So, obviously, a lot of people have commented that it's too easy to start with a character that is already more or less an olympian at their chosen specialty, leaving only "branching out" as an outlet for further development. The readily apparent solution is to lower the number of starting build points to 300 (say), and simply start the characters lower on the totem pole.

My question, then, is: has anyone tried this, or otherwise formed an opinion on the subject?

No. If you want to give people more room to expand but don't want to relax caps you'd just ake the caps hard. If you don't let people start with any skills past 4, the PCs will suck at everything, rather than being damned awesome at one thing and sucking at everything else.

-Frank

No matter what you lower the BP totals to, people are going to have a 5 in their prime stat and a 6 in their prime skill, and possibly even a specialization in it. That's a given. If you give people 200 points, they'll still maximize their core abilities. That's a given. The BP total just determines how much they suck at everything else.

That's what an SR4 character does - they roxxor at one task, and are about the level of a Triad Posse Member at anything else. Basically a starting character is an ordinary person with a single extraordinary talent. The stat and skill caps prevent a character from being much better than that. The BP totals are already capping you at the level of a Threat Rating 4 Grunt, and you can't min/max your way out of that.

-Frank

I doubled the amount of skills and nuyens that people can but with their build points, and I didn't find everyone to be the same. Really, I didn't. People get a lot of fours, but they also get a lot of ones and twos.

There is an amount of points you could give everyone that would cause them to max out, but the 400 BP, even 600 BP level isn't all that close to it.

-Frank

It seems to me that people keep forgeting that 6 in a skill in SR4 is not the same as 6 in a skill in SR3. Its closer to the WW system, where as a Gm you usualy need a damn good reason for a PC to have a skill at 4 or 5. At that point they are near the peak of what anyone can be. I find it silly that most players would ever start with a 6 or a 5 in anything. If a player at my table had a 6 I would ask them just how they got to be one of the best in the world at that skill. The scales are different now. I think we need to relearn what each value means.

I find it easier just to talk to my players and tell them my expectations than to change the rules to actualy make it harder. I'll just tell them they can raise it to 6 after they've been shadowrunning long enough to actualy become one of the best in the world with guns. No need to change the rules when i could just remind my players what exactly a 6 means.

Even the fact that characters start with a large number of 4s bothers me. Isn't that "veteran" level? How can the typical character be a veteran in a half dozen fields? That's ok for a short campaign, where you might not mind characters starting out at a high level in their careers, but it doesn't give the long-campaign feel of building from street scum to elite runner. Were my next campaign not going to be of the former type, I would be concerned.

So, by how much should I lower the BPs if I want to compensate for lowering the skill caps by one (two 4s or one 5)? Maybe I ought to just build a character who seems semi-average (3s in all attributes, a couple 4s in skills, some cyberware up to availability 8 or 10, etc), count the BP, and round up to the nearest 50?

I´ve started making characters with my group with 300 BP total, allowing for 200 BP in attributes. Availability maxed at 8. The characters have turned out amazingly well. We want to make a group of promising street thugs, basicly. They will have very limited magic and gear. The skills will be low, leaving room for improvement. The strong point of these charcters will be attributes. They will be slightly more naturaly gifted than people around them on the street level, but otherwise similar in resources and power. Character advancement will focus on additional skills, magic powers and gear, that´s an arrangement we have. It´s going to be great.

The thing is, you can't have strong attributes on 200 BP, regardless of what your set-up is, or how many extra points you have elsewhere. That's an average of attribute of 3.5 - which means that amongst the 8 stats, the character has 4 more attribute points than a "civilian bystander". So a man on the street really isn't much different from you attribute wise. The only way a PC can stand out is if they have more skills than a normal person. Their attributes really aren't statistically different from a normal person no matter how they are arranged.

Yeah, the book says all kinds of crazy crap about how a skill of 7 is legendary and fantastic, but it really isn't. The only thing that makes things special is results that are special. A character with a skill of 6 and an attribute of 5 rolls 11 dice. That's nice and all, but remember that every brick in the wall of that field rolls 6 dice, and specialization adds 2 dice and good equipment adds 1-3.

So your guy with a maxxed out skill and attributes as high as you can afford is actually no better than a faceless corporate wageslave if he's in his element and has the latest Neonet gear. The problem with SR4 is not that starting PCs can match Fastjack with only 57 Karma under their belt (although they can). The problem is that 5 bystander interns in the Aztechnology computer sciences department working together can match Fastjack with no Karma at all.

Joe Blow Unexceptional rolls 6 dice. Using Teamwork, he can add 2 dice to another's test. Fastjack rolls 14 dice, and that's simply not a large enough bulge on faceless mooks to actually make Prime Runners noticeable.

-Frank

A '3' Attribute isn't really a civilian by-stander. It works out to more like the top stat of the civilian by-stander, with his others below it. Having multiple Averages isn't.

I think you got him, blakkie. After all, how can a person be average if they are exeptional in one area? Joe average can not go above 3 in any attribute without leaving average behind.

Doomclown: I don´t have any special rules for skills. They aren´t that high because there isn´t that many points left if 200 of 300 are spent on physical and mental attributes. I´m fortunate enough that my players are not very inclined to be satisfied with one maxed out skill. Such a character is boring to play and they know it.

You know, it's the other direction that's bugging me.

A standard human -- three in every stat -- has 160 BP of stats. So your starting runner is just a little above average.

To me, standard 400 BP characters are basically high level thugs/starting shadowrunners/street level runners. Which is what they said when they made 4th edition, they were lowering the power level.

With 400 BP, it is a CHALLENGE to make what i would consider a playable mage/adept/technomancer that is "runner" material. Simply because the BP are not there. The idea of 300 point characters, well frightens me because you simply cant play a mage/adept/techomancer. I mean 200 BP for attributes leaves 100 BP for money, your mage/adept/techomancer quality and linked special attribute, contacts, skill and EDGE. If everyone just has clubs and etiq(street) then your fine. But you can't go on a shadowrun with characters like that. I mean you should not even know a fixer yet, just a fence. Because all you can do is go steal stuff

*shudder* the mage in the group would be lucky to roll 4 dice on a spellcasting test.

Yes. It lowers the power level that you can be stastically better at basketball than everyone else in the world at chargen except those who are also identical to you statistically because there is a ceiling on dice pools.

Sure it lowers the power level. And I'm Santa Claus.

He can be schooled with the chargen. I'm not talking about Skill 7. I'm talking about characters who roll the maximum dice pool of 24 at chargen, which is only exceeded by certain scaly non-humans (and maybe immortal elves).

Well, 300 BP gets you the following:

'Face'

Ork (20 pts)

(base stats 130 pts)
BOD 4
AGL 3
REA 3
STR 3
CHA 4
INT 3
LOG 3
WIL 3

(other stats 50 pts)
Edge 3
Magic 4
(total stats 180 pts)

Edges/Flaws
Adept (5 pts)
First Impression (5 pts)
Sensitive System (-15 pts)
Mild Addiction to coffee (-5 pts)

(Net +10 BP)

Skills
Influence Group 4 (Con, Etiquette, Negotiation, Leadership)
Dodge 3
Intimidation 4
Perception 3
Pistols 3
(92 BP)

Resources 30K (6 bp)
Contacts
3 2/2 contacts (12 BP)

Depending on how adept powers are ruled on, you'd have to change this but:

Kinesics 4 (2 PP)
Imrpoved Negotiations 4 (1 PP)
Improved Intimidation 4 (1 PP)

This gives you the following Social SKill pools:

Con 12
Etiquette 12
Negotiation 16
Leadership 12
Intimidation 16

That's low powered, right?

Well bob... Depending on how you interperate adept powers that is not possible. If they count as "augmentation" then your limited to cha 4+ skill of 4+ 2 adept power dice*. Which is still nice at 10 dice, but in no way broken or overpowered, your average Mr J should be at about 8 dice, so you should be him. But thats really all you can do "well". I mean he has what i consider to be security guard stats for combat skills.
*Because of the cap on augmentation dice of 1.5xskill. *

I will say my first 400 point outing to the land of social adepts produced a elf.. with 26, i think base dice for social tests. Yes it is wrong, because you can talk Lowfyre out of his shares in Sader Krupp. But, it might be fun to roleplay.

Anyway, yes your character can still be average with 3's across the board. But i am still in the 3rd edition mindset, i guess. Runners might be street scum, but to actually get paid to do the things they do, they have to have the skills and attributes to be able to complete the missions. Straight 3's and 2 4's are "nice" stats in 4th edition. But the only thing i would pay that orc is spare pocket change to sing a song for me.

Yes, if the rule is x1.5 skill then the adept takes Kinesics 2 for 1 PP to get 10 in all social skills (which is still pretty good, and you have 3 pp left to play with.

For a Face archtype he seems rather thin on contacts. Out of the mere three there not one is even at a basic Fixer level.

Well then the orc can be more, and with 3PP you can make him useful. I think if you take 50BP in money, skimp on attributes you can do better. But if this is a ganger campaign that might not be an option.

But your still playing an orc with human stats, which is kinda weak. *prolly why you went social adept instead of combat character*

with 300 BP, can you roll a "professional" (skill 3 and attribute 3)level of dice? Yes you can.

But, if on a normal run, professional level of opposition is standard. Then why is Mr J paying you to do this, when he can get a superior runner who actually has a good chance of succeeding in the run?

I mean its a balanced world, you don't PAY to send thugs to steal data from a corp, or extract a scientist. You pay thugs to create a diversion, steal from the corner store, or rough up some people. And you don't play a charming orc to do the thug jobs

'Low power, 300 BP remember?'

Let's say he knows:

Drug dealer turned fixer 2/2
This guy can get you drugs, commonly available guns, low end stolen cars, and maybe muscle with a die pool of 5.

Crooked cop on the vice squad 2/2

Private investigator 2/2


For a low power face, h\what did you expect?

Of course, for the same points, we can go for the 6/6 contact, a local dragon who owes you a life debt...