The hardest thing about SR4 is...., general gripe Options

[Donk]

unlearning SR3 and replacing with SR4 rules.

[Kyoto Kid]

...fixed vs. variable TN
...skill caps
...magic that has become even more powerful & easier to cast.
...spirits that can now sustain health spells
...Astral barriers useless against ritual magic
...magic working in space
...blurring of distinction between Hermetic and Shamanic traditions
...no more real Riggers
...no more "Jacking in" to the matrix
...anyone, even a Mage, can now hack the Matrix (& watch out for those Hacker Adepts)
...Technomancers being "magic" instead of tech oriented
...no more counter attacks in Melee combat.
...wireless everything.
...glitches (who in their right mind will ever take the Gremlins flaw again?)
...commlinks with associated IDs as a necessity just to get though the day (kind of took the "shadow" out of Shadowrun)
...the hacking rule mechanic according to RAW
...Logic being a relatively useless attribute (see above)
...knowledge skills nerfed in their usefulness
...Social Adepts who make Johnsons pee in their pants
...Adept improvement
...Edge Attribute
...Avoid Certain Death and Longshot rules (see above)
...lowered resources cap (by 75%)
...Cyberlimbs still sucking
...Bone lacing going from a (P - permit) to an (F - illegal) legality.
...Bioware still being prohibitively expensive even after 15 years of development
...Bioware now costing essence, even for cultured implants.
...Docwagon contracts still being expensive.
...BPs instead of :nuyen: for purchasing Contacts
...the fact though they tried their best, Min-Maxing is still alive and well
...all the cool toys we all came to know & love suddenly gone until whatever new supplements they will be in are released. Because of the mechanics change, previous sourcebooks were useless.
..."Freebie BP" negative qualities (like Incompetence, & Sensitive System for mages)
...Perception being a Physical Skill
...the whole Initiative mechanic. In the past someone with 1d6 of initiative still had a chance for 2 IPs.

...did I miss anything? :grinbig:

[Adarael]

*raises hand*
Mages used to be able to hack the matrix. I played one who did, anyway...

(Admittedly, they can generally do it a lot better for a lot cheaper, now.)

[Kyoto Kid]

...yeah, but they took a heavy hit to do it back then.

Dedicated Deckers were still the cowgirls and cowboys of the data stream & nobody else really could touch them.

[Fortune]

[Jaid]

[Kyoto Kid]

...I'm going to dispense with quoting the responses since I need to log off soon

...in SRIII you tried to cast magic in space & you usually went insane.

...it was a lot harder for mages to deal with the matrix since they had hefty negative modifiers and had to sacrifice 1 point of MA for the datajack.

...an Otaku's abilities were not affected by essence loss for implants. In fact they actually needed some cyber to even function in the matrix.

...I have not read all the way through Augmented yet but according to the core rules they were basically treated as fluff skills & could not be used to support related active skills.

...Kinesics only had three levels max and cost 1 PP per rating. Now it is limited only to the Adept's MA and costs .5 PP.

...you still have to buy up the attributes for cyberlimbs to match the character's attributes.

...SRIII had an Essence Index which was capped at 9. If bioware exceeded this, it was prone to overstress but didn't necessarily kill the character.

...I haven' had an awakened character in the games I ran who didn't take Sensitive system just for the 15 BPs even though it didn't necessarily fit in the character background.

[The Jopp]

[Kyleigh Wester]

[laughingowl]

To me the simple problem I have scalability...

1-7 is to small of range.

There needs to be more then even 3 dice (1 hit) to reflect a 'professional' and 'the best world renowed'.


If the system had been moved to a d10 system maybe... but even 11 ratings mean a fairly small difference between a nobody, a amature, a professional, and 'the best'


A 'new character' off the street should not be Fastjack's skill level. (sure Fastjack is going to be a lot more 'rounded' but he should still also be able to smack around any starting character...

The difference of pistol 4 and pistol 7. (a well trained professional and 'the best') is stastically a single hit....

[hobgoblin]

i think the problem is to look at them as a new kid of the street or school.

they most likely have a professional background of some kind or other.

how else did they scrounge up up to 250000 worth of gear?

if one wants to play fresh of the street people, limit the max skill to professional level, and cut back the overall BP.

oh, and a professional is level 3. level 4 is veteran...

[Draconis]

Actually with nano introduced sensitive system isn't a given anymore.
I took the magic hit and got nano, my teammate didn't. He pays for that almost every run.

[laughingowl]

Hobgolin..


I can make it 'street' level no problem by lessening build points...


My problem is

A USMC Marine Corp Sniper (Rifle 4 a veteran / seasoned professional) and Carlos Hathcock (perhaps the most famous US sniper). THe difference is 3 dice one statistical HIT?


7 levels (or 8 if you included incompetent) to me is to narrow especially with how little effect 'a die' has (I.E. each level) on overall effect.


1 net hit is s tiny gain for going from "average beat cop" to Carlos Hathcock...

[hobgoblin]

well the feat that hathcock pull most likely involved edge and a lot of exploding dice, and thats on top of something like cover modifiers, range modifiers and called shot for extra damage (or something similar).

as in, i would say that some of the stuff he did was just as much about luck of the moment as pure skill. thats not to say he was not skilled, but that myth has a habbit of making people larger then life.

but the really big thing is that in SR4 the attributes have much more to say.

a average person with pro skills are looking at 6 dice, while a top person with top skills would be throwing 12 dice or more.

so can we say that hathcock had above average stats?

thats the really big thing going from SR3 to SR4, in SR3 you would get some attibutes to get cheaper skills, maybe roll body when ever you got hurt, and have them count into the dice pools, but beyond that they just sat there doing close to nothing. in SR4 on the other hand, they are much more important.

[eidolon]

[toturi]

[Fortune]

[knasser]

[ludomastro]

[WearzManySkins]

I would say that Carlos Hathcock was combination of extremely high skill, extremely high agility attribute, and natural talent for the work he performed. He does not hold the record for most kills, but some of the more outstanding ones, one until recently was a record for the longest kill.

To me such an individual as Carlos Hathcock, trying to translate him into SR game terms is doomed to failure. The SR game system is not capable to doing it anywhere near his actual level of expertise.

WMS

[kzt]

Yeah, HERO would work a lot better for that. It's got other issues, but it does skill ranges a lot better.

[Cheops]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Kyleigh Wester]

I agree with KK in the matrix flaws. Yes, in SRIII a mage could use the matrix, but they'd never be able to master it like a decker could. A good decker is likely going to have a mil or more invested in decks and an ass load of headware to boot in SRIII, in SR4 hacking is a much easier task and can be more easily handled by mages or non-deckers. Not to mention the rigger class is gone.

One point the, KK, if I remember correctly in SRIII, using magic in the shadows, you could get a datajack and then take a single gause and be alright for the most part. Something simple like hand signs would probably work fine. I don't hate SR4, I just think it's broken in some aspect. I'd suggest anyone running SR4 invest in house rules. That's what i'm doing.

[Cthulhudreams]