All right, here's what we've got:
Of the old 750 we can use 375(or more) for attributes and we usually do...
Costs went from x3 to x5
375/3x5=625
totaling 1000 as the new starting number...
Problem: if only half can be used on attributes, we actually gain points that cannot be spent on attributes...

Thoughts?

with the new rules 750karma is closer to 400BP, so I do not see a reason to raise the karma on karmagen.

cya
Tycho

Well, we'd probably use 1000 Karma, since we dig how the 750 Karmagen works now as it is. But Karmagen is easily adjustable for whatever game tastes you have.

Then again, we just still use the SR4 rules, so we use the 750. If we switched, though, 1,000 Karma would be more up the alley for our games.

Has anyone calculated the amount of Karma it would take to create each of the sample characters in SR4A if you built them with the KarmaGen rules?

I have not but I'll take a look at the costs. Might have something up later tonight or tomorrow. Depends on schedule tonight after work.

It has been a couple of months.

Does anyone have any thing to add?

Just that when I did karmagen vs bp gen comparisons awhile back, all but free spirits came close. 750 karma is now *roughly* equivalent to 400bp, with some swing either way.

We should (eventually) have the mods up in the new errata, but they aren't terribly extensive. I'd suggest using 750 Karma for SR4A characters, keeping in mind that attributes are (New Rating x 5) Karma.

We remade everyone one of our characters that were built under 400BP as Karmagen, every one had at least 50 karma left, most had 100+ left and this is with the x5 for attribute cost. The troll cost a bit more than 750, but it was a fairly absurd troll build. Heck I tried a few builds even ones that should be bad for a karmagen like soft capping as many stats as I could with an assortment of 2's in the rest of the stats, high or no skills none of this medium range diverse crap and karmagen still came out cheaper.

If you want characters around 400BP in quality 700BP would probably cover it for anyone but the Troll.

My character made under KarmaGen (admittedly with a slightly advantageous Houserule regarding when racial attribute bonuses are applied) ended up nearly at 500bp using SR4A rules. A change is not needed; KarmaGen was overpowered previously.

Edit: Ok, it was 450 bp. Subtract the 25 I saved from the houserule, that gives me 425.

Except that they promised that Karmagen would be updated to reflect the new karma costs.

It will. It should be in the next errata. I distinctly remember doing it.

The czech is in the male?

BlueMax
/thank you very much
// I will be here all weak
/// at least my jokes are

So is that an official karma for karmagen will not increase in the upcoming errata?

I seem to recall you saying that karmagen was balanced when it was first introduced, has that position changed?

One of the main reasons I shut up about the changes parachuted into SR4A was the indication that karmagen would be appropriately adjusted for the increased cost of stats. If this is not to be the case I think I will be able to classify myself as pretty damned peeved.

There's some behind-the-scenes details I can't go into on how KarmaGen was tabulated, but let's leave it to say there are figures that show 750 Karma should be suitable for SR4A characters (and is why I suggested 600 Karma for SR4 characters).

The errata will also address some other issues that were brought up by player feedback which should further balance Karmagen, or at least hopefully quiet the bitching to a dull roar.

Quiet the bitching? On dumpshock? Never

I'd agree though, that the 750 Karma suggested in Runner's Companion have been way to high under the old rules and should fit a lot better now.
I still don't agree with the design mandate of free races, but that's what houserules are for.

Well, that's the other major change.

Wait, what?
Wow. That's really cool. Shiny, even.
Now I'm intrigued. Care to elaborate, or is that still under wraps?

Well, things still have to be approved, but the major issues to address were a) making the needed edits so KarmaGen is compatible and balanced with SR4A's adjusted Karma costs, and b) addressing any balance problems inherent in the ruleset. The biggest part of b) was "free" races, so that will be address - i.e. there will now be a cost.

[/stepping off soap box] Free races was a design decision I went with for a couple reasons, but some very vocal people have been pissing blood and fire about it and they have a couple actual persuasive arguments regarding some character builds - definitely a case of roll-playing vs. roleplaying, but then KarmaGen is all mechanics anyway.

It wouldn't be so bad if there was a real reason to play a human under KarmaGen. Getting one measly point of extra Edge doesn't quite cut the mustard....

- J.

Not a master of Karma gen at all but the races are free. The cost is hidden. The only character who even came close to 750, at 746, was our troll. The 10 Body and the 8 Strength were fragging costly.

We don't use Karmagen, I don't claim to be an expert, this exercise was only done as an experiment.

BlueMax

I agree that 750 was a little high for SR4 but going from 3 to 5 times for the attributes is fairly expensive.

Bluemax:
That's only because the troll ran up his str & bod to max... and quite frankly that should cost.

There's a ton of argumentation on this in other threads and you can search it out.

Right now, I just say sit back and wait for them to actually playtest the errata and get it out. Then it's game for discussion.


More or less only to summarize (and not divert and reargue):
Races get freebie starting ranks for no cost (an elf w/ cha3, still has 25karma MORE than a human w/ cha3... if they both go to 5 the human is sitll 25karma behind)
Races get 'enhanced attribute' or 'metagenic improvement' MULTIPLE times again for no cost (meaning higher attrib caps a human can't even attempt to reach). A human can't get charisma to 8 easily or even 7 w/o paying through the nose.
Races pay nothing for penalized stats (meaning it's rediculously easy to play classes out of the norm... and in fact encouraged by the cost structure).
Dump stats subsidized the 'hidden cost' of strong stats. (if it only cost me 6 to raise cha on a troll from 1->2, then it already subsidized the cost of raising bod or str... and there's a lot more 'low' or 'dump' stats than there are stats w/ penalized cost).
And that's not touching that things like natural vision enhancements, armor, reach, etc. have a real value as well (especially when they directly translate into dice not lost or even gained in common situations as visibility mods are used a lot).

I agree maxing should cost in 4th ed, it does in BP. However, it shouldnt cost a Troll anymore to be one undermax in karmagen if it doesn't in BP.

If it does, its a penalty for being a troll. Or another P word, price.

Sorry for making a poor argument. Technically his body is not maxxed as he is a meta variant.

BlueMax

In the (probably futile) hopes of keeping this thread 'clean', I will not be saying anymore on the subject beyond what follows (if you want more detail, use the Search).


The lack of cost to play a non-Human race can be directly translated as free additional Karma, beyond the standard allotment, a character will receive for playing such a race - this has been mathematically proven by myself & others.

The 'hidden cost' of playing a non-Human race commonly cited in arguments against us takes into account attribute bonuses only, disregarding any other benefits for the metatype, such as a Troll's increased armor & reach. Even then, I have frequently shown that these 'hidden costs' are illusionary, & thus irrelevant anyways.

The only reason to play a Human in the current Karma Generation system is for role-play / character concept. Doing so punishes the character. This is at best bad design; a player should never be punished because of what they want to play - if they intentionally gimp their character, that is fine - it should not ever be included as a default for a concept by the rules.

I think there should be a cost for race so if they put that in I'm for it. I just think you should raise your stats and then add your racial mods just like you effectively do in BP.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...mp;#entry800106

Sounds like another example of how you're trying to minimize the "emphasis" on stats and focus back on skills, which I support wholeheartedly and so does my GM.
*tip of the hat*
I have a whole packet where I converted all the char-gen info to Karma Gen after coalating from all six books. I guess I need to keep a wary eye out for the erata...

I will keep my response simple (for a change):

Karma is Karma. Char Gen balance factors of the BP system don't apply if you're building from the ground up with the ongoing costs to begin with.

Add me to the list of peeved people if karmagen is nerfed. It was more powerful than BP, but that was part of what created the whole organic/well-rounded feel to its characters. Remember that the outrage over SR4A came from developers arbitrarily changing existing game mechanics mid-stream.

Yah, this is another reason why I'm happy we stick with the old system. My character would suddenly become illegal under this new system if I played him in a game other than my own, and that sucks, because I really like him. I mean, I COULD adjust him, but he would go from ''close combat specialist who kicks ass at armoring and has secondary skills in firearms and stealth, with a touch of intimidation and other small random skills'' to ''close combat specialist with an armorer skill because I can't afford the other skills now.'' (note: the whole table has a wide variety of skills. We tend to have primary, secondary, and tertiary skills on each character, and as a group we have worked incredibly well together. Last we left off my character was using his Armorer skill and some of his own nuyen to help modify some new weapons for the entire group, while our face was working on getting deals on such weapons and parts. Awseome synergy.)

I, for one, also liked the old meta costs, but meh. What can ya do. Giving them a cost doesn't really bother me either though, as long as the Karma costs are adjusted for balance.

Question-why not again list several different Karma amounts? For example, say ''If you want them kinda like the corebook, use 750. For low-powered games use 600. If you want characters akin to SR4's old 750 Karmagen, use 1,000.'' If you are planning on that, that's a good thing-but I would like something to maybe give an idea of what we can give for varied-powered games.

There isn't under BuildPoints, either - just play an Ork.

The official word was that characters will stay legit, though better.

Abilities are purchased for a certain cost and once you got it, it doesn't matter anymore what they did cost. So even if these costs change, the abilities stay.

That also means that until RC errata, feel free to use and abuse the fact that KarmaGen has cheap attributes and free races.

Ahh, that makes me feel a bit better. I was mainly worried that currently played character(my guy has a bit o Karma under his belt as well on top of it from being played), would have to be gutted and re-designed if they wanted to be used anyplace else. This takes a bit of a load off.

Also: Agree with your Ork comment. Really, I see people ''Go Ork'' for just about every concept under BP, and for good reason-even as faces they are ideal.(the 2 dice lost from having a 5 vs. 7 charisma can easily be made up with from outside mods and things like Pheremones, and 2 dice don't even equal 1 success. Being able to take a shot and pick up your own shoes as a bonus of only losing 2 face dice is excellent.)

At least under Karmagen people ''went Meta'' instead. [Okay-to be fair, if you were a combat-type mage, ''Going Dwarf'' was actually a sound option as well-but it was indeed play ork a good 80% of the time.)

I actually liked humans more under karmagen. The biggest problem with humans in BP is not coming behind in points, but the cap of 200 for Attributes. In karmagen, humans can actually have decent Attributes - I am likelier to play a human in karmagen than in BP.

Add me to that list, for pretty much the same reason.
As my Sasha will not lose any dice from her main stick(combat face) becouse of this nerf, but she will lose most extra skill as well as languages and knolledges(~50 karma in both)

BINGO

Exactly why I'd love to see a unified chargen and advancement system.

It eliminates a lot of twinkery that occurs in chargen.

It also means you're going to get a lot more starting characters who don't have any more room to improve their primary schtick, as theres' little to no reason to max it now or you'll pay out the nose later.

Exisiting characters are officially not influenced by either SR4A and thus neither by the RC errata to come.

So you don't lose anything - you'll be better than anyone from there on.

Funny, I never saw it as gimped, or as a penalty, to play a human in Karmagen... in fact, I have put together several characters using Karmagen, and they are ALL human... No accounting for tastes I guess...

I actually ran the numbers, and for the sample characters in the 4e core, converting to Karma Gen has an average cost of 620 Karma. Exact costs are as follows:

Your assuming that she's a character i have allready played with and not just a ready character build.
I was just commenting, that many characters will just have much less deepness with the new karmagen then old, as you cann't afford to take those skills that aren't part of the core consept.
And those extrass were exactly why i liked making characters in karmagen instead of buildpoints.

Remember that Karma Generation is not allowed in 'official' games, so if you want higher-level characters, use a higher starting allotment. My group almost exclusively plays with ~500BP (or equivalent).



For Missions characters, yes. Karma Generation is not allowed in Missions games, so your point has no relevance whatsoever.


See above.

Just use more points then. The base options in the game should be roughly balanced. If you want to play a higher powered campaign, just start with more points.

Or maybe, just maybe when giving multiple character generation options they should be roughly balanced amongst each other. It's a simple idea for us simple folk. Maybe you are just to complex and high thinking to understand it.

Just use BP or Karma for both, it's pretty easy. Karma is slightly easier to do because it a;ready has costs for everything (just add in double BP cost for races and add stats like an augmentation, not effecting karma costs now or in the future).

BP advancement is marginally more difficult (only marginally), and leads to better long term results because it avoids the karmagen 'trap'

In any team game specialization is stronger than diversification, and what SR4 does require a minimum amount of diversification, an extra dice in whatever it is that you do is always worth more than half a dozen dice in something that someone else does better than you do. Karma gen 'hoodwinks' you into diversification by making sure only the grimmest and toughest of players hack the pace and pay the karma, and hey, while that can work, it is a trap.

For the people saying they wanted the 'greater diversity' of the karma gen system - thats because the old 750 karmagen pre SR4A was the equivelent of playing with 550-600 BP characters. No wonder you could do more stuff - because you where massively powerful compared to a starting bloody character. IF you want 'more deepness' or whatever in the BP system, just give out more points damnit. Using karmagen is just giving out more points by stealth.

The other way round: How exactly is anybody going to prove she isn't a character already build?

The official say was for any existing character.

And, technically, it is RAW - once you pay the cost, you get the ability increase and the former cost doens't matter anymore. There are even RAW ways to influence the cost dynamically (Learning Stimulus) or get things at no cost at all (Linguistics). So if the costs go up or down, it only affects further advancement by RAW.

Bottom line: If either generation rules or advancement rules cange, it doesn't matter for existing characters reatroactively, both by RAW and official statement.

I love that... "I made a character using the most incredibly cheesy optional rules" Now when it changes can I keep it.

Considering that Missions chars must be 400BP book chars as I understand it. That' takes some real chutzpah.

For the illiterate among us.... First paragraph... SRM FAQ. (never played SRM myself, but I have read the FAQ at least)

Character Creation and transfer guide for SRM here!

"Character Creation
Creating a character is done as per the rules found in
Shadowrun, Fourth Edition. Make sure you have the latest
printing of SR4A. If you do not, please download the errata.
Shadowrun Missions uses the standard 400 BP system for generating
characters. Priority and KarmaGen are not allowed."

Translation... cheesing out you're already breaking the rules... and it doesn't matter. It even stats that SR4A costs are used... so if you bought attributes for 3x cost... you cheated already.

Entire point of SRM was so that you had uniform stuff for conventions if I understand it correctly. (never been to a convention... no clue how they run/police this stuff).

*notices the 5" shell curiously as it arcs across the bow*

Hmmm, I'm not sure how I want to address that. If it weren't for the last sentence I would have just gone ahead and answered seriously, and now I am trying to decide what to do.

As I apparently need to clarify my original statement, when using the Karma Generation system, the costs of progression and creation are essentially identical, so in theory it should be easier to compare two characters by just checking Karma cost totals: discrepancies like foci bonding costs are dramatically lessened in KarmaGen because there ARE no differences. Stats bought to max at character start in BP cost MORE to keep people from front-loading too heavily. With KarmaGen, that doesn't happen either. That is the point I was trying to make. I was not attempting to compare the relative "balance" levels of the two systems or make a value judgment in any way. The statement is what it is: when using the KarmaGen system, two characters side by side that have the same statistics should have the same value (assuming the same gear allocations) no matter when they bought the stats.

And since I DO feel the need to get at least a little of my own back, "Maybe [I am] just to[sic] complex and high thinking to understand it"... the word is spelled with two "o"s. Maybe [I am] just too complex and high thinking to understand it. If you're going to mock somebody's intelligence, it pays to check your spelling.

I mean, if Missions chars only allow BP, then I have little to worry about, since tables can adopt any rules they want.

For some Karmagen is ''cheesy'', for people like myself it ''opens options and easily allows for well-rounded characters, albiet a cut above the average runner.''

I mean, I COULD easily convert my guy(especially with his earned Karma), to 400 BP. But he would actually look incredibly cheesy and one-note if I did, as he would be missing all of the other skills that give him flavor, just so I could do his character-based stuff. (Of which his DPs don't run over 17 after mods, so he's not even some OP monster.)

But of course-if I wanted to play in Missions, I'd remake him normally. I have no problems there. I'd need Arsenal, Augmentation and RC to take full advantage, but I could do it.

I still like the idea of giving multiple Karma numbers. I think the old RC did that. After seeing the sample characters converted, listing 500, 750, 1000 Karma might be good(for low, typical, and more equal to the old Karmagen. Even tho 650 seems the average, don't forget metatypes will have a cost under the new system, thus increasing the metahuman character's costs-bringing them likely closer to 700ish.) This way people see a number and can tweak from there. Some of us like playing people a cut above the rest, and we like to know that devs actually think of us as well(since it seems incredibly taboo by many folks that people dare play above an average power level, fun be damned. )

It really annoys me when the rule set gets drastically altered like this. Karmagen was more powerful than build points. I assume it was intended that way. So leave it that way - fix it to take the new costs into account, and stop messing with everything. It should be an errata, not a damn re-write.

We're not talking a re-write, kiddos. The SR4A changes weren't that extensive.