Things in need of revision, No 5-item limits in this line... Options

[Wireknight]

This is pretty much the same as the "top five" thread, but I ultimately realized that, through expansion on meanings dragging it off-topic, and my own belief that there are more than five things that should really be changed, this thread is for discussing and suggesting problems/fixes in general. Those responsible for drafting the new rules might even give this thread a once-over at some point. Well, alright, probably not. But, despite SURGE and the CC rules, most of us are still capable of hope and other non-despair emotions.

Here's a few things that I've already changed, in unofficial supplements that have gone over pretty well both here and on Shadowland:

1. Cybercommlinks
Based off of antiquated ideas of how wireless technology would evolve, they are in need of complete revision/replacement. My rules for this are here.

2. Headware Memory
I think that headware memory should act more like RAM, and that there's a need for higher-capacity, lower-essence cybernetic memory that acts more like non-volatile storage, such as hard drives. Thus was born the CMM (Cybernetic Memory Module).

3. Cyberlimbs
They cost far too much, both in terms of impact on the body and in terms of impact on the pocketbook. Their various attributes are subpar compared to flesh and blood augmented with muscle replacement and muscle augmentation/toner. I created a set of rules called Cyberlimbs That Do Not Suck, and later revised it to a more streamlined version 2.0. It was from v2.0 of these rules that the final version arose, available here.

It should be noted that advanced design options and adjustments to the ECU ratings of most equipment were in the works, but I decided to put them off in the interest of streamlining and improving the basic mechanics, which were in more dire need of repair and revision.

I've got more ideas forthcoming, but those are the ones that were so pressing that I felt inclined to actually revise the rules to deal with.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

WK for SR Line Developer in 2005.

[Arethusa]

Master Shake for SR Line Developer in 2005.

[GunnerJ]

But in this case, I think he's in the right on all points. Please, FanPro, please make cyberlimbs worthwhile in 4th ed.

[Arethusa]

I'd really like to see the cyberware paradigm changed away from the absurd cyberphobia that's run pretty deep so far. The cyberlimbs are just the most visible manifestation of this problem.

[Chance359]

The "Pillars/ways" adept setup that got dumped about 2 years back.

[moosegod]

Nothing that needs a new edition.

That decision, however, seems to have already gone down the pipe. So, barring no new edition, I really want the (scarily) highly active SR community treated as an integral part of the design process. I've liked what FanPro has done so far, I must say. But a change as important as this should have major player input.

[Eyeless Blond]

Big one, and a revision worthy of a new edition:

4. Elimination of Open Tests
Seriously, Open Tests are in no way needed in the game. They exist in like three places in the rules currently--the only one of which I can name at the moment is Stealth--and can be changed to Success Tests or even Opposed Tests fairly easily. All hail the single core dice mechanic.

5. Changes to legacy spells/spellcasting
I'm sure people are getting sick of me saying so, but the Invisability and Stealth spells should have variable success based on their Force and/or net successes. Having it be all-or-nothing like it is makes for some stupid consequences with Force 1 spells being irresistable. This would also solve the problem of whether invisability "processes" the spell or not, such that you can't cast LOS spells through it.
(Edit): Also, Detection spells that enhance existing senses don't need to be resisted. Nightvision, for example, or even Clairvoyance/audiance. Detection spells that grant entirely new senses like the Detect(X) series, Mindprobe, etc. should work as they currently do.
(Edit x2): Something I'd *like* to see, but isn't truly necessary, is a change to the sustaining modifier such that doing a task directly related to the spell you're sustaining doesn't incur the usual +2 modifier. Sustaining an Enhance Aim spell shouldn't make it *harder* to use a gun; sustaining an Analyze Device shouldn't make it *harder* to analyze a device; sustaining a Clairvoyance spell shouldn't make Perception tests harder; etc.

[Wireknight]

Encryption/Decryption
Shadowrun's whole encryption/decryption scheme is very strange. Unless quantum computing methods are commonplace (and nothing in canon or flavor text seems to indicate this is so) decryption should either be much less powerful at equal rating, or much more expensive, than the equivalent encryption.

Likewise, I never understood the point of having distinct and disparate "broadcast" and "data" types of encryption. Unless things have gone very backwards and downhill from current communications standards, all communication, be it television(er, trid), wireless voice carrier, or pure data transfer, will occur over a digital medium. Having a whole seperate cryptographic world for broadcast and data encryption is nonsense, and should probably be eliminated.

[Zen Shooter01]

Real vehicle combat rules that take the character combat rules as their model, so that someone who learns the character combat rules will already be halfway to the vehicle combat rules. And vehicle combat rules that better integrate vehicles and pedestrians together. I've been in this game since the basic book was blue and all there was, and I can count the number of times I've seen a totally vehicle-on-vehicle combat on one hand.

Vehicle statistics that include a meters-per-turn and km-per-hour entry.

The karma cost on many metamagics. In order to get Centering to work worth a damn, for example, you have to initiate and take Centering as your metamagic. Then you have to buy not one, but two different skills up to level 5 or 6 so that you can be confident of getting at least two successes in order to add one paltry success to your Sorcery test. For that one extra success, you just paid out something like 80 karma points. It's ridiculous. for 48 karma points you could have raised your Sorcery from 6 to 9 instead.

Kill a lot of the social mechanics, like Favors and Walls Have Ears. The players and I will handle the roleplaying, thanks.

One other thing -- I'm damned excited about 4the ed. and I'll buy every last thing for it, just like I did for 3rd, 2nd, and 1st, since I was fifteen years old. [/I]Shadowrun is dead! Long live Shadowrun[I]!

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Wireknight]

One thing I think should be changed, though it's more an opinion (some people like easy, or relatively easy, methods of permanently damaging characters) than an actual addressing of a flaw in the rules, is magic loss. I never understood why it got easier (to the point of being guaranteed at 12+ Magic) to lose magic, the more powerful you got. Likewise, it's impossible to burn out from 2d6-method magic loss. When your Magic hits 1, you cannot lose any more.

My idea for an alternative to this would be to roll 1d6 per 3 points of magic, or portion thereof, with the consequences of the roll result remaining unchanged. Thus people have a chance, but not a guaranteed chance(average of 50%) of losing magic, and there is a potential for total burnout. However, like I said, many are of the opinion that the static 2d6 magic loss method is fine, and that the abovementioned results of it were intentional. I wouldn't call it broken, just something I would prefer changed.

[Eyeless Blond]

Eh, I think that the 2d6 method is fine. Note, btw, that rolling a 2 on the 2d6 is always a failure, and rolling a 12 is automatically a success on the Magic Loss test.

As for Q-computing ans SR, I was actually under the impression that computing in the 2060s was Q-computing. It explains a lot, actually, in particular how the proceedure is the basic indivisible unit of storage rather than data (pulses rather than bytes, data as "datasofts", proceedural abstraction being a newly rediscovered tool, and only in the case of party IC and its ilk, etc.) But that's another rant entirely.

And I agree, the three forms of encryption/decryption have to either a) go, or b) have their mechanical differences emphasized more.

[Chance359]

I'd also like to see yet another revision of the initaitive system. Instead of everyone going and the fastest continueing to go, perhaps a staggared system? Or maybe we can summon Cain and use his.

[GunnerJ]

[Eyeless Blond]

Honestly, I don't remember any of the research I did on quantum computing anymore. :oops: It was all about three or four years ago, and I have since never needed to know any of it. I do remember that all of that stuff seemed to make sense at the time, though. :)

So... sorry I can't be of much help, but I'd have to re-learn all of it over again. Being a chemist now rather than a college student, you'll have to forgive me if I don't really find it possible to research ATM. :)

[Glyph]

I would like to see all of the core rules in one book. Things like quickening, all of the spells, all of the cyber, etc. That was one of the real annoyances of the Third Edition main book. It was especially grating to see things like dermal sheathing, bioware, form-fitting body armor, etc. left out just so they could stick it in the supplements. I would like to see all of the rules in one book. I don't mind SOTA books that go into more detail, but I shouldn't have to get Target: Awakened Lands if all I want is for my character to have the survival skill. For the supplements, put in the more esoteric and specialized stuff, and the optional more complicated rules. But for once, I would like to be able to run the full-blown game, with edges, flaws, initiation and all, from one book.


I also think that more examples would help a lot, especially for problematic areas such as adjudicating the results of social skills. There have been too many perpetual questions (do shamans get their Totem bonus for spellcasting and Drain, or just spellcasting? Is armor layering restricted to the first two layers, or did the half value thing refer to the second and subsequent layers. It goes on and on).

Some of the rules, especially rigging and decking, need to be streamlined and simplified. They need to find a way for wired reflexes to have some kind of effect in melee combat, without making sammies too overpowered. If adepts are going to be penalized for not following a "way", then make it something easier to do than a penalty to power costs (things like a 0.25 power at +25% cost). Personally, I think a bonus for following a way would work a lot better than a penalty for not doing so. It's just like spellcasters who don't want a lot of restrictions on their behavior can pick Coyote or Trickster - they have much more latitude, but don't get any bonuses.

Spellcasting isn't that bad, but spell defense needs to be done in a less needlessly complicated way. It needs to be a lot more clear how Illusion spells work, and what happens when you successfully resist (if you resist someone's invisibility spell, do you know someone is there, but still suffer the penalties from blind fire?) As someone already mentioned, a resistance test doesn't make sense for some of the detection spells (especially night vision!).

[GunnerJ]

Oh, drat. You've forced me to do research myself!

[Wireknight]

I don't know if I agree with the idea of rolling all the material from the supplements into the main book. I do think that some of the material spread across some of the many supplements should have been in a main book, but now the opportunity has arisen for that to happen. Skills to cover virtually any situation should be encompassed in the main book, which means including initiation and, at least, the centering and divining metamagics, as well as the design/construction skills (though I believe that the rules for constructing vehicles, software, magical gear, and weapons should be put in seperate book(s)). I think that all the material that was covered in-depth in the expansion books should be introduced in the main book.

[Kanada Ten]

1) The core book should not reference other books
2) Expansions should reference only the core book

[Snow_Fox]

Magic. Decking has been an on going mess they constantly keep trying to fix and 2nd decking was an abortion in bad binding. but in 3rd ed, they have added so much stuff to magic in so many differnet books, paths, trails, images etc, they have made a mares nest that needs to be sorted out.

[Wireknight]

Hmm, here's my idea of what should definitely be in the core book(or be adjusted):

Skills
All skills in every book up and until this point, including Disguise, Centering, Divining, Armor(B/R), and all the rest. Characters should receive at least 10 more active skill points at creation than they do already, possibly as many as 15. Shadowrun has a wide variety of skills available, and the current number of skills exceeds most characters' abilities to acquire them. One idea might be to flag primary versus secondary skills. Combat skills, as well as athletics, stealth, and most technical skills, are useful enough to cost the full value, and be considered primary. Skills like Disguise and Survival, and possibly Performance(it's right now unmentioned or assumed to be a knowledge skill, which I don't think is strictly appropriate) aren't knowledge skills, by nature, but aren't useful enough in the day to day survival of a character to really cost as much as combat/magical/technical skills, and so should be considered "secondary".

Magic
In order to cover the fact that new books introduce new skills, in SR3, and that is something that should be avoided in SR4, basic initiation rules should be part of the main sourcebook. Maybe not magical groups and ordeals (let people pay the full price until the Magic expansion book), but initiation itself should be in place. Metamagics that have linked skills, like Centering and Divining, as well as Sensing and Psychometry, should be part of the core rules. There need be no overabundance of adept powers to cover initiation, since one could easily fill out a grade 10 adept with powers solely from the main book and find nothing lacking.

Gear
All equipment should be created using a system refined and developed during the process of writing SR4. Firearms, foci, electronics, skillsofts, vehicles, they should all be created from a set of construction rules (rather than having construction rules that try, and fail, to attempt to model a system that both allows the creation of new gear and the re-creation of existing gear). Those construction rules should not be there to bloat up the main book. We don't want the thing to be 800 pages, and it's reasonable to expect people to purchase new books if they want to create content within the bounds of the rules, rather than simply using it. The rules, pre-created, should be introduced as part of the relevent core expansions.

Cyberware, Bioware, Nanoware, Genetech
These should all be present. Moreover, it's just about one paragraph to include rules for things like cultured bioware and custom cyberware. Rules for the installation of such, however, should remain firmly in an expansion book (I consider them to be construction, since constructing augmentations would be a truly horrific endeavor that I have no interest in espousing). I also think certain fundamental changes should be present. One I'd like to see would be eliminating the rules that say various pieces of 'ware that increase certain attributes, but don't increase related dice pools/derived attributes, or increase the attribute in all ways except raising the related attribute; it's overcomplicated. Would the world end if Encephalon boosted Intelligence, again, or if Muscle Replacement was close to as good as Muscle Augmentation/Toner?

Character Creation, Edges, Flaws
Everyone, just about, uses Edges and Flaws. I think a good, solid group of these should be introduced in the character creation section of the new rules, along with point-build system. I think that things like the alternate build systems (multiple priorities, high-powered, low-powered) should be delegated to expansions, but the aforementioned character creation/customization options have become so common that they should be considered "basic" as far as inclusion goes.

... that's about it, off the top of my head.

[Arethusa]

I've long advocated a Primary/Secondary/Tertiary skill division. More or less, along the lines you mention, though Tertiary being a third category for the stuff that really has nothing to do with the game (RPGs of the 2060s, Fine Wines, etc). It's good to finally see someone else like the idea.

[Sren]

I agree with the sentiment that all of the basics need to be covered right off the bat, especially things that concern converting old characters to the new system, but instead of trying to include everything in one book, how about releasing four or five books for the new system at the same time: BBB4, Rigger 4, all-about-magic 4, decking 4, cyber/bio/nano 4 (and maybe a "anything that goes boom: 4" for a 6th book for those who want lots of gun choices)?

The BBB4, IMO, ought to cover the same material (updated, of course) as the previous versions, with the addition of adding initiation and enchanting to the magic section and a thourough covering of cyber and bioware to the implants section.

Just my two cents. The new scares me, but such change is required to keep the company going.

S'Ren

[Arethusa]

You really don't want to split books up too much. I realize it is a major potential for income, but too much fracturing is bad for community, bad for players, and bad for building a strong line. Three core books should honestly, be the absolute max.