That's not in the rules though, that's just how you would do things if you were writing the rules from scratch. What they actually say about moving into and out of skill groups is:

The design intent is that buying a point of Skill Group is just like buying a point in every contained skill at once, but you get a cost savings for doing it in a lump sum. Just like means just like. There's no statement that having a specialization keeps you from regaining your group, and no statement that having skills of equal ratings keeps you from ever being able to buy specializations.

This isn't rules lawyering, this is the fact that the designers don't see anything special at all about grouped skills. It's just a package deal for the purposes of purchasing skills. So the whole boogy-boogy about not being able to get specializations isn't the rules, it's just you making up stuff.

Which brings me to Blakkie's claim. Buying a skill group saves you so much Karma over buying the skills one at a time, that the timeliness advantage isn't one. When purchasing the skills in singlets, you get an advantage from between 2N karma and 5N-1 Karma, where N is the next rating of those skills. After that, the guy who purchased the skill group is ahead from 5N Karma until the end of frickin time, because the guy who bought the skills individually can't ever do anything to ever catch up. You're essentially spending permanent Karma to maybe get a +1 bonus to one skill for one adventure. What the heck is that in there for?

Let's assume we get 5 karma per session, and we don't have Influence, and decide that we want to start being more socially ept. After the first session, the Blakkie style character can have a rating 1 of Ettiquette and 1 Karma, while the Frank style character has a pile of 5 Karma and no skill bonuses. And then after the second session, the Frank style character has a rating 1 of Influence, and the Blakkie style character has a rating 1 in Ettiquette and Negotiate, and 2 Karma. After session 3, the Blakkie style character has rating 1 in Ettiquette, Negotiate, and Con, and 3 Karma, while the Frank style character has 1 in Influence and 5 Karma. After the fourth adventure, Blakkie has a 2 in Ettiquette, and a 1 in Con, Leadership, and Neotiate. The Frank Style character has a 2 in the entire Influence Group.

What do we notice? We notice that the Frank style of advancement is "more timely" in 3 out of 4 of those sessions, and that it will continue to be "more timely" until the end of time. That's why I don't take Blakkie's "timeliness" concerns seriously.

-Frank

...you are once again trying to prove a negative by providing a jury-rigged example?

Yup.

Excellent example though of one of the worst places/ways to look for an advantage. No advantage multiplier, likely low use count, short term plan, group of 4 skills, lack of development focus.

pg 264 tells us this...

pg 106 tells us this...

So lets look at the sections I have highlighted.

Specializations may not be applied to skill groups. Ok thats prety simple yes?

Second part if you iprove any skill individualy the skill group ceases to exist. Seem's simple to me.

Third part, is you can't use specializations with skill groups. Thats simple enough.

Ok so what does all that mean together. Well you can't specialize in a group. And specilizing in a specific skill is well, improving a specific skill which would break up the skill group. And you can't use specializations with skill groups.

So anylyzing the rules there Frank. You're wrong. You can not use specializations in conjunction with skill groups. Improving any one skill in a skill group does infact break up a skill group as well. Basicaly your example of not specializing firearms skill group but specializing with longarms doesn't hold up with the rules.

Like your character that proves that humans are worth wile?

Yes, like that human that i used to demonstrate to you what you were doing.

sweet mother of blades, you folks go get a room and kill each other allready...sheesh

Absolutley. But you did notice that all of those situations were when you had no intention of ever buying all the skills in a group, right? The only time it is ever to your advantage to not buy the group is if you don't intend to buy the whole group. That means that a character who only wants Blades and Unarmed should buy the skills individually, while a character who also wants clubs should always buy the group.

Note, I don't even think this is a problem. I just think that getting back into skill groups should be a bit easier and less complicated than it is now. That's why I support a system where commutative addition is easy and fun.

Unfortunately, this is true. This is why I am so vehement in my "skills should be cheaper, attributes more expensive" mantra.

-Frank

ture.. though for 4+ skill groups it is more accurate to say for those who never want more thasn 2 of the skills in the group

Ok wait one second. Now you've got me completely confused Frank.

KOA comes to the conclusion that its not optimal to buy stats over skills.

And you agree with that, and thats why you so vehement in your opinion that skills should be cheaper and attributes more expensive.

What? That doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe i'm missing something there or I misunderstand the concept driving it. But to me it seems theres no reason to make skills cheaper and attributes more expensive IF its already more optimal for skills to be purchased over stats.

No. If you don't plan to buy the group in the shortterm. Karma is always in demand, and it can be important to divert karma to other critical areas (for example Dodge, Perception, spells, etc.). The ridiculously cheap Specialization also becomes available sooner (sooner than Kremlin put it in) unless your GM has a brain aneurysm and falls for your munchkin lawyering (or you house rule).

The benefits are in the extra 10% to 20% success rate (or more) from the extra dice on opposed rolls, the lowered chances of Glitches, and those extra boxes of damage from the successful shots, in the interceding sessions. SR is often times a game of live or die. I'd feel a lot more confident of coming out alive in a firefight, or of making that one-shot-kill on a sentry to avoid a larger firefight, if i had that extra dmg plus an extra Dodge die. Shouldn't you?

So the issues become; is player 2 able to survive to buy up his group and see player 1 spend that karma to round out the group, and is player 2 able to succeed at the same goals as often to gain karma at the same rate.

Now fully demonstrating in every detail obviously requires a large simulation, which i really don't feel is worth my time.

House ruling commutative addition for the canon rules is a small change to your rules for commutative addition.

Raising the first highest and second highest skill alone costs the same as canon.
Raising the third highest skill (and the forth Skill with it) costs 1xSkill.
Raising a canon group can be expressed as: (Highest_Skill x 2) + (2nd_Highest_Skill x 2) + 3rd_Highest_Skill

Example:
Pistols - 3
Automatics - 2
Longarms - 1

Cost to raise Pistols only is: 4x2 = 8
Cost to raise Auto. only is: 3x2 = 6
Cost to raise Long. only is: 2

Cost to raise group is: 8 + 6 + 2 = 16

Ahhhh ok that makes a great deal more sense now.

I'd disagree with you, but my argument relies on abstract though, which in and of itself is not physicaly provable by math. I won't bother relaying it here because of your apparent severe dislike of roleplaying and the GM having any sort of decision making power.

Frank, that is wrong for Skills but true for Skill Groups.

It is cheaper to buy Skills versus Attributes and more expensive to buy Skill Groups versus Attributes.

Or are you switching in the term Skill when you mean Skill Group.

The suggestion was a "stealthy sniper" or the lke. As soon as you want Longarms and Infiltration; or Pistols and Automatics, the attribute is a better deal.

If you are only concerned with 2 (or less) relevent skills in a skill group, you are better off with buying the skills individually than the skill group.

If you are concerned with just 1 relevent skill, you are better off with the skill individually than the attribute.

Otherwise you are better off with the skill group than the individual skills, and you are better off with the attribute than the individual skills. And the factis that you are always better off with the attribute than the skill group, even if the skill group is the only thing you care about.

That's not good design. The cut-offs for when the attribute is a good deal are way too early. The Skills vs. Skill Groups works out fairly well I think, but the attributes vs. Skill Groups and attributes vs. Individual Skills does not.

-Frank

Fact is once again you run off at the mouth. The cases that are apparently so small your 'nano-probes' missed them are:
- the Skill Group is untrained (edit: and contains non-defaultable skills)
- raising your Attribute costs more than your Skill Group (remember metahumans pay based on their meta type adjusted Attribute, and it is also very costly to buy the Exceptional Attribute)
- the Skill Group has two different underlying Attributes.

Why? Because the the tension of decision between getting a Skill or Attribute isn't there all the time?

That's irony right there. You made the typo, and I read it originally as if the typo wasn't there. And then I originally responded to it as if you said what you meant to say rather than what you actually said.

Maybe I'm telepathic and illiterate.

In any case, thanks for actually taking the time to look through the numbers and come to reasoned conclusions. On threas like this, that's really refreshing behavior.

-Frank

Not totally true.

Lets take Jim the Baseline. Now Jim has NO skills and 1 in all stats.

Jim wants to grow up to be John Wu, and double fist some guns.

So, we have:

Pistols=>Agility
Dodge=>Reaction
Perception=>Intution

It will cost him 42 Karma to get a Skill from 0 to 6.
It will cost him 60 Karma to get an Attribute from 1 to 6.

Now, lets replace Pistols with Firearms

So, is a player more likely to do option one and get 12 dice for 102 Karma or option two and get 12 dice for 170? That is a difference of 68 Karma. Your statement is erroneous because it generalizes.

Are Skill Groups overpriced? I don't think so. They are a bargain for 3 to 4 skills (basically for 110 Karma you get 180 to 240 Karma worth of Skills.) I prefer the advancement of dice pool, in regards to sessions based on the base SR4 costs.

The statement "It is never optimal to not buy stat rather than skills" is erroneous because it makes broad generalizations.

By keeping Attributes cheaper than Skill Groups you steer players to Skills, and make the advancement of a generalist go slower than that of a specialist *in that Skill Group* at a healthy rate. By keeping Skill Groups more expensive than Attributes, you steer the player to buy Attributes, which have other benefits than just a plus one dice to a roll.

I am not going to assume your style of play and overlap my preferred advancement plan over yours, but by increasing the cost of Skill Groups, you move your players to not buy Skills and instead by Skill Groups because the difference (or gap) between the cost of getting to a total of 12 has been decreased because of the increase in Attribute costs.

/edit Oooops..fixed the Attribute notations in the second example...

It certainly seemed like a strange statement to make. Unfortunately this new version is also incorrect. You pulled a Frank, drawing a blanket conclusion from an example that does not represent the entire problem domain.

I think you forgot to consider the Attributes that get little linkage lovin'. Well not Body or Will since they tend to get a lot of non-voluntary use. But Str only has three Skills linked, and sees very limited use unless you attack primarily in melee or use any of the 'medieval' weapons. Even you if wanted all of three of them it is the same cost to buy Athletics(3) than Str(5), and you get the Gymnastics thrown in for free.

SR3 to SR4 really devalued STR, as it lost it's combat skill links to Agility.

The smart money is on flat out thick.

Unfortunately you are damn poor at judging reasoned conclusions.

No you don't. Read the rules of Dodge again. While Reaction adds to all defense rolls, Dodge does not. Dodge only applies to a full defense action, Reaction applies to full defense actions and every other attack against you while you are concious, mobile, and aware of it.

So a John Woo Action Hero wants an asstonne of Reaction, but honestly couldn't care about his Dodge Skill one way or the other. If you plan on capping people with double pistol action, your dodge skill isn't good for anything. This is an instance in which the attribute is so much better than the skill that the player would be willing to pay substantially more for it. That he doesn't is a problem.

-Frank

Not true. You can always pop a full defense action at the sacrifice of your next phase.

Or roll your Reaction+Dodge when someone swings a claw/sword/board with a nail to smash your face....or Reaction+Dodge+Dodge to go full defense when getting hit with a close combat attack....

So, I am still curious about what you thought about the other pieces besides just attacking one piece in a vaccuum of the other points I made?

Well, I had already conceded that if you are interested in a single skill, the most efficient path involves purchasing that skill. And I had conceded much much earlier in this discussion that the first point of skill is totally worth it for someone who wants to do that activity because it is worth 2 dice instead of only one.

But I've also pointed out that in the vast majority of cases you don't just want one skill. You want lots of skills. A Hacker has to consider the Electronics group as well as the Cracking group, not to mention optional skills like Demolitions, Mechanic, Armorer, and Biotech. A Magician needs the Conjuring and Sorcery group, a Street Sam is looking at Firearms, Close Combat, Throwing, and Infiltration.

And all of these are so pressing that it isn't really worth raising any of them, except to get that first point that is worth two dice. You just buy the attribute because you need so very much out of your stats.

---

Doesn't the fact that the only point that's worthwhile is the point that's essentially half cost indicate that maybe skills are overpriced. By a factor of two?

Heck, even in the system I'm proposing an attribute is still a crazy good deal compared to skills. I'm suggesting a system in which someone could get a point of Sorcery and a point of Conjuring for the price of a point of Magic. But we both know that getting a point of Magic is actually better than that. The only way it can thus be justified is by the minor quibbling advantages that people keep bringing up over and over again - like how Counterspelling is actually its own thing and doesn't add your magic attribute at all, or how you can make use of the extra die in summoning a whole session early if you buy skills instead of the umbrella attribute.

The choice to buy skills should stand on its own as a reasonable decision. Right now it doesn't. Period.

-Frank

Touche o0n the strength thing

Missed the skill poor attributes? Well not really... the attributes with little skill linkasge are a different problem with the system...

but let's examine each attribute and the skills it gets

Body: 2 skills plus damage resistance and other resistance tests... easily worth more than 3 skills and no group to cover them...

Agility: 18 skills including 2 skill groups, 'Nuff said

Reaction: 3 defaultable skills + 4 non defaultable skills + initiave test component + general dodge test component


Strength: 3 skills that are part of a skill group, plus carrying capacity

Charisma: 6 skills, 4 of which make up a skill group. all defaultable, thus still cheaper than the skill group

Intuition: there are 2 skill groups that dip into this stat.. one that is very important to most runners (stealth) and one that can be of importance to some (outdoors) and 3 other skills that are defaultable and linked to this stat... also adds to initiative

Logic: there are once again 18 skills to this stat 9 defaultabler and 9 not... 6 of the 9 not are linkeed to 2 skill groups.... meaning that after groups are bought (equivalent cost fo 5 non def skills) actual costs run to about 7 defaultable and 8 not still about 15 skills worth of cost

Willpower: one skill here, it is defaultable and linked to another skill group... only reason for this stat is magic resistance... and dumpshock resistance... (damn good reason for the stat tho)

Assumptions made: magical skills do not exist neither do resonance skills this assumption was made to make the math easier and incidentally favors the point of view championed by shadow and blakkie


Long story short version: of the stats the only ones where the question of whether they are underpriced compared to skills are willpower, body and strength. This means:

A: the 5 stats not mentioned are far too cheap sompared to skills

B: with the damage resistance and magic resistance tests requiring willpower and body all the time... those two are more than worth an equivalent skill group because of their common non skill related uses (also remember kids body adds to allowed armor rating)

C: of all of the stats the least used is strength... in anything except a melee specialist, strength is the least useful stat and even then it has a skill group linked to it so would have value equal to that of said skill group

thus strength, the worst stat to buy, still has value at least equal to the athletics skill group... simply because of encumberance and close combat damage rules.

I will admit now that point c is debatable... but even if point c is wrong then that eveals that not only are 7 of 8 stats undercosted, they are not balanced out against each other.

Thanks for noting more holes in the current system Blakkie

Actualy to me it does. But then again I put thought into skills and what they mean vs attributes. Ontop of that theres the whole wonderfull training time issue that I brought up before.

You look at ONLY the hard numbers in a effort to prove your point. Not what they mean, not what they stand for. Just hard numbers. And to me thats the major flaw in all your arguments.

That's similar to saying gaining an extra point of skill die pool at Skill 2 is too cheap compared to buying it at Skill 6. The difference being that you aren't actually given the choice to buy the die at the higher cost [edit]first, and at the lower cost second[/edit]. With Attributes and Skills you are given the choice.....and as you play the game you will find that some Skills will indeed be purchased above the relatively simplistical mathematical calculations, just as some Skills will be purchaces over Skill Groups. It costs more to get that specialist spike.

I happen to think that overall Attributes less, Skills more is a good way to incorporate diminishing returns. Now could Attributes cost be increased to say a 4x? *shrug* You could perhaps. However Fanpro made the choice of Attributes at a 3x from several man-years of playtesting data. An offhand comment made here suggests that they tried other costs, and this was where they conciously set it. Did they make other errors? Yup. They so pooched Spirits. However making in an area so murky without actually trying out advancement in actual play based on an a "everything has to be equal, even things that are different" concept? Pure madness.

The really ironic thing? That what SR4 does is encourage what SR3 did, generally speaking Attributes higher than their the highest linked skill.

Or as i already put it, they tend to have a lot of involuntary uses...

The Attributes aren't of equal value to each, no. Str is definately weakest, but not by much Cha is a pretty close second. However they both have uses in archtypes where they are in the top 3. It's hard to beat Body, to at least a certain level, but i think slightly easier than SR3 because of the interaction of armor and Body. And Agility really has tight grasp on combat.

I think Heavy Weapons should have stayed in Str (no more a mental stretch than Body-Parachuting ), and maybe even Thrown Weapons (inspite of the doubling up of Str use there).

Holes in the system, and holes in your reasoning. No problem, it's what i'm here for.

Or maybe they are priced to provide a diminishing returns for specialists? To give an increasing cost to focusing in on a skill vs. the general. Afterall SR game play does have a tendancy to love a specialist, and if you let it be too cheap to specialize......

I'm OK with charging less for generalists than for specialists, but the current rules go too far. As soon as you pay less to get a bonus to everything than you pay to get a bonus to something, the advancement system is fragged. It just means that "specialists" buy their attributes up and get general bonuses just like everyone else. And that sucks. People should at least have the option of being good at lots of things or being somewhat better at less things. Right now the only choice is whether you want to be good at lots of things or suck for now and get good at lots of things later.

Right. Because in the world of game design, that's the only thing that exists. These things could be called "red" or "yellow" instead of "infiltration" anagility", and the game would be the same. The story wouldn't, the story would not survive at all. But the story doesn't even need numbers. At all.

There's two parts to a role playing game, roleplaying and a game. The roleplaying aspect doesn't require numbers, it requires character concepts and impressions. The game requires hard numbers that are reasonably balanced for different characters.

Right now, people who are roleplaying a character who is specializing in certain fields are encouraged by the book's descriptions to purchase skills over attributes, and the game is encouraging those same people to spend less Karma to get bigger better bonuses by purchasing the stats instead. The game shouldn't ever interfere with the roleplaying aspect! The game is, after all, just there to facilitate conflict management in the inevitable storytelling disputes that happen in the roleplaying.

So when you look at the hard numbers, you should really look at the hard numbers. You should ask if they are balanced in abstract as if they were just colored squares on a board game. You should then look to see if properly balanced nmbers successfully support the story you are trying to tell. These are separate but linked concerns. If the numbers for the game aren't balanced, people will be encouraged to make decisions that don't make sense from the standpoint of roleplaying - and that sucks. You are, in effect, punishing people for playing in character.

I have no idea why you want to punish people for playing in character, but I know in advance that I never want to play with you.

-Frank

Really? Nobody in their right mind is going to advance a single skill past 2 before maxing out their Attributes? That is a curious theory you have there.

There certainly is no chance of me attempting to. But i would be interested in watching you play an "optimal" character, for the guilty pleasure of watching you either a) gimp your character (although probably not fatally so) or b) eat crow (again).

EDIT: Downside being listening to you torture the GM with innane munchkin lawyering.

Well lets figure out a few things since we seem to be working off of two different sets of deffinitions.

Let me explain to you what I would consider a well designed RPG.

To me a well designed rpg is not one that has very restrictive rules. I prefer one with a more open system that guides gameplay along but does not hinder it. I prefer a system that gives you a good bit of leeway each way in most gameplay elements. I think the system should allow you to create a rich, diverse character, and a variety of gameplay styles.

I think SR4 is one of those systems. You're right. Number wise, one could argue as you continualy do that the system is broken and doesn't work. When you add in the roleplaying element which makes the game what the game is then you have a more complete game. To me the way you're looking at the system you're looking at a xray skeleton of it and claiming that to be the whole person and screaming, "Well he can't move his arm because theres no muscle there! It must be broken!" And to me I'm taking a step back pointing at the guy saying "No. He's right over there, thats a xray."

Roleplaying games, or atleast good ones (in my opinion), have rule sets that allow you to mediate disputes, when things come up, be it combat, how successfull you are at summoning that spirit ect ect ect. Sure you can go into the dice system and look for every little advantage and crunch the numbers till the cows come home. But to me thats not whats fun about rpg's. I like createing a FUN character, not just one thats meant to wade through everything the GM throws at me. Where's the fun? the challenge in that? I posted somewhere on here before a character i made in sr3. Decently tweaked out, could have added one or two more things to make it even more optimal but didn't. But you know what weapons the char specialized in? Hand razors and machine pistols. Hell in sr3 machine pistols are the equivilent of a showerhead turned on rough massage. But it was a fun char. I'll go for challenging and fun any day over min maxing every stat.

D20 has a strict system, just like you seem to like Frank. Just about every little detail is ballanced out the best they can make it. But you know what? I hate the system. Everything has a roll associated with it virtualy. And hitpoints . But thats the beauty of shadowrun 4th eddition. You don't have to worry about things like that. You don't have to have a roll to do absolutely everything. My GM for exalted knows my char has Occult 4. I don't have to roll everytime i come across something arcane that i might know already. He makes a judgement call. "Well he has occult 4, he's been trained in celestial level sorcery, yeah he probably knows x and y so i'll tell him that, but we'll roll to see if he picks up on z". Skills aren't just numbers on a page Frank. Maybe to you, but not to me. And that is why I can't buy your argument that you have to buy attributes over skills.

Heck, I spend karma and experiance in games to increase what i should increaese. I've been studdying occult books and such, aprenticing. I probably won't increase my intelligence, i'd increase my occult. In shadowrun same principle. If i've been just hacking through systems I already have seen before, doing the same things over and over. I may raise my computer skill to show my increased proficciency but I don't think i've done anything to warrant a increase in my logic, so despite the logic increase being better and cheaper in the short term here as its applied to more skills, i'm not going to raise that. If I spend a few runs using my logic to overcome new interesting things, or work out logical plans to get my friends out of trouble, or figure out a better way to solve something, then i'll consider raising it.

You made a example earlier mocking me about carrying gear in a run. If I'm carying the same amount of gear, every run, and it wasn't challenging to me, to me that doesn't warrent increasing my strength. Now if I suddently become the go to guy to boost people over the wall every run, and we've got a orc or two or whatnot, hey yeah i'll increase my strength. But i'm not going to increase it after one run where I had to boost my friend poole over the wall if thats the first time i ever did that, hadn't been doing that much strength testing stuff, and that run netted me enough karma (combined with stuff i already had) to raise it I'm sure as hell not going to raise it.

Justification and training time. Why don't you even consider these things Frank? Oh right because the GM shouldn't need that much power.

EDIT: I don't punish players for being in character at all. Hell I reward them. Heck if they pull off something special that helped them beat me the GM, they might get a couple extra karma specificaly for a skill, or maybe a stat. But then again I'm the GM. I have the ability to reward that sort of thing. If you're going to stay in character great! when something goes down and you like the character, and the character's fun in the group? Hell I'm more likely to be extra lenient or help give you a out. If you're trying to twink out every advantage, and be a real twit telling me hey well i have x amount of karma i can spend it on this, it doesn't say i have to do something in it to raise it, then when that time comes and I get the lucky dice roll over you and it means your char? Theres a good chance I'm not going to help you out. Call me a bad GM, but hey I play to have fun. I don't have fun when some twit is telling me that he can do x y and z specificaly because the rulebook doesn't have hard times set down for training or what you have to do to raise a skill other than karma. That just pisses me off. I won't throw a grudge encounter at you, but I will be less likely to pull my punches on you.

Mind If I give my idea of a Good RPG?

well either way i am going to

To me a truly great roleplaying game needs a few things, mentioned in no order of importance (all these are important)

1: A detailed setting that is enjoyable and not too difficult to suspend disbelief into (D20 instantly disqualified here due to not having a setting per se)

2: a rule set whereby the number crunching happens behind the scenes ... thus at the session the game flows smoothly

3: Flexibility for the GM to scale the campaign to differeng power levels, or differing campaign concepts (Street punks to elite members of Assets Inc)

4: Reasonable balance of character design so that otherwise viable concepts are not disabled due to being punished by the system.

Note these are the things needed for a great game, not a great campaign or a great session.

A good game will have three of the above

a decent/reasonable game will have 2

a poor game will have 1

an atrocious game will have none

I will give 4th ed on the first... barring wireless issues

I will even give SR4 on the second

but it fails to deliver on points 3 and 4

the attribute skill thing is the killer on point 4 (the weapon specialist exploit is the best show and tell example... take a level off each of the cc and firearms groups and add 2 levels to agility then lower thrown weapons, heavy weapons and archery by 1 for 60k nuyen.. this can buy muscle aug 1, muscle toner 2, wired reflexes 2, and plastic bone lace. this means that the weapons specialist now has 3 more dice in all her preferred combat skills (the ones she took) and 7 dice when defaulting to the ones she didn't previously have.)

on point 3 the skill caps prevent much upward scaling from the standard start... and that is from either higher starting character points or through character advancement... unless you are magical

Maybe we should call this edition 'Mage Night'...

That's actually a good description of what makes an RPG great. And you'll notice, it only takes pretty minor alterations of the advancement and caps systems to put SR4 into the realm of a great game.

Replace the hard caps with soft caps (x2 cost, or whatever, to raise past the caps), and then rationalize the costs of things in advancement to each other and BPs. That's not far fetched at all. The total house rules required to make the system openly non-punishing to various characetr concepts and allow the game to be played at a variety of power levels fit into a single paragraph.

I think that SR4 could be a great game. It just needs people to understand that some of the numbers were written by people who didn't understand the system, possibly before the system was actually finalized. The Ammunition modifiers, for example, just don't all make sense given the actual game mechanics of SR4 damage. Similarly, the advancement costs for attributes and skills don't actually make any sense given the uses of attributs and skills.

But that ranks up with "The jamming action is not defined properly in the basic book" - it's a sign of the game being rushed, but it's not a sign that the game can't be great.

-Frank

As in SR4 there is no such thing as an unimportant attribute, in fact it does... more so because the most important ones, quickness and intelligence were split.

To raise the average by one point costs twice as much in SR4 as it did in SR3 - that levels the field pretty quickly, especially concerning the average of 3.5 of average starting characters.

That the rewards for doing so are bigger in SR4, too, is not a question, though.

This doesn't really work out. You are assuming that you want a specified level of competence in a diverse range of statistics. If they introduced a stat called "banana eating" (which in SR3 could have been dealt with by... say... Body) you can decide that doesn't fit your concept so well and give it less empahsis. Whereas in SR3 you were penalised by effectively buying "banana eating", in SR4 you are not. All those punkers, sams and mercs that wandered around in SR3 with 6 intelligence I bet now have high intution or reaction... Not logic. Anyway, this is a pretty trivial discussion and I'm arguing for a practical, no-nonsense approach to people making SR4 work for them. Not breaking into the houses of dev's at 2am and asking them "Why the fuck is agility god?" at gunpoint