QUOTE (apple @ Sep 22 2014, 03:22 AM)
What part of character creation? I admit I only created a handful of characters for myself and another handful for my group (complete newbies), so perhaps 10-15 max. The attributes, skills and special gadgets (magic etc) were done usually in less than 30 min - it was the equipment of street samurais, riggers and hackers which blow up the process (that and the dreaded sensor rules in SR4). But that is no difference between SR12345, regardless the creation system.
Of course the BP system could be improved (i like smaller numbers and never understood why we had to go from 120 points to 400 with costs from 1 increasing to 4 for the same attribute for example).
All of it, really. The back-and-forth was a big problem: players would spend time getting their attributes just right, only to discover they were short on skills. So, they went back and adjusted, taking forever. Then, they didn't have enough for equipment, so they had to go back and cut even more stuff so they could buy gear they needed. There was also a lot of gear that was needed just to function, and ofttimes they were overlooked. Some things, like commlinks, could be fixed easily; but others, like good Fake SINs, were too expensive to just handwave. After doing this, players might come short for contacts, or miss it entirely, which is severely crippling in SR4.5. And then, there's the specific stuff for each archetype, like CF's and spells. I already told you about the player who didn't know she needed CF's, and I've seen many mages go back and redo large sections of their character so they could get one more spell.
QUOTE
What do you say to the problem that a priority system creates vastly different characters, depending on the choice of order for priorities (if you re-calculate it back to the karma or point system)?
Overall balance is more important than karma equivalency. Really, Shadowrun has always been a front-loaded system: you get most of your abilities right at the start, and later gains are mostly a refinement on what you already have. Compare this to D&D, where most of your abilities come as you level. Both systems work fine, they just do different things. In a front-loaded system, it's all right to have a different build system than an advancement one.
What's more, karma equivalency depends on karma costs being balanced in the first place. IN SR4.0, they weren't-- attributes were way too good for their costs, and karmagen was never officially fixed to solve this. SR3 was better in this regard, since attributes were slightly overpriced. They didn't factor directly into your dice pools, so raising an attribute was somewhat balanced against raising a skill.
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Sep 22 2014, 08:28 AM)
A Min/Maxer works inside the rules.
Bending is not prohibited.
With munchkins you can be glad if he adheres somewhat to the rules usually.
Bending them into pretzel shapes as needed to work within his interpretation.
Well, sorta. A min/maxer is a player who likes to optimize. Nothing wrong with that, as long as the player is responsible. Munchkin is a playstyle, where the player constantly tries to be the best at everything and steal the spotlight from everyone else. Many munchkins are also min/maxers, but not always. Usually, they'll twist the rules into Esher-esque pretzels, but yes, they'll cheat as well. Sometimes you run across munchkins who aren't min/maxers, like the "serious roleplayers"-- the ones who will try and use their roleplaying skills instead of character stats, for example. They might play a Charisma 1 Uncouth Troll, and rely on their natural skills to solve social situations... and then whine when you make them roll dice.
QUOTE (Fatum @ Sep 22 2014, 09:14 AM)
No, actually, it pretty obviously doesn't. You can have a streetsam as optimized as possible in your party, he won't hack the world and banish spirits.
Since optimization is specialization when the resources are limited, this becomes just a question of challenging each of your characters adequately.
That's where system mastery comes into play, My SR5 adept killed a force 6 toxic spirit by shooting it repeatedly, so who needs banishing? A pornomancer has such a crazy high Charisma, they can use a Test of Will to demolish spirits. Also, pornomancers can get critical successes on Con tests to get an NPC decker to hack the world for them.
QUOTE
To add to this, noticing spellcasting, if I remember, has a threshold of 6-Force. So an overcast stanball is going to be quite a firework.
Noticing a spell does you no good when you're unconscious.
QUOTE
Even what you call the ubiquitous Stunball was not as useful as you claim it to be since most opposition take such things into account and did not bunch up.
Harder than you might think. A Force 5 stunball has a radius of 5 meters, which means it's a circle over 30 feet in diameter. That can cover most of a room. Overcast Force 10 stunballs were disturbingly easy to resist Drain on, and those cover a circle of about 70 feet in diameter.
I had a GM who tried that: he said that inside the office building, each of the guards were spread out, more than 10 meters apart. I had to point out to him that, in order for that to work for 10 guards, the room would have to be larger than a football field.