I don't find anything in the rules that disallows someone who is Incompetent in a Skill from buying an Activesoft in that Skill for the same cost as anyone else. Is this doable? Are there any costs/ modifiers for using the Skill?

Doable.
No/No
That's what Skillwires/Active-Softs are meant to do.

By raw yes, but IMHO-that qualifies as abusing the system. As a GM, I'd say no. To get the bonus BP for a disadvantage there has to be some penalty. This loophole really means that there is no penalty. My rown ruling is, well yeah you can buy the skillsoft but unfortunately your body doesn't process that skill as normal, so you can't use it.Now if they pay off the flaw, then I'd let them use it.

The disadvantage is that you have to buy a skillsoft...which are now more expensive!

10,000 * Rating...or about 2BP per rating vs. 4 BP of actually getting the skill.

So he gains (slightly under*) 2BP per rating of the skill plus the BP for Incompetent (10?)

I don't see a downside.

*Cost of the system in the first place.

For starters, the skill he is getting at a reduced price isn't as good as a real skill, due to restrictions on karma usage.
Second, you have to include the loss of essence as a cost.

It's not a bad deal, but it could go either way depending on the character.

See: issues with using Edge and skillsofts.
A skillsoft is better than nothing, but its not exactly ideal.
Incompetent is only -5 BP.

-paws

Activesofts are prerecorded skills from someone that already is proficient in that skill. So I would say while your chipped it bypasses your incompetence in the skill. That being said you can never improve the skill (unless you buy a better version) and the Activesoft won't help you learn the skill normally. As cyberware it is also possible to be hacked and turned off (Which will really ruin your day).

The nuyen and essence costs of the skillwire system is something you are overlooking.

Not to mention that you've got a skill that you can't raise, instead you have to spend more money to buy a NEW program (you cant pay the difference between lvl 3 and lvl 4 activesoft).

And the inability to use Edge with activesofts is a big deal. This means that you have no ability to go for the 'long shot'. If this is a skill you rely on you better not get into a situation where a failure is something that isn't an option for your survival.

Furthermore, where do you keep the soft at? In your commlink? You can bet your ass that your activesofts are going to be one of the first things a hacker/technomancer will go after. "Hey, this guy is relying on activesofts to shoot at us. I'll just erase that, he can't shoot anymore, and if he lives it'll set him back quite a bit."

Finally, no matter what the situation, you no longer have to worry about 'swapping out' your real skills. You only have 1 round to do something, but the soft you need isn't loaded? Sucks to be you.


I know that these situations won't always come up, but there are enough potential risks that its not unreasonable for at least 1 of them to come up at some point. There was recently a long thread about whether skillwires were overpowered or not, and I still stand by the idea that they are usefull, but the inherent drawbacks keep them in check. I know that there are others that disagree with this thinking, and at its core I'd guess that those opinions of skillwires in general would affect how you respond to the OP.

You can use edge. To reroll failures, which IMO is the better use of Edge in nearly all cases.

As for a skill you can never raise, just buy it up to 4 at chargen and be done with it.

Essence for 95% of all characters is going to be a minor cost that they shed one "Emo Boy" tear over and move on. Mages and adepts will care, that's it.

Risk of not having the skill loaded: the OP talks about replacing one skill with skill wires. Therefore, the one skill is always loaded.

Hacker: why is the hacker wasting his time doing this? First off, assuming that the character is dumb enough to leave himself open to hacking in the first place (i.e. not operating in hidden mode), then it takes the hacker a minimum of 3 combat rounds to get access to the comlink at a high enough "clearance" (aka Admin) to delete the activesoft. Hacking cyberware is one of the least effective things a hacker can do in combat.

Compiling Tutor Sprites for my biowire is still free!
Suckahs!

First, just to be specific, that requires that a Skillwire Expert System be installed. Granted, not much of a cost at 3,000 and 0.1 Essence but still a cost nonetheless. Secondly, the rules state that Edge may be used to reroll a failed test. To my GM ears, that means you may only use Edge on a Skillsoft if you did not achieve enough hits to succeed. If you get 1 net hit on that ranged attack test, but you really wanted at least 4 hits in order to drop that nasty enemy sammie: too bad. If you're using it to Hack and you get only 2 hits but you really needed 4 this round in order to get into the system to shut off an alarm: too bad. That's still a pretty limited use of Edge.

Don't forget the opportunity cost of offsetting the 5 BP negative quality with skillwires. Even if you get 5 BP, and offset if by spending nuyen BP to offset it, you only net a couple BP at most, and you use up part of your 35 negative BP, and part of your Resources BP pool, and your essence. As an alternative you could have chosen a different 5 BP negative quality and used the entire 5 BP to gain somewhere else without consuming Resource BP pool and essence.

I think Dire Radiant said it best. If you are just going to off set the negative quality with skillwires, you are only netting a couple BP while reducing your limits in other pools. I don't see a problem with getting skillwires to compensate for incompetence. That is probably why the technology was initially designed.

On the other hand, you aren't going to choose to be incompetent with a skill you might actually need as part of your character concept. A hacker isn't going to be incompetent with Hacking. A street samurai won't choose Pistols. And, it is only 5 BP, after all. It is a couple months of Middle Lifestyle and a new car. It is a single skill level and a Language Specialization. Give that ork brawler Incompetent (Artisan) and let him have 5 BP. On the other hand, if I were that player, my ork would be singing at every kareoke bar. Maybe that's why he became a brawler. He loves to sing publicly, but can't.

If you are concerned there is potential for min/maxing, this is such a small max to squeeze out of the system.

Interesting discussion here. I am particularly interested in Malachi's take on what a 'failed test' is. I will have to think about that one.

I am working on a character who has the Uncouth Quality, and so is 'unaware' in all Social Skills. In my original post I assumed that 'unaware' is equivalent to 'Incompetent'. I think this is fair.

I am thinking of how this character might, over time, acquire Skills through Activesofts to compensate for his ineptitude, especially after experiencing the consequences of his failings while running in the Shadows. It seems like a reasonable thing to do to buy your way out of such trouble.

I do sympathize with the opinion that this is circumventing the cost for Uncouth and therefore not earning the 10 BP it gains. On the other hand, there is monetary and Essence cost for acquiring Skills in this way, plus difficulties of availability. I'm of two minds here, and appreciate others' opinions.

EDIT: 20 BP for Uncouth, not 10 BP

Personally if one aquires the 'ware and the 'softs after char gen as a legitimate way of "getting around" the weekness I'd say go for it. You're forced into having the cash to get it in game rather than as the package of chargen ( 40000 is a bit harder to come by after char gen) as well as the time spent finding it and then getting it implanted.

That's story worthy.

Agreed. How you deal with your flaws in game isn't tweaking the system in my mind. It's growing and developing a character since you are using in-game time and resources to overcome challenges you have had to deal with.

Uncouth is very different beast than incompetent. For one thing, 20 bp bonus versus 5 bp bonus. Secondly, the first line of Uncouth is something you might want to look at:



This is a personality and character flaw. It goes far beyond not knowing etiquette or not knowing how to negotiate. This is a flaw that says they don't care about those things, or don't even understand when to try to use those skills. That is what antisocial or sociopathic are. My impression is that the way you describe the character is it is rough around the edges because it doesn't know better, not because it is really incapable of understanding how to behave different. If I'm correct, you might want to consider taking incompetent for some key social skills (like etiquette or negotiation) to represent that instead of Uncouth.

I see the nuance. Thanks.

incompetent is one of the most easily abused flaws available, since there's no restriction or guidance on which skills it can be applied to. When will incompetence diving or incompetence nautical engineering ever hinder a character in a landlocked sprawl? Hell, incompetence parachuting can pretty safely be taken by most characters with impunity.
As a gm i scrutinise use of that flaw very carefully, and require thorough explanation as to why a character is not as capable as any other untrained joe. A popular explanation is a mental block associated with past trauma, eg. Incompetence demolitions following nearly getting blown up. In that situation i think a case could be made for disallowing the use of activesofts. But in general, using tech to offset incompetencies is not unreasonable, and far less of a problem than the incompetent flaw itself.

I would so argue against that reasoning . . if i was close enough to allmost get blown up and knowing what it is, then i probably had the skill to begin with.
And now i am suddenly incompetent, and not just said to be incompetent because i made a mistake once? O.o

Important Note to ALL GMs:

Skillsofts DO NOT allow for learned experience. The way I translate this will prevent any min\max attempts by all but the dullest of players. ANY success gained via skillsofts does not EARN experience.... thus no KARMA. I would certainly allow a character to purchase huge amounts of skillsofts to replace real onee, but they would earn karma SO slowly. There would have to be some serious 'role' playing required by that player to keep up.

Soo . . a Street-Samurai that has heavy Weapons or something like that chipped does not get Karma, even if he did not only use that skill?

^^
He wouldn't earn karma based on successes that relied on the skillsoft.

If the street sam success in fragging the enemy were effected by more than 50% reliance on Heavy Weapons, than NO.
A larger combat, where 10 tough opponents were dropped by the sammy, two by heavy weapon fire, and the rest through a variety of techniques, should earn no Karma consideration for ONLY the two dropped by Heavy weapon fire. That leaves 80% of the available karma to be earned.
Most characters won't see much effect from this lack of experience, and most GMs likely wont have to work hard keeping track of how much karma the PCs SHOULDN'T earn, but for the character who doesn't spend points on real skills this would be more apparent.

There's just one teeny weeny itsi bitsy little problem.
Earning Karma does not work like that in SR3.
As far as i remember, some guidelines in the Books were:
You get 1 Point for being there.
You get 1 Point for supplying a sorely needed skill.
You get 1 Point for having participated in combat. (Astral,Social, Physical,Vehical)[yes, i know that Vehical is spelled wrong, but it fit]
You get 1 Point for helping to achieve the groups goal.
You get 1 to 3 Points for roleplaying.
Granted, those are SR3 Numbers, but eh . .

RAW, I take karma awards to be more of a guideline. You guys don't actually award karma exactly as it's written do you?
I've always (in countless games dating back to 1st edition DnD and Traveller) awarded character advancement points as a...reward. No one gets experience for just being there. Certainly the "supplying a sorely needed skill" award applies to this conversation (and shouldn't be earned when a skillsoft), but simply surviving the run will get old hat soon enough that a veteran runner should not be earning karma for it.

WHY should that not be rewarded?
NOBODY had the Decency to learn that one needed skill.
The Samurai actually gave up Essence and Money to get the skill.
So he HAD the skill, he SUPPLIED the skill, but he does NOT get the Karma? O.o
And someone who had NOT given up Essence and Money but Skill-Points to achieve the same result WOULD?
I call Bullshit on that one . .

^^
The street sam with the expensive skillsoft is not experiencing the skill-use the same as the player who uses his real skill. I can appreciate the expense and essence loss, but some condsideration must be given to abusing money to better ones character. When that cybered sammy who has bested countless goons and survived the most epic of runs can easily earn quick cash by taking twinky jobs, why should he earn the cash that he then uses to improve his skillsofts, plus the karma for 'being there' on a job that doesn't offer a legitimate, taxing challenge? Doesn't that strike you as metagaming? Skillsofts represent the fact that no one character can have all skills, while any one character can be challenged to need any skill. It comes down to: has the character succeeded in this (or a similar) task countless times? Can they achieve said task without any question of success? If so... then the character doesn't have the oppurtunity to learn from it, thus no karmic reward.

There's actually a Twinkery that allows a character to have access to basically all skills in the book after 2 Days of in game time.
And your way of dealing with skillwires seriously makes things like the swiss-army-knife/jack of all trades character concept pretty much impossible to build upon, because they rely on the skill-wires . .
What is the big difference in spending 10 build-points(or whatever) for money to get cyber and skillsoft level or and 10 buildpoints(or whatever) to get skill up to level 4?
also, why he should be still running around instead of using his mighty skillwires and sleep regulator to juggle 3 different day-jobs at once?
because he is frigging playing shadowrun . . that's the same reason why no mage character does join a corp and gets paid to place wards and the such . .

This is what skillwires were meant to do!
This is why they are in the game at all!
And active-soft just got much more expansive too!
That's like saying all people run around with heavy armor, because the samurai has a lot of guns that could otherwise kill them just like that . .
Which, of course, is what these Weapons were meant to do . .

^^
It's not just about character creation. The characters need to develope after the game starts, and by definition, they are going to earn cash and karma every run. Skillsofts should be used for taks that aren't going to earn experience, or for the times when simply surviving is more important than earning karma. What does a character who never buys real skills use his karma on. Earning karma via skillsofts is abusing a loophole in the rules. Although when I think about it, there is a rule that dictates I cannot improve a skill during session, but I can purchase and install skillsofts. The priority should be apparent in that.

Samurai allways had less need for karma than money, but there's the money for karma/karma for money rule for exactly that reason.
It just would not be fair to not give the samurai the same ammount of karma the magics got, while they get the same ammount of money he gets.
There is no developing skill-Soft skills, that much is right. Does not stop the Samurai from improving OTHER skills that can not be slotted?
Or stop him from developing the slotted skill but using the skillsoft untill his real skill is high enough for his taste?
If you do this to skillwires, what about biowires for Technomancers?
Or Spirits of mages?
How is doing what the system is meant to do abusing a loophole?
If it was used to do something it was NOT meant to do, THEN it would be abuse of a loophole. .

Hey... it says right in the description of skillsofts that they do not infer experience on the user.
The playesr in my games, rarely earn the same experience/karma/skill points, and i design my games to offer oppurtunities for all the players to shine indenpendently and as a team.
We may have to agree to disagree, but I know how I'll be ruling in my own sessions.

Wait... So with that reasoning, any character that uses money to improve rather than the Karma would not benefit? So the Easy upgrades for the Street Sam would discountinue his ability to earn Karma, because he no longer is challenged because of his 20+ Dice Pool? How exactly would that be metagaming?

I agree... I call B/S

Hear, Hear... Well Put...

And with that... to each his own...

And how, exactly, do you determine how much karma to not-award a player who uses skillsofts?

OK folks, lets all give this topic a rest before Bull has to come in and go all Orange on us. Everyone has presented their side and is unlikely to convert those who disagree.

BlueMax
/Thank Rod its not the color of body fluid.

I'd keep track of any uses of the skillsofts, as well as any karma that they earn throughout the game. Anytime the PC uses a skillsoft in a task that otherwise would earn them karma... they simply don't earn it.

Honestly... After reading the description of skillsofts in the SR4A,, I'm surprised this is such an unpopular ruling.

But tasks don't earn you Karma. If you get like, 5 per run and they use the skill 3 times (over a total of 10 skills and 40 dice rolls) that's not worth 80% of their karma (or even 20%) for that session.

I'm not saying it detracts from ALL karma earned... simply the karma that might have been earned by using the real skill. If using the skill would earn them a single karma, using a skill soft earns 0. If it would earn 2, and the skillsoft (or real skill) is only part of completing said task, then they could earn 1 of the 2 available.

LamplightSlasher, I understand your reasoning behind your decision. To get a broader view of your position, could you tell me how you approach a player's proposition that his character, after earning karma from using Skills X, Y and Z, wishes to acquire Skill W?

The reason I ask is that, if a character cannot earn karma from a Skill that is not his, I wonder how he can apply karma from a Skill he has to a Skill he doesn't yet have? Isn't karma a nebulous, generic growth of metahuman potential, not linked to any particular Skill?

The karma is a generic point pool. I see the argument that if I award skill points for using a skill than it should only be available to improve that skill, but I still want my players to be able to buy new skills with minimal hassle. When it's time for new skills all I ask is the players have a contact who could teach or connect them to a teacher. When it comes time to rewards I've experimented with things like rewarding skills and other play-based rewards in lieu of experience/karma/SPs. A character who passes a series of difficult demolition tests, successfully disarming the mines his buddies have stepped on without forcing them to buy new cyberlimbs, can expect a cheap specialization in bomb disposal available to him the next time it's skill-up session.

Are you saying this is how everyone should play under the rules, or is this simply your ruling for your game?

let me answer that with another quote:

I don't see skillwires as such a game breaker.

Okay, so an office worker wants to become a shadowrunner. He improves his skillwires to the max rating of 5 (pgs 334 & 335). He gets a handful of skillsofts at the max rating of 4 (pg 320). He slots Infiltration and Dodge, sneaks through the office and slips away to parts unknown. In the streets, he gets beaten up in a brawl because he runs across someone who has Unarmed Combat 6 and a specialization in Martial Arts, which totals the dice at 8. This is double his 4. He slots Running instead of Unarmed Combat, keeping Dodge in place for defense, and runs away. He returns with Dodge and Pistols, but the martial artist, who isn't so good with guns, only a 3 also specialized in pistols (now 5 dice) and now has an edge. Our little hero's luck runs out when the martial artist gets tired of the little bugger and adds Edge to a couple rolls.

Skillwires can allow someone to be a jack of all trades, and this will be fine early on in a shadowrunner's career, but there will be plenty of character's that shine from the start within their specialties to become superstars. Sure the skillwire master can improve his skills to master level with karma, leaving behind the need for his skillsofts in certain areas. He may become a valuable part of a shadowrunning team that needs to fill certain roles.

If someone wants to play that character, go ahead. The GM should be able to create plenty of opportunities for fun with this character on the team. The character can do anything reasonably well, but can't do everything exceptionally well. That's the point of a team. Also, I believe this kind of character can be played with just as much depth as any other character.

As for the karma thing, characters earn karma for their decisions, not for their skills use. I don't see a connection between skillwires and earned karma.

Thanks Stahlseele. I was worried there, all that was reminding me of the old CoC character sheets, and a few other systems, where'd you be sitting around during game sessions figuring out how to go do something stupid in order to make a skill roll just so you get another tick on your sheet so you could roll a skillup at the end of the session. Of course in CoC it just made it easier for Something Nasty to happen, but for most games tracking how many times I used or rolled a skill during a session in order to gain karma seems kind of tedious.

OK, now THIS i can get behind ^^

Nah, we don't need that in SR.
We can do something stupid without reason ^^

even where you are using skillsofts, it's not like that's the only thing that applies.

if a sammy kills 10 guards, it's very improbable that they used only a weapon skill. it's quite likely that extensive use of infiltration, or some kind of social skill, something from the athletics group, dodge, etc was used. to announce that because the sammy killed 2 with heavy weapons fire means that their other skills suddenly no longer contribute to them gaining karma as well is BS, imo.

and as far as the whole "if it isn't a challenge you don't get karma" thing, i disagree. this is SR4, not D&D. in the right (or wrong, i suppose) situation, that granny with a light pistol is a threat. even if you are an 800 BP runner going up against gangers, those gangers can still be a threat in the right situation. you don't have 400 hit points compared to their ability to do 5 or 6 damage, and it isn't nearly impossible for them to hit you like it is in D&D. if a group of 300 BP gangers using crossbows set up an ambush for you, it is quite possible that you are going to die. they are absolutely a real threat, and no amount of labeling them as grunts or as unchallenging opposition is going to change that fact. even a high-powered character with 600+ BP is threatened by them.

As of SR4.
A Troll in SR3 would have called that a nice warm-up *snickers*

Yeah, that other system tends to lead to extremely meta-game decisions as depicted here.

In all fairness, the point of the comic is to hang lampshades all over the game for humor. In a more serious game, the wizard would be saying, "Lady, I can move mountains with my fingertips. I'll cast a spell to protect us from the flames." And before anyone drops the phrase "That Other Game" again, our wizards aren't any different. We've got Heal and Cold Aura, too.