so, i think it's indisputable that the current priority gen system is fucked up. i had a nice chat with wakshaani and others in the military magic thread regarding a bit of a rebalance, and i think that's a good start. however, i think if we're going to fall back towards 3rd ed as hard as 5 tries to, we really should go all the way. therefore, my modest proposal:

skills and money are fine as is. could bump A up to 500000, i guess. give everybody 50 karma and double the costs and bonuses of the qualities, so it's real karma and not faux crap. 2000 nuyen per karma, as per missions. 10 karma a pop for power points for mystic adepts.

race: E human, D Elf/Ork/Dwarf, C Troll. No fucking special attribute points, because they are stupid.

attributes: as per 3rd ed: 30/27/24/21/18. the trick? that's for your edge and your magic if you have it. does it sting, mages? too bad, magicrun is over.

magic: two proposals, one of which is in line with the shadowrun 5 thinking on how mystic adepts work, the other of which i think is more actually fair.

proposal 1: magic a: mystic adept, magic 3. magic b: full mage, magic 3. magic c: adept or aspected magician, magic 5.
magic d: adept or aspected magician, magic 3.

rationale: magic 3 is the new magic 6, in terms of what "average" magic is supposed to be in world. if mystic adepts are mage plus, make them pay appropriately. also, it's kind of worth being aspected now. no free skills for nobody. if i was less inclined to be generous, i'd say everybody other than adepts and aspected mages starts at magic 1.

proposal 2: magic a: full mage, magic 3. magic b: aspected adept, magic 3. magic c: adept or aspected magician, magic 3. magic d: knack (magic 1, and either sorcery/alchemy for one spell or conjuring for one type of spirit 1(3), or counterspelling/banishing/disenchanting 2, or astral perception and assensing 2;

aspected adept is exactly what it sounds like. you pick an aspect, you get adept powers too, that's it. this leads to a nice magical progression of costs and fixes mage plus in the process. A is four times as good as C, and B is twice as good as C in terms of capability. knacks only get the free skill to balance them a little more.

either system makes being an ultra-rare mage actually cost comparatively as much as being an ultra-rare mage should, and it's no longer mandatory for mundane humans to walk around with 5 edge (which is either a design oversight or a hilarious admission of how fucked mundane humans are otherwise. the whole race is subsisting on dumb luck, evidently).

i'd also love to see restrictions on spirit type by terrain come back for all summoning (spirit of EARTH! in sterile research lab on the 40th floor! uh, no). i'd also like a pony and a blowjob. not from the pony! big scary teeth on horses.

thoughts?

Your opinion that the system being screwed up is indisputable? I dispute it. For lots of reasons, but mainly because it's not this ridiculous CF that people make it out to be.


That said, here are 2 thoughts on your suggestions:
Regarding your attribute spread: 30 points at Priority A attributes to distribute over 9 (or 10, for awakened or 'mancers) attributes? So basically you *want* people to minmax? You're going to have a ton of Cha 1, Bod 6 situations with that few points to cover everything, including Edge.

Magic values:
You clearly aren't a fan of magic dominating. That's fine. But if Magic 3 is the new average for your system, why did you spontaneously give Magic 5 to adepts and aspected? Why do they get to be so much further above average? Consistency is key. If everyone else gets 3 magic, so too should those two.


I don't agree with your system, but that's the beauty of house rules. I don't have to.

i submit you did not do the math here: 24/8 gives you scores of 4 in all attributes (remember the free point), 30/9 gives you, hey, scores of 4 in all attributes and three points to spare. mages are in no way screwed by this situation, nor is minmaxing any more encouraged than it already was. if anything, A attributes really ought to be 27 or magic really should start at 1 for mages and mystic adepts. so kind of a backhanded nice catch there. this is assuming you agree with the overall points distributions of 5th ed, which you may not. 30/6 attributes in 3rd ed would have been 5s across the board (I think there wasn't a free point, book not in front of me right now), so you could actually bump this up to 32 or 35 if you wanted that sort of situation.

the reason to give magic 5 to adepts and aspected mages at priority C is that they flat suck next to full mages and mystic adepts. there needs to be a huge payoff for giving up astral projection or adept abilities plus two or three whole other schools of magic. the lack of astral projection fucks alchemists really hard, kinda fucks conjurers and reduces the utility of sorcerers considerably, and adepts have to give up a whole power point to get it still. this is why i think it's very difficult to dispute that the current priority system is screwed, both in terms of overall karma cost and especially with regard to magic. e.g. priority C mages and mystic adepts get magic 3 and so do aspected magicians. oh, sure, they get a free skill group, but that's the shitty consolation prize next to being buttfuck awesome at all magic ever if you want to be. the karma doesn't add up and the game balance sure as hell doesn't add up either. it may not be indisputably retarded in an ontological sense, sure. but good luck defending that.

as far as i know, an attribute of 3 has been average in every version of shadowrun. magic was an aberration until 4th edition.

I did forget the first free point, true. Though you yourself made a slight error. It's always divided by 9, not 8, as you mention on the 24 point spread. That's less than 4 in everything that way, unless you're keeping Edge at 1. But then, you're not at 4 in everything.

Hrm. In looking at it, your spreads don't present that much variation. That's odd. 3 in every stat at lowest, 4 in every stat at 2nd highest. Odd. So much for that.
Also, are you wanting to shift attribute points such that we have the negatives and positives that we did back in 3E and earlier? You know, the -2 to Cha on Trolls so you needed to sink 2 points there just to break even at a Cha 1?

Whereas I can understand your view on adepts vs others, the point I made was consistency. If adepts want a leg up, they start with more attribute points, and raise their magic higher at the beginning. That's their benefit. After all, they're only priority C. They can take A for Attributes and have a happy day. By the same token, just because people think that mages are OMGWTFBBQ, doesn't mean that others automatically should be fed a silver spoon. That's my opinion of it anyway. My suggestion is to stay consistent. Make starting magic 3 across the board regardless.

i'm going to take a stab at karmagen too, incidentally, which may be a bit more balanced by definition. wasn't thinking of the attribute penalties, though, honestly; those are an interesting idea, but it think they don't work as well in 4 or 5 as back in the day. the 24/8 example was to demonstrate the current version's A priority attributes. remember, those points cannot be put on edge or magic.

If you plan to take a stab at karmagen, be prepared to take a raft of crap for it. There are massive differing opinions on what things should cost. It's been known to cause conflicts before.

And will again, to be sure.