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Increasing accuracy

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Marcus

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« Reply #30 on: <09-06-17/1957:56> »
Yes you have to spend resources, yes you have to have plan, and yes you can't just build the same way we have for 4 previous editions. It's worth looking into called shots, its worth checking out martial arts, it's worth putting points in something other the just being the best at shooting/hitting someone. It's comforting to know you have hit respectable limit, and you can achieve a level effective without there some sort of topless mountain that just keeps going up.
It helps make unarmed build viable, it helps stop combat axe packing troll from rolling every table. Creativity is not a bad thing, find ways to encourage it is good for everyone.

Squeezing the bell curve doesn't make it flat, it just means the very unlikely isn't going to happen without edge getting involved, and that is working as intended.
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FST_Gemstar

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« Reply #31 on: <09-07-17/1018:25> »
Yes you have to spend resources, yes you have to have plan, and yes you can't just build the same way we have for 4 previous editions. It's worth looking into called shots, its worth checking out martial arts, it's worth putting points in something other the just being the best at shooting/hitting someone. It's comforting to know you have hit respectable limit, and you can achieve a level effective without there some sort of topless mountain that just keeps going up.
It helps make unarmed build viable, it helps stop combat axe packing troll from rolling every table. Creativity is not a bad thing, find ways to encourage it is good for everyone.

Squeezing the bell curve doesn't make it flat, it just means the very unlikely isn't going to happen without edge getting involved, and that is working as intended.

Here here. While I never played other editions, I really like the concept of limits!

Tassyr

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« Reply #32 on: <09-08-17/0345:53> »
Yes you have to spend resources, yes you have to have plan, and yes you can't just build the same way we have for 4 previous editions. It's worth looking into called shots, its worth checking out martial arts, it's worth putting points in something other the just being the best at shooting/hitting someone. It's comforting to know you have hit respectable limit, and you can achieve a level effective without there some sort of topless mountain that just keeps going up.
It helps make unarmed build viable, it helps stop combat axe packing troll from rolling every table. Creativity is not a bad thing, find ways to encourage it is good for everyone.

Squeezing the bell curve doesn't make it flat, it just means the very unlikely isn't going to happen without edge getting involved, and that is working as intended.

Well, you just put it a hell of a lot more eloquently than I was going to. I was going to say something to the tune of "It's nice to have an encouragement to diversify my skills, rather than have a Sammie who's got one skillset: Gun."
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Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #33 on: <09-09-17/1834:48> »
Yes you have to spend resources, yes you have to have plan, and yes you can't just build the same way we have for 4 previous editions. It's worth looking into called shots, its worth checking out martial arts, it's worth putting points in something other the just being the best at shooting/hitting someone. It's comforting to know you have hit respectable limit, and you can achieve a level effective without there some sort of topless mountain that just keeps going up.
It helps make unarmed build viable, it helps stop combat axe packing troll from rolling every table. Creativity is not a bad thing, find ways to encourage it is good for everyone.

Squeezing the bell curve doesn't make it flat, it just means the very unlikely isn't going to happen without edge getting involved, and that is working as intended.

Well, you just put it a hell of a lot more eloquently than I was going to. I was going to say something to the tune of "It's nice to have an encouragement to diversify my skills, rather than have a Sammie who's got one skillset: Gun."

That's called adding challenges that a pistol can't solve in my games.

Most of the things Marcus put up for why it's good is my why it's bad list. Its system mastery to get past a bad system. There are enough rewards in character design as is. Knowing the rules well enough to effectively bypass limits isn't a plus. If limits had a actual point then well rules knowledge bypassing it defeats the purpose of the rule. If it's not actually intended to limit it's just a hoop to jump through with rules knowledge.

Motivation to spread out your skills is a campaign decision not a rule to slap you down with.

And whether or not I can get to 100 dice doesn't effect if 12 dice is respectable or not. My challenges determine that. With or without limits my players spread out skills in play. They get sick of not being able to bluff or whatever, they already are a good ebough shot and it costs a lot of karma to raise skills to high levels. Increasing costs did more than enough mechanically on that front another rule slap down was unnecessary.

End of the day if spreading out your skil set was important you already do that. And limits don't do much to limit but they do take away lucky rolls without a edge tax. Just like when someone rolls a nat 20 in d&d why as a GM would I want to take that moment from them.


Marcus

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« Reply #34 on: <09-10-17/0014:42> »
I could go 20 rounds/posts with you point by point on this Shinobi, but I don't see any value in doing so. We disagree, I like limits and you don't. I think 5th works well, and I think limits are real part of that.
From what you have said you see it as forcing an edge tax. I don't think I'm gonna change your mind, I'm perfectly happy to agree to disagree on this.
If you try out that house rules please let me know what your results are.

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SunRunner

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« Reply #35 on: <09-10-17/1323:34> »
He will not have anything but good to say about it, hes unhappy with limits so anything that gets rid of them will make him happy. Its a Pink Mohawk vs Trechcoat and mirror shades issue. Lots of stuff can be done in a Mohawk game that is not gonna work in a trechcoat game.

Mirikon

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« Reply #36 on: <09-10-17/1411:38> »
I'm going to have to side with Shinobi on this one. 5th doesn't work well. It works OK, at best. 4th might not have been the best system out there for a classless, leveless system (any of the last three editions of HERO System gets that nod, in my book), but it wasn't bad. Most of the problems with 4th were caused by 'legacy' issues, like the scaling Karma costs that made advancement pretty much impossible unless you did the D&D equivalent of an entire dungeon (which would normally get you 4-5 levels), to get a single level. This was exacerbated by the difference between point buy and karma, encouraging people to 'front load' their main skills as much as possible, and then diversify later, which is why you'd see a lot of people with 5 and 6 rating skills in their main thing, and then a smattering of rating 1 skills after a while in play. Otherwise, the main issues in 4th were what normally happens when a system gets several splatbooks written, and players have enough time on their hands to look for gamebreaking combos, and is nothing that can't be handled with the Phonebook Method.

5th... 5th got hit by the nostalgia train hard. The crapsack that is the Matrix, and the utter abuse TMs have suffered, are merely the most visible parts of this. Returning to Priorities, which basically enforces de facto classes (especially when combined with the exponential jump in gear costs), and the introduction of limits were a hamfisted approach to try and counter the meme of people bringing a box of d6s to their Shadowrun games, or people figuring out that they could make a decent mage/hacker, or face/Samurai, or... well, any hybrid character, really. There are a few cases where Limits make sense. Gear imposing limits on accuracy or on certain skills makes sense. Hell, it is basically D&D 3.5's Armor Check Penalty, transcribed to SR. But for the most part, Limits are basically a resource sink. Their only purpose is to make you spend resources to raise them, or force you into spending resources in other areas. And given that they kept the godawful Karma white elephant that just won't fucking die, making advancement equivalent to nil unless you're one of the classes that can measurably improve with nuyen...

Yeah, 5th works well is like saying politicians are trustworthy.
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Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #37 on: <09-10-17/1418:48> »
He will not have anything but good to say about it, hes unhappy with limits so anything that gets rid of them will make him happy. Its a Pink Mohawk vs Trechcoat and mirror shades issue. Lots of stuff can be done in a Mohawk game that is not gonna work in a trechcoat game.

I run a pretty trenchcoat game so I'm not sure it's that. But yes, I probably will like the house rule that mitigates limits.

Marcus

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« Reply #38 on: <09-10-17/1454:23> »
I'm going to have to side with Shinobi on this one. 5th doesn't work well. It works OK, at best. 4th might not have been the best system out there for a classless, leveless system (any of the last three editions of HERO System gets that nod, in my book), but it wasn't bad. Most of the problems with 4th were caused by 'legacy' issues, like the scaling Karma costs that made advancement pretty much impossible unless you did the D&D equivalent of an entire dungeon (which would normally get you 4-5 levels), to get a single level. This was exacerbated by the difference between point buy and karma, encouraging people to 'front load' their main skills as much as possible, and then diversify later, which is why you'd see a lot of people with 5 and 6 rating skills in their main thing, and then a smattering of rating 1 skills after a while in play. Otherwise, the main issues in 4th were what normally happens when a system gets several splatbooks written, and players have enough time on their hands to look for gamebreaking combos, and is nothing that can't be handled with the Phonebook Method.

5th... 5th got hit by the nostalgia train hard. The crapsack that is the Matrix, and the utter abuse TMs have suffered, are merely the most visible parts of this. Returning to Priorities, which basically enforces de facto classes (especially when combined with the exponential jump in gear costs), and the introduction of limits were a hamfisted approach to try and counter the meme of people bringing a box of d6s to their Shadowrun games, or people figuring out that they could make a decent mage/hacker, or face/Samurai, or... well, any hybrid character, really. There are a few cases where Limits make sense. Gear imposing limits on accuracy or on certain skills makes sense. Hell, it is basically D&D 3.5's Armor Check Penalty, transcribed to SR. But for the most part, Limits are basically a resource sink. Their only purpose is to make you spend resources to raise them, or force you into spending resources in other areas. And given that they kept the godawful Karma white elephant that just won't fucking die, making advancement equivalent to nil unless you're one of the classes that can measurably improve with nuyen...

Yeah, 5th works well is like saying politicians are trustworthy.

I think your looking at fourth through rose colored glasses. Fourth had plenty of glaring issues, drones, bioware/cyberare split, simple simple double tap being ridiculously overwhelming effective, drones, the wireless matrix, simply being some of the most visible issues.  The Decker completely ceased to exist in  4th (My home game literally developed and ran the shadow6 custom OS with supped up com-links running agents to handle anything we needed a decker for).  And in the official Missions mods I never even saw one that wasn't npc. Die pools were huge to no great effect. 5th closed all the major broken loop holes, making essence really essence again, and made hacking viable through wireless active bonuses. Is the 5th perfect? Of course not. I also like the Hero System myself, it's very clean and it's well developed and further I have had a great time playing an urban fantasy game in Heroes. But that's not SR. When it's time to play then for now I like 5th. Plenty of things need to be addressed, and they being addressed, Alchemy was terrible at release, the first magic in general was pretty  lacking. But magic expansion books later and alchemy is both interesting and potentially very effective. 5th is still a work in progress. Data trails was ok, it has some good ideas, but it needs further expansion.  The next hacker book is in 2018. I'm no fan boy for the dev's ether. I perfectly willing to say if something sucks, for example I don't like Anarchy. Why have a weird rules light system suddenly dropped into a system that's working? Why do this to your development team and customer base?

« Last Edit: <09-17-17/1745:40> by Marcus »
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Mirikon

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« Reply #39 on: <09-10-17/1534:31> »
I honestly never had trouble with drones or the wireless matrix. I was able to do some really cool stuff with Drones, like when I made my AI Street Samurai, since they were easy to mod into what you wanted. But then, I came to Shadowrun from D&D 3.5 and HERO 4th/5th, so maybe I was used to more complexity? I guess I can see how they would be difficult for someone coming from M&M or one of the rules-lite systems like the Window. But once you learned them, I never had trouble doing what I needed to do as a hacker or rigger.

I will admit that 'single-class' hackers went away for the most part in 4e. But other than... well, pretty much other than Sammmies who did nothing but shoot and bash stuff everyone was more hybridized. That's not a bad thing. In a group of 5, where you need to cover Matrix, Magic, Guns, Talking, Covert Ops, and Transport, having people who had a primary and a secondary role was a good thing. This gave you redundancy, so if the party got split, or the specialist got tagged, then you weren't completely hosed for the rest of the run. With 5e forcing riggers and hackers to not only be 'single-class', but not being able to hang back in safety, your whole group can get fucked in a hurry if someone scores a lucky hit on the decker, for instance.

Hacking was viable before, especially if you sidelined in rigging. Even the trope of hacking the corpsec's eyes was possible, though only in the case of those who linked their eyes to their PAN for tactical reasons, or for some stupid reason left the wireless on. But a hacker not being good in the meat world wasn't a problem, because they were usually on Overwatch, editing camera and sensor feeds, opening doors, silencing alarms, and so on, from the safety of the van or other secure area. That's like complaining that the Bard in D&D doesn't hit like a Barbarian or sling fireballs like the Wizard. But 5E kicked that in the balls, and then decided to fuck with everyone else with wireless bonuses so that hackers didn't feel like they got shat on specifically (that 'honor' was reserved for TMs). It was a case of fixing things that weren't broken, and fucking it up worse than before. Which explains most of what you need to know about the 5e matrix. Like the old programmer's joke about having 36 bugs to fix, so you patch one, and now have 87 bugs to fix.

5th is a work in progress, yes. But they should have held off on 5th until they defucked things, instead of going whole hog on the wonderful 'Year of Shadowrun' that fizzled into utter crap. Things like limits add additional complexity where things were already fucked up enough (I give you alchemy, folks), there are parts that are demonstrably worse than their 4e versions (weapon and vehicle mods, to say nothing about the lack of spell creation rules), there are sacred cows that should have been sent to the butcher a long time ago (Priority generation and scaling Karma costs to advance), and there are areas of the game that need a ground up rewrite instead of a Data Trails patch job (TMs).
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SunRunner

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« Reply #40 on: <09-11-17/0819:21> »
To be clear Shinobi I was not saying your were a Mohawk player, I was saying that your dislike of limits is a personal style / opinion issue and was basically not up for being changed. Just like some people enjoy the Mohawk games and some people dont enjoy them. If your a supper hardcore Trenchcoat guy your not gonna be happy in a super Pink Mohawk game and vice versa.

Glyph

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« Reply #41 on: <09-17-17/1535:38> »
Limits are an interesting idea, and I agree that weapon accuracy should matter.  I remember reading a story in the Gunsmith Cats manga, where Rally manages to take a mugger's pistol, ready to use it against a more serious threat, only to notice that the gun she just nabbed is a cheap piece of junk that will be uselessly inaccurate outside of close range - and this is coming from a character who habitually disarms people by shooting off their thumbs.

The rules can be wonky in implementation.  When you are using a low-accuracy weapon and are going to probably lose hits anyways, you might as well make a called shot, or even split your dice pool with a multiple attack, since the lower dice pool won't matter.  So you have the guy with the combat axe or wielding a shotgun swinging at two opponents or taking headshots, while the guy with the katana or the light pistol makes standard attacks.

If you are making a combat hyperspecialist, though, don't forget the very best way to keep all of your hits.  The Revels In Murder quality.  Pay that Edge tax... and get a refund.  ;)