[Neal Allen]

I've been hoping and praying that Catalyst wouldn't Disney up 6th edition and swing to the opposite extreme of 5th, and I was mostly pleased.  However weapon damage? What the frag, chummers?

- light pistol went from 6P to 2P
- heavy pistol went from 8P to 3P
- assault rifles went from 11P to 5P
- assault cannon went from 17P to 7P

Let's assume a practical, simple scenario. 
Your professional killer (muscle) has:
- Att (4-6) + Skill (4-6) + Mod (0-4 with edge) = 8-16 (avg. 4 hits)
Vs. a ganger, a civilian, or a mall cop:
- Rea (3) + Int (3) + Bod (3 for the purposes of reducing damage (assuming a hit)) = 3 hits

2 NH + 5 DV (Assault Rifle) = 7 DV
Are you telling me now that the shot from an assault rifle from a professional to a barely-more-than-average human won't even kill them?

Ok, but now we must explore why and that becomes a bit more ideological.
Catalyst games cannot release a new edition if it barely changes anything from the previous and if we look at many of the systems, the variations are fairly minimal compared to D&D.  I accept that a swing in the extreme is somewhat necessary as a business.
But 5e had you FEARED that ganger with a machine pistol because that Fully Auto -9-to-dodge could put a dwarf with a armoured jacket in some serious hurt.

There ain't none of this 10th level 100 HP, 8 attacks later from 4 different characters later and you might FINALLY bite the bullet that we see from like... every other TRPG.

That's what makes Shadowrun special.  You fear that bullets could be deadly.  You fear that corps (and the DM) could one-shot you.  You fear so you have to compensate with tactics, seriousness, emotional investment, and identity.
Fear is part of Shadowrun's identity, and Catalyst games has destroyed a defining aspect of Shadowrun so they could release a new edition.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have, and I'm not saying this edition isn't subjectively better or worse.


But hell if I'm gonna not miss 5th Ed. for the fear it brought upon me.

[Michael Chandra]

Eh, my professional killer has 7-9 Attribute + 6-9 Skill with spec/expertise = up to 18 dice, so average 4 net hits for 9 DV vs 1 soak so 8 damage on average. >25% chance at 10+ damage to instagib them. And that's assuming the GM doesn't use the "Here comes the Reaper" optional rules, which would put me at 93.85% chance to instagib them instead.

Furthermore, you say that in SR5 we feared gangers with machine pistols. I came out of chargen with approx 24 soak dice and an easy 23 Full Defense defense dice. I didn't fear those gangers at all. I could go head to head with PR6 Grunts. The only thing I really feared was Auslander.

Heck, I rolled out a single NPC fighting 10 Grunts while he started unarmed himself. He survived that. They didn't. I've seen a mage go 'I'll just Full Defense and have about 40 defense dice', with enough Initiative and movement to not even fear grenades. A player cut a Roadmaster in two in a single attack. Neither faced a ganger with a machine pistol.

As for 8 attacks later: Grunt Groups mean you don't have the whole 'keep rolling attack after attack at an extra -1 each', you just group them and throw that group attack around. So that makes it much quicker, and larger groups still dangerous. Full Defense is far more expensive, so I need to be far more tactical with my evasive and offensive actions. So I think I fear SR6 more than SR5.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I'd recommend reading the rest of the rulebook, and taking the DV suppression in context rather than in a vacuum.

[Neal Allen]

@Michael Chandra

If your squishy archetype was tankier than my extreme tank, you're minmaxing to a degree that the average player wasn't experiencing.  Your perspective is valid but not conforming to the norms.

Not even mentioning the fact that that you're ignoring the intended philosophical message to push your mechanical prowess.  Congrats, you can beat a system not meant to be a competition.  Happy now? Can we get back to the point?


@SSDR
Which context would you recommend? I'm trying out the new system for simplicity we might see in the above context I outlined instead of something ridiculous like @Chandra so ambitiously gloated.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

@SSDR
Which context would you recommend? I'm trying out the new system for simplicity we might see in the above context I outlined instead of something ridiculous like @Chandra so ambitiously gloated.

Well, just to be clear I'd say my experience with 5e jives with MC's.  Among the SRM players in my area: being able to score more hits on a defense test than the attack even has in accuracy is common.  30 soak dice is considered the low end of acceptable.  So, yeah I wouldn't say he's coming from a purely hypothetical left field.

So what did I mean about context?

It won't be hard to find people complaining about how "armor does nothing" in this edition. Sure, perhaps taken in a vacuum it seems like a perplexing change that armor doesn't add to the soak pool like it did in 5e.  But if you take that in context with, for example, your concern about low DVs, the two of them suddenly synergize and they BOTH make sense because the other exists.

But also: note that dice pools are slightly smaller in 6we than in 5e.  A player who's "optimizing" the rules can still get comparable dice pool as in 5e, but the NPCs are at least going to tend to have smaller dice pools. Keep in mind that average attribute value is 2 now.  That means not-special mooks should have dodge pools all of 4 dice.  You don't even need to optimize to be reliably scoring lots of net hits against cannon fodder style opposition.  All those net hits will be pushing DVs up.

Weapons able to employ burst fire push DVs up.

Certain ammo pushes DV up.

Most of all, you'll want to get a good measure of the edge system.  Especially Edge Boosts and Edge Actions.  For example, take a look at the Knockout Blow Edge Action and see if you still want to say anyone is seriously going to have trouble one-shotting all but the toughest of opposition.

[Neal Allen]

DVs: Alright, practical optimization could make this more reasonable.  I havencr explored thoroughly enough to say with confidence like I have experienced other, so I'll put my current opinion aside for the time being.

But 5e Optimization? 
The worlds largest sentient creature with mythological constitution wearing some of the worlds most advanced modern armour and having given up significant amount of his permenrnaly-lost life force to get a damage resistance of 35ish?
Or a street-mercenary mage dedicated years of his (SINless, day-to-day)  life to study ancient, rare techniques allowing him to  permenantly and unalterably make himself untouchable. 
You may call that "your average shadowruner" but I call that kind of maximization unrealistically mechanic-focused and fluff-blind with years of experiencing very, -very- few players that dedicated.   And when they are?  They tend to unbalance the game for everyone else who plays it for the unique story. 

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

DVs: Alright, practical optimization could make this more reasonable.  I havencr explored thoroughly enough to say with confidence like I have experienced other, so I'll put my current opinion aside for the time being.

My list above was by no means exhaustive.  Also check out "Here comes the reaper" (the 6we version of the "mowing them down" rule) and Professional Ratings are still a thing (that is, you don't even need to max out a CM to "beat" most NPCs)

But 5e Optimization? 
The worlds largest sentient creature with mythological constitution wearing some of the worlds most advanced modern armour and having given up significant amount of his permenrnaly-lost life force to get a damage resistance of 35ish?
Or a street-mercenary mage dedicated years of his (SINless, day-to-day)  life to study ancient, rare techniques allowing him to  permenantly and unalterably make himself untouchable. 
You may call that "your average shadowruner" but I call that kind of maximization unrealistically mechanic-focused and fluff-blind with years of experiencing very, -very- few players that dedicated.   And when they are?  They tend to unbalance the game for everyone else who plays it for the unique story.

Oh I absolutely agree with everything you're saying.

I was also agreeing with MC about that being, in my experience, a common player mindset in the 5e context.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I haven’t found it common but people travel
In different circles. In my experience we had one full borg conversion for super tank action one sam with 28 dice to soak and everyone else in the 12-18 range.

[Neal Allen]

I haven’t found it common but people travel
In different circles. In my experience we had one full borg conversion for super tank action one sam with 28 dice to soak and everyone else in the 12-18 range.

Yeah, same.  And as a DM I try hard to shun players away from mechanic/fluff imbalance. 
And when the whole party balances both together, the fear can be real, and terrifying, and memorable, and amazing.

And a 3DV heavy pistol?  Doesn't make me fear.   That makes me chuckle.   

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

That's part of the design goal.  Shadowrunners aren't supposed to be one shotted out.

But you still have options to do it yourself, if necessary.

[Neal Allen]

That's part of the design goal.  Shadowrunners aren't supposed to be one shotted out.

But you still have options to do it yourself, if necessary.

But I don't want to have to be mechanically/fluff unbalanced like @MC over here is. 

I simply fear Shadowrun becoming too much like X2HP per level D&D.   It may be an unrealistic fear, or it may not.   But the light pistols could be 3 DV instead of 2.  Armour could be halved instead of thirded.  Extremes could be less extreme.   

But less extreme doesn't sell books, I just don't like it. 

[mortonstromgal]

My experience from a little playtime is the 6e is a bit more lethal for anyone but a Troll. Do people not wear armor in your 5e game?
Sure your looking at 5DV vs 10DV for the attack but your also looking at 3 soak dice vs 12 soak dice (leaving 4DV vs 6DV) before you start factoring in edge, which in 6e your getting hopefully 2 with every attack for tactical advantage making using it much more like the old combat pool. Which probably makes it even out around 5DV vs 6DV.
You can always raise the DV value across board if you would like.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I haven’t found it common but people travel
In different circles. In my experience we had one full borg conversion for super tank action one sam with 28 dice to soak and everyone else in the 12-18 range.

Yeah, same.  And as a DM I try hard to shun players away from mechanic/fluff imbalance. 
And when the whole party balances both together, the fear can be real, and terrifying, and memorable, and amazing.

And a 3DV heavy pistol?  Doesn't make me fear.   That makes me chuckle.

Okay. I’m stealing this from Hobbes I think. Explosive ammo. That’s 4dv. Burst that’s 6DV. Called shot that’s 8dv. And people will frequently have virtually nothing to soak it with.

Now, I think this is bad as it’s not a my runner is super skilled so is deadly thing but a I as the player know the system so I can kill things easy thing. But I’d you just want scary guns as long as you use the rules to the fullest it can be and without 30 die characters.

I’m cool with 3dv but would prefer if those system mastery things did not exist but instead net hits increased dv by 2. So 4 net hits would be a kill shot with a 3dv gun. My thing is 5e was kind of on the other end. A basic gun frequently with little to now system mastery and like 1 hit was doing enough damage to kill people. It’s like there was no flesh wounds unless you had a big enough soak pool. I’d prefer net hits being the bigger determiner in end damage rather than big gun base damage or system mastery.

[Neal Allen]

@Shinobi
@Morton

Sure, 15 optimization choices later and your burst shot, explosive bullet, headshot, heavy pistol at point blank is FINALLY lethal, but dude.  That's a burst shor, explosive bullet, headshot, heavy pistol at point blank.   
The identity of Shadowrun that we're losing is the realism.   The realism that if you took a realistic IRL heavy pistol (Smith n Wesson. 5 cal, for example) and had non eof the above, that thing would blow your arm off and you'd die from shock in 30 seconds. 

Now imagine adding everything else.  Explosive ammition.   Three bullets.   Point blank.   Major organ damage.  That would kill a troll.   

Sure you CAN make this system lethal, but my point that you guys are missing with optimized stats is that Catalyst has gone to the opposite extreme and put a marshmallow on the end of weapons.   


@morton
You're right, that might be one of my first houserules.   And not a big jump, just one or two tacked on.

[FastJack]

Sure you CAN make this system lethal, but my point that you guys are missing with optimized stats is that Catalyst has gone to the opposite extreme and put a marshmallow on the end of weapons. 

Game designers made a game where a weapon won't kill player characters with a single attack? The audacity!

Sorry for the snark, but the realism debate has been going on for a while now regarding Sixth edition, and it usually only comes up in Combat rules. Once you start talking about the suggested training times, everyone wants there strength attribute to go up two points without any training time. Designers have to meet a balance between realism and fun. And most of the time, good designers will err on the sign of fun.