I really dislike the limiting of meta-types and magical power. As well as min and max attributes. Your almost giving each player a cut out and say stick what you want, but not this cos you fidnt roll high enough.

I can think of a few builds that would be unplayable including all matrix users as you allow only 2IPs this is ignoring the fact that hot sim module is 12F. Again I find the essence limit unneeded but the min of 126BP on skills is odd and I don't see it's point at all.

yeah, I really dont understand why you do most of the stuff that you do. The whole reason for a point based Chargen system is so you take the randomness and rolling out of the character creation. Not that I prefer either or (in fact I'm kind of sad that 4e D&D is leaning more towards a point based system. I still do the whole 4d6 thing.) I'm just confused as to why you would combine the two.

Also I kinda liked the whole min log/attribute thing. I've always hated characters that min/max than roleplay the asshole dwarf because they sacked charisma. That that I would ever impliment these rules, because they are waaaaaaaaay to restrictive, but when I read that I smiled.

I would hate to be the group that rolled Astral Sight, Mage, Adept (in that order) for Awakened character options. Having the possibility dangled in front of you and then creully snatched away is worse than not having.

This is why random rolls are not desirable at chargen unless you are generating more than 2 characters each, in my opinion.

For those of us that try to stick closer to canon, it seems like a step in the right direction. Obviously, if you're campaign is centered around a bunch of adepts kicking a** and taking names, you can just throw the magic rules right out the window. You're right about the Matrix-part with the 2 IP limitation, but I also just forgot the Hot-sim exception for Cybercombat.

As a side note, your argument would be a lot more compelling if your post didn't look like it was b***-f***ed by a speak-and-spell. It's the 21st century, grammar and spell checks are in every application and take all of 20 seconds to use.

So, you'd hate to be the guy with Magic 1 Astral Sight, Magic 3 Magician, and Magic 1 Adept and game start, even though you can still increase the mage's Magic from 3 to 4 after 2-3 runs, and the adept's magic after 1-2?

Anyways, the GM is still sitting there and can change something if it gets jacked up, or isn't going to work. The rules aren't concrete, they're just guidelines.

But you're dealing with 10-15 character, tops. No statistician worth their salt says that a sample that small should bear any relation to a sample millions of times its size. The existance, in canon, of wiz gangs and neighbourhoods where everyone is an Ork paints, to me, a picture that seems dramatically at odds to yours. You are going to get a Dryad Shaman, an Orc Astral Sighter, a nascescent Elf Face Adept and a Human with an SMG under your rules.

How the hell is that represented in canon? That kind of diverse group is no better or worse than just letting players get together and work out their characters together, except the fact that the characters built in a group with fewer limitations may work better as a team on account on being able to play to each others' strengthes more. Or having actually usuable magical support.

Just produce a pamphlet for your GMs detailing what should be considered unacceptable.


The combination is worse than the group with 3 Astral Sighters in terms of frustration. The wasted potential is great. Equally, the actual loss in power compared to a rearrangement is great. Those possibilities are what hurts when people roll badly. They don't conceive of what could have happened if they rolled different. They first see how things could be better if rolls were attributed to different people.


I'm not even getting into the possibility of someone wanting to play a mage and rolling Astral Sight. The team frustration potential of someone rolling the only Mage and choosing to play an Astral Sighter or Adept (or else their frustration at the rest of the team forcing them to play a Mage instead of what they want) should also be considered.

The rolls for metatype and awakening are ridiculously overweighted in importance. This always generates frustration, friction, and makes people dislike games.

I agree with some of what you're saying, and you're right as far as the full statistics go. With 5 characters in the Seattle sprawl, they would be around one millionth of the populace. And the canon wiz gangs, would be an example of a campaign concept where you'd want everyone to be Awakened, so those rules wouldn't be applicable. Neighborhoods where everyone is an ork, is balanced by the fact that Orks only represent about 16% of the local population. If you wanted to play a bunch of Ork gangers from the Ork Underground or a neighborhood in Redmond, then just discard the metatype rules. But would you still want all of your gangers decide that they all want to play shamans? What are the chances of an all-Ork Wiz gang from the Barrens? Especially with 1% of the global population being Awakened.

I think that kind of group would be an interesting one, and a challenge to boot.

The chances of an all-Ork all-Shaman Wiz gang from the Barrens are better than the example team I threw out. You're in the Barrens, you're an Ork with "the art", so who are you going to talk to about learning to use it? The Wiz gang is probably one of your best bets for learning things.

Equally, there's a niche to be eked out for a fixer collecting nearly an entire team of awakened members as a special antimystic team to deal with runs that focus on the awakened aspects of the world. Perhaps there's a single street sam, rigger, or hacker in there to cover additional bases and provide skill or ability sets that the awakened members can't cover, but such a team could see good business.


But you're dealing with other players. Players new to the setting who don't understand why a team with 3 Astral Sighters could be fun. They wouldn't enjoy it, unless they went into it with their eyes open to the consequences. They want to play Shamans, Mages, Adepts and Street Sams (y'know, the bits of the setting that kick ass and chew bubblegum through violence or mystical power). Astral Sighters are none of those.

Man chafes when he perceives senseless restraint lain upon him.

I'm honestly not trying to be an asshole, but you are a fucking idiot. There's really not any other way to say it & get the point across.

You're not trying, yet you're doing so well.

Try to play nice, lads. Hate to have the Admins come in and start knocking heads.

Actually pretty high. Like attracts like. Bikers hangout together because they like to ride, work on, and talk about bikes. I think magicians would be the say way.

That transitions into my larger point, that you are trying to use rules to fix a story question. Your table doesn't like the teams generated by RAW because you don't like that stories required to accommodate such parties. That's cool and you should fix it. I don't think that house are the way to got, not because I'm RAW Nazi, but because more rules rarely fix stories. I would get your players together and sync your vision of campaign a bit. Do you want to run Neo-Anarchists Robin-hooding, sociopathic guns for higher, or a gang war for turf? Figure that out and all your race and magic "class" issues fall away. I do like the logic-intuition trade off, but the skills and attribute rules seem pointless to me. The consequences are pretty easy to see and if they work for you great. I also would really caution you away from the 8F rule. I looking to that one myself, at it really doesn't work. Availability is just to random. Some amazing equipment is still in reach and some basics are out. Also you totally bone hackers. Same thing with the whole IP deal. if you do that everyone becomes a rigger Hits VR and uses there weapons platform. When you run around gimping starting characters like this you will see lots and lots of people clinging to the couple "viable" builds.

Wow, these rules are just a dick move. I will never ever play with any of them and I'd encourage your players to seek a new GM.

Why?

Because I picked up Runner's Companion and Augmentation the same day and leafing through them I immediately had three great builds I wanted play:

1) Drake Adept (already a statistical anomaly by your random rules)
2) Cybered up something or other (the new cyber in Augmentation plus the qualities in Runners Companion made me drool--maybe a Chrome Critter? Statistical anomaly again, not to mention the cost and availability limits)
3) Awakened AI running around in a pack of minigun wielding drones (ack, cost AND availability limits like crazy)

By the way, concept 1 here is piles of fun.

if i was new to rpgs entirely i would think these rules were cool. but the minute i talk to someone that plays in a group that actually gets to design the characters by their choice alone, i would quit and probably never play in a game you run.
or on the other hand i might just think its too restrictive and just not play. especially if i wanted to play a full mage or mystic adept and rolled bad and you straight said i could not have the character i wanted. this reminds me of first or second dnd where you are limited to what you roll deciding what you play.

Again, I see your point, but you're still talking about specific campaign concepts.



When dealing strictly with new players, I agree with you. In this case, its just part of the GM's job to make sure the group will work and the team isn't just some random amalgamation of characters. Though I've also seen my share of motley crews that have done very well.

ive seen it played and it is piles of fun as long as someone is not telling you what you can and cant do.

You have a lot of solid points, thanks for the input.

are you going to let your players read through the rules themselves or are you just going to tell them?
how much book time are your players going to get.

I'm giving them a month and a half of prep time, to read whatever material they want, and I've already given them a copy of Augmentation, Arsenal, Runners Companion, SR4, and Street Magic. I'm working alongside my players each step of the way and answering any question they give me, to the best of my ability.

Also, to prevent the players from getting blindsided with a House rule, I've drawn up a list of the house rules and another list of all the optional rules from the books that we use.

how long until the game starts?

how long do you want to run it?

Actually, I think it has the opposite problem. It's fine for his group, which wants a "low-power" campaign and doesn't mind resolving assignment of metatype or awakened potential with dice duels.

If I was a brand-new player, though, and had skimmed through the main rulebook, I would probably be very turned off by the gimped power level and the restrictions on what you can play. The former would be a huge turn-off to someone coming into the game with visions of wizards, super-hackers, and cyborgs, only to be stuck with a two-bit thug. And the restrictions are even worse. Everyone has a "type" that they like to play - some people are always dwarves, or always hackers, etc. The pointless, arbitrary limits on metatypes and awakened characters mean that players are likely to be stuck in a role they have little to no interest in playing.

actually i agree with you. whether i would play or not would be determined by what i knew before starting if i read the books after he told me his rules i would just straight quit.

This might would work for your group, but as the posts here have shown I think the large majority of groups would be just completely unable to play with your rules. Many of them seem kind of pointless or downright silly and really don't make the game feel more realistic at all. The BP and priority costs already sort of represented the statistics of magically inclined and the races. Remember in third edition you have to have magic as an A or B rank priority to be awakened. Besides, although the canon only says 1%, if you do the number crunching and include population density in large cities like Seattle you'll find it wouldn't be that hard to locate a decent mage.

It feels like you're trying just to hard to make the game realistic. If you REALLY want the game to match your expectations talk it over with your group and talk about what everyone feels like would work. If your players are worth their weight they'll work with you to make a fun an interesting game. Even my old group, we bitch and bickered, but in the end we always had fun when we played.

Both groups start at the beginning of April, and both are projected for 52 runs. Of course, the chances of getting that far running twice a month aren't too great.

If someone has a VERY specific interest in a certain concept, I'm more than willing to work with that. But with the players that I have, that isn't the case most of the time.

But didn't you say you were going to be introducing new players? No offense, but new players should always be introduced to something closer to the RAW so they have have an idea of what the game is like, then the house rules should be made and molded to the group. If you're going to TEACH someone a tabletop, teach them the tabletop THEN your house rules. Teaching someone the game mixed in with large, intricite house rules only guarantees confusion and risks turning them off from the game forever.

I've been gaming with these players for years, and they're not new to TT RPGs. When I teach someone the game, I tell them what the standard is, and then I tell them how our group plays. A new player asks, "What's the starting availability for gear?" I'll tell them," The standard is 12F, but we do 8F unless you take the Restricted Gear quality. Then it's 20F for a single item." To which they'll usually reply, "Ok, so it's 8F?" "Yeah."

Perhaps it's just my preference then, but i've always played simplified RAW games for people new to the game, at least as a short campaign, sometimes only three or four runs. The only real houserule I use regardless of group when I'm GMing is to not worry about credsticks, because I just can't seem to get the hang of them down.

I'm just offering a friendly warning though, when it comes to introducing so much fresh meet(seven is no small number) try to get some input from them. Like what has has become apparent most people in the SR community* dislike your house rules, and that shouldn't stop you from using them, but with that much fresh meat it's better to let them play with the core rules for just a bit. You're house rules aren't small changes to the game, their huge changes to some of the largest most intricate and important parts of the rules and most certainly aren't for everybody.



*trust me, it's no stretch to assume dumpshock represents the majority of the SR fanbase or community.

I am not sure why you limit the number of metatypes or awakened characters. It's one thing if you have game balance problems with too many trolls, too many mages, etc. Although I think you would be better off putting some general caps/changes (trolls +10 cost if you think they are overpowered, Magic capped at 3 to start since resources are capped for the sammies), rather than limiting player options - especially if other players are going to be playing the very same thing, but were just luckier in the dice-off.

But if you are going by a fictional world's population demographics, well, then that's just silly. Shadowrunners are professional corporate espionage and sabotage specialists, comprised of oddballs, misfits, and outcasts who are nonetheless extremely capable at doing what they do - which they have to be, considering their opposition. They are NOT going to resemble the general population in any way, shape, or form.

If they did, half of them would be required to have a 20 BP Flaw: Day Job.

I don't see why dice rolls are needed to stick to cannon. I really don't also its an around 0.077% chance to roll a 24 on 4d6 thats long odds in my eyes. I don't have time to brake your rules down statistically atm. With odds like that stacked against playing an other and similarly against the awakened.

With 90BP to spend on attributes as 60 are tied up in logic or intuition doesn't leave much to play with. With another 126 forced to be in skills. That's 216 out of whatever taken up by your house rules alone. More that 50% maybe closer to 75%. now it looks like your valuing skills more than attributes. No real problem with that however just point some thing out.

However just to let you know I would leave the gaming table that tried to impose these rules upon me. I'm not too comfortable with the points costs for meta-types and such being based on rarity and the random chance element is just taking that too far in my eyes.

Also I'm guessing you just flat out don't allow technomancers with there 3 matrix IPs if so yet another reason why I wouldn't play.

If you break them, we will come...
Then we have to issue warnings. Multiple warnings generate suspensions and so on.

Debate the ideas. Disagree if you like. Even better to ignore them if you don't, but don't attack the poster.

I think that part of what Wombat was talking about is that we've also had problems in our group (since I have played by these rules) of people constantly making really broken characters. Which made it so that the game wasn't very fun for the two of us without all of the broken stuff.

Half our our characters usually do

Generally, if you can't convince your own players not to make broken characters to the point that you have to enforce an entirely new rule set then the group isn't co-operating. Remember, GM has final say on what characters get in. All these new rules do is confuse and frustrate things to an absurd level that much of dumpshock has already stated they wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Problem is, those attribute limits are pretty bad, IMO. I mean...I'm one who would rather suggest ''Keep it toned a bit down, guys'', than say ''Okay, you are forced to have these mental stats-no, you can't have anything less even if you have an idea for it.''

In fact, since a 2 rating is considered ''Joe Average'' as far as SR4 goes(the book's Attribute Chart has LONG since been derided as not too accurate in the SR4 world), you are denying people who want to simply play an ''Average Joe'' with Mental attributes. The mailman probably has a Logic/Intuition of 2, for example. Why force a full 60 BP there?

Skills? The same. I mean, I've seen limits of X being spent on skills, but never a minimum. Also with contacts. If someone wants to have 1 really well connected contact (C4/L2 for example), and a bartender(2/2), it's only 10 BP and it's under the limit...but that's perfectly reasonable even in a 400 BP game.

I mean, yeah, your table, your fun, but IMO, I've had much, much, MUCH better experience simply telling folks ''Ok guys, just please keep the die pools to 13-14 or less after modifiers'' rather than hammering down hardcore leashes on people. I mean, I'm not tossing around an insult or anything, but this is something I couldn't play under. I mean, I don't mind playing in a lower powered game now and again, but there is a world of difference between someone saying ''Ok guys, we're going to run with 400 BP, but keep die pools reasonable please'' to ''no, you have to roll for races and hope you get what you want, if not tough, oh yeah, you have to be X smart or you can't ride, either...'' and so on.

I'll break 'em down for you.



The statistics here give the percentage chance of rolling a particular category.

• 24: 0.077%
• 20-23: 5.324%
• 17-19: 18.519%
• 16: 9.645%
• 4-15: 66.435%

Now I'm glad you poked a hole in my math. I re-did the math, and the statistics I had done originally were not what I had intended. So, I've corrected them to the following.

• 22-24: Other 1.157%
• 20-21: Dwarf or Troll 4.244%
• 18-19: Elf 10.494%
• 16-17: Ork 17.670%
• 4-15: Human 66.435%

The most likely roll is 14 at 11.265% chance.


However, your math here is off. With a minimum Base logic + Base Intuition of 6, that would require 40 BP, leaving 110 BP to spend on 6 Attributes. I should have noted however, that our game considers 2.5 to be there "average" stat, with 2 and 3 being the lower and higher end of the average spectrum, respectively. So, having an attribute or two at 2 isn't quite as big a deal, since your other stats are likely to be 3's and 4's, or perhaps even a 5.

If you include the 126 BP minimum on Active skills, that soaks up 166 BP out of 400. During RAW CharGen, most players will use between 180-200 on Physical and Mental Attributes, with many players using their Mental Attributes as their dump stats. Yet, these same kinds players are usually the ones that habitually complain about not having enough Knowledge Skills, a insufficient Perception pool, or repeatedly falling for "Hey! Look at that clever distraction!" and blaming their low Mental Attributes. During RAW CharGen, I also tend to see numerous characters with less than 80 BP devoted to active skills, usually just their Combat Skills plus a few(3-4) low level(1-2) skills to justify a rather two-dimensional concept.



The RAW BP costs for metatypes don't really seem to cover the rarity of the basic metatypes. If they do, then the costs of Elves, Orks, and Trolls without rarity are incredibly cheap. Though, I will say that Runner's Companion seems to do quite well when dealing with the BP costs for metavariants and other concept types, by taking attributes, abilities, AND rarity into account.



To be honest, we've only begun integrating Matrix-based characters into our games, hence why they are mentioned much in our house rules. Until recently, we've settled for the NPC hacker solution.

Your players are whiney, bitchy, munchkins.

My current character (drake adept)



Baring statistical probability of playing a drake in your game, I doubt this conforms to your skill BP minimum *math* nope, I have 17.5 ranks towards your expected 26.5 (i.e. 126 BP - 20 (skill group) / 4 = 26.5, my ranks added up including BP spend on specs adds up to 17.5). Drakes are quite hemmed in by their high racial cost (Trolls make a better build and cost less BP) so I didn't have nearly all the BP I wanted, nor a lot of room to spread out. I have about 4 dice less to shooting things than the rest of the group, I'm significantly more cautious (i.e. always have cover), significantly less deadly and wish my mentals were higher (I could have dropped strength by a point and had the same damage, forgot that SR rounds up in most cases--rebuild would likely have 1 point less strength for 1 more point of Willpower or Intuition). On the other hand, I'm significantly luckier than my other players, and significantly less injured (with the exception of the two newest characters, only 1 other PC hasn't fallen unconscious). ALL of my characters have 4 or more edge, 5 if I can spare the BP (Drakes, being human base, get the free point of edge) and as a player I know exactly when to spend the edge, recently it's been mostly "spend edge to reroll failures" type due to the sheer number of dice I get (though last session I did roll 13 dice on an attack, get 2 successes and reroll the remaining 11 for an additional 1--I had net hits too--that's 24 dice and only 3 successes!). I always always leave 1 point unspent in case of disaster (holy shit, use edge to not die!).

While I certainly agree that Dumpshock is a large community that provides a great and stable fanbase, many of the experienced players that I've played with and all but one of the players that introduced me to the game have either never heard of or simply never visited Dumpshock. I've only recently joined the community myself.



We came to the minimum of 6 for Log+Int by looking at all the example Contacts and example Shadowrunners. Here's what we found.

• Total number of example Contacts: 67
• Log+Int=5: Bodyguard, Dock Worker, Go-Ganger, Pirate, Slum Lord, Stripper, Taxi Driver, Troll Street Dealer
• Log+Int=4: Hate Group Member, Janitor, Rent-a-Cop
• Total number of example contacts with a Log+Int<6: 11 of 67

So, looking at the average for normal people, the majority have a Log+Int of at least 6. Now for the not-so-normal...

Total number of example Shadowrunners: 16
Log+Int=5: Bounty Hunter, Enforcer, Street Samurai
Log+Int=4: None
Total number of example Shadowrunners with a Log+Int<6: 3 of 16

Seeing this, we considered making the minimum 5 instead of 6, but the majority decision was something just slightly above the lowest listed example.



You make a really good point. Originally, our line of thought, as a group, was:

• Everyone had to have at least 2 contacts.
• We didn't want to see starting runners that were nationally connected, but regionally connected was fine.
• Your teammates should be closer than most of your contacts.
• Players should have to earn higher loyalty contacts.

So, after looking at the contacts listed for the exampe Shadowrunners, we decided that 4 Connection and 4 Loyalty were good caps, but that we also wanted to see a balanced trade off. By capping the number of points that could be spent on the contact in whole, we found that nice trade off that we were looking for. Again, after looking at the example Shadowrunners, we found the average number of BP put into contacts was around 12. So, we set that as our minimum BP for contacts.

Though, as a GM I prefer to see more than 2 contacts on a character sheet and with a 150 cap on Physical and Mental Attributes there are plenty of points to go around, but I've talked it over with some of my players and they agree with your point. Soo..., we've decided to lower the minimum on contacts from at least 12 BP to at least 8 BP. Thanks for the input!
There's an edit here on the 8 BP, rather than the 6 originally posted.

Again, my drake. BP is a shoestring budget. I have 2 contacts, Bartender 2/1 and a Martial Arts Instructor 1/2 (that's Loyalty/Connectedness), thank god our group runs with the Charisma * 2 free contacts BP. In other words, I spend 0/400 BP on contacts, was disappointed, but could not spare a point from somewhere else.

Wombat, I read through your post and understand what you're trying to get to. Low powered game, focus on non-powergaming, rarity of magic, rarity of other (non-human) metatypes. That's cool, I totally understand and strive for similar in some of my games. Usually it just takes sitting down with the group and saying something to the effect of "Ok, I only want 2 non-humans in my game and 2 magically-capable characters of some type. You guys work out who gets to play what." Then people get to compromise.

I'm not a big fan of forcing people into roles based on dice rolls (unless I'm playing WFRP but that's another topic) since it removes from the player the active choice of compromise and understanding why his/her character is not 100% what was envisioned. Giving the players a chance to discuss that part of the game amongst themselves leaves active decision-making in the mix and lets people still get to do *something* they wanted to do, even if it's not entirely what they wanted.

With that said, I'm a total softie so if someone *really* wants to play a given character concept and it's clear they're not munchkining said character, I usually capitulate and let them play it. That's how I ended up with 4 magically-active players and 2 non-magically-active players, but whatever. None of them are munchkins, everyone's mature about character improvement, and everyone's there to have fun without being malicious - fun overrides everything.

With regards to putting hard caps and minimums on attrib and skill spendage, I also understand what you're striving for. You don't want any one-trick ponies (again, munchkins). I also hope for that in my games, but I guess my approach is different. I told my players ahead of time that I have the following habits in running my games:

1) Splitting up the party through circumstance and necessity
2) Taking away weapons
3) Forcing people to be self-reliant

These proclivities enforce the following tendencies in attrib/skill spendage and improvement:

1) Not being the 1-skill guy/gal
2) Spreading skills between multiple weapon types instead of being "The Assault Cannon Guy"
3) Spreading skills outside of combat-only, because you never know when you'll actually have to Intimidate someone to make progress

From then on, I just leave it to the players to decide. If they want to be pigeonholed and are cool with getting taken advantage of because of it, that's fine by me. They'll certainly have their time to shine in their particular specialty - I won't take that away from people - but they'll find themselves occasionally at a strong disadvantage because of it too.

Best of luck with wrangling your players!

In some cases, yeah. The worst one we had made a Troll adept character that pissed everyone off with his "powerful character". He got locked up in the brig after he charged into melee with a claymore against a group of ship's security, though he did take some out, and then complained when the group let security throw his sword overboard and left him in the brig, even though they had secured the ship. They left him there when they left the ship as well.

Afterward, he told the group that he "knew" the house rules were made just because of how powerful his character were, and made that character to prove that the house rules couldn't stop him from making a munchkin character.

Hm...in that case maybe my suggestion to get your players talking amongst themselves and maturely determining how to make a party won't work for you.

Kick some players out?

Yeah, I can see that part too; I think that just...forcing any stat MINIMUMS is a bad thing, unless there is a very, very, strong reason behind the campaign-for example, telling players in an all MIT&T 3.8 GPA graduate campaign they should have a Logic of at least 3 is not too off the hook. But I'm coming from the experience of one of my most-loved characters-and one of my buddy's most-loved characters-both had Logic 1 and Intuition 4. (It's a long story.) Their low Logics played in heavily to their characters(and a 1 is not mentally handicapped, as you have flaws that cause that kind of thing-it's low, but the people can still write and spell, in our games anyway-but don't ask them to do big math. Under that rule, these characters couldn't have been, and we'd have been out two of our favorites(not only of us, but of people who have seen these characters as well.) By harshly limiting certain things, people can lose out. Which again why I'm a big fan of ''watch the die pools.''

By the way, I don't necessarily think there is anything wrong with saying only 1 stat can be at 1. I actually find that quite ok. But when you start forcing minimums, that, IMO, takes chargen out of the player's hands, which isn't a good thing. (BTW, problem players should be dealt with individually, and not by sticking the entire group, IME.) As far as I would go in forcing a minimum, if i absolutely, no holds barred HAD to force it, I'd keep it at 2, since that's generally seen as simply unexceptional and dead average. Again, with only 150 BP to spend on Attributes(that's not even enough for a 3 down the line for a human), something is just not sitting right with that.

Again, I think it just comes back to me seeing some very, very excellent and well liked characters-and also, these two I mentioned weren't the only ones, as I've seen other characters in other campaigns with intellect on the lower side be freaking awesome-to wonder why someone would have something against that. It sounds too much of ''ok, this is just so the munchkins have less points to spend on other stats.'' Me, I'd just look at the munchkins and say ''don't be a douche or you're getting a Spinning Piledriver through the table.''

Glad the contact thing went well, though.

I have a drake face made by these rules and believe me, I understand the shoestring budget, but also keep in mind that you probably spent 200 points on attributes, right? With Wombat's rules, I was only able to spend 150, so there's an extra 50 BP to put towards other things.

True, with the 150 BP cap on attributes I'd have had 50 BP left for other things, but you have to keep in mind that I soft-cap'd only one attribute (Agility because it's for hitting things). I don't even know how I'd manage with only 150 points, actually. I'd have to pull 6 points out and add 1 to Intuition. As it's already been noted, you can't even be a 3-down-the-line human under these rules. I mean, I suppose I could do 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3 (that's the 4 phys, then the 4 mental), but I wouldn't be happy with it. I can handle dumped charisma (I'm at social situations, especially in games), the dumped reaction comes back somewhat with the Improved Reflexes adept power (OH WAIT, I likely won't have a magic high enough for it), and that 1 die of Body...given that any magic I have is going to seriously crimp my adept powers, I'd really like that 1 extra die for damage resistance and wound recovery.

Do you even USE your dracoform? For what?

Does Wombat know about the fluff that drakes should pretty much be shot on sight by everyone (or recruited by megacorps and dragons, refusal means death)? I've noted on the forums before that the drake quality should come with the Hunted and Distinctive Style flaws. It sucked to be a drake in 3rd edition (see: Dragons of the Sixth World) and not just due to the double-essence loss from cyber either (though IIRC they didn't have a magic attribute).

You do know that you lose (i.e. destroy) your armor every time you shift? That is, assuming your body is higher than your armor value (ha! even I only have a 6 vs. my 8 armor flak jacket) otherwise you take {armor value} damage (resisted by body and natural armor) and/or become entangled (Rules thanks to Tyger Eye, which I would consider RAW due to the obvious hole in Runner's Companion and it matches up with the fluff of shapeshifters tearing their clothes (or say, a mouse getting stuck in them)).

I'm definitely with you on not forcing people into roles based on dice rolls. I'm not picking the players' stuff for them, and as I said when I posted the rules "we're considering instituting the following rules for Metatypes". It's an interesting quirk that you can add to a game that reflects that chances of an individual being born as or goblinizing into, as the case may be, a given metatype. Similarly, the Awakened quality rules are just one way of reflecting the chances of Awakening without completely f***ing up a group. So if you or your players have an idea for a campaign that the rules don't work for, then scratch 'em and move on. So far, we've used everything in the Awakened qualites rules, except for how a character Awakens, and it has worked pretty well for us. We've got a Primary magic-user slot with up to 5 Magic, a secondary magic-user slot with up to 3 Magic, and Tertiary magic-user slot with 1 Magic, and the "I've got dibbs" slot. The rolls can add that random chance of how you could Awaken, if you don't need something specific. If you're team's Magic Support character just died and ran out of Edge for Hand of God, then when the character filling slot 4 Awakens, then he could just take up that role as a full Magician. Or he could say, "The world isn't always fair or just. Let fate decide." and roll on the chart. He could even say, "F*** what the team needs!" or "F*** what the other players want me to do! I want to play a kick-a** Phys. Ad." and pick the Adept quality. The random charts, for Metatype and Awakening alike, just gives people the option to challenge themselves as roleplayers.



I'm the same way when it comes to players really wanting to play a certain concepts so long as they're not munchkining, but then again I'm sure that's pretty common. The giving in that is, not munchkining. Luckily, the cast that is being made the two groups are pretty solid. A Human Face, a Native American Human Shaman(Slot 1), an Ork-Urban Brawler-Street Samurai, a 14 yr. old Elf Street Urchin, a Dwarf Gear Specialist, and a Japanese Human Phys. Ad. Samurai(Slot 2). We've still got another player that might make a Technomancer, and another couple players that are still undecided.



Team balance is an issue I look at, but ultimately I leave it in the players' hands to make sure that the team's a** is covered. If they overspecialize, I'll give them runs that fit their specialty, since that's what the Fixer/Johnson would hire them for. When I want to make things a bit more difficult for them though, I can always hit them where they left themselves open and they'll have no one to blame but themselves.


Already did with the Troll, about a month ago. Unfortunately, 2 of our other players just deployed to Iraq a week ago and we'll be moving back to Tacoma in a month or so. On the upside of things, the players we have in Tacoma are far more mature than what we've had for the past year or two.



Your stats here look fine to me. You're in the average spectrum for everything but Agility and you're only on the lower end of average for Reaction and Charisma. You're not so slow that you couldn't jump out of the way of oncoming traffic, nor are you a complete a**hole. With a boost to Reaction and the +1 IP that comes with it, you're doing pretty good, and it only cost you 2 Power Points. You could do that as a Magic 2-3 Adept(Slot 2), and if you take 3 Magic, then you can get that 1 level of Improved Physical Attribute(Body). If you have a concept that allows it, you may even be able to take Gaesa on your Adept powers to reduce their costs a bit.



I'm well-aware of the fluff on Drakes,especially since I'm the one that asked Chi-Girl to mod her original concept to play one, but I think your viewpoint is a bit out of date. I'll let Chi-Girl post on that one. I agree that Enemy(SR4 equivalent of Hunted)is a solid option for a Drake's Negative qualities, but not so much on Distinctive Style. Particularly because it might be limited to the astral and only until the Drake learns Masking. I'm not as concerned with what the mechanics used to be like for Drakes in SR3 because we're not playing SR3. We're playing in the 2070 part of the time line with SR4 rules.


I like this kind of rule, but the way it's written here isn't very clear to me. Is there a reference somewhere else that might be clearer?

Or I could have 5 magic giving me Mystic Armor (2), Spell Resistance (2), Rapid Healing (2), [Attribute]* Boost (2) and Improved Reflexes. When I get the 18 karma to grab another point of magic, that improves to Imp Ref rating 2.

*Current game I have Reaction as the attribute because getting the hell out of dodge is awesome. With 6 magic that gives me 8 dice, or just about average 3 successes (or 7 dice and 2 successes with 5 magic, roughly double the effectiveness of Improved Attribute for half the PP cost).

Now wearing a basic armor jacket I have 10/8 armor and when I transform into a dragon I have 6/6 hardened armor (which in another thread I've already proved is useless: the chances of a ganger firing a gun with under 5P is non existent, and the chances of him only getting 1 net success are extremely small).

The spell resistance (1 PP; retrospect: mystic adept with 4/1 adept/mage magic and Counter-spelling is better if no one else has it) gives me 5 dice + counter-spelling versus spells (current mage has 5) for a total of 10 (instead of 8 ).

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And it should be noted that all of this bullshit is less BP effective than just getting cyberware (regardless of race, though drakes/shapeshifters get the benefit only in metahumanform), even for the magically inclined. Deltaware dermal plating has a newyen cost and an essence cost, the BP for needing the higher magic (assuming you lost an integer point) plus the BP cost in nuyen is less than the BP cost for the magic it takes to get the same armor as an adept. 1 magic in PP => 4/4 armor. Dermal Plating then would have to supply better than 4/4 armor for less than 10 BP (that's :nuyen:50,000) and has to take up less than 1 essence.

A cybersam will have better stats than an adept any day of the week. Case and point: Dan in the game I'm in is playing one. He can dual weild high velocity SMGs and hit two targets (long burst) each with a dicepool at least as large as my own for shooting one target (short burst), he's faster (he moves at a run, just slightly slower than the drake's flying run speed--i.e. he's almost twice as fast on foot), and he's got more armor (values, I don't know). AND that whole "attacker in melee" for ranged combat DP penalty? He doesn't have it (I have a measly -2 instead of the standard -3).