[Tsuzua]

Very finite resource, and your idea would all but require Edge to be spent on practically every roll made. Mirikon brings up a very valid point. Why does this bother you?

without any limiting factor like this involved, why would any player bother getting a skill greater than 1 until all of their stats were maxed out?

besides, if I'm the first person to bring up the issue, why was it listed as an optional rule in the game?

Pretty much that's the case.  However there's a few rolls that you actually want every single die you can get.  Mostly these are combat and magic rolls since extra hits are always nice.  Those you want to max out the attribute (typically soft cap + bonuses) and then max out the skill (if any). 

I can understand that people want skill to be more than a +1-6 die bonus that often can be eclipsed by widgets.  However, to fix that in SR is going to be really hard.  You have to clean up the crud in the skill system so all skills are worth taking (or fix skill groups). Then you have to make so that you always want more dice in a skill rather than just having it "good enough" especially if you can reach that threshold via far cheaper methods like widgets.  I'll also just make skills cheaper so people can buy lots of skills.  Off the cuff, I'll say halve the current costs so it's 2BP per skill rating and then 5 BP per skill group rating.

Capping hits wouldn't help the issue really.  It just makes hyperspecialists even better off since now everyone sucks off-spec.

[Glorthoron]

Maybe allow hits from Edge to exceed the cap, like spellcasting?

Yes, definitely something I would do.  I would not have edge hits limited in this way.

[Glorthoron]

completely different option:  characters can only add a number of dice from the attribute equal to the skill.  Thus, Bob with an agility of 6 and a skill of 4 could only roll 8 dice: 4 from the skill and 4 out of his 6 agility.  Probably not very good, but just throwing it out there.

[All4BigGuns]

Very finite resource, and your idea would all but require Edge to be spent on practically every roll made. Mirikon brings up a very valid point. Why does this bother you?

without any limiting factor like this involved, why would any player bother getting a skill greater than 1 until all of their stats were maxed out?

besides, if I'm the first person to bring up the issue, why was it listed as an optional rule in the game?

You mentioned in the original post doing that as a house rule, and now you say it's listed as an optional rule in the game? Where is something like this listed?

[Glorthoron]

You mentioned in the original post doing that as a house rule, and now you say it's listed as an optional rule in the game? Where is something like this listed?

Page 75 SR4 20th Ann. Edition, under "Grittier Gameplay"

Choosing to use the optional rule in game still makes it a house rule.

[JustADude]

I have a friend who would be considered to have an agility of 2, and I would be considered to have an agility of 4.  He has reached 1st dan in kendo (skill =3 for professional), where I have a skill of 1 (pretty new to the sport).  However, he would clean the floor with me in kendo every time even though our dice are the same.

For an actual fight, you also have to account for Strength and Willpower (assuming you're full comtact and going until someone falls over or cries uncle). There's also the fact that he probably has some special Martial Arts qualities from RC that you don't.

Plus, unless your friend is reaaaaly slacking off in his training, I strongly suspect you're misinterpreting your relative Agility levels.

[Glorthoron]

Plus, unless your friend is reaaaaly slacking off in his training, I strongly suspect you're misinterpreting your relative Agility levels.

Not at all.  He is a very big and slow guy.  He's always been like that, and in fact he was slow when he first started learning Kendo.  But you put him in his bogu and give him a shinai now, and he is fast.  We both discussed this once, and agreed that he would have an agility of 2 and I would have a 4.

Watching him turn from a big lumbering moose to a shinai wielding dancer has proven to me that it is the skill that matters in a fight.  The character's natural agility helps, but if he is unskilled and doesn't know how to use his agility effectively, he will easily get clobbered by the slow skilled opponent.

[squee_nabob]

completely different option:  characters can only add a number of dice from the attribute equal to the skill.  Thus, Bob with an agility of 6 and a skill of 4 could only roll 8 dice: 4 from the skill and 4 out of his 6 agility.  Probably not very good, but just throwing it out there.

Again, problems with defaulting (only add 0 dice?). I agree with Tsuzua that capping anything based on skill only forces people to either have more skills (and you can't have all the skills) or to suck at doing things they are not skilled in. If you make them suck more at non-skilled things, you encourage hyperspecialization.

Are you trying encourage hyperspecialization?

[TennyJaden]

May I throw out another idea?

I thought about this and I think: yes it makes sense, that there are certain things, which you can do only effectively with training. This fact is accounted for in the system already, by skills you cannot default at. So why not just apply this limit to all the skills you cannot default at (no matter how much intelligence you have in your head, wihtout KNOWING about certain facts, you can only do so much in that chemistry lab. On the other hand, attempting to dodge an attack in melee will be realtively possible, if you have superhuman reflexes, even without having it practiced. This example with Martial Arts is probably also the WORST example anyone could have brought up, because YES, Martial Arts is something that behaves like that in real life, but many things do not.

So those are my 2 cents

greetz tenny

[Glorthoron]

Are you trying encourage hyperspecialization?

No, I'm trying to encourage characters to actually purchase skills above and beyond 1, rather than keep it low and boost the attribute.

Someone with a skill of 1 and attribute of 6 should not be able to perform better than a person with 3 and 3 (at anything that requires skill).  But, based on the rules as written, they can.  Which is just down right silly, in my opinion.

[Zilfer]

Are you trying encourage hyperspecialization?

No, I'm trying to encourage characters to actually purchase skills above and beyond 1, rather than keep it low and boost the attribute.

Someone with a skill of 1 and attribute of 6 should not be able to perform better than a person with 3 and 3 (at anything that requires skill).  But, based on the rules as written, they can.  Which is just down right silly, in my opinion.

Anyone with a stick could beat someone up, a lot of the time martial arts comes down to luck and situation. I mean I was small when i was in Tae Kwon Do, but I still managed a spin back kick that knocked the air out of someone twice my size through sparing gear without purposefully trying. I also in a tournament almost got a gold medal in sparing, had to settle for silver because I kicked and slipped onto my leg. Tried to get back out there but it was hurting to the point where I was mostly standing on one leg so i forfeited even though time was almost up and i had more points. xD (crit glitch anyone?)

I'm kind of the oppinion that you should level up ranks first in stuff that you need, buying skills is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying attributes. Though I can see the argument that attributes add more dice overall but i think it's just personal preference at that point.

I'd also like to point out in the examples of Martial arts

Sure that 1 skill 6 attribute guy has 7 dice but the other guy has 6 dice with a 3 skill 3 attribute.

You've all been discussing like that makes a whole lot of difference. Sure the guy has a small bit of edge but if you roll the dice, it's all up to luck who gets more hits, at my table if I was rolling the 6 dice against one of my friends with 7 dice he'd say he needed at least 2 more dice to get the amount of hits I generate. (Even more if it's my friend Chris his rolls suck xD)

(They call me the Karma God IRL and that was before we started playing SR xD)

Anyways having more dice does NOT assure victory. I mean that 1 skill 6 agility guy may not know how to fight past throw a punch, and the other guy may be halfway to a black belt, and have average agility, there's still many things that could happen. That guy with 6 agility may be too fast for agility 3 to block, by numbers he'd be almost twice as fast. Hell 6 agility is the maximum of the human race so this guy can throw the fastest punches you've ever seen. Give him some training and he'd be quite the competitor but even mostly trained he's quite dangerous. The second thing that could happen is sure the guys fast, but the training 3 comes in handy knowing when to block and when to press the attack. As I said before and i'll say it again, it's going to be luck that decides the victor.

[All4BigGuns]

Are you trying encourage hyperspecialization?

No, I'm trying to encourage characters to actually purchase skills above and beyond 1, rather than keep it low and boost the attribute.

Someone with a skill of 1 and attribute of 6 should not be able to perform better than a person with 3 and 3 (at anything that requires skill).  But, based on the rules as written, they can.  Which is just down right silly, in my opinion.

While it may encourage getting the skills higher than 1, it will also discourage having any skills that aren't core to the character--what was stated in previous posts about hyperspecialization. Most street sam characters probably won't have a single non-combat skill under this, most face characters probably won't have any combat skills or computer skills, most hackers probably won't have non-computer skills and mages will be completely boned since they'll probably only have their magical skills.  If you want this happening, use such a system, but if you don't, ditch it in the nearest river after clobbering it over the head.

[Glorthoron]

I'd also like to point out in the examples of Martial arts

Sure that 1 skill 6 attribute guy has 7 dice but the other guy has 6 dice with a 3 skill 3 attribute.

You've all been discussing like that makes a whole lot of difference. Sure the guy has a small bit of edge but if you roll the dice, it's all up to luck who gets more hits, at my table if I was rolling the 6 dice against one of my friends with 7 dice he'd say he needed at least 2 more dice to get the amount of hits I generate. (Even more if it's my friend Chris his rolls suck xD)

you are absolutely right dice wise, and it is still possible for a guy S1/A5 (changed that to get away from human max)  to beat a S3/A3.  But the odds should be less for the guy who has a skill of 1.  Referring to martial arts again (lets use the karate belt colour to smooth things out further), skill of 1 is beginner (we'll give him a yellow belt instead of white to be nice) and skill of 3 is professional (going to be black belt (first dan)).  There is no way you could convince me that an average person (agility wise) who is a black belt would be on even ground with a yellow belt who is more agile.  Sure, there is luck involved, so the black belt could roll all 1s and the yellow belt roll all 6s, but to say that the odds are 1:1 isn't even close to believable.  When you introduce the hit caps, you adjust the odds in favour of the person who should have better odds: the person with a higher skill, but you aren't garunteeing he will win every time.

[Falconer]

Quite frankly it is a big mechanical problem in the SR4 system.  This was also less of an issue in prior editions, where skill was what you rolled, not attribute + skill.  Things like surged and metavariants have only made the problem worse as it's made it even easier to pump attributes up..

Attributes matter too much in comparison to skills.  Given the choice between pumping attributes or skills (let alone skill groups) the first choice is always for the attribute.   Why... attribute only tests... defaulting on other skills not in the skill group. etc.  It's the same problem which shows up in many other systems.

Things which I hoped would fix things like karmagen instead make the problem worse.  (freebie attribute points for taking a meta... etc.).   Also a big problem is the disconnect between BP generation and karma advancement.  A character already hamstrings himself mechanically for not min/maxing in chargen.. as it's cheap to buy skills starting at rank 1 or 2 after play starts.  It's not cheap to advance attributes/skill groups/skills already raised up.

Also, simply taking 1 rank in a skill then not defaulting on a high attribute is in most ways far superior to actually taking a non-min/maxed character.  Capping usable successes is about the only way to limit this.

It's an OPTIONAL RULE, not a house rule to enforce if you see fit.   Capping successes at no more than twice skill has seemed pretty reasonable.  The only way I've experimented with house ruling this is to cap net successes instead of raw successes...

Quite frankly, the only way I've been able to puzzle out to make skills more relevant is to expand them from rating 1-12 (pricing them like knowledge skills) and only add half attribute.

[All4BigGuns]

Again, this has been said before, but I guess it needs to be said again. If you limit hits to skill (or even skill + 1) you WILL discourage your players bothering with any skill that isn't key to their character.

Only adding half attribute will just cut down the dice pool and do nothing worthwhile.

Expanding the skill ratings and making skills cheaper could do something, but the rules of any game tend to be intertwined in ways that any change or use of an 'optional' rule can have unforeseen complications throughout the entire rules set. About the only thing I've seen posted as a house rule on here that wouldn't cause problems would be the extra BPs for contacts and something someone posted making Doc Wagon more useful.

While OP might think it's broke, it doesn't mean it is. No offense, but adding "extra realism" and more complexity for the sake of doing so tends to be more effective at killing the fun than it is at doing anything else.