Yeah, and they are the SR Devs for some stupid reason . . .
People like that should not be allowed anywhere near a game that has combat in it.
NICHE PROTECTION! BUT NOT FOR COMBAT MONKEYS! BECAUSE THEY ARE OP!
AND THEY SUCK! SCREW TROLLS! WAY TOO BIG AND STRONG AND TOUGH!

Go frag yourself with that stomm-opinion you drokkers!

It's amusing you mention the SR Devs, cause one came on the aforementioned topic to whine that we weren't all shiny eyes at SRA (To be honest, it was more about us criticizing the writing than the rules, but I guess the very idea of a negative opinion on a SR product seemed to piss him off).

On the topic of what needs to be change, I'm a bit amazed that despite the game having known several major overhauls over the years, and even a total redesign of the rules (SR3 to SR4), the very same critics are always back. The game needs streamlining, is not balanced, is plagued by rule-bloat, is too combat heavy, etc.

So every now and then, you have a new "streamlined" edition of the game. And 3 years laters, you have a ton of supplements with fracking rule bloat everywhere. And combat starts taking longer as you got a ton of options allowing you to terahertz guide mini-grenade behind a log cabin provided you managed three additional tests during your combat turn. And it's not balanced because the mage can now make meteors fall on armored tanks while the sam still can't recover essence slot from upgrading to delta because it would make him too powerful, you know, he would like have one point of strength more, too overpowered. And you have terrible grognards complaining that the streamlining killed major part of the game flavor for them and they will never buy any new editions eva'.

Streamlining is not inherently a good thing, and can cause many problem, especially in the case of shadowrun. One of the main selling point of shadowrun has always been the intrication of its rules and fluff. I know some people think otherwise, and will say it's the awesome setting that the rules are always getting in the way off. Based on the fact that D20 hacks exist, as well as apparently some dungeon world hack, that no one gives a drek about, I disagree with them. So in this case, do we really want some streamlining?

No, we don't.

Of course, we need the different part of the game to use similar mechanics. But we don't need APDS ammos to be available for handgun (or AV, for frak's sake). We don't need every gun to be available in smartlinked version. We don't need FFBA to work like a kevlar jacket. We don't need shamans, mage, voodoos, etc. to use the exact same rules. We don't need elemental manipulations to work like combat spells. We don't need astral combat to be like real-world combat. We don't need planes to work as tanks and tanks to work like ships, etc. Because then, you're stuck with stupid "simple" rules which you'll have to stick by in the supplements you will inevitably make. And the rules you will inevitably add will be stupidly convoluted to fit with the others, or just contradict them.

A shadowrun 6 rulebook, IMHO, would benefit from a refocusing on what makes shadowrun unique: rules-fluff intrication. It should provide somewhat to play the game as basic runners, able to engage in basic shadowruns, keeping the cheese for supplements instead of trying to fit everything in the same book. In short, the philosophy should admit that this will be a rule heavy book, that might get combat heavy, and so make it as playable as possible in this very context.

And of course, it should be set in the shadowrun world, where the price for cyberware is essence and money, not being punched in the urethra by wireless bonus making you hackable.

Would that it were so (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Hence quotemarks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) .

Truth is you can't streamline a game which rules are defining the universe without making it bland. If you give exactly the same rules for astral, real and virtual, you kill any interest in having the three existing.

I respectfully disagree - why would identical mechanics kill the the interest in having three domains? They are part of the overall SR narrative, and thus the very source of the interest in exploring the world, and thus, by extension, an endless source of frustration for those of us who gave up on two of the three:
Speaking as someone who long ago gave up on trying to make sense of the Matrix rules, and only understand the Magic rules superficially, I'll just say they APPEAR to be very different, but I readily admit I could be very wrong here. I already have one academic degree, and frankly can't be bothered to spend another lifetime trying to learn to have fun by trying to wrap my purty li'l head around one or the other (magic or matrix). Much easier to use NPCs for that (since we end up handwaving it all anyway), and let PCs shoot a gun, once we've determined whether to load our guns with clips or magazines (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Perhaps if the mechanics were more similar, we'd have a chance of actually use the domains in our game. But then again, we pretty much stopped the storyline in 2056 too, before [insert name of the horror du jour - even MORE terryfying than LAST week's horror!!!1!!] , so never mind me, I'll just go back to reminiscing 'bout the good ol' days *harrrrrk - spit*

I said rules rather than mechanics, but to answer: because those three domains are different. And what makes them different is the fact that you can't do the same things in the three of them. Hence why you need different rules to represent different things.

Otherwise what's the point of them? Having 3 different runs in parallel? When I'm playing an astrally projecting character, I want it to feel different than when he's staying in the real world.

Now, the basic mechanics of the magic rules have been really similar to the rest at least since SR3. Don't really see what's equivalent in learning them to passing an academic degree.

Agreed, unless you're fighting drones.

I know in SR4, it's almost an edge case for a character to drop an opponent in 1 or 3 hits, or not go down in exactly 2 hits. I can't imagine SR5 did anything to improve that situation. Net hits should matter a bit more, so there is some variance in combat.

As for balance between the 3 worlds: guns are good for combat, decking is mostly good for non-combat, and magic can do anything with a single skill and a single stat. That's not easy to balance. Agility isn't that overpowered. Maybe break up sorcery into which type of spell (Health, illusion, etc.) they are? Probably the same with spirit summoning.

The magical skills are too broken up already. If anything, they should be consolidated more (as some mundane skills should be, too). Magic really runs up and down the power spectrum. Adepts are too weak because a background count of 2 can wipe out most of their powers if they have a wide spread of them; but they are too powerful because they have a lot of powers that stack with each other, then can stack with augmentations on top of that (the SR5 pink mohawk pornomancer archetype I did demonstrates this).

Combat spells are relatively balanced - mages should have some go-to, quick-and-dirty spells that can be cast with about the same effectiveness as small arms. Control manipulation spells still need some more work to be balanced, though. Overcasting should be overhauled to be difficult and hazardous - not something you can do regularly with the right build. Spirits are definitely overpowered. They need to have more reasonable stats, and it should not be so difficult for mundanes to hurt them.

Hey, I got a good idea on this!

Faces should be able to deal Stun damage in a fight with their social skills. This should be developped in SR 6. No?

Commanding Voice you mean?

Why stun damage? Why would you nerf them in combat that much? After all they spent a lot on this social skill and contacts, they should be able to use it proficiently in melee and ranged combat.

I wholeheartly agrees with Freudqo about the streamline problem.

I'd like to point out one thing about the idea of not making différences out of Chamans, mages, and so on. If you look at other RPG, like DD/Pathfinder, there are a lot of customers who buys Companions to have many more classes to choose from. They love to be able to pick a druid that would not be a 100% copy/pasta from the cleric.

Does it really make the game too complicated? I don't think so. The player is responsible to learn what his character can/can't do.

The editor is responsible to make it easily accecible, clear and comprehensive.

Mages only need a single skill to dominate the game. There is literally no way to consolidate 1 to a smaller number (you can't have a fraction of a skill). Either sorcery (for all of your combat, non-combat, face, utility, buffing, de-buffing, healing, etc. needs) or conjuring (for all of your my pet is better than your entire team needs). I guess you could combine both of the ways mages do well into one skill called "you should have played a mage, loser." Although I don't see how requiring half as much of the only resource that limits mages would limit them more.

Adepts losing both powers and foci (they tend to rely on both, as well as bioware) means background count punishes them more than mages, but power points are unrelated to the number of skills. An adept cleansing metamagic that only applies to the adept who used the ability would help allow the use of background count to focus on mages more, but designing a game where mages weren't so overwhelmingly powerful that the GM has to spend half of their time taking away abilities or have the player sandbag just so anyone else can do something would make people much happier.

It's nice to learn that mages now have access to all the sorcery spellbook at chargen. And that they don't take drain or have to pay for focus and spend karma on initiation and stuff…

More seriously, as much as I agree that mages have it quite good in the game, I seriously disagree that it's because they are overpowered at chargen. And there are many ways to limit them at chargen. The problem to me is that they benefit of karma award much more than mundanes, because the shadowrun writers are always trying to limit the ability to get more cyber, and there are an awful lot of caps on skills and attributes.



I don't think so either. The distinction only ever affected conjuring (almost exclusively). The apparent complications was the all different traditions and spirits were split up between different books. I a book like MitS had taken a few pages space to make a recap' of the different traditions and spirit powers that were available to awakened characters, there would have been no problem. In many ways, the UMT concept makes everything actually more complicated…

Especially today, when everyone has a tablet or cell phone handy at all times, and where photocopying is not that exepensive and there are tons of helps on the internet, having your spirit lists and their powers handy at all times is much more easy that in the days of SR2 and 3.

I never mentioned chargen, but that gives me an idea.

The Adepts best friend in a Background Count is Adept Centering... With enough Initiations, BGC is a non-issue for most parts of a city.

You said they only needed one skill to dominate the game… It sounded that it was true from chargen.

But in this case, I maintain that the problem is much more on the limitations for other characters' advancement…

Mages used to need the sorcery and conjuring skills. Now sorcery is broken into spellcasting, counterspelling, and ritual spellcasting, while conjuring is broken into summoning, binding, and banishing. There is also assensing, arcana, and astral combat, not to mention the skill group involving enchanting. Sure, you could take just spellcasting, the same way a sammie could take just automatics, but either way, the character would be limited compared to people with a wider array of skills.


To everyone who was talking about faces getting to use their social skills in combat? In SR5, that's actually a thing. You can use the Leadership skill to Direct, Inspire, or Rally. Woo-hoo!! Shadowrun finally has effing bards!

You're damn right, I had forgotten this. I agree with you, this is probably already too much.

Bards = rockers, right? I don't know if those skills always existed (maybe that's what leadership always did? I don't remember having seen rules for it).

A quick attempt at building a mage showed me I want 5 skills (2 sorcery, 2 conjuring, assensing), which is more than I expected. 72 build points or 108 karma. More than expected, but less than the 255 karma the randomly-chosen character I pulled up is. I forgot that summoning is much better with binding. Just a summoner or caster would be cheaper, but less versatile.

More limited compared to another mage, but not compared to a mundane, which I think is the issue. An Automatics of 6 lets you shoot a variety of guns - and that's all.

A spellcasting of 6 (and the correct spells) - allows you to Levitate, see around corners or indeed through walls, heal themselves or others, increase their stats, inflict combat damage that bypasses armor or does elemental damage, control people's minds, create illusions, change your appearance, turn invisible, put up wall of force, etc.

All with a single skill, and then a 5 karma expenditure to add something completely new and different.

There is no comparable skill in the game that gives you the variety and utility of spellcasting.

And although Binding is really useful, even just Summoning is really really good, and can summon a combat monster that is as powerful or more powerful than the other shadowrunners on your team, and it takes 3 seconds to do it. (Even a starting mage can roll 11 dice to summon a spirit, a force 7 spirit of air with Noxious Breath rolls 18 dice to dodge, and 17 dice to attack with its Noxious Breath or Elemental Attack, and has an initiative of 2d6 +18 and a hardened armor of 14) - you MAY have a samurai in your group better, but not one who can be resummoned at a will like that.

Mind you, this is nothing new - mages have ALWAYS been more powerful than their mundane comrades. Its why I don't like to have many in the group I run.

Well, FANSY that...
Sorry, /derail OFF

Until you really bring that character, so that it can be criticized, I'm not so sure you've made any point. Don't forget that such a character will have to be as efficient against magical threat as a starting full mage could be… And be able to apparently make a complete run alone.

Additionally, this has to be compared to other broken characters, not just random samples.

THIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sw0VCtZs-g

has to be included

HougH!
Medicineman

Being the only guy I know who actually went back in the Editions (starting in 4th for 6 years, then 5th for 2 sessions, then 3rd), I would be lying if I said I did not fall completely into the reboot camp.

I hate what happened to the game mechanics post-3rd, but that is nothing compared to the fluff.

By now I have an extensive collection of books from 1st through 3rd Edition, with only 27 or so missing (including the French and Hungarian sourcebooks in their respective language, but I will get my hands on those sooner or later, as I have with the Tokyo Sourcebook I am incapable of reading (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ).

The one thing I noticed when reading the older books, is that the setting was so vibrant and rich compared to the stuff I was used to.
The 2nd Edition book "Cybertechnology" is my prime example for this, with the usual message board format of NPCs talking about the stuff that is happening painting a story that was so immersive that I skipped most of the crunch altogether to continue reading the fluff.

It was darker, it was grungier, and it was more human back then, and it built up the atmosphere of the setting perfectly.
The old style of black and white, high-contrast artwork also contributed to this.

I would love a complete reboot, setting it back in the 50s, and progressing the metaplot from there.

The newer Editions have become bogged down in the Shadowrun tropes, without conveying how these tropes came to be tropes in the first place.
All of the characters in the new fluff come off as posers to me, as do many of the characters depicted in the artwork.
Some of the tropes do not even make sense anymore, because either the setting, or the rules changed so drastically.
For example, the trope of the damage-sponge Troll, who shrugs off anything short of artillery fire.
I never understood why Trolls were supposedly so tough, because they dropped almost as quickly as any other character in 4th. When playing 3rd, I quickly relaized where this trope came from.
Staying with the Trolls theme: They are supposedly pretty ugly, yet almost all artwork, especially in 5th, depicts them as different, but handsome in their own way, with well-groomed trolls in tuxedos seemingly on every other page.

Now the biggest problem, which was mentioned further up in this thread, is the discrepancy between real-world tech, and Shadowrun tech.
However I do not think this is as much of a problem. My suspension of disbelief is not hindered by the fact that some of the tech seems backwards in 3rd.
I see it not as an alternate future, but as an alternate timeline altogether. In my mind there is no reason to be confused by the fact that we can do stuff easily that is not possible in 3rd, even though it supposedly takes place 30 years in the future, because it doesn't. It takes place on a completely different timeline.

#MakeTrollsUglyAgain