Fifth Without Wireless Bonus/Bricking, So i'm tyring to give fifth a look with fresh eyes. Options

[Medicineman]

Then there is the stupidity of, for some reason, making skills now go up to level 9 as well and be hardcapped there.

12 !
the new Hardcap for Skills is 12 which is too high !
9 would've been perfect (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) but unfortunately it's 12
And its not a stupidity, Stahlseele, the core Idea of raising the Skills is totally ok, (6 as a limit from 4A was definitely to low !)
CGL just ...overdid it (9 would've been perfect ImO)

So the general consensus seems to be ware hate, wireless bonus, and bricking aside 5 is pretty good?

No.No.No.
(at least not from me)
it's foremost the WiFi Bonus Schmuh hate, than the Bricking hate and last the Cost-of-Ware hate (not the 'ware by itself) !
and I think some of the Users here see it the same way
One thing where I prefer SR5 instead of 4A is the fix Attribute bonus of max +4 !

(there are some more improvements in SR5 ,No doubt about it, but its not WiFi and not Bricking ...and certainly not the Vehicle Rules !)

HokaHey
Medicineman

[Sengir]

I'm trying to give Fifth another look. I liked a lot of the concepts and changes but the poor editing and 'ware hate put me off it. Does anyone have any experience with just house ruling ware wireless bonuses to be default and getting rid of or severely nerfing bricking?

That's what every game I played so far did.

Also, what Glyph said: Make TacNets ubiquitous and borrow a page on what they do from EP instead of just handing out random +1 or +2, it gives hackers plenty of options.

[LurkerOutThere]

Perhaps I didn't phrase my question/scenario right.

I'm looking at running SR again. My house rules document for 4.x and I feel that 5 has better combat flow. Problem spots that look like they need attention are 1) ware hate (a broad category that covers both costs and the things like social limits and cyber ware becoming passé) 2) wireless bonuses 3) bricking. I'm treating them as three independent problems even though there is some overlap. What are some other areas that should concern me. For instance I remember mystic adepts being shockingly Op because their power points were stupid cheap. I remember the concealment power had the same copy pasta problem it had from fourth but worse because bonus dice are harder to come by. Anything I'm forgetting?

[Medicineman]

What are some other areas that should concern me.

everything concerning vehicles.
From Modifications to Speed to Vehicle Combat Rules

with a Drive-By-Dance
Medicineman

[LurkerOutThere]

MM: it's all bad or the stuff out of rigger 5? Could you go into more detail if you don't mind? I'm looking at how deep this all goes.

Riggers and vehicles have always been kind of meh just because it's hard to make them compelling gameplay but not completely unstoppable urban tanks. 4th had a serious problem with av weapons being really toothless.

[Stahlseele]

You need to differentiate between the Cool Vehicle Riggers and the boring effective Drone Riggers.

[Medicineman]

MM: it's all bad or the stuff out of rigger 5? Could you go into more detail if you don't mind? I'm looking at how deep this all goes.

Riggers and vehicles have always been kind of meh just because it's hard to make them compelling gameplay but not completely unstoppable urban tanks. 4th had a serious problem with av weapons being really toothless.

I'm desperately waiting for the German Riggerbook (called Asphaltkrieger = Roadwarriors ).
I only have excerpts from the US Rigger book. So I can't be too exact ....
One of the main problems (ImO) is that there is no Speed Value in Mph or Km/h so you don't know how long a Car/Vehicle needs to go from A to B (and that is important for oh so many Szenarios/Runs/Adventures)
Than you have Vehicle mod Rules but different Drone Mod Rules (and I don't really know If you could use both set of Rules for both sets of Vehicles or just one for one set ? )

I like to modify Equipment (be it Weapons or Rides) It was already a Fail from CGL that they didn't include all Weaponmod s in Run & Gun
(important mods were in Hard Targets) and now two different Mod Rules....
THAN (oh my God (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) ...) most of the Fluff concerning the Vehicles doesn't match with the Crunch of the same Vehicles.
I was said that there are some new interesting vehicles (an allterrain/water cycle....the one in the Bubble)
So I'm waiting for the German Book which is (for me as a german player) the better choice because it most often contains Errata
and some German only Add-ons from the Writer of Pegasus

HougH!
Medicineman

[Sengir]

12 !
the new Hardcap for Skills is 12 which is too high !

...because?

[hermit]

Barring absurd Wireless bonuses and a few particular things they obviously didn't playtest, 5e is pretty great.

Playtesting was pretty thorough. What became of the feedback is another question.

So the general consensus seems to be ware hate, wireless bonus, and bricking aside 5 is pretty good?

Depends on how much you liked the changes SR4 brought. I for one think Riggers work better, save for the above mentioned problems (in SR3, there were options to harden your VCD against hostile takeofer attempts, in SR5, there aren't).

The 'ware hate isn't so much 'ware hate - though 'ware has it worst, because that n+m/2 is too much maths for the Line Dev, prices need to go up by two magnitudes, and the dedication of SR5's writers to force cyberware hacks down unwilling players' throats because it is cool and everyone who doesn't think so is a retard consipre for a truly epic feasibility downgrade. Pricing is murderous with augmentations anywhere, as it is with most archetype-relevant gear - decks cost more than most PCs will ever make, and just forget about Tacnet, they'll never give you their incredibly high prices' worth. Two decimals less on decks, Skillwires (and associated cyberware) and Tacnets, one decimal less for most cyberware, and we'd be tralking. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, the real problem.

It's player hate.

SR5 hates giving players viable options and choices, from a bizarre payout system to drastic limits on character generation in the core book to a generally antagonistic idea of GM/Player interaction (including 'friendly banter' in rules texts that directly insults the reader). Where SR4 gave you a lot, maybe too many options, SR5 delights in giving you no viable option at all. You want worthwhile cyberware? Have fun with being hacked without a shred of a chance at defense! (The hotfix daisy chaining ban errata means not even your team decker is any help - good job, CGL). Skillwires are so overpriced they stop being viable at all. There is no skinlink, there is no viable defense for cyber characters. Want to play an infected? Fuck you. Want to play something more exotic? Fuck you very much! Only mages and mystic adepts seem to have a lobby, though they don't thrive, they're just not gimped nearly as bad as other archetypes.

Add to that the blatant disregard towards editing and errors, including grave ones, like the totally garbled stat blocks in Rigger 5, and a particularly offensive smart-assyness in segmets of rules text, and the result is SR5E communicates, all over, that the makers don't give a damn about you, the player. More than anything else, that rubs me the wrong way about English SR5 (Pegasus' books are much better there, both because of editing and errata'ing they do during translation and because they filter the worst of the douchebroness that periodically makes SR5 books almost unreadable).

SR5 has a lot of ideas I like, both a return of concepts where FanPro dumped the baby with the bathwater (riggers, decks, magical traditions with actual flavor) and in terms of new rules - I'm partial to the new vehicle modding system, I like the idea of cumulative recoil in successive shooting actions a lot. The idea of Limits also has its merit, and even wireless boni are not, in principle, a bad thing. However, in every case, the execution is flawed. Many, even most problems with SR5 could be fixed relatively easily, but there seems no interest to from the publisher's side.

[Medicineman]

...because?

Because Chars are capped at 6 at the Start and it is terribly Karma intensive to raise Skills, and ineffective too.
Consider that an Adept could (just for example) Initiate for 13 Karma and get a full Powerpoint for 13 Karma...
or raise his Skill from 6 to 7 for 14 Karma to get one more Dice...
in my own experience (from my 2 SR5 Tables and from Conventions, speaking with other Players) hardly any Player raises his Skill at more than 7 because its not worth it...Maybe if the Char is played for a long time (100+ Karma)

otoh a GM has no problems to give his NPCs High Level Skills (10+) so most often Players see NSC with higher Skilllevels /Pools .Something that their chars can never achieve (or which is so costly in Karma ,especially when a Run gets so few Karma ...its 114 Karma to raise one single Skill from 6--->12 ! 114 Karma that means 20+ Runs...!
If You play twice a Month and some Runs need 2,maybe even 3 Sessions,
that means you,as a Player play your Char for a whole Year (maybe longer) and all you get is one single Skill at 12.... Meh (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) )

a Skillmax at 9 would still mean that a starting Char is not at all at the Top notch Level (Otoh he is more than just an above average Professionell) but he can reach top Level Skill with some dedication and some Karma (48 )
AND the difference between high level NPCs and PCs is not THAT big.
a dedicated Player/Char can become equal to the high (Skill)level NPC without investing ...tons of Karma

And Hermit is right on most of his Points. (even though I don't like his hard tone, he is right in the core)

with a slimmer Dance
Medicineman

[Ixal]

@Ixal, are you telling me to gain the benefits of having my air tank tell me how much air is left I have to spend another half point of Essence? Really?!?

No, you spend half a point of Essence for the air tank to directly beam that information into your head instead of wirelessly sending it to your comlink or cybereyes or you having to check a readout on the air intake on your chest.

[hermit]

No, you spend half a point of Essence for the air tank to directly beam that information into your head instead of wirelessly sending it to your comlink or cybereyes or you having to check a readout on the air intake on your chest.

According to the Core Rules, that is what DNI is for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Jaid]

Yeah, that for example is another really big step of TECH BAD! MAGIC GOOD!
Also, of course, because they can't seem to do anything else than bodystealers . .
We now have an epidemic of nanoware bodystealers that should have, by now, infected all of the world.
Also, Ares goes down because their new rifle was not as good as the hype made it out to be.
That's TREES level stupid to me.

eh, the ares thing is also bodystealers. didn't you hear? apparently 10% of ares' customer base are bugs, which is supposedly the *real* cause of the problem.

anyways, as far as major problem areas, technomancers. unless you hated them and wanted them to just go away forever, in which case 5th edition has you covered just fine.

but if you actually wanted technomancers to be playable outside of very specific builds (and even then, you're generally only doing what a decker could have done in the first place with fewer costs)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Anything else?

Because none of those changes really bothered me. I felt a 1: Barely competent to 6: World Class was a bit of a small scale.

Except that it was not a scale of One (1) to Six (6)... Giving 6 discrete levels of skill, plus up to an additional 3 via Adept

It was a Scale from Unaware through 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7... Nine (9) Discrete skill levels, plus up to an additional 3 more via Adept abilities.
MORE than enough to simulate what is required.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

...because?

Because it was unnecessary?

[Medicineman]

Except that it was not a scale of One (1) to Six (6)... Giving 6 discrete levels of skill, plus up to an additional 3 via Adept

It was a Scale from Unaware through 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7... Nine (9) Discrete skill levels, plus up to an additional 3 more via Adept abilities.
MORE than enough to simulate what is required.

but you have to admit that a lot of Char that came fresh out of generation where already at the top or merely one step away.
There was not really much Char development to the Top only in the width (I hope you say that in english (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )
For me that was ok, but I heard (and read) some players ....complain that they're already the best of the best ( (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif) )
and didn't know what to do with their Karma.... (a "problem" that I never had with my Chars.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

with a dance sans problems

Medicineman

[Iduno]

SR5 has a lot of ideas I like, both a return of concepts where FanPro dumped the baby with the bathwater (riggers, decks, magical traditions with actual flavor) and in terms of new rules - I'm partial to the new vehicle modding system, I like the idea of cumulative recoil in successive shooting actions a lot. The idea of Limits also has its merit, and even wireless boni are not, in principle, a bad thing. However, in every case, the execution is flawed. Many, even most problems with SR5 could be fixed relatively easily, but there seems no interest to from the publisher's side.

I'm sure when it's time for a new edition, instead of saying "Good ideas, but bad implementation? Let's learn from this and fix it." it will be "People are unhappy? Scrap it all and start from scratch. Again."

[Stahlseele]

Wonder if, for SR6, they will, in an attempt to lower the ammount of dice being rolled, go to a natural maximum skill of 6 and only rolling skill dice and applicable dice pools instead of rolling skill+attribute+gear bonuses and instead use a kind of variable target number system where you would need to roll above a fluidly changing target number with a set and lower ammount of dice . .

[Iduno]

Nah. SR3 rules aren't complicated enough.

Yet.

Maybe if they run them through 3 different translators, make the rules contradictory, and refuse to publish errata?

[LurkerOutThere]

So does anyone have a house rules document drawn up that I could beg/borrow/steal from.

[Stahlseele]

Nah. SR3 rules aren't complicated enough.

Yet.

Maybe if they run them through 3 different translators, make the rules contradictory, and refuse to publish errata?

it's a sad state of affairs, when SR3 rules are seen as not complicated enough in comparison.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Meh, there's a reason I said "just go to Eclipse Phase."

The only thing you miss are elves and trolls - and only technically, because you can put elf-ears trivially easily on any biomorph, and the Bruiser is basically a troll that hasn't been uglified.

[binarywraith]

@Everyone: Honestly the Internal router should not be a piece of cyberware... it should be fragging STANDARD ISSUE when you get ANY cyber. I mean ANY AT ALL! No, the level of augmentation hate by the staff in 5th edition is horrific. They're pushing people more and more to MagicRun. Also the payouts for Shadowrun are disgustingly paltry verses the level of skill/augmentation/magic ability needed to perform some of the jobs these people would do.

That's pretty much my standard rule. Internal routers are standard gear, wireless bonuses are thusly converted into PAN bonuses, and bricking becomes a non-issue because you can run everything silent or straight up Throwback and run a damn fiber optic cable, and chances are nobody will ever notice you have it.

Oh, also Lurker? Avoid the fluff books. As if they had VITAS. The level of proofing and "logic" in them has been absurdly bad. To the point of hoping the line dev wore his brown pants when he edited, because he was clearly lounging about in drek.

Everything from submarine escapes from a landlocked city in the mountains 2640m above sea level; to a AAA starting to collapse over a niche product that's illegal in most of their markets being shit and retroactively being full of bugs; to nanomachines that rewrite people's brains because we needed a fourth (fifth?) possession enemy as the major plotline.

[hermit]

Everything from submarine escapes from a landlocked city in the mountains 2640m above sea level

... via the world's second highest waterfall and a river otherwise mostly made of rapids. That's a splatbook though, not a fluffbook.

a AAA starting to collapse over a niche product that's illegal in most of their markets being shit and retroactively being full of bugs

Yes, that is some epic shit. I really don't know what got into the writers here. I can only assume this is some gun nerd inside joke thing. Then again, has anyone stomped their phone's batteries because the G36 is a crappy gun?

because we needed a fourth (fifth?) possession enemy as the major plotline.

It started out as a cover-up of bad writing though.

[binarywraith]

Yes, that is some epic shit. I really don't know what got into the writers here. I can only assume this is some gun nerd inside joke thing. Then again, has anyone stomped their phone's batteries because the G36 is a crappy gun?

Better question, does Joe Average Consumer even know what companies are under the Ares umbrella? The major A-AA subsidiaries sure, but all the nationals and barely multinational brands?