Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Typhus on <04-16-21/0056:52>
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The more I'm looking at trying to teach SR to people, the more I am finding rules that seem like they could be safely dropped to get certain core concepts across first.
For those who run or play 6e currently, what rules have you found your group can live without, or else rarely get used? Thanks for your thoughts!
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My group has dropped Enchanting entirely. It's fiddly, everything runs on a timer, and it's just not the style of gameplay we're striving for.
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Things I don't recommend a table of beginners should concern themselves with until later when they are more familiar with the setting:
* Background Count
* Alchemy/Enchanting
* Rituals
* Casting Multiple Spells
* Reckless Spellcasting
* Initiation & Metamagics
* Aspected Magicians
* Mystical Adepts
* Dual wielding
* The Multiple Attacks action
* Grenades, Rockets, & Missiles
* Scatter
* Blasts in a Confined Space
* Simultaneous Blasts
* Sensor Attacks
* Surprise
* Grappling & Subduing
* Armor Modifications
* Recoil & Recoil Compensation
* Barriers
* Lock Picking
* Addiction
* Overdosing
* Encumbrance
* Cyberlimbs
* Noise (except perhaps noise due to distance)
* Threading
* Sprites
* Submerging & Echos
* Technomancers
* Vehicle Combat
* Chase Combat & Actions
* Drone swarms
* Riggers
I originally made this list for SR5, but most of them are applicable to SR6 as well.
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That's a very thorough list! Thank you!
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A few non-6e things slipped into that list!
* Casting Multiple Spells
* Reckless Spellcasting
* Threading
* Sensor Attacks
I think that Edge is also something you can flat out ignore until halfway through your learning game or into the 2nd learning game.
Full Auto firing mode is a mess, I would drop it unless someone is set on centering their character around dakka dakka dakka HMG. and then go with -6AR +3 DV single target instead of dice pool splits.
Taking a look at the Quick Start Rules will give you some idea what the authors thought was a good introduction to 6E. They included a Rigger character as an optional download-only character, and when I ran a Quick Start game I used their drones and vehicles narratively, while letting them roll for drone shooty business.
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A few non-6e things slipped into that list
I originally made this list for SR5, but most of them ...
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I think that Edge is also something you can flat out ignore until halfway through your learning game or into the 2nd learning game.
Interesting. I would have thought it would make the AR/DR comparison moot? How does that work out?
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DR/AR + Edge is a rather integral part of SR6 that already abstract away / simplify many tricky, distracting and perhaps even non-value adding mechanics we had in previous edition (like accuracy, limits, recoil, recoil compensation, progressive recoil, armor, armor penetration, modified armor value, variable soak pool calculations etc etc)
Probably easier to use it than to house rule an alternative....
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It absolutely makes it moot. (AR/DR also doesn't usually matter.) No, the game needs Edge, don't get me wrong, but when learning the game, it's a system you can layer in after you get over the hump of "what dice do I use again?"
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OK, gotcha.
Wish I could junk AR/DR/Edge entirely, but that runs into re-write hell when you get to all the qualities and other things that only exist to tinker with Edge.
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The only reason I like Edge meta-currency over some rote mechanic is the feeling of saving up for a big 4-5 pt move. Otherwise, Edge mechanics could probably be replaced with rerolls, wild dice, etc.
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Something simple like:
"Gain 1 Edge" => "Reroll 1 die" kind of formula?
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Underwhelming, but yeah that would be the most straightforward conversion with the least re-writing. Something you'll find is that Edge gain rates and utility of Edge are highly dependent on a character's role.
Most all Edge gain happens on opposed tests, so if you're a combat character or decker, you have a lot of Edge gain opportunity. Combat characters have the most opportunity, because even if they are outmatched, it's feasible to create situational or environmental conditions that would give you Edge with a little creativity. Deckers are feast-or-famine. Almost every roll they make is opposed, and the DR of their opposition rarely changes (everything in a network defends with the same stats) so they will either get Edge on every roll, or none. But unlike regular combat, there's not really opportunity to turn the tables with creative situational advantage. If they take Analytical Mind, (we ban it at our table) they will get Edge on every roll besides perception. Mages get surprisingly little Edge. Spells against opponents will get edge opportunity, and spells can be good at creating circumstantial Edge situations. Spirits can't gain or use Edge though, and conjuring them only grants Edge if you have a particular quality or burn money with reagents. Street Wyrd adds the Shamanic Mask quality, which I think is a terrific, well balanced Edge gain quality and it should just be standard on every magician without need of a quality. Basically "Make your magic obvious to gain Edge". Good tradeoff.
Edge is also most useful in opposed tests. 1 Edge is better spent rerolling your opponent's hit than rerolling your own failure. The four and five Edge moves are the most useful for non opposed tests. So if you're an archetype that isn't always making opposed rolls, you'll be getting less Edge and getting less utility out of your Edge expenditure. That's a generalization, but yeah. Deckers probably get the best mileage out of their Edge use because in addition to rerolling opponent successes being the most efficient use of 1 Edge, every success-turned-failure in this way is also 1 less point added to Overwatch Score.
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Come to think of: It would probably make for a decent "beginners" houserule to
- a) lower the Edge cost for adding +1 to a single die on a roll
- b) Throw out most of the other Edge uses (most notably, the option to reroll hits of the opposition) and make the +1 option the "default use"
Just adding +1 to a single die is really easy to apply and remember for new players. You also remove that discrepancy between unopposed and opposed Tests and the sour taste from having hits "stolen" by the opposition (Even if the result is the same as if the opposition gets extra hits: It just doesnīt sit right with some players if you grab their own precious hits and reroll them ::)).
True, it basically boils down to buying hits at a 1:1 ratio, provided that enough 4s are rolled. That is pretty strong, but keep in mind that the most common complaint about Edge is lack of impact. You also remove decision paralysis by making the outcome of the 1-Edge "standard" Action certain: Statistically, the option to reroll hits of the opposition is already quite strong (~2/3 of a Hit or 2 Dice), but some players will squirm and ponder when they realize that thereīs still a 1/3 chance to "waste" the Edge in this situation.
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Empowering players to themselves 'actively' decide on both When and How to spend Edge it is one of the strengths of the new system (as I see it).
Compared to the 'passive' situational modifiers we had in the previous edition that players typically had far less control over. As a result it was not uncommon that players depended on the GM to find/memorize all applicable modifiers (= extra bookkeeping for the GM).
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Yeah, that's a good one. I think people (esp beginners) like dice mechanics, so thing like, changing a die to "an edge die" that counts triple if it gets a 6 has good instant-fun vibes.
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Honestly, while there's little explicit mechanics, I would reward players for smart tricks. For example, unleashing a Sprite or Agent in another Host to draw a Spider's attention, or using a smart illusion as distraction.
Anyway, little choice paralysis from my experience on newbies, they gather Edge over a few turns and force rerolls if they're risk-seeking, vs certain die-increase if risk-averse, and pass excess Edge to another player for a crucial action.
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Honestly, while there's little explicit mechanics, I would reward players for smart tricks. For example, unleashing a Sprite or Agent in another Host to draw a Spider's attention, or using a smart illusion as distraction.
I mean, there kinda is, right? A GM can always hand out Edge for good ideas instead of mechanically playing them out entirely. Thatīs a main appeal of the System that gets somewhat overlooked with all the "hard-coded" Edge Sources (+ Discounts, Limits...)
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Exactly, people are too focused on the hard rules and miss the part where the system ain't perfect, but the GM is encouraged to expand on it.
Anyway, I love Edge and nifty edge mechanics. Those who played SRM 2081-08 will not be surprised by that.
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Sounds like it doesn't slow people up trying to analyze Edge spends/actions each turn? That's one concern I have about attempting it--that the menu of choices seems like it might create a point of delay each turn.
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Yeah it does at first. Firing Squad's huge addition to Edge actions didn't help... but a massive number of Edge actions can be put in their own little "close combat only" box for non-specialists to ignore. These are the core choices:
1-reroll one of your dice
reroll one of your opponent's dice
2-change a die by 1
4-reroll failures
add Edge to pool + exploding 6's
5-Narrative invention
Everything else is less useful or just situational use
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There's still less Edge Actions than Run&Gun had Called Shots.
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The problem with Firing Squads Edge Actions isnīt their numbers. Itīs that they are absurdly bad. Especially the status-inflicting ones.
Even if you stomach the idea that you need to save up magical mojo bullshit points before you can do something as vital as punching someone in the throat so that they canīt call for help: The chances to pull them off are extremely low, because for some reason, you often need to beat an additional Threshold on top of the defense test with your net hits (with the exception of Knucklebreaker, where itīs still a negative dice pool modifier because cOnSystAnSy or whatever).
Considering that you blew your edge use on activating the whole thing, itīs already extremely unlikely that you pull any of these Attacks off. But even if you do, the Status effects are not worth it compared to straight up damage (and bear in mind that most of these Attacks donīt deal further damage besides the status effect). If you really manage to hit someone with a surplus of [Agility] or [Wilpower] Net hits to inflict one(!) level of Fatigue or Hobbled or Blinded, you might just as well have gone for the final blow. Death, Unconsciousness or even just Wound modifiers are far superiour at neutralizing threats than any of these weak-ass, edge-expensive, impossible-to-pull-off special moves.
And please , donīt tell me these are supposed to be that weak because "akchyually, in real fights, most fighters will always go for center mass so this makes sense. Mall Ninja Shit hurr hurr." Even if that would be the case, itīs still 5 pages wasted on Edge Actions that are so utterly inferiour that no one will ever use them. They are even worse than the Called Shots in R&G.
God, this chapter makes me just angry...
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Most Edge Boosts and Edge Actions are of course situational and not super useful at all times. But you gain and use Edge quite rapidly in this edition so they don't really have to be....
Having said that, I do agree with you.
Blinding Strike I think should be more interesting if it applied one level of Blinded on a success (cost of this is not dealing any damage and spending 4 Edge before the test) and then apply a second level of Blinded if you also managed to reach the second Agility threshold (instead of normally increasing damage done with net hits).
Same with Sucker Punch. I think it should apply one level of Fatigued on a success (cost of this is not dealing any damage and spending 2 Edge before the test) and then apply a second level of Fatigued if you also managed to reach the second Willpower threshold (instead of normally increasing damage done with net hits).
I think that Fake Out should perhaps deal listed base damage on a success and then reduce the targets defense rating for one combat turn by one per hit (instead of increasing the damage with net hits and by spending 2 Edge before the test).
Hamstring I think should deal regular damage (increased by 1 per net hit as normal) and then, if the second Agility threshold is reached, add the Hobbled status effect on top of that (by spending 3 Edge before the test).
Same for Throat Strike I think should deal regular damage (increased by 1 per net hit as normal) and then, if the second Agility threshold is reached, add the Muted status effect on top of that (by spending 2 Edge before the test).
And for Thunder Palm I also think should deal regular damage (increased by 1 per net hit as normal) and then, if the second Willpower threshold is reached, add the Deafened status effect on top of that (by spending 2 Edge before the test).
Called Shot: Incapacitate have a different wording. There is no mentioning about trading all the damage for a status effect here. It seem perhaps as if this attack will deal regular damage (increased by 1 per net hit as normal) and then, if the second Reaction threshold is reached, add the Dazed status effect on top of that (by spending 5 Edge before the test). Dazed is really strong status effect when used against players or epic opponent that have a lot of edge and high ratings (but the action also cost 5 edge to use, so). But I think perhaps that all damage should be converted to Stun when using this action (no matter if the second threshold is reached or not). We are trying to incapacitate after all.
Knuckle Breaker also seem to have a different wording and perhaps seem to already deal regular damage (increased by 1 per net hit as normal), and on top of that it seem to apply one level of Disabled on a success then a second level of Disabled if also reaching the second Body threshold (by reducing the dice pool by 4 and spending 4 Edge before the test). This is fine I think :-)
Same with Pin. It also seem to deal regular damage (increased by 1 per net hit as normal), and on top of that (but in this case no matter if the attack is actually successful or not) it seem to automatically apply the Immobilized status if number of hits (not net hits) reach a threshold equal to defense rating of the target (for a cost of 3 edge). This is also fine I think :-)
And Entanglement seem to perhaps both apply Grapple as normal (whatever normal is when it comes to grapple, the intent behind grapple rules are not very easy to understand to be honest) and then, if the second Agility threshold is reached, add the Hobbled status effect on top of that.
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Yup, these would work much better. Incidentally, a lot of these come pretty close to my own houseruled versions ;D
Itīs worth noting that each kind of Edge Special Move is always competing with the basic Edge Options of rerolling dice for better hit chances and additional damage - which means that 1 Point of Edge is at least worth about 2 dice on an opposed roll. "Niche" Edge uses need to beat that to be a valid option. And a lot of them fail to do that, even in the core rules. F.i., Sudden Insight effectively gives you that 1 die back that you lost for performing an untrained check. Shank barely hits the mark by netting you 2 dice, but nothing more. Called Shot: Vitals sounds good on a first glance, but 5 Edge for 3 points of bonus damage also doesnīt reach the benchmark: If you reroll your opponents hits instead (granted: If your opponent has that many to begin with...), it would statistically net you 3.3 additional hits, which would not only increase the Damage, but also your chance to hit. Same for some of the Matrix Edge Actions: Technobabble is a cool idea in principle, but your Charisma would need to exceed your Logic by >4 to beat a reroll for 2 Edge.
Itīs obviously more tricky to estimate how much dice a certain status effect is worth. But Iīd say itīs pretty obvious that the current RAW doesnīt even come close here.
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Training time when spending Karma.
It seems like a bit of a joke -- skills, attributes, and initiation are measured in months, qualities and spells and such in weeks.
But it seems like most runners are taking multiple jobs a month, and each job is normally split into multiple sessions with karma awards, so I'd expect at least lower-power characters to be buying multiple things with Karma each month. 6 months to improve a skill from rating 5 to rating 6 is just crazy -- I bet most campaigns don't last 6 months of game time.
There are the teacher/tutorsoft rules, but I think they're misplaced. In the games I've played, character improvement is like the bookkeeping you must clear in a hurry to get the next actual session underway -- so making it take longer and involve more recordkeeping and die rolls is just prolonging the administrivia before you get to the fun.
I guess I feel similarly about the granularity of availability. I'm not going to pick one of 9 different procedures every time anyone tries to buy anything. Really what I need to know is whether the PCs can simply gather the stuff with some quick errands, or whether some of the items are specialty acquisitions. Potential categories could be:
- Stuffer Shack, or at worst a basic (no test) matrix search to find the right shop
- Relevant contact & etiquette roll to find a seller
- Mission on its own to find item
I originally distinguished Stuffer Shack vs. finding a shop that's not on every street corner, but then I discovered that Stuffer Shack doesn't carry even the most basic Commlinks. Like, what? Can you even imagine a Target or Walmart where you can't buy a cell phone and a flat-screen TV? So better to leave this to GM discretion. :)
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I mean, the training times are quite balanced around 1-run-per-month campaigns, and they explicitly state they're guidelines that can be altered depending on the campaign. I've had people reach Magic 10 in SR5 with a normal 1-run-per-month campaign.
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I mean, the training times are quite balanced around 1-run-per-month campaigns, and they explicitly state they're guidelines that can be altered depending on the campaign. I've had people reach Magic 10 in SR5 with a normal 1-run-per-month campaign.
Well, that could be. I guess the groups I've played with have been more eager beaver types when it comes to work. When facing monthly bills for your lifestyle, DocWagon, debts, etc., why not seek work more aggressively? Low-essence healing permitting, of course... though that seems more like a matter of days than weeks as well.
Anyway, I guess if the runs pay enough, slowing the pace is not a problem.
It still feels odd, though. If a typical run is going to clear 10,000-20,000Ĩ a person, so you make a good profit over the cost of a medium lifestyle on only one a month, and then you have three weeks to sit on your hands, why wouldn't you hit up your contacts for a second job that month? After all, if the first covered expenses, that second one is pure profit.
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It still feels odd, though. If a typical run is going to clear 10,000-20,000Ĩ a person, so you make a good profit over the cost of a medium lifestyle on only one a month, and then you have three weeks to sit on your hands, why wouldn't you hit up your contacts for a second job that month? After all, if the first covered expenses, that second one is pure profit.
Why don't you go out and get more jobs? Because the people you hit on your last job are going to still be looking for you for some amount of time. It will not do to steal the prototype from NastiCorp's research lab, have their internal security put feelers out for the runners who did the job, get a whiff that it was you, then hear you're already looking for a new job? Why, they'll just "offer you a job" at a brutal ambush where they take you and then interrogate you about who you gave their stolen prototype to.
How long will it take for a corp to forget about you? Maybe never. But there IS some amount of time that can pass before they'll write off continuing to pursue you as a financial loss. How long is THAT? Maybe a month. GM's call. My take is if you're going on more than 1 run per month though, you're absolutely risking having complications from prior runs show up in the current one. Of course, if you execute your runs in a discreet and professional manner, maybe you CAN do more runs more often. And if you kick every door in and geek every guard you come across, your rep problems will never go away!
So ultimately... training times are kind of keyed to the tempo of how often you do runs, and THAT in turn is completely relative... every GM is different, and every group of players ends up executing their runs differently!