what about if ya are skilled

taking skills to the extreme, Alf CYber Adept pistolier

agi 8(12)
Pistols (semi automatic) 7(9)

3 levels of IA pistols

smartgun link in contact lenses with optimag 3

I have 6 seconds before the bad guys reach their citymaster

I am using an ares viper slivergun with GV 3, I want the car dead before they can get in and start it
(one combat turn to get in, one to start it)
I have 2 initiave passes per turn

My base dice pool is
12+9+3+2= 26 dice

I choose the called shot for vulnerable spot rule and thus lose 20 dice of dice pool (you must bypass ALL the armor)

leaving me a dice pool of 6
my first action is to take aim and lose penalties for range
then I fire a burst into the van

6 dice should be about 2 hits
stationary van = no dodge test
narrow bust = damage + 2
12 damage resisted by 16 dice = 6-7 boxes
next pass I repeat my burst for a total ov 13 boxes, which is as many as the citymaster has

There, a character, possible as a starting char, but cheesy as anything less than a 50 karma char. Killed a citymaster with a pistol and without use of edge

Now tell me luck shouldn't be able to do what skill can do

If you want strict realism, then you definitely need to give SR4 a pass. All games involve characters doing things that would not be possible for normal people-- otherwise, what's the point? If you happen to like strict realism, that's fine, but then I think you'd have more fun doing your annual taxes.

First you advocate for realism, then you say this? The problem with the Escape Certain Death clause is that it allows a character to survive a direct THOR shot. Anything that would kill the character mysteriously falls short-- that's not just the letter of the rules, that's the spirit of them. Unfortunately, that is not only a broken mechanic, but one that destroys suspension of disbelief; and if you as a GM decide to not allow it, you've definitely set up an adversarial role in your game.

Wrong. If game-breaking impossible situations occur on a regular basis due to the rules, and it could be prevented by a sane rule set, then it's not the player's problem at all.

First of all, quit insulting my gaming friends. For one thing, we prefer to prevent problems in the first place, instead of waiting for them to happen, and then having a "realistic" GM throw a hissy-fit when the "impossible" happens. As a result, we prefer to have a stable ruleset where we don't have to worry about it. I'd hate to see the sort of crap your group does pull; when players have to tread so delicately around their Gm, I really have to wonder.

Besides which, this is about SR4, not our private gaming groups. Just because you're deluding yourself into thinking your players will never do this, that doesn't mean it's not an issue for all Shadowrun players to be aware of. You think it's not a problem because it won't come up for you? Let me make it clear: this is not about you. This is about Shadowrun, and how to make it a better game, more enjoyable for everyone. Flawed rules are a serious problem, no matter how many blindfolds you care to wear.

The Edge rules not only allow for some truly hideous abuses, they're deliberately written to encourage them. This is a flaw in the core mechanics of the game. The only way to fix this is to alter the core mechanics of the game in a radical way-- no matter what you do, you've fundamentally shifted the entire base of the system. In short, to fix the problem, you almost need to chuck everything and start from scratch. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be spending forty bucks on a game I'll never play-- and if I'm redoing everything, then I'm not playing it.

Oh, man, I've got to sig that one.

James, you should understand about the very abstract rule mechanisms of shadowrun. People do not actually have boxes that fill up when they get hurt, or have you ever heard someone crying "Oh no, it appears I suffer a -1 penalty to my dice pools, now, that you broke my nose!"?
Well, sorry for that...
The creators of shadowrun struggled hart to make the game as realistic as possible, but you have to ignore your "common sense" sometimes when playing shadowrun.

Thanks for the ego stroke

Umm... You do realize that you can't called shot to bypass armor on targets without weak spots, right? You can't, for instance, bypass the armor of someone with full body armor, since the armor covers their whole body. That rule is for shooting someone in the head when they're not wearing a helmet, or other obvious weak points. You can't bypass the armor rating of a structural wall by shooting its weak point- assuming it has one, you have no idea where it is. Ares Citymasters do not have unarmored spots where you can just shoot through them and blow them up, the rules do not allow for it, only GM stupidity allows for it. Maybe, maybe the exhaust pipe would be a vulnerable spot, but then again if they're not morons Ares designed it with a truck-like vertical exhaust pipe which would mean you need to be hovering directly above the vehicle to shoot through it.

You can bypass a vehicle's armor by getting inside of it. All Luke did was lift the hood and fire at it that way. Getting up to the Citymaster and lifting its hood might be a problem, but nothing in life is free.

Again, reaslitic within the game world. And again, intentional obtuseness only harms your position.

The two are not incompatible. If someone gets hit by a THOR shot, no amount of edge will save them. But as I said the last time you tried that tact, if you're hitting your players with THOR shots there's a much bigger problem in your game than the edge rules.

Game breaking situations don't happen because of the edge rules, they happen because people try to abuse them.

Who's treading carefully? It's a partnership. They don't bother trying impossible crap and I don't bother telling them it isn't possible.

Ummm... Nice rant, but not really applicable. I'm not saying it's not a problem because I use a realistic approach to the game, I'm saying it's not a problem because any GM can, and probably should, use a realistic approach to the game if they want to avoid longshot test craziness.

Which designer told you that?

You keep saying that, but failing to prove it. Simply having dice pool penalties carry over into the edge dice also removes the problem and doesn't require changing the TN system. You don't like it because it makes some actions impossible, but that's your opinion about how a game should work. Others differ.

Didn't you already spend 40 bucks on a game you'll never play? *points and laughs*

I understand that, and have actually said it before. There's no such thing as "common sense" when it comes to magic, for example. But just because you do it sometimes doesn't mean you should rewrite the system because you've elected to throw common sense out the window.

I wondered aboutt hat, but don't have an SR4 book handy to look it up. Does it say that in the bypassing armor rules?

so those guys in LA with the full body armor never died?

Funny I had a recording of the radio logs for that

Turns out they were taken down by a cop who decided to ignore training and try to work out 'weak spots' o the target's FULL BODY armor

BTW the face plates weren't as strong as the chest stuff

or the grill
or the headlights
or the spot where the headlights meet the superstrucsure
or the bit where the old hatches buckle slightly and never close properly after that
(real story behind tthe last one, some nutter in Perth West OZ stole a Police APC. the TRG (Aussie SWAT) shot a tear gas grenade into the weak point where the hatch couldn't close properly


oh and James... Luke never opened the hood, He just got up close to get a shot directly into a hole in the Grill.

But, Krem! I shot it in the sprinkler system sensor, creating a short-circuit that lead to disruptive feedback across the security grid that caused every electrical junction box in the building to spontaneously ignite. The fire will consume the entire building shortly since the sprinklers are offline and the security guys can't even call for help.

You can't put a gas vent on a Viper.

'Great shot kid, That was one in a million!'

but on a more serious note

that is an example of when the rules flat out state that something is impossible

even with edge

even with longshot

The new system makes the incredibly difficult, or virtually impossible, a lot easier

the impossible is still just that

No GM ruling required there

oh and KI, in 4th the Viper's Integral suppressor does not use up the barrel mount, and the rule are inconclusive as to whether a burst firing pistol can have a gas vent

the funny part is, i'm starting to believe that you honestly don't notice it when you do the same thing.

Ah
I see it a little differently

In my view


1) Longshot tests make the almost impossible, quite possible.
1b) FOr the Very lucky (edge 5+) They make the 'One in a million shot' happen a few times a session
2) People will abuse this by stacking more modifiers onto an already impossible (without edge) roll.
3) Therefor edge is Paradigm Changing.

Personally I believe the 'catch' for Mr Lucky is he is Dependant on Edge refresh for his concept to be at its best

Note also that the only way a player can affect Edge refresh is to give above avreage rp in scenes.

Therefore the Mr Lucky 'Problem' is self correcting in that to truly Munch it out, you have to give significantly above average roleplay

Thus I seeno reason to outlaw the longshot test being used for anything which can be done in the rules, within PC capabilities (not starting, if the PCs could reach that levelof power... see my pistolier above.)

I love those guys. They make baby Sisyphus cry.

Actually, the point of Mr. Lucky, as I wrote him, was to demonstrate that he didn't need edge for his concept; it was just showing how you could have a rather extreme two-trick pony. One hyper-extreme area plus a disgustingly high Edge makes for a highly unbalanced character right out of the gate. Granted, you still need to have good roleplay, which is another reason why I'm loath to do what James does, and advocate for punitive measures to be taken-- some of the most powerful characters I've ever seen were handled quite nicely by some very excellent roleplayers, and it made the game much more fun.

Except that #2 and #3 are the same thing.

The whole point of Edge is to make the impossible, possible. Once you reach longshot territory, the action is completely impossible without using Edge. The problem is that the impossible becomes overly easy with Edge, and there's no limit to how impossible you can get.

If you just carry over dice penalties, then you've killed the whole point of Edge; there will still be impossible situations. Only now, there is no way of making it happen. So, Joe Suit with Quickness 1, Edge 1, and no pistols skill now can't even pull the trigger in burst fire mode, let alone hit anything, with or without edge.

Once you start mucking with Edge, you're mucking with one of the core concepts of the game-- the Longshot test is baked right into the basic mechanics, and can't be removed without causing major shifts to the system. Once you start applying a passel of house rules to fix Edge-- which is necessary-- then you're already coming close to rewriting the whole thing.

You know, I keep seeing people say things like this, and I have to disagree. A skilled munchkin won't blow his big guns on every grunt who comes his way. Effective resource management is a needed ability for anyone who tries to break a game. It actually doesn't matter how often it happens; what matters is how badly things get broken when it does happen. If the climax of the game involves that Knight Errant SWAT team, and they're taken out with a single shot from an AVS, then the game gets broken for everyone; and that only takes *one* use of Edge, at exactly the right time.

How about if, instead of applying dice pool modifiers to the edge, you apply additional threshold modifiers? Like +1 threshold for each -3 die on the longshot test? So, say your Joe Suit character (Quickness 1, Edge 1, Pistols 0) tries to pick up the assault rifle and burst fire at the short range. The -2 for burst means that he can't hit just using his quickness (total dice = -1), so he does a longshot test with his 1 edge die. If he decides to run while firing (-2), that would give him a total modifier of -3, so you bump up his threshold from 1 to 2. If he's running away (-2) blindly firing over his shoulder (blind fire -6) on full auto (recoil -9) with 6 boxes of stun damage (-2), he'd have a net modifier of -16 (1Quick - 2 running - 6 blind fire - 9 recoil - 2 stunned), so you'd bump his threshold from 1 up to 6(1+16/3, rnd down). It's still theoretically possible, but the negative modifiers really impact the probability.

(Chance of 1 exploding die getting 6 successes ~ 1 in 23,000)

Didn't we just have a big discussion about carrying over penalties but always allowing one edge die that explodes, with a higher TN?

Yeah, I'm just voicing my personal preference for increasing threshold instead of TN.

Actually, I quite like the Edge concept, it's the execution that's horrifically broken. For example, simply making luck a purchasable stat is not a bad idea. If we use SR3 terms, I'd advocate for karma pool increasing by spending 5 karma, instead of the autoraise that generally happens. The problem here is that characters can start with horrifying amounts of Edge, and the rules not only encourage using it sa a major power play; the rules are written with that use of Edge as a core concept.

Well, first of all, we'd need to change the longshot rules to allow exploding dice. Second, altering the threshold gets awfully wonky on opposed tests, which is why the rules don't allow it. It works well on unopposed tests, but when you're now comparing successes, things get rather iffy.

Yeah, I was replying to someone else. You can't solely carry over dice penalties as a fix, you have to leave in at least one exploding die in order to make it work. Problem is, you *still* have the massive modifiers issue if you're down to that one die; and we can't up the threshold without leading to some really wonky results. Upping the TN has seemed to be the most workable solution so far. It's also the furthest from the SR4 core mechanic, but that rather proves my point.