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[SR4] House Rules

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FastJack

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« Reply #60 on: <09-08-10/1438:33> »
Knowledge skills :
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.
How about if they up their Logic or Intuition, the total BP for the Knowledge skills goes up?

anotherJack

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« Reply #61 on: <09-08-10/1651:40> »
Why not, but it means brutal upgrades of knowledges from time to time instead of a more fluid progression.
And characters with high logic and intuition and no need to up em would be penalized in new knowledges acquisition, sounds a bit paradoxal, doesn't it ?
Me am french, me am not speaking good english, but me am trying to correct this.

Darkeus

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« Reply #62 on: <09-08-10/2310:24> »
Killing SnS in your game makes SR4A a better game.

Otherwise, I pretty much play as written.

Well, sometimes I handwave the Matrix when it isn't something important to the plot, if that can be considered a house rule.
I thought what I'd do is; I would pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

voydangel

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« Reply #63 on: <09-09-10/0400:46> »
In my group, we agreed that we could accomplish a few things all at once by applying a little logic to the way we play with armor and encumbrance. The primary reason for this is that we like to try to reduce the amount of dice getting tossed around the table. By adding only a wee bit of bookkeeping and math, the realism goes up, the amount of dice rolling goes down, and combat goes faster. We have found this to work well in practice. However, if anyone sees any glaring problems with any of these house rules I have listed, especially the armor/encumbrance rules, please let me know so that we can address them. My group consists primarily of math nerds, so we like number crunching. And, oddly, don't tend to min/max much, so we tend to not see the flaws in our logic at times, cause were just not looking for exploits...

First a logical basis for some of the rules:
1. "Armor only protects what it actually covers."
2. "Called shots to bypass armor and/or get bonus DV are too generalized."
3. "Armor is restrictive and/or heavy. Even with all the new ultra breathable 2072 stuff, when you stack on that many layers of clothing, it gets harder to move, and can start to get kinda burdensome."

So, using that logic, here's how we work it in my gaming group:
1. "Any items that would normally fall under the umbrella of the helmets and shields rules only count for called shots to the area protected by the piece."
2. "Called shots to legs and arms are at -4. Called shots to hands, feet, or head are at -7. Called shots to bypass armor can be used to bypass individual pieces of protection. Disarming is unchanged."
3. "All armor ratings (both ballistic and impact, but not magical or natural) are added together at full value when determining armor encumbrance penalties. However, you calculate your limit by adding your (modified) agility, body, strength and reaction, instead of just body x2."

We also say that everyone starts with (Charisma x2) bonus BP to spend on Contacts (only). They can still spend their 'stock' BP on more contacts if they want of course.
When "hacking on the Fly", the threshold the opposing system needs to find you is the hackers (stealth + spoof), rather than just stealth.


Also, kudos on a few other rules I've seen on here - we might incorporate them into our game. Those are:
• Change Availability of hacker programs to Rating*3, making maximum starting rating 4.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Also, I would like some thoughts on the following house rule that we are considering:
"Hits (total, not net) generated when making hacking rolls are limited by your Logic + Intuition, much like hits on spell-casting rolls are limited by the force of the spell."

If anyone would care to comment on any/all of these? I am always very interested in feedback, thoughts and ideas to make our games run smoother and faster.
My tips for new GM's
Unless it is coming from an official source, RAI = "Rules As Imagined."
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Doc Chaos

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« Reply #64 on: <09-09-10/0414:42> »
When "hacking on the Fly", the threshold the opposing system needs to find you is the hackers (stealth + spoof), rather than just stealth.

Uhm... but... hacking on the fly doesn't involve Spoofing anywhere...? So whats the reasoning behind this?
SR4A Limited Edition [german] - 0478/1100

voydangel

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« Reply #65 on: <09-09-10/1712:27> »
The idea was based on the description of the Spoof Program:
Quote
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.
After all, "generating false access IDs and forging misleading data packets with the intent of confusing" the system security programs is more or less just a way of describing how one is "hacking the node".

So it makes sense to us. Plus, it makes "hacking on the fly" less of a never-to-be-used-last-resort, since when we use the RAW, it was so dangerous that no one ever really bothered doing it. We would always just make sure we did a whole lot of probing before a run.

Doing it this way makes people more inclined to try hacking on the fly in the middle of a mission, which in turn makes the runs more plan-then-lets-go-do-it-action-packed style, and more "in your face", and less plan-plan-plan-plan-plan-plan-execute. for us anyway.

EDIT: We had kicked around the idea of making the Nodes Analyze+Firewall test opposed instead of extended, using the logic that said test is really just a matrix perception test using firewall in the place of computer since the node doesn't have a computer skill. Based on this assumption, the perception test would be an opposed test (based on the perception test rules stating that when the target is using stealth the test becomes opposed). We opted to add to the threshold instead - based on the idea that if you were to end up with a really high stealth program you would never ever be caught in an opposed test, whereas by just upping the threshold you were still "catch-able", but just not as easily.
« Last Edit: <09-09-10/1722:01> by voydangel »
My tips for new GM's
Unless it is coming from an official source, RAI = "Rules As Imagined."
SR1+SR2+SR3++SR4++SR5+++h+b+++B+D382UBIE-RN---DSF-W+m+(o++)gm+MP

voydangel

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« Reply #66 on: <09-10-10/0010:20> »
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?
My tips for new GM's
Unless it is coming from an official source, RAI = "Rules As Imagined."
SR1+SR2+SR3++SR4++SR5+++h+b+++B+D382UBIE-RN---DSF-W+m+(o++)gm+MP

Critias

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« Reply #67 on: <09-10-10/0019:11> »
Augmentation has some fluff on custom chrome being harder to come by than the more basic stuff, and has a -1 availability for secondhand cyberware...so there's a background precedent for it being harder to find a good enough doc to implant beta and deltaware, and there's a rules precedent for cheaper stuff being easier to find.  You are, however, apparently correct in that there's no actual, rules-driven, availability modifier for grades of cyberware, besides that.

You're still limited to Basic and Alphaware (and secondhand, I would assume) at character creation, but it looks like after that, the sky -- and your credstick -- is the limit.

FastJack

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« Reply #68 on: <09-10-10/0020:45> »
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.

Critias

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« Reply #69 on: <09-10-10/0024:52> »
We keep meeting like this, you're gonna have to change your user name to SlowJack.   ;D

FastJack

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« Reply #70 on: <09-10-10/0028:42> »
Dude, it's not my fault I research before I type. ;)

But if you want to buy me a new laptop so I can search my PDFs quicker...

Critias

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« Reply #71 on: <09-10-10/0030:34> »
What's that?  FastJack, asking some no-good Elven merc for the nuyen to upgrade his hardware?

For shame.

FastJack

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« Reply #72 on: <09-10-10/0033:52> »
What's that?  FastJack, asking some no-good Elven merc for the nuyen to upgrade his hardware?

For shame.
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]).

Casazil

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« Reply #73 on: <09-10-10/0635:10> »
You should have joined the Demo team run a few Missions and got the free PDF's lol
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FastJack

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« Reply #74 on: <09-10-10/0930:04> »
Oh, I already have the PDFs, I'm getting the hardcovers for use when I start up my campaign. A number of the players are new to the system and won't have the books. And, no, I don't intend to let them run wild with the advanced rules right away, but there are bits and pieces in each of the books that I'm going to allow for their character creation...