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Combat is SR6?

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Marcus

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« Reply #225 on: <08-08-19/1328:53> »
Well, there's an important distinction between redundancy and uselessness. Perhaps that's too pedantic for us to agree that the distinction is meaningful, though.

I am that pedantic. By most standards of redundancy that isn't redundant. As in, it is not a failsafe, or extra cushon, or anything beneficial. Having a 'backup' isn't always a virtue or good design (From a player's perspective) if it will never have value. Ex: You would never ever build a PC with two implanted guns of the same type in SR5 because that 'redundancy' adds no value. There isn't a scenario where the second would be useful if the first isn't.
+1

Redundancy implies situational usefulness and as is pointed out this isn't the case.

AR and DR if you insist on having them, should be linked to an active mechanic, they could easily have been a Defense TN and To Hit Bonus. That could have simplified combat further reducing out the number of rolls needed. Sure you would need increase input values to both, but certainly could have been doable.

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Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #226 on: <08-08-19/1336:09> »
On my phone so the whole cut quote stuff is a pain.

Dez my issue with crazy edge moves is it gives the over the top moves to everyone not just sams. I’d of developed the minor action thing as the currency for over the top. Currently minor actions feel more like a tax than cool moves.

Take anticipation. Instead of being a edge move if scaling minor actions use determined how many people you could attack and what penalty you’d be at a street sam with 5 minors would look like a bad ass compared to a decker. As is the decker can pull off anticipation just as easily.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #227 on: <08-08-19/1343:28> »
While everyone can do over the top moves thanks to edge, not everyone has the spare actions left over to save/use for not getting killed.

That's also the same reason why sammies with a ton of actions probably won't be routinely cashing the minors in for a 2nd major.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #228 on: <08-08-19/1357:39> »
Nobody's dumb enough to not wear any armor. If you were armorless I'd give your enemies a second Edge point. Not sure why people constantly fall back to no-armor arguments.
Because they feel the system doesn't correctly incentivise PCs to wear armour. Which you appear to be agreeing with, as you just suggested a rule to increase the incentive...
No I do NOT. There is nothing in my posting history that excuses that lie. I do not believe in the no-armor arguments and never will. Armor is plenty significant. Period.
« Last Edit: <08-08-19/1400:00> by Michael Chandra »
How am I not part of the forum?? O_O I am both active and angry!

Lormyr

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« Reply #229 on: <08-08-19/1358:40> »
The issue here is those NPCs are not dangerous enough for any PC

That is not true at all. Non-combat specialized characters are going to get absolutely wrecked in this edition when they are attacked by a dedicated assailant(s).

Any NPC really dangerous enough to threaten players is also too dangerous for the Samurai

The thing is building durable in this edition doesn't mean tanky (soak), it means get the hell out of the way (defense test). You could get away with #1 in 5e even if #2 was stronger. A character who dedicated his stats to body, reaction, and intuition, and his ware to bone lacing, wired reflexes, and reaction enhancers will be a lot more durable than one who didn't.

The bane of any attempt to take a hit is grenades. Those will mow through any build now, and are the biggest problem against trying to build defensively.

In essence, PC combat potential is now crazy flat

I agree. You come out the door about as durable as you will ever be unless you're a physical adept.

Samurai basically don't exist this edition. The most iconic role in SR just vanished in a puff of edge.

I would instead say combat durability doesn't exist this edition, but I digress.

Well, there's an important distinction between redundancy and uselessness. Perhaps that's too pedantic for us to agree that the distinction is meaningful, though.

Perhaps. I wouldn't call my natural body + one supernatural power + worn armor redundant at all, though. Hell in the case of a troll you don't even really need the power, it's just exceptional body 10 and watch 98% of weapon attacks fail their AR. That's pretty well the opposite of redundant to me. Two armor jackets is redundant. :p

While everyone can do over the top moves thanks to edge, not everyone has the spare actions left over to save/use for not getting killed.

This. You want to save your life? Stats, armor, favor of some dark god, edge be damned, action economy is the most valuable resource. Not really my cup of tea gaming-wise, but thems the breaks this edition.
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

Lormyr

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« Reply #230 on: <08-08-19/1409:01> »
No I do NOT. There is nothing in my posting history that excuses that lie. I do not believe in the no-armor arguments and never will. Armor is plenty significant. Period.

Situationally significant. Situationally useless. Your opinion is perfectly valid, but you can't ignore the mechanics.
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

dezmont

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« Reply #231 on: <08-08-19/1424:18> »

That is not true at all. Non-combat specialized characters are going to get absolutely wrecked in this edition when they are attacked by a dedicated assailant(s).

But we were not talking about a dedicated assailant. We were talking about a combat NPC with 6 attack. Because defense scaling for non-adepts is essentially flat, this means that pretty much anyone who invests remotely in a defense oriented attribute is going to be fine vs this NPC. This is not a point in the samurai's favor.


The thing is building durable in this edition doesn't mean tanky (soak), it means get the hell out of the way (defense test). You could get away with #1 in 5e even if #2 was stronger. A character who dedicated his stats to body, reaction, and intuition, and his ware to bone lacing, wired reflexes, and reaction enhancers will be a lot more durable than one who didn't.

Body hardly matters this edition because soak scaling is so flat that the difference in dice does not statistically matter vs hits. Like the reason soak tanks worked is because you could scale soak high enough to get really consistent results. Like its easier to take no damage on average because of how low DV numbers are now, but in reality defense dice are all that matter now because of how autofire works and because soak doesn't scale due to both its low value and new edge. The variance is extremely high, a dicepool of 9 will roll 2 less successes than they expected around 35% of the time, while one of 30 will roll 2 less than espected about 12 percent of the time. Low soak-low DV actually means you take DV more often than you used to despite the fact it is easier to get to the point your soak is nominally negating all damage on average, your expected damage is high enough that you will just go down if you take fire where as before that wasn't the case.

Reaction and Intuition fare better, but in reality your goal to survive combat in SR6 is to get to having two major actions and then using full defense, because it scales significantly more aggressively than base stats. This is kinda sorta ok because it still gives a clear path to intense damage resistance, but it isn't gated at all.

Defense dice to consistently avoid attacks are a low hanging fruit in SR, especially now that we are back to pseudo 4e autofire. Like, yeah, wired is expensive, but it isn't so expensive that faces won't take it. Riggers don't work this edition, so that leaves mages (Who have spirits who CAN soak tank) and hackers (Who may not even really be an archetype). Faces have never been afraid of a 200k, 3 ess dip to get initiative, and this edition makes that a better deal. So the only real durability option that matters is going to be on the other main mundane archetype that still exists.

And this hypothetically gets worse as more defensive tools are added to the game, which is hard to imagine not happening. Like its cool if you think thematically that defense dice are cooler than soak, but it doesn't work well in terms of being the samurai's niche because that isn't a 'ware package, that is the minimum required 'ware to participate in combat that almost every PC grabs anyway.


I agree. You come out the door about as durable as you will ever be unless you're a physical adept.

That isn't what i am saying. I am saying a Samurai does not resist damage (As in, both soak and defense dice) better than any other type of PC to a meaningful level. It got way more flat because you do not have meaningful outcome differences from any Joe Blow who took wired reflexes. Bone Lacing, Dermal Armor, none of that makes sense to take because it changes your expected outcomes so little, where as before getting tough was HARD.

So this isn't a more lethal edition. It is an edition where your either not taking DV or your dying. Just like 4e. And 4e's combat meta was freaking awful.

It is super ironic. In trying to make it so that NPCs who could hurt the samurai didn't instagib everyone else, an edition was made where, realistically, no PC is getting hurt until everyone is constantly getting slammed by damage INCLUDING the samurai. There isn't an inbetween.

No I do NOT. There is nothing in my posting history that excuses that lie. I do not believe in the no-armor arguments and never will. Armor is plenty significant. Period.
[/quote]

If you are going to admit no new evidence under any circumstance can change your mind, that is fine, but it means you shouldn't be participating in discussions about this because you admit your position is not based on reality but an irrationally held belief that, regardless of if it is true or not, does not depend on what is actually true.

"You can't change my mind, no matter what" is like literally the definition of intellectually dishonest debating, it is possibly the most extreme form of self deception.

And, to be clear, you probably do want to wear SOME armor, the idea that you would legit be 100% unaffected by going naked it sorta a strawman. The point is armor is extremely devalued to the point in the vast majority of cases it does not actually matter.

Not worthless, but its akin to the difference of how 5e concealments below -2 worked. Like the outcome difference of a -4 conceal weapon and a -6 conceal weapon statistically existed in the same way there is theoretically a chance I will be struck by lightning right now. Like yeah a -6 means I literally can't fail to conceal that weapon vs corpsec when naked but in practice I am always putting my weapons in concealed holsters to negate that anyway and even if I didn't I am not going to lose sleep over a 1% chance of failure when I can re-roll to nuke that to literally less than a 1 in 10,000 chance. Anything else I could spend the resources I expended to get that conceal would be better.

In the case of 6e's armor, you, again, probably will be willing to drop 1k on an armored jacket just because maybe one day you might run into a 5 man gang with Ares Alphas, but even then that is sorta irrational because its far more likely for that 1k to actually help you doing almost anything else than to prevent a grunt group from getting edge attacking you maybe once over your entire career, because you need to A: be in that scenario, B: Be attacked, and C: need to have that edge point be a meaningful difference maker (in the sense it changes the outcome, so some long term negative effect needs to occur because of that edge existing that would not occur if it didn't AND which outweighs the benefits of the 1k you spent on... IDK... an autopicker).

In essence, the math just says no to armor in SR6 once you actually invest in not taking damage, which is weird.
« Last Edit: <08-08-19/1440:37> by dezmont »

penllawen

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« Reply #232 on: <08-08-19/1430:59> »
Nobody's dumb enough to not wear any armor. If you were armorless I'd give your enemies a second Edge point. Not sure why people constantly fall back to no-armor arguments.
Because they feel the system doesn't correctly incentivise PCs to wear armour. Which you appear to be agreeing with, as you just suggested a rule to increase the incentive...
No I do NOT. There is nothing in my posting history that excuses that lie. I do not believe in the no-armor arguments and never will. Armor is plenty significant. Period.
Then why would you "give your enemies a second Edge point"?

dezmont

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« Reply #233 on: <08-08-19/1443:34> »
Nobody's dumb enough to not wear any armor. If you were armorless I'd give your enemies a second Edge point. Not sure why people constantly fall back to no-armor arguments.
Because they feel the system doesn't correctly incentivise PCs to wear armour. Which you appear to be agreeing with, as you just suggested a rule to increase the incentive...
No I do NOT. There is nothing in my posting history that excuses that lie. I do not believe in the no-armor arguments and never will. Armor is plenty significant. Period.
Then why would you "give your enemies a second Edge point"?

+1

This is literally the Oberoni Fallacy: It isn't a problem because I will make a houserule to fix the problem that doesn't exist. The fix can't exist without recognizing the problem that the fix nominally makes not exist.

Lormyr

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« Reply #234 on: <08-08-19/1452:23> »
But we were not talking about a dedicated assailant. We were talking about a combat NPC with 6 attack. Because defense scaling for non-adepts is essentially flat, this means that pretty much anyone who invests remotely in a defense oriented attribute is going to be fine vs this NPC.

To be clear by dedicated I meant you can't just flee - you'll have to fight. I didn't mean someone more skilled.

With your clarification, I somewhat agree. If the street sam maxs body/reaction/intuition and other character does the same, the difference isn't likely to be more than a few dice. Not all other characters will have the option to do that, though. Have you seen the attribute priority chart? It is incredibly unforgiving.

Lots of shit on soaking, dodging, and what to spend essence/money on

I mostly agree. The only area my opinion really differs is that I would be stacking body/soak with my defense dice for maximum durability.

That isn't what i am saying. I am saying a Samurai does not resist damage (As in, both soak and defense dice) better than any other type of PC to a meaningful level. you do not have meaningful outcome differences from any Joe Blow who took wired reflexes. Bone Lacing, Dermal Armor

I would argue that a character with bone lacing, wired reflexes, and dermal armor is a "street samurai", but that is really just semantics. Because this is not a class system but a build system, I am not really sure what point you are trying to make. I basically read your statement as "A street sam does not resist damage better than any other type of PC who bought the same stuff to resist damage".
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #235 on: <08-08-19/1455:34> »
While everyone can do over the top moves thanks to edge, not everyone has the spare actions left over to save/use for not getting killed.

That's also the same reason why sammies with a ton of actions probably won't be routinely cashing the minors in for a 2nd major.

I suspect they almost never will be cashing it in for two majors outside ambushes. They will almost always need 1 minor, probably 2 so you won’t see the 2nd major for an attack. Maybe a second major for full defense so you don’t have to think about it much.

Minors are a tax now. Minor to do everything, so people stay static and save them for a dodge. Creates a boring gameplay imo.

One thing I’m curious to see is supposedly certain items give you a bonus minor to do a certain action I assume like a quick draw holster or something. But does that bonus minor count against the overall limit of 5 minors.

penllawen

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« Reply #236 on: <08-08-19/1500:18> »
One thing I’m curious to see is supposedly certain items give you a bonus minor to do a certain action I assume like a quick draw holster or something. But does that bonus minor count against the overall limit of 5 minors.
I think maybe it doesn't? I've read elsewhere that it's written as "when you spend a Minor action on X, get another Minor action for free." I think it's worded that way to bypass the "you can only start a turn with 5 Minor actions" limit. Which is a reasonable way to set it up, IMO.

dezmont

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« Reply #237 on: <08-08-19/1529:01> »

I would argue that a character with bone lacing, wired reflexes, and dermal armor is a "street samurai", but that is really just semantics. Because this is not a class system but a build system, I am not really sure what point you are trying to make. I basically read your statement as "A street sam does not resist damage better than any other type of PC who bought the same stuff to resist damage".

The key here is to recognize the bone lacing and dermal armor as redundant. Like it doesn't improve your outcomes anymore than full body armor does.

Well... it does. Just not meaningfully.

Like lets say your being attacked by a Sioux Wildcat. They can't use grenades because argle bargle, foofaraw, hey diddy hoe diddy no one knows.

Actually no, its a hostage situation or your in a lab or whatever.

You got two PCs out of gen: Identical in every way save one has bone lacing and bone density for 2 extra soak, and your body is 2 higher, the other doesn't cuz they got nerd crud like... tailored pheromones or a datajack or the like. You both got 6 athletics. Intuition is kinda a really good attribute for deckers and faces so they got 5, just like you. You got 1 more base reaction because, hey, why not, and have 5 base, while they have 4. You both have wired 3, cuz you wanted two majors and a spare minor and to be frank it is so ridiculously a good breakpoint for 'wired it is gunna be bigger than taking 2 levels of monk in D&D 3.5, its all the rage, everyone who is anyone is doing it. You also both have an athletics reflex recorder because gosh darn if that little bit of nerve clusters still isn't one of the most insane deals in the game.

Also, you got dermal plating. It doesn't help you cuz your already generating max edge. While it is funny to just not wear any armor, just buy an armored jacket and save your essence if you REALLY gotta.

This is the most favorable grunt to go up against. Your nominal advantage vs this face gets smaller against lower skill opponents. You mostly will fight like... corpsec mind, but lets look at the ideal case scenario, the 'build around.'

You, the swole Samurai, take 0 DV after this attack 56% of the time. The average damage you take is 2.34, but when hit you will usually take 5-6 damage. You take 8+ DV around 3% of the time, and will go down in statistically about 3-4 attacks.

The stupid nerd who just took the wired reflexes takes 0 DV 47% of the time. A difference of about 10%, meaning around 1 in 10 attacks will hit them for their lowered reaction in this scenario that wouldn't hit you. Their average damage taken per attack is 3.43 and they take an average of 5-6 damage, just like you, per attack. Their damage trends upwards slightly higher, 6% of the time they take 8+ damage in a single attack, but they ALSO go down in 3-4 hits, and they don't meaningfully lean more towards 3 than you do, that 3-4 mostly comes from miss rate, which is nearly identical for you two. If you were willing to spend edge, it becomes more so, both your expected TTKs pretty much jump to eating 5 attacks lock step.

Vs weaker enemies rolling less dice, like something weak... lets say... a Red Samurai, those chumps, attacks do 0DV to you 75% of the time and 0 DV to the nerd about 66% of the time. Again, a gain of about 10%, or 1 in 10 attacks. Takes about 5 attacks to down them, about 5 to down you. Basic corpsec? Your miss rate differs by 1%, your both dodging over 95% of the time, the nerd at 96%, you at 97%, your average damage is crazy low, you take .009, they take .018, which is technically 'half' what they take but like what is the difference in dying after being attacked 10,000 times rather than 5,000?

That is the problem with really flat defenses where the biggest game changer is hit vs not hit: The outcomes are mostly the same and are mostly dictated by 'can I get a second major' which means if you ever intend to fight at all you will do a lot to get the second major, and in doing so your outcomes pretty much become identical in most circumstances to the guy who went all in on it. Like, yeah again the samurai technically took 1 less attack out of 10 vs the really elite folks, but that isn't going to realistically be a difference maker in most fights because your TTKS are so identical the shooting basically has to IMMEDIATELY stop after the face or decker gets 'unlucky' and falls prey to their inferior statistics. Neither PCs are likely at all to go down in one hit, the odds of that 'lucky shot' are basically identical, so the outcome really doesn't change outside of a super specific scenario. You aren't even dealing with a lot of variance, both PCs are pretty darn stable at resisting damage.

This is a problem SPECIFICALLY in the context of the concept of the samurai. I don't mind faces being tough, I think 5e handled that well by making it easy to not die instantly in a gunfight but really hard to become bullet immune. The issue is when there is no gap in performance for samurai defensively, and they haven't gained meaningful combat utility, the entire point of a samurai gets eroded. The math of this edition REALLY doesn't favor combat investments beyond wired 3 and a reflex recorder, and that basically means that dedicated combat PCs don't... make sense. You basically always are better off playing a face who also has wired 3 and combat skills and totally ignoring all the cool cyborg parts you can nab which... sucks?

Like it sucks that cyberlimbs, titanium bones, crazy body armor, ect don't... make any sense to take. Its bad design when the fantasy of playing a metahuman Terminator is something that sold SR for 5 editions but 6th comes along and basically... removes it?

EDIT: Funny thing about these numbers. I accidently made the face have 3 less defense dice, rather than 1 like I said, on this samurai, as well as 4 less soak. That means the actual outcomes are much closer than what I wrote. For example, vs the Wildcat, it is 56 vs 55% chance of being hit, and their average damage per attack is 3.09. Still pretty much the same TTK, but the variance is pretty much identical meaning the outcome is essentially identical: Only 1 in 100 attacks will meaningly be different between these two PCs. Is 2 attribute points and 1 essence to get a 1% chance of not going down to an attack that would down you if you didn't take those worth it? I dunno. It is a less than 1% chance, its more like 1 in 200 attacks a freakin wildcat makes against you will care about those differences. You gunna even be attacked by a Wildcat 200 times? You gunna be attacked by a Wildcat more than like... 4 times in a campaign? Is that really going to help you more than taking tailored 3 and an extra 3 charisma going to help you? Or more perception, or more stealth? You probably will positively affect your outcome hundreds of times in a campaign with those abilities you gave up that soak for, including by allowing you entirely new avenues to solve problems. None of this is 'cheese.' None of this is 'minmaxing.' 6e's philosophy of 'have the GM balance their table' doesn't work here because the Face isn't eve 'technically' playing within the rules, they are 100% within the spirit of the rules. They are acting totally in good faith here and there isn't a realistic option to fix this that isn't essentially 'be really mean to the face' or 'houserule to the point the system dramatically changes resembling a re-write of the core combat system. ALL the face did was invest in a few attributes and take 'wired 3. They didn't do any Pun-Pun weirdness or quickened buff spell edge-reagent combo exploitating that you can point to and say 'Ahah, that is the problem' because everything that allows this is working exactly the way it is meant to work in every context.

Opportunity cost is real, and opportunity cost says Samurai are a dead archetype. Long live wired 3.

Also, TTK means 'time to kill.' Basically how many attacks/actions it takes to ice ya.

This is all also assuming you didn't increase athletics ever, purely out of gen stuff. Once you start bumping your defense dice via bumping athletics the gap closes even more in favor of the non-samurai: Even if they don't invest as deeply their investments scale down slower than the samurai and thus the gap shrinks unless the samurai really goes ham and the other guy totally abandons defense, but even then we aren't talking any difference vs anything outside of Red-Sams and Wildcats.
« Last Edit: <08-08-19/1550:48> by dezmont »

Finstersang

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« Reply #238 on: <08-08-19/1604:29> »
A lot of this argument circles around the hyperbolic notion that Armor is completely , 100% useless in 6th Edition.

This is obviously not true. Armor can help you get Edge or help you deny Edge gain for your opposition. Also, worn armor houses additional enhancements. So no, there´s no reason to go in naked or in a mankini except for the Lulz.   

But what´s also a fact is that the AR-DR mechanic (which, just a little reminder, also encompasses Range, Recoil and many gear options) is extremely prone to creating situations in which a chunk of Armor (and/or the current Range band, firing mode...) actually doesn´t matter. This is due to the fact that

  • a. It´s a very coarse-grained system in general, with only 3 bands of possible outcomes.
  • b. The AR-DR comparison it only generates Edge, which is limited by 2 per rounds. If the Defender or Attacker is already full, there´s only 2 possible outcomes left. And if both are full or can´t get Edge for some other dumb reason (stares intensely at Cover IV), then it´s actually 100% irrelevant.

A lot of people noticed this. Many don´t like it. Some are angry. Some say that Trolls in mankinis will be the new meta, which is obviously a hyperbole. But the problem behind this is real. This system creates too many situations in which individual tactical choices, gear or other perks don´t offer a benefit. 

Typhus

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« Reply #239 on: <08-08-19/1616:43> »
^ Precisely said.  Major detraction of the system for me, and a strong factor in deciding not to invest in it.