SR5 priorties for skills

A 46/10
B 36/5
C 28/2
D 22/0
E 18/0

Skills groups can only be purchased with the second number (10,5,2,0,0). I would have rather seen an option where only a set number of points can be spent on groups out of the total skill points, it would avoid characters who have to purchase all skills from a group individually, ie the street sam with automatics, longarms, and pistols all at different levels out of the box.

Have any skill groups been removed from the SR 4 list of skill groups? Have any been added?

What about active skills?

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

*does quick cross check*

skill groups for SR5
Acting (con, impersonation, performance)
Athletics ( gymnastics, running, swimming)
biotech (same as sr4
close combat (same as sr4
conjuring (same as sr4
cracking (same as sr4
electronics ( computer, hardware, software)
enchanting (alchemy, artificing, disenchanting
firearms (same as SR4
Influence ( Etiquette, leadership, negotiations)
Engeineering (Same as the mechanic groups form SR4
Outdoors ( same as Sr4
Sorcery ( same as Sr4
Stealth (disguise, palming, sneaking)
tasking (same as Sr4

I quite unhappy about this. This makes skill groups at chargen nearly impossible, if I'm interpreting it correctly. I could be altogether wrong, of course, as I haven't seen the full chargen rules.

Thanks! That was very, very generous of you to check. At the risk of taking advantage of that generousity... Were any Skill groups in SR 4 specifically not carried over into SR5? Or any individual skills dropped?

Or, based on the above, should I be able to accurately recreate a list of skills/skillgroups in SR5? Thanks!

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

DOdge is gone. Data Search got folded into Computers. Infiltration and Shadowing got recombined into Sneaking. I think one or two other skills got grouped up with like-skills to simplify things.

All Skill Groups have only 3 skills per group, instead of a mix of 3 & 4, to even out the "value" of skill groups (WIth the exception of Engineering (Mechanics), which retains the 4 Vehicle Build/Repair skills).

Otherwise largely the same.

Full List of Individual Skills
Agility Based
Archery, Automatics, Blades, Clubs, Escape Artist, Exotic Melee Weapon (Specific), Exotic Ranged Weapon (Specific), Gunnery, Gymnastics, Heavy Weapons, Herding, Locksmith, Longarms, Palming, Pistols, Sneaking, Throwing Weapons, Unarmed Combat

Body Based
Diving, Free-Fall

Reaction Based
Pilot Aerospace, Pilot Aircraft, Pilot Exotic Vehicle (Specific), Pilot Ground Craft, Pilot Walker, Pilot Watercraft

Strength Based
Running, Swimming

Charisma Based
Animal Handling, Con, Etiquette, Impersonation, Instruction, Intimidation, Leadership, Negotiation, Performance

Intuition Based
Artisan, Assensing, Disguise (includes makeup and enhancement), Interests Knowledge, Language, Navigation, Perception, Street Knowledge, Tracking

Logic Based
Academic Knowledge, Aeronautics Mechanic, Arcana, Armorer, Automotive Mechanic, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Computer, Cybertechnology, Cybercombat, Demolitions, Electronic Warfare, First Aid, Forgery, Industrial Mechanic, Hacking, Hardware, Medicine, Nautical Mechanic, Professional Knowledge, Software

Willpower Based
Astral Combat, Survival

Magic Based
Alchemy, Artificing, Banishing, Binding, Counterspelling, Disenchanting, Ritual Spellcasting, Spellcasting, Summoning

Resonance Based
Compiling, Decompiling, Registering

With better grouping can the skill in a group be used as a default at reduced value or is it still Attribute -1?

Still Att -1.

w00t!

Freaking Outstanding. Thank you, all.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Great, another use for agility.

What does this skill do?
rest of them where quite easy to figure out, but this one has me scratching my head.

That's a good question.

Herding in the farm sense is to control/guide a group of animals to where you want them to go, say from one field to another or to load them into transport. Often using animal companions to assist, like sheep or cattle dogs

If it's not for farm use then no clue.

Yeah i kinda assumed its not that

Actually it might be though.. they have Animal Handling listed as well.

These may be skills listed for people wanting to raise/train animals like security forces working with their hellhounds or such often have to bond with them early.

Biodrones also run to mind.

You can also use the 25 Karma to bump a skill group up.

And don't forget to put some points in the STILL Group (manufacture: Moonshine, Beer & Rum)

Skill groups still have a uneven value.(and cost way too much much as wel). Some skill gourps contain less useful skills and other skill gorups are so narrowly focussed that one skill in the group covers 90% of the funciton of the rest of the skills.(firearms being the main example)

Dodge is gone? So how does Full Defense work in SR5?

Well gymnastics is still aorund for I guess dodge actions, but I think in the preview full defense added your willpower to the dodge pool for the entire conbat turn.

You can spend 5 initiative points to roll Reaction+Gymnastics against a single attack, or spend 10 initiative points to roll Reaction+Willpower against all incoming attacks during the turn.

Some one in the official forums errata thread posted that herding is infact a specialization of animal handling and not a separate skill.
So you where right about what it's for and i was kinda right in thinking that the skill can't be it(as its not infact a new skill)

Is Climbing gone or got folded into any other skill (Gymnastics, maybe)?

love,
Sunshine

Gid I hate the climbing skill. Don't get me wrong scaling a wall, a mountain etc it makes sense for a skill but the difficulties in pretty much every game I have seen have been absurd for basic climbing tasks. It is like average people will have a 25% chance of failing to climb a ladder and a decent chance of falling off it. A lot more climbing tests shold be automatic.

Yes, Climbing is now a specialization of Gymnastics instead of a separate skill.

You keep trying to spin this Bull.. and it's not working for me. The only thing I can half get behind is combining some things like shadowing/infiltration... and even then i'm not 100% as there's a huge difference between the two. The intuition link for shadowing made a lot more sense than agility would if that link was broken (or using something such as use agility for these purposes of the skill but use intuition or logic for these).


Sounds like you've successfully made skill groups an even a worse deal than they were in SR4 then.

Skills only ever come into play for skill + ATTRIBUTE. ATTRIBUTES set the limits (even worse idea! loved the idea of equipment sets limits instead of dice... absolutely hate the concept that attributes also set your limits!).

I would have much rather seen skill groups with 4 meaningful skills each then. Especially since with priority... you need to spend a lot of priority on skills to get more than say 2 points worth of them at priority C.


Gymnastics is the skill which should have disappeared not dodge. Gymnastics got cheesed to death with cyber/bio. Also there was a link with dodge being the one stop shop for riggers (who could use dodge skill on full defense... and astral mages where their dodge skill was the only other skill besides 'astral combat' which could defend against astral attackers and astral attackers got a whole lot nastier in SR5!!!).

Only 3 skills per group was also a step in the wrong direction. All of them should have been kept or increased to 4 per group to make them worthwhile investments. (such as adding heavy weapons to 'firearms'). I'm all for combining a handful of skills. But at 10x new rank in karma for a skill group vs 10x new rank in attribute... there is no contest... you buy up the attribute even if it is slightly more expensive to raise it slightly higher than the skill.

If I had a mage and 50 karma... I was far better raising magic from 9->10 than I was raising sorcery and conjuring groups for 25 each to 5 each... there was no contest. Everything I've seen in this thread has just made this even worse... (as now there is a 3rd magical skill group for enchanters). Meaning for pretty much all purposes you want high attribute low skill... (to avoid defaulting, nothing more).

There is nothing in the rules limiting extended tests to your rank in the skill for example... which would make having more than 1 rank and a ton of logic boosters quite a bit more relevant to mechanics/riggers. Instead boosting logic increases limits. Increases the dice pool (and extended tests are based off the size of the dice pool if the -1 per test rule is still in effect).


Really can anyone here make a cogent argument why it takes as much to raise an inferior (to SR4) skill group as opposed to raising the link attribute at the x10 karma cost?

...This just flew out of left field. Where's the spin. I asked a question. Bull gave a factual response.

It's stupid, unnecessarily hostile rants like that that remove the incentive for content contributors to answer questions.

Sheesh!

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Agreed!

Thanks for the info.

I've would have liked to see specializations on skill groups.

That is a PC can pick one skill out of a skill group and a standard specialization.

So Firearms 5 (SMG). It is fast, simple, takes up very little room on the character sheet.

A PC can then still have a favorite weapon while remaining well rounded with all firearms.
The balance is that he can only have one specialization for the skill group instead of one specialization per skill.

It would be nice if you could spend a skill group point to pick up all the skills then spend skill points to boost some of the skills higher.
Like Electronics 1, Hardware 5 for 1 skill group point and 4 skill points.

It would be nice at character creation if you could spend 2.5 skill points to get a skill group instead.
On the flip side skill groups don't tell you that much about the character.

Maybe in the companion.

I don't have the book, so can't say whether or not this is in the rules, but i would expect most GM:s to allow breaking of skill groups in chargen.
Both so that you can raise some skills higher then the rest and so that you can get specialization for the skills.

Someone said earlier that skill groups are more explicitly fluid and can be broken and reformed almost at will.

For some reason I thought that you couldn't split them during the initial raises (drawn from your 'Skills' priority), but they could be split during the karma spending element of Chargen.

I.E, You can't raise a skillgroup to 3 with Skillgroup points, then add skill points on top of that to bump up the skills contained in that group farther with initial skill points. You can, however, break that group when you're spending your 25 ChargenKarma.

Take the above with a grain of salt, however, as I'm operating on memory of knowledge dispersed in threads and am not an actual SR 5 book owner.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

I am not a medic but may play one on SR

No, you forget Bull has a profit motive in this. As one of the writers he gets paid for his work. He's a professional, far more professional than many of the writers I might add. In fact, he's one of the better posters I find, he does a great job fronting for the company even back to when he was one of the dumpshock admins here.


I voiced 'new' opinions. Things I haven't seen posted anywhere on a SR5 thread. Relevant to the topic. You fail to take constructive criticism for what it is.

I'm not nor never will be a 'cheerleader' for the authors. I cannot see the current skill group system as an improvement from the old. A little bit of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism goes a long way towards improving the quality of future work.


As far as allowing a specialization within the skill group... it kind of misses the point. The point is that the skills within the group get a training discount provided they aren't specialized/uneven. Given how much weaker groups are now... it might be worthwhile. But I'd much rather see *worthwhile* skill groups in the first place! Which is exactly what was removed!


I'm sorry based on the 'new' information of what comprises the skill groups and skill changes it has lowered my opinion of the new game, not raised it.

What bar did you use to make this assessment? This is not a criticism. I want to assess your process so I can determine if it meets my personal standards or If I need to do the work myself.

I would expect a good writer to stand behind his work, but remember that each writer is only working on one part of the project.
And they have to follow the decisions made by the Design Lead.

I think you and I have different ideas on what constructive criticism looks like.

Especially when someone is taking the time to answer our questions.
Bull has all of 4 lines of text and is almost purely providing yes or no clarification to our questions.

Bull: "DOdge is gone. Data Search got folded into Computers. Infiltration and Shadowing got recombined into Sneaking. I think one or two other skills got grouped up with like-skills to simplify things.

All Skill Groups have only 3 skills per group, instead of a mix of 3 & 4, to even out the "value" of skill groups (WIth the exception of Engineering (Mechanics), which retains the 4 Vehicle Build/Repair skills).

Otherwise largely the same."

Bull: "Still Att -1."

Not much room for spin.

I feel just as strongly about a few of the changes, but you are shooting the messenger.

Okay look at SR4... typically a face would take the social skill group... then either take the disguise skill solo.. or for more utility get the entire stealth group.

So for your typical A-team style 'face/infiltrator' you typically had two important skill groups... influence covering all the critical social talking skills. Etiquette, negotian, & con (with the niche skill leadership as a bonus). Then stealth covering 'disguise' and 'shadowing'... with infiltration & palming being secondary skills for sneaking around once you've already talked your way in. Or doubling with some combat utility... sneaking and ambushing things using infiltration. The last big social skill 'intimidation' was never part of the groups.


Now in order to do the same thing... the face will most likely completely ignore the 'influence group' as he doesn't get 3 worthwhile skills in it. He'll need etiquette and negotiation as always. However the stealth group is now smaller merely because infiltration/shadowing have been combined. Now you have the Acting group.

So to do the same thing you could before in terms of skills... you now need two skill groups and two skills... (or 3 skill groups if you include the niche skill leadership). Those extra skills in the past would often be something like a combat skill rounding out the character. (so the hacker needs things to do using his specialty in combat... faces now need to spend even more just to be a face... not always have things to do in combat... and have less points available to pick up non-face activities).




In a nutshell the skill groups have been nerfed in two ways in the push to make everything 'equal' and all skill groups have 3 skills:
1. combining two skills inside the group into one... many people already ignored the stealth group in favor of infiltration only... that got a big buff as now infiltration (an already strong skill) got far stronger with the addition of the shadowing portfolio. Unless both other skills in the group are solid... there is less reason to take the one skill and ignore the group.

2. Moving what was a key skill to a new group and destroying the old groups value. This is demonstrated with the case of Con gonig from Influence -> Acting. The influence group which is left is noticably weaker with questionable skills making the group as a whole less appealing.

Two more ways which are a bit less obvious as they're much more in the crunch mechanics...0
3. Priority.... A 10 skill groups,, B. 5 skill groups... C 2 IIRC... are weaker skill groups a good selling point for simply investing more into attributes to start with?!

If you didn't get the skill groups in the first place with priority then... you're left with karma expenditure.
4. Advancement costs... Are you seriously telling me the new smaller skill groups are worth 5x rank when all they do is add dice to a few tests and nothing else? compare that to 5x rank for an attribute which does that and more.


At the end of the day I have a hard time seeing most people not simply dump 10 karma to get the group learned at rank 1 to get trained use of the skill. Then ignoring it afterwards or only advancing 1 skill in the group from that point on.

That said... one big question is did double cost for the first rank in a skill/skill group go away? Even that is double edged though... as 1 rank in skill/whatever paired with bigger attribute worked the best in SR4 generally. Lower cost there means more karma to raise attributes as opposed to buy more skill.

You make a good point on the Intuition for shadowing, but for all we know to shadow someone you use Sneak plus Intuition.
And if we don't, then as the GM you can make it so.

Thank You Falconer. Your assessment has prompted me to add my own assessment on this aspect of the game once I get the book. I personally think your criteria are flawed because they compare SR4 to SR5, and the systems are sufficiently different to make that comparison mathematically suspect. However it does raise sufficient concern to warrant a SR5 to SR5 analysis once it is released. thank You for explaining your process.

Personally I like the standardization of the number of skills in a Skill group.

Dodge and Gymnastics were always a problem even if it was humorous when an NPC had a dodge skill listed but their higher athletic skill group meant that they actually had a higher Gymnastic skill.

This also makes me feel better about the number of skills provided at Character creation.
More combined skills mean the skill point totals will go further.

Also not having to spend extra karma to learn a new skill helps too.

You can afford to spend all your priority skill points are getting good at your primary skills and then spend 10 karma and pick up 5 skills at rating 1.

No. There isn't one. There is no logical reason for skill groups to be levelx5 when attributes do that to multiple gorups and more. It was blazingly obvous in SR4 and even more obvious in 5e. When things this obvious get missed it makes me wonder about the rest of the system.

I can agree, but it is also perfectly reasonable that a non specialist Shadowrunner is going to be in top physical form.

They are like professional athletes where the physical conditioning of their bodies is necessary for the job.
And they have even more skin in the game than a professional athlete because the stakes are life or death.

So it is just natural the prime runners stats most used in their field of expertise will be very high.
I expect a street samurai will have a high Agility and Reaction. Likely a high Strength.
Face is going to have near max Charisma.
A Decker will (at least in 5th) have a high Logic.

And stats will eventually max out while skills can go to rating 12.

That is always good, it's just very annoying that they standardized all to the level of bad skill groups instead of making all of them good for their value.

Coming from the nightmare that was running the tail end of 3rd edition with all the different rules mechanisms, I admit that I'm prone to like systems that use the same mechanics through out.

So far it looks like SR5 is taking one of the best features of SR4 and refining it.

On that note, does SR5 do away with Matrix rolls being Skill + Program instead of Attribute + Skill? I've always used that optional rule from Unwired, but it would be nice to see it made RAW.

I have never viewed shadowrunners as peak human. Athletic sure, but not peak human.

Yes. It's Attribute + Skill now.

Also, it's now vital that a Face get Leadership, as some of their core abilities are now tied to it.

But I said primer runners.
Best of the best.
And a few runners become prime runner.

I wouldn't expect a lot of the Prime runner to be Olympic medal caliber (Human maximum (a seven stat for a human)) but I would expect most of them to be in the top 5% for their field of expertise.
Not a stretch to say a human primer runner would have a five or a six in his or her top most used stats.

So it is natural for a runner that just hit the big time to continue to improve.
Even on the physical side, you can see a successful Runner having more time to train and better resources.
Certainly I think it perfectly natural for Intuition and Willpower to improve as the runner gets more experience.

And a case can be made that an experience Veteran runner might be able to "Do more with what he had" while the bullet were flying, then a young kid with better reflexes and less field experience.\

I don't disagree that stats may be too good a buy right now, but I don't see it as a major problem.
Stats do max out and skills now have a while lot of room to grow.

Etiquette - Pretty imporatnt for a Face, really, and typicially the route people go if only picking up one social skill. Valuable.

Negotiation - Do I really have to explain why this one is good? Valuable.

Leadership - You clearly haven't seen the new Leadership rules; it got awesome. Valuable.

Part of what they seem to have done is increase the value of the less valuable skills - notably, they've also increased the number of skills the Face needs to carry as part of an apparent push to make each role require somewhat similar chargen investment.

I do think that they should have altered the comparative costs of skill groups and attributes (something like leaving groups at x5 and putting attributes at x7, for example) and changed the base Karma rate accordingly, but keep in mind that there are times where you might want to go for the group imprrovement over the attribute improvement - any time that Group Rating < Attribute rating, for example, you might be better off. Sure, you could use the extra Karma to get the boost to more things, but what if you need to use that Karma for something else yet?