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Adjustable strength bows

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firebug

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« Reply #15 on: <01-31-14/0106:18> »
Strength and Charisma are definitely the stats I see dumped the most.  Even for the gangers or big brutes I see Charisma go before Logic most of the time.

And yeah, most runners honestly don't use Charisma.  A lot of the time whenever they could, they either direct the person to the Face or else just start shooting or swinging...  Players are surprisingly okay with just saying "oh you got me" whenever the Ork with 1 CHA has to try and lie and instead has to just shoot stuff like he wanted to in the first place.

Really though...  Attribute Boost in general is kinda shit.  Only Agility boost is useful, since REA is the easiest stat (well, not 'easiest' but everyone will take some levels of Increase Reflexes) for an Adept to improve, BOD has even less useful skills than STR.  AGI may not increase your movement speed, but a +3 to your attack tests for six combat turns it nice.  You can hardly say it's just STR that's getting the short end of the stick.
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ZeConster

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« Reply #16 on: <01-31-14/0618:41> »
I guess this is for normal campaigns. In our base Missions group, 3 out of 4 characters have enough Charisma+Negotiation that 2 of them can reliably help the third through Teamwork tests - which you'll need to get any net hits against some of the contacts.
Aside from faces and the Social limit in general, Charisma is also useful for Composure, Judge Intentions, Technomancers and Shamans (and Hermetics who like to bind spirits), plenty of mentor spirits, handling contacts, and not having to spend Karma on starting play with more than one useful contact to begin with.
Attribute Boost (Reaction) might be helpful for mystic adepts: rather than invest Power Points into Improved Reflexes, they can just combine the Increase Reflexes spell with Attribute Boost (Reaction). And Attribute Boost (Body) seems like it's helpful for soaking damage (since you use a dice pool for that). This doesn't change that I don't like the Attribute Boost rules, but aside from Strength, they all have their potential uses.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #17 on: <01-31-14/0637:18> »
On EVERY Negotiation test they cap out on the maximum bonus they can provide the lead negotiator. Still scored 0 net hits vs Sarah. ;D

All Attribute Boosts do have use, but the lack of a damage boost for Strength is plain silly. I can understand not boosting limits+inherent values, but damage seems unfair to me, since Strength is nearly-always useless for the rest.
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ProfessorCirno

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« Reply #18 on: <01-31-14/1148:07> »
So not only is Strength not the only one that double dips, it is, along with charisma, one of two stats that most runners will never use, ever.

Wut?

(Although I do agree that it is stupid as hell that "hulking out" doesn't increase damage... the power is already limited by the Augmented Racial Max. If they wanted to put a reasonable limit on the power, they should have used the ranks in the power as a limit)

Charisma doesn't do much outside of Charisma skills, basically.  It's easy to make a character with no intention of talking to people, and while a smart DM will still make you do it, chances are, it'll still come up less then most other stats.  To put it another way, they're the only two stats with little to no in-combat relevance.  No matter what you do, every character is GOING to use Logic, Will, Intuition, Reflexes, and Agility at some point. 

Personally, I hate dump stats in general and try to never have 1's, and usually only have a 2 in strength, unless I'm playing a street scum style game.  But the lowest stat is always going to be strength.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #19 on: <01-31-14/1150:50> »
Outbluffing opponents or talking them down qualifies as combat relevance to me. And not every character will use Logic.
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JackVII

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« Reply #20 on: <01-31-14/1152:46> »
Different table experiences, I suppose. Most of the games I have played in have HEAVILY relied on Charisma skills and pretty much everyone has to use them between Con, Etiquette, Impersonation, and Negotiation, particularly the last one given how it ties in heavily with working with contacts.

ETA: With that said, STR is my most common dump stat given the not quite attractive state of melee combat.
« Last Edit: <01-31-14/1154:58> by JackVII »
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Mithlas

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« Reply #21 on: <01-31-14/1155:42> »
I think we can all agree that any character is going to have a dump stat, that's kind of a common theme that's encouraged by the design of tabletop RPGs and is somewhat seen in reality - some people have scrawny muscles and some people have pea-sized brains and go into politics. But more on the main thread topic:

I'm not familiar with how reducing the strength of a pull works in real life. I would imagine that it involves re-stringing the bow, yes?
Only on a very old school bow. Nowadays you can adjust their weight with an allen wrench and turning a bolt (or 2 or 4, depending on the bow). In my mind if we have pistols that can fold themselves into blocks of metal and knifes that can become form fitting in sheathes, adjustable strength bows seems well within the norm.
I'm inclined to agree - I haven't had enough money to keep up with archery since I started college, but I was active in archery in Boy Scouts and a local club for a couple years when I was younger and the troop quartermaster only had to take a couple minutes with a pocket adjustable wrench to tweak several bows. That draw strength influences how much strength you need to pull the arrow back to the proper position and hence how much energy that arrow is going to fly off at, but you can (and I did) see two completely different bows (different size, different companies that made them) that were both composite-pulley bows that I could use (after adjustment) at exactly the same draw strength. That being the case and Shadowrun only having advanced in technology, I can see either an Armorer or Archery (2, complex action) test to adjust the strength of a bow anywhere from 1 to its maximum rating.

Does anybody really disagree with the ability to buy or modify bows to be able to adjust them so lower-strength characters can use them, whether or not you're taking advantage of strength-boosting spells?

JackVII

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« Reply #22 on: <01-31-14/1158:27> »
Nope, I think that is a fully reasonable ruling.

If there is a price increase (which could distinguish between a compund pulley bow and some old school non-modifiable amerind job), I would limit it to +100 nuyen or so...
« Last Edit: <01-31-14/1201:12> by JackVII »
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #23 on: <01-31-14/1158:34> »
I'd allow it if they pay extra, 50% more and up to half their rating in lower Strength.
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ZeConster

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« Reply #24 on: <01-31-14/1200:11> »
I wouldn't say my Missions character really has a dump stat (3/3/3/3 physical, 6/5/5/4 mental), only dump skills.

Out of curiosity: how much time would adjusting the Strength rating of a bow take?

JackVII

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« Reply #25 on: <01-31-14/1202:21> »
Real world or game? I think he suggested an extended test with a Threshold of 2 and a time increment of 1 Complex Action.
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #26 on: <01-31-14/1352:24> »
That's not an extended test, really. Not at that threshold. Make it a threshold of 20, or one of BowRating+RatingDifference.
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raleel

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« Reply #27 on: <01-31-14/1418:29> »
As the man said:

Quote
I haven't had enough money to keep up with archery since I started college, but I was active in archery in Boy Scouts and a local club for a couple years when I was younger and the troop quartermaster only had to take a couple minutes with a pocket adjustable wrench to tweak several bows.

Seems like the sort of thing that you are talking about a few seconds per bow at most. It also seems like the sort of thing that one could easily make a wireless benefit. You pay for the max strength, adjustability to be crappier is just a convenience at most.

ZeConster

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« Reply #28 on: <01-31-14/1443:59> »
"a couple" and "several" can still mean anything from 5 to 30 seconds per bow. But yes, this does sound like something that could be a feature of an internal-smartgun-system bow.

Mithlas

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« Reply #29 on: <01-31-14/1456:03> »
If I recall he only took 10-15 seconds - though he was obviously extremely experienced at the tweaking, which Shadowrun might represent with a high Armorer or Archery skill rating. I do agree that it sounds like a good feature to package in or control with an (internal?) smartgun-system bow.

The only issue with how the bows would be adjustable is that they need to be built that way from the start from all I know - you can get significantly cheaper bows that can't be adjusted, but those are little but curved pieces of plastic (wood in the old days) and string.