I will admit that I still have issues with 4E D&D, but it does have some concept of balance. I think most of the things I don't like are things that weren't followed through with by Wizards (the zombie dogs for one, "all levels being interesting" another) but the system itself is very well constructed.

Well, if you like rubbing PC faces in the muck, play WFRP (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Starting equipment: 1D10 dead rats...

4E is crap, and Wizards sucks. Pathfinder all the way.

Alrighty then. This threads been full derailed. My congratulations to all involved, we can move on to the next one.

Oh yeah, becouse obviliously professional security guards have no idea how to maintain their guns and they use ammo made by brain dead pakistanian children becouse those are just cheaper then the ones their own factory churns out by the millions next door (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Probably best not to do this when you're running a drone rigger. Or a Dakka Sam/Adept

Druids got introduced in the PHB 2, along with bards (and bards are good now! especially half-elf bards)

Those pro-security and Red Sams have bio-locked guns anyway.

There's plenty of other sources of lootable guns besides Corpsec. Gangers, Mafia goons, etc. Aside from that, not every professional security team is going to maintain their weapons perfectly, it's one great way to cut-costs.


That said, I don't think I'd ever put an exploding gun at the feet of a PC, unless they were warned (via a perception test) that it might not fire correctly.

I have an Orc Bard.

He has a specialization in performance screaming.

And he can smack talk you to death. Literally.




-k

Now there was a game with no pretense of balance, haha. Had a ton of fun playing it, but at some point you just had to quit and start over because the Dwarf Warrior would become impossible to wound and the Elf or the Human warrior would become impossible to hit. Everyone who wasn't one of those just died in every encounter.

Except for the guy who got super lucky and rolled the Yahtzee of Wizard's Apprentice.

The reason I suggested using skittles or suchlike to represent ammo is this; If you're gonna make things like ammo count, help your players visualize. Whether that's mana or life or action points - seeing your pile of Stuff Counters shrink while on the run really drives home the idea of running out of resources.

But yeah, a rigger could certainly end up with a serious sugar rush *eg*

So how many bags of skittles does it take to represent 5 IPs of full-auto fire with a minigun? (75 rounds)

Rigging is hard work (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Dumpshock is the result of Diabetes.

FTFY. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

If they were so smart, they wouldn't be sec guards. And child labor is the definition of the bottom line (and corps love the bottom line). But more to the point, I wouldn't risk my life (or my fingers) on the assumption that the guy I just wasted was really smart/competent/well-paid and so forth...

Microetching your bullets is a monumental waste of time.

Jack middle man goes to the store and buys 10,000 bullets. He reports them stolen. Gets paid.
Rinse. Repeat.

The government is too weak to stop him. The corps have no right to stop him. They kill him, there's someone else waiting in line to take his place.

Gun running is stupid easy.

If there's another guy shooting at you, and your gun is out of ammo?

That's ridiculous. You don't do it if you don't have to, obviously, but there is still no game mechanic (I know of) that penalises such actions. (You COULD do stuff like define degredation by increasing the threshhold for glitches to 2s. Extreme degredation to 3s. But those are - to my less than complete knowledge - house rules you have to make WITH YOUR GROUP.)

Machines that produce mechanical parts have been getting more precise for decades now. I should expect that mid-level quality and better guns and ammo are reliable, no question.

That's a wildly uneducated statement. Just because someone is in security doesn't mean they're dumb, or not well paid, or incompetent.

Security companies nowadays can also cover information security as well as physical. Companies that do both get some fantastic contracts - and any security company that arms its employees is going to train them how to properly maintain and use the firearms they're issued. Chances are the firearm on that corpsec guard's body is better maintained than yours.

To not train their people is a liability in both PR and legality. A well-paid guard is a highly-trained one. A highly-trained one is more often than not a responsible one. A responsible one is more often than not a smart one, and a smart one can still get support to put one in the back of your head while you're trying to get through the door he's turned into a barricade. Always assume the enemy is smarter than you when they have the home field advantage.

If the guard is not well trained, he won't stick around when he's being shot at.

And his gun is bio-locked anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Max, usually your special brand of English is interesting and innocuous, but… "brain dead pakistanian children", really? It's 'brain-dead Pakistani children', dude! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I'd agree completely - if you and the rest of your group digs on this sort of thinking, conjure-up some house-rules about gun maintenance. Unless you are routinely asking your players to roll a Firearms + Logic test to do routine gun-cleaning and maintenance after each time the gun gets fired, you arn't really simulating the whole gun-ownership experience. There's no rules in the books for this kinda stuff, and I'll venture a guess as to why: For most people, it isn't very fun.

Ignoring gun-maintenance is just one of the many things that gets glossed-over in SR. How many of you track the petrochem level of your Bulldog Vans? Oil changes? Tire-rotation? Sure, if the team was driving into the middle of the desert where there wasn't any civilization, I might add some drama by making them plan ahead for fuel-useage, but aside that, I'd much rather play the game than deal with the mundane issues that I have to deal with in real-life.

This isn't real-life, it's Shadowrun, it's supposed to be BTL.

"What makes me a good demoman? Well if I was a bad demoman, I wouldn't be sittin' here, discussin' it with you now would I?"

The brain dead part is there becouse the non brain dead ones actually produce perfectly good ammo (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

"Lookit me. I'm a black Scottish Cyclops. There's more <censored> than there are o' me."