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DarkKindness
It's that time of day again - another character to critique! This time it's a Gunslinger Adept specializing in Pistols...

[ Spoiler ]


The idea here is that our Adept was once an aspiring Lone Star cadet whose wife/fiance (not decided yet) is missing and who he has linked to Triad activity, which was promptly swept under the rug by the Star, leading to our Adept's dropping out of the academy. His pursuit of the Triads has earned him an Enemy in one of the local branches, and has earned a bounty on his head. That said, I think that everything else is pretty focused and self-explanatory... help me make it better if it can be done!
McAllister
DarkKindness, did you forget his adept powers?
DarkKindness
Now I feel like a moron... changes incoming!

EDIT: Updated, now with more Adept POWAZ!
McAllister
Also, I'm going to hold off replying until I figure out what his adept powers are (I could just be blind), for the most part, but I think "Lost Loved One" is only appropriate for people who are lost as in missing, not lost as in dead. So either he believes her to still be alive (which will set him up for some serious mental disorder if he's wrong) or you're looking for another quality. Vendetta appears quite appropriate, although it implies that the cop has done something to the Yaks to draw their ire.

Also, losing his wifiancee must've been pretty traumatic. Maybe that's what Awakened him. And in that case, the Star will have an extensive record on him, but not know of his Awakening, which could be handy.
DarkKindness
Adept Powers are right after Contacts in the spoiler tag.

Edited the story section to reflect that the love interest is missing, and that the character does not know that she's dead (thought that's what I, as a player, am planning on). He's linked her disappearance to Triad activity, and went into a Triad meeting guns blazing in order to force them to 'fess up, which earned him their enmity and the bounty on his head.

And yes, I was planning on the loss of the love interest being the trigger for his Awakening. The Bioware is (story-wise) something that he obtained in order to gain an edge in the Lone Star academy, but is still proving useful post-Awakening.
Marwynn
Interesting character.

May I ask why no burst-fire pistols? The Savalette Guardian or Ruger Thunderbolt could provide you with some options. Or just mod it into a gun yourself.
McAllister
Let's see... lined coat! Excellent garment, except it's going to encumber you, poor little human. Try the Synergist Business Line longcoat. Not only does it give the nifty -2 concealment from flowyness, it has concealed holsters built in, and combining it with the shirt and slacks gives you 6/3 armor, which isn't too shabby.

You love that Colt Government 2066, don't you? And having seen it in so many of these builds, I've come to realize it's more bang for the buck than the beloved Predator, and with a nice clip size. That said, I'm a Ruger Super Warhawk kinda guy. Technically it's just as easy to conceal, and you're not going to find a better gun for shooting armored people that's smaller than an assault rifle. A gun-tinkerous person such as yourself will find it possible to increase the ammo capacity to 8, and you can either change the firing mode to SA or whip out two of them and, instead of splitting your dicepool, simply fire the left one with the first simple action, and the right one with the second simple action.

Of course, a variety of pistols is mandatory. The Morrissey Elan is probably the best holdout in terms of concealability, with its built-in ceramic/plasteel 3 (which isn't available as a mod at chargen). Interesting question; C/P 3 mod raises the availability of all further mods to 20F, but the Elan doesn't have it as a mod, it's just built in. Does that mean you could spend 2,700 to give it Easy Breakdown? Something to consider, I guess.

Cat's Eyes, Muscle Toner 2... why don't you just make him a goddamn elf?

Your adept powers don't add up to 4, friend of mine. .5x2 + .5x2 + 2.5 is 4.5. Improved Reflexes got cheaper, but not that much cheaper. I'd drop a level of Combat Sense, you're going to have 7 bullet-dodging dice anyway.

Unarmed Combat doesn't make the most sense for your character. Personally I'd go with Dodge (Melee) 3, because Firefight can add to melee dodge dice. Also good for when someone with a bigger gun than you opens up the FA. Wide bursts are scary, but eventually they all have to reload....

Firearms group? What the hay? Chummer, cut that crap (if, y'know, you want to). If you really must have something with a bit of range to it, take Automatics 2 or Longarms 2, but cutting the group will let you buy Pistols up to 6, which is actually very important. The maximum modified rating of a skill is the natural rating x1.5 rounded down, so if you want both Improved Ability (Pistols) 2 and Reflex Recorder (Firearms) to help, you need a natural skill of 6.

That's most of what I can think to suggest. The only other thing might be, consider getting a pistol that shoots a whole bunch of bullets at once. Since the Ruger is the king of armor-piercing and the Colt has your All-American Heavy Pistol thing down, what about the Yamaha Fubuki, or Ares Slivergun? The slivergun looks silly against hard targets, and it's not a good choice there, but when you find that unarmored ghoul, hellhound or small child which just needs to get messily killed right now, the slivergun is your friend.
Falconer
Unarmed works well w/ an adept... clubs also work (pistol-whipping).

I don't understand your reasoning behind the bioware group.
The massive amount of synthacardium, you'd probably be better off with enhanced articulation (+1 to all physical skills including firearms, vs. +3 to athletics only). Costs roughly the same, including the .3 essence vs 3x.1 essence.

Also, the use of cat's eyes probably don't help much. (there is a 5BP quality which will give you natural low-light vision in runner's companion w/o the essence hit). Either that or I'd suggest going with cybereyes/ears which you can get at half-essence w/ the amount of bioware you have. While building in a lot of natural vision enhancements and things like smartlink/imagelink, flare guard.

You could replace your magical initiative enhancer w/ synaptic boosters 2, only problem is it's hard to enhance them later (though spending edge for an extra pass also works).

Generally, I don't recommend getting specializations in chargen. If you get 6-8 karma off your first run... that's enough to specialize 3-4 skills right there! I'd put the savings towards actually raising your unarmed from 3->4 (+2 vs +1 more... w/ +2 more to come later), and something else.

You lack any stealth skill that I can see. That's a big one. And it works well w/ your high agility.

Another thing to keep in mind, is if you're looking to be a kickass motorcyclist. The actual dodge skill works w/ vehicle driving (as well as ranged and melee full defense), while the other options don't.


McAllister:
Adepts can easily add melee combat enhancements later w/ power points... so I think unarmed works well for him. I just can't see a big reason for gymnastics over dodge outside of the bioware.

Also with his bioware his magic has dropped from 5->4.
I don't think he realizes... that combat skills cost double for improved ability. .5 per rank for pistols as opposed to .25/rank for technical adepts using non-combat skills.
McAllister
Does Enhanced Articulation help Combat skills like Pistols? I thought it was only Physical skills.

Unarmed works well, it's true, but why throw 10 BP into Firefight if you're not going to stick a gun in some slotter's face and shoot his skull a nice new skylight?
Glyph
A lined coat actually wouldn't encumber someone with a Body of 3, but only if you don't combine it with any other ballistic armor. I usually get Body of at least 4, so I can combine that lined coat with a half-suit of form-fitting body armor. Enhanced articulation does not add to combat skills such as firearms (it did in SR3, making it everyone's must-have item).

I agree that cybereyes (which can have a smartlink and a full complement of other goodies) would be much better than the cat's eyes bioware. Your character has nearly everything else he needs, but stealth skills are missing. Infiltration, he could default on if needed, but the palming skill is good for anyone trying to hide a weapon.

The firearms skill group makes him less effective (they are correct that a skill can only be boosted to skill x 1.5, so actually, one of your points in improved pistols would both make the build legal, and bring you down to 4 power points again). This is balanced by getting all of your firearms skills at the start, instead of later, so it's a valid strategy for long-term character development. However, you only have a pistol! What's the point of being able to use a sniper rifle, submachine gun, or shotgun if you don't have any of those weapons?
McAllister
QUOTE (Glyph @ Aug 27 2009, 11:08 PM) *
A lined coat actually wouldn't encumber someone with a Body of 3, but only if you don't combine it with any other ballistic armor. I usually get Body of at least 4, so I can combine that lined coat with a half-suit of form-fitting body armor. Enhanced articulation does not add to combat skills such as firearms (it did in SR3, making it everyone's must-have item).

Lined coat, armor jacket, what's the difference? Two points of armor, apparently. biggrin.gif Thank you for the correction.
DarkKindness
QUOTE (McAllister @ Aug 27 2009, 08:29 PM) *
Let's see... lined coat! Excellent garment, except it's going to encumber you, poor little human. Try the Synergist Business Line longcoat. Not only does it give the nifty -2 concealment from flowyness, it has concealed holsters built in, and combining it with the shirt and slacks gives you 6/3 armor, which isn't too shabby.

You love that Colt Government 2066, don't you? And having seen it in so many of these builds, I've come to realize it's more bang for the buck than the beloved Predator, and with a nice clip size. That said, I'm a Ruger Super Warhawk kinda guy. Technically it's just as easy to conceal, and you're not going to find a better gun for shooting armored people that's smaller than an assault rifle. A gun-tinkerous person such as yourself will find it possible to increase the ammo capacity to 8, and you can either change the firing mode to SA or whip out two of them and, instead of splitting your dicepool, simply fire the left one with the first simple action, and the right one with the second simple action.

Of course, a variety of pistols is mandatory. The Morrissey Elan is probably the best holdout in terms of concealability, with its built-in ceramic/plasteel 3 (which isn't available as a mod at chargen). Interesting question; C/P 3 mod raises the availability of all further mods to 20F, but the Elan doesn't have it as a mod, it's just built in. Does that mean you could spend 2,700 to give it Easy Breakdown? Something to consider, I guess.

Cat's Eyes, Muscle Toner 2... why don't you just make him a goddamn elf?

Your adept powers don't add up to 4, friend of mine. .5x2 + .5x2 + 2.5 is 4.5. Improved Reflexes got cheaper, but not that much cheaper. I'd drop a level of Combat Sense, you're going to have 7 bullet-dodging dice anyway.

Unarmed Combat doesn't make the most sense for your character. Personally I'd go with Dodge (Melee) 3, because Firefight can add to melee dodge dice. Also good for when someone with a bigger gun than you opens up the FA. Wide bursts are scary, but eventually they all have to reload....

Firearms group? What the hay? Chummer, cut that crap (if, y'know, you want to). If you really must have something with a bit of range to it, take Automatics 2 or Longarms 2, but cutting the group will let you buy Pistols up to 6, which is actually very important. The maximum modified rating of a skill is the natural rating x1.5 rounded down, so if you want both Improved Ability (Pistols) 2 and Reflex Recorder (Firearms) to help, you need a natural skill of 6.

That's most of what I can think to suggest. The only other thing might be, consider getting a pistol that shoots a whole bunch of bullets at once. Since the Ruger is the king of armor-piercing and the Colt has your All-American Heavy Pistol thing down, what about the Yamaha Fubuki, or Ares Slivergun? The slivergun looks silly against hard targets, and it's not a good choice there, but when you find that unarmored ghoul, hellhound or small child which just needs to get messily killed right now, the slivergun is your friend.


Virtually all of these changes integrated into the first post. Since I broke the Firearems Skill Group, I also downgraded the Reflex Recorders from that to Pistols, saving some Essence and some nuyen.gif. Saved Essence and nuyen.gif used to pick up Cybereyes with all of the accouterments.

As per other suggestions above, picked up Infiltration as a Stealth skill. I could change this to Palming if necessary, but I like Infiltration for the time being - thoughts on which is better in practice?

As has been pointed out, a Lined Coat will not actually encumber a character with Bod 3. Picked up the armored clothing in addition to it anyway, though, since it's nice to have a good high society look and keep your armor sometimes.

QUOTE
Armor and Encumbra nce
If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only
the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies. Note that
some armor items, like helmets and shields, provide a modifier to the
worn armor rating and so do not count as stacked armor.
Too much armor, however, can slow a character down. If either of
a character’s armor ratings exceeds his Body x 2, apply a –1 modifier
to Agility and Reaction for every 2 points (or fraction thereof ) that
his Body x 2 is exceeded. Note that this may affect Initiative as well. If
a character is wearing multiple armor items, add their ratings together
before comparing to Body.


Enhanced Articulation does not improve Combat Active Skills, as these are a different sort of skill than Physical Active Skills. I'm sticking with Synthacardium for the big boosts to Climbing, Running, and those ever-so-useful Gymnastic Dodge tests.

EDIT: Considering Damage Compensator 3 over Synthacardium, since the character now has Dodge to handle most of the things that Gymnastic Dodge would've handled - thoughts?
McAllister
If you ever have 1/4 of a power point and you don't know what to do with it, pick up Nimble Fingers. +1 bonus to Palming (which makes it as good as Improved Ability: Palming) and various "makes reloading faster" goodies.

Also, putting one of those Infiltration points into Palming is probably a good deal, because the first point in a skill is really worth 2 (+1 skill, and no -1 defaulting).
DarkKindness
Change made to the Stealth skills - thanks for the spot and good advice, McAllister!

Considering Damage Compensator 3 over Synthacardium, since the character now has Dodge to handle most of the things that Gymnastic Dodge would've handled - thoughts?

McAllister
Damage Compensators let you ignore wound modifiers from damage. Platelet Factories, at less than the cost of DC2, let you ignore damage. If you get hit by an assault cannon and take 8 boxes of damage, the compensators are better; but four different goons shoot at you with heavy pistols and you have to soak 6 damage 4 times, you'll be glad for that extra box of soak.

If you still have just a touch of Essence left over, consider a datajack. There are useful things you can do with a gun using a smartlink and DNI, and it'll be helpful if you want to switch cybereye vision modes, or call up video feed from somewhere else, without having to speak or gesture a command.
DarkKindness
I could give up the Synthacardium 3 for Platelet Factories and a Datajack - thoughts on that? How badly would it reduce my defenses, if at all?
McAllister
Reduce your defenses? Very little. You'd lose 2 dice for your Full Defense pool, but that's not a pool you want to use very often; and with your reaction, intuition, combat sense and improved reflexes, you'll be going before most opponents unless they have MbW.

Besides, you'd lose 2 dice from your full defense pool, which means you'll take .67 more damage when you're attacked (and 0 more damage when you're attacked and not using full defense), but you'll always take 1 fewer damage when it. Your defenses will definitely be increased, assuming you're counting both avoidance and soak.
DarkKindness
Done deal, then. Edited an Easy Breakdown into the Elans, too, assuming that the built-in ceramics don't affect availability.
DarkKindness
Did some further editing on the guns - everything got an Advanced Safety - Spring Trigger Spike and a Skinlink to prevent theft/hacking, everything that could benefit from it got a Personalized Grip (which was everything except the Colts, since they can't benefit from both Personalized Grip and Electronic Firing), and the Sliverguns picked up an Underbarrel Weight.

After the edits from the advice that I've received in this thread and my own independent tinkering, how's this build look for a Gunslinger Adept? Pretty par for the course, better than average, still needs some work? More suggestions please!
McAllister
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Aug 28 2009, 02:06 AM) *
Did some further editing on the guns - everything got an Advanced Safety - Spring Trigger Spike and a Skinlink to prevent theft/hacking, everything that could benefit from it got a Personalized Grip (which was everything except the Colts, since they can't benefit from both Personalized Grip and Electronic Firing), and the Sliverguns picked up an Underbarrel Weight.

After the edits from the advice that I've received in this thread and my own independent tinkering, how's this build look for a Gunslinger Adept? Pretty par for the course, better than average, still needs some work? More suggestions please!

8 guns is nice... do you know what a "New York Reload" is? lick.gif

Also, speedloaders are fun, but not really necessary. With a speedloader, you can insert 8 rounds as a complex action. Manually, you can insert 7 rounds as a complex action. If you shot something 28 times with EX-ex bullets from a Warhawk and you think bullets 29 and 30 are going to do the trick, you're doin' it wrong!

I personally love the flavour of pistol-focused adepts (and may post my build for one soon). It's different from the adept you'd've made to mow people down with an assault rifle, but this gunslinger has a lot of versatility, limited only by mediocre range (but honestly, when was the last time your target was 200+ feet away?)
DarkKindness
Seriously, though, McAllister - this build in good shape? How's it stack up to your Gunslinger Adept build? Time to move on to the next build for the next day? Time for me to stop asking silly questions until you answer?
Mäx
QUOTE (Falconer @ Aug 28 2009, 05:30 AM) *
Generally, I don't recommend getting specializations in chargen. If you get 6-8 karma off your first run... that's enough to specialize 3-4 skills right there! I'd put the savings towards actually raising your unarmed from 3->4 (+2 vs +1 more... w/ +2 more to come later), and something else.

That is the biggest reason why i like the karmagen system over the BP-system, none of this silly cheaper after chargen BS.
McAllister
The build I have in mind is A. more face than shooter, and B. so odiously cheesy I'd voluntarily tone down the maxxing before I ever played with it. It's a karmagen (everything you build in karmagen is more powerful, unless you want a BOD 10 STR 10 troll) Type O dryad adept who's initiated three times, and, each time, took a power point instead of a metamagic (which is an extra-optional rule found in the Street Magic errata). I can use Commanding Voice to roll 14 dice against Willpower + Leadership (protip: that's 3 dice in your case, and most non-face builds have MAYBE 8 dice in Willpower + Leadership), and if I win, you do what I tell you to, which will probably just be "stand up and hold still" so I can roll 18 dice to shoot you in the face, twice, with the Ruger you didn't even see I had because I have palming 6 and I can buy the three hits I need to Quick Draw it out of my concealed holster. I have Tailored Pheromones 3, Muscle Toner 4 (yeah, I hardmaxed agility at 10) and orthoskin 3. Just to be a prick, I took Green Lucifer, head of the Seattle Ancients, as a loyalty 5 contact, and if I ever get to play this toon, I'll pick up some Pilot Ground Craft (Motorcycles) and trick out a Harley Davidson Scorpion with two sidecars (each with its own Vindicator minigun) and a multiple rocket launcher, so I can ride around the Barrens and look like I'm the warlord of a small nation.

But that's the thing. When I'm cooped up in Maryland and I can't find a group to play with, I think, "how can I exploit every source of social skill dice in the game, and still have points left over for Stealth group 4?" But when I'm getting ready to sit down at a table, I think, "what story do I want to tell?" Then I come up with a concept, not unlike yours, and I work from there, and make something that looks a lot more like what you have. Lot more fun to play, too, unless everyone is also maxxor crazy.

I don't want you to get the wrong impression, DarkKindness. I really do enjoy talking with you, and don't find your questions to be silly. If my manner is odd or unsociable, attribute it to the hour at which I post.
Glyph
When you are making a character, you always have to balance how "effective" a character is, vs. how enjoyable to play the character is. You seem to like certain things for most of your builds - the athletics skill group, human, high mental stats for combat types. So if your character is put together well enough to have those things, and still be effective, then that character is optimal for you. McAllister is right, in that the dice-pumping builds that people post here as theoretical exercises are usually a lot different than the characters that people actually play in the Welcome to the Shadows subforum.
Udoshi
QUOTE (Mäx @ Aug 28 2009, 12:47 AM) *
That is the biggest reason why i like the karmagen system over the BP-system, none of this silly cheaper after chargen BS.



I've noticed that, and I think I had a decent houserule to fix it. While Specializations are a horrible BP-effectiveness ratio, the easy fix is to allow a certain small portion of free knowledge skill points to be spend on skill specializations only. Veto any attempts to quickly gain dicepool, like hacking(exploit), and let it be used in the intended manner, adding flavor to a character. Small things like dance, or an etiquette specialty.
Mäx
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Aug 28 2009, 01:02 PM) *
I've noticed that, and I think I had a decent houserule to fix it. While Specializations are a horrible BP-effectiveness ratio, the easy fix is to allow a certain small portion of free knowledge skill points to be spend on skill specializations only. Veto any attempts to quickly gain dicepool, like hacking(exploit), and let it be used in the intended manner, adding flavor to a character. Small things like dance, or an etiquette specialty.

Or just change in chargen cost to 1BP or karma cost to 4, if you must use BP-gen.
DarkKindness
Hm. I guess that this brings up a question - should I be using Karmagen?

Is it really that superior as a system to BP gen?

If so, I might have to go back and convert all of the characters that I've done so far to Karmagen, and use it on the remaining two in the (loose) playable team that I've been cooking up.
McAllister
Should you? I don't know that I'd say that. What I will say is that any character you make in BPgen, you can make better in karmagen. I once made a mage... let's see... He's a dwarf ghoul, and I wanted to hardmax his Willpower at 9, so I thought "Willpower 9 is 175 karma, and binding a Force 4 Power Focus is 32 karma, as opposed to 65 and 4 BP respectively, so I'd be better off using BP, right?" So I did. Then I remade him in karmagen, and had enough karma left over to initiate twice. A druid with Intuition 5, Willpower 9 and two initiations (one of which is Centering) can throw Force 9 Manabolts all goddamn day, and buy 4 hits on drain resistance. Throw in a centering focus, and things get ugly.
DarkKindness
Well, roger that, then. I'll work on going back through and re-making the four existing characters that I've done so far using Karmagen instead. Should be pretty easy, since the basic outline is there - I'll just have to convert the point expenditures and then figure out what to do with leftover points (since it sounds like I'm quite likely to have more to spend). I'll re-post all four (in a single post, do you think?) when I get it done, and then continue on to make the last to in Karmagen... I'll probably have the conversions done late tonight/early tomorrow, and then I'll start working on the new stuff.
McAllister
Sure. Just come up with a name for the team, and throw them in a post. Sounds like fun, and cross-checking them will reveal any holes in the group.
Mäx
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Aug 28 2009, 08:18 PM) *
Hm. I guess that this brings up a question - should I be using Karmagen?

Is it really that superior as a system to BP gen?

In my mind karmagen creates much more organic and beliviable charactes, but that mostly becouse you usually will have a bunch of extra points left, after character is "ready", to be used for background thinks like knowledge/language skills and "unnessecery" active skills.

Ofcource right know the problem with karmagen is the fact that it's yeat to be upgraded to SR4A.
toolbox
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Aug 28 2009, 10:48 AM) *
Well, roger that, then. I'll work on going back through and re-making the four existing characters that I've done so far using Karmagen instead. Should be pretty easy, since the basic outline is there - I'll just have to convert the point expenditures and then figure out what to do with leftover points (since it sounds like I'm quite likely to have more to spend). I'll re-post all four (in a single post, do you think?) when I get it done, and then continue on to make the last to in Karmagen... I'll probably have the conversions done late tonight/early tomorrow, and then I'll start working on the new stuff.


I'm totally stealing all these guys for use as NPCs and premade PCs in my own game, btw. Very nice work so far.
DarkKindness
QUOTE (Mäx @ Aug 28 2009, 02:54 PM) *
In my mind karmagen creates much more organic and beliviable charactes, but that mostly becouse you usually will have a bunch of extra points left, after character is "ready", to be used for background thinks like knowledge/language skills and "unnessecery" active skills.

Ofcource right know the problem with karmagen is the fact that it's yeat to be upgraded to SR4A.



Why is this a problem? From a brief glance at SR4 BPgen compared to SR4A BPgen, the things that make Karmagen more efficient (namely Attributes and Skills) didn't change price from 4 to 4A, so I'm guessing that they probably wouldn't change for Karmagen any more than they did for BPgen.

EDIT: Oh, hey, while I'm thinking of it... I did the math on the Street Samurai already, and if my math holds up, I have an extra 258 Karma or so to play around with... that's crazy.
Mäx
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Aug 29 2009, 02:45 AM) *
Why is this a problem? From a brief glance at SR4 BPgen compared to SR4A BPgen, the things that make Karmagen more efficient (namely Attributes and Skills) didn't change price from 4 to 4A, so I'm guessing that they probably wouldn't change for Karmagen any more than they did for BPgen.

EDIT: Oh, hey, while I'm thinking of it... I did the math on the Street Samurai already, and if my math holds up, I have an extra 258 Karma or so to play around with... that's crazy.

Atributes cost for karma changed from x3 to x5, using that fill eat almost all of that extra karma.
DarkKindness
Cool. I'll run with that cost for the Karmagen, since I think that it'll be a lot closer to being balanced against BPgen and it'll be in line with the SR4A Karma costs for advancing attributes.

I think that I might just draw up the rest of the characters, then, and post the ENTIRE team in my next post asking for critique. I know that it'll be putting a lot of work on you guys' shoulders, checking them all over again along with the two new ones, but it'll be a whole team and will buy me some extra time to work out the math on the existing four such that it fits with Karmagen.
McAllister
Jeez, DarkKindness, you're such a slave-driver. nyahnyah.gif
DarkKindness
I know it, I know it. Forcing you guys to read through my character and team concepts day and night... get back to it, slaves!

Seriously, though, this is partly a teaser post - I just finished doing the math on converting the four existing character to Karmagen, and they're pretty heavily improved and much better rounded in my opinion.

That said, it seems like Awakened/Emergent archetypes are actually harder to do in Karmagen than BPgen in that their additional stat is rolled in with the half Karma limit on attributes... found that out when I was working on the Gunslinger Adept - wasn't a problem there, but I'm wary about it in future builds.

Speaking of future builds... I'll build the Mage first tomorrow and then move on to the Matrix person - how the Mage goes will likely determine whether I go Technomancer or Hacker for the Matrix build (though I've been leaning Hacker all along... we'll see). I'm particularly concerned with doing a TM, given how important attributes are to their Living Persona and overall Matrix performance - I think that I could do better with (and probably have a better in-universe grip on) an augmented mundane Hacker. Thoughts?
Glyph
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Aug 29 2009, 01:02 AM) *
That said, it seems like Awakened/Emergent archetypes are actually harder to do in Karmagen than BPgen in that their additional stat is rolled in with the half Karma limit on attributes... found that out when I was working on the Gunslinger Adept - wasn't a problem there, but I'm wary about it in future builds.

I hadn't noticed that - I had assumed it was only the basic Attributes, like it is with build points. I like to think that it might only be incredibly poor wording. Hopefully they will clear that up in the errata. Actually, it didn't hamper you that much when Attributes were at the (x 3) cost, but with the new cost, the half Karma on Attributes rule could make creating a decent mage or technomancer all but impossible.
Falconer
No Glyph, he has it correct. Under karmagen... all attribute spending comes under the cap (even edge and magic)... which is yet another reason metas are broken under it. (they get more points 'for free', and can spend more on top of it...).
Also under karmagen, you don't get free points to spend on knowledge/languages like you do under BP 3x(Int+log)


To the OP, I don't recommend using karmagen as published. It's fine if everyone is a human, and all other characters are human, (or everyones the same metatype). But it's badly broken because of the highly questionable metatypes for free nonsense that was pulled. (this is reportedly supposed to be errataed w/ the SR4a update to RC).

If your players are new, BP generation is a lot faster. Karma would be fine as well... but you'll find that metatypes again throw an unrecoverable monkey wrench in unless you're willing to house rule (and know how to house rule it). Though quite frankly, I have nothing against exposing new characters to karma advancement costs right away.

IMO: here's the advantages to karmagen.
There is no push to max it or bust like there is under BP (the more BP you spend on a higher attribute or maxing out a skill, the better the karmic value of that expenditure).
Characters feel much better about only putting 1 or 2 ranks in an assortment of skills and attributes, making better rounded characters. As there is no penalty cost for doing it now, as opposed to doing it later.

If you're using karma, use only karma, if you're using BP use only BP. The generation methods are not equivalent!!

And if you're making NPC's... ignore it... just make what seems appropriate with only a weak nod towards BP.



As far as the rest... the character concept is okay. Don't worry so much about the power-gaming tweaks. Just be prepared to say, why does the character have only bioware, etc.
DarkKindness
Couple of things - Karmagen is also preferable because, even after accounting for new attribute x5, it's more efficient than BPgen and gives even a Human character more points to spread around, and even considering paying for Knowledges and Languages out of your pool of points. Knowledges and Languages are SO cheap in Karmagen that they make almost no impact on your points pool.

Also, taking the attribute x5 change into account, 'free' metavariants aren't nearly so broken as they were when it was x3. Buying up the attributes that they start high in gets -monstrously- expensive in a hurry, and even the extra Karma allotment to attributes only means that they'll start eating away at their skills, gear, etc... I really think that the x5 change does a pretty good job of balancing it out.

And as to the character... he doesn't have only Bioware! About 2/3s of his augmentations are Bioware, 1/3 Cyberware... it's been a while since I saw a Bioware Datajack or Cybereyes, for instance =P

Falconer
As far as the character, that's after you editted it. I haven't looked at it again since you've revised it. I just gave my initial suggestions (stealth skills, cybereyes.. etc.) then stopped reading the thread.


Now onto karmagen:
I disagree strongly about the karmic costs of buying knowledge/languages. For a face/mage it turns into a large expenditure. A logic mage could easily start w/ 39 ranks in knowledges. If each is rank 4, that's 39/4==9 + one rank3. 11*9+8*1== 107 karma. Not a little. Even someone w/ more average, 5*11==55 karma or about 8%.

Now make an orkl intuition tradition magician or adept... and laugh all the way to the bank... as you don't care about buying up body sky high, and strength can sit there at the racial minimum quite easily. And low-light for free! (massive value on a magician where visibility mods are one of your biggest negative dicepool components).


That's the problem, You give stuff for free, and they can spend massive amounts on other things! It's just free karma up front and not implemented as a bonus or penalty to spending the karma. (EG: apply racial mods after stat buy, or buy up stats from rank1 (no mins), or pay reasonable karma cost for meta up front (1x or 2x BP cost)).
It costs a human 45 karma to get rank 4 attribute. All 4's in 10 stats is thus 440 karma, or 75 karma over the limit. (humans get edg2 for free so that's 10 karma)

If you go with an ork. You get 70 karma for free (min body4 (45), str3 (25)). PLUS you can spend 40 karma more on attributes than a human.
It costs the ork 380 karma for the same base stats, PLUS he still has 35 more karma free for attributes.

If we spend 10 karma each for Night vision (human) and Human Looking (ork) and they're almost equivalent.

See the problem. The problem stems from the whole 'something for nothing' right at the start which started the whole mess.

So please don't even start to try and defend it... this has been argued to death. Wait for the errata, then we can go into it with gusto! (I don't shy from a good debate).
DarkKindness
Right - I should've qualified my statement that it's somewhat balanced by adding if you're actually going to improve the stats that your race gets bonuses to. The added expense from boosting those adds up pretty quickly. I agree, however, that if you're going to min-max and not boost the stats that you get bonuses to, it's a candy store of free goodies for min-maxing. Somehow I think that that's probably how the developers wound up wording it the way they did - they looked at the astronomical costs for increasing stats that have higher caps and higher starting minimums and said 'oh, hey, metavariants need more points to spend on that!' without considering how badly it's broken if people choose to ignore their racial bonus stats... just sayin'.
Mäx
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Aug 29 2009, 06:33 PM) *
Couple of things - Karmagen is also preferable because, even after accounting for new attribute x5, it's more efficient than BPgen and gives even a Human character more points to spread around, and even considering paying for Knowledges and Languages out of your pool of points. Knowledges and Languages are SO cheap in Karmagen that they make almost no impact on your points pool.

They make no impact, unless you actually want to get a desend amourt of them.
My Sasha for example has 54 points froth of both knowledge and language skills, thats actually a sicnificant amount of points.
Of cource if the errata nerws karmagen( implements new cost, but doesn't raise the karma amount) most of those will have to go along with the flavor active skill so that i have enought point for her stats.
McAllister
I see no reason to make knowledge/language skills cost more in karmagen than BPgen. I realize that they do, I just don't see why.
DarkKindness
Well, that raises a question, I suppose - do most people on the boards use Karmagen or BPgen? Which is more common at folks' tables? And which does Catalyst support for official (Cons and the like) games?
Falconer
build points are far more common.

They also must be used for official events like SR missions.


I prefer karma in theory, just not in it's published implementation.
McAllister
In theory, I'd want to build my character with karma (which lends itself to generalization) and improve him with build points (which lend themselves to specialization). BP and then karma seems to lead to characters who're optimized for one job, and then kinda pick up whatever else they feel like. I'd prefer a well-rounded character who finds a niche, and then excels at it.
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