Skill groups were one of the things I was most excited about in SR4. Finally, you can have someone who can have related skills at competent levels without that being all that he can do.

Then one of my players came to me and said he coulden't seem to find proof that skill groups were discounted at chargen. We've looked over the eratta, and our heads are shaking. Is this right, or are we totally missing something?

What? Skill groups cost 10bp per point at chargen, as opposed to regular skills costing 4bp per point. Since all skill groups are at least three skills, that is a discount.

p75, half way down the left-hand column

I'm curious about this too.

Is it more effective to put BPs in skill groups or regular skills during character generation?

I thought SR characters are more effective when they specialize.

Skill groups, as stated above, cost 10 BP at character generation while skills cost 4. Thus, if you're interested in three or more skills within a group, it is cheaper, at character generation, to purchase the group rather than the skill. For example, if you wanted Spellcasting, Ritual Spellcasting, and Counterspelling, it would be 12 BP to raise each of them individually, but only 10 BP to get them all as a part of the Sorcery Skill Group.

As for people being effective when they specialize, sure they'll be effective in their area of expertise -- their specialty -- but they'll be less effective elsewhere. I'm a fan of generalist characters with many strong skills rather than one specialization, but YMMV. This one sounds like it's going to be purely based on the preference of the individual whose making the character.

It is more efficient to buy a skill group than to buy all the skills in contains.

For example if you want to be able to use all the skills in the firearms group your better of taking the group.

If you are happy only to use pistols then you only take pistols and pay less than a skill group.

And you can specialise and still take skill groups. For example a mage that specialises in spirits will take the conjuring skill group.

Edward

I got 2 skillgroups on 4 (stealth, Influence) and one on 2 (computer, if it is called that) plus additional skills, like shooting, dodging, driving, perception, forgery.

I feel very versatile right now, almost always something to do.

Skill groups are indeed great, and I welcome them much more than a skill web or the old Concentration-Specialization method.

The upsides are the discounted costs and the thematic skill clustering (i.e.: "I'm a gun guy, so I took the Firearms group").

The downsides are that you can't leave chargen with a skill group higher than rating 4, you can't specialize in any of the grouped skills, and raising the whole group at once requires a huge chunk of karma. It's less karma than if you raised each skill individually, but it requires more patience to save up that big karmic wad.

It's particularly rough on the self-discipline of a magician or technomancer, since they have so many other things on which to spend karma. But, in the long run, it pays off. So it really comes down to if you think your character will be around long enough for there to be a "long run." :)

Anyway, from a cost-efficiency standpoint, it saves you the most BP and karma to: Buy a skill group up to 4 in chargen, then save up 20 karma to bring it up to 5 during gameplay. Then save up another 24 karma to bring the group up to 6. Then "break" the group and save up another 6 or 8 karma (in 2-point increments) to specialize each subskill. At that point you'll have 3 or 4 skills at 6(8) for the total cost of 40 BP + 50 or 52 karma.

Cain. I didn’t mean take a skill specialisation.

I meant focus his abilities on.

A specialist spirit summoner will probably be wanting to summon all types of spirits and thus will not take a skill specialisation.

A mage that likes spells will take high conjuring and specialise the conjuring skill to spirits of man so he can bring up better spell slinging spirits.

Edward

Also, you can buy a skill group up to 4, then as your character progresses you can split the skills off and get specialisations.

But it depends, I was looking at a gun-for-hire type character, and came up with the following:

Pistols (semi-automatics) 3(5)
Automatics (assault rifles) 3(5)
Longarms (sniper rifles) 3(5)

BP cost: 42.

that's 2 BP more than getting Firearms Skill Group at level 4, but as my character was going to have an Ares Predator, an AK-97 and a Walther MA-2100, for those 2 BP more I get 5s on my three weapons instead of 4s.

You may get an advantage now but it will cost you in karma later.

Edward

I though you could only have 1 specialization per skill group? That's how my GM is playing it.

Only one specialisation per skill.

According to the rules

As mentioned, Skill groups are great for chargen, but their use in the long term game is definately one of patience. To raise that first skill group from chargen 4 to group rating 5 is 25 karma. Raising, one of those in the group to 5 is 'only' 10. So depending on the karma rate gain of your campaigns, you may be a little behind if you're saving up to buy a group while others are focusing more on individual skills. Heck, the guy focusing on one skill can raise his from 4 to 6 in the time you can raise your skill group 4 to skill group 5.

How dangerous and just in general how your GM runs stuff will also determine how much the slower raising of your groups affects your lifespan. I don't think it'd be fair to the others if the threat level remained low just because one of the players is banking karma to raise a group, but that means they're a little less able to handle threats that scale with the others in the group that may be more specialized in their karma spending.

The threat isn’t going to scale much over 25 karma, while you’re waiting to increase your skill group the other characters will have raised 2 skills. Unless you also neglected to upgrade your equipment and are hording money for something else.

I agree it is more appropriate for some characters (those with drive and focus) to raise skills individually but it’s not a better deal, just better roll playing.

Edward