[Triskavanski]

Yes, another changeling thread.

Cause I've got to wondering..

When a player selects Positive and Negative Metagenic Qualities, the combined Karma values need to either balance exactly or err in favor of a single point of Karma on the Positive Quality side of the balance; the player must pay for the imbalance with Karma from their free Karma pool

So this means If I took SURGE III, I'm out 30 karma, just for having the honor of being allowed to make my character they way I want, and I have to put up another X amount of karma in negative qualities for building my beast man character (And you have to basically build a beast man character if you take SURGE III, because that is what a surge III is!) which would be equal to X+1 of positive karma if that. Oh, And all Beast men runners are Prime Runners too.


But what If I took SURGE I? Obviously I'd have to roll, and will probably create some horribly mutated monstrosity that has no real rhyme nor reason to any of his mutations while somehow becoming an established runner while having feet growing out of the sides of my face, And having my body so heavily warped that I can barely walk, let alone shadowrun.

However, perhaps there is a beacon of shining hope for a Rolled Runner Changeling? And that is that the karma cost doesn't need to be paid for or balanced out if you roll? Rather you roll one for one? So you could actually end up with very good positive qualities, while having little to no negative ones?

But if you have to balance it out.. what happens if you roll like a big 15 negative karma, when you had only a 3 point positive karma? Do you have to keep rolling positives until you balance out? What happens if you jump to 20 positive karma? Then roll more negatives? What if you have to keep rolling back and forth? What about when you hit the 30 point limit?

[Glyph]

However, perhaps there is a beacon of shining hope for a Rolled Runner Changeling? And that is that the karma cost doesn't need to be paid for or balanced out if you roll? Rather you roll one for one? So you could actually end up with very good positive qualities, while having little to no negative ones?

But if you have to balance it out.. what happens if you roll like a big 15 negative karma, when you had only a 3 point positive karma? Do you have to keep rolling positives until you balance out? What happens if you jump to 20 positive karma? Then roll more negatives? What if you have to keep rolling back and forth? What about when you hit the 30 point limit?

Nope to the first.  All changelings need to balance the karma cost between their positive and negative flaws, although they can have a single point more of positive qualities, which is paid for out of starting Karma.  Supposedly you roll your positive qualities, stopping at a maximum of 30 points, or any stopping point before then.  After that, you roll for negative qualities to balance them out.  It is not explicitly stated, but I presume if you roll something that would take your positive qualities over 30, or your negative qualities to more than your positive ones (since even SURGE I has you rolling all of your positive qualities first, and picking a stopping point), you re-roll until you get one that "fits".

And yes, combining random rolls with a requirement for positive and negative qualities to be close to balanced probably will lead to frequent frustration for people who choose I or II SURGE.

[8-bit]

I've given up on SR5's version of SURGE. While interesting, it makes absolutely no sense to me, whatsoever.

[SpellBinder]

At least with SR4's version it made sense to me.  You pay X points for being a Changeling, you get 2X points for positive qualities and must take X points of negative, and it balanced out.  If you took too many positive qualities then you paid extra for them, and if you took too many negative qualities you got a refund.

SR5's version, you pay 10/15/30 points for being a Changeling, you can have up to 10/15/30 points for positive qualities and must take 10/15/30 points of negative, and you're out 10/15/30 points for the privilege of being a freak.  On top of that the paragraph on "Creating A Changeling" looks like it's contradicting itself, where the Type I, II, & III have different limits on how much the character SURGEs, yet later on it's said that a Type I can roll up to 30 karma worth of metagenetics.

[Triskavanski]

And of course they also removed a great many number of mutagenic qualities from forth to fifth, as well as added a number of additional negatives on to each of them. Like Allergy, Albinoisim, and more used to be mutagenic. and Neotropy giving you the freek quality instead of "You look like a kid"


Here's a 10 power changeling I just rolled up...

I rolled a positive quality, Got Goring Horns.
Rolled  Negative: Slow Healer
Rolled positive: Bi-cardiac
Rolled Negative:  Third Eye
Not enough Negatives to balance out my positives: Got Scent Glands
Not enough positives for my negatives: Got improved Attribute: Logic. Yay! Imagine that, I did actually managed to score one of the super duper awesome amazing qualities That'll totally make my character so so supa powerful that we absolutely must have this roll be random or being honored to play a beastman cost 30 points because this thing is so super powerful I can now kill everyone with my brain power!


That leaves me with 24 positive, 10 negative. Better get on those negative points then to balance out my incredibility broke character

Roll up another negative: Impaired attribute. Charisima
Still not enough. Roll another Negative: Feathers.

24 positive 22 negative. Didn't get into that magic number did I? Now then, even though there is absolutly no way that this will balance out even or one under, we'll have to roll again. Hahaha. Impaired Attribute: Logic.

So that 15 point bonus was just canceled out by an 8 point negative. I got one point of Logic Minimum and Maximum. Then Lost 2 points of my maximum. Leaving my character (hoopuming I would have gone human, with 2/5 logic. And He can only ever augment himself 2 more points past that 5!

Still had to continue rolling now that my negatives were at 30 points. Ended up getting camouflage and Cat eyes.

So lets tally this up shall we?
hoopuming I'm a human,
I can only have 5 logic and can only augment it up to 7. I do start off with 2 points though. yay me.
I can only have 4 cha and augment it up to 6.

I have -5 to all social tests. -6 If I'm stressed. My social limit has been reduced by one
People can smell me coming, especially when I'm stressed, getting a +1 or +2. I'm likely never to be allowed to ride with anyone or really be allowed in any sort of close quarters areas.
I've got low light vision
I've got an exotic weapon attached to my head.
People can find me easier on the matrix gaining a +1
I can increase the threshold to see me as long as very specific conditions are met and I'm naked.




Honestly, If you've got to hit that target number, I honestly doubt one will ever be able to roll a changeling Surge I who doesn't hit the thirty points. I think one that doesn't hit thirty points would be the oddity.

[SpellBinder]

To be fair, a number of metagenetic qualities were pulled from SR3 to SR4.  One in particular I recall was a Flaw and you were Dual Natured.

Oh, and Augmented Maximums are +4 now, not x1.5 like in previous editions.

[Triskavanski]

Yep, But Impaired Attribute knocks off 2 from maximum natural and augmented.


And I wouldn't have really any problem with the mutagentic qualities just not really translating from the previous edition into this one, so they ditched them. The problem comes from the fact that the ones I mentioned do exist in 5th. But well they didn't fit in their little dice roll charts, so they didn't put them in as mutagentic qualities.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I can't see rules for rolling your character ever being a good idea in a point but system. I mean it may pan out for the player but it seems at best a awkward design.

[Lucean]

Seems they wanted to restrict the cheap +1 attribute boost, that was so prevalent in the surgelings I saw.

[SpellBinder]

Yep, But Impaired Attribute knocks off 2 from maximum natural and augmented.

If reading it that way, then I feel the Impaired Attribute is rather under valued for the impact upon the character.  Going from a Human range of 1-6 (10) to 1-4 (6) is a pretty good kick to the crotch.  Or how about the Gnome who takes it to Strength, dropping from a 1-4 ( to 1-2 (4) and now doesn't even have the augmented potential of a Pixie despite being about ten times as big?

[Triskavanski]

I think a better option would have been not to have brought it over in the first place. I think though they were so focused on the word random, and attempting to "balance" (Overbalance) things that stuff is all out of wack

Yep, But Impaired Attribute knocks off 2 from maximum natural and augmented.

If reading it that way, then I feel the Impaired Attribute is rather under valued for the impact upon the character.  Going from a Human range of 1-6 (10) to 1-4 (6) is a pretty good kick to the crotch.  Or how about the Gnome who takes it to Strength, dropping from a 1-4 ( to 1-2 (4) and now doesn't even have the augmented potential of a Pixie despite being about ten times as big?

IMPAIRED (ATTRIBUTE)
BONUS: 8 KARMA
One of the character’s Mental or Physical attributes is Impaired, so it is impossible for her to achieve the natural maximum level of her metatype in that attribute. Permanently reduce one of the character’s metatype attribute maximums by 2. For example, a human character would have one attribute with a natural maximum of 4 rather than the usual 6. This quality also decreases the augmented maximum by the appropriate amount. This quality can only be taken once for each attribute. If taken during play, this quality may reduce a character’s current attribute rating in the affected attribute if the maximum is reduced lower than the current rating.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it does make your augmented max go down to 2. But yeah, its my entire point with a lot of it. The Karma tax that you start off with, coupled with some absolutely debilitating negative qualities combined with Positive qualities that continue to keep kicking you when your down, is just..awful. But hey, You might be able to get a +1 to one stat.

People should try making a few changelings and post what they rolled up in here.

[SpellBinder]

Oh, I'm not arguing this one as I can see both sides for interpretation easily.  With the quality of things in this edition I'm more inclined to lump this one in with the rest of the Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot items, and if I ever do run an SR5 game this one's certainly gonna get hit with the house rule hammer.

But this metagenetic quality did exist in SR4, though at not quite as big a hit at a -1 for 10 karma.  Granted the opposed side did cost a walloping 40 karma, though.

[Squirrel]

We take those metagenetic stuff just as a regular quality. You just total the amount of points spend and gained. Up to 15 you are Surge I, up to 30 you are Surge II, 31 and more you are Surge III. Those values are a lower than you might expect and if you don't like them, adapt.

Might lead to some exploits. But qualities having the wrong karma value compared to their usefulness is nothing new. Nor is Surge an exception.

[Darzil]

I guess it's based off (in theory) how powerful it can be when choosing. For example metagenetic attribute increases being better than normal attribute increases, because the have the negatives to balance them out.

However, I suspect balance is a major issue. I think Shadowrun has a general issue with the extremes of negative qualities. Gaining 25 Karma out of 800-1000 by hamstringing your character in certain situations just doesn't seem balanced to me, other than to give a character a bit of personality.

[8-bit]

People should try making a few changelings and post what they rolled up in here.

I totally can; they're all going to be SURGE III though. I cannot stand the randomness of SURGE I  or II; I want to make my character how I want to make it.