. What I mean is, while they should be good enough in their specialty, they should be functional outside of that specialty - or have an explanation for how they got by without that ability beforehand. In other words, the merc guy should have the connections to get miltech gear rather than relying on the face, or at least have that lack explained in the character background (maybe he was part of a merc team that was disbanded, and the quartermaster handled all of that before). I like characters with an organic feel to them - clusters of skills that go together, with no glaring omissions unless they are there to create a deliberately flawed character.