Ok, after careful consideration of past character growths, and karma expenditures, mixed with the recent poll that only a rare character gets past 50 karma... I've decided that Infirm is by far the most exploitable flaw.

Unless you max an attribute at char gen past the racial modified limit, you're probably never going to raise an attribute past the modified limit. This means, you can take the 3 point infirm and not suffer at all from it (notice, this flaw caps Maximum, not Modified Racial).

I noticed this today while perusing our group's Shaman who's an Albino Gnome with Exceptional Attribute: Willpower (lotsa those in Seattle, eh?). He has 5 levels of this flaw and a Body of 6. Ok, so he can only ever have a Quickness over 4, but he's never going to be interested in raising it above that score anyhows.

5 point flaw as a dwarf and still gets to have a 6 in Body and Strength as a starting character. Man... why didn't I think of that?

Ok, done Ranting about the flaw, I'll just note down to take it if I ever make a new character instead of flaws that actually hinder me.

PS... Yes, I realize that if a flaw doesn't hinder you shouldn't get points for it.

Sphynx

I agree its very open to abuse. Which is why the only time i've taken it i made it limit my stats to 242.

But as the Gm you have the right to say no.

Technically, any flaw can be abused or "blunted" so it doesn't cut as deeply.

The edges/flaws section is interesting but has a "half-finished" feel to it (IMHO).

-Siege

I dunno, I've never really had any characters abuse their flaws, but then most of ours tend to take flaws that have an ongoing affect anyway, which can bite them in the ass, like phobias and allergies (mainly pollutant allergies - and I make them pay for that one, beleive me, but they keep taking it because its likely. Mostly it sets off their asthma mid run...)

The infirm flaw does indeed look bad. But when they want to augment themselves remember bioware can only take you to your attribute Max, not over it. And make them have a good backstory you can exploit as to why, as well - it says that it represents their deteriorating physical condition, such as couch potato mages or deckers not necessarily age or illness. Well, if they don't lie around doing nothing, or abuse themselves with drugs and gluttony, then they don't really have this flaw, do they? Or they actually are old or sick - either of which can have other penalties or side effects.

And if they change their lifestyle so the condition causing the flaw goes away, remove the flaw! But remember that if you do that you're supposed to replace it with one or more with a total comparable value. A 5 point flaw you say...? Well, lets take a look and see what fits... I defy you not to find at least half a dozen suitable flaws which could've been brought on by roleplay encounters - maybe they now suffer a debilitating fear of devil rats after that run in the sewers last week? Or a combination of devil rat phobia and claustraphobia? Two for the price of one!

Mmmm... greedy players... better than donuts...

I don't see anything not feasible about taking the infirm flaw as a human. My decker has Infirm -2, which makes it so My physical attributes max out at 4. If 3 is supposed to be 'average' then I don't see this as being an abused flaw if it fits the character. Sure I'm never going to be a world class powerlifter or world record sprinter, so 4 seems like a decent number for a decker in physical stats. I don't think it's as bad as people who take a Charisma of 1 if they're just being the muscle of the group...

You might want to reread the flaw Elfie,

It effects your attribute max's not the race max's so as a human you have a race max of 6 with attirbute max of 7

[edit]
The only time it effects the race max is if the Attribute max is lower than the race max, example

a character with the stats of 4(6) due to being an Otaku with a lvl 4 infirm flaw ends up with this 2(2)

Note you don't need to be Otaku for this to happen, it just makes easier to see how it happens[/edit]

If your runners don't make much use of bioware, then yes, it's abuseable. Personally, in my experience unless they're going the cyberware route people tend to start loading up on muscle toners and suchlike once they get the nuyen to spare.
Sensitive Neural Structure, now there's an abuseable flaw...

~J

Again only if your not a Decker, Rigger or Otaku. Which granted is like the least common types of characters but hey it's another reason Why Gm's need a good back bone. There are a couple of others out there Day job as an example, I see it more of a merit than a flaw, more so at the lower levels.

Or if you're any magic user, especially a dwarven one who can take 5 levels of that flaw and suffer only a reduced Quickness from it. So, pretty much over half the possible character types could take multiple levels of this without it ever effecting their character's advancement plan.

Sphynx

Sphynx i was refering to Sensitive Neural Structure, but your agrument is true for infirm.

Riggers, deckers, and Otaku have in my experience often been the ones most interested in physical attribute-enhancing bioware. Patch up a massive weakness without having to spend any karma on it? Sounds good! Admittedly an Otaku who doesn't plan to spend any karma on physical attributes can take a single point of the flaw for free, as the max level of toners/etc. is 4, but a single build point seems like a fairly minor problem, given that you get two points for a minor uncommon allergy.

~J

edit: Shockwave, I see what you mean, and you've got a point.

Spotlite, that's a pretty good idea. If the characters stop acting like they're infirm, or if they stop living an infirm life-style, then saddle them with another flaw. I like it.

One solution to the problem could be to make the flaw a “flaw” instead of a bonus point. A normal metahuman “human” attribute maximum would be 6+3 if they have a -3 Infirm flaw it would become 6+0. Here’s the solution. Normally a character is allowed to begin the game with up to 6+ racial modifiers to their attributes or modified by bio/cyber. Whenever they have an infirm flaw they also lower their Racial Modified Limit and therefore CANNOT begin with the game with an attribute of 6 AND have a 3 point flaw. The flaw will instead lower BOTH the Attribute Maximum and Racial Modified Limit.

A character with a 3 point flaw would have an Attribute Maximum of 3+3 (6) and the Racial Modified Limit would become 3. A character with a5 point flaw would have an max of 1+3 (4) and cannot begin the game with a higher attribute than 1. Thus the character cannot begin by maxing out his attribute and take the flaw.

Is this logical or am I waffling?

EDIT: Say, can Otaku with physical attributes of 1 take this flaw at all?

I have to say I have always read the flaw as limiting the racial modified limit (or whatever it is called) i.e. with -3 Infirm flaw a character cannot have an attribute above 3.

However I have never used the rules that allow a character to go above the 6 + racial modifiers. To me that was always a silly thing to do, they set up in 1st Edition a range of human maximums i.e. 1 to 6 and base teh game around that, then they go and extend that range to 1 to 9 without changing other stuff.

IMHO The Exceptional Attribute edge should be the only way to go above 6 for a human.

Maybe to rectify the flaw have Infirm effectively reduce the racial and attribute max, e.g. Human without flaw can increase attribute up to 6 points, after that they may be more Karma and increase to 9.

With a -2 Infirm Flaw thsi changes to 4/6.

Oddly enough DigiMage, despite being in a 200+ karma game, I've never once seen anyone want to take an attribute above the Racial Modified Limit, except with Bioware. It's just too expensive. So there was no need to change the other-stuff when allowing players to exceed racial limits.

Anyhows..... tons of way to House Rule it, but for those of you who like to find abuseable flaws... this is one nice one to get away with.

Personally, if I House Rule it, I'm going to keep it around, and reduce the MaxAttribute by 2 for every level taken instead of by 1.

Sphynx

By the rules; this flaw can give a no-disadvantage bonus to non-combat characters.

Then-again: sensitive neural structure or bio-rejection give bonuses to characters who will never take cyber/bioware, and in theory a non-combat character could take Total Pacifist and get 5 points for it. Broken or what?

OK: all of the above limit the character in certan ways, with infirm being a slightly better tradeoff in most cases, but -1 point per rank against racially modified limit is a terrible tradeoff. Maybe having a set of -1 point flaws that perform the opposite effects of the exceptional attribute edges?

They aren't dead, they're just in a coma, IIRC.

~J

Can a shapeshifter take this flaw for each set of physical stats?

Actually Kurukami you round up you attributes max's so its 11-5 =6 so it's legal to the letter of the flaw, Tho i do agree on them being a bit munchkin

P 245 of the BBB (SR3) Max is 11 Body/Strength for a Gnome. 11-5 = 6. They round Up for Max's.

And yes, the flaw is worth way too many points. Hence the thread

Sphynx

No, it really isn't, especially when you consider the last phase of character creation: GM approval. If the flaw isn't making the character flawed, you slap the player, burn the sheet, and wait for their next character.
Someone going to claim that a max quickness of 4 isn't pretty damaging?

~J

For a shaman who's probably got mostly magical skills, armor spells, and a sustaining focus to support his "increased reflexes" spell? No. Not that damaging.

*sfft* *sfft* Damned cheap lighter... now how'm I going to incinerate said player's sheet?

So many people seem to interpret statements based on what makes for the best power gaming.
The flaw is obviously affecting the maximum stat you can start with. Otherwise it would be useless and stupid. The only way you can see it otherwise is if you think path of the mage phys-ads should get two stinking points of magic every time they initiate.

I think it is just a case of 2nd edition wording getting screwed up by a terminology change for third edition.

2nd didnt have all this 'racial modified limit' 'attribute maximum' stuff did it? I think maximum was just the maximum for your race (ie 6 for humans) and there was no second limit to worry about.

So the flaw was written for 2nd edition and when they converted the companion for third they failed to change the word leaving a loophole for munchkins.

It is a minor error.

If it's a typo, why do they go out of their way to include mechanics based around the new limits? It's rather specific in stating what it reduces and how this affects the other limit. It's designed to work the way it does, and while it might be a big munchkin loophole, that's where the GM's approval comes in.

[edit]Rather, while you can go out of your way to claim it shouldn't work the way it says it works, it is pretty clearly intentional that it works that way.[/edit]

Ok for those who still don't get it.

I agree with ShockwaveIIc. Its pretty clear - it does it to ALL physical attributes. And that really can be a problem if they take too many levels of it.

Spotlite

Must be something about being british

I actually re-read it, and it's pretty clear. Silly, but clear. Seriously, how much is limiting your deckers max stats to 6 really worth? It gets you the same amount of points as having +3 to all target numbers for all social skills, or having a 40 hour a week day job.
Anyway, as written it's not really a usable flaw, and I'm glad none of my players have tried to sneak it by me. Although one tried to get sea madness past me

More importantly, while I show an extreme (dwarf with -5 and str/bod cap of 6 with a qui cap of 4), it is the EASIEST 3-point flaw to take. How many people take their stats up post-character-creation beyond their Modified Limit? In our 9-group, 200+ karma game, not a single person has done that. It's just too damn expensive. So, regardless of the character you make, unless youstarting with Bioware that helps you exceed your Modified Limit in a Physical stat, it's a free 3BP to 90% of the characters.

Sphynx

Then it's a game-to-game thing. We almost never see physical stats taken past RML, but bioware augmentation past that is very frequent.

~J

To tweak this discussion:

How would you modify the "day job" flaw and still keep it a legitimate flaw?

-Siege

fire them when they don't meet commitments and have lots of time off sick to get healed and so on.

Give them an IRS audit (hey, they have a SIN and pay taxes, right?),

Make them come up with a background story and then slap them with it at every opportunity.

Have someone at work follow him around stalker style and make them paranoid

Have a cop wander into their place of work on other business (stopping off for lunch, investigating a crime whatever) and recognise them from an APB

Have the firm approach them for a job which they can't pay for because the firm's going under. They've found out somehow or suspect they can do 'shady' things and want them to do x so that the firm can stay open and the runner can keep his job.

Just some ideas. Remember if a player loses a flaw they are supposed to take a similarly valued one. Just rack em up something relevant and carry on using it, like you should do with all your player's flaws. If they wanna take 'em, they have to pay for 'em. The point is it doesn't need editing really. Just creative management!

Day job? Leave it as-is but just impose the reality of it. What if the team gets offered a sweet job out of town? What if the PC has to lay low for a bit? Enforce a 9-5 type schedule on the character, etc, and make it strict. If the PC gets fired, he has to buy off the flaw for level x 10 karma, after all. Or the GM gets to stick him with a different flaw of an equal value of his choosing. It's no easy task...

That said, I'd probably break the flaw into two parts, one an edge and the other a flaw. The time commitment is a flaw, of course, and the income is an edge. Something like:

Time Constraints
The character has to be somewhere for a set amount of time per week. The amount of time is determined by the value of the flaw.

-2 points = 10 hours/week
-4 points = 20 hours/week
-6 points = 40 hours/week

Steady Income
The character has a steady income from a legit source. This may be an inheretence or a part time job.

1 point = 1000 /month
2 points = 2500 /month
3 points = 5000 /month

What if it's a part-time gig or something under the table?

-Siege

Edit: Given the massive amounts of SINless, basically little more than illegals today, such jobs wouldn't be uncommon.

And let's face it: with an APB out on you, if you get busted flipping burgers you _deserve_ to get caught.

I thought of that but didn't want to bother with adding in the modifiers. If the work is part time, probably halve the point gain from the flaw. If the money is illicit, subtract a point from the edge. That means you can get 1000 for 0 points if it's from an illegal source... but keep in mind that you're vulnerable because of it. What happens when the Star comes looking for you because of it? Is it worth 1000 a month?

Part time jobs runners wouldn't be caught alive doing:

Stripping
bouncer
freelance muscle
PI (much harder to pull off and requires a certain legal presence)
dealer (drugs, BTLs)
freelance cutter (Biotech)
freelance gear freak (B/R skills)
courier
day laborer
Entertainment labor (unloading trucks, moving gear, setting up stages and so on)

The only real drawback that I could think of: if the character doesn't put the time against the job, no paycheck for the month.

And the more time missed, the greater the chance of not getting another call later since a lot of these jobs require a certain amount of presence.

Although the GM has complete license to add complications from work which can make for great blue-book material.

-Siege

I leave Day Job as it is, but for anything more than the one-point flaw I enforce a strict schedule. 1-point Day Job can be odd hours at a bar or something, but that still does nasty things to long-term runs or runs out-of-city; with two and over, there are some times when you simply can not run unless you want to lose your job and face the wrath of the GM. Day Job is only broken if the GM is too lazy to enforce it (as I have been on occasion, I admit, but that doesn't mean it isn't easy to enforce).

~J

I'll give you that one: it would be pretty tough to fly-by-night anything more than 1k a month.

Although it's not impossible: a rigger who free-lances on the side could probably manage that kind of money. A motivated car thief might, although I don't know what the pay scale is for chopping hot cars.

Deckers hacking smaller businesses is another possibility.

A covert ops specialist who breaks into warehouses and steals high-end electronics has potential...

Although the GM would have to make a chart for "nasty, unexpected stuff happens". It would really suck if a rigger lost his tricked car/van/chopper for a measly 5k.

-Siege

The GM is, and always will be, the final call on all characters. They get to look over 'ware, toys, Edges, and Flaws. If they don't like the fact that they took "Infirm" and they know it won't be enforced, they can simply tell the player to pick a different Flaw. Either the player does so or doesn't play.

Game mechanics are only broken if you let them be.