[MarmaladeEffect]

I've always thought SURGE III basically meant 30 points of positive metagenetic qualities and 15 points of negative ones. But then, rereading the description recently, I noticed this line in the description at the top of page 74:

"The character must take at least 30 BP worth of Positive Metagenetic qualities and 15 BP worth of Negative Metagenetic qualities."

Why would they include the words "at least"? I could see that applying to negative qualities only , but then it would be, "and at least 15 bp worth of Negative Metagenetic qualities".

Does this mean that, RAW, someone with SURGE III can take an unlimited amount of qualities, or at least, as many as they can pay the bp for? I know that they have to all fit together into some sort of archetype/theme, but I can imagine a lot of concepts that could use more than 30 bp; for instance, a dolphin-person would want biosonar, blubber, underwater vision, and webbed hands/toes, which is a total of 40 bp despite not really being cheesy or even optimized (unless the GM has already said the entire campaign will be in a aquacology or something).

[firebug]

I don't think it's intended for you to go beyond the 30/15 BP limit.  Likely a mistake, in my mind.  However, if a player really was adamant about it, as GM I'd consider letting them go beyond that as long as:

1) They took negative qualities equal to 1/2 the BP spent on positive ones, and
2) they paid the difference in BP as a positive quality, as that is how it works with all the other qualities.

I wouldn't really call this a "RAW this is how it has to work" thing.  I'm sure most GMs would be uncertain at least.

[Glyph]

For SURGE III, you get 30 points of positive metagenetic qualities, and 15 points of negative metagenetic qualities, for 15 points.  You can spend up to 20 more points (taking you to your 35 point limit) on further positive qualities (and gain up to 35 more points from negative metagenetic qualities).  It is incredibly poor wording, since that is how it works for the changeling qualities in general.

[Mirikon]

For the Changeling/SURGE qualities, it gives you X worth of Positive Qualities and Y worth of Negative Qualities. X and Y do not apply to your limit for the BP in qualities you can take at chargen. Once you've taken the SURGE quality, however, you can still spend up to your limit in Positive or Negative metagenetic qualities, outside of X and Y.

[MarmaladeEffect]

Hmm, so some people think yes and others think no? I guess I should have seen that coming.

For the Changeling/SURGE qualities, it gives you X worth of Positive Qualities and Y worth of Negative Qualities. X and Y do not apply to your limit for the BP in qualities you can take at chargen. Once you've taken the SURGE quality, however, you can still spend up to your limit in Positive or Negative metagenetic qualities, outside of X and Y.

That definitely seems to be how Chummer handles it, but that doesn't seem to mesh with the rules, especially not for SURGE I and SURGE II.

[Michael Chandra]

SURGE I and II don't force you to take as much negative stuff, at the cost of not getting you as many extra PQ points. If you're not going to hit the +35 limit, a lower SURGE level is fine. If you're going to hit it you will want a higher level. So both low and high levels are still decent choices. I only had 2 players use these rules, but I went with the 'for X BP you get X*2 in Change-PQ and X in Change-NQ, you can still take (35-X) extra PQ (part changeling) and 35 extra NQ (part changeling)" path.

[Syntetesh]

OTHER RUNNERS COMPANION QUALITIES
Some of the new character types—changelings,
drakes and the various Infected variants—presented in
the Alternative Character Options chapter (pp. 45–93)
are also introduced as qualities. This allows these
options to any normal metahuman or metavariant
character (barring any specific restrictions listed in
their descriptions).
Exceptionally, such qualities do not count towards
the standard 35 BP limit on Positive qualities and may
be matched with most of the qualities presented in
this chapter.

So, if you take SURGE III, do you end up with 65 max positive qualities ( excluding SURGE III and with at least 30 being metagenetic) and 50 max negative qualities (with at least 15 metagenetic)?

Edit : I am posting this because I never saw this quote on SURGE topic and I dunno if I read it right :x

[Michael Chandra]

Surge III is part of that 65, since Changeling is a Positive Quality, so you'd have 65 of which 15 Surge III and 30+ metagenetic, and 20 max meta+normal. This is also how HeroLab does it. Only the initial metagenetic quality amount bypasses the restriction, the Changeling quality itself does not.

[Syntetesh]

Yes, p.73 state that.

I think the sidebar is only for drakes and infecteds wich respective paragraph state they don't count towards your maximum qualities and the changeling is just a mistake.

Thank you