From:	Mark Abbott markabbott@****.com
Subject:	chipjacks and expert drivers
Date:	Sat, 24 Jun 2000 00:01:21 -0400

Ashley wrote:
>can anybody say duh?
>
>i dont mean to be so harsh but we had the exact same conversation (fight?),
>about a week ago and it just led to no conclusion what so ever. CHeck out
>the history's to find out what agreement we didn't come to.
>

Well, sorry. I joined this group shortly after that discussion took
place and so I missed it. I started scanning the archives for the
subject but it's not exactly a trivial job given that there's no
immediately obvious way to search through the entire thing by subject
other than scanning page after page of subject listings. If I've
missed a better way to look through the archives, mea culpa. Knowing
that there was a recent discussion I just now went back and walked
through the listings and found the group of posts discussing CED and
they don't actually address my question anyway.

To reiterate, the question was, to me the CED seems rather
unbalanced, especially in comparison to DIMAP skillsofts, and what is
other people's take on that?


Seb wrote:
><snip fancy chipjack / skillwire setup>
>:If you added in the DIMAP option you could
>:potentially have a combat skill with a task pool and also be able to
>:use combat pool. It's easy to create a beginning character who can
>:throw 20+ dice on a single shot. This seems way out of line to me.

> I'd like to see the math on that. That sounds like a HUGE chip, meaning
>very expensive skillwires. Also, DIMAP increases Skillsoft avialiability
>(+ rating), so the best a starting character can get is a DIMAP 2 skillsoft.
>And when combinign multiple pools, I would not allow TOTAL pool dice over
>skill rating- meaning no matter the souces, that rating 6 skill maxes out at
>12 dice.

Oops, you're right, I missed the availability for the DIMAP going
over 6 so no, I couldn't design a starting character with quite that
many dice. 12 plus the 2 from DIMAP is easy though, which is STILL
pretty high though certainly not as nuts.

I do like your interpretation that TOTAL pool dice cannot exceed the
skill, regardless of the source of the dice. Is that a house rule or
official? Either way, it helps the problem some.

I still think that the ability to start a character who can have 12
dice toward a variety of skills is pretty wild. That's more dice
than most experienced characters (at least in the games I've played)
are likely to ever get for any non-combat, non-rigged, or non-decking
skill, yet with CED it's easy to have a variety of skills at that
level. It strikes me as unbalancing compared to just about anything
else the starting character can get his hands on and I'm curious if
others feel the same way. And if not, why not?


Mark