SR?: Extreme Edition, Basically a word doodle Options

[Epicedion]

I've been thinking about the fundamental shift that happened from SR3 to SR4, and I was wondering about a "what if" scenario that involves an edition of SR that didn't completely dump all of the old systems, but modified them to work better and faster.

So I came up with this.

Skills and attributes are from SR5. Ditto goes for basic augmentation rules (+4 max). Limits go away and damage codes return, requiring a massive rewrite of the gear section which I'm not going to do here because this is a doodle, not work.

Target Numbers exist. They float between 2 and 6 (1s are always failures on the dice). If a modifier causes the TN to exceed 6, the TN remains 6 and you take the excess penalties to your dice pool.

For a simple test involving a skill, you roll the skill rating in dice. The base Target Number for using a skill is equal to 8 - (linked attribute). Additional modifiers may apply. This generates a TN of 2 to 7 for humans, meaning that the best humans (6s) get the easiest rolls, while the worst humans (1s) get the hardest rolls (TN 6 and -1 die). Average humans (3s) get TN 5. This also means that augmentations will take these TNs down into the negatives, which adds room to cope with piles of negative modifiers.

Combat tests generally work by figuring the attack as a simple test, and then adding room for a dodge test. The dodge test is (Reaction) dice versus (8 - Intuition), which can be augmented by Gymnastics for active dodging. Cover acts as a modifier to the dodge TN. Things like burst fire or area attacks can make the dodge test harder.

Combat damage uses Power (TN), LMSD levels, and staging. The 2nd, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc net success (ie, all but the first one) each stage the damage up by one level. Once it reaches D, remaining successes add to the Power 1-for-1. Weapon Power codes generally sit between 2 and 6 -- anything bigger is typically a heavy weapon or anti-vehicular in nature. Armor codes generally sit between 0 and 4, with 4 being full security armor. Anything bigger is military. Also, generally speaking, Armor of 3 or higher is expensive, obvious, and probably illegal for the public.

A short (simple) burst (3 rounds in BF mode, 5 in FA) increases the Power by 1 and stages the damage up 1 level. It also imposes a +1 TN modifier on dodge tests. A long (complex) burst (6 rounds in BF mode, 10 in FA) increases the Power by 2 and stages the damage up 2 levels. A semi-auto (complex) burst (2 bullets in SA mode) increases the Power by 1 or stages the damage up 1 level.

Sample damage codes:
Ares Predator: 4M
Fichetti Security: 4L
AK-97: 5M
Ranger-Arms Sniper Rifle: 5S

and so on.

[tete]

Target Numbers exist. They float between 2 and 6 (1s are always failures on the dice). If a modifier causes the TN to exceed 6, the TN remains 6 and you take the excess penalties to your dice pool.

This is really bad math as each TN increase (exponential) is worth more than dice pool penalties (linear), You would have to chart it as no flat pool rate would be accurate.

[RHat]

Combat tests generally work by figuring the attack as a simple test, and then adding room for a dodge test. The dodge test is (Reaction) dice versus (8 - Intuition), which can be augmented by Gymnastics for active dodging. Cover acts as a modifier to the dodge TN. Things like burst fire or area attacks can make the dodge test harder.

Pulling notation out of thin air, here, but: Isn't that just Attack Skill|Agility (8 ) versus Reaction|Intuition (8 )? It doesn't seem like it's anything other than a standard opposed test...

And as a complete aside, "dodging" really is the wrong word there; conveys the wrong idea of what the character is actually doing.

And rather than fixing that base target number at 8, it kinda seems like that should be mobile based on some axis of difficulty (likely internal factors, especially given the relation to attributes), while the threshold would then shift based on another axis (likely external).

And for those who never did play SR3 or previous, any chance you could explain how damage levels work, and how precisely they differ from taking off multiple boxes at a time? Is it the sort of system where if you don't have the box for the damage at that stage, you have to tick off a higher one, and if you can't you're bleeding out/unconscious?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And for those who never did play SR3 or previous, any chance you could explain how damage levels work, and how precisely they differ from taking off multiple boxes at a time? Is it the sort of system where if you don't have the box for the damage at that stage, you have to tick off a higher one, and if you can't you're bleeding out/unconscious?

Light Wounds were 1 Boxes Damage
Moderate Wounds were 3 Boxes Damage
Serious Wounds were 6 Boxes Damage
Deadly Wounds were 10 Boxes Damage

You took wounds in Levels, and could stage a level up (2 Successes to stage a level up vs. target number to hit) or Down (2 Successes to stage a Level down, rolling against the power of the attack, modified by ammo and armor).

So you might see a Predator inflict 9M (Power 9, Moderate Wound Level) with a base hit of 1 success.
To stage that down, The target would subtract his armor from the Power (Say armor 4, reducing power to 5) and then use that as the target number to stage down, with each 2 successes incrementing a step. Sooo, 2 to stage to Light, and 2 more to stage to no Damage.

Had the Shooter garnered 2 successes on the attack, the attack would have resolved at 9S, requiring 6 successes to stage down to no damage.

[RHat]

Light Wounds were 1 Boxes Damage
Moderate Wounds were 3 Boxes Damage
Serious Wounds were 6 Boxes Damage
Deadly Wounds were 10 Boxes Damage

You took wounds in Levels, and could stage a level up (2 Successes to stage a level up vs. target number to hit) or Down (2 Successes to stage a Level down, rolling against the power of the attack, modified by ammo and armor).

So you might see a Predator inflict 9M (Power 9, Moderate Wound Level) with a base hit of 1 success.
To stage that down, The target would subtract his armor from the Power (Say armor 4, reducing power to 5) and then use that as the target number to stage down, with each 2 successes incrementing a step. Sooo, 2 to stage to Light, and 2 more to stage to no Damage.

Had the Shooter garnered 2 successes on the attack, the attack would have resolved at 9S, requiring 6 successes to stage down to no damage.

So... It's literally just a less granular version of the current damage system? I'm actually rather surprised it didn't pop up in Arsenal as an optional rule, then - you can pretty much drop it into the existing system, after all, without requiring much if any modification to either.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So... It's literally just a less granular version of the current damage system? I'm actually rather surprised it didn't pop up in Arsenal as an optional rule, then - you can pretty much drop it into the existing system, after all, without requiring much if any modification to either.

Sort of... In that system, Armor was a Direct Modifier of Power, rather than dice added to soak. You could build a character that could literally ignore almost all small arms fire. I know, I did it at least once. What a wake up call when the transition to SR4 happened. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

I far prefer the way SR4A handled it, over SR2/3.
Sr1 was a little different, as staging was also a variable based upon weapon. Was VERY happy to see that disappear. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[RHat]

I'm really not seeing much difference - net hits scale damage up, soak hits scale damage down, and the only real difference is in terms of how exactly that scaling happens. As it stands, it's a simple matter of applying the LMSD system to the current soak tests (AP conceptually taking over for Power, in this case, due to the lack of variable TNs).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I'm really not seeing much difference - net hits scale damage up, soak hits scale damage down, and the only real difference is in terms of how exactly that scaling happens. As it stands, it's a simple matter of applying the LMSD system to the current soak tests (AP conceptually taking over for Power, in this case, due to the lack of variable TNs).

I guess... In practice, it was a huge difference.
Likely due to the Variable TN's of previous editions.

[RHat]

I guess... In practice, it was a huge difference.
Likely due to the Variable TN's of previous editions.

Really, I'm talking about structural difference. It doensn't take a heck of a lot of structural difference to have a pretty substantial effect on play, though. Obviously having 1 hit make the difference between 6 damage and 3 is a big gameplay difference, but but structurally it's minor.

It really seems like it could have been written in as a "grittier/more lethal gameplay" optional rule.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Really, I'm talking about structural difference. It doensn't take a heck of a lot of structural difference to have a pretty substantial effect on play, though. Obviously having 1 hit make the difference between 6 damage and 3 is a big gameplay difference, but but structurally it's minor.

It really seems like it could have been written in as a "grittier/more lethal gameplay" optional rule.

Sure... I see where you are going. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Except to implement it, you would have to add stats to all the weapons in the game. Too much work for an optional rule, in my opinion. They have a grittier optional rule in SR4A already. And it is deadlier.

[RHat]

Sure... I see where you are going. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Except to implement it, you would have to add stats to all the weapons in the game. Too much work for an optional rule, in my opinion. They have a grittier optional rule in SR4A already. And it is deadlier.

Eh. While it would be different, you could still just use Armour+Body-AP for your soak pool. With fixed thresholds, Power isn't so needed. From there you've just got to figure out how base damage relates to wound levels.

[Stahlseele]

There's a Reason why Trolls were pretty much nerfed in the Transition to SR4.
A Troll starts with a Minimum Body Attribute of 6. 1 Base Point and then 5 added on top of that because of being a Troll.
A Troll can, as anybody else, put then 5 points into Body. Which gets him up to 11 already. And then Trolls got Dermal Armor.
Which worked differently under SR3. It gave Level Dice for Damage Resistance Tests to Being shot, hit and stabbed at. So 12.
Without ANY aditional Ware. 12 Dice. To resist Damage with. And now, if you had put some thoughts into it, given him a bit of Quickness and worn armor up to 8, you could take a Shotgun Blast to the Face (10D Damage) and have to resist only 2D Damage. So you had to roll . . 8+Attackers Net Hits on the Attack Roll so your TN is 2 using 12 Dice. And you could boost both the Armor AND the Body Attribute using BOTH Cyber AND Bioware.
So for example, a mid tier Combat Troll would look like 16 Body with 2 implanted points of Armor. So 10 Points of straight Damage Reduction and 16 Dice to (t)roll with.
To put this into perspective: a PAC dealt 18D Damage. After Armor, you had to roll 8+Attacker Net Hits soTN8's with your 16 Dice. And you could use Combat Pool to both try and dodge, thereby lessening the attackers net dice and to augment your body roll. So yeah, Dodge with 4 dice against set TN of i think 4, then hopefully have brought the attack down to 1 net hit and then use Body+4Combat Dice for 20 Dice to basically shrug off an anti Tank gun straight to the Chest. (i may have done this once or twice, my GM's never quite fograve me for my impersonation of the Black Knight i think)
And don't get me started on how much Damage Output you could get on such a Monster in Addition to being tough as nails in old leather boots.

Screaming PG and Min/Max over there yet?
Nope, this is not even 50% of a Trolls Starting Ressources in Attributes, Skills or Money yet.
Plenty left to have fun with.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

There's a Reason why Trolls were pretty much nerfed in the Transition to SR4.
A Troll starts with a Minimum Body Attribute of 6. 1 Base Point and then 5 added on top of that because of being a Troll.
A Troll can, as anybody else, put then 5 points into Body. Which gets him up to 11 already. And then Trolls got Dermal Armor.
Which worked differently under SR3. It gave Level Dice for Damage Resistance Tests to Being shot, hit and stabbed at. So 12.
Without ANY aditional Ware. 12 Dice. To resist Damage with. And now, if you had put some thoughts into it, given him a bit of Quickness and worn armor up to 8, you could take a Shotgun Blast to the Face (10D Damage) and have to resist only 2D Damage. So you had to roll . . 8+Attackers Net Hits on the Attack Roll so your TN is 2 using 12 Dice. And you could boost both the Armor AND the Body Attribute using BOTH Cyber AND Bioware.
So for example, a mid tier Combat Troll would look like 16 Body with 2 implanted points of Armor. So 10 Points of straight Damage Reduction and 16 Dice to (t)roll with.
To put this into perspective: a PAC dealt 18D Damage. After Armor, you had to roll 8+Attacker Net Hits soTN8's with your 16 Dice. And you could use Combat Pool to both try and dodge, thereby lessening the attackers net dice and to augment your body roll. So yeah, Dodge with 4 dice against set TN of i think 4, then hopefully have brought the attack down to 1 net hit and then use Body+4Combat Dice for 20 Dice to basically shrug off an anti Tank gun straight to the Chest. (i may have done this once or twice, my GM's never quite fograve me for my impersonation of the Black Knight i think)
And don't get me started on how much Damage Output you could get on such a Monster in Addition to being tough as nails in old leather boots.

Screaming PG and Min/Max over there yet?
Nope, this is not even 50% of a Trolls Starting Ressources in Attributes, Skills or Money yet.
Plenty left to have fun with.

Indeed...
By the end of our 3rd Edition Game, My Troll Adept Ganger had:
Body 11 (12)
Quickness 7
Unarmed and Melee Combat Skills of 7/8/8/9/12 (13/14/14/15/18 with Counterstrike)
A Combat Pool of 7
And Armor of 11/12.

He did not fear Melee/Small Arms at all, and the Sniper Rifle/PAC were only a mild nuisance.
He may have been a bit slow (no real Initiative boosts), but once he closed to melee, it was generally all over for those around him.
I loved the opposed Melee combat rolls in SR3.

Of course, when I re-built him for SR4, well, those firearms became a bit of a problem. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)
Had to learn a whole new way to fight.

[Stahlseele]

i preferred high STR cyber/Bio Trolls.
use bow and Arrow for obscene Distance Damage(and reach, i had him up to 1000m for extreme, which means the SHORT reach was someting like 100m or so) and a Dikote applied pole-arm for maximum close combat carnage ^^

i also recently managed to make a rules legal starting SR3 Troll with 16 Rank 8 Skills and maxed out physical attributes too ^^

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

i preferred high STR cyber/Bio Trolls.
use bow and Arrow for obscene Distance Damage(and reach, i had him up to 1000m for extreme, which means the SHORT reach was someting like 100m or so) and a Dikote applied pole-arm for maximum close combat carnage ^^

i also recently managed to make a rules legal starting SR3 Troll with 16 Rank 8 Skills and maxed out physical attributes too ^^

Spike used a Dikote No-Daichi...
And he had Attribute Boost: Strength (+4) on a starting Strength of 10.
He used a Bow too... which was pretty insane. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I liked him a lot. finally retired him in SR4A, in Hong Kong.

[Stahlseele]

Ah, ok, that works too then ^^
i never really tried the Troll-Adept or anything with troll and magic because the points cost simply did not allow for anything but a very one trick pony to come out of it . .
technically, a Troll-Adept in close combat is very much OP, as you can deal STR(10)S or D Damage unarmed for example . .
and a troll spell-slinger with a force 6 armor spell cast upon himself would simply not care about being lit up birghtly for anybody to see because:
hurr durr, 14 points of armor, 12 points of Body to roll mostly TN2 Damage away with!

but i am no good with the magic system, i know how it should work out in theory, i just can't translate the theory to practice for some reason.
probably because of the high creation points cost and me giving up half way through because it's too much of a OTP even for my tastes <.<;,

[Epicedion]

This is really bad math as each TN increase (exponential) is worth more than dice pool penalties (linear), You would have to chart it as no flat pool rate would be accurate.

I had no intention of carrying the exponential difficulty increases past TN 6. That was part of the problem with SR3. Basically, difficulty jumps up and then tapers until you run out of skill dice.

Pulling notation out of thin air, here, but: Isn't that just Attack Skill|Agility (8 ) versus Reaction|Intuition (8 )? It doesn't seem like it's anything other than a standard opposed test...

And as a complete aside, "dodging" really is the wrong word there; conveys the wrong idea of what the character is actually doing.

And rather than fixing that base target number at 8, it kinda seems like that should be mobile based on some axis of difficulty (likely internal factors, especially given the relation to attributes), while the threshold would then shift based on another axis (likely external).

Dodging, defending, avoiding, however you want to describe it. The "not getting hit" roll to oppose the "totally hitting you" roll.

You don't want too many things to vary at one time, and I was looking for things you could easily write down and read off a character sheet. If your Reaction is 5 and your Intuition is 3, you would have a Defense: 5 (TN3) entry. Five dice versus target number three. From there you would apply your modifiers to TN. +X for bursts, -Y for cover, and so on. Relatively simple.

So... It's literally just a less granular version of the current damage system? I'm actually rather surprised it didn't pop up in Arsenal as an optional rule, then - you can pretty much drop it into the existing system, after all, without requiring much if any modification to either.

It's actually more granular, it's just that a linear scale of success leads to an (not quite) exponential scale of damage. Oh, and everyone's damage track is the same size (10 boxes).

It's not about the LMSD chart, it's about the variable Power. Power minus Armor is your Target Number, making a huge difference between a Deadly wound with a TN 2, and a Moderate wound with a TN 12.

I actually came up with some expert-ish AP rules that I didn't write in here. The idea is that an "AP" round gives a bonus to Power, but accumulates Armor Penetration -- if Armor Penetration exceeds the target's Armor, then it's overpenetrating and is consequently doing reduced damage.

[Epicedion]

And of course I typoed the defense bit. TN5.

And remember: word doodle. I'm always fiddling to try and come up with a good way to get depth out of the system while simplifying complexity in play. One thing I'm not a fan of is really high numbers of dice and things.

[Lobo0705]

The one sort of fiddly thing I see is the difference between someone with a linked attribute of 3 and someone with a linked attribute of 2 is tremendous, while the difference between someone with a linked attribute of 2 and someone with a linked attribute of 1 is minimal.

If I have a linked attribute of 3, and a pool of 12 dice, I roll 12 dice needing 5's.

If I have a linked attribute of 2, and a pool of 12 dice, I roll 12 dice needing 6's.

That is roughly a 50% reduction in capability.

If I have a linked attribute of 1, and a pool of 12 dice, I roll 11 dice needing 6's.

Which is hardly a penalty at all for having a one point lower attribute.

And if you put in modifiers, it means that the dividing line between cutting my number of successes in half and simply subtracting 1 die could be between linked Attribute 6 and 5, or 4 and 3, etc.

It isn't a game breaker or anything, just something that jumped out as a little wonky.

[Epicedion]

The one sort of fiddly thing I see is the difference between someone with a linked attribute of 3 and someone with a linked attribute of 2 is tremendous, while the difference between someone with a linked attribute of 2 and someone with a linked attribute of 1 is minimal.

If I have a linked attribute of 3, and a pool of 12 dice, I roll 12 dice needing 5's.

If I have a linked attribute of 2, and a pool of 12 dice, I roll 12 dice needing 6's.

That is roughly a 50% reduction in capability.

If I have a linked attribute of 1, and a pool of 12 dice, I roll 11 dice needing 6's.

Which is hardly a penalty at all for having a one point lower attribute.

And if you put in modifiers, it means that the dividing line between cutting my number of successes in half and simply subtracting 1 die could be between linked Attribute 6 and 5, or 4 and 3, etc.

It isn't a game breaker or anything, just something that jumped out as a little wonky.

Going from TN5 to TN6 on 12 dice reduces your chance of getting at least one hit from about 99% to about 89%. Going from TN6 with 12 dice to TN6 with 11 dice reduces it from about 89% to about 86%.

Part of it is that I wouldn't plan on having dice pools that large that often -- a dice pool of 12 would be up at the "legendary, one of a kind" level.

Assuming more normal "chargen" ranges of, oh, 3 to 7:

Attr 6 gives you a TN 2. With 3 dice, that means you have roughly 99% odds of getting at least one hit.
Attr 5 gives you a TN 3. With 3 dice, that means you have roughly 96% odds of getting at least one hit.
Attr 4 gives you a TN 4. With 3 dice, that means you have roughly 87% odds of getting at least one hit.
Attr 3 gives you a TN 5. With 3 dice, that means you have roughly 70% odds of getting at least one hit.
Attr 2 gives you a TN 6. With 3 dice, that means you have roughly 42% odds of getting at least one hit.
Attr 1 gives you a TN 6, -1 dice. With 2 dice, that means you have roughly 30% odds of getting at least one hit.

(so -1%, -4%, -13%, -30%, -58%, -70%)

Attr6, skill 7: TN2 7 dice. ~100%
Attr5: TN3 7 dice. 99.95%
Attr4: TN4 7 dice. 99.22%
Attr3: TN5 7 dice. 94.15%
Attr2: TN6 7 dice. 72.09%
Attr1: TN6 6 dice. 66.51%

(so -0%, -0.05%, -0.78%, -5.85%, - 27.01%, -33.49%)

So, yes, the biggest single jump is between Attr3 and Attr2. However, if you keep up the exponential trend, TN7 tends to drop you off the chart into a negative chance of success.

SR3 handled this sort of badly, with TN7+. TN7 = TN6 for all intents and purposes, and then you'd get a new exponential scale from 8 to 12, and then 13=12 again.

[darthmord]

There's a Reason why Trolls were pretty much nerfed in the Transition to SR4.
A Troll starts with a Minimum Body Attribute of 6. 1 Base Point and then 5 added on top of that because of being a Troll.
A Troll can, as anybody else, put then 5 points into Body. Which gets him up to 11 already. And then Trolls got Dermal Armor.
Which worked differently under SR3. It gave Level Dice for Damage Resistance Tests to Being shot, hit and stabbed at. So 12.
Without ANY aditional Ware. 12 Dice. To resist Damage with. And now, if you had put some thoughts into it, given him a bit of Quickness and worn armor up to 8, you could take a Shotgun Blast to the Face (10D Damage) and have to resist only 2D Damage. So you had to roll . . 8+Attackers Net Hits on the Attack Roll so your TN is 2 using 12 Dice. And you could boost both the Armor AND the Body Attribute using BOTH Cyber AND Bioware.
So for example, a mid tier Combat Troll would look like 16 Body with 2 implanted points of Armor. So 10 Points of straight Damage Reduction and 16 Dice to (t)roll with.
To put this into perspective: a PAC dealt 18D Damage. After Armor, you had to roll 8+Attacker Net Hits soTN8's with your 16 Dice. And you could use Combat Pool to both try and dodge, thereby lessening the attackers net dice and to augment your body roll. So yeah, Dodge with 4 dice against set TN of i think 4, then hopefully have brought the attack down to 1 net hit and then use Body+4Combat Dice for 20 Dice to basically shrug off an anti Tank gun straight to the Chest. (i may have done this once or twice, my GM's never quite fograve me for my impersonation of the Black Knight i think)
And don't get me started on how much Damage Output you could get on such a Monster in Addition to being tough as nails in old leather boots.

Screaming PG and Min/Max over there yet?
Nope, this is not even 50% of a Trolls Starting Ressources in Attributes, Skills or Money yet.
Plenty left to have fun with.

I remember a SR2 adventure I was running. There was a troll decker in the group. I found out really quick that no matter how hard the Black ICE was attacking him, mechanically, the Black ICE **COULD NOT INJURE HIM**... unless he rolled all ones on the damage resistance test. All because of the troll's Body attribute....

[darthmord]

grr... double post

[Stahlseele]

ah. 'scuse me but . . doesn't the DR roll against Matrix come fro Will-Power/Deck and not Body? O.o

[Lobo0705]

Btw, the easy counter to the "tank" character in SR3 was APDS ammo. Tended to sort them out very quickly.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Btw, the easy counter to the tank in SR3 was APDS ammo. Tended to sort them out very quickly.

Only on the high end damage weapons, though. It was still pretty easy to build around that in SR3.