 More news of Origins, yeah..I saw the good stuff |
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 Jul 27 2005, 04:10 PM
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#276
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Manus Celer Dei  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802  |
I think you're misreading wound boxes/total boxes. Specifically, I'm saying "wound boxes divided by total boxes", not "wound boxes or total boxes".
~J |
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Jul 27 2005, 04:25 PM
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#277
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,453 Joined: 17-September 04 From: St. Paul Member No.: 6,675 |
Bear in mind that the attribute + skill dice pool mechanic (minus the 1 per 3 boxes of damage) still gives the troll significantly more dice for strength and body based tests than the aforementioned human.
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Jul 27 2005, 04:39 PM
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#278
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
You're right Kage. I misread it as "or". I stand corrected. |
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Jul 27 2005, 06:25 PM
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#279
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
Yeah but the human has more attribute plus skill dice for just about every other stat. And presumably paid less for his race pick so has more points to spend on other things like cyber and skills than the troll in the first place.
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Jul 27 2005, 06:26 PM
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#280
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Target Group: Members Posts: 98 Joined: 26-July 05 Member No.: 7,517 |
To Ellery: I suppose you're correct. My view on the changes to summoning would probably be summed up better as "Slightly pessimistic, but open-minded." I'm a bit gun shy about jumping to *any* conclusions on the new system until I have a complete text in my hand, so that I can see how the whole of the rules works together. I never thought I'd see an SR4, so I pretty much consider this entire addition a "freebie" when it comes to what I expect out of it.
OSUMacbeth |
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Jul 27 2005, 07:03 PM
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#281
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
So, an elephant will keep on going after getting wounded with a 9mm pistol not because, proportionately speaking, that injury is just an inconvenience for it, but because it has a lot more "innate toughness" than a human? I'm sorry, but the new wound monitor's a perfect example of dumbing things down rather than streamlining them. |
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Jul 27 2005, 07:08 PM
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#282
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 144 Joined: 11-April 05 From: San Antonio, USA Member No.: 7,317 |
Then how would you streamline it?
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Jul 27 2005, 07:31 PM
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#283
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
I'd leave it alone - the wound system is actually one of the best aspects of SR, as far as I'm concerned. What the SR4 design team has done is not streamlining - they replaced an abstract damage monitor with hit points, and seem to have screwed up a consistent wound penalty system in the process. The old system might have been unuseable with the changes made to combat and weapons, but that doesn't make the new one a good thing... |
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Jul 27 2005, 08:15 PM
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#284
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
It really depends on how much damage a single box represents and if damage is still resisted by body. If damage is resisted by body then it is already scaled proportionately to each character. The elephant would simply shrug off the 9mm pistol round without significant damage because of its body.
Say a troll and a human both step on landmines. The human gets his leg blown off, taking 9 boxes of damage. The Troll, having higher body, only takes 6 boxes and only loses a foot. Now lets make the Troll's landmine more powerful. This time both take 10 boxes of damage. The Troll is still able to function becaue of its higher larger condition moniter but is missing an entire leg just like the unconscious human. Obviously, the Troll should suffer wound penalities as it hops around on its one good leg. |
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Jul 27 2005, 08:42 PM
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#285
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
You can already entirely ignore damage if you have high enough body in SR3, where everyone's wound monitor has 10 boxes. A wound monitor doesn't represent how good you are at staying conscious despite injury. If it did, then sure, it'd make sense that a guy who could, through force of will, stay conscious with all four limbs blown off would probably be in a lot more pain than someone who passed out when someone set his badly broken wrist. However, in any decently designed game, a wound monitor is supposed to reflect how functional you are - so a tough guy who loses 3/4 of his "hitpoints" shouldn't be less functional than a wimp that loses 3/4 of his. |
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Jul 27 2005, 09:00 PM
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#286
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Indeed. The nonsensical part of the new wound monitor is that for the barely pre-death individual (1 box short of full), the hardier individual is the more they're impaired.
~J |
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Jul 27 2005, 09:14 PM
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#287
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
The way Body contributes to Damage Resistance is one thing, and will probablçy remain consistent in SR4 (this hasn't been officially confirmed or teasered by those involved in the demos, so we're currently unsure). However, that's not hyzmarca's point, nor was it mine. Whether you are able to reduce damage because of your innate toughness is one thing (Damage resistance), how much of the damage that actually gets through a tougher, bigger and more resilient body can take and remain "functional" is another. What the new damage track system is meant to represent is the fact that the same amounts of Damage don't mean the same thing to bigger and tougher individuals than they do to puny or weaker ones. When Damage is equal a tougher individual can still take more punishment (not because he can "resist damage" but because his tougher system retains "functionality" longer before collapsing). Whereas actual Damage of 10 boxes (after all Damage Resistance is resolved and damage allocated) would automatically mean unconciousness/death whether you were Body 1 or Body 22 under SR3, in SR4 the Body 22 individual/critter can take more damage before going down (though it'll still be increasingly impaired by the damage). Going back to the elephant example - I could and would most often (statistically) kill an elephant with a single shot of a Ruger Warhawk in SR3 because Body ultimately only represented the elephant's chances of reducing the damage of the shot. Even with a Body of 30, how much damage is the elephant going to reduce of my 9M plus 5 successes? And ultimately is the elephant's huge Body any better at coping with the damage (that got through) as the wimp unarmored security guard with Body 2? SR3 did not have a system to represent a massive/tough Body's ability to cope with more damage than a "normal" body and keep standing. SR4 incorporates slightly larger damage tracks (the biggest I saw in playtesting was a min-maxed 16 boxer) to account for this. That's all. Kage does have a point, as long as you look at a 10 box and 15 box damage track as proportionately representing the same level of "damage capacity". However, they aren't meant to. A proportional "rolling system" of modifiers could have been worked out but the variation in track sizes just isn't big enough to warrant the extra complication. Contrary to the "hitpoints" pundits seem to think it's unlikely anything but an elephant or a dragon will have a Physical damage track of more than 20 boxes (ie. only double a baseline human). In SR4 an average human (Bod 3) would die with 10 boxes of damage filled. A 15 box metahuman or critter which has 10 boxes filled has taken the exact same amount of damage and is equally wounded, however, its body is just capable of retaining (limited) functionality and keep going longer because it is more resilient. Regardless, its important to keep in mind that the new mechanic functions within a different Attribute framework (and limits) and with new weapon damage and damage resistance mechanics than SR3. |
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Jul 27 2005, 09:54 PM
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#288
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 144 Joined: 11-April 05 From: San Antonio, USA Member No.: 7,317 |
Why is that? After all, the tough guy is tougher than the wimpy guy. If they both lost 3/4 of their "hitpoints", the tough guy's extra toughness should offset the same modifiers that gets applied to everybody at that level of damage. In the middle of combat, it is easier to remember that 9 points of damage gets a -2 mod for everyone. Creating a rolling scale for mods only creates more math to deal with. If they both have 9 points of damage, yes they have the same negative modifiers, but it will be while before Tough Guy gets taken down, like it should be. Streamlined and functional. |
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Jul 27 2005, 10:04 PM
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#289
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
I'll address my issues with the "they don't represent the same amount of damage to the individual" view when I get back from Trader Joe's. For now I'll just say that the elephant problem would have been solved if some, anyone, had considered that an armor rating of 3 might be just a little bit too low.
On the other hand, elephants and their ilk are one of those places where the identical Power of a Heavy Pistol and a heavy Sporting Rifle really jumps out with a nonsensical result. ~J |
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Jul 27 2005, 10:24 PM
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#290
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Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill. Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,545 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gloomy Boise Idaho Member No.: 2,006 |
Both of which are done extremely well in SR4. Lets hope the rest of the system is doen that well. (hint: don't just double the rate of fire of weapons because the round is now 6 seconds. ROF is broken sr3, doubling it breaks it for SR4) |
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Jul 27 2005, 11:13 PM
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#291
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
If you have enough wound boxes, you can apparently take so much damage you'll be effectively disabled through wound penalties despite the fact your life isn't in danger, while someone with a much lower amount of wound boxes will be able to act, relatively unhindered, until he drops dead. That's all there is to it - it's completely illogical, makes no sense as far as realism and game design are concernerd, and no amount of tapdancing gets around it. |
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Jul 28 2005, 12:16 AM
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#292
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Target Group: Members Posts: 98 Joined: 26-July 05 Member No.: 7,517 |
I really enjoy this: characters finally get the ability to remain standing longer after taking larger amounts of damage, and people still complain because you'll have high TN penalties. As I see it my troll should just count himself bloody lucky that he's not already a rapidly cooling corpse like the majority of humans would be at 10 boxes. Remember: You will be alive while other characters are Dead.
In reality, some people die from non-life threatening wounds suffered from say, a 9mm shot to the shoulder. The wound doesn't kill them, the shock does. But I digress. Most people who take this sort of wound are not in danger of their life. Presumably this is because their body's system is more resilient to the shock caused by systemic damage. In most cases, however, people with nearly identical wounds live. But if that second man who took a shot to the shoulder and lived were shot again near the heart, he might be very close to death, and you better believe that he would have a harder time functioning than the first person would have had he lived. To me everyone seems to be taking the condition monitor as a percentage-based measure of how hurt you are; thinking that a human with 3/4 of his boxes filled is "as hurt" as a troll with 3/4 of his boxes filled. I say this is not at all the case. Is it not possible that the condition monitor is a measure of systemic, physical damage? In this case, a 9mm shot to the arm does exactly the same amount of systemic damage to the troll and to the human; the difference is that the troll can take, say 4 such shots before his body dies rather than the human's lesser 3 shots. If we take TN modifiers from injury to be primarily a measure of how much mechanical, systemic damage a target has taken, (i.e. both characters' arms no longer work after being shot because muscle has been blown away) then this system makes perfect, logical sense. OSUMacbeth |
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Jul 28 2005, 12:32 AM
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#293
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
It's hit points. Just because it's a new name doesn't take away from the fact that it is in effect transplanting one of the dumbest mechanics ever in RPGs into one of the simplest and sensible mechanics in Shadowrun.
The existing soak mechanic already reflects this. |
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Jul 28 2005, 01:07 AM
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#294
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Target Group: Members Posts: 98 Joined: 26-July 05 Member No.: 7,517 |
For what it's worth, I agree. Do not try to get me to say I think this system is superior, because I wholeheartedly think that this is several dozen steps back. :) The damage modeling is probably my single favorite thing about the mechanics behind the Shadowrun system. It really pains me to see it going away, perhaps more than any other single change. As long as damage staging remains, I won't complain too loudly, but I think the new damage system is the answer to a question no one asked. The thing I thought separated this system from almost all other mainstream systems was that even at later levels, you would truly fear having a light pistol pointed at you if the gunman was skilled. In D&D, I hate how a group can point ten heavy crossbows at you but you don't even break a sweat, because you know that even if every bolt hit for a critical, mathematically you would still be unable to die.
I tend to take the tack of not making up my mind about this preliminary info ahead of time because we're not getting the whole picture, but I find myself reacting to the changes in damage more than any others with a visceral hatred. OSUMacbeth |
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Jul 28 2005, 02:01 AM
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#295
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
That depends on how far you can stage damage and how many boxes each damage level adds. It is very possible that staging will allow someone with enough skill to do 30 boxes of damage in 1 light pistol shot.
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Jul 28 2005, 03:20 AM
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#296
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 778 Joined: 6-April 05 Member No.: 7,298 |
*blink* I can only assume that you neither play mages nor have mages cast on you (if you play SR3 at all).
The reason why casting force 6 spells was important was because the TN to resist a force 6 spell is 6. TN6 is twice has hard to achieve as TN5. (Remember that variable TN thing?) Force 6 spells are twice as hard to resist. Thus, unless your magician cast no spells that could be resisted, casting the spells at force 6 made a very large difference--one point of force doubled the effectiveness. The difference between 6 and 5 in SR4, given that almost everything else is linear, is likely to be around 20% (6/5 = 1.2) instead of a factor of two. |
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Jul 28 2005, 05:46 AM
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#297
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
I'm wondering how the new body system is going to work with other things like regeneration. Like the example of the vampire that now has 15 damage boxes, and regenerates it all at the end of the round. That's assuming regeneration stays the same of course, but it's something more to keep ya' up at night if you're planning on going against anything with regeneration in SR4.
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Jul 28 2005, 07:03 AM
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#298
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
The same way you fight regenerating creatures in SR3, only you use more bullets. |
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Jul 28 2005, 07:28 AM
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#299
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
yeah, a lot more, and from a lot farther away if you can
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Jul 28 2005, 07:37 AM
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#300
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
My issue is specifically with "ability to cast force 6 spells was important in SR3, but won't be with the new mechanic" As far as I'm concerned your logic is perfect in the SR3 framework, but it hinges on how force 6 interacts with system mechanics which don't necessarily work the same in SR4 - casting (the TN 6 ultimately dictates the average number of successes), resisting (also dictates the TN for spell resistance) and drain (it also dictates your Drain level). Your maths, correct though they may be, are being presented out of context of the overall system and you can't judge relative "importance" without taking into account all the other factors involved (ie. how Force now works within the wider SR4 framework of typical values for dice pools, casting, spell resistance, damage level, Drain, etc). Force 6 has a specific importance in SR3, not only because it sets the target number for resistance, but also because of the typical number of dice a target (particularly a mundane) can use. Change the number of total dice used in spell resistance by any significant amount (3+ or - if I'm not mistaken) for whatever reason, and you change average successes, and hence the relative effectiveness/importance of a TN 6 goes up or down. For instance, you don't currently know: a) What SR4 "dice pools" are involved in casting, you don't know whether the "lower" target number adjusts the number of successes (ie. maybe in SR4 a magician chucks proportionately a lot more/less dice at his target than he did in SR3, maybe one success is much more efficient in terms of basic effect, maybe a target resists with just an Att, etc). b) How spell resistance and spell damage works in SR4 and what "dice pools" are used. Without which you can't evaluate if a Force 6 spell is equally effective, less effective or more effective than before - if a defender uses significantly less dice than he did in SR3 or significantly more affects your whole percentage curve (ie. given that above average Attributes will be more expensive, how does that make the typical resistance roll?). d) How Drain works and how it's been adjusted to reflect the new damage system. e) How Force itself now works under the new system. f) Whether Edge can be used like Karma Poll and how it can help (or not) at save-your-bacon "reroll time" in Casting and Resistance (in SR3 using Karma Pool to reroll casting was more effective than rerolling spell resistance - assuming a mundane target - because the caster got to reroll all the Spell Pool dice too). From experience I'd say force 6 spells are equally important in SR4 than they are in SR3 for slightly different reasons, so I'm not saying you're wrong. In practice, I'm sure you'll see a lot more people popping force 8 Stunbolts where they would have used Force 6 in SR3 - but then again the framework has been adjusted to allow that. I'm simply asking where you're getting "ability to cast force 6 spells was important in SR3, but won't be with the new mechanic" based on available information (particularly since official information hasn't touched on any of my points above). |
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