Okay, so this has bothered me for a while, but especially now with the hard caps on certain attributes, it has come to the forefront.

Why do dwarves have a lower reaction? I mean, looking at your racial stereotypes, both orcs and trolls are big, strong, and to varying degrees not too bright/pretty. This is reflected in their attributes. Elves are pretty, and quick on their feet. Again, reflected in their attributes.

Dwarves. Dwarves in cannon are good at tech stuff, strong for their size, usually a little gruff, and hardy. Body increase makes sense, strength increase makes sense(although I would start body at 3 and strength at 2.) But willpower? How exactly is that related to engineering skill? AND it makes them the second best spellcasting race, if you count elves with charisma based drain trads. Which is also not really accurate to fluff until this edition, when there's a few mentions of dwarves being good mages. Plus, at least in my mind, the dwarf rigger is a stereotype that I've seen often. However, they're handicapped as far as how fast they can react, which makes them worse at rigging than any other race aside from trolls.

I know it's been this way forever. But does anyone else think that some reshuffling would make sense, if we were purely trying to match dwarven attributes to their cannon strengths and weaknesses?

Here's my Dwarf.

Body 3/10(12)
Agility 1/6(9)
Strength 2/7(10)
Reaction 1/6(9)
Charisma 1/5(7)
Intuition 1/6(9)
Logic 2/7(10)
Willpower 1/6(9)

This makes them not as hardy as a orc, but tougher than your base human. Strong, but not as exceptionally strong since they ARE smaller than all the other metatypes. Somewhat gruff at times, due to being constantly "looked down" upon, literally and figuratively, smarter than most metas, but only enough to give them an edge. The only thing I'm not sure on, is I might drop body down a point and bump charisma back up one, because I'm a little concerned that I'm lowering the charisma because thats how DnD works, and I got my start way back in the day on that system.

Comments?

I know this isn't what the base rules say. I know somewhere in the fourth edition is makes a comment that dwarves are good at magic. But I get the feeling this is a patch to make up for the fact that they've always been better at resisting magical drain, mechanically, even in SR2-3(never played 1.) I never got the feeling this was reflected in the fluff, though.

Dwarves are supposed to be slower to react then humans. When agility and reaction were one attribute (quickness) they took a hit to that. But when the stat was split they had to decided which one would get the penalty. And considering all the combat skills are linked to agility be thankful they picked reaction.


The extra point of will power allows dwarves to have a longer stun track. (adding to how hardy they are).

Dwarves are good at tech stuff in SR because in tolken and D&D there good at crafting metals. You didn't actually think the SR fluff for metahumans was original did you? But SR doesn't have give metatypes skill bonus so it becomes a sterotype. like all elves are daisy eaters and all trolls can rip a mans arms out of there sockets. Well actually even at there minimum strength they may all be able to do that to normal humans.


Giving a metahuman a bonus in logic is tricky, next to agility, logic is the most commonly linked attribute when it comes to skills. And having a higher logic of course gives you more knowledge skills.

Jumped into a drone or vehicle, the drone or vehicle uses the riggers initiative, pg 239.

This outweighs resisting dumpshock, in my mind.

Plus I don't ever remember seeing dwarves portrayed as slow or lumbering. Or even bad at dodging. I do recall them being portrayed as making great drivers/hackers(Though typically the driving part is more due to them tinkering with their gear than being physically quicker than any other meta).

I will admit, the willpower(as far as stubbornness) I can see, but the question is is stubbornness a sign of low charisma or high willpower?

Erp, looked into it, matrix initiative uses response + intuition. So, that makes sense, unless you consider response capped at rating 6(which the book seems to indicate except in cutting edge/military apps) this means that your average street sam with a driving skill will be reacting faster than a rigger jumped into something. This bothers me. However, it makes me less upset about dwarves. Thanks, Thanee.

This brings up a question, which I will ask in a separate post.

I don't see anything in the errata or the matrix and rigging sections of the FAQ about matrix initiative or jumping into a drone not using the riggers initiative(which I assume is his matrix initiative)

I meant this here, which is the errata for the part you quoted above.