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[SR5] House Rules

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Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #135 on: <12-21-13/1703:59> »
I've always been a big fan of background and knowledge skills in my game, and am annoyed at the lack of them you get in the 5th ed build. So in response to that, a house rule that all newly created characters start with (Intuition + Logic) x 4. It'll give a boost to skills to build one's knowledge base and background and give those who want speak other languages enough points to do so.  An alternative is to separate knowledge and language skills, giving (intuition + Logic) x3 knowledge skills, and Logic x 1.5 (round up) language skills.

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #136 on: <12-21-13/1706:18> »
I've always been a big fan of background and knowledge skills in my game, and am annoyed at the lack of them you get in the 5th ed build. So in response to that, a house rule that all newly created characters start with (Intuition + Logic) x 4. It'll give a boost to skills to build one's knowledge base and background and give those who want speak other languages enough points to do so.  An alternative is to separate knowledge and language skills, giving (intuition + Logic) x3 knowledge skills, and Logic x 1.5 (round up) language skills.

Either could work, but it would be good to include Intuition somehow in Language skill points since those skills are linked to Intuition.
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Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #137 on: <12-21-13/1710:47> »
I've always been a big fan of background and knowledge skills in my game, and am annoyed at the lack of them you get in the 5th ed build. So in response to that, a house rule that all newly created characters start with (Intuition + Logic) x 4. It'll give a boost to skills to build one's knowledge base and background and give those who want speak other languages enough points to do so.  An alternative is to separate knowledge and language skills, giving (intuition + Logic) x3 knowledge skills, and Logic x 1.5 (round up) language skills.

Either could work, but it would be good to include Intuition somehow in Language skill points since those skills are linked to Intuition.

I didn't look it up and was thinking they where linked with logic. I'd say then for the separate builds, do intuition x 1.5 (round up) instead of logic.

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #138 on: <12-21-13/1715:02> »
I've always been a big fan of background and knowledge skills in my game, and am annoyed at the lack of them you get in the 5th ed build. So in response to that, a house rule that all newly created characters start with (Intuition + Logic) x 4. It'll give a boost to skills to build one's knowledge base and background and give those who want speak other languages enough points to do so.  An alternative is to separate knowledge and language skills, giving (intuition + Logic) x3 knowledge skills, and Logic x 1.5 (round up) language skills.

Either could work, but it would be good to include Intuition somehow in Language skill points since those skills are linked to Intuition.

I didn't look it up and was thinking they where linked with logic. I'd say then for the separate builds, do intuition x 1.5 (round up) instead of logic.

Keep the Intuition + Logic. You're already doing a lower multiplier, so that in itself will give less.
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Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #139 on: <12-21-13/1732:41> »
I've always been a big fan of background and knowledge skills in my game, and am annoyed at the lack of them you get in the 5th ed build. So in response to that, a house rule that all newly created characters start with (Intuition + Logic) x 4. It'll give a boost to skills to build one's knowledge base and background and give those who want speak other languages enough points to do so.  An alternative is to separate knowledge and language skills, giving (intuition + Logic) x3 knowledge skills, and Logic x 1.5 (round up) language skills.

Either could work, but it would be good to include Intuition somehow in Language skill points since those skills are linked to Intuition.

I didn't look it up and was thinking they where linked with logic. I'd say then for the separate builds, do intuition x 1.5 (round up) instead of logic.

Keep the Intuition + Logic. You're already doing a lower multiplier, so that in itself will give less.

It'll also mean less bookkeeping and give more flexibility to the types of non-active skills a player wishes to have.

Godwyn

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« Reply #140 on: <01-15-14/0116:25> »
I like the increasing the free skills.  No idea why they reduced it for SR5 anyways.

Current additional houserule that I have used.  Under crashes p. 201.  Whenever a vehicle wrecks, passengers protected by proper SRS and restraints add the vehicle body to the damage resistance test.  The rules are already kind of odd that the less protected a vehicle is (like a motorcycle) the less damage wrecking it causes.

Tuoweit

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« Reply #141 on: <01-15-14/1215:40> »
I've always been a big fan of background and knowledge skills in my game, and am annoyed at the lack of them you get in the 5th ed build. So in response to that, a house rule that all newly created characters start with (Intuition + Logic) x 4. It'll give a boost to skills to build one's knowledge base and background and give those who want speak other languages enough points to do so. 

I'm considering a similar house rule.  I plan to use the current RAW amount for "professional" knowledge skills, the stuff runners like to get explicitly for the purposes of 'running such as "Security Tactics" and the like, and the same amount again for "flavour" knowledge skills.  These are the things like "Dance Clubs," "Origami," etc  - stuff that's more descriptive in nature that might only occasionally if ever come up in a game, not be used as a matter of course.

Most players don't like to "gimp" their character's potential by missing out on a useful skill when they can drop some "inconsequential fluff" instead.   With this rule, players can give their characters some interesting and flavourful knowledge skills without feeling like they're giving up an advantage to do so.

Dracain

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« Reply #142 on: <01-18-14/0104:03> »
Considering some of the earlier confusion about how cover works, I came up with this little idea.  To get cover you have to use one of two "Take Cover" simple actions, either partial or good cover. 

If the cover can only cover 25-50% of your character, you can only use the "Take Partial Cover" action, to get a +2 to defence, this bonus lasts until you move out of cover (or the cover is destroyed), and you can attack as normal from this position, with no penalties.  The is the character peering out of cover, ready to fire, while still protecting themselves. 

If the cover can cover 50%+ of your character, you can either "Take Partial Cover", as described above, or you can "Take good cover" which applies a +4 bonus (plus concealment, if your whole body is concealed), this bonus lasts until you move out of cover (or the cover is destroyed), however you can only attack with blind fire (or anything that lets you attack around a corner) while in this mode).  This is your character covering as much of their body as possible, while firing by sticking their gun out and pulling the trigger. 

Switching between the two is a simple action. 

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #143 on: <01-18-14/0633:48> »
So someone who's looking through a shooting gap and pointing a gun through it would not be able to fire without blind fire? Sounds nasty.
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Dracain

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« Reply #144 on: <01-18-14/1348:57> »
So someone who's looking through a shooting gap and pointing a gun through it would not be able to fire without blind fire? Sounds nasty.
The rule is more for general cover, for shooting gaps, I would probably say it is a +3, since your body is still open to return fire, but it minimizes the unprotected areas. 

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #145 on: <01-18-14/1918:01> »
The way the explanation is phrased, it seems more to apply for when you're behind total cover, rather than good/partial, which is how I run it.
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Dracain

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« Reply #146 on: <01-18-14/2313:53> »
The way the explanation is phrased, it seems more to apply for when you're behind total cover, rather than good/partial, which is how I run it.
I was talking about my rule.  What I was saying was that my rule was for general cover, because the cover rules have multiple ways they can be read, and I feel that each has its own issue.  The core concept behind my idea is that you are either +2, which is in a position to return fire normally, or you are +4, which is hunkering down behind cover and just sticking your hand out to fire on the enemy. 

For example, assume your character is taking cover behind a car, and looking over the hood to fire (+2), now when you want to reload, you stop looking over the car, and you get completely behind it (+4), and when you're done reloading, you can either go back to shooting over the hood, or stick your hand out and blind fire (or use the guncam so you can see around the corner and still fire). 

It's just a house rule, but I think it makes sense, allowing a character to shift positions, while still being rather simple. 

Namikaze

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« Reply #147 on: <01-24-14/1120:50> »
This is spillover from the Rainforest Carbine discussion in the Gear forum.

I have a proposed alternative to the typical firearms skills.  In my opinion, the word "Automatics" is too vague and only speaks to the fire mode of the weapon.  The problem is that fire mode is not a good method of categorizing weapon skills.  The US Marine Corps qualifies their units on pistols, rifles, shoulder-launched weapons, grenades, sniper rifles, various vehicles, and all kinds of other highly-specific categories.  For game purposes, these need to be made accessible and simplified.  My proposal keeps the skills valuable for Skill Groups while managing to remove the fire mode from the equation completely.

Skill Group: Small Arms
Pistols
Longarms
SMGs

Skill Group: Heavy Weapons
Gunnery
Launch Weaponry
Machine Guns

Pistols would encompass the following categories: Tasers, Hold-out, Light pistol, Heavy pistol.  SMGs would encompass machine pistols and SMGs.  Longarms would encompass all rifles (automatic or otherwise) and shotguns.  Gunnery is vehicle-mounted or otherwise stationary emplacements.  Launch weapons covers shoulder-launched and underbarrel launchers.  Machine guns covers all hand-carried machine guns.  This would be LMG and heavier categories.

I'm curious to know if anyone would like to test this out - I think that this would clarify a lot of things in regards to what skill to use with what gun.  By removing the fire mode from the "which skill to use?" debate, I think it'll make things a lot easier.
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RHat

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« Reply #148 on: <01-25-14/0115:07> »
...  Serious balance issue - Firearms skills are reasonably balanced at the moment; SMGs would be a basically useless skill and Longarms would be damn near the One True Skill.
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Novocrane

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« Reply #149 on: <01-25-14/0353:46> »
I'd rather see it broken down into something like the following, with the option to replace one skill per group with a related exotic ranged weapon skill. Would probably still cause problems.
Gunnery can stay a Vehicle skill.

Firearms
Small Arms(Ranged Tazers to SMGs)
Long Arms (Carbines to Sniper Rifles)
Shotguns

Heavy Weapons
Grenade Launchers
Missile Launchers
Machine Guns