Unaugmented mundane humans are, to be sure, a suboptimal choice. The design of the game dictates that. Magic and augmentations give higher dice pools (by increasing Attributes, increasing skills, and giving dice pool bonuses) and higher initiative scores (letting PC's not only go first, but go more often). This fits the theme of the game, too. Normal people are supposed to envy and fear the awakened, and be tempted by the easy boosts of augmentations. It would break the transhumanist feel of the game if an average Joe could match the feats of an adept or a street samurai.

That all said, though, SR5 lets you create some pretty effective unaugmented mundane humans. Using Priority, you can take A: Attributes (24 points), B: Skills (36 individual skill points and 5 skill group points), C: Metatype (for an Edge of 7), D: Resources (50,000 Nuyen, an ample amount for someone with no foci or augmentations), and E: Magic or Resonance (mundane, obviously). Sum-to-Ten is even better, because you can drop Resources to E (spending 10 Karma for extra starting money gives you 26,000 Nuyen, still enough for starting runner essential gear) and raise Skills to A (46 individual skill points and 10 skill group points!).

So what do you all think? Are unaugmented mundane humans more playable now? One note: I really didn't include deckers in this discussion, because their abilities depend more on gear than on magic or augmentations.

It really depends on who you are talking to.

Someone like me, who came from 3rd, will tell you that 5e isn't all that different in that regard. Someone who has only known 4e might agree with you.

The problem is, unless the GM sets out to make a low-powered game, unaugmented mundanes fall into the second category of people.

You know; there are two types of people, the quick and the dead.

I'm not saying there needs to be a way to boost unaugmented mundane initiative. But without it, the opposition needs to be mostly unaugmented mundanes as well.

SR5 is not as harsh for mundane character. Sure you're still going to get turned into a grease smear if you take on a super chrome job, but that, for the most part, is an outlier.

Also, if you don't mind spending the 20 Karma for it, Lightning Reflexes is pretty sweet if you NEVER intend to get any reflex augmentation. Not only does it boost you Initiative score by 1, it also gives you an extra initiative die to roll when you get into combat. Finally it also boosts all of your Defensive rolls by 1 die.

I mostly agree with Glyph's premise that unaugmented mundane humans are more viable in SR5 than they've ever been.

There are some important factors that will vary from table to table that will determine how playable they are. High on the list are "How often are dice rolled?" and "How often does Edge refresh?"

If a group is more narrative-driven and rolls dice less frequently, then Edge is more powerful because it can be added to a high percentage of the dice rolls.

If a GM awards Edge refreshes at regular intervals, then it is more powerful because (again) it can be added to a higher percentage of the dice rolls.

So the same Mr. or Ms. Lucky character will be potent at one table and will be diminished at the next, simply due to the managerial differences between the GMs and how they run their games.

i dunno.

closer to their technologically augmented counterparts maybe. i'm not convinced they've gained all that much ground on magic though.

5e has done a pretty good job of keeping things from getting too far away from mundanes in areas like acting 5 times as often as a normal human, dodging every bullet that ever existed, punching holes through main battle tanks, and such.

but i'm not sure it's gotten *that* much harder to drop a mob mind spell on a bunch of mooks and make them shoot their non-controlled friends, then each other...

An unaugmented mundane Decker could work too, if you go in VR with the team.

It's harder to affect people with mental manipulations (they roll Logic plus Willpower to resist), but easier to sustain them (targets roll Logic plus Willpower, minus spell Force, to reduce your net hits each round - a high enough Force, in other words, lets you sustain it indefinitely). Augmented (and even most awakened) characters are just as vulnerable to mental manipulations, though. Mental manipulations can be a bit OP. To help counteract them, mooks can use visual cover and not cluster together, while PC's can spend Edge or benefit from friendly spell defense.

Spirits are another area where magic can be OP. Spells have been nerfed a bit, but spirits are more powerful. Mundanes can learn the martial arts technique of Neijia (Run & Gun, page 140), which replaces the old attack of will, but it is not a very effective option.

A chromed up street sammie also has issues against spirits, as they have their immunities (or course, they might roll more dice and therefore do more damage, but it still is going to take some time). Only weapon foci, spells or other spirits can make quick work against enemy spirits.

I think the idea of a mundane can work, but like all people he/she needs to fit in the team. With those priorities, you can make a mundane a more generalist who can be back-up for everybody in the team. Second gunslinger after the street sammie, second face after the social adept, ...
Also B&E specialists can be mundanes I think. And they don't have to be human, they can still be elf or ork if you want to, so I mundane face can also work quite well (elf, maxed Cha, maxed skills or skill group and you are still not that bad at it).

As said before, it also comes down to the power level at the table. If everybody else makes a hyper-specialised character that is maxed out for their niche, a mundane will almost always fall short. But if you keep the power level a bit lower (for instance, a street level campaign, or some other restrictions by the GM), a mundane can certainly work.

It can also be quite some fun to play a weaker character, if you accept that others are going to outshine you in certain areas. A wage-slave who got kicked out is not necessarily going to have much in the way of augmentations or magic).

*shrug* logic + willpower is certainly an improvement, but i don't find it to be the kind of improvement that's likely to help all that much most of the time.

and in any event, that's just one of the powerful tricks magic can use... i feel like most of the stuff you could do with a magician in earlier editions, you can still more or less do with a magician in SR5. and in some cases large quantities of reagents can allow you do to fairly ridiculous new things