4th Edition did hurt my soul..., rant, questions Options

[Apathy]

A twenty-meter diameter is much bigger than most Americans realize.

I agree with this statement, but would like to point out that it cuts both ways. We're talking about a 33 foot radius of death. I've been to many office buildings which have hallways between 8 and 15 feet wide with doorways on either side every 10 feet, and right-angle turns in the hallway every 40 feet or so. Stairwells are between 15 and 30 feet square. In that type of environment, it is very realistic that your enemy might pop out of a doorway or come around a blind turn closer than 33 feet away. Hitting that target with your manaball (or any of the other AOE spells) exposes you (and any of your teammates who are between you and the target) to the same damage from being in the area of effect. I'd say that it would be unusual to be in an office complex and be able to see a whole group of crouching opponents that are more than 33 feet away.

[edit]It's true that manaball/stunball can sometimes be an 'I win' button - but not all the time. If you have an unobstructed view of all the bad guys, and they're within the required radius (usually easy for high-force spells) and there's no background count or counterspelling, then you can wipe out all the opposition with minimal drain damage. With a high enough force you can usually overcome counterspelling and a modest BC and still wipe out the opposition, with higher but still survivable drain. However, if you can only see two or three of the ten guards at any one time because they're hiding behind partitions, that drain will start adding up. If you target guards that are closer to you than the radius of your spell, you're teammates will be pissed when they start taking damage from friendly fire. If the guards have any sense they're hiding behind that haven lilly pot, turning off the lights, popping thermal smoke and dropping nausea/nerostun grenades, all of which will make the mage's job harder. It's not railroading or nerfing for a GM to have the security guards be knowledgable of magical threats and to use intelligent tactics for the scenario they're facing.

[Cheops]

I agree with this statement, but would like to point out that it cuts both ways. We're talking about a 33 foot radius of death. I've been to many office buildings which have hallways between 8 and 15 feet wide with doorways on either side every 10 feet, and right-angle turns in the hallway every 40 feet or so. Stairwells are between 15 and 30 feet square. In that type of environment, it is very realistic that your enemy might pop out of a doorway or come around a blind turn closer than 33 feet away. Hitting that target with your manaball (or any of the other AOE spells) exposes you (and any of your teammates who are between you and the target) to the same damage from being in the area of effect. I'd say that it would be unusual to be in an office complex and be able to see a whole group of crouching opponents that are more than 33 feet away.

Except that you can withhold casting dice to reduce the radius.

[Fuchs]

A Spec Ops bodyguard without any magical backup? What's next? "The samurai can kill people who do not wear armor, stand in the open and don't have any enhancements, that's overpowered" ? I am not arguing that magic is very powerful, and may even be a bit too powerful, but the argumetns for that shouldn't be based upon a mage wasting stupid opponents. Also, ask yourself what would have happened if the Samurai had fired like two neurostun contact grenades at the targets once they had left their car. Or the rigger would have opened up with the LMG drone.

And not going into D&D 4E, its many faults have been amply demonstrated on other forums. Check The Gaming Den if you want to know more.

[Malachi]

Also, them staying out of line of sight destroys the Geek the Mage theory Malachi proposed since 1st group pops up and gets destroyed by Force 10-12 Manaball. They can't relay the position of the mage since dead people don't get to perceive or speak. Second group knows that there is a mage but not who it is since first dead group didn't get a chance to speak. I don't know how the sparkly light show that they decided to add in 4.5 interacts with technology but since Manaball is a mana spell I imagine that cameras probably DON'T see it.

It's not new to the Anniversary edition rulebook. The exact same text appears at the top right of page 168 in the first printing of the rulebook. To clarify, it's not the spell itself that is seen, but the Magician actually casting the spell. Cameras can most certainly see people. Remember, even if Magicians are not terribly common, any security professional knows the parameters and counters of magic. Your corp exec should be in a limo with one-way or tinted windows, and when the vehicle gets forced over the team should either stay put and call for reinforcements or use Smoke or some other vision inhibitor to cover their escape. High-ranking corp execs will also very likely have a Magician assigned to their security detail or at least one ready and on call that can come and Astrally scout the area, identify an Awakened attacker, notify him and his team of their location, then summon a Spirit to either attack the Awakened attacker or provide Counterspelling to cover the security team. Letting a Magician always Manaball everything is a GM Free Pass. The same argument(s) get made for the Control Thoughts/Actions spells and the counters are the same.

EDIT: Ok I got beaten to the punch, but Apathy and Fuchs are basically agreeing with me. It's not railroading to have opponents use intelligent tactics.

[Cain]

The relevance of the poll is only statisticly relevant given the pool that it is taken from, assuming that Dumpshock is representative of everyone who plays SR is dangerous.

Dumpshock is representative of the hard-core Shadowrun fan. At any event, there;s still an awful lot of threads on house rules. Compare that to the Pinnacle forums, which does not have anything of the sort.

Really? All that technology and their best tactic is to use their eyeballs?

Depends on the circumstances. AR glasses are easily fooled by Illusion spells. An easy way to render a tacnet useless.

And it takes less creativity to railroad than it does to set appropriate challenges.

As far as D&D4 goes, it's a game with a lot to recommend it. It certainly doesn't suffer from the "mages are overpowered" bit, although I haven't played it enough to determine if it has other serious problems. It's a valid comparison. Also, I'll point out that Cheops is also chiming in with the "Magic is oerpowered" complaint, proving that it's not just me.

[Cheops]

So let me get this straight? You guys are perfectly fine if mundane runners ambush people and blow their heads off. But them getting jumped by a mage and Manaballed to death they are stupid to not have anticipated and prepared for it to the max.

Yes, they could have just as easily blown up the entire car with a grenade. Forgive the team for wanting to actually be able to engage in a firefight with their kick-ass sammies they just made. But oh wait! Magic is so the broke that we don't actually get to do that!

I'll also point out that a starting mage will have about 10-14 dice to throw at Manaball compared to 11 dice to resist for Tir Ghosts (from the rulebook and definitely not starting characters) with full 6 counterspelling. Those are pretty good odds. Also note that Smoke does shit fuck all against Direct Combat spells unless you reduce the Mage to a Longshot test for Perception. Or do you force your PCs to make Perception tests all the time to see their opponents? Or do you selectively apply that to mages casting Direct Combat spells?

And yes the light show is new. In my hard copy of SR4 it has the exact same rules but doesn't mention the light show. It says you notice stuff like their intense concentration and body gestures or shamanic mask if they were dumb enough to pick that. Rules are 100% the same. Fluff text is now changed.

[Chibu]

Yes, they could have just as easily blown up the entire car with a grenade.

*adds fuel to the fire*

So... what you're saying is that manaball is not overpowered, just that the other players didn't want the mage to do that because they wanted to do it the hard way?

*stabs himself in the face for posting in this thread again*

P.S. Can I Dikote my manaball to give it +1DV?

*dies*

[Adarael]

Also note that Smoke does shit fuck all against Direct Combat spells unless you reduce the Mage to a Longshot test for Perception.

Untrue. In SR4, you apply any cover and visibility modifiers against direct damage combat spells. So if I'm behind decent cover (-2) and you're trying to thermally see though smoke (-2), you're down 4 dice on the attack roll. I don't know if that's changed for 4A, but that's definitely how it works in the regular 4th book.

[Mäx]

And yes the light show is new. In my hard copy of SR4 it has the exact same rules but doesn't mention the light show. It says you notice stuff like their intense concentration and body gestures or shamanic mask if they were dumb enough to pick that. Rules are 100% the same. Fluff text is now changed.

And thats a good think as now its actually explained why more powerful magic iseasier to spot, instead of that sentence just ending after saying that.

[Fuchs]

Yes, they could have just as easily blown up the entire car with a grenade. Forgive the team for wanting to actually be able to engage in a firefight with their kick-ass sammies they just made. But oh wait! Magic is so the broke that we don't actually get to do that!

So... if say the mage had wanted to have some kick-ass mage duel, using mana bolts, and the samurai got first and nuked all with a rocket launcher, you'd have been mad at SR4 for having overpowered mundanes? That's what it sounds to me, using your own "logic".

[Malachi]

So let me get this straight? You guys are perfectly fine if mundane runners ambush people and blow their heads off. But them getting jumped by a mage and Manaballed to death they are stupid to not have anticipated and prepared for it to the max.

If an important corp exec was not wearing armor, had no bodyguards, and was riding in a convertible with the top down: that's a GM free ride. If the corp exec is in an armored limo with cybered up bodyguards, then he's clearly expecting an attack and has the physical angle covered. Important people in the SR world know about magic and know how dangerous it is. If they spent the resources to protect themselves from physical attacks, then they should spend the resources to protect against Magical attacks as well. Shadowrun has always had three worlds: mundane, magical, matrix. Important people know an attack can come from any angle and will prepare themselves appropriately.

Magic is powerful, yes, but it has counters as Larme talks about. The GM should know the counters because in a realistic world the people that are the target of potential magical attacks would know them as well.

[Cain]

Magic is powerful, yes, but it has counters as Larme talks about.

Except those counters are inadequate. Mages will be throwing more dice in sorcery than the opposition will have in defense, counterspelling or no counterspelling. Besides which, the only answer to magic is more magic. The physical can be deatl with via the matrix or by magic, the matrix can be dealt with physically or through social engineering (where a Control Thoughts spell comes in handy). Only magic has to be countered by magic.

[Larme]

Dumpshock is representative of the hard-core Shadowrun fan. At any event, there;s still an awful lot of threads on house rules. Compare that to the Pinnacle forums, which does not have anything of the sort.


Depends on the circumstances. AR glasses are easily fooled by Illusion spells. An easy way to render a tacnet useless.

And it takes less creativity to railroad than it does to set appropriate challenges.

As far as D&D4 goes, it's a game with a lot to recommend it. It certainly doesn't suffer from the "mages are overpowered" bit, although I haven't played it enough to determine if it has other serious problems. It's a valid comparison. Also, I'll point out that Cheops is also chiming in with the "Magic is oerpowered" complaint, proving that it's not just me.

Once again, you're pointing to others' opinions to prove that your opinion is the only right one. That's logically invalid. All you're proving is that your opinion is shared by others, not that the dissenting opinions are false.

And yeah, I get it. All solutions that aren't a house rule are arbitrarily labeled as railroading and thus removed from consideration. I guess you're out of real arguments. I'll check back in if you come up with something to say that isn't devoid of intellectual rigor. Peace out.

[Malachi]

Except those counters are inadequate. Mages will be throwing more dice in sorcery than the opposition will have in defense, counterspelling or no counterspelling. Besides which, the only answer to magic is more magic. The physical can be deatl with via the matrix or by magic, the matrix can be dealt with physically or through social engineering (where a Control Thoughts spell comes in handy). Only magic has to be countered by magic.

Shadowrun is tipped in the balance of the attacker for everything except Melee Combat. Visibility impairment, cover, and some of the manatech stuff introduced in Arsenal can all be used by mundanes. However, I do agree that the best counter for Magic is Magic. This is a design decision/concept that has been in place since the beginning of Shadowrun (or at least since I have been playing), with 4th edition actually tipping things more in favor of the defender (counterspelling is now more easily and effectively applied).

[Cain]

Once again, you're pointing to others' opinions to prove that your opinion is the only right one. That's logically invalid. All you're proving is that your opinion is shared by others, not that the dissenting opinions are false.

An opinion is difficult to prove false. However, vast numbers of opinions can show degrees of validity of opinion. Basically, you're saying that I'm wrong, and anyone who agrees with me is an "uncreative GM". I can disprove that easily enough. I have shown, repeatedly, that lots of people have issues with instant-win tactics in SR4. (Note: This isn't to say they didn't exist in SR3!) Trying to blow it all off as opinion is a logical fsllacy.

Shadowrun is tipped in the balance of the attacker for everything except Melee Combat. Visibility impairment, cover, and some of the manatech stuff introduced in Arsenal can all be used by mundanes. However, I do agree that the best counter for Magic is Magic. This is a design decision/concept that has been in place since the beginning of Shadowrun (or at least since I have been playing), with 4th edition actually tipping things more in favor of the defender (counterspelling is now more easily and effectively applied).

True, and that's why magic is considered to be an "I Win" button. It's not the only one, though. Magic is still very potent, even with easier counterspelling. The problem is that counterspelling isn't effective against high-force spells. The max you can have is 6 dice in counterspelling. The average starting runner will have at most a softmaxed stat of 5,but more likely a 3, giving him 9 dice. I've seen starting mages throwing 14 dice, before you add in foci and the like. The caster wins. And that's assuming a maxed-out Counterspelling skill; in all likelihood, it'll be much lower, probably a 3 or 4. So, we have 6 dice vs 14.

[Apathy]

Thing is, killing the first batch of guards, or even the second or third, doesn't necessarily end the run. If they're on a difficult run against a high security opponent, the initial guards are just there to act as canaries in the coal mine. Their DocWagon bracelets all go off, and the security rigger in the building immediately locks all the doors in the area, cuts off the lights, releases the neurostun, and notifies the FRT. When they get there, they'll be charging in behind thermal smoke, hiding behind riot sheilds (or tower sheilds if necessary) for cover modifiers, supported by spell defense and by drones. They'll pop in from multiple directions at once so you can't target them all at the same time, and catch you at chokepoints so you can't use area effect spells without also hitting your own people. Your 14 dice for casting loses several to reduce AOE, a couple for smoke, a couple for partial cover, a couple for spell defense, one or two for distractions, and pretty soon it's an even playing field. You'll be able to reduce the area of effect, but you that costs you dice. Once that hits the fan, the hacker and the street sam will have a chance to shine and you'll be struggling to keep up.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

Well, Bob, I think that the OP (being a newly registered, new to SR4 poster) simply wanted to rant about the changes between 3 and 4 that he doesn't not like. The reason this thread came up on a forum like this is because the OP was upset about the changes from previos editions, which are, in his opinion, bad chang3es changing the feel and style of the game. In short, I agree with him on almost (i only re-skimmed the post just now, so i don't want to say all, just in case) all points. It's entirely possible that, being new to Dumpshock, he did not quite understand the inevitable shit storm that would follow. Plenty of other people have (myself included I believe...) posted similar rants, back when 4th edition was coming out.

As for the rest of us (yes I'm including myself here)? Well, we're all (ok, not all, but the loudest of us anyway) argumentative bastards, who (nearly) always refuse to concede a point, no matter how sound, logical, or correct.

I'm pretty sure no one really thinks any of this will change anything official. It started as one person's rant, and grew into... people repeating the same things over and over again two hundred times. But well, this was basically expected by everyone after reading the OP, wasn't it?

I have tried to stay middle of the road and not be nay-sayer but there are outside events that are still coloring my perception of the game, things that I should disassociate from the game. Anyway, the discussion at least seems to be more civil now and that is a good thing.

Dumpshock is representative of the hard-core Shadowrun fan. At any event, there;s still an awful lot of threads on house rules. Compare that to the Pinnacle forums, which does not have anything of the sort.

Saying it doesn't make it so...of course...me denying it...well you get my point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

If you look at 100,000 consumers of SR 4th and then think about 500 dissenters/rebels/etc., that is not a statistically significant number. If anything...I would say that I would have to doff my hat to Rob for a successful transition.

[Octopiii]

True, and that's why magic is considered to be an "I Win" button. It's not the only one, though. Magic is still very potent, even with easier counterspelling. The problem is that counterspelling isn't effective against high-force spells. The max you can have is 6 dice in counterspelling. The average starting runner will have at most a softmaxed stat of 5,but more likely a 3, giving him 9 dice. I've seen starting mages throwing 14 dice, before you add in foci and the like. The caster wins. And that's assuming a maxed-out Counterspelling skill; in all likelihood, it'll be much lower, probably a 3 or 4. So, we have 6 dice vs 14.

Actually, the maxed out counterspelling can be quite higher: 6 skill, 2 for specializing in combat spells, then add in initiation for the Shielding metamagic. So we're at 9 dice for a first level initiate, to increase to up to 14 when/if they hit initiate level 6.

Oh, and drones are a great way to neutralize a mage. Every facility is likely going to have at least turrets; many are going to have a somewhat competant spider, and the armored limousine is likely to have a turret as well. OR 5 is a beast to meet.

[Cochise]

Actually, the maxed out counterspelling can be quite higher: 6 skill, 2 for specializing in combat spells, then add in initiation for the Shielding metamagic. So we're at 9 dice for a first level initiate, to increase to up to 14 when/if they hit initiate level 6.

~erm~ you cannot start to add things on the one side without doing the same on the other side. If you start to "max out" counterspelling beyond the initial possibilities of character generation you have to do the same on the opposite side. Otehrwise your argument isn't worth anything.

Start to specialized on combat spells on the attacker's side as well. Max out his skill as well and make use of foci as Cain said ... the and only then the comparison will work out correctly

[Larme]

Thing is, killing the first batch of guards, or even the second or third, doesn't necessarily end the run. If they're on a difficult run against a high security opponent, the initial guards are just there to act as canaries in the coal mine. Their DocWagon bracelets all go off, and the security rigger in the building immediately locks all the doors in the area, cuts off the lights, releases the neurostun, and notifies the FRT. When they get there, they'll be charging in behind thermal smoke, hiding behind riot sheilds (or tower sheilds if necessary) for cover modifiers, supported by spell defense and by drones. They'll pop in from multiple directions at once so you can't target them all at the same time, and catch you at chokepoints so you can't use area effect spells without also hitting your own people. Your 14 dice for casting loses several to reduce AOE, a couple for smoke, a couple for partial cover, a couple for spell defense, one or two for distractions, and pretty soon it's an even playing field. You'll be able to reduce the area of effect, but you that costs you dice. Once that hits the fan, the hacker and the street sam will have a chance to shine and you'll be struggling to keep up.

No no, you forget. That's railroading, because any time the NPCs play to win it's railroading. The only thing that isn't railroading is when they stand in a big scrum and all die at the same time.

[Cain]

Thing is, killing the first batch of guards, or even the second or third, doesn't necessarily end the run. If they're on a difficult run against a high security opponent, the initial guards are just there to act as canaries in the coal mine. Their DocWagon bracelets all go off, and the security rigger in the building immediately locks all the doors in the area, cuts off the lights, releases the neurostun, and notifies the FRT. When they get there, they'll be charging in behind thermal smoke, hiding behind riot sheilds (or tower sheilds if necessary) for cover modifiers, supported by spell defense and by drones. They'll pop in from multiple directions at once so you can't target them all at the same time, and catch you at chokepoints so you can't use area effect spells without also hitting your own people. Your 14 dice for casting loses several to reduce AOE, a couple for smoke, a couple for partial cover, a couple for spell defense, one or two for distractions, and pretty soon it's an even playing field. You'll be able to reduce the area of effect, but you that costs you dice. Once that hits the fan, the hacker and the street sam will have a chance to shine and you'll be struggling to keep up.

And one high-force Concealment service negates all that. All you know is the guards went down, you don't know how or why, unless you Longshot a perception test. You need more and more magic to counter more magic; there's no mundane solution. And with magic supposedly being rare, it seems very contrived for everyone and their brother to have magical security.

Larme, do you intend to debate seriously or not? Railroading is when everybody has 14 dice of counterspelling, which is what you need to have an even chance and therefore what you recommended.

[Matsci]

And one high-force Concealment service negates all that. All you know is the guards went down, you don't know how or why, unless you Longshot a perception test. You need more and more magic to counter more magic; there's no mundane solution. And with magic supposedly being rare, it seems very contrived for everyone and their brother to have magical security.

Larme, do you intend to debate seriously or not? Railroading is when everybody has 14 dice of counterspelling, which is what you need to have an even chance and therefore what you recommended.

That has less to do with Manaball being broken and the Concealment power being the most broken thing in existence.

[Da9iel]

If a player spends edge, he or she may take all penalties and add them as bonus dice to the opponents roll. For unopposed rolls the GM rolls the penalty dice and adds the hits to the threshold.

Problem here is that Thresholds don't apply to Opposed Tests. Change that, and you start mucking with some fundamental assumptions about the whole combat system.

Cain,

Thank you for briefly looking at my suggestion. I feel, however, that you may have glanced too quickly. Nowhere did I suggest adding Thresholds to the Opposed Test mechanic. The Opposed Test remains and Opposed Test with dice added to the second side instead of taken away from the first.

You may have been talking about the second sentence in which the GM rolls dice and adds the hits to the Threshold (one option for Edged rolls against a Threshold). I don't feel this mucks with fundamental assumptions about the whole combat system, but if you do that's fine. For your convenience I added a mechanic introduced in SR4A (SR4.5, SR4:20, whatever). I believe the system they introduced specifically mentions Counterspelling dice being divided by 3 (round up) and added to the Object Resistance Threshold. This would be the second option for Edged rolls against a Threshold. You seem to have inadvertently missed this sentence in your quote. No biggie.

I am still interested in your opinion of my house rule, but I wanted to be certain you were discounting it accurately. If you don't like it you don't need a reason. If you have a reason, feel free to share it. I was trying to arrive at a simple mechanic that makes things unlikely but possible in high difficulty situations. I think that's what a Long-shot should be.

PS SR4:20 is my favorite humorously insulting abbreviation. It's both less and more of an in-joke than WWLOMPCAT. (Did I get that right?)

[Shinobi Killfist]

No. With AR, biomonitors and tacnets there is no need to bunch up. And guards who do not take cover are not really worth much to oppose either. Again - if the guards are that easy to manaball then the objective they guard is likely not worth the cost of hiring a team with a mage to steal it.

I expect them to take cover, but to stop the manaball they would need full cover, and no I do not expect that. They should be shooting back at some point and then they break cover, they can return to full cover but I do not think in the same pass. So yeah a manaball should clear most the targets if they decide to well shoot at the runners at some point. Look out though the mage will be at -4 dice(+4 dice to defender in 4a) While I doubt it, that + counterspelling may be enough.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

That has less to do with Manaball being broken and the Concealment power being the most broken thing in existence.

You know, If a starting PC can get a perception roll in the high teens, concealment is really not that much of an obstacle...
Oh, wait... that is probably railroading though... never mind...


I mean really, this argument is getting pretty stale...