[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Beeeecause they didn't have the same rules?  SR4/A left weapon creation out in the car.  In SR3, the weapon creation and modification rules - like the creation/modification rules for vehicles, spells, programs, and cyberdecks - were developed in such a way that you could create every single firearm in the game.  The vehicle prices in Rigger 3 were actually modified so that they matched their cost as built with the vehicle creation system.

SR4/A didn't have those rules, and certainly didn't have that sort of close attention to detail for modifications, whether weapon, vehicle, or otherwise.  From what I can tell, SR4 , 4A, and 5 have all had their focus upon pulling the casual gamer into playing, on not dumping a crapton worth of crunch on someone who just wants to sit down and play.  Crunch is intimidating; intimidating makes people put the book back on the shelf and look for something easier to get into.  Which, honestly, I get; it's a business decision.

It's just one I wish wasn't necessary to keep the game alive and pulling in new blood.

[Medicineman]

I think we're talking differently here :
 I'm talking about Weapon Modification and similarities between SR4A Edition and SR5 Edition and that Weapon Mods from SR4A can be converted to SR5 Weapons

If You're talking about Weapons creation Rules (Which is something completely different) I hope you acknolwdge the .....enormeous Rats Tail of difficulties from overpowered Weapons to incompatibilities in the Ingame World of Shadowrun ?!!

with a completely different Dance
Medicineman

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

You're talking about comparing modifications and only modifications between two very similar editions, yes.  I'm talking about a more in-depth and flexible design system, one which accounts for all the odd and 'but you can't do that in the rules' things that SR5 currently has us stuck with.

Are there challenges?  Yes.  Might well-designed weapons be 'overpowered'?  That depends on what you mean by 'overpowered', but from what I've been able to determine, everyone means something different by that, and in regards to simple things like guns, nobody really takes into account how tough it is to get, or how expensive it is compared to other items of its class.  Everyone seems to be concerned only with 'how easy does it make your life once you have it?'  Thing is, all the gear out there is meant to make your life easier.

Hawatari has two sets of pistols - four in total - which cost 4,775¥ each.  They have smartlinks, improved rangefinders, built-in silencers, are melee reinforced, use caseless high-density ceramic ammo (at 250¥ per 10, as compared to 20¥/10 for regular ammo), are invisible to MADs, innately have two points of recoil compensation, and possess personalized gecko-grip grips.  They kick fraggin' ass.  As it says in the story, they are made exclusively for the Personal Protective Services agents assigned to the Shiawase family and a few other top executives.  For the same price, she could have gotten not one, not two, not four, but 45 Colt Government 2066s.  But storywise, because she is no longer in Shiawase, if she ever loses them, she is going to have to pay lots of people lots of money to help her get into very dangerous places to be in position to be able to steal one or two of the damn things.

By the straight-out 'are they overpowered', yeah, sure they are; they kick fraggin' ass.  Or, y'know, I could have just purchased a whole slew of pistols, SMGs, and other weapons for the 20,000¥ spent on those four measley overpriced heavy pistols.

Difficulties?  No; that's essentially accounted for.

As for 'incompatibilities in the ingame World of Shadowrun', no, I really don't need to acknowledge any that you might imagine, because they're imaginary, and easily explained.  "Where'd you get those?"  "Pick one:"

• A small production run that never panned out because they were too expensive.
• A revolutionary weapon system built by a small company that got burned to the ground by a AAA competitor.
• A highly-controlled small-production-run weapon used exclusively by a small cadre of individuals in a megacorporation.
• Built by my contact Quasimodo the Armorer - and he can make a set for you, but it'll take a while.

There are always reasons available.  And because you are using the Shadowrun systems, there are no 'in-game-world' incompatabilities except those you invent in order to prevent others from getting their hands on them.

[Reaver]

I get what you are both saying here guys:






but remember the caveat:

    "Good for the Goose. Good for the Gander."

[Malevolence]

I have been searching high and low for rules pertaining to which guns can or can not have certain modifications.

the 3E Cannon Companion

Sadly, this is probably the best answer to the question until 5E has a chance to mature, get some of its core supplements published, and get more errata and rules clarifications out. It's bad enough that the best resource for figuring out the current edition rules is to go back to the previous edition (expensive), but to go back two editions is near ludicrous. There's probably enough info in 4E to figure it out, but it sounds like if you want one consolidated resource so you don't have to buy a ton of books or bother the forums every time a related situation comes up at your table, 3E Cannon Companion is the way to go.

I don't own it, but it sounds cool - I hope they do something similar (and not just for guns) for 5th as an optional supplement (like, "not Missions legal but Catalyst official" optional). I get that crunch might scare peeps away, but making it a PDF only gem rather than something that clarifies huge swaths of rules from the core should make it far enough off the radar of the casual player that they don't feel obligated to buy it just to run a game.

[Ghoulfodder]

The Gauss Rifle is SA.
And while the one's I picked are obvious no no's.  There are probably less obvious no no's.  Just looking for some rules to clarify things, keep it simple.  Telling players to just be reasonable is foolish. We live to break the game.

Why on earth would you want to do that?

[Ariketh]

The Gauss Rifle is SA.
And while the one's I picked are obvious no no's.  There are probably less obvious no no's.  Just looking for some rules to clarify things, keep it simple.  Telling players to just be reasonable is foolish. We live to break the game.

Why on earth would you want to do that?

To quote George Mallory, "Because it's there." Or rather, because they can.

-Ariketh

[MijRai]

I'd have replied with 'not everybody lives to break the game'.  I despise people who play every game with a min-maxed monster just 'because they can', and I don't play with them except in a few specific situations (Rappan Athuk, for example.  You practically need to min-max to make it into the dungeon, much less further in). 

[Ariketh]

I'd have replied with 'not everybody lives to break the game'.  I despise people who play every game with a min-maxed monster just 'because they can', and I don't play with them except in a few specific situations (Rappan Athuk, for example.  You practically need to min-max to make it into the dungeon, much less further in).

True, not everyone does. I don't. My characters suffer for it in some respects, but they match the concept I have in mind, so I call it a win. In my gaming circle on the other hand, range from "tell me the rules I need to use now" to "If you do this, this, and this, you get...." For the ones that min/max, it's a mental exercise. One of my friends in the group explained as an exercise in efficiency. While I am not fond of the result, he's my friend and he's actually fun to game with. As a result, I deal.

-Ariketh

[MijRai]

I agree with you there; fitting the concept is the best part.  I personally do enjoy the mental exercise making a character entails, even if min-maxing comes out of it, I just don't play the ones that shouldn't be played. 

[Anarkitty]

I actively try to avoid breaking the game.  I make sub-optimal choices just because they fir my character concept, Ignore clues that I catch as a player but that my character would miss, and generally try to role-play first and "win" second.

My current character would really benefit from a Ballistic Mask, but he doesn't wear it because he doesn't want to cover his pretty face, and because the characters on the (fictional) TV  shows about shadowrunners he grew up watching didn't wear them either (unless they were "bad guys" - e.g. Corp Sec, Lonestar, etc., or the one member of the team (there's always one) who never took his mask off).