I was wondering what people generally felt about using the Karma System for Character Creation. Do you find it makes more varied builds? Do you think it makes for overpowered characters?

There has been a number of threads on this, hashing it out. Quick recap is DS in a nutshell: Most posters seem to agree that the Karma system allows more flexibility, but that it also lends itself even more to munchkin-y behavior than the BP system. Add in the fact that there is no Karma cost for Race, and you got some bitter arguments.

The general conclusion was: Don't use it unless you are prepared for it and know what to expect.

EDIT: I should add that the above is what I took away from the conversations. It may not be 100% accurate.

The Karma character generation system given in Runner's Companion was generally well-received, but the characters aren't necessarily directly comparable to those made using standard BP-based character generation or Priority generation - different strengths and weaknesses in different systems, see. Because of the different costs involved, for example, a character created with 400 BP might take anywhere from 500-700 Karma to create under the RC system.

Particularly in karmagen, metahumans are perceived to have an advantage under certain circumstances, because there is no cost to play metahumans and they have higher racial minimums (and maximums); for players that care to only start out with minimum attributes this means a starting metahuman character will have higher attributes than a starting human character. Its a heated issue with some.

I love the Karma System, but it needs some tweaks to cover racial costs and - especially - the advanced character options from RC. I recommend it over the craptastic BP system that awards min-maxing over all else.

Yeah I was mainly wondering because I made the same character (conjuring specialist) with Build Points and then Karmagen and found the latter left me with a great deal more points to spend.

Its endemic to the system: BP is arithmetic, Karma is scalar. For low attributes (below 6), the cost is lower than the equivalent BP cost, and so you have more Karma floating around (it reverses itself with attributes higher than 6, which is why metahumans get higher spending caps on attributes). Part of that extra Karma is controlled by forcing you to pay for Knowledge skills (if you want 'em), and by lowering the number of Karma available compared to the 2:1 conversion cost (i.e. just because 2 Karma is "equivalent" to 1 BP in terms of cost doesn't mean you should start out making 800 Karma characters). Because of caps on skill and attribute levels, and resource and attribute spending, the extra Karma points generally go into by low-to-mid-level skills by default, making more well-rounded characters.

On the other hand...the no-cost-for-metahumans was a bit of a risky design move. The intention was to encourage players to play whatever they wanted to play without worrying about the cost of any particular racial option. The minimum attributes were an issue, though - it was still desired for players to be able to make characters at least superficially equivalent to BP characters for a couple reasons, and bunch of Body 1 orks or trolls that couldn't max out their Strength because of spending caps was seen as a bad thing (hence the raised attribute cap on metahumans - to encourage them to raise their attributes, and let them max out at least one).

Unfortunately, one of the outliers on chargen was if a player decided not to increase their attributes - humans would start with 1s and metahumans would start with 1's and some higher minimums. The only realistic solution to that would have been to add racial costs back in (which wasn't desired), eliminate minimum attributes (in hindsight, what maybe should have been done), or decide it was a very low-probability event that made a certain amount of sense in context (what was done, and in hindsight should have remembered dealing with gamers). Which is why we have the Weakest Ork Is Stronger Than the Weakest Human argument.

By that logic, the 20BP quality "Exceptional Attribute" should be free in karma gen, since it does the same metarace does - makes it possible to have higher stats, but you need to pay karma for them.

2 + 2 != 5

A Troll (the most expensive attribute-wise in this system) can reach 10/4/5/9/3/4/4/5; one at max, the rest one under, with 390 Karma. 15 Karma more than the "normal" maximum alotment. Every other base race can do the same with under the 375 Karma limit; I'm not sure about the advanced races, but strongly suspect all but Troll variants are the same.

I fail to see how you thought this increase was needed; most won't ever even be able to use it, & those that do only by a minuscule amounta.

Well, IMO, this is what I've found with the different systems, strengths and weaknesses wise.

BP:

Strengths:

Nicely customizable.
The costs are fairly math-easy. Skills cost 4, skill groups 10, attributes 10/25 for the last point, etc.

Weaknesses:

-Rewards a lot of maxing/soft-maxing at the start, rather than even spreads. This is due to the higher stuff costing more karma in-game; it's more cost-effective to get it over with at the beginning and buy the low stuff with the cheap amounts of karma later.

-Metahuman costs are out of whack. See Elves(who pretty much get low-light vision for 30 BP, as their costs equal out), vs. Orks(who get a LOT for 20 BP and very little drawbacks. In a world with cosmetic modification, it might as well be close to no drawbacks. Slightly lower Charisma and Logic maxes can be made up for easily), and Dwarves(little guys who pay between elves and orks, but still get more than elves, and again, very few drawbacks.)

-IMO, this system, due to the prevalence of soft maxes at the start, it leads to characters which are ''glass cannons'' in their fields. IE, highly specialized but not very spread out in other places. You CAN make a character that is well-specialized and still a bit spread; but the system just leads people to not to many times.

-Needing houserules/exceptions to do ''offbeat'' character builds. For example, it limits you to half your BP on your base 8 attributes, which allows for a spread of natural 3's and 4's (4 of each.) But say someone has a concept for a character with great raw potential(say, a ganger), but very little actual training(very low Skills), they need a GM's special permission to do this, since they would need to go over their allowed half-BP on Attributes. (For instance, I have seen a ganger campaign that had a 300 BP build limit, but allowed up to 200 of that on Attributes, which is an exception to the half-rule.)

Karma:


Strengths:

-Due to increasing costs, and the things costing the same in-game as the start, it leads to much more spread out characters. You still see heavy specialists at times; but due to perhaps some mental...thing, when characters see the costs of those very high Skills or whatnot they are more likely to start pulling them back. It's no longer ''optimal'' to start with the 2 5's, etc.

-Super-customizable. You can literally make anything you want. High Attributes, low Skills? Easily done. Vice versa? Also doable. Many builds that are damn-near impossible to do decently under BP are doable here.

-IMO, the most balanced of the systems, and it creates the most believable characters. For me, a believable character with spread out skills and the like is worth the slight boost in power that may come with it. (One can always just tell your players ''keep it under control.'' Works fine for me.)


Weaknesses:

-In general, even with ballpark Karma figures, they do somehow tend to come out more powerful than under BP. For example, I could probably take 550 Karma(less than the usual seen 600 Karma=roughly 400 BP characters), and make a character that is, more than likely, more powerful than it's 400 BP counterpart.

-Metas not costing anything are a heated topic. If you have a table that are known for playing races ''because they're cool'', this will not be a problem. However, if you have a table of bonafide twinks, this may be a problem. Also, while things like Metas, Shapeshifters, and the like cost no BP, Drakes/Infected, who are Qualities, not only cost BP, they cost DOUBLE the listed BP(since all BP costs are doubled under Karma.)

-Very math-intensive. May be overwhelming for new folks.

Priority:

Advantages:

-Very fast. Great for a one or two-shot weekend game when you just want to throw together some characters and go. This one advantage, IMO, is enough for me to want to keep it around. Also good for introducing people to the game.


Disadvantages:

-It's an odd mix of twinky and low-powered at the same time. For example, due to the extremely low costs of skills, one can end up with a few skill groups of max level if they take Skills rather high. But at the same time, characters tend to get a lot less points to work with. I haven't quite decided if this system gives too much, too little, or both.

-It very much encourages maxing. You don't need to pay double for that last Attribute point. Be prepared to see your gunbunnies with max Agility out of the box.

-Few points means again, the ''glass-cannon'' specialists. This is not a system that lends itself to spreading your points around.

[Yeah, not to much of a Priority fan, but it's usefulness for fast weekend games IS rather great.]

--

Also, yes. It's not good to mix these systems. As said, Karma costs for a 400 BP character can go as low as 500 or as high as over 800(yes, it can be done with certain Infected qualities.) I had mentioned 600 Karma is usually seen as the ballpark 400 BP figure, but still, it's so variable that it's better to just use the same system for all.

Again, people's mileage may vary, but these are my takes on the systems. Keep in mind Mango the Pornomancer/Possession Mages can be made under any system, and HAS been made under any system. Hell, I can make Mango under about 320 BPs, if not 300.

We've been using the Karma system at 650 karma. We have house rules for character creation, designed around people building well skilled and talented characters but without a lot of gear or augmentations. We did the characters under the BP system at first, and while that worked, we rebuilt all characters under the karma system and found that all the characters came out as more generalists, with a broader range of skills and more knowledge skills.

The no cost for matatypes hasn't been a problem for us, but then, as players we all tend to play the metatypes that are most appropriate for our character concepts, or for cool factor, rather than pure power. Clear conversations with the GM and all players in regards to the style of game that is desired works best in resolving most of the potential problems of min-maxing and ridiculous builds (pornomancers, etc...).

Karmagen works well for building well-rounded characters, although 750 Karma is significantly more powerful than 400 BP. The lack of racial costs doesn't bother me in most instances, but it is way too overpowered when you use it to create IEs and spirits, since their super-high "racial cost" is the main thing keeping them in check. I wonder if the free racial cost rule was really intended for those two types, and think that both cases would be better off treated as qualities (like drake and infected are). But until we get an errata or clarification, it remains a huge, gaping loophole in the system.

Wait, what?

The problem we have had with BP chargen and karma-based advancement is that the two systems are not linked at all. As stated above, with BP you have a benefit if you go for min-maxing in attributes and in skills. 2 Characters could have the same stats with totally different karma earned and spent.

We solved this "break" in the system the other way around: Advancement costs the same as during chargen (so increasing an attribute from 3 to 4 costs 10 BP/karma, no matter if during chargen or later in the runners career). The GM needs to rust the players not to abuse this system, since it is now "cheaper" to get high individual stats.

By the way - this is totally okay with me. Improving a skill from 5 to 6 gives you one more dice (and 0.33 more successes on average). Same goes for improving a skill from 1 to 2. I am a big fan of linear advancement costs, since the game benefit is linear as well.

One additional - slightly off topic - note: We scaled down the cost for skill groups to 8. Why should they be as expensive as attributes, if they only include 3-4 skills each. We have also lowered the skill costs to 3 BP/karma.

Overall, this system makes advancing your character faster/easier. I always like it when characters can be developed visbilby (in game terms), which is not really possible in SR RAW.

--- The Pat

PS: As always take these house rules as "food for thought" - But feel free to go wild and rip them apart if it makes you happy

Sorry, meant AIs.

Funny, I made an immortal elf character once--before Runner's Companion came out...

...it was just an elf with the Formula spirit pact from Street Magic.

Ah, very good, yes. Karmagen isn't really suitable for building AIs and Spirits.

So, what is the proposed Karagen solution for A.I.'s and spirits?
Make them cost karma = BP X2 ?

Well, first you take the freelancers that were working on both and beat them soundly with a shoe about the head and neck, paying careful attention to the face...of course, you have to make them put their hands on the table and keep them there, because we can't damage the all important typing hands.

Seriously, I don't have a good work-around for them right now. Sorry.

I advise BP cost x 2 for every racial option. Of course, this makes Free Spirits & Synthetic Intelligence's unplayable. That is due to their ridiculously retarded cost though. Right now, I do not have a fix for that, & probably will not for some time (I'm lazy, & it's not relevant to any games at the moment).

Let's be blunt, here: Karmagen also wasn't designed for Shifters, Drakes, any of the metavariants, or the nonhuman options. If you combine them, you can end up with some horrifying combinations.

Karmagen, in my experience, doesn't lend itself to more "balanced" characters. It leads to more powerful ones, with a wider spread of skills. Because you can afford to pick up low levels of skills, players will tend to do so, instead of sacrificing them to get more dice in their specialties. I haven't seen it change the number of high-powered dice pools, though, which is kinda a good thing: you can't min/max out more specialties easily. But that doesn't make characters more "balanced", nor does it stop them from being incredibly broken if done right.

No point in playing anything but a human then, since every other metatype is completely screwed by that house rule. Even trolls, the biggest winners purely points-wise under BP, come out inferior to humans if they are charged 80 points. Elves, who have a net gain of 15 Karma over a human, wind up costing 45 karma to play. And on top of that, under karmagen they pay more for, say, Agility: 6 and Charisma: 7, than a human would pay for Agility: 5 and Charisma: 5. So they are paying extra points, for the privilege of paying more for their Attributes. You could say they are getting the equivalent of metagenetic improvement/Attribute x 3, but that quality is overpriced, and I would much rather have 60 points of stuff, than pay through the nose for 60 points of potential.

It's a good house rule, IF you are trying to make metatypes more like they were in SR1, when they were rare, costly, and generally inferior to human builds.

I was thinking of using strain BP cost for races and Racial Traits. I haven't done the math yet, but I think it might work.

I have all racial options port their BP cost directally to a karma cost, so orks cost 20, dwarves 25, and so on. It keeps some of the "This metatype is supposed to have higher attributes in their special fields", but also acknowledged the fact that the metatypes have worth, and should cost something if only for the bonuses to your min attributes.

I guess I should have remembered to say I also suggest applying racial modifiers after determining attribute advancement costs, both during & after character generation.

Still, those 80 BP for a troll net you significant benefits; +4 Str, +4 Bod, +1 Armor, +1 Reach, & Thermographic Vision. Before the attribute modifiers, that is roughly a 30-40 Karma benefit.

The elves still loose out if you apply modifiers before costs.

That second part makes metahumans much more palatable. I still prefer the original rules - this seems like it would encourage metahumans to max out the Attributes they get bonuses on - but I could definitely live with it if it was the house rule for someone's campaign.

it shouldn't encourage maxing out their attributes any more than it does for humans, i would think.

To the OP: As you can see, there really isn't a right or wrong chargen option; it's to your and your table's taste.

Some folks find BP leads to die pool inflation while making rather unrealistic character, some don't; some find Karma more balanced, some kind it more powerful. Really, try them out. Also keep in mind that it depends on your players; for example, while I find even with me and my old buddies who are quite reasonable going to maxy-land under BP, we tend to make much more reasonable folks under Karma. Who knows why; it might me mental, or otherwise, but we feel more compelled to go more balanced than huge die pools.

Some people here might have experienced the contrary, and are giving their opinions. For example., under Karmagen the same maxes still stand. You're only allowed to max 1 Attribute and 1 Skill at chargen. How this leads to bigger die pools...I don't know, because the max limits are the same. The only thing I can think of is that attributes, on average, are 1-2 points higher; which means overall DPs might gain 1-2. Which doesn't even amount to a success all the time(it's roughly equivalent to 1 die=33.33 repeating of course chance of success. 3 die translate to 1 success.) However, perhaps some people had find people take the extra leeway and just beef important stats and it might cause problems at their tables. Again, I never experienced this and just ended up with much more believable folks. Folks with a die or two more in things, but damned if they didn't look nicer and make more sense.

Mine is indeed try the karma; but if it doesn't work, BP might be for you. Or Priority. Or some other system that isn't even any of these. IMO, the best way to a balanced game is to discuss the general power level of the game beforehand, agree on some rough ''limits'' (ie, ''oki, guys, lets keep our specialty die pools to no more than 16-18, and make the others below that''), and run with that.

[BTW: Charging for Metas but having them pay from the ground up isn't so bad, IMO. Nor is charging base BP in Karma, when I think about it-that's not a terrible cost.]

Karma Gen by RAW means: "If you play a human you're stupid." There's no mechanical reason not to play an elf instead, no matter what you were thinking to play a human as.

Unless, of course, the character you wanted to portray is a human and not an elf.

That's not a mechanical reason. And as a GM, I'd be hard-pressed to answer why someone could not play a character that's an "elf" mechanically, but human fluff-wise, instead of going the route of picking the qualities of low-light vision, exceptional attribute (agility, charisma) and genetic optimization (Charisma).

I'd add that using Karma Gen but applying racial stats as modifiers applied after the scores are paid for helps to balance things out a bit along with applying racial costs (these may need to be tweaked for balance).

This means that a human with a Body 5 has paid 42 points for it. For the same 42 points, an ork would have Body 8 (paid for rating 5 and applies a +3 modifer). The human also paid 27 points for Charisma 4 while the ork spending the same ends up with Charisma 3 (a -1 modifier). Note that during character generation, any attribute with a negative modifer (a dwarf's Reaction, an ork's Charisma and Intution, etc.) must be purchased to a value at least one greater than the absolute value of the modifer (so the remaining rating is at least one). The Karma cost to later increase the attribute be (R - M) x 3. R is the new rating of the Attribute and M is the racial modifier.

That's true. Though I'm finding it difficult to believe that this is hard to explain to a player. If you've decided that the setting has no bearing on the choices your players make then use whatever numbers you want on your character's sheets. But trust me when I say that I don't feel stupid when creating and playing a human character with the karmagen system. Yes, that character is "losing out" on some mechanical benefits that he could have otherwise. But he's a human, and in both mechanics and "fluff" he has benefits and drawbacks as all metahumans do. But presumably if I want to play someone who is a human in the shadowrun setting, I'm not interested in playing someone who has all of the mechanical benefits of an elf but looks like a human. Though I'm sure an interesting story could be created from this concept, I'm not so sure I'd have a problem with telling a player that they couldn't play this character if they weren't willing to deal with how it fits within the setting of Shadowrun.

Why is it one way in BP, and another in karma gen? If the setting is so important, then the costs should be the same in both systems. Is the world different in BP and karma gen?

Humans get shafted by BP, though, too. Trolls come out a net 30 points ahead of them (80 points of Attribute bonuses minus 40 race cost and 10 Edge decrease compared to a human - and I'm looking solely at BP costs for Attributes here - no trying to figure out reach, dermal armor, thermographic vision, racism, size problems, higher running speed, needing customized gear, and everything else). Indeed, elves are the only ones that come out behind humans, cost-wise, under BP.

The problem with humans is that their advantages, other than the Edge boost, are more intangible - being more ubituous, facing less racism, blending in more, everything is made for their size and shape, etc. Still, they do seem shafted, in both character creation systems. Not sure how to rectify it - maybe give them a combo of 10 extra Karma in positive qualities which can go over the 70 Karma cap, and 10 free Karma points' worth of contacts, or something.

I guess the disparity doesn't bother me as much as the earlier house rule because, while humans get screwed over, it's not by much. I mean, elves get a whopping 15 Karma advantage over them, and usually wind up spending more than that difference on Attributes. Orks, dwarves, and trolls all have offsetting disadvantages, need to really spend if they want to take full advantage of their Attribute boosts, and they came out ahead in BP, too. I think the earlier house rule bothered me because it was too much - humans weren't disadvantaged, but every other metatype was. The other two options (double BP for race, but add bonuses after purchasing Attributes; or BP cost for race) aren't perfect, but I would be able to live with them.

As far as BP vs. Karma, they really aren't that compatible. I think that games should generally use either one character creation system or the other. I felt this way about SR3, too.

No, you play a free spirit. And max magic. I think you can get to 7 or 8, which means you bounce 13 damage attacks.

What if you want Logic 1 in an Ork? Does that mean you have to pay to increase it to 2? I just want clarification; I like your way better than the RAW.

To everyone calculating metatypes costs vs. Attribute costs: Remember that not all Attributes are equal. Fair or not, if you're using the RAW Strength is a dump stat for nearly every character build there is. Even in melee builds, Agility wins out in overall usefulness. And by far the most common attribute given a metatype bonus is Strength.

Yes, that's exactly what it means. Since the ork has a -1 Charisma and -1 Logic, both of those must be bought up to at least one point greater than the absolute value of the modifier (so rating 2 if the modifer is -1). This means that you have to pay for at least a rating of 2 in those attributes which your race then drops to a pair of rating 1 attributes. Later increases would apply as if the value was one point higher, so the ork increasing a Logic 1 to Logic 2 pays the same as a human going from Logic 2 to Logic 3.

I like that

I didn't. Which is another reason why modifiers-after-buying-attributes was not applied.

It sure is reassuring that not everyone agrees with you. You made a good effort with the karma gen, but you dropped the ball on racial modifiers (and even more so with pretty much every advanced character type from the RC). That's why it's up to 1001 different people to come up with solutions for the mess left to us. I'm doing my part.

I really do like the karmagen much better than the BP system. Not to say it doesn't have its problems, though.

I recently made a dronomancer character - basically, a rigger technomancer. Given that I had to buy software, vehicles and drones, AND put karma into complex forms and Resonance, my character quickly got spread very thin. I was working on that character for a week, trying to squeeze out as much karma from the concept as I could.

I had originally envisioned him as a human. So when I built him, I went about it with that metatype in mind. And then I came to the point where I just did not have enough karma to get from what was in my head to something workable on paper.

Suddenly, I was hit with an idea. I erased "Human" and put "Elf" down in its place, and recalculated the karma spent on his attributes. Sure enough, suddenly I had about 20 extra karma for the same amount of attributes. While I wasn't all that keen on making him an elf, I soon warmed up to the idea and just went with it so that I could buy up another couple of complex forms.

This was a bit of an extreme example, as the required resources for the build I had was pretty demanding. It might be quite upsetting to some people that I had to compromise a character in my head in such a way to squeeze out a few points. I was irked at first, but soon got over it (and now I don't have any problem with the character as an elf.) However, I do wish that the system was a little nicer to the human folks. I'm not sure if penalizing the other metatypes or incentivizing humans is the right answer, and it would have to be figured out by people much smarter than me. I just thought it a little strange that a quick flip over to another metatype got me far more bonuses than drawbacks, and gave me extra karma to work with on top of that.

Hey, no set of rules is perfect.

Because while the setting is the same, the goals of the different character creation methods are different. If your goals remain the same, then a house rule to change the system is fine (as has been stated quite a few times) and easily done. But every system has different goals, and the goals of this system happen to fit with certain gaming groups. They do not, contrary to popular opinion, have to suit *all* gaming groups.

"It has to suit your gaming group" is not the same as "the game world demands that humans suck!".

Thing is, this kind of thing goes on in BP. How many times have you heard ''Just make him an ork'' under the BP system? This is because some of the original prices are kinda borked anyway, they'd continue being borked in karmagen, and orks easily get the best bang for the buck. Dwarves don't do too badly either, especially for stuff like mages or technos, due to the full use of their Mental stats and the Willpower bonus. Yes, you have the one less Edge, but they still make out(Orks are 50 BP worth of stats+lowlight-the loss of 1 edge and a cap of 5 on Logic/Charisma; but it still comes out immensely in favor at only 20 BP. Dwarves are 40 BP worth of stats, thermo, extra dice for disease and poison resistance, all for the cost of 1 point less max Reaction and Edge and a bit lower movement-at 25 BP, they still make out great.) You could build just about any thing as a dwarf or ork instead of a human or elf and make out better.

Again, the reason why I use karmagen out of the box(and I'm not saying I love the meta thing in it, but it doesn't bother me as much), is that I can't really think of a way to adjust it that feels right to me. Each of the ''fixer'' methods seems to have something decent about it, but then something else I'm not as fond of. For example, the method of paying some karma, but then just paying for the attribute as a human and adding the modifier later has it's high points-a cost is in there, they aren't getting stuff free, and nor do they have to pay 150 karma to max out a stat. But on the other side of the coin, I kinda like it to be difficult for that troll to get the 10 body. 10 natural body is big, and paying 120 karma is about right for that.

I planned on trying the fact that ALL can only spend up to half of their Karma on stats. It's not *much* of a limit, but it will prevent the really insane overspending(and Edge/Magic would be included in this.) I also considered half Karma on stats regardless of race, with a Karma cost equal to the BP cost in race. I'll have to toy with it a bit, but I'd still want to readjust meta costs anyway(switching elves and orks still crosses my mind from time to time.) Again, we haven't had a reason to do this, but I might toy with the idea and see how it works in practice(since lots of stuff can look good on paper, but not in practice.)

--


(*peeks around for a second and whispers* btw, in your dronomancer situation I would have gone dwarf, slightly off topic. More Extra willpower and body good. )

Adding a set of pointed ears was alot closer to my mental image of the man than, say, making him half his current height and very stocky.

1. The cost doesn´t have to be the same in both systems. It is an unnecessary restriction on system design that can be shaved. Most costs are not the same, that´s the source of the munchiness potential of the BP system after all. The BP race cost can be forgotten straigth after chargen.

2. The net benefits changed for Trolls and Elves - both are now viable choices without min/maxing. A Orks vs. Humans vs. Dwarf comparison will have similar results under both systems.

Under karma gen, humans are - strictly mechanically - not viable choices.

When I got my copy of RC and read the karma-gen rules, that was one of the first things that came to mind. Assume all races are equal to Human and get their stats accordingly. Then apply the racial modifiers.

Thus a Human with Charisma 6 would have paid the same as an Elf for Charisma 8.

I'm also a fan of there being some sort of cost for playing a non-human. Maybe not a direct BP Cost x2 = Karma cost but some sort of cost nonetheless. Each race should have a set of perks and drawbacks that roughly equal out in cost.