[Wakshaani]

Been underground for a while gang, missed out on a few discussions, and I'm trying to do some catch up while I get my legs back under me. One thing that I see, here or there, is some scoffing about the priority table for 6E.

I wanted to open the floor a bit and talk about it or, rather, LISTEN about it. What you liked, what you don't like, and so on. I'm looking for feedback if possible, not just "It sucks, I hate it, nyeah!" but WHY you think it doesn't work right. Where are the flaws? What *are* the flaws? It's kind of the central aspect of the whole kit n kaboodle of making characters and if it stumbles, everything stumbles.

So, what does it need help on? What does it do well? Does it make starting characters that are too strong? Not strong enough? Encourage too much min-maxing?

This one's a big one, it may drift a bit, but I'd like to see, now that we're away from the initial release a bit, what you've found about it.

The floor is yours.

[Michael Chandra]

I mostly like Priority in SR5 and SR6, because yes you can min-max, but it's far less choice paralysis. That said, some priorities are underpowered to me.

Take Metatype A/B, especially Metatype A (Attributes A would almost always be better, unless you're going super-low in Attributes but high in Metatype due to Edge+Magic/Resonance). These only give a small gain compared to their previous level, while with Attributes/Skills/Resources C->B->A goes up real big.

With Magic, the 'no learning extra spells in chargen' rule is why Mage is so limited in its increase and still be tempting, but I think it needs a boost. I'd consider '+X karma that is allowed to be used for binding Foci and learning formulae' to give Magic priority more of a boost there, since right now only Mystics would really be pressured for a higher Priority, Casters tend to just limit their spells.

Meanwhile, for Adepts I honestly see no reason why anyone would ever go above D with Magic, since they can use their Metatype for more Magic and Power Points instead. So Adepts would need a significant buff. And again, with Magic there's no significant buff in the highest ranks. So honestly I believe there should be a larger buff there, adding extra benefits would have helped there.

(The most interesting houserule I read for Priority is making Spirit Formulae also a Formula you need to learn, giving even Aspected Summoners priority-value and strongly encouraging Summon+Spellcast builds to go higher Magic-wise so they start the game with a nice list of available Spirits AND Spells.)

[ammulder]

When would you take something other than Attributes A?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The problem of "why would you NOT take Attributes A?" is fairly self-evident, I think.  Related to it (especially at the low Attribute pick levels one could ostensibly select) is the problem of too few SAPs coming from Race, as compared to Attributes.

Look at any two iterations of Race and Attributes picks.  Whenever Race is the higher pick of the two, you have less total Attribute points + SAPs. That's ass-backwards.

For example: B & C picks.  When attributes is B, you get 16 points for attributes, and 9 SAPs.  When race is B, you get  12 points for attributes but 11 points for SAPs.  Yeah, you get "more" SAPs, but remember they both go towards the same thing: Attributes.  Attribs B + Race C gives 25 "attribute points".  Race B + Attribs C gives 23... AND a bigger proportion (almost half!) of those points are restricted in how you can spend them!    This makes a double whammy on the Attributes priority pick... so long as SAPs don't potentially generate more "total attribute points" than a lower Attribute pick, it's a mechanical trap to EVER take Race higher than Attributes.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Another problem I see is in the Magic pick:  there's too little incentive to pick high.  Unless you're a MysAd, there's no reason at all really to ever go Magic A.  So long as you're not allowed to buy spells during chargen, that establishes a reason for anyone else to ever go higher than D, but not a very strong one since spells are so cheap... just buy them post-chargen rather than picking high magic, amirite?

I'd love to see the number of types of spirits/sprites you have access to tied to the priority pick.  That doesn't do anything for aspected Enchanters/Sorcerers, but it DOES actually give reason for aspected Conjurers to invest in Magic since they literally have no reason to go higher than D as-is.  And frankly, Enchanters/Sorcerers seem to be so few and far between, the "you can't buy spells in chargen" dyamic is all the reason they'll ever need to invest in more spells/higher magic pick.

[ammulder]

I wonder if Attribute A would be less of an obvious choice if there was a smaller difference between attribute points options... 24-22-20 etc. instead of 24-16-fuhgeddaboudit

So some rebalancing within the ranks might help as well as rebalancing across ranks.

[Hobbes]

To tie SSDR's points together.  You'd (basically) never take a Magic priority higher than your Metatype, and you'd never take a Metatype priority higher than your Attribute Priority.  So for a big swath of characters the Priority table is pretty well locked.  Attributes>Metatype>Magic, either Skills or Resources is the E, and the other goes in B or C.

Not that having some optimal allocation is bad.  It's bad that if a player isn't doing the math, they're really behind the curve.  Or if a concept character needs a little more from column A to pull it all together they're making noticeable mechanical sacrifices.  These aren't just a couple dice here or there kind of choices that me and my fellow min/maxers love to fret about.  This is 8 Attribute point swings, which is "Does your character have a meaningful secondary set of abilities?"  or "Can I make difficult tests in my Primary thing?" 

Stumbling out of char gen with 11 dice in "Your thing" and a bunch of dice pools around 5 is a noticeable difference from someone playing the same kind of character that allocated better and is hitting 16 dice in a thing and has 10ish dice in a couple other things. 

[Wakshaani]

*jotting down notes*

This is all useful, thank you!

Please feel free to keep it up.

[MercilessMing]

Cool.  I haven't read the whole thread yet so there's going to be repeats, just consider repeats a "+1 to that".

I have not been okay with the concept of the priority table for a long, long time.  But I am used to it because SR was my first and only RPG during the 90s.  I'm not a fan of how it rewards creating one-dimensional specialists that have already peaked and will barely see any growth over the course of play.
That's not a feature inherent in the prio table, but it is a feature of 1:1 point allocation at chargen followed by geometrically increasing costs post-chargen.

Ok the prio table specifically:

1 - The Attribute column.  Attributes A is too high, Attr. E too low, it's just WAY too broad a range to create viable characters in.  Attributes were definitely undervalued when this range was created.

2 - Metatype Column.  My new players have the hardest time understanding Adjustment Points.  So, conceptually they're not great.  It's also unfortunate that there is no "6" option so mundane humans aren't able to utilize the one "special" thing about them unless they "waste" 3 points by picking C.  People hate the feeling that they're wasting points; Ive never seen anyone make a mundane human and pick C here.

3 - Skills Column.  I think the Skills column is good actually.

4 - Magic Column.  This column screwed the pooch.  When adjustment points were allowed to be used to raise your Magic attribute, this column became nearly meaningless for everyone except spellcasters.  Spellcasters have to answer the question "How few spells can I live with for the first couple of adventures", and choose the appropriate priority.  EVERY other Awakened picks D, because all their magic power comes from the Adjustment column, and EVERY Awakened gets to leave chargen with Magic 6.  A ton of text in this column is devoted to gently separating the starting Magic attribute of each type of Awakened, and it really doesn't matter because everyone's going to raise it to 6.  Pegasus German rules allow players to purchase spells with the 50 starting karma, so for them D is the correct answer for EVERY Awakened and any other choice is a trap. 
Edit - Yeah I forgot Mystic Adepts still have good reasons for picking high Magic prio. 

5 - Resources column.  Since the value of this column is highly dependent on individual pieces of gear, it's hard to critique it.  However, E is always the correct choice for archetypes that are not dependent on gear, which is a problem.  8000 nuyen is a tiny sum, for sure, but spend just 10 starting karma on cash and now you've got 28,000 which is enough for a lifestyle, car, fake SIN, commlink, reagents, and whatever other imaging, audio, and simsense gear you might need. 
On the high end, I will say I dislike the fact that deckers can start with the second best cyberdeck and the second best cyberjack possible, right out of the gate. 

Overall, there are too many traps and incorrect choices

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

*jotting down notes*

This is all useful, thank you!

Please feel free to keep it up.

You know, if, ah, sacred cows are on the chopping block...

I'd like to see a priority chart where you don't have points used in a linear cost manner.  Not at least while post-chargen advancement works on a scaling cost.  This disparity fuels the "high and low stacks" phenomenon of character creation, since the best way to spend 6 skill points is to put one skill at 6 rather than any other possible combination of more than 1 skill.  I think it'd be quite interesting to see a priority chart that works somewhat like a "more complex" karma build mechanic:  Priority A on attributes gives you X amount of karma to spend on attributes, and each increasingly lower pick gives some increasingly lower value of chargen karma for that purpose.  Ditto for skills.

[Beta]

A few notes, mostly just crunching some numbers (numbers don’t tell you everything, but they do tell something)

For each column, here is the delta E->D / D->C / C->B / B-> A

Metatype: 3 / 5 / 2 / 2
Attributes: 6 /4 / 4 / 8
Skills: 6 /4 / 4 / 8
Magic/Res:  1* / 1 /1 /1 (each point of magic is coming with 2 spells or complex forms)
Resources: 42k / 100k / 125k / 175k

A couple of notes:
- the biggest step function varies by column: D to C for metatype, B to A for attributes and skills, magic is pretty flat but arguably E to D is the biggest jump, B to A for resources (although karma value wise, B to A will be the highest, being worth 20 karma in attributes and 10 karma in spells/complex forms)
- Metatype progression increases fastest in the middle*, attributes and skills increase fastest at both ends, magic is flat all the way, and resources increase faster the higher up the chart you are.
   *the correct metatype value, arithmetically, is usually D for mundane humans, and C for most of everyone else, although there will always be build priorities that override the arithmetic

Karma value on attributes and skills is obviously impossible because it depends how high the rating point is.  However with all of metahuman adjustment points, attribute points, and skill points, at higher total available points you are more apt to have more maxed out numbers, which makes the big step from B to A probably even more impactful than the 8 points show on their own, and possibly making the step from E to D less impactful than the 6 points seem.

**********************

In general this table is the most punitive of attributes and skills E of any edition of SR, from what I can recall.  It would be an awfully rare PC who took either of those, I suspect.  (granted taking either at E has probably never been a common choice).
 
Personally I'd like to see the E value brought up and the intervals made more regular, perhaps starting Attributes E as 8 points (and starting skills E of 16 points), and going up by 4 for each letter above that.  That would put E at 'average person on the street' level of attributes (2 in each attribute) , with C at average of 3, and A at an average of 4, which to me feels about right for 'runner builds (being worse than the average person on the street is the realm of negative qualities, IMO).

[Tecumseh]

It's bad that if a player isn't doing the math, they're really behind the curve.

What the others have said largely reflects my own opinions as well.

Hobbes makes an important point here about optimization. In this case there is a penalty to new players (or players who aren't analytically-inclined) and that penalty is steep. Optimization should be the difference between "good and great" not the difference between "functional and non-functional". Perhaps a bit of exaggeration there, but the point is that I'd prefer fewer trap options. Ideally, I'd like any and every priority combination to be viable. Skills A doesn't have to be the best choice, but I'd at least like it to be in the conversation. When there's a lack of clarity (i.e. a lot of debate) about which priorities are best, then I think the system is successful. If there's broad consensus about the value of the priorities (like we're seeing in this thread) then the system warrants revision.

Getting into specifics, I don't mind if things don't scale evenly between priority steps (A vs. B vs. C, etc.). If anything, I prefer that they don't, so that your A priority really gets an above-average boost. But I at least wish that the relative scale differences between steps would at least be similar across priorities. (For example, going from B to A in Attributes nets you an additional 8 but only 2 metatype points, or 1 point of Magic/Resonance.) Edit: Beta is saying the same thing but ninja'd me.

I've only made a handful of SR6 characters so others here will have much more experience than I do. But, broadly speaking, here are my impressions about how I'd do the A/B/C/D/E values:

Metatype: 12/8/4/2/1
Attributes: 24/20/16/14/12 (SR5's basically)
Magic/Resonance: 5/1/0/0/0
Skills: 36/28/20/16/12
Resources: As-is

The idea is that Metatype and Attributes would scale at the same rate to reflect how fungible their points are.

I wouldn't have Magic/Resonance available at lower priorities. I would go back to the earlier editions (SR1-3) approach of making it an expensive priority investment.

Skills scale at 2x the rate of attribute points. This wouldn't have been enough in SR5 but since skills are closer to skill groups in SR6 I think it's close (or at least closer).

Edit: Got ninja'd several times while writing this. I'll post it now before getting ninja'd some more.

[MercilessMing]

OH, and I'd like to add that I very much LIKE how the In Debt quality pairs with the mid range Resource choices on gear-dependent characters.  Makes me feel like I can get away with one row lower than normal sometimes.

[ammulder]

Let's say your concept is to be a human.

There's not a lot of point to Metatype C (I don't know anybody who likes throwing away the extra couple adjustment points).

That being the case...  Why not take 2 spells or 1 point worth of adept powers plus Edge 2 (metatype Priority E), instead of Edge 5 (metatype priority D)?  Surely that bit of magic or couple of powers could offset the extra few starting Edge.

But... I don't especially like that you can have some magic abilities almost for free.  It's almost like a throwaway: I got nothing better to do, so I'll have some magic.  "Magic is my dump stat."  It makes being Awakened lose its special-ness.

So I guess I'd rather Magic/Resonance D was still Mundane.

[MercilessMing]

That being the case...  Why not take 2 spells or 1 point worth of adept powers plus Edge 2 (metatype Priority E), instead of Edge 5 (metatype priority D)?  Surely that bit of magic or couple of powers could offset the extra few starting Edge.

Cause unless that was their concept, they're probably going to lose that Magic rating when they start putting in ware.