[Tecumseh]

Firing Squad, the combat rulebook for 6E, just dropped.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/315210/Shadowrun-Firing-Squad-Core-Combat-Rulebook

[Beta]

I'd be interested in knowing how much, if any, metaplot movement happens there.  If anyone who gets it cares to report back it would really appreciated.  I'm still interested in the sixth world, if not yet using Shadowrun: Sixth World, so I'm in the odd position of hoping that a crunch book has an interesting amount of fluff.

[Tecumseh]

I'm flipping through it and am about halfway through It's the 6E equivalent of Run & Gun: weapons, armor, modifications for both, etc. I think the metaplot advancement might be limited to little bits and pieces that you get from product descriptions.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I know there are at least a few forumites who love to follow the personal metaplots of various jackpointer characters.

[Lormyr]

While I would have rather seen the problem fixed more organically rather than what I view as "gimmicky", this book did at least manage to effectively solve 60% of my personal rule set beefs with new martial arts and armor mod options. We'll see if anything else catches my eye once I have time to take more than a brief glance.

[Finstersang]

I´m currently writing a lengthy review of the book, although based on the german version which dropped a week earlier for whatever reason. A few observations:

First: there´s definitely some improvement to the current state to the game, PLUS the overall quality and clarity of the rules has also improved compared to the CRB. Sure, some of the "fixes" (like the MA quality that adds a Strength-Based Damage Bonus to melee Weapons) come a little too late for me, since I already houseruled stuff like this. But I can still rework the new additons to integrate them with my current set of houserules, and these might be just enough to help out tables without houserules.

However : There´s one major flaw which, despite various complaints AND various statements that there were big improvments coming, isn´t adressed at all, and it´s dragging everything down. At least in the german version, I found ZERO additional rules for the AR/DR comparison. And that is not just a problem because "ArMoR dOEs NoTHin  " (there are actually armor options that do help with damage soak now, although these are a bit gimmicky) - it´s a problem because the vast majority of the new perks and tactics in Firing Line only affect AR/DR values. So you meticulously pick out one of the 6(!) different Gunstock options plus the right Recoil Compensation for one of the new Guns (which also mostly just introduce different AR arrays) to get the perfect beast for the job and then you also ace one of the new Combat maneuvers with your teammates (which also mostly just affect AR/DR) only to push some numbers around that don´t do shit anyways - because you already beat the difference of 4, because you have already earned your 2 Hardy-approved Edge for the round, or forgot your morning cigarette or because (and I will never stop bringing this up) because you do the wildly unconventional tactic of Sniping out of Cover with a Scope. 

In short: If you don´t already have some kind of houserule to smoothen out the Edge Limitations and/or make the AR/DR comparison have a bigger impact, 90% of new options are worth shit in 90% percent of cases.

Or am I mistaken here? I´ve seen various semi-official statements that AR/DR will matter more in the future. Is there something in the english version that´s missing in the german translation? Something in the Errata?

[Lormyr]

there are actually armor options that do help with damage soak now, although these are a bit gimmicky

Well for the most part the entire rule set is very gimmicky in my opinion. If you are someone who is not into that style then the entire edition is always going to be a hard sell. I myself fall into that category.

Or am I mistaken here? I´ve seen various semi-official statements that AR/DR will matter more in the future. Is there something in the english version that´s missing in the german translation?

I've only had time for a 10 minute skim at this point, but nothing jumped out at me. I agree with your assessment though.

[Hobbes]

Yeah, nothing too crazy jumped out at me.  Melee builds got a couple mechanical "Must Haves" though, but hey, Str/3 to Weapon DV.  Trolls with an Axe now do more damage than Pixies with an Axe.

I didn't notice much power creep in the Firearms, other than the already mentioned "thousand and one ways to Increase Attack Value".  As there are several options to increase Defense Value as well, that seemed a wash.  Assault Cannons have a new damage king though.  But, Assault Cannons, so...whatever.

The Social Armor rules are okay and provide a loose guideline for Players/GMs to judge "What would be appropriate for this situation?".

I'll take a slower look through this week and see what I missed. 

[Lormyr]

Had a chance to dive through the book more closely. Initial thoughts:

Pros
+ Grenades: All of the new grenades have sane damage codes, which makes me hopeful that a nerf is coming to CRB explosives.
+ Armor Social rating mechanic is a solid Edge gain boost for face characters, particular because it is well defined in game mechanics as opposed to GM whim.
+ Armor mods succeeded at both making armor significantly more relevant to damage resistance and making some spells more difficult to wield against you, both of which were needed. I am not a fan of the fact that we had to be gimmicky rather than intuitive to achieve this, but at least it is done.
+ Martial Arts are overall solid, but particularly allow Str to be appropriately relevant to weapon based melee damage again. Once more, I am not a fan of the fact that we had to be gimmicky rather than intuitive to achieve this, but at least it is done.

Neutral
= Most of the new weapons are mostly on par with old weapons. A few new best in class, but power creep was kept to a minimal overall.
= Milspec returns, still crazy good, but at least it comes with some fairly significant movement based penalties now.
= Both weapon and armor modifications are good overall, some being so good that they will be applied to every weapon always.

Cons
- The armor mods that allow you to resist more damage is illegal. Like...why? Isn't this the point of body armor? Just try to think about that logically for a moment.
- While Str with melee weapon damage was mostly fixed using martial arts, unarmed damage is still boned and nonsensical by comparison. The fully augmented body builder troll still naturally strikes as hard with his fists as the venerable paraplegic grandma elf.

In closing, a question: is toughweave intended to be able to stack with milspec? I can't find any wording preventing it at current.

[Michael Chandra]

= Milspec returns, still crazy good, but at least it comes with some fairly significant movement based penalties now.

Uh, not really?_? SR5 was far more strict. There, it halved your movement rate:

RESTRICTIVE
This armor is a little unwieldy. Armors with this quality halve
Movement and incur Fatigue rolls with every Running check, even
the first one.

[Lormyr]

Since SR5's movement was based on agility and SR6 is a flat rate for all, it depends on the specific character in question. SR5 agility x2 while SR6 = flat 10 for all. So in short any character in SR5 with heavy milspec and an agility of 8+ (pretty much all combat characters ever) will be faster than an SR6 character in the same.

[Michael Chandra]

Doesn't change the fact that SR5's Milspec movement restrictions were bigger than SR6's, so claiming that NOW there's decent restrictions misses the SR5 rules.

[Lormyr]

Well we can nitpick over wording if you want, but the end result is the movement penalty is more impactful to top end characters in SR6 than it was in SR5.

[Hobbes]

In closing, a question: is toughweave intended to be able to stack with milspec? I can't find any wording preventing it at current.

Near as I can tell Toughweave, Mil-Spec and Reactive Armor all stack.  Not sure how practical that would be for PCs though.

[Tecumseh]

I find the rEVOlution Arms options compelling because of the wild die. They seem especially potent for secondary or backup weapons that aren't your specialty, since the wild die costs less (as a share of expected hits) and provides more upside (again as a share of expected hits) with smaller dice pools.

Say you're a non-combatant who has Agility 5 because you want to be able to tiptoe around well. You have a token point of Firearms or Close Combat, for 6 dice. With rEVOlution Arms options, you have decent shot at 4 or more hits, which would only happen 10% of the time without the wild die. All of a sudden you can lay down a significant number of hits with reasonable frequency. And if your wild die comes up a 1? It will only cost you one hit, on average.

Plus - this might be getting cheap - but I don't see any rules excluding the wild die from Edge boosts. So spend 1 Edge to reroll it or 2 Edge to +1 it (either from a 1 to a 2 or from a 4 to a 5) and you're in business. Maybe the "getting smacked by the GM business" but it seems RAW at the moment.