Hey all. I'm trying to update an SR3 build to SR 4 and not having any luck...

Priorities were:
A: Attributes
B: Skills
C: Tech
D/E: Race / Magic

Anyways, this guy would have 5's in each attribute. How exactly, with a 400 point build and a 50% limit, can I approximate that in SR4?

It just seems to me that the 50% build point limit on attributes, you're effectively eliminating the old Attributes as the first priority in SR 4.

I'm not trolling, just asking what the best way to workaround this is... Should I just arbitrate that all chars start with more build points? I see the potential for power creep here. Alternatively, should I allow a more than 50% to attributes? Or, should all chars start at 1 above minimum?

Advice appreciated. It seems that my old character concept (A highly intelligent, dilligent, charismatic and athletic human but impoverished and untrained with 5's down the board in attributes) just doesn't fly anymore...

You gotta remember that in SR4, attribute points are worth more. Your All 5s guy would be appoximate-able via, say, all 4s. I'm pretty sure that somebody on here mentioned that the Average Joe stat is actually more like a 2.

I can't imagine why you'd want to have no skills, though. If you want to be more of a Joe Do-All, I'd look into skill groups.

It's impossible to approximate the old Attributes in SR4. Attributes start out lower, are capped lower (6 is the equivalent of a 9 in SR3), and are far more important. For a human, the best you can do, allocating 200 points as evenly as possible, is to get a character with 4 - 4's and 4 - 3's.

In SR4, that is actually not too bad at all. You can't coast on just high Attributes, though (truth be told, you were even worse off in SR3 if you had high Attributes and low skills - in SR4, someone with Agility: 6 and pistols: 2 will actually be a pretty good shot). But there is one more Attribute that comes into play - Edge. 40 more points gives you an Edge of 6, which lets you do all kinds of things. So despite having lower Attributes, two factors - the skill + Attribute mechanic, and the Edge Attribute, actually make the concept work better than it did in SR3.

Like Dissonance said, if you are playing a low-resource character, go for skills. A high Edge and well-rounded skills will let you survive long enough to get some 'ware. An uncybered mundane character with low skills is, quite frankly, not a useful build even in SR3.

Even if you do get some ware as a mundane? Some really useful stuff out there can be gotten for all of 1 or 2 BP. If you REALLY wanna be Captain Attribute, I'd consider at least making friends with a mage who knows Increase Att.

Or, if you're playing with a reasonable GM, allowing for further expansion of drugs. Billy needs his morning injection of SMART JUICE.

Thanks for the advice...

Since I'm the GM, (and I'm asking about generating an NPC), I'll be house-ruling this one most likely. For character generation, I've decided to remove the hard caps on money, attributes, etc and install a "soft cap" instead.

After half your points go to attributes, all further expenditures double. For instance, for a 400 point character, to buy 210 points in phys/mental attributes would cost 220. To buy 240 points in phys/mental attributes would cost 280, and so on. Any attributes at max (the 25 point cost) will ALWAYS be bought last.

Same for money. Nuyen costs double after 250,000.

Thanks all!

Remember, that in SR4, you can only max ONE attribute at chargen. I think.