Like I said to Cain, show me the character.

You are on DSF without at least a pair of waders?

Actually, the best term is "too arbitrary". You've got so many limits and restrictions, and you can still turn in disgustingly abusive characters. The limits would be forgiveable if they prevented the grossest abuses, but they don't do that. The end result is that people who play "balanced" characters come out too weak, while the min/maxers rule the playground.

I actually have no problem with the BP allocation. What I have issues with is the fiddliness, overcomplexity, and abuseability of the system.

You've just mirrored some of my major frustrations with SR4 chargen. If you screw up in one area, you need to go back to the beginning and start all over again. The system is remarkably unforgiving in that respect, and that's part of the reason why I've found character creation times to be insanely long.

Yes, I know there are programs out there. But we're comparing systems, not fan programming skills. If the only way to make character creation palatable is to download a program, you've got *serious* issues.

It is a bad thing, if you want your characters to be able to develop in their chosen area of expertise. Now, the absolute best you can do is match your archrival, which really leads to some sad story elements. Inigo Montoya wasn't satisified being the equal of the six-fingered man, he had to be *better* than him. The drive for perfection and superiority are really excellent roleplaying elements in a game, and the system shuts them down cold.

Also, as Mr. Lucky demonstrated, you don't necessarily need to sacrifice a whole hell of a lot in order to be a one-trick pony.

Untrue. Let's compare the street sam archetype in the BBB to Mr. Lucky. Both of them have the exact same amount of points in basic attributes and gear (200 and 38, respectively); they also have a lot of the same cyberware. They'll make for a fair comparison.

Looking at their attributes, we see that the BBB sam only has 2 higher attributes: Strength and Logic. Mr. Lucky has a higher Charisma and Intuition, so they're balanced out overall. Since they have the same Body and Willpower, they're equally vulnerable to combat spells and magic. Verdict: About the same.

Looking at the special attributes, Mr. Lucky has slightly less Essence (0.8 to 0.75), but he has a higher Initiative (7/9 to 8/10) with the same number of passes (both have Wired 2). And, of course, Mr Lucky has a whopping Edge of 8, versus the sam's of 2. Verdict: Mr Lucky, hands down.

Comparing Edges and Flaws, most of Mr. Lucky's edges are stat-boosters, opening up the option of him increasing his skills elsewhere. The street sam's are much more direct, granting him direct bonuses. The only edge Mr. Lucky has that gives him a direct benefit is High Pain Tolerance 1; but the street sam has it at 2. They both have Incompetences, but Mr. Lucky has a lot more, offsetting the sam's Mild addiction. Verdict: Street Sam, but not by a whole lot.

As for skills, Mr. Lucky only has 5, against the sam's 10. However, if we include his bonus from Enhanced Articulation, Mr. Lucky has more dice for dodging (3 vs 6), Infiltration (2 vs 5 in urban environments, 2 vs 3 elsewhere), Social skills (Negotiation 2 vs Con (Fast Talk) 2/4), and primary attack form (5 in automatics vs 8/10 in pistols; with all modifications in place, Mr. Lucky is throwing 18 dice per pistols test). Mr. Lucky has gymnastics at 3, which is the same as the sam's Athletics skill group; the sam has an advantage, but not much of one, and that's without including Mr. Lucky's bonus from Enhanced Articulation. In fact, in combat skills, the BBB sam's only got a noticeable advantage in two areas: blades, and heavy weapons. Since Mr. Lucky isn't meant as a heavy-weapons platform anyway, that doesn't hurt him in the slightest; and his Unarmed Combat dice is one higher than the sam's Blades skill. Verdict: Mr. Lucky.

Both characters are severely lacking in Technical skills of any stripe; however the BBB sam has an Incompetence in Hacking, while Mr. Lucky's incompetences are in skills that you can't default to anyway (Software), and/or are highly unlikely to come up in any case (Pilot Aerospace). Quite frankly, if he's going to have to pilot the space shuttle, he's already screwed past reason. So, the two characters are about equally weak in Technical skills, with a slight advantage towards Mr. Lucky since his weaknesses are less common.

Gear wise, Mr. Lucky has three handwritten pages of equipment that I'm not about to type out. The highlights include: lots of pistols with concealable holsters and arm slides, tons of EX-EX, multiple commlinks and fake SINs, multiple pieces of armor for different occasions, glasses and contacts with plenty of vision enhancers, several rating 6 Medkits, and a Bulldog Step Van with an improved Pilot program and Maneuver soft. The street sam has about a paragraph's worth of gear, not nearly as detailed or as varied. Mr. Lucky also starts with a High lifestyle, and will have (4d6 +12)x500 in starting cash. The street sam only gets 3d6 x 50. Verdict: Mr. Lucky.

In contacts, Mr. Lucky has spent 11 points vs. the street sam's 9. They both have a Fixer and Street Doc, oddly enough. Mr. Lucky's contacts aren't as well-connected, but are a lot more Loyal. We'll call this one even as well, with another small advantage to Mr. Lucky for spending more points.

Overall, Mr. Lucky either totally outclasses the street sam, is slightly better, or isn't much worse off. The balanced character has no advantages in any particular area, and loses in several.

I did. Remember? You tried and failed to find weaknesses in the character. I've even done a point-by-point comparison with a BBB character to show that all the differences favor Mr. Lucky. We had this argument, and you lost.

What's more, only the most amateurish, rollplay-trapped GM's think you need a lot of Active skills to give a character depth. You only need a handful of Knowledge skills to really bring a character alive. Mr. Lucky has 18 free points, which is more than enough.

Let's say that we give him a bunch of street oriented knowledges. That makes him a standard gutterpunk. Then, we erase those, and give him Knowledges in Farming, Animal Handling, and Rodeos. Suddenly, he's a cowboy, lost in the big city. We then try a different set: Cantonese, plus a bunch of martial arts knowledges, Zen-type philosophy, and maybe even Chinese magical theory. Now we have a gun-fu monk-- maybe even a burned-out adept, who sacrificed his magic for the quick gains of cyberware.

I can even do this with the most min/maxed troll. Even with a Logic and Intuition of 1, that's 6 points. If we shove that into an Art History skill, suddenly we have a character with hidden depths and a surprising appreciation for beauty. He doesn't have any hobby skills, but that's okay-- he spends his free time getting happily lost in galleries and art museums, and occasionally correcting the tour guides.

You do not need an extensive Active skill list to have a detailed character. What you need is roleplaying skills and a bit of creativity, as well as a GM who encourages you to play around with your Knowledge skills. An extensive character history leads to more "depth" in characters than extensive skill lists, any day of the week. A GM who encourages roleplay over rollplay would know this automatically.

Cain ain't going stop claiming that he's proven through irrefutable logic that black is white. I found this out in the thread about LA salvage where he could read a single page and come up the most bizzare statements. Even playing an actual game with him wouldn't get through that Mr. Lucky ain't all that. Plus it would likely be an experience something like this.

But the good news is that I've managed to work in an Apocolypse Now quote to sum it all up. So grab yourself a pair of wings and fly baby, fly!

Most of the big points are in the thread already. In case you don't have a set of wings to work through the 13 pages, here is a quick rundown. The first problem is any GM with half a brain tossing the laundry list of Incompetence Qualitys back in Cain's face. The second biggest problem is Mr. Lucky's overreliance on Defaulting. (EDIT: Even more specifically he is Defaulting Perception!) The third is the idea that Edge, even 8 points, is going to last that long when you are relying on it so heavily.

Cain's basic response? U R DUM GM! Only he seems to claim it is ok if you let people know up front, and not springing stuff on players. I'm not advocating surprising players that a broad game is what would be played, and not advocating dropping rulings without fair warning. I'm not sure, he seems really confused.

Hear, hear.

That's what always seems to happen with a point-buy system. Sometimes people will myopically make up an uber-specialist and completely dominate their designated role, only to get smacked down in a foreign arena. Sometimes people make up a generalist, trying to cover all bases, and then they gripe about how they feel like they're sucking at everything because the specialists are overshadowing them.

And then those people actually feel indignant when confronted with the consequences of their build style. Of course you're going to have weaknesses; were you looking to be 100% unstoppable in all situations?

I don't really follow you. Example?

Ah, I see what you mean. That could make for a very entertaining game with that Incompetancies.

Over the longterm I can't see that being a very good strategy as, for me at least, I would see the bar as raising. After the first couple of times I would start running into the not so impressed anymore. I'm not very prone to giving PCs dice for player actions. Especially if the player on the other hand was expecting, if not demanding, things to go peachy keen for the character with such a limited Skill set.

It is really kind of a Catch 22. If they don't play the character to match the Skill set they aren't likely to regain Edge used. But if they do play the Mr. Lucky to match the Skill set they are likely spending even more Edge.

How ironic that you actually failed to grasp the "sides" yourself.

I have not played Exalted, though apparently some in the SR4 group I'm playing with have. So I couldn't comment directly on that right now. I can just say that I seriously doubt someone playing Mr. Lucky is going to like what he'll need to do if the goal is to gain back ground he's lost for being overspecialized. Not to say that a good player won't be able to, but it will tend to balance out any Edge he gets.

If it doesn't then I would have considered it to have been poorly GMed...unless of course the players are having an over-the-top blast. That is really what it is about, having a blast.

Exalted is kind of an over-the-top game where you play minor godlings, right? Hmm, there is a demo on the web perhaps I'll look it through later.

There are a lot of people saying a lot of things. There are indeed folks that like the ability to have that really high Skill. Me, I'm fairly indifferent to that, one way or another. However jumping from one PC having one really high Skill to that PC being overpowered is where you fall down.

I'm arguing that that PC could be overpowering if the GM structures their game in a way that turns the light away from the flaws and towards the strengths. Whether the highly specialized PC being 'overpowering' in the game good or bad is a subjective thing, and some people will like playing that game. Good on them.

But it is still a choice the GM, and the players, make. Intentionally or not. If they don't like the results of a given choice they should make a different choice in how to run the game.

I'm arguing that the highly specialized 400BP PC tends to have serious flaws. If the GM doesn't turn the light on those flaws, and highlights the PCs strong points then the character is going to rock through the game.

Of course if they want that kind of game I'd recommend thinking about bumping up the Build Points to 500 and then broadening the scope of their game. But not everyone likes a broad game.

EDIT Likewise if they want a narrow game and lower starting Skills they should think about dropping the BP some and removing the choice of starting Skills above 4. Maybe even above 3.

You already lost this argument. You don't need to keep digging yourself into the hole.

Let's see what you're trying to say:

The Incomptences are perfectly legal by the RAW, although we could swap them out for any other set of skills that don't allow defaulting anyway. As I demonstrated in the comparison vs. the street sam, Mr. Lucky isn't going to be defaulting anymore than anyone else. In the same vein, his stats are high enough that he doesn't need to rely on Edge more heavily than everyone else.

Of the archetypes in the BBB, 25% of them don't have the Perception skill. Meaning that it's useful, but not essential-- the same percentage of characters lack the Dodge skill. Your response has been that you won't allow those characters to default, for no apparent reason than because you want to punish the character. The RAW makes it clear that characters usually get to default, so your argument boils down to this: "Your character won't work because I'm going to GM HAMMER him into oblivion! Wah!"

Furthermore, when it comes to determining surprise, it's not a Perception test that matters-- it's an Initative test. Mr. Lucky's initiative is high enough to make up the difference.

Your other argument-- that the top point of Edge is worth less than buying Perception at chargen-- is equally flawed. In game, it only takes 10 karma to gain Perception 2 (Visual). The top point of Edge is worth 24 points. Given a typical karma award of 5 per session, in two weeks Mr. Lucky will have an equal Perception skill, while your Mr. Bland will still be saving up for something useful.

So, you don't know anything about optimizing characters, and you don't know how to handle optimized characters without resorting to blatant GM abuse. That's fine-- there are many skilled GM's here who can teach you how to get over these serious GM problems. You've got nothing to be embarrased about, there have been a few worse GM's who've come to Dumpshock and learned to improve.

And now, I'll turn it over to you, for the feeble insult of the day! (Everyone note-- he won't actually pull out a real argument. His pattern is to make a lot of noise and insult people who show him his mistakes.)

Actually, that doesn't matter. Mr. Lucky won't be relying on his Edge any more than any other character does, so a slow refresh rate will actually favor him. The point is that he's no *worse* off than any other similar character, which can be shown.

In this particular case, Mr. Lucky would have an advantage-- the BBB sam only has Negotiation at 2 for social skills, while Mr. Lucky's Con (Fast Talk) would be more appropriate to the situation. Neither has Ettiquette, which would be the best, but that just means that at worst, they'll be doing about the same. Once again: the overspecialized character has no disadvantages.

Let's use another example, then. Michael Jordan is listed as having a skill of 7. What the game is saying is that a rookie player, fresh out of college, could be a perfect match for Michael in his prime. I can't see anyone matching the top-of-his-game Michael in 1 on 1, let alone a wet-behind-the-ears, no pro experience player.

So, not only do we have a disconnect between the stated goals of a "grittier" game, we have an arbitrary limit that restricts characters from improving. A common background plot is for someone to have an archrival who's the best at a certain thing, and the character's goal is to be able to be better than them at it. Under the current rules, that's impossible to achieve. We've just destroyed a wonderful character background, loaded with potential plot hooks and story lines.

That I should have given him credit for. I was just trying to clarify the particular brick wall hit.


.... moved Edge refresh rate questions to start an new thread ....

On the contrary I can guarantee that with the number and variety of Tests I incorporate in my game Mr. Lucky will be relying on his Edge more than any other character does because he'll be consistently falling back on it for to achieve Thresholds on Defaults (since he has average pools of 3-4 dice in a variety of tests I throw at my players). But that's the type of game I'm running. I use the Thresholds straight out of the book and I can guarantee that (in my game) the character you've posted would have to spend Edge to actually perform on par with the rest of the team in every situation except combat (I will mention the character who ran out of Edge above only saw one firefight before running on empty).

You're conveniently overlooking the fact that none of the archetypes in the SR book are optimized. Would you like to compare SR3 archetypes with tricked out characters we could come up with?

But that's besides the point, unless you were trying to convince someone of something I wouldn't allow you to use the Fast Talk specialization in the first place and in fact your lack of Etiquette would provide a negative bias/modifier going in. One skill doesn't cover all bases. At best he'd be on the same levle as the sam. In the same way that a hacker trying to get by with just Hacking in my game is definitely screwed (I make a point of using all the rules). Again it boils down to the game you play.

I'll get back to your Michael Jordan example in a few minutes.

Had to get back to listening to some Quiet Riot?

Well I'm an axegrinding piledriver
Mother says that I never never mind her
Got no brains; I'm insane
Teacher says that I'm one big pain
I'm like a lazer, six-string razor

Now everyone together on the chorus!

sigh...

and that same rookie basketball player will also be world-class at baseball, football, curling, hockey, downhill skiing, diving, swimming, the luge, ad nauseum, because it's all just the athletics skill group. (It's a game - in the interests of not making it unplayable, yes, things tend to get simplified.)

An experienced anything is going to have numerous additional side and background skills, reputation, contacts, cash and toys that just are not available to rookies.

Why do people keep trying to stat out "perfect" people using (slightly modified) chargen rules, then complain that a min-maxed character straight out of chargen is "too close"? Of course they're close - you're purposefully designing them that way!

And this is still overlooking that, IRL, records do keep getting broken...someday someone actually will make Jordan's skills look obsolete (which in game systems usually means the guy with the latest splatbook massively overpowers everyone else - see RIFTS or the latest incarnation of D&D - not the champions of good game design.)

Let's take a look at that, then:
Combat skills: We've established that Mr. Lucky is more than competent in that area. In fact, he's superior.
Magical skills: None. Which is no surprise, since he's mundane. He's just as screwed as anyone else in that area.
Physical skills: Mr. Lucky has Gymnastics, which helps on Jumping tests. He's also got Infiltration. Running and Swimming don't have Thresholds. You've got him on Shadowing, but that's an opposed test, and it doesn't have a threshold as a result. Escape Artist is an Extended test, so he'll be slower about it-- a disadvantage if he lacks time, but on an average roll, he can esacpe a set of containment manacles in 4 minutes. All the other skills have equipment that can assist, so he won't be disadvantaged if he's prepared with the right gear-- and there's a reason why I gave him 3 pages of gear!
Resonance Skills. None. See Magical Skills.
Social skills: Charisma skills are all opposed tests, so no thresholds apply. He's at a disadvantage, but he doesn't need Edge to get lucky, either.
Technical skills: He has none. Which is a disadvantage, but most of them are Build/Repair or Decking related skills. He's not going to be much worse off than any non tech-head-- the decker should be handling most of the computer stuff. First Aid is a loss, but if he's the last one up in a firefight, First Aid isn't as much of a priority anymore.
Vehicle skills: None, but he has an advanced Pilot and Maneuver soft for his primary vehicle. He can default and upload those into any vehicle he absolutely needs to operate; and even then, you don't need to default or even roll to operate a vehicle normally. According to the example on page 109, he's not any worse off than most basic drivers on the road-- in fact, he's slightly better, due to his high Reaction. He doesn't have an extensive vehicle skill list, but he's not a Rigger, either. He does have Incompetences in Pilot Anthroform and Aerospace; but first of all, you said you had issues with those, so I as a good player would have compromised on something else. Second, all the anthroforms are drones, which he shouldn't be operating in any case. Third, you can't default to those skills anyway. And finally, if he's the only one availiable to pilot the space shuttle, he's already screwed beyond reason.

Bottom line: You can catch him off guard, but that screws with all characters equally. Overall, he's no worse off than any other similar character, and has a huge set of advantages in his own right. And he can easily get enough dice to meet thresholds in many circumstances, without resorting to Edge.

That's exactly the point. He's no worse off than the entire team of uncouth mercs you dropped into the grand tour. The lack of ettiquette penalty would be applied to everyone equally. He keeps all his advantages, and doesn't have any relative disadvantages.

Actually he's "more competent" than the sam in the base book. He's slightly behind the sam in my game, but only just (and then only in a firefight). He's got pretty much the same load out in cyber, and Mr Lucky has an edge if he uses Edge. Which is okay Mr. Lucky is a perfectly valid character concept - he's the "lucky" street sam. With a couple of tweaks he's a perfectly valid character build.

Pretty much yeah.

Okay. Let's have him do something a standard like scale a wall or climb a fence? No skill? Default means dice pool of 4. Threshold varies.

Specifically he has Infiltration 2 (Urban). Not bad, but it's specialized. Again in about a quarter of my runs he'd be unable to use the specialization, he'd still be able to get by.

No they don't, but they do have negative modifiers depending on terrain and environmental factors. When on a rain-slicked street or a rundown sidewalk in the Barrens and you're looking at a dicepool of 3-4 on a Default, 5 under normal conditions (not bad but not particularly better than any cybered individual).

No Threshold, but there are modifiers that impact any default Tests. For that matter, Mr Lucky is an easy target for being shadowed. Since you might be avle to use a Stealth skill instead of Perception you're screwed in that regard too.

Let's ignore the possible modifiers for a second, most of the time they'll cancel themselves out in the case of this character anyway. You've got 6 attempts (dice pool size) to get out of handcuffs needing to accumulate 5 hits with 6 dice per roll (Defaulting to Agility) - you're right you might just make it.

Nothing to add here.

You don't get Thresholds, but you do get dice pool modifiers. On average your dice pool is going to be 3 dice in most legwork - except at Fast Talking which it'll be 5-6. That's below par in my game which is legwork and investigation intensive.

Just like any other runner the need for Technical skills varies depending on the group's abilities. Impact also depends on the size of the group and their tactical approach to runs - again varies widely from game to game.

Any character can have what Mr Lucky has gear-wise, in fact my group uses a similar setup because the hacker decided not to go the rigger route and nobody has significant Vehicle skills. However, Mr Lucky is definitely weaker than every character with a Vehicle skill and the same tech.

Untrue. In my investigation and infiltration-heavy game he'd be defaulting heavily on Social Active Skills and probably just as much on Physical and Technical skills (and that's not even mentionning the impact of negative modifiers and Thresholds)- but as I mentioned I have no problem with the character you've designed as being balanced with everybody else - I have a problem with you implying he's better or on par with a full-blown specialist (and not the generic archetypes in the BBB).

The point being he's on par with them and not better (since he has no applicable advantages unless he uses edge and even then it depends on how much edge the other side has). He's far behind any face or social adept character but then he should be.

Elf (30)

B 3 (20)
A 6 (40)
R 5 (50)
S 2 (10)
C 3 (0)
I 5 (40)
L 3 (20)
W 3 (20)

Longarms 6 (24)
Pistols 4 (16)
Automatics 4 (16)
Close Combat 3 (30)
Athletics 2 (20)
Etiquette 3 (12)
Negotiation 2 (8)
Infiltration 2 (8)
Shadowing 4 (16)
Software 2 (8)

this leaves 42 points left over for resources and positive qualities. et voila: a character with 6 in his main attribute and skill, with no real weaknesses.

Thanks for putting in the time, I appreciate that.

That is the start to a nice character. Overall decent Attributes, and 15 Skills; a few 4s, a few 3s, and a solid base of 2s. I also like the choice of longarms over pistols, although Automatics 6, Pistols 4, Longarms 3, Heavy Weapons 1 (for an underbarrel GL) I think is another good way to go (EDIT Grenades are a bit beefier now, and without the Thrown Weapon or Heavy Weapons skills your character has a tougher time taking advantage of that). Of course no 7 Skill, and no maxed Attributes. Which is absolutely no surprise.

Right now he's also about 8 dice short of the top end of Attribute + Skill, and needs some IP. Without IP the only thing he'd be dominating is who gets the next turn on the tetter-totter.

I've got some stuff to do today, but I can finish him off later if you you'd rather not. Were you thinking Adept, implants, or Adept with Synaptic Boosters? Also what where you thinking of for Edge? Right now he's only got Edge 1.

So you are trying to say that sort of almost nearly (but 8 dice short) maxed in a single Skill = dominating a field?

Are you going to finish him, or do you want me to? Picking up those extra IPs aren't really that cheap. He's got a lot of stuff left to buy.

Right now he's 8 dice short. Hell, he likely isn't even going to make the Tir national Unaugmented Olympics team.

Maximum Skill is 6 + 1(Aptitude) * 1.5 = 10. Maximum Attribute is 7 + 1(Exceptional Attribute) * 1.5 = 12. Sorry, my bad. He is actually 10 dice short.


EDIT BTW I just noticed he doesn't have any Perception. But just a point or two there should be fine, he has pretty good Intuition to back it up.

Having a Cain momment? Maximum modified Skill is 6 + 1 * 1.5.

Well since you have the book try page 109, bottom left. Anyway, gotta go. Later.