Idea behind this is to see what others have thought of that I have not so that I may get ideas for impoving our groups gaming. Its not about compairsions to other versions.
So off the top of my head.
I like the general idea behind SR4. It seems pretty straight foward and easy to change to ones needs.
I like the build system much better.
I love how the skills are broken up and seem to add more to the chars for roleplaying. I love the defaulting off of attributes and how attributes help your skills.
Dislikes are the combat formula. I don't like how AP and Power on ammo and hits are done vs Armor.
Skill caps. I think with the present build system skill caps, that the upper skill caps should have been 2 to 4 points higher higher and that Legendary should mean more then it does, maybe with a +2 or +3 added to the high end skill caps due to the present dice effects.
Don't like how stun vs damage works.
Full Version: What do you like about SR4 and what changes?
I like all kinds of things. Too much to enumerate in one post. Of more interest, I think, is what I would change.
Dislikes:
Skill Costs vs. Attribute Costs. Skills are too expensive for what they do. Having Attribute cost about twice what Skills do is a legacy from back when they did different things. The relative usefulness of Charisma vs. Ettiquette has changed a lot, the costs should reflect that. Skills should cost half of what they do now.
Karma Costs. There's no reason to still have these at all. They should go away and people should buy their bonuses with Build Points just as they build their starting characters with them. Karma is a legacy that holds the game back, it should have been dropped with the Hacking Pool.
Conjuring/Compiling Drain: Too random, making it too meaningless most of the time and too lethal when bad luck rears its head. A better drain code is 1/2 Force/Rating plus Spirit/Sprite's resistance hits. Keeps the flavor, but makes characters get a little drained more often and take no drain and lethal drain less often.
The whole idea of Unbound Spirits on Remote Service being technically uncontrolled. That was just a bad idea all around and should have been dropped.
The Hacking Dicepool. Program + Skill is simply not the way things work in Shadowrun, and it leads to script kiddy twinkism. A better system is Logic + Skill, hits capped by relevent Program.
Hardened Armor. Enemies and vehicles with large amounts of Hardened Armor have two states: unharmed and dead. That's really not very dramatic at all. I prefer simply having Hardened Armor reduce DV by its rating, causing large amounts of hardened armor to still allow through small amounts of damage. Of course, this change necessitates the reduction of many hardened armor sources - once this house rule is made, most things need to have their armor halved (especially spirits).
-Frank
Dislikes:
Skill Costs vs. Attribute Costs. Skills are too expensive for what they do. Having Attribute cost about twice what Skills do is a legacy from back when they did different things. The relative usefulness of Charisma vs. Ettiquette has changed a lot, the costs should reflect that. Skills should cost half of what they do now.
Karma Costs. There's no reason to still have these at all. They should go away and people should buy their bonuses with Build Points just as they build their starting characters with them. Karma is a legacy that holds the game back, it should have been dropped with the Hacking Pool.
Conjuring/Compiling Drain: Too random, making it too meaningless most of the time and too lethal when bad luck rears its head. A better drain code is 1/2 Force/Rating plus Spirit/Sprite's resistance hits. Keeps the flavor, but makes characters get a little drained more often and take no drain and lethal drain less often.
The whole idea of Unbound Spirits on Remote Service being technically uncontrolled. That was just a bad idea all around and should have been dropped.
The Hacking Dicepool. Program + Skill is simply not the way things work in Shadowrun, and it leads to script kiddy twinkism. A better system is Logic + Skill, hits capped by relevent Program.
Hardened Armor. Enemies and vehicles with large amounts of Hardened Armor have two states: unharmed and dead. That's really not very dramatic at all. I prefer simply having Hardened Armor reduce DV by its rating, causing large amounts of hardened armor to still allow through small amounts of damage. Of course, this change necessitates the reduction of many hardened armor sources - once this house rule is made, most things need to have their armor halved (especially spirits).
-Frank
I dislike the power of magic
I am going to take Body + Will+ Essence/3/4 which will be used to give mundane a spell theshold.
says Frank can you give an example of what you would do for character advancement after chargen instead of Karma
I am going to take Body + Will+ Essence/3/4 which will be used to give mundane a spell theshold.
says Frank can you give an example of what you would do for character advancement after chargen instead of Karma
I'll start off with the positives:
What drives me nuts about SR4 is that once you've dropped your pool to zero, it's entirely up to your Edge. Skill doesn't matter anymore. Also, if you don't have enough Edge left-- or a high enough Edge to meet the threshold-- you can't roll at all. You can't even try, and hope; you can't bet everything you've got on one last prayer; you can only lie down and give up. What's more, you can't fix this without completely overhauling the core mechanic-- we could go nWoD, and always give them one dice to roll, with an increased chance of failure; but then we'd run into the problem of making longshot tests totally unnecessary, and thus a good part of the Edge mechanic. And we'd still have the munchkinous problem of piling on the modifiers, since the odds don't matter anymore: it doesn't matter if you're at -1, or -101, you still have the exact same odds of succeding.
- A very well-written ruleset. The basic rules are presented in a very clear, easy to follow format. They're not actually any simpler, but they're presented so well, they're much easier to absorb and put into use.
- The ability to build a tradition.
- Vehicle rules that are actually playable.
- A strong attempt to integrate deckers with the main team.
- Inclusion of Edges/Flaws, Initiation, and high-grade 'ware in the base book. Now everyone has full advancement possibilities without needing extra books.
- Easily scaled opposition stats in the NPC section.
- Skill+Attribute vs fixed TN looks too close to nWoD.
- A linear probability curve encourages mathematics instead of tactics.
- Edge is overpowered, and front-loads too easily.
- Longshot tests don't take skill into account in the slightest.
- Teamwork tests have too much potential for abuse.
- Character creation is too complicated, too fiddly, too confusingly laid out, and takes way the hell too long.
- The chargen skill and attribute caps are useless to prevent abuse, but do wonders for screwing up character concepts.
- Generalists are not very well balanced against well-made hyperspecialists.
- Edges/Flaws aren't very well balanced against one another.
- The attribute and skill range is too compressed.
- The build-a-tradition rules are low in flavor, and encourages characters to overload Intuition.
- There are too many different kinds of combat, which are totally incompatible with one another.
- Variable damage boxes smacks too much of hit points, and the loss of damage codes adds an extra step to combat.
- Ranged and Melee combat are overloaded with options, while matrix and astral combat are restricted to: "I try and hit him again".
- There's no reason to use your wireless connection to link your gear--skinlinks can handle all of that.
- Using more than one commlink breaks the system, but can't be fixed without breaking suspension of disbelief.
- How to accept total loss of privacy as becoming completely acceptable in the three years the new Matrix has been in place.
- Cyberlimbs are utterly useless except as carrying cases, and even then, they're not very much use.
Edit: - The on-again, off-again shadowslang.
- Instead of futuristic or cyberpunk terminology, we get terms lifted from the WinXP users manual.
What drives me nuts about SR4 is that once you've dropped your pool to zero, it's entirely up to your Edge. Skill doesn't matter anymore. Also, if you don't have enough Edge left-- or a high enough Edge to meet the threshold-- you can't roll at all. You can't even try, and hope; you can't bet everything you've got on one last prayer; you can only lie down and give up. What's more, you can't fix this without completely overhauling the core mechanic-- we could go nWoD, and always give them one dice to roll, with an increased chance of failure; but then we'd run into the problem of making longshot tests totally unnecessary, and thus a good part of the Edge mechanic. And we'd still have the munchkinous problem of piling on the modifiers, since the odds don't matter anymore: it doesn't matter if you're at -1, or -101, you still have the exact same odds of succeding.
| QUOTE (Cain) |
| What drives me nuts about SR4 is that once you've dropped your pool to zero, it's entirely up to your Edge. |
I second that. In some situations this is really strange. For example when a character wants to throw a grenade and has his pool for the throw reduced to zero. ^^
| QUOTE (Dv84good) |
| I dislike the power of magic I am going to take Body + Will+ Essence/3/4 which will be used to give mundane a spell theshold. |
I second that.
What I like:
- Skill Groups
- WiFi
- CharGen
What I dislike:
- Skill + Program for Hacking Tests (as Frank said before)
- Edges/Flaws, they're not balanced
- Mystic Hackers
- No chance for uncybered, non-magic mundanes, to ever get a second IP
- The loss of combat pool
- The new Spirit rules
What I like
The new skill set up in general
The new tradition system ( I play with people well versed in real world "magic" so no flavor issues)
The damage system (much easier to grade, some characters can take more than others in straight damage)
The Initation/metamagic stuff
The reduced cyber costs
Character gen
Metahuman stat mods
New matrix rules
The slower progression
What I dislike
cyberlimbs still don't quite work right
the ammo (did they even playtest this bit?)
the all or nothing power of magic
the really quick healing times (only from practiculy dead)
the lack of sourcebooks (I want my crunch n fluff)
The speed for hitting being awesome (unless your players are sensible)
The new skill set up in general
The new tradition system ( I play with people well versed in real world "magic" so no flavor issues)
The damage system (much easier to grade, some characters can take more than others in straight damage)
The Initation/metamagic stuff
The reduced cyber costs
Character gen
Metahuman stat mods
New matrix rules
The slower progression
What I dislike
cyberlimbs still don't quite work right
the ammo (did they even playtest this bit?)
the all or nothing power of magic
the really quick healing times (only from practiculy dead)
the lack of sourcebooks (I want my crunch n fluff)
The speed for hitting being awesome (unless your players are sensible)
| QUOTE (Grinder) |
| - No chance for uncybered, non-magic mundanes, to ever get a second IP |
Just wanted to point out that you can get another initiative pass with a mundane. You just need to use Cram, Jazz, or Kamikaze. 'Course, those all come with other nifty side-effects and addictions, but that's part of the fun
| QUOTE (Dashifen) | ||
Just wanted to point out that you can get another initiative pass with a mundane. You just need to use Cram, Jazz, or Kamikaze. 'Course, those all come with other nifty side-effects and addictions, but that's part of the fun |
And I believe you can spend a point of edge for an extra IP in one round too
Well done. I forget about that one.
What I like:
WIRELESS RULES AND HACKING (biggest reason for SR4 IMHO)
Reduction in the number of kinds of tests
Reduction in power of starting char Magicians
Flexibiliy of character creation
Skill groups
Melee only characters appear more playable
Better overall integration of rules
What I don't like:
Skill caps, and the enormous compression of scale this gives*
Horrendously munchable Flaws (Incompetent anyone?)
Impossible tasks (Dice pool reduced to <= 0)
Skimpy Rigger rules (vehicle mod, the hallmark of Riggers is now given a grand total of 8 lines in the book, with no supplement on the horizon)
Enormous reduction in gear costs
Everyone complaining about Skinlink**
* Just wrote a quick program: an "average" human with a DP of 6 in a skill vs. a "best in the world" human with a DP of 13 (6 attrib, 7 skill). In 100,000 opposed tests the average guy won or tied 18%. That means me vs. Joe Montana throwing a football, I will do it at least as well as him 18% of the time. I don't think so.
** It is not as powerful/useful as everyone is making it. All a PC needs to do is say to the GM "All my PAN devices are configured to respond only to my Commlink's Access ID". Done. Your devices are now unhackable unless your Commlink is breached. The only thing Skinlink gives you is resistance to ECM.
WIRELESS RULES AND HACKING (biggest reason for SR4 IMHO)
Reduction in the number of kinds of tests
Reduction in power of starting char Magicians
Flexibiliy of character creation
Skill groups
Melee only characters appear more playable
Better overall integration of rules
What I don't like:
Skill caps, and the enormous compression of scale this gives*
Horrendously munchable Flaws (Incompetent anyone?)
Impossible tasks (Dice pool reduced to <= 0)
Skimpy Rigger rules (vehicle mod, the hallmark of Riggers is now given a grand total of 8 lines in the book, with no supplement on the horizon)
Enormous reduction in gear costs
Everyone complaining about Skinlink**
* Just wrote a quick program: an "average" human with a DP of 6 in a skill vs. a "best in the world" human with a DP of 13 (6 attrib, 7 skill). In 100,000 opposed tests the average guy won or tied 18%. That means me vs. Joe Montana throwing a football, I will do it at least as well as him 18% of the time. I don't think so.
** It is not as powerful/useful as everyone is making it. All a PC needs to do is say to the GM "All my PAN devices are configured to respond only to my Commlink's Access ID". Done. Your devices are now unhackable unless your Commlink is breached. The only thing Skinlink gives you is resistance to ECM.
Likes:
Wireless matrix.
A semi functional automotive combat system.
Cars with more body then your avg. troll.
Scaleable magic system.
Skill groups.
Dislikes:
Impossibilities (dice pools <=0)
No more riggers!
The open proliferaton of otaku and removal of fading.
The WHOLE Att+skill concept.
Hackers.
The fact that the matrix rules still are trash.
The FORCED reduction in the power level of the game.
Magical traditions pretty much heaved out the window.
Oh, and everything else that I have read so far.
Wireless matrix.
A semi functional automotive combat system.
Cars with more body then your avg. troll.
Scaleable magic system.
Skill groups.
Dislikes:
Impossibilities (dice pools <=0)
No more riggers!
The open proliferaton of otaku and removal of fading.
The WHOLE Att+skill concept.
Hackers.
The fact that the matrix rules still are trash.
The FORCED reduction in the power level of the game.
Magical traditions pretty much heaved out the window.
Oh, and everything else that I have read so far.
| QUOTE (Dashifen) | ||
Just wanted to point out that you can get another initiative pass with a mundane. You just need to use Cram, Jazz, or Kamikaze. 'Course, those all come with other nifty side-effects and addictions, but that's part of the fun |
That's a personal playstyle thing. Some people prefer a wilder approach to initiative, where everyone has a chance to luck out and get a second action. Some people prefer a more controlled, predictable approach. YMMV, of course; but for people like Grinder, there should be some way of adding in this chance without having to totally upset the initiative mechanic.
You mean like Edge?
No. Edge is a fixed bonus. Someone who likes a wilder style of play would want chances instead of fixed bonuses. Like I said, it's a personal playstyle preference. SR4 can't possibly cater to them all, although I admit that I can't see any easy way to adapt it to a more freewheeling initiative system.
| QUOTE |
| SR4 can't possibly cater to them all, although I admit that I can't see any easy way to adapt it to a more freewheeling initiative system. |
If you really wanted, you could make everyone who gets a critical success on their Initiative check (5+ Hits) get an extra IP. I don't suggest doing that because of the effects that would occassionally have on groups of Lonestar Security Contractors who make group initiative rolls. But it wouldn't be hard. You could even limit it to non-grunt characters to prevent things from going into crazy town from time to time.
It would necessarily slow things down somewhat, but it would make the IP system less of a sure thing if for some reason that was important to you.
-Frank
For the group thing, you could just say that every success beyond the 4th would be one more of the goons who gets an extra pass (you roll 6 hits on the init check, 2 of the goons get an extra pass). Prevents absolute insanity.
| QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Mar 24 2006, 03:52 PM) |
| For the group thing, you could just say that every success beyond the 4th would be one more of the goons who gets an extra pass (you roll 6 hits on the init check, 2 of the goons get an extra pass). Prevents absolute insanity. |
Last session one of the PCs rolled 8 hits out of 9 Init dice. In a low power situation 4 opponents with an extra IP each, and who are very likely acting first because of that roll, that is IMO encroaching on insanity territory.
So not so much prevent insanity as reduce the chance of occurance.
| QUOTE (mdynna) |
| * Just wrote a quick program: an "average" human with a DP of 6 in a skill vs. a "best in the world" human with a DP of 13 (6 attrib, 7 skill). In 100,000 opposed tests the average guy won or tied 18%. That means me vs. Joe Montana throwing a football, I will do it at least as well as him 18% of the time. I don't think so. |
I think the average human in play should be concerned 2 instead of 3 giving DP of 4. Maybe the calculation will seem more appropriate.
so 18% of the time it matched a world class person. maybe the world class had a bad day while luck was smiling on the avarage joe?
it still leaves 82% of the tests where the world class outperformed mister joe...
it still leaves 82% of the tests where the world class outperformed mister joe...
| QUOTE (Dv84good @ Mar 24 2006, 10:50 PM) | ||
I think the average human in play should be concerned 2 instead of 3 giving DP of 4. Maybe the calculation will seem more appropriate. |
Limiting it to 13 is also off. Should be at least 14 with Exceptional Attribute. That of course is unaugmented only, and everyone knows that Joe Montana was magic!
Which would make Warren Moon an Spiral Initiate.
EDIT Incidentally with 14 dice versus 4 dice you are looking at around 1% or 2% of the time that 4 will prevail. Not sure about ties.
As to my pet peeve about SR4, the numbers for the ammo types. I'm ok with the move to DV and AP, even though I would have prefered to see a cleaner combat resolution.
But the actual numbers for them and all the special rules for the ammo types. Just
. All the way from Flechette through buckshot, Ex, Ex-ex, Gel, Stick'n'Shock, APDS, the Pather Assault Cannon. Yup, pretty much all the ammo. At least grenades are more dangerous now, but other than that just ick.
Well, also remember that someone who "Has played catch with friends in the backyard" is an example of a character with a skill of zero. The character with a throwing of 3 is an NCAA Division III quarterback.
So Alex Kofoed has an 18% chance of pulling off a play as good as Joe Montana. I can buy that. Over the course of a game, you'd still rather have Joe.
-Frank
So Alex Kofoed has an 18% chance of pulling off a play as good as Joe Montana. I can buy that. Over the course of a game, you'd still rather have Joe.
-Frank
| QUOTE (Dv84good @ Mar 25 2006, 03:50 AM) | ||
I think the average human in play should be concerned 2 instead of 3 giving DP of 4. Maybe the calculation will seem more appropriate. |
The Average Human will have 3 dice for their attribute, and then 0 for their skill. This would be for "Joe Average", just your basic guy who has only ever played catch in the backyard. So, he will probably have to default, throwing results off a bit. If you are at a "little league" level for the skill, he will have a DP of 4.
Skill at level 3 (for a dice pool of 6) would make you a professional, so 18% would be fairly accurate
Yes, a skill rating of 4 is the "average skill level for starting shadowrunners" (pg 108 of the SR4 rules), but the average shadowrunner is very different to the average human < Please note: this is based on my interpretation of the rules. If I have interpretted the rules wrong, please let me know. >
[EDIT] Dang, Frank got in while I was posting... At least I know I am reading the rules right
[/EDIT]
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| so 18% of the time it matched a world class person. maybe the world class had a bad day while luck was smiling on the avarage joe? it still leaves 82% of the tests where the world class outperformed mister joe... |
Matched or beat a world-class person. To put this into Shadowrun terms, it'd be like a snot-nosed codepunk fresh out of technical school, challenging Fastjack to a programming contest... and meeting or beating him, one out of every five tries.
Using that example, you don't do yourself a favor - in programming, that's a pretty real possibility.
And it's possible in just about any field presuming the newb has the raw talent. In SR4 people like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Fastjack are statistically in the top 11% of human performance in their chosen field - statistically speaking there are rookies in American basketball and golf that get within the same 14% performance/results range of a Michael Jordan and a Tiger Woods (actually that's how he came on the scene). The same applies to many areas of science and business. Then there's a gap between those and the leading lights and pros in each field which hit are 14-28% less capable, and so on. That is as close as the SR4 system approximates in terms of comparative performance.
It also helps to think of Edge not just as blind luck, but the experience and carefully-honed knowledge of when to take advantage of the small opportunities life gives when it makes the most difference.
It also helps to think of Edge not just as blind luck, but the experience and carefully-honed knowledge of when to take advantage of the small opportunities life gives when it makes the most difference.
| QUOTE (mdynna) |
| What I don't like: Horrendously munchable Flaws (Incompetent anyone?) |
Incompetent is just one of those things you have to GM. Someone wants 5 build points, they damn well are going to pay for 5 build points. Use common sense -- allow the fault for one or MAYBE two skills, and not skills like "Registering Sprites" or "Aerospace Mechanic" if they're mundane gangers or something. Plus that extra point of Notoriety means they have to earn an extra 10 Karma before getting a positive Street Cred or whatever. That's going to affect what sort of jobs they get offered. Point that out during character creation, otherwise it's not effective really.
(Actually, "Karma" is a term that sort of puzzles me. In most games, they use a term like "experience points", because it represents your character learning from experience, or a term like "character points", because it enhances your character's capabilities. Karma (outside the game) refers to something that can be favorable or unfavorable, and actions based on desire, or actions that are hostile, such as overpowering security guards in order to grab the dingus in the lab, produce *unfavorable* Karma, but get you "Karma" points to spend on improving your attributes and skills and such. I'm just saying it's a weird name for experience points is all. You could just as accurately call it "Q score", "CMMI" or "NINJA POWAR POINT'S"(sic).)
karma is a leftover from when it did both the xp part and the edge part...
Well yeah, but the term didn't make sense there either.
it sorta did. SR has always sorta-kinda assumed that the PCs, while maintaining their status as murderous lunatics who will kill people for money, are still sorta good guys in some vague way (for instance, anyone who wants to play an extremist probably needs to have their head examined). karma is, well, karma awarded for that vague, non-closely-examined goodness.
| QUOTE |
| And it's possible in just about any field presuming the newb has the raw talent. In SR4 people like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Fastjack are statistically in the top 11% of human performance in their chosen field - statistically speaking there are rookies in American basketball and golf that get within the same 14% performance/results range of a Michael Jordan and a Tiger Woods (actually that's how he came on the scene). The same applies to many areas of science and business. |
That's been factored into the example. If someone has the "raw talent", that would be reflected in his attributes-- a high Logic, in this case. We're not comparing two Logic 6 characters, though. We're comparing a Logic 3, Software 3 character versus the "best of the best"-- a Logic 6, Software 6+ character. There's no comparison in "raw talent" or in skill and experience. However, the Joe Average will meet or beat the best in the world, one out of every five times.
| QUOTE |
| Incompetent is just one of those things you have to GM. Someone wants 5 build points, they damn well are going to pay for 5 build points. Use common sense -- allow the fault for one or MAYBE two skills, and not skills like "Registering Sprites" or "Aerospace Mechanic" if they're mundane gangers or something. |
It's *still* overpowered. Compare Incompetence to the "Group Incompetence" flaws: Infirm, Uncouth, and Uneducated. If you buy Incompetent in all six social skills, you get +30 points, and aren't any worse off than if you had bought Uncouth-- and you've gained an additional 10 points. The other two are even worse: Infirm blocks you out of 15 active skills (including Perception!) and Uneducated blocks you out of 19 active skills, plus a bundle of knowledges. Yes, you can still buy a particular skill, if you really want it... but at double the cost, you're better off buying 4 Incompetences under that heading, and leaving the skill you want untouched. You can pick any 7 skills under those headings, no matter how serious they might be; in every case, you get more points and are less inconvenienced than if you had bought Infirm or Uneducated. Restrict the skill choices all you like-- it *still* doesn't help.
| QUOTE |
| Actually, "Karma" is a term that sort of puzzles me. In most games, they use a term like "experience points", because it represents your character learning from experience, or a term like "character points", because it enhances your character's capabilities. Karma (outside the game) refers to something that can be favorable or unfavorable, and actions based on desire, or actions that are hostile, such as overpowering security guards in order to grab the dingus in the lab, produce *unfavorable* Karma, but get you "Karma" points to spend on improving your attributes and skills and such. |
"Karma", in it's orginal meaning, meant something like "Work". Or, another way of putting it is: "Effect on the universe". None of these translations are particularily good, but thinking of karma as the result of work/making your mark on the universe might help in understanding why it's appropriate to use as a synonym for "Experience".
| QUOTE (Cain) |
| However, the Joe Average will meet or beat the best in the world, one out of every five times. |
By "Joe Average" however you mean "Joe, the average quality professional" and by "meet or beat" you mean "get as many hits on one test".
So to put that in perspective:
A sprinter makes two sprinting tests every initiative pass. So if Joe the professional athlete is racing against the best in the world, he's going to not lose any ground about one second in five - the other four seconds he falls farther and farther behind.
A computer programmer makes a testevery hour when modifying code to remove the serial numbers. So out of every 5 hours, there will be almost one hour where the professional grade computer guy was as productive as the haxxor genius.
---
Now, I actually agree with you that the caps on skills are a little low. But your example doesn't show that at all. If you want to make a coherent argument for raising the skill caps, you should start with one of the following statements:
[*] Spirits aren't capped in their skills. A Force 9 hearth spirit has a Spellcasting of 9. And an Assensing of 9. At the high end, there's really no point in having a Seer's guild because guidance spirits are just better at the whole deal. That's unfortunate.
[*] Starting characters can have the skill maximum. Not in every skill mind, just in one. And in some cases that makes you the best in your field (example: Counterspelling, Assensing, Gunnery), and in some cases that provides you with substantial room to grow (example: Hacking, Conjuring, Ninjing). Every character should have room to grow in their schtick.
Those would be good arguments. But so far you've been making bad arguments.
| QUOTE |
| It's *still* overpowered. Compare Incompetence to the "Group Incompetence" flaws: Infirm, Uncouth, and Uneducated. If you buy Incompetent in all six social skills, you get +30 points, and aren't any worse off than if you had bought Uncouth-- and you've gained an additional 10 points. |
That's false. Incompetence: Ettiquette means you can't buy an Ettiquette skill. Uncouth means that purchasing an Ettitquette skill costs double and you auto-fail if you don't buy a skill. Uncouth is a crappy deal and bad for the game, but it isn't nearly as hindering as taking Incompetence to all the Social Skills.
-Frank
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| it sorta did. SR has always sorta-kinda assumed that the PCs, while maintaining their status as murderous lunatics who will kill people for money, are still sorta good guys in some vague way (for instance, anyone who wants to play an extremist probably needs to have their head examined). karma is, well, karma awarded for that vague, non-closely-examined goodness. |
yea, its the age old criminal with a honor code thing.
as in, will injure a maybe kill guards, but will avoid hurting civilians and so on...
thats basicly what a street samurai is, a criminal with a kind of honor code. when the honor is upheld, his karma is good...
this was allso somewhat seens in the cash for karma rule in SRcomp. by giving out cash to charity and in other ways using money on others then yourself, you would build up karma.
problem is that all to many just play it as criminals for hire, people that will do anything for money, no questions asked. i guess thats why so many characters end up a messy death from explosives overkill...
even the gangers can fit into this. you have your honor towards the gang and so on.
basicly there is a line that the character will not cross, atleast not for money.
this however is badly reflected in the karma handout chapter. rather then having a karma point for "good roleplay" (a very, very vague term) there should be a suggestion to hand out a extra point of karma if the character stayed true to his honor code when faced with the posibility of breaking it.
funny, the example i feel like using is batman. here is a person that works outside the law, and is in theory atleast a criminal (vigilante or something like that). yet he have one or two things he will not do: use firearms or kill (atleast not mormaly. there have been storys where he have stepped outside of the last point i think. but those are seen as dark spots in his history).
My main dislike is their not having included a city section, like the Seattle section SR3 had in the back.
Other than that I'm not sure I understand it well enough, and haven't played any other version to see the differences.
Other than that I'm not sure I understand it well enough, and haven't played any other version to see the differences.
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| yea, its the age old criminal with a honor code thing. |
[snip]
Nice post!
SR4 continues to encourage at least some level of morality/honor in Shadowrunners by encouraging GMs to award their players by replenishing their Edge for acts of heroic self-sacrifice (page 68).
i have my moments...
| QUOTE (Signal) |
| SR4 continues to encourage at least some level of morality/honor in Shadowrunners by encouraging GMs to award their players by replenishing their Edge for acts of heroic self-sacrifice (page 68). |
They can't do this too often
most likely it will only recover the edge spendt to survive the self-sacrefice...
Surviving a self-sacrifice sounds strange to me
i know...
| QUOTE |
| That's false. Incompetence: Ettiquette means you can't buy an Ettiquette skill. Uncouth means that purchasing an Ettitquette skill costs double and you auto-fail if you don't buy a skill. Uncouth is a crappy deal and bad for the game, but it isn't nearly as hindering as taking Incompetence to all the Social Skills. |
Not quite. In both cases, you're treated as unaware, and you auto-fail because unaware = no default.
Also, if you want a character who's effectively Uncouth, but has the Ettiquette skill, you're still better off buying all the others as Incompetences. Uncouth gives you 20 points, but costs you 8 points a level for the skill: net result, buying the skill at rating 3 leaves you at -8 points. If you buy Incompetences in everything *but* Ettiquette, you've gained 25 points, and have only spent 12: net result, +13 points. Exact same spread of skills and penalties, except one gains you a lot more.
And even if you bought all six, you'd *still* be better off. If you're Uncouth, and you want to buy Ettiquette up to 3 with karma, it'd cost you 28 points ((4+4+6)x2). If you are Incompetent, you have to buy the flaw off first, but then you pay normal price: 10+4+4+6= 24 karma. You save 4 karma in the process.
My point is: if a GM has to House Rule something with blah blah limitations and such, that aren't included in the RAW, then that rule is an "exploit" or a "munch".
You are absolutely right: the difference between Incompetence and Uncouth is big. Taking Incompetence x 6 in order to make a charactert hat would be described in game as "uncouth" is indeed very munchkiny. But so what?
1) It's an obvious problem, easily fixed by the least skilled of GMs.
2) It is completely impossible to close all loopholes. The only game that would ever have a chance of being balanced for all rules, all characters, all the time is the game called "GM makes the characters, determines their advancement, and constantly fudges to make up for his earlier mistakes."
Basically, any game, by virtue of having been written by humans, will be flawed somehow. I haven't finished reading my SR4 (despite having gotten it last August). But I'll be starting a game next weekend and so far I'm liking everything I've seen (ok, almost everything).
To stay on topic: stuff I like
- The idea of hacking someone's commlink. I haven't read the rules for ti yet, so I may not like the implementation.
- The switch to stat + skill vs. a set TN. Much simpler during the firefights, and before the game when trying to weight the statistics of base thresholds and NPC skills.
- The character creation system: yeah, it's still possible to overload on something and end up with 50-bajillion dice in one thing, but the general idea that a shadowrunner should be a diverse creation is actually implied by the rules now, and partially enforced.
- Manaball now deals physical damage. In prior systems Manaball and Sleep were almost functionally identical but sleep's drain was a point or two lower.
Stuff I don't like:
- Ammunition is all pretty much the same. Heck, EX Explosive is now easier to get and better than APDS, apart from the possibility of explosion, for which the rules are still fairly vague. In some campaigns it'll explode if you sneeze, and in others it'll never happen unless you light it yourself.
- Not sure. But as I keep digging I'm sure I'll find more (but hopefully not too much more).
1) It's an obvious problem, easily fixed by the least skilled of GMs.
2) It is completely impossible to close all loopholes. The only game that would ever have a chance of being balanced for all rules, all characters, all the time is the game called "GM makes the characters, determines their advancement, and constantly fudges to make up for his earlier mistakes."
Basically, any game, by virtue of having been written by humans, will be flawed somehow. I haven't finished reading my SR4 (despite having gotten it last August). But I'll be starting a game next weekend and so far I'm liking everything I've seen (ok, almost everything).
To stay on topic: stuff I like
- The idea of hacking someone's commlink. I haven't read the rules for ti yet, so I may not like the implementation.
- The switch to stat + skill vs. a set TN. Much simpler during the firefights, and before the game when trying to weight the statistics of base thresholds and NPC skills.
- The character creation system: yeah, it's still possible to overload on something and end up with 50-bajillion dice in one thing, but the general idea that a shadowrunner should be a diverse creation is actually implied by the rules now, and partially enforced.
- Manaball now deals physical damage. In prior systems Manaball and Sleep were almost functionally identical but sleep's drain was a point or two lower.
Stuff I don't like:
- Ammunition is all pretty much the same. Heck, EX Explosive is now easier to get and better than APDS, apart from the possibility of explosion, for which the rules are still fairly vague. In some campaigns it'll explode if you sneeze, and in others it'll never happen unless you light it yourself.
- Not sure. But as I keep digging I'm sure I'll find more (but hopefully not too much more).
| QUOTE |
| You are absolutely right: the difference between Incompetence and Uncouth is big. Taking Incompetence x 6 in order to make a charactert hat would be described in game as "uncouth" is indeed very munchkiny. But so what? 1) It's an obvious problem, easily fixed by the least skilled of GMs. 2) It is completely impossible to close all loopholes. The only game that would ever have a chance of being balanced for all rules, all characters, all the time is the game called "GM makes the characters, determines their advancement, and constantly fudges to make up for his earlier mistakes." |
1) It's not as easy as you might think. I could ban Incompetences, but that seems overly draconian, and is a necessary part of the skill levels. I could raise the rebate for Uncouth, but then I might overdo it, giving away too many points for a flaw-- and even if I fix the Uncouth rebate at 30, that doesn't even address the massive differences between tons of Incompetences and Infirm or Uneducated. I could raise the cost for buying off Incompetence, but then I'd have to raise the cost for buying off Uncouth/Infirm/Uneducated as well, putting us right back where we started.
2) Incompetence is more than a "loophole"-- it's a gaping maw, just begging to be abused. For example, you can take Incompetences in Magical or Resonance skills, even if you're not a mage or technomancer. You can take incompentences in skills that allow no default. You can take incompetences in skills that are highly unlikely to ever come up in a game. And you can take incompetences in skills that fit both categories, like Pilot Aerospace. It also renders three different other flaws obsolete. And what's more, it's also a core concept in the game, since it's the only way for a PC to have Rating 0 in a skill.
A developer can be forgiven for missing a tiny little wording here that can be twisted into something totally wild-- but something this big? You don't have to ask for perfection; you just have to ask for something that's not begging you to rape the system.
I'm thinking the best way to fix Incompetence is:
1) You can only take it once (unless you have a very good reason)
2) You cannot take it for a skill you could never have
3) It cannot be taken for skills that must be trained (no default)
4) It can only be taken for a limited set of skills.
As a GM pick only the skill that could/would conceivably come up in your adventures.
1) You can only take it once (unless you have a very good reason)
2) You cannot take it for a skill you could never have
3) It cannot be taken for skills that must be trained (no default)
4) It can only be taken for a limited set of skills.
As a GM pick only the skill that could/would conceivably come up in your adventures.
It's true that six Incompetences would buy you a whole lot more BP than Uncouth once. However, there is one thing besides the fact that Incompetence is more limiting than Uncouth (already mentioned), which is Notoriety.
A character with six Incompetence qualities starts out with (at least) Notoriety 6. That's a big hit when dealing with, well, anybody. I don't have the rules in front of me just now, but I seem to recall that a high Notoriety gives you a reputation as a punk, and not in a good way.
Again, I'm not looking at the rules, but I think if it was my game, and a Johnson knew that this guy was on the team he was negotiating with, I'd use his Notoriety as a teamwork action with the Johnson (if I was feeling nice) or a negative pool modifier against the team (if I was feeling evil) in any Negotiation test. Anybody that has the rules there or memorized have any comments?
Oh, and don't tell my GM about my character's Notoriety until after I get it bought down. =)
A character with six Incompetence qualities starts out with (at least) Notoriety 6. That's a big hit when dealing with, well, anybody. I don't have the rules in front of me just now, but I seem to recall that a high Notoriety gives you a reputation as a punk, and not in a good way.
Again, I'm not looking at the rules, but I think if it was my game, and a Johnson knew that this guy was on the team he was negotiating with, I'd use his Notoriety as a teamwork action with the Johnson (if I was feeling nice) or a negative pool modifier against the team (if I was feeling evil) in any Negotiation test. Anybody that has the rules there or memorized have any comments?
Oh, and don't tell my GM about my character's Notoriety until after I get it bought down. =)
| QUOTE |
| I'm thinking the best way to fix Incompetence is: 1) You can only take it once (unless you have a very good reason) 2) You cannot take it for a skill you could never have 3) It cannot be taken for skills that must be trained (no default) 4) It can only be taken for a limited set of skills. |
You'd need to do somewhat more than that, because it'd still be a better deal for the one skill than buying Uncouth/Infirm/Uneducated. You'd have to reduce the rebate, increase the buyoff cost for this specific flaw only, increase the returns for buying the three group Incompetences, and scale them according to the actual penalties they impose... basically, we're talking several pages of house rules to fix *one* problem.
| QUOTE |
| A character with six Incompetence qualities starts out with (at least) Notoriety 6. That's a big hit when dealing with, well, anybody. I don't have the rules in front of me just now, but I seem to recall that a high Notoriety gives you a reputation as a punk, and not in a good way. |
Actually, it's meaningless at the start of the game. First, all Notoriety does is reduce your Street Cred dice, which is typically zero to start with anyway. Since Street Cred can't be reduced below zero in any case, it doesn't have any effect whatsoever. Second, even when you have Street Cred, there's no reason to buy off Notoriety, since it can be a bonus to you in the right circumstances; additionally, it's bought off at a 2:1 ratio, while it only hurts you at a 1:1 ratio. Third, it's way too easy to avoid any negative consequences; you can simply disguise yourself, and start fresh. Just buy yourself the Disguise skill, or pay for cosmetic surgery.
| QUOTE |
1) It's not as easy as you might think. I could ban Incompetences, but that seems overly draconian, and is a necessary part of the skill levels. I could raise the rebate for Uncouth, but then I might overdo it, giving away too many points for a flaw-- and even if I fix the Uncouth rebate at 30, that doesn't even address the massive differences between tons of Incompetences and Infirm or Uneducated. I could raise the cost for buying off Incompetence, but then I'd have to raise the cost for buying off Uncouth/Infirm/Uneducated as well, putting us right back where we started. |
What about the blatantly obvious solution (at least to me): What's that Joe? You want to buy Incompetence 6 times to get the effects of another negative quality for more points? Pull the other one.
| QUOTE |
| 2) Incompetence is more than a "loophole"-- it's a gaping maw, just begging to be abused. For example, you can take Incompetences in Magical or Resonance skills, even if you're not a mage or technomancer. You can take incompentences in skills that allow no default. You can take incompetences in skills that are highly unlikely to ever come up in a game. And you can take incompetences in skills that fit both categories, like Pilot Aerospace. |
Not in my game you can't. And not in any game run by a GM who cares about balance. You see, it's all tied into that final step of character creation: GM approval. They could have written in the description of the flaws "this flaw cannot be taken for skills that wouldn't matter," but then we'd be here arguing about "what matters."
I mean, it's within the realms of possibility that my troll street sam may one day want to pick up knowledge (sorcery) to help him identify the things those mean mages keep doing to him. But is it close enough to possible that I'll let Incompetence be taken as a flaw for it? Not unless I know the player actually would do that, due to past characters they've played.
| QUOTE |
| It also renders three different other flaws obsolete. |
Only if abused, which is, I reiterate, easy to stop.
| QUOTE |
| And what's more, it's also a core concept in the game, since it's the only way for a PC to have Rating 0 in a skill. |
And? There are a lot of core concepts in a lot of games that don't work 100% perfectly. If you can do better then by all means do so. I'll happily buy 2 copies for all of my players of your "Darkwalkers" game about people who "stroll" through the "dimly lit areas" using "occultism" and "technoorgans" to perform "jobs" against the evil "big companies" after the "magicification" of the world: If you can make it work flawlessly.
Real world example: This weekend I'll be running an SR4 game for the first time (using On The Run). One of my players is making a human wolf shaman with both uncouth and uneducated: he was raised in the wild and will probably be a fun character to GM. He saw Incompetence and remarked on it, but didn't even think to try and buy it for every skill in the book (or even any, because Uncouth and Uneducated did what he wanted).
It doesn't take rocket science. It just takes mature players and/or a mature GM to make sure things are used as intended rather than abused as unintended.
| QUOTE |
| A developer can be forgiven for missing a tiny little wording here that can be twisted into something totally wild-- but something this big? You don't have to ask for perfection; you just have to ask for something that's not begging you to rape the system. |
I don't have to ask that. I have the benefit of a good gaming group (actually an incredibly long string of good gaming groups, most of them built from scratch by me and a friend or two).
No matter how much attention is put into a game, there will be things in it that beg you to "rape the system." D&D 3.0 is possibly the most heavily playtested set of base game rules put out in who knows how long, but some things (even the ones that weren't sacred cows) crept in, because it's impossible to close every hole. For instance, a Wizard 11 / Arcane Archer 1 could imbue an arrow with antimagic field, and if he hit an enemy spellcaster they were screwed.
Perhaps when they made Incompetence a "core concept" they figured it would be used as a means to give characters some reasonable flaws in an otherwise highly skilled world. It may have crossed someone's mind to "rape the system" with it, but presumably shortly after that happenend they said "well, some stupid GMs will allow it, while others will bitch and moan about it, but we can't close them all, and this one is obviously ludicrous."
Then again, maybe they let it slip through just to annoy you.
| QUOTE |
| What about the blatantly obvious solution (at least to me): What's that Joe? You want to buy Incompetence 6 times to get the effects of another negative quality for more points? Pull the other one. |
And if he's wanting to do something legit? What if he's a good roleplayer with a good character background?
| QUOTE |
| And? There are a lot of core concepts in a lot of games that don't work 100% perfectly. If you can do better then by all means do so. |
"Not working 100% perfectly" != "Huge gaping flaw begging to be misused".
| QUOTE |
| Real world example: This weekend I'll be running an SR4 game for the first time (using On The Run). One of my players is making a human wolf shaman with both uncouth and uneducated: he was raised in the wild and will probably be a fun character to GM. He saw Incompetence and remarked on it, but didn't even think to try and buy it for every skill in the book (or even any, because Uncouth and Uneducated did what he wanted). |
Except he can't do that. Uncouth + Uneducated = 40 points, which is above the 35 point limit. If you want a character who has both, the *only* way of doing it legally is to buy at least some Incompetences.
| QUOTE |
| Perhaps when they made Incompetence a "core concept" they figured it would be used as a means to give characters some reasonable flaws in an otherwise highly skilled world. It may have crossed someone's mind to "rape the system" with it, but presumably shortly after that happenend they said "well, some stupid GMs will allow it, while others will bitch and moan about it, but we can't close them all, and this one is obviously ludicrous." |
Oh, come on now. If that were the case, they wouldn't have put any skill or attribute caps into the game at all. I mean, players could rape the system by pumping those up, and they went way overboard in trying to close that problem (and, I might add, failed). They closed a lot of "obviously ludicrous" loopholes as part of good game design; missing a few minor ones is forgiveable, but missing ones baked into the core concept of the skill system? And in turn, baked into the core mechanic itself? There's several serious problems that go all the way back to the very basic assumptions the game is making, and this is just one of them.
| QUOTE |
| Oh, come on now. If that were the case, they wouldn't have put any skill or attribute caps into the game at all. I mean, players could rape the system by pumping those up, and they went way overboard in trying to close that problem (and, I might add, failed). |
Or as someone else might add "achieved the results framework they desired" - the fact that you don't like it and don't feel it reflects your vision of Shadowrun is another issue entirely.
| QUOTE |
| They closed a lot of "obviously ludicrous" loopholes as part of good game design; missing a few minor ones is forgiveable, but missing ones baked into the core concept of the skill system? And in turn, baked into the core mechanic itself? There's several serious problems that go all the way back to the very basic assumptions the game is making, and this is just one of them. |
This Incompetence issue did come up in playtesting and it was decided that this was the sort of thing that might be acceptable to one GM and one game, and unacceptable in another, and hence it shouldn't be definitively ruled in or out but left to individual gamemasters in the "GM approval" stage of character generation. It's as simple as that.
SR4 rules were intentionally developed with enough "flex" to be easily adjusted to suit any play style and type of game by allowing the GM to tweak minor aspects as he sees fit (in a way which was not possible with SR3). Want a longer development range in your game - remove the skill and att caps. Want to play a higher powered campaign - allow more BPs at chargen. Want to reduce the importance of Atts in the system - limit total hits to Skill rating. It specifically plays off that one section at the beginning of the book which says that if you don't like something change it. Some people will like this, some won't. Regardless this edition of Shadowrun is here to stay.
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