This is an opinion poll, but not the kind that needs to use the poll options feature.

Yes, I KNOW this question is incredibly situational, both considering in-game situational factors (a melee character who is 'very powerful' in his element is not so over 100 meters; a mage in a background count, a hacker in a deadzone, a sniper engaged in room clearing, and so on) and metagame social factors (everyone has different ideas of what the power level of a starting character should be), but as a very very very rough balance benchmark, what do you consider to be 'adequately powerful'.

To use one extremely narrow and specific example as an attempt to get a generally agreed upon benchmark...

Can the majority of us agree that an attack made at up to 50 meters at 17 dice with a base DV of 12P and a base AP of -2 (Ballistic) is "sufficiently powerful" to be considered "powerful", i.e. "A Powerful Attack"? By powerful, I mean enough of a threat to be potentially fatal to any starting character, spectacularly fatal to some, and powerful enough to almost certainly deal non-trivial damage even to a character with 50-100 Karma under their belt. (We can leave obvious outliers like 'binky' out of it for now, I think.)

If we can find a starting point, we can extrapolate and expand and broaden from there. But yes, I am starting very, very, very small here.

You've clearly never played a summoning aspected mystic adept focused on melee with an ally spirit that he channels and uses a force 10 increase movement power to run hundreds of meters per turn.

Clearly.

I go by the fluff of a situation, where the runners stand in the hierarchy of the universe. If runners consider a gang nothing to be afraid of, thats good. If they could care less about angering the yakuza, and consider a SWAT team to be managable, they're pretty tough but still managable. When they laugh in the faces of Red Samurai and Tir Paladins, and consider them no challenge whatsoever, they're powerful.

And if they aren't afraid of Lofwyr, you as the GM aren't doing your job.

The British Dragon you were dealing with loses his stiff upper lip, goes, "Slot this for a game of soldiers.", and flies off real fast.

Whatever is behind you, is powerful.

As far as I am concerned, anything with a total dice pool greater than 6 is above the fluff average and powerful. I am of the opinion runners should be able to have a run so successful once in a while no one even knows they were there (for a sufficient length of time as to be untraceable) other than their employer, which may have been them. And that if a runner ever fights a fair fight, they screwed up somehow.

There was a scale that did up fluff ratings based on total dice pool that IIRC Snow_Fox put together that I really liked that would be a good basis for deciding what is "powerful".

So with that in mind, I would be a pretty lenient GM until an NPC(s) who plays on the same ruthless level comes along, then its on the NPC(s) to screw up the ambush or leave traces but those types of NPCs should be as rare to possibly be never encountered directly just like the shadowrunners. This isn't D&D and I like that.

Honestly, I dont think there really is a "powerful" in this game.

Yes you can munchkin your way into insanely high dice pools, but even a starting character with the right equipment and smarts can still kill you easily. For every move there is a counter move and for every game-breaking secret, there is something that can stop that dead in it's tracks. Even the most honed and refined trick can be countered. To be good, you need to have LOTS of tricks and keep changing them before the environment can adapt to you.

*Clutches my head* Never, ever drinking with a Russian Troll again. That "Vodka" he had was mighty powerful!

Thats were mostly the possession mage is mentioned.
Even a invoked force 5 spirit may do the trick.
Well, the only thing cutting it down would have been the restriction of the physical attributes in the FAQ, but since FAQ is not RAW...


Depends. Of course you may thorshot it. But by countering I understand have something less powerfull to beat it.
So lets but it like that:Possession is very hard to counter...

There is a counter for everything in the game and if you've got a little bit of fox in you, a starting character can take down an extremely powerful built-up character.



Even without thorshotting something there are myriad ways to take someone down. It all comes down to how clever can you be, that's part of why this is my absolute favorite game.

Load the trunk of a car with bullets and put a stick of dynamite in it. Set a building on fire. Hit someone with a truck. Blast the supports of a parking garage and drop the structure on them. Brew together as many drugs and poisons as you can get and put it in a sticky grenade. Plant contraband on them or in their place of residence and inform the police. Hack an aerial drone and crash it on top of them. Set up as many shotguns as you can get and stick them together on the same trigger, point it all down a hallway with the trigger rigged to the door and wait for them to come in. Find a nasty paracritter and sic it on them. Get the attention of a hacker or HuPoly group focused on them. Frame them for an attack on a local crime syndicate. Get them on a plane and crash the plane or depressurize the plane in-flight. Get them on a boat and sink it in the middle of the ocean or sail it into pirate waters. Hack or otherwise sabotage their ride such that the next sharp turn they make, something critical fails. Plant a bomb under their car. Put together a truck bomb and set it off when they walk past. Stir up the local infected and set them on your target. Slip a waitress some extra cash to add an extra additive to their drink. If they use a grenade launcher, hack or otherwise jam the barrel such that the grenade will detonate when fired.

That's off the top of my head. Give me more time and specific circumstances and I can show you some real fun. All it takes is a little ingenuity.

Give me a character concept, any character concept, and a set of circumstances and I guarantee you I can kill that character without a Thor shot and a couple simple steps that almost any starting character could do.

I disagree with that.

For a human, Attribute 3-4 + Skill 2-3 is normal for a young professional. Add metatype (+1 or so) and specialization (+2), and some sort of equipment-based bonus like smartlink or a basic implant, for +2 to +4. Often you'll have a Shop or Kit, which is another +2 to +4.

Dice pools are built from a lot of things, and Attribute+Skill is roughly half of it, so saying "6 is normal" is only true for the Attribute+Skill part.

Or, at least, you have to have access to lots of tricks. Which is why shadowrunners tend to work in teams, after all. So no one person has to try and cover all the bases.

@Socinus

Sorry, but there is always the bigger stick. Thats not a counter. What you describe is the bigger stick.
Thats like going: A mage possessed by a force 5 spirit is countered by a mage possessed by a force 7 spirit.


All is very situational. It has nothing to do with counter.

So some example for countering stuff:
The elven dodge ninja stripper:
A guy with a gun shooting a lot of bullets in a wide burst with a lot of recoil compensition.
If it is getting too ugly, you have to use granades.
The guy with armor? Sniper rifle or sporting rifle. Laserweapons are also a possibility.

And all of this would not work an the mage I brought up.
The bullets would have a base DV of 1 or maybe 2. Hardended Armor takes care of that. A burning building? What a DV has a such "fire"? 4 ? The Hardend Armor takes care of that.
Shotguns? I guess the reaction test takes care of that.


But all right lets put it to a test:
You get the avarage human mage 2 in all physical, 5 in drain and 3-4 in the rest of the attributes mage possessed with a force 7 spirit(guardian). Having a counterspelling of 6 (+2 Mentor spirit, +2 spec Combat spells +shielding) with 4 Initiations (shielding, Auramasking advanced, channeling), lets give him magic 6
Thats easy to build with 750 Karma.

Possession is not nearly as good as you think it is, and it's by no means the magic bullet in and of itself aside from some very particular hilarious abuses (which this guy isn't doing).

The first and biggest drawback this guy has is that being Possessed is entirely visible and obvious. He's running around with his eyes glowing and a blatant aura of power or something like that, and his eggs are 100% in the channeler basket. Auramasking lets you hide this on the astral plane, but not on the physical plane. This guy is super unsubtle and will draw attention to himself - or he'll have to start a lot of fights by blowing his first action getting possessed and that also hurts.

Aside from that, offense is just a lot better than defense. He's quite capable of one-rounding a good street samurai if he goes first, and a good street samurai is quite capable of one rounding him. A Materialization mage who is willing to be equally unsubtle can ram a Force 7 Spirit of Air down his throat. If you want to go full munchkin, anyone with Astral Hazing can kick his ass.

You mean the only guy who is more obvious on the Astral than this mage is?


Again: It is not about getting the "I fuck everything character". It is about to enhance a character big way with little investment.


It is like the pixie mage with concealment and the cameleon armor. Yes, you may counter her somehow, but thats quite hard to do.
If I need 100 Karma and a bit of cash to set something up, it is not a counter if you can defeat it with millions of nuyen and hundrets of karma.


Thats not what he is about. The only thing he needed was channeling. Thats maybe 30 Karma.

Astral Hazing is obvious on the Astral. This guy is blatantly obvious on the physical plane and that's a harsh drawback.

It's less what you are getting and more what you aren't. 2 in all physical stats leaves you super vulnerable when you aren't possessed, so you lean quite heavily on the possession to fight. But you cannot run around in Super Saiyan mode 24-7 because it is massively unsubtle, so when you get into a fight you weren't expecting, you have problems.

In my Shadowrun 4 group, 8 dice were a lot and the biggest dicepool had 12 dice.

@UmaroVI
Yes, he would be better with 6 in all stats and 20 initiations and magic attribute of 20 and of course a bunch of Deltaware.


So if I go first, I need a simple action to call on one of the spirits I have bound. Those just might be force 4 or 5. Still, my chances to survive this battle go up by several thousand percent.

And thats all for the cost on ONE metamagic talent... That is a good deal. (Yeah, I could fokus a hole build around it. But if you focus a hole build around something it is bound to be good...

A battle strategy that costs you your first action every combat is a hefty drawback. Also, your initiative while not possessed is like 7. And you have 2 body and 2 reaction, so people who go first have a very good chance of blowing you away while you are charging up Super Saiyan Mode.

Sat down and played with the math. Fatal in 2 shots to the generalist if is no edge and no full dodge is used.
If the attacker does not use edge and the defender uses either edge, full dodge, or is wearing more than everyday armor*, then there tends to be some stun damage.
With edge and full dodge by the defender, the attacker is not likely to hit the generalist unless he also uses edge.

*6/4 (pick one)+ 4/1 (ffba half)+ 0/2 (ppp) & 4 body to carry it

@UmaroVI
Most battles don't go "roll iniative and go".
Mostly you know, that someone is comming. (Well, if you GM is not a fan of teleporting enemies. Which I dislike very much)

So this loosing your first action is kind of a leap...

Some battles you know are coming. Some you don't. A character who is really, really bad in the second type is not, IMO, a good game plan.

I'm slightly surprised by that. Agility and reaction are incredibly cheap BP wise to cyber up. (Muscle Toner 4 is under 11BP as is Wired Reflexes 2 & Reaction Enhancers 2. 21BP buys the whole bundle.) It should not be hard to have an agility of 9, a skill of 4 and a smartlink and get 15 dice. For someone who takes the skill at 6 and specializes, that's 19 dice.

Charisma 5, Influence 4, and then either Pheromones or Kinesics, should give a human face 12 dice. An elf face should be pushing 14 and that's soft-capping. (Yes, my elf face would have both Kinesics AND Pheromones, but that's not the point...)

These examples aren't min-maxing or power gaming. They aren't corner cases. They're old standby staples.

A pool of 19 dice after chargen isn't min/maxing or powergaming?
In one of the books (forgot which one) it is suggested to cap pools at 20.

It's not even trying. There is still room for genetic enhancements, reflex recorders, adept improved ability,... A human sammy can get 19 dice on his main firemarm using the core book only (use Reflex Recorders instead of Muscle Toner 4).

No, it is not.

Suoq's gunbunny example has AGI 9 and skill 6, so this optional rule would let him go up to 30 dice. There is a good reason this is only an optional rule: it was never tested before printing, or they would have seen that its completely fails at its intended goal.

You missed the "natural" before attribute. His natural attribute is 5, because he's using toner 4. So that gives you 5+6=11*2=22 maximum dice pool.

OK, my bad. So that's 22 dice at chargen, 24 once he raises his AGI to 6. Then you can add Exceptional Attribute, Genetic Optimization, Metagenetic Improvement, Aptitude, a better metatype to begin with,... I don't think you can reach 30 dice without some of those anyway. The only builds that are hurt by this cap optional rule are the pornomancer and some pointless Athletics gimmicks.

Want to make a Powerful character?

Backstory.

Doesn't matter what the dice pool is if the person has the history and reputation that makes no one ever want to mess with them at all.

...

Or they have a really big P2.0.

Picking those up post char gen, you're talking about hundreds of karma, and I'd argue investing in other things is the more sound investment. 19-22 dice is more than enough for most situations. Also all of the qualities you listed go over the cap for positive qualities, you have to drop either exceptional attribute or aptitude. Exceptional Attribute allows you to get 10(15) agility, while Aptitude gets you 1 less die (at a mere 9(13) agi, but 7 skill), saves you the need to get a more expensive bioware, and is a bit cheaper on the bp side of things.

I was just pointing out that the typical out of the box max agi max skill character doesn't get anywhere near 30 dice.

And lets not forget that the Possession Spirit STILL has to roll to perform the possession, even against a willing target. It takes time for the possession to take. Or am I wrong on this?

I would not consider 10/7 an Everyday level of Armor. But that is just me, I guess. Especially since a Body of 4 is not a given in the first place.

I agree, but 19-22 dice already seem too much for Infornography. I was just pointing out that one that it is nowhere near the maximum, even with the retarded cap rule.

The blood mage from DotA is powerful as is Samerial or however you spell his name from the same series. I haven't gotten ahold of street legends yet so I can't use any of them as an example.

It goes both ways: reputation also attracts kids who want to make a name for themselves.

For fits and giggles I created a "generic" orc in Chummer. The character is built using 400 BP, no negative qualities (allowing players to add personality and power). I went with cyberware since I felt that was easier for new players than magic and the character isn't particularly optimized. No skills are above a 4. The private commlink would be better as a Battle Buddy Basic (but I wanted to avoid WAR and keep to the core books) and probably has more and better common programs than necessary. Comes with a bike for travel, a tacsoft to insure the team has one and to keep from having to slave to another player. The commlink is well enough protected that the team could probably slave to him without issue.

My goal with this was to create a generic, semi-weak character. He's basically self-sufficient and can be made more competent or specialized by simply buying up various skills. That being said, he's still going to eat any member of an "8-12 dice pool" for breakfast. There's no special tricks here or complexities. Any new player sitting at your table for the first time should be able to run him with no modifications or you can tweak him for a new player with some negative qualities and additional abilities.

http://fairlygoodpractices.com/shadowrun/generic.htm

Very Nice... Are you using a Program to generate the Sheet? If so, which Porgram?

Chummer has the ability to save as HTML in it's print character sheet function as well as the ability to build new sheet formats using xsl. I thought it was a nicely clever feature, using xsl & html to generate character sheets.

Indeed... I like it. I might have to look into Chummer. I generally use a Word Document. But then again, I tend to generate a massive character file as well. My current Hacker (A Cyberlogician) is now running at about 25 pages or so. My mage is at 12. So maybe it is not for me. Will check it out, though. Thanks.

*facepalm*

This will only end in blood and tears.

You're a masochist, Devon. Really

Bull

... which would suggest that you're not really min/maxing or powergaming until you get past 20 (or 2 x your natural Attribute + skill).

Shadowrun is a game with strong transhumanistic themes, where magic and technology can create superhumans. And you play shadowrunners, spys and saboteurs who do dirty, dangerous jobs for a living - these aren't first-level characters, they are pros.

All of these things that create powerful characters are design features. Characters are supposed to be powerful. Generally, there is a point where it starts being counterproductive to min/max, but the examples people gave you are of characters who have plenty of room for other skills and abilities.

Devon? *looks around*
Are you talking to Me?

Yeah, but so what? If their group was having fun and still got the game world to work that way, it's not like they're hurting anything. There's no "wrong" way to play. If they had a good time with a team of well-rounded generalists slinging 8-10 dice most of the time instead of 16-20, what's the harm in it?

I'm fine with you disagreeing with that. I am just saying that the extra stuff you tossed into that dice pool for whatever that test is, IMHO that means that character is above average then and thus powerful. All you and many others here seem to be hung up on is "But how powerful?" The OP wasn't asking what is the best of the best EVAR, just what is powerful.

I consider above average according to one's setting to be powerful. If your GM is populating your world with NPCs who have AVERAGE (in other [many] words, some NPCs have less, some have more, add them together, divide by the number of NPCs = Average) dice pools of 8, 10, 12, 15, or whatever rather than 6, then you need something higher than that average to be powerful, IMHO. Its all relative, especially with the many different ways people GM, I tend towards having an average of 6, non-augmented human poor schlubs living in a dyspotian setting.

It's not necessarily a bigger stick, it's just knowing where to break a particular stick.


A couple of bullets would have a DV of 1 or 2, but and entire trunk full getting set off at the same time? That's a pretty serious explosion with a lot of shrapnel.

Yes armor mods can take care of some fire damage, but they aren't designed to handle a six story tall inferno.

Stick a couple of grenades under the shotguns so if he does make the Reaction test, he'll set the grenades off by moving the apparatus.


Hit him with a GMC Bulldog going full tilt. He'll have to deal with 32 damage.

Or else put together a car bomb and set it off when he walks past. You can put together bombs that do insane amounts of damage relatively easily.

Get a couple of gas and splash grenades together and pack them with K-10, Cyanide, KE IV, and Ringu.

A dice pool of 6 for combat is actually above average for your average corporate drone or Barrens dweller. Humanis Policlub goons have dice pools of 3, and presumably this still allows them to beat up on people (although this is also typically a whole gang of them against one or two luckless metahumans).

But the dice pool of the average Joe doesn't really factor in to how comparatively powerful shadowrunners are, because they don't do shadowruns against the average Joe. They fight everything from security grunts, to the much tougher reinforcements that show up loaded for troll, to paracritters, to corporate expediters and underworld enforcers, and the list goes on and on.

Your standard security grunt, the first line of defense whose only purpose is to keep intruders pinned down while reinforcements show up, has a dice pool of 6, except that their smartguns add 2 more dice. So even at the low end, you're looking at 8 dice. This is not average - this is the low end. From there, they keep getting tougher.

Also keep in mind that every three dice is about one hit, on average, and that shadowrunners need to be better than their average opponents to successfully do their jobs. Not only that, but shadowrunners will usually be outnumbered, will often have fatigue or wound penalties, and will usually be fighting on the enemy's home ground.

So while the definition of power may vary from campaign to campaign, I would define it higher than merely above average. The average shadowrunner should be significantly above what everyone else considers average.

Of course, that's the default shadowrunner who does shadowruns. If it is a campaign of punks from the Barrens trying to survive, that might change the equations greatly.

I don't believe I said there was any harm. I said I was surprised. To be at 9 dice is a 4 skill, human softcap stat, nothing else, no cyberware, adept powers, etc. Once you add +4 (a tacnet and a smartlink) you're already at 13 dice, past their table max. I'm not sure I can create a collection of archtypes that can stay in the 8-12 range for their specialty with 400 BP.

I'd be interested in seeing some of these characters, to understand what I'm missing. Are they using 300 BP or a low Karmagen value? Is it a ganger campaign? There's a lot I simply don't know and I'm unable to guess how that campaign works.

Are you saying that anything under 20 Dice is not powerful?




To be clear, I am not asking if 17 Dice, 19 Dice, whatever is min/maxing or powergaming. I am asking if it is 'powerful'. I am asking if it is enough for the average character to be worried about it coming at him, enough for the average player to feel confident that they are making a very deadly attack, and so on.



The above (17 Dice, 12P -2 AP) could also be 17 dice with a base damage of 7P -2AP and -5 to Defense, or 14 dice with a base damage of 7P -2AP and -9 to Defense, or 14 Dice with a base damage of 16P -2AP.

What I'm trying to get at is, is that a good attack. Is that the kind of thing a 'good' street samurai with his heavy gear going all out in a situation where subtlety doesn't matter should be rolling?

Or is it 'overkill' or 'munchkined'?

Or is it 'inadequate'?

That's really where I want to start here. This has already become a wide-ranging discussion with lots of fascinating dialectics going on but I really am looking for an answer to this question. 'Is this 'bad enough', like UmaroVI's trog?'

Oh and if other stats have to be brought in let's assume this is a situation where either neither side is using Edge or both are; if both are, then both are using it after the fact for more hits, rather than pre-Edging. (If only because, at my table that is somewhat more common, which I know is a pretty arbitrary reason but it's kind of an arbitrary question to begin with.



This is very true. Would it be alright if I posted my rubric and see if people agree or disagree with it? All of this assumes a starting character built with 400BP or one within 50-100 Karma of starting. The boundaries between tiers are not hard and fast. I've used Shadowrunner examples, not mook examples, for now.

25+ DICE: There are various and sundry exceptions, but at this level I may become concerned that the player of the character with this dice pool is a jerk, or that the character is terrible at everything else.
20-24 DICE: Superlatively and enormously powerful. PCs really should not be rolling this kind of dice pool often. ULTRA POWERFUL.
15-19 DICE: Extremely competent and extremely dangerous. Above average for a Shadowrunner in their primary shtick. POWERFUL.
12-14 DICE: Very, very, very competent. Verging on the superhuman. Average for a Shadowrunner in their primary shtick. CAN'T COMPLAIN.
10-11 DICE: Far above average, which is to say, average for a Shadowrunner in their secondary shtick, or below average for a Shadowrunner in their primary shtick. NOT TOO SHABBY.
6-9 DICE: Average for a Shadowrunner in their 'everything else'. This is the minimum level a runner should be at at anything that might matter. HALF DECENT.
1-5 DICE: Average for a normal person, which is to say bad for a Shadowrunner. BAD.

If you disagree, explain what parts you disagree with and why.

I prefer games that have generally have 10 dice being passable at something, 12 dice as being good at something and 14 dice being really good at something.

Mileage varies though. Example: 12 for a Face to Disguise can be more than enough, because it's opposed with perception, and npc's are typically built to have just enough to get by. 12 dice to shoot with a street sam may be only passable because npc's are typically built with a fair amount of dice in dodge and reaction.

The trick is to id the range based on activity to determine 'powerful'.

It's hard to tell. If the generic character (above) was firing a smartlinked LAW rocket instead of an Ingram, he'd be (9 agil, 4 skill, 2 smartlink, 2 tacnet) doing exactly the same as your street sam. The only real cost would be the skill and another BP in nuyen. 15 BP of negative qualities would buy a skill of 3, a specialty, and the gun and ammo (so, slightly better than your street sam).

I'd say it's reasonable for a starting character. Other than the pinkish mohawk look of the LAW rifle on a starting character, I don't see anything special about it. Personally, I prefer subtle, but that's just me. It certainly doesn't seem overpowered (though it's definately not underpowered).

That being said, I'd expect "disproportionate response" against anyone using a LAW rifle in an area where security is contracted out.


------------

This post reminds me of an old Grimjack comic where Gordon is standing in the street with a Bazooka....

Remember that at the point when you are shooting someone and they are dodging at a bare minimum you have cost them an action which is kind of a big deal. Hitting them on top of that just adds insult to injury.




This has been perfectly civil so far. *knockwood*.



It's not an Ingram, actually it's an FN-HAR with EX-EX modded for 6 points of Recoil Compensation. (Yes, Dumpshock, I know that 'assault rifle X' is technically more optimal than an FN-HAR. Shh your pie hole.)

This character by the way has 9 Agi, 5(6) Skill, and 2 Smartlink. If he was connected a Rating 2 Tacnet, he'd be attacking at 19 Dice, but I assumed he was flying solo for this one. None of this matters, of course; it's just an arbitrary benchmark. It is the point at which I personally say, 'if this is not good enough for you, I do not feel like we have been playing the same game all these years'. I'm not saying it is the best, just that I hope that EVERYONE from UmaroVI down to the guy who said that a dicepool of 6 should be average can agree that it is 'good enough'.

Anyway, thank you for your answer. : )