What penalties to stat limits have Elves got, compared to Humans? I see higher AGI by 1, and higher CHA by 3, compared to the round-ears (plus natural low-light, of course, the handiest vision modifiers for the most common light level in the game). I see Edge (1) as the only thing they lose out on. I guess maybe you're about to argue that one point of Edge totally kicks the ass of four regular attribute points (and low light), and the poor, oppressed, Elves just don't know how bad they've got it?

There have always been plenty of anti-human metaracists floating around in the setting, too. All-meta gangs, establishments that even have "anti-human" prejudices listed right there in their official write-ups in official sourcebooks. There are pro-meta (and strongly anti-human) gangs and terrorist organizations written out plainly in canon material, likely just as many as there are pro-human. There's also (let us not forget) a strong history of actual racism in the setting (pro-Native, pro-Japanese, etc, etc) that humans still have to worry about. And, racism notwithstanding, there are still PLENTY of places where ANYONE walking down the street in the wrong neighborhood will die.

I understand that this is going to sound harsher than I mean for it to, but I'm really just feeling you don't know what you're talking about too well. Have you played in campaigns with heavily house-ruled and exaggerated rules for wholly one-sided metaracial prejudice, maybe? Because I'm really not sure where you're getting some of your ideas. Even the (somewhat silly) rules for racism right there in the Social Skills section of SR3 aren't nearly as bad as you're making the whole metaracism thing out to be.

In regards to the Human vs. Meta topic, I've never played a nonhuman in SR3 if it wasn't going to be a short game. IIRC neither did the rest of my group except for the occassional troll.

Maybe we over-value karma pool.

If not over-value, perhaps over-rely-upon. I can count on one hand the number of times my highest karma character (pushing 250, last time I checked) used karma points throughout his entire career.

I can see thinking a low karma pool (and, in a related fashion, a low Edge) is a totally horrible death sentence, if you got used to using it like a crutch to help you out of ever jam. I've always been fine with using it only when it's really, really, needed -- blowing it for the final climactic slow-motion shot of the action movie, instead of spending it like water all throughout the flick (so to speak).

you are freaking out... man.

/Super Troopers

It does have to be a death sentence to be repeatedly called a "crippling," when comparing metahumans to round ears (unless, again, "crippled" doesn't mean the same thing to me as it does to a few other people).

And, for the record, it really IS pretty easy to get an idea for when you have to use karma pool. If something's going to do worse than a Moderate injury to you, or impose more than a +1 TN penalty after any damage compensation you have, you karma it. If you're about to lose a significant chunk (half or more) of your combat pool if someone counters that melee attack you just invested CP in, you karma it. If you succeeding wildly at this shot will mean you open the gunfight by taking out the enemy mage, you karma it. Those are the rules. You don't karma every incoming attack in order to try and brag about not having scars. You don't karma every outbound attack against every two-bit thug just to keep a record of one-shots. You spend karma when an attack will either give you and yours a massive advantage, or when NOT karma'ing a defense will leave you in a seriously bad way.

*shrugs* It's worked for me so far.

I've pulled my share of crazy shit without karma pool to help me out. I'll readily admit that in part I got "trained" to do so because one of my longest running characters has Cursed Karma -- so I quickly became something of an expert at not idly spending Karma Points unless I really, really, needed to. It's a habit that's carried over to my other characters, and has served me well.

You might see it as not maximizing a resource, I see it as getting by just fine with all my KP still held in reserve -- for that rainy day when I do need to reroll something some ridiculous number of times. Despite playing every single one of my Shadowrun games in a ridiculously dark and violent place, with something of a reputation for player killing (both by GMs and other players), I have yet to lose a single character, ever.

So what works for you might not work for me, what works for me might not work for you, etc, etc. Which is all fine and dandy. Different tables, different playing styles, different characters with different stats and skillsets. I totally understand these things vary from campaign to campaign -- which is why I'm speaking out against the "metas are always gimped, karma/edge is the nectar of the gods" sort of sweeping generalizations.

Metahumans are viable characters. Karma/Edge is not always absolutely necessary in obscene amounts for a Shadowrunner to succeed. They might be at SOME tables, but not everywhere.

If you want to give it a shot sometime, I'd suggest folks go a little lighter on the karma/edge expenditures, just for a few sessions. Make yourself use cover a little more. Look into Aim actions or called shots to tilt the odds in your favor. Tell yourself karma pool and edge are precious resources that are only to be used under the most dire of circumstances, and maybe you'll be surprised at how well you do when you're not "maximizing the resource."

Metahumans in SR3 are viable, perhaps. But are they also gimped compared to humans? Absolutely. Playing one (especially an ork or troll) is essentially shooting yourself in the foot for the privilege of having tusks.

Another fundamental SR3/SR4 change between karma pool and Edge:

In bargaining with free spirits, you could give up a point or two from your karma pool. (We had an extended discussion about that on Dumpshock -- can't remember if these boards or the previous version.) That's something you can't do with Edge.

Ok first off could one of you make a metahumans in SR3 thread in the non 4th edition board? I mean seriously off topic and off edition. Are you guys going to start arguing about wookies in the old version of the star wars RPG (pretty hard to hurt you know)?

As for Mr. Lucky, you do know you can't use edge with skillwires yes? Actually I'm pretty sure you do. That's more for anyone else thinking of playing them.

I'm still inclined to say that Mr. Lucky would be "better" if that 55CP on the last 2 points of edge was put somewhere else. 55CP gets you a lot, and if you are only using edge one of two times before it refreshes you're just talking about two extra dice twice. That doesn't seem like a lot compared to three more skills at 4 and 35 thousand of extra toys.

Also you went over the max on positive qualities. You'd have to use the 5pt version of pain tolerance.

Also "Quickness"

once was a sniper with a dart gun--GM ruled that a called shot to the neck increased the base damage from none to L, and the sniper rolled enough successes to stage it to something like D+3; i had to blow karma to a) get enough dice to make it even possible to survive, and b) get enough successes to survive. the other time was a somewhat inexperienced GM; we took on a team of Tir na nOg operators who were trying to ambush, and my character took a 12S burst with 4 successes after blowing all his combat pool dodging previous 12S bursts.

SR4 Metas are most definitely not gimped. All the attributes actually mean something these days, so getting bonuses and higher caps means a lot more than it used to.

yeah, SR4 metas are, i'd say, probably better than humans. +1 edge is nice, but it doesn't compare to doubled karma pool.

I was replying to Talia's mention of metahuman balance depending at least partially on edge. For SR4 there's no question (at least to me) that the benefits they gain are more than balanced against the loss of 1 edge.

And that, JonathanC, would belong in the general Shadowrun forum. I'm sure if you started a thread on the topic there, you'd have many, many replies.

I think I'm replacing the expression "between Scylla and Charybdis " as "between sunnyside and JonathanC"

Still, point taken -- and we'll all work together to keep this thread on topic, open, and here.

I don't know ... a strong reliance on skillsofts and skillwires seems even more limiting in a world so heavily structured around luck, don't you think ...?

Cute.

Actually I think the thing some people are getting at isn't that Mr. Lucky is so bad. They just don't like the idea that someone with a respectable edge can get by at something they have no skill in.

A generally solid skill in something is a 4. So if your typical edge 5 person uses that skill untrained even after the -1 for defaulting they're still rolling the same number of dice, and the sixes are exploding. So temperarily they're skilled in it. If it's a skill that doesn't come up often, they can get by without it.

Is that peoples problem? Would not being able to use edge on a default fix it?

Of course again there are the skillwires and all that which kind of duplicate that functionality. And a TM with command and a drone can do darn near everything except social skills (and even then with pure RAW.........)

Except that everyone else who wants to have any serious chance at making their living as a con man (IE, all the other "good social specialists") also have a 7/7, thanks to the hard cap meaning that's as good as you can be without supernatural/supertechnological assitance.

So, yeah. That's not really the "world's best," it's just someone who's good at their job. The "world's best" can be quite a bit better than that (at character creation, no less).

the definition is stupid--it's one of the big reasons why SR4 struck out with a lot of us.

Shall we say -- really, really good at their job? Not world's best though: because that's adept territory.

If by 'really really good' you mean: No human can be better, ever - indeed.

Everything more is superhuman.

Well, there's also tailored pheromones.

What you probably mean is that no unmodified, unAwakened, non-elf can ever be better, yes?

Edit: come to think of it, quite a few elves might be quite flattered that they're considered superhuman.

I was just complaining about the hard cap with my GM when talking about our upcoming campaign. The name and slang changes irk me, but rule mechanic wise the skill cap I think sucks. Its about my only big rule mechanic gripe, everything else is small.

I don't like starting off and having the highest skill possible with only cheese to make me stronger, and a range of 1-7 just doesn't allow for enough differentiation especially with a TN of 5.

This especially irks me when stats will be giving more dice than skill, thematically it just seems wrong that raw talent owns XP and training so much. Edge is the worst offender in this regard, while it only out dices a skill by1 die at the max that one stat can out dice every skill everyone has.

Fair enough. But chemsniffers -- why? They'd be zinging off then constantly with all the tailored, legal perfumes. (From one of the SotAs, I think.)

First thing we houseruled was possibility -- difficult! but possible for non-modified, non-Awakened persons to go past the cap. Don't ask how much it costs.

I'm with Cain though: no way should a purely lucky PC right out of the box be able to best a dedicated specialist, and that more than once, and reliably.

the problem with the "Edge is so broken because it can let you beat a specialist at their specialty" argument is that it assumes no Edge use by the specialist, and there's nothing stopping that ultra-augmented sammie or social adept from having a soft-maxed Edge of 5 (for metahumans) or 6 (for humans), letting them pull out far ahead of someone relying solely on Edge.

Plus, that specialist won't depend on Edge to be effective at all, so he will be able to allocate it in more effective ways. The lucky guy will be adding Edge to his roll, getting exploding dice, but still vulnerable to a glitch, or even a critical glitch. The specialist, on the other hand, can roll his normal big fistful of dice, and then use Edge to re-roll failures (a better tactic for large dice pools) - plus, since he or she is holding off on using Edge, it is still available to negate a glitch or tone down a critical glitch.


Maybe a "purely" lucky character can beat a character who is a specialist with low Edge, but I wouldn't call such a character a dedicated specialist. I guess I have less of a problem because I don't see Edge as mere luck, but as drive, tenacity, a will to win, a certain ruthlessness. Someone with mastery in swordsmanship but low Edge is technically skilled, but might not have "it" in a pinch. Someone with a low blades skill but high Edge might barely know which end of the sword to use, but he knows he is on the killing ground, and is grimly ready to take advantage of any opening. And the deadliest runners, those with high skill and high Edge, are the ones who have abilities that have been honed by struggling in life-and-death situations.