Is War! Really that Bad?, Fatum: I moved it here. Let's continue. Options

[longbowrocks]

I've noticed before that War! gets a lot of guff, but only recently took an interest in the perception of it. I chose the wrong thread to start that discussion in, so I'm picking it up here.

I really don't understand all the hate war gets. Without war, street sammies would be able to one-shot anything the GM could throw at them (they still can, but now it's harder and only has a 50% success rate in the more extreme cases).
People are going to powergame one way or another. At least now you can't get any item listed in any book you want (restricted gear) at chargen.

I was then asked for references to my claims.

Here we go:
For tougher opposition, I was talking about the meanest vehicle in the game: the Aztechnology Cuanmitztli main battle tank, which is followed by many more of the toughest vehicles in the game (Strictly speaking, there's one main battle tank in MilSpecTech that gets second place for the title of "meanest").
There is also the Aesir weapons satellite. Normal players can't afford these things, but a GM can use them. Some may say these weapons are overkill, and in most games they'd be right, but if everyone's powergaming, these may be necessary since there are builds that can kill that tank in 1 IP (or even one hit) from chargen.

As for "At least now you can't get any item listed in any book you want (restricted gear) at chargen", most of the stuff in War! is over 20 availability. Now I have something to do with my cash other than hoard it for delta grade synaptic boosters.

[Yerameyahu]

I'm pretty sure no one's complaining about the tanks. It's the MRSI, and the weird spells, and the device creep, and the weapon mod/ammo creep, etc. It's your basic splatbook issues, excepts it's also mil-grade. No, it's not really a problem… as long as no one gets any of it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Socinus]

When used properly, most of the stuff in War! is used properly. Admittedly there are things in the book that are a little...odd, it just doesn't seem like it would in the rational world.

If characters at a street level were getting their hands on battle rifles, yeah that's going to cause a problem.

Frankly, War! is more accessible for the average player than books like Mil Spec Tech where stuff is just so expensive and so out-there that most players cant touch the stuff.

[CanRay]

I think the major issue was that it was promoted as "War! as done in the Sixth World", and turned into "Target: Bogota" or some such. At least, that's my read from it. Which was, admittedly, done in an ER Waiting Room, so I was a bit distracted.

Oh, and no map of Bogota.

[Medicineman]

Is War! Really that Bad?, Fatum: I moved it here. Let's continue.

Yes it is, but do we have do repeat this Discussion ?
Its already been dozens of Pages .....

Hough !
Medicineman

[Daishi]

There are some components of War! that are usable and useful (and which I appreciate - though they often need some patching up), but I think there is a consensus that it represents a low point in recently produced shadowrun material. Egregious misses (no maps), awkward focus (too little war in a book called War!), production mistakes (table entries missing), mechanical inconsistencies (ballast tanks galore), and some plain broken things (the slow spell is monumentally bad). Considering the rich potential for the subject, it was a disappointment.

[Faelan]

Generally speaking a bunch of the crunch is unnecessary. The Battle Rifle for instance which really is an old designation you rarely hear anymore except as a historical reference used to refer to the first generation of selective fire rifles, more commonly known as assault rifles. Now we have completely man portable weapons doing more damage than a Medium Machine Gun. While I appreciate the attempt to inject some correlation of caliber into the game the fact remains that without a complete revamp of the entire firearms catalog all it did was create a category of uber weapons which make no sense when taken as part of the whole. Also the new ammo types and spells are really reaching. Lastly I wanted a book about WAR in the 2070's not a book about A WAR. Big difference between the two. How are battlefield formations affected by the presence of TACC Nets, vastly superior communications, immediate satellite or drone information availability, smart guns, smart munitions for firearms (I was hoping to see these but alas no, I mean we can do it to a 25mm munition today, you think by 2070 we could do it with a bullet sized item, gee whiz thanks for that sensor round), and finally an extrapolation of what it all means to strategic and tactical operations. I hoped to see the book I have hoped to see in many game systems, a book about the conduct of WAR, a War made simple book touching on larger concepts and working its way down. Fortunately I don't need that book, but sometimes it would be nice to have something handy to hand to your players who may not have spent the better part of a decade dealing with it IRL. Instead an adventure book in a war zone with defective gear additions yippee!

[Fatum]

For tougher opposition, I was talking about the meanest vehicle in the game: the Aztechnology Cuanmitztli main battle tank, which is followed by many more of the toughest vehicles in the game (Strictly speaking, there's one main battle tank in MilSpecTech that gets second place for the title of "meanest").

Uh, and what kind of sammies needs battletanks to put them down, exactly?

There is also the Aesir weapons satellite. Normal players can't afford these things, but a GM can use them. Some may say these weapons are overkill, and in most games they'd be right, but if everyone's powergaming, these may be necessary since there are builds that can kill that tank in 1 IP (or even one hit) from chargen.

Weapon sats do not need stats. Those are purely "rocks fall, everyone dies" tool.
Also, I'd like to see those builds.

As for "At least now you can't get any item listed in any book you want (restricted gear) at chargen", most of the stuff in War! is over 20 availability. Now I have something to do with my cash other than hoard it for delta grade synaptic boosters.

Right, except you can still get all the other gear you want on chargen.
And it's not like there's nothing to spend your money on after the chargen without the War! stuff.

[Socinus]

Lastly I wanted a book about WAR in the 2070's not a book about A WAR. Big difference between the two. How are battlefield formations affected by the presence of TACC Nets, vastly superior communications, immediate satellite or drone information availability, smart guns, smart munitions for firearms (I was hoping to see these but alas no, I mean we can do it to a 25mm munition today, you think by 2070 we could do it with a bullet sized item, gee whiz thanks for that sensor round), and finally an extrapolation of what it all means to strategic and tactical operations.

To be completely fair, that would have been an extremely difficult book to write and I think it's better to leave that kind of thing up to the player's imagination to come up with. How would YOU best use a tac-net in battle? How would YOU deploy drones? I feel like a single book laying out how Shadowrun warfare would be fought is too restrictive of the players. One strong part of Shadowrun is that it's a very adaptable and customizable setting that can fit virtually any player in SOMEWHERE and when you start laying out specific parts of the game as more rigid, you lose a little bit of that. I do think Bogata was focused on a bit much, but it seems to me that that was more an effort to show what one part of a war or one kind of a war would be like.

Keep in mind, warfare is not static in general and even less so in Shadowrun so sometimes you might have a fight that looks like something out of Star Trek and other times it might be a battlefield we would find more familiar and trying to lay out all that in one book and still have it be accessible is a monumental task.

While I dont think War! was a glittering gem in the SR4 crown, I dont feel it was atrociously bad. There have definitely been worse, the most recent Way of the Adept is an excellent example.

[Faelan]

To be completely fair, that would have been an extremely difficult book to write and I think it's better to leave that kind of thing up to the player's imagination to come up with. How would YOU best use a tac-net in battle? How would YOU deploy drones? I feel like a single book laying out how Shadowrun warfare would be fought is too restrictive of the players. One strong part of Shadowrun is that it's a very adaptable and customizable setting that can fit virtually any player in SOMEWHERE and when you start laying out specific parts of the game as more rigid, you lose a little bit of that. I do think Bogata was focused on a bit much, but it seems to me that that was more an effort to show what one part of a war or one kind of a war would be like.

Keep in mind, warfare is not static in general and even less so in Shadowrun so sometimes you might have a fight that looks like something out of Star Trek and other times it might be a battlefield we would find more familiar and trying to lay out all that in one book and still have it be accessible is a monumental task.

While I dont think War! was a glittering gem in the SR4 crown, I dont feel it was atrociously bad. There have definitely been worse, the most recent Way of the Adept is an excellent example.

I don't think it would have been difficult to write at all. Over the years I have noticed in different games they always attempt to do a warfare based book and generally fail miserably because while the writer might "get it" they have never studied it. I am not asking for a set of rules or rigid guidelines, but essentially fluff to help teach players who are not very tactically motivated to have a baseline set of knowledge to work off of. Questions to ask, how to look at terrain, what to look for while moving through a city, essentially a book of considerations, because expecting my players to read the Art of War, On War, On Infantry, Attacks, or any other multitude of historical texts on the matter is unreasonable just to get them thinking about things they normally may not. I guess it comes down to how cinematic you want the game, if they want to play in a warzone I want to be able to give them the right feel without having to fill in their actions just to get them to a minimal layer of survivability.

Warfare can be static, however the first side which can take real initiative will have the advantage. Moving is essentially at its most basic, winning. If you stand still too long you go from hunter to prey, which is even more true in COIN Ops.

I agree it is not a glittering gem, but I think people would have been less offended if it were named Shadows of Colombia, instead of War and all that it implies it will deliver. As to Way of the Adept, I think it is more of a personal flavor thing. For it is a fine piece of work, in fact I don't think it went far enough, but then I like the Earthdawn tie in, and really don't mind magic run, if I wanted to avoid that I would still be running Cyberpunk 2020, of course obviously YMMV.

[Demonseed Elite]

To be completely fair, that would have been an extremely difficult book to write and I think it's better to leave that kind of thing up to the player's imagination to come up with. How would YOU best use a tac-net in battle? How would YOU deploy drones? I feel like a single book laying out how Shadowrun warfare would be fought is too restrictive of the players. One strong part of Shadowrun is that it's a very adaptable and customizable setting that can fit virtually any player in SOMEWHERE and when you start laying out specific parts of the game as more rigid, you lose a little bit of that. I do think Bogata was focused on a bit much, but it seems to me that that was more an effort to show what one part of a war or one kind of a war would be like.

Keep in mind, warfare is not static in general and even less so in Shadowrun so sometimes you might have a fight that looks like something out of Star Trek and other times it might be a battlefield we would find more familiar and trying to lay out all that in one book and still have it be accessible is a monumental task.

While I dont think War! was a glittering gem in the SR4 crown, I dont feel it was atrociously bad. There have definitely been worse, the most recent Way of the Adept is an excellent example.

It would not be difficult to write at all, just takes a bit of research and some ingenuity. The idea would not be to box in the concepts of war in the Sixth World, but to demonstrate the impact of technology and magic, combined with current Fourth- and Fifth-Generation warfare theories. Which, coincidentally, tie into the concept of shadowrunners (military-themed shadowrunners, at least) extremely well.

[KarmaInferno]

Generally speaking a bunch of the crunch is unnecessary. The Battle Rifle for instance which really is an old designation you rarely hear anymore except as a historical reference used to refer to the first generation of selective fire rifles, more commonly known as assault rifles.

This used to be true up until a few years ago.

The larger calibers used in what are now called "battle rifles" were mostly phased out after World War 2, when it was found that most fights didn't need the penetration or range. The old 7.62 caliber M14 is for example considerably better at both than the 5.56 caliber M4/M16, but since most fights in the Vietnam/Korean War era were at short range due to the dense jungle, with light cover, the smaller caliber of the M16 was sufficient. This also allowed the individual soldier to carry more ammo, an important consideration when you have a lot of deep field patrols that don't get access to re-supply that often.

Fast forward to current day combat. The deserts and mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan are a completely different battlefield, with fights often ranging in the 800 to 1000 meter range or more with little obscuring foliage and with tons of hard cover. Additionally, patrols are short and supply chains are readily available. As a result, many of the "smaller" assault rifles like the M4/M16 are considered to be insufficient by many, and in fact a good number of old weapons like the M14 are being pulled out of mothballs, modernized, and pressed back into service.

Of course, the modern M14 looks considerably different than it's original form.

The SCAR-H is a new manufacture 7.62 rifle with the same combat role, and also comes in a SCAR-L (light) 5.56 chambering so the Army can eventually replace both the M14 and M16 for special forces use. (Although more recently, the SCAR-L seems to be being pulled back off the field, maybe the US military doesn't want a new 5.56 rifle after all?)

Now we have completely man portable weapons doing more damage than a Medium Machine Gun.

Assuming you're talking about ballistic weapons, not really. Bullets are bullets. They have not changed significantly in 50 years.

I will agree that Hi-Power chambering is kinda silly, though. It might have been better called "Increased Caliber", and do away with the silly "this ammo cannot be had in anything but standard ball". It might need to take a lot of slots since you're replacing the barrel and lower receiver, which is really the entire "gun" part of the gun. I would not put it at more than +1 DV though, the SR system does not handle granularity well.

And yes, it would have been nifty if open war HAD actually erupted somewhere in the SR universe, and the book had covered full on battlefield combat.



-k

[Yerameyahu]

Also, video games have them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) What? Don't look at me like that. Video games (and other media) are more relevant to SR4 than reality is.

[longbowrocks]

Also, I'd like to see those builds.

They're all over dumpshock.
GA with 30 dice in longarms (sniper) and 6 edge with a barret and APDS.
Anybody with one or more ITS Gonryu on full burst
A strong sammy with the Thunderstruck gauss.
If there isn't a mage build that can do this, people should stop giving them so much credit.

[Prime Mover]

1. War did not burn my eyes out.
2. War could have been better organized, play-tested and maps wouldn't have hurt.
3. When complaining about power creep remember this book is about WAR not street running.

In conclusion War has bright spots and I promise if you read it before all the flaming you might be pleasantly surprised.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

They're all over dumpshock.
GA with 30 dice in longarms (sniper) and 6 edge with a barret and APDS.
Anybody with one or more ITS Gonryu on full burst
A strong sammy with the Thunderstruck gauss.
If there isn't a mage build that can do this, people should stop giving them so much credit.

Well... A Mage with a Magic of 6, Spellcasting of 6 (Combat Spells), Focused COncentration 1, Mentor Spirit with a bonus to Combat Spells, +5 Combat Spell Focus (Requires Restricted Gear)... 35 points in Qualities....

21 Dice to cast Combat Spells...
Soak Dice of 13 (Stats of 5, and Limited Spell for the +2 Drain)

Tank has a OR of 5 (Basic Tank, could be 6 or 7 even)...
Armor does not matter, but we will gve it a 20... Body of what? 36? So 24 Boxes of Health.

Your Barret does 9p with AP9 due to APDS (Me Personally, I would use AV rounds for this, but oh well)... You need 3 Net hits to even Scratch the paint, and I will give you 10 hits, for 19 Damage. Autosoak of the Tank gives you 11 Armor (remaining) + 36 Body = 47 Dice... Divide by 4, and you have just inflicted 8 Boxes of Damage... Assume two shots, for 16 boxes of Damage in Complex Action. If I assume 1/3 Resistance Hits like I gave you for the 30 Dice attack, then you have a soak of 15, so you only deal 8 boxes of damage in that same complex action.

Overcast Powerbolt at Force 12... 1 Net hit against a OR of 6 (I will take the middle road here) nets me 13 Boxes of damage in that same complex action. Tank gets no soak. So, A MAge with Less Dice has dealt equivalent damage compared to your vaunted 30 Dice Barrett Using, Tank Killing Sniper form hell.

Mage must soak 7 Boxes of Physical Damage. Takes 3-4 Boxes... With the right Drugs, he can multicast twice, soak the majority of the damage, still be up, and the tank is Dead... Not so much for the Sniper. Though he will be relatively unharmed.

Can you do other things, on both sides, to make it more feasible? Sure. But at its base, The Mage wins in that Combat Pass.

Hell, a Troll Physad, with a Magic of 4 can do as good, if not better than the Sniper, with Unarmed Combat Damage, Killing Strike, Penetrating Strike, Critical Strike, And Elemental Damaging Attacks. At least, I am pretty sure about that, without running the numbers.

Personally. I am going to shoot that Tank with a couple of Inferno Missiles and watch it just Burn Baby Burn.
Even a Moderate Rigger/Hacker can kill that Tank easier than the Sniper or the Mage, for much less investment.


Oh...... And to keep it on topic... I like War...

[longbowrocks]

Personally. I am going to shoot that Tank with a couple of Inferno Missiles and watch it just Burn Baby Burn.
Even a Moderate Rigger/Hacker can kill that Tank easier than the Sniper or the Mage, for much less investment.

gtg, but I'm curious about the rigger/hacker. Do you mean forcing the tank to destroy itself?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

gtg, but I'm curious about the rigger/hacker. Do you mean forcing the tank to destroy itself?

Nope... A Rigger/Hacker with a Drone Vehicle armed with Smart Missiles and an Inferno Package. Heat/Fire is BAD for Vehicles (Especially ones with Internal Magazines and/or people), it does bad things to them.

[Faelan]

This used to be true up until a few years ago.

This is the real reason the system should have assigned calibers for the weapons. Most of this is semantics. I think we are speaking the same language but guess what you are calling something a battle rifle, I am calling it an assault rifle, and we still don't know what the real difference is. Another difference I can think of is about 6lbs. of extra weight in the rifle itself, though I would not term the HK417 a battle rifle even if it is a 7.62 rifle.

The larger calibers used in what are now called "battle rifles" were mostly phased out after World War 2, when it was found that most fights didn't need the penetration or range. The old 7.62 caliber M14 is for example considerably better at both than the 5.56 caliber M4/M16, but since most fights in the Vietnam/Korean War era were at short range due to the dense jungle, with light cover, the smaller caliber of the M16 was sufficient. This also allowed the individual soldier to carry more ammo, an important consideration when you have a lot of deep field patrols that don't get access to re-supply that often.

Actually they were phased out principally for weight and logistical reasons. Lighter load = more rounds carried. Also killing the enemy was no longer the desire, wounding them was preferable because in theory it ate up additional personnel and resources, however anyone who has ever had to deal with COIN Ops will tell you that it usually results in a quick self timed land mine, or suicide rear guard. Give me a round tha puts them down and out.

Fast forward to current day combat. The deserts and mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan are a completely different battlefield, with fights often ranging in the 800 to 1000 meter range or more with little obscuring foliage and with tons of hard cover. Additionally, patrols are short and supply chains are readily available. As a result, many of the "smaller" assault rifles like the M4/M16 are considered to be insufficient by many, and in fact a good number of old weapons like the M14 are being pulled out of mothballs, modernized, and pressed back into service.

Of course, the modern M14 looks considerably different than it's original form.

The SCAR-H is a new manufacture 7.62 rifle with the same combat role, and also comes in a SCAR-L (light) 5.56 chambering so the Army can eventually replace both the M14 and M16 for special forces use. (Although more recently, the SCAR-L seems to be being pulled back off the field, maybe the US military doesn't want a new 5.56 rifle after all?)

The M16 is easily effective out to 550 meters or so on a point target and 800 meters on an area target. From experience I am calling the point target a 10" grouping, and area anything larger, and that is with iron sights which is the principal concern. The 6.8 mm would be a better comrpomise, however what started this was essentially that a Medium Machine Gun generally using a 7.62mm round should not be doing less damage than a "battle rifle" presented in WAR. In other words the firearms in SR4 were very granular before and that was fine until someone tried to shoe horn another category into the mix by shoving it towards the specific. All I am saying is make a choice and live with it, I am fine either way, just don't give me half thought out material which does not mesh with existing material, if I want that I will by WOTC products.

Assuming you're talking about ballistic weapons, not really. Bullets are bullets. They have not changed significantly in 50 years.

I will agree that Hi-Power chambering is kinda silly, though. It might have been better called "Increased Caliber", and do away with the silly "this ammo cannot be had in anything but standard ball". It might need to take a lot of slots since you're replacing the barrel and lower receiver, which is really the entire "gun" part of the gun. I would not put it at more than +1 DV though, the SR system does not handle granularity well.

And yes, it would have been nifty if open war HAD actually erupted somewhere in the SR universe, and the book had covered full on battlefield combat.
-k

I am talking about a shoulder fired man portable selective fire gas operated 5.56mm, 7.62mm, or similar rifle firing an equivalent round as a generally bipod or tripod mounted medium machinegun and doing more damage. In other words with the advent of the SR battle rifle category we now have a battle rifle doing more damage per round than a medium machine gun with a presumably longer barrel. It does not "jive". Lets just be consistent. I don't think anyone really want to go into grain weights, hot loads, and exact ballistics of different rounds and why certain rounds are perfect for sniping while others are not.

[CanRay]

"Battle Rifles" are also called "Designated Marksman Rifles" in modern terms (Unlike the Battle Rifles of WWI-Korea.). They're designed to give a unit better range than their light assault rifle calibers allow for. (The US uses the M-14. The Russians had one of the first with the infamous Dragunov, which uses the old 7.62mmX54mm Russian, not the AK-47's 7.62mmX39mm Soviet.). They're what you use when you need something more than an assault rifle, but not as much as a sniper rifle.

And we head back into the area of Shadowrun that I don't like: Lack of calibers.

[KarmaInferno]

Well, I think I get what you are saying.

"Assault Rifles", meaning rifles in the 5.56 category, fire mostly the same ammo as light machine guns and really should have the same base damage code.

"Battle Rifles", meaning rifles in the 7.62/.308 category, fire mostly the same ammo as medium machine guns and really should have the same base damage code. Some sniper rifles and DMRs fall into this category and should also have the same damage code.

Heavy machine guns mostly fire .50 ammo and heavier, which is also fired by heavier sniper and anti-material rifles. Again, should have the same damage code.

Really, the only main functional difference between rifles and machineguns of the same ammo class is MGs do sustained fire much better.



-k

[Yerameyahu]

Damage Code and Ranges, too—not that range tends to matter in SR. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Irion]

And we head back into the area of Shadowrun that I don't like: Lack of calibers.

Well, this ain't a problem if you stick with the guns of the core book. But as soon as you increase the amount of weapons it is getting important to make a differance between the different weapons of each type.

An other are the very limited range modifiers. There should be something like minimal range. If you cross it you should suffer heavy modifiers.
So if you try to shoot somebody with an assault cannon in hand to hand combat you are fucked, while a light pistol or a hold out would be viable.

So that for close quarter combat an uzi is superior to an assult rifle.
Something like that

CODE

    
                               -4          -2
                             too close      close
Pistol               0           1    
Machine Pistol          0               1
Assult rifle         1          5
Sniper Rifle               2        10
Assault Cannon    2        10

So now if somebody jumps around the corner with an MP (two meters from you) he has a good chance against someone with an assault cannon.

PS: How the hell is it possible to get a table?

[Faelan]

Well, I think I get what you are saying.

"Assault Rifles", meaning rifles in the 5.56 category, fire mostly the same ammo as light machine guns and really should have the same base damage code.

"Battle Rifles", meaning rifles in the 7.62/.308 category, fire mostly the same ammo as medium machine guns and really should have the same base damage code. Some sniper rifles and DMRs fall into this category and should also have the same damage code.

Heavy machine guns mostly fire .50 ammo and heavier, which is also fired by heavier sniper and anti-material rifles. Again, should have the same damage code.

Really, the only main functional difference between rifles and machineguns of the same ammo class is MGs do sustained fire much better.

-k

Exactly. Though MG's usually have a drastically improved range due to barrel length not to mention initial velocity. The main difference between weapons outside of round size is accuracy. Accuracy is the killer.

[CanRay]

"It's not the bullet with your name that matters, it's the one addressed 'To Whom It May Concern'."

"A stray bullet that hits you is just as deadly as an aimed bullet that hits you."

"Friendly fire isn't."