Hello Dumpshock, I'd like the general opinions on the series of Changling qualities in Runner's Companion. Personally, I feel they strike me too much as "something for nothing". Sure, you're required to take negative qualities when you take one of the qualities, but regardless of which quality you take, you're guaranteed to be gaining free BP off of it, particularly if you're negative qualities are such things as "unusual hair". That and I felt a brief twitch of an emotion that can only be described as "urgh" when I saw "mood hair" and was reminded of several pieces of bad fan fiction.

The only balance is the GM since the changeling qualities give the GM the option of selecting the negative traits if he/she desires. Also consider that the Changeling quality automatically includes the Distinctive Style negative quality at no cost return to the character.

Can you cite a source for that? I just re-checked all the rules on changelings in Runner's Companion and it says nothing of the sort--in fact Distinctive Style is not listed as a metageneic quality at all, not even in the list of normal qualities that can be treated as metagenic.

Unless I missed something, by RAW you can be surged and not have any physical signs--it's all a matter of what qualities you get. (Though admittedly a lot of them are pretty fragging obvious.)

Certain qualities specifically mention it, the only one coming to mind immediately being Glamour.

Under the description of the Distinctive Style negative quality, you'll find this line: All the advanced character options in this book automatically suffer the effects of Distinctive Style and do not get a BP bonus.

Being a changeling is no different then being a troll. You are paying a cost to gain some special abilities that would normally cost more then you paid(if you could get them in the first place), with the primary cost being racism.

>Checks<

Huh, it does--right there on page 103.

Well that needs an errata. I can see it with some of the options, like metavariants, but it doesn't make sense to tag that onto races that are supposed to be able to pass as normal. Besides, that could be interpreted to include the advanced lifestyle and contact options--too vauge.

It certainly could use a rework, but also remember that some metavariants (ogres, fomori) are as common as baseline trolls, and trolls don't get Distinctive Style. In fact, among Japanese populations, being a regular ork or dwarf is more distinctive than being an oni or koborokuru.

Yeah, that's mainly what I was thinking. Hell, one of the surge qualities makes you look like a standard metatype without giving any of the bonuses. I don't see how looking like every other ork (but secretly not being one) makes you stand out from, say, every other ork. And a number of the positive and negative surge qualities are mental/internal.

I fully agree on this - the SURGE qualities give to much benefit for their cost (including the negative qualities). A potential fix I have been considering is changing them so Class I SURGE requires you to take 10 points of Positive & 10 points of Negative qualities. Class II requires 20 & 20, Class III requires 30 & 30.

If you decide to use this, let me know how it works. If my group decides to use this, & I remember, I will post how well it works here.

The quality doesn't increase the size of your junk, and word gets around that your third tusk is more than a bit on the wee side?

Maybe...

Dunno, seemed like the whole point was that the positive and negative qualities were summed up in the level of surge quality you bought.

You spend 5 BP on Surge I? 10 points positive - 5 points negative = 5 BP.

The issue is how balanced the surge qualities themselves are, and the fact that you can cram more qualities in this way above the normal cap--doesn't seem horrible offhand, though.

[edit] Added quote [edit]

Point-for-Point, the SURGE qualities balance out. The problem is they grant two additional benefits beyond this balance.

1) They allow you to exceed limits on starting qualities - both Positive & Negative.
2) They grant you access to an entire subset of qualities you normally would be unable to take. Please note that as a Changeling, you may select additional Metagenic qualities above your required allotment by paying their costs as standard.

Yes, some of the problem is the cost & effects of the Metagenic qualities, but that is a problem with aprox. 60% of Runners Companion.

Actually I'm almost sure that the rules say that anything you buy beyond the class allotment counts against your total number of qualities. Likewise, the "cost" is that you do, in fact, still get negative traits in addition to any of the positive ones. It also strongly suggests that the GM sits there and helps you choose both a theme and appropriate negative traits to help balance it all.

It does say the GM is supposed to chose the negative qualities. Also, while you can buy metagenic qualities over the amount specified in your surge level, any excess does count against your normal cap--so technically your GM could hit you with a higher/more negative quality(s) than required, giving you extra BP and using up part of your negative qualities cap.

The thing is, Surge functions more like choosing a metatype, (which doesn't count against the quality cap) or a quality that is balanced because it's advantages and drawbacks level out as the Surge (X) quality you pay for.

You're not really getting "more" qualities from an otherwise unaccessable list, so much as you're shorthanding a really long list of similar qualities by breaking them down into component advantages and drawbacks. Instead of taking the time to write out every possible combination as a separate quality, they give you a list of "sub-qualitites" and have you mix and match.

It's similar to how they treat addictions and martial arts qualities, so it's not totally without precedent.

Page 103, Distinctive Style: "All of the advanced character options suffer the effects of Distinctive Style ..." (See also What is a Distinctive Style?, p104)

I can't seem to find where it says each metagenic quality carries Distinctive Style but I remember it distinctly (no pun intended) to the point of thinking it was odd that Glamour had an explicit call out about Distinctive Style.

Yeah, I consider it pretty well done. You are going to look quite out of place with many. You might think Mood Hair doesn't sound bad, but when you are trying to hide your emotion at a meet(thankfully you got in even with your tail and whatever else), you are trying to play like you're calm but your hair is changing every color of orange and red...they might have an idea.

Things like Metagenic Improvement are *expensive.* Trust me, if you want those 2 extra attribute points(stacking with exceptional attribute), you are paying dearly. For example:

10-Surge II
20-Exceptional Attribute
5-Free

20-Metagenic Improvement

and that's all your Surge qualities. So, for the cost of...a lot, you get one awesome attribute, or two decent ones(and Orks get more than that for only 20 BPs.)

I dunno, I'm looking over these and I think that the social penalties they can gather on people(automatic Distinctive Style at a level appropriate to what you have-this means you can be found easier, and I can't help but think people play down this too much), seems to be enough of a trade to me. A lot of the benefits don't seem that uber fantastic. My changeling with Satyr Legs had the same abilities that someone with Kid Stealth legs had-it cost him flaw BP instead of BP for nuyen and essence...but he couldn't change his legs out for when he needed to look normal. Horns? Trolls have horns. He paid for those too and if he wants to use them as a weapon, he has to buy a skill for them. Otherwise they are purely cosmetic.

I mean, I COULD perhaps see that you need the same amount of +/- qualities(I believe in working with the player to find a theme for the character-someone with furry Satyr Legs might well have Mood Hair, and if they want an attractive character I'm not going to force a physical deformity on them), if things got out of hand. There are probably those ''combos'' that if taken they end up a bit more broken than just someone who wants to build a visual theme for their character.

I dunno, I guess it's just my ''more lean GM'' in me coming in. People seem to have a problem with the RC(hey, to each their own-not saying it's right or wrong), but our table has found it plenty of fun(again, to each their own.) We don't even use these changelings that often at all-ive made one and my buddies haven't yet...but the option that they and the other options are there are cool. More options=more player choice=more fun, IMO.)

One note you can stack all three of these

Exceptional Attribute
Genetic Optimization
MetaGenetic Improvement

Now means one could have Gun Slinger with a Agility of 10.

WMS

True enough, you can. But, I have tinkered with it...and it is expensive to do so. You also miss out on the other cool Gunslinger stuff(like Firefight/Krav Maga, since you use up all your qualities to get it.) You could learn them in game, at least.

But I think the total BP cost is:

10-Changeling 2
20-Exc. Attribute
30-Elf(if you want the 10)
all 20 Changeling Quality points for Metagenic Improvement
9 BP for Genetic Optimization
and then 85 BP to max it.

It's doable, but it's only one higher than what you could do before. And doing it before was still really expensive.

Karma-wise, it's still quite expensive(buying a 10 isn't cheap-from 3 to 10 costs 147 karma, 20 Karma for the optimization treatment, and you still use up all your qualities save 5 BP/10 karma worth.)

I really detest having the option of the GM selecting the negative qualities. The GM gets the final say-so on whether a character is acceptable for the game, and can suggest revisions. However, selecting negative qualities should be strictly the player's responsibility. The GM has no business picking out a character's qualities!

I don't think the intent (though the wording is wretched) was that the GMs sit down and select the negative traits, so much as it's highly encouraged that they take a more proactive role in helping decide which ones are appropriate and fit the theme you're going for with your Changeling. Lots of people just use those rules as extra qualities; that's not their intent. They're there to basically build custom metavariants, and the GM bit is there to "encourage" you to have a theme.

I can't agree more.

Isn't that the case with all aspects of Shadowrun character creation? It's rather expected that the GM is going to take an active role in constructing characters.

Yes, but they wanted to make it especially clear here, I think. Much like they do when you want to overcustomize a vehicle or weapon. While it may be the expectation, in practice players create the character, GMs get the sheet, game begins.

From what I've seen on these forums, it's actually pretty shocking how many GMs just let players do whatever they want due to the lack of a backbone to saying "no" when they get a finalized character sheet. Literally shocking. It's also sad how few GMs actually sit in and participate during the character creation process as a whole. Then again, character creation is probably my favorite aspect of the game, so I naturally tend to take a very active part in that phase when I'm GMing. Thus I may be biased. But still, it just boggles me how rarely I see that sort of thing.

I'm not saying I agree with the way they handled it. I don't. At all. I also hate how they worded it. But I understand what they were going for with it.

I always take part in my player's characters, and I like talking to GMs about mine. I mean, we do play a slightly revved-up game usually(not uberpowered, but I suppose power level is so subjective it's hard to even tell anymore. Let's say our big die pools usually run in the mid to high teens.)

It's rare that we(we usually game with the same group, taking turns, etc) have to say no to something. For one, we've been the same bunch of friends for a long time. Some newer folks are into it too, now, but they are still friends. No one really tries to play the star, so we're blessed with that. The only time we really end up saying no(or better yet, help work out the problem) is when someone has a concept that just, for some reason, will not fit with the campaign in mind at all, even with some mental contortion-and that's really, really rare when that happens. Otherwise, we are groovy for many kinda crazy ideas.

Actually, we always played this quality as ''as long as your essence is above 1, you can have this quality.'' I have seen it used once, and it was on one of my characters(he ended up with Astral Sight after going on a 'spirit journey'' involving some sort of insane Aztec ''mind potion.'' AKA, heavy hallucinogenic drugs.

Usually, our active role is working out bits of backstory, plot hooks, and the like, with an occasional suggestion about a stat, skill, or piece of gear.