Question on Alternate Combat Rules, Tweaking the Rules Options

[i101]

On Page 75, SR4A you can find following alternate combat rules:

Rather than handling all combat as an Opposed Test, you can handle ranged combat as a Success Test with a threshold based on range (1 Short, 2 Medium, 3 Long, 4 Extreme). Some situational modifiers will affect threshold rather than dice pool, such as blind fire, cover, etc.

My Question is now, what is ment with some situational modifiers will affect threshold? It says already blind fire and cover. Whats up with attacker running, and recoil, or visibility modifiers? Do all modifiers effect the treshold by increasing respectively decreasing them in case of a smartlinked weapon or laser sight? Or are there still modifiers that affect the dicepool?

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[Heath Robinson]

To accurately translate these things you'd need to make your own decisions on what you want to make more difficult. Frank's work on Warp Cult might be a good source for converting SR4 ranged weapons to a Threshold system.

As an example of the questions you need to ask yourself: Should having a magnifying scope allow you to ignore Thresholds from range categories with a Take Aim action? Or should it, instead, allow you to make a Take Aim action to reduce things by 1 or 2 Categories? Or should it allow you to make Take Aim actions beyond the Short range category?


As a general rule: Turn negative penalties for the attacker into Threshold modifiers (divide by 3, decide how you're going to round). Turn the positive modifiers for the defender into the same.

[i101]

Found Frank's work on Warp Cult, very nice. I think I am gonna houserule some of the combat modifiers. Franks a legend. Thanks mate.