sr3 system used a fixed price in buying the attribute ie it costs 8 attribute points to have
quickness 6 and body 2, and in the same time the karma advancement rules were link to level to reach.
While that system is fairly simple, the bad point is it calls min/max behavior:
Why creating a moderate character with quickness 4 and body 4 then raise the quickness to 6 with karma when it is so much cheaper to buy quickness 6 and body 2 and then raise body to 4 ?
Same for the skills.

I enjoy much more being able to make one of my character advancing in its specialities, but it the system push to create more specialized character and enlarge the concept later.

TMO the cost during creation and advancement should be the same (or proportional) for all stats (attribute, skill, spells ...)
Either fixed cost (that is really on open door to high rank attributes and skills), or as I would prefer, a creation cost link to the rank to reach.

I think it is easier for min max spirit (as mine ) to create a character without thinking it is important to calculate the invest, and allow wide area of knowledge and skills without disadvantage later.

-Apparently- sr4 will probably fix that for attributes ?

Yes.

No.

Who knows yet?

I would hope so.

Paraphrased, FAQ #3 says 3 is average skill/stat, and above average would be rare and cost a lot. That suggests to me some sort of nonlinear graduation to the cost.

I hope there will be one anyway. The old BP system just pulled way to strongly towards all to 6, no little skills. Coupled with the possibility that even a skill of 1, backed by a solid attribute, means something, i think it might bring a lot more spreading around of stats and variety to newly minted PCs.

Does that mean the next standard will be having no rank of 1 or 2, but skills of 3 and above ?
It could stop being incentive to power player... but it is not more logical ?

ouppsss ! I have forgotten to think !
This can be great in fact - since the cost creation/advancement is proportional :
Then karma costs for
buying a skill rank 1 / increasing from 1 to 2 / or from 2 to 3
are equal.

If there is some sort of graduated progression to raise skills & stats in character creation, I would really like to se a nice big table for stat levle vs. point cost. It's not because I'm a math moron and can't calculate the costs (although I am a math moron.) It's to make char creation quicker.
That is one complaint I have heard about SR, that it takes to long to create a char. I am not in favor of simplifying char creation in terms of options available or complexity, but I am in favor of making the char creation info easy to access to speed things up.

The best way to avoid min/maxing is to have a consistently graded progression. In the most consistent case, you'd use exactly the same rules for character creation and advancement.

This does raise one problem, however. If you don't want people to be able to start as a shadowrunner as the strongest and most skilled in the world in an area, you need to provide plenty of post-creation advancement options that are not present at creation time. One good way to really drive this home is to have separate rules for creation and advancement.

People complain that SR3 characters were too potent starting out; they didn't feel street-like enough. This was probably because of a mismatch in several areas. First, average stats were supposed to be around 3, but most archetypes had enough points to buy more than an average of three. Second, you could buy up to 6 (or 7 with an edge), and it was hard to advance much beyond that, leaving you at the top of human ability at creation time. Third, skills could go up to 6, and the rules stated that skills of 8 were legendary (even though the mechanics didn't back that up), and characters had plenty of points to buy skills of 6 (plus specializations to put them at 7). Finally, the difference in build costs vs. costs to raise stats later encouraged min/maxing, so people would have these apparently world-class stats and skills right away.

So you ended up with characters who were supposedly pretty close to the peak of human performance at character creation time, in some areas, and completely hopeless in other areas. Bad idea.

To avoid this in SR4, you'd need to provide the opposite incentive--make it expensive to buy high levels at creation time, but relatively cheaper through advancement, and don't let people buy at creation that close to the peak of human ability. That way, people will be rewarded for building solid, competent characters, but won't have ungodly combat kings right out of the box. Plus there's lots of room for bigger and badder fish for the runners to be scared of, until they get a few dozen (hundred?) karma under their belts.

Or, alternatively--which is how I dealt with SR3--I just ignored the rules that said how awesome skill 8 was, because it was obviously not that much more awesome than the specialization of 7 that my character started with. That way, in my games, starting characters didn't feel like they owned the world. They'd routinely run into people with skills of three points higher than a starting character would have (i.e. 9-10), and who had attributes of 8 or so, so they'd have to be scared not because some text said, "Oooh, he's bad!" but because he was bad, and the dice would show you if you thought otherwise.

So, anyway, to summarize, to fix min-maxing: graded progression that is either more steeply graded at creation than for future advancement, or with a cap that gives plenty of room to expand after creation.

I'm guessing you might actually have 1, and only 1 point is some skills. In the past this would be the worst possible thing you could do because of the 1 in 6 chance of triggering the Rule of All Ones. Even a skill of 2 was dangerous that way, and you likely had even or better odds defaulting (unless the TN was too high to default).

In SR4 you'll get at least two dice for a skill (1) rolls, maybe more if your attribute die can outnumber your skill die. Because Defaulting is still a problem (Patrick implied hint), coupled with nonlinear skill costs at character creation, i would expect a smattering of low skill values coupled with some key high ones. Whether or not you'll see midrange skill values on powergamer sheets, only details will tell us.

So you're saying you basically like the current SR method for advancement through karma, and would like it applied to character creation as well?

not necessary. I say basically: there should be only one system, not 2

I do not feel in good position to evaluate which system to choose as I don't really now the impact of ranks on the character - in SR3 a rank of one was stupid, a skill was useful starting at 3 -then it was stupid that a rank '6' costed 6 time the rank '1'. It should have costed much more, because a rank 6 was at least 20 times more useful than a rank 1.
It has changed in SR4 with skill+attribute.

In SR3 thare was a mechanic that kept people from creating characters at the peak of human capability (without augmentation). The mistake is thinking that the peak was 6. It was, in fact 9 (or 11 with an Edge) for human Attributes. The real problem was listing the average as 3 ... it should be 4 or even 4.5.

If SR4 has a hard limit on (human) Attributes of 6 (as is hinted at), the I can see some arbitrary means being included t preclude, or at least make it extremely costly for characters to start at that level (without augmentation).

Hopefully they'll do something about botching 1/6 of the time when you have a skill of one.

Well, in this case, it would be botching 1/6 of the time when you have an attribute of one and no skill. I guess that could be okay--but it would depend on how severe the consequences were for botching. You shouldn't kill yourself 1/6 of the time when trying to open a door with an agility of 1, for example.

Hmmmm.

As an example, some of the ways I picture somebody with a body of 1 is in horrible health, they get sick a lot, they don't have a lot of endurance, and they need to be constantly careful not to injure themselves. Biologically, they're fragile, even if the reason they have a low body is because they're fat and overweight. The point is, they're not looking good on the health front.

Now if they're trying to hop a fence, run a sprint, hold their breath, etc...They are putting their body under a lot of stress that it isn't prepared to handle. I've seen guys in RL injure themselves doing things that put their body under stress, and these weren't even guys that have one foot in the grave like somebody with a body of 1 in game terms. If you have an attribute of 1, there is a good chance that something could go terribly wrong.

Got a body of 1? You better take it easy and stick to walking a treadmill for a while before you start having to run from cops.

Got a strength of 1? You wanna hit the weight room? Take it easy because you may end up hurting yourself if you've never worked out before.

etc.....

I just have bad visions of Agility 1 people fumbling everything for comic "relief" like Jar-Jar Binks. Hopefully there won't be Gungans in SR.

We can but hope.

Our kill them on sight.

Watched episode one two days ago. What a bad movie, what a bad movie...

Yeah ... not realistic at all ...
Whou would keep an attribut of 1 when it is so cheap to increase it with karma

Has Jar Jar an Edge of 10 ? (due to subsequent racial mod)

Yep prob.
Based on the fact that the little shit wouldn't die.

Was I alone in hoping Anakin would fire up the engine when its tongue was stuck?

Yes.




The rest of us were hoping for even worse fates. I wanted to give him to Darth Maul.

What a crueld and heartless thing to suggest.
Darth Maul didn't do anything deserving of that fate.

Darth Maul is Sith, he can derive satisfaction from torturing Jar Jar into an unrecognizable lump of goo. And he doesn't have to feel bad about it, just bathe in disinfectant for a month or ten.

But He doesn't deserve the punishment that is being in the presence (read: same multiverse).