Revised Active Skill System Options

[Fygg Nuuton]

active skills are good as they are, but some are just to general, such as biotech and etiquette, while some are just not general enough. examples of what i will be working on are

instead of lets say Pistols/Desert Eagle you would have the skill:
Handguns/Heavy Pistols/Desert Eagle

its a bit of a mix between second editions firearms skill and 3rd editions pistols skill. instead of just taking the biotech skill, you would be forced to have a specialization, since biotech covers everything from major surgery to first aid. also this gives a bit of generalization in some combat skills. long arms consists of submachine guns, rifles, shotguns and assault rifles. this may change, since i am just beggining this project.

any suggestions or people wanting to get on the bad wagon post here. thanks :)

EDIT: the sorcery skill is a link with bad description of what each specialization is for, it is poorly written, and simply a show of what the format may be.

[Fygg Nuuton]

here is a basic list of what im going for, more will be added and changed as i/we progress

Active Skills

[Austere Emancipa...]

"Small Arms" is a bad name for that class of weapons. Small arms actually means "any weapon that a person can easily transport and fire", which includes MMGs, LAWs, GLs, etc. Handguns would be most appropriate.

Certain SMGs fired in a certain way should probably be included in the Handguns skill -- the likes of Uzi and MAC-10 that can be quite easily be held one-handed like a pistol. Where, exactly, you draw the line, and do you in fact consider some guns like the Micro-Uzis and MAC-11s Machine Pistols, is of course up to you.

Light and Medium Machineguns fired from the shoulder either without support or on a bipod should probably come under Long Arms, since that's what they basically are. Anti-Material Rifles should definitely be under Long Arms -- you don't give a separate skill for Heavy Pistols either. Heavy Machineguns, when fired from a tripod or other solid mount (and no human would fire them otherwise), should probably fall under Gunnery. Then you can do away with Heavy Weapons completely.

[Fygg Nuuton]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Fygg Nuuton]

heh yea well this systems machine pistols and SRs machine pistols differ in that mine canabalized a few submachineguns.

i originally had AMR rifles with heavy weapons since i dont think its possible to effectively fire one standing, whereas with a sniper rifle, you could if need be.

also id like to point out if anybody wants to write some fluff text describing what the skills do it would be much appreciated. i am not a very good writer, im a computer geek ;)

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Fygg Nuuton]

heh well, what does your skill look like? maybe it will help to see what other people have done already

[Austere Emancipa...]

My firearms skill set? I think exactly like your current one if I bothered to write it down in detail, adjusted for house ruling of firearm classes. Stuff like firing positions come into play from me giving a -1 TN when you're firing from a good prone or supported position. Either that or me trying to inject realism without any rules -- like telling the player that firing nearly a kilometer away while walking will cause a huge TN modifier, regardless of what the rules say.

Still, your current firearms skill set is simple, balanced and reasonable. I cannot think of any way to improve it. I should stop spouting "More Realism to SR Ranged Combat" propaganda, and give room for others to comment on the other changes.

[Fygg Nuuton]

shadowrun is my love, but realism is my mistress. ;)

also in this project i want to redo how martial arts work, because theyre so whack i dont know anyone who uses them by the rules

[Fygg Nuuton]

alright one new thing i need. any ideas for more specializations. any good ones are all good

[Sargasso]

If you're going to revamps the skills system, there's something you need to pay attention to. Shadowrun 3 character get a large amount of skill points with the expectation that there's a large variety of narrow skills. You'll need to reduce the skill points awarded at character creation.

[Eyeless Blond]

Erm, maybe I'm missing something, but what are your actual *rules* for active skills? You mention some are too general, like Ettiquite or Biotech, and then you write a revision where both of those skills still exist, but the firearms skills are even *more* generalized? What gives?

[Austere Emancipa...]

If you only cut down the amount of combat skills, and then mostly those skills that most people wouldn't take several of anyway, game balance doesn't significantly shift. Since you don't actually get to use any particular weapon any better for the same cost, it doesn't make characters more powerful as much as it adds variation. Pistols -> Handguns doesn't change much, and Long Arms as the only ranged combat skill is not very useful for many character types and in many kinds of games.

Of the SR3 Archetypes only the Troll Mercenary and the Weapon Specialist save skill points with this change (both because the canon versions have both a single Long Arm-skill and Heavy Weapons), while many gain the ability to use a greater range of weapons. Changing the Heavy Weapons of the WS to Launch Weapons, that character has now mastered most conventional small arms for the paltry cost of 25 Skill Points.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Bigity]

In my games I combine Pistols, SMGs, Shotguns, Rifles, and Assault Rifles under the skill Firearms. Every other weapon type keeps it's own skill.

Same for Armed Combat with Clubs, Edged, and Polearms/Staves.

Frees up some skills for some non-combat areas, IMO.

[Fygg Nuuton]

actual skills go more like 2nd edition. the list above is only there for people to see how it is devided so far . it has been changed from comments from AE to take out heavy weapons, and FXcaliber to divide armed combat into single and two handed. anymore suggestions on what skills should be divided, and which should be combined will change the list above. as soon as the list is revised to a good point, i will publish the actual rules, clean up the html and make it prettier. the goal now is to divide skills up.

on etiquette i would love to either make it a special skill, that you can only buy its specializations, or perhaps divide it into 2-3 skills. however i haven't figured out how, so any advice would be great.

also of this is divided for game balance, but also i hate seeing characters with a 6 in every weapon skill, and nothing else. if you run a game where using the same skill for shotguns and assault rifles will ruin the game, either modify the rules i present or throw them out. as always YMMV :)

[Sargasso]

Here's an idea:

Long Small arms (oxymoron, but oh well): Included Rifles, Shotguns, Assault rifles, etc.

Short Small arms (redundant you say?): Pistols, SMGs, etc.

The key division being the size and method of weilding of the weapons. An assault rifle, a sport rifle and shotgun are are fired in very similar ways. A pistol is a horse of a different color. Comments?

[Fygg Nuuton]

already have that, at the top of the list in my sig and linked twice in the thread :)

combat skills are mostly set, its etiquette and such that needs work. ;)

[Sargasso]

Oops, I'll just stand here and look pretty then.

[Fygg Nuuton]

[Kagetenshi]

*Whistles lecherously*

~J

[Fygg Nuuton]

if all goes well, actual rules will go up within 48 hours. playtesting should go on soon as well, so expect to see changes at any time

[Fygg Nuuton]

i submit for your approval, the first draft of the actual hard rules. all rules subject to change when someone puts in their 2¥:



This is a temporary place for me to put the experimental rules for active skills. I will demonstrate here how they will work.

First of all there are 3 different types of skills. Most of them operate like this:

First you buy your base skill; in this case it will be “Long Arms”. We will be buying “Long Arms” at rating 3 for 6 points. This character is pretty good with a rifle, so his specialization will be “Rifles” at rating 6, which is 2 points higher than the base skill, so it costs an extra 2 points.

Long Arms/Rifles 3/6

Now in this case the character is a Sniper, and is exceptionally skilled with his trusty Heckler & Koch MSG-90, so we will specialize. This costs nothing, and makes our skill appear to be:

Long Arms/Rifles/MSG-90 4/5/7

If the character also wanted to use a shotgun for example, they would purchase it like another specialization, and in this case at rating 5 it would cost only 1 point. Defaulting to long arms when using a submachine gun would incur a +1 modifier and full use of combat pool.


In the next example the skill can ONLY be used in its specialization form, and it must have a specialization. Skills that use this are Biotech and Etiquette. They are purchased just like normal skills. Examples are:

Etiquette/Military 4

Biotech/First Aid 3

In these examples, the person knows how military etiquette works, and would seem foreign in a corporate setting. Also in this example the character can perform first aid, but wouldn’t be very good at installing cybernetics.


The third type of skill will involve martial arts, which I have not written yet. Get back to me on that.

[Austere Emancipa...]