[Mirikon]

Spec-ops, or actual mercs, as in MET2000, Combat Inc., or the like. And that would be the kind of game the stuff in WAR is intended for, I believe. Of course, once they get burned, they'll need to ditch the uber-gear, because that will just draw all kinds of bad attention their way.

Yes, you can have a main battle tank. Oh look, Knight Errant is pulling you over. Again. That's the tenth time this block.

[kirk]

Availability allowing, I'd let the PCs have Battle Rifles.  I mean, hell, those are in civilian hands today.  (Ruger Mini-30 pretty much is one.  The M1 Garand IS one.  Dragunovs (Under the name of “Medved”)?  Need I go on?).

(snip)
There seems to be a deep confusion among the writer as well, with the idea everywhere that military specification equipment is -better- then top shelf civilian equipment. Having worked extensively with military equipment, I can assure you that it is made to be robust, reliable, easy to use and effective. It's not, however, state of the art. Military communications, personal weapons, armor, and most -defiantly- computers and software are years behind the curve for commercial products, much the state of the art.
(snip)

No, on this I think it's you who've made the mistake. You're using real world justification to ignore long-standing meme. Within the core rule book the hard to get gear is often "used by military". It's an existing meme that the game creators and later authors have used often, though not as blatantly as, well, WAR1

[Teknodragon]

Slow is hella good, but not as all-around powerful as stunbolt and manabolt, from my experience. A force-1 spell will pop if there's more than one PC or NPC inside it trying to move. If you center it on someone, they're proof against bullets... but they can't shoot out (Without a laser, and likely at a hefty penalty due to the aiming movements being, well, slowed!), and if they leave the area of the slow spell, they're vulnerable again. Standing still in combat = probably a bad idea. Especially in a setting where backup is a call and moments away. Very useful for a quick exit of a building, though. Overall, most of the functions of the slow spell can be covered by the use of Physical Barrier and Levitate.
Oh, with a good fixer/talismonger, it takes only a few days to snag the formula going by strict availability rules; GM may modify those as appropriate.

The biggest power creep from WAR!, IMO, is Softweave Armor. A BOD 3, STR 3 mage suddenly can stroll about in FFBA and a fancy lined coat, resulting in a sweet 12 ballistic, 6? impact armor. Had a GM going WTF over my character's defensive pools because of that. And at +10% cost, +2 availability, that is a cheap defensive boost.

No experience yet with battle rifles, though that's because the cost of the _ammunition_ is prohibitive at chargen. I suspect that once a character can make much use of such weapons, it will be like lasers and similar: when they can afford to use it, they will also have the karma, skills, gear, adept powers, etc. to be _very_ good at using it.

[Mirikon]

That's kindof my point, Tekno. You're not going to see any of this stuff in the hands of gangers, syndicate men, or even the low-level corpsec boys.

Personally, I like the Softweave, though I haven't used it much with my characters. In my opinion, its real use comes in two forms:
* First, getting people with BOD 3 or so into milspec armor. Primarily good for mages and hackers in military or merc companies, allowing them to not be singled out on the battlefield. "Hey, there's the one guy not wearing full armor! He must be the mage! Shoot him!"
* Second, allowing low BOD characters (such as pixies) to wear decent armor.

It is the second that has more utility in most games, IMO. In both cases, the real utility isn't in jacking your armor up to insane levels, but in bringing you onto common footing with others at your level.

[Crash_00]

I must have missed it, where does it say Battle Rifle ammo costs more?

[tzizimine]

It's the high caliber vs. high velocity rounds. Many battle rifles require special ammo for the higher DV.

[Falconer]

I actually liked the softweave, for low body characters.... you already have a problem of indestructible troll (typically a fomori... whoever wrote them should be shot).  Really what's 2 points more armor to a troll already packing 20-30...

It allows a body 2, or 3 character to actually wear REASONABLE armor.

By reasonable I mean, an armor jacket (8/6), or bulletproof vest (6/4).   No way I'd allow a body 3 character to pull off 12 armor though by stacking up all that and applying the mod to anything except basic plain vanilla armor.


Much of the other tech strikes me as poorly done and written.  IE: I'd double recoil on the battle rifles... also I'd make things like gas vents unavailable to them.  Yeah they hit a bit harder but they're a lot harder to control.  I also see no reason for them to have better damage code than a MMG!  A lot of the rest just strikes me as blatant power creep like the armor piercing flechette.   I don't see a problem with it, outside of it should be very very rare and nigh impossible to get your hands on in many cases.

Then again, I believe heavy weapons should get normal recoil and SMALL ARMS should get double recoil penalties (there is a reason support weapons are built big and heavy... it's to make recoil MORE manageable, not less).

[WareWolf]

To everyone arguing about Battle rifles.

You all do realize that battler rifles are only Semi auto / burst fire capable without a large firing modification from Arsenal. yes, they have longer range and 1DV higher damage than assault rifle class weapons but a lower rate of fire and are incapable of suppressive fire. They are two different types of weapons with two different strengths and weaknesses. Someone might argue that with a weapon modification the battle rifle becomes a superior weapon. I cannot argue that but consider by RAW that you can have a Barret sniper rifle that fires full auto and does more damage than an HMG. Just be prepared to carry a lot of clips.

[Crash_00]

I think the biggest issue with Battle Rifles isn't that they are overpowered, but that MGs are underpowered and the Firing Mod is overpowered. The Firing Mod and a Battle Rifle is only a small mod unless its the single Battle Rifle that doesn't get BF.

Also, if you're using WAR for the battle rifles, there is a good chance GM's will be using other parts of the book as well. It has a section that allows SA and BF weapons to do Suppressive Fire.

(there is a reason support weapons are built big and heavy... it's to make recoil MORE manageable, not less).

I would agree if the rule doubled all recoil on heavy weapons, but it only doubles uncompensated recoil. Most support weapons are meant to be braced with a bipod or tripod and fired (which takes care of 2 or 6 points of RC). I honestly think that most support weapons being designed in the SR world would have the Gyro-mount in mind instead, but that may just be me.

[Glyph]

I think GMs banning the whole book are generally more concerned about power creep, and maintaining game balance, than nixing "new toys".  There was a similar reaction to the overpowered empathy software in the otherwise fairly balanced Arsenal book.  Judging by people's comments, War! has several such items - I have heard complaints about softweave armor, battle rifles, the slow spell, that modification that lets you double bow damage, and commlinks that go up to rating: 9.

[Kontact]

Battle rifles do make sense though.  The 7.62 NATO round delivers about 2x as much energy as a 5.56 NATO.  Its damage code matching up with a shotgun or hunting rifle makes sense.  Also, a runner who expects that killing power will be more important than price would be remiss not to go up to a larger caliber.  But, when you need cheap and disposable, a BR is not your thing.

[KarmaInferno]

Personally, I like WAR! As has been stated, most of the gear is HIDEOUSLY overpowered for a normal shadowrun game, but there's a reason why most of the stuff there has an availability of 30+. In other words, ask now, pay up front, and sometime in the next year or two, your fixer will have it for you.

The problem is, most of the gear even with those high availabilities is STILL pretty trivial to get if you have a decent face. And they're have it for you in a couple of weeks.

Though that may be more of an indictment of how it's way too easy to get masses of social dice in this game.



-k

[Mäx]

No experience yet with battle rifles, though that's because the cost of the _ammunition_ is prohibitive at chargen.

Whut, ammo for battle rifles cost exactly the same as it does for all other weapons(that dont have unique ammo type)

[CanRay]

Though that may be more of an indictment of how it's way too easy to get masses of social dice in this game.

-k

Were I still running a game, I'd put in massive modifiers for getting that gear as almost all of it is headed to the Front, and not to areas like Seattle.  Of course, if you're IN the front, there's a bonus to get them.  Then again, you're in the front, so...

Whut, ammo for battle rifles cost exactly the same as it does for all other weapons(that dont have unique ammo type)

Battle Rifles, War! (Bogota! ?) Page 154-155.  It just mentions that they use heavier caliber ammo, not custom or more expensive ammo.  As I mentioned before, there's a number of "Battle Rifles" in civilian use today.  Hell, if the basis is just "Between Assault Rifle and Sniper Rifle", then I've heard of a few families that have had their Battle Rifles since WWI.  (Ross Rifle and SMLE Mk.III.).

[Crash_00]

I think the simplest "fix" would be give LMGs the damage the do now, MMGs a bump in the damage (up to 7P) since they should be using the higher caliber ammo that the Battle Rifles are using, and give HMGs a bigger bump in damage (up to 8P average SR damage). I'd also like to see AR and LMG ammo interchangeable, MMG and Battle Rifle ammo interchangeable, and HMG and SR ammo interchangeable. I know its not a perfect correlation to RL, but it seems like it would fit the simplicity of SR4A.

Then again, in house games, I rarely let the Firing Mod modification be used because I think it reeks of poor design.