Which was something I tried to coyly point out several weeks ago (but before we were allowed to share actual Limit formulas), when folks were all flipping out about this onerous new penalty facing folks with any augmentation. In many characters, going from a 6 Essence to a .01 Essence works out to a 1 point difference in Limit, which I don't think is all that terrible a deal for 5.99 points worth of augmentation. It's a factor, but hardly a crippling one. Even without having Tailored Pheromones to help out yet, I think "cyber-Face" can still be a perfectly viable character concept.

Essence as a social limit doesn't penalize cyber faces. They would have presumably taken tailored phermones anyway, so the point is offsent It plenty well penalizes non faces who for whatever reason didn't want to or can't take tailored pheromones.. But frag them right? They should have played miystic adepts.

Note that the effect is pretty small - 6 Essence confers +2 Limit, sure, but .01 Essence still confers +0.33 Limit.

I'm so glad you've decided to come back to the community after your time off, able to be so much more level headed, polite, mature, and less likely to indulge in snark and hyperbole.

The current iteration of my missions character has a socially cap of 3 I kind of a quietly feel that 2 loss I'm glad I didn't invest heavily in social skills.

The Average Human Social Cap is 4 (assuming 1-2 points of essence eating cyberware in the average western corp wage slave of the sixth world). Sounds like you've got Average Human Social Attributes and 3-5.9 (or half+ of your "humanity / spirit") Chromed away, yeah you;re going to have trouble interacting based on the old school concept in what the Chrome does to the Spirit.

Edited for MultiPost!

So why blame only his Essence loss for this low Social Limit? What are his Charisma and Willpower stats like, and -- because I know they've got to be pretty low, to have a Limit that low -- why are you acting like he'd be some master at the negotiation table if it wasn't for this Essence hit? I mean, someone with a below average Willpower (2), below average Charisma (2), and the minimum Essence at all left (.0001) has a Limit of 3. It's not like these things should be jumping out and surprising people, blindsiding them with a low Limit they couldn't possibly see coming.

If you want to be a well-rounded character with decent limits, make a well-rounded character with decent stats. It's not like you can pin this on your Essence loss, man, and claim it's some crippling thing that makes everyone but Mystic Adepts worthless (which is certainly what you were snarkily implying).

My guess is the character in question has W4, C2, and E <= 1, which would give you 3.

It's possible he's even more min-maxed at W5, C1, and E <=2, or W6, C1 and E <= 1, which would also give you 3.

My point here is that with C1 or C2, you'd need 7-8 skill for the Limit to come up about half the time, which seems pretty specialized.

And if someone's going to put in the effort to train themselves like that, they'll also get the augmentation that's relevant and work more generally on improving their way with people - leading to higher Charisma. At Charisma 2 and Skill 4, you only get 6 dice after all - your limit won't be coming up much.

Basically. Getting 4 hits on 6 dice is pretty much a coup.

And on those occasions where it's gonna matter, you're probably already using Edge - and thus making the Limit irrelevant.

C2, W3 which might not make the final product. Also intimidation/socials are one of the few tests that get fair numbers of positive mods if you prep the field so you are more likely to get more dice then limit supports on "average stats" then others.

Basically a street Sam is going to be worse at pointing a gun at someone and threatening them then an equivalent physical adept or mage. I still have issue with that but that's 5th Edition for you.

Intimidation always ends up a little odd in just about every system I've come across, Lurker - the troll Sam who dumps Charisma is worse at it then the Elf Sam with metatype-average Charisma, for example.

I agree. Intimidation as a Charisma-based skill has never struck me quite right. I tend to roll with it this way:

Using the Intimidation skill is, in fact, lying. Or at least a form of diplomacy. You're either promoting yourself as more dangerous than you are, or that the consequences will be very dire, or whatever. You're selling something.

Showing off your wires and waving your gun around speaks for itself -- either that's going to intimidate someone or it's not. Likewise hanging someone upside down by his feet off the side of a building and threatening to drop them is either going to provoke a "oh god don't kill me" response or "you totally wouldn't do that" response (more of a 'sense motive' type roll on the part of the hangee).

So basically, if you're not bluffing or very sincerely trying to alert someone of the consequences of their next action, rolling Intimidation isn't necessary.

Another way to look at it: Intimidation isn't just about being dangerous, but rather imposing yourself upon another to make them feel fear such that it interferes with or changes their course of action. You can recognize that someone can do you harm without being scared of them, after all. Thus, the Charisma-dump troll gets a reaction like "Okay, let's be careful here - this guy could be dangerous", while the elf gets more of a "FETCH ME MY BROWN PANTS!".

One possible reaction to danger is to consider what you can do about that - successful intimidation creates less productive responses.

Since the discussion is about social limits again, I thought I might throw in another question I had when those were first announced: Will the "cyber shapeshifter" with all sorts of counter-biometric cyberware be a viable concept? Because all that 'ware to change your appearance and biometrics tends to be a bit Essence-intensive, and Disguise probably is governed by the social limit, so is there something like "[this] increases your limit for Disguise tests"?

And on a related note, did the insane costs for this kind of ware get reigned in, or at least will (come the 'ware book) nanoware which does the same not be cheaper?

Again the point is not to scare the guy with intimidation. The point is to scare the guy, so he does what you want.

Example: Maybe the truth is quite unbelievable or it goes against what he thinks is your agenda.
Now would you tell this truth to a dumpface looking Troll who is holding you upside down by your feet off the side of a building. I guess not, you would tell him, what you thinks he wants to hear.

I don't honestly know why you would believe that, by that logic we should just get rid of all social skills, either the NPC's are going to believe the con or they are not, either they are going to see the negotiator's point or they are not.

Intimidation is essentially not just getting capitulation but getting it utterly, essentially preventing the target from even trying their avenues to resist because it would be pointless being the primary example. But it's also a factor of convincing someone that while your not going to kill them right now, if they lie to you, even a smidge, your going to come back and do things far worse then kill them.

On the nature of intimidation.

The troll street sam pointing a gun in someone's face should get results, unless for some reason the person in question is 100% certain they're bulletproof, 100% certain that worse things than getting their ass blown off by a troll street sam await them if they comply with the troll, or certain that it's a bluff.

He'll get results. He will get the person telling him whatever they think he wants to hear. Terrorizing is not intimidation, because it lacks the finesse to correct for panic induced lies.

Heheheheheh. Good times.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Which is where the skill comes into play IMO. The attribute that is based on is hard to say though. What constitutes a base attribute. The thing is just being big and scary causes people unrest making intimidation easier, being convincing also helps intimidation. Where does the skill end and the attribute begin on things like being smooth though. Which is the bigger factor is hard to say, both should have an effect wich should e the core and which the bonus I don't know though game balance should have some say on it. I tend towards charisma as the main with strength providing bonus dice because it keeps the interaction skills in the Face wheelhouse. You basically only need a couple interaction skills, nice guy manipulate, mean guy manipulate, neutral manipulate. Giving the mean one away to another attribute is a big hit to Faces.

He'll get results - but that doesn't mean it will be the results he WANTS.

You could say the same thing about a smarmy high elf charisma guy trying to intimidate you. What you are describing is more reflective of levels in a skill than an attribute.

I rather disagree with you there. Being in general more able to influence people will impact your ability to influence them through intimidation. The mere fact of being a potential threat isn't actually enough to have an intimidation attempt be taken seriously.

When you find lists of "Hollywood's scariest actors," it's not necessarily the physically imposing guys that fill those ranks, right? I mean, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro aren't huge guys, and weren't huge when they filmed Heat, with all those staredowns. Clint Eastwood was never as big as the Rock. Michael Shannon's not some linebacker-sized steroid dude. Christopher Walken's hardly a physical monster.

There's more to being intimidating than being imposing. Being imposing can offer you some modifiers to those rolls, sure (and, in fact, it does!)...but to really be scary, to really be good at that staredown, at the cold delivery, at the gravelly-voiced threat that turns mens' bowels to water...you need some Charisma and the right skill, too. You need to say the right words, and believably, just like you have to with any other social skill.

To everyone who's doubting, just think of Andre the Giant pointing a firearm that has more in common with light antitank weapons than handguns in your face and telling you he wants <whatever>, and he wants it now.

Is this a good way to get your legwork done, or get information out of a prisoner during an interrogation? No.

However, it's a great way to get someone who might otherwise think that offering armed resistance to you is a good idea to reconsider his position on the matter and decide that he'd really rather sit down and pretend to be a statue for the next twenty minutes, or to get someone in possession of an access code or item you require to surrender the code. It's fucking great for simple things wherein the intimidator is attempting to compel your immediate action, or to surrender information that will be immediately verifiable. (The access code doesn't work -> you catch a bullet the size of God.)

Yes, making what you want a person to do become the most rational decision will generally get what you want done. It is not the same as intimidation, which seeks to cause an irrational reaction.

"Fezzik, tear his arms off."

I'm sorry, couldn't resist the perfect setup. I'm not sure which side of the arguement that scene supports, but I'd guess I'd say that Fezzik is a situational bonus towards Inigo's Intimidate check...

I think intimidation is easily summed up as...

"This is a Magnum '44. The most powerful handgun in the world. Now, I know what you're thinkin'. Did he fire six bullets or only five? Well, in all the excitement I can't remember either. So, you gotta ask yourself one question 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well... Do ya? Punk?"

or...

"You going to try and shoot me?... Go ahead. Pull the trigger... See what happens..."

Well capabilities of mages and hackers widen the horizon quite a bit on what is immediately verifiable.

And really it allways help to start with question you know the answer to, so you know whether he's lying or not.

Does anybody know the Karma costs to acquire and upgrade attributes, skill groups, skills, knowledge skills, and languages, spells, initiation, and contacts?

Many of the improvements for attributes and skills and stuff are laid out in tables that I lack the coding ability to replicate accurately in a forum post. Maybe someone else can come along and do so, but I can tackle the rest of it for ya: New specializations cost 7 karma, new Knowledge/Language skills are 1, a new Positive Quality (or the removal of a Negative Quality) are listed chargen costs x 2, new Spells are 5, new CF's are 4. Initiating is 10 + (grade x 3).

There are also training times listed (which can be modified, for instance by the Dependent Quality, since taking care of ______ sucks into your free time).

SEVEN for a specialization?! As in a skill specialization? 0-0

That's...a bit much than before. A little too much I'd say.

OTOH, Knowledge/Language skills went down, and CF's went up, making them more comparable to spells...that I'm fine with.

Also, what about the costs for Submerging?

Well it make sense if you look at it like this.

If you have a rating 7 skill it will cost 16 points to raise it to rating 8.
But you can spend less than half that and have a rating 9 in your specialization.
To get to a rating 9 skill from rating 7 would cost you 16 +18 or 34 karma.

It actually becomes cost effective at rating 1 to buy a specialization. Either spend 7 karma to get 3 dice with your specialization or spend 10 karma (4 + 6) to raise the skill to rating 3 from rating 1.


On the flipside the first level of a skill or language is no longer double cost to learn. So to get rating 1 of an active skill costs 2 points in SR5 not 4 like in SR 4.

And with some karma points to spend at character creation you can round out your character's skill set with the skills he should know just a little bit about without reducing the rating of his main skills.

... Wait, what? Complex Forms are seen as less valuable when factoring Karma costs, but more valuable by far for Priority? The hell? At priority A, you get 5 forms or ten spells. At B, 7 or 2. At C, 5 and 1. What's the logic here?

I'm just quotin' the book, man.

I know, it's just... I very much surprised by the contradiction. I was kinda thinking "Hey, they figure 5 Complex Forms are as good as 10 spells - can't wait to see the new Complex Forms!" - at first glance, it seems like either that's mistaken and thus the Priority distribution is screwed up, or the Karma cost is screwed up. There's possibilities relating to diminishing returns, as well, but...

Well, I guess that all depends on what the SR5 CFs actually do, since it's already been made clear that they are not 1:1 copies of standard Matrix programs like they were in SR4.

Their actual value does very much depend. My point is more that the rules such that I'm now aware of seem to be incapable of making a decision on that value - Priority holding that they're substantially more valuable (A has it at 2 spells : 1 CF, B at 7:3 if I remember it right, and C at 5:1) and Karma that they're slightly less valuable. That would certainly seem to be a contradiction, unless there's some reason why the value of CF's versus spells should differ so greatly in chargen versus after chargen.

More simply: What we can infer about the value of Complex Forms from Priority directly contradicts what we can infer about the value of Complex Forms from Karma.

My guess is that there are just significantly fewer Complex Forms than spells, so in the long run (actually even in the very short run) 5 Complex Forms is simply a greater fraction of all that a Technomancer can do.

I was thinking something similar and that maybe 5 covers most or all the bases so extra forms have serious diminished vlaue.

Yeah, I think it had been mentioned earlier in a different thread that there are supposed to be 14 CFs in the core book.

Wouldn't really work if TMs get a 1:1 loadout compared to magicians if they're going to take up almost all of the CFs in the book. (naturally, this will change once the SR5 Matrix book gets released)

None of that sounds like a good thing.

Due to the existence of splatbooks and thus the probable increase in the number of Complex Forms that would be available, the assumptions of that design could become invalidated leading to serious issues. Further, if that's really the reason, why in the hell is it just as expensive as 10 spells in Priority? If that's the basis, shouldn't there be some other bonus to compensate so that Technomancer A is as valuable as Magician A?

If 5 Complex Forms is really that large a share for what a technomancer can do, there's not going to be much by way of variety possible in technomancers. Assuming Technomancer Riggers are still an option, that has to be split between the two of them so that there's a pretty small number available to each. If Technomancers can no longer be riggers, then (a) there's still going to be quite a bit of overlap from one to the next, and (b) why the hell not?

I mean, I need to see the system - I simply lack the data to make definitive conclusions - but from what I can infer I'm worried about what might have happened to one of my favourite character types to play.

It's a pretty simple idea: spells are intrinsically more valuable, but starting out a mage needs X spells and a technomancer needs Y complex forms.

They're also apples and oranges. They're apples and oranges that can't even exist in the same basket. Comparing them directly is foolish, because you can't ever be in a position to agonize over buying a spell rather than a complex form.

Ah, but they do fit into the same resource scale. I can certainly understand technomancers not needing as many Complex Forms, but that doesn't at all address the issue - that being that if Complex Forms are, in general, less valuable to a technomancer than spells are to a mage, then either a 'mancer should get more forms at a given priority step or there should be something else in addition to the Forms that they get at the priority step - like, say, Technical skills.

Complex Forms and spells are certainly not combinable, nor are they even mutually exclusive options (as they're subsidiary to the actual mutually exclusive options), but that does not mean that they cannot be compared.

Again, I'm holding off on reaching any actual conclusions until I can see and analyze the system in full - but on this particular point, I'm not at the moment optimistic.

No, they really don't fit in the same resource scale. At least not in a comparable way. Spells are worth Karma and Money. Presumably Complex Forms are just worth Karma. Technomancy is also worth a rating somethingsomething Deck equivalent, which is worth hundreds of thousands of Nuyen. You can't buy magic abilities if you don't already have them.

So already we're not in any shape to compare what some of these things are 'worth' in some sort of 'balancing' way.

If you want to try, you have to compare Deckers to Technomancers, because they work the same field. Mages don't enter into it. Just because a Complex Form looks kind of like a Spell and Resonance looks kind of like Magic doesn't mean they're in the same ballpark. Compare what a Decker can buy with Resources X versus what a Technomancer gets with Resonance X -- how good of a Deck versus various sets of mental attributes the Technomancer could buy, how many programs you can buy versus how many CFs you can take. How good at secondary abilities (combat, for example, or social, or technical) those characters can be.

Just drop the idea that CFs have to somehow compare directly to Spells. That's silly.

There is a direct nuyen/karma equivalency because you can exchange the latter for the former.

It's not silly at all, by the way. In case you haven't noticed, you use the same Priority resource to be a technomancer as to be a mage, and in a balanced system you should be getting the same end-value for that either way. Karma equivalent isn't a great metric the analyzing the value, but that's not exactly the point. In this particular context, and perhaps only in this context, Resonance+Forms HAS to compare directly to Magic+Spells.

No, you should be getting an appropriately powered starting character. If 10 CFs to start is too many, then it's too many.