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[Ingo Monk]

Paying attention is good.

Ingo, have you built Eric using chummer? I did it for some of my old characters, and I'm surprised at the dramatic difference it makes. Also, easier to print and stuff. For a while there, I was using two builders and referring to an excel sheet, so I've been very happy with the changeover, but your mileage may vary.

Bullet, you were talking about wanting to play or try out a new concept? Bull, are you still paying attention? Any objection to BulletSponge's alternate character concept coming and hanging out in your revamped character thread?

  - Logain

I have not messed with Chummer at all.  Being the nerd that I am I built my own character generator using Excel

I'll have to check it out though.

[bull30548]

Stops beating self in head with book*
Huh? What? Finals bad tree pretty.....

Yep Iam still here, no I don't mind about Bulletsponge, and in a week I will be all done with finals and you can have my full attention for the next 3 half weeks until school starts back on Jan. 7.

[Bullet Sponge]

Go Go Gadget-homemade excel character sheets! I've got one of those, too. Course, it's still at the elementary school level so far, but I'm sure I'll have time to improve eventually.

[bull30548]

I used to use someone's excel sheet for Star Wars Revised (3.? edition) not the saga edition.  It worked really well except when you went messing around in the build sheet sections.  Trying to add new entries was next to impossible so I would sit around and wait for an update on the old excel sheet.  So good luck.

I will be honest I LOVE chummer and was really looking forward to using it for the game I wanted to run.  However now that Kid has pretty much spank me like the spoiled little kid that I was with how LITTLE I actually know the rules (Sincerely thank you Kid).  Pretty sure that character creation is about the only thing that would of come out right and fine.

However, my handle on the rules aside I doubt I have too many problems rules wise.  My friends who I love to death can be about as subtle as bricks at times and we often run afoul of our own stupidity than you know actual trouble we may cause with our runs.  This is the reason why I play here so I can learn a) rules and b) the more subtle approaches to the game not being influenced by my friends who can literally reach out and slap me around.

[Ruski]

Yea, I'd be up for that.

[kv]

Basic scenarios (just so you know)


Bull and crew: After a long shift, there's nothing you want less than to go do a favor for one of the girls, but her uncle is having some trouble, and she doesn't have anyone else to turn to. Who is her uncle? Now that, my friend, that's a story.


Ruski: After a dry spell, your ship has finally come in- a call for an exterminator, that guy who promised you the contract finally coming through. It's a ghoul call- too many pets missing out of an area, and suddenly vagrants have been disappearing, so it's time to call in a down and dirty cleanup.


Ingo: I was thinking, why not have a hacking scenario for you, as well? Interested? Ideas of target you's like to hit?


  - kv

[bull30548]

There is a few problems as far as magical characters are concerned with Chummer btw.  It was just something I have observed, one is that spirits aren't very clearly defined so if you haven't read the books closely you may not see it.  Spirits of Man are actually watcher spirits for Hermetic mages (who knew? Not me apparently).  Also a lot of magical things are spread out over multiple tabs not focused.  Now while I have faith in Kinsey I do not have faith in Invisible Castle liking me.  So while I have faith Kid is not trying to kill me I might get myself killed (also the fact that I should be dead 2 times over already).  I shall begin working on the next Awakened character concept.  I think I have something I would love to try I am just not sure if the 400 BP is for it.

I am actually going to do a bit more deeper research so that I have a lot of the concept more nailed down instead of designing on the fly.

[kv]

Research is good. One if the (many) reasons that I really like Chummer is because it doesn't serve as a replacement for the books and knowledge of the rules- there are a few out there that try, and end up giving people really lopsided builds.


Sometimes there's just a big hole in the concept that you didn't think of. I had one very experienced player make a complete character but forgot to buy clothes and armor- except for a ghille suit. So we described him walking around in trash clothes, teased him for being named except for his camouflage bush, and then gave him a set of civies.


That's why we do Back to the Shack, and these other scenes. Practice makes perfect.


 -kv

[bull30548]

Well that seems to be the case here I took combat mage too far.  Nothing but combat aoe's and not any utility or alternate spellcasting options.  I think one of my problems is I rather not try and min/max a character.  I would rather just ease in then buy stuff up with karma.  In some ways I think I got spoiled by a really long run of Shadowrun which probably totaled over a hundred gaming sessions over 3 years.  I always had karma to spend on anything I wanted because I banked so much.  I am not like other gamers in that regard if I don't really use a skill a lot I don't up it.  However, when I find myself using a skill I never thought to have a whole lot I grabbed that instead.  I literally had my gm come up to me and say, "Okay, I know you have your own way but seriously your sitting on almost 200 karma out of the 250 I have rewarded so far.  USE IT!" 
I just didn't see the need up until the GM almost slapped me around.

So I have posted the rebuild so hopefully it looks a lot better.  Now I had a question I know we had this argument before I just not sure what the result was.  Armor encumbrance we established that it it hits at Body x2 but I was messing with Chummer and in some cases it didn't seem to kick on until it had exceeded x3.  Am I misinterpreting something again?

[kv]

I've heard bodyX3, but I think that's a custom (or more advanced) rule.


In the options for Chummer, you can add house rules into the program for new characters, as well as adding sourcebooks.


  -kv

[bull30548]

Awakened characters hard <whine>.
The problem I am seeing with awakened characters is that as far as combat is concerned they can be out gunned with conventional weapons and armor.  So perhaps I am going about this the wrong way instead of a in your face type character I need to be more subtle.  To be honest I don't like subtle I am in all honesty as subtle as a chainsaw.

[Ruski]

Chainsaws are cheap. Buy a couple for your PC. Problem solved!

[kv]

Ooh, dual-wielding chainsaws!


Mages have plenty oomph, but sometimes they're not as versatile to start out. I think you're discovering this, Bull, but it's okay. I try and award karma a lot ('make it rain' as another game put so precisely), so that everyone is able to advance and see progress from their characters, which they otherwise probably wouldn't.


For instance, published modules usually have a karma rewards of 4-6. 1 per scene, +1 for doing something really cool, +1 for carrying the group on your back through a scene. That's supposed to be the maximum. If Back to the Shack takes six months, and you get a maximum reward of 1 karma, that's about 2 karma a year- which means you won't get jack done with your character(s).


If, on the other hand, I reward a karma for every funny post or quirk inclusion that I like, you get quite a bit more karma. I'll cover it more in-depth when I go through Foxtrot-Romeo-Alpha-Golf, but I'm thinking probably a lot more.


  - kv

[bull30548]

Well I have been cruising forum boards over at SR4's website.  The thing I see repeated over and over is "Pick two or three skills and focus on those.  Get your attributes up high as you can cause they cost so much karma.  Don't pick these skills they are useless."  Now this seems like the most effective way to min/max a character.  There is now an entire discussion dedicated as to whether something gets lost in the math crunch. 

I think it does to be honest, when I made Arca in third edition I didn't have a clue about the alphabet shuffle I actually had like 5 iterations of him because I kept shuffling the letters around.  Now our GM sat down and helped us but he said "I would rather you make a weak character that you are going to stick with then a min/maxed one you are going to get bored with."  So I did Arca was a kick ass rigger he could rig with the best of him.  Take him out of his happy place though and well Arca is screwed.  For about the first 6 months was on a frequent flyer/get 4 pickups your 5th one free program with DocWagon.  I got shot, stabbed, slashed, rammed, blasted, smothered, smoldered, dismembered, suffocated, drowned, detonated, bludgeoned and slapped on more than one occasion.  If it wasn't for that decent body, armor, and overall pure luck I had with dice rolls I am pretty sure Arca been flambe'd a long time ago.  Oh and when I say slapped I had a Force 8 Air elemental use me as a golf ball and the football field about 500 yards away as his green.  I believe the official cause of injuries on the DocWagon report was "I fell.".

Anyway back on topic of what I was going for in the first place is: Is it better to build the uber effective math crunched guy or the unbalanced mess of a character that probably better resembles an actual person?
My vote is forget the math make a person, just mho though.

[kv]

Ignore the min-maxers on other forums; Min-max characters are one-trick ponies that are boring to play.


If you make a 'real person' character, GMs like me are more likely going to help your character grow, a) because you care about the character, b) because you'll stick with it, and c) we're all a sucker for the underdog.


Every min-maxed character has a weak spot, and as an evil GM it's my job to find that spot and push on it. I've been running games for almost twenty years and I'm very good at running systems, and punishing those who abuse them.


So, any requests for Bull's day out?


  -kv