Reforming the Rigger's Rolls, House rules for rigging and commanding Options

[Veggiesama]

I'm just going to throw all my rigger house-rules and house-clarifications on this post, so comment on anything you like/dislike. I'm open to suggestions and discussion.

Because I liked the "Logic + skill" rather than "Program + skill" tests for hackers, I adapted something similar for riggers. It's actually a compromise between attributes and hardware for direct rigging. It's a response to the FAQ's "Response + skill" roll, which is barely even really mentioned in the book directly. In the end, I want it to be simpler and more obvious when trying to figure out what you need to roll.

And yeah, I'm sure I've shamelessly borrowed or adapted some of these ideas from previous posts on the forum, so apologies in advance if they sound repetitious.

Veggie's Rigger Rules:

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New Autosofts:
- Evasion: The drone's substitute for Infiltration. Use Pilot + Evasion when the drone is trying to sneak around. Metahumans oppose it with Intuition + Perception, while other drones oppose it with Clearsight + Sensor.
- Electronic Operations: The drone's substitute for Electronic Warfare. No real changes, except it renames the Electronic Warfare autosoft to prevent confusion.

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Riggers & Edge?
- You may always use Edge to augment your drones' or vehicles' skill dice rolls, even if you are not jumped-in.

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Rigger Skill Test Guidelines
1. In a nutshell, every one of your Physical and Mental attributes is used in VR (except Body and Strength), but they are all capped by your commlink's Response rating. You might be the best shot on the block, but if your rig can't keep up with the FPS, you're limited.
2. Not-so-hot riggers always have the option of defaulting to internal programs and Pilot rating (free aimbots for everyone!). Never mix-and-match the Pilot rating with the rigger's skills, or the autosofts with the Rigger's attributes, or anything like that.
3. Sensor Tests (simple actions) are only used when trying to lock-on to a target. For regular Perception tests (with no single target in mind), do not include the Signature modifier.

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Riggers Skill Tests
Whenever your drone acts autonomously, use the rolls under "commanding." Whenever your drone is being rigged, you may use either "jumped-in" or "commanding," whichever is better for you.

When commanding, use the following rolls for your drone/vehicle's tests:
Non-Combat
- Infiltration: Evasion autosoft + Pilot
- Perception: Clearsight autosoft + Sensor
- Vehicle Test: Maneuver autosoft + Pilot
Combat
- Initiative: your Initiative Score, but your drone's Initiative Passes
- Attack: Targeting autosoft + Pilot
- Sensor-Guided Attack: As above, but if you succeed on a Sensor Test versus the target, you may add the drone's Sensor as bonus dice for the attack test. Ends when the target breaks sensor lock, usually through entering full-cover.
- Sensor Test: As Perception test, but include the Signature modifier.
- Defense: Pilot +/- Handling
- Full Defense: Defense autosoft + Pilot +/- Handling
- Damage Resistance: Body + Armor

When jumped-in, use the following rolls for your drone/vehicle's tests:
Non-Combat
- Infiltration: your Infiltration + your Agility (capped by commlink's Response)
- Perception: your Perception + your Intuition (capped by commlink's Response)
- Vehicle Test: your Vehicle skill + your Reaction (capped by commlink's Response)
Combat
- Initiative: your Matrix Initiative Score, but your drone's Initiative Passes
- Attack: your Gunnery + your Agility (capped by commlink's Response)
- Sensor-Guided Attack: As above, but if you succeed on a Sensor Test versus the target, you may add the drone's Sensor as bonus dice for the attack test. Ends when the target breaks sensor lock, usually through entering full-cover.
- Sensor Test: As Perception test, but include the Signature modifier.
- Defense: your Reaction (capped by commlink's Response) +/- drone's Handling
- Full Defense #1: your Dodge + your Reaction (capped by commlink's Response) +/- drone's Handling
- Full Defense #2: your Vehicle skill + your Reaction (capped by commlink's Response) +/- drone's Handling
- Damage Resistance: drone's Body + drone's Armor

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Weapon Systems
- REMEMBER: Whenever a drone or rigger fires a weapon system, it is always a Complex action: semi-auto, bursts, and full-auto alike.

Weapons are attached to the drone/vehicle's weapon mount by the weapon's under mount. No other weapon accessories can be attached to the weapon's under mount, but the barrel and top mounts are usually free for other uses.

A vehicle/drone's weapon system may be equipped with a smartlink or lasersight system, but the bonuses only apply when the rigger jumps-in the drone/vehicle.

A vehicle/drone with multiple weapon systems may fire two or more with the same Complex action. In this case, follow the rules for "Attacker Using a Second Firearm" on p141 (i.e., split the pool between the attacks). For each additional weapon, apply a -2 dice pool modifier to the attack before dividing the pool.

[Marwynn]

So under these rules you don't have to upgrade the individual drone's response rating as a device?

I really like these rules. Clear, intuitive, and clear!

[Veggiesama]

Just to comment on my own stuff; most of the strangeness I'd like to hear critiques about are:

1. Using an attribute in VR *AND* a Response rating. Think it's overkill or encouraging? Jives with regular interpretation of riggers, or is it a stretch?
2. Because the Sensor rating can never be changed, and because it's always between 1 and 3, I felt like it'd be better when used as potential bonus dice. Also the difference between Regular Gunnery/Passive Targeting/Active Targeting was a little strange, so having just Regular Gunnery with extra potential Sensor dice seemed more reasonable. Thoughts?
3. Vehicles/drones with Infiltration? Silly or reasonable? I guess I'm not a fan of the Infiltration skill with a specialization of Vehicles +2. That seems really odd.
4. Any widely-used rolls I forgot?
5. By forcing a drone/vehicle's weapon system to automatically "lose" the barrel mount, I've avoided a lot of the problems with equipping bipods/tripods/gyro-stabilizers (i.e., now you can't at all). Does this seem fair, given that vehicles already give their mounted weapons immunity from the -3 moving vehicle penalty?

Umm, okay, I'm getting bored of typing. Thanks for any comments in advance.

[Veggiesama]

[Aku]

i skimmed it but i dont think im entirely fond of drones taking up one of the weapons mounths. always imagined instead a drone having a "port", while securing the stock of the gun, w/o interfering with any of the mounts.