German Newsletter Options

[apple]

From Fanpro Germany (Christian Lonsing), a very short and small summary

1) SR4 is finished and is being printed, so it should be ready for GenCon. Hurray! Double-Hurray!!

2) More than 100 people worked on SR4. I suppose that playtesters are included.

3) All additinal books (Weapons, Matrix etc) shall be released in 12 months.

4) Some rules regardings damage monitor and wounding effects are mentioned (and some blabla about the drain) but nothing specific.

5) It is mentioned that a character can go beyond the limit of 6 (dexterity 8, pistoles 7 => dice pool 15), I don´t know if it is an actual character, enhancements with cyber/bioware or just a rule sample.

6) Damage of normal weapons is something between 1 and 10 "boxes" on the monitor, amor can turn physical damage in stun damage. Heavy weapons and very good hits can do more than 10 damage.

7) It seems to be very hard to reduce damage to 0 if you are taking damage.

8) Drain damage can go beyond 10 "boxes" on the damage monitor.

SYL

[Starglyte]

[Grinder]

Hopefully it will be shipped faster than SoA...

[Backgammon]

[hermit]

Nice. I always felt SR was a tad too soft. Hopefully, light pistols will be a health hazard now too, and not something you press against yur temple, pull the trigger, and just walk away.

[mmu1]

[Ellery]

My guess is that it is very hard to reduce damage to zero because it's very hard to do anything to damage with a fixed TN of 5. Even with 12 dice to attack (or resist), you only expect 4 hits on average. That doesn't give a whole lot to play with. Aside from multiplying by two or three, you're mostly stuck with picking an intermediate value (e.g. 6) and then, when people take damage, that's about how much they take. I'm not sure how the whole stun vs. regular damage plays into things--if you could split damage evenly between stun and physical, you might have twice the dice to resist which would make the lack-of-hits problem less severe, but at the cost of twice as much rolling. But fixed TNs make it harder to get a wide range of number of hits, and lack of damage levels reduces the variability on damage from the number of hits, so unless variability is re-introduced at the weapon level ("A light pistol is 1d6+3!") or hits are multiplied by a hefty number, damage taken will be a lot more constant under SR4 than SR3.

[Bull]

mmu1: There's more too it than that.

Ellery: You're overthinking things.

Bull

[Backgammon]

Which I think is good.

When someone gets shot, you don't ask "how bad was it". You assume it was bad and he went to the hospital, if he didn't outright die. I think the system should be more a all or nothing approach. It's harder to hit, meaning you do no damage more often than just a little damage, but when you hit, it counts.

Admitedly, from a gaming perspective, it makes things harder for the GM. Either the characters are in a bad shape or they are fine.

[mmu1]

[Bob the Ninja]

[Cynic project]

[MYST1C]

[Stormdrake]

The idea that armor changes physical damage to stun is interesting. Having worn body armor I can say from a real life standpoint that this is very correct. From a game stand point, well I am thinking there are going to be lots of unconsious shadowrunners laying around. Does anyone know if a character sustains enough stun damage if it will then kick over into physical again?

[Dustbin1_UK]

I cannot wait to get me mitts on it!

Anyone know when the general public, who cannot get to GenCon, will be able to get it? :|

[Nikoli]

I've already pre-ordered mine with my FLGS. Getting hte special edition. for the extra 15 bucks the full color tip-ins better not friggin fall out after 6 months of minimal use like the first printing of SR3 did.

[Birdy]

On the sourcebooks:

In 12 month or over the next 12 month? Since it is Fanpro I fear the former :D

Honestly, I'll wait till the important books (Cyber, Weapons, Matrix, Rigger) are out and then have a look at it on a convention (Say RatCon 2006)


Btw: When is the US debut? September or August?

Birdy

[Nikoli]

the FLGS said they expect the first shipment around August 31st (oddly enough the new Rifts edition hits around then as well) But that of course is subject to heavy modification via the Chaos theorum.

[Adam]

[Nikoli]

what about binding quality control? can we exepct the full color pages to stay in this time?

Not a Criticism of SR, just the P&P gaming industry as a whole

[Homme-qui-rigole]

[mmu1]

[Method]

Mmmm aren't abstract game mechanics fun?

It could be argued that repeated blows to your body armor cause your character to pass out from the pain of broken ribs and bruises to internal organs.

I think we can all agree that must have hurt like hell. I doubt the guy was in peak physical condition after taking a hit like that... :eek:

[SL James]

Or it could be argued that if you are injured badly enough to suffer penalties to actions because your body's natural compensation mechanisms are overwhelmed then perhaps said penalties are justified, but in combat that lasts between 10-15s fully soaking damage is just that--fully soaking any damage that would otherwise be immediately debilitating.

[Bob the Ninja]