I have done a search, but I believe my Search-Fu is weak, as I cannot see this question NOT being brought up. SEVERAL (10+) pages in the search and still nothing.

Has anyone ever played with no skill caps? Even using the thought of double karma after 6? If so, how is this working or is it? I'd like your thoughts if you wouldn't mind.

*Yes, I know the screams of power gaming might arise, but I am a long time player/GM and have seen characters reach retirement level with skills in the 11-14 range in previous editions.*

I have yet to run into it, but I certainly don't think it would hurt. I'm not a fan of the skill caps (or attribute caps, for that matter), personally, and I think that as long as the GM removed the caps from NPCs (when/if it was appropriate for that NPC to have such a high score), I don't see the system breaking down or anything.

There are already ways to get pretty absurd die pools, so people doing so thanks to hard work and skill, as opposed to just external modifications, is a-okay with me.

The game didn't last long enough for it to come into play, but the last time I was going to GM a home campaign, I was gonna play sans caps.
I can't see that it would really hurt anything, honestly.

For the sake of the game, I'd probably do a couple things...

1) Limit augmentation to 1.5 the characters current unaugmented attribute. This prevents players from really abusing the removal of the attribute cap.

2) Increase karma costs above 6. Maybe add an extra 1x modifier (so 3x for Skills, and 6x for attributes, that sort of thing). This lets them go above 6 (or 7 if they have the quality), but it's a bit more expensive, to represent that it's harder to achieve those near superhuman levels.

Bull

With Normal Attributes going up to 9 (metagen. Improvement, genetic Opt.) and Gear now going up to Level 10 (Thanks to War ! )I wouldn't mind Skills going up to 8 (9 with talented) in a
High-Level,Highpowered Campaign(with Cost x3 for level 7,8 (and 9))
Sometimes you have to adapt to the Powercreep(If you can't fight it)

with a flexible Dance
Medicineman

The question is how grounded you want to keep the game. If rating 1 is a hobbyist's ability, rating 3 is professional competency and rating 6 is a leading authority then what is 9+? Should it be possible for the gap between a PC and a professional to dwarf the gap between said professional and a child? Can someone really push the boundaries of human knowledge and bodily control so far without the support of a team of professionals? It's the making of a superhero game, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

If you do remove the skill cap, consider reducing ratings that are higher than 6 for those characters who don't devote time to maintaining their expertise (much like how neglected contacts drop in Loyalty rating).

So if a Longarm 1 is a entry level shooter that is just getting into the sport and said level 6 is olympic/elite shooter would a 10 make him God?
at olympic/elite level even the smallest factor that CAN be controlled it usualy IS.
So say at skill 6 all gun factors and ammo/internal ballistics are acouted for and practiced so they become of minimum issue. personal human error factors are at the very minimum too. wind reading is great.
by skill 7 you remove all internal ballistics factors you can control and you most likely have zero human error. wind reading is awesome
if there wer any infinitesmall human error by skills 8 and 9 they are gone. wind reading is better than a wind reading instrument.

Skill 10. GOD: I control the wind and move the bullet itself. who needs powder and guns

There is a point where excessive skills just dont make any sense. As with anything the excessiveness to get to that point in both time and money invested training you are better off spend that time reading some fiction novel or watch some movies and spend the money to outsource the ability to multiple people with lesser skill. much cheaper i reckon.

a bagof rice and a certified credstick can buy you a small group of wannabe snipers from the local gun range with skill 2 in longarms. Thats alot more hitpoints and dice pool total than you at skill 10

its not uncommon in my games for our face to outsource the combat interference mission to a small group of "will work for rep and food" gangers.

im just saying.

First of all, thanks for the replies and input.

I actually was thinking on the Attribute cap idea. This doesn't bother me as much, I mean there should be an upper limit to what the (meta)human body can achieve, however with skills, I do not believe that you ever stop learning or refining your learned abilities. It may become more difficult and take much longer (representing the fact that to really grow at something, you must be challenged, which becomes increasingly difficult).

So, with that in mind, yes, an increase to the amount of karma needed to increase is, without a doubt. a "no duh moment". This begs the question, would Aptitude need to be repriced AND reworded or just increased in someway to accommodate the lifting of the skill cap?



My long time group and I find those descriptions a little forced, and they never really set right with us.

Now this hits on another problem I was looking at, and really points to another thread which brought some good points.

Really, the difference between a Professional and a Minor League Athlete are only 1-2 dice? Assuming 5 Skill for Pro and 4-5 Attribute, and 4 Skill and 3-4 Attribute for Minor. An average of 3 to 3.33 hits for a Pro, and 2-2.66 hits for a Minor League. I just think the scale needs to be adjusted. Even in the older additions, we used a modified version of the skill level definitions we found here. Before finding that on the web, we used this for a long time.

I'm not suggesting going that high just to chart out a description, but I think there should be more of a range to denote ability than just a couple of dice.

Any thought as to a suggested upper end (if there should be one) or as to the cost increase? I don't want to change the whole mechanic of karma cost across the board, though I did like how SR3 linked the cost to attributes, I don't think that would work as well here.

It is of my opinion that the game should have been built from the ground up to allow for something like this, i.e. take that "3 is a professional" table and double every number. You're still limited to having 5/6s at chargen, but that means that a starting character, at best is a professional at what they do (one 6 or two 5s) but over the course of the Long Game they rise in the ranks until their highly talented experts (12 skill).

It also has the advantage of making street games doable without having to go "bwuh?" at having skill ratings of 1s across the board and 2s in stats.

I think it's pretty obvious that in a game where the GM would remove skill caps, he'd be having to take a look at that skill level chart and make some revisions, too, fellas. Don't get bogged down in what a 1 is supposed to mean, a 3, and a 6...if the GM is letting them go to 10 or 12 or infinitely high, it should be clear that would mean a 7 is no longer considered legendary. Changing the number range obviously changes the relative ratings.

The descriptions make the very dangerous mistake of forgetting that skill is only a (fairly small) factor into the equation that is how good someone is at something. Stats tend to contribute at least as much as the skill itself, and very few things out there don't have another few to several points to be gained from equipment and/or ware. When firing a gun for example, you're likely to see a larger contribution to the DP from agility (Thanks to muscle toner) than from the skill itself. Same goes for any agility based skill really thanks to the ease of pushing it to augmented maximum. And then for guns there is the smartgun for an extra 2 dice, which is essentially the difference between a novice and a professional.

Which is a small part of my problem.

My group and I like skill level description for in game use, "you are looking for Mr. Smith, a cutting edge researcher in Arcane Research". In older editions, my players knew this was high level stuff, skill 9 min (in his specialty at least) but in SR4 he would be currently equal to our group mage (Arcane 7, Aptitude). Who, I might add, will never be able to "expand her knowledge" of Arcana any more.

I just think there should always be a chance to learn more, no-one knows everything.

I think adjusting the skill cap, or removing it entirely might be an option.

Has anyone already tried this? If so, any comments, suggestions, or warnings?

I know it's ultimately my game, but I like to have an informed option and weigh my options that way.

There's more to it than that. Does the mage have access to a research facility and a dozen gifted post-graduates with which to push the boundaries of mankind's knowledge? Is there no limit to how good a runner's technique can be developed? Can anyone's brain effectively handle the amount of information required for a rating 12 knowledge skill? People aren't computers with limitless Response ratings, but when you check your biological datafiles to see if you recognise a ganger's name I bet you'll expect an answer in the same combat turn, right?

Actually, we need to be even more careful than that - skill ratings aren't about what you can achieve, they're about reliability. Nobody can know everything but a limit on how well a person can put their learning into practice sits quite well with me. There's a limit to how competent the body can get (attributes) so why not the mind?. Whether the value range is too limited or not is another matter, but this edition is largely built around maximums.

Also, wrt the Arcane example, I would expect Mr. Smith to have a Research specialization but would be astounded if the PC did too.

No, but if you're turning them over to a corp, the PC mage could go "take me. I have the skill." And be just as good.




It's like...2 karma to change a specialization.

Except they don't have the actual knowledge, experience or understanding of the other guy. Merely the same aptitude. It's not at all feasible to swap an established project leader with a complete stranger and expect a seamless continuation. That said, if the corp had all the research data already then they would probably be happy to take on the mage rather than steal someone else, but then the mage will be looking to arrange his own extraction since he presumably already has good reason for not pursuing a career at the top of his field.



Yes, but now you have to find a runner willing to do so ...

Well, be astounded. Her character concept was a former high end military researcher for Tir Tairngire (good enough and almost trusted enough to go to Crater Lake level of good) that got caught up in some....unfortunate cover ups. "Fatal" accident, new identity, new "life" in the shadows (unexpectedly that is), and she still doesn't know who to "thank" for her second chance.

Personally, I think yes. The (meta)human brain is one of the most mysterious and astounding "computers" in the world.

In real life, yes. In game mechanics terms, no. Skill 7 is skill 7 as far as the rules are concerned.

Also:

http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

Exactly. Equal skill means equal aptitude, not "I know what he knows". It's perfectly possible (if highly improbable) that a rating 1 guy knows more in the field than a rating 7 guy. The rating 7 guy is only better at using the skill.

Fair doos, that does sound like an interesting back story. Does the player know to keep nice and quiet about her priceless talent?

I would worry a bit about the power level in a game with no skill caps, but I think that it forcing a revision of the fluff skill descriptions would be a GOOD thing.

Because, frankly, the skills don't mechanically work in a way the even remotely matches the fluff descriptions. Skills are only a portion of the dice pool, and even looked at by themselves, someone with a skill of 6 is really not that much better than Joe Average with a skill of 3. It's only one success, on average, separating them. A wider spread of skill ranges would make the fluff work a lot better (now 6, the max for a starting runner without the Aptitude quality, is "professional", while world class skill are in the 12+ range).

Exactly.

The Skill and Attribute caps have been a source of discussion for a long time. The argument has been made (I think Karoline is one of the stronger proponents of this) that dice pool is the real issue, not the ratings of Skill and Attribute.

When I think of 'professional', I think of someone who can regularly do the job in a competent fashion. How that translates into dice pool is a matter of interpretation, but I think being able to regularly get three or four hits is a reasonable ballpark figure. One or two hits is barely succeeding, and more than four is approaching critical success level.

So what kind of Skill and Attribute level does that require? It needs a dice pool of nine to twelve, so dividing equally, that gives about a five or six in both Skill and Attribute. That seems a lot. There are two qualifiers that probably drop those a bit, tools and specialization. Each can easily give two to the dice pool, so drop the range from 9-12 to 5-8. Now the 'professional' split is about three in each of Skill and Attribute. That would appear to be around where the game puts the fluff description of professional now.

One way to look at the 'consummate professional' (best-of-the-best?) is to say he can do what the professional does, in any circumstance. So, take away the tool mod and the specialization mod, and we are back up to five or six in Skill and Attribute. We're still not far off from the fluff in the text.

Another way is to say that the best-of-the-best can do critical successes on a regular basis. So if the professional gets three or four, then the consummate professional working against him gets seven or eight. This is where the current scale suffers, because that needs a dice pool of 21-24, and in most cases that is pretty hard to achieve without a lot of modifiers due to hardware and situation. this is a key point, however.

If we are focusing on Skills and Attributes, then a 'best-of-the-best' character is cruising in on nine or ten in each of Skill and Attribute. Removing caps on Skill and Attributes would allow attainment of this level of performance. The game of Shadowrun, however, is all about a world in which the human form and psyche have been augmented by technology and magic. In that world, a person of skill and ability is magnified by forces outside himself into something capable of prodigious feats. Someone with Skill three and Attribute three can be bumped up to have a dice pool in the twenties, making him a 'consummate professional' in deed, if not in breed.

Within the framework of the ideology behind Shadowrun, then, is the current scale system that much of a failure?

I've been using higher caps almost exactly as Bull described for quite a while now, and I've never had any problems with it. Partly because not a lot of people get their characters that high (so as not to throw off the curve too much), but even then, it's not much of an issue.

I allow skills up to 10, attributes to 1.5. In order to do so, you still must by the Exceptional/Apptitude Quality corresponding to it. Interestingly, I've yet to have anyone do it with strength or body. It's usually a mental attribute. Skills get bought up more often. All I do to increase cost is to increase the multiplier by x1. Wroks well enough.

My basic reasoning for this is that the listed level of skill is off. I'm also not a fan of a character being able to start at the absolute maximum, but that's a whole other topic. Essentially, a higher skill means that you can work in more difficult enviroments than someone with less skill. Firearms and the ranged table is the easiest to demonstrate this on.

For the example, we're going to say that we're shooting a man sized sihloutte. The table assumes a stationary target, since there's no modifier for a moving target, only a moving shooter. That's why you roll Reaction to dodge. For our example, we're going to go with a good, very professional shooter, with a decent agility.
Agility 4, Pistols 5 = 9 Dice.
Now by our given standard, this should be a more than professional shooter. This guy should be good. I also strongly disagree that you should have a 5+ agility to be a good shooter, but again, digressing. While the given stats should be very good, nine dice is not very impressive. Now we'll add the scenario with some modifiers.
We'll go with shooting from cover - around a barricade, two shots on two side by side targets. We're going to go with a double tap, two shots per target, in one round. As scaling successes is 1 = just succeeding, ie. hitting your target, and 4 is a critical success - bull's eye, we'll say that two successes is generally towards center mass.

Modifiers:
shooting from cover -2
multiple tartgets -2 per additional target in the same actino phase
Recoil -1 for second shot
------------
Total mods = -5
Meaning that at best, by the time the professional shooter gets to target two and is only reliably (average successes of 4 dice being 1) hitting all over the target. You can take an unprofessional shooter who is just learning (Skill of 1, Agility of 4) and all of a sudden they have no chance in hell. This isn't even factoring in range. This is just outside of point blank, which is really close.

I choose shooting because I know it well, and shooting is probably the part of the game most people know best. I can also tell you that the given scenario is not that hard. Especially considering that the given example could be one shot on reach target with an unmodified 9mm and the modifiers would be the same. So there may be some problems with the modifiers as well, but I think we can chalk that up to trying to simplify things. For me, two shots at two targets in three seconds from cover is pretty damn easy. I'm a qualified Expert Marksman, but that's by US Navy standards, which really isn't that hard. We'll be generous though and say I have a skill of 5 (or 3 Specialized semi auto if that makes folks more comfortable;) ). I can easily hit center mass at short range in that scenario. That would be what, three successes?

In order to be able to match that scenario, without modifiers like laser sights or smart gun links to cancel out, remember we're going on pure skill here, you'd need a remaining dice pool of 9 to get an everage of 3 success , shooting a good center mass shot on each target in three seconds. So if you have a -5, you need a dice pool of 14. Without modifers from cyber or gear, straight up skill and attributes only, you get 14 dice from Agility 7+Pistols 7. So only a world class shooter who's Jet Li can shoot around a barrier, one shot on two targets, and hit well? So yeah, skills needs to range higher to work reliably with modifiers.

Now, I did only get about 3 hours of sleep, and I'm not a big one for probabilities and all that, so there may be some rule or some such I've missed somewhere. But really, a barely skilled shooter has almost no chance of hitting two targets, and a sharp shooter can only just do it? Change the scale of what the skill levels are supposed to mean and let them go a bit higher, and that helps with some of the issues.

Edit: Holy crap. Sorry, that ended up being one damn long post. No more posting stream of thought for me.

I recall posting a revised skill rating description of sorts that used your total DP as opposed to simply your skill to give a general idea of how competent someone is at something. It has some slight failings of its own thanks to the fact that it is painfully difficult to get high DPs in some areas, and painfully easy to get them in other areas. Survival for example is hard to even get into the double digits, while anyone without double digits in weapon skills will be laughed at.

Edit You can find my thread here.

Agreed on the topic in general too. That's one of the reasons I went with firearms - more to work with. Skills that don't get as much play simply don't have as many expanded rules, modifiers, etc. They're left a lot more abstract. For those ones, the basic scale works, because there's no listed modifiers, so what's to say that Survival 6 isn't "All that you can be", when there's no modifiers that show otherrwise?

This where I think a house rule of Knowledge skills having some impact mechanically on the Active skills dice pools through the means of something like a Team Work test helps.

I know its not the best of examples, but when I think of the best MMA fighters in the world, one of my personal favourites is George St Pierre. It isn't enough for this guy to be as dominant as he as been in some match ups, it was also being very humble in defeat and learning from his short comings. So by being a very knowledgeable fighter, he seems to routinely plan meticulously his way to demolishing opponents who have been just demolishing everyone else that goes up against them. To make this somewhat analogous to SR4A, natural attributes and skills trained to a peak doesn't simply seem to be enough to be the best of the best, the mental attributes seem to factor in somehow to get that extra edge over others at their same level of that, so I think knowledge ratings adding a few extra dice to the total pool should have an impact to represent that extra depth to some characters in specialized situations they have planned for and/or are knowledgeable about.

Just food for thought, I am very much seeing SR4A these days as something that must be tweeked by house rules and customized fictional settings that fit what you are looking for to get the full enjoyment out of - official products be damned.

Edit: I love Karoline's revised fluff descriptions based on dice pool, I am going to go read it again

Actually, a solution that i'm a fan of is this:

If you have a natural skill of 6 in a skill, then you are allowed another specialty.
If you have a seven, you're allowed yet another, for three total.

World class experts SHOULD have a diversified background. I say 'natural' skill because it represents accumulated experience - so cyberware shortcuts that give you an augmented skill level don't quite cut it.

Ahem.
http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

Sure, but fastjack, the worlds best hacker, ought to have specializations in Exploiting and Spoofing, don'cha think? Somewhere in that nice red splotch off to the right that encompasses the direction of 'a phd in hacking'. Somewhere in the middle of the bright red streak that says 'i know WAY more about this than the average citizen'

Nice picture. While funny, it doesn't really help your arguement, because Specializations in shadowrun overlap in ways that dont make sense.
For example, mister ninja strawman, who's been studying karate all his life, and has a specialty in martial arts..... can't have the Parrying specialization.
Seriously, thats one of the first things you learn.

Or the olympic class pistoleer, who goes up a couple sizes of caliber from Light to Heavy pistols, and magically forgets everything he knows about handguns.

The system's full of these little inconsistencies that don't make sense. A skilled Freehand climber, who climbs all sorts of things for fun, puts on a pair of gecko gloves to help with his hobby, and POOF! there goes their specialty(using gecko gear to climb is treated as Assisted climbing, which is stupid, because they're just gloves, not actual belaying gear or a partner.)

You don't understand. The entire width of that red elongation pushing against the boundary IS a specialization. A "PhD in hacking" is finding an extremely clever way of performing a spoof action ("Watch this guys! It makes the soycaff machine SPRAY raw soy all over the kitchen! Betcha didn't know the machines could even do that!").

An acquaintance of mine spent 10 years to get a PhD, and it was in a field so narrow that his discovery is so tiny, so pointless, and so useless it's completely meaningless. And no, I don't know what it was.

A typical PhD is really, really small.

Thats a bullshit answer, because you can get that effect a multitude of different ways within the confines of the shadowrun system. Different methods which happen to overlap within the same 'field.

You don't -have- to use a spoof action. You could hack it. You could rig it. You could social engineer the person who controls it to do it for you. You can use software to backdoor it and do it remotely. You could even node script it to do it on its own.


If you're making the PHD arguement, then, logically, for each Active skill you have, you should have a metric shitton of supporting knowledge skills for it. Coding languages, hardware, software tools, companies that make the tools, netowrking - being knowledable about a subject isn't just about having a single applied(or Active, if you prefer) Skill.

I understand perfectly. What you don't understand is that when you compare real life and a game system, they don't match up. There's a real disconnect between Active skills, the listed specializations for those Active skills, the knowledge skills to back up those knowledge skills, specializations for -those- skills, and that it further breaks down when you look at what you have to roll for any given task, and that most of these fields overlap, and that you need a few skills to be effective in an area of the game. Then when you take that and compare it to the real world, it just doesn't match up.

Because thats essentially what we're doing here. Looking at a table of skills one through six and going 'that doesn't make sense'. The realism and the rules don't match up.

I find your opinion that 'a phd in hacking is a clever way of spoofing' to be, frankly, ridiculous. a PHD(not to mention the bachelor and masters that come first) in 'hacking' or, say, computer sciences would have to cover not just Hacking, but the entirety of the Electroncs and Cracking skillgroups in various amounts, plus specialties here and there.


The thing you're not getting is that 'specific' in the phd sense is not the same level of 'specific' in the game system. Thats why, having read the lists of available specialties, that I think it actually makes sense that a really experienced Computer user can(and SHOULD, if he's that experienced) have specialties in both Commlinks and Servers(nexi). Really. Look at the rules. You can't have both, and they're different Device types, so you would have to take them seperately.
That, and if you've spent the karma to take a skill to six, its really not that unbalanced to let people pick up another specialty, is it?

Thanks. Thanks a lot. I'll keep that in mind tomorrow morning as I sit down to the latest draft.

I don't think it was intended to mean this. I think a specialisation is meant to represent the character's present focus, so he's not 'forgetting' anything as such but spending more time practicing with HPs and thereby feeling most comfortable with them than with other pistols. Look at it this way - if a character were permitted any number of specialisations then getting enough to cover all applications (e.g. SS, SA and BF) becomes a cheap way to raise the whole skill and doesn't fit mechanically or thematically IMO. I mean, you don't need to practice with every kind of gun - a few should be enough to get some versatility since few pistols are that different from one another (cue onslaught from the gun fans - go easy on me, I know nothing of RL guns, we don't really like them over here).

I like the idea that a character can only have one 'favourite' at a time, but maybe this could work as a quality? 5BP for up to 2 specialisations in as many skills as you like, 10 for up to three?

And Draco, stop parading that 'illustration' around like some bona fide definitive you found in the Encyclopedia Brittanica. It's mildly interesting, potentially a little humorous (though I don't see it myself) and didn't really support your first point let alone your second.

Avoiding the Tir yes, still thinks they tried to kill her. Use the skill in running yes, especially funny when she starts lectures the other characters. So far she's been teaching ALL the other mages in the group, even the one's with different traditions. As far as she's concerned magic is magic no matter the window dressing. She's looking for the ultimate truth behind the mana.

What I've gathered from the thread and what I'd probably use if I were GM.

New Skill Descriptions
1 Below average, read a book or two on the subject
2 Low human average
3 Average level of competency
4 Professional level
5 Expert
6 One of the best. 1 in 100,000
7 1 in 10,000,000
8 1 in 100,000,000
9 1 in a billion
10 Best in the world (or several if your games go that way.)

Extra specializations
At a skill of 7 you gain an extra specialization for free, and an additional one for each rank after. So a skill of 8 could have 3 specializations, a skill of 9 would let you have 4 etc...

Complementary Knowledge Skills
Relevant knowledge skills can add extra dice to the pool. Roll these skills and for each hit add an extra die to the active skill's pool, normal limits applying.

An addendum to the the Complementary Knowledge Skills (house rule) mechanic if I may, I forgot to mention that the way I would use it would be only in a part of game flow that could be determined to be "In Character Planning and Preparation", which most of the time would be the Leg Work stage of things. If they get to the stage where they are just winging it and haven't rolled to add a bonus by way of their Knowledge skills, I don't think I would allow the 'team work' test in the middle of a fire fight necessarily - but if they had good reason to think something Active skill was about to go down and took a moment to come up with a plan and prepare for it, now they are back to doing Leg Work IMHO. Though that might screw up the time table, some window of opportunity might close if all they do is plan and prepare, at some point they have to pull the trigger (so to speak) and most plans don't survive the first engagement. Then as was deemed appropriate, for that mission (or only a specific stage of a mission aka fog of war aka just how much foresight did their Leg Work allow...) I would allow the bonus dice to be put in to the pool.

I hope that makes sense, I know it does to me in my head

1 Average Success on a Single Roll, Yes, But not on an extended Roll... that 3 Skill rank difference results in an additional 3 Dice per roll, which means that the Skill 6 person will get an additional "Average" success per roll, which translates into faster completion of the Extended Roll. Which, from a Company Perspective, results in a lower overhead for whatever research is being conducted.

But then again, we all know my poisition on the Skill Caps debate.

Maybe our definition of a Success are a bit off then... See, in my opinion, a single success indicates SUCCESS... 1 Hit is indeed Center mass in that scenario. 2-3 Hits would indicate that you hit a Critical organ (perhaps) or clipped a major Artery or Vein. at 4 Hits (Critical Success), you have hit them in the throat or base of the skull...

Using that descriptive Method, then, the skills work as intended in my opinion. Additionally, with Shooting you have the use of a Scope to reduce range penalties, so that scenario works for the sniper at maximum range as well... rather than the cop (or the Navy Marksman) at 7 meters.

Additionally, there is a reason that most firefights waste excessive amounts of ammunition for the Miss:Hit ratio that exists in real life. People are generally never as good as they think that they are.

Differences in approach I guess...

Actually, thats how it works. You CAN change specializations from one thing to another.... but you still have to spend karma for it.

I'm not advocating an unlimited number of specializations. Thats silly. All i'm saying is, someone with a natural skill of 6 should be allowed to buy 2, and someone who's taken Aptitude and the skill to 7 should be allowed another one for his efforts.

Your suggestions of a 5bp quality would be imbalanced, and here's why: Specs are good. They cost 2bp/2karma, and give two dice. Properly bought, they can give two dice to everything important(gymdodging, shooting) to name a few.
a 5bp(10 karma) quality that lets you get 2 specs in everything is basically like handing out free, cheap dice to almost anything important. It costs you 10 karma to pick it up in play, and then 2 karma for whatever you like after that. Don't you see how that might be a little.... you know... broken??

If you change it to be based off of skill ratings, however, it makes a bit more sense. You can only start with one skill at six.(if its in BPgen, its going to be rather expensive. 24BP, then two specs, so 28 total, or 0.07 of the total 400bp). To take advantage of this revision, assuming a skill started at 4 in chargen, it would have to be raised to 5(10 karma), then 6(12 karma), and then another spec bought(2 karma). That comes out to 24 karma, and thats per skill.
When you consider what you else could be spending that amount karma on(submersion, spells) it starts to look a bit more balanced, and it remains a neat option for someone to work towards.
The emphasis on natural rating is there to prevent abuse with reflex recorders or other things which make a skill use an augmented rating - broadened horizons come with experience, not with shortcuts from ware.

I didn't say otherwise. My theory was that people don't have the mental faculties required to maintain bonus-worthy attention on two specialisms simultaneously. Or rather, that's my theory on SR's theory.


It might be a little cheap, it was off the top of my head, but I don't think 10 karma for the ability to buy +2 bonuses in one's second-favourite applications is as bad as 'broken'. Certainly not as broken as actually handing it out for free to the best of the best.

I do see where you're coming from, but I feel giving the highest ratings an extra bonus is out of keeping with the rest of the game. Making it a quality would be saying 'only certain gifted/specially-trained people can manage this' and I'd consider that more satisfying.

I can see where you're coming from, but the arguement of 'people are too dumb to be really good at light AND heavy pistols' is..... kind of lacking. Its a blanket statement about metahumanity in general, disregards the actual specializations in question(because there's often overlap in the actual skills you apply while using a specialization), and provides no way for actually genuinely insanely smart people to actually BE smart enough, on their own, to 'be smart enough to two things simultaneously'.(Someone with, say, mental stats greater than any inventive genius in earth's history, like a force 7 spirit, or someone with massive brain augmentation). It just doesn't make sense to me.

As for the out-of-character rules, making it a quality is poor form for a few reasons: It doesn't need to be a quality. There's plenty of good qualities to fill your 35 points with already before adding MORE. Picking up qualities in play is unreliable, and gm-dependent. A lot of gms have a habit of denying any 'gm-approval' things without considering the implications. While its something cool, certainly, where it to be introduced, games already in progress wouldn't be able to make use of it('hey, this is cool and new, can I redo my character to have blank?' 'BUt we've already done three runs!').

While I think we can both agree that its a neat concept, as a houserule(which it is, because there's no chance of the actual rules being changed), you have to consider how easy and smooth it is to introduce to your players. If its too complex, or annoyingly worded, or not printed anywhere, then people are going to forget about it, and it really doesn't make a difference - and thats not what you want.

There's a big difference of tone introducing this thing to a game. Actually bringing it to a group, i'd imagine our two different versions -might- go something like this.

'hey players, i added this cool thing to the game. You can get two specs now, if you want, under certain conditions?'
'oh yeah?'
'yeah, but it'll cost you 10 or 20 karma to start.'
'10 karma? At least?'
'Yeah'
'You know i'm playing a mage, right?

As opposed to:

' than 'hey guys. We played a bit, and i've thought about it. If you have a skill at six, I'll let you take another spec at the usual cost.'
'You mean i can have dodge ranged AND dodge melee?'
'or spellcasting for health AND combat?'
'Finally! Exploit AND stealth specs!'
'...and all it costs is 2 karma and a high skill?'
'Yeah.'
'Dammit!'
'what?'
'Thats half a spell! You know i'm playing a mage, right?'


No, if you're changing or expanding on one of the core game concepts - in this case, skills - then it belongs in the skills section. Shoehorning it into the qualities as an afterthought, and then trying to justify why its there instead of just changing the basic rules very, very slightly (seriously, is it a really big change?) doesn't make sense to me. Personally, I'd rather have an elegant, simple wording and ruling where possible - while new qualites ARE neat, it just isn't necessary in this case.

It may be easier if you think about it in terms of 'what are you changing? How much should it cost? 'will it unbalance anything by giving people a lot more dice?' 'is there anything which has a similiar effect?' 'how much better is it than similiar stuff, and is it providing a niche role that wasn't there before?'

The logic starts to break down when you compare it to Aptitude. 10 points/20 karma? One skill only or all skills? If its all skills, does there need to be a minimum level to get two specs? Can you get the same spec twice? How expensive is it to get a skill at 1, the two specs you want, and never increase the skill again? Is it better or worse than ware with a similiar cost/effect?

While it may 'feel' better as a quality, its a can of worms once you start to dig into it.

P.S. Do gaming groups even keep a list of houserules? Specially for stuff that comes up during play? I know mine doesn't, and I'm curious what other peoples experiences are.

I can see where you're coming from, but the arguement of 'people are too dumb to be really good at light AND heavy pistols' is..... kind of lacking. Its a blanket statement about metahumanity in general, disregards the actual specializations in question(because there's often overlap in the actual skills you apply while using a specialization), and provides no way for actually genuinely insanely smart people to actually BE smart enough, on their own, to 'be smart enough to two things simultaneously'.(Someone with, say, mental stats greater than any inventive genius in earth's history, like a force 7 spirit, or someone with massive brain augmentation). It just doesn't make sense to me.

As for the out-of-character rules, making it a quality is poor form for a few reasons: It doesn't need to be a quality. There's plenty of good qualities to fill your 35 points with already before adding MORE. Picking up qualities in play is unreliable, and gm-dependent. A lot of gms have a habit of denying any 'gm-approval' things without considering the implications. While its something cool, certainly, where it to be introduced, games already in progress wouldn't be able to make use of it('hey, this is cool and new, can I redo my character to have blank?' 'BUt we've already done three runs!').

While I think we can both agree that its a neat concept, as a houserule(which it is, because there's no chance of the actual rules being changed), you have to consider how easy and smooth it is to introduce to your players. If its too complex, or annoyingly worded, or not printed anywhere, then people are going to forget about it, and it really doesn't make a difference - and thats not what you want.

There's a big difference of tone introducing this thing to a game. Actually bringing it to a group, i'd imagine our two different versions -might- go something like this.

'hey players, i added this cool thing to the game. You can get two specs now, if you want, under certain conditions?'
'oh yeah?'
'yeah, but it'll cost you 10 or 20 karma to start.'
'10 karma? At least?'
'Yeah'
'You know i'm playing a mage, right?

As opposed to:

' than 'hey guys. We played a bit, and i've thought about it. If you have a skill at six, I'll let you take another spec at the usual cost.'
'You mean i can have dodge ranged AND dodge melee?'
'or spellcasting for health AND combat?'
'Finally! Exploit AND stealth specs!'
'...and all it costs is 2 karma and a high skill?'
'Yeah.'
'Dammit!'
'what?'
'Thats half a spell! You know i'm playing a mage, right?'


No, if you're changing or expanding on one of the core game concepts - in this case, skills - then it belongs in the skills section. Shoehorning it into the qualities as an afterthought, and then trying to justify why its there instead of just changing the basic rules very, very slightly (seriously, is it a really big change?) doesn't make sense to me. Personally, I'd rather have an elegant, simple wording and ruling where possible - while new qualites ARE neat, it just isn't necessary in this case.

It may be easier if you think about it in terms of 'what are you changing? How much should it cost? 'will it unbalance anything by giving people a lot more dice?' 'is there anything which has a similiar effect?' 'how much better is it than similiar stuff, and is it providing a niche role that wasn't there before?'

The logic starts to break down when you compare it to Aptitude. 10 points/20 karma? One skill only or all skills? If its all skills, does there need to be a minimum level to get two specs? Can you get the same spec twice? How expensive is it to get a skill at 1, the two specs you want, and never increase the skill again? Is it better or worse than ware with a similiar cost/effect?

While it may 'feel' better as a quality, its a can of worms once you start to dig into it. How, exactly, is it not in keeping with the rest of the game? I kind of think the 'one spec' thing is kind of an arbitrary limit, mostly designed to help prevent powergaming, but not really looked into once it was penned in - that, or someone at the design table made a highlander reference, and then everyone suddenly went "SPECIALIZATIONS! there can be only ONE!"

P.S. Do gaming groups even keep a list of houserules? Specially for stuff that comes up during play? I know mine doesn't, and I'm curious what other peoples experiences are.

I still don't know why skills were capped in the first place.
If it was to limit dice pool size, then they failed spectacularly.
In SR3, skills were only capped by how much Karma you were willing to spend on them.
And if you invest 100 to 200 points of Karma into a single skill, that's close to having a life long training in said skill an you SHOULD be much better than most of the normal population.
Well, at least if we say life long means 30 years, as is probably the norm in the shadows anyway . .

werent the SR3 skills capped at 2x the attribute? or am i thinking of the specialisations being capped based on the base skill?

i think you're thinking of specializations being capped by base skill.
skills only had different karma cost.
If the skill was less than or equal to the attribute, 2 karma per skill point.
if the skill was up to 2x the attribute, it was 4 karma per skill point.
if the skill was above 2x attribute, it was new level in karma i think.

it's been some time since i last did this, so my numbers are probably off.
but else, the only limit to skills was, as i mentioned, how much karma you wanted to spend.

Active Skills
Up to Attribute --- New Skill Level (NSL) x 1.5
Up to 2x Attribute --- NSL x 2
Over 2x Attribute --- NSL x 2.5

Knowledge Skills, reduce each multiplier by .5, and with Specializations by a full 1.
And, IIRC, Specializations could not be more than 2x base skill, with the only exception being at Char Creation and specializing a starting skill of 2, which would end up being 1(3).

That's always been one of the major benefits of that system, the laws of diminishing returns. It got prohibitively cost ineffective to raise a skill too high. Hell, in converting my group over from 3rd to 4th, I think only 1 or 2 characters has a skill end up over 4, and only 1 with a single 6.

*nods* sounds more right than what i remembered, thank you ^^

No probs. Been doing allot of the conversion work from 3rd to 4tf for my players lately over the holiday break, so this is still fresh in my head.

You're kind-of agreeing with me really. Both our suggestions propose that not everyone is capable of multiple specialisations, but you're not focusing on where they differ. Yours proposes that superlative training in the specific field enables multi-specialisation, whilst mine proposes that the ability to multi-specialise is independent of the field like it were a discipline of it's own (albeit an unrated one). I'm not 100% behind my suggestion nor 100% against yours, but I'm interested to debate the matter at it's heart.


I almost can't believe what I'm reading. You really take the view that the qualities listed should be treated as all-encompassing? I really can't accept the argument that adding one more is an inherently bad idea because there's enough choice already. Are you worried the players won't be able to make their minds up at chargen?

I'm unsure about the assertion that GMs deny approval-only options as a default decision. Certainly not true of me, or anyone who creates house-rules for that matter since that in itself is using (albeit usually player-approved) GM fiat.

And you think adding a quality three runs in is more contentious that changing the structure of the rules? Well let's face it, they're both rule-breakers in their own ways, but wouldn't all the players who opted for two 5s instead of a 6 at chargen feel cheated?


Emphasis mine - your method isn't printed anywhere either. Remember that the objective was to enable players to multi-specialise when they want to so long as they have developed their character sufficiently, not to encourage them into doing so. A 'difference' is only required if a player wants it so they'll remember the conditions whatever they are. Adding it as it's own quality is more memorable than making rating 6 function differently to all the other ratings, I reckon.


That's right, the poor under-powered(!) magicians have to make karmic sacrifices, but we're never going to fix that nor should we.

You left out a voice in the second example - the versatile mercenary with lots of mid-level skills but high attributes. No bonus for him, despite his superior experience in versatility and potentially-higher bp expenditure on skills. He's adept at all forms of combat but somehow not as good at specialising within them? Unsatisfactory IMO.


That could be said of plenty of qualities. What about Aptitude, which I assume you accept as it was cited in your proposal? Should that be disallowed for breaking the skills rules outside of the skills section? It's not a big change you're proposing, nor a necessarily bad one - I'd accept it on my table if it had popular support.


It's not in keeping with the game because there's no other way in which the skill ratings have different implications. Saying 'I'll relax that restriction at rating 6' IS arbitrary and weights the appeal of rating 6 disproportionately. The difference between all the other ratings remains the same but now rating 6 distorts the curve.

Ultimately, if a player asked me what he needed to do to get a second specialisation I'd rather say 'learn how to do it and pay 10 karma' than 'train tirelessly for four months and spend 30 karma to become a leading authority in the field to get it at normal rates'. I mean, if they're currently rating 3 ("professional") and looking for a +2 bonus in a second application then making them gain a +3 bonus in ALL applications first is unlikely to satisfy them or their character concept.

Aerospider: Thats a well rather thought out reply, and, frankly, I'll go over it when I'm more awake and able to think..

I did, however, want to chime in with something I forgot to add the first time around.

Just an odd thought for a quality that deals with specializations. I'd be more a fan of a flexible specialization quality: A 5p one or that lets you change your current specialties between adventures, you know, at the usual times in which you could improve skills and spends karma - but the benefit it provides is that it costs nothing to change a specialization you already have to something else in the same skill.(Just to be clear, it doesn't make buying a new spec cheaper, but it does let you change an already existing favorite.)

I think it might provide interesting options, and some degree of flexibility, particularly in situations where your gear is limited, or you've upgraded a piece lately. I was wondering what your take on this idea would be, since we've had a pretty good discussion so far.

Why not make the Quality dependent on the attribute used with the skill. That way those with higher attributes can learn a broader depth to their skill regardless of their actual rank in it?

Say a number of specializations equal to 1/3 your attribute?