No, i have shown exactly what you were doing. Picking a senario to give you the results you expected/wanted.

I'm kicking myself for wasting my time typing a 3 line response that went right over your head, and now you want me to get into some min/max duel that tries to simulate characters in play throughout their career???

No thanks. But i'll let you know how that character turns out when i play him.

Commutation. That's actually in the mark 1 write-up of the House Rules. Simply, I let people purchase skill groups after they've purchased individual skills and have them stack. And I let people buy an individual skill up into the entire group.

And since it's all linear, it's still less math than doing it by-the-book. So yes, that's a resolved problem, it has been for some time.

No. I mean like how the only attempt at an answer you've ever given to me in this thread is:

Which is so mired in Yoda-speak as to be entirely meaningless. Everything else you've written to me has been just a bunch of insults about how attempting to use math to balance character advancement more is stupid and futile because the game will never be 100% balanced under any circumstances, and therefore I'm some sort of moron and a jerk. It's all very puzzling.

Yes, you've had the argument that characters who spend less on a +1 bonus to a few stats may (or may not) get an adventure or more with their half-assed bonus over someone who saves up to get a +1 bonus to more things all at one. And yes, other people have put that way better than you have, and no it's not a very compelling argument. After all, by the time you've done that twice, the timeliness advantages of the half-assed bonuses are completely negated and more by the more efficient bonuses costing less overall.

So no, you still haven't "put up". You've just hollered a couple of times and thrown monkey feces.

-Frank

That's certainly the impression that I get from blakkie. I don't actually understand his position however. He seems to be suggesting that doing math is hard enough that he refuses to check my figures as to whether they are a good idea or not. And to be reacting out of fear to the unknown when I make suggestions.

The level of helpfulness in his responses has been really low. My suggestions have been stalked by blakkie being an asshat:

I mean, he hasn't added anything to this, or any other discussion. Mostly he just follows me around and throws monkey feces. It's really difficult to have a coherent discussion with other people who are trying to achieve something when he's being such a dick all over the place.

-Frank

And the game is fair. Everyone has the SAME oportunities to build their characters, unless your GM is horrible. You could all go down the same path, or different paths.

You're argument is based around players with no GM control. Or where the GM isn't doing his job.

My argument is based around GM's doing their job. Looking at what their players create. Using abstract thought to balance out and fill in the game the way its designed to be. Players can do anything they want however they want, if their GM lets them.

Don't claim a system is broken, when its realy the GM's fault for not policing his players like he should.

Well Frank I'll just point you to my last reply to Cynic. The problem is not with the system. But the GM.

The system breaks down when the GM doesn't do what he's supposed to.

If your GM allows this type of thing Frank well then maybe you need to sit down and talk with him. The system isn't broken plain and simple.

He doesn't IF his players don't try to abuse the system like you suggest for the reason the system is 'broken'.

All depends on the players if he has to exercise such power. If you're playing in a game where you and the gm work together to do all of this, then wheres the problem?

Sure, the GM can work with the players to work around virtually any problems with the system. In fact, even absolute problems like the fact that characters can require different amounts of karma to end up in the same place can be sidestepped by the GM by handing out compensatory individual karma awards to the underperforming character concepts. But you know what? That doesn't mean that problems don't exist, and it doesn't mean that people shouldn't fix the problems that do.

In fact, role playing can be entertaining and successful with no rules whatsoever. Munchausen is a great game, and so is "cops and robbers". But we aren't playing those games, we are playing Shadowrun. And the reason why we play games with written histories and game mechanics instead of sitting around playing Magical Teaparty is because of fairness.

Magical Teaparty works just fine as long as everyone agrees on the direction of the story. We can all sit around and have running conversations with our teddy bears and it'll be great. But the problem with this set-up is the same problem as Cops and Robbers has - disagreements do occur, and without a structured framework, it all goes to hell in a handbasket of acrimony and recriminations as soon as one person insists that his bullet didn't miss, or that he has help from the Yendorian Space Fleet. Indeed, all games have this problem, and to one degree or another attempt to circumvent it with rules. Rules about genre (for example, in a game of Shadowrun you definately don't have a Yendorian Space Fleet), and rules for conflict resolution (whether your bullet hits or not has to do with the results of your pistols check in Shadowrun).

Now, that means that rules which are unfair basically undermine the entire point of having rules at all. If the conflict resolution system is "I win, you lose" (as it is with the intense power of Spirits in the force range of seven to nine in SR4), then there's really no reason for you to abide by the rules. If the rules by themselves are not conducive to telling a good story, they are worse than just not being there.

If the GM and the players have to sidestep the rules in order for things to work out well, then the GM and the players are playing Magical Teaparty and not Shadowrun.

---

Which is why I am lobbying for the creation of house rules that make character creation and avancement more fair. So that people can have decent characters within a preagreed format of interactive storytelling. Because I know that gamers can't even agree on a set of pizza toppings, let alone keep the flow of Magical Teaparty going all evening.

-Frank

Er no, like:

Where, if you are (SURPRISE!) still confused you are invited to read (reread?) the thread to date for a more information. You wouldn't have to go too far in the thread seeing as it is the post at the top of the thread.

Mark 1 as in the top of this thread?

So what happens in this senario:

There is a Skill Group called School that contains the skills Readin', Writin', and 'Rithmatic, and Recess.

PC#1 and PC#2 built with identical skills sets, both start out with 1 point in each of the 4 skills mentioned.

After their first run PC#1 and PC#2 are awarded 2 karma.

PC#1's player purchases a point in Readin' for PC#1.

After the second run PC#1 and PC#2 are awarded another 2 karma.

PC#1's player purchases a point in Writin' for PC#1.

After the third run PC#1 and PC#2 are awarded another 2 karma.

PC#1's player purchases a point in 'Rithmatic for PC#1.
PC#2's player purchases a point in the School for PC#2.

So, who pays what and when, and what are their Skill levels at this point?

I have a sneaking suspision that it is something like "for subjecting to rules lawyering torture."

OK, now you've started actually asking questions, instead of just being a dick. That's wonderful, and I don't mean that sarcastically. If only you could have done this like a week ago instead of just insulting me..

And now PC#1 has 2 points of Readin'.

And now PC#1 has 2 points of Readin' and 2 points of Writin'. PC#2 has 4 unspent Karma.

No he doesn't. He spends 1 Karma, upgrades the point of Readin' and the point of Writin' into a point of School, and has 2 points in the entire group and 1 Karma left over.

Sure. Now PC#1 and PC#2 are in the same place and have spent the same amount. There was a period when PC#1 had higher values and PC#2 had unspent Karma which was being saved and could potentially be spent on anything.

-Frank

So PC#1 buys readin' for 2 points. Leaving PC#2 with two "karma points"
So PC#1 buys writen' for 2 points. Leaving PC#2 with four "karma points"
So PC#1 buys 'Rithmatic for 2 points. PC#2 buys school for 5 points. Leaves one point left.

So if they both started at 4 with school group they wind up with.
PC#1 with
School: 4
readin': 1
writen' : 1
'Rithmatic: 1
(the ones are added to the 4, to make five in said skills)

PC#2
School: 5

So yes in this case PC#1 had paid slightly more points to get slight less dice. But if you are trying to say this is the same as how skill groups are and attributes. You would have to change the cost of skill to 5 and the cost of skill groups to 2. Wile it is true that PC#2 is paying less points to get those skills. The attributes in the normal system not only cost less than get all the skill groups linked to said attribute. It also is cheaper than any one of the skill groups.

Right, now back in the second run PC#1 and PC#2 ended up in Language Arts class, Math class, and later out in the school grounds between classes. Both PC#1 and PC#2 rolled one dice for most situations, but PC#1 got an extra Readin' die. Run #3 was the same, and PC#1 got an extra for both Readin' and Writin'.

PC#1 recieved an ingame benefit over PC#2 because PC#1's player was buying by the Skill not by the Skill Group.

So order that you buy Skills/Skill Groups is does still matter. "Well don't leave karma laying around"? Nope, order still matters....

Skill Group A; Skills A1, A2, & A3
Skill Group B; Skills B1, B2, & B3
Skill Group C; Skills C1, C2, & C3

PC#1 and PC#2 are identical PCs, each have no points in any of these Skill Groups A, B, and C, and have no karma. PC#1 and PC#2 recieve karma 10 each.

PC#1 buys a point each of A1, A2, B1, B2, and C1.

PC#2 buys a point each in A and B.

Because of the order chosen PC#2 now has more Skill points in total, 6, than PC#1, 5, even though they have both spent the same amount of karma.

Yes. Because PC#1 decided that he didn't want the other skills out of the A and B group. Remember, not all of the members of every group are important to every character. The Influence group contains Leadership, which some characters couldn't care less about. Sorcery contains Ritual Spellcasting in addition to Counterspelling and Spellcasting.

I can seriously see some characters deciding that they would rather have Ettiquette, Con, Spellcasting, Counterspelling, and Infiltration than having Ettiquette, Con, Leadership, Negotiations, Spellcasting, Counterspelling, and Ritual Spellcasting. It's not the same amount of skills, but it contains Infiltration and the other option does not.

The only way imbalance between set A and set B can be shown is if set A contains everything in set B and also costs less or has additional members that are not in set B. If set A has almost everything that is in set B and has more things that aren't in set B than set B has that aren't in set A - you haven't proved anything. Sure, that should raise some red flags, but it doesn't conclusively demonstrate anything.

Does the fact that you can 7 or 8 skills that are in skill groups for the price that it takes to get 5 skills that aren't in groups bother me? Not really. It is definately something to watch for, but as long as the skill groups contain skills that not everyone wants, I'm perfectly OK with giving people the remaining entries for very small numbers of points.

-Frank

I didn't bring that up because that is a separate issue that gets into weighting of individual Skills, etc. EDIT: which should go into defining the size/content of the Group.

Hey, how about an encouraging attitute instead!

I'm trying to meet Frank midway. He wanted to talk in concrete examples, i'm giving him one (in spite of the horrible screen area it chews). I've even done them up with calculations. He seemed deeply concerned about a difference in costs in chargen vs. after chargen (having trouble tracking the thread down though) that was i believe somewhere in the rough ballpark of the second example's 17% cost discrepency, though it was harder to quantify since it is a total of BP and karma.

So here i am trying to help with your process of elimination, illuminating the peril ahead.

Not true. Eventually people will start raising the stat caps some, the pressure for stat inflation will just be to strong. But i'll be surprised if the core itself will require more than very minor tweaks to allow it.

But i feel a lot more experience is needed with the game before making wholesale swapouts of things that aren't understood for new things. I think it is too early for people who haven't even gotten settled into the rules to be able to change them effectively. No proper baseline yet to work from, and it shows in some of the assumptions that are being made.

What should i think of people's flight to toss a year's worth of design and months of 100+ playtesters without even a mentionable fraction of that time playing?

P.S. I'm even biting my tongue about Franks "asshat" post. I didn't actually see that one till after this last post of mine, which is probably for the best.

How do you define or recognize the equivalent competency?

So in those cases it becomes more like the GURPS translation. The SR3 karma is using a different system than the SR4 karma. Besides those two exceptions how close do you find SR3 total karma to SR4 total karma for the developed PCs?

Too, though 'donated' skills or mnemonic enhancer caused characters to differ even from SR3 to SR3.

In the case of spending, indeed, as the definitions differ, too - which creates an amazingly comparable 'feeling'.

Nearly the same, as the average Karma earn back in SR3 was 5-6, while SR4 suggests 4-5, and would tend to 5-6 in SR4, too.

What?

No really, what the hell are you talking about? Almost all active skills are used, well, actively. That means that the player actually chooses when and if they are going to use any particular skill. If you don't make the decision to use demolitions or lockpicking, it's very difficult for a demolitions or lockpicking roll to occur.

So any particular active skill is going to be used more or less by different characters, and more or less by individual players. It's not just a campaign style question, it's a playstyle question. As a gamemaster, you can confront a character with a locked door, and sometimes they'll respond by trying to pick it, and sometimes they'll try to blow it up. There's nothing you can do to make skills equal for an individual character. If your character reflexively reaches for the C12, that lockpicking skill is worth essentially nothing at all.

So no, players having the option of having a smaller skill set of player selected skills is not necessarily underpowered when compared to a larger list of pre-selected skills. If as a player you know in advance that it just isn't going to occur to you to use some of those skills, the ability to trade them in at 2:1 or even 4:1 for skills you will use sounds pretty good. In fact, if anything is overpowered, it might well be the ability to buy just one or two skills out of a skill group for less than the price of the whole group. After all, anyone doing that probably has an angle worked out based on skills she thinks are going to come up a lot for her.

Or to put it another way:

If we give you a list of four random skills, and only let you have one off of them, you'll choose the one you expect to fit your playstyle and character conception the best. The skill you end up with is going to be the one you like the most. And if we let you have two off the list, you'd get your second favorite. And if we let you have three you'd get every single skill except the one you felt you could do without. And that's the skill you're getting bonus when you buy a skill group - the skill that after careful consideration you'd decide that you could do without.

So no, I don't accept your premise here. This doesn't go into frankmatics, because you've got a built-in assumption that a preselected skill is worth the same to my character as a skill that I select. And that's only true in the case in the less than 2% of the cases where the random pre-selected skill happens to be the one which I would have selected anyway.

----

So I repeat: if one character can do everything that another character can do witht he same bonuses and have additional bonuses on top of that, that's real imbalance. If two characters can do different sets things, and one of those sets of things is larger than the other, that may or may not constitute imbalance. It's way too soon to tell.

Right now we can look at the legacy Karma system and the skill costs and see immediately that it causes the first kind of imbalance. We can fix that, and fairly easily at that. However, the second thing - which may or may not be a problem in actual play - is still there. I am withholding judgement because that may or may not be a problem in actual play.

-Frank

You can repeat that all you want, but you earlier were talking about being able to mathematically demonstrate an imbalance. Here you have it, buying 20% more for the same cost.

No you don't. You just bought 20% different for the same cost. That's not the same thing at all.

Under the base rules, buying a point of Conjuring Group costs 10 BP, buying a point og Magic Attribute costs 10 BP. The Magic Attribute adds to all Summoning, Binding, and Banishing tests, and also adds to spellcasting, drain resistance, spell area, etc. That's buying more for the same cost.

But if one character gets Blades, Clubs, Unarmed Combat, Automatics, Long Arms, and Pistols, while another character gets Blades, Unarmed Combat, Automatics, Pistols, and Lockpicking - those are different things that each can do. Neither is really 20%, or any number, more than the other.

Under the basic rules you would have the ability to have an Automatics skill, a Long Arms Skill, and a Pistols skill all purchased separately for a total of 12 BPs per point, while another character would have a "Firearms Group" in at 10 BPs per point. That's paying 20% more for the same bonuses. That's imbalance. I've fixed that.

So yeah, getting the same stuff for less points is unbalanced. Getting more stuff for the same price is unbalanced. But not being able to do soem of the stuff and being able to do other different stuff is not provably unbalanced. Even if there are more individual items in the list of things you can do than there are in the things you can't do.

-Frank

Sorry, that is buying something different for the same cost. The effect you describe is only an artifact of the order you choose to buy it in, which you now are claiming to not be an imbalance.

PC#1 buys the Conjuring Skill Group and then buys the point of Magic, while PC#2 buys the point of Magic and then a point in the Conjuring Skill Group. Afterward they both have paid the same costs, and both PCs have the same improvements.

And that part is not a problem. The imbalance is when one player buys a point of conjurring and a point of magic, nd the other player buys 2 magic. That's unbalanced, because the one character has everything the other character has and more.

It sn't a problem that you can (and eventually will) bring both your Conjuring and Magic up to the caps (at least, to the soft caps), but it is a problem if one or the other gives you substantially more for the same price along the way.

And substantially more doesn't mean ABC instead of AD, it means ABC instead of AB.

-Frank

Once again you are buying something different. It is only the order that you choose to buy it in, and there is nothing forcing the player to choose that order, that causes the effect. Any player is allowed to choose that particular order.

Now if the GM told one player he couldn't choose an optimal order 'just because', then there would be an issue. However flagrant misapplicaton of the rules is clearly outside the realm of responsibility of the rules, so the issue is outside the rules.

If Blakkie has all the appropriate skills in the group at the same level, he effectively does have the Skill Group, even if he bought them all up seperately. He could choose to raise all of them at once as a Group, for the group Karma cost, or he could choose to raise just one at a time.

Groups can be split off at any time, and can be reassembled again if all the Skills become level. They can no longer function as Groups even when all the Skills are level if one Skill has a Specialization attached.

I took a moment after seeing your post to look at both the skill group section, and the character improvement section.

No where in there does it state that you can suddently break up skills groups at anytime. Infact just in the sheer way they work it would suggest that they're two seperate things wording wise atleast. Theres no real wording that would suggest if i at chargen had 3 skills of a 4 skill skill group at 1 then later got that fourth skill at 1 that I could raise them all at the same time later.

The wording of how skillgroups work actualy I think points away from that.

But thats a matter of interpretation. My interpretation see's them as a seperate entity all together, that at a later time you can break up into smaller skills, but that you wouldn't be able to turn a group of seperate skills into the skill group. Maybe I'm wrong and thats not how it was intended but thats what the wording suggests to me.

Nope, not a matter of interpretation. Just a matter of finding the proper reference in the BBB that helps clarify. From the example below the text you copied:

...This means she no longer has the Stealth skill group, but
instead has Disguise 4, Infiltration 5, Palming 4, and
Shadowing 4. Ashley can regain her Group by raising
the other three skills to 5, at which point she will have
Stealth skill group 5...

Actualy my post had little do do with timliness. And focused on the other advantages of skills vs skill groups vs their respective costs.

My argument had nothing to do with the benefits of raising individualy vs waiting for a skill group.

My argument, and example if you had bother to anylize it had to deal with cost vs benefits. Time benefit advantages and disadvantages are wholy different from what I'm presenting in my example.

I went to straight number crunch karma spent vs benefit. A'la if i want to do x i will spend A amount of karma. If I do it y i will spend B amount of karma. What are the benefits of each method and what are their pitfalls.

If you purchase the skills up individualy you will spend more karma in the longrun if you purchase all of the skills in the group. However you will easily have the ability to specialize and get that 2 die bonus for 2 karma in certain situations using that specialty.

If you purchase the group up, you spend less karma, but you don't imediatly have the ability to specialize. In my interpretation of the rules you would have to purchase one of the group skills up and then start specializing. thus nullifying the group completely.

Time wise its a matter of what you realy want to do. Going strictly by the rules raising skills individualy is both a good and bad thing. To raise all the skills individualy it takes more time. However in between you have the extra bonus' of the higher skills. Where with the skillgroup you have to wait till you have enough karma, but all in all you spend less time raising all of them.

I'd apreciate it blakie that you actualy look at what advantages I'm arguing and explaining before you tell me I have a lack of understanding of the rules.

Thanks for the quote there, that clears up things a little (I'll admit I sometimes skip over the examples).

However I still find skillgroups a little iffy, she still originaly had purchased the skill group at cg. So meh. If i'm wrong I'm wrong. I will certainly keep that in mind.

I think i can agree to that. I'm not sure if it would work that way, or should work that way in chargen but I definately see what you're saying.

And I'm slightly inclined to agree with you on attributes but I haven't had enough play time to realy decide.

I gathered your lack of understanding of parts of the rules from your discusion with Fortune. But you posted that before you saw my quote of the example? I admit my wording was on the heavy side about lack of knowledge of where to find advantages, but you certainly were looking in odd places and missing some others, and creating artificial inefficencies.

You should really speak to Frank about misidentifying what advantages you were looking for. He certainly was confused, and i was mainly talking to him. But i guess we could cut him a little slack because he had just got pWnD, so perhaps he was a bit desperate?


P.S. I find your train of thought a little bizzare when you argue it against the spirit of the rules to split a skill group at 5 and raise all the member skills to 6 and then specialize one or more of them. To come to this conclusion because of the assumption that you cannot voluntarily dissolve a Skill Group (6) and then Specialize one or more of those Skills? The tail is wagging the dog, no?

My understanding of the group thing may be a little off I'll admit that. So lets put that to the side for now as it's not overly important for my argument or whatnot.

As for Frank being pwned. Thats not entirely true. My example proves both your side of the argument and his.

It proves your side in the way you can raise skills quicker. as there is multiple expenditures of karma so from one run to the next you'll always be improving and won't have to wait a few runs to save up.

However it also proves frank's side. In the long run its quicker to up the skill group as if you up them individualy you'll have to spend more time accumulating karma to raise them all to the same level.

Its instant gratification vs patientce. Each has their pro's and cons. And realy depends on what you want to do.

So both of your arguments have valid points and pitfalls.

Umm, no it doesn't at all. It didn't even address the issue itself. Besides that's not what i was talking about with Frank, if you look again you'll see i was using the past tense.

That isn't the point in contention.

That isn't Frank's arguement at all, it is the start of it but not the end. He seems to maintain that there can be no positive advantage gained, that the lower total karma paid option must always be the optimal way. You didn't prove that. You didn't disprove it.