War, HUH! It's out on pdf Options

[Prime Mover]

Any mention or tie in with Ghost Cartels storyline?

[Stormdrake]

I know I am in the minority on this but I really liked the high power games that were possible in 2nd and 3rd edition. I am glad to see some thing from Catalyst that lends itself to game settings other than street level.

[Doc Chase]

Any mention or tie in with Ghost Cartels storyline?

Somewhat. The cartels are a player in Bogota and:

[ Spoiler ]

It's pretty common knowledge in the shadows now that the David Cartel(AZT backed) has taken over tempo sales.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Just the core rules were not restricted on "street level", but included military gear and ratings.

So none of new weapons/vehicles represented?

Indeed.

[UmaroVI]

It looks like the power only lets you replace attributes for tests, so while the Not in the Face check (which is a brilliant term that I'll be using from now on at my table, by the way) is useful, the attribute switch wouldn't apply to the calculation of the Initiative attribute (and other derived stats) or a pixie's Condition Monitor. So my pornomancer could be quite athletic (*blink innocently*) but still can't wear lots of armor without getting custom SoftWeave with four hundred layers of FFBA like RvD suggested.

That's... a lot saner. Let me re-evaluate.

Willpower -> Body is not a good idea, because it doesn't let you wear more armor and so you can't dump Body low enough below Willpower for this to be better than just buying Increase Physical Attribute.
Charisma -> Strength isn't a good idea because Strength isn't very useful.
Intuition -> Reaction is potentially useful, but since it doesn't boost your initiative it's a tradeoff. I can see 5 Intuition, 1 Reaction, and Mind over Matter being a debatable choice compared to using IPA to get yourself an extra 2 stats... but generally I think it's not worth it, given how important Initiative is in Shadowrun. There's also no easy way to jack your Intuition up very high, although I can see a potentially good setup as a Mystic Adept - high Intuition, base Drain on Intuition, use Increase Intuition (through a sustaining focus) and Mind over Matter.
Logic -> Agility has potential, since unlike Body and Reaction you don't ever care about your Agility except for tests. The downside is that Logic is generally a useless stat that people only take for flavor, and that it's no easier to boost Logic than it is to boost Agility. If you were going to be an Adept with high Logic, you would benefit a whole lot from dumping Agility and grabbing Mind over Matter, but normally being a high-Logic adept is a bad plan, so I don't think this is a balance problem. Also, if you just care about shooting people and not any other uses of Agility, you're better off with a cyberarm instead.

The best uses I can see:

1) Mystic Adept with an Intuition tradition, high Intuition, dump Reaction, use Increase Intuition + Mind Over Matter. This setup is basically sacrificing Initiative for defense pool, and personally I prefer initiative, but this is a really low-BP-cost way to get yourself a large defense pool.

2) A "triple threat" Adept or Mystic Adept who wants to have infiltration skills and hacking skills and also be able to fight. This lets you dump Agility for Logic, which while not needed for Hacking, is needed for Hardware, Data Search, and First Aid, which are all legitimately useful. If you are a mystic adept, this also lets you have more active Foci without having to use Increase Logic, which is good. I might try putting together such a character. EDIT: you don't need logic for Data Search, oops.

[Mäx]

2) A "triple threat" Adept or Mystic Adept who wants to have infiltration skills and hacking skills and also be able to fight. This lets you dump Agility for Logic, which while not needed for Hacking, is needed for Hardware, Data Search, and First Aid, which are all legitimately useful. If you are a mystic adept, this also lets you have more active Foci without having to use Increase Logic, which is good. I might try putting together such a character. EDIT: you don't need logic for Data Search, oops.

This is very good for mystic adept of logic tradition as you get to use tour drain stat for shooting guns and other fun thinks.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

That's what you get for having movement speed not being stats-based.

[cndblank]

So none of new weapons/vehicles represented? Buying any kind of gear reference book I'm real big on being able to toss a pic on the table. It's so much better to say you open the crate to find 6 of "these" (Toss a pic on the table). As opposed too you open the crate to find 6 xx52's. Especially when dealing with brand new items.

I have to agree.

I was disappointed that there was not even silhouettes.

I don't know how it is going to shake out but I do think Mil Tech SHOULD be Oh Sh*t! scary.

And they succeeded there.

[fenrishero]

Under the Battle Rifles section, the HVBR is listed as a weapon that uses High Velocity ammunition, but is not capable of Full-Auto. This means it can't actually take advantage of the high velocity rules as written.

Should the rifle have FA or should we disregard that blurb about HV rules? I could see it going either way.

[Yerameyahu]

The Arsenal HV rules have nothing to do with ammo. Does WAR! introduce HV ammo? After all, there's low-velocity ammo.

[Dahrken]

They just add High-Power ammo (+2 DV, but more recoil).

[Aaron]

2) A "triple threat" Adept or Mystic Adept who wants to have infiltration skills and hacking skills and also be able to fight. This lets you dump Agility for Logic, which while not needed for Hacking, is needed for Hardware, Data Search, and First Aid, which are all legitimately useful. If you are a mystic adept, this also lets you have more active Foci without having to use Increase Logic, which is good. I might try putting together such a character. EDIT: you don't need logic for Data Search, oops.

That sounds like a Shadowrun version of the Guy Richie version of Sherlock Holmes.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Under the Battle Rifles section, the HVBR is listed as a weapon that uses High Velocity ammunition, but is not capable of Full-Auto. This means it can't actually take advantage of the high velocity rules as written.

The punchline: There is no such thing as "High Velocity ammunition" – only with the Arsenal reference you can guess that whoever wrote that meant HV weapons… and since we are guessing already, we might as well guess that said person didn't bother too much with reading the actual rules.

[Prime Mover]

The Arsenal HV rules have nothing to do with ammo. Does WAR! introduce HV ammo? After all, there's low-velocity ammo.

Bull said something about battle rifles being full auto at some point in the play test (over on SR boards). Maybe this is left over from that and missed in final edit?

[Ranarion]

They just add High-Power ammo (+2 DV, but more recoil).

Whats about the "More recoil part". Just one more recoil? 2?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Two – and it also gets one additional point AP.

[Yerameyahu]

Buy the book. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Ramorta]

Does anyone else have issues with the Slow spell?
Outside of granting immunity to bullets and most other mundane weapons, I now have to keep track of objects weight?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Well, someone read The Forever War a few times too often. It's completely broken.

The Designate spell is really funny, too, when it come to what kind of marker you can produce – Magic determined by your implants, the mind boggles. Of course, it's funny that implanted UWBR now can "see" radar and maser designatore signs through the back door.

Recharge is… really clean energy. Just use really big capacitors to power cities.

[Stahlseele]

Buy the book. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

y?

[Yerameyahu]

y not?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

So the GM can ban it from the table after reading it.

[Kagetenshi]

Buy the book. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

This seems like a remarkably bad way to gain information to use to figure out if a book is worth buying.

~J

[Stahlseele]

y not?

'cause

especially after reading this thread here . .

[Yerameyahu]

I don't consider specific rules from the book to be "information to use to figure out if a book is worth buying", but I was only teasing in the first place.