 I know Kung Fu...., Are skills easier in this game? |
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 Apr 13 2006, 03:28 PM
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#51
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Shooting Target  Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773  |
Personally, I appreciate his use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Oh, and his easily-typed forum handle. That's about all I got for ya so far, Cain, sorry. :) |
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Apr 14 2006, 02:04 AM
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#52
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
1) You wouldn't need to. Once you've upped the TN, that's penalty enough. 2) The problem would come when characters with a low amount of dice to begin with. If they push the dice pool down to exactly zero, they're still at a base TN of 5. Once there, with or without a guaranteed die, they'll have a better chance with an exploding roll than they'd get with a normal one. So, we've mitigated the problem some, but not totally-- players will still be encouraged to push up the modifiers somewhat instead of going for the straight shots.
With a Body of 16, it'll get an average of 5 successes, true. However, since the heavy pistol will do a minimum of 6 boxes (5 base + 1 for making the shot) the Citymaster will take some damage. Load your gun with EX-EX, and we're looking at a Moderate wound. That could easlily make quite a bit of difference-- and that's not factoring in what would happen if you're using a more powerful weapon. For example, you'd do 7 boxes if you threw a fragmentation grenade. However, called shots on vehicles have other options, which include targeting passengers. (P 162.) Because a shot on a passenger leaves the vehicle unaffected, its Body doesn't help; the passenger instead gets the benefit of the vehicle's armor. So, let's redo this example, but this time we'll assume the APC is being rigged. With the Citymaster's armor plus Full-Body armor on the driver, we're looking at 32 points of armor. So, we take a -32 to the roll, plus additional cover penalties-- but with -32, we're not going to have any dice left anyway, so it really doesn't make a difference. Thresholds never apply to combat rolls, so we just need to score one success. Mr. Lucky pulls out his handy-dandy AVS, kicks it into burst-fire mode (an additional -2, which *still* doesn't matter), spends a point of Edge, and rolls 8 dice for his test; getting an average of 2.66 successes, rounded up to 3. The rigger is totally limp, being in full-VR mode, so he only gets to resist with base Body. Assuming a Body of 3, he'll score 1 success, versus a damage code of 13. He'll take a full 12 boxes of damage, taking him and his Citymaster out of the fight instantly. With the driver dead, we may even be looking at a crash test for the vehicle, which would be a test with Pilot of 3 vs a threshold of 3... and a -1 Handling modifier. Not going to happen. So, with one point of Edge, we've taken out a Citymaster with a flechette-only pistol. We may have even crashed it; and since crashing damage is the same as ramming damage, we've probably killed everone inside as well. (If the citymaster was going over 61 m/t, it'll deal 32 points of damage to itself and everyone inside. It might live, but the tactical squad inside is a smear.) Thanks to the longshot test abuseability, you killed an armored personel carrier, a rigger, an entire SWAT team, the opposition's mobile command post, and most of your GM's plotline in one shot. |
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Apr 14 2006, 02:13 AM
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#53
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
They'd be even better off not having so many modifiers, spending the edge, and getting exploding dice on a larger dice pool. Also, why is the rigger anywhere that you can see him? if he's driving via VR he doesn't have to be in the driver's seat. He doesn't even have to be in the vehicle at all. No book hndy either, but I'm not sure if you can bypass vehicle armor for people inside it with a called shot. I'm almost positive that it doesn't say specifically that you can, and that would definitely seem like a position where the GM would have to say "you're ignoring the giant metal box he's inside with a called shot? Nice try." If that sort of thing were allowed, you could ignore the barrier rating on walls as well. After all, there's no difference between a 3" sheet of steel on a truck than a 3" sheet of steel on a wall. But yes, by the base rules, it is possible to invent situations where tossing 500 penalty dice and then rolling edge is a good thing. Luckily I don't have to contend with players like that. ;) |
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Apr 14 2006, 02:15 AM
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#54
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
And of course, there's always "plotlines are made to be broken, so don't try to railroad people." If losing the city master ruins the entire run, the GM needs to either decide to up the security on the city master, or add 50 more of them. Relying on any one piece of a prepared adventure is just begging to have it destroyed, and you'll end up out there running on the fly again, wondering how it is those ingrates always manage to ruin your fun. ;) |
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Apr 14 2006, 02:36 AM
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#55
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
It'd depend on the situation. For example, if you only had 2 dice, you could go for a called shot for +2 damage. One exploding die with +2 damage is a lot better than two exploding dice at normal value.
According to the RAW on p 162, you *can* shoot at a passenger, even if you have to invoke the blind-fire penalty. If you do so, the vehicle armor is added to the personal armor value; the called shot rules just say you can bypass armor, it doesn't matter where that armor comes from. Other than that, page 162 also says that called shots against vehicles are treated exactly the same as personal shots, with an extra option or two. So, the rules definitely treat this situation just like a standard personal shot, with the standard rules in place.
According to the RAW, there is. Bypassing armor is not the same thing as penetrating a barrier rating. Called shots specifically allow you to bypass armor, not Barriers. And besides, the devs apparently thought that -6 would be enough of a penalty to dissuade anyone. Which is further proof that the Edge/Longshot loophole goes straight to the heart of the mechanic, and can't be fixed without changing some very fundamental things. |
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Apr 14 2006, 03:13 AM
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#56
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Unless you want to get more successes than the other guy. You could always called shot to bypass armor in every edition, and it's always had it's problems. Saying "the rules technically allow me to shoot someone in a tank while ignoring the tank, so GMs should ignore logic" is kinda silly. Makes me glad I neither play in your games, nor have you play in mine. :) |
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Apr 14 2006, 06:15 AM
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#57
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
Not really. With one die, you have a .33 chance of scoring a success; but if you hit, he'll need 2 extra successes to stage it down. With two, your odds of a success go up to .66, which still isn't very high-- you're still only looking at a probability of 1 success. However, the guy needs 6 less Body to have an average chance of staging it down.
In 3rd, it had problems, but you could technically only call shots to bypass armor on melee and chemical attacks. For some strange reason, you couldn't do that on normal shots. I don't have my 2nd ed book handy, but in 1st there were no called shots, let alone ones to bypass armor.
Silly is an understatement, but it's a flaw in the rules. GM preferences have nothing to do with the quality of a game system. The problem here isn't that it's even possible to take out an APC with a flechette round-- the problem is that it's *easy*. You cannot fix this problem without fixing the entire core mechanic of the game, as well as several major premises. |
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Apr 14 2006, 02:34 PM
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#58
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
He only needs one dodge success to ignore your shot entirely if yo only get one hit. Also, there's no staging anymore.
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Apr 14 2006, 02:45 PM
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#59
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
I've agreed that in certain gaming groups there could be a problem. I've yet to see how problems on the longshot test require opening exploding dice to every test. And applying a little logic to your games makes that even less necessary.
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Apr 15 2006, 08:04 AM
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#60
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
Then it doesn't matter if you're rolling one or two dice now, does it? You're still only likely to get one success. One exploding dice at +2 damage is better than two at normal damage, since you're likely to score the same number of successes, which means the other guy has about the same chance to dodge. And once again: if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. You can call it "reducing", "soaking", or "staging", it's still the same thing.
We'll have to agree on some premises first. If we go with my proposal-- guaranteed one die, extra penalties increase the TN-- then we require exploding dice in order to hit that increased TN. Otherwise, we've just made the task impossible, edge or no edge. The problem then becomes that if someone's at one die to begin with, he may as well toss on an additional -1 penalty-- he'll be at exactly zero, for no TN raises. He'll have the exact same number of dice as before, only now he gets an exploding die-- he'll get a *benefit* from tacking on additional penalties. Since the whole purpose of this is to reduce or eliminate the massive modifier trick, we've just defeated our own purpose. Not as badly as before, sure, but a good system should try and cover *all* exploits. A similar thing would happen if the person doesn't have much edge; and the math is pretty similar if he's at two or three dice. Now, you're going to say: "Apply logic!" First of all, someone who's using rules loopholes has already got you beat on that score. They've taken their logic further than you have, can back it up with page references, and will make it so that you're using GM fiat instead of logic to stop them. Second, with the first fix in play, the alterations for the smaller trick are going to be harder to catch or forbid. For example, someone with one die might fire in semi-auto, taking the recoil penalty (and getting an exploding die) for his second shot. You can't forbid someone to use semi-auto, so we need a rules-based defense to cover it. But if we fix this by allowing exploding dice on every roll, then there won't be any benefit to pulling that stunt. In fact, he'll be better off using Edge to gain extra dice. We'll have taken a step further in bulletproofing the rules, which always makes for a better game. The only major problem to fix these flaws is that it requires totally abandoning several major concepts of SR4-- like the entire core dice mechanic and its underlying assumptions. |
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Apr 15 2006, 03:23 PM
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#61
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 524 Joined: 12-April 06 Member No.: 8,455 |
Or by the GM saying "Right, stop that, that's silly!"
Rules are a simplification and extrapolation of reality designed to make things less tedious and more fun than real life. But in most RPGs, the point is still to have something of a basis in reality. Therefore, what is wrong with GM fiat when dealing with OTT rules lawyering? I want to fire a bullet into the air and have it fall down on Lofwyr and kill him instantly. Nevermind that he's in Europe. Now, if the armored van raised earlier has bulletproof glass that you can see through, then maybe edge will be enough to get a lucky shot through microfissures in the glass and handwave itself neatly into the target's body. But if the target is behind steel and has complete cover, well, I don't have any problem calling that an "impossible" shot. Get a fraggin' rocket, you newbie, or blow your edge shooting external cameras or skipping bullets off the pavement into the tires. That's what the GM is there for. To tell you what you can, and (only when patently absurd), what you can't do, and what the results of your actions are. |
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Apr 16 2006, 12:51 AM
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#62
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Cain, I must have misunderstood. Byu "always allow them at least one die" I thought you meant on longshot tests. If you want to always give them a single die even if the attempt is normally impossible because they're out of dice, I don't think it's necessary or even worthwhile.
Making dice penalties also subtract from edge and then ensuring they have at least one edge die left I could go with. Again, if I ever found myself needing a house rule to stop people from trying to abuse the RAW by performing impossible actions. And yes, someone can try and argue rules loophole logic all day long if they want. But I'll jut happily point them to where it says that the GM has to make judgement calls. If they still want to try and abuse loopholes by performing impossible acts, they're not the kind of player I want in my game anyway, so their loss won't really bother me all that much. |
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Apr 16 2006, 07:08 AM
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#63
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
Because then we get into the slippery-slope thing. You allow X because you like it, but don't allow Y becase you don't like it. Do enough of that, and you've still abandoned the system you were playing. If heavy amounts of GM fiat is required to fix a system, then that system has serious flaws that need to be looked at.
The example was a Citymaster; and IIRC the original pics of the -Master series had a window slot. I assume that the window glass was bulletproof, which only makes sense. |
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Apr 16 2006, 07:23 AM
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#64
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 515 Joined: 19-January 04 Member No.: 5,992 |
Call me crazy, but I can't help but think there's something that's being overlooked here, with the whole Snipe-A-Guy thing. There's got to be some kind of barrier or reduction thing going on, somewhere.
Going back to the Massive -32 Dice thing and being reduced to a longshot test... wouldn't it make more sense for the additional dice from the use of edge to be subtracted _from_ that massive chunk of penalty? Or is this more of a Devil's Advocate sort of situation? Edit: No, I just saw the rule. My, but that's silly. |
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Apr 16 2006, 08:20 AM
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#65
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Yes, it's an incredibly silly rule when looked at in that light, which is why there are times when a GM should have to step in and say , "nope, not possible." Longshot tests weren't (IMO) intended to allow people to do things that are impossible for anyone, but rather things that are impossible for them. If nobody can physically jump to the moon (or shoot through an armored car with a light pistol, or whatever), nobody should be able to do it via edge.
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Apr 16 2006, 10:59 AM
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#66
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Target Group: Members Posts: 4 Joined: 15-April 06 Member No.: 8,473 |
Couldn't you just add a number of thresholds to the final test for every -x modifiers beyond that which takes you to zero.
Than it would become really hard to shout a APC with you light-pistol, but it could happen (due to the exploding dice rule) Because taking out the freakish actions out of the game would eliminate the fun you can later have about them. We had a pasty looking rigger pull of a 42 initiative in SR2 (with the Adreneline Surge Edge). Trapped in a building, he shot his attacker twice, ran past him, had a controlled fall down the stairs, shot the guy in front of his car, slided over the hood, got in his car and fled the scene, before anybody knew what happened. |
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Apr 16 2006, 11:08 AM
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#67
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Which is why I seriously consider simply removing the longshot rule. If your dice pool drops to zero or below, you still can take Edge to get additional dice (which explode then)... but if there aren't enough Edge dice to get you above zero, you are out of luck. |
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Apr 16 2006, 11:13 AM
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#68
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 515 Joined: 19-January 04 Member No.: 5,992 |
How about making it so that if you spend a point of edge, you get to make a longshot test with only one die?
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Apr 16 2006, 11:16 AM
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#69
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
The core problem remains the same: At a certain point, it doesn't matter anymore how high modifiers pile up, so you can go for all those special options.
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Apr 16 2006, 11:20 AM
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#70
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 515 Joined: 19-January 04 Member No.: 5,992 |
Mn. Makes sense. Admittedly, my experience with SR4 is next to nil. My buddies still play 3 or other games, and I'm trying to convert them. Haven't had any takers yet. Still plan on buying the books. I've got a thing for Cyberpunk and 80s movies.
Seriously, TBS has me wanting to play in a Running Man campaign. |
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Apr 17 2006, 10:26 PM
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#71
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
And it's a very easy thing for a Gm to start saying: "You can't tie your shoes, because it's physically impossible for you with your Quickness of 1." Well, I know more than a few quadrapalegics who can tie their shoes, crochet and sew and knit, drive cars, and play the piano. "Impossible" is an objective term, not a subjective view. If something is just very, very unlikely, it's not impossible-- and Edge was meant to pull off the very, very unlikely. And if the action is going to add to the dramatic tension of a game? Why on earth should any GM forbid it? GMs cannot just step in and say: "Nope, not possible" every time a player comes up with a trick the GM thinks is unlikely; otherwise, what's the point of even rolling dice? "Nope, not possible for you, you only have one dice left" might become "Nope, not possible for you, you only have five dice left" to "Nope, not possible, even though you've got forty-two dice to roll and the RAW says it's a threshold of 3-- I think it's impossible, so you can't do it." :please:
In combat, you can't apply thresholds at all. And even then, you run the risk of the "impossible task" situation, where dramatic actions aren't possible due to a lack of dice. The only workable fix I've seen so far is to reinstate floating TN's; the default TN is still 5, but enough penalties drive it upward. |
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Apr 17 2006, 10:31 PM
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#72
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
So you've reached the "but if we try to use logic players won't be allowed to tie their shoes" part of the discussion? LOL
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Apr 17 2006, 11:37 PM
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#73
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
SR4 has, in a big way, decided to abandon trying to hard-code in anti-twink controls and simply trust GMs to tell their players when they're being smacktards. I'm coming to greatly prefer this, because honestly, it's nice to have a fairly smoothly flowing game system that doesn't have a ridiculous number of little bells and whistles stuck into it here and there meant to prevent dice-based stupidity from getting out of hand.
It's gaming with your safety off... you're going to hit what you're pointing at, because the system is no longer putting in more than a basic effort to prevent stupidity from ocurring. And for good reason... I've been gaming the better part of 2 decades now, and haven't *ever* seen a system that prevents players from finding massively skewed things they can do that the rules technically allow. Control and responsibility has been placed firmly in the lap of the GM. If your relationship with your group is such that you're going to have a bitch of a time getting people to not do dumb stuff like jump to the moon or one-shot APCs with holdouts because "the rules let them do it," you've got a problem on your hands. The rules never let people do anything... the rules and GM combined are how anything happens in a game. If I've got a player stacking penalties onto a test because he knows he's just going to be rolling Edge anyway, he's going to get told to knock it off and stop trying to break the game. If his character concept revolves around being able to do "impossible" things, well, the GM gets to clear characters to play in the game, right? |
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Apr 18 2006, 04:06 AM
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#74
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
There's a word for this: "House Rules". If you have to invoke a large number of house rules in order to make your game work, then the system is not very complete or well thought-out. I mean, once we've rewritten the core dice mechanics, the skill/attribute caps, the matrix loopholes.... at what point are you still playing the same game anymore?
Yeah, but I haven't often seen a system that didn't even bother to try. And while most of the abuseable holes in other systems involve finely-detailed obscure rules that can be bent together; I can't recall seeing a system with flaws this heavy baked right into the core dice mechanics. Some things are acceptable, and are just par for the course... but something this major?
Ahem. Casting fireballs is impossible. Being able to move in hyper-time is impossible. Wirelessly connecting your brain to the internet is impossible. I've yet to see a Shadowrun character that *wasn't* based on doing a few impossible things. If you want to ban a character that twists obscure rules in arcane ways to produce ridiculous results the system wasn't designed for, that's one thing. However, if someone creates a perfectly straightforward and legal character that follows the rules without bending or twisting their letter or intent, and happnes to have an extreme powerplay, that's a different matter entirely. |
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Apr 18 2006, 04:09 AM
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#75
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Obviously "impossible" was meant to be read as "impossible by SR 'physics'." Being intentionally obtuse only serves to defeat your purpose, not promote it.
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