I've had a magician concept I've wanted to play for quite some time. He could be likened to a charismatic eclectic wiccan with a circus/carnival background and an adverserial relationship with his Seductress mentor spirit and a dark secret along with some homicidal tendencies and occasional use of sacrifice (animals only, so far). However, I've never been able to get him just the way I want him under 400bp character creation, which I find is often a problem with magicians, given the extra points that need to be sunk into magic, among some other considerations, so I've decided to try crafting him in Karmagen.

According to the Karmagen improvement table, Attributes are new rating x3 per point, Skill groups are rating x3 per point and skills are rating x2 per point, and it's all cumulative. I drew up some little tables to help me out here.

Skill Group:
R1: 5
R2: 15
R3: 30
R4: 50

However, I've been using Daeganns Chargensr4 and it lists the Karma cost for an R4 Skill group as 55. Am I wrong or is the chargen wrong?

Attributes:
R1: 3
R2: 9
R3: 18
R4: 30
R5: 45
R6: 63
R7: 84
R8: 108 (90 for an elf, right?)

However, the Karmagen system says that Attributes start at the race's attribute minimum. So in the case of a human with 5 Agility, it would cost 42 points, because he didn't pay for the rating 1 attribute. An Elf with R5 charisma would pay 27 karma. Am I correct here?

I had a look for Karmagen threads, but couldn't find any relevant ones with the search, and I didn't want to try trawling through the whole Runner's Companion thread. I'll probably find more things that confuse me, so I'll probably post with more questions later.

If anyone knows of any karmagen aids like a full list of karma costs for skills or a karmagen creator app/excel doc I'd be grateful. Also, if you've got Karmagen character sheets with the costs listed I'd love to have a look.

1. Attributes
You have that right, the first is always free, and metas get their minimums free.

2. Skills
In this case the first is not free, but costs double. Increment by 5 karma and you are fine.


Regarding RC troubles I recommend the Unofficial Errata Thread.

I noticed that other than the native language skill, karmagen seems to require that you pay karma for every language and knowledge point. Does this jar with anyone else? It seems to me it discourages knowledge skills, which are not all that useful, but great for characterisation.

For balance, everything but base stats, race and native language must be payed for with karma. Giving free Knowledge Skills would be double dipping on the Karma spent on Logic/Intuition.

I don't know why but i end up getting much more language and knowledge skills in karmagen.
For example on buildinf my Sasha i somehow ended up spending 53 karma for knowledge skills and 51 karma to languages(she speaks 13 different languages )

Yes, it does discourage knowledge skills to a certain extent. Even in my games where having Knowledge skills help a good deal.

It helps that BP gen is great for Knowledge skills, if nothing else. Which is why I allow my players to choose freely between BP and karma gen (the 800 karma equivalent nosferatu created with 400 BP might have something to do with that ).

And I bet he's a fairly knowledgeable Nosferatu, too!

Personally I'd allow the free Knowledge points the same way BP-build does. I mean, honestly.

Your skill costs are off because you have the improvement costs right, but a new skill at rating: 1 costs 4 Karma, and a new skill group at rating: 1 costs 10 Kama.

Your Attribute examples are correct (42 karma for the human, 27 Karma for the elf, etc.).

A good list of the skills:

Regular:

1-4 Karma
2-4 Karma(8 total at this point)
3-6 Karma(14 K at this point)
4-8 karma(22 K total)
5-10 Karma(32 K)
6-12 Karam(44 K)

Don't forget Aptitude doubles the Karma you must spend, too-so a 7 would cost 21 Karma(7x3), and to bring a skill from 0 to 7 will cost you a grand total of 65 Karma.

Specializations are 2 Karma.

(Given these scores, it's no wonder that 3(+2) is the 'sweet spot' for most people.)

It's the same way you'd buy them in game; but it can be confusing to do it ALL at once at the start, since when you increase in-game, you do it in small increments.



I remember that guy. Classic. I believe he was in the thread where folks were TRYING to figure out a rule of thumb BP-Karma ratio, and it was determined that 400 BP characters can from from 550-over 800, which basically solved nothing.

(To be fair, 600-650 Karma is a good rule of thumb if you must...but as the Nosferatu knowledge machine can prove, things can be different.)

As for knowledges-I do find that many of our characters have MORE than they would in BP. Yes, in BP, you get it free...but since on average, folks end up with around 18 points, they don't want to take actual BP into them. In Karmagen, I see many more knowledge skills(but experiences can vary. Some here find people don't buy them at their tables.