This. I have played a character well beyond 200 Karma, and upgrading the cybersystems wasn't such a huge problem. And that was SR3.

The problem is that the Mage cannot do everything the Sam can do as Readily. Sams can start at the top of their game in many things. The Mage can start with a Maximum of only 12 Spells (and in my experience most start with between 6 and 10).

Yes, a Magician CAN eventually do everything a Street Sam can do, with many things else additional, but it takes TIME and Focus. Even the character I play, who is only around 300 Karma, with 3 Initiation Grades and just over 50 Spells, cannot compete with our Street Sam all the time. There are still actions that he is still [far] better at than I am. I know that some will say that is because I choose to "weaken" my character to play nice, but that is not it. I play the character to his personality and desires.

Yes, there are places I excel at vs. the Sam, and there are places I excel at vs. a Face (though that is where my character focus started anyways, so that is not really a fare comparison, as FACE MAGE was my concept). The character is crap as a hacker (he's not) or a Rigger (again, not), and as a driver he leaves a lot be desired. And when it comes to straight out kill'em damage, the Street Sam is still better (though my non-magical offense is not bad).

And yes, even if you are not in a Background count a lot, when you are, Man does that really suck. Our last several game sessions (about 3-4 weeks) were all in Lagos, which is a BGC's wet dream, and my magician suffered for it, often to the point where I had to rely upon my non-magical skills, as my Magic was overwhelmed by the BGC. It Happens. *shrug*

Well, our GM uses BGC often. It is not a nerf in my opinion, it is the status quo of a Plex. *shrug*

If you choose to build a magician character and do not take into account that you may be running into BGC (relatively commonly in fact), well, that is the fault of the player making the character, not the GM for enforcing the fluff of the game. *shrug*

Yes, and then pleaes check the prices for alpha/beta cyberware and bioware which a sam usually uses. Just as an example: alpha synapse booster 3 (not even beta, which could be close to a million) 480 000 ¥. To be honest: 13 Karma + 40k for a sustaining foci and improved reflexes are far easier to get (even if you factor in such issues with wards).

SYL

I don't know how to properly express how wrong you are, other than possibly through means of interpretive dance.

If you're butthurt about people disliking mages being 'better' (and I still maintain, that they are absurdly so), play Earthdawn or any other kind of campaign where magic is the focus. It's really that easy.

... which won't up your Reaction, so you're missing out on a good deal of boni there (dodge mostly). You'd need another spell lock, 13 more Karma and another 40K then, and would need to be a pretty good caster too if you want 3 IP and +3 reaction. That's 26 Karma and 80K now, with the added draw that you need at least two IP to get it going properly, which happens to be the standard length of a Shadowrun combat encounter. Sure, you can just cast it at the start of an infiltration or just keep it active as a default, but then you might want to mask it's presence. Also, background count will fuck up your precious magical reflex booster combo, unless the GM never read the relevant rules or chooses not to bother implementing it. Neither is the rules' fault.

To be honest, I don't see your massive problem here.


Clearly, you lack for an argument, then.

No, it's more that I don't see how someone who claims to have played Shadowrun doesn't seem to grasp the concept that the antagonists are being built on the same systems as the player characters, and thus massively unbalanced rules issues are going to have to be houseruled into something that is somewhat balanced in order for the GM to provide a challenge without outright overwhelming most or all of the player characters.

This is a point of poor design.

'This isn't a PvP game!' doesn't really fly if you're just relying on your GM to go soft on you and let your PCs be superheros.

If antagonists used the perfectly same rules as PCs did, Edge would be a much, much bigger game breaker than Magic. Because every mook would burn through their entire edge pool in every fight. I played that once in a new group, when I was getting started with 4E because the GM firmly believed in this. TPK in 2 out of 2 sessions due to guard doggies and watchmen with light pistols. Because PCs dodn't have a chance against all these edgy guys, unsurprisingly.

Mooks follow slightly different rules (Professional rating) for a reason. In the same vein, not all mages minmax themselves like this, especially when they are generated out of hand and don't have to worry about spending their Karma and/or cash on other investments, like a mage would. Or, if your NPC do that, you're doing a poor job as a GM, because scaling should not be done with "how do I make the point that mages are too powerful best" in mind.

To me, the crux of the matter is that several things that can make things go one way or another are left up to the gamemaster. We were having a discussion on a related topic, where I said something around those lines.

One gamemaster can give 8 karma at every session, 5,000¥ a run, require PC to beat the Availability 20 of the Elite Shadow Clinic each time they want to get R or F rated betaware, have them scanned for cyberware and bioware and a regular basis, with security trying to either deny them access or seize them if any R of F rated is detected.

Another gamemaster can give 4 karma every three sessions, 50,000¥ a run, allow PC to keep as contacts NPC they meet once who can give them unlimited access to high-level clinic, have Background Count almost everywhere and consider Initiation requires at least six months of dedicated work and meditation.

As far as the books go, you cannot prove one of them is doing it wrong, no matter how strong your belief is.

Patrick, for me at least it comes from the fact that there's really no point to it, other then someone decided that of all the things in this game that might cause you a social penalty essence loss to cyberware was going to be the one that was absolutely universal? So universal it affects the characters outward facing perception of themselves? Playing cybered characters is already the less attractive option in many thematic senses and it posses real problems in character long term improvement. I see little or no reason to throw added penalties on top of all that. But then again i also thought that fourth editions penalizing first aid checks against heavily cybered characters was also a needless hardship.

From what I remember, that is not unique to 4th Edition, LurkerOutThere...

Certainly all that sinister magic does not help, but at the fundamental level it is the same alienation and depersonalization that has its own subchapter in Augmentation

Well, in SR3 it surely wasn't that way for first aid. Even the expanded first aid table in M&M does not contain direct modifiers for being cybered. Only Bioware and being a cyberzombie were diametral to the cause ... whereas cyberimplants like the implanted Savior or Guardian Angel medkits would lower TNs as well as high body attributes (and it wasn't restricted to natural body there).

Even in the optional healing table for normal injury recovery "at home" only bioware could impose a TN modifier against the character.

Only within the expanded doctoring table lost Essence did impose TN modifiers ... which usually where cancelled out by the doctor's skill

Implants having a dehumanizing effect on one's personality isn't just a Shadowrun thing.

It's a Cyberpunk thing. It's a trope of the genre.



-k

So? The alienation and depersonalization are also connected to said magic and the fact that the person in question is for all intends and purposes "undead". I seem to recall that it's partially described as "the body is dead, but the soul hasn't noticed yet". Sure the cyber is part of the equation, but nobody seems to have outright denied that, nor objected to such a mechanism in general. The reservations are strictly aimed at the perceived imbalance towards cyber when compared to other"dehumanizing" aspects and the rationale with which it has been presented (so far).

Why exactly is your personal taste a universal constant again?

The (fluff) difference is that Essence loss is not just "dehumanizing" in quotes to indicate figurative usage. Essence loss nibbles away what makes the character human, and now this piece of fluff gets rules backup.

From a metagaming POV, most cybered characters already are played in a way that makes Sheldon Cooper look like a socialite (if I got a Euro for every "gruff veteran" type...). Then you have the characters with cyberware that does get used in Social tests, see what I wrote before...

There were such rules before, but they had enough "gray areas" that didn't raise such a ruckus like we obviously are facing here. Again: I'm not against such a mechanic in general, but I do question question the absoluteness because (to me) fluff in that regard simply wasn't that absolute either ... and I do not seem to be alone in that perception.



Different experiences there I guess ... Ofc I have seen various characters being played like that, but it wasn't limited to cybered ones. I had to witness magically active characters in the exact same manner.

Okay?


How much of a change would be "suitable" in your mind? How big is the social penalty you're talking about, versus the social penalty that actually exists? What's the social debuff you're so concerned with, and do you even have any idea how it fits into play? How am I supposed to make some sort of promise with goalposts that tremendously shiftable?

Because, see, that's the thing. You don't know. You have no idea how Essence interacts with social rolls, but you're still up in arms about it, going on about it and adding to the chorus of "MagicRun!" all over the place, and now wanting some sort of promise that other things have been augmented, too, to offset it (even though you don't know how big the change is). And I'm not saying that like it's your fault you don't know. How could you know, we haven't told you! But what is your fault is how you're reacting without knowing (and -- again -- that's not necessarily the "LoT" you it's the "everyone flipping their shit everywhere on the internet right now without knowing how Essence interacts with social rolls" you).

So I won't make a promise, no. But I can offer a reassurance, and that will have to do you.

I'm sitting here and doing the math, looking at this huge social debuff you're all worried about, comparing an otherwise socially maxed-out dude with .01 Essence and an otherwise socially maxed-out dude with 6 Essence, and I'm laughing to myself about how really miniscule this debuff is, in my opinion. But that doesn't matter, because for whatever reason we haven't told people how the formulas work, so all people see is that there's a penalty at all and they go ballistic over it, and there's people talking about die pool penalties for low Essence (which isn't even how it works), and I can just see how all this shit spirals out of control (and contributes to that "working each other into a frenzy" thing I was talking about).

So I log on and spend some time reading the mountain made out of the molehill, and I can't share the math because I'm NDA'ed but all I can do is try to say "Jesus, guys, don't worry about it so much," over and over again, and instead people keep harping about it, keep worrying about it, and cling to it like it's just the last excuse in the world they needed to not buy a whole edition of Shadowrun.

And oh, hey, awesome. When I do offer that reassurance, I get accused of attacking people, and not selling the game like I should be, and I'm back to wondering what the hell I'm even doing here.


What is it you've seen or heard, anywhere, that makes you think there was any change to this? This is how rumors start. This is why we can't have nice things. Has anyone, in all the SR5 material you've read, talked about astral mages bebopping around dropping mojo on dudes? Why would you even ask this? Next thing you know, someone will see that this is great big important bullet point number 2 on your list of demands, and it'll get twisted in their head, and soon we'll see a thread with a poll in it, asking what CGL was smoking when they decided to let astral magicians cast spells on the physical plane.

i am so tempted to make that thread/poll now . .

right now, the discussion is like this because it was decided by someone to partially release information.
and we are speculating based on that partially released information right now, in this here very discussion.
if it was not wanted like this, one should either
a.) not have released any such information at all
or
b.) released the information in context of the maths so people can see how it is supposed to work at all.

right now, we only have people telling us to trust CGL but these people are actually forbidden from telling us why we should trust them.
and after the bulldrek CGL pulled with things like WAR! we are of course just the tiniest bit sceptical when it comes to these here things.

Critias, you wrote the adept book.
It seems to be pretty good, else people would not have made it one of, if not the most bought pdf out there.
So technically, the scales are tipped in your favour. YOUR favour alone though, not CGLs favour.

A bit of clarification would go a long way here, I think, but that is not up to Critas or anyone else but Hardy to decide. Or Bills? I don't even know how CGL's inner hierarchy works in such a case.

Sadly, not the relevant part. The one I really one is the one where he becomes completely emotionless.

Here are a few other things that have made me decide not to participate in 5th edition, at all. Ever. Even under threat of death. (also, these are made up and I'm not serious)

1. The inclusion of the hack and rigging spell. Seriously, now mages can do everything! And having it be an opposed roll against the devices Signal Rating? How does that even make sense. Hardwired systems are the easiest to hack?

2. Random changes in the earth's magnetic field to create Electronic Background Noise that reduces all ware's rating by a value equal to the EBN rating. Background count for cyberware! Guess it just makes bioware even better.

3. Adepts being able to capture and train spirit animals using specially designed balls. I mean, I think a few tweaks to summoning were important, but letting adepts have six creatures they can summon on demand with hundreds other stored at a safe house. And unlike riggers, they don't even have to pay money for it. I don't care what the fluff says about you having to play a 12 year old boy on a quest to use the ability. I don't need more people trying to play kids in SR. I thought we ended that with 4th edition.

4. Dice pool multipliers and dividers? How does that fix the problem of bonuses completely outweighing skills? I thought they were going to try to limit dice pool sizes.

5. A single skill for every individual firearm and skillsofts programmed to only work with certain brands of products? How does firing an Ares hand gun not transfer to firing a third party knock off of the same gun?

6. Nerfing of homebrewed spells by adding 3 drain to them on top of comparable spells, because "a spell created by a mage is not as tuned as a professionally designed spell" is just an attempt to make us buy more splat books. So unfair. And don't get me started on the karma penalty for using pirated software in game (to balance out the reduction in the cost of the software). They're runners. It's their job to steal stuff and do illegal things.

(Again, made up. But it doesn't mean that we can't set up a rumor mill. )

Actually, this would be really neat in-game.

Branded skillsofts that automatically downgraded themselves when used with competitor's products could be a growth market, and a massive brand loyalty incenctive!

I agree. There's already a bit of that going on in the real world; Best Buy exclusive content along side GameStop exclusive content along side XBox exclusive content along side PS exclusive content along side pirated copy exclusive content.

It would also go a good distance for justifying (in a metagame perspective) lowering the costs of skillsofts: only works with Y brand equipment, 50% discount, etc.

But that's the nature of a preview, isn't it?

I never said "humanity" was an accurate term for what was being lost. The idea, however, is that there is an actual thing being lost that impacts the character's state of adjustment, which changes everything - potentially to the point that they're no longer capable of experience actual emotion. It's not about their self-perception (though that may well change as a consequence).

But the nature of bad PR is bad responses, isn't it?
They threw out something that many people seem to dislike without any kind of explanation behind the why.
Imagine what would have happened for example if they had decided to kill off Technomancers and make them into Otaku again because of the new wired matrix stuff and simply said:
"No more TM's, you go back to playing Otaku now" without anyting else.

Well, every PR is PR. It keeps people talking about the game. And what would you have released instead of a preview?

i'm guessing there's a would missing in there somewhere.

i would have expanded on stuff already known and kinda grudgingly accepted by most.
Deckers are back! Here's why, here's how, here's the difference between wired/unwired!
Here's how you can combine them to do stuff!

i'd maybe have tried to assauge fears that hackers now only need LOS like a magician, snap their fingers by rolling a simple skill check like shooting a gun and suddenly can switch off cyber-eyes or stuff like that.

Fixed.



Doesn't strike me as a much better idea, to be honest.

It's way better than:"Oh, yeah, cyberware gets another drawback again."

Your patron saint would give a negative response to everything CGL is releasing prior to SR5. I'm not saying that I agree with all concepts revealed for SR5 thus far, but constant negative response is certainly not helpful either.

my patron saint?
you would not be talking about Frank eh?
if you are? shove it.
this reaction was from me not from him.

Saint Nicholas: Patron Saint of Shadowrunners.

Never heard of him . . oh, he's that good? O.o

Not sure if serious....

what am i not getting here?

Okay guess it is serious. Sorry, can't always tell online. (Poe's law applies always).


St Nicholas is another name for Santa Claus, the fictional guy who goes around the world on Christmas night sneaking into every house in the world and dropping off presents.

Parallels to shadowrunners, while obviously not intended by the legend, are rather amusing.

Critias, you should have taken that bet. Or raised it. =i)

WAR! was two years ago, and written under like four different developers. At what point does it stop being like panning Sir Sean Connery for Zardoz? Serious answers preferred, trolls welcome.

Trolls not welcome, dude.

Sure, but when Initiating and buying Magic, you get significant advances (an altogether new ability, +1 die to your main pools, +2 to the Force of the spells you can cast). When replacing an implant with a more advanced version, you get a minuscule improvement (not 1 Essence by far).

Yes, mages are overpowered, but going specifically after your player who elected to play a mage by the rules as presented is unfair. Because if you apply the rules unfavorably towards mages, why not hackers (strong encryption on everything, 1 day period) or anyone else (scanners everywhere, realistic forensics)?

Wards are stationary, easily detectable, and recasting a spell takes only a couple of seconds.

A sam can't bring a ward with him, and unless he has a mage of his own, he's all but defenceless against a mage.

Stunball, Trid Phantasm, Mob Control, Improved Invisibility. There, you're pretty much set to be better than a sam in what sams do, and can spend the rest of the spell roster on just being awesome in various ways.
Or just up Summoning.


After Professional Rating 6 street punks (in one of the Artifacts adventure books I believe), Professional Ratings are pretty meaningless.


As soon as the new books don't have APCs with Improved Suspension, dragon hordes instead of hoards, and Tadeshi Shiawase shapeshifting between that and Tadashi four times in a single page. Or at least when there's errata.

This is disingenuous. Some upgrades are minor, but others (Muscle Toner 2 > 4, WR n > MBW n+1, etc) are very substantial.

Also, the whole Saint Nicholas thing - it's also a Leverage joke, where he was brought up as the patron saint of thieves.

it stops when stuff actually improves. and looking at clutch of dragons . . no i can't really see much of an improvement, sorry.

1.) You know it is
2.) look who's talking.

Muscle Toner is significant, though already really expensive. Wired Reflexes into Move-by-Wire is in the price range that allows for a lifetime of partying on the Caribbean islands as an alternative.

Muscle toners, switching from atrificial muscle to bioware muscles, upgraded wired reflexes ... there are many implants where upgrading a level gets you a substantial reward. Essence price reduction also is substantial (getting you up to half the price "back"), but miniscule in implants that cost little essence, obviously. You're comparing apples and oranges here, though. Also initiation gets progressively more expensive, while cyberware stays the same price.


An adventure written by (what it seems) trained monkeys is no rulebooks. Let's just keep this focused on the topic (the rules), and not some bad implementation of them by people apparently not informed about how they work?

How often does your dedicated street samurai not already have most or all of his big ticket items (muscle toner, extra IPs, etc) right at character generation, or shortly afterwards?

You're not getting an upgrade from Muscle Toner 2->4. You're getting an upgrade from Muscle Toner 4 std -> Muscle Toner 4 Alpha, regaining .16 essence at the paltry cost of 32,000 nuyen, and now you have to fill that .16 essence with something else which is going to cost you more. These costs grow exponentially as well. Muscle Toner is relatively cheap. Going from Wired Reflexes 3 standard to delta is 900k nuyen, to save 2.5 essence. Upgrading from that to the Delta Synaptic Booster costs 1.4million to save another 1.75 essence. And this still isn't accounting for the cost of refilling the essence hole with something else to get an actual improvement.

Additionally, since you almost certainly went for the most important cyberware first, all this money you're dumping to improve? You're getting things that are progressively less important to you.

On the other end, the Mage is improving his initiation grade, both boosting his old metamagics and new ones. He's boosting his magic, boosting everything he does.

For sake of comparison, subtract the fencing price of the old ware from the cost of the new ware, and divide the difference by 2500. That would be approximately the Karma amount, in theory, that it represents. Then compare to the cost for a rank of initiation and new Magic point: 43, taking both a group initiation and ordeal discount into account. Hell, I'll take the math away - that would generally be equivalent to 107500 nuyen. That's getting close to enough for a character to go from no Muscle Toner to Beta Muscle Toner 4.

And generally? I don't consider Muscle Toner 4 to be worth Restricted Gear, for example. Most well-built sams, I would submit, have a lot of upgrading they could do after creation in terms of major ware; this is especially true for more rounded semi-sam characters (who I'll often only give WR1 for the sake of putting the resources elsewhere).

Can you direct me to where it says that wards have to be stationary? I got into an argument with my players about this. I said they were stationary and they said they weren't. I looked and looked and just couldn't find that piece of info to back me up. By rules that I found, a ward only needs an object to act as the centre of the ward, but it is still movable.

Thanks