A few more questions after experiments.. Options

[hyphz]

So, we're gradually getting our heads around making characters, but two slightly odd things came up while we were experimenting this week. Can I just ask for a bit of guidance about these?

1. Everyone in the group is taking Adept just to get extra IP without losing Essence. Is this normal?

2. We experimentally had one character fire full-auto at another. Even when he's a Troll with good Body and high Ballistic Armor, it blew straight through his entire PCM and killed him in one round. Is this normal?

3. Another player then tried throwing a grenade. Is it acceptable to "aim at a location" with a grenade and have the location be someone's feet? If you aim at the person, it seems that ridiculously high scatter is pretty much guaranteed. In fact, the way the rules work it seems that the target trying to dodge causes the grenade to scatter further which makes very little sense.

[Udoshi]

So, we're gradually getting our heads around making characters, but two slightly odd things came up while we were experimenting this week. Can I just ask for a bit of guidance about these?

1. Everyone in the group is taking Adept just to get extra IP without losing Essence. Is this normal?

2. We experimentally had one character fire full-auto at another. Even when he's a Troll with good Body and high Ballistic Armor, it blew straight through his entire PCM and killed him in one round. Is this normal?

3. Another player then tried throwing a grenade. Is it acceptable to "aim at a location" with a grenade and have the location be someone's feet? If you aim at the person, it seems that ridiculously high scatter is pretty much guaranteed. In fact, the way the rules work it seems that the target trying to dodge causes the grenade to scatter further which makes very little sense.

I can try to answer some of these. Your players are likely just falling for HollyWood Syndrome: magic kung-fu man is just a COOL archetype that people seem to enjoy.
Take it, run with it, and encourage it. Forming an initiatory group for your players, and adventures around it, could be excellent. You should be grateful they are are not all Magicians.

2: Yes. guns are hilariously lethal in shadowrun. Did you forget about Full Defense? Said troll ought to have been rolling reaction+dodge if he really wanted tp live, and/or using Edge. Also, what exactly are the stats involved?

3) Grenades, sadly, suffer from Fucked Up Catalyst Rules in the change to Anniversary edition.
Basically, how it used to work, is everyone in the blast radius got a chance to dodge a grenade.
Someone decided 'god, this is too many dice to roll for npcs' and changed it for the worse.
Currently, i believe, only the 'main target' gets to dodge, and everyone else nearby just kind of takes damage. If someone is throwing a grenade at someone's feet, that would be a Called Shot for extra damage, not a change in location.
The problem is, the loophole was never actually CLOSED, or a new one introduced anyway, and the current rules still allow for aiming at inanimate objects, who do not defend. This makes it better to aim at someonebody's chair, or the nearby couch, in order to inflict full undodgable damage on the actual target you want to hurt.
Also, scatter was pretty much doubled across the board, as a side effect grenades can bounce(teleport, really) farther than they were actually thrown, and you don't get net hits to damage after reducing scatter to 0 any more.

Basically, your solution to your grenade problems is to use 4th Editions rules for it, because they're just better.

[Glyph]

1. No, that's not really normal. I don't know why their Essence, a mostly metagame stat measuring how much cyberware you can put in yourself, would matter that much to them. Adepts can do a lot of things, but initiative boosters are a lot easier to get with wired reflexes: 2 (and reaction enhancers: 2 as well, if you're really feeling frisky). It seems kind of silly to buy up an additional Attribute (Magic) to get something you can buy fairly easily.

2. Ranged combat in general, and full bursts especially, can be deadly. The target gets to roll to dodge it, and then gets to roll to resist the damage, but sometimes that isn't enough. Keep recoil in mind, though, and also remember that your test was made under optimal conditions. In a real shadowrun, the shooter might be suffering from wound penalties, facing visibility modifiers, and be shooting from cover, at a moving target at medium range. There are lots of potential negative modifiers that can really add up.

3. Aiming at a location should not make hitting the target any easier, so don't let them get away with that cheese. The target's resistance test is basically them getting out of the way of where the grenade is headed.

[Draco18s]

1. Everyone in the group is taking Adept just to get extra IP without losing Essence. Is this normal?

No, it's not. That's a seriously huge amount of BP for nothing. It's actually cheaper for the full adept to get cyberware for his IPs than it is to use build points.

Simply because it's 2.5 PP (that is, 3 magic needed) in order to get one additional pass versus something like 1 essence and $50,000.

Your group is taking the Essence thing to seriously.

3) Grenades, sadly, suffer from Fucked Up Catalyst Rules in the change to Anniversary edition.
Basically, how it used to work, is everyone in the blast radius got a chance to dodge a grenade.

THIS IS UNTRUE!

ALL effected characters getting a dodge was never the rule. It was "only the character being targetted."

Everyone effected getting a doge to move away is actually a very reasonable house rule.

[Udoshi]

Glyph brings up a very good point in his second reponse.

In shadowrun, situational modifiers are really important. Really important.

Try the shot again, factoring in Range Penalties, Vision/Lighting Penalties, and, say, Light Cover. If the defender is Running, i believe thats another +2 for the defender.

And remember that Surprise is incredibly deadly, because the ambushers get a free shot that can't be defended against - though this depends greatly on how the initiative dice fall.

[hyphz]

I think it's just fear of the healing penalty for Essence.

What are the "better" grenade rules from 4E?

[Draco18s]

I think it's just fear of the healing penalty for Essence.

What are the "better" grenade rules from 4E?

They're worse. To the point at which no one uses anything but areodynamic grenades, otherwise the scatter is too far (for a guided missile with a rating 6 sensor you need a critical success (4 net hits) to get your target in the blast radius and need 8 net hits to hit dead on....50% of the time (the other half of the time, the scatter is large enough to put the missile in the next county); add air burst and suddenly that hit rate rises dramatically to needing only 1 net hit for a dead-on hit and only a 1 in 12 chance of not getting the target in the blast at all).

Compare:

CODE

SR4

Type Scatter
Standard Grenade 1D6 meters - 2 per net hit
Aerodynamic Grenade 2D6 meters - 4 per net hit
Grenade Launcher 3D6 meters - 4 per net hit
Rocket 2D6 meters - 1 per net hit
Missile 2D6 meters - 1 per net hit (- Sensor rating)
Airburst 1D6 meters - 1 per net hit (- Sensor rating)

CODE

SR4A

type scatter
Standard Grenade 1D6 meters - 1 per net hit
Aerodynamic Grenade 2D6 meters - 2 per net hit
Grenade Launcher 3D6 meters - 2 per net hit
Rocket 4D6 meters - 1 per net hit
Missile 4D6 meters - 1 per net hit (- Sensor rating)
Airburst 2D6 meters - 1 per net hit (- Sensor rating)

[hyphz]

.. That seems like the SR4 scatter is much lower than SR4A's.

[Summerstorm]

Hm... i haven't had that many people shooting with rocket-launchers in my game so far, even grenades only came up only sporadic. But they nearly always were dangerous, even with the scatter.

I mean:
Scattering BEHIND a target (and the target is tall) pretty much means you have hit
Scattering left and right, means you can even hit without net hits, if the target is long (like an APC, Limousine whatever)
Scattering in front of something... yeah damage drop.

If you scatter in rooms, it is automatically limited by walls (which also salsas the damage up, if tough) So say you scatter 7 meters behind someone... but he stands 3 meters from a wall. That means the grenade explodes there and salsa's the damage up from 10 (normal) to 14 reaching him.

And hitting a vehicle: Come on it is large (+2) or more, you AIM... because you are shooting with MONEY at it. (say you are good +2). And have a passive spotter, Tacnet, or missile. Whatever. It isn't that far fetched.

Just firing that into a MEDIUM drone, while it murders your friends or hunts you down... yeah theat is tough. Have to make it airburst and hope for the best. Seems realistic for me.

So yeah: screw scatter.

[Rubic]

Simply because it's 2.5 PP (that is, 3 magic needed) in order to get one additional pass versus something like 1 essence and $50,000.

Your group is taking the Essence thing to seriously.

1.5 PP (2 magic, so 15 or 20 BP) for +1 IP
Wired Reflexes 1 is 2 essence and 11 000 nuyen (approx 2 BP + change)
Synaptic Booster gives the same for 0.5 Essence and 80 000 nuyen (16 BP)

Since you don't recover essence outside of a very expensive and lengthy procedure, ... it's more or less a matter of preference. Some bonuses, some negatives, their choice. Magic is the most expensive resource to use, but has it's own benefits and down sides beyond that.

[Udoshi]

THIS IS UNTRUE!

ALL effected characters getting a dodge was never the rule. It was "only the character being targetted."

Everyone effected getting a doge to move away is actually a very reasonable house rule.

I could have sworn this wasn't the case, but would make sense for the 'target a the chair to automatically hit the person sitting in it' exploit in the rules.

But yeah. Anniversary Edition rules for scatter basically have Teleporting Grenade effects. There was one thread on here, ages ago, who had a grenade he fired down the stairs at a group of foes scatter ALL the way BACK UP the stairs, and paste his team, scattering entirely further than the normal distance of the shot, due to bad rules. The thread was basically 'wtf is this, it can't be serious'

[Draco18s]

I could have sworn this wasn't the case, but would make sense for the 'target a the chair to automatically hit the person sitting in it' exploit in the rules.

If I ever end up in a Missions game I will take the flaw Prejudiced (Furniture), Radical for 25 BP. And do just that: target the furniture.

1.5 PP (2 magic, so 15 or 20 BP) for +1 IP
Wired Reflexes 1 is 2 essence and 11 000 nuyen (approx 2 BP + change)
Synaptic Booster gives the same for 0.5 Essence and 80 000 nuyen (16 BP)

I was guessing. I couldn't remember the right costs. But if you get those Wired Reflexes as Betaware, it's only 1.4 essence and 44,000 (8.8 BP), as Deltaware it'd be 1 Essence and 110,000 (22 BP, but I agree that this is a little expensive). Which isn't far off from what I suggested.

[Rubic]

I was guessing. I couldn't remember the right costs. But if you get those Wired Reflexes as Betaware, it's only 1.4 essence and 44,000 (8.8 BP), as Deltaware it'd be 1 Essence and 110,000 (22 BP, but I agree that this is a little expensive). Which isn't far off from what I suggested.

If you're going for deltaware wired reflexes, you're probably better off getting Synaptic Boosters from bioware. Standard grade is cheaper on both nuyen AND essence loss. Type O system, if you're going for alot of bioware, would drop the essence loss for it to negligible levels.

[hyphz]

Oops. I've just realised it's not due to essence cost. It's because they want 4 IP right out of the gate, and Wired Reflexes 3 is out of Availability range for char gen.

[PoliteMan]

Oops. I've just realised it's not due to essence cost. It's because they want 4 IP right out of the gate, and Wired Reflexes 3 is out of Availability range for char gen.

Point them at the Restricted Gear quality.

[Draco18s]

Oops. I've just realised it's not due to essence cost. It's because they want 4 IP right out of the gate, and Wired Reflexes 3 is out of Availability range for char gen.

For four IPs, it's almost better to go full mage. 16R and $40,000 for a force 4 sustaining focus. The same 4+ magic, 3 BP for the spell, and 5 BP for Restricted Gear.

Spending that much of your PP on more IP is silly.

[Rubic]

For four IPs, it's almost better to go full mage. 16R and $40,000 for a force 4 sustaining focus. The same 4+ magic, 3 BP for the spell, and 5 BP for Restricted Gear.

Spending that much of your PP on more IP is silly.

Unless you're going Way of the Warrior, in which case it's 3 PP for +3 IP (total 4 IP). But then, at that point, you're not trying to hack, are you?

[Draco18s]

Unless you're going Way of the Warrior, in which case it's 3 PP for +3 IP (total 4 IP). But then, at that point, you're not trying to hack, are you?

In any case.

You're not supposed to have 4 initiative passes at chargen. It's the equivalent to building a first level wizard in That Other Game that can prepare a 9th level spell.

[UmaroVI]

It's more that IPs have diminishing returns. Having 2 IPs on which you can do effective actions is better than having 4 IPs but only being half as effective on each.

[Faelan]

It's more that IPs have diminishing returns. Having 2 IPs on which you can do effective actions is better than having 4 IPs but only being half as effective on each.

This ain't SR3 with a fixed and diminishing dice pool.

[Rubic]

If you spend too much on IPs, you might be missing out on vital skills and gear due to the investment. Then again, that's what optimized characters pull off.

[hyphz]

Point them at the Restricted Gear quality.

I've asked them to use only base SR and Arsenal (because they like guns). Giving them Runner's Companion would, I fear, result in a party of Drakes toting military lasers and end up me staring at a wall and gibbering. They can have those when I've gotten the hang of the system a bit more.

[Glyph]

4 IPs is well within the reach of starting characters, but it is a significant hit on a starting character's scarce resources. It is usually better to start out with 3 IPs, and upgrade later. The same can be said for hard-maxing in general - those last few dice tend to be disproportionately expensive. Not that it can't be done, but hyper-specialists are hard for newbies to pull off without shortchanging themselves in an important area or two.

[LurkerOutThere]

I cry manly bitter tears that the best way to get 4 IP's is to play a mage and have a super spell lock. I hates the Magicrun, I hates it so much.

If your players are having issue with the healing hit for having essence loss might I just suggest getting rid of that entirely? It's been a stupid rule since it's inception.

[Hida Tsuzua]

This ain't SR3 with a fixed and diminishing dice pool.

I think he's talking about the cost of getting more IPs and what you could have done with it. Each IP is about half as useful as the one before it. A 2nd IP is huge and really needed because the fight can still be up in the air. By the time the 3rd IP rolls around, the fight will be decided or being cleaned up. The combat is over by the fourth or you're just cleaning up.

Sure I'll take more IPs if I can. But that fourth IP is costly (unless you're a mage). You can make those more vital IPs matter more.