War, HUH! It's out on pdf Options

[Adam]

Does Posthuman use online collaborative writing tools?

We use Basecamp and forums for project management, Google Docs for manuscript work and some document sharing, and Dropbox for other filesharing. Plus email, IM, FTP, and Skype.

[naga-nuyen]

Good day runners, I have been trying to keep up with this thread though I may have missed a few pages here and there due to a move in real life. I have found War a great read so far, yeah it has its problems as people have posted but those problems do not bother me. I plan to sit down with my fellow runner from our group and design a campaign that we will joint run over the next year bridging that area and Seattle. Having been born, and lived some years from Bogota, he will really be able to flesh out the city and give it the feel needed to separate it from Seattle and other runner havens.

I have some rule questions, first has it been stated what skill the Battle rifles use? Has there been any update on the field dressing’s price and availability.

Thanks for your time responding to these questions, I enjoy making something of a product that creates such a negative vibe. Take care runners and enjoy the holidays.

[Smokeskin]

I agree that the spell is unbalanced. Humorously, the one thing it doesn't work against is Stick and Shock, since that does damage from electrical shock, not velocity, making the already-more-effective-than-real-bullets SnS even more good. I just dislike the attitude of thinking that houserules are such a terrifying thing that people feel the need to justify their houserules as bizarre readings of the rules instead of just saying "I'm houseruling this because it is broken."

It might still be able to do damage, but it wouldn't hit anything. Once it hits the area of effect, it gets slowed down and gravity pulls it into a nosedive so it hits the ground.

[fistandantilus4....]

Personally, I want an M-60 on my lap, as I rock in my chair on the porch... That'll learn them damned kids to stay off my lawn!

Loaded with belt fed salt rock no doubt ...

Still haven't picked up War myself. Besides all of the high end gear, I don't suppose there's a gear listing for spec ops groups or even run of the mill soldiers? There's the stats in SR4 of course, but there's a lot more they could do with that.

[Mäx]

Still haven't picked up War myself. Besides all of the high end gear, I don't suppose there's a gear listing for spec ops groups or even run of the mill soldiers? There's the stats in SR4 of course, but there's a lot more they could do with that.

There are stats for multiple different type of soldiers, but stupidly the writer of that section apparently didn't have access to books gear section, so none of them are equipped with battle rifles or any other of the new weapons.

[Minchandre]

Hey, I remember reading something about a community "What WAR! should have been" project. Is that a thing?

[hobgoblin]

Hey, I remember reading something about a community "What WAR! should have been" project. Is that a thing?

check the "community projects" section...

[Stahlseele]

alt.WAR! ist at.WAR! with and adds.WAR! to WAR!

[Grinder]

We use Basecamp and forums for project management, Google Docs for manuscript work and some document sharing, and Dropbox for other filesharing. Plus email, IM, FTP, and Skype.

RedBrick (Earthdawn, Fading Suns, Equinox) does the same: a forum for communication, project management, and uploading of documents. Works pretty fine. Imo it's extremely important for writers to get feedback on their work by other writers and the Line Developer, so I'm a bit surprised by Aaron saying that he does submit his draft and never gets any feedback on it (or did I understand that wrong?).

[Kot]

As for the 'god kills a kitten' thing - Shröedinger didn't manage to do that with quantum physics. Cat's are pretty much Immune to Physics, and Immune to Internet.

[hobgoblin]

How about catgirls?

[Stahlseele]

How about catgirls?

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/3084/savecatgirlsdo7.gif

[Rotbart van Dain...]

There are stats for multiple different type of soldiers, but stupidly the writer of that section apparently didn't have access to books gear section, so none of them are equipped with battle rifles or any other of the new weapons.

If that would be the case, they would actually have been useful to GMs, since those will probalby want to ban War! flat out from the table.

But unfortunately, no – those NPC are partially equipped with teh UberGear. Meaning you need to check & change all of them.

[apple]

It occurred to me that the slow spell would protect against bullets and shrapnel (I believe it's mentioned in the spell description). I was unconcerned, though, because a lot of things protect against bullets and shrapnel (various barrier spells are really good at it, for example, as are walls).

Unfortunately there you are a little bit wrong, I think.

Barrier-Spells need a lot of successes to stop bullets and with that comes a high force and a high drain. Your slow spell need force 1 to effectively stop a MBT main cannon round from pulverizing the target assuming the player use the next combat action to simply make a step to the side and let the round pass. Perhaps I am blind but I found no armor or barrier spell in the SR4A or in the SM that comes even close to the effectiveness of the slow spell.

Please compare:
Armor (Physical)
Type: P • Range: LOS • Duration: S • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 3
This spell creates a glowing field of magical energy around the subject that
protects against Physical damage. It provides both Ballistic and Impact
armor (cumulative with worn armor) to the subject equal to the hits scored.

Physical Barrier (Environmental, Area)
Type: P • Range: LOS (A) • Duration: S • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 3
Barrier spells create glowing, translucent force-fields with both 1 point
of Armor and Structure rating per hit (see Barriers, p. 194).

If I have missed the "various barrier spell which are really good at it" you have mentioned above, please tell me where I can find them.

SYL

[hermit]

It might still be able to do damage, but it wouldn't hit anything. Once it hits the area of effect, it gets slowed down and gravity pulls it into a nosedive so it hits the ground.

Slow, as is, also destroys any kind of flying vehicle that isn't an ornithopter (though it WILL destroy their engines) or magic to propel itself.

[Mäx]

If that would be the case, they would actually have been useful to GMs, since those will probalby want to ban War! flat out from the table.

But unfortunately, no – those NPC are partially equipped with teh UberGear. Meaning you need to check & change all of them.

Only if your a GM who for some reason doesn't like the nice new toys in WAR, i personally think their pretty good and a nice additions to the game.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Only if your a GM who for some reason doesn't like the nice new toys in WAR, i personally think their pretty good and a nice additions to the game.

For the reason any of those toys are either unnecessary duplicates of existing toys (things like the safe fire smartlink), plain UberGear that break the scale assumed by the whole system (Response 10 for everyone) or simply are irrelevant from a rules perspective (nukes and thor shots).

The implants and magic stuff is even worse.

[hobgoblin]

i guess a better way for the slow spell to have been worded could have been to give it x meters a second pr hit, or something like that...

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Slow was initially a mass levitate spell (which is where the 200 kg per hit limit came from). That was obviously pretty damn crazy already, so I limited the effect to a slowing one.

Pardon me, but what exactly is so crazy about Mass Levitate?

It only allows you to levitate the targets that are within the area when cast – everything afterwards would not have to be affected. So it would work as the parachuting spell intended, but not stop bullets.

[hermit]

Slow was initially a mass levitate spell (which is where the 200 kg per hit limit came from). That was obviously pretty damn crazy already, so I limited the effect to a slowing one.

It occurred to me that the slow spell would protect against bullets and shrapnel (I believe it's mentioned in the spell description). I was unconcerned, though, because a lot of things protect against bullets and shrapnel (various barrier spells are really good at it, for example, as are walls). Players have come up with all sorts of clever ways to mitigate those problems, so I had faith in players to handle this one. Players are so ingenious; I recall a story about how an AD&D player overcame an enemy protected by an anti-magic shell by polymorphing a boulder into a small rock and casually tossing it at his target.

Anyway, I've thought of a few ways to get at a target protected by a slow spell. Sorcery is one way, of course. Gas attacks work fine. Spirits with Engulf. Bayonets and many other sharp things that go into soft things that scream and bleed aren't any less dangerous; I tried to make certain that it was clear that forces were not affected, just speed, so you can still shish-kabob someone with a spear or fillet them with a monowhip, it's just more agonizing. Edited to add I'm pretty sure that a compression wave propagates, rather than moves; a physicist can probably tell us how much the air in a location moves during, say, an event caused by a concussion grenade.

I'd love to hear other ways to neutralize the advantage granted by the slow spell. That sort of geeking out is the kind of conversation I dig.

Thanks for the answer.

What if I cast slow on someone wielding a whip? The whip's tip moves at approximating bullet speed. oes the Whip fall down? tear in half because part of it brutally stops and part really wants to move on? Does that go for swords too, whose tips can be awfully fast? what about generators, that have moving partts, does Slow destroy them due to the brutal stop it enforces with one hit? And where is the line drawn between "fast" and "too slow for slow to be effective"? Does Slow affect blood flow? Can slow shut down gyro mounts (spinning parts) and shatter any weapon using one?

Of course, since you want to bring physics in, let's talk about mass:

You said

 The spell ends when the caster stops sustaining it or the amount of mass moving in the area of effect exceeds 200 kg per hit on the Spellcasting Test.

Now, mass is usualy equivalent to weight in everyday language. Your usage of the kilogram as a unit certainly affirms this is meant. However (and this may be the venure I will go with fixing this spell) in physics, mass refers to something related, yet different: inertial mass, a concept derived from Newton's second law. Here, an object's mass m is determined by a forece F applied to it and it'a acceleration a.

m=F/a

Your spell now decelerates any object to a certain speed: 1 m/s. It does so abruptly. Let's look at the forces at work here:

Say, a bullet with a mass of 10 g moves at 800 m/s and is affected by the Slow spell. Now, if the spell would slow down the bullet instantly, we'd have a force of infinite power working here, which would break the universe. So let's say the bullet has one combat turn to slow - 3 seconds. Then, we'd be talking about a deceleration of 799 m/s² at work, making for an applicable Force of 2663,[period 3] N (Newton) at work. We get even more force necessary to stop an airdropped soldier.

Now, if we rule that there really wasn't meant to be kg, but N there, then we'd have a spell where stopping bullets will not work any more with just one hit. It'd still work for a soldier being airdropped if we allow it to be played as a sustained spell and an extended test over seveal combat turns (including several instances of drain), which represents using the spell to decelerate more slowly to a minimum of 1 m/s. That way, it is still applicable for what it was supposed to do, but not an instant win to be played against anything that flies, is a kinetic vessel (think about what this spell will do against Rods from God) or has moving parts. Oh, and it won't work well to slow down things that move too fast because it will simply take too long, so no more bullet stop, no more plane crash, and no more blowing up engines with it.

Of course, that fix opens up a whole other can of worms: weight of equipment. Didn't Shadowrun 4 back in the day ditch that for simplicity? But that's a story for another day.

[apple]

Now, if the spell would slow down the bullet instantly, we'd have a force of infinite power working here, which would break the universe. So let's say the bullet has one combat turn to slow - 3 seconds. Then, we'd be talking about a deceleration of 799 m/s² at work, making for an applicable Force of 2663,[period 3] N (Newton) at work. We get even more force necessary to stop an airdropped soldier.

To be honest: I think that is covered in the "its magic" part: it does not break the world. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

SYL

[hermit]

To be honest: I think that is covered in the "its magic" part: it does not break the world. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

With the same logic, impenetrable barrier spells could be justified, that are impenetrable with only one net hit.

[Seth]

something related, yet different: inertial mass

Key point is that inertial mass is not the same as mass. I take your point, but I doubt very much if the book writers were thinking about inertia, otherwise we would be getting angular momentum equations in as well, which isn't to anyone's benefit.

The reason for the mass limit is simply to say that it only works on a certain mass, and if you were feeling fancy you could say "rest mass" to define it even better.

[apple]

With the same logic, impenetrable barrier spells could be justified, that are impenetrable with only one net hit.

Could be - but then again I am comparing them to other barrier spells where the author claimed that they are very effective against bullets too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

SYL

[hermit]

Not saying you need physics for spells, but Aaron brought that up, so I wanted to give it a go. On a side note, the Slow spell as is is next to useless for parachutsts, unless they're parachuiting Gnome fireteams, becaue the limiting factor is the accumulated weight - and you get to a lot of weight with a fire team real fast. In effect, it is an i-win card tio be played against all kinetic attacks and all kinds of flying vehicles, or vehicles that have engines (technically, even servos in cyberlimbs have moving parts and could be destroyed or immobilised by this spell). That's what it's good for. Not mass levitate.