Item Availability Options

[Yerameyahu]

I'm a fan of R/F-coded items taking longer. Sounds like your rule could use tweaking on that front, but that's another fluff question: *does* it actually take longer to get R/F stuff on the black market? The followup question is, of course, 'do the existing Avail codes already account for that?', because you see a lot of 20Fs and 10Rs. Either way, I *wouldn't* use a rule that made getting anything substantially faster in game-time, unless that's the intent of the rule.

On that note, I still want to know if you're trying to address real-time or game-time issues. It looks like it's just real-time you care about, so there is indeed no reason you can't convert the Extended test into a roughly equivalent normal Test and get the same results. That's what math is for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Given that you know the expected existing results, you should be able to nail it.

I can see that you're really set on this 'negotiate halfway through' idea. I dunno why, but that's not important. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's just important that it's a significant change; because your rule is a fluff change *and* a crunch change at once, it's trickier to evaluate.

[Epicedion]

I'm a fan of R/F-coded items taking longer. Sounds like your rule could use tweaking on that front, but that's another fluff question: *does* it actually take longer to get R/F stuff on the black market? The followup question is, of course, 'do the existing Avail codes already account for that?', because you see a lot of 20Fs and 10Rs.

The way those numbers are set up, F items in the house rule and in RAW have the same expected mean time for a given dice pool. It gets fuzzier around the edges, since each dice roll in RAW is a chunk equal to one interval, while in the house rule each hit creates a slightly higher divisor.

R items, however, take less time than in the house rule than you would expect out of RAW, by some downward shift that I'm not going to take the time to calculate.

Legal items take way less time in the house rule than in RAW, but that doesn't often matter to me since I usually let my players just buy Legal items from the local store. I'll let them buy Legal items at the biggest discounts on the black market -- used, used in a crime, stolen, et cetera.

Those numbers could easily be tweaked. R = x1, F = x2, for example, if you wanted to kick Forbidden item acquisition times into high orbit, and keep Restricted items in the RAW range. For this version of the house rule, I figured I'd keep F items at RAW times, and lower the rest, since there's no explicit RAW difference in the difficulty of acquiring a 6, 6R, or 6F item.

[Yerameyahu]

Yeah, I agree: it's an easy tweak, and it's something that's nice to have in there. I do want to point out that the fluff is only -- Avail items are 'in the store', while anything with a number is still 'on the black market' (even though it's 'Legal').

[Epicedion]

The followup question is, of course, 'do the existing Avail codes already account for that?', because you see a lot of 20Fs and 10Rs. Either way, I *wouldn't* use a rule that made getting anything substantially faster in game-time, unless that's the intent of the rule.

I think the Availability codes are trying to accomplish that a little, but there are some major exceptions. There are plenty of high Rs and low Fs, especially in Cyberware and Magic. Full Body Armor is rated at 14R, Hacking programs get up to 12R. Most of your variable-RTG Restricted gear can climb up to 12 or higher. Stuff like Wired Reflexes is 20R, which is in line with the highest non-cyber F gear. And most magic stuff can hit absurd levels while still being R (Force 6 Power Focus = 30R).

There aren't really any "regular gear" items that have 16R or 20R -- most of those things are military grade firearms and things that you would expect to be hard to get and totally illegal.

On that note, I still want to know if you're trying to address real-time or game-time issues. It looks like it's just real-time you care about, so there is indeed no reason you can't convert the Extended test into a roughly equivalent normal Test and get the same results. That's what math is for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Given that you know the expected existing results, you should be able to nail it.

Little from column A, little from column B. Halfway in the middle, I'm trying to alleviate the blandness of roll roll roll roll roll roll roll you got it. I don't want to necessarily blow expectations out of the water in terms of in-game time, but I do also find it kind of dull that it always takes you (for example) at least 12 hours to buy a box of bullets.

It turns the Shadowrunner's grocery list from "milk, eggs, bullets" into a note to the team that says "please feed my fish, I'll be back with ammo on Thursday."

I can see that you're really set on this 'negotiate halfway through' idea. I dunno why, but that's not important. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's just important that it's a significant change; because your rule is a fluff change *and* a crunch change at once, it's trickier to evaluate.

Like I mentioned before, I always thought the negotiation part was critical to the process in SR3, and it just got dumped out the window in SR4. So it's kind of like a reversion of the fluff. I pretty much lifted it whole cloth out of the SR3 book. Since most of my Shadowrun play style was developed in SR3, for me it's SR4 that has the harder-to-evaluate fluff change. For the life of me I can't think of why they took a fairly simple system and then replaced it with 15 consecutive dice rolls.

Not that I have a general problem with SR4. There are parts of it I don't care for, but overall I like the core system.

[Iduno]

Would dividing by 1.5 and 2 instead of 2 and 4 fix the reduced time to find things?

Also, the 25% price increase for 1 die works for extended tests with lots of rolls. Does it give a similar benefit with this system?

[Epicedion]

Would dividing by 1.5 and 2 instead of 2 and 4 fix the reduced time to find things?

Also, the 25% price increase for 1 die works for extended tests with lots of rolls. Does it give a similar benefit with this system?

So the multipliers would be Legal = 1/2, Restricted = 2/3, and Forbidden = 1? Sure, that could work. Honestly you could do anything you wanted with the multipliers, to bring it in line with whatever game you wanted. Maybe if your team is in a huge black market city, Hong Kong or somewhere, you could cut all the modifiers to make it easy and fast to acquire anything.

The 25% price increase for 1 die has a similar effect in the house rule to the one it has in RAW. More dice in the house rule = more chances to reduce the acquisition time. More dice in RAW = more chances to get hits in one dice roll = fewer dice rolls on the extended test = fewer intervals before hitting the threshold.

It might not be mathematically equivalent, but it's near enough.

[LonePaladin]

This discussion got me wondering about how the RAW version would look if the number-crunching were handled invisibly. I whipped together an Excel spreadsheet to this end; you plug in all the relevant numbers (for the buyer, their Charisma, Negotiation, Connection rating if any, and the "wheel-grease" where you add money; the item's price, availability, legality [though it doesn't affect anything], and street-value mods). It applies automatic hits, along with simulating die-rolls, assuming the "–1 die per test" rule. It also assumes the "grease-the-wheels" modifier applies after all the others, and that the "finder's fee" for using a contact is separate.

End result shows the total price paid out, and the times for both automatic-success and rolling methods.

If you're interested, I can post something to allow downloading. If you want it in something other than Excel 2007 (.xlsx) format, let me know.