The problem is that much of the knowledge that you all want so badly is maimed and ridiculous, taken from books, gungho Internet warriors, and other halfass sources which in the end only serve to make someone LOOK smart, when in fact the facts they regurgitate have little to no merit.

Fine. No issue with that, except for I challenge you to not tell me that D&D has devolved into a game with its primary focus being a way to provide PCs with quick powerups and fancy special effects.

Not all posts, and not even all D&D D20 players, but the game isn't the same. Hasn't been for a long time. The game cater towards 13yo video game players, not its former target audience. Video games are about fantastic special toys, things to give you the advantage, not about developing a persona and taking it somewhere.

Not all of them, just those that choose to fall into my blanket statement.

so, because there are lots of dumbass gun nuts, the pursuit of firearms knowledge is worthless? what kind of logic is that? i mean, thanks for the heads-up, and all. good thing you were here to tell us that there are some guys who will claim to be firearms expert but actually wouldn't know which end goes bang. we were unaware.

Yes, all books are full of LIES!

Never was much a one for no book learnin' meself.

They've already chimed in with their "less than accurate" sources. My "challenge"? Do better.

Okay. I won't. Challenge overcome.

If that's how you choose to run/play the game. If not, it's not.

Plus, if you're using a HMG, nothings more gratifying than pouring the lead out. With something that heavy, c'mon have that stream of lead pour out, it's what it's made for! Otherwise it's kinda a waste, like how sports car are made to be out and about roaring down the straightaways... not just collecting dust... *

* - Sorry, it's sorta referencing to that one Ghost in the Shell episode (1st Gig) where Batou sees all those sports car in the garage of a mansion. Kudos to those who know which episode I'm talking about. The one with the robot/cyber watch dogs. lol.

Actually, it only takes 5 points of hardened vehicle armor to render a 10S HMG impotent. I've got quite a bit of familiarity with the vehicle armor rules because I used to play a rigger with an Ares Guardian and I rendered a lot of man-portable weapons impotent.

But yes, I had tons of anti-recoil set up and generally fired ten round bursts of HMG for 20D killing power. I've also seen powerful drones easily destroyed in a single burst of AV ammo from an SMG. Balancing drones is its own sort of headache.

And none of this changes the fact that an HMG and the Barrett sniper rifle both fire the same .50 BMG round, and thus should be doing the same amount of damage, even for a single shot. But that's just the way the rules are. Personally I'll take SR3's little foibles over some of the other RPGs I've seen. (Like one's ability to defend oneself in melee being entirely based on what they're wearing in D&D, so a 1st level fighter and 20th level fighter are equally easy to hit when naked. Or one's accuracy with a ranged weapon being immaterial to damage, so a shot with an attack roll of 15 that just sorta grazes them or 50 that's clean through their chest still does the same 1d8 damage.) The canon rules work well enough to have some unrealistic fun, and for when we want more realism there's Raygun's totally awesome ammo and gun stats. (Which I'd really like to play with someday.)

Actually, this isn't true. Evasiveness in D&D is modeled through a combination of armor class and hit poi...

Sorry, spinal reflex.

I always forget that hardened armor works against base damage code when deciding whether or not to ignore an attack. It's because Immunity to Normal Weapons works the other way, I think (doesn't it?). Since armor is so easy to get, it seems like machine guns are for soft targets only.

Those .50 cal penetration claims are pretty much in line with those for a M903 SLAP, aren't they?

So, simulationist gaming is incorrect, and the only correct gaming is White Wolf style gaming.

Thanks for letting me know. You've really saved me from error. Hence, I shall renounce Shadowrun and play only...White Wolf!

Thanks for the link.

I find this to be untrue about video games. A quick look through gamefaqs shows 'challange' FAQs for many popular games which, frankly, are equivilant to having an uncybered mundane human take on Lowfyr with nothing but a holdout pistol.

From desperatly running around and slicing up an El Gigante's shin in a knife&handgun only run of Resident Evil 4 to the complete mindfucking rules exploitation required to fight Penance in a No Sphere Grid game of Final Fantasy X International to beating the 20 year old high score of an aging Galaga arcade cabinet, video games are about the challange.


There are some people who want a challange in D&D and in Shadowrun, as well. Some people want challanging puzzles to solve and twisted conspiricies to unravel. Other people want the challange to come in the form of clever statistics manipulation and rules exploitation.