Leave it to a retard like me to forget the Physical skills. I suppose Stealth and Athletics won't break the game either, unless the character gets Muscle Toner 4, Flex Hands, and all that other Althetics stuff. Then, on comes the Veto.

(STAMP)

Ditto. I don't have to rule on Aptitude because it doesn't appear often. The players can use it for whatever. I suppose I'd step in if a PC had 3 or 4 aptitudes, but there hasn't been a problem yet.

The single instance of aptitude in my current game (that I'm running, not playing in) is for sorcery, and I don't mind it - now. The mage character with it is distinctly non-optimized, as is the other character (physical adept) in the game.

I had been considering objecting to the mage (who had just about every magical edge in the book), but after seeing their two-man Three Stooges act in combat, I'm more concerned about keeping them alive in low-threat bar fights and street brawls.

[scene: homage to...or crude parody of...the Kill Bill restaurant scene]

Mage Player: "Uh...I passed out from the drain."
Physad Player: "That was your first spell."
Me (GM): "Well, he did nuke 5 of them, and injured 5 more..."
Mage Player: "And without my sorcery aptitude, I wouldn't even have gotten those."
Physad Player: "So, you start making a new character, and I'll die trying to fight these other twenty you left me."
Me: "Fifteen, now. Almost ten, really. Some were badly burned by the fireball."
Physad Player: "Whatever. Friends in melee is going to get me."
Me: "*cough*Assaultrifleonthefloor*cough*"
Physad Player: "What are they doing now? I'm waiting for my doom."
Me: "They're coming down the stairs in a dense, tightly packed line. Hint."
Physad Player: "I'll draw my sword and wait for the first one."
Mage Player: "Hey, maybe that assault rifle would help."
Physad Player: "They're all spread wide apart on the catwalk, right?"
Me: "No, I just said-"

etc etc, ad naueseum.

Lesson: Aptitudes help offset beer-induced player deafness and unfamiliarity with suppressive fire rules.

Anychance of explaining this further? ie cost, the type and number of skills and anyother issue you've had with it

Yes, there is nothing that players can do that the GM can't balance. Unfortunately, there is a cavernous difference between "maintaining balance" and "maintaining sanity."

It's fine if you earn your hotness and BS with Karma over time, but to start with -3s on ranged tests is just insane. Why?

Well, maybe it's the way I play, but I think the lethality should remain somewhere at most at 75% chances to get killed for BOTH sides. If things go wrong for the players or the enemy, they have a good 25% chance at getting out alive. (screwed up, but alive). Of course, stupidity is always 100% deadly, but bad luck shouldn't be.

However, how do you balance someone who has 3s for full auto shotgun fire, or a summoner who resists nigh unlimited amounts of drain without blinking or a decker who trashes even with just his dusty old modest deck? You need (NEED being the operative word) to dump a cyberzombie, an incredible mage, an entire megacorp, an army, or a skilled sniper against them. If, to balance an edge, I need to throw otherwise 100% deadly forces at them, that's just plain ridiculous.

But, you may ask, "What's the problem with that? Why not throw certain death at your players?"

IT IS NOT FUN.

It's not all about the nuyen, the karma, the body count, the new toys, the inflated ego from vicariously living through a character, the 8 pages of back story you conjured to cover your inner munckin.

It's supposed to be fun. And, frankly, if limiting a single edge is going to ruin your fun, find an MP3 the world's tiniest violin, and imagine me playing it.

Isn't it a bit more fun when your enemies have a bit of a chance against you, and you have a bit of a chance against your enemies? Why bother playing the game if it's just an exercise of mathematical certainty? I think that, for the preservation of the game, balance, and fun in general, it's better to limit the absolutely heinous bullcrap, and leave it to the merely modest bull. (I won't ban Slink, but none of this Aptitude+Slink+whatever else they'll beg for).

</rant> Ahh... I knew this topic would get a rant out of me. I should start a rant jar.

Here here.

I remember one time i was running a different game, where i had a pc that was rather good in combat (my fault for letting it get past me) to challenge that character in his chosen field i had to risk the lives of the other PC's, which i wasn't willing to do. In social situtations he was useless, his fault granted but it's only fair to provide a game for ALL players, no?

The appitude edge can (note i said can not will) have the same effect. I'll let a character have when it's not in his primary field. even more likely if it happens to apply to a hobby skill.
Example, a decker that part times as a DJ. his apptitude is in his DJ skills.

Anyway i'll stop now before i get into a rant.

Definitely! A Drain test is not part of the Sorcery test, but a whole seperate thing altogether. One should not benefit from the reduction of the TN of the other.

Conjuring has a special rule that allows you to withhold dice from the Conjuring test to help resist drain, but I don't recall any rule that lets you add Sorcery dice to Drain Resistance tests. Spell Pool dice can be added just fine, as can any applicable Totem bonus.

For drones.

Well, I still can't direct you to the webbed version (sigh), so here are some condensed examples more or less from memory which we do allow in game and which have yet to be found imbalanced. (None of these bonuses will apply on defaults of any kind.)

Crack Driver (+5)
-1 to all TNs when driving any form of wheeled (not tracked!) transportation on ground. GM's best judgement when dealing with more complex vehicles.

Crack Pilot (air) (+6)
-1 to all TNs when piloting an airborne vehicle, including LTAs. This does not include vehicles which are not normally supposed to be airborne. GM's best judgement when dealing with more complex vehicles.

Crack Pilot (water) (+6)
-1 to all TNs when piloting a watercraft (including hovercrafts and hydrofoils). Except for hovercrafts, this does not apply to watercraft out of the water. GM's best judgement when dealing with more complex vehicles.

Electronic Aptitude (+8 )
-1 to all TNs for all matters related to computers and electronics, including cybertechnology (but not other forms of 'ware).

Firearms Affinity (+6)
-1 to all TNs for all handheld firearms, but not including handheld mortars, missile tubes, artillery or heavy guns.

Knack With Languages (+3)
You can usually pick up an extremely general sense of anything you hear as if you actually had one dot in a different language in the same family group as a language you actually know. (To learn one of those languages, you must purchase them normally.) If you know two languages in the same family group, you additionally have -1 to all TNs for attempting to understand any language in the same family group. Where there are no other languages in that family group (eg. Sperethiel), you are completely lost (unless you've actually learned it, of course). Incidentally, this means that you can't ever have a TN bonus where there is only one language in the family group.

Knack With Tools (+6)
- 1 to all TNs for manual construction and repair work including B/R tests (GM's best judgement when it comes to more complex structures).

Mechanical Aptitude (+6)
-1 to all TNs for working with mechanical devices, including Lockpicking, Aircraft B/R, Ground Vehicle B/R, Boat B/R, Plumbing, Clockwork ... (As always, GM's discretion)

Vehicular Aptitude (+4)
You have the intrinsic ability to figure out the controls of any type of vehicle, even if the vehicle is fairly unfamiliar. Reduce all modifiers by half when defaulting within the vehicle branch of the Skill Web.

Elemental Ties (+/- 2, +/- 4, +/- 6)
-1 or +1 to all TNs for all spells dealing with a particular element (not school of magic) or type of elemental. At second level, the TN bonus or penalty applies both to sorcery and conjuring, while at the highest level, the TN bonus applies to all things magical tied into that element, including geographic knowledge (only) of that particular metaplane. The mage must actually have the ability to cast or conjure within that elemental sphere. Hermetic mages only.

Magical Education (+3)
TN -1 to all magic (knowledge or background) tests which fall within your tradition. At the GM's discretion, this may also include theories of thaumaturgy, spirit lore, and spell formulae. This also includes Magic Theory 1 as a freebie (Background Knowledge Skill) - you may add more starting points if you like.

Woo-hoo! A better review than most of my edges/flaws.

-Siege