But he is not.

No matter your choice of Skills 0-7 or from 0-12, you will still have that discrepency. Skill 12 and Average Stat of 3 will always fall to the absolute Genius with slightly less Skill. That is the nature of things.

Skill 12 and Attribute of 3 will always be worse off (Mechanically) than Skill 8 and Attribute 8... However, that is something I would expect, regardless of system. One guy has mastered a Skill to its ultimate level, but is average in his application of it, whicle the Genius has yet to master a Skill, but is still capable of producing higher quality output than the Master can. Why is that an issue with you? That is often how real life works out.

As I said several times, the 7 is better, but *slightly* so. I thought I made it pretty clear: the fluff descriptions of the levels don't match the numerical performance, (apart from ignoring the fact that rolls use DP, not Skill).

I didn't say changing the range fixed that problem, I just happen to prefer it for other reasons. *This* problem is easily fixed by changing the table to refer to DPs, and/or not making outrageous claims about 'legendary'.

The only way I can really justify a skill of 7 being so quantifiably similar to lower-rated skills is to say that once you get past a professional rating in a skill, the differences are very subtle. In other words, a good ice skater may not be Olympic material, but if you watched them, and watched a gold medalist, you might not be able to see much difference unless you were a professional judge.

The thing to remember about the skill examples is that they are only comparisons, not benchmarks that you need to meet. A skill of 6 in pistols means that you shoot (and only shoot) as well as an elite special forces guy. This doesn't mean you're an elite special forces guy. It just means that you have the same mechanical level of skill as one, from a combination of practicing the skill a lot and using it a lot. Similarly, a skill of 7 doesn't mean you are a legend, just that your skill is comparable to that of people who are legends in that skill. It doesn't make you famous. It means you combine a knack for that skill with lots of time spent developing that skill - in fact, you might even be a bit obsessive about it. But you won't automatically be top dog.

Shadowrunners, going even by the far from optimal archetypes and PACKS options, will tend to have higher skills in their areas of expertise - they are supposed to be elite operatives, people who work under the table doing highly dangerous and demanding work on a regular basis.

An apt analogy, I believe. Once people get X good at something, only people who are also X good at that thing can tell the difference; to everyone else, a bullseye is a bullseye is a bullseye. To a fellow expert, there are smaller things that turn a performance from "great" to "flawless."

Very well put!

That's still talking about DP (because it's performance), not Skill alone.

Although the rules do not reflect this, someone with a high skill and low attribute would know more advanced stuff and 'tricks of the trade' but would perform them so-so due to poor physique, while someone with a low skill and high stat would perform consistently better, but cannot do the most advanced maneuvers.

This is somewhat represented if you use the optional Skill x 2 for successes, and limit extended tests to Skill number of rolls.

(Also, remember that by RAW the skill table explanations are NOT optional - ignoring it is thus against RAW - while the optional rules that put higher emphasis on skill rating are still RAW even though they are optional)

(double post)

Certainly: enacting skill-focused rules focuses things on skill.

Success caps is a pretty bad one, though, unless you routinely get (and need) more than 6-8 hits without Edge. It basically destroys many kinds of defaulting and Skill 1, slightly annoys Skill 2, and never affects Skill 5-7; that is, there's no real incentive to get better than 5 unless you really need more than 10 hits. To me, that seems unlikely? It's not a bad *idea*, but the linear scaling doesn't seem to work right.

well, but this also reflects reality a bit - you have very few tasks where you absolutely need the best of the best - excellent skill should suffice für 99,9% of the tasks. But someone who has no "real" skill in a field (= defaulting) will have a really hard time. Just think about pc users, when a problem occurs - even a novice will solve many common problems, but the general population has no idea what to do.

Indeed, Well Said.
But that is why you get paid to write.

It's not that defaulting and low skill have a hard time, it's that they're often totally hamstrung.

On the other end, most 'super-expert' performance isn't getting 12-14 hits, it's getting 3-6 hits with many negative mods in play (hitting a tiny target from far away). There are a very few tasks where you might actually want that many hits, I guess? I think direct, linear hit-capping as a *general* fix doesn't do the right thing.

On the other hand, once you reach the expertise of someone with a rating 5 skill there isn't that much incentive to keep honing your skills, in-game. You can do everything you're likely to need to accomplish on a regular basis, to a more than satisfactory level. Pushing higher only matters if you're constantly in very difficult situations with many dice pool penalties.

With limits, basically you get:
Skill 1 - great incentive to get better, as you perform poorly all the time
Skill 2 - for most non-combat skills, you're adequate at this level, but likely want to keep improving.
Skill 3 - enough for most regular skills since you're likely to suceed everytime
Skill 4 - You're not perfect, but you can do everything you need to unless under serious pressure. Incentive to improve starts to drop off.
Skill 5 - Not much change, you're just learning a bit more and performing almost imperceptibly better.

You get less and less benefit for more and more effort...this fits well with real life. Once you are among the best you know at something, there's very little incentive to keep getting better unless you are in fierce competition with other extremists and every little edge matters; cutting edge science, high-level sports, competitive martial arts, highly specialist military operatives (the 'grunt' soldier is much better off raising supporting skills than pushing his weapon skill to 5 even).
It makes the distinction between 5-6-7 less in dice roll terms, but the gap is actually bigger when it comes to how many ever reach those skill levels. Like Glyph said, a layman or even a professional won't see the difference really, but the experts and science can.


It encourages people to get a wide set of skills at around 3-5, instead of a few at 6-7 and several at 1-2. Sounds sensible to me, really...

Indeed. I have always been a proponent of obtaining a lot of skills in the 1-4 range over getting 1-2 Skills at Ratings 5-7.

This is all true, but my point is just that it's not the hit-cap that's causing it. The hit cap only screws Skill 0-1, and doesn't do anything else. The same thing happens with linear hit-caps in other places (e.g., Matrix Programs), except it's even worse (there's almost no reason to upgrade those beyond a certain level, and lots of reasons not to).

I just don't think that anyone, even defaulters, should be capped below about 3 hits (they can *never* get lucky?), and I think that Skill 5-7 *should* allow greater successes.

They can get lucky. It's called edge.

And that's not sufficient. That's not being lucky, that's spending Edge intentionally.

In-game, characters won't know that though

I'm not talking about the characters.

I'm not fond of that optional rule, myself. The problem is that the game simulates transhumanism by having a lot of dice pool boosts that are comparatively cheap, from either augmenting yourself or having adept powers. Part of the premise of the game is an average Joe who can get some 'ware and suddenly be hanging with the big boys. Capping net hits undermines that.

The other problem I have is that usually, GMs want to encourage players to take more low-level skills, rather than hyper-specializing; this rule basically punishes generalists, while leaving drastically optimized characters unscathed. Is that really a good idea? Aren't generalists screwed over enough as it is?

Skills don't "matter" enough because they are a too-narrow range of numbers that generally comprise a third, sometimes even less, of the dice pool. If you want to fix this, then skills either need to have a wider range (or be capped higher), or they need to count for more of the dice pool (or Attributes and dice pool modifiers need to count for less).

Agreed on all three counts.

And once the Specialist has to act out of his box, he is really fucked with this rule.

I had a house rule for this - each point of skill gives you 2 dice. The biggest problem were Ranged Defense and Spell Resistance, as those (normally) only use an attribute.

3 hits is not *just* succeeding, it is succeeding mindblowingly well.

Why should unskilled defaulters expect to perform a task extremely well (2-3 hits)? Makes perfect sense to me that an intelligent guy who doesn't know the first thing about computers might be able to guess his way around one, but not to the extent that he can work it like a pro. Similarly, someone with a basic understanding (skill 1) will be better, but clueless (or at least very slow) when he comes up against high threshold tasks. Reflects RL quite well to me ...

I find the reverse - the rule encourages generalists, or at least people taking skills at 1 or 2 so hits they gain from their attribute aren't lost to the skill cap. Of course they would like to raise their skills higher if they can, but there are only so many BP starting characters alot to skills. And there are plenty of skill bases that most characters want to cover ...

For me, as I stated up-thread, the skill x 2 hit cap *does* address the "skills don't matter enough" problem, and ensures characters don't just rely on high attributes and DP mods.

I wouldn't be a fan of that optional rule either. Most PC's are going to have ranks in the things they want to do well, generally as many as possible. If they get into situations they haven't planned or trained for it would basically come down to either rolling Edge or sucking it hard-- and that means characters will rarely leave their comfort zone. It reminds me a little of combat maneuvers in D&D 3.5; either you build for a specific maneuver and do it all the time, or you don't and you're screwed for trying it.

3 hits isn't always 'extremely well'. There are skill tests for which 1 hit is plenty, and tests for which many more is 'plenty'.

That's not 'encouraging generalists', it's encouraging having skills at 2-3. Defaulters and 1's are wrecked, and the problem is that the game *tells* them to rely on high attribs and DP mods. If you're a genius using assistive AR and excellent tools, you *should* be able to do pretty well.

Hit caps only affect 'skills don't matter' at the *lowest* levels, ignoring the majority of the spectrum.

Well, learning a skill takes an Extended Intuition+Bonus dice(2, 1 week) test. Using as teacher, people should be able to acheive this after 2 weeks of study - 4 tops. Increasing it to 2 takes Intuition+1+Bonus dice(4, 1 week) test. Doable in a month or two.

I'm fine with the fact that someone who has studied a skill for three months (full time) can't consistently perform anything beyond 'Easy' and 'Average' tasks in non-stressful situations, regardless of their basic physical and mental abilities. Attributes gives a bonus on consistency, though

Someone with an attribute of 6 and a skill of 2 would be able to buy 2 successes, and can't succeed at Extremely difficult tasks unless they use Edge.
Someone with an attribute of 3 and a skill of 2 can only buy 1 success, and is very unlikely to succeed at Hard tasks without Edge.

The more DP modifiers you can gather up, the less risk you have at glitching and the higher chance you have at performing consistently.


To better illustrate:

'Gung-ho Joe' is a fresh boxer wannabee with Agility 7 and Unarmed Combat 1(Boxing +2)
'Fat Freddy' Agility 2 and Unarmed Combat 6(Boxing +2)

If you don't limit hits, Freddy, who has studied and fought for years and holds several awards, only has a 50% chance to beat the agile guy who started sparring with his trainer a few months ago. If you limit hits, Freddy gets an advantage, and will win something like 70% of the time.

*shrug* That's the intent. Agility 7 is ungodly agile.

Again, I'm fine with limits. But direct hit-caps *only* hurt very low skills (and a lot), and totally ignore the upper end; neither of these are supposedly the intended effects of the rule. That's my point.

SR4A pg.75, Grittier Gameplay:

"The total hits scored on any test are limited to no more than the character's skill rating x2. This increases relevance of skills over attributes, but it also means that low-skilled characters will have a more challenging time. Defaulting tests would be limited to 1 hit. Edge, however, would allow you to bypass these limits."


Personally, I find that it also discourages the 'dice-pool race' when it hits ridiculous numbers - but that may only be at my table. I guess you can make an argument for the reverse as well: aim for high skill and a lot of extra dice so you can routinely outperform those of standard skill.

Exactly: it's much grittier (I say too much, but that's a taste issue). Personally, this just means I have more incentive to have Skill 1 over defaulting (which is why I tend to have lots of Skill 1s in the first place). And it clearly encourages Skill 2, yes. *Do* do this if that's what you want, and I think this is a case where the rules got it right: per the book, it's a rule that specifically (and intentionally) affects the low end only. It doesn't really encourage Skill 4+.

That's the thing, though. People say hit-cap (or DP-cap, but that's a whole nother thing) addresses the high end, and it doesn't. (Especially for optional Matrix rules, which is where this often comes up.)

Here's the thing, very few people are going to make a character who is good at say, Unarmed Combat, and then not take a bunch of ranks in Unarmed Combat. Even if they have an ungodly high AGL and decide to "only" put 3 or 4 points into Unarmed, they'll still be good. The character it punishes is the guy who doesn't build for the skill, and so it encourages characters to only try things they've built for. That's kind of boring. You end up with a game where the mage won't try to wrestle someone to the ground or the sammie won't grab the controls of submarine because no matter how many dice they have on the test, their one allowable success really won't matter.

I find that it encourages players to not only diversify and get many skills they otherwise would've ignored, but it encourages redudancy - PCs investing in skills that someone else at the table is quite good at. Often happens when that person goes down in a fight and they need their skill...

It's not something that works well for one-shot runs, or campaigns that stretch over only a few runs, but for the long-term campaign I find it an excellent way to keep power levels sane and over time get a team of very well-rounded, competent runners.

Then again, we often have PCs at my table with important attributes in the 7-10 range due to augmentations etc...

I agree, Mercer: we *want* people to try defaulting on things, and we want them taking more skills at 1.

It doesn't encourage getting many skills, though. It basically forbids defaulting, and it effectively requires people to get a 2 instead of a 1 in anything. (And has no effect on anything above 3, so it has no effect on 'keeping power levels sane'.) So more people will shift their 'extra' (non-specialist) resources to a smaller set of Skills at rank 2-3, rather than waste them. I'm not saying *that* per se is a terrible thing, but the negative effect on defaulting and the null effect on mid-high power is the problem.

If I were playing under this rule, you certainly wouldn't see my normal 'low-power generalist' setup (lots of high attribs, lots of 1's, some 0's in things I think I could default on).

Nope, a character with that set-up wouldn't be very useful with hit cap.

Without it, I see a lot of characters focusing on high stats, a few high specialist skills, and whatever dice pool modifiers they can scrounge up.

With the cap, I see characters with slightly lower stats, one high skill, and a broad range of skills at 2-4.

I don't mean that the hit cap itself solves the problem of high skills, but the fact that characters need to spread their karma around, coupled with less need for superhuman stats, help keep my game at a lower power level when characters have earned hundreds of karma. But this is my experience - things may work differently with other players.

I can see that, yes, and I can see how being forced (er, strongly encouraged) to get a lot of 2-4 skills would tend to steal resources from 5-6 skills (though I think, more under karmagen than BP?). Like I said, the results are about taste, as long as people are aware what the rule does and doesn't do.

The thing is, in most situations where a character is defaulting it's fairly unexpected. A sammie with a REA 9 who finds himself at the controls of an unusual vehicle after the rigger has been knocked out is going to be boned, unless the only thing left to do is park. Not a lot of sams have the points to spare to take Pilot: Submarine. (Heck, not many riggers take Pilot: Submarine.)

One thing the skill cap would seem to do is make Skillwires even better. Particularly at chargen, when the BP cost of an activesoft is half the cost of the skill.

I don't think the high skills would be hit - they are the skills that are least affected by the rule. Rather, I think you would see a narrower range on people's secondary specialties, with a few 2-4 rating skills instead of more 1 rating skills. And overall, players would be a lot more cautious about using their non-core skills.

I remember reading a good explanation of how Etiquette works. The basic idea is that culture is so fractured in the setting that you run into wildly divergent cultures just walking down the street. Think about all the crazies in transmetropolitan. Etiquette in SR4 isn't about /knowing/ all the cultures but figuring them out in real-time. As an active skill it's more like what Kovacs from Altered Carbon does than anything else.

Yeah, characters under BP creation will be quite similar - even with getting those 1's, since it's fast and cheap to get that to a useful 2 once the karma starts rolling in - the 'effect' won't appear until after a number of runs.



True - you'll get a much more cinematic style game without the limit, where the high attribute PCs can do most things as well as a normal trained professional (attribute 3, skill 4). That doesn't quite fit the setting and feel I'm aiming for, but every game is different.

Yes, it does make skillwires and skillsofts better - which also works well in my games, and fits the 'cyberpunk feel' I strive for in the setting.



High skills are only hit indirectly - there's more value in putting karma into your low skills (and getting more of them) than getting that extra dice or two on your main area. It won't matter much if you have a 5 or 6 in the skill, as you're often unlikely to pass the 10-hit cap with a dice pool under 20. This also has the effect of making it slightly less desirable to min-max DP modifiers to ridiculous levels (30+ dice) - but I guess it could have the opposite effect on some players; making them strive for a high dice pool in order to consistently make use of the extra few successes they can achieve beyond what the opposition is capable of.

For those moments of defaulting or using a low skill in critical conditions, there's always Edge...


To summerize:

No cap make people focus on high attributes so they can do most things competently even without skills, or with a skill of 1.

Skillx2 cap make people focus on many skills in the 2-4 range, and they can't perform well in a field they have no training in.

Aye, this is how I see it too. For this reason I'm taking the option to add the Rule of Six to every roll as well, as per the optional modifications RAW.

Your submarine example works perfectly for me, I wouldn't want the REA 9 defaulting sammie being able to faultlessly drive any vehicle they choose to, or not particularly well at any rate. Besides, in my game, people with high ATT defaulting when they absolutely have to both drives up the tension or forces them to use Edge those occasions pulling off something special is required.

Perhaps I play quite a low-powered game, but I don't find characters too scardey-cat to default or use skill 1 or 2 skills. And like Yerameyahu said, it encourages characters to sink more BP/karma into rounding out their skill-set, either during CharGen or in-game.

8 dice isn't bad, but I'd hardly call it faultless. It's pretty much what I'd consider the low end that a rigger to have, except the rigger is going to have lower thresholds because of the control rig. It's worth noting that the REA 9 guy is the human pinnacle of Reaction; he's the Captain America of reacting to things, maybe Batman too. For most vehicle tests you need to meet a 2-3 threshold, and a REA 9 defaulting that's within the realm of possibility (though hardly a sure thing). As opposed to a skill capped REA 9 which really can only park the car, in open terrain, if there's no traffic around.

The point isn't that a character would be too scaredy-cat to default, but rather that if a test is threshold 2 and they know they're capped at 1 success, they know there's no point in trying it no matter how many dice they have.

Surely you can't default on Pilot: Submarine though. It's not exactly the sort of vehicle you can just wing it with.

...which is why they use Edge when seated behind controls of a vehicle that they have no training in, no prior knowledge of, and no experience with. 9 dice is an average of 3 hits - I just don't find it realistic nor desirable to have the Rea 9 guy able to do anything but the most basic maneuvers with every ground and water vehicle in existance, nor to let the Agi 9 samurai use every weapon in existance, and do forgeries, as well as a trained professional (stat 4, skill 5), nor let the min-maxed Dwarf mage (Willpower 8 ) who has never set foot outside of the city be as accomplished a survivalist as a professionally trained normal metahuman (Will 3, Skill 5).

I especially don't find it very realistic that the Body 12 troll averages 4 successes on his first ever parachuting and diving tests - heck, even a normal completely untrained troll (Body 7) is as good a diver and parachuter as a human who trained for years (Body 3, Parachuting/Diving 4)...and a standard Troll (Strength 7) who's never seen a body of water bigger than a bathtub before can swim as well a normal human with Swimming 4.


It all comes down to flavor, really.

If you want a cinematic game where the characters can be near superhuman and able to consistently get 2-4 hits at almost anything, that's fine - don't use any caps to hits or dice pools. Consider using some options for cinematic game play for even higher success.

If you want a gritty game where the characters are more realistically limited, put caps on hits and/or dice pools and force characters to use Edge if they want to accomplish things they shouldn't otherwise be able to. Consider using further options to make things even harder for the PCs.

Presumably, the defaultable/not-defaultable distinction in the rules already made that decision, though. If something 'may be used untrained', then it's deemed reasonable for the untrained to succeed at. Some examples might be problematic (as you point out), but that's at least the intended function.

Under these rules, people could fail at things like Athletics (check out the Jumping thresholds). Climbing, for example, is totally impossible without Skill 1 or 2, no matter how strong you are, or if you have direct supervision of an expert. (The same goes for Parachuting, unless every skydiving day-class counts as learning Skill 1.) Escape Artist completely requires Skill 2 for all listed Thresholds, so 1 and 0 are worthless. No matter how intuitive, people with low Perception skill can't see through typical disguises, nor can they even notice 'Normal' or 'Small' events. A genius still can't Build/Repair *anything*.

Edge is never valid excuse, to me. It's something that's supposed to be totally extra.

Cimbing is an Extended test, so that works fine for defaulting - you'll just take much longer doing it.
Escape Artist is an Extended test - same deal. This also goes for Lockpicking, and Build and Repair tests.

Perception tests are suggested to be used in a limited manner, 'when something is not immediately noticeable or when a situation is so hectic that certain things may be overlooked'. It also states that 1 success is enough to just notice stuff - just not in great detail. If people have time on their hands to study something, I'll certainly let them use Perception as an Extended test, accumulating successes - that may be house rule realm, however I'm not aware of anything RAW that prevents this. If you go strictly by the threshold table and require perception tests for every little thing, Joe Average is unlikely to ever see street signs, hear people talk, or notice people walking around him - even without hit caps...

As for Jumping, however, you are correct - it has a threshold that can't be beaten if you aim for a specific distance beyond 2 meters (running) or 1 meter (vertical), and with an open test you can't get further than 2 m. (There should really be a base jumping distance - just like you have base movement - but that's beside the point.)

That said, imo it's likely that anyone who went through school gym classes and paid attention would have Athletics Group 1(or at least most of it's sub-skills at 1), unless they deteriorated a lot physically afterward. (lower than 'high school athlete', but higher than 'has played catch with his friends in the backyard').

Parachuting, I'm not sure where you find any thresholds for though?

"Edge is a character's luck, the favor of the gods, the unexplainable factor that allows her to beat the odds." Sounds perfect for managing to pilot a submarine when you've never been in one before, imo.

No, you can't default on Submarines at all. For defaultable things, though, my point is that Edge (the use of which should never be necessary for normal things) isn't 'beating the odds', it's allowing the odds.

As the Perception table indicates, 1 hit *isn't* enough.

The Perception table is one of the dumbest things in shadowrun, right after the signature table and using explosives to kill ppl.

There are many contenders for dumbest thing in SR4. I'm just pointing out that the rules (however good/bad) aren't really set up for the simple hit-capping option.

It also wrecks the success curve of the low end, causing wildly different DPs to essentially perform equally. This is a matter of taste, though. Personally, I want Log 7 to default (or Skill 1) much better than Log 1 (just an example).

Yes you can default on submarines - it's under Pilot Watercraft, and you can default on that.

It isn't 'a normal thing' for a person who has never driven a submarine (or a car, or motorcycle) to be able to do so beyond very basic maneuvers. Or for them to succeed at building a handgun, defusing a bomb, escaping from hand cuffs, forging a passport, stabilizing a dying person, etc. People with no training simply can't sit down and expect to immediately succeed at such tasks.

Jumping is the only skill in the book that creates unrealistic situations if you limit hit caps - but there are a whole lot of skills that create unrealistic situations if you don't limit hits.


...and as the description of the skill indicates, one hit is enough - you just get more info with more hits. Further, under normal circumstances you shouldn't have to roll at all to notice things that would be normal to notice, as per the instruction of GMs limiting the call for Perception tests to hectic situations and for stuff that isn't immedately noticable (and several things on the threshold table should fall under immediately noticable in normal everyday life). The table would apply in hectic situations - for instance, to notice a pedestrian in the street when you're turning a corner speeding away from gunfire...