This again, and once again Ancient comes out w/ the 'it's all about the RP' defense.

We should just remove dice alltogether from the system. Everything is then resolved by mutual play acting and storytelling! Then it's all about the free form RP of course.... Nothing should cost anything at all, so long as it's RP related....

I LIKE karmagen, great idea that it should cost the same to make a character as advance a character. I HATE the IDIOTIC way it was implemented.

Dicepools matter.. If X has a bigger dicepool w/o paying for it... it becomes a problem. Especially in public games (say at a convention or online).

The problems w/ the system are basically... broken meta costs. (on many fronts)

No penalty cost for penalized stats. (it costs me just as much to make a troll of average log/int as a human of average log/int, and to make matters worse... the troll benefits just as much OR MORE from reduced costs for dump stats, since the troll would run into the hard cap cost on something like charisma much faster under BP. It should either cost more to advance, or have a penalty applied after buy.

Attributes are far more valuable to skills. An attribute raise increases a lot of different skill pools, while a skill raise only affects one. Attribute raises are almost always a better buy than skill raises under the system. (especially once you get that 1st rank to avoid defaulting, specialize it, or get 2 ranks for those wierd things which increase skill pools by max of 50% round down).

Much higher spending caps on attributes for metas, while compressing more attributes into base humans... Metas end up being either best deal packages on enhanced attribute caps (if used), or freebie karma dump stats (if not used). 375 cap spread across 10 attributes (including special edge and mag which would normally be done seperate). While an elf could spend 435 on the same 10. (basic cost to go from 1->5 is 42karma... so 435 is theoretcially enough to go straight 5's not including pre-raised stats).

Generally the system breaks down when you try and do trolls. Trolls and to a lesser extent orcs are where you get problems in the system. Because they have those sky high base attributes in bod & str. Generally I feel this would have been less of a problem if str/bod would have been kept a single attribute rather than split into two. (str being the biggest dump stat right now, while bod is fairly valuable for soak, but niether have a lot of linked skills)

The system unfairly punishes *humans* for having high attributes. You can still easily get high stats on a metahuman. As Glyph pointed out, it costs less for a troll to raise his body to 7 than it does for a human to raise his to 6. Under point-buy, that's fine-- the troll paid something for that advantage. Under karmagen, he gets it for free.

Personally, I'm thinking about tossing the starting skill and attribute caps altogether, and just going with dice pool caps. Someone can have two, three, or more skills at 6, under either system. You can spend as much as you like on attributes. This won't really change anything, except maybe make characters a bit more generalized: once they hit the cap, there's no incentive to push things.

The problem with general dice pool caps is that it encourages a different breed of min-maxing, where you pay for the lowest attributes and skills possible and raise it up to the cap with karma-free bonus dice, like the smartlink +2 for firearms. It does curtail hardcore power gamers, but it also nerfs regular specialists who are just good at what they do.

I'm thinking about a system where instead of dice pool caps, you cap the amount of bonus dice you can receive for any task to no greater than the natural skill level of the character, with bonus dice being defined as anything beyond Attribute + Skill. That way, you can crunch down on the number crunchers but you won't penalize someone for playing a character who does their thing at an elite level.

My solution is to instead apply escalating costs to the BP system.

Under my system you get the first rank for free, then have to pay 5BP x (rank-1) for each increase. Thus:


A slight discount for average stats, but an increase cost for above average stats. In most cases the total BP expenditure for the same stats remains the same. I am still considering if I should apply this cost system to magic or not.

Racial bonuses are applied afterwords. So an Ork with a +2 bonus to Strength, still pays 15 points total for a STR of 5 (5 for a STR of 4, 10 for a STR of 5).

Racial penalties move the cost up a step for each level (the first rank remains free). Mathmaticaly: Cost = 5BP x (rank - 1 + penalty). Thus, a Troll (with a -2 penalty to charisma) pays 15BP for his first point of Charisma. Or 10BP for his first point of Logic. Increasing normally there after.

Racial BP cost remain unchanged (though I give humans a +1 bonus to one mental stat to even things out a bit, screw the elves).

Skills are half price until risen over the level of the attribute, then priced as normal.

We're talking about two different points

A) Due to the scaling points cost of the karma system, having high stats makes you shit. Consider a human with strength 6 , vs a human with body 4. Okay he gets 2 extra dice to soak.. but that cost 33 karma. Not cheap. And thats hardly the extreme version. Lets consider a troll with strength 8 vs a troll with strength 10

You paid.. 57 karma for those 2 points of strength. That is enough to buy another stat from 1 -> 6 and have points left over. That is expensive as.

Thats what I'm talking about

You're talking about

B) Elves being straight up better than humans at everything for free under karma gen.

Okay that is an issue, but please don't confuse it with the first issue.

The problem with the AH solution is that by attempting to solve problem A by introducing problem B you've actually just created a second issue that doesn't really address the fact that taking high stats is bad in the first place.

Which is why despite the huge bonuses handed out a high strength/high body troll is still terrible under karma gen, and the dominating force is like a formai with astral hazing or some shit.

Ok, I don't have played SR4 yet but:

That's my proposition how to calculate a cost for attributes modifier under a karma system:

Calculate how many karma points would be requiered for a human to have 4 everywhere. That's your base (X pts)

Take the racial modifiers, apply them to a 4 everywhere base. Calculate how many points a human would need to reach those stats (Y pts). Substract X to this number. That's the racial modifier charge.

Modifiers, then, of course, apply after the pts expenditure.

Exemple: let's say you pay [new score] pts and there's 3 stats:
For a human having 4 everywhere, it's (1+2+3+4)*3=30pts
Let's say the metavariant has a +2,-1, so a 6,3,4 statline, so (1+2+3+4+5+6)+(1+2+3)+(1+2+3+4)=37pts.

So the metavariant is charged with 7 points. And it would basically cost the same for him to be a strong troll, than for a human to be a strong human.

Add modifier to this costs:
-Estimate natural Advantage: Low light vision? +X points
-Estimate disadvange: 3m tall so really noticeable: -Y pts

Add optionnally rarity modifier: Very rare: +X points



I find Ancient point of view rather strange. Actually, I know games where dev's unbalance races because they are cool (Nightprowler in french says this and really for this reason!).

However, I hardly buy your argument. There's no point in a complex system if this aren't fair and balanced. Why bother learning complex rules with many calculations if in the end, it can be broken so easily?

Again your solution simply encourages a different breed of min-maxing. It only changes the type of the number crunching to a number crunching acceptable to you.

The thing is, even regular specialists need reasonable caps on their dice pools, before they become stupidly powerful. A specialist with 20 dice is seduction is quite powerful, but not game breaking. A pornomancer, with 51 dice in seduction, *is* game breaking. You're not nerfing anyone if you set your dice pools to the right levels. It also helps newer players see where you expect their dice pools to be at: if you cap combat dice pools at 15, then new players will strive for 15, while experienced ones will stop there.

Your suggestion has merit, but it also makes Adepts ungodly powerful. With their ability to have virtual skill increases, they'll end up with significantly higher dice pools. Additionally, you'd be making skills much more powerful than ever before, and you'll see a lot more characters with low attributes/high skills, so they can gain the bonus dice.



Trolls essentially get Str 1-5 for free, so that pretty much negates your 57 karma payout. And you get a higher attribute to boot. Basically, it costs a human more to raise Body and Str to 5 than a troll, which is where a human gets punished. Humans can't even raise their strength to 10 without pulling some fancy chargen tricks.

Well, there's this break-down of "karmagen" costs for the 400 BP sample characters from SR4, for what that's worth.

Hmm. If it's restricted to natural skill level, Adepts won't have an advantage because Improved Ability creates a modified skill rating. Lemme run some numbers here with Pistols as an example. Let's say bonus dice cannot exceed natural skill. An elf with Exceptional Attribute and Aptitude can have an Agility of 10 and a skill of 7. Add 7 more points on to that, and you have a maximum possible dice pool of 24. That's a pretty frickin' huge dice pool, but I think that as the maximum a character can possibly have, it ain't gamebreaking. There's absolutely no way to make a pornomancer with 51 dice under this restriction. Essentially, it's the same as capping dice pools, except the cap scales with your skill level, so there's still a reason to take high skills.

Anyhoo, I don't think any system would end up with characters with low attributes and high skills, for the simple reason that attributes are so much more cost effective compared to skills no matter how you shake it.


Well duh, that's the whole point.

I don't have any problems with number crunching itself, especially since I like to do it myself. What I have a problem with is the kind of number crunching that ends up in the creation of characters that I find to be ridiculous. Instead of saying to a player "nah you can't play that," I would rather modify the system so that it's impossible to create a character that I wouldn't allow a player to play.

Argh, you're conflating the two issues still. Imagine this was a character made with BP Gen and then advanced with karma. Imagine it was a fish. I don't care. Advancing from 8->10 is a dumb idea.

Trolls being free (which is terrible I agree, I said that when the book came out) has nothing at all to do with the fact that advancing 8 -> 10 is a bad idea.

But the problem is that again, you've crossed the breaking point. The game breaks down once you exceed 20 dice. At 21 dice, you can expect 7 successes, while Joe Average can only expect 2. That gives you a constant critical success over him, with plenty of margin for error. By default, Joe Average with a gun in Shadowrun is supposed to be a credible threat. In fact, at 24 dice, you can simply *buy* 6 successes, more than enough to hit and kill Joe Average every single time. (Yes, I know you can't normally buy successes in combat.) If you don't want to or are not allowed to buy the 6 successes, you'll just have to content yourself with the 8 successes you can expect to roll.

So, 24 dice is too much, even for an opposed test like Combat. For an unopposed test, it's even worse. Fortunately, there's fewer dice pool inflaters for most noncombat tests.

I don't really see much of a difference between 20 and 24 dice. Is there a reason you picked 20 as the magic number?

I think the fact that Joe Average with a gun isn't a threat in SR4 has much more to do with other aspects of the combat system than how much dice you can throw. Someone throwing 20 dice can smoke Joe just as easily as someone with 24 dice.

Keep in mind that to gain 24 dice, you have to take two qualities that are, frankly, way overpriced. The maximum number of dice a truly min-maxed character would have is 22.

Also, if you are facing Joe Average from close range, with perfect visibility, with no wounds or fatigue, and with neither of you moving, then you should blow him away. You should blow away Joe Super under those circumstances. That 24 dice assumes no penalties, which should be a very, very, very rare thing in Shadowrun combat.

Yeah, experience . 20 dice is very powerful, but for some reason, 21 tips it over the top. With 6 successes, you're not going to hit Joe Average if he makes a lucky dodge (all 6 dice coming up successes). With 7, you're guaranteed to hit. Because everything works by threes, completing that next triad seems to make a huge difference.

And to address Glyph's point, when you have 10 dice or so, you're very skilled and unlikely to miss. The problem is that at 21+ dice, you can take a whopping -10 to your roll, and still have 10+ dice to throw. That means you're still likely to hit, even while standing on your head and singing the Scottish National Anthem.

I dunno, unless you allow your players to buy hits, one die isn't gonna automatically make you succeed at something. Also, Joe Average does not have 6 dice to dodge. Joe Average has 3 dice to dodge, which means his ass is getting burned even with all the luck in the world.

Seriously though, if that's your beef, instead of capping dice pools, I would just go play SR3. SR4 is a superhero game, stuff like that is bound to happen. I've toyed around with the idea of variable TNs at 5, 6, and 10, and every x points of modifiers increasing your TN by 1 rank, but the system I've got so far is pretty messy and arbitrary, so I don't really want to use it.

Also, I've discovered that while it seems to be a lot easier to hit things in SR4, it's a lot harder to kill things in one hit, so Joe would probably have a chance to shoot back/say a prayer/pee his pants at least once before he gets ganked.

Don't tempt me. The issue here is that SR4 was specifically released to be more "street level" and "gritty". I can create more abusive characters in SR4 than I ever could in SR3. But I forget that we're not allowed to compare editions, so I'm going to drop that right now.

The point is, I want to play Shadowrun. And currently, the only supported Shadowrun line is the SR4 line. That doesn't mean it's especially good at what it sets out to do, but it does mean it's the only game in town.


That's why you get a second shot. :

What a load of crap. Basically what you say is oh yeah, SR4 sucks compared to SR3, but were not allowed to compare editions. So I'm going to take my one cheap shot and run away.

If you want to compare the editions do it. Don't just throw out crappy unsupported 1 liners and then claim to abandon the debate based upon some supposed rule.

cain's been slapped around before because of flamewars on this forum related to SR4 bad, SR3 good comments...

And yet that doesn't seem to stop him from taking cheap shots, and then immediately retreating behind the supposed moratorium on edition comparisons to avoid backing up or supporting his comments.

Cheap shots can only be cheap if they actually have a point.

Again, while I am one of those folks that doesn't mind the metas not costing...there is one aspect, looking at it again, that I do somewhat disagree with-the fact they need more attribute points. Honestly, I think 375 across the board is just fine. I did a few calculations here, and honestly, any meta spending 375 suits them up just fine-even if they have magic. (This also assumes you spend the full half. Honestly, I think out of all of the karmagen guys I have, I think I might have spent all of the allowed points maybe...twice.)

I'll list here each race with a set of stats; each set is fairly well-taken care of(as in, no trolls with Body 5 or dwarves with strength 3).

If my math is incorrect, someone please let me know. I basically gave them the max stats I could, in an even spread. Some of them are a bit short of 375, but given they had a small number left, it wasn't quite enough to add any more.

Human:



Elf:



Troll:



Ork:



Dwarf:



Yeah, looking at this-again, the fact they don't cost doesn't bother me, since our table just plays what we're in the mood for, but I really don't see why they need to be able to use more points over 375. It seems these base stat spreads are really good regardless of having magic(or Resonance) or not(assuming they spend the full 375, and if they don't, then even being allowed is moot anyway.

Hell, oddly enough, the two characters I ended up maxing out with were a human and an elf(both of these with vastly elevated Strength scores through different qualities). Any trolls or orks I've made have come in well under the cap. Have to do some more dwarf-testing, but the one I did make came in fairly well under the 375 cap as well.

If you want to do the math, fine. Without drawing a comparison, see if you can create a legal starting character in SR3 who could throw 51 dice for anything. Let's even see if it's even viable.

BUt yeah, if you don't like the fact that I'm following a moderator-imposed rule, then accept the fact that this is off topic; if you want to debate it, start a new thread for the flames that will ensue.


That's part of the problem. Not only do metas not need to pay for their enchanced stats, they can spend more karma on them. That means you can push your attributes even higher; and attributes are generally more powerful than skills.

That's not a fair comparison because the two dice systems are different. Dice pools in SR4 are designed to be larger because modifiers apply to Dice Pools instead of the TN. I've tried a few times on some specific issues and its very difficult to establish a comparison baseline between the SR3 and SR4 systems.

Oh, so you get to make sweeping unsupported generilsations, but I have to find proof to back up and support mine? How fair and even minded of you...


Uh my entire point was that your not. At all. What you repeatedly have done is made quick insulting comparisons of SR4 to SR3, then refused to support or defend them by claiming this so called rule.

I have no interest in engaging in an edition debate with you, as you have already demonstrated quite well to me that your knowledge of the SR3 rule set inaccurate, and you have admitted your rule book is 300 miles away. I only seek to point out that your hypocrisy in making insulting SR3-SR4 comparisons, then immediately clamming up based upon this supposed rule. As you did in the quote below, and as you have repeatedly done in the past.

Case in point:

I find it interesting that you claim I "repeatedly" do things, then back it up with the same quote that sparked this whole battle. If I do something so "repeatedly", I'd think you'd have more than one very recent quote to back it up. Besides which, I fail to see the hypocrisy-- I instead see a blatant baiting attempt.

If you don't think it's a rule, ask an admin. Better yet, ask Bull, since he was the one who set it.

Shrug. I find it interesting that despite several people mentioning the exact same thing, you still deny it. As for the quote, it's quite possible that people have better things to do than search out all of your recent quotes just to prove a point to you that other people seem to have no problem seeing.

As for it being a 'rule', it is specifically not listed in the Terms of Service, which includes the rules and posting guidelines. I know that Bull (and other Moderators) requested that comparisons not be made just after the time of SR4's release, because at that time it was resulting in numerous Flame wars, but I also seem to recall that he has mentioned since that it was more of a request at the time than an ongoing rule against any and all comparisons.

Like you said, shrug. People will see what they want to see. Even nice, politically-correct, "constructive" criticism of SR4 gets met with flames here.

As far as the comparisons go, I was informed at the time that it was a rule. Rather or not it has been softened since then, I don't know. But in the meanwhile, I don't want to catch a suspension over it. However, thank you for proving to everyone that this isn't something I was making up.

No problem, though I didn't for a moment even consider that anyone was actually thinking that way.

Emphasis mine, naturally. I assumed that he was thinking that way, although I may have been mistaken.

Could we please just agree to disagree and get on with the topic?

PLEASE?

[Edit]: I've been told 600 Karma is about equivalent to 400 BP in overall power level. Does anyone have anything to say on that?

Have you tried working up the amount of Karma it would take to make the sample characters from SR4 at all? Use the versions from the most recent errata, so they're definitely 400 BP characters.

I've seen numbers from where other people did, and those range from 400's to 500's IIRC. However, those characters are far from optimized.

On top of that, you shouldn't try building the exact same character with Karma that you made with BP. Some things are more expensive, others less. If you want to be optimal about it, you're going to end up with a significantly different character, even if they do the same things at about the same overall effectiveness.

As a good rule of thumb, yes, but it's kind of like comparing SR3's Priority system with SR3's build point system with the points set at, say, 125. Generally, they were similar in power level, but still, each had advantages over the other for certain builds - the 125 points would let you make a human street samurai with the equivalent of an A Priority for resources and Attributes, while the Priority system let you build dwarven sorcerers who would be 135 points if built with build points.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that 600 Karma is closer to 400 Build Points, but it is still a good idea to use one method or the other when creating characters.

Oh yeah? Well MY edition could beat up YOUR edition. =P

Seriously though, if you have a problem with the mechanical imbalance of metatypes under Karmagen, figure out how much it actually costs to play a troll. Make them pay the Karma for Str and Bod 2-5, add on the costs for natural armour and reach (I'm sure you can find an equivalent under the metagenic stuff or SURGE), and be done with it. The only thing you aren't costing at that point is racial maxs / mins, but they aren't that big a deal anyway. Sure, elves will still be technically better than humans, but the only thing you'll be getting points-wise fro free is a higher max on Agi and Chr, at the cost of a lower max on Edg and being forced to shell out for low-light vision.

Example:

Elf - 21 Karma (6 for Agi 2, 9 for Chr 2-3, 5 for low light vis? don't have books with me).
Human - 6 Karma (Edg 2).
Troll - ~100? (84 for Str/Bod 2-5, + whatever the cost is for reach and armour).

There you go, the races are now balanced - you pay for what you get. If you're really concerned, you could figure out a points rebate on lower racial minimums, but at least for the base races it doesn't seem like a big enough deal to me.

Oh, and if your humans absolutely must be free (I don't see why this is so important, but a few people do), just lower every race's karma cost by 6.

Please allow me to clarify: I build characters as a hobby, and I prefer Karmagen, but don't want to build characters more powerful than the ones made with 400 BP. I'm not concerned with advantages and disadvantages of each in this case; I just care about overall power levels.

The thing is, I can build a really optimized character (with a very high power level) with 400 BP. I can also build a perfectly legitimate character that absolutely sucks (very low power level) with 400 BP. The same can be said for any reasonable amount of Karma.

But it's easier to build a superpowerful character with, say, 500 bp or 750 Karma than 400 BP or 600.

Sure, but my point is that you can't really make a fair comparison of 'power levels' between the two systems, as the 'power level' can vary so much just using one system.

With the difference between 600 and 750 Karma, I could build the same two characters with that and the differences will be rather subtle overall. For example-the difference between having 7 Knowledge/Language skills at 4 and 7 Knowledge/Language Skills at 3 right there is 28 Karma. (remember you pay for them with karma, free under BP.) The difference between those 4 roundout skills at 3 and those four roundout skills at 2 is a total of 24 Karma. Bringing the Willpower and Edge of 5 down to 4 is another 30 Karma. Ditching the extra contact saves another 12. The biggie save comes from taking that one Skill Group of 3 instead of 4 and dropping the 5+2 to a 4+2, saving another 30 Karma. Right there that is 124 Karma saved. The other 26 can come from anywhere, and honestly, the power difference between character A and character B is not that extreme, and they could probably run together, and 750 guy isn't going to totally overshadow 600 guy.

In this forum somewhere...someone actually managed to make a 400 BP character cost over 800 Karma, as well. I think it involved being a Nosferatu with maxed-out Mental attributes. So while 600-650 is very close to 400, yes, there will always be exceptions.

But I'd say 600 generally is around 400.

That's exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you very much

Soft maxed Logic and Intuition Nosferatu.

Just a quick caveat, as far as the differences between 600 and 750 Karma being subtle - Build Points can be the same way, depending on how they are spent. Take two characters who are otherwise identical. Say that character #1 decides to go all out, getting Aptitude/Pistols, Surge II with Metagenetic Attribute Improvement/Agility, then hard-maxing Agility and getting Pistols at 7. Character #2, deciding to min-max slightly less, forgoes the two positive qualities, and contents himself with a soft-maxed Agility and a Pistols skill of 6. He has saved 53 points.

But how does he spend it? Maybe he decides to raise his Charisma from 3 to 5, and his influence group from 2 to 4, and his intimidation from 2 to 4, and add the First Impression positive quality. Compared to character #1, character #2 is noticeably more adept at dealing with social situations.

But maybe, instead, character #2 decides to raise Logic from 2 to 3, Strength from 3 to 4, add the Electronics and Outdoors skill groups at 1 each, raise Dodge from 3 to 4, raise intimidation from 2 to 3, and get one rank of the Will to Live positive quality. He has still spent 53 points, but now the only difference is that he is slightly more well-rounded, and throws an additional die every now and then. There is not that much of a noticeable difference between him and the character who is throwing 3 more dice in his main specialty.

karmagen is the same way. Sometimes you can trim 150 Karma from a character without cutting anything essential, but the difference can also be profound. I think part of it is that some character concepts are cheaper than others, so for the cheap ones, after 600 Karma you are only adding bells and whistles. I've noticed that certain builds take more points.

Easier, but not impossible. Generally speaking, the harder you make it to have a powerful character, the more one-dimensional the resulting powerhouse will become. You cannot stop people from min/maxing, and by making it difficult you only encourage them to try harder. This is why I prefer asking my players to conform to dice pool caps-- when they max out, they go on to improve other parts of the character.

Would you care to elaborate on that? How exactly do you handle those caps, and what is your reasoning for the caps you use? And so on.

Basically, I just say: "Please don't create a character with a combat/social dice pool of over 20, or any other dice pool over 15." This is just based on what I've seen and experienced. Combat and social get the most negative modifiers, so for characters to feel powerful in those areas, they need a higher dice pool. Modify these dice pools as you see fit, of course. The end result is, I can quickly abstract NPCs by producing a dice pool of an appropriate size. The players feel powerful, because they can roll over easy opposition, while sweating it out over equal/superior opposition.

Think of it this way. IIRC, it takes 145 BP to build the essentials of a pornomancer. That's a lot, but it's doable while still creating a viable character. If you drop your BP allowance to 350, they aren't likely to sacrifice from their main power block. Instead, they sacrifice from everything else. Now you've got a 51-dice monstrosity running around in a supposedly "lower-powered" game. They just overbalanced the game even further.

On the other hand, what happens if you target the real problem: humongous dice pools, and the need to have those huge dice pools. If you cap them at, say, 20 dice, you get an interesting result: people stop trying to squeeze the life out of every last point, and instead focus on rounding out their character. They don't need a huge dice pool, because they feel capable at the levels you set. Naturally, you need to do your part as well: you have to make them feel like those dice pools are enough. If they feel like dice pools of 15-20 aren't enough, they'll try for higher dice pools next time.

That sounds like a very good, reasonable way of doing things. I will definitely recommend it if I can find a game to join, or use it myself if I end up running a game myself.

No, all you are encouraging is for them to have as many cap maxed dice pools as possible. So instead of rounding out their characters, they are still squeezing life out of every last point.

So instead of a Mr "I will talk their pants off", you get a Mr "I talk their pants off or I blow their heads off". That's isn't much of a difference from my POV.