[thalandar]

First off, kudos the the writters on a wondefull book-War! is everything I had hoped for.

I wanted to take a minute to discuss Compsure tests and how they are used in Shadowrun.  In War! they talk about the horrors of the battlefield and how that effects the characters.  But, Shadowrunner face these extermes as well.  The easy ones, facing Insect Spirits...make a Compsure test.  What about the more common ones, though?

Your team is burned and you now have a Mega Corp hunting you.  Or the Yaks, Mafia, Boy Scouts of America, etc...

So I guess I'd like to know what situations you have had your players make compsure tests under.  In a recent game I was playing in our rigger failed a pilot roll and our helo crashed, leading to a compsure test and interesting roll playing of the results.  What are your compsure test stories?

[Fizzygoo]

Unfortunately I haven't run a 4E game long enough to use the Composure rule (though come Jan 5th...hehe, ah the beginning of a new campaign).

I plan on getting some background info from my players like; Has your character ever killed someone, if so, how? What's the most brutal act of violence your character has ever been a part of (actually engaged on one end or the other of the violence), what's the most brutal act your character has ever seen? Has your character ever been affected by black IC? Has your character ever had contact with spirits (what kind)? Has your character ever fought a spirit (what kind)?

Then use those as subjective bases for each character. Anything the players indicate was "routine" occurrences for their characters will get a pass on the Composure test for those specific types of occurrences. Vehicles crashes/accidents are great examples (especially if unexpected). Knowing that the helo is going down and never being in a crash...threshold of 2, having been in a couple of helo crashes before threshold of 1. Having a SAM slam into the helo without anyone knowing it was coming...threshold of 3 (for those who haven't been in a helo that was hit with a SAM). Though as characters have more and more encounters with crashed/SAM'ed vehicles (and survive) then they'll eventually not have to make the test.

If a player tells me his character is a silver-spoon fed "kid" who escaped the corporate enclave to become a shadowrunner then the first time a ganger takes a shot at him with a hold out, Composure (3).

[inca1980]

One thing that confuses me is that on pg. 136 of War under the Composure section it says that the Critter Fear Power calls for a composure test.  But when you look at the critter power in both SR4A and Running Wild, the player resists a Fear test with only Willpower.  What's up with that?

[Bradd]

Not sure why the conflict, but I like the Composure versus fear idea.

[Kontact]

Yeah, the Fear power is pretty overpowered unless you take precautions.
But a Biomonitor, autoinjector and a dose of Guts makes it a non-issue.

Anyway, composure tests..  There's like 1000 drugs, augmentations, and qualities that force a composure test, but one situation I often use composure tests is for determining if a character can still benefit from Neural Amplifier Nanites when things are getting tense. 

[Chaemera]

Honestly, all the vague "you're getting shot at" type applications of composure (as opposed to the drugs, negative qualities, etc that call for them specifically), I keep forgetting to make people roll composure. Oversight on my part, but it keeps the game moving forward. I intend to make a better effort of remembering to call for them when they finally meet some of the Infected in their natural habitat, or the more disturbing para-critters.

My players have actually gotten pretty good at rolling their composure checks for things like Flashbacks, Thrill Seeker, Compulsive, and Addiction without me asking for them. Their timing is great, too. If they're fudging the results behind my back, eh, sooner or later it'll come back to bite them.

As to Critter Power Fear & Composure, I'm with the rest of you, down with the Willpower Only check! Someone write it up on the errata forum.

[Mäx]

I kinda like the 2 new bioware implants in WAR that combined reduce the treshold of composure test by 2(the first implant) and allows you to treat critical glitch as a regular glitch and ingore regular glitches(the second implant)
For the cheap price of 23k nuyen and 0,2 essence.

[Kontact]

I kinda like the 2 new bioware implants in WAR that combined reduce the treshold of composure test by 2(the first implant) and allows you to treat critical glitch as a regular glitch and ingore regular glitches(the second implant)
For the cheap price of 23k nuyen and 0,2 essence.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? 
Poor Impulse Control qualities aren't just made into free points, but, as a side-effect, glitches disappear completely?
Bollox to that. 

[Teknodragon]

I kinda like the 2 new bioware implants in WAR that combined reduce the treshold of composure test by 2(the first implant) and allows you to treat critical glitch as a regular glitch and ingore regular glitches(the second implant)
For the cheap price of 23k nuyen and 0,2 essence.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? 
Poor Impulse Control qualities aren't just made into free points, but, as a side-effect, glitches disappear completely?
Bollox to that. 

5bp worth of cash, roughly. So it's a wash for a single low-level poor impulse control one. Sounds like an interesting approach to buying off the negative quality after character creation, though. Personally, I'd expect the GM to get creative in retaliation via side-effects...

[Dead Monky]

Ummm.....sorry, but there was a...complication during the implant surgery.  Uh, the implant is fine, but um....you've come down with an extremely rare and virulent infection.  It, um, has spread to your blood and your spine and there's not much we can do.  Sorry?   

[Chaemera]

It may be a knee-jerk reaction, but for the time being, I'm with Kontact.

You buy the Adrenal Regulator and you have a negative quality that requires a Composure (2) test (reduced to zero by the Adrenal Regulator), I want the Karma your negative quality was worth. If you don't have it right now, it's where all your karma is going until it's paid off.

I can see the fluff-logic behind these bits of bioware, they're great for soldiers in the field, but they don't have a lot of rules-logic behind them...

At least have some kind of a negative side effect to a bit of bioware that basically says "you ignore your adrenal system". How about reduced initiative because your Flight/Fight response kicks in slower?

5bp worth of cash, roughly. So it's a wash for a single low-level poor impulse control one. Sounds like an interesting approach to buying off the negative quality after character creation, though. Personally, I'd expect the GM to get creative in retaliation via side-effects...

Yes, wash for a "single low-level poor impulse control". How about the guy who takes Compulsive at 15 BP (still only a Composure (2) test), and Vendetta (Composure (3), reduced to (1) by the implant). That character ends up 15 BP ahead for, essentially, a Composure (1) test not to chase after his Enemy.

It's not so horrible that these implants should be written off completely, but tactics like Dead Monky's ought to be kept in mind for characters who try to end-run the system with it. I'm thinking of the "A Note on Reduced Senses" sidebar... (RC, pg. 108)

[Darkeus]

Ah Christ, I forgot all about Composure Test.  I could have lit a couple of my runners up with one of those last session!!

  

I really have to use these when they go against Griffin in my converted Dreamchipper run.

I just need to remember that damn thing!

[Bradd]

You buy the Adrenal Regulator and you have a negative quality that requires a Composure (2) test (reduced to zero by the Adrenal Regulator), I want the Karma your negative quality was worth. If you don't have it right now, it's where all your karma is going until it's paid off.

Is it possible to reduce a threshold to zero? I thought 1 was the minimum.

[Chaemera]

The rule for Threshold Modifiers is:

In some cases, a threshold modifier may apply to an action, raising or lowering the threshold by the stated amount.

No limitation saying "but never below 1". Or "to a minimum threshold of 1".

The text above implies that a Threshold must be 1 or greater:

The standard threshold is 1 (so only 1 hit is necessary to succeed), though other tests may have thresholds as high as 4 or more.

But, if this is intended to tell us that modifiers cannot reduce a threshold to zero, it's rather inelegant about it.

I seem to recall that there are several threshold modifiers in the game that stipulate they cannot reduce the threshold to zero, but I cannot locate them right now (not enough time for digging through the books). If they are found, that's pretty a solid basis for arguing that a threshold modifier must state that it cannot reduce the threshold to zero.

So, I would say that, as written, the rules imply a limit of 1, but a good argument can be made that if a modifier completely negates a threshold, no test is required.

[Bradd]

I seem to recall that there are several threshold modifiers in the game that stipulate they cannot reduce the threshold to zero, but I cannot locate them right now (not enough time for digging through the books). If they are found, that's pretty a solid basis for arguing that a threshold modifier must state that it cannot reduce the threshold to zero.

If you interpret a rule as an exception, you can infer that the exception does not apply in other cases. That's the proper use of "exception proves the rule." However, if you interpret the same rule as a clarification or reminder, then you can't make the same inference. In games which are very precise about language, and explicitly exception-based, I tend to use exception-proves. However, Shadowrun is very sloppy about language, and references are scattered everywhere, and sometimes the general rule is only mentioned once, tucked away in an odd corner. Sometimes the rules even contradict themselves: For example, the game defines net hits as the number of hits in excess of the threshold. However, the magic rules define a threshold as a number of net hits, which is pure nonsense! (And for unopposed tests, it's unclear whether they mean net hits above 1 or above 0.)

In any case, I don't think the definition of thresholds is very awkward; they're usually 1 but can be higher.