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[SR5] Priority System

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mtfeeney = Baron

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« on: <07-12-13/0626:40> »
Has anyone started tallying the Karma value of the options in the priority system for optimal Karma efficiency?
« Last Edit: <07-23-13/0751:16> by FastJack »
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StarManta

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« Reply #1 on: <07-13-13/1746:07> »
This is a lot harder to do, because raising one skill from 0 to 6 costs the same Skill Priority Points as raising two skills from 0 to 3, but with Karma, the two skills is far cheaper (42 Karma vs. 24 Karma). Same thing with attributes. And of course, metatypes and Magician/Technomancer priorities don't have a Karma equivalency at all. And when the middle column also includes skill points, their interplay becomes MUCH more complicated.

If you go by the Gear column, you can get these Karma values for each Priority:

A=225 Karma
B=137.5 Karma
C=70 Karma
D=25 Karma
E=3 Karma

You can't get a direct equivalent for the other columns, but you can get estimated ranges. Take Skills for example: In a "best case" scenario - getting as much Karma equivalency as possible out of the Skill column by concentrating them into few skills - priority A gives you 469 Karma (7 Skills at R6 = 294 Karma, 1 Skill at R4 = 20, 1 Group at R6=105, 1 Group at R4=50), and if you also have points from the center column, that might be a little bit higher even. The "worst case", spreading out your points as much as possible, Priority A gives you 142 Karma (46 Skills at R1 = 92 Karma, 10 Skill Groups at R1 = 50 Karma) As you can see, that's a LOT of range to play with depending on how you distribute your points.

For comparison, Skills E a minimum of 36 Karma and a max of 126 Karma.

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One thing to note is that the different priorities have different "baseline" values - the lowest Karma equivalency you can possibly get from that column at Priority E. In other words, The different between A and E is what matters, not the absolute values themselves. These baseline and Maximum values would be:

Race: 15 Karma (Human with 3 Edge) to 215 Karma (Human, 7 Edge=125, plus raising Magic 2 to 6=90) = Spread of 200 Karma
ATTR: 4 ATTR's at 3 (100), 4 ATTR's at 2 (40) = 140 Karma to a whopping 605 Karma (as a troll, STR to 10 (200), BOD to 9 (150), 3 other attributes to 5 (210), 1 other attribute to 4 (45) )  for a spread of 465 Karma.
Magical: 0 Karma to something incalculable thanks to the nonexistence of any of the magic/technomancer things as Karma costs, but without those, a minimum of Magic raising to 6 (100)+2 R5 skills (60)+10 spells(50)=210 Karma, which is also the spread
Skills: As previously noted, minimum of 36 Karma to maximum of 469 Karma, for a spread of 433 Karma
Gear: 3 Karma to 225 Karma, for a spread of 222 Karma

Want the most Karma equivalency out of your points? Then you want the highest Priorities in the ones with the highest Spreads. Try Priority B race (be a troll), A Attributes (max BOD and STR), C skills, D Gear, E Magic (though the last two might be switched). Concentrate your Attribute and Skill points in as few of them as possible, maxing them out.

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The fact that this math is so complicated (and fuzzy) is actually something I really like about the Priority system. It rewards gaming the system a lot less than BP did, and makes Min-maxing across the board harder to calculate (though Min-maxing within the Priorities is obviously still easy). Honestly, this post is no good way to build a character.
« Last Edit: <07-13-13/1807:33> by StarManta »

Tecumseh

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« Reply #2 on: <07-13-13/2002:56> »
StarManta has it right. I also like how the fuzzy math complicates optimization efforts, which in my opinion makes chargen more of a game than an annoying math homework problem. I'm personally enjoying SR5 chargen so far.

Let me also second StarManta's disclaimer that 'this post is no good way to build a character.' There's a difference between karma-efficiency and dice-efficiency, and also karma-efficiency and playability.

In StarManta's example, he suggests Attributes A and Priority B (Troll) as way to squeeze a lot of karma out of a priority, namely using the additional attribute points to boost the karma-intensive Body and Strength attributes for a troll. But if you flip those two priorities (Priority A for Troll and Priority B for Attributes) then you exchange 4 attribute points for a whopping 5 points of Edge. On a dice-efficiency scale, you just traded 4 dice that can only be used situationally for 5 dice that can be used at almost any time. That's a good trade.

Going from Edge 1 to Edge 6 would cost 100 karma, which is much less than boosting Body and Strength from rating 8 to 10 (135 karma each). For a karma-efficiency standpoint, the decision is clear. But if you use playability as your criterion, odds are that you'll pick the large-and-lucky troll (Body 8 / Strength 8 / Edge 6) over the huge-but-unlucky troll (Body 10 / Strength 10 / Edge 1).

Chrona

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« Reply #3 on: <07-13-13/2129:31> »
Also I believe skill groups can still not go passed 4 at chargen, but that it was left out.

mtfeeney = Baron

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« Reply #4 on: <07-13-13/2219:34> »
Yeah, these are very similar findings to my own.  I had to keep making baseline assumptions, such as "For this karma efficiency guideline, the character has to be a magician." or separate values based on each race, assuming maximum rated skills and attributes, etc.  I thought it was interesting that specializations are better than anything less than a R6 skill.  You'd be crazy to not throw specs on every possible skill.  Even a R6 only ties that value of 6 specs.  Post-chargen, I feel specs are a little expensive.

I spent about 12 hours working on figuring this stuff out yesterday.  By the end, I had 12 notepad files open to keep track of various things.  The big decision finally revolved around whether to set A for skills and D for attributes(high karma efficiency, low inherent limits), or the opposite for better inherent limits but with a ton of waste karma potential.  At first I considered C for attributes, with D for Race.  Then I realized that going from C to D lost 2 attribute points, but taking race from D to C gave me unlocked dwarf as viable and gave elf 3 more special points on top of the better racial attributes.  The math isn't THAT fuzzy, there are just a lot of qualifiers.  I'm sure that we'll eventually have a guide for karma efficiency, it just won't be "Absolutely every time, this is better."  It'll involve a lot more of variety, which is awesome.  My favorite part yesterday was weighing the various magic ratings.
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StarManta

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« Reply #5 on: <07-13-13/2344:40> »
Also I believe skill groups can still not go passed 4 at chargen, but that it was left out.

In SR4, the rule was that you could have one skill at 6 OR two skills at 5, and the rest of the skills are capped at 4. This meant that, by fiat, there just was no way to bring a skill group to 5, because it'd violate that rule.

However, in SR5, all skills are simply capped at 6 at chargen, and it doesn't say otherwise, so I believe skill groups are capped at 6, not 4.

Glyph

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« Reply #6 on: <07-15-13/0045:38> »
I imagine karma costs would be all over the place, depending on the specific build.  Flat cost character creation systems encourage getting things as high as you can at the start, when raising a troll's Body from 9 to 10 costs the same as raising a human's Body from 1 to 2, and likewise for skills.  The good thing about the additional karma at the end is that you can tweak your build with a few things like low-rated skills without sacrificing efficiency.

samoth

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« Reply #7 on: <07-15-13/0638:50> »
One thing to keep in mind is that the "Starting Karma" of 25 points is really equal to 50 Karma since the post-chargen cost of Qualities is listed as rating x2.  It would therefore be less efficient to buy Attributes/Skills/whatever with those points, and instead maximally efficient to use those points entirely on qualities.  Of course, this is just my opinion and is subject to change as people better than me at math figure out relative karma values to the priority ranks.

Specializations are the best use of Skill Points at 1 SP each, and a terrible post-chargen Karma investment at 7 karma per.  it remains to be seen what optimal Skill ratings will be in regards to limits, but chargen specializations are a no-brainer.

RHat

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« Reply #8 on: <07-15-13/0657:34> »
Specializations are the best use of Skill Points at 1 SP each, and a terrible post-chargen Karma investment at 7 karma per.

Actually, as it's a 2 point improvement in the thing your specialized at, specializations are the most efficient advancement option to get more dice for that thing assuming you have at least one rank in the skill - it costs 10 Karma to take a skill from 1 to 3.
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« Reply #9 on: <07-15-13/0704:13> »
From 0 to 4 is 20 karma, four specializations are 28. If you're at 22 SP and go 6+/6+/6+/1 instead of 6664, you save 21 karma instead of 18 so it only is a difference of 3 karma. With 18/0 going 6+/6+/4 is saving 14 karma instead of 22. So it depends really.
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mtfeeney = Baron

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« Reply #10 on: <07-15-13/0836:18> »
One thing to keep in mind is that the "Starting Karma" of 25 points is really equal to 50 Karma since the post-chargen cost of Qualities is listed as rating x2.  It would therefore be less efficient to buy Attributes/Skills/whatever with those points, and instead maximally efficient to use those points entirely on qualities
Oooooooh... excellent point, I wish I had thought of that myself.
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samoth

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« Reply #11 on: <07-15-13/1627:37> »
I've done a lot of screwing around with the totals, and here are my preliminary findings.  For what it's worth, this has taken me a LOT longer than BP or Karma gen ever did.  I should note I normally play Adepts and toyed around with builds for those, so non-magical characters would be a different layout but the basics are similar.

Attributes are king.  They influence all the Limits and of course add their rating to skills for tests.  They also happen to be the most expensive part to raise (tied with Skill Groups, which again, use a linked Attribute), which shouldn't shock anyone since it has been like that forever.  I really hate how constrictive this Priority system is as I am a guy who always liked to have a variety of skills at low levels and Attributes not maxed or close to maxed, but I am now punished for doing so in a value-sense.

Attributes A is the clear winner for me, but I don't play Trolls so they aren't a consideration for me at ranks A or B.  Attributes A allows a Human to have 4s across the board, but statistically it allows for one maxed stat of 6, four stats at 5, one at 4 and two dump stats at 1.  Again, I hate this, but min/maxing this Priority system is far more complex than it should be thanks to the alarming number of variables in each rank. 

After Attributes are taken care of, I choose Skills of B.  You can take five skills at Rank 6, each with a specialization and have 1 skill point left over.  It remains to be seen how skills will work mathematically in relation to limits; I wonder if their overall value will have decreased and more emphasis will be placed on Attributes anyway. 

Since I like magical characters I take Adept at C for the starting 4 Magic and free level 2 active skill, and spend the final skill point on a specialization for it.  Race of D works well for magical humans since they can then max Magic at 6 and raise Edge one rating to 3.  Resources are E since Adepts don't need much in my builds.

If I were to take magic out of the equation, I would make Race C and max Edge, and then take Resources at D.  In my experience, money is easier to come by in-game than Karma, so I always take as little as possible.  You could of course flip these two if you liked.

My goal is to get the max attribute points possible and I believe that is achievable with the outline above, but I'm sure once others get a chance to throw some ideas together we'll figure out what really does work best.  In the meantime I'll keep my fingers crossed for a karmagen system in the Runner's Companion.
« Last Edit: <07-15-13/1630:54> by samoth »

firebug

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« Reply #12 on: <07-15-13/2009:09> »
If I were to take magic out of the equation, I would make Race C and max Edge, and then take Resources at D.  In my experience, money is easier to come by in-game than Karma, so I always take as little as possible.  You could of course flip these two if you liked.

The rest of your thing is legitimate, but I feel you desperately need more Resources for a non-magical character.  I mean, think of the two main roles "mundanes" follow that magicians can't--  Street Samurai and Decker.  So I went to look at prices for cyberdecks and augmentations.

Resources D is 140,000¥.  It kind of sounds like a lot, but...  Alright, if I'm making a Street Samurai and taking what I've learned from the previous edition, there's things I want them to be able to do.  Since you picked Race C I can be an Ork, which is good.  High BOD, decent strength.  I'm doing this on what should be a budget so let's check out Cyberware mostly.  It's supposed to be cheap compared to Bioware, that's prettymuch the main reason it's still in use.  So--  Holy crap!  Muscle Replacement is worth 25,000¥ per rating!  And that's cheaper than either the STR or AGI bioware.  Well, Rating 2 of that would be really nice...  What the heck, I have 50k.

Well, next is something like Wired Reflexes.  If I'm losing out turns to drones and other combatants, I can't call myself a specialist.  Can I get rating 2?  At this point, I choke on my tea reading that Rating 2 Wired Reflexes is worth more than Resources D has given me, and go with Rating 1 silently.

Long story short, it doesn't matter how much money you can make during runs.  You need good Resources at the beginning if you're non-magical just to be able to finish those runs.  Basic cyberware is hella expensive, and I don't think Bioware can even be considered with Resources lower than B in my opinion.  And those Essence costs aren't cheap--  Those two pieces of 'ware were already 4 Essence, so you really feel compelled to buy higher than Standard, too.
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Mad Hamish

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« Reply #13 on: <07-15-13/2011:28> »
Frankly I disagree with the idea that everything is as cut and dried as "attributes are king", it's going to depend hugely on what the character actually does.

if you're making a magician magic as a high priority is huge (number of spells if nothing else), if you're making a street sam resources have a pretty big impact.
Depending upon what your physical adept does you might find that you're better off focusing on skills over attributes, attributes are really good if you have a large number of skills you use consistently which depend on the same attribute.

Mad Hamish

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« Reply #14 on: <07-15-13/2012:36> »
Resources D is 140,000¥.  It kind of sounds like a lot, but...  Alright, if I'm making a Street Samurai and taking what I've learned from the previous edition, there's things I want them to be able to do.  Since you picked Race C I can be an Ork, which is good.  High BOD, decent strength. 

140kY is Resources C, D is 50kY