Got a mail from the Battlecorps, that the PDF has been updated. That was the last of the core rulebooks. And finally the Karma Generation has been set straight (with Attributes costing new Rating x5 and so on).

Bye
Thanee

And praise all that is holy in this world the cover is changed!

What was wrong with the old one? I think it was one of the better ones (much better than the old Arsenal or Augmentation for sure).

Bye
Thanee

I wasn't a big fan of the old "Elven Sword Crotch" cover. It was a little too contrived. This is much better, in fact its pretty good.

Good to see they finally got around to updating the PDF too, cant really understand why it took so long considering it should require much additional work at all over the update of the hard copy.

Does it finally have non-contradictory prices for the Fame and Gearhead qualities? If so, would you let us know what they are?

Sadly, no, they did not correct the entry for Fame (and I assume, therefor, for Gearhead). The main entry still cites "5 to 15", but the sub-entry for Global still says "20".

EDIT: yep, Gearhead is also not corrected. Still says "5 or 10", then lists specific costs of 5 and 15.

What are the changes, anyway? Or is it only the cover art?

Well, the references have been updated to the correct (assumed) pages in SR4A instead of SR4.

Karma Generation has been updated (as seen in the topic title).

Havn't really seen anything else, yet, but I havn't really compared them in detail either.

Bye
Thanee

You're getting your hopes a little high there...what's next, consistent AP for flechettes?

I want to know what it says about Infected and Free Spirit PCs.

You are the enemy of fun.

What specifically? I have both versions on my work computer. I checked the pricing table and it hasn't changed the BP cost for Infected or Free Spirit PC's.

Has it been made explicit whether or not attribute minimums are raised when force is raised?

INFECTED:
Players can create Infected characters using the standard
character generation method presented in Shadowrun, Twentieth
Anniversary Edition. Aftr a metatype or metavariant is chosen,
the player picks the appropriate Infected quality (see p. 79), pays
the appropriate BP cost, and adjusts her Attribute maximums and
minimums according to the Infected Attribute Modi ers Table (p.
79) to re ect her new post-human limits. She may then continue
on with buying her attributes, skills, equipment, and other qualities.
Remember that a character can only have one Infected quality.

FREE SPIRITS:
Free spirits have a Force special attribute that starts with a rating
of 2.  is attribute determines a free spirit’s natural minimums
and maximums for all attributes. It also acts as the spirit’s Magic
attribute. Force increases can be purchased at character generation
for the same price as any attribute.  e natural maximum for the
Force attribute is 6, although this can be later increased through
initiation. A free spirit’s Force rating is the natural maximum for
all Physical and Mental attributes, as well as its Edge attribute—so
the player must raise Force if he wishes to raise the remaining attributes.
In addition, free spirits have the same Physical, Mental,
and Edge attributes as metahuman characters, which all start at
2 (their starting Force) at the start of character generation.
 e Infected qualities do not count against a character’s limit
of 35 BP worth of positive qualities at character generation.

Both seem pretty explicit to me. Infected attribute changes apply to both minimum and maximum. Meanwhile, a Free Spirits Attributes always havea minimum of 2, and a maximum of Force.

Is the above wording any different from before?

At least the free spirit wording is the same. The "This attribute determines a free spirit's natural minimums and maximums for all attributes" part early in that paragraph is the possibly confusing part, as it can be read so that (purely RAW) raising force also raises all the other attributes, since it would change the minimum.

Exactly. What comes later does not supersede, and therefore confusion is found in some. I, however, have no problem with it working exactly as worded.

Out of curiosity (good thing I'm not a cat, eh?), what do you see as the attribute minimums and maximums for free spirit PCs?

Their force, just like the rules say(I'm not Neraph, but i know with 99% certainty that he's in that camp from previous discussions of this topic)

As written, a FSPC's attributes (physical, mental, Essence, Edge, and Magic) all start at 2. Their Magic (called Force) can be raised, and serves as their natural maximums and minimums. This means if you raise their Force to 4, all of their other attributes (physical, mental, and special) raise to 4, as their racial minimums is now 4. You can only go up to Force 6, as that limit is stated in Runner's Companion, but for 305 points having all attributes at 6 is... interesting.

A lot of people disagree, but RAW states that exactly.

Actually, no, they don't. They state it vaguely. I would argue that:

"A free spirit’s Force rating is the natural maximum for
all Physical and Mental attributes, as well as its Edge attribute—so
the player must raise Force if he wishes to raise the remaining attributes."

... does not explicitly say that Force remains the natural minimum for any attribute at all. In fact - though it's wording is bad enough it's not explicit in eithr direction - I think it is "clearly implicit" that attributes other than Force are each raised separately, with in a "Minimum 2, maximum Force" range.

Yeah, while it could be better written, it is sufficiently clear, that the minimum is 2 (and not increased by increasing Force during character generation or later).

Only the maximum is increased, when Force is increased. The minimum is set to the starting Force, which is constant (= 2).

The whole talk about minimums and maximums makes absolutely no sense, if all Attributes would be equal to Force (as it is for regular spirits; Materialization modifiers not included).

Bye
Thanee

Actually Pax, Neraph has the right of it here. All the other spirit rules STRONGLY suggest it. And your reading is completely at odds with the first sentence which says minimum == force always (not equals 2 when started, and never raised).

Also look at the cost... the cost is 250BP. Under normal build gen... that would leave a free spirit with all 5's... with 250meta, 30force/magic (55 to max out). 120 for skills/qualities/equipment... which is just about what a normal player is left with. As is typical mixing optional rules oftentimes breaks things badly as this is obviously badly broken under karmagen.

"This attribute attribute determines a free spirit’s natural minimums and maximums for all attributes." is a complete self-contained sentence. Nothing in the paragraph ever contradicts this.


The purpose of the second sentence to me is that they're restating and stressing that the rules on p108 of street magic are different. A non-PC free spirit's attributes start at it's force when it went free, but may be raised seperately above it's force by spending karma. A later bullet in the same section lists that raising force also raises all the free spirits other attributes. Which is entirely consistent with the rule stating the min & max of a PC free spirit == force.

That said, I put it in the same category as all the other cheese in runners companion, fit only for for GM NPC creation and not that far out of bounds compared to the rest of the cheese present in the book.

Here's another little tidbit I'm sure many didn't notice in the free spirit section... it's never made clear if their skills are capped. All spirits including free spirits in SM have no natural caps on skills or attributes. In fact, spirits pretty much by definition (except PC free spirits) have skills == force. Not that it matters much since even with initiation... it's almost always more cost effective just to simply raise the force to raise the attribute rather than bothering with many individual skills.

Indeed. It really, really doesn't matter. Both options are unplayable; the entire section is scrap.

Any idea when the errata will be published?

@Thanee
You are correct. Thats the only way to read the paragraph without running into an contradiction. A lot of people do notlike it that way, because they feel, that free spirits would be underpowered. I do not agree with either.

@Yerameyahu
Why?
If you play it by minimum=2 max=force it seems quite playable to me. Yes, it starts off quite week.

There are just a few minior issues:
1. Make the formula pact give the spirit normal Karma gain, but prevent any other form of Karma income or spirit pact.
2. Streamline the vision thing. There are several kinds of visions. There is no need for a "special spirit vision". If they only have astral vision by default, state it like that!
3. Adjust and clarify some powers. (realistic form, I am looking at you. Otherwise it is mostly about dropping the costs a bit... (Regeneration 4, Aura masking 2.5 etc.) (Or choose a type of spirit and give him reduced costs for the power this spirit type may take. 20-25% like the way of adepts)

That is correct.

That sentence also does not say, that the minimum attributes are equal to Force.

All it says is, that Force determines the natural minimums and maximums.

For example, by setting the minimums to "starting Force" and the maximums to "actual Force", both are determined by Force.

This reading is further underlined by the fact, that only the maximums are said to increase when Force is increased.

And by the fact that it even speaks about minimums and maximums, which would be rather pointless, if they were equal at all times.

Bye
Thanee

What Thanee said.

IMO, if all attributes were intended to be equal to Force at all times, I think it would read more like this instead:

"This attribute, Force, determines a free spirit’s attributes."

Flat wrong. "This attribute [Force] determines a free spirit's natural minimums and maximums for all attributes." Nowhere in there does it say "only at the beginning of character creation," nor is there a section where it talks about "setting minimums to 'starting Force'" - you've added that in yourself. It actually states, with no ambiguity whatsoever, that the spirit's Force determines their natural minimums. Period. That means if their Force changes, their natural minimums changes as well. No other sentence that follows contradicts this - in fact, they tend to support this: "... so the player must raise Force if he wishes to raise the remaining attributes," for example.

@Neraph
Yeah, it just tallks about raising the attributes seperatly. Well..

I mean it is even said, that the spirits minimum force determins the minimum for the attributes and the spirits current force is the maximum for the attributes... Don't know how they could have made it any more obvious..

But, Neraph, when it discusses raising force, it mentions ONLY the maximums:

"A free spirit’s Force rating is the natural maximum for all Physical and Mental attributes, as well as its Edge attribute—so the player must raise Force if he wishes to raise the remaining attributes."

Face it: the whole section is worded just vaguely enough, there's room for interpretation. CGL should really come out and clarify the intent - they need to make a new FAQ that answers questions like this one, directly and in no uncertain terms.

Hmm. It says "the attribute determines", but does it mean the attribute in general, or the current rating of the attribute?




-k

No. That sentence does not preclude the earlier sentence that states their Force is also their natural minimum. Logically, if their attributes are equal to force, then to raise any attribute you would have to raise Force in order to raise the others. There is no contradiction, only people who don't want it to function as written.

And I say, Neraph, that people who think raising just Force will also raise all the other attributes only want it to function that way. (And that way trips my Munchkin Alarm in a gigantic way - raising everything, for the cost of only raising one attribute? I know Karma can be a bit hardr to come by for Free Spirits, but it can't be difficult enough to justify that kind of thing ...!!

..

Seriously, I read that and don't see "all attributes = force". I see "All attributes have a minimum of 2 and a maximum of Force". I accept, however, that the alternate interpretation is not unreasonable. Ergo, why I feel CGL needs to issue an official clarification.

SR4A, the whole edition not just the core book, needs a Master FAQ.

Completely correct. Couldn't agree more.

Back to the original topic, did they just change the cost of attributes for character generation, or did they also address racial cost in the karma gen section?

To those of you rehashing the same old free spirit attribute argument, please go revive one of the many free spirit threads were this conversation has already been had or start a new one. Some of these circular semantic arguments are the reason I go away for long periods. I can't tell you how many threads have been hijacked by things like free spirit attributes, the difference/validity of faqs/erratas, etc. If someone that hasn't seen these redundant conversations before asks about it, please just point to one of the MANY previous ones and move that discussion there.

The simple fact is that, Rules as Written isn't always as clear as some people would like, if it was people wouldn't argue about them. There are a number of questions, with Free Spirit PC Attributes being one, that will not be solved until CGL actually does it. No amount of thread hijacking will change this.

Yes, the metatype cost has also been added.

Metatypes now cost their BP cost in Karma.

Bye
Thanee