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The word of RAW.

We've changed one small portion of the core rules. But guess what. We're talking about a house rule here. Those, by their very nature, change the rules. Saying "you've changed the rules," is not an argument, it's a statement of unavoidable fact.

Hmmm... Let's look at the chart, shall we? He is now as good in melee combat as a combat veteran (your idea of what the workld considers adequate is flawed). He's as good a driver as a military combat pilot (your idea of how well most commuters drive is flawed). He fasttalks as well as a politician or diplomat (your idea of "most people" is right on this one).

No, he won't be as good as a character dedicated to that aspect. Nobody's saying he would. But he's a hell of a lot better at them then your version, and a lot better than most people he'll encounter.

That's not always an option. In those situations where you have to do something yourself, this guy will frequently fall on his face or burn through his edge so fast it'l be like water through a sewer grate. Yes, in a lot of situations he will function just as well as a normal gun bunny, and even be better 8 times per run. But in a game where GMs actually try and challenge their players you'll find yourself challenged more often then most of your fellow team members.

You've already said he can't beat the dedicated characters. Now you're saying that he should be bad in several areas because otherwise he'd dominate? Make up your mind. Is he "adequate" or is he "dominating?"

Nope, he's a typical runner where I come from. 4 stat + 4 skill + 4 edge if he thinks he needs it. "Perception am good," and all that. And when it comes to perception, beating the average Joe isn't what matters. Normal tests to see someone ready to ambush you are harder than that. Tests to notice useful information generally have a threshold of 3 or more.

Huh? 4 stat + 4 skill is 8, not 6. No wonder you're having trouble, you can't even understand basic math.

If you want to ignore the rules, that's how it works. Of course, since the burning edge rules say you have to actually be capable of succeeding at the task, and you quite obviously are not going to succeed, you can't burn edge for a critical success.

That explains another part of why you think a high edge is so powerful. You don't actually understand the edge rules. Yet another

By changing the core mechanic to "all successes explode", you've gone so far away from the core mechanic as to not be playing the same game. We're not talking a few minor tweaks, we're talking about the entire way the dice interact with the game.

If you want to get into that... no, he has no driving skill, but then again, most people don't have one anyway. You can get away with an agent to do the job for you most of the time. With the use of specializations, he's doing just as well as your "combat veteran" and "politician or diplomat". So, nope, he's doing just fine. Sorry to burst your bubble, but pushing Edge to 8 doesn't really require any major sacrifices.

*You're* the one who offered 6 dice as an example, so don't try and be insulting to cover up for being wrong. And just in case you missed it: "With your 6 a professional level stealth guy (skill 3 attribute 3) can sneak up on you half the time." was your exact words. Since my example had a base *seven*, it's no wonder you're having issues.

Did you actually *read* anything that I posted? I explained, very clearly, why the example in question was impossible. Your understanding of the mechanic is wrong, and the page references are very clear. I'm wondering if you've even read the main book now-- maybe that's why you keep defending the system, you're quoting what you want to see, instead of what's actually there.

We're changing the mechanic to "all successes explode" in a single very rare instance (the longshot test with only one die remaining). It doesn't change anything near the "entire way the dice interact with the game." And as I already stated, you don't even have to do that. You can if you want the extreme longshot test to be more powerful, but it's far from necessary.

How is spending 4 of those 28 skill points you free up on driving "no driving skill?" Unless I'm misunderstanding your poor pronoun use and you're referring to Mr. Lucky. Perhaps try some nouns every now and then?

Yes, while most people don't have driving skill, most people aren't shadowrunners. Being able to get from place to place is kinda a job requirement. Someone who can't do that when things get rough is going to have a tough time of things sometimes. But, like with the face example, if your game doesn't require people to actually do things they don't specialize in very often, then it isn't a fault of the system.

True. Agents are mostly BS because they remove the need for PCs. there are things you can't do for an agent, and of course there's the fact that your guy can't afford agents.

Really? A) The combat veteran will almost assuredly have the same specilization. Same with the diplomat. B) At least for etiquette, your specilization will only occur in one place. The Diplomat's base skill applies everywhere. C) Your etiquette fro Mr. Lucky is not a skill, it's a skillwire. He can't have a specilization.

He can have, at character creation, a max of 3 in etiquette. He is big drawing factor (edge) cannot be used with that. Likewise with perception. Sure, if you're playing in a game where nobody but the face has to make etiquette tests you're fine. But the games I see being played aren't like that. If your game style lends itself to enhancing the power of Mr. Lucky that's not a fault in the rules, it's just something that a GM has to consider when he decides to allow hyper specialists to be the guys that are the ones called on for their specialty the majority of the time.

Let me say that one more time to be sure it sinks in: if your game lends itself to enhancing the power of hyper specialists by limiting the times when people make rolls outside of their speciality, it isn't a fault of the rules. I'm not saying that's how your game is, but you keep saying things like "usually the face does the talking" so it makes me assume that's what you mean.

Except versatility and self sufficiency.

I was off by one because I missed a line on the sheet. Whoopdy doo. 7 vs. 6 means you will still be snuck up on a lot. Sometimes you'll get "a feeling that something's there" but you'll very rarely actually spot an average stealth person.

Silly me for misunderstanding you when you started arguing against things you yourself brought up. I assumed that, since only an idiot would argue against himself, your "SR$" meant SR3, whose summoning rules I didn't bother to check for a magic vs. force limitation. The point remains though, that while edge can indeed buy a critical success, it has to be something you're capable of doing. It doesn't let you make impossible things happen critically well.

I personally wouldn't allow it on opposed tests. But players that want to use it that way should know it would happen to them as well. As soon as they know that they're very unlikely to ever use it to try and shoot someone, summon something, or otherwise do something opposed. It would mean that suddenly any group of yahoos with a gun has a chance of automatically scoring 4 net hits with a bullet. That's just me though, and since it cuts both ways you don't really have to disallow it, just make sure the rule applies to everyone equally, on both sides of the screen.

In order for that to happen, we need to alter the way penalties are applied in the first place. Instead of simply reducing the dice until you hit zero, we're now introducing a graduated penalty. Since the basic penalties are part of the basic dice mechanics, you've changed the way the dice interact with the game at the low end. By making it so all successes explode, we've made it even further from what it was originally. Before long, we're not playing the same game anymore. Heck, some of your suggestions amount to the same thing as a floating TN anyway. If you can only hit an increased threshold by exploding the die X times, then there's no difference between that and a TN of 6*X.

If he has to do something he doesn't specialize in, like fast-talk someone, then he can do so decently well. If he has to fast-talk his way out of an extremely tight spot, he's just as screwed as any non-face character. He can do everything you mentioned, without falling for the "versatility is power" trick the designers are trying to convince you of. The fact is, SR$ does not prevent hyperspecialization, and it doesn't even make you suffer for it. The character limits would be more forgiveable if they could prevent or reduce this sort of thing, but it doesn't even do that.

First of all, have you read the SR4 skillwire rules? They no longer override your natural abilities; you keep quoting the SR3 rule. So, let's look at your previous example-- you say that your standard characters will be rolling 12 dice with perception: 4 attribute, 4 skill, and 4 Edge. Leaving aside the fact that they'd run out of Edge real damn quick if they're using it for every perception test, Mr. Lucky can do the exact same thing by turning off his skillwires. So, he'd end up with 12 *exploding* dice, and can do it twice as often. Likewise with ettiquette.

Second, once again, he *can* make ettiquette and social tests. He's not going to be the best one to negotiate with the Johnson, nor is he going to be the best at interrogating the suit you kidnapped. Nor should he be-- that's the Face's job. However, he can easily get past a bouncer, convince a rent-a-cop that the computer is glitched, and make it through a cocktail party without majorly embarassing himself. Unless you're forcing *every* character to negotiate for his life every single run, there's no need for him to be more than adequate in his non-specializations-- and he managed to do just that with only a few skills.

You're the one who made the basic reading error, then followed it up with a basic insult when you failed to do the basic math. I'm not directly attacking or insulting you, so don't get offended when your attacks end up insulting yourself.

Yes, and I *already* quoted a couple of rules to that effect; but it is nice to hear you admit that I was right all along. The force 200 spirit is impossible unless you've got a magic of 100; and in that case, it's not such a big deal anyway. However, the rules are remarkably ambiguous as to what exactly is impossible. Sure, a force 200 spirit isn't going to happen; but what about a force 12? Unlikely, sure, but not impossible-- and a properly used force 12 spirit can be just as bad as the aforementioned demigod.

Ah, one of my favorites, game balance through fear of retribution. I don't know about you, but I've found lots of ways to keep players from abusing rules short of actively threatening to turn it against them. I think that sort of thing really leads to an adversarial GM/Player relationship, and I think the shared storytelling/"friends out for fun" model works a whole heck of a lot better. But if you prefer the domineering GM type of games, that's okay: YMMV.

As soon as you introduce any house rule we're not playing the same game any more. Making this relatively minor change to the longshot test is far from a massive restructuring of how the game works. Obviously you disagree. But you're wrong.

This already exists with the current edge rules. If you're making a test using edge and normal dice and your threshold is higher than your total dice pool (such as a base pool of 1 plus 3 edge dice needing a threshold of 5) then you have effectively set the target number for at least one of your dice to 11+. It doesn't mean you have actual target numbers, just that the way that particular situation works is similar to variable TNs.

Since one of the possibilities suggested was a variable TN, yes, it is possible to "fix" the "longshot problem" by using a variable TN. That is far from saying the entire system needs reworking. Obviously you disagree. But you are wrong.

Wrong. They can use edge. He can't.

What part of "if your game style rewards hyperspecialization it isn't a fault of the rules" do you not understand?

So now your GM has said "roll perception" and you say "wait a second, I turn off my skillwires?" LOL

What part of "if your game style rewards hyperspecialization it isn't a fault of the rules" do you not understand?

Who said I was offended? So far you have managed to leave me greatly amused, but far from offended. It's rare that someone else's lack of intelligence and need to be right even when they're blatantly wrong offends me.

Yes, both for and against the players. In every edition there are things that have been incredibly powerful: big spirits, mind control, sniper rifles. They're things that bite both ways though, and so tend to balance themselves out.

So you're saying that the NPCs shouldn't use the powerful things the PCs can use? That's stupid. If mind control exists it will get used. If massive force spirits exist in a way that's easy to summon, they will get used. Not using it on the players isn't avoiding adversarial skills or not balancing through fear, it's coddling to players that want to have their cake and not let anyone else have theirs.

It isn't Domineering GMing when it's a group decision. We sit down at the start of every campaign in every system and discuss which things we don't want to use. Sometimes it's mind control, sometimes it's save or die spells, sometimes it's vehicles with armor ratings of 12+, sometimes it's nothing. Thank for for assuming you know my GM style and how my group plays. Isn't it you that told me to stop insulting your group's style? Kindly do the same.

And oh yeah, before I forget:

Obviously you disagree. But you are wrong.

Big selling poing of SR4: "Fixed Target Numbers!" Reality: to make it work, you have to go to variable TN's. As a result, you end up with something that doesn't even come close to the original design specs.

Not really. A need for a mixed set of TN's: 11, 5, 5, and 5, for example, does not equal the same thing as a floating TN.

Have you actually looked at the character? He does have Con, you know. You do realize that characters *can* use Edge with their natural skills, right? You have read the Edge rules, right?

What part of: "If the rules encourage hyperspecialization, it's not the fault of your game style" do *you* not understand?

Which part of the rules don't you understand now? Skillwires do not override your natural abilities anymore. Have you read the gear section?

Second, let's look at the actual rules. By the book, Mr. Lucky would have a total of 10 dice for visual perception tests, *before* he spends Edge. According to you, your characters, with the use of Edge, have 12. That's about 2/3 of a success difference, not much at all.

You did. You put your own foot in your own mouth, not me. You're the one who made a simple addition error, then tried to insult me because the correct numbers didn't match what you saw. Generally, I never insult anyone, I just let them insult themselves, as this last exchange shows.

If the only reason you're using them is because the PC's are, definitely. When the PC's come up with a clever trick, it's a hallmark of poor GMing to suddenly have every NPC using the exact same trick against them. Occasionally having major NPC's pull a powerplay is fine, but suddenly arming every single ganger with sniper rifles and mind-control spells, just because the PC's pulled it off last game, is definitely not a way to run a fun game for everyone. If you like it that way, that's fine; but I hope you understand that a lot of people don't.

You only need variable TNs to play the way Cain wants to. There are many problems with SR4, Edge just isn't one of them

Apparently you haven't been reading these threads. Several different options have been offered up, including "leave it as is." Because you disagree don't make it so.

A lot of good that will do him in etiquette or interrogation situations.

Cool. So when do you spend edge and when do you not?

That was an off the cuff example. If the perception test involves hearing or vision my current character has 11 dice without edge, 16 with. And he's certainly not a "Perception Specialist."

LOL Please point me to the post where I said anything like "you offend me."

Spending edge on longshot tests is not "a clever trick." At least no in the intellectual circles I play in. I can't speak for yours.

I agree. But given how powerful Mind Control is, practically every spellcaster on the planet that can get it and doesn't have moral compunctions against using it should have it. That will include a large number security mages and street shamen.

I don't like it that way, and I certainly understand that most people don't. Yet again you opt for the hypocritical route of "don't presume to know my game style, but I'll happily presume to know yours."

Kanada Ten hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph.

Yes, and since you've been reading this thread as well, you've seen the numbers backing up the statement: "They don't work".

He's got Ettiquette as well. Next!

And Mr. Lucky has 10 without, 14 with. Not that much of a difference.

Nice try, except we weren't talking about spending edge on Longshot tests, which we all acknowledge is hideously broken in the RAW. We were talking about bruning Edge on opposed tests. And what were your exact words?

So, you're not only saying that the Edge-burning rules are potential game-breakers, your response would be to have "every yahoo" suddenly getting 4 net successes. That's equivalent to arming every ganger with sniper rifles and mind-control magic. Since that's your *self-admitted* playstyle, you've got no beef coming when I point out that most people prefer to not game in a GM's power-trip; or when I say that responding to powerplays by having "any group of yahoos" pull the exact same trick is a hallmark of poor GMing.

And since you've also been around since the start of the discussion you know that you're so called proof is crap. You haven't shown any math on several of the proposed solutions. In fact, you've ignored them whenever possible. Nice try though.

Um, we've been talking about spending edge all along. That paragraph actually referred to spending edge for a critical success, not burning it for hits. Nice try though.

If you think that having NPCs use the same sort of tactics as the PCs is poor GMing then I can't imagine what your GMing style is like. Do players run around mind controlling everyone but the NPCs never use it because it's "poor GMing." do grunts never spend their edge pool in the same cheesy ways as the players do because it's "poor GMing." Yep, I admit that my GM style and playstyle involve complete fairness on both sides of the screen. The rules apply equally for everyone.

If you think that fairness is a power trip then we really can't discuss further because I'm not sure how to communicate with an alien mindset.

When did I say anything about arming gangers with sniper rifles and mind control? Nice attempt at belittling something without actually referring to it.

That's because sometimes other people have beaten me to it. If you're following this thread, you shouldn't demand that everyone repeat what everybody else is saying.

Um... you *have* read the Edge rules, right? The only way you can spend edge for a guaranteed critical success is to burn it. You can't actually burn edge for additional successes; you just burn it for the insta-crit. No wonder why you're so confused! Take an hour or two, and read the rules; you'll see what I'm talking about and wonder why you've been defending it all along.

I use what's known as the "shared storytelling" style of GMing. Which is, I collaborate with the players to create a fun environment. Now, as the GM, I have the ability to throw anything I want at the players; but that isn't any fun at all. If the PC's come up with a brilliant tactic, then with everything else I have in my arsenal, why should I ruin their fun by having every last grunt do the exact same thing? Part of the fun for the players is in coming up with the clever tricks and maneuvers. I might save a particularily nice play for the big NPC's; but having every last grunt pull a Hand of God and reappear in the next scene is just not fair. I don't understand how the players can have a fun game, when you're having every last grunt burn edge from an infinite pool to score critical successes left and right. I mean, part of the fun of a game is in the players feeling like they've accomplished something.

If you believe in "complete fairness" over having fun, that's fine-- YMMV. But personally, I think that a good GM should come up with his own cool tricks, instead of stealing them from the PC's.

When you said this:

The problem I encounter is that sometimes, what the player feels to be dramatic isn't the same as what I think it is. If a player really, really wants to try something, it's very cold of me to arbitrarily tell him "No way". If I can back it up with a solid rule, or valid example, then that's one thing-- but if the player wants to do something he thinks is cool, then why should I stop him? He'll enjoy the game more if he gets his chance.

Incorrect. I have been following the discussiona ll along. Asking you to prove that the suggestions given don't work isn't asking you to repeat anything, because they've never been proven not to work. Heck, I doubt you can even remember all the suggestions, much less prove any of them mathematically infeasible.

Your inability to understand my paragraphs is not a reflection of my understanding of the rules, it's a reflection of your inability to understand my paragraphs. Nice try though.

I agree. But as I've said before, using edge is not "a brilliant tactic." IT's a basic rule. Everyone on the planet with edge has the ability to spend and/or burn it. If PCs decide that using edge to get critical successes is something theyw ant to do, it'll be something the NPCs also do. And since my group all agrees to that, it's part and parcel of the "shared storytelling" we use. Your inability to understand that has been demonstrated several times, and I don't know how else to explain it.

Please tell me where I said that. Nice try at ignoring what I say and inserting your own idiocy, but it didn't work.

Actually, it's my group that believes in complete fairness = having fun. As I've said several times int he past.

And again, using the edge rules is not a "cool trick." It's a rule. Both PC and NPCs use the same pistols rules, stealth rules, melee rules, and cyberware rules. They also, by the RAW, use the same edge rules. If your group elects not to do that, that's fine. But it doesn't have a place in a discussion about the "problem with edge rules" unless you're saying that your application of different rules for PCs and NPCs is a cause of or fix for the so-called edge problems.

Oh, I can remember the highlights. They tended to fall into several camps. One was to keep carrying over dice pool penalties somehow. The problem, of course, is that it still left a lot of "impossible" tasks, where you just wouldn't even be able to try something, no matter how cinematically appropriate. The other suggestions involved upping the threshold, which is directly verboten in combat tests, and causes quite a few wonky results; also, if it exceeds the availiable Edge dice, the task is still impossible. The nWoD rule was also suggested in combination with the increased threshold and leaving a single exploding die; but that is effectively the same thing as raising the TN, only with a lot less adjustability. Oh, and Rotbart suggested excising the Longshot test altogether.

What, you *can't* remember all the suggestions?

So, because you are not able to write clear paragraphs, I'm expected to believe that your reading skills are adequate? You're making so many mistakes when quoting the rules, it's hard for me to tell if it's a writing problem on your part, or a misunderstanding of the rules. Which is it?

Some NPC's is fine and dandy. "Every yahoo", in your exact words, is excessive. Your example specifically said that "every yahoo" would be using the same trick against the players, for no other reason than that the PC's were using it. Game balance through fear of retribution.

When you said:

Now, as a GM, you have the ability to give the NPCs as much of an Edge pool as you want. When you decide that the gang of incompetent yahoos has an Edge pool of 1000, that's your perogative. PC's, however, are much more limited in their acquisition of Edge. If you're actually being "fair", then you're not burning the free NPC edge pool any more often than the PCs can earn karma to raise their Edge. Since youhave an infinite supply of Edge to hand out, having grunts burn their edge means it comes from an infinite supply. Having "every yahoo" do this stunt is blatant GM powertripping; and doing it solely in response to the players pulling it off is sheer vindictiveness.

Okay, is this your lack of writing skills, or is this an actual misunderstanding of the rules? NPC's have a *different* set of Edge rules than PC's do. I suggest that you reread the "Friends and Foes" chapter, and in particular look up the rules on grunt Edge. Since you claim that your writing skills aren't up to par, I can't tell where the difficulty lies.