You pride yourself on your creative and well-rounded Shadowrun characters. You've just finished making Jack Bull, the baddest Ork Sammy on the streets of Seattle, and you find you have two skill points left to spend. What do you do with them? You think that maybe to round out the character a little, you should really take two points of Car to reflect the time you spent as a bodyguard/driver. But on the other hand, it sure would be nice to raise Assault Rifles from 4 to 6. Hmm… what to do? Do you round out your character with driving skill even though you know that after one session of game play, you could buy that two points of driving skill for only 4 karma? Or do you max out the combat skill knowing that it would cost you 16 karma to do that later? Such a dilemma.

We all know that "good roleplayers" will eschew the temptations of min/max-ing and put the points wherever makes the most sense for the character-but why should "good roleplayers" be put at a disadvantage simply because they designed a richer, fuller character? BeCKS helps avoid that trap. In the BeCKS system, it doesn't matter if you buy it in character creation or purchase it later, it will always be the same cost, whether you're buying spells or attributes or skills. For GMs, this can be an excellent alternative for helping those number-crunching players who are always looking for the most bang for their buck. It also allows players and GMs more flexibility in designing exactly the characters they want for their campaign.

What is BeCKS?

BeCKS is an alternate method of character creation for Shadowrun designed to supplement the priorities system presented in Shadowrun 3rd Edition and the point system from the Shadowrun Companion. In the BeCKS system, all characters are built from scratch using karma to purchase attributes, skills and abilities in much the same way karma is spent later in the game.

Danrathan

As our primary example, we'll create Danrathan, a shaman. Now, I believe that the most essential part of any character is the background, so we'll sketch out a basic history and concept for Danrathan before we do any actual work.

Danrathan is an elf born in a mountain village of what used to be Afghanistan. His village was (is) primarily Caucasian-claiming to be lost ancestors of Alexander the Great. Like many areas of the mid-east, Danrathan's village has a powerful hatred of metahumans, and at an early age, his parents had him surgically altered to appear more human. Danrathan only learned later in life that he was born an elf, but it is something he still refuses to accept, and he believes himself to now be human. He was called to Vulture in adolescence, and with his magical talent and "Western" appearance, he was soon recruited by a government agency for clandestine operations (we'll leave that part vague for now). Eventually, he became disillusioned and abandoned his former allegiance while on a mission in the UCAS. Now he is discovering just how rough life in the shadows can be.

Like his totem, Danrathan can be sharp-tongued and quick to anger. Despite being metahuman, Danrathan is very racist. He tries to hide that behind his professional image, but it doesn't always work. He is short and stocky for an elf, but still slightly slender for a human. Due to numerous surgeries, he appears almost entirely human, and certainly passes himself off as one.

Character Creation

Each character starts with 450 karma for character creation that may be spent as follows:

Metatype

Danrathan is an elf (no metavariant), so he spends 20 karma

Attributes

All characters start with base attributes of 1 plus any racial modifiers. No starting attribute may be less than 1. Therefore, for the attributes of B/Q/S/C/I/W, Orks would start with 4/1/3/1/1/1, and Humans would start with 1/1/1/1/1/1.

Attributes are then purchased according to the costs in SR3. That is, the character pays karma equal to 2x the attribute level being acquired. So to raise an attribute from 1 to 2 costs 4 karma (2 x new level of 2). To raise it again from 2 to 3 costs 6 karma (2 x 3), etc. No attributes may be raised above their racial maximum (6 for humans, 6 +/- starting modifier for metahumans).

For a Human to purchase a starting Body of 4 would cost 18 karma (4 karma for Bod 2, plus 6 karma to raise it to 3, and 8 more to raise it to 4. 4+6+8 = 18 karma).

An Elf wishes to purchase a Charisma of 7. Elves have +2 to Chr, so the starting value is 3. It would then cost 8 to raise it to 4, +10 to get to 5, etc. Final cost: 44 karma.

For quick reference, the karma cost for attributes can be found in the Starting Attributes Cost table.

As an elf, Danrathan's starting attributes are Bod-1, Quick-2, Str-1, Chr-3, Int-1, Wil-1. He decides that to follow the Vulture theme and the outlined personality, he wants to concentrate on Willpower, with Intelligence and Quickness second. He IS an elf, and a magician, so one would expect a high Charisma, but Dan is not a very pleasant person, so we'll leave that where it is.

He raises Willpower to 6, which costs (4 + 6 + 8 + 10 + 12 =) 40 karma.
Intelligence to 5 for (4 + 6 + 8 + 10 =) 28 karma.
Quickness 4 costs (6 + 8 =) 14 karma. (Note that quickness started at 2, so it costs less to raise it.)
Body 3 costs (4 + 6 =) 10 karma
Strength 3 costs 10 karma
Charisma 3 costs nothing. It starts at 3.

Total karma cost for attributes: 102 karma

Skills

Skills are purchased according to karma costs on p. 245, Shadowrun Third Edition.

To figure the cost, find the multiplier for the skill in the Skill Multiplier Table, and multiply it by the skill level to be achieved.

Building skills in character generation is cumulative just like attributes above. All fractions are rounded down. As per the standard Shadowrun rules, no skill may start with a rating higher than 6, and no specialization may be higher than 7.

A character with Quickness 4 decides to purchase Pistols 5. The total cost would be 1+3+4+6+12 = 26 karma.

A shaman wants to buy Conjuring (City Spirits) 4(6). It would cost 1+3+4+6 or 14 karma to get Conjuring 4. Then the specialization would cost 2 pts to get to 5, and 3 more to get to 6. Grand total: 19 karma.

Intelligence, Language and Knowledge Skills

First, the character picks his or her native language. This language skill is automatically known at a level equal to the character's intelligence. Additionally, the character has the read/write skill for their native language at one-half their intelligence (rounded down).

In addition, the character will receive 15 karma per point of intelligence that may be spent only on knowledge or language skills. Unlike the standard rules, characters do not get separate points for languages and then for knowledge skills, or for that matter for read/write skills. All of these things must be purchased out of this initial pool

As a shortcut for purchasing Active and Knowledge/Language skills from scratch, use the following table (Skills Cost), which figures in all the intermediate steps for you.

Time for Danrathan to purchase skills. In addition to his regular karma, he also has 60 karma available to him to be used solely for knowledge/language skills. First off, as a magician, he knows he wants Sorcery, Conjuring and Magical Theory. As a former member of a clandestine organization, he will want some skills in Stealth, Disguise, Etiquette, Pistols and Surveillance. Plus he'll want knowledge skills in International Politics, International Law and Intelligence Agencies. He will want proficiencies in several languages as well. If he has points left over, he'd like to invest in some basic survival skills like Computer or Car.

Danrathan purchases the following skills:

For languages, Danrathan starts with Farsi (his native language) at 5, and Read/Write Farsi at 2. Then he purchases the following knowledge/language skills:

This used up all 60 of his knowledge/language karma, plus 3 extra from his regular karma so…

Total for skills: 133 karma for skills

Magic

Characters wishing to be Awakened pay the karma costs on the Magical Abilities Cost table.

We've already decided that Danrathan is a full shaman, so he will spend 90 karma on full magician plus the following spells:

Stunbolt 5
Treat 4
Heal 6
Control Thoughts 6
Magic Fingers 4
Armor 5

Total for magic: 90 + 1 karma per spell point = 120 karma

Resources

To determine the amount of nuyen a starting character recieves during character creation, consult the Resources Cost table.

Danrathan is new to North America and has little on him except the equipment he was carrying at the time he fled. He will spend only 35 karma on resources, so he may now purchase 6,500 nuyen worth of stuff.

Contacts

Characters start with two free Level 1 contacts as described on p. 60, SR3, and may also purchase additional contacts according to the Contacts Cost table.

Danrathan doesn't know many people yet, so he will take his two free contacts as a small time fixer, who has helped him get in touch with a little business, and then also the head of a local mosque (for keeping in touch with his Muslim faith).

Additionally, he buys one extra Level 1 contact, a talismonger who can connect him with magical gear and information, and also a level 2 contact, a good friend still in the Afghan government.

Total for Contacts: 15 karma

Edges & Flaws

Edges and flaws (if used) cost a number of karma equal to 5 x the point cost listed in the SR Companion.

Danrathan takes the flaw Dark Secret. It would shame and dishonor him if anyone found out he was an elf. This grants him an extra 10 karma. He also decides he wants the Focused Concentration and Human Looking edges for 10 and 5 karma respectively, and since he looks extremely human, the GM decides to charge him an extra 15 karma for the edge. Lastly, he takes the College Educated edge for 10 karma.

Total for Edges & Flaws: 30 karma

So now Danrathan takes a good look at his character sheet and adds up the totals.

Metatype (Elf): 20
Attributes: 102
Skills: 133
Magic: 120
Resources: 35
Contacts: 15
Edges & Flaws: 30
Total Karma: 455

Ouch. Five points over. So close. So now Danrathan has to shave off five points somewhere. He could take an extra flaw, or maybe drop one of his spells, or maybe shave off one or two of his skills. After careful consideration, he decides to change his Surveillance 5 skill to Surveillance 4. This saves him 7 karma. Now he has 2 left over to spend, so he bumps his Disguise 3 up to Disguise (Self) 3(4). To raise a specialization from 3 to 4 only costs 2 karma. Ta-da! Danrathan is officially done.

Just for comparison, using the point system from the SR Companion, Danrathan would have required about 118 points to make (approximately, because things like spell points and resources don't translate directly from karma to points).

Additional Notes

Normal maximum limits and availability limits from SR3 still apply.

Magically active characters may not use karma at character creation to initiate or acquire ally spirits.

Danrathan

Here is the final version of Danrathan, a middle-eastern elven Vulture shaman.

Attributes

INIT: 1D6 + 4
Dice Pools: Combat 7, Spell 5

Active Skills

Knowledge Skills

Language Skills

Spells

Contacts

Resources

6500 nuyen worth of appropriate equipment.

Edged and Flaws

Dark secret
Focused concentration
Human looking (extremely human looking)
College Educated

Extended Creation Phase

If a GM is running a higher-powered campaign and would like to add additional karma to beef up the characters, then simply create the character as above with 450 karma, and then use the additional karma normally to build up the character from there.

Attributes, Skills, & Contacts

All may be purchased exactly as described above in initial creation. Attributes & skills may now be raised beyond normal starting limits if desired (and at GM discretion).

Resources

Characters may trade in karma for resources at a rate of 2,500 nuyen per point of karma spent. The only exception to this is if the character spent less than 75 karma on resources in the initial creation phase, then he/she will not be allowed to spend more karma for resources in this extended creation phase.

Edges & Flaws

You may not purchase additional edges and flaws during the extended creation phase.

Initiation & Allies

Initiation grades and allies may now be purchased. Initiates will pay full cost for every grade. No discounts for allies, ordeals, or group membership are allowed. Those discounts are only available when the character role-plays through them (i.e. during game play) and so are not applicable during this extended creation process.

Karma Pool

You may buy karma pool dice for a cost of 2 karma. Humans may spend up to one-tenth of their total bonus karma (i.e. over the 450 basic cost) on karma pool. Metatypes may spend one-twentieth of the total bonus karma.

I'm creating a Troll with 450 for initial creation and a bonus of 250 karma because it's a high power campaign. As a Troll, I can spend up to one-twentieth of that 250 on karma pool. So I could spend 12 points total to get 6 karma pool dice.

This makes karma pool dice twice as expensive as they are when acquired in play and only allows the characters half of what they would have received otherwise. That's true. But karma pool should be earned, so therefore the reduction when you choose to start off powerful.

Cyberware/Bioware

Some Cyberware and Bioware adjusts Karma costs - specifically, the mnemonic enhancer, but this could apply to other enhancements as well. The adjustments to karma costs made by such devices do not apply during any part of character creation, neither initial creation nor the extended creation phase. These bonuses only apply during actual game play if your group chooses to use them.

Comparing Becks To Priorities

So how does a karma creation system like this compare to the standard character creation system in SR3? Very well, actually. Using BeCKS to recreate the archetype characters found in the main sourcebook, we find that with only two exceptions, all of them can be created for between 425 and 475 karma, with an average of 449-right on target with the BeCKS standard of 450. The two exceptions are the elven Face archetype, which only takes 418 karma (leaving extra for plenty of contacts) and the elven Street Mage which requires just over 500 karma. Bringing the Street Mage into line with the other characters would probably just be a matter of adjusting down her phenomenal resources from 400,000 to about 50,000.

Using karma as the basis of character creation means that characters from the old priorities or points systems who specialize intensely in only a few areas will cost more than characters with more low- to mid- level abilities. In practice, this means characters created in BeCKS will have more total skill points if they have more low- or mid-level skills.

But in the end, the ultimate benefit to my players and me was to take away much of the pressure to min/max abilities, because there isn't any particular advantage to spending karma on one area over another. The costs will be exactly the same later on as they are during creation.