Can you take specializations for skills inside a skillgroup during CHARGEN, spending 1 skill point for it?

Example:

INFLUENCE 6
--negotiation (bargaining)

No, you need to break up the skillgroup first. As far as I know this can only be done in the Karma stage of the chargen.

Ask yourself this.

Does it somehow make skills even worse? If the answer is yes chances are that is what they went with in SR 4-5 the attribute editions.

Seriously, they cost as much to boost as attributes and you still have to break them up to make them even less cost effective to specialize. I really want to know the reasoning on this, the lack of cost differential between skill groups and attributes is insane. What were the maths they were working with here?

5

There's a few points that might be involved with the reasoning:

- Both are options for generalists, and the intent might be for the generalist to be attribute-loaded.
- It may be worth it to raise the group when the Attribute is already at a higher rating (especially if that group is all or nearly all you use the attribute for)
- As skills now scale to higher values than attributes, a character who has maxed the linked attribute (a condition which covers many, many, many probable characters) would be choosing simply between skills and skill groups.

Basically, the intent of it appears to be that skill groups are a secondary thing, and under that notion the costs sort of make sense. If you want skill groups to be something that characters can viably focus on to the exclusion or de-emphasis of attributes, then raising attribute costs to something like 7*New Rating and providing a commensurate increase to Karma rewards would be workable. This also alters Magic/Resonance scaling, though.

I guess the math starts with the skills. Skillgroups simply cost the equivalent of 2.5 skills, while covering 3.

Yes, the skill groups are priced reasonably in isolation. The complaint goes to the relationships between game elements.

Like it has been said, atributes are a basis, but they only take so far. If you where to take only attributes, your pools would be poor in the long run.

Also skills, even though in a skill group do not necessarily make use of the same attribute, so they affect different pools than a single attribute does. Their Range is (in most cases) higher, which may also be worth an investment.
One probably would want to go for single skills at higher levels though.

All in all, to shift, this you would need to either make attributes more expensive or skills cheaper. Both will likely come with an adjustment of the recommended Karma reward.

For me, I play in a campaign, where it takes forever to earn some Karma, so I can allready scrap the idea of raising attributes alltogether. So from my point of view, things would likely get worse if one was to go and shift around the cost- and reward factors.

Skills for 1 x desired rating and thus skillgroups for 2.5 desired rating, would be very cheap but would surely put a strong focus on skills.
Having skills for 2 x and skillgroups for 4 x desired rating, would make them quite the deal (buy two, get three) and would shift the focus from single skills to skill groups.

While I have to admit, that I see some skills as redundant, unnecessary or badly designed / researched, I still think, that the focus is on skills instead of groups; with groups beign an option to gain broad coverage at a slower pace, than concentrating or specializing.

That being said, I do not think, that the relative cost is broken. You can however, should you run a game, modify your setting bey houseruling it.

Skill groups are almost impossible to get at chargen. For priorities A, B and C you get 10, 5 and 2 points, respectively. That's absurd to the point of even getting in the way of a lot of character concepts. Not to mention the unnecessary havoc it wreaks on wanting Aptitude, specializations, and one skill to simply be higher than the others in the group.

Priority Gen is not very forthcoming in matters of skillgroups, I agree, but I dislike it anyways.

Sure there are reasons why you will eventually go to skills but it shouldn't be because you ran out of attribute options. I'd rather drop skill costs than raise attribute costs, but I'm not too much against raising attributes since I think its odd that shadow runners end up as perfect human beings in their specialties. One attribute sure, but lots of times there are multiple capped before augmentation attributes and that seems a weird world design.

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Shinobi the problem is point granularity....

Skill costs can't go any lower. Knowledge skills set the basis for the least karma intensive things to raise.


I'd rather see the costs for everything except skills double.


SR4.5 had the right idea... they increased karma awards by 50%. Then increased attribute costs by 50% (which was in the right direction but still an utter joke in terms of costs comparatively between skills & attributes).

So in effect... skills and almost everything else did become cheaper... because karma awards went up proportional to the increase in attribute costs.


I'd rather see karma awards doubled... attribute costs doubled. Most other things left the same.

10x new rating is pretty karma intensive when on average you don't even make 10 karma/session, you're looking at people taking 5+ sessions to make a single increase to an attribute, seems pretty..harsh, especially since the attribute caps tend to be much lower

he said to double karma awards too.

i'd say that:

surviving
completed some objectives
and highest dice pool being 12 or better

are all fairly reasonable expectations (provided you ignore the nonsense about that higher dicepool only mattering if they actually meet the enemy... if they outplay the opponent so well that they never face said opponent, they shouldn't get less karma for it)

that right there is 5 karma under the old system. under the new system it would be 10 karma. complete all objectives and it's 6 karma old or 12 karma new. and probably just half the dice pool requirement rather than doubling the bonus so that you can get 1 per 3 dicepool rather than 2/6.

and this presumes the table doesn't have any rules for bonus karma for special situations or objectives, which seems fairly unlikely considering... well, let's just say that the table doesn't really offer much reward for an increase in risk. a run where the highest dice pool is 6-11 pays 1 less karma than a run with a highest dicepool of 12-17, which in turn pays 1 less karma than a run where the highest dicepool is 18-23. i dunno about you, but if my primary method of improving was to take easy jobs and get 5/7 the rewards as someone who decides to break into a facility run by one of the big ten where they're going to throw the worst they have at you, that doesn't sound like a very hard choice. it's not like it's worth a ton more cash going by the cash table either... and honestly, some of those cost modifiers you'd have to be bloody insane to want to earn. facing 3 different spirits in a single encounter? seriously? who in their right mind agrees to that for 3 grand? or the 3 grand you'd get for facing the red samurai instead of some nobody corporate drone...

honestly, the way those rewards are set up, i'd think you would see a pretty weird dynamic. the experienced runners should be fighting over who gets the milk runs, and if you're new you should have to fight your way through hell armed only with a rusty letter opener to be able to get to the big leagues where you get to fight over milk runs instead of getting sent into some horrific death trap where the pay is slightly better but you're probably going to end up dead or worse so you won't collect anyways.

I agree that the book's amounts are kind of....out there, thats why I only follow it as a very base guideline. but even so a Milk run, is not gonna pay much, maybe 2k with room to negotiate & then maybe a lil more depending on what actually happens on the run.

no, that's what a milk run *should* pay. what a milk run actually pays, according to the book, is either 3,000 or 6,000 nuyen (depending on largest dice pool being above 8 or not), potentially more if the run involves dealing with, say, a devil rat infestation or a bunch of ghouls armed with improvised clubs and knives. or a pack of dogs. or alternately, if the run involves fighting a small street gang, that would also bring it up another 3,000 according to the table. alternately, for 3,000 nuyen, you could go take on the red samurai. hmmmm.... golly gee, what a tough choice... i wonder which of those two things will be harder (actually, you're much more likely to get more from the devil rats, because if you get into a fight with 3 times as many of them as there are of you, that's another separate modifier)...

in short, the table is kinda crap. no sane human being should be thinking "oh, i'm taking on a fight against twice as many enemies (roughly each as strong as me) as i have allies? that'll be another 3,000 nuyen then. in a zero-zone? oh, well, better tack on another 3 grand".

the table just *really* does not reflect what should be reasonable. neither the cash or karma table does. i don't know that it can necessarily be perfectly represented with a table, but i do know that this particular table does an absolutely awful job of it.

well, personally if I'm being asked to run a Z-Zone against a pack of 10+ ghouls wielding actual weapons, I'm asking 10-20k minimum, thats purely for the risk factor & the extra gear I have to buy to ensure the job gets done. For me a Milk run is basically a quick & dirty data steal from a low level corp trying to make a name for themselves, steal their proprietary data, make an extra copy, take it to the client, & if not asked about extra, sell a copy to their competitors to even the playing field.

Are we talking about skills, or skill groups? Because they're two very different subjects, and I wouldn't agree that you're right on the consequences of skill costs versus attribute costs - raising skills remains the most efficient way to get better at a given thing, rather than set of things, so if that's what you're after it's what you go for. Adding new skills or improving low-level skills can also be a very good way to broaden your character's base a bit.



Doubled is too extreme, I'd say - something more like raising it to New Rating x 7 or 8 would be a little more in line.

Takes us at least that long for SR4A, even with the increase in Karma Awards. Probbaly because other things always creep up that you need to spend Karma on. I cannot actually remember a time that I raised an Attribute in game... even when receiving 200-300+ Karma over time.

A Z-Zone or a Zero Zone?
If a Z-Zone, your asking price is not all that bad, thoguh I would lean towards the high end, depending upon how many are in the team. Having had characters involved in a couple of scenarios like that, and having had characters die in most of them (entertainingly enough, usually just my character, and occasionally one other's), I can assure you that that particular setup is NOT a milk run. I hate ghouls.

Yeah sorry to hear about you breaking up with your ghoulfriend.

So is it true she only wanted you for your braiiiinnnsss?

Things happen, you know.
Indeed... apparently she was VERY interested for some strange reason. Still have not quite figured it out.