Welp, here are my thoughts on this thing.


Part 1: http://azaael.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/sha...-review-part-1/

Part 2: http://azaael.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/sha...-review-part-2/

Part 3: http://azaael.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/sha...-review-part-3/


I don't expect everyone to agree with it, but all in all, it was fun writing it. As errata comes out, who knows if my mind will change on things. Will be posting updates on my thoughts about the 3 power levels, as I said, which I've actually been having fun making characters for.


Hope you enjoy it. Sorry for it's extreme length, though I did make a point of saying 'Jump to part 3 if you don't care about the technicalities.'

Good stuff, and I look forward to your run through Chargen. I think I put together about thirty characters when we were getting near to having everything finished.

Good review, your opinions are close to mine for the most part.

Like the review, but you had to mention the Wireless bonuses as the 'big Room Elephant' which added a vaguely sour, preconceived opinion to the piece which made that entire section feel more like an opinion piece rather than a review.

Awesome Work, Elfenrir...

Nice review, although I do not agree on all accounts. SR5 is to nostalgic, doing away with good concepts in favor of: "it has allways been that way, before SR4". That being said.... it schould never have been "Deckers".

Reviews are opinion pieces.

A review should cover the bad from a neutral standpoint; I'm just saying it makes it feel less neutral, more "slamming this because I don't like it" rather than "slamming this because it's objectively bad", alleviated only slightly by suggesting it could be awesome.

A lot of people would disagree with you, in part due to subtext--just by making excuses for things in the first place you often reveal your own biases and expectations, which is why many professional critics don't operate in they way you describe at all. Everyone has their own biases, and while it's certainly possible to try and imagine and describe hypothetical people who may not dislike the things you dislike about a product, it's often a rather empty exercise that at worst can obfuscate what you actually believe about the product for no particular purpose but to appeal to those who enjoy the illusion of objectivity you are incapable of providing. What reviews and opinion pieces thrive off is forthrightness, and feigned objectivity undermines that.

I have to say thanks for the feedback so far, and for the criticism as well; I'm cool with constructive criticism. The funny thing is-in my head, the 'elephant in the room' phrase isn't necessarily *hugely* negative; it's not positive, but I always thought of it as a sort of way of saying 'there's a big issue here that needs discussing that a lot of people notice, and it could be problematic.' I agree-I approach reviews with at least some opinion in there. I always have and I probably always will. To be honest, I prefer reading them than a purely objective review. There WAS a time where I thought I preferred purely objective reviews, but something happened and I couldn't explain what, but I think Whipstitch nailed what that ended up being. (At the same time, I think there's also a limit on the other end-if a review is nothing but a 100% rant from beginning to end, I'm not going to be sure what to think. Unless the thing being reviewed is Bubsy 3D or something.)

What actually made me a bit confused, though, I admit-is that I was more expecting to be called out on the slightly angry rant about Knowledge Skills being x2, the sudden enormous increase of some Bioware or my glitch rant, since I actually thought those were put in a far more negative light than the Wireless thing, which I'm not totally on board with as IS but I think it has potential if tweaked properly.

My bigger issue with the Wireless bonus section is it's being slammed more than the Knowledge skill change in more forums that people likely to read the review frequent. It felt closer to you throwing gas on the fire than giving a review. That's just me, though - apparently.

I give you http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wa...phantom-menace/

Add me to the 'reviews are opinion pieces' crowd.

A would-be purchaser is best served by being alerted to rules that may cause tension or frustration so they can read them, and consider how to (or whether to) introduce them at their table, rather than have an unexpected blowup (player or plotline) during play.

I had totally forgotten about that Phantom Menace review. Okay, yes, that was awesome.

And here we go, with the 'Chargen Reviews.'

Street Level: http://azaael.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/sha...1-street-level/

Prime Level: http://azaael.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/sha...-2-prime-level/

Normal Level: http://azaael.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/sha...3-normal-level/

These were a ton of fun, I admit, and I got some very good information from them.

It even spells out this is something you can do in the book:

Page 88, What The Numbers Mean, right column, end of paragraph.

Overall, I liked the overview, and it's easy to see which one you had the most fun making. The DX:HR reference on the Prime one made me chuckle.

...Heh, you know, I've been staring at words the past few days so much, that I think in the back of my brain I actually knew that with the skill group, but for some reason I completely brainfarted while writing.

I actually had a lot of fun making all three, but I was wondering how my writing hid the one I had the 'most' fun with. Not well by the look.

I could be wrong, of course; but when you preface it with the character's personality and such taking shape before you're even done assigning priorities, it's pretty obvious. (Or at least, that's the ones I have the most fun with. YMMV.)

Agreed on both counts.

Roger Ebert was a good critic. He had his own opinions but was fair.
He understood that other people have different tastes and would point out what a particular movie did well or failed to delivery on.

And because I've read a lot of his reviews and then seen the movie, I had a good idea of what my opinion would be after reading his review.
If he said a movie was weak in one area, then I went in knowing not to expect much. Saved a lot of disappointment.

Giving a heads up on the strengths and weaknesses of a product in the reviewer's opinion is an important part of a review.

Looking over this now, and making a couple small notes.

First, Kat the Raven Shaman, I'd suggest dropping Enchanting and Banishing by 1 point each (To a 3 and 2, respectively) and picking up Assessing 2. Not having that one'll hurt.

Second, yeah, I think people are going to start eyebaling Resources A and going, "Do I *really* need that?" more often on their Samurai. There are some nice options tucked around in there. As always, interesting to see someone else's vision for a Samurai, as mine would have been *quite* a bit differently.

On the third, when building the PhysAd for the Archetypes, I had a brainfart and forgot that you could convert Karma to cash. That would have saved so many struggles *wince* On teh other hand, skill dabbling, where you take some skills at 1 with your karma "slush fund" is just awesome. Things like Computer 1, which as you noted pretty much everyone in the 6th world should have, drops right in there without hurting your "real" skills.

The chargen system has some handcuffs here and there (As a skill guy, I never feel like I have enough) when compared to the freeform days of 4th, it speeds things up a TON and makes sure that you aren't completely imbalanced. I dig it.

For your next challenges, try these two: First, a normal Face, then a street-level Decker. You'll find yourself facing two different obstacles that can both be hopped over, but will make you pause for a bit. I'll let you figure out what those are when you get there.

I know you weren't planning on it, but I'd be interested in your assessment of the fiction pieces in the core book.

RE: The Fiction. I did find them generally enjoyable reads that gave a pretty good world-feel with a bit of the old-school familiar tones which I have a big soft spot for. I liked some more than others; my two favorites were probably 'Where There's Smoke' and 'Rooftops and Rainbows.' They jumped out at me the most overall. The Rigger story, that one didn't do much for me for some reason. (This is a very, very quick n' dirty outlook of it, I know, compared to the lengthy review of the rules, but since I wasn't planning it at least I'd want to give some overall opinion. I could at some point get around to doing a more thorough overlook. I've read them all, but I admit fiction reviews aren't my strongest point-I writer it, review videogames and tabletop games, but I haven't done an actual, honest to god written fiction review in a very, very long time.)

The Chargen-I actually felt *less* handcuffed here than 4e. WAY less. (And yeah, I notice Sams tend to be really, really different. Hell, I've built some different ones. I was going for your good physical stat, high Initiative, combat type with some backups.) But I felt so much more free here. I felt that 4e tried to shove too many artifical shackles on(skill limits, extremely expensive final points, etc.)

The Assensing thing for Kat-that was on my mind, but for some reason I passed it over. I can't recall why, I think I got distracted by another part of the character sheet. I did do quite a bit of number shuffling on all 3. And yeah, after the Sam was all said and done, I did think 'Hmm, Resources B with that shifting around could have worked too.'

I'll pop those other two here for one. First. Normal Face? That's not too hard. (Now, Street Decker. That one might take awhile. ) This guy isn't like, 110% optimal, but I like it. It's a pretty quick and rough thing, without as much as the detail in the others, but it proves that in terms of scratching down the numbers, this new chargen doesn't take that long.

I've done a lot of screwing around with the totals, and here are my preliminary findings. For what it's worth, this has taken me a LOT longer than BP or Karma gen ever did. I should note I normally play Adepts and toyed around with builds for those, so non-magical characters would be a different layout but the basics are similar.

Attributes are king. They influence all the Limits and of course add their rating to skills for tests. They also happen to be the most expensive part to raise (tied with Skill Groups, which again, use a linked Attribute), which shouldn't shock anyone since it has been like that forever. I really hate how constrictive this Priority system is as I am a guy who always liked to have a variety of skills at low levels and Attributes not maxed or close to maxed, but I am now punished for doing so in a value-sense.

Attributes A is the clear winner for me, but I don't play Trolls so they aren't a consideration for me at ranks A or B. Attributes A allows a Human to have 4s across the board, but statistically it allows for one maxed stat of 6, four stats at 5, one at 4 and two dump stats at 1. Again, I hate this, but min/maxing this Priority system is far more complex than it should be thanks to the alarming number of variables in each rank.

After Attributes are taken care of, I choose Skills of B. You can take five skills at Rank 6, each with a specialization and have 1 skill point left over. It remains to be seen how skills will work mathematically in relation to limits; I wonder if their overall value will have decreased and more emphasis will be placed on Attributes anyway.

Since I like magical characters I take Adept at C for the starting 4 Magic and free level 2 active skill, and spend the final skill point on a specialization for it. Race of D works well for magical humans since they can then max Magic at 6 and raise Edge one rating to 3. Resources are E since Adepts don't need much in my builds.

If I were to take magic out of the equation, I would make Race C and max Edge, and then take Resources at D. In my experience, money is easier to come by in-game than Karma, so I always take as little as possible. You could of course flip these two if you liked.

My goal is to get the max attribute points possible and I believe that is achievable with the outline above, but I'm sure once others get a chance to throw some ideas together we'll figure out what really does work best. In the meantime I'll keep my fingers crossed for a karmagen system in the Runner's Companion.

some concepts absolutely cannot function in any way with resources at D. like deckers, and most street samurai.

also, if it took you that long to figure out what was best, i consider that a good thing. if it was easy to make the decision, that would be a strong indicator that something isn't balanced very well.

What took the most time was constantly going back and forth switching priorities around to get what I wanted, instead of moving a few karma/bp points here and there. Priority is no easier, and most of the timesink of chargen is on selecting gear anyway.

At risk of sounding overly simplistic, you're doing it wrong. Set your priorities as a sweeping generalization -- what's most and least important. Build from there. Want huge tech? Resources A. Most skilled badass? Skills A. Etc.

Attributes high is very good, but I actually think I can work low attributes with the high-stat bonus types. Dwarf 'Seat' Rigger(type that rarely leave the vehicle, uses drones for most stuff) can get away with it, for example. For a combat character, you get a high Agility, and you can have a lot of skills at lower levels and still get bigger die pools. Insert 'whatever stat you use here for character type' here.

Funny, but I really didn't feel strained at all when I made Downfall, and I could have easily twinked him by dropping the strength ability and maxing Reflexes on him. He DID take Attributes A. Kat has them at B and does fine, she's pretty tweaked with her magic skills. I could make a normal sam work with Attributes B with some shuffling about. (At our table it's easier since we nix Availability at chargen, so I admit I can be colored at that.) Low Resources, though, yeah-a Sam can't really function beyond C...but to be completely honest, sams have always needed resources(in SR2 and 3 that 90k was a killer and extremely difficult to use. 4, I will give them, while they had far too many limitations on the BP system, their cyberware was affordable enough where I could make a pretty cheap sam.) Cheap sam here is cyber-body conversion. It really is the cheapest way to go. I could have converted Jensen's body over for half the price and he'd have higher stats. D would...you'd have to resort to 20,000 bonus nuyen and run with cyberarms. A Sam with 50k is essentially 'the guy in the gang with cyberarms.' Otherwise sams want C+.

(Karmagen, at the end of the day, IS my favorite of any system though, and it probably will be forever.)

Edit. And yeah, that's what I did. For Downfall(since he was the Normal guy), I thought 'huge, strong, Elf, adept, literally kicks people's heads in, has a few other skills, brokeass, go.'' That essentially set his priorities right there.

That's what I did but it took more work than I would have liked to get to the point I wanted.

The Priority character generation (as the default, and currently only method) is a major design failure, and the single defining reason I wish I had not purchased the book.

While the system is very useful for quickly generating unplanned characters, and would have been an amazing addition as a variant character generation, it has major flaws. The biggest by far mimicking d20 stat arrays. What this means specifically is that you are given a set of values to assign, but are locked into those values. The 'elite array' for d20 is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, assigned to your six attributes. While the value is equivalent to 25 point buy, you have no flexibility with the values.

I spent a great deal of time trying to create a character around a pre-existing concept, and quite simply could not do so. The problem was that I could not build the character to the concept with an 'E' priority in anything, and had a hard time assigning 'D'. At the same time, I didn't care at all about the greater values 'A' had over 'B'. In other words, I wanted a 14 & a 10, but the system was forcing 15 & 8.

Compounding this issue, the SR5 priority system has the exact same min-max issues that SR4 build points did. The cost of attributes and skills during character generation is a linear scale, while character advancement uses a divergent series (increasing costs). Creating a character with a 6 and a 1 costs 5 points, and is equivalent to 100 karma in attributes, while creating a character with a 4 and 3 costs the same 5 points, but is only equivalent to 70 karma worth of advancement, making it more efficient to either fully invest, or not invest at all, in your attributes and skills during generation. This is the problem karma generation in 4th solved, and a large part of why it was praised.



Another issue I have with the system deals with limits. While I believe limits are an excellent design feature, their implementation was mishandled. The biggest offender is gear limits such as accuracy. The problem is that weapon accuracy makes the character's natural limit meaningless, due to the replacement. Weapon accuracy and similar gear limits should have been handled as a modifier, not a replacement. The highly capable samurai with a physical limit of 10 is restricted to no more than 4 hits with a crappy Slivergun, but Random Jack with a physical limit of 2 can pull in 7 with a lucky roll using a Colt America? No. Accuracy needs to modify a character's limit on a scale of -2 to +2, not replace it.


I have not combed through the book fully yet, and while I have complaints about a few other changes (combat spells come to mind), nothing really stands out and many of the changes appear to be well thought out. Nonetheless, the aforementioned issues with priority generation and limits are easily enough for me to declare Shadowrun 4 the vastly superior system, rules as written.

I wanted to look at this by points, because I think you got some things either wrong, or took them to a place that I don't think they deserved.



I actually found the system quite sufficient for knocking out my 'featured NPCs' that are common to my games -- namely a Dwarf Face/Fixer/Courier that serves as an occasional run delivery device, an old Troll ex-runner bartender that runs a local runner hangout, and a baseline runner Ork with most of his body replaced by cyberlimbs. None of these characters took a significant time investment compared to Build or Karma generation, and each of them is perfectly viable and precisely what I expected trying to make them.

This worked out far better than Build Points, because it didn't take hours for each character, and I found it worked better than Karmagen since I didn't have to nitpick over details. I assigned some base statistics, checked versus available points, and tweaked a little to make things fit.



It's not really min-maxing. Characters in Shadowrun don't get the full benefit of "dump-stats." If you min-max heavily, you'll probably end up very vulnerable in some way that can be exploited.



This is a point that I think could be argued back and forth all day. Limits aren't my favorite thing from a design standpoint, but I think that the number of modifications you're suggesting where you have a Limit, and the gun modifies the Limit, and gear modifies the Limit, and gun gear modifies the Limit for that gun, and so on, would really get to be a pain in the neck.



This is where I strictly can't agree. Shadowrun 4 as a system is a barely-functional cobbled-together collection of disparate systems. SR5 may not work precisely how you want in some ways, but systems-wise it's much more usable out the gate.

And SR5, which is basically SR4 with an SR3 skin in various places, isn't a barely-functional cobbled-together collection of subsystems?

Comparatively it isn't. Between Magic and the Matrix, SR5 seems like a much more coherent set of rules with defined ways to accomplish defined goals.

I'd love to see an elaboration on that.

Yes, Priority probably works better for NPCs...you know, the non-player characters who don't have to have as much detail as a real character. PACKs would work better in this area though if you're making NPCs. But to fully realize a detailed PC, Priority seems woefully inadequate for anyone but a newcomer.

Actually my featured NPCs have just as much detail, usability, and depth as any PC should. And most of them have crossed several editions. Go figure.

It's interesting then that in a discussion about using Priority-gen for PC generation, you decide to bring up NPCs.

Because as I'm the usual Shadowrun GM for my group I tend to build a lot more NPCs than PCs. And the ones I'm talking about I build as if they're PCs, filling particular roles in my game.

It's interesting that in a discussion about using Priority for character generation, it matters whether the characters are for the GM to run or players to run.

It matters because NPCs are not going to need nearly the attention to detail that PCs need (for people that like detailed PCs, which is a large group). You've already said in a previous post that you feel broad-brush strokes are fine for a character (below), so it goes to show that your level of "detail" for characters (NPCs/PCs) is less than others. Telling others that they're "doing it wrong" is...

That was a specific response to the idea that you need to set and re-set and re-set priorities to tweak a character. Priorities are broad-brush, but selecting individual points in things is not.

That said, there's no real reason for a character generation system to be so fiddly that you need to seriously consider the pros and cons of taking a point in Obscure 20th Century Film references versus an extra 1% money. It's an RPG character, not the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

You're doing it again, telling people how they should play the game. I and others disagree and want a character generation system that isn't broad-brush and that is more "fiddly" than Priority gen allows.

I can't speak for how anyone should play the game, but when it comes to using the Priority system, if you're stuck in a decision loop about how to arrange your Priorities you're probably either not very clear on what you want to do, or you're trying very hard to build a character that the system doesn't really allow. In that sense, yes, you're doing it wrong -- you need to approach Priority somewhat differently than you approach Build Points or Karma. because Priority requires you to pull the trigger on your concept early rather than shuffling things around in a spreadsheet like a game of Gridlock until it all fits.

And now I'm not really clear on what you want to argue about, because you seem more interested in attacking my sensibilities than anything else.

I'm not trying to attack your sensibilities, honest.

But you just seem very confused as to the situation as presented. "He's doing it again!" </monty python> Above, you even say "you're trying very hard to build a character that the system doesn't really allow". THAT'S what I and others are complaining about! The system DOESN'T allow us to build the characters we want. A karma-gen system WOULD allow us to build the character we want. We had it in SR4, then it was taken away, and replaced with (what I feel is) a dumb-downed character generation system.

Does that explain things?

The question then is "should this character be allowed at the chargen phase?" Is it something that should be worked up to?

Rather, where's the annoyance coming from? Too high stats? Too low stats? Too many/few special qualities? Not enough gear? Too much money left over?

I'm starting to wonder if I picked the 'wrong' concepts to make with this for the review, since I made two of them damn easy and the third had more problems with Resources and Availability than stats. I may, for the sake of being in-depth, try to make a few more concepts. I'd remake some old characters, but I wouldn't be able to get an 'unbiased' read-since they're built with our houserule of nixing Availability at chargen, they assume to be able to miss that, and have their numbers assigned assuming that I don't need to worry about that. If I remade anyone it would be mages without cyber(or light, normally book legal cyber). I may do some of that today. I'm curious to know if I'll discover any concepts that feel like they're 'held back.'


(That being said, making a Karmagen system wouldn't be that hard to do, and something I might even consider, since I am a fan of them. All the costs are right there in the book. I'd just need to figure out Race costs and then how much to start with...since there wouldn't be any 'free' special attribute points, and they cost as much to increase as others, I'd need to start everyone off assuming they could get a good price, and also with the x5 Attribute Cost in mind, which is hefty. Will also need to compensate for the fact you can get more nuyen now, so upping Nuyen/Karma to 5,000 a point, 450k max perhaps(or depending on power level, but then you'd change the starting Karma). I'm looking at the new power level off the top of my head and thinking I would test 850 first-and assuming that's too high-drop it to 800. I'd rather start at the top and whittle some off. Of course I'm expecting this to appear in a Companion anyway so this would be moot.)

Trolls did terrible, terrible things to Karmagen. Just awful. I look forward to the next round of trying to crack that code when/if karmagen comes back into focus. I might be the *only* one, but I think I found the missing piece of the puzzle.

I don't think that's the question - more like "should my character creation be limited to broad-brush strokes or should it be fine-grained". You're pigeonholing characters by saying "He's a stats guy!" or "She's a gear gal!". I'm arguing that characters should be allowed to be more nuanced than that.

My personal annoyance is that the interactions between the subsystems aren't fluid enough. If you have 20 attribute points, but want the equivalent of 22 points, you can't "take some points" from your skills....yeah, there's karma, but then you get into the next problem below...

A general problem is that the Priority system is linear, while karma advancement post-chargen is not. It encourages min-maxing and in some ways is far fiddlier than karma gen (attributes are worth 1 Attribute point, but are worth (5*karma) points). A player is punished if they don't take as many 6's as possible in Attributes or Skills, since those points are linear. And if you argue that a player shouldn't worry about things like this and should just "play the game", that means you've missed the point.

It's not that bad if the costs of the races are right. Trolls do have issues where if you do it the old way, they're too expensive, but if you do the 'buy from 1, add bonus', they *can* be too cheap. I'm here doing some fiddling myself. I first look at 'Human' with the system, when I start to figure it. I see what it costs to get all 4's down the line, which is Priority A(Karmagen allows you do go higher than this, at a cost, of course, and that's something I would keep.) Now here's the thing-I know I can't just say 'well, let's see what this, that, and the other would cost and toss it in.' I DO think, though, assuming 4's down the line is at least a good starting point for Attributes. As for Magic or Technomancer IMO, you buy those stats, you have them. Don't need a quality for it.

See, Resources are pretty linear; it's a 1 Karma for X Nuyen basis, with a cap. (And in my Karma system, I may decide to lower it but allow the free Knowledge Skill points again. Oh yeah, they're going to be times 3, of course. )

I do find something interesting-Karmagen systems have existed in SR for quite a long time. BeCKs came out in 2e, did it not? Every system I always notice went from Book-Companion-Karma, Book-Companion-Karma, then 4e sorta dropped the last one by including Karma in the Companion. I'm guessing some people are more wondering why they just don't make Karma the standard? (I always thought that it took me longer to make a Karmagen character-even though I prefer it to all-so I figured that's why it was never included in a core book, to put something simpler in for new players.)

I haven't really looked at the matrix chapter yet, but my understanding is that it changed quite a bit, to bring it in line mechanically with the rest of the system. The rest of the book is SR4.5. They added some things (limits), they changed some numbers (skills, damage, etc), but very few of the mechanics have any difference. It's actually quite comparable to the difference between D&D 3rd and 3.5 (or perhaps 3.5 and Pathfinder).


You don't seem to understand. The game is giving me A, B, C, D, & E. I want B, B, C, D, D (although one or both of the D's should be buffed up a bit - the difference between A & B is quite a bit bigger than D & E).

The problem is that you must have a strong category, and you must have a weak category. And the worst part of this is that it doesn't necessarily correlate to character strengths and weaknesses, because the categories are so broad (a character that is physically strong but mentally disabled has a definite strength/weakness dynamic that has nothing to do with generation priorities).


To really notice the problem I am discussing, you need to make a character that wants no glaring weaknesses in any of the 5 categories. I was trying to make an infiltrator/assassin bioadept, but any tech based adept (particularly of a nonhuman metavarient) should work fine for this. Or a Street Magic Chaos Mage.


The RAW karma generation did have definite issues, but the benefits from a single system generally outweighed them. If you want a tuned karma generation system that solves those problems, look in my signature.




Another issue I was having with the priority system I should mention is actually the layout. Again, it has little impact on new characters without any predetermined characteristics, but makes it a hassle to build a character around a concept.

The problem comes down to assigning a priority to your metatype, before you know anything else about what you want. Then attributes, and so on. One of the methods I used to solve this (and the one that eventually convinced me I couldn't make the character I wanted) was to assign my character's metatype without picking a priority. Then assign attributes. Then assign skills. Then look for a priority layout that approximates what I needed.

Basically, the structure behind character creation is making you make choices without knowing what those choices actually mean.

What I noticed for the character I was trying to create was that I didn't need 'A' for anything, but I could not accommodate everything else needed with both D and E (I think I could have made it work with two 'D's, but I would not have been satisfied with it).

This is also what I wanted to say - thanks for saying it more clearly than I could.


Purely curious - what issues do you see in a pure karma system (karma used exactly the same in chargen and post chargen) ? It looks to me like metatype is the only big problem. Basically anything that can be purchased at chargen but not purchaseable / different price after chargen could be troublesome I guess.

The big problem was metatype cost and associated attribute advancement (although that second part was just an extension of the same problem in character advancement). The rest was just minor tuning and inclusion of common house rules (free contacts).

Very Quick 'n Dirty Generalist(I did a mundane for this)



He's got 44,000 nuyen left.

So this random generalist throws 13 dice unarmed, 15 dice with a blade, 13 dice with guns, 13 dice to sneak urban, 8-9 dice for a lot of social skills, and then somewhere between 5-10 dice on average for a lot of other stuff.

My own feelings: After creating this character, I do feel maybe Nuyen could be increased. I think 450k/300k/maybe 180-200k/60k/20k might be a better run. Perhaps 2 skill points added on to each level of D and E. I guess it depends what you consider a 'deficiency.' Do you mean 'unable to perform said skill' or 'needs at least 8 dice in said skill?'

That or some variant of the old Sum to 10 system.

EDIT: I'm going to make some Sum to 10 tests. Will be back after lunch. (Going to use my standard normal signature fellow from the review, and a few other character types.)