[Shinobi Killfist]

Karma Gen is hero lab now, just noticed it gave us 1,000 points as a default.  Is that the new default?  I thought it was 750.  1,000 makes one hell of a beefy starting character. 

[PeterSmith]

It's the new baseline, but (IIRC) costs for attributes went up.

[Xzylvador]

The complete and official answer to that is somewhere in the General Discussion thread, but what it comes down to is that <person working for> Catalyst told <people behind> HeroLabs that the original 750 karma was meant to be used with the "New Attribute x 3" and "No paying karma for race" rules.
After a bunch of math, it was calculated that with the new rules for karmagen costs, 1000 karma would end up with almost the same level of power.

That said, lots of people here on the forum seem to think that even the 750 karma builds usually end up slightly 'better' than 400BP builds. Builds with 1000 karma would indeed be completely unbalanced when compared to BP builds.

Maybe this is just the way the gaming market seems going: Giving (new) players lots and lots of power so they can feel special about themselves or their characters.
I personally am not a big fan of how easy most new games have become or the way things are being 'dumbed down' to 'make games more accessible'.

Luckily it's not that much of an issue for a game like SR. At least they aren't completely dumbing it down. And a GM who knows what he's doing will know how to deal with the change in chargen too, they have plenty of options:
- Go with the 1000 karmagen and don't adapt the game's difficulty: Your players will be special. The game will probably be less deadly then normal and PCs will often be better than their opponents in pretty much anything they do. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, it's a personal preference; in lots of RPG's PC's are better than the rest of the world and PC are rarely in risk of actually dying.
- Go with 1000 karmagen and adapt the game: PC's will do high-profile runs; they don't get in stuffer-shack fights or deal with smalltime criminals, they're sent to infiltrate heavy-security bases to steal top-security data, assassinate corporate bigshots or influence vice-presidents.
- Come up with his own karmagen/BP number, depending on which style of game he wants.

As long as you don't put 400BP characters in the same group as 1000 karmagen ones, the balance issue isn't of real importance. Putting them together -might- make the BP players think their character is under-powered; though even there it's often a matter of playstyle.
A 400BP Face probably wouldn't complain being protected by a 1000 karma Troll Tank.
But two Street Sams built with different rules might compare what they're capable of, and the 1000 karmagen character will come out on top.

[markelphoenix]

The complete and official answer to that is somewhere in the General Discussion thread, but what it comes down to is that <person working for> Catalyst told <people behind> HeroLabs that the original 750 karma was meant to be used with the "New Attribute x 3" and "No paying karma for race" rules.
After a bunch of math, it was calculated that with the new rules for karmagen costs, 1000 karma would end up with almost the same level of power.

That said, lots of people here on the forum seem to think that even the 750 karma builds usually end up slightly 'better' than 400BP builds. Builds with 1000 karma would indeed be completely unbalanced when compared to BP builds.

Maybe this is just the way the gaming market seems going: Giving (new) players lots and lots of power so they can feel special about themselves or their characters.
I personally am not a big fan of how easy most new games have become or the way things are being 'dumbed down' to 'make games more accessible'.

Luckily it's not that much of an issue for a game like SR. At least they aren't completely dumbing it down. And a GM who knows what he's doing will know how to deal with the change in chargen too, they have plenty of options:
- Go with the 1000 karmagen and don't adapt the game's difficulty: Your players will be special. The game will probably be less deadly then normal and PCs will often be better than their opponents in pretty much anything they do. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, it's a personal preference; in lots of RPG's PC's are better than the rest of the world and PC are rarely in risk of actually dying.
- Go with 1000 karmagen and adapt the game: PC's will do high-profile runs; they don't get in stuffer-shack fights or deal with smalltime criminals, they're sent to infiltrate heavy-security bases to steal top-security data, assassinate corporate bigshots or influence vice-presidents.
- Come up with his own karmagen/BP number, depending on which style of game he wants.

As long as you don't put 400BP characters in the same group as 1000 karmagen ones, the balance issue isn't of real importance. Putting them together -might- make the BP players think their character is under-powered; though even there it's often a matter of playstyle.
A 400BP Face probably wouldn't complain being protected by a 1000 karma Troll Tank.
But two Street Sams built with different rules might compare what they're capable of, and the 1000 karmagen character will come out on top.

Soo...I just played around with HeroLabs, made a char in 400BP, maxed him out. Then went and flipped the switch to convert it to 1000 Karma Gen system...I had practically 500 karma to play with....I was dumbfounded.

[Black]

Thanks Xzylvador.  Great post.

I've struggled with the changes a far bit.  My group started on 400bp builds, which came out fairly impressive as is.  Then we switched to 750 karma, and the guys found that their rebuilds has some extra points, so they got a bit more all the sudden.  Then we started converting these same 750pt builds to the new 1,000 pt builds and...  well its been interesting.

On the plus side, most of my players are playing 'characters' not builds, so they have put a lot of extra points into KS and Contacts or wider sets of skills.  As it is, I have not been consistent in making everyone change (some players aren't really interested in 'revamping' there characters), so now, in the same game, I have characters on the 400pt build, the 750 karma build and the 1,000pt karma buuild (hmm, 4 on the 1,000pt karma build, 1 on the 750 pt build, and 2 on the 400 pts build (with one being the inflitrator + spent karma straight out of the book).

Its working at the moment, but only because my players are great people... otherwise, I could easily see things unbalancing.  As it was, being a GM, I felt uncomfortable with the sudden 'potential' power boosts my players get when they convert to 1,000 pts.  I try to run gritty, challenging campaigns.  I was worried that the 1,000 pts would mean that the team would only be challenged by epic missions against corporate headquaters, armies of toxics/bugs etc... but so far, been good.

[Falconer]

Actually I don't know the threads on this forum.

But 750karma was the PLAYTESTED karma build system WITH the 5x attribute costs.   The author of karmagen stated so a few times over on dumpshock forums before this board went up.



The consensus was 750 produced characters far superior to 400BP and this is because RC was published assuming the SR4a changes but before the SR4a release.  So people were using the 3x costs initially to make their test characters.


So yes it doesn't strike me that it's quite right, even tossing in the small amount extra they're charging for metatype now.  1000 seems way over the top.

[Henzington]

Either of these work fine as long as you have a well built shadowrunner and everyone in the group uses the same one.

[Glyph]

Falconer is right about the intended allocations for karmagen.  They did not change the number of karma points when the made the other changes (Attributes using the x 5 multiplier, and paying your metatype cost in karma), so the RAW number of points is the same.  Which doesn't mean anything to individual campaigns, since all the points really are, is a suggested number for a typical shadowrunning campaign, which the GM is free to adjust up or down.

In my personal experience, using both character creation systems, 750 karma with the new rules tends to create slightly more powerful characters than 400 BP - or at least slightly more well-rounded ones, since you typically wind up with a few extra points to play with.  This is for me, creating builds that tend to be optimized but not lopsided.  For someone wanting to play, say, a troll with high natural Body and Strength scores, or one of the more exotic options from Runner's Companion, karmagen won't be as friendly.  On the other hand, someone playing a generalist will wind up with far more abilities than they would under 400 BP, because the lower Attributes and skills are cheaper.  Likewise, someone playing a free spirit will do much better in karmagen.  Paying 250 karma leaves 500 karma for everything else, which works out a lot better than paying 250 BP and only having 150 BP for everything else.

750 karma under the old costs, or 1,000 Karma under the new costs, both give the player a lot more resources than 400 BP in character creation.  This may or may not result in more powerful characters - I found that under the old karmagen, I min-maxed a lot less, and was able to explore quirky concepts that would not have been practical with less points.  And min-maxed characters may not always be more powerful, either.  Rather, they will be able to be specialists and have all of the other skills they need, rather than having to choose between being a specialist or a generalist.  So a mix of the two won't necessarily lead to imbalance, but honestly, I would find a choice between 400 BP and 1,000 karma a no-brainer.  Even if I had no intentions of min-maxing, I would pick karmagen to get more contacts and tertiary skills to round out my character.

[Mirikon]

Karma Gen is OK. I'm not a fan, but it is still pretty good. The Priority System needs to die in a fire, though.

[raggedhalo]

The complete and official answer to that is somewhere in the General Discussion thread, but what it comes down to is that <person working for> Catalyst told <people behind> HeroLabs that the original 750 karma was meant to be used with the "New Attribute x 3" and "No paying karma for race" rules.

Where "<person working for> Catalyst" = Jason Hardy, the Line Developer for Shadowrun.

[Falconer]

Yeah I just saw the post.  And I have to say I'm shocked...  Glyph it's not a matter of intended... they were actually fully PLAYTESTED before publishing using 5x costs.  They were never playtested at all using 3x costs. 

I don't know what JMHardy is thinking or if he's even aware of that history at all.  I have to wonder though....


Also I strongly disagree with All4BigGuns... karmagen was workable (excepting all the metatype for free nonsense that was removed... and the 'freebie' attributes for metas and higher attribute spending caps for meta (still in place, which unbalance and break karmagen).   With the exception of some very highly optomized technomancers all my 400BP chars came in well under 750 karma.  (technomancers and all their CF's end up costing like knowledge skills and skills... so spending 6BP for a rating 6 CF was worth 21 karma... far in excess of the normal 1BP=2karma... even rating 5 for 15 was a long-term bargain.  Still though there was more than enough extra karma sloshing around)

Really... pull out some 400BP characters then convert them to karma and tell me I'm wrong here.
Really just popping out the sprawl ganger meta from SR4a p109... a reasonably well done if not fully twinked out archetype.
(90+45+25+75+10+25+25+45+45)==385 attributes.   20 orc,  176 active skills, +-0qualities, 12karma gear, 20karma contacts.   That's a mere 613 before the freebie knowledge skills...  46karma languages and skills... so less than 650 total... leaving 100karma EXCESS.

1000 is far far too much and only needed by the most powergamey of powergamers.

[_Pax_]

1000 is far far too much and only needed by the most powergamey of powergamers.

... or for a high-powered campaign.  Never forget, it's not JUST powergamers that necessarily want "very powerful" characters.

[Glyph]

That was (IIRC) Ancient History's claim, that the original rules were always intended for the x5 Attribute multiplier.  Considering how vastly more powerful the original 750 karma was using the old Attribute costs, I find that plausible.  I still think keeping special Attributes under the 375-karma cap is a bad rule, though, that tends to affect nothing but human builds.  Other than that and a few corner cases, though, it isn't bad.  I tend to play elves with high Agility/Charisma and generally play metatypes to their strengths, so with the scaling Attribute costs, I don't personally run into the potential "freebie" aspect of it (which is there in BP, too).

[JustADude]

1000 is far far too much and only needed by the most powergamey of powergamers.

... or for a high-powered campaign.  Never forget, it's not JUST powergamers that necessarily want "very powerful" characters.

Also, it allows for much broader characters. You have the same caps on Nuyen (250,000¥), still 1 Normal Attribute at max, still 1 Skill @ 6 or 2 @ 5, etc... that means you can give characters more in the way of "fluff" skills. Things like giving a former soldier First Aid, Tracking, Survival and the Firearms group, even though their not "optimized" for a Street Samurai.

[_Pax_]

You have an absolutely maxxed-out commlink.  And from your skills, thie character is clearly not intended to be a top-kick Hacker.  You soft-capped THREE attributes, and absolutely nothing else is below 3 - edge included.  You clearly have more Skill Groups at the maximum allowed rank of 4 than I care to list, you don't have a single contact with either a Connection or a Loyalty rating of less than three (and you've got not just one with a 6, you've got TWO); not one, not two, but THREE significantly-tricked-out guns, and ...

.... yeah, I'll say it: overpowered.  Significantly so.

Other than magic, that is a "do everything myself" // "I don't need no stinkin' team-mates" munchkin build.  One that very, very, OH so carefully avoided having any one or two or three die pools get very high - but has so many moderate-high pools, the effect is that it's STILL overpowered.  Not by being superstrong in onet area, but by simply having no appreciable weaknesses.  There's nowhere outside of magic, that this character would ever need help.

And you think that's not overpowered ...?!?

Seriously, dude: put the glue down, STOP sniffing the fumes.  They ain't doing good things to your head ...!!!