So, I've made a few characters with the BP system, and I've gotten pretty decent at it (What can I say, character generation is the best part of SR! :D). Today I decided to give a go with Karma Gen. However, what came of my efforts seems far too good, and I'm afraid I may have done something wrong. So, here's the stats, and I'm hoping someone can say whether this is right for KarmaGen. And don't worry about the Amnesia quiality for no bonus, I took it to make my GM happy. :P

Thanks in advance, guys!



Sorry guys, I know this is weird, but I don't know what to do; I've referenced Runner's Companion a bunch of times and added up the numbers a bunch, and it comes out right, but it seems way to high-powered. I could use some help here.

Well straight off the bat a cursory look at that tells me you are using the SR4 costs for stats.

Ancient History has recently revealed that Karmagen was developed and balanced using the SR4A costs but published using the old SR4 costs.

I think you'll find that if you adjust the stats to be x5 rather than x3 that the whole thing will look a lot less unbalanced.

Hmm, that does sound much more reasonable. Thanks a lot!

That explains why karmagen characters always seemed so much more powerful than BP characters.

It was an oops.

I think "oops" is a technical term here.

Wow, I knew karmagen at x3 stat was out of whack but grade 5 initiate with 11 magic out of whack I did not suspect.

Things like initiation are not allowed by default, but only by GM decision. They are not part of normal Karmagen (see the black text box of the upper right of page 43). The proposed "fix" doesn't work with the new Attribute costs, because the 375 Karma limit includes special Attributes (unless that section was simply written very poorly), which makes awakened characters or technomancers all but unplayable.

and if karmagen was allowed in any sort of official-type campaign where only official RAW is allowed, that 375 karma limit might even be a problem. but it isn't, and it's such an easy fix that all you have to do is say "that doesn't apply to special attributes" and you're done.

that said, i personally would consider allowing initiation at chargen in karmagen, but initiation grade 5 seems a little much...

You know, that is the one part of Karmagen that had confused me. We had always played it(we use the x3 version) that special attributes count toward the 375. It seemed right.

But if for some reason we switch to x5(unlikely), I definitely would not count special toward that. That's far too harsh, IMO.

I had thought Initiating at Chargen was the whole appeal of Karmagen. I guess my mistake. :O

Thinking it over, I guess that would make mages a bit overpowered at chargen compared to... everyone else. What would you give everyone else to compensate? Better grades of cyber and bio? Higher availability stuff? Mages can take that too...

I guess I don't try to min/max my characters like some, but I didn't have any problems with some rough attempts at statting out a mage with the karmagen system:



You are not mistakenly paying for that first attribute point, are you?

You know what's -really- fun under karmagen? Free spirits. You don't have to pay the 250 BP racial cost

I blame that one on Aaron. Because I can.

Special races built in karma gen are paid with Karma at the BP Cost x 2.

So in karmagen, free spirit race costs 500 karma. Ouchies!


Might I recommend SR4 Chargen DK version 1a? (link in my signature)

If you have Excel, or are using Vista with Open Office, it works great to help you make legal characters with BP or the Karma Build system, and supports both the x3 and the x5 attribute building options with karmagen.

Also, it has an option to adjust race prices in karmagen, so people like Karoline can build pimped out Free Spirits if they really like

What gave you that idea?

I checked out the excel file, it seems really slow... Maybe that's cause I'm running a buncha stuff. It looks really comprehensive, though! Does it detail what all the house rules are that it allows for?

Bolded italics for emphasis.

Woo, go other people looking up the exact rules for me

So yep, free spirit costs the same amount to play as a human, and is even more advantageous because the free spirit can spend more points on stats if they wanted to than the human (All of them actually, if really desired)

Can't confirm that. All you have to do is playing a high cost metahuman.



Not bad at all.

Karma cost for playing a Fomori is 0 As explained a few posts up.

I was told something else by a German dev who was (supposedly) told by a Catalyst dev.

*shrug* Just sayin' what the book(s) say(s)

Sure. I was referring to the forthcoming errata. I just don't know if race costs will be BP or BP*2 due to a typo. The german edition of RC will be released in 3 weeks with errated karmagen.

Oh, cool. I would imagine it would be equal to BP, because it becomes much more expensive to upgrade a troll's strength in karmagen than it was in BP, so there are still some drawbacks to a high BP race.

Really, what Karmagen seems to encourage, is the use of opposite races. Trolls make good hackers because they already have all the body stats they could ever want, and only miss out on a bit of mental stats. Same for orks. I suppose if there are any 'intellectual' type races, they would actually make good combatants because they already come with all the mental stats they need to not seem gimpy.

What I originally liked about Karmagen was that you could actually play decent human characters. Sure, they were at a bit of a numerical disadvantage compared to metahumans, but they still had enough points to have good stats across the board and a wide spread of skills.

The problem with Build Points is that the cap of 200 hits humans extra-hard, because they don't have any bonuses. For any concept where you need decent physical and mental Attributes (sammie/face, etc.), you really need to either gut your basic concept, or go metahuman. All the "revised" Karmagen seems to do is add awakened characters and technomancers to that group.

Although if they charge metahumans for race, they won't be worth playing, either, because they will be paying for race on top of paying more to increase their abilities. Like Karoline says, it will lead to a lot of trolls with Body and Strength Attributes of 5, because after paying 80 Karma to be a troll, who can afford to spend, say, 130 more Karma to raise those to stats to 7? Which is the average for a troll.

Troll 40 karma(assuming times 1)
Str 8 105
Bod 8 105
Agil 4 45
Rea 5 65
Chr 1 0
Int 2 10
Log 2 10
Will 3 25
Ess 6 0
Edge 3 25
Magic 5 65
375+80 for x2 troll cost=455 in BP this costs 190BP in attributes with 60 BP in special attributes. I don't know it looks close to me.

Bump Bod and Str up to 9 and drop a point of Edge and it starts to compare very badly to BP.

edit - dumbass

edit - again- and it's 120 karma more than a human with the same, relative, stats....

I got 170 in Attributes. So add 60 for special Attributes, and that troll would have 170 points left to spend. The karmagen troll, on the other hand, has spent 495 points (assuming only 40 to be a troll), leaving him 255 Karma left to spend. Which is not that much, considering that in Karmagen, resources and contacts cost flat out double the Build point cost, and skills are more expensive as soon as you go over 2 (not to mention that knowledge skills are not free in karmagen).

But it does show how metahumans get double-charged. In build points, the troll buys his race, but getting Body from 5 to 8 costs him the same as it costs a human to get his Body from 1 to 4. In Karmagen, the troll still has to pay for his metatype, but now he pays 60 more points of Karma for his three-point increase in Body.

Which is precisely why you're allowed to spend more than half your karma on attributes as a meta.

Karoline has the right of it... the problem w/ karmagen as written is it penalizes people for raising what should be their strong attributes, and DOESN"T PENALIZE for raising low stats. It works great so long as there are no metas whatsoever (or everyone is the same meta) but as soon as you make that jump it breaks horribly.

Any suggestion that they should only get bonus points if they say... invest attributes in strength or bod, so they can't spend their 'windfall' attributes on non-racial attributes gets decried by the people who don't understand balance and say, but I don't want to play a strong troll/orc...


Quite frankly... the only decent SIMPLE way I've seen to do it, is charge karma=BP to buy the race, but everyone buys attributes like a human, THEN add/subtract the racial mods after your initial buy (all attributes must be 1+ after mods). (effecitvely, it gives bonus karma for making a strong troll, and penalty karma for putting those points into mental stats).

Yeah, but if they are spending more karma on race in the first place, and then have to spend more karma to advance the same as a human.. yeah, they can maybe still manage the same stat changes, but the human will have 400ish karma left over and the troll will have 200ish.

I really like Falconer's method. Actually I kinda like if it would be applied like that to BP as well. Seems kinda odd that it is as easy for a troll to have 3 logic as for a human to have 3 logic, despite the fact that trolls are obviously supposed to have a lower logic on average. Now, I'm not saying all trolls should be stupid, and maybe it would be over penalizing, but it might make an interesting change if metatypes cost no BP, but they had to compensate in their stats by actually having them lowered.

Thats how I prefer it, races costs 2xBP cost in karma, but you raise attributes as a human, applying racial bonuses after creation. Also with the 5xattribute cost special attributes shouldn't be included in the 1/2 karma attribute pool. I could see edge maybe, but it's not fair to punish a magician/techno.

Edit: Woo 700 posts

That doesn't sound so bad, but it seems like karmagen would still be rather gimpy, since basically everything in it is BPx2 or more, and you don't even get double BP worth of karma.

"A post a day keep the doctor away." -me

Yes but skills and attributes are a good deal cheaper, especially at lower ratings. Using attributex5 rasing an attribute from 1 to three only costs 25 karma, which is roughly equivalent to 12.5 BP.

You are right its 170 points in attributes, but he still has to spend 40 points on Troll so 130 points left over. 130 to 255 is fairly close. Is it perfect no, but its not nearly as far off as it was at x3 with no Racial cost.

This would be my preference, but there are a lot of things I'd do differently in SR4 so its no shock that karmagen isn't perfect for me.