Minchandre: You and me both.

Dumori: Spoof chips - by my reading of Arsenal, they don't seem applicable to ships, except maybe in port. Ships are big enough to make hiding them hard at best, and mostly travel on international waters.

Doesn't mean you don't need separate identities/papers for your ship's various identitites, but those are closer to forging SINs in complexity, and are of equal cost. They're also not chips you implant in a vehicle.

(I've seriously considered maintenance costs for fake SINs, fake identities, fake ship papers, but nah.)

When it comes to costs: Keep in mind the old thread I posted a link to a while back. Because it worked pretty well, I plan on using the same costs for provisions, fuel, weather subscription, etc. Initially, for your first mission, you'll have provisions stocked and stuff by the Navy - but once you transition to independent duties for the first time, you'll be paying on your own.

It'll take time, but if needed I can copy paste what I'd posted to there. My question to you guys would be: Would you prefer to buy provisions by the day, or in longer increments? For right now, I think I have it set for 14-day increments, per 10 people. I can adjust costs - but what's payable worked well enough.

The way I see it, provisions are basically like lifestyle payments on land - especially if you're going to be living on the ship by default. They don't cover as much as lifestyle payments, but so much of what lifestyle would cover is going to be provided by the ship that it's a fair tradeoff.

Weather subscription is trickier - but my rationale for that is that the weather is essential at sea, and from an IC perspective, it just seems obvious they'd move to a subscription model for specialized forecasts like those used for nautical or aviation matters.

Fuel, again: You guys can probably think of a bunch of ways to get around it, but it serves an OOC purpose of making it so you have expenses to pay for, if nothing else, like with provisions.
---

So far as ship names go, these are strictly suggestions re the "real" ship name (I'll let you guys figure out names for fake identities):

Fedallah (used by the previous campaign)
Thundercloud
Quicksilver
Song of Roland
Watchman
Firedancer

Thoughts re ship names: Enterprise is actually a bad idea - it's probably used by the UCAS for a warship, given the CV from WW2, and you don't want to be confused even for a second with a warship.

OOC rules for ship names:
1. Need not be in English, but should not be vulgar in any language.
2. Should be pronouncable by an English speaker.
3. Keep em short.

Okay, the post wiith all the costs and stuff is here. I can adjust the costs, given good arguments.

Water: Y'know, I wanted to charge for this. ICly, you'd still pay money for it. But I'm going to make one amendment to that, and assume you get it with other provisions. It'll still serve as a limiter on time at sea and stuff, but nnnh, not going to track it as a budget item.

1 is 4 dollars. Of course - that's the 2070 exchange rate, so you'd have to take inflation into account.

EDIT: Or maybe deflation if the economy went through some unhealthy changes.

I would still pay $40,000 for it. That's just under twice the total amount I've paid on tuition - considering that I'm going to be getting a doctorate, it would still be totally worth it.

Re: Karmagen, I just rerolled Cherry with Karmagen, and was in fact able to get her slightly more powerful, without even drawing on any "wiggle room". Permitting 20 * (750/400) = 37.5 extra points, I'm able to get her somewhat more powerful.

I'm now wondering how gamey it is to use the new, better version?

Well, as long as GM plans to look through our characters to make them of comparable powerlevel, there's probably no issue as such. It's just me being a tad oversensitive

I try to, anyway. No idea how well I succeed.

Did we decide if/how much wiggle room karmagen got? Once I get this number, I'll be sending you Cherry.Karma for inspection.

I think we rounded up too 38. However I know I'm only using 777 karma.

I imagine something between 20 and 30 would be appropriate - that would translate well into a couple of 2-3 rank skills and a specialization or two.

I said about equivalent numbers for the base (so 750 karma/400 BP), but have been playing it by ear so far as the range, since I can't figure out an easy conversion. Anything over 420 BP or 800 karma is probably pushing it.

For comparison 20 BP could buy you 5 skill ranks in the the range of 1-2 or 10 specialization. 20 karma will buy you exactly the same thing. It's only going on rank 3 or upwards that karma needs the compensation.

EDIT: Point being: 30 karma is probably reasonable, 40 is pushing it.

Yeah, the thread I posted to the main forum points out that I was boneheaded in allowing both.

However, it's a bit late to fix now. So instead of setting an exact number with Karmagen, I'm going to simply set out my objective:

Equivalent well-rounded characters.

And from that, as stated in numerous stuff I do for class, "be guided accordingly".

Eh, don't worry. On the plus side you'll have people like me take stuff like etiquette (smuggler) from the start and diving, rather than me trying not to optimize only to have a voice inside my head screaming: YOU ARE WASTING BP! YOU ARE WASTING BP!

It's the problem with the BP system - it punishes you doubly for flavour skills picks.

Well, I'll email you my Karmagen this afternoon, with a comparison of skill and attribute ranks. It's actually quite substantial - it looks like I'm going to be able to 3 specializations, and like 10 skill ranks, even accounting for the loss of 33 free knowledge skill points.

Okay - those who shot emails to me this afternoon - I've replied as best I could without being able to look at the sheets themselves (while at school). I'll look over sheets tonight and comment more then.

For the record: SR4A is kind of iffy as to what an attribute means. With that said, though - for a human, a stat of 1 is *incredibly* underdeveloped, IMHO. It's not just "not strong", for example, it's "atrophied muscles". It's not just "Not charismatic", it's "There's something actively wrong".

2 or 3, on the other hand, is closer to the "Joe schmoe average".

Egads, just got a great idea for a Commanding Officer role (at least I think so ). Since i noticed that wasn't filled yet I'll work on the concept and stats ASAP.

Redfish, I recall someone expressing interest in CO and Master.

Anyway, I got curious, so I rerolled Cherry with Karma. 420 BP of character became 696 Karma. I didn't feel it was appropriate to boost attributes, but I did gain 6 specializations and boosted some skills.

Observation: karmagen loves specializations. They're half the price of in BP!

I don't know if it's gamey to use the stronger char...but it's critical to note that I didn't make her stronger at hacking, I just improved some other stuff - Automatics and Unarmed got a boost, as did Athletics and Etiquette, and languages.

In the interest of fairness (and 'cause it's stronger ) I recommend everyone use karmagen - it's annoying to do by hand, but the spreadsheet makes it a snap.

If people want to do that, okay...788 karma as a max, 750 as an "If you go below this I'll stare at you and then hit you" minimum. Just let me know.

The German RC for karmagen has Race karma at 1xRace BP. Is everyone using it thus?

I appear to have paid 60 points for the privilege of pointy ears.

The German RC seems to have been unofficially errataed, hence my question.

If everyone is using 2xBP for karma gen, then I will also do so. I have been doing it by hand on the back of an envelope and discovered the discrepancy when using the downloaded Excel file.

I'm going by the English RC. There shouldn't be any divergence, but in case there is, the English prevails. I'd settle the question more definitively, but RC doesn't seem to.

English RC has Racial cost for free.

German RC has it at 1xRacial cost.

Excel file karmagen default has it at 2xRacial cost.

Okay, any day that creeps towards an end with my falling down the stairs...while going up the stairs...Yeah, I think I'm going to just curl up in a ball and cry or something.

As toturi pointed out a bit....ungently elsethread, I've kinda definitely made a hash of chargen.

Then again, not too badly, all things considered; mostly I'm seeing good characters. It's turning out well...I hope.

I just sucked at making my thinking clear the first time. Possibly first few times.

Penta, I still need that ruling - Racial cost = ?

....Thank you for pointing out the divergence. When you read it so starkly, it smacks you differently.

If it's possible to mod the file, go with the English version (and pray nothing divides by it).

Roger, orders acknowledged.

Yeah.

In exchange for smacking me with the book until it got through my thick skull, have a cookie.

And, more substantively, 1 karma for spending *after* chargen.

Because of this ruling, some people get karma back from their racial choices.

This is only for sheets I have that are currently done up with karmagen.

Cherry: 60 karma

Hmmm... Maybe I should go ork. It'd certainly add a nasty twist to his backstory.

If it'd make things easier on you Penta, I could convert my character to Karma build, you could just have everyone switch to it.

From my experience Karmagen at 750 will tend to be slightly more powerful unless you are twinking out your character for high attributes as a meta-human.

So, having everyone convert to a max 788k instead of 420bp, should be OK, unless someone's min maxing.

Karma supports well rounded characters
BP supports min-maxed.

At least that's how I've encountered it.

Anyhoo, like I said, I can convert if you'd like, I don't mind, and that way you'd have an even base to compare characters with.

Wait... Free racial cost? That seems a tad broken. It essentially means that an ork gets a karma advantage of 80 compared to a human for instance.

I would encourage a house ruling here if RAW says free racial costs.

And yes, elves have always seemed costly and less efficient than the other races in both BP and karma, but keep in mind they have no discernible downsides and get the most versatile stat in the game (agility) boosted. Other races need to pay 40 karma to get their max agility to boosted, and then you don't even get the minimum boosted.

EDIT: I should also point out that I don't believe Runner's Companion has been exposed to an errata at all, which means that you technically would only be paying 3x rank for attributes if we go strictly by raw. Perhaps just using the excel chargen as is would be wise?

2nd EDIT: Really, free metahuman cost just means means anyone playing a human is massively gimped.

I found someone who had expressed interest in being the master, but had explicitly stated they weren't feeling up for the Commander role. Not to worry - I already PM'ed the person in question to clear it up.

Cool. Gonna use karmagen for my ork then.

To expand on my earlier assertion as to the brokenness of free racial costs, since just spouting "ZOMG, broken!" shouldn't be taken seriously. I will also engage in WHY twice BP chargen cost is balanced.

An orc gets 45 karma worth of body points and 25 karma worth of strength points. In addition to this he has some lowered maximum mental stats and low light vision. Paying 40 karma for this is not unreasonable. Body and strength are arguably (strength in particular), overall, weaker stats than most others, so this discrepancy is not shocking, and it allows the orc to play a fiercer fighter than almost any other character, while not totally gimping them if someone wants to play an orc hacker or some such for a twist.

So ignoring the slightly lowered mental stats and the lowlight vision orcs get ahead by 30 karma if paying 40 for being an orc - 20 if you count low light vision and lowered mental stats. 20 (or 10) more than a human - not unreasonable, since the human can be a better rounded character. Humans also make better faces or hackers, etc. but not excessively so.

Dwarves get 10 karma worth of body points, 25 worth of strength and 10 worth of willpower. On top of this they get lowered reaction max and a 10 and a 20 karma quality. Reaction is one of the harsher stats to drop in for most (essentially a 2 point max drop since they can have 5(7) vs 6(9), but it's not crippling so. This leaves them with an investment of 50 karma for a net gain of 65-50 = 15 karma. Worse reaction but some interesting (though a tad niche) abilities. Dwarves can be neat characters!

Elves gain 10 karma worth of agility and 25 karma worth of charisma, as well as low light vision (10 karma) and no (!) penalties.
Elves have a net gain of 45 - 60 = - 15. 25 lower than humans. A loss you say? While this could be shrugged off as just being comparable to the BP system, where elves also fall behind the rest in pure points, an elf will make a better shaman, gun-bunny or face than any other character.

Not going through the troll math as they won't be showing in this setting, but I doubt the conclusions would change considerably. Eliminating racial costs (or even just keeping it at a straight BP to Karma conversion) renders humans absolutely obsolete and any thing a human could do a metahuman will do better. There would be literally no reason to play a human instead of an elf for instance (no mechanical reason anyhow) and anyone playing a human is penalized excessively.

Removing karma gen (or even just leaving it at a straight BP to karma conversion) would, to me at least, not be playing Shadowrun anymore. It'd be something called The Sun Sets Upon Man - Where Humans Suck™!

Sorry for the long winded rant, but I like karma gen, and I feel the DamienKnight exel chargen way of handling it is necessary for a well-balanced game.

This post reflects my opinion of the matter. With a 50 karma wiggle room, it should not be difficult to make a decent character of any allowed metatype. This also allows for competitive human characters, who will tend to be stronger than the "average" of their metatype, as well as extensively skilled.

This would be opposed to, say, orks, who would be closer to racial "average", but still stronger and tougher than most humans. They should also have a wide range of active and knowledge skills and be generally well-rounded characters who can actually operate competently in a number of situations.

As we've proved I have a suck grip on RAW...

I'm going to leave deciding this issue to you all.

Do we go with the English RC (as amended by SR4A, so you use Karmax5, not karmax3), or the DK setup?

I'll give it 24 hours, then work off of a majority of votes cast.

I'm pretty sure you know where Redfish and I stand, so that'd leave the rest of our group. In case of free metatypes though... Expect a revised character sheet and a (slightly) different backstory.

Perhaps it is a different culture and upbringing, but I make my points before the decision is made. I do not like to question my GM's decisions after he made them and I learn to live with it.

While free racial cost was heavily in the metatype's favor in SR4, I feel that 2*BP racial cost punishes higher Attributes too excessively in SR4A. I think that the German RC's 1*BP racial cost was an acceptable compromise.

Fortunately, Yutori, I take no offense to either way of doing things - I prefer warning me before I make a decision, but after works too.

My problem with using the German version is that I don't speak or read German. There might be all sorts of other rules it's bound up with that don't read the same in English, that lose something in translation, etc.

Originally we were working on an "follow DamienKnight"'s character gen order, so we would actually just be reverting to the original ruling. I can dig up the post were Penta said it if you like. The german x1 still leaves humans very much lacking, and while high attributes are somewhat limited, you can easily make an orc with, say, 8 body without being penalized compared to BP - I tried it, and still came ahead in karma gen compared to BP.

Regardless, even if this had not been the original ruling, I would have advocated a change. Perhaps it is a cultural thing, but where I'm from you are generally taught to voice your opinion if you do not agree with something, and you think that reversing the original ruling can lead to a better result (better obviously being subjective when it comes to a game like Shadowrun).

EDIT: My first initial look didn't find the post I seemed to recall, so for the time I'll concede that the original ruling was "as close to RAW as possible", though I stand by everything else I have said.

And thanks for putting up with my long winded posts

Okay, speaking as the GM...

I'll go with whatever you guys decide on. If there's an even split, I'll figure something out.

Ah, the benevolent overlord Democracy or mob rule? Time will tell!

As Faraday I vote for racial BP cost times two.

Originally we were told to use DK's xls to do the math, not that the sheet's default values were the rule. Which was why I asked for a clarification from the GM and laid the options starkly out. If I did it by hand, without DK's house rules, I would have free race.

German x1 leaves humans in a far better position and while you can still make an orc with body 8 with BP*2, you will be very hard pressed to make a viable troll with Strength 9 and Body 9 using BP*2.

Penta, I need your ruling soon. My deployment's on Monday, which means I need to get my character done and approved before the weekend, I have much to prep over the weekend.

I'm not bothered thought 2xbp Karma will man I have to re do my Orc.

Dumori points up something: We're not going to resolve this. It took up 200 posts when RC came out, and I'm not sure we'll do anything but tread old ground.

My thought as the GM is that characters should be balanced at all roughly the same power level. How that is arrived at is immaterial to me.

My gut instinct, purely to make a ruling, is to go with DK's default. Trolls are outside the campaign's ambit as is, hence I focus purely on orks, humans, elves, and possibly dwarves.

Much as it hurts me to lose the 60 karma that I just gained, I guess I also support twice racial cost. Elves get boned, of course, but elves have always been the stupidest race to play from a power-gaming perspective. Honestly, with free race, it seems like the only possible character that's more expensive with karmagen is the absolute epitome of min-maxed trollness.

Also note that with free race, my 420 BP character stands at 636 karma.

Is this going to be final? I redid already my character once.


My latest character's an elf, so I get boned. Great. I have to re-do this again.

Yes, I already edited my post to concede you were right before you posted

Doesn't change my stance though.

Penta - is that an official ruling then? Just to chisel it out in stone. If it is, just to point out that 2xBP isn't a problem I'll make my character an orc