[X] My Assistant

[hermit]

All attributes cost the same. But your example of agi is easily augmented, which Body is not.

Because dermal plating and bone augmentations do not exist.

You're complaining saying "Who outside of this specialty wants this stat" while not thinking "Would someone who specializes in taking damage even care about getting body?" The answer is no. Because they get enough survivability from armor and other gear, that body is just a huge waste of karma, they're better off investing in reaction instead so they just flat out get hit less.

The priority would definitly shift, but Body still nets extra dice. And if you link Athletics to Body it becomes a basic nescessity again, anyway.

Huh? Define a dedicated fighter. If you mean a ranged combatant, they want Reaction and Agility. If you mean a melee fighter, they want Reaction, Agility, AND strength.

Do you only play glass cannons who absolutly cannot take a hit whatsoever? Being a fighter does include the ability to take damage as wella s deal it, in my book. Right now, that makes Body an nescessity, or you will be broken in half by the first punch that comes through.

reassign the Athletics group to Body

And now strength has no linked skills. And encumbrance is based on the most useful stat for a non-magician combatant. How is this an improvement?

Really, you should read the entire sentence before replying.

[Seerow]

Because dermal plating and bone augmentations do not exist.

Neither one is a body augmentation. They'd still be useful as ever for extra soak dice, but only serve to devalue a body that has no other benefits further than soak dice.

The priority would definitly shift, but Body still nets extra dice. And if you link Athletics to Body it becomes a basic nescessity again, anyway.

When your average character can get between 12 and 20 dice while maintaining an average body, getting any extra body seems pretty superfluous. If you can pick up some extra damage resistance as a cheap upgrade you might spring for it, but pay 20-30 karma for it? Yeah right.

Do you only play glass cannons who absolutly cannot take a hit whatsoever? Being a fighter does include the ability to take damage as wella s deal it, in my book. Right now, that makes Body an nescessity, or you will be broken in half by the first punch that comes through.

Actually, no. I like playing tank characters. My last character was a dwarf with 6 body, and a set of military grade armor. I got that 6 body to be able to wear my armor. If I could have the exact same armor by instead raising either strength or agility, you bet I would have done so in a heartbeat. Because dropping 3 dice out of damage resistance doesn't actually hurt all that bad. It really doesn't. I'm going to reitterate: If you remove body from encumbrance, the difference between a guy with average body, and a guy with awesome body, is a single damage box, and an average 1 success on a damage resistance test. 90% of the time, that won't even make the difference in surviving one extra hit.

Really, you should read the entire sentence before replying.

What did I misread? The only strength based skills in the game currently are Climbing, Running and Swimming. If you switch Athletics to go based off Body, then yes, Strength now has no linked skills. You then say make encumbrance based off strength+agility, which makes the end encumbrance value really high (average runner going between 6 and 10, allowing between 12 and 20 armor), high enough you don't really need to worry about strength (unless you're a melee combatant who needs it for damage), and instead just focus on agility which boosts almost everything you do. I mean holy shit do you even listen to yourself?

[hermit]

Neither one is a body augmentation. They'd still be useful as ever for extra soak dice, but only serve to devalue a body that has no other benefits further than soak dice.

Since SR4A doesn't allow more boni than base attribute, you need a high body to profit from that.

What did I misread? The only strength based skills in the game currently are Climbing, Running and Swimming. If you switch Athletics to go based off Body, then yes, Strength now has no linked skills. You then say make encumbrance based off strength+agility, which makes the end encumbrance value really high (average runner going between 6 and 10, allowing between 12 and 20 armor)

It does? It makes the end encumbrance potentially lower for everyone actually, especially trolls, who now can have a max of 6(9)+8(12)=14(21) encumbrance points. How the average runner has an Agi of 10 is beyond me really. And why waste money on strength, unless encumbrance is based on it? plus, in that system, you pay twice as you do now for adding the same value to encumbrance, sicne it defaults on two attributes instead of one.

Strength would be an encumbrance and damage in melee sort of attribute (sort of what Body is now). Right now, it is the athletics attribute. No change in viability. Also, you forgot Parachuting, for the record.

I'm going to reitterate: If you remove body from encumbrance, the difference between a guy with average body, and a guy with awesome body, is a single damage box, and an average 1 success on a damage resistance test. 90% of the time, that won't even make the difference in surviving one extra hit.

That's half the point. Right now, you only stand a chance to survive being hit by anything with awesome Body. If you've got an average stat, you can just forget about armour, the 6 you can wear before it detracts from any skill you use (including VR hacking) is eaten by any decent AP ammo. In the Shadowrun we have now, there's Bubba the tank troll and glass cannons. No in-between. If you use Str+Agi, you get a little equalisation, and less tank trolls.

[Seerow]

Since SR4A doesn't allow more boni than base attribute, you need a high body to profit from that.

So someone with 3 body gets 3 extra bonus dice. Plus all of their armor. That's plenty. Hell I don't think you can actually get more than 3 bonus body dice on damage resistance anyway. Dermal Sheath is just bonus armor, which doesn't require body. Bone Lacing caps out at +3 bonus with Titanium. So what exactly was your point with this again?

It does? It makes the end encumbrance potentially lower for everyone actually, especially trolls, who now can have a max of 6(9)+8(12)=14(21) encumbrance points. How the average runner has an Agi of 10 is beyond me really. And why waste money on strength, unless encumbrance is based on it? plus, in that system, you pay twice as you do now for adding the same value to encumbrance, sicne it defaults on two attributes instead of one.

Where did you get an agi of 10 from? I was figuring a combine str+agi of 10 as the upper end, and str+agi of 6 as the average.

And it seems you're TRYING to say that you only have str+agi, as your cap, rather than str+agix2 as the cap (which is what I assumed from your initial talking, replacing body straight up with str+agi), which leads to pretty outrageous numbers. Even with that, your average combatant is looking at 3 strength, and capping out their agility or close to it, because anyone who is worried about combat and isn't a mage wants agility. So you have an encumbrance of 10-12 max for your average combatant focused runner, which is the same as someone with a high body now.

On the other side of the scale, you have your Mages and Deckers, the ones who usually dump strength and agility, who are sitting at an encumbrance limit of between 4 and 6.

Also, trolls would have a max of 5(7)+10(15) = 15(22). Given your strength and agi can be augmented, but Body cannot (without a full suite of cyberlimbs which is something pretty rare to have and a pretty focused build, and in those cases its more efficient to just put armor on the limbs anyway), your upper bound on armor is actually slightly higher.


So you've brought down the upper limit slightly in a situation where someone doesn't want strength, brought it up slightly in a situation where they do. The lower bound is still the same, but it now costs someone twice as much to gain armor, and three times as much to gain armor + body.

So please explain to me what the hell any of this actually fixes? You still have people who can't wear hardly any armor. You still have people who wear way more. The only difference is the people who can wear more armor no longer also have body backing them up, but that extra body isn't actually all that important because armor is the primary factor in your damage resistance anyway. You shift all this stuff around and all you actually accomplish is making Body more worthless than it is now.

Strength would be an encumbrance and damage in melee sort of attribute (sort of what Body is now). Right now, it is the athletics attribute. No change in viability. Also, you forgot Parachuting, for the record.

Eh, I forgot parachuting, you forgot what a troll's actual augmented stats are. At least parachuting is something that never actually comes up.

That's half the point. Right now, you only stand a chance to survive being hit by anything with awesome Body. If you've got an average stat, you can just forget about armour, the 6 you can wear before it detracts from any skill you use (including VR hacking) is eaten by any decent AP ammo. In the Shadowrun we have now, there's Bubba the tank troll and glass cannons. No in-between. If you use Str+Agi, you get a little equalisation, and less tank trolls.

So instead, we have in order to survive being shot, you need to have awesome agility or strength, and you can just ignore body because agility and strength give you the same effective damage resistance while also giving you other stuff. Unless you want athletics, and DON'T want to be a melee combatant then you can go body. If you want to be a melee combatant, you're just screwed anyway, because now you need body for running, strength for damage, and agility for attack. And all 3 for damage resist.

[hermit]

So someone with 3 body gets 3 extra bonus dice. Plus all of their armor. That's plenty. Hell I don't think you can actually get more than 3 bonus body dice on damage resistance anyway. Dermal Sheath is just bonus armor, which doesn't require body. Bone Lacing caps out at +3 bonus with Titanium. So what exactly was your point with this again?

What is it you want to say? That Body needs to be the attribute to own all attributes? I was saying your bonus dice don't mean that much if you run around with a low-ass body. And please, read the base book. Both bioware options that raise Body are in there. You can max out Body just like any other attribute with implants.

Where did you get an agi of 10 from? I was figuring a combine str+agi of 10 as the upper end, and str+agi of 6 as the average.

That, then, would be 6 to 10 armour, not 12 to 20.

And it seems you're TRYING to say that you only have str+agi, as your cap, rather than str+agix2 as the cap (which is what I assumed from your initial talking, replacing body straight up with str+agi)

Yes, and I never said anything else (though it seems you're TRYING not to get it). Body*2 goes for Agi+Str. Agi*2+Str is ridiculous indeed. I just never assumed anyone would think up such nonsense. Where did you pull that one from? And why not STR*2+Agi?

Also, trolls would have a max of 5(7)+10(15) = 15(22). Given your strength and agi can be augmented, but Body cannot (without a full suite of cyberlimbs which is something pretty rare to have and a pretty focused build, and in those cases its more efficient to just put armor on the limbs anyway), your upper bound on armor is actually slightly higher.

As opposed to 15+15=30. Also, Body can be augmented with the hyperthyroid (+1) and bio-augmented bones (which raise body by their level, up to +4), to a maximum of +5, maxing out augmented body for a troll. There are more and differentw ays to max out augmented strength and agi, but you can only go up to their augmented value anyway.

So please explain to me what the hell any of this actually fixes?

It evens the odds. And it makes more races than trolls and orks viable as tank specialists (especially dwarfs).

So instead, we have in order to survive being shot, you need to have awesome agility or strength, and you can just ignore body because agility and strength give you the same effective damage resistance while also giving you other stuff. Unless you want athletics, and DON'T want to be a melee combatant then you can go body. If you want to be a melee combatant, you're just screwed anyway, because now you need body for running, strength for damage, and agility for attack. And all 3 for damage resist.

Yeah, because right now a melee build doesn't need all three (Str to do damage, Agi for the skill and Body to survive a hit) as is.

[Seerow]

What is it you want to say? That Body needs to be the attribute to own all attributes? I was saying your bonus dice don't mean that much if you run around with a low-ass body. And please, read the base book. Both bioware options that raise Body are in there. You can max out Body just like any other attribute with implants.

Go back and read again. It raises body for damage resistance tests only, it doesn't actually increase the body. But fine, you can get +4 body dr that way. OR you can stick with 3 body, get bone lacing instead, get +3 body damage resist and some extra armor on top of it. The bone lacing is still better damage resist overall, and works just fine with 3 body.

Yes, and I never said anything else (though it seems you're TRYING not to get it). Body*2 goes for Agi+Str. Agi*2+Str is ridiculous indeed. I just never assumed anyone would think up such nonsense. Where did you pull that one from? And why not STR*2+Agi?

I actually read it as (Str+Agi)*2, sorry for not including the parenthesis. Basically I assumed take out body, replace Str+Agi, exactly like I said in my post.

As opposed to 15+15=30. Also, Body can be augmented with the hyperthyroid (+1) and bio-augmented bones (which raise body by their level, up to +4), to a maximum of +5, maxing out augmented body for a troll. There are more and differentw ays to max out augmented strength and agi, but you can only go up to their augmented value anyway.

Wrong. The bones only apply body for damage resist tests. They don't actually increase your encumbrance. So you can get at most +1 body with the hyperthyroid, which is hard to get and expensive. The max body you're looking at on a troll is 11. That gives 22 encumbrance. Incidentally, 15 strength plus 7 agility gets you exactly the same.

It evens the odds. And it makes more races than trolls and orks viable as tank specialists (especially dwarfs).

Except it really doesn't. Sure, dwarves now have +2 strength, giving +2 encumbrance. They already have +1 body, which is +2 encumbrance. Look at that the net result for them from racial mods is the same!

And you're still ignoring anyone who doesn't need str/agi (ie all the mages and hackers, for whom survivability was actually an issue anyway) are actually worse off now, having to spend twice as much for the same protection. All the changing and shifting and you solved absolutely nothing!

The only people this really benefits are combat specialists sitting at 9+ agility who didn't want to invest in body who can now leave it at 1 without worrying about losing anything of value or being squishy.

Yeah, because right now a melee build doesn't need all three (Str to do damage, Agi for the skill and Body to survive a hit) as is.

Yet I thought the point was that people who didn't currently want to get body could get by without needing an extra stat? I'm still waiting to hear what the hell exactly you think your change actually accomplishes?

[pbangarth]

Since SR4A doesn't allow more boni than base attribute, you need a high body to profit from that.

Sorry, but can someone remind me where SR4A says this?

[Seerow]

Okay discussed it a bit further with a fellow player, and think we came up with a good alternative armor solution:


Softweave armor is changed to act as follows: Softweave is a modification that may be applied to light armors, making it easier to wear for weaker individuals. Armor with this modification is treated as half its value for purposes of determining encumbrance. This modification may only be applied to an item with 6 armor or less. If your total armor value exceeds 6, then this modification has no effect. Form Fitting Body Armor may be affected by this upgrade, reducing encumbrance on that armor to 1/4 armor value if all armor worn has the modification. Form Fitting Body Armor does not count against the maximum limit of 6 for purposes of this modification.

Then, SecureTech armor may be affected by softweave, but is counted towards total armor for determining if your armor can be affected by softweave.



Okay that write up is really ugly and probably doesn't make a lot of sense. Some help rewriting it to make it clearer would be appreciated. But in the mean time, here's some examples that should clarify the intent:

Example 1: Character with body 2 feels really squishy, decides to get some softweave armor. He picks out a lined cloak, with 6/4 armor, and applies softweave. He also picks up a underbody half suit for 4/1 armor, and applies softweave to that as well. Putting both of these on gives him 10/5 armor, but for encumbrance purposes, it counts as (6/2 = 3 and 4/4 = 1) a total of 4 armor, which is acceptable for a 2 body character to wear without penalty. The character can choose to pick up some Securetech gear with softweave, such as helmet, and Shin Guards, with softweave which would give him an additional 3 impact armor, bringing his total up to 8/2 = 4, so he wouldn't be encumbered. However, if he picked up Leg and Arm Casings, his ballistic armor would be raised to 7, so even if he had softweave on everything, the basic limitation (total not counting underarmor cannot exceed 6) has been violated, so he would face full encumbrance.

In essence, this basic setup (ending with 10/9 maximum armor) is the armor that someone at 2 to 4 body will expect to have. Beyond that, it becomes more efficient to use non-softweaved armor


Example 2: A character with 4 body can choose to wear the setup described above, but he can actually afford to wear it without any encumbrance without the softweave. So he decides to abandon the softweave to save some nuyen, and use the capacity slots on other upgrades.

Example 3: A character with 6 body gains nothing from wearing the softweave, easily wearing that with no encumbrance, and instead grabs an Armored Jacket, Undersuit, and SecureTech, for a total of 14/12 armor. Just like now.




tl;dr: Softweave gets changed to make lower body characters able to wear roughly 10 armor (a 1 body character can get away with about 6), without being able to be taken advantage of by higher strength characters. This both lowers the cheese available to high body characters, and increases the lowerbound of armor. This can be introduced pretty easily, and works well with either augmentable body, or with body as a derived stat. The big benefit is getting more armor for low body characters across the board without nullifying the benefits of higher body, rather than only boosting some character types while continuing to leave others far behind in the dust.

[Neraph]

Sorry, but can someone remind me where SR4A says this?

It doesn't; not unless it was another ninja-errata, that is.

To OP: I still say you should 21 armor Segway it up.

[Medicineman]

Sorry, but can someone remind me where SR4A says this?

Nowhere
Thats pure Imagination from Hermit
He might have mixed it with the optional Rule of capped Dice (20 or 2x nat Attribute & Skill )

HokaHey
Medicineman

[Seerow]

Nowhere
Thats pure Imagination from Hermit
He might have mixed it with the optional Rule of capped Dice (20 or 2x nat Attribute & Skill )

HokaHey
Medicineman

Really? Here I figured it was just a rule my group commonly overlooked, as I know there's several of those. It's especially funny since that rule was cited not once but twice precluded by "read the damn books"

[suoq]

Really? Here I figured it was just a rule my group commonly overlooked, as I know there's several of those. It's especially funny since that rule was cited not once but twice precluded by "read the damn books"

You get used to that here. It's why I try to include book/pg number in my answers, even if the answer is not actually how we do things at our table. If someone just tells you what a "rule" is, chances are they're just describing how their table plays, possibly under the theory that their table is playing the one true Shadowrun.

Frequently you see great posts like "The authors were wrong", "They didn't understand their own rules", or "That's not a rule, that's just fluff" when a rulebook contradicts how someone plays.

[Yerameyahu]

Those are all valid statements (especially the third one, oy). It's only a problem if someone is confused by the difference between RAW and not.

[Neraph]

Those are all valid statements (especially the third one, oy). It's only a problem if someone is confused by the difference between RAW and not.

I walk that thin, fine line.

[Hida Tsuzua]

Frequently you see great posts like "The authors were wrong", "They didn't understand their own rules", or "That's not a rule, that's just fluff" when a rulebook contradicts how someone plays.

To be fair, all of those are true too despite misuse of those lines. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Bodak]

Well, if you interpret the "glowing field of magical energy" as something you can see without astral sight, then yes, the spell will invariably be less useful. I could certainly see such interpretation being valid.

This one is actually pretty clear. All sustained spells (and permanent spells being sustained before they become permanent) whether being sustained by a spell lock / focus, or Quickened (which, when talking about magic in SR, pretty much always refers to the Metamagic) are assensable on the Astral plane. That can be made more difficult using Masking (by which I mean the Metamagic, not plastic kiddy disguises) and high initiate grades. But if the description Dakka Dakka quoted ("a glowing field of magical energy") had anything to do with Astral perception / assensing, then that text would appear in the description of every sustained spell and would be redundant: the rules already make it clear each spell is "a glowing field of magical energy" (or similar) on the astral. The glowing effect is definitely an optical one.

That said, the spell design rules in Magic in the Shadows / Street Magic don't include a discount for "distinctive spell: obvious visual signature" (only one for whether illusions are realistic or not). So there's no real reason why the Armour spell should have a visible glowing field around it. Just take Spell Design knowledge skill in SR3 or Arcana active skill in SR4 and design your own Armour spell that doesn't have the glowing effect. Since spell formulae are often available on the Matrix in SR4, it's plausible some mage out there somewhere has designed and published a less "shoot me first!" version of the spell than appears in the books.

[Yerameyahu]

See, creating an identical-but-better version of a canon spell is bad. The GM could never allow it; if he wanted that, he'd just houserule the glow away from the real spell. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) The spell design rules in general are just a mess waiting to happen.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

See, creating an identical-but-better version of a canon spell is bad. The GM could never allow it; if he wanted that, he'd just houserule the glow away from the real spell. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) The spell design rules in general are just a mess waiting to happen.

Spell design rules are not all that bad. You just need a competant GM to vet the resulting spells.

[Yerameyahu]

That's more or less the definition of bad rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) They're slightly better than nothing, yes, as long as you do have such a GM.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

That's more or less the definition of bad rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) They're slightly better than nothing, yes, as long as you do have such a GM.

Having played a game where the Spell design rules took up huge sections of the book, I am very happy with the rules in Shadowrun. I will take simplicity over tedious and "realistic" any day.

[Yerameyahu]

False dilemma. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) The SR rules aren't simple, they're just incomplete and full of loopholes. They also don't match the canon spells in many cases. I didn't ask for 'realistic' nor huge.

[Neraph]

False dilemma. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) The SR rules aren't simple, they're just incomplete and full of loopholes. They also don't match the canon spells in many cases. I didn't ask for 'realistic' nor huge.

Intertsesting because I didn't see many places where the spells differed from the given mechanics. I mainly looked at Combat spells though...

[Dakka Dakka]

The point is not that you cannot recreate the canon spells with the same drain code but that you can create spells that are more powerful than the canon spells. There is for example the hidden Armor spell or the (Improved) Undetectability Spell. The former has the same drain code as the canon spell. the latter costs a mere +1 drain.

[Yerameyahu]

That, but I was also under the impression that various combat (esp. Indirect) came out wrong. If I'm mistaken, the other problems still exist. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Neraph]

That, but I was also under the impression that various combat (esp. Indirect) came out wrong. If I'm mistaken, the other problems still exist. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

They didn't from what I saw. The way to "fix" them, and the way they run at my tables, is to switch the drain code for Direct and Indirect in the spellcraft rules. It comes out to all Indirect spells get -2 DV and all Direct get +2 DV, making Indirect more desirable.