Shadowrun Tactics, Fast combat resolution rules (house rules gone wild) Options

[Commiekeebler]

Hey folks,

I've been a GM for Shadowrun for over 10 years (that was a lot of college) and I've been missing the hobby a lot, so one day I started typing and now I am pretty close to having a finished document.

What is it? It started like a bunch of house rules. And then was re-written at least three times. I'm half-way done with fourth.

It is loosely based on Shadowrun 4th edition, and requires 4th edition core book to play (skill lists, gear lists, spell lists, etc). And it still uses d6's.

I ended up replacing the core mechanic of the game, to give birth to this bastard version that is supposed to resolve combat on larger scale (i.e. gang wars, larger swat teams), almost as quickly as it's done in various Warhammer products. But it isn't derivative of them in any way. I just used the KISS principle in broad strokes.

I just wanted the combat to be done faster so my friends and I could spend more time on the stories and character development and all that crazy planning they like to do.

When this document is done I'll probably just hang it in the internet somewhere with the nice disclaimer I borrowed from WizKids site (i.e. don't sue me I'm poor and I'm not affiliated with anyone important in any way).

I'm looking for testers.

Is anybody here interested?

Because the core mechanics are simpler than most rules we've played with over the years, I'm concerned with survivability and abusability. And nothing can find problems like that like a pair of someone else's eyes.

Thanks.

Updated: link to latest version (1.6)
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5OVd1pEnu...0NjYy&hl=en

[Commiekeebler]

Hmm, would anybody be interested if I posted a link to what I have now?

[xsansara]

That would definitely help.

[Commiekeebler]

Ok, I think I'll come back later when I have it all figured out. I'm still not happy with it. Move along folks, nothing to see here yet.

[Axl]

Stop teasing us and post it already! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Commiekeebler]

Well, here you all are.

The zip archive contains 5 plain text files with game rules (use word wrap when viewing them), two .ods files for PC character sheets and NPC sheets (can be read with Open Office or Excel, contain no macros), and two .pdf files of the same if you just want to print those out without installing a spreadsheet app on your machine. The character sheets are nothing fancy and are meant to be printed out and penciled in.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5OVd1pEnu...0NjYy&hl=en

Looking for feedback, thanks.

Important considerations: broken builds, fatality level (too harsh? too soft?), broken gear, rule clarifications, confusing wordings, incompatible gear... the list goes on.

Most importantly, is it fun? And is it fast?

I didn't go over more advanced rules (metamagic, advanced matrix stuff), but if the rules from 4th edition don't translate well, and if there's enough interest, I will. I figured most of it would just convert directly and/or relatively easily.

[xsansara]

Wow, you changed... everything.

The most confusing for me is the new dice system. Have you made a statistic analysis how this affects probability of success? Probably less spread than the old system, also more IP become less useful.

It also seems to entail some math. For an attack you have to add at least 3 numbers and then subtract another 2 numbers to get damage. Not exactly calculus, but it might be too much for some players. Also, with the dice lying open, you can calculate the best tactic, but it is rather complicated. To me it seems like almost a mini-game, which it should not. Also I think that it favours mages, because they get more dice.

I don't see what problem(s) you are trying to fix. If you are concerned with too many dice rolls, you might want to consider simply to beef up the damage. That not only minimizes the fighting, it also shortens the fights. A less deadly method is to increase the negative modifier for wounds to -1 per wound. That also shortens fights considerably, without killing too many characters.

If you are worried about the success counting. That is surprisingly fast. Most people can count 7 dice faster and more reliably than they can add 3 and 4.

You can hardly argue that it is less complicated than the original system, as it contains almost as much rule text as that. And you are skipping a lot of options, hand-waving them to the core book. Any fast-to-learn system should fit on a page (no cheating with font size (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ).

However, I like the shortening of the Matrix rules, that is really all you need (+ cybercombat, of you want to spice it up for the hacker), and the beginner equipment packages. Those are really useful, I hope you don't mind, if I steal them.

For the Rigger, Magic and Chargen rules, again, I don't get the difference to the core rules. Except that you slightly adjusted them to fit your new dice system.

My 2 cent.

[Commiekeebler]

It doesn't use IP any more, so you can unload your actions (attacks) all at once; but if you decided to "go first" then you won't have as many (or as good) dice to defend yourself with later.

The problem I'm trying to solve with this is to make combat resolution go faster.

In D&D, I know, what a bad word to use around here, when you roll an attack you compare one die roll + one number against a static number on a character sheet; then you add damage (another die roll + number) towards their hitpoints tally to see if the guy is dead yet. The two dice rolls can be combined.

In Shadowrun, there are a lot more dice rolls involved in doing this, and the defender gets to roll too. And then re-roll. Which is one of the reasons combat takes so long to resolve. And that's what I'm trying to fix for my group.

The rest of it the rules just kind of came out following the fundamental change to the dice system. I didn't try to make my language as concise as possible, maybe I'm over-explaining a few things here and there. But I agree, the rule change is a bit too verbose.

Another time-saving feature here is that during combat you're not writing anything down. Each of your NPCs has a number of dice on their sheet. As they take wounds, you just move the dice around. There's no paperwork involved.

[Commiekeebler]

Surprisingly enough, the spread of the dice rolls is now wider. Because you don't reroll sixes, you can stack them a mile high, so having a large Attention pool is the thing to do if you want to build a glass-jaw/big hammer character. Out of combat people can get pretty amazing rolls but when the lead starts flying they become shy of using all those sixes for something awesome and save them for defense. It gives a lot more control to the player, and you're right it does become a mini-game, kind of like Combat Pool was in 2nd and 3rd edition.

[Commiekeebler]

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5OVd1pEnu...zYWZi&hl=en

Changes in 1.41 (only SRT-Combat.txt is affected)

* Clarified 'Dead Man's Switch' - called shots to discard dice no longer available, instant death is Body*2 in wounds.
* Added a section called 'Multiple Actions and Autofire' that explains what happens when a character does multiple attacks in the same turn.
* Added 'Recoil Compensation' and 'Quickdraw' rules.

[xsansara]

Hmmm, but if you kill everyone fast, you don't need your dice for defense (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The dominant strategy, methinks, is to use focus fire to quickly take out as many opponents as possible.

I discussed the dice system with my husband, because I felt it was truely unique. I am not aware of a system similar to that. Theoretically, calculating the optimal course of action is a very complex problem in the order of n!m! with n and m being the Attention pools of two opponents, for more opponents, this becomes even more complex. (That is unless we overlooked a shortcut, but I think the problem can be reduced to the knapsack problem, so its NP). Of course, I am assuming that all dice rolls are open and all stats are known, otherwise things become even more complicated.

You would have to see how effective heuristics are. The above-mentioned focus-fire strategy is probably quiet effective. Trolls might have other strategies at their disposal, when they can make sure they can't be hit. Still, the system is very attack-biased, e.g. I can't see how armor factors in.

As for speed, if you would play with me and my husband, we probably couldn't resist doing a thorough game theoretical analysis on interesting situations, which could take some time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That aside, a point for balance, the advantage of a large Attention pool seems to me rather overwhelming, as it very directly determines your survivalbility in combat (out of dice = out of defense) and general ability in all things. So I think it should be a fixed value or maybe derived from Karma, like Karma pool or maybe IP-enhencing equipment giving bonus like to Reaction. That would have the double advantage that you can easily throw in new goons with a limited dice pool and that new players would have less options making it less complicated to play for them.

Concerning the D&D comparison:
A bullet in Shadowrun is much more relevant than a strike of the sword in D&D. Usually, a non-Troll character can take about two hits before dying, something that doesn't change in higher gameplay. In D&D virtually no one over Level 3 can be killed with two strokes. So preventing that one bullet, or making it hit can be resolved much slower, because it is not to be expected that there are many of them (unless you play a dodging adept...). In my experience, Shadowrun fights are rarely longer than two or three turns. In fact, I vividly remember that the first three combats I meant to show off my shiny new fourth IP, the fight was over before that.

However, I agree, that mass fights can be painfully slow to resolve, with often unexpected results for both players and GM.
We usually handle this by using descriptives, after we all became aware of the deadliness of mass fights for the players, our characters now try to avoid them (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I don't really see, how that has changed with your system. If you have more opponents aiming at you than you have Attention, you are automatically dead, even if those are let's say rats.

Again, my advise for fast combat resolution is to tweak the system to make fights more deadly, eg. increase wound penalties, playing out all actions at once and rolling dodge and soaking at the same time is probably a good idea as well.
As you have noticed, combat stats and the dice system are pretty integral to many SR things, especially the gear listing and unless you want to mess with that, you are pretty much stuck.

SR fights that are the longest are those that involve a lot of Edge and those in which difficult decisions have to be made (or easy decision have to be made by undecisive players), so restricting Edge might be another option and enforcing a three second decision rule. The combat system is not broken per se and can be easily tweaked to fit more special needs. In one of my groups, we have restricted IPs to 1 and the system still works without a problem. I have also seen groups that don't use modifiers in fights, because it takes too long to look them up. Still works. Don't like grenades? Ban them. Magic too powerful? Restrict to one spell per turn or raise Drain to Rating instead of half Rating. Too many dead players? Raise overflow boxes to Stamine *2 or simply decide that nobody is dead until a doc said so. Confused by simple and complex actions and automatic fire? Just make a Firearms roll for shooting. The system still works reasonably well.

EDIT: ups, didn't read your new stuff, but its late anyway, maybe more tomorrow.

EDIT2: found the stuff for armor, but it is still heavily biased towards attackers

[Commiekeebler]

Sounds like defenders should have better chances of survival overall. Have you considered that cover (+4 to Evasion) factors into a lot of fights? Or do you think that's not enough, statistically speaking?

I suppose I could increase Evasion to 1d6+Body+Quickness to make the combat more tactical.

The basic idea of the system is that if you decide to spend the dice to go first, you'll miss those dice later when your big early nuke didn't kill everyone.

In other words, the first big nuke (and I do make the point of telling the players how much Incoming Damage they're about to take) gets bounced off the best defense a guy can put up, and it may not always be the best idea to go first if that leaves you without solid defenses.

Also, a single defense die lasts you for the entire Action Phase (so it can be used to bounce multiple attacks, from multiple people even, if they all go at once).

The other thing I could do is make the defense die last you the whole Turn but that takes away some from the Attention management.

As to increased reflexes, they all give you Attention Dice and extra Standard Actions (Wired Reflexes 2: +2 Actions, +2 Attention). So yeah, they're really useful: even though the extra Actions are not as useful as they are in SR1-2, the extra Attention is worth it in terms of survivability and extra damage output.

[Commiekeebler]

One other idea:

Have defense die last the whole Combat Turn, but each time it's used, its value decreases by 1. When it gets low enough, the defender may choose another die to replace it. Or, each time defender gets hit, the defense die gets decreased by wounds taken.

Both of these are pretty easy to track (you just turn the die around to show the new value).

[xsansara]

That would definitely make a big difference and would also simplify the whole thing. When you feel, you are number one target, you can allocate all your dice there. I will see, if I can arrange a test fight in my group tomorrow.

[Commiekeebler]

Awesome - let me know how it goes. My own group will be testing those on Wednesday.

No amount of theory crafting will come close to sitting around the table and rolling the actual dice.

[Commiekeebler]

Tested yesterday, system proved too deadly.

The good news: running a fight with 15 ganger npcs worked great. They got killed in two combat turns from the same medium machine gun fire...

Going to rework damage resolution, one more time. Stand by for version 1.5

[xsansara]

Session got canceled, so I didn't get around to playtest. Maybe next week.

[Commiekeebler]

Working on version 1.6

Goals: make damage less deadly and more balanced between high-bod and low-bod characters.

Hoping to get an update up Sunday night.

[Commiekeebler]

New version is up! Woohoo! Get it here:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5OVd1pEnu...jZTMw&hl=en


CHANGES

1.5
* Basic roll mechanic slightly altered: you add attribute and skill to the roll as modifiers
- exceptions:
a) damage dealing: add weapon damage instead of attribute
b) magic: add force instead of attribute
c) matrix: add device rating instead of attribute
* Changed damage dealing/taking mechanics (magic and matrix as well)
- defense die lasts the whole Turn, but is degraded by 1 every time it is beaten through
- against physical attacks: add Body and Quickness to the Evasion roll
- against elemental effect spells: same as physical attacks
- against direct combat and mental manipulation spells: add Body and Willpower
- against Matrix attacks and illusion spells: add Perception and Willpower
- against spell drain: Magic and Willpower
- against spirit drain: Magic and Charisma OR Magic and Perception (tradition-based)
- against fading: Resonance and Perception
- condition monitor now has 10 + Body boxes instead of Body * 2 boxes
- damage is now taken in wound levels (None, Light, Moderate, Serious, Deadly, Overkill)
- default damage is None (0 boxes)
- apply +1 wound level per 3 points of difference between Attack and Evasion
- armor works differently: it reduces wound levels by its value, -1 wound level per 3 points
- if armor reduces wound levels to down to Light, take it as Stun (no penetration)
- drain modifier now adds or subtracts wound levels instead of changing the Force of drain
- instant death occurs at Body + 10 boxes of damage (lose all actions)
- deadly bleeding occurs at 10 boxes of Physical damage (Stun boxes don't count)
- unconsciousness occurs at losing all your dice to wounds (lose all actions)
- added an example of damage overflow
- altered rules of knockdown and knockback slightly
- riposte now requires an action to be spent
* Updated character sheets
* Updated TN difficulty chart
* Certain Matrix actions (Wireless Frequency Scan, Brute Force Exploit) became Extended Tasks with interval of 1 Standard Action
* Die roll format had been elaborated to include type of action used for the dice.
* Surprise rules simplified
* Added rules for running in Action and Movement Resolution
* Introduced system 'Attention' dice pool, equal to Device + Security Tally vs. hacker

[Marston]

Any chance you could provide a sample build with RP breakdown?
I am having some difficulty converting Skill Rating 2 to RPs.

[Commiekeebler]

Thanks for the feedback!

I thought the rules were pretty clear, it costs 1 RP per 1 point of skill, and 2.5 RP per 1 point skill group.

Here's a table.

Infiltration 1 = 1 RP
Infiltration 2 = 2 RP
Infiltration 3 = 3 RP
Infiltration 4 = 4 RP

Stealth Group 1 = 2.5 RP
Stealth Group 2 = 5 RP
Stealth Group 3 = 7.5 RP
Stealth Group 4 = 10 RP

Does that help?

I plan on making some sample characters and NPCs tonight, actually.

[Marston]

Alot! I wasn't sure if it was to be linearly interpolated or not.

[Commiekeebler]

Minor update is up!

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5OVd1pEnu...4N2U4&hl=en


CHANGES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1.51
* No rule changes
* Made a sample character (a Dwarf Street Doc)
* Corrected typos, clarified rules
* Created a worksheet for character sheets in Open Office (see character sheet blank), can also be opened in Excel.

[Commiekeebler]

Initial feedback shows that everything that gives extra dice (wired reflexes, combat sense, quickness/perception/willpower boosts) is extremely useful, and its usefulness multiplies as you stack those abilities together.

At 5 dice or lower you definitely feel the burn of 'too few dice'. At 9 dice or more you're consistently rocking high results.

One solution would be to make reflex boosters give bonuses to Quickness instead of Attention directly (effectively halving the bonus dice), and do the same for Combat Sense and Perception.

I'm leery of it because it may mean extra book-keeping (skill check bonuses, attribute tests) because the numbers vary depending on whether your reflexes are on or off. Not a strong argument but trying to stay true to KISS.

Being wounded and dealing with reduced number of dice also 'hurts' with this game mechanic, but that effect is completely intentional.

Another solution to the problem (disparity of starting characters can be as much as 5 dice difference!) is to use a different formula for Attention calculation.

Something like Attention = (9 + Quickness + Perception + Willpower) / 3 instead of (Quickness + Perception + Willpower) / 2

More playtesting to be done tomorrow.

Side effect of Attention is that it makes it harder for you to get knocked out (lose all your Attention dice). I like that, because it means that it scales with character progression, but at the same time it's infringing on what the Body attribute is supposed to be good for. Body is still awesome and useful, but it could be better.

[Commiekeebler]

New update today: Shadowrun Tactics 1.6

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5OVd1pEnu...0NjYy&hl=en

Very happy with how damage scales, we just might have the sweet spot with this version. Also, new character sheets and some helpful matrix/magic rules.


CHANGES IN THIS VERSION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1.6
* If you beat target's defense, damage starts at 'Light' damage level instead of nothing
- this should make the game slightly deadlier
- same principle applies to conjuring spirits and summoning sprites
* Armor no longer converts damage to Stun
* You can only use unspent movement to get out of a blast, not defense
* Thrown Weapons no longer increases grenade damage, only used to counter scatter
* You suffer dice penalties per wound level, not per box of damage filled
* You pass out at Body + Willpower boxes, instead of when you run out of dice
* All condition monitors now have standard 15 boxes (the fifth wound level is called Overkill)
* Stun damage starts to overflow into physical once all 15 boxes are filled, not 10
* You start taking bleeding damage at Deadly wound (10 boxes), whether conscious or not
* New and improved character and NPC sheets, now containing attack and defense worksheet sections
* Updated common tasks reference table
* Lowered Object Resistance Table value for cars/drones/high-tech stuff
* Doing a task without appropriate skill does not apply a penalty any more
* Modified the die roll syntax for clarity, to include the die type in the roll (A:,F:, M:, S:, D:)
- Standard Action Die is generally omitted (it's the default), but may be indicated with an A:
- Free Action Die is indicated with an F:
- Matrix Action Die is indicated with a M:
- Surprise Die is indicated with an S:
- Defense Die is indicated with a D:
* First Aid must be applied within the "golden hour" of the injury to be able to heal a box of damage.
* Running/jogging does 2 stun damage per Turn past the point of exaustion
- this is done to compensate for Stun damage regen 1 box/Turn
* Removed Dead Man's Switch rule
* Called shots to increase Armor Penetration no longer reduce Incoming Damage of the attack
* Spellcasting and Summoning start counting their success when they beat TN by 1 or more (as opposed to by 3 or more of the old rules), this is similar to how damage and condition monitors interact.
* Brute Force / Exploit Probing no longer use opposed tests. System gets only one opposed test to detect the intruder once he's in - this is done for simplicity.
* Introduced regular/security/admin accounts
* Clarified some points of cybercombat, security tallies and icon interactions.
* Introduced rules for threading complex forms and using sprites to sustain them.
* Spirit's conjurer can aid spirit being banished within LOS, by giving banish defense to it.
* Spell defense nerfed: can only do it once per spell, and the skill isn't added as a passive bonus
* Added rules for noticing spell casting and conjuring.
* Lost Essence decreases healing spells effect by -1 per 2 points, instead of -1 per point.