Trolls underpowered? Options

[Smash]

funny story: those body 5 strength 5 trolls?

you can get that on a human. or an elf. or a dwarf. or an ork.

trolls don't hold any exclusive ability to get those attributes at 5 whatsoever. in fact, they are mostly worse off in general. if you compare a troll with E attributes and B race to a human with B attributes and E race, the human can get the exact same attributes as the troll... plus one edge (or magic, or resonance). so long as you don't mind investing in special attributes, you can keep following that pattern upwards on the priority charts as a rule.

strength 5 body 5 magician trolls are not getting some massive benefit from being trolls (and in fact, they're probably being harmed by the mental attribute cap penalties in the specific case of magician trolls). they're the poor saps who have to pay just as much as the strength 10 body 10 troll, who actually makes use of the advantage trolls get. for anyone else, the only reason you don't see humans building strength 5 and body 5 for their magicians is that it's a bad place to invest attribute points most of the time. if it was actually a valuable investment, then you would see all mages with 5 in both strength and body, not just troll mages. but we don't. because for most builds that are not melee tanks, people don't want 5 in both body and strength.

all trolls pay for something that most of the time, other people opt out of because it's an inefficient purchase. no really, think about this. everyone else looks at the cost and says "nope, not worth it", and trolls cannot do that, and must instead pay full price. that's not what i would call an advantage.

What you've just described is the awesome strength of the priority system, you know that system that a vocal minority are dead against because when you build a troll with BP or Karma like you did in 4th Ed they were overpowered jokes. All for a mighty cost of what 6% of total resources? Suddenly the +4/5 body and strength is basically free, with yes some minor loss in mental stats, +reach +dermal +roleplaying advantages of being massive and scary.

This is why I love 5th ED: IT'S BALANCED.

[ravensmuse]

I don't know this will help Cain, but try Rob Donahues blog for help with FATE. I've been reading it for awhile now and I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of aspects and such:

http://walkingmind.evilhat.com

[tjn]

Smash: Err, what? It doesn't matter how one buys the troll package, BP, priority, or karma, Trolls come with these inefficiencies.

Further, even though I vastly prefer priority, I'm not about to claim it's balanced (but neither are any other option). Skills A is the prime example.

[Cain]

Smash: Err, what? It doesn't matter how one buys the troll package, BP, priority, or karma, Trolls come with these inefficiencies.

Further, even though I vastly prefer priority, I'm not about to claim it's balanced (but neither are any other option). Skills A is the prime example.

Well, balanced is a relative term. It's certainly more balanced than BP ever was, at least in how I use the term. Not all characters are equal, but they are *consistent* across builds, which is what I look for. It's fine if a system puts out really strong characters, or really weak ones. As long as everyone is on about the same level, it can work. But when a system does both, producing really weak and really overpowered characters at the same time, you have problems.

Anyways, even though Jaid hates trolls, there's no denying that they're good for a lot of builds. I haven't seen a single melee troll in a very long time, simply because troll shooter builds were so much better. In SR4, it was all about the troll archer. In SR4.5, the troll meat shield was very popular. Now, in SR5, the troll generalist and mystic adept is a capable build. Ignore Jaid's bias, I think he's secretly a member of Humanis. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
r

[Umidori]

Well, balanced is a relative term. It's certainly more balanced than BP ever was, at least in how I use the term. Not all characters are equal, but they are *consistent* across builds, which is what I look for. It's fine if a system puts out really strong characters, or really weak ones. As long as everyone is on about the same level, it can work. But when a system does both, producing really weak and really overpowered characters at the same time, you have problems.

The problem with this is that the consistancy you look for is less a matter of chargen balance, per se, and more a matter of game system balance.

Take for example the whole Hacker / Decker boondangle. If the underlying flaws are in the inherent capabilities of a character archetype's mechanical implementation, no chargen system in the world is going to be of any real use in balancing that. If one type of character is simply mechanically more desireable than another, it isn't the fault of the chargen rules. The fact that the chargen system can produce certain characters which are powerful while also churning out others which are far too weak isn't primarily the result of bad pricing of character capabilities, but of bad balance between those capabilities.

Character generation itself is about costs and benefits. Ideally, the cost of something should pretty much directly represent its utility, and for the most part that's actually pretty true with Karma and BP chargen, with a few notable exceptions that could be fixed with mere price changes. The real meat of the problem is that different sections of the game system operate in ways that aren't directly comparable, and thus it becomes hard to properly "price" two very different mechanics.

For example, the Automatics weapon skill is technically undervalued - even though every weapon skill costs the same amount of Karma or BP as any other, the Automatics weapon skill is just inherently more useful than the rest. You get more bang for your buck. Likewise, most folks would agree that if you spring for an Exotic Weapon Skill, you're technically overpaying - they cost the same amount of Karma or BP as any other, but they're demonstrably less useful than the rest.

~Umi

[SpellBinder]

This is why I love 5th ED: IT'S BALANCED.

Well, balanced is a relative term.

The problem with this is that the consistancy you look for is less a matter of chargen balance, per se, and more a matter of game system balance.

I know a game system where one character can be a glorified librarian with simple armor and a pistol adventuring beside another character wearing power armor that's nearly an indestructible walking tank and carries a cannon that puts the Ares Thunderstruck to shame, and both are starting characters.

Not everyone is on the "game balance" bandwagon, and by no means is it necessary.

[Umidori]

I kind of... half... agree.

I'm personally all about options. If one person wants to play your librarian with a pistol, and another wants to play your walking tank, and even if they want to be on the same team together, I say more power to 'em! I like the fact that Shadowrun allows you to make such a wide variety of character types, and yes to even produce variances in power.

But at the same time, I like those variances in power to be... intentional, I suppose? If a player actively chooses to play as a less "powerful" character, that's great. But if the character type they want to play is inherently - and substantially - weaker than another option? That's where things kind of fall apart.

Like, going back to playing a librarian with a pistol. If you want to play an everyman, mundane, realistic sort of version of that concept, you can build that - instead of putting points into boosting your stereotypically "powerful" skills and attributes, you can put them into other, less "powerful" assets. Maybe you spend your points on a lot of Contacts, or maybe you invest in some RP-inspiring Positive Qualities, or maybe you boost your Knowledge skills - all useful and in-character choices.

But at the same time, if you want to play a "libarian with a pistol" who is actually a crackshot gunslinger adept, you totally can. You can make them the single most lethal person in your party if you want to. You can pump them up to be just as "powerful" as any other team member (within certain parameters). The choice is yours to make.

So on that level, I very much agree that "balanced" output from a chargen system isn't necessary at all - and in some cases is directly detrimental.

But on another level, there's the question of pound for pound, point for point, just how much bang you theoretically can get for your buck. Sadly, the way the game systems interact, there are certain... inequities... that crop up. For example, if you want to boost your character's Physical Attributes to their Augmented Maximums, it is far and away more efficient to do so with Cyberware rather than with Adept powers - even factoring in Essence and Magic loss for Adepts!

Ideally, no matter what your character archetype, the maximum level of "power" or utility that any character can bring to the table should be pretty closely comparable to that of any other. Now, sadly there's a lot of comparing Apples to Oranges going on, because some things just don't compare cleanly, but we're talking ideals here. So a "perfectly built" Hacker should be essentially just as "valuable" as a perfectly build "Street Samurai", et cetera.

Which is why I prefer Karma of BP to Priority - more options, and fairer "pricing". Sure, they're not as approachable as Priority is. Sure, they have prices that could use tweaked and in some cases completely reworked. But overall, as a means of taking the messy jumble of inelegant rules that is the game's systems and mechanics and using them to create a working character? They give me more options, and I know that most of the prices are going to be fair.

~Umi

[Jaid]

Well, balanced is a relative term. It's certainly more balanced than BP ever was, at least in how I use the term. Not all characters are equal, but they are *consistent* across builds, which is what I look for. It's fine if a system puts out really strong characters, or really weak ones. As long as everyone is on about the same level, it can work. But when a system does both, producing really weak and really overpowered characters at the same time, you have problems.

Anyways, even though Jaid hates trolls, there's no denying that they're good for a lot of builds. I haven't seen a single melee troll in a very long time, simply because troll shooter builds were so much better. In SR4, it was all about the troll archer. In SR4.5, the troll meat shield was very popular. Now, in SR5, the troll generalist and mystic adept is a capable build. Ignore Jaid's bias, I think he's secretly a member of Humanis. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
r

troll shooter builds are better than troll melee builds in SR4 because melee in general kinda sucked in SR4 (it's better in 5th, but still not as good as shooting of course). not because trolls make better ranged characters than anyone else. and troll bows were marginally better than a standard character using an ares alpha, at best (once they got nerfed, decidedly less impressive, really).

but you don't see troll shooters because they're super-efficient in SR4. if people were looking for efficient, they'd be orks, what with getting almost the full useful benefit and paying considerably less in both BP and in other drawbacks as compared to trolls.

if you were seeing troll characters, it was probably because those people like trolls, and you could still make a character that was pretty much as good as a non-troll character in SR4.

and that's the thing. you shouldn't be punished for wanting to make a troll character. not even if it's a comparatively small punishment.

so, for example, you shouldn't be paying extra for a package of character options that reduce the amount of versatility you can have, particularly when the only supposed abuse case is a melee build... which is already inherently a worse option than ranged anyways.

[sk8bcn]

Immortal? Body 15 Trolls tend to drop like kittens when hit with a well placed Stunbolt or two, and are usually quite susceptible to things like Illusions.

Everything has a counter. No single min/max tactic protects against all possible threats. If someone makes themselves into a bullet sponge, hit them with something other than bullets.

~Umi

Manual of good gamemastering:

"If a character breaks the game balance by min-maxing, send constantly his counter every game"

Or was that in the manual of bad gamemastering?

[ravensmuse]

I care about balance so far as I care about players and characters being able to contribute something worthwhile to what's going on at the table.

Penalizing someone for wanting to play a troll - or any concept, for that matter - or forcing them into specific roles...irritates me.

My opinion is, if you want to play it, you should play it. Penalties for doing so can go out the window. Like I said, it's why I'm more interested nowadays in narratively focused games then traditional ones.

[Sponge]

Manual of good gamemastering:

"If a character breaks the game balance by min-maxing, send constantly his counter every game"

Or was that in the manual of bad gamemastering?

It's in whichever gamemastering manual recommends that you never provide a challenge to players by only giving them obstacles which their characters can easily overcome through brute force.

[Sengir]

This is why I love 5th ED: IT'S BALANCED.

Yeah, totally: Priority makes trolls completely unfeasible -> nobody in their right minds plays trolls anymore -> Problem solved

What seemingly many people fail to realize is that it takes and average of 3 Body to negate 1 point of damage. A troll has a whopping TWO extra Body dice over an ork, in other words those 20 BP net an "advantage" that is negated when the enemy switches from standard to Ex rounds (and heaven forbid they take Ex-Ex)

[Critias]

I don't know about it. The GM and I had discussed, in writing, exactly what we were expecting out of the character. He's experienced in FATE, and has no reason to mess around with my head. I'm reasonably satisfied with our communication. However, it still took seven tries. I'm willing to admit that it might be me, I might not have grokked FATE yet, but it's still frustrating.

As was mentioned when you talked about FATE over on RPG.net, also, the issue's probably more to do with your GM than anything else. Just like you shouldn't judge all of Shadowrun by one set of zany house rules any one GM uses, don't write off FATE (or your own ability to play FATE) just because you butted heads with one GM, once upon a time.

[Umidori]

Manual of good gamemastering:

"If a character breaks the game balance by min-maxing, send constantly his counter every game"

Or was that in the manual of bad gamemastering?

It's in whichever gamemastering manual recommends that you never provide a challenge to players by only giving them obstacles which their characters can easily overcome through brute force.

Who said you had to send it every time? Where is that written? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

If someone builds their character to be really good at something, they deserve to feel good doing that something. But when they make a highly lopsided character, any well rounded campaign with any variety of threats at all is going to cause them problems eventually.

If you give them pure physical threats, obviously they win every time. If you give them pure magical threats, obviously they lose every time. If you give them a reasonable mix of physical and magical threats, they win some and they lose some.

There's a reason for the phrase "Geek the Mage first!". There's also a counterpart from the point of view of the Mage trying to help his allies - "Stunbolt the Bullet Sponge first!". Each quite naturally is going for the highest priority target from their own particular points of view.

~Umi

[Jaid]

oh, i wouldn't go so far as to say that trolls are unplayable. there's enough wiggle room in shadowrun, even with the priority system in 5th with the overexpensive trolls, that you can probably make a troll that functions for almost any role... just not as well as any other meta could perform the same role. unless that role is melee tank.

it's not like choosing troll automatically makes you completely worthless. you're overpaying for the privilege of being a troll, in both straight up costs and in opportunity costs, but not by so much that you can't even function.

with that said, i agree that nobody should be punished for wanting to play a troll. they should either be a little bit less expensive, or offer more for their cost. personally, i favour reducing cost, but that's just me.

[Machiavelli]

Right. Stuff like this forces the fomori to become the "standard" troll-metatype, because the price-cost-ratio is here somewhat more balanced.

[Umidori]

Yeah, I get kind of annoyed a the number of Fomori cheese builds I see floating around, simply because they give the best bang for the buck.

It doesn't really help matters that Shadowrun Fomori don't seem to have much at all to do with the actual mythological Fomori - at least not from what I've been able to research.

~Umi

[Machiavelli]

100% agree. I am quite fluent in mythology and until the fomori came out, all the given explanations were quite cool and conform with the legends. Here we have a little abberation, but i could live with that, if you create such a char. with a real good background-story.

[Medicineman]

I like Fomori too, not only from the Number Crunching but also because they're homely
One of my Chars is a 15 Year old Philippina Fomori complete with Brace & scrubby braids
(She's a close combat Adept and martial arts expert with Escrima )


with a nice Dance
Medicineman

[Umidori]

@Machiavelli

Well, to be fair the Koro-pok-guru always struck me as a bit odd to put in Shadowrun, because they're just such a... non-unified?... legend.

I mean, props for including an obscure Ainu legend (seriously, how many folks here know all that much about the Ainu? No googling!), but they have the same problem as traditional European "elves" in that they come in a bazillion different sizes and forms - all of them small, but ranging from "short" all the way down to being mere inches tall. The only reason SR Elves really work as taller-than-human is because of Tolkien's redefining and unifying of our collective understanding of what Elves look like.

I guess for me the weird thing about Koro-pok-guru in Shadowrun is that it seems like they were included more as socio-political commentary on the Japanese treatment of the Ainu than anything else. I mean, sure that's in line with how Metahuman friction is a commentary on race relations, and certainly the very real Ainu-Yamato problems of our own world need all the attention they can get, but if feels like they could have done a better job in the books explaining what is a very foreign legend to what is a very unfamiliar playerbase.

@Medicineman

Wait... a Filipino Formori?

That's... bizarre. Fomori are a Celtic legend. Having a Fomori from the Philippines is weird - it's like having a Haruman from the Swiss Alps.

~Umi

Addendum: And while I'm at it, Harumen really ought to be called Vanara! Ha-n-uman was a specific Hindu god, while the Vanara are the race of monkey-like humanoids that he belonged to. (And I guess they technically should be shapechangers too for full accuracy, but that's probably a balance issue.)

[Sendaz]

@Medicineman

Wait... a Filipino Formori?

That's... bizarre. Fomori are a Celtic legend. Having a Fomori from the Philippines is weird - it's like having a Haruman from the Swiss Alps.

~Umi

Addendum: And while I'm at it, Harumen really ought to be called Vanara! Ha-n-uman was a specific Hindu god, while the Vanara are the race of monkey-like humanoids that he belonged to. (And I guess they technically should be shapechangers too for full accuracy, but that's probably a balance issue.)

Odd but not impossible, the cub may have a Celtic ancestor (a many generations back sailor who settled there perhaps with a local girl?) so the markers could be there just waiting to express.

[sk8bcn]

Who said you had to send it every time? Where is that written? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

If someone builds their character to be really good at something, they deserve to feel good doing that something. But when they make a highly lopsided character, any well rounded campaign with any variety of threats at all is going to cause them problems eventually.

If you give them pure physical threats, obviously they win every time. If you give them pure magical threats, obviously they lose every time. If you give them a reasonable mix of physical and magical threats, they win some and they lose some.

There's a reason for the phrase "Geek the Mage first!". There's also a counterpart from the point of view of the Mage trying to help his allies - "Stunbolt the Bullet Sponge first!". Each quite naturally is going for the highest priority target from their own particular points of view.

~Umi

Well of course that's right.



The point is somewhat different: there's two perception:

-The min-maxing PC who just made his tank-troll. He feels super-great because he just soaks everytime those minigun-shots, sniper-shots and so on. He finds it just awesome.

-The GM (well my kind of gamemastering) grows frustrated because his sense of the thrill of action is hurted: either he let's the troll win his fight the way he builded (free win, can't be hurt unless the GM takes the risk of TPK by bringing too much firepower) or he brings in the troll weakness every game (in which case the troll player is frustrated because it's unfair).


There's another option ofc: you're comfortable with it as a GM.


Honestly, I'm not. I don't want to handle something I'd struggle to keep in line with other PCs. Now I'd neither make a big fuzz about gamebalance. I mean, it's not a problem if a character is a bit weaker than another (original point of the thread).

To summarize:
OP character among average=problem. => this can disrupt my story
Weak character with a few average and a few good ones is ok. => this won't.

[Stahlseele]

Odd but not impossible, the cub may have a Celtic ancestor (a many generations back sailor who settled there perhaps with a local girl?) so the markers could be there just waiting to express.

So appearantly, Genghis Khan had Ork Blood in him.

[Jaid]

and yet, trolls don't actually have that major of an advantage over other metatypes when it comes to soaking damage.

oh, they definitely do have an advantage, that's for sure. 5 points, though. that's pretty danged good, too. but it's not *that* amazing.

as was said earlier (or perhaps earlier and elsewhere, if it wasn't in this thread), if trolls are getting 30 dice soak pools, then humans can just as easily get 25 dice soak pools, which may not be *as* good, but it's not exactly crap either.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, the new combat/damage/armor/soak/implants mechanics of SR4 really fucked over the Trolls soaking advantage . .