[SR5] - some in-game-experiences yet? Options

[Machiavelli]

Hi Folks,

i wonder if someone is regularily playing SR5 and how it has worked out so far? We only tested it a short time and of course it was a little bit bumpy, because of all the new rules. But if you used them for a while and got used to them, how is your overall experience? How did combat work out? Is it really that much longer than before? What is the powerlevel of an specialized PC vs. a common grunt? What do your mages say about their role? Do they feel underpowered or are they fine? Are the new rules more or less playable than you could expect if you solely relate to the RAW? Is "in game" different?

It would be great, to get a short reply.

[binarywraith]

In short, I don't think my experiences with it are necessarily repeatable simply because of the sheer scale of cruft that has to be navigated to try and play 5e by 'Rules As Written'. You definitely need to sit down as a GM and basically take notes, since the book is almost impossible to quickly reference due to page references being off and the structure of the writing being poorly laid out. Half the rules text you want will be in the middle of what looks like fluff descriptions.

Beyond that, it's Shadowrun. Cyber is a lot more punishing of a choice now. Feels more like 3e than 4e to me, and a bit frustrating because 3 years on past release we still don't have large swaths of iconic gear, vehicles, or augmentations statted in.

[Deckbeard]

Short version, it's fine.

Long version, I've been GMing SR5 for the past couple of months. I do not have a ton of experience with shadowrun prior to this edition so offering comparisons in that respect will be impossible. My group has a fair smattering of character archetypes with the exception of adepts and matrix users. We don't have either of those. RaW, shadowrun is a simple game but not an easy one. Everything is some variation of blank+blank-blank with a limit of blank. Usually this is atribute+skill-situational modifiers (limit of some sort or another). It works pretty well for most things with no immediate exceptions that come to mind. As for combat, it can last for a while, especially with newer players who are unfamiliar with the way that shadowrun does combat. There's not a ton that I can think of to do in order to make it go faster other then have your players get what they want to do down. One of the big things in SR5 is the character creation system. Don't get me wrong, I really like it. But you have to make 2 or 3 characters, at least I did, before you really have a feeling of "ohh, ok. I got this" Not having predefined classes is awesome but it's especially daunting for those new to the setting. The only fix is to just sit them down, explain to them how the world works (I personally had all of my new players listen to neo-anarchist podcast, great for introing them to the history) and work with them step by step to make their character. It's kinda time consuming but what you gonna do.

Other things: Magic. It's good. Some options m, especially with what I read for adepts, are overpowers but that almost always is nicely leveled out with he drain. You can cast a shit ton of awesome spells but your gonna pretty much be dead weight from that point on. Rigging: drones are suuuper squishy. Not much RaW you can do about this maybe intro a mod for extra armor, like wise not enough variety for drones or vehicles. Your gonna be seeing a lot of the same stats with different chharacters. Once the rigger book comes out this should be solved. Matrix: I don't have a ton to offer here as my group doesn't have a matrix guy. I tried making a decker just for the fun of it and you WILL need to take your priority A choice for resources. You could probably get away with B but I went A. Likewise, GMs, I have toyed around with the idea of allowing deckers to take the next highest level deck during character generation. As it stands, all equipment may be no higher then 12R during character creation. For a solo decker, I would probably allow them to take the next highest level deck just because they are SO expensive and they are pretty much the only thing that the deckers are gonna use. A street sami can have a bad sword but have a high strength and still have it level out. For deckers, the decks pretty much it. Again, I expect this to be solved when data trails comes out like next month. NPCs: core book, there arnt a ton of low level NPCs so GMs will end up modifying their own. Run Faster's contacts are AWESOME for having a base and modifying it. I'm working on a ton of stat blocks right now. Il probably post them up here at some point. Book size: main book is fragging huge. Not a great tool for reference. GM screen is ok for it but just write a quick summary somewhere and binder clip it to your GM screen or core book.

One of the things I've seen a bunch of people complain on here about is he editing. It's not great but it's not terrible. Lack of an index in some books is annoying. Il give them that but I often have the physical book I. Front of me and if there's something I need to look up il cmd/ctr f and search for it in the PDF. It's not perfect but it works. Layout is pretty good overall. Some things in sections I would not have expected them to be in but oh well. Art is fantastic. I cannot think of a single piece of art in any of the books hat I can remember as making me think "god that's terrible" there are some ok and average pieces sure but a lot of the pieces of art are fantastic. My absolute favorite is the piece of art used for the inside cover of run and gun. The panoramas in the main book are also fantastic. No bad marks here.

Overall: good. Some things need some work but I expect them to be solved soon or it's not really something that can be solved by catalyst.

[Smash]

While I agree with Binarywraith on the structure of the books, this is no great departure from books in previous editions and is certainly not a reason to avoid the edition.

Largely I like it. I like that deckers are back, the matrix kinda even works now, magic was balanced a lot better although I think mana spells were nerfed perhaps a tad hard and combat is much simpler (it's still a clusterfuck, just with less clusters).

[flowswithdrek]

I've played Shadowrun from the very beginning, but SR5 is the first edition I just can't get my head around. Its also had an adverse effect on my gaming group as everyone else in the group is struggling, nay slogging through the rules, even the basics. I can't even comment on if the rules are an improvement as I'm really struggling understanding them, though some of the concepts sound nice. I made the mistake of ordering a hard copy of the book and a limited edition of the book for myself, a copy for the table and one for each of my players. That's 7 copies that won't be ordered when a new edition comes out. I guess I got too excited to soon.

Finding stuff is difficult and you have to look up different pages. There is way too much material. Don't get me wrong its a lovely looking book, but just no need for half the stuff in there, it just creates bloat.

Still, I haven't given up, not quite yet.

[apple]

SR5 didn´t / don´t work out currently for our group. Things like limits or online bonuses together with the strange matrix conception ("the matrix is your enemy, yet every enemy smartlink can access our supercomputers") are one thing, missing splat books (for example the cyberbook for our 0,1 cybertroll somehwere in ... 2016 perhaps) is the other thing. Some improvement were done of what we feel is wrong with SR4, some not (matrix extended tests vs multiple marks for example still requiring multiple rolls), so currently we decided to rollback some SR5 changes back into SR4 (for example mentor spirits for adepts, milspec is hardened armor, Str and not Str/2 as base damage in melee etc).

Sidenote: we would be using the vastly improved German SR5 vesion (you know the one with errata, pictures etc) and even there the layout ... has room for improvements. Personally. I don´t have big hopes that the quality of SR5 will be improving that it can be considered a real improvement from SR4 with some houserules.

SYL

[Not of this Worl...]

My group has made the decision to stay with 5th edition because we have a couple of younger players. Its a new edition, so for old players there are always new things to learn. More with the transitions from 1-2-3, but going to from 3rd to 5th isn't the train wreck it was going from 3rd to 4th.

Just finished running my runners through the 2nd edition adventure Forbidden Fruit from the book Predator & Prey. I've run this adventure before with other players in the days of 2nd & 3rd editions. The change in the way armor works was very noticeable. Anyone without either an interrupt defense or armor was dead very fast.

I'm using a corrected printing of the 3rd edition core book. The most annoying thing I have to deal with is the index in the back being off. I've fixed this by using sticky notes to create speed tabs for my rulebook and everything runs smoothly now.

"Hacking wireless" is overblown as a problem. Yes, the rules for it are complicated and ridiculous... so much so that no Hacker wants to do it. Its much faster & much more effective for the Hacker to hack a drone, gridguide, lonestar, or just pull out a gun and shoot somebody. Ware was hackable in 4th edition per RAW and the consensus seems to be that 5th edition is going to go the same way... players & GMs alike are going to keep on ignoring it as the bad idea it is.

The biggest issue with 5th so far is still their idea of the setting. The new Matrix is excellent, but so far the rest is uninspired. Okay, we're back to Cyberpunk-ish. The magic of the setting isn't Earthdawn future though, it isn't traditional Folklore, what is it? Its bland an uninspiring so far. What are the major plot elements? The infect-... err Shed-... err Headcases? Come on guys... We're not even talking about inspirational hallmarks of previous editions like the Harlequin campaign, Renraku Arcology, Dunkelzahn's Will, etcetera. There are big shoes to fill and they'd do well by just going back to them if they can't figure out their own to fill.

[Medicineman]

Ware was hackable in 4th edition per RAW and the consensus seems to be that 5th edition is going to go the same way.

ONLY WiFi -Open 'ware
but most of the Cyberware works perfectly without in SR4A so most of the 'ware was switched Off or even had the WiFi connection removed completely. Only a Comlink or Tac Net needed WiFi open Channels.
To Topic:
I used to play in a SR5 Group, but the Player of our Rigger (and his Wife who played the Decker) were so angry at the Incompetence of the Matrix Rules and how wrong they were and that they made no sense ( and because he had a short Fuse and got in an argument with another Player the Group dissolved )
Now I'm mastering a Mix of SR4A and 5 Rules (set in 2055)

with his own Dance
Medicineman

[Wothanoz]

Well, we've started up a Street Level game, with mostly new guys to the system(I'm an old skool guy from way back in 1st) and world, and despite some initial teeth cutting problems("oh, you're character has NOTHING but guns skills? Hmmm..."), we've managed to do pretty good. We've managed to assault a corporate HQ, only killing 7 of the guard personel(out of 30 something) and escaping handily.

So let's talk about the good and the bad.

Matrix. Oh man. This has always been a mixed bag. For most of us, the Matrix has always been a sideshow: old skool rules made decking a "game-within-a-game" that largely kept the decker removed from the actual party, and the cost and skill requirements pretty much meant decking was all a decker could do. Which often led to the Decker being an NPC, used for leg work and the occasional job. Fourth started the transition, which wasn't terrible, to a world where decking was more hands on and active, and made a compelling case for being a Decker..err..Hacker. Sure, Fourth was half-baked, but after the fiasco when FASA shut down, the fact that the game is still going is amazing. Fifth edition firms it up, giving solid mechanics for what a decker can do, and I think it's pretty solid. However, there are problems I have.

1) Exclusiveness. In fourth edition, anyone could be a hacker. Sure, you had to get the skills to do it, but the equipment was fairly cheap, which took the notion of the "dedicated decker" out behind the woodshack and executed it. Well, apparently, that didn't sit right with some folks, and we're back to the old skool where Deckers require a boatload of resources to get into the game, as well as multiple exclusive skills, and as a consequence, we're back to having Deckers, rather than hackers. This sucks, because it closes people out of the matrix, and makes it an "optional" role again, which is bonkers with the more widespread rules for wi-fi. Way to jerk us out of the immersion. That's my biggest complaint.

2) Holy Matrix damage! A decker can now do stuff that is useful in the real world. From hacking commlinks to send personal information to the authorities, to burning out the ECU for a car, deckers can actually leverage their matrix presence into a real world presence. Sure, maybe some folks are annoyed by their guns getting bricked, or their cyberware getting hacked, but... so? I'd rather have Deckers do stuff than sit around twiddling their thumbs. This is cool.

Sadly, the two things tend to cancel each other out: since the start-up cost for a Decker is so high, you have to have a specialist to do matrix stuff, and many groups don't have one, so the matrix just gets ignored. And consequently, you don't see a lot of awareness of how awesome it can be, or how to use the matrix from non deckers. That's a bad deal.

rigging is in a similar boat: in 4th, I had three separate riggers to deal with, ranging from a guy who just wanted to go fast on his bike, to a "real" rigger with a van and everything, and a hacker who had a couple of drones for back up. In 5th... Not so much.

Le sigh.

[apple]

but the equipment was fairly cheap

Obviously, experienced hackers in these groups never used military grade programs and hardware for "interaction with the real world". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

SYL

[Beta]

I was a player in a first edition campaign, ran a whole two episodes of the game in second edition before that group concluded that life wasn’t going to let us get together to game regularly enough to bother, then some seventeen years later I picked up fifth edition because my teenager found the few SR books I’d kept all of these years, and asked if I could run a game for him (we had been playing HeroQuest previously—it doesn’t have motorcycles…). So I can’t compare to fourth, or even third edition rules.

Running a one player game could never test out all the rules, even with a core group of semi-NPCs that get recruited for some scenarios to fill out the skills list. The one and only PC is a shaman, so we’ve given the magic rules a good work out, and it happens that one of the characters I’d played in first edition had been a shaman, so I can compare and contrast pretty well on that front.

I’d absolutely say that 5th is the more robust rules set. Getting away from modifiers changing the target number made the game far less breakable, IMO. Limits help keep a lot of other exploits under control. There are actual rules for a lot of the magic, which had to be hand-waved much more in the early editions. For the most part I find that the rules have an internal logic that is easy enough to grasp and which helps us muddle through when we can’t find what would cover a particular situation.

I find spirits much more powerful than in the early editions. When a full mage has time to prepare ahead of time, and so summon a powerful spirit and then take a nap to get over any stun damage from the summoning, they can do some pretty scary stuff. However what I’ve found limits the power of that is bringing the challenges on in waves, and being somewhat strict about what a service is. Without a spirit, I find that the magic is pretty reasonable—the shaman can do a lot, but experts in a particular area can do things better or more reliably, which feels about right.

One drawback of the 5th edition rules compared to early editions is that the number of dice being rolled is large enough that we find we are constantly counting out dice—you can’t just eyeball that you have thirteen dice the way that you could with five. This slows things down a bit, given how many rolls have to be made.

On the other hand, the core book has, IMO, perhaps a quarter of the flavour baked into it that the 1st/2nd editions had. We played the game back then all based on the flavour, and endured the rules. The rules really are better, but if I picked the 5th book up, not knowing anything about Shadowrun, I don’t know that I’d buy it or run a game in the setting. It is just far less evocative. Some of that has to do with taking out all the quotes, instead choosing to describe things with far more words. Some has to do with just far more words. The rest, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but in general it all just feels more academic and less immediate. Of course, if you are already a SR fan that matters somewhat less, but I still find that flipping through the fifth edition rules doesn’t inspire me in the same way that the early books did.

Probably a bigger problem is that the rule book takes the approach of my least favorite college professors. Start talking, explain a lot of little things, then gradually build up to the point – in this case the point being the actual rule/roll. I much prefer the newspaper approach of putting the vitals in the first sentence or two, then adding more detail for those who are interested. If, say, we suddenly need to look up the rule for dispelling a sustained or quickened spell, it takes longer than it should (IMO) to find the meat of the information.

An associated problem is that they made the (somewhat understandable) decision not to duplicate rules throughout the books. So the Physical Barrier spell points you to the rules for breaking through a barrier for information on how to get through a barrier spell. This makes sense, at least in theory, but then there are cases like the fact that if you are using demolitions to set a shaped explosion to take out a barrier spell, you’ll end up looking in up to five parts of the rules (barrier spell, barriers, explosives in the gear section….and quite possibly at the demolitions skill, which won’t actually tell you anything useful, even though it seems like a natural place to start). Or that if you roll poorly when casting a fireball, you have to look up the grenades sections of the rules to determine the scatter. Some of these things do list page references, but those are still often buried in the text. So they avoid the risk of having two parts of the book saying different things about the same rule, and they avoid wasting words on duplication, but it does lead to a lot more flipping of pages in the rule book, at least in my experience.

[Wothanoz]

Obviously, experienced hackers in these groups never used military grade programs and hardware for "interaction with the real world". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

SYL

Well, we only kept our group together for about six months that time. For a while, I was hosting games for 7 or 8 people, and there was a lot of fun going around. But Multiple characters utilized the hacking rules and were actively involved with the matrix, while my experience in previous editions was not nearly so matrix friendly. But we didn't stick around long enough to buy the supplements.

But it was nice that the decker wasn't just some kid in a van.

[apple]

Understandable. In that regard the SR4 matrix was a little bit like the physical combat system

1) You could simly buy a weapon, armor and some ammo and start an easy battle without much investment. => You can get a cheap link and some hack programs for almost nothing and start to hack an easy target.

2) You could invest a moderate amount of money, karma, skills, essence to become a very dangerous fighter in many/most combat situation except the most dire one => You could get a rating 6 link/agent/skills with a moderate investment (higher 5 digit / lower 6 digit rating, depending on the rules you where using) and become a good hacker capable of taking down most non-military / SOTA matrix systems.

3) However, for the true combat challenges, like multiple competent enemies with automatic weapons, heavy combat drones, initiated combat adepts etc you *want* a high powered streetsam on your side, who has invested most of his ressources into one thing: slaughter. You want the guy with 20-30 soak/attack/dodge dices, 4 IPs etc, who can walk through machine gun fire. You don´t need him for the trash guard of a low priority corp facility but when the Red Samurai want you dead, you will not survice long without massive investments into combat systems.

You don´t need a specialised hacking monster to go into many normal matrix system. But when you need to take down a high priority data research center in minutes, with lethal ICE, military hardware and some kickass spiders with black hammers trying to fry you, you want the 30 dice 5 IP military grade hacker on your side. A rating 9-10 deck/programs with the corresponding support ware can go in the the 6/7 digit area easily.

So it depenss on what level the gamemaster wants to play the matrix challenges. Easy stuff? Doable by everyone. Complicated stuff? Specialised character. Just like combat, social interaction, tech manipulation or infiltration - almost everything in SR. Which is the beauty of of the SR character creation/reward system: play the character you want, not the class you have to choose.

And yes, i very much prefered the SR4 model, where everyone could dabble in the area of other characters while specialised characters would still have a gigantic advantage for the difficult tasks. It felt more rewarding, especially when SR is not a class system like DnD, but an open system, where you simply choose your competences.

SYL

[Medicineman]

well written Apple (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
+1 from Me

Hough!
Medicineman

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

well written Apple (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
+1 from Me

Hough!
Medicineman

Indeed Apple...
Also a +1 from me, and an Internet Cookie of your Choice.

[apple]

Macademia nut

*nomnomnomomoonom*

SYL

[Beta]

Darn it, now I'm nostalgic for 4th edition, and I never even played it!

What Apple described is exactly how I like my games.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Darn it, now I'm nostalgic for 4th edition, and I never even played it!

What Apple described is exactly how I like my games.

Indeed... I miss my SR4 games. 5th just does not do it for me like 4th Edition did. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Wothanoz]

Understandable. In that regard the SR4 matrix was a little bit like the physical combat system

1) You could simly buy a weapon, armor and some ammo and start an easy battle without much investment. => You can get a cheap link and some hack programs for almost nothing and start to hack an easy target.

2) You could invest a moderate amount of money, karma, skills, essence to become a very dangerous fighter in many/most combat situation except the most dire one => You could get a rating 6 link/agent/skills with a moderate investment (higher 5 digit / lower 6 digit rating, depending on the rules you where using) and become a good hacker capable of taking down most non-military / SOTA matrix systems.

3) However, for the true combat challenges, like multiple competent enemies with automatic weapons, heavy combat drones, initiated combat adepts etc you *want* a high powered streetsam on your side, who has invested most of his ressources into one thing: slaughter. You want the guy with 20-30 soak/attack/dodge dices, 4 IPs etc, who can walk through machine gun fire. You don´t need him for the trash guard of a low priority corp facility but when the Red Samurai want you dead, you will not survice long without massive investments into combat systems.

You don´t need a specialised hacking monster to go into many normal matrix system. But when you need to take down a high priority data research center in minutes, with lethal ICE, military hardware and some kickass spiders with black hammers trying to fry you, you want the 30 dice 5 IP military grade hacker on your side. A rating 9-10 deck/programs with the corresponding support ware can go in the the 6/7 digit area easily.

So it depens on what level the gamemaster wants to play the matrix challenges. Easy stuff? Doable by everyone. Complicated stuff? Specialised character. Just like combat, social interaction, tech manipulation or infiltration - almost everything in SR. Which is the beauty of of the SR character creation/reward system: play the character you want, not the class you have to choose.

And yes, i very much prefered the SR4 model, where everyone could dabble in the area of other characters while specialised characters would still have a gigantic advantage for the difficult tasks. It felt more rewarding, especially when SR is not a class system like DnD, but an open system, where you simply choose your competences.

SYL

Yeah, that's how I feel. Our group had one "real" hacker, a Corp Kid who ran the shadows for lulz. But I liked that the street sam and rigger were both able to do basic hacking tasks while the corp kid was busy with the "serious" stuff.

[Cain]

I did a lot of SR5 missions, solely as a player, so here's my thoughts:

Overall, it's "meh". It's not as terrible as some people say, it's not totally unplayable, but it is underwhelming.

Physical combat is a bit of a mess. With a large number of players and opponents, things get hard to track very quickly.

Dice pool inflation is still a problem. Limits aren't a limiting factor (pardon the pun) at all-- they just moved it to a new level, setting a new trap option.

The new Matrix has some nice ideas, but they rely on too many charts and tables, and not enough streamlined resolution systems. It's functional, but it's not amazing. The matrix setting is pretty bad, though-- the books are fairly inconstant about when and where Matrix actions are best used.

Magic is overpowered. Not so much spellcasting anymore, but spirits and adepts/mystic adepts are terrors. That wouldn't be so awful, except cyber is nerfed, so the gap between mundane and magic got a lot wider. To make matters worse, adepts have more options for advancement than mundanes-- they have a lot more choices, so they can cherry-pick the lowest-cost option, and advance faster as a result.

[Wothanoz]

I did a lot of SR5 missions, solely as a player, so here's my thoughts:

Overall, it's "meh". It's not as terrible as some people say, it's not totally unplayable, but it is underwhelming.

Physical combat is a bit of a mess. With a large number of players and opponents, things get hard to track very quickly.

By physical combat, do you mean melee combat? Because I can't see how it's much more complicated than it was in prior editions. If anything, it's not as much a lop-sided contest, as Friends in Melee is no longer a +1/-1 per friend, up to four. That used to make melee somewhat broken. They changed that in SR3 to be either +1 or -1 per team mate. I think.

Because our combats have run pretty fluidly. Of course, we're also from a wargaming background, so keep track of 20 or 30 things on a table isn't exactly new to us. But we haven't had a lot of melee combat(We have... guns... and mana bolts... and Mob Mind... Why are we getting into fisticuffs?), even though the majority of our characters are pretty good at stabbing or punching.

Dice pool inflation is still a problem. Limits aren't a limiting factor (pardon the pun) at all-- they just moved it to a new level, setting a new trap option.

These two statements don't seem to go together. I mean, Limits don't seem to be much of a hinderence, but they do stop some of the stupider crap I've seen, like waif-fu(which I have never liked). But I've generally found that at char gen, you're not really seeing huge dice pools for too many thing(7-8 seems to be "competent", with 10-12 being "very competent"). I mean, granted, we are currently running a street level game, but that just restricts gear, rather than skill or attribute levels.

I mean, sure, you can get 13 dice from attribute + skill, then add a reflex recorder, then for agility for most skills, so another +5. Figure +2 for a smartlink, that's 20 dice or so at character generation. And, to be sure, that's potent, however, the limits do apply there. The accuracy limit is a bit high in my opinion, but it's still a valid metric for choosing a weapon now. In fact, it's pretty solid.

For light pistols, it's not really a big deal: they're all essentially the same, any way. I still don't understand why people are not taking the Fichetti Security 500a(Oh, sorry, the Security 600), as you can now flatter light ammo against body armor faster than ever before! To me, Light pistols have never been "serious" combat weapons, nothing you would take into a serious confrontation, but effective enough for casual use. The name doesn't matter, because they are essentially the same. They're simple, cheap, throwaways that work reasonably well for handling small threats, but for anything serious(aka armored), you need to scale it up. But you get your highest limits with smartlinked light pistols, though you have fairly low DV, and no AP, and limited range.

With Heavy pistols, the acc limit stops the silly ones(Roomsweeper and Slivergun) from being more than niche weapons. The best accuracy you can get there is either the Predator or the Government. The Predator isn't as accurate, but is more damaging and has one more round than the Government. The government is the more accurate one, cheaper(though making it smart to take advantage of the accuracy is more expensive), but less powerful.

[silva]

Playing it for 2 months now.

Are you new to Shadowrun ? Then its the most unnecessarily convoluted and slow piece of shit ruleset ever, with compulsive levels of dice rolling, situational modifiers, and arguably unplayable subsystems that takes hours to utilize. Good luck grokking this 80s museum artifact in its entirety. I play it for 2 decades and still aint sure if I use the rules exactly as intended.

Are you experienced in Shadowrun ? Nah, then its fine. New things here and there (limits, wifi, matrix tweaks, etc) but nothing significant. Its more like 4th edition than old 1st/2nd/3rd editions.


Thats it. Cant be more honest than that. If you hear anyone saying "worst edition ever!" or "best edition ever!" just ignore it. There is nothing revolutionary here (oh I wish). In the end, its just Shadowrun. For good and bad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Wothanoz]

Playing it for 2 months now.

Are you new to Shadowrun ? Then its the most unnecessarily convoluted and slow piece of shit ruleset ever, with compulsive levels of dice rolling, situational modifiers, and arguably unplayable subsystems that takes hours to utilize. Good luck grokking this 80s museum artifact in its entirety. I play it for 2 decades and still aint sure if I use the rules exactly as intended.

Are you experienced in Shadowrun ? Nah, then its fine. New things here and there (limits, wifi, matrix tweaks, etc) but nothing significant. Its more like 4th edition than old 1st/2nd/3rd editions.


Thats it. Cant be more honest than that. If you hear anyone saying "worst edition ever!" or "best edition ever!" just ignore it. There is nothing revolutionary here (oh I wish). In the end, its just Shadowrun. For good and bad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Heh. That's how I feel. I'm still reading the damned rulebook constantly, going: "oh... i gues.. ok, sure." I mean, GURPS is simpler than this shit. GURPS! It does help that GURPS has much better editing, and the freelance writers for it all around Kenneth Peter's level of intelligence and knowledge(I've yet to be disappointed by anything Tzeentch has dropped for either system. Except Ultra Tech for GURPS 4e, and I don't think tht was all his fault. That book sucked)

[Cain]

By physical combat, do you mean melee combat? Because I can't see how it's much more complicated than it was in prior editions. If anything, it's not as much a lop-sided contest, as Friends in Melee is no longer a +1/-1 per friend, up to four. That used to make melee somewhat broken. They changed that in SR3 to be either +1 or -1 per team mate. I think.

Because our combats have run pretty fluidly. Of course, we're also from a wargaming background, so keep track of 20 or 30 things on a table isn't exactly new to us. But we haven't had a lot of melee combat(We have... guns... and mana bolts... and Mob Mind... Why are we getting into fisticuffs?), even though the majority of our characters are pretty good at stabbing or punching.

No, I meant combat in the physical world.

Shadowrun has never handled movement well, but I've had more trouble with mooks. The official Missions GM's have all run mooks with their own damage tracks, which means that tracking damage gets to be a pain. When every NPC has a different amount of damage, with a different amount of penalties, and without minis as a visual reminder of who's at what, tracking all the penalties and wounds gets really complicated.

These two statements don't seem to go together. I mean, Limits don't seem to be much of a hinderence, but they do stop some of the stupider crap I've seen, like waif-fu(which I have never liked). But I've generally found that at char gen, you're not really seeing huge dice pools for too many thing(7-8 seems to be "competent", with 10-12 being "very competent"). I mean, granted, we are currently running a street level game, but that just restricts gear, rather than skill or attribute levels.

I mean, sure, you can get 13 dice from attribute + skill, then add a reflex recorder, then for agility for most skills, so another +5. Figure +2 for a smartlink, that's 20 dice or so at character generation. And, to be sure, that's potent, however, the limits do apply there. The accuracy limit is a bit high in my opinion, but it's still a valid metric for choosing a weapon now. In fact, it's pretty solid.

The problem is that low-accuracy weapons are less likely to hit at all, which is a big problem. On top of that, some low accuracy, high-power weapons actually cap out at less damage than a low power, high-accuracy one.

On top of that, I am still seeing high dice pools at chargen-- 15-20 in some cases. So, if that's what limits are supposed to stop, it's not working. What makes things a trap is that the smarter builders are figuring lots of ways to increase or bypass the limits, so not only do they get to roll more dice, they keep more successes, which widens the gap between skilled optimizers and non-optimizers.

For example, let's take a gunbunny adept. Attribute + Skill + Spec = 14 dice to start, which is pretty powerful. Now, let's add Quickness boost (which is variable, but can go up to 4), Improved Ability, and whatever that power is that increases your limit. We're at 21 dice, and if we pick a high accuracy weapon, we're really over the top. Add a little Edge for when that's not enough, and you're golden.

Edge is a big problem, here. If I limit out on a roll, I can opt to spend Edge to keep my successes... or I can spend Edge to roll more dice, and still keep all the successes. So, high Edge characters become doubly effective in this area.

[Wothanoz]

No, I meant combat in the physical world.

Shadowrun has never handled movement well, but I've had more trouble with mooks. The official Missions GM's have all run mooks with their own damage tracks, which means that tracking damage gets to be a pain. When every NPC has a different amount of damage, with a different amount of penalties, and without minis as a visual reminder of who's at what, tracking all the penalties and wounds gets really complicated.

Hmm. Really? We use a white board for most of our combats, and it's worked quite well for keeping up with dozens of mooks and pcs.

The problem is that low-accuracy weapons are less likely to hit at all, which is a big problem. On top of that, some low accuracy, high-power weapons actually cap out at less damage than a low power, high-accuracy one.

Whut? Less accurate weapons are less accurate, and that's a problem? I would think that's rules working as intended. Also, I'm curious what Low acc, high DV weapons you're talking about? AVS? Remington Roomsweeper? T-250?

An AVS tops out at DV 13, while a Government 2066 tops out at 13 DV. The Roomsweeper tops out at DV 13. A colt america tops out a 14 DV. A Steyr TMP tops out at DV 11, while the Crusader II tops out at DV 12(14). The SMGs mostly hit around DV 12, though a few hit DV 13 or 14. The M23 tops out a 13DV, while the AK98 tops out at DV 15. The elite weapons, the Alpha and Raiden top out at DV 16(18) and DV 17(19), respectively. The T-250 tops out at DV 14. I'm just not sure what you mean, could you give an example?

Also, the difference in AP between these weapons is important. Getting hit by a DV 14 America is nice, but you get your full dice pool to soak, while an AK 98 does more damage, AND craps out your soak test with a -2 modifier. And that makes the AVS really shitty vs. armor. Which makes sense.

On top of that, I am still seeing high dice pools at chargen-- 15-20 in some cases. So, if that's what limits are supposed to stop, it's not working. What makes things a trap is that the smarter builders are figuring lots of ways to increase or bypass the limits, so not only do they get to roll more dice, they keep more successes, which widens the gap between skilled optimizers and non-optimizers.

Two things: One, it seems that large dice pools were intended, but that they didn't want people with 20+ dice doing more damage with a heavy pistol than an assault rifle. Which the limits do stop to some degree(most HPs top out at DV 13-14, most ARs hit DV 14-16). This also isn't as big an issue as you make it, as in SR3, soak and defense tests easily had twice as many dice as the attacker, while easily having lower target numbers. For example, a Body 12 or 13 street sam(I used an Ork with bod 9, Titatnium bone lacing, I think a synthcardium or something else to get 12 dice) with Ballistic armor 8+, can eat assault rifle fire all damned day long if it's not gel rounds. Without using any combat pool at all. While someone who was a "world-class" shooter would be throwing 6 dice without combat pool, against TNs that could be as low as 2, but were likely 3s or 4s due to modifiers.

So that problem existed in SR3, but it was skewed for the defense, which meant that there were many ways to build a character where they simply couldn't be hurt by reasonable weaponry and skills.

Second, if you have a problem with dice pools and munchkinism? Why not just use GM power to veto those character concepts which don't fit your game? I do it all the time. Second, as this is a team based game, and I'm probably the best "munckin" or "optimizer" in our group, I apply my skills to helping my partners create their characters. In fact, it's been a rule for us for years that the first session is always CharGen, and we figure out party roles, what bases to cover, and our dynamic before we ever start rolling dice. So, I haven't seen this issue show up.

For example, let's take a gunbunny adept. Attribute + Skill + Spec = 14 dice to start, which is pretty powerful. Now, let's add Quickness boost (which is variable, but can go up to 4), Improved Ability, and whatever that power is that increases your limit. We're at 21 dice, and if we pick a high accuracy weapon, we're really over the top. Add a little Edge for when that's not enough, and you're golden.

Right, but you're looking at someone who is specialized in shooting one particular class of firearms. I mean, Agi Boost 4 is 1 pp, Enhanced Acc 4 is 1 pp, and 3 levels of improved skil lare 1.5pp. That's 3.5pp, or half your magical alotment, to be really specialized with Pistols, Long Arms, or Automatics. Hyper specialized characters SHOULD be great at what they do, and not so great outside of it.

I mean, I had gunslinger adepts in 3rd edition who had 12-14 dice on a test, with a smart link. So, for adepts, the system is still largely the same.

Edge is a big problem, here. If I limit out on a roll, I can opt to spend Edge to keep my successes... or I can spend Edge to roll more dice, and still keep all the successes. So, high Edge characters become doubly effective in this area.

However, Edge requires you to invest in it at Chargen. That means you're taking a hit to something: For a mundane human, you can get Edge 7 at character generation by taking your metatype at C, which leaves you A and B for Gear, Skills and Attributes. So you're sacrificing something to be lucky. For example, your gunslinger adept, if you want to have plenty of edge, is gonna need to be a human, at C or D. Which considering you're going with adept at B or C, that sharply limits what you can do outside of being a bad-assed gunslinger. Edge 5, Magic 6 would leave you A, C and E for Attributes, Skills and Gear.