OK, here's a list of house rules that we're going to be using. Reasoning follows "-". We've

Character Generation:
400 BPs, 200 BPs on Mental and Physical Attributes.
-This is standard.

Metatypes:
Ork, Elf, or Dwarf costs 25 BPs.
Troll costs 35 BPs.
-This scales the costs of all meahumans to reflect the actual bonuses they get, rather than in reverse incentivization to the popularity of metatypes.

Attributes cost 10 BPs up to 1 less than the normal racial maximum.
The point of normal racial maximum costs 25 points.
-This is standard.

Skill groups cost 5 points, and may be purchased up to 4.
Individual Skills cost 2 BPs per die, and one of them can be brought to 6 or two of them to 5 (all others capped at 4).
Knowledge and Language skills cost 1 BP per die.
Specializations cost 1 BP
- The math has been posted exhaustively on this subject. Skills in the basic game cost too much. At half price, it is no longer possible to mathematically prove that skills cost too much, which indicates that they might be cheap enough to be worthwhile.

Wealth and Resources:
You must purchase at least 3 months of your lifestyle during character generation in order to have that lifestyle.
-This neatly removes the monetary incentive for characters to live the highlife.

For every 1 BP you spend on resources, you get 7000
-A Street Sam made under standard rules ends up less impressive than does a Magician or Adept. Also, there's a new unfunded mandate

Availability:
The maximum availability for character generation is twelve.
-This is a clarification, the book says both 12 and eight.

Contacts:
Loyalty ratings go from zero to five, with descriptions moved appropriately.
-This makes the cost of contacts which give you no special treatment more reasonable.

Qualities:
Natural Aptitude, Lucky, and Exceptional Attribute do not exist.
-These are not required based on the house rules pertaining to advancing characters.

Character Advancement:
Purchasing anything after character generation costs build points. BPs are awarded after successfully completing missions, in roughly half the amount that are suggested for Karma Awards in the basic book.
-There is only one way to make Karma Costs and BP costs balanced against each other, and that is to make them the same.

Skill groups cost 5 points up to 6, and 10 points per die up to 9
Individual Skills cost 2 BPs per die up to 6 and 4 points per die up to 9.
Knowledge and Language skills cost 1 BP per die.
Specializations cost 1 BP each.
-Allowing characters to aspire to being better than characters can start is a given.

Commutation:
You may purchase skill groups up even if you have one or more skills bought up separately inside. Increasing the skill group increases every individual skill inside them. If you would be purchasing a skill group up to six or less, and this would raise an individual skill to 7 or more, you must pay 2 extra BPs per skill. You may not raise a skill group if that would push an individual skill past 9.
-Since we are going linear, we can use the commutative property of addition. This means that characters are not punished for taking skills or skill groups in any particular order.

Attributes cost 10 points up to 1 less than the natural maximum.
Attributes may be purchased up to 3 more than the natural maximum, at a cost of 25 BPs per point.
-This is simply an extension of the reasoning for skills.

Learning a Spell costs 3 BPs.
-Obviously.

Looks good, but I don't think your statement....

down blakkie, down boy!

You're gonna piss off the Andrew Dice Clay fans for one....

who? Andrew Dice Clay, or his one fan?

Andrew Dice Clay is still alive?

probably, look at the Rolling Stones Keith Richards. After World War III, it'll be twinkies, cockroaches and him. No reason the "dice-man" can't be is cronie.

As for your rules Frank, sorry, I can't somment, because I STILL don't have my friggin' 4th edition. But you seem to have a lot of the same problems that I do with 4th edt (skill caps) so I'll look it back over later. Hopefully your ideas can fix some of the things I hate (skill caps mostly) for me.

If blakkie would stop sticking his foot in his mouth all over my thread, that would be great. I understand that he has absolutely nothing to say and refuses to engage in literate debate, but having him throw feces like an angry monkey when other people are trying to have an intelligent discussion is just draining.

I think the costs should be curved not linear. The argument is roughly as follows:

As many rolls in SR are now opposed, it is your ability to beat whoever you are rolling against that is important. At skill 6 (assuming an opposition die pool of 6) you succeed half the time, as your skill goes up, your certainty of success also goes up.

Having say:

pistols 2, automatics 2, longarms 2 is porbably not worth as much as, say, automatics 6.

I'm working plenty of overtime right now, so can someone else plot the curves of resisted die pools?

I just thought of a great marketing slogan for your house rules!

"Frankie Trollman: Cutting out important, relavent facts to make the math easier and clearer since 2005."

Here's to hoping you sell a million copies.

"don't try to confuse me with all your *facts*"
-Plan B

Well, 'specialization' seems to pay off in many skill groups in they give you an exploitable edge.

compare a guy who has the following skills:

(assume all stats are 3)

Close combat group 3
Firearms Group 3
Hacking Group 3
Electronics group 3
Influence group 3
Stealth group 3

However, this character runs into the problem of possibly running into the situation he can't out talk, can't out fight, can't outsneak, and can out hack. A character who spent the same points in a specialization can be sure of beating the situation in their specialization. As the characters are almost always 'offensive' rather than 'defensive' it's them bringing their specializations against the 'general' situation, thus having an advantage vs the 'average' is relatively much more important than having 'average' in everything.

I´m not fond of these houserules at all. To me, the costs are just right. People spend what they need in attributes and have less to spend in skills, making 3 a very good value for instance in my campain (300 BP, 200 for attributes). 3 is supposed to be professional level, so it makes sense that my street punks doesn´t have that in more than a couple of skills (specializations reach 4, maybe). This will be the natural area to improve later on, as it should be. And the skill caps aren´t a problem because they´re miles away (especially since there´s a million other things these guys need to improve.)

Frank I can only assume this is some kind of training excercise in patience to gird you for dealing with angry patients and HMO's. Still it does make for amusing reading.
Well keep it up, Prometheus would be proud.

Anything change with these, based on anything I missed in a quick perusal of SM (since in my quick perusal, I didn't see anything that much changed karma costs, except for maybe group and ordeal discounts for initiation)

Dave

How much play testing have you done with these rules? Have you made any changes from your original ideas?

isn't that what his last post just mentioned?

Frank

Thanks for the explanation.

Dave

lol I didn't even realize this was such an old thread when I first replied.

So, how many other people have tried this rules varient?

Frank: In your chargen system, are Knowledge Skills still available free (as per Logic/Intuition) at chargen, or do they have to be purchased with some of the initial 400 BP?

I separated Karma off from XP and gave them both. XP works like the BP for the most part. Karma only effects use of edge (you spend karma to use your edge dice) and you buy edge with karma. You also spend karma on bonding for magic. Otherwise you use the XP. I give them a few points of XP at the end of the session and I give Karma during the session and after for good roleplay, funny actions, maxing dice pools, etc.

I like seeing characters with more skills. A few clarifications if you please, sir.

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How about you set up a web site and post them there. Then you can post the web address here.

Well damn here I am a week later. I had stuff to do. Regardless here's what you asked for, scroll down to get to the original character. I'll put up Mocha Latte if I can get her later.
I can hear the groans already but screw it, Scratch is turning out to be one of my favorite characters to play in 16 RL years.

Draconis' Shadowrun page

Not sold on many of the tweaks, personally, but I have to say that I'm in love with the Hacking bits. Hacking + Program goes against the rules norm of Stat + Skill, but keeping teh programs around as Hit Limits? Simple, yet perfect.

I'll have to sit down and have a chat with you about skill point costs sometime, however. I think your prices are too low. Mind, I've *far* less playtesting time, so, it'll be a tricky talk and I'll likely not convnice you, but, I'm game to try.

Keep in mind that it is not "Pistols 4 (Predator 6)", but "Pistols 4 (Predator +2)". Specialization adds to the Dice Pool, not to the Skill itself. Therefore it is in no way limited by Skill caps, so if Skills were capped at 9, a character could have Pistols 9 (Predator +2).

Ok, I wasn't entirely sure (which is why I asked).

So... Is anything other than Reflex Recorders and Improved Abilities included in the skill cap? It seems to me that the skill cap isn't all that binding since pretty much everything gives bonus dice to the pool instead of increasing the skill (or the attribute).