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Laphroaig posted:You guys keep talking about the drain like it matters. All of the touch spells are F-6 drain; that is why you are putting them into bullets after all. The DV is probably going be the 2 minimum+1 from the preparation; AKA DV 3. Charisma/Logic 5, Willpower 4, no drain. You'll never even take the damage, and that is a Force 8 spell right there. You only take the drain once; when you make the preparation. 8 minutes to do this. Make a test - Alchemy + Magic [Force] vs the Force (8) of the item. Let's take this further-- Alchemy + Magic vs. Force 8. Let's assume, what, Alchemy 6/Magic 6, plus a force 4 Alchemy Focus, for a dice pool of 16. Assume 4 hits on the Alchemy roll, 2 on the item's Force roll, so the Potency is 2. When activated Potency becomes Spellcasting and Force becomes Magic (as well as the limit), so the actual effect rolls Spellcasting 2 + Magic 8 [8]. So you're already rolling 16 dice to roll ten dice, with a longer prep time and higher drain (and higher drain does matter, if only because higher drain requires you reduce the Force of the spell to keep the drain manageable). I'm still convinced this is a superior option to just flat out blasting a dude, considering you need two distinct skill sets to enchant a knife and then shank a guy with it. Plus, we're up to three rolls now-- one to enchant the item, one to hit the guy with the item, and one to activate the spell.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:58
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I'm totally ok with magic'd up arrows, crossbow bolts, and (non-grenade) throwing weapons. Its cool, it's flavorful, and it gives otherwise exceedingly mediocre weapons a pretty awesome leg up. I think putting it on bullets is a no go. Yeah yeah, you make x number of Magic rolls. But touch spells are touch spells for a reason. They cost exceedingly less drain for what they deliver. Putting them on an otherwise mediocre weapon takes too mediocre things and turns them into something cool and potent. Putting them on what is already the best way to kill things in the game takes that and drives that wedge even harder. Plus I just don't think it's as cool :p
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Aug 23, 2013 00:30
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It's nowhere near as cool, and it doesn't even make sense from a theoretical standpoint since it wrecks the linchpin.
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Aug 23, 2013 00:32
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Cabbit posted:Let's take this further-- Alchemy + Magic vs. Force 8. Let's assume, what, Alchemy 6/Magic 6, plus a force 4 Alchemy Focus, for a dice pool of 16. Assume 4 hits on the Alchemy roll, 2 on the item's Force roll, so the Potency is 2. When activated Potency becomes Spellcasting and Force becomes Magic (as well as the limit), so the actual effect rolls Spellcasting 2 + Magic 8 [8]. Higher drain only matters if you take the drain. In the above case, you are not. And what about two distinct skill sets? Plenty of characters have those. You are also assuming the enchanting mage is the one doing the shanking - the caster can hand out the enchants, and it dramatically increases the killiness of the party, who are now all spellcasters too - thanks to alchemical preparations. The sustained spells aspect of alchemical preparations is already strong without also augmenting the Troll Adept's 18P combat axe with a spell; the game is lethal enough without basically saying "I think we should take all of the base damage values and then every time someone attacks, also resolve a 10 die combat spell on top of their attack". Its just not good design, which is why the developers probably never considered it - this edition does not allow you to attack someone multiple times in one pass, except via splitting your die pool. Magic should not circumvent this. ProfessorCirno posted:Putting them on an otherwise mediocre weapon takes too mediocre things and turns them into something cool and potent. Putting them on what is already the best way to kill things in the game takes that and drives that wedge even harder. Plus I just don't think it's as cool :p That is my feeling as well. It too easily adds on to existing elements and makes them more potent. A one-shot enchanted blade might be thematic, but a PhysAd is already making that katana into an incredibly potent weapon. Crossbow bolts/Arrows, IMO, are already plenty strong. Especially crossbows - they are perfectly comparable to guns (at least the heavy crossbow is) and the Injection vector is a unique thing that, yeah, almost already guarantees a 1-shot. Anyway all of this talk about Alchemy is missing out on the real problem of SR5E: What the gently caress is up with grenades, jesus loving christ. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 00:51
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Laphroaig posted:Higher drain only matters if you take the drain. You're being intentionally obtuse, dude. The increased drain on alchemy matters because you have to lower the force of your spell to avoid taking the drain. Look at your example-- to keep the DV at 3, you have the Force at 8. A magician who was casting a touch spell with sorcery would be able to cast the same spell at Force 9. That is a thing that matters; it's not huge, but it's not inconsequential.
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Aug 23, 2013 01:01
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If you don't want enchanted bullets don't allow them in your game. Some of the devs have said they will be errated out, and AFAIK they have been in Missions and that's about as good of an official word we're going to get until Catalyst gets off their rear end and actually fixes their problems. My stance about the bow/crossbow issue is that they are pretty powerful but aside from literally 4 options in the book the Archery skill is useless. Basically every other combat skill aside from Exotics have superior options. You can take a Ruger Super Warhawk and give it explosive ammo and you've got the exact same damage output as a Heavy Crossbow but with more capacity. As for APDS being inferior to explosive, that was the case in SR4 but I'm not so sure now that every sam is packing 20-30 armor on the low end.
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Aug 23, 2013 01:14
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Cabbit posted:You're being intentionally obtuse, dude. The increased drain on alchemy matters because you have to lower the force of your spell to avoid taking the drain. Look at your example-- to keep the DV at 3, you have the Force at 8. A magician who was casting a touch spell with sorcery would be able to cast the same spell at Force 9. That is a thing that matters; it's not huge, but it's not inconsequential. It is not obtuse - it truly is inconsequential in the above example. You just shot a guy with a bullet/crossbow bolt/whatever and got all of that damage, and now are adding on the spell - but the Force 9 death touch by itself really isn't anything to write home about. You have to make an unarmed attack, with the limit being your Mage's physical limit, and hopefully tie the defender; I think you make the unarmed attack with Magic + Spellcasting, and not Unarmed + Agility, but who can say, this book has terrible loving editing and cross references. Point is, in the example where you got to cast the spell with the 1 higher force, it was in a situation where it would not have been helpful. As an alchemical preparation, it is super strong because you are doing a thing for free in addition to your already good action. As an RPG player, action economy is the strongest thing in any game. Its why Deckers in the current Shadowrun still have problems; every Matrix action is a complex action that you first need marks to get. The same goes for the free sustained spells - sure, you could raise the limit by 1, and as the non alchemical version you get more dice for more hits (which is always good) - but you also have no opportunity cost. It takes you no actions, you suffer no drain, you in fact increase options and turn everyone into a magic-man. This is pretty sweet, and well worth 6 skill points in my opinion. Bigass Moth posted:As for APDS being inferior to explosive, that was the case in SR4 but I'm not so sure now that every sam is packing 20-30 armor on the low end. Eh, against a Street Sam with 37 to damage resistance rolls (and 27 of that being armor), they can eat a missile to the face and not care. With a pain editor, they can not care even more. I don't know how you are supposed to get a combination of DV and armor penetration up to the magic number of 27 - you basically have to stun them so much it goes into physical, and hope they have not murdered you to death in the time it takes to do this. I have no clue how I am supposed to threaten a street sam at one of my Missions tables - I'd have to throw an entire Professional Rating 5 kill team at the one character and ignore everyone else at the table to even have a chance of knocking the character unconscious. At least the Pain Editor is 18F, so no one can start with the drat thing, but they'll catch on soon enough and after a few runs I expect every Sam to have one. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 01:20
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Laphroaig posted:Anyway all of this talk about Alchemy is missing out on the real problem of SR5E: What the gently caress is up with grenades, jesus loving christ. You think they're bad so far, I haven't even started nailing NPCs with pepper punch gas grenades.
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Aug 23, 2013 01:36
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Bigass Moth posted:As for APDS being inferior to explosive, that was the case in SR4 but I'm not so sure now that every sam is packing 20-30 armor on the low end. In SR4, after all of the errata, APDS was almost always the superior choice. In terms of average damage, subtracting one from your opponent's soak pool and increasing your DV by 1 is not meaningfully different from subtracting four from your opponent's soak pool. APDS also let you deal physical to heavily armored opponents and was dramatically better against meaningful enemies with hardened armor, ie spirits and drones. Where are you getting "20-30 armor at the low end"? Armor jacket: 12 Helmet: +2 Ballistic shield: +6 (only allows use of SMGs or pistols, requires a strength of 7 if used with helmet) Troll: +1 Dermal plating: +1 to +6, base of -0.5 essence/3k/point Orthoskin: +1 to +4, base of 0.25 essence/6k/point Bone lacing: Up to +3 body/+3 armor, 0.5 essence/point Cyberlimbs:  So if you had an armor jacket, helmet, 6 dermal plating, and titanium bone lacing, you would have an armor of 23. If they were both alphaware, you'd be down 3.6 essence. Being a troll with a ballistic shield would get you up to exactly 30 armor.
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Aug 23, 2013 01:40
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Right now between the two "fighty" style choices, adept is built more to just plain not be hit at all, and sammies are sorta "tanks." Don't get me wrong, nobody wants to be shot. But Adepts are just plain Better at it. They can much more easily have Improved Reflexes 3 right out of chargen, and Combat Sense can let them match your actually skill point for point, which means you're rolling stat+skill+modifier, while they're rolling stat+stat+skill to dodge even before taking defense actions into account. Sammies, on the other hand, have cyberlimb armor, bone density for soaking, palalteltletleatlaetletl factories to flat out reduce damage taken, and the almighty PAIN EDITOR that lets them all but ignore the fact that you're hitting them in the first place (and it eliminates stun damage, like, as a thing for them). But both of these have costs. I have no idea how your sammie hit 27 armor out of chargen and another +10 to soak beyond that. 12 from armored jacket, +2 from helmet, and you can if you don't mind vomiting up all your essence you can get +10 armor from four cyberlimbs and a torso, but that still leaves out 3, and you've spent pretty much all your "cyber sammie" resources (ie: essence) as well as all your and wouldn't have much left over for actually killing things or getting better initiative. Both the super dodge adept and the super soak sammie are things you'd be working on well into the game. And for soaking, I can only see that working if you have 10 body, which means at the very least 6 body (which in turn likely means ork or troll, and that costs you a lot in turn) and bone density to match.
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Aug 23, 2013 01:47
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Laphroaig posted:You have to make an unarmed attack, with the limit being your Mage's physical limit, and hopefully tie the defender; I think you make the unarmed attack with Magic + Spellcasting, and not Unarmed + Agility, but who can say, this book has terrible loving editing and cross references. It's Unarmed + Agility, but you get a +2 bonus to your dice pool if you're just trying to make a 'touch-only attack' such as delivering magic or using shock gloves. Though that sort of raises the question as to why you can't put on shock gloves and electrocute somebody when casting a touch spell.
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Aug 23, 2013 02:07
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ProfessorCirno posted:Right now between the two "fighty" style choices, adept is built more to just plain not be hit at all, and sammies are sorta "tanks." Don't get me wrong, nobody wants to be shot. But Adepts are just plain Better at it. They can much more easily have Improved Reflexes 3 right out of chargen, and Combat Sense can let them match your actually skill point for point, which means you're rolling stat+skill+modifier, while they're rolling stat+stat+skill to dodge even before taking defense actions into account. Sammies, on the other hand, have cyberlimb armor, bone density for soaking, palalteltletleatlaetletl factories to flat out reduce damage taken, and the almighty PAIN EDITOR that lets them all but ignore the fact that you're hitting them in the first place (and it eliminates stun damage, like, as a thing for them). Let's steal something from Filthy Cajun, then. pre:Orc Street Sam (Armored Machine) Priorities: Resources A Metatype B Abilities C Skills D Magic E Abilities: Body 10 (12) Agility 1 (6 for things that need the average,3 for leg only checks, 9 for arm only checks, -1 for armor if using shield) Reaction 5 (7, -1 for armor if using shield) Strength 3 (5, 4 for legs only) Willpower 3 Intuition 5 Logic 1 Charisma 1 Edge 5 Essence 0.2 Magic - Qualities: Exceptional Attribute (Body) 14 Toughness 9 Resources 10 Negative Qualities -8 Skills: Automatics (Assault Rifles) 6 Perception (Urban) 6 Sneaking(Urban) 6 Heavy Weapons 1 Gear (Augmentations): Aluminium Bonelacing Alphaware Cyberarms x2 +Agility (3), +Strength (2), agility enhancement (3), armor (2) Alphaware Cyber Legs x2 +Armor increase (2), +strength (1) Alphaware Dermal Plates (1) Synaptic Boosters (2) Smartlink Total Nuyen: 435,200 Gear (Armor): Armored Jacket +Thermal Dampening (6), Chemical Protection (6) Helmet +Vision Enhancement (3), thermographic vision, flare compensation Ballistic Shield Total Nuyen 9,050 Gear (Commlink): Renraku Sensei Total Nuyen 1,000 Gear (Audio): Earbuds (3) +Audio Enhancement (3) Total Nuyen 1,650 Gear (Guns): AK-97 +internal smartgun, gyromount, gas vent (3) Total Nuyen 3,300 Gear (ID): Fake Sin (4) Fake license (4) x8 Total Nuyen 16,400 Gear (Ammo): APDS x5 Stick-n-Shock x5 Regular Ammo x5 Total Nuyen 1,100 Low Lifestyle x1 month Total Nuyen 2,000 Starting Nuyen: 300+(3d6+60) Still needs: 12 points of language and knowledge skills, native language, contacts, negative qualities
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Aug 23, 2013 02:08
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I'm not sure this discounts my point on that these things have a hefty cost. That character sheet is of a walking brick wall with a gun poking out - and not much else. I mean jesus, one logic and one charisma? I'm pretty sure that is very literally mentally challenged.
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Aug 23, 2013 02:12
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ProfessorCirno posted:I'm not sure this discounts my point on that these things have a hefty cost. That character sheet is of a walking brick wall with a gun poking out - and not much else. Dude's a walking pastiche for dumb orks. Way to set the movement back, chummer. 
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Aug 23, 2013 02:13
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Cabbit posted:Dude's a walking pastiche for dumb orks. Way to set the movement back, chummer. At .2 Essence he's barely even an ork anymore  .No really, I'm pretty sure .2 Essence is the point at which you have multiple mental and social disorders and your body is starting to just shut itself down.
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Aug 23, 2013 02:15
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I can go further on that idea now that Bull fixed the used cyberware stuff. I haven't yet because gear porn is a lot of math and it took way to long the first time.
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Aug 23, 2013 02:27
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Yeah, gear has always been - and remains - the longest and most annoying part of chargen. Quite frankly it's one reason I like adepts. Less gear to buy!
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Aug 23, 2013 02:30
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ProfessorCirno posted:Yeah, gear has always been - and remains - the longest and most annoying part of chargen. I mean, I don't hate doing it but the cyber limbs man. What the gently caress.
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Aug 23, 2013 03:44
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Gyro mounted AK is the epitome of number crunching with no regard to how silly the final concept is.
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Aug 23, 2013 07:21
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ProfessorCirno posted:Yeah, gear has always been - and remains - the longest and most annoying part of chargen. It's wonderful for people like me who enjoy spending too much time with it though. 
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Aug 23, 2013 09:07
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The 4 cyberlimbs deal is what I was referring to with the high armor count. You don't even need the limbs by the RAW, just hands and feet with armor crammed in. It's cheesy as hell but technically legit according to the rules, and you can stack Bone Lacing, Orthoskin, etc. on top of it because there are currently no rules for how bioware operates when implanted in a body with cyberlimbs. Huge soak pools are currently what sams can excel at out of the gate since Adepts have them beat on nearly every other useful combat role.
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Aug 23, 2013 11:26
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Still have yet to be convinced of this super adept I've seen mentioned by two or three people. Still have yet to see what adepts have that's so super duper overpowered.
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Aug 23, 2013 11:48
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ProfessorCirno posted:Still have yet to be convinced of this super adept I've seen mentioned by two or three people. Still have yet to see what adepts have that's so super duper overpowered. Well I feel the same way about sams. A choice of what adepts can do: 1. Adrenaline Boost is a great power - .25PP per level for +2 to Iniative each round resisted by (level)drain. This can easily get you to the humps of guaranteed 11, 16, etc. useful for multiple passes and interrupt actions. It's also a free action. 2. Attribute Boost is also good - .25PP per level for a magic+rating test to add to an attribute, resisted by (level)drain. With 6 magic and level 1 Attribute Boost you will on average score 2 hits as a simple action. 3. Combat Sense - Level 1 lets you ALWAYS make a perception test when entering a surprise scenario. That's good enough alone, but it also adds directly to the dodge pool at a point per level. 4. Spell Resistance - One of the few options to directly increase your magic resistance if you don't have Counterspelling skill (and chances are you don't unless you went Mystic Adept). 5. Kinesics - nerfed but still useful, adds die to resist social tests . Situational to be sure, but still good for a face adept. 6. Improved Ability - Adept bread and butter, directly add die to a skill of choice. Depending on your belief this is either a great ability or overpriced. 7. Improved Physical Attribute - I personally think this costs too much, but you can't deny it is the only way to raise Body by +4 and it lets you start with maxed Agility, Reaction (don't choose Reaction) and/or Strength if you want to invest in it (I would wait until Geasa are available). 8. Enhanced Accuracy - at .25PP it adds +1 to Weapon Limit. Useful for less accurate guns, but it depends on what you want to use. 9. Improved Reflexes - No doubt you can start with +3D6 +3 Reaction with this which is the best you can do at chargen. I personally think that is it overpriced since you can reliably hit 10-11 base Initiative without any boosters, and Adrenaline Boost is so cheap and easy to resist drain. Regardless, if you highly value multiple passes this is worth it, and the fact that it basically amounts to Improved Reaction with an additional D6 for each level at a total cost of +.5PP more than Improved Reaction 3 would cost is pretty nice. Some of the other powers are useful, most are not. This is stuff you can do that no sam can at character generation and in some cases ever. All I've seen Sams have advantage in is cyberlimb armor stacking. Remember that adepts can also get implants to mod their stats/abilities so aside from reducing essence to insane levels there really ins't much a sam can do that an adept can't. It's been this way for 10 years and they really didn't change anything in this edition except loving over sams by increasing the cost of most useful implants but not increasing starting nuyen proportionally. Nothing I've said is "right" or "wrong," you can play however you want but I'm pointing out how adepts do excel vs. sams in this edition.
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Aug 23, 2013 12:50
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PierreTheMime posted:I'd probably prefer to keep it at the standard level, as that allows all the options on the table and gives people enough to work with to achieve good results. My personal problem with street level Shadowrun is that it limits the characters and not the world itself, making people learn the majority of the rules but not really be able to access the cool aspects of Shadowrun that makes it its own game. Right, I understand. Your game sounds great, and I will be eagerly watching the recruitment thread. tokyosexwale fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 13:08
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ProfessorCirno posted:I'm not sure this discounts my point on that these things have a hefty cost. That character sheet is of a walking brick wall with a gun poking out - and not much else. Meh, being a walking face or walking smart guy means you are just that, and not much else - Shadowrun 5E is all about the specialization. Though if you want to be Omni Capable, the only stat you even care about is Edge.
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Aug 23, 2013 13:14
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Bigass Moth posted:*snip* For starters, I don't think anyone here has called sammies overpowered. Anyways, I don't get how a lot of those powers are things sammies can't do. A fair number of those powers are going to make you roll Drain a lot, and Drain cannot be healed. While you spend your simple action to risk drain to buff your agility, the sammy already has +3 to his agility forever - or at least until it's +4. A lot of those are also as you yourself admit very situational. Congrats to the Adept for adding to their social resist die. Meanwhile the non-magical face has Tailored Pheremones which adds outright to all their social skills ever forever. That's what, six skills? That's a whooole lot of Improved Ability. Not to mention that...well, this all costs PP. You aren't going to start with ten billion PP. If you want to keep up with these powers it's going to mean you're spending all your karma on initiation and Magic, while the sammy is taking their skills past 6 or even going into other skills. And if you do indeed grab 'ware like you suggest at the bottom, you're even more pressed for PP and Magic. I mean coming out of chargen you'll typically have 6 Magic and 6 PP. More then half of that's gone from Improved Reflexes. A point in Combat Sense leaves you with 2. You want to get in your Bread and Butter so that's three points of Improved Ability - and now you're at .5 Remind me how you're going to fit in all those other powers? So that's Magic at B. Here's your next problem: what are your other priorities? You gotta put something in E! Being a human makes that easy - but now you're at 2 Edge vs the sammie's 5. If you're non-human or you want more then 2 Edge then things just got even harder, because, again, something's gotta go in that E. Attributes at A is usually a given, so you have to choose: do I dump my skills and become precisely what Cirno is saying you are? Do I dump Resources? Hope you like living in a gutter with no car and practically no fake ID to actually get into anywhere. Adepts are pretty close to where they were in SR4 - and that was very, very far from "overpowered." They're fantastic at specializing in A Thing and doing that Thing magnificently well, but suffer when it comes to versatility. Now, some of the new powers give them new versatility that they badly needed, which is why I think they are on the same level as sammies. But if you ignore that versatility for pure specialization, you've made someone useless. There is a difference between a jack of all trades and a rounded character. And there is a difference between "good at their schtick" and "literally less then worthless at everything outside of their schtick." Laphroaig posted:Meh, being a walking face or walking smart guy means you are just that, and not much else - Shadowrun 5E is all about the specialization. Though if you want to be Omni Capable, the only stat you even care about is Edge. I sincerely cannot imagine a game where this is true. Where your guy who literally cannot use electronics or talk to other living beings can somehow be a good thing because "I had to specialize!" If you make someone who is that far gone, any GM who doesn't veto it outright or consistently tag you in your glaring weaknesses is doing you a disservice. Again, all you've made is a walking wall with a gun sticking out of it. In any situation where that isn't helpful, you are at best watching the rest of the group play, and at worse you are an active hindrance because you over-specialized. Really, that's the problem I see with both you guys. You are way, way over-specializing. Runners work as a group, but that doesn't mean nobody is ever going to talk to you, or that you'll never have to do some jogging or be sneaky. And how would you play this character? Because I don't see characters from these. I see stat blocks in the shape of giant penises. It's the same bullshit I see at Dumpshock and from one dude at RPG.net. I see statblocks that have never and likely will never see an actual game, that only work under specific parameters or that ignore large swathes of rules. It's a bunch of spherical cows.
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Aug 23, 2013 13:40
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Definitely seeing that myself. As a GM I'd be screwing with the killforce 5000 with political intrigue and matrix buffoonery, while getting the face and technomancer/decker into firefights. It's not about setting up 10-pins and knocking them down, it's about playing a character through adversity in the shadows. IMO of course.
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Aug 23, 2013 13:48
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Our GM solves a lot of these problems with NPCs with influence spells and guards with basic perception and hand to hand combat skills. It's some loving comedy to see MurderDwarf3k McGunComercial get easily handcuffed by a guard with a nightstick. And then tazed into submission. Then the face and the hacker have to come save him. SHADOWRUN
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Aug 23, 2013 14:27
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To be fair, as a GM I'd use one of those hyper-optimised murdersams as a prime runner. Like, essentially an Eversor Assassin from warhams, where he's not really an employee so much as a biological weapon that you pump full of K-10 and shove into the nearest conflict zone until everything is dead.
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Aug 23, 2013 14:31
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tokyosexwale posted:Right, I understand. Your game sounds great, and I will be eagerly watching the recruitment thread. You're in luck! The recruitment thread is open for business!
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Aug 23, 2013 14:33
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Forums Terrorist posted:To be fair, as a GM I'd use one of those hyper-optimised murdersams as a prime runner. Like, essentially an Eversor Assassin from warhams, where he's not really an employee so much as a biological weapon that you pump full of K-10 and shove into the nearest conflict zone until everything is dead. This happened frequently enough in a period of our 4e games that a new corp, MurderTrolls, Inc. was invented. They provided professional, highly motivated and capable MurderTrolls to perform a variety of tasks in any situation. Their price scaling started at a fully 'wared and armored MurderTroll standing on a corner with a bullhorn acting as a distraction, all the way up to full scale tactical operations. Their prices where high, but fair, and they would work for anybody. You pull up to a run, and see a MTI van parked in the parking lot, it's time to take another look at the stealth option.
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Aug 23, 2013 14:47
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It's the real challenge for the Samurai; you might be a crazy good razorboy, but killing mooks isn't your challenge, it's keeping the skinny decker alive to do the job, and to haul the decker's hoop out of danger after they finish roasting their brains for paydata. Making everyone a combat monster kinda makes everyone all seem the same, and kinda defeats the point of different archetypes. Like...a combat monster goes down, oh no, just slide a new one in, the decker goes down and it's time to scrub the run. Also, Devil Rats. Still as tasty as ever, I assume, but they're described as being a meter long including tail and 3 to 4 kilos. I was going to make a crack about the new Dachshund Devil Rat, or that they were worried about players farming for rat loot drops, but I did the math (probably incorrectly) and... Umm... if you size up the Brown Rat (25cm body, .5kg to 1kg) which is probably following the Devil Rat around, you get something 2 times as long and thick and 8 times more massive. So they're a bit on the skinny end, but they're not Devil Worms.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:11
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ProfessorCirno posted:Adept stuff I quite literally laid out exactly what adepts are good at and what the useful powers are. You can do some really good stuff with the right attribute layout and powers. You of course minimize it to BUT THEY NEED TO SPEND ALL THEIR KARMA ON MAGIC - well duh they are magical. That karma spent on intiation can go a lot further than the sam spending 14 karma to raise his skill from 6 to 7. Even at 6 PP I tend to run out of things to want unless Increased Reflexes are in my plan, but that's just me. As for priorities, how about this: Attributes A Skills E The rest whatever You can do quite a bit with that layout depending on what you want your starting Magic to be (and believe it or not a Magic of 1 can be quite useful with the right powers and implants if you choose to go that route.) Attributes are of course the most important part of any character since they directly augment all skills, limits, and other factors like overflow boxes and resistances. Starting bonus karma is really useful for buying up dump stats from 1 to 2 or 3, and buying level 1 skills, which is plenty for nearly every situation except for your primary focus (which you have 18 points from Skills E to distribute). Whether you think dumpstats are necessary or not we can argue about until the cows come home, but forgive me for wanting to get the most out of the restrictions of character generation. This isn't rocket science, it's just numbers.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:27
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Bigass Moth posted:As for priorities, how about this: Let me see if I understand this correctly: Your solution to "Your adept is far too over-specialized" is to put skills as literally your weakest point in your favor?
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Aug 23, 2013 16:14
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Yeah, uh. That's an... interesting thought process there.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:16
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Talmonis posted:Definitely seeing that myself. As a GM I'd be screwing with the killforce 5000 with political intrigue and matrix buffoonery, while getting the face and technomancer/decker into firefights. It's not about setting up 10-pins and knocking them down, it's about playing a character through adversity in the shadows. IMO of course. This sounds like the opposite of fun. If someone comes to a game with a powerful combat character, it's clear that the player wants to have some fun shooting at stuff while watching lesser enemies bullets bounce off him. Give him a fun fight while you give the guy who came in with a hacker character a cool system to deck into, while the guy who came in with a mage some poo poo to deal with on the astral. After all, it's a shadowrun team - they're not going to hire a street samurai who isn't a walking murder machine, and they're not really going to care about his social skills either. Hell, that's practically the street samurai cliche in a nutshell.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:22
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ProfessorCirno posted:Let me see if I understand this correctly: Yes...? Do you really need a bunch of 6s? With good attributes even having 1 in the skill so you don't have to default can be plenty. 18 points is three 6s or some combination of that and specializations, so Automatics, Perception and Gymnastics for example (or whatever you desire your primary focus to be). Fill the rest of your needs with 1s unless you need to be the Best Ever at everything in your field which for the most part you don't since Shadowrunners tend to work in teams. Of course trying to explain this stuff to you can be like writing to a brick wall. I'd love to see your concepts for sams and adepts that are 1. uniquely useful in their own ways and 2. don't exploit loopholes like cyberarmor and sustained spells. Please show me why sams are so much better to help me understand, or even show me literally one thing a sam can do that an adept can not if he is willing to lose some magic points. I could break down efficiency of essence vs. magic in terms of what ware to install for adepts if you make resources a priority above E, but I sadly don't have the time right now and you'd just ignore it anyway.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:32
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Again, your perfect awesome character who is the best at Shadowrun and the pinnacle of all thigns Shadowrun is "a walking gun, like you know in the original Transformers when Megatron would just turn into a gun and it was pointless because a gun has no actual character? That, but I have legs." And uh, sure, I guess? I can link to my character in a PBP. I think she's a pretty cool character, and mechanically good enough. She's right here. She's great at killing things up close and afar, one of her weapons has heavy pistol concealment so it's not too hard to sneak in, she covers both killin' poo poo and B&E rather well, and I like to think she has some flaws that give her cool character while not being super cheesy. I mean, you are sperging way the gently caress out about being mathematically perfect at doing your one thing, except the past like three pages have been people telling you they don't loving care that you are the greatest person in the world at doing a single thing that other people can do just a bit less good then you while still being actual characters.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:37
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Gort posted:This sounds like the opposite of fun. If someone comes to a game with a powerful combat character, it's clear that the player wants to have some fun shooting at stuff while watching lesser enemies bullets bounce off him. Give him a fun fight while you give the guy who came in with a hacker character a cool system to deck into, while the guy who came in with a mage some poo poo to deal with on the astral. Of course you have those lesser enemies all the time. But the game gets stale if you never have a challenge. I like being out of my comfort zone, so that I need to use creative ways to win.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:46
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Overspecialized characters are the #1 most common mistake new SR players make, especially combat monsters. You're committing yourself to spending a lot time just watching other people play the game because even just having you around is a liability. In the last 4E game I ran, one of the players made a dyed-in-the-wool physical adept combat monster. Maxed out agility, ares alpha, muscle toner, improved ability, the usual. You know what his most valuable skill was? Hardware. There were way more times when the group's ability to complete a run hinged on his ability to hack open maglock's than that he was real good at killing people.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:51
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