[Black]

Once again - thank you for the patience to answer my questions
But, I have more!
a) What's the point of using two pistols
b) Is firing long bursts/full auto useful only for super-shooters?

Let's assume an average shooter with 4 agi and 4 automatics. That gives him 8 dice (no modifiers etc). Assuming he's ambidexterous, he splits his dice for two pistols, giving him 4 dice per pistol/hand. Right? So, his chances for hitting are lower... But both pistols can deal damage, right? So he's lowering his chances in exchane for damage?

What about b) using full auto imposes -9 recoil. So with 8 dice he has no chance of hitting at all?

a) pretty much, but in most cases his still better going with one pistol and calling a shot or aiming or something else.  2 pistols is rarely effective compared to other options.

b) -9 recoil if you have no recoil compensation.  Almost all guns capable of full auto have recoil comp, and you should always consider ways to reduce it further.  secondly, the extra damage for a narrow burst (particularly good against armoured trolls or manifested spirits) or the -dp to the defender for wide burst which allows you to clip those fast moving or invisible targets easier...  or just lay down some suppression fire if your slow (good for the grunts attacking your player characters).

[JustADude]

Once again - thank you for the patience to answer my questions
But, I have more!
a) What's the point of using two pistols
b) Is firing long bursts/full auto useful only for super-shooters?

Let's assume an average shooter with 4 agi and 4 automatics. That gives him 8 dice (no modifiers etc). Assuming he's ambidexterous, he splits his dice for two pistols, giving him 4 dice per pistol/hand. Right? So, his chances for hitting are lower... But both pistols can deal damage, right? So he's lowering his chances in exchane for damage?

What about b) using full auto imposes -9 recoil. So with 8 dice he has no chance of hitting at all?

a) pretty much, but in most cases his still better going with one pistol and calling a shot or aiming or something else.  2 pistols is rarely effective compared to other options.

b) -9 recoil if you have no recoil compensation.  Almost all guns capable of full auto have recoil comp, and you should always consider ways to reduce it further.  secondly, the extra damage for a narrow burst (particularly good against armoured trolls or manifested spirits) or the -dp to the defender for wide burst which allows you to clip those fast moving or invisible targets easier...  or just lay down some suppression fire if your slow (good for the grunts attacking your player characters).

And don't forget alternating fire!

You can hold a gun in each hand and fire them with alternating actions, one at a time, which means that each weapon's Recoil Compensation is applied separately to the relevant burst. It's also cheaper to buy two pistols than a High Velocity modification.

What I mean, for Skie's benefit, is that if you can fire a Long Burst from Weapon A with your first Simple Action, then a Long Burst from Weapon B with your second. Since it's much easier to get 5 points of Recoil Compensation on a weapon than 9, and RC is counted on a per-weapon basis, that means you can easily fit them with RC 5 and fire those Long Bursts with no penalties.

[foolofsound]

There is very little point in dual wielding pistols; you are generally better off making called shots.

If you want to fire narrow bursts, you need recoil compensation, and preferably a high dice pool.

A shadowrunner with 10 shooting dice (AGL 4, Skill 4, Smartgun) is what most groups consider a semi-combatant. You will have the ability to defend yourself, but should try to leave combat as soon as possible. A real street sam should have between 15 and 20 shooting dice.

[Noble Drake]

A shadowrunner with 10 shooting dice (AGL 4, Skill 4, Smartgun) is what most groups consider a semi-combatant. You will have the ability to defend yourself, but should try to leave combat as soon as possible. A real street sam should have between 15 and 20 shooting dice.

Just a note: some of us out here think the above statement is insane and find that if it were true they could not actually enjoy sharing a game with "most groups."

A "semi-combatant" in my view would have around 4 or 5 shooting dice, contrasted by the "non-combatant" having 2 and the "highly trained" shooter having 8 to 10.

I accept, however, that while my view lines up with the descriptions of attribute and skill ratings in the rulebook that does not mean that "most groups" pay attention to anything other than percentage of possible ratings (i.e. a "combatant" has 80 to 100 percent of the possible ratings - such as agility and shooting skill at either their soft or hard caps + tools and tricks to help out)

[foolofsound]

Just a note: some of us out here think the above statement is insane and find that if it were true they could not actually enjoy sharing a game with "most groups."

A "semi-combatant" in my view would have around 4 or 5 shooting dice, contrasted by the "non-combatant" having 2 and the "highly trained" shooter having 8 to 10.

I accept, however, that while my view lines up with the descriptions of attribute and skill ratings in the rulebook that does not mean that "most groups" pay attention to anything other than percentage of possible ratings (i.e. a "combatant" has 80 to 100 percent of the possible ratings - such as agility and shooting skill at either their soft or hard caps + tools and tricks to help out)

I feel this sentiment is strictly silly, and ignores the equipment, themes, and mechanics of Shadowrun. There is no reason that a Street Sam (or corp soldier) should have less than 6 Agility (3 average, +3 augments), no reason he should have less than 4 in his firearms skill, plus a specialty (appropriate to a combat veteran, according to the book), no reason he should not have a smartgun system. This means that a street sam should have, at minimum, 14 or so shooting dice on his main weapon. This is all on a strictly non-optimized character for any chargen system.
Where are your numbers coming from?

[WellsIDidIt]

A beginning runner instead of a vet probably. would be my bet. Not every street sam pops out of char gen as an ex-seal/seasoned mer/experienced runner. 400 BP characters built to be seasoned in one field almost always glance over other areas they should have some skills in. A beginning sam with 4 agi, 1 augmented, 3 in his combat skill and 2 from smartlink is sitting at 10 dice. He's considered to be at a professional level and still out performs Lone Stars 3 Agi+3 Firearms+2 Smartlink of 8 dice.

[Halancar]

a) What's the point of using two pistols
b) Is firing long bursts/full auto useful only for super-shooters?

a) If you have lots of dice, and I mean lots, so you can afford to split them and still be sure to hit with each pool, then shooting with two pistols mean you can shoot four separate targets in one IP. Assuming that each shot has a decent shot of killing each target, that can be a good option. Of course, that probably means that you are facing weak or unarmored opponents, or that they just ate the edge of a grenade blast and are about to drop anyway.

Alternating fire, as has been mentioned, is also an option, which limits recoil and means you can shoot that much longer before reloading. In fact, all those people wearing two guns in old photos ? They weren't really wearing them to shoot them together, but to have 6 more bullets already loaded when the first gun ran dry.

b) super shooters and shooters that have a highly customized gun, or are using a weapon mount or at least a bipod/tripod. Also, sometimes you just have to have the extra damage even if it means hoping for a miracle on the dice (including the target's defense dice) to actually hit. Hey, sooner or later you're going to be shooting at a wall or a barrier, and missing won't be an issue but doing enough damage to make a difference will.

[foolofsound]

A beginning runner instead of a vet probably. would be my bet. Not every street sam pops out of char gen as an ex-seal/seasoned mer/experienced runner. 400 BP characters built to be seasoned in one field almost always glance over other areas they should have some skills in. A beginning sam with 4 agi, 1 augmented, 3 in his combat skill and 2 from smartlink is sitting at 10 dice. He's considered to be at a professional level and still out performs Lone Stars 3 Agi+3 Firearms+2 Smartlink of 8 dice.

A 400 BP runner is a fairly experienced runner; 300BP is a "starting" runner according to p.80 SR4A.

Let's compromise, then. 4 AGI (somewhat above average), 2 augmented (16k nuyen, 10R), 3 combat skill (professional competence), specialty (in the weapon they did their training with), and smartgun (400 nuyen). That's 13 dice at only 48 total BP (with enough nuyen for a modded gun left over); not even a major investment for a combat focused character. Having less that 13 dice is acceptable in a low-powered campaign, but in a 400BP campaign?  That 10 shooting die character had better not pretend to be the group's main combatant, unless the GM likes taking it easy on players, or the team is capable of avoiding all combat.

I disagree with your (and the core book) Lone Star officers; the fluff for wares makes it quite clear that A) Most people have at least some wares that aid them in their job, and B) Said wares are payed for and installed by their employer. See the section on skillsofts in Unwired: most corps prefer to implant employees with skillwires and a couple of appropriate softs than to actually train them. I feel that the writers ignored their own fluff in order to create low powered enemies as grunts (see the totally non-threatening red sams for an example).

[WellsIDidIt]

300 bp is for a low level street campaign (I'm assuming that's what you're trying to reference as a "starting runner").
500 bp is for an elite campaign.

What sits between gangers and elite seasoned mercs? Starting shadowrunners.

Sure, the GM needs to tailor his campaign to what the players make, but don't try to pretend that seasoned mercs is the only way to play a starting character. Every single one of these seasoned merc builds I see is missing multiple vital skills that they should have points in for efficiency's sake. What's the difference between 10 dice and 13 dice in shooting? 1 hit. If you think that's going to sink the team, there are probably bigger issues at hand.

As for Lone Star, they were not usually wared unless they bought it themselves or "confiscated" it. Jazz was developed by LS to compete with augmented individuals. I feel that you've ignored a lot of history to try and make your point.

[foolofsound]

I feel that you've ignored a lot of history to try and make your point.

"Cybernetic modification is commonplace in 2072. Bodyshops offering minor procedures can  be found in every strip mall, and recent advances in cybernetics have brought down the price of once-costly procedures, making cyberware even more readily available to the masses. Even the poor might have cybernetic vision, hearing enhancements, or a datajack." -SR4A p338.

"Augmentation is now par for the course in many job markets, from office execs and media snoops to military types and construction workers. Skilled labor can now be bought for the price of a set of skillwires and some software." -Augmentation p17

"Except for the Fast Response Teams, the officers are generally lightly augmented,  proficient with firearms, and have passed a six-month training course. More and more of their officers have skillwires, to allow for broader deployment opportunities, and their six-month training period has been augmented with the liberal use of knowsofts and linguasofts for their street patrols." -Vice p179, on Lone Star

"Employees are likely to be heavily augmented, and the corporation encourages this with subsidized loans and discounted surgery rates." -Vice p181, on Wolverine Anti-Gang units

I also recommend that you read "The Chipped Workforce" starting on Unwired p193.

I feel that you are the one ignoring one of the major themes of Shadowrun, transhumanism (aka "the devs made unaugmented mundanes a poor option on purpose").

The compromised stats I wrote in my previous post? Those are easy to get without sacrificing much in the way of versatility or flavor even on a 300 BP character, much less 400. Those stats are hardly "veteran" level. Spending a 1/6th (300 BP) or an 1/8th (400 BP) on your primary function is hardly breaking your bank, and honestly is kind of skimping out on it, at least at 400 BP level.

[Noble Drake]

WellsIDidIt knows what I am getting at, but foolofsound has a strong point about what it actually takes mechanics wise to get where he is suggesting... though it sounds a lot like those Pathfinder players that tell you the one true way to build any given character as if there is some objective "best" that a character can be, which is a style of play I've just never understood.

Flavor-wise, I may be stuck in the 2050s... my Shadowrun is still on the far edge of cyber-punk, rather than fully transhumanist - especially because passages like the one you suggest from Unwired are brief, vague, and destructive to the setting in more ways than they are helpful. If it were truly as cost effective to use an automated workforce in many cases, and an unskilled-plus-skillware'd workforce in the rest as that passage seems to indicate... then why does the world of Shadowrun still have schools at all?

I think it is a case of speaking plurality when really only meaning to refer to a small percentage of cases - a nurse might manage by having skillware, but nurses are people that have finished nursing school. Same with other jobs and skillware - the majority still do it the old fashioned, learned it all at school, way... even if they get a little help from some tech or magic.

[foolofsound]

WellsIDidIt knows what I am getting at, but foolofsound has a strong point about what it actually takes mechanics wise to get where he is suggesting... though it sounds a lot like those Pathfinder players that tell you the one true way to build any given character as if there is some objective "best" that a character can be, which is a style of play I've just never understood.

Please don't try to strawman me or my arguments, nor put words in my mouth. An investment of less than 50 BP is order to achieve mechanical competence is hardly excessive optimization, nor does it oppose what is written about the setting, if anything, the quotes that I have given support it.

You are absolutely allowed to run the setting however you want in your own games, but the setting as written supports skillwired wageslaves, augmented cops, and a whole lot of standardizing and dehumanizing people. As to the question of schools, they are a fading relic (the wealthy get tutorsofts, the poor get screwed). Skillwires were only first invented 30 years ago in setting, and they were clunky and not very useful for a long, long time (can you imagine how difficult it would be to program software that grants you unfamiliar reflexes?). The widespread proliferation of skillsofts is a relatively recent phenomenon, but a dangerous one. Rather than detract from the setting, I feel that this enhances it; it means that workers don't matter, they are all interchangeable, replaceable cogs in a machine that couldn't care less about them. Only the truly wealthy and truly exceptional have any future in Shadowrun.

[Noble Drake]

Please don't try to strawman me or my arguments, nor put words in my mouth. An investment of less than 50 BP is order to achieve mechanical competence is hardly excessive optimization

I tried no such thing - I simply expressed my opinion that your statements sound similar to statements made by others about another game.

I never said that the investment required to get to the dice pools you suggest is "excessive optimization."

I challenge that "mechanical competence" is simply achieved a lower dice pools than you state, and that getting to the dice pools you suggest as a starting character is not only going beyond "mechanical competence" but is actually creating a strange character from the standpoint of role-playing games and progression over the course of play as only the mechanically weaker areas of the character (read: only the sub-functions of the character) are going to realistically see improvement as the costs to improve beyond the levels you suggest the character start are prohibitively expensive.

[foolofsound]

If you think a 4 (slightly above average) Attribute, a 3 (professionally competent) Skill, a Specialty, and a relatively small amount of starting money spent makes a character "strange", then I don't know what to tell you. I'd really love to see a sheet for what you would consider a "normal" starting character.

I'm honestly baffled by people who seem to ignore or even oppose the mechanical necessities of a system because they feel that building a powerful (or even above-average) character violates their extremely personal view of the setting. I'm even more baffled as to why these same people feel that the should give mechanical "advice" that recommends that the asker adhere to their personal view (this is like people recommending that adepts drop all their augmentation, regardless of their group power level). I'm not opposed to RP; in fact, I enjoy and promote it, and I do agree that the SR4 system (particularly the BP system) is not very conducive to well-rounded and developed characters (I still always try to give my characters a point or two in a Technical skill, such as Artisan, to give them some RP depth). That said, I try to work my RP around the mechanics, not mechanics around my personal RP preferences.

It is obvious we see very far from eye to eye on this; our philosophies on RPGs are very different. In my mind, if I wanted to ignore wide swaths of the system I am using, I should probably use a different system, preferably a rules light one, or else run a non-mechanical RP session (which can be very fun, even in an otherwise mechanics heavy game).

[Black]

WellsIDidIt knows what I am getting at, but foolofsound has a strong point about what it actually takes mechanics wise to get where he is suggesting... though it sounds a lot like those Pathfinder players that tell you the one true way to build any given character as if there is some objective "best" that a character can be, which is a style of play I've just never understood.

Flavor-wise, I may be stuck in the 2050s... my Shadowrun is still on the far edge of cyber-punk, rather than fully transhumanist - especially because passages like the one you suggest from Unwired are brief, vague, and destructive to the setting in more ways than they are helpful. If it were truly as cost effective to use an automated workforce in many cases, and an unskilled-plus-skillware'd workforce in the rest as that passage seems to indicate... then why does the world of Shadowrun still have schools at all?

I think it is a case of speaking plurality when really only meaning to refer to a small percentage of cases - a nurse might manage by having skillware, but nurses are people that have finished nursing school. Same with other jobs and skillware - the majority still do it the old fashioned, learned it all at school, way... even if they get a little help from some tech or magic.

I feel foolofsound is correct for 2072.  Transhumanism is a massive feature of the current setting.

But, myself, I'm still a big fan of 2050 and the old school feel where cyberware was 'that' common (datajacks were awarded to up and coming employees for example) and being a street sam was someting unique.  My cops arn't augmented and either use Jazz or a special teams to take down augmented threats.

But that's my game...