Not from a min/max perspective. Because the costs of stadard char-gen are the complete opposite of in game karma (attribute vs skill points at least) you want your character to start with as low attributes as reasonably possible, and spend as much as possible on skills. Metahumans (particularly orcs)are generally able to meet those minumim attribute numbers with the smallest expendiature of build points, leaving more points to spend on skills.

Basically as Pbangarth pointed out an orc is 20 points ahead of a human to buy the exact same attributes. So an orc who spends 180 on race + attritbutes can have identical attributes to a human who spends 200 on race + attributes.

You are not using SR4A, or are you? Attributes with x5 cost are really expensive.

Bye
Thanee

In BP char gen.. you want to min max your stats as much as possible.
Soft Cap the ones you care about, drop to 1 the ones you don't.

Because going from a 7 body to an 8 body costs 10 BP, but it costs 40 karma.
Where as going froma 1 logic to a 2 logic costs 10 BP, but 10 Karma.

BP ecnourages min maxing
Karma encourages generalizing.

I see, I actually missed that change, that would certainly change how you spend your points, but it doesn't change the fact that most metahumans are still better then humans.

Its actually kind of disturbing that other race options that are human based are also sub-par. I'm talking Nartaki and Loup Garou, both of which you have to be human for and both of which are the worst in thier category. Nartaki is one of the few metavariant races that actually loses points vs the costs qualities it gets and loup garou are terrible when compared to even a basic ghoul.

For the mages not so much, for the TMs it's a big thing. As is, the only things a starting TM has over a mundane or adept hacker are sprites and threading, which are nothing to sneeze at, but let's face it, a starting hacker can have 5 IP, rating 6 in all matrix attributes, rating 6 in pretty much every program, and a ton of mooks as well. Plus be able to spend points in other attributes/skills to do more than just be a hacker. They can be both hacker and rigger, plus a sammy, or a mage, or a face, or the infiltration specialist. The TM is basically relegated to starting off as a hacker or a rigger, and maybe being the other or a face as secondary.

And since we're discussing the whole 200 BP attribute cap for humans, TM's are one example where the human outperforms the ork or troll. The only metas that get any bonuses to mental attributes are dwarf (+1 willpower) and elf (+2 charisma) (which also make for good TMs). So your whole argument of "orks are the best, most optimal metatype there is" fall flat. Orks (and trolls) make worse TMs, worse mages, worse faces, etc than humans. Anything that is a mental attribute heavy role is going to go more in favor of humans (and maybe dwarves or elves). Only the physical roles are where orks and trolls shine, and even then it's a maybe. Ever seen a stealthy troll? Ok, yes, I have (and I played her), but again, compared to a human, not so easy.

Fact is, if you try to make any character who excels in both physical and mental attributes (like you're suggesting with the sammy/face concept), it's going to fall flat on the "optimal" dice pools you so tout. Hell, even a combat mage, the most common physical/mental role, can't really compete physically with a specialist sam or a specialist mage in their areas.

Nobody ever said that and in any case technomancers are the exception that proves the rule in a lot of areas. Even then I've seen Biowire ork technomancers that have taken advantage of their pleasantly average physical attributes just fine.

It really depends on what house rules (if any) are in play and which character generation system(s) are being used.

Some races are better suited for certain roles under specific systems.


But IIRC, nosferatu is a human-Infected and I know of one build that was better using BP than karma before the errata used nosferatu.

Yeah, but it was a deliberate exercise to try to make a BP character that was more expensive in karmagen. Infected qualities, starting right off, are costly in karmagen, because they are treated as special qualities (thus costing double their value in karma points) rather than a metatype. Then the nosferatu in question took high Intuition and Logic, costly both because buying high Attributes is costlier, and because the large amount of "free" knowledge skills had to be purchased in karmagen.


Karmagen generally comes out slightly ahead of build points for specialists, and further ahead for generalists, mainly because it flat out gives you nearly double the amount of points, when there are a lot of things that don't cost twice as much. I am still not sure it encourages generalists - generalizing gets you more stuff (for the price of a skill of 6, you can get two skills of three and two skills of two), but having a nice, high dice pool in your specialty still matters in the game.

But the lavish (even after the nerfing) allocation of points should satisfy both specialists and generalists. Specialists can be less bare-bones/dump-statted outside of their specialty, while generalists will have lots and lots of skills.

Honestly, it hurts Adepts the most.

-1 logic and -1 charisma is not going to keep an Ork down.

A Charisma 4 ork face can still use the points saved on body to buy plenty enough goodies to compensate. Not as good as an Elf, naturally, but better than a Human.

An Ork combat mage just picks an Intuition-based tradition like Hedge Magic or Rastafarianism, which are both powerful traditions. Won't be spirit heavy, sure, but if you want the best spirit-tossing Cha mage, you go Elf, not human.

Really that's the main point.
If you want the best X, you pick Y, not Human. The only thing that stays the same in every build is the last part, "not Human." That's why it's not a variable; it doesn't vary.

Human is never the best choice based on point spread. Allowing them to take the minimum 20 points not spent on race and apply those points to attributes would help with that, specifically because of how attributes shake out in the long run.

Again, the one time that it's better, by the numbers, to make a Human character is when you are ignoring the physical world completely and not going to hit the 200BP cap anyway, like playing an off-site pure Hacker/Rigger, which is a concept that restricts growth considerably, and as such will never be "the best X".

The point is not invalidated because you can find a few instances of builds that are optimal with only 200BPs and no attribute bonuses. That simply places humans in a niche role.

And you're wrong in most of your examples. For almost any balanced face build, orks win hands down. The 1-2 charisma dice cap difference is easily made up for by the much better stat line and more overall points. For a face focus, elves get a much better dice pool, and a better overall stat line to boot.

I didn't say elves weren't better faces than humans, merely that humans can do better than orks and trolls, when you're going into the point for point nitpicking dice pool sizes, which you are. The point I was making is that no metatype will be able to properly pull off an optimal physical AND mental character build, such as the sammy/face described a few times throughout here. The character who tries to do so, ork, troll, human, etc is going to have lesser dice pools in both categories than a character who specializes in one set of attributes and related skills. Sure, gear bonuses can help them make up for the loss of the extra dice by being more generalized than specialized, but guess what, the specialized character can have that same gear.

A human specialist sammy or specialist face will outperform the ork sammy/face in their area, almost every time. If you're all about the min/maxing, you're missing the point. The number one reason to play any metatype isn't for the stats they start with, it's for the concept. Yes, I've played troll physical adepts and elven faces before, but I do so because of fluff reasons, not because they can become monsters in their rolls. Let's be honest here, once you're in the teens and above on dice pools, that extra 1 or 2 dice doesn't make a big difference.

And if you want to talk about niche roles, let's look at trolls. How often do you see a troll that ISN'T all about making things go splat, usually in melee range? Like Karoline said, most people play humans and elves most of the time. I think the only time I've ever seen a dwarf PC was when my group included the GM's wife and kids, and they all used the premade characters from the book, one of the kids played the rigger. I've seen more orks and trolls (usually in combat roles) than I have dwarves.

The point I'm making here is this: if people find playing humans fun, then don't spoil their fun by trying to break it down and make humans look inferior. Remember that little thing called fun? The reason we play games, rather than making a job out of them by breaking everything down to the most minute details? Maybe that's just me though.

That's not a point, that's a fallacy. If you find playing a human fun, raising their attribute cap to 220BPs wouldn't spoil that, would it?

The rest of your post is either making the same mistake, or the one I adressed in my previous post.

Wait, what? Okay Sleep, so two Humans together are better than one Ork? This is really your argument?

Humans are functionally inferior.

If the fact that they are inferior ruins your fun or anyone else's, then I'm sorry, but the fact remains.
Some types play humans and elves because they identify with them. Maybe they don't want to be short or ugly. Whatever.
This does not matter from a mechanical standpoint, which is where rules reside.

And, don't misunderstand me, I want people to play Humans. I do! That's why I think that the designers should have allowed humans to dedicate more starting resources towards attributes than the other races, in order to make up for their lack of real racial benefits. I don't think that every team should have every role filled by the same metatype which fits it best in order for that team to perform the best.

And, yeah, I've seen Troll combat mages and Troll mystic adepts and Troll riggers. I've seen Sasquatch faces and Centaur hackers and Pixie samurai. They all have functional benefits which can be leveraged to create effective characters. Humans don't have any real benefits. 1 edge doesn't cut it.

No, my argument is that a human street sam who specializes in combat is going to be better at combat than the ork sam/face who tries to spread out what he can do, even with the ork's racial bonuses. A human face who focuses on the social stuff is going to be better at that social stuff than the aformentioned ork sam/face. I make this argument cause one of the earliest points was that:



ANYONE of ANY metatype who spreads themself thin like that is not going to be as good at either task as a dedicated person of ANY metatype who specializes in them. Sure, they can do more stuff, but they won't do it as well. And since this whole thread is about min/maxing, I'm pointing out fact. Your ork sam/face, the "optimal metatype for most things" won't be as good at combat as a dedicated human sam, nor as good at social stuff as a dedicated human face. You're all arguing that humans should be allowed an extra 20 BP for attributes, which is an extra 1 or 2 dice for certain rolls, saying that without it, the humans are hurting compared to other metatypes. But then you turn around and say that the extra 1 or 2 dice a human face would have to social rolls over an ork or troll don't matter, that the ork face would still be as good or better as a face, as well as better at other things.

So which is it, the 1 or 2 dice per pool are hurting you, or they aren't?

And apples taste more like apples than oranges!

To spell it out:
Specialized sam: ork beats human.
Face/sam: ork beats human.
Specialized face: the human beats ork on charisma alone, but the ork will have a much superior stat line for less cost. And elves would be far better.

Humans lose either way.

With the sort of twisted arguments you keep making, I honestly think you're either trolling, or one of those people who must win every discussion and will continue on a tangent to not lose face.

No, my point is don't bother min/maxing, just play for fun. This whole thread is an argument just to argue. It can be summed up thus: "1 or 2 points to a dice pool don't matter UNLESS you're a human, and then you're automatically worse off than every other metatype."

Ah, the "I don't care about mechanics because I'm a roleplayer and I'll gladly play inferior chars" defense.

No, the "there's balance and you're just bitching to bitch defense."

Ok, let's go back to the stats.



How much does it cost for a human to soft cap their strength? 40 BP. How much does it cost a troll? 40 BP. Yes, the trolls is higher in this instance. But how about charisma? Logic? And actually I think it's agility, not intuition that trolls take a hit to (not sure, at work and don't have books on hand). So the troll caps out on charisma with only 20 BP, the ork with 30. Logic is 30 BP for both. And for trolls it's 30 to either agility or intuition. Dwarves have a lower cap on reaction (one of the most important attributes to most characters who expect to be shot at). So for a human to have reaction 5, they spend 40 BP, for a dwarf to do it they have to spend 55 BP. So mathematically, for a dwarf to have the same reaction as a human, the human is better off. Agility and Intuition, whichever one is lost by a troll, is big. That's either part of your initiative (and the primary attribute for a lot of the stealth stuff like disguise, plus a number of knowledge skills), or the primary attribute for guns, stealth, etc.

The human will ALWAYS have the potential for higher reaction than a dwarf, higher charisma and logic than orks and trolls, higher agility or intuition than trolls, and higher edge than all of them. Wait, elves are the only ones with no penalties at all (if you don't count edge), but they are, by the math, the lowest effective gain metatype. Why aren't we touting them as the best then, because they can have all the attributes humans have, plus more.

The simple fact of the matter is, you're looking at the bonuses to body that all other metatypes (other than elves) get and labeling them better simply because of how important an attribute body is to taking damage (both in the sense of how much armor you can wear and the added dice to soak). What about reaction? I would say that avoiding getting hit is more important than soaking the damage, so dwarves are the worst, with everyone else on equal footing. Or how about avoiding being seen so no one shoots at you? Elves have the advantage there. It's all a matter in how you look at it.

Much superior?

The orc gets +3 Body and +2 Strength for 20 BP (ignoring the not very relevant downsides).

Yes, it's good. But it is hardly "much superior".

Strength is effectively useless. Having Strength 3 vs. having Strength 1 is basically no difference. Some more dice for most Athletics checks at least. Let's say that evens out with having a max Charisma and Logic of 5/7, which is also not very relevant.

So, the part where the orc is really superior is +3 Body for 20 BP. For those 20 BP the human can buy more skills or gear, though, the orc will lack those points elsewhere. So, 2 Body vs. 20 BP to be spend on anything other than Attributes. I would also call that even.

Then we have 1 Body left. The human gets 1 Edge in comparison.

Edge is clearly superior to Body. Only Magic can compete with Edge for first place in the most awesome Attribute contest.

So, the human actually wins!

Especially, if the orc wants the same 200 BP spent on anything but Race/Attributes, it comes down to +1 Body and +2 Strength (with Charisma and Logic capped at 5/7) vs. +1 Edge. Superior? I don't think so. Much superior? Clearly not.

The point is... "much superior" is an overstatement. It is good, but not that big a deal, really.

Unless your concept requires you to be big tough strong, then the orc is clearly superior to the human, of course. But overall, the human doesn't do so bad.

Bye
Thanee

That isn't the issue. The issue is the attribute cap. Orks get +5 points to attributes, and can still spend 200BPs. This gives a much better stat line.

Yeah, but 2 of those points are Strength (not relevant).

Even when looking at the Attributes only (which is pretty pointless), it is not such a huge difference, that it makes the orc highly superior to the human.

Reduced to the relevant parts it is either +3 Body vs. +1 Edge (and 20 BP more in skills/gear).
Or it is +1 Body vs. +1 Edge.

Both options are not that superior, really, unless Body (and Strength) are really importent for the concept.

Yes, metas allow you to spend more BP in Attributes, but unless spending BP on Attributes is in some way superior to spending BP somewhere else, that is not necessarily better.

As long as the big freebie from choosing a race is in a clearly inferior Attribute choice (Strength is simply not the same value as Body, Agility or Reaction), those are of little overall effect.

Bye
Thanee

Yes, if your point is that a human with 1 strength and 1 body has more free points than an orc, then you are correct. The point everyone else is making is that most characters will want to put some points into strength and body, and once that is done the orc is the one who has more free points left over.

Under most circumstances the orc is the best generalist.
Under most circumstances the orc is the best specialist.

The average orc can match a humans starting edge, unless a human is starting with a lot of extra edge. In fact the orc can not only match the humans edge, but he can have better physical attributes and will still have more points left over.

Example:

Human 3 str, 4 body, 4 edge (70 points)
Orc 3 str, 4 body, 4 edge (50 points)

Even if the human soft caps his edge the orc can match it and still be ahead:

Human 3 str, 4 body, 6 edge (90 points)
Orc 3 str, 4 body, 6 edge (85 points)

The only way for the human to come out numerically ahead is for him to start with 1 strength and less than 4 body. In which case he is only ahead in the fact that he has spent fewer points, the orc is still ahead in the having better attributes area.

I like humans, I want to play humans, but I don't think they match up with the other races. If I have to go out of my way to make a crazy build just to make a human feel as good as the other races then something is wrong. I don't think raising the attribute cap for humans is the solution though, that just means they waste even more points on attributes, they really need more points like say 10 free points of positive qualities that don't count towards thier cap or something similar to that.

Ok, now that I'm back and have access to my books, let's do basic math. Assume that for every point less than 6 that a metatype can have in an attribute, that counts as 10 BP as well.

Humans(0): +1 Edge = +10 BP
Orks(20): +3 Body, +2 Strength, -1 Charisma, -1 Logic = +10 BP
Dwarves(25): +1 Body, +2 Strength, +1 Willpower, -1 Reaction = +5 BP
Elves(30): +1 Agility, +2 Charisma = +0 BP
Trolls(40): +4 Body, +4 Strength, -1 Agility, -2 Charisma, -1 Logic, -1 Intuition = -10 BP

So humans and orks are equal in how many BP they net from their metatype cost, and both are better than the other metatypes. Still not convinced? Alright, what are the 5 skills that every runner should have at least 1 rank in most of? First Aid (Log), Perception (Int), Infiltration (Agi), Dodge/Gymnastics (Rea), and some kind of offensive combat skill (Agi). Wait, look back up at that table, with the exception of humans and elves, every metatype has a hit to one of those.

Dwarves will always be worse at defense (and initiative) compared to any other metatype, unless he wants to spend the extra 25 BP to cap out his reaction, the soft ap for anyone else.

Orks and trolls will always be worse at patching people up with first aid, and will always be worse at half of technomancer streams and a significant portion of mage traditions (1/3 for orks, 2/3 for trolls).

Trolls will always be worse at hitting people with weapons and at being sneaky. Also, they will have lower initiatives, just like dwarves, meaning they will be slower to hit someone in combat. And finally, they also will be worse at perception rolls.

So humans are really niche role characters? No, I think you have it the other way around. All the other metatypes (except for elves to an extent) are niche characters. Sure, you can make any character for any concept, but this thread is about min/maxing and how "humans will never live up to the potential at creation of the other metatypes." I've said it a number of times before, and I'll say it again. That's complete drek. Humans are the "jack of all trades" metatype, they fit into any role. Dwarves, orks, and trolls are built mostly for combat (especially melee combat where their bonus strength actually comes into play), though dwarves also make good mages and technomancers. Elves also get the jack of all trades thing for humans, but they do lean more towards social and stealthy characters. But humans? Humans go any way you want them, without penalties.

Why? This only effects them if they are capping the attribute. A race with a reduced cap gets the same total attribute for the same number of points up until they have to cap it. The math is even worse on the trolls, because even if a lower cap was worth that much consideration, only relevant caps are going to matter, and how many builds need all 4 of the trolls lowered attributes?

Judging by those core 5 skills...... 3 of the 4 troll lowered attributes are affected. And it's easier to do it as -10 than say "hey, I want a sniper with 5 agility, let's see a troll do this for the same costs." The argument to this point has been "metatypes need to spend less BP to have the same attributes as a human with the same build," I'm showing the flip side. Those human soft caps become a bitch to pay for the same amount when it's a lowered attribute for you. 10 BP becomes 25 BP, and suddenly the metatype is costing more.

And like Thanee said, unless you're making a melee character, those bonus points to strength are pretty much useless, so all that trolls and orks get is bonus body, and reduced caps on mentals. So unless you're making a character who expects to get hit a lot (and personally, I think most runners would prefer avoiding getting hit, either by dodging or by avoiding alerting others entirely), that extra body doesn't amount to much. Unless you're making a melee combat character, orks and trolls are not better. Neither are dwarves (unless playing a mage of some sort or cyberadept/e-scapist technomancer where they get a slight boost with their willpower). Elves are about on par with humans except in the social aspect where they excel, and a slight boost to weapons and sneaking.

So are humans the best at everything? No. Are they the best at anything? Sure, lots of concepts work well with them, and they're better than most metatypes at most concepts. Will they ever soak damage like a troll? Of course not, but they don't necessarily have to be.

The discussion so far has focussed on the differences in Attributes and other build characteristics. Within this limited framework, we have found that metahumans for the most part have a net advantage over humans coming from their Physical and/or Mental Attributes. Humans have a slight edge in the Special Attributes. At this point we seem to be going around in circles, so I would like to introduce another factor, which is the level of acceptance within society of a particular metatype. I know this sounds like fluff, but if we want to ignore fluff entirely, we should be playing a dice game, not a roleplaying game.

Look around at our current society (let's stick to North America, but one could generalize). It is pathetically easy to discover roadblocks and difficulties thrown up in front of people who have differences perceived by some segment of society, maybe even the majority, as inferior/scary/repugnant. These differences include but are not limited to colour of skin, sexuality, gender, income, nationality of origin. All of these differences that are easy targets for prejudice and exclusion are less obvious than the differences among metatypes in SR. I suggest that a large part of the SR universe that is downplayed at most tables I have attended is the prejudice and 'glass ceiling' effect that would mar the daily experience of many metahumans. We don't play that problem side to its full efect for various reasons... too difficult, too uncomfortable.. whatever. But the upshot of my argument is that we find the equation

Metatype bonuses - metatype negatives = humans lose

works because we tend to downplay or ignore the second term on the left side. A couple of days ago I saw a young black man, driving a BMW, stopped by a cop. As I walked by, the snippet of conversation I heard leads me to believe the stop was only to check the driver out. No traffic violation, no problem with the car. Now imagine how many times the ork driver heading to his run rendezvous gets stopped. Does the operational timing get screwed up? Imagine the elf mage pelted with comments like "Hey fairy! Eat any dandelions today? Yo, I'm talkin' to you, fairy!" Is he out of jail yet for lighting up the jerks? How many shops has the troll tried, looking for something that isn't "out of stock".

I know a roleplaying game is to some extent an escape from reality, but this particular alternate reality is a dark one in which the seamier side of humanity has been highlighted, if not magnified. So why don't we make it hard for the minorities in SR? Suffer the pains-in-the-ass long enough, and maybe the extra 20 BP would not be worth it.

Let me go a step further and say that if you are giving a -10 score for a cap reduced then you have to also add a ann additional +10 score for an increased cap. The bonus attribute points are not only a free 10 point attribute buy, but also a raised cap. So new math counting raised attribute caps as valuable as reduced caps:

Humans(0): +1 Edge = +20 BP
Orks(20): +3 Body, +2 Strength, -1 Charisma, -1 Logic = +60 BP
Dwarves(25): +1 Body, +2 Strength, +1 Willpower, -1 Reaction = +45 BP
Elves(30): +1 Agility, +2 Charisma = +30 BP
Trolls(40): +4 Body, +4 Strength, -1 Agility, -2 Charisma, -1 Logic, -1 Intuition = +70 BP

I'm sorry Fauxknight, I don't get the arithmetic here. Could you explain, please?

SleepIncarnate was counting a lowered attribute cap as -10 points per lowered point, which inherently means a raised attribute cap is worth +10 points per increased point, something his math failed to show.

I'm with SleepIncarnate here.
I prefer humans because they not only start out with +10 bp, they also don't have to spend the additional metahuman costs.
Yes, the suffer a little in overall attributes, but they arguably have 20-40 more points to spend on skills, gear and cash.

Additionally, if you're like me, your edge attribute is a huge deal.
Rolling 6 extra dice on 6 separate occasions trumps a trog's 10 strength every time.

If you're going that route, then you need to increase the loss from reduced caps, because it's also lowering the augmented cap. A troll's augmented charisma cap is the unaugmented cap for humans (and not even the soft cap for elves).

But looking again at the core 5 skills, the only attribute that any metatypes lose that's not on that list is charisma, and negotiation could be argued as one of the more important skills as well (in order to gain better pay from the Johnson). But as pbangarth said way back earlier, if you include those negatives, humans come out as one of the best. Add in the fluff factor which he just added, and again, humans come out on top.

No you don't need to add more math, increased or decreased unaugmented caps equally effect augmented caps. If you set a value for one, then the other is the opposite value. If a reduced cap is -10, then an increased cap is +10. Even worse is that mental attributes are much harder to augment to begin with, making higher augmented physical caps much easier to take advantage of than higher augmented mental attributes...relevent because 5/7 of the lowered caps of the core metahumans are in mental stats.

Then you don't need to add an additional +10 BP for the increased attributes having increased caps either. Because as I said earlier, what's the cost for everyone to reach their soft cap in body and strength? 40 BP. No matter what you start at, the soft cap is 40 BP, hard cap is 65. It's only in the attributes that metas get a lower cap where that math changes. A human capping out charisma costs 65 BP, an elf capping out charisma costs 65 BP, a troll capping out charisma is 45, so that's 20 less BP they get to reach their cap. Hence the -10 for a reduced cap. Trolls and humans spend the same to reach their caps in body and strength, the troll just has a higher cap, offset by the lower cap in 4 different attributes.

I already did the math on Page 1. Why are you doing math again?

Effective BP for Physical/Mental Attributes:

Humans: 200 total
Orks: 250 BP
Elves: 230 BP
Trolls: 280 BP
Dwarves:230 BP

That's all this is about. Humans get less BP for attributes because they only get to spend 200 points on them, Metahumans may have to spend BP to get their stat bonuses, but they get to spend that BP in addition to the 200 point cap. The +10BP a human gets for an extra point of Edge doesn't count because Edge isn't part of the 200 point cap.

Your argument in this thread isn't sticking with the topic. You were arguing that players of human characters can still have fun, which is true. I typically play human characters as a player. But human characters are only the ideal choice for a tiny handful of builds because attributes are better than skills and humans get less points for them.

If the game is going to accurately model the social drawbacks to being a metahuman, there is a role playing trade off. But I don't think there's that many tables taking that into account.
Not really. The metahuman characters who wanted the stat bonuses that they got saved points by taking the Metahuman package. They're actually spending less if they aren't capping any of their attributes.

Uhh, yeah but the troll still has those 20 points. By that method the troll spends some of those unspent points on resources to get tailored pheromones, now hes better at social skills than the human and still has points left over (sorry, I know the logic is wonky, but if the base argument ignores what was spent on race and/or physical attributes than the counter argument must as well, apples to apples you know).

You have to look at the whole character, in a human vs ork face contest the human is only going to be one die ahead, if the ork has 18 dice than the human will have 19, and the ork will have a mix of higher strength, higher body, and/or points left over. If max pool is all you want then the elf (or dryad) will have a higher pool than a human. Any way you look at it you're better off being a metahuman, elf for max pool, or ork/dwarf/troll for a more generalized character. In otherwords under no circumstance is the human the 'best' choice for the character. The same is true for nearly every character concept you can think of, even if your concept is human street sam, an ork or dwarf with human looking is still a better choice than an actual human.

It is clearly superior to spending BP elsewhere, at least until you're softmaxed in those you care about - which generally isn't possible with a human.

Logic and Charisma aren't exactly dump stats either.
Awakened metahumans don't really have the option of loading up on the cyberware.
A metahuman mage spends 15+ (20-40) bp before spending one point on magic, stats or skills.

That's not even counting the negatives in logic and charisma some of the metahumans have.
A human shaman will perform better than an orc or a troll.

...and that human will be worse than an elf, but only specifically at charisma based traditions, there are other traditions that aren't charisma based. Since mages are willpower + one other mental stat all metavariants aside from trolls can be equal or better mages than humans. In fact when making a mage you want some physical stats, but you don't want to spend too many points on them because you need more points for other things like skills, mental stats, resources, spells, and foci bonding. The way to do this is to be a metahuman, this allows you to cover your minumim desired physical stats with the most points still left over for other things.

Logic certainly *can* be a dumb stat, and we don't even have to talk about Charisma (the original dump stat). Even hackers don't need Logic.

"...and that human will be worse than an elf,"
Not necessarily, the elf has nearly identical stats for the low low cost of 20 extra bp.

In response to your original post, no I don't think the 200BP cap hurts humans too much. I think the fact that humans are inferior is a bigger issue. I don't think raising the attribute BP cap for humans will make them any better, all it would do is allow them to rearrange thier points a little. I think they need something more along the lines of +1 to one physical or mental attribute of choice, or 10 free points worth of positive qualities.

Which blows my mind. I'm going to head out and make the dumbest AI hacker ever.

Heh. I mean, I'm not encouraging it, but it's not true that you can't dump them; compared to Agility, Reaction, Body?

Eh? In regards to the AI I'm trying(and failing) to make, he's a combination Face/Hacker with emphasis on the Face aspect. Since the BP cost is 110 or so, I gotta make cuts somewhere so I have points for skills and contacts.

Or maybe I'll just field it as a Dumpshock project, and see what I'm doing wrong on this build. I've never run a hacker before.

The elf gets 5 will and 6 charisma for a total of 100 points, while the human spends 105 points to get a 5+6 combo. The elf has 5 points left over, higher agility, and a vision enhancement while performing just as well at casting spells and is better at summoning spirits. The elf still has the option to spend more points where as the human is already capped on what he can spend on those two attributes.

Well, the discussion has sort of moved on from this, but the arithmetic still doesn't make sense.

I find no formula using original BP costs, pluses for raised caps and minuses for decreased caps that makes these numbers come out consistently across the metatypes.

On another tack, people seem to be equating EDG with the other Attributes in terms of value of another point in the Attribute. Every other Attribute's increase by one gives one more die every time that Attribute is used. With EDG, one more EDG point gives one more use of EDG + 1 dice wherever and whenever you want it. Surely there is a difference in value between these two uses of 10 BP. Could this be a 'balancing mechanism'?

EDIT: or 1 more reroll, or 1 more pull your ass out of the fire.

Yep, I agree (and have written that myself, actually), that the orc is plain superior, if you want Strength.

Since noone needs Strength for anything, a human with Strength > 1 is clearly less effective than a human with Strength = 1.

Therefore I only compare humans, that leave their Strength at 1 with orcs.

And if you do so, you quickly see, that all those free points magically vanish and all that is left is 2 more points of Strength.

Bye
Thanee

Wait, explain this to me, lol. Isn't Hacking tied to Logic? As well as all the other computer skills?

Point for point it looks like this:

Humans(+/-0): +1 Edge (10) +1 Edge Cap (10) = +20 BP
Orks(-20): +3 Body (+30), +3 Body Cap (+30), +2 Strength (+20), +2 Strength Cap (+20), -1 Charisma Cap (-10), -1 Logic Cap (-10)= +60 BP
Dwarves(-25): +1 Body (+10).+1 Body Cap (+10), +2 Strength (+20), +2 Strength Cap (+20), +1 Willpower (+10), +1 Willpower Cap (+10), -1 Reaction Cap (-10) = +45 BP
Elves(-30): +1 Agility (+10). +1 Agility Cap (+10), +2 Charisma (+20), +2 Charisma Cap (+20)= +30 BP
Trolls(-40): +4 Body (+40), +4 Body Cap (+40), +4 Strength (+40), +4 Strength Cap (+40), -1 Agility Cap (-10), -2 Charisma Cap (-20), -1 Logic Cap (-10), -1 Intuition Cap (-10)= +70 BP

Again I don't agree with the numbers, but I was just trying to correct the math that you can't put a value on lowered caps without giving the same value to raised caps.



I think its valid because edge can be thrown into almost anything whenever you want to, it can make small pools big, let you reroll big pools, give you the rule of 6s for really big pools, and even let you do some things just raw attributes can't do (like take extra actions).