New Concealment mechanics, pros and cons Options

[Spookymonster]

Items have a concealment rating based on the table on page 302. To detect a concealed item, apply the concealment rating modifier to your Perception dice pool and roll. If the concealing character so chooses, they can make this an opposed test against the concealer's Palming + Agility.

Pros
Being able to actively conceal items is a good idea. No more long coats in 100+ degree weather.

Cons
There is no indication of what the threshold number should be for the Perception test. It would seem that the Concealment rating should somehow correllate with the threshold; should smaller items take more dice away as well as require a higher threshold to see?

The concealment table is incomplete and possibly inaccurate. Where are bows and shotguns? Why are heavy pistols more concealable than machine pistols? Why do swords and katanas have different ratings?

The idea of having one lookup table for all concealment ratings falls apart once you start adding new gear (as the advanced rulebooks are bound to do). Since they can't retroactively add items to the BBB's table, FanPro will ultimately fall back to printing individual Concealment ratings for each piece of gear.

For firearms, ratings are assigned to the entire weapon class (e.g., all heavy pistols have a +/-0 modifier). This means the Slivergun and Roomsweeper, previously known for their low visibility, are now as easy to spot as the Predator and Super Warhawk (and vice versa). WHY?!?!?! Concealability was arguably the second-most important criteria for weapon selection (following damage rating). Now, you have to drop down to a different class if you want to keep a low profile.

Am I missing anything?

[hahnsoo]

Standard Perception Test thresholds are on page 117. I don't know if the test for detecting objects is a standard Perception test, though, but I'd use it as a general guideline (i.e. Threshold 1 for strapped on the back or poking out of a bag, Threshold 2 for worn on the person but unobtrusive, Threshold 3 for hidden in a pocket or under a coat/clothing, Threshold 4 for an item in a briefcase or a place deliberately designed for concealing).

Swords have always been more concealable than katanas in SR. The SR default sword assumes a blade that is not curved and possibly smaller (akin to a short sword or a Rapier). If you want a larger weapon, you go with a Katana or a Monosword.

[wagnern]

I think the table is more of a set of guidelines. You have an object. look at the table and compare it to the items in each catagory, and decide which catogory the item fits in.

So you have a shotgun? look at the chart. I beleave rifles are on it. Give it the same consealability as the rifle. no problem. You cut off the stock and sawed down the barrel? well it's about the size of a SMG now. We look at the table . . .

Your consealabilitys are now much smaller numbers. So the differnce between a Sliver gun and are preditor are not quantatable. (lets not even think of starting to do penaltys of fractional dice)

(besides, we now know lazer sights are not the mini-maglight things from Terminator, so adding and suptracting for every little thing makes less sence now.)

[Spookymonster]

Your post makes my head hurt. Please tell me English isn't your native language...:)

Anyways, using the table as just a guideline makes the whole process so ambiguous as to be unusable. For example, look at the Ceska Black Scorpion. Its description specifically states that it combines "concealability with burst fire". If the conceal table is just a guideline as you suggest, does this mean that the Ceska should have a better rating than other machine pistols (+1 instead of +2)? And what about all the additional bookeeping each GM will need to do to keep everything consistent ("Hey, last week you said my Ceska was +1, but now you're telling me it's +2... what gives?").

Having to work out Conceal ratings on the fly for things not listed in the book is normal and to be expected; having to do the same for 90% of the listed gear is absurd.

[Spookymonster]

[hahnsoo]

[Gort]

The thing with the sword is that it's a broadsword, typically a one-handed weapon. A katana is a two-handed sword, which is larger, and hence, less concealable.

[Kagetenshi]

Katana are generally relatively small. It's a fundamental difference in how they're wielded, not a "it's two-handed so it's big" thing.

~J

[Autarkis]

If McCloud can hide it, it has to be small. :grinbig:

[hahnsoo]

Traditional Katanas are generally small as far as swords go (compared to blades from many different cultures), although judging from the art in SR thusfar, the 2050+ version may have grown a foot or two. Just look at the Elf Street Sam from SR1-SR2, or the swords being brandished in the cover of Shadows of Asia (because of forced perspective, it doesn't look that big, but proportionally, it's bigger than most katanas I've seen).

[Space Ghost]

You can always take a sword and say it's a katana. i imagine that it doesn't specify exactly what sort of sword they're talking about. Then the "katana" entry could be changed to "Anime-size Katana" or "Almost a No-Daichi".