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[SR4] House Rules

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Redmercury

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« Reply #480 on: <10-12-12/1041:47> »
How about blunt weapons, mostly clubs, all deal physical, get +1 to damage and +3 armor penetration.  This way they're more likely to deal stun damage (as they should) and are as vicious as they should be against unarmored opponents. I also feel the same should apply to fists, as a bare fist is without a doubt a lethal weapon. You don't need to be an adept to kill someone with your bare hands before filling up their RL "stun track"
« Last Edit: <10-13-12/0648:25> by Redmercury »

Redmercury

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« Reply #481 on: <10-18-12/1215:36> »
For blind fire, instead of taking a -6 die penalty, roll your edge for attack, ignoring other penalties unless they cumulatively exceed the skill you would normally use.

WellsIDidIt

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« Reply #482 on: <10-18-12/1246:28> »
Remember, blind fire isn't just a -6 for most people. It's a -6 and a swap from agility to intuition. Usually that a point or two for most folks, but for sammies it normally ends up being a good wallop to their dice pool. Of course my druid is just as well off closing his eyes and spraying as he is using agility.

Kot

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« Reply #483 on: <10-18-12/1301:01> »
Blind fire isn't luck - it's indeed Intuition and perception (which as far as the usual metahuman senses go is a part of Intuition as an Attribute). You need to guess, remember, or hear where your enemy is in the dark. Or you need to do that, while popping only your gun over your cover, or around the corner. You can still use Edge for that, but only if that Blind Fire modifier - along with any others - drops them below zero dice. Then you're relying on pure luck by spending a point of Edge and rolling your Edge pool.
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WellsIDidIt

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« Reply #484 on: <10-30-12/0334:28> »
Well, here are a few of mine that I've put together over time:
Banishing: Banishing is no longer it's own skill. It is now simply an option tied to the Binding skill. When banishing, you suffer drain equal to half the spirit's force. If your banishing attempt fails, the spirits force is treated as one higher for each net hit it gained for the purposes of drain. If the spirit's force is greater than your Magic attribute, drain from banishing is Physical rather than stun.
    A banished spirit may immediately be resummoned by the banishing magician. If the banishing magician already has an unbound spirit, the banished spirit will still grant the banishing magician a single service if successfully resummoned. If the banishing magician received a critical success on the banishing test (4+ net hits), he gains a +2 dice pool bonus to resummon a banished spirit.

Electricity: High amounts of electrical damage can cause physical damage to metahumans and even machinery or vehicles. If the Electrical Damage is greater than the targets Body x 2 (for metahumans) or Body (for vehicles), then it's damage is staged to physical. Damage in these cases must follow all normal rules for damaging attacks, and is staged back to stun if it does not exceed the targets modified armor rating (including non-conductivity bonuses). Bonus damage from autofire and similar multi-attack situations does not apply for the purposes of staging damage to physical. Characters may choose whether or not to apply net hits for DV bonuses when making electrical attacks (in order to reduce lethality).

Elemental Spells: Elemental Combat Spells may take advantage of the Call Shot and Take Aim actions from the combat section. In addition, a mage can make an Attack to Knockdown with an elemental spell. In this case, the spell deals no damage and will knock the target down it's Force+net hits exceed the targets Body. Target's still suffer secondary elemental effects from the spell.

Critical Strike: This power may be applied to any melee attack. If the character rating in the power exceeds the DV bonus of his weapon, the weapon is broken during the attack.

Shock Lock Ammo: Sock Lock Rounds are treated as explosives for the purpose of damaging locks and door hinges (see destroying barriers, pg. 166). This replaces their normal bonus. Against all other targets, including other barrier types, they are still treated as firearms with explosive ammunition.

Soft Weave: May only be applied to Personal Armor Suits, Military Armors, and the specific armor Full Body Armor. All other armors are considered to already make use of Soft Weave technology. Softweave reduces both armor ratings of the armor by the wearer Strength score.

example: James is wearing Full Body FFBA under a suit of SWAT Armor and a SWAT Helmet. The SWAT Armor has been Softweaved. James has an encumbrance rating of 3/1 for the Form Fit Body Armor, and because his Strength is a 4, the SWAT Armor and SWAT Helmet  gives another 10/8 (normally 14/10)Encumbrance. This puts James at a total encumbrance of 13/9. Since James has a Body of 7, he is still under his encumbrance limit.

SWAT Armor: SWAT Armor can be equipped with a Chemical Seal.

Environmental Conditions: Extremely hot and or humid conditions cause fatigue much quicker than usual environments. In such environments (such as jungle and or desert), character must make a fatigue check every 15 minutes if they exceed their Body in armor rating, wear bulky clothing (such as jackets and coats), or tight non-breathing clothing (such as form-fit or second skin).

Shotguns: Shotguns can make use of Gas Vent technology.

Exotic Weapons: Exotic Weapons fired remotely still use their appropriate Exotic Weapon skill rather than Gunnery.

Call Shot: Call Shot to negate armor may be taken at any penalty the character desires rather than only negating the target's full armor. If the target's full armor is not negated, he is still considered to be wearing armor for the purposes of flechette ammunition and other positive AP modifiers.


Mithlas

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« Reply #485 on: <11-02-12/0503:00> »
I've noticed that some skills (armorer, artisan, Pilot Ground) seem rather overly broad, and combined with the perceived unimportance of Knowledge skills when this doesn't jive with real life gave me this idea:

Knowledge skill bonus points = (Intuition + Logic) * 5 (in BP, *10 with KarmaGen)
Active skills (except Dodge and Perception) require supporting knowledge skills at least at their level - ie Sam has Longarms 4 and Teppojutsu 4, and would also support the character using the rifle as a club in melee.

Having a supporting knowledge skill higher than the active skill increases the threshold required to Glitch by 1. Alternately, you can choose to have it remove a 1 from relevant rolls, depending on Table consensus. This represents characters who know better than "pull out barbed arrow and stick gauze over gushing wound".

JustADude

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« Reply #486 on: <11-19-12/2006:27> »
Recent topics have got me thinking... I like ambushes, and want to encourage players to use them them, so here's a House Rule to make it more useful to bring Surprise into your combat situations:

Essentially, the losing characters on a Surprise Test are left flat footed for a number of Action Phases (i.e. IPs they get to act on) based on the "deficit" in Surprise hits compared to the highest roll... lets call it their Surprise Rating. Every time the person who has been surprised would have an Action Phase they forfeit it and, instead, reduce their Surprise Rating by 1 until it's gone, which leaves them free to act on their next Action Phase.

PCs and "Prime Runner" NPCs (but not "Grunt" or "Lieutenant" NPCs, no matter their Professional Rating) may spend Edge to reduce their Surprise Rating by their Edge, to a minimum of 0, thus further separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to being a badass.

---   ---   ---

I think it not only makes Surprise and ambushes more realistic, since the amount of time spent going "WTF Is Happening?!?!" in a surprise situation really does vary significantly between people, but it's a much needed perk for Adepts, since they can easily make themselves Surprise Kings by taking Combat Sense.
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AffreuxLex

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« Reply #487 on: <12-07-12/2307:03> »
Going back many posts about the contacts' availability.  I don't know if I saw this somewhere or I just made shi...stuff up but what I had my old group do to see if a contact is available is to roll a D6 and compare it to their connection rating. 

Rating 6 people would be much harder to get to.  Either they are busy, some secretary refuses to pass on the call, they're in a meeting, aren't taking calls, away on business, any number of things.  Where as someone with a connection 1 rating is probably home playing some VR game waiting on a call from his drug dealer... or you... whichever comes first.

So anyway, if they have a connection rating 1, they are always available.  Connection 2 you roll a 2 or higher and you get a hold of them,  3 roll a 3 or higher, etc.  This way a connection 6 contact is only available ~17% of the time.

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Another house rule I like is right from the core rule book.  Limit hits on skills to rating * 2.  Just because you're agile enough to bend yourself in half and lick your own belly button doesn't mean you should have the potential to shoot a gun with 7 or 8 hits on a skill level of 1.  However I ignore that limitation whenever edge is used.

Xzylvador

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« Reply #488 on: <12-08-12/0536:57> »
Going back many posts about the contacts' availability.  I don't know if I saw this somewhere or I just made shi...stuff up but what I had my old group do to see if a contact is available is to roll a D6 and compare it to their connection rating. 

Rating 6 people would be much harder to get to.  Either they are busy, some secretary refuses to pass on the call, they're in a meeting, aren't taking calls, away on business, any number of things.  Where as someone with a connection 1 rating is probably home playing some VR game waiting on a call from his drug dealer... or you... whichever comes first.

So anyway, if they have a connection rating 1, they are always available.  Connection 2 you roll a 2 or higher and you get a hold of them,  3 roll a 3 or higher, etc.  This way a connection 6 contact is only available ~17% of the time.

Not a bad idea, though it does seem to be missing a Loyalty modifier.
Calling Corporate Bigshot Did-A-Job-For-Him-Once (L1, C6) while he's in a meeting will get you an automated "please call back later" message.
But Corporate Bigshot Saved-His-And-His-Families-Life (L6, C6) might occasionally risk interrupting the meeting to take "a very important call.".

Prodigy

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« Reply #489 on: <12-08-12/0643:19> »
Also, what if they are connection 8? The made man quality comes to mind (group contact connection 8 loyalty 4). So I'm in the mob, but can never get a hold of anyone?

Novocrane

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« Reply #490 on: <12-08-12/0758:11> »
That 8 connection is, I believe, intended for purchase of more people, magic, matrix presence or land influence. In which case, it should be written as X[8]. Where X is the remainder after you fill in the other four blanks.
« Last Edit: <12-09-12/0539:11> by Novocrane »

AffreuxLex

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« Reply #491 on: <12-08-12/1222:47> »
Going back many posts about the contacts' availability.  I don't know if I saw this somewhere or I just made shi...stuff up but what I had my old group do to see if a contact is available is to roll a D6 and compare it to their connection rating. 

Rating 6 people would be much harder to get to.  Either they are busy, some secretary refuses to pass on the call, they're in a meeting, aren't taking calls, away on business, any number of things.  Where as someone with a connection 1 rating is probably home playing some VR game waiting on a call from his drug dealer... or you... whichever comes first.

So anyway, if they have a connection rating 1, they are always available.  Connection 2 you roll a 2 or higher and you get a hold of them,  3 roll a 3 or higher, etc.  This way a connection 6 contact is only available ~17% of the time.

Not a bad idea, though it does seem to be missing a Loyalty modifier.
Calling Corporate Bigshot Did-A-Job-For-Him-Once (L1, C6) while he's in a meeting will get you an automated "please call back later" message.
But Corporate Bigshot Saved-His-And-His-Families-Life (L6, C6) might occasionally risk interrupting the meeting to take "a very important call.".

We never bothered with modifiers with the loyalty because it is meant to just keep the game pace going.  In role playing terms I would just include the chance that the contact might interrupt a meeting in those 1 in 6 odds. Maybe if a player spent a point of edge and added total edge to the roll to modify the results.  Then they are far more likely to catch a lucky break and catch the contact at a good time.  However that still seems to me as an over complication of a simplification.

JustADude

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« Reply #492 on: <12-08-12/1412:55> »
That 8 connection is, I believe, intended for purchase of more people, magic, matrix presence or land influence. In which case, it should be written as X( 8 ). Where X is the remainder after you fill in the other four blanks.

I've pretty much done something pretty similar. With groups, I take the base Connection rating as a measure of how involved the group is with other groups, thus how tied up their resources are, while the GC mods are how much they can do with their own infrastructure.

I also subtract Loyalty from Connection for the threshold, but you have to beat it, not just equal it... i.e. Connect 6, Loyalty 5 means you need a 2 or greater.
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Prodigy

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« Reply #493 on: <12-09-12/0119:58> »
What if connection 3, loyalty 5?

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #494 on: <12-09-12/0123:22> »
That 8 connection is, I believe, intended for purchase of more people, magic, matrix presence or land influence. In which case, it should be written as X( 8 ). Where X is the remainder after you fill in the other four blanks.

I've pretty much done something pretty similar. With groups, I take the base Connection rating as a measure of how involved the group is with other groups, thus how tied up their resources are, while the GC mods are how much they can do with their own infrastructure.

I also subtract Loyalty from Connection for the threshold, but you have to beat it, not just equal it... i.e. Connect 6, Loyalty 5 means you need a 2 or greater.

With so many points in such a contact, it's best to always have them available.

What if connection 3, loyalty 5?

That goes for this as well.

About the only time I can see a contact not being available is a Loyalty 1, Connection 1.
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