So, the section in SR4 regarding skill and attribute raises is rather vague...to wit:


We're wondering how you folks feel we should address the issue. We can retain just what we have now, adjusted for the rule changes. We can try to write a new system to deal with them. (If you choose this option, please explain how you think it should be structured.) We can just use the RAW and leave it up to whoever grabs it from the queue. There's also been discussion of, in the spirit of free-wheeling capitalism of the Beta, letting you get away with whatever damn karma expenditures you can afford. The floor is now open for discussion, and if there's any other issues, questions or comments you feel need to be addressed under this topic, do speak. It's what this place is here for.

How about eliminating the time wait, but not allowing the same skill to be raised constantly?  As in, Raise Pistols, but then have to wait and raise soemthing else, like Botany, before raising Pistols again.  That seems to follow the book learnin' a little bit to me.

Yay, Beta.

I voted for approving all skill raises.  Its hard to determine in SR4 how someone would acquire enough karma to increase any skill/attribute at any exceptional rate even with a complete acceptance to skill raises.  I also agree that attributes should follow similarly, you got the karma by doing what you do, and it gives the light in the SR4 book that you really don't need any sort of justification.  If you game every night, than between sessions, you could in theory upgrade your character all you wanted more or less as fast as you liked.  Now, they offer solutions for longer than 'one month' between sessions, sure but they don't limit groups that play ALL the time.

In the BETA we ought to give this sorta free form idea a try.  Why?  Cause its really controllable in the BETA and we can see if there's any problems that are ran into.  In SR4 there's a nice hard cap for skills, 6 without aptitude, 7 with aptitude, 9 with skill increasing tech/magic/drugs, and 10 with aptitude AND skill increasing tech/magic/drugs.  Attributes have their maximums alotted to them as well.  SR4 is all designed around a pretty balanced system, with a low karma, low nuyen idea in mind.  As long as we can maintain the foot hold on Karma bloat and Nuyen bloat, than we'll do fine with a free-to-spend-as-you-like-super-sayen kind of setup.

I agree with NES actually. I mean if you have the Karma to do it and thats the direction you want to take the character in. Why not? I mean it's still possible to really tweek the hell out of a particular skill and get loads of dice for it. But you still hit a hard cap somewhere and you STILL have to spend the boatloads of karma to do it.

Not to mention the fact that all modifiers are now 'dice pool 'modifiers. And even some one with bucket loads of dice to roll can in certain situations be rendered down to 0 dice. And your also alot more likely to glitch than not in SR4. Then toss in the fact that you need a 5 or 6 on a d6 roll. If somehow things seem to be spinning out of control. Then yeah by all means put in steps. But I dont think that they'll really be necessary.

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon here and say that all karma expenditures should be approved simply on the basis that the Player Character has enough karma to spend on the raises they request.  Consider why we have a system such as the one currently in use on the SR3 Seattle MU*.  The obvious answer, I think, is that it gives players a sense of realism, but the system itself isn't realistic.  To improve a skill in real life, one practices and uses their skill(s) in order to hone them.  In Shadowrun, one raises their skills by spending karma they received from completing objectives.  That said, according to the SR4 rulebook, if a player has the karma, they can have one of their characters' attributes or skills raised.  If the karma expenditure rules (or similar rules) used on SR3 Seattle MU are carried over to SR4, it'll just create more work for the players and the +staff alike, and while we might be used to the idea of working, even in or for a game, we're really all here to play and have a good time.  In short, let the playaz play.  You heard?

Personally, I think the beta should just let you raise whatever you damn well please.  I think if you do that any problems in allowing that in SR4 in a MUSH environment will come out and you can tailor the solution to this particular problem.

In SR3, there is no hard limit on just how good you can get (See Denver).  In SR4 those hard limits might end up doing a fair bit to curtail the 'omg HOW many dice?' factor.

Well, here's the thing.  At the end of the beta, I've been assuming that all the characters are going to get wiped (again) and we'll be starting over with whatever limits it's decided need to be put in place.  So, who really cares if things get a little silly and out-of-hand (personally I'm planning on my beta char being a tad silly for this reason).

If we start out assuming that there's a problem, the whole point of beta (to find problems, and to find out if problems are real) is negated, and we may as well not do it.

Yes, you make a good argument for why it shouldn't be allowed in the 'live' game, but this isn't the live game.  That's why I'm saying 'let people do whatever they want.'  In the long run, it's not going to matter.  If it turns out it's not a problem, why make it one?

Assume nothing.

Expect everything.

From a late night discussion that I've overheard and participated in with Waffle and Melkir, their objective is to try and kill as many of us as possible during Beta.  -IF- somehow your character survives Beta, you get to keep your Beta character.  But that's a big if but I threw down the gauntlet against Waffle and Melkir and said that I would survive so BRING ON THE NOISE!

Patience grasshoppers.

When I get off work tonight and have some serious time to write it all out, I'll post the beta policies that have been decided on. However, what we -haven't- decided on, Waffle has posted here. So, go for it.

I chose a new system, but it is kind of a combination of ideas. ?I always liked the system where your character had to wait a number of week equal to the new skill level before being allowed to raise that skill again. ?This should not be that hard to achieve in conjunction with allowing players to raise their character's skills with their available karma without admin approval. ?Once a skill is raised, a simple object attribute that records # of seconds since Jan 1, 1972 (ie current computer time) plus the number of seconds in x weeks from now (x being the new skill level) can be recorded. ?If you try to raise the skill, the command looks at that object attribute and compares it to the current time. ?If that time is less than the object attrbiute, you are not allowed to raise the skill. ?If the current time is greater than the object attribute, then bingo, you can raise it.

I hope this makes sense. ?It avoids having active timers by simply doing on-demand checks, so the processing of the command is miniscule.

An example of this would be, let's say your character currently does not know Cooking, but you want to raise it to level 3. ?To raise it to level 1 is instantaneous. ?You then need to wait 1 week RL time to raise it 2. ?Finally, you would then need to wait 2 weeks RL times to raise it to 3. ?Congrats! ?You now know how to roast a turkey! ?Mmm turkey ...

The benefit of such a system would obviously be to prevent someone from going from a skill at level 0 to a skill at level 8 in like 30 seconds, provided s/he had the karma to do so.

I am for following the rule book. As for the mush raise what you have as you see fit in the KSR, request something new through the appropriate queue.

A skill from 0 to 8:

Knowledge skill: 0 -> 1 = 2 karma.  1 -> 2 = 2 karma. 2 -> 3 = 3 karma.  3 -> 4 = 4 karma.  4 -> 5 = 5 karma.  5 -> 6= 6 karma. 6 -> 7 = 7 karma. (plus you need aptitude).  7 -> 8 =8 karma (although this number is impossible without magic/tech, which likely wouldn't cost karma to use).

That's a grand total of, 32 karma.

Pistol Skill from 0 to 4 (an outshooting of most people):

0 -> 1 = 4 karma.  1 -> 2 = 4 karma.  2 -> 3 = 6 karma.  3 -> 4 = 8 karma.

That's a grand total of 22 karma.

Given that in SR4, and especially on New Seattle, karma is going to be rather rare, we'll say half of what some used to make on decent nom weeks on Denver.  So, 5 karma per week.  It'd take me 1 month to get pistols from 0 to 4.  That's playing EVERYDAY, hour in and hour out.  Right now with +awards being the only way of getting Karma, well, I don't think most players will be given near that much karma.

I don't see someone, in one week, waking up after a coma and being a 4 in pistols.  And its impossible, for the most part, to get from a 0 to 8 in any skill thanks to skill caps.  Its a significant chunk of karma in the new system, on a MUX with no karma for logs, karma for just being on, karma for +noms.    And anyone who thinks that an explaination that doesn't require logged evidence is at all worthy of being put in an @queue is just exercising in the creation of more BS staff have to deal with.  I can just as easily put in my @queue that my character has been jumping up and down for 3 weeks, as an explaination to increase Athletics, as I can to write an entire paragraph -> page if necessary describing my gymnastics training with in-depth precision.  Cut out the BS, give us a +command to raise attributes, skills, and initiation.  Not only will we be able to see the ACTUAL change between SR3 karma and SR4, but we'll be able to test the theory that +noms lead to karma bloating.

Peace out peoples.

I think approving all the raises with a small rider that you should explain why/how you're raising the skill is the way to go.

I believe that now with a much tighter control of karma and the over all reduction in skill abilites (5 is a hard number to get) the time it takes you to get that karma is the time to raise the skill. I know this is parroting what others such as NES have said, but I am saying it again because this will no longer be "get 20 karma a day by sitting in a coffee shop" that it once was. Nor do skills have anywhere near the same impact.

As to the explaination of why/how, this is simply and I find in table top it can save some teeth gnashing. Taking the time to write a paragraph or two explaining the skill raise, what was done to get it and what it's for will help people better visualize that experiance for their character. It also allows staff to look at something and go...Ehh... no, you've got the wrong idea there....


For me personally, alot of the early raises are to fix things that I couldn't do in chargen. While with a points distrubition system as opposed to the old A/B/C nightmare this has gotten alot eaiser. There still is a skill that I think should be one point higher, or some such that I wasn't able to afford at chargen. I brush this off as the character knew "Underwater Basket Weaving" at x, but he hadn't had call to use it until he got of the grey hound bus in Seatle and then it all came rushing back to him when he picked up the weavings and got in the water. Etc....

Anyways, happy, happy. Besides, at the very least reading a paragraph and raising a skill if the points match up makes your job as staffers easier. Or I would think it does.

Skill justifications are stupid.  Unless they have some massive, beaureaucratic method for "proving" that a justiciation is valid, there is no way for a justification for a skillraise to matter.  Typing +raise body = 6  is not different from sending in a queue saying "I wanna raise my body to 6.  I've been working out like a madman, eating healthfood, and I did some stuff on this one plot."  They both affect the game world not at all.  The only reason justifications would be important is if they were actually extensive requirements, if every karma spend had to be accompanied by some documented RP meeting a certain set of standards.  And, of course, you couldn't have the same standards for getting to 2 as for getting to 6, so the scale of what's required, already a qualitative judgement by a staffer, would have to be sliding.

So, not to be rude Paavo, but a paragraph to justify a skillraise is a waste of time.  Either make it free, or make it an awful pounding-head-against-wall system that puts so many barriers in your way that your beloved PC is going to have to spend YEARS just maxing out the skills and attributes you want them to specialize in.  I think it's pretty plain which one I voted for.