Fifth Without Wireless Bonus/Bricking, So i'm tyring to give fifth a look with fresh eyes. Options

[LurkerOutThere]

I'm trying to give Fifth another look. I liked a lot of the concepts and changes but the poor editing and 'ware hate put me off it. Does anyone have any experience with just house ruling ware wireless bonuses to be default and getting rid of or severely nerfing bricking? I feel like you'd have to significantly reduce the costs of cyberdecks and peripherals to make up for it but I'm mostly ok witht hat.

Any other thoughts on Fifth edition now that it's been out in the wild for several years?

[Zednark]

I'd say wireless bonueses should be on a case by vase basis. For example, a +1 dicepool with a smartgun isn't unbalanced, but having more than +4 Reaction from Reaction Enhancers + Wired Reflexes is.

[Stahlseele]

The +4 Reaction is not unbalanced either.
The wireless bonus stuff itself is stupid.

[Larsenex]

What are you referring to? What is the ware hate you are mentioning?

I am new to 5th and I am restarting a game. What is wireless that you are talking about?

[SpellBinder]

The +4 Reaction is not unbalanced either.
The wireless bonus stuff itself is stupid.

^ +1

[Medicineman]

@Stahlseele & Spellbinder

Zednark wrote MORE than +4
becausefrom the mystical power of WiFi you can thus get a +6REA Bonus and this is the only case of braking the +4 Cap that I know of
and yes thats a stupid exception ( it only exist so that the Chars make tehmselves vulnerable to a Decker Attack from the WiFi Matrix )

What is the ware hate you are mentioning?

I guess it's not a 'Ware hate but a WiFi hate (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
theres a lot of Dumb WiFi Bonuses /boni just to lure the Char into the WiFi Trap (look up teh WiFi Bonus for Shuriken, Silencer, Diving equipment and many more (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

HokaHey
Medicineman

[Mantis]

What we did with bricking was to have it force a shutdown on the gear in question for 2d6 minutes. That puts it out of action for the duration of most (all?) fights, which is pretty much the same mechanic as the default system but doesn't force a repair test of whatever. It means after the reboot you can still use your gear in the field.
For WiFi bonuses, we just ignored most of them and used the SR4 versions. As Medicineman points out, why the hell are there WiFi bonuses for things like the collapsible baton? Somehow it helps gravity extend the thing? Or on the Silencer? Whhhhy? How does your silencer magically know if someone heard the shot? How does that even work? Do they tweet it? "Hey just heard a silenced gun shot, must be runners in the..." erk, gasp (thud of body hitting the floor).
My favourite is stealth gear that, while it may help hide you physically, it loudly announces you are there on the matrix. Stealth foiled. Awesome. Yeah sign me right up.

[Iduno]

The only other problem I have heard of is missing gear. It sounds like it's being fixed by adding dozens of pdf-only splat books, but that takes more time to publish and the information is spread out over books you may not have, and can't use without a computer with a large enough screen to read the rules (can be a problem because hardware is all landscape, and software is all portrait).

Not much of a complaint, but something to be aware of as long as you did ask.

[Ixal]

theres a lot of Dumb WiFi Bonuses /boni just to lure the Char into the WiFi Trap (look up teh WiFi Bonus for Shuriken, Silencer, Diving equipment and many more (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

Whats wrong with the Diving Gear?

[Sendaz]

Check out the rules on wifi signal underwater,
Page 231 looking at the table there, for every 1cm of sea water or 10cm of Fresh Water Noise is increased by 1.

Page 421: If there is a Noise Rating from a situation that is greater than the item’s Device Rating, not including distance,
the item temporarily loses its wireless functionality.

So if you go a diving deep pretty much any wireless bonus is lost, which they do mention on diving gear, but consider even something like an internal airtank is supposed to lose it's bonus when underwater, even though does it really take the whole Matrix to figure out what your remaining air time is?
pg 455 Internal Air tank Wireless: Activating or de-activating the tank is a Free Action. You’re always aware of the tank’s exact air level and purity.

Honestly a lot of the wifi bonuses should have been PAN bonuses while other things like the medkit really do benefit from the wifi connection to the Matrix to get the most up to date data for patching you back together.

[Ixal]

Check out the rules on wifi signal underwater,
Page 231 looking at the table there, for every 1cm of sea water or 10cm of Fresh Water Noise is increased by 1.

Page 421: If there is a Noise Rating from a situation that is greater than the item’s Device Rating, not including distance,
the item temporarily loses its wireless functionality.

So if you go a diving deep pretty much any wireless bonus is lost, which they do mention on diving gear, but consider even something like an internal airtank is supposed to lose it's bonus when underwater, even though does it really take the whole Matrix to figure out what your remaining air time is?
pg 455 Internal Air tank Wireless: Activating or de-activating the tank is a Free Action. You’re always aware of the tank’s exact air level and purity.

Honestly a lot of the wifi bonuses should have been PAN bonuses while other things like the medkit really do benefit from the wifi connection to the Matrix to get the most up to date data for patching you back together.

A internal air tank can be used in more situations than just under water. During gas attacks or during a fire with lots of smoke, high altitude, being trapped with your air running out, space, etc.
And how should the tank in your lung tell you how much air it has? Sure you can add some more wires from it to your brain, but that is covered by the router. But for the normal user the tank broadcasts its status wirelessly (I personally don't see "wireless" only as connection to the matrix but as any wireless signal going in and out which means it can be hacked). I don't see whats the problem with the tank having a wireless bonus is. Don't forget that not all cyberware are made with runners in mind. There is also a lot of civilian cyberware where comfort and ease of use is more important than security.

[KCKitsune]

A internal air tank can be used in more situations than just under water. During gas attacks or during a fire with lots of smoke, high altitude, being trapped with your air running out, space, etc.
And how should the tank in your lung tell you how much air it has? Sure you can add some more wires from it to your brain, but that is covered by the router. But for the normal user the tank broadcasts its status wirelessly (I personally don't see "wireless" only as connection to the matrix but as any wireless signal going in and out which means it can be hacked). I don't see whats the problem with the tank having a wireless bonus is. Don't forget that not all cyberware are made with runners in mind. There is also a lot of civilian cyberware where comfort and ease of use is more important than security.

@Ixal, are you telling me to gain the benefits of having my air tank tell me how much air is left I have to spend another half point of Essence? Really?!?

@Everyone: Honestly the Internal router should not be a piece of cyberware... it should be fragging STANDARD ISSUE when you get ANY cyber. I mean ANY AT ALL! No, the level of augmentation hate by the staff in 5th edition is horrific. They're pushing people more and more to MagicRun. Also the payouts for Shadowrun are disgustingly paltry verses the level of skill/augmentation/magic ability needed to perform some of the jobs these people would do.

[Glyph]

Wireless bonuses were horribly implemented, basically giving augmented characters a no-win choice between gimped functionality for their augmentations, or being vulnerable to an attack from an unseen vector that could potentially blind or paralyze them. I would reduce the effectiveness of bricking as proposed above. Also, I would make the wireless "bonuses" standard for most gear, only keeping it for things that would benefit from being plugged into an informational database, or for communication between devices not linked by DNI or skinlink (which I would bring back, although I might make it more expensive).

To give the deckers more to do, take the P-Tac from Run & Gun pgs. 104-105. Lower the Availability by 12 and the cost by two decimal places, to make it common (almost the norm) rather than a rarity. Level I is corporate security grunts and the like. Level II is fast-response teams, SWAT teams, or starting runners. Level III is optimized or experienced runners, as well as groups like Firewatch, Ghosts, etc. Deckers on both sides typically try to break into the other side's P-Tac network to disrupt communications, feed false targetting data, seize control of an enemy drone, etc.

[Critias]

Honestly a lot of the wifi bonuses should have been PAN bonuses while other things like the medkit really do benefit from the wifi connection to the Matrix to get the most up to date data for patching you back together.

And -- remember -- some of them, in fact, were written as being PAN bonuses, not full Matrix stuff, due to a miscommunication/change/whatever after the equipment chapter had been written. It's come up before, but there was something of a SNAFU there. Some of them make more sense as PAN bonuses because that was how they were designed to work, initially. We've discussed those design inconsistencies before.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I have a great idea for fixing SR5.
Play Shadowrun 4th Edition, before a pants-on-head retarded brainfucked moron took charge of the line and began vigorously skullfucking it trying to roll things back to the techno-derp of the '80s from the near-future transhumanim of SR4 in a vain idiotic attempt to recapture the grognard neckbeards who were still playing SR1-3. (It failed. They still play SR1-3. It's just that SR5 drove me to Eclipse Phase.)

[Jaid]

a select few wireless bonuses actually make sense though. iirc, the survival knife was mentioned on several occasions as being one such... basically it acts as a GPS. which is genuinely something that connecting to the matrix should probably allow. of course, it should be possible with *any* matrix-connected device, really, but you'd probably have to mod the other things. the survival knife comes with that capability built in (and again, actually makes sense, rather than just being really really odd).

[LurkerOutThere]

Part of the problem is wireless bonuses and bricking aside, a lot of things in 5 work appreciably better then they Friday in 4 or SR4A in my opinion.

[ShadowDragon8685]

a select few wireless bonuses actually make sense though. iirc, the survival knife was mentioned on several occasions as being one such... basically it acts as a GPS. which is genuinely something that connecting to the matrix should probably allow. of course, it should be possible with *any* matrix-connected device, really, but you'd probably have to mod the other things. the survival knife comes with that capability built in (and again, actually makes sense, rather than just being really really odd).

You know what the funny thing about that is, Jaid? The really, truly, amazingly funny thing about that is?
I'm 100% certain you could get a survival knife with a rudimentary GPS device in it in SR4's 2070, too. For that matter, your commlink would have had a GPS function in it as well.
And you know the astounding thing? It wouldn't work without wireless connectivity, either.


Okay, actually it probably would, because your example is kind of bad. GPS is a system which you can use through wholly-passive monitoring, because that's the nature of GPS signals. But yes, there are lots of things that would realistically not work without Matrix connectivity. For instance, literally anything involving communications. And when those things come up, the GM, being a Schmott Guy, would tell the players that if they want to use their device properly, they'll need to open up a connection to the Matrix. Not necessarily a wireless connection to the Matrix, because it's not like all those fiber-optics were torn out between 2064 and 2070.

But no reasonable GM would take it to the insane levels as found in my signature, let alone as found in the actual game.

[Zednark]

Part of the problem is wireless bonuses and bricking aside, a lot of things in 5 work appreciably better then they Friday in 4 or SR4A in my opinion.

Barring absurd Wireless bonuses and a few particular things they obviously didn't playtest, 5e is pretty great. The change in augmentations being limited to +4 instead of +50% made playing against type a ton easier, limits are a great way to prevent a skilled character from killing a dragon with a holdout pistol, as well as making players care about stats they otherwise wouldn't, weapon variety is substantially better due to the addition of Accuracy and different damage values for the same class of weapon, and the art is much improved (though that matters little).

The thing is, most of SR's rules problems don't stem from poor design, they stem from incredibly complex rules. I made a rules mod for Cyberpunk that condenses hacking to a single page. If I can whip that up in an hour in my free time, Catalyst can make good quality hacking rules that fir in less than ten pages. SR would be a ton better if it was more rules light. I don't want to consult tables and check rules during play, and I shouldn't have to. DnD 5e is a great example of how to make a more rules heavy game into a more rules light one. Now, the game doesn't have to be as small as something like Ghost Echo (which fits on a double sided piece of paper) but making it newb friendly is important, especially in an age of kids who don't want to read rules.

[Medicineman]

And -- remember -- some of them, in fact, were written as being PAN bonuses, not full Matrix stuff, due to a miscommunication/change/whatever after the equipment chapter had been written. It's come up before, but there was something of a SNAFU there. Some of them make more sense as PAN bonuses because that was how they were designed to work, initially. We've discussed those design inconsistencies before.

Yeah, You're right.
isn't it a shame that there is no Errata for that ?
I know that most of the WIFi Bonuses/Boni are supposed to be PAN bonuses and I often tell that to players that ask me.
But unfortunetely the Mistake is still RAW. (One more Reason why im so dissatisfied with the Devs from CGL)
and since I often go to conventions to play SR (4A and 5) I have to stick to RAW because that is the default line to most of the Games.
(even one of my 5 Table Games at Home sticks to RAW but slowly our GM discovers ...how much is simply wrong with the Rules...)

and a few particular things they obviously didn't playtest,

I'd like to correct You on that.
SR5 has been playtested to a great extent. Some of the Playtesters wrote that on the Forums I visit (and I have no reason not to believe them)

He who dances a lot
Medicineman

[LurkerOutThere]

So the general consensus seems to be ware hate, wireless bonus, and bricking aside 5 is pretty good?

[Stahlseele]

No, even without that it is not better than SR4A and an obvious money grab so they do not have to fix SR4A anymore.
But those are the worst points. Then there is the stupidity of, for some reason, making skills now go up to level 9 as well and be hardcapped there.
You know, for Reasons. Not really good or even specific ones, just reasons.
And the limits mechanic, which they implemented in the next attempt to make you roll less dice.
Which it simply does not do. And the new way that augmented maximum attribute wors as well.

And those are just the CRUNCHY BITS!

[LurkerOutThere]

Anything else?

Because none of those changes really bothered me. I felt a 1: Barely competent to 6: World Class was a bit of a small scale.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Let's not even forget that the chowderheads in charge of the line said "Nanomachines? I don't like nanomachines in my Shadowrun. Get rid of them." To which the writers said "Uh, dude, continuity? We've had nanomachines as being corp cutting-edge since the end of 3rd, and they've been stuff high-end Runners and governments can use throughout fourth." And he said "Then they stop working." And lo, as if by the wave of the hand of a dismissive god, nanomachines all stopped working, and somehow, things built by nanomachines (not out of nanomachines, which would be fucking absurd,) just fucking melted.

So yeah, I jumped to Eclipse Phase and haven't looked back. (Haven't looked back to SR5, that is.)

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, that for example is another really big step of TECH BAD! MAGIC GOOD!
Also, of course, because they can't seem to do anything else than bodystealers . .
We now have an epidemic of nanoware bodystealers that should have, by now, infected all of the world.
Also, Ares goes down because their new rifle was not as good as the hype made it out to be.
That's TREES level stupid to me.

[Medicineman]

Then there is the stupidity of, for some reason, making skills now go up to level 9 as well and be hardcapped there.

12 !
the new Hardcap for Skills is 12 which is too high !
9 would've been perfect (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) but unfortunately it's 12
And its not a stupidity, Stahlseele, the core Idea of raising the Skills is totally ok, (6 as a limit from 4A was definitely to low !)
CGL just ...overdid it (9 would've been perfect ImO)

So the general consensus seems to be ware hate, wireless bonus, and bricking aside 5 is pretty good?

No.No.No.
(at least not from me)
it's foremost the WiFi Bonus Schmuh hate, than the Bricking hate and last the Cost-of-Ware hate (not the 'ware by itself) !
and I think some of the Users here see it the same way
One thing where I prefer SR5 instead of 4A is the fix Attribute bonus of max +4 !

(there are some more improvements in SR5 ,No doubt about it, but its not WiFi and not Bricking ...and certainly not the Vehicle Rules !)

HokaHey
Medicineman

[Sengir]

I'm trying to give Fifth another look. I liked a lot of the concepts and changes but the poor editing and 'ware hate put me off it. Does anyone have any experience with just house ruling ware wireless bonuses to be default and getting rid of or severely nerfing bricking?

That's what every game I played so far did.

Also, what Glyph said: Make TacNets ubiquitous and borrow a page on what they do from EP instead of just handing out random +1 or +2, it gives hackers plenty of options.

[LurkerOutThere]

Perhaps I didn't phrase my question/scenario right.

I'm looking at running SR again. My house rules document for 4.x and I feel that 5 has better combat flow. Problem spots that look like they need attention are 1) ware hate (a broad category that covers both costs and the things like social limits and cyber ware becoming passé) 2) wireless bonuses 3) bricking. I'm treating them as three independent problems even though there is some overlap. What are some other areas that should concern me. For instance I remember mystic adepts being shockingly Op because their power points were stupid cheap. I remember the concealment power had the same copy pasta problem it had from fourth but worse because bonus dice are harder to come by. Anything I'm forgetting?

[Medicineman]

What are some other areas that should concern me.

everything concerning vehicles.
From Modifications to Speed to Vehicle Combat Rules

with a Drive-By-Dance
Medicineman

[LurkerOutThere]

MM: it's all bad or the stuff out of rigger 5? Could you go into more detail if you don't mind? I'm looking at how deep this all goes.

Riggers and vehicles have always been kind of meh just because it's hard to make them compelling gameplay but not completely unstoppable urban tanks. 4th had a serious problem with av weapons being really toothless.

[Stahlseele]

You need to differentiate between the Cool Vehicle Riggers and the boring effective Drone Riggers.

[Medicineman]

MM: it's all bad or the stuff out of rigger 5? Could you go into more detail if you don't mind? I'm looking at how deep this all goes.

Riggers and vehicles have always been kind of meh just because it's hard to make them compelling gameplay but not completely unstoppable urban tanks. 4th had a serious problem with av weapons being really toothless.

I'm desperately waiting for the German Riggerbook (called Asphaltkrieger = Roadwarriors ).
I only have excerpts from the US Rigger book. So I can't be too exact ....
One of the main problems (ImO) is that there is no Speed Value in Mph or Km/h so you don't know how long a Car/Vehicle needs to go from A to B (and that is important for oh so many Szenarios/Runs/Adventures)
Than you have Vehicle mod Rules but different Drone Mod Rules (and I don't really know If you could use both set of Rules for both sets of Vehicles or just one for one set ? )

I like to modify Equipment (be it Weapons or Rides) It was already a Fail from CGL that they didn't include all Weaponmod s in Run & Gun
(important mods were in Hard Targets) and now two different Mod Rules....
THAN (oh my God (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) ...) most of the Fluff concerning the Vehicles doesn't match with the Crunch of the same Vehicles.
I was said that there are some new interesting vehicles (an allterrain/water cycle....the one in the Bubble)
So I'm waiting for the German Book which is (for me as a german player) the better choice because it most often contains Errata
and some German only Add-ons from the Writer of Pegasus

HougH!
Medicineman

[Sengir]

12 !
the new Hardcap for Skills is 12 which is too high !

...because?

[hermit]

Barring absurd Wireless bonuses and a few particular things they obviously didn't playtest, 5e is pretty great.

Playtesting was pretty thorough. What became of the feedback is another question.

So the general consensus seems to be ware hate, wireless bonus, and bricking aside 5 is pretty good?

Depends on how much you liked the changes SR4 brought. I for one think Riggers work better, save for the above mentioned problems (in SR3, there were options to harden your VCD against hostile takeofer attempts, in SR5, there aren't).

The 'ware hate isn't so much 'ware hate - though 'ware has it worst, because that n+m/2 is too much maths for the Line Dev, prices need to go up by two magnitudes, and the dedication of SR5's writers to force cyberware hacks down unwilling players' throats because it is cool and everyone who doesn't think so is a retard consipre for a truly epic feasibility downgrade. Pricing is murderous with augmentations anywhere, as it is with most archetype-relevant gear - decks cost more than most PCs will ever make, and just forget about Tacnet, they'll never give you their incredibly high prices' worth. Two decimals less on decks, Skillwires (and associated cyberware) and Tacnets, one decimal less for most cyberware, and we'd be tralking. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, the real problem.

It's player hate.

SR5 hates giving players viable options and choices, from a bizarre payout system to drastic limits on character generation in the core book to a generally antagonistic idea of GM/Player interaction (including 'friendly banter' in rules texts that directly insults the reader). Where SR4 gave you a lot, maybe too many options, SR5 delights in giving you no viable option at all. You want worthwhile cyberware? Have fun with being hacked without a shred of a chance at defense! (The hotfix daisy chaining ban errata means not even your team decker is any help - good job, CGL). Skillwires are so overpriced they stop being viable at all. There is no skinlink, there is no viable defense for cyber characters. Want to play an infected? Fuck you. Want to play something more exotic? Fuck you very much! Only mages and mystic adepts seem to have a lobby, though they don't thrive, they're just not gimped nearly as bad as other archetypes.

Add to that the blatant disregard towards editing and errors, including grave ones, like the totally garbled stat blocks in Rigger 5, and a particularly offensive smart-assyness in segmets of rules text, and the result is SR5E communicates, all over, that the makers don't give a damn about you, the player. More than anything else, that rubs me the wrong way about English SR5 (Pegasus' books are much better there, both because of editing and errata'ing they do during translation and because they filter the worst of the douchebroness that periodically makes SR5 books almost unreadable).

SR5 has a lot of ideas I like, both a return of concepts where FanPro dumped the baby with the bathwater (riggers, decks, magical traditions with actual flavor) and in terms of new rules - I'm partial to the new vehicle modding system, I like the idea of cumulative recoil in successive shooting actions a lot. The idea of Limits also has its merit, and even wireless boni are not, in principle, a bad thing. However, in every case, the execution is flawed. Many, even most problems with SR5 could be fixed relatively easily, but there seems no interest to from the publisher's side.

[Medicineman]

...because?

Because Chars are capped at 6 at the Start and it is terribly Karma intensive to raise Skills, and ineffective too.
Consider that an Adept could (just for example) Initiate for 13 Karma and get a full Powerpoint for 13 Karma...
or raise his Skill from 6 to 7 for 14 Karma to get one more Dice...
in my own experience (from my 2 SR5 Tables and from Conventions, speaking with other Players) hardly any Player raises his Skill at more than 7 because its not worth it...Maybe if the Char is played for a long time (100+ Karma)

otoh a GM has no problems to give his NPCs High Level Skills (10+) so most often Players see NSC with higher Skilllevels /Pools .Something that their chars can never achieve (or which is so costly in Karma ,especially when a Run gets so few Karma ...its 114 Karma to raise one single Skill from 6--->12 ! 114 Karma that means 20+ Runs...!
If You play twice a Month and some Runs need 2,maybe even 3 Sessions,
that means you,as a Player play your Char for a whole Year (maybe longer) and all you get is one single Skill at 12.... Meh (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) )

a Skillmax at 9 would still mean that a starting Char is not at all at the Top notch Level (Otoh he is more than just an above average Professionell) but he can reach top Level Skill with some dedication and some Karma (48 )
AND the difference between high level NPCs and PCs is not THAT big.
a dedicated Player/Char can become equal to the high (Skill)level NPC without investing ...tons of Karma

And Hermit is right on most of his Points. (even though I don't like his hard tone, he is right in the core)

with a slimmer Dance
Medicineman

[Ixal]

@Ixal, are you telling me to gain the benefits of having my air tank tell me how much air is left I have to spend another half point of Essence? Really?!?

No, you spend half a point of Essence for the air tank to directly beam that information into your head instead of wirelessly sending it to your comlink or cybereyes or you having to check a readout on the air intake on your chest.

[hermit]

No, you spend half a point of Essence for the air tank to directly beam that information into your head instead of wirelessly sending it to your comlink or cybereyes or you having to check a readout on the air intake on your chest.

According to the Core Rules, that is what DNI is for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Jaid]

Yeah, that for example is another really big step of TECH BAD! MAGIC GOOD!
Also, of course, because they can't seem to do anything else than bodystealers . .
We now have an epidemic of nanoware bodystealers that should have, by now, infected all of the world.
Also, Ares goes down because their new rifle was not as good as the hype made it out to be.
That's TREES level stupid to me.

eh, the ares thing is also bodystealers. didn't you hear? apparently 10% of ares' customer base are bugs, which is supposedly the *real* cause of the problem.

anyways, as far as major problem areas, technomancers. unless you hated them and wanted them to just go away forever, in which case 5th edition has you covered just fine.

but if you actually wanted technomancers to be playable outside of very specific builds (and even then, you're generally only doing what a decker could have done in the first place with fewer costs)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Anything else?

Because none of those changes really bothered me. I felt a 1: Barely competent to 6: World Class was a bit of a small scale.

Except that it was not a scale of One (1) to Six (6)... Giving 6 discrete levels of skill, plus up to an additional 3 via Adept

It was a Scale from Unaware through 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7... Nine (9) Discrete skill levels, plus up to an additional 3 more via Adept abilities.
MORE than enough to simulate what is required.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

...because?

Because it was unnecessary?

[Medicineman]

Except that it was not a scale of One (1) to Six (6)... Giving 6 discrete levels of skill, plus up to an additional 3 via Adept

It was a Scale from Unaware through 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7... Nine (9) Discrete skill levels, plus up to an additional 3 more via Adept abilities.
MORE than enough to simulate what is required.

but you have to admit that a lot of Char that came fresh out of generation where already at the top or merely one step away.
There was not really much Char development to the Top only in the width (I hope you say that in english (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )
For me that was ok, but I heard (and read) some players ....complain that they're already the best of the best ( (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif) )
and didn't know what to do with their Karma.... (a "problem" that I never had with my Chars.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

with a dance sans problems

Medicineman

[Iduno]

SR5 has a lot of ideas I like, both a return of concepts where FanPro dumped the baby with the bathwater (riggers, decks, magical traditions with actual flavor) and in terms of new rules - I'm partial to the new vehicle modding system, I like the idea of cumulative recoil in successive shooting actions a lot. The idea of Limits also has its merit, and even wireless boni are not, in principle, a bad thing. However, in every case, the execution is flawed. Many, even most problems with SR5 could be fixed relatively easily, but there seems no interest to from the publisher's side.

I'm sure when it's time for a new edition, instead of saying "Good ideas, but bad implementation? Let's learn from this and fix it." it will be "People are unhappy? Scrap it all and start from scratch. Again."

[Stahlseele]

Wonder if, for SR6, they will, in an attempt to lower the ammount of dice being rolled, go to a natural maximum skill of 6 and only rolling skill dice and applicable dice pools instead of rolling skill+attribute+gear bonuses and instead use a kind of variable target number system where you would need to roll above a fluidly changing target number with a set and lower ammount of dice . .

[Iduno]

Nah. SR3 rules aren't complicated enough.

Yet.

Maybe if they run them through 3 different translators, make the rules contradictory, and refuse to publish errata?

[LurkerOutThere]

So does anyone have a house rules document drawn up that I could beg/borrow/steal from.

[Stahlseele]

Nah. SR3 rules aren't complicated enough.

Yet.

Maybe if they run them through 3 different translators, make the rules contradictory, and refuse to publish errata?

it's a sad state of affairs, when SR3 rules are seen as not complicated enough in comparison.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Meh, there's a reason I said "just go to Eclipse Phase."

The only thing you miss are elves and trolls - and only technically, because you can put elf-ears trivially easily on any biomorph, and the Bruiser is basically a troll that hasn't been uglified.

[binarywraith]

@Everyone: Honestly the Internal router should not be a piece of cyberware... it should be fragging STANDARD ISSUE when you get ANY cyber. I mean ANY AT ALL! No, the level of augmentation hate by the staff in 5th edition is horrific. They're pushing people more and more to MagicRun. Also the payouts for Shadowrun are disgustingly paltry verses the level of skill/augmentation/magic ability needed to perform some of the jobs these people would do.

That's pretty much my standard rule. Internal routers are standard gear, wireless bonuses are thusly converted into PAN bonuses, and bricking becomes a non-issue because you can run everything silent or straight up Throwback and run a damn fiber optic cable, and chances are nobody will ever notice you have it.

Oh, also Lurker? Avoid the fluff books. As if they had VITAS. The level of proofing and "logic" in them has been absurdly bad. To the point of hoping the line dev wore his brown pants when he edited, because he was clearly lounging about in drek.

Everything from submarine escapes from a landlocked city in the mountains 2640m above sea level; to a AAA starting to collapse over a niche product that's illegal in most of their markets being shit and retroactively being full of bugs; to nanomachines that rewrite people's brains because we needed a fourth (fifth?) possession enemy as the major plotline.

[hermit]

Everything from submarine escapes from a landlocked city in the mountains 2640m above sea level

... via the world's second highest waterfall and a river otherwise mostly made of rapids. That's a splatbook though, not a fluffbook.

a AAA starting to collapse over a niche product that's illegal in most of their markets being shit and retroactively being full of bugs

Yes, that is some epic shit. I really don't know what got into the writers here. I can only assume this is some gun nerd inside joke thing. Then again, has anyone stomped their phone's batteries because the G36 is a crappy gun?

because we needed a fourth (fifth?) possession enemy as the major plotline.

It started out as a cover-up of bad writing though.

[binarywraith]

Yes, that is some epic shit. I really don't know what got into the writers here. I can only assume this is some gun nerd inside joke thing. Then again, has anyone stomped their phone's batteries because the G36 is a crappy gun?

Better question, does Joe Average Consumer even know what companies are under the Ares umbrella? The major A-AA subsidiaries sure, but all the nationals and barely multinational brands?

[KCKitsune]

Better question, does Joe Average Consumer even know what companies are under the Ares umbrella? The major A-AA subsidiaries sure, but all the nationals and barely multinational brands?

In the dystopia of Shadowrun, most of the poor slots barely know their name and what they had for lunch.

[Mantis]

Still you want a real world example of a niche product just killing a company, look at New Coke. Why it was so disastrous that you hardly even hear of Coke anymore. Damn near drove the company to bankruptcy. So you can see how catastrophic the failure of a battle rifle would be to the company that owns such things as GM, Honda, and NASA. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
Bah, that story line was/is such utter shit and just shows how little research goes into some of these products (books). Either that or how little editing actually gets done. Editing should be more than just checking for typos. Layout seems a bit of a failure in 5th ed too. Anyone else notice how stat boxes creep out over the header and footer art of the pages. Check pg 24 or 37 (I think since I can't see the page number) in Run and Gun for an example.

[LurkerOutThere]

Started looking at ware prices between editions. Ugh I know a bunch of the writers hate ware for various reaosns, but seriously a 7x price jump on cybereyes?

[binarywraith]

Yeah, you know, the basic replacement 'oh shit you got blinded, here's something' cybereyes now cost 4,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

That is, for comparison, equal to 2 months of a Low lifestyle at 2,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per, or given the base-book calculations, about as much as a runner should expect to pull from a moderately dangerous run.

God only knows what the bioware version costs, it barely exists in the book anyway. Closest equivalent is Cat's Eyes, which run in at 4000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) as well, but come with standard low-light.

[Critias]

Ah, the fights over 'ware prices I wish I could share. NDA means we can't talk specifics of backstage discussions, but...ugh. Yeah. Things got pretty ugly, and you can't win every argument/debate/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. All I can say is that prices were almost higher.

[Sendaz]

I always felt part of the problem was cost is really the only real inhibitor on ware.

Sure the ware costs essences, but for those willing to spend on the better grades, you can pack in a helluva lot of ware.
Yes, it's expensive, which again only reinforces the concept of cash being the real limit.

So the devs do go down the route of trying to curb ware via throatpunching the wallet by making ware spendy and payout for runs abysmal as it's the easiest mechanic to have in place instead of looking at other options.
And really ware should not be stupidly high priced as it is a staple of the environment and it makes it hard to explain how street trash has any, yet they should because it fits the setting.

There is the social stigma of ware, but frankly it is often overlooked by groups so quickly becomes a TJ fallacy.

So rather than make people around you mysteriously nervous because they just 'know' you are Ess 2, the onus should be on the ware user to be that bit unhinged by it and have actual quirks/issues from it.
Always thought we should have something like cyberpsychosis like CP2020 had, with lower essence making you a bit more schizo or have reflex/responses linked to the ware.
So a guy with wired reflex 3 who gets caught in an ambush situation may find his wire is attempting to shoot the first target he sees, even before the main meat brain has processed that might have been a by-stander and therefore a non-target so may need a contested roll to avoid blowing the guy away.
Call it a Hair Trigger NQ or similar. Could build a number of NQ to fit the various wares with a range of effects and levels of interfering with regular life.
Course I would also have a similar rule for mages who raise their Magic over 6 as well, reflecting the pitfalls of becoming a god-like figure and how easy it is to be disassociated from the muggles.
So as the Magic climbs, the mage finds himself using mojo to expedite things, even when not necessary, like using MC to shut the neighbor's bawling kid up or similar.

again this doesn't mean having a 4 essence or a 8 Magic makes you a threat to society, but you will have... quirks or small problems, but when you hit 1 ess or 11 magic, yeah you are frakkin scary to be around.

[Glyph]

Augmentations, like cyberdecks, are simply too expensive compared to what a shadowrunner typically gets paid (something that is quantified in SR5). Also, both Run Faster and Chrome Flesh do play up the social stigma of augmentations, with Chrome Flesh also playing up how corporate-controlled all of the halfway-decent cyberclinics are and going full retard on this lameass CFD crap (to the point that even common augmentations such as cybereyes are stigmatized). So yeah, be sure you start with Resources A or B and get most of the augmentations you will ever have at the start, and expect to be a social pariah because of it. Ugh.

I don't think rules compelling cyberpsychosis would add anything to the game, though, other than taking away even more player agency. I prefer the SR4/SR5 way of having optional qualities you can opt into if you want physical or sociological problems arising from excessive augmentations.

[Sengir]

Because Chars are capped at 6 at the Start and it is terribly Karma intensive to raise Skills, and ineffective too.
Consider that an Adept could (just for example) Initiate for 13 Karma and get a full Powerpoint for 13 Karma...
or raise his Skill from 6 to 7 for 14 Karma to get one more Dice...
in my own experience (from my 2 SR5 Tables and from Conventions, speaking with other Players) hardly any Player raises his Skill at more than 7 because its not worth it...Maybe if the Char is played for a long time (100+ Karma)

otoh a GM has no problems to give his NPCs High Level Skills (10+) so most often Players see NSC with higher Skilllevels /Pools .Something that their chars can never achieve (or which is so costly in Karma ,especially when a Run gets so few Karma ...its 114 Karma to raise one single Skill from 6--->12 ! 114 Karma that means 20+ Runs...!
If You play twice a Month and some Runs need 2,maybe even 3 Sessions,
that means you,as a Player play your Char for a whole Year (maybe longer) and all you get is one single Skill at 12.... Meh (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) )

a Skillmax at 9 would still mean that a starting Char is not at all at the Top notch Level (Otoh he is more than just an above average Professionell) but he can reach top Level Skill with some dedication and some Karma (48 )
AND the difference between high level NPCs and PCs is not THAT big.
a dedicated Player/Char can become equal to the high (Skill)level NPC without investing ...tons of Karma

So basically, your complaint is that you can't complain about hitting the skill cap soon enough...but apart from hurting your Germanness to the core, where is the harm in not making players "the pinnacle of mortal achievement" after two sessions but giving them basically enless room to grow?


@Lurker: The intention seemingly was to limit characters to just one "class": You can be a decker, but won't have money for anything else.

While the price hike is partially offset by handing out far more money at chargen, this actually makes it worse -- without a matching increase in the SoyMac index, cyber users once more are far too rich for the setting, which apparently pleases some grognards.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The New Coke wasn't that stupid Ares rifle.

The New Coke was Shadowrun 5.


The difference is that some of us were actually looking forward to it, before we got our hands on it, at which point we realized it was rancid, and should be called Magicrun 5, featuring NPC Cyberbeasts.

[Medicineman]

So basically, your complaint is that you can't complain about hitting the skill cap soon enough...but apart from hurting your Germanness to the core, where is the harm in not making players "the pinnacle of mortal achievement" after two sessions but giving them basically enless room to grow?

It seems like you didn't understand even a bit about what I was writing.
I'll try it from a different Angle

A Skillcap of 12 is a Stick disguised as a Carrot.
Chars or their Players can't/won't achieve it in a Lifetime of playing and all NPCs can have it without any efford or justification
( and since that sentence about hurting my Germannness to the core neither makes sense nor does it concern me I won't ask what you mean by that , also because I don't care )

HokaHey
Medicineman

[FriendoftheDork]

I always felt part of the problem was cost is really the only real inhibitor on ware.

So as the Magic climbs, the mage finds himself using mojo to expedite things, even when not necessary, like using MC to shut the neighbor's bawling kid up or similar.

again this doesn't mean having a 4 essence or a 8 Magic makes you a threat to society, but you will have... quirks or small problems, but when you hit 1 ess or 11 magic, yeah you are frakkin scary to be around.

Just had to mention, this exact thing happened in my old campaign. The mage used Control Thoughts on an infant to stop it crying, and the infant critically glitched it's resistance test - the result is a child that can never cry again and will probably have shitloads of mental issues growing up. The rest of the group started to be a bit wary around him due to his mind control ability because they saw the effect it had on gangers and whatnot.

[FriendoftheDork]

It seems like you didn't understand even a bit about what I was writing.
I'll try it from a different Angle

A Skillcap of 12 is a Stick disguised as a Carrot.
Chars or their Players can't/won't achieve it in a Lifetime of playing and all NPCs can have it without any efford or justification
( and since that sentence about hurting my Germannness to the core neither makes sense nor does it concern me I won't ask what you mean by that , also because I don't care )

HokaHey
Medicineman

It seems to me more of a preference issue than a balance issue. I like the idea of having 12 as cap, as it means the best in the world actually has a lot of dice because of his skill rather than just having a high attribute, specialization and tons of "wireless" bonuses. In SR4 the Tir Ghosts had Firearms 6 and maybe attribute 8, which meant they were woefully incompetent compared to the Runners who could easily get dice pools above 20. Now, with skills around 9 for the top elite teams as well as the really good Contacts, they can be proper challenges for Runners who generally have to compensate for their lack of experience with 'ware or Magic. Sure, it is karma heavy to get there, but that also makes getting 12 in a skill a much higher achievement for a character, and could easily be the main motivation for being a Shadowrunner in the first place. It's not a level you have to be at, and you're unlikely to ever meet an NPC with skill 12 (unless you hang with world champion athletes or entertainers), but these individuals should exist. 'runners should not be at Ussain Bolt level in Running skill just 30 karma out of chargen, but likewise spend a life perfecting themselves to have a chance at reaching it. I really do like that skill actually matters, despite magic and ware. It devalues those two a bit, but they are still vital augmentations that complements skill, or a shortcut (the dark side) to getting close to the really good ones.

The danger of getting even higher dicepools than before is easily countered by the SR5 limit system, which I also think is a very good idea. Someone with 20+ dice is someone who can routinely get 6-8 hits on a test, and once in awhile do something truly wondrous.

It's not a carrot, it's a stick of fried delicious mozzarella (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Sengir]

A Skillcap of 12 is a Stick disguised as a Carrot.
Chars or their Players can't/won't achieve it in a Lifetime of playing

That would be the carrot. because you have something to aspire to as long as you play the character. Where is the stick, and where is the problem?

and all NPCs can have it without any efford or justification

If your GM decides that the regular grunt is among the top 0.0001% in his field for all of recorded history, that's hardly a fault of the game system.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

but you have to admit that a lot of Char that came fresh out of generation where already at the top or merely one step away.
There was not really much Char development to the Top only in the width (I hope you say that in english (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )
For me that was ok, but I heard (and read) some players ....complain that they're already the best of the best ( (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif) )
and didn't know what to do with their Karma.... (a "problem" that I never had with my Chars.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

with a dance sans problems

Medicineman

Yes, I have seen characters come out of Gen with Best in Class skills.
But in my opinion, that is a Player concern (wanting to be best in class), not a chargen concern.
In My Experience, Most Best in Class Character Concepts were not truly best in class, because they player sacrificed the majority of supoort skills that comprise the concept to get the High End Skills because it was more cost efficient to go that way than to actually pick up the skills required to make the concept work. As much hate as the Skill descriptions received in 4A, I still believe that they were very good guidelines for making a character.

And yes, That did have the tendency to force more width (breadth) in post gen development.

Never had issues with What to do with Karma in play either; in fact, I rarely ever had ENOUGH karma in play to get where I wanted to end up at. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Chance359]

I've always seen dicepool as a better representative of how good someone is than just straight skill rating.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I've always seen dicepool as a better representative of how good someone is than just straight skill rating.

Opinions do vary on that point, to be sure... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[sk8bcn]

I'm on the side of the 12 cap too.

I really dislike RPG's where you can hit the cap out of chargen or a few sessions only.

Actually, I don't even see why caps are usefull. The usual increase in costs skyrockets anyways for diminishing returns. It's way enough at my taste.

[hermit]

With regards to the relevance of skill, I've made decent experience with a general Limit of [skill*2] on skill tests. It has its own problems, and doesn't solve the default trap, but at least it prevents trolls from being the best possible ninja and cat burglars.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

With regards to the relevance of skill, I've made decent experience with a general Limit of [skill*2] on skill tests. It has its own problems, and doesn't solve the default trap, but at least it prevents trolls from being the best possible ninja and cat burglars.

Not a fan of Limits, personally... Limits generally introduce issues that tend to make little sense (Troll Ninja Cat Burglars. for example).
They are either too restrictive or not restrictive enough. And in my experience they tend to punish the non specialized character far more than the highly optimized ones. They do not do what they are intended to do.

[hermit]

And in my experience they tend to punish the non specialized character far more than the highly optimized ones.

All rules do. Characters optimized for rules conformity and exploiting loopholes will exist as long as there're rules. Any rules, be it in a game or laws in any society. You cannot change that, you can just try to minimize the impact.

Not such a fan of limits either (the skill-based limit raises huge questions about defaulting, for instance), but if you want to rein in either attribute-based default monsters or give skills more weight, it's a viable way, I think.

[Glyph]

That was really my biggest problem with SR4 skill ratings. Not so much how truncated they were, but how differences of one die were presented as vast gulfs of skill. Especially with skills only being a portion, potentially a small portion, of the dice pool.

SR5's wider skill range helps, a bit. I do see Medicineman's point about NPCs being the only ones likely to hit that 12 mark (except for adepts, who can get it right out of the starting gate - skill 7 with aptitude, 4 points of improved ability (which rounds up now), and a reflex recorder (which stacks, because there is no augmented limit for skills), and there you go - because Magicrun).

It doesn't help that, in the core book, a lot of the people making the archetypes thought the old SR4 limits applied (one skill of 6 or two at 5), while simultaneously they were giving super-high skill ratings to the contacts (which at least they seem to have noticed - in Run Faster, they are toned down a lot).

But see, Shadowrun always had that problem with initiation being uncapped, resulting in these Gary Stu immortal elf GMPC's running around breaking the game with their triple-grade initiate levels, or great dragons that can apparently fight off modern mechanized armies now. Compared to that, a "best of the best" NPC with a skill of 12 at least scales with the system, and the game world. Better to do it with rules that apply to everyone, rather than special snowflake rules like I heard that Street Legends had.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That was really my biggest problem with SR4 skill ratings. Not so much how truncated they were, but how differences of one die were presented as vast gulfs of skill. Especially with skills only being a portion, potentially a small portion, of the dice pool.

I really hate that, honestly. Especially when statistical analysis proved the provided examples to be laughably absurd: consider that anyone who is rated as a licensed automobile operator, but only just, is statistically likely to crash their vehicle thevery first time they are called upon to make any kind of roll.

[hermit]

But see, Shadowrun always had that problem with initiation being uncapped, resulting in these Gary Stu immortal elf GMPC's running around breaking the game with their triple-grade initiate levels, or great dragons that can apparently fight off modern mechanized armies now.

1) Great Dragons always could fight off armies. At the very least ever since Ghostwalker just walked over the ZDF and claimed Denver and nobody could do a damn thing, but even taking down Firewing took the combined force of three or four armies (and, according to SRRDF, prototype nanoweapons). Great dragons are Kaiju, not fightable monsters, and always have been.

2) I'm toying with the idea of a sanity meter. The base idea being to standardize cyberpsychosis, as well as put a soft-ish cap on initiation. Sanity Meter could be essence *10, and lose (essence cost*10) points every time an augmentation is added. To make the impact less straightforward road to madness, I considered splitting the effects itno 4or 5 tallies, each progressively adding different and escalating negative qualities - one makes you more paranoid, one makes you less sociable, one makes you increasingly oblivious to risk, that kind of thing. The player decides where to put the cost for each individual implant's sanity loss - meaning you can spread out 20 datajacks all over and not have much of anything in impact, but a huge block like wired 5 WILL make you less sane. Not sure if that's a good idea. But the same would also apply to initiations, with each costing sanity blocks that go with their Karma cost. Sure, you could optimize and not take much in terms of madness for some time but eventually you'd become the insane weird supermage. And Intiation finaly has a price.

[Sendaz]

2) I'm toying with the idea of a sanity meter. The base idea being to standardize cyberpsychosis, as well as put a soft-ish cap on initiation. Sanity Meter could be essence *10, and lose (essence cost*10) points every time an augmentation is added. To make the impact less straightforward road to madness, I considered splitting the effects itno 4or 5 tallies, each progressively adding different and escalating negative qualities - one makes you more paranoid, one makes you less sociable, one makes you increasingly oblivious to risk, that kind of thing. The player decides where to put the cost for each individual implant's sanity loss - meaning you can spread out 20 datajacks all over and not have much of anything in impact, but a huge block like wired 5 WILL make you less sane. Not sure if that's a good idea. But the same would also apply to initiations, with each costing sanity blocks that go with their Karma cost. Sure, you could optimize and not take much in terms of madness for some time but eventually you'd become the insane weird supermage. And Intiation finaly has a price.

Just on a side note, if someone is installing 20 datajacks in themselves, that is a pretty good sign they should be buying a psychological NQ in any event.
Bonus points if all installed on the face/head so you can get that Pinhead look going when all plugged in.(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[hermit]

Well, yes. Though if you plug into 20 commlinks, a RCD and a Cyberdeck, daisy chain them that is a LOT of drones. and since the highest stats ina PAN count, you can also optimize there a lot. Just saying. But the point is that lots of little ware may be compensed by spreading it all out, but one big 'ware chunk will have an impact. Don't know whether this can ever get anywhere, though. The basic idea was to make intiiation more of a choice than a natural progression into infinity and beyond.

[Blade]

Tying Essence loss to loss of sanity/empathy/humanity is an interesting concept for a Cyberpunk approach, but it's clear that if you want to go this way you need to add a similar mechanism for magic. Otherwise, you're going into "ware is bad, magic is good" territory, which is a bad tendency Shadowrun often had and from the looks of it, still has.

For my home system I've merged Edge and Essence. The player needs to give a "meaning" to each point. That meaning is something that makes his personality, something that keeps him alive.
Both Magic and implants bite into it. There are variants depending on the concept of the game:
- Technothriller: ware and magic are just tools, no impact besides the loss of Edge/Essence (mostly for game balance but you can explain this by the fact that the character relies more on magic/cyber than on his luck/abilities)

- Cyberpunk: when an edge/essence point is lost, so is the character's link to the meaning behind it. While not completely gone, it gets more hazy or twisted. The character gets more and more distant from humanity as he gets more ware/power. However, it is possible to buy back edge/essence points with karma (with an exponential cost) and discover that actually humanity wasn't gone but was there all along. It is possible to spend these again for more ware/magic but in that case, the point is lost forever.

- Post-cyberpunk: When an edge/essence point is turned into a magic/implant point, its meaning is transformed accordingly. If the meaning was "rage against corporations", it can turn into "becoming stronger" to justify buying muscle replacements: the character decided that he had to become stronger to fight the corporations and slowly "becoming stronger" becomes the goal in itself. New points can be bought, but have to keep inside the same philosophy as the other ones. The magic/implants become part of the character's identity and makes him something that's neither human nor inhuman, but just different.

[hermit]

Tying Essence loss to loss of sanity/empathy/humanity is an interesting concept for a Cyberpunk approach, but it's clear that if you want to go this way you need to add a similar mechanism for magic. Otherwise, you're going into "ware is bad, magic is good" territory, which is a bad tendency Shadowrun often had and from the looks of it, still has.

Yes, that was actually the basic idea. The Augmented get Humanity Loss, and the Mages get Lovecraft. The idea was to attach a cost to each initiation that progressively adds up, just as implants do. Not sure if that's balanced enough, it's still a very rough idea after all.

Your concept seems not so dissimilar to mine, after all. How do you scale how much Edgessence magic costs? Do you go by the magic attribute, and it's now hard capped at [Edgessence]?

[Blade]

Yes, it's one Edgessence point for one Magic point.
So it's hardcapped at Edgeessence for Technothriller (which is meant for "Shadowrun 2035", where initiation shouldn't be a thing anyway), it's hardcapped at twice that for Cyberpunk, and it's not capped (but getting very costly) for Post-Cyberpunk. But I admit I haven't thought much about the place of Initiation in all this.

[binarywraith]

So rather than make people around you mysteriously nervous because they just 'know' you are Ess 2, the onus should be on the ware user to be that bit unhinged by it and have actual quirks/issues from it.
Always thought we should have something like cyberpsychosis like CP2020 had, with lower essence making you a bit more schizo or have reflex/responses linked to the ware.
So a guy with wired reflex 3 who gets caught in an ambush situation may find his wire is attempting to shoot the first target he sees, even before the main meat brain has processed that might have been a by-stander and therefore a non-target so may need a contested roll to avoid blowing the guy away.
Call it a Hair Trigger NQ or similar. Could build a number of NQ to fit the various wares with a range of effects and levels of interfering with regular life.
Course I would also have a similar rule for mages who raise their Magic over 6 as well, reflecting the pitfalls of becoming a god-like figure and how easy it is to be disassociated from the muggles.
So as the Magic climbs, the mage finds himself using mojo to expedite things, even when not necessary, like using MC to shut the neighbor's bawling kid up or similar.

again this doesn't mean having a 4 essence or a 8 Magic makes you a threat to society, but you will have... quirks or small problems, but when you hit 1 ess or 11 magic, yeah you are frakkin scary to be around.

I used to go this route, but I don't anymore. Often the players who will load a guy up with 'ware want a reason to use it, so giving them more excuse to be paranoid and low on self control by nature leads to disruptive behavior to the group. Unless you're playing Pink Mohawk, then you can totally have a party of remorseless psychos and still be in genre.

Same reason I don't like to see Sams with the Holy Trinity of Vindictive, Impulsive, and Combat Monster on the flaws.

[LurkerOutThere]

There is the social stigma of ware, but frankly it is often overlooked by groups so quickly becomes a TJ fallacy.

Which has always raised the question to me of why? Why is there a social stigma other then service of the status quo.

But perhaps that's a separate discussion.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Which has always raised the question to me of why? Why is there a social stigma other then service of the status quo.

But perhaps that's a separate discussion.

5th Edition already figures 'Wared Up Social Stigma into the character by using Essence to Calculate your Social Limit. No need to add more on top of that unless the player is interested in playing such a character.

[Stahlseele]

Also ware got ridiculously expensive again.
And the starting money got lowered too.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Which has always raised the question to me of why? Why is there a social stigma other then service of the status quo.

There really shouldn't be. Not after a whole generation and change of people have been raised where augmentations are commonplace. Shadowrun's timeline is rapidly approaching transhumanism, and SR4 correctly embraced that. Then some turdburgler said "We're losing our base, let's try to remake the grimy nasty cyberpunk of the '80s" and lo, with the wave of the hand of an idiotic god, it attempted to be so.

So, frankly? I just ignored all of that shit. You're not gonna get funny looks with 'ware, unless you're somewhere really posh and your 'ware is something high-profile, like Adam Jensen's cyberarms. But nobody in the world is gonna bat an eye at augmented eyes, datajacks, etc, etc, unless they're like, asshole essence purists or whatever.

Also ware got ridiculously expensive again.
And the starting money got lowered too.

And that's why I went over to Eclipse Phase. The prices on augs are all reasonable, and nobody except the hardest of hardcore biocons gives one chrome-plated fuck about the augs you've got in your body.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Also ware got ridiculously expensive again.
And the starting money got lowered too.

Yes, Not sure why, but there you go. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)
SR45A had it right in that regard, thoguh they could have come down a bit on Grade multipliers.

[Sengir]

I really hate that, honestly. Especially when statistical analysis proved the provided examples to be laughably absurd: consider that anyone who is rated as a licensed automobile operator, but only just, is statistically likely to crash their vehicle thevery first time they are called upon to make any kind of roll.

Well, under 4th Ed rules that is absolutely realistic:
For example, if a character is driving downtown to buy soymilk and NERPS, no test is necessary. If she’s suddenly found herself in a car chase, however—perhaps she ran a red light and a Lone Star officer is in pursuit—then it’s time to break out the dice. (4A, p. 60)
Having barely made your license is enough to drive downtown for shopping (because that doesn't require a test), but challenging situations are statistically likely to not end well -- sounds good.

Things are arguably different in 5th:
Most of these things—common tasks like eating, sleeping, and crossing an empty street—are done automatically and are kept in the background of the game. When you need to do something difficult or extraordinary, or when you need to avoid someone who has got you in their crosshairs, you have to roll the dice to determine a result. (5th BBB, p. 44)
Driving to the supermarket certainly is more complicated than "eating, sleeping, and crossing an empty street". On the other hand, is it "difficult or extraordinary"? And if not, is it closer to "crossing an empty street" or closer to "difficult"?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Well, under 4th Ed rules that is absolutely realistic:
For example, if a character is driving downtown to buy soymilk and NERPS, no test is necessary. If she’s suddenly found herself in a car chase, however—perhaps she ran a red light and a Lone Star officer is in pursuit—then it’s time to break out the dice. (4A, p. 60)
Having barely made your license is enough to drive downtown for shopping (because that doesn't require a test), but challenging situations are statistically likely to not end well -- sounds good.

No, I'm sorry, it's not.

The entire point of issuing driver's licenses and making drivers take tests and undergo education before getting behind the wheel is to make sure that they actually can respond appropriately in an emergency situation. Or even an ordinary driving situation; let's actually take a look at the things it says you need to roll for.

Threshold 1: Merging, passing, sudden stop.
How often do you merge into traffic when you drive? Fairly often, I'd say. Pass someone, every now and then, I'd reckon.

So according to this, every time you merge into highway traffic, you have to roll. Sure, the threshold may only be 1, and if you're not, say, in the middle of a car chase or anything, you might well be able to just buy a hit - but throw anything at the character that reduces their DP (say, moderate rain,) and suddenly they have to roll. And we all know that every highway on-ramp turns into twisted car-nage every time it starts to rain and the cops don't get the onramps sealed off quickly, right?

[Medicineman]

So according to this, every time you merge into highway traffic, you have to roll.

Yes but according to general Skill description You DON'T need to roll for standard Situations like going from A to be and this includes merging, passing by ,etc
So the rules say both ( you don't need to roll ,and you need to roll with a threshold of 1...)

He who dances with Schrödinger's Cat
Medicineman

[Mantis]

I think from a rules perspective, as in what overrides what, the small or specific rule overrides the big or general rule. So, yeah the general rule is no test is needed to go from Point A to Point B but then the specific rule states a test is needed to merge, pass, etc. So lots of horrible accidents in the SR world. Must be why all cars have gridguide and top notch autopilot programs by default right. Oh wait... ah, there were too many people in world anyway.

[FriendoftheDork]

Yes but according to general Skill description You DON'T need to roll for standard Situations like going from A to be and this includes merging, passing by ,etc
So the rules say both ( you don't need to roll ,and you need to roll with a threshold of 1...)

He who dances with Schrödinger's Cat
Medicineman

There is a difference between when a test is appropriate and how the world works. Sure, in real life dangerous situations happen in traffic every day, and pretty much everyone who has been behind a wheel has been in one or more of them. Not everyone survives, but most people get away and avoid crashing. There is no need to roll dice for these everyday NPCs, so the ability can be fairly low and still be reasonable - for example 4 dice is enough to buy a single hit, and thus avoid most of these situations. The book says not everyone who has a license have a skill (being untrained, but no unaware), but that makes little sense to me - not sure how this is done in the US, but in Europe getting a license surely requires training, theory and experience to justify at least 1 rank in the skill. Average rea of 3 + 1 is thus enough in most situations, even when doing mergers and passbys, but if the driving conditions are bad (rain, high speed, uneven terrain), these average joes can and will fail spectacularly.

They could make a system to better simulate this reality, but instead they choose to focus on the players and their likely characters. You only need to roll when it's dramatic, and random dangers in everyday traffic is not fun, thus it is assumed that just getting from a-b in a normal day require no rolls, but when you do a chase as part of a run, or have to drive through the Redmond barrens while being fired upon by gangs, then you have to roll and better have a decent dice pool to pull it off.

Almost every system I have played has had some stipulation that everyday actions does not require rolls, although not everyone has been as clear about it. Still some GMs make the error of enforcing rolls for trivial things just because of reading rules too literally (or misreading them), or to make it unbelievably difficult. You want to slowly walk down a hill outside combat? Ah, roll a balance check! You need to cross a river with some current? Well that requires multiple swimming checks, or you drown. Someone has written with blood on a wall? That must be a Perception or Search check to notice. I could go on.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Or, alternatively, they dramatically lowballed the level of skill required with that stupid table, and 1 skill/3 REA is not enough to get a driver's license, it's barely enough to begin practicing driving under controlled, ideal conditions. And thus, anyone who gets out on the road with a license to manually operate their own vehicle actually has REA 3, Skill 3-4, meaning they can absorb a lot more penalties and still buy their hit before they have to roll.

[JanessaVR]

Tying Essence loss to loss of sanity/empathy/humanity is an interesting concept for a Cyberpunk approach, but it's clear that if you want to go this way you need to add a similar mechanism for magic. Otherwise, you're going into "ware is bad, magic is good" territory, which is a bad tendency Shadowrun often had and from the looks of it, still has.

For my home system I've merged Edge and Essence. The player needs to give a "meaning" to each point. That meaning is something that makes his personality, something that keeps him alive.
Both Magic and implants bite into it. There are variants depending on the concept of the game:
- Technothriller: ware and magic are just tools, no impact besides the loss of Edge/Essence (mostly for game balance but you can explain this by the fact that the character relies more on magic/cyber than on his luck/abilities)

- Cyberpunk: when an edge/essence point is lost, so is the character's link to the meaning behind it. While not completely gone, it gets more hazy or twisted. The character gets more and more distant from humanity as he gets more ware/power. However, it is possible to buy back edge/essence points with karma (with an exponential cost) and discover that actually humanity wasn't gone but was there all along. It is possible to spend these again for more ware/magic but in that case, the point is lost forever.

- Post-cyberpunk: When an edge/essence point is turned into a magic/implant point, its meaning is transformed accordingly. If the meaning was "rage against corporations", it can turn into "becoming stronger" to justify buying muscle replacements: the character decided that he had to become stronger to fight the corporations and slowly "becoming stronger" becomes the goal in itself. New points can be bought, but have to keep inside the same philosophy as the other ones. The magic/implants become part of the character's identity and makes him something that's neither human nor inhuman, but just different.

We've partly done away with Essence as a concept. The whole mechanic really exists to prevent cybered-up mages, so we just reduced it to that. Each point of Essence loss reduces your Magic Rating by a point, but this is only a problem if you're Awakened. If you're not, feel free to get a fully cybernetic body. Welcome to Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex meets The Sixth World. There's no such thing as "Cyber-Zombies" - you don't die if you have 0 Essence, you just won't be casting any spells.

[JanessaVR]

I have a great idea for fixing SR5.
Play Shadowrun 4th Edition, before a pants-on-head retarded brainfucked moron took charge of the line and began vigorously skullfucking it trying to roll things back to the techno-derp of the '80s from the near-future transhumanim of SR4 in a vain idiotic attempt to recapture the grognard neckbeards who were still playing SR1-3. (It failed. They still play SR1-3. It's just that SR5 drove me to Eclipse Phase.)

This is more or less what we've done. I'm about the only one in our group that's purchased the SR5 books, and we've imported a few things here and there, but we've taken a pass on most of it.

[Larsenex]

Let's not even forget that the chowderheads in charge of the line said "Nanomachines? I don't like nanomachines in my Shadowrun. Get rid of them." To which the writers said "Uh, dude, continuity? We've had nanomachines as being corp cutting-edge since the end of 3rd, and they've been stuff high-end Runners and governments can use throughout fourth." And he said "Then they stop working." And lo, as if by the wave of the hand of a dismissive god, nanomachines all stopped working, and somehow, things built by nanomachines (not out of nanomachines, which would be fucking absurd,) just fucking melted.

So yeah, I jumped to Eclipse Phase and haven't looked back. (Haven't looked back to SR5, that is.)

Not knowing what the deal with nano machines is, what is Eclipse Phase you are referring to?

[Stahlseele]

We've partly done away with Essence as a concept. The whole mechanic really exists to prevent cybered-up mages, so we just reduced it to that. Each point of Essence loss reduces your Magic Rating by a point, but this is only a problem if you're Awakened. If you're not, feel free to get a fully cybernetic body. Welcome to Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex meets The Sixth World. There's no such thing as "Cyber-Zombies" - you don't die if you have 0 Essence, you just won't be casting any spells.

I am surprised to not have seen anybody bitching about this yet, because OH NOES WARE OP/NERFPLZ! Make Magic Great Again!.
In my eyes, that approach is the only thing that can get Mundanes back up to competitive levels . .
But it will also break the entire infected/essence sucker system. Not too much of a Problem in my eyes anyway, seeing how sudden unwanted in game essence loss is basically the most dangerous thing that can happen to an augmented character. Be it due to drugs, suckers or critters . .

Not knowing what the deal with nano machines is, what is Eclipse Phase you are referring to?

Basically, Nanites are the big NO NO NO SCARY EVIL BODY SNATCHERS of SR5.
SR2/3 had Insect Spirits, SR3/4 had Shedim instead. This time they went with a Technological instead of magical Bodysnatcher Enemy for people to be paranoid about.
"See? We are totally not doing magic run! The new big bad is a TECHNOLOGICAL TERROR! What do you mean that only makes people play even more magical characters? Filthy powergamers!"

[JanessaVR]

But it will also break the entire infected/essence sucker system.

Not if you just rule that the Infected either eat flesh or drink blood and just leave Essence out of it altogether.

[Stahlseele]

Not if you just rule that the Infected either eat flesh or drink blood and just leave Essence out of it altogether.

Yeah, but aside from it being SUSTENANCE for them, it also is MECHANICALLY important to them.
Their Essence-Stat basically determines how strong and versatile they are, how reasonable as well.
You would have to go over every single sucker and critter in the book that has the essence drain and then see what it does for that specific entry and the re-balance the entire entry to some fixed numbers
Which would mean cascading errata all over the place . .
And the essence also determines wether or not you get turned from the essence drain from a sucker as well . .
Essence is a stat that has been around and used for literally dozends of different applications for 5 editions by now.
Fiddling with it on one end WILL break it on up to N other ends. That's what makes it so problematic.

[JanessaVR]

Yeah, but aside from it being SUSTENANCE for them, it also is MECHANICALLY important to them.
Their Essence-Stat basically determines how strong and versatile they are, how reasonable as well.
You would have to go over every single sucker and critter in the book that has the essence drain and then see what it does for that specific entry and the re-balance the entire entry to some fixed numbers
Which would mean cascading errata all over the place . .

I've already put in LOTS of work to reduce the Infected down to just Vampires and Ghouls - see here.

I left the Essence draining stuff intact in the above version, because I didn't want to get into 2 arguments at once when I was debating the need to simplify and straighten out HMHVV, but our in-house version makes no reference to the Infected either draining Essence or having some sort of fluctuating Essence score. They're just magical Critters like all the other ones (who happen to be infectious).

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, that's what i meant with it cascading into 1 to N changes that then need to be house ruled as well.
You can't simply remove 90% of one variable without tinkering with basically everything else the one variable touches.

[JanessaVR]

Yeah, that's what i meant with it cascading into 1 to N changes that then need to be house ruled as well.
You can't simply remove 90% of one variable without tinkering with basically everything else the one variable touches.

When they're NPCs only, it's working out well enough for us. The Infected exist only for target practice at our table - they're not playable.

[binarywraith]

When they're NPCs only, it's working out well enough for us. The Infected exist only for target practice at our table - they're not playable.

As it should be.

If someone wants to play a special snowflake then there is a massive body of White Wolf games that will happily accommodate it and not require everyone else at the table to deal with chances of having their character end up as one of the undead fuckers as well thanks to a bad roll during first aid.