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[SR4] House Rules

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Crash_00

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« Reply #420 on: <06-05-12/1428:40> »
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while at the same time making the other possible--even if more expensive (which it should be).
Why? This is what you haven't actually explained so far.

At the moment (especially if using gaes and way of the adept) pure, augmented, and burning out adepts are all viable both by feel and mechanics. All that making augmentation cost them more would do is flop the balance rather than fix anything.

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #421 on: <06-05-12/1436:59> »
Quote
while at the same time making the other possible--even if more expensive (which it should be).
Why? This is what you haven't actually explained so far.

At the moment (especially if using gaes and way of the adept) pure, augmented, and burning out adepts are all viable both by feel and mechanics. All that making augmentation cost them more would do is flop the balance rather than fix anything.

The 'should be' is more personal preference, but the extra karma cost may be necessary to keep things from getting too out of hand with the second portion I talked about.
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JustADude

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« Reply #422 on: <06-05-12/1855:47> »
The 'should be' is more personal preference, but the extra karma cost may be necessary to keep things from getting too out of hand with the second portion I talked about.

It's painfully obvious to anyone that's read what you have to say on the subject that you have a major hate-on for augmented magic users.

Arguing that Augmented adepts need to be penalized on their Magic because you don't like the idea of your food touching is like trying to get spinach banned from school cafeterias because you think it's disgusting. Some people like spinach, just like some people like the fact that Shadowrun offers the temptation of quick, easy power to Adepts at the low, low cost of part of their soul. Making the fruit less sweet cheapens the characterization.

Right now, a vanilla Adept has to answer several questions. First and foremost; why aren't they Augmented? Why did they turn away from the quick and easy power? What's their issue? What will they do if, for example, someone dangles some Delta Grate bioware in front of their nose?

Your way makes it just another character type. Oh, hey, I want to play a ninja-monk dude. Lets rock.
« Last Edit: <06-05-12/1959:56> by JustADude »
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All4BigGuns

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« Reply #423 on: <06-06-12/0058:05> »
The 'should be' is more personal preference, but the extra karma cost may be necessary to keep things from getting too out of hand with the second portion I talked about.

It's painfully obvious to anyone that's read what you have to say on the subject that you have a major hate-on for augmented magic users.

Arguing that Augmented adepts need to be penalized on their Magic because you don't like the idea of your food touching is like trying to get spinach banned from school cafeterias because you think it's disgusting. Some people like spinach, just like some people like the fact that Shadowrun offers the temptation of quick, easy power to Adepts at the low, low cost of part of their soul. Making the fruit less sweet cheapens the characterization.

Right now, a vanilla Adept has to answer several questions. First and foremost; why aren't they Augmented? Why did they turn away from the quick and easy power? What's their issue? What will they do if, for example, someone dangles some Delta Grate bioware in front of their nose?

Your way makes it just another character type. Oh, hey, I want to play a ninja-monk dude. Lets rock.

Did you not notice what the second portion was even though you emphasized that part of the sentence (halving IPA power and removing the 'doubling effect' that comes after a certain point)? After thinking about it, I realized that that increased cost may be necessary to keep things in line in case someone tries 'double dipping' with the implants and that with its lowered cost.
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Crash_00

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« Reply #424 on: <06-06-12/0134:10> »
Even at .375 PP/level, they'd still be limited by their augmented max, and would be better off in most cases (everything but body) taking the normal augmentations (Effectively .3 or .2 PPs per level considering the magic you'd lose).

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #425 on: <06-06-12/0150:03> »
Even at .375 PP/level, they'd still be limited by their augmented max, and would be better off in most cases (everything but body) taking the normal augmentations (Effectively .3 or .2 PPs per level considering the magic you'd lose).

Hmm...maybe reducing to .25 per level (had forgotten it was .75 and not .5).  Maybe I should test that cost (without the extra doubling) next time I start a game. You've got me convinced on not going with the increased cost to raise it though.

Anyone care to shoot out some suggestions on some of those other criminally overpriced powers (kinda figure the same PP cost for the IP enhancer as for WR or MBW essence would work).
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Crash_00

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« Reply #426 on: <06-06-12/0247:50> »
Straight Attributes are really the only place I see adepts get hit hard compared to mundane counterparts. Many adepts may still choose to get Synaptic Boosters (2 pts. of magic loss for 4 IPs vs. 4 power points is a no brainer), but if they take a gaes (to remain unaugmented is a no brainer again if you're going to be unaugmented) that lowers it to only 3. If you have a nifty way you can discount it to be 2 ppts. Synaptic Boosters still come out ahead (you have .5 essence to play with) but its a much closer race.

All in all, it's not a huge issue, because adepts can do a lot of things that mundanes can only wish they had.

JustADude

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« Reply #427 on: <06-06-12/0332:38> »
Anyone care to shoot out some suggestions on some of those other criminally overpriced powers (kinda figure the same PP cost for the IP enhancer as for WR or MBW essence would work).

Dropping PP prices to make the powers more competitive is something I can get behind, don't get me wrong there. ;)

Personally, though, since Karma is generally much more precious and limited than Nuyen, I recommend exactly matching the PP cost of IPA and Imp.Reflex to the equivalent Bioware's Essence cost. That's 0.2 PP/rank for IPA and 0.5/1.0/1.5 PP for IR.

Setting it up like that is going to make it so that going Augmented just means you get some unique tools, like Platelet Factories, at the cost of weakening your other tools, like Combat Reflexes. That makes the choice less of a no-brainer and more something to be carefully weighed and considered.

With IPA suddenly quite attractive enough to splash it on all your Attributes, and the IP boosters competitive as well, that means vanilla Adepts will be suddenly have to make some choices about what they get... chief among them, of course, whether to front-load the stats now and skimp on the other powers, or buy their "utility" powers and cap their stats after they Initiate and buy up their Magic.

At that point, "Geek the Adept" will probably actually make it onto the priority list, along with the Mage, the Main Battle Troll, and the Ork Machinegunner.
« Last Edit: <06-06-12/0341:49> by JustADude »
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Crash_00

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« Reply #428 on: <06-06-12/0601:34> »
One that I've used before is that a mage can use a held action to actively counterspell any spell being cast in his line of sight that he can perceive (makes the noticing magic check or is astrally perceiving and has beaten the other mages masking).

I've also, in the past, run counterspelling as rolled by the mage (rather than the resister) and subtracts before comparing to the resister/s. If the counterspell gets more hits, the spell flat out fails. It's not a huge difference, but it does make a difference with AoE spells, and who spends edge for counterspell. It allows for an easier non-contradictory counterspelling when non-living items are targeted and it reflects the fact that counterspelling is targeting the spell rather than putting up a mana bubble.

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #429 on: <06-06-12/1239:17> »
Anyone care to shoot out some suggestions on some of those other criminally overpriced powers (kinda figure the same PP cost for the IP enhancer as for WR or MBW essence would work).

Dropping PP prices to make the powers more competitive is something I can get behind, don't get me wrong there. ;)

Personally, though, since Karma is generally much more precious and limited than Nuyen, I recommend exactly matching the PP cost of IPA and Imp.Reflex to the equivalent Bioware's Essence cost. That's 0.2 PP/rank for IPA and 0.5/1.0/1.5 PP for IR.

Setting it up like that is going to make it so that going Augmented just means you get some unique tools, like Platelet Factories, at the cost of weakening your other tools, like Combat Reflexes. That makes the choice less of a no-brainer and more something to be carefully weighed and considered.

With IPA suddenly quite attractive enough to splash it on all your Attributes, and the IP boosters competitive as well, that means vanilla Adepts will be suddenly have to make some choices about what they get... chief among them, of course, whether to front-load the stats now and skimp on the other powers, or buy their "utility" powers and cap their stats after they Initiate and buy up their Magic.

At that point, "Geek the Adept" will probably actually make it onto the priority list, along with the Mage, the Main Battle Troll, and the Ork Machinegunner.

I would probably stick with lowering down to the WR or MBW Essence costs still since it would make the power equivalent to the more commonly taken IP boost implants (due to their cost, as Synaptic Booster is ridiculously expensive).  While .25 would be more expensive for the IPA than the bioware equivalents' Essence costs, taking a Way could bring down to about equal if not a bit less--this would also make IR more attractive than WR or MBW.

One that I've used before is that a mage can use a held action to actively counterspell any spell being cast in his line of sight that he can perceive (makes the noticing magic check or is astrally perceiving and has beaten the other mages masking).

I've also, in the past, run counterspelling as rolled by the mage (rather than the resister) and subtracts before comparing to the resister/s. If the counterspell gets more hits, the spell flat out fails. It's not a huge difference, but it does make a difference with AoE spells, and who spends edge for counterspell. It allows for an easier non-contradictory counterspelling when non-living items are targeted and it reflects the fact that counterspelling is targeting the spell rather than putting up a mana bubble.

I kinda like this, but only if you're talking about entire Counterspelling + Magic pool rather than just the skill's dice.
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Crash_00

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« Reply #430 on: <06-06-12/1359:59> »
For the held action counterspelling (or defensive counterspelling as I called it), it was full Magic + Counterspelling, but they were spending their action on it. I felt it added a more defensive option to mages than "Nuke the enemy mage before he nukes us". I also let them split counterspelling (just like casting multiple spells) by reserving part of their dice pool, but it was lost on their next action if not used.

For the other, it was mainly to keep who is rolling the counterspelling dice the same always. I didn't like other players rolling the counterspell dice (felt clunky to me). The mage only rolled the counterspell dice (just like the target would be doing).

voydangel

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« Reply #431 on: <06-11-12/0033:37> »
A house ruleset I used to use regarding reduced prices of Adept Powers was the following:

•   Berserk: Characters also ignores dice pool modifiers from stun damage for duration of effect.
•   Improved Physical Attribute: new base cost = 0.5 per level.
•   Reduce the power point cost of the following powers by half: analytics, animal empathy, blind fighting, cloak, counterstrike, distance strike, elemental resistance, facial sculpt, free-fall, gliding, great leap, heightened concentration, improved sense, indomitable will, iron gut, iron lungs, iron will, living focus, magic sense, melanin control, metabolic control, motion sense, multi tasking, natural immunity, nimble fingers, piercing senses, power swimming, rapid healing, rooting, spell resistance, supernatural toughness, temperature tolerance, traceless walk & wall running.

I found that this made a lot of these often unused powers much more desirable and people would take them far more often, and I don't recall a single time when it unbalanced game play. If anything I sometimes still felt like giving the powers a boost for role playing and characterization. Many if not most powers are overpriced PP wise when compared to their cyber/bio equivalents. IMO.

I currently use very few to zero house rules solely due to the fact that now days I mostly run beginners games at a local comic shop (on their 'get new people into gaming' night), and because of that I try to stay as vanilla as possible in order to keep things simple for the new players.
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Bastwolf

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« Reply #432 on: <06-15-12/1919:57> »
HOUSE RULE:
If your game is based heavily off of background stories, create two separate categories of Positive and Negative qualities. One category is for qualities that your character has for his personality and the other is offered for characters who want to use background qualities (ex. Escaped Clone, Evil Twin, etc.)

Example:

Positive Qualities:
PersonalityBackground
AptitudeEscaped Clone
CodeslingerErased
Perceptive
Sense of Direction
Analytical Mind

beowulf_of_wa

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« Reply #433 on: <06-16-12/0156:28> »

I found that this made a lot of these often unused powers much more desirable and people would take them far more often, and I don't recall a single time when it unbalanced game play. If anything I sometimes still felt like giving the powers a boost for role playing and characterization. Many if not most powers are overpriced PP wise when compared to their cyber/bio equivalents. IMO.

i can definitely see using this in my games, if only from the fact that samurai and adepts are (and should be) nearly equal and a deadly threat to all that cross them.
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« Reply #434 on: <06-26-12/1122:51> »
Here's a house rule that I think is needed. In order to discourage implants in Awakened, ruling that the karma cost for increasing Magic would go off of what one's Magic would be without the implants.  As an example, buying a Magic of 5 and taking 2 Essence worth of implants would still require spending 30 karma to get back to Magic 4.

Without going into the discussion on whether or not awakened should get implants:
Isn't this already the case in RAW?
I always figured that an Adept that buys 5 magic at chargen and loses a point of essense to implants, still has a 'Base Magic' of 5, but has a Modified Value of 4 Magic ( Magic 5(4) ).
The karma cost of increasing an attribute always looks at its Base, not at its modified value. So he would need to spend karma to raise his Base Magic to 6. That attribute then gets recalculated with Essense to a Modified Value of 5.
I thought this was always the case. It is for Sams with Agi 5(8) thanks to Muscle Toner 3. To raise his agility, he spends karma to raise his Agi from 5 to 6, giving him a modified score of 6(9). He doesn't need to buy 9 Agi...