Hello everyone, new member and first post here. Its been a very long while since i have played SR and with the release of SR 4 my normal saturday night D&D group has decided to take SR as a back up game if we dont have a full group that night. I will be one of two people alternating for the GM spot and i just want to clarify a few things before i offically take up the post of GM.

Combat: more specicially ranged combat between my hacker (aka. Syntax) and a rival ganger.

{Initiative}

Syntax and the ganger are out one night on the fairly empty streets of downtown Charlotte NC when they both happen to catch a glance of each other. There is a mutual understanding between both of them that they are not friends to the point of deep seeded hatred. They both roll initiative at this point [Syntax rolls 10d6 and gets 6 hits giving him a total of 16] and [ganger rolls 9d6 and gets 3 hits giving him a total of 13]. For simplicity neither rolls rolled any natural 1's.

{Declaration: Initiative 16; pass 1}

Syntax goes first declaring he is going to attempt to Quickdraw his Ares Viper Silvergun and fire for his first simple action and fire again for his second simple action. If the ganger stands his ground to fight, Syntax declares he is going to use a free action to run 25m into an alley. The ganger declares he is not defending since he has wired reflexes(2) giving him 3 Initiative passes and thinks he can just outgun the Hacker.

For the initial Quickdraw: [Syntax rolls Pistols(1) + Reaction(5) for a total pool of 6d6 getting three hits and one natural 1. Overall 3 hits making the quickdraw a success.] With the successful quickdraw Syntax's first shot resolves: [Syntax rolls Agility(3) + Pistols(1) + Smartlink(2) for a total pool of 6d6 getting two hits and two natural 1's. Overall 2 hits]. The ganger defends: [The ganger had time to activate his wired reflexes before the fight so he has Reaction(6) giving him a total pool of 6d6 to defend. His rolls turns out three hits and no natural 1's] The first shot resolved misses the ganger.

For the second shot the Syntax knows he needs to do something here so he uses one die of Edge to modify this second shot [Syntax rolls Pistols(1) + Agility(3) + Smartlink(2) + Edge(1) giving him a total pool of 7d6 and allowing all natural 6's to be rerolled. This result turns out a total of seven hits!] [The ganger defends against the second shot with Reaction(6) giving him only three hits]. The second shot hits the ganger to his wired reflexed surprise.

{Resolving the gunshot}

The net hits of the second shot were +4 and the DV of the Ares Viper Silvergun is 8P for a total of 12P potential damage. The ganger is only wearing a leather jacket giving him balistics armor of 2 with the AP +2 from the flachette rounds of the Viper Silvergun his total armor is +4. The ganger has a Body(3) + Armor(4) resist pool and totals only two hits!. This means 10 boxes of physical damage are applied to his condition monitor giving him a net -4 modifier to all dice pools and putting him VERY close to death.

{Declaration: Initiative 13; pass 1}

The ganger taking a wicked surprising hit decides he is going to use all of his actions to run away and out of line of sight.

Does this sound about right? Did i miss anything? I will have more questions and scenario's in the near future especially regarding hacking.

~LordA~

Well, I'm guessing this ganger has five or more body, because otherwise he actually would be down. Otherwise, flechette rounds do have an errata regarding their AP rating, but I've often seen the house rule here that they have capped the bonus to armor that it gives at the armor rating, rather than allowing for the full +5. If Syntax doesn't have more than one initiative pass, and with Wired 2, this ganger would probably be well off assuming that he has more initiative passes than whatever sucker is shooting at him, he would probably be better suited taking a full defense against the shot. He's going to get two more turns before Syntax gets another one, after all. It doesn't slow him down much to take the extra effort to dodge Syntax's shot, and then he gets to pin Syntax down, because, if he goes on Full Defense, it would take up his next chance to shoot back at the ganger, meaning that he won't be shooting back, and next round, the ganger gets to shoot at him with three passes, likely getting him to give up his next action again, or seek cover or run away.

The ganger has Body(3), but the Ares Silvergun has Damage 8P(f) for flachette rounds. The (f) in the key says the flachette rounds have already been added to the entry giving the weapon AP +2...a fair trade off for 8P damage.

So in the example Body(3) + Leather Jacket(2) + AP(2) = 7 dice pool

I didn't even think about the ganger taking full defense as his first action, that would have made sense more. If he had declared Full Defense he would have to take that complex action towards both attacks Syntax fired in the first pass? I didn't go that far but Syntax has 2 IP's in the real world so if the ganger had declared Full Defense could he do a Full Defense in the 2nd IP as well? And then filled Syntax full of holes in the 3rd IP?

Can you declare your Free Action movement after your simple action attacks to avoid the movement penalties?

~LordA~

Unless Syntax has an Edge attribute of 1, you're doing Edge wrong.

Unless the ganger has some form of penalty reduction, he should have only rolled five dice against the second shot.

Unless Syntax has some sort of recoil compensation, he should have been a die down on the second shot.

That's just off the top of my head; I'm too tired to be really helpful right now. Have you met the Cheat Sheets, though?

Syntax has an Edge(3), but i thought when you use edge you pick the number of points you want to use temporarily depleting them until they refresh at the GM's choice.
***EDIT***
Just read by spending 1 point of edge the runner can add upto his total edge score to his dice pool.

Not sure why the ganger would have rolled 5 dice with Body(3) + Leather Jacket(2Impact) + Armor Penetration(2) from the flachette rounds, unless the AP(2) is automatic success?
***EDIT***
I just remembered that the ganger would have a -1 cumulative penalty for defending against multiple attacks in one pass. So the ganger would have been defending with Reaction(6) -1 for a total of a 5 dice pool.

I forgot to mention the Ares Silvergun has the Electronic firing, removed trigger and smartlink from the arsenal book giving it recoil(1).

~LordA~

If the ganger has 3 body, he only has ten physical damage boxes, so Syntax's shot took him out. The +2 AP for the Slivergun is also an error, I believe, and should be changed to the +5 for flechette rounds in general, but, as I said before, it seems to be a common house rule to only allow a maximum bonus equal to the original rating of the target's armor.

As to full defense, he would get the dodge+reaction/gymnastics+reaction to both attacks, during Syntax's first round, but against the second shot, he would suffer a -1 penalty, which is applied for each attack defended against previous to the current one (So, if he had five guys shooting at him, for example, twice each, his final defense roll would be at a -9 modifier). I can't remember, then, for certain, but I believe that his full defense lasts until his action comes up in IP 2, so that he doesn't need to use a second full defense action against Syntax. Then the ganger may proceed to use his two remaining actions to put holes in Syntax.

Moving actually isn't a free action. It's not an action at all. Running, though, uses your free action, and you use your running rate, instead of your walking rate, or you can spend a simple action to make a Running test, to add 2 to your running rate per hit. I think that, either, you start your movement first, so that you take your penalty on that action, or you start your movement afterwards, and then you take the penalty on your next action. I'm not sure on that one, though.

* Ok i misread the damage overflow. I was mistaken in thinking characters could continue to act while within their overflow limit.

* Rereading full defense it says characters may spend a Complex Action to go Full Defense until their next action phase. Since Syntax went first a complex action to go Full Defense by the ganger would use all his actions in IP1 but last until his action phase in IP1. Allowing the Full Defense to last until his turn in IP2 would be very powerful essentially allowing him to get Full Defense for free. Now as i read it in IP2 the ganger could continue his Full Defense banking on Syntax not having additional IP's.

* Rereading the section on movement you are right. He could declare to move at the end of his two simple actions and take the -2 penalty for "running" on his next action. Does this mean however if he just walked(10) instead of running(25+) he would not take a penalty to shooting the next IP?

~LordA~

These cheat sheets help a ton:

http://pavao.org/shadowrun/cheatsheets/

Check out the one on ranged combat.

Even if you'd done one less damage so they were still conscious the ganger would be knocked down. Anytime you take body or more boxes of damage you take a trip to the floor (p 151)

It takes the ganger a simple action to get back up again BUT, and this is probably one of the top 10 most forgotten SR rules, you don't get to automatically stand up when injured. (p 137) you have to make a test that factors in wound modifiers. The result of which is that a bad shot will leave many wageslaves and goons freaking out on the ground. Not having enough dice pool without edge to get up. Which, actually, seems to be how things go in reality sometimes.

On movement. Just to be clear you don't warp the distance your character can travel per turn. Instead they travel it gradually per each IP.

For example if you're moviing 30 meters in a turn, and there are 3 passes, in each pass your char will move 10 meters.

Even if you'd done one less damage so they were still conscious the ganger would be knocked down. Anytime you take body or more boxes of damage you take a trip to the floor (p 151)

It takes the ganger a simple action to get back up again BUT, and this is probably one of the top 10 most forgotten SR rules, you don't get to automatically stand up when injured. (p 137) you have to make a test that factors in wound modifiers. The result of which is that a bad shot will leave many wageslaves and goons freaking out on the ground. Not having enough dice pool without edge to get up. And many runners will occasionally biff the roll. Which, actually, seems to be how things go in reality sometimes, some people just lay gasping for breath even though they're conscious and really most people miss a beat when they get riddled by bullets.

On movement. Just to be clear you don't warp the distance your character can travel per turn. Instead they travel it gradually per each IP.

For example if you're moviing 30 meters in a turn, and there are 3 passes, in each pass your char will move 10 meters.

Thank you a ton for everyone that chimed in to offer advice. I have the cheat sheets and am making a GM screen out of them. Does anyone have a transcript either written or audio or video of a game that i could use as reference? I would love to see how this is done by others to get a feel of just how long it takes to resolve...how other players do it.

~LordA~

I'd check the "Welcome to the shadows" forum for some threads.

Ares Viper SLIVER gun is actually 8P(f) +5AP so the ganger gets 10 dice to defend for avarage of 3 hits, taking 9 points of damage.

* haha, i just realized i spelled it wrong in every post. Duh you are right Slivergun not Silvergun. Now i am curious i found the information on Flachette Ammo but the entry in the book says the gun has an AP+2. Please tell me they didn't add the damage of the ammo to the stats but not the AP! Now if that is the case do we make the base AP for the Slivergun +5 or add the +5 to the already +2 to get a total AP of +7?

I am assuming the AP +2 is a misprint?

~LordA~

They pretend like it was a misprint but really they just decided to change it. Check out errata at
http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/sr4/sr4_errata_v15.pdf

So with the weapons stated for fletchet just add 3 to AP. Though note that it's resisted with impact armor not ballistic.

The errata changed the AP of Flechette Rounds to +5 vs. Impact Armor. Something that has not been mentioned (which may be an unnecessary complication if your group likes to keep it simple) is the various dicepool modifiers. The cheat sheets include a number of them, but 95% of ranged combats include some penalties based on range, lighting, and other environmental effects. In short, unless you are standing in the middle of a deserted street, 5 meters from your target, at high noon, you will have some minuses. However, for the most part, you are spot on. Oh yeah, and in the SR universe, the giant statues on the corners of Trade and Tryon are permanent vessels of 4 Force 8 Spirit of Man possession spirits...well, at least that's one locals take on it

One other thing. Remember the whole armor reducing physical damage to stun if it doesn't get over the armor value thing.

Actually for that reason with new players I suggest using some enemies with something like flechette firing machine pistols with some good recoil comp thrown on.

Such weapons would be realistically used in cases where they want nice full auto capability that's more concealable than SMGs, or someplace where they don't want the guards shooting through the walls (corp building).

Full auto doesn't change whether something goes through armor so likely what they'll get hit with is a big pile of stun damage. Knocking them to the ground, possibly unconscious, but not killing them outright.

Stats i posted are from fifth printing of BBB(or so i have been told, as i don't actually own a fifth printing book)