Shadowrun 4th ed. Questions

[Reluctance]

5' square is a D&D artifact. So long as everything scales properly, you can use whatever scale you like. Hell, hire actors to act things out as some bizarre form of human chess if it tickles your fancy.

[Codemus]

Originally Posted by Reluctance

5' square is a D&D artifact. So long as everything scales properly, you can use whatever scale you like. Hell, hire actors to act things out as some bizarre form of human chess if it tickles your fancy.

That would be awsomem but probably boring for the actors involved. Holograms would work a lot better, if only they were household items.

[Seerow]

Yeah if you're using a grid for shadowrun it's easier to just make 1 square = 1 meter.

And honestly, it's not a bad scale to go with for D&D either. 3' squares make scales seem closer to right than 5', imo.

[Mark Hall]

So, thinking about Metatypes, and whether or not they're "worth it". This is purely mechanical consideration, assuming that you can make an interesting character with pretty much any metatype/group role combo, and aren't coming in with a picture.

So, being a troll costs 40BP. However, you get, essentially, 8 free points in stats, for a net benefit of 40BP (-40+80=40).
Ork? 20BP, +5 stats. 30BP benefit.
Dwarf? 25 BP, +4 Stats. 15BP benefit
Elf? 30 BP, +3 Stats. 0 Benefit
Humans? 0BP, +1 Stats (Edge). 10BP benefit

This doesn't include the value of other benefits, such as vision types, dermal armor, or the like.

Assuming you are making a character who makes use of the stats affected, why NOT play one of these? Or, for that matter, why play an elf if a human works as well?

[Reluctance]

Raw stats don't necessarily matter, if they're inconveniently placed. Strength, for instance, means less in a game where assault rifles are common.

Elves could probably afford to be dropped to 20 BP, since it seems like their cost is inflated by supposed panache they don't really have. Otherwise, most of the incidentals like vision can be bought for nuyen, making them more flavor than anything else.

[Codemus]

Originally Posted by Mark Hall

Assuming you are making a character who makes use of the stats affected, why NOT play one of these? Or, for that matter, why play an elf if a human works as well?

Well, one reason why not to select one over the other would be those secondary benefits, small as they are. Not very strong mechanicaly, but it adds some flavor, which is (I am assuming) pretty much the number one reason one metahuman gets picked over another.

But like you said, you could easily just take the human over elf. Hell, if you wanted that elf feel, take Elf Poser. Yeah, if outed it may be bad (or not depending upon circumstances in-game) but with all of those Poser things you can pretty much play any metatype as any other metatype. Well... within limits. A dolled up troll made to look like an enormous elf would be hilarous. And a dwarf roughed up to resemble a tiny troll would be pretty good too.

[Andrewmoreton]

I spent some time costing the various metatypes the difficult bit is working out how much the penalties to maximum stat matter, all of the special abilities expect thermo vision are available as positive attributes. As far as I can tell they are all worth about the right amount except elves which on the same scale should cost about 10 points less. So I tend to agree Elves should only be charged 20 bp
If you make an issue about the racism effecting various metatypes and the hassle for Dwarves and Trolls in getting customised gear/vehicles it reduces the attraction a bit.
But overall if the increased attribute maximums suit your character concept and you are not going to invest a lot in Edge then you should take the metahuman race appropriate to the concept. Pretty much all Shamens, Voudouns etc should be elves, other mages should be dwarves and melee combatants Orcs or Trolls

[TheOOB]

Originally Posted by Mark Hall

So, thinking about Metatypes, and whether or not they're "worth it". This is purely mechanical consideration, assuming that you can make an interesting character with pretty much any metatype/group role combo, and aren't coming in with a picture.

So, being a troll costs 40BP. However, you get, essentially, 8 free points in stats, for a net benefit of 40BP (-40+80=40).
Ork? 20BP, +5 stats. 30BP benefit.
Dwarf? 25 BP, +4 Stats. 15BP benefit
Elf? 30 BP, +3 Stats. 0 Benefit
Humans? 0BP, +1 Stats (Edge). 10BP benefit

This doesn't include the value of other benefits, such as vision types, dermal armor, or the like.

Assuming you are making a character who makes use of the stats affected, why NOT play one of these? Or, for that matter, why play an elf if a human works as well?

There are a few reasons. First of all, all stats are not equal. Edge, for example, is really powerful, and gets better each point you put into it. A human with 6 or 7 edge is very strong on that merit alone.

Second is role play considerations. A Troll will have problems walking through doorways, and with racism. Not something that should be matter for points, but there it is.

Honestly speaking, the character creation system for SR4 is terrible, just awful, older editions had metatypes actually have meaningful costs.

[Poil]

You have to be careful if you calculate the worth of a race based on what the stuff you get would cost as a human. Otherwise you might think that a drake is an awesome deal at 65 BP.

[DigoDragon]

Mechanically, it does seem that Edge, Agility, and Reaction are the more useful stats and thus the metatype that gives bonuses to those would be preferred. This doesn't stop my players from playing the less optimal races like dwarf and elf for their RP potential since there are ways to boost the good attributes anyway to keep up with the Jonses.

And I do like that about my players-- that they're willing to play suboptimal for the sake of RP.

[TheCountAlucard]

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Mechanically, it does seem that Edge, Agility, and Reaction are the more useful stats and thus the metatype that gives bonuses to those would be preferred.

Don't underestimate the values of Willpower and Charisma; for magical characters, those Attributes are your bread and butter. Likewise, for some hackers and riggers, Willpower might be the only Attribute you ever end up using, since all your Matrix stuff is done with Program + Ability.

[Andrewmoreton]

Orc is not bad for any combat heavy character , bonus body is never bad and the bonus strength is nice if you do go HtH, The penalties won't be much of a problem.
Dwarf is great for riggers, hackers and any Logic or Intuition based mage with that will power bonus and again nice to have bonus body.
Elf is great for Shamen's, Voudoun's and faces with that big bonus Cha and not a bad choice for gunbunnies with the bonus Ag.

Troll is limited really to HtH builds .
With the rarer one Haruman dwarf has nice bonuses but is expensive and looks odd

[DigoDragon]

Originally Posted by TheCountAlucard

Don't underestimate the values of Willpower and Charisma; for magical characters, those Attributes are your bread and butter.

Ah yes, fair point. Those stats are important for mages. I guess then most attributes have use for somebody!

Originally Posted by TheCountAlucard

Likewise, for some hackers and riggers, Willpower might be the only Attribute you ever end up using, since all your Matrix stuff is done with Program + Ability.

I find it funny that one can make a Hacker/Rigger on just one stat (WILL) and still be awesome. I had a player almost do that once, but declined when the rest of the team wanted to nickname him "Wonder Lump".


I remember getting such a disappointed look from that player when most of the data steal runs involved a target mainframe that was not wireless capable. Apparently he expected corps to just give their data away?

[Dimestoretiamat]

The thought of human chess is interesting...but I do not get paid enough to make it a reality I'm afraid. A 3' scale or 1 meter scale in my opinion is too small. However I will drop the issue, as there is an interesting discussion about metatypes going on.

Elves I believe have the +10 BP due to their social status as the most accepted metatype. All the others are discriminated against. Let's face it, elves are pretty. As far as building a character around metatype I find that while some are better at things then others, there really is no limit on what a metatype can do, assuming you do a bit of thinking. I have a guntroll that uses automatic weapons to compensate for his low agility. Plus he is hard to drop.

Another question. How does melee suck? My friend made a samurai and from what I can see he is going to be rocking the house. He has, with all bonuses from ware included, 16 gymnastics for dodging bullets and 15 blades with his katana and his sword does 6P damage. When melee is optimized, how is it any less effective then guns?

[Reluctance]

Originally Posted by Dimestoretiamat

Another question. How does melee suck? My friend made a samurai and from what I can see he is going to be rocking the house. He has, with all bonuses from ware included, 16 gymnastics for dodging bullets and 15 blades with his katana and his sword does 6P damage. When melee is optimized, how is it any less effective then guns?

Check the damage on a katana. Check the damage on a gun. Unless you're tweaking a heavily cybered/adept troll, you're looking at comparable damage. Which the gun user gets on a simple action, which means they get two vs. your complex action attack.

More importantly, check the range on a gun. Check the range on a katana. Range is a good thing.

[Mark Hall]

Originally Posted by Reluctance

Check the damage on a katana. Check the damage on a gun. Unless you're tweaking a heavily cybered/adept troll, you're looking at comparable damage. Which the gun user gets on a simple action, which means they get two vs. your complex action attack.

More importantly, check the range on a gun. Check the range on a katana. Range is a good thing.

Also? Uzis do autofire. Autofire+Smartgun=Fun.

[Poil]

I prefer when magical traditions use Willpower and Intuition since you want that high anyway because it helps both perception and initiative.

Speaking of melee, I haven't gotten around to play it but I put together an orc adept kickboxer for the fun of it. Despite the silly 13 damage (8/2 strength + 7 critical strike + 2 kickboxing (Arsenal)) I question how good it would actually be in combat.

[TheOOB]

Originally Posted by Poil

I prefer when magical traditions use Willpower and Intuition since you want that high anyway because it helps both perception and initiative.

Every mental attribute has advantages for casters. Intuition is likely the best attribute in general, for the reasons you stated. Logic determines how many bound Foci you can have, and is the only mental attribute that can be increased via 'ware. Charisma determines the number of bound spirits you can have, is useful in general, and elves get +2.

[DigoDragon]

Melee can be as lethal as gunplay, but as it has been pointed out, melee takes more effort to bring it up to gun-level damage ratings, plus it is slower. I can understand the concept since it mirrors the real world a bit, but this is where a good GM can be creative to turn the tables...

I once set up a job where the Runners had to infiltrate a hospital to steal a batch of a new experimental drug being researched there. The batch was split into 3 different containers in 3 different labs. I had set it up that the various rooms had different concentrations of oxygen and other gasses in them, thus making guns unreliable or even dangerous (such as the lab that was heavily oxygenated).

It did force the team to rely more on melee, but I think the hospital locale made it passable for believability of the situation.

[comicshorse]

Also Chem sniffers will pick up your gun but not your melee weapon. I know metal detectors will still pick up blades but I believe the reason Corporations prefer Chemical detectors is that every office worker with metal keys will set off a metal detector making for large and time wasting queues as everybody has to empty out their metal items. Whereas as only explosives will set off chemical sniffers so you can have people moving freely past them and they'll only go off when somedoy brings in a gun or grenade.

Melee used to be better against Spirits than guns and I must admit I still use that rule to give PC's a reason for using melee weapons

[The Random NPC]

Originally Posted by comicshorse

Also Chem sniffers will pick up your gun but not your melee weapon. I know metal detectors will still pick up blades but I believe the reason Corporations prefer Chemical detectors is that every office worker with metal keys will set off a metal detector making for large and time wasting queues as everybody has to empty out their metal items. Whereas as only explosives will set off chemical sniffers so you can have people moving freely past them and they'll only go off when somedoy brings in a gun or grenade.

Melee used to be better against Spirits than guns and I must admit I still use that rule to give PC's a reason for using melee weapons

Steal or buy a riot control RFID sprayer. Find a largish concentration of workers from the building in question. Spray them with gun powder. Repeat for a few days. Walk past the chem detector with your gun unmolested. Which is why Shadowrun has Millimeter wave detection systems that ignore certain items. But to be safe I would use all three detection systems.

[Reluctance]

Originally Posted by The Random NPC

Steal or buy a riot control RFID sprayer. Find a largish concentration of workers from the building in question. Spray them with gun powder. Repeat for a few days.

Because this won't tip off anybody at all that there are nefarious plans afoot. Security pays no attention when appreciable numbers of employees are sprayed with a mysterious substance.

[wadledo]

Originally Posted by TheOOB

Honestly speaking, the character creation system for SR4 is terrible, just awful, older editions had metatypes actually have meaningful costs.

Huh?
When did the character creation system become terrible?

[The Random NPC]

Originally Posted by Reluctance

Because this won't tip off anybody at all that there are nefarious plans afoot. Security pays no attention when appreciable numbers of employees are sprayed with a mysterious substance.

Of course they'll pay attention, this is just meant to solve the chem sniffer problem, not the people are paying attention problem.

EDIT: Besides, as I mentioned earlier, there are other detectors that are harder to bypass.

[Mark Hall]

Originally Posted by wadledo

Huh?
When did the character creation system become terrible?

In 1e and 2e, especially, being a meta was COSTLY. As in, being a meta was literally your first priority. You rated your priorities between Magic, Attributes, Skills, Tech, and Race (how I always thought of it, since it made a nice MASTR acronym). You got to make one an A, one a B, one a C, etc.

In 1e, Metahuman, any type, was A. Full Magician was A, unless you were a meta, then it was B.

My numeric analysis of racial numbers was just an odd thought triggered by thinking about the cost of "exotic" characters, like Shapeshifters and the like. They're not so bad when you consider the freebie points, especially since those don't eat into your "attributes" budget.

[TheOOB]

Originally Posted by wadledo

Huh?
When did the character creation system become terrible?

The priority system used in 1-3e actually was pretty good and a worked with the system.

The 4e BP system is pretty terrible, it's costs are unbalanced and it encourages players to super specialize, and it really easy to break. A well made karma creation system would be better, but the guy who made the current karma creation system is insane. Also the 4e priority system also sucks.

[wadledo]

Originally Posted by TheOOB

The 4e BP system is pretty terrible, it's costs are unbalanced and it encourages players to super specialize, and it really easy to break. A well made karma creation system would be better, but the guy who made the current karma creation system is insane. Also the 4e priority system also sucks.

As a relatively skilled SR player who's played using both 3e, 4e and various hodgepodges, I'd have to say that I really don't agree with your opinion, and feel that you should not portray it as fact.

[Andrewmoreton]

Originally Posted by wadledo

As a relatively skilled SR player who's played using both 3e, 4e and various hodgepodges, I'd have to say that I really don't agree with your opinion, and feel that you should not portray it as fact.

I agree with this. I found the Priority system badly broken, and still encouraged over-specialization of characters . While at the same time completely blocking many character concepts. After 3e ditched the priority system I have never looked back.
I would like a character design system which seamlessly integrates with the karma system as it would help produce more rounded characters(IMHO) by eliminating some of the breakpoints in efficiency of spending the two separate type of points but so far don't like the karma gen option from 4e

[Mark Hall]

Originally Posted by TheOOB

The priority system used in 1-3e actually was pretty good and a worked with the system.

The 4e BP system is pretty terrible, it's costs are unbalanced and it encourages players to super specialize, and it really easy to break. A well made karma creation system would be better, but the guy who made the current karma creation system is insane. Also the 4e priority system also sucks.

I don't know that I can entirely agree with you. The priority system was inflexible, we later systems grafted on or supplanting it to provide the flexibility they were looking for... allergies, which initially gave bonus points to skills, attributes, and/or money, which gave way to build points from disadvantages, which gave way to a full BP system.

The 25pts for capstone also means that most people avoid super-specialization... you see a lot fewer natural 6 stats because they're so expensive, and hardly worth it. Combined with the change in the mechanics (where a skill single point, backed by solid attributes, is enough to show proficiency, if not competency), we have gotten people more willing to spread some dice around to non-core skills for their concept... you don't NEED a 6 in the skill at chargen anymore, because decent attributes give you acceptable dice pools. In 1e-3e, a single point was practically suicidal... one die was useless. In 4e, you shouldn't do it with anything you're a specialist at (and, I can say from experience, when your plan involves blowing something up, 1 rank in demolitions between the three of you is not enough).

What I do see a lot of is people maxing out their point expenditures on Attributes... because those 8 figure into every roll. I also see a lot of 1 rank Skill groups... "Yeah, I'm not the face, but I want that 1 Rank in the Stealth and Influence skill groups, just in case." Heck, we've got a mage with a rank in Electronics so he can use his commlink well.

TL; DR? My experience is that the system in 4e encourages a bit of spread of non-essential abilities. People are willing to sacrifice that 6 in Quickness to spread out and be at least minimally competent in other things.

[TheOOB]

I will fully admit I haven't played pre 4e editions as much as I would like, but that doesn't change the fact that 4e's chara creation is terri-bad.