It seems to be every so popular a dump stat these days, as it doesn't show up in tests made all that commonly.

However it's pretty weak. And in principle limits you drastically before tests and penalites ensue.

So I figured I'd look up some weights and share.

grenade - about a half kilo
pistol -little over a kilo
AK-47, loaded - just under five kilos (but if you add an underbarrel grenade launcher or much for accessories it'll be over 5)
Barret M82 sniper rifle - nearly 15kg all on its own!
Basic clothing, pocket contents, and shoes - 1-2 Kg (or more, if those boots are horrershow)
Modern lighter armored vest (guestimate for form fitting body armor half suit) 3+kg
modern armed jacket (yeah they sell those now) 3+ kg

Obviously a str1 character will have to pick their gear carefully.

But what do you think about things like doing a chin up and that sort of thing? I figure the climbing rules apply when you can get your feet involved, but what about when you can't so much? I figure that applies beyond strength one. For example a strength 3 but bod9 orc with some gear. Actually would you modify climbing tests by just the standard -1 for going over the weight limit?

Any other actions people might take for granted that these physically challenged individuals might need to be concerned about?

Someone with Strength:1 can carry 10 kg (about 22 lbs) unencumbered. I have always considered 1 to be the lowest functional Attribute, representing someone undeveloped in that area, rather than handicapped (which is represented by other flaws such as uncouth, infirm, etc.). Remember, it only takes 10 karma to raise that Attribute to a 2.

That said, a Strength: 1 character will face challenges. Normal armor, a sidearm, and a bit of gear won't be a problem, but a full kit or heavier weapons will encumber the character. Any time they need to drag a comrade to safety or carry anything bulky, they will not be very effective. Personally, I think they suffer enough from frequent encumbrance penalties, and being ineffective at any Strength-related skill (and note that without some positive modifiers, they won't even be able to default on things such as climbing).

It's true that Strength is one of the less useful Attributes, but doing things such as carrying things should be fairly common, so a low Strength should still be a hindrance to most characters.

Would love to see a Strength 1 character try and drag a wounded fellow runner away from a gunfight. Knew a player who had such a weak character, and got himself gunned down because he couldn't make his unconscious dwarf buddy budge.

It would have been even funnier if he couldn't get his unconscious pixie buddy to budge.

As a GM I really enjoy when players do silly things like make Strength a really low dump stat. I will pick at that flaw all day long like a kid picking at a scab. Then again I'm an avid supporter of the "Play Dirty" method of GMing.

Weren't weights pretty much eliminated in SR4? Thus does it matter what level your strength is at insofar as carrying gear? I'm aware that realistically, no, it isn't irrelevant, but going strictly by what's in the book, it would seem to not matter as nothing really has weights... I know there are some here that would argue that due to nothing having weight listed, a Str 1 character would be impossible to be encumbered by his gear, going by strict RAW.

Strength is damned important for the Athletic Group and any active Char without it
(STR-1 Pool) is......Well I'd say he's like a one-Legged in an Asskicking Competition

He who dances with two Legs
Medicineman

While i agree that i'd rather see strength used as the value to figure armor encumbrance if there arn't checks for it that's the GM"s fault not necessarily the systems.

Not really, p. 300 of sr4 has the rules of course, since nothing has weights lifted, meh... so much for consistency

Personally I like the idea of not having to micromanage weight and encumbrance (like D&D). Fortunately I never had players try to overdo what they were carrying. Also have yet to have a player in any of my groups take a Strength less than 3. Personally I've played a Strength 2 hacker who was also a human changeling with neoteny once, but never a Strength 1 character.

Honestly the only attribute I've ever skimped on was Edge.

not having to micromanage is good, yes, but at the same time some of these load outs people carry are absurd.

Honestly, you could fix this by just saying "if you don't have STR of at least X, I will screw with you" instead of making people micromanage gear. Given that the book doesn't list weights for any gear, I'd rather not play "so how much does an X weigh?" for half an hour with my GM (or with my players when I am GMing).

Especially considering everything in the book is made in the future with future materials that are supposedly lighter than modern materials, and stronger so that less is needed in the first place. OP listed the weight of a bunch of stuff in modern times. Nothing says that it will be the same weight in the future, and much says that it will be lower.

I think the reason strength has become a dump stat in the game is because it is a dump stat in real life. While being strong can be nice and helpful in particular circumstances, for the vast majority of people it isn't needed at all. Now, there are obvious exceptions for jobs that are more physically demanding like construction, but even they are needing less and less strength as more and more machines are being brought into the job site. I think it's entirely reasonable to believe that the average person has a lower strength than any other stat, and that the average will only continue to go down with the advent of things like drones.

As far as encumbrance is concerned, I'd only worry about armor values. Anything else is too much of a hassle to bother with.

I usually run with STR+BOD (instead of B*2) as the maximum armor level before penalty, as well as allowing the arsenal rule that increases personal recoil compensation with higher strength values. Most of the time, PCs with low strength aren't going to be carrying ridiculous amounts of gear, while PCs who are combat-oriented that carry heavier and bulkier gear usually have higher strength.

Sounds reasonable, but you also have to remember that many character builds can't help but have some low stats. TMs and Mages in particular fall into this category due to the very real need for high mental stats. I'm not talking about min/max, I'm talking about basic 'I'm competent' requirements.

OTOH, mages and TMs will notice the effects of an agility penalty from too much armor less than the sams will.

Or more because in the cases where they are used, the penalty is a larger percentage of your DP because you have a smaller DP in the first place. If anything, I'd say the combatant types would notice it less because what is a -1 DP when you have 20+? I mean you've already reached the point where you will never miss, you're just losing 1/3rd of a box of damage. For a mage/TM though, you're looking at being brought below the threshold for being able to hit someone in the first place.

Granted it will have a bigger effect as a percentage of dicepools but with the exception of forgery the agi based skills are either combat or infiltration.

A TM isn't, IMO, particularly suited for either of those roles using their meat body.

A mage relying on spells isn't going to worry about agi too much anyway. For a gunbunny mage, using that house rule, stick with light armor or take the strength.

It's not a house rule I use but I think it's one of the most defensible.

That's just wrong. Or do you never decide that you want a piece of furniture in a different location than the one it currently occupies? Or never decide to get the 50-pound bag of rice? Or never haul around luggage? Or if I take a stronger interpretation of "needed", suddenly we get most of the attributes as potential real-world dump stats.

Anyway, STR 1 characters can carry very little weight, but standard canon gear has no weight. Mostly a disadvantage for heavy McGuffins or rubble.

~J

I think you might be conflating "encumbered" with "impossible" there - I certainly don't, in RL, have a high STR, but I can pick up the 50 pound bag of rice - I'll just be encumbered, and at a disadvantage to my Gymnastics rolls (which I would be defaulting to my also low AGI, on...)

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that furniture now weighed 300 lbs. There is very little furniture that can't be moved by two people working together, even if they are fairly weak. Same with the rice bag (Not that I've ever purchased 50 lbs of rice), you drag it over to your cart and push it along, no worries. And with luggage, that's why wheels were invented. And a difficulty here is a minor inconvenience as opposed to a crippling disability.

The more important stats are the mental stat. We make dozens or hundreds or thousands of social interactions on a daily basis depending on our lifestyle and job, thus requiring a good charisma. A high logic/intuition is required to get through school and thus get a high paying job, and then to do well at that job. I admit the other physical stats and willpower aren't as important, but they are more important than strength for most people.

Besides, pushing or dragging something heavy is much easier than actually lifting it. Someone who can't even come close to lifting their own body weight can probably still put their shoulder up against a couch and shove it.

Yep. Like I said, a low strength in this case is a minor inconvenience as opposed to a real problem (and one which likely comes up very rarely, as few people move their furniture all that often)

I don't think STR has become todays 'dump stat', consider the proliferation of gyms and protein/bulk supplements. Perhaps more true among the DS cyber evolved though ;)

sure, and consider that the only reason those gyms are needed is that most people aren't getting a physical workout unless they go to those gyms.

also consider that there are far more people who don't go to the gym regularly than there are people who do.

yes, some people work on strength. many more people do not.

Yep. And keep in mind that a gym is not for raising strength for most as much as it is for raising body. They go to keep healthy, not so that they can bench press 300lbs or whatever.

Even weight lifting can be as much (if not more) about aesthetics than gaining raw strength. For example, in a lot of the more dedicated and cliquey circles you'll find that bodybuilding and powerlifting are two separate subcultures even if they both fall under the gym rat umbrella. Bodybuilders worry about stuff like symmetry, body fat percentage and use bronzers to highlight striations for competition while some powerlifters probably wouldn't mind if a muscle burst out of their forehead provided that it let them lift more.

No character (well, no PLAYED shadowrunner character) should have ANY ATTRIBUTE at 1, in my opinion. I have two characters with a 1 in my game. A Pixie mage with strength one, and a vampiric assassin with logic one... and i will especially use any fitting situation to remind them that they are fantastically weak on some level...

Well, the pixie is excused, i guess (I even think pixies should have maybe a MAXIMUM strength of two... body too... damn overpowered thingies)

What i look out for in my game (i am the gm) is consistency in character. If someone trained in melee, was in the military (hell, the good old - i am ex-special ops- but then i struck my officer and saved the kid- origin story), or did heavy work... he WILL have a fitting attribute. Whenever someone is telling me: "And i use a german Zweihänder as my main weapon", he better bring at least three strength to the table. - yes i know you can swing it easily enough... but just intensive training with it WILL raise your strength.

I am also aware that the game doesn't reward high strength as it should be though. And i allow (but not enforce) to use str/bod for encumberance.

The only other applications i can think of, for strength is: Breaking tests (and opposed tugging, pushing etc.) and subduing/wrestle (which boosts the damage output of an enhanced troll to insanely ridiculous levels... like it should)

That seems like a very narrow view, and also an overly harsh view of what exactly an attribute of 1 is. An attribute of 1 isn't crippled, it is simply low. Uncouth/Uneducated/that last one represent being crippled in some manner.

I mean, I can imagine plenty of characters that would very realistic have a strength of 1, or a charisma of 1, or a logic of 1. The other stats seem a bit less likely at that low of a number, but I'm sure there could be reasons behind it.

Well, this is part of the problem with such a narrow range of ratings. by the book, an "average" human, str 2, can lift and carry, about 65 lbs without any problem. But this gets into the question of HOW is it being carried? it is much easier to carry a weight in a backpack, or some such, than to do it with your arms the entire time. Now, if i'm "average" in str (i doubt it, i would grade myself probably as a 2) i still sont think i could see myself carrying 60 pounds in a potato sack or hands and arms only situation, for very long. if it's gear that is packed up, fire arm holstered, or even carrying the gun, then yea, i could see my current self doing that...

This is my take too. It adds unnecessary complications and my players have generally been reasonable about not carrying a store (usually they just leave the heavy shit in the car trunk). Only character with strength that low was a Roma possession witch with Strength 2, but if she really got in a pinch she could just go Super Possession Form and be Strength 8 or so for a scene.

But me and my players tend to see Edge as THE POWER OF MIRACLES and rarely skimp there. I've seen them cut back on Reaction and put their faith in body armor and Wired Reflexes, though. But they tend to go for decent-across-the-board stats in general, over very high values in one or two. Our last troll was a Body 6 fomori who didn't add anything to his body beyond the basis.

A low Willpower stat is also an easy one to justify if you're willing to buy into the idea that some runners are criminals not because they are exceptional but rather because they lack the discipline or maturity to hack it in a more regimented career path. For every charismatic eco-shaman with a cause there's going to be a clever grifter who's in the shadows only because his ego won't let him kiss a suit's ass long enough to get a desk job.

I considered that Whipstitch, but my problem with that was that yes, a criminal may have a low willpower, but generally a shadowrunner is facing high chances of death, and I don't think someone without a decent willpower would be able to do that. As I said, you could certainly find a justification for it, but I would think being a shadowrunner (as opposed to just some criminal) would require at least a bit of willpower.

Also, for those that admonish low stats so much, keep in mind that having 'average' stats (3) in everything requires 180 of your 200 stat BP, and that isn't even counting an average edge or magic or anything else. It's really hard to not be Joe Average without dropping nearly everything to 2, or maybe dropping one thing to 1.

Personally I think of a stat of 1 to be more a potentially interesting facet of a character than something that should automatically be punished.

Yes. I agree.

While I agree that the GM should keep in mind low Strength when the situation arises during gameplay, I would also add that the GM should be doing so for any other low attribute as well.

10kg can be quite a lot of stuff, considering (like Aku has stated) that there are several ways to carrry stuff, putting stuff in a well-distributed gear harness can help you carry more.

I don't have anything against stats on 2... Rating two is not far away from three... both normal for me. But the difference between one and two feels HUGE.

Also i don't automatically punish low stats (or skills) i just like to poke the characters on that. As you said, it is interesting to have them. (But i do want to have them realisticly explained): The "I didn't put any points in strength, because agility is more effective for damage melee" is not an acceptable excuse for someone with unarmed 6. NOBODY can be that good with at least SOME kind of general bodily training.

In a VERY low campaign, or with very young characters, i can understand an one, of course.

I guess my thought process is that willpower is essentially the stat required to do things you aren't already inclined to do and you're (hopefully ) looking at this from the perspective of a reasonably well-adjusted person from a reasonably peaceful environment. To extrapolate this stuff to Shadowrun you need to consider that in a lot of areas gang violence, turf wars, and devil-rat-on-a-stick became the new normal back when the USA collapsed. The sad fact of the matter is that plenty of people throughout history have slouched their way to their first killing because that's what their culture (or subculture in the case of gangs) dictated and their need to conform overruled their sense of self-preservation. Now, whether they actually handle the stress very well is another matter, but a shadowrunner with some self-destructive tendencies and a load of baggage is hardly unusual.




See, and I think you're making it into a bigger deal than it really is. 3 isn't some magic number. It's just the human average. The rules are crazy nebulous on just what this actually all means and generally day to day household tasks don't even really need dice at all.

Plus, again, this "huge difference" is 10 karma.

One thing to keep in mind about character Attributes is that they are a picture of the character at one moment in time. So his Willpower might be low because he recently got rescued from a cult, or his Strength might be low because he's trying to rehab after a lengthy illness. I avoid lopsided Attribute/skill combos (such as Strength: 1 and unarmed combat: 6), but that's only my personal aesthetics. There are certainly lots of ways to justify low stats.

An Attribute of 1 is bad because it gives you very low dice pools for anything related to it, and you can't default on skills associated with it. I think there are enough quantifiable disadvantages for any low Attribute, without the GM needing to go out of his way to "punish" the character.

I wouldn't 'punish' a character for very low stat, but in my opinion a glaring weakness is something that deserves the odd poke once in a while, if only to remind the player that the character has that problem. But I prefer to leave the result of failure into the embarassing or even comedic realm, with a bit of hurt for seriousness, rather than deadly.

I suppose it may feel huge to you, but you have to remember that, in fact, the difference between 2 and 1 is no different from the difference between 2 and 3. Actually the difference between 2 and 3 is slightly larger because it is separated by 15 karma instead of 10 karma.

In costs yes, in impact for chances: no.

two is DOUBLE the value of one, three is just 50% more than two. Also the low karma cost reinforce that nearly everybody should tend to the nominal values.

If we look at the "Athletics"-skills which are bound to strength for example, the impact on low levels is huge. It is the difference between being able to jump a fence as a kid and critically fail and split your head open while attempting a long shot. Having Strength 1 and not even 1 point in the athletic group pretty much means your a bumbling fool not even able to use the most basic movements (Yes i know you might get a slight bonus for REALLY simple things... but still failure will be common). Having the skills at 1, and 2 points strength is NEEDED to even appear to have basic motor control and power to carry your own weight (climbing a rope for example).

That's what i mean with consistency: If someone says he was raised on the streets, playing with other kids, even if he is a technomancer, that should be reason enough for him to be able to skip and jump around.

Something as easy as walking, or basic motions, shouldn't require a test anyway. Who needs to roll dice to skip, or hop a six-inch-tall ledge, or pick a cup up off a table?

Strength 1 and no Athletics just means you're a massive wimp and can't do anything remotely athletic. Your average person off the street IRL probably can't run up and pull themselves over anything more than a decorative fence without a lot of trouble either. Chain-link fences can be climbed (which takes time), but forget something like a wooden backyard fence.

The art of easily and quickly getting over such urban obstacles is called parkour. It's hard to do.

Actually, it is 160 Points... 8 Stats with +2 to each Stat x10bp... 8*2*10 = 160 BP

Nitpick Over...

The argument for low strength can probably be made for agility and reaction as well, considering a future with self driving cars and virtual reality. Willpower is also probably down in the face of constant advertising with simsense and the corporate "family" structure. And how much logic is really necessary when machines can do all the calculating for you and skills can be bought over the counter. Anything over a 3 is Atypical. The numbers don't mesh perfectly with the fluff. I wouldn't get bogged down too much over this. Most characters will leave something lacking at character creation that comes back to bite them. The funniest thing to do is throw your players in the puget sound and see how many can swim.

I don't so much think of it as punishing characters, just not letting things slide. For example I think in a lot of games the "mages are overpowered" argument comes from the fact that the GM never bothers with magical defenses or background counts and things like that.

I don't think you should make up all sorts of new rules for strength one characters. I just didn't want to be ignoring stuff that should apply. Gear weights aren't listed, and I think that's likely becasue the designers didn't want to wast time and space on something that, for most players, would never matter. But for strength one players, once they go for more than what they might wear on the street, they're probably falling into encumberance territory.

Beyond that I'm wondering what people would require as a roll to pull oneself up a ledge and thsoe sorts of things. Does body relate to weight? I think some editions have had stuff on that, but I'm not sure about this one.

Also yes, from a long run karma efficiancy point of view, dump stats make sense. And for your average desk jocky strength is a dump stat. Though I think most of the physical stats are. But these are Shadowrunners.

All I'd require is a Climbing check, given that Strength is the linked attribute in that case anyway. It is perhaps a bit unfortunate, however, that Climbing is one of those skills that has a boatload of potential positive modifiers attached to it, to the point where you could have Climbing 1 and Strength 1 and still easily end up with a dice pool of 7+. I probably would give the action movie style "Grab the ledge by your finger tips!" maneuver a pretty decent threshold, however. Climbing is as much about technique as it is strength, but unfortunately a big part of that technique is not putting yourself in situations where all you have at your disposal is your upper body strength and some adrenaline to begin with.

You need more Running in your Shadowrun.

I don't think people should be punished for taking attributes at 1. The way I see it, ratings fit a standard distribution where a 3 is average, and 70% of all ratings fall within two standard-deviations of it; ratings 1-5. Ratings lower or higher than that get increasingly rare. (Of course for metahumans the middle of the curve lies elsewhere)

A 0 Attribute is so horribly handicapped that it's not allowed for PCs. A 6+ is so rare they make you pay through the nose for it. Everything else is just high and low but still within the normal population.

But the big question is: are all the attributes equally valuable? No, they're not. In a high-tech, secure office-worker lifestyle, Strength isn't really important. Get a Renraku Manservant to do the lifting. Or Mexicans Orks.
Are they equally valuable to PCs? No, not really. Strength is important for melee characters and people who use a lot of athletics, and that's all.

I like the "fix" of using Strength+Body to determine encumbrance. It's easy to apply, and it gives a lazy hacker an alternative to having a Body of 5. Also, it just makes good sense.

The recoil rule I haven't read, but it sounds interesting.

If Strength is more useful, then I think it won't be dumped quite as much.

Armor encumbrance really should be Str+Body.
Strength as dump stat is fine, if you want to play a feeble character it is workable in 2070s, but you're going to be hurting in melee and athletics when that comes up.
Str 1 characters can't pull themselves up on a ledge, they can't climb a rope, they can't even traverse one. They're weak.
Str 1 weight allowance is 10kg which means that even if SR4 doesn't have weights because it normally isn't an issue, then a Str 1 char trying to kit himself out for combat is exactly one of those situations that are not normal. Dorky underweight hackers aren't supposed to carry much more than a commlink, a pistol and armor clothing.

I don't have more than a strength of 1 or 2 in my opinion, and yet I can pull myself up on a ledge, I can climb a rope, and I'm not sure what you mean by traverse a rope, but I'm reasonably confident I could do that too.

Also, I've done some rock climbing, and you'd be amazed at just how little strength matters.

I do however agree that encumbrance could be an issue, but I wouldn't worry about it unless the character is trying to bring a ton of stuff, or bring something that is particularly heavy (like heavy weapons) or trying to move another person. They can likely drag anyone short of a troll, but it won't be very quick.

Edit:Oh, and @summerstorm - No, you're not going to be a bumbling fool at 1 str, that is the realm of 1 agi. Instead you're not going to run very quickly, and you're going to have difficulty climbing things that weren't designed to be climbed (Like, you know, fences).

You're probably Str 2 then, and reasonably low body weight (there's a difference between a Str 2 120lbs woman and a Str 2 180lbs man - the latter has a lot more problems dealing with his bodyweight). Pulling yourself up on a ledge needs you to do essentially a chin-up first, lots of people can't do that. Traversing a rope is moving across a horizontally suspended rope, lots of people fail that too. Those are the Str 1 people.

Regarding climbing, I've done plenty of sports climbing myself. With proper technique, climbing shoes, and an easy route, then strength doesn't matter much. Change any of those, and strength becomes of paramount importance. Your grip strength especially is a huge issue. Weren't you conditioning your grip strength so you could hang on to smaller pieces and your muscles would give out later? Weren't you planning routes looking for places to rest and shake out those forearms? Even before we start dealing with underhangs, climbing is a lot about strength. I agree that we aren't talking about bodybuilder strength, but SR just isn't that granular, just like the sharpshooter and watchmaker both rely on the same stat Agility.