NEWS

5e dnd vs 6e SR. Seeking simplicity and why edge failed,

  • 124 Replies
  • 22862 Views

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #30 on: <06-06-20/1320:48> »
I do think spitting armor back into Impact and Ballistic is wise, and not overly complex, and allows for more exact damage tuning.

Sorting out the magic equation is complex, with a lot of moving parts. I don't really love UMT, and I don't mind the idea of rolling back to Hermetic and Shamanic. That said I like the idea of making Summoning into a ritual magic application, and the leaning on the new decreased scaling to keep spirits form running out of hand. My current thought on the action economy governor is half casting attribute (ie Cha or Log, aka 2 max). We can spec out spirits back toward what they were previously with runes, making them stronger via more dice under specific circumstance. But no more anonymous spirits, I what to encourage spirit relationships, something that should also tie into mentor spirits.

The question is initiative, as you said that system has changed repeatedly. First we liked dynamic initiative and then we liked static initiative. Passes, Actions, attack limits etc, etc.

So Static is easier to follow. So it will be static, passes are very tempting, but I don't think it actually helps. I'm good with reac+int, as the primary determinate plus 1d6. which going to look something 6-8 with 10 being the outside of for PCs. NPC probably 3-5. We can make additional intuitive die a possible Augment/Rune. That will keep Initiative totals blow 20 which makes rounds easier to number.

Action economy i'm good with, under the augment system, No PCs will start with more then 3 half actions, and I'm good with leaving the cap at 6. So you won't see 2 attack per round until an initiative augment/rune. Multi-attack I'm ready to just make them as AoE effects and Subject to the limitation of AoE effects.

Damage is really the question. So my logic on damage goes like this, base weapons damage vs base armor damage will cancel, So damage that goes through will be generated from other sources. For melee it will primarily be the difference between the Targets body and Attacker Strength, after that from weapon Augments, and of course damage from success to hit over Defense target. Where Guns damage adds will come from sights, ammo augments, and success over defense. Which should keep gun damage reasonably below melee damage, particularly in the early game. To assist this, damage can be tuned more exactly using ballistic vs guns and impact vs melee. That will allow easy curve shifts if so combination proves to push out of hand. I'm certainly want to Physical and Stun damage categories, and encourage use of stun damage.
« Last Edit: <06-06-20/1325:58> by Marcus »
*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #31 on: <06-06-20/1456:54> »
I do think spitting armor back into Impact and Ballistic is wise, and not overly complex, and allows for more exact damage tuning.

I think a lot of systems suffered from this. It wasn't necessarily a bad choice but they didn't account for how it would affect the value of certain things (ex: Clubs). Still, the seperate armor system contributed to the game being extremely lethal in 4e along with other things in a way that pushed to more optimization, not less. So it is a rough needle to thread. It definitely is clear is that AP alone doesn't do a good job to actually make a weapon 'armor piercing' because it is effectively reskinned generic DV.

Sorting out the magic equation is complex, with a lot of moving parts. I don't really love UMT, and I don't mind the idea of rolling back to Hermetic and Shamanic.

That had to change for meta reasons. I highly doubt we will ever see that come back as a hard coded aspect of traditions due to how it played into a consistent criticism of Shadowrun and its.... clumsy handling of tropes involving Native Americans. The fact that the 'tradition altering' qualities A: aren't mandatory, and B: can be taken by any tradition in general is the best fix to get the game mechanic/character customization element back.

It is one of those things that now its gone it is sorta clear how not helpful to the lore it was, and much like metahuman mental penalties I can't see it coming back now that it means people are aware of the real world implications of the mechanic (in this case, maybe not great to make Native American wizards fundamentally different and incompatible with the 'western worldview', more 'attuned to nature,' likely to act anticlimactically due to mentors, and all about talking to ghosts, all of which are very consistent criticisms a consistent way Native Americans are portrayed in media).

That said I like the idea of making Summoning into a ritual magic application, and the leaning on the new decreased scaling to keep spirits form running out of hand.

Decreasing the size of the scale and making each 1 jump bigger without changing the fact spirits scale off force would increase the problem, not decrease it. It isn't that spirits get 'big numbers' so much as that every spirit ability scales by 2 dice for every force they have, and the difference between a force 4 and a force 6 as a result is giant because they gain some odd 5 dice to resist damage if they full defense (effectively like some odd 6.5 due to hardened armor), 2 dice to hit you, 2 DV due to universally having a +force to melee DV power, and +2 to initiative. You can sorta evaluate your summoning tests as a buff your 'casting' on the spirit, with every hit you can get increasing those numbers by 1, which really helps show how out of line the rate of stat increases are (because most buffs only increase one of these values by 1 every hit). Ritualized summoning certainly isn't a bad idea though, as is the idea of spirits being more personable, as both help stop the 'I pull a street sam out of my butt' problem.

The question is initiative, as you said that system has changed repeatedly. First we liked dynamic initiative and then we liked static initiative. Passes, Actions, attack limits etc, etc.

So Static is easier to follow. So it will be static, passes are very tempting, but I don't think it actually helps. I'm good with reac+int, as the primary determinate plus 1d6. which going to look something 6-8 with 10 being the outside of for PCs. NPC probably 3-5. We can make additional intuitive die a possible Augment/Rune. That will keep Initiative totals blow 20 which makes rounds easier to number.

Action economy i'm good with, under the augment system, No PCs will start with more then 3 half actions, and I'm good with leaving the cap at 6. So you won't see 2 attack per round until an initiative augment/rune. Multi-attack I'm ready to just make them as AoE effects and Subject to the limitation of AoE effects.

Another potential thing you could do is just remove extra actions, reduce melee down to a simple, and make certain augmentations grand very specific bonus actions to help differentiate characters in scrunched systems. Overall though this seems pretty sensible as long as you recognize this robs dedicated combat PCs of a lot of power, which 6e kinda didn't, and I think is one of its biggest failings.

Damage is really the question. So my logic on damage goes like this, base weapons damage vs base armor damage will cancel, So damage that goes through will be generated from other sources. For melee it will primarily be the difference between the Targets body and Attacker Strength, after that from weapon Augments, and of course damage from success to hit over Defense target. Where Guns damage adds will come from sights, ammo augments, and success over defense. Which should keep gun damage reasonably below melee damage, particularly in the early game. To assist this, damage can be tuned more exactly using ballistic vs guns and impact vs melee. That will allow easy curve shifts if so combination proves to push out of hand. I'm certainly want to Physical and Stun damage categories, and encourage use of stun damage.

This is where ya lose me. I get your logic on brutes being fun to fight on the previous page, but that is in D&D 4e where fights are way more involved for everyone. SR fights aren't exactly the focus of the system, it isn't a game about two sides wailing on each other, and a long combat resolution system where both sides struggle to do serious damage to each other hurts the 'run and gun, this isn't our main goal so lets finish it quick' feel of combat a lot. It also makes the capability to deal damage to certain targets very static which we learned from spirits isn't fun at all, and it wasn't even really fun in D&D 4e: A huge complaint about the 4e core Monster Manual was fights took too long to resolve which is why the average HP for encounters was dropped like 5 times over for 5e D&D (and why they dropped it by a percentage in 4e's MM2, I forget the exact number but I think it was 33%? Don't quote me): It is way more fun for your attack to connect and down an enemy very consistently each turn rather than to wail on one security guard as a 4 man group and maybe not even down them. 5e D&D also focused on PCs consistently hitting, and very large damage swings with healing abilities being much stronger to compensate, and more damage being in dice than modifiers. D&D basically took the opposite lesson you took from thugs: people DON'T like their HITS to feel like nothing, a miss at least explains why nothing happened, but hitting a big whammy of an attack and not even bloodying your target sucked. Most modern RPGs go very far out of their way to avoid 'nothing' turns now. PBTA for example lets you ensure a big damage hit even on a 'miss' because its more interesting to allow your action to have a positive result for you with a lot of downsides than to say 'nothing happened.' Same with BITD, despite it being a way lower power concept than SR (Killer cyborgs and awesome wizards vs... scrappy pseudo-victorian thieves) it understands, especially in a heist game, you don't want to get bogged down.

One of the fun things about SR, at least for me, is that combat is easily tuneable around PCs having consistent 1 hit downs even as non-street samurai, and no-selling most attacks: Corpsec are trying to accomplish something, like locking shutters, sounding alarms, ect, and for most PCs the cost of a good enemy attack is your edge ticking down which increases tension without having to make damage irrelevant via strong healing resources. You can have a team of 4 fight 8 corpsec and not just win, but generally win within a single combat turn, maybe two if one or two of the PCs are good at multi-attack. SR doesn't have, and doesn't need, a CR system because of this reality and why it does so well with the LC model where PCs have vastly different power levels: the goal of your opfor isn't to create a room in a dungeon, its an element of a puzzle. It leans heavily into the idea that the fights don't need to be fair for the NPCs to still be interesting and is one of the main ways it feels different from most editions of D&D.

This is easily the main complaint I see about 6e SR in regards to combat: It tries to take a D&D style grinder fight system where both sides exchange blows dramatically until one side falls, but it really doesn't fit into what SR is trying to do and results in you needing an average of 4 shots at a corpsec to down them with a basic 12 dice combatant using a beefy heavy assault rifle, where before you needed 2, and that was just because misses are 0 DV.

It isn't like that system couldn't work. It just proooobably needs a grunt rule ala D&D 4e where a category of enemy exists that will always go down in 1-2 shots and which is allowed to be consistently able to influence the fight but not mega deadly.

I definitely see where you are going with it though, in terms of having more stability in damage. The idea of some mods being DV increases that you wouldn't expect is interesting for example.
« Last Edit: <06-06-20/1507:06> by dezmont »

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #32 on: <06-06-20/1633:45> »
I think a lot of systems suffered from this. It wasn't necessarily a bad choice but they didn't account for how it would affect the value of certain things (ex: Clubs). Still, the seperate armor system contributed to the game being extremely lethal in 4e along with other things in a way that pushed to more optimization, not less. So it is a rough needle to thread. It definitely is clear is that AP alone doesn't do a good job to actually make a weapon 'armor piercing' because it is effectively reskinned generic DV.

I think we basicly agree on this easy tune to variable are good. My current concept on the armor penetration tag will be that halves soak, and its counter by the hardened tag, which will making 1/4 soak. Tags will add effects which will vary based upon what they are and what effect will be my preferred solution. I'm not looking to put AP back in. Something similar with an elemental tag and elemental type defense tag. (Electrical vs Insulated, toxic vs sealed etc)

That had to change for meta reasons. I highly doubt we will ever see that come back as a hard coded aspect of traditions due to how it played into a consistent criticism of Shadowrun and its.... clumsy handling of tropes involving Native Americans. The fact that the 'tradition altering' qualities A: aren't mandatory, and B: can be taken by any tradition in general is the best fix to get the game mechanic/character customization element back.

It is one of those things that now its gone it is sorta clear how not helpful to the lore it was, and much like metahuman mental penalties I can't see it coming back now that it means people are aware of the real world implications of the mechanic (in this case, maybe not great to make Native American wizards fundamentally different and incompatible with the 'western worldview', more 'attuned to nature,' likely to act anticlimactically due to mentors, and all about talking to ghosts, all of which are very consistent criticisms a consistent way Native Americans are portrayed in media).

While I agree changes were needed. That doesn't UMT was the best solution. Leave magic as mysterious. Rejecting UMT doesn't mean we have to jump back full to the old way, I'm not interested in restoring shamanic mask, or the spirits vs elemental concept. Shamanic practice is conceptual pretty universal in human history, differentiation into Heremtic should really be more societal transition." The view that all native american cultures were "in-harmony with nature" is significantly out of step with the more mature and accurate views Native American History. At the time of Spanish arrival there, Tenochtitlan was several times bigger then Paris, and had meaningful pollution problems even then.  (See 1491, and Author's later writings on the Homogenocene.)   I'm not interest or trying to going back to playing with any Native American religious concepts I think we all agree it may step into cultural exploitation and nobody wants that. Hermetic would strictly signify Logic/Will and shamanic would signify Cha/Will, and magic societies would be hermetic or shamanic. This Primarily would be for contrast.

Decreasing the size of the scale and making each 1 jump bigger without changing the fact spirits scale off force would increase the problem, not decrease it. It isn't that spirits get 'big numbers' so much as that every spirit ability scales by 2 dice for every force they have, and the difference between a force 4 and a force 6 as a result is giant because they gain some odd 5 dice to resist damage if they full defense (effectively like some odd 6.5 due to hardened armor), 2 dice to hit you, 2 DV due to universally having a +force to melee DV power, and +2 to initiative. You can sorta evaluate your summoning tests as a buff your 'casting' on the spirit, with every hit you can get increasing those numbers by 1, which really helps show how out of line the rate of stat increases are (because most buffs only increase one of these values by 1 every hit). Ritualized summoning certainly isn't a bad idea though, as is the idea of spirits being more personable, as both help stop the 'I pull a street sam out of my butt' problem.

For this Spirit force would be 0-3. 0 being watchers, and force 3 being 6 dice, and that yes that's reasonably strong in 10 capped system and they get meaningfully stronger with runes. I did considered capping it at force 6 and just letting a force translate to 1 die. But really I just prefer the 1-3 idiom. Regardless its much, much less of a problem then a force 9 in the current system. In exchange for this limitation I'd drop the whole favors system and any costs (Other then a lodge). You would summon a spirit and it would stay around for something like a day per net success over the TN, or until dismissed, dispelled or killed.  The idea being you could always have a spirit on hand. Making them personal I'm hoping would indeed make them less disposable. To back that up they get a long cool down period before they can be summoned again if killed. But regardless the limits on power level, and action economy would prevent anything like our current spirit problems.

Another potential thing you could do is just remove extra actions, reduce melee down to a simple, and make certain augmentations grand very specific bonus actions to help differentiate characters in scrunched systems. Overall though this seems pretty sensible as long as you recognize this robs dedicated combat PCs of a lot of power, which 6e kinda didn't, and I think is one of its biggest failings.

This concept is very interesting to me. Can you be more specific? I do want to find ways to differentiate archetype in clearly systematic options. Having something give Street sames an extra shot or adepts an extra swing could work. 


This is where ya lose me. I get your logic on brutes being fun to fight on the previous page, but that is in D&D 4e where fights are way more involved for everyone. SR fights aren't exactly the focus of the system, it isn't a game about two sides wailing on each other, and a long combat resolution system where both sides struggle to do serious damage to each other hurts the 'run and gun, this isn't our main goal so lets finish it quick' feel of combat a lot. It also makes the capability to deal damage to certain targets very static which we learned from spirits isn't fun at all, and it wasn't even really fun in D&D 4e: A huge complaint about the 4e core Monster Manual was fights took too long to resolve which is why the average HP for encounters was dropped like 5 times over for 5e D&D (and why they dropped it by a percentage in 4e's MM2, I forget the exact number but I think it was 33%? Don't quote me): It is way more fun for your attack to connect and down an enemy very consistently each turn rather than to wail on one security guard as a 4 man group and maybe not even down them. 5e D&D also focused on PCs consistently hitting, and very large damage swings with healing abilities being much stronger to compensate, and more damage being in dice than modifiers. D&D basically took the opposite lesson you took from thugs: people DON'T like their HITS to feel like nothing, a miss at least explains why nothing happened, but hitting a big whammy of an attack and not even bloodying your target sucked. Most modern RPGs go very far out of their way to avoid 'nothing' turns now. PBTA for example lets you ensure a big damage hit even on a 'miss' because its more interesting to allow your action to have a positive result for you with a lot of downsides than to say 'nothing happened.' Same with BITD, despite it being a way lower power concept than SR (Killer cyborgs and awesome wizards vs... scrappy pseudo-victorian thieves) it understands, especially in a heist game, you don't want to get bogged down.

One of the fun things about SR, at least for me, is that combat is easily tuneable around PCs having consistent 1 hit downs even as non-street samurai, and no-selling most attacks: Corpsec are trying to accomplish something, like locking shutters, sounding alarms, ect, and for most PCs the cost of a good enemy attack is your edge ticking down which increases tension without having to make damage irrelevant via strong healing resources. You can have a team of 4 fight 8 corpsec and not just win, but generally win within a single combat turn, maybe two if one or two of the PCs are good at multi-attack. SR doesn't have, and doesn't need, a CR system because of this reality and why it does so well with the LC model where PCs have vastly different power levels: the goal of your opfor isn't to create a room in a dungeon, its an element of a puzzle. It leans heavily into the idea that the fights don't need to be fair for the NPCs to still be interesting and is one of the main ways it feels different from most editions of D&D.

This is easily the main complaint I see about 6e SR in regards to combat: It tries to take a D&D style grinder fight system where both sides exchange blows dramatically until one side falls, but it really doesn't fit into what SR is trying to do and results in you needing an average of 4 shots at a corpsec to down them with a basic 12 dice combatant using a beefy heavy assault rifle, where before you needed 2, and that was just because misses are 0 DV.

It isn't like that system couldn't work. It just proooobably needs a grunt rule ala D&D 4e where a category of enemy exists that will always go down in 1-2 shots and which is allowed to be consistently able to influence the fight but not mega deadly.

I definitely see where you are going with it though, in terms of having more stability in damage. The idea of some mods being DV increases that you wouldn't expect is interesting for example.

I'm not going to get into every step of that, but I'll try and address what I thought were the high points. I agree that SR isn't by definition about combat. (Just laying aside the Pink Mohawk to Black Trench coat scale for right now.) Yeah I 100% want to avoid do nothing or have nothing to do turns. I want Runners to be professional regardless of where they fall on the combat question. But if Runners get into a fight they better have a solution. I'm not saying they need to the perfect bad @sses, but somebody being handy with a stun button gets the job done just fine.

I'm 100% in favor of SR Minions. On hit and gone. We know it works well, I use Minions at my table in 5e, and i also use Action oriented monsters. I think there is room for both in SR, and I don't think adding them necessarily changes the game into being about combat. I also strongly favor creatures that will drop a character and get dropped in return. We don't need to repeat the 6e shark, but adding stuff in the does a pile stun damage and can't take much of a hit is good with me. Need to put some pressure on but don't TPK.

The concept of making the system into being Simply test and Complex tests. Is meant to help clear up how to resolve non-combat challenges as well as combat challenges. Complex should never be done during a run. Sure they be done during the Casing stage but not once the actual run begins.
*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #33 on: <06-06-20/2055:02> »
Another potential thing you could do is just remove extra actions, reduce melee down to a simple, and make certain augmentations grand very specific bonus actions to help differentiate characters in scrunched systems. Overall though this seems pretty sensible as long as you recognize this robs dedicated combat PCs of a lot of power, which 6e kinda didn't, and I think is one of its biggest failings.

This concept is very interesting to me. Can you be more specific? I do want to find ways to differentiate archetype in clearly systematic options. Having something give Street sames an extra shot or adepts an extra swing could work. 

Sure, but it will require some background.

So Eclipse Phase 1e was, obviously, a very similar game to SR with a lot of similar concepts: Different PC roles, a similar initiative system, and omnipresent wireless internet (the mesh, rather than the matrix). In this game, Infosec, the game's equivalent of the hacking skill, was critical on EVERY PC for a number of reasons (A lot of really simple infosec rolls were extremely useful, such as the ability to shut down your local sensors in a subtle way because unlike SR there really ARE sensors watching everything you do, and your playing members of a inter-country covert ops conspiracy so often you didn't want to be watched stealing something or have the gunshot sensors go off on the station, and turning them off for a short period was VERY easy. Infosec was also your DEFENSE against hacking. Basically being a secret agent in a scifi setting requires understanding computers, sota a Ghost in the Shell vibe where no soldier worth their salt wouldn't know how to shut down a wifi enable weapon that could shoot bullets around corners into their head, which one would think would make hacking specialist PCs not good. After all, if the only difference between a hacker and a regular PC is the more niche difficult hacking rolls that took a long time to do where skill really mattered, it wouldn't make sense to be them.

Its initiative system, however had mental action initiative enhancements, general initiative enhancements, and task action enhancements. This was critical because A: you could only get 4 passes, but could get an extra mental pass or two, and B: The task action enhancements were multiplied in effectiveness by your inititative passes. This meant really complex hacks were still just as hard as before, but now could be brought down to a single turn, or you could 'slow down' and still do them faster than most out of combat but get a big bonus. So the value add for hackers wasn't a really high infosec skill or being the only person who could hack at all, but being able to do certain hacks in a time scale that made them valuable in combat.

A big problem with SR augs is the really general ones are very strong, and more specific ones are undertuned an not interesting. It isn't so bad that cheap general enhancements exist, but when they make the bulk of your dicepool and abilities compared to specific enhancements you sorta just end up only being able to define yourself by what you 'go tall' in.

Compare to D&D. Yes, its a class system, but still we can learn some stuff on how it differentiates people in the same role. Barbarians and Fighters, in 5e, are very different and their value gains work differently based on archetype. Yeah, Barbarians are mega tanks as a general rule, but a tanky fighter can exist with Eldritch Knight being able to suddenly spike their AC up when needed, while Barbarians just reduce the damage of hits. SR has some of this with dodge tank vs soak tank, but most of the time things are just straight equivalents with different costs (ex: Adept vs 'ware, both effectively are you spending your essence on mechanical bonuses).

Furthermore, D&D does interesting things with rewarding actions you might not normally do. Stormrage barbarians get a little reward for raging in the middle of a fight, a small but not insignificant burst of damage around themselves that hurts friend or foe alike, when in most situations a Barbarian would rage before charging in. This is another angle to help bake in mechanical distinction between PCs. For example, in SR you almost never want to know multiple weapon categories, even if that is thematically interesting and in universe appropriate, imagine a *really big* reward for doing just that and switching weapon class? What if after making a melee attack (Something faces never would normally do) you could make a free rally action (Which faces are good at but often don't have the reason to do vs making an attack)? What if a hacker could use debuffing hack actions after being shot at to encourage non-physical hackers to feel safer that they won't get bullied and make tanky hackers feel like cool EWAR commandos?

SR leans out of custom builds hard by trying to put walls up between roles (which favors, again, going big in a single role and usually by going burnout adept because the wider chargen resources aren't helpful if there isn't much of a reason to go wide), but in reality you want people to synthesize unique identities in a PB system by creating a role that wasn't perscribed but is obvious in hindsight to be valid. D&D 4e got really gamey with this, so despite it being a fantastic concept it felt weird to a lot of people, which is why 5e grounded it a bit more.

A 'ware that grants an extra attack is fine, but EP learned that initiative was just too important, and got rid of anything that increased general action economy. If it is priced remotely reasonably, it tends to be way too good: It is hard to price something that literally doubles your offensive power to a point not everyone will just take it even as a non-combat PC. 5e SR tried to split the difference by making getting a full extra attack really hard but extra small actions easy, but that just pushed it to a full defense+gun meta. There is room to help make multi-attack 'ware more specialized (ex: make it come with a dice penalty. Make it only work on melee which is a bigger investment and danger, ect) but other things could be 'breaking up' ware so that instead of everyone having a smartlink one person had a Multi-Core-Targeting analyzer to reward their multi-attack actions, while another had a remade attention co-processor that gave them a free aim action against literally everyone in a fight after downing a target so their next follow up would be more deadly.

One problem with SR is that its bonuses tend to be dicepool bonuses, or dicepool bonuses by another name like TN adjustments or limit changes. Edge comes the closest to breaking out of this but the edge gain limit being so low and something you consistently hit hurts this badly, and its still merely adds one extra avenue for a bonus. Bonuses that are unexplored in SR include action economy bonuses for inefficient action combos or free reactions that are unusual, things that make you defensively stronger in limited situations, recovery bonuses, teamwork bonuses like buffs or aid effects, informational bonuses, free movement, and 'minigames' (Ex: Fighters in D&D 4e causing big debuffs to attack anyone but THEM!). So a cool option that might exist in your system is a bit of 'ware or a quality that grants you free movement to use immediately after you down someone, or something that lets an ally roll with a bonus and recover some stun after you take a bullet for them. Obviously those two are gamey examples, because I am not going to make the effort to write up polished stuff for free over this, but its easy to see how you could make things that reward unusual actions, especially if 'ware is made less generic (without giving it brand names and an established appearance, I already hate the high fashion armor systems for making everyone wear old London trench-coats!) or if karma and 'ware are equalized akin to Anarchy and Amps.

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #34 on: <06-06-20/2141:17> »
hmmm

I agree that one for 4e list of issue was that they pulled back the curtain to. PF2 use nearly the same architecture but has gotten away with it, but keeping it more strictly under wraps. Concept EP worked ok, but had some variety of issues, went to far down the rabbit hole.

Action economy is key to every game. SR characters have always benefits in this area by focus down on initiative ware, and I agree much of it overly strong. One of the purposes of making augments was to smooth the curve on action economy advantage.

But it think it's fair point that doesn't necessarily make any sense to pursue the same course we have for multiple editions and never really gotten balance out reasonably.

5e DnD uses mulitple attack from the same action

PF2s gives you the option to take a penalty to swing more then once.

The Old FF 40k System used talents Swift attack, lightening attack.

My feeling is making swift attack/lightning as initiative augments might be the best path forward.

Making an basic attack as half action and multi-attack as two half actions appeals to me. But the issue that concerns me is what stops the old two half actions attack? We called it the double tap in 4e. Imposing the you can only take the attack action once per round? Which is expanded by Swift attack and lightining attack.

Conceptually it doesn't bug me. We can tie the augments to the classic specific items. So Street sam Swift must be two attack with a Smart Weapon, Adept swift attack with a weapon focus. I'm not sold we need the lightning attack option frankly. So limit it two basic attacks, and add something in solve the movement limitation for the multi-attack path?

I guess we could make Wired Reflexes both the Reaction enhancer and the dodge gear bonus source, as well as the space for the multi-attack actions. though in augments that enhance movement options as well.

I think it could work.

I would like to see a tank mechanic for SR, 6 does off the taunt edge action. But I don't know intimidating presence? Something to think on.





*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

Reaver

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6422
  • 60% alcohol 40% asshole...
« Reply #35 on: <06-06-20/2227:17> »
Eclipse Phase feels so much like SR because a lot of the writers who made Shadowrun 4, made Eclipse Phase.

You can find all the drama if you dig deep into the archives of the internet. But the basic gist of it is there was a conflict on the team... one side wanted to change the core of SR from dystopian to Tans-humanism... and the other half didn't. This is part of why the tone of SR4 doesn't feel like SR3 and conflicts internally... and SR5 tried to correct course a bit (but, well... mixed results).

When FanPro collapsed, off some went and made EP.. while others stuck on SR...

Keep in mind too, comparing SR to DnD only gets you so far. Don't confuse combat in DnD and combat in SR, they are entirely separate beasts.
First off, in DnD combat is all around the "encounter" and the game mechanics support the "encounter challenge" system..... this is a built in core mechanic and is tied back into the game stucture's leveled system. the game system does eveything in its power to stop players from making poor choices that result in unwinnable situations.
There is literally no way for a party of first level characters to run into a great Wyrm Red Dragon... the game's structure and layout just don't allow that to happen...

On the same note, in Shadowrun characters 5 minutes out of creation can be getting smacked down by HTR forces in heavy armor, because the players thought it would be a good idea to attack a police station...

Combat in DnD is also built around the "fight and rest" model: you fight a few fights, expend a few spells, rest up, continue on... And there are a variety of instant healing options open to all players.. be that scrolls and potions, healing spells by multiple classes, or class ablities....

None of these are real options in Shadowrun. PLayers can't just stop a run for an entire day because someone took a boo-boo fighting the guards in the hallway... And healing up in that hallway is not as feasible as it is in SR. Both the use of medkits and healing spells take time, and have limited use.

This ties back into Shadowrun's combat system. IF you try to run a campaign with heavy combat, BUT only 1 action per character per pass, the Runners end up dead quick through a 1000 wounds..... try it now, run a party with 0 initiative boosters, and see how far into a run you can get before you collapse. Then do the same run with initiative enhancers... 

Basically every character with an extra initiative increases the Survivability of the team by the factor of their boost. (basically for every extra pass the team has, it is in effect like having an additional team member!)...

Now, there is an issue with the fact that not all characters will have the same number of passes, and thus someone will have less to do... but I am not sure how else to overcome this issue without getting into the "Stim pack, auto heal" game mechanic...  I think this is just a design mechanic that is going to have to stay around... you change this too much and it stops feeling like Shadowrun.... which is a complaint I am hearing a bit about SR6 right now.. that is doesn't feel like SR
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #36 on: <06-07-20/0212:04> »
EP is only relevant in the sense that it demonstrate very clearly going further down initiative doesn't solve the problem we want to address.

Yeah for sure SR is Not DnD. Nor do we want it to be.

What We want to draw from 5e is the simplicity part.

So yes want the players to eventually have more combat actions. They have too as Runners will always be outnumbered. But my point is can we do it in such a way that's simple, and we don't go down the more broken out comes we have seen across other editions. If so how do we do it?

So if we make attacks a half action are we ok with every runners making two half action attacks?

Do we like a multi-attack action that hits many target but takes a complex action to trigger?

To me options like Full Auto, two weapon fighting are very Shadowrun. Gun akimbo, adepts preforming complex spin attacks. So I personally prefer multi-attack actions. However with a 10 die cap, we can't do divided pools. It's just going a need to be an AoE attack.

But it does come down to what folks feel is the best solution.

My system concept does remove active defenses (excepting the combat pool option.)

Do you think SR gains something from having initiatives in the 30s? I don't, but I'm perfectly open to the conversation. Adding a d6 per augment is an easy solution. We can easily go that rout and just use the pass system.

We want to make combat to be meaningful, dangerous and fun. But we also want it to be something that players don't feel like they need to devout all their resources towards being good at it.

So hand in hand in with this we need to develop non-combat activities for some of the traditional high combat rolls, well. In short we need Complex Street Sam and Adept Actions.

« Last Edit: <06-07-20/0215:28> by Marcus »
*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

Reaver

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6422
  • 60% alcohol 40% asshole...
« Reply #37 on: <06-07-20/0307:53> »
well, if you want to go back and look at the roots.

Originally, a player could take 2 simple actions or one complex action every IP.  And naturally, there was list of actions that were Simple or Complex.
In combat terms shooting a single shot, or Semi auto was a single action.

Burst fire was a complex action, as was spell casting.


Which gave pistols a little more viability as you could shoot twice per IP. Automatics could only fire once an IP, but you could "walk" your fire, allowing you to hit multiple close targets.

Melee combat was a complex action, but was handled much differently then now... As I recall, it was entirely possible to be on the defense in melee combat but still actually do damage to your attackers based on the difference in the opposed test..

Also keep in mind however, EVERYTHING was different then. the way IPs worked, the damage codes for weapons, player health pools...
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #38 on: <06-07-20/0421:55> »
I'm well aware but what I'm asking is what do you think works better? It's also worth noting that movement was independent in that action economy.

I think we want to steadily reduce complexity.

So I think we should simply make a simple attack action, and multi-attack complex action. Make movement a simple action.
Wired Reflexes and it's Adapt equivalent will be 1 die to reaction and 1 die gear bonus to dodge, and the 3 upgrade slots.

Then advance by make augments that add additional attacks based upon linking those effects in combination with the archetype specific gear.
Smart weapons for sams, foci for Adepts, CR's for riggers, etc

To me that's the simplest solution, it opens the gate for later tuning by adding more attacks if needed.

So any thoughts on what sort of Complex Actions we can add to Street Sams/Adepts that help in non-combat areas?

 
*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #39 on: <06-07-20/0524:12> »
I think we want to steadily reduce complexity.

While reducing complexity is always good, doing so in a way other than streamlining and clarifying things and removing redundancies or mechanical culdisacs always reduces depth, which is bad. You can't have a deliciously crunchy game without some complexity, the question is what your priorities are? Hero System values depth above all, and is thus very complex to the point of diminishing returns, 'buying' very little depth for quite a bit of complexity at times. PBTA, which is a neat system that is not at all for me, is willing to 'sell' a lot of complexity for very little depth. Once you start pushing one way or another, without a full system re-tool, you start not gaining a lot for what you give up.

A good example of a place SR could lose complexity without depth is the drug flowchart, which is a ton of needless bookkeeping to make a roll and keep system even more ridiculously stable in outcome, or making all maglocks broken the same way but bypassed with unique tools. Obviously more fundemental trades have tradeoffs.

I think this is important to note not to say 'complexity reduction bad' but to note that SR, as a game, is sorta historical in being one of the only 'crunchy' games of its era. It was that, and Champions/HERO system, for in depth systems heavy games. And systems heavy games aren't bad. So this is a round about way of saying 'I don't think SR should make dramatic strides to reduce complexity, that is how we got NuEdge, which sacrificed a lot of depth and didn't reduce complexity that much." Part of SR's identity is fun fiddly bits.

Of course, that should be reduced to only the most fun of fiddly bits, and I think initiative is a great tree to bark up either for a hypothetical 7e or to just make your own spinoff hack. While initiative passes are sorta the main way Sr differentiated its combat PCs, and multiple turns are a great way to create action economy advantage on lots of people, the way its handled doesn't always work great, they are so important roles that are intended to be 'bad' at initiative like mages are forced to be given tools for it, and it just... sorta doesn't work great, and other ways exist to help action economy vs groups (like forced grouping minion actions, or attacks vs minions allowing you to spend more ammo to take down more depending on your DV!).

So any thoughts on what sort of Complex Actions we can add to Street Sams/Adepts that help in non-combat areas?

Part of the street sam identity includes:

Sneaking around places
Hyper-awareness
Stealing stuff
Getting into places that seem impossible, like climbing a perfectly smooth surface
Having extremely positive ties to the average person outside the corporate systems as a protector of sorts
Having ties to extremely garbage people because the name "Street Samurai" probably should be swapped to Solo for the role rather than the concept.
Knowledge of millitary tech, even if sadly logic is heavily devalued.
Moving things that are too large for others to move, or that they can't smuggle, or that need to go to places no one else can access.
Using violence as a tool outside of combat, such as shakedowns, stealing stuff, removing people, ect.
Absurd physical prowess.
Tactical information.


I would recommend changing the name of complex actions to something else to avoid 'legacy confusion.' Setup actions? Planned Actions?

Some examples of potential actions include:

An action to case that involves a stealth roll that can't fail but instead grants information, to streamline physical observation legwork and make players willing to do it before the run rather than panicking and refusing 'in case they are seen.'

An action to waylay a specific person or group of people outside the actual 'run' phase to remove them from the mix and get their stuff like keycards and notes, like taking out guards on a smoke break or breaking into a researcher's house to kidnap them.

Creating a NPC wholesale who the samurai protected or helped who will provide minor aid, such as cheap materials, a place to hide or crash, or to ask around their community.

NPCs in the Samurai's home turf passively do nice things for them and their friends, like introduce them to strangers who mistrust them, or give them freshly baked snicker-doodles to thank them for that time they lifted a burning car off little Timmy with one hand.

Obtain a disposable weapon that they can stash somewhere in the run site.

Secure an entrance to the run site for people other than themselves, like getting the decker to the roof. Climb on my back, Ex-Spider monkey.

Produce a weapon that was not established in a scene, or ammo, or an explosive.

Pre-place some sort of explosive in an area for a distraction or whatever.

Place oneself in an area retroactively.

Break an object.

Get the GM to honestly let you know of the potential dangers of an area, especially in the context of their opponent and a tool to help them negate the threat ("You know that this building's security is overseen by Lt. Dan, who unlike Commander Cody favors snipers and hit and run tactics over security devices. Those abandoned buildings have dusty windows that could be trouble, but they can't see behind this abandoned van.")

Dictate the outcome of a 'beatdown' fight that takes place in downtime vs minor enemies like gangers (getting a message to someone, making sure they never come back, embarrassing someone who is their patron, ect).

These could also be used as 'branching' abilities, to help encourage people to mix archetypes. A technical sam could be good setting up charges, while a more social one may be better at intimidation, for example, just by having access to actions gated by (minor) requirements.
« Last Edit: <06-07-20/0620:27> by dezmont »

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #40 on: <06-07-20/1459:10> »
I love good heroes game as much the next guy, and the current edition of Heroes is solid. But it's also stuck in rut, a friend of mine just put out a book for heroes, and it's good but it's not really solving their problem. All that's not relevant to conversation at hand though.

Depth is good, and I'm believe strongly in stepping back changes where we can to restore or introduce depth. The armor reversion is a good example. Edge could have been successful but it went to many places, and got to broken then they tried to bandaid it, and all just overloaded.

So rigging. To me the answer for rigging is Jumping in, back in their van. Eliminate drones swarm concepts completely, Hardware limit Rigger to one maybe two active drone at a time, but in return make them immune to hijacking while being jumped in. Give combat drones enough armor to make them take a couple hit, and then make drones easy to repair.  Break drone design down into their role types and building them accordingly. Combat  drones are weapons and armor, reconnaissance drones are small and sneaky. On the other side wheel man riggers are largely intact, make their sweet rides immune to hijacking while they are jumped in. Making the attack augments work only drone/vehicle weapons attacks, and we are off to a good start.

*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

Reaver

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6422
  • 60% alcohol 40% asshole...
« Reply #41 on: <06-07-20/1649:40> »
Rigging gets tricky, there are competing issues to solve that the Rigger falls into...

The first is the whole "Split the party" issue that always comes up... many players get annoyed and feel a little cheated that their characters are at risk, while the rigger "sits in the back of the van" This has been a complaint for a long while, and they have yet to really fix this.

Swarms... swarms have always been broken... either far to complicated to follow what you are supposed to do, or far to overpowered for the investment, or far too UNDER powered for their total investment....(3 editions of swarms, 3 editions of problems)

FWIW: this is what I think on this issue.

A jumped in drone should be unhackable (its no longer running off programs, its being controlled directly by the rigger!), however, there should be a range limit to keep the party together... say.... 50 meters per rank of of the RCC.... This is allow a Rigger to jump into a drone, and keep that drone safe from hacking, but also keeps the Rigger in a modicum of danger and with the party.
  The number of drones slaved to an RCC and online at the same time is limited to the RCC rating. Any drone not directly jacked into can be used remotely and further range, but can be hacked by a technomancer/decker.

As for Repair costs... there is two avenues here to consider... the first is that repairing something is often more expensive then just buying new if the damage is extensive. (This is why Insurance companies write off cars in serious accidents. The repairs cost more the vehicle is worth...) BUT, this is also a game, and constantly replacing drones is not fun... So a happy medium must be found... Personally... I think the price of repair should be about 10% of the value of the drone PER box. While at the same time, the cost of drones should be a reduced. They are supposed to be "everywhere"... and you can even get drones now for less then what SR wants...

As for how sturdy (armor and structure) a drone is... that should be a function of size.... the larger the drone, the more armor and structure.... but on the same note, they should be weaker then your typical combat grunt....that's the trade off for "keeping safe"... or not risking an actual person..

Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #42 on: <06-07-20/1734:39> »
To address that we would have to fundamentally alter how jumped in works. Which isn't something bugs me. I'm perfectly fine with making rigger the SR pet Archetype. We would basically be looking at something a lot like ranger/hunter. A combined action attack, jumped in becomes "Synchronized" basically AR the drones vision on top of the characters. Which would help justify the lower drone limit. They would do so much damage though.

I don't in anyway dispute your point concerning repair costs and method irl. But this system is fundamentally built around advancement via equipment, and that's going to include drones. So this is going to depart realism significantly. We can amp the tech level, makes drones in 2080+  AI driven, super sophisticated robo bodies, complete nanite factories that give self heal, and upgrade themselves when you teach them augment schematic. Then Jack the heck out of the price. Follow the Spirit idea, give drone an AI personalities.  You gotta feed your drone raw materials and it heals itself which all can get folded into Life Style cost.

But then what do we do about wheelman riggers? I guess just rule that have to do both? I guess we eleminate them as cars now drive themselves? Everyone knows far to reckless to put human front of the wheel?

*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

penllawen

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 804
  • Let's go. In and out. Twenty minute milk run.
« Reply #43 on: <06-09-20/0808:50> »
I do think spitting armor back into Impact and Ballistic is wise, and not overly complex, and allows for more exact damage tuning.
It also differentiates close-up and (most) ranged combat, so (assuming Impact is less than Ballistic, as per SR 1-3e) acts as a buff to melee weapons, unarmed, and bows. Which is nice, IMO.

To address that we would have to fundamentally alter how jumped in works.
Drifting off-topic for the thread now, but...

If we're talking big-picture stuff, I'd argue the biggest issue with getting riggers and deckers into the field is ragdoll VR. It makes them helpless and means they can't even keep up with the team while performing their key tasks. As long as that tension exists, I think you get players saying "well why wouldn't I hide my floppy helpless meatbod in the van?". SR has tried to patch over this with mechanics like disconnected-from-the-Matrix hosts and wifi-blocking paint and hey-this-noise-penalty-is-inexplicably-crippling-at-really-short-ranges [2], but never with complete success. (I'd include the EARRS cyberware as another attempt to address this from another angle - by letting deckers be more productive when using AR.)

So if we're ready to kill some sacred cows, why not get rid of ragdoll VR? Make deckers do everything in AR, and do something to the initiative system so they're not disadvantaged when doing so (maybe EARRS for free.) Make the Rig cyberware more like an implanted RCC [1] - something that allows the rigger, and only the rigger, to multiplex their sensory inputs so they can effectively monitor and control multiple drones. Debuff drones used by non-riggers eg. by limiting the independence of dogbrains and carefully following the action economy for issuing drone orders. Keep VR only for jumped-in rigging, and make that something for vehicle control. (I wouldn't want to lose the HardWired-wheelman type rigger.)

[1] Something never explained in the fluff, as far as I know: what does a VCR do? Anyone with a datajack or 'trodes already has full-sensorium simsense, with all of their nervous signals channeled into the computer. How does a VCR differ from that? Why can't you jump in without it?

[2] My favourite side effect; per RAW, you can't call London from Seattle. There's no mechanic for it. The best commlink in the world can't offset the inevitable noise penalty. My interpretation is that phone calls are magically routed through hosts, which magically never suffer noise penalties. But I do not believe that's stated anywhere. And it opens up "well why don't deckers route their hacks through black market hosts so they can work at a safe distance?" questions.
« Last Edit: <06-09-20/0813:40> by penllawen »

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #44 on: <06-09-20/1401:06> »
So if we're ready to kill some sacred cows, why not get rid of ragdoll VR? Make deckers do everything in AR, and do something to the initiative system so they're not disadvantaged when doing so (maybe EARRS for free.) Make the Rig cyberware more like an implanted RCC [1] - something that allows the rigger, and only the rigger, to multiplex their sensory inputs so they can effectively monitor and control multiple drones. Debuff drones used by non-riggers eg. by limiting the independence of dogbrains and carefully following the action economy for issuing drone orders. Keep VR only for jumped-in rigging, and make that something for vehicle control. (I wouldn't want to lose the HardWired-wheelman type rigger.)

Steak for dinner! I'm ready to kill every cow that needs to go. Yeah so Synchronized was the term I was going for, to replaced jumped in, and I'm 100% good with stopping this Ragdoll VR. I'm not ready to hand out lots of drones, but I'm very good with creating a more sophisticated pet class type mechanic, and combing drone and character actions. It will mean some fundamental changes to the VCR. But I think it's time we moved away from that model and into something more player friendly.

The wheelman thing I'm slightly stuck on. While I have no issue with Synchronizing with a vehicle, i'm slightly worried I maybe putting a foot into a pandor's box there. Having a drone come along on a run is fine, but I don't want a van with an auto cannon putting shells through the window or indirect mortar fire become a preferred tactic. Which may translate to some fairly specific but game driven limitations on what one can Synch too.
 
*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking