So, I was basically thinking about how some scrawny people are surprisingly more durable than they seem, and how many of the things which screw you over go out of their way to say they completely ignore the things you might get implanted to resist the things which screw you over, which kind of administers defeat to the point of those things in the first place.


And then I thought back to Exalted, and how Exalted has a Resistance skill. Now, in Exalted, it's pretty much useless since you're just going to use Charms to ignore the things which try to screw you over anyway, the only reason you buy it is to get those Charms. But in Shadowrun?


I was thinking of adding a Resistance skill as a standalone. It would add itself to any test you made to resist anything negative that's happening to your body which is not combat damage. So if somebody shoots you, it won't help. (I already put in generous armor-related house rules, so if you haven't but you're intrigued by the Resistance skill, you might let players add 1/2 Resistance to combat damage resistance rolls.) So if somebody shoots you, it won't help. If that bullet delivered poison, though, it would help you on all tests relating to resisting that poison; it would let you resist disease, hostile nanotechnology, radiation, dumpshock (but not the direct effects of Black Hammer or Blackout,) and being caught in a fire (but not being shot with a Firebolt.)

If you wanted to add some dark to the light, too, you might say that since there's a skill for it, that also means there's a defaulting penalty; some guys who look really big and beefy and can take direct abuse don't fare too well against diseases and stuff, too.


I'm not entirely sure about the ramifications of this, so I put it to Dumpshock to discuss them. I don't think it would become a "Must Have" skill, but it would probably edge into the ranks of "really good idea to have" skills.

I would disagree, on general principle. What this adds is a "damage armor" skill. Martial arts and such have teachings on taking blows, but they simply do not apply to things like bullets. I cannot see anyone not taking said skill, which generally suggests a balance issue. Even if it's not combat related, it can still be applied to damage, drugs, or somesuch. And skills, finally are LEARNED.

If you must do something of this nature, a positive quality would be much more in keeping with shadowrun in general than any skill of this nature.

It seems to me that the dichotomy present here is that between stature and Body in general. However, the two are not necessarily linked. I, for example, in real life, have a VERY big stature (closing on 7 feet tall), whilst I am fairly less sturdy than my friend who does martial arts and is made of steel cable and wire (got his appendix out and was doing Sai kata same day, HIT HIMSELF IN THE STITCHES, the idiot, and didn't take any pain med).

Is there anything other than physical description that rankles?

It's not just about stature and Body, though. There is some art to training yourself to resist generally bad shit (like staying up too late, etcetera.) It's also partly about the amazing number of Bad Things that just flat-out ignore the things that supposedly exist to protect against Bad Things, like diseases and nanobots.

This is still not a learned ability. Such training comes far closer to roleplaying reasons for increasing a stat. A positive quality, in my opinion, would be much more appropriate, if something must be added. Since you ruled out combat damage, the training in general (which still says "stat" to me) wouldn't apply, and it steers closer to taking small doses of poisons to develop a tolerance. Positive qualities of this category then could still be taken during play with karma.

What you're looking for is a Quality... toughness.

Actually, Toughness is basically the exact opposite of what I'm looking for, Bull.


Toughness is (a) hugely overpriced for what it does, and (b) applies to damage resistance tests.

I want something that scales, is not hugely overpriced but not underpriced, and applies to basically everything but getting shot right in the goddamn face.

Resistance to toxins is 5BP, giving +1 dicepool
Resistance to pathogens is 5BP, giving +1 dicepool

This Resistance skill would need to cost more than 4 karma / level, I would think, since it duplicates the effects of both of these PQ...

Skills are still taught though. You cannot "teach" someone to be tougher: they must train, and that is precisely how to setup to raise a stat with karma.

Anything that scales, such as with a skill, could still be represented by qualities. If you want it to cost more, then pre-write it as the adept powers: more cost after a certain max is met. Change in costs can easily be defined differently.

Is there a reason that Resistance positive qualities, with tweaking for extended levels and costs so it is balanced in your game, cannot achieve what you are trying for?

Well, I suppose I could figure out what it would cost as positive qualities, but it would be messed up because I'd want to normalize it to the skill cost curve.

I think that "generally being tough against bad touch shit" should be cheaper than "being tough against getting shot right in the goddamn face."

I think that the positive quality is really the way to go and 5 BP (10 karma) per +1 is a fair price. I would place a limit on the number of ranks available, perhaps the greater of +3 or half Body (round down).

My thought on this is it is much easier to build up a resistance to kinetic damage (which is what the "shoot in the face" damage really is) through the use of armor and other such devices and technologies. However building up a resistance to the millions (am I over-stating this) of infectious and toxic substances in existence should be much harder.

I would allow a character to role-play adding this PQ or increasing it, if they could come up with a really good (and entertaining) reason that it should be allowed.

-D

There's already a PQ that gives +1 to resist toxins, and it's 5BP. The "Resistance" PQ suggested above gives +1 to toxin/disease/dumpshock/nanotech/radiation/fire/etc. It should cost more than 5 BP, don't you think? I would put it at something like 30-35 myself, seeing how wide the application would be, and how each +1 seems to be worth 5BP...

Thing is, I've already stated that I think that 5 BP (10 Karma) for a +1 bonus to resist one form of Fuck You is massively overpriced. So, no, I don't particularly think that it would be worth 30-35BP to get +1 to resist Screw You.

it shouldn't be terribly hard to normalize to an exponential curve. If you give me a start and end, I can take a stab at it.

Sorry, I missed where you said that you think it's overpriced...and for the record, I agree with you

That's why my basic idea was to make it a Skill. The investment to get some general extra resistance to random Screw You isn't too hard, and is a reasonably wise investment, but to max it out completely takes enough time and Karma to require serious thought on the wisdom of that investment.




Well, let's see. The start point at +1 would be 4 Karma, with an end-point at +6 at 44 Karma (barring an Aptitude-alike quality to give you a maximum of 7, and a cost of 61 Karma.)

So, not hard to pick up a point here or there, but you start getting above the "here and there" points and it becomes rapidly more expensive.

How about setting up a Houserule to allow Willpower to be used?

I don't really see the need myself, to me, Edge fills the role you're looking for.

Funnily enough, that solves the problem I'm seeing not remotely at all.

Willpower is an attribute, it's a major investment, and honestly I'm not sure what bearing your Willpower should have on your ability to survive a close encounter with a radioactive emitter.

Edge has the same problem as being an attribute, using attribute costs and all, and even worse (unless you want to houserule that your full Edge value gets added automatically to all "Resisting Screw You effect" rolls,) you have a limited number of shots per whatever interval is being used to refresh Edge.

I would never add something like this to a Shadowrun campaign I was running. If you want to bring principles of Exalted into Shadowrun, that's your prerogative, I guess. I think it's a hilariously bad idea, though, for reasons already mentioned. But my dislike of the notion is almost purely thematic. I just don't see room for a generalized, non-combat resistance skill. If you want to add it to your campaign, feel free.

were you to run this as a quality, how rabid are you about keeping to the book precedent to prices in 5BP increments?

As regards it being a skill, I admit that in Shadowrun there's less call for it than in Exalted; however, the Skill XP ladder is the only one preexisting in Shadowrun that gives the same "easy enough to dabble in" and "hard to max out" curve that makes it worthwhile to invest for a few points just to have them in case the need comes up, but makes specializing in it (IE, being the super-tough guy who can actually survive being exposed to HMHVV without turning) a major investment.




See, that's the thing: I don't particularly want to run it as a Quality, because Qualities have always been defined as coming in increments of 5BP/10Karma.

That said, I'm not particularly rabid on the point.

IMHO due to the nature of what you want, it really doesn't fit into the skill web. Resistance to nano-technology (to name only one) can't be learned at any price. You are either resistant to it or you are not. That's why I've suggested the PQ route. Honestly you could adjust the cost to something other than 5 BP/10 karma if you wanted, but it shouldn't be that cheap for what you are getting. The 5/10 cost I think should be the minimum for something this good.

I understand your desire to not make it a PQ, but skills are way too cheap for this. You could make it a new attribute and use that scale. Make it an attribute that everyone has at 0 to start with and can buy it up normally to what ever you think should be the max (I'd suggest no higher than 6). I would also make it part of the normal attributes, so during character creation it would count against your max attribute spending. But that is just me.

On a side note, I agree with others that this is really not needed, but you asked for opinions on how to do it, and the above is my suggestion.

-D

I disagree thoroughly, DMiller, because Skills are precisely cheap enough for this.

That's the XP ladder I want them on. It should be easy to dabble in, take serious thought and hard work to master.


Why? Because "Fuck you, roll a new characters" sucks, that's why.

Reason I ask is there is no reason you can't make a quality with similar costs.

I don't have any problem with the concept you've stated, but the thought of it as a skill is unsettling, because by definition such things are not skills. Given skill teaching methods, required by RAW, would have no bearing on such. You could not get a tutorsoft and learn technique, the only way to do so is subject yourself to damage/viruses/whatever and get your body used to it. I would have said to use a custom Stat if it wasn't for the limitations imposed.

Due to the lack of conscious skill required, and the limitations for what it does and does not work for, the system allows for that as a quality or an adept power, and little else.

I still suggest a Quality, allowed in-game for karma, with custom costs, and screw the standard 5BP cost profile. Players would have to train for it the same way they would have to lift weights so they could spend karma on Strength. Not calling it a skill takes out the assumption of study that comes with all other skills.


It's slightly off topic, but what are you doing to these characters, and what kind of builds do they have, that they are dropping like flies?

You asked for opinions. They gave'em. If you don't want their opinions, why ask?

You have already made up your mind, which is fine, because it's YOUR TABLE.
Go for it.

My opinion is that it's too all-encompasing for the BP cost of a skill, and a bit counterintuitive to be a skill as well. It's hard for me to visualize a skill for resisting effects from falling into vats of mutagens, getting dumped naked on the Ross Ice Shelf, and getting shoved out an airlock.

If you do get willing to set this up as a quality, make a table like the Allergy table, giving a variety of options that all break down to the standard 5bp base model. You might have Narrow or Broad levels, with varying types of resistances. It's a lot of work to balance it, but it gives it a nice feel.

Honestly, I agree with the others here. I don't feel like it should be a skill to do this, for the same reasons stated. You do not learn to be more resistant. You train to build up your body's tolerances. That's it. That's not skill. That's force of Will to ignore the effects, or increase in body.

Hell, you could do a quality that lets you add 1/2 your body or willpower (whichever is most appropriate) stat into resistance rolls in addition to the normal roll. That scales, it represents your heartiness, and it can't be taught. Call it advanced toughness and lay it in at 20bp. That's my take on it.

In the end, you asked for opinions, and the general opinion seems to be contrary to yours. You can take that as it is and either ignore it or accept it, but it is still our view on the situation.

QFT.

It seems that you already know what you want to do and how you want to do it. Run with it. Hopefully it works out well at your table. If you do decide to use it as a skill, I'd be curious to see how it balances out. Please let us know.

-D

P.S.
I have never really had a situation where any of my players needed to make a "Fuck you, roll a new character" roll. The only time it has come up is when someone wanted to introduce a new character and to remove their old one with no chance of coming back. After all that is what Edge is for.

I also think it should be a quality and not a skill. How exactly do you train up for "resisting" non-combat attacks?

You could (and probably should) house rule the 5BP quality to give +2 rather than +1, but apart from that ...