Shadowrun 5th Edition Errata Released, For the doubters Options

[Sengir]

Am I the only one that wants to scribble in the margins of my priority chart/page "fuck it, every attribute priority gets, like, four more points," or do other folks kind of feel the same?

That, and stop giving away Magic/Resonance for free, it messes up any calculation...or even better yet, strap the whole priority system to a rocket headed for the nearest blue giant (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Next is the 'You have to be a human or Elf to be a Technomancer.... which is somehow a problem considering that they're the best choices anyway (I guess Dwarf is reasonable as well) and they can both be bought at priority D. So what's the problem here? You want to play a Troll? Sure, then expect to be less suited to the matrix. That's called a trade-off. What I'm seeing here is people wanting Trolls to be a cheap choice for Technomancers because 'trolls are less effective online' but quietly recieve all those durability and melee combat bonuses as just nice little freebies. Sorry, this is how 4th Ed worked with it's supposed excellent build points system where being an Ork or Troll was a no-brainer because it cost you almost no points to do it in the grand scheme of things. I'm not surprised people like it, it was hideously unbalanced!

I saw 5 times as many humans as ANY other archetype in SR4. Personally, probably 80% of my characters were Human, rather than Meta. Sorry, your argument does not hold up.

[Mikado]

Here's your problem. You are the kind of player that seems to think that every stat and skill a character has at creation must be maximised. This is not the case. Yes you probably aren't going to be optimised for both the matrix AND combat AND rigging at creation, and yes you will probably be less efective (note this does not mean IN-effective) than a hacker off the bat. Where the rigger shines is the scope for improvement. No matter how much you bitch about how stat heavy a technomancer is, etc a Hacker can NEVER EVER summon sprites or use any technomancer special abilities. Yes they have drain, but guess what if you never use them you still have as much utility as a decker.

Next is the 'You have to be a human or Elf to be a Technomancer.... which is somehow a problem considering that they're the best choices anyway (I guess Dwarf is reasonable as well) and they can both be bought at priority D. So what's the problem here? You want to play a Troll? Sure, then expect to be less suited to the matrix. That's called a trade-off. What I'm seeing here is people wanting Trolls to be a cheap choice for Technomancers because 'trolls are less effective online' but quietly recieve all those durability and melee combat bonuses as just nice little freebies. Sorry, this is how 4th Ed worked with it's supposed excellent build points system where being an Ork or Troll was a no-brainer because it cost you almost no points to do it in the grand scheme of things. I'm not surprised people like it, it was hideously unbalanced!

3rdly, are the rules explicit that a living persona can not slave devices? I'm not sure to be honest but given that it works exactly like a deck and has a device rating like a deck and smells like a deck and quacks like a deck then oh I don't know, maybe they can slave devices like a deck too? If they definately can't and you think that's such a massive problem then why not just let them in your game?

But all that aside you've given me an objective to try and build a functional Troll/ork Technomancer that I would play in a game when I get some time to burn.

First...
None of the characters I played in 4th (3 of them) had attributes above a 4 except for one build who had a 5 in only one attribute. Everything else where 3's and 4's. Now that did not include magic or resonance where I had one of each with the attribute at 5. Well the technomancer had a resonance of 7 but he had 2 points of essence loss and the mage was a mystic adept and he split his magic due to house rules.

Second...
ALL of the 3 characters I played in 4th where human.

Third...
I recreated my technomancer in 5th and after some adjustments since he had cyber that has not been converted to 5th yet he was still a very pale shadow of his former abilities. On the scale of 10% his former effectiveness. Now I know what you will say but it does not matter since his dice pools in 4th where NEVER over a 10 for almost anything including hacking. The one thing he had a dice pool above 12 for was Disguise since he was made to be an infiltrator.

Now, there are some things I like about 5th... but the things I hate outnumber the things I like by orders of magnitude. The nerf to technomancers being one...

[Smash]

I saw 5 times as many humans as ANY other archetype in SR4. Personally, probably 80% of my characters were Human, rather than Meta. Sorry, your argument does not hold up.

The fact that the people you choose to play with chose not to powergame does not mean that there wasn't scope for it to occur. Maybe they just wanted to play humans?

If on the other hand your suggesting that the BP cost of trolls was too much in SR4 was too high then what's the difference between that and Trolls being A/B in the priority system?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The fact that the people you choose to play with chose not to powergame does not mean that there wasn't scope for it to occur. Maybe they just wanted to play humans?

If on the other hand your suggesting that the BP cost of trolls was too much in SR4 was too high then what's the difference between that and Trolls being A/B in the priority system?

Not everyone chooses to powerplay (and it is not just my table; See Mikado's post above), and some of us actually want a living, breathing PERSON, not a stat monstrosity (and from my experience, Powerplay optimized characters do not produce what I would call "Real People." There are just too many logic gaps/character holes that need to be compensated for once the character obtains Karma in play)..

Just because the potential to powerplay is there does not mean you MUST exercise that option.
You will NEVER remove powerplay options from the game. They have existed since 1st Edition.

[Glyph]

I think options need to be roughly balanced against one another (although some things can, and should, be suboptimal for the sake of verisimilitude - unaugmented mundanes, for example). In an open character creation system, though, not everything is going to be equal purely points-wise. Trolls are balanced compared to humans, but in an apples and oranges way. Their bonuses work out to 30 BP more than a human, and they also have +1 reach, thermographic vision, and a point of dermal armor. However, it is a package deal - Strength of 5 is more than most non-combat characters (and a lot of combat characters) really need. Furthermore, they have a lower cap on Agility and three of the mental Attributes, require specially-made gear, and live in a world sized for smaller people. Trolls are good in a fairly narrow range of roles, such as close combat specialist who can no-sell small arms fire. Sure, you can "save" some points if you make a troll technomancer, but considering that mental Attributes are so useful to them, you are shooting yourself in the foot.

[Machiavelli]

I wouldn´t agree, that trolls were too expensive in previous editions. Besides the pure costs for attributes, there are other points that need to be summed up (dermal plating, reach, higher running distances and thermographic vision had already been discussed) that don´t count out at the first point. One of these things is, that you can generally raise your attributes 1,5 times the maximum attribute. The higher the base-attribute, the more advantage you get out of it (e.g. trolls strength addition is +4, but if you really max it out, you can reach strength 15 (10*1,5) and not only 14. Same goes for other metatypes.

In SR5 on the other hand, a lot of these benefits are gone. Running distance and bonus attributes are gone. Additionally you are penalized with a quite high priority and higher lifestyle costs (game-wise correct, I agree). This makes a troll quite unattractive, especially if you count in, that now every human can reach strength and body 10 and the maximum difference to a troll is now “just” +4. Before it was +6.

I didn´t think trolls were overpowered before, so I don´t get this “nerf” at all.

[Sendaz]

I didn´t think trolls were overpowered before, so I don´t get this “nerf” at all.

I blame the IE conspiracy, trying to keep the orcs and trolls down! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Machiavelli]

Agree. Buuuh to racism. Damned elves.

[Shortstraw]

I wouldn´t agree, that trolls were too expensive in previous editions. Besides the pure costs for attributes, there are other points that need to be summed up (dermal plating, reach, higher running distances and thermographic vision had already been discussed) that don´t count out at the first point. One of these things is, that you can generally raise your attributes 1,5 times the maximum attribute. The higher the base-attribute, the more advantage you get out of it (e.g. trolls strength addition is +4, but if you really max it out, you can reach strength 15 (10*1,5) and not only 14. Same goes for other metatypes.

In SR5 on the other hand, a lot of these benefits are gone. Running distance and bonus attributes are gone. Additionally you are penalized with a quite high priority and higher lifestyle costs (game-wise correct, I agree). This makes a troll quite unattractive, especially if you count in, that now every human can reach strength and body 10 and the maximum difference to a troll is now “just” +4. Before it was +6.

I didn´t think trolls were overpowered before, so I don´t get this “nerf” at all.

Remember they can get 9 agility as opposed to 7 so they are better in a lot of other areas.

[Machiavelli]

Remember they can get 9 agility as opposed to 7 so they are better in a lot of other areas.

Which IS an Advantage. Agreed. But the main-purpose of a troll is weakened.

[X-Kalibur]

All derailing aside, thanks for the time and effort on the errata, Patrick. Although I'm disheartened it didn't really fix much.

[FuelDrop]

Agree. Buuuh to racism. Damned elves.

At least they burn nice. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[garner_adam]

Thanks Patrick. I know you've been working hard to get this to be a thing.
The change to recoil, doesn't that basically make recoil just like it was in 4th edition unless you are taking either SA bursts or full auto bursts (the only ones which require a complex action)? Because for all other fire modes you are just using a simple action and you always have two of those available. I guess it works but I just wondered if that was the intention.

Really curious what the opinion is on this one.

[cndblank]

Which I HATE - Just something else added to the List, though. *sigh*

I have to say that Edge made my game a lot better.
Had a player who had serious bad luck with his dice.
I told him to take a good Edge and it really improved his enjoyment of the game.

[cndblank]

Oh and the finally reasonable price and availability on Autosofts gets TWO THUMBS UP from me.

AUTOSOFT PRICES (P. 442, SOFTWARE TABLE)
The following listing should be inserted in the table before
Cyberprogram, common use:
Program/Software Avail Cost
Autosoft Rating x 2 Rating x 500¥