This is not to flame, not for revenge or whatever.... just to know your feeling as we have now (and it was time) more information.

By the way, once again, many thanks to Tisoz, who is on his way to become Man of the Year on DS board...

At the moment the only thing I'm nervous about is technomancers, everything else looks sweet.

Who would have the kindness to create new threads to summarize all the information that Tisoz provided us, instead of having them in 3 or 4 different threads ? It might be great also to divide the topics in fact (chargen, magician, technomancer, cyber)... I would have done that myself, but I am quiet busy on our french forum to translate and post the information that are on DS...

A huge number of questions openned up with that info. I can't really answer now till i get a better look. I'm going to have to keep the vote on the fence for a bit yet.

Near the top of the list of questions are Technomancers. It seems more than a bit wierd, but then i just noticed something on the Combat Mage that actually could help explain it. I'm not certain that a mundane even needs 'ware to hack, they might be able to do it with 'trodes alone. If that is true not requiring 'ware for Technomancers sort of makes sense, at least when they are hacking wireless equipment.

or maybe, they generate signals with brain radios.

I was thinking to something about Technomancers...
Of course, the BP is ridiculously low, but on the other hand, it might be really expensive (Skills, sprites etc.) to be a technomancer.. on the other hand, there might be some cons (remember, otaku shouldn't be able to pass the age of 18 with all their pros)... SO in the end, one of the main pro of being a Technomancer might just be the fact that you don't need any cyber... which in the end is not such a big pro if hacker can still do their "work" using wireless equipment... And if they can have less BP to invest in matrice-skills (no sprites etc...).

Technomancers have to buy Resonance attribute, remember (the 5 BP is just the Quality that allows them to do so).

That is a good point, but if the dev really focused this edition on technology, they might in the end prove as powerful as magicians, not only in the matrice, but in the real world... And this would have costed only 5BP... this is why I hope that there are some restrictions...

Also we know that Technomancers experience drain (except it is called Fading and not Drain).

Yep. Age no longer causes fading, or so it seems.

That's because they *are* different.

Sorry if I can help you more with that. I don't have my playtesting notes at hand, and I don't feel comfortable giving you second hand information when Tisoz and the others at GenCon are posting good information.

Some did. Others didn't.

*wishes System Failure was already out*

Where did that description come from? I do know for sure that not all technomancers are otaku that grew up.

Or an oversimplification.

I was anti-SR4 at first; now I am neutral... only because it changes the feel of the game so much, to me. It's still SR-- just 'different'.
I especially like the powering down-- no Wired II off the bat, etc...

i don't mind the powering down. it's the fact that you can never really power up that i find irksome. and, really, it's not all that powered down. how street is it, if you can start the game as the best sharpshooter in the world, or the best gymnast in the world, or the best whatever in the world? a 6 stat, a 7 skill, and a specialization--no one else in the world will ever be better than you at your chosen focus. including you, at any point in the future. wtf?

Depends on 1)if its available and 2)when it goes into effect (initiative for the mage that casts it)

if you've got a high initiative mage, (and it's a valid spell) then...

EDIT: mfb, (and others), you've played this, and I don't know if your NDA's are still in effect, but if you can power up stuff, how often does it occur in your games?

I don't think it's the question of whether you need 14 dice, it's the question of 'can you get better'. If your advancement is halted at a set point, its a serious hindrance against your wanting to continue on. If your advancement in your chosen field is halted before the game even starts... Well, that's not a good thing.

I wonder if you can lift the 'maximum is 6' rule without breaking everything.

Clearly.

my NDA is on playtesting info. i'm allowed to talk about anything that's been released, because that's no longer playtesting info.

basically, if you want to be the best in the world at X at chargen, you can. you pay a fairly steep price for it, though; you're not going to have points left over to be more than mediocre at much else. alternatively, you can start with, say, 5s in your chosen focus, and have more points to spread around elsewhere. 30 karma or so later (i don't know what the final price for that 7th skill point is), you slam right into that upper limit.

in other words? almost every character, almost every game.

I don't understand a skill cap. So a great dragon like Ghostwalker is going to have spell casting six huh? Even though he has thousands of years of experience, he 's only as good as a 'modern' mage ? bull

The skill cap is my biggest problem with SR4 and as soon as we start playing I'm houseruleing it away.

ditto. Maybe make it harder, as they're getting more dice with attributes, it can be a balance issue. but the idea that a great dragon can never be better at spell casting than a street mage, except for with his sheer will, having nothing to do with skill, is just ridiculous.

This skill cap issue reminds me of a common theme on the Dumpshock boards, which is a GM posting, "My player has an Initiate 7 with quickened everything, Control Actions 13, Fireball 13, and a Power Focus 9. How do I control him?"

My answer is, don't give him a ton of karma and nuyen in the first place.

As long as skills still get more and more expensive the higher the level, skill levels will control themselves. Keep karma scarce enough and very few players are going to shell out 18 karma to jack their Pistols to 9 from 8, which is statistically speaking very little bang for the buck.

And I was never afraid of Pistols 9 anyway (or Sorcery, or Negotiation, etc.). Sure, you're the best pistol shot in Seattle, but that doesn't help you notice a claymore mine. Or survive Ball Lightning. Or notice that you've been betrayed.

Skill caps are totally artificial.

I think that it will be found that skill and attribute caps lead to better rounded characters in the long run. If you do make the sacrifice and have one specific that that you are the supreme master of, it means there's dozens of things that you're not even particularly good at. Some of that stuff is useful for anyone; Dodge, Etiquete, Stealth, there's probably a half a dozen more. And that all burns Karma, fast. Especially if you're only giving out three to five per session.

Nerbert, who cares if it makes a better rounded character?

Some people devote their entire lives to being the best at one thing, at the expense of others. That's how some people are. Placing an artificial cap on something that will make you only so good as the other guy who maxed out that skill is completely bogus.

Depends on the frequency of sessions and the commitment to the game.

Regardless, I can easily see a 200 karma PC pretty much halt any further advancement if you create a character with that goal in mind. Sure, it may be a few years off but I like the idea that if I really wanted I could have a PC with a Pistols skill of 18.

I'm looking at the chargen rules and wondering how some of these rules are supposed to make thing easier, or if they're just supposed to nerf the players.

The thing is that I've rarely seen anyone raise their skill above 6 in SR3, but... I still want my players to have that possiblity.