[sn0mm1s]

Embrace change, All4BigGuns; living in the past gets you nothing but nostalgia. And you might want to take a closer look at what people are posting; no one said that you had to play anything a certain way. In fact, you are equally guilty of this by exclaiming "Oh my lord, Trolls make all other metatypes unplayable!!oneone!11..." [/sarcasm].

And y'all can argue numbers all night, but unless the Bitch Goddess of Luck is on your side, stats mean squat. So pick a character, come up with a background, and then make the game stats fit that concept as closely as possible within the rules as set forth by your GM, and get on with the playing. Oh, I'm sorry, except you, All4BigGuns; I wouldn't presume to tell you how to play. Flame on.

Actually, stats mean quite a bit. You don't need much luck when your dice pools/DVs are high.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I did not say that "Trolls make everything else unplayable". I said that the way the rules changed has made an entire character archetype (the Non-Musclehead, Non-RoidRage Unarmed Adept) that has been a staple of the game throughout its history untenable.

Aside from compensating for Trolls (silly as it is considering that they're the highest Priority--and highest BP under the previous edition's system--'race'), what other reason could there be? I mean come on, Human and Elf would be getting maybe 3 more damage at the absolute natural maximum Strength with Ork maybe getting 4. Big fragging whoop. With how much higher defense pools are in the new edition, there will be fewer net hits to add to damage, so modified DVs would pretty much be a wash.

By the way, Xenon was, in fact, telling people how to play.

Pretty much this, I suspect if it was a archetype they gave a crap about the answers wouldn't be tough.  Playing a technomancer and you think its whack that deckers and especially adept deckers mop the floor with you, tough.  I mean making the game better is the bad idea, telling people to suck it is the good idea. 

[ProfessorCirno]

And y'all can argue numbers all night, but unless the Bitch Goddess of Luck is on your side, stats mean squat.

As my elementary teacher said to us so many years ago: disliking math doesn't make it go away.

[Xenon]

How about you just stop telling people what to play.

You can play a viable face as a troll. There are several examples of that.
You can play a viable unarmed martial arts expert as an elf. There are several examples of that.

You will just not be min/maxed optimized for it.

It seem as your argument, All4BigGuns,  is that you can't play a human unarmed adept because Trolls do it so much better.
Not because it is not viable. But because it is sub optimal.

If you want to be min/maxed optimal play a troll. As i said.

Personally I think you should play whatever concept you want.
EVEN if it mean you are not min/maxed optimized for it.
Or even JUST BECAUSE it is not min/maxed optimized for it.

You can make a viable unarmed human martial artist.
It is not my fault you don't think they are viable for the only reason that Trolls are so much better at it.



Developers are clear in their design.
Read the Mohamed Ali vs Bruce Lee article again.
They want Mohamed Ali to hit like a truck.
They want Bruce Lee to be almost impossible to hit.
You want to build a Bruce Lee that also hit like a truck. That will not happen in SR5. Get over with and move on.
If you and your table does really not agree with that design philosophy, change the rules. It is your table.

[All4BigGuns]

No, what I'm wanting is good damage with an Unarmed Adept without having to play Beefcake McRoidrage. Critical Strike having levels made such possible, whereas only 1 level does the opposite.

And if nostalgia is so bad, then Decks should still be gone like the Dodo Bird.

[sn0mm1s]

How about you just stop telling people what to play.

You can play a viable face as a troll. There are several examples of that.
You can play a viable unarmed martial arts expert as an elf. There are several examples of that.

You will just not be min/maxed optimized for it.

It seem as your argument, All4BigGuns,  is that you can't play a human unarmed adept because Trolls do it so much better.
Not because it is not viable. But because it is sub optimal.

If you want to be min/maxed optimal play a troll. As i said.

Personally I think you should play whatever concept you want.
EVEN if it mean you are not min/maxed optimized for it.
Or even JUST BECAUSE it is not min/maxed optimized for it.

You can make a viable unarmed human martial artist.
It is not my fault you don't think they are viable for the only reason that Trolls are so much better at it.



Developers are clear in their design.
Read the Mohamed Ali vs Bruce Lee article again.
They want Mohamed Ali to hit like a truck.
They want Bruce Lee to be almost impossible to hit.
You want to build a Bruce Lee that also hit like a truck. That will not happen in SR5. Get over with and move on.
If you and your table does really not agree with that design philosophy, change the rules. It is your table.

I have yet to see any - do you have a link?

[ProfessorCirno]

Xenon, I feel like you aren't actually reading any of the posts.  The problem is not that oh no troll is better.  The problem is that you are forced into being one very specific kind of character to fight with your fists, and the costs of this are so substantially high that it is meaningless to be a dwarf, human, or elf - essentially locking them out of that archtype in the first place.

Again, everyone here except the bizarro universe versions of us you seem to be conversing with are TOTALLY FINE with high strength mashy trolls being really good at murderin' things with their fists, and I think most of us are happy with them being better then any other given kind of fist fighter.  The issue is that we want other, even if slightly lesser, ways to make the character.

Also your example is really dumb because Ali had absolutely insane footwork and reflexes in the ring, like I'm not sure you could've even chosen a worse example there.  There is a reason the man is a legend.

[Michael Chandra]

So he's a threat to everyone who doesn't walk around with armor jackets, including SINners.

I didn't say armor jacket.

Knife is STR+1.  Armor clothing is armor rating 6.  Assuming for fairly average stats (2's and 3's in stats and skills) the street thug with the knife can't shank pretty much anyone wearing the barest protection.  I imagine the subway stations are just filled with blunted knives.

4 Strength on a default Ganger, so that's 5P/-1 damage with 8 attack dice vs probably <=6 defense dice. On a hit we're talking 6P/-1 vs 3+6, so it will do Physical damage and he'll inflict ~3P damage. A thug has 3 Strength so would do ~2S damage instead, unless he gets lucky and scores 2 net hits. Of course most civvies wouldn't work around with Armored Clothing on, but in bad neighbourhoods they probably would.

[Xenon]

Ali vs Lee is not my example. 
It is the article with an interview of Lee that the developers use as a base for their design philosophy. Good reading of you have not read it already. Very important and relevant for this topic.

[Xenon]

The design philosophy for SR5 does not leave much room for good damage with an Unarmed Adept without playing Beefcake McRoidrage. If you don't want to play Beefcace McRoidrage then you will not deal as much damage as someone that want to play one. It is done this way in SR5 per design (again read the article if you don't understand what I am talking about - can't stress this enough).

You can still play Bruce Lee but you can not play Bruce Lee and at the same time hit as hard as Ali. You used to. That you no longer can do it might be upsetting... But it is done this way in SR5 by design. If you don't agree with the new design philosophy - change it back.  It is your table.

There are more to physical adepts than high unarmed damage value. Extremely hard to hit and extremely high skill levels comes to mind. If extreme unarmed damage value is all you care for then yes - you have to pay Troll (or use touch spells or possible get augmentations).

SR5 no longer support high unarmed damage from characters that does not have high strength - but it is done this way by design (feel like I am repeating myself).

[Shinobi Killfist]

There are more to physical adepts than high unarmed damage value. Extremely hard to hit and extremely high skill levels comes to mind. If extreme unarmed damage value is all you care for then yes - you have to pay Troll (or use touch spells or possible get augmentations).

SR5 no longer support high unarmed damage from characters that does not have high strength - but it is done this way by design (feel like I am repeating myself).

High strength doesn't stop you from Doing any if those things. Do super hard to hit trolls are totally cool it's not one or the other.

Also no that was not the design goal. The gold was to make strength important not the only important thing in unarmed damage. Having a 2nd resource died that on its own and the 1 for 1 scaling makes it absurdly good. A troll would always be 4 DV higher that is a freaking huge difference, strength would always add 1dv more sp the roid rage monster would still hit harder than the chi master. That was the design goal and it was met with or without levels of critical strike. It would have been met with str/2 DV damage just not as dramatically. I would have preferred 1+ 1/2 str like recoil comp as it seems more sane and seems to scale better to me. I'd of put in more damage mods like specialized cyber limbs for people to crank up the melee damage. Just being strong should not put you at assault rifle damage at least at the SR troll strength damage.

They did 1for 1 DVD to str because of the Ali analogy. They dropped multiple levels of critical strike because a troll with 15 strength and a combat axe hit for 20dv and 1 level of critical strike was all they wanted to see on topof that. Not sure why anti vehicle missile damage is cool but it +4 is broken but oh well. This is a poorly thought out rule do to a knee jerk fix to over the top troll damage nothing more.

Typed on phone.

[ZeConster]

Not limiting Critical Strike would allow for a troll with 6 levels in it straight out of chargen: with a Combat Axe and Strength 11(15), that's 26P/-4. Even a human would be able to reach 7(11) for 22P/-4 (where unarmed you'd be dealing with 21P/-- or 17P/--, which is still harder than a sniper rifle), and after every Magic increase (admittedly, that's pretty costly compared to just Initiating), that could go up by 1.
I think it's two factors here that resulted in the nerf: Str instead of Str/2, and Critical Strike becoming available for all melee weapons instead of just unarmed attacks. The damage increase in itself already allows for incredibly powerful unarmed adepts (both human and troll), but combined with the Critical Strike boost things get too extreme.

[Raizer13]

With House Rules you could always make a new power.

Magical Strike
Cost:  .25 per Point
Allows the Adept to replace their Strength stat with this power Rating for the purposes of Unarmed damage.

[ZeConster]

The maximum level you can have in any Adept Power is equal to your Magic rating, so that actually doesn't help (max chargen Strength is 6(10), max chargen Magic is 7).

[All4BigGuns]

The whole problem lies that in Critical Strike not having levels it creates a "one true path" for Unarmed Adepts--that being the roidrage monkey. Just because munchers could abuse the system and max both has no bearing because that type will always find something to abuse. Something in a system should NEVER get "nerfed" because of extreme situations or what munchers may do.