OK, Rad, I was thinking about your post, and could find no logic in it. Sure you can play an interesting character, but if your sammy with the Spirit Knack loses even .01 point of Essence then those 5 points go away. There is no way to defend Astral Sight.

No if you want a sammy with the ability to summon some little helpers or see the Astral, then play a hybrid character. I would like to think that I made a "viable"* street Sammy with Magic 3 (full magician) and only a Synaptic Booster level 2. Do I have all the uber 'ware of a "Real Sammy™"? Not even close, but he could be fun to play. He also has the ability to GROW into his abilities.

* = everyone's definition of viable is different so I put it in quotes because I know what I find viable just doesn't work for some people.

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The ONLY character type that even "works" as a completely unaugmented is the hacker. He can get by without a single piece of 'ware... will he good at his job... hell no, but the character type does work.

The sample characters actually have included an uncybered mundane in every edition. In SR4 it is the weapons specialist. It's a pathetic character, but it's there.

Uncybered mundanes are playable in Shadowrun. Not up to par, but playable. They will generally have the advantage of an extra 30-40 skill points, which is not as useful as what you can get with 'ware or awakened abilities. They can still be reasonably useful as support characters or jacks of several trades.

They aren't my cup of tea, personally - the only uncybered mundane I ever played was Rat, and Rat got some 'ware as soon as he could afford it. Some people like playing uncybered mundanes, though. They aren't ever going to approach awakened or augmented level, but they can contribute to the game enough to be useful.

Okay, you're at least trying, so I'll respond.

First off, it seriously hampers your argument when you make unnecessary linguistic flourishes and get the grammar wrong. By definition, if I am defending Astral Sight, there is a way to defend it--because that is what I am doing. I don't mind verbal flourishes, I use them myself, but try to get them right. It doesn't look good when you open a paragraph saying you see no logic in my post, then close the paragraph with a logically innacurate statement.

On to your build: Yes, that sounds like it could be viable--but it's not the only way of doing it, nor is all that strictly necessary.

The fundamental argument here seems to be whether or not a character with the Astral Perception or Knack qualities is "viable". As you pointed out, people's mileage may vary on what is "viable" or not, but from my experience you could play such a character and make it work--I described one possible way to do that in a previous post. That was the original point of this thread, before it got hijacked into a debate about whether the qualities were worthless or not.

I find it odd that people react with such venom to this. If there is a quality that someone feels is worthless, they don't have to use it. There's no need to attack the devs for including it, or the players who try to find a use for it.

I am not telling you how to play, KCKitsune, so why do you feel the need to tell me how to play?



This is worded as a command, not "I would do this" or "I wouldn't do that", you are literally telling other people how to play here. Maybe that wasn't your intent, but that's what you are doing.

What's more, this wasn't even a discussion of "are Astral Sight/Knack builds viable?" It was a discussion of things that could be done with those qualities, and suddely people feel compelled to jump in and derail the thread.

I'm reminded of a webcomic where a mac-lover visits his freind (a windows tech-support operator) at work. His freind leaves for some reason, and he starts answering the phone, telling callers to "get a mac" in response to their windows tech-support questiuons.

Whether macs are better had no bearing on the issue.

I really don't understand what drives people to do this. Part of why I'm continuing to post in this thread is because I'm trying to figure it out.



Not generally my cup of tea either, but I think they could be brought up to "par." Note, I'm not talking about stats here, I'm talking about what the player can actually accomplish with that character.

I see playing an uncybered mundane to be a bit like those "self-challenges" some gamers do, where they try to beat a game while adhering to restrictions the game itself doesn't impose--like not using certain moves or power ups. It takes more effort and attention than playing the game normally, but it is possible to do.

Essence cost isn't actually any smaller. -20% +20% = 0% change in essence cost.

Actually, my main point was they were poorly written and not completely thought out. The bit about comparing cost and qualities has more to do with part of the design philosophy in SR4, i.e. no quality costs less than 4 BP.


Uh...no? Broken in game context generally means "Doesn't work at all as written." or "Completely overpowering at its current cost." You could make a point of using the term as "Underpowered at the current cost." - which I would agree with - but the rules-as-written at least work.


Let's be clear: I can handle a reasonable amount of griping. I do it myself. You have no idea how heated some of the freelancer exchanges get. But some of the bitching on the board gets excessive...and personal...very quickly. I didn't start out attacking Muss' rules directly, I started out replying to Stahlsteele and basically bitching at house rules in general. It was everybody else that jumped to the conclusion that I was attacking Muss directly...and I overreacted a touch in going off on the house rules, but I found Muss' post insulting...particularly the "beyond crap" comment.

Be thankful for the kind words. IMO, the 'beyond' in that line is giving you too much credit.

See? This is the type of thing I'm talking about.

+Buggy Ware quality. If you're getting it during character creation it's either story-related or required for the "must be the same grade" stipulation for accessories. Which makes it particularly appealing for cyberlimbs where you're replacing the Essence cost with capacity (which isn't augmented by the Used characteristic). In this case, you're fulfilling the requirement to have it of the same grade but getting it cheaper at the cost of the Buggy 'Ware trait.

Either way, you're not gaining anything for free and none of those options restrict you from being a viable character.

I hate this argument, I've always hated it. No, life isn't fair; however games should be. The party roleplayer shouldn't end up hosed because they made the mistake of picking an option that shoots them in the foot because it seemed neat to them at the time.


This argument doesn't sit too well with me either. It assumes that smart tactics and careful planning are somehow disallowed to specialists. That's plain wrong and stupid on the same level of assuming players who optimize aren't capable of roleplaying. The fact is, a group of specialists who plan carefully and compensate for the weaknesses of the other team members (as Shadowrunner teams should ideally) is going to come out on top over a team of generalists with a similar level of planning.

Where'd you come up with that?

'Ware grade modifiers are handled as a decimal multiplier, not a percentage.

From Augmentation page 32:

Thats wrong and will be corrected in Augmentation errata according to Synner.
Modifiers are supposed to be calculated together befor applaying them, so 1 - 0,2 + 0,2 = 1

When you fire the first shot, you shouldn't whine about a few zings in return. You did nominate me to be an 'official heckler' - and while you can't really speak for Dumpshock as a whole, I appreciate the gesture you've made and I wouldn't want to let you down.

I know you go out of your way to be insulting, but do you even read what people are talking about?

Ah, there's the motivation: The flamers are trying to save us from gimping our characters by picking out worthless character options because they're shiny.

That's pretty insulting, omae. We're not stupid. We're not ignorant of the rules or somehow less enlightened on the mechanics of the game than you. We are acknowledging the limitations of these qualities, and discussing ways to make them viable.

Also, your party has only one roleplayer? I assume you're trying to draw me into the old "Role vs Roll-playing" debate--not going there.

If a less experienced player in your game picks an option without realizing the potential difficulties that might cause, of course the other players/GM should point it out and help them make a viable character. When a player who understands the rules (hell, the OP helps write them for crissakes) says, "you know, this build definitely has some drawbacks, but I'm going to try to make it work" that's a whole different story.

Implying that the player is stupid or otherwise insulting them is not called for in either case.

Saying that these rules should be taken out and that everything should be perfectly balanced implies that the players are too stupid to recognize a (blatently) sup-par option when they see one. These are rules, not land mines the devs threw in the game to frag the unwary.

This isn't Shadowrun with training wheels or water wings, omae--it's Shadowrun. I don't need to be protected from sub-optimal rules, do you?



No, it doesn't. Does no one understand how to debate without making stuff up, claiming your opponent said it, and then arguing that instead?

Oh wait, nevermind.



Clearly, I am not suggesting that players with specialist builds cannot do this.



I agree. My point was that a team of generalists (or otherwise sub-par builds) can come out on top if they apply a greater level of planning. Other people are arguing that these builds are useless, I'm saying they can work--you just have to try harder than you usually do.

Note: Try harder. As in "more than usual". I'm not implying that players with normal builds don't try.

I'm not saying anyone is stupid. However, pointing out that the option is poor doesn't always work, namely if there's no one there to point it out (I taught myself to play Shadowrun 4e, then taught my players to play it, we all started completely green, couldn't recognize the raw blistering suck in many things, let alone point that suck out). Also, I'm not trying to draw you into that old debate, don't assume everything I say is some great trolling scheme, I'm not nearly clever enough for that. I'm simply saying that there are players who pick options purely because they're neat, I've seen several that do so with almost no regard to game mechanics, and I've seen them get shot in the foot with those mechanics and lose interest in the character.


Of course they aren't land mines, land mines are put there with intent to harm, not left there because they're too sloppy to actually playtest their mechanics.


The mechanics have been kidnapped by ninjas, are you a bad enough dude to put up with them? Don't imply that I expect my game systems to coddle me. I merely expect that the editors wont waste my money by wasting page space on mechanics with all the worth of seven assholes on a starving wolf.

As to the tactics thing, sorry about that, you struck a nerve and I kinda glazed over the rest of the post. That's a rant I've had in me for a long time.

This thread has some potentially redeeming qualities (pardon the pun) to it. Drop the name calling and bitching or it's getting locked. We'll be with some of you shortly for Warnings. For the rest, please play nice, and think before you post.

<3.

Actually, my main point was that you had appeared to criticize Muss' proposals as overpowered using a comparing cost benchmark. This cuts both ways. Yes Astral Sight can't cost less than 5 BP's but then Adept is clearly overpowered and needs to cost more.....




Astral Sight either needs to be deleted or have some reason to make it more attractive than taking Adept and Astral Perception. It may not be broken by your standards but it is certainly flat out redundant. Do rules qualify as working if nobody uses them? Sorry Rad, nobody in their right mind.




Why did you find 'beyond crap' personally insulting, you didn't write them, did you?

How is "sketchy and not-thought-out-enough" not a direct personal attack?

As this is a rather long post, I'll assume you were busy writing it while I was posting. Let me be clear.

Drop the previous arguement. Any more posts concerning that little flame fest or previous posting nasties will get this thread locked. Stick to the topic and drop the arguements.

Ninja'd by moderation, apologies.