I have always interpreted it as "A" spirit, not "The" Spirit...
So, in this instance, you would only be able to receive Endowment once, and while you had that endowment, you could not have another...

"A" Car is a class of vehicles... "The" car is a specific vehicle...

Thus A Spirit is a class of spirit... whereas The Spirit is the one you just summoned (it is a particular spirit)...

Just my 2 Nuyen...

Keep the Faith

I didn't do it to make it intentionally hard to read dumpshock (except the signature that grew outside of my posts, which I did for a day, and only happened if the browser was correctly rendering UTF-8, and that was done to be funny--I didn't use enough UTF-8 characters to actually make anything illegible and highlighting a word in a post caused the UTF-8 characters to be hidden behind the text).

Also: its actually not my fault that the forum allows UTF-8 characters that way. One forum I'm on allows UTF-8, but they're somehow contained to the signature box (I did the giant rising line and as soon as it hit the break between sig and post it stopped). Another forum didn't even let me use the characters at all (they got converted to garbage). So I did it "to see if I could" and once I could, and had my laugh, I turned it back into something reasonable. I figured dumpshock users might appreciate the semi-hack* more than anywhere else, too.

*Its not really a hack, it just looks like it.

Something that I did not see addressed in the Faq is the nature of Olfactory boosters and scent tracking. While according to the faq adepts' Enhanced Smell power give them access to the Scent Tracking table (Page 206, running wild), there still hasn't been any clarification as to whether Olfactory boosters do the same. The table implies that enhanced pheromone receptors do, and add their rating to the test. Any indication on whether or not olfactory boosters will become useful in that respect?

<shrug> I'm all for it.

Of course, the Olfactory Booster entry itself is the reference for olfactory scanners, both used as chemsniffers and as pheromone scanners – and that's the scanner by itself.

So with an actual brain behind it, tracking somebody based on scent shouln't be an issue.

Which would then beg the question of why get the inferior Improved Scent power when "any sense provided by cyberware can also be provided by this power"?

The olfactory booster can go up to rating 6 - giving 6 dice vs 2 dice from the FAQ. The booster also lets you smell many other things not listed under the critter power.

You mean like the only earware added in Augmentation, Increased Sensitivity, does less than Audio Enhancement in the main book?
Shit happens. Shadowrun drags along lots of leftovers that even the fourth edition couldn't cleanup completely. They grouped a lot of implants sensibly and removed some cruft, but they couldn't get it all.

The Taste Booster is the same ballpark. It does the same thing as the Olfactory Booster (by RAW!), just for the sense of taste. Aside from you now being able to determening really well how salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami something is, this means you can detect poisons (or explosives) by the time the are in you mouth. Instead of just detecting them with the chemsniffer function of your Olfactory Booster before you put them in your mouth in the first place.
Just they already rolled the analytical and the sense enhancing implants in one, so they weren't willing to roll smell and taste in one.

I believe there is a limit of one endowment per person per spirit. Such that if a mage wanted to do that, he'd need two spirits to do it. One to endow Materialization and one to endow Endowment.

Well, with the new clarification of the suppressive fire rules, it can make quite a number of bodies, in fact.

OK, based on this, is getting the "Vomeronasal Organ" metagenic quality (RC pg 116) redundant when you get an olfactory booster? Can you do exactly the same things, but have none of the bad side effects*? If so I'm dropping that metagenic quality and getting biocompatibility (cyberware).

* == more vulnerable to tailored pheromones (double effective), and has problems with really bad smells.

Metagenetic Qualities don't have to be better – they are just things that can happen through SURGE.

And of course, they are undetectable by either cyberware scanner or asensing… not that it matters much in this case.

Wait, wait, SURGE is undetectable with assensing?

Well... no. Sure, inaccurate gunfire tends to cause few intended casualties, but alot of people (often innocents) die in drive-by shootings. Adding automatic weapons into the mix makes alot of difference. Which is why some leftist radical people (probably all evil communists or facists) don't like the idea that automatic weapons are available to the general public.

Now I'd like Supressive Fire to be potentially lethal to most kinds of people (i.e. a potential to do 10P damage or more), but fairly inefficient in killing specific targets (compared to close burst which can do +9 damage over base). Also note that it only uses 20 rounds, which is actually a fairly controlled burst in the normal amount of time (3 seconds). Most automatic weapons are able to shoot 30 rounds in the same amount of time. Shooting Suppressive Fire for 4 passes is a bit much though, 80 bullets in 3 seconds is too much for most weapons. The venerable MG42 might pull it off, and certainly miniguns.

Same gun, same hands, only difference is if the sammy turned on his wires.

Unless it's Astral Hazing…

The new suppressive fire ruling makes a Steyr TMP loaded with SnS into a pretty solid weapon, since the incapacitation effect neatly sidesteps suppressive fire's use of only base weapon damage.

That's one thing that's always kinda bothered me. I realize that "it's just a game," but two people (one normal, one a juicer) both holding down the trigger for 3 seconds shouldn't lead to a 60 bullet difference.

Also, while it's far from perfect, don't forget about the Severe Wounds optional rules in Augmentation. Since Joe Smoe has a average stats of 2, that means the odds are pretty good that he will be hit by suppressive fire (drive by = Suprise Check everyone!), and that he will glitch or critically glitch on his damage resistance test.

Though I also feel unhappy that a drive by with an SMG only takes off a bit over half the condition modifier of Joe-on-the-Street. But it's how the rules are set up.

S&S is already a very solid "weapon." But yeah I get your point. It's kinda expensive though.



Of course. Which is why I assumed that when you shoot you're not just holding down the trigger, you're firing in controlled bursts. Sammies have the advantage of targeting and compensating recoil quicker. But the ROF of the weapon itself should always be the high cap. The normal bursts are fine (max 10 rounds per pass), but 4 successive Suppressive Fire bursts shouldn't be allowed IMO. Not that it's a problem, ammo tends to limit one to one or two SF actions anyway.

I don't know. I'm hiding around the corner and stick the submachine gun around that corner and hold the trigger down, there ain't no controlled burst there. Just as much lead as I can spray the corridor with. I hold it for 3 seconds, the sammie holds it for 3 seconds, it's the weapon doing the bullet count for both of us.

Recoil only accumulates in single Action Phases. It's not unreasonable to assume that part of what gives people additional IP's is the ability to control weapon recoil.

Not to overcome it but to recover, reposition and fire again.

A case could be made that someone with only one IP is incapable of putting more than 20 rounds into anywhere other than the ceiling. They could fire 60 rounds in a combat round but 40 of them wouldn't go anywhere useful.

Except that they only every spend 20 out of their clip, it lasts the full 3 seconds, but if the sammy, with more passes, doesn't spend a second complex action maintaining the suppression (spending 20 more bullets) then no one gets hit that turn.

Yeah, that is wack.

You could houserule it to last until the same Initiative count on the next pass, a bit like grenades.

That could work nicely actually, one guy chucks a grenade and his pall fills the area with lead to stop anybody escaping or throwing it back.

Likely, someone would be willing to take the spray in order to throw it back anyway: Edge to avoid, then resist [base] DV, or sit on top of a 10P explosion?

Likely, someone would be willing to take the spray in order to throw it back anyway: Edge to avoid, then resist [base] DV, or sit on top of a 10P explosion?

Kinda a neat idea (suppression fire lasting 1.5 seconds or 1/4 of a round). However it still leaves the question: Why can't a "normal" person hold the trigger down for 3 full seconds?

The suggestions that suppressive fire is actually controlled firing bursts (not "hold the trigger down") is interesting. But Suppressive Fire really seems like it's intended to spray an area (not controlled). No recoil (who cares, if the bullets are going wherever anyway), no "can't see target" penalty (great to drive by people in a house), and it can hit multiple people.

... this is just a thought off the top of my head (I have to get going in a minute), but what if Suppressive Fire takes a complex action to start (as normal), and then it takes a free action each pass to continue it? (With the implication that movement is broken into 4 passes, and everyone gets a free action every pass. Which I know has potential problems to.)

i suspect its basically a artifact from the generations of changes that SR have gone through.

it started out that a high initiative character would get a extra set of actions for every whole 10 rolled on the initiative test.

so if the sam rolled 36, and the civilian rolled 6, the same would get a action at 36, 26, 16, 6, while the civilian would only get a action at 6.

this lead to some thing like the group running into a bunch of guards, rolled initiative, and then the sam would go on to shoot each guard dead, with reloads half way, before the decker or mage would even have blinked.

this was changed in SR3 to become that the sam and the civilian would both take their actions at the first pass, but then the sam would get his next 3 passes before a new round. This is basically the same as with SR4, except they made the number of passes fixed, based on implants, powers and spells, rather then based on the roll of the dice.

I'll preface this by saying I have zero hands on experience with firearms. Well almost zero.

My original point was just how many rounds is it physical possible to spray into a particular area on full auto before accumulated recoil results in every subsequent round being directed into the ceiling?

I think it might have been the M1 Garrand I recently heard someone say of that only the first half dozen rounds went in the direction of the target and after that you were pretty much firing into the sky.

I'm assuming there comes a point that even a skilled marksman that is properly braced for the recoil has to let off the trigger for a moment just to keep the weapon pointed in the same 15 to 20 degree arc. Maybe about 20 rounds?

Someone with one IP that fires 20 rounds on full auto fires them in the same time span as someone with 4 IP's. The guy with one IP isn't quick enough to get the weapon back on target and let loose another 20 rounds any faster than 3 seconds after the first. So his options are let go of the trigger after 20 rounds or keep holding the trigger and waste 40 rounds firing at Saturn.

He sure can't keep holding down the trigger for 3 whole seconds and only fire 20 rounds.

(I know, I know that's almost exactly the cyclic rate of fire of most assault weapons....)

The rules doesen't say an anything about just holding down the trigger. Or that you can use Suppressive Fire without looking. Or at least it would give a -6 penalty on the test. SF eliminates recoil modifiers, but nothing about range, visibility and other penalties. In any way, just holding down the trigger means the weapon is empty in about 3 seconds and probably everything past the first 10 rounds are wasted. I don't mind the wastage (I'd much prefer wasting ammo was implemented in SR, with reduced ammo costs), but it seems counterproductive.



As I see it, Supressive Fire is intended to suppress the targets in the area, not just throw away bullets. Thus a certain degree of accuracy is required. People are not suppressed if bullets are whirring trough the air 10 meters away, but they might be if the bullets are no more than 1 or 2 meters away. And as said, there is nothing in the rules that say that visibility penalties are ignored.

I could get this quote into the last post: The answer to your question is "it depends." Caliber, weight of weapon, recoil compensation, skill of user, strength of user... etc. For instance, the HK416 (similar to m14) has a fairly low recoil for assault rifles, yet when a friend of mine fired all 30 rounds in about 3 seconds, the muzzle climbed quite a bit. When his drill instructor did the same the weapon was almost perfectly stable.

The Garand has only 8 rounds so having the first 6 shots in rapid Semi-Auto being mostly on target is actually very good. Especially considering the high caliber.

20 rounds for suppressive fire seems all right to me. The problem comes when you can do that 4 times in 3 seconds...MAYBE twice.

dont recall if SR4 have it in there somewhere, but earlier editions had a rule for walking fire between multiple targets when using full auto.

iirc, it was 1 bullet pr meter between the targets, unless one was using a smartlinked weapon.

Right. Well it was too much bookkeeping back then and most sammies had smartlinks anyway.

But I was talking about shooting in general, everything above single shot.

It makes sense to me, that you need an action to start suppressive fire, and you can stop at any point in the same combat turn. If you have more IPs, you can stop after one or more passes and do something else, but you can also sit out the round if you prefer. As soon as the turn ends or you do something else, the suppressive fire ends.

That was 2nd edition. It really started out with this:
Initiative 1-10: 1 action
Initiative 11-16: 2 actions
Initiative 17-22: 3 actions
Initiative 23+: 4 actions

Start from the top, take your action on you initiative count, sbutract 7 for when your next initiative comes.

So rolling 36 initiative would mean actions on 36, 29, 22 and 15.

And there were only actions, no complex, simple or free actions, just actions.

Lars

heh, guess i should grab that SR1 pdf and read it.

That might just be the best way to handle it.

Hmm how is this supposed to get handled with delay action? Example:

Ninja the Unaugmented with katana wants to charge street sam with Ingram X. They are 20 meters apart from one another, and Sam has 3 IPs.

Sam wins initative. He doesen't want to engage in CQB just yet, and he thinks he'll need more than one burst to take down the Ninja. So he fires suppressive fire, getting 4 hits.

The ninja will immediately have to either drop prone (using his only free action), or try to dodge. Normal mortals might have to succeed on a Composure test, but not this Ninja. He fails to get 4 hits on Reaction+Edge, but manages to soak 3 out of 5 damage. Then it is his turn. He knows he can't run 20 meters in a single pass, so he wants to delay his action until he can charge the Sammie.

Now, since he's still not in cover or prone, will he have to resist suppressive fire again? After all he is not taking any actions this pass so it would be as if he had no actions left. The SR4 rules seem to indicate that movement itself can trigger the damage, and the FAQ confirms this. The FAQ also says that just standing there and not moving causes damage "as soon as the bullets start flying", but doesen't specify how often, so I assume it is only once.

So if we assume said Ninja has to evade bullets again, he will do so as he moves 8.3 meters (25/3) closer to the sammie. Then it's the sammie again. He thinks he's doing fine so he continues with the same suppressive fire action, essentially giving up an action.
Ninja takes damage again.
This time (third pass) the Sammie switches over to a narrow burst. For some strange reason he manages to miss entirely.
Then at last the Ninja can charge the Sammie without having to resist more damage.

Looks ok? In my game I'd divide the round in 4 instead since I can't see why having one or not having one with more passes would change anything. Both the Ninja and the sammie gets to continue movement or do nothing in the last pass. In that case the Ninja would have to run another pass just to get to the sammie, but since sammie doesen't have more than 3 passes it matters little anyway. Sprint can be used to increase speed in this example, but the Ninja might want to have the option to intercept the sammie later, thus reserving his free action.

That doesn't seem quite right. But there are several things.. iffy.. with your example.

- You divide movement over IPs, which is not precisely the normal way to do it. Normally, the guy with only 1IP really does move faster than the guy with 3IPs, but at the end of the round they've run about as far. Occasional bursts of speed at 1IP vs. a steady tempo at 3IPs. It strains suspension of disbelief, I know.
- By splitting the movement over three IPs instead of one, the ninja suddenly had to deal with triple the amount of bullets - talk about double jeopardy!
- The Ninja only has 1 free action, and running consumes a free action, so he couldn't intercept anyway.

It seems suppressive fire needs to be properly balanced with movement. So here some ways:

a) (The RAWer version) You walk 10m or run 20m in a combat turn. Running costs you a free action in the first IP. You have a maximum number of meters of movement to "spend" in the entire turn, at any moment you like. So the Ninja could reach the Sam in the first pass if he wanted. You can be hit by multiple volleys of Suppressive Fire from the same shooter.
You could also do stuff in your first turn, like throw a grenade, and then move away.

b) You walk 2.5m or run 5m per IP, even IPs you don't normally get. Running still consumes a free action per IP you run; improved reflexes don't really make you all that much better a runner after all. Suppressive Fire lasts for as long as the shooter spends Complex Actions, but you only get hit once. It consumes 20 bullets.

All in all, option B is more realistic. A is more abstract, flexible and probably easier to use. It requires a little suspension of disbelief however.

the thing about initiative passes is that they are more about ones ability to make fast decisions then it is about raw speed.

the ninja is able to make one decision in the same time as the sammie is able to make 3.

the interesting thing is that the sammie and the ninja can move the same distance, but the sammie can start to move at the same time as the ninja, pass 1, stop in the middle, pass 2, and move again at pass 3, to come to the same distance as the ninja, end of turn.

reflex enhancements are all about data gathering and processing speeds, not in any ways about raw physical movement speed.

so to apply that to suppressive fire in the hands of 3 pass sammie, you get this:

pass 1: sammie opens fire, ninja goes oh shit and goes prone.

pass 2: sammie finishes processing that ninja is now prone, stops the spraying and instead targets and shoots.

pass 3: if ninja survived pass 2, sammie processes that and fires again.

end of turn: if ninja is still alive his brain is finally able to grasp all the inputs over the last couple of passes, and he becomes highly aware that he now have several bleeding wounds. So now he tries to make up his mind about what his next actions will be. Sammie notices that ninja is still alive and considers appropriate actions.

No, RAW states that IF it becomes important to know exactly how far a given person moves during an initative pass, you are to divide the total movement on the numer of initative passes used in the combat. Always assuming there are 4 passes is bending RAW though, that's why I divided it by 3 in the example. The ones with more initative passes does not gain more movement as a result of that. You could argue that he could make more Sprint actions and thus have higher overall movement, but that's a whole other can of worms already discussed at length in the Movement thread not so long ago.

Splitting movement makes ranged combat THAT much better that melee. Then again I guess there is a reason why ranged combat has become the norm and that acually charging a soldier with a loaded ready gun is paramount to suicide today. This is the same wether Suppressive Fire is used or not, 2-3 passes of gunfire is usually enough to take down any melee combatant - which is why a melee combatant either needs suprise, be very close, or have an insane speed to have a chance.

As for free action for running, yeah my bad. In which case charging always means you can't intercept later and prevent an enemy from getting away. So in order to "stick" someone in melee you need to be close enough that you can walk to the enemy.

As for your examples, a) is not RAW. b) is close to it but has wrong speeds, running speed is more than twice of walking speed. Additionally, you don't only get hit once, according to the FAQ you get hit as soon as the lead starts flying and additional movement will also trigger it. So that's at least 2 instances where you have to defend against SF, unless the firing character is stopped somehow.




In you example the Ninja spends 1 free action and still has a complex or 2 simple actions left that he never uses. I wouldn't reccomend this unless he failed a composure test. By RAW the ninja would otherwise be able to act in pass 2, after the sammie, by delaying his actions.

i am unsure if thats true, but then i didnt really go into the finer points of the action sequence. I was mostly demonstrating a different way to read the basic initiative rules so that it was more about being able to made decisions faster then being physically faster.

when i look back at it, the ninja would have been hit with the suppression fire before being able to go prone, as you can not do a free action before your first regular action in a round. And that brings up a question i cant see RAW answering, if the use of the free action forfeits the ability to delay the other action(s) available.

Hmmm... no.



But note that when a characters Action Phase comes up he may then choose to delay, and then take a free action.




And at the last.. the exception:



Emphasis mine. The entry for Full Dodge has a similar wording. So the Ninja CAN drop prone, but then loses the free action that he could otherwise have used to run. And in my example he needs to run if he wants to close to melee.

This does create rather bizarre "observer effects" though. For example:

- Ninja is running towards Sam. Both have 3 IPs, Ninja can move 25m, and Sam is 25m away. He'd arrive in IP 3; he moves 8.3m per IP.

- As above, but now with an Observer with 4 IPs. Suddenly Ninja can't reach Sam in IP 3 anymore, because he only moves 6.25m per IP.

Or, sillier:

- Sam has 1 IP and commences Suppressive Fire until his next action phase (next combat turn). Ninja has 3 IPs from Wired II. Ninja only reaches Sam in IP 3, and risks Suppresive Fire 4 times by strict reading.

- Ninja shuts off his Wired II, and can now reach Sam in IP 1. He now only risks Suppressive Fire 2 times by strict reading.

Yes, that's why in my game I always count rounds as having 4 IPs, no matter how many IPs the combatants can act. At gives a benefit to ranged combat, but that's fine by me. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

That's actually not hard to deal with if the Ninja delays his 3rd action to the fourth and you allow a 'continue running' action in the 3rd IP (which he would have been doing in the 4th that he didn't have, just switched 'em around). It will allow for the Ninja to still reach the sammy in the 'last' IP of the round and act, which is the case you want for either of the above scenarios.



Which makes it very very painful to run into a hail of lead... but yeah, quantum physics shouldn't be part of the rule. Observation should not change outcome.

Yeah, that's one way to at least keep things consistent.

OTOH, I don't really think close combat needs to be made any harder. Just that all melee attacks are Complex Actions with a fairly low DV is bad enough. I like close combat because it has its own style and flash - no need to make it impossible for "realism".
Also, I'm not so sure that RL gun vs. knife is such a certain proposition at short ranges.
But that's mostly solvable by allowing melee defense pools when in close combat with gun-armed opponents. I like gun-fu.

It's not that the turn is being split into different slices based on the number of IPs you have, though, it's more that people with more IPs have more actions that they can complete in the same singular clock of time (1 turn).

1 IP: 1 Complex and 1 Free action *or* 2 Simple and 1 Free action per turn
2 IP: 2 Complex and 2 Free actions *or* 4 Simple and 2 Free actions per turn
3 IP: 3 Complex and 3 Free actions *or* 6 Simple and 3 Free actions per turn
4 IP: 4 Complex and 4 Free actions *or* 8 Simple and 4 Free actions per turn

(Obviously, this list is somewhat simplified, because I'm not taking into account that you can substitute Free actions for Simple, nor am I listing every possible combination of Simple and Complex actions)

For the sake of fairness to "regular" people with only 1 IP, the game splits those pools of actions up, but you could very well play it that everyone only has one Action Phase per turn, so a samurai with 3 IPs could fire 6 short bursts at Initiative 19, while the Halloween Ganger could only fire two short bursts at Initiative 10. (Obviously, you'd have to rework things like recoil and multiple targets and so on if you went to more actions in a single action phase).

Regardless, the point of it all is that the passage of the three seconds in each combat turn is subjective depending on the number of passes that you have. It would probably make more sense (at the cost of more bookkeeping) to have the turn split up into five 0.6s phases and give characters a number of phases that they can act in based on the number of IPs that they have (with movement being a "non-action" that you can take in any pass that would move you 1/5 of the movement rate for your movement type).

I think his point was, that a wired sam vs. a mundan means that the sam gets shot with more bullets with his wired reflexes turned on than if they're turned off when the mundane is using Suppressive Fire.

Yes. Which is really not supposed to happen, having more IPs shouldn't be a disadvantage in combat.

This is avoided however, if you state that an instance of Suppressive Fire can't hit you again*; you take hits for being in the area, not for the amount of actions you take in the area.




*And perhaps for moving while suppressed; so hit at most twice.

*shrug*

I don't find it entirely unreasonable to think that someone who is standing in the open while bullets fly randomly around them *might* be hit if he, rather than taking cover, chooses to turn and take a shot at one guy, then turn and shoot another guy, then turn and shoot *another* guy. You dramatically increase your odds of a fatal head wound in Russian Roulette if you pull the trigger three times rather than passing the gun to the next guy after your first pull.

As a GM, I would look at the situation at hand before simply pointing to the rules and saying that someone has to resist the suppressive fire in multiple passes (in the example of a mundane laying down suppressive fire on a fully-chromed samurai). (Because it's such a movie/comic book thing for the badass assassin to wade into gunfire nonchalantly, I'd probably have the samurai make a simple Composure test rather than the regular Reaction+Edge test for each successive pass).

I'd do the same if the samurai decided to lay down suppressive fire in 4 successive passes at a cluster of mundanes standing around. On the whole, though, I'm not laying awake at night because there's at least one situation where it's arguably *better* to have fewer IPs than someone else.

They don't know what "Velocity" means either....

It's nice to see it updated. But it's still little more than a collection of random house rules, just as it always has been. Would be nice if the people who write it would keep that mind and, when offering up one of their house rules that are directly contrary to the written rules, clearly label it as such. Page references would be great as well. Blackjack did a far better job of doing both of those things on his old site.

It's a bloody shame that there aren't really any of the big Shadowrun sites of old around anymore. They used to be a real thrill to browse through.