SR4 still induce a lot of min maxing.

Trolls need to get the max of their bod and str at the creation, its very cheap. And 2 days after, when they begin to be played, increasing those attributes is just too expansive to afford it.

I won't ever use that stupid "BP completely different than Karma cost" system.

The worst thing I have seen in sr4 yet.

I do like the cost of next rating to reach = next rating x X
It makes very good skills and attributes expensive, and it is quite logical.

At least FASA could have made something simpler and stick to it for Karma anyway.

I would not necessarily be against changing the amount paid to play various metatypes.

Besides, using the 20 point (overpriced in my opinion, anyway) Exceptional Attribute quality and applying it 12 times is a little ridiculous. First of all, you are applying it to IMPROVED maximum, which is max * 1.5. The difference in maximum is 4 points each, so you are down 80 BP. Now we look at the lower racial maximums for Agility, Charisma, Intelligence and Logic for a total of 5 negative points there. Since we broke the game by applying that quality 12 times, lets create a negative quality called Unexceptional Attribute and apply that 5 times for another 100 BP loss. 240 - 180 = 60.

Now, here is the kicker: Make it more costly to increase the wimpy attributes. Meaning, for a troll to increase Charisma from 1 to 2 would cost 12 Karma, not 6, because they have a 2 point racial disadvsantage. Improving the intelligence from 1 to 2 would cost 9.

Of course, this is not politically correct. The metatypes probably would end up dumber after all. Or we could just ignore it so we have more smart trolls running around, just not genius-level ones. Actually, that would be kind of nice . . . Please disregard the previous paragraph!

Agreed. However, I'm against making all the costs the same.

You want to know why it's harder for a Troll at Strength 9 to get to 10?

Because there are no gyms that offer weights strong enough. No weightlifting machines made properly - or, if they are, they're incredibly rare and somewhat expensive.

A troll going from 9 to 10 needs to go out into the street and benchpress CARS. And who's going to spot him? No one. So that makes it even HARDER.

It's easy to go from 1 to 2 - a gymnasium is easily equipped to turn some of your flab into fab. Even if, in this case, it's not much fab, and still a lot of flab.

*whines* they both keep timing out!

yes. exactly the same as with buildpoints. if you really, really, really want, then i suppose you could count them as being only 4687.5 , then you can, but considering that 25 points is only 1/16 of 400, thus meaning a 1/16 increase in points overall, i felt that keeping things at a nice even 5000 was easier than going with some weird, silly number. you still can't start with more than you could before though (none of the chargen limitations were removed, just how you spend points).

that problem can be found in an all BP system, to some extent, but not in an all karma system. the reason you don't advance to your limit very fast in SR is the karma system, which offers diminishing returns. if it was all BP, then people would hit their skill limits much, much earlier.

You'll want to wait for it, believe me. This thing is great; I made sure to save it locally as soon as possible; if you can't get it email me and I'll send you a copy.

I was proposing a change to the 4E rules. I apologize for not making that clear.

By the way, your technical analysis of the BP to Karma ratios is great. As you have pointed out, BP is nearly equivalent to Karma when raising Attributes to near human maximums. Less so when creating characters of more normal or even inferior attributes. A unified system would go far in getting experienced players away from thinking in terms of optimal choices. It would get them to think more about "What kind of stats do I want starting off for the kind of character I want to play?" rather than "What kind of stats must I choose to maximize my character's future potential?"

You have found the key!! Unifying the character creation and improvement with a Karma based system means that metatypes with racial penalties are in effect getting free points so that they have a 1 minimum. The idea is to make them pay without that payment being tied to the penalized attributes. Otherwise, we have dumb and ugly orks and trolls, which should not be the case. With three attributes at -1 and one at -2 perhaps they could pay 18 x 4 + 15 = 87 (Ouch!) Karma at character creation. Is this close to being fair? Remember Trolls get massive increases to Body and Strength, +1 cumulative natural armor, +1 cumulative reach and thermographic vision.

I work out at the cheapest gym in town and we have tons and tons and tons and tons of metal. Just make stronger (and heavier) bars.

Turning a human Sylvester Stallone into an Arnold Schwarzenegger should be the same as turning a troll Thing into The Hulk.

But that should influance time, not karma cost.

Personally, I see karma cost for stat and skill increase representing the mystic energy one needs to alter one's True Pattern.

It is the only logical explination why one has to go out and commit several felonies before one can learn anything. It is also the only logical explination for why Free Spirits can use Karma and why Karma is required to build or alter an Ally. (Going back to SR3)

Watch the movie "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle." Now I know why this is the case.

http://www.haroldandkumar.com/

"Diminishing returns" is a staple concept in many games to slow down the progress of those who are already at the high end. It's something that minmaxers count on for "efficient returns on investment" but at the same time it makes them overspecialize. Overspecializing leaves you vulnerable.

Look at it like this: It should take relatively small effort for the rudest, nastiest personality to simply stop sneering and swearing. It should take a lot more effort for an incredibly brawny person to get appreciably stronger because they're already near their limit.

I wholly agree; it's easy to see the ways to efficiently minmax SR4's chargen. They put "aftermarket" safeties in there to try to curb the worst of it (e.g.: only one Attribute at your racial max, only one skill at 6 or two at 5, no more than 35 BP in Positive Qualities, etc.).

A hardcore minmaxer will spend all 200 attribute BPs on five attributes at 5 and three at 1, with the 1's as things his race gets penalties on and the others are stuff that he get bonuses on. Then he'll spend his karma on raising the cheap attributes and be overall more potent than a guy who started gameplay as a balanced character.

And that minmaxer's GM is either going to totally exploit that character's weaknesses.... or just toss the character sheet back in the player's face before the first die is even rolled.

~~~~~

I agree that it'd be much easier on the GM if each and every BP or KP spent was worth exactly the same thing for every character. It would eliminate a lot of the unfortunate conversations that GMs are dragged into at the expense of playtime.

However, such a system just ain't gonna happen. You can get closer than SR4, sure; but then you gotta ask yourself if you'd rather spend your time creating what amounts to an entirely different system... or playing something that other people have already spent their time on for your convenience.

I see that decision as a case-by-case, myself. SR4 is hurtin' and house rules are spawning faster than American primetime shows about ghosts (seriously, what's up with this season?).

That's not true. Bigest flaw in "balance" of SR4 is that the costs of thinks are different in BP and in Karma. To solve this, all you need is system that uses the same prices for everything and there are sure plenty of them.

My position is that there are many balance flaws in SR4 and they cannot be adequately reconciled without multiple system reworks.

Fortunately, as Nkari mentioned, game balance is ultimately irrelevant to any given group of players if they want it to be. Unfortunately, it's easier (or at least, simpler) to follow pregenerated rules than to be "sagely cavalier."

and my simple summary...

no matter how they get the numbers to begin with, it will cost that same amount of karma in the end to advance anyway. say you have your unified system, they can still jsut choose to take a stat at 6 and a stat at 1. then factor in all your math (nice work btw, but i would have jsut taken your word for it. though not many probably would have, but i also am too lazy to check it or anything.), and it is the same numbers in the end.
also, would your unified system reflect and utilize the same concepts in the current one? ergo, no more than one attribute at max, having to pay more to raise it to max, only half your bp to spend on it? unless it is jsut a numbers conversion, then your also comparing apples and oranges, becuase a different system would likely have pitfalls as well that get around the idea of balanced character generation.
and as for the penalty for taking a balanced character....
ok, is not having to focus on raising your weakness a penalty of its self? in doing so, you will fall behind in other areas that you may also want to raise, such as edge, or secondary skills, or magic stuff that needs bonded, so on and so on. if you look at pure number crunch, one way is clearly better. but look at it in game terms, you have to go with a stat of one. in the example it would be body or strength. i think a body of 1 would be plenty obvious of why that is a dissadvantage. a strength of 1 gives even dull gms something funny to toy with. "hey, you want to climb that fence? sure, threshold 2." or, "well, you fell of the bridge and into the river. need to swim, threshold 2. gonna need to test every 10 feet." or "anything stregth related that is detrimental to you, threshold 2."
(these examples come from nothing i looked up, so if skills are not tied to proper attribute, sorry. its the message that counts)
in any case, all that aside, after chargen, all you are left with is numbers that get raised by karma. and that is why it doesn't matter, becuase as long as you can still just choose what they are, people can still jsut choose to take a stat of 1, and a stat of 6.

someone also mentioned the thing about it would make the book shorter cuase they can leave out the advancement chapter. That would likely still exist, and the current ammount of space it takes doesn't even equal 2 full pages. possibly it would shorten the part on chargen? who knows. if you write a better version, i can at least do you the courtesy of reading it.
well, time for bed, 5:30 am comes pretty early. sepecially when its almost 1 am.