[X] My Assistant

[KCKitsune]

Better question, does Joe Average Consumer even know what companies are under the Ares umbrella? The major A-AA subsidiaries sure, but all the nationals and barely multinational brands?

In the dystopia of Shadowrun, most of the poor slots barely know their name and what they had for lunch.

[Mantis]

Still you want a real world example of a niche product just killing a company, look at New Coke. Why it was so disastrous that you hardly even hear of Coke anymore. Damn near drove the company to bankruptcy. So you can see how catastrophic the failure of a battle rifle would be to the company that owns such things as GM, Honda, and NASA. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
Bah, that story line was/is such utter shit and just shows how little research goes into some of these products (books). Either that or how little editing actually gets done. Editing should be more than just checking for typos. Layout seems a bit of a failure in 5th ed too. Anyone else notice how stat boxes creep out over the header and footer art of the pages. Check pg 24 or 37 (I think since I can't see the page number) in Run and Gun for an example.

[LurkerOutThere]

Started looking at ware prices between editions. Ugh I know a bunch of the writers hate ware for various reaosns, but seriously a 7x price jump on cybereyes?

[binarywraith]

Yeah, you know, the basic replacement 'oh shit you got blinded, here's something' cybereyes now cost 4,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

That is, for comparison, equal to 2 months of a Low lifestyle at 2,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per, or given the base-book calculations, about as much as a runner should expect to pull from a moderately dangerous run.

God only knows what the bioware version costs, it barely exists in the book anyway. Closest equivalent is Cat's Eyes, which run in at 4000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) as well, but come with standard low-light.

[Critias]

Ah, the fights over 'ware prices I wish I could share. NDA means we can't talk specifics of backstage discussions, but...ugh. Yeah. Things got pretty ugly, and you can't win every argument/debate/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. All I can say is that prices were almost higher.

[Sendaz]

I always felt part of the problem was cost is really the only real inhibitor on ware.

Sure the ware costs essences, but for those willing to spend on the better grades, you can pack in a helluva lot of ware.
Yes, it's expensive, which again only reinforces the concept of cash being the real limit.

So the devs do go down the route of trying to curb ware via throatpunching the wallet by making ware spendy and payout for runs abysmal as it's the easiest mechanic to have in place instead of looking at other options.
And really ware should not be stupidly high priced as it is a staple of the environment and it makes it hard to explain how street trash has any, yet they should because it fits the setting.

There is the social stigma of ware, but frankly it is often overlooked by groups so quickly becomes a TJ fallacy.

So rather than make people around you mysteriously nervous because they just 'know' you are Ess 2, the onus should be on the ware user to be that bit unhinged by it and have actual quirks/issues from it.
Always thought we should have something like cyberpsychosis like CP2020 had, with lower essence making you a bit more schizo or have reflex/responses linked to the ware.
So a guy with wired reflex 3 who gets caught in an ambush situation may find his wire is attempting to shoot the first target he sees, even before the main meat brain has processed that might have been a by-stander and therefore a non-target so may need a contested roll to avoid blowing the guy away.
Call it a Hair Trigger NQ or similar. Could build a number of NQ to fit the various wares with a range of effects and levels of interfering with regular life.
Course I would also have a similar rule for mages who raise their Magic over 6 as well, reflecting the pitfalls of becoming a god-like figure and how easy it is to be disassociated from the muggles.
So as the Magic climbs, the mage finds himself using mojo to expedite things, even when not necessary, like using MC to shut the neighbor's bawling kid up or similar.

again this doesn't mean having a 4 essence or a 8 Magic makes you a threat to society, but you will have... quirks or small problems, but when you hit 1 ess or 11 magic, yeah you are frakkin scary to be around.

[Glyph]

Augmentations, like cyberdecks, are simply too expensive compared to what a shadowrunner typically gets paid (something that is quantified in SR5). Also, both Run Faster and Chrome Flesh do play up the social stigma of augmentations, with Chrome Flesh also playing up how corporate-controlled all of the halfway-decent cyberclinics are and going full retard on this lameass CFD crap (to the point that even common augmentations such as cybereyes are stigmatized). So yeah, be sure you start with Resources A or B and get most of the augmentations you will ever have at the start, and expect to be a social pariah because of it. Ugh.

I don't think rules compelling cyberpsychosis would add anything to the game, though, other than taking away even more player agency. I prefer the SR4/SR5 way of having optional qualities you can opt into if you want physical or sociological problems arising from excessive augmentations.

[Sengir]

Because Chars are capped at 6 at the Start and it is terribly Karma intensive to raise Skills, and ineffective too.
Consider that an Adept could (just for example) Initiate for 13 Karma and get a full Powerpoint for 13 Karma...
or raise his Skill from 6 to 7 for 14 Karma to get one more Dice...
in my own experience (from my 2 SR5 Tables and from Conventions, speaking with other Players) hardly any Player raises his Skill at more than 7 because its not worth it...Maybe if the Char is played for a long time (100+ Karma)

otoh a GM has no problems to give his NPCs High Level Skills (10+) so most often Players see NSC with higher Skilllevels /Pools .Something that their chars can never achieve (or which is so costly in Karma ,especially when a Run gets so few Karma ...its 114 Karma to raise one single Skill from 6--->12 ! 114 Karma that means 20+ Runs...!
If You play twice a Month and some Runs need 2,maybe even 3 Sessions,
that means you,as a Player play your Char for a whole Year (maybe longer) and all you get is one single Skill at 12.... Meh (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) )

a Skillmax at 9 would still mean that a starting Char is not at all at the Top notch Level (Otoh he is more than just an above average Professionell) but he can reach top Level Skill with some dedication and some Karma (48 )
AND the difference between high level NPCs and PCs is not THAT big.
a dedicated Player/Char can become equal to the high (Skill)level NPC without investing ...tons of Karma

So basically, your complaint is that you can't complain about hitting the skill cap soon enough...but apart from hurting your Germanness to the core, where is the harm in not making players "the pinnacle of mortal achievement" after two sessions but giving them basically enless room to grow?


@Lurker: The intention seemingly was to limit characters to just one "class": You can be a decker, but won't have money for anything else.

While the price hike is partially offset by handing out far more money at chargen, this actually makes it worse -- without a matching increase in the SoyMac index, cyber users once more are far too rich for the setting, which apparently pleases some grognards.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The New Coke wasn't that stupid Ares rifle.

The New Coke was Shadowrun 5.


The difference is that some of us were actually looking forward to it, before we got our hands on it, at which point we realized it was rancid, and should be called Magicrun 5, featuring NPC Cyberbeasts.

[Medicineman]

So basically, your complaint is that you can't complain about hitting the skill cap soon enough...but apart from hurting your Germanness to the core, where is the harm in not making players "the pinnacle of mortal achievement" after two sessions but giving them basically enless room to grow?

It seems like you didn't understand even a bit about what I was writing.
I'll try it from a different Angle

A Skillcap of 12 is a Stick disguised as a Carrot.
Chars or their Players can't/won't achieve it in a Lifetime of playing and all NPCs can have it without any efford or justification
( and since that sentence about hurting my Germannness to the core neither makes sense nor does it concern me I won't ask what you mean by that , also because I don't care )

HokaHey
Medicineman

[FriendoftheDork]

I always felt part of the problem was cost is really the only real inhibitor on ware.

So as the Magic climbs, the mage finds himself using mojo to expedite things, even when not necessary, like using MC to shut the neighbor's bawling kid up or similar.

again this doesn't mean having a 4 essence or a 8 Magic makes you a threat to society, but you will have... quirks or small problems, but when you hit 1 ess or 11 magic, yeah you are frakkin scary to be around.

Just had to mention, this exact thing happened in my old campaign. The mage used Control Thoughts on an infant to stop it crying, and the infant critically glitched it's resistance test - the result is a child that can never cry again and will probably have shitloads of mental issues growing up. The rest of the group started to be a bit wary around him due to his mind control ability because they saw the effect it had on gangers and whatnot.

[FriendoftheDork]

It seems like you didn't understand even a bit about what I was writing.
I'll try it from a different Angle

A Skillcap of 12 is a Stick disguised as a Carrot.
Chars or their Players can't/won't achieve it in a Lifetime of playing and all NPCs can have it without any efford or justification
( and since that sentence about hurting my Germannness to the core neither makes sense nor does it concern me I won't ask what you mean by that , also because I don't care )

HokaHey
Medicineman

It seems to me more of a preference issue than a balance issue. I like the idea of having 12 as cap, as it means the best in the world actually has a lot of dice because of his skill rather than just having a high attribute, specialization and tons of "wireless" bonuses. In SR4 the Tir Ghosts had Firearms 6 and maybe attribute 8, which meant they were woefully incompetent compared to the Runners who could easily get dice pools above 20. Now, with skills around 9 for the top elite teams as well as the really good Contacts, they can be proper challenges for Runners who generally have to compensate for their lack of experience with 'ware or Magic. Sure, it is karma heavy to get there, but that also makes getting 12 in a skill a much higher achievement for a character, and could easily be the main motivation for being a Shadowrunner in the first place. It's not a level you have to be at, and you're unlikely to ever meet an NPC with skill 12 (unless you hang with world champion athletes or entertainers), but these individuals should exist. 'runners should not be at Ussain Bolt level in Running skill just 30 karma out of chargen, but likewise spend a life perfecting themselves to have a chance at reaching it. I really do like that skill actually matters, despite magic and ware. It devalues those two a bit, but they are still vital augmentations that complements skill, or a shortcut (the dark side) to getting close to the really good ones.

The danger of getting even higher dicepools than before is easily countered by the SR5 limit system, which I also think is a very good idea. Someone with 20+ dice is someone who can routinely get 6-8 hits on a test, and once in awhile do something truly wondrous.

It's not a carrot, it's a stick of fried delicious mozzarella (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Sengir]

A Skillcap of 12 is a Stick disguised as a Carrot.
Chars or their Players can't/won't achieve it in a Lifetime of playing

That would be the carrot. because you have something to aspire to as long as you play the character. Where is the stick, and where is the problem?

and all NPCs can have it without any efford or justification

If your GM decides that the regular grunt is among the top 0.0001% in his field for all of recorded history, that's hardly a fault of the game system.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

but you have to admit that a lot of Char that came fresh out of generation where already at the top or merely one step away.
There was not really much Char development to the Top only in the width (I hope you say that in english (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )
For me that was ok, but I heard (and read) some players ....complain that they're already the best of the best ( (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif) )
and didn't know what to do with their Karma.... (a "problem" that I never had with my Chars.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

with a dance sans problems

Medicineman

Yes, I have seen characters come out of Gen with Best in Class skills.
But in my opinion, that is a Player concern (wanting to be best in class), not a chargen concern.
In My Experience, Most Best in Class Character Concepts were not truly best in class, because they player sacrificed the majority of supoort skills that comprise the concept to get the High End Skills because it was more cost efficient to go that way than to actually pick up the skills required to make the concept work. As much hate as the Skill descriptions received in 4A, I still believe that they were very good guidelines for making a character.

And yes, That did have the tendency to force more width (breadth) in post gen development.

Never had issues with What to do with Karma in play either; in fact, I rarely ever had ENOUGH karma in play to get where I wanted to end up at. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Chance359]

I've always seen dicepool as a better representative of how good someone is than just straight skill rating.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I've always seen dicepool as a better representative of how good someone is than just straight skill rating.

Opinions do vary on that point, to be sure... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[sk8bcn]

I'm on the side of the 12 cap too.

I really dislike RPG's where you can hit the cap out of chargen or a few sessions only.

Actually, I don't even see why caps are usefull. The usual increase in costs skyrockets anyways for diminishing returns. It's way enough at my taste.

[hermit]

With regards to the relevance of skill, I've made decent experience with a general Limit of [skill*2] on skill tests. It has its own problems, and doesn't solve the default trap, but at least it prevents trolls from being the best possible ninja and cat burglars.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

With regards to the relevance of skill, I've made decent experience with a general Limit of [skill*2] on skill tests. It has its own problems, and doesn't solve the default trap, but at least it prevents trolls from being the best possible ninja and cat burglars.

Not a fan of Limits, personally... Limits generally introduce issues that tend to make little sense (Troll Ninja Cat Burglars. for example).
They are either too restrictive or not restrictive enough. And in my experience they tend to punish the non specialized character far more than the highly optimized ones. They do not do what they are intended to do.

[hermit]

And in my experience they tend to punish the non specialized character far more than the highly optimized ones.

All rules do. Characters optimized for rules conformity and exploiting loopholes will exist as long as there're rules. Any rules, be it in a game or laws in any society. You cannot change that, you can just try to minimize the impact.

Not such a fan of limits either (the skill-based limit raises huge questions about defaulting, for instance), but if you want to rein in either attribute-based default monsters or give skills more weight, it's a viable way, I think.

[Glyph]

That was really my biggest problem with SR4 skill ratings. Not so much how truncated they were, but how differences of one die were presented as vast gulfs of skill. Especially with skills only being a portion, potentially a small portion, of the dice pool.

SR5's wider skill range helps, a bit. I do see Medicineman's point about NPCs being the only ones likely to hit that 12 mark (except for adepts, who can get it right out of the starting gate - skill 7 with aptitude, 4 points of improved ability (which rounds up now), and a reflex recorder (which stacks, because there is no augmented limit for skills), and there you go - because Magicrun).

It doesn't help that, in the core book, a lot of the people making the archetypes thought the old SR4 limits applied (one skill of 6 or two at 5), while simultaneously they were giving super-high skill ratings to the contacts (which at least they seem to have noticed - in Run Faster, they are toned down a lot).

But see, Shadowrun always had that problem with initiation being uncapped, resulting in these Gary Stu immortal elf GMPC's running around breaking the game with their triple-grade initiate levels, or great dragons that can apparently fight off modern mechanized armies now. Compared to that, a "best of the best" NPC with a skill of 12 at least scales with the system, and the game world. Better to do it with rules that apply to everyone, rather than special snowflake rules like I heard that Street Legends had.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That was really my biggest problem with SR4 skill ratings. Not so much how truncated they were, but how differences of one die were presented as vast gulfs of skill. Especially with skills only being a portion, potentially a small portion, of the dice pool.

I really hate that, honestly. Especially when statistical analysis proved the provided examples to be laughably absurd: consider that anyone who is rated as a licensed automobile operator, but only just, is statistically likely to crash their vehicle thevery first time they are called upon to make any kind of roll.

[hermit]

But see, Shadowrun always had that problem with initiation being uncapped, resulting in these Gary Stu immortal elf GMPC's running around breaking the game with their triple-grade initiate levels, or great dragons that can apparently fight off modern mechanized armies now.

1) Great Dragons always could fight off armies. At the very least ever since Ghostwalker just walked over the ZDF and claimed Denver and nobody could do a damn thing, but even taking down Firewing took the combined force of three or four armies (and, according to SRRDF, prototype nanoweapons). Great dragons are Kaiju, not fightable monsters, and always have been.

2) I'm toying with the idea of a sanity meter. The base idea being to standardize cyberpsychosis, as well as put a soft-ish cap on initiation. Sanity Meter could be essence *10, and lose (essence cost*10) points every time an augmentation is added. To make the impact less straightforward road to madness, I considered splitting the effects itno 4or 5 tallies, each progressively adding different and escalating negative qualities - one makes you more paranoid, one makes you less sociable, one makes you increasingly oblivious to risk, that kind of thing. The player decides where to put the cost for each individual implant's sanity loss - meaning you can spread out 20 datajacks all over and not have much of anything in impact, but a huge block like wired 5 WILL make you less sane. Not sure if that's a good idea. But the same would also apply to initiations, with each costing sanity blocks that go with their Karma cost. Sure, you could optimize and not take much in terms of madness for some time but eventually you'd become the insane weird supermage. And Intiation finaly has a price.

[Sendaz]

2) I'm toying with the idea of a sanity meter. The base idea being to standardize cyberpsychosis, as well as put a soft-ish cap on initiation. Sanity Meter could be essence *10, and lose (essence cost*10) points every time an augmentation is added. To make the impact less straightforward road to madness, I considered splitting the effects itno 4or 5 tallies, each progressively adding different and escalating negative qualities - one makes you more paranoid, one makes you less sociable, one makes you increasingly oblivious to risk, that kind of thing. The player decides where to put the cost for each individual implant's sanity loss - meaning you can spread out 20 datajacks all over and not have much of anything in impact, but a huge block like wired 5 WILL make you less sane. Not sure if that's a good idea. But the same would also apply to initiations, with each costing sanity blocks that go with their Karma cost. Sure, you could optimize and not take much in terms of madness for some time but eventually you'd become the insane weird supermage. And Intiation finaly has a price.

Just on a side note, if someone is installing 20 datajacks in themselves, that is a pretty good sign they should be buying a psychological NQ in any event.
Bonus points if all installed on the face/head so you can get that Pinhead look going when all plugged in.(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[hermit]

Well, yes. Though if you plug into 20 commlinks, a RCD and a Cyberdeck, daisy chain them that is a LOT of drones. and since the highest stats ina PAN count, you can also optimize there a lot. Just saying. But the point is that lots of little ware may be compensed by spreading it all out, but one big 'ware chunk will have an impact. Don't know whether this can ever get anywhere, though. The basic idea was to make intiiation more of a choice than a natural progression into infinity and beyond.