Spellcasters take Drain from their spells, yes. But it has been my experience that spellcasters have more (Drain Attribute + Willpower)/3 than Drain Value. Awakened need not cast spells, they can stick to their mundane weapons, whatever weapon the mundane can use an Awakened should be able to use as well, hence "fulfilling the same roles within the team" or if the role is to sit there and provide Counterspelling. While 2/3 is an estimate based on my own experience, it may not be so, but I believe that the Awakened PCs go through less Edge than their Mundane counterparts.

From my own experience:

Adepts tend to have so many dice in their area of speciality that it is difficult to imagine them absolutely needing another 8 more from Edge.

Mystic Adepts and Magicians dice pools may vary, but even then they tend to have (Drain Attribute + Willpower)/3(or even 4) > Drain Value. In my games, I have not seen a Mystic Adept or Magician Glitch for a long time.

Of course, to use those mundane weapons, they really should have reasonable skill levels in them and the comparable attributes: which takes away both from magical skills and Edge. If they choose to have only a nominal level, this significantly increases the chances of glitching, especially given the number of times a gun is likely to be fired during the average skirmish.

Don't just tell me, *show me*. I don't think you can. I experimented with a couple of builds, and the 8 Edge was just as well-rounded as anything else.

Again, show me. Other than branching into technical skills, there's not many areas Mr.Lucky *can* branch into that he doesn't already have covered. He's actually a three-trick pony, with high pistols, high Edge, and the skillwire samurai trick. He's got all his bases covered, he's a weapon specialist, and he's got the high Edge to turn himself from good to horrifying. While theoretically he could use more skills, in practice he doesn't really need anything more. In fact, I'm debating on *dumping* a skill for Mr. Lucky 1.1.

Even if they have the mundane weapon skill at a nominal level, my experience is they won't glitch. Not with Guard.

In order to do that, we'd need to know what skills is he skillwiring? Or do we assume every skill that can be chipped? Right now, off the cuff, I'd say he desperately needs Perception. Even chipped, he has only 7 dice for Perception, an iffy number to me. 7 + 3(active enhancement) - 2(distracted) = 8(barely adequate and I haven't included any Visibility Modifiers yet, you know those things everyone does to make the spellcasters life difficult?) Every combat specialist needs at least 8 dice of Perception(after all positive and negative mods are added) else the risk of friendly fire or collateral damage becomes likely. He might get Lucky and manage to avoid shooting the wrong person this round but next round, does he want to get Lucky again? Perception checks in combat can be a real bitch and given Lucky's Pistol dice, well, he better not shoot a friendly/hostage/innocent bystander. Unless you got a way to designate targets via AR, I would recommend Perception.

Well, for one thing, he's got almost every concievable vision mod in either his contacts or his glasses. (They stack )

But beyond that, if he knows he has to make a perception check, he can shut the skillwires off, in a "Use the Force, Luke" moment. In that case, he'd end up with 14 exploding dice for the check. All the time? No. But when it counts, he's as good as a perception specialist.

I'll actually run through this with a weapons specialist (elf, not troll, if you want to compare to mr lucky whos a human (for the edge) so let the weapons spec be elf (for the agi).

First, I'm going to ignore your "the gas vent is broken" because your weapons specialist would have definately put his 1 edge towards keeping his gun hes good with in working order.

Modifiers you have:
Extreme Range (-3)
Partial light (-2)
With Glare (-1)
Heavy rain (-4, this is Seattle, after all)
moving vehicle (-3)
as is his target; the GM assigns an additional -3
The target has total cover (-6)
-6 Blind fire penalty
two Serious wounds, for 9 boxes on both monitors (-6)
never even picked up an HMG before (-1)
narrow burst (-9, doubled to -18 because it's a heavy weapon and the gas-vent system is fouled due to an earlier critical fumble)

I'll put up the basics of the weapons specialist, since I'm not really feeling like statting out the rest. Yes, he'd be a one trick pony, at shooting things very dead. Oh, and since the example uses the HMG, I'll assume availibility of 15 is ok.
Race: Elf
Qualities: Aptitude (Heavy Weapons)
Agi: 7 (10)
Cyber/Bio:
Wired 2
Muscle Replacement 3
Damage comp 5
Reflex Recorder (Heavy Weapons)
Enhanced Articulation
Skill: Heavy weapons 7 (MGs)

Gear: HMG w/smartlink
Goggles w/ all vision enhancements.

Now, back to the modifiers.
Extreme Range (-3) Negated by using a take aim with vision magnification
Partial light (-2) Negated by low light vision
With Glare (-1) Negated by Flare Compensation
Heavy rain (-4, this is Seattle, after all) Reduced to -2 by low-light
moving vehicle (-3)
as is his target; the GM assigns an additional -3
The target has total cover (-6) Total cover and Blind fire are one and the same. (SR4, 140, Ranged combat modifiers table)
-6 Blind fire penalty
two Serious wounds, for 9 boxes on both monitors (-6) Damage comp 5 negates these to -1 each. Total of -2.
never even picked up an HMG before (-1) Has skill, doesn't apply.
narrow burst (-9, doubled to -18 because it's a heavy weapon) Negated by the 10 points of RC on the gun.
Total penalties now? -2 for rain, -6 for the vehicles moving, -6 for blind fire, -2 for the wounds. Total -16.

Now, for our roll, we get att + skill + bonuses - penalties.

Agi (10) + Skill (9) + SL (2) + Take aim's (4) + Tracer ammo on full auto (3) - 16.
10 + 9 + 2 + 4 + 3 - 16 = 12. 12 > 8 for Mr. Lucky. Heavy weapons specialist wins.

Oh yeah. Mr lucky could use the recoil comp too, and use his luck on a -35 pool instead of -53. Give Mr. Lucky the goggles too, and hes at -27 instead. No matter how much gear you give Mr. Lucky to help out his pool, he doesn't have the skill, and will be defaulting no matter what. Give him the damage comp, and it drops to -23. Though, I doubt he has the essence for them. Even if he chips in the skill, it won't be enough, so he has to use edge to try.

With an Edge of 1, he'd probably have spent it long before the critical fumble that fouled his gun. Probably on one of toturi's perception checks. Which, if you're comparing characters, throws your biggest difference out of the window.

Secondly, you're missing the point of the example. Mr. Lucky could have all those vision enhancements as well (and, in fact, does. You can stack contacts and glassses you know, and escape the social penalties for wearing goggles.) The point is to show the brokenness of a longshot test. Let me bring up the classic example, which a lot of people whinge about. So, I'll preface this by reminding everyone that *this is just an example*, so quit yer whining.

Here's my classic example: Mr. Lucky needs to take out the Citymaster chasing their van, so he aims through the window at the driver. (Specifically aiming at a passenger, pg 162, not a called shot yet.) He's using an AVS (8P-f), and our modifiers are as follows: -2 recoil, -3 extreme range, -3 for being seriously Wounded, -3 for being in a moving vehicle, -6 for his target having total cover, -1 for his cover, and -2 for the light rain. To top this all off, he calls a shot to bypass the armor of both the vehicle and the driver. Assuming the driver was in heavy armor with helmet, that's an additional -12, and then we factor in the Citymaster's armor of 20. That's a total dice pool penalty of -52. It could be worse than that-- Mr Lucky might not have a pistols skill at all-- but it's largely irrelevant, since there's absolutely no way he's going to have a positive dice pool. He now spends a point of Edge. 8 Edge = 2.66 successes, which rounds up to 3. The driver can't use his vehicle skill to dodge, since he was specifically targeted; and he requires a Perception test at -6 to even notice that he's been hit. Assuming that the driver has a body of 3 (his armor has been bypassed, so the AP penalty of the flechette round does not apply), he'll be taking an 11P wound, and will likely score 1 success-- not enough, he'll be taken out instantly. The vehicle will now need to make a crash test: it has a threshold of 3, using a Pilot of 3, and a handling penalty of -1. It fails, crashes, and likely kills everyone inside.

See the point? He's taking out armored personnel carriers with a /flechette pistol/. This goes beyond Luke and the Death Star, this is completely ludicrous. Yet, by the RAW, it's not only legal, it's easy.

I see you're ignoring the section in called shots that say GM decides if the vulnerable spot is accessible.

Ah. My bad.

8 dice are still a bit of a problem in situations like those Cain has brought up, though. Question for Cain, though. Since you have actually played this build, have any insane situations like this actually come up? Or are these only hypothetical worst-case scenarios?

If you actually had bothered to read my post, I did give him ALL the enhancements that the heavy weapons specialist had. Mr. Lucky was still at a -23 to hit. Please show me where you can stack contacts/glasses? As far as I'm concerned, if you have thermo on your contacts, and are wearing glasses, your thermo shows you glasses which are slightly above room temp in front of you, and thats it. Heat doesn't pass through glass nearly well enough for it to be considered transparent.

Now, to your example:
No problem.

It doesn't say only for attacks against the vehicle, just in vehicle combat. Which is what this is. Since your AVS has a might 8P vs the citymaster's 20 armor. You do nothing. The end.

Highlighted the appropriate word for you. Since he bypassed its armor, the modifed armor rating is zero. You lose. The end.

Worst I came up with was a -18, when he had to take out a heavily-armored troll. Bypassing his armor (and there was described a slot under the chinstrap) really racked up the penalties. So yes, high-penalty rolls can and do come up.

The vehicles armor is still 20. You aren't attacking the vehicle. You are attacking the character, who gets to add the vehicles armor to his armor for the test. Characters armor is 12 + 20 (for vehicle) and reduced to 0 by called shot. Vehicle armor still remains 20, and still nullifies your shot. You aren't attacking the vehicle, and thusly your called shot doesn't affect the vehicle, only the passenger to which you are attacking.

Now, you could simply attack the vehicle instead, doing a called shot to bypass the 20 armor. In which case, the attack would be effective. And the citymaster would get its 16 body to resist your 8P flechete attack.

Oh! I see! The modified armor rating is zero.

It doesn't say the total armor rating, it says the *modified* armor rating. No amount of doublespeak will change that.

we know we can houserule it, man. the fact that it's broken enough that it needs to be houseruled is Cain's point. but houserules are never simple, since they require each and every GM to decide for themselves whether or not to use it.

Corrected.

It's called a quote because one does not change the content.

What misquote? Canon is never wrong.

Whatever.

True - it tells you to change every rule you don't like. So every rule is canon.

Thank you.

I was in a hospital with a fever that could cook an egg. But never fear, Canon is here to save the day!

Glad to see you will be better.

How are characters that are able to reduce penalties and still be effective broken?

Longshot tests aren't better than a specialist at their specialty, which I showed with Cain's motorboat & HMG example.

Which you showed by whinging and changing the example until it showed what you wanted. Not with logic and common sense and basic intelligence. (What is the opposite of basic intelligence, anyway?). Trying to wriggle around the definition of "modified" is also telling.

The point here being, I could come up with examples from here til next year, and the conclusion would be the same. Longshot tests are broken, and Edge can outshine a specialist a little too often. And that's not even counting sime of the other uses for Edge, such as the fact it resolves Initaitve ties, allowing Mr. Lucky to be just a little bit faster. Or the fact that Mr. Lucky could survive 9 successive direct hits by THOR shots. And we won't get into the low-edge paradox, where they can get critical successes for cheap.

Think about why Bloodzilla flying through space is broken.

that's not quite what Rotbart said. he said it's broken when characters have enough dice to still be effective even if all the penalties are applied.

Acidic intelligence, of course.