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[6e] Char Gen questions

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seg_fault

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« on: <08-08-19/2217:35> »
Hello,
New to SR in general, so forgive some of the newbish questions:

1) Where is starting essence detailed? I've surmised it's 6 from the archetypes, but I can't seem to find the line of text that says "essence starts at 6"

2) I'm very confused on Step 3 (Select Qualities). Is the expectation that I select 6 that leave me karma-neutral or karma-surpluss? What happens if you have a karma deficit? Does that come directly out of your customization karma, or do you double it (as if you were doing character advancement)?

3) At character creation how much do specializations cost? Is it just 1 point (ie enough to get one rank in a skill?) or is it equal to the level of rank you have +1?

Thanks in advance.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #1 on: <08-08-19/2250:34> »
1. You indeed start with 6 essence.

2. It helps to think of that stage as having selected the qualities, but you pay karma for them in step 4. End of day, you have 50 karma to spend, and you can't have more than 20 additional karma by taking negative qualities.

3. Yes, specializations cost a skill point. You can only have one specialization per skill, and you can't buy expertise.

4. Welcome to Shadowrun!
« Last Edit: <08-08-19/2252:49> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

seg_fault

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« Reply #2 on: <08-08-19/2307:49> »
Thanks! I've enjoyed the video games immensely so when I heard there was a new edition coming out I jumped on it. It's perhaps a little rougher than I was anticipating, but I think it's got promise.

Just to converge on the qualities discussion, I select up to 6 qualities and the net cost / surplus is done on a 1:1 basis with the karma cost. However if I purchase beyond 6 (which can no longer be negative karma costs) these are paid for on a 2 karma per 1 karma cost basis as if I was purchasing a quality after character creation. Is this correct?

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #3 on: <08-08-19/2328:29> »
You can't purchase more than 6 qualities.

Of those 6, you can't have more than 20 points of negative qualities.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #4 on: <08-09-19/0451:38> »
The 2:1 price for buying Qualities is after chargen, so when you're already running. In the entire chargen phase, including Customization, you're still restricted by all chargen-restrictions (so no circumventing a stage 1~3 restriction in stage 4).

As for your questions: They're extremely valid actually! We've brought up several ourselves, and an experienced player may not realise the info is missing but you're absolutely right that things need to be more clear.

If you have any other questions, don't be afraid to ask!
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Hephaestus

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« Reply #5 on: <08-11-19/1348:20> »
2. It helps to think of that stage as having selected the qualities, but you pay karma for them in step 4. End of day, you have 50 karma to spend, and you can't have more than 20 additional karma by taking negative qualities.

3. Yes, specializations cost a skill point. You can only have one specialization per skill, and you can't buy expertise.

For point 2, CRB6 states "the net bonus karma" cannot exceed 20 points. Wouldn't that mean that mean you can take 6 qualities (both positive and negative) so long as you don't end up with more than 20 extra Karma?

i.e. A character could take Gearhead and Juryrigger for a total cost of 28 karma, then take Honorbound, Uncouth, Prejudiced, and Bad Rep for a total bonus of 32 karma. The net total bonus karma is only 4.

For point 3, CRB6 state specializations and expertise both cost 5 karma each. so you would need to have at least one rank in a skill to get a specialization for that skill, and you need to be rank 5 in a skill to be able to advance a specialization to and expertise.

i.e. Your Street Sam has one rank in Piloting. He could spend 5 karma to specialize in piloting Ground Craft, but he could not increase that specialization to an expertise. Conversely, if your Street Sam had 5 ranks in Firearms, he could spend 5 karma on a specialization for Automatics, and a further 5 karma to bring that specialization up to an expertise.

Xenon

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« Reply #6 on: <08-11-19/1733:48> »
For point 2, CRB6 states "the net bonus karma" cannot exceed 20 points. Wouldn't that mean that mean you can take 6 qualities (both positive and negative) so long as you don't end up with more than 20 extra Karma?

i.e. A character could take Gearhead and Juryrigger for a total cost of 28 karma, then take Honorbound, Uncouth, Prejudiced, and Bad Rep for a total bonus of 32 karma. The net total bonus karma is only 4.
This is my reading as well.

If the intent was that you could not buy more negative qualities than a total of 20 karma then they should have used the word "gross" instead of "net".



For point 3, CRB6 state specializations and expertise both cost 5 karma each. so you would need to have at least one rank in a skill to get a specialization for that skill, and you need to be rank 5 in a skill to be able to advance a specialization to and expertise.

i.e. Your Street Sam has one rank in Piloting. He could spend 5 karma to specialize in piloting Ground Craft, but he could not increase that specialization to an expertise. Conversely, if your Street Sam had 5 ranks in Firearms, he could spend 5 karma on a specialization for Automatics, and a further 5 karma to bring that specialization up to an expertise.
Also correct, but note that during chargen you can only get one specialization per skill and you cannot buy an expertise at all.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #7 on: <08-11-19/1746:29> »
Legal examples:
- 3 PQ of -20 karma, 2 NQ of +10, net bonus -10 karma so 50-10=40 customization
- 2 PQ of -40, 4 NQ of +60, net bonus 20 so 70 customization
- 6 PQ of -50 = 0 customization karma left

Illegal examples:
- 4 PQ and 3 NQ = too many qualities
- 5 PQ of -52 karma = more karma spent than available in customization karma
- 2 PQ of -18 karma and 3 NQ of 40 karma = more than 20 net bonus
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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #8 on: <08-11-19/1750:40> »
For point 2, CRB6 states "the net bonus karma" cannot exceed 20 points. Wouldn't that mean that mean you can take 6 qualities (both positive and negative) so long as you don't end up with more than 20 extra Karma?

i.e. A character could take Gearhead and Juryrigger for a total cost of 28 karma, then take Honorbound, Uncouth, Prejudiced, and Bad Rep for a total bonus of 32 karma. The net total bonus karma is only 4.
This is my reading as well.

If the intent was that you could not buy more negative qualities than a total of 20 karma then they should have used the word "gross" instead of "net".

I concede that it's ambiguous language.

The intent is either you can have up to a hard maximum of 70 karma for chargen (50 + 20 from negative qualities) or the intent is that  you can have ANY number of bonus karma, just so long as you spend enough karma on positive qualities (and the combined total is 6 qualities or less) that the difference between the two expenditures is 20 or less.

So in the former reading, you can't combine Honorbound, Uncouth, Prejudiced and Bad Rep because you'll have a character with 82 karma spent.

I figure the former reading is correct as it's far, far simpler to explain.

But again, granted it could use some syntactic loving to be less supportive of the second reading.
« Last Edit: <08-11-19/1752:19> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

markelphoenix

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« Reply #9 on: <08-11-19/2106:02> »
Legal examples:
- 3 PQ of -20 karma, 2 NQ of +10, net bonus -10 karma so 50-10=40 customization
- 2 PQ of -40, 4 NQ of +60, net bonus 20 so 70 customization
- 6 PQ of -50 = 0 customization karma left

Illegal examples:
- 4 PQ and 3 NQ = too many qualities
- 5 PQ of -52 karma = more karma spent than available in customization karma
- 2 PQ of -18 karma and 3 NQ of 40 karma = more than 20 net bonus

I really like these examples, makes it a lot clearer. While showing every case in all examples may not be beneficial, in something that has syntactically difficult language, examples such as this are extremely useful!

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #10 on: <08-12-19/0026:40> »
There was a debate on this elsewhere because indeed it can be confusing and there is no statement on carrying the difference over, we got clarification there. The keywords here are 'bonus', which points at karma from NQ, and 'net' aka the difference between NQs and PQs.

Note that the example does state grabbing negatives for extra karma so carry over is also intended. But yes the section is suffering from change blindness. (We know how it works so don't miss that it's not stated explicit enough.)
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Hobbes

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« Reply #11 on: <08-12-19/0741:31> »

kr3wZ

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« Reply #12 on: <08-15-19/1547:59> »
Quote
You can only have one specialization per skill

But this is only at character creation, correct?  Afterwards you could have more than one specialization in a skill.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #13 on: <08-15-19/1549:43> »
Actually no. You can upgrade 1 spec to expertise and after that buy a second spec. But that's it. One spec max, one expertise max, per skill.
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Hephaestus

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« Reply #14 on: <08-15-19/1918:58> »
Actually no. You can upgrade 1 spec to expertise and after that buy a second spec. But that's it. One spec max, one expertise max, per skill.

Except for Exotic Weapons, where you have to purchase a Specialization for each exotic weapon (type) you want to use. So in theory, you could have one expertise and infinite specializations for exotics.