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Ard3
I have seen lot of ridiculous high dice pools characters here in DS.
Some as examples or mental exercise.
But what is power level of characters people actually play?

Primary skills meaning characters specialty, like Spellcasting or Summoning for mage, social skills for face, weapon skill of choise for sam etc.
Usually maybe 1-4 highest pools character has.

Secondary skills are skills like pistols for face, etiquette on sam etc or skills like Perception and Athletics that everyone should have at least some training.

My group likes low power level, character have around 10-12 in their main areas and lots of skills in 6-8 range.
This creates challenge, because things like situational modifiers really mean a lot.

It is fun to sometimes to just walk over all challenges, but when you have gone through really bad situation and through some oddball plan make it in (more or less) one piece it just feels more rewarding.

Thoughts?
Cain
It depends a bit. It's easier to get a Combat or Social dice pool into the upper-20's than it is to, say, get a spellcasting pool up there. That means the average dice pool is going to be lower than actual dice pools.

I marked 20, however, because that's where I have my game's suggested cap at. I ask my players to stick to that level, and they generally comply. Saves me a lot of hassle in the long run.
crazyconscript
A lot of the players in our games tend to have 14-18 dice for their specialty, but this tends to be reduced/increased by situational modifiers quite a bit. The largest dice pool we have used in a game has been 35 dice, and that was a damage resistance check with cover between the target and the shooter contributing its armour.
InfinityzeN
Average in my game is 16~20 primary and around 10~14 secondary. That is not counting situational modifiers. My guys are a little higher skilled then normal.

In the street game I'm playing, average primary is 10~12 and secondary is 6~8.
Doc Byte
My Cybermage after nearly 6 years of exclusive play:

Karma: 453
Highest natural attribute: Body, Charisma, Willpower, Edge, Magic 4 (all else 3)
Highest augmented attribute: Body 6 (other physicals 5)

For the records: Essence ~2,1 Ini-Grade 3

Highest natural skills: Spellcasting 5, Astral Combat & Unarmed Combat & Blades & Automatics & Pistols 4 plus some specialisations and smartlink
Highest augmentated skills: Athletic skills 5, Perception 3+3 & everything that gets the 3 points from the weapon fokus cyberspur

Average skill level: ~2 (lots of new skills recently at 1)

Number of active skills (groups & singel): 44
Number of knowled skills & languages: 27 (avarage ~2 plus 1 or 2 based on Logic or Intution)

Avarage dice pool: About 6 I guess
Highest dice pools: Firearms skills with smartlink and specialisation 13, spellcasting 9 with odin's (wise warrior) help at combat spells 11
Lowest dice pool: 4W
ElFenrir
Well, I marked 14-16 for primary and 6-8 secondary, though they are more 15-17 and 7-9, taking a look at our character sheets. Little things may vary; for example, our medic/driver has lower primary pools, even with his large numbers in them and his Logic, simply due to their being less outside modifiers(Smartlinks, reach, social pool modifiers, etc.) , but his are still in the 9-12 range.

My current guy can roll up to 17(Kick Attack +1), for his unarmed, and his lowest score is Negotiations at 6 dice(Charisma 4, Negotiations 2.) His other skills run 11ish to 14ish for combat(after reach and smartlinks), and 7-9 social. He does have a high Urban Infiltration specialization(throws 13 there.) The other guys are similar; one guy tosses around 13-15 with a monowhip, 13-15 with a revolver, and 11 or so infiltration and perception, another tosses 9 or so social dice, 14 with a knife or pistol, and 12-13 with heavy weapons if I recall off the top of my head, but he did get some karma so a couple might have even gone up from there. Our Athletics scores run somewhere between 8 and 13 depending.

So yeah, seems about right for us. 750 Karmagen with no Availability limit at start is our method if it matters.
Nexushound
My PC's dice pools for thier main skills are pretty high. 14-16 range. I throw the world at them though and look for every possible mod I can get away with without seeming like a Rules Lawyer. It evens out in the end though, the players know what they are good at, at they plan according to their strengths. For their secondary skills there seems to be some level of awareness, as far as the players go, that they need to improve those skills if they really intend to utilize them so we are getting a good mix of Karma expenditure. With the multitude of situational modifiers I feel that these dice pool levels are actually working well. There is still a chance that they will fail but rolls come up in their favor often enough, and sometimes just scraping by , that it is not all roses and Crit successes with my players cartwheeling around and doing flying back flips.
Our biggest dice pool though...Our Combat Monster. With her armor, Titanium Bone lacing and Dermal Plating III I beleive she is rolling 24 dice to resist damage. I cringe and she smirks every time she rolls that handfull of dice. No buying automatic successes here. One day she will Crit Glitch and when that day comes she won't just shrug off my Auto-fire. Just wait Brutalis!!!
ElFenrir
Not to change the subject too much, but for characters with tons of armor:

-Stun/Manabolt.(Easiest way.)
-Stick 'n Shock(halves armor.)
-High powered rifles with APDS. This is a bit mean, however, as they tend to do Physical damage, so if you aren't looking to obliterate, it's harsh. Yes, high armor reduces it to Stun, but a 15S bullet will probably put them very wobbly, if not knocked out cold.
-Hell, I had an adept who had Killing Hands/Elemental Strike Sonic. The latter NEGATES armor. Foom. Especially when they are attacking with 18 Unarmed dice and hitting for 14-something damage base(very easy for an adept to do, granted, he was loaded with Critical Strike, Bone Density and and even Strength.)
-Couple a lot of these with Surprise, to force them to not get a dodge roll(though be careful with surprise. Using physical damage on a surprise can just waste the character, which isn't always cool.)


Don't fret, there are plenty of ways to deal with high-armor characters. As a GM, I don't even blink when someone brings one in-when the time comes(I'm not a GM vs. PC GM at all, but I know how to make people's sweat), I have the tools to make them realize they are far from invincible. My current character, a sam, rolls after adding Body + Armor around 20 dice to defend(this is not including the Dodge, even), and let me tell you, I do NOT feel invincible, and I tend to always worry when I see autofire come out.

(end offtopic.)
crazyconscript
I think about 20+ dice is normal for any character i have seen who wants to be able to soak damage. But i wouldn't exactly call the ability to stand in front of bullets a proper skill. Even if all your armour reduces damage to stun, there is still the chance to take stun. And an unconscious runner might as well be a dead runner. And an unconscious runner wearing a heckuva lot of armour and with high body is going to be a lot harder to carry to safety.
The actual SKILL rolls tend to be far less than damage resistance rolls in my experience, as it is a lot easier to load on heavy armour and get something heavy between you and the pain than it is to excel in many things.
Draco18s
QUOTE (crazyconscript @ Mar 24 2009, 01:22 PM) *
I think about 20+ dice is normal for any character i have seen who wants to be able to soak damage.


I wouldn't count this as a valid dice pool for this poll.
pbangarth
QUOTE (Doc Byte @ Mar 23 2009, 03:32 PM) *
My Cybermage after nearly 6 years of exclusive play:

Karma: 453
Highest natural attribute: Body, Charisma, Willpower, Edge, Magic 4 (all else 3)
Highest augmented attribute: Body 6 (other physicals 5)

For the records: Essence ~2,1 Ini-Grade 3

Highest natural skills: Spellcasting 5, Astral Combat & Unarmed Combat & Blades & Automatics & Pistols 4 plus some specialisations and smartlink
Highest augmentated skills: Athletic skills 5, Perception 3+3 & everything that gets the 3 points from the weapon fokus cyberspur

Average skill level: ~2 (lots of new skills recently at 1)

Number of active skills (groups & singel): 44
Number of knowled skills & languages: 27 (avarage ~2 plus 1 or 2 based on Logic or Intution)

Avarage dice pool: About 6 I guess
Highest dice pools: Firearms skills with smartlink and specialisation 13, spellcasting 9 with odin's (wise warrior) help at combat spells 11
Lowest dice pool: 4W


I'm curious, what do folks in Wuppertal spend 400+ karma on? Do you have a lot of different skills, or contacts? Spells? Where did it all go?
crazyconscript
@Draco18

I know, thats why i said in the rest of the post that i dont think it really counts as a skill, and that the actual skill rolls tend to be lower (~14-16 usually as i said earlier). I was just trying to point out how DR can get a lot higher than other rolls pretty easily.
Doc Byte
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 25 2009, 02:33 AM) *
I'm curious, what do folks in Wuppertal spend 400+ karma on? Do you have a lot of different skills, or contacts? Spells? Where did it all go?


Yes, mostly skills. It goes like this: "Hey, I own a boat. I should be able to maintain it. That would be... ah, nautical mecanics 1. Hobbyist skill level." - And that happend with way to much skills. The same goes for knowledge skills. As it's my only character for nearly 6 years a lot of my own interests crept into him over time. Recently I got the RC and I think I did some overkill giving him the escaped clone and latent dracomorphosis qualities. (still unawaken) And of course using SURGE to get positive qualities beyond 70 karma points looks a bit like powergaming. On the other hand he's totaly incompetent regarding dice pools. I must confess, as I have just one character, I somehow tried to build in everything that would be good for at least 3 characters. It all began with a nearly burned out concept in SR3 with geased Magic of 1(3) and old school Streetsam Ware. (So the low magic abilities are part of the concept.) Very retro as my first SR1 character was a shaman and the second (then SR2) was a sam. And I found out, whenever I try to start playing someone else I just can't. I like my cybermage too much. He's perfect for me.

I have his stats online but just in German. I could translate them if you're interested in them.
Draco18s
QUOTE (crazyconscript @ Mar 25 2009, 08:36 AM) *
I know, thats why i said in the rest of the post that i dont think it really counts as a skill, and that the actual skill rolls tend to be lower (~14-16 usually as i said earlier). I was just trying to point out how DR can get a lot higher than other rolls pretty easily.


And I was agreeing with you.
crazyconscript
Fair enough grinbig.gif
ElFenrir
My sam is about to get a Locksmith skill at 1 for a reason of chance. He has been in several situations where he had his Agility 9(default pool cool.gif and a Multitool(inadequate tool, -2), for 6 dice....and has succeeded. I'm thinking in his spare time he might read a book or two and practice a lock here and there and pick up the skill at 1 along with a set of picks(or an autopicker). While he is by far more able to kick a door from his hinges with his insane strength, there are times where that is just too noisy. biggrin.gif

But I notice in the past characters of both mine, and my friends, end up with those 1's, 2's or 1+2 skills in a variety of things for reasons of just sorta doing them on the side or wanting to figure them out.
pbangarth
QUOTE (Doc Byte @ Mar 25 2009, 05:55 AM) *
I have his stats online but just in German. I could translate them if you're interested in them.


Actually, I'm having fun translating it... slowly. Much of it is understandable even without translation.

This, and my noticing that he has several language skills reminds me that I like to have PCs with lots of language skills. If the PC is an adept, chances are he has the adept power Linguistics, and often the Quality as well. Not only do I like the idea of being multilingual from a personal standpoint, it makes sense in a globally connected world like Shadowrun. And with the adpet power, the PC just has to talk with someone to pick up another language, for 0 karma. How cool is that!

Wow. Looking him over some more. Who needs skillsofts??
Doc Byte
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 25 2009, 09:08 PM) *
Actually, I'm having fun translating it... slowly. Much of it is understandable even without translation.


Yes, it's still Shadowrun. And as I use Catalyst's rulebooks the character sheet's a mix of German and English anyway.

QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 25 2009, 09:08 PM) *
This, and my noticing that he has several language skills reminds me that I like to have PCs with lots of language skills. If the PC is an adept, chances are he has the adept power Linguistics, and often the Quality as well. Not only do I like the idea of being multilingual from a personal standpoint, it makes sense in a globally connected world like Shadowrun. And with the adpet power, the PC just has to talk with someone to pick up another language, for 0 karma. How cool is that!


This character was born in Germany and his family moved to Seattle when he was five. So he speaks German and English. (I would have loved to give him the bilingual quality but I had used up the 35 BP / 70 Karma points.) Middle German is the medieval form of German spoken in the 11th to 14th century. And Latin's well just Latin. biggrin.gif I gave him French as his first live foreign language with regard to his interest in history as the historical science of Europe, North Africa and the Near East is mostly written in English, French and German. And Arabic is the result of a number of runs in arabic or arabic dominated countries.

QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 25 2009, 09:08 PM) *
Wow. Looking him over some more. Who needs skillsofts??


That's the thing I told you: He has a sailing yacht. So he needs boats and a lttle bit of nautical mechanics. He was once a member of a biker gang after running away from his family and SK. So he needs ground vehicles. But he has a pimped car as well. That's ground vehicles mechanics. He may want to use and combine electronic devices and computers. Okay, just learn the whole electronics skill group. Wait, a sam should be able to maintain his guns giving him the armorer skill... And that are just the secondary skills. Spells are good, but the may cause a headache. Just learn paracuting and diving and save the levitation spell for emergencies.

And then the knowledge part...First his hobbies and street experience, than living at a talismonger's home for some years and helping at the shop in his free time. And then lots of historical and literarily interests picked up at some college courses he manged to sneak into. Last some japanese and arabic culuter studies he picked up while living in these cultures for some time and trying to blend in.


A long time character tends to develop a life of his own. I don't acutally feel bad about low dice pools. At least not at his true hobbyist skills. But when I read of pools of 18 and more at primary skills whereas there's a human range from 2 to 12 without specialisations or exeptional attributes or skills, I begin to wounder if my pools of about 9W aren't to small too succeed in his main tasks.
Angier
Hey DocByte. Let's pit Wulf against Angier grinbig.gif
ElFenrir
QUOTE
A long time character tends to develop a life of his own. I don't acutally feel bad about low dice pools. At least not at his true hobbyist skills. But when I read of pools of 18 and more at primary skills whereas there's a human range from 2 to 12 without specialisations or exeptional attributes or skills, I begin to wounder if my pools of about 9W aren't to small too succeed in his main tasks.


Well, here's how I think of it.

Your typical person(Attribute 3), with a professional skill level(Skill 3), gets an average of 2 successes. Of course, he could fail totally, or he could succeed awesomely(indeed, Ive rolled 5 hits of 6 dice before.) In his day to day job, he probably won't have to roll thresholds higher of...well, nothing. He also has adequate tools, shops, and the like, and probably of good quality(possibly a bonus die.) Plus, he has buddies(helping bonus.) So that mechanic can do day to day tasks with little trouble, and when it comes time to UberPimp Xzibit the 14th's new car, he's got a team helping him. Even then, the threshold is probably not terribly high unless they need to build a working kitchen in the fan. Also, figure this team might even have a couple specialties sprinkled about(the leader.)

But a runner team ends up in situations that are a bit above and beyond your typical situation. While a normal beat cop might at best have to fire at a day to day criminal(also 3's, and maybe even less in the skill), he can probably cope with that(and he has friends.) But stick said mechanic above in a situation where his car needs a massive overhaul(Threshold 3), yesterday(he gets one shot), and he has crappy tools to do it with(-2), and it's pouring rain on him. At that point, those 6 dice are not going to go to far. Even with Edge it's going to be slim. (It's hard to say what teh 'average' Edge in, because IMO, a normal day to day guy COULD have a very high Edge, he's just lucky. Likewise, an incredibly skilled world class person could have crap for luck.)That's why the team's vehicle specialist has those brain boosters(+2 Logic, or +2 dice), a much higher skill(5) and specializations(another 2). Even then it's going to be tough, and he might have to pop Edge too there.

Some runners end up facing down those multiple opponents, where those 8 firearms dice(for primary), under bad lighting(-2 let's say), at long range(-2) will disappear fast.

When you look at statistics, it's roughly 3 dice=1 success. For day to day things it's not an issue, but runners end up in situations worse than that, sometimes MUCH worse than that, and so people like to perhaps try to get the chips in their favor. Again-it's not a guarentee. I've seen people who are rolling massive amounts of Stealth dice get only a couple of hits. It can go either way. But I, as a player in our typical power level(again 750 Karma), feel better when I have a solid 12-16 dice in my primary skill. It's not an automatic win by far, but at least I feel like I can take on those adverse conditions that pop up(and much more often than Joe Beatcop or Mechanic.)

At the same time, there comes a time where it's just not worth it to try to squeeze out 25 dice for something. Having 6-9 in some secondary skills and 16 in a couple primaries beats having 25 in a primary and no secondaries any day of the week, in my book.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 24 2009, 07:33 PM) *
I'm curious, what do folks in Wuppertal spend 400+ karma on? Do you have a lot of different skills, or contacts? Spells? Where did it all go?



Did you not see the amounbt of skill she has... 44 Active Skills and 27 Knowledge skills... that is what it would have been spent on...


Just my two cents
pbangarth
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Mar 26 2009, 10:49 AM) *
Did you not see the amounbt of skill she has... 44 Active Skills and 27 Knowledge skills... that is what it would have been spent on...

Just my two cents


My question got me to see how someone from far away builds his character; it gave me a chance to connect with that far away person; and it gave me some fun translating a foreign (to me) language. Worth way more than two cents in my book! rotate.gif
crizh
This is a really difficult subject. Almost all of the SR I play is here on dumpshock, so while I have characters with Primary Dice Pools in the 14-16 range almost all of them have much bigger pools.

Thing is that most games don't go on long enough to see significant advancement so I tend to focus on a particular Speciality out of the gate. I pick something and make sure the character is really, really ridiculously good at it, 21-24 is the norm for me.

That being said, that is where you tend to cap out unless your Awakened.

I'm playing a mage in one high powered game here that has Spellcasting and Drain dice pools in the high 30's but that is the exception rather than the rule.

As for secondary skills, like Perception, I like to be in the 11-13 range. While 6-8 is more than competent from a fluff perspective, from a mechanics PoV it's just not good enough for most tasks and the probability of glitching is worryingly high.
Doc Byte
QUOTE (Angier @ Mar 26 2009, 03:33 PM) *
Hey DocByte. Let's pit Wulf against Angier grinbig.gif


Just where did you leave your karma points? eek.gif
Angier
Karma Generation: Starting Connections, Knowledge Skills, Magic Loss etc.
KX082
In my current game my current character (300BP) has a main of 15, however that requires 1 dice in the first attack 2 in the second and then the rest split between the two as I see fit. That is his primary (Dual wield melee), the games hard cap on starting primaries was 10 though since I have to split the gm gave me the ok, when he uses one weapon it is a 10 for daggers and knives and a 9 for his longsword focus. The rest the gm set a limit of 8.

My character before that only had a main skill of 8 but focused on the negatives to the other people (stealth so Chameleon Suit and Traceless step @-4 Dp each means that unless you focus on one sense you are not finding him for the most part). It was a way around having to have a high skill and rolls that always are high.
RedeemerofOgar
QUOTE (crizh @ Mar 26 2009, 04:13 PM) *
I'm playing a mage in one high powered game here that has Spellcasting and Drain dice pools in the high 30's but that is the exception rather than the rule.


How the bleep do you get a high-30's drain? A fully-augmented CHA-based elf mage with Exceptional Attribute should cap out his drain pool at 22 plus centering. Are you a level 15 initiate?
Glyph
The thing with dice pools is that they tend to be higher for magic, combat, and social skills, all of which are opposed tests with a lot of potential negative modifiers. Other skills don't have the same number of potential dice pool modifiers, but a dice pool of 12 in pistols is, while effective, far from optimal, whereas a dice of 12 for infiltration is pretty damn good.

My dice pools have tended to be in the 17-20 range, since I like playing combat-oriented/face characters. Also, I like having a decent spread of secondary skills, or at least no glaring weaknesses, so I avoid point-gobblers such as aptitude, exceptional attribute, or even hard-maxing my primary stat.
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