[Phylos Fett]

I just dug out my original SR1 BBB, and I was wondering if there was ever an errata done for this? If so, I was wondering if it was still floating around somewhere?

[Red Canti]

Wouldn't that basically be SR2?

OK, that joke was lame. Sorry. 

[Phylos Fett]

Wouldn't that basically be SR2?

OK, that joke was lame. Sorry. 

Funny. I was actually looking at the Archetypes - someone set me a challenge to convert the SR1 Archetypes to SR4, and I wanted to make sure that they were correct before I spent time on it, because a few of them look a little screwy...

[baronspam]

Shadowrun has a long tradition of screwy sample characters that continues to this day.

[CanRay]

You do know that if they put in proper characters, we'd complain, right?

[VileTerror]

I'd like to complain about the fact that CanRay said we'd complain!
I'm also going to complain about complaining about complaining.

[baronspam]

You do know that if they put in proper characters, we'd complain, right?

I fully realize that unless the sample characters were 100% optimized some people would complain they were under powered, and if they were fully optimized some people would complain they were too munchkin.  Such is the nature of the internet.

But the sample characters we do have, in many cases, by any measurable standards, blow goats.  Take my friend the Weapons Specialist.  This so called "specialist" has, before gear mods, a massive 8 dice with firearms tests.  Thats about as much as a rating 2-3 "grunt" in the friends and foes section.  And she has one, count them, one IP.  She is also "a master of unarmed combat" with seven dice on melee tests.  This is not the way to train up a new generation of players on how to build characters.

[Phylos Fett]

You do know that if they put in proper characters, we'd complain, right?

I fully realize that unless the sample characters were 100% optimized some people would complain they were under powered, and if they were fully optimized some people would complain they were too munchkin.  Such is the nature of the internet.

But the sample characters we do have, in many cases, by any measurable standards, blow goats.  Take my friend the Weapons Specialist.  This so called "specialist" has, before gear mods, a massive 8 dice with firearms tests.  Thats about as much as a rating 2-3 "grunt" in the friends and foes section.  And she has one, count them, one IP.  She is also "a master of unarmed combat" with seven dice on melee tests.  This is not the way to train up a new generation of players on how to build characters.

Does she have fun with the character?

[Crash_00]

I actually just had a player choose the weapon specialist for a pre-made during a missions event and he had a blast with it. Not everyone feels the need to be as effective as others.

I'm actually toying around with a concept for my next campaign where I have players make their characters as a group (I'm actually wanting to do backgrounds similar to the Dresden Files games approach) with a group set of resources. Basically I'd give each player 250 points to spend and give the group 150 * number of players that they can vote on how gets spent.

[baronspam]

You do know that if they put in proper characters, we'd complain, right?

I fully realize that unless the sample characters were 100% optimized some people would complain they were under powered, and if they were fully optimized some people would complain they were too munchkin.  Such is the nature of the internet.

But the sample characters we do have, in many cases, by any measurable standards, blow goats.  Take my friend the Weapons Specialist.  This so called "specialist" has, before gear mods, a massive 8 dice with firearms tests.  Thats about as much as a rating 2-3 "grunt" in the friends and foes section.  And she has one, count them, one IP.  She is also "a master of unarmed combat" with seven dice on melee tests.  This is not the way to train up a new generation of players on how to build characters.

Does she have fun with the character?

Ask yourself this.  If you are supposed to be the combat specialist for the group, and everyone else, the hacker, the face, rigger, etc, can fight better than you, how much fun will you have.  I would find that incredibly frustrating, especially if I was new to the game and took the description in the book at face value that i was a "weapons expert" and a "master of unarmed combat".  Honestly, the character is a mid tier security guard who went freelance.  I am all for RP, theme builds, etc, but being bad at your job is being bad at your job. 

[Shinobi Killfist]

The thing is the weapon specialist works fine with some of the archetypes.  She doesn't stand out as bad compared to the sprawl ganger, covert opp specialist, or bounty hunter.  And all of them would do fine in missions adventures.  I think the problem isn't the archetype themselves, but no notes letting you know what kind of campaign they are designed for.  The 400 BPs system is kind of flexible and can make street level former gangers or solid professional runners.  Having a spread of archetype power is a good thing, the problem is since they are designed for the starting gamer, not expressing the power level they are designed for makes them less useful as aids to help people learn the game. 

[Phylos Fett]

Fortunately, there was no Weapon Specialist in SR1 

It does, however, give me an idea - after I'm done converting the SR1 Archetypes to SR4, to convert the SR4 Sample Characters to SR1!

[Bull]

Regarding the Weapon Specialist (and most of teh SR4 Archetypes)...  The problem is, they were written with the idea that most characters would have dice pools of 8-10, with characters that had 12+ being extremely exceptional and rare.  Skill of 3-4 and Attribute of 3-4 was supposed to be the norm for runners. 

That was, at least, the original intent of SR4.

Yeah, it didn't work out that way, never did, never will.  Part of it is players perceptions, part of it is the 5+ success rate meaning you know exactly where your success curve is at, and part of it is simply how cheap and easy it is to softmax out things.  Plus add in how ridiculous it is to get bonus dice to certain tests...

<shrug>

As always, your mileage may vary..

Bull

[Shinobi Killfist]

Fortunately, there was no Weapon Specialist in SR1 

It does, however, give me an idea - after I'm done converting the SR1 Archetypes to SR4, to convert the SR4 Sample Characters to SR1!

I don't think the tribesman or rocker really are much better mechanically, though the rocker needs errata since it is short either in attributes or skills. 

[baronspam]

Regarding the Weapon Specialist (and most of teh SR4 Archetypes)...  The problem is, they were written with the idea that most characters would have dice pools of 8-10, with characters that had 12+ being extremely exceptional and rare.  Skill of 3-4 and Attribute of 3-4 was supposed to be the norm for runners. 

That was, at least, the original intent of SR4.

Yeah, it didn't work out that way, never did, never will.  Part of it is players perceptions, part of it is the 5+ success rate meaning you know exactly where your success curve is at, and part of it is simply how cheap and easy it is to softmax out things.  Plus add in how ridiculous it is to get bonus dice to certain tests...

<shrug>

As always, your mileage may vary..

Bull

If you were playing at a table where the GM took a hand in charcter creation and caped dice pools at this arbitrary level, it might work.  But to me its not just that the sample characters in SR4A  aren't optimized, its that they the builds don't even seem ot be trying.  The characters that I built when I first picked up the book and made all the classical mistakes of a new player were still more mechanically effective than these guys.  My first 4th ed character was a sniper (everyone seems to build a sniper) and an adpet (unaugmented) and after a smartlink I think he still had 15 dice with longarms and a perception dice pool in the low teens.  And an extra IP.  I thought I had built a total monster, as I was looking at the sample characters for a baseline.  Its not hard to be better than these guys, even by accident.