No, 750 karma makes for insane characters. As my excel sheet of awesome creates a karma cost, i can see that a 556 BP character I had worked up for a game only costs 691 karma. (I'd initially created him as 400 BP character with the frank houserules boxes ticked, so I just unticked them)

See the massive power boost that happened there?

See how hugely massive it was? And I didn't even try and optimize for effect.

Edit: Sorry, I wasn't calculating specializations correctly, so the correct costs are 561 BP = 697 karma.

Intense!

i can get 588 BP worth of bonuses for 697 karma if I make him a troll too. Significantly tougher due to extra body as well.

As I mentioned earlier, 400 Build Points approximates out to 600 Karma. Because of the different advancement scales, it will not be exact, but close enough to work with.

I have a 400 Build Point character, that I decided to create with 750 Karma instead just to see how she looked. Nothing was lower. Well over half her attributes & skills had increased by a minimum of 1 point, several as many as 3. Contacts got better. She had more money to spend. She had an additional Positive Quality.

As has obviously been mentioned, a 750 Karma character is far more powerful than a 400 Build Point character. If you choose to use this system as RAW, you had better increase your players opposition by at least 20%

Did I mention she was Human? The least efficient race in the Karma system?

Can someone just confirm for me what the money karma ratio is under karmagen?

Fun police.

1 Karma = 2,500 Nuyen. 100 Karma to Nuyen limit.

Muspellsheimr, we don't seem to be communicating. Let's try this again.

Yes, if your non-human character sticks to attributes less than 6, they are going to have more Karma after buying attributes than human characters - because they have higher minimums. However, metahumans also have higher maximums, and those maximums are costly to obtain. If players want to have metahuman characters that are strictly within human limits, they can do that, but in my opinion they are missing out.

A troll with Strength 5 is going to be the weakest troll on the block, an elf with Charisma 3 is going to be the fugliest booger-eating elf in the 'hood. This is true whether you're using KarmaCharGen or BPCharGen - whether the human pays 21 Karma or 30 BP. When metahumans buy attributes over 6, the costs balance out.


Bugger that. Here's my counter challenge: have your group use the Karma system to build new characters and have fun playing them.

Thanks, thats what I had. A bit more fiddling gives me 626 BP character for 749 karma just by ramping up the previous characters skills.

lol, thats a HUGE power increase.

@Ancient: That effect is prelevant across the entire system of karmagen. You are encouraged to have more lower numbers whether its attributes or skills because of the scaling costs. Metahumans just illustrate it very clearly.

Basically, the three creation systems have different balances, and they're supposed to have different balances.

Each system can be min-maxed in its own unique way. The default assumption is that it won't be, that each will be used to create similar characters. And in that the systems all work.

The karma system is built on the assumption that some people will be using it to make Body 10 trolls (that's 120 BP for one stat) or similar. The costs and limits are designed to allow them to do so. It also allows people who choose lower numbers to become extremely diverse, far more diverse than is possible under BP. This is a feature, not a bug.

BP encourages min-maxing (and always has)
Karma encourages diversity (and always has)
I'm not yet sure what Priority encourages.


But things do get really crazy if you use Karma to create a dragon character using the leaked rules.

This is one of the reasons I suggested a single group not mix characters put together with different systems.

I am not arguing this. What I am arguing is the mechanical advantage of playing a metahuman because they lack an associated cost.

It does not matter how strong or weak they are in comparison to their own race. What matters is how strong or weak they are in comparison to other races. With no cost necessary to play a metahuman, with the same character creation resources, they will always be more powerful than the Human equivalent.

If I can create a Troll with the exact same stats as a Human, and then some, with the same allocation of resources, who gives a shit if he is supposedly the weakest Troll on the block - he is clearly, without any doubt, superior to said Human. And this is a fucking serious problem with game balance. Now, if using the Karma system RAW, the only reason you would ever have to play a Human is 1: Edge 7 or 8, or 2: flavor or concept. Either way, your Human will be weaker than the metahumans in the group. Such a system is punishing a player for wanting to play a certain type of character.

Once again, as an example (just an example - no math behind it), if you can create a Human with skills X, Y, & Z all at 4 each, and Attributes all at 4, and for the exact same cost create an Elf with skills X, Y, Z, & N all at 4 each, and seven Attributes at 4, one at 7, tell me - why would you play the Human? The Elf can equal anything the Human can do, and then some.

This is a core flaw in proper balance of the Karma character generation system, and must be fixed before it can be reasonably used.



Once again, to demonstrate this, I challenge you to create any Human character you wish. Only things you are not allowed to use are Edge 7 or 8, or Human-Only Qualities, such as Vampire.

I will then make a character of one of the four basic metatypes that will first equal everything your Human is capable of, and then surpass him in at least one area, for equal or less Karma.

Use the 750-point Karma character generation, as written.



If your entire group wants to play as Humans, go for it. Same if they all want to be Trolls, or all Elves. There is no problem. But as soon as you begin playing with mixed metatypes, the Trolls will always be superior to the Humans, regardless of how they compare to other Trolls.

I see your point, Ancient, but at last, you will have to play your character a long, long time to see these effects, while you see the effects we mentioned immediatly at the generation of the characters. It's the point of view and most players will always look at the generation first. The karma based generation system is very nice at last and I also see your point at the BP system, the metatypes are stronger than human, perhaps we didn't notice it this much, because we didn't see the karma costs

Perhaps somebody should programm a character generator with all the stuff in now and shows BP and Karma costs.


The priority system works nice, if you want to get a fast character without looking for much equipment or using precalculated equipment lists. I think with a little bit work for the equipment lists, it will be great at conventions to get newbies to your table


@ Muspellsheimr
Get it, the metatypes were always better than humans. Increasing the Strength of a troll from 5 to 6 is worth 10 BP or 18 Karma. Increasing the Strength of a human is also worth 10 BP but only 6 Karma. Every point is also worth 12 Karma more and they don't pay for it! Elf have got the worse BP/ Advantages relationship, they get 1 point at Agility, 2 points at charisma and lose 1 point of edge, but costs 30 BP. At last, every point of Agility is worth 3 more karma (ok, you can set this even to the edge of the human) and every point Charisma is worth 6 points more Karma!
If you want to hunt down the disadvantages of the humans, begin with the BP system, not with the new karma system, which only shifts the point of view.

M, you're not reading me on this. You are literally getting tunnel vision on this one. Let me give an example:

These essentially are the mechanical advantages of humans in Shadowrun. Subtract these and you might as well label it "any metahuman."

What you're kvetching about is the perceived point disadvantage of humans under the KarmaCharGen system. The thing you're buggering on about is the perceived "something for nothing" that metahumans get - and you're right, if metahumans stay within normal human limits (1-6), they have more points to spend. However, as soon as metahumans exceed those limits, the balance changes.

This is really one of the reasons we went with 750 Karma instead of 600 - I can tell you there was a lot of argument back and forth on that one, but the costs didn't balance right for expensive attributes.

The current excel chargen spreadsheet from the community forums already shows costs in both BP and Karma

it by default assumes that your playing 2 x BP in karma for a metatype, but its easy enough to just change that cost to 0 - there is a handy box provided to do exactly that.

to show that the point about stats over 6 is poorly made - we have a large repository of characters down in 'welcome to the shadows' and the majority do not have stats of 6, let alone more.

Ancient:

I think the complaint here is that you can do all the stuff a human can do, but better, or, you can do stuff a human can never do, your choice.

The human, on the other hand, can have good luck, or be a vampire. Or, he can be statistically worse than a metahuman, his choice.

Costing equal Karma but having lower stats, is NOT, and I do repeat, NOT, an advantage, no matter what anyone claims. Further, stating that things equal out if a metahuman buys a 10, while you get a couple of 5's points out the absurdity.

Mind you, humans blow under BP also, so lets not lay this dog all at your feet.

Keep in mind that "stats are bad" in this case is basically equivalent to six 4's and four 5's in your main ten stats if you choose to pay for it - an equivalent value of 280 BP in your standard character generation, and thats not choosing to max any stat.

But nobody I know ever maxes a stat, since its a terrible gain, spending way too many resources for way too little gain.

Also, doing the math:

Human: Body:4(27) Agi:5(42) Rea:4(27) Str:4(27) Cha:4(27) Int:4(27) Log:4(27) WP:4(27) Edge:5(42) 273 karma
Troll: Body:6(18) Agi:4(27) Rea:5(42) Str:6(18) Cha:3(15) Int:4(27) Log:4(27) WP:5(42) Edge:5(42) 258 karma

Troll also gets +1 natural armor, +1 reach, Thermographic vision, and some RP penalties for being a troll...or RP bonuses, if you like that sort of thing.

So, less karma, for significantly better stats, AND, a bunch of additional bennies? Wow.

The human is actually paying 15 karma to not have: +1 natural armor, +1 reach, Thermographic vision.

AND has 2 less body and 2 less strength and 1 less wp, while having 1 more agi and 1 more cha.

Okay, go ahead and have 7 or 8 Karma, if you so choose. Instead of my character being better at one or two things & equal at the rest, he will be slightly worse off one one thing (Edge), and much better at a minimum of one or two other things. I still exclude Vampires & similar, because once you become one, you are no longer really Human. You argue that post-development, the advantage begins to fade. In a way, yes. 5% of 750 is only going to be 2.5% of 1,500. But the hard value - the 15 Karma advantage an Elf has over a Human, will always remain the same. To simulate character advancement as part of this, choose how much Karma we will create our characters with, & what the limits of spending are. 400 Karma, 4,000 Karma. RAW restrictions, no restrictions. Whatever you want. I will still duplicate your Human in every way (except possibly Edge), and exceed him, with the same amount of resources.

By the way, that a Troll can achieve an unaugmented Strength of 10, regardless of cost, is enough for them to have a racial cost. It allows them to exceed a Human's maximum capabilities. If a Human was capable of achieving 10 Strength, it would cost more for them to do so than a Troll. As such, a Troll is not more expensive as you are trying to make out. Not only are they cheaper, they have greater advancement opportunities.

If you continue to argue against this instead of allowing me to demonstrate exactly what the problem is, or somehow provide proof I am wrong, I will simply admit to myself that you have no concept whatsoever of game balance & proceed to ignore you. In regard to this, I will one final time say that regardless of what minimum and maximum values of a range are, 5 will always be greater than 4. And while a Human must pay to achieve 4, a Troll gets 5 for free, under this new system.


Under the Build Point system, Humans are more or less equal to the other metatypes. Why, if the metatypes are obviously better? Because with Build Points, said metatype must pay for his advantages. Under the Karma system, they get said advantages free of charge.

You further go on to explain the fundamental flaw of Build Point creation & Karma advancement. They are different systems with different scaling values. As such, they should have been kept separate from the beginning, as it encourages min/maxing, and post-development balance issues.

Muspel:

The BP system isnt fair to humans. Lets compare a 180 bp ork(+20 for race, so both are 200) to a 200 bp human.

Human: 5 agi, 5 rea, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 200 bp

Ork: 5 agi, 5 body, 5 str, 4 rea, 3, 3, 3, 3 180 bp attributes, 20 bp race. So, this ork has 20 more bp to spend on stats, if he wants to, or, he can spend elsewhere, since he's already markedly better than the human. Also, he has lowlight vision, for his trouble.

Okay, I will try to detail the mis-communication in this argument one more time.

Ancient: You say it costs a Troll more to achieve maximum Strength than it costs a Human to achieve maximum Strength. I agree. I have never disputed this.

Me: I say, 5 Strength is equal to 5 Strength, regardless of how you achieved that score. Trolls get 5 Strength for free with Karma Generation RAW. Humans pay for it.

The game cares about what your attribute value is, not how close to your maximum it is. Because of this, using Karma Generation, the metatypes basically receive free points.

DreadPirate: Yes, the balance is not necessarily there with the Build Point system, but it is far closer than the current Karma system.
In the Build Point system, a metatype pays for it's bonuses. If they pay enough or not is not what I am currently discussing. The point is, said bonuses have a cost associated to them. In the Karma system, they do not. The metatypes receive those bonuses for free.


EDIT: I earlier proposed a system where you use Karma for character generation & advancement, but calculate the costs before metatype adjustments. Although I could be wrong, due to a lack of testing data, I strongly believe this, along with a cost to play said metatypes, would solve these issues. Under this system, A Troll would pay for its bonuses (cost also taking into account its penalties). The cost of raising a Trolls Body from 5 to 6 is the same as raising a Human's Body from 1 to 2; you calculate the cost, then apply racial modifiers. The cost of raising a Trolls Charisma from 1 to 2, however, is greater than a Human doing the same thing, as Trolls receive a -2 to that Attribute.

Ancient said they had considered this idea during development but tossed it out because they wanted Karma Generation & Karma Advancement to use the same costs. I fully agree with their idea - one solid system is better than two different systems (however close they are). What I believe he failed to understand from my suggestion was that determining advancement costs before racial modifiers was intended not only for character generation, but post-generation advancement as well. This may not be an appropriate solution to the problem for an errata, because it would also involve changing the basic character advancement rules.

For now, however, it remains my recommendation, along with a Karma cost for playing the metatypes. The main issue with this concept is that metatype costs may need to be adjusted to account for the advancement changes, which could be difficult to calculate appropriately. Until I get around to said calculations, I would suggest a temporary fix of Build Point cost x 2 Karma to play a non-human species. Who knows - this may turn out to be the most balanced cost after all.

The "Your human is more powerful than he would be with bp" only flies if the rest of the party has to use bp. Because as is, the human remains the red-headed stepchild of Shadowrun.

Hey now. I resemble that.

The Build Point system is not well balanced. Thus it is not surprising that the Karma system is not well balanced. Further, I dont think anyone actually cares, or, feels its a feature. I am not sure why playing a human seems to be discouraged, but it IS mechanically discouraged, the carrot and stick, metahumans get the carrot, and humans get whacked.

If I was GM, I'd either give free gear, free contacts, free stuff, or free attribute points for anyone playing a human. I'd also try and rebalance Ork and Elf, cuz Ork is way too good, and Elf is only good enough for faces and agility based characters.

Well, at the karma system, you have got a new choice, let them pay for their attributes at the second point, but they have to match the minimum stats of their race.

Don't count the further advantages. Metahumans also get disadvantages, like trolls and dwarfs have to pay 110% for equipment they carry. ("Well, this suit costs 2000 Nuyen, well for you 2200, because you are a dwarf.") There are multiple further disadvantages at roleplay.

Yes, Orks are to good. Elves are roughly equal to Humans.

I would also just like to say that while they are not balanced, the Build Point character generation is at least close enough to make Humans playable. In the Karma character generation, you cannot even pretend Humans are comparable to the other metatypes. And because I only ever play Humans, I will never be playing in a RAW Karma generation game, unless the entire group agrees to play as Human.

On a note entirely unrelated to the character creation stuff, but a different matter in Runner's Companion, what's up with the Bookie and Lawyer Contact pictures with the writing in english but with greek letters? Is that the hot new AR setup?

A human character built like a human character comes off better under Karma than under BP.
A troll character built like a troll character comes off better under BP than under karma.
A troll character built like a human character comes off better under Karma than under BP.

But why bother building a troll character like a human character?
Is it wrong to assume that people who cheese to play troll characters do so because they want to play trolls and not because they want to play humans who just happen to be extremely tall and have dermal armor?

No, orks are supposed to be that good to encourage people to implement the correct 'rarity ratio'

I am not able to keep a straight face while typing this.

(Yeah, orks are just awesome)

I watch people build trolls every day with min bod and str as mages, because they get 5 bod...

I think you'll find that you can do all the old tricks with a troll, as well as the new tricks.

Ah, superiority complex. "A Troll better than my Human? No way that should be allowed or possible". Who exactly allow Humanis on this boards?

Oh, I so could not resist.

Orks are better of with 36 karma than their net 2 attribute points under the BP system? The flat ratio of 1.75 suggests a value of 35 karma, but does not consider that you now get the cheapest attribute point for free, rather than effectivly the last. (Which is easy to miss, because BP creation is linear.)

So we have houseruled the Karma Generation:
Races are still for Free, but everybody pays for Attr from the second point up, you have to match at least the racial minimum.
This works well, at least for Humans, Dwarfs und Elfs (no Troll in the group).

For the record I think you have to see, that the cost for 5 points difference for an Attr, but the cost to archive a certain value.

cya
Tycho

I agree with Muspellsheimr. It doesn't matter that an elf might have to pay more to get from 6 to 8 charisma - a human never gets that option at all. And if we're assuming that everyone who plays an elf does so to get the charisma 8, well, didn't we hear that racial rarity should be reflected in higher costs in the metavariant debate? Last I knew, tehre are still supposed to be more humans than elves around (as well as more humans than any other metatype).

Wrong, try again.

You get up to 375 karma for attributes.

Lookup-table: 6/9/12/15/18; 6/15/27/42/60

Have you considered that
a) mundane humans have nine stats, and can start with "almost 5" (one 4) as their statline?
b) that metahumans have reduced attribute limits, too?


Metahumans on the base of a)
Dwarf: 27 karma saved, can have 2 of body/strength/willpower 6, or strength 7
Elf: 21 karma saved, can have cha 6 and agility 6
Ork: 42 karma saved, either cha or log 4, can have body 7 strength 6.
Troll: Your choice of Agility 5, Charisma 4, Intuition 5, Logic 5. The rest is one point lower. 84 karma saved, 42/45 "saved" by the cap. Could have body 8 strength 7, but are missing out on three other attribute points.

So by choosing the right race, you can have 2/2/3/2 more attribute points than a human can, and it has to be in one of the areas where your race is actually superior on average. Compare that to the BP system, where for example orks have 5 more points at the price of 2, and can shift them nearly unrestricted. They got 20 BP more (5% base), now it is 42 karma, or 5,6% base. Cattle mutilations are up, too

Trolls get it good, finally some compensation for their problems.

Oh look, if I spend an insane amount of BP/karma on qualities and ware I can get chr 8, or I could just, you know, play an elf instead and spend less to get as much?

Not a very compelling counter argument, being in that our point is that its just not cost effective to play a human.. ever.

This seems like it would solve everyone's issues.

You should look up the word "never" sometime soon. Denying the existence of something just because it is ineffective makes you look quite silly, something you cannot afford in a diskussion while holding a weak position based solely on volume of arguments, ne?

Comparing the reasons given for the metavariant race costs, and the reasons given for the karma build system, I can only draw the conclusion that the devs want less human characters in game.

Paranoid much?

That is kinda funny because for me 4e makes me want to be human, my precious edge 7. I haven't wanted to be a human since 1e (assuming the GM let you use the metahuman C option in 2e)

I am basing this on the reasons the devs gave for the metavariant costs ("more expensive because they should be rare").

So? What's the problem with that?

Are you implying I'm delusional. The mathematical fact that it is always mechanically advantageous to play the appropriate meta type for your build over human under karma gen has been clearly crystallized by previous posters, Muspellsheimr in particular. Your example does not rebut the theorem, but actually serves to enhance it - if you want a high charisma character, it is mechanically more effective to play an elf.

What is your point?

It still is optional which generationsystem your group uses.

Of course it's optional, but the reasoning behind the systems is interesting.

An argument that only interests people who play Trolls as better humans, not Trolls. Math does not always add up, so to speak.
And I don't think and did not even imply you're delusional (I would have said so clearly, btw), I just think that you and a lot other people are blowing this out of proportion using arguments that work best if used repeatedly with high volume of voice. It's just weird, is all.

So, I f you use KarmaGen to play a Human as a Human, it works, play a Meta as a Meta, it works, but play a Meta as a Human, it seems to create some imbalance (ok, it does, but what do I care?). It is also funny that from a certain angle you seem upset that Metas are better Humans, and all you say can be interpreted as Humanis hatemongering.
"The System is broken, because Metas clearly cannot be superior to the Human master race."

Hilarious, I'm having a great time reading this thread right now.

I'm not here to comment on how anyone plays the game. That is always between you and your players.

I am only here to comment on the consistency, integrity and durability of the rules themselves, with no reference to how a particular group of players may choose to implement the rule set.

For example, a group may choose to ban non human characters in their game, which makes any discussion of the metatype rules invalid for them, but does not remove the usefulness of examining the relative mechanical power of the various options, including the usefulness of statistics such as strength in generalized game play. Another group may find that discussion relevant and choose to modify the costs for increased playability (as I have, making orks modestly more expensive, and decreasing the cost of trolls and elves slightly).

This is why I find comments about 'trust your GM' strikingly unhelpful. What if the GM is unaware of the issues? That is like trusting someone to catch you when he doesn't know your falling.

Here we have a clear flaw in the rules. Muspellsheimr has proposed a very adequate fix - pay for metatypes at x 2 BP, add their stat bonuses after generation is complete, but leave their attribute cap limitations prior to calculating the cost of stats.

This seems to me to be the ideal solution as it fixes the balance issue while being as simple as possible and actually encouraging desired behavior - having strong trolls. (adding all modifiers in later is not a good idea, caps need to be in place at the start). I would actually suggest this is added via errata - possibly as an option, but if not it is still a useful thing for new groups to be made aware of.

There is another flaw in that karmagen characters at the suggested karmagen value - 750 karma - are significantly more powerful than 400 BP book characters, which needs to be clearly stated for GMs who may plan to use adventures designed for 400 BP characters such as the excellent shadowrun missions series. Again, Muspellsheimrs suggested fix does eliminate much of the issue, but I disagree that he has chosen the correct value (I feel it is slightly lower, but metatype costs may fix the issue)

I am also laughing, but from the other direction, the problem is so obvious its like a massive zit on the end of the nose.

On the plus side, it doesnt bother me at all! I can happily make Orks with "Human Looking" and take the savings! yay!

The best bit about Muspellsheimr's proposed fix is that it actually encourages the behavior everyone seems to want, trolls with high str and body etc, as it is significantly more efficient in terms of 'end karma value' for trolls to build high body characters, whereas the current state incentivises the reverse behavior (trolls with min strength + bod).