Hi,

This is about Shadowrun 5e.

I've seen a few references to "Augmented Maximum for Attributes". There was a giant discussion about it in here that got shut down: [SR5] Augmented Maximum for Attributes.

On Shadowrun Core Rulebook p. 94 under "Spend Your Ressources"



This mentions a combined cap for cyberware & bioware of +4. But it doesn't mention magic (spell & adept powers).

Under the Increase Attribute spell (SR5, s288):



This indicates that Augmented Maximums for abilities also counts for spell (and perhaps other magic effects).

So is it a cap for all types of augmentation (including magic) or just for cyberware/bioware? what about drugs?

And...

If we can't find source for an answer, what would your gamemaster ruling be? Does Augmented Maximums for Attributes also apply to Magic augmentations?

/A.

i THINK this kinda depends on the edition you are talking about a bit.
IF i remember correctly, SR3 had a slightly wonky and weird ruling about this.

SR5.

You already looked up the spell, so I looked up the adept powers. They also explicitly state that they are capped by the attribute maximum. So the cap seems to apply to cyberware, bioware, and magic. Cyberlimbs might be an exception, since they have their own, separate attributes. The combination of wired reflexes and reaction enhancers is, explicity, an exception if you are running both of them with wireless on. Drugs seem to be a grey area, as they were in SR4 - in the absence of an explicit rule, it is a GM call.

So there is no longer the good old 1.5 x racial attribute max? What was wrong with that?

Which one?
The 1.5x round up from SR3? Where you could actually pretty reliably reach the racial augmented max.
The 1.5x round down from SR4? Where reaching the augmented racial max at least for BOD became mostly impossible.
And SR5 changed it to ACTUAL ATTRIBUTE +4! if i remember correctly.
So, at STR1, you can not go above STR5 no matter what you do.
Well, not that you could go much beyond that ever before, simply because not much stacked with each other to go higher . .
And for BOD for example, as far as i know, you still cannot reach racial max anymore either . .

The straight +4 modifier isn't really that limiting, since most augmentations cap out around there anyways. It works out slightly better for metatypes like dwarves, who aren't stuck with an augmented maximum of 7 for Reaction any longer - now it is capped at 9 (assuming a base Reaction of 5), or even higher with the wired reflexes/reaction enhancers/wireless-on combo.

iirc, there was some wiggle room for cyberlimbs, which may or may not be an entirely separate attribute rather than augmenting your base attribute. but that's a whole different discussion which iirc has been had several time already

But there is still a natural racial maximum when using karma, so in that case the augmented maximum would be natural maxium +4 or current attribute +4, whichever is lower.

YOUR MAXIMUM MAXIMUM is NATURAL MAXIMUM +4. So, 10's for Humans.
Exceptional Attribute should change this i think?
Not sure if they still somewhere have that passus about rounding or not.
Your AUGMENTED MAXIMUM is CURRENT ATTRIBUTE +4. So 7 for Joe Shmoe Average Human.

it was the former Edition !
And CGL wanted to change some things/Rules.

Now in 5the Ed
the Augmented Max is a fixed +4 no Matter what.
Only exception is (Afair ) the WIFi combination of Wired Reflexes and REA enhancement in the BBB ( to lure Players/their Chars to Hook their Spine to WiFi Matrix, so that an enemy Decker can play Havoc with the 'ware and their Spine also, just read the Description of Bricking and Imagine what it does to your Spine )

BUT the +4 Augmented max is not with Cyberlimbs. They have their own Limit which is Racial Maximum (+3 with capacities )
so with Cyberarms your Human Char can have a natural STR/AGI of 1 and a Cyberarm STR/AGI of 6(9)
and igf you choose the Pos Quality exceptional Attribute 7(10)

with an exceptional Dance
Medicineman

The +4 rule was one I proposed early in the design process (During the initial meeting up in Seattle, which was just me, Jason, Randall Bills, and Matt Heerdt, IIRC).

This was done mainly because I had come across a weird character build a number of times at conventions during Missions play for Season 4. Players taking very low to moderate natural attributes, and then going apeshit with a combination of cyber, bio, adepts powers, and magic (Primarly seen in Bio-Augmented Adepts). It struck me as odd that one human character with a low natural att could rack up +5 or +6 to an attribute to max it out at 9, but the player who built a character with a high natural att couldn't take advantage of those same mod combinations and would be limited to only +3.

Now, obviously we didn't want to just open it up and remove the limits. That would simply open the door for worse abuse. So we went the other direction, limiting the total mods regardless of the natural attribute.

Going with Att + 4 instead of Att +3 also seemed a good compromise. It meant that almost across the board every race ended up being able to get a slightly higher max statline if they put in the effort, naturally and through augmentation (ANd augmentation is defined as anything that boosts an attribute, magical or synthetic). The only exception ends up being, I believe, Trolls with Body and Strength, but that was deemed to be an ok situation since their ridiculous bodies and strengths were already problematic.

There's your little peek behind the curtain and the reasoning behind it. It was not simply a change just to change things. Some people really like the change, a few folks really hate it. I personally stand by it, as I think it was a solid one.

Bull

Nice to know the reasoning behind the rule. It also makes the question of whether Exceptional Attribute affect augmented maximum or not kind of moot.

Just a quick unrelated question: Is it intended that karma costs for improving attributes are based on current rating regardless of metatype? Im assuming only the base attribute is used for such, not augmented attribute. This seem to make it very hard for trolls and orks etc. to raise their strength/body after chargen, thus making it far better for them to max out these two when you are still using attribute points. Did I understand the rules correctly?
If I let an ork go from 7 body (3 base +4 ork) to 8 body using the cost for going to 4 body instead, would that unbalance the system?

I'm quite happy about the fixed +4
once you get used to it it is easier and better rule than the former x 1.5

(but i don't really like the WiFi exception, but that is another Matter)

and also thanks for the Info

HougH!
Medicineman

Hi Bull,

thanks for the clarification - as I wrote above, it's not very clear that it's a accumulated hard limit for all of types augmentation (bio, cyber, magic) in the rulesbook.

However, I agree with you: it's a good limit - else we would have cyber mystic adepts with stats beyond reason in the game.

The general rule in SR now is that you generate dicepool though addition, but the dicepool are capped, so they don't go off into high heavens. Simple but effective.

Sidenote: I tested if HeroLab abided by the Augmented Maximum Attribute-cap automatically - it does (I combined Reaction Enhancers & the adept Enhanced Reaction power).

A.

It also means that the races tend to be less mechanically differentiated at the endgame. Whereas before an elf with max CHA might have an attribute that is double that of a Troll with max CHA, now that gap has been closed somewhat. In other words, the peaks and valleys of racial modifiers get flattened somewhat.

Whether this is "good" or "bad" is somewhat an argument based on personal taste. On one hand it makes local minimums and maximums less severe, and so (theoretically) opens up the possibility of playing against types being more viable. And elf strongman isn't losing out on as many STR dice as they used to compared to an ork; a troll face isn't losing out on as many CHA dice compared to an elf. If that's your dominant concern, then probably feels like a good move.

On the other hand, it minimizes the characteristics that the game depends on to reinforce stereotypes. If the difference between an endgame elf face and an endgame human face is "only" 2 DP, then are elves really "charismatic?" If a dwarf bodybuilder only rocks 2 extra dice over the elf bodybuilder, then are dwarves really "burly?" You get the idea. If you prefer that the "trollishness" of trolls and the "elfiness" of elves be made more distinct in their attribute arrays, then it probably feels like a bad move.

There's other factors, but basically that's what's happening at maximum attribute values mathematically speaking.

At the endgame (rather than char-gen), sure, but throughout most of a campaign, a character going against type (troll face, dwarven speed samurai, elven brawler) will be less effective and more challenged.

That actually doesn't contradict anything I said. In fact, I'd argue that you could make a much stronger claim and simply say "throughout most of a campaign, a character going against type (troll face, dwarven speed samurai, elven brawler) will be less effective and more challenged." I'd agree with that, and to be totally clear, I'm not disagreeing with you re: relative dicepools of characters either playing against metatype or to metatype. Given a large enough population of Shadowrunners, I think your central thesis is very likely to bear out, and there's every reason to expect that for the most part, an elf face will continue to throw more dice than a troll face.

I even pointed out in my original post that this holds true for the endgame ("max attribute" context) as well when I said, "And elf strongman isn't losing out on as many STR dice as they used to compared to an ork; a troll face isn't losing out on as many CHA dice compared to an elf." We're talking about relative losses here, but we're still talking about losses; no one is making the claim that suddenly trolls are the de facto face metatype. (If someone shows up, you and I can join forces to refute them). My point was simply that the overall range of all max attributes for metatypes has shrunk, mathematically speaking. That's not debateable, that's just math.

Now, you're bringing up a new question: where in the campaign timeline (for lack of a better term), that this would become noticeable? Which is a new angle, but I feel like this is partly my fault, because Bull was careful to limit his terms to "max statline" and "max attribute" and I conflated it when I started talking about "endgame." But for your claim of "most of a campaign" to go through, there's an important assumption that doesn't necessarily bear out in all cases.

Distribution - There's sort of a common-sense assumption is that the attribute arrays are more or less evenly distributed for characters, but we know this isn't the case. Faces pump CHA at the expense of other attributes, gunbunnies pump AGI at the expense of other attributes, etc. A lot of starting builds have "key" attributes above the racial max. Even a couple of the sample archetypes in the SR5 book do this, and in my experience (anecdotal though it may be), player characters are even more likely to follow that path than the folks who write sample characters. (In fact, that's Bull's experience as well for missions characters, since he said that's what prompted him to advocate for the change). The changes to max attributes mean that racial maxes that were 7 or lower go up in terms of max augmented attribute, and racial maxes that were 10 or higher go down in terms of max augmented attribute. And there are simply more candidates in the former category than there are in the latter one.

Now, there's a lot of other issues we could bring up, but I'd prefer to bracket them for the moment because I think they're going to send us down rabbit trails (starting power level, rate of karma accumulation, a whole lot of other things that neither of us probably have much real data on, etc.). My point is simply that it absolutely possible that you would run into these changes immediately even in a starting campaign, given the way that characters are built. Obviously you're going to run into them much more extensively once people have nothing better to do with their karma than max out their attribute arrays. But it's certainly possible, given the way that I've seen players tend to build characters both at my table and on various boards, that you'll see even starting characters who play against type being relatively less penalized for doing so. You and I both agree that there's still a penalty.

Anyhow, like I said, this isn't intended as a takedown of anything you (Glyph) said; I think we're in agreement. I just wanted to clarify for the benefit of anyone who comes along and reads our collective internet wisdom in the future.

Something to bear in mind, is that racial ranges also include an average. Sure, in the end a human with full muscle toner and an elf with full muscle toner is a one point difference, but you also gotta realize Average Joe Human has Agility 3 and Average Joe Elf has Agility 4. That's where the stereotypes come from, not some augmented minority. Sure, some humans could armwrestle a troll. But those humans aren't common.

Do you happen to remember where the exception for cyberlimbs is stated? I want to make sure before I build a full body replacement character, heh.

Building a full replacement character is . . sadly not a smart thing to do.
Never really has been either <.<

It really isn't, but it can be very fun for the little while it lasts. Other than the obvious low essence is there any other major reason?

I don't have much experience at this point.

Unless you have betaware or better, I don't think you even CAN do a full conversion by standard rules. The essence cost is too steep. I wish you could, though.

Mainly the lack of Essence.
Even if you go full Beta Borg, you still only have one, maybe two points of essence left for actually usefull stuff. Initiative stuff mostly.
Also, fucking expensive money wise. And getting the limb attributes up also means spending boat loads of money.
Because all addons for the limbs have to be of the same grade as the limbs itself. So only beta addons in beta limbs.
And then you get to the problem with the capacity limits of the limbs themselves. The Attribute-Improvements take up capacity.
Which means you probably won't be able to get anything else usefull in there. Of which there ain't much in the first place <.<
The BEST course of action would be to go for only 2 limbs and go absolutely munchkin, trying to min/max and rules lawyer the absolute shit out of them to do one thing well.
At which point you become kinda competent in that one thing and maybe have enough ressources left to not absolutely suck at everything else.

It only says that they have their own ratings - the exception to the augmented limit is inferred from that (plus, look at the street samurai, although they messed up on his starting resources so badly that I wouldn't completely trust it as an example).


Cyberarms are great for otherwise non-combat characters. Give your decker an Agility: 9 cyberarm, rating: 6 active hardwares for the pistols skill, and a smartlink with wireless enabled. Suddenly your wienie decker is rolling 17 dice.

Well, I guess I need to remake my cyberleg tae kwon do fighter.

2 cyberlegs.
2 automatic grenade launchers in them.
instead of tae kwon do make him capoeira.
Death Blossom Spiral!

Just because they are game mechanically mostly useless does not mean you can't pull some hillarious shit with cyberlimbs sometimes.