Yah, it is so obvious that you have to rework your own damn definition to do it....and apparently apply new meaning to 'min' and 'max'. And it's still got the problem that you are focused down in on the minute and missing out that in fact some 3s and 4s for Attributes are very valid parts of an an overall 'optimal' character.

So having something other than straight 3s or 4s is, like, min/max? Jebus Cruch on a Bike 2: The Return Trip?

Rarely is anything black or white.

There are no (that I know of) siamese cats in my LOS. I am pretty sure there are no siamse cats in the room I am in. It is unlikely there are siamse cats in the building. I wouldnt want to bet that there isnt a siamse cat within a mile of me.

My example is a pretty perfect one I think.

Siamse cats are not exactly common in Virginia and you could probably go weeks, months, even years (depending on how much you go out and to where) without seeing one. however as I type this I can look behind me and over my shoulder and see the security guard petting the siamse cat they have as sort of a mascot (I am sure it was a stray from the nearby townhouses, but it turned up on our doorstep half starved and its been adopted by all of us).

If somebody has a flaw, that flaw either needs to come into play, OR immediately bought off with next available karma. If it is not coming into play (ever) and not required to be bought off, it is free points.....

Now siamse cats wont generally just fall out of passing sub-orbital planes... but IF a character had a flaw involving them, they will show up occasionally where logical. (such as a pet for some security guards (or the lab techs), as a pet to the old lady, sitting next time them on the subway, etc).


As to 'in the duct' wouldnt see that likely, but at the grill to the duct (or air intake) I would see very lkely as the one we have here, loves sleeping in front of them. (think they white noise from the fans, help drowns out the passing traffic).

Likewise agree, IF I allowed allergy (great dragon), Ghostwalker isnt going to show up. however the character will expierence it as often as other 'uncommon' items. (in truth I probably WOULDNT allow great dragon, I could consider allergy (dracoform) as uncommon. (there would be enough fetish/foci/breifcases, etc that you wuld run into something made from dracofrm parts occasionally



"I am GMing by the RAW or not(if I am doing RAW, then no since Saimese cats aren't one of the examples)"

SO your take of RAW is only: silver, gold, seawater, plastics, pollutants, and sunlight? (the only examples directly listed).

Hmm I dont read RAW a limiting it only to those, in fact the word example: by definition means that the listed ones are a representation of a larger group:

"Example: one (as an item or incident) that is representative of all of a group or type"

See, I don't think that should factor into the equation. It is immaterial what the player is planning for the character's future, as things may work out in such a way that they change their mind about their planned progression.

Amen. Honestly, sure, the GM can reject all characters he doesn't like, but what's wrong with creating rules that players cannot use to create characters that are totally min-maxed in the most muchkin kind of way? The min-maxing should be limited by the rules themselves so that not everything depends on the GM's whims. Sure, the chargen system can be made to work, but it should just work™.

Yeah, I understand that. I just don't see it as a problem.

What is your alternative though? Four Attributes at 3 and four at 4?

Well, it's not the end of the world but, if I may chip in, I think that using the same costs for chargen and character improvement would be the easiest solution. It doesn't even matter whether you use flat costs in both cases (e.g. Attributes are 10BP per point, skills are 4, etc., as we have in chargen now) or increasing costs as we have in character improvement at the moment... as long as they are the same.

One of the reasons it is a bigger deal to me is precisely because the players won't have to play the gimped character for any period of time. Instead of converting 3rd (or sometimes 2nd) edition characters to SR4 using "conversion guides" and what-not, I've decided to simply re-design them from scratch, and then allow the players to transfer their karma to the new build. Obviously, I won't allow them to change the character's concept in any major way [EDIT: although I will probably allow small tweaks if it means the character will be more fun to play], but since the game mechanics are so different that there is no easy 1-for-1 (or 3-for-2) skills conversion, I thought it would be a wiser way of handling that. I could just up the BP and be done with, but most are characters who've been around, so I thought it'd be better to let them go beyond the "one skill at 6 or two skills at 5, and everything else at 4" limitation. For starting characters though, it isn't as big a deal for the reason you just mentioned.

That's fair enough. Have you thought about using Frank's chargen and advancement system?

Yes, but which others belong to the group? Again it is GM discretion and GM discretion is different from GM to GM. If another GM were to GM a RAW game, any player that I GM for RAW will be able to port his PC over without a hitch.

Back on topic, please remember that in order to "buy" successes you'd need 4 dice and to have an average chance of a success you need 3. Min-maxing your Attributes at 2s and 5s is a better deal for karma, but it is certainly not very efficient in-game. If I have 4 dice, I (if my GM isn't being anal) can "buy" 1 success. If I have 5 dice, again I can buy only 1 success.

If the "5" attribute is linked to tests the GM will ask you to roll no matter how big your dice pool is, then yes, put it at 5. But on the flip side, the "2" attribute linked tests are certainly roll, not buy and here is where the averages will bite you in the ass.

I think it is a matter of being BP efficient or Karma efficient. Given my limited number crunching skills, I don't think you can be both BP and Karma efficient at the same time.

They work fine. They work alright. They get the job done. They're better than some other systems...

...But they're not perfect. And while I'm not going to say that moving from SR3-->SR4 was a downgrade, I'm not entirely convinced it was an upgrade, either.

Perhaps then I've identified my largest problem with SR4. The grim reality that it didn't live up to my expectations. But I think that's why I appreciate these forums, and all the different ideas that get tossed together here. With some many varying opinions, and approaches to playing the game, it's only a matter of time before solutions can be found to address the problems that myself, or others, may find in a genre we're not going to put down, just because of it's real or imagined imperfections.

... which is where it falls down. Because returns diminsh very rapidly as you have to wait for the karma to come in. So in truth an 3s and 4s in Attributes do have their place.

EDIT: Topped off with just how freaking small the difference is. A whole 24 karma difference total after you've dropped coming on a 100 karma which is still fairly small in comparison with the startig 400 BP? (which translates roughly to several hundred karma). The whole time not increasing any Skills or such? Insignificant.

From what I've seen on these boards, a reward of 6 karma per session is pretty high. So yea, a month and a half worth of karma awards, or about a quarter of the total 100 karma award you're considering - I guess you could call that "insignificant" - like a shotgun in a fist fight.

The percentage is 22% of the karma, but a much, much smaller percentage of the overall character. A mid-to-low single digit percentage. And it's about a minimum 8 months playing weekly to realize it, and you have to forgo any other advancement to get to it that fast. Chasing the payoff is an effective regulating drawback.

I'd be shocked AND dismayed if it did what Serbitar does and screws around the karma costs too. Because then you have a situation where you can't really mix characters from the two generation schemes. Something closer to BeCKS is what I'd expect.

A BeCKs type karma chargen is actually not that much work either because there are very few things that have a BP cost but no karma cost. And now with the new magic system and supplimented by Street Magic you have pretty much all the flexibility that BeCKS provided for awakened characters. Top it off with solid Attribute handling and karma costs for non-metahumans and you are cooking with gas.

Any non-level system has that potential - it's part of being a non-levelled system. It's a good thing, imho.

And you can't wish for more wishes.

Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.

If you did, you'd spend 5k experience for the ability to spend 5k experience.

The cleric can only outfight the fighter if the cleric is highly tweaked to be a fighter. A fighter tweaked similarly far outperforms a cleric or druid. If you don't believe that, take a look at the WotC character optimization boards. 16d6+300 is not out of the range of damages produced.

Much like the argument that mages are far more powerful than any samurai, I find the majority of the situations like that comes from people that are better at exploiting one side than the other.

Shadowrun is a game of breadth, not height. By that I mean that the best runners aren't those that throw more and more dice on one particular skill, but the ones that can throw a lot of dice on a lot of skills. The fact that a 400 bp runner can shoot nearly as well as an experienced Sam doesn't bother me. Mages do scale with initiation, but that's a massive investment of karma.

Mostly, I ramble. I do agree that the bp/karma system can be exploited, and there could be a better mechanic. However, I believe that every system out there can be exploited, so I'm not too upset over it.

Actually... you can. See, while you can only duplicate any spell of 8th level with a spell XP cost of 5000 XP, you can also wish for any magic item of any price with an XP cost for the spell of twice the cost of the item. A Staff of 50 Wishes, for example, has an XP cost of 254,590 XP. A wish to create such an item has an XP cost of 509,180 XP.

That's a big number, but if you cast wish (or any spell) as a Spell-like Ability or from an item (such as from a Staff of Wishes) you don't pay the XP cost. So once you get even a single Item of Wish or access to even a single wish cast as a spell-like by any creature, you can put yourself on the unlimited gravy train of wishes immediately.

At 9th level you can have ccess to lesser planar binding, a spell which will allow you to call and command the services of a Dao (planar handbook), a creature that can grant you a limited wish as a spell-like ability. A limited wish can dup[licate any 6th level spell which can be used to perform planar binding, a spell which can pull in an Efreet. An Efreet is a more powerful form of Genie that can grant you up to three full wishes as a Spell-like Ability, every day. If even one of those Wishes is for a resevoire of 50 wishes, you're good to go.

D&D's reliance on specific effect interaction and programming-language like exactitude of language has advantages, but also disadvantages. It is totally and completely explicit under the D&D rules that you can "invest" a single 5th level spell into unlimited power.

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Really, I make the CharOp boards my bitch. There's a reason that I'm not allowed to post there anymore. And it isn't just because I'm a total asshole (which I am).

-Frank

Go ahead, try and wish for that staff. You can't spend enough XP on a spell that it would cost you a level, so you'll have to have saved up a little over 500,000xp. Personally, I think I'll take the levels instead of the staff.

Also note that summoned and called creatures cannot be forced to use spell-like abilities of spells that would cost XP.

It sounds to me like you're quoting 3.0 rules.

It's weird, I just pointed all this stuff out to someone else yesterday on another board, after not having talked about Wishes for at least a year.

Unless of course you cast the spell from an item or as a spell-like ability, in which case neither you nor anyone else actually pays the XP cost. And no, these are 3.5 rules. 3rd edition rules had a hard-cap for what magic items you could wish for and were thus far more balanced.

Really. When Hasbro fired WotC's playtesting department, they caused ripple effects of imbalance all over the place. The fact that he new "fixed" Wish is a single-spell infinite combo loop when used by 60% of the creatures in the Monster Manual capable of casting it is symptomatic of what happens when you increase the speed of your release schedule.

In short: be careful what you wish for as regards release dates. We could have Augmentation out tomorrow, we just aren't going to.

-Frank

You can not have BeCKS in SR4, as attributes are too cheap with RAW. That is a mathematical fact.

SR4 BeCKS would be completely imbalanced.

Both me and Frank upped the attribute costs. That is something that simply has to be done. And if you do that with karma (read exponentially growing costs), you have to exclude the race boni, otherwise trolls and others would be extremely disadvanteged. One thing leads to the other . . .

With Summoning spells you can't. But I never once mentioned using a summoning spell. Planar binding is a Calling Spell. The creature is actually there and you can compel them to use any of their abilities.

I agree, and actually this entire tangent illustrates my point perfectly.

I demonstrated an extremely simple, iron clad, no arguments infinite power loop in a role playing game system. Then, no less than 2 people quoted their memory of the RAW to tell me that the loop didn't work. They are using various house rules to prevent that game from collapsing into a singularity, and they genuinely believe that they are following the RAW!

And if you dig down, that's going to be the kind of thing virtually anyone who is claiming that hey use the RAW is going to be doing. No system is perfect, no system is complete, and no ruleset is going to perfectly suit all of your needs. So the fact is, you are using House Rules. Maybe you don't realize it, but you are. Somewhere the game is getting changed, extrapolated or fudged in a manner you prefer and claiming otherwise is not helpful.

Let's use the "More Wishes" example because it's more glaringly obvious than absolutely anything in Shadowrun, and we can all agree that it needs to be changed. When people like Lorechaser or James pretend that the RAW says something that actually works, they are making their game work. But they are also making their game incomprehensible. See, what the book actually says isn't what they are playing with in their games. And that means that noone at the table can ever really know the rules. The errataed text exist only in Lorechaser or James' mind, and that makes it inaccessible to the other players.

If, on the other hand, you discuss the actual RAW with your players and make a real agreed upon set of house rules, then you're cooking. Everyone can see and understand exactly what the rules are because they are out in the open.

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In short: if you tell me "I play by the RAW!" I don't even want to fucking talk to you, let alone play with you. When you claim that you're playing strict RAW what you're really telling me is that you refuse to tell me what house rules you are using and then I have no basis for playing the game. I might as well be playing Cops and Robbers.

Now, you could play "nearly by the RAW with only a few house rules that I can't remember off the top of my head but they weren't important." - that's honest. I understand where things are coming from there and I can have faith that we can work things out if I based plans on an aspect of the RAW that you made house rules about and then couldn't remember when talking to me about entering the game. That's the kind of embarrassing, but completely understandable mistake that I am willing to play through.

But claiming that your house rules don't even exist is straight up bullshit. That's over the line, and I won't be a part of it.

-Frank

Me too! I prefer 'canon'.

You want to ask one creature to force another into granting a wish? Okely dokely. <insert evil GM laugh here>

But you're right in that games require house rules, whether explicit or implicit. For instance, my group has no hard and fast house rules, but we don't have anyone looking to abuse infinite summons (it's RAW until you guys get off your butts and print it), infinite agents (I don't recall anyone ever saying this hole would be filled), or any of the other holes in SR, so we don't need them.

I've said several times, usually in defense of SR, that there ain't no such thing as perfection in a complex system. SR does a good job. Straight (splatbook free) D&D does a good job. L5R does a good job. Rolemaster does a good job. RIFTS does a horrible job. GURPS does a horrible job. Basically it comes down to how good the system is despite the holes. If it's good you work around them, if it's not you toss it out.

They do when they know their history.

Actually, mine was a cut and paste from the hypertext SRD, found at http://www.d20srd.org/

I didn't quote the entirety of the spell for brevity's sake.

But you know, that might also exist only in my mind. I've often supposed the entire internet is simply a mental creation of mine, designed to prevent me from realizing my true potential as a crime-fighter.

Or something like that. But feel free to continue to use my name to illustrate your examples....

More on wish in spoilers

Said the IE...

Er, no. You can keep a percentage cap on Attribute spending. In fact it would give the Attribute spending cap something to do since that cap is pretty close to pointless right now.

Not that it matters that much since heavy spending on Attributes just delays the innevitable of spending on Skills and gives you a character with relatively low abilities. Eventually you have to spend karma on Skills if you want to hang with the big hitters. That's just how it works.

Or you factor that into their cost. *shrug* Trolls for example, become much, much cheaper. Or you factor in they spending the karma and then applying the bonus (which is pretty much what already happens with their high BP cost). They also would tend to use augmentation more, well I guess that's already partially true but it would become somewhat moreso.

It is just an example, but it's one I'm curious about, especially since you specifically called me out as being incorrect, and used me as an example of people that don't know the rules and make them up. I find that, generally, I'm pretty good with RAW, so I'd hate to get painted with that brush....

That just means I wear it well.

I'd prefer a system where a character could only improve any of his Attributes to 1.5 times their starting level, whether that be 1 or 6. I dislike that the intelligence 1 goon can 'study hard' and become as smart as the smartest human on the planet.