Layering Upgraded Visor/Glasses/Contacts/Cybereyes, Surely this can't be done Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Concatcs R3 with Flarcomp, Imagelink and Lowlight 1375 nuyen
Glasses R4 with Magnification and Enhancementx3, 2150 nuyen
Second pair glasses (I have two pair of glasses regularily, one corrective and a sunglasses that are made to fit over regular glasses). R2 with Smartlink and Thermographic: 2700 nuyen.

Total cost: 6225 nuyen.


Availability 11, 8 and 10. Trivial to get and cheap.


Goggles R6 with juyst Magnification, Enhancement 3, thermographic vision and Smartlink: 4550 nuyen (same prices as the stack, plusminus a few hundred). Still lacking image link and flarecomp mind you, Availability 18R. You can't get these from start because they are cooler than you should get on your regular runner budget.
A pair of goggles with capacity 13 (to get everything) would be availability 23+base item. Availability 23 worth of upgrades, split to simple triplet of 10. Yeah.


Cybereyes with Imagelink, flarecomp, lowlight, smartlink, thermographic vision, vision enhancement 3 and vision magnification actually only has availability 12 (+all the mods that are at most 9 for one) but costs 36000 nuyen and 0.5 essence.


Do you really think that is fair? You can buy 10 stacks of the "all in one go" glasses+contacts shenanigans to have as backup in case you eat ball lightnings for a living.

Don't really see any problem here... And this from the guy who would choose the Cybereyes package over the disposables. *shrug*
Every person is different.

The problem I see is that they raised the prices of the technology in SR5 for no good reason. THAT is where you should be directing your complaints... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[apple]

Can't we just let sams and deckers have vision modes as a good strength?

No.

Why can an adept pick up a gun and be sometimes better than the streetsam? Do you forbid guns for adepts as well? Do you forbid invisibility for mage as well because there are mundane infiltrators?

You choose to play Magerun ... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) .

SYL

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

No.

Why can an adept pick up a gun and be sometimes better than the streetsam? Do you forbid guns for adepts as well? Do you forbid invisibility for mage as well because there are mundane infiltrators?

You choose to play Magerun ... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) .

SYL

Well, DUH... Mages can get sight capabilities that a Street Sam could only dream about. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[bannockburn]

*cough* Deepweed *cough*

[Cain]

If you really want to mess with players who use multiple vision devices, all you have to do is be anal retentive about which item is up at any given time. Make them announce at every given moment which devices they're wearing: if they're indoors, and don't explicitly say they've got their sunglasses on, they don't have them on. I find that approach to be overly punitive, but if that's what you want, you can do it without ignoring a lot of rules.

Less punitive but still effective: The only time vision mods become really critical is for spell targeting. I just rule that all of them are electronic in nature, so you can't target a spell via vision mods, unless you paid for them via Essence. This means cybereye thermo or low light is a great investment; not so much for mundanes, but definitely for spell-chuckers.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

*cough* Deepweed *cough*

Sure... I was more referring to spells that gave senses that are non-standard, and that you cannot get as implant or technology... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Surukai]

...
You might as well complain about full matrix accessibility with trode nets for everyone.

They "fixed" that by making cyberdecks that can do actual matrix trickery forbiddingly expensive. Paying well over 100k for even a basic deck and then realizing the dice pool requirement to get even above the threshold of usefulness makes sure noone but the group decker is a threat or asset on the matrix.

It acts as niche protection for deckers (In sr4 almost everyone was a godly hacker thanks to the broken piracy rules in addition to wonky program options)


There is a question if the price inflation was right. I'm not convinced either way but it do make casual cyber/magic combos less easy. I believe the huge cost of cyberware, cyberdecks and such is to cull down on the cybermages, cybered adepts and the like by making it an actual sacrifice to get the hybrids and not just a clear superior alternative.In SR4, adept with synaptic booster payed just 1 power point (1 magic loss) for 2.5 power points worth of increased reflexes. The cash cost to get that upgrade did not reflect the benefit it offered.


I want to believe they had a reason behind the price inflation of tech. And I think it is to make tech more exclusive to sams/deckers/mundanes and make it less available for magic users.

Then, if I think they did a good job, I'm less convinced. I just work with the fact that cyber has inflated costs and there has to be a reason other than pure stupidity, hasn't it?

[toturi]

Then, if I think they did a good job, I'm less convinced. I just work with the fact that cyber has inflated costs and there has to be a reason other than pure stupidity, hasn't it?

Cyber has inflated costs because cyber (like adept powers) are more difficult to remove than gear.

[apple]

Then, if I think they did a good job, I'm less convinced. I just work with the fact that cyber has inflated costs and there has to be a reason other than pure stupidity, hasn't it?

Then of course Mages & Co just pick up the Best-in-slot in delta quality. Because, well, they have enough money and don´t need to upgrade from the beginning like a street sam. Already worked in SR23 like a charm. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

And no, you were not a "godly hacker" in SR4 just because of piracy. For being a godly hacker you need cyberware, bioware, nanoware, geneware, milspec commlinks and programms. Hardly easy to come by if you really want to push the limit. "Pocket hackers" for medium difficulty matrix runs where quite easy to obtain (agents mostly), something which was ok for the plausability and the consistency of a fully computerized world (Although I think that agent/pilot 4 would have been enough as a limit in SR4). A hacker underground, where almonst no one can hack because of the costs? Well, that sounds rather strange.

Always wondering why someone would think that by making cyberware bad and expansive they are protecting the "niche" of a fully cybered-up character. If you would be able to divine the future I would think that at the end of SR5 it will have the same nickname as SR3 at the end: MageRun, because in both editions it didnt make any sense to play mundane characters because of the extreme costs.

SYL

[Surukai]

Sure you were a "godly hacker" in SR4 without even breaking a sweat.

Programs went from Rating 1 to 6.


A basic commlink with r4 + optimization r2 program options meant you had every program you wanted at R6 even with a basic R4 commlink. Only Technomancers could get past R6 programs in SR4. (Even with R7+ military grade stuff it was unobtainable by hacker characters. Stuff that were could just be pirated like everything else. Extended tests and the test to find a particular software on a hacker net was trivial. Even a super basic character can ace any extended test in SR4 because they were trivial. The thing that made extended tests even remotely challenging was an optional rule (that I always used on draconic levels))

You got lvl 6 programs for a few hundred nuyen that worked on even your basic commlink from chargen, without sacrificing your awesome cyberware or interfer with magic. Full VR was overrated, an adept had 4 IPs in meatspace, hacking from AR had no drawback whatsooever and made you immune to linklock and biofeedback damage. The commlink was so cheap that you could have 2-3 spare on your desk to jump straight back in in case you got bricked by matrix damage while a TM or "real" hacker would be overflowing with stun or phys damage long time ago.

Add an army of cheap pirated agents all with "area of effect" upgraded attack programs with rust option and nothing can stand against even one single IP of onslaught. The matrix attack "damage per second" of a mere 10000 nuyen worth of Agent Smith bots completely murders every pregenerated matrix opposition I've seen in any book or adventure so far. Unless the GM use the same rules, but more, and hotfix adventures, matrix is a joke.

A tiny sidespec for a sam to add a few thousand nuyen on a slightly better commlink and then use the lifestyle rolled money to get everything he needs from a the pirate node the first 5 minutes of play puts him on equal footing as a dedicated hacker. Remember, in SR4 you have no use for attributes. Orc Sam with logic 1 and charisma 1 still got the same 12 dice hacking as the hacker.

The cost of being a hacker in SR4 with Unwired crap was a mere 22 karma for the skill. Or even that, agents can even replace the need for wasting karma on skills making hacking easy to just ignore.


Then, that you could completely make hacking obsolete by chain slaving devices with encryption to have 100's of initiative passes of guaranteed immunity to hackers in combat that not even a widget submerged resonance 20 Technomancer could even touch is beside the point. It was still trivial to be as good hacker as you can get for no cost in skills, attributes, essence or nuyen still stands.


SR5 does not have this (yet). SR5 went the complete other way by making decks so insanely expensive that not even a decker could afford one. And if they did they had to focus most of their A priority on that one thing. Maybe it is a bit overdone, I don't know but hacking is a much more exotic thing in SR5 and I prefer that over the waste of dice that were Unwired SR4.


And, apple, I am not fully conviced that SR5 made it right with cyberware costs versus its goodness either. I just try to see what they tried to make out of it when they made it so expensive. I'm trying to see the good intentions with niche protecting hacking and to some extent; cyber.

Either way, laying cheap vision devices is apparently going against the new design theme of making cyber more expensive. It devalues the adept powers, spirit buffs, spells and all other areas that give the same kind of benefit. There is a balance intended for these things and I firmly believe that balance is getting seriously ruined by simple stacking.

Like stacking drugs with intitative powers/cybers for permanent 5t6+5 extra initative. Few RPGs allow stacking. "Only best bonus to a particular thing" is a standard theme for a vast majority of well designed games.

[apple]

Programs went from Rating 1 to 6.

No, non-military programs went from 1-6. Military grade programs started at 7. But of course you are invited to run with rating 6 programs against rating 10 nodes with rating 10 programs. I can understand that WAR! was not the most popular book in SR4 (personally I hate it from the bottom of my rotten heart), but it still redefined was "good matrix ratings" were.

The cost of being a hacker in SR4 with Unwired crap was a mere 22 karma for the skill.

I am quite sure, that a main skill of 7 and all support skills on 6 do not cost 22 karma (Hacking, Cybercombat, data search, hardware, software and computer). Remember you brought up the godly hacker. And if you want have all the supporting ware you had to sacrifice most part of your essence and money as well (from Encephaplon to Pushed-Genemod). Of course you can hack without tha - but then you are not pushing the limit, but you are just ok for your everyday milk matrix run.

I'm trying to see the good intentions with niche protecting hacking and to some extent; cyber.

Well, I would rather have tried a more successful way: buffing instead of nerving. Because people, especially in a game, want to to awesome thing. And they dont want to sacrifice every essence point and nuyen chip to to be ... average.

Make Cyberware awesome!
Make cyberlimbs able to jump on roof tops!
Make cyberarms strong enough to punch through walls!
Make cybereyes/smartlink good enough that people WANT the cyberware.
Remove overcasting and too cheap copies of cybernetic abilities with adepts or spells.

Et voila, you don´t need niche protection. If your system/world has fallen to such a low level that one of the most iconic cyberpunk characters (hacker/street sam) needs nice protection you dont solve the problem with increasing essence and nuyen cost by a factor of 10 (in some cases). It only leads to "Wow, I have to pay 1 fucking millions bucks just to get a +1d6 to my pool, while the mages rocks with invisibility, levitation, fireballs and mind rape? And I have to pay with 4 Essence for what exactly? I switch!"

There is a balance intended for these things and I firmly believe that balance is getting seriously ruined by simple stacking.

Maybe, but it is still allowed. Everything else is a house rule.

SYL

[Mystweaver]

Topic has gone of on an interesting tangent.

Back to the subject, thank you for the interesting debate.

I have no intention of letting my players layer contact lenses - that is just silly.

I don't have any problem with characters running with layered mods - Cybereyes have a distinct advantage over all of the other methods - they can't be dropped/ lost and are much harder to break.

If they start taking advantage, I'm sure I can find ways of breaking their nice mods (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Surukai]

No, non-military programs went from 1-6. Military grade programs started at 7. But of course you are invited to run with rating 6 programs against rating 10 nodes with rating 10 programs. I can understand that WAR! was not the most popular book in SR4 (personally I hate it from the bottom of my rotten heart), but it still redefined was "good matrix ratings" were.

Doesn't matter, still not available to the "real hacker" from start anyway. And besides, those rating 10+ programs are still available on the pirate net. Add stupid optimization option once again and you can run even that on a basic commlink. Granted you need to go up to 5 but still a starting commlink that is pretty cheap does the job. A bit more fiddly swapping is required but argument still stands.

I am quite sure, that a main skill of 7 and all support skills on 6 do not cost 22 karma (Hacking, Cybercombat, data search, hardware, software and computer). Remember you brought up the godly hacker. And if you want have all the supporting ware you had to sacrifice most part of your essence and money as well (from Encephaplon to Pushed-Genemod). Of course you can hack without tha - but then you are not pushing the limit, but you are just ok for your everyday milk matrix run.

You don't need that. Agents.. pirated cheap agents with all relevant skills at the level you want. With the WAR crap you even get rating 10 here too. Something that you can not get as a normal character. WAR changes nothing in terms of "pirated stuff + retarded program options makes ratings trivial for everyone" being a problem. UW is a disaster, even worse than WAR and WAR sucked!

Maybe, but it is still allowed. Everything else is a house rule.

SYL

So is taking jazz, cram and rating 2 wired reflexes for 5t6 +5 extra initative. Or placing buff spells in F1 foci and use reagents or edge to make them effectively Force 10.

It can't be the intention, can it?


And finally to this post, where I want to stop arguing my case and just agree.

Well, I would rather have tried a more successful way: buffing instead of nerving. Because people, especially in a game, want to to awesome thing. And they dont want to sacrifice every essence point and nuyen chip to to be ... average.

Make Cyberware awesome!
Make cyberlimbs able to jump on roof tops!
Make cyberarms strong enough to punch through walls!
Make cybereyes/smartlink good enough that people WANT the cyberware.
Remove overcasting and too cheap copies of cybernetic abilities with adepts or spells.

Et voila, you don´t need niche protection. If your system/world has fallen to such a low level that one of the most iconic cyberpunk characters (hacker/street sam) needs nice protection you dont solve the problem with increasing essence and nuyen cost by a factor of 10 (in some cases). It only leads to "Wow, I have to pay 1 fucking millions bucks just to get a +1d6 to my pool, while the mages rocks with invisibility, levitation, fireballs and mind rape? And I have to pay with 4 Essence for what exactly? I switch!"

This is a completely different approach. It requires insane amount of house rules that would not only start by tossing things like silly stacking (of any kind) out of the window and make things good, fun and interesting out of the box without requiring cheesy combos or excessive modding to work.

Machine guns that actually work without overmodding recoil compensation, cyberware that is both iconic good and fun, magic that is magical instead of stupid and so on.

So, let me first start by saying that I completely agree with your initial analysis and that the path of "lets make everything really expensive so only dedicated sams have any cyberware" might not be so good.

That said, I have a few comments to add regarding mages.

It is that mages are not so good at the toolbox part as they might seem. Sustaining and how sustaining penalties work makes sustained spells near useless and a mage will at most have one or maybe an alternative one that she can use on special non combat situations. Adepts also have a very limited pool of power points for utility.

Fun utility stuff for both mages and adepts are extremely crappy and terrible. Basic raw (boring) boosts to stats and skills are the main stream way to go and overshadows all fun even for them.

Consider the scenario:
Mage A wants to beef up her defences to avoid getting killed. She cast Increase Body, Armor and Combat Sense to get some nice boost to damage resistance and then adds some nice defence on top of that.

She is amazingly good and rolls 4 hits on her spells to get +4 body, +4 armor and +4 in all defences. Sounds amazing? It isn't.
She now has -6 to every test except drain resistance thanks to sustaining 3 spells.

So, she has from start given herself -2 net defence (+4 from combat sense, -6 from sustaining) to avoid attacks and a net +2 damage resistance but is also effectively blind and deaf with -6 to perception. In addition she can't remember even basic details (she probably have 0 or very few dice left in memory tests) and all her knowledge about evil spirits or even where local gangs might be located are reduced to kindergarten level.
She is also so gullible it isn't funny. Any con attempt automatically succeeds since she has near zero dice to resist. And she probably has to take the next day off because she has -6 to resist getting a cold.

-2 to all tests is cripplingly stupid design.

That is why Ball lightning, Ice sheet and Mind rape is so mainstream because they are one of few spells that actually do what they say on the tin. Casting Armor actually makes you take MORE DAMAGE, that is counter intuitive.

You get one sustaining foci and that is for Increase Reflexes only, maybe add focused concentration to get + in your drain stat but mages are feeling terribly annoyed at their situation too. Their "cool stuff" is too expensive and craptastic just like the cyberware is.

To get rid of the magicrun feeling we also have to buff mages, strange as it sounds.

I'd love to go in more detail on this topic but I fear it is derailing this one. I'll try to start a new one tomorrow, unless you beat me to it. I'd love to hear more ideas of the "awesome cool cyber" that would replace the mediocre expensive stuff that SR5 has today.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It is that mages are not so good at the toolbox part as they might seem. Sustaining and how sustaining penalties work makes sustained spells near useless and a mage will at most have one or maybe an alternative one that she can use on special non combat situations. Adepts also have a very limited pool of power points for utility.

Fun utility stuff for both mages and adepts are extremely crappy and terrible. Basic raw (boring) boosts to stats and skills are the main stream way to go and overshadows all fun even for them.

I have to disagree... I played a utility mage for some years (about 400+ Karma or so), and he was far from boring, and in fact was far more useful than he had a right to be (and was LOADS of fun). The difference, I think, is that the vast majority of awakened characters opt for Power... more dice, more magic, more initiations (which does indeed become boring). They tend to forget the simple things like purpose specific spells, and heaven forbid a mage actually buy a skill or two. You can build an effective magician character with a magic that never exceed 5 (in my case it was a Mystic Adept with a 3 Sorcery, 2 Adept split). Carry some sustaining foci at rating 4 (you can get several of them without worrying about addiction) and there you go. You don't need a power focus, though they are nice, but they cut into your sustaining capabilities.

I think where we differ is in design philosophies. Stacking does not bother me in the least, because there are so many ways to get to a point, and they all have drawbacks and benefits. I DO think they went overboard in the cost adjustments for SR5 (as well as the rebalancing of technomancers/hackers). Some [minor] adjustments were warranted, but they just went at it like a Bull in a China Shop if you ask me.

[apple]

With the WAR crap you even get rating 10 here too.

As per rules: agents and pilots (and autosofts) cannot be military grade, they are stuck at 6/4. You cannot patch them and you need a source to download them, which would mean military grade protected servers (and not the usual data hacker house). But perhaps I have a different WAR! then you (I use the German version - no free military grade programs for you there).

So is taking jazz, cram and rating 2 wired reflexes for 5t6 +5 extra initative. Or placing buff spells in F1 foci and use reagents or edge to make them effectively Force 10.

I dont know every rule for initiative stacking, so I cannot comment on that. Regarding F1 foci + reagents limit breaking: that is exactly the rule and with that exactly the intention. You use the reagent to break the limit. It is the very reason why reagents were introduced. What else would be the intention if you cannot break the limit?

She is amazingly good and rolls 4 hits on her spells to get +4 body, +4 armor and +4 in all defences. Sounds amazing? It isn't.
She now has -6 to every test except drain resistance thanks to sustaining 3 spells.

Strange. I would dof course suggest foci, ally spirits (if spell sustaining is still possible, in SR4 it was) or advantages, but of course your mage cannot be forced. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

SYL

[Surukai]

In SR5 you get addiction if you ever use foci of total force more than Magic. That means you basically have a "budget" of total 6, or so. Enough for 1 or 2 buffs through sustaining or one buff and one other utility foci of some sort.

That is okay with me. I don't think it is supposed to be buffs on mages and that they should run around with all kinds of boosts. Cyber/Bio already has that niche. If you want good physical stats, go sam with muscle replacement, cyberlimbs or such. I think it is fine.

Utility mages are good. It is just that a huge portion of their spells are not really what they say. Armor is the prime example. It gives a negative effect unless you really know what you are doing (read: oversummon spirit of man, let him cast the buffs on you. a F9 spirit can sustain 3 F9 buffs on you until sunrise/sunset. Insanely powerful but also cheese)


You play by a completely different set of mentality. A mature player that makes a fun character in a group of similar players is the best kind of gaming group I know of. The problem arise the second one single player finds a loophole or just badly written rule (like stacking vision modes to get things cheaper). It may be just a simple non issue like being able to see without a flashlight as in this thread. But it could also be stacking Increase Reflexes with drugs (Since drugs are not explicitly technological or magic and can by some logic be combined with implants and powers to get initiative levels on permanent basis that is normally restricted to use of Edge only). Or abusing Reagents to fit huge spells in small Foci.
Balance is very very very very important to keep the game fun and interesting. If GM use enemies that cheese things, or the premade adventure uses boring tactics or one player in the group does it sets the new level for the entire group. You either join the cheese and summon thise F9 buffbot spirits, combine drugs, overcast spells, cram stuff in foci, stack glasses, stack weapon mods for infinite recoil comp or to get ludicrous accuracy ratings or custom fits armour to get twice as much as intended or whatever to maintain balance...
Or you let your character fade away since he is just mediocre and crap compared to everything else. With characters going out of hand, the GM is forced to bump up all opposition to match and that makes it even worse for the sane fun character (or vice versa, the GM can be the problem too!). We get escalation and power inflation. And that sucks. The crappier the rules and the less knowledge about interesting game design the writers have the higher the risk.

I have had 2 great fun campaigns in SR4 went to crap because power inflation got out of hand. Over a few months all new characters suddenly knew all the shortcuts to 20 dice in their attack of choice and twice as much armour as any example character in the book. Default lists of templates for adept, sam, technomancer and mage made it all too easy and way too readily available. People wrote "That super commlink Player A has on his character sheet" on theirs.
NPCs burnt through their edge to defend against the first Iniative Phase to be able to even return fire once before they were obliterated. Combat from the purchased adventures had to add "player x 2 + 1" extra enemies whose only job was to soak the first IP of murder for the actual enemies in the adventure to be able to actually threaten characters.

In Dawn of the Artifacts we won fights on the first combat turn but the adventure had details of 4-8 combat turns of enemy movements and whatnot but we never got to see it. The VTOL we chased still got away thanks to "Speed of plot" even though the defenders didn't hold us back even a single combat turn for it to escape.

And it all started with a simple "Don't buy X, it is much cheaper to stack Y and Z" one rainy night and it kind of got out of hand from there. Since then I've been much more reluctant to allow anything I consider against the rule of cool. A machine pistol with SnS doing more damage than an assault cannon? Not cool. F11 stunbolts being guaranteed one-hit-disable, not cool. Mindcontrol instantly turning a group of enemies into cannon fodder without a chance to resist (meaningfully), not cool...
And I've played Shadowrun in 3 different cities, hundreds of kilometers away from each other so it is not just my gaming group that are complete idiots, unless I am the idiot that brought the plague with me, but I've been GM in most of the cases and all house rules I've added had been to try and fix things as the arose. In fact when SR5 came I wanted to start fresh and didn't add or change anything to see how the rules worked out of the box.

And guess what, one of the first characters someone joined with was a Mystic Adept troll with 14 Strength, 8 Agility 7 reaction and 16 armor (+9 body of course). He had same dicepool as the sam with his guns, same melee pool but more than twice the damage as the group's melee focused elf adept and cast Fireball with same dice pool as the group's shaman. And it was okay by RAW.

[Surukai]

I was writing my post above so slow I didn't see your reply, apple. I didn't read through WAR very carefully so I might be wrong there. Either way, rating 10 stuff is not available for the real hacker either so the offspec cheap cheese hacker tricks are virtually unaffected by this. The only meta change WAR adds by making rating 10 become the new standard for security is to make non-technomancers even less relevant. The mainspec hacker or the offspec sam hacker have nothing to add in that world so if anything it makes it worse in my opinion. But then again, I've never seen anything good with WAR so I don't know (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I dont know every rule for initiative stacking, so I cannot comment on that. Regarding F1 foci + reagents limit breaking: that is exactly the rule and with that exactly the intention. You use the reagent to break the limit. It is the very reason why reagents were introduced. What else would be the intention if you cannot break the limit?

Yes, you are right that it is clearly the intention reagents seem to have. And reagents or not, Edge also breaks limits and did back in SR4 too so the "trick" to stuff insane spells in F1 foci is not really new.

The problem is, is this _really_ the intention? If so things are really stupid. I mean balls to the walls stupid. I can not fathom the thought behind allowing it or even encouraging it.

Reagents feel like something slapped into the game in a futile attempt to give mages some money sinks. An "ammo" cost to keep their stuff going but it fails miserably at that. It has some meaningful mechanical effect on alchemy by making potency and life span longer but that too is a mess.

Allowing F1 foci to hold F10 Increase reflexes with "reroll misses"-edge and 10 reagents means you are looking at mages with 5t6 +10 initative boost as a de facto standard. It is the clear way to go and overshadow everything else. It can not possibly be meant that 2000 nuyen foci and 200 nuyen activation cost (same as one dose of Psyche btw) to be that powerful.

Either it can't be allowed and not even on the table. Or it is not only allowed but also incorporated as a standard way for mages to deal with their buffs. Sure it helps making spells like Armor useful, but I don't want my mage players to feel obligated to take the "stack cheap foci like a christmas tree"-route since it is several orders of magnitude better than going other ways.

If Foci + reagents works this way and it is that effective it is something the entire mage community know about and use on daily basis. Not just munchkin runners using a rule written by a headless monkey without basic game theory skills. And I really don't want to play in that world of magicrun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[apple]

In SR5 you get addiction if you ever use foci of total force more than Magic. That means you basically have a "budget" of total 6, or so. Enough for 1 or 2 buffs through sustaining or one buff and one other utility foci of some sort.

6+ Initiation. The longer the campaign the more you can expect Grade 2-4 mages and magic 8-10 (for really long campaings). And yes, that is certainly a nerf - if you use the addiction rules in SR5. As you know they are very ... special.

It gives a negative effect unless you really know what you are doing

Well, known the system in character and out of character is quite normal. Amor itself does not give you a wrong description - spell sustaining is a basic rule and you always have to balance that against sustained spells. Its like normal armored clothes and the encumberance rule: if you use it too much, you have a problem. I do not think that this basic principle in almost all roleplaying games is a problem.

of. The problem arise the second one single player finds a loophole or just badly written rule

What you describe is neither a loophole or badly written. It is very clearly written and there is no loophole. It is the intented design to combine drugs or reagents to break the usual limit. What you critize may be bad game design - and that you can correct with house rules (or praying for SR6)

Balance is very very very very important to keep the game fun and interesting.

If the balance makes sense, yes.

My point is: I have a swiss pocket knife with me all the time. It is a very useful tool, and I used it in dozens of different cases solving big and small problems. Yet the costs for it where around 20 EUR (around 25 dollars) 10 years ago. It is very light and small, so it almost fits everywhere. If you strictly argue with balance arguments, the cost for this knife would have to be in the hundred of thousands, because it is so incredible useful. Yet the price both in reality and in game stays at around 20-50 EUR/$

Both in reality and in the fictional sixth world you can stack vision mods (as it was shown and explained far better in previous postings) - and the artificially tryng to balance that against something as abstract as "I feel" cannot work.

Use common sense, ground in reality: if you can stack it today, it works, if you cannot stack it today, check if future tech development can make it possible, then it works as well, everything else: forbid it. It is really that easy.

I have had 2 great fun campaigns in SR4 went to crap because power inflation got out of hand.

Houserule it. We have some houserules in our campaign as well. If one of our game masters have problems with certain items (WAR! ...) we find a solution. In our campaign for example spell boosting by spirits and power foci were dramatically reduced. And of course there is a certain responsibility for the game master as well:

"If you allow anything, you must be able to handle anything."

This means you must know all rules, tricks and countermeasures as well. Which is extremely demanding for the game master and I have full understanding if he wants to reduce this burden. However this is not a loop hole, bad wording oder not neccessarily a bad game design. It´s just too much.

I consider against the rule of cool.

The rule is cool is usually very subjective.

SYL

[apple]

I don't want my mage players to feel obligated to take the "stack cheap foci like a christmas tree"-route since it is several orders of magnitude better than going other ways.

So, adept powers, bio implants and cyberboosts are the only viable way for you? Why exactly is it not ok to use spell magic to boost your initiative? One glows in astral space, the other glows on the cyberscanner? Beginning with SR1 20 years ago is it normal that you sustain your buff spells in spell locks or sustaining foci - why exactly is that suddenly a problem?

SYL

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In SR5 you get addiction if you ever use foci of total force more than Magic. That means you basically have a "budget" of total 6, or so. Enough for 1 or 2 buffs through sustaining or one buff and one other utility foci of some sort.

More than 2xMagic Rating, actually (at least in SR4A).

Utility mages are good. It is just that a huge portion of their spells are not really what they say. Armor is the prime example. It gives a negative effect unless you really know what you are doing (read: oversummon spirit of man, let him cast the buffs on you. a F9 spirit can sustain 3 F9 buffs on you until sunrise/sunset. Insanely powerful but also cheese)

If a person doesn't know how to play a utility mage, then they cannot complain about not knowing how to play a mage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
It takes a bit of finesse. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It isn't really all that hard to play the combat mage from hell, and honestly, I see for more of those than decent utility mages.

You play by a completely different set of mentality. A mature player that makes a fun character in a group of similar players is the best kind of gaming group I know of. The problem arise the second one single player finds a loophole or just badly written rule (like stacking vision modes to get things cheaper). It may be just a simple non issue like being able to see without a flashlight as in this thread. But it could also be stacking Increase Reflexes with drugs (Since drugs are not explicitly technological or magic and can by some logic be combined with implants and powers to get initiative levels on permanent basis that is normally restricted to use of Edge only). Or abusing Reagents to fit huge spells in small Foci.
Balance is very very very very important to keep the game fun and interesting. If GM use enemies that cheese things, or the premade adventure uses boring tactics or one player in the group does it sets the new level for the entire group. You either join the cheese and summon thise F9 buffbot spirits, combine drugs, overcast spells, cram stuff in foci, stack glasses, stack weapon mods for infinite recoil comp or to get ludicrous accuracy ratings or custom fits armour to get twice as much as intended or whatever to maintain balance...
Or you let your character fade away since he is just mediocre and crap compared to everything else. With characters going out of hand, the GM is forced to bump up all opposition to match and that makes it even worse for the sane fun character (or vice versa, the GM can be the problem too!). We get escalation and power inflation. And that sucks. The crappier the rules and the less knowledge about interesting game design the writers have the higher the risk.

I have had 2 great fun campaigns in SR4 went to crap because power inflation got out of hand. Over a few months all new characters suddenly knew all the shortcuts to 20 dice in their attack of choice and twice as much armour as any example character in the book. Default lists of templates for adept, sam, technomancer and mage made it all too easy and way too readily available. People wrote "That super commlink Player A has on his character sheet" on theirs.
NPCs burnt through their edge to defend against the first Iniative Phase to be able to even return fire once before they were obliterated. Combat from the purchased adventures had to add "player x 2 + 1" extra enemies whose only job was to soak the first IP of murder for the actual enemies in the adventure to be able to actually threaten characters.

That is a group/table issue though. No matter how hard you try to establish a game system, there will always be loopholes, and there will always be players exploiting them to the detriment of the group and adventures. Not sure how you will combat that one, other than to change the mindset.

In Dawn of the Artifacts we won fights on the first combat turn but the adventure had details of 4-8 combat turns of enemy movements and whatnot but we never got to see it. The VTOL we chased still got away thanks to "Speed of plot" even though the defenders didn't hold us back even a single combat turn for it to escape.

The Artifacts series was a lot of fun, and was super challenging even for our 450+ Karma characters (the ghoulpocalypse in Lagos really sucked, though we did manage to extricate ourselves without needing Frosty's help - took about 10 rounds or more to do so, though). Entertainingly enough, it was the Utility Mage who brought down the VTOL over Chatfield Reservoir, rather than the gun bunnies, Technomancer, hacker and combat mages.

And it all started with a simple "Don't buy X, it is much cheaper to stack Y and Z" one rainy night and it kind of got out of hand from there. Since then I've been much more reluctant to allow anything I consider against the rule of cool. A machine pistol with SnS doing more damage than an assault cannon? Not cool. F11 stunbolts being guaranteed one-hit-disable, not cool. Mindcontrol instantly turning a group of enemies into cannon fodder without a chance to resist (meaningfully), not cool...
And I've played Shadowrun in 3 different cities, hundreds of kilometers away from each other so it is not just my gaming group that are complete idiots, unless I am the idiot that brought the plague with me, but I've been GM in most of the cases and all house rules I've added had been to try and fix things as the arose. In fact when SR5 came I wanted to start fresh and didn't add or change anything to see how the rules worked out of the box.

And guess what, one of the first characters someone joined with was a Mystic Adept troll with 14 Strength, 8 Agility 7 reaction and 16 armor (+9 body of course). He had same dicepool as the sam with his guns, same melee pool but more than twice the damage as the group's melee focused elf adept and cast Fireball with same dice pool as the group's shaman. And it was okay by RAW.

Again - It looks like you are being bitten by the "I don't want to fail at anything, and be the coolest punk shadowrunner in the world, and be better than my neighbors, and screw the story" players. They are not interested in the story, only in winning.

[SpellBinder]

Allowing F1 foci to hold F10 Increase reflexes with "reroll misses"-edge and 10 reagents means you are looking at mages with 5t6 +10 initative boost as a de facto standard. It is the clear way to go and overshadow everything else. It can not possibly be meant that 2000 nuyen foci and 200 nuyen activation cost (same as one dose of Psyche btw) to be that powerful.

Either it can't be allowed and not even on the table. Or it is not only allowed but also incorporated as a standard way for mages to deal with their buffs. Sure it helps making spells like Armor useful, but I don't want my mage players to feel obligated to take the "stack cheap foci like a christmas tree"-route since it is several orders of magnitude better than going other ways.

If Foci + reagents works this way and it is that effective it is something the entire mage community know about and use on daily basis. Not just munchkin runners using a rule written by a headless monkey without basic game theory skills. And I really don't want to play in that world of magicrun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And yet a magician that knows the Mana Static spell (Street Magic, 173 or Street Grimoire, 117) can easily shut down those pitiful Force 1 foci and make those characters waste even more reagents to recast those spells once they're clear of the BGC.

And there's also the Disrupt [Focus] spell (Digital Grimoire, 16 or Street Grimoire, 102-103), where if the spell does damage equal to the Force of the active focus it becomes disrupted and cannot be used until it is healed and reactivated. A focus does heal this temporary damage at a rate equal to its Force at the start of every Combat Turn. For +2 Drain in SR4, or +1 to +3 Drain in SR5 (I'm not sure since Drain codes seem to be written by someone messed up on a brain bender) and this is now an AOE spell. Just make sure you don't have any Sustaining Foci of your own to get shut down by your own magic.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And yet a magician that knows the Mana Static spell (Street Magic, 173 or Street Grimoire, 117) can easily shut down those pitiful Force 1 foci and make those characters waste even more reagents to recast those spells once they're clear of the BGC.

And there's also the Disrupt [Focus] spell (Digital Grimoire, 16 or Street Grimoire, 102-103), where if the spell does damage equal to the Force of the active focus it becomes disrupted and cannot be used until it is healed and reactivated. A focus does heal this temporary damage at a rate equal to its Force at the start of every Combat Turn. For +2 Drain in SR4, or +1 to +3 Drain in SR5 (I'm not sure since Drain codes seem to be written by someone messed up on a brain bender) and this is now an AOE spell. Just make sure you don't have any Sustaining Foci of your own to get shut down by your own magic.

Indeed... there are Ways... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Surukai]

Even if there are counters that are available. The game feels a bit bland when it becomes this new meta where the game master has to counter the "I.WIN." characters all the time. It puts even more focus on the broken mechanics than to ignore them.

I rather see 12P grenades that are useful than say "Oh, 18P, that is a bit much, can we just not use grenades ever, guys? They seem too effective to be fun". Even if my players agree it means a whole concept (grenades) is gone. Just like melee was a complete no-no-thing in SR4 (it just didn't work at all).

I prefer to have more things open, more alternatives and more fun ways to make characters that feel cool and useful. I rather have sane Sustaning foci, useful but not completely OP spirits etc. than outright forbid them or play the meta game where every use is hard countered at every corner to discourage their use.

The Mystic adept met with countless mana barriers stripping his F10 increase strength and constantly there had to be background count everywhere. But this also hurt the real shaman mage. Even if she did cope very well with barriers and other things (thanks to charisma and a completely lack of "I must win" mindset) I felt bad. Mages in astral space disabling foci happened every now and then. Over half the combat started with all enemies focusing on the troll, shooting him down to overflow on first round with Edged shots with APDS and then leaving combat to the fun characters.

But, this meta frustrated the troll player just as much as it did everyone else. He just went out to get more armor and got himself maxed out Combat sense to make sure that I couldn't just pick out his character in combat. So, all runs after that were forced to be stealthy where Forbidden gear and obvious armor wasn't an option. Most of my players did throughly enjoy those runs since they relied so little on combat and so much more on actual roleplaying. But constantly working around a single character to neuter him in every way, shape or form is still a problem. And the problem here was to allow RAW. The problem in Dawn of the Artifacts was to go RAW too, turned out stacking Restricted Gear to get 20+ in everything wasn't so cool and fun after all, neither was my F11 stunbolts or the 18P full auto from drones with infinite recoil comp... "Lets see how cool and awesome characters we get when we go without Surukai's house rules" turned out to be a terrible idea for us. Maybe because we kind of went into it by going all out stupid on our characters. I'm not innocent there but after seeing what characters my friends had made I had to go for F11 stunbolts (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I rather see balanced mind control, useful grenades, technomancers that aren't laughing stock, interesting mystic adepts, cool street sams, actual aspected magicians, etc., that are balanced and still feel cool and fun to play than banning half the book because whoever wrote those numbers must have been lobotomized.

This is why I'm being such an idiot about balance and character diversity. Limiting characters makes them more diverse. With no limits we'd see Agility 20 and all 24 skillpoints in Automatics quite often. Limits are a very good thing. I house ruled that you can only ever increase a limit by total +2, making Smartlink, Increased Accuracy (Adept power), Aim, Leadership, Laser sight etc. represent diverse choice in how your character gets good accuracy on your attacks instead of being the one path were you stack all to get +5 accuracy and render any gun perfectly accurate and reducing weapon choice to pure "most damage only" instead of the much more diverse and interesting tradeoff between damage, accuracy and other bonuses.
Do I choose the axe for the nice damage, or katana to make sure I can use my hits? (Interesting character choice) Or do I tape a smartlink, pick two powers and a spell to make the axe better than everything else? (Boring rules allowing stupid stacking)
Hah, look at those noobs using katana, don't they know you can get infinite accuracy by stacking stuff? (*smartlink may not work on melee weapons, some stacking might require creative reading of rules but the example works for guns)


And regarding stacking limits, diffraction law say that you have at most 0,007 degree of resolution for a lens the size of a human pupil. That means at 2km that image zoom still can't see any detail smaller than a bit under a foot. Sure you could see a person but it would be a blur. Aiming for his gun or head is arguable.
So, doesn't work in real life to put zoom in a lens the size of a contact. Infrared cameras don't work well through windows, a Sonar (echolocation) inside your helmet does nothing, enhancing low light from a digital image is pointless and so on. The "you can stack things in real life" is false. You can still make a case to let things like image link on a pair of contacts work under a pair of thermographic glasses, sure, but the actual paragraph explaining what stacking combinations that do work and what doesn't is not something I'd like to write nor read.

I can physically fit glasses on top of each other, yes. That doesn't mean all wavelengths of light get transmitted to all layers without getting ruined. I've mentioned this before but dismissed it since real life arguments are less important to me but I do repeat them now since you repeat the "but I once had a pair of sunglasses when I wore contacts!"-argument. It doesn't automatically translate to digitally enhanced images.

A simple HUD like google glass is vastly vastly different from replacing the entire vision with false colour thermographic data.

Allowing it because of some thought real life example is false. Allowing it because you think 30k extra for cybereyes is stupid is a different thing. I understand the later argument better, even if I disagree with it.

[apple]

What you are seeking is a low power game (which is perfectly ok), not a diversed or balanced game.

What you actually describe is reducing diversity, since if you have smartlinks no one else needs to invest into " Increased Accuracy (Adept power), Aim, Leadership, Laser sight etc."

SYL

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Even if there are counters that are available. The game feels a bit bland when it becomes this new meta where the game master has to counter the "I.WIN." characters all the time. It puts even more focus on the broken mechanics than to ignore them.

I rather see 12P grenades that are useful than say "Oh, 18P, that is a bit much, can we just not use grenades ever, guys? They seem too effective to be fun". Even if my players agree it means a whole concept (grenades) is gone. Just like melee was a complete no-no-thing in SR4 (it just didn't work at all).

Well, here is the thing... once grenades make it into the picture, you are now talking about military grade gear. And I hate to tell you, but Military grade gear Kills people quickly and efficiently. I have no issues with that. it is an escalation. it has its own consequences. If your guys are throwing grenades like candy (or at all really), well, they are not likely to last long, because that escalation will bring out security forces that WILL eat your team for lunch. As they are, Grenades are useful... just don't use them all the time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As for melee in SR4a. Not sure what game you played, but I ha some awesome melee focused characters. But again, it is all in how you approach the game and how you craft a character. you do not need to go overboard to be competent.

I prefer to have more things open, more alternatives and more fun ways to make characters that feel cool and useful. I rather have sane Sustaning foci, useful but not completely OP spirits etc. than outright forbid them or play the meta game where every use is hard countered at every corner to discourage their use.

Not sure what you mean by this. I have never seen a sustaining foci nor spirits as useless. We rarely ever see a spirit over Force 6 unless it is a massive threat all on its own (so rarely I can count all three instances over an 6 year campaign on one hand). You do not need Force 9 spirits, ever, to make an interesting situation, or even a threat. And putting those spirits into the hands of a PC is just dumb.

The Mystic adept met with countless mana barriers stripping his F10 increase strength and constantly there had to be background count everywhere. But this also hurt the real shaman mage. Even if she did cope very well with barriers and other things (thanks to charisma and a completely lack of "I must win" mindset) I felt bad. Mages in astral space disabling foci happened every now and then. Over half the combat started with all enemies focusing on the troll, shooting him down to overflow on first round with Edged shots with APDS and then leaving combat to the fun characters.

But, this meta frustrated the troll player just as much as it did everyone else. He just went out to get more armor and got himself maxed out Combat sense to make sure that I couldn't just pick out his character in combat. So, all runs after that were forced to be stealthy where Forbidden gear and obvious armor wasn't an option. Most of my players did throughly enjoy those runs since they relied so little on combat and so much more on actual roleplaying. But constantly working around a single character to neuter him in every way, shape or form is still a problem. And the problem here was to allow RAW. The problem in Dawn of the Artifacts was to go RAW too, turned out stacking Restricted Gear to get 20+ in everything wasn't so cool and fun after all, neither was my F11 stunbolts or the 18P full auto from drones with infinite recoil comp... "Lets see how cool and awesome characters we get when we go without Surukai's house rules" turned out to be a terrible idea for us. Maybe because we kind of went into it by going all out stupid on our characters. I'm not innocent there but after seeing what characters my friends had made I had to go for F11 stunbolts (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Has your troll ever heard of extended Masking and Masking - Helps you through those pesky Mana barriers without having to have your precious foci disrupted. The spell, is a viable option for foci shutdown and I would hate to see it go. Background Count is a thing. If you go into the environment with that in mind, you will rarely need be concerned - probably be a good idea for your awakened characters to be somewhat competent outside of the magical arena, don't you think? *shrug*

AS for your Combat Troll Mage being boring... well, duh, I have always found Magicians of the combat persuasion to be very boring, and Troll's of that persuasion to take the cake in it. They just don't really shine for me. They take absolutely no finesse to play. It is all about power for them. *shrug*

I rather see balanced mind control, useful grenades, technomancers that aren't laughing stock, interesting mystic adepts, cool street sams, actual aspected magicians, etc., that are balanced and still feel cool and fun to play than banning half the book because whoever wrote those numbers must have been lobotomized.

See, we have all of that... and we don't ban the books. it just requires a table where winning above all else is not the overriding factor of the game. If your players want to actually tell a story, rather than compete with the GM for bragging rights, much of the shenanigans fade away.

This is why I'm being such an idiot about balance and character diversity. Limiting characters makes them more diverse. With no limits we'd see Agility 20 and all 24 skillpoints in Automatics quite often. Limits are a very good thing. I house ruled that you can only ever increase a limit by total +2, making Smartlink, Increased Accuracy (Adept power), Aim, Leadership, Laser sight etc. represent diverse choice in how your character gets good accuracy on your attacks instead of being the one path were you stack all to get +5 accuracy and render any gun perfectly accurate and reducing weapon choice to pure "most damage only" instead of the much more diverse and interesting tradeoff between damage, accuracy and other bonuses.
Do I choose the axe for the nice damage, or katana to make sure I can use my hits? (Interesting character choice) Or do I tape a smartlink, pick two powers and a spell to make the axe better than everything else? (Boring rules allowing stupid stacking)
Hah, look at those noobs using katana, don't they know you can get infinite accuracy by stacking stuff? (*smartlink may not work on melee weapons, some stacking might require creative reading of rules but the example works for guns)

Which hits the rules of SR5 that piss me off the most... Limits should die in a fire and go away. They work as a punishment mechanic, and nothing more. They were implemented in a poor manner, in my opinion. They may work to curb Dice Pool bloat, to a degree, but I doubt it. What they actually do is harm the players who never have those idiotic DP's to start with. Of course, I have gone on record many times with my dislikes of the Limit system, so I shall just let the rest of my rant die without going into it.

I guess my point is that diversity is not hampered by the many different ways that one can accomplish things, and it will only become more diverse as books come out for the new Edition. I am not happy with a lot of the new edition's choices, but hopefully things will improves as the production cycle progresses. I may be a bit naïve in that regard, and we all know the production history of CGL, but there is a lot of potential in SR5. Hopefully it can be realized. For now, I will just wait and see... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)