The awakened, and the broke, Currently the rules nerf mundanes Options

[SaintHax]

I love ShadowRun. LOVE IT! B/c of the way damage is soaked, and tracked, I think it has the best rules of any game. Somewhat streamlined, but realistic enough. HOWEVER, it has some broke arse stuff in it. Mainly, mundanes suck. This isn't an opinion, it's math... see below.

To cast combat, detection, health, illusion, and manipulation spells: you need to learn the specialization sorcery (spellcasting).

If you want to shoot something, you need to pick one of the following base skills: pistols, SMG, rifles, assault rifle, or shot gun (or laser weapons). And, if you choose rifle, and pick up an assault rifle... there's a huge difference in ShadowRun skill wise. The same rules apply to melee weapons.

Now we go to use them. The mage fires a stun bolt at a troll willpower 2 troll, he needs 2's to hit. You fire a gun at the quickness 1 troll, you need a 4. Now really, from the offensive side, this balances out. B/c if it was a willpower/quickness 6 elf, the mage would need a 6, and you'd still need a 4. From the Troll, Elf standpoint, the Elf is getting screwed. He's half the troll's size, and yet is just as easy to hit as the quickness 1 troll. There's combat pool to dodge, but it's not balanced, and another discussion.

The mage also can cast invisibilty (which is broke), treat, powerbolt, and powerball using just his will based specialization of sorcery (spellcasting). A mundane would need all these base skills: stealth (Qk), Biotech (In), a ranged weapon (Qk), and thrown weapon (gernades, St). Now I'm not saying that the mundane should be equal to the awakened. That's why I'm not knocking all the additional things a spell slinger can do, that a mundane can't. A sorcerer can have a spell to attack any stat: illusions can pretty much take out those low in intelligence, mana spells wreck low willpower, powerball still attacks body, and decrease attribute (Chr) can even paralyze an uncharming troll. Sweet. A mage also has natural concealment. A spell can be smuggled through anywhere it's not active... not so a gun. In the areas where mundanes and awakened overlap, the mage should not have such a clear advantage in both power and growth potential.

SR3 was a huge improvement. The linking of skills to attributes balanced a lot of power gaming. In SR2, only true role players or summoners ever had a charisma over 1, b/c it wasn't needed. However, in SR3 we started drifting away from a prime concept: tech and magic don't mix. Increase cyber attribute... big suck. Vehicle mask... big suck.

Last point, more spells are broke than cyber/bioware... AND... the core rules (M&M) suggest not letting new characters start w/ cultured bioware, despite it being common in 2064. Limits mundanes more.


+<:-) SaintHax

P.S. I play as both a troll sorcerer and mudane (human) covert ops