I've read that there's a dice pool cap of 20. Some of my runners REALLY cheesed out their characters, and they have nearly 17 dice and 6 edge. They have been asking me what happens when they roll edge? Is the dice pool cap a hard limit, edge or not? Or does it only count for their base pool? This matters because in normal SR, it's only an optional rule, but in missions it seems like a hard rule.

I have always understood it to be a hard cap, but that extra dice above 20 (or 2x (natural skill + natural stat) whichever is higher) can be use to cancel penalties. Basically no more than your cap can go into your hand.

As far as I know, Edge doesn't help with going over this hard cap.

ACTUALLY its a GM option (one I happen to agree with) in SR4A its Skill + atribute *2 OR 20 whichever is Higer - SR4A p 61 ... and how its is written Edge Can cause the pool to go over the cap

"Optionally, gamemasters may choose to cap dice pools (including
modifiers) at 20 dice, or at twice the sum of the character’s natural
Attribute + Skill ratings, whichever is higher"

thats the direct excerpt .... Edge is not considered a "Dice pool Modifier" as per the definition (pg. 61 and 74 SR4A) so that does indeed fall outside the scope

so the general thing is anything Under a 20 you dont worry about .... once you start breaking 21+ you need to really start considering how things get there (Natural attribute of 7+ starts being required)

It's an Optional Rule in SR4A. It's an actual rule in place for Missions.

Edge Dice are not modifiers. theyre... Special. Edge tends to break the rules, so ignore them under most circumstances.

For everything else, it's 20 after modifiers (Positive and negative), or twice your natural attribute plus skill, as the rule says. Most of the time, that limits runners to 20 dice, since it's tough to get above a skill of 7 and a natural attribute of 12 or so. (Note that this is natural, not augmented as well).

Additionally, resistance tests (Body and Willpower) are exempt from this rule.

Now, that said... I encourage players NOT to cheese. Missions are not written with cheesemonkeys in mind. In general, if you're min-maxing your characters to the breaking point, you are likely to start breaking Missions if they're being run straight (And at conventions, they usually are). And frankly, I find that games aren't fun when I break them, and they even less fun when other players do it.

However, for a Missions game taht's largely a home game? Well, it's your call as GM. Hopefully you're modifying and adapting the game to your players particular... Cheesetastic tendencies

Bull

As per page 7 of the SRM Season 4 FAQ:

The other thing is that once you start getting above 15 or so dice in Missions, pool size matters less (outside of combat or at higher table ratings) because most tests really only require 4-5 hits to have the maximum success - an amount that is fairly easily achievable with a dice pool that size. At that point it's up to the GM if they want to add modifiers to either the player's pool or to the test's threshold if they're interested in making things more difficult.

6 skill and 6 attribute cap at 24 (6+6*2 = 24)

"Optionally, gamemasters may choose to cap dice pools (including
modifiers) at 20 dice, or at twice the sum of the character’s natural
Attribute + Skill ratings, whichever is higher" page 61 SR4A


your example would cap at 38 lol

Blech I just saw my misquote earlier My bad for that

And there I always thought it is 20 or 2x natural Attribute+Skill whichever is LOWER (i.e. if you have Attribute 3 and Skill 3 but 10 bonus dice, you would still only roll 12 dice total).

Seems I had that part memorized wrong, though.

And yeah, getting past 20 seems fairly easy then, when you reach that cap with 5 Attribute and 5 Skill already (which is good, but hardly maxed out).

Bye
Thanee

Generally the people who run into caps are those who heavily rely on bonuses and cyberarm of awesome users. Having an attribute of 5 and skill at 6 means you've got a 22 dice cap which is nice benefit over those who used the typically cheaper bonuses to get to 20.

An important question is how does this interact with programs since program rating is often the "attribute" in those tests and not logic.. For hackers, it doesn't matter too much. But it's a very important question for technomancers.

On the original post:
If they're rolling 17 dice, adding edge dice isn't optimal anyway, in most cases. You get much more bang by using edge to reroll the 12 or so failures rather than add 6 dice and the rule of 6. And if you get a great roll, you won't need the edge at all.

Not much of a bonus, Hida Tsuzua. +2 effective dice, and only when there are no major penalties (in which case, the 'reliant' users are getting their full benefit).

This can be important with some rolls, especially degrading extended tests.

For example, with all the modifiers easily available, plus Street Cred, plus up to 10 purchased dice, a Negotiate test to buy gear can get upwards of 30 to 40 dice pool. This is capped as per the 20/double stat+skill, but since the cap is applied AFTER modifiers, your dice rolled for each round of the extended test won't actually reduce until your total pre-cap pool is degraded to below the cap.


-k

I cant gve you page Number ATM ... but this is a special case ... its Program + Skill x2 ... that is in wireless world chapter of SR4A ... I'll try to find the quote a bit later

I think Wraith235 is thinking of this:



Since the dice pool cap is a rule that applies to attributes, it would then apply to the program or matrix attribute being used in place of the regular attribute. This is about as cut and dry as you can get in Shadowrun rules.

thats the one .... thanks man

.66 extra hits is just nice. It's not a big check on power or anything. Typically it's the people who have natural attribute + skill in the 13 or so range that do noticeably better (where they get +6). They're a few tests where it isn't too hard to pull that off.

Then again in Missions nowadays, if you're rolling 18+ dice, you're going to smash whatever. High dice pools mattered more when you needed 6 hits on perception to spot the opposing shadowrun team in TR 6 game.

Edit- Ah okay I remember a discussion about the topic about programs and attributes. Nice to know there is a clean answer.

I'm just saying, it's quite a modest bonus (relative to the 'artificial' DP), and only when there are basically no DP penalties in effect. It's a rule with very few teeth.

There is a turning point at dice-pool=2.5 X Edge dice. If the pool exceeds this, you are more likely to profit from holding back the Edge as above.

Personally, I've always limited dice pool to 2 x (natural attribute + natural skill), ignoring the '20' cap altogether. Extra dice counteract penalties, or may be used to "buy hits" at 4 dice/1 hit, up to a maximum number of bought hits equal to the number of rolled hits.

(Of course, allowing people to buy hits in Missions might run counter to goals, but it *does* help keep the explosion of stray dice pouring off the table to a minimum)

I have seen at least one player in Missons with like a 20 to 24 dice pool and 4 IPs just volunteer to buy hits for his initiative.

He usually went first anyhow.

While you're working on the FAQ, you should make an exception for your defensive melee dice pool. This really effects Adepts, and I'm sure was overlooked. Adepts increase skill and attributes with magic, so not "natural". In addition, defense pool uses 3 dice pools, not the normal 2.

This cap ends up screwing elite adepts, as their spirit opponents will be F8 to F11 (all natural stats). That gives the spirits a 24 and 33 defensive pool. An adept with 6/6 natural, weapon focus 3, specialization, increase skill +3, increase stat +1 would be hurting in comparison. And I don't' have my character sheet around, so I may be leaving somethings out.

Where are you facing Force 8 to Force 11 spirits?

Remember it's only 3x if they are rolling full defense--(stat+skill+skill). Normal melee defense is 2xForce for spirits--(stat+skill).

Bull--PvP action? Table rating 6+?

S2 on TR6 has you running into Force 8-12 spirits on a pretty regular basis.

New York missions, highest rating. Last one was about corrupt spirits in a wilderness (could have been a CMP mission). There was also a highlevel background count that was attuned to these creatures-- my adept was useless (oddly, only the full mage was useful against them).

EDIT: McQ, it hurts your normal melee defense too, just not as much. The problem is still that spirits dice caps are much higher b/c they are "natural" stats. The Adept, that used to be the bane of spirits, has stats increased by magic.