come on guys
I need three people to play variants of Mr lucky

I am going to bias it slightly toward Mr Lucky, in that i want us to publicly go over the char and tweak it out a little,

Cain, you are up first, please post your original Mr Lucky for our eddification

oh and I will admit now to using the bit where really good RP or descriptions helps refresh Edge
In addition I like Mr Lucky for that very reason I like Chars who have their power level tied to their

Things to be hammered out: the how

Option A: each Mr Lucky does each scene seperated from causality,

Option B: the scenes folow each other (I can tie them together)

Option C: I put the three 'Mr Lucky's in a short run with these two scenes

Cmon ppl let's make this bitch work

The original challenge involved the scene from a SRM module apparently, which Cain had played through and dominated with his character. We can repeat that scene, though my understanding is that, with regards to the NPC's, its crap.

However, there is no need to restrict yourself to that, you're the ringmaster here. I think a truer test of Mr. Lucky would be a more extended senario, where his reliance on Edge would be under more pressure, resembling at least a fairly normal session of Shadowrun, though that may be more time intensive than feasable.

If I weren't at work (and it being my Girl's Birthday party tonight) I'd reluctantly offer to put up, and Run a Mr. Lucky, if only as a 'control' to represent people who generally don't like to play Edge heavy characters (that is, I'd probably suck...)


I'll wait and see how this developes before making any comments on how its run.

I'd strongly recommend you actually read the freely available scene in question before passing such harsh judgment.

I personally thought all the Missions stuff were very decent on the powerlevel. I mean, anyone can break a game if they really try at it. For what may be some players' first SR 4 character, Missions is a great campaign. I guess most rollplayers forget that this is a COOPERATIVE game...not a competitive one. :shrug:

The powerlevel of the missions shouldn't even matter. They are only guidelines.
Powerful runners, simply up the difficulty & payment.
I don't think I ever ran a mission or module without changing half of the numbers involved.

The missions that were the most interesting were also the more open ended ones.
Really hilarious stuff happened with SR3 'Forced Recon' and the SR4 mission 'By Any Means Necessary'.

Nothing more funny then a technomancer opening all basement security doors and promptly having to flee for his life as a Barghest is also released

I agree here. I have had zero complaints about the quality of Shadowrun Missions.

The characters involved were apparently straight out of the BBB. IIRC, it was a Street Sam, a Gunslinger Adept, a Face and a Decker.

As for the character:
Mr. Lucky:

Body: 5
Quickness: 6 (8 )
Reaction: 4 (6)
Strength: 2 (4)
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 3

Edge: 8
Initiative: 8 (12) IP: 2
Essence: 0.75

Skills
Pistols (Semi auto) 7
Gymnastics (Dodging) 2
Unarmed combat (martial arts) 2
Con (Fast talk) 1
infiltration (Urban) 2

Knowledge Skills (Your choice, but here are mine):
Farming: 3
Sports (Rodeos): 2 +2
BK: Firearms: 3
Safehouse Locations: 5
Denver Border Crossings (Shadow Crossings): 4 +2

Edges:
High Pain Tolerance (Or 5 pts, your choice)
Lucky
Apt: Pistols

Flaws:
35 points your choice

Cyberware

Skillwires (Rating 3)
Smartlink
Wired Reflexes (Rating 1)
Muscle Replacement (Rating 2)
Attention Coprocessor
Skillwire Expert System

Bioware

Enhanced Articulation
Reflex Recorder (Skill Group) (Firearms)

Gear and weapons: 59,000 nuyen.gif your choice
15 points contacts.

Not my judgement, I'm simply repeating a common comment on the SRM NPCs from the thread where Synner offered to GM the situation. I believe the specific 'damning' statement was that the Archetype NPC's that were commonly used were very poorly made (something repeated elsewhere unrelated to SRM), and one specific example was the lack of perception skill on.. well... anyone.


I meant to point out that many people do feel that the NPC's provided are specifically 'gimped' which might mean that the data collected on Mr. Lucky is less than useful, as it could theoretically apply to any 'non-gimped' character in a similar situation. Since the test is arguable that Mr. Lucky is broken, not that he is merely capable...

Of course, it does occur to me that part of this also involves the 'citymaster' challenge, thus the SRM module doesn't even apply, as I am fairly certain it did not include a duel between a single Shadowrunner and a single Citymaster.


Ideally, as the challenge progresses I fully expect that both Cain and Kremlin's calls to be challenged by the rest of the audience. That is the entire purpose behind an open challenge, to lay ALL the cards on the table. Was this call too harsh, too easy? Can Cain really do that or not? If its just two guys rolling dice in a sealed box, we still get potentially useful data points, certainly but it also leaves the entire test case open to questions of validity that ideally we'd like to avoid.... from either side.

Again, you might want to read the scenario in question and form your own opinion rather than assuming that the previous discussion was in any way accurate. As a specific example in your comments about the scene in question:
Visual Perception DPs for:
Hacker - 8 Dice
Gunslinger Adept - 8 Dice
Face - 8 Dice
Street Samurai - 2 Dice (unskilled)

Note also what the NPCs in question were supposed to be doing in the described scenario.


IE -- The NPCs are carefully looking for opposition, not standing around in the open waiting to be ambushed.

Actually, according to Cain's description of the scene, the NPCs have already been chased off from the area they were sent to scout by Cain's team, and they were regrouping on a nearby street corner when Mr. Lucky came upon them - so they know some opposition is out there.

Spike, the characters involved were fresh out of the BBB. The situation Synner offered to play out was a scene from, I think, SRM02-13. (Dunner, feel free to correct me if I get any details wrong.) And whatever negative I might have to say about SR4, it doesn't extend to Shadowrun Missions. That is high quality material.

235 points here, need to lose a few I recommend ditching the last point of agility and losing a point of logic or charisma


85 points here


70 points here

that seems to be another 65 points

esd thid mesnt to be a 450 pt char?

Sorry, that was off a living character sheet. He's earned some karma and gear since then. Do you want me to roll it back?

Cain: I understand (even stated I think) that they were fresh out of the BBB. While I can cop to being wrong about no one having perception, the Samurai having a whopping two dice is, well, pretty damn bad if surprise is so devestating, thus the reiteration that the general concensus is that the BBB archetypes are... well... gimped.

This suggests a second sort of challenge: once all is said and done, particularly if Mr Lucky shines as brightly as you suggest, the obvious next step (aside from using a citymaster...) is to bring in non-edge based 'optimized' characters to see if its the 'Edge' that makes the difference or simply the poor design of BBB characters.

I'll repeat that my ONLY critique of the SRM, and my ONLY reason of said critique, is that the NPCs may not match what many GM's use at their table, and thus present a potentially arguable point if Mr Lucky overperforms against them.

You could use generic mooks and it would still be an interesting test of Mr Lucky. I am just pointing out that it MIGHT (stress that, as this is purely my perspective) be improved if his 'opposition' isn't controversial. While, obviously, BBB characters have a certain appeal in their universality (using my 'lazy man's hobby' theory, they probably ARE the default at most tables for 'runner level opposition'...), I'm just pointing out that at least so far as Dumpshock's concensus is: They suck.

But I feel like this is becoming an obstacle, so I leave it to you and Kremlin KOA to work out what the NPC's look like. I've made my case, defended it far more than it deserves. If it stands or falls depends entirely upon its value to this test.

Some thoughts on experimental design:

First you need to define what you are comparing and isolate it. There was some debate about what the initial challenge entailed (i.e.- what was ment by "area" and what constitutes "meaningful advancement" through karma). Even beyond that, given the expansive and highly variable nature of any RPG isolating your comparison is going to be very difficult, if not impossible.

I think to test this scientifically you need to design a scenario specific to what you are comparing. If its pitting Mr Lucky against an optimized street sam, then they both need to face the same opposition (the archetypes in the BBB would be fine, so long as they are the same every time), with the same situational modifiers (including ranges and cover), with the same initiatives for the NPC opposition (which should probably be the average of multiple initiative rolls). Then you'd have to run the scenario the same way multiple times ("replicates" maybe 3 or 4) for each PC, and maybe even mandating that Mr. Lucky and Optimo Sam take the same actions (or have a set of priority guidelines that they will follow as close as possible... i.e.- #1 is take out the street sam, #2 is take out the gunslinger, etc). The NPCs should have similar priority guidelines.

You can't do this by lengthening the scenario or running a seires of scenarios, because that introduces too much added variability. To test things accurately you would have to repeat the scenario (again in 2-3 replicates) while incrimentally decreasing Mr. Lucky's Edge pool (to simulate edge use in previous scenarios) until it becomes the same as Optimo Sam's. You could then repeat the whole shebang again but incrementally increase damage mods on the 2 PCs (to simulate injuries sustained in previous scenarios), etc etc ad nauseam.

Then you come to the whole "karmic advancement" problem, which would require you to advance the characters incrementally with Karma and repeat the whole experiment (in multiple replications) yet again.

{edit} You'd also need to define an appropriate measure of success. Damage sustained? Edge spent? Survival? Number of turns required to take out the NPC opposition? You'd have to decide which outcome accurately represents your comparison. Choosing the wrong measure of outcome would change the results. Obviously Mr Lucky will spend more edge because the character is designed to do so. On the other hand, others have argued that he is more susceptible to taking damage, but does that definitively prove Optimo Sam is better?

So the long and short of it all is that to really test this theory in a way that means anything (i.e.- so people will finally have a definitive answer and stop arguing) is either damn near impossible, or would take more time and effort than any of us probably has to spare. A good experimental design alone would be ridiculously difficult to achieve.

In the absence of a truly objective design, I don't think there is any way you could test Mr Lucky that wouldn't leave room for argument.

Just my 2

I find it somewhat pleasing that a user named "Method" wrote that post

A "method" to my madness, perhaps?

While I certainly agree with Method's... method, I will point out that one bone of contention is the viability of an Edge based character over an extended period of time. The use of an optimized Samurai is a suggested control group, which is valid but I think not necessarily needed.

This is in part due to Cain's assertion that the 'right player' is important to his thesis. I personally don't see the relevance, given that his thesis is that the rules are broken: Any ruleset in the 'right' hands can be broken in some fashion, the idea should be to see if they are commonly or easily broken in a repeatable fashion: Ergo something that can not be dismissed as a 'marginal situation'.

So: yes, it is valuable to see how Mr Lucky compares to a similarly optimized character, either in direct competition or as a control group, it isn't inherent to the challenge.

I don´t think there is anything to be really proven here. I´d like to see how Cain/some others play their high-edge chars, because it really seems very underpowered to me. I´d rather loose out on extreme edge than accept that gimped skillset. If the decisions of both GM and player are fitting and optimised is an individual decision. I want to see the individual style.

The target group works well within the mission (SRM-13 pg. 9 IIRC). I´d prefer the original, documented scene over a pre-run description of the environment (number of cars parked, lighting, people, info about the targets capabilities...).

Right. Thats why I suggested repeating the scenario while incrementally decreasing Mr. Lucky's edge. You might find that when he starts the scenario with high edge (i.e. he didn't spend any in previous parts of the adventure) he does quite well, but when he starts the scenario with low edge (i.e. its nearing the end of the adventure and he has spent edge in previous parts of the adventure) he doesn't perform as well. If you do it any other way there could be confounding variables.

True, and a good point. It would depend on what kind of comparison you want to make, which goes back to defining the exact nature of the challenge. You might not need a "control" to see what you want to see.


Also a good point. My thoughts were more so about the feasibility of designing an objective test for Mr. Lucky, but that might not be the goal.

But there are, it seems, people who want a definitive answer and without an objective measurement we are talking about people's subjective experiences, which tell us little about whether the system is "broken" or not.

And really my point was that its impossible to test objectively, so all we have to compare is people's subjective experience. It sounds like that is what you are actually interested in anyway, so thats cool.

I just think this reincarnated thread is likely to parrot its predecessor and lead to arguments no one can really prove or disprove anyway. But then, isn't that the point of an internet forum??

[edited for clarity]

While I agree that incrementally decreasing Mr. Lucky's available Edge would be a valid experiment, I should also point out that the Sam should do the same. When I've played Mr. Lucky, I can only think of two times where he's spent more than two points of Edge in a game, which is generally on par with the other characters.


Here it is to the best of my recollection:

The job's first part was to intercept a team of runners and take their place at a meet. We chased them off, but we spread out to try and finish them off. Due to a lucky (go figure) perception test, I locate them on a street corner, arguing about what to do. Unfortunately, we don't have the time left to assemble the team to take them on. I order my van to drive casually, to speed up on a verbal command, and start a drive-by.

The opposition consists of a Street Samurai, a Gunslinger Adept, a Face, and a Decker. AFAIK, they were the archetypes straight out of the book, except for the fact that the gunslinger was packing SMGs. At any event, I get a surprise action, and shoot the street sam full in the face. (Direct hit, although not a called shot, with a disgusting number of successes behind it, too much to soak even with Edge.) My second shot isn't nearly as cool, and only wounds the Gunslinger Adept. (Read: She uses Edge.) As a free action, the van starts to acellerate.

First pass. I win initiative, and unload on the Adept. Needless to say, I hit, but she spends more Edge to survive/reduce the damage. It now goes to her turn, which is an ouchie for me. She fires four times, using her ambidexterity to good effect. However, I'm behind good cover; and even though the GM penalizes me for dodging in confined quarters, I manage to escape with only two hit points taken. Some Edge was used, but the good luck I had was that the adept botched on her last shot, causing her to drop her gun. Well, maybe not so lucky, since I now had to face her full dice pool. The face's shot gets me for one hit point, taking me to a Moderate wound, and the decker is frantically trying to locate my wireless signal.

Second pass. My first shot only wounds the adept, but she's now out of Edge, and the second shot finishes her. The face hits me, but I manage to dodge/soak the shot. I honestly don't recall what the decker was doing next. At this point, the GM rules that the van has pulled too far away to make another shot, so I'll have to turn around for a second pass. While I'm doing that, the Face and Decker decide to run for it. The adept is still alive, but the sam went into serious overflow; they grab the Adept, trigger her Docwagon, and run. I'm not about to take on Docwagon, and by the time I turn around, they're effectively out of combat range.

So, the original claim was that Mr. Lucky took on a team of Prime Runners and won. He didn't exterminate every last one of them, but he did beat them. If the Face and Decker had decided to shoot it out, any dedicated Combat character would have mopped the floor with them. My point is basically while a high Edge is no match for smart tactics, a high Edge combined with smart tactics is the win.

A link to the previous post/thread might have saved some unnecessary commentary. If Kremlin wants to run that scene again that's fine.

I will point out that I have yet to make an SR4 character who ever used their edge, nor have any of my fellow players in those games. Edge is really only 'useful' if you have enough of it to 'bring it' to the table while still maintaining a reserve for emergencies. So a viable Sammy build with few, or any, Edge would not have decreased performance, on average, by reducing available edge (even to zero... if its never used in teh senarios then its loss is never felt).

On that, as a GM, the only time I would use NPC edge would be to offset player use of Edge. Inherent balancing. If a player consistently uses Edge, I consistently use Edge. Ditto autofire. Ditto Martial Arts or any other potentially arcane rule.

Kremlin: Cain seems ready to go, just give him/us the senario and do us some dice rollin'!

In deed. You are correct. The question of sustainability would be answered either way.

But the Sam would not have to rely on Edge use nearly as much as Mr. Lucky. I have also never spent (or burnt) Edge as of yet as a Player in SR4, so I really don't think it is a factor for low-Edged characters. It is definitely not as important to those characters as it is to Mr. Lucky, and the Attributes or Skills that were purchased with the BP Mr. Lucky spent on Edge are typically not depletable in the same fashion as the Edge Attribute, and hence more dependable under normal conditions and sustainable in the long run, especially over a extended encounter.

roll back to starting would be nice, yeah

he seems pretty close, but i think we need the starting char rollback. also like I said I was going to use 3 versions of lucky so i need three players. one full Missions adventure will be the test. Spike will you take one of the luckys?

Fortune: That's part of what we're trying to prove. I've also taken him through adventures where he hasn't spent any Edge, and at least two where I only did it to show off. As far as I can tell, his Edge use has always been on par with the other characters. In fact, he's sometimes uses less than the rest of the party. Just because he's got more, doesn't mean he needs more.

To do a quick rollback (I lost the original starting character in a hard drive crash, so this is probably best):


Let's drop Quickness and Strength by 1, that should do the trick. I don't want to mess with Logic, since that'd change the Knowledge skills.

I get 75. Did I do something wrong?


That's what I get, too.

Without going over it too closely, it looks like we have 40 points left over for gear. That should be enough for all his 'ware and equipment. I also know, from looking over my Mission sheets, that this module was the first one in which I had the attention coprocessor and Skillwire Expert System. I'd like to leave those, if possible.

@Kremlin KOA,

You mentioned using Mr. Lucky variants. Did you want people to post Mr. Lucky-type builds?

Kremlin: I don't mind taking on a Mr. Lucky, but it will have to wait until the weekend in all probability. I'll point out that I'm not inclined to do Edge heavy characters normally so I can't garuntee it will be 'top notch'. If no one's done it yet, I suppose a 'long arms' Mr. Lucky wouldn't be too wacky for me.

I think the best way is probably to do a same game test - probably by taking a shadowrun missions mission and removing all the fluff and distilling it to a set of challenges that are as tightly defined as you can make it. In D&D you'd just shuffle up a deck of same CR challenges, shadowrun is a bit more loosely defined which makes this sort of same game test much more difficult to create.

Once you've done that, Mr Lucky's vaunted strength is his flexibility, so I'd push him through the challenge gauntlet and see how well he can get through the entire thing. Then I'd contrast this to other highly optimized characters (I'd suggest a possession tradition mage) and see how well they can cope with the adventure. IF they both piss all over it (and I'm fairly confident one highly optimised character can actually do SRM1 by himself) you need to up the bar.

It's tough though.

not quite
per the old thread I will be replacing pistols with automatics on one Lucky, and with longarms on the third

the idea is I am also interested on how much difference gun type makes



coolies
weekends work for me

you want pistol guy, SMG and AR guy, or shotguns and sniper guy?
basically for those who want to volunteer, first in, best dressed

That was pretty much my plan, if you want to lend a hand it would be helpful if you could mention a good mission or three

Synner, if you are following this, Same request, you are line developer and as such probably know the missions very well.

Also who is the missions guy? SOrry that I don't know your handle on here, but if you want to chip in...?

the_dunner.

Thanks Fortune
SOrry the_dunner, but your advice is welcome and desired

Yeah, I'll take a Mr. Lucky. Give me the shotties and Sniper Rifles. Spending edge on Sniper skills will be fun. n.n

ok

nope, my error of calculation


so 345 so far i believe edges and flaws balance out


using 40 should be enough, leaving 15 for contacts

i should have the three versions up in a day or so

So, since I was asked, I'm chiming in.

Point 1 Clarification of the request:

You're looking for recommendations of 3 Shadowrun Missions to use as testbeds, correct? Are you looking for entire adventures, or just specific (shooty) scenes? Note that RP through 3 complete Missions should take roughly 12 hours of table time. I know that through the vagaries of PbP, this would be a substantially longer time. I'm not sure you want to commit to this, and if you did, the relevant thread would need to be moved over to the appropriate forum.

Point 1, working assumption
I'm assuming the objective is to complete this simulation in a timely fashion. As a consequence, I'm assuming that you're looking for 3 specific scenes, not 3 complete adventures.

Point 2 Clarification of request
What attributes are you looking for in those Missions and/or scenes?

As the characters in question are apparently all combat oriented, I'm assuming you want combat oriented scenes. Keep in mind that SRM scenarios are scenarios designed for beginning players. If the players are using 0 karma characters, the combats are, in most cases, biased rather strongly in favor of the PCs' success.

Point 2, working assumption
The scenes in question should be among the more difficult combat scenes for new characters with zero starting karma.

Recommendations:
SRM02-17 - Patient Zero Scene: Skipping School.

SRM02-20 - Career Path Scene: Beware Hostile Takeovers

SRM02-24 - Hubris and Humility Scene: Feathers Meet the Sun
(Assume the hit is being attempted at his residence during a shift overlap.)

Note that in all cases, TR (Table Rating) should be at 1. Also note that for purposes of efficiency and appropriate testing, I think it'd be wise to assume that in these cases, the NPCs will not be attempting to negotiate. I'd also assume, where relevant, that the PCs have all factions at 0, as they would if they were startin gcharacters.

The only objection I have is that I haven't played through those Missions yet, and I don't want to have spoilers for them. I want too play them in their entirety, and I'm afraid that these short-shots will disqualify me from playing. I've only plaed through 1-3, and 12-14; with #4 on my hard drive ready to read.

You need more than just combat scenes, unless you think shadowrun is 24/7 combat with nothing else. You need to draw a representative sample of what shadowrun is all about and present that as a series of flavourless challenges that can be quickly administered.

So boiling down face time, legwork and infiltration to flavourless challenges needs to happen too.

Minor note: There's no "dodge" specialisation for Gymnastics listed in SR4.

I was thinking 'longarms' as assault rifles, so I guess that makes me the 'automatics guy'....

and I dasn't like autofire.... rats.


I should have a character up by tonight. As I understand it the requirement is that he have 8 edge and be optimized for his 'area' of expertise on the team (in this case a shooter)...

Unless you can think of a valid reason, I won't bother to assign the knowledge skills as I don't think they'd be relevant.



Fuchs: while I'm all in favor of elminating gymnastics:Dodge from SR4, if Kremlin (the GM) allows it, that's fine. That just means the other MR Lucky's (and any non-lucky optimized baseline potentially) have access to it as well.

Just saying that in this case, we're in house rule territory.

No one ever said that the specializations stated in the book are the only ones...

Sure, but most people would be of the view that the sample of specalisations presented in the book is representative. There is nothing that indicates 'dodge' is a valid specialization of gymnastics, just as 'bad-assery' isn't a valid specalisation of anything. So yeah, gymnastics spec dodge is not something you should be allowed to do.

Oh, I agree that dodge shouldn't be allowed, it being way too broad to be a specialization...
But if I want a Win95 specialization in software, am I making house rules? I don't think so...

For the purposes of this sort of thing, I'd insist that you stuck only to published examples

Good point...

I, for one, am waiting breathlessly for the GM to make the call.

I don't think Kremlin KOA actually wants people to create characters. He is just going to adjust the one Mr. Lucky to fit the proper weaponry.

For the gymnastics, if the dodge specialization is a problem, just replace it with the canon specialization of tumbling, which is almost the same thing.