| From: | Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Priorities in the SR2/SR3 |
| Date: | Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:41:43 -0500 |
> > Trolls get an unfair advantage in their priorities. In the SRII, all
> > metahumans' modifications were +3 when added up. I felt that this
> > reflected the cost of being a Metahuman, as opposed to a human. However,
> > when you add up the dwarves, for example,
> > (+1(Body)+2(Strength)+1(Willpower)) you get +4. Same with Trolls. The -1
> > for dwarves came from -1 Quickness, and the -1 for Trolls came from -1
> > Willpower. Why did FASA do this? The dwarven one sure made sense. Or is
> > this a misprint (the book says Corrected 5th Edition (6th printint))
that
> > is fixed in an errata?
>
> These changes were intentional. Mike Mulvihill felt that trolls got
> penalized way too much for having a -1 Willpower (making them mana-spell
> bait) and dwarfs' Quickness reduction was also too much. I agree with the
> former, but not really the latter.
Even with the -1 willpower, troll characters were not abnormally easy
targets for mana spells, unlees you think everybody needs a 6 willpower to
not be "spell bait". Anybody who wanted to could give thier troll a 5
willpower.
I do think dwarves were over- penalized on movement in SR2; the average
dwarf moved less about half as fast running than a simialr human. I've
never seen a dwarf run, but that seems awfully slow. Adtionally, the
quickness penalty affected reaction and "hand eye" co-ordination, neither of
which would be impacted by the lenght of your legs. Of course, now dwarves
JUMP just as well as everybody else...
> Also, according to Mike, the fact that all metahumans in SR1/II ended up
> with +3 attributes was coincidence... sorry, but I just don't buy that. If
> it were just the +3 attributes, that'd be sort of believable, but they
> also all got better vision, and the two races that had running multiplier
> reductions also got another bonus (extra dice vs. disease, and extra
> Reach). To me, that sounds very much like somebody thought long and hard
> about how to give everyone the same...
Probably the line developer of SR2 (and maybe SR1- is it Tom Dowd in
both cases?) did attempt such a "mathmatic balance". That doesn't mean the
end results were balance in game play, however, or that changing them
wouldn't make the game more fun.
If they were not coincidence, they were not precisely equal, either.
Its rather like comparing appels and oranges to look at the modifiers given
to trolls and dwarves in SR2 and say they "equal out". Just on the stat
modifiers, is it really "equal" to have one race with a few moderate bonuses
and very few penatlies, and the other with a couple of huge bonuses and a
few really chunky penalties?
The current balance is more "empiric" than "mathmatic"; Mike asked
play
testers which races were "most powerful" and based the current priorities
and racial modifiers partly off that. Thus, the values for SR3 metahuman
priorities and bonuses are based on players perception and enjoyment of
those races.
For example, the "low" (D) dwarf proirity is partly because players
simply didn't choose them often or percive thier bonuses as "useful"; even
still, with "no cost" for dwarven mundanes, the simple fact that they run
slowly and can't use normal equipment is enough to give players a reason to
play mundane humans. Orcs were similarly unpopular- thier bonuses just
aren't big enough to impress people, compared to a troll's. On the other
hand, most people perceived elves and trolls as being worth "paying" a
higher priority to play, for various reasons.
I'm surprised how evenly split our players seem to consider the races as
given in SR3; we give everybody the same karma pool (which does tip things
somewhat to the favor of metahumans, unless you play up the impact of
anti-meta racism), and we got a very even distribution; 3 humans, 2 elves, 2
dwarves, and an orc. Both dwarves, one human, and one elf are mundanes;
theres also one human and one elf adept, and the orc and one human are full
mages. (I'm the one who wanted the orc mage, but I also took the 6 point
flaw "Cursed Karma"...)
Trolls, for some reason, don't draw many players in our games. In SR3,
Trolls do effectively get a -10 to knowledge skills and 10% less cash, as
well as still being the obvious choice target of most gunfire. I think that
B priority means you have to REALLY want a troll. I think its also a matter
of nobody wanting to worry about the size issue. If they get knocked out;
who will drag thier 500+ lb carcass to safety? Will they fit in the get
away-car your team just stole?
For the Priority B, elves get less of a "boost" numerically (unless your
strictly looking at conjouring and other magic abilty) than trolls. Partly,
being an elf doesn't have many drawbacks, attribute-adjustment or
other-wise; that's a real game effect, but it does not show up when you
compare the numbers.
Mongoose
