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Posted by: Seerow Apr 26 2011, 09:17 PM

-Direct Combat Spells are no longer fully resisted when resist successes equal or exceed casting successes. Instead, all resistance successes reduce all damage from a Direct Combat spells by 2. For example, a Force 6 Stunbolt with 3 successes would normally deal 9 stun damage. If the target gets 3 successes, it deals 0, if the target gets 2 successes, it deals 7. This change would make that same spell resisted with 3 successes, it still deals 3 stun damage, and at 2 successes deal 5 stun damage. The goal of this is to make direct spells less binary, while making counterspelling more effective against them than indirect spells.

-Counterspelling against Indirect Combat Spells now applies to the damage resistance test, rather than to the dodge test. This makes Indirect Combat spells more akin to gunshots, reducing the effectiveness of counterspelling against them. The goal of this is to make direct combat spells a bit better, currently they're too easy to dodge given that most characters in combat are going to have a much higher reaction than Will or Body, because of how much easier it is to boost reaction. The idea is to make a indirect combat spell less susceptible to counterspelling, since they have to deal with armor as well.


-A new manatech armor enhancement is introduced, giving effective counterspelling on the person wearing it equal to the rating. Each rating costs 2 armor upgrade slots. Cost is 2000xrating and the Availability is 4R per rating. This counts as counterspelling rather than magic resist so that if you have an actual instance of counterspelling, it uses the assisting rules (ie roll the counterspelling dice, add successes to the counterspelling pool), rather than stacking directly. This makes the enhancement far weaker if you actually have counterspelling available, though still helpful, but allows mundanes to resist without a mage backup. Particularly useful for NPC security forces.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 26 2011, 09:45 PM

My first question is why? Guns are already more effective at killing people than spells, and there are a ton of effective ways to counter act magic.

An armor that provides counterspelling makes no sense in world, and there allready is a device to screw with mages thats cheap and easy to get, they are called smoke grenades. If you want to get really fancy use some FAB.

Your "solution" with direct combat spells pretty much ruins them by dramatically reducing their damage output, and makes it so if someone has counterspelling you shouldn't bother. Once again, guns do more damage than direct combat spells, and they don't every hurt you to use them(barring critical glitches natch), why do direct combat spells need a nerf?

As for your third option, honestly I'd just make it so indirect spells are not subject to counterspelling(which know is a house rule). Indirect damage spells are really underpowered as is, and it doesn't make sense that counterspelling should work. In SR counterspelling creates a kind of magical jamming field around you/your friends, and the damage from indirect spells is not magic, just the effect that creates it is, so it shouldn't be affected by a jamming field.

Posted by: Seerow Apr 26 2011, 09:56 PM

Guns are resisted by armor, where spells typically ignore either most or all of it. As long as you can deal with the drain (which most casters should be able to do), spells are as effective or moreso than any gun, depending on the target.



So some sort of magically resistant material being developed by a megacorp from researching the properties of people with magic resistance, and how counterspelling works is completely unfeasible? Honestly I'm more surprised that some corp hasn't done it already. The fact that only a mage can help defend against a mage is one of the biggest problems with magic right now.




Because direct combat spells are extremely binary right now. Either they instantly kill you, or do nothing. Most things have a gradient of damage that can be applied, but due to how direct spells work, that doesn't really come into play. This is bad.



That would work as well, but I figured counterspelling not applying at all would be an even bigger difference, and I figure that half armor (what most indirect spells go against) + counterspelling is roughly equivalent to the full armor that normally gets applied.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 26 2011, 10:09 PM

"The fact that only a mage can help defend against a mage is one of the biggest problems with magic right now." Or one of the main features of magic. I'm not saying either view is right, but you have to admit that both are mere opinions.

As for the balance/numbers, I'd take a look at the several previous threads about this (usually a variation on 'fixing direct combat spells').

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 26 2011, 10:18 PM

Magic Resistance works just fine, and you cannot have that as a Mage. As well, I heard that there is clothing(?) that may now possess the Magic Resistance Quality listed in Attitude. I do not know if this is fact, as I do not have the book yet, but I have heard here on the forums that they exist, so, there you go, Clothing/Armor with MR to assist the Mundane.



I do not see this as binary. IF you are casting at maximum capacity, and IF you have a HIGH FORCE MAGE, then yes, it will generally work out that way. But that is a problem with the Skill/Power Level of the Mage rather than the system itself.



The only drawback to Indirect Spells are their Drain Codes. Disallowing Counterspelling can make certain amount of sense, dependant upon where the effect takes place. But if I were changing things, I would go with another often discussed option, which would be to just switch the modifiers to the Drain for the Direct vs. Indirect Spells. Make the Direct Spells increase their Drain by 2 instead of the Indirect Spells.

Posted by: Seerow Apr 26 2011, 10:54 PM

Well yes, but I am operating from the former point of view, as opposed to the latter. The feature of being unbeatable except against others who are as awesome as you are is not something I consider to be a good feature. Magic has plenty all ready as far as unique effects goes, giving people without a mage backing them up a chance of resisting a spell now and again is something I feel is sorely needed.



The clothing requires karma to bind just like a focus. It happens to cost exactly as much karma to bind as it would cost to just pick up the quality, and costs 10,000 nuyen per bp the quality is worth. So for Magic Resist 4 you spend 40 karma and 200,000 nuyen, which is both ridiculous AND useless since you could get the exact same thing for just the 40 karma, and not have it rely on wearing specific clothing.

You can't even say that this doesn't require GM adjucation like picking up new qualities does, because the section on the clothing specifies that they may be introduced only at GM discretion.





Thing is, low force mages simply don't make an appearance for the most part. Why? As players they are suboptimal, and as a NPC, they won't present much in the way of a challenge. So you have to look at it at least from a mid quality mage, which is more than enough to make it binary.





They also have the drawback of being dodged by reaction rather than body/will (reaction is typically going to be the higher stat given it is much easier to boost), which is why I shifted the counterspelling towards mitigation rather than the dodge to help eliminate that drawback at least. But yes, indirect spells being much higher on drain is also a problem.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Apr 26 2011, 11:46 PM

Just nit-picking here a little bit, but don't most things that do damage, do "binary" damage? Either you dodge the bullet, or take the full damage + net hits. Either you block/dodge the melee attack, or you take full damage etc etc...

Or are you just talking about how direct spells ignore armor? If so, I agree that changing the drain codes could help you in this area.

Posted by: Seerow Apr 27 2011, 12:04 AM

When you fail to dodge a bullet, you get to mitigate it with body + armor.
When you fail to dodge a indirect combat spell, you get to mitigate it with body + half armor.
When you fail to resist a stunbolt, you don't get to mitigate it with anything, you take the full damage.



One of these is not like the others. That is the binary effect I am talking about, if you fail to shrug it off completely, there is nothing to mitigate it. My suggested change is to make it so that you can't shrug it off 100% as easily, but it can be mitigated down from the maximum value to a lower value more easily. The idea is that a direct combat spell should be most effective against someone without magical protection, while indirect spells should be more valuable against someone with it.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 27 2011, 01:14 AM

My Magic 2 Mage would like to have a word with you about that.

Posted by: Faraday Apr 27 2011, 01:35 AM

If you want people to resist a direct combat spell twice, just let them. Add a second roll as a "mitigation" roll. Remember to add bonuses to magical resistance on each roll. Problem solved?

Posted by: Seerow Apr 27 2011, 02:03 AM

Yes, you could do it that way, but what do you apply to the mitigation roll? Willpower/Body + Counterspelling again? Doesn't that make it effectively the same as Willpower + Counterspelling (successes doubled) except retaining the possibility off complete resistance from the initial roll?



"For the most part" there are of course exceptions, but they're relatively rare, and the vast majority of casters made are going to have at least 4-5 magic. The only one I've personally seen in play with less had 2 for casting, but was a mystic adept with 5 base magic.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Apr 27 2011, 02:32 AM

Well, a lot of "burned out mage" archetypes have low Magic.

They tend to have replaced the Magic with moderate Cyberware, though.





-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 27 2011, 02:40 AM

I feel like that's mostly for NPCs, or deliberately handicapped PCs.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 27 2011, 02:44 AM

Why do they have to be deliberately handicapped? Why can they not just be Average Mages who are not yet at the peak of their powers? World Class SHOULD BE RARE.

Posted by: Seerow Apr 27 2011, 02:53 AM

Fluff to justify game mechanics rarely works. Fact is getting high magic at character creations is as affordable and more efficient than most other options, so most mage types will have it, unless you start putting in strict limitations or other houserules to discourage it.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 27 2011, 02:59 AM

How about Concept? That has been all the RULES I have needed to generate intersting and playable characters. No Houserules or other Limitations needed.

The Mechanics are a metagame issue. Fluff is the only in-game rationale that the character knows. How do you continue to justify World Class Runners for each and every character that you create? To me, that is just boring.

It truly amazes me how everyone can just toss aside the world and its fluff when making a character. And then wonder why they are having so many problems controlling their game environment.

Oh Well...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 27 2011, 03:09 AM

If they were normal, they wouldn't be runners. Besides, 'average mages' *is* deliberately handicapped. So I'm right. No one said you can't play deliberately handicapped players, for the 'concept'. You're the one who described your 'standard group' as 3 mages, 2 assassins, and a submerged technomancer, so don't tell me about fluff and the world.

Posted by: Seerow Apr 27 2011, 03:12 AM

Shadowrunners as a whole are supposed to be the elite specialists. Do you also make street sammies with no weapons skill above 3, and no attribute higher than 4, with no cyberware except used stuff because it's more common?

What's rare and what's not doesn't really come into the picture when you're talking about player characters because on the whole they tend towards being on the rare end of the spectrum rather than the common end. Sure we get some fun optimization challenges like the accountant from hell posted a while back, but those are the minority.

You speak as though you feel the game as a whole is intended to be street level average joes, with high end magics being rare. If that's the case, magic should cost far more. Something like the karma system and a starting karma of 500-600 would get that sort of playstyle, but the default assumed for the game is 400 BP, and at that level every character has a specialization he is good at, and most have several other things they dabble in as well. The fact is the game system does not support your view of how shadowrun characters should be. It supports the idea of shadowrunners as highly skilled individuals, so yes, you will see high magic mages and skill 5-6 marksmen far more frequently in shadowrunners than you will in the general populace.



edit: Ninja'd

Posted by: Muspellsheimr Apr 27 2011, 04:11 AM

Really? Again?

Learn to use the fucking search function.



I guess I will go over this yet again...

Direct Combat spells are overpowered. This is by a largely minuscule amount that does not actually affect gameplay.
They do not need to be 'fixed'.
Most of the perceived power disparity comes from them using a different system of resolution than most other tests in the game (lack of defense and resistance).
If you do want to 'fix' Direct Combat, absolutely do not do so by making it even more complex & different from the rest of the game. Instead, streamline it with existing rules.


My fix (please note this works in conjunction with a number of other changes I have made)

Direct Combat spells allow a 'defense' test, using Intuition + Counterspelling vs Magic + Spellcasting. Handle as normal opposed tests.
If the character is "hit", they receive a resistance test using Body (if Physical) or Willpower (if Mana) + Astral Armor. Each hit reduces damage received by 1.



Edit:
@ Tymeaus
As has been said, 'rare' in terms of world statistics <> 'rare' in terms of niche demographics (ie shadowrunners)
'Rare' in terms of worldbuilding & fluf <> 'rare' in terms of player characters.

As an example, doctors are rare in terms of world population. They are not rare among hospitals or medical schools.
Goths are rare in terms of world population. They are not rare among goth clubs.


Shadowrun is not a game designed around playing the 'average Joe'. It is a game designed around playing highly skilled criminal professionals & specialists. If that's not the game you are playing, you should probably try to find a new system.

Posted by: Seerow Apr 27 2011, 04:18 AM

So your solution is to make it mitigated by astral armor which almost nobody actually has. Yes, this is clearly a more elegant solution than what is proposed here.

And yes, since people have had trouble detecting obvious sarcasm on this forum before, the above statement was an example of it.

Posted by: Muspellsheimr Apr 27 2011, 04:27 AM

Yet another incompetent incapable of reading, thinking, & analyzing...

The change I made results in weaker Direct Combat spells for several reasons.
First: By changing the defense from one of two attributes to a single attribute, it is universally made easier to resist direct spells as a whole, as you no longer need to split your focus.
Second: It allows a fucking resistance test to reduce damage. This flat out reduces the expected damage received, even if with only 2 dice.


Most importantly, it's not supposed to reduce spell power levels. It was specifically designed to remove an unnecessary subset of rules that frequently generated a false perceived power disparity in the rules. Guns are far more effective at damaging opposition than combat spells, before or after my change.

Posted by: Seerow Apr 27 2011, 04:41 AM

Hey look, it's a guy who feels like he needs to sling insults to maintain his superiority complex. Come down off that high horse and have a talk with the rest of us bud.


And yes, you made the initial resistance less troublesome, since you only have one stat, but now as a whole you have 3 stats to worry about, and the best part is, none of the three is one that is easily augmentable (like reaction is), thus making it still better than indirect spells. And on top of that, you still have next to no mitigation, since you are still relying on counterspelling (not guaranteed, especially in the case of players attacking NPCs) and astral armor (exceedingly rare). How do you not see this as a problem? If one of your accompanying houserules is that astral armor is as common as mundane armor, then I can see the value, but nothing you've said indicates this to be the case.

Your change, as you yourself note, effectively changes nothing. You have allowed a willpower roll to reduce damage if you fail to negate the spell. That's it, cause who the fuck has astral armor? It simply adds an extra roll in to make direct spells work more similarly to other mechanics. If you want that, as someone else in this thread suggested, why not just have the will/body+counterspelling test made twice, once to negate, and once to mitigate. Or with your change, Intuition+counterspelling twice (though that kills the difference between physical and mana spells). At least that way you would be mitigating some amount of damage more frequently. This still relies on the target having some counterspelling, but at least it doesn't rely on an exceedingly rare ability that appears only on some critters and as a spell most casters probably don't even have.



With the way it is now, direct spells will either knock you flat out/kill you, or do absolutely nothing, with no middle ground. With your change, the same exact thing happens. With my change, there's a much larger gradient between nothing done, and killing, which was the entire point.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Apr 27 2011, 04:46 AM

Listen Muspellsheimr, maybe you're having a bad day at the office or something, but you really gotta cut back on the caffeine. Seriously

Posted by: phlapjack77 Apr 27 2011, 04:54 AM

Back on topic (sorta?)

It seems that maybe alot of the problems with "overpowered" spells comes from having direct and indirect spells. If you "fix" one, then the other is possibly now imbalanced. Changing drain codes, resistance rolls, those changes help one but hurt the other.

Do "we" like having two types of combat spells? I know they've been around since 1st ed, but maybe this disconnect in spell-types should go away altogether. I'd be ok with all combat spells following the indirect rules, personally.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Apr 27 2011, 05:00 AM

Depends on the build.

My first Missions character is a burned out mage. He's decidedly not handicapped at all.

What can I say? I gotta be me.




-k

Posted by: Seerow Apr 27 2011, 05:05 AM

This is a workable option as well. You'd have to get rid of a few redundant spells, but not many. Most of the indirect spells are elemental affiliated, while direct spells typically are not. If they become treated as indirect force spells, and you just get rid of the overlapping spells this could work. The ones that come to mind off the top of my head are stunbolt line (replaced by Clout line), and Manabolt/ball (which as an indirect spell is indistinguishable from Powerbolt/ball). But in this case all combat spells are dodged with reaction + counterspelling, and resisted by body+1/2 armor. I'd still recommend moving counterspelling to the mitigation rather than the dodge, but either way is workable, and still more balanced than what we have currently. The translated direct spells are cheaper on drain still, but that's okay since that cheaper drain comes at the expense of not having an elemental affiliation, while still having the drawbacks of indirect spells.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Apr 27 2011, 05:19 AM

I still have a soft spot for the burned out mage, if only for nostalgia for the archetype. I also still like the Rocker as well


Yeah, that's how I was seeing it too. I agree that counterspelling would make more sense in the mitigation rather than the dodge. And the dodge skill could still be included if used as full defense, also allowing a spec in dodging spells or something. Makes as much sense to me as dodging a bullet

Manabolt (and others?) could still sorta work like "direct" spells do, but only against astral forms like spirits or dual-natured critters or something..

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 27 2011, 06:20 AM

"Though this quality is inexpensive, gamemasters should be careful not to allow it to be abused. It should only be taken for characters that are intended to be played as magicians."

SR4A, pg 91

Using magic 2 magicians to measure player power is kinda a silly point, because a GM is well allowed by the rules to disallow such a character due to the little tidbit above.

In any case, I don't see why people think direct combat spells are so powerful. I understand they don't have a separate defense and resistance test(which makes them strong), but they are also cast with a complex action. Firearms take only a simple action to use, so even though there are more defenses, they literally attack twice as often. A heavy pistol does just under a force 5-6 manabolt in damage, but will win out agienst all but the heaviest armored foes in damage by virtue of it's two attacks, and an assault rifle can outdamage a force 10-12 manabolt easy, and you never have to check for drain with guns. If you just want to kill people quickly, playing a magician is the wrong route. Spells do less damage than guns, and are more risky.

Posted by: Mäx Apr 27 2011, 10:51 AM

But the pistol needs atleast those 2 attacks, where as a force 9 stunbolt takes out the same target in one hit and ofcource you can, if you want, cast 2 force 7 stunbolts simultaneously if you absolutely want to make 2 attacks.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 27 2011, 01:41 PM

My Current Street Sam has a Skill of 3 in Firearms, so Yes, Yes I do. Stats are midrange, but far from maxed. Used Cyberware is conditional dependant upon the character concept. Might have one Hardmaxed Attribute due to 'Ware (Reaction).



But why is that the case? Skills of 3 are Professional in every respect. So, when you design a character (rather than Min-Maxing one), why do (Must) you obtain the absolute highest skill you can get (1 Skill at 6, or 2 Skills at 5)? Why is "Professional" not good enough for you?



Magic does cost more, and Average Joes are not Professional grade in 10 skills. They are lucky to be Professional grade in 1 or 2. My point is that it seems that everyone designs characters to the absolute best that they can be with the points available (Common Dice Pools in the high teens, if Dumpshock is to be believed), and then complain when those characters tend to destroy the story. Mages/Hackers/Riggers being the biggest example of this in the game (at least as far as I have experienced). It is interesting to note that when someone happens to suggest maybe scaling back that initial character, they are now "Gimping" or "Deliberately Handicapping" that character. And, of course, "NO SANE runner would have stats like that." Which I see as a very thin excuse to steamroll over any objections.

Actually, the game world (and its underlying structure) DOES support my view of how it should be, if it is applied. There are no examples of ANY character, PC or NPC in any of the rulebooks that I own, with Dicepools above 17, and most of them fall in the 10-14 category. The rebuttal to that is that they were obviously designed poorly. I disagree. I think they were designed with the game world in mind. So. WHY would you need a gunbunny with 30 Dice if that game world's typical ELITE opposition only has 15-17? For example. The Tir Ghosts have a professional Rating of 6, they are the elite opposition, and even THEY do not have a SKill of 6 or 7 in Firearms, are not maxed out in Attributes, and damn well spent more than 400 BP in their build. They are throwing 15 Dice to Firearms Attacks with a Smartlink (and only 17 with an Appropriate Specialization). They could have up to an additional +4 from a Tacnet, assuming they had the gear available to do so, which is likely. And you need 30 Dice why?

Yes, Many people here disagree with me on this. But there it is.

I have no issues with a character being specialized at creation, but when that specialty is greater than 20 Dice, in my opinion, there is a problem. Yerameyahu often gives me a hard time because I continually comment that, at our table, we have few to no issues with the game. That is because we do not have Pornomancers, 30 Dice Gunbunnies, 35 Dice Healers or Climbers, or Mages casting 8 Multicast Spells with 12 Dice each. Characters are people first, and then stats second. If you claim to be a World Class person in ANY field, your stats and skills BETTER back that up. And I can guarantee you that you cannot do that with 400 BP. I have seen many try that approach, and they always fall short. They never have enough points to build what they envision, and so have to make sacrifices to get even a portion of said character.

Sorry. Rant Over.

Posted by: sabs Apr 27 2011, 01:48 PM

The way to fix magic is to remove the multi-cast rules completely. Just say no to multicasting.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 27 2011, 01:49 PM

I agree that Rare Statistically does not equate to Rare Demographically. My point ts that IF the Average Mage, in that Demographic, is Magic 3, why are all Shadowrunner Mages running around with a Magic Attribute of 5 or 6? It breaks verisimilitude to have that so. It breaks the game world.

"Average Shadowrunner" will suit me just fine. And the "Average Shadowrunner" is not running around with maxed out Attributes, Maxed out Special Atttributes, and Maxed out Skills in their specialty, with support skills nonexistant or so low that they are laughable. That is a luduicrous assumption. I have been playing Shadowrun for 20 years now, and I am very happy with the world, thank you very much Muspellheimr. Please do not assume to direct my gaming habits.

I am only trying to point out that the game world makes certain assumptions, that the vast number of Dumpshock members tend to ignore. And yet, theses forums are filled with topics about how broken stuff is. Even your own game, Muspellheimr, is riddled with a pages long document of house rules. Amazing how many of those issues disappear if you take the world structure into account.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 27 2011, 02:02 PM

I am curious, TheOOB. Why is a Mage, with a Magic Attribute of 2, not a character that is intended to be played as a Magician? Mine is quite powerful, even with such a low attribute. And no, he does not have any Bio or Cyberware. HE has ewven managed to survive in a game for almost 200 Karma. And yes, still only a Magic of 2. I will soon be raising it to a 3, mind you, but it is not a priority. Is he incapable fo harming anyonw with a Direct COmbat Spell. Most Likely. That would be why he does not have any. Of teh 31 Spells he currenlty has access to, he has NO Combat SPells and NO Illusion Spells. And yet, somehow he manages to provide immeasurable help to his team. He is a Support Mage to be sure. And has a lot of secondary skills to make himself useful when his magic is compromised. But he is a useful addition the team nonetheless.

So, please enlighten me as to why I am abusing the system with this character, as you indicated above.

As for the comparison th Firearms. The standard rebuttal is that the damage from Guns can be mitigated after Defense, while Direct Damage Spells only get a paltry, Single Attribute (+ Possible Skill) for Defense, and there is no Damage Mitigation. Now, for the recoed, I agree with what you said, and do not agree that Direct Damage Spells are broken. But that is the argument.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 27 2011, 02:05 PM

Looks like a straw man to me. Who said 'laughable support skills'? Shadowrunners tend to be well above average, period.

Posted by: Dakka Dakka Apr 27 2011, 02:19 PM

Go that way and characters with Regeneration will rejoice.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 27 2011, 02:48 PM

If you had seen some of the characters that I have seen. Laughable does not do them justice. Cannot tell you how often I see characters that have one or two really high skills (Shooting usually), and then 1's in everything else. That is laughable, especially if you are supposed to be a Professional Shadowrunner (like 400 BP is supposed to be).

Which takes me back to Concept. Your sheet should match your concept. If it does not, then you have failed.



Indeed they will.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 28 2011, 05:24 AM

But then you're splitting your dice pool and resisting 4 drain twice, and an assault rifle still does more damage.

Posted by: sabs Apr 28 2011, 12:33 PM

The one big problem with a Magic 2 character, is that a Background Count of 2 (aspected or not) shuts him down completely. And getting to a BC of 2 is not all that hard.

Posted by: Faraday Apr 28 2011, 12:39 PM

It shuts down his *magic* completely. Don't presume that he doesn't have a lot of other tricks up his sleeve.

Posted by: sabs Apr 28 2011, 12:56 PM

Sure, but then he's no better than the unaugmented pc everyone points to and laughs at.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 28 2011, 12:59 PM

Right up until he has Cleansing and/or Filtering to employ against that Domain. Negative Background Counts are a different thing, of course. But then, ALL magic is affected by such Background Count as you cannot cleanse them nor aspect them. They are quite rare, however, in comparison to the Positive background Counts.

Posted by: toturi Apr 28 2011, 01:38 PM

So they are really good at one or two things and can actually get by without defaulting in everything else, just as a Professional Shadowrunner is supposed to be. I do not see where that it is laughable actually.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 28 2011, 02:36 PM

Professional means PROFESSIONAL... not Newb... Skills of one indicate someone with so little training that they cannot be called Professional. Stats of one indicate bare functionality for people. Seeing these on characters, who by background have been in the shadows for years, indicates a severe disconnect between the concept and the sheet. If you are okay with that, more power to you. I on the other hand prefer a bit of connection with the concept. More so than just a handwave.

Yes, I know that you cannot always get what you want on the sheet, and I will often make some allowances. But Severe Min-Maxing, as seen often here on Dumpshock, results in a character than has almost no basis in the concept. It is just a pet peeve of mine.

Posted by: Faraday Apr 28 2011, 05:33 PM

That would be a skill of 0. Someone who has 0 computer skill can still use a commlink for basic stuff and office work.
Skill 1=Minimal training. It's the level that a professional would get of skill he doesn't happen to use a huge amount.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 28 2011, 05:46 PM

Or a large, or even moderate amount. It's very, very small. But that doesn't even matter, because the stat+skill DP system seems to have no relationship with the skill-only fluff descriptions. Alas.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 28 2011, 09:21 PM

Which is only an issue if you allow it to be. If you enforce the Fluff, then it is no longer a problem.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 28 2011, 09:59 PM

You can't enforce fluff, and that doesn't even make sense. An Agility 7, Skill 3 character is vastly more skilled than Agility 2, Skill 3.

Posted by: Adarael Apr 28 2011, 10:06 PM

A typically stacked starting mage with 10-12 dice in spellcasting (5 magic, 5 spellcasting, 2 points from mentor spirit, focus, or specialization) can reliably deal - if he is casting so that he recieves no drain - 9 boxes of damage per spell. He'll be casting at Force 6, and netting about 4 hits on his spellcasting roll. The average target will reduce these 10 boxes of damage to 9. If the mage chooses to overcast to the level where he will take enough damage to give him a -1 from woundpenalties, this number jumps to 13 boxes, but the mage will be incrementally less potent as time goes by, and will eventually kill himself in so doing.
So in one round, using one complex action, the mage can do:
9 boxes of damage, on average, or
13 if he's willing to fuck himself up.

A typically stacked starting street sam will have 14 dice in his chosen gun - let's say pistols (5 pistols, 7 agility from muscle toner, +2 from smartlink) can reliably get 5 success on his attack rolls. Assuming the mage is typically statted and armored (for starting mages), he'll reduce that 5 attack successes to 4 with his reaction of 3. This gives us a base damage of 9, assuming regular rounds. The mage and his body of 3 + 8 ballistic armor (-1 for heavy pistol rounds) will reduce this 9 damage down to 5 damage. Then the street sam fires again, and the numbers repeat themselves. Now let's assume our Street Sam is using an SMG, with 4 points of recoil compensation - which is pretty trivial. On his first short burst, the Street sam will be doing 7 damage, not 5. On his second shot, he is statisically likely to be doing 6 damage. Not bothering to refactor the math to take wound penalties into account, this leaves us with the following information.
In one round, using two simple actions, the sam can do:
5 boxes of damage each simple action, for a total of 10 damage, with a pistol, or;
7 and 6 boxes of damage with burst fire, for a total of 13 damage with an SMG.

The numbers are shockingly similar. The primary difference is that spells are viscerally more frightening because they offer no recourse if they DO hit well. But statistically it is unlikely they will eclipse gunfire.

Edit:

Supposing the mage splits his diepool and rolls with two force 8 manabolts: he'll be rolling 6 dice on each attack, something a street sam can very likely resist ENTIRELY if there are any vision penalties, or he has high willpower. The mage will likely take 2 boxes of drain total. This is akin to preferring to roll a single 1d20 over 3 1d6 attacks: the maximum value is increased a bit, but the variance is much higher with stacked spells, and you aren't assured as much of a base result.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 28 2011, 10:15 PM

Same level of Knowledge, one just routinely gets better results. They both have the same level of skill though.

And you CAN enforce Fluff, I do it all the time, in multiple game systems...

If you give me a character concept that says you are an elite Ex-Spec Ops Team Member, and then your sheet shows me that you can shoot A Single category of Weapons - say Automatics (4-5), have a decent amount of Stealth (Group Skill so 3-4) and all other skills are at 1-2? I will tell you to go back to the drawing board. That is enforcing Fluff. I expect a certain level of believability in my games. And a character such as that breaks verisimilitude 6 ways from Sunday. Same would go for a Hacker, Rigger, Mage or Face. If you are not what your concept says you are, then there is something wrong. And no, I do not tend to accept "Me Grog... Me Kill things..." type of characters.

I tend to assist those who really want to have a character that will work in any game that I run. I work with them to make sure it fits my world, and what they see as their concept. Part of that is making sure that the character fits Fluff and Concept. I am shocked that others do not do that as well.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 28 2011, 10:54 PM

I consider my characters to be part of a professional shadowrunning team.
A min-maxed character is someone who was polishing their gun while the face negotiated for a larger reward, thinking about recoil mechanics while the hacker brought down security, and shooting at the range while everyone else was partying, elated with their success.

A min-maxer doesn't care about those other abilities, and doesn't want to spend time on them. He doesn't need to if the rest of his party is up to date on their roles too.
That's how I see it anyway.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 28 2011, 11:01 PM

Which is valid, but generally does not care about things such as believability and Verisimilitude. I prefer Believability. You can be Professional and have the appropriate skills, and STILL be part of a team. All I said was that your character better be believable. If it is not, then back to the drawing board you go. There are not a lot of players that need to go back to the drawing board with me. Why? Because I assist in developing the character they have in mind.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 28 2011, 11:15 PM

If a character has a magic attribute of 2, their magical ability is very weak and easily countered, which means they will have to rely heavily on their mundane skills to solve most problems which means that they are not being played as a magician. I'm not saying a GM should not allow a low magic character on occasion(though 1 player role playing a weak character ruins the role play of the other characters who wouldn't be caught dead running with those people), just that those type of characters are kinda irrelevant to any discussion about game rules and power levels.

I understand the debates for why people think direct combat spells are overpowered, I used to try to nerf them too, but significant play time and testing have proven that unless you're facing mecha troll in milspec armor, guns will be more effective.

Posted by: Falconer Apr 29 2011, 02:13 AM

I can see giving an extra body or willpower test to reduce damage on a direct spell.

But I severely disagree w/ using any attribute except willpower to resist spells. Intuition already has enough uses, spell resistance shouldn't be one of them.


Another problem I see with this whole mess is everyone forgets about visibility mods and cover (which apply to spellcasting and defense against spellcasting). So 2 attributes against one... which gets defensive bonuses and casting penalties. Also it's a complex action... while only a simple action to fire a gun. So while each gunshot has twice as many tests (and effectively 3 things reducing damage... armor, body, & reaction)... people shoot twice as often.


If direct spells are a problem... I suggest just using the basic optional rule in SR4a. Any net hits used to increase damage increase the drain by +1 each. Someone taking 4 drain off a force 11 stunbolt is going to feel it. 4 drain is enough to not reliably soak it often.

I also strongly agree w/ returning to the original SR4 rule on counterspelling indirect spells. SR4a applying it to the reaction/dodge test is much too effective. It was a lot better when it just gave some extra dice to soak the damage afterwards. Does anyone know why this rule was changed at all?!

Posted by: toturi Apr 29 2011, 02:58 AM

That is untrue. Skills of 0 indicate someone with so little training that they cannot be called professional at the task. I disagree that to be professional, the skill level has to be Professional. To be a professional the character has to be able to achieve what the professional can do in the course of his work.

Thus a skill of 1 and an Attribute of 5 will match the abilities of an average Professional. Min-maxing (minimising weakness and maximising strengths) should produce characters that fit the fluff because the weaknesses will be minimised.

There are various subsets of shadowrunners, shadowrunners do not do it all. As long as the primary skill/s in which they ply their trade is at a Professional or higher rating, then the fluff would indeed fit the stats.

Why is such a character unbelievable? Fluff should be enforced, but it cannot and should not be enforced rigidly if there can be a plausible in-game explanation for it. Must every Spec Ops Team Member have Etiquette/Negotiation/Hacking at 3? If I am told to go back to the drawing board, I will come back with the exact same character because I do not really see anything that breaks verisimilitude, much less 6 ways to Sunday. He is a shooter, he shoots and loots pretty good. He wasn't there to hack the NSA's database, he wasn't there to talk the hostage taker into surrendering. He was there to do the takedown. Would he be unable to do so? I do not think so.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 03:24 AM

I call BS on your entire line of reasoning here. A Magician is not a Magician because he can be easily countered? Really. What Crap. A Magician with a MAgic Attribute of 2 is just a Low-Average Powered Magician. That is all. Are you going to tell me that if you take the Sam's Guns and other weapons away, he is useless because he is easily countered? That he is weak withiout his weapons?

You really should read what you write. You are basically saying that someone who actually plays to concept is a drain on the team. That would be news to the Team my mage runs with. I mean really, how can they stand the charcter that is the Face, The Discrete Infiltrator, The Tracker/Shadower, and the Backup Gun Bunny. Not to mention the very useful spells he often casts for them. I am not even sure why he is even there. He must really be a waste of my time.

Just WOW...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 29 2011, 03:32 AM

Depends on the concept. As you know, your tables and teams are weird. He only said that a Magic 2 is probably more mundane than mage; this seems like a decent statement. You're the one who said that you'd reject people for daring to specialize (in a perfectly realistic manner).

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 03:54 AM

Someone with a Skill rating of "1" is a "Beginner." Skill rating of "2" is a "Novice." Neither of these terms fits with a Professional. Which is what I mean by Fluff Matters. IF you want to play a Beginner or Novice, have appropriate skills. If you want to play a Professional, have appropriate Skills.

Likewise, There is a difference between matching the number of successes, and having equal skill. Unfortunately, for your argument, the characters do not have the same skill. One has a bit of natural talent, and the other is much more highly trained. The character with the higher Skill, however, has more knowledge of that skill and its applications. Raw Talent will only take you so far, after all. Which is why I argue that Skill Fluff Matters.



Except there are a lot of characters, here on dumpshock, and at tables that I game at, that do not even fit that criteria. Which is what I indicated earlier.

And, How many of those characters have a Skill that is Higher than it should be? How many characters do you see with Skills of 6 or 7? In my opinion, there had better be a hell of a reason to have a 6 or 7 for a Skill (and should be heavily backed up in the character's concept). Even Skills at 5 are often questionable. And yet, GM's just allow it because, well, because the rules say you can do that. My first question for a character like that would be why they are not working with the Corps. Because they sure as hell would have been headhunted with skill ratings in that range.



Having all Etiquette/Negotiation/Hacking Skills at 3? Nope, notice that that was not what I indicated.

As an example. Since you (the prospective Ex-Special Forces Operative, have relevant skills in Automatics and Infiltration, What other skills should you likely have:

Tactics
Leadership
Armorer
Survival
Pistols
Heavy Weapons
Demolitions
Unarmed Combat
Bladed Weapons
Thrown Weapons
Climbing
Swimming
Running
Instruction
Navigation
Tracking
First Aid
Several Knowledge Skills I could likely name off as well, dependant upon Specialty or Interests.

As a Radioman, I also would expect:
Electronic Warfare

Additional Specailty Skills would also Include:
Parachuting
and Diving.

I was in the Marine Corps for 8 Years... Spent Time in the Desert During the Gulf War, and have a fair "level" in all of the above Skills (with the exception of Parachuting and Diving). Many of them would likely fall into the Skill 3 Category, and some of which approach 4's and 5's. And while a Marine Corps Infantryman is better trained than your Average Army Grunt, They are not The SAS, or SEALS. That Spec Ops Character better have most of those skills (Some can slide dependant upon Spec Force), at pretty significant levels if he wants to be a Spec Ops Character. Putting those skills at a 1 JUST WILL NOT CUT IT with me. So, you either alter the character to make it as it should be, or you change your concept. Not that hard of a concept really.

AS for your Inference that a SF guy only needs to Shoot and Loot good, well, you obviously have little expereince with what it takes to be a SF guy. Those kind of people wash out in the first day or two. Which may be where our disconnect is.

These are the criteria that I promote in the games that I run. They are not as onerous as you are making them out to be.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 04:05 AM

Yes, My characters tend to be a bit more concept driven than those here on Dumpshock. I can agree with that 100%.

No, he said that it was not utilizing the Mage as he was intended to be used, and should not be allowed, because it was rules gaming. And I say BS.

And that was Not what I said Yerameyahu, and you know that.

I said that their character sheets should match their concepts. Completely different thing all together. I have no problem with Specializations. As long as it does not wholly compromise the concept of the character. When it does, well, we start over again.

Ex. Someone who rarely fires a gun, should not have a skill of 4 in Firearms. Someone who is supposed to be a Veteran Console Cowboy should not have a Skill of 1 OR a Logic of 1. I have seen both of these concepts. Not going to happen, at least not in one of my games.

I am sure that I could go on and on... And I am sure that you have seen much the same as I have. Difference is, I tend to not accept a character like that. By the same token, I do not tend to design a character like that either (Which is why you belive that my characters are a bit on the weird side (Heavens, I am not throwing 20+ Dice for anything)).
But you know something? I/We Must be doing something right, because, as I have said before, we rarely have any issues at our table with the rules. That is not something that many Dumpshockers can say, at least as evidenced by the proliferation of the "How do I fix this" topics found here.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 29 2011, 04:33 AM

He didn't say it shouldn't be allowed. He said this: "I'm not saying a GM should not allow a low magic character on occasion".

Let's not open the Logic-hacking thing again.

All I know is that you said your 'normal team' is 3 mages of varying power (including very high) and a Res 8 technomancer… plus an assassin. Glass houses.

There *is* no difference between one DP 6 and another DP 6. That's the whole point. The fluff says one (illogical thing), and the crunch says another.

Posted by: toturi Apr 29 2011, 05:44 AM

The criteria are as onerous as I am making them out to be. The rest of the non-mission critical skills can be 1 or 2 if the associated attribute is high enough or there were tools that aid in the task. You are a professional shadowrunner, but you do not do it all. You bring to the table a certain skill, therefore you should have professional levels of skill for that skill. Other skills may well be necessary for shadowrunner, but you are not being hired for those skills, so those other skills can be 1 or 2. As to why the character is not being headhunted by the corps? Who is to say that he is not? Does being a shadowrunner preclude working or being headhunted by the corps?

You get dunked into pool with all your gear. You must make it to the other side within a certain time limit (the threshold). You get there in the time limit or you flunk out. It doesn't matter if your technique(skill level) enables you to get there within the test timing or you brute force your way through the water with minimal skill(attribute). Hell, maybe you got lucky. It doesn't matter how if you crossed that line on time, just so you fucking do it. (Does the previous line sound like someone talking? Probably so, because this is exactly how I recall my instructor shouting it to me.)

Although I am ex-military(which I did not bring up until you did), I am not an SF guy and I do not claim to be so. But I do know that at the very heart of it, the soldier's primary mission is to get on the ground and kill the enemy. Anything less is mission failure. I have heard a saying, "Every Marine, a rifleman." They do not say every Marine, a runner or a swimmer or something else or other. Thus at the very base, I expect an ex-Marine to have good Longarms (not Firearms, just Longarms, maybe Automatics if the primary issued weapon is an Assault Rifle). Everything else is secondary. He may be out of training (lower Athletics skill group). He might be able to read a map and use a compass (skill 1), but he forgot the finer points of navigating in triple canopy jungle or survival in the balls-freezing artic (skill 3). The last time he even touched a LAW may be a long time ago, he could probably figure his way around to firing it (skill 1) but he probably won't be able to nail that APC on the move as he would have years ago.

Can you say that as an ex-Marine, your combat skills have not atrophied? I know my skills at arms have. I know ex-commandoes (or ex-PTIs for that matter) that I can outrun. I know ex-ossifers that can't shoot for shit (but their eye-power remain exceptional). Hell, I can honestly tell you I have only a faint idea of how to use that field dressing (which I would say that it is as good as defaulting). The character isn't a Special Ops character. He is an ex-Special Ops character. So I would probably think that at least some skill deterioration is called for unless the backstory can show why those skills have not.

Posted by: toturi Apr 29 2011, 06:03 AM

There is no difference in what one DP 6 and another DP 6 can accomplish. How that task is accomplished may well be different and that can be reflected in the fluff; one is more skillful than the other but the other simply has more in-born talent.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 29 2011, 07:39 AM

Methinks I hit a nerve.

My intent was to say that when someone mentions a magician in the context of shadowrunners, we make a logical assumption that they are referring to a strong, professional magician with good magic who's major contributing factors to the team are their magical abilities. Further, when talking about game balance issues, we typically assume fairly optimized characters who are specialized in their roles. A magic 2 magician has no place in a thread talking about house rules for combat spells, and honestly has no place in most shadowrunner teams.

When your group creates a team, and everyone decides what role they are going to play, and one player says "magician", the other players(and the GM) are going to make a logical assumption that your character is going to be a strong magician who's major contributing factor to the teams abilities is their magic. When you show up next week with a magic 2 mage, for most teams you are going to be letting them down. A magic 2 magician cannot take a grunt out in a single hit, cannot reliably create an illusion or influence someone, and their spirits are easy to take out using small arms fire(heck they have to over summon to get an optional power). In short, they are not fulfilling the role that a team's magician is supposed to fill, and most teams would be better off leaving the liability on the wayside and recruiting a real magician. In short, your not really playing as a magician as a magician is understood to be, and by the rules the GM can nix your character if they believe it would be disruptive to their campaign.(And to pre-counter my counter arguments, playing an under-powered character is disruptive to most campaigns)

Now on the flip side, you could be playing another, mundane, archtype, who also happens to have the magician quality and have some spells to back them up in their role. That way the team and the GM will not have false expectations of what you can do, and it will be known that your magical ability is an accessory to what you do, and not your primary driving force. However, due to the cheap cost of the magician quality, these builds can get rather abusive, and the GM is within their rights by the rules to not allow such a character.

Now suppose you have a team and players who are fine with you playing a magic 2 magician, for whatever reason, then great, play that character, as long as everyone else is having fun. However, that is a really unusual case, and it mystifies me why it was even brought up.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 29 2011, 08:31 AM

A magic 2 magician is relying on hits from the dice pool to use binary hit/no hit spells, which typically won't be of the combat variety. This build has a place, but it's not in direct combat spells.

Posted by: Mäx Apr 29 2011, 08:59 AM

And i suggest you come up with pretty much any other possible house rule or use one of those provided in this topic or the previous ones.
Because that rule is really really bad and doesn't really do anything else then encourage the mage to either overcast or multicast(or both) every direct combat spell she uses.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 01:29 PM

I disagree... They are not onerous. And I never said that you must do it all. I said that your Sheet should (and in my games, must) match your Background. It is not very common here on Dumpshock. I will give a shoutout to Canray here, becasue out of almost everyone else here, the characters I have seeen him detail are well fleshed to background. Of course, There are a few others as well, but it is a rarity in the land of "How can I get the best Dicepools I can get." I often think that everyone gets so caught up in the Massive handful of dice that they can roll that they forget about what is important about the character.



Every Marine a Rifleman. And yes, Every Marine is a Runner or a Swimmer. Itr is practiced, and you must "qualify" each and every year. I did. Expected to have Longarms and or Automatics at the minimum. The unit I was in, we ALL crosstrained on heavy Weapons and Demolitions. Tjose who specialized in ti were obviously Better. Buit Everyone Knew how to do them,. This does not fit the "Begginner" or "Novi e" level of Skill in the book. Yes, Most of them would not move beyond a skill of 3 in those things, but they were proficient. Hell, even the Admin Guys had that training. Evrything else is NOT secondary. If you cannot be stealthy, you kill your team member. If you cannot patch him up on the Fly, you lose that team member. If you cannot navigate, you never make it to the Rendezvous point.

I will agree that IF you come to me with a concept that indicates your skills have atrophied due to lack of use, I allow it, but ALL of those skills better still be on the sheet. And yuour "Combat Skills" better not be 5+. THAT is my complaint. I often see various versions of "Former Military" and yet the Combat Skills are outrageously High, and the support skills are either at a 1 (rare) or non-existant (most of the time). This does not make sense. And this is what I complain about.



Outrunning a Commando is not the issue. Running for 3 hours is. Can you still do that? Can you do that with a 60+ pound combat Load? I know that I cannot, but then, I never could do that comfortably. Though I can Hump a Combat Load all damn day... STILL. Ironically, the only fireamrms skill that has deteriorated is my Pistol Skill, as I do not have an opportunity to use it much, though my skills with other such weapons are still pretty sharp (hunting and all that). I have often complained that the distinction between the Firearms skills are pretty nebulous. There is a huge amount of overlap between Longarms, Automatics, and even Heavy Weapons (Machine Guns anyways) technique wise. But that is the division they chose to go with. So I won't touch on that much. And yes, my expertise with Rockets and Missiles may also be lacking a tad bit, as it has been awhile. However, because of that intensive training I received (and the sheer number of such weapons that I have fired over the years), it would only take a coupole of rounds of either to regain competance (Just like riding a bike, you know). Same with Pistols. Keeping in mind that I would not have allocated more than 3-4 Skill levels to either to start with (My Firearms Groupd would be split, and all would have specialtied), assuming I was looking at a character sheet of myself. Anything that is mostly knowledge based I tend to not forget all that much. So strictly technical skills (like Armorer, Demolitions or First Aid) I would say that there has been litttle to no degradation of ability, though some of the new technologies in Demolitions may give me a moment of pause. But honestly, the only things that change in that field are generally the materials used (technique rarely changes), and it is still easy to come by the good old standby's (Dynamite, TNT, C4), so I do not see a huge re-learning curve there.

I don't know, maybe I am different. ALL the things I learned in the Corps, I still have a good, working knowledge of. Maybe that has to do with the way I learn things, I do not know. Suffice it to say that, having learned manyof these things to the level that I do not even think actively about most of them, they have become almost innate.

Simple example: I have been often told that I am somewhat creepy in social situations, mostly because of the way I move and interact. Most, if not all, of that is because of my military training. Simple things, like always checking lines of sight, maneuvering to optimal placement within a group, or even a room, keeping an eye on those who are deemed "questionable," eyes constantly on the move, noticinng the little things that most people completely ignore. It creeps people out, and it is something that I do not do consciously. I would give myself the Negative Quality - Nasty Vibe because of this. The ways in which I interact constantly puts people on Edge. I have heard this for many, many years. It is an incredibly difficult thing to suppress, because it has been hammered into me so thoroughly I do not even think about it. The only people who are comfortable aropund me are other Marines, or Military personnel who have been in active combat. Most would call it strange. I would not.

I am still amazed that people are discussing this. What is so criminal (or wrong, for a less volatile term) about making the character adhere to their concept? It is a standard that Most of the GM's I have gamed with follow. It was how I was introduced into the gaming world. It often amazes me that not all of you do this.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 01:33 PM

Indeed... This is exactly it. Accomplshment and Skill are not the same thing.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 02:00 PM

How arrogant. First, I do not assume that we are immediately talking about an optimized Magician when a Magicial character is mentioned. I assume that we are talking about an individual who has an actual place in the game world. The fact that the AVERAGE magician (across the board) has a Magical Attribute of 3 apparently makes no difference to you.

Secondly, why, exactly, does a Magic 2 character have no place in a thread talking about House Rules for Combat Spells? And Why does he have no place in a Shadowrunning Team? The first is extremely relevant to prove that Direct Damage Spells are NOT overpowered in the least. It is simply a perception that does not bear up. The second is so subjective that I am amazed that you even brought it up. The FACT that is occurs in games I play in refutes completely your assumption. And in fact, the Magic 2 Character is far more valuable of a character due to the sheer versatility that he brings over the Combat Spells that the others bring. If he wants to cause Damage, He is going to use a Weapon, not spells.



Wrong. No Assumptions are, or should be, made. When we create a team, we talk about what we want to do. then we do it. The team knows exactly what they will be getting. The Magic 2 character IS a strong magician. Just not an overly optimized monstrosity that has no real place in the world. Magic 2 can reliably do everything that you indicated above. It takes some planning and forethought, but it can be done. If you think that it cannot, then you do not put enough thought into your characters. Let me ask you thins. If you were playing a Mage with a Low Magic, whether he started out that way, or ended up on the path to Burnout, what would you do to make yourself useful? That is the connundrum of the Low MAgic MAge. It is not all that hard to solve, actually, but it is something that takes some thought. Subtlety is your friend when you have a Low Magic Rating. You will never pull of the flashy magic that the High magic Combat Mages do, and that is okay. Want a combat mage that will let everyone know where he is, get that Magic 6 Mage. Want a Mage that is forced to be innovative because his Magic Rating is a little lower? Well, there are plenty of them out there. There are FAR more mages with a Magic Attribute of 2-3 than there are with a Magic of 5-6. The Magic 2 character will be force to find alternatives to directly attacking something, and you know what? It works. The Magic 2 character will likely not leave carnage in his wake. And you know what? That is good. A MAgic 2 character is definitely filling the role of a Mage, as it was meant to be filled. Just not at a world shaking power level, as you claim all of your mages are. Not everyone can be a Mage with a 5 or 6 in MAgic Attribute.

Your argument about Spirits is even weaker. You can take out a Force 6 Spirit with Small Arms quite easily, so whjy is a Force 2-3 Spirit a problem?

You really do not get Magic if you believe that anything under Magic attrribute of 5 is useless.
As for Underpowered. The character I play has MORE options than any other character in the game, for solving problems. So, he cannot incinerate a Tank where it stands with a simple wave of his hands. Big deal. Can that Combat mage be Subtle? I have yet to see it. The biggest problem with Magic that I can see is that when you play a High Magic Attribute Mage, you want to use that High Magic Attribute. They choose the big spells, Why? So they can solve everything with Big Explosions, and Big Effects. The argument that any Background Count shuts down a Low Magic MAge is false, it just forces them to compensate in some other way. Can a High Magic Mage do the same? Of course he can, but that is not the point.



This is the epitome of what you are complaining about. A mage who is not fulfilling the role of the Mage. You cannot have it both ways here. And I can guarantee you this. My GM and My Team have no False Impressions of what My Mage character can do. And the Mage I play is a Mage in all its Glory. He just does not have a High Magic Rating. A high Magic Rating is not a Requirement to play a Mage. Your opinion notwithstanding. It is sheer arrogance to claim otherwise.



It was brought up to counter the arrogant assumptions that you must have a High Magic to Play a Magician Character \"Correctly,\" as was earlier stated (by you, if I remember correctly).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 29 2011, 02:04 PM

Except accomplishment and skill *are* the exact same thing in SR4. That was my whole point when I first mentioned this. I said, 'hey, isn't it funny that these are the same thing in SR4, like we've talked about many times?'. Facrissake. All this whining about 'arrogance' this and 'playing wrong' that, and we can't even agree on this obvious and basic point?

Posted by: fazzamar Apr 29 2011, 02:18 PM

This. My group is currently using the house rule that drain = (F/2) + mod + number of hits target gets on resist test
While it doesn't change how powerful direct combat spells are, it does put a bit more risk into casting it. We haven't had a lot of testing with it and I'm worried about the first time the group faces a high willpowered + counterspelled NPC could equal in an unconscious mage real quick like.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 02:19 PM

No, they aren't, or they would not have a metric for what each skill level represents. The fact that such a thing exists indicates that they are NOT the same. As Toturi pointed out. There is a vast difference between someone who is an Expert in their field, and someone who just has a lot of natural talent.

I will agree that there is a disconnect between the two, because the vast majority of players are in it for the Honking big Dice pool, and could care less about what everything actually represents.

And it is not whining, is is discussion.

Posted by: sabs Apr 29 2011, 02:22 PM

I like to do 2 basic rules for fixing magic combat spells.

1) no multi-casting.
2) When over casting, drain goes from F/2 to F

Posted by: sabs Apr 29 2011, 02:25 PM

Tymaeus, I have the opposite problem.

I feel that the DicePool system does not represent the skill fluff properly. It's is very irritating to me that the difference between an expert, and the best in the field, is an average of 1 hit. (or 3 dice) Which can easily be overcome with the right use of augments.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 29 2011, 02:30 PM

Exactly. The fluff table is wrong, as I said. The dice reflect the actual reality, because they determine who wins and/or what you can do.

sabs, do you find that anyone overcasts then?

Posted by: sabs Apr 29 2011, 03:23 PM

Actually yes, people overcast in dire situations, and usually they spend edge on the drain

Posted by: Mäx Apr 29 2011, 04:20 PM

I don't know, from what i have seen it's pretty common on characters that are actually ment to be played, instead of being a dicepool exercise.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 29 2011, 05:10 PM

I will admit that I have not caught all of the character exercises, so I might have missed ones that are actual, playable characters. It remains, though, that I have no problems with characters whose story matches their stats.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 30 2011, 02:42 AM

I think the question is purely whether you can or can't. No one but a masochist can run for 3 hours with a 60+ pound combat load comfortably, and that's only due to their definition of comfort.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 30 2011, 03:11 AM

Shadowrunners are not average, next point.



Because unoptimized don't break the game system. Optimized characters are the ones who test out game balance. If your magic 2 mage being over powered in your team, that's their problem, not the game rules.

Furthermore, don't put words into my mouth. I allready explained why a magic 2 magician should be cautiously allowed on a team at best, but I never said they should never be allowed, just that a GM has the right to ban them should they believe it would be disruptive, for one reason or another.

If your magic 5 character is far more valuable than a magic 5 character, either the rest of your parties characters suck, or you're playing a twink build just using the absurdly cheap magician positive quality to give you a boost without making the sacrifices a magician character is supposed to make for their power.



Funny, I never mentioned your group, and honestly this entire paragraph is borderline irrelevant. I understand how to make strong magician characters with a low magic rating, it's not hard, but those characters are not good because they are magicians, but because they have mundane skills, also they have some tricks they barely paid for. I don't know what your obsession with "average" characters, but I assure you most people who post in threads about game rules and optimization are not talking about an average mage, they are talking about serious magician who hs focused heavily on their magical abilities. Also, you seem to think for some reason the only reason to have a high magic is combat spells. The last combat mage I played used his stunbolt spell once every 3 or 4 sessions, and he was a grade 2 initiate with a 6 magic. When I needed someone dead, I shot them...or summoned a fire spirit.



Getting past 12 hardened armor isn't easy, it either takes heavy guns, special ammo, or special forces level skill. Shadowrunners often have this, Lone Star and rent a cops usually don't, at least not before reinforcements arrive. A Colt America, on the other hand, gets through a force 2's armor easy using normal rounds, two shots and the thing is gone, even from a gangbanger with 3 agility and 2 pistols. I'm sorry, but if you think I have a weak argument saying that low force spirits are not strong in combat when compared to high force spirits, you need to take a math class.



Once again, you are putting words in my mouth. Lookup a strawman argument on Wikipedia, I'll wait.

You done?

I never said magic less than 5 is useless, I did however say that a character who is a magician character is going to be someone who's primary contributing factor to their team is their magical abilities. A mage 2 mage has some cool useful tricks, but a strong character magic 2 does not make. Your character is then relying on their mundane skills to fulfill their party roles, which means they are not a magician archtype, they are a guy who is good with a gun, who can also cast spells. A high magic doesn't just make your combat spells better, I have mentioned time and time again, even in this thread, magic SUCKS at killing people, even with a high magic score. Guns are more effective, cheaper, less likely to draw attention, and don't cause damage to you when you use them. However a force 5 air spirit providing concealment, or a force 5 trid phantasm spell, that kinda stuff is useful.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Apr 30 2011, 07:35 AM

I think this is the problem here - you're trying to apply "classes" to SR. "I'm the mage! Ok, I'm the fighter!" A magic 2 char won't be as powerful as a magic 5 char in magic, but so what? That magic 2 char will have put points into other areas, and will be better than the magic 5 char in those other areas. So what if they're not a better "mage"? There are no "mages" in SR, just like there aren't any "fighters", "clerics", "thieves", etc. This isn't WOW.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Apr 30 2011, 07:39 AM

Doesn't your group have special rules for spirits above force 4, because you think anything above force 4 is too powerful? Your argument here seems a little disingenuous...

Posted by: sabs Apr 30 2011, 01:03 PM

How exactly are you doing 13 DV with a pistol easily?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 30 2011, 03:46 PM

Maybe it's a Super Warhawk with APDS and expert skill. I wouldn't call that 'quite easily', I'd call it 'in some cases'.

Posted by: sabs Apr 30 2011, 03:59 PM

yeah, but that Spirit has 12 dodge dice.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 30 2011, 04:01 PM

Yeah, 'expert'. And naturally it's all customized to fire 8-round bursts or something.

Posted by: Mäx Apr 30 2011, 04:03 PM

Why do you need to do 13 DV with a pistol.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 30 2011, 04:13 PM

Well, that's a stupid question in general. Why *wouldn't* you? But specifically, they're talking about killing a Force 6 spirit with a pistol 'quite easily'.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 30 2011, 04:49 PM

Well, use of edge will bring your effective hit rate up to a little over 50%, so only 14 dice on a DV 6 pistol should net you an expected value of 6 DV + 7 hits = 13 DV

Posted by: Falconer Apr 30 2011, 05:52 PM

As far as doing 13 damage w/ a pistol in a single combat round... easy. I take two of the BF pistols in arsenal (narrow burst). Each one does 7P-1 (-5 w/ APDS), in order to hit I need one net hit... 8 damage (no drain on that extra hit!), there now target is soaking at least 8P damage twice (single action per shot... w/ option to 'multi-cast' by firing both pistols at once and splitting pool). Alternatively... core book... 2 revolvers... 6P ap-2 each base... again apds... that's min 7P damage each.

If you're managing more than 1 net hit you should be in the 16-18 damage range... after soak you shoul be down about 12-14 w/ all that armor penetration. (body 4 w/ an armor jacket say).

I suggest you look up some of my prior posts. There's a world of difference between trying to fix something and nerf it into oblivion as most of the anti-mage crowd are out to do to direct combat spells.

And no, there isn't a problem w/ overcasting or multi-casting. In either case the drain is increased by a substantial amount... (the trick is pushing them into and over the 3-4 drain mark... because that's when normal sized soak pools become unreliable). In order to reliably knock someone out w/ the extra drain for success rule, you need to multi-cast 2 spells at the same guy at force 7... w/ half give or take of the original pool (remember penalties get doubled and applied each pool separately.) If overcast at fore 11... (enough generally for a knockout... you're soaking 4 drain on a stunbolt.. more for other spells... and two force 7's are going to hammer you with two 3 drain tests (each aditional spell adds +1 drain to all spells).



As far as overcasting... you'll find I've long advocated an extra half point of drain for each point by which a spell is overcast. (mathematically the same but easier to figure on the fly. equivalent to 1 drain for each point by which a spell is overcast).

You'll also find I advocate being more likely to use edge when oversummoning, and also to only give spirits ranks in skills equal to half force instead of force. I also like the idea of using 'banishing' as counterspelling against critter powers.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 30 2011, 06:22 PM

Why does everyone have so much difficulty with mages? Just do what we've always done. Get the village together and burn it at the stake.

Non-witches should be safe from burning since they aren't made of wood.

If they try to counter by turning you into a newt... Don't worry, you'll get better.

Posted by: Mäx Apr 30 2011, 07:44 PM

For that you just load you pistol with S&S, as long as you hit you do damage to that spirit.

If you did the same about my posts on these topics, you would notice that i'm not in any way part of the anti-mage crowd your talking about, i just happen to agree with the fact that if direct combat spells need a nerf, then almost any other house rule would be better then that optional rule.(my first try would be to just swap around the drain modifiers of indirect and direct spells)

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 30 2011, 07:51 PM

I have been known to make it so when overcasting if you resist all the drain you still take 1 stun damage, as a kinda way of ensuring you always take something for overcasting.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 1 2011, 02:41 AM

Falconer, narrow bursts don't beat ITNW. That's the whole point. They're talking about spirits. 13 DV is more than 8 DV + 8 DV.

Mäx, SnS goes without saying.

Posted by: Falconer May 1 2011, 07:01 AM

You obviously missed the APDS and AP-5 on the attack. The narrow burst heavy pistol is good enough for a force 5 w/ one net hit. For higher forces you'd want to mod the gun to be able to do wide bursts. (less reaction means more damage to compare against hardened totals). But you'd need 3 net hits or a called shot for damage. (if you can reliably generate 3 net hits... then the narrow is still better for damage as it's +2 assured damage... though wide is still better for 'insurance').

The revolvers can punch through a force 6 using APDS w/ just one net hit, base damage 6, ap -6... +1 net hit...

So no, my math is perfectly valid.



SnS is another broken item... I liked the house rule which just makes it match the damage code of the base pistol... (IE: light pistol SnS... 4S half... so bigger rounds carry a bigger shock).

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 1 2011, 07:28 AM

Only the Super Warhawk, not all revolvers. Add in the (weird) Hi-Power Rounds from WAR and you have a truely scary handcannon.
Only if you restrict it at the upper end as well. SnS form a Barret with this houserule would be ridiculously powerful.

Posted by: TheOOB May 1 2011, 07:58 AM

Burst fire doesn't help overcome armor, so it's not strictly neccesary. Stick and Shock rounds are cheaper and have a lower availability, unlikely your average goon will have them, but good for runners to carry around.

Posted by: Mäx May 1 2011, 09:58 AM

This exactly is the reason why i have never understood people who advocate the "S&S has the same damage code as the base weapon" house rule as a fix to S&S, becouse IMO that rule actually makes S&S totally and absolutely broken and the best ammo choice for every weapon in every situation.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 1 2011, 03:17 PM

SNS Ammo is cheap and easily available, Force 6 Spirits fall like Flies, according to DUmpshockers... You done?



You DID say that it was breaking the spirit, if not the Letter, of the Quality to have a Low Magic Attribute Magician. At which point, that equates to Useless. WHo cares how the Low Magic Character does what they do, they are still useful to the team. Your argumanet that their magic is not what allows them to carry the day is quite laughable. Seems to work for my character quite well. No one said that High Magic Mages (and the things they can bring to bear) were not useful, you said that Low Magic Mages were not. After all, A Magic Attribut of 2 still allows for Force 4 Spells when necessary.

Anyways...

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 1 2011, 03:19 PM

No, no special rules. The Spirits spend Edge. It is a Canon Rule. Applied at a certain threshold (Force 4) unless the player's character takes effort to appease the spirits.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 1 2011, 03:20 PM

Use SnS (I know it has already been stated)... Quite Easy (This was the point I was making). There are a lot of Topics here on DS that complain about that very thing.

Posted by: phlapjack77 May 1 2011, 04:20 PM

Forgive me for implying that you or your group would use a house rule

I meant to say, that your group considers anything force 4 and above really powerful, so powerful that certain rules get applied to them and not to lower force spirits. And then to see you argue that force 6 spirits are easily taken out by small arms fire, well, seemed as I said, disingenuous. I'm objecting to this mostly because I agree with your point of view in this thread.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 1 2011, 04:27 PM

Except that is clearly a house rule. Some people are allergic to the word.

Tymeaus, I thought you guys didn't use the whole (highly controversial) SnS-kills-spirits thing. Must've mis-remembered.

Posted by: Adarael May 1 2011, 04:36 PM

From an anectdotal perspective, I had a player whose character was a pistol adept in my last game. He would rock heavy pistols with EX-EX or APDS on a regular basis, and he'd blow force 6 spirits away with shocking regularity. Now, he wasn't average, per se, but still. This is roughly what his breakdown was when he killed his first spirit:

Agility 8, Pistols 6, +3 dice from improved ability, +2 from a specialization, smartlink +2, so... 21 dice. At those numbers, he would statistically be expected to get 7 hits on his attacks (at close range), to the spirit's dodge of 2. With either Ex-Ex or APDS, that's jumping right through ITNW. Not to mention that usually he would call a shot for extra damage.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 1 2011, 05:48 PM

What is ITNW?
Also, instead of calling the shot, Why didn't he just attack normally? twice as many attacks -> twice as many kills against stuff like force 6 spirits.

Posted by: Mäx May 1 2011, 06:07 PM

Or zero damage becouse you can't beat the spirits Immunity To Normal Weapons.

Posted by: Adarael May 1 2011, 07:02 PM

Yeah. You need to exceed the Immunity to Normal Weapons threshold (Force x2) in damage for the attack to not automatically be reduced to 0. He could probably get away with snap-shotting spirits, but sometimes they'd roll better than he expected, or use edge, or lighting/cover conditions wouldn't be optimal, and he wouldn't wanna chance them having a good enough dodge roll to bounce the round, so he'd call a shot for extra damage.

Also, calling a shot is a free action, so he'd be making the same number of attacks regardless.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 1 2011, 07:17 PM

You need to make a take aim action (generally a simple, with one exception) to take the free action for a called shot.

All in all, a called shot is one action phase for a gun user, or 1.5 for a bow user.

Posted by: TheOOB May 1 2011, 07:36 PM

Stick and shock ammo is four times as much as regular rounds(2.6 times as much as gel rounds). Shadowrunners use it, but corp security and gangers will rarely make that expense to take intruders alive. As we are talking about player abilities, we have to think about what players opposition usually has.

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 1 2011, 07:53 PM

I agree that gangers probably won't use SnS very much, but Corp Sec probably will. While it is more expensive, they reduce collateral damage and all the bad press that entails. Additionally it offers an opportunity to question the intruders after stopping them.

Posted by: Adarael May 1 2011, 07:57 PM

No you don't. You can follow the Call a Shot action with Take Aim if you want, but you can also immediately follow it with pulling a trigger. SR4A, p. 146: "Call a Shot: A character may "call a shot" (aim for a vulnerable portion of a target) with this Free Action. See Called Shots, p. 161. This action must be immediately followed by a Take Aim, Fire Weapon, Throw Weapon, or Melee Unarmed Attack."

On p. 161, there is no mention of needing to aim.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 1 2011, 08:18 PM

I read that as: A character can (aim and then call a
shot at the time of the attack). Calling the shot is a Free Action.

So I see that as a take aim action followed by a simple action.
Can we get opinions on this? I would love to be able to make called shots as free actions.
I just don't want to feel like I'm cheating.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 1 2011, 10:01 PM

As Adarael said, it's on the Free Action list, p161. Done. Due to the way the numbers work, Called Shots basically *are* cheating in many cases. The GM can disallow whenever they're not appropriate… but SR4 is also just deadly. NPCs can do it, too, and not everyone has 21 dice.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 1 2011, 10:15 PM

Alright. Sounds good then.

Before letting it lie, let me just point out that called shots would be balanced if they required 2 simple actions and a free. Now that I've discovered they only require a free action, all my weapons suddenly have +4 DV.

Posted by: Mäx May 1 2011, 11:03 PM

It being on the list of free actions actually has nothing what so ever to do with whether or not you need to take aim action before you can call a shot, subject of witch the rules are little confusing about.
Page 146 has this
"A character may “call a shot” (aim for a vulnerable portion of a target)
with this Free Action. See Called Shots, p. 161. This action must be
immediately followed by a Take Aim, Fire Weapon, Throw Weapon,
or Melee Unarmed Attack."
Page 161 says this
"A character can only make a called shot with weapons that fire
in single-shot, semi-automatic, and burst-fire modes, as well as melee
weapons. A character can aim (see Take Aim, p. 148) and then call a
shot at the time of the attack. Calling the shot is a Free Action."
The under lined part kinda implies that you have to Take aim first and then call the shot.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 1 2011, 11:18 PM

That's the way I originally read it. However, it can just as easily be read their way. The sentence following the underlined part seems to clarify that the entire action is a free action.

Besides, when in doubt, take the route that leads to easy dragonslaying.

Posted by: TheOOB May 2 2011, 01:07 AM

While the text says you can take aim with a called shot, it never says it has too, and on pg 146 of SR4A it just says you need to take a free action to call the shot, and then says what actions may follow it.

Posted by: Adarael May 2 2011, 01:28 AM

Yeah, Longbow, that's pretty much my way of looking at it: while I appreciate that it may be more accurate to take aim and then call a shot, it is more *awesome* to be able to call a shot from nowhere, and affords people an easier time popping pesky monsters. And I like to go with Awesome over Accuracte.

Posted by: Mäx May 2 2011, 01:36 AM

There would be no problem if it said that, but it says you can take aim and then you can call the shot, witch is a pretty big difference.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 2 2011, 02:15 AM

Heheh... No Worries. We do see spirits at Force 4+ as Powerful, as does the Fluff of Shadowrun. And sadly, Force 6 and lower Spirits are easily taken out by Such weapons as Tasers and SnS.

Thanks for the Support...

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 2 2011, 02:18 AM

Just because I do not agree completely with it does not mean that it does not get used in our Games. I tend to leave that stuff to the Mages, though. Many (but not most) of my characters have either a Tazer or SnS Rounds for Spirit Defense. I actually prefer the Big Handheld Tazer, takes care of Spirits up to Force 8 fairly easily.

No Worries though, Yerameyahu.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 2 2011, 02:21 AM

Why? The average Mage is going to summon an Average Force 2-3 Spirit. Corp Security rarely is going to have an Issue with those. By the Same Token, the Average Runner team will have even less of an Issue. You may be happy using the Extremes to compare notes, but I am not, so I use the averages, with an ocassional oddity thrown in.

To each his own.

Posted by: redwulf25 May 2 2011, 03:26 AM

The average mage on a team of Shadowrunners will be summoning a force 5 or 6 spirit. The average shadowrunner is an above average person.

Posted by: TheOOB May 2 2011, 05:27 AM

2-3 is an extreme for a player, player character shadowrunner mages usually have 5-6 magic to start. Haven't we gone over this allready?

Seriously, the game is called "Shadowrun", not "20 minute cardio run", why would I be playing a RPG to be an average person, I am an average person(well depends on your definition of average, but I certainly don't run raids against sovereign corporations).

A force 2-3 spirit can be taken out by random guy with a gun, a force 5-6 spirit takes a high degree of skill, specialized ammo, or heavy arms to take out, which most gangers, mobsters, and corp rent-a-cops don't have. That means an "average" magician's (who is well below average for a shadowrunner) spirits will get torn apart in 1 or two initiative passes, an average starting shadowrun magicians spirits will be difficult to defeat unless you are facing other runners or paramilitary+ level foes(which happens, but usually isn't all the time, at least not until the runner is summoning force 8-9 spirits which are tough even for that power level).

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 2 2011, 12:51 PM

We have gone over it, numerous times, and yet you still perpetrate the Myth that all Shadowrunners have a Magic Attribute of 5 or 6... That is simply not true, and you know it.

And yet... Force 6 Spirits get torn apart in 1 or two initiative passes already. So, whats the issue here really? Force 3 or Force 6, still only 1 or two initiative passes of effectiveness.

Posted by: phlapjack77 May 2 2011, 03:49 PM

Sooooo...spirits are only ever useful in combat then? We should only measure their effectiveness by how well they hold up against an armed opponent?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 2 2011, 04:15 PM

Apparently...

Posted by: sabs May 2 2011, 04:19 PM

I still don't see how you're killing Force 6 Spirits with Immunity to Normal Weapons so easily. (Ignoring the stupidity that is stick and shock)

You need to do 12 DV against a dodge pool of 12.

Heavy Pistols:

Superhawk with APDS rounds: 6P -5AP
You still need 6 hits (so a dice pool of 15-20 depending) To do this consistently.
This is assuming that your GM lets ADPS rounds reduce the armor on ItNW, which given that the description for APDS rounds specifically says: It reduces the effectiveness of Ballistic Armor, it's not a guarantee.

A Superhawk with EX-EX rounds looks like: 7P -2AP needing 9 hits roughly to get through the ItNW.
Even if you do manage to get the 13 DV necessary

Called Shot: +4DV -4DP. This is up to GM decision though, supposedly you're targetting a vulnerable area. What vulnerable area does a Spirit with ItNW have? the ByPass Armor roll gives you a penalty = to the armor rating. Even still you need 3-4 hits on average to hit the spirit with the attack. 3-4 hits requires a dicepool of 12 to consider doing consistantly.

Even then, the Spirit still gets 18 dice to soak. So that 13DV attack, gets reduces 5 on average, down to 8.

I certainly don't call that easy, and most Security Personnel can't really pull that off without calling the big guns.

Rating 5/6 Combat Spirits are dangerous for the average combat npc. Force 9 Spirits are near impossible for them to hit. 18DV is hard to rate up, and 27 dice for soaking is... a lot.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 2 2011, 04:38 PM

12 dice is pretty easy to acquire as a Starting Character. Call it Skill 3 for the Character, Give him Heavy pistols as a Speicalization (+2), a Smartlink (+2), and a Moderate Tacnet Bonus of +1. All yo need is an Attribute of 4 at that point for it to be an even roll against the Spirit's Defense. A more common Variety of Shadowrunner will have Skill 3-4, Specialty (+2), Smartlink (+2) Tacnet Bonus (+2) and a Stat of 7 (Still not maxed out) for a Dice Pool of 16-17 Dice. Which now heavily favors the Attacker against that Spirit. So, 12 Dice nets the Spirit 3-4 Hits (Average-Buy), and the more common Shadorunnner has 16-17 Dice for a 4-5 (Average-Buy). So you get a Net Bonus with Characters on top. So Any round/Weapon combination that can generate enough Damage will likely Get through.

SnS is the obvious Choice...
APDS in a Super Warhawk is the next logical Choice...
The Heavy Tazer works outstandingly...
Any Sniper Rifle with APDS Ammunition will make short work of Spirit aATargets as well.

It is not hard to kill spirits.

A 6p Weapon with -5 AP only needs 2 Hits to cause net wounds to the spirit. Not the 6 you are talking about. Armor piercing works against the Hardened Armor just like it does everything else. You really need to look at those rules a bit more. Hardened Armor is BOTH Ballistic and Impact. If it affects either of those things, it affects Hardened Armor.

Force 9 Spirits are so rare in Canon that they should not even be part of the conversation. Anything above Force 6, for that matter should be rare indeed.

Posted by: sabs May 2 2011, 04:47 PM

Yeah, 2 net hits, above the spirits 3-4 hits. Which adds up to 5-6 hits needed on your roll to pull it off consistantly.

That 17 DP character has a hard time getting 6 hits consistantly.
It's not quite simple, and it's certainly nigh impossible for the average Mafia Goon.

Posted by: Adarael May 2 2011, 05:08 PM

The problem isn't REALLY killing Force 6 Spirits, in my experience. That's an accomplishable goal. It's killing Force 6 Spirits before they totally wreck the crap out of at least one team member, or do something like Fear the guy with the big gun that can hurt them, while operating under Conceal. Because critter powers are rough, yo: no counterspelling against them.

Posted by: Mäx May 2 2011, 05:24 PM

If the the spirit has 12+ dice for dodge means it went on full defence, so it doesn't even matter anymore whether you even hit or not, the spirit is allready out of combat.

Posted by: Mäx May 2 2011, 05:24 PM

These forums so need flood control.

Posted by: sabs May 2 2011, 05:27 PM

Spirits get 3 IP, if it's on full D it still has 2IP

Posted by: Mäx May 2 2011, 05:50 PM

If it's on FD every time i shoot it, then no it doesn't have any IP:s left, unless i have have less then 3 IP:s.

Posted by: sabs May 2 2011, 05:55 PM

Full Defense is a once per round thing, not per IP.
If you are fighting a guy with 1 IP and full defense, and you have 3 IP you don't get to shoot him once on FD and the rest on just reaction. That's not how full defense works.

Once you're on FD you're on FD for the whole round.

Holy shit, I've been playing shadowrun wrong This is fucked up.

So there's 2 possible interpretations of this rule, both stupid.
1) I go on FD, if I have 1 IP then I'm in FD for the entire round. if I have multiple IP, then I'm only on FD for the current IP.
2) I go on FD, and If I have IP then I'm on FD for the current IP and that's it. So if someone has Multiple IPs, he just has to shoot me twice and my second IP I'm basically dead. His 12 dice, vs my 4 or 5 tops.

that's really.. fucked up.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 2 2011, 06:03 PM

Wires are good. In other news, sky = blue.

It's probably not productive to get into a complicated theoretical example. There are literally millions of possibilities: maybe the spirit starts with X, Y, or Z power first, or there are 3 other members of the team shooting also, or it's all thermal smoke, or any combination of a hundred other factors. Yes, certain combinations of things can neutralize the spirit. … So? It's not easy, especially for *NPCs* lacking all the runner metagaming powers. They still have high stats, nifty powers, flight, etc. Force 6 is a big deal, and low-magic mages don't really have the option.

What does this even have to do with combat spell houserules?

Posted by: sabs May 2 2011, 06:04 PM

well, more importantly, not having at least 2 ip is bad. Like, non-combatant, you're a chump bad.

Posted by: Mäx May 2 2011, 07:00 PM

You go to FD then your on FD still your next IP.
So if you have 1IP and you go on FD your own FD untill the next round.
If you have more then 1 IP and you go on FD, your on FD until your next IP at witch point you can go on FD again.

The FD rules really aren't that compicated.

Posted by: KarmaInferno May 2 2011, 07:05 PM

If you had like 4 IPs, though, and your opposition was only at 1 to 2 IPs, you could go FD on your first couple of passes and then safely switch to regular actions for the rest of the turn.




-k

Posted by: longbowrocks May 2 2011, 08:02 PM

ninja'd

Also, I don't think I'm going to find the acronym ItNW in any book. Can someone tell me what it stands for?

Posted by: Mäx May 2 2011, 08:04 PM

Immunity To Normal Weapons, i actually wrote it open allready in the post below the one you asked this the first time

Posted by: longbowrocks May 2 2011, 08:14 PM

Ah, thanks. I didn't draw the connection then, but now: http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/4009/1097290-i_see_what_you_did_there_super.jpg.

Posted by: Falconer May 3 2011, 04:02 AM

The only reason for that 2nd sentence is simply to allow someone chooses to take aim for a few rounds... they don't lose the bonus if they suddenly decide to do a called shot when they pull the trigger.


As far as the other comment on SnS. I strongly disagree... there's no reason for holdouts to go from 3damage to 6 half... and a big slow round like a shotgun should have a 'stunbunny' round w/ a bigger jolt (shotguns in 4th are generally subpar making up for earlier editions where they were godly). The only other case where it's possible to get higher values are hunting rifles... which generally are subpar anyhow... and sniper rifles/HMG (which all have -3 AP innate!!! so AP half replacing the gun + ammo AP is generally inferior to lethal ammo).

Also, generally I tend to consider SnS useless for penetration purposes... if you're a sniper gunning down someone on the other side a car door or wall, you don't want your round discharging it's shock into the vehicle and not the target.


Another thing to keep in mind... most spirits only do stun damage on physical attacks. (only those w/ a natural weapon or elemental attack type power can hurt a vehicle or drone directly). Another fun one... if the spirit does engage in melee... then with a gun you have the in-melee penalty, but you also get the point-blank bonus... against a spirit ONLY defending against a ranged attack w/ reaction, that -3 penalty is going to do far more harm to a limited reaction pool than a larger attack pool.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 3 2011, 04:17 AM

You have to have a GM who's using a house rule for that 'SnS doesn't go through things' idea, Falconer. RAW is silent. I don't disagree, but it's one more thing to fix.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 3 2011, 12:53 PM

Well, SnS can't go through barriers. Stun Damage and all that...

Posted by: sabs May 3 2011, 01:12 PM

The idea that when you're in melee range you can't use melee defense to defend against ranged attacks is the worlds dumbest thing in the world. A guy with a gun is pretty much fucked if a melee guy gets into close quarters with him. Certainly if he's trained. I know about a dozen ways to take someones' gun from them and point it at their head. And i'm by no stretch of the imagination on part witha 'runner.

Posted by: Bigity May 3 2011, 01:17 PM

Yes but that's really an attack on your part, not an attempt to dodge a bullet/arrow/whatever.

At least as far as the abstract rules for this role-playing game are concerned.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 3 2011, 01:44 PM

I believe that there are options that would allow this, though, in the books.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 3 2011, 02:03 PM

Tymeaus, that's not really true. The damaging barrier rules don't ask about that, and neither do the cover/armor rules for shooting passengers.

Posted by: sabs May 3 2011, 02:08 PM

Well, Barriers don't take stun damage. So, you could shoot sns at a barrier all you want, and it would never go through it.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 3 2011, 02:15 PM

Which was my Point...

Posted by: Mäx May 3 2011, 02:37 PM

And where exactly in the rules are you getting this from, you can damage barriers with unarmed attacks and last time i checked those normally do stun damage.

Posted by: sabs May 3 2011, 02:48 PM

I think that's me combining vehicle rules and barrier rules. Vehicles don't take stun damage.
Still, sns is a bullet, so it does 2dv/bullet, not some magical 6DV.


It also makes no sense for a sns round from a rifle to go through a car and into a person. If you want to argue that the shock carries through, you still need to go have a modified dv higher than the armor rating of the barrier, and then the person gets to soak using body+armor+armor of barrier.

The description of the sns round is that when it hits something, it sticks and then releases a shock. it's not built for penetration. It's actually the opposite of penetration.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 3 2011, 02:54 PM

Well... In the area for Damaging barriers...



So... Lets see... A Standard Bullet (or SNS) does 2 DV...

Which is not enough to penetrate Average material (Barrier of 4) even with its -Half AP of the SnS.

Barrier table that is relevant...



Anything that that does not penetrate Barrier Rating is Harmless to that barrier. So, Most Bullets will not penetrate most barriers.

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 3 2011, 03:08 PM

If you wanted to destroy the Barrier that is true, but for shooting through it, the SnS bullet does normal damage. the attacks modified damage has to exceed the barrier's armor ratng to go thorugh. the rule does not specify that this damage has to be physical.

Posted by: sabs May 3 2011, 03:31 PM

Stick-n-Shock: This is a special adhesive projectile that sticks to
the target and incorporates a battery pack that delivers short bursts of
high-voltage pulses. The Stick-n-Shock replaces the weapon’s Damage
Value with its own.

Okay, how exactly is that going to penetrate /anything/

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 3 2011, 03:48 PM

Fluff=/=Rules

How is such a projectile fired from a sniper rifle able to create the expected effect at maximum range without going straight through a target at point blank range?

Posted by: Bigity May 3 2011, 04:15 PM

I'd rule that the damage value replacement does not occur until the intended target is taking damage, so the weapon's regular damage code is what has to be past the barrier.

Posted by: Mäx May 3 2011, 04:31 PM

Yes, if I'm trying to destroy the barrier with it, but when i just try to shoot at the guy on the otherside, it does the same damage as it normally does.
and when that substitution is used, the barrier doesn't get to ingnore damage, only to resist it.

THats actually pretty elegant way to handle the situation.

Posted by: sabs May 3 2011, 04:42 PM

If you're shooting at someone through a barrier, that barrier basically acts like hardened armor.

So a Tree is 6 armor 7 structure
If you can't put together more than 6DV of damage, the attack bounces. If you can, then it goes through, and then the guy standing behind the tree gets to soak doing
Body+Personal Armor+Armor Rating of Tree.

Posted by: Mäx May 3 2011, 04:45 PM

Actually its 6-AP of your weapon, witch depending on the weapon ends up as anything between 0 and 11

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 3 2011, 06:37 PM

This is exactly what I said: the barrier rules don't care about regular ammo, SnS, capsule rounds, whatever. You're talking about (perfectly reasonable) fluff-based house rules. And net hits count, Tymeaus.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 3 2011, 07:42 PM

All bullets deal 2DV to barriers. Regardless of Whether it is from a Light Pistol, Sniper Rifle, or Heavy machine gun. I know that I have seen it in the books, just cannot find it right this instant. I am apparently having a Failed Search-Fu moment.

EDIT: Found it. In a Table... And you are Right, Net hits do add from the base of 2. Found that in the Sidebar Example for clarification.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 3 2011, 07:50 PM

Ironic that you say this:

(Ah, you edited it out, quite rightly.) The 2 DV/bullet rule is specifically for Destroying Barriers, not Penetrating them.

As for the Penetration rules, I think net hits do apply. It specifically says '*modified* DV', to be compared against 'Barrier Armor modified by AP'.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 3 2011, 08:56 PM

Yep, Edited it out and corrected. Nopt sure what I was thinking...

Does say Modified DV.
T'is True...
Which does make sense, because if it cannot penetrate the barrier, why worry about soaking damage for the target. Modified DV MUST be the end result. Doh...

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 3 2011, 09:01 PM

And again, it's not crazy to treat SnS/other things as 'special', per their fluff.
I still dunno what this has to do with combat spells, though.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 3 2011, 10:24 PM

Yeah, Me neither. Can't remember why we are on this particular tangent, and am too tired to look back further in this thread.

I just have a hard time seeing a Heavy Pistol round blowing a 2-meter hole in a wall when it passes through. I LIKE the idea that if your Barrier, modified by the rounds AP is sturdier than the damage inflicted, it bounces (which it does). That actually makes sense. What I do not like is that you can inflict more damage to a wall if you aim for a bit. It does not make sense that your Net Hits will somehow make the hole any bigger than it would normally be when traveling through a barrier. I have put rounds throuigh a lot of walls in my time, and the more accurate the shot does not determine the size of the hole. A Heavy Pistol blows a 2 Meter hole in a Fiberboard Wall (Armor 2, Structure 3) because I got 6 Hits? Really? What Crap is that...