I was told at GenCon by a GM that Bull announced the retirement cap at Origins and that it was 100 karma. Also, something about the benefits to people that retire a character. Can I get some validation?

Unfortunately I can't validate anything. The rumors were flying fast and furious at Gen Con...I didn't even hear that something official was released yet...

It's been talked about, but not finalized, but it will likely be somewhere in that range. Missions thus far has been... Uneven, in it's rewards. Mainly due to the writers and the missions developers often not being on the same page. Hopefully we're going to fix that some with Season 4, and the karma awards will be changing up a bit as well (TO more closely match the suggested rewards from the SR4A). As such, we want to do something of a soft "reset" and level the playing field a bit.

For post season 4, I expect the karma cap will be a bit higher.

Bull

I'm not anyone official, but I've heard some of the talk Bull has alluded to, and since I'm nobody official I'm more willing to give detailed speculation than he is. =i)

I've heard talk that puts the promotion level between 100 and 250 Karma. I've also heard talk about setting it for "one full season [year] of Missions adventures," which would be twelve monthlies and six (I think?) CMP games (and not including the Scramble, I think), which would be 108 Karma if you got 6 Karma in every session, so that 100 Karma figure sounds pretty close. Of course, if the max Karma award for each adventure is increased, so will be this figure.

All the talk I've heard has been that Prime Missions are a given, so once your character is promoted, you'll have access to twice the Missions adventures you had before, plus other bennies for promoting a character.

Disclaimer: all this is merely speculation based upon what I've heard, intended only to provoke stimulating conversation. =i)

Personally I am going to hope for closer to 200 Karma. I really am just not ready to retire Kali. Sigh.

If its as low as 100 karma I would ask that if we play one character that we be able to put the karma on a different character.
That way if people have a sentimental attachment to their character they can continue playing it and just advance an alt they didnt play.

This would create a stable of 100pt characters over a period of several years so players could pick and choose their fave char at the moment rather than the one character permitted in that year.

As the player of a 175 Karma Character Papa CEEJAY Troll Voodoo Magician I understand the need for a cap or divisions for characters. At Gen con I played 7 Missions and always had folks just starting out in SRM at the table. So we played a low table rating 2 or 3 and I worked with the GM to not spell the encounters to death. Casting Mass area debuff spells like ORGY or to reduce their die pools and letting the rest of my party roll some dice to kill them. But if I am going to retire I would like to have the chance to play in high level or PRIME adventures with Papa as he completed ALL of the Denver adventures and some of the NY.

I also think starting those who have retired off with extra build points or free upgrade to alpha or beta cyber or free focus bonding for mages, and/or increased availability for starting gear would be a good way to start.

I am already thinking about a Close Combat Sam with some social skills to bring in for next year. The sooner all of this gets decided the better off we will be.

Questions, if were starting the folks who retire their character off with a bunch of free stuff what's the point of doing a retirement system again? Part of the point of running retirement is to get everyone on roughly the same footing power wise. Alpha, Beta, or a free focus would completely defeat that point.

It was originally envisioned (and I believe this is still the case, but Bull is the last word here) that by adding a promoted track, Missions could still have street-level adventures while still allowing the high-powered characters a venue to play in, with higher threats, higher pay, and adventures that have more impact in the world. The promoted (not retired) characters will have adventures, too.

A new character for a player with a promoted character doesn't get freebies ... well, sort of. They get free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-beer. We were shooting for more options rather than more power, but again, I can't speak to what the rules will look like in the end.

I agree, however I would support a lesser bonus. Getting a free useful contact would be nice-- not your old character, as owners of retired faces will have a big leg up on the rest. Or a free edge, or access to a certain background/group. Or nothing-- except that the game produces 1 or 2 Prime runner mods a year (maybe the CMP's) that only retired characters can play in.

Additionally, I might recommend banning the new character from joining any magical group the prime runner belongs to. While the temptation is there to stay in the same group, it could be construed as granting at least contact-level access to the old character(s). Could you imagine belonging to a long-established PC magical group with the Fraternity stricture? Granted, it works both ways, but it provides access to more power than probably is intended.

The Resonance Mesh echo also presents a similar problem as does Linking a sprite to aid someone else.

While I was at GenCon I did not hear about a specific number for the "Prime Runners" retirement cap. I talked to the organizer briefly and he only mentioned that there will be a "Prime Runner" system and cap coming in the future, but didn't give any more details. I imagine when they have this figured out completely, they'll announce it.

For my 2 cents: I would strongly prefer being able to play the same character for two seasons, ie- Play in Denver, then go play in NY. You work yourself up the ladder in one season, then get to enjoy the flavor in the second season. After that... yeah, it's time to retire.

Not a pile of free stuff just one of a number of choices to reward the player for years of shadowrun. A higher availability cap for starting items or free contacts to start would be cool or the abilty to play a cool meta type not normally allowed like a drake or shapeshifter not all of those things just one of them would be cool.

This is partially fault of how games are being scheduled. This wasn't as big a deal in VS and SRM00 days when we ran games concurrently in slots so we could marshal by power levels. If only this would have been suggested sooner

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=841208

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...5&hl=GenCon

A significant issue is that Total Karma is NOT always a good indicator of power level.

Some builds are really quite powerful with zero Karma. Others need a ton of Karma to really shine.

SRM03 allows you to pick your tier, so this really isn't an issue.

That has been a definite improvement. I maintain that the TR system needs some tweaking, particularly in the matrix where the addition of the TR dice to stats already scaled by TR grossly skews the probably curve, but at the core, I like the idea of getting to chose where to sit on the risk versus reward curve.

But we're not talking about SRM03.

We're talking about the retirement cap.



-karma

If there aren't any more major conventions before 2011 please announce the Prime Runner cutoff. We players really want to know even if we don't know about the details of widgets granted or other bits. Thanks!

I agree. Like a Street Sam, versus a Technomancer.

I concur Total Karma is not a good indicator of power level.

If your GM is adding TR dice to stats already influenced by TR, your GM is doing it wrong, I think.

The rules are quite explicit, and exactly the same in the opening boiler plate of every Season 3 Missions module that's been published.

"Table Rating (TR) is used to adjust the didifficulty of an adventure so that it is appropriate to the characters playing it.  The TR value can be used to increase the number or abilities of opponents, and the device ratings of equipment in the adventure. In addition, when NPCs or devices are making tests for anything except resisting damage, award them a number of bonus dice equal to the TR as an additional situational bonus."

In a lot of places, it's pretty minimally problematic, especially in simple opposed tests. I maintain that it completely breaks down in the matrix. How does a non-TM handle a system that rolls 20 dice on each attempt to detect him when he can't drive his threshold higher than 6, and he can't do anything to penalize the system's pool?

In a TR6 node you have to be uberviolent to survive and the Mute program option is a must.

Make the matrix equiv of a Street Sam and play it that way. Spend a lot of Edge. I spent Edge on every single matrix test [except the first of two simple actions doing Observe in Detail] at Dragoncon until I was the last man standing. The one time I tried to conserve my Edge my opponent lived and successfully struck me with Psychotropic Blackhammer.

He he. That was fun.

We were, but the posts directly above you was talking about powerful characters being forced to run with lower level characters. With out anymore context to your posts, I had no idea you were getting back on topic. I also don't see any other index to use to cap characters.

There is something to be said for entering every matrix system like a ganger driving a stolen dump truck into the front of a Stuffer Shack to steal light beer, pork rinds, cigarettes, and cheap sunglasses.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Mute option. My street samurai has it on his Exploit program for the same reason he keeps silencers on his handguns and sound suppressors on his assault rifles.

I guess I've always considered brute forcing your way through Active Alerts to be a sign that you've already at least partially failed your mission, since you really can't provide covert matrix overwatch for an infiltration attempt when the computers that run the building are fighting you tooth and nail and alerting the security staff.

Maybe that means TR6 demands a change of tactics on my end. Rather than trying to hack everything to gain discrete access, stealing legit access from real users might be the way to go. Find the telecommuting spider and swipe his commlink full of juicy administrative or security access then use his account to do what needs to be done, or to create a legitimate administrative account to work from.

Ah, the return of social engineering to hacking.

Doing so without getting caught on camera introduces a chicken-and-egg dilemma. To hack the cameras swipe the commlink, to get inside bypass the cameras. Swiping the commlink without knowing whose commlink might seriously delay a 4 hour game slot.

I have a TM, and had some problems at Dragoncon, as well. My problems were less with being detected, and more with detecting. I should have done as Wasabi is saying and spent some edge, at least on detecting. That being said, it's hard to have a lot of Edge with a TM, being so tight on the starting build. If I could have at least sucessfully detected the icon, I could then have pulled out my bag-o-TM tricks and hit him with a 20 dice attack.

Its hard to so social engeneering in a 4 hour slot without your normal GM.

Ok, after playing at Dragon Con with a brand new character. I really hope the cap will be closer to 150 or so. My character has over 40 Karma already and all she did was play in some of the CMPs. I will hit 100 Karma with her sometime during the season 4s. Playing a character for only one season plus CMPs would stink. Especially after playing Kali for 4 years.

Same boat here. DragonCon alone put Jack, my brand new Rigger Adept, to 32 Karma.

Either a higher cap than 100 would be good, or a significant number of Prime Runner events.




-karma

My thoughts on this are as follows EVERY season of missions has had karma rewards of usually 6 max (there have been rare missions paying 7) This combined with a story arc of 25 misiions a season it has to be more than 100 karma.

The math is simple say you don't max out karma rewards every mission so lets got 5 per times 25 that 125 karma that'd mean season 5 new character.

This is fine IF you want to see ALOT of people walk away from the game as people get invested in a character they'll start to hate haveing to make a new character every season.

even if you your only hitting 4 karma a run thats still 100 thats still retirement level so it's got to be higher.

My Idea is 300 that should allow for at least 3 seaons before retirement (depending on how much your getting per run)

3 seasons with 12 missions a year thats over 6 years of releases and character use.

I could see 200 thats still @ 12 a year 4 years per character.

HOWEVER thats just running the offical campain if the CMP's are also legal for missions characters then the 300 is better as you do 12 missions in a year and 6 to 12 CMP's a year wow 300 is gonna hit fast like 3 years (again depending on karma earned) it could be hit in just over 2 if your hitting 6 karma alot.

For now all I can say is wait Bull is quite intelligent i'm sure he'll work it out so we at least get to play a character for some time and hopefully it'll be for more than one season.

I see a large problem with setting a high karma retirement cap and that's writing the missions.

It's bad enough writing a mission that can be done either with a Sample Character or a Dumpshock character. I don't want to think about writing a mission that can be done by a Sample Character or by a Dumpshock Character with 300 Karma, especially if that 300 Karma Character sold out to every affiliation he could in Season 3.

The two characters shouldn't even be talking to the same Mr. Johnson.

I understand the desire to keep playing the same character, but I believe Missions needs to be accessible to new players who are joining a table of experienced players and the new player's character should be able to actively contribute to the success of the mission.

Also in an agreement with suoq's post above me, but not quoting.

I really hope they do a soft and hard cap. If they change the CMP to elite runner mission, and allow 100+ karma to play in them (soft cap to elite). But then hard cap the retirement at 150 karma from normal missions, but those characters can play in the Elite missions for as long as they'd like. (or 300 karma, or something high).

I think that changing the convention missions to CMP's would be self defeating, nothing would kill the campaigns growth like having everythign we run at the big cons be exclusive to the old guard would make it kind of hard to bring in new players. We've already limited ourselves by having so many one shots on the schedule that people can't find a missions table.