It's really *REALLY* easy to make overpowered contacts if you plan ahead.Hell yeah! I like how you think girl!
A 6/6 politician for example could logically be (or after doing jobs for him, promoted to be) an ambassador. Which means in nearly every major city you can run into a consulate, and anyone who chases you has committed an act of war.
Speaking of which, I still miss Hatchetman.
He will be missed. Let's raise a glass to him.
Speaking of which, I still miss Hatchetman.
Well, with the new Group contacts rules in Runner's Companion, (Cha+Eti)*4 makes it lot easier for Faces to have multiple group contacts.Didn't know about group contacts, i'll go take a look, thanks.
EWWW!!!! D20 Shadowrun thats Thats BlasphemeHey! I was trying to convince a bunch of gamers that refused to learn a new system to play SR.
Just don't tell them anything. That's how I did it. Just got my group together and said "I am running this, and you will play it,"EWWW!!!! D20 Shadowrun thats Thats BlasphemeHey! I was trying to convince a bunch of gamers that refused to learn a new system to play SR.
Let's see, a few of our house rules that I can remember off the top of my head:
- All magical skills are defaultable for magically active characters: Otherwise PCs without Aura Reading can't assense even the simplest of things, and astrally projecting characters who didn't buy Astral Combat are utterly helpless against astral attacks.
- No Arbitrary caps on Qualities: Go ahead and take all the negative qualities you think you can get away with, just be prepared for the ref to use them against you during your adventures. ;D
There is no "Noir" or "Dystopia" with a toy that magically hypnotizes marks for social interaction. Seriously, what kind of Johnson would hire some runner walking around with an empathetic digimon? Not I said the fly!Oh, I'd never use one, but I wouldn't turn them down if I was running the game. Too many chances to wreck a character's karma. "Oh, you're sneaking into the Azzie temple?" <rolls dice> "Oops, it looks like your yummi-gachi emotitoy is hungry and begins crying. Loudly."
Sorry, the tech does not fit teh theme of what I see Shadowrun as being so therefore it is useless. Not to mention there is more of a tendency of misuse with those things.
Eh, to me they do not fit my "vision" of what Shadowrun is about. Emotitoys kind of clash with the setting.
There is no "Noir" or "Dystopia" with a toy that magically hypnotizes marks for social interaction. Seriously, what kind of Johnson would hire some runner walking around with an empathetic digimon? Not I said the fly!.
Sorry, the tech does not fit teh theme of what I see Shadowrun as being so therefore it is useless. Not to mention there is more of a tendency of misuse with those things.
Eh, to me they do not fit my "vision" of what Shadowrun is about. Emotitoys kind of clash with the setting.
And, before I leave this, I'd like to point out that among my group of friends, who are highly technologically minded (most own multiple computers, multiple gaming platforms and a smartphone - even though it's not required for their job), the most popular things the download are sound-effect buttons for their Droids, playing Mafia Wars & Farmville on Facebook, and Lego Star Wars on their Xboxes.
Just because life is serious, doesn't mean you don't have fun.
BTW, I do not allow Stick N Shock armor or Emotitoys. Those have no place in Shadowrun.
Let's see, a few of our house rules that I can remember off the top of my head:
- All magical skills are defaultable for magically active characters: Otherwise PCs without Aura Reading can't assense even the simplest of things, and astrally projecting characters who didn't buy Astral Combat are utterly helpless against astral attacks.
- No Arbitrary caps on Qualities: Go ahead and take all the negative qualities you think you can get away with, just be prepared for the ref to use them against you during your adventures. ;D
Your first one is a very good idea. I might steal that one. It makes sense that all awakened should have some "instinctual" ability to use astral combat or assense somebody.
The second rule is pure madness. Shadowrun already has enough min/maxers in teh community. That is opening an can of worms!
Seriously, I have been using computers since the Apple IIe, I am one of those "highly technological minded" people and I do not:
Play any game on Facebook (Why when I have REAL games on my PC and 360?)
Download apps (Seriously, some are really useful, most of them are total crap to waste money on)
Play Lego Star Wars. I prefer the Force Unleashed or maybe the Old Republic MMO when it finally hits. :)
Yeah, gotta say again, emotitoys are not Shadowrun. Some anime RPG setting? Yeah, maybe. Shadowrun? No way....
Seriously, I have been using computers since the Apple IIe, I am one of those "highly technological minded" people and I do not:
Play any game on Facebook (Why when I have REAL games on my PC and 360?)
Download apps (Seriously, some are really useful, most of them are total crap to waste money on)
Play Lego Star Wars. I prefer the Force Unleashed or maybe the Old Republic MMO when it finally hits. :)
Yeah, gotta say again, emotitoys are not Shadowrun. Some anime RPG setting? Yeah, maybe. Shadowrun? No way....
I also have used computers a long time (although not really that "highly technological minded") but I'm right there with you on not playing facebook games and I don't even own an app capable phone.
My MMO of choice however is World of Warcraft.....For now.
Well if it helps my friend Barry will be right there with you and I'll stop seeing him in WoW :'(
So, discuss this, add your own rulings, but play nice kiddies. Hate to sic Cap on ya.
So, discuss this, add your own rulings, but play nice kiddies. Hate to sic Cap on ya.
Sic Who on whom?
House Rule | Reasoning |
Change Availability of hacker programs to Rating*3, making maximum starting rating 4. | Gives more room for growth in hackers |
Everyone starts with (Charisma + Intuition)x2 BPs worth of Contacts | Increases the importance of contacts |
While you're learning a new skill, you take no penalty for defaulting to it. That is, if you were learning Longarms, then while you're learning you would be able to roll Agility, rather than Agility-1, to hit | Makes sense as you know a little bit |
If you have a legitimate, non-criminal SIN, you can buy legal licenses for Restricted gear by paying 10% of the item's cost, or 100 nuyen (whichever is more). | Not with fake SINs because the risk of detection is way too high. |
Autosofts and simsense programs (e.g. skillsofts) aren't available as pirated programs but don't require SIN linkage | Had a very hard time understanding why you'd need to update these programs but wanted to keep game balance |
Reaction Enhancers stack with Wired Reflexes | Because otherwise they're really rather pointless. |
Change Called Shots to target vital areas to increase damage so that the negative dice pool modifier is double the DV bonus (so +4DV causes -8 to the dice pool). Max DV bonus remains +4. | Makes calling shots to target vital areas much less auto-win. Still better than the average return on rolling dice, though. |
We round like maths says. | Because maths wins. |
Change DV of Stick'n'Shock ammo from 6S(e) to -S(e), meaning that it does the weapon's normal base damage, changed to Stun and electrical. | Makes them less "all win, all the time" on smaller-calibre guns, and makes Gel Rounds viable too. |
Change movement rates to 4m walking/12m running (human, elf, ork), 3m walking/10m running (dwarf) and 6m walking/18m running (troll). Critter walking speeds would be reduced to 40% of their current level and running speeds to half their current level. Vehicle Speed and Acceleration ratings are unaffected. | In line with average human walking speed of 4-5km/h, then amended to allow for running rates and other metatypes. Also makes shorter-range weapons a bit more useful. |
Add your weapon's recoil compensation value to the dice pool you roll when using Suppressive Fire. | Otherwise it's assumed that the recoil comp and wide burst modifiers cancel out, effectively making recoil compensation meaningless in suppressive fire situations. |
All new characters start with the following: Computer 2, Data Search 2, Dodge or Gymnastics 2, Etiquette 2, Infiltration 2, Perception 2 and one of the following skills at 2 - Blades, Clubs, Pistols, Thrown Weapons or Unarmed Combat. | This is the minimum you need to be a competent professional shadowrunner and it ensures that everyone has the really simple bases covered. |
You roll Cybertechnology skill, not Engineering skill, to reprogram hard nanites. | Because Engineering skill doesn't exist, whereas Cybertechnology has a Nanotechnology specialisation |
Change DV of Stick'n'Shock ammo from 6S(e) to -S(e), meaning that it does the weapon's normal base damage, changed to Stun and electrical.
Wow, that makes SnS absurd. (well, more absurd) Does anyone in your games use anything else?
Did you change the AP value?
Electric damage means armor is still cut in half, unless you changed that as well.
Yes, it makes it less good in pistols, but still superior to anything else. And for actual gun bunnies, you just changed everything into a gauss rifle.
And insulation doesn't protect against the armor being halved, just adds its rating to the armor value vs that type of damage.
We took SnS out of our game, too. We also ruled that Reaction Enhancers don't stack with anything. They are the cheap reaction enhancement for low level security guards. Gives them an edge and doesn't cost as much as Wired Reflexes.The only problem is that previous editions had them stacking with anything. Anything and everything stacked with RE's. That was the point, to have them enhance someone's reflexes up past what wired can do alone. Also, they are NOT cheaper than wired reflexes. Wired 1 costs 11k nuyen while RE's cost 10k per rating point. Unless you get the bonus passes, there's no point in boosting. (Which makes more sense, 10k for 1 reaction or 11k for 1 reaction + init pass?)
Knowledge skills :How about if they up their Logic or Intuition, the total BP for the Knowledge skills goes up?
As characters are often karma burners, with great greed for it, investments in knowledge skills seem less attractive than more "vital" functions, such as "perception", "dodge", not to mention attributes and so.
While character creation, the free points in knowledge skills allows the player to grant some knowledges to his character without brute power loss, I regret there's no special rule for knowledge skills in the charater's evolution system.
Think either splitting karma rewards between classic karma points and knowledge allowed karma points, or granting free knowledges skills relatives to the adventure events may allow players to develop their character's knowledges without having the feeling they're messing with karma points.
When "hacking on the Fly", the threshold the opposing system needs to find you is the hackers (stealth + spoof), rather than just stealth.
You can use Spoof programs to generate false access IDs and forge misleading data packets with the intent of confusing Track programs.So, although hacking on the fly doesn't necessarily use "Spoofing" as written/described on pages 232 or 236 of the 20A core, we felt it was within the scope of the program as described.
oh. Just thought of this... Does anyone else find it strange that Delta grade ware has the same availability as standard grade ware? Or is there an availability modifier somewhere that I missed? If not, does anyone use a house rule for this oddity?Huh... Never noticed that before. You can't start off with Beta/Deltaware, but the availability of Beta is pretty good as long as you got the nuyen. The Deltaware has always only been available at the Delta Clinics (by invite only), so it's a GM call whether you can get it or not.
What's that? FastJack, asking some no-good Elven merc for the nuyen to upgrade his hardware?I never turn down donations to fight the good fight. (Especially after I just spent $115 on Amazon buying the Quintet Books [Ar, Aug, RC, SM, Unw]).
For shame.
There isn't a modifier for availability for Beta or Delta upgrades, nor should there be. If your character manages to get access to a Beta or (Ghost forbid) Delta clinic, then the run that they performed to find/earn from a Johnson is the availability modifier. Those grades of cyber or bio should not be handed out just because someone had the face roll some dice and PING they get it. That is what happens if you make it an availability check.
Makes you wonder if there's Omegaware out there somewhere...
Makes you wonder if there's Omegaware out there somewhere...
Cybermancy, anyone?
Makes you wonder if there's Omegaware out there somewhere...
Cybermancy, anyone?
Only 12 delta clinics in the world can do that!
I really think this thread should be stickied.That's a real good idea, and if "fast jack" can edit first post with the resume of Tagz that was cool too...
Would have to treat the group aspect of group contacts as a separate thing maybe. I've never been too clear on how connection and group scores interact. Does the group part just usurp the connection part?The modifiers for a group connection just increase the cost; these modifiers give you more people you can reach (thus, increasing the chance of actually making contact), or their magical/Matrix resources, or how much territory they can affect.
To balance contacts out in my games I will roll per session the collective score 3/3 = 6 dice, and on glitch the contact needs some shadowrun reciprocation. Run down a lead, find out who his secretary keeps having lunch with, teach his kid to fight, or get his client something special that will seal his deal. Critical glitch is really fun as its bail me out of jail and help me find that gun I tossed down the storm drain before the cops do or some such. Its even funner when it comes down in the middle of the runs. Makes the relationships with the contacts much better and worse as when they don't help out and the relationship may suffer.
To balance contacts out in my games I will roll per session the collective score 3/3 = 6 dice, and on glitch the contact needs some shadowrun reciprocation.Consider this idea copied. I'm trying this out next week.
Anyone else treat rolls the same way?
Anyone else treat rolls the same way?
I wish I could, but our group is much more likely to have someone say "whoever's got the highest Perception pool should look for clues." If anyone thinks to look for clues at all. :)
I did start awarding a 1-3 die bonus for players who describe what they're doing. We found the rule in Exalted and Scion and liked it so much we've swiped it for other games since then.
The thing you also don't really need to simplify all that much is the out of game stuff, cuz there's time to look through the books. Combat does take a freakin long time in table top SR...I usually budget that every encounter, really no matter how small is gonna take minimum an hour. Two encounters in one session can really wear the players down in terms of attention unless plotwise those encounters have really been built up. ...Combat is the hardest to houserule though because so many people design their characters based around RAW strategy.Ha! My group is just coming off playing D&D 4e which regularly takes 2 hours for a combat, so 1 hour sounds awesome. Course long combats are a common complaint in D&D4e. One of the things I love about SR is the chance to down someone with one shot. :) Having read the thread on stick n shock, we might houserule them availability 12 or something? maybe double cost ?
Increased Calibre
Slots: 2, Mod Cost: Weapon Cost
The weapon is heavily modified to chamber a larger round. The ammunition capacity is reduced by half (rounded up), recoil compensation is reduced by 1, Damage is increased by 1, and the armour penetration improves by 1. Incompatible with Decreased Calibre.
Decreased Calibre
Slots: 2, Mod Cost: Weapon Cost
The weapon is heavily modified to chamber a smaller round. The ammunition capacity is increased by half (rounded down), recoil compensation is increased by 1, Damage is decreased by 1, and the armour penetration worsens by 1. Incompatible with Increased Calibre.
I took on a Houserule regarding Specializations. You can have as many Specializations in a skill as your rank in it, but every next after the first costs double. So, you could have 3 specializations on a skill that you have at rank 3, but the second one would cost 4 Karma, and the third 8 karma... We'll see how that works out.Let me know how that works. I've been a believer of 1 skill/1 specialization, but if this works, I may change my mind.
Let me know how that works. I've been a believer of 1 skill/1 specialization, but if this works, I may change my mind.
DEFAULTING TO A RELATED SKILLNot really a good idea. Especially since Defaulting means you don't have any knowledge or training in the area.
Quick question, about people nerfing the SnS rounds... You ever been hit by a taser? There is a reason SnS does that much. Because electricity WORKS. And it SHOULD drop a troll in a couple shots. Don't like it, don't get hit by it. See some security goon trying to take people down with stickies, and you gang up on him.I have no problem with SnS except when it comes to Added DV for bursts.
Quick question, about people nerfing the SnS rounds... You ever been hit by a taser? There is a reason SnS does that much. Because electricity WORKS. And it SHOULD drop a troll in a couple shots. Don't like it, don't get hit by it. See some security goon trying to take people down with stickies, and you gang up on him.I have no problem with SnS except when it comes to Added DV for bursts.
Combined with the 1/2 Impact armour
So, our houserule is that SnS do not get added DV for bursts. It breaks the sanity test a little, but leaves them mechanically balanced for use in the game.
Thematically, they can't be as good as everyone says, or the creator of SnS would (in-Game) have received a large sum of money from the Big-D's will for an accurate, non-lethal weapon over 100 yards...
And for reference, I also have been shocked by a taser. It sucks.
I've seen footage of a US Army soldier infamous for continuing his mission after being hit by a GRENADE, get floored by a taser. These things suck.... :P
*blink* WHY would you load an LMG with Stickies? That's like... Gods man, I don't even have a proper analogy for it! Can you imagine someone hit by all of that? They would look like a twitching motion capture model....
*blink* WHY would you load an LMG with Stickies?Because there's no other way to have a multi-targeting taser, of course. (Autofire, long burst, wide angle, multiple targets. Yeah, you're only going to get a hit or two. each.)
Crash, I agree about what a silencer really does. It slows the bullet to subsonic. That reduces range - or rather, it reduces effective range (the bullets travel a lot further than 'range'). It reduces the damage potential at the target. It has a small effect on accuracy, depending on how well designed the mating between weapon and silencer is.
But all that is just simpler for me to model with -1 to the pool.
Actually, subsonic and silencers do add a synergy bonus to each other, so it does work out.
Not sure I follow...?
Isn't that what I said?
The bullet does not get slowed at all, much less to subsonic. The silencing effect is slowing and cooling the expanding gases.
HOWEVER, it does effect the accuracy. Modern silencers, especially when designed for and fitted to specific weapons, make the impact minimal -- but the effect still exists. (1 to 2 moa seems to be unavoidable, 3 to 10 seems typical.)
SnS in suppressive fire....Yikes.
You use full-auto grenade launchers for suppressive fire. FYI.Full auto GL's, suppressive fire, dual-wielded
Why stop at 2?You use full-auto grenade launchers for suppressive fire. FYI.Full auto GL's, suppressive fire, dual-wielded
We've had this discussion :P .... Splitting Dice pools six ways is counterproductive..Why stop at 2?You use full-auto grenade launchers for suppressive fire. FYI.Full auto GL's, suppressive fire, dual-wielded
There's always Shiva Arms and drone mounts.
We've had this discussion :P .... Splitting Dice pools six ways is counterproductive..
You use full-auto grenade launchers for suppressive fire. FYI.Full auto GL's, suppressive fire, dual-wielded
Opinions?*shrugs* If it works for you and your group, it's what works for you guys. I can see it working better for you if it's the rule you were already using, especially.
Our group is considering changing the rule that states that the force of the spell limits the total hits on the spellcasting test, to instead only limiting the net hits instead. This is mostly for combat spells, really. We'd already been doing it like that for almost a year now, and we only noticed that we had originally misread the rule before one of our sessions last month. We tried playing a session through with the actual rule, but it seemed a bit stupid to us that it doesn't matter how many hits you roll, the damage is completely reliant on how many hits they get on there resist test. 1 hit on the resist test automatically reduces the damage by 1, no questions asked since the hits used to match them on the opposed test and to increase the damage share the same cap. Hell, the change really only comes into effect when you roll more hits than the force of the spell, and since our mage is a 3rd grade initiate with 8 magic, he's usually tossing out force 8 spells and doesn't often roll more than 7 or 8 hits. But it makes more sense to us, since it rewards him for making good rolls, and the damage is still meh when he rolls poorly.
Opinions?
While I would most likely see a troll a pretty scary, they aren't common in our world so I don't think I"m very objective. That said, I think it would be the size of them that would be terrifying (Body) unless they are performing a feat of strength to intimidate (bending a rifle barrel, crushing someone's skull, etc.).
To me though, its more about portraying that you're going to hurt someone than showing that you can. Big Beefy characters already get a bonus (+1-3 for being physically imposing). If the troll is going "Troll...uhm...smash...uhm...you." Then he's probably ruined the fear as he seems less than certain or just plain dumb.
In general, people don't find people doing the following scary:
-acting dumb
-eating an ice cream cone
-drinking through a straw
Acting primal or savage can be scary, dumb usually not so much. Keep in mind that charisma isn't just your looks, its also your ability to manipulate and make yourself believed. This ties into intimidation fine. They already have rules for STR and BOD to be included in the roll if you think about it.
You character is built like a brick, or has the muscles of a greek god, or towers above the guy?
Physically Imposing +1-3
You're waving a gun in the guys face?
Wielding obvious weapon or Magic +2
Shot him in the knee and threatening the other one?
Caused subject physical pain +2
You're well known for leaving destruction and bodies behind you?
+Street Cred and/or Notoriety
"If there is cyber sex, is there some form of astral sex, too?"
yes, i'm sure MIT&M students do it all the time and probably every where.
Makes you wonder if there's Omegaware out there somewhere...
Hmm . . . I had really thought that the authors were trying to sell-home the point that Technomancy would have happened regardless of the Awakening, as the next step in natural human evolution. I'm not sure /why/ Magic and Resonance would be mututally exclusive in the same body, but I haven't come across anything in the rules or fluff to suggest it's possible.
Of course, I will fully admit that I've still got a LOT of reading ahead of me.
As for House Rules, the one I find most useful is no limit for Positive Qualities. The more they spend on Qualities the less they have for Attributes or Skills. Negative Qualities are still capped at 35. Too many points into qualities takes away from the rest of the character. Positive qualities don't seem to me to be too overpowering. Positive qualities don't tend to be a game breaker.Yes, we do the same.
As for House Rules, the one I find most useful is no limit for Positive Qualities. The more they spend on Qualities the less they have for Attributes or Skills. Negative Qualities are still capped at 35. Too many points into qualities takes away from the rest of the character. Positive qualities don't seem to me to be too overpowering. Positive qualities don't tend to be a game breaker.Yes, we do the same.
And has reduced some of the karma cost for being a mage. Magical active characters are a huge karma sink compared to the other classes.
Rasmus
As for House Rules, the one I find most useful is no limit for Positive Qualities. The more they spend on Qualities the less they have for Attributes or Skills. Negative Qualities are still capped at 35. Too many points into qualities takes away from the rest of the character. Positive qualities don't seem to me to be too overpowering. Positive qualities don't tend to be a game breaker.Yes, we do the same.
And has reduced some of the karma cost for being a mage. Magical active characters are a huge karma sink compared to the other classes.
Rasmus
I could see the potential to abuse the heck out of both of those...
...but the beauty of houserules are, you use them in a controlled environment.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
As for House Rules, the one I find most useful is no limit for Positive Qualities. The more they spend on Qualities the less they have for Attributes or Skills. Negative Qualities are still capped at 35. Too many points into qualities takes away from the rest of the character. Positive qualities don't seem to me to be too overpowering. Positive qualities don't tend to be a game breaker.Yes, we do the same.
And has reduced some of the karma cost for being a mage. Magical active characters are a huge karma sink compared to the other classes.
Rasmus
I could see the potential to abuse the heck out of both of those...
...but the beauty of houserules are, you use them in a controlled environment.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
The thing is you always need more skills and Attributes more than qualities.
I don't know about everyone else, but I examine characters let into my game quite closely before giving the thumbs up. That being said, my particular group tends toward the extreme and the outrageous. Just ask Arc to tell the tale of our FIRST mission-part 1 of it anyway-and his dwarf street sam.
I don't know about everyone else, but I examine characters let into my game quite closely before giving the thumbs up. That being said, my particular group tends toward the extreme and the outrageous. Just ask Arc to tell the tale of our FIRST mission-part 1 of it anyway-and his dwarf street sam.
Yeah, Spyder is a bit out there, loud mouth and the weight of solid brass to back them up. I will be making that omelet just to let you know. Just wait. It will happen.
...please tell me he doesn't already have the eggs. please.
This begs the question-can a person be latent one and have the other? A mage who burns out and suffers total magic loss and then becomes a technomancer later? Seeing as Essence Loss isn't the only way to burn out ^_^
Yeah, good luck. If you go with the multiple implanted kink bombs idea...you might scratch him with that one.
This begs the question-can a person be latent one and have the other? A mage who burns out and suffers total magic loss and then becomes a technomancer later? Seeing as Essence Loss isn't the only way to burn out ^_^
conceivable, though i'd say no, it would lead to players getting one and having latent other, eventually they'd argue that it just makes sense to allow both at the same time. so, no.
my reasoning would be that the change a person goes through in becoming a mage or TM "uses up" the option. like having a single spark to light one of 2 candles. most people can't even get one candle to light, the lucky few that light one (Mana or Resonance), have lost the option to light the other. maybe think of mana/resonance as a double ended, (essence) foot long candle. you can burn from one end or the other, assuming you even get it lit.
Final thoughts, Charisma is never scary. Shouldn't be used for Intim rolls. Find something else. And for the love of Ghost, roleplay it. One of my favorite scenes was actually an intimidation scene. First thing my char did when he walked in the room was shoot the bastard in the leg. THEN he started with the torture... And it still took five rolls to finally get the average shmoe to break down... Cause my ghoul had crap Charisma!!!!
Remember that a character who has burned out still has a magic attribute, even if that attribute is zero.This begs the question-can a person be latent one and have the other? A mage who burns out and suffers total magic loss and then becomes a technomancer later? Seeing as Essence Loss isn't the only way to burn out ^_^
conceivable, though i'd say no, it would lead to players getting one and having latent other, eventually they'd argue that it just makes sense to allow both at the same time. so, no.
MagIc/resonance
In order to possess either Magic or Resonance , a character has to first
purchase either the Adept, Magician, Mystic Adept, or Technomancer
qualities (see Quality Descriptions, p. 90). Purchasing Adept, Magician,
or Mystic Adept gives the character a Magic attribute of 1. Purchasing
the Technomancer quality gives the character a Resonance attribute of
1. A character can possess either Magic or Resonance—never both.
Latent Technomancer
Cost: 5 BP
A character with this quality starts the game as a normal,
mundane character. When she starts the game, this character has
no Resonance attribute or related skills, and may not spend BP on
them. This quality may not be taken with any quality that confers
a Magic or Resonance attribute.
Couldn't you do the same thing with a hammer? Enough concussions and brain damage...
Yeah, the mostly ignoring part was kinda annoying for me, too ;D I'm not feeling too bad about it though, I'll just take it that the House Rules I created are perfect and beautiful :P
Final thoughts, Charisma is never scary. Shouldn't be used for Intim rolls. Find something else. And for the love of Ghost, roleplay it. One of my favorite scenes was actually an intimidation scene. First thing my char did when he walked in the room was shoot the bastard in the leg. THEN he started with the torture... And it still took five rolls to finally get the average shmoe to break down... Cause my ghoul had crap Charisma!!!!
Making someone believe that you'll kill them is easy.
Making them believe that you won't kill them if they help you, is not as easy.
If you don't think that charisma is scary, then you've never met a psychopath. At least, not that you know...Remember that a character who has burned out still has a magic attribute, even if that attribute is zero.This begs the question-can a person be latent one and have the other? A mage who burns out and suffers total magic loss and then becomes a technomancer later? Seeing as Essence Loss isn't the only way to burn out ^_^
conceivable, though i'd say no, it would lead to players getting one and having latent other, eventually they'd argue that it just makes sense to allow both at the same time. so, no.
and...
SR4a P82QuoteMagIc/resonance
In order to possess either Magic or Resonance , a character has to first
purchase either the Adept, Magician, Mystic Adept, or Technomancer
qualities (see Quality Descriptions, p. 90). Purchasing Adept, Magician,
or Mystic Adept gives the character a Magic attribute of 1. Purchasing
the Technomancer quality gives the character a Resonance attribute of
1. A character can possess either Magic or Resonance—never both.
Also Unwired p. 37QuoteLatent Technomancer
Cost: 5 BP
A character with this quality starts the game as a normal,
mundane character. When she starts the game, this character has
no Resonance attribute or related skills, and may not spend BP on
them. This quality may not be taken with any quality that confers
a Magic or Resonance attribute.
BTW I know it's kind of crap already, but the house rules sticky is not the best place for discussions.
This is supposed to be a thread where people come in with half baked ideas that have had no play testing, and everyone ignores them or makes them feel bad.
Alan Bradley: "Given the prices we charge to students and schools, what sort of improvements have been made in Flynn... I mean, um, ENCOM OS-12?"
Richard Mackey: "This year we put a '12' on the box." - TRON: Legacy
Yes.Alan Bradley: "Given the prices we charge to students and schools, what sort of improvements have been made in Flynn... I mean, um, ENCOM OS-12?"question is: is it apple or M$ they are mocking?
Richard Mackey: "This year we put a '12' on the box." - TRON: Legacy
Our group has been kicking around the idea of making the multi-tasking adept power useful. Thoughts for it are to let it be used during combat, such as reloading firearms. Also another thought for it was if a character with it was weilding 2 guns with smartlinks and both guns tartgets were within the characters same line of sight, within reason at GM discresion, then he could recieve targeting data from both guns at the same time. So the charcter would recieve the smartlink bonus on both guns. Any thoughts on this? Would it be over powering or just making a power useful for other characters like gun bunnies?
Focus
Focus amplifiers are the opposite of Red Alert amps. Focus
activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which causes the
fight-or-flight response to end and returns the body to a calm state.
A Focus amp can be activated to eliminate dice penalties due to
distracting or stressful situations. With a Focus amp running, a
hacker can calmly write code while taking heavy fire. A Focus amp
cannot be running at the same time as a Red Alert amp, even if the
user has more than one datajack.
Extra eyes helped, too, as they could be used to target something that the main set were facing away from.
Extra eyes helped, too, as they could be used to target something that the main set were facing away from.
Did you have many characters that were sporting extra eyes?
Why not? Spies have been using optical tricks to do the same thing for many, many years. Mirrored Windows are wonderful things.
Here's a little houserule I've been kicking around for a bit. Modifying the penalty on 'Called shot to avoid armor' from being equal to target's armor to being half your dice pool.
As it stands, there is never a situation where a called shot to avoid armor is a good idea. The only time you would want to choose it over adding +4 DV is against enemies with very high armor, but in those cases, you're most likely taking your entire dice pool as a negative modifier. Maybe if you're really tricked out to the nines, you'll have 4 of 5 dice left after a -16 penalty, but that's about it.
Halving your dice pool gives a nice kick to the pants for your shooter, while still making the option viable in those situations where they really need to bypass armor, like against that cyberzombie you just sicked on them.
Our fix to the issue of called shots was just to allow multiple affects with the same called shot. We also allow partial armor negating shots (not sure if you can do that by RAW or not). I like the fact that its hard to call shots to negate armor. If I were going to completely revamp any part of the called shot, I'd increase the penalty for bonus DV to a -2 or -3 per +1 rather than making the armor negating easier.
I think where the half your dice pool would really collapse is with NPCs.
If your average runner is anything like mine, they'll have Body*2+3 Ballistic Armor and Body*2 + 1 Impact Armor (more if you allow softweave in). With an average rating of 3, that is 9 B and 7 I. A typical corp sec can go from 6 dice to 3 (from 2 avg hits to one) and negate the runner's soak roll by 3 successes average (ends up being the exact same as if they had just called a shot for +3 DV). No big deal here.
Against a combat oriented character (lets say a high body troll Bod of 8) with 19 points of Ballistic and 17 points of Impact, the same Sec. Guard just cut the soak roll down from 9 successes to 2.6 successes average. That's considerably more than he'd get from taking a -4 for +4 DV. This is just a security guard, they shouldn't even have the skills to place well aimed shots into soft spots of an full SWAT Armored and Shielded opponent.
Has anyone out there house rules Uncouth or the way social skills are resisted to make the big bad tough Uncouth troll untrained in Intimidation and 44 armor not easily intimidated by a trained dwarf with a pea shooter? It bugs me.
Its a bit from Firefly. One of the characters is a rude bastard about 90% of the time. It was considered his polite dinner conversation toward the guy that Kaylee fancied if that gets it across a bit better.
Its a bit from Firefly. One of the characters is a rude bastard about 90% of the time. It was considered his polite dinner conversation toward the guy that Kaylee fancied if that gets it across a bit better.
I see, it makes a lot more sense now. Quite a thing to say at the dinner table...
Has anyone out there house rules Uncouth or the way social skills are resisted to make the big bad tough Uncouth troll untrained in Intimidation and 44 armor not easily intimidated by a trained dwarf with a pea shooter? It bugs me.
The Uncouth Troll automatically fails social skill tests he isn't trained in. Regardless of dice. Intimidate is resisted with Intimidation and Willpower, which is a skill test, so the pea shooter dwarf may be at minuses but if he gets 1 hit he wins.
Uncouth does not make sense to me. It sounds like antisocial, but it is executed as weak and easily fooled.
Sigh. Oh well.
Depends... They can't resist the Magicians mind reading spells as well with a concussion. :PBut still, this is no intimidation.
I find concussions intimidating. Although, that might be because I somehow never had one.Depends... They can't resist the Magicians mind reading spells as well with a concussion. :PBut still, this is no intimidation.
I find concussions intimidating. Although, that might be because I somehow never had one.Depends... They can't resist the Magicians mind reading spells as well with a concussion. :PBut still, this is no intimidation.
Of course, if you're watching your good chummer get the concussion, it might be intimidation to the rest of the group. ;)
Of course, if you're watching your good chummer get the concussion, it might be intimidation to the rest of the group. ;)
"Never start with the head, it makes the person all groggy." :P
Its Jayne, not Zane.
And my favorite line from the movie would have to be this:
Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Define "interesting".
Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?
Holy crap, I didn't even catch my Typo. I mixed up two series horribly bad. Firefly and Incarnations of Imortality. I feel like a complete failure. I'm one Hell of a Browncoat as well. Adam Baldwin is going to shoot me with VeraGood thing that Vera is a non-functional prop then.
Skill Used | Resistance |
Con/Etiquette | Judge Intentions |
Intimidate/Leadership/Negotiation | Composure |
Made an account just to say that I have yet to get to play or run my copy of SR4A, but the new Matrix rules work pretty much the way that I had to houserule it back in 2nd edition to make it work.
If I do run it soon (and I'm looking at the 6th World Almanac on Amazon and thinking this would be easier to get a group together for than Battletech: A Time of War) I am thinking that to keep the number of dice needed down, letting you turn dice into auto successes (on a 3::1 ratio) once you get pools to 13+ dice. That way you should not need more than a standard 12-die set of Chessex Six-siders. So, for example, a guy with 12 dice rolls them all, but a guy with 13 can turn in 3 for an auto success and then roll the other 10, or the really scary guy with 17 dice can roll 11 dice with 2 auto-successes, and so on.
Made an account just to say that I have yet to get to play or run my copy of SR4A, but the new Matrix rules work pretty much the way that I had to houserule it back in 2nd edition to make it work.
If I do run it soon (and I'm looking at the 6th World Almanac on Amazon and thinking this would be easier to get a group together for than Battletech: A Time of War) I am thinking that to keep the number of dice needed down, letting you turn dice into auto successes (on a 3::1 ratio) once you get pools to 13+ dice. That way you should not need more than a standard 12-die set of Chessex Six-siders. So, for example, a guy with 12 dice rolls them all, but a guy with 13 can turn in 3 for an auto success and then roll the other 10, or the really scary guy with 17 dice can roll 11 dice with 2 auto-successes, and so on.
It already is possible to trade dice in for hits in some situations (can't remember what situations off the top of my head), and it conversion is 4 dice for 1 hit.
It's not just size, either, however. My stepfather was 5'5", 5'6" tops. He loomed over anyone when he wanted to, no matter their height.
Several optionals of mine:
Charging: because a persons size would determine how more effective a charge would be, I changed the attack roll dice pool modifier from +2 to -2 and dictated that the attacker adds Body/2 to the damage being done. Certainly a troll charging a character would be more devastating than an average joe.
Counterattacking: I've implimented a fourth option to defending against a melee. The ever loving counter attack which existed in SR up until the 4th edition. You have to use a melee skill to defend with (not dodge), and you cannot counterattack while acting in full defence. If the defender gets net hits over the attacker, he does damage back at the attacker. This speeds up combat, but makes it a little more lethal.
Gear Concealability: instead of giving the perceiver a modifier to his perception test when looking for a target's hidden gun (this pretty much tells a player that an NPC is packing) I reverse the modifiers on he table and apply them to the palming test.
The Charging alteration here might work for your table, but it adds complexity to the system for little or no decent benefit--in my opinion.
The Counterattacking could be interesting, but it could very well make the Counter Strike power of the Adept almost pointless by basically giving the ability to everyone.
The Gear Concealability could work all right. I'd have to test that one before knowing for sure.
Charging: only comlex if someone doesn't know how to divide.
Charging: only comlex if someone doesn't know how to divide.
It's still more complex than just +2 to the attacker's dice pool, but that's why I added the caveat of it perhaps working at your table.
The counter-attacking also takes away from the positive quality that can be taken for a martial arts specialist. Adepts aren't the only ones capable of it, but it remains special. Giving it to everyone removes that quality and makes those that focus on their CQB abilities less special.
So because you don't use it, to hell with everyone that does?
So because you don't use it, to hell with everyone that does?Easy Mirikon, this thread is meant to discuss what people do in their own games. Specificially, it is meant to be rules that most might not agree with.
I give a bonus to looking mean to Intimidation, as long as all they do is loom. Open the mouth, forget it.Here's a good example of how reputation and just sheer badassery can make all the difference. (http://youtu.be/I0Mqb-5BYpg) My Stepfather had a look like that when he was somewhat inconvenienced.
It's not just size, either, however. My stepfather was 5'5", 5'6" tops. He loomed over anyone when he wanted to, no matter their height.
A historical example of small but intimidating because of reputation was Adolf Hitler. He was a small, funny-looking man; however, he was intimidating in person and even more so if you happened to know the type of power he wielded. Napoleon would have fit this bill quite easily too.Want a smaller person with even more intimidating power?
Want a smaller person with even more intimidating power?
General Winter.
General Winter is a General that Russia and Canada share, and is the only general to stop both Hitler and Napoleon cold (pun intended.).Want a smaller person with even more intimidating power?Are you making reference to our wonderful Canadian weather? Or am I missing something? ???
General Winter.
General Winter is a General that Russia and Canada share, and is the only general to stop both Hitler and Napoleon cold (pun intended.).Want a smaller person with even more intimidating power?Are you making reference to our wonderful Canadian weather? Or am I missing something? ???
General Winter.
Now if only he hadn't taken so many ranks in 'evil bastard'...
Of course, Hitler had charisma. Yes, he was an evil bastard, but that doesn't change the fact that he had charisma. Hell, watch a video of one of his speeches. Even knowing he's an evil bastard, even knowing what happened because of it, even without knowing a word of German, even with the bad quality of video recordings compared to today, you still can get swept up in the flow of his words. THAT is charisma, make no mistake.
It already is possible to trade dice in for hits in some situations (can't remember what situations off the top of my head), and it conversion is 4 dice for 1 hit.
Also note that you can't buy some hits, and then roll for the rest. You buy hits, or you roll.
Also note that you can't buy some hits, and then roll for the rest. You buy hits, or you roll.
So, I am rolling 15 dice. If I buy hits, based on RAW, I would only get 3 hits but lose the chance of rolling a glitch. Likewise, if I roll all 15 dice, law of averages dictates that I should get 5 hits and may roll a glitch which is sitting at 1:56,000 chance (assuming I did my math right, which I very well may not have). Obviously 15 dice is excessive, but it is only an example.
Or for those situations where you only need a couple hits. Say, if the threshold was 3 for a certain effect to go off.
Shadowrun OTOH, in all editions, states a baseline amount of damage for each weapon and each attack. That damage can be resisted, but no matter what happens, the damage does not start at zero and have to be worked up. For many weapons, it starts high and characters have to work it down, hoping that the attacker does not roll well.
Does that help?
Hi !
I have a question. Do you have any house rule for a melee adept ? Swordmaster and the like ?
I mean can you imagine some kind of power like critical strike for melee weapon ? What could be the cost of such power ?
I based the "true" metaraces originate from the magical elements. The so-called immortals
Orc - moss - plant
Dwarf - stone - earth
Human - Air or water
Elf - Air or water
Troll - ember - fire.
Dragon - All
All the normal metas were here about a descended for until now dominant genes.
Anyone tried the "Body only for healing" optional rule (rather than Body x 2)?
Did you find this better or worse? Grittier or not?
Damage Level* | Interval | Min. Time |
Deadly (All CM Boxes) | 30 days | 3 days |
Serious (60% CM Boxes) | 20 days | 2 days |
Moderate (30% CM Boxes) | 10 days | 1 day |
Light (Any CM Boxes) | 1 day | 2 hours |
Has anyone come up with some good house rules for allowing Longarms to be anything other than the ugly unwanted stepchild of the Shoot People family?
Well, Battle Rifles are more closely related to assault rifles than they are to longarms.
Um, Dude? What you just described is pretty much the definition of a niche ability. Something that can be very useful, but most of the time isn't applicable. There just aren't many sniping opportunities in Shadowrun, unless you're either in a war zone, or doing straight wetwork. Afterall, even in the real world, most (read: the vast majority of) shootings happen at a range of 20 yards or less.
True enough. Just throwing some suggestions out on how to give Longarms some more love, though.Honestly, there are a LOT of Longarms in Shadowrun, we just don't have stats for them. I really doubt that M1-Garands, SMLEs, and Kar98Ks are going to be going away any time soon. Not to mention all the other hunting rifles specifically designed as such that weren't military designs.
As for shotguns, they are an excellent choice for short-ranged urban fighting, if you're a low IP character. Someone with 1 initiative pass would do much better with a shotgun than they would with a heavy pistol or assault rifle, because the shotgun does more damage in fewer shots. Just like Suppressing Fire gets more useful the fewer IPs you have.
Personally, I'd like to see something similar to the old tac nail rounds people used to load in the ozarks. They were useless at more than across the room range and ruined barrels fast, but were amazing for close range defense.
Pretty similar concept. The difference though is that until about the eight foot mark the Tac Nails would usually still fly straight and "hammer" through a target (especially the large headed ones). After that point they'd tumble over and wouldn't really penetrate anything. Hmmm...now I'm left wondering what the armor value of a human is.
If they refuse to learn a new system are they realy worth it. Also whouldnt a free contact at xx rating not make shure they have a contact. I once in 3 ed i made a fixer charter I spent almost the whole new yen cap on contacts. So the GM gave me a list of jobs that needed people wanted done and i cherry picked the one for our group and passed the rest off to difrent contacts. It required allot of record keeping the made me do most of it but he had to have list of ideas for missions so was a bit of a pain on him.EWWW!!!! D20 Shadowrun thats Thats BlasphemeHey! I was trying to convince a bunch of gamers that refused to learn a new system to play SR.
Trying to find the best house rule to make Longarms a little more useful/interesting... which would be best?S&S rounds are out today for shot guns. I took them for the underbarrel shot gun for when i needed to stun some one, seamed a little op that some one had them in a pistole with what they do. Why use gel rounds. But most the time in combat i just gunned them down with my ausalt rifle, S&S was just for when i wanted to take some one alive. To costly with a tight wad GM lets see rescue a guy from a gang hide out with 30 members in it for 6K split 5 ways, good thing the face was able to talk him up no way we could do that run for the original offer of 3K. That whould not pay the rent for the month of down time he always places between runs. Oh and fail one run and a loaylty 5 fixer cuts you off.
'Taking Aim with a Sniper Rifle or a Sports Rifle grants a +2 dice pool bonus when firing SS or SA instead of +1. The maximum amount of Take Aim actions is still equal to half the characters weapon skill, rounded down.'
OR
'Called Shots made with a Sniper Rifle or a Sports Rifle while firing SS or SA only impose half the dice pool modifier they would otherwise.'
(Came up with that second one while typing the first... it seems to better get the idea across.)
Another thing I was strongly considering was allowing SnS rounds only for Longarms...
Maybe combining one of the above rules and allowing SnS in Shotguns only would be even better? Then all three have something special going for them, while still solving the cheese that is SnS?
Trying to find the best house rule to make Longarms a little more useful/interesting... which would be best?
'Taking Aim with a Sniper Rifle or a Sports Rifle grants a +2 dice pool bonus when firing SS or SA instead of +1. The maximum amount of Take Aim actions is still equal to half the characters weapon skill, rounded down.'
OR
'Called Shots made with a Sniper Rifle or a Sports Rifle while firing SS or SA only impose half the dice pool modifier they would otherwise.'
(Came up with that second one while typing the first... it seems to better get the idea across.)
Another thing I was strongly considering was allowing SnS rounds only for Longarms...
Maybe combining one of the above rules and allowing SnS in Shotguns only would be even better? Then all three have something special going for them, while still solving the cheese that is SnS?
For Shadowrun, in order to negate even a nominal hit with a low damage attack, for example a light pistol (4P), the defender needs to have 12 dice of body + armor to have a reasonable chance to negate it. (For shadowrunners this usually isn't an issue, for Joe Average, this is difficult.) If the attack was at all accurate, for each point of extra accuracy, there is an extra point of damage. That isn't "potential damage," that is actual damage inflicted. Therefore to be assured a reasonable chance to resist the attack, for every extra hit on the attack roll, the defender needs 3 extra dice to roll to resist. (Note I'm leaving out the defender's defense roll at this time, and simply using net accuracy.)
That is why SR favors offense.
That is something that should be easily countered by talking to the players. If something is making a player uncomfortable, it should be addressed, discussed, and stopped. Roleplaying is about having fun.That was tried it kept up so a house rule was put in place to stop it. After that there was no problems with that, and every one stated having fun.
That is something that should be easily countered by talking to the players. If something is making a player uncomfortable, it should be addressed, discussed, and stopped. Roleplaying is about having fun.
Well the rule is not because every one needed it why you think it was called the Pat rule. Wait they forgot there gender sounds like a cursed item from some where.
Well the rule is not because every one needed it why you think it was called the Pat rule. Wait they forgot there gender sounds like a cursed item from some where.
Lots of 'ware from Augmentation. Breast Implants, cyber-penis, fiber optic hair. Character was a disguise master with Amnesia.
Another rule witch was sorta fun watching some one deal with- If your charter does does something stupid and goes to jail you have to roll play your time in jail wiht your cell mates Huggy the troll, Squeezy the orc, and Clinchy the dwarf. Roll your unarmed combat vs there skill at ummmm taking advantage of you. Oh look they win roll your will to see if you like it.
Wait going to Jail is supose to be fun. That was started when a some one started acting real disruptive in game. He did not care if his charter died, and the place we played at had a rule that any one that wanted to play could. So it was a way for the GM to discorage behavo that is not right such as placing bait near some homless kids and wating in the shadows with a shotgun or or gunning down kids at a bus stop. The only reason we thaght it was funny was because all the problems he had been causing so much disruption in the game flow. But in most games rules like that whould not be needed.Another rule witch was sorta fun watching some one deal with- If your charter does does something stupid and goes to jail you have to roll play your time in jail wiht your cell mates Huggy the troll, Squeezy the orc, and Clinchy the dwarf. Roll your unarmed combat vs there skill at ummmm taking advantage of you. Oh look they win roll your will to see if you like it.
Umm...they wouldn't like it if they aren't inclined that way, and rape isn't ever enjoyable unless you are a hot anime chick. Soooo....I hope you weren't serious about that.
subtract "roll your will to see if you enjoy it" and I think it is perfectly fine.that was in 3rd with a target of 2, the gm was tring to be funny about it. any roll was a pass.
While I have played D&d for 22 years and Shadow Run for 13, I have never GM ed before.I am planning on running a game for my younger brother and his friends this weekend. So to get ready I have been making characters in my spare time, I find its the easiest way to learn a new game system.
Iv come up with the fallowing house rules based on both past gaming exp, house rules I picked up from my parents and other past GMs and mostly from just making character using the base book rules. I plan on using the following rules.
1. I plan on using the Karma build system, probable 500 points to start with since my players are new to gaming. I like the karma system over the other two because it seems to let you make more rounded characters.
3.I am not going to put a cap on + or - qualities. If they want to spend a large chunk of karma on + qualities that's fine. As for negative qualities the stipulations I have is they have to all be linked some how like if your playing a nerdy mage and take Asthma, combat paralysis, and a butch of allergy's that's fine. But if they take a bunch of odd ones I want back story as to why you have them. I was also thinking of letting them be able to take the Debt quality multiple times up to 1/2 their Chr but each time have it with a different group for instance if the had a 4 Chr they could take 60 bp or 120 karma but owe 30/60 of it to the yakuza and the other half to the mob.
4. I liked the idea of giving them Chr X 2 or (Chr X 3 if they play a face) In free contacts. I plan of doing contacts a little different, for one I am thinking of doing the Connection rating as not just who your contact knows but how well they do there jobs because were a rating 6 face who knows allot of people makes sense a rating 6 stripper doesn't, so what I plan to do is have them specify if the connection rank is for connections or for job skills. If they do job skills then there contact is awesome at what they do which can translate to an easier time getting stuff fixed of made, like if they had a rating 6 mechanic of armorer their guns and vehicles get fix faster and they can get any of the upgrades they wanted for cheap.
7.For spell casters since they get karma raped, do to paying for magic initiation and every other thing they have to spend karma for I am going to give them their caster stat in free spells like if their Chr was 4 they get 4 free spells or if their Log was 6 they get 6.
subtract "roll your will to see if you enjoy it" and I think it is perfectly fine.Chance "Enjoy it" to "are mentally scarred by it", and it's better than fine.
7.For spell casters since they get karma raped, do to paying for magic initiation and every other thing they have to spend karma for I am going to give them their caster stat in free spells like if their Chr was 4 they get 4 free spells or if their Log was 6 they get 6.Cash-for-Karma works fine to handle this, IMO. I always allow people to decide, at the moment of the award, to cut the Cash in half to up the Karma by 50%, or vice versa. Getting extra money? Got lucky at the casino or weekly poker game. Getting more karma? Training, doing good deeds, etc.
donating to cyber ware for tots.7.For spell casters since they get karma raped, do to paying for magic initiation and every other thing they have to spend karma for I am going to give them their caster stat in free spells like if their Chr was 4 they get 4 free spells or if their Log was 6 they get 6.Cash-for-Karma works fine to handle this, IMO. I always allow people to decide, at the moment of the award, to cut the Cash in half to up the Karma by 50%, or vice versa. Getting extra money? Got lucky at the casino or weekly poker game. Getting more karma? Training, doing good deeds, etc.
Well, Battle Rifles are more closely related to assault rifles than they are to longarms.
True enough. Just throwing some suggestions out on how to give Longarms some more love, though.
Another option, which I believe has been discussed elsewhere on the board, is simply eliminating Automatics as a skill and having all stocked, shoulder-fired weapons use Longarms and all pistol-type weapons use Pistols. Then you strip Rockets/Grenades/Missiles/Mortars into a separate skill called "Launchers" and fold the remaining Heavy Weapons (Cannons and MGs, IIRC) into the Firearms Skill Group so it still has 3 skills.
Well, Battle Rifles are more closely related to assault rifles than they are to longarms.
True enough. Just throwing some suggestions out on how to give Longarms some more love, though.
Another option, which I believe has been discussed elsewhere on the board, is simply eliminating Automatics as a skill and having all stocked, shoulder-fired weapons use Longarms and all pistol-type weapons use Pistols. Then you strip Rockets/Grenades/Missiles/Mortars into a separate skill called "Launchers" and fold the remaining Heavy Weapons (Cannons and MGs, IIRC) into the Firearms Skill Group so it still has 3 skills.
My rule is that the Firearms Group Skill is (specializations in brackets) :
- Hand guns (Pistols, Machine-Pistols, Submachine Guns)
- Long guns (Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Sport Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Battle Rifles)
- Machine guns (light, medium, heavy)
Launchers skill covers : mortars, rocket and missile launchers, and grenade launchers (both stand alone and under barrel versions) and assault canons.
I find the Firearms GS as it is a complete nonsense. Why a heavy pistol firing short burst is used with a different skill than for SMG firing in semi-automatic?
Also, I am thinking about making a distinction between aimed shots (weapon is held at the level of the eyes, like the iron sight in some shooters) which is based on Agility and instinctive shots (where the weapon is held at the level of the belly like in duels of revolver, or with the stock of automatic weapons blocked below the arm pit) which is based on Intuition. Depending on the situation players would use either Agility or Intuition.
It does fit with the description of actions and it prevents (some) players from exploiting the overpowered Agility attribute.
Why a heavy pistol firing short burst is used with a different skill than for SMG firing in semi-automatic?Because how you hold each weapon is entirely different. Your stance differs, too. SMGs are shoulder-fired two-handed weapons. Burst-fire capable heavy pistols (all, what ... two of them?) are not.
Also, I am thinking about making a distinction between aimed shots (weapon is held at the level of the eyes, like the iron sight in some shooters) which is based on Agility and instinctive shots (where the weapon is held at the level of the belly like in duels of revolver, or with the stock of automatic weapons blocked below the arm pit) which is based on Intuition. Depending on the situation players would use either Agility or Intuition.One thing to consider.: if it's a smartgun, and I have an image link, I don't have to use the iron sights to be aiming very, very precisely. I can get a picture-in-a-picture sight from the gun itself. With an aiming reticule and everything.
Why a heavy pistol firing short burst is used with a different skill than for SMG firing in semi-automatic?Because how you hold each weapon is entirely different. Your stance differs, too. SMGs are shoulder-fired two-handed weapons. Burst-fire capable heavy pistols (all, what ... two of them?) are not.
Why a heavy pistol firing short burst is used with a different skill than for SMG firing in semi-automatic?Because how you hold each weapon is entirely different. Your stance differs, too. SMGs are shoulder-fired two-handed weapons. Burst-fire capable heavy pistols (all, what ... two of them?) are not.
What about Machine Pistols... y'know, the ones that are the SR4 equivalent to a Glock 18 and, based on the G18 and their in-game DV, the same shape and size as a Light Pistol?
Instinctive Ranged Attack (Intuition + Weapon Skill)
- Blind fire (the target cannot be seen)
- All the wide bursts in BF and FA modes that decrease the defenders' dice pool
- Suppressive fire (treated as a wide burst)
- Shotguns with flechette ammunitions
Quick Draw Ranged Attack (Reaction + Pistols)
A single test to resolve both the draw and the shot (I don't like making two different tests) with Reaction + Pistols and a negative modifier of -3 (-2 when using quick draw holster). If the character scores no success, he has readied his weapon but did not have time to shoot on this Simple Action. If he scores a glitch the weapon stays stuck in the holster or drops on the floor. In case of critical glitch the weapon fires into the holster. This could spice up duels!
My personal ruling will be:
Cost:
... Obvious Armor (Obvious limbs only): Rating * 500 nuyen
... Concealed Armor (All types): Rating * 1,000 nuyen; also, Rating * [2] Capacity
Except when it's not. Whenever handedness comes up, they constantly lump SMGs in with one-handed weapons (and nothing is shoulder-fired unless you explicitly buy a shoulder stock for it, by the rules).Why a heavy pistol firing short burst is used with a different skill than for SMG firing in semi-automatic?Because how you hold each weapon is entirely different. Your stance differs, too. SMGs are shoulder-fired two-handed weapons. Burst-fire capable heavy pistols (all, what ... two of them?) are not.
Aha, I see the problem. I misread the table (jumped down a line), and thought Armor only took [Rating x 1] . My intnt was to have the concealed cyberlimb armor take up twice as much capacity.My personal ruling will be:
Cost:
... Obvious Armor (Obvious limbs only): Rating * 500 nuyen
... Concealed Armor (All types): Rating * 1,000 nuyen; also, Rating * [2] Capacity
Soooo... Obvious Armor doesn't take Capacity?
Because how you hold each weapon is entirely different. Your stance differs, too. SMGs are shoulder-fired two-handed weapons. Burst-fire capable heavy pistols (all, what ... two of them?) are not.SMGs are not considered shoulder fired in SR. They are one handed weapons that can accept shoulder stocks. In addition, you can attach a folding stock to a Light Pistol that has BF and suddenly it's a shoulder fired burst weapon too. Just to be clear, most common shooting styles for pistols use both hands as well, especially for Heavy Pistols. There are a handful of reasons not to use two hands, but they are extremely rare and most of them boil down to "I'm a jackass that doesn't like it" irl at least.
Not really irl or by the rules. Sure using two hands is going to (irl) improve your stability and aim, but it's perfectly possible to fire them one handed relatively well if you're trained to. They are no different than pistols in this regard. 90% of weapons trainers are going to train you to shoot all but the tiniest pistols using a two handed grip, but they can be fired one handed with a slight reduction in stability, and therefore accuracy.By your logic then full on assault rifles and sporting rifles are 1 handed weapons in real life some people do shoot them one handed. But for practicle uses they require 2 hands.
3E wasn't really better per say. It had every weapon type as a skill pretty much (Pistols, SMGs, Rifles, Assault Rifles and Shotguns. Heavy Weapons covered MGs and Assault cannons while Launch Weapons covered launcher, but they were Strength and Intelligence based respectively.) Where it had a definite advantage in realism was that you could "default" to skills rather than straight up attribute. The way SR4A changed the system (set TN), makes it weird to try and emulate defaulting to similar skills though.
By your logic then full on assault rifles and sporting rifles are 1 handed weapons in real life some people do shoot them one handed. But for practicle uses they require 2 hands.
Large firearms (anything rifle-sized and larger) are typically
used with two hands. A character wielding a large firearm with only
one hand will suffer a –2 dice pool modifier to ranged attacks (–1
for trolls).
Actually, many SMGs are easily used in one hand. An Uzi comes to mind immediately, as does the MAC-10.
.... and just watching that thing waggle around? I doubt he could hit the broad side of a car at over twenty feet, with more than one round in five.Actually, many SMGs are easily used in one hand. An Uzi comes to mind immediately, as does the MAC-10.
And here's a real life example, just in case anyone doubts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9VMoLapNA8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9VMoLapNA8)
.... and just watching that thing waggle around? I doubt he could hit the broad side of a car at over twenty feet, with more than one round in five.Actually, many SMGs are easily used in one hand. An Uzi comes to mind immediately, as does the MAC-10.
And here's a real life example, just in case anyone doubts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9VMoLapNA8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9VMoLapNA8)
Using a sling to absorb recoil on the shot involves forcing the gun against the sling until it's tight. You can achieve this one handed just as easily two handed. It's pretty much the opposite of using a stock, where you draw the weapon back toward you. Yes, irl two handed is more accurate, but SR makes no distinction between one handed or two handed for one handed weapons and a minimal difference for two handed weapons one handed (-2 is not even a full hit).
QuoteLarge firearms (anything rifle-sized and larger) are typically
used with two hands. A character wielding a large firearm with only
one hand will suffer a 2 dice pool modifier to ranged attacks (1
for trolls).
SMGs are not considered two handed, rifles and larger are. End of argument right there.
Seriously, do you even read the books? There is an entire passage on this in Arsenal. Yes, I've seen people shoot up to MGs in real life. Not well, but I've seen it. SMGs and Pistols are much easier to shoot one handed (common sense here).Actualy controling a light automatic weapon is harder less wgt to counter the recoil. You whould think smaller is easer to control but with automatics it is the other way around. In fact proper postion on the M240B is a one handed grip the other hand is used as a spacer when shooting prone suported, and instead of pulling it into you lean into it hard to bind the bipod. Now shooting standing changes the grip a bit making it 2 handed, but you loose allot of accuracy with it that way. (not something i read in a book but learned with first hand expearnce.)
Using a sling to absorb recoil on the shot involves forcing the gun against the sling until it's tight. You can achieve this one handed just as easily two handed. It's pretty much the opposite of using a stock, where you draw the weapon back toward you. Yes, irl two handed is more accurate, but SR makes no distinction between one handed or two handed for one handed weapons and a minimal difference for two handed weapons one handed (-2 is not even a full hit).
None of this really changes a fact that has been completely ignored here though. All this talk about SMGs being two handed weapons makes an assumption that Pistols and Machine Pistols aren't two handed weapons, but in real life nearly every stance taught involves the use of both hands on them just as much as using both hands on an SMG. OMG what can this mean? Guns are more accurate with two hands...mmkay. Universal standard here, no exceptions.You'll note that I did mention one small difference between using a Pistol with two hands, and using an SMG or Rifle with two hands: the Pistol doesn't generally provide a place on the weapon for that second hand. SMGs and rifles have those - shrouds over the barrel if nothing else, if not actual foregrips.
Back on TopicI like that one. A recent character build of mine had exactly that problem, in fact ...
Another one I use is that I let players lower the armor on a certain item if they want. For instance, if a player wants to wear a chain shirt, but only has a 3 body, I'll let them lower the armor to 4/6 if they want. This lets players have more control with how their characters dress rather than having to play makeshift dress up to hit their armor caps. I don't see any reason there aren't essentially different levels of protection in most common lines.
I also allow players to buy non-armored versions of everything for 10-50% of the price depending on the item and fashion style. This let's players have a normal trench coat (and gain the bonuses for concealability) or non-armored camo suits.Also entirely reasonable.
Some do, some don't. It varies from weapon to weapon. Try supporting one that doesn't with your hand and you'll get some nasty burn if you fire much at all. A mistake most people only make once (and a good way to watch and weed out the stupid ones, they'll do it repeatedly).
Here's a house rule that I think is needed. In order to discourage implants in Awakened
QuoteHere's a house rule that I think is needed. In order to discourage implants in Awakened
Why do you think it's needed?
Shadworun has never been D&Desque in it's magic. You never have an either or situation really, it's a balancing game, and every single mage/adept should feel different.
The thing is, it already costs them more. You take a hit to your magic (say dropping from 4 to 3) and then raise it back again (from 3 to 4), you've effectively paid to be at four magic twice (40 karma, what it costs to go from 7 to 8).
Under you proposed rules, doing the same thing (assuming 2 points of essence loss) is going to cost them almost three times the normal amount (55 karma or what it would take to go from 10 to 11) to be at four.
Let's not forget that adepts already get karma hosed by their powers (having to pay for increases as though their power levels were natural skill/attribute levels). All in all, it's just adding an extra karma tax in effort to make every single awakened conform to your feel of awakened which seems very akin to the stereotypical monk/wizard feel. (D&D it's magic or armor, you seem to be replacing armor with cyber and just running with it)
While it's regrettable that the discrepancy between augmented adepts and pure adepts is so large, gaining power by any means necessary is a staple of professionals in just about any field. Theft and performance enhancing drugs are both extremely large today. Tacking on 60 years isn't going to change that. Sure some will be more close-minded due to other factors (religion, personal codes, political views, cultural views, monetary restrictions, medical issues, etc.), it doesn't mean that all of them have to be close minded to feel like an adept. It's not a class based system.
while at the same time making the other possible--even if more expensive (which it should be).Why? This is what you haven't actually explained so far.
Quotewhile at the same time making the other possible--even if more expensive (which it should be).Why? This is what you haven't actually explained so far.
At the moment (especially if using gaes and way of the adept) pure, augmented, and burning out adepts are all viable both by feel and mechanics. All that making augmentation cost them more would do is flop the balance rather than fix anything.
The 'should be' is more personal preference, but the extra karma cost may be necessary to keep things from getting too out of hand with the second portion I talked about.
The 'should be' is more personal preference, but the extra karma cost may be necessary to keep things from getting too out of hand with the second portion I talked about.
It's painfully obvious to anyone that's read what you have to say on the subject that you have a major hate-on for augmented magic users.
Arguing that Augmented adepts need to be penalized on their Magic because you don't like the idea of your food touching is like trying to get spinach banned from school cafeterias because you think it's disgusting. Some people like spinach, just like some people like the fact that Shadowrun offers the temptation of quick, easy power to Adepts at the low, low cost of part of their soul. Making the fruit less sweet cheapens the characterization.
Right now, a vanilla Adept has to answer several questions. First and foremost; why aren't they Augmented? Why did they turn away from the quick and easy power? What's their issue? What will they do if, for example, someone dangles some Delta Grate bioware in front of their nose?
Your way makes it just another character type. Oh, hey, I want to play a ninja-monk dude. Lets rock.
Even at .375 PP/level, they'd still be limited by their augmented max, and would be better off in most cases (everything but body) taking the normal augmentations (Effectively .3 or .2 PPs per level considering the magic you'd lose).
Anyone care to shoot out some suggestions on some of those other criminally overpriced powers (kinda figure the same PP cost for the IP enhancer as for WR or MBW essence would work).
Anyone care to shoot out some suggestions on some of those other criminally overpriced powers (kinda figure the same PP cost for the IP enhancer as for WR or MBW essence would work).
Dropping PP prices to make the powers more competitive is something I can get behind, don't get me wrong there. ;)
Personally, though, since Karma is generally much more precious and limited than Nuyen, I recommend exactly matching the PP cost of IPA and Imp.Reflex to the equivalent Bioware's Essence cost. That's 0.2 PP/rank for IPA and 0.5/1.0/1.5 PP for IR.
Setting it up like that is going to make it so that going Augmented just means you get some unique tools, like Platelet Factories, at the cost of weakening your other tools, like Combat Reflexes. That makes the choice less of a no-brainer and more something to be carefully weighed and considered.
With IPA suddenly quite attractive enough to splash it on all your Attributes, and the IP boosters competitive as well, that means vanilla Adepts will be suddenly have to make some choices about what they get... chief among them, of course, whether to front-load the stats now and skimp on the other powers, or buy their "utility" powers and cap their stats after they Initiate and buy up their Magic.
At that point, "Geek the Adept" will probably actually make it onto the priority list, along with the Mage, the Main Battle Troll, and the Ork Machinegunner.
One that I've used before is that a mage can use a held action to actively counterspell any spell being cast in his line of sight that he can perceive (makes the noticing magic check or is astrally perceiving and has beaten the other mages masking).
I've also, in the past, run counterspelling as rolled by the mage (rather than the resister) and subtracts before comparing to the resister/s. If the counterspell gets more hits, the spell flat out fails. It's not a huge difference, but it does make a difference with AoE spells, and who spends edge for counterspell. It allows for an easier non-contradictory counterspelling when non-living items are targeted and it reflects the fact that counterspelling is targeting the spell rather than putting up a mana bubble.
Positive Qualities: | |||||
Personality | Background | ||||
Aptitude | Escaped Clone | ||||
Codeslinger | Erased | ||||
Perceptive | |||||
Sense of Direction | |||||
Analytical Mind |
I found that this made a lot of these often unused powers much more desirable and people would take them far more often, and I don't recall a single time when it unbalanced game play. If anything I sometimes still felt like giving the powers a boost for role playing and characterization. Many if not most powers are overpriced PP wise when compared to their cyber/bio equivalents. IMO.
Here's a house rule that I think is needed. In order to discourage implants in Awakened, ruling that the karma cost for increasing Magic would go off of what one's Magic would be without the implants. As an example, buying a Magic of 5 and taking 2 Essence worth of implants would still require spending 30 karma to get back to Magic 4.
Here's a house rule that I think is needed. In order to discourage implants in Awakened, ruling that the karma cost for increasing Magic would go off of what one's Magic would be without the implants. As an example, buying a Magic of 5 and taking 2 Essence worth of implants would still require spending 30 karma to get back to Magic 4.
Without going into the discussion on whether or not awakened should get implants:
Isn't this already the case in RAW?
I always figured that an Adept that buys 5 magic at chargen and loses a point of essense to implants, still has a 'Base Magic' of 5, but has a Modified Value of 4 Magic ( Magic 5(4) ).
Hmm, always did that wrong then.Here's a house rule that I think is needed. In order to discourage implants in Awakened, ruling that the karma cost for increasing Magic would go off of what one's Magic would be without the implants. As an example, buying a Magic of 5 and taking 2 Essence worth of implants would still require spending 30 karma to get back to Magic 4.
Without going into the discussion on whether or not awakened should get implants:
Isn't this already the case in RAW?
I always figured that an Adept that buys 5 magic at chargen and loses a point of essense to implants, still has a 'Base Magic' of 5, but has a Modified Value of 4 Magic ( Magic 5(4) ).
Nope. It's not a modification that you could remove by getting rid of the 'ware and healing the Essence Hole. The loss of Essence actually burns off one of your points of Magic. It's not 5(4), it's just straight up 4.
Well, the houserule seems to make a lot of sense and fits with all the other rules for increasing Attributes modified by Augmentation.... what rules?
Yes, you look at the base attribute without its altered value from the implant: You spend 5x6, not 5x( 8 ).
I thought it was the same for magic: to raise 5(3) --two magic lost to implant essense loss--, you pay to raise the 5 to 6, not to raise (3) to (4).
But apparently that's not RAW, but a houserule.
If you're getting Smites, it's not from me.
I use these two house rules. I'm curious what you think of them...... oooooooh, that is raising some "open to abuse" orange flags for me, in such a big way. Mainly by super-high-body Orks and Trolls.
Note that I only have the core rulebook, so these are based on just that book.
* On page 161, under Armor and Encumbrance, ignore the first line “If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies.” Instead, you can stack armor, up to a maximum of Body X 2, counting the higher of the Ballistic or Impact rating against that limit.
I’ve categorized the armors into three categories: Inner, Middle, and Outer Layers. You can only stack armors from two different layers.
Inner Layers: Actioneer Business Clothes, Armor Clothing, Armor Vest
Middle Layers: Armor Jacket, Leather Jacket, Urban Explorer Jumpsuit
Outer Layers: Camouflage Suit, Chameleon Suit, Full Body Armor, Leather Duster, Lined Coat, all Helmets, all Shields
For example: My character has Body 4, so I can stack a maximum of 10 armor (Ballistic or Impact).Shouldn't that be a maximum of 8?
As for the abuse by high-body orks and trolls, I'm not too worried. New characters can't buy full body armor (availability 14R). The most they could get, AFAICT, is an Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (6/6) over an Armor Jacket (8/6), totaling 14/12.Perhaps not with the sources you've got to hand.
Assuming a full Body 10 Troll,Exceptional Attribute: Body; Metagenic Improvement (Body); Genetic Optimisation (Body); Suprathyroid Gland. That's a Body of 14, enough to wear that 23/21 armor comfortably.
[...] she would roll 24 dice to soak ballistic damage [...]14 Body, and 24/21 worn armor ... +1/+1 from trollish Dermal Deposits, +3/+3 from Orthoskin 3. Let's add in Ceramic Bone Lacing, for +2 body and +0/+2 armor.
Other tactics could include taking a called shot to hit the leg (no Armor Jacket), [...]Even in your less-twinked example? That'd be -8 to the attacker's die pool (to bypass the single piece). The attacker takes a straight -1 penalty per point of armor bypassed. Shadowrun, remember, is a very abstracted system; it doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of precise hit-versus-armor-locations.
As for the armor types you mention, they are not in the core rulebook, so I have not thought of them.I hadn't thought you did. That's why I brought them up. It's always best to have your house rules set up so that they can accommodate existing books, even if you don't have them.
But, off the top of my head, the ballistic mask sounds like a helmet accessory, so it would be Outer Layer, [...]It's a helmet alternative, actually - but it's nature is such that it can conceivable be worn in addition to a helmet. RAW, that'd mean the character got +2/+2 armor, for 3/3 encumbrance.
Thanks for the comments.Not a problem. I do think your houserule is trying to do what shouldn't be done, though (allow for vastly-inflated armor ratings).
"It's always best to have your house rules set up so that they can accommodate existing books, even if you don't have them."
I'm not sure that's possible, but I take your point.
Shame on Pax for being silly. Not all GMs know all the rules in all of the existing books without reading them :P.... which is why we come here to discuss the rules, isn't it?
Shame on Pax for being silly. Not all GMs know all the rules in all of the existing books without reading them :P.... which is why we come here to discuss the rules, isn't it?
I really like your Helenistic tradition. Having Guardian as combat type fits the heroic daimon defenders of the Polis, while Beast for detection evokes the notion of augury by reading an animal's entrails or the flight of birds. Guidance for manipulation can reflect the gods' meddling in the affairs of mortals, and Man is the great deceiver. Water for health is in line with the theory of the humors. Yes, looks really solid to me.Thanks. The water as healing also invokes water as a 'life giver', whether the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, or even the Mediterranean itself, water WAS life in the ancient world. Also, using a beast spirit to track or 'hunt' something just seemed like a such an obvious natural fit.
However, I've just got a minor nitpick regarding your Anthropomorphic Skull. "Anthropomorphic" means "human-like". I think Bestiamorphic is what you're going for here.Yeah, went in the wrong direction with the adjective there. I'll go up and give it an edit~
Don't like it. Basically strips away the entire point of being a Mystic Adept (having to choose which side of the coin to send the next bit of Magic to).
No it doesn't. All it is is a specialized, limited(and therefor a bit cheaper) version of a Power Focus.Don't like it. Basically strips away the entire point of being a Mystic Adept (having to choose which side of the coin to send the next bit of Magic to).
I concure
New idea for a simple house rule: Shields do not count against armor encumberance. Instead, their 'encumberance' is represented by yourinability to use that hand for anything else... like using a second gun, or using a weapon that requires 2 hands, for example.
New idea for a simple house rule: Shields do not count against armor encumberance. Instead, their 'encumberance' is represented by yourinability to use that hand for anything else... like using a second gun, or using a weapon that requires 2 hands, for example.
And don't forget, you also get a -1 to all other actions, even if you're not over your Encumbrance limit, for using one. Between that and tying up a hand, I don't think it would be game-breaking to not have them count against your worn armor, since they're worn, not carried.
Better include the same for Red Dot Sights as well. Laser sights kind of suck: it's actually quite difficult to see the little dot it's projecting. Reflector sights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflector_sight) and holographic sights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_weapon_sight), on the other hand (which have finally been statted in SR4 as "red dot sights" in Gun Heaven), are always easy for the user to see as long as they bring the sights up to their eyes.Was just thinking about that when going through Gun Heaven, too... Not a bad idea.
Oh and one more: nonimplanted smartlink doen't give you instant mind control over the guns features. Becausr how would contact lens do that.Presumably by way of DNI you have through trodes/datajack connection to your commlink, which has a wireless connection to your contact lens and also to your smartgun system - which is the only way the entire system works in the first place.
I'm thinking of one house rule, dropping the dodge skill and using reaction aagain where applicable.
The rationale is that it's boring. It doesn't give you anything new to do, it's semi-mandatory (so it takes points from skills that actually do things) and if you don't take it, you character canot do the "omg I'm outta here action that "nakes sense for pretty much ny character. I know it will make high reaction charactets pretty much unhitable, but that's more of a featire. What do you think?
(also we are playing 320 points characters, so we don't have points to spare for boring skills)
Oh and one more: nonimplanted smartlink doen't give you instant mind control over the guns features. Becausr how would contact lens do that.Presumably by way of DNI you have through trodes/datajack connection to your commlink, which has a wireless connection to your contact lens and also to your smartgun system - which is the only way the entire system works in the first place.
...and the implanted version still requires the wireless connection aspect since it no longer includes wiring run down your arm to an induction pad in your hand (the reason you found Smartlink on the bodyware chart in earlier editions, not the eyeware chart), so why create an arbitrary difference between the two?
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.
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.".
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.
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.
What if connection 3, loyalty 5?
What if connection 3, loyalty 5?
With so many points in such a contact, it's best to always have them available.
Empathy software is designed for use with standard video/trideo cameras, simrigs, cybereyes and similar devices. By carefully analysing the behavioural patterns of the subject, it can ascertain mood, interest, and so on. It does not detect falsehoods; that’s the realm of lie detection software.
Empathy software can be used to assist a Judge Intentions Test (see p. 139, SR4A) for emotional status adding half its rating (round up) to the dice pool. If used to make a Judge Intentions Test alone, use it's full rating.
Empathy software can be discreetly used during negotiations or social interactions, provided sufficient visual input of the target is available, and the user has real time access to the software's output. Add half its rating (round down) as a dice pool bonus to the character’s Social skill tests.
This is a house rule in the works help in developing it is both NEEDED and appreciated to be clear I do not want to add hit locations to my game.
One of my players asked if you could shoot an area of the body and make it much harder to do a particular set of tasks. There were no set rules for shooting a hand or foot and the largest reason for not having hit locations stems from need to keep combat abstract so I put this forward.
Called Shot to Inhibit. attacker selects an attribute and chooses to reduce their dice pool by 1 to 6 to inflict an equal Condition Modifier to all skills linked to the selected attribute. This penalty lasts until the wound is healed can be reduce by a Willpower + Pain resistance test (a Pain Editor would not help to reduce the penalty it simply allows you to ignore the penalty while it is turned on)
or
Called Shot to Wound, Attacker receives a -4 penalty to Dice pool defender is treated as gaining the Low pain tolerance Negative quality until the wound is healed (players with Low Pain tolerance are reduced to uselessness quickly as stacking the effect would mean a 1 for 1 CM ratio for them). If damage is completely staged off there is no effect
It's still added complexity for little or no real gain. If you want to do it, go ahead, but keep in mind that any added complexity will slow things down. I disagree that combat is all that slow now, but there are some who've said that they've somehow taken several hours for a combat (never had one take more than one hour--with a lot of off-topic tangents--personally).
Some attacks are just more painful than others. Knowing how to take advantage of that is pretty much the basis of many unarmed strikes.
Personally, I think both can work as you've put forth. The shot to inhibit may be a little overpowered just due to the sheer amount of skills you can affect by hitting someone's agility, but i don't for see it ever causing a huge issue. Both shots should have a smaller shelf life than "until healed". Personally I'd say for a number of turns equal to attack's net hits to make it similar to how the tase rules work. I think it would be a little "fairer" for it to have a damage threshold of the target's Willpower though, similar to how some of the toxin effects work.
Another one to consider is the Call Shot to Hobble
Attacker receives a -4 penalty to the shot. If the target takes damage exceeding it's Willpower, it suffers a -25% movement penalty for a number of turns equal to the attack's net hits. This can be done multiple times, but may never incur more than a 75% movement penalty.
I disagree with All4 though, I know, it's a shocker. These don't add any complexity to the game. Call Shots are already a part of the game. All these do is add more choices for a Call Shot action. It's really not adding any more complexity than adding gear from a new sourcebook to the game would be. Choices are almost always a good thing.
EWWW!!!! D20 Shadowrun thats Thats BlasphemeHey! I was trying to convince a bunch of gamers that refused to learn a new system to play SR.
- no encumbarence (I probably spelled that wrong) with only one piece of armorThese are two of my faves from the book.
- charisma * 2 free BP for contacts on chargen
- everyone has 10 stun and 10 physicalIs this only if their BOD is lower than 3 or is this for any BOD 5, 7 and up?
- stick-and shock ammo doesn't existThis kind of gimps mundanes against spirits doesn't it?
Everyone. It's like it was in older editions. I formerly did it when I was GM to simplify things. Now, after reading few topics here, I think the extra boxes would be useful, so I'll talk to the now GM about droping this. Chummer has us covered anyway.Quote- everyone has 10 stun and 10 physicalIs this only if their BOD is lower than 3 or is this for any BOD 5, 7 and up?
Yeah. We talked about "anti-spiritual ammo" that doesn't count as "normal weapon" to replace it if things go bad. But we wil have two mages (out of 4 characters) and the others are heavy weapon/explosives expert and technomancer, so I don't think it's going to be issue with spirits. The idea was mostly about SnS making it too easy to be the good guy. (the we should do something about stunbolt, right? I know, but I'm not sure what).Quote- stick-and shock ammo doesn't existThis kind of gimps mundanes against spirits doesn't it?
Unless you're assumed to be policing your brass and magazines. In proper military procedure, you keep your magazine instead of just letting it fall.
Personally, I think it's a vestige of older editions where ejecting a smartgun was necessary to get that as a free action, because if you're policing your magazine it would still take a simple action because most of that time is putting away the old magazine. It becoming a free action is a benefit of a smartgun - possibly one of those copypaste carry-overs.
Consider that leaving behind even brass is a way to be traced, unless you scrubbed each shell with gasoline or bleach, or whatever your preferred agent is (gas probably not so much). When they were testing the AK-47 out initially they were instructed to pick up every bit of brass so the project wouldn't be leaked. Now mags are allot more specific, and if somehow you don't have footage or something similar you've got something hard to go off of from a number of different angles.
As far as it taking that much extra time to keep it all together, it shouldn't but, as you stated earlier JN the action phase is at the very least full of quantum anomalies. I think they should shrink how much time an Action is from 3 seconds to one to better reflect un-augmented human capability.
I wrote this down on another thread I started, trying to balance out Mystic Adepts in relation to Mages and Adepts. I am gonna try this soon, and so far it seems really good on paper, keeping the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" feel to it.
The idea is that we split an MAs magic between the adept and mage side, but here is how we do it. We split the magic in half (round down for the mages side) and then add 1, for example, a MA with 3 magic would have 2 mages for casting spells, and 2.5 magic for PP. They would have PP from magic in chargen and throughout the game, just as normal adepts do. This would mean that early on, adepts are able to keep up to their piers in both sides, but as they advanced, learning more advanced techniques from both takes more time then just focusing on one. This keeps the balance between the two sides, without leaving the MA heavily underpowered (I think, I haven't had a chance to test this yet).
Wait, wasn't what was done before that mystic adepts split their magic attribute between their magic-user and adept sides, choosing the ratio? This idea is more the formula Magic/2+1. Whereas you need whole numbers for the magic side, you round down, you don't do so for the adept side, as adept abilities can cost 0.XX PP. My first edition of Shadowrun was 4th, so I don't really know about before, but in 4th, I thought the idea was that when an adept gained a magic attribute point, they put it into the mage side (spells & such) or the adept side (PP for abilities), meaning that if you split them evenly (and not everyone would) then a MA with 6 magic would have 3 for spells and 3 for PP, and when their magic went up to 7 it would be either 4/3 or 3/4. My idea would leave a MA with 6 magic with 4 for spells and 4 for PP, but the split would be even every time, and when they go up to 7 it would be 4.5/4.5, but since spells use whole numbers, for simplicity we could just say 4/4.5.I wrote this down on another thread I started, trying to balance out Mystic Adepts in relation to Mages and Adepts. I am gonna try this soon, and so far it seems really good on paper, keeping the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" feel to it.
The idea is that we split an MAs magic between the adept and mage side, but here is how we do it. We split the magic in half (round down for the mages side) and then add 1, for example, a MA with 3 magic would have 2 mages for casting spells, and 2.5 magic for PP. They would have PP from magic in chargen and throughout the game, just as normal adepts do. This would mean that early on, adepts are able to keep up to their piers in both sides, but as they advanced, learning more advanced techniques from both takes more time then just focusing on one. This keeps the balance between the two sides, without leaving the MA heavily underpowered (I think, I haven't had a chance to test this yet).
This is what was done before that led to the controversy surrounding Mystic Adepts. As such, it would only return the old problems.
I wrote up some extensive house rules for making technomancers viable and cool again. I posted them to Dumpshock, and had the foresight to do it right before the forums went down, so as of yet I've received no feedback. Since this is a house rules thread, I'll post a link to my document. Right now it's 13 pages and a bit over 5,000 words, so I'm a little hesitant to post it directly into the thread.
Technomancer Redux (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91128141/Technomancer%20Redux%20v1.0.rtf)
Any feedback wound be appreciated, and I intend to add other things to the rules later (I have some new quality ideas, and some new fluff I'd like to incorporate as well, among other things.)
This does increase technomancer power levels a little bit, and might even edge them ahead of mundane deckers over time (after enough karma.) My assumption is that as future books come out with more decker options and 'ware, the playing field will more than likely even out a little bit.
Want to make Aspected Magicians less terrible, so that a player would actually choose to pick one.
First, they get Astral Projection. Don't know why they lost that in the first place.
Second, change the priorities to the following:
Priority C: Magic 3, one rating 3 Magical Skill Group, 1 spell or 1 bound spirit with 3 services
Priority B: Magic 5, one rating 4 Magical Skill Group, 2 spells or 2 bound spirits with 4 services
Priority A: Magic 6, one rating 6 Magical Skill Group, 3 spells or 3 bound spirits with 5 services
And third, since Aspected Magicians are completely focused on one aspect of magic, they are able to command that magic more efficiently. They get +2 dice to resist drain.
The Karma comes out to a slight advantage for Aspected Magician at each priority, and in exchange for losing two aspects of magic, they get +2 drain on the one they picked. Seems much more balanced to me.
Why are you decreasing Fading across the board?
The idea of Technomancer powers ala adept powers is an interesting one worth pursuing, but I disagree with your portrayal of technomancers as apparently completely in control of their own physiology, able to rebuild their bodies and basically grow new organs and such. There is no reason for that, and it seriously detracts from the Technomancer ideal in my opinion. IE, an Echo to be able to connect via direct connection just by holding the end of a plug or shoving your finger into a port is a good idea; having them spontaneously grow a port in their bodies is not.
I also completely disagree with Enhancements to mimic cyberware, both from a balance standpoint and for the reasons I just stated. It is utterly ridiculous to give a Technomancer the ability to just grow themselves cybernetic enhancements that do not cost essence. A Technomancer equivalent of Wired Reflexes can exist, much like the Improved Reflexes power or Increased Reflexes spell, but outright saying the Technomancer basically reconstructs their own spinal cord to make a biological copy of Wired Reflexes is absurd.
I also strongly disagree with Buffer and Defragmentation, as the real world damage technomancers receive from using their abilities is their main drawback. You also don't specify with Buffer that it doesn't work for Resonance actions, so it'd be very easy for a player to abuse this system to Mitigate or completely ignore Fading.
Sprite Mastery also seems a bit ridiculous, since it effectively doubles the effect of submergence on Sprite levels. They are able to raise their Resonance, which increases it, and Sprite Mastery increases it too, for a 2 for 1 special. Is there a similar Metamagic for Spirit Summoning? Because I've never seen it.
Blind the Eye + Static Veil = Overwatch? What's that?
I don't think I have to explain why Rootkit is broken as all get out.
Solid State is good, but it's basically just Centering, which is a good idea for Technomancers the same way its a good idea for magicians.
I'm not touching Respec with a 10 foot pole.
Don't see why Cleaner needed these changes.
Diffusion of Matrix Attribute is Permanent? Seriously? And with lower fading on top of that.
I get the inclusion of rules for live-feed editing to Editor. I do not get the decreased fading.
Infusion similarly broken like Diffusion.
Why are you decreasing Fading across the board?
Overall the only thing I like about this is the idea of giving Technomancers a Power Point system to achieve more without needing to Submerge for all their benefits. But everything else you've done here seems unnecessary and just makes Technomancers grossly more powerful.
Technomancers have had some degree of control over the way their abilities manifest at least since Unwired, and so I continued that trend. I assume that you don't roll dice to randomly determine what powers your characters develop; awakened and emerged characters can work towards that end as well. The Resonance is more than just some mystical force behind wireless signals. It has to deal with the Matrix in general, including devices that can only be connected to via a datajack. Indeed, the precursors to the technomancers, the otaku, had to get datajacks in order to use their abilities. Datajacks that, I might add, lower a technomancer's Resonance now, and thus harms their abilities. So I give them a way -- at a cost -- to avoid losing their Essence and their Resonance, but still be able to interface with wired devices.
But they already did this in Unwired. I'm not saying honest-to-goodness real cyberware shows up in their bodies, only that the physical and biochemical changes in their physiologies is enough to copy those effects. Look again at the Acceleration Echoes and their effects. Or its prerequisite, Biowire. Or the unrated complex forms, Simrig and Smartlink. How again are technomancers not already able to do this in the game world? And in order to get Wired Reflexes I, they have to use two Resonance Points and submerge. To get WR3, they have to submerge three times and use FIVE Resonance Points. Assuming you start off at Resonance 6, that's 168 karma, far more than it would take to initiate the four times to get Biowire and the three ranks of Acceleration.
If you... disagree with Defragmentation, you disagree with just a rehash of an Echo from Unwired, in SR4. I just retooled it a little bit and wrote it out because I think it's a solid inclusion. If you compare Defragmentation from SR4 to my write-up of it, I have actually nerfed it.
I will take your feedback into consideration for Buffer and explicitly state it does not mitigate Fading. But my main concern when I was writing up Buffer was for databombs, the single biggest threat to a technomancer's life and health (even more than IC, or even GOD). A bad (good?) roll on a databomb is enough to instantly gib your technomancer, even if it's not a remarkably powerful one. The worst that can happen to a decker is he has to work on his commlink for a few hours. The worst that can happen to a technomancer is you start rolling up another character.
But have you seen the tricks that magicians can do with drams of reagents? Or with the various foci they can sink karma into? Because those definitely help magicians and shamans summon more powerful spirits, and technomancers have no recourse in this regard. A powerful spirit can destroy an opposing runner team or TPK your entire Shadowrun group. A sufficiently powerful sprite can make your commlink not work. See the difference?
Overwatch is that score you run up pretty quickly when you're not sitting around twiddling your thumbs in any host that matters. When every one of your rolls get opposed by a ridiculous host Matrix attribute and backed up by a smart admin's settings, you'll burn through those extra points awful fast. Don't believe me? Try some test rolls against rating 8+ hosts, and tell me how quickly those points add up.
Well, that doesn't give me much to work on, and I won't presume that I can read your mind.
Because as of right now it's useless. The Fading was too high for something that might lower your OS by a measly point or two, and you had to sit around for multiple entire Combat Turns to get that benefit. In addition, it broke the rules in its own description, saying it was a Simple Action -- so you could (weirdly enough) cast two of these things in one turn, sustain both of them, and sit around waiting for them to take permanent effect. Why not just take up the whole turn and give it the benefit of a single, combined shot?
It is Permanent in the regard that after a time you no longer have to sustain the effect. But Permanent does not mean "forever." As soon as the device reboots or the proper amount of time has passed, all is in the original configuration. Keep in mind that Diffusion is resisted, and you have to pump up the Level of the complex form to get any affect whatsoever.
Edit File is a Data Processing action, meaning it will never alert the host, and it will never piss off GOD. You can do it all the live long day (at least until your time runs out and GOD converges, but even that will take a while.) Why am I going to make a technomancer risk alot of Fading for something that is virtually risk-free?
How? You still have to cast it at a minimum Level of the original Attribute's rating? And again, it doesn't last forever.
Because commensurate effects in other parts of the game have much less risk for much more benefit. Most of the complex forms written as-is are, frankly, quite crap. Now, I'd take damn near any of them.
I'll even give you my favorite example: Stitches. Stitches allows you to heal a sprite for boxes of Matrix damage. It also originally had a FV of L-2. For healing a sprite. Compare that to the actual honest-to-goodness Heal spell that spellcasters get. Your buddy gets shot with a gun and is on death's door, and you can heal him. The Drain Value on that is F-4. With a Heal spell I can target any physical, living thing and heal damage done to them, possibly saving lives (and PCs. Your friends probably like their characters.) With Stitches I can knit a sprite back together. And you're telling me that it should be worth a whole 2 extra boxes of Fading, even despite its vastly limited utility? I don't buy that one bit. In fact, I think making Stitches' FV EQUAL to Heal's DV is being awfully generous.
If by "more powerful" you mean "technomancers can actually do stuff," then I think you're right. First off, keep in mind that technomancers were my favorite part of the game in SR4, and so I took it as an affront that they were essentially emasculated and made useless. Other folks who are writing new rules and fixes for the game are being motivated by the parts that bother them. For example, some people are rebalancing cyberware for price and effect. Some folks are rewriting weird vehicle rules. In the end I choose the part that bothered me the most and I decided to be proactive and write some rules that I felt made technomancers fun to play again.
I've made technomancer metamagic analogs function similarly to the way that they do for other awakened: they are actually (for the most part) WORTH taking, and they get better over time as the character initiates. Currently their selection of options upon initiation is limited to what are essentially overpriced adept powers. If you are going to spend the karma to submerge, you ought to get something substantial in return for that. Any of the enhancements I just wrote up are many times better than the individual Echoes you could pick up in their place.
The technomancer that I think you are fearing is one with about 500 karma under his belt using these rules. In reality, I've never gotten higher than Grade 2 with any awakened or emerged character. In the Shadowrun game that I GMd for two real life years, my players got to about 150 karma before they collectively decided to retire. If I spent every bit of that on technomancer submersions and Resonance increases, I wouldn't get very far, wouldn't have a very high grade, and my skills still won't be where the mundane hacker's will be, since he can take less than that 150 karma and get that 12 in his Hacking skill, on top of his top-end cyberdeck and the 'ware he has implanted in his body.
Probably because Fading costs are far too high across the board. For example, there is fundamentally no reason for Puppeteer to have a Fading code that is 5 points higher than the Drain code of the much more powerful Control Thoughts.
Probably because Fading costs are far too high across the board. For example, there is fundamentally no reason for Puppeteer to have a Fading code that is 5 points higher than the Drain code of the much more powerful Control Thoughts.
I don't think you understand the full potential ridiculousness of Puppeteer. You can make them perform any Matrix Action, and unlike magic, there is no equivalent 'noticing resonance' system in place, so nobody even necessarily realizes you did it. Here are just a few examples of why Puppeteer is ridiculous, and fully deserves +4 Fading.
Jack Out: It's a Simple Action, so the threshold is only 2. You force them to jackout and hit them with dumpshock.
Invite Mark: Also a Simple Action, for a threshold of 2. And when you make the offer, you choose how many marks it is, so with 1 Complex Action, you can force an opponent to give you 3 marks, something that's normally a -10 penalty on Brute Force or Hack on the Fly.
Format Device: Threshold 3 that basically bricks their device on reboot and takes hours to fix. Make them do this to themselves to get around the 3 marks you'd need and the defense test, then follow it up with...
Reboot Device: Threshold 3, they reboot themselves, erase all their marks, suffer dumpshock, and if you did Format first, are effectively gone for the remainder of the run.
Disarm Data Bomb: Make them blow themselves up instead of you.
And perhaps most Insidious of all...
Switch Interface Mode: Simple Action, so it's a Threshold of 2. You do this in Meat Space to dump anybody who's got a DNI into VR, causing them to collapse and become helpless long enough for an ally to kill them, or for them to die from the environment.
I'm running my first shadowrun 4 campaign at the moment and tend to house rule on the fly, based on what feels right at the time. I'm a little confused over armour stacking rules, it seems that you can keep adding armour from different sources to get silly numbers, where it becomes effectively impossible to suffer physical damage (I know stun track might be less, but that's not really the point). To counter this I have ruled that only the highest armour rating counts towards determining whether an attack does physical or stun, other armour still adds dice to the soak text as normal. So far it seems to be working quite well (we had a slight scare when one of my pc's got clipped with a round from a bike mounted LMG [as far as you can get 'clipped' by an LMG hit] and took 9 boxes of physical damage), but otherwise the spilt between stun/physical seems about 50/50 and it keeps that 'danger factor' in the game. Does anyone have any thoughts on this approach?We're talking about 4th, not 5th, right? Because in 4th, you add up all the armor rating points, then pick the highest of Impact and Ballistic, to determine encumbrance ( ((Armor - Body x 2)/2), rounded up, is a penalty to Agility and Reaction). while using multiple pieces of armor (with the exceptions of "+X" stuff, form-fitting armor, and combining pieces of fashion sets) don't add to your actual Armor rating or soak dice.
I'm running my first shadowrun 4 campaign at the moment and tend to house rule on the fly, based on what feels right at the time. I'm a little confused over armour stacking rules, it seems that you can keep adding armour from different sources to get silly numbers, where it becomes effectively impossible to suffer physical damage (I know stun track might be less, but that's not really the point). To counter this I have ruled that only the highest armour rating counts towards determining whether an attack does physical or stun, other armour still adds dice to the soak text as normal. So far it seems to be working quite well (we had a slight scare when one of my pc's got clipped with a round from a bike mounted LMG [as far as you can get 'clipped' by an LMG hit] and took 9 boxes of physical damage), but otherwise the spilt between stun/physical seems about 50/50 and it keeps that 'danger factor' in the game. Does anyone have any thoughts on this approach?We're talking about 4th, not 5th, right? Because in 4th, you add up all the armor rating points, then pick the highest of Impact and Ballistic, to determine encumbrance ( ((Armor - Body x 2)/2), rounded up, is a penalty to Agility and Reaction). while using multiple pieces of armor (with the exceptions of "+X" stuff, form-fitting armor, and combining pieces of fashion sets) don't add to your actual Armor rating or soak dice.
Form Fitting is the only one that only partially counts for encumbrance, and MilSpec's Bodyx3 doesn't work together with ANY other armor as well as get you special attention, so the highest you can get barring MilSpec is (Bodyx2)+3 for Ballistic, or Bodyx3 with MilSpec for Body 4~6 (less with the anti-encumbrance upgrade for it). Natural Armor and Ware/Magical Armor are the only things that go above that since they don't count for encumbrance.
If and when I start GM'ing again, there is one house rule I've been contemplating after one particular session of play with a new GM.
In the session, there was a melee focused character (adept I think, but it doesn't matter) who relied on her sword first, fists second. No biggy, nothing special there. A fight breaks out, and forwhatever reason, the character couldn't get to her sword. So out come the fists to deal with some knife wielding mook.
The GM, in his ruling, argued that for defense purposes we could not use Unarmed Combat as the skill for the defense pool. Bear in mind, everyone at this table is military (active or recently retired at that), so we're no strangers to combat. Since I was dead dog tired at this point, I wasn't about to start a rules discussion to slow things down.
Then I started thinking about it. In hand to hand combat, in terms of melee combat, the unarmed combatant is generally at the immediate disadvantage. Trying to parry a knife is far more dangerous than just getting the hell out of the way. catching a blade or a pipe on the forearm trying to parry the thing with my own anatomy is not going to account for a good time since with even the subtlest mistake, it will result in a cut up arm or broken bones. So while I agreed in the end with the general concept, I didn't agree with his execution.
So here is what I was thinking;
Instead of making Unarmed useless defensively, I had another idea. In terms of defense, the defender no longer wins ties when facing someone who is using a melee weapon. Given that unarmed has a ton of advantages (shock hands, always being 'armed', etc. etc.) it gives a minor one-up to blades (who really needs it) and clubs (who really doesn't need it, but logically fits the concept, since it doesn't take a genius or tremendous amounts of skill to be dangerous with a lead pipe). These are my thoughts, but I figured I'd submit it to the masses for critiques, comments, and suggestions.
I would do a Negative Mod to the unarmed skill maybe -4 or is that to harsh.
Which seems like it would be harder to do compared to a regular parry than "you lose ties" implies.I would do a Negative Mod to the unarmed skill maybe -4 or is that to harsh.
I'm not so sure a penalty is needed - trying to parry any weapon while unarmed is dangerous, but that's why you don't do it. You block the arm holding the weapon, something any character with a respectable Unarmed Combat skill should know.
Which seems like it would be harder to do compared to a regular parry than "you lose ties" implies.But it already is harder to block with unarmed compared with a weapon.
Attacker has longer Reach: -1 defense per point of net Reach
Defender has longer Reach: +1 defense per point of net Reach
But it already is harder to block with unarmed compared with a weapon.That's very nice and all, but I thought this was solely about unarmed parry versus armed parry (which a 0-Reach knife or sap can do), so Reach doesn't matter, and neither does how dangerous it is if the enemy hits you with the weapon (which will be the same regardless of what you're using): it's solely about comparing an unarmed parry of a melee attack versus a melee-weapon parry of a melee attack (we'll not go into the fact that you can apparently parry an unarmed strike with a bladed weapon without injuring the opponent). Plus Block already works with your Unarmed Combat, so I'm not exactly sure why you'd need to add an Unarmed Parry action.QuoteAttacker has longer Reach: -1 defense per point of net ReachAnd it already is more dangerous to get hit with a melee weapon than to get hit by a melee attack.
Defender has longer Reach: +1 defense per point of net Reach
Which seems like it would be harder to do compared to a regular parry than "you lose ties" implies.I would do a Negative Mod to the unarmed skill maybe -4 or is that to harsh.
I'm not so sure a penalty is needed - trying to parry any weapon while unarmed is dangerous, but that's why you don't do it. You block the arm holding the weapon, something any character with a respectable Unarmed Combat skill should know.
So "Parry" can actually be, basically, offensive attacking. Just not enough, apparently, to do even a single box of damage.
People should be reminded how melee combat works in Shadowrun.
Melee is not seen in Shadowrun as "I strike you. You dodge me. Now it is my turn to strike you back."
In reality, if you used Parry + Sword to defend against Unarmed Combat, then you would be mostly reducing their chance to successfully hit by forcing them to not attack you very often at all.
Someone with a sword, defending against unarmed combat, is mostly on the offensive. The moments the Unarmed Combat person has, will be to either try to create a weakness to exploit (feign attacks) or dodge the offensive attacks of the sword user until able to counter.
Instead, Melee is 3 seconds of martial combat. Parrying an Unarmed Attack would mostly be sitting there doing nothing, as the Unarmed combatant only gets a few attacks of opportunity on you. Otherwise, the Unarmed combatant would be sliced to pieces trying to attack, while the swordsman parries.
So "Parry" can actually be, basically, offensive attacking. Just not enough, apparently, to do even a single box of damage.
From what I've heard (my knowledge of editions prior to SR4 being limited), earlier editions had melee combat where whoever won the roll dealt damage. Counterattacks and such may become an element of SR5 again when the advanced combat options show up.Yeah, that's how it used to work. Essentially an opposed test and whoever had the most hits did damage. It made going into melee with a melee focused adept an EXTREMELY bad idea.
Not my idea but I did think it'd make sense: Would it be possible to split this topic into separate SR4 and SR5 Houserule topics?Done.
It looks like I might be inheriting an SR4 campaign soon, and one thing that really bothers me is the initiative pass system. Did anyone try transplanting SR5's initiative system to SR4? Does it just mean changing the corresponding ware/spell/power or am I missing something vital that will make it all not work?We did just that in our local SR4 game for the last year (transitioning to SR5 now).
subtract "roll your will to see if you enjoy it" and I think it is perfectly fine.that was in 3rd with a target of 2, the gm was tring to be funny about it. any roll was a pass.