Alright - I've been told over and over that I've made a terribly min-maxy character for sr3 - though I didn't see it. The charm of SR's earlier editions is in no small part found in one's ability to create a really top-notch superspy right out of the box. Now I only played in Missions so my respectably good character was hugely overkill. (He was a version of the Elf-Hitman, Skillwired up so that he basically got 10 dice in every skill - he was hugely playable in the roleplaying way - the superbland guy who just happens to be great at everything who has to constantly wonder about the validity and ethics of his actions - but again, Missions doesn't really allow for roleplaying, at least not in a nuanced long-build kinda way.)

But I'm told that my character is terrible and I'm terrible for making him. So I'm looking at SR4 and I see they've done away with a lot of the front loading of characters which is mechanically superior - right you have a place to go at least - but I can't tell if you're meant to make a guy who's adequate at three or four things - or one who's great at only one thing. I'm playing around. Physad-magicians are pretty good because stat-buffing magic is the best magic you'll ever cast once (maybe look into that - far better than cyber and better than physad powers because it goes to all the attributes and isn't limited - maybe erratta should cover it?) So that's first attempt - Lots of kinesics to make a face + a pile of utility spells and conjuring - so Face/Magical Support guy - this build gets me about 20 dice in 2 or 3 things.

The other way to go is physad-magician melee fighter. The stat-buffing is still a great (if potentially broken) option + you get killing hands and critical strike - so with a magicked up str and say 2.5 magic worth of critical strike you can punch a whole lot harder than a panther cannon hits. This is a fun way to go, but a little one trick pony for me - you get the death touch-ninja man and that's sort of all - what to do when there's no-one to fight/kill?

I thought of a hacker/rigger but right - why bother till the rules are actually written.

Finally I ended up with a variation of the first two characters - who's o.k. at chatting, o.k. at fighting and o.k. at magic and pretty good at summoning. Magic characters are the easiest to make and the mentor spirit writes a lot of personality right into the guy in the first place so there's that little crutch.

My question is - are these bad characters? the SR missions are rediculously simple. A single well built character can dismantle all of them - at least the SR3 ones - but maybe that's what everyone's on about. I don't get it - advise me!

The only time I ever feel something gets truly munched out is when a character starts picking up totally random abilities/cyber/magic/what-have-you to just squeeze that one last die into the one or two things he's good at, to the defecit of just about everything else.

As a GM, I try and make sure that my players are regularly getting into a wide variety of situations. Be it chasing people down the block, jumping across alleyways on rooftops, trying to creep past motion detectors, sweet-talking a nervous guard, or blending in at a party, there's something every character is good at, and something he's bad at. In my games, at least, characters who aren't well-rounded encounter some difficulties. This leaves the players free to "munch out" as much as they want, but that point of diminishing returns can hit you really hard if your elven ubergunbunny with Str 1 suddenly finds himself knocked off the back of a ferry into Elliott Bay, and has to swim to shore.

SR4 has different mechanics, but characters can be just as powerful - it's just measured on a different scale. You still have the basic choices you had in SR3 - make a character who is ultra-powerful in one area at the expense of everything else, make a character who is very good at one or more specialties and adequate elsewhere, make a character who is well-rounded but not exceptional in any one way, or make a character who tries to do too much and is spread too thin.

Some builds in SR4 are more effective than others - an elven sammie with Agility of 8 and Reaction of 9, someone who got a skill at 6 with a specialization, etc. But SR3 was like that, too. You probably just know how to do an optimal build, that's all. Munchkins generally sacrifice too much to squeeze those last few dice in, while others often prefer generalists who don't stand out in one area as much.

So far, SR4 doesn't seem to have as many "broken" areas of the rules as SR3 did. However, we haven't seen the sourcebooks, yet. Chipjack expertdrivers plus high rating skillwires allowed you to make a pretty sick character for general stuff while saving points for those all important combat skills, for example.

My test for munchkinism is if a character simply cannot fail at one or more tasks, especially combat areas. These guys strain the suspension of disbelief in the game for me, because shadowrunners are human and humans are fallible - it's hardly a dark, gritty world where you have a dude who never ever screws up.

you've never seen the gunslinger throw 16 dice and still critical glitch

Even normal skillwires are pretty good in SR4, and they don't cost much Essense. A rating of 3 in SR4 is nice and solid, especially if you have a high Attribute to use with it.

I don't think even the mega-dice throwers are that broken. Between a fixed TN of 5 and thresholds, even the people who can sling 25-30 dice or so still won't automatically succeed at everything.

Actually, they haven't done away with the frontloading in SR$. In fact, Edge is worse than Karma Pool for front-loading. The more I read into the Edge mechanics, the more broken they look to me. It is impossible to kill a PC with an Edge of 1 or better. I can't help but think that some munchkins will treat it like lives in video games: "Oh, hell, I'll charge the machine gun nest, I've got two Edge left."

What they have done is made it impossible to have someone who's good at more than one thing. You cannot start with more than one skill at 6, period; so instead of having a character who's good at several different things, you've got to create a super-specialist. The game then goes on to reward overspecialization, and still leaves you enough for a bunch of midrange skills. The net result is that you can create a character that's *more* overpowered in one category than before, while not leaving him totally incomptetent in every other area.

Those concepts seem to be ok. No problem.

I´d advice against the close-combat-monster because that one will always be a one-trick-pony.

Munching is only bad if it has a negative impact on the game. If the other players complain because there is nothing left to do, you munched to much. If the GM can hardly challenge you in your choosen speciality, you munched to much. If everyone has her niche in the game and has obstacles to overcome, FINE!

If all missions are to easy, either you or the GM have to change.

fear of not advancing as quickly isn't nearly as threatening to players as fear of character death, in most cases. i'll admit, i have known a few players who would rather let their character die and start over rather than continue play, if things don't go their way. they get really pissed when i don't give them any karma after chargen, on their new char.

yes, but that's not nearly as threatening, to most players, as actual character death. if a character's going to pull bonehead moves, i as a GM would prefer they only get one or two chances--beyond that, threats related to what almost happened don't seem effective, to me, and their slowed advancement is just going to make me look like a bad guy.

Cain's saying that in his experience, such characters' karma pool is still in the single-digits, due to the karma pool damage you mentioned. that's not my experience, really; unfortunately, there's no guidance in SR3 on how GMs should deal with karma pool, so different games are going to have wildly different experiences with it. my primary character is just over 170 earned karma, and the only reason he doesn't have 17 karma pool is because he sunk 5 of it into his team karma pool (which he's dug into twice, all told). i'd like to think it's not because my various GMs haven't been putting him in dangerous enough situations, but "dangerous enough" varies from GM to GM.

i like the concept of the Edge mechanic. i have serious reservations about the execution of it.

edit: Brahm, in my experience, killing a character's PC--or, rather, allowing circumstances generated by the PC to kill them--has worked pretty well as an object lesson. it's the difference between your mom telling you not to stick a fork in the electrical socket, and actually doing it and experiencing the consequences. some kids stick a fork in an electrical socket. very few do it twice.

Um ok question how do you get an edge of 8?

max edge is 6 like all stats with lucky you get +1 for 7 being human (the way it reads to me is) you start with 2 instead of 1 edge. like elves start with 3 charisma but they still max at 6 at least at character generation unless the elf has exceptional attribute quality then it is 7.

The Human Edge cap is 7. Lucky increases any character's Edge cap by 1. So, a Lucky Human caps Edge at 8.

(The writeup of the "Lucky" quality even uses an Edge:8 human as an example.)

that's the cap but unless I misread a post I thought someone was saying they were starting with 8 and the rules say 6 is max for chargen.

The skill cap in chargen is 6, not the attribute cap.

You can't have more than one attribute at your racial maximum out of chargen. Humans have a racial max of 7 in Edge, and Lucky raises that racial max to an 8.

6 is the max for chargen then you factor in race positives so for a human a 6 trns into a 7 and with Lucky you can goto 8 at chargen. It is the exceptional attribute for Edge.

ok so question edge is an attribute right? so if your human your 6 goes to 7 lucky makes for 8 and then you can take the quality of exceptional attribute for 9?

Exceptional Attribute only applies to the big 8, not to magic, resonance, essence, initiative, or edge.

actually initation allows for magic and resonance to go over 6 and while I am not sure I would think if you wanted to spend the build points you could initate at chargen yes?

You can't initiate in chargen. Brahm's method of post-chargen karma would be valid.

I'm pretty sure we'll see rules for Chargen-initiation in the next Magic book, but at the moment, they don't exist.

i'm not saying that method isn't eventually effective, Brahm. i'm saying it's not as effective, and is not effective as quickly.

Did they have chargen initiation in older editions?

Oh, boy! Exchange all of my money and nearly all of my spell points in order to get three extra points in a stat I can't even really use without the aforementioned goodies?

SIGN ME UP!

Seriously. Who wants to initiate in chargen? That's like getting deltaware before doing Food Fight.

Usually the first (and second, third, fourth...) thing a couple of my players do after rolling their magical characters up is initiate. If they had the option at chargen, they'd do it then, unless it was obviously more efficient to do it afterwards.

It made sense for some characters. Shamanics focused on conjuration for instance.

The first Grade wasn't that bad at all, and two were doable without even spending anything on 25,000 / Spell Points, although he had very little left for spells. It really came down to how important the metamagic you got was, and how many spells were important to the character. If your character was a conjuring aspected shaman, meaning no Spells, you not only had extra Spell Points but you likely couldn't afford all the foci to spend the Spell Points on binding. Without Initiating at least once you usually had lots of leftover Spell Points.

I guess I'm weird in the fact that I'd like to have more spells. I could see how adepts could really benefit from multi-initiation, but as a mage or a shaman, I'd likely put off initiation once I get the one or two metamagic techniques I wanted.

Generally, Centering and Masking. I did have fun with the one guy who knew Tattooing, though.

in SR3, yeah. in SR4, it's a toss-up--cast the spells you know better (assuming you're also raising your magic score), or cast more spells?

I'm a *huge* fan of "Cast more spells." Trick is getting people to understand that there are useful things beyond Stunball, Powerbolt, Armor, Enhance Reflexes, and Heal.