i need some clarification on augmentation.

is the augmented max dependent on your current natural rating?

in the book, the only thing i can find is specifically "raising a natural attribute may raise the augmented attribute value, up to the augmented attribute maximum (natural maximum x 1.5)."

the real issue is, can i have a character with str 5 (nat) and str 9 (muscle aug 4)?

thx!

It's one of the reasons that I'm always rather astounded by how many people will take logic, strength or agility at 2 but pass on the corresponding attribute augmentations. I realize essence and the gear cap can come into play here but frankly, having an attribute at 2 rather than 1 costs 10 bps, which is rather expensive when you consider that it's not enough to cover the bus fare required for your character to leave Gimpy Town. It's not uncommon for some of my hacker type characters to start play with only 1 natural strength and rating 1 Muscle Replacement; you can always get it ripped out and use the essence hole later and you'll in effect only be out 1 bp, creating a net savings once you buy your strength back up a point for a mere 6 karma (plus you get an Agility bonus of 1 in the meantime).

Whipstich, that's a pretty bad example of metagaming. What kind of runner is that feeble and then only adds enough to stay below average anyways...?

Yeah ... you're better off getting Muscle Augmentation 2 and having a Strength of 3. Odd numbers are better for Strength ... and almost everything in Shadowrun, as rounding normally favors the player, and glitches are rarer for odd dice pools.

No, they should all supercompensate like Fortune said, straight to the limit of technology!

Any mage should consider if his last point of magic is that high a price for a significantly stronger body and faster mind...

The problem with crying "Powergamer!" is that it's such a big difference in this case. The difference between spending 1 or 10 BPs for the same result is big. It's wrong to condemn someone for taking the vastly better option. Better, really, to fix the problem, than to expect everyone to pretend it isn't there.

This is why I use BP costs for character advancement. Getting a natural Logic of 2 costs 10 BP, but it'll cost you that later on anyway. This way some people get the real Logic of 2 and then wait until they can afford a high quality Cerebreal Booster and others get the Cerebral Booster right off.

-Frank

Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with taking the sub optimal choice if it doesn't totally screw the character and concept I have in mind or if the GM requires it (I personally believe ruining everyone's game night before it's even started should be punishable by stoning). But the current rules make me feel like I'm pissing away 10 bps just so I can shut up the fluff mongers out there who seem to think that the difference between a 1 and a 2 is a Big Deal from an IC perspective when the rules are actually incredibly vague on this point and few if any appreciable mechanical problems come up because of it.

Well, ive been a one to also take the perhaps sub-optimal choice, so to speak. If im playing a sammie-type, im probably going to want around a 5 Str score. Ill be just fine with that. Now, in our group, we dont play with availability, which means for a mere 28,000 nuyen, i can buy muscle augmentation 4 and get him a 5 strength if i leave it at 1. But i just cant make a character, with combat and athletics skills, and a natural body, agility, and reaction of 4, with a 1 str, as yes, im one of those folks who it doesnt make alot of sense with. If he was sickly and weak, he wouldnt have a body, agility, and reaction of 4, with good athletics potential and skills. Ill take some lower scores in other thing to get him the 3, and purchase augmentation lv. 2 instead.

Now, if someone has a concept of ''this characters a natural weakling, but bought up all his stats with his huge wad of nuyen'', thats fine. I mean, yes, there are folks now and again with odd attribute differences, but a very healthy, active person i dont see having a strength at the lowest possible end of the scale.

I could, potentially, buy it with Body, in the sense that ive seen what steroids to to athletes. Sure, they are strong, but their health is in some dire, dire trouble after awhile, and they might well have a crappy Body score.

I know folks disagree, but its just me. I sadly am one of those fluff mongers. In the end, its a game, and if one of my players really wants to do it, id let them, but i would want a bit of explanation. Id want the same explanation if someone takes the exceptional attribute.

I try to keep things within the realm of plausibility. I've made hackers with terrible unaugmented attributes before, but I've never gone and done something as lopsided as say, 5 agility, 1 strength and 5 body, either. I definitely have my limits. For example, one could by the RAW skip muscle booster 'ware and still have have a character with around 4 in the Athletics group along with enough 'ware to get him up to 10 dice despite having 1s as natural attributes; however, even I would roll my eyes at a character with dice equivalent to a professional athlete yet struggles to lug home the groceries.

Well, what might actually work well while being easy is using later-on karma costs as BP costs, the last attribute point costing twice as much (as before) and race mods being added after BP allocation. Now any minmaxing based on the BP/Karma-ratio is history.

The resulting cost table for attributes/skills/groups is certainly not too complicated, as BP cost is mono-variant (as opposed to SR3, where cost depended on desired skill rating and corresponding attribute).

I am doing differently now; karma points in chargen and of course karma points later on for advancement. Keeps the 5-1-5ers out of the market.

Cheers,

Max

That was the beauty of BeCKs. In SR3, you didn't get 5-1-5'ers so often as you got the Skill Maxers. Skills were not so cheap to raise with Karma(Specializations were at least, but base skills could cost you), so most folks would rather go for a bunch of 6's and buy the 1s and 2's later on, which WERE cheap(since they were connected to the attributes), rather than round out their character. BeCKs solved this problem by making it so you really had to *want* that 6, as it was something like 30 Karma, and that was if your attribute was higher. If not, it was even more. So it encouraged taking larger amounts of skills, and saving those 5s and 6s for those couple 'defining' skills. It wasn't so bad to buy one or two skills at 5 and 6, but much more(like you could do with the 50 points, or even more, the 60 you were allowed from point-buy), would cost you serious karma.

There were a couple of BeCKs variants that ive seen so far and im sure there could be more to come. And it does, indeed, nip those attribute problems in the bud. It doesn't change the fact that Strength suffers from its low representation, but players are less likely do have those really lopsided attributes.

(i have my other problem with Agility being linked to *every* combat skill. Its basically difficult to play a slow, lumbering, but hard-hitting lunk really effectively. They can do ok if you really pump that skill, but it is more difficult. I understand, though, if Melee was linked to Strength, the slow, lumbering lunks would be almost TOO effective. Arg for being unable to find some nice middle ground...)

EDIT: 5-1-5er sounds like a new tabletop trope.

changing things so that strength, rather than body, determines how much armor you can wear, would go a long ways towards making strength more valuable imo.

There's not much leeway in the Attribute range, especially for humans. If you remove the option of choosing a '1', and only one '6' can be used, so you are really left with a range of only 4 numbers (with even '2's and '5's drawing complaints from some factions). Not much left to work with.

I have never really had a problem with people submitting characters with a '1' in the occasional Attribute. Usually it is quickly fixed after the first couple of game sessions. I prefer to let people actually play the character they want to play, since it is a game and all, and as the GM I already get to control most of the world. I don't feel the need to be in control of every single aspect of the Players' characters as well.

wasn't there somewhere a sentence about it being a glitch if half od the dice comes up as 1 or not successes and then rounded up or something?

i am not sure . . i just thought i'd read that somewhere . .
damn, i need a sig to show that i am not an active SR4 player <.< . .

A Glitch occurs when half or more of your Dice Pool comes up ones. a Critical Glitch is when half or more of your Dice Pool comes up ones, and you get no successes. So if you have an odd number of dice in your Pool, you will glitch less often than with an even Pool.