why not limit the number of incompetencies to say 1 or 2. They have to be tied to the character concept, maybe based on a fear or something. They can only pick incompetencies that they could have taken as skills and they can only apply to skills you can default to.

Or you could generate an everyman skill list and restrict incomps to that list. Maybe include literacy in there too.



GM approval is an important step but I think it is better to only hand the players choices they can take instead of looking over their character and repeatedly saying no. If you only have one modification or they are doing something stupid then that is fine. Otherwise they will start the game annoyed and resentful.

I really have to say that Incompetence is only a 5 BP gain. It isn't the end of the world, and shouldn't need to be tied to character-breaking Skills or stupid concepts in order to be a viable 5 BP Quality.

Its not a question of HOW broken it is. Saying its only a little broken doesn't change the fact that it is broken.

I mean, most programs are run to sale with a few, you know, minor, insignificat bugs that nonetheless always seem to be bad enough that you need the patch later.

Frank: Yes, I agree that never being able to buy those skills is a bit of a hold up. Nevertheless, it isn't enough of a balancing factor. Every character will have certain skills they Never intend on taking. They may even be useful skills, but they aren't going to spend the points on it. since SR is a co-operative game, they can count on other players to cover those bases. Characters have their own specialties they will try to max out first before spending those karma points on other, useful skills. Exactly how much karma would it take to max out every skill you aren't incompetent in? Not to mention that there are rules that allow you to buy off those flaws. I know that means later you need to spend Karma to get rid of it, but I see that as getting to spend your karma before you earn it.

Everyone: God damn it, GM approval is not a game balance factor. GM approval is what you resort to when the rules fail to provide checks and balances. Rules are meant to give the palyers and GM a common set of objective guidelines, so that things aren't decided by individual whim. A strong rule is clear, precise, and open to only one interpretation. A weak rule requires a skilled judge to figure out. If you need GM judgement to prop up a rule, then that rule wasn't balanced to begin with.

It is times like these where I sometimes ignore BP and just start slapping my players around. I reward ingenuity, but I punish game-breaking defiance of common sense by exploiting their attempted exploitation and making it bite them in the ass.
On the other hand, it is important for the GM and player to work together a little on character creation in order to get a balanced character that the player wants to play. It is entirely possibler that they didn't intend to be a munchkin. It can happen accidentally and the player should NOT be punished for that.

That might explain why I drink AND smoke; it's a stressful balancing act.

Read about Noteriety on page 257-258. They list Qualities that affect your starting Noteriety and Incompetent is one of those.

I really think that incompetences are the smallest problem SR4 has. Not reall worth to discuss it at length.

Serbitar:

While I would tend to agree (since easily fixed by one bic lighter when presented with their character sheet , it still is a fine example of the 'RAW' vs. 'House rules' debate.

While alot smaller then some of the things, "raw' there are clearly (atleast to me) bad abuses / holes in the rules.

Then hear my reasoning:
IF something is flawed in Incompetence, it is the general outline of all Edges&Flaws. There are far to many Flaws, that never show up as Flaws in game and Edges that are missconstructed.

A good example is the cyberware immunity thing (forgot the name, where you have to pay more essence for ware). Everybody who decided that he will never take any ware, will take it and get points for free.

There are only two solutions to this:

A) Make the choice to never take any Ware give you this number of points, so that you can have excuse X (philosophical, biological, whatever). Because Magic is balanced against Ware, there will have to be another Flaw called "will never use magic", or every non magician will complain. What we have done then is just boost the number of points available to everybody. One could do the same by introducing an Edge called "Can use Magic and Ware".

B) Make every Flaw that you can calculate in hard numbers (no roleplay flaws) dependent on the impact on the character. A character that has no cyberware gets 0 points from cyberware immunity stuff. A character with cyberware worth X essence (and costing him 2X because of the Flaw) will give him Y points.

Same goes for incompetence. It should just make the skill cheaper and be worth 0 points if the character does not have the skill.

The most severe problem with Edges and Flaws at the moment are the "archetype" Edges, like Technomancer and Mage. They cost almost nothing, because the system knows that the character will have to spend huge amounts of points on stats and skills that have just been opened up.

Thus, flaws for this kind of edges are worth nothing. Aspected magicians do not make sens, Knack people do not make sense, and all the other "not full mages" Edges or Flaws do not make sense at all. You are always better of if you simply by the "magician" Edge and just do not spend anything on it. You have full potential and spent almost nothing.

There are two solutions to this:

A) Make "Technomancer, Magician and so on" Edges a package. You pay much more for them, but you gain a basic magic/resonance attribute of 3 (who in is right mind would play a mage or technomancer with a starting resonance/magic smaller than 3 anyways? After Ware, this is ok, but without Ware?), basic spellcasting and other skills, and so on. Now Flaws and Edges concerning Magic make sense again, because they can be cheaper and provide less.

B) Make Knack people and other "flawed" mages possible that do not lose their 1 point of magic, regardless of ware. Who in his right mind would buy a Knack anyways if this means that he can not spend money on Ware and keep the knack? In SR4 everybody that is not a mage/adept has at least an reflexbooster 2 or something comparable. There are no mundanes any more.

The incompetence issue is really just a small facet of a larger problem. But as this problem only occurs at char creation, and there are no "shockwaves" that translate into the game, like min-maxing (which is influencing attributes that affect the game and karma advancement philosophy very much), so the problem is not that severe.

Of course, you could have made it better.

What, in your opinion, are some of the more serious problems? I have specific issues with Edge, Sprites and Spirits, Teamwork tests, and the core dice mechanic. I'm wondering what others think.

Major Problems:

Magical Qualities being so cheap as to be almost no-brianers. Adepts in particular. It is cheaper to buy the adept quality and use your 1 free magic point from that to get 4 ranks in improved ability (any non-combat skill) than to buy 4 points of said skill. This is wrong.

The Matrix breaking the basic Mechanic of Stat+Skill to be Skill+Program. The only abuse this causes is logic 1 hackers, who get screwed in other ways, but when the goal is to streamline and unify, this capricious variation is troublesome.

Not exactly broken, but sever inconsistencies and vagueries within the matrix chapter means that the way the matrix plays varies so much between gaming groups that they may as well be playing separate games.

A single agent program can do so much, it's a wonder every person with a commlink doesn't pony up the cash. The same agent program you code or crack to be a data sniffer can be an attack dog can be an intrusion specialist can be IC, simply by swapping it's loaded programs (a few simple actions) and giving it different orders. There should be some way in which any individual agent can only do certain tasks, so that you need to crack or code multiple agent programs for different types of work.

BP / Karma inconsistencies. Most especially that one progresses linearly while the other grows exponentially when you want to increase stats or skills. Relatedly, attributes not costing more than skill groups. Either skills should cost less or attributes should cost more.

Mages, technomancers and Adepts needing vast, vast amounts more karma to improve than mundanes. I've considered a house rule where cyberware requires Karma to "bond" with before it functions properly for you, in order to give mundanes something to spend Karma on. I've also considered the old "Karme to Nuyen" Rule from SR3's player comp.

See, I like there being some leeway for uncybered or Lightly Cybered people. I don't Mind that Adepts can be better than anyone else at any skill they choose, but I really think that should cost them an arm and a leg. I also think that those skill ranks should be cheaper than the adept power to improve them, because I think even Adepts should max out the skill before using magic to boost it further.

Whats broken about it is that Adpets are not only more powerful than a mundane expert in the same feild (which is how it should be), but that they used the same or less BP to get there. It's better AND cheaper, and that's what's wrong.

Example : Mundane Hacker: Hacking rating of 6. Cost to get this: 24 BP. Cannot have any other skill at 6, all other limited to 4. Adept Hacker: Hacking rating of 4. 2 levels improved ability. Same effective rating. Cost to get this: 21 BP, with .5 magic left over, the ability to gain more magic points and powers, Can continue to do this with other skills. It's more for less, hence, unbalanced.

The more I read about hackers, the more I think everything can be fixed just by requiring a datajack.

Ah, yes, agents. Part of one of the biggest abuses possible in the game. Basically, the Burly Man Brawl trick: ten commlinks each packing a full load of agents can rip apart any opposing system. What's more, you only need to crack the copy protection on one agent to do it, so your only cost will be for ten metalinks, plus ten signal and response upgrades. Everything else you just copy.

The problem here isn't the agent rules, it's the teamwork test system. There needs to be a limit, past "GM approval", where you can fairly and consistently apply a rule to keep things in check.

Cain: I don't necessarily think that running a bunch of agents on a bunch of commlinks is that big a problem. That's pretty reasonable given how computer software works and stuff. If you want to come up with a house rule to thwart it, I'd just make trace attempts easier.

you can't buy 4 points of improved skill in one skill from a single point of magic, (limited in ranks to your magic attribute), and you can't benefit from 4 points into one skill anyways (since that would require a base real skill of 8).

you could, of course, get +1 to 4 different skills, but that requires you to buy 4 different skills up to 2 ranks to get the benefits out of it.

It's the Hacker stuff that bugs me most, but it's ALL broken, isn't it?

Especially when stacked with Kenisics. That power should probably be upped as well. .5 for ALL social tests, stacking with improved ability? That power should cost 1 full magic point a level, at least.

Lets not forget powers like Great Leap and similar poers, that add dice only to certain types of tests. No Power costs less that .25 per level, and so these powers that are only useful for some types of tests have to compete against Improved ability, which adds to ALL tests covered under the skill. Increasing the cost of improved ability gives these types of powers more room to shine.

Shoot, with so many small changes, what I wouldn't give for a text-editable version of the PDF. I'd just throw my rules right in there and give every player a copy.

PlatonicPimp: Unless you're going straight magical or completely uncybereed, getting a single point of magic is pointless. One implat that costs 0.0000000000001 essense and those build points were wasted (unless SM allows geasa, which I don't remember).

Oh, but each point of magic you get just makes it a better deal.

What I'm saying is that, when it comes to strait skill use, adepts are broken because they not only allow for larger dice pools than either mundanes or cybered individuals, they actually do it less expensively.

I haven't run the BP cost on cybernetics yet (it's harder because you have to factor in essence loss somehow. ) But my point is that Augmentation dice (any die that allows you to break your natural maximum, up to your augmented maximum) should be more expensive than a regular die of the same type. Bonus Dice (dice that allow you to go even above your augmented maximum) should be even more expensive than that.

and in that regard, Specialization is the most broken thing of all. I prefer the old version where you simply chose a specialization, and it gave you 1 more die on that use of the skill, with 1 less die on all other uses. That was a more balanced rule.

Honestly, I do not understand how specialization works as a bonus to the pool instead of raising the skill. Everyone says that it's a bonus to the pool, but I'm thinking of houseruling it the other way. I don't see how a specialization would be different, mechanically, from a skill within a skill group. If you raise the skill group instead of the skill, you pay more karma (or BP), but you get a wider competence. You cannot raise the skill higher than the skill group though (except at chargen), so I'm wondering why one could raise the specialization (so to speak) higher than the skill. As things are, it doesn't matter if you have live 100,000 years, have accumulated 1,000,000 karma points and have been training with blades since you were 5, if you've trained with every type of blades and have not specialized, then that young guy with a specialization will kick your ass (other things being equal), even if you have an Aptitude for Blades and he doesn't. I don't know... It rubs me the wrong way.

Yeah. I'm not thrilled with specializations myself. But it could be worse. WEG d6 comes to mind.

Er... no. As soon as you put all the skills on an even level again, you can raise them as a skillgroup once more. I would rule that a specialisation sorta kills that option though because that one skill is not on an even level with all the others.

I simply meant that skill groups are subject to the same caps as skills in character advancement, but that during character creation, you could get skill groups only at 4, even though you could get one skill at 6 or two skills at 5. I guess I wasn't clear.

Without Aptitude, you can raise a single skill or a skill group to 6. By taking a specialization on one of those skills, you're effectively raising a (more narrow) skill to 8 (before all the bonuses from cyber, adept powers, equipment and such). That's what I don't like.

If you can effectively increase "Semi-Automatics" to 8, i.e. 6(+2), I don't see why you couldn't increase Pistols to 8 with, say, 3, 5, 10 or 20 times the karma.

The reason I make such a big deal out of it is the following. Let's say you have a character concept centered around small arms. You don't care about melee combat, hacking, rigging, magic, grenades, shuriken or anything other than pistols of all kinds. Let's say you're not even trying to be that broad and only focus on Revolvers and Semi-Automatics (leaving out Hold-Outs and Tasers). You have an Aptitude (Pistols). You have Pistols 7 with a specialization in Semi-Automatics. Despite your Aptitude and the fact that you spend about 30 hours a week practicing with Revolvers, some other guy without Aptitude who decides to specialize in Revolvers will be better than you with them (Pistols 6, Specialization: Revolvers (+2)), and the other guy does not even need to be a one-trick poney to beat you in the one thing you're best at.

[EDIT: The rules allow you to be a two-trick poney if you want to, but only if your two (or three or four) tricks are in different fields. That limit feels totally arbitrary and I don't like it.]

So, you can always specialise too. Take the gun type you always use, most people have their preference, and then specialise in it. Then you are the best of the best again, and you didnt lose any of the skill in your other pistols.

If you are whining about how someone else took an option but you didnt and now he is marginally better than you, I hold no sympathy. The option is there for you to take, if you dont, its your own fault.

Again, this comes down to balance. In order to allow specializations, which are clearly an excellent use of BP, and good flavor, you have to limit them in some way. Rather than penalize other skills, as previous editions, they simply restricted it.

And honestly, it's 14 bp to get aptitude (Pistols) and that extra skill point. It's not like there's a huge difference between your two examples.

And conceptually, I think someone who is top human level skill, who focues in a weapon, can be a little bit better than someone that is superhuman in general, but not focused....

That's the whole thing though: the guy in my example is focused. It's just that the rules do not allow two specializations in the same skill. In the end, it's not the end of the world - and I think it has positives as well -, but it does make some decent character concepts impracticable.

Things that increase your dice pool, and their costs in BP. A guide to Min-maxing your runner at character creation. A rough draft.

Natural attribute. 1 point free, 2-5 10 BP, last point 25 BP.

Unnatural attribute increases: these let you increase your attribute up to 1.5x your racial maximum.
- Improved Physical attribute (adept). 1 magic per increase, so 10BP per level on average (5BP for your fist magic point, 25 BP for your last.) Physical attributes only.
- Attribute boost (adept) Highly variable, depends on magic rating. Stacks with above. Average boost of 1 per 3 dice rolled. with a magic of 5 and 1 rank in the ability, you boost by 2 on average for 4 combat turns. Resist drain of 1S with will + body. can immediately do it again, no action needed. Average 1.25 BP per die.
- Cyberware: varies. Increased strength and Agility cost 1BP per die increase to both. Reaction is 2BP per die. Others not possible. Essence loss not accounted for.
- Bioware: varies. Increased str is 1.4 BP per die. Increased Agility is 1.6 BP per die. Suprathyriod is 9 BP for 1 die to each physical attribute. Increased Logic is 2 BP per die.
- Magic: 5BP + cost of 3 dice on sorcery test on average.

Divide these BP costs by the number of checks you are twinking out to determine the cost per check type. For example, if you only have a high strenght for running and climbing, you are getting less for your BP than purchasing skills. However, if you have agility for, well, everything, attributes are a better buy. The breaking point is 3. If 3 checks you want to be good at all use the same attribute, than that attribute is a better buy than skills. (10BP/2 is 5 BP, vs. 4 BP for skills. 10 BP / 3 is 3.33 BP, vs. 4 BP for skills.)

Skill dice: 4 BP per die.

Unnatural skill boosts:
- Improved Ability: Combat Skills .5 magic per increase, so 5 BP per level on average (2.5 BP for your fist magic point, 12.5 BP for your last.) Other Skills .25 magic per increase, so 2.5 BP per level on average (1.25 BP for your fist magic point, 6.25 BP for your last.)

Specific test increases:
-Specializations: 1 BP per die.
-Cyberware, Bioware and Adept powers highly variable depending on the specific skill. For equipment, divide cost by 5000 to determine BP cost. For adept powers, multiply power points by 10 to get average cost.

This is how things are.

How I think they SHOULD be, despite this being a gigantic overhaul of the system, is as follows.

Attribute costs: X BP per die
Unnatural Attribute costs: X + 1 BP per die. This is because of the added versatility of breaking the soft cap.
Skill costs: X/Y, where Y is the number of skills you want a person to take to break even on cost. This depends on weather you like an emphasis on skills or attributes. I set Y at 3.
Unnatural Skill increases: (X/Y) +1. Same rational as unnatural attributes.
Specific test increases: (X/Y) +Z, where Z is the numerical representation of your judgement of the utility of being able to break the Hard cap for that test vs. the limited use of said dice. I set Z at 0, because I beleive that trade off is balanced.

I had not noticed the Light Pistols specialization. It still doesn't really address my original point, but I guess it doesn't matter. My objection is mostly conceptual. As I said in my previous post, there are also positives to making specializations powerful. It increases skill diversity (so characters have more specialized skill sets) and it sort of reflects the way a scholar would specialize into a specific sub-field as he or she reaches the highest spheres of academia. I just think it would have been more elegant to allow skills to be as effective as specializations and only make specializations a much better option due to lower karma cost. But I think I understand why they went with the rules the way they are. (They wanted to enforce skill diversity, to add more flavour to the characters.)

I knew I was forgetting something... Specializations break when you have to deal with Exotic (Whatever) skills. The BBB says that you cannot specialize when using Exotic (Whatever) skills, so if you use a Pole Arm as your only weapon, you'll always get beaten by the guy who has a specialization and a combat axe (or a staff, or a monowhip, or...). You can houserule something to fix the problem, but I don't quite get why this hasn't been spotted in playtest. Doesn't anyone use pole arms anymore?!?

The Exotic Weapon (ranged and Melee) don't work at all. The fact that specializations are all weird with them is just such the tip of the iceberg that it doesn't even come up in most conversations about how they don't work.

First of all, the rules are contradictory about what exactly an exotic weapon skill is. On page 112 it talks about having an Exotic Ranged Weapon (Gyrojet Pistol) skill, but on page 149 there are examples of improvised weapons using the "Exotic Melee (Generic)" skill. Further, the weap desriptions that actually use Exotic Weapon skills all talk about it in the generic case (pgs. 305, 309, 317, 327, and 328).

More damningly, the critter section has multiple powers which utilize "the Exotic Ranged Weapon skill" - and there are creatures that have more than one of them (on page 296). Nonetheless, they only have one Exotic Ranged Weapon skill.

So seriously, wtf? The rules for even how many skills you need to purchase when using Monofilament Chainsaws and Monofilament Whips and a bicycle chain you found on the street are contradictory. The only examples (found in the critter section) directly contradict the skill description.

In short, what the hell is going on with specializations is the least of my worries. Because if you have to purchase a whole separate skill to use a chain as an improvised weapon, the game is busted. But if you can take a single skill and have it apply to basically all the best melee weapons and let you be drunken master at the same time - that's pretty messed up too.

It's not just that the Exotic Melee Weapon rules are messed up, it's that they are structurally unsalvageable.

-Frank