[Marcus]

Not having a skill in something doesn't mean you can't use it. SR takes place in a time, where people really don't need to even know how to drive. Cars have piloting ratings, that can get ya there no problem. Factory workers get skill wires b/c the company doesn't want them to have skill, they just wants them to be the cogs in the machine. Breadth doesn't translate to representing the system any better then depth does. It's simple a question of preference. In general folks are going to focus down on the skill(s) that they feel are critical the role they want the character to play. Erring on the side of the helping the team the best way you can is simply logical.

The cost thing is deeper game design issue, 5th made some very different choices on that topic, with the raising of skill cap to 12 (Really 13). I've never seen anyone get anywhere near a 12 via karma. However I think it's about changing the dynamics of the field. When players start at the best they can be, there is no room to grow, and that is why I think skill cap increase is in play.

I do think it's odd that cost curve is non-linear for skills.

[Tarislar]

@Tarislar
Being a face is a nice dream I use to comfort myself, in practice resource, skill and atttribute shortages have convinced me its impossible to make one I'd be comfortable playing so I'm trying to focus on just the mage aspect.

Thanks for the suggestion but I'm afraid I'd choke on that character with no computer, driving, basic interaction skills its not a character to me its just a bunch of numbers I'd never be able to make myself care about. Every time I looked at it I'd be wondering just how in the world anyone got that good at those areas and never picked up basic etiquette or computer use. I know it is the better option mechanically intelectually but emotionally I'm just one of those people who can't accept the current design practice. I need my characters to be someone I could believe grew up and gained those skill organically for me to care about them as a character, to be beliveable in the setting and like I said I think I have a very diffrent view of what skill zero means to most people here. The design philosophy this game inspires of max out 1 skill then later branch out drives me up the wall even if I love the setting. Especially since as others have said mages do tend to need to focus their karma on other matters once the game starts (foci, spells, inititiation, etc) so planning to get those 1-3 skills comes at the cost of advancement as a mage.

I completely agree with everything you said.

And then I remember that its not my fault the game designers decided to make the game the way it is where its significantly harder to advance the higher you are & the new priority system makes for Attribute & Skill Ratings that are the lowest of any edition of SR to date.

My character does what I say he does.  Period
If I get my 7 Driving Dice from 4 Reaction & 3 Skill or from 8 Reaction & 0 Skill,  it doesn't matter to me.  He's got 7 dice.  For 2 Hits on Average.
To me its the total Pool & Average Hits that tells me how good someone is at something.  Not their skill level. 

If it was up to me characters would have WAY more skill points at Chargen, and in turn they would be capped on the # of them at high levels.
I think 4E did this & while I skipped 4E, that part of it is something I wish they had kept.
But its not up to me.  So I design a character to be the best he can in the limits of chargen at what their "role" is in the group.
I don't see that as being overly specialized.   
I don't see a 0 in a skill as being complete idiots at it.  I see it as just being regular people.
I know the fluff of each skill level doesn't agree with me.   I DON'T CARE.
Like I said, they don't give you enough skill points to represent a High School Diploma's worth of knowledge.
Let alone someone who has 6 Years in the Military & a Master's Degree.
So again, I use the points to make the character be "good" at what they need to do to play that "role" for the team.
The rest of the time I assume they are not retreads who have no ability to break into a light jog just because I didn't give them Running-1

What can I say, gotta make due with what you got.
You can make below average characters that are "more real".
Or you can make a character that won't die on their first run & roleplay what a 5 Attr + 0 Dice actually represents to you.

Hope I'm not coming across as arguing, like I said, I totally agree with what you said & the system frustrates me to no end.
So I just work with it & put 6's on the things that are going to be common during the play session.

[All4BigGuns]

While there are those that would abuse the ever loving crap out of it and make monsters, the following would have been a better priority setup for attributes and skills.

Attributes (copied verbatim from SR3 Core)
A- 30
B- 27
C- 24
D- 21
E- 18

Skills
A- 50 / 15
B- 45 / 10
C- 40 / 5
D- 35 / 3
E- 30 / 2

But then, I've always hated the idea of reducing things just because of what can be done through ruthless optimization and/or theory crafts.

[gradivus]

A$BG do you also suggest adding the limitations on skills that SR3 had?

If I remember right Attributes was a cost modifier to buying skills and didn't directly effect the DP of the Skill.

4/5e attributes add to the Skill DP.

By increasing both attributes points and skill points you increase the amount of skills at 12+DP dramatically.

Seriously, except for deckers or maybe riggers I'd be Attributes A, Skills E with the SR3 values.

[Senko]

I'm not sure I'd run attributes to 30 as that's nearly every stat at 5/6 but the skills would be very nice especially for more skill intensive classes like mages and deckers, even if street sam do benefit from it as well..

[gradivus]

I'm not sure I'd run attributes to 30 as that's nearly every stat at 5/6 but the skills would be very nice especially for more skill intensive classes like mages and deckers, even if street sam do benefit from it as well..

Being Hardcapped in one attribute and being softcapped in 6 others means you can reasonably do team work rolls on most skill that can be used defaulted.

Take a look at a  decker w/8 logic and 3 first aid...
Before you say that medkit 6 has 12 DP, if it's wireless it adds a +6limit and DP bonus to this decker for 17 DP.
If just one other guy is softcapped in LOG and has first aid 1 he can do a teamwork test and usually add +1limit and 2DP That changes the equations from 3-4 boxes healed to 4-5 boxes healed.

1-2 dice don't seem a lot but when your talking about most skill tests out of combat it adds up over the long run.

[Tarislar]

PRIORITIES
B: Magic, Attributes, Skills.
D: Resources.
E: Human.

Thoughts?

I still think try out the following...

4 = Attributes + Magic
2 = Skills
0 = Meta + Resources

Use the Karma you spent on spells to buy Resources & L1 skills

[Tarislar]

While there are those that would abuse the ever loving crap out of it and make monsters, the following would have been a better priority setup for attributes and skills.

Attributes (copied verbatim from SR3 Core)
A- 30
B- 27
C- 24
D- 21
E- 18

Skills
A- 50 / 15
B- 45 / 10
C- 40 / 5
D- 35 / 3
E- 30 / 2

But then, I've always hated the idea of reducing things just because of what can be done through ruthless optimization and/or theory crafts.

Agreed mostly.

Keeping it closer to 5E in feel w/ the 8 attributes, I went this route for an alternate priority sysytem.

Attributes
A = 28       
B = 24       
C = 20       
D = 16       
C = 12       

Skills
A = 80 / 0
B = 70 / 0
C = 60 / 0
D = 50 / 0
E = 40 / 0


Priority-D Attributes for a Runner = "Average Joe Human"

No Skill Groups at Chargen, you can make them by assigning equal points, but your not "Required" to have them.

[All4BigGuns]

Honestly, even the weakest of PCs should be several orders of magnitude superior to the Average Joe in every respect.

[Tarislar]

While I get what your saying, I don't think it should be impossible to play a "below average" person if that is your choice at chargen.
So I have option D for Average & E for below average.

[Senko]

I also notice you have no group skills which is interesting.

[Glyph]

Honestly, even the weakest of PCs should be several orders of magnitude superior to the Average Joe in every respect.

Should be, yeah, but not only are a lot of the archetypes weaker (lots of mundanes with little or no augmentations, etc.), but the "Average Joe" NPCs have been powered up.  The beat cop contact has 20 points' worth of attributes, along with lots of skills in the 4-6 range (and knowledge skills rated even higher).  A lot of what has been decried as "min-maxing" on these boards have just been people trying to scrounge enough dice to semi-reliably succeed at their main specialty.

[Hobbes]

The Beat cop is hilarious.  42 skill points and 37! knowledge skill points. 

Shadowrunner "Well I wanted to be a cop, but I just couldn't pass the exam, so here I am...."

Most of the contacts and most of the NPCs have beyond A in skills, several have more than 6+ ranks, and most of them have more knowledge skills than any runner will ever think about having. 

Don't look at the NPCs and try to compare them to PCs.  The NPCs were built to fill multiple roles with no resource constraints, just, what makes a good challenge is generally the main consideration with the NPCs. 

[Glyph]

Yeah, but beat cop, come on.  To be fair, they seemed to realize that they had made the contacts a bit overpowered.  The ones in Run Faster are toned down a lot more, which is especially obvious for ones like bartender and street doc which show up in both books.

[Tarislar]

I also notice you have no group skills which is interesting.

Yeah, I feel if you want a group, you apply equal points & then level it from there, but I don't like that you HAVE to have a group just because its on the chart.