Canon Revision Project: Combat Mechanics, thread 2

Canon Revision Project: Combat Mechanics, thread 2, I will lose you if you don't lose me.

Oddfellow View Member Profile	May 8 2004, 02:02 AM Post #51
Target Group: Members Posts: 27 Joined: 5-April 04 Member No.: 6,220	Are, As a disclaimer, if you are having fun trying to create a new combat system, and it works in your games, then that is awesome. That said, I would caution you not to underestimate how difficult it is to radicaly change one part of a game system without throwing the general playability out of whack. As a sometimes GM, the first thing that I think when see your system is how painful it will be to keep track of 8 zones *possibly dozens of NPCs. I already hate keeping track of 20 damage levels in a big fight. Even experienced GMs can have trouble keeping combat moving along at a good pace. I worry that even a modest increase in complexity could drag things out enought to blow the mood. I've found that the abstract nature of SR combat can be more than made up for with very detailed descriptions of the results of that combat. No one just takes a medium wound. A slug rips through the gap beneath their vest and tears a jagged hole in their guts. I dont need a rule system to tell you that. Also, while alot of things taken individually may seem "broken" or arbitrary in SR, but you have to remember that this system has been revised twice and playtested like crazy. It might make rational sense to drop firearm damage levels at long range, but how does this change the balance between guns and magic (which presumably still do full damage). Once you change one thing, you may have to change 2 others. Now you might want to do basically SR4 on your own (which could be a fun exercise, but I sure don't have time to do it!). Also, you mentioned your hatred of adepts. If I were going to do a major revision like you are undertaking, I would suggest playing and learning to love all the archetypes, and also GMing alot first. Unless you have an overall knowlegde you may unitentionally skew the system. For example, you mention splitting sorcery. There are reasons firearms was split up but sorcery wasn't between SR2 and SR3. It has to do with balance. Of course it makes rational sense that sorcery would have as many seperate skill sets (combat, healing, illusion). But in the game learning spells already costs a bunch of karma, which precludes learnign multiple magic skills. If you split sorcery, you will end up with nothing but super specialized mages (combat, healing, illusion). You started out wanting to adjust balance, but you end up completely changing the kinds of mages in the game. Reworking the game system is all about limiting unintended consequences. As I said, good luck to you if you want to give it a shot (and if you want to post it here for DSers to battle over even better), but don't understimate the job you are taking on.

Arethusa

May 8 2004, 03:56 AM

Post #52

Runner

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QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Neither of these suggestions work very well for cover. The first has cover playing double duty, which IMO should be greatly discouraged if you don't want security forces blowing you all away. The second, however, encourages some pretty stupid munchkining: the munchking will position himself so his target's torso, off-hand and legs are all behind that wall. That way he is gauronteed to hit either his head or shooting arm--effectively a called shot--without having to pay the large modifier for a called shot. That of course assumes that cover is not worth as much as called shot mods, in which case no runner will survive against a dedicated sec force either.

I suggest that when you strike something behind cover you act as if you shot the cover instead, applying Barrier Ratings and such before any sort of Damage Resistance Test is made. It also has the benefit of being more realistic.

On the contrary, cover is the runner's best friend. That said, if I did go the second route, it would be statistically identical to call that shot or fire with the cover modifier, or, yes, you'd get lots of problems with balance. The problem with forcing cover to do work in stopping bullets is that you make light visual cover (reeds, bushes, etc) useless, as they'll obscure you but never stop anything.

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Doesn't this betray the whole spirit of these new rules though? If you're going to have hit locations anyway, then they damn well should apply every time someone is hit. Why should hitting someone with a grenade be more abstracted than hitting someone with a bullet?

Because a grenade doesn't hit with a single impact. We're talking about overpressure plus shrapnel, all of which can hit quite a large area and would be absolutely impossible to calculate on the fly. Like I said, balance realism with abstraction for playability's sake.

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Ah, but in this case we're dealing with an unweildly weapon, which is no less difficult to aim at a distant target than a close one. This particular "problem of statics" is really independent of the distance to the target so much as the angular distance between two different targets, which will not necessarily be greater the closer you are to the multiple targets.

Absolutely not. A sniper rifle or an LMG at range are just fine. The movements required to adjust a weapon at range are much finer. An unweildy weapon becomes a massive liability in close quarters, however. Rotational inertia isn't a problem in CQB because two targets aren't near eachother; they're a problem because you need to be asbolutely mobile and responsive in CQB. Even a simple dynamic entry requires a lot of turning. CQB, incidentally, stands for Close Quarters Battle.

[edit]

My terminology here wasn't really clear (two years since I last touched physics can do that; rotational inertia should've been the first term to jump out at me, not statics, which isn't even right— it'll be a while before I live that down, even if it was very late when I was writing some of this up). Basically, consider rotational inertia: longer guns will take far longer to bring onto target because they take more force to accelerate. Heavier guns will have similar drawbacks. Ideally, you want a short, light weapon that's meaneuverable in confined spaces, but a pistol is largely underpowered. The next logical step? And SMG or a carbine.

QUOTE (BitBasher)

I really, really have to agree with Eyeless on the cover and Multiple Locations Hit from attacks like grenades.

If you have a way to handle it that's playable and realistic, I'll listen, but I absolutely doubt it's possible, and, really, for something like broad area shrapnel and concussion, it's really not much more realistic than using full body armor value.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

As a disclaimer, if you are having fun trying to create a new combat system, and it works in your games, then that is awesome.

That said, I would caution you not to underestimate how difficult it is to radicaly change one part of a game system without throwing the general playability out of whack.

As a sometimes GM, the first thing that I think when see your system is how painful it will be to keep track of 8 zones *possibly dozens of NPCs. I already hate keeping track of 20 damage levels in a big fight. Even experienced GMs can have trouble keeping combat moving along at a good pace. I worry that even a modest increase in complexity could drag things out enought to blow the mood.

This isn't something I came up with for a different personal project of mine, but it does share some similar design elements. That said, I am aware of the potentially far reaching effects of what I'm putting together, or, at least, doing my best. I'll certainly admit my familiarity with the system is certainly not perfect.

As for tracking multiple combatants, well, I must admit I didn't really consider this to be a huge problem, and hit locations are used by a number of people here and certainly in a lot of other games. While I haven't GMed, that's enough for me to consider it feasible. I'm definitely being careful about making sure it's accessible to GMs, however.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

I've found that the abstract nature of SR combat can be more than made up for with very detailed descriptions of the results of that combat. No one just takes a medium wound. A slug rips through the gap beneath their vest and tears a jagged hole in their guts. I dont need a rule system to tell you that.

Also, while alot of things taken individually may seem "broken" or arbitrary in SR, but you have to remember that this system has been revised twice and playtested like crazy. It might make rational sense to drop firearm damage levels at long range, but how does this change the balance between guns and magic (which presumably still do full damage). Once you change one thing, you may have to change 2 others. Now you might want to do basically SR4 on your own (which could be a fun exercise, but I sure don't have time to do it!).

SR's abstracted rules aren't unplayable, certainly. Many systems do get by with very abstracted combat, and many get by with combat that makes SR combat look like the pinnacle of detailed realism. But given SR's focus on being dark and gritty, abstracted combat hurts it here much more than it would hurt many other games, and I feel there is very much a place in SR for more realistic rules. And, that aside, there's certainly no need to abstract if realistic rules can be kept just as playable. Not here, anyway.

Are there a lot of things that were left unrealistic for balance? Yes and no. Armor hit locations do make people more vulnerable, yes, but since there's already the ability to take a +4 TN and nullify armor, that's not really an issue. And there sure as hell is no sane reason why canon's guns make no sense, what with carbines doing 7S damage and 40 round machine pistols being far and away much smaller than a Predator. These are the sort of inexplicably idiotic things I want to address. And, regardless, the ability to smack 20 meters of people in a line with 2D damage is in no way realistic, immersive, or balance. It's just crazy, and the only explanation I could ever come to was that Mike Mulvihill is out of his fucking mind.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

Also, you mentioned your hatred of adepts. If I were going to do a major revision like you are undertaking, I would suggest playing and learning to love all the archetypes, and also GMing alot first. Unless you have an overall knowlegde you may unitentionally skew the system.

For example, you mention splitting sorcery. There are reasons firearms was split up but sorcery wasn't between SR2 and SR3. It has to do with balance. Of course it makes rational sense that sorcery would have as many seperate skill sets (combat, healing, illusion). But in the game learning spells already costs a bunch of karma, which precludes learnign multiple magic skills. If you split sorcery, you will end up with nothing but super specialized mages (combat, healing, illusion). You started out wanting to adjust balance, but you end up completely changing the kinds of mages in the game.

Reworking the game system is all about limiting unintended consequences. As I said, good luck to you if you want to give it a shot (and if you want to post it here for DSers to battle over even better), but don't understimate the job you are taking on.

Oh, come on, give me some credit. I wasn't serious about hating adepts, though I will say that they are one of the most brokenly overpowered archetypes available. That aside, I have no plans to simple beat the crap out of magic users because I like mundanes or vice versa. If all goes well, it'll be realistic, just as playable, and far more immersive and internally consistent, and that's all there is to it.

In terms of skill, keep in mind that I also intend to dramatically increase the available amount of skill points in proportion to the division skills wil see. Ultimately, the end effect would allow a mage to dump a lot of skill points into, say, Combat Sorcery and Healing Sorcery without being forced to also throw points into Illusory Sorcery. Why is this a problem? Well, with all the combat skills available, you can't even build half a standard UCAS infantryman's skillset on 123 or 128 bp, and that's completely wrong. Also keep in mind that mages may have to dump tons of karma into spells already, but mundanes don't have it easy in terms of ware and equipment costs by any means. Good ware will chew through 1,000,000¥ quite easily.

It's certainly possible that I've underestimated the amount of work I've bitten off, and it's certainly possible that I'll find that out unpleasantly soon, but I'm at least doing my best to keep an open mind and watch out for unintended and potentially dangerous consequences— and, certainly, threads like these are a pretty good way of doing that.

This post has been edited by Arethusa: May 8 2004, 07:42 AM

Oddfellow View Member Profile	May 8 2004, 05:18 AM Post #53
Target Group: Members Posts: 27 Joined: 5-April 04 Member No.: 6,220	I wasn't suggesting that you would kill adepts because you hate them, I was saying that you would kill them because you haven't played them alot. I've found that when someone thinks one archetype is super broken, they will often change their minds when they have to create and play that kind of character for a while. Thats when you really get to know all the little annoying drawbacks that might not be obvious. (eg feel the adept's pain of essence lose due to medical treatment). Being able to bypass armor does effect game balance. For example, depending on the situation, it might be a big disadvantage to players with weenie physical stats who rely on armor to avoid death. It won't just be geek the mage, now it will be geek the mage in the head and legs. Carbines do 7S damage because they don't have burst fire mode, and the fine people at FASA (at the time) wanted to make available a weapon with a little higher damage but no FA option. If you don't like the fact that they are called carbines then rename them (HK G39?). I personally don't find it ridiculous that by 2063 you could easily reconfigure a gun to chamber some higher damage round but lose FA mode. Perhaps I'm just crazy :) I'm not sure I accept your assertion that you can't make a standard average infantryman for 128 bp. The only skills you would need are Assault Rifle 3 or 4, Pistol 3 (maybe less, how much do infantryman train on thier sidearm?), Thrown Weapons 3, Unarmed Combat 3, and maybe some gunnery or another heavy weapon + a little stealth and athletics. Now if you are going to make a super duper special ops weapons expert with skill 6 in everything you might have trouble, but you probably should. If you split sorcery and then up the number of skills points to fix the problem, I'm not sure what the net accomplishment is. Maybe I'm confused. But you see the point I'm making. You set out to fix the problem that the totally seperate firearms skills don't make much rational sense as compared to sorcery. But in order to fix this you end up having to fix sorcery, but if you fix sorcery then you have to fix the allocation of skill points, which forces you to change something else, on and on. This is why almost everyone has at least a few houserules, but only really dedicated people (Raygun, etc.) try to overhaul big chunks the system. Oh, a good HR type solution to the infantryman problem is to reduce the penalty for defaulting between firearms skills. This could be an Edge, miliatary training, not unlike college education

Arethusa

May 8 2004, 05:56 AM

Post #54

Runner

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QUOTE (Oddfellow)

I wasn't suggesting that you would kill adepts because you hate them, I was saying that you would kill them because you haven't played them alot. I've found that when someone thinks one archetype is super broken, they will often change their minds when they have to create and play that kind of character for a while. Thats when you really get to know all the little annoying drawbacks that might not be obvious. (eg feel the adept's pain of essence lose due to medical treatment).

Actually, I really have no plans to touch them at all, as much as I find them to be unbalanced (and it's worth noting that people with far more experience with them than I have feel even more strongly about this— and love it). They'll only be affected by the rules I'm changing that affect everyone.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

Being able to bypass armor does effect game balance. For example, depending on the situation, it might be a big disadvantage to players with weenie physical stats who rely on armor to avoid death. It won't just be geek the mage, now it will be geek the mage in the head and legs.

Really, this is more an issue of realism than anything else. People should be packing all the armor that's suitable to their function. Furthermore, it pretty much reflects real life in that combat is not something for weak people to run into, and gear is no substitute for physical conditioning and training.

Really, I'm only saying that being able to bypass armor won't really change anything because one can already bypass armor with a +4 TN called shot, and this is completely canon. Just check errata.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

Carbines do 7S damage because they don't have burst fire mode, and the fine people at FASA (at the time) wanted to make available a weapon with a little higher damage but no FA option. If you don't like the fact that they are called carbines then rename them (HK G39?). I personally don't find it ridiculous that by 2063 you could easily reconfigure a gun to chamber some higher damage round but lose FA mode. Perhaps I'm just crazy :)

I really disagree here; SR's guns are horribly inconsistent, and while there's some issue of balance here, there's no explanation for why a Crusader can pack that much ammunition into that small a package. Designing a game purely to be balanced doesn't make a convincing or immersive world, and that really hurts the experience. Besides, there's no harm and a hell of a lot of done in reworking the armory to be realistic, internally consistent, and still-potent.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

I'm not sure I accept your assertion that you can't make a standard average infantryman for 128 bp. The only skills you would need are Assault Rifle 3 or 4, Pistol 3 (maybe less, how much do infantryman train on thier sidearm?), Thrown Weapons 3, Unarmed Combat 3, and maybe some gunnery or another heavy weapon + a little stealth and athletics. Now if you are going to make a super duper special ops weapons expert with skill 6 in everything you might have trouble, but you probably should.

I wrote up a skill layout here. Even BeCKS only goes a decent way to fixing the problem, but it by no means solves things. Magic users still recieve an inordinate and largely inexplicable advantage in terms of skills. Even with an edge to make defaulting easier, you still run into the problem of that character having no formal training in something he absolutely should, as defaulting is specifically representative of making things up as you go, relying on general knowledge to carry you through. Moreover, the problem exists far outside of just firearms skills.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

But you see the point I'm making. You set out to fix the problem that the totally seperate firearms skills don't make much rational sense as compared to sorcery. But in order to fix this you end up having to fix sorcery, but if you fix sorcery then you have to fix the allocation of skill points, which forces you to change something else, on and on.

This is why almost everyone has at least a few houserules, but only really dedicated people (Raygun, etc.) try to overhaul big chunks the system.

Yeah, one thing can definitely lead to a lot of other things needing fixing, and, hell, that's partially how this project got going: I started with guns and moved onto a few combat mechanics and ended up tackling a lot more than I initially wanted to. Will it fix everything with SR? No. Even if I did everything I wanted to, that would be a far more massive undertaking and well beyond the scope of this project, and it's one I honestly don't have any interest in. There is a limit to how far I want to take this, and, by and large, I know where that is now; within the scope of this project, I'm aware of some of the messes that I'm tackling, and I'm fairly sure I've got the dedication to see it through.

Of course, if FanPro wanted to hire me, you know, I don't think I'd mind reconsidering how far I want to go.

The White Dwarf View Member Profile	May 8 2004, 06:53 AM Post #55
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 614 Joined: 17-June 03 From: A safehouse about to be compromised by ninjas Member No.: 4,754	Yes, under your system you DO need different TN settings for cover and hit location. If I get a +4 mod to hit someone because theyre behind cover, that represents me having to aim around the cover. If I hit and then you roll a location behind the wall and I get screwed because they get barrier rating now, thats lame. Youd have to come up with a to hit tn for each location, at least in so far as modifiers for cover and called shots, which is basically reworking the whole shooting system. And then, youd have to make called shots so hard that theyre not worth it, because simply always calling your shot would bypass the whole above problem as far as hitting your target is concerned. And the problem with the non-linear scale system is just that, its non linear. Heres an illustration. Joe and Bob are shooting Frank at Long range. Joe gets a +1 modifer for recoil, and Frank gets a +3 modifer for recoil. The resulting difference in them hitting between TN 7 and TN 9 is huge. Apply the same mods at Short range and you wind up with differences between 6 and 8, or very little. The modifers are NOT the same everywhere their applied. Depending on the situation a modifer that is across the board, like recoil, affects the results in a vastly different manner. Thats just one example but theyre all over. To have flat, across the board modifers you need a flat, linear scaling TN system; which sadly enough is why the d20 system works well with modifers. SR does not, and if youre going to spend time fixing the rules fix THIS problem not all those other superfical ones that arent "realistic". Simply having TNs scale fairly would solve a hell of a lot of the other problems.

Entropy Kid

May 8 2004, 07:04 AM

Post #56

Moving Target

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QUOTE

[...]Combat Sorcery and Healing Sorcery without being forced to also throw points into Illusory Sorcery.

Yuck! Ok, a little strong since it's only opinion, but I think if you're going to split up Sorcery, it should be split by what it does: Spellcasting, Spell Defense, and Dispelling.

The CQB thing is still bugging me. Since you've expanded on the explanation, I'm picturing the situation better, but I don't see why pistols get a bonus, especially a TN bonus. Perhaps if Combat Pool were affected, but not TN. Combat Pool (IMO) also fits the description; as does Initiative (makes me think of "weapon speed").

Arethusa

May 8 2004, 07:24 AM

Post #57

Runner

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QUOTE (The White Dwarf)

Youd have to come up with a to hit tn for each location, at least in so far as modifiers for cover and called shots, which is basically reworking the whole shooting system.

Uhm, no. It's not. +2 for torso, +3 for limbs, and +5 for head and groin shots is not reworking the whole shooting system. In fact, it really doesn't change much at all.

QUOTE (The White Dwarf)

And the problem with the non-linear scale system is just that, its non linear. Heres an illustration. Joe and Bob are shooting Frank at Long range. Joe gets a +1 modifer for recoil, and Frank gets a +3 modifer for recoil. The resulting difference in them hitting between TN 7 and TN 9 is huge. Apply the same mods at Short range and you wind up with differences between 6 and 8, or very little.

Of course modifiers vary in significance and different sections of the scale. That's the entire point. Autofire is supposed to be a bad choice in comparison to precision fire when you're already dealing with extreme conditions, unless you switch over to searching fire. I don't understand why you've decided that this is a problem when statistically progressive difficulty was an intended part of the SR target number system.

Simply having TNs scale linearly won't solve anything. It'll just completely change the way the SR system functions as a whole. I really don't think you understand what you're suggesting.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

Yuck! Ok, a little strong since it's only opinion, but I think if you're going to split up Sorcery, it should be split by what it does: Spellcasting, Spell Defense, and Dispelling.

Nothing's final, so no worries. I kind of do like breaking it up by school, though.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

The CQB thing is still bugging me. Since you've expanded on the explanation, I'm picturing the situation better, but I don't see why pistols get a bonus, especially a TN bonus. Perhaps if Combat Pool were affected, but not TN. Combat Pool (IMO) also fits the description; as does Initiative (makes me think of "weapon speed").

Pistols are smaller and much more maneuverable than full size weapons. At close ranges, they really shine.. The problem with affecting combat pool and initiative is that it's impossible. Sure, if all combatants are limited to CQB, go right ahead. But what do you do when some step out of CQB range? How do you handle defining what situations count as CQB and what don't? It's and impossibly static system.

Oddfellow View Member Profile	May 8 2004, 07:29 AM Post #58
Target Group: Members Posts: 27 Joined: 5-April 04 Member No.: 6,220	I see what you are saying about TN4/Bypass armor headshot being equivalent to canon (assuming you don't jack up the damage because you hit the head, which of course you plan to do, but whatever). I didn't reaize what you were saying because I've never played with folks who use that rule (we stick to the BBB called shot rule). Calling SR's guns horribly inconsistent is just silly. You have noted two minor issues out of a crapload of guns. If your only problem is the conceal rating on a machine pistol with a large magazine out of some hundred plus guns, I think the system is pretty good. In my experience, the weapons are balanced enough that people will use a decent variety of them. If you monkey around too much with shotguns, everyone s going to uses SMG's and vice versa. If you make a single shot rifle do exactly the same damage as an assualt rifle that uses the same ammo no one will ever buy the single shot rifle. The guns as they are work fine, just like most everythign else. This should probably be directed at your skills thread, but I think you would feel alot better if when you made a character with say assault rilfle 6 you also wrote down pistol 6 (+2 mod), rifle 6 (+2 mod), etc. If you don't look at defaulting so narrowly (I've used tons of ARs but never touched a pistol before today! vs I almost always used an AR in combat, but they trained me on pistols ages ago.) most of your objections to the current skill system go away. Its also worth noting that the average military guy would be a terrible shadowrunner. Shadowrunners tend to be exceptional individuals. A person of such caliber would have been noticed and put in an elite unit, where he might specialize in one weapon, plus stealth, plus intelligence gathering skills like intimidation/negotiation/leadership, and maybe let the heavy machinegun and launch weapons training slip a little. Kind of sounds like the type of character that the SR creation system favors, no? This goes back to my original point that the SR system is, in its 3rd edition, pretty mature and playtested to death. There may be other, completely different systems that you prefer (a more linear system as the white dwarf suggests, or a more hyperrealistic system that you would prefer) but its going to be hard to improve the existing system beyond little tweaks without mucking it up.

Arethusa

May 8 2004, 07:51 AM

Post #59

Runner

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QUOTE (Oddfellow)

Calling SR's guns horribly inconsistent is just silly. You have noted two minor issues out of a crapload of guns. If your only problem is the conceal rating on a machine pistol with a large magazine out of some hundred plus guns, I think the system is pretty good. In my experience, the weapons are balanced enough that people will use a decent variety of them. If you monkey around too much with shotguns, everyone s going to uses SMG's and vice versa. If you make a single shot rifle do exactly the same damage as an assualt rifle that uses the same ammo no one will ever buy the single shot rifle. The guns as they are work fine, just like most everythign else.

Except for a entire classes of weapons no one ever uses? Holdouts are incapable of doing anything and light pistols aren't much better, given that heavy pistols offer about the same capacity and concealability and price, but with dramatically improved damage. SMGs are, by definition, weapons that fire pistol ammunition, and yet there are no pistols that do 7M. I could keep going on, but suffice to say that internal consistency and sanity are absolutely not their strongpoints.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

This should probably be directed at your skills thread, but I think you would feel alot better if when you made a character with say assault rilfle 6 you also wrote down pistol 6 (+2 mod), rifle 6 (+2 mod), etc. If you don't look at defaulting so narrowly (I've used tons of ARs but never touched a pistol before today! vs I almost always used an AR in combat, but they trained me on pistols ages ago.) most of your objections to the current skill system go away.

Problem is that per canon, the definition of 'I've trained extensively with assault rifles but trained with a sidearm a long time ago' would be Assault Rifles 6 and Pistol 1 or 2. Defaulting from Assault Rifles for firing a pistol is supposed to be representative of little to no experience with firing a pistol.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

Its also worth noting that the average military guy would be a terrible shadowrunner. Shadowrunners tend to be exceptional individuals. A person of such caliber would have been noticed and put in an elite unit, where he might specialize in one weapon, plus stealth, plus intelligence gathering skills like intimidation/negotiation/leadership, and maybe let the heavy machinegun and launch weapons training slip a little. Kind of sounds like the type of character that the SR creation system favors, no?

Absolutely not. The average military guy has a skillset that far and away dwarfs what the average shadowrunner is provided in 123 bp. That aside, your conception of what an elite unit is is completely incorrect. A soldier picked and trained for an elite unit would almost assuredly cross train in far more weapons than the average soldier, as well as learn all the necessary skills for every member of his unit, allowing his unit to function at near peak capacity even at dramatically reduced strength. He would never specialize in one weapon because this is a massive liability in any real world situation where things can and do go wrong.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

This goes back to my original point that the SR system is, in its 3rd edition, pretty mature and playtested to death. There may be other, completely different systems that you prefer (a more linear system as the white dwarf suggests, or a more hyperrealistic system that you would prefer) but its going to be hard to improve the existing system beyond little tweaks without mucking it up.

I completely disagree, and, well, I'm not the first to rewrite a significant chunk of the SR system. And others have done just fine before me. It may be a lot of work, but I don't view it as any sort of near impossibility, and I don't believe anyone should. The SR system has a lot of problems and a lot of room for improvement. Playtested or not, it's got a lot of certifiably insane material in it, and I don't buy that it was left so for reasons of balance.

Eyeless Blond

May 8 2004, 08:07 AM

Post #60

Decker on the Threshold

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QUOTE (Arethusa)

On the contrary, cover is the runner's best friend. That said, if I did go the second route, it would be statistically identical to call that shot or fire with the cover modifier, or, yes, you'd get lots of problems with balance. The problem with forcing cover to do work in stopping bullets is that you make light visual cover (reeds, bushes, etc) useless, as they'll obscure you but never stop anything.

Hm, you may be right here. In fact, having cover to double duty might work after all, so long as the modifier is solely due to visability and the Barrier Rating simulates physical protection. In fact, that might work better than the current system, although it is slightly more complicated to deal with two aspects for Cover than just one.

QUOTE

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Doesn't this betray the whole spirit of these new rules though? If you're going to have hit locations anyway, then they damn well should apply every time someone is hit. Why should hitting someone with a grenade be more abstracted than hitting someone with a bullet?

Because a grenade doesn't hit with a single impact. We're talking about overpressure plus shrapnel, all of which can hit quite a large area and would be absolutely impossible to calculate on the fly. Like I said, balance realism with abstraction for playability's sake.

Well, IMO if you're going the way of hit locations rather than abstract damage you should just go all the way. This hybrid system just looks like a half-assed attempt; no offense intended, of course.

QUOTE

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Ah, but in this case we're dealing with an unweildly weapon, which is no less difficult to aim at a distant target than a close one. This particular "problem of statics" is really independent of the distance to the target so much as the angular distance between two different targets, which will not necessarily be greater the closer you are to the multiple targets.

Absolutely not. A sniper rifle or an LMG at range are just fine. The movements required to adjust a weapon at range are much finer. An unweildy weapon becomes a massive liability in close quarters, however. Statics isn't a problem in CQB because two targets aren't near eachother; they're a problem because you need to be asbolutely mobile and responsive in CQB. Even a simple dynamic entry requires a lot of turning. CQB, incidentally, stands for Close Quarters Battle.

[edit]

My terminology here wasn't really clear (two years since I took physics can do that; rotational inertia should've been the first term to jump out at me, not statics, which isn't even right— it'll be a while before I live that down). Basically, consider rotational inertia: longer guns will take far longer to bring onto target because they take more force to accelerate. Heavier guns will have similar drawbacks. Ideally, you want a short, light weapon that's meaneuverable in confined spaces, but a pistol is largely underpowered. The next logical step? And SMG or a carbine.

Now we're back to rotational inertia, which if you read my first response is what I had originally thought you were talking about. I think we're talking about the same concept here, but we're not understanding each other's arguments. You're arguing that, relative to the shooter, the target is carving out a greater angle with every move the closer he is, and that heavier or longer weapons are harder to track this rotational movement with. So am I. The difference is that you want to apply a flat modifier to CQB with a heavy or long weapon, presumably for simplicity's sake, while I want to apply an additional modifier for movement in CQB, to simulate for accurately the fact that it's the amount of movement that brings about this difficulty in tracking the target.

Imagine an unmoving target. Consider it a guy bound and gagged if you want (or maybe *not* gagged, if you have a sadistic personality). Why should it be harder for someone to put a sniper rifle up to this guy's head and shoot him when he's one meter away, and not when he's, say, twenty meters away? Remember that this is a stationary target, so you don't have to move your gun at all, so rotational inertia does not apply.

Now have your target start moving. Here is where things get more difficult; you have to track your target, swing your gun around to keep him in your sights, that sort of thing. This is where heavier weapons should start to have problems over lighter, shorter ones. Now have the target run, in a zig-zag pattern, ducking and weaving. It becomes even harder to react to the target's erratic movements because of rotational inertia. This is what I'm talking about, and why I think that the heavier weapons should have double or even triple the modifiers for moving targets, but no special mods for stationary ones; it's not like putting a barrel to a statue's forehead is very hard, no matter what gun you're using.

Entropy Kid

May 8 2004, 08:08 AM

Post #61

Moving Target

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QUOTE

The problem with affecting combat pool and initiative is that it's impossible. Sure, if all combatants are limited to CQB, go right ahead. But what do you do when some step out of CQB range? How do you handle defining what situations count as CQB and what don't? It's and impossibly static system.

How do you define a "close quarters" situation? Is it just the range? If that's the case, then --a Combat Pool penalty depending on weapon type when engaged with enemies within a certain range-- doesn't seem "impossible." Initiative is a little harder, since in an open area, some targets will be outside of the CQB zone. If there's something more specific you're talking about, please explain.

QUOTE

Pistols are smaller and much more maneuverable than full size weapons.

Ok, following you...

QUOTE

At close ranges, they really shine.

Now we have a problem. If you're using TN by range (canon-type TN) then the difficulty of firing at a target is already built in. I don't see how handguns get especially easy to shoot within a certain distance, while other weapons are more difficult. Now if there's some specific condition (ex: melee combat) involved, then I can see why it's inherently harder to use an assault rifle effectively, but I still don't understand why handguns get the additional bonus. It's easier to hit anything, with anything when a few feet from it.

Now, I understand that I'd have problems shooting something if it was in my face and trying to kick my ass; I also understand that a shotgun will be harder to use right, with that thing grabbing at it and knocking it off-target. I also understand that the bulk of the shotgun can make it harder to use in this scenario. But I cannot imagine what's going on that it suddenly become *easier* than normal to shoot this trouble-maker with a handgun.

No penalty- makes a lot of sense. Bonus? I don't get it.

Where is your reasoning coming from? I could be missing something too, and if so I'd like to know. In previous threads you've mentioned not having any experience with guns- so I'm assuming no gunfight experience either (although some things simulate it). I have no experience using a gun for anything other than killing targets and bottles of flat Dr. Pepper so I don't know what a gunfight is like either. If you read or was told something to come to these conclusions I'd like to know. Anyone on DS have any training in this matter able to give input? I know there's some former and current military and LE posters.

Back to Sorcery: dividing Sorcery by type of spell will fundamentally change how magic works in the setting. That system (even with additional skill points available) punishes mages that want to diversify. Having one Combat, Manipulation, Illusion, Detection, and Health spell requires a mage to have five skills at high (5+) ratings to be worth a damn. It also forces that mage to raise those five skills. That's a substantial Karma investment. Of course, mages with only a few types of spells will have a lot of points to put in other things and a *much* easier time improving those skills- strongly encouraging specialization over a diverse selection of spells. If this is the kind of change you want, be aware that you're change how Magic works in the Shadowrun setting, not just the rules for casting spells.

Oddfellow View Member Profile	May 8 2004, 08:44 AM Post #62
Target Group: Members Posts: 27 Joined: 5-April 04 Member No.: 6,220	You say you want reality, but then you complain that most light pistols that are pretty much the same size as heavy pistols (hold up a .22 target pistol to a glock, its shocking), and then there are some that are smaller (like the 10 shot walther, a very sneaky gun which I encourage in my games). I have never lost any sleep over the fact that a single shot from an SMG does a little less than a pistol, even though they. Seems like reasonable trade off for longer range and burst fire. You could, of course make the situation more realistic and bump up the SMG's to 9M but if you did that you would throw the entire lethality level of combat off. Maybe you could compensate for that by splitting the SMG skill or something :) Nowhere in cannon does it describe defaulting as attempting to do something you have absolutely never done before. I'd rather roll 6 dice at +2 rather than 1 die at + zero any day. The actual result fo the rules makes perfect sense. An average foot soldier wouldnt have any skills over 3. Joe Schmo who enlists and does infantry school isn't as a rule good at anything. If I were to generate him as an NPC he would have 4's for physical attributes, 3 or 2's for mental, and 2 or 3 in a bunch of combat skills, and thats about it (foot soldiers don't know how to talk to a fixer, or intimidate there way out of a bar fight). Officers would have better attributes, but probably the same or worse combat skills. An elite soldier would be awesome at his chosen weapon (SMG 6) and could shoot anything else he found laying around almost as well (6 die plus two) and would spend alot of his time on non weapons tasks/social skills (I'm thinking green beret/CIA/Delta types here, those are the ones who end up in the shadows). You don't waste this kind of person's time by making him practice shooting machine guns everyday (like a skill 2-3 grunt), because you know he is generally proficient enough to do it without practice (like an AR 6 exper defaulting). Yeah, my money would be on green beret type who hasn't touched a machine gun in 2 years over some grunt who uses one everyday. But the reason isnt because the green beret spends a ton of time working on his MG skill, its because he's just a freak with guns (especially his personal, tricked out, top of the line SMG). Anyone who has read Blackhowk down knows that all the delta force guys had their own custom made weapons. Of course they can shoot an M16 or an Uzi, but that isn't what they practice with everyday. Of course, if this were "real" life, an exceptional person with 30 attribute points and 100k nuyen would probably also have access to unlimited skill training too, but that just isn't how the system is set up. The default rules allow a charecter to be an expert, while allowing for the reality that if you are super good at one type of thing, you are probably pretty damn good at another. Don't get so tied up in the labels. If an adept can throw 10 die with his SMG, it means he is also and expert with pistols (and anything else with a trigger), even if the word pistol doesn't ever show up on his sheet.

Austere Emancipa...

May 8 2004, 10:45 AM

Post #63

Great Dragon

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QUOTE (Oddfellow)

You say you want reality, but then you complain that most light pistols that are pretty much the same size as heavy pistols (hold up a .22 target pistol to a glock, its shocking)

I'm gonna get back to you guys on the rest of the weird shit that's been thrown around here soon, but this here... Nobody is complaining about Light Pistols being the size of Heavy Pistols. That's almost completely true even now IRL, except for a few extreme oddities. But the Concealability ratings are screwed up, and can be easily corrected without any major overhaul of anything or any additional complications of any kind.

I'd go on and on and on about the differences of Hold-Out, Light and Heavy Pistols compared to RL performance of different calibers, but I know nobody who doesn't already know all about it cares, and then in the next post some dumbass would whine about how .22LR is The Ultimate Killer Caliber of Doom.

QUOTE

Anyone who has read Blackhowk down knows that all the delta force guys had their own custom made weapons. Of course they can shoot an M16 or an Uzi, but that isn't what they practice with everyday.

I've read Black Hawk Down. Yes, they had their custom weapons. Notice how those custom weapons differ from M16A2s: They are full-auto capable and have shorter barrels. And that's about it. Those weapons are sometimes a bit tricked out (red dot sights being common, for one), but you can do the exact same thing with an M16. Firing semi-auto at targets within 100 meters, the difference amounts to nothing. And having somewhere around 10 years of intensive training behind him, the average Delta operator has likely trained more with an M16 than the average grunt, or even the average Ranger rifleman.

And anyone who's ready about Specops training knows that all those guys are extensively trained in an extremely wide variety of weapons. The average Delta guy can probably handle a PKM much better than the average Russian machinegunner. They all know how to handle all the common combat shotguns, handguns, SMGs, ARs, rifles, LMGs, MMGs, HMGs, etc in use by any major militaries in the world, and they know them well.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: May 8 2004, 10:57 AM

Austere Emancipa...

May 8 2004, 12:53 PM

Post #64

Great Dragon

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QUOTE (Arethusa)

As for tracking multiple combatants, well, I must admit I didn't really consider this to be a huge problem, and hit locations are used by a number of people here and certainly in a lot of other games. While I haven't GMed, that's enough for me to consider it feasible.

If you're talking about Raygun or me, neither of our hitloc systems have additional damage tracks, only one. I've discussed it several times before in threads concerning hit locations, and I still hold my original views: Separate damage tracks are unnecessarily complicated systems, and it is quite possible they do not even give more realistic results than a system with a single damage track.

QUOTE

Be that as it may, consider this: that troll is now packing serious scavenged body armor and a huge assault rifle; he is part of a group of terrorists who've taken over an embassy, and you need to snipe his ass as the first movement in large operation.

Armored and heavily armed opponents are common enough even today, especially where military sniping is concerned. Yet the .50s are reserved for anti-personnel work only at extreme ranges, such as the 1-2km shots you see happening in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan. In an urban surrounding, a .338 Lapua with armor piercing bullets will fly the necessary range just as straight as and a lot faster than the respective .50BMG bullet and will penetrate any helmet without trouble. The idea that a security helmet would require a .50BMG to penetrate sounds really silly.

I'm a bit sceptical about there being body armor in the 2060s that is as strong or stronger than 2"+ of RHS when paired with the idea that bullet and/or firearms technology will not come up with any new ways of penetrating armor other than the good ole Bigger Faster Bullets Method.

Still, .50BMG might be more common than it is today. But that's still not quite common.

QUOTE (Person404)

Player: I shoot him.
GM: Let me solve these differential equations and I'll get back to you on the exact ballistic path of the bullet.

And on the other end we got:
Player: I shoot him.
GM: There's no shooting in this game. You're already engaged in a hostile situation. Okay, you died.

Nobody's trying to introduce differential equations in this game. Hell, I made sure I never need to make more than simple +/- calculations with very small figures in combat, because I fully understand just how difficult it can be to consider all that's going on in combat as the GM -- I'm the only GM of my group, and we do combat often.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

It might make rational sense to drop firearm damage levels at long range, but how does this change the balance between guns and magic (which presumably still do full damage).

I quite agree with your basic premise that you always have to be wary of all the possible changes to game balance resulting from even the smallest house rulings. But this particular one is no problem at all. Seriously, the Power drop of firearms at long ranges should only really be an issue when low-mid power rifles are fired at armored opponents at long ranges (I'm not at all for the micromanaging required to completely realistically model the effects of some special types of gunshot wounds, such as when deforming bullets drop below their deformation treshold, or fragmentation treshold). Pistols shouldn't penetrate armor anyway, and most Powers will stay at 6 or above regardless at common engagement ranges. Heavier rifles will penetrate and kill regardless of a few point Power drop.

Assault Rifles being a point or two worse off against armor when you get beyond 50 or 150 meters is not something I consider a signficant change to game balance. An unarmored target isn't going to care a damn whether he's resisting 8M, 7M or 6M. Even if you do like I have and have ARs drop as low as 5M or 4M in some situations, it only comes to play when you bring the wrong type of gun to the wrong kind of situation -- ARs to fights at extreme ranges. They aren't meant to be extremely lethal at 350-550 meters, and I do not feel the need to have rules that make them extremely lethal at those ranges.

But they are still extremely good weapons at 10-200 or even 5-300 meters, which is why they are no worse off in the big pictures. The boost in penetration that these rules allow rifle caliber weapons to have, and which they sure as hell should have, puts the balance back where it should be. And when you smack some sense to the Concealability ratings, the balance of pistols vs rifles is still retained, while making all the parts of the equation work equally well overall, but their inherent edges and flaws are brought to play in a way that promotes realism, doesn't add complexity significantly, and thus results in more fun for many players and GMs. Me included.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

I have never lost any sleep over the fact that a single shot from an SMG does a little less than a pistol, even though they. Seems like reasonable trade off for longer range and burst fire. You could, of course make the situation more realistic and bump up the SMG's to 9M but if you did that you would throw the entire lethality level of combat off.

SMGs are generally not chambered for the heaviest of calibers. The massive majority of SMGs are 9mmP, and then you've got a few on .45ACP, .40S&W and maybe 10x25mm. 10x25mm is maybe something I just might consider to fit in the range of pistols that do 9M (and, whaddayaknow, 10x25 does 9M/+3 IMG).

The serious problem with pistols is the Damage Code differentiation. If, instead of 4L, 6L and 9M, they were 5L, 6M and 8M, I'd be a lot more sympathetic. Then SMGs could well do the 6M and 7M they do now, because they are mostly just the equivalent of very long barreled "medium" pistols. Those figures go along much better with what we know about the lethality of pistol-caliber weapons IRL. 4L, 6L and 9M just makes no sense.

Concealabilities are fucked up. Weapon weights (and those of several other items) are fucked up. Ranges, Damage Codes, RC, accessories, TN modifiers and ammunition are fucked up in several places, though they work quite well in some cases. Terminology is definitely off in some places, too. All those things can be fixed really easily, without changing the underlying system in any way, and thus without adding any complexity.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

But the reason isnt because the green beret spends a ton of time working on his MG skill, its because he's just a freak with guns (especially his personal, tricked out, top of the line SMG).

While this has no direct bearing on the discussion at hand: I've never seen or heard of green berets (US Army Special Forces) using SMGs, except for special situations. Their personal weapons are the same as those of Rangers or Airborne, or Light Infantry for that matter.

Your argument of soldiers training with one weapon and then "defaulting" to the others doesn't really hold when you look at the actual training systems utilized. Like I already mentioned above, they do train extensively with all kinds of weapons. Even I, a 9-month MP, have received ~20 hours of training with an HMG and a shotgun and slightly more with a sniper rifle, about 50-100 hours with an LMG and around a hundred with a Pistol. Meanwhile I've trained weeks on end with the AR. When I first handled the LMG, I might have been "defaulting" to AR (or the RK-62 Spec thereof) when I fired it. But after the first few times at the range with it, KK-62 Handling had become clearly separate from RK-62 Handling.

The exact same goes with the shotgun and the sniper rifle. With the pistol, I might have been defaulting to my Pistol/Airsoft Specialization of 0/1 at first, but now it's certainly the other way around. The HMG was completely alien to me at first, because the firing stance, aiming system, everything, were different than with any of the other weapons. I didn't feel my training with any other weapons helped me there.

LAWs were exactly the same as the HMG: Learning something completely new. I think I've held a LAW in my hands for about 30-40 hours of my life.

The Finnish DF doesn't stress weapons training. For someone with 10 or more years in the US military, such as many/most Deltas, you should multiply that by 20 or 30 for their main weapons (M16s, M4s, M177s, M60s, M240s, M249s, M203s, LAW72s, AT4s, Mk19s, M2HBs, M1911s, M9s, M24s and MP5s just to name a few) and add about as much training as I received with the weapons of potential allies and opponents: AKs, G36s, L85s, FA-MASs, G3s, etc.

Once you add the Unarmed and armed (Polearms, Edged Weapons, Clubs for some) melee combat skills, Throwing, Athletics, Stealth, Parachuting (and Diving for SEALs and many others), Etiquette, Negotiation, Leadership, Intimidation, Instruction, Biotech, Demolitions, Electronics, Car, Small Unit Tactics and Survival to those, you certainly do start running out of Skill Points with the canon chargen methods.

It should be said, however, that I am not for breaking up the skills. I covered this by uniting firearms skills to Pistols, Rifles, Gunnery and Launch for most purposes. Since Combat skills are the only skills so fragmented, it makes sense to me to return Combat skills to be in line with the rest, instead of fragmenting all the other skills to be in line with Combat. Mostly because the latter does then require additional rules changes all over the place and is quite likely to have a far more significant change in game balance.

Defaulting vs Skills and what they represent: The listing on pp. 98-99, SR3 is what I've always went by. Skill rating 1: Someone show you how to load, point and fire a gun. That's basically 1-3 hours of training with a specific firearm. Skill rating 2 is you after a few times on a range or maybe a dozen or two hours of training -- that's me with a pump-action 12G 2-3/4" Remington shotgun at my best.

With the HMG I was left somewhere between 1 and 2. With the sniper rifle I was between 2 and 3 (which works out much better with my skill system, because I'd still be using my base Rifle skill of 2 for both the shotgun and the sniper rifle). With the LMG, I was a 3 and with the RK-62 I might have reached a 4 at my best. With the pistol, I was probably stuck somewhere between 2 and 3. With the LAW, I was probably around 2.

That's about the equivalent of Pistol/FN High Power 1/3, Heavy Weapons/KK-62 1/3, Shotgun 1, Rifle/TaKi-85 1/3, Assault Rifle/RK-62 2/4 and Launch Weapons/66 KES 88 1/3, or 12 Skill Points for just weapons for a 9-month MP. No one would ever pick those skills in a normal Shadowrun game, because you could just take Pistols 5/7 and Assault Rifles 5/7 for the same amount of points.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: May 8 2004, 01:01 PM

The White Dwarf View Member Profile	May 8 2004, 02:09 PM Post #65
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 614 Joined: 17-June 03 From: A safehouse about to be compromised by ninjas Member No.: 4,754	Yea, I DO understand what Im suggesting. Which is why I said if youre going to put a lot of effort into reworking the system, do it from that end and make one that works. And dont be so narrow minded as to ignore my example because "its supposed to be that way". Theres any number of situations where things work out unevenly, I shouldnt have to list them all. You seem more interested in defending your rules than actually listening to input. If called shots are same ballpark tn, be prepared for every player to simply call all their shots and bypass the hitloc etc. Gee, for +3 to a limb or +5 to a head I can ignore the +4 cover penalty, all the armor except that worn in the target location, a random die roll on a chart that could land me in an area with more armor, and possibly cause additional damage by shooting somewhere like the head. Sign me up. All you are doing is replacing one set of arbritary rules for another, with its own areas to abuse. If you feel its more realistic fine but its going to play out the same way. Youre not going to impact overall gameplay at all, just burden yourself with more details. Watch, when its all done the players will operate in rougly the same capacity they do now; because none of the changes are to the integral part of the game. Its all superficial.

Arethusa

May 8 2004, 05:50 PM

Post #66

Runner

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QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Well, IMO if you're going the way of hit locations rather than abstract damage you should just go all the way. This hybrid system just looks like a half-assed attempt; no offense intended, of course.

Are you suggesting instead that I devise a system to calculate the trajectory of each piece of shrapnel and then assign a damage code, and from there, calculate damage to each area of the body?

This isn't half assed. It's the only fucking playable option, and, hell, there aren't any more realistic alternatives.

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

it's not like putting a barrel to a statue's forehead is very hard, no matter what gun you're using.

I think there is some degree of misunderstand, but also consider this: if you swing into a room on a dynamic entry, you're moving a lot. Even if your targets are stationary, the movement required of you in close quarters if far more significant than that required at range. This is what I'm talking about when I said that movement is a problem all around.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

How do you define a "close quarters" situation? Is it just the range? If that's the case, then --a Combat Pool penalty depending on weapon type when engaged with enemies within a certain range-- doesn't seem "impossible." Initiative is a little harder, since in an open area, some targets will be outside of the CQB zone. If there's something more specific you're talking about, please explain.

Initiative actually is impossible to modify for CQB. Besides, as initiative is a measure of reaction, adding TN modifiers essentially models reacting mentally but having difficulty bringing your weapon on target, which is more or less how it is in real life.

Combat pool, in my opinion, doesn't go far enough at all, and is far too inelegant a solution.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

No penalty- makes a lot of sense. Bonus? I don't get it.

Basically, just think of SMGs and carbines as a baseline. Relative to them, pistols are much more maneuverable in close quarters and thusly recieve a relative bonus. It really would've been far sillier to use pistols as a baseline and apply +1 to carbines and +2 to assault rifles.

As for my experience with guns, no, I'll admit the closest I've ever come is airsoft, which I really only consider applicable knowledge for judging the concealability and general size of weapons. Past that, I rely on a fair bit of reading, and far as I can tell, my opinions tend to match up well enough with people who have a lot more practical experience than me.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

Back to Sorcery: dividing Sorcery by type of spell will fundamentally change how magic works in the setting.

It won't. Will it hurt mages? Hell yes. They deserve it, unfortunately, as gunslingers have been dealing with the exact same problems in terms of skills all along. Will it encourage specialization? Somewhat. With a relative abundance of skill points, the mage will be able to be just as powerful as he was before, but if he so chooses, he may specialize and put those skill points into something else. All it ultimately is is an increase in freedom and a measure of fairness.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

You say you want reality, but then you complain that most light pistols that are pretty much the same size as heavy pistols (hold up a .22 target pistol to a glock, its shocking), and then there are some that are smaller (like the 10 shot walther, a very sneaky gun which I encourage in my games).

I have never lost any sleep over the fact that a single shot from an SMG does a little less than a pistol, even though they. Seems like reasonable trade off for longer range and burst fire. You could, of course make the situation more realistic and bump up the SMG's to 9M but if you did that you would throw the entire lethality level of combat off. Maybe you could compensate for that by splitting the SMG skill or something

Yes, a .22LR pistol can definitely be full size. Hell, just check out the P22. The problem is that in SR, they are the same size, have the same capacity, and have less range and a hell of a lot less damage. I can't accept that this system was playtested rigorously and designed intelligently when the game designers didn't even realize that they'd created whole classes of weapons with no real use and no basis in any reality, theirs or ours.

SMGs may have longer range and burst capabilities to balance their lower damage code, but what reasoning was there to give them a lower damage code at all? Balance? That's insane. You can get assault rifles and carbines that do far more damage and have full burst and autofire capabilities. It just doesn't add up at all. The numbers are notoriously screwy, and there's no amount of rationalization that can hold them together.

And while I don't have any plans for upping SMGs to 9M, I don't see how they'd dramatically throw off the power level of combat when assault rifles already do 8M, can hit at far greater ranges, and deal heavily in underbarrel grenades. Hell, shotguns easily throw swaths of 2D all over the place per canon. There's no way canon's balanced in the slightest, and 9M SMGs aren't going to break things any more. Fracturing skills even more than they already are is just going to make things worse, and it won't even make any sense.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

Nowhere in cannon does it describe defaulting as attempting to do something you have absolutely never done before. I'd rather roll 6 dice at +2 rather than 1 die at + zero any day. The actual result fo the rules makes perfect sense.

Having a skill of 1 is clearly defined as knowing the absolute basics eg being told "how to load, hold, point, and fire a gun. (SR3 98)" A skill of 0 means that you have little to no familiarity outside of having seen it on tv, at best. This is clearly not the case with a trained soldier in any army, and should be reflected numerically.

QUOTE (Oddfellow)

An elite soldier would be awesome at his chosen weapon (SMG 6) and could shoot anything else he found laying around almost as well (6 die plus two) and would spend alot of his time on non weapons tasks/social skills (I'm thinking green beret/CIA/Delta types here, those are the ones who end up in the shadows). You don't waste this kind of person's time by making him practice shooting machine guns everyday (like a skill 2-3 grunt), because you know he is generally proficient enough to do it without practice (like an AR 6 exper defaulting).

Absolutely not. As Austere notes, no green beret is going to choose an SMG, and, for that matter, your conception of the training that, say, a Green Beret A Team goes through is completely off. Every member of the team is cross trained in the duties and specializations of his team mates. Everyone knows how to administer combat medical care, everyone knows how to fire a massive variety of common military weapons (and that includes weapons that you'd see on either side of a potential conflict), everyone knows a fair bit about engineering and demolitions, everyone knows how to handle vehicles, and everyone knows how to deal with intelligence concerns. Specialized team members will, of course, know more, but idea is to allow the team to operate at near peak efficiency no matter what goes wrong, because the mission always goes on. They absolutely do train extrensively with a massive variety of weapons.

Is this buildable with 128 bp? Well, fuck, absolutely not. And maybe it shouldn't be. But fact is that you can't even build a normal infantryman on 128bp, and Austere gives a much more detailed explanation why above. There's no need for me to repeat that, but suffice to say I agree: the cost of taking a realistic spread of skills is way too high when you can do far better on Pistol 6 and Assault Rifles 6. It absolutely is not about getting caught up in labels.

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

If you're talking about Raygun or me, neither of our hitloc systems have additional damage tracks, only one. I've discussed it several times before in threads concerning hit locations, and I still hold my original views: Separate damage tracks are unnecessarily complicated systems, and it is quite possible they do not even give more realistic results than a system with a single damage track.

I was, though there are other people using hit locations. To clarify, I'm not talkinga bout separate damage tracks, which I agree are a mess of problems and not very realistic regardless; I'm talking about keeping track of a fairly detailed set of information regarding wound levels and a bunch of armor locations for a couple squads of corp sec HTR. Still, I thinky ou guys get along just fine, and you're dealing with a fair bit more detail than I have in mind for this.

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

The idea that a security helmet would require a .50BMG to penetrate sounds really silly.

Ok, so, yes, it is. But using .50BMG for antipersonnel applications when allowing the target to respond at all is not an option is not, in my mind, out of the question— especially when adverse conditions make reliable headshots a problem. I'm not saying you don't have a point about .50BMG being too much, even for trolls, but I think it's worth considering that with much tougher vehicles and structures, .50BMG could be a fair bit more prevalent.

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

No one would ever pick those skills in a normal Shadowrun game, because you could just take Pistols 5/7 and Assault Rifles 5/7 for the same amount of points.

You pretty much broke down the numbers before I ever really had any chance to, so there's no real need for repetition. Basically, I completely agree, and where we differ is on how to fix things; personally, I prefer to differentiate skills. While I feel it allows for a much more palatable level of definition for characters and their abilities, ultimately, I feel it comes down to taste and what best suits your game. Certainly, neither approach is inherently flawed. The only absolutely certain part of this is that SR's canon skillset (among many other things that've been mentioned in this thread) is positively fucked up.

QUOTE (The White Dwarf)

Yea, I *DO* understand what Im suggesting. Which is why I said if youre going to put a lot of effort into reworking the system, do it from that end and make one that works.

And yet many people feel that progressive difficulty in target numbers is a good thing. You've yet to state a valid reason for why you find this dynamic so distasteful. Furthermore, I felt I made it absolutely clear at the start of this thread that I have no intention of completely rewriting all of SR. This is a rewrite of combat mechanics and a general revision of a few other things. FanPro's not paying me, and there's no way they'll get an SR4 out of me for free.

QUOTE (The White Dwarf)

You seem more interested in defending your rules than actually listening to input.

Actually, I've listened to input from a lot of people thus far, and I've gotten a lot of good stuff. But do not presume that simply because you can speak and I will listen that your words hold any value.

QUOTE (The White Dwarf)

If called shots are same ballpark tn, be prepared for every player to simply call all their shots and bypass the hitloc etc. Gee, for +3 to a limb or +5 to a head I can ignore the +4 cover penalty, all the armor except that worn in the target location, a random die roll on a chart that could land me in an area with more armor, and possibly cause additional damage by shooting somewhere like the head. Sign me up.

All you are doing is replacing one set of arbritary rules for another, with its own areas to abuse. If you feel its more realistic fine but its going to play out the same way. Youre not going to impact overall gameplay at all, just burden yourself with more details. Watch, when its all done the players will operate in rougly the same capacity they do now; because none of the changes are to the integral part of the game. Its all superficial.

Uh, have you somehow managed to read nothing else written in this thread? It's already stated elsewhere that called shots are intended to be numerically balanced with cover. You've pretty clearly assumed the I'm creating worst, most unbalanced system you can envision solely so you can attack me from whatever enjoyably fallacious position you desire, and it's honestly beginning to grate quite a bit.

Entropy Kid

May 8 2004, 06:35 PM

Post #67

Moving Target

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QUOTE

Will it hurt mages? Hell yes. They deserve it, unfortunately, as gunslingers have been dealing with the exact same problems in terms of skills all along.

Magic-type characters already have limiting factors. They have to pay for that ability to use magic at character creation, it's another place to spend Karma (Initiation), they risk losing Magic if not healed properly, cyberware becomes a problem.

If you feel the need to split up Sorcery, I think it makes *a lot* more sense to split it up by function. Dividing Sorcery by spell type is like dividing firearm skills by ammunition type [not a perfect example, but you get the idea]. Also, how will you handle Spell Defense and Dispelling? Will mages average their various Sorcery skills to determine an overall rating for those tests (further encouraging specialization) or do they just pick the highest Sorcery skill? Averaging the ratings hurts a mage that doesn't specialize (can't afford to raise all those skills at once), and picking the highest makes little sense.

Perhaps only the same category of Sorcery can defend or dispell - using Combat Sorcery to defend against that Manabolt, and Health Sorcery to Dispell the Increase Reflexes. -- the rest defaulting. But then it fucks the mage again. Five skills to raise.

If balancing the skill split between firearms and magic- just do what AE did and make two main firearms skills: Rifles for anything that needs to be operated two handed, and Handguns for anything up to stockless SMGs (Gunnery and Launch Weapons for the big stuff). Consolidating the skills also better matches how the majority of other skills (ex: Biotech, Electronics, Athletics) work. If you think splitting up many of the skills (*Biotech) is the better way to go then I still think splitting Sorcery by function is the *only* way to do it.

As for the CQB penalties: I didn't say a handgun should be the base- I just don't think it should get a bonus. Not giving a penalty means it isn't any harder. Giving a bonus means it becomes easier somehow. Our differences in representing a handgun versus a SMG seem to hitting the point of personal preference though. The -2TN seems like way too much of a bonus though; -1TN at the most.

Also, I still don't know what "close quarters" means in this context. Is it just determined by range, or is some other condition present?

Arethusa

May 8 2004, 08:33 PM

Post #68

Runner

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QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

Magic-type characters already have limiting factors. They have to pay for that ability to use magic at character creation, it's another place to spend Karma (Initiation), they risk losing Magic if not healed properly, cyberware becomes a problem.

Let's not skew the picture, here, though. Mundanes are at a massive disadvantage to the awakened and also have to spend quite a bit at creation and beyond on equipment and ware. Being mundane is not easy.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

If you feel the need to split up Sorcery, I think it makes *a lot* more sense to split it up by function. Dividing Sorcery by spell type is like dividing firearm skills by ammunition type [not a perfect example, but you get the idea]. Also, how will you handle Spell Defense and Dispelling? Will mages average their various Sorcery skills to determine an overall rating for those tests (further encouraging specialization) or do they just pick the highest Sorcery skill? Averaging the ratings hurts a mage that doesn't specialize (can't afford to raise all those skills at once), and picking the highest makes little sense.

Perhaps only the same category of Sorcery can defend or dispell - using Combat Sorcery to defend against that Manabolt, and Health Sorcery to Dispell the Increase Reflexes. -- the rest defaulting. But then it fucks the mage again. Five skills to raise.

You can just as well say that doing it by category is akin to breaking it up by weapon category. Neither analogy's very good. Personally, I was and stil am leaning towards breaking it up by category and, as you mention, just having Combat Sorcery apply to all rolls that have to do with combat sorcery. I would really like to emphasize that this is very preliminary, however, and definitely the least solid part of this revision; none of this is definite.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

If balancing the skill split between firearms and magic- just do what AE did and make two main firearms skills: Rifles for anything that needs to be operated two handed, and Handguns for anything up to stockless SMGs (Gunnery and Launch Weapons for the big stuff). Consolidating the skills also better matches how the majority of other skills (ex: Biotech, Electronics, Athletics) work. If you think splitting up many of the skills (*Biotech) is the better way to go then I still think splitting Sorcery by function is the *only* way to do it.

I considered it. Really, I dislike how it lumps a lot of pretty damn unrelated things into single skills, and makes for dull characters on paper, and while that is absolutely not the limit of character development, I feel it's a bad start for a game that's supposed to be gritty. Certainly, tastes differ, and the two approaches are not really all that different. They go in different directions, but the end goal of balance is largely the same.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

As for the CQB penalties: I didn't say a handgun should be the base- I just don't think it should get a bonus. Not giving a penalty means it isn't any harder. Giving a bonus means it becomes easier somehow. Our differences in representing a handgun versus a SMG seem to hitting the point of personal preference though. The -2TN seems like way too much of a bonus though; -1TN at the most.

If you don't give it any penalty and you also don't give a penalty to SMGs and carbines, you essentially state that pistols are identically maneuverable to SMGs and carbines, which is obviously not the case.

Also, I should note that I never suggested -2 TN. You get -1 TN in CQB (<=10m) and -2 when you're in extreme CQB, which is (<=1m). Additionally, I should note that I'm not turning pistols into melee weapons, and there'll be revised penalties for firearms in melee.

QUOTE (Entropy Kid)

Also, I still don't know what "close quarters" means in this context. Is it just determined by range, or is some other condition present?

It's basically just range. In real life, it refers to close in urban combat, usually indoors. Here, that's reflected well enough by the 10m range.

The White Dwarf View Member Profile	May 8 2004, 08:39 PM Post #69
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 614 Joined: 17-June 03 From: A safehouse about to be compromised by ninjas Member No.: 4,754	Post all these revisions youre going to do or balance then, because I used the numbers you posted earlier. Either use your example or post the actual rules youre thinking of because so far it is that unbalanced. And I never said scaling tns was bad. I said unevenly scaling tns is bad. Its not bad that the higher numbers are harder, its that theyre exponentially harder from an arbritary break point on. I guess if you dont want to make sr4 youre making sr3.5...

Eyeless Blond

May 8 2004, 09:27 PM

Post #70

Decker on the Threshold

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QUOTE (Arethusa)

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Well, IMO if you're going the way of hit locations rather than abstract damage you should just go all the way. This hybrid system just looks like a half-assed attempt; no offense intended, of course.

Are you suggesting instead that I devise a system to calculate the trajectory of each piece of shrapnel and then assign a damage code, and from there, calculate damage to each area of the body?

This isn't half assed. It's the only fucking playable option, and, hell, there aren't any more realistic alternatives.

Okay, how about this: instead of getting hit with 9S concussion and 9S(f) shrapnel, how about you get his in d6 locations, minus 1 for every meter or two you are away from the blast's center (this substitutes for the blast losing Damage Levels as you get further away). The first "hit" is shrapnel (9S(f)), the second is concussion (9S), the third is shrapnel again (9M(f)), the fourth is concussion (9M), etc. You could even go up to 3d6 hit locations if it's a really powerful grenade and you really want to screw someone over. :D

I've got some serious misgivings about further splitting of skills. Something like this would to me just encourage people to specialize in one weapon, one branch of sorcery, one aspect of Stealth, one aspect of Athletics, etc, and default all the time. That's how most players play weapon skills now, anyway.

Austere Emancipa...

May 9 2004, 01:04 AM

Post #71

Great Dragon

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QUOTE (Arethusa)

To clarify, I'm not talkinga bout separate damage tracks, which I agree are a mess of problems and not very realistic regardless; I'm talking about keeping track of a fairly detailed set of information regarding wound levels and a bunch of armor locations for a couple squads of corp sec HTR. Still, I thinky ou guys get along just fine, and you're dealing with a fair bit more detail than I have in mind for this.

For player characters, I do keep a count of what wounds they have and where (M Physical Right Arm, L Physical Left Leg, that sort of thing), which is insignificant book-keeping-wise. For armor, I might have an entry for a group of baddies such as "4/2 torso+arms, 3/2 helmet", which again isn't going to mean any difference when compared to the amount of time it takes for me to determine the baddies tactics, skills and overall equipment, not to mention their personalities and motivation.

I do get along just fine, but I don't think I've got any more detail with this particular aspect of the system than you're aiming for.

Eyeless Blond: First of all, the blast would have to dissipate at range much, much faster than the shrapnel damage. The Power level of both should also decrease at range, as their armor penetrating potential lessen. You'd have to have separate tables for the dissipation of Power and Hit Amounts for both shrapnel and blast for every grenade type and size. That's a lot more complexity, and that's assuming you can actually manage to find numbers for all those that make sense -- I won't try, so I don't know if it's even possible.

Arethusa

May 9 2004, 05:40 AM

Post #72

Runner

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QUOTE (The White Dwarf)

Post all these revisions youre going to do or balance then, because I used the numbers you posted earlier. Either use your example or post the actual rules youre thinking of because so far it is that unbalanced.

I will, certainly, but as I've mentioned, what's here is preliminary, and, for the most part, the solid numbers that have already been drawn up are, for the most part, not rules but equipment. Most of the mechanics are pretty much prototypal.

QUOTE (The White Dwarf)

And I never said scaling tns was bad. I said unevenly scaling tns is bad. Its not bad that the higher numbers are harder, its that theyre exponentially harder from an arbritary break point on. I guess if you dont want to make sr4 youre making sr3.5...

It is. I'll admit that it's an unfortunate byproduct of using exploding dice, but unless you feel like flipping exploding coins, that's just how it is. It can be ameliorated somewhat by using modified exploding dice (every roll after the first six is counted at -1), but this creates a number of other statistical oddities, not to mention a crapload of work retuning all the target numbers, concealabilities, etc. Really, I doubt you'll get much better from a tabletop game, but I'll admit my experience with RPGs is not very broad; perhaps a statistically saner system exists. I wouldn't know. For now, I'm ok with sticking to (mostly) canon rolling mechanics because it would be a mess to rewrite from the ground up.

And, like I said, going further than I am now is practically like writing FanPro's next line of Shadowrun merchandise, and I'm not terribly interested in doing that for free. After all, this is just a revision, not a new edition.

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Okay, how about this: instead of getting hit with 9S concussion and 9S(f) shrapnel, how about you get his in d6 locations, minus 1 for every meter or two you are away from the blast's center (this substitutes for the blast losing Damage Levels as you get further away). The first "hit" is shrapnel (9S(f)), the second is concussion (9S), the third is shrapnel again (9M(f)), the fourth is concussion (9M), etc. You could even go up to 3d6 hit locations if it's a really powerful grenade and you really want to screw someone over. :D

Whoah. Don't take this the wrong way, but good lord, absolutely not. I'm interested in realism, but I have no interest in making the game completely unplayable. Your system would force GMs to roll as many as 12 separate damage resistance tests per grenade per affected combatant. Furthermore, you've created a subset of explosives that function completely differently from others, and, worst, you've made explosives function differently on personnel and static objects. And, hell, I don't even think this is necessarily more realistic at all. It's really up there with separate damage tracks per limb. This just isn't a viable mechanic.

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

I've got some serious misgivings about further splitting of skills. Something like this would to me just encourage people to specialize in one weapon, one branch of sorcery, one aspect of Stealth, one aspect of Athletics, etc, and default all the time. That's how most players play weapon skills now, anyway.

I really need to emphasize the fact that, in the post starting this thread, I specifically mention diversifying skills and multiplying the available number of skill points or skill dedicated karma at character creation by 2 or three to compensate for the level of diversification I have planned. This will, naturally, be fully tested for balance once numbers firm up. This is how it's ultimately quite similar to condensing skills— it just goes in the opposite direction.

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

For player characters, I do keep a count of what wounds they have and where (M Physical Right Arm, L Physical Left Leg, that sort of thing), which is insignificant book-keeping-wise. For armor, I might have an entry for a group of baddies such as "4/2 torso+arms, 3/2 helmet", which again isn't going to mean any difference when compared to the amount of time it takes for me to determine the baddies tactics, skills and overall equipment, not to mention their personalities and motivation.

I do get along just fine, but I don't think I've got any more detail with this particular aspect of the system than you're aiming for.

This is pretty much what I was hoping for (and somewhat expecting). It may take some extra room on paper, but I don't think it'll really be that bad. Also, I was under the impression that your system differentiated between forearm, upper arm, shoulder, etc? I recall reading that you'd equipped some guys with light forearm armor a while back in play test, anyway. If you're going by practically the same number of hit locations I am, our systems are more similar than I initially thought.

Austere Emancipa...

May 9 2004, 07:56 AM

Post #73

Great Dragon

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QUOTE (Arethusa)

Also, I was under the impression that your system differentiated between forearm, upper arm, shoulder, etc? I recall reading that you'd equipped some guys with light forearm armor a while back in play test, anyway. If you're going by practically the same number of hit locations I am, our systems are more similar than I initially thought.

Nope, never differentiated between different parts of arms. I've actually got less significant hit locations, because I do not differentiate between groin and the rest of the torso in most cases (which basically means never).

Arethusa View Member Profile	May 9 2004, 08:11 AM Post #74
Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,901 Joined: 19-June 03 Member No.: 4,775	Heh. That certainly is ironic. Ah well. Should end up working out, regardless. Anyway, figured I'd throw these two questions out before the thread runs its course: Any syggestions for rules for backblast on launch weapons? Phaeton brought it to my attention that there aren't any, which is, of course, not right at all. Any suggestions for rewriting the rules handling incapacitation, unconsciousness, and death? I'm definitely going to be using the deadlier form of overdeadly damage that's in canon, but I'm also looking for rules that allow you to stay potentially conscious (but almost completely incapacitated) after recieving a deadly wound, as well as rules that handle bleeding with a lot more realism and variation. Not sure if this has been tackled before, but it's pretty significant, considering everything else.

Diesel View Member Profile	May 9 2004, 09:02 AM Post #75
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 608 Joined: 9-July 02 From: California Member No.: 2,955	Phaeton is wrong. Cannon Companion, page 27 has rules on launch exhaust. 12M damage at point blank behind the launcher, -1 power / M, wound zone one meter wide. I'd increase it a little, and modify it depending on the launcher, if I wanted to be complicated. And if I were to do that, I'd also make rules for overpressure due to firing from small rooms. But I like it simple, so those rules are fine.

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