Im getting PMs quite regularly to post newer versions.

Well, if you search the forums for 'Serbitar House Rules' you'll find at least a couple hundred posts. Problem is, they're all by Serbitar.

That might be. But because he also messed around with advancement costs his stuff is pretty much useless to anyone that doesn't either start off with it or turfs the existing characters and redo them with it. Even then it forces a rule change on someone using that is not otherwise needed.

Becks worked so well because you could drop it in to existing SR and away you went. Even then maybe 1 in 6 groups actually use Becks, and SR3 had a much larger inequity between starting versus advancement costs.

Plus there are issues with among other things rocket-jumping using anti-personel rockets. I noticed that although this time he put in the AP stuff for grenades in an example he still left the rockets/missles out. Not that his anti-personel grenades really much of an area threat as long as you have more than 1 point of impact armor, which with his frag grenades is exactly the same has having no armor. I liked that SR4 made grenades somewhat dangerous, and he fixed that for fragmentation grenades.

I guess in short I think he is so good at finding problems with SR4 that he manages to find problems that aren't even there. Then spams it.

Or maybe we let you know so you can show some consideration for other board members?

Seriously, that multiple people are taking the time to ask you to stop spamming should give you an indication of just how far you are going. Put a link in your sig already. Hey, you could even PM Eyeless Blond that there is a new update!

i agree,although, i am sort of curious as to how he has multiple packages. Must be useful wne he has multipe ladies digging him. Maybe he's had a couple Mr. Studds installed.

Last time I checked all your math to back up your "claims" were wrong. And I gave up on trying to explain you. As this has not changed, I am not going to discuss this issue with you.

You certainly did give up before you attempted to explain where the -3 AP you used came from for rockets/missles. Or maybe you did in the intern, I've been out for more than a week. It certainly doesn't show up in the current iteration of your PDF anywhere. You also gave up before you tried it without the dubious 1 net success, or if the grenade was only a few feet away.

In short you gave up before you actually checked out the math you claim is so wrong. The only wrong part so far was the portion created by your incomplete PDF, and that extra -2 AP (armor piercing fragmentation grenades?) creates wierdness of its own.

Where exactly do you see this now? At the top of the thread? I see "Serbitars Packages", not "THE House-Rules package" or "SR4 Rules Fixes" or even "Use this for a better game". Is there any implication there that his house rules are any better than anyone else's.

In fact it's the opposite. It was actually me and several others who persuaded Serbitar to post this, to keep people up to date on how his ruleset, particularly the karma system, was progressing. I actually stopped talking to him--and everyone else, for that matter--a few months ago, so I know I wasn't the only person asking about it.

Then again, with the hateful shitstorm I'm seeing around here, I doubt many people who actually want to see the system developed will bother to come around. Oh well.

Yeah, it is a bit unfortunate. Really though I attribute that to the silliness of having attributes cost so much at chargen, but then being so relatively cheap afterward. Attributes costing less to advance than skill groups? What's up with that?

And you were explicitly asked by some more not to spam anymore - even provided with alternative, more acceptable methods of distribution.

That doesn't matter, as it already has reached the level of annoying spam - so the classic spammer excuses won't help.

Thats nice to know. Then don't force the ads for it on us.

We don't care whether you get cash or an ego boost out of it.

...

You may want to take a look.

So far with my character I have, in order, added a new Active Skill, Specialized, Specialized, increased a Background Skill, and finally at the end of last session Increased a Attribute. Charisma from 3 to 4 on my Stealth Face. I was extremely close instead raising two skills, and adding another specialization. If I hadn't done it on impulse I likely would have increased the skills instead, and might yet ask the GM if I can roll it back since we haven't played with the changes yet.

That is for a human with their lower prime Attributes. Increasing the Attribute costs for the metahumans becomes brutal towards the upper end.

That Attribute costs are too low in comparison to skills is less real and more an illusion created by comparing two numbers outside the full scope of game play. Which I've seen as a common thread in many of Serbitar's fixes.

I went through 4 stages:
1) Initially glanced at them, and noticed the error in the underlying premise that there was much of a problem and the error being amplified in the solution given.
2) Ignored Sebitars numerous posts.
3) Decided to look closer. Notice errors and shortcomings and pointed them out. Got told to "do the math", when I already had and was trying to explain why and how the math he was doing didn't match the game.
4) Jumped on the JSTFU bandwagon.

Serbitar threw up his hands when I'm still asking questions that are actually important to people that might try to use this rules. He fixed one error I pointed out, but the other one is still out there. I get the distinct impression that his giving up is more a matter of him trying to avoid answering the questions. It might even help if he didn't bite people's heads off and maybe even thanked them for their input when he actually decides to incorporate it.

Hogwash. This last revision you actually put in the previously missing AP information about fragmentation grenades that I pointed out. You haven't added the rockets/missles information yet. Perhaps next time? I'm not sure about the document length, I don't have a copy of the previous version.

I do not doubt you could write a half page about why you want to ignore me. I feel confident you could write several pages. I just find you have maintained an extremely defensive tone that seems to me more concerned with your own ego and less concerned with actual improvements to your insert phallic joke here.

Eho, no biggie, you just rule your house(hold) with your package. Bad wife!<slap> bad!<slap>

On topic now, i would agree the the proliferation of mentions in house rule threads might have provided some torqueing, when other, less obtrusive methods might be available, such as the afore mentioned link, and simply saying, "Yea, i worked something up for this you might wanna look at, it's in the link." but to each his or her own.

I was wrong where? Two places that I count. First, due to nebulous wording in your document and curious armor rating 1 ignoring property of your fragmentation grenades, I didn't give the precise number of the relatively low armor rating where anti-personel grenades are effectively negated.

The second place is where I didn't correctly guess the -3 AP for your fragmentation rockets and missles. I'm still trying to confirm that is correct and where exactly that is coming from. I would hate to go through all the trouble of showing the rocket jumping example in detail only to have you claim it just cannot happen ever because I didn't read your rules correctly to give you the exact senario where it is. Even though the senario that it occurs at is close by and you could find it if you wanted to.

You are not answering that question about the AP why?

EDIT Confirming the DV would be handy too. Or maybe a chart just like in the book? Because they are adding their fragmentation modifiers to a hypothetical base grenade and rocket, which is why they don't have that odd extra -2.

Or are you counting a third one where I was corrected by you that the rule of buying 1 hit with 4 dice is actually 1 hit for 3 dice?

Indeed. We can all see this -3 AP popping up in your calculations. But where is it coming from?

Reading through we can also see where this claimed problem of Trolls getting knocked out so quickly if the wear more armor doesn't really exist outside of rare contrived situations.

Maybe someone else can help out Serbitar help me out? I'm drawing a blank where this is -3 AP coming from.

Not discussing it certainly isn't keeping you from waving your hand and claiming I've been proven oh so wrong. It is like you are at a shell game table and claiming there is no ball based on upon not finding the ball under one of the shells flipped over.

EDIT Until I get some confirmation on hard numbers for what your damage rules are it certainly isn't very easy for me to show the Rocket Jumping example. Oh wait.

Which is only a typo. It should be -2 according to his houserules. The normal high explosive rocket has a -2 AP modified accordingly to his rules to get fragmentation rockets.

Only everytime his armor is high enough to convert physical to stun damage. A really rare situation. Which happens to everyone with a shorter stun than physical damage track.
Which will only happen, if someone will upgrade his armor high enough, that he doesn't get any physical damage.
Yes rare indeed.

See also the AP modifiers of rockets(-3) and grenades(-2) in the rulebook.

@Darkness:
You sure, im pretty convinced HE rockets have -3 AP.

For the "rare events" (or was this ironic?): A troll runner with an armor jacket has armour of 9/7. As runners like to emphasize their strengths and be specialists, he will most likeley have either orthoskin or demermal plating. Lets give him dermal plating of only 1. Now he has 10/8 armour.
An assault rifle has 6/-1 (that right?), which means that the guy with the assualt rife will need 4! hits to make it physical. Thats net hits, after the opposed reaction thest and any modifiers. You need about 12+modifiers+trollreaction dice for that.
I would not call that rare.

I beg to differ. SR4, p. 314 Rockets have an AP of -2 unless i'm overlooking something.

Flashbangs at the other end of the table? But apology accepted.

Somewhere along the way you dropped the word contrived. There isn't anyone using burstfire, other firearms, or weapons? Also you are talking about the average hits to require the number of dice that high, but that is misleading unless you compare it against the number of times you score 1, 2, or 3 net hits. For a Reaction 4 target, after penalties, and shooter with only 10 dice after penalties about 1 in 5 or 6 of all the successful shots will be 4 or more net hits. I didn't work out the exact numbers, just eyeballed it from a color coded chart. But feel free to do the math yourself. http://narsil.ucsd.edu/ichoran/dice/ft_dice.pdf

In any event, even if all the damage is converted to Stun, how how many times does the Troll need to be hit to be knocked unconcious? Assuming he hasn't overburdened himself with armor he'll be rolling a minimum of 14 dice, and that is a on the low side for a Troll or even augmented human and respresents worst case for getting knocked out with Stun. I'll leave you to do the math for all of it, but my Mathomatic guesstimation is that even with a Willpower 1 Troll it'll be only about 1 in 8 times that the Troll not using Edge will get knocked out by two hits that don't exceed 3 net hits, and close to 1/3 the time a P damage hit is going to come along before the 2 hits. So we are looking at something like 1 in 12 times that even in the most extreme example that Stun damage will drop him before he takes Physical.

That is if he doesn't realize he is in deep dog doodie or had already spent his Edge, because the chances of him getting knocked out drop dramatically if he spends any Edge.

How about the odds of the first two shots instead causing 10+ P damage, against his 11 total damage boxes? Somewhere around 1 in 25. If that occurs he'll need to resist a minimum of 10 boxes or fall unconcious to P damage. Without Edge he'll pull that off about 1/2 the time.

So if my guesstimation is anywhere close to correct, in the example where the target has a Willpower 1, Body 5, and Reacton 4 and the shooter has 10 dice, of the few times he falls unconscious to the first two successful shots approximately 20% of them will be to Physical Damage!

EDIT And it will be a much more common occurance that the damage is split between the Physical and Stun tracks than them getting knocked out on either the Physical or Stun track.

I'll leave it to you as an exersize find the actual ratio.

That is a judgement based on an incorrect emotional assumption. It ignores the fact that in game play it IS NOT more efficent outside of the cases where the damage being done is so low in comparison to the armor that any efficency is lost in the shuffle when the damage is mostly overcome by the resist rolls.

As you suggested, ---do---the---math---.