Sixth Edition, Release Announcement Options

[Tecumseh]

Hello grognards!

Sixth Edition has been announced:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/418704682?t=02h02m10s

Publishing schedules are flexible things, but they're aiming for the Quick Start Rules to be available in mid-June for Origins while the core rulebook is aimed at Gen Con at the beginning of August.

That is all! Let us go back to defending our lawns.

[Tecumseh]

Having had a chance to absorb some of the news:

Bobby / Complex Action has a good (and humorous) preview of some of the changes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtcHfpf5SQU

The summary is, "The overall theme is to streamline and simplify." That said, they still quantified the level of crunch (on a scale of 1-10) as a 7.0 or 7.5.

Combat
- Initiative is rolled once at the beginning of combat
- Free Actions are gone
- Simple/Complex Actions are now Minor/Major actions
- You earn additional Minor actions per turn based on your Initiative dice, which can be converted into Major actions at a 4:1 ratio
- No more situational modifiers, as these have been rolled into the Edge system (which sounds similar to combat/astral/etc. pools from 1E-3E)
- Limits and Accuracy are gone
- Recoil and Recoil Comp are gone
- Firing modes (SS, SA, BF, etc.) are more of a trade-off between doing extra damage while making it harder to hit (rather than easier to hit with more rounds fired)
- Weapon ranges are now more like Anarchy (e.g. five broad ranges/buckets) rather than specific ranges in meters for each weapon type
- Driving & Vehicle Chasing is much easier, vehicle attributes redone, crash damage is completely overhauled
- Healing is easier now, and order no longer matters

Hacking
- MARKs are gone
- Hacking is now a direct action, rather than needing special access first
- There are separate Matrix skills for legal and illegal actions
- Commlinks are for legal actions, cyberdecks are for illegal actions,
- Cyberdecks are much cheaper now

Magic
- No more Force for spells
- For combat spells, you can choose your damage and AoE before you cast, which impacts your drain
- There's no more separate soak roll for drain; it's now a result of the spellcasting test (example given: Drain 6 - Spellcasting Hits 4 = 2 boxes of drain)
- No more sustained spells, there's a duration instead
- No longer need to declare Counterspelling, which is no longer a skill of its own (now based off Spellcasting)

[binarywraith]

Any word if Hardy is staying on?

After SR5's rules disaster, I may not be interested if he's in charge of 6e.

[KCKitsune]

Interesting.

I would have to see how they worked the cyber/bioware and the positive and negative qualities.

[Jaid]

any word on what's up with technomancers? would be nice if there was more than one niche build that was actually usable...

[Lionesque]

Here's to hoping that the core book is <150 pages, and that they make at least a token attempt to bring the punk back in cyberpunk.

[Iduno]

A few of the changes sound reasonable: limits, accuracy, Marks gone is good. Some are common ways of doing things anyway (roll init once, and reduce as appropriate for damage and counterspelling is always-on because it's already free to do). Some are...why remove force for spells and situational modifiers? At least they only announced actual problems they were planning on fixing (equipment being superior to cyber, et al) when they announced 5e. I mean, they lied, but they at least admitted they knew what people didn't like. This is just a lunatic listing off things that may or may not make sense.

[binarywraith]

A few of the changes sound reasonable: limits, accuracy, Marks gone is good. Some are common ways of doing things anyway (roll init once, and reduce as appropriate for damage and counterspelling is always-on because it's already free to do). Some are...why remove force for spells and situational modifiers? At least they only announced actual problems they were planning on fixing (equipment being superior to cyber, et al) when they announced 5e. I mean, they lied, but they at least admitted they knew what people didn't like. This is just a lunatic listing off things that may or may not make sense.

It's apparently been in the works for ~2 years. That means if it's had any testing, it's been internal testing.

Now go look at the products that have released in the past 2 years, and ask yourself if any of the editing or stating issues 5e has been filthy with have been fixed.

[Chance359]

Lionesque, in a pod cast, Hardy said one of the goals was to have a core book no more than 300 pages.

[JanessaVR]

Yeah, I just got the email on this. Seems a mixed bag, at a quick glance. Some things seem decent, some...I'll wait for more detail on.

Not that we're dropping our heavily house-ruled version of 4e without some really, REALLY good reasons to do so.

[Sendaz]

Dropping Sustaining in favour of going with Duration, aka Fire & Forget, is an interesting turn.

Some folk on the other forums say this is supposed to be a shift away from MagicRun, but now not having to sustain spells is going to free up casters a bit with Drain really being the only brake.

Will also be interesting to see where reagents end up in the new system as limits are gone.


Opti does a explanatory milk run using the upcoming 6th ed box set where they go through some of the new mechanics.
http://neo-anarchist.com/sixth-edition-box-set-special/


Arcology podcast touches on some of the stuff, especially the revised Edge and what it will do in the new edition.
https://arcologypodcast.shadowcasters.netwo...-world-edition/
Edge talk stats at 19:07
Still wrapping my head around some of it.

[toturi]

Reserving judgement until seeing the whole picture.

[Jaid]

Reserving judgement until seeing the whole picture.

unless it looks like a total unmitigated disaster of truly epic proportions, i'll probably still pick up the core book to get a decent look at it, to be honest. but i can't say that i'm genuinely excited for it.

[Kren Cooper]

Having had only a brief look at this - I think our group is sticking with 3rd ed.

[Moirdryd]

Likewise Kren; I am seeing shadows of things like 5E and FFG design principles creeping in here. I like 5E and some of the FFG stuff (some, some not so much) but from the info so far what I am seeing is something that creeps further away from Shadowrun.

[Bertramn]

- Limits and Accuracy are gone

HAHAHA
Oh well...

- No more Force for spells
- For combat spells, you can choose your damage and AoE before you cast, which impacts your drain

That seems like a grammaticality.



To be honest, I don't trust this enough to buy it,
without waiting for several extensive reviews,
and looking through it for a few hours in the store first.

[Medicineman]

Hey there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Pegasus announced the German Version for October
User in the Forum are going crazy with wild Guesses and predisposed Opinions .
Some insider Infos leaked and they're mostly (tentatively ? ) positive .
But I'll surely wait with my Opinion until I've read the german BBB
because I will never again buy US Books from CGL

with a German Dance
Medicineman

[Voran]

/posts after years

New edition huh? This makes me feel even more old and lost (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Stahlseele]

*makes note to prepare popcorn for the inevitable drama*

[Iduno]

Dropping Sustaining in favour of going with Duration, aka Fire & Forget, is an interesting turn.

Some folk on the other forums say this is supposed to be a shift away from MagicRun, but now not having to sustain spells is going to free up casters a bit with Drain really being the only brake.

We were also told that spreading the Sam's starting resources thinner by breaking out weapon skills was supposed to be the end of MagicRun. And Hardy's really pro-MagicRun, so...

[Lionesque]

Lionesque, in a pod cast, Hardy said one of the goals was to have a core book no more than 300 pages.

Yeah, I saw that too. Pity, but then, like our German friend said - perhaps CGL got enough of our Nuyen already. 3rd edition it is then, unless by some miracle they get it right this time - I refuse to give up hope that, one day, a streamlined, fast-paced, well-edited, coherent and comprehensive set of rules will appear. I know, I know, I'm a hopeless optimist (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Medicineman]

No, You're not alone
At least I will dance with You (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

with a Pas de Deux
Medicineman

[Jaid]

hmmm... so i'm noticing they said there's an absolute cap on how much edge you can ever have of 7. that may pretty much kill off the 7 edge character.

i'm also noticing that there has been basically no discussion of something that i would have expected them to be very loudly announcing if it was the case... nobody has said that idiotic wireless bonuses have died in a fire. so i'm kinda expecting that you'll still need to have your smartgun go online to put a useful marker on where the bullet is going to land for some stupid reason.

[Lionesque]

hmmm... so i'm noticing they said there's an absolute cap on how much edge you can ever have of 7. that may pretty much kill off the 7 edge character.

You are conflating 5e edge and 6e edge. Apparently, they are two different beasts entirely. I guess that may mean that your edge 7-characters are no longer viable, but at this point, no one has enough hard information to make even an educated guess.

[Sengir]

- Initiative is rolled once at the beginning of combat
- You earn additional Minor actions per turn based on your Initiative dice, which can be converted into Major actions at a 4:1 ratio

- there is only one IP/turn (so IPs are effectively gone)
- You get Inititive dice + 1 Minor actions

Which unless I'm missing something means that a sam with three dice can act twice before a character with lower Initiative does anything. In other words, SR1. Firearms are a single skill, also like SR1. And the whole concept of soaking only with body while armor is compared to the weapon's Power Attack Rating IMO sounds a lot like the old damage scaling. So I'm waiting for them to reveal the Skill Web. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The other parent besides SR1 seems to have been Anarchy...on the other hand, it's far easier to announce "we've gotten rid of X" that "we kept Y and made Z more simulationist", so there is an obvious selection bias towards announcing simplifications.