If you aquire infection during play, Page 264 of SR4 states that you pay for the quality using 100% of all earned karma from there on out til it's paid for. However, that results in a really stagnant character for a LOOOONG time. Where was it suggested that you just pay for it using 50% of earned karma?

I cant find it in the rulebooks, so its possible it may have been a dumpshock suggestion on one of the threads on infected characters...

appreciate the help!

I believe it was a dumpshock thread.

you wouldnt happen to know which thread would you? I'm trying to find it.

No, sorry.

Yes, 100% of karma pays...

Or you could just turn in the character sheet as it's now a DM monster NPC and make new.

HMHVV is something you really should consider burning edge on! It's cheaper!

Infection is kind of a special case. The main book is talking about things like someone who wants to gain the Ambidexterity quality, for example. Becoming infected, on the other hand, is not always voluntary, and it can actually mess up some builds. If someone seeks out a vampire to get themselves infected, then by all means, they should pay for the quality. They are getting +8 to their Attributes and some cool powers, so it is less like stagnating, and more like being able to get a lot of character improvements at once, and in advance. On the other hand, if someone gets involuntarily infected from a vampire attack, and it messes up their character's cyberware, etc. then the GM is being a real dick if he imposes a Karma cost on top of that.

And if you just happen to be unlucky and get your character shot and killed is that the GM being a dick too? That's why I categorically reject your assertion Glyph.

Sometimes shit happens.

Sorry, just like you said, they got a frontloaded boatload of special abilitiles... now pay. If you didn't want them, then burn edge just like you would if you got unlucky on the wrong side of a gun barrel. There's more than one way to have a character 'killed' in this game and not all of them necessarily leave a corpse.

It's a role playing game... characters take risks, and sometimes those risks don't pan out.

Sure, shit happens in the game. I just don't think the rule about buying qualities, which was intended for completely different circumstances, applies to a character who gets infected. It is only a quality at all to let players begin play as one of the infected. If anything, I consider my other advice, to charge Karma for a character who deliberately seeks it out, to be the house rule part.

When it comes down to it, regardless of how official it is, it's a bad rule because it completely stagnates the character for an absurdly long time. 100-150 karma doesn't grow on trees in most games. And considering that it comes with numerous disadvantages that affect you every single day... it's just not fair to inflict that on a character as a GM on top of the stagnation. In one fell swoop you've completely negated any and all growth options for that character based on your whim, not theirs.

As Glyph said, if the player went out trying to get infected, that's another matter entirely. But as a living, breathing, thinking GM, if you inflict both the disease and the stagnation on the character, that's just not right and you're single-handedly destroying the single most important aspect of being a GM as far as I'm concerned.

Really? If you win you die...? Not really seeing the discount here...

To which I raise my earlier point... if the character was dead, it would gain NO KARMA and it would be very stagnated by definition.

How is this any different. It's just another form of character death.

when it comes up in the SR4 game I'm playing in (which it did once, actually) GM basically let the player choose between retiring the character or paying for the costs; player chose to retire the character since he was heavily cybered and going infected was going to make him basically useless beyond just the stagnation.



look at it another way - you generally get the full value of the karma out of being infected if your build isn't trashed by it; but you get it all upfront. many characters won't get to 100-150 karma before biting it so while it's true your character is now stagnant, you already got more improvements that most other characters are going to see over the life of the game. And if the game does run that long, and you *live* that long (no doubt through the advantages of being hardcore infected) you start to earn karma again once you're no longer getting things for free.


Personally I'd retire the character, but I know several others who would keep playing, given the choice.

Vampires are hardly worth the 200 Karma.

First, you don't actually get a bonus to any of your stats. The only thing that changes is their range. If your stat was super low to begin with, yes, it gets boosted to the minimum but that's it. Any other benefits have to be bought with Karma or magic which requires Karma, which you don't get under this rule, or cyberware which is antithesis to an infected character anyway.

Second, the only real benefits they get is Regeneration and (for a Vampire) Mist Form. Neither of which are nearly as great as people make out. Regeneration is nice if you only get pelted with physical attacks on occasion, but any serious wound is likely going to damage your head or spine, so that's no longer able to be regenerated. Magical attacks of any type aren't either, so that covers spells, critter powers, weapon foci. Same goes for fire and a few other elemental attacks.

On top of that, you also get burdened down with some serious Allergies and Vulnerabilities. The sunlight one in particular is annoying.

That's so not worth 200 Karma. (And yes, it is 200 Karma. It's a 100-BP quality; Karma takes up twice the BP.) It's barely worth the 100 BP at character creation, and then only if you have a very specific build in mind that takes full advantage of it.

not every HMHVV is 200 karma :P

but that's kind of where I was going on it, reasonable minds differ on what's a worthwhile price to pay for various strains.

What'd be even worse is if you had Latent Dracomorphosis and your GM said that you're Awakening as a vampie drake'd you too...

That's what, 330 karma down the pooper.

Drakes can't be infected with any strain of HMHVV,
Should you suffer the infection before awakening as a Drake you'd lose your dragon quality.

.... Excellent point. I was just looking for a worst-case scenario from memory. Been a long time since I looked at drakes.

I agree. It's the same as saying a character has to pay money when they lift a Ares Predator off of a ganger's corpse.

I think I'll side with DV8 if the GM decides to force a positive quality that costs BP on a player who doesn't want it. He shouldn't be forced to pay the cost. At least not the full cost. After all if you pick up a negative quality during play you don't gain Karma do you?

I would think that a latent drake would still possess the immunity to HMHVV (on the count of technically already being a drake, just not manifested).
But yes, I'd admit that by RAW there is no immunity.

You could find some middle ground.. maybe you convert the value of the cyberware you can no longer use to karma, which is used to pay off on the quality? As well as any other qualities you lose being used to pay for the one you gain.

Your decision on the rules should be about what's fair to all players in the game, but also very importantly, about what's fun. Playing a tragically infected character can be nice, but stagnation is never good.

Paying 50% of the karma earnings, but the full cost of the quality doesn't sound like an unreasonable compromise.

I like that rule myself, so your character isnt completely farked over.

I also agree that the change over to vampire or other infected types are just plain sucky. The raw point values are defnitely worth it, but noone ever considers the relevance of those stat boosts to the character they're applied to. If I were playing a street sam for example, I might not have ever considered putting those karma points into raising my logic stat, or charisma unless I wanted to branch into another field.

I could be wrong, but doesn't that rule apply to buying positive qualities and buying off negative ones? It doesn't apply to being given negative or positive qualities. Too late to bother looking up myself, but just another angle to look at it and think about it. Thus the only way it seems that you would have to pay for becoming a vampire (Or whatever) would be if you bought being a vampire (somehow) directly with karma.

I think Glyph or someone else brought that up already, though it's not backed up by the rules. The rules state something like, "if the GM chooses they can award a character with a positive quality as an award instead of karma." Players don't get to actually buy one with their karma like they can improve skills or attributes. It's an optional reward system. And then, of course, they still have to buy it even if they didn't want it. So I really don't see how it's an award at all, but that's just me.

On a slight tangent: RPG designers have really weird ideas about what's balanced and what isn't. Game balance apparently only revolves around punishing players and offering negative reinforcement. This rule is a golden example of that mentality. If it gives you a benefit, you have to pay for it or else it's unbalanced. But if it hinders you, hey, that's cool. You deal with it and you get nothing in return, sucker.

It's a design philosophy I really dislike.

OTOH, being infected as a ghoul, for a +4 to your max. body, and a +2 to your max. reaction, among other things, seems like it would be nice. Vampires specifically might not be good for a role, but another HMHVV race might be.

EDIT: Weird, this post was in another thread. o.O

Then you do not understand the strengths that vampires get, and that is ok. Look at their magic. Look at Essence Drain. 1 + 1 = POWER! It is extremely easy to really start messing with these rules, and you end up with a very powerful character really quickly, or you start with a character that only needs karma for a couple initiations, possibly some long-term bindings, and some new spells. Otherwise, you never have to raise skills/stats again off a 400 BP character.

I'm inclined to agree, otherwise going on a run to save some CEO from an ambush would earn you negative karma as you may well end up with him as on reasonably high level contact after the run.

One of the houserules I attached to vampires and other infected in my game was to assume the disease progressed in stages and the "book" vampire was someone that had been infected for awhile. Using that (for lack of a better term) logic, you could have a character become infected and get the "basic package", but have to pay karma to develop other aspects.

I'd say the basic vamp package would be the Immunities, Essence Drain and Infection, what the vampire "is" and what it needs to survive. (I'd include Enhanced Senses Regen on that last for my game, but I houseruled Regen and YMMV.) Anything else would develop over time, and be represented by being bought off with Karma. The character who doesn't care about being a vamp might never put enough effort (meaning karma) into it hear the worms in the earth, while a character that does starts racing down the Bela Lugosi path as quickly as possible.

I think there is a case to be made about the infection being either a story or mechanical concern, and there is a difference between say a PC meeting a vamp NPC and agressively courting them to be infected, and a GM inflicting the disease on a PC who either doesn't want it or doesn't care one way or the other, but you kind of want it to be balanced either way. Particularly when the hacker who didn't want to be infected is, and then all the other characters in the group start clamouring for it. (Since the hacker can now infect his buddies, the game can quickly turn into "The Lost Boys".)

Likewise the vamp description mentions that the transformation sometimes unlocks hidden magical potential, so there is an argument to be made to allow people to buy the Magician quality as well, though I'd argue they had to pay that off with karma as well. (If this was covered somewhere else I apologize, but I'm just going by my SR4 BBB.)

I think the dividing line comes down to if the player wants it, or the GM makes them take it. If the player wants something, they probably should have to pay for it. If the GM makes them take it, they probably shouldn't. But chopping it up so the player can buy it at the rate they want it kind of solves both sides of it.

Chopping up is a good idea.. what kind of value would you put at each of the component benefits and drawbacks?

Off the top of my head, I'd say the Vulnerabilities should counter the "basic package", and the remaining powers can be spread out of the cost of the Quality (and the Magician Quality considered separately). I don't have the book that has the Infected in it, so I can't really go into more detail (although I think Regen should probably cost the most, and Enhanced Senses the least, particularly if you make each sense it's own thing).