I understand completely, but there was a disparity between the elemental manipulations, regular combat spells, and the elemental combat spells. Regular combat spells were all like "We're casting a spell to hurt you!" and then elemental combat spells were all like "We're casting a spell to hurt you...with fire!" It was totally a dick move. And elemental manipulations were getting so gipped.

Each had their uses. Elemental Combat spells were a nice direct (if higher drain) spell for combat mages. Elemental manipulations though could do things combat spells couldn't... like ignore cover when you whip out the area effect. And if your ability to aim was good, you could get more successes / hits with a manipulation.

The thing is... spreading out the flaming love seems more a 'combat' thing than a 'manipulation' thing. Sure, I can see 'transmute air to fire', but fireball seems so much more a 'combat' effect than anything else.

I'm seriously considering house-ruling that you can tack on elemental effects to combat spells again.

Pardon me for this observation, but a limited collectors edition is pretty poor place for a major rules change and is going to cause no end of aggro when the issue comes up in actual play. Changing XP costs to something not in the physical books is a good way to have a fight. Also that's 6 game sessions of XP to raise magic from 5 to 6 (i.e. quite possibly the total duration a biweekly game), that's a very good way to get a bunch of front loaded characters.

so far only read Best Served Cold. I hate the arrogant superior pro and stupid rookie stories with a passion, which gave it a bad start. And then a fairly bad revenge story followed.

It might be bad timing but it is overdue. Attributes add to multiple skills and skill groups, having them cheaper to raise than a skill group was poorly balanced design.

Um can you fill me in on the change? Did they get rid of lightning bolt and the like with the new printing?

I believe those changes were going to be released (and will be) as errata anyway. CGL just happened to be working on a Core Book reprint and so it seemed like a good place to put the changes. Incidentally, IMO, the thing that makes this book worth the money is the reorganization of the Wireless World chapter. I'm sure the rules will be much easier for everyone to follow now.

No, this was way back in 1E and 2E. In those editions, you could add an elemental side effect to Combat Spells. In 3rd and 4th Edition, you can't. :\ Sadness.

This is not just a limited collectors edition. There is the full, regular printing -- the $45 book -- and the limited edition version of that, for $65. Both books will be available at the same time [and the PDF is available now.] The regular printing is staying in print.

The two-color [green] book that's been through six printings is being retired.

Put it in a happy place, it has served us well.

Shadowrun has a history of integrating errata in subsequent print runs, so really not that big a deal. At most it's a revised edition, but the changes aren't nearly as sweeping as revised editions tend to be (imho).

back then you also had the mental loop de loop known as grounding. and combat spell behavior changed big time based on it being elemental based or not...

Just wondering, on page 22, is the name in the middle of the page on the left supposed to be JackHammer, or FastJack?

it may have been a mental loop-de-loop, but it was a cool one. It added a lot of flavor to the magic system, and put an extra if somewhat abusable limiter on focuses.

Can anyone give me a list of what was changed, & how? I cannot afford it just yet, & do not want to wait for Catalyst to release the errata, as there is no way to tell how long that will take.

I am particularly interested in the changes to Combat spells & adept powers - I really want to see how many of my house rules (that I officially began using last week) are going to be official.

Also, although I doubt it was changed, is the increased Karma cost for attributes calculated before or after applying racial modifiers? We are using New Rating x 5, before modifiers.

assasination: slip rating one focus into target, push a high level spell into said focus from astral space...

alternative version, make spirit materialize, then cast spell on said spirit...

these days i would use a ritual castng and a material link or spirit observer for same basic effect...

I honestly do not know the answer to that. I'd be happy to do it, if the SR4 people said it was okay. I do not like reproducing parts of a rulebook online without permission.

Understandable to ask for permission first, but I can all but guarantee it will be fine. The changes are official, & are errata, which will be released 'as soon as they have time'.

I do not see what the problem would be.

Some helpful person could start a separate thread of changes, if they wanted... I wouldn't cut and paste from the book, but a p. #, section, (old rule/text) new rule/text, would probably be the way to go...

What excatly do you call spells like Napalm,Lightningbolt and Fireball if their not Combat Spells.

I call them useless, overpriced special effects for the trid show Nothing is more efficient, mechanic wise, then a stunbolt/stunball. Which always annoyed me to no end... here's hoping the revised rules nerfed stun spells and balanced combat spells

they did... in a way. direct combat spells have a different implementation of drain now.

Wait..
*reads*
Well, there we go. Ignore my complaint, you guys brought elemental combat spells back. I'm happy.

Interesting way to do it... so direct spells don't have an elemental component, but indirect can. Very interesting.

Care to explain what, exactly, you are all talking about?

I have noticed that stun spells tend to be very brutal. Or, as one of my players calls it, 'MIND CRUSH'. Hmm, interesting how the drain works now.

the "problem" is stun in general, as the stun track is more often then not shorter then the physical track these days...

Showing that this is the fault of the players underestimating willpower as an important defensive attribute. the consequenses are a more often than not above-average body attribute resulting in an increased physical damage track. most of the archetypes don't show this attitude.

another question.

p. 338 says: "Commlink: An implanted version of the commlink (p. 327), popular with hackers
and salarymen on the go. A Sim Module (modified for hot sim or not) may be implanted
at additional cost."

At what additional cost? of an regular sim-module? implanted sim-module? what about essence cost?

Oh and the entry for "image link" on p. 341 is fubar.

I realy like the way the Creating A Shadowrunner chapter has been streamlined.

It's now a logical way to build up your shadowrunner (Metatype -> Qualities -> Attributes -> Skills -> Resources) instead of the old way (Metatype -> Attributes -> Skills -> Qualities -> Resources).

Lars

That's not that far from the truth, probably.

I haven't seen any comments on the new art. Any vehicles or additional gear/weapons depicted? I've only seen one response to the new fiction, anyone else have an opinion?

QuarkXPress 4 EVAH! Adobe image creation and manipulation software is good but they've got a way to go when it comes to high-end page layout software.

Love the new art. That's the visual overhaul SR has needed. No new vehicle or gun art (save for new example guns that, while finally coherent and well done, will leave people divided for looking very different from previous renditions) though.

I like where SR seems to be going artistically, though. I really hope this is what we can expect from all future books now, including full-colour interiors. Hell, if it works for smaller systems like CthulhuTech, it should work for SR, too.


Hell yeah.

Actually, there are less gear-related pictures overall and every old picture was removed. (Maybe due to licensing uncertainties.)

The weapons got it bad especially - the new pictures are mostly gray, blocky and mostly neither match the description (Ruger Warhawk portrayed as a heavy automatic gun) nor the original (Ares Alpha has no underbarrel grenade launcher and isn't bullpup).

Does this mean I should buy that LE and use it vs keeping a copy of the eratta next to my fanpro issued LE?

Considering a couple of old pictures WERE used, I'd think that was more of an artistic decision.


It has in my book, it just looks weird. Also, sorry, but the firearms I know don't tend to come in shiny colours. Agree on the Warhawk though, and the AACG failing to look bullpuppy. Well, still beats the old stuff, like the Roomsweeper pic in Arsenal 2060e. I do see room for improvement there, of course. Mike V. could easily have asked Raben-Aas.

Anyone got a link for Aas' site? I'll link it in the CthulhuTech boards; I know Mike V. is active there. Same with Biometal.

This is compledly ridiculus when you ably it to karmagen.
My sasha whent from 249 karma in atributes to 415 and my face character from 296 to 495
This is really gonna encourage using dumphstats.

meaning they leave themselves open to being slapped around...

LIke I said, if these 'updates/upgrades' from the 20th Anniversary edition become available separately, I might download it, providing that it's less than, say, $10.

It's not that I don't like what it is, I just cannot afford it at this time.

Two or three more dice to resist or checkboxes are not that much of a difference; the real killer is lack of willpower armor equivalent. Combine it with the fact that stun has low drain and is often more useful (you can always shot them when they are unconcious, but its harder to revive them once you've killed them ) and this is why stun was (is...?) so broken. A mage can keep throwing stunspells and taking down opponents like a panther assault cannon on steroids, or can do it maybe once with an elemental spell and bleed his brain through his ears... I'd have to check my notes, but 10 point effective stun damage (effective means hitting the stun boxes) is equal about 3 points of effective body damage in a fireball, and that's not counting the fact that elemental spells give the target a chance to dodge it... did I mention combat spells were very unbalanced?

Back on topic: as our proofreading notes are being applied to the print edition, can we also expect that a new, erratad version of the pdf will be released in the future (and made free to those who are buying the pdf now)?

Yes. But it won't be ASAP; the few changes that have been made are very minor or cosmetic at this point -- mostly the sort of stuff that we don't even note in errata documents.

And please make sure that if you see something, it gets posted this this thread: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=25706

I almost crapped in my pants after viewing this edition on the main website. I am actually looking forward to the Runner's Toolkit even more.

Any other places one can order or receive the Limited Edition other then through Battlecorp?

Will regular game stores be able to order one?

Yes, regular game stores can order the limited edition.

The changes are official errata, & will be released as such at an undetermined (but supposedly soonish) date.

Or rather the point is: It brings down karmagen to the level of BP gen... or lower.

I'd like to see, in some book, a side-by-side comparison of male and female for each metatype, with a 'height chart' to compare them to a human being, just so people have a clear reference. One of the things I really liked in the old critters books was the same thing done for animals, so we had an idea of just how big each animal was. Saying something is 'three metres tall' only goes so far... when you show the size comparison, people go 'oh my god!' though, which works a lot better.

Thanks Adam. I guess you can suspect the second question coming up very soon. How soon? Would they be able to place a hold or an order on one? I have my gaming store in speed dial as we speak.

We don't have a street date yet. Game stores found out about this book at the same time as we announced it to the public, so some of them may not yet be aware of it.

Stock numbers are: 2600A (Standard Edition, $44.99), 2600ALE (Limited Edition, $64.99)

Back in my day...

We had a picture of a human next to the critters for comparison. But we also had wonderful open layouts that pleased the eyes, two pages per critter and plenty of shadowtalk.

Now, get off my lawn.

BlueMax
who could literally use a cane right now.

Calling the rules changes "tweaks" or "errata" seems to stretch the definition of the terms.
In at least two cases, given the duration of the game, and the magnitiude of the change, it just does not fit.
1) Moving attribute karma cost from 3*rating to 5*rating is a big deal. It means that karmagen goes from an interesting alternative which was a bit overpowered to a lower power alternative. There are many starting builds under BP that literally can not be created under the 375 Karma for all attributes rule of Karmagen.
2) Increasing the drain for direct damage combat spells is a major shift in balance. Some folks will like it. Some will hate it. But calling it errata or a tweak is rather misleading.

These two are sufficiently major that I keep hoping it is an elaborate joke.
Yes, many people complained that mages were over-powered. I could imagine the combat spell rule as an optional rule, for GMs who felt that way. But as an errata to the base book?

Yours,
Joel

Heh. Try that now and the cries of "rip-off!" would be deafening.