Okay, here's the thing.

In my campaign, I had the characters built with BP.

400-420 BP (So, 400 BP, but they had 20 "extra" BP they could spend if needed to fill out the character).

Of course, now they've gotten karma. And then 1 player left due to RL. I'm not planning on recruiting a new player to fill out the group yet (we just brought a group of newbies aboard), but now that everybody has karma, I figure I need to plan ahead for when I do recruit new players.

So how do I do that? I don't want to switch to karmagen - it just is easier if everybody's built using 1 system - but how do I then build characters at the same level as the characters?

In short, how do I convert karma to BP so I know how to give build points to any new character?

You tell him to make a character with 420 BP.
When he's done, you give him a bunch of karma so he's up to date with the rest of the players.

Or the new person is just behind the rest of the group a bit. I'd suggest not giving the new person the full amount to fill the gap, as it can make the people who have stuck around and earned the karma feel a bit off. Perhaps have them make a 400-420BP character, then give them half the amount of the karma earned by the lowest karma character. Makes them not weak compared to the others, but still gives the others the sense that they've earned a somewhat higher place in the pecking order.

Fair point.

Reminds me of a game where characters actually did have rank (you were an enlisted man). It was hilarious when I had a character--for a one-shot--that had a higher rank than anyone else (except one person; we tied*) and then a year later for another one-shot, both of us still had our sheets, and once again, pulled rank on all the other players.

*If I recall correctly our supporting characters^ were the same rank as all of the other player's main characters, due to the system.

^Mooks, for the players. You get 4, they tend to lose moral and run away a lot.

We had this problem a lot in a D&D campaign with a rather big party (6-7). Some players had this tendency to come up with new characters they wanted to try, and some players had trouble keeping their PCs alive throughout adventures.

In that case, new characters started one level below the lowest-level character in the group, which meant that switching characters was less attractive if someone else just got a new character the session previous. This had weird effects. Characters in the party were levels 3-7 at some point. Not so good from a balance perspective.

It's okay to reward characters for staying alive to grow and improve. So new characters start a bit "junior" somehow. But not so much that the new player can't have any cool gimmick of his own.



It'd be rather a lot of work, but you could try one of the following:
- Calculate the average BP value of the current PCs
- Calculate the average KarmaGen value of the current PCs

And then let the new player make a character with 90-95% of that amount of points.


I read part of an interesting thread on the Gaming Den forum recently; an argument about Fairness vs. Balance. It's okay for some people to be somewhat better and more awesome than others, if they got to that place in a fair way. But it's best if everyone has something important they're better at than any other PC. If you use missions that require diversified skills, this is easier to achieve (stealth, magic, hacking, sniping, melee, socializing etc. - find a niche for the new PC to be good at, at the cost of being "junior" in most of the others.)


Good coaching of the new player is important in this situation; help the player make a character, and be frank about what roles are already "taken". Try to help the new player find a role in which they can do something meaningful. Consider that to some extent, a party's tactics are just the optimal application of the skills they happen to have available to them. With new skills come new tactical possibilities.

I find having the new players come in half the earned karma of the old players works well.

They get more than a starting runner and an experienced team will be able to recruit from the more experienced runners out there.

Both sides find that fair.



On the Karma build side, it is more cost effective for a well rounded character.
On the other hand the BP system with some extra karma to spend is also good at getting a well rounded character.

Personally I prefer the Karma system. I like it because you don't need to min max so much. I do require that the PCs buy the sum of Int and Log times 3 in Knowledge skills just to keep it fair. There is also the question on Race costs. The new stat cost of 5 times desired level in SR4A has balanced that out a lot. I wish they had included the Karma build option in SR4A.



Now for those that have their original players who used the BP system for their PCs and have new players wanting to use the Karma build system...

If you don't have a lot of very high stats or skills and depending where you fall on race costs, it can be surprising how may skills you can get using the Karma system. Especially if you don't min max at all.

To balance that out with your old players, offer to let anyone who wants to to rewrite their characters using the karma build system to do so. Some players love to rework a PC.

For other players that don't find rebuilding their PC that much fun, awarding their PCs some extra karma to balance it out. The amount given out doesn't have to be much. I would think 10 or 20 karma's worth is fine.

Or even better offer to award a positive qualities or two that really fits that PC (perhaps one that is very appropriate to the PC, but isn't too cost effective and the player has never had the karma to spare for). Or let them remove a Negative Quantity that has been resolved through play.