SR 5th ed. Life Path Question

[brennanhawkwood]

I looked around on the forum and could not find an answer so...

When doing Life Module character generation, Hero Lab is indicating that I get the free knowledge skills and contacts that you get from Priority chargen. My understanding was that this is not correct... everything is purchased through Karma. Am I incorrect or is that a known bug? Is there a workaround if you do not want to give the free skill points? On the knowledge skills I was able to ignore the free points since I didn't need anymore knowledge skills beyond the life modules. Unfortunately, I want contacts for the character and it automatically applies the free points first. I tried not spending the matching amount of karma, but it won't let me lock the character as complete while there is unspent karma.

Suggestions or pointers to where this has already been discussed would be appreciated.

[Mathias]

You've just said that this rules interpretation is your understanding. What's your evidence?

On the Personal tab, in the Permanent Adjustments table, are adjustments that you can use to alter all of those pools, which would allow you to remove any pools your GM says shouldn't be there.

For future reference, there's a stickied bug reports thread in this forum.

[brennanhawkwood]

Thanks for the quick response!

The Permanent Adjustments piece is perfect as a work around. I had missed it tucked in at the bottom of the personal tab. (I was looking for something like it on the Adjust tab, but there is only the In-Play Adjustments section there).

Thanks for the heads up on the Stickied Bug Report thread. I used it to submit another bug I ran into. Is there someplace like a public bug tracker to see what bugs have been previously reported? That thread only provides a link to the form for submitting a bug and if it was an option I would normally look for an existing bug report before turning in another one.

I have found some discussion on the internet supporting both camps where the free knowledge and contact points in point build/life module chargen are concerned so I can see that there is not a single point of view on the issue. My understanding of the way it should work comes from a combination of the following:

* Run Faster (pg 64):
"...Point Buy system generally works similar to Character Advancement (p 103, SR5), only you are advancing a character with the minimum attributes for their metatype and no skills. The player uses Karma to buy attributes, skills, qualities, contacts (per the rules on p. 98, SR5), gear (at the cost of 1 Karma for every 2,000 nuyen; a maximum of 200 Karma can be spent this way), and anything else needed to flesh the character out." (emphasis is mine)

* Run Faster (pg 65):
"This system starts similar to the Point Buy system, in that characters start with 750 Karma to build their character"

* Run Faster (pg 84 under Finishing off your karmic balance):
"Use the tables on p. 107, SR5, to determine the cost of buying attributes, skills, and other elements your character might need. As with the Point Buy method, nuyen for gear can be bought at a cost of 2,000 nuyen for each point of Karma; the most Karma you can spend this way is 200. Contacts may be purchased per the rules on p. 98, SR5."

* SR5 pg 103 and 107 are pages covering the karma costs for advancement

* SR5 pg 98 is the costs for spending your remaining karma when using Priority build chargen. For contacts this admittedly made a little less clear since the contacts subsection of this page is where it is mentioned that you get free karma to purchase contacts. On the other hand, a literal read of the points above could indicate that the only rules being referenced on SR5 pg 98 are the rules for purchasing contacts, not a rule for where you get karma with which to purchase them.

* Run Faster (pg 84-86):
The Sample Modular Character Generation walks through an example of building a character using the Life Module system and all skills and contacts are paid for with karma. None of them are free. The most specific example is at the top of pg 86 where the example lists that character's four contacts and indicates that they cost 25 points. Those are the only four contacts the character has at the end of the sample character generation.

* Chummer 5:
While it is a subjective case of someone else having made an interpretation, Chummer5a (I prefer Hero Lab, but checked them out to see how they handled a couple things) treats free knowledge skills and contacts as house rules under karma/build point chargen which are disabled by default.

Either way I am cool with things now that I know where to find that permanent adjustment piece. And to be honest, if a character where to have too much of "something" knowledge skills, languages and contacts are not to worrisome compared to many other parts of the character sheet.

Thanks again for the quick response and apologies for the wall of text.

[Mathias]

I'll add this question to our next batch of questions to ask Catalyst. I'd rather not change something that could alter existing characters by a lot, by removing something people had assumed they could use, without an official answer.

[brennanhawkwood]

Originally Posted by Mathias

I'll add this question to our next batch of questions to ask Catalyst. I'd rather not change something that could alter existing characters by a lot, by removing something people had assumed they could use, without an official answer.

Absolutely. In fact, even if it were to change I'd suggest looking into keeping the option as an available optional rule in the hero configuration settings so that people that like that approach can continue to use it.