He falls 5 karma behind his pals if they did not have to burn edge. If you do that every session and have 26 sessions a year that is 130 karma he is behind his pals and it is significant. If its a one time thing its no big deal. Also whenever its to not die I guess you can say you just saved infinite karma. I suspect part of the discussion though is for when you burn karma for something other than avoid death, like a really awesome success on a kill shot. And then a 1 edge guy just lost 5 karma for a really cool shot and its totally worth falling behind your pals for that.

Once again just because (9*X) is larger than (9*X)-(5*E) does not mean that (9*X)-(5*E) is less than (5*X)-(3*E).

The question is not:

"How much behind is Mr. EdgeBurn over the rest of the party?"

The question is:

"How much less behind is Mr. EdgeBurn in SR4A over SR4?"

You can keep saying that that's the only question, but everyone else is going to keep saying that it's not a very relevant one. The reason why nobody wants to discuss that question is because it doesn't matter. What matters is the overall usefulness of burning edge in SR4A, and no matter how many times you tell people to put that issue out of their heads, they won't. So you can probably stop trying.

Here's the original post for your benefit:



Fact 1: Characters with 1 point of edge found it beneficial to burn it (see quoted material).
Fact 2: Karma awards with SR4A are better than SR4 with regards to raising attributes (such as Edge--see my math in previous posts).

Somehow despite these two facts it's become less of an option to burn edge? It was an option before, and apparently quite a good one and it's become less detrimental to do so and in so doing it became less viable?!?

You are a member of the Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People?



Like I said, roughly +/-20% more than it did before. *shrug* Although because you are limited to burning 1 Edge per session (unless you buy 2 Edge) in SR4A you are effectively throttled more so in burning up your advancement, forcing you to moderate the split between burning Edge and advancing. Naturally that's better for your character because it curbs your commitment to the Mr. Stupid strategy.

So you're telling me that Fact 2 (burned edge is relatively lest costly to replace) is wrong?

All my math seems to indicate otherwise:
(9*X)-(5*E) is larger than (5*X)-(3*E) for all positive values X and E where the f(X,E) is positive.*

SR4 or SR4A, Fact 1 is still limited to once (or twice) a session. That hasn't changed.

*The two equations are equal at X = 2, E = 1, but f(X,E) = -2.

I suppose the question comes down to this:

Exactly how valuable is 5 karma?

In a Mr. Burn build (which I have encountered) is 3 out of 5 more or less valuable than 5 out of 9?

Remember, we're discussing a Mr. Burn build, who presumably plans on burning Edge every so often and doesn't mind falling behind his compatriots.

Assuming that 5 karma has a value of N (regardless of what N is) 2/5ths of N is smaller than 4/9ths.

Therefore, Mr. EdgeBurn would be much better off in SR4A.

Now, here's the problem with your argument. We're talking about the cost of burning a point of edge.

cost
–noun
1. the price paid to acquire, produce, accomplish, or maintain anything: the high cost of a good meal.
2. an outlay or expenditure of money, time, labor, trouble, etc.: What will the cost be to me?
3. a sacrifice, loss, or penalty: to work at the cost of one's health.
4. costs, Law.
a. money allowed to a successful party in a lawsuit in compensation for legal expenses incurred, chargeable to the unsuccessful party.
b. money due to a court or one of its officers for services in a cause.

In no where in the definition of cost will you find 'What you have left over after paying for something'. The amount left over has nothing to do with how much it cost the person to burn a point of edge. It costs more for a guy with 8 edge to burn a point of edge than it does a guy who only has 1. It costs more for a guy to lose 5 points of their karma than it does to lose 3 points.

Besides which, we're talking about an optional edge burn. If your character is about to die, it becomes a lot harder to measure the cost. It's probably worth it to spend five adventure's worth of karma to save your favorite character.

HOWEVER, if it's possible to succeed without burning edge, what do you think people will consider when they're deciding whether or not to burn that edge? Are they going to be thinking about how much karma they'd have left over? Or would they be measuring the value of what they're giving up versus the value of what they're getting by burning edge?

<Edited to remove a late night screw up. Grumble>

The problem is that the question doesn't really have an answer. We're not dealing with a set number of karma, or a set of circumstances where you definitely need or don't need to burn edge. Is it good or bad to burn edge? No matter what the ratios are between rule versions, the answer is, in the famous words of Bob Dole, "Depends." I think we know the math, and there are no mathematical disagreements. The only disagreement is what you call the mathematical conclusions, do you label it "less expensive than it was," or "still not worth it?" That, in the end, is pointless semantics. I propose that anyone who tries to make character decisions in Shadowrun based on mathematical averages will fail miserably, because there are too many variables to account for. The only way to decide the best path for a Shadowrun character is to evaluate the totality of the character sheet in the context of the specific campaign. We'll never resolve this question, because without the context, it has no resolution. So maybe I'm saying, in a polite way, that everyone should get over themselves and shut up on this topic. Consider it closed, or the mods will more likely than not start bringing out the hammers.

Very true. The cost isn't what you have left over, but in terms of character growth it is. Burning Edge costs me a growth opportunity.

How much of an opportunity?

E*K.

Where E is your edge before burning (and after raising) and K is the karma cost per attribute, either 5 or 3 depending on with version of SR4.

Now, is E*K relatively higher in SR4 or in SR4A?

While it may cost more under SR4A, you'll be able to replace it faster under SR4A.

SR4 / Raise Edge from 7 to 8: 24 Karma
Avg Karma earn rate: 5 karma
Sessions Required: 5
Leftover Karma: 1

SR4A / Raise Edge from 7 to 8: 40 Karma
Avg Karma earn rate: 9 karma
Sessions Required: 5
Leftover Karma: 5

Assumptions:
1. Edge was burnt from 8 down to 7 for some reason.
2. Replacement Edge was purchased.

Conclusion:
========
SR4A with its increased Karma gain rate puts character advancement ahead of what SR4 had set. This is despite the increased cost of raising Attributes.

Attribute costs went up 66.66% while the Karma gain rate went up 80%. The net result from anyone able to add & subtract would be that you end up with roughly 13.34% more Karma than before if you were purchasing nothing but attributes.

Skill advancement has gone up 80% over SR4 due to skill costs NOT changing and Karma gain rate going up 80%. Again, this assumes you were purchasing nothing but skills. Most players will be raising both skills and attributes so the overall character advancement rate will be somewhere between 13.34% and 80% depending on the specific ratio and amounts of skill to attribute increases.

To put it into a real world example...

You pay $100 / week for gasoline and $100 / week for food. You currently get an allowance of $240 / week for food & gasoline expenses. Fears of an oil shortage cause your gas expenses to rise to $166.67 / week. But you also landed a promotion which increases your allowance for food & gasoline expenses. Your new allowance is $432.

Under the old numbers, you had $40 leftover. Under your new allowance, you end up with $165.33 leftover.

With SR4 vs SR4A, one fixed cost went up. But your income rate also went up. It went up by a larger amount than the fixed cost did. End result is you have more income to work with than before, even after accounting for the increase in the fixed costs.

As per the last 70ish posts and the calculations that Tunnel Rat and I have been kindly providing in numerous forms, SR4A. By a value of somewhere in a range bounded by +0% (assuming purchase of only Attributes during entire life of character) and +67% (assuming purchase of all non-Attributes during entirely life of character).


This is a request going out to Bull from that special someone in his life, "could you please play him something cheerful to get him through till the end of thread?"


EDIT: Oh man, just as Draco18s is coming around another lost soul shows up?

Over and over. But I still have hope that no matter how slow on the uptake you are you'll finally get it.



Yeah well your math is brutally misapplied. *shrug*



No it hasn't changed, your math is still brutally misapplied in the same way.

That's the tough thing about applied math. If you start out with a broken translation from the problem domain to your mathematical model then it doesn't matter if you manipulate the numbers correctly. Ironically you are more likely to produce the correct answer if instead you screw up the arithmetic.

Last I checked 9 * 5 = 45 and 5 * 5 = 25. (Karma for playing 5 sessions)
Regardless of how much I'm spending to raise edge (nX), 40-5X is going to always be greater than 25-3X. Find me a number for X < 9* that shows otherwise.

Increased karma gain is increased growth as long as the costs haven't changed. The only cost that DID change was attributes and it went up by less than the increased karma awards.

(Edit: managed to screw up my basic arithmetic somehow--I'm clearly not getting enough sleep)

*X = 9 means that with 25 karma you can't buy the point of edge, though the point still holds true (0 > -2), at X = 10, the equations are equal at -5 after that it falls apart, but neither character can buy the karma anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Fail.

Basic economics. If the numerical value of Cost remains the same, but resources available (money) increases, then the actual Cost has decreased.



In other words, despite the Karma cost not changing (directly), everything in SR4A except attributes are 40% cheaper than they where in SR4A. Attributes are ~4% cheaper.

Actually, K would be more accurately defined as the value of a point of karma, because players buy much more than attributes with their karma. Now, the value of K can be as low as .6 (you buy only attributes), and as high as 1 (you buy anything but attributes).

Both cases are rather unrealistic, because I know of no character who intends to spend on ONLY attributes or anything BUT attributes.

After going over my CPI, and cutting out things that MR. Lucky wouldn't be able to buy (Magic/techno stuff), I recalculated K as 0.89. So, you're getting 45 karma now that's equal to 40.05 SR4 karma, and you're spending 40 for edge that's 35.6 SR4 karma.



That would be definition #2: 2. an outlay or expenditure of money, time, labor, trouble, etc.: What will the cost be to me?

Again, we're not talking about GASOLINE here. You can't get to work without gas, but you could avoid buying coffee when you pay for your gas, right? If you choose to break your edge burning addiction, your benefits are sooooo much better in SR4A.

Let's take a look at it from another perspective. Let's say you walk into a game, and the GM wants to know how powerful the NPCs should be to confront you. A good measure of a character's power is how much karma they've earned. So who's going to face the more powerful NPCs? The SR4 guy, or the SR4A guy?

25 karma vs 40.05 karma (45 * .89)?

0.6 and 1.0 whats?

The whole point of my argument that karma has some defined value, for which 1 karma is 1 karma, regardless of what it buys you. Is 5 karma more or less than 9 karma?

Is 5 minus 3 karma more or less than 9 minus 5 karma?

Or putting this another way:

Inflation comes along and increases your paycheck 80% and the cost of milk 60%.
Would you like to take the raise and pay the increased cost of milk, or would you rather not?
You may not take the increased paycheck and last week's price of milk.

Ooookay... Closing this down now. Everyone, take a deep breath, step back, and try to remember... This is a game. GMs can bend, tweak, and break the rules as they see fit. Nothing works out 100% of the time. And you're debating with mathematical equations now, for God's sake. Seriously, I think you need to go outside and get some air or sunshine or something.