I just bought all but the main book in the last couple months. Now I am wondering why if they were planning on putting out so many changes. Money is tight these days I just spent a 150 plus dollars on books that are obsolete.

Please don't mention errata, these changes are bigger then errata.

Very disapointed. I was just getting back into SR4 after having stuck with SR3 now I feel burned.

Never trust a Dragon.

Coyote -- there are still copies of the regular "green" printings of SR4 available, both in print or PDF. If you don't want to use SR4A, just grab a copy of that. SR4 and your previous books are not obsolete.

That's one way to look at it, but I always thought skills and skill groups were too expensive (they still are even after the attribute cost increase). Better solution would have been to decrease the cost of skills. I do not comprehend why people insist to limit fun in games. And yes, slower progression can no way be seen as fun. "I cannot improve my character for another month of gameplay, what great fun I'm having." Yeah... no.

Unless you want to play missions or conventions, that is!

You should have seen that one coming.

Characters made with karmagen have the atributes karmacost uped by 100-200+.

SR4A does not invalidate the rest of the SR4 core rulebooks.

Sure it doesn't, but characters made with SR4A are different from SR4 characters in subtle ways first, less subtle after a few sessions and a few attribute increases. Having both at the same table will screw the pooch.

As I've said before: the adoption of SR4A should be a _group_ decision, with modifications to characters made as necessary to keep the game fun and compelling for everyone. Shadowrun is a cooperative game, not a competitive one.

The Missions coordinators are working on the official Missions rulings for SR4/SR4A play.

thats why I'm dancing for more Karma I think this might solve some Issues (at least the Issues
concerning the Relation of Attributes to Skills/Skillgroups)

with another Dance for more Karma
Medicineman

I have seen lots of changes mentioned that seem to counter that. But I hope you are right. Buying one new book is ok. Having to use obsolete book because of all the changes or buy new ones priceless.

More Karma is a silly solution to the problem created by an equally silly solution.

Care to explain why more Karma is a silly Solution ?

with a silly Dance for more Karma
Medicineman

Unfortunately it's one I'll more than likely adopt myself, as a GM. It's nonsensical just how retarded the new karma costs for attributes are, especially when you factor metahumans into the mix. I like for my players to have FUN, believe it or not. In four years of playing SR4, most of it as a GM, I have NEVER seen a problem with the rate of advancement for attributes, and that's even with giving out 5-6 karma per adventure, with 10 karma not being unheard of for a prolonged, dangerous adventure.

Or I'll just adopt Muspellheimr's system attribute improvement system. At least he's offering a real alternative, and one that won't require rampant karma inflation.

I still love SR4 but I'm spitting venom all over these changes.

Tell that to the people rejoicing about the direct combat spell drain increase, laughing in the face of their groups mage. In a cooperative game they would be happy if the mage ended a lot fights with a single spell so they don't get a chance to get shot in the face.
But in a cooperative game the mage would not be a jackass and overcast stunball/-bolt on anything that moves, just because it can be easily abused. Just not the world we live in, I guess.

The changes may be extensive, and I may disagree with many of them, but they will still show up in the errata. You won't need to buy any new books just to keep up with the changes. And if you don't want to wait for the errata, there is also a thread that details all of the rules changes.

The only thing really messed up by this is the karma generation system in Runner's Companion, and they are going to update that with the errata to Runner's Companion. Hopefully soon.

Still the wrong solution, though. It's like the game had a gun that did, say, 12P damage. And instead of fixing the damage code, they said "Well, this gun can only hold two bullets!" Mages can still overcast (in fact, overcasting is a better tactical option under the new rules), they just can't do it as often. And frankly, that sucks. I hated in AD&D, how you had to hoard your spells at low level, because once you shot your magic missile, or whatever, you were done for the day. To me, the game works better when the mage has a basic, re-usable spell that is effective and low-Drain. They have taken that workhorse spell and gimped it. This also favors NPCs, who generally only have to make it through one single fight, and can retreat once they have taken high Drain. Direct combat spells themselves are not overpowered (in SR3 they were far more lethal), overcasting is (or can be, in certain circumstances), so that is what they should have tweaked.

I don't know if this is bothering anyone else, but I just bought all the SR4 books, I waited for a couple of printings to switch from SR3 so they could work out some kinks. and now bam! everything is changed again! I want to be buying books like corporate enclaves, not re-buying the BBB every couple of months!

See my signature.

My point exactly. The abuse is still there, but law abiding citizens... players get the stick right in the face.

Don't worry, the changes will all be available as an errata. If you don't mind printing some extra pages and cross referencing stuff from time to time, you will be fine with what you have. This is not a "We hate change because we don't want to spend money" disaster, we just rant about what was changed, and how.

While I like the flavor of the change, I will give you it was nice having a stand by spell you could use every action. But hey, nothing stops me form picking up the automatics skill.

So what do you do with Eratta? print it out, go through your book and make all the changes with white out and a pen? Keep the print outs of erratta and consult them every time you look something up? Memorize them?

Pretty much, yes. No game is free of error, never was, never will be. The other option is to just ignore the errors and use the books as printed. If you ever show up with your char at a convetion, you might get a nasty surprise, but otherwise you should be fine.

Grabs headdress and moccasins and joins circle.


I don't have a strong opinion on the issue of the Attribute cost but I'll say this. If the approach had been taken to reduce the cost of skills instead of raise the cost of attributes (and I think we're mostly in agreement here that something needed to be done regardless of stance on the actual solution), then we would have had to consider whether Skills were over-priced in relation to everything else. If they were they can just come down. But they're probably not - it's only in relation to Attributes that they are. So you'd really need to reduce costs across the board. And if you then wanted to keep the same progress level (and it would be a design decision to change it), then you'd also need to reduce the recommended karma per session. And with numbers as small as they already are, there's not much space to lower them further. But so long as the costs are in the right proportion to each other then you can solve the problem (if it is a problem to you) by simply upping the karma awards. Perhaps by adding a "dance" option for PC's alongside the good role-playing and survival categories et al.

Or you can keep the existing karma levels and see a reduction in advancement of Attributes. That may be a good thing for some of us because while some like a faster pace of advancement in their games (and can achieve this by upping the karma awards), others may run long campaigns and not wish to look over their screen at three samurai all with maxed out Agility, Body and Reaction after four months of gaming. Each their own, but if you can set the default to one thing with an easy fix for those who want it differently, or you can set the default to a different thing and face a horrible mess of fiddles to make it workable for those who preferred the former, then it's easy to see which approach produces the greatest happiness. Which is why even though I actually like a slow pace of development, I'm currently dancing round a fire with some strange amerindian that I've never met before in my life.

K.

I think it would have been a shame if we had let the 20th Anniversary pass without a substantial upgrade to Shadowrun, just like we have pushed in previous years to upgrade the Classic BattleTech line to the new full-color design and presentation.

We are not extensively revising the other SR4 core rulebooks -- otherwise there would not be an index in SR4A that points to those books, as the index would be out of date as soon as we published the new books.

I admire the wish to fix the problems, Adam, but some of the patches fix the wrong problems or are half-assed and merely create more problems (the increased drain on direct damage spells, for example).

Other changes don't seem to make sense at all (can only upgrade the attributes of an electronic device by +2? Excuse me, but my desktop has seen more upgrading than that: I've replaced all of the internal components--some individually, some en masse--and I could upgrade it again if I wanted. Maybe if any ONE attribute could only be improved by +2 until every other part was also upgraded by at least 1 point so that no one system is outstripping the rest in power).

Still others seem to be solutions in search of a problem (object resistance thresholds).

I'm afraid I do have to make a criticism of the Anniversary Edition. The artwork and the layout are beautiful and you have to do a bigger preview showing people more of the art in this thing, but I don't like seeing advertisments in the book. I understand the use of references to the other core books, but the covershot and the "Contains 60+ New Cyberware Implants..." feels kind of salesmany. I'm sorry to say it because everything else is so nice in it, but the ads jarr me.

Fully agree. I doubt I will buy a print version if the adds remain - they have no place in the actual book. If you must have them, place them in their own section at the back of the book, after the map of North America.

I'm hugely grateful of the spirit that these updates have been made in. Catalyst did a good job, and I feel well treated, even though I *just* bought the print BBB (grumble, grumble).

I'm not sure I like the new direct combat spell drain rule, though I can see why it is there. Maybe +0.5 per net hit would work better. As it is, I think people would overcast even more than usual. I hope that the spellcaster is allowed to select the net hits scored, instead of hits before the defender's rolls. If not, these spells get a bit too unpredictable for my tastes.

I don't really have an opinion on the new karma costs. We've never used karma; characters advance with BPs (we like it linear), so I don't have a feel for the costs. I *do* think that there should be enough flexibility between every GM and his/her players to make a smooth transition to the new rules so that nobody feels cheated. If not, it's not a rule-problem. This means that GMs have to make more judgment calls, but if you couldn't change the rules in fear of the upgrading process, we'd all still be playing SR1. And, like it has been said, everybody is welcome to play the edition/errata version they like.

The sound of OR 6 scares me a bit... I'll have to see how it plays out. Maybe we'll end up shifting the ratings, like someone suggested, having trees at OR 0.

I like the +2 upgrade limit rule, purely for the balance.

The more I think about it, the more I see that we need to play with the new rules and feel them out.
It's a change, sure... but change is not always bad, ppl.

Thank you, Catalyst.

After the dust settles, I'm sure there will be a lot more happy voices.
Hang in there

I guess I don't understand why the business/engineering trend towards crowdsourcing is not applicable here. You have at your disposal literally thousands of people who are obsessively focussed on finding errors in your documents. For free! Why can you not put out a PDF and -wait- for the errors to be found by this rabid crowd? A month or two of the kind of attention SR4A is receiving and you should have a document that is nearly perfect. Then you wouldn't have to continually come out with errata x.y documents to fix the things -after- the paper version is out. My SR4 is jam-packed with scribbled notes fixing things from the various errata that have come out.

What is the hurry? Yes, this is the 20th anniverary, but it's only March.

PS. It's a beautiful book. Changes were needed. Pulling things together in one index/book is helpful. Some of the changes make me scratch my head, but I can live with them in any number of accommodating ways, as I have through all four editions. Thanks for the good work. If a hardcopy comes out in a while with fixes of things showing up here daily, I will leap to buy it. I think there are a few people around my home, new to the game, who will appreciate the new format and may be enticed into the game.

I have some interesting numbers stemming from the recent call for playtesters, but for now, let's just say that only 20% of the applicants to playtest actually turned in the "sample playtest" that we asked them to do.

We crowdsource more than we ever have before, and will continue to do more, but it is *not* a magic bullet for fixing all ills ["Open Source is not magic pixie dust" -- Jamie Zawinski] and some of the hotly debated topics about SR4A cannot be "fixed" by crowdsourcing because they are not binary issues, but issues of opinion.


We have several other big anniversary projects to finish, too. We recognize that one of the weaknesses of the Shadowrun schedule over the years has been too many books being released during the summer months and not enough spread out. That trend wasn't healthy for the business or for the gamers.

I don't understand, opinion is binary. Mine, or wrong.

I think that the idea of betatesting before sending to print is a good one, and that it should be applyed to this new BBB if possible;


@ AH
I will say that my biggest complains are about the direct combat spells and the elettronics.

The problem with the direct combat spells comes from few factors:
They are opposed only by willpower
Overcasting
The drain can easily firts aided away
My understanding is that the change of the way the drain of direct combat spells is due mages destroying the opposition by oversasting with little to none ill effects, this can be solved it various ways, the first would be reworking the way that direct combat spells work (by the way if you care, and have time, I've got some ideas about how to rework the magic system, it's a bit too much stuff to post it on this forum but if you give me an e-mail address I can put it on a file .doc and send it to you), another modifying the way that overcasting's drain is determined, the tird would be changing the way that first aid can be used on drain; for changing the way that overcasting drain is determined I can suggest making the point of force of a spell that excides the caster's magic attribute count twice for the porpouse of determing the drain (casting a force 10 stunbolt with a magic attribute of 5 would impose a resistance test against a DV of 7P), this increase in the DV should make the prospect of overcasting much less appealing. The issue related with first aid could be resolved by ruling that drain is inerently different from wounds that the skill was developed to cope with and so is less effective when applyed to it, this could be represented by imposing a penality (kind like the subject is awakened/emerged), or maybe making each point of drain count twice when using first aid, or the extrema ratio could be implemented making drain not healable by first aid just like it isn't healable by the heal spell. This changes should suffice to tone down overcasting without having the mages killing themselves by being too good.

My complain about elettronics is that the +2 cap on upgrades creates more problems than it solves (and that considering the 6/6 custom meatlinks a problem, which is debatable), especialy when drones are concerned; but my general complain is about the lack of deph in the upgrade/modding system involing the elettronics, awekened characters get to play with a wide arrey of metamagics, custom spells, foci, unique enchantments, gunbunnies get to play around modding their weapons into something unique, riggers can twick vehicles and drones (the body not the node) at their leisure, hacker can ..... swap the response chip and signal antenna for better chip and antenna, how exciting ...... sure there's the whole software aspect for them to handle but some more in deph wouldn't have hurted, if you like it you can delve as deep as you want (and the system allowes), if you don't like it nobody forces you to delve into it, just go with off the rack or minimaly twicked gear. I might suggest to introduce the concept of motherboard, that thing that connected the various part of the node and allowes them to work together, the motherboard containes the memory, and offers a number of slots for chips, modules, ports, antennaes, etc., determining the maximum rating at wich the various pieces can work as well; this would allow the GM to say no about putting a response 6 chip on a Meta Link, the Meta Link's motherboard simply can't support the chip, while allowing the upgrade of a drone's node.

One thing that I don't have anything to complain about is the increased cost of attributes, they were dirty cheap and even now increasing an attribute (depending on which attribute) can still give a greater bang for your karma than investing into a skillgroup.

P.S. I dare you to say that I'm just a naysayer ...... (well maybe I am, nay nay nay nay nay nay nay nay nay ...... ehmm )

Maybe, but remember the only opinion that can't be disproved is the mine.

But your wrong, so I can disprove it. Right?

I once had an argument about Philosophy with someone who had a degree in the subject. At one point I retorted that everything is subjective and that I was therefore right. He conceded the point unable to prove that there was such a thing as objectivity.

I thought that was pretty poor from someone who was supposedly good at Philosophy. There's a worryingly common viewpoint that all opinions are valid and one cannot argue against opinion. It's perfectly possible to prove that someone else's opinion is incorrect. You merely have to show that it is inconsistent with itself and it proves itself to be false.

Philosopy is not jerk-proof. But since you're wrong anyway, does it matter? My mind starts to get fluffy... look, shiney!

Guys, given the number of posts and the fervor in this thread, can I please ask for the "my opinion is right" and other related/derived posts to go elsewhere, please? Thanks.

I agree it doesn't work for everything, for example the difficult task of balancing abilities, but the task of line editing is extremely time-consuming and benefits greatly from having many eyes scanning the text. I just want to have a hard copy for which I don't have to ink-/pencil-in multiple errata. Your book is beautiful. I want it to stay that way.



OK, I see that point.

Well I see the problem of paying the guy who has to read through all the "this sucks" emails and sorting them for valuable information.



Adam, I can sympathize with the problem. However I for one didn't even find out about the Mission writer submissions till a day before they were due and I didn't know about the playtest till after the fact. I don't troll dumpshock daily or the shadowrun web site. Stick to it, I'm out to search for a mailing list (if you don't have one add one). Your numbers will improve as word of mouth gets out. Heck I didn't find linux till 1997 and it was started well before that.

No you can't, read my name and understand why.

I missed the notification about the playtest audition (the 20% comment) until Adam just mentioned it. I am on the mailing list and am getting ready to run our first tomorrow. But yea, I don't hang out here a lot so sorry I missed it.

I did find linux back when it was posted on Usenet but I'm a computer geek

Carl

There are services that will email you every time our website is updated; and of course, you can subscribe to our RSS feed with a dedicated RSS reader, most modern web browsers, some modern email programs, etc. Our updates are all echoed to our Facebook page* , LiveJournal community**, and important ones to our Twitter account***.

We are, however, working on a mailing list for major company-wide news updates.

* http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shadowrun/13520584590
** http://syndicated.livejournal.com/shadowrunrpg/
*** http://twitter.com/catalystgamelab/

I appreciate the praise. We did expand the proofreader pool specifically for this book, and myself and Jen spent a long time going over it ourselves. Most of the proofing issues so far are incredibly minor, and there are very few of them for a book of the complexity in size.

Some of us never got a response to our email of interest...

Direct Combat Spells: Because its come up several times, and because I am trying to adjust it given that the writing in that particular section could have been better: the intent was for magicians to chose the number of hits they employ when using direct combat spells. They could "pull their punches" if they wanted to avoid the strain. Refer to this thread for an example.

Increased Attribute Karma cost: This seems to have brought up a lot of issues - some though related not to SR4A, specifically balance issues with the popular Karma Character Generation system in Runner's Companion. These seem to stem from the erroneous belief that Karma CharGen will not be revised in Runners' Companion errata to reflect the change.

The option was thoroughly playtested and during the initial development of SR4 it was a close call between the x3 multiplier and the x5 multiplier. One of the deciding factors (among many) was indeed the high cost of Attribute improvement at the top end of metahuman values (notably ratings at 11+).

In play, however, it is this developer's opinion that x3 multiplier made Karma-spend particularly unbalanced in favor of Attributes. It made it an invariably more cost effective choice to invest in the Attribute than any other aspect of in game character development – particularly investment in "loaded" Attributes such as Agility and the Special Attributes.

The change not only makes high rating Attributes slightly more difficult to achieve, but makes investing in skills and skill groups to raise dice pools a more cost effective alternative.

Yes, the change does slow down certain aspects of character progression (at least as far as Attributes go), however, only at the very high end of the metahuman range (trolls with maxed out strength for instance) does the change really become significantly restrictive.

But let's look at a practical example: consider that raising an Attribute from 5 to 6 (taking you to the epitome of unmodified human excellence in that Attribute) now costs all of 30 karma (compared to the previous 18). Using by-the-book Karma awards (average 9 Karma per adventure/run) this increase could be accomplished with as little as 2 adventures/runs (assuming full investment of earned Karma). It now requires 4 adventures/runs worth of Karma awards (again assuming full investment of earned Karma). It is true that raising a troll's strength from 13 to 14 used to cost 42 Karma, and now costs a whopping 70 (under the suggested Karma awards, the difference is the equivalent of 9 adventures/runs instead of the previous 5) this simply means that investing in a metatype's Attribute strengths at character creation is rewarded. The fact that the increased Karma cost favors investment in Attributes and Attribute augmentations at CharGen was taken into account, however, I am confident the caps to BP spend on Attributes will enforce balanced BP investment. In fact, playtesting and feedback over 4 years of play indicates that so dominant are Attributes that 80%+ of SR4 character builds already make full use of the 200 BP allowable for Attributes.

There were, and are good reasons, for opting for the x3 multiplier and if you are not comfortable with the change, please, stick with what you prefer – I do suggest, however, that you actually give it a spin before discarding it.
Regarding "retroactive compatibility" of the Karma cost changes, as lead developer, I would recommend that gamemasters (and will be making the same recommendation to the SRMissions team) that they not require recalculation of current characters to conform with the new Attribute Karma costs and simply implement them from this point forward.


I understand where you're coming from here, and how it might be grating (particularly for established players). However, consider the number of newcomers to the game who post to Dumpshock (and other forums) inquiring about the contents of each book, what advanced options are available, and what character types the advanced books support. The information in the advanced book sidebars clearly lists the contents of those books and what they add to the system for the benefit of people who haven't got them - so while they might be percieved as salesmany, they are also intended to inform people about what advanced options can be found and what to expect in each book to avoid gored expectations and misunderstandings.

Increased Attribute Cost: So, why not implement my system? You maintain the increased cost of the attributes, while avoiding the obscene inflation of high metatype values (which is far greater than you make out, because the cost is increased every step of the way, excepting BP generation)


Advertisements: Again, why not my suggestion? Place them in the back of the book - they do not conflict with the book for those of us who already have them, or just would prefer not to see them. They remain to promote sales & inform new players of available material.

I guarantee they will detract from sales of this book as they are now - I most defenantly will not be purchasing it with advertisements in the middle, & I am sure many others will feel the same way.

Because we believe that they are more useful in the current form. It's that simple.

9 Karma a run? My group needs about 3 sessions to complete a run (depending on complexity). That's 3 karma a week real time. 4 Adventures is 12 weeks, or a full semester of college, after which if schedules don't coincide well the group fractures and reforms: new players joining, old ones leaving. Most of our players don't have the time waiting around for their character to improve.

Now you know why we get 5+ karma a session after every session (nearly double the suggested amount) and we still don't see much character growth during a single term. Hell, after two whole terms with the same character I've amassed a grand total of 94 Karma. Not a single point spent on Attributes (Magic not withstanding), why? Too expensive.

And that's at the *3 multiplier.

I had planned on upping my attributes next time we got some downtime to actually spend karma (I've got over 30 unspent), but if our GM implemented the *5 cost I'd forget it: 16 Karma I've earned has already been spent (that is, when I receive a magic item I commissioned I'll have to attune it). Which leaves me enough to raise my LOWEST attribute to 3.

Can you drop me another email to info@shadowrun4.com? I forwarded every single email that arrived before the deadline to Jen, so it's possible that it got lost somewhere along the way or mis-filtered.

[This happens in the other direction too ... our emails to customers occasionally end up caught in spam filters and then they think we haven't replied...]

If you are going to jack up the cost of attributes in order to make skills more attractive, then you ought to lower skill groups as well. Currently they're 5 karma x the new rating. Put up against raising an attribute, they still lose out. If you're wanting to promote having a good spread of skills, then you could lower it down to 4 x new rating. For the groups with four skills, you're getting skills at half price; groups with three skills are still a good price, with a savings of 2 karma per level (if my math is right.) The karma savings obtained in this way could be reinvested into the attributes, thus making their now astronomical costs buffered somewhat.

Edit: Costs for skill groups in BP-gen would also need to be tweaked to represent the focus on skills. Say, from 10 BP per level to 8. All you would be doing is encouraging more skills in chargen, which is one of the big attractions of karmagen anyway.